Brethren of The Free Spirit - Doctrine

Doctrine

As mentioned above, defining the doctrine of the Brethren of the Free Spirit is a complex undertaking. Central to their belief seem to be three fundamental ideas:

1. That God is incarnate/immanent in everything.

Sometimes described as a form of pantheism, the idea is similar to the neo-Platonic view that God is both immanent and transcendent. For the Brethren this meant that God was present in creation and in humanity. Both Marguerite Porete and Johannes "Meister" Eckhart, who were tried as heretics and accused of preaching Free Spirit doctrines, cite the words of St Paul in the New Testament to argue:

"All things are from Him, through Him and in Him." (Romans 11:36)

Porete expressed the same concept thus:

"Beloved, what do you wish from Me? I contain all things which were, and are, and shall be, I am filled by all things. Take from me all which pleases you: If you desire from me all things, I will not deny. Say, Beloved, what do you wish from me? I am Love, filled with the goodness of all things: What you will, we will. Beloved, tell us plainly your will." (The Mirror of Simple Souls trans: Ellen Babinsky 1993)

Amaury de Bene is often identified as being the originator of this concept, but it had been present as a doctrine in the Church since its inception in the works of Christians influenced by Platonism such as Pseudo-Dionysius, Pelagius and John Scotus Eriugena, especially in its Eastern (Byzantine) incarnation.

At the time of the Free Spirit movement it was viewed as heretical by the Western Church, which argued that God was exclusively transcendent and not present in Creation at all. Through this belief the Brethren rejected the Catholic idea of Transubstantiation (only recently doctrinally defined at the time), believing instead in Consubstantiation at most and a complete rejection of the idea of the need for the Eucharist at all in other cases.

2. That history was divided into three periods, each corresponding to a different aspect of the Trinity.

The first, the Age of the Father, corresponded with the era of the Old Testament (Abraham, Moses and the Prophets etc). The second, the Age of the Son, corresponded to the coming and ministry of Christ and the first millennium or so of Christianity. The last and final era was the Age of the Holy Spirit or the Paraclete as it is described in the New Testament, when God would become manifest in Man. Giochinno de Fiori was the first to develop this doctrine, basing his ideas on a close reading of Revelation ("Grace be unto you, and peace from Him which is ,and which was and which is to come " Revelation 1:4). The Brethren of the Free Spirit believed that this era was coming to pass and, with the incarnation of God in all humanity, the Last Days before the dawn of the 'New Heaven and New Earth'.

3. That through a direct experience of God in which the Holy Spirit flourishes in the individual soul Man could achieve a union with God which meant that he could no longer sin.

Of all the three central ideas of the Free Spirit movement this was the most difficult to understand, the most shocking to the Church and the most open to abuse. This concept of a mystical union with God in this lifetime — the opposite of the Catholic doctrine of the Beatific Vision after death (that Man could only 'see Him as He is' after death) - was seen as being a form of Resurrection or eternal aliveness in this world, the Soul having died and been reborn in God while still incarnate (an interpretation of the Resurrection found also in some of the early Gnostic movements).

Individuals who had achieved this state of being were called 'the Spiritualised', having received the 'indwelling' of the Holy Spirit through uniting with love as described in the book of Acts. (The term 'indwelling' is also used in the Kabbalah as a translation of Shekhinah, or the Glory of God, which is seen to dwell within the human soul.) Such individuals saw themselves as having evolved beyond ordinary states of good and evil (duality), replacing notions of faith and hope (beliefs in things which might be) with the positive light of knowledge (Gnosis, or direct knowledge of God).

Although they did not use the terminology of the Gnostics, nor did they probably even know of them, their use of the words 'knowledge' and 'ignorance' as different states of spiritual awareness are strikingly reminiscent of the earlier movement as they are of the terminology of other religions and mystical movements such as Buddhism and Sufism. This experience of Oneness with God and the difficulty of expressing it often lead to hostile listeners accusing members of the Free Spirit of blasphemy. Thus expressions such as:

"Father rejoice with me, I have become God... When I looked into myself I saw God within me and everything he has ever created in heaven and earth... I am established in the pure Godhead, in which there never was form or image." (Sister Catherine Treatise, trans: Elvira Borgstaedt 1986)

were met with horror and anger by the Church who saw the normal relationship of Man to God being usurped and turned on its head. Achieving this union with God happened through an austere process of self-abnegation and annihilation of the Ego, according to mystics such as Eckhart and Porete. What disturbed the authorities was what the followers of the Free Spirit felt they could do afterwards, once they had attained this supposedly sinless state and their assertion that the mediation of the Church was irrelevant.

These fundamental elements of the movement meant that they rejected the validity or even the need for the Church in favor of an individual approach to God. Like the Cathars, they therefore rejected the sacraments as well. Some saw the Church as the active enemy of God, describing the Church as the Anti-Christ, again something they had in common with the earlier sect. They also rejected the secular authorities, citing Christ's injunction forbidding oaths and preached an egalitarian approach to Christianity which did not recognise distinctions of gender. Some have seen them as proto-anarchists in their refusal to acknowledge hierarchies of any kind. Whatever the case, few of their views could be expected to endear themselves either to the Church or the feudal authorities who ruled the regions in which they flourished.