394. Principal Mystic Writers. -- JOHN RUYSBROECK (1293-1381) "the Admirable," a priest of Ste. Gudule at Brussels, withdrew to the Augustinian convent of Groenendael and gave himself up to contemplation for the remainder of his life. He combated the unsound mysticism propagated in the province of Hainault by the Porrettists and the followers of Blommardine (401). Gerson suspected Ruysbroeck of pantheism; but unjustly as it seems, for in the mystic life as described by the latter -- that "fertile union" of the soul with God, which incessantly renews itself by love and consists in a "superessential contemplation of the Trinity, a feeling that baffles description, a sublime ignorance" -- the essential distinction between Creator and creature is respected. Ruysbroeck's influence had much to do with shaping the vocation of GERARD GROOT (1340-1384), the founder of the Brotherhood of the Common Life. It was one of the communities of this brotherhood, at Deventer, that gave Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) to the Church.

Twenty years later, JOHN GERSON (Johannes Arnaudi de Gersonio, 1364-1429) was to France what Ruysbroeck was to the Low Countries -- with the advantage of the great prestige enjoyed by the French mystic owing to his high social position. Gerson followed the lessons of Peter D'Ailly in the Paris Faculty of Arts, commenced theology in 1381 and became chancellor of the University in 1395. Two years later, when he was making a special study of his favourite author, St. Bonaventure, he lived for a time at Bruges -- the country of Ruysbroeck, the Beghards and the Brothers of the Common Life. This sojourn drew him still more to mysticism, which he used exclusively for the service of the Church (Doctor Christianissimus). From 1401 to 1407 he again taught at Paris; later on he took an active part in the events of the Great Schism; but from 1419 political troubles obliged him to keep away from Paris. In his seclusion at Lyons, where he died, he wrote numerous works on mysticism, the chief of which are: Considerationes de Theologia Mystica Speculativa, De Theologia Mystica Practica and a Tractatus de Elucidatione Scholastica Mysticae Theologiae. These describe the soul supernaturally enraptured by Divine love. In this state of ecstatic joy the lower functions of the soul are suspended; but Gerson is at great pains to distinguish this expansion of the creature in the Creator from pantheistic union, which he condemns in all its shapes and forms (cf. 389).

Gerson's mysticism was inspired by St. Bonaventure. That of PETER D'AILLY the Ockamist (382) on the other hand, as revealed in his Speculum Considerationis and his Compendium Contemplationis, describes the various stages of mystic contemplation after the manner of Richard of St. Victor (204).

DENIS THE CARTHUSIAN (389) embraces in his voluminous writings all departments of philosophy, theology, exegesis and mysticism. All those sciences point upwards for him and converge towards the illuminations of the contemplative life. In his mysticism he follows Pseudo-Denis the Areopagite and Ruysbroeck. All speculative knowledge he holds to be merely a preamble to the acts of the interior life. He describes all the sweetnesses of ecstasy, and the path which leads to them, in his commentaries on Pseudo-Denis and in his numerous treatises De Oratione, De Meditatione, De Contemplatione, De Donis Spiritus Sancti, etc. He has merited the surname of Doctor Exstaticus.