Now we have sent one spark to heaven, the soul to wit of our Lord Jesus Christ, which shows the common resting-place of souls is nowhere but in heaven ; and herein we have proof of the entire soul being heavenly. The body, on the other hand, is made of the four elements, so its habitat is naturally earth. But the soul is in intimate union with the body, and they must ever stay together despite that the body is of earth and the soul a denizen’ of heaven. God found a wise solution of this problem, himself becoming man and going in his proper power to heaven, so that in him we have already sent one clod of earth to heaven. And the whole earth likewise must belong to heaven, for Christ’s resting- place is nowhere but in union with his Father; and as God is three in Person so is he one in nature, they having one being and one life. Thus our Lord Christ shows us that our being and our life are eternal in divine union.
The second thing our Lord has taught and proved by his ascen- sion is how we must prepare ourselves to follow after him in pursuance of his words, ‘I go to prepare a place for you.’ Just as, on those four grounds, the soul is called light, spirit, fire or a spark of God’s celestial nature, even so man is lifted up or gotten ready also by four things finely symbolised of old in the prophet Moses, of whom we read that he gathered his flock together and drove - it into the wilderness, ‘into the backside of the desert,’ and there upon the mount of God he saw a bush burning but unconsumed.
Sermons and Collations 185
Moses wished to turn aside and see this wonder, the burning bush which would not burn away. But the Lord called to him out of the bush, and said, ‘ Draw not nigh; put off thy shoes,’ under which figure we are taught four precious lessons.
First, in the name Moses, for Moses being interpreted means,
one taken from the water. So shall a man be rescued from
instability, from out the tempests of this world.
Next, that man’s animal passions and desires must all. be herded up into the highest power of kis soul. Unless the soul is gathered up and lifted out of created things the Holy Ghost cannot enter in nor energise in her. All divine work done by God is wrought by him in spirit, above time and place, for mortal things are fatal to the flow of God. Divine light shed on spiritual creature will engender life, but if it falls on mortal things it fades, either dimmed or extinguished altogether. That is why our Lord declared, * It is expedient for you, it is for your good, that I should go away.’ For his disciples loved him as a man and mortal. Now there can be no doubt that our Lord was nobler than anything God ever made. If he then was a hindrance to his followers it is unquestionably true that other things we love, which are inferior to God, will hinder us much more. Ergo, the soul must transcend the world if she wants God to ply his godly work in her. And St Augustine says explicitly, we can transcend the world in love and knowledge, and that lacking love and knowledge we are nothing, i.e. in the world.
In the third place we learn, that man can see and know God’s work, but that while in this body he must needs stop short of actual attainment, just as Moses saw the burning bush but could not go right up to it; he wanted to, however: a case-of the love which does not consume the body and has no spiritual potency.
Fourthly, putting off the shoes signifies the freeing of the soul’s desire, its withdrawal from all mortal and perishable things. To this and things still higher, O God help us. Amen.
Ascension Day Sermons
Expedit vobis ut ego vordam etc. (Joh. 16,). We read in the gospel how our Lord said to his disciples, ‘ It is expedient for you that I goaway. For if I go not away ye cannot receive the Holy Ghost.’ And this by reason of three hindrances which beset three kinds of people. First, sinners who let creatures hinder them, using them
186 Meister Eckhart
ungodly for their pleasure. These people are wandering in God’s way, for creatures are a way of God. Hence St Augustine’s dictum, ‘ Cursed be they that wander in the way of God.’ I will say no more of these; following their animal passions they are divorced from God. Also, there are good people who are over- busy with their material wants and take too much pleasure in externals. Concerning them God said, ‘ He that loveth his soul shall lose it’ (loveth carnally, that is: over-fondness, for it will lose a man his soul) ‘and he that hateth his soul shall keep it unto life eternal.’ Meaning those that follow not their inordinate pleasures and desires.
A second hindrance blocks the path of other good and truly pious people. Namely, the seven sacraments. Sacramentum means a sign. That man never gets to the underlying truth who stops at the enjoyment of its symbol ; and the seven sacraments all point us to the same reality. Marriage (for example) is a symbol of divine and human nature and also of the union of the soul with God. To rest in the illusion means delay in the attain- ment of real oneness. Ye durst not think of marriage as the mating of a man and a woman with each other for the indulgence of their outward passions and for the leading of a life of pleasure. That is not real marriage. Marriage means obedience to the marriage rule with its seven times and its works of mercy. Again, some pious souls are hampered with scrupulosity in the matter of repentance and confession ; they boggle at the symbol and neglect the thing itself. Our Lord says of these, ‘He that has bathed needs. but to wash his feet.’ Which is as good as saying, Once purged by heartfelt rue and throughly shriven, a man needs not to re-confess old sins though he must ‘ wash his feet,’ that is, his will and conscience: them let him cleanse by confessing daily faults.
Also, some of the devout hinder themselves by over-occupation, outwardly, with the blessed sacrament of God’s body, to the detri- ment of their receiving it; these cultivate the rites at the cost of the reality, for the thing itself is inside not in its outward show. Wherefore they receive not God’s body worthily. The sacra- ments all point us to the one and only truth, so we ought not to dally with the symbols but penetrate to the actuality. Those who follow the spirit of God’s truth will worship him in spirit and in truth. So said Christ himself to the woman drawing at the well at Samaria when she asked him where to pray, whether on the mountains where her fathers used to pray or where the Jews then worshipped. Quoth our Lord, ‘ The hour cometh and is now, when true worshippers’ shall worship not only on the mountains and in the Temple but in spirit, in the place of God.’ The moral of
Sermons and Collations 187
which is that we ought to pray to God not only on the hill-tops and in churches, but we ought always to be praying, at all times and everywhere. St Paul says, * Rejoice evermore; in everything give thanks; pray without ceasing.’ Even so pray they whose every deed is done like-mindedly for the love of God ; who, careless of their personal pleasure, bow themselves humbly before God and leave him alone to act. The prayer of the lips was enjoined by holy Christendom for the recalling of the soul from her outward senses wherein she dissipates herself in a multiplicity of perishable things. Being recollected thence into her highest power (i.e. know- ledge and memory and will) she is turned to spirit, and when the spirit is Joined to God in perfect unity of will, it is turned to God. Then, not till then, he is in true prayer, when he has reached the goal of his creation ; for we were created solely to be God, and that is the reason why we were fashioned like him. Whoso does not attain to being one with God in spirit is not a really spiritual man. Good, pious souls are hindered too from their proper object by lingering with holy joy over the human form of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and by the same token, over-reliance upon visions is a pitfall to some people; they see things pictured in the mind, it may be man or angel or the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and give credence to their ghostly messages. They hear, perhaps, that they are best-beloved or about the faults or virtues of another ; or they may hear that God is doing something for them. In this they are deceived. God never does a single thing for creature but only by reason of his kindness, for he is the end of every Christian prayer: ‘Do this, O Lord, for the sake of thy only Son Christ Jesus.’ He himself said to his disciples, ‘ It is expedient for you that I should go away.’ Here he was addressing not alone his then disciples but all his disciples of the future who purpose ‘to follow him to high achievement. To them his manhood is a hindrance so long as they still cling to it with mortal pleasure ; they ought to follow God in all his ways and not keep solely to his way of manhood who reveals to. us the way of Godhood ; for verily Christ said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me, and he who would enter by any other door the same is a murderer and deserves eternal death.” Such are those who claim that they themselves are capable of good or that God does things for them, whereas Christ even, stated he was not from himself: the Eternal Wisdom said about itself, ‘ He that created me reposes in my tent,’ who withal is uncreated, for God is unborn wisdom. We may take this as referring to eternal wisdom’s birth, for the Son proceeded forth by way of birth, where birth is the same thing as creation. The eternal wisdom was born of the power of the Father. He andthe
188 _ Meister Eckhart
Son, his wisdom, and the Holy Ghost, his goodness and their mutual love, these (three) are one in nature and distinct in Person. And what is this tent that Wisdom talks of? : That is the manhood of Christ Jesus, wherein the Father reposes with his Son, they being _ of one nature, God in their Person as well as God by nature. This
tent of humanity let us adore only in its oneness with the Godhead :
for man is truly God and God is truly man. Let us not encumber
‘ourselves with any creature excepting Jesus Christ, who only is
our help and the way to his Father. When, taking leave of creatures, we enter the true path, which is Jesus Christ, we are not
wholly blest albeit within sight of the divine reality ; for while
we are in sight of, we are not yet one with, what we see. While
we notice any thing we are not one with it. Where there is
no more than one no more than one is seen : God is not seen except
by blindness, nor known except by ignorance, nor understood
except by fools. According to St Augustine, no soul can get to
God who goes not without creature and seeks not God without
likeness. And that is the meaning of Christ’s words, ‘Cast out
first the beam out of thine own eye and then wash the mote out
of another’s eye.’ For you must understand that anything created
is likened to a beam in the eye of the soul, preventing divine
oneness by the fact of being creature. And because the soul is ° creature she has to cast herself out of herself; she must cast out
all the saints and eke our Bädy, for all of them are creatures. She
must be quite naked and wholly unnecessitous. Thus the soul
enters the union of the Holy Trinity. She is further blest by
becoming one with the naked Godhead whereof the blessed Trinity
is the self-revelation. In the abstract Godhead there is no
activity : the soul is not perfectly beatified until she casts herself
into the desolate Deity where neither act nor form exists and
there, merged in the void, loses herself: as self she perishes, and