The question is, Does the virtue of prayer increase with the outward practice of it? Meister Eckhart says that the external habit adds little or nothing to the value of prayer. Prayer is a good thing in itself. Now a thing that is good in. virtue of its muchness is not good in virtue of itself. One groat has little value all alone but if thou hadst a thousand groats that were a handsome property, solely by reason of the number. Groats have small value in themselves apart from number. And so it is with outward practices: number adds little to the good of prayer; one Ave coming freely from the heart has greater power and virtue than a thousand from the lips. And by the same token, no virtue dwells in number of good works; virtue is every whit as fine, as good, in one least act of virtue rightly done as in a thousand. Virtue is not enhanced by multiplying outward acts of virtue, for were it good from number it would not then be good in its own right. A thing good in itself is good in its oneness not in its multi- plication. True virtue means virtuous works wrought virtuously. Who gives an alms in God’s name but gives it grudgingly and not with cheerful heart, what though he do a virtuous deed, he does not do it virtuously. And so with prayer or any other virtue: done rightly it is virtue but not else. Take patience for example. External suffering does not make one patient: it merely tries one’s patience, as fire will try a penny whether it be of silver or of copper.
The pa,tient man is patient still though outward suffering n’er befall. And prayer the same. The man of pure heart Godward turned who never does a stroke of outward work is nathcless in good case for hearts are not made pure by outward prayers: prayer rises pure from out pure hearts.
Doctors declare that God moves all things, i.e. all creatures, but creatures cannot move God. God can move creatures for he has created all creatures and it is he who keeps them in existence. But creatures cannot move God: no creature can affect God, according to the universal law that the lower does not flow into the higher. Now creatures are inferior to God so they do not influence God, ergo, they do not move God.
In this connection some enquirers ask how God can move creatures and not be defiled by creatures which are full of fault? The masters answer. If, as we see,'^the sun can shine on mire and SAYINGS filth without contamination then how much more can God protect himself from any taint of creature. But Meister Eckhart argues in a different fashion. He says God is in all things but so as to be wholly outside things, hence faults in creatures will not affect God. Just as we see the soul whole in the eye and at the same time whole outside the eye for she is whole in every limb; no blemish of the eye can touch the soul which is in suchwise wholly in the eye as to be independent of the eye. Even so God in creature is wholly without creature, untouched and untainted by creature.
There is another answer Meister Eckhart gives: God is only in the essence (or being) of a creature. His argument runs thus. Essenee is without defect, defect being nothing but a lapse from being. Now seeing no defect can touch the essence and God is only in the essence of a creature therefore God is unaffected by the defects of creature. Regarding this amazing fact of deity John Chrysostom observes: ‘ That God is in all creatures we know and declare but how and in what manner we do not understand.’ Yet Meister Eckhart says it is quite plain if for the word God we put the word being. We see and have abundant proof that being is in all things. But if actual being is God it follows then that God must be in all things.
45 45 Thus saith the wise man in the Book of Wisdom, ‘ Eternal wisdom is omnipotent for it is one.’ Upon which Meister Eckhart com- ments thus. The simpler a thing is the more powerful and effective it is. We can demonstrate it thus. In a thing made of parts the power of the thing resides in its parts. In a house made of walls, foundations and roof, the whole force of the house consists in these parts. If the house could but draw from its oneness the virtue it gets from its walls then it need have no walls. Now God is the simplest possible good wherein all things are one and as one he is therefore omnipotent. Again, the heathen doctors say that power dispersed is dissipated. It is so with the mind. Scattered in multitudinous creature it is so much more feeble and infirm toward God. But when the mind gets rid of creatures, when all the senses vanish into mind, then mind and passions being met in one the mind is strong enough to wrest from God whatever it desires. When man does what is in him not even God can say him nay.
46 In one of his sermons Meister Eckhart said. It is my humility that gives God his divinity and the proof of it is this. God’s peculiar property is giving. But God cannot give if he has nothing to receive his gifts. Now I make myself receptive to his gifts by MEISTER ECKHART my humility so I by my humility do make God giver and since giving is God’s own peculiar property I do by my humility give God his property. The would-be giver must needs find a taker; without a taker he cannot be a giver for it is the taker by his taking that makes the man a giver. So God, to be the giver, must discover a receiver. Now none but the humble can receive the gift of God. So God, to use his godlike power of giving, will eke need my humility; without humility he cannot give me aught for I without humility cannot accept his gift. Thus it is true that I by my humility do give God his divinity.
47 47 Meister Eckhart also said, My lowliness raises up God and the lower I humble myself the higher do I exalt God and the higher I do exalt God the more gently and sweetly he pours into me his divine gift, his divine influx. For the higher the inflowing thing the more easy and smooth is its flow. How God is raised upon my lowliness I argue thus: the more I abase and keep myself down the higher God towers above me. The deeper the trough the higher the crest. In just the same way, the more I abase and 1 humble myself the higher God goes and the better and easier he f pours into me his divine influx. So it is true that I exalt God by ' my lowliness.
48 Meister Eckhart says. We ought not to have to ask God for his grace, his divine goodness, we ought to contrive to take it ourselves withor^t asking. God has gotten himself in his divine outflow just as the flowing...49 Meister Eckhart points out how Isaias says, ‘ Thy light is come to thee, the light which is eternal, unchangeable and new and inconceivable, free and thine own; well may thy heart both wonder and rejoice.’
The question is, how is it light if it is inconceivable? How does it come if it is immoveable? How be called thine if it is free? I answer first. That light is God which is light in itself and which is light in all created things and wherein all creatures are light. For to begin with I contend that light has the peculiar property of being clear and luminous in itself and in others revelation. But this belongs exclusively to God. Wherefore I say the light in itself is God. The second point is argued thus. If everything caused is a manifestation of the first cause then light of intellect in us is surely God; no mind can see the naked truth in a created SAYINGS 481 light for nothing gives what it has not got. Augustine says, * Our mind can only see the naked truth in light which is perfectly simple and pure, God, to wit.’ The third is proved as follows. If creature is light and God is light, as has been shown before, then creaturely being is merely a light in light-being. But one light in another produces but one light, so it is true.
— ‘ Talking of light, now if so be that in this life our minds can see the naked truth by means of the light that is God, then it is also true that man may here see God and needs must it be true withal that man is here beatified.* I answer that, albeit here a man may see the truth by means of the light that is God natheless he sees not what God is, using this light as a means. I say, what though he see God as he is, he is not yet beatified for God as a means is germane to creature. Look you, God beatifies not as being the beginning (when he is of the nature of all things), not yet as being the mean (where he is of the nature of a creature), nor even as the end (for then again he is all things), neither does he beatify as being all of these but he beatifies just inasmuch as he transcends them all; he beatifies as being God impartible, as being simply pure light in itself.
If thou shouldst ask, ‘ How is he light, being incomprehensible? ’ I answer. Being incomprehensible therefore he is the light. I say, moreover, incomprehensibility is the light nature and this is plain, for his incomprehensibility comes from his unendingness. But his unendingness is due to his simplicity, to his purity (or clarity), which constitutes lightness in God. It is well said then, God is light. But know, this vision of the truth in the divine light is gotten in no school of creatures, it is learnt in the school of renouncement, of utter detachment from creatures, and for such lore the school is heaven, the book thy empty heart, eternity thy reading, thy mentor uncreated light and truth thy mentor too. This David meant when he declared, ‘ Lord in thy light shall we see the light.’
Then take the second question. How does he come who is without motion and how does he come who is without place? To whom does he come who is in all hearts?
I answer, He does not come as anything at all nor yet as gaining something for himself but he comes ordering; he who was hidden comes and reveals himself. He comes as the light which lay concealed in people’s hearts and in their minds, now taking shape in intellect and will and in the deepest being of the soul. He is in the inner man in such a way that there is naught without him and there is naught there with him: he is there all by himself. He comes, appearing in the mind and in the will, nothing at all without him, nothing at all with him but mind and will are full MEISTER ECKHART MEISTER ECKHART of him alone. There seems nothing with him, nothing without him; the mind is but the place of God, a Godstead to itself and nothing more, as David sings, ‘ Lord the light of thy countenance is risen upon us ’ as though to say, Holding thy peace, with sighing and with rue do thou by means of intellect turn thy will round to feel the charm of God. Converse with him as man to man and as thou dost discourse with God in the first person and of God in the third so do thou talk to God in the second Periion. Forgetting everything, aware of God alone, say unto him, ‘ Thou art my God, thou only art within, thou only art all things.’ Creatures are not receptive to God, except those that are made in the image of God, like angels and man’s soul: these being God- receptive he is in them and they in him. To others God is essential, not that they have gotten him but simply that they have no being without him. Not in virtue of his presence do they see him, does she see God in her innermost depth; nor is it by his power for he is powerless apart from her; but we can do nothing without him. God being in the soul as in himself therefore the soul is called a place and soul is also called the place of peace for where God is as it were in himself there is the kingdom of heaven and peace untroubled, joyous and delightful. The blest soul is at rest in God as in her own, and more so.
A man who has gone clean out of himself straightway finds God in God and God with God. He behaves like him for what he is he is to God and what he is to God God is to him: God belongs wholly to him and is wholly he and he is wholly in God and is downright God they being so entirely the same, one cannot be without the other.
50 The soul is no different from Christ save that the soul has a born nature and a created nature. This Christ has not in his eternal Person. If the soul doffed her born nature and her created nature she would be all the same, just essence itself. I say, put off thy creature; it is easy to doff the creature for this is a labour of love and the greater the pain the greater the joy.
51 I Whoso has three things is beloved of God. The first is riddance lof goods; the second, of friends, and the third is riddance of self.
52 Meister Eckhart said that in the essence of the soul we may surely see and know God. And the closer acquainted one is in SAYINGS this life with the soul the closer acquainted with God. The only way is to abandon creature and escape from self. Ilarkee. Love creature as I may in God never can I love God in creature as perfectly as in myself. Thou hast to go out of thyself into thyself again; there lies the home of truth which none may find who looks for it in outward things. Mary Magdalene, when she left creatures and betook herself into her heart, found there our Lord. God is unmixed and pure: I can find God then only in the pure. But my interior soul is more undefiled and pure than any creature; so my best chance of finding God is down in my own soul. And eke I am the life in God for ‘ All that is in the Father is the life in him,’ John said. In this guise does the Father bear the Son and in this selfsame birth I do proceed from him. Now he declares the Son to be in him, in the very depth of his heart. But since all that was made in him is the life in him therefore I am this life in the innermost heart of God. ‘ And the life was the light of men,’ said John. Mark you, he says the divine light in us is our light wherein we see all things conceived in the mind, God is being, perfect being, without which are no beings; for all beings are from his being. May we be this same being. So help us God. Amen.
58 58 According to Meister Eckhart, there are seven degrees of con- templation. Whoso would practise contemplation let him seek out a quiet spot and set himself to thinking, first, how noble his soul is, how she has flowed straight out of God, a thought that fills him with a great delight. Having well cogitated this, •next let him think how God must love his soul to make it in the likeness of the Trinity, so that all God is by nature he may be by grace; whereat he will delight perforce more vehemently still for it is far more noble to be made in the form of the Trinity than merely to come straight from God. — In the third stage he meditates that he has been beloved of God for aye; the Trinity has been for aye and God has loved the soul for aye. — Fourthly, he reflects that God did ever charge him to enjoy with God what God has aye enjoyed and always shall, God himself namely. At the fifth stage the soul enters into herself and knows God in herself, which happens in this wise: No being can be without being and being feeds on being; but being cannot live upon this food till this food is converted to the same blessed nature as that which feeds upon it and this applies to being which is being-of-itself. But there is no being-of-itself excepting God, So my soul is living on nothing but God. And by entering into oneself like this one finds God in oneself. If God will that I faint not he must give me being. No MEISTER ECKHART MEISTER ECKHART being can stand without God so if he means me to have being theii he must give me himself.
The sixth stage is, soul knows hersdf in God. As thus. Every- thing in God is God. Now my idea has always been in God, is still and ever shall be, therefore my soul is ever one with God and is God and I do find myself in God in the exalted fashion oi being God in God eternally. This brings the expert soul ineffable delight.
At the seventh stage the soul knows God in himself as being without beginning whence all things emanated. This gnosis comes to no man fully in this life for it means the beholding of God. a thing not of this world.
54 Mind you, all our perfection, our whole happiness, depends or our traversing and transcending creature, time and state and entering the cause which is causeless.
55 God will never give himself openly to the soul...except she bring her husband, her whole free will, to wit.
56 What the joy of the Lord is none can tell. But mark this much concerning it. The joy of the Lord is the Lord himself none else, the Lord being live, essential, actual intellect whict knows itself and is and lives itself in itself and is the same, I dc not i^addle it with any mode, nay, I divest it of all mode for he himself is modeless mode who is and is glad because he is. This is the joy of the Lord and is the Lord himself. W^hite is not black nor is aught naught. From naught naught can be taken, From aught aught can be taken and it is wholly thus with God, Of aught that is wholly in God naught remains. Soul joined to God has in him once for all all that is at all in absolute perfection. There soul forgets things and herself, as she is in herself, waking up in God, godlike as God in her, so much in love with self in him, so indiscriminately one with him, she enjoys naught but him, delighting in him. What more should she know or desire?
57 God being still sets everything going. So desirable a thing starts them all running back into that from whence they came; to that which stays unchanged in its own self; and the nobler the thing the more blithely it runs.
SAYINGS 58 God can no more abide his likes than he could abide not being God. Likeness is not a thing that can belong to God. There is sameness in the Godhead, in eternity; but likeness is not sameness. If I am same I am not like. Likeness is no form of being in the one; there is sameness for me in the unity, not likeness.
59 The first work of God in the soul is the birth of his Son in the soul and from this act his other gifts do flow into the soul, as grace and virtue. What God can do in the soul is to bring forth his Son in the soul and this must needs be. It is characteristic of God that he cannot refrain, he must beget his Son in me and in you all. I say, God begets me his Son and so say I of you all as well. That we are all born of God his Son, is nothing wonderful; we can see this with creatures. Now mark my words, I say, this man is the not; I am not what you are and you are not what I am. Suppress the not and we are just the same; take naught from creatures and creatures are all the same. The remainder is one. What is this one? It is the Son the Father bears. To be the actual Son the Father bears we must cancel the naught of creatures. This naught which all creatures are e\imbers a man and stops him being the very Son begotten of the Father. God bids us part with naught so as to be the selfsame Son the Father bears. For this man must be one; he must escape from images and forms ere he can be the actual Son the Father brings to birth; he must be rid of everything, not merely alien things, but eke his own; for God’s Son and man’s son are not two sons, they are one Son, one nature; so it behoves a man to flee from other natures as well as from his own and stand in the bare nature of the Son in the Godhead, in that only. What I say is that if one is to be the actual Son the Father bears one must give up own nature altogether. — ‘ But many people have natures so alien to their own, how then can they surrender their own nature? ’ — We always must surrender our own natures in order to become the very Son the Father bears. As St Paul says, ‘ Wc must be changed into his Son.’ In other words, the Son alone being beloved of the Father, what- ever things the Father loves he must love in his Son and inas- much as we become this Son the Father bears we do be changed into his Son of love and are his very Son. Of this be sure. God will love them in us and in all creatures in the guise of his alone- begotten Son. Provided we abandon naught, become estranged from naught. We must relinquish all things, must forget all MEISTER ECKHART things, keeping nothing but the single nature of the Son. It seems a great deal but is not. It is a simple thing God bids us do, he bids us give up naught. Whoso is without why has given up naught and by doing this we gain the whole world and abund- ance. To the good man all things come, be sure of that. If I am better than you are, all the good you do and what you have is rather mine than yours for what you have you have in naught. But if I have abandoned naught I am the very Son the Father bears and everything belongs to me in God.
60 What could be sweeter than to have a friend with whom, as with thyself, thou canst discourse all that is in thy heart?
61 When God made man the innermost heart of the Godhead was put into man.
62 What is God’s speaking? The Father regarding himself with pure perception sees into his own simple uncompounded essence and there descrys the whole idea of creature. By doing so he speaks himself, his Word being clear understanding and this is his Son.
63 Speaking of man wc mean a person; speaking of manhood we mean human nature.
Doctors define what nature is. It is the thing that essence can take on. God took on manhood and not man. I say: Christ was the first man. How so? What is first in intention is last in execution, as the roof is the finish of the house.
65 The uppermost soul-face has two acts. By one she knows God, his gift and his emanation. Therein she loves God today and knows him, and not tomorrow. The image lies not in these powers owing to their impermanence. There is another action of the upper face, which is concealed. In the concealment lies the image. Five things belong to this image. First, it is cast by another. Secondly, it answers to that same. Thirdly, it emanates therefrom. Fourthly, it is like thereto in nature; not that it is God’s nature but it is a substance which is self-sub - sistent; pure light-emanation from God and differing from him SAYINGS 487 only by the fact of knowing God. Fifthly, it tends towards the exemplar whence it came. Two things adorn this image. The one, its being arrayed like him. The other, its having in it a somewhat of eternity. The soul has three powers. Not in them lies the image. But she owns a single power, namely, the active intellect. Now according to Augustine and the New Philosophers, memory, understanding and will are found herein together, nor can these three be told apart. This is the secret image answering to God, God shining straight into this image.
It is God’s will that we be holy and that we do what makes us holy. Holiness is a matter of will and wisdom. According to the best authorities holiness lies in the ground, in the summit of the soul, where soul is in her cause, where she has outgrown names and her own powers withal. For powers too are the defi- ciency. We cannot give a name to God, nor can we name the soul in her own nature. The point where these twain meet is holiness.
Essence is so noble it gives being to all things. Were there no essence angels would be like stones.
66 A learned doctor said on one occasion when preaching in the capital, that there was once a man, we read of him in holy scrip- ture, who went a full eight years yearning for God to indicate some person who should instruct him in the way of truth. Then in a moment of vehement desire there came a voice from God and said, ‘ Get thee to the temple, there shalt thou find a man to set thee on the path to truth.’ And he went and found a beggar, his feet all cracked and dirty, his rags scarce worth three pence. He greeted him, ‘ Give thee good morrow! ’ He answered, ‘ I n’er had a bad.’ — ‘ How now I ’ quotha, ‘ Give thee good luck! ’ He answered, ‘ I never had ill.’ Again he adventured, ‘ God bless thee I How sayst thou. Sirrah, to that? ’ He said, ‘ I was never accursed.’ — ‘ God ’a mercy I ’ he cried, ‘ unriddle me this, I trow it is beyond me! ’ Said he, ‘ I will. Thou dost wish me good morrow and I say I ne’er had a bad. Hungry I praise God; freezing I praise God; poor and forsaken withal I praise God so I never have a bad morrow. Thou dost wish me good luck; I say, I have never had ill. Whatsoever God gives or may lay up for me, be it sour or sweet, good or bad, I accept all from God for the best so I have no ill hap. Thou dost call down God’s blessing upon me. I answer, I am not accursed. I have given my will up to God’s, every whit, so that anything God wills I will. That is why I am never unblessed, because I have no will but God’s.^ — ‘ Marry, good Sir, suppose God chose to cast thee into MEISTER ECKHART hell, what would^t thou say to that? ’ — ‘ To cast me into hell? ’ quoth he, ‘ that would spite himself! Yet if he cast me into hell I should still have two arms to clasp him with. One arm is true humility and this I should put under him, embracing him the while with the other arm of love. Better,’ he said, ‘ to be in hell with God than be in heaven without him.’
67 Said Meister Eckhart to a beggar, ‘ Good morrow, brother.’ ‘ The same to you Sir, but I never have bad ones.’ — ‘ How so, brother? ’ he asked. — ‘ All God gives me to bear I eheerfully suffer for his sake deeming myself unworthy, so never am I sad or sorry.’ — ‘ Where didst thou find God first? ’ he asked. — ‘ Leaving all creatures I found God.’ — ‘ Where didst thou leave God, brother? ’ he said. — ‘ In every man’s pure heart.’ — ‘ What manner of man art thou, brother? ’ quoth he. — ‘ I am a king,’ he said. — ‘ Of what? ’ he queried. — ‘ Of my own flesh. Whatsoever my spirit desires of God my flesh is more eager, more ready to do and to bear than my mind to accept.’ — ‘ Kings have kingdoms,’ he said: ‘ where is thy realm, brother? ’ — ‘ In my own soul.’ — ‘ How so, brother? ’ he asked. — ‘ When, having locked the doors of my five senses, I am desiring God with all my heart then do I find God in my soul as clearly and as joyful as he is in life eternal.’ — He said, ‘ Granting thee holy, who made thee so brother? ’ — ‘ Sitting still and thinking deep and keeping company with God has gotten me to heaven, for never could I rest in aught inferior to God. Now having found him I have peace and do rejoice eternally in him and that is more than any temporal kingship. No outward act however perfect but hinders the interior life.’
68 Meister Eckhart met a lovely naked boy. He asked him whence he came. He said, ‘ I come from God.’ — ‘ Where hast thou left him? ’ — ‘ In virtuous hearts.’ — ‘ Whither away? ’ — ‘ To God.’ — ‘ Where wilt thou find him? ’ — ‘ Leaving all creatures.’ — ‘ Who art thou? ’ — ‘ A king.’ — ‘ Where is thy kingdom? ’ — ‘ In my own heart.’ — ‘ Mind no one shares it with thee.’ — ‘ So I do.’ He took him to his cell and said, ‘ Take any coat thou wilt.’ — ‘ Then I should be no king ’ (said he), and vanished.
It was Gk)d himself that he had had with him a little spell.
A daughter came to the Dominican convent asking for Meister Eckhart. The porter said, ‘ Who shall I tell him? ’ She, ^ See also Spamer’a Textc, C, 6.
SAYINGS 489 answered, ‘ I do not know.’ — ‘ Why do you not know? ’ he enquired. — ‘ Because,’ she said, ‘ I am not either virgin or [Spouse, not man nor wife nor widow nor lady nor lord nor wench nor thrall.’ The porter went off to Meister Eckhart. ‘ Do come out,’ h^said, ‘ to the strangest wight that ever I heard and let me come too and you put your head out and say, ‘ Who is asking for me? ’ He did so. She said to him what she had said to the porter. Quoth he, ‘ My child, thou hast a shrewd and ready tongue, I prithee now thy meaning? ’ — ‘ An I were virgin,’ she replied, ‘ I were in my first innocence; spouse, I were bearing the eternal Word within my soul unceasingly; were I a man I should grapple with my faults; wife, should be faithful to my husband. Were I a widow I should be ever yearning for my one and only love; as lady I should render fearful homage; as wench I should be living in meek servitude to God and to all creatures and as thrall I should be working hard, doing my best tamely to serve my Master. Of all these things I am no single one who am the one thing as the other running thither.’ The doctor went away and told his students, ‘ I have been listening to the most perfect person I ween I ever met.’
This fragment is entitled, ‘ Meister Eckhart’s Daughter.’
70 MEISTER ECKHART’S FEAST Meister Eckhart tells how once upon a time there came a beggar to Cologne on Rhine in quest of poverty and the life of truth. Accosted him a noble dame, ‘ Eat with me, brother, of God’s charity! ’ — ‘ Gladly,’ quoth he. When they were seated she encouraged him, ‘ Eat heartily, be not ashamed.’ — ‘ ’Tis wrong,* he said, ‘ to eat too much, to eat too little is wrong too; the just mean lies between: I will eat as a beggar.’ — ‘ What is a beggar? ’ she asked. — ^He said, ‘ It means three things. First, being dead to natural things. Next, not having inordinate desire of posses- sions. Thirdly, begrudging suffering to everyone except oneself.’ — ‘ Tell me,’ she questioned, ‘ what is poverty of the inner man? ’ — ‘ That also means three things,’ he said. ‘ First, complete detachment from creatures, which arc out of God, in time and in eternity. Secondly, abject humility of the outward and the inward man. Thirdly, an active interior life; the mind un- ceasingly wrought up to God.’ — ‘ What is poverty of spirit? ’ she asked. — ‘ You want to know too much,’ he said. — ‘ I can never know too much,’ said she, ‘ of God’s glory and man’s happiness.’ — ‘ True,’ he returned. ‘ That again means three things. First, MEISTER ECKHART