RUYSBROECK

EDITOR’S NOTE

A glance at the excellent BibliographicalNote at the end of the volume will revealthe surprising paucity of literature onRuysbroeck in this country. A single versionfrom the original of one short treatise,published in the present year, is all thatwe possess of direct translation; even inversions from translation there is only onetreatise represented; add to this one ortwo selections of the same nature, andthe full tale is told. We are equally poorlyoff for studies of the life and doctrine ofthe great Flemish contemplative of thefourteenth century. And yet Jan vanRuusbroec is thought, by no few competentjudges, to be the greatest of all themediæval Catholic mystics; and, indeed, itis difficult to point to his superior. MissEvelyn Underhill is, therefore, doing lovers[viii]not only of Catholic mysticism, but also ofmysticism in general, a very real service byher monograph, which deals more satisfactorilythan any existing work in Englishwith the life and teachings of one of the mostspiritual minds in Christendom. Her bookis not simply a painstaking summary ofthe more patent generalities of the subject,but rather a deeply sympathetic enteringinto the mind of Ruysbroeck, and that,too, with no common insight.

PREFATORY NOTE

I owe to the great kindness of my friend,Mrs. Theodore Beck, the translation ofseveral passages from Ruysbroeck’s SparklingStone given in the present work; andin quoting from The Twelve Béguines haveoften, though not always, availed myself ofthe recently published version by Mr. JohnFrancis. For all other renderings I aloneam responsible.

E. U.

CONTENTS

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