The soul is no different from Christ save that the soul has a born nature and a created nature. This Christ has not in his eternal Person. If the soul doffed her born nature and her created nature she would be all the same, just essence itself. I say, put off thy creature ; it is easy to doff the creature for this is a labour of love and the greater the pain the greater the joy.
I Whoso has three things is beloved of God. The first is riddance lof goods ; the second, of friends, and the third is riddance of self.
Meister Eckhart said that in the essence of the soul we may surely see and know God. And the closer acquainted one is in this life with the soul the closer acquainted with God. The only way is to abandon creature and escape from self. Ilarkee. Love creature as I may in God never can I love God in creature as perfectly as in myself. Thou hast to go out of thyself into thyself again ; there lies the home of truth which none may find who looks for it in outward things. Mary Magdalene, when she left creatures and betook herself into her heart, found there our Lord. God is unmixed and pure : I can find God then only in the pure. But my interior soul is more undefiled and pure than any creature ; so my best chance of finding God is down in my own soul. And eke I am the life in God for ‘ All that is in the Father is the life in him,’ John said. In this guise does the Father bear the Son and in this selfsame birth I do proceed from him. Now he declares the Son to be in him, in the very depth of his heart. But since all that was made in him is the life in him therefore I am this life in the innermost heart of God. ‘ And the life was the light of men,’ said John. Mark you, he says the divine light in us is our light wherein we see all things conceived in the mind,
God is being, perfect being, without which are no beings ; for all beings are from his being. May we be this same being. So help us God. Amen.
According to Meister Eckhart, there are seven degrees of contemplation. Whoso would practise contemplation let him seek out a quiet spot and set himself to thinking, first, how noble his soul is, how she has flowed straight out of God, a thought that fills him with a great delight. Having well cogitated this, •next let him think how God must love his soul to make it in the likeness of the Trinity, so that all God is by nature he may be by grace ; whereat he will delight perforce more vehemently still for it is far more noble to be made in the form of the Trinity than merely to come straight from God. — In the third stage he meditates that he has been beloved of God for aye ; the Trinity has been for aye and God has loved the soul for aye. — Fourthly, he reflects that God did ever charge him to enjoy with God what God has aye enjoyed and always shall, God himself namely. At the fifth stage the soul enters into herself and knows God in herself, which happens in this wise : No being can be without being and being feeds on being ; but being cannot live upon this food till this food is converted to the same blessed nature as that which feeds upon it and this applies to being which is being-of-itself. But there is no being-of-itself excepting God, So my soul is living on nothing but God. And by entering into oneself like this one finds God in oneself. If God will that I faint not he must give me being. No being can stand without God so if he means me to have being theii he must give me himself.
The sixth stage is, soul knows hersdf in God. As thus. Everything in God is God. Now my idea has always been in God, is still and ever shall be, therefore my soul is ever one with God and is God and I do find myself in God in the exalted fashion oi being God in God eternally. This brings the expert soul ineffable delight.
At the seventh stage the soul knows God in himself as being without beginning whence all things emanated. This gnosis comes to no man fully in this life for it means the beholding of God. a thing not of this world.
Mind you, all our perfection, our whole happiness, depends or our traversing and transcending creature, time and state and entering the cause which is causeless.
God will never give himself openly to the soul . . . except she bring her husband, her whole free will, to wit.
What the joy of the Lord is none can tell. But mark this much concerning it. The joy of the Lord is the Lord himself none else, the Lord being live, essential, actual intellect whict knows itself and is and lives itself in itself and is the same, I dc not iaddle it with any mode, nay, I divest it of all mode for he himself is modeless mode who is and is glad because he is. This is the joy of the Lord and is the Lord himself. White is not black nor is aught naught. From naught naught can be taken, From aught aught can be taken and it is wholly thus with God, Of aught that is wholly in God naught remains. Soul joined to God has in him once for all all that is at all in absolute perfection. There soul forgets things and herself, as she is in herself, waking up in God, godlike as God in her, so much in love with self in him, so indiscriminately one with him, she enjoys naught but him, delighting in him. What more should she know or desire ?
God being still sets everything going. So desirable a thing starts them all running back into that from whence they came ; to that which stays unchanged in its own self ; and the nobler the thing the more blithely it runs.
God can no more abide his likes than he could abide not being God. Likeness is not a thing that can belong to God. There is sameness in the Godhead, in eternity ; but likeness is not sameness. If I am same I am not like. Likeness is no form of being in the one ; there is sameness for me in the unity, not likeness.
The first work of God in the soul is the birth of his Son in the soul and from this act his other gifts do flow into the soul, as grace and virtue. What God can do in the soul is to bring forth his Son in the soul and this must needs be. It is characteristic of God that he cannot refrain, he must beget his Son in me and in you all. I say, God begets me his Son and so say I of you all as well. That we are all born of God his Son, is nothing wonderful ; we can see this with creatures. Now mark my words, I say, this man is the not ; I am not what you are and you are not what I am. Suppress the not and we are just the same ; take naught from creatures and creatures are all the same. The remainder is one. What is this one ? It is the Son the Father bears. To be the actual Son the Father bears we must cancel the naught of creatures. This naught which all creatures are e\imbers a man and stops him being the very Son begotten of the Father. God bids us part with naught so as to be the selfsame Son the Father bears. For this man must be one ; he must escape from images and forms ere he can be the actual Son the Father brings to birth ; he must be rid of everything, not merely alien things, but eke his own ; for God’s Son and man’s son are not two sons, they are one Son, one nature ; so it behoves a man to flee from other natures as well as from his own and stand in the bare nature of the Son in the Godhead, in that only. What I say is that if one is to be the actual Son the Father bears one must give up own nature altogether. — ‘ But many people have natures so alien to their own, how then can they surrender their own nature ? ’ — We always must surrender our own natures in order to become the very Son the Father bears. As St Paul says, ‘ We must be changed into his Son.’ In other words, the Son alone being beloved of the Father, whatever things the Father loves he must love in his Son and inasmuch as we become this Son the Father bears we do be changed into his Son of love and are his very Son. Of this be sure. God will love them in us and in all creatures in the guise of his alonebegotten Son. Provided we abandon naught, become estranged from naught. We must relinquish all things, must forget all things, keeping nothing but the single nature of the Son. It seems a great deal but is not. It is a simple thing God bids us do, he bids us give up naught. Whoso is without why has given up naught and by doing this we gain the whole world and abundance. To the good man all things come, be sure of that. If I am better than you are, all the good you do and what you have is rather mine than yours for what you have you have in naught. But if I have abandoned naught I am the very Son the Father bears and everything belongs to me in God.
What could be sweeter than to have a friend with whom, as with thyself, thou canst discourse all that is in thy heart ?
When God made man the innermost heart of the Godhead was put into man.
What is God’s speaking ? The Father regarding himself with pure perception sees into his own simple uncompounded essence and there descrys the whole idea of creature. By doing so he speaks himself, his Word being clear understanding and this is his Son.
Speaking of man we mean a person ; speaking of manhood we mean human nature.
Doctors define what nature is. It is the thing that essence can take on. God took on manhood and not man. I say : Christ was the first man. How so ? What is first in intention is last in execution, as the roof is the finish of the house.
The uppermost soul-face has two acts. By one she knows God, his gift and his emanation. Therein she loves God today and knows him, and not tomorrow. The image lies not in these powers owing to their impermanence. There is another action of the upper face, which is concealed. In the concealment lies the image. Five things belong to this image. First, it is cast by another. Secondly, it answers to that same. Thirdly, it emanates therefrom. Fourthly, it is like thereto in nature ; not that it is God’s nature but it is a substance which is self-sub - sistent ; pure light-emanation from God and differing from him only by the fact of knowing God. Fifthly, it tends towards the exemplar whence it came. Two things adorn this image. The one, its being arrayed like him. The other, its having in it a somewhat of eternity. The soul has three powers. Not in them lies the image. But she owns a single power, namely, the active intellect. Now according to Augustine and the New Philosophers, memory, understanding and will are found herein together, nor can these three be told apart. This is the secret image answering to God, God shining straight into this image.
It is God’s will that we be holy and that we do what makes us holy. Holiness is a matter of will and wisdom. According to the best authorities holiness lies in the ground, in the summit of the soul, where soul is in her cause, where she has outgrown names and her own powers withal. For powers too are the deficiency. We cannot give a name to God, nor can we name the soul in her own nature. The point where these twain meet is holiness.
Essence is so noble it gives being to all things. Were there no essence angels would be like stones.
A learned doctor said on one occasion when preaching in the capital, that there was once a man, we read of him in holy scripture, who went a full eight years yearning for God to indicate some person who should instruct him in the way of truth. Then in a moment of vehement desire there came a voice from God and said, ‘ Get thee to the temple, there shalt thou find a man to set thee on the path to truth.’ And he went and found a beggar, his feet all cracked and dirty, his rags scarce worth three pence. He greeted him, ‘ Give thee good morrow ! ’ He answered, ‘ I n’er had a bad.’ — ‘ How now I ’ quotha, ‘ Give thee good luck ! ’ He answered, ‘ I never had ill.’ Again he adventured, ‘ God bless thee I How sayst thou. Sirrah, to that ? ’ He said, ‘ I was never accursed.’ — ‘ God ’a mercy I ’ he cried, ‘ unriddle me this, I trow it is beyond me ! ’ Said he, ‘ I will. Thou dost wish me good morrow and I say I ne’er had a bad. Hungry I praise God ; freezing I praise God ; poor and forsaken withal I praise God so I never have a bad morrow. Thou dost wish me good luck ; I say, I have never had ill. Whatsoever God gives or may lay up for me, be it sour or sweet, good or bad, I accept all from God for the best so I have no ill hap. Thou dost call down God’s blessing upon me. I answer, I am not accursed. I have given my will up to God’s, every whit, so that anything God wills I will. That is why I am never unblessed, because I have no will but God’s. — ‘ Marry, good Sir, suppose God chose to cast thee into hell, what wouldt thou say to that ? ’ — ‘ To cast me into hell ? ’ quoth he, ‘ that would spite himself ! Yet if he cast me into hell I should still have two arms to clasp him with. One arm is true humility and this I should put under him, embracing him the while with the other arm of love. Better,’ he said, ‘ to be in hell with God than be in heaven without him.’
Said Meister Eckhart to a beggar, ‘ Good morrow, brother.’ ‘ The same to you Sir, but I never have bad ones.’ — ‘ How so, brother ? ’ he asked. — ‘ All God gives me to bear I eheerfully suffer for his sake deeming myself unworthy, so never am I sad or sorry.’ — ‘ Where didst thou find God first ? ’ he asked. — ‘ Leaving all creatures I found God.’ — ‘ Where didst thou leave God, brother ? ’ he said. —
‘ In every man’s pure heart.’ — ‘ What manner of man art thou, brother ? ’ quoth he. — ‘ I am a king,’ he said. — ‘ Of what ? ’ he queried. — ‘ Of my own flesh. Whatsoever my spirit desires of God my flesh is more eager, more ready to do and to bear than my mind to accept.’ — ‘ Kings have kingdoms,’ he said : ‘ where is thy realm, brother ? ’ — ‘ In my own soul.’ — ‘ How so, brother ? ’ he asked. — ‘ When, having locked the doors of my five senses,
I am desiring God with all my heart then do I find God in my soul as clearly and as joyful as he is in life eternal.’ — He said, ‘ Granting thee holy, who made thee so brother ? ’ — ‘ Sitting still and thinking deep and keeping company with God has gotten me to heaven, for never could I rest in aught inferior to God. Now having found him I have peace and do rejoice eternally in him and that is more than any temporal kingship. No outward act however perfect but hinders the interior life.’
Meister Eckhart met a lovely naked boy. He asked him whence he came. He said, ‘ I come from God.’ — ‘ Where hast thou left him ? ’ — ‘ In virtuous hearts.’ — ‘ Whither away ? ’ — ‘ To God.’ — ‘ Where wilt thou find him ? ’ — ‘ Leaving all creatures.’ — ‘ Who art thou ? ’ — ‘ A king.’ — ‘ Where is thy kingdom ? ’ — ‘ In my own heart.’ — ‘ Mind no one shares it with thee.’ — ‘ So I do.’ He took him to his cell and said, ‘ Take any coat thou wilt.’ — ‘ Then I should be no king ’ (said he), and vanished.
It was Gk)d himself that he had had with him a little spell.
A daughter came to the Dominican convent asking for Meister Eckhart. The porter said, ‘ Who shall I tell him ? ’ She, See also Spamer’a Textc, C, 6.
answered, ‘ I do not know.’ — ‘ Why do you not know ? ’ he enquired. — ‘ Because,’ she said, ‘ I am not either virgin or [Spouse, not man nor wife nor widow nor lady nor lord nor wench nor thrall.’ The porter went off to Meister Eckhart. ‘ Do come out,’ hsaid, ‘ to the strangest wight that ever I heard and let me come too and you put your head out and say, ‘ Who is asking for me ? ’ He did so. She said to him what she had said to the porter. Quoth he, ‘ My child, thou hast a shrewd and ready tongue, I prithee now thy meaning ? ’ — ‘ An I were virgin,’ she replied, ‘ I were in my first innocence ; spouse, I were bearing the eternal Word within my soul unceasingly ; were I a man I should grapple with my faults ; wife, should be faithful to my husband. Were I a widow I should be ever yearning for my one and only love ; as lady I should render fearful homage ; as wench I should be living in meek servitude to God and to all creatures and as thrall I should be working hard, doing my best tamely to serve my Master. Of all these things I am no single one who am the one thing as the other running thither.’ The doctor went away and told his students, ‘ I have been listening to the most perfect person I ween I ever met.’
This fragment is entitled, ‘ Meister Eckhart’s Daughter.’
Meister Eckhart’s Feast
Meister Eckhart tells how once upon a time there came a beggar to Cologne on Rhine in quest of poverty and the life of truth. Accosted him a noble dame, ‘ Eat with me, brother, of God’s charity ! ’ — ‘ Gladly,’ quoth he. When they were seated she encouraged him, ‘ Eat heartily, be not ashamed.’ — ‘ ’Tis wrong, he said, ‘ to eat too much, to eat too little is wrong too ; the just mean lies between : I will eat as a beggar.’ — ‘ What is a beggar ? ’ she asked. — He said, ‘ It means three things. First, being dead to natural things. Next, not having inordinate desire of possessions. Thirdly, begrudging suffering to everyone except oneself.’ — ‘ Tell me,’ she questioned, ‘ what is poverty of the inner man ? ’ — ‘ That also means three things,’ he said. ‘ First, complete detachment from creatures, which are out of God, in time and in eternity. Secondly, abject humility of the outward and the inward man. Thirdly, an active interior life ; the mind unceasingly wrought up to God.’ — ‘ What is poverty of spirit ? ’ she asked. — ‘ You want to know too much,’ he said. — ‘ I can never know too much,’ said she, ‘ of God’s glory and man’s happiness.’ — ‘ True,’ he returned. ‘ That again means three things. First, not knowing aught but God in time and in eternity. Secondly, not seeking God outside oneself. Thirdly, not owning any property that one conveys from place to place.’ — ‘ But surely Meister Eckhart, our father, must get from out his cell the sermons he preaches from his pulpit ? ’ — ‘ Not he, he said. — ‘ Whence then ?/ (she asked). — ‘The more temporal the more personal, the more personal the more temporal. — ‘ I trow, she said, ‘ this guest is not out of Bohemia.’ Quoth he, ‘ The sun that shines here in Cologne is shining also in the town of Prague.’ — ‘ Explain, she begged. He said, ‘ ’Tis not my place with Meister Eckhart present.’ Meister Eckhart said, ‘ He who knows nothing of the truth from within, if he woo it without shall find it too within. — ‘ The reckoning is paid,’ she cried. And he : ‘ Lady, you furnish the wine. — ‘ I am not loath, she answered, ‘ an you ask me.’
(So Meister Eckhart asked her), ‘ Wherein do we divine the working of the Holy Ghost within our souls ? She answered, ‘ In three things. First, in the waning day by day of personal things, desires and natural love. Next, in the waxing of divine love and of grace from day to day. Last, in the eager charity which moves us to bestir ourselves on our fellow-man’s behalf before our own.’ Quoth he, ‘ Our Lord’s friends prove it. Anon he asked, ‘ How does the spiritual man divine God’s presence at his orisons or exercises ? ’ She answered, ‘ By three things. First, by the object he sets before his chosen, world scorn and body suffering, to wit. Next, by a growth in grace commensurate with the love betwixt himself and God. The third one is thit God does never leave him without hint of some fresh truth.’ — ‘ That is, of course, the case,’ he said. ‘ Now tell me, how does he know if what he does is wholly in accordance ♦with the sovran will of God ? She answered, ‘ By three things. First, clear consciousness never fails him. Secondly, he has union with God without break. Thirdly, the heavenly Father keeps giving his Son birth in him, in inspiration.’ Quoth Meister Eckhart, ‘ Were every reckoning as well paid as this one for the wine there’s many a soul in purgatory would this day be in life eternal. Whereon the mendicant chimed in, ‘ What more remains it is the Doctor’s turn to pay. — ‘ Leave the old to their age,’ protested Meister Eckhart. — ‘Then love shall settle it,’ the beggar said, ‘ that never faileth.’
Quoth the lady, ‘ Prithee father, how does one know oneself the heavenly Father’s child ? ’ He answered, ‘ By three things. First, one does everything for love. Next, one takes everything the same from Go. Thirdly, one has no hope in anyone but God.
Quoth the beggar, ‘ Prithee father, how are we to tell if virtue is doing her perfect work in us ? ’ He answered, ‘ By three things, love of God for God’s sake, good for good’s sake, truth for truth’s sake.’
Quoth the Doctor, ‘ My children, how lives the teacher of the truth ? ’ The lady said, ‘ He practises what he preaches.’ The beggar cried, ‘Agreed. But the truth in his heart no words can say.’
As the eternal Word is the birth of the heavenly Father, so is the will of God the birth and the becoming of all creatures.
This is Meister Eckhart’s Feast