take it in: it must be either light or abstract mind. The heavens transcend time and are the cause of time. One philosopher maintains that the heavens are too lofty in their nature to stoop to be the cause of time. It is not in their nature that they are the cause of time : it is in their revolution that, timeless, they give rise to time, i.e. in the defection of the heavens. My looks are not my nature, they are accidents of nature : our soul is far above them, out of sight in God. And hence I say, not only above time but hid in God. That is what heaven means. Everything mortal spells deficieney : rise and fall, growth and decay. King David sings, ‘A thousand years in God’s sight are as a day that is past’: for all the future and the past yonder are in the now. May we find this now, So help us God. Amen.
XXXIV! ST DIONYSIUS SPEAKS OF THREE KINDS OF LIGHT
St Dionysius speaks of three kinds of light the soul has who attains to pure knowledge of God. The first is natural, the second ghostly and the third divine.
Now consider what this natural light is and how far it helps her to know God. , The soul innately knows that existing things are not of themselves. But there must be one thing that is of itself and from none but itself: whatever that is it created all things. /
Further, the soul innately understands that the good which is scattered among things is as a whole in the one cause of things. Also, it is natural to the soul to love each thing so far as it is good. And when her natural intellect stumbles on the cause of things, whose good, broadcast in things, is as a whole in their common cause, then this natural perception provokes in her a natural love towards this cause of all things.
All creatures are infirm and changeful, not in reality (which is exempt) but in the first stages of perfection. St Augustine says, The soul cannot dwell for long upon one thought but lapses from it into others.. Neither can she entertain several thoughts at once ; she must leave one and die to it to quicken in another. But God has no community with creatures, wherefore it is evident that there is no deficiency in him. He has no community with creatures ; but this applies alone to God, and in so far as the soul is like him she is without defect. By nature the soul knows and loves God above all things. ;
The second light is ghostly ; it originates in faith. But the
1 Jostes, No. 69.
Sermons and Collations 95
whole content of faith is beyond the scope of the nature of the soul. The faith is, that three Persons are in the same nature and the same nature in three Persons. No natural light or intellect is adequate for this, for no natural light dffords a likeness of it. What the three Persons do, or are capable of doing, is the product of their unity ; for though there are three Persons they do not act as three but they function as one God. That is a ghostly light whereby the soul in faith can actually see that this is so, (a light) such as her natural mind could never.give her. <=.
The third light is the light of glory, divine light. This the soul
receives into the chief power of the soul. In this light we see God with nothing between. So far as this light sinks into her chief power so far is God immediately perceived. In this light the soul divines the noble nature of all things in God, for all that ever issued forth or is issuing forth or ever shall, has in God eternal life and being; not defective as it is in creatures but as his very being for it is his nature. God has his own being not from naught, he has it of his proper nature which in itself is truly aught though naught to the intelligence of creature.
This nature is causeless, therefore it is unfathomable except to causeless understanding. Creaturely intelligence is finite, so it has a cause; hence it cannot fathom causeless mind, not Christ nor his humanity. Where God is beholding his own nature, which is groundless, it is incomprehensible except to groundless understanding. This understanding is none other than his nature is itself: only God in his own nature can conceive himself. This conception is the understanding wherein, self- revealed, God manifests in light that no man can attain to. As St Paul says, ‘ God dwells in light unapproachable.’
Stand in the Gate
Dominus dicit: sta in porta domus domini ‘et predica verbum istud (Jer. 7,). The Lord says, ‘Stand. in the gate of God’s house and proclaim his word, extol his word.’ The heavenly Father speaks one Word and that he speaks eternally and in this Word expends he all his might: his entire God-nature he utters in this Word and the whole of creatures. This Word lies hidden in the soul unnoticed and beyond our ken, and were it not for rumours in the ground of hearing we should never heed it; but all sounds and voices have to cease and silence, perfect stillness, reign. This is a meaning I will not pursue.
Stand in the gate. Who stands there, his limbs are orderly
yf
96 Meister Eckhart
disposed. He is about to speak; the head of the soul is held stiffly up. The ordered is subject to an order which is higher than itself. Creatures are not of the order of God till the soul’s natural light, wherein they get their being, overshadows them, and the angelic light overshadows the light of the soul preparing and adapting it for divine light to work in; for God works not in corporal things, he works in the eternal. That is why the soul must be recollected and integrated to the spirit. It is there God works and there all works are agreeable to God. Never a thing is to God’s liking unless it is wrought there.
Stand in the gate in the house of God, that is, his unity of essence. One is best kept by itself. So the unity stands by God and keeps God together, adding nothing. There he sits in his own presence, in his is-ness, all in himself, nowhere out of himself. But as he melts he runs out. He melts and runs out in his good-
‚2 mess which, as I have explained, consists of knowledge and love.
Knowledge is the flux, for knowledge is hotter than love. But
"two are better than one. And this knowledge is laden with love. % Love is fooled and caught by kindness: in love I hang about .” «the gate turning a blind eye to the authentic vision. Even
J : “stones _ have love, a love that seeks the ground. If I insist on
goodness in the first effusion and seize this at the point where it is good, then I shall seize the gate, not God himself. Knowledge _is the better, as being the head and front of love. Love is the will to, the intention. No single thought attaches to this know- ledge: wholly detached and self-forsaken it runs all bare into the arms of God and grasps him in himself.
Lord it is meet that thy house be holy and a house of prayer. What is prayer? It is the practice of pure being and glorying therein. What is the glory? The arraying of man in the likeness of God in him. But while any image exists in the soul there is no glorifying God therein, as in a prayer-house, in the length of days. I do not mean days here: when I say length without length that means the length; breadth without breadth means the breadth. When I speak of all time I mean above time and above it, as I have explained, there is no here or now.
The woman asked our Lord when we ought to pray. Our Lord replied, ‘The hour cometh but not yet, when true worshippers shall worship in spirit and in truth.” For God is a spirit and they must worship in spirit and in truth that which is truth itself. Which we are not: true we may be, but there is false mixed with it. For ye do not exist in God in that first eruption where truth comes spouting from its source. In the
. gate of God’s house the soul has to stand and trumpet forth his
Word. Everything which is in the soul has to utter praise, standing,
heat une bre Se SERMONS AND COLLATIONS eid gr
deaf to all the world, in silence and in peace, as I described the angels as sitting there with God. In that choir of wisdom and of burning God on a sudden declares himself to the soul plighting her his troth for good and all. It is the Father begetting his Son and in his Word he takes such huge delight, so fond he is of it, that he néver stops but goes on pledging his Word the whole
time : timelessly, that is to.say. And here we must observe that plig
a PT nn ae
time. Meet for thine house are holiness and praise, there must be nothing there that does not praise thee.
Our theologians ask, what praises God? Likeness does. Any likeness to God that lives in the soul redounds to the glory of God. Things at all different from God do not glorify God. A portrait, for example, reflects credit on the painter who embodies in it his dearest conception of his art and makes it the image of himself. The likeness of the portrait praises the author without words. Of little worth is spoken praise or praying with the lips. Our Lord said on one occasion, ‘ Ye pray, not knowing what prayer is. There shall come again true prayers, praying to my Father not in words but in spirit and in truth.” What is prayer? Dionysius. says, ‘The mind’s ascent to God, that is what prayer means.’ It is a heathen who observes that where spirit is and unity and eternity there God will be at work. Where flesh is warring against spirit; where disruption is warring against union ; where time is warring with eternity, there God works not: he can do nothing with it. Further, any pleasure we may have, or contentment or comfort, has to go. To worship God she must be holy, summed up to a whole, one spirit. naught beside: all wrought up at once into the eternal eternity on high, transcending all. Not all creatures which have been created, it is not them I mean, but all he could do an he would. This soul must transcend. While there is anything above the soul ; while there is anything in front of and in God, she can never enter his ground in the length of days.
Now, according to St Augustine, when the light of the soul eclipses creatures, it is dawn ; when the angelic light eclipses the light of the soul and devours it, then it is broad day. David says, ‘The righteous man mounts up and up to the perfect day.’ His path is fair and smooth and pleasant and familiar. And when the psychic and angelic lights are swallowed up in the light divine, he calls that high noon. Now day is at its longest, in its prime, when the sun at its zenith pours its light into the stars and the stars pour it into the moon. These are members of the solar system. And even so the light of God embraces the angelic light and that of the soul, an orderly array, an ascending scale steadily rising in the day, all praising God in er There
98 Meister Eckhart
is nothing over that is not praising God : they are all alike, the liker the fuller of God, all lauding God together. The Lord said, ‘I will abide with thee in thine house.” Dear God, we do beseech thee abide thou with us here, to the end that we abide with thee
eternally. Amen.
Young Man, Arise!
Adolescens, tibi dico : surge (Luc. 7,,). Our Lord went to a city called Naim, and many of his disciples went with him and much people. And when they came under the gate there was a dead man carried out, a youth, the only son of a widow. And our ‘Lord came and touched the bier whereon the body lay, and said, ‘Young man, I say unto thee, Arise!’ The life spake life into the dead. The youth arose and straightway took up his parable: his resurrection by the eternal Word.