--- title: "Sermons, Collations and Tractates" author: "Meister Eckhart" translator: "C. de B. Evans" languages: [en] shelf: "Mystics" section: 102 of 132 url: https://scriptura.si/works/eckhart-sermons-evans/102/ cite: "Meister Eckhart, tr. C. de B. Evans, Sermons, Collations and Tractates, section 102. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/eckhart-sermons-evans/102/" --- # Sermons, Collations and Tractates *Meister Eckhart, tr. C. de B. Evans* A hundred and four sermons, the tractates and the Sayings, in Evans's 1924 English of Pfeiffer's German. ## 102. Sermon 102 · Honour Thy Father Source: https://scriptura.si/works/eckhart-sermons-evans/102/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/eckhart-sermons-evans/102/#p-N [¶0] Hcec dicit dominus : honora patrem tuum etc, {Matt I54). This Latin quotation is taken from the gospel. The words were spoken by our Lord, and the translation runs, ‘ Honour thy father and mother.’ And another commandment is given by God our Lord, [¶1] ‘ Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods nor his house nor anything that is his.’ The third point is that the people went to Moses and said, ‘ Do thou speak to us, for we cannot hear God. The fourth, that God said to Moses, ‘ An altar of earth and in earth shalt thou make unto me and all that is offered thereon thou shalt burn away.’ The fifth is that Moses went into the cloud and ascending into the mountain there he found God : it was in the darkness that he found the true light. [¶2] There is a saying of St Augustine’s, ‘ Where the lamb sinks there swims the ox and the cow and where the cow swims the elephant runs and forges ahead.’ Which is a pretty parable to draw a moral from. The scriptures are the deep sea, St Augustine says, and the little lamb the humble, simple soul which is able to fathom Holy Writ. By the ox that swims we understand illtutored folk : each choosing out of them the things that suit himself. But in the elephant that goes ahead we recognise wise souls searching the scriptures and making progress in them. I am amazed how full the scriptures are withal the masters say they are not to be taken merely as they stand ; the material things in them, they say, must be translated to a higher plane, for which we must have symbols. — First it reached to the ankles, next it came up to the knee, thirdly it rose to the girdle, and fourthly it covered his head and he was submerged altogether. [¶3] Now what does this mean ? St Augustine says, at first the scriptures will amuse and attract the child, and in the end, when he tries to understand them, they make fools of the wise, for none is so simple-minded but can find his level there nor none so wise but when he tries to fathom them will find they are beyond his depth and discover more therein. All the stories and quotations taken from them have another, esoteric, meaning. Our understanding of them is as totally unlike the thing as it is in itself and as it is in God, as though it did not exist. [¶4] To return to our text. ‘ Honour thy father and mother,’ and in a general sense it does mean father and mother, that we ought to honour them, and all who have spiritual power are to be honoured and preferred as well as the authors of thy temporal weal. Herein we wade, herein do we touch bottom ; but it is precious little we get out of it. It is a woman who says, ‘ If we ought to honour the authors of our outward good much more are we behoven to magnify the author of it all.’ What we have here outwardly in multiplicity is all within and one. Yours to make this likeness like unto the Father. I was thinking this evening that all likeness ends in sameness with the Father. In the second place, thou oughtest to honour thy father, meaning thy heavenly Father, the source of thy being. Who honours the Father ? None but the Son : he alone does him honour. And none honours the Son save only the Father. The Father’s whole love, his fondness, his favours, are for the Son and him only. The Father knows nothing at all but the Son. Such delight does he take in his Son that he wants nothing else but to be getting his Son, for he is his exact likeness, the perfect image of his Father. [¶5] The teaching of our school is that anything known or born is an image. They say that in begetting his only-begotten Son the Father is producing his own image abiding in himself, in the ground of the image, as it has ever been in him, {formce illius) ix, his immanent form. It is contrary to nature and seems to me irrational, the doctrine that God is known by likeness, by this thing or by that. For he, after all, is neither this nor that, and father is not satisfied till he returns to his first nature, to the innermost, to the ground and core of fatherhood, where he has been for ever in himself, in his father-nature : to where he enjoys himself in the Father as the Father does himself in the one alone. Here wood, stone, grass-blades, all things are the same. This is the best of all, and I have fooled myself therein. All the natural powers being gathered to a head are plunged into the Fathernature, so that they are one, one Son, transcending all the rest and subsisting alone in the paternal nature, or if not the one they are at least the image of the one. This nature, being of God, seeks not what is outside her, nay, this nature, existing in itself, has naught to do with ornament : nature which is of God seeks none other than God’s likeness. [¶6] I was thinking this evening that a likeness is an outwork (preamble). I cannot see a thing unless it has some likeness, some relation to me, neither can I know a thing excepting it is like me. God has all things hidden in himself ; not this and that distinct but one in the same nature. The eye is coloured and also receives colour, the ear not. The ear senses tone and the tongue has taste. It is a case of like to like. The form of the soul and God’s image have the same nature : we being sons. If I had neither eyes nor ears still I might have being. Who robs me of my eyes robs me not therefore of my being nor yet of my life, for my life is seated in the heart. A blow aimed at my eye I parry by a lifting of the hand. A blow at my heart I should stop with any portion of my body. But if someone attempted to cut off my head I should hit out straight from the shoulder in order to preserve my life and being. [¶7] I am fond of saying, You must break the outside to let out the inside : to get at the kernel means breaking the shell. Even so to find nature herself all her likenesses have to be shattered and the further in the nearer the actual thing. On coming to one, where it is all one, she is the same. Who honours God ? He who is ever seeking God’s glory. [¶8] Many years ago I was not ; not long after that my father and my mother eating bread and meat and the vegetables growing in the garden, I became a man. In this my father and my mother were unable to assist, but God made my body without aid and created my soul after the supreme. Thus I became possessed of life {possecli me). This grain of rye has it in its nature to develop into wheat, and it never rests until it has that nature. This corn seed has it in its nature to be all things and pays the penalty of death in order to be all things. And this metal, copper, has it in its nature to be gold, and it will never rest till it has gotten that same nature. Aye, this wood has in its nature the power of turning into stone ; I say more than that : it may indeed become all things if put into the fire and allowed to burn away and be transmuted to the firc-nature ; then same comes to same and has eternally one being. I trow that wood and stone and bone and all the grasses have collectively one being in the first nature. And if so with this nature then how about the nature which is so intrinsically pure that it seeks not either this or that but transcending all the others is simply making for its primitive perfection ? [¶9] I was thinking this evening, there are many heavens. There are some incredulous who will not believe that this bread upon the altar may be changed, that God can do it. (How unworthy, to deny that God is capable of this.) If God has given to nature the power to be all things, how much easier to him must be the changing to his body of this altar bread. If this frail nature from a drop of blood can contrive a man, how much more possible for God to make his body from a bit of bread. Who honours God ? He who is ever seeking God’s glory. This meaning is more obvious albeit the former is the better one. [¶10] The fourth point (is), ‘ they stood afar off and said unto Moses : Moses speak thou to us for we cannot hear God.’ They were standing at a distance, that is the reason they could not hear God, [¶11] ‘ Moses went into the cloud and ascended into the mountain and there he beheld the divine light.’ We see this light best in the dark : in suffering and travail this light is nearest to us, Let God do his best or his worst he is bound to give himself to us whether in travail or distress. There was once a pious dame with many sons, whom they sought to slay. Smiling she said, Grieve not, be of good cheer and remember your heavenly Father, for from me ye have gotten nothing whatsoever. As though to say, Ye have your being straight from God. This applies to us. Our Lord said, ‘ Thy darkness {ix. thy suffering) shall be turned into bright light.’ But I must not love nor covet it. It was said by a master in another place, ‘ The mysterious darkness of the invisible light of the eternal Deity is unknown and never shall be known. And the light of the eternal Father has ever been shining in this darkness and the darkness comprehends not the light. May we arrive at this eternal light. So help us God. Amen.