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1208 210 214 217 217 221 225 226 226 232 233 234 236 238 241 242 245 248 250 257 260 262 265 267 279 306 308 312 334 336 340 348 La Ss ae — nn 1 From other sources than Pfeiffer’s Meister Eckhart. 2 Titles as in Pfeiffer’s text, except xiv and xv. XxX MEISTER ECKHART XI. 1 2 3 XII. The Drowning The Gloss on The Drownine.: XIII. The Flow into the Father : XIV. St John says, ‘I saw the Word in God XV. The Three Creations 2 XVI. The Soul’s Rage . XVII. The Twofold Way ! A XVIII. Commentary on the Gospel of St ohn - XIX. The Beatific Vision ! ; R a ® III. Sayınas . IV. Lisper PosiTtIonum 1 From other sources than Pfeiffer’s Meister Eckhart. PAGE 350 356 363 368 369 371 377 382 389 390 396 408 415 443 I SERMONS AND COLLATIONS Someone complained to Meister Eckhart that no one could understand his sermons. He said, To understand my sermons a man requires three things. He must have conquered strife and be in contemplation of his highest good and be satisfied to do God’s bidding and be a beginner with beginners and naught himself and be so master of himself as to be incapable of anger. Cod. Monac. Germ., 365, Fol. 1926. I THIS IS MEISTER ECKHART FROM WHOM GOD NOTHING HID Dum medium silentium tenerent omnia et nox in suo cursu medium iter haberet etc. (Sap. 18,4). ‘ For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, ete.’ , Here in time we make holiday because the eternal birth which God ~ the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity is now born in time, in human nature. St Augustine says this birth is always happening. But if it happen not in me what does it profit me ? What matters is that it shall happen in me. We intend therefore to speak of this birth as taking place in us: as being consummated in the virtuous soul ; for it is in the perfect soul that God speaks his Word. What I shall say is true only of the perfected man, of him who has walked and is still walking in the way of God; not of the natural undisciplined man who is entirely remote from and unconscious of this birth. ‚There is a saying of the wise man: ‘ When all things lay in the midst of silence then leapt there down into me from on high, from the royal throne, a secret word.’ This sermon is about this word. Concerning it three things are to be noted. The first is, where- abouts in the soul God the Father speaks his Word, where she is receptive of this act, where this birth befalls. It is bound to be in the purest, loftiest, subtlest part of the soul. Verily, an God the Father in his omnipotence had endowed the soul with a still nobler nature, had she received from him anything yet more exalted, then must the Father have delayed this birth for the presence of this greater excellence.
2bound to be in the purest, loftiest, subtlest part of the soul. Verily, an God the Father in his omnipotence had endowed the soul with a still nobler nature, had she received from him anything yet more exalted, then must the Father have delayed this birth for the presence of this greater excellence. The soul in which this birth shall come to pass must be absolutely pure and must live in gentle fashion, quite peaceful and wholly introverted : not running out through the five senses into the manifoldness of creatures, but altogether within and harmonised in her summit. That is its place. Anything inferior is disdained by it. The second part of this discourse has to do with man’s conduct 3 4 MEISTER ECKHART in relation to this act, this interior speaking, this birth: whether it is more profitable to co-operate in it—perhaps by creating in the mind an imaginary image and disciplining oneself thereon by reflecting that God is wise, omnipotent, eternal, or whatever else one is able to excogitate about God—so that the birth may come to pass in us through our own exertion and merit ; or whether it is more profitable and conducive to this birth from the Father to shun all thoughts, words and deeds as well as all mental images and empty oneself, maintaining a wholly God-receptive attitude, such that one’s own self is idle letting God work. Which conduct subserves this birth best ? The third point is the profit and how great it is, which accrues from this birth. Note in the first place that in what I am about to say I intend to avail myself of natural proofs that ye yourselves can grasp, for though I put more faith in the scriptures than myself, nevertheless it is easier and better for you to learn by means of arguments that can be verified. First we will take the words : ‘ In the midst of the silence there was spoken in me a secret word.’ —But, Sir, where is the silence and where the place in which the word is spoken ? As I said just now, it is in the purest part of the soul, in the noblest, in her ground, aye in the very essence of the soul. That is mid-silence for thereinto no creature did ever get, nor any image, nor has the soul there either activity or understanding, therefore she is not aware of any image either of herself or any creature. What- ever the soul effects she effects with her powers. When she under- stands she understands with her intellect. When she remembers she does so with her memory. When she loves she does so with her will. She works then with her powers and not with her essence. Now every exterior act is linked with some means. The power of seeing is brought into play only through the eyes ; elsewhere she can neither do nor bestow such a thing as seeing. And so with all the other senses: their operations are always effected through some means or other.
3not with her essence. Now every exterior act is linked with some means. The power of seeing is brought into play only through the eyes ; elsewhere she can neither do nor bestow such a thing as seeing. And so with all the other senses: their operations are always effected through some means or other. But there is no activity in the essence of the soul ; the faculties she works with emanate from the ground of the essence but in her actual ground there is mid-stillness ; here alone is rest and a habitation for this birth, this act, wherein God the Father speaks his Word, for it is intrinsically receptive of naught save the divine essence, without means. Here God enters the soul with his all, not merely with a part. God enters the ground of the soul. . None can touch the ground of the soul but God only. No creature is admitted into her ground, it must stop outside in her powers. There it sees the image whereby it has been SERMONS AND COLLATIONS 5 drawn in and found shelter. For when the soul-powers contact a creature they set to to make of the creature an image and likeness which they absorb. By it they know the creature. Creatures cannot go into the soul, nor can the soul know anything about a creature which she has not willingly taken the image of into herself. She approaches creatures through their present images ; an image being a thing that the soul creates with her powers. Be it a stone, a rose, a man, or anything else that she wants to know about, she gets out the image of it which she has already taken in and is thus enabled to unite herself with it. But an image received in this way must of necessity enter from without through the senses. Consequently there is nothing so unknown to the soul as herself. The soul, says a philosopher, can neither create nor absorb an image of herself. So she has nothing to know herself by. Images all enter through the senses, hence she can have no image of herself. She knows other things but not herself. Of nothing does she know so little as of herself, owing to this arrangement. Now thou must know that inwardly the soul is free from means and images, that is why God can freely unite with her without form or similitude. Thou canst not but attribute to God without measure whatever power thou dost attribute to a master. The wiser and more powerful the master the more immediately is his work effected and the simpler it is. Man requires many instruments for his external works ; much preparation is needed ere he can bring them forth as he has imagined them. The sun and moon whose work is to give light, in their mastership perform this very swiftly : the instant their radiance is poured forth, all the ends of the world are full of light. More exalted are the angels, who need less means for their works and have fewer images. The highest Seraph has but a single image. He seizes as a unity all that his inferiors regard as manifold.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1208 210 214 217 217 221 225 226 226 232 233 234 236 238 241 242 245 248 250 257 260 262 265 267 279 306 308 312 334 336 340 348 La Ss ae — nn 1 From other sources than Pfeiffer’s Meister Eckhart. 2 Titles as in Pfeiffer’s text, except xiv and xv. XxX MEISTER ECKHART XI. 1 2 3 XII. The Drowning The Gloss on The Drownine.: XIII. The Flow into the Father : XIV. St John says, ‘I saw the Word in God XV. The Three Creations 2 XVI. The Soul’s Rage . XVII. The Twofold Way ! A XVIII. Commentary on the Gospel of St ohn - XIX. The Beatific Vision ! ; R a ® III. Sayınas . IV. Lisper PosiTtIonum 1 From other sources than Pfeiffer’s Meister Eckhart. PAGE 350 356 363 368 369 371 377 382 389 390 396 408 415 443 I SERMONS AND COLLATIONS Someone complained to Meister Eckhart that no one could understand his sermons. He said, To understand my sermons a man requires three things. He must have conquered strife and be in contemplation of his highest good and be satisfied to do God’s bidding and be a beginner with beginners and naught himself and be so master of himself as to be incapable of anger. Cod. Monac. Germ., 365, Fol. 1926. I THIS IS MEISTER ECKHART FROM WHOM GOD NOTHING HID Dum medium silentium tenerent omnia et nox in suo cursu medium iter haberet etc. (Sap. 18,4). ‘ For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, ete.’ , Here in time we make holiday because the eternal birth which God ~ the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity is now born in time, in human nature. St Augustine says this birth is always happening. But if it happen not in me what does it profit me ? What matters is that it shall happen in me. We intend therefore to speak of this birth as taking place in us: as being consummated in the virtuous soul ; for it is in the perfect soul that God speaks his Word. What I shall say is true only of the perfected man, of him who has walked and is still walking in the way of God; not of the natural undisciplined man who is entirely remote from and unconscious of this birth. ‚There is a saying of the wise man: ‘ When all things lay in the midst of silence then leapt there down into me from on high, from the royal throne, a secret word.’ This sermon is about this word. Concerning it three things are to be noted. The first is, where- abouts in the soul God the Father speaks his Word, where she is receptive of this act, where this birth befalls. It is bound to be in the purest, loftiest, subtlest part of the soul. Verily, an God the Father in his omnipotence had endowed the soul with a still nobler nature, had she received from him anything yet more exalted, then must the Father have delayed this birth for the presence of this greater excellence.
2bound to be in the purest, loftiest, subtlest part of the soul. Verily, an God the Father in his omnipotence had endowed the soul with a still nobler nature, had she received from him anything yet more exalted, then must the Father have delayed this birth for the presence of this greater excellence. The soul in which this birth shall come to pass must be absolutely pure and must live in gentle fashion, quite peaceful and wholly introverted : not running out through the five senses into the manifoldness of creatures, but altogether within and harmonised in her summit. That is its place. Anything inferior is disdained by it. The second part of this discourse has to do with man’s conduct 3 4 MEISTER ECKHART in relation to this act, this interior speaking, this birth: whether it is more profitable to co-operate in it—perhaps by creating in the mind an imaginary image and disciplining oneself thereon by reflecting that God is wise, omnipotent, eternal, or whatever else one is able to excogitate about God—so that the birth may come to pass in us through our own exertion and merit ; or whether it is more profitable and conducive to this birth from the Father to shun all thoughts, words and deeds as well as all mental images and empty oneself, maintaining a wholly God-receptive attitude, such that one’s own self is idle letting God work. Which conduct subserves this birth best ? The third point is the profit and how great it is, which accrues from this birth. Note in the first place that in what I am about to say I intend to avail myself of natural proofs that ye yourselves can grasp, for though I put more faith in the scriptures than myself, nevertheless it is easier and better for you to learn by means of arguments that can be verified. First we will take the words : ‘ In the midst of the silence there was spoken in me a secret word.’ —But, Sir, where is the silence and where the place in which the word is spoken ? As I said just now, it is in the purest part of the soul, in the noblest, in her ground, aye in the very essence of the soul. That is mid-silence for thereinto no creature did ever get, nor any image, nor has the soul there either activity or understanding, therefore she is not aware of any image either of herself or any creature. What- ever the soul effects she effects with her powers. When she under- stands she understands with her intellect. When she remembers she does so with her memory. When she loves she does so with her will. She works then with her powers and not with her essence. Now every exterior act is linked with some means. The power of seeing is brought into play only through the eyes ; elsewhere she can neither do nor bestow such a thing as seeing. And so with all the other senses: their operations are always effected through some means or other.
3not with her essence. Now every exterior act is linked with some means. The power of seeing is brought into play only through the eyes ; elsewhere she can neither do nor bestow such a thing as seeing. And so with all the other senses: their operations are always effected through some means or other. But there is no activity in the essence of the soul ; the faculties she works with emanate from the ground of the essence but in her actual ground there is mid-stillness ; here alone is rest and a habitation for this birth, this act, wherein God the Father speaks his Word, for it is intrinsically receptive of naught save the divine essence, without means. Here God enters the soul with his all, not merely with a part. God enters the ground of the soul. . None can touch the ground of the soul but God only. No creature is admitted into her ground, it must stop outside in her powers. There it sees the image whereby it has been SERMONS AND COLLATIONS 5 drawn in and found shelter. For when the soul-powers contact a creature they set to to make of the creature an image and likeness which they absorb. By it they know the creature. Creatures cannot go into the soul, nor can the soul know anything about a creature which she has not willingly taken the image of into herself. She approaches creatures through their present images ; an image being a thing that the soul creates with her powers. Be it a stone, a rose, a man, or anything else that she wants to know about, she gets out the image of it which she has already taken in and is thus enabled to unite herself with it. But an image received in this way must of necessity enter from without through the senses. Consequently there is nothing so unknown to the soul as herself. The soul, says a philosopher, can neither create nor absorb an image of herself. So she has nothing to know herself by. Images all enter through the senses, hence she can have no image of herself. She knows other things but not herself. Of nothing does she know so little as of herself, owing to this arrangement. Now thou must know that inwardly the soul is free from means and images, that is why God can freely unite with her without form or similitude. Thou canst not but attribute to God without measure whatever power thou dost attribute to a master. The wiser and more powerful the master the more immediately is his work effected and the simpler it is. Man requires many instruments for his external works ; much preparation is needed ere he can bring them forth as he has imagined them. The sun and moon whose work is to give light, in their mastership perform this very swiftly : the instant their radiance is poured forth, all the ends of the world are full of light. More exalted are the angels, who need less means for their works and have fewer images. The highest Seraph has but a single image. He seizes as a unity all that his inferiors regard as manifold.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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