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 cumbers a man and stops him being the very Son begotten of the Father. God bids us part with naught so as to be ähe 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, what- ever things the Father loves he must love in his Son and inas- much 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 alone- begotten Son. Provided we abandon naught, become estranged from naught. We. must relinquish all things, must forget all
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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 abund- ance. ‘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. Isay: 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 theirimpermanence. 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
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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 defi- ciency. 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 scrip- ture, 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!’ quotha, ‘Give thee good luck!’ He answered, ‘I never had ill.’ Again he adventured, ‘ God bless thee! How sayst thou, Sirrah, to that?’ He said, ‘ I was never accursed.’—‘ God ’a mercy !’ 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
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hell, what wouldst 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 cheerfully 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 God 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
1 See also Spamer’s Texte, CO, 5.
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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,’ he said, ‘ 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.’