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A Little Book of Eternal Wisdom
A Little Book of Eternal Wisdom by Blessed Henry Suso (Illustrated):
— A Catholic Classic!
— Includes a supplementary work: "The Parable of the Pilgrim" by Walter Hilton, Carthusian monk
— Includes Illustrations by various artists
— Includes an Active Index, Table of Contents, Endnotes and NCX Navigation
— Includes a Scripture Index
Publisher: A Paperback Edition is available:
ISBN-13: 978-1-78379-006-7
It is superfluous to enlarge here on the intrinsic merits of Blessed Henry Suso's work. For over five hundred years it has enjoyed undiminished popularity, as at once a religious and literary masterpiece. Such a work speaks too eloquently for itself; it is its own best praise, its own best commentary. It can be placed next to the "Homilies" of Saint Bernard, and the "Imitation of Christ" by Thomas à Kempis.
Blessed Henry Suso, a priest and mystic of the Order of Saint Dominic lived a life of wonderful labours and sufferings, and died in the Fourteenth century with a reputation for sanctity which the Church has solemnly confirmed.
The mutual love of God and man, which is his principal theme, gives warmth and colour to his style. He contributed much to the formation of good prose, especially by giving new shades of meaning to words employed to describe inner sensations.
Publisher: Catholic Way Publishing
141 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1330
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About the author
Henry Suso
43 books18 followersHenry Suso (Also called Amandus, a name adopted in his writings, and Heinrich Seuse in German) was a German mystic, declared Blessed in 1831 by Gregory XVI, who assigned his feast in the Dominican Order to March 2. The Dominicans now celebrate his feast on January 23, the "open" day nearest the day of his death.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 31, 2020
As will be apparent, only a wonder could be expected when three things having high positive valence for this recensionist are brought together: ‘medieval’, ‘German’ and ‘mysticism’. One can catch a glimpse into a vanished world of superlatively high culture (even higher, it could be maintained, than what prevailed in Germany at the time of Goethe, Schiller and the Romantics). In the late Middle Ages, mysticism was not restricted to those who were religious by profession. The gotesfrúnde were circles of laymen, beguines, monks, nuns and priests who gathered to make common cause in the pursuit of spiritual excellence. Another fascinating feature of medieval German mysticism is the productive, two-way collaboration between men and women on matters of the highest spiritual import; one thinks of Henry Suso and Elsbeth Stagel, for instance, but they are just one example among many. As is well known, Meister Eckhart composed his masterful sermons in the vernacular originally to preach to religious women. The medieval woman mystics like Hildegard of Bingen and Mechthild of Magdeburg are fully the equals of their male counterparts, both in terms of their mystical prayer and in terms of their written testimony to their experiences (as Pope Benedict XVI belatedly recognized in naming Hildegard a saint and doctor of the Church). All this was destroyed by the Reformation, needless to say. It is a question for the philologist why the medieval German word for love, minne, failed to survive into modern German (it went out of use sometime in the sixteenth century). Clearly, something vital was lost along the way.
Henry of Suso, author of the little treatise presently under review, was a disciple of the great Meister Eckhart, at a time shortly after the latter’s condemnation by Pope John XXII in 1329, when it took courage to stand up for his master’s teaching. Perusing Henry Suso’s Daz buechli der warheit, this recensionist came to understand at last what Meister Eckhart means by his key term, gelassenheit. For this alone, the booklet would be worth reading and meditating upon. This little gem of a book expounds the classic themes of medieval German mysticism and anchors them in the larger context of the authoritative Christian tradition of mystical theology by citing—among others—Augustine, John Damascene, Boethius, Pseudo-Dionysius, the anonymous author of the Liber de causis, Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas. This spiritual movement offers serene contemplation and satisfies anyone’s appetite for speculation, while at the same time being no less rigorous in its ascetical demands than, say, the later Spanish mystic John of the Cross. Suso seems to turn the Neoplatonist tradition he inherits from Eckhart in an intellectualist direction, defining God as living, existent, subsistent thought (lebendú wesendú istigú vernúnftikeit). In this manner, he mediates between Thomist intellectualism and the voluntarist currents of thought which came to prominence during the fourteenth century. Perhaps Suso drew from the Greek church fathers a focus on dispassion (apatheia) and connected this with Eckhart’s stress on detachment, or gelassenheit. Detachment is, in the first instance, a circumscription of the will, after all (at least, the unredeemed will of the natural man, which is the condition of everyone in the present age, as Paul expounds so remorselessly in Romans 6-8, chapter 7 in particular). Only by detaching oneself from the world and even from one’s own self and its concerns does one open oneself up to the indwelling of the spirit and the contemplation of eternal truth, which turning may be what Eckhart refers to as the birth of the Son in the soul. Forgetfulness of self is the condition of union with God.
The genuinely detached man undergoes an ethical transformation (sittigen wandel). Following his master, Suso sees the source of error of the undetached in false reason, which employs worldly categories and standards to evaluate the incomprehensible things of God. A charming feature of the present work can be found in Suso’s dialogue with the nameless wild man, who seems to represent the Gnostic interpretation of freedom as amorality (during the fourteenth century, heresy was widespread and the need to combat it explains, in part, the solicitude of the church hierarchy to be on the watch for incorrect doctrine at Eckhart’s trial, although, given the latter’s profession of faith and obedience to authority, he cannot under any circumstances be styled a heretic, even if some of his extreme and unguarded statements were ultimately to be censured). The concluding dialogue on the nobility of the truly detached man’s way of life is wonderful in its simplicity and incommunicable profundity.
Suso is to be commended for translating the high doctrine of the medieval scholastic Latin theological tradition into vernacular medieval German (which is supplied on facing pages in the Felix Meiner bilingual edition and is surprisingly readable for someone knowledgeable in modern German, by the way) and integrating it with the distinctive themes of his master, Eckhart. He has a softer tone and less speculative verve than Eckhart, but, for all that, is provably more in line with the great spiritual tradition. Read Eckhart’s sermons with their daring and paradoxical formulations for inexhaustible depth, Suso for (comparative) clarity of doctrine. But really, the two would band together to offer us moderns a vital alternative to the jejune state into which mysticism has fallen in the modern era, when affective prayer was severed from the speculative intellect and pursued in isolation (what for a medieval man would be incomprehensible).
Henry of Suso, author of the little treatise presently under review, was a disciple of the great Meister Eckhart, at a time shortly after the latter’s condemnation by Pope John XXII in 1329, when it took courage to stand up for his master’s teaching. Perusing Henry Suso’s Daz buechli der warheit, this recensionist came to understand at last what Meister Eckhart means by his key term, gelassenheit. For this alone, the booklet would be worth reading and meditating upon. This little gem of a book expounds the classic themes of medieval German mysticism and anchors them in the larger context of the authoritative Christian tradition of mystical theology by citing—among others—Augustine, John Damascene, Boethius, Pseudo-Dionysius, the anonymous author of the Liber de causis, Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas. This spiritual movement offers serene contemplation and satisfies anyone’s appetite for speculation, while at the same time being no less rigorous in its ascetical demands than, say, the later Spanish mystic John of the Cross. Suso seems to turn the Neoplatonist tradition he inherits from Eckhart in an intellectualist direction, defining God as living, existent, subsistent thought (lebendú wesendú istigú vernúnftikeit). In this manner, he mediates between Thomist intellectualism and the voluntarist currents of thought which came to prominence during the fourteenth century. Perhaps Suso drew from the Greek church fathers a focus on dispassion (apatheia) and connected this with Eckhart’s stress on detachment, or gelassenheit. Detachment is, in the first instance, a circumscription of the will, after all (at least, the unredeemed will of the natural man, which is the condition of everyone in the present age, as Paul expounds so remorselessly in Romans 6-8, chapter 7 in particular). Only by detaching oneself from the world and even from one’s own self and its concerns does one open oneself up to the indwelling of the spirit and the contemplation of eternal truth, which turning may be what Eckhart refers to as the birth of the Son in the soul. Forgetfulness of self is the condition of union with God.
The genuinely detached man undergoes an ethical transformation (sittigen wandel). Following his master, Suso sees the source of error of the undetached in false reason, which employs worldly categories and standards to evaluate the incomprehensible things of God. A charming feature of the present work can be found in Suso’s dialogue with the nameless wild man, who seems to represent the Gnostic interpretation of freedom as amorality (during the fourteenth century, heresy was widespread and the need to combat it explains, in part, the solicitude of the church hierarchy to be on the watch for incorrect doctrine at Eckhart’s trial, although, given the latter’s profession of faith and obedience to authority, he cannot under any circumstances be styled a heretic, even if some of his extreme and unguarded statements were ultimately to be censured). The concluding dialogue on the nobility of the truly detached man’s way of life is wonderful in its simplicity and incommunicable profundity.
Suso is to be commended for translating the high doctrine of the medieval scholastic Latin theological tradition into vernacular medieval German (which is supplied on facing pages in the Felix Meiner bilingual edition and is surprisingly readable for someone knowledgeable in modern German, by the way) and integrating it with the distinctive themes of his master, Eckhart. He has a softer tone and less speculative verve than Eckhart, but, for all that, is provably more in line with the great spiritual tradition. Read Eckhart’s sermons with their daring and paradoxical formulations for inexhaustible depth, Suso for (comparative) clarity of doctrine. But really, the two would band together to offer us moderns a vital alternative to the jejune state into which mysticism has fallen in the modern era, when affective prayer was severed from the speculative intellect and pursued in isolation (what for a medieval man would be incomprehensible).
October 5, 2019
Fine book
Loved reading it and making notes. A good portrayal of Henry suso. This type of book always appeals to me.
Loved reading it and making notes. A good portrayal of Henry suso. This type of book always appeals to me.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews