To return. Since I was lying dormant in the personal nature of the Father when he created creatures as a whole in his own nature, it follows that I was working with him; I was the work of God wherein he wrought all things as giver, I being then conscious in my Personal nature of co-operating with the divine nature in this divine process. All the while I was working with him I was resting in God’s nature exactly as I was in God before I was created. God made the universe and I with him, standing as I did all undefined albeit substantial in the Father.
Observe further, ‘ All things were made by him.’ If everything was made by him and without him nothing was made, then I affirm there is a power in the soul centred in the perennial now in the paternal heart and in the nature of God; nor does it differ from the essential nature of God save in being the ereated image of God, as one saint observes: ‘ What the soul cannot conceive by nature can never be hers by grace.’ Like corn-seed dropped into the ground and lost to view, even so the seed or spark in the soul is shed from the essential nature of the Father, and is shining back into the incomprehensible essence, into that wherein the soul conceives superintelligibly, beatifically. There, in beatific mode, bereft of life and power, she returns to the uncreated good where, robbed of every faculty, she is the image in the Trinity, as our Lord said, ‘ Father, make them one with us.’ And when my soul, doffing her beatific habit, is buried in the paternal TRACTATES field, in the living vine, as the gospel says: when in this sense I lose myself and come into my own as the rightful Son, then I with God do make all things and the Word is in the beginning with God.
Take the next words, ‘ and without him was not anything made.’ I offer this interpretation of them. In all rational creatures I find the quest of God. They forge ahead according to the time and will bestowed upon it. But without him nothing is accomplished, in those creatures namely who, even as the brutes, stop at their outward powers; their mental works are worthless, lacking as they do the divine light and spiritual freedom which gives them permanence. Christ says, ‘ What my heavenly Father planted not shall be plucked up, yea by the very roots.* That is all I want to say about this passage.
Take the next, ‘ What was made, in him was the life.’ To see what this means, turn 0 yc blessed and commune with the under- standing of your uncreated intellect. ‘ What was made, in him was the life.’ In this eternal procession, wherein all things pro- ceeded forth without themselves, they were now; but in time they were created from nothing and their life is in him. Thereof they are the creatures, the effect of that cause, the patent of his power resplendent in luminous detail. Thus we came forth into time; but the revelation of himself to himself is in his eternal procession where the knower is the same as what is known, to wit, the eternal emanation which is the Son from the Father, in whom all things flow forth. Thus what was made was the life in him.
Look you. All rational creatures proceeded from God alike, wherefore I say: all things participate in every intelleetual mode. I hold that in her abstract understanding every rational soul knows the uncreated image which is her life. Now if my life and the life of all creatures is in God, I ask then. Can God know himself in me without my soul? I answer, No. Man knows heat apart from the fire and light apart from the sun but God cannot know himself without the soul. And why? Because the soul is the out-flowing stream of the eternal deity and she is sealed in the image of the blessed Trinity. By this she knows she is God’s creation. Therein I know the love of the divine fire whereby rational creatures are illumined. I say; as the Father made me naked and free that I might stay and make my home in the groundless ground of the innermost heart of the Godhead, even so my soul must be utterly despoiled if I am to be beatified with God. As St Paul observes, ‘ He who is joined to God is one spirit with him.’ The Father cannot know himself without me, seeing that I stand in the ground of his eternal deity wherein his whole incomprehensible work is wrought with me and what is compre- MEISTER ECKHART hended that I am. By which I mean the light of the divine Sun, the universal life-giver, therefore I see that God cannot know himself without me. ‘ The life was the light of men,’ St John says.
Now realize the marvellous significance of this. What I say is: the life which is the light of men is man himself understanding (conceiving) himself in the wonder of the primordial power of the Father, in the leaping forth of his mysterious naught, in the blinding light of his indwelling Word brought forth in eternal creation, albeit the uncreated nature of the nameless essence. It is his nature and his wont, with perfectly receptive understand- ing, to take the incomprehensible essence for his own nature whereby the wonders of the negating naught are revealed to him, the night of the mind becoming bright like noon in the light of his pure primitive perfection and his distinct ineffable perfections shine out as clear as day. As David says, ‘ The truth shall not be hidden from thee and thy night shall be as light as day.’ And as his light is so is his enlightenment for in the naked essence man knows himself even as he is known. Which knowing, our Lord said, ‘ I am the door of my sheep-fold.’ In these words he invites us to enter by the door of his emanation and return into the source whence we came forth, for this gives promise in us of something more than is afforded by the soul’s beatitude.
Haply thou wilt say, ‘ Good Brother, if the life is become the light of men enabling them to know themselves as they are known, is it then possible for me to know myself the very Son of God? ’ I answer and say, that the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is so £d:tached to the Father’s nature that never for an instant docs he quit the paternal mode of deity. He wrought his whole work in that nature and into that nature which gives being to all things and he did so freely, in absolute idleness, for no reason at all. Here, bound to human nature, I have to work above nature freely, in absolute idleness or motionless quiet, so as not to be hindered by myself and by my personal nature and by things which are conditioned by time and temporalities; for to know all things in the cause of their existence I must soar beyond all lights, temporal and eternal, and plunge into the causeless essence which gives mind and being to my soul. Drowned in this being, aware of self and things merely as being, my soul has lost her name and there remains no nature but that which, in the Father, is eternally in travail with the Son and as such I am a new man born in his nature and doing all I do supernaturally in the divine nature. As our Lord said, ‘ When I am lifted up I will draw all things after me.’ So I being lifted up with all my powers into the uncreated good do be with Christ one body and with God one TRACTATES TRACTATES spirit and do draw all things to me in one pure, perfect nature. As the gospel says, ‘ This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’ Knowing myself none other than the Son of God, in that same sonship I am cast into my middle power and that in the perennial now, thus the eternal Word is born in me unceasingly, as our Lord says, ‘ Father, glorify thy Son.* In this interpretation lies the explanation of the words, ‘ How hardly does the rich man enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Christ says in effect that the life is none other than the naked spark alight within the soul, which in the groundless Godhead knows itself none but God; to wit, the light which in rational creatures is splendid with the truth. I might give another meaning but I fear ye could not follow it.
To continue: ‘ The light shineth in the darkness and the dark- ness comprehendeth it not.’ I make no comment here save to lament to the eternal truth what numbers fail to realize the high perfection, the deep happiness, glowing unseen within the soul. Christ says, ‘ Blessed be the eyes which see the things ye see.’ He did not mean our bodily eyes, he meant those eyes, twin powers of the soul, set in her mind. As the gospel says, ‘ There was a man sent from God whose name was John.’ Verily, be they male or female, these souls are John, for John denotes the grace of God. What is grace? There is a power in the soul which is idle and does no work; this is none other than the image of God, not that grace is itself this image, it is its form which reforms and transfigures the soul; and in this re-formation wherein she has no form, in this transformation in which she has all forms, the omniform form, there is this quiet the soul has, she being self-contained because the truth is in her: not as hers nor as a quality. As Christ said, ‘ He that enjoyeth me liveth eternally.’ Such an one is sent from God but is not God-forsaken. Christ says, ‘ He that sent me sendeth me not alone, he sendeth also every one that doeth the will of my Father.’
There are four signs to tell a man that he is sent from God. First, that in time he is superior to time and temporalities. Secondly, being therein he is detached from creatures. The third is, that he is idle or quiet-minded. The fourth is, that he is not changeable by nature. Christ said, ‘ 1 am that I am.’ Possessing these a man may take it that he is sent from God and his name is John for he is the grace of God itself. Hence Paul’s words, ‘ God is my soul’s new form wherein she is formless.’
Pass on to the next. ‘ He came to bear witness to the light that all might believe in him.’ Examine this carefully. The words are open to a purely figurative interpretation. Just as he (John) bore witness to the light of the divine unity concealed in Christ 26 MEISTER ECI^LART in order that all might believe in him, so forerunning intuition tells the soul of insight into the innermost recesses of the mind where shines the spark which knows itself none other than the uncreated good of the ineffable Deity. Then the soul with all her powers acknowledges and affirms the Son eternally in the Father and eternally born of the Father who is without beginning. As Christ said, ‘ Whoso heareth my Word and keepeth it liveth forever.’
Now take this in another sense. I will put a question and answer it myself: What reference has this to the true light? Look you. There is a power in the soul called mind, God sent it with the soul, it is her storehouse of incorporeal forms and intel- lectual notions. This soul-capacity the Father fashions in his outflowing divinity whereby all the words of his divine essence flow into the word in our mind in distinction of Person just as memory pours out treasure of images into the powers of the soul. When the soul sees in this power the form of a rational creature, an angel’s or her own form, the idea of the Father is clearly impressed in the soul angelically. But on penetrating deeper, into the very centre of the soul, intellect finds God there in this power face to face, and in this capacity, if she recollect herself to con- template the vision of God in her, there wakes another power of the soul called understanding and the eternal Word is born, conceived by the soul while subsisting eternal in the Father, . these two powers forming one amicable disposition which gives ; direction to the intellect and is its will towards its source. When th€ spirit is flowing from the Father and the Son into this power and into all the powers she has, the soul, oriented to God, grows cognisant of his image as her eternal prototype in God and she ; perceives too how the holy Trinity is sealed in her. Thus the energies of the soul all bear witness to the light of the blessed Trinity that gives light to all mankind and they acknowledge and affirm and believe in the Son born in this man without ceasing. As the gospel says, ‘ He was not the light but bare witness to the light.’
Mark what follows. ‘ That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.’ Throw wide now the ears of understanding to catch the arcane meaning of the boundary between created and uncreated light which is plainly indicated in St John’s words, ‘ That was the true light.’ Taking the name John to mean the light of grace, as said above, then I propose to show what may be rightly termed * the true light that lighteth every man,’ which we receive direct.
I distinguish five lights. The first is devilish light, the second natural light, the third is angelic light, the fourth is spiritu^ TRACTATES 408 light, the fifth is divine light. Mark carefully how these five lights differ.
The first or devilish light leads all astray from the truth. This can be seen in cases where the outward man is not entirely in sympathy with the inward man. Supposing then.that the in- ward man is sunk into his inner mind, where the eternal Word is born in the perennial now, the sudden shock of seeing the out- ward man pictured in the uncertain, fluctuating light of time, will distort the light of his understanding and stop the eternal birth from taking place. This shows it to be devilish light and it behoves you therefore to turn away from it to the peace and quiet of your higher mind. By this means Mary in her virginity, being enlightened by the Holy Ghost, contrived to shun ideas of temporal things and thus, transcending time, to harmonise her inner and her outer man into one settled calm, quite free from images, and this shows you the difference between this devilish light and the divine light.
The second light is natural light. The line of demarcation between natural light and the divine light comes where soul sees spirit direct in very truth. Thinking in natural light, in random images, human nature is changing, waxing and waning, sensible of weal and woe, as Christ shows by his death and passion. But when human nature is face to face with her proper self she is reflected into the divine nature. I ask then, does the soul in this natural light remain changeless in time? I say, no. That is a supertemporal state of union with the divine light and by the grace of God. Being drawn or caught up into the suavity of the indwelling spirit of God, the soul loves universal human nature as her own nature, as God has been loving it eternally, where this nature is set over time in the light of glory. Apart from this light, this man has the natural light of indwelling grace and at the point where he expresses the idea everything in this light of nature must needs fade away out of time, as I have said. Even so Mary was changeless by nature inasmuch as she was free from sinful accidents in the idea of her created nature wherein she knew and loved all mankind. Here ye have the difference between the light of nature in time and light of that nature beyond time in eternal glory. To me it proves that all creatures are one man, loving God by nature.
The third light is angelic light. Now you must know that every individual angel is always open to any ideas that he may choose, one more than another according to the idiosyncrasy of his angelic nature. Their stability is not impaired thereby provided they know and will and love in idleness. This uncreated understanding Lucifer had, and if Lucifer in his creaturehood had seen into the MEISTER ECKHART light of nature, if his creature nature had veered round in his angelic nature to his formless divine nature, he would never have fallen from the truth. As Isaiah observes, ‘ The angelic light in man is the means.’ In the divine light the soul is not subject to ideas nor can any shape appear to her now that she knows, with knowledge that transcends the soul’s, of the inearnation of the Word. Even so Mary, aloof in absolute purity of mind and body, knew creatures as a whole in super-angelic light and her mind conceiving no form save the unformed form of God, she knew herself to be the ornament of God not fashioned in the form of any creature. Wherefore she cried, ‘ My spirit hath rejoiced in God my saviour.’
The fourth light is spiritual light, which is moreover the medium of the light of grace in the mind. In this light of the spirit ye know how to order things in your mind with a view to the con- templation and enjoyment of the groundless essence in your soul. Absorbed therein ye are aware that the divine deep transcends the highest height of creatures. Why, I ask, was Peter oblivious of himself upon the mountain when Christ was transfigured before his three disciples? I answer, that the spiritual light of his mind was eclipsed by interior vision of the divine light: he forgot his own form on perceiving himself in this glory as the reflection ever streaming back to its paternal source. By formlessly appre- hending in itself the bound Word whereto Christ knew himself united, he was taking the Christ-image for his own image. How- beit he was not ravished into the divine light of the perfect intellect but he was caught up into the spiritual light of its reflection shinifig back into its actual self. Beyond this spiritual light Mary was ravished when at the annunciation she conceived the Word in the word begotten according to the love of men.
The fifth light is divine light. Therein stood Mary always, bearing her gracious child. But Christ was born of her bodily. This birth transcends all sense and reason and whoso is rapt away into this unveiled light perceives himself none other than that essence wherein God has his being, his very Godhead. An we would bear with Mary this eternal Word we must be caught up past the four lights into this fifth where we are ever giving birth to God in spirit as Mary bare him in the flesh.
To continue. ‘ He was in the world and the world knew him not,’ vide what was said above anent the difference between created and uncreated light. I say, this means in the world of his pro- vidential knowledge. What time the world was in the Father as uncreated essence, his light, his flowing intellect to wit, was shining on this world-stuff wherein the world subsisted in the Father in uncreated formless simplicity. But in its first eruption TRACTATES 405 the world leaps forth manifold albeit this multiplicity is one essentially. In this eruption this world was self-luminous light.
Mark a second interpretation of the words, ‘ He was in the world and the world was made by him.* By this world I under- stand none other than the divine man. See how this divine light may be called the world. I say, man has within his soul the power of being all creatures, stones, trees and all the rest of them, and that in this same potentiality his mind has gotten the universal prototype of creatures discriminately. So within the ambit of her five senses the soUl compares with rational and irrational creatures. In this sense the soul has gotten both the form and matter, the rational and irrational natures of creature generally. In this sense all things were made in man. And by the same token, before God made everything as such, hell, purgatory, everything, was God: this man is the world this light was in, this is the world that was made by him. John says, ‘ All things were made by him and without him was not anything made.’ From which I can only gather that multitudinous man too is the world, to wit the world of darkness which comprehended not the light referred to in Christ’s words, ‘ I am the light of the world and whoso walkcth in me walketh not in darkness.’ Here our Lord is inviting rational men to follow his example.
He goes on to say, ‘ He came into his own and his own received him not.’ This refers to Christ and I apply it to the individual soul as well. He is come into his own and his own have neither known him nor accepted him. I say: whatever is found in Christ’s nature is found in the highest power of the soul, therefore God is man’s own, but his own is not received by him. I refer to the intellectual five senses. Clearly we have a parable of this in the woman at the well to whom Christ said, ‘ Show me thy husband.’ The woman answered, ‘ I have no husband.’ Christ said, ‘ Thou sayest truly: thou hast had five husbands and him whom thou now hast is not really thy husband.’ I take it that her interests had lain in her five senses. Christ’s words, ‘ him whom thou now hast is not really thy husband,’ I interpret to mean that she was neglecting the intellect she had so it was no true man to her. When God comes sensibly to the soul, which is his own, he is received by what is not his own, to wit the outward senses and inward faculties of the soul. When God is conceived by the soul insensibly then we can say, ‘ our abode is in heaven.’ This passage is clear in the light of the foregoing.
I Brother John, propound two questions. They concern the statement, ‘ But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become God’s sons, even to them that believe in his name.’ r ask in the first place, does the power to become God’s sons lie with us or with God? In the second I ask, what name do we believe in? My answers are briefly as follows.
To start with it must be borne in mind that God is without will, without love, without justice, without mercy, nay without divinity or anything we can ascribe to him or predicate of him or attribute to him (for any good attributed to God or predicated of him simply reduces God to naught), so it is with the soul that lies the power, the ability to make this her own will; in her real will she is incapable of stooping to anything opposed to the nature of that will, and at the point where God and spirit vanish, in that same point I am the Son of God, begotten of God eternally according to Christ’s words, ‘ I am the only-begotten Son of God,’ for I am free from self in all crcaturehood. Where 1 am God is and where God is I am and our joint love is God and he who dwells in this love dwells in God and God in him. Then mine is the highest angel God has in heaven, as much as he is God’s, by whose power and by whose might we make ourselves God’s sons, for he em- powers us with himself, penetrating the will of the soul even as Father and Son permeate their common Spirit. That is the answer to the first question to the best of my knowledge at present.
Now to answer the second question: What divine name do we believe in? That is written in the gospel in Christ’s words, ‘ Father, this is eternity or eternal life, to believe in thee the true God, i.e, truly as God.’ Truth is God, and love, as truly as God is God. If God is free from names then, I durst not think I have the name of Henry nor of Conrad nor of Ulric for by adding any- thing to God I block him with an idol; but he who believes in the name of God rejoices in the universal name, to wit the divine name which we believe in. In this unfathomable light of faith, faith makes us of multitudinous knowledge ignorant, of multi- tudinous will without volition, in multitudinous form unshapen. And so with the prophet, ‘ I say, ye are Gods.’ Believing in the name of God we are God’s sons. If anyone is able to give a better answer to these two questions I would fain hear it.
(He goes on to say, ‘ Which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man ’) for flesh and blood and human will unconquered cannot possess the kingdom of heaven till they are born again in God. This is quite clear, the meaning is patent to all. But I desire to speak briefly on the subject of manhood, I say: the highest power of the soul is the man, her will namely, which always stands bare and uncovered. The second power is intellect, the woman, who is always veiled, and the lower is raised up to the higher. Now when the power we call the man, i,e. the will, is joined to the power we called the woman, the intellect, TRACTATES 407 TRACTATES 407 that IS t6 say, then the woman brings forth fruit in the perennial now. When the male is parted from the female power man’s will is wavering in false light. The apostle truly says, ‘ the Word was made flesh.’ The manhood of Christ as seeing in[to God] has a reflection in the Father’s personal nature. In the groundless substance of the Godhead human nature stands perfectly steady, gazing down in the transcendent light for love of creatures. Thus divine and human nature are atoned in human nature. And by the same token, even if Adam had not fallen yet would Christ have been made man by reason of the love proceeding which is ever being born in eternity in the divine nature and was bound to become man in Christ owing to the idiosyncrasy of that nature which flowed for aye out of the groundless ground of God. The smallest spark falling from out the least and lowest of the angels would illuminate and outshine this world and it would dim the brightest lights of human and angelic nature did it shine next to God. So Christ restores human nature not angelic nature. As his divinity lay hid in his humanity when ‘ the Word was made flesh ’ in him, so let us hide our human nature in his divine nature in that same Word which was incarnate. By living the Christ life more than my own life I am Christ rather than myself and my proper name is Christ rather than James or John, and so this befall beyond time I am changed into God.
Now listen to another meaning, the incarnation of the Word in the sacrament. Just as he made his body in the sacrament by word and knowledge and took and gave it to his disciples idly, without motion or passion, that is to say, nor was this sacrament consummated by knowledge alone but by words as well, even so I observe that in the highest power of the soul, corresponding to the Father-nature, intellect begat itself in the image of Divinity to smite into this Word as perfect will and in the groundless love of this same will the Holy Ghost was gotten in the Word with this same intellect. And still this birth is ever going on in the sacrament to those who arc Christ properly so called: these people are true priests and in the truth, for their going is above the angels and they are not to be touched by temporal things. As Christ said to Mary Magdalene, ‘ Touch me not for I am risen,* so verily these souls are risen with Christ. God gives himself freely, idly, as he gave himself to his disciples in token of the love which works the same in us, and those who take this sacrament as freely and resignedly and unselfhindered, do receive it as really as the giver gives it and he who takes it otherwise does not wholly and solely resign him to the truth. When in the sacrament I receive God from God thus supersacramentally, I am actually changed into the same that I receive, thus the Word is made MEISTER ECKHART MEISTER ECKHART flesh and dwells among us mystically and wherever this is realized there is the proof of the divine spark, moreover I ma]k^ bold to say, were anyone prepared for outward food as for the sacrament he would receive God as much as in the sacrament; which is to many people a hard saying albeit quite consistent with the truth, for the gift prepares for its own reception and I should be the thing prepared for that which has prepared me. St John says, ‘ We have his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.’ From which I gather that anyone who knows the joys of the divine life is shining within and without like the only Son of God, as St Paul says, ‘ I live not but Christ liveth in me in his love.’
Consider what is meant by sons of God and children of God. To be God’s children in the sense that he created us is not enough. For instance. If I paint my likeness on the wall, he who sees the likeness is not seeing me; but anyone who sees me sees my like- ness and not my likeness merely but my child. If I really knew my soul, anyone who saw my conception of it would say it was my son for I share therewith my energy and nature, and as here so is it in the Godhead. The Father understands himself perfectly clearly so there appears to him his image, that is to say, his Sou, The Father is light, the Son is light and image and the Holy Ghost also is light and image and inasmuch as the Father imagines (or conceives) his Son he is called Son and inasmuch as he endows him with his nature he is called his child. Likewise that man is the image of God who, being detached from things, is living as spirit in the spirit of God and such have glory and honour as the only Son of God full of grace and truth of the reflection of God, and really containing and possessing God in them; thus the kingdom of God is within us.
Here endeth the Commentary on this Gospel.
XIX 1 THE BEATIFIC VISION King David said: ‘ Lord in thy light shall we see light.’ Doctors debate as to the medium in which we shall see God. The common doctrine is that it will be in the light of glory. But this solution appears to me to be unsound and untenable. From time to time I have explained that man has within him a light called the active intellect: this is the light in which man will see God in bliss, so they seek to prove. Now man according to his creaturely nature is in great imperfection and is unable by nature ' See Preger, Oeachichte der deutachen Myatiker^ vol. i, p. 484.
TRACTATES to discern God otherwise than as creatures do, by images and forms, as I have elsewhere demonstrated. The soul is unable of herself and by her own innate power to transcend this state; that must happen in some supernatural power such as the light of grace. Mark this solution which I will now proceed to discuss.
St Paul says: ^ By God’s grace 1 am that I am.’ He does not say that he is ‘ of grace.’ There is a difference between being by grace and being grace itself. Doctors declare that form gives being to matter. Now there are various definitions of grace current among them. But I say grace is nothing else than the flowing light proceeding direct from God’s nature into the soul: a supernatural form of the soul which gives her a supernatural nature. This is what I had in mind when I stated that the soul was unable of herself to transcend her own natural activity; this she can do in the powder of grace which endows her with a super- natural nature.
Observe, grace effects nothing by itself. Moreover it exalts the soul above activity, (irace is bestowed in the essence of the soul and is received into her powers; for if the soul is to effect anything in this matter, she must needs have grace by virtue of which to transcend her own activities such as knowing and loving. Whilst the soul is in process of taking this transcendental flight out of herself into the nothingness of herself and her own activity, she is ‘ by grace ’; she is grace wdien she has accomplished this transcendental passage and has overcome herself and now stands in her pure virginity alone, conscious of nothing but of behaving after the manner of God. As God lives, while the soul is still capable of knowing and acting after the manner of her creaturc- liness and as a child of nature, she has not become grace itself though she may well be by grace. For to be grace itself the soul must be as destitute of activity, inw^ard and outward, as grace is, which knows no activity. St John says: ‘ To us is given grace for grace,’ for to become grace by grace is the work of grace. The supreme function of grace is to reduce the soul to what it is itself. Grace robs the soul of her own activity; grace robs the soul of her own nature. In this supernatural flight the soul transcends her natural light which is a creature and comes into immediate touch with God.