214 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
the commission which was appointed to bring in a report, by sixty-one out of eighty votes, decided for the permissibility of Petit's articles declaring that Peter meant to kill the high priest's servant, and that, if he had known Judas' thoughts at the Last Supper, he would have been justified in killing him. The duke of Burgundy's gold is said to have been freely used.i The party led by the bishop of Arras argued that the tyrant who takes the sword is to be punished with the sword. Gerson, who was supported by D'Ailly replied that then the command "thou shalt not kill" would only forbid such an act as murder, if there was coupled with it an inspired gloss, "without judicial authority." The command means, "thou shalt not kill the innocent, or kill out of revenge." Gerson pressed the matter for the last time in an address delivered before the council, Jan. 17, 1417, but the council refused to go beyond the decree of the fifteenth session.
The duke of Burgundy got possession of Paris in 1418, and Gerson found the doors of France closed to him. Under the protection of the duke of Bavaria he found refuge at Rattenberg and later in Austria. On the assassination of the duke of Burgundy himself, with the connivance of the dauphin, Sept. 10, 1419, he returned to France, but not to Paris. He went to Lyons, where his brother John was, and spent his last years there in monastic seclusion. The dauphin is said to have granted him 200 livres in 1420 in recognition of his services to the crown.
It remains to speak of Gerson as a theologian, a preacher and a patriot.
jn_the department of theologv proper Gerson has a place among the mystics. ^ JVIysticism he defines as "the art of love," the "perception of God through experience." Such experience is reached by humility and penance more than through the path of speculation. The contemplative life is most desirable, but,
1 Mansi, XXVII. 765, Qitilibet tyra7im(s potest et debet licite et meritorie occidi per quemcumque . . . non expectata sententia vel mandato judicis cuiuscumque. For D'Ailly's part, see Tschackert, pp. 235-247.
2 Gerson's mysticism is pre.sented in such tracts as De vita spirituali animce and Be monte contemplatiotiis, Du Pin, III. 1-77, 541-579.
§ 23. JOHN GERSON. 215
following Christ's example, contemplation must be combined with action. The contemplation of God consists of knowledge as taught in John 17 : 3, "This is life eternal, to know Thee and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Such knowledge is mingled with love. The soul is one with God through love. His mysticism was based, on the one hand, on the study of the Scriptures and, on the other, on the study of Bonaventura and the St. Victors. He wrote a special treatise in praise of Bonaventura and his mystical writings. Far from having any conscious affinity with the German mystics, he wrote against John of Ruysbroeck and Ruysbroeck's pupil, John of Schonhofen, charging them with pantheism.
While Gerson emphasized the religious feelings, he was far from being a religious visionary and wrote treatises against the dangers of delusion from dreams and revelations. As coins must be tested by their weight, hardness, color, shape and stamp, so visions are to be tested by the humility and honesty of those who profess to have them and their readiness to teach and be taught. He commended the monk who, when some one offered to show him a figure like Christ, replied, " I do not want to see Christ on the earth. I am contented to wait till I see him in heaven."
When the negotiations were going on at the Council of Constance for the confirmation of the canonization of St. Brigitta, Gerson laid down the principle that, if visions reveal what is already in the Scriptures,^ then they are false, for God does not repeat Himself, Job 33 : 14. People have itching ears for revelations because they do not study the Bible. Later he warned 2 against the revelations of women, as women are more open to deception than men.
The Scriptures, Gerson taught, are the Church's rule and guide to the end of the WQrld. If a single statement should be proved false, then the whole volume is false, for the Holy Spirit is author of the whole. The letter of the text, however, is not sufficient to determine their meaning, as is proved from
1 In his De prohatione spirituum, Du Pin, I. 37-43; and De distinctione verarum visionum a falsis, Du Yin, I. 43-59.
2 De examinatione doctrinarum, Du Pin, I. 7-22.