The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage

Jan van Ruysbroeck, Evelyn Underhill

• Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9783849620875
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Mysticism

The Blessed Jan van Ruysbroeck was one of the Flemish mystics. This edition contains his most important writings: The Adornment of the Spiritual MarriageThe Sparking StoneThe Book of the Supreme Truth

The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage

Jan van Ruysbroeck

Contents:

John van Ruysbroeck – A Biography

The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage

First Book

Prologue

Chapter I - Of The Active Life

Chapter Ii - Showing How We Shall Consider The Coming Of Christ In Three Ways

Chapter Iii - Of Humility

Chapter Iv - Of Charity

Chapter V - Of Patient Endurance

Chapter Vi - Of The Second Coming Of Christ

Chapter Vii - Of The Blessed Sacraments

Chapter Viii - Of The Third Coming Of Christ

Chapter Ix - Showing What Christ Will Do In The Day Of Doom

Chapter X - Of The Five Kinds Of Men Who Shall Appear At The Judgment

Chapter Xi - Of A Spiritual Going Out With All Virtues

Chapter Xii - How Humility Is The Foundation Of All Other Virtues

Chapter Xiii - Of Obedience

Chapter Xiv - Of The Renunciation Of Self Will

Chapter Xv - Of Patience

Chapter Xvi - Of Meekness

Chapter Xvii - Of Kindliness

Chapter Xviii - Of Compassion

Chapter Xix - Of Generosity

Chapter Xx - Of Zeal And Diligence

Chapter Xxi - Of Temperance And Sobriety

Chapter Xxii - Of Purity

Chapter Xxiii - Of Three Enemies To Be Overcome By Righteousness

Chapter Xxiv - Of The Kingdom Of The Soul

Chapter Xxv - Of A Spiritual Meeting Of God And Ourselves

Chapter Xxvi - Of The Desire To Know The Bridegroom In His Nature

Second Book

Prologue

Chapter I - How We Achieve Supernatural Sight In Our Inward Workings

Chapter Ii - Of A Three-Fold Unity Which Is In Us By Nature

Chapter Iii - Of The Inflow Of The Grace Of God Into Our Spirit

Chapter Iv - Showing How We Should Found Our Inward Life On A Freedom From Images

Chapter V - Of A Three-Fold Coming Of Our Lord In The Inward Man

Chapter Vi - Of The Second Coming Of Our Lord In The Inward Man

Chapter Vii - Of The Third Coming Of Our Lord

Chapter Viii - How The First Coming Has Four Degrees

Chapter Ix - Of Unity Of Heart

Chapter X - Of Inwardness

Chapter Xi - Of Sensible Love

Chapter Xii - Of Devotion

Chapter Xiii - Of Gratitude

Chapter Xiv - Of Two Griefs Which Arise From Inward Gratitude

Chapter Xv - A Similitude How We Should Perform The First Degree Of Our Inward Exercise

Chapter Xvi - Another Similitude Concerning The Same Exercise

Chapter Xvii - Of The Second Degree Of Our Inward Exercise, Which Increases Inwardness By Humility

Chapter Xviii - Of The Pure Delight Of The Heart And The Sensible Powers

Chapter Xix - Of Spiritual Inebriation

Chapter Xx - What May Hinder A Man In This Inebriation

Chapter Xxi - A Similitude How A Man Should Act And Bear Himself In This Case

Chapter Xxii - Of The Third Degree Of The Spiritual Coming Of Christ

Chapter Xxiii - Of The Pain And Restlessness Of Love

Chapter Xxiv - Of Ecstacies And Divine Revelations

Chapter Xxv - An Example Showing How One Is Hindered In This Exercise

Chapter Xxvi - Another Example

Chapter Xxvii - A Parable Of The Ant

Chapter Xxviii - Of The Fourth Degree Of The Coming Of Christ

Chapter Xxix - Showing What The Forsaken Man Should Do

Chapter Xxx - A Parable: How One May Be Hindered In This Fourth Degree

Chapter Xxxi - Of Another Hindrance

Chapter Xxxii - Of Four Kinds Of Fever Wherewith A Man May Be Tormented

Chapter Xxxiii - Showing How These Four Degrees In Their Perfection Are Found In Christ

Chapter Xxxiv - Showing How A Man Should Live If He Would Be Enlightened

Chapter Xxxv - Of The Second Coming Of Christ, Or, The Fountain With Three Rills

Chapter Xxxvi - The First Rill Adorns The Memory

Chapter Xxxvii - The Second Rill Enlightens The Understanding

Chapter Xxxviii - The Third Rill Establishes The Will To Every Perfection

Chapter Xxxix - Showing How The Established Man Shall Go Out In Four Ways

Chapter Xl - He Shall Go Out Towards God And Towards All Saints

Chapter Xli - He Shall Go Out Towards All Sinners

Chapter Xlii - He Shall Go Out Towards His Friends In Purgatory

Chapter Xliii - He Shall Go Out Towards Himself And Towards All Good Men

Chapter Xliv - Showing How We May Recognise Those Men Who Fail In Charity To All

Chapter Xlv - How Christ Was, Is, And Ever Will Be The Lover Of All

Chapter Xlvi - Reproving All Those Who Live On Spiritual Goods In An Inordinate Manner

Chapter Xlvii - Showing How Christ Has Given Himself To All In Common In The Sacrament Of The Altar

Chapter Xlviii - Of The Unity Of The Divine Nature In The Trinity Of The Persons

Chapter Xlix - Showing How God Possesses And Moves The Soul Both In A Natural And A Supernatural Way

Chapter L - Showing How A Man Should Be Adorned If He Is To Receive The Most Inward Exercise

Chapter Li - Of The Third Coming Of Christ

Chapter Lii - Showing How The Spirit Goes Out Through The Divine Stirring

Chapter Liii - Of An Eternal Hunger For God

Chapter Liv - Of A Loving Strife Between The Spirit Of God And Our Spirit

Chapter Lv - Of The Fruitful Works Of The Spirit, The Which Are Eternal

Chapter Lvi - Showing The Way In Which We Shall Meet God In A Ghostly Manner Both With And Without Means

Chapter Lvii - Of The Essential Meeting With God Without Means In The Nakedness Of Our Nature

Chapter Lviii - Showing How One Is Like Unto God Through Grace And Unlike Unto God Through Mortal Sin

Chapter Lix - Showing How One Possesses God In Union And Rest, Above All Likeness Through Grace

Chapter Lx - Showing How We Have Need Of The Grace Of God, Which Makes Us Like Unto God And Leads Us To God Without Means

Chapter Lxi - Of How God And Our Spirit Visit Each Other In The Unity And In The Likeness

Chapter Lxii - Showing How We Should Go Out To Meet God

Chapter Lxiii - Of The Ordering Of All The Virtues Through The Seven Gifts Of The Holy Ghost

Chapter Lxiv - Of The Highest Degree Of The Most Interior Life

Chapter Lxv - Of Three Kinds Of Most Inward Practices

Chapter Lxvi - Showing How Some Men Live Contrary To These Exercises

Chapter Lxvii - Of Another Kind Of Perverted Men

Third Book

Chapter I - Showing The Three Ways By Which One Enters Into The God-Seeing Life

Chapter Ii - How The Eternal Birth Of God Is Renewed Without Interruption In The Nobility Of The Spirit

Chapter Iii - How Our Spirit Is Called To Go Out In Contemplation And Fruition

Chapter Iv - Of A Divine Meeting Which Takes Place In The Hiddenness Of Our Spirit

The Sparkling Stone

Prologue

Chapter I. Through Three Things A Man Becomes Good

Chapter Ii. Through Three Things A Man Becomes Inward

Chapter Iii. Through Three Things A Man Becomes God-Seeing

Chapter Iv. Of The Sparkling Stone, And Of The New Name Written In The Book Of The Secrets Of God

Chapter V. Of The Works Which God Works In All In Common And Of Five Kinds Of Sinners

Chapter Vi. Of The Difference Between The Hirelings And The Faithful Servants Of God

Chapter Vii. Of The Difference Between The Faithful Servants And The Secret Friends Of God

Chapter Viii. Of The Difference Between The Secret Friends And The Hidden Sons Of God

Chapter Ix. How We May Become Hidden Sons Of God, And Attain To The God-Seeing Life

Chapter X. How We, Though One With God, Must Eternally Remain Other Than God

Chapter Xi. Of The Great Difference Between The Brightness Of The Saints And The Highest Brightness To Which We Can Attain In This Life

Chapter Xii. Of The Transfiguration Of Christ On Mount Thabor

Chapter Xiii. How We Ought To Have Fruition Of God

Chapter Xiv. Of That Common Life Which Comes From The Contemplation And Fruition Of God

The Book Of Supreme Truth

Prologue

Chapter I. Wherefore This Book Was Written

Chapter Ii. A Short Repetition Of All The Highest Teachings Written By The Author

Chapter Iii. Of The Union Through Means

Chapter Iv. Of The Men Who Practise A False Vacancy

Chapter V. Of The Union Without Means

Chapter Vi. Of Heavenly Weal And Hellish Woe

Chapter Vii. Showing Wherefore All Good Men Do Not Attain To The Unmediated Union With God

Chapter Viii. Showing How The Inward Man Should Exercise Himself, That He May Be United With God Without Means

Chapter Ix. Of The Inward Working Of God's Grace

Chapter X. Of The Mutual Contentment Of The Divine Persons, And The Mutual Contentment Between God And Good Men

Chapter Xi. How Good Men In Their Contemplation Have The Love Of God Before Them, And How They Are Lifted Up Into God

Chapter Xii. Of The Highest Union, Without Difference Or Distinction

Chapter Xiii. Of The Threefold Prayer Of Christ, That We Might Be One With God

Chapter Xiv. Here The Author Declares That He Submits All That He Has Written To The Judgment Of Holy Church

The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, Jan van Ruysbroeck

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Germany

ISBN: 9783849620875

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

[email protected]

John van Ruysbroeck – A Biography

By Vincent Scully

Surnamed the Admirable Doctor, and the Divine Doctor, undoubtedly the foremost of the Flemish mystics, b. at Ruysbroeck, near Brussels, 1293; d. at Groenendael, 2 Dec., 1381. He was blessed with a devout mother, who trained him from infancy in the ways of piety and holiness. Of his father we know nothing; John's only family name, van Ruysbroeck, is taken from his native hamlet. At the age of eleven he forsook his mother, departing without leave or warning, to place himself under the guidance and tuition of his uncle, John Hinckaert, a saintly priest and a canon of St. Gudule's, Brussels, who with a fellow-canon of like mind, Francis van Coudenberg, was following a manner of life modelled on the simplicity and fervour of Apostolic days. This uncle provided for Ruysbroeck's education with a view to the priesthood. In due course, Blessed John was presented with a prebend in St. Gudule's, and ordained in 1317. His mother had followed him to Brussels, entered a Béguinage there, and made a happy end shortly before his ordination. For twenty-six years Ruysbroeck continued to lead, together with his uncle Hinckaert and van Coudenberg, a life of extreme austerity and retirement. At that time the Brethren of the Free Spirit were causing considerable trouble in the Netherlands, and one of them, a woman named Bloemardinne, was particularly active in Brussels, propagating her false tenets chiefly by means of popular pamphlets. In defence of the Faith Ruysbroeck responded with pamphlets also written in the native tongue. Nothing of these treatises remains; but the effect of the controversy was so far permanent with Ruysbroeck that his later writings bear constant reference, direct and indirect, to the heresies, especially the false mysticism, of the day, and he composed always in the idiom of the country, chiefly with a view to counteracting the mischief of the heretical writings scattered broadcast among the people in their own tongue.

The desire for a more retired life, and possibly also the persecution which followed Ruysbroeck's attack on Bloemardinne, induced the three friends to quit Brussels in 1343, for the hermitage of Groenendael, in the neighbouring forest of Soignes, which was made over to them by John III, Duke of Brabant. But here so many disciples joined the little company that it was found expedient to organize into a duly-authorized religious body. The hermitage was erected into a community of canons regular, 13 March, 1349, and eventually it became the motherhouse of a congregation, which bore its name of Groenendael. Francis van Coudenberg was appointed first provost, and Blessed John Ruysbroeck prior. John Hinckaert refrained from making the canonical profession lest the discipline of the house should suffer from the exemptions required by the infirmities of his old age; he dwelt, therefore, in a cell outside the cloister, and there a few years later happily passed away. This period, from his religious profession (1349) to his death (1381), was the most active and fruitful of Ruysbroeck's career. To his own community his life and words were a constant source of inspiration and encouragement. His fame as a man of God, as a sublime contemplative and a skilled director of souls, spread beyond the bounds of Flanders and Brabant to Holland, Germany, and France. All sorts and conditions of men sought his aid and counsel. His writings were eagerly caught up and rapidly multiplied, especially in the cloisters of the Netherlands and Germany; early in the fifteenth century they are to be found also in England. Among the more famous visitors to Groenendael mention is made of Tauler, but though the German preacher certainly knew and appreciated his writings, it is not established that he ever actually saw Ruysbroeck. Gerard Groote in particular venerated him as a father and loved him as a friend. And through Groote, Ruysbroeck's influence helped to mould the spirit of the Windesheim School, which in the next generation found its most famous exponent in Thomas a Kempis. Just now strenuous efforts are being made to discover authentic Flemish MSS. of Blessed John Ruysbroeck's works; but up to the present the standard edition is the Latin version of Surius, all imperfect and probably incomplete as this is. Of the various treatises here preserved, the best-known and the most characteristic is that entitled "The Spiritual Espousals". It is divided into three books, treating respectively of the active, the interior, an...