---
title: "Sermons, Collations and Tractates"
author: "Meister Eckhart"
translator: "C. de B. Evans"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Mystics"
section: 44 of 132
url: https://scriptura.si/works/eckhart-sermons-evans/44/
cite: "Meister Eckhart, tr. C. de B. Evans, Sermons, Collations and Tractates, section 44. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/eckhart-sermons-evans/44/"
---

# 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.

## 44. Sermon 44 · In All Things I Seek Rest

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/eckhart-sermons-evans/44/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/eckhart-sermons-evans/44/#p-N

[¶0] In omnibus requiem queesivi (EccL 24iji). things I seek rest.

[¶1] The masters tell us that God made the powers of the soul by nature receptive to their likes, thus the car is always hearing and the eye is always seeing. What my eye sees is one with it, just like the air with light. The nature of the eye is to see colour, otherwise it would not be an eye. And conversely with colour, by nature it affects the eye or it would not be colour. To think of it as colour yet incommunicable to the eye would be to deny that it is colour. I can see the minster. But no one sees it in me. For a thing to be visible in me, it must be so placed that its reflection can be seen in me. Standing in front of me and face to face a man could see his image in my eye. Stand over flowing water and you cannot see yourself. But supposing it is clear, then where it is collected and still enough for a reflection you can see your form in it. They say glass is transparent, like a crystal. But cover it with lead or wax and it reflects : it gives an image of whatever stands before it, perfect in every detail.

[¶2] God made the soul, her highest power, her best, in order to beget himself therein. There, says a philosopher, begetter and begotten are the same and there is neither time nor place nor matter. Matter means gross bodily things ; it is intractable and hinders. Hence it has been said that if the Father could he would make himself. But he cannot, so he makes his like.

[¶3] Our Lord said, ‘ I dwell in Jacob and I rest in Israel.’ Jacob stands for riddance. God is gotten nowhere excepting in the soul that has put all creatures under her feet. St Augustine says, God is being born within the soul the whole time without ceasing, but not born to us to whom he is not manifest but hidden. As long as God is hidden in the soul by aught, he is not born to us, and you may be quite sure that God is never born to any soul excepting she has put all creatures under her feet : where there is no other there God begets himself, not his likeness, his own self : God and God. Well and truly then the Son may say, ‘ I dwell in Jacob and in Israel 1 rest. And said he : ‘ My Father sent me and he engendered in me that which is my nature : that I am being born all the time within the soul who is pure enough for him to see himself in.’ There God is at rest and the soul reposes in God. To deprive God of resting in the soul would be to deprive him of his deity. To rob him of it even in one’s thoughts is to rob him of his Godhood, since he is pleased to rest in all things. David says : ‘ My Lord said to my heart : thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee in the reflection of the Holy Ghost,’ and again he said : ‘ I have begotten thee in my innermost heart, in the depths of my soul ; I have spread my roots, I have established myself in the city of Zion and my power in Jerusalem.’ The soul in Zion, who has transcended things and is dwelling in her central depth, in her docs God give birth to his inmost self. The heavenly Father said to his only Son : As I begat thee in my inmost heart, even so I charge thee by thy divine nature that thou comest not to birth save in tl\c innermost recesses of the soul. — Whosoever would deny to God that he should beget himself in this way in the soul would deny him his God-nature. May God thus beget himself in us, So help us God. Amen.