GODFRIENDS:
THE CONTINENTAL MEDIEVAL
MYSTICS
Introduction || St. Lioba || Hildegard of Bingen || Mechtild of Magdebourg
The Helfta Cistercian Nuns || Marguerite Porete || Meister Eckhart
John
Tauler
|| Henry Suso || Jan
van
Ruusbroec || Bibliography
Hans Memling, St John
Writing
Revelation.
St John's Hospital, Bruges.
Reproduced by permission,
Memlingmuseum,
Stedelijke Musea, Brugge, Belgium
n
Early Christianity, in Ireland and England, hermits,
contemplatives,
paralleling
those of the Egyptian and Syrian deserts, were known as the
Celi Dei
, the Friends of God. This name is also frequent in later
contemplative
movements and writings . At the same time that Julian of
Norwich,
Walter
Hilton and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing were
formulating
their contemplative texts in England, other mystics were writing
on the
Continent. As in England, women were present alongside men in
this
project,
this textual community stretching over most of Europe. Meister
Eckhart
had available to him the writings of Hildegard von Bingen, as
had also
John Tauler those of Mechtild von Magdebourg, and those of
Marguerite
Porete.
Associated with Meister Eckhart was Agnes of Hungary, with Henry
Suso,
Elsbeth Stägel, while John Tauler likewise preached to Dominican
nuns
and Jan van Ruusbroec wrote spiritual treatises to them. That
sense of
women belonging to the 'Friends of God' (Wisdom 7.27, James
2.23) as
well
as men may have had its origins in the Christianizing of Germany
from
England
by Anglo-Saxon monks and nuns, influenced by the Celi Dei, and
who
established
double monasteries, St Hilda's Whitby, St Lioba's Bischopsheim
and
countless
others. At first the mysticism, or contemplation, is
Benedictine. Then
it becomes strongly Dominican. Associated with it are also the
women
Beguines,
such as Margaret Porete
and Mechtild
of Magdebourg . This booklet traces the lives and works of
the God
Friends, recognising that three of their texts, Marguerite
Porete's Mirror
of
Simple
Souls , Jan van Ruusbroec's Sparkling
Stone and an extract of Henry
Suso's Horologium
Sapientiae , are found together with Julian's Showing
of
Love
in the Amherst Manuscript in the
British
Library
and that these other works may well have been translated for her
and
thus
constituted her Library of Mystics from which she partly drew
her
inspiration.
t
Boniface travelled from England to Germany proselytizing amongst
the
pagan
tribes there and establishing monasteries for both men and
women.
St
Lioba, St Boniface's kinswoman, was
a nun
in Wessex who had studied under Mother Tetta (in secular life,
Cuthberga,
sister of the King of Wessex, wife of the King of Northumbria).
Boniface
sent for Lioba to come to Germany, because she was a skilled
Classicist,
learned in the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, canon law and the
decrees
of all the councils. In fact, she was never without a book in
her hand,
reading at every possible opportunity and she never forgot what
she
read.
Her name 'Lioba' means 'Beloved'. Boniface asked that her bones
be laid
by his at her death. Charlemagne's wife adored her but Lioba
hated the
life of court like poison.
Her life tells, among others, this story: 'She had a dream in which one night she saw a purple thread issuing from her mouth. It seemed to her that when she took hold of it with her hand and tried to draw it out there was no end to it. . . When her hand was full of thread and it still issued from her mouth she rolled it round and round and made a ball of it .' An old and prophetic nun was asked about the meaning of the dream and explained that it referred to Lioba's wise counsels spoken from her heart. 'Furthermore, the ball which she made by rolling it round and round signifies the mystery of the divine teaching, which is set in motion by the words and deeds of those who give instruction and which turns earthwards through active works and heavenwards through contemplation, at one time swinging downwards through compassion for one's neighbour, again swinging upwards through the love of God.'
The image of the ball of
purple
thread in Lioba's hand is similar to Julian's hazel
nut in the palm of her hand.
From the Lucca Manuscript, lectured on in Florence by Sr Angela Carlevaris, 1999
ildegard
of Bingen, and other women like
her, such
as Hrotswitha of Gandesheim (A.D. 932-1000) and Herrad of
Landesburg,
followed
in this learned Benedictine tradition established in
German-speaking
countries
from England, which gave women the status of Christian
equality with
men.
Hildegard composed music and wrote treatises on medicine, on
Benedict's
Rule, a play, many letters, and visionary mystical works which
she also
illuminated in a manner that is deeply compelling. But, unlike
Lioba,
she
was not a pleasing person. Until the age of forty she kept to
her bed.
Richardis, her friend and fellow nun, then persuaded her to
embark on
her
career as writer of letters to the leaders of Church and State
in her
day
and to compose her mystical treatises. When Richardis left her
to
become
an abbess at another monastery Hildegard was furious,
demanding her
return.
Richardis, obediently, died. Hildegard ruled her monastery by
means of
tyrannising over her nuns with her migraines - about which she
writes
in
her medical works and whose effect she illuminates in her
mystical
treatises.
She is an example of a genius who is less than charitable. One
admires
her work, but not her desire for control. She has significant
prophetic
messages for us today.
echtild
of Magdebourg was a Beguine
who
suffered
persecution but wrote a most beautiful book called The
Flowing
Light
of the Godhead. It influenced Dante'
s
imagery
of light in the Paradiso. When she was old and blind she
came
to
the monastery of Helfta and was taken in by its nuns who enabled
her to
complete the work's final, seventh chapter at 86. Her spiritual
advisor
was Henry of Halle. Her original Low German version no longer
exists.
It
was translated into Latin, enabling Dante to read it. Heinrich
of
Nördlingen,
a Friend of God, so loved the work that he translated it into
High
German
and sent it to Margaret in the Dominican convent of Medingen and
Christina
Ebner, her sister, Abbess of the convent of Engenthal. Another
Heinrich
sent a copy to the Forest Sisters of Einsiedeln and a copy of it
survives.
Ah! Lord God! Who has written this book? I in my weakness have written it, because I dared not hide the gift that is in it. Ah! Lord! What shall this book be called to Thy Glory? It shall be called The Flowing Light of My Godhead into all hearts which dwell therein without falseness.
And so the soul puts on a shift of humility, so humble that nothing could be more humble. And over it a white robe of chastity, so pure that she cannot endure words or desires which might stain it. Next she wraps herself in a mantle of Holy Desire which she has woven out of all the virtues.
Thus she goes into the wood, that is the company of holy people. But still the youth does not come. He sends her messengers, for she would dance. He sends her the faith of Abraham, the longings of the Prophets, the chaste modesty of our Lord Jesus Christ and the whole company of His elect. Thus there is prepared a noble Dance of Praise.'
When we are sick we wear our wedding garments, but when we are well we wear our working clothes.
In a vision she sees a
poor
maiden
going to the wedding feast, and Our Lady garbs the maiden in
a cloak
upon
which is written one of Mechtild von Magdebourg's poems.
P. Odo Lang OSB, Librarian,
Einsiedeln Abbey, which owns Mechtild Manuscript, Cod.
277(1014)
Foto:
Frau Liliane Géraud, Zürich
ertrude
of Hackeborn was elected Abbess of
Helfta
in 1251 at nineteen. Her sister, Mechthild
of
Hackeborn, like Mechtild
of Magdebourg, wrote visionary
works. And
so did another nun who entered the convent, Gertrude
the Great. Their visions are
largely
based
on Bernard and the Song of Songs and filled with eroticism and
the Body
of Christ, in particular, his Sacred Heart. Julian is to borrow
some of
that imagery in her Showing of Love for the scene where
Christ
shows
her the wound in his side, as he had earlier shown it to
Doubting
Thomas,
to affirm his love for his Creation. The scribe of her Amherst
Short
Text
Showing of Love also is the scribe of Mechtild of
Hackeborn's Book
of
Ghostly
Grace in Middle English.
arguerite
Porete , like Mechtild of
Magdebourg, was
a Beguine. She, too, was influenced by the writings of
Pseudo-Dionysius.
She wrote her magnum opus, The Mirror of Simple Souls,
presenting
Pseudo-Dionysius ' negative theology
as a
dialogue
between the Soul who sends to a distant Emperor, God, her
portrait, and
Love and Reason. In the text she states that in such a state of
contemplative
love of God the soul has no need of masses or prayers or of
anything
else.
She also gives the Pseudo-Dionysian principle of evil as nought,
as
nothing,
as non-existence. First her book was publicly burned by the
Bishop of
Cambrai
at Valenciennes, then she was tried in Paris by the Inquisition
and
herself
burnt at the stake, the people weeping because of her great
learning
and
goodness. The theology faculty at the Sorbonne had united
against her,
amongt them Nicholas
of Lyra
, the converted Jew, whose commentary on the Apocalypse would
influence Magister
Mathias and through him Birgitta of Sweden. A friend
struggled to
protect
her, calling himself the Angel of Philadelphia, but was forced
to
recant
and burn his habit and belt, living the rest of his life in a
monastic
prison. Later we hear of Jean Gerson attacking both Marguerite
Porete,
whom he misnames as Marie of Valenciennes, for 'her incredibly
subtle
book',
and Jan van Ruusbroec. Some copies of her manuscript survived,
including
three translated into English, one of which is in the same
manuscript
as
is the earliest extant Julian's
Showing of Love manuscript in the
British Library, the Amherst
Manuscript
, which is written by a Lincolnshire scribe circa 1435-1450,
perhaps
earlier,
and which emphatically states that this version of Julian's
text, the
Short
Text, was written out in 1413 when she was still alive. The
contents of
this manuscript, apart from its initial two texts which are
translations
made by Richard Misyn, a Lincoln Carmelite, for an anchoress,
Margaret
Heslyngton, from texts written by Richard Rolle in Latin for
other
women
contemplatives, one of them also an anchoress named Margaret,
may
represent
Julian's own contemplative library. The Amherst Manuscript
includes as
well the Henry Suso excerpts from the Horologium
Sapientiae and the Jan van
Ruusbroec ,
Sparkling
Stone, which are given here on this Juliansite. It is
possible that
Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls, present in
this
same
manuscript, was a part of Julian's own anachoritic library and
that it
influenced her. She departs from Marguerite Porete, however, in
being
actively
concerned for her even-Christians, rather than Quietist.
brilliant German Dominican, Meister
Eckhart taught Theology, the
'Queen of
the Sciences' at Paris. His predecessor had been St Thomas
Aquinas who
blended Aristotle's Philosophy, by way of the Arabs, together
with
Christian
Theology. Meister Eckhart, instead, was deeply influenced not by
Aristotle
but by Plato, the Neoplatonists, Augustine, and most
specifically by Pseudo-Dionysius.
He had available to him the works of Hildegard
of Bingen , Mechtild
von
Magdebourg
and Marguerite
Porete . When he was in Germany between teaching at Paris
he
preached
constantly to Dominican convents, and countered there the rich
imagistic
contemplative practices of the Helfta school, insisting instead
upon an
imageless hegative theology about God, noughting all. He also
speaks of
us as birthing God. And he uses the word to be echoed by Julian
'
ground', God is the ground of our
being.
Julian
has God be ground of our prayer.
In this being of God where God is above all being and all distinction, I was myself, I desired myself, I knew myself, wanting to create the man that I am. And for this reason I am my own cause according to my being which is eternal, but not according to my being which is temporal.
It must be observed that God created heaven and earth and all they contain at the same time . . . but all things did not appear at the same time.
All that is not within Being, but beside or outside Being, is not.
Evil is opposed to being, therefore the devil does not exist and the 'sinner, the son of the devil, is nothing'. Every creature is something finite, limited, distinct and particular, and this is no longer love. But God is the love that embraces all things.
To attain God one must abandon oneself. Never has a man abandoned himself so much in this life that he did not find room to abandon himself still more.
I take a basin with water
and place
a mirror into it and stand it under the sun. Thus it is also
with God
and
the soul which reflects God yet which does not take from
God.
Under the Godfriends page on your site and at the bottom of the essay on Eckhart you have the words:
"Meister Eckhart's teachings were examined for heresy, because of their 'subtlety'. Like John Wyclif he was allowed to die rather than be executed."
Ursula Fleming, the founder of the Eckhart Society, persuaded a group of prominent people within the Dominican Order and outside it to request the General Chapter of the Dominican order which met in Walberburg 'to examine the possibility of issuing an official declaration of Orthodoxy of Meister Eckhart and rescinding the condemnation of some of his teaching contained in the Papal Bull "In agro dominico 27 March 1329."'
In 1983 The Master of the Order instituted the Eckhart Commission.
In 1986 the commission reported back saying that a reconsideration of the teaching of Meister Eckhart was justified. It also said that Eckhart does not need rehabilitation in the canonical sense of the word, since his person, his doctrine, his apostolate or his spirituality were not really condemned.
Although no reconsideration of Eckhart's teaching has been formally undertaken by the Holy See, the present Pope, in 1987 at an important audience, strongly recommended Eckhart's teaching.
he
Dominican John Tauler was
a prominent member of the Friends of God, knowing also Henry
Suso, Nicholas of Basle, Rulman Merswin, and Margareta and
Cristina
Ebner. He preached on Hildegard
of
Bingen . There is a legend of how a Layman came to Doctor
Tauler
and told him that his sermons were learned but lacking in God.
Tauler
submitted
himself to the Layperson for instruction, being given the Golden
ABC by
him, and he stopped preaching for two years in order to attain
spiritual
perfection under the Layperson's spiritual direction. The first
sermon
he tries to give after this retreat fails, for he can only weep.
His
second
one is on Christ as Bridegroom.
Another story tells of how the Friends of God visited Pope Gregory XI in 1377 to plead for peace in Christendom, at the same time that St Birgitta made that plea and in whose writings the term 'Friends of God' is very frequently used. The 'Friends of God' gained entry through offering a most beautiful Swiss clock to the Pope. (Was it the prototype for Henry Suso 's 'Computer of Wisdom'?) Both the Delegation of the Friends of God and St Birgitta accurately prophesied the Pope's death of 1378. These Friends of God also attempted, but failed, to establish a monastery for themselves, called Gruenenworth.
This is what St Augustine says 'Pour out so that you may be filled; go out so that you may enter'.
Therefore you should be silent; then the Word of this birth can speak in you and be heard in you; but, indeed, if you want to speak, he must be silent. We cannot serve the Word better than by being silent and listening.
he
extract from the Dominican Henry Suso's Horologium
Sapientiae and his biography is given in another
booklet in
this
series, transcribed and translated from the excerpt in the same
manuscript
as is Julian's Showing of Love in the British Library.
In his
writings
he was assisted by Elsbeth Stägel of the Dominican convent at
Töss
Jan van Ruusbroec writing his text, inspired by the Holy Spirit, beneath the trees of Groenendael, his scribe transcribing these same words to parchment folios.
hile
Meister Eckhart was German and Henry Suso was Swiss, Jan
van Ruusbroec was Flemish in the region where the
Beguines largely
began, and where Marguerite
Porete ,
particularly,
flourished. Ruusbroec countered heresy in his writings, set up
a
monastery
at Groenendael, near Brussels, where he would write his
treatises
initially
onto tablets of wax known as diptyches
under the trees and which became
The Sparkling
Stone (the work that is to be found in the same
manuscript as is
Julian
of Norwich's Showing of Love in the British Library
and is
transcribed
in another booklet), and A Mirror of Eternal Blessedness
and
other
works. Later his writings and those of Marguerite
Porete and Birgitta of Sweden
were to
be
attacked by Jean Gerson, Chancellor of the University of
Paris, but
during
his lifetime Ruusbroec was not subjected to the Inquisition as
were the
other Friends of God. Consequently his writings display a
splendid
serenity.
Nevertheless, the Friends of God and Ruusbroec were in
communication,
exchanging
their writings with each other, and it would be Ruusbroec who
would
influence
Gerharte Groote, and Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ
, and
beyond them the mystic Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, and the
Reformation
Protestants
Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus. Their writings would
continue to
be quoted by English
Benedictine
nuns
in exile in France in their own contemplative writings and
their
texts also reached Spain, influencing there St Teresa
of Avila and St John of the
Cross.
The Revelations of Mechthild of Magdebourg or The Flowing Light of the Godhead Translated from the Manuscript in the Library of the Monastery of Einsiedeln. Trans. Lucy Menzies. London: Longmans, Green, 1953.
Medieval Women's Visionary Literature. Ed. Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Jan van Ruusbroec. Vanden Blinckenden Steen. Ed. Lod Moereels, L. Reypens. Tielt en Bussum: Lannoo.
Life and Sermons of Dr John Tauler. Trans. Susanna Winkworth. London: Smith, Elder, 1857.
'The Classics
of
Western Spirituality',
Paulist Press, volumes on Margaret Ebner, Mechthild von
Magdebourg,
Meister
Eckhart, Marguerite Porete, John van Ruusbroec, Henry Suso, John
Tauler
JULIAN
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