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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > D > Denys the Carthusian


DENYS THE CARTHUSIAN

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(DENYS VAN LEEUWEN, also LEUW or LIEUWE).

Born in 1402 in that part of the Belgian province of Limburg which was formerly
comprised in the county of Hesbaye; died 12 March, 1471. His birthplace was
Ryckel, a small village a few miles from Saint-Trond, whence ancient writers
have often surnamed him Ryckel or à Ryckel. His parents, historians say, were of
noble rank; he himself says, however, that when a child he kept his father's
sheep. His remarkable aptitude for intellectual pursuits and his eagerness to
learn induced his parents to give him a liberal education, and they sent him to
a school at Saint-Trond. In 1415 he went to another school at Zwolle
(Overijssel), which was then of great repute and attracted many students from
various parts of Germany. He there entered upon the study of philosophy and
became acquainted with the principles and practice of religious life, which the
rector, John Cele, a very holy man, himself taught. Shortly after the rector's
death (1417) he returned home, having learnt all that the masters of the school
could teach him. His feverish quest for human science and the success his
uncommon intellectual powers had rapidly obtained seem, according to his own
account, to have rather dulled his piety. Nevertheless a supernatural leaning to
cloistral life, which had taken root in his mind from the early age of ten and
had grown stronger during his stay at Zwolle, finally triumphed over worldly
ambition and the instincts of nature, and at the age of eighteen he determined
to acquire the "science of saints" in St. Bruno's order



Having applied for admittance at the Carthusian monastery at Roermond (Dutch
Limburg), he was refused because he had not reached the age (twenty years)
required by the statutes of the order; but the prior gave him hopes that he
would be received later on, and advised him to continue meanwhile his
ecclesiastical studies. So he went forthwith to the then celebrated University
of Cologne, where he remained three years, studying philosophy, theology, the
Holy Scripture, etc. After taking his degree of Master of Arts, he returned to
the monastery at Roermond and this time was admitted (1423). In his cell Denys
gave himself up heart and soul to the duties of Carthusian life, performing all
with his characteristic earnestness and strength of will, and letting his zeal
carry him even far beyond what the rule demanded. Thus, over and above the
time—about eight hours—every Carthusian spends daily in hearing and saying Mass,
reciting Divine Office, and in other devotional exercises, he was wont to say
the whole Psalter—his favourite prayer book—or at least a great part of it, and
he passed long hours in meditation and contemplation; nor did material
occupations usually hinder him from praying. Reading and writing took up the
rest of his time. The list he drew up, about two years before his death, of some
of the books he had read while a monk bears the names of all the principal
ecclesiastical writers down to his time. He had read, he says, every summa and
every chronicle, many commentaries on the Bible, and the works of a great number
of Greek, and especially Arab, philosophers, and he had studied the whole of
canon as well as civil law. His favourite author was Dionysius the Areopagite.
His quick intellect seized the author's meaning at first reading and his
wonderful memory retained without much effort all that he had ever read.

It seems marvellous that, spending so much time in prayer, he should have been
able to peruse so vast a number of books; but what passes all comprehension is
that he found time to write, and to write so much that his works might make up
twenty-five folio volumes. No other pen, whose productions have come down to us,
has been so prolific. It is true that he took not more than three hours' sleep a
night, and that he was known to spend sometimes whole nights in prayer and
study. There is evidence, too, that his pen was a swift one. Nevertheless the
mystery still remains insolvable, and all the more so that, besides the
occupations already mentioned, he had, at least for some time, others which will
be presently noted, and which alone would have been enough to absorb the
attention of any ordinary man. He began (1434) by commenting the Psalms and then
went on to comment the whole of the Old and the New Testament. He commented also
the works of Boethius, Peter Lombard, John Climacus, as well as those of, or
attributed to, Dionysius the Areopagite, and translated Cassian into easier
Latin. It was after seeing one of his commentaries that Pope Eugene IV
exclaimed: "Let Mother Church rejoice to have such a son!" He wrote theological
treatises, such as his "Summa Fidei Orthodoxæ"; "Compendium Theologicum", "De
Lumine Christianæ Theoriæ", "De Laudibus B. V. Mariæ", and "De Præconio B. V.
Mariæ" (in both of which treatises he upholds the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception), "De quatuor Novissimus", etc.; philosophical treatises, such as his
"Compendium philosophicum", "De venustate mundi et pulchritudine Dei" (a most
remarkable æsthetic dissertation), "De ente et essentiâ", etc.; a great many
treatises relating to morals, asceticism, church discipline, liturgy, etc.;
sermons and homilies for all the Sundays and festivals of the year, etc. His
writings, taken as a whole, show him to be a compiler rather than an original
thinker; they contain more unction and piety than deep speculation. He was no
innovator, no builder of systems, and especially no quibbler. Indeed he had a
decided dislike for metaphysical subtleties of no positive use, for he was of
far too practical a turn of mind to waste time in idle dialectic niceties, and
sought only to do immediate good to souls and tend their spiritual needs,
drawing them away from sin and guiding and urging them on in the path to heaven.



As an expounder of Scripture, he generally does no more than reproduce or
recapitulate what other commentators had said before him. If his commentaries
bring no light to modern exegetics they are at least an abundant mine of pious
reflections. As a theologian and a philosopher he is a servile follower of no
one master and belongs to no particular school. Although an admirer of Aristotle
and Aquinas, he is neither an Aristotelian nor a Thomist in the usual sense of
the words, but seems inclined rather to the Christian Platonism of Dionysius the
Areopagite, St. Augustine, and St. Bonaventure. As a mystical writer he is akin
to Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, St. Bonaventure, and the writers of the
Wildesheim School, and in his treatises may be found summed up the doctrine of
the Fathers of the Church, especially of Dionysius the Areopagite, and of
Eckart, Suso, Ruysbroeck, and other writers of the German and Flemish Schools.
He has been called the last of the Schoolmen, and he is so in the sense that he
is the last important Scholastic writer, and that his works may be considered to
form a vast encyclopedia, a complete summary of the Scholastic teaching of the
Middle Ages; this is their primary characteristic and their chief merit.

His renown for learning and especially for saintliness, drew upon him
considerable intercourse with the outer world. He was consulted as an oracle by
men of different social standing, from bishops and princes downwards; they
flocked to his cell, and numberless letters came to him from all parts of the
Netherlands and Germany. The topic of such correspondence was often the grievous
state of the Church in Europe, i.e. the evils ensuing from relaxed morals and
discipline and from the invasion of Islam. Deploring these evils he exerted
himself to the utmost, like all pious Catholics of that day, to counteract them.
For that purpose, soon after the fall of Constantinople (1453), impressed by
revelations God made to him concerning the terrific woes threatening
Christendom, he wrote a letter to all the princes of Europe, urging them to
amend their lives, to cease their dissensions, and to join in war against their
common enemy, the Turks. A general council being in his eyes the only means of
procuring serious reform, he exhorted all prelates and others to unite their
efforts to bring it about. He wrote also a series of treatises, laying down
rules of Christian living for churchmen and for laymen of every rank and
profession. "De doctrinâ et regulis vitæ Christianæ", the most important of
these treatises, was written at the request, and for the use, of the famous
Franciscan preacher John Brugman. These and others which he wrote of a similar
import, inveighing against the vices and abuses of the time, insisting on the
need of a general reform, and showing how it was to be effected, give a curious
insight into the customs, the state of society, and ecclesiastical life of that
period. To refute Mohammedanism he wrote two treatises: "Contra perfidiam
Mahometi", at the request of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. The latter, named papal
legate by Nicholas V to reform the Church in Germany and to preach a crusade
against the Turks, took Denys with him during a part, if not the whole, of his
progress (Jan., 1451-March, 1452), and received from his tongue and his pen
valuable assistance, especially in the work of reforming monasteries and of
rooting out magical and superstitious practices. This mission was not the only
charge which drew Denys from his much-loved cell. He was for some time (about
1459) procurator of his monastery, and in July, 1466, was appointed to
superintend the building of a monastery at Bois-le-Duc. A three- years' struggle
against ;the inextricable difficulties of the new foundation broke down his
health, already impaired by a long life of ceaseless work and privations, and he
was obliged to return to Roermond in 1469. His treatise "De Meditatione" bears
the date of the same year and was the last he wrote.

The immense literary activity of Denys had never been detrimental to his spirit
of prayer. On the contrary he always found in study a powerful help to
contemplation; the more he knew, the more he loved. While still a novice he had
ecstasies which lasted two or three hours, and later on they lasted sometimes
seven hours and more. Indeed, towards the end of his life he could not hear the
singing of "Veni Sancte Spiritus" or some verses of the Psalms, nor converse on
certain devotional subjects without being lifted off the ground in a rapture of
Divine love. Hence posterity has surnamed him "Doctor ecstaticus". During his
ecstasies many things were revealed to him which he made known only when it
could profit others, and the same may be said of what he learnt from the souls
in purgatory, who appeared to him very frequently, seeking relief through his
powerful intercession. Loving souls as he did, it is no wonder that he should
have become odious to the great hater of souls. His humility responded to his
learning, and his mortification, especially with regard to food and sleep, far
excelled what the generality of men can attain to. It is true that in point of
physical austerities, virtue was assisted by a strong constitution, for he was a
man of athletic build and had, as he said, "an iron head and a brazen stomach".

During the last two years of his life he suffered intensely and with heroic
patience from paralysis, stone, and other infirmities. He had been a monk for
forty-eight years when he died at the age of sixty-nine. Upon his remains being
disinterred one hundred and thirty-seven years after, day for day (12 March,
1608), his skull emitted a sweet perfume and the fingers he had most used in
writing, i.e. the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, were found in a
perfect state of preservation. Although the cause of his beatification has never
yet been introduced, St. Francis de Sales, St. Alphonsus Liguori, and other
writers of note style him "Blessed"; his life is in the "Acta Sanctorum" of the
Bollandists (12 March), and his name is to be found in many martyrologies. An
accurate edition of all his works still extant, which will comprise forty-one
quarto volumes, is now being issued by the Carthusian Press at Tournai, Belgium.




SOURCES

     LOER, Vita Dionysii Cartus, (Tournai, 1904); MOUGEL, Denys le Chartreux
(Montreuil­sur­mer, 1896); WELTERS, Denys le Chartreux (Roermond, 1882); ALBERS,
Dyonysius de Kartuizer (Utrecht, 1897); KROGH-TONNING, Der letzte Scholstiker
(Freiburg im Br., 1904); KEISER, Dionys des Kartaüsers Leben und pädagogische
Schriften (Freiburg im Br., 1904); SIEGFRIED, Dionysius the Carthusian in Am.
Eccl. Review (Philadelphia, 1899), 512-27; STIGLMAYR, Neuplatonisches bei
Dionysius dem Karthäuser in Hist. Jahrbuch (1899), XX, 367-88.


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Gurdon, E. (1908). Denys the Carthusian. In The Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04734a.htm

MLA citation. Gurdon, Edmund. "Denys the Carthusian." The Catholic Encyclopedia.
Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04734a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by WGKofron. With
thanks to St. Mary's Church, Akron, Ohio.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John
M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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