The Rose Garden
Sermons on the monastic virtues by Johann Herolt OP (~1390-1468)
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The eternal wisdom says, “Veni in ortum meum, soror mea …” – “Come into my garden, my sister, my spouse.” I now intend to preach about the wonderfully pleasing rose garden the soul should cultivate, and how well prepared the garden should be so that the eternal wisdom would choose to dwell in it. However, this garden in completely enclosed: it is described in the text as “ortus conclusus”. So anyone who wants to go into this garden and cultivate it must yearn to reach true wisdom. Any person who wants to gain true wisdom and a virtuous life must achieve it with toil and through adversity. If you really want to enter a delightful garden, you don’t take any notice of the nettles and other weeds growing in front of the garden, and you don’t let them drive you away, but you go through them all to get into the lovely garden, and to the noble plants and fragrant herbs that grow inside the garden. So it is for you spiritually: if you want to come to true wisdom and to a virtuous life, you must overcome every tribulation, and let no tribulation drive you away - a person needs tribulation.
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About the Book
Johann Herolt OP (~1390-1468), a Dominican friar of Nürnberg, was the most prolific sermonist of fifteenth century Europe, producing a huge and widely used library of sermon materials under the penname ‘Discipulus’. For nearly forty years, Johann Herolt was teacher, preacher, confessor, administrator, and advocate of the sisters of St Katharine’s, the Dominican sister house. While he was vicar of St Katharine’s in 1436, he preached to the sisters a series of Advent, Christmas, and New Year sermons, using the imagery of an enclosed garden in which the rose tree of eternal wisdom grows – a garden surrounded by the wall of the fear of God, and entered by the strait gate of diligence. His heartfelt discourse was about the monastic virtues of humility, patience, and obedience. The sermons were never published. The manuscript is a partial reconstruction from verbatim notes of a series of Advent, Christmas and New Year sermons.
About the Author
Ian Siggins' published works include Martin Luther's Doctrine of Christ, Luther and His Mother, and A Harvest of Medieval Preaching. A Fulbright Scholar, he tacugh church history at Yale and Hrvard Universities for many years before returning to his native Australia, where he has served as an ombudsman and consultant in equal opportunity, health and human servces.