The Modern Devotion

Confrontation with Reformation and Humanism

L. Attitude towards Ruusbroec and Groenendaal

Groote displays his heart-felt sympathy with his friends and at the same time his business knowledge and love of truth in a document addressed to the paters of Ruusbroec's monastery, Groenendaal, sent at the same time as a letter to Ruusbroec himself - probably to avoid hurting the old master's feelings.² After testifying to his esteem for the company and giving a humble description of his own condition, he voices his objections to certain passages in Ruusbroec's works.³ He had distributed the first part of his Boec van de twaalf Beginen and was continuing to do so, among others to lady Margarete of Mekeren. The remainder, however, he did not dare to distribute (publish, in the medieval sense). He was convinced of the holy spiritual disposition of the author, but what is formulated and deduced from the stars and planets and from astrology concerning the spiritual meaning, does not accord

2 Ibid., n. 24, pp. 107-109.

3 Ed. by J. van Mierlo, Jan van Ruusbroec werken IV, Tielt 1948.

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with the pronouncements of the holy Fathers. Indeed, the Fathers have even, on various occasions, branded the astronomers as ignorant, erring and superstitious because they attribute all sorts of things to the stars and planets and consider that man's moral actions are influenced by the stars. Matters are indeed wrong, as understood by the majority of the clergy and the astrologers. In the sacred exhortations and appeals it is not permitted to deduce from the natural phenomena unless they are true and on all sides based on truth, although in my opinion they contain an element of truth for the simple and something familiar for very few. I assume it is for this reason that they were formulated in the father's (Ruusbroec's) mind. For everything, heaven and earth and everything therein through movements, symbols, acts and results, cries, testifies and teaches God and good and pleasing morals-as Ruusbroec well knows. But very many of the results attributed to the planets or stars, are not real. And this is why the Fathers opposed the astrologers.

This constituted a fairly complete rejection of astrology, such as Groote had already expressed in his letter to Rudolf of Enteren. He had already banished it from his own studies at his ‘conversion.’ In the book too, the effects attributed to the stars and planets and sometimes even the names of the heavenly bodies are not correctly rendered in Dutch, so far as form and meaning are concerned.

‘For this reason I advise you not to publish the book (with the exception of the first part) until all the useful material, which is considerable, omitting what is less suitable, has been gathered together and, if Ruusbroec judged this profitable, added to the first part.’ He gave his judgment, subject to the opinion of Ruusbroec and the more competent among you. He said this openly to the fathers as, in his opinion, befitted the honour of the Church and the holy congregation of the fathers and corresponding to the profundities of Ruusbroec's doctrine.

He would also desire that the Dutch book Van de VII trappen in den groei van de Gheestelyke minnen¹ should not be published, unless certain corrections were made, especially regarding the hierarchy of the angels. ‘I have made a few tentative corrections in these following words of the father in Latin.’ He concludes by offering his apologies for being so presumptuous.

It is certainly remarkable that Groote should have drawn attention to these matters in 1381, before Ruusbroec's death (2nd December

1 Ed. in Jan van Ruusbroec Werken, L. Reypens S.J. Mechelen, Amsterdam III 1934, 223-272.

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1381), but this is no foreshadowing of Jean Gerson's attack on Russbroec in the beginning of the fifteenth century.¹ Groote commented on a few incidental matters, but recognized the correctness of Ruusbroec's thought. He continued meanwhile to further the distribution of Ruusbroec's books, not only in Dutch but also in the Latin translation. He himself translated Ruusbroec's Die Gheestelycke Brulocht into Latin and so helped to ensure that the book would be read by persons who did not understand Dutch.² It is probably in connection with translation and publication that he suggested changing a few words to the fathers of Groenendaal. If they were simply taken as they stood, they would have to be rejected. Groote, however, held the opinion that Ruusbroec's intentions were pure and healthy. ‘I have written to you time and again that you must set your mind to make corrections and have offered my help, if I had time and could be of any assistance.’³

These corrections, however, were never made or were in any case not sufficient to prevent all opposition. When, shortly after the Easter of 1384, Groote again had occasion to write to Groenendaal about the copying of one of Augustine's works and a written attack on his theses as proclaimed in the struggle against the Focarists (the Canons Regular of Groenendaal had the piece in their possession and had not yet sent it on), he mentions two new attacks on Ruusbroec's Gheestelycke Brulocht. One was by an anonymous doctor of Theology who had already died, and the other by Henry of Langenstein from Hessen, a companion in misfortune and fellow combatant of Salvarvilla. Langenstein had openly announced in Worms and Mainz that the book contained many errors. Groote found that this criticism was not only directed at Ruusbroec but also at himself, since he had translated and published it. It is thus that he proposes that the fathers should request Henry of Langenstein to make known to them his objections to the book, and ‘if he has anything against Ruusbroec's opinions, apart from the correction of certain words, I shall defend him with you against anyone at all.’⁴.

Groote thus entirely accepted Ruusbroec's ideas but wished to make some alterations in the composition. He was enough of a theologian to penetrate every shade of Ruusbroec's meaning and to note the wrong use of words to convey his ideas.

1 A. Combes, Essai sur la critique de Ruysbroec par Gerson, Paris 1945.

2 Jan van Ruusbroec Werken, L. Reypens S.J. I, 1948, p. 103-249.

3 Ger. M. Ep. n. 54, p. 208.

4 Ger. M. Ep. n. 54, p. 208-209.