162. St Dionysius says the highest spirits are poured into the lower in succession, and the lowest are poured into the soul. Now the question is, can the soul receive at all without the aid or knowledge of superior angels ? I answer. Grant one spirit is more toward than the rest then anything received by the other spirits will be known beforehand to this spirit which is better placed than any of the others. Thus a Seraph is more open to divine inspiration than any single spirit in this life and for two reasons. One is that the angel being pure spirit cannot be poured into the soul. While sharing with the body she has no accom- modation for the angel. Secondly, the angel is in the condition of ever beholding the divine light and that is not for any soul in this life. Hence Seraph is more apt to receive God’s inspiration and what’ all spirits receive that spirit knows who is more apt than all the rest. Seraph is not the means of its reception, but, flying as he does nearer to the source of the divine light, it is apparent to him what other spirits are getting of that light. In this sense souls get nothing without the angels knowing.
But let us see, in the working of the soul, if we cannot find some secret way in which enlightened souls receive without the Seraph’s knowledge. Well, as you know, the soul animates the members of the body all unbeknownst to those same members. And though life runs so secretly into all the limbs that they are unaware of its mysterious flow, the work of life is none the less carried on in them. The fact is, God instils his life into the soul and into every spirit surreptitiously : no Seraph knows about this stealthy stream of life. Its reception by the soul is a clandestine act. How should Seraph know ? He knows nothing of himself or of the soul. That is one thing the soul receives without the higher angels knowing.
‘The other she receives in the mysterious spark of her own nature, her undivided likeness. But when like meets like there is no mean between them. Like gives like its likeness all unknown to its unlike, in unbroken union. But Seraph is unlike the soul. A Seraph, as you know, is spirit not embodied in any sort of body... But soul is spirit embodied in something of the kind. And secondly to Seraph in his created nature there came all at once and without addition what he this day possesses in his vision of the eternal light ; for he is constant in his likeness to God. Here the soul is different from the angels for in the reflection of her like
Liber Positionum 481
she receives a secret influx unknown to any angel. It has been said by John, a sage of Greece, that the likeness of the soul consists in perfect likeness to that which has no like. Dionysius calls the angels ‘divine minds.’ And St Bernard says of those who lead angelic lives while in the flesh that into them there flows the mind of God as it does into the angels. O thou God turned God in thy temporal unified mind, thou spirit inspired into the oneness of God, stand up and do thy crowning work !
You ask how the spirit stands up ? He stands on his two feet, understanding and love, and oversteps all perishable things lest he should foul his feet with matter of corruption.—And what is his crowning work ?—The clear and naked vision of the highest good, God yonder, wherein the highest good shall bathe the spirit in the light of exquisite consciousness. Then shall thou look and see !—Do the light-streams of the highest good affect the spirit ?— —When the Sovran Good floods the spirit with light the spirit is borne up above its natural abode.
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Meister Eckhart was besought by his good friends, “Give us one last word before you go.’ He said, I will give you a rule which is the sum of all my arguments, the key to the whole theory and practice of the truth. 5
It very often happens that a thing seems small to us which is of greater moment in God’s sight than what looms large in ours. Wherefore it behoves us to take alike from God everything he sends us without ever thinking or looking to see which is greatest or highest or best but following blindly God’s lead, that.is to say, our own feeling, our strongest dietates, what we are most prompted to do. Then God gives us the most in the least without fail.
People often shirk the least and prevent themselves getting the most in the least. They are wrong. God is everywise, the same in every guise to him who can see him the same. There is much searching of heart as to whether one’s promptings come from God or no ; but this we can soon tell for if we find ourselves aware of, privy to, God’s will above all when we follow our own impulse, our clearest intimations, then we may take it that they come from God.
Some people make believe to find God as a light or savour ; they may find a light or a savour but that is not to find God. According to one scripture, God shines in the dark where every now and then we may catch a glimpse of him. Where to us God shows least he is often most. So it behoves us to take God the same in every mode and in every thing.
Someone may say, But if I do take God alike in every mode and every thing my mind refuses to abide in that mode or in this one as in that.— Then I say, he is wrong. For finding God in one way rather than another, I allow due credit, but that is not the best. God is everywise, alike in every guise to one who can find him the same. Knowing one guise, such and such, is not knowing God. Finding this or that is not finding God. God is everywise, the same in every guise to one who can see him the same.
Someone may object, But to find God in every mode and in every thing do I not need some special way ?—In whatever way you find God best and are most aware of him that way pursue. Should another way appear quite different from the first you will
Liber Positionum 483
do right in quitting that to close with God in this one which appears as in the one forsworn. It is a counsel of perfection in this manner to attain to such a final certainty and peace that we can see God and are able to enjoy him in any guise and in any thing without having to stop and look for him at all: a boon accorded me. For this and to this end all works are wrought and on the whole works help. The things that do not help let us eschew.
We thank thee, heavenly Father, for giving us thy only Son in whom thou givest thine own self and all things. We pray thee, heavenly Father, as thou has given us thy only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and in whom thou dost deny us naught, nor wouldst nor couldst not, hear us in him and make us pure and free from all our many faults, uniting us with him in thee. Amen.
THEOLOGY LIBRARY CLAREMONT, CALIF.
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Meister Eckhart, by Franz Pfeiffer, Leipzig, 1857; trans- lation, with some omissions and additions, by C. de B. Evans.
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A B5 London, J. M. Watkins, 1924-31. vl 2v. 22 cm.
“In the following translation ‚of vol. 1, the six last and doubtful sermons have been omitted and a few other numbers of Parts r and have been replaced by substitutes, either discoveries of Pfeiffer’s or from independent sources.”’—ıvol. I, p. xiii.
Vol. Ir has title: The works of Meister Eckhardt ... volume II, con- taining, besides the ‘lost’ Book of Benedictus and Pfeiffer’s Tractate Xvil, a number of sermons form the Oxford codex entitled ‘The para-
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