119. ‘I crave your counsel. Sir: In the throes of intellectual conception, at the actual moment of it, I would fain be absolutely free.’ — It is impossible; gross matter forbids. Soul is volatile by nature, body is made of dense material. That this dense material should be as nimble as the psychic is not to be expected in the unglorified body. To the eye colour, to the car sound. There is no harm in that nor is it any barrier to eternal truth. We ought to disregard them it is true, but that cannot be. Yet one thing I can tell you for your comfort: no will or love is lost on these dis- turbers of the peace. Furthermore I say, the power to will and love being absent, her power is what I call essential power. It is a certain test of essence when nothing wrought from without gives any reaction within.
120. In the image-bearing form of God which impartibly con- tains the form of all things there shines the universal form unformed MEISTER ECKHART in oneness, which radiates one single light into all spirits variously: the highest spirits, as becomes their stable nature, without reflec- tion and souls in this body according to their fitness in this passing time. Mark how this image-bearing light, which the soul receives from its reflection, carries her beyond this mode of changing time into eternity, to the level of the highest spirits. When a mind habitually dwells in its eternal image, God to wit, with more delight than in itself, to such a mind the image-bearing light appears in its eternal form. Then the mind is transported over these manifold and changing things which exist in time and inhabits these rather than itself. Remember, we are dealing here with spirit not with essence.
121. The image-bearing light of divine unity is impartible and yet both essence and nature. Now the question is, how is it essence and how is it nature? The answer is as follows. As essence it subsists in permanent, immanent stillness. It appears as all things in impartible mode; not in the mode of any creature: it is a mode of its own in that same absolute stillness. There the distinctions of the Persons are sublimed to this simple modeless mode. Behold it now the essence of the Persons and of all things: the essence of the Persons it is by nature but of creatures by grace. For consider. It contains the form of all things impartibly, as essence. In this form it is ingrained in all things. This same impartible form (or image) is also nature and as nature it preserves its one-being in the Trinity and the Trinity its one-being in the unity. And as this one-being in the Trinity it is the impartible potentiality of the Trinity: the nature of the Persons but not that of all things. For if it were the nature of all things it would reproduce itself in all the things in manifestation in its own potential nature. Then things would all be God in the same sense that God is God. Now that is not the case. This shows that it is not the nature of all things but only the nature of the Persons and there exists no thing but has its own appropriate nature.
122. Since the impartible image-bearing light behaves as essence and also as its nature, has it then, I ask, the idiosyncrasies of each or not? — No, assuredly not. There is no more than one. Its chief idiosyncrasy is that it is shining by itself and is manifest only to the Persons. But in that this image-bearing light falls upon all things and the only thing that shows it is itself, you see it has the character of light. This character belongs to essential essence and it also belongs to its nature’s nature. Here essence and nature are shown to be one being with one idiosyncrasy not two idiosyncrasies; for supposing there were two then one idiosyncrasy would cause the other; which is impossible: the essential stillness behaves as simple essence and nature’s radiant Trinity as well.
LIBER POSITIONUM 128. Hence arises the question, in the essence and its nature do things all appear in impartible fashion or no? — The answer is, Yes, they appear in the essence in immanent stillness and impartible mode: essence and nature one light in light’s summit. The essence is light’s source and centre. As such it is essence. Also in the Trinity nature shines with the light of all things in the same impartible way. But there is stillness in the depths of essence.
124. But how nature in the Trinity is one and three proceed from one is not to be deduced from the impartibility of the first cause. Augustine says, the Persons are one in nature. Hence nature and Persons are alike eternal. Intellect is by nature perfectly intelligible to itself in the light of nature and its con- ception of itself is other than this intellect. Intellect is not begotten; it is the paternal Person who begets the knower in perfectly conceiving his own Person. Lo, on a sudden, the eternal birth! Now there are two Persons and in the very act of the Son’s proceeding from the Father, the knower looking back, leaps to the perfect understanding of his Father whence he sprang. In that same origin these two natures know each other with one knowledge. The knowing is the same as the knower himself. Therein they know themselves one love in the omnipotence of the Father whence the knower sprang. This love is their common spiration: in this love they are one. It is the third Person. It starts with the re- birth, the reposing of the knower on the heart of the omnipotent Father. Thus the first river originates the second river, in con- junction with the original source. Hence the several natures are all one in nature and this nature is the same in the several natures. That is to say, Persons. ^ 125. ‘ But what enjoyment do the Persons get out of their natural essence? ’ — Well, as you may prove, the Persons are in their nature and their nature in the Persons: their nature keeps the Persons quite distinct while at the same time preserving them in unity. As preserving them in one, nature is simply the power of the Persons. In this same power the three Persons disappear into their nature. For essence and nature form one light in light’s summit, the impartible image of God, essence passing into nature; moreover all the Persons being clapt into their nature vanish into the dim silence of their interior being. There they retain no per- sonality for with this confinement goes entire loss of property. Lo, God de-spirited! The fathomless deep is fathomed by the master- mind of God. The delight and satisfaction and perfection found therein no nature can describe. That is how the three Persons enjoy their natural essence.
126. ‘ Tell me, when the spirit runs back into its source, does it remain in its original source or in the naught of its idea? ’ — Its MEISTER ECKHART proper habitation is its source. The naked spark of spirit is the mens. Mens is the natural image of the spirit. But mind is never perfect spirit till it passes into its exemplar and is lost to its own selfhood, escaping in that same natural image into its ideal nature. In this sense its abode is in the naught of its idea rather than in its source. But its origin is its real abode.
127. How is the Son re-born in the Father once he has come forth? — In this way. The Father grasps the light of his own understanding and bears it into the ground of his essence. Thus the knower is reflected back into the light of his Father’s heart.
128. ‘I should much like to know, about the appearance of the paternal Person in the unity, where it is all-conceiving.’ — When the Father conceiving the impartible idea of all things in the unity, appears to himself in Person and essence, lo, the paternal Person vanishes in this mysterious unity and there is an end of the Father and of all distinctions. Unity conceiving all as one, nothing but one appears and communes with itself. But sinee logieally speak- ing there is Person in the unity, it is in this unity that it conceives its nature, appearing and calling itself Person and there too the paternal Person must conceive his unity, as the unity the Person, since both of them have the same nature.
129. Mark how conception differs. There is ideal conception and real concej^tion. Ideal conception is the nature’s general conception of the Persons, all the three. But the real conception is the special conception of each particular Person in its own proper nature in the nature.
130. ‘ Tell me, when God conceives the soul does he conceive her by ideal conception or by real conception? ’ — He conceives her by ideal conception for this general idea embraces all in one; supposing he conceived her by particular conception she would be bereft of the flower of her nature for in a particular conception nothing is conceived besides the special nature of the thing itself. In other words, its nature as a unit, an expression, not its innate nobility.
131. Mark the noble lineage of the Persons. They are uncreated and without beginning and infinite and inconceivable and are possessed of property which comes to them in the course of nature. Not so with the soul: she is created and has a beginning and is man and has possessions and not property for to her it is all given.
182. ‘ Is the seer as free as the will? ’ — No, not by any means. If it were it would be always in the naked Godhead. But it is not; it has to be doing its work, the ordering and management of the various powers. Will has not got this to do: it bids and forbids.
LIBER POSITIONUM 471 188. ‘ Now what I want to know is this: why has the Godhead a feminine name and no feminine function and the Person of the Father on the other hand a masculine name and a feminine function? ’ — The explanation is this. The Godhead contains all things impartibly and the thing in which another is contained is called mother in virtue of this content. It has, however, no maternal act since it docs not as such give birth to anything. The Father, again, has a masculine name and a feminine function and the reason is that the Father in Person docs not contain things in him, he begets them out of him by the power of his Person. The Father in his proper personality is empty of the content which he impartibly contains. But also he plays a mother’s part, the unity providing him with all that ho brings forth. In this bringing forth he is functioning as mother; as being free from content in his personal nature he retains his masculine name. The birth of the Son shows the Father travailing. But the Father is Father in that he begets.
134. ‘ Then there is this question: Is the Son born or is he not born or is he still to be born? ’ — Let us consider. There are three Persons and that shows the Son is born for each of the Persons has its own peculiar nature. They could none of them have this if the Son had not been born. This proves the Son is born. But the Father changes not at all in his eternal childbirth: could we attribute to him any deed at all it would be in the sense that anything he docs he is doing now and what he is doing now he has always done, for with him there is no past nor future. This proves the Son has not been born: he is now this instant being born and this now is an ever-becoming; as the Father himself says, ‘ To-day have I begotten thee.’ To-day is the etern&l now. It is in this now that his birth is taking place.
135. Remember, the eternal Word is both unborn and born. This is a hard saying, but being in the Trinity the Word must needs be born; it cannot there be called the unborn Word. Taking the eternal Word as Person, it is born; but take it in its essence and the Word is non-existent. Here the Word has to be born.
136. Now mark how we argue that the Word remains the Word unborn. Where the Word issues from the Father as a birth it shows its born nature and proclaims the Father parent. But where the Word proceeds from the Father as a light it is the species of the Father and shows the Father formless for it has the form of the Father. He himself declared, ‘ He who seeth me seeth my Father.’ Thus the Word reveals the Father in his own form and shows the Father formless and where the Word proceeds from the Father as understanding it proceeds as abiding within.
MEISTER ECKHART As intelligence leaves not the heart but reveals to himself the man in whom it dwells, so we have the Word in the eternal procession of the Father, the Word which proceeds from understanding, while understanding itself does not issue forth but abides within. In this procession wc have, in the immanent understanding, the Word unborn. This explains what is meant by the unborn Word and how, in the eternal procession, the Word is as it were born of understanding and is still to be born and is this instant being born.
137. One of the masters (Erigena) says: The Father never wrought anything inferior to himself. If this is true, then all the creatures God has ever wrought are God. The question here is, whether the work wrought is as noble as the worker when the worker is God? Let us see. We speak of a working work and a wrought work. The working work is God, the wrought work is not God for it is creature. Hence the explanation. When it is stated that the Father wrought no work inferior to himself that is as good as saying that the Father does one work and one alone in his own Person, to wit, the begetting of his Son in the eternal emanation personal and essential. Only this one work properly belongs to the Father-nature and all other work wrought we attribute not to the Father alone but to the three Persons atid one God. But, it may be objected, can the eternal emanation of the Son from the Father be called a work? You can look at it in this way. Everything existing has its appropriate work; the work of fire, for instance, is to heat and so with understanding: it is its work to understand itself. Here the work is not inferior to the worker. And in this sense the Son may very well be called the eternaf work of the Father. He brings him forth eternally as Person who yet remains in him in essence.
138. Then there is the question: Was the eternal Word con- ceived in Mary in Person and essence and was it in the bosom of the Father as Person and essence as well? — In the continuous emanation wherein the Word emanates from the Father as it were from understanding, wherein the Word is now being born, in that same emanation Mary received the eternal Word in a point of time as Person and essence, in its immanence: the Word as flowing from the understanding of the Father. It remained in the bosom of the Father as immanent understanding personal and essential. Thus it came, coming after the manner of a flow and remaining within after the manner of an understanding. Ah, what light and grace enlightened souls obtain from this glorious knowledge!
139. To return to Christ. According to theologists, our Lord Jesus Christ’s soul and Lucifer’s were made in the same light.
LIBER POSmONUM 478 The soul of Jesus Christ our Lord was the very wisest soul that ever was. She turned in the creature to the creator wherefore the Father clothed her in the divine garment and flower of her nature. Lucifer turned to the deficiency and he therefore fell, falling eternally. So fall all they who turn away from God to perishable things.
140. But this light which Christ’s soul supernaturally was, this was a creature and our Lord’s soul itself being creature too, which of these two creatures then, theologians ask, is the nobler and the higher? — I was asking one wise doctor about this and he said that in one way the light is nobler but in another Christ. Sec what this supernatural light means. When Christ’s soul was created she was taken from herself and haled above herself into the Tri-unity. Therewith she was united. This was not natural to her, it was all above nature, what befell Christ’s soul. What befell was the supernatural light. Herein Christ’s soul was omnipotent, in virtue of this happening. Here the supernatural light is nobler than Christ’s soul, you can see that for yourselves. The adorner is more noble than the thing that it adorns. Take an illustration. Material is adorned by colour while the colour is displayed by the material, since it has no body of its own. Even so Christ’s soul is adorned by this supernatural light and on the other hand Christ’s soul makes manifest this supernatural light.
141. Now mark how the soul of Christ is nobler than the supernatural light. The supernatural light having had its effect upon Christ’s soul (it happens in a flash), Christ has no more to do with this supernatural light, for the union of divine and human nature to one Person liappens instantly and once for all. Here the soul of Christ is nobler than the supernatural light. * a 42. Then as to souls who have overcome themselves so far as to imagine themselves God. This is due to nothing more than their own natural light: they are withdrawn into themselves till they can see themselves in it as light. You know how a blow in the eye will sometimes make one see stars. By stars in their eyes these souls see themselves. The way the supernatural light reveals the soul to herself is this: the naked spark of the soul, her mens, reflects the supernatural light and the pure essence of her spirit seeing itself in this supernatural light fondly imagines itself God. But as you see, it is nothing else than the spirit in the supernatural light, a very great perfection, none the less.
143. Another question is, whether God is (God) by nature or by will? — He is God not by nature nor by will. If God were God by nature he would be a caused God: nature would have caused him. But that is not the case. And the same with will: were he God by will he would be subject to will and will would MEISTER ECKHART be superior to God. Which is not true either; but he is God naturally, not by nature; he is God willingly and not by will. That is the answer.
144. Again, did God beget himself or did he beget some other? — He did not beget himself nor any other: God the Father is unbcgotten God. He begat another and not any other. He begat another, i.e, another Person, not something other, i,e. another nature: the impartible nature of the Father is also the impartible nature of the Son and of their common Spirit. That is the answer.
145. It is a question among theologians whether the nature is common to the Persons and the Persons common to the nature seeing that each Person contains the whole of nature as its natural being. Docs God impart himself to human nature? — ^Yes. — How can God impart himself to human nature if he is one in essence and distinct in Person? — Each of the Persons has the nature as a whole and the Person of the Son, by assuming human nature, imparted himself to it, the two natures meeting in his Person. Here divine and human natures are in communion. Only the middle Person took on human nature but the three Persons are equally allied with the three powers of the soul. — Are these two natures one or are they united? — They are united and not one. That is one which is in itself without any other and where two meet in one they arc united. — How arc these two natures united? — They are united by something between so that each one keeps its own nature. The Person which took on human nature is the medium uniting these two natures. Had this Person not assumed man’s nature the two natures could not have been united. Neither robs thft other of its idiosyncrasy; uncreated nature does not rob created nature of its createdness nor docs created nature rob the uncreated of its uncrcatcdness. — How did the Person take man’s nature? — He assumed manhood and not man. — What is the difference between man and manhood? — Man originates with perfect man and is not taken by a Person: it is two natures united in one Person. But manhood is emanating God and man and is taken by the Person of the Son and is divine and human nature and corporal nature united in one person. So much for man and manhood.
146. Did the Person take the manhood of our Lady? — Yes and no. He took the bodily nature of our Lady and the nature of his spirit God produced from naught and poured it into corporal nature; God inspired his spirit and embodied himself in his body. — Is our Lady, soul and body, one person? — Yes. — Did he not take the person of our Lady? — No. The eternal Word of the Father took to itself what was not there already. There was LIBER POSITIONUM 475 Person there for the eternal Word is itself a Person. But human nature was not there. Hence the eternal Word assumed a nature not a person; God’s nature and man’s nature were united in one common form with one Person for Christ does not belie himself. — ^What brings about this union? — Grace. — What is grace? — According to Dionysius, grace is the light of the soul, which lights the understanding of the soul. This light is not God but it is something from God. Just as the sunshine is not the sun but something that comes from the sun so God sheds this light into the soul. In this light man knows and loves and to some extent enjoys in time what beatilic spirits know and love and feel in eternal life. But here in time man knows and loves in his own way, dimly: he docs not see God face to face as a spirit does in eternal life. Yet the mere feeling of him makes a man able to do all things, to practise all the virtues and in the virtues he grows Godlike and the liker God in virtues the more one he is with God. Thus grace makes for union.
147. There is a further cpiestion about the union of divine and human nature: have they both the same essence in the Person they arc joined in or have they two essences in this non-potential state? — One Person can have no more than one essence. So far as the personal nature is Person each nature is its own hypostasis. Where two natures are created in one Person that Person has one essence and that in two natures so far as the two natures are unmingled. — Then we may consider nature as apart from essence in the personal union? — Yes, it can be seen from another point of view. We find nature in its image unmingled but in the Person two natures are present in one Person as in their hypostasis. So far as both belong to the same Person the Person has ohe essence and that in two natures. The Persons arc eternal, they are in no- wise creature for they have no before or after. Person, that is unity keeping silence albeit big with speech. The Persons are not contained by the unity: they arc in unity.
148. There is the question of the worker and the work, whether the work is as noble, as perfect as the worker? This refers to the Persons of the Trinity. Examine it in this way. The Father is an origin able to originate an origin like unto himself. The Son is such an origin and he together with his Father originates their common Spirit. Here the worker and the work, the effectual work of revelation, are equally perfect. As Dionysius says, ‘ The first cause causes everything equal to itself.’ It was said by one master that the work wrought by God in the patient soul which is all bare of things is nobler than any of the works he has ever wrought in time in heaven or in earth. Just think what this means. The works God has wrought in the angels in heaven MEISTER ECKHART were wrought by the almighty power of God who created them from naught. He was not hindered in this work. In the case of the soul which also he created out of naught, he endowed her with free will nor would God do a single thing without her free will’s sanction. But when the soul is passive and cleared of every- thing in her that might be a hindrance to God’s will and turning to God of her own account she gives God the freedom of her noble will as though she had never had free will, enabling God to work in her as freely as when he made all things from naught, then this work has two outstanding features. One is that her free will is no obstacle to God although he is so careful not to override free will: God can work as freely as he will, what he will and when he will and how he will just as if the soul had no free will. The second feature is that God being free in himself his work is freely wrought in what by right of its free will might well object but which does in fact raise no objection. And that is why this is the noblest work God does in heaven or earth in respect of creature. Now you may ask what this work is? It is nothing less than God’s revelation of himself to himself in the soul. As sure as he is in himself he himself is in this work. That which is wrought in is turned into that which works there, to the likeness of him, the worker, who has wrought there his like. Here the work which is wrought is as perfect as the worker for it is his living image which is in the work.
149. The soul cannot prepare herself for the reception of God: he who prepares her, him does she receive in preparation. There is a special profit accruing to the soul in the reception of the body of our Lord, which she does not get in any other gift. — ‘ What profit is ‘that? ’ — Her nature receives its own nature for Jesus Christ’s nature is our nature. Nature is received by nature albeit not received pure nature: it is received united with divine nature.
150. Mark how these two natures are united. They are not united nature to nature: they arc joined together in one Person, i.e. the middle Person. Just as the divine nature is the nature of this Person so is human nature in Christ the Person in the Trinity. For what the eternal Word assumed was humanity not a human person. Had the eternal Word assumed a human person there would be four Persons in the Trinity. But there are not. Jesus Christ’s humanity in the eternal Word is the very Person who has ever been the central figure of the Trinity. There- in is not one nature as there is one Person: the natures are of different nature and arc united in the Person. Wherefore whoso receives the body of our Lord receives the middle Person and divine nature and Christ’s manhood, which is Person in the LIBER POSITIONUM 477 eternal Word, and Christ’s eternal soul. We receive this all at once in Jesus Christ’s body. This we do not do in any other gift in heaven or earth. Let us therefore prize this gift above all other gifts to be gotten here below.
151. When Christ gave his body to his disciples he said, ‘ Take, eat, this is my body.’ But Christ was mortal. Now the question is, did Christ give his body mortal or immortal? According to Hugo of St Victor, every property of his original body of immor- tality, the whole of these Christ had in him what time he was mortal. So in spite of being mortal he could give his brethren his immortal body; if ‘he had given them his mortal body the eating of it would have outraged them. Bishop Albertus contro- verts this doctor. I am amazed, he says, that such a great authority should hazard such a foolish statement. Every nature emanates from its appropriate form and Christ’s form here was mortal and no immortal property could emanate from his mortal form. If you really want to know how Christ gave his body, mortal and immortal, he gave his body as mortal in itself and immortal in its form and in its effect for its action is divine and he gave it therefore in another form than that of himself. He gave his body as immortal in its work and in its form and mortal in itself for in his mortal body Christ had power to communicate his body immortally as to its effect but not so as to its own nature.
152. It is a question whether in Christ’s body there remains aught of what it seems? No, there is seeming without substance and substance without seeming. It seems to be bread but there is really no substance of bread: it is really the body of God without its appearance. So far as its appearance goes it would nourish us like any other food. But if there is really no 'substance of bread and only the substance of bread feeds the body then how, without the substance of bread, does this nourish the body? — At the consecration of the body of our Lord the bread loses its nature while it retains its form, its mass, its smell and its feeling of bread, so that it does not disappear. Nothing we can taste and feel, nothing, in short, which is apparent to the outward senses, is God’s body. The outward senses do not lose what pertains to them. They derive their nourishment from such things as re- main. In bread the solid part is all that nourishes. The solidity of the body of Christ is not his body: the solid of the bread remains and that feeds the outward man. This is the explanation of how the sacrament nourishes like any other food. But it really has none of the nature of bread.
158. — ^When Christ consecrated his body on that Sabbath day and gave it to his disciples, supposing some to have been left and hidden in a bush, would this have died when Christ died on the MEISTER ECKHART cross? — If the consecrated body had been maltreated by scourging or in any other way, that would not have hurt it. Christ suffered no hurt by eating in the sacrament for he gave his body in another form than that of himself. Christ suffered not at all in the form he gave. But mark. When Christ died upon the cross since there lay under consecration the body of the soul that died upon the cross therefore all the pain Christ suffered in his human form was suffered by his body under consecration. When Christ died to his manhood there died his body dying under consecration, for there was no more than a single body. This death of Christ was the parting of the soul from body; and since she is impartible therefore wherever she is she is altogether. When she was in the precincts of hell she was not in the body. Neither could she be ^ in his consecrated body. We speak here of two bodies, but there is only one, that which rose from the dead on the third day.
154. Did the consecrated body rise too? — Oh yes, it rose up glorified for it was the Christ.
155. Then it was questioned, can the soul while in this body get to the point of receiving without means? — The answer is both no and yes. In the first sense I declare that anything the soul receives must be by light and grace. Light and grace are her means for she is creature. Soul cannot do without these means as long as she is in the body. On the other hand the affirmative reply, that the soul is able to receive direct while in the body, is argued thus. The soul has within her a likeness of the sovran good. In this likeness she receives like. Here like is being received direct by like. Mark how. In receiving thus without means we have to abide by this likeness. — Wherein does this like- ness consist? — Likeness to the sovran good consists in motionless- ness of the inner and the outer man: in imperturbability towards all nether things, the outward man not being moved by them nor the inward man disturbed by any mental agitation; he remains firm and unshaken in the here and now. Be so always.
156. One other question. How have all things been in God? — In his impartible essence all things subsist impartibly, no one more noble than another. But in the essential Word where all things are distinct one thing is nobler than another.
157. Once the spirit is one with God is it at all enriched by virtues? — Virtues are products of necessity and necessity enriches not the spirit. It is not virtues that enrich the spirit but the fniit of virtues.
158. It may be asked, are we to take the impartible image of all things as Person or essence? — There are three distinct Persons but not three images to correspond. We may therefore look at the image in the light of impartible essence. But since essence LIBER POSmONUM 479 in the Persons is possessed impartibly as essence and partibly as speech (one utterance in the Father and another in the Son and another in the Holy Ghost), therefore we may take the image of the Trinity also as a speaking in the Persons as well as simple essence, for the essence is simple in the Persons no less than in its own particular nature.
159. It may be asked, has the one essence no form to correspond with its essential nature? — That which reveals another is its form. Essence cannot manifest itself in its essential nature: it is mani- fested by the Persons. Hence the Persons are the form of the ssence so far as they reveal it. But Person is one thing, essence is another. Nothing that exists can be without its proper form.