Thirdly, this spiritual heaven of the soul drips divine grace and consolation. Just as the angel-mover rolls the heavens round and gives them energy, furnishing the heavens with the power of his might for heaven to pass on and thus supply all things with their being and activity and life, even so God dispenses to the soul his godly power with all its grace, which wells up in the Father’s heart, so giving her the means of growing vigorous and strong in his own proper motion wherein she gives her being and activity and life to all her lower powers, to the members of her body and to all their operations, till they, grown living in God’s eyes, do bring forth fruit of life eternal. This was the draught the prophet craved when, mindful that the Holy Ghost was troubling the deep waters of his heart and that his highest power was receiving and conceiving the dearest power of divinity, Isaias cried, * Drop dew, ye heavens from above,’ meaning to say, pour into all my _ powers, all my members, all my works, the sweet celestial dew which ye have gotten into you from God.’
Further we must note how he has decked the natural heavens with seven planets, seven noble stars which are nearer to us than the rest. The first is Saturn, then comes Jupiter, then Mars and then the Sun ; after that comes Venus and then Mercury and then the Moon. Now when the soul becomes a spiritual heaven our Lord will deck her with these same stars ghostly, as John saw in his apocalypse when he espied the King of Kings seated upon the throne of the majesty of God and having seven stars in his hand. Know that the first star, Saturn, is the purger ; Jupiter, the second, the well-wisher ; the third one, Mars, is him of wrath; the fourth, the Sun, the light-giver ; the fifth one, Venus, is the lover ; the sixth one, Mercury, the winner; the seventh is the Moon, the runner. ;
In the heaven of the soul Saturn becomes angelic purity, bring- ing as reward the vision of God, as our Lord says, ‘ Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.’ After him comes Jupiter, the gracious, whose reward is the possession of the earth ; not the one we wear by way of body, nor that we tread on with our feet ; but the one we are in eager search of : that earth which is flowing with the milk of humanity and the honey of divinity. It is of this our Lord declares, ‘ Blessed are the meek in heart for they shall inherit the earth.’ Next follows Mars, of grim, determined nature and passionate suffering for God, bringing reward of the kingdom of heaven, as our Lord says, ‘ Blessed are they that suffer persecution for God’s sake for the heavenly
Sermons and Collations 169
kingdom is theirs.’ And after him the sun of light bringing as its ‚guerdon to the soul, with knowledge of the truth the habit of right-doing and of giving unto everyone his own; and she being God’s by creation and adoption does therefore give herself to God withal. According to the words of our Lord, ‘ Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.” Then comes Venus, the lover, bringing reward of union with God ; as our Lord said, ‘ He that loveth me is beloved of my Father ; such come unto him and abide with him.’ From her, too, comes reward of consolation, since love sets the loving heart lamenting and mourning for her love. As our Lord says, ‘ Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.’ After her comes Mercury, the winner, directly the soul forgoes everything for God, bearing as his prize the palm of deity, including the kingdom of heaven. According to the words of our Lord, ‘ Blessed are the spiritual poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Last comes the Moon, the runner, with her meed of happiness attained, as St Paul says, ‘So run that ye may obtain.’ Now the soul attains God best by running to him with a tranquil heart, for his abode is in peace. Our God chooses peace for his children, and his child is heir to his eternal bliss, as our Lord says, ‘ Blessed are the peaceful for they shall be called the children of God.’
Beyond these planetary stars there is the heaven where the - fixed stars are which shine by night, the signals of the works wrought by the soul. In the night of the shadow of this world these shine before men, according to the words of our Lord, ‘ Let ‘your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’ The other stars all get their light from the radiance of the sun. Venus as well, the love-star, which shines brightest of them all. Accordingly, the works we do are pregnant most with power and brightest light when we have wholly gotten us the nature of the amiable Venus, star of love, whose nature is receptive to the sunshine of the true and intelligible Deity.
LXVIII? THE POWERS OF THE SOUL
Igitur perfecti sunt celi et terra et omnis ornatus eorum (Gen. 2,)-
‘ Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the adorn-
ment of them.’ Even so the heavens of the inner man are finished
and all the ornaments thereof. In the passage where Christ
speaks of ‘ the powers,’ we construe these to mean the sovran powers
ofthe soul. For the soul has got three powers in her spiritual mind 1 No. 67 (2) in Pfeiffer’s text.
170 Meister Eckhart
which are heavenly inasmuch as they are capable of doing heavenly work, for every heavenly power is of the breath of the mouth of our God.
The first power receives, the second sees, the third loves. What time,the soul is occupied in entertaining God, in self-recollection and intellectual contemplation, the love of her will transports her right into God. ‘Then occurs that movement of the heavens, in the act of fecundation, which is latent in eternity. For the end of all motion is rest. As saith Isaiah the prophet, ‘ The heavens are moved and the earth withal and after the motion comes rest.’ Now there is not perfect rest in intellectual vision, for in mental operations there is a certain motion of external things towards the soul, in virtue of which movement the forms of these same things are drawn into and pictured in the soul, starting a psychic _ motion in the isness of the soul and the real being of the things appearing in the picture; and this motion extends to the will which is not at rest any more.
Hence we see that in the starry heavens, the revolving heavens, God is none other than the mover, the starter, the source of energy whence the heavens get their power and their spin. And so too in this life he is present in the soul as the mover of our free will towards himself and towards good works, he being the fount of grace, which, from his godly heart, flows down into the soul.
Beyond this heaven there is the motionless heaven, and’ this firmament is the abode of the blest. In this heayen God is in all’ his felicity, engaged in the personal act of his eternal divinity. For the Father goes on begetting his Son in himself without ceasing, and Father and Son breathe forth with equal power their holy Breath, both Son and Holy Ghost abiding with the Father in the essence, and in the vision of this Trinity of Persons lies the whole happiness of creatures which are able to participate in his divine felicity. So the soul, having conquered thé multiple heavens and possessed herself of their mysterious power, is plunged into the unity of the motionless heaven, called fire or the empyrean, not because it is burning but because it is enlightening, all who are in this heaven being ablaze with the cherubic light of divine love. The soul becomes the heavenly habitation of the eternal Deity, and he performs his godly work in her, whence she receives the nectar which is denied to such as have not reached this fiery celestial mind. For her heavenly Sire begets in her his Son whom she lures out of his Father’s heart, and Father and Son breathe into her their holy Breath, the Son never leaving his Father’s heart but proceeding forth from his Father in such fashion that he ever abides in his Father’s heart. Thus the Father dwells in the soul; he clasps the soul to his breast, and in this embrace of
Sermons and Collations 171
the Father she conceives within her his Son as a proceeding Person and at the same time is aware of his presence with the Father in his essence. For thus saith the Father, ‘I will lead her into the wilderness, into the solitude, and will speak into her heart.’ His leading her into the desert, into the solitude, means making her void, deserted of creatures ; he empties her of corruptible things and says all he can to her heart. He can speak but one word, and that Word is eternal: it is his only-begotten Son. That is the Word he speaks to the soul, giving birth to his Son in her, and in this birth the Father and Son inspire her with their Holy Ghost. which teaches her all things.
Thus the soul gets all things from the Father and has gotten all things in the Son and knows all things in the Holy Ghost and so, possessed of all things, she is resting in God without end.
The Kingdom of God Is At Hand
Scitate, quia prope est regnum dei (Luc. 21,,). Our Lord says, The kingdom of God is at hand. Yes, the kingdom of God is within us, and according to St Paul our salvation is nearer than we think. In what sense is the kingdom of God near at hand ? Let us consider this carefully. Supposing I were king all unbeknowest to me, then I should be no king. But suppose I have the firm con- viction that I am the king and everyone maintains, and insists upon it with me and I know for certain that all the world is of the same opinion, in that case I am king and all the king’s treasure is mine. Failing any one of these three things I can be no king. Even so our happiness depends on our knowledge, our awareness of the sovran good, which is God himself. I have one power in my soul fully sensible of God. I am as certain as I live that | nothing is so close to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to my own self; my life depends upon God’s being near me, present in me. So is he also in a stone, a log of wood, only they do not know it. If the wood knew of God and realized his nearness like the highest angel does, then the log would be as blessed as the chief of all the angels. Man is more happy than a log of wood in that he knows and is aware of God, how near at hand God is. The better he knows it the happier he is and the worse he knows it the more unhappy he is. He is not happy because of God’s being in him and so near him or because of having God, but because he is aware of God, of his nearness to him; because he is God-knowing and God-loving, and such an one knows that God’s kingdom is at hand.
172 Meister Eckhart
Thinking upon God’s kingdom, often I am dumbfounded at its grandeur ; for God’s kingdom is God’s self in all his fullness. God’s kingdom is no little thing: all imaginable worlds God might create, these make not up his kingdom. The soul God’s kingdom dawns in, who is conscious of God’s fullness, her none durst counsel nor instruct: she is by it instructed and assured of life eternal. He who knows, who is aware, how near God’s king- dom is can say with Jacob, God is in this place and I knew it not.
God is just as near in creatures. The wise man says, God has spread his nets and lines all over creatures, and we can find and know him in any one of them if only we will look.