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.
^ This is probably a gloss which has become incorporated in the text.
TRACTATES II 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. Thcologists 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 arc 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. Thcologists 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 heing^ 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 ^ Jostes, No. 82.
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.
Ancnt this divine birth theologists teach that this word is to be taken in a two-fold sense: essential and j^ersonal. 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. Wc 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 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, l^or 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 docs 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 flliation; 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.
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 distinetion 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 TRACTATES God; as God is essentially in himself without beginning so in the kingdom of the soul he is, as essence, without end. ‘ God,’ says one philosopher, ‘ is in the soul in such a fashion that his whole Godhead hangs upon her.’ It is far better for God to be in the soul than for the soul to be in God. The soul is not happy because she is in God, she is happy because God is in her. Rely upon it, God himself is happy in the soul, for God, when he broke out and wrought the soul, so far maintained his ground in her as to conceal in her his divine treasure, his heavenly kingdom. Hence Christ says: ‘ The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hid in a field.’ This field is the soul, wherein lies hidden the treasure of the divine kingdom. Accordingly God and all creatures are happy in the soul. What we say of the soul applies to her as being an image of God.
Let us sec therefore wherein this image lies. One theologist says it lies in her powers, and this is commonly held to be true. And it is true when rightly understood. If it is taken to mean that her powers are diverse there is no ultimate truth in it, but if the powers are understood to be one at the summit of her activity then it is true. In this divine activity the soul looks back immedi- ately, intellectually, in the divine nature. In this divine act she conceives her own nature superessentially in God. In this act all is divine to the highest image, which in its proper activity it is very God and happy — formally, not objectively. For gazing into itself it simultaneously conceives God in himself, without means. Hence it is happy in him formally, and objectively owing to the divine nature. One doctor says that this supernal light flows immediately out of God and at the same instant by an act of intellection is gotten without means into God. Hence its going out of and persistence in God are one intellectual conception, the impartible nature of the same intelligent act. In God, be sure, the soul in its highest prototype has never known creature as creature nor has she ever therein possessed cither time or space. For in this image everything is God: sour and sweet, good and bad, small and great, all are one in this image. This image is no more changed by anything in time than the divine nature is changed by anything that is creature; for it apprehends and uses all things according to the law of godhood.
Now it may be asked: If this kingdom is in us why is it unknown to us? To which I answer that, owing to the soul’s natural disposition towards creatures, all her acts are bound to originate in creaturely images; hence these acts are thought by some to be the seat of this image in the soul, though this is not the case. These persons little know the nobility of the soul, whose activity in her ordinary understanding originates in an intelligible image MEISTER ECKHART in highest thought (or, memory), begotten there as to form by phantasmal images and as to essence by the supernal, God-behold- ing image whence the soul receives power to understand all truth. In the train of this understanding comes the ordinary will, which is nothing but the bias of the mind. Now since the ordinary understanding takes things for true and the will takes them for good, things are the object of both these activities which are alien and remote from God. For God is neither good nor true. And as God is detached and free from all that creatures can understand, so also is the highest image of the Godhead.
It is a question whether there is mutual regard between God and creatures? I answer that, God has no regard to creatures, for God has no regard except towards himself; but creatures have regard to God, for everything that ever issued from him is ever gazing back towards him. Apply this to the highest image. The instant it glanced out from God this highest image looked back again, with countenance unveiled conceiving the divine nature without means. From this act is gotten its whole existence. In this act this prototype is God and is called the image of God; in its breaking forth it is a creature and is called the image of the soul.
Consider then thyself, O noble soul, and the nobility within thee, for thou are honoured above all creatures in that thou art an image of God; and despise what is mean for thou art destined to greatness!
That is what is meant by the soul being the kingdom of God.
‘ Seek first the kingdom of God.’ It should be our only care, our only quest, to know the nobility of God and the nobility of the soul. Let us see then how to seek the kingdom of God.
In the Book of Love it is written: ‘ Knowest thou not thyself, O fairest among women? Then go forth and follow after the footsteps of thy flocks! ’ These words refer to the soul; she is the fairest of all creatures and she shall go forth in perceiving her own beauty. Now observe in the soul three sorts of going-forth out of three sorts of nature which she has. The first is her crea- turely nature. The second is the nature she has in the personal Word of the Trinity. The third is that which belongs to her in the exuberant nature functioning in the Father, the beginning of all creatures.
Taking this first exodus, note how she has got to go out of her creaturely nature. Christ says; ‘ If any man will come after me let him deny himself and follow me.’ As surely as God lives, no man will ever go forth into the negation of himself until he is as free from his own self as he was when he was not. Doctors declare that man is to be knoA?m in two ways: as outward man and TRACTATES TRACTATES as inward man. The outward whose works are bodily and the inward whose works are ghostly. By the inner man God is sought in the contemplative life, by the outer man God is sought in the active life. Now mark my words. I say again what I have said before: outward disciplines arc of little worth; they are useful only in subduing natures that are still uncontrolled. Know that the discipline of outward acts, though it subdue nature, cannot kill it. Nature dies by ghostly acts. There are many to be found who, with the best intentions, cling on to themselves, not denying themselves. Verily I say, these persons are mistaken, for it is contrary to human reason, contrary to the habit of grace and against the nature of the Holy Ghost. As for those who see their salvation in outward practices, I do not say they will be lost, but they will get to God only through hot cleansing fires; for they follow not God who quit not themselves; keeping hold of them- selves they follow their own darkness. God is no more to be found in any bodily exercise than in sin. Nevertheless those who make much practice of outward disciplines are greatly regarded by the eyes of the world; which follows by analogy, for those who understand only that which is bodily esteem highly the life they can grasp with the senses. None but a fool would prize any other!
Secondly, the work of the inner man is vision in knowing and loving. In this work lies the beginning of the holy life. These two activities define the nature of the soul. Doctors declare that every nature exists for the sake of its proper activity. Now since this nature (the soul) can be apprehended only in these two activities, therefore they are the noblest activities in man. I have said before that virtue is a mean between vice and perfection; now love is the form of virtue without which no virtue is virtue. Whensoever a person practises a virtue the works of the virtue are works of love, not of the person; each work of virtue having power in love to bring the person to God. St Dionysius says, it is the nature of love to change a man into that which he loves. Wherefore we ought so to live that our whole life is love. In this disposition all practices are praiseworthy, outward or inward. David says: ‘ They shall go from virtue to virtue, then shall the God of Gods be seen in Sion.’ The vision of God transcends virtues. Virtue, as I said, is a mean between vice and perfection and the fruit of virtue — the end and object of virtue, that is to say — will never be obtained until the soul is caught up above the virtues. Be sure that as long as a man holds fast himself as thrall to virtue he will never taste the fruit of virtue, which is nothing else than seeing the God of Gods in Sion. God is not seen in Jacob, the practice of virtue, but God is seen in Sion. Sion 18 18 MEISTER ECKHART is as it were a polished mirror and stands for unveiled vision with the single eye of the divine nature. Rely upon it, virtue has never seen this sight.
Now it may be asked, are we to abandon virtue altogether? To which I answer: no, we are to practise virtue, not possess it. The perfection of virtue is freedom from virtues. Thus Christ says: ‘ When ye have done all that is possible to you, say: we are unprofitable servants.’
That is what is meant by the soul dying to her own works. The question we must now consider is how she loses her own nature. Doctors declare that everything made by God is ordered in such an excellent way that nothing can wish it did not exist. Yet the soul is to relinquish her existence. This means the death of the spirit. And in order to accomplish this death the soul must let go of herself and all things, retaining of herself and things no more than when she was not. Christ says: ‘ Except a corn of wheat die it abideth alone.’ To die is to be wholly deprived of life, so that while a man lives, as long as there is life in him, be sure that he knows nothing of this death. St Paul says: ‘ I no longer live.’ Some people interpret this death to mean that one must live neither in God nor in oneself nor yet in any creature. And so it does, for death is the loss of all life. But I say more: a man may be dead to everything, to God and crea- tures, yet if God still finds in his soul a place that he can live in, then the soul is not yet dead and gone out into that which follows created existence. For to die is, properly speaking, to lose everythfng. I do not say the soul is brought so utterly to naught as it was before it was created; this naughting applies to holding and possessing. In this respect the soul suffers total loss — God as well as creatures.
It sounds strange to say the soul must lose her God, yet I affirm that in a way it is more necessary to perfection that the soul lose God than that she lose creatures. Everything must go. The soul must subsist in absolute nothingness. It is the full intention of God that the soul shall lose her God, for as long as the soul possesses God, is aware of God, knows God, she is aloof from God. God desires to annihilate himself in the soul in order that the soul may lose herself. For that God is God he gets from creatures. When the soul became a creature she obtained a God. When she lets slip her creaturehood, God remains to himself that he is, and the soul honours God most in being quit of God and leaving him to himself.
This is the lowest death of the soul on her way to divinity. Such souls are hardly to be recognised for, as St Paul says: ‘ Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.’ If it be ques- TRACTATES tioned whether the unique virtue of these souls finds no outward expression, I answer: Yes, just as Christ, the pattern of perfection, was unindigent and a shining light to all mankind, so these men are turned towards humanity by reason of their selfless wisdom and godlike frame of mind.
So much for the first exodus in which the soul goes out of her creaturely nature seeking the kingdom of God.
Secondly, she must go out of the nature she has in her eternal prototype. Theologists teach that the prototype of the soul is the divine understanding. The divine understanding is the Person of the Son. Hence the Son is the exemplar of all creatures and the image of the Father in which image broods the nature of all creatures. Now when the soul strips off her created nature there flashes out its uncreated prototype wherein the soul discovers herself in uncreatedness, for things arc all one in this prototype according to the property of the (eternal) image.
And now the soul fares forth out of this same prototype wherein she discovers her nature according to the uncreatedness of the image and this she does in the divine death. The soul is conscious that what she seeks is neither her exemplar nor its nature, wherein she perceives herself to be in multiplicity and separation. For this final attribute of divinity is multiplicity. And since the eternal nature wherein the soul now finds herself in her exemplar is characterised by multiplicity — the Persons being in separation — therefore the soul breaks through her eternal exemplar to get to where God is a kingdom in unity. One philosopher declares that the soul’s breaking-through is more noble than her emanation. Now Christ says: ‘ No man cometh to the Father but through me.’ Christ is the eternal exemplar. Though the soul’s abiding- place is not in him yet she must, as he says, go through him. This breaking-through is the second death of the soul and is far more momentous than the first. Of it St John says: ‘ Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord,’ that is, in God.
O surpassing wonder! How can there be death in him who says of himself that he is the life? To which we answer: In the birth of the Son all creatures went forth receiving life and being, hence all things are lively imaged in the Son. Now when the soul returns again within she loses the Son. Theologists declare that when the Son returns to unity of nature he is neither Person nor its property: the Son is lost in the unity of the essence. Likewise I say concerning the soul: when the soul breaks through and loses herself in her eternal prototype that is the death the soul dies in God. St Dionysius says; ‘ When God exists not for the soul there exists not for her either the eternal prototype, her source.’ Equality belongs to the soul in her exemplar, for the Son is equal MEISTER ECKHART with the Father. But in that they are one in nature they are not equal, for equality resides in separation. Accordingly I say con- cerning the soul: if she is to enter the divine unity she must lose the equality she has in her eternal exemplar. Dionysius declares that the soul’s supreme delight is the nothingness of her prototype. And a heathen philosopher says: ‘ God’s naught fills everywhere and his aught is nowhere.’ God’s aught, then, is not discovered by the soul till she has come to naught as regards finding or being able to find herself, created or uncreated as we have shown her eternal prototype to be.
This is the second death and second exodus, the soul going forth out of the nature which is hers in her eternal prototype to seek the kingdom of God. ‘ He who desires to come to God,’ says one philosopher, ‘ let him come with naught.’
The third nature out of which the soul goes is the exuberant divine nature energising in the Father. According to some theologists the Father always perceived within himself tokens of emanation before he brought forth the Word. They all agree that God the Father conceived his own nature in originating the eternal Word and all creatures. Doctors distinguish between nature and essence. Essence, in as far as it is active in the Father, is nature. The distinction is therefore a logical one. From God in activity all creatures look forth potentially. But this is not the summit of divine union so it is not the soul’s abiding place.
It must be clearly understood that the soul has got to die to all the activity connoted by the divine nature if she is to enter the divine essence where God is altogether idle; this highest prototype of soul beholds without means the essence of the Godhead abso- lutely free from activity. This supernal image is the paradigm whereto the soul is brought by her dying.
Now mark! The Godhead, self-poised, is self-sufiicient. God as Godhead transcends all that creature as creature ever compre- hended or can ever comprehend. As St Paul says: ‘ God dwells in light inaccessible.’ Now when the soul has gone out of her created nature and out of her uncreated nature wherein she dis- covers herself in her eternal prototype and, entering into the divine nature, still fails to grasp the kingdom of God, then, recognising that thereinto no creature can ever get, she forfeits her very self and going her own way seeks God no more; thus she dies her highest death. In this death the soul loses every desire and image and all understanding and form and is bereft of any nature. And as God lives it is true that the soul, being spiritually dead, can no more manifest to any man any mode or image than the dead can stir being bodily dead. This spirit is dead and buried in the Godhead and the Godhead lives for none other than itself.
TRACTATES 277 Ah, noble soul, prove thy nobility! But while it is the case with thee that thou lettest not go thine own self altogether to drown in the bottomless sea of the Godhead, verily thou canst not know this divine death. The wise man says: ‘ The Lord possessed me in the beginning in his own way.’ God possesses all things in his Godhead’s way, not in the soul’s way, for God never received creature nor can creature ever get to him, as creature.
Now when the soul has lost herself in every way, as here set forth, she finds herself to be the very thing she vainly sought. Herself the soul finds in the supernal image wherein God really is in all his Godhead, where he is the kingdom in himself. There the soul recognises her own beauty. Thence she must go out to get into her very self and realise that she and God are one felicity; the kingdom which, without seeking, she has found. As saith the prophet: ‘ I poured out my soul into myself.’ That is the meaning of: ‘ Knowest thou not thyself thou fairest among women? Then go forth,’ The soul has to go forth, as we have seen, in order to enter into herself, where she finds, without seeking, the kingdom of God. St Paul says: ‘ I reckon as worth- less temporal suffering in comparison with the future glory which shall be revealed to us.’
Look you. I said of old, and say again, that I have now all that I shall possess eternally, for God in his felicity and in the fullness of his Godhead is enjoyed by my supernal prototype though this is hidden from the soul. As the prophet says: ‘ Indeed Lord, thou art a hidden God! ’ This treasure of God’s kingdom is hidden by time and multiplicity by the soul’s own activity and by her creaturehood. The more the soul departs from all this multiplicity the more God’s kingdom is revealed in her. But the soul is not able for this without the help of grace. An she find it,, it is grace that has aided her thereto, for grace is innate in her highest prototype. There the soul is God, using and enjoying all things God-fashion. There the soul no more receives either from God or creatures, for she is what she contains and takes all things from her own. Soul and Godhead are one: there the soul finds that she is the kingdom of God.
It may be asked what discipline best enables the soul to reach this end? I answer: This, that the soul remain in death, not shrinking from death. St Paul says: ‘ Christ was obedient to the Father even unto the death of the cross. Therefore he hath exalted him and hath given him a name above every name.’ And I say about the soul: if she remain obedient to God in death he will exalt her likewise and will give her a new name above every name. For as the Godhead is apart from name and nameless MEISTER ECKHART