MEISTER ECKHART not knowing aught but God in time and in eternity. Secondly, not seeking God outside oneself. Thirdly, not owning any pro- perty that one conveys from place to place.’ — ‘ But surely Meister Eckhart, our father, must get from out his cell the sermons he preaches from his pulpit? ’ — ‘ Not he,* he said. — ‘ Whence then?/ (she asked). — ‘The more temporal the more personal, the more personal the more temporal.* — ‘ I trow,* she said, ‘ this guest is not out of Bohemia.’ ^ Quoth he, ‘ The sun that shines here in Cologne is shining also in the town of Prague.’ — ‘ Explain,^ she begged. He said, ‘ ’Tis not my place with Meister Eckhart present.’ Meister Eckhart said, ‘ He who knows nothing of the truth from within, if he woo it without shall find it too within.* — ‘ The reckoning is paid,’ she cried. And he: ‘ Lady, you furnish the wine.* — ‘ I am not loath,* she answered, ‘ an you ask me.’
(So Meister Eckhart asked her), ‘ Wherein do we divine the work- ing of the Holy Ghost within our souls? * She answered, ‘ In three things. First, in the waning day by day of personal things, desires and natural love. Next, in the waxing of divine love and of grace from day to day. Last, in the eager charity which moves us to bestir ourselves on our fellow-man’s behalf before our own.’ Quoth he, ‘ Our Lord’s friends prove it.* Anon he asked, ‘ How does the spiritual man divine God’s presence at his orisons or exercises? ’ She answered, ‘ By three things. First, by the object he sets before his chosen, world scorn and body suffering, to wit. Next, by a growth in grace commensurate with the love betwixt himself and God. The third one is th^it God does never leave him without hint of some fresh truth.’ — ‘ That is, of course, the case,’ he said. ‘ Now tell me, how does he know if what he does is wholly in accord- ance ♦with the sovran will of God? * She answered, ‘ By three things. First, clear consciousness never fails him. Secondly, he has union with God without break. Thirdly, the heavenly Father keeps giving his Son birth in him, in inspiration.’ Quoth Meister Eckhart, ‘ Were every reckoning as well paid as this one for the wine there’s many a soul in purgatory would tliis day be in life eternal.* Whereon the mendicant chimed in, ‘ What more remains it is the Doctor’s turn to pay.* — ‘ Leave the old to their age,’ protested Meister Eckhart. — ‘Then love shall settle it,’ the beggar said, ‘ that never faileth.’
Quoth the lady, ‘ Prithee father, how does one know oneself the heavenly Father’s child? ’ He answered, ‘ By three things. First, one does everything for love. Next, one takes everything the same from Go^. Thirdly, one has no hope in anyone but God.* ^ * B&heim (Bohemia) I interpret thus: M stands for heatua; heim, domua or house is to be interpreted as own house or fixed abode' Wilhelm von Wenden.
SAYINGS Quoth the beggar, ‘ Prithee father, how are we to tell if virtue is doing her perfect work in us? ’ He answered, ‘ By three things, love of God for God’s sake, good for good’s sake, truth for truth’s sake.’
Quoth the Doctor, ‘ My children, how lives the teacher of the truth? ’ The lady said, ‘ He practises what he preaches.’ The beggar cried, ‘Agreed. But the truth in his heart no words can say.’
As the eternal Word is the birth of the heavenly Father, so is the will of God the birth and the becoming of all creatures.
THIS IS MEISTER ECKHART’S FEAST LIBER POSITIONUM 1. Here the disciple is supposed to question his master, saying, ‘ Tell me, could God an he would have made all things as good as he is himself? ’ The master said, Yes, what God wills he can do. — ‘ Are things all made of his own nature? ’ The master said. No.
2. The disciple inquired, ‘ What is the soul made of? ’ — She is made out of nothing. — ‘ Where did God get the nothing he made the soul out of? ’ — Some say he got it in himself. That is not the case for in God is not nothing: that which is in God is God. — ‘ But God has all things in himself and without God is nothing. Surely then he gets this nothing out of himself? ’ — The master said, No, not at all! He gets it neither in himself nor out of himself, nor above himself nor below himself. There is no getting nothing from inside or out. If it were gotten anywhere it would not be nothing. Anything that docs this: takes nothing from nowhere and makes of it something, is God. So runs the argument that the nothing is gotten from nowhere. They asked St Augustine about this mysterious nothing out of which the soul is made and where, apart from place, this nothing hides? His explanation was that this nothing is openly enclosed in betwixt God and God- head, in his almighty power. Were it in close confinement it would not be naught: it either would have ))lace or else be God by nature, the soul being made of the nature of God. But it is not. Ergo, this nothing is at large in the almighty power of the Father to whom it is as easy to get from nowhere naught as aught. It is confined to his omnipotence to be able to take naught from nowhere and from it create aught. Whatever can do this is God.
3. Now another question. Dionysius says, Tell me, what about the soul who is in full enjoyment of her rights: what is it that she has by rights at the height of her perfection? — By rights the soul has knowledge: clear understanding of all things and is so mellowed by love as to be all unwitting, when people love and hate her, whether she be not dearer to her haters than her lovers. And this soul has by rights absolute freedom from herself and things: sunk in the sovran good she cannot find herself at all. Here we have two natures. One, the thing that sinks; the other, what it sinks in. She sinks eternally but never touches bottom. This MEISTER ECKHART sinking shows her two things. In sinking from herself she is more God than creature. The fact that she does sink proclaims her creaturely for deity sinks not. — But when she has yielded her aught to his aught and her naught is subsisting in naught, then what will belong to her aught and her naught? — None can tell, but she has no more than her rights. That is the answer.
4. Another question is, has the soul more enjoyment in the source of joy or in the vision of its wonders? — Consider what she has in each. In admiring its wonders she obeys the selfsame wondrous law that the first cause laid down for all causes as befitting each. But soul does not stop here, she transcends wonder. The wonders have become her potential being. Hence her enjoyment is much keener in the source of joy than in tlie beholding of its wonders. In the source is her abode, not in its wondrous vision. There all wonders end; there all is one to her and one in all. That is the answer to this question.
5. The question is, if the Godhead has all things how comes it then neither to give nor to beget? If it does not beget it is not Father. — The explanation is this. Man’s nature is called man- hood, and manhood as such neither acts nor begets; it acts and begets in a human person. And the same with Godhood: it is all-containing and yet not active and productive in itself. What it does is all done by the Persons in person and nature. The God- head is called fruitful inasmuch as it is brought forth in the Persons in Person and essence.
6. An angel may do three things in the soul. Either he con- fronts her with the scriptures or with the holy life or, again, with the e?camplc of Christ Jesus, showing her something clearly as though in a mirror wherein one may espy some blemish on the human face and so proceed to cure it. Thus she sees herself, what she still lacks; where she is not as yet all that she ought to be; what things to leave and what to keep; how much or little she should be to things: all this she plainly sees. And whatever an angel can do the devil may very well copy. — ‘ Have we no means of telling. Sir, if it is an angel or the devil? ’ — Yes, they are very different. Tests for angel and the devil are as follows. Anything an angel does is done in the light, orderly and clearly, and the soul rejoices in the amiable presence of the angel; also it is a sign to know him by that she is left with a sense of pleasure. In counter- feiting this the devil makes it vague, confused, ambiguous, and the soul, affrighted at this haunting of the fiend, is restless and depressed and by this she may know it is the devil.
The angel talks virtue to the soul, the fiend talks virtue too but God does not talk virtue. — ‘ For the love of God, good Sir, tell us what you mean.’ — 1 will explain. The angel talks virtue to the LIBER POSITIONUM soul and his talk (the angel’s), which is of necessary virtue, is friendly and persuasive, something in this fashion: ‘ See, there is still this to go and that to do and the other to leave off ’: orderly counsel and plain and the soul finds peace in complying with his words. The devil talks virtue too, but he urges superfluous virtues: too much fasting and watching and kneeling, too much weeping, and his counsels are more in the nature of commands, as thus: ‘ Do this or that or thou art damned,’ or ‘ art not good nor perfect.’ An orgy of uncontrolled virtues with no definite aim, that is his cue and the soul is affrighted within her and gleans no satisfaction from his words. — But God’s talk is not of virtue though it is wonderful talk. The burden of it a fair Word that is passing good to hear. The Holy Ghost goes before the angel and embracing the soul prepares her to receive what the angel has to say; and the Son gives wisdom and order to the words and God the Father help and consummation to that which is spoken in the soul. Thus God does not talk virtue in the soul; he forestalls the angel and prepares the soul, giving wisdom, order and achievement to the angelic utterance in the soul; the Holy Trinity all work together in her without speaking.
7. The statement that our Lord from time to time holds con- verse with good people and that they hear words or become im- pressed with the sense of certain sayings such as, ‘ Thou art mine elect, or my beloved; thou shalt never leave me and I will never leave thee,’ and the like, things like this, I say, should be accepted with reserve and judged upon their merits for locutions of this kind are often due to a trick the soul has, when indulging in comfortable intuitions of divinity, of answering herself by a sort of reflex action. When the soul, aflood with God, is void and free from sensible affections she grows apace in created light till nothing transcends her but intellect and essential knowledge. In this detachment the knower is the known; out of her own light she creates what, she desires. Such is the effect of the benignant reign of essential understanding. Aristotle says in the third book of The Soul, ‘ Every immaterial substance or isolated form is in itself both the knower and the known,’ and this is why the soul, cut off from the corporal things by the encircling flood of God, draws deiform truth out of her own self. It follows that anything in her of which she has a rational perception is not said by God: God’s speech is none other than the perfect image of divine truth wherein the spirit is caught up out of its selfhood, past under- standing, into intellect. There in unity she understands without understanding.
8. To drag the hawthorn through the hay without a catch we must lop it well, like our Lord Jesus Christ, the tree of love, who 448 MEISTER ECKHART dragged the hawthorn through the hay of this wicked world, so shorn of all its branches that no moving thing could cling thereto and so he gathered up nothing that was unstable. And to attain to him we must be too bare for things to cling to us or we to them. We take up our cross when stripping everything of self and self of everything we cling all pure and naked to the bare cross of Christ.
9. He who loves aright loves not nor is not loved. They love and are beloved who can be pleased and pained: they pour out themselves in love on creatures and creatures back on them. But they love not nor are they loved who are not moved by creature good and ill; these neither give nor do they take; they pour not out on creature nor creature back on them. They love not neither are they loved. We ought to love God out of love. They love in love who love for why: who love him for some bodily or temporal good. But they love out of love who love without a why; who do not love for temporal good nor yet eternal: they love him merely for himself, for his own sake pure and simple apart from anything he gives.
10. We read of John the Baptist that he was a prophet. He was more than prophet for when the Holy Ghost from time to time spake by the prophets they were thereafter as they were before, in sinful habit. Prophets are people who are now and then con- strained to play this part. While the Holy Ghost is speaking through them by actual infusion of his grace they are exercising virtue and thereafter they revert to their former habit: they are called virtuous as practising virtue intermittently: they do right and also wrong. Not so St John; he was more than prophet for he practised virtue not at intervals, it was his natural and settled wont. And those who follow him in this are not prophets either, they are more than prophets, seeing as they do in the clear light of God exactly what to do and what to leave undone and having given them the Godlike power to act up to their lights with effortless, spontaneous delight and delightful spontaneity. These are called virtuous not because they practise virtue intermittently: they are fixed and established in it. That thing is habitual which we do at one time and at another not; it is an alternation. That is not habitual which is continuous and without admixture.
11. A good man is known by three things. One is singleness of will: all we call nature his will is free from. The second is clear understanding: any mental knowledge that she has his soul has fully mastered: she either approfounds it here or yonder in the common groilnd during illumination. The third is peace of mind: such images as may occur therein are nd hindrance to the soul; 12. Three things distinguish the solitary soul. The first is, LIBER POSITIONUM 449 cessation of desire: no more wants or sense of deficiency. The second is, active love for and acquiescence in the will of God. The third is a lively feeling in the soul of the love of the Holy Ghost.
18. Divine good in the singular no body or blood receives but it does receive God’s manifold goodness. It is simple divine good for the spirit to be rapt out of itself into God’s oneness, there to understand without sensible perception. But God’s manifold goodness means anything revealed to her in form and likeness, for this is all a matter of the mortal nature. — The heavenly Father gives his consolation to none but the man of peaceful heart, Christ said to his disciples, ‘ My peace I give unto you.’
14. Let no one claim to have received the perfect gift of the Holy Ghost, who can be shaken in his convictions by any arguments that are disquieting. I refer to things which are spoken contrary to our knowledge of eternal truth.
15. Nature comes with God into creature and driving God out remains alone in creature. Spirit goes with creature into God and driving creature out stays by itself in God. The most perfect mode of soul is one of self-oblivion in good works as a whole and the way thereto is the clear discernment of special imperfections. In the least of mortal quests there is at stake all natural creature appetite. Effortless achievements are wiped out of the mind as though they had not been. It is true wisdom to recognise the folly of evil and the freedom of perfection.
18. Hosea the prophet, rapt in wonder, had a threefold marvel shown him. The first one was, how God is one in essence and three in Person. The second marvel, which, though somewhat less is still ineffable and incomprehensible to creature, is this^ how two natures meet together in one Person. The tliird marvel is the marvel of marvels: how creator is creature and creature is creator. The prophet Hosea says, ‘ His going forth is prepared as the morning; he shall come unto us as the soft evening rain.’ Here the morning light suggests the nearness of his coming: the dawn is the herald of the day. The day dawns thrice. First in the chamber of the Person of the Father. Next, in the chamber of the Person of the Son. Thirdly, in the world. The first dawn was the will of the Father; the second, the obedience of the Son; the third one broke when their common Spirit caught the precious most pure blood-drops that ever flowed from the virgin heart of Mary. The fire of love once kindled, he no longer tarries: day is here.
20. Suppose a man insults me and I silence him by my retort, it is not I who conquer: I am conquered. I conquer if, in true humility, I hold my peace. Conquering we are conquered and being conquered conquer.
MEISTER ECKHART 21. It is a question if angels grow in heaven? I declare they do. They go on growing till the day of judgment, waxing in knowledge and in love; by then th^ lowest is about as wise as the highest was when he was created. — ‘ But tell me Sir, does the soul grow in heaven as well? ’ — I say. No. — ‘ But why. Sir, should the angel grow and not the soul? ’ — For this reason. The soul grows in the body and when she quits the body that is her judgment day: the highest she has reached by then is the nearest she will ever get to knowing God. But her growth is far nobler than an angel’s for what an angel has comes by no effort of his own; hers is the reward of toil so that one light of hers is worth ten of any angel’s.
22. Three kinds of progress take place in serious people. The first is natural; when, fought to a finish, man’s nature is van- quished and subdued, then at length he sees all random thoughts as things he can turn to his account and we to ours. Not a single notion but will serve to bring light to pious people, and this (light) is essential almost as much as natural; essential, though by grace, a divine repugnance to all base inventions. — The second kind of progress is unconscious. The man is spiritualised so that his words, his ways and his whole self enlighten other people with a realization of their own shortcomings. Nature sleeping, spirit wide awake, that I call light and she is a light not alone to other people but the devil quails before her. — * Sir, tell me, what is he afraid of? ’ — The devil does not know what is in the soul except what he can recognise by its outward form. Supposing her brimfull of light then divine light comes surging out of her and when the fiend sees this he is afraid and durst not test her with a notion, so the soul stays undisturbed. Which is to her credit though unbeknownst to her. — The third progress is spiritual. When such a soul is flooded with the influx of God’s spirit, love reinforces love, light light, giving a love which fires the soul and which she cannot fail to be aware of. The first growth is conscious, the third also is conscious and the middle one unconscious.
28. Plato says, ‘ The soul of all creatures is the Godhead.’ Then our Lord Jesus Christ is the soul of the elect.
24. The question is, what is the effect on man of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ? I say that its effect on nian is to clarify his nature and prevent him committing mortal sin. On the en- lightened it confers another boon, receptivity to the divine light and then though they die they will have nothing between.
27. ‘ Pray Sir, one to whom eternal light is given, suppose he were to die, would he have aught between? ’ — Once having had eternal light he never has anything between.
28. ‘ Tell me, good Sir, what is divine light? ’ — ^With divine LIBER POSmONUM 451 light the natural life is no obstacle to the eternal light, or in other words, there is no consenting to sin. When we are unable to act up to our lights that is a sign that we have not received eternal light. Knowledge with the power to apply it, that is eternal light. He who receives eternal light takes everything the same.
29. ‘ But even good people are now and then perturbed: have they then no light? ’—When our Lord Jesus Christ was drawing near his passion, his agony of suffering pierced his soul and called forth the rebuke to Judas at the table and St Peter on the mount, to whom he said, ‘ Couldst thou not watch with me a while? Thou who didst promise to be with me unto death.’ But he did not on this account lose the light of unity. Once more har- monious with his Father’s will he was filled with joy at having in accord therewith submitted willingly to pain. The fact of being moved involves no loss of light: anything conceived in time is moved in time. While we are in time we are affected by time. But the more imperturbable one is the more one is established in eternity. By their deeds ye shall know them.
30. He alone can do God’s will who resigns his own. Wc are strong in proportion as we are inspired with divine power to withstand the things that come between ourselves and God. When we stand in our primitive innocence, then at last we begin to live.
31. ‘ But when is a man in a state of primitive innocence? ’ — Primitive innocence is not attained without divine light. Simple, primitive innocence reigns when the pattern of all virtues is present in a man and he stands without impediment of nature in the eternal truth. It is only by treading upon creature thift we reach the bottom rung of Godhood. — ‘ What is the bottom rung of Godhood? ’ — It is spiritualised nature.
32. ‘ Sir, is it better having and giving or not having and letting? ’ — Letting is better than giving. Giving adds more lustre, letting shows more spirituality. We shed our blood; the saints let their blood be shed.
33. ‘ Will you tell me. Sir, what causes the decay of tenderness? ’ — ^What is the tenderness you mean? — ‘ I mean interior tenderness.’ — ^To have it is a sign of immaturity; to lose it betokens ado- lescence. The father pets his child when the child is young but as it gets to know its father’s will he grows seemingly less fond and this less obvious fondness is an indication of the child’s approach to man’s estate. With the soul it is the same. Ilis tenderness to her proclaims her immature, but as she grows in knowledge and constant harmony with the will of God he inspires her with less irrational fondness and this is a sign she is developing.
85. That alone is perfect which does not seek for aught outside MEISTER ECKHART itself. — Whatever we can say about perfection to that we can attain. — A gentle man is one whose serenity no trouble can dis- turb. — ^We stand before God while we do not cross the will of God.
36. When does God work in man unhindered? — God finds no hindrance in a man who takes both good and ill from God with the same thankfulness.
87. Sure proof of true humility is the fearful joy of being praised. For on coming into touch with truth and finding in himself a witness of it, a man is sensible of pleasure but fears it as a likely cause of his undoing.
88. The right loyal heart receives with bitterness inventions of the soul which are not sent by God. — That heart is kind whose graciousness is proof against every good and ill.
89. The treasure of God is loss of possessions, people’s despisery, sickness and submission to God.
41. Our Lord Jesus Christ waxed not at all in eternal light; but the things he taught, in beholding these he took peculiar pleasure.
42. Pious folk should imitate the deified man, Christ. By imitating Christ I mean becoming Godlike. What I mean by Grodlike is, your words, deeds, conduct, being free from human wont. By human I mean imperfect. In proportion to his im- perfection a man is moveable by aught or anybody can be (moved) by him. — ‘ What do you mean by moveable? ’ — By moveable I mean not impatience only: moveable I call anything affected by either good or ill and that can in anywise be anything to anyone or to whom anyone can as such be anything, and I call immoveable only- that which nothing can affect and which affects nothing. That man then I call immoveable to whom good and ill are just the same; who is as far as possible exempt from the agitations of both joy and sorrow. It will never be natural to him that his emotions stir not independently of mind. But once the mind takes charge, it is all over and as it was before and then the man is not a mortal man, he is man deified.
48. Good people have three sorts of expert knowledge. In the first place the intelligence is sharpened so that it estimates correctly the smallest thing presented to it: its more or less amount of sensible admixture they gauge to a nicety and can act accord- ingly. — In the second place, when they have to do a thing they can always tell whether it proceeds from the ground of God or the ground of nature. Thirdly, so subtile is their understanding that any ghostly form, the very faintest light, which appears to them, they recognise for fiend or spirit.
44. The true test of interior perfection is that nothing thou doest from without casts any shadow within.
LIBER POSITIONUM 453 45. When the Godhead began to inquire how mankind could be restored to its original perfection, the Father sat in counsel in the chamber of the Holy Trinity. The Father said, ‘ Who shall we send to save mankind? ’ Answered him the Son and said, ‘ Father, send me: I will save mankind.’ Then stooped him down the eternal Word of the heavenly Father, that is to say, his Son, who is the middle Person of the Holy Trinity, and clad himself in human nature. Remaining what he was he took upon him that which he was not and was thus obedient to his Father in heaven and not in heaven only but on earth as well. Obedience to his Father and love towards mankind constrained him to perfect all his Father’s work.
46. ‘ Sir, for God’s sake, may I ask you something that I want to know, something very subtle? ’ — By all means. Whatever it may be and however subtle, I will try and answer. Ask me what you will. — ‘ Well, what I want to know is this: was our Lord Jesus Christ hindered in any way by doing outward works? ’ — I can give you a definite answer to that. The soul of Christ was never an independent entity as such. It no sooner was than it was Christ; directly it was made, straightway it was united; first one and then the other it is true but yet both timeless. At his first appearance Christ was snatched from independence into the keeping of the middle Person of the Trinity where in essential wisdom he gazes without blenching at the naked fullness of the divine perfection. From the moment when Christ’s soul and body were united with the Godhead his soul has been gazing at the Godhead as it is doing to this day. As to the lower powers of his soul which function in the body making possible his preaphing and his teaching and the other things he did, there the joy of contemplation was diminished somewhat: not the vision but the pleasure of the sight. But the higher powers of his soul, wherein he was united, these remained always in unveiled contemplation. Now I have explained how Christ was hindered and at the same time not. One thing more and let that suffice as giving you the key to the whole matter. The hindrance was physical not psychic. But even so he never failed in the minutest point to fulfil the mission on which his Father sent him, preaching and teaching and doing outward works whereby he earned reward and honour.
47. ‘ Could Christ earn reward? ’ — There are two rewards; one of them Christ earned, the other not. One of the rewards we earn by our good works is the vision of the Godhead. This reward Christ did not earn since from the moment Christ’s body was united with the Godhead, his soul has been gazing at the Godhead, as it is doing to this day. The other reward we earn by our good 454 MEISTER ECKHART works is the glorification of the body with the soul after the day of judgment and this reward Christ earned by his holy life, his body being glorified together with his soul at his resurrection. Now thou knowest how Christ did earn' reward and also not.
48. ‘ Just one other thing.’ — Tell me, what is that? — ‘ You say that Christ gained honour. What honour did he gain? ’ — Christ has the title of The Head of Holy Christendom and this honour Christ has won by his holy life.
49. ‘ A man to whom eternal light is given, is he prone to sin in time? ’ — One to whom eternal light is given may well stoop to imperfection and sometimes falls an easier prey to frivolity and suctilike venial sins than another man. — ‘ What is the cause of this propensity? ’ — It comes from being engrossed in one simple thing; multitudinous images disturb the soul, tossing her about with their various conceits. Once conceiving unity she is dis- tracted by diversity. But as soon as she begins to sec, it is as though it had never been and she can free herself completely without the slightest effort; which is a sign that she has eternal light. To see and be unable to escape would argue lack of eternal light. You know now how it is that people, even with eternal light, are prone to sin. St Paul sinned after he had been caught up.
50. The first and noblest work of God is motionlessness: divine rest. It stands to reason that the maker of the motionless is him- self unmoved. Were God not immoveable there could nothing motionless be made.
Aristotle says all moving things proceed from rest and from necessity and moving things arc all seeking rest. Man likewise then "^ought to be as motionless as possible. — ‘ When is a man motionless? ’ — The soul is motionless when nothing whatever can perturb her; when she is neither glad nor sad and cannot be gladdened nor yet saddened. And she must be unnecessitous. — ‘ When is she unnecessitous? ’ — The soul is unnecessitous when she has no need to cleave to any creature and not only has no need, it is hell-pain to her to dwell upon the form of creature since there is no rest for her save in the formless form of God. She is un- necessitous when she has come into her rights and, with no need of change, rests in the unnecessitous nothingness of his unchanging nature.
51. ‘ Sir, what did St Paul mean by saying, ‘ ‘ We shall be one spirit with God? ” When is the soul one spirit with God? ’ — She is one spirit with God when she has no image or anything between. And she is turned to spirit when she is not subject to any creature love or appetite.
52. ‘ Sir, what is perfect love? ’ — Perfect love leaves nothing LIBER ROsmONUM 455 less than God. — ‘ Pray tell me what you mean.’ — I mean, having hold of nothing but God they cannot leave go of less than God, who are as they should be. Natural ties have been cut.
53. ‘ Tell me, Sir, for the love of God, is it possible to pray or ask of God quite unselfishly? ’ — Oh yes. I will tell you how. There are two cases of unselfish prayer. The first is on our own account, that we may be rid of some imperfection which comes between us and eternal truth. The second case is prayer for some other person’s sin, knowing all the facts and that he desires to be free. For these things we may pray and with avidity. But our human will must confine itself to the will of God, as thus: ' Lord, thou knowest I desire not nor do I will aught save what thou dost will: an thou know something better, give me that,’ so losing thine own and keeping his.
54. ‘ Sir, what about the man they talk of sometimes among pious folk, who sets such store by physical austerities and long- winded prayers; is that the best or is there something better? ’ — The most perfect bond that we can have is innocence, a blame- less life, and being wholly without guile it is best to drop words altogether for words are interlopers between ourselves and God.
55. ‘ What is the sign of union with God’s will? ’ — Perfect singlemindedness. — It is characteristic of the gracious, deified mind, from trivial error to extract much wisdom. — The very least thing in excess of absolute necessity will count. — Christ’s every action is a pious precept. — An angel’s nature is his intellect and his intellect is his impartible nature.
56. He to whom light is given grows conscious of the darkness in all creatures.
57. ‘ Will you tell me, Sir, why Solomon should say. The righteous man falls seven times a day? What is this falling of the righteous man? ’ — It is the lapsing of his soul from the highest level she can reach to: failure to remain at the very summit where she tran- scends creature in God, that is the fall of the perfect man.
58. ‘ When does one person love another in God without ad- mixture of nature? ’ — The sure test of pure divine love is the sense of nothing but God, always with enlightenment.
59. ‘ Why is it that a man will ask for things he does not need and knowing this to be the case will still go on doing it: what does he do it for? ’ — It is nature. When appetites are uncon- trolled a man will ask for the impossible. — ‘ But supposing it is not impossible nor yet unlikely and he is self-controlled, what is it then? ’ — I tell you it is nature. — ‘ Yes, yes, good Sir, but leave out nature I ’ — That will I not. It is nature inasmuch as it is mingled with divine nature.