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 posses- sions. 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 un- ceasingly 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,
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not knowing aught but God in time and in eternity. Secondly, not seeking God outside oneself. Thirdly, not owning any pro- perty 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 ? i (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 work- ing 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 ourown.’ 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 that 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 accord- ance 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,’ pro- tested Meister Eckhart.—‘ Then love shall settle it,’ the beggar said, ‘ that never faileth.’ ithe Quoth the lady, * Prithee father, how does one know oneself the heavenly Father’s child ?’ Heanswered, ‘ Bythreethings. First, one does everything forlove. Next, one takes everything the same from God. Thirdly, one has no hope in anyone but God.’
18 Béheim (Bohemia) I interpret thus: 6é stands for beatus ; heim, domus oe mr is to be interpreted as own house or fixed abode.’ Wilhelm von enden.
Sayings 441
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
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Liber Positionum
1. Here the disciple is supposed to question his master, saying, * Tell me, could God an he would have made all things as good as he is himself ?’ The master said, Yes, what God wills he can do.—- * Are things all made of his own nature ?’ The master said, No.
2. The disciple inquired, ‘ What is the soul made of ? ’—She is made out of nothing. —* Where did God get the nothing he made the soul out of ? —Some say he got it in himself. That is not the case for in God is not nothing : that which is in God is God. — ‘But God has all things in himself and without God is nothing. Surely then he gets this nothing out of himself? ’—The master said, No, not at all! He gets it neither in himself nor out of * himself, nor above himself nor below himself. There is no getting nothing from inside or out. Ifit were gotten anywhere it would not be nothing. Anything that does this: takes nothing from nowhere and makes of it something, is God. So runs the argument that the nothing is gotten from nowhere. They asked St Augustine about this mysterious nothing out of which the soul is made and where, apart from place, this nothing hides ? His explanation was that this nothing is openly enclosed in betwixt God and God- head, in his almighty power. Were it in close confinement it would not be naught : it either would have place or else be God by nature, the soul being made of the nature of God. But it is not. Ergo, this nothing is at large in the almighty power of the Father to whom it is as easy to get from nowhere naught as aught. It is confined to his omnipotence to be able to take naught from nowhere and from it create aught. Whatever can do this is God.
8. Now another question. Dionysius says, Tell me, what about the soul who is in full enjoyment of her rights : what is it that she has by rights at the height of her perfection ?—By rights the soul has knowledge : clear understanding of all things andisso mellowed — by love as to be all unwitting, when people love and hate her, whether she be not dearer to her haters than her lovers. And this soul has by rights absolute freedom from herself and things : sunk in the sovran good she cannot find herself at all. Here we have two natures. One, the thing that sinks; the other, what it sinks in. She sinks eternally but never touches bottom. This
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sinking shows her two things. In sinking from herself she is more God than creature. The fact that she does sink proclaims . her creaturely for deity sinks not.—But when she has yielded her aught to his aught and her naught is subsisting in naught, then what will belong to her aught and her naught ?—None can tell, but she has no more than her rights. That is the answer.
4. Another question is, has the soul more enjoyment in the source of joy or in the vision of its wonders ?—Consider what she has in each. In admiring its wonders she obeys the selfsame wondrous law that the first cause laid down for all causes as befitting each. But soul does not stop here, she transcends wonder. The wonders have become her potential being. Hence her enjoyment is much keener in the source of joy than in the beholding of its wonders. In the source is her abode, not in its wondrous vision. There all wonders end ;° there all is one to her and one in all. That is the answer to this question.
5. The question is, if the Godhead has all things how comes it then neither to give nor to beget ? If.it does not beget it is not Father.—The explanation is this. Man’s nature is called man- hood, and manhood as such neither acts nor begets ; it acts and begets in a human person. And the same with Godhood : it.is all-containing and yet not active and productive in itself. What it does is all done by the Persons in person and nature. The God- head is called fruitful inasmuch as it is brought forth in the Persons in Person and essence.
6. An angel may do three things in the soul. Either he con- fronts her with the scriptures or with the holy life or, again, with the example of Christ Jesus, showing her something clearly as though in a mirror wherein one may espy some blemish on the human face and so proceed to cure it. Thus she sees herself, what she still lacks ; where-she is not as yet all that she ought to be; what things to leave and what to keep; how much or little she should be to things: all this she plainly sees. And whatever an angel can do the devil may very well copy.— Have we no means of telling, Sir, if it is an angel or the devil ? ’—Yes, they are ike different. Tests for angel and the devil are as follows. An an angel does is done in the light, orderly and clearly, and the uch! rejoices in the amiable presence of the angel ; also it is a sign to know him by that she is left with a sense of pleasure. In counter- feiting this the devil makes it vague, confused, ambiguous, and the soul, affrighted at this haunting ofthe fiend, is restless and depressed and by this she may know it is the devil.
The angel talks virtue to the soul, the fiend talks virtue too but God does not talk virtue.—* For the love of God, good Sir, tell us what you mean.’—I will explain. The angel talks virtue to the