THE STAKE.

that what he professed to refute was always the doctrine he M. Renan, who is severe on Vanini, wished to inculcate. thinks that in this interpretation of the Amphitheatrum, the Inquisition were not wanting in discernment. They found him guilty of the charge of Atheism, for which, like his brother priest and philosopher, he was burnt at the stake.

The authorities are M. Renan's Averroes et l'Averroeisme; M. Bartholmess' Giordano Bruno; Bruno's works, especially De la Causa, Principio ed Uno, and De l'Infinito, Universo e Mondi; Vanini's chief work is the Amphitheatrum: it is very scarce; the writer found a copy of it in the King's Library, in the British Museum.

UNDER

CHAPTER X.

MYSTICAL DIVINITY AND PHILOSOPHY.

NDER the head of Mystics, we might class many names that have been already disposed of. All religion is more or less mystical, that is to say, it is an inward intuition; a divine sentiment in the soul. The Brahmans; the Budhists; the Alexandrians, Jewish, Heathen, and Christian, were all Mystics. In some, this spirit has been so largely developed that they have been called pre-eminently Mystics. Such were Plotinus and S. Dionysius; his successor, Maximus, and his medieval disciples. Every great religious movement has been connected directly or indirectly with some Mystic or some unusual manifestation of the mystical spirit.

GERMAN MYSTICS.-The most important of modern Mystics who have been called Pantheists, are those of Germany. Dr. Ullmann traces their origin to the societies of the Beghards, Beguines, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit. If this be correct, and there seems no reason for doubting it, we have all the links of the succession established from Dionysius and the early Mystics, through John Scotus Erigena down to the Reformation. "The basis of their doctrines (the Beghards)," says Dr. Ullmann, was Mystical Pantheism, as that is to be found principally among the Brethren of the Free Spirit."

"Inasmuch however, as during the whole of the middle ages, the chief object of interest was not nature, but more predominantly man, contemplation was then directed less to the Divine Being in the general universe, and almost exclusively to God in mankind; the former being adduced merely as a consequence or supplement of the latter. The great thing was God in the mind, or the consciousness of man. Hence, the Pantheism of these parties was not materialistic but idealistic. The creatures, so they supposed, are in and of themselves a pure nullity. God alone is the true Being; the real substance of all things. God, however, is chiefly present where there is mind, and consequently in man, In the human soul there is an uncreated

MAN TRANSUBSTANTIATED INTO GOD.

and eternal thing, namely, the intellect; that is, the divine principle in man, in virtue of which he resembles, and is one with God. Indeed, in so far as he purely exists, he is God Himself; and it may be said, that whatever belongs to the divine nature belongs likewise, and in a perfect way, to a good and righteous man. Such a man works the same works as God. With God he created the heavens and the earth, and with God he begat the Eternal Word; and God without him can do nothing. Such a In Christ, as a being both of divine and man was Christ. human nature, there was nothing peculiar or singular. On the contrary, what Scripture affirms of Him is likewise perfectly 'The same divine things true of every righteous and good man. which the Father gave to the Son, He has also given to us; for the good man is the only begotten Son of God, whom the Father has begotten from all eternity. Man becomes like Christ when he makes his will conformable in all respects to the will of God, when forsaking all things and renouncing all human wishes, desires, and endeavours, he so completely merges himself in, and gives himself up to the Divine Being, as to be wholly changed, and transubstantiated into God, as the bread m the sacrament is into the body of Christ. To the man who is thus united with God, or to speak more properly, who recollects his primæval unity, all the differences and contrarieties of life are done away. In whatever he is or does, though to others it may seem sin and evil, he is good and happy. For the essential property of the divine nature is, that it excludes all differences. God is neither good nor bad. To call Him good, would just be like calling white black. His glory is equally revealed in all things; yea, even in all evil, whether of guilt or penalty. Hence, if it be His will that we should sin, whatever the sin may be, we ought not to wish not to have committed it, and to be sensible of this is the only true repentance. But the will of God is manifested by the disposition which a man feels towards a particular action. Hence, though he may have committed a thousand mortal sins, still supposing him to have been disposed for them, he ought not to wish not to have committed them. Neither, to speak strictly, has God enjoined external acts. No external act is good or godly; and on such an act no influence is exerted by God; but all depends upon the union of the mind with Him. That being the case, man ought not to desire or pray for anything, save what God ordains. Whoever prays to God for a particular blessing, prays for a wrong thing, and in a wrong way; for he prays for a thing contrary to God's nature.

For this reason a man ought well to consider, whether he should wish to receive any boon from God, because in that case he would be His inferior, like a servant or slave; and God, in giving it, would be something apart from him. But this should not take place in the life eternal; there we should rather reign with Him. God is truly glorified, only in those who do not strive after property; houor or profit; piety or holiness; recompense, or the kingdom of Heaven; but who have wholly renounced all such things."

This account of the doctrine of the Beghards, has the disadvantage of coming from enemies; by whom it may have been exaggerated, and perhaps the meaning perverted. The source of it is the Bull of Pope John XXII., by whom the Beghards were condemned. Dr. Ullmann has used the terms in which the propositions ascribed to them were set forth, admitting their general accuracy, yet willing to make allowance for the differ ence between a doctrine in itself and the representation of it by an enemy. But whether the extravagances were in the Beghards' teaching, or only in the Papal representations need not concern us much; for we can see in the general features the reappearance of doctrines which we have already met, c othed in more moderate language, and in a more interesting form. Ruysbrock, who was himself a Mystic, gives a description of the Beghards, which corresponds generally with that of the Papal Bull. He divides them into four classes, ascribing a peculiar form of heresy to each, while he accuses them all of the fundamental error of making man's unity with God to be a unity of nature and not of grace. The godly man, he admitted, is united to God, not however in vi: tue of his essence, but by a process of re-creation and regeneration. The first class he calls heretics against the Holy Ghost, because they claimed a perfect identity with the Absolute, which reposes in itself and is without act or operation. They said that they themselves were the Divine Essence, above the persons of the Godhead, and in as absolute a state of repose as if they did not at all exist; inasmuch as the Godhead itself does not act, the Holy Ghost being the sole operative power in it. The second class were heretics against the Father, because they placed themselves simply and directly on an equality with God; contemplated the I as entirely one with the Divinity so that from them all things proceeded, and being themselves by nature God, they had come into existence of their own free will. "If I had not so willed," one of them said, "neither I nor any other creature would ever

have existed at all. God knows, wills, and can do nothing without me; heaven and earth hang upon my head. The glory given to God is also paid to me, for I am by nature essentially God. There are no persons in God. But only one God exists, and. with Him I am the self-same one which He is." The third class were heretics against Christ, because they said, that in respect of their divinity they were begotten of the Father, and in respect of their humanity begotten in time. What Christ was they were; and when He was elevated in the host, they too were elevated with Him. The fourth class were heretics against the church, for they despised not only all its ordinances, but set themselves above knowledge, contemplation, and love. They despised both the finite and the infinite; the present life and the eternal. They soared above themselves, and all created things; above God and the Godhead, maintaining that neither God nor themselves, neither action nor rest, neither good nor evil, blessedness nor perdition has any existence. They considered themselves so lost as to have become the Absolute Nothing which they believed God to be. Dr. Ullmann, though far from sympathising with the Beghards, considers even Ruysbroek's delineation as half apochryphal. Eckart, the leader of the

German Mystics, is supposed to have been a Beghard; but there is no evidence beyond the likeness of his doctrines to the propositions condemned by the Bull of John XXII., and the fact that the Beghards, who were numerous in Germany in his time, appealed to his writings as confirming their doctrines. Eckart had been a professor in Paris, where the influence of Abelard, William of Champeaux, and Amalric de Bena could scarcely have been ended. He was familiar with the works of the Areopagite and Scotus Erigena; the Neo-Platonist philo

* John Eckart, commonly called "Master Eckart," was a monk, of the order of S. Dominic. In his youth he was a teacher or professor in the College of S. Jaques, in Paris. He was afterwards made Doctor of Theology at Rome, and was elected Provincial of his Order in Saxony. Three years later he was appointed Vicar-General of Bohemia. Soon after he appears at Strasburg, preaching in the convents of the nuns, and then in Frankfort-on-the-Maine, as Prior of the Blackfriars of that city. He was suspected of heresy, and was accused of being in communication with "the Brethren of the Free Spirit." In 1326, he was deposed from his office of Provincial of the Dominicans. As his doctrine had spread widely among his order, the Archbishop of Cologne accused the whole brotherhood of heresy. Eckart was summoned to appear before the Pope, at Avignon. He was condemned on the charge of heresy. His doctrines were so widely spread through Germany, Switzerland, Tyrol and Bohemia, that they required to be condemned a second time. This was in 1430, by the University of Heidelberg,