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Friends of God

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The Friends of God (German: Gottesfreunde; also gotesvriunde) was a medieval mystical group of both ecclesiastical and lay persons[1] within the Catholic Church (though it nearly became a separate sect) and a center of German mysticism. It was founded between 1339 and 1343 during the Avignon Papacy, a time of great turmoil for the Catholic Church. The Friends of God were originally centered in Basel, Switzerland and were also fairly important in Strasbourg and Cologne. Some late-nineteenth century writers made large claims for the movement, seeing it both as influential in fourteenth-century mysticism and as a precursor of the Protestant Reformation. Modern studies of the movement have emphasised the derivative and often second-rate character of its mystical literature, and its limited impact on medieval literature in Germany.[2] Some of the movement's ideas still prefigured the Protestant reformation.[3]

Name

The name "Friends of God" may have been influenced by various sources. A number of biblical passages use the term (e.g. Judges 8:22, James 2:23, Exodus 33:11, Psalm 138:17, Wisdom 7:27, Luke 12:4, and John 15:15). The concept of friendship with God had also been applied by various medieval authors, and particularly among Meister Eckhart and his followers.[2]

History

The movement grew out of the preaching and teaching of Meister Eckhart, and especially his Dominican spiritual heirs, the preacher John Tauler and the writer Henry Suso. An influence on the Friends of God, although remaining in the background, was the secular priest Henry of Nördlingen,[4] from the Bavarian Oberland, who met Tauler and Suso in Basel in 1339. Henry had a great deal of interaction with other Bavarian and German mystics[5] and introduced the Friends of God to The Flowing Light of the Deity by Mechthild of Magdeburg.

The group achieved a nascent institutional form in 1367 when wealthy layman Rulman Merswin purchased and restored a derelict monastery in Strasbourg known as the grünenwörth ('Green Isle').[6] Grünenwörth served as a refuge for study for the Friends of God and as a “school of prophets” which produced a number of mystical texts.[7] Merswin is suspected of being the anonymous author The Friend of God from the Oberland.[8]

The Friends of God, as led by Tauler and Suso, sought a mystical path in line with established Catholic doctrine, following Thomas Aquinas. Rulman Merswin, under the guidance of The Friend of God from the Oberland, wanted to purify the Church. This stress on reform brought The Friends of God into conflict with the Church and not long after Merswin’s death in 1382, they were condemned.[1]

After Merswin's death, some sources claim that Nicholas of Basel became the leader. He was eventually burned at the stake with two of his followers for heresy at Vienna around 1395.[9] The relationship of Nicholas of Basel to the Friends of God is unclear as he was condemned as a Beghard.[10]

Another prominent member, Martin of Mainz, a follower of Nicholas of Basel, was also burned for heresy in 1393.[10]

Beliefs

Many leaders of the group were executed for heresy because they criticized the corruption of Catholicism: they believed that there would soon be judgment from God on the church. The group was a democratic lay movement, and they held holiness, love, piety and devotion as important.[11] The movement was a mysticist movement and they held great importance in rescuing other peoples' souls.[12]

Texts

A number of mystical texts are associated with The Friends of God, most notably the Theologia Germanica and the Book of the Nine Rocks. Many of the works were attributed to The Friend of God from the Oberland, although probably written by Rulman Merswin himself.[7]

See also

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Friends of God — (Ger. GOTTESFREUNDE).

An association of pious persons, both ecclesiastical and lay, having for its object the cultivation of holiness; its name alludes no doubt to John, xv, 14, 15. The circles of the "Friends of God" appears to have had its origin in Basle between the years 1339 and 1343, and to have thence extended down the Rhine even as far as the Netherlands, the cities most prominent in its history being Basle, Strasburg, and Cologne. Seeing the disturbed state of society in the large territory, the holy associates united in their efforts to counteract the many evil influences of the time, by applying themselves zealously to the practices of the interior life, and working diligently for the conversion of sinners. From this group of ascetics, whose sole bond of union was their common desire for holiness, the great school of German mystics took its rise. They aimed at becoming saints, and at giving edification at Catholic devotion, not heterodox enthusiasm; at affective contemplation, not arid speculation. Their great leaders were two Dominicans, the eloquent preacher John Tauler (c. 1300-1361) and the contemplative writer Blessed Henry Suso (c. 1300-1365); to these must be added Henry of Nördlingen, Conrad of Kaiserheim, and the Dominicans John of Tambach (a celebrated theologian), John of Sternengassen, Dietrich of Colmar, and Nicholas of Strasburg. Among those whom they directed in the path of perfection were several communities of nuns, chiefly Dominican (e.g. in Unterlinden, Engelthal). Of these Dominicanesses, the most renowned for sanctity are the mystical writers Christina and Margaretha Ebner. Among their disciples living in the world, the following may be mentioned: Rulman Merswin, a wealthy merchant of Strasburg (1382), Henry of Rheinfefden, and the knight of Landsberg. The sermons, treatises, and letters of the "Friends of God" are remarkable for beauty of style, those of Suso constituting the best prose of the fourteenth century, the correspondence of Henry of Nördlingen and Margaretha Ebner being the earliest examples of epistolary literature in the German language, and the sermons of Tauler being masterpieces of eloquence.

As long as the association remained under the guidance of men like Suso and Tauler, masters in the spiritual life, it was preserved from blemish. Suso was the founder of the Children of Mary, and, in an age that witnessed the decadence of scholasticism or scientific theology, both friends based all their mysticism on Catholic doctrine, particularly on the solid system of St. Thomas. As Suso's "Book of the Eternal Wisdom" was composed for spiritual reading, so was his "Book of Truth" written to refute the errors and fanatic excesses of the Beghards and the Brethren of the Free Spirit. On his part, Tauler opposed the false mysticism of the Fraticelli and the schismatical tendencies of Louis of Bavaria. But the glory of the "Gottesfreunde" soon came to an end. A lay member of the association, Rulman Merswin, through either ignorance or fraud, brought the whole group of German mystics into disrepute. The doctrine of his alleged guide and master in the spiritual life - the mysterious layman of the Oberland (Der Gottesfreund vom Oberland), the "Friend of God" par excellence, to whom Merswin, in his posthumous work "Das Buch von den neun Felsen", ascribes revelations, prophecies of impending chastisements, and a divine mission to purify the Church - was diametrically opposed to that of Suso, Tauler, and the others. Denifle has proved conclusively that Merswin's great unknown is a myth, but, as the "Great Friend of God" had previously been regarded as the reformer of the hierarchy and a precursor of Luther, the recluse of the Oberland (Alsace) was much lauded and often quoted by those Protestant writers who asserted that true German mysticism was incompatible with Roman supremacy, scholastic theology, etc. After Rulman Merswin's death, Nicholas of Basle became the leader of the pseudo-Friends of God, but was eventually condemned as a Beghard and burned at Vienna in 1409. Another prominent member of this sect, his disciple Martin of Mainz, had suffered a like punishment sixteen years before in Cologne, for submitting unreservedly to a layman and maintaining several heretical propositions. From the beginning of the fifteenth century, the "Friends of God", whether orthodox or heterodox, disappear from the pages of history.

(See JOHN TAULER; BL. HENRY SUSO; MYSTICISM.)

Hergenrother-Kirsch Kirchengesch. (Freiburg, 1904), 11,790 sqq.; DENIFLE in Zeitschrift f. deutsches Altertum (1880-1881); Idem, Das Buch von der geistlichen Armuth (Munich, 1887); EHRlE in Stimment aus Maria-Laach (1881), XXI, 38, 252; Greith, Die detsche Mystik im Predigerorden (Freiburg, 1861); Dos Buch von den neun Felsen (Leipzig, 1859); JUNDT, Les amis de Dieu au XIV, siecle (Paris, 1879); Idem, Rulman Merswin et l'ami de Dieu de l'Oberland (Paris, 1890); BEVAN, Three Friends of God: Records from the lives of John Tauler, Nicholas of Basle, and Henry of Suso (London, 1887); Boringher, Die deutschen?n. Mystiker (2nd ed., Zurich, 1877); Tauler, Predigten (Leipzig, 1498, and Cologne, 1543); Surius, Latin paraphrase of same(Cologne, 1548); Die deutschen Schriften des seligen Heinrich Seuse, ed. Denifle (Munich, 1880. On Rulman Merswin, in particular, see Strauch in the Realencyk-opadie ur prot. Theol., lopadia fur prot. Theol., XV11, 203; Bihlmeyer in Buchberger's Kirchl. Handlex, s.v. Gottesfreunde and Merswin.

References

  1. Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Walsh, Reginald. "Friends of God." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. 6 December 2017
  2. Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 McGinn 2005, p. 408.
  3. Back to citation "Friends of God | religious group | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2021-12-19.
  4. Back to citation Dictionary of German Biography Volume 8, Walther Killy et al., eds; K G Saur Verlag Gmbh & Co; Reprint 2011 ed. Edition p. 493
  5. Back to citation Catholic Encyclopedia
  6. Back to citation McGinn 2005, p. 417.
  7. Back to citation occurrence 7.0 Back to citation occurrence 7.1 Jones, Rufus M., Studies in Mystical Religion, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, no date pp. 247–252 (originally published London: Macmillan, 1909)
  8. Back to citation Weeks, Andrew. German Mysticism From Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein, SUNY Press, 1993, p. 94, ISBN 9780791414194
  9. Back to citation "Nicholas of Basel", BrillOnLine
  10. Back to citation occurrence 10.0 Back to citation occurrence 10.1 Leff, Gordon. Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent, c. 1250 – c. 1450, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967 (reprinted by Sandpiper Book, 1999), p. 383
  11. Back to citation "Friends of God | religious group | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2021-12-13.
  12. Back to citation "Philip Schaff: History of the Christian Church, Volume VI: The Middle Ages. A.D. 1294-1517 - Christian Classics Ethereal Library". www.ccel.org. Retrieved 2021-12-28.

Bibliography

Works cited

  • McGinn, Bernard (2005). The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (The Presence of God Volume 4). The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Further reading

  • Rufus M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, no date (originally published London: Macmillan, 1909)
  • Gordon Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent, c. 1250 – c. 1450, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967 (reprinted by Sandpiper Book, 1999)
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