In English, some account of Eckhart and his writings is found in the following works: Vaughan’s Hours with the Mystics ; Max Miiller’s Theosophy ; Dean Inge’s Light, Life and Love. Methuen, 1904 ; Von Hügel’s The Mystical Element of Religion. Dent, 1908. Vol. ii, and Studies in Mystical Religion by Rufus M. Jones. Macmillan, 1909. Also Karl Pearson’s “ Meister Eckhart the Mystic’ in Mind, vol. xi.
Preface
Eckhart
Contents
Bibliography
I. Sermons
ye
II.
Im. IV.
V. VI.
VII. Vill. IX. xe
XI.
XII.
XII. XIV.
ot XV. XVI. XVII.
XVII.
XIX. xX. XXI. XXII. XXII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI.
And Collations !
This is Meister Eckhart 2
This is another Sermon 2 4
This too is Meister Eckhart 2
The Eternal Birth
Deus Charitas est :
Jesus went into the Temple .
The Sons of God . 5
The Castle of the Soul .
The Eternal Birth ® . : 6 4
Man has to seek God in Error and Forgetfulness ®
The Hour cometh and now is e A
Contemplation, Hints and Promises ?
In this was manifested the Love of God .
Like a Vase of Gold ;
The Divine Being ®
The Sixth Beatitude
In Principio erat Verbum
I know a Man in Christ
Paul rose from the Ground N
And behold there was a man .. . Simeon
He that hateth his Soul
The Lord put forth His Hand
The Spirit of the Lord .
St John saw in a Vision
The Lord hath sent His Angel
The Feast of the Virgin
1 Collazie, Lat. collotio, sometimes translated table-talk (see Wackernagel). The discourses read aloud in monasteries during meal-times were called colla- tions, hence the use of the word collation for the meal itself.
2 Title as in Pfeiffer’s text. 2 3 From other sources than Pfeiffer’s Meister Eckhart.
XXVII. Rejoice in the Lord ; i
XXVIII. The Angel Gabriel was sent . : 79
XXIX. The Angel Gabriel was sent . : tos 80
XXX. ‘ Vision is the whole Reward ' 81
XXXI The Man in the Soul 5 j 84
XXXII. The Soul Spark. With Ad 1 Synderesis 86
X XXIII. If ye then be risen with Christ . 92
XXXIV. St Dionysius speaks of three kinds of Light 1 94
XXXV. Stand in the Gate i 95
XXXVI. Young Man, Arise ! 98
XXXVII. Young Man, Arise! 100
XXXVIII. Peace ; 102
XXXIX. Every good Gift . 104
XL. Every good Gift . : 107
XLI. A Little and ye shall not see Me 110
XLII. The Image and its Object 113
XLIII. Knowledge and Love ! 116
* XLIV. In All Things I seek Rest 118
« XLV. In All Things I seek Rest 119
XLVI. Poverty ! 122
XLVII. This is Life fiterhal 123
XLVIII. Behold, I send my Angel 125
XLIX. Behold, I send my Angel 127
L. I came forth from the Father 129
LI. He sought to see . . . who He was 132
LII. The good Housewife . 134
LIII. Whosoever would come after me . 136
LIV. From Him and through Him and in Him 137
LV. God made the Poor for the Rich 139
LVI. The Emanation and Return . 142
LVII. Such is the Nature of God 144
LVIII. Divine Understanding ! 146
LIX. The Just lives in Eternity 149
LX. Likes love and unite 152
LXI. There comes forth a Rod oat of ie Root of eee 153
LXII. What manner of Child shall this be ? 154
LXIII. Atonement . - 156
LXIV. The swift River . 158
LXV. The Just live for ever . 160
LXVI. Publish the Word . 164
LXVII. The Powers of Heaven shall Ne ty 166
LXVIII. The Powers of the Soul ? 5 169
LXIX. The Kingdom of God is at hand 171
LXX. This is a Sermon about our Lord’s Body 174
LXXI. Boöthius says: He who wants to see true « 174
LXXII. The Prophet says: Lord be merciful 175
LXXIII. St Benedict’s Day 177
LXXIV. The Promise of the Father . 179
LXXV. Ascension Day . 183°
eS
1 From other sources than Pfeiffer’s M eister Eckh
% Title as in Pfeiffer’s text. ay
LXXVI.
LXXVII. LXXVIII. LXXIX. LXXX. LXXXI. LXXXII. LXXXIV. LXXXV. LXXXVI. LXXXVII. LXXXVIII. LXXXIX.
XC. XCI. XCII. XCIII. XCIV. XCV. XCVI. XCVII. XCVIITI. XCIX. C.
CI.
CII. CII. CIV.
Contents
Ascension Day Sermons
2. I go to Him that sent me
3. The Soul’s Place
4. Hindrances
The Image in the Soul’,
The Speculative Intellect
The Son of the Widow
There is one Power in the Soul
I have chosen you
The Feast of Martyrs
St Germanus’ Day
Like the Morning Star .
A new Commandment I give unto ae
Detachment has four Steps
The Poor in Spirit
The Virgin Birth .
1. The Word of God
2. The Word of the Soul !
Elizabeth’s Full Time came .
Rejoice O Heavens ß
God-Parents and God- Children
The Crossing
The Soul .
But now the Light i in God
Riddance > 5
Dives
He went up into a vaMoantetn
Be ye renewed in the Spirit of your Mind
One God and Father of All
In All Things I seek Rest. Part 1. Part II.
Honour Thy Father
Out of the Mouth of the Most High Suffering 2 5
II. TRACTATES ? :
Ub
ie
III.
The Kingdom of God!
The Nobility of the Soul :
The Rank and Nature of the Soul:
. The Soul’s Perfection
The Book of Godly Comfort .
2 Sister Katrei
. Signs of the True Ground 5 . The Birth of the Eternal Word in the Soul
. Detachment
Spiritual Poverty A
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
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.
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.
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. 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
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. 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