The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage

book

You have avidly read the book shared with you regarding the adornment of the spiritual marriageoriginal: "spiritualium nuptiarum." This refers to Ruusbroec's most famous work, The Spiritual Espousals, which describes the soul's journey toward union with God., which Jan van Ruusbroec—a devout and religious father of the Augustinian Canons Regularoriginal: "canonicę obseruationis beati Augustini." A branch of the Augustinian order known for its strict adherence to the Rule.—composed some time ago, around the era of Boniface IXPope from 1389 to 1404. Ruusbroec actually died in 1381, but Lefèvre is providing a general historical timeframe..
mar-riage and other wed-dings

However, it troubled you while reading that GersonJean Gerson (1363–1429), the influential Chancellor of the University of Paris, who famously criticized Ruusbroec's mysticism for potentially leading to pantheistic errors.—a devout man of grave authority, who bore a religious mind beneath a secular habit—judged the author of that work to be insufficiently learned, even rebuking him in certain matters as one in error. This should have moved you but little. For there is only one who finds fault, while a great crowd of holy men defends him. This fact cannot escape you if you read the devout works of Thomas à Kempisoriginal: "Ioānis Quempiſij." Referring to Thomas à Kempis, the probable author of The Imitation of Christ and a fellow member of the Devotio Moderna movement that revered Ruusbroec., a man of blameless life.
By these things committed [to those] who believe [the] father [to the] brothers

Gerson, in the judgment of many, was both devout and possessed of much secular learning; and this man [Ruusbroec] was likewise devout and possessed of much spiritual learning. And both are good and to be revered: the latter in the cloister, the former in the world.

But indeed, that this book was first published in the native speech and the vernacular tongueoriginal: "vernacula lĩgua." Ruusbroec wrote in Middle Dutch so that his teachings would be accessible to those without a university education in Latin. is not sufficient proof that the author was of little learning. For even the most learned man can publish books in the vernacular—perhaps far better than an unlearned one.
It is difficult

And the grammarians who read this will judge the author to be remarkably elegant for that time; the rhetoricians will find him eloquent; the philosophers will see him as one skilled in the secrets of nature; the astrologers as a knower of the times; the physicians as a master of diseases and health; and the theologians as a master of divine matters.

A small decorative manicule (pointing hand) points to the next paragraph.

I think, therefore, that this happened to Gerson (an upright man indeed): that he happened upon a corrupt manuscript. This has happened to me elsewhere. But when I came upon a true and corrected copy, having previously judged the author unlearned, I changed my opinion and began to admire him. By a similar reasoning, I think he [Gerson] was mistaken. And later TrithemiusJohannes Trithemius (1462–1516), a famous polymath and abbot who likely repeated Gerson's criticisms in his bibliographical catalogs. followed him through his own writings, as one who wrote similar things based on hearsay. For neither the one nor the other was of such an unfair mind or such malignant judgment that (if they had seen the true volume) they would have ever accused the man of having little learning. Read, therefore, with confidence what Gerson himself would have read with confidence and even with delight. Farewell, progressing in piety.