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SAYINGS
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THIS IS MEISTER ECKHART FROM WHOM GOD NOTHING HID
Meister Eckhart said in a sermon. The work wrought by God in the God-loving soul which he finds empty and detaclied enough for him to bring himself to spiritual birth in her, this work, he said, gives God greater pleasure than any w^ork he ever did with any creature and is far nobler than the creation of all things from nothing.
On being asked the reason why this work gives God such pleas- ure, he said it was because God has no creature but the soul of large enough capacity for him to empty his entire might, the whole ground of his being in, as he docs in this act of begetting himself ghostly in the soul.
When asked what God's birth is, he said, God's being born within the soul is nothing else than God's self-revelation to the soul in some new knowledge and in some new mode.
Anon they asked him. Does the soul's chief happiness consist in this act whereby God gets himself in her in ghostly fashion ? Quoth he, Though it is true that God takes greater pleasure in this act than in any other deed he ever did concerning creature, natheless the soul is happier being re-born into God. God being born in her makes her not wholly blessed : she is beatified when, in love and praise, she follows this wisdom whercinto she is bom, back to the source from whence it came and in their common origin, holding to what is his lets go her own, she being happy not in hers but his.
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Meister Eckhart said, A man of godly love and godly fear and perfect faith may, an he will, receive God's body every day at the priest's hands.
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The question is, what does God do in heaven ? The answer given by the saint is this, He crowns his own work : the works God crowns his saints for he wrought in them himself.
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Meister Eckhart says, I have Jjeen asked what God is doiiig in heaven ? I answer, He has been giving his Son birth eternally, is giving him birth now and will go on giving him birth for ever, the Father being in childbed in every virtuous soul. Blessed, thrice blessed is the man within whose soul the heavenly Father is thus brought to bed. All she surrenders to him here she shall enjoy from him in life eternal. God made the soul on purpose for her to bear his one-begotten Son. His birth in Mary ghostly was to God better pleasing than his nativity of her in flesh. When this birth happens nowadays in the good loving soul it gives God greater pleasure than his creation of the heavens and earth.
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Meister Eckhart says. He who is evcrjrvvhere at home is God- worthy ; to him who is ever the same is God present and in him in whom creatures arc stilled God bears his one-begotten Son.
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Meister Eckhart says, Holy scripture cries aloud for freedom from self. Self-free is self-controlled and self-controlled is self-possessed and self-possession is God-possession and possession of everything God ever made. I tell thee, as true as God is God and I a man, wert thou quite free from self, free from the highest angel, then were the highest angel thine as well as thine own self. This method gives self-mastery.
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According to Meister Eckhart, Grace comes not otherwise than with the Holy Ghost. It bears the Holy Ghost upon its back. Grace is no stationary thing, it is ever-becoming. It is flowing straight out of God's heart. Grace does nothing but re-form and convey into God. Grace makes the soul deiform. God, the ground of the soul and grace go together.
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Query, does God pour his grace into a power of the soul or into her essence, for no creature is allowed in the essence of the soul ? The answer is that grace is a matter of the soul and naught beside and grace without soul is not grace at all. It is immaterial for it is not true creature, it is creaturely. Grace to be grace must * have the soul for substance for if God poured his grace into a power of the soul that power alone would benefit. Not so : he instils it into her essence and essence works by grace in all her powers.
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Meister Eckhart says, Practice is better than precept ; but the practice and precept of eternal God is a counsel of perfection. If 1 wanted a teacher of theology I should go for one to Paris, to its learned university. But if I came to ask about the perfect life, why then he could not tell me. Where then am I to turn ? To pure and abstract nature, nowhere else : that can solve thy anxious queries. Why, good people, search among dead bones ? Why not seek the living sacrum that gives eternal life ? The dead give not nor do they take. An angel seeking God as God would look not anywhere for him except in a quiet, solitary creature. The essence of perfection lies in bearing poverty, misery, despisery, adversity and every hardship that befalls, willingly, gladly, freely, eagerly, calm and unmoved and persisting unto death without a why.
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Meister Eckhart said, Whatever it be that lights devotion in man's heart and knits him closest unto God, that is the best thing for him here in time.
Again he says. To be the heavenly Father's Son one has to be a stranger to the world, remote from self, heartwhole and having the mind purified.
O man, renounce thyself and so with toil-free virtue win the prize or, cleaving to thyself, with toilful virtues lose it.
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Meister Eckhart says. He who is ever alone is Godworthy and to him who is ever at home is God present and in him who stands ever in the present now does God the Father bear his Son unceasingly.
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Meister Eckhart says, He to whom (God) is different in one thing from another and to whom God is dearer in one thing than another, that man is a barbarian, still in the wilds, a child. He to whom God is the same in everything has come to man's estate. But he to whom creatures all mean want and exile has come into his own.
He was also asked : Does the man who goes out of himself need to trouble at all about his nature ? He answered, God's yoke is easy and his burden is light : No, only about his will ; %vhat the tyro fears is the expert's delight. The kingdom of God is for none but the thoroughly dead.
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God's every infliction is a lure. I give no thanks to God for loving me because he eannot help it, it is his nature to ; what I do thank him for is that he cannot of his goodness leave off loving me.
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The highest the soul can get to in this life is a settled habitation without all in all. Being without all means being detached, perfectly free from self and things. Being in all means a state of perpetual rest : poise in her eternal idea, in the omniform image shining impartible.
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Eckhart said, There are people upon earth that bear our Lord in spirit as his mother did in flesh.
They asked him who these were ? He answered. They being free from things do see in the mirror of truth whereto they are gotten all unknowing ; on earth, their dwelling is in heaven and they arc at peace ; they go as little children.
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Meister Eckhart said. Better to my mind is the man who in the cause of charity will lend himself to taking dole of bread than he who gives an hundred marks for charity. How do I make that out ? I argue thus. Doctors agree that honour is of far more worth than temporal goods. Now he who gives an hundred mar^Ls for charity gets back in praise and honour more than his hundred marks' worth. The hand he stretches forth with gifts collects both more and better than it gave. But the beggar reaching out his hand for bread is bartering his honour ; the giver buys honour but the taker sells it.
Another thing advantages the beggar who receives over the donor of the hundred marks to God : the giver glories in and gratifies his nature*, the beggar is subduing his and flouting it ; the giver is made much of for his gifts, the beggar scorned and shunned fo^ taking them.
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Meister Eckhart said, I never ask God to give himself to me : I beg of him to purify, to empty, me. If I am empty, God of his very nature is obliged to give himself to me to fill me.
How to be pure ? By steadfast longing for the one good, God to wit. How to acquire this longing ? By self-denial and dislike to creatures ; self-knowledge is the way for creatures are all naught, they come to naught with lamentation and bitterness.
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God being in himself pure good can nowhere dwell except in the pure soul : he overflows into her, whole he flows into her. What does emptiness mean ? It means a turning from creatures : the heart uplifted to the perfect good so that creatures are no comfort nor is there any want of them save inasmuch as the perfect good, God namely, is to be grasped therein. The clear eye tolerates the mote no more than does the pure soul aught that clouds, that comes between. Creatures as she enjoys them are all pure for she enjoys creatures in God and God in creatures. She is so limpid she sees through herself ; nor is God far to seek : she finds him in herself when in her natural purity she flows into the supernatural pure Godhead where she is in God and God in her and what she does she does in God and God does it in her.
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Meister Eckhart said, To die the death in love and knowledge, k that is more noble and more worth than all the good works put I together that holy Christendom has done in love and knowledge from its beginning until now and ever shall do till the judgment day. These do but serve to bring this dcatli about, this death wherein springs life eternal.
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Meister Eckhart says, We fail to get our way with God because we lack two things : profound humility and a telling will. Upon my life I swear that God in his divinity is capable of all things but this he cannot do, he cannot leave unsatisfied the soul with these two things. Wherefore vex not yourselves with trivialities ; ye were not made for trivial things and the glory of the world is but a travesty of truth, only a heresy of happiness.
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Meister Eckhart being questioned as to God's greatest gift to him answered. There are three. First, cessation of carnal desires and pleasures. Secondly, divine light enlightens me in everything I do. Thirdly, daily I grow and am renewed in virtue, grace and happiness.
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Meister Eckhart says, Lofty aim is lofty nature. The vision of . God is a high endeavour, I say, God is omnipotent, but he is powerless to thwart the man of meek and mighty aspiration, and any failure on my side to get my way with God is due to lack either of will or meekness.
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Meister Eckhart says. As a man gets to be like God and God gets dear enough for him to disregard himself and not seek what is his in time or in eternity, he is released from all his sins and purgatorial pains, yea though he have committed every sin on earth. And this life is attainable while yet he eats and drinks. Further he declares, To be the heavenly Father's Son we must be strangers to the world, remote from self, pure-hearted, inward minded.
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On one occasion Brother Eckhart said, Five things there be which in whomsoever has them are sure sign that he will never lapse from God. First, though most grievous things befall this man from God or creature, never a murmur does he make : no word but praise and thanks is ever heard. Again, at the most trying times he never says one word in his excuse. Thirdly, this man desires of God what God will freely give and nothing else : he leaves it all to him. Fourthly, nothing in heaven or earth can ruffle him : so settled is his calm that heaven and earth in topsy- turveydom would leave him quite content in God. Fifth, nothing in heaven or earth can cheer him ; for having reached the point where naught in heaven or earth can sadden him so neither can it gladden him, except as trifles can.
A man remote and far from his own self as the chief angel of the Seraphim from him, would have that angel for his own as he is GodJs and God is his. And that is the bare truth, as God is God.
St Paul says : The whole world is the cross to me and I the cross to you.'
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. Said Meister Eckhart the preacher. There is no greater valour [nor no sterner fight than that for self-effacement, self-oblivion.
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Brother Eckhart said, Not all suffering is rewarded ; only what is cheerfully consented to. A man hanged on the gallows, suffering unwillingly, were better pleased that it had been another. There is no reward for that. Other sufferings the same. It is not the suffering that counts, it is the virtue. -- I say, to him who suffers not for love to suffer is suffering and is hard to bear. But one who suffers for love suffers not and his suffering is fruitful in God's sight.
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According to Meister Eckhart^ Every sign, every holiness, every perfection possible to creature our Lady had par excellence. To take her holiness, it was so prodigious that our Lady never sinned. Of signs, again, she had the chief one, that of being God's mother ; albeit our theologians do contend that our Lady was far happier uniting God to Godhead than she was in giving carnal birth to God. As to the overfullness our Lady got from deity, she was worthy of it, bearing as she did God in the flesh. Soul over- brimming like this overflows into the body and makes the body like it, thus she was God's carnal mother. Accordingly some doctors do affirm that mental concepts tell upon the body more than physicians do with all their drugs. God is never born except in souls which have put creatures under their feet. Our philo- sophers say, Perfect rest is freedom from all motion.
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On St Peter's words, We have abandoned all things,' Meister Eckhart comments thus : Thou hast well said, for laden thou couldst not follow him. It is no profitless exchange, giving up all for God : by him all things are given and having gotten him he stands in lieu of all.
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Meister Eckhart said. What our Lord did was done with this intent, and this alone, that he might be with us and we with him.
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Brother Eckhart preached saying, St Peter said, We have left all things.' St James said, We have given up all things.' St John said, We have nothing left.' Whereupon Brother Eckhart asks, When do we leave all things ? When we leave everything conceivable, everything expressible, everything audible, everything visible, then and then only we give up all things. When in this^ sense we give up all we grow aflood with light, passing bright with God.
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He that would be what he ought must stop being what he is. When God made the angels the first sight they saw was that of the Father with the Son sprouting out of his Father's heart like a green shoot out of a tree. This blissful vision they have had more than six thousand years and how it comes they wot as well
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to-day as when they were first made. This owing to their keen perception ; the more we know the less we understand.
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In the Book of Wisdom it is writ, All men are fools in whom is no knowledge of God for men are mortal without God.' Without divine wisdom we are without Gk)d and to be without God is to be without truth for God it is who inculcates the truth. Not being in God means being in lies and without wisdom. One may be worldly-wise without being Godly-wise but this is folly in God's sight ; wisdom wisdomless, more foolishness than wisdom. The question is, who has this heavenly wisdom ? Meister Eckhart says, He who in deep and real humility so yields himself to God that his will is wholly God's will and God's will is his, as saith Isaiah the prophet, God teaches true wisdom to none but the Jhumble.' And in the Book of Wisdom too we read, Where there is meekness there is true wisdom.' Also the heathen doctor Ptolemeus says, Among wise men the humblest are the wisest.' According to Meister Eekhart, with humility goes love : lowliness without love is dead indeed for the virtues are virtue in virtue of love.
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-- And so shall a man order his life if he would be perfect.' Anent this Meister Eekhart says. Works wrought from within are pleasant both to God and man ; they are benign and living works. They are Godworthy for he alone it is who does in man works wrought from within, as saith the prophet Isaiah, Lord all our works thou hast wrought in us,' and Christ too said, My Father who is in me he doeth that I do.' Such works are both easy and pleasant to man for all deeds are agreeable and pleasant to man in which body and soul are harmonious. This is the case in all these works. Again, these works are living works : the dead beast differs from the living one in that the dead is moved from outside only ; it must be pulled or pushed, to wit, and its works are all dead works. The live beast moves itself where'er it will ; its motive power is within and its works are living yorks. In the |same way those works of men which have their source within j where God moves by himself, essential products, these are our iworks, divine works, useful works. But works which come from some external cause and not from inner being, these works I say are dead, they are not godly works nor are they ours. Meister Eckhart also says, Works wrought from within are willing works. But that which is willing is sweet, therefore works from within are all pleasant whereas works due to any outward cause are
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unwilling and slavish for were there nothing moving from without no work were done at all, so that it is reluctant, menial, bitter.
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Meister Eekhart said, No person x'^an in this life reach the point at which he is excused from outward works. What though one lead the contemplative life, one cannot altogether keep fromj flowing out and mingling in the life of action. Even as a man without a groat may still be generous in the will to give, whereas a man of means in giving nothing cannot be called generous, so no one can have virtues without exercising virtue at the proper time and place. Hence those who lead the contemplative life and do no outward works, are most mistaken and all on the wrong tack. What I say is that he who lives the contemplative life may, nay he must, be absolutely free from outward works what time he is in act of contemplation but afterwards his duty lies in doing oub.vard works ; for none can live the contemplative life without a l-reak and active jife bridges the gaps in the life of contemplation.
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Meister Eekhart says and so do other masters, that there are two things in God : essence and regard, ix, relatio. According to these doctors, not in the Godhead does the Father bear his Son ; the Father in his essence does but see into his naked essence where he discerns himself in all his power : himself by himself, without the Son and without the Holy Ghost ; naught sees he there but the unity of his own essence. But the Father being minded to regard himself, to reflect upon himself in another Person, by this act of retrospection is begetting his Son ; and being well contented with himself in this regard and finding his reflection most delightful he must, since all joy is his eternally, keep on looking back eternally. So the Son is as eternal as the Father, and from the mutual liking and the love betwixt the Father and the Son there comes the Holy Ghost and since this love between the Father and the Son has been for aye therefore the Holy Ghost is as eternal as the Father and the Son and these three Persons have one simple essence and are distinct as Persons only : the Father's Person never was the Son's nor the Holy Ghost's Person ; all three have each their own Person albeit they are one in essence.
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Meister Eekhart says and so do other masters. No man has any merit apart from his intention and the why of a man's action/
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feives the measure of his merit, naught beside. Hence anyone ^tending, anyone striving, for something less than God is not worthy of God unless as the lover of creature, whatever it be, in God. . God-lovers have no guerdon but God ; them God rewards with himself.
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Meister Eckhart says, and so do other masters, that in the course of nature it is really the higher which is ever more ready to pour its power out into the lower than the lower is ready to receive it. The highest heaven, for instance, is turning far more rapidly than the rest which run against it. However fast the lower heavens race against the upper, in order to receive the influx from it, the highest heaven will go harder still both as to pace and influx. So God is vastly quicker to pour out his grace than man to take it in. There is no dearth of God with us ; what dearth there is is wholly ours who make not ready to receive his grace.
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The question is, When do the passions perforce obey the mind ?
( The answer Meister Eckhart gives is this. What time the mind is fixed on God and there abides, the senses arc obedient to the mind. As one should hang a needle to a magnet and then another needle on to that, until there are four needles, say, depending from the magnet. As long as the first needle stays clinging to the magnet all the other needles will keep clinging on to that but when the leader drops the rest will go as well. So, while the mind keeps«fixed on God the senses arc subservient to it but if the mind should wander off from God the passions will escape and be unruly.
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Why is it, Meister Eckhart asks, that people are so slow to look for God in earnest ? His comment is : When one is looking for a thing and finds no trace of its existence one hunts half-heartedly and in distress. But lighting on some vestige of the quarry, the chase grows lively, blithe and keen. The man in quest of fire, cheered when he feels the heat looks for its source with eagerness and pleasure. And so it is with those in quest of God : feeling none of the sweetness of God they grow listless but sensing the sweetness of divinity they blithely pursue their search for God.
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Meister Eckhart asks. Whose are the prayers God always hears ? And Meister Eckhart answers. Who worships God as God God hears.
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But he who worships God for worldly goods, worships not Gk>d : he worships what he worships God for and employs God as his servant for the getting of it. As St Augustine puts it, What thou dost love thou dost worship ; true prayer, real prayer is nothing but^ loving : what one loves that one prays ^oV^'ffence no diie praysTo God aright but he that prays to God for God without a thought of aught but God,
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Meister Eckhart says and so do other masters, Whoso wants a virtue ought to seek it at the souree, in God to wit, where we find all the virtues added up to virtue. The man who finds a single virtue thus diseovers every virtue in the one and, attaining to the unity where all virtues are virtue, the soul sees God and God looks on the soul. Soul is caressed by God who, talking with her in familiar fashion, teaehes her universal wisdom and God and man now fully reeonciled, man is the lord of every ereature, of all the good things that have flowed from God ; as it is written in the Book of Wisdom where the wise man says, All good have I gotten in thee alone ' : in virtue have 1 gotten all the virtues.
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According to Meister Eckhart, God is not only the Father of all good things but he is the mother of all things to boot. He is Father for he is the cause of all things and their creator. He is the mother of all things as well, for when creatures have gotten their being from him he still stays with creatures to keep them in being. If God did not remain with creatures after they had started their own life they would most speedily fall out of being. Falling from God means falling from being into nothingness. It is not so with other causes, they can with safety quit the things they cause when these have gotten being of their own. When the house is in being its builder can depart and for the reason that it is not the builder alone that makes the house : the materials thereof he draws from nature. But God provides creature with the whole of what it is, with form as well as matter, so he is bound to stay with it or it will promptly drop out of existence.
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Meister Eckhart says, the man who doing some good deed does it not wholly for God's sake and without any thought save God, that man darkens God's glory. All good works are God's. Hence if a man in his good work harbours intent towards aught but God
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he gives thereto the honour of the work and robs God of his glory and all such works are sterile and unfruitful.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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. . . .
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Meister Eckhart said that in the essence of the soul we may surely see and know God. And the closer acquainted one is in
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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God will never give himself openly to the soul . . . except she bring her husband, her whole free will, to wit.
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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 ?
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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What could be sweeter than to have a friend with whom, as with thyself, thou canst discourse all that is in thy heart ?
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When God made man the innermost heart of the Godhead was put into man.
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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.
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Speaking of man wc mean a person ; speaking of manhood we mean human nature.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.'
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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.'
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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.
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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.
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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.'
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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,
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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,' pro- tested 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.
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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
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