Author

Jan van Ruusbroec

Flemish mystic who described union with God as a rest and a flowing-out at once.

1293–1381

Also known as John of Ruysbroeck, Ruysbroeck, Jan van Ruysbroeck

Rhineland Mysticism, Christian Mysticism

Biography

Jan van Ruusbroec was born in 1293 in the village of Ruisbroek, near Brussels, and was raised by an uncle who was a canon of the church of St Gudula in Brussels. He was ordained priest and served as a chaplain there for many years. In Brussels he opposed the teaching of a popular woman teacher, Bloemardinne, whose followers he regarded as false mystics of the “free spirit”.

In 1343, with two companions, he withdrew to Groenendaal, a hermitage in the Sonian Forest outside Brussels, where the community became a house of Augustinian canons in 1350. He lived there until his death in 1381, writing in his native Dutch and receiving visitors, among them Geert Grote, the founder of the Modern Devotion.

His works include The Spiritual Espousals, his masterpiece, The Sparkling Stone, The Little Book of Clarification and The Kingdom of the Lovers. The chancellor of Paris, Jean Gerson, criticized the third book of the Espousals as implying an identity of the soul with God, and Ruusbroec’s followers defended him. He was beatified in 1908. Evelyn Underhill and others introduced him to English readers in the early twentieth century.

Major works

The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage; The Sparkling Stone; The Book of Supreme TruthTranslation, tr. C. A. Wynschenk Dom, 1916Three of Ruusbroec’s major works in English: The Spiritual Espousals, The Sparkling Stone and The Little Book of Clarification, translated from the Flemish, edited with an introduction and notes by Evelyn Underhill.

Philosophical ideas

Scholarship

The spiritual life rises through the active life, the inward or yearning life, and the contemplative life, in which the soul is united with God “without difference”, yet without ceasing to be a creature.

The perfect life is a “common life”, in which the soul both rests in God and flows out in love and service, as God himself is both rest and work.

Cite this entry

Chicago (bibliography): “Jan van Ruusbroec.” Author. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/jan-van-ruusbroec.
Chicago (note): “Jan van Ruusbroec,” author, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/jan-van-ruusbroec.
MLA: “Jan van Ruusbroec.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/jan-van-ruusbroec.
BibTeX: @misc{authors-jan-van-ruusbroec, title = {{Jan van Ruusbroec}}, howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society}, note = {Author. Last modified November 7, 2026}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/jan-van-ruusbroec} }

Related authors

Influenced: Thomas à Kempis
Contemporary of: Johannes Tauler
Often compared with: Meister Eckhart

Jan van Ruusbroec

Biography

Major works

Philosophical ideas

Related authors

Related concepts

Related traditions