Mystery Stories

The political circumstances of Germany in the first half of the 14th century were in the last degree disastrous. The war between the rival emperors, Frederick of Austria and Louis of Bavaria, and the interdict under which the latter was placed in 1324 inflicted extreme misery upon the unhappy people. From some places the interdict was not removed for twenty-six years. Men's minds were pained and disquieted by the conflict of duties and the absence of spiritual consolation. The country was also visited by a succession of famines and floods, and in 1348 the Black Death swept over Europe like a terrible scourge. In the midst of these unhappy surroundings religion became more in ward in men of real piety and the desire grew among them to draw closer the bonds that united them to one another. Thus arose the society of the Friends of God (Gottesfreunde) in the south and west of Germany, spreading as far as Switzerland on the one side and the Netherlands on the other. They formed no exclusive sect. They often took opposite sides in politics and they also differed in the type of their religious life ; but they uniformly desired to strengthen one another in living intercourse with God. Among them chiefly the followers of Eckhart were to be found. Such were Heinrich Suso of Constance (1295-1366) and Johann Tauler of Strasbourg (13oo-1361), the two most celebrated of his immediate disciples. It was doubtless one of the Friends who sent forth anonymously from the house of the Teutonic Order in Frankfort the famous handbook of mystical devotion called Eine deutsche Theologie, first published in 1516 by Luther.

Jan van Ruysbroeck

(1294-1381), the father of mysticism in the Netherlands, stood in connexion with the Friends of God, and Tauler is said to have visited him in his seclusion at Groenen dal near Brussels. He was decisively influenced by Eckhart, though there is noticeable occasionally a shrinking back from some of Eckhart's phraseology. Ruysbroeck's mysticism is more of a prac tical than a speculative cast. He is chiefly occupied with the means whereby the unio mystica is to be attained, whereas Eck hart dwells on the union as an ever-present fact, and dilates on its metaphysical implications. Towards the end of Ruysbroeck's life, in 1378, he was visited by the fervid lay-preacher Gerhard Groot (1340-1384), who was so impressed by the life of the com munity at Groenendal that he conceived the idea of founding a Christian brotherhood, bound by no monastic vows, but living together in simplicity and piety with all things in common, after the apostolic pattern. This was the origin of the Brethren of the Common Lot (or Common Life). The first house of the Brethren was founded at Deventer by Gerhard Groot and his youthful friend Florentius Radewyn; and here Thomas a Kempis (q.v.) received his training. Similar brother-houses soon sprang up in different places throughout the Low Countries and Westphalia, and even Saxony.

Mystics and the Reformation.

It has been customary for Protestant writers to represent the mystics of Germany and Hol land as precursors of the Reformation. In a sense this is true. But it would be false to say that these men protested against the doctrines of the Church in the way the Reformers felt themselves called upon to do. There is no sign that Tauler, for example, or Ruysbroeck, or Thomas a Kempis had felt the dogmatic teach ing of the Church jar in any single point upon their religious consciousness. Nevertheless, mysticism did prepare men in a very real way for a break with the traditional system. Mysticism instinctively recedes from formulas that have become stereotyped and mechanical. On the other hand its claim for spiritual freedom was soon to be found in opposition also to the Reformers.

The wild doctrines of Thomas Miinzer and the Zwickau prophets, merging eventually into the excesses of the Peasants' War and the doings of the Anabaptists in Miinster, first roused Luther to the dangerous possibilities of mysticism as a disintegrat ing force. He was also called upon to do battle for his principle against men like Caspar Schwenkfeld (149o-1561) and Sebastian Franck (1500-1545), the latter of whom developed a system of pantheistic mysticism, and went so far in his opposition to the letter as to declare the whole of the historical element in Scrip ture to be but a mythical representation of eternal truth. Valen tin Weigel (1533-1588), who stands under manifold obligations to Franck, represents also the influence of the semi-mystical specu lation that marked the transition from scholasticism to modern times. The final breakdown of scholasticism as a rationalized sys tem of dogma may be seen in Nicolas (or Nicolaus) of Cusa (1401-1464), who insists that all real apprehension of God is by way of a "knowledge above knowledge." The influence of later mediaeval mysticism is seen in Jacob Boehme Other Forms of Mysticism.—Mysticism did not cease within the Catholic Church at the Reformation. In St. Theresa (1515 1582) and John of the Cross the counter-reformation can boast of saints second to none in the calendar for the austerity of their mortifications and the rapture of the visions to which they were admitted. But, as was to be expected, their mysticism moves in that comparatively narrow round, and consists simply in the heaping up of these sensuous experiences. The speculative char acter has entirely faded out of it, or rather has been crushed out by the tightness with which the directors of the Roman Church now held the reins of discipline. The gloom and harshness of these Spanish mystics are absent from the tender, contemplative spirit of Francois de Sales (1567-1622) ; and in the quietism of Mme. Guyon (1648-1717) and Miguel de Molinos (1627-1696) there is again a sufficient implication of mystical doctrine to rouse the suspicion of the ecclesiastical authorities.