causes them much suffering.’ I answer. Baptism is the basis. of the welfare, the salvation, of mankind. In the absence of it, | virtues and good works are not rewarded with eternal grace. And since the Jews are not baptized, they have no guerdon of eternal grace, but are accursed on earth as well as in the other world.]* But thou mayst object, Why is it that all Christians are not saved ; they are all God’s, and there is nobody on earth but is bound to suffer in some fashion? My answer is, There are two kinds of sufferers. Some, when suffering befalls, take it not as if it came from God; they resist it to the utmost, saying in their hearts, What have I done to God that he should visit me with such misfortune ? and are moved to tears. Not that in this thought they are to blame, but in other cases they chide God vehemently, whereas God sends the suffering to rid them of their sins and by not accepting it in the proper spirit they make it useless to them ; and to such as these there is no reward for suffering though they are always having it; they scorn God’s gift and thrust it from them. And they chase away God too, albeit they fain would have him. On the other hand, some people take it as from God, when their suffering comes, and send it back to God. They take © it from God, saying in their hearts: God, I accept this suffering from no one else but thee, for my sins have thoroughly deserved it. And they send their suffering back to God, saying in their hearts, Lord God, I willingly contribute all the suffering thou hast suffered from the hour of thy birth down to the very end; for thou wert a pure and sinless.soul, yet wert in great affliction ; it is more fit that I should be afflicted, I who am a man in sin. Accepting suffering thus, a man will merit the eternal kingdom. God help us to attain it. Amen.
1 This is probably a gloss which has become incorporated in the text.
Tractates
RE |. J
Ra lah ASS
eo) thon
Iı THE KINGDOM OF GOD
‘Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all things shall be added unto you.’ Since Christ bids us seek the kingdom of God it is our duty to know what this kingdom is. Know then that God’s kingdom is himself and his perfect nature. Secondly, there is God’s kingdom in the soul. He himself says: * The kingdom of God is within you.’
Consider this first kingdom. Theologists say that . God’s kingdom is unity of essence in a trinity of Persons. The question is, where is God happiest ? I answer that God’s happiness is all alike in him according to his unity but according to our under- standing God is far happier in his unity of essence than in his trinity of Persons, as we will prove. According to some theolo- gists there are three kinds of distinctions in the Godhead. First, rational distinctions; secondly, formal distinctions; and thirdly real distinctions, to wit, the mutual relations of the Persons. Others say the Godhead has no more than two kinds of distinc- tions, rational and real.
Take first the distinction of Persons. St John says: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ This beginning or origin is the Father, as St Augustine says. The question is, has the Father a begin- ning? The answer is: yes, his beginning is primary not pro- ceeding, as I will show. Theologists teach that we must distin- guish in the Godhead between essence and being (i.e. nature). - Being in the Godhead is deity itself and is the first thing we apprehend about God. Deity is the whole basis of divine per- fection. The Godhead in itself is motionless unity and balanced stillness and is the source of all emanations. Hence I assume a passive welling-up. We call this first utterance being, for the most intrinsic utterance, the first formal assumption in the Godhead is being : being as essential word. God is being, but being is not God.
Now the origin of the Father is necessarily involved in this assumption of a passive welling-up. In other words, the deity being in itself intelligence, therefore the divine nature steps forth
1 Jostes, No. 82.
268 Meister Eckhart
into relation of otherness: other but not another, for this distinc- tion is rational not real. Thus the first Person arises in the Godhead passively, not from any active beginning. Hence its beginning is without property (or, Person).
The question is, what is the Person of the Father? I answer that it is being in the Godhead, not according to essence but according to paternity which is the formal notion specifically determining the Father. The Father is the beginning of the God- head. Hence, some theologists assert that if there were neither Son nor Holy Ghost in the Godhead there would still be the Person of the Father. When, therefore, St John says: ‘ In the beginning was the Word,’ we must not understand this beginning to be God’s essence or his nature, for the Father alone is the active origin of the Son.
Mark how the Son is in the Father. Theologists say that the Father looking into himself actually conceives in himself his own impartible exuberant nature. There follows the characteristic of that nature. The same nature which in the Father is active is receptive in the Son, for they participate it according to their properties. 1
Anent this divine birth theologists teach that this word is to be taken in a two-fold sense : essential and personal. The first or essential word every Person possesses visually, but the Father possesses it both visually and really. And this same Word in Person is the Son. The same power which is active in the Father is passive in the Son, the Son receiving his divinity from the Father. We must understand the passivity begotten of passivity, divinity of divinity, as properties of the Persons by which the essence is determined. For saints and doctors teach that the Persons proceed from the essence as origin, the essence being determined by the Persons and the Persons by their properties. As paternity is the formal notion which specifically determines the Person of the Father, so filiation is the formal notion which distinguishes the Person of the Son. These formal notions signify the relationship of the Persons. And this property, this formal relationship of paternity and filiation, is the final attribute of divinity. Paternity and filiation are divine accidents and dependent properties.
Mark how in this birth from the Father the Word remains within as essence and goes forth as Person. Philosophers teach that to every rational concept there succeeds an intelligible word. Now when the Father conceives himself in himself; his own nature is the object of his understanding. The Father observes himself and his nature has another property, that of being observed. Accordingly the Son remains within as essence and goes forth as
' Tractates 269
Person. Corresponding with the divided nature of this act the Son is born and proceeds out of the paternal heart. Thus saith the Eternal Wisdom: ‘I proceeded out of the mouth of the Most High,’ to wit, out of the natural conception of the essential word of the divine Father. Not that there are in the Godhead two words really but only logically.
‘ The Word was with God.’ That means, as a Person distinct from the Father, as here demonstrated.
Observe further concerning these two how they bring forth the Holy Ghost. Theologists teach that the Father, pouring himself out as love into the Son, there his love is as it were reflected, the Son pouring himself back into the Father. This mutual outpour- ing of love is the common spiration of the Father and the Son. It might be thought that this spiration is identical in the two Persons but it is not. For according to its formal origin this spirative force is different in Father and Son, the Father being formally something other than the Son. But taking it, this spiration, both formally and really, it is the formal notion and the property which distinguishes the Person of the Holy Ghost. Hence the Holy Ghost proceeds from two formal sources as from one active origin.
Then comes the question whether this property (Person) of the Holy Ghost results from the (divine) nature in the same way as the property of the Son does? The answer is: no, for were that so the Holy Ghost must proceed by an act of nature, like the Son; which is not the case, for then there would be two Sons in the Godhead. But the divine nature is posterior to the property of the Holy Ghost which proceeds by spiration of the free-will. Hence were it possible to separate the nature from the Person of the Holy Ghost in the Godhead, the Holy Ghost would never- theless continue to subsist in itself apart from the nature. With the Son this would not be possible seeing that the Son emanates from the Father as an intelligible word proceeding from the act ‘of the exuberant nature of the Father ; hence he could not exist apart from that nature. And as the nature is posterior to the Person of the Holy Ghost and as the Holy Ghost does not subsist apart from that nature, so on the other hand it is true that the Person of the Son is posterior to the nature. The nature does not exist apart from the Son, for the Son is the image of the Father from whom he emanates naturally ; which the Holy Ghost does not, seeing that it emanates from his free-will. It follows that there is reciprocity only between paternity and filiation ; not the Holy Ghost. Howbeit the reciprocity of the spirative power common to the paternity and filiation is rational not real. Herein, noble soul, seek with understanding the kingdom of God.
270 Meister Eckhart
St John says: ‘ And “God was the word,’ signifying unity of nature. Up, noble soul, arise in divine wonder at this exalted fellowship: the three Persons united in one impartible nature ! The prophet says: ‘ The Lord shall reign for ever and beyond.’ God reigns (for ever) in distinction of Persons, but his reign in the beyond is in unity of nature. There God is the kingdom of himself, being super-essential.
Then comes the question: Can the divine essence as essence, apart from those formal distinctions which philosophers call the eternal eternities, be God’s happiness or that of creatures? We answer: No! Essence as essence is the same in God and crea- tures, but God’s happiness and the soul’s also lies in the divine nature. For the divine nature subsists in itself with all its per- fections, to wit, the eternal eternities which are intrinsic in it. Some teach that it is possible for the soul to attain happiness in the knowledge of one of these formal relations regardless of the rest. But that is not true; if it were, each of these formal relations must be established in itself apart from the others and detached from its divine nature, which is impossible ; hence this opinion is false. But the soul’s beatitude consists in compre- hending all together, in one property, these eternal eternities which are the formal expression of the divine nature. For here is no division ; God is the superessential one, his own beatitude and that of all creatures in the actuality of his Godhead. Be sure that in this unity God knows distinctions but as one impartible property.
In this unity God is idle. The Godhead effects neither this nor that ; it is God who effects all things. God in activity is manifold and knows multiplicity. God as one is absolutely free from activity. In this unity God knows nothing save that he superessentially is in his own self.
Hence we understand: ‘God was the word’ to refer to the unity of the essence. ‘ The same was in the beginning with God,’ his equal in wisdom, in truth, in goodness and in all the essential perfections, to wit, the eternal eternities, the formal modes, the fullness of the divine essence. This superessential unity is what is meant by the divine kingdom which the spirit seeks with know- ledge and with love.
Secondly, by this kingdom of God we understand the soul, for the soul is of like nature with the Godhead. Hence all that has been said here about the kingdom of God, how God is himself the kingdom, may be said with equal truth about the soul.
St John says: ‘ All things were made by him.’ This refers to the soul, for the soul is all things. The soul is all things in that she is an image of God and as such she is also the kingdom of