WT o

School of Theology at Claremont

1001 1

^Seca

EISEN
Se
 This book is
presented to

The Library
SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
_ AT CLAREMONT

by Dr. Martha Rowlett

WEST FOOTHILL AT COLLEGE AVENUE

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA
(USA IR
THECIASSICS
nn.
merece up cute oec MIETEN Num HN LN

THE CLASSICS OF WESTERN SPIRITUALITY

Masters
A Library of the Great SpiritualM
dL e toD D ri tol ca as 5 NTC
President and Publisher
Kevin A. Lynch, C.S.P.

EDITORIAL BOARD
Editor-in-Chief
Richard J. Payne
Associate Editor
John Farina
Editorial Consultant
Ewert H. Cousins—Professor and Director of Spirituality
Graduate Program, Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y.

John E. Booty—Professor of Church History, Episcopal

Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass.
Joseph Dan—Professor of Kaballah in the Department of Jewish
Thought, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Albert Deblaere—Professor of the History of Spirituality,
Gregorian University, Rome, Italy.
Louis Dupré— T.L. Riggs Professor in Philosophy of
Religion, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Rozanne Elder— Executive Vice President, Cistercian
Publications, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Mircea Eliade— Professor in the Department of the History of
Religions, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Anne Fremantle— Teacher, Editor and Writer, New York, N.Y.
Karlfried Froelich— Professor of the History of the Early and
Medieval Church, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.].
Arthur Green—Assistant Professor in the Department of
Reiigious Thought, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.
Stanley S. Harakas— Dean of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox
Seminary, Brookline, Mass.
Jean Leclercq— Professor, Institute of Spirituality and
Institute of Religious Psychology, Gregorian University, Rome, Italy.
Miguel León-Portilla-Professor Mesoamerican Cultures
and Languages, National University of Mexico, University City,
Mexico.
George A. Maloney, S.J.— Director, John XXIII
Ecumenical Center, Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y.
Bernard McGinn—Associate Professor of Historical
Theology and History of Christianity, University of Chicago
Divinity School, Chicago, Ill.
John Meyendorff— Professor of Church History, Fordham
University, Bronx, N.Y., and Professor of Patristics and Church
History, St. Vladimir's Seminary, Tuckahoe, N.Y.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr— Professor of Islamics, Department of
Religion, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa., and Visiting Professor »

Harvard University, Cambridge, Ma.

Heiko A. Oberman—Director, Insititue fuer
Spaetmittelalter and Reformation, Universitaet Tuebingen, West
Germany.
Alfonso Ortiz—Professor of Anthropology, University of
New Mexico, Albuquerque, N. Mex.; Fellow, The Center for
Advanced Study, Stanford, Calif.
Raimundo Panikkar— Professor, Department of Religious
Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara, Calif.
Jaroslav Pelikan— Sterling Professor of History and Religious
Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Fazlar Rahman— Professor Islamic Thought, Department of Near
Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of
Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Annemarie B. Schimmel— Professor of Hindu Muslim Culture,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Sandra M. Schneiders—Assistant Professor of New
Testament Studies and Spirituality, Jesuit School of Theology,
Berkeley, Calif.
Huston Smith— Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion,
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y.
John R. Sommerfeldt— Professor of History, University of
Dallas, Irving, Texas.
David Steindl-Rast—Monk of Mount Savior Monastery,
Pine City, N.Y.
William C. Sturtevant—General Editor, Handbook of North
American Indians, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
David Tracy—Professor of Theology, University of Chicago
Divinity School, Chicago, Ill.
Victor Turner—William B. Kenan Professor in
Anthropology, The Center for Advanced Study, University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
Kallistos Ware—Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford;
Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies, Oxford
University, England.
Other volumes in this series
Julian of Norwich e SHOWINGS
Jacob Boehme e THE WAY TO CHRIST
Nahman of Bratslav e THE TALES
Gregory of Nyssa e THE LIFE OF MOSES
Bonaventure e THE SOUL'S JOURNEY INTO GOD, THE TREE OF
LIFE, and THE LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS
William Law € A SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE,
and THE SPIRIT OF LOVE
Abraham Isaac Kook e THE LIGHTS OF PENITENCE, LIGHTS OF
HOLINESS, THE MORAL PRINCIPLES, ESSAYS, and POEMS
Ibn ‘Ata’ Illah e THE BOOK OF WISDOM and Kwaja Abdullah
Ansari e INTIMATE CONVERSATIONS
Johann Arndt e TRUE CHRISTIANITY
Richard of St. Victore THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS, THE
MYSTICAL ARK, BOOK THREE OF THE TRINITY
Origen e AN EXHORTATION TO MARTYRDOM, PRAYER AND
SELECTED WORKS
Catherine of Genoa e PURGATION AND PURGATORY, THE
SPIRITUAL DIALOGUE
Native North American Spirituality of the Eastern Woodlands e SACRED
MYTHS, DREAMS, VISIONS, SPEECHES, HEALING
FORMULAS, RITUALS AND CEREMONIALS
Teresa of Avila e THE INTERIOR CASTLE

Apocalyptic Spirituality e TREATISES AND LETTERS OF

LACTANTIUS, ADSO OF MONTIER-EN-DER, JOACHIM OF
FIORE, THE FRANCISCAN SPIRITUALS, SAVONAROLA
Athanasius € THE LIFE OF ANTONY, A LETTER TO
MARCELLINUS
Catherine of Siena e THE DIALOGUE

Sharafuddin Maneri e THE HUNDRED LETTERS

Martin Luther e THEOLOGIA GERMANICA

Native Mesoamerican Spirituality e ANCIENT MYTHS, DISCOURSES,
STORIES, DOCTRINES, HYMNS, POEMS FROM THE AZTEC,
YUCATEC, QUICHE-MAYA AND OTHER SACRED
TRADITIONS
Symeon the New Theologian e THE DISCOURSES
Ibn Al'-Arabi eTHE BEZELS OF WISDOM
Hadewijch e THE COMPLETE WORKS
Philo of Alexandria e THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE, THE GIANTS,
AND SELECTIONS
George Herbert e THE COUNTRY PARSON, THE TEMPLE
Unknown e THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING
John and Charles Wesleye SELECTED WRITINGS AND HYMNS
SV
Soeo
Ba eS Le |
M I A ^2
jm dia
| ef uf
LT Ol the

Meister Eckhart
THE ESSENTIAL SERMONS, COMMENTARIES, TREATISES, AND DEFENSE

TRANSLATION AND INTRODUCTION

BY
EDMUND COLLEDGE, O.S.A. AND BERNARD McGINN

PREFACE
BY:
HUSTON SMITH

PAULIST PRESS
NEW YORK * RAMSEY * TORONTO
 Covert Art: ;
The artist, LOUISE MURPHY, is from Long Island. Her work ranges from fashion illus-
trations for a major department store to house portraits" for individual clients. She studied
at the High School of Music and Art in New York City, the State University of New York
at Farmingdale, and Parson's School of Design. She specializes in watercolor, the medium
used for the cover of this volume.

Theology Libra]
SCHOOL OF rLEOL Og
AT CLAREMONT
uo eee

Design: Barbini, Pesce & Noble, Inc.

Copyright © 1981 by
The Missionary Society of St. Paul
the Apostle in the State of New York

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission
in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress
Catalog Card Number: 81-82206

ISBN: 0-8091-0322-2 (Cloth)

0-8091-2370-3 (Paper)

Published by Paulist Press

545 Island Road, Ramsey, N.J. 07446

Printed and bound in the

United States of America
 CONTENTS

PREFACE xi

FOREWORD xvii

INTRODUCTION

KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS 3

. HISTORICAL DATA 5

. THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY 24

. A NOTE ON ECKHART'S WORKS

AND THE PRESENT SELECTIONS 62

PART ONE: LATIN WORKS

. DOCUMENTS RELATING TO ECKHART'S

CONDEMNATION Tl
A. Selections from Eckhart's Defense 71
B. The Bull “In agro dominico” (March 27, 1329) 77

. SELECTIONS FROM THE COMMENTARIES

ON GENESIS 82:12 UE

. SELECTIONS FROM THE COMMENTARY

ON JOHN 122

vii
 CONTENTS

PART TWO: GERMAN WORKS

1l. SELECTED SERMONS 177

2. TREATISES 209
A. The Book of Benedictus": The Book
of Divine Consolation 209
B. The Book of Benedictus": Of the Nobleman 240
C. Counsels on Discernment 247
D. On Detachment 285

NOTES 295

BIBLIOGRAPH Y 349

INDEXES 355

Vill
 The Editors of this Volume

EDMUND COLLEDGE, O.S.A., has specialized in the study of the

devotional literature, Latin and vernacular, of England, the Low Coun-
tries, and the Rhineland in the later Middle Ages. He is the author of
studies and modern English translations of Ruysbroek, Tauler, and
Suso. He published in 1957, in collaboration with Joyce Bazire, a criti-
cal edition of The Chastising of God's Children, and in 1961 an anthology,
The Medieval Mystics of England. Father Colledge taught English Lan-
guage and Philology at Liverpool University from 1937 until 1963
when he resigned his Readership there, and entered the English No-
vitiate of the Augustinian Friars Hermit. He taught at the Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto until his recent retirement.
He continues to direct students and to do international research on
spiritual texts.

BERNARD MCGINN is professor of Historical Theology and of the

History of Christianity at the Divinity School of the University of Chi-
cago. He also serves as a member of the Department of New Testa-
ment and Early Christian Literature and the Chairman of the
Committee on Medieval Studies in the university’s Division of the Hu-
manities. Born in Yonkers, New York, in 1937, Mr. McGinn received
a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian Univer-
sity in 1963 and a Ph.D. in History of Ideas from Brandeis University
in 1970. He has also done advanced work at Columbia University and
the University of Munich. His books include The Golden Chain, Three
Treatises on Man, Visions of the End, and the volume entitled Apocalyptic
Spirituality in this series. He has also written numerous articles on as-
pects of late patristic and medieval theology and spirituality.
 Author of Preface

Born and raised in China of missionary parents, HUSTON SMITH

taught at Washington Unversity (St. Louis) and for fifteen years was
Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
before he assumed his present position as Thomas J. Watson Professor
of Religion and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse Univer-
sity.

Author of five books and over fifty articles in professional journals, he

discovered the capacity of certain Tibetan lamas to sing multiple tones
simultaneously (solo chords) and has produced prize-winning films on
Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Islamic mysticism. His Religions of
Man has sold over two million copies. His latest book, Forgotten Truth:
The Primordial Tradition, was published by Harper and Row in 1976.
PREFACE

To Professors Colledge's and McGinn's masterful presentation of

Meister Eckhart in these pages I have been asked to add a few lines to
point out why the book is important today. I shall speak first to the
importance it shares with other volumes in this series and then proceed
to its unique place within the series itself.
A half-century ago a master comparativist, A. K. Coomaraswamy,
wrote that Eckhart resumed and concentrated “in one consistent dem-
onstration the spiritual being of Europe at its highest tension."! This
tension has since slacked. Alexander Solzhenitsyn may go too far in
seeing the contemporary West as "spiritually exhausted," but few seem
to doubt a certain anemia. The world we face seems in many ways to
be decomposing before our eyes.
If civilizations are like organisms, decline is inevitable, but with
the single important exception of Oswald Spengler the West has not
thought so—not since its Hebraic infusion. So it is in character for us
to ask if there is a cause for our current decline, one that might be cor-
rected. The leading candidate, it seems clear to me, is, I shall not say
science, but rather the position it has come to assume in our lives.
Science in the form we have come to know it entered the seven-
teenth-century West as a new way of knowing, one that promised to
augment our power and proceeded to deliver on that promise dramati-
cally. The power it delivered has proved to be over nature only; it has
not increased our power over ourselves (to become better people), or
over our superiors (angels or God, let us say). How could it have? Pow-
er in an inclusive sense can be wielded only over one's inferiors or at
most one's equals.
At the time, though—I use this phrase to cover the last three cen-
turies—we did not see this clearly. We did not see that the scientific
method has limitations built into it: It is restricted 77 principle to telling

xi
 PREFACE

us about a part of reality only, that part (to repeat) that is beneath us
in freedom and awareness. Instead, we thought we had discovered an
improved way of knowing what was applicable across the board—a
searchlight which in time might reach into every corner of the uni-
verse. This failure to notice that limitations are built into the very
structure of the scientific method—that its power derives from its nar-
rowness in the way the effectiveness of a dental drill derives from the
smallness of its point—continues. I have spoken of it in the past tense
because it can now be shown conclusively (I would say) that the sci-
entific method is inherently limited, but the contrary view remains
very much with us; in our culture as a whole it is probably still the
reigning orthodoxy. On the very day that I write these lines, for ex-
ample, I come upon Lévi-Strauss saying that “only through science...
can... we... increase ... the number and quality of the answers we
are able to give.”?
The spiritual decline of the last three hundred years—the eclipse
of God sloping into the death of God with the correlative decline in
our sense of transcendence and the sacred—is a direct consequence of
this mistake. We made the mistake because we did not see the connec-
tion between the scientific method and power. Or rather, we saw only
half of that connection. It was obvious that science issues in power, that
our power expands by virtue of it. What we did not see is that it also
proceeds from power; specifically, from our power to devise controlled
experiments. This holds for pure science as much as for applied. That
the former seeks knowledge for its own sake is irrelevant. The fact re-
mains: Scientific. knowledge, pure or applied, emerges only in regions
where scientists can control—that is, have power over—the materials
they work with.
The upshot of the mistake I have cited is this: In mistaking a re-
stricted means of knowing for one we assume to be not only unrestrict-
ed but the most reliable we have, we have come to place our trust in—
take for "the real world"—what appears through this restricted view-
finder. And as only aspects of reality that are inferior to us can register
in this viewfinder, these being (to repeat) the aspects that we can con-
trol, the West has lowered the ceiling on its worldview, forcing us to
live in a cramped, inferior world: Michael Horner calls it dis-spirited,
Lewis Mumford, dis-qualified. With a single sweep of the methodolog-
ical pen, one devised to write our own ticket and get our own way, our
world has been stripped of the very possibility of housing things wor-
thier than ourselves, things that exceed us in freedom, intelligence, and

xii
 PREFACE

purpose. The consequences are severe. Causation is upward only, from

the less to the more. Value proceeds in the face of enormous odds, for
evolution—the only creative agency science allows—is prodigal. Our
self-image is reduced, from slightly lower than angels to naked apes.
And in the end time conquers all.
Remarks like the foregoing have their place, but left to themselves
they have little impact. There is no effective way to argue against a sys-
tem from within that system, and every statement from outside it will
be translated into its own premises in a way that explains by explain-
ing away. What helps is not arguments but vision—a new way of see-
ing the world. On one occasion while Elijah Mohammad was schooling
Malcolm X in the teachings of the Black Muslims there was a glass of
dirty water on the kitchen counter. Mr. Muhammad placed a glass of
clean water beside it. "Don't condemn if you see a person has a dirty
glass of water," he said. “Just show them the clean glass."?
Enter this series, The Classics of Western Spirituality, in present in-
stance through the writings of Meister Eckhart. Eckhart doesn't argue
against a science-restricted mind set, which of course had not yet
emerged. He shows us an alternative. And in doing so—I am thinking
especially of the way he returns repeatedly to his theme of the God-
intoxicated man—we sense that he knows so vividly what he is talking
about that we experience through his words an inrush of the Real. Like
prisoners, we had been straining at our bars, hoping for a sliver of
light. He spins us around and shows us that the door behind us is wide
open. This service Eckhart shares with all the writers in this series. I
turn now to his special place within the series itself.
A devout Dominican whose order took pride in its orthodoxy,
Eckhart found his writings condemned. There is a paradox here not
found in other volumes of this set, and there is no quicker and surer
entrée to the heart of Eckhart's thought than by way of it.
Professor Colledge tells us on page 13 of this book that *'the opin-
ion seems to be growing ... that the [condemnation] was at least in
part unsound,” but to write it off as simply a mistake would be too sim-
ple. The paradox is tough and resilient. Colledge shows that Eckhart
could have quoted the Church Fathers in his defense; yet on his death-
bed he “revoked and also deplored the twenty-six articles which he ad-
mitted that he had preached." To assume that he did so for the sake
of expediency or Church harmony would run counter to the whole
character of the man. Colledge gives us the key to the paradox when
he points out that Eckhart's retraction contained no admission that

xii
 PREFACE

what he had taught was untrue; it pertained only to such elements in

his teachings as "could generate in the minds of the faithful an hereti-
cal opinion, or one erroneous and hostile to the true faith" (p. 15).
This pinpoints the task for the remaining paragraphs of this Pref-
ace. If we can identify the features of Eckhart's thought which, though
true, can give offense, this should help us not only to understand his
thought but to see why it is important for our times.
The elements in question all revolve around the God/self relation-
ship. From the human standpoint the two are separated by a categor-
ical gulf; God appears of necessity as radically Other. But the
Neoplatonic tradition in which Eckhart stands teaches that it is quite
otherwise from God's vantage point. For God knows that he alone is
completely real; real in every sense—all else is only partially so. And
that which zs fully real in what is other-than-God is God's presence in
it. Thus from the divine perspective a sublime continuity reigns. Ev-
erything that is, to the degree that it is, is God him/her/itself—our
pronouns do not fit. Thanks to the "eye of the heart" (Eph. 1:18),
which Eckhart calls the Intellect and which he claims is uncreated (p.
42) and therefore divine inasmuch as only God is uncreated, we can
catch glimpses of this continuity, but for the most part it is the discon-
tinuity that obtrudes. To try to live wholly within the divine vision
would be like trying with our ordinary eyes to seize the sight of the
sun: It would blind us and leave us in the obscurity of our closed
eyes—an experience which forces us, so to speak, to seek 'the sun' only
within us, by means of the “eye of the heart."
So we are divided creatures. A part of ourselves, rarely evident, is
continuous with God, while the balance remains categorically differ-
ent from him. With which part do we identify?
Mystics are persons who, like Eckhart, identify with the God el-
ement in themselves emphatically. It was from this identification that
Eckhart told his congregation, "Truly you are the hidden God" (Sermon
15, 192). If the stance seems presumptuous, we overlook its cost; it
requires that we dissociate from everything in us that is profane. As
this latter constitutes the bulk of our being as far as most of us can
make out, the disengagement that is required is radical. Everything we
encountered would have to be affirmed as God's will, or more precise-
ly, God himself, any sentiment that resisted this glad welcome would
have to be discounted as arising from our private, intrusive, and in the
end only seeming selves.
What we need to catch here is the way truths in the divine, con-

X1V
 PREFACE

tinuous perspective become false when transferred to our normal hu-

man perspective in which the discontinuity between man and God is
glaringly evident and so, on pain of hypocrisy, must be emphatically
affirmed. As the latter context distorts what were truths in the former
context, these distortions zeed to be condemned and retracted. Eck-
hart's teaching that, as God wills evil, we should not will not to have
sinned is a case in point; actually all the points on which he was con-
demned are such, but this one will suffice for illustration. If we hear
that we should “not will not to have sinned”’ (p. 44) while we are
tempted to sin—clear indication that we are identifying with the finite,
willful part of ourselves—the assertion will seem to counsel sinning
forthwith. The God-component in us would accent the statement dif-
ferently. In its reading sin would lose none of its enormity from the
human perspective; its wages for our finite selves continue to be, nec-
essarily, death. Concurrently, however, sin's place in the divine econ-
omy taken as a whole would be discerned and therewith affirmed.
Without gradations of worth from which sin and evil ultimately de-
rive, God alone would exist and we would not even be. For us to exist,
then, God must in some way will the separation in which sin and evil
are implicated.
Spirit is free, but the letter kills—this truth can be applied at a
number of levels. Eckhart speaks audaciously, from a freedom so ex-
travagant that from a lower angle of vision it looks like caprice. A par-
allel case in another tradition can help us to see what is at stake. We
are told that Allah once addressed the Sufi Abu 'l-Hasan al-Kharraqani
saying, “Shall I tell the people of thy spiritual drunkenness [a degree
of spiritual realization which involved relinquishing outward forms] so
that, being scandalized, they will stone thee?” So established was the
Sufi in his advanced state that he answered instantly: "Shall I tell the
people of Thine infinite Mercy [which, being infinite, will redeem ev-
eryone eventually] so that they will never again bow down to Thee in
prayer?"
Therein lies the key to “the Eckhartian enigma,” if I may call it
”

such; the condemnation of this devout and devoted Christian mystic—

as well as to the high octaves of his thought approached simply for
themselves. We are told by those who see clearly that truth is of daz-
zling simplicity, but the ways in which it may be perceived are vastly
complex. This fact need not be daunting, since it corresponds to the
variety of spiritual personality types, among which the mystic's is one.
How many men and women today feel themselves driven to atheism

XV
 PREFACE

because the only version of theism they have encountered is too an-
thropomorphic, too person- (and therefore in the end too self-) cen-
tered, too moralistic-because-dualistic to fit the shape the God-vacuum
assumes in their mystically inclined souls? As the theism they see
seems childish and sentimental, some in this camp accept materialism
as the only way to live without lying, while others gravitate to Zen or
Vedanta or Sufism where their drive for total self-transcendence (an-
atta, fana) is recognized and welcomed at the door. No task is more im-
portant for the Church than to let such persons know that behind its
outer doors that are always open stands another that is closed—closed
though accessible to those who knock. When it opens, only to close
again immediately for this inner door never remains ajar, Meister Eck-
hart will be among those waiting to welcome those who enter.

—Huston Smith

xvi
FOREWORD

Meister Eckhart's reputation as one of the key figures in the his-

tory of Western mysticism can scarcely be questioned. Since the reviv-
al of interest in his writings in the early nineteenth century, a broad
stream of editions, studies, and interpretations has contributed to his
growing fame. But as in his own day, so too in ours, Eckhart remains
a difficult and controversial writer. Propositions from the works of
this master of theology and high official in the Dominican order were
posthumously condemned on March 27, 1329, by Pope John XXII,
though this apparently did little to hinder the considerable influence
that he continued to have on the piety of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. The modern revival of Eckhart has presented even more
contradictory evaluations. The daring aspects of the Meister's thought,
especially as revealed in his vernacular works, have provided consid-
erable excuse for those who have stressed his radicalism. At different
times Eckhart has been viewed as a pantheist, a forerunner of the Ref-
ormation, a prophet of German national religion, a Zen master in dis-
guise, and a proto-Marxist. While serious scholars reject such extreme
interpretations, these exaggerated views do serve to indicate that Meis-
ter Eckhart was and is a daring and difficult thinker, a man who es-
capes any easy categorization, and frequently a scandal to the timid
and conventional. From the end of the last century, other scholars, re-
lying chiefly on the Latin works, have stressed the more traditional as-
pects of the Meister's thought, especially its deep roots in medieval
scholastic theology. These roots, as well as Eckhart's unwavering loy-
alty to the Church, must never be forgotten, but they should not lead
us into seeing Eckhart as just another conventional scholastic thinker.
The present volume is designed to provide a general introduction
to the integral Eckhart. Unlike earlier English translations, it gives
equal representation to selections from both the technical Latin works

xvii
 FOREWORD

and the more popular vernacular sermons and treatises to show the in-
ner unity and coherence of the thought of one of the greatest masters
of Western spirituality.
Edmund Colledge is grateful to Professor Kurt Ruh for giving him
access to his Germanistisches Seminar, and for much assistance; and to
Father Adolar Zumkeller, O.S.A., and the Augustinus-Institut at
Würzburg for their hospitality and help. More recently, Father Eelcko
Ypma, O.S.A., Mr. J. van Sint Feijth, and Mr. A. van Gorp have guided
him through the invaluable resources of the Thesaurus linguae Augus-
tinianae at Eindhoven, where the community at Marienhagen were his
kind hosts.
Bernard McGinn expresses gratitude especially to Professor Frank
Tobin of the University of Nevada for invaluable assistance without
which this volume would have been much the poorer.
The editors of this volume and the editors of the Classics of West-
ern Spirituality series also wish to take this opportunity to express
their sincere gratitude to the directors of the Eckhart edition spon-
sored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for their permission to
make use of that critical text as the basis for this translation.

xviii
Introduction
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS

I. The abbreviations used for the books of the Bible follow the practice
of the Jerusalem Bible. The translations of scriptural texts, however,
have been made directly from Eckhart's Latin and German, which is
usually close to the Vulgate text.

II. Frequently cited works will be abbreviated as follows:

A. Eckhart's Works. Unless otherwise noted, all Eckhart's works will

be cited according to the edition of the Deutsche Forschungsge-
meinschaft under the general editorship of J. Quint for the German
works and J. Koch for the Latin works. This is Meister Eckbart. Die
deutschen und lateinischen Werke (Stuttgart and Berlin: W. Kohlham-
mer, 1936-). Hereafter abbreviated as DW and LW, followed by
volume number. The letters n. and nn. will refer to numbered sec-
tion(s) of the Latin edition.

Individual works will appear as follows:

LW. Book of tbe Parables of Genesis (Par. Gen.)

Commentary on Exodus (Comm. Ex.)
Commentary on Genesis (Comm. Gen.)
Commentary on Jobn (Comm. [n.)
Commentary on Wisdom (Comm. Wis.)
Parisian Questions (Par. Quest.)
Sermons, Latin (Sermon witb Latin number)

DW. Book "Benedictus" 1 and 2 (Bened.)

Counsels on Discernment (Couns.)
On Detachment (Detach.)
Sermons, German (Sermon with Arabic number)
 KEYTO ABBREVIATIONS

B. Other Authors
1. Aristotle:
Categories (Cat. )
Metaphysics (Met.)
On the Soul (Soul)
Physics (Phys.)
Posterior Analytics (Post. Anal.)
Topics (Top.)

2. Augustine:
Confessions (Conf.)
Literal Commentary on Genesis (Lit. Comm. Gen.)
On Christian Doctrine (Christ. Doct.)
On the Trinity (Trin.)

3. Moses Maimonides:
Guide to the Perplexed (Guide)

4. Thomas Aquinas:
Commentary on the Sentences (In Sent.)
Summa against the Gentiles (SCG)
Summa of Theology (STb)

III. The abbreviation MHG = Middle High German.

1. HISTORICAL DATA

A. LIFE

Eckhart's baptismal or religious name seems to have been John,

but it would be pedantic to give him any appellation other than the
"Meister" by which he was known to his own order and to the public,
in his lifetime and thereafter. He earned this title of honor in the first
instance through the teaching appointment that he gained in the Uni-
versity of Paris, where he attracted notice by the contentious role he
played in current theological controversies, which, some of his ser-
mons show,! were still fresh in his mind years afterward. He was born
about the year 1260. In the Middle Ages, unless a birth were to be that
of, say, some future king, there is seldom any exact contemporary rec-
ord of its date and place; in Eckhart's case, we can only deduce the ap-
proximate year from later events in his life that can be dated. He is said
to have been born in a village in Thuringia called Hochheim, either
that near Erfurt or another of the same name near Gotha. The first is
his more probable birthplace, since it was in Erfurt that he was ad-
mitted as a novice into the convent of the Dominican friars.? The sto-
ry, still commonly accepted and repeated, that he was of noble or
knightly birth is a fiction that originated in a misinterpretation of ar-
chives of the period.? In his first years he would have received the usu-
al rudimentary education in Latin grammar and in the liberal arts;
thereafter he seems to have been sent for higher studies to the Domin-
icans' institute in their monastery at Cologne, where he may have
known Albert the Great, who ended his career by living and perhaps
by teaching there until his death in 1280. If so, this could have been
Eckhart's first contact with anyone who had known Thomas Aquinas
except by repute. Albert had taught Thomas too, and shortly before his
death, when the University of Paris organized an attack on Thomas's
 INTRODUCTION

philosophical and theological method, Albert had attempted, not whol-

ly successfully, to defend his old pupil's name. This story is on the au-
thority of Bartholomew of Capua, who gave evidence in Thomas’s
canonization process; and he stated that he knew of it only from what
Hugo Borgognoni of Lucca, one-time prior provincial of the Roman
province, had told him, so that it can be accepted only with reserve.*
Soon, Eckhart was to follow Albert and Thomas to Paris, then the cen-
ter of the Western intellectual world.
For young friars of the mendicant orders to be sent there to take
part—at first as assistants—in the university's teaching program was
a privilege of which other teachers, from the ranks of the secular clergy
and the older religious orders, were always jealous, and which the Do-
minicans and the other friars had to guard with care. They took pains
in the selection of candidates who would represent them worthily; and
for Eckhart to be so chosen was a clear indication that his teachers in
Germany saw in him much promise.
Josef Koch analyzed three of his pronouncements for what light
they throw on his early years as a student.? In an Easter sermon that
he preached in 1294 he remarked: “Albert often used to say: ‘I know
this in the way we know; but we all know very little, " a saying, oth-
erwise unrecorded, the quotation of which in this form added proba-
bility, Koch considered, to the conjecture that Eckhart had been
Albert's pupil in Cologne. In his Commentary on Genesis, n. 10, he has
a similar reminiscence: “One of the world's pretentious people used to
say that only one thing can be produced in immediate fashion from
one, that is, one idea,"9 which alludes to Siger of Brabant, and seemed
to Koch to show that Eckhart had attended his classes in Paris in arts
and philosophy. This could not have been later than March 1277, when
Stephen Tempier, the bishop of Paris, issued his notorious condemna-
tion of the “219 Propositions," which included some of Siger’s Aver-
roist doctrines, after which Siger fled to Orvieto to find refuge at the
papal curia. The third such statement is in Eckhart’s “Vindicatory
Document," or Defense, issued in 1326 to defend his own teachings
against his Cologne inquisitors; and Koch makes a strong case for in-
terpreting this as showing that he was present in Paris while the pre-
liminary investigations were being carried out, on Tempier's orders,
by the university's theologians, which led to the condemnation of Siger
and of Thomas Aquinas. Eckhart suggests—he seems to be the only
witness to this—that another target for attack at this time had been
“my lord, Friar Albert." By 1326 this was “long ago, but in my own
 HISTORICAL DATA

lifetime," and Thomas had become St. Thomas of Aquinas.” Before

Thomas’s canonization in 1323 a successor of Tempier had revoked his
condemnation, and the burden of Eckhart's observations seems to be
that better theologians than those then prosecuting him in Cologne
had been forced to eat their words.
Koch considers that these sayings point to a sequence by which
Eckhart had studied arts in Paris about 1277, had begun theology in
Cologne before 1280, had returned to Paris in the period 1293-1294 to
begin to conduct the obligatory classes on Peter Lombard's Sentences,
to take part in formal disputations, and to begin his own studies for
the master's degree. His recall to Germany must soon have followed,
as was regular and normal. At that time the Dominicans had at their
disposal no more than two chairs, the Augustinians only one; and
when a man had fulfilled his first duties, he had to return to his prov-
ince to make room for others whom their orders wished to promote as
masters. It was only when someone was considered to be of quite out-
standing merit, and had proved himself acceptable to the whole uni-
versity, that he could hope for yet further promotion. This had been
so with the German Augustinian, the elder Henry of Friemar.? He
seems to have come to Paris as a young master little before Eckhart,
but by 1307 he had succeeded to his order's chair and four years later
he was active as an expert consultant at the Council of Vienne. Though
Eckhart did not enjoy Henry's success, he seems nonetheless to have
been viewed with sufficient favor for him to return to Paris, after an
interval during which he had been entrusted by his province with ad-
ministrative office; and he was again teaching there while the council
was sitting.
It is of the greatest significance that the first theological writings
by which Henry of Friemar can have become known reflected the
troubled climate in which he and Eckhart were living and working,
and offer considerations that, later at all events, were to have clear ap-
plicability to Eckhart's situation. These writings are A Treatise on “An
Angel was Sent," A Treatise on tbe Advent of the Lord (also called A Treatise
on Conceiving in the Mind), and A Treatise on the Incarnation of the Word.
In them, Henry deals with what was to become the dominant central
theme of Eckhart’s teaching, the birth of the Word in the soul; but he
sounds notes of caution. This birth is an operation of grace in the soul,
to which it is God’s free gift, and for which dispositions to receive the
grace and the gift are necessary. In the third, On the Incarnation of the
Word, he deplores dangerous exaggerations, which he finds non-Chris-
 INTRODUCTION

tian, of the notion of human perfectibility, and the teachings of “cer-

tain people" that those who are "perfect and established in a liberty of
the spirit" are not obliged to obey ecclesiastical superiors and the or-
dinances of the Church, but may do everything to which they feel
themselves drawn by an “inner prompting of the Spirit." Henry con-
trasts such belief, which he emphatically calls “error,” with the exam-
ple of Christ, the “teacher of perfection," who obeyed not only his
parents but also the civil authorities, and who can be seen to have con-
demned such notions.
Adolar Zumkeller is the first to have given these writings serious
examination, and to perceive their wider implications. All three are
preserved together in Ms. Heidelberg Pal. lat. 454, in the sequence in
which they are described here. A text of the first, A Treatise on “An An-
gel was Sent," is also found in Ms. Erlangen University Library 277,
which has unique readings showing that it was copied from Henry's
autograph; this is dated A.D. 1309. Zumkeller does not think that they
were published in Paris, because none of these surviving witnesses
calls the author “Henry of Germany,” as do manuscripts of other
works that he manifestly wrote and issued as a teacher of the univer-
sity.
Thus, these present treatises seem to have been early composi-
tions, written in the period when Paris was the scene of the trial as a
relapsed heretic of the high priestess of “liberty of the spirit," Marga-
ret Porette, which led to her second condemnation and her death by
fire at the stake, there in 1310, for her persistence in publishing her
book The Mirror of Simple Souls, which a bishop had already pro-
nounced heretical? Henry and Eckhart must both have known theo-
logians who had' served as representatives of the University of Paris,
either as scrutineers of the articles extracted from the Mirror or as
members of the court that pronounced the adverse sentence to which
Henry gives a wider application in On the Incarnation of the Word. One
such Churchman was Berengar of Landorra, O.P., who subscribed to
Margaret Porette's condemnation, was a representative of the Univer-
sity of Paris at Vienne, and was elected the Dominicans' master gen-
eral io
In his detestation of “liberty of the spirit," Henry is voicing the
opinion of all orthodox Christians of his day.!! But he implies—it is
no more than implication—that the doctrine of “the birth of the Word
in the soul" can be perverted to teach that the soul is able to give birth
to the Son of God just as Mary did. It may be difficult for us today to
 HISTORICAL DATA

suppose anyone capable of believing such nonsense; but some of the

more extravagant devotional writings that in the next generations
were being passed from hand to hand among devotees, especially in the
Rhineland and the Low Countries, do contain teachings of this sort;
and very often in such pious anthologies these aphorisms are prefaced
with “Meister Eckhart said. ..." Some attributions like these will be
found to be spurious, but they show that the fears of those who were
to become his adversaries for the influence he was exercising on the
imprudent and gullible among his hearers had some foundation. It is
a sign of remarkable prescience that Henry of Friemar foresaw so early
that any reckless propagandist of the birth of the Word—as Eckhart's
surviving genuine works show him to have been—could acquire so un-
happy a reputation.
But liberty of the spirit was not the only controversy then being
ventilated in international centers of learning. Critics were not want-
ing who would attribute the generally growing spread of heresy and
the bitter strife within the Church over papal supremacy to the new
enlightenment, fed from Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew sources, that was
increasingly influencing the arts, sciences, and theology in the univer-
sities, as it was manifested in the academic philosophy that came to be
known as Scholasticism, and especially as it was promoted by Albert
the Great and Thomas Aquinas.!? Some treated Scholasticism as pa-
ganism in disguise. Others saw it as less objectionable, but wished for
a return to Augustine's appeals to subjective experience. There were
yet others who questioned the entire basis of this new philosophy and
theology: “Your speculations are certainly very edifying, but may not
everything, under God's absolute power, be quite different?"!? Koch
has observed that Eckhart belonged to none of these schools, and in his
sermons we shall find many passing remarks to show his impatience
with what he regarded as the mechanical professionalism of the “great
masters" and its irrelevance to the birth of the Word in the soul. Yet
we can see in him, as in Peter John Olivi, Durandus of Saint-Pourcain
and William of Ockham (three others who also came under heavy at-
tack as suspected heretics), a deprecation of scholastic realism, which
sought (or so they believed) to naturalize the supernatural, because of
which they too wished to return to Augustine's more personal ap-
proach. These approximations, real or imagined, between the thinking
of the four men were, as we shall see, to do Eckhart no good.
In the interval after his first stay in Paris, Eckhart was active as
prior of Erfurt and “vicar” of Thuringia, that is, local representative
 INTRODUCTION

of the German prior provincial, Dietrich of Freiburg. To this period

of Erfurt belong his Counsels on. Discernment, a record of his informal
discourses to his community. In 1303 he was nominated to undertake
the direction of the newly created subdivision of the German Domin-
ican province, that of Saxony; and in 1307 he was given the additional
office of general vicar of the Bohemian province. In 1310 his German
confreres indicated once again that he had proved himself as a skilled
administrator; the Teutonia provincial chapter at Speyer elected him
as their prior provincial. In the next year, however, the general chapter
at Naples did not confirm this election, but instead sent him again to
Paris. From this second sojourn seems to have come the Parisian Ques-
tions,1^ first discovered in 1927, one of which, "Whether in God exis-
tence and understanding can be the same," provides us with a careful
academic exposition, offered not to a popular audience but to his right-
ly critical peers, of the early development of his philosophical think-
ing. And in Paris, in the academic years 1311-1312 and 1312-1313, he
was developing a most ambitious project. This was to have been the
Opus Tripartitum, the Three-Part Work. How great the scope of this
work was to have been is plain, but what was achieved and has sur-
vived is a mere torso. When in 1313 he returned from Paris to Germa-
ny for good, little had been written; and thereafter the whole of his
attention seems to have been occupied by the audiences that he drew
for his public sermons, and then by his need to defend his teachings,
in yet further sermons, and by documents intended for circulation.
In 1314 we find him in Strassburg. What specific office he held
there is not certain. He seems chiefly to have been concerned with
spiritual direction and with preaching in convents of Dominican nuns.
In 1323, at the earliest, he was in Cologne, where, though the evidence
is not strong, he seems to have acted as master of the more advanced
students. But his role as a popular preacher did not diminish; and it
was this that was to make Cologne the scene of his downfall.
The first clear sign that trouble was developing was when the
Dominican papal visitor for the Teutonia province, Nicholas of Strass-
burg, probably so as to accommodate the archbishop of Cologne, Hen-
ry of Virneburg, conducted an investigation of Eckhart's orthodoxy
and pronounced his teachings free of heresy. Despite this assurance,
the archbishop ordered an inquisitorial process.
It would be wearisome to follow step by step the course of events
in the next years, and to describe the complexities of the surviving doc-
uments. We owe it to the scholarly researches of Théry,!5 Pelster,!6

10
 HISTORICAL DATA

and Laurent,!? and to Koch's masterly continuation of Denifle's anal-

yses, that we have even so clear a picture as we possess of what hap-
pened. Throughout, it is plain, Eckhart maintained that he was not
guilty of the charges brought against him, because heresy is a matter
of the will, and it was his intention to remain and to die a faithful son
of the Church. But the archbishop's inquisitors had prepared a dossier,
which seems to have been vast, of propositions that had been extracted
from Eckhart's published writings and from what he was alleged to
have said in his sermons, upon which he was interrogated; and in the
end they pronounced against him. On 13 February 1327, before this
sentence was promulgated, Eckhart had made in the Dominican
church at Cologne a public protestation of his innocence. This he
seems to have handled badly, and several times Koch had scathing
things to say about his ineptitude. He does not seem to have admitted
the possibility that the verdict could go against him; and one has the
impression that in these proceedings, as in some of his later preaching,
his powers were waning. But he was still capable of vigorous reaction.
He issued a “Vindicatory Document,” providing chapter and verse for
what he had taught and what of it had been challenged; he denied com-
petence and authority to the inquisitors and the archbishop; and he ap-
pealed to the Holy See against the verdict. He then set off for
Avignon—accompanied, be it noted, by some of his Dominican supe-
riors, who did not desert him—to wait his turn among the others, in-
cluding William of Ockham, who had come there on similar charges.
Doubtless the same conditions were imposed on him as on the English
Franciscan: He would not be living in confinement, but would not be
at liberty to leave the papal court before a verdict had been reached.
Pope John XXII set up a more august tribunal to inquire into his
case, but the same procedure was followed as at Cologne, one that had
been established almost two centuries before in the case of Peter Abe-
lard.!? The commissioners were not required to read suspect authors’
complete works. Instead, they were first examined by subordinates,
who drew up lists, rotuli, of propositions, articuli, that seemed to them
suspect, and that were presented for examination to the commission-
ers. One of the most eminent concerned in Eckhart's case, and in a
number of others, Cardinal James Fournier, left a remarkable docu-
ment recording how unsatisfactory he considered this method to be.!?
When he was pressed to pronounce on the case, far more delicate than
Eckhart's, of Durandus of Saint-Pourcain, he protested that he could
not with justice do so until he had seen the contexts from which the

ul
 INTRODUCTION

propositions had been taken. Fournier succeeded John XXII as Bene-

dict XII, and he had an account prepared of all such proceedings in
which he had participated. Unfortunately, this has now disappeared;
but there are quotations from it in the Augustinian John of Basel’s
Commentary on tbe Sentences and his Ten Responses?? sufficient to show
with what care Benedict XII's dossier was prepared. We do not know
what misgivings he may have had in finding against Eckhart; all we do
know is that before the papal commission could confirm (albeit in a
modified form) the adverse Cologne verdict, Eckhart was dead; when
and where is unknown, although the one report we have, in the papal
Bull *In the Lord's field," *In agro dominico," drafted and promulgat-
ed in Avignon, suggests that it may have been there, and shows that
it was before 27 March 1329, the date of promulgation.?!

B. THE CONDEMNATION

We owe it to Koch's subtle examinations of the documents that we

know that although the Avignon commissioners decided to ratify the
Cologne findings, this was done with important and significant mod-
ifications.??
"In agro dominico" is presented in three sections. The first sets
out the facts of the case, but there is a lack of precision. The Bull
states that Eckhart “presented many things as dogma ... which he put
forth ... in his sermons and also admitted into his writings," but this
does not, as it seems to do, distinguish, as critics today commonly do,
between his learned treatises and his popular vernacular sermons. In
the second section there is a list of propositions, all of which, except
two, it is stated, Eckhart admitted having “preached,” but Koch points
out that this is “objectively untrue,” since most of the propositions
were taken not from German sermons but from Latin treatises. The
third section addresses the juridical question: Are these propositions
heretical? The answer is formulated with an essential distinction. The
first fifteen propositions, acknowledged as his by Eckhart, are heretical
and are condemned, as are the last two, which he denies having taught,
but which are nonetheless rehearsed. With regard to the remaining
eleven, it is conceded that although they have an offensive ring (male
sonare), are rash, and smack of heresy (multum esse temerarios de baeresique
suspectos), they could, “with many explanations and additions,” be giv-
en or already have a Catholic sense.?? So far as concerns the two ap-
pended articles that Eckhart repudiated because he had never taught

12
 HISTORICAL DATA

them, the first, at least, is taken not from a Latin work but from a ver-
nacular sermon: “That there is something in the soul which is uncre-
ated and not capable of creation...." As the footnotes to Sermon 48
show, he seems to have forgotten what he had said, there and else-
where, on this topic, about which his adversaries evidently were un-
able to challenge him.
But this subdivision, into those articles that are acknowledged and
condemned as heretical, those deplored for their tone and wording but
not condemned, and those condemned but not acknowledged as his
own by Eckhart, does not seem to have been the original intention of
the commission. There is no mention of it either in their minutes or
in Cardinal Fournier's account of their proceedings.?* Rightly, Koch
says that the afterthought cannot be attributed to the pope. John XXII
was a canon lawyer, and notoriously no theologian. Koch conjectures
that it may have been Eckhart’s old Paris pupil, John Petri of Godino,
who was responsible; but for this he found no supporting evidence.
One's own guess is that it was, far more probably, James Fournier him-
self, whose lack of confidence in such arbitrary inquisitorial procedure
Koch was able to establish.
The opinion seems to be growing among responsible modern his-
torians of medieval spirituality that the judgment of "In agro domin-
ico" was at least in part unsound, and that, in particular, if the
commissioners had had a better knowledge of the fathers of the
Church, both Eastern and Western, they would have perceived that
they too had taught some of what Eckhart was now being condemned
for teaching. The greatest impetus to this opinion was given by Hugo
Rahner, when he produced his detailed exposition of where, in the
writings of the fathers, Eckhart's doctrine of the birth of the Word in
the soul is to be found.?° It is at this doctrine, as taught by Eckhart,
that the condemnation of propositions 10, 11, 12, and 13 of "In agro do-
minico" was aimed.
We may now add one particular detail to this. Eckhart was con-
demned in proposition 14 for having taught that “A good man ought
so to conform his will to the divine will that he should will whatever
God wills. Since God in some way wills for me to have sinned, I should
not will that I had not committed sins; and this is true penitence."?6
M.-H. Laurent identifies the source of this in the Book "Benedictus ??
but if those responsible for drawing up the first lists of propositions
had been better informed, they would have found the same teaching
in the Counsels on Discernment, and there in a form that might have giv-

13
 INTRODUCTION

en the assessors pause; for Eckhart supports what he writes by quoting

Paul—“ All things work together for good,” and continues: “And, as St.
Augustine says, ‘Yes, even sins.' "?9 And it can be seen that this is in-
deed what Augustine does say in Of tbe Free Will (which Quint correct-
ly identified as the source) “Even our sins are necessary to the
universal perfection which God established." Augustine scholars will
undoubtedly think that *with many necessary explanations and addi-
tions [this] might take on or possess a Catholic meaning," but this must
also be true of what Eckhart wrote; and the proper place for proposi-
tion 14 is not in the condemned first section, but among the “deplored”
propositions of section two.
One of the editors has already elsewhere touched on the problem
of why Eckhart himself did not put up a better defense.?? We cannot
know the answers, since we were not present, either in Cologne or
Avignon, to hear what was said. Perhaps Eckhart did appeal to Augus-
tine's authority, and this was set aside; although, in general, the rec-
ollections of what Augustine had written that he produced in his
German treatises and sermons are vague and at times confused. His
heyday had been his teaching years in Paris, when the Questions show
him as a brilliant young man of promise, disputing, lucidly and force-
fully, among his equals. His changes of office, his administrative cares,
and the demands made on him as a preacher and a spiritual director
must have curtailed if not terminated his own studies. The years that
followed of paradox-spinning for the scandalized delight of larger but
less critical and instructed audiences do not seem to have sharpened his
wits. It is evident that he had been wounded by the hostile criticism
he had encountered; and we can perhaps detect signs of the apathetic
fatigue experienced by an aging man, aware that he has not fulfilled
his early promise and has exhausted his powers in his efforts to woo
popular acclaim. But however clumsy his self-defense may have been,
we can read in its Cologne records the sturdy assurance of one who
knows himself free from reproach.
The Bull ends with the pope informing the archbishop, to whom
it is addressed, of Eckhart's recantation on his deathbed. Undoubtedly
this information was for the benefit of the laity. ‘Koch calls it “an ab-
solute revocation," but this is too strong. What the document says is
that “the aforesaid Eckhart ... at the end of his life... revoked and
also deplored the twenty-six articles which he admitted that he had
preached, and also any others, written and taught by him ... insofar

14
 HISTORICAL DATA

as they could generate in the minds of the faithful a heretical opinion,

or one erroneous and hostile to the true faith."?? The qualifying
phrase, quantum ad illum sensum, is all-important, and it is much to the
credit of whoever produced the condemnation's final form that it is
there. Eckhart revoked and deplored the articles because the sense in
which they were understood could engender heretical beliefs in the
minds of the faithful, and he admits that these are taken from his
preaching and writings; but he does not say—nor does the document
make him say—that he accepts the Church's judgment that the prop-
ositions are heretical. The commissioners said that they were, but they
do not say that he accepted this. We may guess that if the Avignon
process had run its full course, Eckhart might have been constrained
to do so or to accept the direst consequences, and that he was spared
this by his death. But the papal Bull, if read aright, shows him meeting
death, one will not say unrepentant but unyielding. Koch justly de-
scribes the formulation of this as exact, and he regrets that no notary's
record of this deathbed profession has survived; but the precision and
skill with which it avoids any admission of heretical intentions must
surely be attributed to Eckhart himself, to one of his Dominican coun-
selors, or, it may be, to the curial official responsible for the docu-
ment's final form. It may not be too fanciful to suspect that in it we
can see a dissenting minority opinion at work.

C. ECKHART'S POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION

The terms of “In agro dominico," the Holy See's severe warnings,
addressed through the archbishop of Cologne to the faithful in the
Rhineland that they may not consider themselves good Christians or
obedient children of the Church if in any way they continue to coun-
tenance or to maintain Eckhart's false teachings, carefully cataloged,
should have meant that he would be consigned to complete oblivion;
but what happened was very different. Our first evidence of this was
recorded by his two pupils and disciples, John Tauler and Henry Suso,
who had lived and suffered through these tragic events, and who, in
their different ways, testified that they still revered his memory and
dissented from the judgment of the Holy See.
Tauler, in one of his sermons seemingly directed, as most of his
preaching appears to have been, to Dominican nuns, addressing them
as those who had also been witnesses to what had happened and im-

15
 INTRODUCTION

plying that they must accept their share of the blame, says of unitive
prayer and the contemplative effort:

Those who have grown in natural wisdom, who have been

trained in mortal activities, who have lived in their senses,
cannot come here; no, they cannot come so far. Moreover, one
dear teacher taught you and spoke on this subject, and you did
not understand him. He spoke from the point of view of eter-
nity, and you understood him from the point of view of time.
My dear children, if Ihave said too much to you, it is certain-
ly not too much for God; but nonetheless I beg you to forgive
me, and if there is need I am willing to correct my words?!

“One dear teacher taught you ... and you did not understand
him." Tauler makes it plain that his auditors know well the circum-
stances to which he is alluding, that they were themselves involved,
and that the involvement was in part one of the emotions. He seems
by implication to be saying that it was his hearers' adulation that
helped to accomplish Eckhart's ruin, because it was their misunder-
standing of his transcendental message that encouraged his adversaries
to regard and treat him as a false prophet. Tauler says, as plainly as he
dares, that they were wrong in condemning him; but, warned no doubt
by his example, he professes himself ready to retract “if there is need."
Henry Suso's approach is different. As Koch observed,?? his meth-
od was to synthesize what appeared to him as true and incontrovertible
in his dead master's teaching, and to contrast this with the ways in
which it had been perverted by foolish devotees who “understood him
from the point of view of time." This he does in his German Little Book
of Truth by composing, in the sixth chapter, a Boethian dialogue be-
tween the “Disciple,” who is Suso himself, serving as spokesman for
right judgment and sound theology, and the *nameless Wild One.”33
In the “Wild One," Suso-has drawn a vivid and skilled portrait of the
anonymous masses who had gone astray, listening too readily to “lib-
erty of the spirit" and such other perversions of the Christian faith,
identifying Eckhart too easily with the other heresiarehs whom they
had followed.34
That the Wild One says: “I have heard that there was a great
teacher ...” shows that this chapter was written after Eckhart’s death.
He says that this great teacher had said many beautiful things about
man formed in Christ, and that such a man can do all that Christ did.

16
 HISTORICAL DATA

This tenet of Eckhart’s is the subject of the condemned article 13 of “In

agro dominico": “That whatever is proper to the divine nature, all that
is proper to the just and divine man; because of that, this man performs
whatever God performs.”35 The disciple answers the Wild One: “In
one place the same master says this: ‘The just man performs everything
which justice performs’; and he says that it is true that the just man
is born of justice, as it is written: ‘He who is born of flesh is flesh, and
he who is born of the Spirit is spirit’ (Jn. 3:6). And he says that this
is true of Christ alone and of no other man, for he has no being except
the being of the Father.”3° This reproduces almost word for word Eck-
hart’s defense of article 13 at Avignon.37 When the Wild One adds:
“The master is supposed to have said that all that Christ was given is
also given to me,” which is condemned in article 11: “Whatever God
the Father gave to his Only-Begotten Son in human nature, he gave all
this to me," we can best consult Sermon 5a, In hoc apparuit caritas dei in
nobis, where Eckhart remarks: “One authority says: ‘When I think of
that, that our nature has been exalted above created things, and sits in
heaven above the angels, and is adored by them, then I must always
rejoice in my heart, because Jesus Christ, my dear Lord, has made ev-
erything which is his possession my own."?? (Here Eckhart is employ-
ing a favorite rhetorical device, and quoting himself as an "authority"
whom he does not name.) During the Cologne process, the proposition,
its context in this sermon exactly stated, was attacked as Eckhart's
own, and as such defended by him. The Disciple replies: “The ‘all’
which was given to Christ is the perfect possession of essential bless-
edness, as he said: "The Father has given all things to me' (Jn. 3:35), and
he has given the same to us all, but not in equal fashion. And [Eckhart]
says in many places that [Christ] has all that through the Incarnation,
and we through union with God when we are formed like him; and
therefore Christ possesses it so much more nobly, as he was able so
much more nobly to receive [the Father]."?? The beginning of this an-
swer seems to offer Suso's own thoughts, but “and he says in many
places" refers to Eckhart's Commentary on Jobn. Koch's observations,
shrewd as always, on this detailed defense of Eckhart's teachings are
that so far from “In agro dominico" serving as a repellent warning,
certain “free spirits" made use of the document's condemnations in or-
der to represent Eckhart as one of their own, and that the chapter well
displays Suso's exact knowledge of his master's writings, including the
scriptural commentaries (and, we may add, of the defenses Eckhart had
offered to his accusers).

17
 INTRODUCTION

Before we leave Suso, and the esteem, which we have already

shown as evident, in which he held Eckhart, there is one other minor
point that requires mention.
It is commonly asserted that in the German Vita Suso recorded
that he had received a vision of the dead Eckhart, glorified and enjoy-
ing the beatific sight of God. This is a trap into which Bihlmeyer him-
self fell,4° and, following him, most critics during this century, until
Thomas Kaeppeli published his catalog of medieval Dominican writ-
ers, which is marked by the impeccable accuracy scholars have learned
to expect of him.*!
We may ignore the controversies about the precise share Suso
himself had in the writing of the Vita. For our purposes it is enough
that toward the end of his life he was concerned to leave a "true ex-
emplar,” an authorized, corrected copy of his four chief German trea-
tises, and that these include the Little Book of Truth and the Vita.*?
Thus, he gave his own certificate of authenticity to this biography. In
its sixth chapter, it is related that at one period of his life he was often
granted visions of what was yet to come, and what was hidden from
other men's eyes, and that many departed souls appeared to him to tell
him of their fate,

among others, the blessed*? Master Eckhart. ... By the Mas-

ter he was told that he lived in surpassing glory, in which his
soul was purely divinized^* in God. Then the Servant*> de-
sired to know two things from him: One was how those men
fare with God who with true self-abandonment, without any
deceit, strive to attain to the highest truth. Then it was shown
to him that no one can put into words how such men are re-
ceived into the formless abyss. But then he went on to ask
what was the best exercise for a man who longed to attain to
this? Then [Eckhart] said: 'He ought with profound self-aban-
donment to sink away from his own self, to accept everything
from God and nothing from his creatures, and stand out in si-
lent patience against all wolfish men.'^6

We may think that in these counsels there is no great originality

or perception; but, nonetheless, for one religious to recount that an-
other, who had died condemned for heresy, had appeared to him to de-
scribe the divine blessedness he now enjoyed would be an act of open
contempt toward a decree that a pope had ratified. But those who have

18
 HISTORICAL DATA

so interpreted this passage in the Vita have overlooked two circum-

stances: There were in Suso's lifetime two German Dominicans
known as “Meister Eckhart,” and it was the tradition of their order
that it was not the friar condemned for heresy who had appeared to
Suso in this vision, but the other of the same name. That there were
two such men is beyond any doubt. Among the acts of the general
chapter at Clermont in 1339 we read: “We make it known to the breth-
ren that Friar Eckhart, diffinitor at the general chapter held [in 1337]
at Valenciennes, of the Saxony province, died returning from the chap-
ter."^? The editor of these acts refers to the great catalog of Dominican
writers by Quétif and Echard, where this man is called *Eckhart the
younger, a Saxon"; and they quote the work of the Tuscan Dominican
Leander Alberti (1479-1552), Of the illustrious men of the Order of Preach-
ers:48 “Eckhart the Teuton, doctor of sacred theology, outstanding for
his godly learning, famed for his holiness and celebrated for Christian
doctrine, appeared after his death to Henry, the Disciple of Everlasting
Wisdom."^? Kaeppeli attributes to “Eckhart the younger” two Latin
sermons, a Latin epistle, and seven German extracts that seem to have
circulated as works of “Eckhart the elder." Thus, Suso has been shown
to have defended his teacher’s good name; but he did not beatify him.
There is one further piece of evidence, recently found, to confirm
what we may deduce from Suso’s works and Tauler’s: That Eckhart’s
writings, far from being suppressed or forgotten by his fellow Domin-
icans, continued to be copied and read. This was presented through
what Josef Koch called Thomas Kaeppeli’s “sensational discovery" in
1960, that Ms. Basel University Library B. VI. 16, containing some six
hundred excerpts from Eckhart, evidently derives from an original
made in the Cologne Dominican convent after the promulgation of “In
agro dominico," notations from which are incorporated into it.?? We
do not know under what circumstances the Cologne friars parted with
their copy. That which was brought to light by Kaeppeli had been
owned by a Westphalian pastor, who recorded that he had bought it
in the vicinity of Cologne Cathedral. Thereafter it had been acquired
by the Basel Carthusians,?! whose order has been shown to have been
active in the dissemination of another condemned work, Margaret Por-
ette's Mirror of Simple Souls.5?
It may be that, as Koch suggested,?? the Dominicans and the
Carthusians and, in the fifteenth century, the famous Nicholas of Cusa
found their justification for owning and studying Eckhart's writings in
the circumstance that John XXII's Bull was specifically addressed,

19
 INTRODUCTION

through the archbishop of Cologne, to his “simple faithful,” so that

they considered that the learned were not so inhibited. Nicholas made
great efforts to assemble for his use a collection of the Latin works,
which, happily, survives in the library he formed and endowed at Kues
in the Moselle valley, and is one of the most important sources for edi-
tors of these works. Nicholas caused the articles (though not the ac-
companying text) from “In agro dominico" to be transcribed, with his
own note, “Beware,” in this manuscript; but other annotations show
the close and careful study he spent on it. His qualified approbation
of Eckhart involved him in written controversy with John Wenck of
Herrenberg, author of an anti-Eckhart pamphlet, Of Unknown Letters.
In his reply, An Apology for Learned Ignorance, Nicholas wrote:

I [the fictional disciple] did not wish to leave undiscussed

what the adversary [Wenck] had alleged against Meister Eck-
hart, and I asked the teacher [Nicholas] if he had heard any-
thing of him. He replied that he had seen in libraries many
of his commentaries on most of the books of the Bible, numer-
ous sermons and disputed questions, and also a number of ar-
ticles extracted from his Commentary on John, annotated and
refuted by others, and also, at Master John Guldenschaf’s in
Mainz, a short writing of his in which he replies to those who
sought to reprehend him, explaining himself and demonstrat-
ing what his adversaries had not understood. But the teacher
said that he had never read that he considered the creature to
be identical with the Creator. He praised his gifts and his zeal,
but he would have preferred his books to be removed from
public places, because the people are not able to understand
these matters, with which he often dealt differently from oth-
er teachers, even though intelligent men will find in them
many subtle and profitable things.5^

From this we can see that Nicholas had read assiduously, and that
his reading had included “In agro dominico" and the Defense. Wenck's
contention, which Nicholas denies, that Eckhart had taught an identity
of the creature with the Creator may indicate that Wenck had seen
some of the many “Eckhart” extracts containing spurious attributions
to him of dogmas held and preached by overtly heretical teachers. And,
interestingly enough, Nicholas's cautions may show that there were
books by Eckhart that were available for general consultation, where

20
 HISTORICAL DATA

and under what circumstances we cannot know. Yet we may think that
by the time that Nicholas was writing, in the 1440s, “In agro domin-
ico" was something of a dead letter.
We have so far confined this examination of Eckhart's influence
after his death to the German territories, but much still remains to be
done to determine how his thinking penetrated the Low Countries.
One of the present editors intends soon to make a separate study of
Eckhart criticism in the house of Augustinian canons regular at
Groenendael near Brussels, as it is preserved for us in the writings of
John Ruysbroek and his confrere John van Leeuw. It is also much to
be hoped that someone will undertake a rigorous examination of the
many manuscripts, still largely unedited, that contain what purport to
be extracts from his writings or quotations from his sermons. One of
Stephanus Axters's last publications was his catalog of Netherlands
manuscripts containing Dominican works,?? in which he lists many
“Eckhart” excerpts, divided by him into the categories "genuine," “du-
bious,” and "spurious," but a closer examination is needed, side by side
with the Koch-Quint collected edition, before one can be sure that Ax-
ters's judgments were in every instance sound.
As a final example of how Eckhart's works continued to be read
and pondered in the religious houses that had survived the holocausts
of the sixteenth century, in the Rhineland and in the Catholic Dutch-
speaking areas adjacent that remained open to the influences of Ger-
man piety and contemplation, we may cite the Temple of our Souls,>° the
treatise on unitive prayer by the same anonymous woman religious
who wrote the Evangelical Pearl, first published in 1535 with a preface
by the Cologne Carthusian Derk Loer. Soon after this, in 1543, a print-
ed edition of the Temple followed, from the Antwerp press of Simon
Cock. The Pearl has been shown to have been widely influential in the
Counter-Reformation circles that we associate with Pére Joseph, Benet
Canfield, and Barbe Acarie; but it was not until Albert Ampe pub-
lished his learned and perceptive edition of the Temple that students of
the epoch came to see what a monument that work is to Eckhart's abid-
ing and, it may justly be said, beneficent effects on sound contempla-
tive thinking.
Ampe in his findings limited himself to the Eckhart sermons that
Pfeiffer in 1857 admitted as genuine. Since then, standards have be-
come more rigorous, though it will only be when Quint’s fine edition
of the German works has been completed by his successors that the va-
lidity of his criteria for excluding sermons admitted by Pfeiffer on the

21
 INTRODUCTION

grounds of a medieval attribution will become fully apparent. Then

those that he accepted and Quint rejected must be examined again for
their doctrinal content, their language, and their style. Provisionally,
one would say that Quint’s rules for accepting such attributions—cor-
respondence of their teachings with articles from “In agro dominico,"
allusion to them in the Defense, and so forth—are well devised, but
that one would have wished for some exposition of Quint's reasons for
deciding that others should be treated as spurious.
But, in the Temple, there is one outstanding passage where Quint's
possible objections to a sermon adduced by Ampe as an Eckhart par-
allel would be overridden by its close correspondence with another,
Sermon 52, Beati pauperes spiritu, admitted by Quint and all other critics
to be genuine.
In chapter 11 of the Temple, its author writes:

So when all things keep an inner silence in the soul, which

has run its full course in the heavens, then there is that in-
ward encounter in the soul, in which the holy Trinity has
formed itself and made a heaven and united itself. In this
heaven there cannot be rest, nor can there be any ascent, be-
cause the soul has once again been united in its beginning and
its source, which is the divine essence, and within its chamber
it rejoices in the holy Trinity; and since that power of the soul
which is then called memoria is united and established with
the heavenly Father, he then gives it true joy and a secure re-
pose. And the second power, which is then called “under-
standing,” is also one with the Son, who so illumines it that
the soul attains a clarity in which it does not seek its source,
for it finds that source in him; and the third power, which is
then called “will,” is one with the Holy Spirit, and with him
is set free and united in a silenced love, and is free of all things
which could perturb its dwelling-place; and the soul is free of
itself and offers God no resistance, so that it may say: “I am
no-one’s ‘soul’, and no-one is my 'God'."57

Many characteristics of this passage are so evident as to need no

comment: The Augustinian conception of the soul and its powers as
a "created Trinity," and his teaching, which he learned from others,
on regyratio, the soul’s turning back out of its “land of unlikeness" to
the place from which it had strayed and where it was first placed, like

22
 HISTORICAL DATA

to its God. But what is salient appears in the conclusion: “I am no-

one’s ‘soul’ and no-one is my ‘God’.” The allusion in this and its jus-
tification are found in Eckhart's Sermon 52: “If he finds a man so poor
as this, then God performs his own work, and the man is in this way
suffering God to work, and God is his own place to work in, and so
God is his own worker in himself. Thus in this poverty man pursues
that everlasting being which he was and which he is now and which
he will evermore remain."58 In this, the author shows that she knows
how to accept what is essential in Eckhart's teaching, that in prayer the
contemplating soul can be one with God, as the Son and his Father are
one, beyond perception of difference, but still that she knows how to
avoid the extremes, of highly dubious ancestry, of his demonstrations,
in Sermon 52 and elsewhere, of what is poverty of the will,"5? how to
rest safely in simple affirmation, shorn of his extravagances and his fre-
quent self-contradictions.
If the author of the Temple and the Pearl understood that Eckhart's
teachings had been condemned, she seems not to have troubled herself
on that score. Medieval heresy hunters loved to use the parable of Mat-
thew 13, of the weed-strewing enemy and the fire that should destroy
his handiwork; but she seems rather to have taken as her counsel the
words of Jeremias: ‘What has the wheat to do with the chaff?"—and
in this we might all well follow her.

— Edmund Colledge

23
2. THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

A. PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION

Perhaps the only real consensus among students of Eckhart is that

he is not an easy author to read. The widely divergent, frequently er-
roneous uses to which he has been put spring almost as much from the
manner of his presentation as they do from the profundity of what he
has to say. Not all of this can be blamed on the Meister himself. The
condition of the text of his surviving works is partly at fault. The Latin
works exist in only a few manuscripts and comprise a fragment of
what Eckhart intended to write. The German treatises and sermons
come down to us in over two hundred manuscripts, but with texts so
faulty and problems of authenticity so serious that over a century of
scholarship has still not solved all the issues. Nevertheless, the excel-
lent critical edition of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, now
well past its fortieth year, provides a solid starting point both for the
translations found here and for penetration of Eckhart's meaning.
Meister Eckhart was not only a highly trained philosopher and
theologian, but also a preacher, a poet, and a punster who deliberately
cultivated rhetorical effects, bold paradoxes, and unusual metaphors,
neologisms, and wordplay to stir his readers and hearers from their in-
tellectual and moral slumber. If even the technical Latin of his scho-
lastic works at times displays these characteristics, how much more
true this is for the vernacular texts. Generations of scholars have ad-
mired the Meister as one of the crucial figuresin the development of
German, especially with regard to its speculative vocabulary, and have
praised him as a master of German prose.! While Eckhart's creative
handling of language is one of the major attractions of his style, it often
does not make the task of understanding him any easier. Nevertheless,
the Meister's style is both attractive and difficult primarily because of

24
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

the depth and quality of his message. This part of the Introduction will
attempt to provide an entrance for the beginner into what Eckhart has
to say.
In his survey of the major themes of Eckhart's thought, Josef
Quint, the editor of the Meister's vernacular works, admitted the in-
surmountable difficulties confronting any attempt at a brief introduc-
tion to so complex and controversial an author, and expressed the hope
that the completion of the critical edition would help overcome this
problem.? A quarter century later, with the edition far closer to com-
pletion, the difficulties seem at least as great, largely because of the va-
riety of interpretations from which Eckhart's thought has been viewed
in recent years.? The lesson to be drawn from this is evident. One
mark of Meister Eckhart's stature as a major thinker in the history of
Western theology and spirituality is that there can never be any "final"
interpretation of Eckhart. No more than with Augustine, Anselm,
Aquinas, or Bonaventure can we hope to attain an ultimate interpre-
tation. He measures us more than we measure him. Hence the function
of any introduction to his thought, short or long, is to serve as a set
of preliminary guidelines for the real task at issue, the reading of the
Meister.
While the systematic foundation of Eckhart's thought found in the
Work of Propositions of the Three-Part Work survives only in fragmen-
tary fashion, the major themes of his system are evident throughout
his Latin and German works, even at times repetitiously so. It is not
so much a question of what these themes are—they have been studied
in a host of works—as rather what interpretive principles must be es-
tablished in order to clarify the relationship among them that is the
task of an introduction.
The first principle on which this presentation and the selections
translated in this volume have been based is that Eckhart cannot be un-
derstood without paying equal attention to both the Latin and the Ger-
man works. Approaches that would favor the subtle scholastic
theologian over the extravagant vernacular preacher, or reverse this by
championing the originality of the German works over the more arid
style of the Latin treatises and sermons, can never give us the full Eck-
hart. We must grasp the interaction between the Lesemeister (master of
the Schools) and Lebemeister (master of preaching and living) if we wish
to try to understand Eckhart whole.
As a loyal son of Saint Dominic from his early years, Eckhart's life
was centered on preaching. For any Dominican the goal of the theol-

25
 INTRODUCTION

ogy of the Schools was not speculation for its own sake, but for the
sake of preaching. Eckhart's adherence to this fundamental concern of
the Dominican life is evident not least of all in the special character of
his scriptural commentaries, as Josef Koch, the editor of the Latin
works, has shown.5 In comparison with those of Thomas Aquinas, for
example, the Meister's expositions demonstrate a desire to provide the
preacher with apt interpretations of key texts rather than a concern for
a total systematic exposition of a book of the Bible. Both the form and
the content of the commentaries that are the largest part of the Meis-
ter's surviving Latin production show how central preaching was for
him.
The importance of taking the Latin and the German works togeth-
er as two sides of the same coin cannot be overstressed, especially if we
reflect on the differences that obtain between the formulation of the-
ology and its communication to the Church at large.? Though it is true
that certain themes receive more explicit treatment in Eckhart’s ver-
nacular preaching than in his academic writings,’ it is evident that
these themes are based on and only comprehensible within a total theo-
logical picture that cannot be grasped apart from the technical scho-
lastic works. Even though some essential principles of the Meister's
thought analyzed at length in the Latin works appear only infrequent-
ly in explicit fashion in the vernacular ones,?? Eckhart's preaching
would be incomprehensible without them.
The second principle that has guided the formation of this volume
is the necessity of viewing the total Eckhart from a theological perspec-
tive. Like so many medieval Schoolmen, the Meister has usually been
treated within the context of the history of philosophy. It would be
foolish to deny that Eckhart has a profound and subtle metaphysic of
his own, but it would be even more misleading not to realize that this
philosophy has its existence within a system that is primarily theolog-
ical in intention. The point is important enough to call for some de-
velopment.

B. THE NATURE OF THEOLOGY

AND THE ROLE OF SCRIPTURE
On the basis of his clear distinction between the realms of nature
and grace, Thomas Aquinas had argued for the existence of a science
above and beyond the "theology," or teaching about God, that was the

26
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

highest part of Aristotle's speculative philosophy. This science, which

Thomas preferred to call sacra doctrina (sacred teaching), conveyed
both truths about God, such as his existence, that were accessible
(though with difficulty) to human reason and the truths necessary for
salvation that utterly surpassed the human intellect, such as the Trin-
ity and the mystery of the God-man.? This clarity appears lost when
we turn to Eckhart. The Meister seems to give away too much to rea-
son, as when he effortlessly intermingles natural and revealed truths
in the commentary on John's Prologue translated here.!? Perhaps the
only place where the Meister explicitly asserts that a truth of faith is
inaccessible to reason is in a discussion of the manner of Christ's pres-
ence in the Eucharist.!! All this seems grist for the mill of those who
would see Eckhart primarily as a philosopher or metaphysician.!?
Judged by Thomistic standards this may well be so, but the Meis-
ter's own position on the relation of faith and reason is closer to the
theological traditions of Christian Platonism than to the new preci-
sions of Thomas Aquinas. What is fundamental to Eckhart is the strik-
ing agreement between what is revealed in scripture and the truths
that natural reason can uncover.!? As he says in commenting on how
the Incarnation forms a mid-point between the emanations in God and
the production of creatures:

Thus holy scripture can be interpreted according to this in a

very fitting way, so that what the philosophers have written
about the natures and properties of things agree with it, es-
pecially since everything that is true, whether in being or
knowing, in scripture or in nature, proceeds from one source
and one root of truth.... Therefore, Moses, Christ and the
Philosopher teach the same thing, differing only in the way
they teach, namely as worthy of belief, as probable or likely,
and as truth.!^

Thomas Aquinas would have agreed that there could be no real con-
tradiction between the truths of revelation and what could be known
by reason, but he would not have been so sanguine about the ability
of philosophy to penetrate divine mysteries properly speaking. Eck-
hart, however, is uncompromising in his conviction that reason can
find proofs for the truths revealed in scripture, even going beyond Au-
gustine in relation to natural proofs for key passages in John’s Pro-

27
 INTRODUCTION

logue.!5 It is important to note, however, that for Eckhart natural and

revealed truths are virtually coextensive only in content, not in the
mode of their apprehension. What the philosophers teach as merely
probable or likely, Christ, the Truth, teaches as absolutely true.!° What
the heathen philosophers see only by the light of reason, the saints see
securely by a higher light in the Holy Spirit.!? In adherence to the tra-
dition of "faith seeking understanding," the believer would be a lazy
coward not to seek out natural reasons and likenesses for what he be-
lieves.!? Thus the Meister presents the purpose of his theological mas-
terpiece, the Commentary on John, as "to explain what the holy
Christian faith and the two Testaments maintain through the help of
the natural arguments of the philosophers."!? But these "arguments"
do not form the basis for the believer's certainty and security. True
philosophy—what we would call theology—is based on the study of
the scriptures and has as its goal the work of the preacher, however
much it may strive to make use of natural reasons and examples. This
is the perspective from which Eckhart wrote and preached.
This position on the relation of faith and reason shows that in or-
der to understand Eckhart's thought it is also necessary to grasp his
theory of the interpretation of scripture. The majority of his surviving
Latin works are exegetical in character,?? and his numerous Latin and
German sermons are also based on biblical texts. A glance at his theory
of exegesis is essential, for, as the Meister once put it, scripture is a
deep sea in which paradoxically lambs may walk, cows swim, and el-
ephants sink.?!
The Meister's major theoretical reflection on the interpretation of
scripture is found in the prologue to the Book of the Parables of Genesis.??
From this it is clear that Eckhart's approach to the Bible was based on
a twofold division of senses, the “‘more evident sense" treated in the
first Genesis commentary, and the sense hidden “under the shell of the
letter" exemplified in the second work. All classical Christian exegesis
is based on such a division, but Eckhart's understanding of it has spe-
cial accents. First of all, it is significant to note how strongly he was
influenced by the great Jewish religious thinker Maimonides in the
theoretical aspects of his exposition of the hidden meaning.?? He does
not make use of the traditional fourfold scheme of senses (the literal
and the three divisions of the hidden, spiritual meaning: allegorical,
moral or tropological, and anagogical), nor does he favor the term “al-
legory" to describe the hidden sense, as many medieval authors did.

28
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

Rather he makes use of “mystical meaning,” “figure,” and especially

“parable” and "in a parabolical manner” (parabolice—a term he learned
from Maimonides) as a way of describing the inner meaning of scrip-
ture.?* The Meister specifies the content of the inner meaning as di-
vided into theological, natural, and moral truths,?5 a position found
first in Jerome and one naturally appealing to his own view of the re-
lation of what is found in scripture to what has been discovered by the
philosophers.?6 As a succinct text in the Commentary on Exodus puts it:
"Sacred scripture frequently tells a story in such a way that it also con-
tains and suggests mysteries, teaches the natures of things, furnishes
and sets in order moral actions."?7
On the question of how one argues from scripture, Eckhart's po-
sition is somewhat ambiguous. He cites Thomas Aquinas's famous text
(STh Ia.1.10) that defends the unity of the literal sense, that is, that the
words of scripture can mean only one thing; but it is clear from the
context that he really sides with Augustine who, especially in the
twelfth book of the Confessions, argued that since God who knows all
things is the proper author of scripture, every true sense of a passage
may be called a literal sense.?? Eckhart does agree with Thomas on two
important issues, but in each case in his own way. From Thomas he
learned that the literal sense of a passage may be metaphorical (e.g., to
speak of God's “arm” is really a metaphor for his power), but with
characteristic boldness he extends this to cover the whole third chapter
of Genesis, a position for which he was attacked at Cologne.?? Also, the
Meister sides with Thomas ($77 Ia.1.10. ad 1) to the extent that he does
not claim to prove divine, natural, and ethical truths through parabol-
ical arguments, but only uses them to show the agreement of what is
intimated through parables and what has been demonstrated elsewhere
in the Work of Questions and the Work of Commentaries.?? In practice,
however, the mode of argumentation in the Book of Parables 1s not ap-
preciably different from his procedure in the other scriptural commen-
taries. Indeed, it is not always easy to see where literal reading ceases
and spiritual interpretation begins, because his admission of the mul-
tiplicity of the literal sense allows him to adopt a deeply speculative ap-
proach in almost all his exegetical work. Like Augustine, whose Literal
Commentary on Genesis was one of Eckhart's favorite works, the Meis-
ter's exegesis, even in its professedly literal moments, seeks to pene-
trate to the deepest level of what God has revealed.

29
 INTRODUCTION

C. THE STRUCTURE OF REALITY

AND THE DIVINE NATURE

Guided by the above principles, we may now turn to the presen-

tation of the main themes and inner coherence of Eckhart’s theology.
There are, of course, many ways to approach the thought of Eckhart.
In one of the sermons translated here, the Meister provides a succinet
description of the four major themes of his preaching—detachment,
being formed again into God, the nobility of the soul, and the purity
of the divine nature.3! These themes present one avenue by which Eck-
hart’s system might be presented, but perhaps a text from another of
the sermons given here may afford a better starting point from which
to grasp the dynamic inner unity of the major components of his teach-
ing. Toward the end of the noted Sermon 52 we read, “A great author-
ity says that his breaking through (durchbrechen) is nobler than his
flowing out (Zzvliezen); and that is true."?? The same theme is present
in Sermon 15, where it is used to interpret Luke's parable of the "noble
man" who went out into a foreign land and came back richer than he
went out,?? and in Sermon 22, where it is expressed in the language of
love drawn from the Song of Songs: "When he [the Bridegroom] went
out (üzgienc) from the highest place of all, he wanted to go in again
(wider ingän) with his bride to the purest place of all... .”54 It is also
ascribed to God in Sermon 53, where we read, ““God’s going out is his
going in," and “They [created things] are all called to return into
whence they have flowed out."?* Something quite similar appears also
in the Latin works. In Sermon XXV.1 we find it expressed in terms of
the theology of grace: "Yet first grace consists in a flowing out (ef-
fluxus) or going.out from God; second grace in a flowing back (refluxus)
or return into God himself."39 In another place it describes the saving
works of the Trinity: “Hence it is necessary that all things be bathed
in the blood of Christ and led back into the Father through the Son's
mediation, just as the Father does all things through the Son; and so
the flowing back will correspond to the flowing out."?? These texts are
cited not so much for any unique importance of their own as for the
suggestion they afford that Eckhart's thought, like that of most other
Christian Platonists before him, can be viewed as a dynamic system
whose basic law is the flowing out (exitus, effluxus, üzvliezen) of all
things from God and the corresponding flowing back or return of all
to this ineffable source (reditus, refluxus, durchbrechen, ingänc).
Although the pattern of emanation and return shows us what Eck-

30
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

hart has in common with a long and honored theological tradition, it

is more important to specify the way in which the Meister made this
general scheme his own. While systematization always results in some
artificiality, it is nonetheless in conformity with Eckhart's thought to
present the flowing out of all things from the divine ground in two
broad stages: first, the inner emanation of the Trinitarian Persons, or
bullitio as he calls it; and second, the creation of all things, or ebullitio,
that is modeled on it.?® Similarly, the return of all things to God can
also be said to take place in the two broad stages that describe the re-
ditus of the soul to its divine ground: The birth of the Word in the soul,
and the “breaking-through,” or penetration of the soul into the divine
ground that is the God beyond God.
The divine depth, abyss, or ground (MHG: grunt) is the hidden
source from which all things proceed and to which they return. Al-
though the tradition of negative theology is long and rich, it has had
few spokesmen to equal Eckhart. Like Saint Augustine and many oth-
ers before him,?? the Meister was fully conscious of the paradox in-
volved in attempting to speak about what by definition could not be
spoken about. This paradox by no means reduced him to silence, any
more than it did his predecessors and successors in the tradition of neg-
ative or apophatic theology. But the absolute centrality of apophati-
cism in the Meister’s thought, so splendidly expressed especially in the
German sermons,*? prompts two important observations. The first is
that the task of theology for Eckhart was not so much to reveal a set
of truths about God as it was to frame the appropriate paradoxes that
would serve to highlight the inherent limitations of our minds and to
mark off in some way the boundaries of the unknown territory where
God dwells. Here too theology is ordered to preaching and through
preaching to life. Only when we have come to realize what it is that
we cannot realize can we begin to live out of the unknowable divine
ground of our being. Second, the absolute ineffability of God provides
the motive for the at times confusing variety of ways in which the
Meister speaks about the divine nature. Eckhart used a number of ver-
bal strategies or approaches to fit different circumstances and audi-
ences. None of these strategies, taken in itself, is final; all of them taken
together exhibit an inner coherence and unity of purpose as ways to
explore those “limit-situations” in which God becomes present to us
in a more conscious way. These strategies at times led the Meister to
insist with force that it is impossible to apply any predicate of ours to
God. One such passage denying the appropriateness of the language of

31
 INTRODUCTION

goodness to God appears among the appended articles to the Bull “In
agro dominico."^! But Eckhart also did ascribe a wide variety of terms
and predicates to God, and this variation has introduced two serious
problems in the interpretation of his thought that we must examine be-
fore we turn our attention to the flowing out and the breaking through
of all things.
The first of these problems concerns which of the transcendental
predicates of existence, unity, truth, and goodness (esse, unum, verum,
bonum) is most appropriate to the divine nature. It is well known that
in the only surviving part of the Work of Propositions, its prologue, Eck-
hart begins his systematic summa with an analysis of the proposition
Esse Deus est, "Existence is God,"^? while in the Parisian Questions, es-
pecially the first, he affirms that God is properly described as intelli-
gere, the act of understanding that is above esse.*? A similar variation
is found throughout the Latin and German works, where a multitude
of references to God as undifferentiated existence, or esse simpliciter or
indistinctum, is qualified by frequent appearances of texts asserting that
God is in some way beyond esse.** Intermittent passages, both early
and late, continue to assert a priority to God conceived of as pure in-
tellect or understanding.*°
The best way to cut through this complicated issue and to present
the coherence of the ways the Meister speaks of the divine nature is
to be attentive to the way in which his theories of predication and anal-
ogy call for an understanding of God best expressed in a dialectical
grasp of the transcendental predicate of unum, or Absolute Unity.*
The Meister's doctrine of predication (that is, how terms are affirmed
of the subject of a proposition) and his understanding of analogy (that
is, how to use terms that are partly the same and partly different in
meaning) are both Thomistic in outer appearance, but essentially dif-
ferent from Thomas in inner intent. Both predication and analogy, as
understood by Eckhart, stress the radical difference between God and
creation. His notion of analogy rests on formal opposition rather than
on proportionality or intrinsic attribution, as is made clear in a num-
ber of places in the Latin works.^? In the Sermons and Lectures on Ec-
clesiasticus he says:

Analogates have nothing of the form according to which they

are analogically ordered rooted in positive fashion in them-
selves, but every created being is analogically ordered to God
in existence, truth and goodness. Therefore, every created be-

32
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

ing radically and positively possesses existence, life and wis-

dom from and in God and not in itself.*8

What this means is that if esse or existence is understood in its proper

transcendental sense (esse simpliciter), it can be properly predicated of
God alone and not of creatures. Two conclusions follow from this. The
first is that creatures are nothing in themselves, that is, insofar as they
are creatures, but they possess all their being radically or virtually in
the divine esse. This was one of the doctrines for which Eckhart was
condemned at Avignon.*? The second conclusion is that from this per-
spective it is proper to describe God as the existence of things. As Ser-
mon 6 puts it: "If my life is God's being, then God's existence (sin) must
be my existence, and God's is-ness (isticheit) is my is-ness, neither less
nor more."?? To the unwary such expressions—and they are frequent
in Eckhart—may look like a species of pantheism, but such is not the
case. The Meister is always anxious to maintain the totally transcen-
dental character of the divine reality. In response to objections to such
passages brought up against him during the Cologne proceedings, he
invoked the distinction between the "absolute existence" (esse absolu-
tum) of God and the "formally inherent existence" (esse formaliter in-
baerens) of creatures,°! that is, that God is the existence of all things
(esse omnium) in an absolute sense, but not as formally inhering in them.
At this point one question naturally arises. What is the relation be-
tween formally inhering existence and absolute existence? Eckhart
does not tell us in his Cologne defense, but if we look at passages on
the relation of God and creatures where the Meister starts with the ex-
istence of creatures, that is, from the formally inhering existence of
particular beings (what he calls esse boc et boc to distinguish it from the
esse simpliciter of God), we find the answer given is the reverse of the
first pattern of analogy seen above. In the first pattern esse was prop-
erly affirmed of God and therefore denied to creatures. In this second
pattern it is affirmed of creatures and hence must be denied of God.
“Nothing is formally in both a cause and its effect if the cause is a true
cause. Now God is the cause of all existence. It follows that existence
is not formally present in God."5? In other words, if we conceive of
esse as esse formaliter inbaerens, it is better to think of God's being as to-
tally beyond esse.
This self-reversing character of analogy as applied to the term esse
suggests that Eckhart's teaching about God really needed a way of
speaking about the divine nature that would combine the negative (i.e.,

38
 INTRODUCTION

transcendent) and the positive (i.e., immanent) moments, or the simul-

taneous thinking of contradictory determinations, into some higher
positive unity. This way of speaking forms Eckhart's dialectic, a lan-
guage he learned, or perhaps better re-created, from Neoplatonism.??
The key to the inner coherence of the Meister's variation in predi-
cating transcendental terms of God lies in the passages where this dia-
lectical way of speaking becomes explicit. The most developed of these
texts is found in the Commentary on Wisdom 7:27: "And since it [Wis-
dom] is one, it can do all things."5^ The predicate unum has special ad-
vantages from a dialectical point of view. “We must understand that
the term ‘one’ is the same as ‘indistinct’ [i.e., not-to-be-distinguished],°°
for all distinct things are two or more, but all indistinct things are
one."59 Since indistinction is the distinguishing mark of unum, what
sets it off from everything else, to conceive of God as unum, or Abso-
lute Unity, is to conceive of him as simultaneously distinct and indis-
tinct, indeed, the more distinct insofar as he is indistinct. While this
may sound like mere wordplay, Eckhart’s intention is totally serious.
If we paraphrase the language of indistinction and distinction into the
language of immanence and transcendence, we see better what the
Meister was after—a way of speaking about God as simultaneously to-
tally immanent to creatures as their real existence and by that very fact
absolutely transcendent to them as esse simpliciter or esse absolutum.
The other advantage of the predicate unum is that it “sounds neg-
ative but is in reality affirmative; it is the negation of negation, which
is the purest affirmation and the fullness of the term affirmed."5? Be-
cause unum adds nothing to esse, or to any other predicate for that mat-
ter, except the negation of negation, that is, the affirmation that it is
not other than itself, “it is immediately related to esse and signifies the
purity and core and peak of esse itself, something which even the term
esse does not."5* The understanding of God as the indistinct One who
is transcendentally distinct as the negation of negation appears
throughout Eckhart's works,5? although there is only one explicit dis-
cussion of the negation of negation in the vernacular sermons.9?
If the term unum, or Absolute Unity, best brings out the dialectical
relation of God and creatures, this does not preclude a role for other
transcendental terms as well. Thus understanding (intelligere) can be
used as a fitting attribute for the divine nature because of its special
relationship with unum. What is it to understand other than to become
one or to be one with what is understood? Hence from the time of the
Parisian Questions through a variety of later texts,9! intelligere was used

34
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

as an appropriate term to ascribe to the reality of the divine nature.

But the fact remains that it is esse, understood as Absolute Existence,
that was Eckhart's most frequently employed term for God. Texts that
stress the dialectical meaning of esse at times even seem to give it some
form of priority over unum as the most appropriate predicate for the
divine ground. Two key texts occur in the Commentary on Jobn. In com-
menting upon John 10:30, Eckhart says that esse is what is absolute and
undetermined in God, that is, the hidden Godhead or essence, so that
unum is ascribed to the Father, verum and bonum to the Son and the
Holy Spirit.6? The grounds for this become clear in a subsequent re-
flection on the dialectical character of being:

The idea of being (ens) is that it is something common and in-

distinct and distinguished from other things by its own indis-
tinction. In the same way, God is distinguished by his
indistinction from any other distinct thing, and this is why in
the Godhead the essence or existence (essentia sive esse) is un-
begotten and does not beget.9?

Hence it is evident that it is not so much whether we choose to use esse,

unum, or intelligere as the most appropriate transcendental predicate for
the divine ground or essence in any particular context; it is rather that
in making use of each we grasp the ineluctably dialectical character of
their application to God.®*
The two patterns of relating the divine essence to the Trinity of
Persons that Eckhart uses—the one where the essence is identified
with unum, the Persons with ens, verum and bonum; and the other where
the essence is esse, and unum, verum and bonum are the Persons—raise
the second major problem connected with the Meister's ways of speak-
ing about God, the priority he gives to the hidden Godhead, the God
beyond God. It would be foolish to deny that Eckhart holds to such
a priority, just as it is evident that he did not feel that this in any way
conflicted with his Christian belief that the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit were each fully God in the most proper sense of the term. His
Avignon judges and Pope John XXII, however, did not agree that his
account of the equality of the three Persons with the divine essence
was an adequate theological explanation of Christian faith, for they in-
cluded two articles relating to it in the Bull of condemnation.59
In order to grasp the full complexity of the Meister's thought in
this area we must once again advert to the priority of the apophatic

35
 INTRODUCTION

way, bearing in mind that his most intricate arguments and daring as-
sertions are no more than appropriate paradoxes to help us along the
path to union with the God who is *one without unity and three with-
out trinity.”6? The implications of Eckhart's stress on the priority of
the divine ground come out in a number of ways. In the Latin works
the priority of the undifferentiated ground of the Godhead is the root
for two significant differences between his teaching and that of Thom-
as Aquinas. Unlike Thomas, for whom the plurality of divine attri-
butes (e.g., existence, simplicity, goodness, truth, etc.) has a foundation
in the inexhaustible richness of the divine essence as well as in our own
mode of understanding, for Eckhart any plurality comes solely from
the poverty of our way of conceiving God.°® This also explains why
Eckhart cites without disapproval the suspect view of Gilbert of Poi-
tiers that in God the relations that constitute the Trinity do not enter
into the divine substance but remain “as if they were standing on the
outside."6? In the vernacular works the distinction between the three
Persons and the hidden Godhead appears in a more pastoral vein, in
the invitation to the soul to penetrate beyond the Trinity, as in this
passage from Sermon 48:

I speak in all truth, truth that is eternal and enduring, that

this same light [the spark of the soul] is not content with the
simple divine essence in its repose, as it neither gives nor re-
ceives; but it wants to know the source of this essence, it
wants to go into the simple ground, into the quiet desert, into
which distinction never gazed, not the Father, nor the Son,
nor the Holy Spirit.7?

There can be no distinctions in the innermost ground of God.

Such texts provided the grounds for the suspicions of Eckhart's
judges and many later interpreters concerning the validity of his doc-
trine of God from the standpoint of Christian Trinitarianism. In order
to be fair to Eckhart, though, we must also advert to another series of
texts. In the Meister's writings there is no lack of passages that stress
the absolute identity of the three Persons with the divine essence;7!
there are also texts that seem to hint at, if notto develop fully, a:dia-
lectical relation between the indistinct divine ground and the relation-
al distinctions of the Persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus
in Sermon 10: "Distinction comes from the Absolute Unity, that is, the
distinction in the Trinity. Absolute Unity is the distinction and dis-

36
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

tinction is the Unity. The greater the distinction, the greater the Uni-
ty, for that is the distinction without distinction."7? Eckhart seems to
be asserting that the God beyond God, the hidden ground of the Trin-
ity, is the more indistinct insofar as he is distinct, the more one insofar
as he is three. In other words, the dialectical relation between oneness
and threeness in God is isomorphically similar to the transcendent-im-
manent relation of God to creatures. Whether this is sufficient to save
the Meister from the accusations of his opponents or not is a question
that must be left to the judgment of the reader, though there can be
no question of the orthodox intentions of the Dominican's theology.
The dynamism of Eckhart's notion of the relation of the Trinity
of Persons to the divine ground finds expression in his distinctive
teaching regarding the divine bullıtio (literally *boiling")."? A number
of crucial texts discuss this:

The One acts as a principle (principiat) through itself and

gives existence and is an internal principle. For this reason,
properly speaking, it does not produce something like itself,
but what is one and the same as itself. For what is “like” en-
tails difference and numerical diversity, but there can be no
diversity in the One. This is why the formal emanation in the
divine Persons is a type of bullitio, and thus the three Persons
are simply and absolutely one.7^

And again:

The repetition, namely that it says "I am who am” (Ex. 3:14),
indicates the purity of affirmation excluding all negation
from God. It also indicates a reflexive turning back of his ex-
istence into itself and upon itself, and its dwelling and re-
maining fixed in itself. It further indicates a bullitio or giving
birth to itself—glowing in itself, and melting and boiling in
and into itself. ... Therefore, chapter one of John says, “In
him was life” (Jn. 1:4). “Life” bespeaks a type of pushing out
by which something swells up in itself and first breaks out to-
tally in itself, each part into each part, before it pours itself
forth and boils over on the outside (ebulliat).?°

In the vernacular works bullitio is the equivalent to what Eckhart dis-

cusses under the heading of the “break-out” (üzbruch). “The first break-

37
 INTRODUCTION

out and the first melting forth is where God liquifies and where he
melts into his Son and where the Son melts back into the Father.’’”°
These passages introduce us to one of the most essential themes of
the Meister's thought, the idea of "principle." All activity, differenti-
ation, and causality imply a principle, and all things that are the prod-
uct of activity, differentiation, and causality can be understood only
when they are seen in their principle. This is as true of the dynamic
process in the Godhead that gives birth to the Trinity, the reflexive
conversion on itself by which the One emanates what is one with it,
as it is true also of the creation, or act of ebullitio, by which God is the
principle of all created things. The two processes exhibit a like struc-
ture, so that, as the commentary on John’s Prologue makes clear,?7? ev-
ery natural example of the relation of principle and what is principled
contains a model of the Trinity. The differences, of course, must also
be kept in mind. Bullitio, as formal emanation, stands in the realm of
formal causality and produces a perfect image, something one and the
same as itself. Ebullitio, which is of two kinds—the production of one
thing from another, which is called making (factio), and the production
of something from nothing (creatio)—is in the realm of efficient and fi-
nal causality and always produces something that is different in num-
ber and reality from its principle.78
There are two patterns describing the divine bullitio found in Eck-
hart. The first of these places the principle in the hidden Godhead it-
self. Following Thomas Aquinas, Eckhart affirms that "the power of
generating in the Godhead directly and more principally belongs to
the essence than to the relation that is the Paternity."7? But there is a
second pattern that concentrates on the Person of the Father. “The Fa-
ther is a beginning of the divinity, for he understands himself, and out
of this the Eternal Word proceeds and yet remains within, and the
Holy Spirit flows from them both."5? This latter is more frequent in
Eckhart's writings and receives a number of formulations, such as the
Father as unum begetting the Son as verum, and the two together spir-
ating the Holy Spirit as bonum, a teaching based on Augustine.?! Typi-
cally Eckhartian is the “principial” analysis of the Father as
"Unbegotten Justice" and the Son as “Begotten Justice,”82 as well as
the way in which he explains the Son as the image (imago) of the Fa-
ther.?? The act of vision is frequently used as a natural analogue for
the formal emanation by which the Father produces the Son.?^ But it
is the Johannine language of the second Person as the Logos, or Word
of God, that is central for the German Dominican. “In the beginning,"

38
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

or Principle, that is, the Father, “was the Word,” or Son, and since the
Word cannot exist without its breath or spirit, also the Holy Spirit.85

D. CREATION (EBULLITIO) AND THE FALL

The differences between bullitio and ebullitio, between the emana-

tion of the divine Persons and the creation of the universe, were fre-
quently highlighted by the Meister,3° but their inner connection was
never in question. In the text of Psalm 61:12, *God has spoken once
and for all, and I have heard two things," he found a parabolical mes-
sage that illuminated the inner relation between the two modes of pro-
duction. God's speaking once and for all is the utterance of his
Only-Begotten Word, but the two things that are simultaneously heard
are the emanation of the divine Persons in the Trinity and the creation
of the whole universe, whose exemplary principle is the Eternal
Word.?? Of course we must remember that insofar as he is the efficient
cause of the universe, God acts as one, that is, all three Persons work
as one principle.?? For this reason Eckhart makes frequent use of the
standard definitions and analyses of the act of creation throughout his
works. Thus he insists that creation is the production of all things from
nothing, the immediate conferring of existence on all things,?? an op-
eration in which God, who works more as final than as efficient cause,
acts from complete freedom and not from any necessity, as the Arab
philosophers had suggested.?? It is because of this strong emphasis on
the Absolute Unity of God the Creator that Eckhart so often turned
to the fall into duality or number as a way of explaining the relation
between bullitio and ebullitio—another indication of the primacy of a
dialectical understanding of unum in his metaphysics.?! What is dis-
tinctive of the Meister's own teaching on creation, however, is the way
in which his analysis from the principial point of view highlights the
exemplary activity of the divine Word or Logos.
Eckhart had stressed that “the metaphysician, who considers the
entity of things, proves nothing through exterior causes, that is, the ef-
ficient and final causes,"?? and so it comes as no surprise how impor-
tant a role he gives to the second Person of the Trinity, who is the
Image, Logos, Idea, and Ideal Reason of all things. The interpretation
of the in principio of the opening of Genesis as both "beginning" and
"principle" and its identification with the Word had been current in
Latin theology since the days of Ambrose,?? but Eckhart's adaptation
of this exegesis shows special accents. Both of the Genesis commen-

39
 INTRODUCTION

taries and the Commentary on Jobn contain investigations of what it

means to say that the Word is the principle of creation.?^ The exegesis
of John's Prologue gives seven different interpretations of the verse
“In the beginning was the Word" as a means of understanding the
Word's place and role in the Trinity. Just as the Word exists as Logos,
Idea, and Image in the mind of the Father who is his Principle,?° so
too that Logos serves as the exemplary cause by which God creates all
that he creates.?° The four essential attributes of any principle given
in section 38 of the text neatly sum up the Meister's teaching on the
role of the Logos. An essential principle must contain what it is prin-
ciple of as a “cause contains its effect” and “in a prior and more em-
inent way" than the thing is in itself. Such a principle “is always pure
intellect” in which the effect exists as “equal in duration to the prin-
ciple." Eckhart concludes: “The three latter conditions are expressed
through ‘the Word,’ that is, the Idea."?7 This is more poetically put in
one of the vernacular sermons in terms of the flowing out and its cor-
responding return: “Therefore, the Father speaks the Son always, in
unity, and pours out in him all created things. They are all called to
return into whence they have flowed out. All their life and their being
is a calling and a hastening back to him from whom they have is-
sued."98
Eckhart's principial analysis of the relation of creation to its divine
source stresses the virtual existence all things possess in their Idea, that
is, in the Word of God, and for a Neoplatonic theologian like Eckhart
this virtual existence is what is “really real" in any creature.?? Since
God's Word has been spoken from all eternity, indeed, is being spoken
from all eternity (if God is a Father, he must always be uttering the
Word that is his Son), then the virtual existence of all things, when
viewed in the Principle, is always being spoken by the Father in the
one and the same eternal act in which he speaks the Son. From the
viewpoint of the formally inherent existence that creatures possess in
themselves creation does indeed have a temporal beginning—there are
assertions to this effect in the Meister's writings!°°—but it was Eck-
hart's claims for the eternal aspect of the "deep" reality of creation, a
position he felt clearly supported by texts in Augustine,!?! that was the
source for some of the most serious objections to his theology. The first
three propositions that "In agro dominico" condemned as clearly he-
retical are expressions of the Meister's teaching on the eternity of cre-
ation.
The first and third of these condemned propositions are drawn

40
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

from a passage in the Commentary on Genesis translated here. *In one

and the same time in which he was God and in which he begat his co-
eternal Son as God equal to himself in all things, he also created the
world."!?? This teaching is found in both the Latin and German
works.!9? It is instructive to note how Eckhart defended his position
on the eternity of creation at Cologne and at Avignon. The eighth of
the propositions drawn from the Commentary on Genesis in the first Co-
logne list of suspect passages was that noted above. Eckhart supported
it by distinguishing between action and passion: God's activity, as
identical with his being, always takes place in the simple now of eter-
nity, but it does not follow from this that creation in itself, considered
as a passio, is eternal.!0* Eckhart's Avignon investigators did not accept
his use of this defense, noting that in Aristotelian philosophy actio and
passio always coincide in one movement that is formally in the patient
or thing moved.!°> The point is well taken, and we do not know what
Eckhart's reply might have been. What the exchange does point up is
that the Meister was really speaking a different theological language,
one not so much based on the traditional Aristotelian understanding
of actio and passio as one founded on a Neoplatonic notion of the re-
lation of the created temporal image to its eternal virtual existence in
the archetype, as he tried to say in one of the Latin sermons: “Only
God's action is new, because the Word is always being born and the
created thing is always coming to be according to that existence which
in itself precedes motion, though the thing is not always being cre-
dited. 210°
Many of the technical details of Eckhart's doctrine of creation and
his metaphysics set forth in the passages translated here need not delay
us, since his expositions are quite clear;!?? but two important aspects
of ebullitio deserve further comment: The unity of creation, and the
role of man and the soul. The Meister's response to the query how the
divine One can produce a universe that is multiple without the inter-
vention of a series of intermediate emanations was to emphasize that
the intention of God in creating falls first of all on the whole, the one
universe composed of many levels designed to work harmoniously to-
gether to reach its end, God as Absolute Unity.!?? Of the three levels
(viz., existence, life, and intelligence) that together form the uni-
verse,109 in the concrete order it is intelligent being that holds the su-
preme place.!!? Each level exists principially in the next highest lev-
el, so that mere being is life in living being and living being is intellect
in intellectual being.!!! To extend this is to recognize that intellectual

41
 INTRODUCTION

being in its principle, that is, God, is divine. This was the source of
some of Eckhart's most profound insights, as well as some of his most
paradoxical and dangerous statements.
As the Meister put it in Sermon 15, “Truly you are the hidden God
(Is. 45:15), in the ground of the soul, where God's ground and the soul's
ground are one ground."!!? The same theme appears frequently in the
German sermons translated here, especially in the discussion of the
hidden power in the soul in Sermon 2.!!? Eckhart uses many metaphors
for this hidden power, the most common being the "spark" (vün-
kelin),1* and the “little town, or castle" (Pürgelin).!!5 Its identity with
the divine ground is the source of the parallel ineffability of God and
the soul found in a number of texts.!!6 Such a “negative anthropology"
echoes positions found in a number of earlier authors and is not with-
out parallel in contemporary theology.!!? Like the God beyond God,
man can thus be spoken of as at once distinct and indistinct in relation
to all things: “Just as God is most indistinct in himself according to his
nature, in that he is truly and properly one and completely distinct |
from other things, so too man in God is indistinct from everything that
is in God, for ‘everything is in him’ (Rm. 11:36), and at the same time
he is completely distinct from all things.”!!®
The most dangerous formulation of this theme in Eckhart’s
thought was the claim that there was something in the soul that was
uncreated—“‘Sometimes I have spoken of a light that is uncreated and
not capable of creation, and which is within the soul."!!? One such
passage was condemned as heretical in the Avignon Bull, though with
the proviso that Eckhart denied having made such statements.!20 This
denial is puzzling. Eckhart did make such statements throughout his
defense,!?! but there are just too many texts scattered through the ver-
nacular works indicating that he used such language to be convinced
that his protestations were objectively justified.!?? Perhaps we can haz-
ard the following explanation. The Meister did speak of something in
the soul that was uncreated, but took his judges' citations of these texts
as indications that they thought he held that part of the soul was cre-
ated and another part uncreated,!?? and hence he denied the texts.
What remains puzzling, though, is why he did not defend his language
by explaining its true intention, that is, that he was speaking princip-
ially of the virtual existence of the ground of the soul in God.
Despite the importance of such a difficult problem as the meaning
of the uncreated part of the soul, it is more important to investigate
how Eckhart portrays the relation of the spiritual and the material di-

42
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

mensions of human nature in order to grasp the full dimensions of his

theological anthropology. Several of the texts translated here, especial-
ly Sermons 2 and 83, and the passage from the Book of tbe Parables of Gen-^
esis exegeting the third chapter of Genesis, are crucial for the |
understanding of this aspect of his thought. The division between the |
|
outer and inner man, an Augustinian commonplace based on Pauline /
/

texts, was frequently invoked by the Meister;!?^ but it was another Au- |
gustinian motif—the moral interpretation of Genesis, chapter three, in \
which the serpent indicates the sensitive faculty, the woman the lower
reason directed to externals, and the man the higher reason directed to
God—that provides the basis for Eckhart’s most extended anthropo-
logical investigation.!?? What is most significant about this treatment
is how it emphasizes the hierarchical ordering of man’s powers to their
divine source through the intimate conversation and union in the kiss
of love, which characterizes the relation of the higher reason to God.!26
Still, it must be admitted that the language of this Latin passag
with its emphasis on the union of superior reason with God is in gen-
eral less radical than the discussions found in such texts as Sermons 2
and 83. Sermon 83 contains a traditional analysis of six powers of the
soul, three inferior—rational (here the discretionary power of sense ex-
perience), irascible, and appetitive—and three superior—the Augustin-
ian triad of memory, understanding, and will; but it goes beyond
tradition in arguing for the identity of the latter with the divine
ground.!?7 Sermon 2 states that we must go beyond the intellectual
power that “neither time nor flesh touches," as well as the volitional
power that “flows out of the spirit and remains in the spirit and is
wholly spiritual" in order to reach the essential hidden ground where
the soul is identical with God.!23]Without trying to minimize the dif-
ference between the more traditional Latin text and the more radical
German ones, the notion of man as the image of God (imago Det) pro-
vides a way of seeing the inner harmony of Eckhart’s anthropology.
The Word, the true imago Dei, is fully one with the Father in all things,
the perfect expression of formal emanation.!?? Following an ambiva-
lence present in traditional Latin theology, which sometimes spoke of
the soul as the image of God and sometimes as made /o the image of
God—that is, to the Word!3°—Eckhart also found it useful to oscillate
between “radical” formulations, man as the imago Det, which highlight
the identity of God's ground and the soul's ground, !?! and “conserva-
tive" assertions, man as ad imaginem Dei, which emphasize the impor-
tant differences between God and the soul.!?? Both sets of expressions

43
 INTRODUCTION

are truly Eckhartian; and though he gives us no explicit framework in

which to relate them, it can be suggested that the dialectical model al-
ready seen may also be helpful here. Both formulae should be taken to-
gether as expressions of the soul's distinct/indistinct relation to
God.!33
Having presented the broad lines of Meister Eckhart’s picture of
the universe that God created in the divine act of overflowing ebullitio,
we must turn our attention to the problem of sin and evil, the forces
that have disrupted the inner harmony of that universe. The Meister's
remarks on evil align with the traditional Augustinian doctrine that
evil taken in itself is nothing,!?^ a defect not an effect,!3° a lack of or-
der,!36 the privation of a good rather than anything positive.!?? He is
also in line with tradition in the person of Thomas Aquinas in the ex-
planation he gives for God's permission of evil: “The existence of evil
is required by the perfection of the universe, and evil itself exists in
what is good and is ordered to the good of the universe, which is what
creation primarily and necessarily regards." !?? Nevertheless, it must
be said that like most strongly Neoplatonist theologians, Eckhart had
little appreciation for the demonic power of evil, and when he extend-
ed his remarks into the area of moral evil, or sin, his Neoplatonic op-
timism led him to paradoxical positions that his inquisitors were to
condemn as heretical. If evil can exist only in and through what is
good, and if God allows it to be only for the sake of the good of the
universe, Eckhart reasoned, then sin too exists only in and for the good
and cannot be separated from it. Hence the startling expressions that
upset his judges, such as, "In every work, even in an evil, I repeat, in
one evil both according to punishment and guilt, God's glory is re-
vealed and shines forth in equal fashion." 139 This passage forms article
4 of "In agro dominico," and articles 5 and 6 are taken from the same
text. Articles 14 and 15 also deal with sin, specifically with claims that
if it is God's will that we have sinned we should not wish not to have
sinned.!^? Eckhart defended himself rather weakly against the first set
of articles at Avignon by appealing to how God's patience and good-
ness are glorified in his toleration of sin and by citing texts from Au-
gustine that the tribunal found not to the point.!*! In support of
articles 14 and 15 he claimed: “A perfect man, knowing that God has
willed and wills him to have sinned, in loving God's honor wills that
he had sinned, but ought not will sin for the sake of anything that is
beneath God. He also knows that God would not permit him to sin if
it were not for his own betterment."!^? The theological commission

44
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

gave three good reasons why this hyperbolical statement remained

dangerous and erroneous.!43
Despite these real problems in Eckhart's presentation of the doc-
trine of sin, there can be no question of his admission of the serious
effects of sin on the order God had established for the universe. Ad-
am's fall had destroyed the natural hierarchy in man of the sensitive
power to the inferior and superior reason,!^* and thus disrupted the
whole universe of which man was the microcosm and lord.!45 Actual
sin in all men is slavery, dissolution of order, and fall from the One.!46
Divine initiative was called for to reintegrate the universe and bring
the soul back to conscious realization of its divine ground.

E. REDEMPTION AND THE RETURN

OF ALL THINGS TO GOD

One-sided interpretations of Eckhart's comparative lack of interest

in the events of salvation history and the sacramental life of the
Church are misleading.!^? It is true that the Meister's style of theolog-
ical reflection and his mode of preaching do tend to move through the
historical aspects of the economy of salvation rapidly in order to arrive
at the inner meaning, but this move was not meant to negate the role
that the saving mysteries of the Incarnate Christ and their presence in
the Church's life have for the believer, as a number of significant texts
make clear.!*®
The saving mysteries themselves as well as their application to the
believer are the work of grace, and Eckhart has important texts on the
nature and effects of grace. Although every action of God in the crea-
ture can be called a grace, the Meister did distinguish between the
"first grace" corresponding to creation and the work of nature and the
“second grace" of redeeming love that restores the universe to God.!^?
The Dominican is not so much interested in analyzing the divisions of
grace,!5° or in exploring the relation between grace and free will,'>!
as he is in discussing the effects of redeeming grace in man.!?? Grace
is the highest form of illumination,!5? that which restores the order of
man's faculties by its entry into the soul’s essence,!°* that which con-
forms us to Christ and to God.!55 An important text contained in the
response to the second series of articles questioned at Cologne, an ex-
tended scholastic quaestio on the metaphysics of the Incarnation, dem-
onstrates the inner connection between the two kinds of grace and the
person of the God-man.!59 On the basis of the premises that “the work

45
 INTRODUCTION

of creation and of nature is ordered to the work of re-creation and

grace,” and that “in the work of nature and creation the work of re-
creation and grace shines out,” Eckhart concludes that “from the first
intention the Word assumed human nature, that is, this nature in
Christ, for the sake of the whole human race. By assuming that nature
in him and through him he bestowed the grace of sonship and adoption
on all men."!5? The redemptive Incarnation is thus the central work
of grace,!58 and the source of our divine sonship, as the splendid texts
commenting on John 1:14 and that expounding a parable of the love
of the God-man in Sermon 22 show.!59 The complex relations between
our sonship and that of the Word will be discussed below, but two dis-
tinctive traits of Eckhart’s understanding of the Incarnation deserve
mention here. In becoming man the Word’s first intention was direct-
ed to each individual believer and to the whole of sinful mankind far
more than it was directed to the individual man who is Christ.!9? The
goal of the Incarnation was to save fallen mankind. Further, in taking
up a human nature rather than a human person, the Word has provid-
ed the grounds for our obligation to love all persons equally and with-
out distinction. We must love human nature in them, not what is
distinct, that is, human personality.!6!
In comparison with his followers John Tauler and Henry Suso,
Eckhart's thought can scarcely be called “Passion-centered”; he shows
no interest at all in lingering on the physical details of Christ's suffer-
ing and death. Nevertheless, the theme of the imitation of Christ, es-
pecially in adherence to the law of the cross, does appear in enough
places to show that the Meister did not in any way minimize the im-
portance of the Passion. The most extended meditation on the signifi-
cance of the cross as the model for the life of the Christian appears in
Sermon XLV 6 but it is also present in a number of other places, es-
pecially in the vernacular works.!63
Similarly, there are brief treatments of the nature of the Church
and of the sacraments.!6^ The Meister's understanding of the Church
as the Body of Christ is evident in a number of places, not least in the
responses to objections concerning the understanding of the diviniza-
tion of man.!65 Eckhart devotes some sermons to the sacrament of the
Eucharist,!66 and discusses the Eucharist and the sacrament of Penance
in the Counsels of Discernment.!97 Although the Meister insisted on the
priority of the individual's appropriation of the divine presence with-
inj6* he nowhere condemned external religious practices in them-

46
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

selves. He merely reminded his audience (rather forcefully at times)

that they were indifferent and insufficient in themselves.!6?
The Meister's message about the return or reditus of all things to
God, the central theme of his vernacular sermons and treatises as well
as a major component of his scholastic works, is primarily a message
about how God works in the soul. Without denying the Church's role
in the mediation of grace, the Dominican's insistence on the individ-
ual's realization of union with God is so insistent that it is easy to see
why some writers have claimed that Eckhart's view of religion is pure-
ly interior. The two great stages under which Eckhart discusses the in-
ner appropriation of God are the “Birth of the Son in the Soul," and
the “Breaking-Through to the Divine Ground.” They mirror the flow-
ing-out from the divine Godhead, first the bullitio, and then its external
copy, the ebullitio. Eckhart's bold and challenging ways of describing
the union between God and man effected by these stages of return
were to be the source of major difficulties for his inquisitors.
'The Meister recommended one religious practice as absolutely es-
sential for the return to God—detachment (M HG: aPegescbeidenbeit). At
first glance, no concept in his thought seems more simple, though on
closer inspection the richness and subtlety of his understanding of de-
tachment become gradually evident. Detachment appears every where
in Eckhart's works, though nowhere more profoundly than in such
vernacular texts as the short treatise On Detachment and the meditation
on the three stages in becoming a poor, or detached, person found in
Sermon 52. In the former he says:

True detachment is nothing else than for the spirit to stand

as immovable against whatever may chance to it of joy and
sorrow, honor, shame and disgrace, as a mountain of lead
stands before a little breath of wind. This immovable detach-
ment brings a man into the greatest equality with God, be-
cause God has it from his immovable detachment that he is
God, and it is from his detachment that he has his purity and
his simplicity and his unchangeability.!79

The same treatise puts the fundamental dynamic of detachment in

lapidary fashion when it says: “You must know that to be empty of all
created things is to be full of God, and to be full of created things is
to be empty of God.”!7! True as the Meister always was to the harmo-

47
 INTRODUCTION

ny of natural and revealed truth, the same basic principle of the Chris-
tian life is obvious in the nature of things. Over and over again he cites
the metaphysical principle that a receptive power cannot receive a
form unless it is empty of all substantial forms, as, for example, the eye
can see color only because it possesses no color in itself.!7? Thus, the
intellect can understand all things because it has no actual existence of
its own, and the soul can receive God only when it has been totally
emptied through detachment.!73 Since all creatures are nothing taken
in themselves, “If you want to be perfect, you must be naked of what
is nothing." !?4
The Meister's teaching on the nothingness of creatures was con-
demned in article 26 of “In agro dominico." What of the doctrine of
detachment, which depends on it? There is no explicit condemnation
of detachment in the Bull, but three articles attacked there may be de-
scribed as conclusions drawn from it—these involve the Meister's no-
tion that the purest form of detachment raises us above all desire and
prayer for any particular reward (hoc aut hoc), even that of sanctity.!??
The detached soul does not wish for any reward from God, but only
for God himself.
It is a bit surprising that the inquisitors did not seize on another
aspect of the Meister's understanding of detachment that also led him
into a series of daring expressions. In On Detachment and in a variety
of other places he speaks of the detached man as being able to “compel”
God's activity. Thus, detachment is greater than love because it com-
pels God to love me;!76 or “the humble man has as much power over
God as he has over himself";!?? or again the statements that the Father
must beget the Son in the soul of the just and detached man.!?? Such
language is a good expression of the Eckhartian understanding of the
equality of the ‘ground of the detached soul with the divine ground, but
it could easily-be misinterpreted.
In the treatise On Detachment Eckhart praises perfect detachment
above humility, the traditional foundation of the virtues, and even
above love, the crown of the Christian life.!?? These statements are not
as extreme as they might sound at first, because at the end of the same
work he reminds us, “Whoever longs to attain perfect detachment, let
him struggle for perfect humility, and so he will come close to the di-
vinity, 180 and throughout his works he stresses the necessity for hu-
mility in such a way that it is obvious that perfect humility is a
necessary, though not sufficient, component of perfect detachment.!?!

48
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

The question of the relation of detachment to love or charity is a more

complex one, not least of all because of the many discussions of the role
of love in the Meister's writings. Suggestions both within On Detach-
ment and elsewhere in his writings seem to indicate that the love to
which detachment is superior should be seen as a lower form of love,
an "interested" love by which we are compelled to love God as our fi-
nal good and to suffer all things for God's love. But love is also a part
of the path to detachment and in a transcendental sense may even be
identified with its goal. “And when this detachment ascends to the
highest place, it knows nothing of knowing, it loves nothing of loving,
and from light it becomes dark.”!8? In the language of apophatic the-
ology the highest form of knowing is unknowing, and so the hint is
that the highest form of loving is to love nothing of loving in the in-
ferior, interested form, but to love in some unknown transcendental
way, or, as Sermon 83 puts it, to love God “as he is a non-God, a non-
spirit, a nonperson, a nonimage, but as he is a pure, unmixed, bright
‘One,’ separated from all duality."!9? It is in this sense that Eckhart can
speak of the soul’s becoming “indistinct” through love: “Everything
that loves what is indistinct and indistinction hates both what is dis-
tinct and distinction. But God is indistinct, and the soul loves to be in-
distinguished, that is, to be and to become one with God.’’!®4 Although
bridal imagery is relatively rare in Eckhart's writings, when he does
make use of it, as in Sermon 22's description of the Word as the king
who suffered his torments for love in order to lead his bride, the soul,
back into the marriage chamber of the "silent darkness of the hidden
Fatherhood,”!85 it is in perfect harmony with the distinctive traits of
his mystical theology. The mutuality of love between the God who
“loves for love" and invites man to love him “for the sake of loving
God" is a constant theme in Eckhart.!96
The relationship between detachment and love may also help us
to understand the image of the individual as virgin and mother that ap-
pears in Sermon 2. The virgin, the person who is free of all alien images,
is perfectly detached; but this is not the whole story, for such a person
must become at the same time a wife, “the noblest word that one can
apply to the soul,” and become fruitful in God.!*? The paradox of the
soul that is at once virginal and fruitful, totally detached and perfectly
active in love, is the heart of Eckhart's message in this sermon. While
these brief comments are not a full treatment on the role of love in
Eckhart, they are sufficient to suggest that love cannot be left aside in

49
 INTRODUCTION

a treatment of that interior stripping away of all created things which

is both preparation and expression of the soul's movement toward
union with God.!#®
Detachment and love may be described as both means and ends,
part of the path to union and characteristics of union itself. Only the
truly detached soul that has transcended interested love is capable of
experiencing the birth of the Son or Word in the soul, the most fre-
quent way that Eckhart speaks of union in his vernacular sermons.!#?
No part of Eckhart's thought was the center of more controversy
than his preaching on the birth of the Son in the soul. As the witness
of Henry of Friemar mentioned in the biographical section of this In-
troduction indicates,!?? concern about suspicious and dangerous un-
derstandings of this theme were current from about 1309 and do not
appear to have been tied to Eckhart's use alone. Nevertheless, the Meis-
ter made the suspect theme central to his preaching. One reason for
this may well have been his recognition that while the birth of Christ
in the believer's heart may not have been a usual theme in thirteenth-
century preaching and teaching, it was a very ancient expression in the
history of Christian spirituality. As Hugo Rahner has shown,!?! the
notion that Christ is born in the faithful heart through baptism has
deep roots in the Greek fathers, and from the time of Gregory of
Nyssa the birth of Christ in the believer was also used as a way to ex-
press the mystical union of the soul and the Logos.!?? Latin theolo-
gians also spoke of the birth of Christ in the soul, usually in ascetical
and moral terms; but John the Scot, in line with Gregory and Maximus
the Confessor, revived the mystical interpretation, and through him el-
ements of it appear in Cistercian and Victorine authors.!?? While Eck-
hart's understanding of the birth of the Son in the soul is distinctively
his own, it shows many points of contact with the tradition, both di-
rect and indirect.!?^
The birth of the Son is omnipresent in the vernacular sermons,!?5
and has been the subject of an extensive secondary literature.!?9 It
would be foolish here to try to give a complete survey of all the appear-
ances of the theme and the problems it raises. Since one of the sermons
given here, Sermon 6, lusti vivent in aeternum, is among the most detailed
treatments of the birth of the Son, we will proceed by an analysis of
this text in order to get a broad look at this important part of Eckhart's
teaching. We will then study some of the problems associated with it
by a consideration of the condemned articles in the Bull “In agro do-
minico."

50
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

Sermon 6 begins with something well known from the Latin

works, especially the Commentary on Jobn, an investigation of the rela-
tion between the just man and justice (or its equivalent, the good or no-
ble man and goodness).!?? The truly just man, the one who gives honor
to God, is perfectly detached and seeks for no reward, not even holi-
ness, from God.!98 We must remember that in this sermon, as else-
where when he uses this language, the Meister is speaking of the just
man insofar as he is just, that is, from the formal and abstract point of
view; he is not speaking about the just man as a concrete existing sub-
ject or person in whom distinction coexists with identity.!?? Eckhart’s
various formulae expressing the equality of the just man and God as
justice, and the daring claim that ‘“‘God’s existence (MHG: sin = Latin:
esse) must be my existence, and God's is-ness is my is-ness,” must be
read in this light.2°° These formulations of the absolute equality theme
are used to lead into an extended treatment of the birth of the Son in
the soul, the central message of the sermon.
Since the Father gives birth to the Son in eternity, and since there
can be no temporal dimension in God, he is always giving birth to the
Son; and since God’s ground is one with the soul’s ground, the eternal
Father must always be giving birth to the Son within the ground of
the soul. Yet more, “He gives me birth, me, his Son and the same
Son."??! Lest we think that such strong expressions represent a tem-
porary aberration on the Meister's part, we have only to look among
the other sermons translated here to find equally bold texts, such as the
one that tells us, *As truly as the Father in his single nature gives his
Son birth naturally, so truly does he give him birth in the most inward
part of the spirit.”2°? Far from stopping at statements like these, Eck-
hart carries his boldness yet further. Given the identity of the soul's
ground and God's ground, the just man must take part in the inner life
of the Trinity, the divine bullitio itself. As he puts it in this sermon:
“I say more: He gives birth not only to me, his Son, but he gives birth
to me as himself [i.e., as the Father] and himself as me and to me as
his being and nature."?9? Or, as Sermon 22 says, “He everlastingly bore
me, his only-born Son, into that same image of his eternal Fatherhood,
that I may be Father and give birth to him of whom I am born. ... And
as he gives birth to his Only-Begotten Son into me, so I give him birth
again into the Father."?9^ If the soul is one with the Father in giving
birth to the Son, it must also be one with the Holy Spirit, the spirit
of love proceeding from Father and Son.?° Finally, if the identity of
ground between God and the soul shows how the latter partakes of the

51
 INTRODUCTION

inner-Trinitarian bullitio, the same is true of the divine creative activ-

ity, or ebullitio. This is why Sermon 52 can speak of the soul as its own
creator: *For in the same being of God where God is above being and
above distinction, there I myself was, there I willed myself and com-
mitted myself to create this man [i.e., me].”?°°
Sermon 6's formulation of the birth of the Son in the soul was con-
demned at Avignon not as heretical, but as "suspect of heresy." The
reason for this hedge may well have been that the pope recognized that
despite the boldness of the assertion, the theme of the birth of the Son
in the soul was quite capable of an orthodox interpretation. As Karl
Kertz has pointed out, we must distinguish between passages in which
Eckhart is speaking of the “eternal eidetic pre-existence of the soul in
God" (what Eckhart calls its existence in the principle) and the texts
concerning the Father's begetting me as his Only-Begotten Son after
the soul has received separate created existence.??7 Even in the case of
the latter texts, such as that from Sermon 6, it is to the orthodox doc-
trine of the identity of the Son in the Trinity and the Son who is gen-
erated in us by uncreated grace that Eckhart appealed in defending
himself at this point. "It is the same Son without any distinction whom
the Father has naturally begotten in the Trinity and whom he gener-
ates in us through grace, just as many parchments are marked with one
seal and many images born in many mirrors from a single face.’’208
This response makes it clear that we may distinguish, but cannot sep-
arate the principial existence of the soul in the divine nature from the
begetting of the Son in us in time—the former is the metaphysical
ground of the latter.
Eckhart's teaching about the birth of the Son was the basis for nu-
merous passages stressing the identity of sonship between the good or
just man and Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God. Nothing seems to
have annoyed his opponents more. There are five articles of this nature
condemned in the Bull, and a sixth is similar, though it asserts equality
between the just man and the whole divine nature.?°? Perhaps the most
unusual and troublesome of these articles was taken from the end of
Sermon 6. In this passage Eckhart speaks of our being totally trans-
formed into Christ the way the sacramental bread becomes the Lord's
Body. “I am so changed into him that he produces his being in me as
one, not just similar."?!'? Despite the unfortunate analogy employed
(Eckhart rejected the heretical implications and qualified the analogy
at the Cologne hearing),?!! a case has been made for the orthodox in-
tention of the passage by claiming that it was the notion of moral iden-

32
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

tity that the Meister really wished to underline.2!2 But tortuous

rebuttals are not necessary, nor should we feel compelled to defend ev-
ery way the Meister tried to express the identity of the Son and the
regenerated just man—he certainly did not feel so compelled.?!3 What
is most important is to grasp the fundamental logic underlying the Do-
minican's way of speaking. In the numerous rebuttals Eckhart gave to
the attacks on his teaching on the equality between God and man there
is a definite similarity of pattern and grounding principles. Over and
over again, he appealed to the traditional distinctions between our son-
ship and that of Christ that Christian theology had always invoked. Ac-
cording to the Avignon report, “He says that they are erroneous as
they sound, but supports them by saying that it is the same Son of God
who is the Only-Begotten in the Trinity and by whom all the faithful
are sons of God through adoption.”?!4 The various ways in which the
Meister expresses the distinction of sonships are present throughout
his works, but especially prominent in the commentary on John's Pro-
logue.?!5 The Word is Son by nature, we are sons by adoption; he is
the true image of the Father, we are made to the image; and, finally,
we are the members of Christ, a theological position showing the Meis-
ter's acquaintance with the Thomistic understanding of the Church as
the Body of Christ.?!° The distinction texts, then, are vitally important
for conveying the fullness of Eckhart's teaching about the relation of
the soul to the Word and for interpreting the condemned identity
texts. At Avignon the Meister attempted to explain the essential her-
meneutical principle for interpreting the identity texts to his judges.
In his response to the article that became the thirteenth of the prop-
ositions condemned as heretical in the Bull, the one claiming that
whatever is proper to the divine nature is proper also to the just and
divine man, he returned to his insistence that he was speaking “insofar
as" (in quantum), that is, in a formal, abstract, principial sense:

He defends this article in that Christ is the head and we the

members; when we speak, he speaks in us. The union of the
Word with flesh in Christ was so great that it shares modes
of predication so that God may be said to have suffered and
man [to be] the creator of heaven. And Christ may be prop-
erly said to be a just man insofar as he is just, the term “in-
sofar as" being a reduplication that excludes everything
foreign to the term.?!7

53
 INTRODUCTION

This reminds us that in the introduction to the defense he delivered

at Cologne Eckhart prefixed a set of three principles necessary for the
proper interpretation of his works. The first of these, the one that is
the source of the other two, is this vital in quantum principle.?!? It ap-
pears throughout his writings, nowhere more explicitly than in the
Commentary on Jobn,?!? where we read:

In him [Christ] there is no other act of existence save the act

of the divine supposit, and therefore there is absolutely no
way in which he can sin. But since in us there is another act
of existence apart from the existence that is just, there is rea-
son why the just man, even though he cannot sin insofar as be is
just, can still exist apart from the just man's existence and ex-
ist as one who is not just, and thus is able to sin.??9

In the defense of what became article 21 of the Bull (“The noble man
is that Only-Begotten Son of God whom the Father generates from all
eternity") the gap in understanding is even more evident, because the
theological commission's response to the Meister's explanation deliber-
ately reverses what Eckhart intended. They rebutted him with the ob-
servation, “That does nothing to prove the article, namely, that the
good man insofar as be is a man can be said to be the Only-Begotten Son
of God eternally born of the Father.”??! But the good man insofar as be
is a man is exactly what Eckhart did not intend by his use of 17 quantum
language; rather, he always employed this language to speak of the good
man insofar as be is good, not the existent subject in the world, which
is a compound of identity and difference. Eckhart's formula redupli-
cates the forma] quality to show that in its principial ground the soul
is truly one with its divine source; by transferring the reduplicating
formula to the concrete subject Eckhart's investigators were able to
convert him into a seeming pantheist by misunderstanding his lan-
guage and intentions.
Eternally being born as the only Son of the Father, eternally be-
getting as the Father himself, and eternally proceeding as the Holy
Spirit, the relation of the soul to the divine mystery is capable of still
more radical resolution. Just as the divine ground, the hidden God-
head, has priority over as well as a dialectical relation to the Trinity
of Persons, so too, above and beyond that stage of the return of the soul
to union with God expressed through the theme of the birth of the
Son, we find a deeper stage in the soul's return in certain passages in

54
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

Eckhart's writings—the invitation for the soul to penetrate to the di-

vine ground behind the three Persons.
The language of "breaking-through" did not figure in Eckhart’s
condemnation (it is doubtful that his investigators would have been
able to make much of it), but it has been the subject of considerable
modern interest, especially by those who stress the “non-Christian”
character of Eckhart's mysticism.??? Some of the most striking texts on
this theme occur in the vernacular sermons chosen for this volume.
Sermon 52 ends on the note that only in the breaking-through can “I
receive that God and I are one," that is, that I am one with the divine
ground, and not with the “God” who is the cause of things.??? Sermon
83 says much the same when it states that in contemplating God as an
image or a Trinity the soul lacks what it can attain in contemplating
the "naked, formless being of divine unity, which is a being above be-
ing."??^ But no text in all of Eckhart is more forceful than the passage
in Sermon 48 that tells us that the spark in the soul is not content with
Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, nor even with *'the simple divine essence
in its repose; as it neither gives nor receives; but it wants to know the
source of this essence, it wants to go into the simple ground, into the
quiet desert, into which distinction never gazed, not the Father, nor
the Son, nor the Holy Spirit."??5 In the breakthrough to this solitude
or desert Eckhart's theology finishes where it had begun: "End and
principle are the same."?26
As the wisdom of apophatic theology ends its discourse, the fool-
ishness of positive, or cataphatic, theology—man's garrulous necessity
to keep on talking—takes over. Since even Eckhart is not immune from
this exigence, we must also investigate the positive statements he
makes about the final stage of union with God. Metaphorically speak-
ing, this ultimate stage in the Meister's sketch of man's spiritual itin-
erary is admirably expressed by the scriptural image of the journey
into the desert or wilderness.??7 “I, says our Lord through the prophet
Osee, will lead the noble soul out into the desert, and there I will speak
to her heart, one with one, one from one, one in one and in one, one
everlastingly. Amen.”228 Naked the soul goes forth to meet the naked
Godhead in a wilderness without name; but just as Israel's encounter
with God in the desert was not a barren and sterile one, but rather the
formation of the fruitful people of God, so too when the soul strips
herself through total detachment and goes forth into the wilderness
she is preparing for the meeting that will make her not only a virgin
but also a mother.

55
 INTRODUCTION

The union that is achieved by the breaking-through to the divine

ground is a union that is without a medium,??? a union totally without
distinction.230 These are its essential characteristics. The soul does not
seek the mere uniting of two things that remain distinct, but desires
the true union in which there is nothing but Absolute Unity, the “Sim-
ple One." Eckhart frequently illustrates the lack of medium in this
union by reflections on natural examples of “medium-less” union, such
as the union of form and matter. In such cases, "the greater the naked-
ness, the greater the union";2?! and “the more naked, the more
open.”232 The Meister's stress on the absolute character of the beati-
fying oneness led him to employ expressions that go beyond those
deemed prudent by earlier medieval mystical theologians. Bernard of
Clairvaux, for example, in describing the mutual love between God
and the soul, was careful to remind his readers that in the highest stage
of union God and the soul become “one spirit" (unus spiritus), but not
one substance or thing (unum).??3 Eckhart, on the other hand, was will-
ing to use both forms of expression—“All the saints are one thing, not
one person, in God";??^ “He who is one with God, is ‘one spirit’ with
God, the same existence."?35 Taken in isolation, these passages have a
pantheistic ring; seen in the light of Eckhart's dialectical understand-
ing of unum or the One, they preserve the difference in identity that
other mystics have expressed in less daring ways.
The notion of union in the ground where God and the soul are
one helps explain the passages in which the Meister reflects on the fa-
miliar scholastic debate about whether beatitude consists primarily in
the satisfaction of the intellect or of the will. As a Dominican and an
idiosyncratic student of Thomas Aquinas, Eckhart, of course, defended
the primacy ofthe intellect in disputing with the Franciscan theolo-
gian Gonsalvo of Spain,?3° and numerous texts in the Latin works echo
the position in emphasizing that beatitude is found essentially in the
intellect’s union with God in contemplation.??7 Since we have seen
that understanding (inteiligere) was one of the transcendental predicates
that could be used to disclose the dialectical character of the divine es-
sence, this position should not surprise us. But there is another way to
describe beatitude in Eckhart that is closer to the main themes of his
thought. This appears in Sermon 52 where, in answer to the question
whether blessedness consists in knowing or in loving, he responds:

But I say that it does not consist in either knowing or loving,

but that there is that in the soul from which knowing and lov-

56
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

ing flow; that something does not know or love as do the pow-
ers of the soul Whoever knows this knows in what
blessedness consists.238

True blessedness, then, is found in the soul's return to its divine

ground.

F. ECKHART'S ETHICS AND MYSTICISM

The final area to be investigated is what we might describe as Eck-

hart's ethics. What rules of conduct and manner of life follow on the
principles that the Meister advanced? How ought man to live in order
that the Son may be born in him and that he may return to oneness
in the divine ground? In analyzing the role of detachment and love in
Eckhart's thought we have already surveyed central elements in Eck-
hartian ethics, but the particular modalities of the life of the “poor
man,” "just man,” “good man,” or “noble man" (all synonyms for the
> 66

true Christian) need to be pursued on some important details.

The detachment to which Eckhart invites us is principally an in-
ternal one. While the Meister does not condemn the external poverty
that Christ used when he was on earth (The less we own, the more
it is our own,” as he said),??? he makes it quite clear that true freedom
consists in an interior detachment from things. This inner detachment
extends to exterior religious exercises, for those who are “attached to
their own penances and external exercises" cannot understand divine
truth.?^? [n the Counsels of Discernment he gives good practical advice
regarding the equality of all pious practices and the importance of im-
itating Christ spiritually and not physically.?*! “Whoever is seeking
God by ways is finding ways and losing God, who in ways is hidden.
But whoever seeks for God without ways will find him as he is in him-
self."?^? The Dominican theologian recognized the redemptive value
of learning to accept trials with complete detachment as expressions of
God's will. He composed a number of powerful passages on the role
of the cross in the life of the Christian, notably in the treatise called
the Book "Benedictus," or Book of Divine Consolation;?*? but he does not
usually suggest that suffering in itself apart from its reception in the
proper spirit is of particular value, nor does he urge taking on volun-
tary penances or ascetical practices.
The interior attitude that Eckhart strove to induce in his readers
and hearers can best be put in terms of the polarities of complete de-

37
 INTRODUCTION

tachment from creatures and total love of God. The perfect conformity
to God's will that springs from the realization of the soul's indistinct
union with the divine ground appears throughout the Latin and Ger-
man works in Eckhart's repetition of the evangelical command that we
must love God above all things for his own sake alone.?^^ As we might
expect, the Meister's single-minded attention to the implications of dis-
interested love led him to adopt at least one position that seemed prob-
lematic or erroneous to his opponents. Eckhart insisted that to love in
the truest sense of the word is to love all things equally. Indeed, when
we love God above all things with our whole heart and soul, only then
do we come to love ourselves and all other things truly and equally.2*5
If love means to become indistinct in the One, then the act of loving
must also be indistinct, that is, it must not differentiate among its ob-
jects. This notion of absolute equality in loving led to an odd passage
singled out in the Bull in which the Meister, commenting on the twen-
ty-first chapter of John, reproved Peter's “greater love" for Jesus as an
imperfect form of love.?46
There were also more serious problems that the inquisitors found
with aspects of Eckhart's ethical teachings. The most important of
these, to judge from the number of condemned propositions it pro-
duced, was the issue of the relation of the interior and exterior aspects
of the morally good act. No less than four articles, all drawn from the
Latin works,?4” center on his teaching that the exterior act adds noth-
ing to the goodness of the interior one. It is a doctrine that we would
expect the Meister to advance, given the profoundly interior character
of his theology; and it is one that was not unnaturally attacked in an
atmosphere of fear of the heresy of the “Free Spirit" (spiritus libertatis)
that was thought to encourage immoral forms of activity by the souls
who had reached interior perfection.?*? The surprising thing is that
Eckhart apparently thought that Thomas Aquinas agreed with him on
the issue of the internal and external act, a rather serious misreading
of the Angelic Doctor.?^? In any case, it is important to note how in-
tegral to Eckhart’s entire approach it is to emphasize that it is the in-
terior act alone that counts and that for four reasons: First, because the
exterior act can be hindered; second, only the interior act is properly
commanded by God; third, the inner act is never oppressive; and
fourth, the interior act always praises God directly as its author.?5°
Eckhart's emphasis on the interior act is repeated throughout his Latin
and vernacular works,?5! and is one of the most distinctive features of
Eckhartian ethics. As his response at Avignon and the twenty-third

58
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

counsel of the Counsels of Discernment indicate,252 Eckhart felt that the

ideal situation was one in which the interior and the exterior act co-
existed in one form of working, but for him God's command was al-
ways properly directed to the inner work.
A second major center of concern for the judges who grilled Eck-
hart at both Cologne and Avignon involved the role of prayer. The
Meister's emphasis on the necessity of realizing the unity of ground be-
tween God and the soul led to statements seeming to deny the value
of petitioning God for anything and thus appeared to eliminate prayer
from the Christian life. The treatise On Detachment denies that one who
is detached can pray if prayer is understood as petition, but affirms
that if prayer is understood as union with God then detachment has
its own form of prayer.??? If God and the soul share the same ground,
then there is a sense in which it is foolish or impossible for the soul
to ask anything from God, or at least to ask for anything that is less
than God.?5^ Articles 7, 8, and 9 from the papal Bull, the first drawn
from the Commentary on Jobn?55 and the latter two from Sermon 6,256
are paradoxical expressions of this ban on petition for the noble soul
insofar as it is united with the divine ground. At the risk of boring the
reader, we must repeat that the proper way to understand such texts,
as the Meister insisted at the beginning of his Cologne defense,?37 is
to realize that they are true only according to the 77 quantum principle,
that is, speaking exclusively, abstractly, and formally. The same holds
for the proper understanding of the many passages in which the Meis-
ter speaks of the just man as being able to perform divine works.?°8
If we ask what inner attitude or style describes the daily life of the
just man, Eckhart's deepest response can be found in the passages
where he speaks about “living without a why”:

If anyone went on for a thousand years asking of life: "Why

are you living?" life, if it could answer, would only say, “I live
so that I may live." That is because life lives out of its own
ground and springs from its own source, and so it lives with-
out asking why it is itself living.???

He who lives in the goodness of his nature lives in God's love;

and love has no why.?6

It is proper to God that he has no “why” outside or beyond

himself. Therefore, every work that has a “why” as such is

59
 INTRODUCTION

not a divine work or done for God. "He works all things for
his own sake" (Pr. 16:4). There will be no divine work if a per-
son does something that is not for God's sake, because it will
have a “why,” something that is foreign to God and far from
God. It is not God or godly.?9!

The inner oneness of ground shared by God and the soul once again
provides the basis for this fundamental theme. Just as God's mode of
being and acting is characterized by absolute inner self-sufficiency and
spontaneity, not being and acting "for," but simple joy in the reality
of supreme being and omnipotent activity, so too the soul that is one
with God lives without a “why” in the sheer delight of its existence.
This is the goal of human life, the height of Eckhart's mysticism.
It should be clear by now that living without a why does not in-
volve any form of radical separation from the world, or seeking after
some form of special or privileged experience, even after ecstasy or
rapture. Eckhart's position on the relation between action and contem-
plation is paradoxically put, but this should not surprise us by now. In
the eighty-sixth of the vernacular sermons the Meister commented on
the story of Mary and Martha from the tenth chapter of Luke's Gos-
pel.?9? Tradition had identified Martha, “busy about many things,”
with the active life, and Mary who sought the “one thing necessary"
with the higher contemplative life, but Eckhart reverses this, at least
in this text.263 As long as we find ourselves in this life, Martha’s way
is to be preferred to Mary, who is advised to get up and "learn life."
Martha is the type of the soul who in the summit of the mind or depth
of ground remains unchangeably united to God, but who continues to
occupy herself with good works in the world that help her neighbor
and also form her total being closer and closer to the divine image.24
Martha, then, is the soul that is both a virgin and a fruitful wife, free
and detached, and yet by that very reason able to work “without a
why." This teaching on the continuing necessity for the performance
of good works is found in both the Latin and German writings.2 It
is paralleled by another crucial point, the insistence that God can be
found everywhere and in all works:}“When people think that they are
acquiring more of God in inwardness, in devotion, in sweetness and
in various approaches than they do by the fireside or in the stable, you
are acting just as if you took God and muffled his head up in a cloak
and pushed him under a bench."?99 Eckhart, of course, recognizes that
"praying is a better work than spinning, and the church is a better

60
 THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

place than the street," as a parallel passage from the Counsels of Discern-
ment puts it,2°? but it is not so much what we do or where we do it
as what spirit we do it in that is important for the Meister. “It is not
what we do which makes us holy, but we ought to make holy what we
do. "268
Eckhart’s "this-worldliness," as Reiner Schürmann has called
it,269 promotes a form of mysticism that is uninterested in special states
of experience, as noted above, either those of the sensible variety (vi-
sions, locutions, feelings of light and sweetness, etc.), or even of the
higher reaches of rapture. The Meister is highly suspicious of any form
of sensible consolation or vision,?7° tartly condemning those who want
to see God with the same eyes with which they behold a cow.??! But
a like distrust, or at least a lack of interest, marks the few references
he makes to the traditional height of the mystical experience, the raptus
on which many of his predecessors and contemporaries had lavished so
much attention. Eckhart does not doubt that such experiences occur;
he cites the examples of Paul and Augustine, and once paraphrases
Thomas Aquinas's teaching on the subject.??? But the Meister is not
an ecstatic or a student of ecstasy in any way.??? For him the purpose
of theology and preaching was not to invite his hearers to search out
the extraordinary, but to attain to true insight into the meaning of the
ordinary. Echhart is pleading for us to open our eyes to see what has
always been the case, that God and the soul are truly one in their deep-
est ground.

I say yet more, do not be startled, for this joy is near you and
is in you. There is no one of you so crude, or so small in un-
derstanding or so removed, that he cannot joyfully and intel-
ligently find this joy within him in the truth in which it
exists, even before you leave this church today or before I fin-
ish the sermon today. He can as truly find it and live it and
possess it within him as God is God and I am a man.?”*

In the last analysis Eckhart's theology is both theocentric and at the

same time fully anthropocentric. God is God and man is man, and yet
God's ground and the soul's ground are one ground. i

—Bernard McGinn

61
3. A NOTE ON ECKHART'S WORKS
AND THE PRESENT SELECTIONS

This is scarcely the forum, given the nature of the volume, to try
to do justice to the complex questions surrounding the authenticity of
Eckhart's works; but it is important to give the reader some sense of
the present state of the question, as well as the rationale behind the se-
lections chosen for this book.
When interest in Meister Eckhart revived in the early nineteenth
century under the influence of the Romantic movement,! it was to the
available fragments of the vernacular works ascribed to the Meister
that scholars turned their attention. The need for some form of collect-
ed edition of Eckhart's German works soon became obvious, and this
need was met in 1857 by the edition of Franz Pfeiffer (1815-1868).
Pfeiffer was a scholar of great energy, and Eckhart studies remain in
his debt to this day. A kind of Schliemann of Eckhartiana, like his ar-
cheologist contemporary he was responsible for a multitude of discov-
eries, but worked quickly and uncritically by modern standards.
Pfeiffer's edition contains no less than one hundred and eleven ser-
mons and eighteen treatises, as well as a number of sayings and frag-
ments—a number far in excess of those that most would claim as
authentic today when there is greater recognition of the fact that Eck-
hart's fame led to many works being put under his name in later years.
The second major stage in the recovery of Eckhart's text was ini-
tiated by the Dominican scholar Heinrich Denifle (1844-1905), who
first began to make the Meister’s Latin works available to the public
in 1886.2 Unlike the vernacular works, today known in over two hun-
dred manuscripts, the Latin writings are found in only a handful of
witnesses (five major mss. are presently known), but Denifle argued
convincingly that these Latin treatises which Eckhart carefully pre-
pared for publication were essential to a full understanding of the

62
 THE PRESENT SELECTIONS

Meister and served to correct one-sided interpretations based on ver-

nacular works alone, these frequently of doubtful authenticity. Deni-
fle's challenge led to a series of efforts on the part of scholars of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to work out canons of au-
thenticity for the Middle High German texts ascribed to Eckhart.
These were frequently based on internal criteria of style and agree-
ment with the Latin writings.? One unfortunate by-product of the re-
discovery of the Latin works, still present in some modern writing on
Eckhart, has been the split between those who would stress the more
conservative, scholastic Eckhart and those who favor the supposedly
more original preacher and author of the vernacular works. As pointed
out previously, the premise of this volume is that such a division forms
a grave hindrance to real understanding of the integral Eckhart.
A crucial tool for the authentication of the disputed vernacular
works was the Defense (Rechtfertigungsschrift, or “Vindicatory Docu-
ment"), the record of Eckhart's responses to two of the series of prop-
ositions brought against him at Cologne. Surviving in a single
manuscript, this key text was first published by A. Daniels in 1923 and
again by G. Théry in 1926. Extracts from sermons and treatises found
in these lists and accepted as his own by Eckhart provided sound ex-
ternal criteria for the authenticity of a number of the vernacular
works. The task that remained, however, was still a formidable one—
how to deal with the mass of material not guaranteed by presence in
the Defense, and how to provide good critical editions of all the gen-
uine Latin and German works.
A brief “war of editions" erupted in the troubled 1930s. An edi-
tion of the Latin works sponsored by the Dominicans of Santa Sabina
under the editorship of R. Klibansky and G. Théry began to appear be-
tween 1932 and 1936, but in 1934 when the Deutsche Forschungsge-
meinschaft took an active interest in sponsoring a complete edition of
all Eckhart's works, one result was to deny access to manuscripts in
Germany to the opposing project, which soon ceased publication.
The critical edition of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, ar-
guably among the great medieval editing projects of the century, began
publication in 1936. Although such a vast task has profited from the co-
operation of many hands, the success of the edition has been primarily
the work of two scholars, Josef Koch, O.P. (1885-1967), who was given
major responsibility for the Latin works, and Josef Quint (1898-1977),
who exercised virtually sole responsibility over the edition of the Ger-
man works. The coming of the Second World War delayed the prog-

63
 INTRODUCTION

ress of the edition severely due to loss of materials and the deaths of
valuable contributors. Since the 1950s, the edition has moved ahead
slowly but steadily, always with an eye more on critical accuracy and
scholarly completeness than on haste. Today, of the planned eleven
volumes, four of five of the DW are complete, and two of five of the
LW (though two others are virtually done, and the other is well on the
way). There will also be a volume of indices.
There is no dispute about the genuine character of the Latin
works presented in the LW, and there are few difficulties in the estab-
lishment of the text, given the paucity of manuscripts. The major
problem regarding the Latin writings is that they represent a small
portion of the systematic synthesis that Eckhart planned, and appar-
ently only a part of what he wrote, as numerous references to lost texts
indicate. The Meister tells us that he planned a vast Three-Part Work
(Opus Tripartitum) to consist of a Work of Propositions (Opus Proposi-
tionum), a Work of Questions (Opus Quaestionum) and a Work of Commen-
taries (Opus Expositionum). 'The first part, the systematic grounding of
the whole, was to consist of over a thousand propositions divided into
fourteen treatises, as the General Prologue to the Three-Part Work in-
forms us.? This type of synthesis presented through axioms or prop-
ositions organized according to opposed terms (e.g., the first treatise
was to deal with "existence and being and its opposite which is noth-
ing") is reminiscent of a number of Eckhart's Neoplatonic sources,
such as Proclus's Elements of Theology and the Arabic Book of Causes that
was based on it. Unfortunately, the only part that remains is the Pro-
logue illustrating the first proposition, “Existence is God,”® though
references in Eckhart's other works indicate that other parts were pro-
duced that do not survive.
The Work of Questions was to deal with a selection of disputed
questions, following the order of the $75 of Thomas Aquinas. None of
this work survives, though we do have five important questions that
Eckhart delivered at Paris, at least some of them directed against the
Franciscan theologian Gonsalvo of Spain.? Whether these were to be
incorporated into the Work of Questions or not is difficult to tell.8 The
major portion of Eckhart's Latin works that remain to us consists of
extensive parts of the Work of Commentaries in two sections, formal
commentaries (expositiones) on the books of the Old and New Testa-
ments, and Latin sermons (undoubtedly delivered before ecclesiastical
audiences) where the Meister expounded on selected texts. As pointed

64
 THE PRESENT SELECTIONS

out in the theological section of this Introduction,? Eckhart saw the

Work of scriptural exegesis and preaching as inseparable.
The Work of Commentaries consists of a Prologue (in two versions,
one of which is translated here), six commentaries, and fifty-six ser-
mons, some found in several related versions. Despite the importance
of the Prologues and the Parisian Questions, the lengthy commentaries
must take pride of place as Eckhart's most important surviving Latin
works. There are two commentaries on Genesis, the more literal Com-
mentary on tbe Book of Genesis, and the more allegorical Book of tbe Par-
ables of Genesis.!? The Meister also left extensive commentaries on
Exodus and Wisdom among the Old Testament books,!! as well as a
briefer text, Sermons and Lectures on tbe Twenty-fourth Chapter of Eccle-
stasticus (Sirach).!? Fragments of his Commentary on the Song of Songs are
also now being edited.!? From the New Testament the only exposition
that survives is the lengthy Commentary on Jobn.!^ It has been justly de-
scribed as Eckhart’s theological masterpiece, though the Exodus and
Wisdom commentaries are scarcely inferior to it. Finally, the fifty-six
Latin sermons found in LW IV are of widely varying quality. Some
are no more than sermon notes, and many seem pedestrian in compari-
son with their more lively vernacular counterparts; but more than a
few are equal to anything Eckhart ever wrote.!5
Aside from a brief treatise on the Lord’s Prayer that is largely an
anthology culled from earlier authorities,!® the other surviving Latin
texts of Eckhart all concern the process conducted against him first at
Cologne and then at Avignon from 1326 to 1329.!? The most important
of these is the Defense, or “Vindicatory Document,” already noted
(not yet available in the critical edition in LW V). Other documents re-
lating to the trial are the Vatican archive materials published by M.-
H. Laurent,!? and the important “Opinion,” or votum theologicum, of
the Avignon commission edited by Franz Pelster.!?
Selecting a representative offering from Eckhart’s Latin works is
not an easy task. The Latin commentaries are long and discursive, be-
ing organized to provide the preacher with apt theological material for
sermons on individual texts, rather than to give an extended treatment
of a single book. Nevertheless, one text does stand out as a sustained
analysis that deals with a passage central to the history of Christian
thought and to the Meister’s own theological position. This is the
lengthy comment on the Prologue of the Gospel of John (Jn. 1:1-14).
Most of the key notions of the Dominican theologian's thought are

65
 INTRODUCTION

present here, put forth with a power and precision equal to anything
found throughout his corpus.
The “In the beginning (principle) was the Word" of John 1:1 for
Eckhart immediately called to mind the “In the beginning (principle)
God created heaven and earth" of Genesis 1:1. The exegesis of the two
passages is mutually illuminating in a variety of ways, and therefore
both versions of Eckhart's commentary on the first verse of the Bible
have been translated here as the most fitting complement for the ex-
position of the Johannine Prologue. In addition, the Prologue to the
Book of the Parables of Genesis, the Meister's most detailed treatment of
his exegetical principles, is also translated here, as well as the whole of
his commentary on chapter three of Genesis from the same work. This
comment forms a short treatise on theological anthropology, an area of
such importance to Eckhart’s thought as to merit inclusion.
Meister Eckhart’s views have always been controversial. Hence,
the first section of the part of this volume devoted to the Latin works
contains translations of two of the documents relating to the trial. The
whole Defense is too long and arid for a full translation: Eckhart’s re-
sponses to the various articles are often elliptical, polemical, or highly
technical; but in several places he advances general principles for the
correct interpretation of his works or summarizes his responses to his
opponents, and a selection of these passages has been included here. In
addition, there is a new translation of the whole of the Bull of condem-
nation, “In agro dominico.”
Questions concerning the authenticity of the Middle High Ger-
man texts are legion. The problems involve not only whether a partic-
ular sermon or treatise is to be judged authentic or pseudonymous, but
also, given the large number of manuscripts and the fragmentary con-
dition of many of them, whether it is even possible to establish the text
for some of the pieces accepted as genuine. The Meister’s sermons are
"reportings" (reportationes), that is, versions written down by others
from memory or from notes, a practice filled with possibility of error,
even in an age when the memory was better trained than in our own.
Eckhart himself recognized this difficulty when he noted: “I am not
held to respond to the other articles taken from the sermons ascribed
to me, since even learned and studious clerics take down what they
hear frequently and indiscriminately in a false and abbreviated way.”2°
It is noteworthy that the articles in the trial that the Meister admitted
as incorrect or evil-sounding all came from the German sermons.
Dependent as this volume is on the critical edition found in DW

66
 THE PRESENT SELECTIONS

I-III, for our purposes it is sufficient to note Quint’s principles of au-

thenticity for the eighty-six sermons included there without entering
into questions of detail. On the basis of a lifetime of critical study de-
voted to Eckhart's vernacular works, Quint divided the sermons into
three groups. The first, comprising Sermons 1-16b (DW I, pp. 1-276),
are proved authentic by direct citation in the trial documents. The sec-
ond group, Sermons 17-24 (DW I, pp. 277-423), have such close textual
affinities with Latin sermons recognized as genuine that their authen-
ticity also seems well established. The third group, comprising Sermons
25-86 for Quint (DW II-III) are more difficult to judge. The German
scholar used a number of criteria to defend the authenticity of these
pieces, involving both style and content. Questions will undoubtedly
continue to be raised about individual sermons, and arguments will
continue to be advanced for the genuine nature of sermons excluded
by Quint?! but it is fair to say that his detailed arguments on these
questions represent the necessary foundation for all subsequent study.
The nine sermons chosen for this volume are a deliberately mixed
group designed to illustrate the major theological themes of Eckhart's
preaching as expounded in the Theological Summary section of this
Introduction. They also represent all three of Quint’s divisions of re-
liability, including both well-known and much-studied pieces, such as
Sermons 2, 6, 22, and 52, and less familiar sermons, like 5b, 15, 48, and
53. In addition, Sermon 83, which belongs among the Meister's finest
addresses but is one that has been somewhat neglected, closes the sec-
tion. There are doubtless many other important sermons that might
have been included here, and whose absence Eckhart scholars will re-
gret. Fortunately, the Meister's vernacular preaching, centering on a
few crucial and oft-repeated themes as it does, can be introduced
through a fairly modest selection.
Modern criticism has been especially harsh on the multitude of
vernacular treatises ascribed to the Meister. Following criteria similar
to those used for the sermons, Quint admitted only four as authentic,
and there have been doubts expressed about one of these. The longest
of the genuine treatises, the Counsels on Discernment,?? is probably his
earliest surviving work, a set of spiritual instructions that Eckhart gave
to young Dominicans in the 1290s. Consisting of twenty-three separate
chapters, the counsels represent a more conventional side of Eckhart's
thought—practical, ascetical, sober. While many of the Meister’s favor-
ite themes are absent, some others, including at least one condemned
at Avignon,?? are evident.

67
 INTRODUCTION

More typical of the mature Eckhart is the work known as the Book
"Benedictus," which really consists of two related treatises, the Book of
Divine Consolation,2+ and the sermon entitled “Of the Nobleman."?5
The Book of Divine Consolation belongs to a genre well known in the
Middle Ages, the message of consolation sent to someone in time of
need. Later references tell us that the recipient was Queen Agnes of
Hungary (c. 1280-1364); the hour of need in which it was sent may well
have been 1308, when her father, Albert of Hapsburg, was murdered.
Loosely divided into three sections, the work is a remarkable summary
of the most difficult and speculative aspects of the Meister's teaching,
and tells us much about the Queen's intelligence and spiritual matu-
rity. Closely connected with this text in the manuscripts, and also in-
dubitably authentic because of its appearance in the Defense, is the
long sermon “Of the Nobleman,” a vernacular summary of the stages
of the return of the noble, good, or just person to God.
The final vernacular treatise admitted as authentic by Quint is
that entitled On Detachment, a clear and well-organized presentation of |
one of the most distinctive themes of Eckhart’s message.?9 Although it
was not a part of the trial documents and doubts have been expressed
about its authenticity by previous scholars, its profundity of tone and
true Eckhartian style have convinced Quint and most modern inves-
tigators that it is one of the finest products of the Meister's pen.

68
 Part One

Latin Works

translated by
Bernard McGinn
1. DOCUMENTS RELATING TO
ECKHART'S CONDEMNATION

A. Selections from Eckhart's Defense

I. RESPONSE TO THE LIST OF FORTY-NINE ARTICLES

In the year of our Lord 1326, the 26th of September, on the day
set for the response to the articles taken from the books, remarks and
sermons ascribed to Meister Eckhart that seem to some erroneous, or
what is worse, to smack of heresy, as they say.

A. Introduction

I, the aforesaid Brother Eckhart of the order of Preachers, re-

spond. First, I protest before you the Commissioners, Master Reiner
Friso, Doctor of Theology, and Peter of Estate, lately Custodian of the
order of Friars Minor,! that according to the exemption and privileges
of my order, I am not held to appear before you or to answer charges.?
This is especially true since I am not accused of heresy and have never
been denounced overtly, as my whole life and teaching testify, and as
the esteem of the brethren of the whole order and men and women of
the entire kingdom and of every nation corroborates.?
Second, it is evident from this that the commission given you by
the venerable father and lord, the Archbishop of Cologne (may God
preserve his life!), has no force inasmuch as it proceeds from a false
suggestion and an evil root and stem.* Indeed, if I were less well
known among the people and less eager for justice, I am sure that such
attempts would not have been made against me by envious people. But
I ought to bear them patiently, because “Blessed are they who suffer
for justice’ sake" (Mt. 5:10), and according to Paul, “God scourges ev-
ery son he receives" (Heb. 12:6), so that I can deservedly say with the

71
 MEISTER ECKHART

Psalm, “I have been made ready in scourges" (Ps. 37:18). I ought to do

this particularly because long ago, but in my own lifetime, the masters
of theology at Paris received a command from above to examine the
books of those two most distinguished men, Saint Thomas Aquinas
and Brother Albert the Bishop, on the grounds that they were suspect
and erroneous.? Many have often written, declared and even publicly
preached that Saint Thomas wrote and taught errors and heresies, but
with God's aid his life and teaching alike have been given approval,
both at Paris and also by the Supreme Pontiff and the Roman curia.
So much said, I respond to the articles brought up against me. The
forty-nine articles are divided into four groups. First, there are fifteen
taken from a book I wrote that begins “Blessed be God."? Second are
six articles taken from a response of mine or from my remarks.? Third
are twelve articles taken from my first commentary on Genesis. I am
surprised that they do not bring up more objections against what is
written in my different works, for it is well known that I have written
a hundred things and more that their ignorance neither understands
nor grasps. Fourth, there are sixteen articles taken from the sermons
ascribed to me.
As far as the first three groups are concerned, I state and declare
that I said and wrote these things. As my declaration will make clear,
I hold that they are all true, although many are uncommon and subtle.
If there is something false I do not see in them or in my other remarks
and writings, I am always ready to yield to a better understanding. As
Jerome said to Heliodorus, “Small talents will not support great mat-
ters, and in attempting something beyond their powers they will fail.”?
I can be in error, but I cannot be a heretic, because the first belongs
to the intellect, the second to the will.
To clarify the objections brought against me, three things must be
kept in mind. The first is that the words “insofar as," that is, a redu-
plication, exclude from the term in question everything that is other
or foreign to it even according to reason. Even though existence and
understanding are the same in God, still we do not say that God is evil
although we can say that he understands evil.!? Although in God the
Father essence and paternity are the same, he does not generate insofar
as he is essence, but insofar as he is Father, even though the essence
is the root of generation. Even the absolute acts of the Godhead pro-
ceed from God according to the property of his attributes, as a theo-
logical maxim says.!! Hence, in the fifth book of On Consideration

72
 LATIN WORKS

Bernard says that “God loves as charity, knows as truth, sits in judg-
ment as justice, rules as majesty, ... operates as strength, reveals as
lieht,ferer 1?
The second is that the good man and goodness are one.!? The good
man insofar as he is good signifies goodness alone, just as something
white signifies only the quality of whiteness. These two things, being
good and goodness, are univocally one in the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. They are analogically one in God and in us considered as
good.!*
The third is that everything that begets, indeed everything that
acts, insofar as it begets and acts, at that moment possesses two char-
acteristics. The first characteristic is that by nature it does not rest or
stop until it introduces its form in what it acts upon and begets. When
the form as such has been introduced, bestowed and communicated, it
confers existence,!? as well as everything that belongs to it, namely op-
eration and any type of property. That is why according to Aristotle
what has not been moved is not moved and what does not touch some-
thing does not act.!© The second characteristic is that every agent in-
sofar as it is an agent, or everything that begets insofar as it begets, is
unbegotten, neither made nor created, because it is not derived from
another.!7 Rather, what begets, insofar as it begets and is an active
principle, is opposed by relation to what is begotten, the offspring, the
son, the created, the made, or what has existence from another. For ex-
ample, the form of a work of art (think of a house in the architect’s
mind) is a kind of begotten and made offspring. If I may speak in this
way, it is created from something outside, namely from a real house or
the architect’s teacher.!? It does not beget as such; it is not a father or
a principle that produces. ““The Son can do nothing of himself" (Jn.
5:19). From this it clearly follows that the begetter and begotten are
one in reality, but are opposed and distinct by relation, ne by a real
relation in the Godhead where the relation and the real being are the
same thing, or by relation and reason in created things.!? This is be-
cause acting and being acted upon are two equally primary principles,
but are one motion. To move and to be moved according to the nature
of their relations begin and end at one and the same time.??
On the basis of these points, I can clearly demonstrate the truth
of everything brought up against me from my books and remarks. I
can also show the ignorance and irreverence of my opponents, accord-
ing to the passage from Proverbs, "My throat will meditate truth,” in

73
 MEISTER ECKHART

relation to the first task, and *My lips shall hate wickedness," in rela-
tion to the second (Pr. 8:7).

B. Summary of Response to the First Three Groups and

Preparatory Remarks Regarding Responses to the Fourth Group
It is clear therefore that the truth and the ground of the truth ap-
pear in every one of the articles comprised above, that is, first, in those
from the book that begins "Blessed be God,” second, in the things
brought up to me from the contents of my remarks and responses, and
third, in the points from the contents of my first commentary on Gen-
esis—all of which I admit I wrote and said. I say that the truth and its
ground appear in each of these on the basis of the points I put down
above, as well as from the confirmed malice or gross ignorance of my
opponents who are trying to judge divine, subtle and incorporeal
things by means of material imagination against Boethius's statement
in On the Trinity: "In divine matters, we ought to use intellectual con-
cepts and not be led away into imaginings."?! I protest that in the case
of these articles and of all the things I have written in different inter-
pretations of various books of the Bible, as well as in anything and ev-
erything else, I am not held to respond to you or to anyone except the
Pope and the University of Paris. The only exception would be if any-
thing (God forbid!) were perhaps to touch the faith that I always pro-
fess.?? From my own generosity, though with a protestation of the
exemption of my order, I still wanted to write down and present these
things to you so that I do not seem to be avoiding what has been falsely
brought against me.
Furthermore, I am not held to respond to the other articles taken
from the sernions ascribed to me, since even learned and studious cler-
ics take down what they hear frequently and indiscriminately in a false
and abbreviated way. This I will say—I do not judge, have not judged
or held, and have not preached any of them to the extent that they
sound and imply what is false and smack of heresy or error.?? I still
claim that truths are touched upon in some of them that can be upheld
by true and sound understanding. There is no false teaching that does
not have some truth mixed in with it, as Bede says in a homily.?^ I re-
ject them and abhor them where they imply error or at least beget it
in the hearers’ souls. This error or errors cannot and ought not be
blamed on me by the envious. ...?5

74
 LATIN WORKS

C. Conclusion

Finally, I want to note that even though the ignorance and stupid-
ity of those who try to condemn them appear in considering each of
the articles I preached, taught or wrote, their truth also is evident from
the expositions given above. The first mistake they make is that they
think that everything they do not understand is an error and that every
error is a heresy, when only obstinate adherence to error makes heresy
and a heretic, as the laws and the doctors hold.26 The second error is
that although they say they are inquisitors in search of heresy, they
turn to my books and object to things that are purely natural truths.
Third, they object to things as heretical that Saint Thomas openly uses
for the solution of certain arguments and that they either have not seen
or not remembered. An example is the distinction and nature of univ-
ocal, equivocal and analogous terms, and the like.?7
Fourth, they attack as harmful places where I have merely used
the words of Cicero, Seneca and Origen's gloss, such as on the divine
seed in the soul.?? “He who is born from God does not commit sin, be-
cause his seed [i.e., God's] abides in him" (1 Jn. 3:9). Fifth, they attack
many things as erroneous that are the common opinion of the doctors.
An example would be that the exterior act of itself has no moral good-
ness and consequently adds to the goodness of the internal act only ac-
cidentally.2? Likewise, they think that God exists and creates in
another now than the now of eternity,?? although the world was cre-
ated in time?! They do not know what Augustine says: “All tomor-
rows and beyond them, and all yesterdays and what is behind them,
you are making today and have made today. What is it to me if some-
one does not understand this???
Sixth, they oppose some things as false and heretical [and thus im-
ply] that man cannot be united with God, which is against the teaching
of Christ and the Evangelist. “You, Father, are in me, and I am in you,
that they also may be one in us" (Jn. 17:21). Seventh, they say that a
creature or the world is not nothing in itself apart from God, which
is against the Gospel text, “All things were made through him, and
without him was made nothing" (Jn. 1:3). Further, to say that the
world is not nothing in itself and from itself, but is some slight bit of
existence is open blasphemy.?? If that were so, God would not be the
First Cause of all things and the creature would not be created by God
in possessing existence from him. Eighth, they attack the idea that the

75
 MEISTER ECKHART

godlike man can perform God's works, against the teaching of Christ
and the Evangelist: “He who believes in me, the works I do he shall
also do, and greater than these" (Jn. 14:12). Again, they also deny that
the godlike man by means of charity receives the things made in char-
ity that are nothing outside charity, contrary to what the Apostle says
in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. That is enough for now.

II. RESPONSE TO THE LIST OF FIFTY-NINE ARTICLES

A. Introduction

The articles that follow are contained in a list that was shown to
me after I had responded to the articles given above. Know that these
articles that follow, just like the earlier ones, are always or almost al-
ways false and erroneous in the sense in which my opponents take
them, but reasonably and devoutly understood they contain excellent
and useful truths of faith and moral teaching. They demonstrate the
mental weakness and spite of my adversaries, and even their open blas-
phemy and heresy, if they obstinately defend the following points,
which are against the teaching of Christ, the Evangelist, the saints and
the doctors.?^
First, when they say that man cannot be united to God. Second,
when they say that the creature 1s not nothing by itself, but is some
kind of slight existence, as we say a drop of salt water is a slight bit
of the sea. Third, when they say God created the world in another now
than in the now of eternity, although every action of God is his sub-
stance, which is eternal. They do not understand what Augustine in
the first book of the Confessions says to God: "All tomorrows and be-
yond them, and all yesterdays and what is behind them, you are mak-
ing today and have made today. What is it to me if someone does not
understand this??? Augustine's words in Confessions 11:11 say: “Their
heart up to now casts about in vain between the motions of things past
and to come. ... Who shall hold it fast so that it may grasp the beauty
of unchanging eternity?" Fourth, when they say that the exterior act
adds something to the moral goodness of the interior act. Finally, fifth,
when they think that the Holy Spirit and his grace are given to a man
who is not God's son, although the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.
"Because you are sons, God has sent his Spirit into your hearts" (Ga.
4:6). Why give more? It is just about the same with all the objections

76
 LATIN WORKS

they make, such as when they wrongly think it is false to say God is
existence.

B. The Bull "In agro dominico" (March 27, 1329)

John, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, to perpetual memory.

In the field of the Lord over which we, though unworthy, are
guardians and laborers by heavenly dispensation, we ought to exercise
spiritual care so watchfully and prudently that if an enemy should ever
sow tares over the seeds of truth (Mt. 13:28), they may be choked at the
start before they grow up as weeds of an evil growth. Thus, with the
destruction of the evil seed and the uprooting of the thorns of error,
the good crop of Catholic truth may take firm root. We are indeed sad
to report that in these days someone by the name of Eckhart from Ger-
many, a doctor of sacred theology (as is said) and a professor of the or-
der of Preachers, wished to know more than he should, and not in
accordance with sobriety and the measure of faith, because he turned
his ear from the truth and followed fables. The man was led astray by
that Father of Lies who often turns himself into an angel of light in
order to replace the light of truth with a dark and gloomy cloud of the
senses, and he sowed thorns and obstacles contrary to the very clear
truth of faith in the field of the Church and worked to produce harm-
ful thistles and poisonous thornbushes. He presented many things as
dogma that were designed to cloud the true faith in the hearts of many,
things which he put forth especially before the uneducated crowd in
his sermons and that he also admitted into his writings.
From the inquiry previously made against him concerning these
matters on the authority of our Venerable Brother Henry, the Arch-
bishop of Cologne, and at last renewed on our authority in the Roman
curia, we have discovered, as is evident from the same Eckhart's con-
fession, that he preached, taught and wrote twenty-six articles having
the following content.
The first article. When someone once asked him why God had not
created the world earlier, he answered then, as he does now, that God

Jd
 MEISTER ECKHART

could not have created the world earlier,! because a thing cannot act
before it exists, and so as soon as God existed he created the world.?
The second article. Also, it can be granted that the world has ex-
isted from eternity.?
The third article. Also, in the one and the same time when God
was, when he begot his coeternal Son as God equal to himself in all
things, he also created the world.*
The fourth article. Also, in every work, even in an evil, I repeat,
in one evil both according to punishment and guilt, God's glory is re-
vealed and shines forth in equal fashion.°
The fifth article. Also, a person who disparages someone, by the
disparagement itself, that is, by the sin of disparaging, praises God; and
the more he disparages and the more gravely he sins, the more he
praises God.
The sixth article. Also, anyone who blasphemes God himself
praises God.
The seventh article. Also, that he who prays for anything partic-
ular® prays badly and for something that is bad, because he is praying
for the negation of good and the negation of God, and he begs that God
be denied to him.?
The eighth article. Those who are not desiring possessions, or
honors, or gain, or internal devotion, or holiness, or reward or the
kingdom of heaven, but who have renounced all this, even what is
theirs, these people pay honor to God.
The ninth article. Recently I considered whether there was any-
thing I would take or ask from God. I shall take careful thought about
this, because ifI were accepting anything from God, I should be sub-
ject to him or below him as a servant or slave, and he in giving would
be as a master. We shall not be so in life everlasting.?
The tenth article. We shall all be transformed totally into God and
changed into him. In the same way, when in the sacrament bread is
changed into Christ's Body, I am so changed into him that he makes
me his one existence, and not just similar. By the living God it is true
that there is no distinction there.!?
The eleventh article. Whatever God the Father gave to his Only-
Begotten Son in human nature, he gave all this to me. I except nothing,
neither union, nor sanctity; but he gave the whole to me, just as he did
to him.!!
The twelfth article. Whatever holy scripture says of Christ, all
that is also true of every good and divine man.!?

78
 LATIN WORKS

The thirteenth article. Whatever is proper to the divine nature, all

that is proper to the just and divine man. Because of that, this man per-
forms whatever God performs, and he created heaven and earth to-
gether with God, and he is the begetter of the Eternal Word, and God
would not know how to do anything without such a man.!?
The fourteenth article. A good man ought so to conform his will
to the divine will that he should will whatever God wills. Since God
in some way wills for me to have sinned, I should not will that I had
not committed sins; and this is true penitence.!^
The fifteenth article. If a man had committed a thousand mortal
sins, if such a man were rightly disposed he ought not to will that he
had not committed them.!5
The sixteenth article. God does not properly command an exterior
decle
The seventeenth article. The exterior act is not properly good or
divine, and God does not produce it or give birth to it in the proper
sense.
The eighteenth article. Let us bring forth the fruit not of exterior
acts, which do not make us good, but of interior acts, which the Father
who abides in us makes and produces.!?
The nineteenth article. God loves souls, not the exterior work.!?
The twentieth article. That the good man is the Only-Begotten
Son of God.!?
The twenty-first article. The noble man is that Only-Begotten Son
of God whom the Father generates from all eternity.?°
The twenty-second article. The Father gives birth to me his Son
and the same Son. Everything that God performs is one; therefore he
gives me, his Son, birth without any distinction.?!
The twenty-third article. God is one in all ways and according to
every respect so that he cannot find any multiplicity in himself either
in intellect or in reality. Anyone who beholds the number two or who
beholds distinction does not behold God, for God is one, outside and
beyond number, and is not counted with anything.?? There follows:
No distinction can exist or be understood in God himself.?? )
The twenty-fourth article. Every distinction is foreign to God,
both in nature and in Persons. The proof is that the nature itself is one
and this one thing, and each Person is one and that same one thing that
the nature is.?*
The twenty-fifth article. When it says, “Simon, do you love me
more than these men?" (Jn. 21:15sqq.), it means, that is, more than

79
 MEISTER ECKHART

these others—and indeed well, but not perfectly. In the case of what
is more and less there is an order and a degree, but there is no order
and degree in the One. Therefore, whoever loves God more than his
neighbor loves well, but not yet perfectly.?*
The twenty-sixth article. All creatures are one pure nothing. I do
not say that they are a little something or anything, but that they are
pure nothing.?®
In addition, an objection exists against the aforesaid Eckhart that
he preached two other articles under these words.
The first article. There is something in the soul that is uncreated
and not capable of creation; if the whole soul were such, it would be
uncreated and not capable of creation, and this is the intellect.?"
'The second article. That God is neither good, nor better, nor best;
hence I speak as incorrectly when I call God good as if I were to call
white black.??
Now we saw to it that all the above articles were examined by
many doctors of sacred theology, and we ourselves have carefully ex-
amined them along with our brethren. Finally, both from the report
of the doctors and from our own examination we have found the first
fifteen articles in question as well as the two final ones to contain the
error or stain of heresy as much from the tenor of their words as from
the sequence of their thoughts. The other eleven, the first of which be-
gins “God does not properly command, etc.," we have found quite evil-
sounding and very rash and suspect of heresy, though with many
explanations and additions they might take on or possess a Catholic
meaning. Lest articles of this sort and their contents further infect the
hearts of the simple among whom they were preached, and lest in any
way whatsoever they should gain currency among them or others, on
the advice of our brethren mentioned above we condemn and expressly
reprove the first fifteen of these articles and the other two at the end
as heretical, the other eleven as evil-sounding, rash and suspect of her-
esy, and likewise any books or writings of this same Eckhart that con-
tain the above-mentioned articles or any one of them.
If anyone should presume to defend or approve the same articles
in an obstinate manner, we desire and order a process of heresy against
those who would so defend or approve the fifteen articles and the two
last, or any one of them, as well as a process of suspicion of heresy
against those who would defend or approve the other eleven articles
according to their literal sense.
Further, we wish it to be known both to those among whom these

80
 LATIN WORKS

articles were preached or taught, and to any others to whose notice

they have come, that the aforesaid Eckhart, as is evident from a public
document drawn up for that purpose,?? professed the Catholic faith at
the end of his life and revoked and also deplored the twenty-six arti-
cles, which he admitted that he had preached, and also any others,
written and taught by him, whether in the schools or in sermons, in-
sofar as they could generate in the minds of the faithful a heretical
opinion, or one erroneous and hostile to the true faith.?? He wished
them to be considered absolutely and totally revoked, just as if he had
revoked the articles and other matters severally and singly by submit-
ting both himself and everything that he had written and preached to
the judgment of the Apostolic See and our own judgment.
Given at Avignon, on March 27, in the thirteenth year of our pon-
tificate.

81
2. SELECTIONS FROM THE
COMMENTARIES ON GENESIS!

A. PROLOGUE TO THE
WORK OF EXPOSITIONS I?

“In the beginning God created heaven and earth." The third prin-
cipal part of the Three-Part Work, namely the Work of Commentaries, be-
gins here.
By way of preface it should be noted beforehand that I have gone
through the Old and the New Testaments in order from beginning to
end and I have written down whatever came to me then and whatever
I remembered I said about the interpretation of these authoritative
texts at any time. Not to be long-winded, I have taken care to abbre-
viate or to omit completely most of it, especially so that the better and
more useful interpretations that the saints and venerable teachers, par-
ticularly Brother Thomas, have written are not neglected. On a few oc-
casions I decided merely to note where their interpretations are to be
found. Sometimes I thought that they should be briefly discussed. Let
us begin with the words “In the beginning."

B. THE COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF GENESIS?

1. Augustine treats this introduction of the Book of Genesis at

length, especially in his Literal Commentary on Genesis, his On Genesis
against the Manichaeans and in the three final books of the Confessions.
Ambrose and Basil do the same in their Commentaries on the Hexae-
meron.* Rabbi Moses treats it especially in book two, chapter thirty-

82
 LATIN WORKS

one, of the Guide to the Perplexed;? and Thomas in the Summa of Theology
Ia, qq. 44-47, and later qq. 65-74.
"In the beginning God created heaven and earth."
2. Four preliminary points about this text must be discussed.
First, what this "beginning" is in which God is said to have created
heaven and earth.9 Second, how he is said to have created heaven in
the beginning when it says in the Psalm and in Hebrews, “In the be-
ginning, Lord, you founded the earth" (Ps. 101:26; Heb. 1:10), and Ec-
clesiasticus says, He who lives forever created all things at the same
time” (Si. 18:1).7 Third, since what is born one always has the power
to produce only what is one,’ how can God, who is simply one and al-
ways possesses himself in the same way, have produced or created such
different things as heaven and earth, in the beginning and all at the
same time? Fourth, the conclusion from this is that everything except
God possesses existence from somewhere else and from someone else,
and nevertheless nothing is so intimate, so primary and so proper to
anything as its own existence.?
3. On the first point you must recognize that the "principle" in
which “God created heaven and earth" is the ideal reason.!? This is
what the first chapter in John says, “In the principle was the Word"
(the Greek has “Logos,” that is, *reason"), and, later, “All things were
made through him, and without him nothing was made."!! The uni-
versal principle and root of each thing whatever is its reason.!? This
is why Plato held that the ideas or the reasons of things were the prin-
ciples of the existence and knowledge of everything.!? And thus, in the
third place, Averroes in his commentary on the seventh book of the
Metaphysics says that the "what-it-is" of a sensible thing was always
what the ancient philosophers wanted to know because knowing it
they would know the First Cause of everything.!^ Averroes does not
say that God himself is the First Cause (as many erroneously think),
but he calls the “what-it-is” of things (their reason, which the defini-
tion signifies) the First Cause. This reason is the “what” of a thing, and
is the “why” of all its properties.!? Aristotle says that definition and
demonstration differ only in the order of the terms.!é
4. Further, the reason of things is a principle in such a way that
it does not have or look to an exterior cause, but looks within to the
essence alone. Therefore, the metaphysician who considers the entity
of things proves nothing through exterior causes, that is, efficient and
final causes.!? This is the principle, namely the ideal reason, in which

83
 MEISTER ECKHART

God created all things without looking to anything outside himself.

Boethius puts it very clearly in the third book of the Consolation of Phi-
losopby:

Creator of Heaven and earth...

No external causes compelled you.
... You lead all things forth from
The Supreme Exemplar; Most Beautiful Yourself,
You bear the beauteous world in your Mind and form it to
be like that image.!?

5. This is the reason why the saints commonly explain that God
created heaven and earth in the “Principle,” that is, in the Son who is
the Image and Ideal Reason of all things.!? So Augustine says, "He
who denies the ideas denies the Son of God."?? Hence “God created
all things in the principle," that is, in reason and according to the ideal
reason—man according to one reason, lion according to another, and
so on with each creature. Again, he also created all things in reason be-
cause he did so reasonably and wisely—‘‘You have made all things in
wisdom" (Ps. 102:24). In the third book of On Free Choice Augustine
says: "Whatever suggests itself to you as the better course by means of
a true reason, be assured that it has been made by God as the creator
of all good things.”?!
6. In the second place, note that the “principle” in which “God
created heaven and earth” is the nature of the intellect. He made the
heavens in the intellect" (Ps. 135:5). Intellect is the principle of the
whole of nature, as it says in the comment on the ninth proposition of
the Book of Causes with the words “Understanding rules nature
through divine power.” Below it says, "Understanding grasps the
things that are generated, nature and the soul that borders on nature”;
thus concluding, “therefore, understanding contains all things."?? So,
“He created heaven and earth in the principle,” that is, in the intellect.
This is against those who say that God created and produced things
from necessity of nature.??
7. Again, in the third place, the “beginning” in which “God cre-
ated heaven and earth” is the first simple now of eternity. I say that
it is the very same now in which God exists from eternity, in which
also the emanation of the divine Persons eternally is, was and will be.?4
Moses said that God created heaven and earth in the very first begin-
ning in which he himself exists, without any medium or time interval.

84
 LATIN WORKS

So when someone once asked me why God had not created the world
earlier, I answered that he could not because he did not exist. He did
not exist before the world did. Furthermore, how could he have cre-
ated earlier when he had already created the world in the very now in
which he was God??5 It is false to picture God as if he were waiting
around for some future moment in which to create the world. In the
one and the same time in which he was God and in which he begot
his coeternal Son as God equal to himself in all things, he also created
the world.?6 “God speaks once and for all" (Jb. 22:14). He speaks in be-
getting the Son because the Son is the Word; he speaks in creating
creatures, "He spoke and they were made, he commanded and they
were created" (Ps. 32:9). This is why it says in another Psalm, “God
has spoken once and for all and I have heard two things" (Ps. 61:12).??
The “two things" are heaven and earth, or rather “these two," that is,
the emanation of the Persons and the creation of the world, but “he
speaks" them both “once and for all”; “he has spoken once and for all."
So much for the first of the premises.
8. What the first chapter of Hebrews says in agreement with the
Psalm but in reverse order (“In the beginning, Lord, you founded the
earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands," Heb. 1:10) pre-
sents no difficulty. First, because sentences in which the subject and
predicate are reversed still mean the same.?? Second, just as things that
we make not at one time and once and for all, such as the foundation,
wall and roof of a house, can be expressed at one time by a single noun
(e.g., house"), so in reverse manner the things that God makes at the
same time cannot be expressed by us at one time. This is because un-
like us God's speaking is his making, and also unlike us his speaking
is the cause of the entire work and of all its parts. Note that if a house's
matter came completely from the architect and totally obeyed his least
command, then by just thinking of really building a house he would
at the same time bring the house and all its parts into existence. Our
activity, like our knowledge, arises from things, and so depends on
them and is changed when they are. In opposite fashion, things them-
selves take their origin from and depend upon God's knowledge, so
that God's knowledge does not change when they do, because they are
posterior. This is why the Psalmist and Paul later make the important
addition in speaking of the heavens: "You will change them and they
will be changed; but you are the same" (Ps. 101:27; Heb. 1:12).
9. In the third place, it should be noted that because in creatures
nothing is perfect in every way, frequently the last beings in certain

85
 MEISTER ECKHART

ways surpass those that are first. Therefore, the Topics say that when
one of two things is more like something that is better, it itself is not
better than the other unless it is like the better thing in its superior
properties.2? Thus, in relation to stability and immobility the earth
surpasses even the heavens. For this reason Averroes and his followers
locate the heaven through the earth or center.?? You will find more on
this in the proper place in the Work of Questions.?! So the text is appro-
priate, “You, Lord, founded the earth in the beginning" (Heb. 1:10), ac-
cording to the Psalm passage, “You have founded the earth upon its
own stability" (Ps. 103:5). This is the reason why with us motion is nat-
urally and properly ascribed more to the right side, while being fixed
is ascribed to the left. A person who begins to walk puts his right foot
forward while he holds himself fixed on his left,?? and a worker works
with his right hand and holds what he is working on with his left. Con-
cerning the passage in Ecclesiasticus, "He who lives forever created all
things at the same time" (Si. 18:1), you will find sufficient exegesis in
other authors.33 So much for the second main question of the four.
10. In the third place, we have to see the way in which many dis-
tinct and different things, such as heaven and earth and the like, can
immediately exist, or be produced from one simple thing, namely God.
For it says, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." A good
response to this is that an agent who works from necessity of nature
is different from an agent who works through will and intellect, such
as God is, as Thomas says in the Summa Ia. 47. 1.34 What was said
above—that is, “In the principle," namely the intellect, “he created
heaven and earth”—is relevant to this point. Second, Avicenna has a
rather subtle answer to this in his Metapbysics 9.4, but in the passage
cited above Thomas refutes it, and so does Maimonides in the Guide to
tbe Perplexed 2. 23. One of the world's pretentious people used to say
that only one thing can be produced in immediate fashion from one,
that is, from one idea.?5
11. I used to give a different and threefold response to this. First,
even given that God acts from necessity of nature, then I say: God acts
and produces things through his divine nature. But God's nature is in-
tellect, and for him existence is understanding.?9 Therefore, he pro-
duces things in existence through intellect. Consequently, just as there
is no contradiction between his simplicity and his understanding many
things, so too there is none in the case of his producing many things
immediately. Second, fire generates fire and gives warmth through its
form and the property of heat. But if it possessed in equal fashion the

86
 LATIN WORKS

form of water and the property of cleansing and cooling, at the same
time and equally it would generate fire and water, and would warm,
cleanse and cool. But God naturally has prior possession of all forms
and of the forms of all. Therefore, in his natural manner of producing
he can immediately produce different things and everything.
12. Third and better, I say that it is true that only one thing al-
ways proceeds immediately from a single thing that is uniform in re-
lation to itself. But this one thing is the whole universe itself, which
proceeds from God as one whole thing, though in many parts, just as
God himself the producer is one or the simple One in existence, life,
understanding and activity, although he is quite diverse according to
the ideal reasons. It is universally true that a nature first and necessar-
ily looks to and intends the whole in immediate fashion.??
In this case you should note first that the more perfect and simpler
a thing is in existence the richer it is in reasons and powers. For ex-
ample, the rational soul is the most perfect among all the forms of mat-
ter, and therefore is the simplest in existence and substance, but the
richest in powers, as the diversity and distinction of the human body's
organs show and testify. Second, the more perfect the universe or
world is, the simpler its existence and the greater the number and dis-
tinction of its parts.
13. This is the answer to the ignorant question and difficulty of
those who asked whether God produced an angel or some other kind
of creature before the rest. He did not immediately produce this or that
part of the universe, but immediately produced the whole universe, be-
cause, as I say, he would not produce the universe, nor would it be a
universe, if any essential part of it were lacking. If stone or wood or
the nature of the angelic spirit were lacking, it is equally true that it
would not be the universe. So much for the third principle point of the
four cited above.
14. The fourth main point, namely that everything except God
possesses existence from something else and from somewhere else, fol-
lows from what has been said in the following way. We said that “God
created heaven and earth," that is, the highest things, the lowest things
and therefore everything. Creation is the conferring of existence. This
is what Proclus says in the eleventh proposition: “All beings proceed
from one First Cause.”38 Augustine in the first book of the Confessions
puts it this way: “Existence and life flow into us from no other source,
Lord, than from the fact that you create us."?? Do not imagine that ex-
istence comes to us from the outside, because God as the Highest and

87
 MEISTER ECKHART

Supreme is completely natural, delightful and suitable, as the treatise

on “The Superior" in the Work of Propositions shows by argument and
example.*°
Let these points suffice for the present regarding the literal expo-
sition of the text under discussion, “In the beginning God created
heaven and earth.” You will find other interpretations I have put down
in the “General Prologue” to the whole Three-part Work.*!
15. For the moral meaning, note that it says God created “heaven
and earth,” with heaven put first and earth last. This strikes out first
against those who prefer earthly to heavenly things, contrary to Mat-
thew’s text, “Seek first the kingdom of God” (Mt. 6:33). They are like
the dog who in snapping at the shadow of the meat lost the meat it-
self.42 Second, it censures those who do good out of fear rather than
love. Such people first look to the “earth,” that is, the penalty, not the
“heaven,” or love of good. The poet says of them,

Evil men hate sinning for fear of punishment.^?

In chapter thirty-eight of On True Religion Augustine says against such

people that they reverse the pen to write with the blunt end and erase
with the point.** They have their heads on the bottom and their feet
on the top so that heaven is below them. “I saw men as though they
were trees walking about” (Mk. 8:24). So no wonder they have great
labor and suffer much pain, for they are working against nature’s or-
der, against the force of natural inclination, against the order of the
God who “In the beginning created heaven.” “You have set me oppo-
site to you, and I am become burdensome to myself” (Jb. 7:20).
16. Further, it says that God created “heaven and earth in the
principle,” that is, rationally, as interpreted above,*> because the godly
man sets in good order both favorable and unfavorable, both good and
bad, and uses them well, as Romans says: “For those who love God all
things work together unto good” (Rm. 8:28). “In the principle God cre-
ated heaven and earth"—"In the principle,” that is, rationally.
17. Note two points from Rabbi Moses about these words. First:

There is a difference between a principle and what is first. A

principle is something that is in or with that of which it is the
principle even though it does not precede it temporally. Thus
the heart is the principle of the life of animals ... The first
is predicated of something that is older temporally even

88
 LATIN WORKS

though it is not the cause of that which comes after it, as if

we were to say, “Peter was the first to live in that house, and
after him came John." ... The word that begins the book of
Genesis in Hebrew means "principle" and is taken from
"head," that which is the principle of the body of any animal
whatever.^$

18. Second, note that “God created heaven and earth" and every-
thing in them “in their state of being and their beauty, ... in perfect
species and form and with the choice of the proper accidents" at the
same time, even though they do not appear at the same time. The ex-
ample given “... is of the farmer who sows different kinds of seeds in
the earth at the same time. Some come up after one day, some after two
days or three days, but all the seeds were scattered in the one hour."^?
19. A third remark. Summarizing what “In the principle God cre-
ated heaven and earth" means, we can say that “God created heaven
and earth in the principle," that is, in existence, or to existence, or for
the sake of existence, namely, he created them that they might be. “He
created all things that they might be" (Ws. 1:14). Existence is what is
first and it is the principle of all intentions and perfections, as I have
remarked in detail in my commentary on the first chapter of Wis-
dom.^? Second, “He created in the principle," that is, he created in
such a way that things do not exist outside him. The case is different
with every artificer lower than God. The architect makes the house
outside himself. In the fourth book of the Confessions Augustine says,
"He did not create and depart, but the things that are from him are
in-him."4?
20. Third, “He created in the principle," » that is, he created in
such a way that he always creates. “My Father works even until now"
(Jn. 5:17). Fourth, “In the principle,” that is, in the Son. “I am the prin-
ciple" (Jn. 8:25). Here note that just as no one becomes just apart from
the activity of the Justice that gives birth and is as such Unbegotten,
as well as through the activity of the justice that is brought forth, or
Begotten Justice, so too nothing is created that is not from Unbegotten
Existence and in the Begotten Existence that is the Son.°° Fifth, “He
created in the principle," that is, in reason, for reason, the Logos or
Word is the principle and cause of all things.
21. Sixth, *He created heaven and earth in the principle," because
inferior beings have the same primary and equal relation to and in ex-
istence that superior beings do. This accords with the text: “If Iascend

89
 MEISTER ECKHART

into heaven you are there, if I descend into hell you are present" (Ps.
138:8). This is against the view of Avicenna and others who say that
“In the principle God created" the Intelligence and then by its means
created other things.5! All things possess existence immediately and
equally from God alone. An example can be found in the powers of the
soul and the organs of the body, because they all immediately and
equally have existence from the soul, and in this case there is no order
in relation to levels of existence, life and rationality.°? Seventh, "He
created heaven and earth,” that is, good and evil. "Creating evil and
making peace" (Is. 45:7). The existence of evil is required by the per-
fection of the universe, and evil itself exists in what is good and is or-
dered to the good of the universe, which is what creation primarily and
necessarily regards.°?
22. The eighth moral sense. He creates “heaven and earth in the
principle," that is, in the Son, because God gives heavenly and earthly
gifts to the just and perfect man, one who is God's son, as it says in
John, *He gave them the power to become sons of God" (Jn. 1:12).
This agrees with the texts, “He will set him [i.e., the Son] over all his
goods” (Mt. 24:47), and “All power in heaven and earth is given to me"
(Mt. 28:18).
23. Ninth, and still in the moral sense, God creates "heaven" and
hence at the same time with time the "earth," because the godlike man
does everything that he does out of love of the heavenly good. This is
the natural order. Darkness can only be dispelled by light, and cold by
the heat that first comes into something and inheres in it. The imper-
fect man, in that he is unlike God, does the reverse, first creating the
earth (because he acts for the sake of the evil he fears) and later the
heavenly good. ,
24. Tenth, “In the principle he created heaven and earth,” that is,
what is active and what is passive. Although what is active is prior in
dignity to what is passive (just as heaven is to earth), nevertheless they
exist together at the same time,?^ which is what creation means. Again,
form and matter, like heaven and earth, not only exist together at the
same time, but also, just as matter does not have existence without
form and has the essential characteristic of being subject to form and
"informed" without any mediating power, so too, though in reverse or-
der, through its essence and without any intermediary, form receives
existence in matter and in the act of informing. Informing is its very
existence. Form and matter, active and passive, heaven and earth, are

90
 LATIN WORKS

produced at the same time “in the principle," that is, in the act of ex-
istence.
25. Eleventh, God created heaven and earth “in the principle," be-
cause the ideas of things in God look to a double kind of existence,
namely intellectual existence in the soul, which is understood by heav-
en (*He made the heavens in intellect," Ps. 135:5), and also the material
existence outside the soul that is signified through earth. This is why
Plato held that the ideas are the principles of knowledge and of gen-
eration.?? This is what John means, “You call me master and lord" (Jn.
13:13)—master signifies knowledge, lord external activity. And so
twelfth, “heaven” is what is superior, “earth” what is inferior. What
is inferior is always empty and imperfect, what is superior is never so.
I have written about this in the treatise "The Nature of the Superior
and the Inferior."56
26. Finally, it must be observed that it says “God” created “heav-
en and earth in the principle," two things, not more, such as three or
four and so forth. It does not say that he created one thing. The reason
is because by the fact that anything is or has been created it falls away
from unity and simplicity. Unity and simplicity are proper to God and
are his property, as I have written at length on the text “God is one"
(Dt. 6:4; Gal. 3:20).5?? Again, everything that falls away from the One,
the First of all things, immediately falls into two and into the other
numbers by means of duality.
27. And so Ibn Gabirol says that “the question ‘whether a thing
is’ is asked in relation to the One because it is pure existence," and it
alone belongs to God alone, who is “one, exalted and holy.” “Under
him the questions ‘whether a thing is’ and ‘what a thing is’ in the man-
ner of duality belong to the intelligence, which is the first thing below
God. In a threefold way the questions ‘whether a thing is,’ ‘what it is,’
and ‘what sort it is’ belong to the soul. In a fourfold way, the questions
‘whether,’ ‘what,’ ‘what sort,’ and ‘why’ a thing is belong to nature or
the realm of generation that is below the soul. The fourth question re-
fers to the first three.”’>8
28. The first equal number, namely two, is the root of all division,
plurality and number, just as the unequal or the One is the root and
reason of lack of division. So everything that is unequal insofar as it
is unequal is indivisible. The proof of this is that the division of such
a thing cannot be equivalent or equal, but is always unequal, incorrect
and faulty, because it is a division into unequal parts.

91
 MEISTER ECKHART

C. THE BOOK OF THE PARABLES OF GENESIS°?

Prologue
1. Having set forth in the first Commentary what seemed worthy
of note as far as the more evident sense of the Book of Genesis is con-
cerned, our intention in this Book of tbe Parables is to run through some
places both of this book and of others in the holy canon in order to
bring to light the more hidden sense of some things contained in them
in parabolical fashion “under the shell of the letter." I do this to arouse
the more skilled readers to seek better and richer explanations of the
theological, natural and moral truths hidden beneath the form and sur-
face of the literal sense, both in the few passages I briefly treat and in
the many others I omit.9? As Rabbi Moses says, the whole Old Testa-
ment is either “natural science" or "spiritual wisdom."6! “We know
that the Law is spiritual" (Rm. 7:14). Augustine in the sixth book of the
Confessions says:

The authority of sacred scripture appeared so much the more

venerable and more worthy of holy faith to me by just as
much as it was ready at hand for all to read and still hid the
dignity of its secret in a more profound understanding. ... It
offers itself to all in a most humble style of speaking and it
arouses the attention of those who are not light-hearted.®?

This is what Proverbs says, “Like golden apples on silver beds" (Pr.
25:11), which Rabbi Moses explains as follows:

You should understand how agreeable this comparison is, for

every parable has two faces.... The external face must be
beautiful in order to attract; the interior must be more beau-
tiful and compared to the exterior like gold to silver. There-
fore, the truth of scripture is like a golden apple covered with
a net of engraved silver figures. ... When one looks at it from
afar or without understanding, he thinks that it is only silver;
but when a sharp-eyed man looks at it, he will see what lies
hid within and will know that it is gold.9?

Perhaps this is what Wisdom says, “The Holy Spirit of discipline will
flee from what is deceitful and will withdraw itself from thoughts that

92
 LATIN WORKS

are without understanding" (Ws. 1:5). When we can dig out some mys-
tical understanding from what is read it is like bringing honey forth
from the hidden depths of the honeycomb,$* or like rubbing the ears
of grain with our hands to find the hidden kernels in imitation of
Christ's disciples, as Augustine says in a homily.55
2. The reason for this is evident. “The holy men of God spoke as
they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 P. 1:21). The Holy Spirit
teaches all truth (Jn. 16:13). Since the literal sense is that which the au-
thor of a writing intends, and God is the author of holy scripture, as
has been said, then every true sense is a literal sense.66 It is well known
that every truth comes from the Truth itself; it is contained in it, de-
rived from it and is intended by it. Augustine gives an example in the
twelfth book of the Confessions when he speaks of a spring and the
streams that are drawn or flow from it.°” Hence in speaking to God
earlier in the same book he says: “As long as anyone in reading the
holy scriptures is trying to understand what their author meant to say,
what harm is there if he lays hold of something that you, the light of
all truthful minds, shows him to be true, even if the author he is read-
ing did not grasp it—though the author did grasp a truth, just not this
one?"63 Right before that he says, “What harm does it do to me that
different meanings can be taken from the same words as long as they
are true,"9? and true in the single truth of the Light? God, the Truth
Himself, the author of scripture, comprehends, inspires and intends all
truth at one time in his intellect."?? This is the reason why Augustine
says that he made scripture fruitful in such a way that everything that
any intellect could draw from it has been sown in it and sealed upon
it.?! This is also the reason why the philosophers of the Academy used
to hold that all the intellectual sciences, the theological and the natural,
and even the virtues in relation to the ethical sciences, were created to-
gether with the soul."? Plato himself and all the ancient theologians
and poets generally used to teach about God, nature and ethics by
means of parables. The poets did not speak in an empty and fabulous
way, but they intentionally and very attractively and properly taught
about the natures of things divine, natural and ethical by metaphors
and allegories.7? This is quite clear to anyone who takes a good look
at the poets’ stories. As the poet Horace himself says in his Art of Po-
etry:

Poets want either to be useful or to entertain.

93
 MEISTER ECKHART

And later:

He who mingles the useful and the entertaining wins all the
applause.”*

With us the Song of Solomon and John’s Apocalypse disclose the same,
as well as the very name of Solomon’s Proverbs, which are entitled
"Parables."75 Thus it says there, “He shall understand a parable and
its interpretation, the words of the wise and their mysterious sayings"
(Pr. 1:6). Christ, the Truth himself, in parabolical fashion in the Gos-
pels both gives moral instruction and also transmits the general roots
of profound, hidden truths to those who have “ears to hear" (Mt. 13:9,
etc.). “But why go further?" as Ambrose says." Or in Terence's words,
“Why should I linger over many things?"?? There is almost nothing in
sacred scripture that the G/osses of the saints do not explain in a mys-
tical way. A good example of this is the whole of q. 102 of the Prima
Secundae of the Summa."9 As I have noted in my commentary on the six-
teenth chapter of John,?? it was not idly said that the Spirit that Christ
was to send from the Father would teach the disciples all truth (Jn.
16:13).
3. We ought also to add that there is no doubt that anyone who
wishes to search the scriptures in the way we have described will sure-
ly find that Christ is hidden in them. “You search the scriptures ...
and it is they that bear witness to me” (Jn. 5:39); and below, “If you
believed Moses, you would also believe me, for he wrote of me" (Jn.
5:46). "I have used similitudes by the hands of the prophets" (Hos.
12:10). No one can be thought to understand the scriptures who does
not know how to find its hidden marrow—Christ, the Truth. Hidden
under the parables we are speaking of are very many of the properties
that belong to God alone, the First Principle, and that point to his na-
ture. Enclosed there are to be found the virtues and the principles of
the sciences,®° the keys to metaphysics, physics and ethics, as well as
the universal rules. Also there we find the most sacred emanation of
the divine Persons with their property of distinction under and in one
essence, one act of existence, life and understanding. We find the pro-
duction of creatures derived from them as their exemplar. We find
how the Unbegotten Father, the Son Begotten from the Father alone,
and the Holy Spirit breathed forth or proceeding from the Father and
the Son as one principle, the Essential Concomitant Love and Notional

94.
 LATIN WORKS

Love, shine out in every natural, ethical and artistic work.8! This will
soon be clear in this Book of tbe Parables of Genesis, even in the first chap-
ten.
4. Three preliminary remarks must be made to this Book of the
Parables. The first is that you must not think that from the parables we
intend to prove divine, natural and ethical truths through parabolical
arguments of this kind.?? Rather, we intend to show that what the
truth of holy scripture parabolically intimates in hidden fashion agrees
with what we prove and declare about matters divine, ethical and nat-
ural.
5. The second is that there are two kinds of parables, as Rabbi Mo-
ses teaches in the introduction to the Guide to tbe Perplexed. 'The first
kind or mode of parable is when “every, or almost every, word of the
parable separately stands for something. The second mode is when the
whole parable is the likeness and expression of the whole matter of
which it is a parable."85? Then indeed “many words" are introduced
that do not directly relate to the details of the matter of the parable,
"but which are used for the beauty of the comparison and parable, or
for the deeper concealment of the matter of the parable according to
what agrees with its surface meaning."?^ An example of the first mode
is the passage in Genesis, chapter twenty-eight, where in a dream Jacob
saw a ladder that stood on the earth, and so forth. An example of the
second mode is what Proverbs, chapter five, says about prime matter
under the parable of the adulterous woman, “Do not pay attention to
a deceiving woman; the lips of a harlot are like a dripping honeycomb,
etc." (Pr. 5:2-3).85
6. The third preliminary remark. I have passed over much in re-
lation to these parabolical passages and have briefly set down only a
few things merely in order to stimulate students to treat similar pas-
sages more fully. The proofs and extended treatments of the parabol-
ical passages I treat here are to be sought out more fully in the Work
of Questions and in the Work of Commentaries.
7. 'The mode of proceeding in the work is this. First, the text itself
will always be literally interpreted. Second, the things that seem to be
hidden in parabolical fashion under the words of each text will be
treated in a summary and succinct way. Third, the nature and prop-
erties of the divine, natural or ethical truths contained under the par-
able or surface of the letter will be explained in a more extensive way.
The end of the Prologue to the Book of the Parables of Genesis.

95
 MEISTER ECKHART

Chapter One

Verse 1. In tbe beginning God created beaven and eartb.

8. This text was interpreted in many ways in the first Genesis
commentary. Now I wish to show how these words suggest first the
production or emanation of the Son and the Holy Spirit from the Fa-
ther in eternity, then the production or general creation of the whole
universe from the one God in time, and many of the properties of both
Creator and creature.®®
9. You should know that in every natural action or production
that is directed to what is outside the one who produces and which im-
plies a passage from something that is not an existing being to some-
thing that is, the principle of such production has the nature of a cause
and that which is produced has the name and nature of an external ef-
fect. The first point is clear from Aristotle, who says: “A cause is that
to which or from which something follows."?7 The second point
stands from the name itself. “Effect” is derived from extra factus, or
"made outside the maker." From this it follows that what is produced
in that way has the nature of something created or a creature, both be-
cause it is produced outside the producer and also because it is pro-
duced from something that is not an existing being to become some
existing being, for example, a horse from what was not a horse,®® some-
thing white from what was not white.5? From this first conclusion re-
garding natural productions it is clear that in the Godhead, since every
production or emanation is not directed to what is outside the produc-
er, and is not from something that is not an existing being or from
nothing, and in the third place is not directed to particular existence,
what is procreated does not have the nature of something made or cre-
ated and is not an effect. It is also clear that the producer does not have
the nature of a creator or a cause, and that what is produced is not out-
side the producer and is not different from it, but is one with it. “I am
in the Father, and the Father is in me" (Jn. 14:11); “The Father and
I are one" (Jn. 10:30). In the Godhead the Son and the Holy Spirit are
not from nothing, but are “God from God, light from light, one light,
one God” with the Father.?? “These three are one" (1 Jn. 5:7). This is
why it says here, “God created heaven and earth.” Creation is a pro-
duction from nothing; heaven and earth are particular beings. As we
said, the Son and the Holy Spirit are not particular beings, but are sim-
ple, total and full existence.?! They are not from nothing.
10. The second point is that in nature the first thing in any genus

96
 LATIN WORKS

is always one.?? Therefore, what is simply first in all things is perfectly

one “in complete simplicity."9?? This is what the text says, “In the prin-
ciple God created.” “Created” is in the singular and so is “God,” since
it is speaking about what is simply one. As if giving the reason for the
unity of God and of his activity it begins by saying "In the principle."
By the fact that God is the simple principle he is God and is one, and
it follows that his activity is necessarily one insofar as it is in him and
from him. For what is in the One is one, just as what is in Wisdom is
wise and what remains in Justice is just.?^ This is what this text sig-
nifies, “In the principle he created,” that is, because he is the principle,
or based on the fact that he is the principle, he is God, he is one, and
his activity is one. It says “God created"—one creation and one Cre-
ator.
11. The third point is that in nature, according to the Philosopher,
what is one, as long as it remains one, is always geared to make what
is one, and thus what proceeds from what is one insofar as it is one is
always one.?° Again, from the same reason what proceeds outside the
One necessarily falls away into plurality. The first fall or departure
and lapse from the One sinks into what is two and only two. The rea-
son for this 1s evident from what was said above. What remains in the
One by this fact and this alone is one; therefore, what falls from the
One and proceeds outside it, since it is divided and distinct from the
One, is no longer one. So then, just as everything that the One pro-
duces as an effect (i.e., as made outside itself) necessarily as something
produced falls outside the One and into number and division, the same
is true of the reverse. Everything that the One produces that is not an
effect, or something made on the outside, is necessarily one inasmuch
as it remains in the One. It is not an effect, or something made on the
outside, but it is before what is made,?® prior in nature to what is
made, not divided from the One, but one with the One, from the One,
through the One and in the One—one, I say, in unity, entity, wisdom
and in all similar immanent things. It is produced indeed, but it is not
made, or something different or created. This is what is expressly said
here: *He created heaven and earth," two things that are divided and
numbered because they are created. Moses says, "He created heaven
and earth."
12. The first point that follows from this concerning the Godhead
is that a Person who proceeds and is produced, but is not brought forth
on the outside, namely outside the One (I refer to the Son and the Holy
Spirit who are not outside the One, but are the same as the One and

97
 MEISTER ECKHART

the one Unity itself), is not an effect of the Father to whom unity is
attributed.?” They are not made as effects outside the One, outside the
Father; they are prior and before all making and creating.?® Therefore,
there is no division or exteriority or anything that implies any of the
above in these Persons.
13. The second point that follows from this is that the Son is in
the Father and the Father in the Son (“I am in the Father and the Fa-
ther is in me,” Jn. 14:11), and that the Son is one with the Father (“The
Father and I are one,” Jn. 10:30). The same is true of the Holy Spirit,
who is in the Son and the Son in him. He is in the Father and the Fa-
ther is in him; he is “with the Son and with the Father.”?? This is why
“These three are one" (1 Jn. 5:7), both because the Son and Holy Spirit
proceed from and remain in the One, “in whom there is no number,”
as Boethius says,!?? and also because they are prior to everything that
is on the outside and to the fall into what is exterior. The same holds
in the case of everything that proceeds from the One, but does not
withdraw and depart from it. Hence what is in God is not created or
made, but is prior to all this. The Father is not the cause of such
things.!?! The same is true universally of everything that either is one,
or is convertible with the One, or proceeds from and remains in the
One. Such a thing is prior to what falls away from the One or implies
a fall from it.
14. The third point that follows is that he who proceeds is a dif-
ferent Person but not a different thing from him from whom he pro-
ceeds. "Different thing" as neuter pertains to nature or essence;
"different Person" is masculine and belongs to the person or suppos-
it.10? Since it is neither masculine nor feminine, what is neuter neither
begets nor is begotten, but what is male or masculine has the property
of begetting. It would not beget if there were not someone to be be-
gotten. This is why Augustine says: “If there is a Father, he begets; if
he is always a Father, he always begets.’’103
15. The fourth point that follows is that “The works of the Trin-
ity are indivisible."!9^ The one activity that belongs to the Father also
belongs to the Holy Spirit and the Son. Thus the words “God created,”
for God is one in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The activity is one,
for Moses says "created" in the singular. The one God and his one ac-
tivity are not divided into many different things, but they unite many
things and gather together what has been divided. Thus, the One or
Unity is not divided into numbers, but unites numbers in itself accord-
ing to Proclus's principle, “Every multitude somehow participates in

98
 LATIN WORKS

the One."!05 Every number is one number—something as true of a

thousand as it is of eight. Macrobius puts it this way: “The One...
which is called Unity is both male and female, odd and even. It is not
a number, but the source .. . of all numbers. Although it is not a num-
ber or numbered, it creates from itself and contains within itself innu-
merable kinds of numbers. ... It does not permit any division of its
unity."!96 His message is that the One or Unity is not divided or num-
bered in numbers or in the things that are enumerated, but gathers and
unites numbers and what is enumerated into itself. This is why we
have “God” in the singular here.
16. The fourth main thing to be noted is that because nature does
not make a leap,!?? but descends in an ordered process or progressive
order by degrees and the smallest steps possible, therefore the first fall-
ing away and departure from the One is into two and only two. This
is what the text means. "In the beginning," that is, first of all, *God
created heaven and earth." “God,” the One, "created heaven and
earth," that is, what was twofold. This is very clearly put in the Psalm,
“Once and for all God has spoken two things" (Ps. 61:12), and in Job,
"God speaks once and for all and does not repeat the selfsame a second
time" (Jb. 33:14). The repetition by means of which something is said
“once and for all and yet a second time" does not touch the “Self-
same, "!98 that is, God insofar as he produces, but it touches the things
that are produced outside him who is one and whose activity is one.
Thus the Psalm text: “You will change them and they will be changed;
but you are always the Selfsame" (Ps. 101:27-28). In the ninth book of
the Confessions Augustine says to God: “You are surpassingly that Self-
same that does not change, and in you is rest . . . since there is no other
besides you, .. . but you, O Lord, are unique."!0?
17. There are three points to be noted in relation to these remarks
for their clarification. First, number and division always belong to im-
perfect things and come from imperfection. In itself number is an im-
perfection, because it is a falling away or lapse outside the One that is
convertible with being. This is the reason why only inferior and cor-
ruptible beings are numbered and divided under a single species.!!?
18. Second, just as all things desire existence, as Avicenna says;,!!!
so too they detest and avoid number and imperfection inasmuch as it
is a departure or fall from existence. The greater the departure from
the One that is convertible with being, the more offensive a thing is
to God and nature. This is why the fall from the One is first into two,
because of all the numbers this is the least distant and fallen from the

99
 MEISTER ECKHART

One and from existence. And so it says, “In the beginning God created
heaven and earth," that is, the One created two things.
19. From which follows a third, because if the question arises why
ten is a larger number than eight, I would answer that the reason is
because it is more and further distant from the One than eight is. For
example, the reason why someone is a fool is because he falls away
from prudence, and the further he falls away from it and the more dis-
tant he is, the more a fool he is. Again, the more and more varied the
ways that anyone departs from the good, the worse he is or the more
evil. If someone perhaps says that ten is a larger number than eight be-
cause ten has more units collected and contained in it than does
eight,!!? I would not disagree, but I prefer the first explanation. If this
second reason is well investigated it will be seen to have its efficacy
from the first reason, as the two examples given above show. Thus, ac-
cording to the first reason, two is the least distant number from the
One, from existence and from perfection. It has the least degree of im-
perfection. Therefore, the first departure from the One, existence and
perfection immediately arrives at two, and this is again signified here
in saying, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth,” that is,
the first fall of all is from the One into two, from unity into number,
from what is perfect, undivided and indistinct into imperfection, divi-
sion and distinction, and from the whole into parts. Parts are always
many; they are divided and distinct from one another and are subject
to number.
20. The fifth observation. In nature nothing is counted in its prin-
ciple; it does not form a plural number with it.!!? Again, the principle
of anything is never the thing itself, but is outside and above the genus
of the thing of which it is the principle. For example, a point has no
quantity of magnitude and does not lengthen the line of which it is the
principle.!!^ Nothing that involves the genus of magnitude belongs to
the point. Second, the same is true with the One that is the principle
of numbers: It is not a number and is not numbered with any of the
numbers of which it is the principle, but rather it changes the species
of the number to which it is added. Unity acting as a principle of the
number six does not make six more than itself, but makes it exactly and
absolutely six. Third, the principle of a changeable and divisible thing
is not changeable and is not divided when the thing of which it is the
principle is. As Augustine says, the idea of the corruptible circle does
not corrupt, but is eternal.!!5 The idea of the circle is not enumerated
along with the circle and is not subject to number, but it is and remains

100
 LATIN WORKS

one in every circle. Circles are not different in their idea, that is, their
principle, but are one. As a wise man says, *Many men are one man
by participation in the idea of man."!!6 Outside the idea that is their
principle circles are directly divided and numbered, first and necessar-
ily into two. Therefore, a genus necessarily requires a minimum of two
species; one does not suffice.!!? Again, privation and possession, two
things, are the root of all oppositions. This is why it says here, “In the
principle God created heaven and earth." Logos, idea and principle are
the same. "In the principle was the Logos," that is, the idea, according
to the Greek. So then, “In the principle,” namely in the One, the one
"God created heaven and earth," two things, by one activity.
21. Now for the second interpretation of “In the principle God
created heaven and earth." These words point to the nature of the
principles of the whole created universe, both in relation to their pri-
mary distinction and also to what characterizes them as distinct. As far
as the primary distinction goes, recognize that the entire universe cre-
ated by God is distinguished into two principles, the active and the
passive. These two can be found in every nature, as the third book of
On tbe Soul says.!!® This is what it means here: “In the principle God
created heaven and earth," that is, two principles of everything that ex-
ists, the active and the passive. “Heaven” is the active, the first “un-
changeable thing that changes others'";!!? “earth” is the passive
inasmuch as it is especially material.
22. As far as the second point goes, namely concerning what char-
acterizes the two distinct principles that are active and passive, heaven
and earth, six things must be noted. The first is that heaven and earth
do not have any common matter and consequently do not belong to
one genus, except in a merely logical sense.!?? As a universal rule what
is active in relation to an entire species, because it is truly and simply
active, naturally speaking never shares a real genus with the passive
thing it acts upon. It is always outside and above the genus of what is
passive.!?! Second, what is active in the way in which heaven is, is not
acted upon when it acts. It is not affected, and therefore does not be-
come weary or old, but always acts uniformly.!??
23. Third, the effect of an active cause of the sort that is suggested
here by the word “heaven” does not remain in the thing subject to the
action in the absence of the active cause. For example, in contrast to
heat, light does not remain in a medium in the absence of a luminous
body.!23 The reason is because the effect or the impression of such an
active cause on what it acts upon does not have any root in the latter

101
 MEISTER ECKHART

and does not adhere to or inhere in it. The thing subject to the action
always constantly receives the effect of what perfects it from without,
that is, from the active cause where the root of the perfection is found.
This is the reason why it is always in a state of becoming and becoming
is its very existence.
24. 'The reason is from what has been said. The root of light is
heaven or heaven's form, which can never be shared with a body made
up of elements. The root and foundation of heat is the form of fire,
which can be received by the matter of the medium. For this reason
the medium itself can be disposed for and changed into the form of fire
by the heat of an illuminating or active body, and thus heat and fire
send out a root into the medium that adheres to and inheres in it and
becomes in a somewhat imperfect way an heir of the form of fire and
the accompanying heat. It is otherwise with the form of heaven to
which the medium can never be disposed in the slightest way. The rea-
son is because nature, which does not act in vain,!?* never begins what
it cannot complete. Therefore, neither heaven's form nor light, its
proper quality, sends out a root in air or in any element whatever.
Consequently, light never stays in a medium in the absence of a lumi-
nous body because it does not have a root there. “They possess no
roots" (Lk. 8:13)—a parable that is to be understood not only morally,
but also naturally in relation to the variety of formal perfections, as I
will indicate about this text.!?5 I have noted it in commenting on the
verse, “He will cleave to his wife" (Gn. 2:24), in the second chapter.!26
25. Thus the fourth point, what is passive always thirsts for what
is active even when drinking it. “They that drink me, shall yet thirst"
(Si. 24:29), as I have explained more fully in commenting on this
verse.1?? ;
From this comes the fifth point, that what is passive is universally
the praise, honor and glory of its essential active cause. “The woman
is the glory of the man" (1 Co. 11:7)—the woman signifies what is pas-
sive, the man what is active. Earlier in the same chapter it says, “Christ
is the man's head" (1 Co. 11:3). Paul here signifies the four orders of
active and passive principles, as I have fully explained in commenting
on this verse.!?? The same point is made in the verse, “Honor and glo-
ry belong to God alone" (1 Tm. 1:17), and “Bless the Lord, all you
works of the Lord, etc." (Dn. 3:57). Scripture is full of such passages
that everywhere teach that no one is to give praise and honor to him-
self, but only to God.!?? From what has been said it will be clear that
in and from every perfection and good of its own the passive principle

102
 LATIN WORKS

proclaims and testifies to its own need and indigence, and announces
the riches and mercy of the active principle that is its superior. It nat-
urally teaches that what it possesses it does not have from itself as
something that inheres in it, but that it has begged it and received it
as something that is continually on loan. It has it in passing, as a re-
ception, and not like a received quality given by its superior active
cause.!?? Thus, its act of existence is not its own, but it is from another
and in another to whom is “all honor and glory" because it is his.!?!
For example, an expensive coat that a servant wears when he attends
his master does not give honor to the servant but to the master, because
it belongs to him and not the servant.
26. The sixth point follows. The active principle of which we are
speaking takes nothing at all from its passive principle and is not for-
mally affected by anything that belongs to it or exists in it. In contrast,
everything that is in the passive principle insofar as it is passive is all
a complete gift that the active principle itself has poured into its pas-
sive counterpart. This is the significance of the words, “In the prin-
ciple God created heaven and earth," that is, two principles of all
created beings, the active and the passive. "Heaven" is the active,
"earth" is the passive. Thus under a metaphor and in parabolical fash-
ion with the words “heaven” and “earth” we have a suggestion of the
nature, natural property and the number of the first principles of the
whole created universe.
27. In addition you should know that the same metaphor teaches
us a moral lesson, namely, who the godlike, perfect and celestial man
is and what his character is, and the same for the vicious, diabolical and
earthly man. “Their glory is in their shame who mind the things of
earth, but our citizenship is in heaven” (Ph. 3:19-20). “There are heav-
enly bodies and earthly bodies.... The first man was of the earth,
earthly, the second man is from heaven, heavenly. As was the earthly
man, such also are the earthly; and as is the heavenly man, such also
are the heavenly" (1 Co. 15:40, 47-48). It is evident who the celestial
and terrestrial man is and what his character is from the properties of
heaven and earth referred to previously. But enough of this.
28. Now for a third interpretation of “In the beginning God cre-
ated heaven and earth," in which “heaven” and "earth" are paraboli-
cally understood as form and matter.!?? The first thing to recognize is
that matter and form are not two beings, but are two principles of cre-
ated beings. This is what the text says: "In the beginning God created
heaven and earth," that is, form and matter, the two principles of

103
 MEISTER ECKHART

things. Second, note that form and matter are related in such a way
that matter is for the sake of form, not the contrary. “Man was not cre-
ated for woman, but woman for man" (1 Co. 11:9).
29. Third, recognize that despite the fact that matter exists for the
sake of form, nevertheless substantial form has no more power to exist
without matter than matter does without form, as Avicenna teaches in
the second book of his Metaphysics.133 This is why after the Apostle said
that *woman was for man," he added, "Yet neither is man independent
of woman, nor woman of man" (1 Co. 11:11).
30. Fourth. Matter is its own passive potency,!?^ and form its own
act, and thus the potency that is active and passive on respective sides
is not something that is added to the substance, but the matter and the
form, each in its own way, in themselves are the naked substance.
What is said of man and woman in Genesis, chapter two, is a figure
of this, “They were both naked, Adam and his wife" (Gn. 2:25). What
follows (“They were not ashamed"), and almost everything put down
there about Adam and Eve, is a very beautiful and exact figurative ex-
pression of the properties of matter and form, as will appear regarding
chapter two below.!?5
31. The fifth thing to be known, following from what we said
about point four, is that there is no medium or disposition between
form and matter, as book two of On the Soul says.1?6 Moses says, “They
were both naked, Adam and his wife," man and woman, form and mat-
ter. From this text it is evident that there can be no doubt that every
substantial form that matter initially, necessarily and essentially looks
toward is united to it for the purpose of existence without any medium
or disposition. The matter of such a substantial form looks toward and
desires the essence, not anything outside the essence and existence of
form. Thus it is à universal rule that any receptive potency, such as the
soul's powers, must always be naked. For example, the power that re-
ceives color must be without any color, and the same for the others.!37
It is also a universal rule that the same body cannot receive different
forms at the same time. Everything is always formed out of what is
without form; this is its process of becoming. It is different in the case
of actual existence, for nothing is at the same time both without form
and with form or given form by two forms. Here you should note that
if matter and form were united in some medium, or if they were not
united through their substances, but through different powers belong-
ing to the essence of each, it would follow that what they compose

104
 LATIN WORKS

would not be properly one, but merely united. It would not be one
substantially, but accidentally. Every receptive and passive potency
must be stripped of every act, and every active potency as such must
be stripped of everything received, for he says, “They were both na-
ked." For this reason “A simple form cannot be a subject” according
to Boethius.!3* Therefore the Philosopher also says that the power of
sight must be free from color,!?? and later (as if it followed from this)
says that the power of sight and the visible object are one in act.!49
T'wo beings in act or two beings in potency never make a third that
is truly and simply one.
32. Relevant to this nakedness is the saying of Anaxagoras that the
intellect must be separated, unmixed and naked in order to under-
stand.!^! Aristotle himself says that the intellect must be an empty or
naked tablet.!*? The greater the nakedness, the greater the union.
Therefore, prime matter, since among the passive and receptive pow-
ers it alone is utterly naked and pure, is worthy to receive the utterly
first act, which is existence or form.
33. The sixth point is that matter and form are the two principles
of things in such a way that they are still one in existence and have one
act of existence and one activity. Operation follows existence. This is
what the figure in chapter two declares, ‘They were two in one flesh”
(Gn. 2:24). And so the sense faculty and the sense object, the intellect
and the intelligible object, though two in potency, are one in act. The
one act belongs to both. The faculty of sight is actually seeing and the
visible object is actually seen in the same utterly simple act.!*?
34. There is still a fourth explanation of "In the beginning God
created heaven and earth,” in which “heaven” is understood as that
"by-which-a-thing-is," or its act of existence, and “earth” is understood
parabolically as that which a thing is, or its essence and “what-it-is.”
These two things are different in every created being and are the prin-
ciples and properties of all created things.!^^ Only in the uncreated be-
ing is that by which it is and that which it is one and the same, and
this is so because it is uncreated. This is what the text means, “In the
beginning God created heaven and earth," that is, he created two prin-
ciples of all beings that have been created by the very fact that they
have been created, namely that by which they are and that which they
are. These two are two and not one in every created being and only
in created being. The reason is that everything that comes from an-
other and has been created has existence, or that by which it is, from

105
 MEISTER ECKHART

another. That which it is (its “what-it-is”) it does not have from an-
other, as Avicenna says.!45 That man is an animal is not something
possessed from another. Whatever thing is established as really existing
or not, it is still always true that man is an animal. But the fact that
a man actually exists he has from another. Thus in every created being
and only in created being that by which it is and that which it is are
the two properties and principles of creatures. This is the meaning of
"In the beginning God created heaven and earth."
35. There is a fifth way that this passage can be explained in par-
abolical fashion in which “heaven” is understood as the existence that
created things have in their original causes (think of color in light and
heat in the sun), and "earth" is taken as the formal existence things
have in themselves.!^9 There is still a sixth explanation of "In the be-
ginning God created heaven and earth" where “heaven” is taken as the
existence of things under the aspect of truth by which they are direct-
ed to the intellect (“He made the heavens in intellect," Ps. 135:5), and
"earth" is taken as the existence of things under the aspect of goodness
(“The things he made were very good," Gn. 1:31).!^? I have written
more on these last two interpretations in my first commentary on Gen-
esis i$?
36. A seventh explanation of “In the beginning God created heav-
en and earth" understands "heaven" as the good and “earth” as evil.
“Tam the Lord ... forming the light and creating the darkness. I make
peace and create evil" (Is. 45:6—7). In my exposition of this passage I
have given a full argument and proof of this.!^? These are some of the
natural and divine truths that seem to be hidden and concealed in par-
abolical fashion under the words, “In the beginning God created heav-
en and earth." There is still an eighth one where "heaven" is
understood as the intellectual nature and “earth” as the bodily nature,
but I have spoken of this in the first commentary and below on chapter
twenty-nine.150
37. As far as moral meaning is concerned there are ten points to
note. First, that the godlike and virtuous man ought to strive for God
and heavenly things first of all, and secondarily and almost by accident
for temporal things. "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice,
and all these things shall be given to you besides" (Mt. 6:33). For in this
text "heaven" comes first and "earth" follows after it. From this you
can deduce that simony is committed both in spiritual matters and in
the things that are connected to them, for Moses says “heaven and

106
 LATIN WORKS

earth." Second, we are taught to do good works from love not fear.
Love is understood in “heaven” and fear in "earth." “You have not re-
ceived a spirit of bondage in fear, but a spirit of adoption as God's
sons" (Rm. 8:15).
38. Third, “heaven” and “earth” are slave and son. Augustine says
on Psalm 32: “You are a slave, be also a son! From a good slave become
a good son. Do not do evil out of fear and you will learn not to do it
also out of love. The punishment that deters you has some of justice's
beauty."!?! Fourth, “heaven” and “earth” are the heavenly man and
the terrestrial man. “The first man was of the earth, earthly; the sec-
ond man is from heaven, heavenly" (1 Co. 15:47). Immediately before
that comes, “It is the sensual and not the spiritual that comes first” (1
Co. 15:46). Fifth, “heaven” and “earth” are the sensual man and the
spiritual man: “The sensual man does not perceive the things that are
of the Spirit of God, ... but the spiritual man judges all things" (1 Co.
2:14-15).
39. Sixth, “heaven” and "earth" are Sarah and Hagar and their
sons, as in Genesis, chapter sixteen, and Galatians, chapter four.!5?
Seventh, “heaven” and “earth” are flesh and spirit.!5? ““The flesh lusts
against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh" (Ga. 5:17); and “He
who sows in the flesh from the flesh will reap corruption, but he who
sows in the spirit, from the spirit will reap life everlasting" (Ga. 6:8).
“Tf you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if you put to death
the deeds of the flesh in the spirit, you will live" (Rm. 8:13). Eighth:
"heaven" and “earth” are reason and the sensitive faculty in man, as
I have remarked below on the third chapter concerning the serpent
and Adam and Eve.!5* Or you can also say that “heaven” and “earth”
are the superior and inferior reason in one man, as Augustine treats
in On the Trinity 12.7 and 8 and 13.1,155
40. Ninth. *Heaven" and "earth" are the fault that perverts order
and the penalty always joined to it that punishes the fault and restores
order. In the Confessions Augustine says, “Every disordered soul pun-
ishes itself ;!56 and Seneca says in Letter 87, “The great punishment
of evildoers lies in themselves; they are being punished as soon as they
commit crimes."!57 Tenth, “heaven” and "earth" are charity and cu-
pidity, the roots of the two cities of life everlasting and the pains of
hell.!58 In our explanation of the order of nature we already discussed
how far cupidity can be said to be from God.!?? You will find other
things pertaining to the moral meaning in our first commentary. . . .1°°

107
 MEISTER ECKHART

Chapter Three

Verse 1. Now tbe serpent was more subtle tban any of tbe beasts of
tbe eartb.

135. Note that this chapter teaches us very clearly about three
things, though in parabolic fashion: First, the natures of things; sec-
ond, the nature of our intellect and how it knows; and third, moral in-
struction regarding everyman's escape from or fall into sin, as well as
the punishments that lead sinners back to virtue and virtue's Lord. For
the present it is enough to remember that in the twelfth book of On
the Trinity Augustine explains the moral meaning of the serpent as the
sensitive faculty that we share with brute beasts, the woman as the ra-
tional faculty that is directed to external things, and the man as the su-
perior rational faculty that cleaves to God.!9! In chapters eight and
nine of the same book he teaches us especially about sins and their pun-
ishment. A second main point to note is that from this it is clearly ev-
ident that sacred scripture must be interpreted in a parabolic
fashion.!9? The saints and doctors generally interpret what is said in
this third chapter in parabolic fashion, saying that the serpent is the
sensitive faculty, the woman the inferior reason, and the man the su-
perior reason.!6?
136. This said, it seems that without prejudice to other interpre-
tations, both historical and tropological, of the saints and doctors it is
perhaps probably correct to say that the tropological sense of the ser-
pent, the woman and the man is the same as the historical or literal.!64
This is also true of the passage in Judges: “The trees went to anoint
a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us' " (Jg.
9:8). And so when we say “the meadow laughs" or “water runs,” the
literal meaning is that the meadow is in flower and its flowering is its
laughing and its laughing is its flowering.!95 If we interpret what is
said here about the serpent, the woman and the man according to this
principle many doubtful questions that are usually brought up vanish,
such as how the serpent and the woman spoke to each other and the
like. A second advantage of this approach is that this interpretation of
the passage easily explains various texts in different books of both Tes-
taments. Yet a third is that it generally makes clear what actions are
good and what better, and what sins are bad and what worse or more
grave.
137. Fourth, it will be evident that in the words “serpent, woman

108
 LATIN WORKS

and man" are expressed the substantial being and nature of the human
creature and how it is constituted in relation to its principles and their
natural properties. It will also be evident how the serpent, namely the
sensitive faculty, can truly and literally speak to the woman, that is, the
inferior reason, and how that inferior rational faculty speaks with its
superior and how this highest faculty speaks to God, as well as how
God addresses all three. It will also be clear how these three things are
related to man's threefold state, that is, before sin, under sin and after
sin. Each of the three things by nature belongs to the essential prin-
ciples of man.
138. In order to prove this I assume that man, inasmuch as he is
a rational animal and made to God's image,!® is something higher
than the sensitive faculty and is an intellectual being. In us intellect is
like a naked and empty tablet, according to the Philosopher,!6 and, as
the Commentator says, in the order of intellectual beings it has the
same place as prime matter does in the order of corporeal beings.!6®
Moreover in our case “we cannot understand without phantasms,’’!©9
just as we cannot “weave or build without corporeal instruments."!79
"Imagination is a movement produced by sensation."!?! All the prem-
ises from the first to the last make it necessary for the integrity of man
that he have a sensitive faculty. This sensitive faculty is by nature un-
der the intellective faculty, and like a servant it 1s outside the genus of
what is intellective through its essence, because it serves man's intel-
lect with the phantasm without which we cannot understand. We have
an example in bodily things where change, which is concerned with
accidental qualities, is at the service of generation, which dwells upon
and is interested in essential things. It is the handmaid of generation,
although it is outside generation's species and has its own. Again, just
as in the case of generation in bodily things we find two principles un-
der the same species, namely form and matter, the active and the pas-
sive,!?? so too our intellectual faculty is distinguished into a superior
part and an inferior one, which Avicenna calls the two faces of the
soul,!73 but which Augustine calls superior reason and inferior rea-
Son.!74
139. In the second place, I assume that everything that is and that
is good “has been made and ordered by God" (Rm. 13:1). It is order
that makes something good, so that it is impossible for there to be good
outside order and conversely for there to be evil where order exists.'?°
A natural order is one in which the highest point of what is inferior
touches the lowest point of its superior.!76 In us the highest point of

109
 MEISTER ECKHART

the soul is the intellect. This is why Rabbi Moses in the next to last
chapter of his whole work says that “The intellect that is poured out
upon us" (“The light of your countenance is signed upon us, O Lord,”
Ps. 4:7), this intellect, I say, “is what joins us to the Creator."!?? God,
the Creator, “regards us in the same light and is always with us, as Da-
vid said: ‘In your light we will see light’ " (Ps. 35:10).178 Augustine says
that the superior reason is always directed to, cleaves to, is joined to
and beholds the unchangeable rules that are set above it in God, ac-
cording to his version of the Psalm text, “I have poured out my soul
upon me" (Ps. 41:5).179 In Confessions 10.26 he says: “Where have I
found you that I might know you, save in yourself above me?"199 This
order and mutual glance between God and the height of the soul is
completely natural, full of truth and delight, inasmuch as it is totally
appropriate and founded in the root and source of all good, namely or-
der. It agrees with the texts: "Let your voice sound in my ears, for your
voice is sweet" (Sg. 2:14); and “My soul melted when my beloved
spoke" (Sg. 5:6); and “Blessed are those who hear the word of God"
(Lk. 11:28). On the basis of this conversation of our highest faculty,
which is the image of God with God and God with it, the whole book
of the Song of Songs seems to be based and developed. This conver-
sation is between what is holy and the Holy of Holies, between the
holy and holiness, the good and goodness, the just and justice, as I have
written in my exposition of this book.!?! For what could be more de-
lightful to the just man insofar as he is just than justice itself?
140. This is just what we have said about the height of the soul,
which is the superior reason ordered to what is above it, namely God
whose image it is. It accords with the texts, “It is good for me to adhere
to God” (Ps. 72:28), and “My soul has adhered to you” (Ps. 62:9). (The
whole Sixty-second Psalm is fittingly explained in this sense.) The
same holds for the inferior rational part, which is subordinated to its
superior, that is, the superior rational part, and by means of the supe-
rior to God. This agrees with the passages: "Draw me after you; we
will run in the odor of your ointments” (Sg. 1:3); and “Let him who
hears say ‘Come’ " (Rv. 22:17).
141. From this it follows in the third place that the inferior ratio-
nal faculty—when it is filled with the light and power of its superior
and also of the divine light it drinks in, in the superior—sensing and
hearing this, calls, forms, informs, leads and draws to itself its inferior,
the sensitive faculty. The sensitive faculty is not essentially rational,
but serves and waits upon the rational faculty, according to the text,

110
 LATIN WORKS

“He calls things that are not as though they are" (Rm. 4:17). God not
only calls the things that are essentially rational, but also those that are
not, for he also imparts virtues to the sense appetite. This is what Acts
says in a passage taken from Joel, “The Lord says, ‘In the last days I
will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,’ and below, ‘I will pour forth
my spirit upon my servants and upon my handmaids' " (Ac. 2:17-18;
Jl. 2:28-29). The powers or potencies of the sensitive faculty serve as
handmaids to the essentially rational faculty, as has been said. Hence
Aristotle also calls the sense appetite rational through participation.!9?
This is why in speaking of the sensitive faculty here it says in parabolic
fashion that “The serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of
the earth." Man's sensitive faculty is more excellent than those of all
the other animals by reason of its participation in the rational faculty.
Genesis 1:28 says, “Rule... over all living creatures."
A passage from the Book of Causes agrees with this transformation,
mutual conformation and ordering. “The noble soul has three activi-
ties, for among its activities there is an animal one, an intellectual one
and a divine one.”!8 The superior reason is called the “noble soul,”
from which flows the “animal activity" that is proper to what is essen-
tially rational and the “divine activity" that when it has been trans-
formed learns and imbibes from God who is immediately above it.
This agrees with the text: “With faces unveiled, reflecting the glory of
the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from glory to
glory, as through the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Co. 3:18).
142. A clear example of what has been said is found first in the
simple bodies,!8* where the lower spheres share in the motion from the
east of the first highest sphere (the more perfectly, the more immedi-
ately they are joined with it), as well as in the motion from the west
of their proper mover. The elements also receive spherical motion
from the east by the mediation of the planetary spheres.!?? If it is right-
ly understood, this example fits perfectly, so that the primum mobile, or
highest sphere, that receives its power and motion directly from God,
the First Mover, as Thomas teaches,!96 is the superior reason, which
is immediately formed by God. The planetary spheres are the inferior
reason, also rational in nature, just as the lower spheres belong to the
nature of the first sphere, namely the nature of the fifth essence.!9?
The elements are the sensitive faculty, because just as this power is es-
sentially outside reason, the four inferior elements are outside the fifth
essence's nature.!9? Needles and a magnet provide a second example.
When a magnet is touched by a needle it hands its power over to the

T
 MEISTER ECKHART

needle so that when this needle touches another with its point it at-
tracts it and calls Come" to it. The second needle adheres to the first
with its head, and the same is true in the case of a third and a fourth,
as far as the power handed over and absorbed from the magnet reaches.
143. “This was," and is, *man's correct condition,"!98? when the
sensitive faculty obeys, looks to and is ordered to the inferior reason,
and the inferior reason cleaves and adheres to the superior reason as
it in turn does to God. Thus the texts, *God made man right" (Qo.
7:30); and “God created man from the earth, and made him after his
own image; and he turned him into it again" (namely, into his image),
“and he clothed him with strength according to himself” (Si. 17:1-2).
This was and is the state of nature that was set up before sin, “the state
of innocence."!?9
144. When the bond and order of the height of the soul to God
was dissolved through the injury of sundering sin (“Your iniquities
have divided you from your God,” Is. 59:2), it followed that all the
powers of the soul, inferior reason and the sensitive faculty as well,
were separated from contact with the rule of the superior reason. This
is evident in the example of the magnet and the needles: As long as the
contact of the first needle with the magnet lasts, the other needles will
also stick; but if the bond and contact of the first with the magnet is
lost, the second and third will not stick to it or to each other, according
to the axiom, “If the first in a series is destroyed none of the others can
remain."!?! 'This is man's state under sin, and it is what the Psalm says,
“Unless the Lord guard the city, he watches in vain that guards it” (Ps.
126:1).
145. The state of man after sin is when through grace he is redi-
rected to God.!?? Then the more that the height of the soul adheres to
God himself, the more what is beneath it, even the sensitive faculty,
obeys it. In this state the fullness and perfection of grace give perfect
men the ability to have the sensitive faculty obey inferior reason and
inferior reason superior reáson in such a way that what Isaiah writes
is fulfilled: “The lion and the sheep will abide together, and a little
child shall lead them" (Is. 11:6). The little child is the superior rational
faculty, which cleaves to God and leads together and reconciles the
lion (the sensitive faculty) and the sheep (the inferior reason). I have
further comments on this in my exposition of “You shall not covet”
(Ex. 20:17).193 Because this grace concerns and is given to an individual
man, to the supposit of a nature, that is, to a person and not to the na-
ture itself, the nature remains naked and abandoned, as the kind of na-

112
 LATIN WORKS

ture that is destitute, not yet restored to the state in which it was
created.!?^ What we said is therefore clear. The serpent, the woman
and the man describe and express the three principles of man, namely
the sensitive, the rational through participation, and the essentially ra-
tional in number, nature and properties.!?5
146. In order to clarify what has been said, as well as many other
points, we should also note that in the contact, meeting and union of
what is essentially superior with the highest point of its inferior both
sides kiss each other and embrace in a natural and essential love that
is inward and very delightful. This agrees with the passage where the
just man speaks to Unbegotten Justice from which, through which and
in which he is begotten insofar as he is just, and in his desire to be to-
tally perfected and transformed without any medium whatsoever says:
“Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth” (Sg. 1:1).!?9 This is the
mutual touch in which the superior gazes on the inferior and vice
versa. They kiss and embrace each other in this touch and encounter
with a love that is natural and essential. Indeed, the shared touch by
which the superior beholds the inferior and the inferior returns the su-
perior's gaze is the voice and word, utterance and speech and name, by
which the superior recognizes the inferior and unfolds, opens and
manifests itself to it. I say that it manifests everything that it has. “All
the things that the Father has are mine” (Jn. 16:15); “All the things I
have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (Jn. 15:15). It
manifests itself by itself, and this is what the doctors say about the
higher angels illuminating the lower regarding everything they know
in natural fashion.!?7
147. Justice with respect to the just man is a good example of what
has been said.!?? Justice manifests everything that belongs to it
through itself and manifests its total self in itself without any medium.
It opens, unfolds, and pours all this into the just man insofar as he is
just. It would be wicked to divide justice in half, for half-justice is no
justice. This manifestation and opening up is an utterance, a word, a
messenger. *He shows his friend that it is his possession, and that he
may ascend to it" (Jb. 36:33). I say that this manifestation is the word
and utterance by which the superior and inferior speak to each other
and converse together “face to face,” the face of the superior beholding
and examining the inferior's face as it gazes back. "I have seen God
face to face and my soul has been saved" (Gn. 32:30). “We see now
through a mirror ..., but then face to face" (1 Co. 13:12). Justice jus-
tifies by speaking; the just man is justified by hearing justice. The just

[5
 MEISTER ECKHART

man is begotten and becomes a son of justice when he loses and dis-
solves everything in him that is not just and is transformed and con-
formed into justice. *My soul dissolved when he spoke" (Sg. 5:6).
148. This utterance and conversation by means of which the con-
crete being and the essence (the “what-it-is” of a thing) address each
other,!99 kiss and are united intimately in their depths is the truest and
most delightful natural utterance, as I have remarked on the text, “The
heavens show forth God's glory, and the firmament declares the works
of his hands. ... There are no speeches nor languages" (Ps. 18:2,4).200
Exterior discourse and speech is only a kind of trace and imperfection,
some kind of analogous assimilation of that true utterance and address
by which the superior and inferior speak and converse together with-
out intermediary as lover and beloved, as understanding and what is
understood, and as sense power and actual sense object whose act is
one even more than form and matter are, according to the Commen-
tator.??! For this reason the Psalm says: “I will listen to what the Lord
will speak in me, for he will speak peace unto his people and upon his
saints" (Ps. 84:9).
149. Mark that anyone who wishes to hear God speaking must be-
come deaf and inattentive to others. This is what Augustine says in the
fourth book of the Confessions: “My soul, do not be foolish; let your
heart's ear be deaf to the tumult of your folly.”2°2 And in book nine:
"What is like your Word? ... If the tumult of the flesh is silent to a
person; if sense images ... and the soul itself are silent; if imaginary
revelations, every tongue, every sign, and whatever is transient are si-
lent, ... then he himself may speak through himself so that we hear
his Word."?9? "T will lead her into solitude, and I will speak to her
heart there" (Hos. 2:14). "Solitude," because solely justice as such
speaks to the sole just man and solely the just man as such hears justice,
and he hears it solely. “Solitude,” because justice and the just man as
such are solely one; the just man and justice are solely justice.29* The
just man signifies solely justice, just as something white solely white-
ness. And thus one who does not hear other things or anything other
hears God. So Paul saw God during the time in which he did not see
other things, as Augustine says.?05 Therefore, be deaf that you may
hear; “He made the deaf hear" (Mk. 7:37).
150. I can briefly summarize this copious introduction by saying
that God's speaking to us is nothing else but God's becoming known
to us through his gifts (gifts and inspirations, either of nature or of

114
 LATIN WORKS

grace) that raise us up and irradiate our minds by his light. This is ut-
terance, speech and word in the most proper and pleasing sense; its ex-
terior utterance, speech and word does not measure up to it. For us to
speak to God is nothing else but to hear and obey him and his inspi-
ration, to turn away from other things and turn toward him and his
likeness, just as some mountains and places answer and speak to those
who call out to them in the sound that Aristotle calls an echo.206 This
is what Augustine says in the tenth book of the Confessions:

I asked the earth, ... the sea and the deeps ..., heaven, the
sun, the moon and the stars... . My questioning of them was
my contemplation, and their answer was their beauty....
They do not change their voice, that is their beauty, if one
person is there to see and another to see and to question. ...
Beauty appears to all in the same way, but is silent to one and
speaks to the other. ... They understand it who compare the
voice received on the outside with the truth that lies with-
in 207

A mirror answering and reflecting the appearance and form of a vis-

ible object provides an example.?08 The illustration or begetting of the
image is the utterance of the visible object, and the reflection of the
mirror is its response or utterance. They speak harmoniously to each
other in the image begotten from both as an offspring, so that the two
are truly one in the offspring in a spiritual way, just as man and wife
are corporeally “two in one flesh" (Gn. 2:24).
151. As we have said of God that he speaks to us and we respond
and have conversation with him “just as a friend is wont to speak to
his friend" (Ex. 33:11), so too he speaks to everything that exists
through all things in exactly the same way. I say that he speaks to all
things and he speaks all things. Some things hear and answer him ac-
cording to the property of existence, namely that by which God is ex-
istence and the existence of all things is from him. Other things hear
him and receive the Word of God insofar as he is the first and true life.
These are all living beings. The highest beings hear God not only
through and in existence and through and in life, but also through and
in understanding.??? Intellection and utterance are the same there.
152. For example, any sensible body addresses its whole reality to
all the sense faculties, but the eye perceives it only under the aspect of

115
 MEISTER ECKHART

color or what is colored. In the act of seeing it answers and speaks to

the visible body. When a single species has been begotten from both,
the two very naturally address each other in the one offspring because
each of them, the faculty of sight and the visible object, through that
species is the concrete being insofar as it is in act, as Aristotle says.210
What is more pleasing to a thing than act and its form? Similarly, a vis-
ible body, even though it may address the soul’s other powers and their
organs, is still quite dumb to the ear, which cannot respond to the body
under the aspect of color, but hears and perceives it under the aspect
of sound. It answers it “face to face," with both partners turned toward
each other in a mutual way, mine to yours and yours to mine. “All the
things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine" (Jn. 17:10), with
the proper restriction. "My beloved speaks to me; ... my beloved to me
and I to him" (Sg. 2:10, 16). “I to my beloved, and his turning is toward
me" (Sg. 7:10). The same is true of all the other sensitive and intellec-
tive powers of the soul. The more immanent and exalted a thing is
(e.g., truth in relation to intellect and goodness in relation to will), the
more pleasingly it addresses them.
This is enough to understand the words treated here, as well as
many others scattered throughout scripture. On these grounds the en-
tire literal sense of the Songs of Songs can be splendidly interpreted,
as I have noted in commenting on the book.?!!
153. Finally, we have to show how these points clearly explain
what the first three chapters write about the human race, or about the
serpent, the woman and the man. First, let us take the passage from
chapter one, “Let us make man to our image and likeness” (Gn. 1:26).
This was said of the human race in relation to the intellect that per-
tains to the superior reason—that by which it is the “head” of the soul
and “God’s image." Second, there is the passage that follows, “Let him
have dominion over the fishes and the fowls and the beasts and every
creeping creature" (Gn. 1:26). This pertains to the inferior reason and
the sensitive faculty that is more excellent in man than in the other ani-
mals, as will be made clear below.
154. Third, we have what it says in chapter two, “The Lord
placed the man he had formed in the paradise of pleasure" (Gn. 2:8).
"Paradise" means delight and pleasure.?!? It is evident that a person
who is ordered to God in such a way, who so adheres and cleaves to
God, has a delightful and alluring life. *He who cleaves to God is one
spirit with him" (1 Co. 6:17). The intellectual life cannot be compared
with any bodily delights, as is especially clear from the seventh chapter

116
 LATIN WORKS

of Wisdom,??? as well as from the end of the third book of Augustine's

On Free Choice where he says:

So great is justice's beauty, so great the pleasure of the eternal

light of unchangeable truth, ... that even if one could only
stay there for a day, because of this alone he would still right-
ly and truly condemn countless years of this life that were full
of pleasure and a superabundance of temporal goods.?!^

This is what the text means when it says that man made “to God's im-
age" was placed “in the paradise of pleasure.” Paradise is the “garden
of delight."?!5 In that state man did not contemplate God through
things inferior and external in order to understand him through them,
but rather he understood them through him. *His knowledge, both
natural and gratuitous, began from the illumination of the First
Truth,"?!6 and he knew God in effects that were internal and intellec-
tual. This is what Augustine says in the second half of the eleventh
book of the Literal Commentary on Genesis: "God spoke" to man set in
such circumstances “internally, whether through words or not, . . . just
as he speaks to the angels, illuminating their minds by his unchange-
able truth so that the intellect knows at one time all the things that
happen at temporally different moments."?!?
155. Finally, fourth, these premises explain the passage at the be-
ginning of the third chapter, “The serpent was more subtle than any
of the beasts of the earth." It is evident that man's sensitive faculty sig-
nified by the serpent is more excellent than that in any other animal
produced on earth. Man's sense-endowed body has a more delicate con-
stitution than any other animal body. Men of delicate flesh are well en-
dowed with intelligence,?!? and the softer and more delicate a person's
constitution, the greater the pleasure in the perception of the appro-
priate sense object. Therefore, our first parents had greater pleasure in
every sense insofar as they had a purer nature and a more delicate
sense-endowed body. So too now pleasure in food and drink and the
like is not less in a sober and temperate man than in one who is a glut-
ton and a drunkard, even though the sober temperate man does not
throw himself on the food violently and senselessly and with a burning
feeling of concupiscence hang onto pleasure as if he were to find his
satisfaction in it. Great pleasure is not excluded from a sober virtuous
person, but burning desire and disturbance of soul and disordered pas-
sion.?!9

117
 MEISTER ECKHART

156. From this it follows “that touch, which is the foundation of

all the senses,” and of the whole sensitive faculty, “is more perfect in
man than in any other animal on earth,"2?? and consequently man's
taste is more refined, because “taste is a form of touch,” as the Philos-
opher says.2?! The opinion of some that the spider excels man in the
sense of touch is completely false.2?? That a spider immediately feels
when the edge of its web has been touched does not come from the
delicacy of its sense of touch, but from the fact that the whole web and
all its parts are so interconnected that when one part is touched all the
parts are set in motion. So in our case, whenever any part whatever
is touched, even the extremities, we feel it immediately and draw back.
157. It is true that in the case of some of the exterior senses, such
as smell, sight, hearing, and also in quickness of movement, and so
forth, some animals surpass man. This does not come from the unwor-
thiness, but rather from the nobility of man's sensitive faculty and
from the delicacy of a constitution that conforms to the whole soul and
its activities, especially the internal ones. For example,

It is necessary that man have a larger brain in comparison to

his body than other animals, first, so that the activities of the
interior powers that are ordered to the understanding may be
more easily completed in him, and second, so that the over-
flowing heat of his heart may be cooled by the brain's cold-
ness.... The humidity of this large brain forms a block to the
sense of smell which needs dryness for its operation or com-
ing into action.???

That man sees or hears less sharply than many animals, or runs less
swiftly, comes from the perfection of his balanced constitution and its
delicacy.
158. The ground for what has been said is because in its perfection
the rational soul comes closer to and is more like the perfection of
heaven's mover than all the other internal forms, and so the body that
corresponds to the soul must be more like a celestial body that is totally
free of contraries than other bodies are. A total freedom from contrar-
ies would not be appropriate for a human body and its soul in its ac-
tivities. Therefore, nature has seen to it that in its constitution the
human body is distanced from the most extreme contraries by being
brought back to a mean or state of equality. The delicacy and perfec-
tion of the makeup of the sensitive faculty especially ordered to intel-

118
 LATIN WORKS

lect, reason and providence rest in this equality.??* This is the meaning
of “The serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth,”
and this is enough for now concerning the third chapter.
159. There are other points in this chapter. First, the serpent's ut-
terance to the woman, and second her response to his words. Third,
there is the serpent's second speech to her, and fourth, the woman's
testing in which she ate the fruit and gave it to the man. In that act
of eating they knew they were naked, made themselves garments and
hid themselves from God's face. Fifth, there is God's utterance to
Adam and Adam's answer, his speech to the woman and her answer,
and his speech to the serpent. There is no response by the serpent, but
he is immediately cursed by the Lord. Sixth are the punishments in-
flicted on the serpent, the woman and Adam, and seventh the casting
out of man from paradise and the placing of the cherubim with the
flaming sword to guard the path to the tree of life. All these passages
are full of teaching about the properties natural to God, and to the su-
perior and inferior reason and sensitive faculty of man. They give in-
struction about leading a good life and present a picture of the varieties
of sins, but to pursue each point in particular would be a lengthy task
and can be left to the efforts of the inquisitive reader.
160. Still, at the end of the first three chapters we ought to ob-
serve that God's creating or making mentioned in chapter one, and his
speaking mentioned in chapters one and three, are and signify the
same thing. “He spoke and they were made” (Ps. 32:9, etc.). This holds
for his commanding in chapter two, for it says, “He commanded him,
saying" (Gn. 2:16).
The first thing you should know is that it is clear on the basis of
what has been said that when God brings something such as fire into
existence by the very fact that he makes it to be fire he commands, de-
clares and teaches it to heat, to climb upward and rest there, and all
the other things that fit and match the form of fire. He gives it no other
command or counsel at all; he does not work any other effect through
it and in it. He forbids it and bars it from nothing, save what is strange
and foreign to fire's form. The same is true in the case of other things.
Therefore it is evident that creation, making, universal production and
command are the same in God and that what is produced from him is
his Word and Commandment. This is why it says “The Word was
God" when it speaks of the Son produced from the Father and in the
Godhead. The Person of the Son says: "He commanded ... and said
to me, ‘Let your dwelling be in Jacob’ " (Si. 24:12, 13). It also clearly

119
 MEISTER ECKHART

follows that the three things that correspond to these in creatures,

namely to become, to be created and to be produced by God, are the
same thing as to hear him commanding and to obey, as well as to an-
swer, speak to and converse with him when he speaks.
161. The second conclusion is that these utterances, responses,
acts of obedience or attentiveness, are totally pleasing and delightful to
creatures, as shown above.225 What could be more pleasing to the just
man insofar as he is just than justice? From justice and from no other
source, through and in justice, the just man insofar as he is just is all
that he is, knows all that he knows, and loves all that he loves.
162. The third conclusion is that these utterances and "speeches
are not words whose voices are heard externally," and for this reason
“Their sound has gone forth into the whole earth and their words to
the end of the earth" (Ps. 18:4-5). What is outside time is always uni-
versal; what is without body and matter is everywhere. In this way, al-
ways and everywhere, "The heavens and all the works of his hands
proclaim God's glory" (Ps. 18:2), without any external word. For ex-
ample, the gravitational attraction of a heavy object cannot be checked
by time or place in order to be silenced, but “it has no rest day and
night in proclaiming and saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord our
God’ " (Rv. 4:8; Is. 6:3). “He made us” (Ps. 99:3); he spoke and we were
made" (Ps. 32:9). “He has given his command, and it shall not pass
away" (Ps. 148:6). He commanded, and we were created. Even though
the external action, such as the fall or downward movement, may be
silenced when a heavy object is forcibly held up high so that it does
not fall, nevertheless the attraction of gravity that belongs to the form
of a stone and by which God addresses, commands, orders and directs
it is never silent, but always answers and speaks to God, fulfills his
command without neglect. I spoke about utterances, responses, com-
mands, prohibitions, and so forth, of this sort in commenting on the
passage in chapter two, “And the Lord God spoke" (Gn. 2:18), and pre-
viously in commenting on the verse, “And he commanded him, say-
ing” (Gn: 2:16):426
163. This is why evil never totally destroys good, or extinguishes
it or renders it dumb. For example, in nature something contrary does
destroy and silence a thing's form as far as its external act goes, but the
inclination, aptitude, relation, order and appetite to the good that is
rooted in the subject's nature it in no way lessens through some de-
tracting or diminishing power that does not strive for and incline to-
ward the form. The reason is that the contrary, or destructive,

120
 LATIN WORKS

tendency of this appetite has a common root and is one with the in-
clination itself. Nothing destroys itself or its principle. And thus an ap-
titude of this sort is not more silent or less expressive than others in
its quest for form.??? Think of the case of a heavy object held aloft (as
mentioned above), or of a bag full of air held under water.
164. A second point follows from this. Neither the natural desire
for existence nor synderesis's opposition to evil is destroyed in the
damned.??3 “Their worm will not die" (Is. 66:24). Also, “Natural gifts
remain whole and beautiful in the demon.”22° Again, neither in Cain
nor in any other sinner is synderesis silent, but it always calls out in
opposition to evil and in inclination to good with an appropriate voice
that neither time nor place ever interrupts or diminishes. This is so
even though its external voice is not audible in time and place, because
it is neither temporal nor material. It always addresses the good toward
which it tends, and the author or cause of the good. He speaks to it,
addresses it, commands and orders it when he grants the nature of a
good thing its tendency toward the good.
165. There are four conclusions from what has been said. First,
that God does not properly command an exterior act, because it can
be hindered.??? God's word and command cannot be neglected. “He
has given his command, and it shall not pass away" (Ps. 148:6); and
again, "Your word, O Lord, lasts forever" (Ps. 118:89). Second, that the
exterior act is not properly good or divine, and that God does not work
it or give birth to it in the proper sense.?3! For the Father works what
he works even until now without interruption (Jn. 5:17). Third, it is
now clear why the exterior act is heavy and oppressive, but the inner
act is never so. God, who gives what he commands, commands the lat-
ter; something other than God or at least in company with God can
and does command the former. The reason comes from what was said
above: God, inasmuch as he is good, commands "the good that all
things desire."23? Everything that is below God, since it is a particular
good, does not command the good, but particular goods.??? Augustine
says, “Remove what is particular!'25^ Fourth, the interior act always
speaks to God in the proper sense and praises him as its author and ac-
tive principle, according to the Psalm verse, “Lord, open my lips and
my mouth will announce your praise" (Ps. 50:17). As discussed above,
an effect is always an act of praise of its cause and of it alone. The sub-
ject of my action is always the principle of the act; it is the first of
causes and the last. End and principle are the same.??*

121
3. SELECTIONS FROM THE
COMMENTARY ON JOHN

PREFACE

1. “In the beginning was the Word.” “A large eagle with great
wings, long-limbed, full of feathers and dappled plumage, came to Leb-
anon and took away the marrow of the cedar. He cropped off the top
of its foliage and carried it away to the land of Chanaan" (Ezk. 17:3-
4).! John the Evangelist himself is the eagle who “makes the nest” of
his attention, contemplation and preaching “among the steep crags and
inaccessible rocks" (Jb. 39:27-28). “He came to Lebanon and took away
the marrow of the cedar. He cropped off the tops of its foliage and car-
ried it away to the land of Chanaan" when he drank in the Word who
was in the Father's breast and manifested him to men with the words
“In the beginning was the Word." He is “the first among the evange-
lists in penetration of the depths of the divine mysteries," as Augustine
says:

In the figure of the four animals of Ezekiel, chapter one, and

Revelation, chapter four, he is compared to the eagle which
flies higher than other birds and gazes at the sun’s rays with
undazzled eyes. He rested on the Lord’s breast at the Last
Supper and drank a draught of heavenly wisdom better than
that received by the others from the source itself, the Lord’s
heart. His concern was to intrust us with Christ’s divinity and
the mystery of the Trinity.?

This is what is said here, “In the beginning was the Word.”
2. In interpreting this Word and everything else that follows my
intention is the same as in all my works—to explain what the holy

122
 LATIN WORKS

Christian faith and the two Testaments maintain through the help of
the natural arguments of the philosophers.? God's invisible attributes
are seen and understood from the creation of the world in the things
that he has made, as well as his everlasting power (that is, the Son), and
his divinity (that is, the Holy Spirit)," as the Gloss on Romans, chapter
one, says.* In the seventh book of the Confessions Augustine says that
he read "In the beginning was the Word" and a large part of this first
chapter of John in the works of Plato.5 In the tenth book of the City
of God he speaks of a Platonist who used to say that the beginning of
this chapter as far as the words “There was a man sent from God"
should be written in golden letters and displayed in key locations.®
3. Moreover, it is the intention of this work to show how the
truths of natural principles, conclusions and properties are well inti-
mated for him “who has ears to hear" (Mt. 13:43) in the very words of
sacred scripture, which are interpreted through these natural truths.
Now and then some moral interpretations will also be advanced.

CHAPTER ONE’

4. The interpretation of "In the beginning was the Word" should

be in accord with this intention. First note that “In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God," as well as much that follows,
are contained in the words: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and
light was made; and God saw the light was good, and he divided the
light from the darkness" (Gn. 1:3-4). To clarify the text "In the begin-
ning was the Word" down to “There was a man sent from God," mark
first of all that what is produced or proceeds from anything is precon-
tained in it. This is universally and naturally true, both in the Godhead
(the topic here) and in natural and artificial things. A fig could as easily
come from a vine or a pear tree as a fig tree, if it were not precontained
and preexistent in the fig tree.
Second, it is preexistent in it as a seed is in its principle;? and this
is what the text says, “In the beginning was the Word.” “The seed is
God's Word" (Lk. 8:11). Third, note that what is produced from some-
thing is universally its word. It speaks, announces and discloses
whence it comes—hence he says, “In the principle was the Word.” The
fourth point is that what proceeds is in its source according to the idea
and likeness in which and according to which what proceeds is pro-
duced by the source.? This is in the Greek: "In the principle was the
Word," that is, the Logos, which in Latin is Word and Idea. You have

123
 MEISTER ECKHART

then four conclusions: What proceeds is in its source; it is in it as a seed

is in its principle, as a word is in one who speaks; and it is in it as the
idea in which and according to which whatever proceeds is produced
by the source.
5. In the fifth place, note that insofar as anything proceeds from
another it is distinguished from it. What follows expresses this—‘“The
Word was with God.” It does not say “under God,” or “descends from
God,” but says “The Word was with God.” The phrase “with God”
bespeaks a kind of equality. In things that are analogical what is pro-
duced is always inferior, of lower grade, less perfect and unequal to its
source. In things that are univocal what is produced is always equal to
the source. It does not just participate in the same nature, but it re-
ceives the total nature from its source in a simple, whole and equal
manner. Thus, the sixth point says that what proceeds is the son of its
source. A son is one who is other in person but not other in nature.
6. From this follows the seventh point: That the Son or Word is
the same as what the Father or Principle is. This is what follows, “The
Word was God.” Here it must be noted that in analogical relations
what is produced derives from the source, but is nevertheless beneath
the principle and not with it. It is of another nature and thus is not
the principle itself. Still, insofar as it is in the principle, it is not other
in nature or other in supposit.!? A chest in its maker's mind is not a
chest, but is the life and understanding of the maker, his living con-
ception. On this account I would say that what it says here about the
procession of the divine Persons holds true and is found in the proces-
sion and production of every being of nature and art.
7. The eighth point is that the chest that is or has been brought
forth into existénce still exists and stays in the maker himself, just as
it was in the beginning before it came to be. This is true even if its ex-
ternal existence is destroyed. This is what follows: “This Word was in
the beginning with God.” He had previously said, "In the beginning
was the Word.”
8. In the ninth place, note that procession, or production and em-
anation (our subject here) in the proper, prior and preeminent sense
takes place in generation. Generation is without movement or time but
is the goal and limit of movement with respect to the substance and
the existence of the thing. Therefore, it follows that generation does
not fall into nonexistence or sink into the past. If it exists in this way,
it is always "In the principle." The same is true with us—take away
time, and evening is the same as morning. If generation is always “In

124
 LATIN WORKS

the principle," it is always being born and always being brought forth.
It must either never happen or always happen, because the principle
or "In the principle" always exists. For this reason the Son in the God-
head, the Word “In the Principle," is always being born and always
has been born. This is what the *was" means in "In the principle was
the Word." The word “was” signifies three things: Substance, because
it is a substantive word;!! past time; and incomplete time. Because it
is substantive, the Word is the very substance of the Principle; because
it is past, the Word has always been born; because it is incomplete, it
is always being born. This is the reason why John when he speaks
about the Word in the first four sentences always uses this substantial,
past and incomplete word **was."!?
9. In the tenth place, note that it is proper to the intellect to re-
ceive its object, that is, the intelligible, not in itself, insofar as it is com-
plete, perfect and good, but to receive it in its principles. This is what
is meant here: "In the principle was the Word.” And again, “This
Word was in the principle with God."
In the eleventh place, mark that the word, that is, the mind's con-
cept or the art itself in the maker's mind, is that through which the
maker makes all that he does and without which he does nothing as a
maker. Hence there follows: “All things were made through him, and
without him nothing was made."
10. Twelfth. The chest in the mind or in the art itself is neither
a chest nor something already made, but it is art itself, is life, the vital
concept of the maker. This is what follows: “What was made in him
was life." Thirteenth. The word, as idea, belongs to the rational fac-
ulty, which is proper to man. For man is a rational animal, and “The
human race lives by art and reason,” as the first book of the Metaphysics
says.!3 Therefore, the word is not only life, but the life is the light of
men. Hence there follows: “And the life was the/light of men."
11. Fourteenth. The word, the idea and art itself, shines as much
by night as by day. It illuminates things hidden within as much as
those manifested without. This is what follows: “And the light shines
in the darkness," to distinguish it from corporeal light, which is not
life, nor properly the light of men, and which does not shine at night
or illuminate things hidden within. Further, it is more correct to say
that in the case of created things only their ideas shine. “The idea of
a thing which the name signifies is its definition," as the Philosopher
says.!* The definition is the way of proving, or rather the entire proof
that brings about knowledge.!5 The conclusion is that in created things

125
 MEISTER ECKHART

nothing shines except their idea alone. This is what is said of the Word
here—that it is “the light of men,” namely their Idea.!6 So too the text,
“And the light shines in the darkness," as if to say that among created
things nothing shines, nothing is known, nothing brings about knowl-
edge besides the “what-it-is,”!7 definition and idea of the thing itself.
12. Fifteenth. The word, Logos or idea of things exists in such a
way and so completely in each of them that it nevertheless exists entire
outside each. It is entirely within and entirely without. This is evident
in living creatures, both in any species and also in any particular ex-
ample of the species. For this reason when things are moved, changed
or destroyed, their entire idea remains immobile and intact. Nothing
is as eternal and unchangeable as the idea of a destructible circle. How
can that which is totally outside the destructible circle be destroyed
when it is? The idea then is “the light in the darkness” of created be-
ings that is not confined, intermingled or comprehended. This is why
when John said, “The light shines in the darkness," he added, “and the
darkness did not comprehend it." In the Book of Causes it says: “The
First Cause rules all things without being intermingled with them."!?
The First Cause of every being is the Idea, the Logos, the “Word in the
principle."
13. It is evident how the Prologue “In the beginning was the
Word" down to “There was a man sent from God” is to be interpreted
by means of the ideas and properties of natural beings. It is also clear
that these words of the Evangelist, if correctly investigated, teach us
the natures and properties of things both in their existence and their
operation, and so while they build up our faith, they also instruct us
about the natures of things. The Son of God himself, “the Word in the
principle,” is the Idea, “a sort of ‘Art.’ .. . full of all the living and un-
changeable ideas that are all one in it," as Augustine says in the last
chapter of book six of On the Trinity.!?
14. If you consider the just man insofar as he is just in the justice
that gives birth to him you will have an example of all that has been
said and much else that we shall often mention.?? First, it is obvious
that the just man as such exists in justice itself. How could he be just
if he were outside justice, if he were to stand on the outside separated
from it? Second, the just man preexists in justice itself, just as a con-
crete thing does in an abstract one and that which participates in what
it participates in.
15. Third. The just man is the word of justice, that by which jus-
tice expresses and manifests itself. If justice did not justify, no one

126
 LATIN WORKS

would have knowledge of it, but it would be known to itself alone, as

in the text: “No one has ever seen God; the Only-Begotten who is in
the Father's heart has made him known" (Jn. 1:18), or *No one knows
the Father except the Son" (Mt. 11:27), or *No one knows who does
not receive" (Rv. 2:17). It is a universal rule that no one knows divine
perfection “who does not receive." Thus justice is known to itself
alone and to the just man who has been taken up by justice. This is the
meaning of the text that says that the Trinity, God, is known to itself
alone and to the man that is taken up in it.?! The Psalm says: “Blessed
is the man you have chosen and taken up" (Ps. 64:5). Fourth, justice has
an exemplar in itself, which is the likeness or idea in which and accord-
ing to which it forms and informs or clothes every just man and thing.
16. Fifth. The just man proceeds from and is begotten by justice
and by that very fact is distinguished from it. Nothing can beget itself.
Nonetheless, the just man is not different in nature from justice, both
because “just” signifies only justice, just as “white” signifies only the
quality of whiteness,?? and because justice would make no one just if
its nature changed from one place to another, just as whiteness does
not make a man black or grammar make him musical. From this it is
clear in the sixth place that the just man is the offspring and son of jus-
tice. One is and is called a son in that one becomes other in person, not
other in nature. The Father and I are one" (Jn. 10:30)—we are distinct
in person, because nothing gives birth to itself; we are one in nature,
because otherwise justice would not beget the just man, nor would the
Father beget the Son who became other in person, nor would gener-
ation be univocal. This is what is meant by ‘The Word was God.”
17. If the Father and the Son, justice and the just man, are one and
the same in nature, it follows in the seventh place that the just man is
equal to justice, not less than it, nor is the Son less than the Father.
“The Word was with God.” The word “with” signifies equality, as said
above.?? Eighth. In bearing or justifying the just man, justice does not
cease to be justice and does not cease to be the principle and the idea
of the just man. This is what is meant by “This Word was in the prin-
ciple with God."
18. Ninth. It is clear that justice and the just man as such are no
more subject to movement and time than life or light are. For this rea-
son the just man is always being born from justice itself in the same
way that he was born from it from the beginning of the time he be-
came just. It is the same in the case of the generation and conservation
of light in a medium. It must be continuously generated because it is

127
 MEISTER ECKHART

not continuously possessed. Tenth. The just man as such is what he is

completely and totally from justice itself and in justice itself as his
principle. This is what the text means: "In the Principle was the
Word." Further, the just man insofar as he is just knows nothing, not
even himself, outside justice itself. How could he know that he is just
outside justice itself? It is the principle of the just man. It is proper to
man and to reason to know things in their principles.
19. Again in the eleventh place. Justice does everything it does by
means of “Begotten Justice."?^ Just as nothing just can be begotten
without justice, so nothing that has been begotten as just can exist
without Begotten Justice. Begotten Justice itself is the word of justice
in its principle, the justice that gives birth. This is what it says here:
"All things were made through him, and without him nothing was
made.” Twelfth. The just man in justice itself is not yet begotten nor
Begotten Justice, but is Unbegotten Justice itself. This is what is meant
by “What was made,” or produced by any form of production, “was
life in him,” that is, “principle without principle.”?° What is without
principle lives in the proper sense, for everything that has the princi-
ple of its operation from another insofar as it is other does not live in
the proper sense.
20. Thirteenth. The just man in justice itself, his principle, be-
cause he is unbegotten, “a principle without principle,” is life and
light. Each individual thing is light and shines in its principles. All
knowledge of things is through and in their principles, and until
knowledge is reduced to its principles it is always obscure, dark and
covered, because it is not sure knowledge.2© A demonstration, that is,
a syllogism, that brings certain knowledge is based on proper princi-
ples. This is what the passage means “The life was the light of men.”
John says “of men” perhaps because man receives his knowledge from
what comes later in the order of being and proceeds to the principles
by reasoning. This is not the case with the higher intellectual crea-
tures. Perhaps that is why there follows “The light shines in the dark-
ness.” Every created being smacks of the shadow of nothingness. “God
alone is light, and there is no darkness in him” (1 Jn. 1:5). Therefore,
the “light in the darkness” is knowledge a posteriori, knowledge that is
in and through the phantasm.
21. Put in another way, it is universally true that the principle is
the light of what comes from it, and a superior illuminates an inferior.
Conversely, what has proceeded and is inferior by the very fact that
it is inferior and posterior (that is, as having its existence from another)

128
 LATIN WORKS

is in itself a darkness of privation and negation— privation in the case

of corporeal being that can perish, negation in the case of spiritual be-
ings. This is what is meant by “The light shines in darkness." Because
the inferior never equals its superior, there follows “The darkness did
not comprehend it."
22. The just man of whom we are now speaking by way of exam-
ple is not light in and of himself. Hence the subsequent passage about
that just man John the Baptist, “He was not the light." The fourteenth
point is that the just man or just thing in itself is dark and does not
shine. It shines in justice itself, its principle, and justice shines in the
just man, although what is just, in that it is inferior, does not compre-
hend justice. Fifteenth, it is evident that justice is present entirely in
every just man. Half justice is no justice. If it is entire in every just
man, it is also entire outside every just man and thing. This is what
the text means: “The darkness did not comprehend it.”
23. Very many things in scriptures can be interpreted from the
foregoing, especially those that are written about the Only-Begotten
Son of God as the image of God (2 Co. 4:4; Col. 1:15). An image insofar
as it is an image receives nothing of its own from the subject in which
it exists, but receives its whole existence from the object it images.?7
Second, it receives its existence only from the object, and third, it re-
ceives the whole existence of the object according to everything by
which it is an exemplar. For if the image were to receive anything
from another source or did not receive something that was in its ex-
emplar, it would not be an image of that thing but of something else.
From which the fourth point follows—that the image of anything is
one in itself and is the image of one thing alone. Therefore in the God-
head the Son is one and is of one alone, namely, the Father.
24. From what has been said it is clear in the fifth place that the
image is in its exemplar, for there it receives its whole existence. On
the other hand, the exemplar insofar as it is an exemplar is in its image
because the image has the whole existence of the exemplar in itself. “I
am in the Father, and the Father is in me" (Jn. 14:11). Sixth. It follows
that the image and that of which it is an image, insofar as they are such,
are one. “The Father and I are one" (Jn 10:30). He says “we are" in-
sofar as there is an exemplar that is expressive and begets and an image
that is expressed or begotten; he says “one” insofar as the whole exis-
tence of the one is in the other and there is nothing alien to it there.
25. Seventh. Such an expression or begetting of the image is a
kind of formal emanation.28 This is why the Commentator on book two

129
 MEISTER ECKHART

of On tbe Soul holds that the birth of the visible species in the faculty
of sight does not need an external light,?° either because of the visible
object, which diffuses itself in many ways by its own power, or because
of the faculty of sight, which receives the species of the visible object
on its own. It is only because of the transmitting medium that it needs
an extrinsic light.3° Eighth. The image and the exemplar are coeval,
and this is what is said here, that “the Word,” that is, the image, “was
in the beginning with God" in such a way that the exemplar cannot
be understood without the image and vice versa. “He who sees me also
sees my Father" (Jn. 14:9).
26. Ninth. Only the exemplar knows the image and the image the
exemplar. “No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone
know the Father except the Son" (Mt. 11:27). The reason is because
their existence is one and nothing of one is alien to the other. The prin-
ciples of knowing and of existence are the same, and nothing is known
through what is alien to it.?!
All of what has been said and many similar points become clear
in comparing the just man with justice, a being with its existence, a
good man with goodness and in general anything concrete with its ab-
stract form.
27. What we said about the image is clearly summarized in the
seventh chapter of Wisdom where it speaks of the Wisdom or Word of
God as “a mirror without blemish,” “a pure emanation of God.” It also
says that it is “the image of his goodness,” and that “nothing impure
touches it”; it is “the heat of his power” and “the brightness of eternal
light” (Ws. 7:25-26). Almost everything that is written about the divin-
ity of the Son can be interpreted through these points, as we said be-
fore. Let this be enough for now of one way of explaining “In the
beginning was the Word” down to “There was a man sent by God.”
28. For a second way of understanding "In the beginning was the
Word,” you should note what Augustine says in the chapter on the
Word of God in the Book of Eighty-Three Questions:

In the beginning was the Word. The Greek Logos means the
same as the Latin “idea” and “word”. In this passage we trans-
late it more correctly as “Word” to signify not only the rela-
tion to the Father, but also the relation to the things that are
made through the Word by means of operative power. “Idea”
is a term rightly used even if nothing is made through it.32

130
 LATIN WORKS

Thus far Augustine's words. In this connection, it is evident that the

science that teaches how to construct arguments in the various sciences
and in individual cases is called logic from Logos, or idea. Further, logic
itself is spoken of as “linguistic” because Logos is discourse or word.33
29. Second, note that idea is taken in two ways. There is the idea
received from things or abstracted by the intellect and this is posterior
to the things from which it abstracts, and there is the idea that is prior
to things, the cause of things and their idea. This is what definition
points to and what the intellect grasps in the intrinsic principles them-
selves.?* This is the idea we are speaking of here. Therefore, it is said
that Logos, that is the Idea, is in the beginning. "In the beginning was
the Word," he says.
30. On this basis you should realize that every agent, whether in
nature or in art, makes what is like itself and for that reason always
has within itself that upon which it models its effect. That is the prin-
ciple by which an agent acts.?? Otherwise, it would act by chance and
not by art. For example, the architect of a house, insofar as he is an ar-
chitect, has within him in his mind the form of the house upon which
he models the external house. The form is the principle by which the
architect makes and produces something externally in matter. It is also
the word by whose means he declares and manifests himself and all
that is his insofar as he is an architect. Likewise in nature a hot body,
such as fire, assimilates what can be heated to it. Heat is the principle
by which fire gives warmth, and is the word by which it declares,
speaks and manifests itself insofar as it is hot. If an architect were to
build by reason of the very substance by which he is a man and this
particular man, the external house, his effect, would be the word by
which he declares himself, his substance, and his entire self insofar as
he is a man and this particular man. His effect, the external house,
would be in his substance and thus would be his substance itself, just
as now it is the effect of the house that is in his mind or in the oper-
ation of his art, and is the art itself, differing from the form of the
house only in some foreign elements, such as matter, place, time and
the like. This is what is said in the texts, "In the principle was the
Word, and the Word was God,” and “What was made in him was life."
31. Note further that the effect exists in a different way in the
case of a proximate univocal cause. For example, fire in the case of the
fire where the effective principle is found (namely generating fire) has
the form of the fire that is begotten, but does not have the idea of fire.

131
 MEISTER ECKHART

Corporeal nature as such does not distinguish between the thing and
the idea, because it does not know the idea, which only a rational or
intellectual nature grasps and knows. Therefore, the intellect's effect
in itself is not only word, but also word and idea, the two meanings
of Logos mentioned above. This is very clearly put—“ The Logos was in
the principle," and “he was with God,” and “he was God,” and “he
was in the principle with God.” The Idea in the proper sense is cer-
tainly in the First Intellect. It is also “with God” in every neighboring
intellectual being that is its image, or made according to its image as
“God’s offspring" (Ac. 17:29). It is also “with him" because it is always
in the act of understanding and in understanding begets the Idea. The
Idea that begets its own understanding is God himself. ““The Word was
God and was in the principle with God," because it has always under-
stood, has always begotten the Son. Augustine says that if God was al-
ways a Father, he always had a Son.?* Alternatively, “He was from the
beginning with God” because he always begets in act just as “he was,”
that is, just as he was begotten “from the beginning." He gives birth
either always or never, because the end and the beginning are the same
there, as we said before. An agent like that, one that is a principle in
which there is Logos and Idea, is an essential agent that precontains its
effect in a higher way and exercises causality over the whole species
of its effect.
32. "In the beginning was the Word." A third way of explaining
these verses notes that among created things the universal rule is that
the idea of any particular thing is the principle and cause of all its
properties and qualities. Hence Averroes, commenting on the seventh
book of the Metapbysics,?? says that the early philosophers always want-
ed to know the “what-it-is” of things because knowing this, they would
know the cause of all, that is, of all that is in the thing itself. The prin-
ciples of the substance that the terms of its definition disclose are them-
selves the principles of all the properties and qualities of the subject.
So the definition itself (which is the thing’s idea) reveals the “what” of
the subject and the “why” of its qualities. It is also the means of dem-
onstration and the whole demonstration as productive of knowledge.
It is in this way that we expound what it says here, "In the beginning
was the Logos," that is, the Idea.
33. There is still a fourth way to explain "In the principle was the
Word," by noting that the Word, the Son in the Godhead, has four
properties. First, that he is innermost— "Receive the innermost Word"
(Jm. 1:21). Second, that he is the Firstborn of the whole creation—

132
 LATIN WORKS

“The image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of the whole creation"
(Col. 1:15). Third, that he is always being born and always has been
born, as was explained above.?? Fourth, that he proceeds from the Fa-
ther according to intellect, just as the Holy Spirit proceeds according
to love. This is what is said in this passage: The “in” signifies the first
property; "the principle" signifies the second; “was” indicates the
third, because it is a substantive verb in the past imperfect; and
"Word" stands for the fourth, for the Word is the Idea. The idea be-
longs to the intellect whose property it is to consider one thing under
different aspects, to distinguish the things that are one in nature and
in existence, and howsoever to grasp the order by which one thing is
prior to another, or by which one person derives from another.
34. Here we must make special note of the fact that the intellect
is completely and essentially intellect (totally pure understanding), es-
pecially in God, and perhaps in him alone insofar as he is the First
Principle of all things. Reality and intellect are the same in him.
Therefore, "the relations which accompany the activity of the intel-
lect" in the Godhead are real. And so “the Word,” that is, the Son,
“who proceeds in an intellectual way" from the Father “is not a rela-
tion of reason alone, but a real relation, because intellect itself and
idea" are realities, or “ are a single reality."?? Thus Augustine says:
"The realities that make us blessed ... are the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit."40
With reference to the first of these properties, the one denoted by
the preposition "in," the point is that to have interior existence and to
be innermost pertains to God and to divine things insofar as they are
divine. This is very clear from the first proposition of the Book of
Causes, especially in the commentary.*! It is also clear from the prima-
ry external work of God, which is existence, that which is innermost
to all.*? As Augustine says, "You were within and I was on the out-
side."^? The same point is evident in the third place in the powers of
the soul, which are the more internal insofar as they are the more di-
vine and perfect.
The second main point, the one indicated by the term “the prin-
ciple,” is clear from what we have said. The idea is what is innermost
and first in each thing. The Word is the Logos or Idea. What is denoted
in the third place by the term “was,” and in the fourth by the term
“Word,” has already been covered. This is the meaning of “In the be-
ginning was the Word."
35. A fifth interpretation of "In the beginning was the Word."

[55
 MEISTER ECKHART

According to the literal sense the Evangelist wants to say that there is
an emanation and personal generation of the Son from the Father in
the Godhead. This distinguishes the New Testament from the Old, in
which there is no open reference to the emanation of the Persons. The
New Testament speaks of the Son everywhere, both his divinity and
his humanity. According to his divinity, these words denote four
things about the Son of God in relation to the Father.^^ First, he is con-
substantial with the Father. That is what is meant when it says that
he exists in the Father. “In the principle was the Word." Everything
that is in the Father is consubstantial with the Father. Second, it notes
that there is a personal distinction between them when it says “The
Word was with God." Third, they have the purest unity in existence
and in nature, one that does not admit of parts in the idea or definition,
that is, the genus and difference. This is what it means when it says
“The Word was God,” that is, the Idea was God. For what is “of the
idea" is not the Idea itself. The fourth point is that the Son is coeternal
with the Father—‘‘This Word was in the beginning with God." These
things show the personal emanation of the Son or Word from the Fa-
ther. “The Word, however, must possess a Spirit. Even our word is not
bereft of spirit" as John Damascene says.*° And so it is clear that this
passage indicates the distinction of three Persons in the Godhead.
36. Because the effect is always an expression and a representa-
tion, and is also the word of its principle, the preceding words— “In
the principle was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God; this Word was in the principle with God"—can be ex-
plained in a sixth way applying to every work of nature and of art.
37. It is clear first that a painter possesses an inherent form of the
figure and its image that he paints externally on the wall. This is what
the text means, “The Word was in the principle." Second, it is neces-
sary that the image be with him as an exemplar toward which he looks
and according to which he works. As Seneca says in a letter: “It makes
no difference whether one has an external exemplar towards which the
eyes are turned, or one within that one has conceived oneself.”+6 This
is what the text "The Word was with God" signifies. Third, the image
depicted in the painter's mind is the art itself by which the painter is
the principle of the painted image. Thus we have the text, “God was
the Word," that is, the principle or cause of the effect, just as the bath -
in the mind is the principle of the material bath, as Averroes says,*?
and the figure in the mind is the principle of the figure on the wall.
Fourth, to cite Aristotle,*® it is evident that Polycletus is not the prin-

134
 LATIN WORKS

ciple of the statue before he acquires the art to make it, nor would he
be able to be its principle if he lost the art. So it is clear from the be-
ginning that the art itself remains with the artist as soon as he is an
artist and as long as he is an artist who is able to be the principle of
a work of art. This is what the text means: “This Word was in the prin-
ciple with God,” that is, was the art with the artist, coeval with him,
as the Son with the Father in the Godhead. I have dealt with this in
the second Genesis commentary when treating the verse, *He saw
three and adored one" (Gn. 18:2).49
38. A seventh interpretation of “In the principle was the Word."
There are four natural conditions of any essential principle. First, that
in itself it contains what it is the principle of the way a cause contains
its effect. This is what "It was in the principle" says. Second, that
which it is the principle of is not only in it, but is also in it in a prior
and more eminent way than it is in itself. Third, that the principle it-
self is always pure intellect in which there is no kind of existence save
the understanding that has nothing in common with anything, as the
citation from Anaxagoras in the third book of On the Soul says.5° The
fourth condition is that in and with the principle and by its power the
effect is equal in duration to the principle. The three latter conditions
are expressed through “the Word,” that is, the Idea. The Idea not only
has, but also has in a prior and more eminent way, what the effect has
in a formal way, because the Idea has it virtually. Again, the Idea is in
the intellect; it is formed by understanding and is nothing else than un-
derstanding. Again, it is equal in time with the intellect, since it is the
act of understanding itself and the intellect itself. This is the meaning
of what follows: “The Word was with God, and God was the Word,
and this Word was in the principle with God."
39. Please note that the preceding words have been interpreted in
many ways so that the reader can freely take now one and now the oth-
er as seems useful to him. I use the same method of multiple exposition
in my many commentaries.
40. There is still one question about the text "In the beginning
was the Word." Because the first property of the Word or Son in the
Godhead seems to be that he is begotten from the Father, why does it
say here “In the beginning was the Word,” rather than “From the be-
ginning”? The explanation seems manifold. First is that the word or
art stays in the maker even though it issues forth in the work. The sec-
ond explanation is that it is proper to divine things to have internal ex-
istence and to be innermost. Third, because the Son has been born

135
 MEISTER ECKHART

from the beginning from the Father in such a way that he is neverthe-
less always being born. The fourth reason is because it pertains to rea-
son to grasp things in their principles. All four of these points were
demonstrated above.
41. A fifth reason is that the Word itself, the exemplar of created
things, is not something outside God toward which he looks, as in our
case the figure on the wall is related to the painter who looks to its ex-
emplar, but the Word is in the Father himself. “The Word was in the
principle." This is what Boethius says of God in the third book of his
Consolation:

External causes did not compel him to form

'The work of unstable matter, but rather the
Innate form of the highest good.°!

Here it is better to remember that an exemplar that is beheld from

without is never the principle of the artist's work unless it comes with
the idea of the inhering form.5? Otherwise, a dabbler could make a pic-
ture as well as an artist, since both can see the external exemplar equal-
ly well. The work that is “with,” “outside” and “above” the artist must
become his work “within,” by informing him so that he can make a
work of art, as it says in Luke chapter one: “The Holy Spirit will come
upon you” (Lk. 1:35), that is, so that the “upon” may become “within.”
This is signified by “was in the principle" and the following statement,
“and the Word was with God.” The first clause stands for the formal
cause as it is in the Father; the second for the form or exemplary cause
as it is with the Father.
42. The sixth reason or cause why the Word or the Son is better
said to be “in” the Father than “from” the Father or the principle is
because the term “from” denotes the efficient cause, or it points to and
suggests the property of efficient causality, while the term “in” sug-
gests the nature of the final cause. Although God is as much the effi-
cient as he is final cause of all created things, he is much more truly
in prior and proper fashion the final cause of all caused things, accord-
ing to that saying of Aristotle that “he moves as the object of love."53
He also says that the end is the first cause in the act of causation.>*
This belongs to what is first, that is, to God, who is simply the First
Cause. Further, the efficient cause does not act except through its in-
tention of the end.55 It is moved by the end and for the sake of the end,
and is consequently a “moved mover,"56 and is second in the act of cau-

136
 LATIN WORKS

sation, something that properly does not belong to God. I have re-
marked on this at length in the treatise “On the End."57 This is what
the text says: "In the principle," that is, in the Father, *was the Word."
It does not say "from" the principle or “from” the Father.
43. From what has been said note that things are brought into ex-
istence virtually from their end and formally from their efficient cause,
and hence they depend on the end rather than the efficient cause in a
more radical, prior and noble sense. Similarly, freedom in the will
comes from the reason and the intellect. So too the power of generat-
ing in the Godhead directly and more principally belongs to the es-
sence rather than to the relation that is paternity.58
44. "In the principle was the Word." Every effect possesses exis-
tence in a truer and more noble fashion in its cause, but in the First
Cause alone it has existence absolutely and simply. This is what the
text says, "It was in the principle." In every cause inferior to God the
effect has a particular act of existence, just as it is a particular being.??
In God alone who is simple existence every effect has its existence ac-
cording to the passage, “All things were made through him," as will
be explained below.9?
Note that the Son in the Father is the Word, that is, the Idea that
is not made. The selfsame Son in the world is no longer under the
property of Word or Idea and Knowing Intellect, but is under the
property of existence.?! Therefore, the world was made through him,
but did not know him. As it says, "In the Principle," that is, the Fa-
ther, “was the Word." But it says below, “He was in the world, and
the world was made through him, and the world did not know him."
Later, in the seventeenth chapter, it says: "Just Father, the world has
not known you, but I have known you." (Jn. 17:25)
45. “In the beginning was the Word.” It is noteworthy that “be-
fore the foundation of the world" (Jn. 17:24) everything in the universe
was not mere nothing, but was in possession of virtual existence, as I
have pointed out in discussing the passage “God saw that the light was
good” (Gn. 1:4).9? Thus, “In the beginning,” that is, before the world's
foundation, “was the Word,” that is, the effect in its primordial, essen-
tial and original cause. At this point he wants to say and to teach that
there is another beginning of things that is higher than nature. This
is the intellect that orders each natural thing to its established end. So
the text says: "In the beginning was the Word," that is, the idea be-
longing to intellect and knowledge.
46. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

137
 MEISTER ECKHART

and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God." Augus-
tine in On the Trinity, book eight, chapter six, notes that justice or the
just intellectual soul is not seen in the soul itself as some image outside
that soul, or as something distant, the way a man beholds Carthage or
Alexandria in the mind. It is seen in the intellectual soul as something
that is present to it, although the intellectual soul still stands outside
justice itself. It is in the company of justice, but however similar to it,
it still does not attain it.63 The intellectual soul still strives after justice,
and if it attains, grasps and enters it in some way, it becomes one with
justice and justice one with it. This happens by "inhering in that same
form so that the soul can be informed by it and become a just intel-
lectual soul itself. ... And how could it inhere in that form (that is, jus-
tice) except by loving justice?"9^
47. From a careful investigation of what Augustine said, we can
understand what the second book of the Posterior Analytics says: 'The
questions we ask are equal in number to the things we truly know."6*
We can ask about things whether they are, what sort they are, what
they are and why they are.99 The four passages we have here answer
these in order. “In the beginning was the Word” gives you the fact that
the thing exists, for he says that it “was.” What sort of thing the Word
is, is pointed out in what follows, “and the Word was with God." This
will be made clear below. What the Word is follows in the text, “the
Word was God." The reason why is shown when it says, “this Word
was in the beginning with God."
48. An example. When justice is said to be a certain uprightness
“by which each person is given his due,"9? many who stand outside at
a distance, “in the land of unlikeness,”°® hear without hearing or un-
derstanding (Mt. 13:13). These are the idols of which the Psalm says,
“They have ears, but do not hear" (Ps. 113b:6). And so Matthew in the
same passage cited above says: "Let him who has ears to hear, really
hear" (Mt. 13:9). Another person, who carefully ponders what he
heard, is drawn to justice and his heart softens to it.9? He now knows
what the Word is like, that is, good and pleasant. “Such is my beloved
and he is my friend" (Sg. 5:16). What is loved changes the lover. Au-
gustine says, “You are what you love."?? This is what the statement
means, The Word was with God." He says “with” signifying near
and transforming. “You are near, O Lord, and all your ways are truth”
(Ps. 118:151). “The soul desires nothing more strongly than truth," as
Augustine says in his Homilies on John.”! Book ten of the Confessions
says, “Truth is loved in such a way that those who love anything else

138
 LATIN WORKS

wish that what they love be the truth.”?2 Thus one who is drawn by
the Word, which is the Truth, knows its attributes, knows that it is
pleasant, but does not yet know what it is. He still seeks what it is.
49. [n the tenth book of the Confessions Augustine says, “You have
introduced me to an internal affection to which I am not at all accus-
tomed, to a sweetness I cannot describe."7? Hugh of St. Victor, speak-
ing in the person of the soul, asks:

What is that sweetness that is accustomed to touch me from

time to time and affects me so strongly and deliciously that I
begin in a way to be completely taken out of myself, and to
be carried away I know not where? All at once I am renewed
and entirely changed; I begin to feel well in a way that lies
beyond description. Consciousness is lifted on high, and all
the misery of past misfortunes is forgotten. The intellectual
soul rejoices; the understanding is strengthened, the heart is
enlightened, the desires satisfied. I already see myself in a dif-
ferent place that I do not know. I hold something within in
love's embrace, but I do not know what it is.74

50. The third sentence gives the answer to the question of what
it is—" And God was the Word." The just man, the word of justice, is
justice itself. “The Father and I are one" (Jn. 10:30). The just man sig-
nifies justice alone, as we said above.?5 The following sentence, “This
was in the beginning with God,” teaches us why the Word exists. The
end is universally the same as the beginning, or principle. It does not
have a why, but is itself the why of all things and for all things.79 “I
am the beginning and the end" (Rv. 1:8). The same is true of every
principle and what it is the principle of in art and nature, although it
is more or less true depending on how much more truly one thing is
a principle than another.
51. "In the beginning was the Word." The moral message is that
God ought to be the principle of our every intention and action be-
cause "In the beginning was the Word, and God was the Word." Fur-
ther, if you want to know whether all your internal and external
actions are divine or not—whether God works them in you and they
are done through him—see if the goal of your intention is God. If it
is, the action is divine because its beginning and end are the same
thing: God.
We are also taught that our work ought to be reasonable, accord-

139
 MEISTER ECKHART

ing to the command and order of reason acting as the principle of the
work. John says, “In the principle was the Word," which is Reason.
Romans, chapter twelve, speaks of “your reasonable service" (Rm.
12:1), and First Peter, chapter two, of “being reasonable without guile”
(1 P. 2:2). In the fourth chapter of On tbe Divine Names Dionysius says
that man's good is to exist according to reason, but evil is what is “con-
trary to reason."7? In the first book of the Metaphysics it says that “the
human race lives by art and reason."7? This is what it says in the
Psalm: “Many say, ‘Who will show us good things?’ " And the response
is, “The light of your countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us" (Ps.
4:6—7), that is, the reason that is imprinted on us from God's counte-
nance is that which shows us the good. What is done according to rea-
son is well done, is rightly done, and is good. It comes from God's
countenance, as the text says: “Let my judgment come forth from your
countenance” (Ps. 16:2). Augustine in On Free Choice teaches that every
law is just and good in that it comes forth from God's countenance. It
is evil and unjust if it does not proceed from that source.??

Verse 3. All tbings were made tbrougb tbe Word.

52. Note: He does not deny that there are other causes of things,
but he means that an effect has its existence from God alone and not
from any other cause. Addressing God in the first book of the Confes-
sions Augustine says: “Existence and life flow into us from no other
source, Lord, than from the fact that you create us, .. . for you are the
supreme existence and supreme life.”’®° The reason for the statement
that all things are made through God is that each thing makes what is
like it and nothing acts beyond its kind.?! Everything less than God is
a particular being, not being or existence in the absolute sense. This
belongs to the First Cause alone, which is God.
The second point to be noted is that the words “all things" can be
used only of things that exist. Sin and evil in general are not things
that exist, so they are not made through him but without him. This is
the meaning of what follows: “Without him was made nothing,” that
is, sin or evil, as Augustine says.?? Here it says that all things were
made through him, but evil things do not exist and are not made be-
cause they are not produced as effects, but as defects of some act of ex-
istence. Third, note that the term “all things" denotes division and
number. Hence neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit, nor anything di-
vine insofar as it is divine, falls under the term “all things."

140
 LATIN WORKS

53. Fourth. Even though some things are produced and come
about from other things that are secondary causes, each and every be-
ing whether it be produced by nature or by art possesses its existence
or the fact that it is immediately from God alone, so that the text can
be read, “All things made exist through him.”83 And so there follows,
"Without him nothing was made," that is, everything that is made by
any agent whatever is nothing without him. It is clear that anything
that lacks existence is nothing. How could anything be without exis-
tence? The whole of existence and the existence of all things is from
God alone, as was said above.

Verse 3. Witbout bim notbing was made.

54. These words are explained through what has already been said
above. A second meaning is that nothing is made by God without
cause,?* wisdom and intellect. The Psalms say: “You have made all
things in wisdom" (Ps. 103:24), and “He made the heavens with intel-
lect" (Ps. 135:5). Job says, "Nothing happens on earth without a cause"
(Jb. 5:6), and Plato declares, “There is nothing whose origin has not
been preceded by an appropriate cause."95 The Logos is the ground or
cause, and that is what the text means “without him," that is, without
the Word, which is the cause.
Third, “Without him nothing was made," because the ideas of
things are eternal in God and they are the existence of everything that
is in God or that is made.?6 In book three, chapter four, of On the Trin-
ity Augustine says: There is nothing which comes to be in a visible
and sensible way which is not commanded or allowed in the invisible
and intelligible inner court of the Supreme Ruler."?? This is what the
Psalm text means, “The heavens were established by the Word of the
Lord” (Ps. 32:6), that is, by the Idea. “Heaven and earth will pass away,
my words will not pass away" (Mt. 24:35). All created things (that is
what is meant by “heaven and earth")*? are mutable; “the words," that
is, the ideas of things in God, are immutable. “You shall change them
and they shall be changed; but you are always the same, and your
years," that is, the ideas of years and times, “shall not fail” (Ps. 101:27-
28), nor shall they “pass away." They are “years without years," as Au-
gustine says on the passage “the number of my days" (Ps. 38:5).8?
55. Fourth. “Nothing was made without him,” that is, without
reason, because everything that happens contrary to reason is a sin and
is an empty useless nothing. What happens according to reason is made

141
 MEISTER ECKHART

through God, whether in us or in all things. In book three of On Free

Cboice Augustine says: "Whatever suggests itself to you as the better
course by means of a true reason, be assured that it has been made by
God as the creator of all good things.” “All things were made
through him, and nothing was made without him."
56. Again, summarizing what was said above, note that after the
Evangelist sets forth the four sentences where the emanation and dis-
tinction of the divine Persons are treated he immediately turns his at-
tention to what belongs to the divine nature in an absolute sense. He
starts from the same point that Moses put down at the beginning of
the Old Law: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” Just
as the Evangelist openly sets forth the distinction of the divine Persons
in the foregoing, so too Moses does in that text, but under a veil, as be-
fits the Old Law and its condition. He signifies the Father's Person
through the name of “God,” the Son’s Person by the name "Principle."
“In the Principle God created,” he says. Concerning the Holy Spirit
there follows, “The Spirit of God moved over the waters."?! Recognize
that the message here is very precise and fitting: "All things were made
through him,” that is, the Son, “and nothing was made without him."
The same is true of “In the Principle,” that is, in the Son, “God created
heaven and earth." The generation of the Son necessarily precedes ev-
ery action in all things, whether in nature or in art, in being or in
knowing, so that “through him,” the Son, “all things were made,”
heaven and earth, “and without him nothing was made,” because God
made those things from nothing (2 M. 7:28). This is what Moses meant
by "creation." “In the beginning God created heaven and earth,” he
says. Creation is production from nothing. This is what the passage
means, “Nothing was made without him."
57. As an example of how the Son’s generation precedes every ac-
tion and how “without him there is nothing,” note that in every sen-
sitive or rational power of ours the species, the offspring of the object,
must be brought forth first of all so that the faculty of sight in the act
of seeing is a different subject but not a different thing from the visible
object in act. In the faculty of sight the generating visible object and
its offspring are one, as the Philosopher says,?? father and son, the im-
age and what it images. Insofar as they are actually in act, they are also
coeternal. It is the same in art. In order to paint or write artistically,
a painter or writer must have generated or formed in his mind some
offspring, image or “son” from an external or exemplary house in or-
der to make the "artistic" house. In like manner, the external material

142
 LATIN WORKS

house is formed from the house that exists in the soul. The one is not
different from the other, but it is one and the same house existing un-
der different distinguishing properties. As the Commentator says, if it
were not for matter, the bath in the soul would be the same as the bath
outside the soul.??
58. In the same way, it is easy to see this in all the other things
that are or have been made in heaven and on earth. One then grasps
how proper, clear and precise is the statement “God created heaven
and earth in the Principle," that is, in the Son, and that through the
Son "all things were made, and without him was made nothing."
59. It is evident that these words denote the unity of substance
and the distinction and property of Persons in the Godhead—on the
one side, the begetter or Father, on the other, the offspring, image and
Son. The same is true in things created or made on the outside, accord-
ing to the text, “From him all fatherhood in heaven and on earth re-
ceives its name" (Ep. 3:15). Whoever denies that the Son is the
principle of every action does not understand what he is saying, as the
first book of On Generation and Corruption remarks of Anaxagoras.?*
Again, he who denies time affirms it, because it is impossible to deny
time without an act of speaking that occurs in time.?? It is the same
in the aforementioned case. He who denies that every action takes
place through the Son and in the Son affirms that action takes place
in the Son. For he cannot utter a denial without a "son," offspring or
species of his utterance having been begotten in him, that is, without
some preconception of what he is to say. He cannot even be under-
stood by a listener without an offspring, species or "son" begotten in
the listener by the speaker himself.
60. At this point we should also note that just as a particular agent
acts particularly and a particular patient is formed and produced as
particular in the “son” of the particular agent, so too the universe it-
self, heaven and earth, is produced in the Son of the First Agent that
is not particular, but is being and existence itself, which is God. This
is the meaning of “In the principle," that is, in the Son, “God created
heaven and earth," according to Boethius's poem:

Creator of heaven and earth...

You lead all things forth from the Supreme Exemplar ...
You have the world in your mind and form it to be like the
image.?6

143
 MEISTER ECKHART

Verses 3-4. What was made in bim was life.

61. The truth of this proposition is clear from five points. First,
because everything that is received is in the one who receives accord-
ing to the nature in which it finds itself.?7 The acts of active processes
are in the recipient that is prepared for them,?® and the meanings of
the categories are determined by their contingent subjects.?? The sec-
ond reason is because “The first things are in each other in the way
in which one can be in the other,” as the Book of Causes says. The ex-
planation of that continues: “Existence and life is understanding in the
understanding and is simple understanding; existence and understand-
ing in life is life and simple life.”!°° God is life: “I am the way, the
truth and the life" (Jn. 14:6). This is what is meant by "What was made
in him was life.”
62. The third reason. In order to understand this text one must
know that everything that is moved by itself or by a principle within
and in itself is said to be alive or living. What is moved only by some-
thing outside itself is neither alive nor said to be living. From this it
is clear that nothing that has a maker prior to it or above it, or an end
that is beyond it or different from it, is alive in the proper sense. Ev-
erything created fits that description. God alone, insofar as he is Final
End and First Mover, lives and is life. That is the meaning of “What
was made in him was life."
63. The fourth reason. To understand the text, remember first
that these three—to live, to exist and to understand—exhaust or com-
plete the totality of being. Second, remember that they have one order
when considered abstractly, that is, when we say “to exist, to live and
to understand," and another when considered concretely, when we say
“being, living thing and intelligent thing."!?! In the abstract, “to exist"
is the most perfect among the three, because no mode or perfection of
existing can be lacking to it. How could anything be lacking in exis-
tence through existence itself? Its lack must rather come from nonex-
istence or from absence. “To live" is higher than “to understand” on
the same grounds.
The situation is reversed in the concrete—being holds the lowest
place, living being the second place, and intelligent being the third or
highest place. The reason is that in the concrete they are all participat-
ing beings. Every participating being as such is empty and imperfect
on its own. For this reason it first shares in a more imperfect level of
participation because of its own lack of perfection and larger share of

144
 LATIN WORKS

the nature of the imperfect. This is the reason why a created thing is
a being on the first level, is a living being on a more perfect level, and
is an intelligent being on the last and supreme level. And so an intel-
ligent being is more perfect than a mere being because it includes be-
ing. Likewise, a living being is more perfect than a mere being because
it includes it. Therefore, a living being is more perfect than a mere be-
ing, not because it is living, but by reason of the kind of existence it
includes. Third, note that something that is inferior exists in a more
noble fashion and a more perfect way in what is its superior by essen-
tial order.
64. On the basis of these three points it is clear that being in a liv-
ing being is life in that it exists in the next highest stage. Living being
is intellect in its superior, intelligent being. This is perfectly expressed
here—‘‘What was made,” or being, “was life in him, and life,” that is,
living being, “was the light of men.” Living being is the nearest supe-
rior to mere being; intellect is the nearest superior to a living thing.
This may be the reason why he says “‘the light of men," because men's
intellect is the nearest superior intellective power to a living thing be-
cause it is the lowest intellective power.!°
65. Two other reasons why he says “the light of men” are given
above. Chrysostom holds that it says “the light of men" because John
wrote and spoke for men, especially about the Word who was made
flesh, that is, man.!9? Therefore he said “the light of men.” Origen says
that through the words “of men" universal rational nature is to be un-
derstood.!0^ “The gods and ourselves are rational," as Porphyry
says,!05 and the definition of man is “to be a rational animal." Remem-
ber that being holds the lowest level in creatures, as we have said.
From this it is clear that the first goal of creation is being or existence,
as it says in the Book of Causes.106
66. The fifth reason is that here one must recognize that as a uni-
versal rule the effect is in its effective principle according to that by
which the agent is formally and necessarily the efficient cause of the
effect. Thus in the case of human art, the art itself is that by which the
artist formally produces and makes the artifact. Hence the Philosopher
says that Polycletus as such is the accidental cause of the statue; he is
the necessary cause of the statue insofar as he is a sculptor who pos-
sesses the art of making statues.!°? So it makes no difference whether
it is Peter or Martin who acts, or even if it is a man or a living creature,
as long as it possesses the art. If the artist's substance were his art itself,
then the statue in the artist insofar as it is in him would be his very

145
 MEISTER ECKHART

substance. What is in the One is one; what is in life is life; and uni-
versally what is in anything simple is simple itself. This is what the
text means, “What was made in him was life." He is life: “I am the life"
(Jn. 14:6). “And the life was the light of men." He was the “true light"
spoken of later in this first chapter.
67. This is the case in natural things, because the form is that by
means of which one who generates does so, as Callias gives birth to
Socrates. One man differs from another only because of matter, as the
Philosopher says.!08 As far as it can, every agent makes something like
itself, and it makes the other itself,!°9 that is, makes the other from oth-
er into itself. It begins from the other, withdraws from it, and draws
it to itself. “The other" is the terminus a quo, “the self" is the terminus
ad quem. Things that are alike are one in quality, things equal one in
quantity.!!? What is formal is one in all cases. Nature always begins
from the One and returns to the One.!!! In the Godhead it is the same
in the case of the notional acts; the one essence is their root, and these
three are the one essence.!!? Note that from any one of these five rea-
sons taken in itself “What was made in him was life" can be interpret-
ed. The Gloss says here, “What is in the mind lives with the artist; what
comes to be, changes with time."!!?
68. "What was made in him was life, and the life was the light of
men." From the moral point of view note that the work of virtue al-
ways exists and comes to be in virtue. No one works justly outside jus-
tice, and so no one performs a work that is divine and good unless he
is in God. “Those who work in me shall not sin” (Si. 24:30); “Through
God we shall do mightily" (Ps. 59:14). The third chapter of John says
of the just man that “his works are in God” (Jn. 3:21); and John, chap-
ter fifteen, "just as the branches cannot bear fruit unless they remain
on the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me" (Jn. 15:4). If
you want to know whether your work is virtuous, a divine work, see
if it has been done in God. It has been done in God if you are in char-
ity—"He who abides in charity, abides in God" (1 Jn. 4:16).
Second, if you want to know whether your work has been done
in God, see if it is living, for it says here, "What was made in him was
life." A work is living which has no efficient or final cause outside or
contrary to God. Third, if you want to know if your work has been
done in God, see if it is your life. “Strive for justice for your soul, and
fight for justice unto death" (Si. 4:33); “I live in the faith of the Son
of God” (Ga. 2:20); “For to me to live is Christ" (Ph. 1:21). My message
is: If you want to act justly and well, may “to fight for justice unto

146
 LATIN WORKS

death" be like your life is to you, indeed, may it be dearer and more
precious to you than your life is. If this be so, then your work is in God
and is a work divine and just. This is the way to explain the text of
Matthew, “Take my yoke upon you... and you will find rest for your
souls" (Mt. 11:29). He who loves God's commandments more than he
loves himself takes God's yoke upon himself according to the text “let
him deny himself" (Mt. 16:24). Hence for God's love the holy martyrs
chose to give up their lives rather than justice.
69. What follows, “The life was the light of men," morally signi-
fies that such a life encourages and enlightens our neighbor more than
words do. “Let them see your good works and glorify your Father”
(Mt. 5:16). A holy life encourages more people and in a greater way
than words do. In the First Book of Kings it says that Saul struck a
thousand, and David with his strong hand and splendid appearance
struck ten thousand (1 S. 18:7, 16:12, 17:42). In his Letter to Fabiola Je-
rome says: “A man understands much better what he sees with his eyes
than what he hears with his ears." !!^ Horace says:

Things received through the ears make a weaker

impression on the soul
Than those that shine upon the faithful eyes.!!^

Seneca says in a letter, The path through commands is a long one,

that through example short and effective."
!!6 Therefore, “Jesus began
to do and to teach" (Ac. 1:1).

Verse 5. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not
comprebend it.
70. These words were interpreted in three ways above.!!? Now
we must observe that light does illuminate a medium, but does not
send out rays.!!? Therefore, the entire medium receives light immedi-
ately from the luminous body, not one end before the other,!!? but
both at the same time and immediately from the luminous body. The
reason is that light does not send a ray to the end or to any part of the
medium. Therefore, light does not inhere in the medium nor does the
medium become the “heir” of the light. The luminous body does not
make the medium the heir of its action of illuminating. It does impart
something to the medium reciprocally and impermanently, in the man-
ner of a reception,!?? something transitory that happens in it so that

147
 MEISTER ECKHART

it is and is said to be illuminated. It does not impart its light to the me-
dium in the manner of a received quality that is rooted and inherent
so that the light would remain and inhere and actively give light in the
absence of the luminous body.
71. It is completely different in the case of the heat that is gener-
ated in a medium at the same time as light. Heat sends a ray into the
medium that inheres and remains in the absence of the luminous body.
Third and further, this happens later at one end than at the other, be-
cause it is successive and temporal, not immediate and instantaneous.
Fourth, not only is each part warmed after another, but also through
and by means of another. Therefore, and fifth, no part whatsoever is
immediately warmed by the luminous body. Hence, in the sixth place,
the medium receives the heat that makes it to be and to be called hot
not only as a passing reception, like a loan or a guest, but also as some-
thing inhering, like a son and heir whose heredity it is to be and to be
called a source of heat. It is the heir of the action of heating, that is,
heat in the active sense.
72. This is not the case with light in a medium, as mentioned
above. That is the meaning of “The light shines in the darkness, and
the darkness did not comprehend it.” The “light” is God and every-
thing that is divine and perfect; “darkness” is everything that is cre-
ated, as mentioned above.!?! Therefore “the light," the divine
perfection, "shines in the darkness," but “the darkness did not compre-
hend it," that is, did not become an active source of illumination as a
true heir of God's action of creation, universal governance and things
of that sort. I have commented on this in speaking of the text “God
sent a sleep upon Adam” (Gn. 2:21) in my second commentary on Gen-
esis? :
73. From what has been said, it is quite evident how God speaks
once and for all, but two things are heard, as the Psalm says.!?? Job de-
clares, “God speaks once and for all; he does not repeat the same mes-
sage'a second time" (Jb. 33:14), because by means of a single action he
both generates the Son who is his heir, light from light, and creates the
creature that is darkness, something created and made, not a son or an
heir of light, illumination, or the power of creating. Many similar texts
in the scriptures can be explained on the basis of this interpretation.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not compre-
hend it."
There is yet a fifth interpretation. “The light shines in the dark-
ness, and the darkness did not comprehend it," because the principle

148
 LATIN WORKS

always affects what comes from it, but no part of what comes from it
affects the principle. Sixth. “The light shines in the darkness,” because
according to Augustine, during the three days when Paul saw nothing
else he was seeing God.!?* I have commented on this in expounding
the verse, "Moses went into the dark cloud where God was" (Ex.
20:2 2°
74. Seventh. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness
did not comprehend it,” because the principle gives a name to what
comes from it, and not vice versa. Clearly this is what is meant by “The
light shines in the darkness.” We say that a medium is illuminated by
brightness or light, but we do not say that light is illuminated or par-
ticipates in brightness. Eighth. “The light shines in the darkness.”
Note that it is of the nature of light that its transparency is never seen
and does not appear to shine unless something dark, such as pitch or
lead or the like, is added to it. “God is light, and there is no darkness
in him" (1 Jn. 1:5). This is what is expressed here—“
The light shines
in the darkness," that is, in creatures that have something dark (i.e.,
nothingness) added to them. This is what Dionysius says: “The divine
ray cannot illumine us save as hidden beneath many veils."!?6 In the
same way, fire in itself, in its sphere, does not give light.!?7 Hence it
is called darkness in Genesis 1:2, “Darkness (that is, fire according to
the doctors)!?? was on the face of the abyss." Fire does give light in for-
eign material, such as in anything earthly, like coal, or in a flame in
air.
75. Ninth. “The light shines in the darkness," because in every
case the principle lies hid in itself, but shines out and is manifested in
what proceeds from it, namely in its word. This is what Isaiah means:
“Truly you are a hidden God" (Is. 45:15). “He dwells in light inacces-
sible" (1 Tm. 6:16). Later in this first chapter it says, “No one ever saw
God, but the Only-Begotten who is in the Father's breast has revealed
him." Tenth. “The light shines in the darkness" because evil always
exists in something good and is neither seen nor known nor visible
without the form of something good. What is false is not recognized
outside the truth, privation is not known outside possession, nor ne-
gation outside affirmation.!?? Thus good shines in what is evil, truth
in falsehood, and possession in privation. So it says, “The light shines
in the darkness." There follows, “And the darkness did not compre-
hend it." Nothing is pure evil or falsehood. Bede says in his Homilies,
“There is no false teaching that does not have some truth mixed in
with it."!?9 The same is true of the other examples, such as possession,

149
 MEISTER ECKHART

affirmation and the like. Again, “the darkness did not comprehend it,”
because evil does not pervert, ruin, affect or denominate the good that
exists in it. The same is true of the other examples.
76. There is still the moral meaning. “The light shines in the dark-
ness" in that virtue shines and is evident in difficult and contrary cir-
cumstances. “Power is perfected in weakness" (2 Co. 12:9); “You have
tried me by fire and iniquity has not been found in me" (Ps. 16:3).
Gregory says, *Reproach that is inflicted brings out what a person is
really like on the inside."!?! In his Book of Resemblances Anselm gives
the example of a copper coin gilded on the outside, which when it is
thrown in the fire cannot blame the fire that it is made of copper.!??
The fire would respond, “I did not make you copper, but I uncovered
what you were in your hidden nature, according to the text, "The fur-
nace tries the potter's vessels! " (Si. 27:6). As a universal rule, every
power glows and receives existence insofar as it is a power not from
its subject but from its object or contrary.!?? Thus virtue glows from
its contrary. Therefore Matthew says, “Love your enemies” (Mt. 5:44),
and, *A man’s enemies are those of his own household" (Mt. 10:36).
The more a person is contrary to us and is our enemy, the more virtue
is evident in us, especially patience and the love of God, which are *'the
things of our own household.” We can interpret the Psalm text, “You
will feed us with the bread of tears" (Ps. 79:6) in this way, and also,
“My tears were my bread” (Ps. 41:4). For good men are fed, nourished,
supported, helped and gladdened by the difficult circumstances signi-
fied by the tears. And so Matthew says, “Blessed are those who suffer
persecution” (Mt. 5:10), not “will suffer" or “have suffered." Patience
really gleams when one is actually suffering. Augustine in his book Or
Patience says: “Job was more wary in the midst of pain than Adam in
the midst of plenty. The one was overcome in pleasures; the other
overcame in pains. The one gave in to delights, the other did not yield
to tortures.”!34 In-the letter to Marcellinus he says that the virtue of
patience is greater than everything that can be taken away from a man
against his will.!?5
77. When it says, “The light shines in the darkness,” the moral
message is that God himself consoles and shines upon those who bear
with difficulties and tribulations. “The Lord is near those whose heart
is in tribulation” (Ps. 33:19), and “I am with him in tribulation” (Ps.
90:15). “And the darkness did not comprehend it,” because “. . . the suf-
ferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glo-
ry to come" (Rm. 8:18). So Genesis says, “I... am your very great

150
 LATIN WORKS

reward" (Gn. 15:1). God always rewards more than he should and pun-
ishes less than he should.!36
78. A third moral sense. Even though a man may be suffering
some trial because of evil he has done (think of a thief and robber), as
long as he accepts death voluntarily, dying for justice's sake because it
is just for such a person to die, he will certainly be saved, as Chrysos-
tom says on the fifth chapter of Matthew.!?? The proof is clear in the
case of the thief of Luke's Gospel who says: “We indeed suffer justly,
for we are receiving what our deeds deserved," and who hears the re-
ply, “This day you will be with me in paradise" (Lk. 23:41, 43). This
is what is meant here, “The light shines in the darkness." Fourth. It
often happens that a person hopes and prays to be freed from difficul-
ties while ignorant of the fact that by them he is preserved from great-
er evils and prepared for better things. Thus once more, "The light
shines in the darkness," although it is not known or comprehended.
This is how Chrysostom explains the verse in Matthew seven, “If he
asks ... for bread, will you hand him a stone?" (Mt. 7:9)138
79. Fifth. “The light shines in the darkness," because God gives
even when he does not give, as when a person knows how to give up
something that he wants for God's sake, according to the text in Ro-
mans, “I wanted to be anathema from Christ for the sake of my breth-
ren" (Rm. 9:3). I have commented on this text more fully.!?? Perhaps
this is what Matthew means: “Your will be done on earth as it is in
heaven" (Mt. 6:10). Earth is to be understood as darkness, heaven as
light. Daniel says, “Bless the Lord, light and darkness” (Dn. 3:72).
Sixth. “The light shines in the darkness," because “He calls the
things that are not as though they are" (Rm. 4:17). "He stands at the
door and knocks" (Rv. 3:20); *He makes his sun to rise on the good and
the evil" (Mt. 5:45). So, too, the genus "animal" is univocal for both ir-
rational and rational animals. He speaks all things to all beings, but all
beings do not hear all things, as Augustine says in the Confessions when
he treats the verse, “I am the Principle who is also speaking to you”
(Jn. 8:25).149 In the Book of Causes it says, “The First Cause exists in all
things according to a single disposition, but all things are not in the
First Cause according to a single disposition." !4!
80. Seventh. “It shines in the darkness," that is, in a silence and
stillness apart from the commotion of creatures. The Creator “makes
the deaf hear" (Mk. 7:37). In the fourth book of the Confessions Augus-
tine says, “My soul, make your heart's ear deaf to the commotion of
your vanity and hear the Word."!^? Addressing God in book nine he

151
 MEISTER ECKHART

says: “What is similar to your Word ... if the commotion of the flesh
is silent to a person, images are silent .. . and the soul is silent to itself
and passes beyond itself by not thinking on itself?"!4? “When a deep
silence held all things" (Ws. 18:14). I have discussed this in comment-
ing on this verse.!**
81. Finally, what is expressed in “The light shines in the dark-
ness" is not only verified because opposites are more evident when
placed next to each other,!45 as we said above, but also because dark-
ness itself, privations, defects and evils praise and bless God. This is
seen first in an example. Judas damned praises God's justice; Peter
saved praises God's mercy. These two, justice and mercy, are one
thing.!4^6 Second, the light that is God, his power and might, shines
and gleams in the act of creation as much from nothing (the terminus
a quo) as it does from the terminus in quem that is existence. Creation
would not be a divine action and light unless it were from nothing.
Third. “The light shines in the darkness," because detestation and
hatred of evil always come from and are born of love of the good.!*?
So Augustine says that in the same measure that someone delights in
his own justice, he is displeased with that alien injustice that belongs
to others,!^? according to the verse in Matthew, “When the wheat
sprang up...then the weeds appeared too" (Mt. 13:26). Thus, the dark-
ness glorifies God, and the light shines in it, not so much as opposites
placed next to each other, but rather as opposites placed within each
other. Hatred of evils itself is the love of good or of God. It is one habit,
one act.
82. "In the beginning was the Word" and the rest down to “There
was a man sent from God."
Finally, I want to say in summary that the beginning of this chap-
ter teaches the general features of all being, both uncreated and cre-
ated. Regarding uncreated being, when it says, “In the beginning was
the Word," its initial teaching is that there is an emanation of Persons
in the Godhead, that there are three Persons, and that they have an or-
der of origin one to another. Under the name “Beginning” or “Prin-
ciple,” understand the Father, under "Word" the Son, and because a
word cannot exist without a breath, consequently also understand the
Holy Spirit. There is no generation without love; the generation is that
of the Son, the love that of the Holy Spirit. In the second place the text
teaches the divine properties of the proceeding Persons, especially of
the Son whose Incarnation is the subject here in the passages, “The
Word was with God" (signifying his personal distinction), *God was

152
 LATIN WORKS

the Word” (signifying the unity of essence), and “This Word was in the
beginning with God" (signifying his coeternity with the Father).
Third, it teaches the universal causality of the whole Trinity when it
says, "All things were made through him" (signifying the creation of
all things), "and without him nothing was made" (signifying the con-
servation of created beings in existence).
83. In relation to created being, it distinguishes four grades of be-
ings in the universe. The first grade is those that are mere beings, the
second grade is living beings, the third grade is the human intellect,
the fourth grade is the angelic intellect and any other that might be
separated, free from matter and image. This is expressed in the passage
"What was made" (the first grade), “in him was life" (the second
grade), “and life was the light of men” (the third grade), and “the light
shines in the darkness" (the fourth grade).
Note that the highest and finest of the elements, that is, fire, is in-
visible in its proper matter and sphere, and for this reason is under-
stood as darkness in the first chapter of Genesis, “Darkness was over
the face of the earth" (Gn. 1:2). So it 1s fitting that what is highest and
finest in the realm of intellect is as it were invisible and unknown to
us and denoted by darkness, as in the text, “The light shines in the
darkness." John says “shines,” because the intellect, which begins in
the senses, is clouded by the images through which and in which it
knows.
84. You can say quite fittingly that the "light of men" is the in-
ferior reason signified by the woman with veiled head (1 Co. 11:6-7).
The man with unveiled head is the image of God, the superior reason,
signified through the darkness when it says, “The light shines in the
darkness."!^? Augustine teaches about the two kinds of reason and
their properties, especially in On the Trinity, book twelve, chapters
fourteen and fifteen, and in the three following books in many
places.!5° The passage that follows, “And the darkness did not compre-
hend it," is well put. If the highest intellects denoted by “darkness”
cannot comprehend the light that is God, then it is clear that he is ab-
solutely *incomprehensible to thought," as the thirty-second chapter
of Jeremiah says (Jr. 32:19).

153
 MEISTER ECKHART

Verses 6—7. There was a man sent from God whose name was Jobn.
This man came as a witness, to bear witness concerning tbe
ligbt.

85. The text of Plato that Augustine introduces into the seventh
book of the Confessions has it that “The soul of man, although it bears
testimony to the light, is not the light itself.”!5! Note that the just man,
insofar as he is just, participates in justice itself. As such, he is sent or
has been sent by justice, and he is the one who bears witness to the ex-
istence and character of justice itself. He is not justice, but is sent and
begotten by it. No one but the just man knows justice—“No one
knows the Father except the Son" (Mt. 11:27), and "No one knows who
has not received" (Rv. 2:17). Therefore, no one bears testimony to jus-
tice except the just man, the son begotten from it. “Wisdom is justified
by her children" (Mt. 11:19). This is what it says below in the third
chapter concerning the one “who comes down from heaven.” “No one
receives his witness. He who receives his witness has set his seal on
this, that God is true. He whom God has sent speaks the words of
God" (Jn. 3:31-34). The author wants to say that no one who is not just
knows or can bear witness to justice and its properties. The just man
who comes “down from heaven" and from the height of justice sees,
hears or knows, and consequently testifies to what “he has seen and
heard" and received from that justice that is present as a teacher and
source of illumination in the just man himself. It seals and impresses
the truth of what it says and the truthfulness of God who seals and im-
parts justice.

Verse 9. He was the true ligbt.

86. Note first that God is called "true light" because in the God-
head light is not taken in a metaphorical or figurative sense, as corpo-
real things are, such as stone, lion or the like. This is what Augustine
says in book four of his Literal Commentary on Genesis.!5? But Ambrose
puts "brilliance" among the words that are used metaphorically of
God.!5? Remember that the absolute sense of the perfections signified
by the terms we use truly and properly belongs to God. Indeed, they
belong to God in a more proper and prior way than they do to any
creature, even though in relation to the mode of signifying and to some
of their implications and connotations the case is otherwise.!54 For ev-
ery perfection is “from above, from the Father of lights" (Jm. 1:17), and

154
 LATIN WORKS

leaves aside everything that connotes even the smallest imperfection in

any way.
87. Second. Note that each thing is said to be true on two grounds:
first, if it attains the substantial form of its nature; and second, if it has
nothing foreign mixed in with it. Both are true of God. “God is light,
and there is no darkness in him" (1 Jn. 1:5). Third, God is “true light,"
that is, not coming from the outside, not something illuminated (as is
true of creatures and was discussed above),!55 but he is the illuminat-
ing light. Fourth, note that as a universal rule what is higher in essen-
tial order as such is “light,” and what is lower as such is always “dark-
ness," as said above.!56 Therefore God, as the Supreme Being, is light
simply and absolutely, fully and truly, and hence the true “light, and
there is no darkness in him" (1 Jn. 1:5). The case is different with every
creature—it has something above it (that is, God), and so the prior text,
“The light shines in the darkness," namely God in creatures. This is
what the next text means.

Verse 9. He enlightens every man who comes into this world.

88. Note that this passage is ably interpreted in different ways by
various saints in Thomas's Gloss on Jobn,!5? especially because it seems
that many in this world are not enlightened. From what has been set
down already, we can briefly say that because God is light, as the Su-
preme Being and the First of all things, it is necessary that he enlighten
everything under him, both “man” and also “each one who comes into
the world.” For the world was “made through him,” and “all things
were made through him,” as said above. If anyone or anything is not
enlightened by him, then it is not under him and inferior to him, and
he is not above all things and the First. For “The First is rich through
itself,"!58 and exercises influence on all things. If it does not influence
all things, it is no longer the First, because it does not exist through
itself.15? [t pertains to the nature of the First to be able to exercise in-
fluence through itself. That is universally true of anything insofar as
it is a cause. It cannot be a cause of things it has no influence on. Again,
“The first of any kind whatever is the cause of all that follows."!60
Then it is clear that God enlightens all men and the things that come
about or come into this world, or that are in this world, that is, the
whole universe.
89. It is indeed true that he enlightens and influences different
people and different things in different ways: some by light according

155
 MEISTER ECKHART

to the property of existence (this is the way he enlightens every being

in the universe); others in more restricted numbers by light as life (this
is the case with living beings). He enlightens other more perfect beings
fewer in number insofar as he is “the light of men,” according to the
Psalm text, “The light of your countenance, Lord, is signed upon us"
(Ps. 4:7), that is, reason, which points to and shows what is good. In
the fourth way, he enlightens beings that are more perfect than men
by illuminating them himself without shadow of phantasms. In the
fifth way, he enlightens others by grace, the supernatural light.
90. From what has been said it is clear that a sinner without grace
counts for nothing among the just and is not subject to God as the light
of grace. God does not influence or enlighten him; every cause only in-
fluences its inferior. This is why Christ especially, and the saints and
doctors in general, recommend humility as that which subjects man to
God. “Learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart" (Mt.
11:29); "Everyone who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk. 14:11). On
the basis of this virtue the virgin herself was worthy to conceive and
bear God's Son—"He has regarded the humility of his handmaid" (Lk.
1:48). In his Sermon on tbe Assumption of tbe Blessed Virgin Augustine says
that humility is the ladder by which God comes to man and men to
God.!¢! [n the third book of On Consideration Bernard says: ‘“Humility
is the good foundation on which the whole spiritual structure is erect-
ed and grows into a temple holy to the Lord."!9? This “tower of
strength in the face of the enemy” (Ps. 60:4) is as brilliant as any gem.
You can have no virtue without it, as Augustine says,!63 because it
alone makes man subject to God and has him look upon God the way
an inferior does a superior.
91. The same can be said concerning the other ways by which
God enlightens different things in different ways. Those he does not
enlighten insofar as he is life do not live and are not living beings,
though they can be beings. God enlightens them as such with the light
of his existence. If they are not subject to him insofar as he is existence,
they are not beings, but are nothing existing at all. All privations, evils,
corruptions and defects are of this nature. All of these and things like
them are not beings, but lack all existence. They are not effects, but
defects, and therefore do not have God as cause. Cause and effect are
naturally related to each other as superior and inferior. Without this
relation the one does not enlighten, nor is the other enlightened. When
this relation is established, the superior enlightens everything that
comes into the "world" of its order of activity. This is what is signified

156
 LATIN WORKS

by "He was the true light that enlightens every man that comes into
the world." The things that are not beings, but that lack all existence,
do not come into the world. They are evils, vices, privations, negations
and the like, as we have said.
92. "He enlightens every man coming into the world." Briefly
put: Every influence is a form of enlightenment on the part of that
which exerts the influence, and the influence given is a light for that
which receives it. From this point of view, God, the light, the First
Cause of all, either has an influence on all things and on each one in
particular, or else he has none on each and all. If he has no influence,
he is neither a cause nor the First Cause of each and all. If he has some
influence on individual things, my case is proved, for every form of in-
fluence is a light, especially if the cause and principle of influence are
themselves entirely light. This is what is signified here, “He was the
true light which enlightens every man coming into this world."
93. To the third point I speak thus: God, the true and pure light,
enlightens all or none. But he does not enlighten none; therefore, he
enlightens all. The obvious conclusion follows: He regards all things
equally, uniformly and immediately, and is present to all before any-
thing else. An example and explanation of this is evident in the soul.
As the substantial form of the body it is immediately and totally pres-
ent to each part and therefore gives existence and life to all the mem-
bers. It is different with the other perfections that the soul does not
communicate to each part, such as sight, hearing, speech, and so forth.
Since life and existence are light, by the essence by which it is a form
and a type of light, the soul must enlighten every part of the body and
everything included under this form and in this body, that is, in this
world of the animated body.
Yet another example is taken from bodies composed of homoge-
neous parts. The substantial form of fire, because it is first and most
immediately present to its matter prior to quantity, or any extension
and distinction that belong to the genus of quantity or accident, by
fire's light necessarily informs and enlightens either every part of the
matter or none. But it does not enlighten none, and therefore it must
enlighten every part. As the First Cause, God is present before any sec-
ondary cause and departs after it, as the first proposition in the Book
of Causes and its Commentator say.!6^ And this is what is meant here:
*He was the true light that enlightens every man who comes into the
world."
94. Note that the fact that it says that God enlightens "every man

157
 MEISTER ECKHART

who comes into the world" has created and continues to create a dif-
ficulty for many because of a twofold false mental image. First, they
imagine that things are not present equally and immediately to God at
the same time,!65 and so they seek a difficulty where there is none by
looking for a medium in what is immediate, a space where there is no
quantity. The second cause and false mental image is because they
think that grace alone is an illumination, when every perfection, espe-
cially existence itself, is an illumination and a source of each enlight-
ening perfection. Aristotle in the third book of On the Soul calls the
agent intellect an illumination.!6° Much the same can be found in sa-
cred scripture and in the books of the philosophers. “I fill heaven and
earth, says the Lord" (Jr. 23:24). In the Psalm it says: "His going out
is from one end of heaven and his circuit is to the other end; and there
is no one who can hide himself from his heat" (Ps. 18:7). This is what
it says here, God enlightens “every man who comes into the world."
95. Comment briefly that God “enlightens every man who comes
into this world,” but one who is not humble (“from the ground") is not
a man, for the word “man” (bomo) is taken from “ground” (bumus).16?
Again, he is not a man who does not live according to reason, for man
is a rational animal. And so “he enlightens every man,” although not
every man is enlightened, just as he addresses all, although all do not
listen, as Augustine says when he treats John 8:25: “I am the Principle
who is also speaking to you."!68 Further, one is not a man who does
not have all things subject to him. The Psalm asks, “What is man?" and
answers, “You have placed all things under his feet” (Ps. 8:5, 8). Man's
affections are his feet. When the first man was created or formed he
heard the message, "Fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over all the
creatures that move on the earth" (Gn. 1:28).

Verse 11. He came to bis own.

96. In the first place, note that God, although he is everywhere

and in all things as existence, and is also everywhere and in all things
through his essence, is still said to *come" when his presence is evident
through some new effect. Second, note that Augustine in the seventh
book of the Confessions says that he did not find the passage from “He
came to his own” down to “those who believe in his name" in the
books of Plato.19? It is nevertheless a probable opinion that natural rea-
son has an incontestable exemplary proof for these words, *He came
to his own" and for others like them in the things of nature. Remember

158
 LATIN WORKS

that nothing is so much its own as a being's act of existence or a crea-

ture's creator. But God is existence itself and is also the creator. This
is the meaning of *He came to his own."
97. The passage can be taken in a second way as follows. The
things that are his own into which God came are Existence or Being,
the One, the True and the Good. These four things are God's own, for
he is “the First which is rich through itself."!7? He possesses these be-
cause he is "rich"; he possesses them as his own because he exists
"through himself." In the case of everything that is below the First
these four things are "guests and strangers" (Ep. 2:19); with God they
are "members of the household." Therefore, we teach first that God
exists and works in all things and comes to all men and all things in-
sofar as they exist, insofar as they are one, and insofar as they are true
and good. Second, we teach that through his coming and presence God
immediately and with no other agent causes being, unity, truth and
goodness in all things in an analogical fashion.
98. "He came to his own." Third. In.a more theological sense it
can be said that these “own” to which God the Word came are the act
of having mercy, according to that saying of Gregory, “God, whose
property it is always to have mercy and to spare,"!?! and the act of sav-
ing, according to the text of Augustine, “He is called Savior of the
world so that he may save the world; ... if you do not wish to be saved,
you will judge yourself by your own action."!?? God the Word pos-
sesses both these attributes. They are proper to him as God yet they
are held in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Because he
is the Son, he also certainly possesses what is intrinsically proper to
him. So John says that God the Word, the Son, "came to his own,” that
is, to those who are God's sons through the grace of adoption. “Because
you are sons, God has sent his Son's Spirit into your hearts" (Ga. 4:6).
This is what it says here: *He gave them the power to become God's
sons, to those who believe in his name." His proper name is that he
is the Son.
99. The following passage, “His own received him not,” can be
explained according to the three interpretations of "He came to his
own" just given. Neither things that exist nor things that are one, true
or good possess their being, unity, truth and goodness from themselves
(this is what the text “His own received him not” means), but they pos-
sess them from the Word himself, the Son of God (this is what follows,
“As many as received him, he gave them the power"). The very power
to receive him comes from him, just as Augustine in the twelfth book

159
 MEISTER ECKHART

of the Confessions says that prime matter's own receptive capacity

comes from God.!73 In On the Trinity, book fifteen, chapter fifteen, he
says that the capacity to conceive a word is already to be called a
word.!?^ And thus the text, “His own received him not.” First, because
they possess nothing from themselves or from what is their own; sec-
ond, because they do not have any capacity which is not from God;
third, because what is received does not take root in them, as we dis-
cussed above in the case of light;!75 and fourth, because indistinct ex-
istence is proper to God and he is distinguished by his indistinction
alone, while distinct existence is proper to a creature. It does not be-
long to what is distinct to receive what is indistinct.!7é So Augustine
addressing God says: “You were with me, and I was not with you."!??
100. In full agreement with this is the fact that in nature the form
of what is generated by means of the generation as received “comes to
its own," that is, to its proper matter. The acts of active agents are in
the recipient that is prepared for them,!75 and in nature there is a
proper passive recipient corresponding to every agent. As long as mat-
ter possesses something of its own, whether it be some act or some
property of the prior form—and thus is not pure receptive power—it
never receives the substantial form itself, the "son" of the generating
cause that brings it into existence. This existence is the gift of the sub-
stantial form, or rather is the substantial form itself, even though in
coming into existence or coming to be it must tolerate the dispositions
and properties of the form that perishes. Clearly this is the meaning
of “He came to his own,” and the following text, “His own received
him not,” that is, everything that still possesses something of its own.
For example, if the eye possesses some color or something pertain-
ing to color, it will see neither that color nor any other.!?? Yet further:
If the sense of sight is informed by any act whatsoever, even its own
act, it is not as such capable of receiving what is visible insofar as it
is visible.!$? What is active as such cannot be passive, and inversely
what is passive as such can in no way be active. Therefore, the intellect
has no actual existence of its own so that it can understand all
things.!?! It understands itself the way it understands other things.
Therefore, it has nothing of itself, nothing of its own, before it under-
stands. Understanding is a reception.!5? The formal property of what
receives something is to be naked.!83 This is all clear from the third
book of On tbe Soul and is the way it is with matter and substantial
form in nature. Matter itself, in which there is nothing distinct, as the

160
 LATIN WORKS

Philosopher says,!84 is the foundation of nature. Every act creates a dis-

tinction.
101. In relation to the passage “He came to his own,” it is even
more appropriate to say that these words teach first that “the Word
made flesh” assumed a pure human nature, that is, one without the
vices that the Enemy sowed (Mt. 13:25). These are not God’s seed; he
did not plant them; they are not his work. They are not made by God
nor are they proper to him, but are the Enemy's. God made man righ-
teous (Si. 7:30). Thus John says, *He came to his own," that is, he as-
sumed the nature he made, his own work, without vice and without
sin. “Without him was made nothing,” that is, sin.!85 This is what
John Damascene says—God the Word assumed what he planted.!?6
102. Second. We are taught in these words how “the Word made
flesh" assumed human nature out of pure grace and not from any prior
merits of the nature.!87 This is “He came to his own,” because it was
not from something that belonged to the nature, but from the grace
that belongs to God alone, that “the goodness and kindness .. . of God
appeared, not from the works of justice, but according to his mercy"
(Tt. 3:4-5). This is what follows in the first chapter of John, “to those
who were born not from blood, ... but from God." We can also say
“He came to his own” in the sense of what belongs to man and human
nature. He assumed the mortality and passibility that belong to man,
not to God.!88 Therefore, perhaps it says "The Word was made flesh”
because he assumed the defects to which the flesh is heir, that is, the
punishments due to original sin, but not the defects that are personal
sins and belong to the soul.!89
103. Again, *He came to his own." Note that everything created,
because it is a particular being, something distinct, belongs to some ge-
nus, species or individual thing. God is not anything distinct or proper
to some nature, but is common to all.!?? He is outside and above every
genus.!?! The proof of this is that being, God's effect, is not in a genus
and does not belong to any genus, but is common to every genus.!??
When God came into this world, assumed a created nature and was
made man, it was as if he came to what is proper from the height of
what is common. This is what the text clearly means, “He was the true
light that enlightens every man," for this light is common and superior
to all. There follows, “He was in the world, and the world,” that which
contains every genus, “was made through him." Finally, John con-
cludes, *He came to his own.” “I came forth from the Father and have

161
 MEISTER ECKHART

come into the world" (Jn. 16:28). “I came out of the mouth of the Most
High, the Firstborn before all creatures” (Si. 24:5); and below, “I came
forth from Paradise,” that is, divinity; “I said, I will water my garden
of plants,” that is, by creating the world (Si. 24:41-42).
104. The literal meaning of these words, “He came to his own,
and his own received him not," is that the Word assumed flesh in his
chosen Jewish people to whom “the oracles of God were entrusted”
(Rm. 3:2) and the Law was given in which Christ, his Incarnation and
like things were prefigured. God's “people, the sheep of his pasture"
(Ps. 99:3) did not receive him through faith.!9??
105. *He came to his own, and his own received him not." The
moral meaning is that God comes to the minds of men who dedicate
themselves totally to him and who make themselves so much his that
they no longer live for themselves, but for him. This is what is meant
by “His own received him not,” where “his own" are those who live
for themselves, seeking what is theirs and not what is God's. This is
what the next passage signifies.

Verses 12-13. As many as received him he gave the power of

becoming sons of God; to those who believe in bis name, who
were born not from blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God.
106. In order to explain these words and many others in scripture
four things must be noted. First, that the first fruit of the Incarnation
of Christ, God’s Son, is that man may become by the grace of adoption
what the Son is by nature, as it says in the text here, “He gave them
the power of becoming sons of God,” and in the third chapter of Sec-
ond Corinthians, “with faces unveiled reflecting as in a mirror the glo-
ry of the Lord, we are being transformed in the same image from glory
to glory” (2 Co. 3:18). Second, everything that receives something or
participates in something as such is empty and is in the passive power
alone, according to the text, “As many as received him."
107. Third, the passive or receptive power through its being a
power naturally and in every case receives its whole existence from the
object alone, and no more from its subject than it does from any other
subject foreign to it. Insofar as it is a power, it receives the same act
of existence as that of the object. The Philosopher says that not only
in things that are separate from matter is the intellective power the
same as the intelligible object, but even in corporeal beings the sense

162
 LATIN WORKS

faculty and sense object are identical in act.!94^ For even though the
sense object does not give existence to the eye insofar as it is an eye
or a being, and the eye does not give existence to the sense object in-
sofar as it is a being (for in this respect the sense faculty and sense ob-
ject are two), nevertheless, insofar as they are in act as the eye seeing
and the object being seen, they are still one. In one and the same act
they are the eye seeing and the object being seen. So Augustine in Oz
tbe Trinity 9.12 says, "It must be held with certainty that everything
we know begets its knowledge of itself in us."!?5 This from Augustine.
Take seeing away from the eye, and you take away being seen from the
object. On the other hand, take away being seen from the object, and
you take away seeing from the eye. To see and to be seen are one and
the same thing, that is, they begin at the same time, and continue, cease
and revive—originate and die—all at the same time. Neither nature,
nor intellect, nor God can separate them.
Therefore as the Savior puts it so clearly and well, “This is eternal
life, to know you alone" (Jn. 17:3). And Matthew teaches us to pray,
“Hallowed be your name" (Mt. 6:9). The name, that is, the knowledge
of God, is hallowed when he alone is acknowledged. Since man, as said
above, receives his total existence entirely from God as from an object,
existence for him is not "existence-for-himself" but “existence-for-
God." It is existence-for-God, I say, insofar as God is the principle that
gives existence, and insofar as he is the end for which man exists and
lives. It is ignorance of self and of anything that is not God or is not
in God insofar as it is in him and is divine. In speaking to God in the
sixth book of the Confessions Augustine says, “Unfortunate is the man
who knows everything else, but does not know you; blessed the man
who knows you, even if he is ignorant of all those things. He who
knows you and other things is not more blessed because of them, but
blessed because of you alone."!?6
108. From what has been said the error of those who claim that
the intellect and the will would be distinct powers even if they had one
formal object is evident. Also clear is the error of those who say that
beatitude consists in a reflective act of the intellect by which man ac-
tually knows that he knows God. I have treated these points in detail
in the Work of Questions. !??
109. Fourth. Note that it follows from what has been said that the
known object begets itself or its species and gives birth in the knowing
power. The begotten species is one common offspring in the object
known and in the knowing power, as Augustine says in the passage

163
 MEISTER ECKHART

from the ninth book of On the Trinity cited above. As we said, because
the knowing power receives its existence from what is known, and re-
ceives the very existence of the thing known, the Truth gives us good
advice by prohibiting having or acknowledging any other father than
God— "Call no one on earth your father, for one is your Father who
is in heaven” (Mt. 23:9); and "I have come to set a man against his fa-
ther," (Mt. 10:35), that is, so that he has no other father than God and
knows no other except God. If a man has anything beyond God as his
father, something that bears itself in him and is known by him, then
he would be formed and given existence by that thing, indeed, given
its very existence. Hence, he would not be perfect and would not truly
be a son of God alone. “Be perfect, just as your Father is perfect” (Mt.
5:48). He would not be God's son at all. No one can have two fathers.
Therefore, Matthew clearly says, “Your Father is one" (Mt. 23:9).
110. This is what our passage says, "As many as received him,”
namely, as many as were empty of every form begotten and impressed
by creatures, “he gave the power to become sons of God.” He gave it
"to those who believe in his name,” that is, his knowledge (for name
is derived from knowledge) “so that they may know God alone” (Jn.
17:3), as we said above. John says "those who believe," because know-
ing and recognizing “is justice perfected and the root of immortality”
(Ws. 15:3), as well as “eternal life" (Jn. 17:3). “We walk by faith” (2 Co.
5:7); "He who draws near to God must have belief" (Heb. 11:6). This
is what the text signifies by "those who believe in his name.” Now we
see "through a glass darkly, but then it will be face to face; now we
know in part, but then we shall know even as we have been known”
(1 Co. 13:12). “Who were not born from blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of thé will of man, but of God.” “That which is born of the
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3:6).
So what is born of God is God, God's son. “Everything born from God
overcomes the world" (1 Jn. 5:4), and in the sixteenth chapter the Son
says, "I have overcome the world" (Jn. 16:33).
111. Remember that there are three faculties in man: The first an
irrational one that does not obey reason; the second an irrational one,
but born to obey reason (the positive and negative appetites)!?35—'"The
appetite thereof shall be under you" (Gn. 4:7); and Aristotle calls it ra-
tional by participation!??—and the third essentially rational. The first
of these is signified when it says “not from blood," the second under
"not from the will of the flesh," and the third with the words that fol-
low, “not from the will of man." He wants to say that nothing human

164
 LATIN WORKS

and therefore nothing worldly or created ought to beget itself in us so

that we are born from it, but that we are to be born from God alone.
This is the meaning of the text “who were not born from blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
In distinguishing the three Augustine says that Latin does not use
the plural “bloods,” but Greek does.??? The translator preferred to be
a bit less grammatical to serve the truth better. Man is born “from the
bloods" of husband and wife. Through "the will of the flesh" under-
stand the wife, whose role is to obey and serve, just as through the spir-
it we sometimes understand the husband, whose role it is to rule.
Corrupt is the household where the woman rules over the man. There
is nothing worse.
112. In the first exegesis of the passage, "He came to his own," we
said that God is everywhere and in all things.2°! Second we said its
moral message is that in order to be divine and godlike a man should
behave uniformly everywhere and in all things.??? “God is one" (Ga.
3:20), and from this fact we derive the word “uniform.” Again, as the
Book of Causes says, God himself “exists in all things according to a sin-
gle disposition, but all things do not exist in him according to a single
disposition."?9? It follows that he who is not “in all things according
to a single disposition" is not uniform to the one God and is not dei-
form in things. Rather, he is not deiform in things and in God, but is
in them according to the nature and properties of creatures. He who
is nowhere, who, I say, is not tied down by love of any place, homeland
or household, is really everywhere. He who is not affected by any par-
ticular created being is thus in all things.
113. Again, on the basis of the second exegesis of “He came to his
own,"?9^ note in the third place the moral message that the further a
thing is removed from the many and aims toward the One the more
perfect and divine it is. "You are troubled about many things, ... yet
only one thing is necessary" (Lk. 10:41-42). Again, “If your eye,” that
is, your intention, “is simple, your whole body will be full of light”
(Lk. 11:34). Because of this Ecclesiasticus says, “My son, meddle not
with many matters” (Si. 11:10); and the Psalm, “I have asked the One
from the Lord" (Ps. 26:4). (The text uses the feminine instead of the
neuter here, according to Hebrew usage, as Jerome says.)?°° In book
one of On Order Augustine says:

The soul which enters multiplicity eagerly strives after the

loss that it does not know can only be avoided by shunning

165
 MEISTER ECKHART

multiplicity.... The greater the desire to embrace multiplic-

ity, the greater the loss it suffers. Just as no matter how big
the circle is, there is one midpoint where all the radii meet...
and that is the source of their equal length and the ground in
which everything in any part of the circle loses that which
makes it multiple, so too the intellectual soul, when it pours
itself out, is beaten down by a kind of vastness and is uprooted
by a real indigence since its nature impels it to seek the One
in all things but multiplicity forbids it.?06

This is what Augustine says. In On True Religion he also says, “The

principle of everything that is one is the One alone, that from which
comes everything that is one.”?°7 And later, “We certainly seek that
One which is simpler than anything else." Therefore, “Let us seek him
‘in simplicity of heart' " (Ws. 1:1). “The phantasms of the whirl and
swirl of life do not let us see the unchanging unity."?98 Further below
he says, "We naturally reject anything that falls from unity and strives
towards unlikeness. Unity allows us to understand that a thing is a
thing.... On this principle unity belongs to that which is in any way
one, ... the Word in the Principle, and God the Word with God."?0?
114. The ground for what has been said is that the One, Being, the
True and the Good are interchangeable.?!? To depart from the One is
to fall from the True, from the Good, from God. “‘God is one" (Ga.
3:20). He who falls from the True falls into a lie. “You love vanity and
seek after lying" (Ps. 4:3). To fall from the Good is to fall into malice—
“You have loved malice more than goodness" (Ps. 51:5). To leave God
is to approach the devil—‘‘The devil is your father” (Jn. 8:44). On this
basis you can explain the text “We have all things in you, the One”
(Tb. 10:5). Everything that exists and that is true and good is possessed
in the One itself. On this basis the text in chapter two of James is clear
that anyone who offends “against the One is guilty in all things" (Jm.
2:10). By the very fact that anyone departs from the One, offends
against the One itself and abandons it, he incurs guilt in all things.
Guilt and stain in all things is vanity: “All is vanity” (Si. 1:2). Guilt in
all things is division, number and multitude: “We have all offended in
many things" (Jm. 3:2). Multitude, the opponent and adversary of the
One, is always a sin, either of nature or of morality. “You will pardon
my sin for it is many” (Ps. 24:11). Every sin in itself is “many,” even
if it happens only once, because the many is a fall from the One and
therefore from the Good, which is interchangeable with it. Hence Je-

166
 LATIN WORKS

rome in his Commentary on Ecclesiastes says that a plural number is al-

ways taken as an evil.?!! I have commented on this at length in
speaking of the work of the second day in the first chapter of Gene-
sis.212
115. From the third exegesis of “He came to his own" take note
of a fourth moral meaning: He who wants to find God in himself must
be God's son.?!? The Father and the Son exist at one and the same time
and are mutually related. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son in
the Trinity, and hence he does not proceed into us nor is he presented
except to sons. "Because you are sons, God has sent his Son's Spirit
into your hearts" (Ga. 4:6). We are sons if we do each of our works
from the love of the good alone insofar as it is good. Son comes from
philos, which in Greek means love.?!4

Verse 14. Tbe Word was made flesb and dwelt among us.
116. Note first that “flesh” here stands for man figuratively, ac-
cording to Matthew's text, *No flesh would be saved" (Mt. 24:22), and
“No flesh will be justified from the works of the law” (Rm. 3:20). The
Evangelist preferred to say ‘The Word was made flesh,” rather than
man, to commend the goodness of God who assumed not only man's
soul, but also his flesh. In this he strikes at the pride of all those who
when asked about their relatives respond by pointing to one who holds
an important position, but are silent about their own descent. When
asked, they say they are nephews of such and such a bishop, prelate,
dean or the like. There is the story of the mule who when asked who
his father was answered that his uncle was a thoroughbred, but out of
shame hid the fact that his father was an ass.?!5
117. Second. As mentioned above,?!® note that the first fruit of the
Incarnation of the Word, who is the natural Son of God, is that we
should be God's sons through adoption. It would be of little value for
me that “the Word was made flesh" for man in Christ as a person dis-
tinct from me unless he was also made flesh in me personally so that
I too might be God's son. “If son, then also heir” (Ga. 4:7). Perhaps this
is what we pray for at the Lord's command: “Your will be done on
earth as it is in heaven" (Mt. 6:10). That is, just as the Father's will that
he be a Son has been done in Christ, the “heaven” (for by nature it is
the will of a father as father to bear and have a son), so also may the
Father's will that we be sons of God be done on “earth,” that is, in us
who live upon the earth. “You have received the spirit of adoption of

167
 MEISTER ECKHART

the sons of God” (Rm. 8:15); and below, “If we are sons, we are heirs
also: Heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Rm. 8:17). Fur-
ther on it says, “He has predestined them to become conformed to his
Son's image so that he should be the firstborn among many brethren"
(Rm. 8:29). This is the meaning of ““The Word was made flesh" in
Christ the firstborn, *and dwelt among us" when we are born God's
sons through adoption. In the sixteenth chapter it says, "I will see you
again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one shall take from
you" (Jn. 16:22). God has "seen us" when he was made man for us in
Christ; he sees us again in adopting us as sons and dwelling in us like
a Father in his sons. That is, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us."
118. “The Word was made flesh" in Christ who is outside us. He
does not make us perfect by being outside us; but afterwards, through
the fact that “he dwelt among us,” he gives us his name and perfects
us "so that we are called and truly are God's sons" (1 Jn. 3:1). For then
the Son of God, “The Word made flesh,” dwells in us, that is, in our
very selves— 'Behold God's dwelling with man, and he will dwell with
them ... and God himself will be with them as their God" (Rv. 21:3).
“His name shall be Emmanuel, that is God with us" (Is. 7:14; Mt. 1:23);
and “Rejoice and give praise, habitation of Sion, for great is the Holy
One of Israel who is in your midst" (Is. 12:6). He says, "He dwelt
among us," that is, he made man his dwelling.?!? Again, “He dwelt
among us" because we have him in us. Anything takes its name and
existence from what it has in it. This is what the Bride prays for in
the Song of Songs: "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth" (Sg.
1:1). After she received it, “The winter is past and gone, .. . the vines
in flower yield their sweet smell, ... for his lips are like a dripping
honeycomb” (Sg: 2:11, 2:13, 4:11). John says therefore, “The Word was
made flesh" in Christ, “and dwelt among us" when in any one of us
the Son of God becomes man and a son of man becomes a son of God.
"See what manner of love God has given us, that we should be called
and truly be God's sons" (1 Jn. 3:1).
119. What is said here, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us," in the sixteenth chapter is expressed as "Again I will see
you" (Jn. 16:22). He saw us when he was “made flesh"; he sees us again
when he dwells in us. “The kingdom of heaven is within you” (Lk.
17:21); and “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (this is said of.
Christ), “and his name shall be called Emmanuel, that is, God with us"
(this is said of each of us as a son of man becomes a son of God). “We

168
 LATIN WORKS

are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as
through the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Co. 3:18). We should not falsely sup-
pose that it is by one son or image that Christ is the Son of God and
by some other that the just and godlike man is a son of God, for he
says, "We are being transformed into the same image.”2!8 Further-
more, just as when many mirrors held up to a person's face and coun-
tenance are all informed by the same one face, so too each and every
just person is completely and perfectly justified by the same justice.
They are formed, informed and transformed into the same justice.?!?
Otherwise they would not be just in a univocal sense, and no single
just person would be truly just if justice were one thing in itself and
another in the just person.
120. The text in Hebrews, "It was right that he should in all
things be made like his brethren" (Heb. 2:17), can be interpreted in a
good and true fashion on this basis. Earlier it says, “Both he who sanc-
tifies and they who are sanctified are all from one, for which cause he
is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. 2:11). In the text from Co-
rinthians when he said, We are being transformed into the same im-
age," he added, “as through the Spirit of the Lord,” as if to say that
just as we are all sanctified by the same Holy Spirit who comes upon
us (Lk. 1:35), so too all of us who are just and godlike are called and
truly are God's sons in the same Son of God who is “the Word made
flesh" in Christ living among us and conforming us to himself through
grace. He does not merely say, "that we may be called," but he says,
“that we may be called and may truly be" (1 Jn. 3:1)—“in order that
we may be"—"in order that he might be the firstborn among many
brethren” (Rm. 8:29).??? Immediately before this, it has, “He predes-
tined them to be conformed to the image of his Son." This is what our
text means, “The Word was made flesh,” and the very same Word, the
Son, “dwelt among us."
121. With us no matter how close the object of sight approaches
the faculty of sight, we never see unless the visible image itself (the
same image as that of the visible thing) is imprinted on and transferred
to-or “dwells in" the one who sees. If there were a different image in
the one and the other, the person who sees would not see the visible
object through the image that is in him, and the visible object would
not be seen through or in the image in the one who sees. And so the
object and the faculty of sight would not be one in act, as Aristotle
says.22! This is “the grace upon grace” (Si. 26:19) and “the grace for
grace” (Jn. 1:16), so that not only may “the Word be made flesh,” but

169
 MEISTER ECKHART

“what is made flesh may also dwell among us.” This is what the Son
says further on—“I have come,” that is, by taking on flesh, “that they
may have life" (Jn. 10:10), that is, by my living among them. This is
said right below, “And of his fullness we have all received, grace for
grace."

Verse 14. We saw bis glory, glory as of the Only-Begotten of the

Fatber.
122. The literal interpretation. According to Chrysostom, the
Evangelist wished to demonstrate in brief fashion that the glory of the
Word made flesh is totally ineffable in itself in all aspects, and so he
says that his glory is of the kind that befits the Father's Only-Begot-
ten.2?? Such a Person by nature has everything that the Father has.
“All the things that the Father has are mine" (Jn. 16:15); and "knowing
that the Father had given all things into his hands" (Jn. 13:3); and “All
things that are mine are yours and yours are mine" (Jn. 17:10). Also,
“What my Father has given me is greater than all" (Jn. 10:29), because
“All things were made through him"; but he himself was not made but
received something greater from the Father, namely the Father's un-
created nature, which is truly something greater than everything, for
as creator it is the beginning and end of all things.
123. It also can be said quite fittingly that in this passage the
Evangelist wanted to show that those who had received the power to
become God's sons and “‘to be born from God,” and to have the Word
made flesh dwell among them are seeing his “glory as of the Only-Be-
gotten." This glory is “as of the Only-Begotten” (“Only-Begotten” in
the sense of first of many), that is, it is like that of the Only-Begotten,
because the term “as of” signifies likeness. “We shall be like him, for
we shall see him just as he is" (1 Jn. 3:2). Like is always known by
like.??? This is as if he were to say, “We see the glory of the Only-Be-
gotten of the Father," as if we also were only-begotten. He is the Only-
Begotten, coming from the Father alone; we are begotten, but not from
one father. He is a Son through the generation that leads to existence,
species and nature, and therefore he is the natural Son; we are sons
through the rebirth that leads to conformity with this nature. He is
"the Father's image" (Col. 1:15); we are made to the image of the whole
Trinity??4—“Let us make man to our image” (Gn. 1:26). He is the one
to whom witness is given; we are the witnesses (Ac. 2:32).
“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his

170
 LATIN WORKS

glory, glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of grace and

truth."
124. In the seventh book of the Confessions Augustine says that ev-
erything from the beginning of the chapter down to and including
"full of grace and truth" he had read and found in Plato's books.225
The exceptions were the part discussed above from “He came to his
own” down to "those who believe in his name," and what is said here,
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
125. But there is still good reason to say (always presupposing the
historical truth of the text) that everything that is said here, the whole
verse, is contained in and taught by the properties of the things of na-
ture, morality and art. The word universally and naturally becomes
flesh in every work of nature and art and it dwells in things that are
made or in which word becomes flesh. This is the case with the soul,
spirit or word become flesh when it is united to flesh in a human being
or in any animal. The soul itself dwells in the flesh or in the person
composed of body and soul. The person himself sees the "glory," that
is, every perfection and all the soul's properties, as something begotten
and “only-begotten” from it, that is, from the soul as the father and be-
getter of the living being. This happens inasmuch as there is the same
act of existence for everything that belongs to a person as man, as flesh
and as soul.
126. Just as the flesh receives, possesses and sees by experience the
very existence of the soul, it does the same with every property and op-
eration of soul, so that the act of existence and all its operations are not
proper to the soul but to the joint body and soul. The flesh and its soul
share the modes of predication that are proper to each,??6 that is, their
properties, modes of address and language, so that we do not say that
the soul exists, senses and understands, but we say that the whole com-
posite of body and soul exists, senses and understands, as it says in the
first book of On the Soul???
127. The same holds true in the case of every substantial form and
its matter, in the case of an accident and its subject, and also in the case
of the form of art in the artist's soul and what he makes. That is what
this text means: “Full of grace and truth," that is, of every perfection
of "grace and truth.” Anyone who is informed by a form possesses the
full act of its existence. By having it within him he sees every “grace”
and every “truth” or every perfection and power of the form, in accord
with the texts, “All good things came to me together with her" (Ws.
7:11) and “He has given us all things with him" (Rm. 8:32).

171
 MEISTER ECKHART

128. On the level of sense we see that an iron bar that is well and
fully heated in fire does what fire does and more. Avicenna says that
molten lead burns a hand worse than fire does,??? according to the pas-
sage “The works that I do he shall also do, and greater than these he
shall do" (Jn. 14:12). This is true in the case of everyone who is born
from the Spirit or from God (Jn. 3:6). The Word made flesh dwells in
him. Informed by that Word, like its only-begotten he sees its glory,
since he is full of grace and truth, that is, of its every perfection and
glory. “Your face is full of graces” (Est. 15:17). This is the meaning of
“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory,
glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
129. The Savior speaks of this fullness in chapter sixteen when he
says, “Ask and receive, that your joy may be full” (Jn. 16:24). As long
as a fire is being ignited from a piece of wood, it is not fully hot.???
But after the wood has gained the form of fire, then through and in
that form it attains and gains full heat perfectly. Heat is no longer
something that precedes and prepares fire’s form, but is rather some-
thing that follows after and comes from the form of fire itself. Thus
the grief that accompanies birth, change and motion ceases, and the
wood rejoices and delights completely in the full heat of the form of
fire. Since it is completely hot, nothing can be added to it, but it rests
in that heat when every grief and resistance accompanying change and
movement has ceased. Hence the text in chapter sixteen, “A woman
about to give birth has grief ..., but when she has brought forth the
child, she no longer remembers the anguish for her joy that a man is
born into the world" (Jn. 16:21)..And immediately below, “You grieve
now, but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice" (Jn. 16:22).
As long as anything is becoming something else, it always has the grief
of unlikeness and restlessness. When it has received existence through
the form, it is at rest and is content. Fire, by heating and changing
pieces of wood, *'sees" them. It prepares them for the form of fire, but
accompanied by a painful unlikeness that resists change. It “sees” the
pieces of wood once again when they receive the form of fire through
generation after the unlikeness has been cast off. This generation takes
place in complete stillness of motion, time and unlikeness, so that
while the form of fire remains, the heat and natural delight in it cannot
be taken away. This is what follows, “Your joy no one shall take from
you,” a passage introduced by, “I will see you again, and your heart
shall rejoice” (Jn. 16:22).
130. This is the case in what we are discussing: As long as we are

172
 LATIN WORKS

not like God and are still undergoing the birth by which Christ is
formed in us (Ga. 4:19), like Martha (Lk. 10:41) we are restless and trou-
bled about many things.2?? But when Christ, God's Son, has been
formed in us so that "we are in his true Son" (1 Jn. 5:20), and we are
God's sons after every unlikeness has been cast off, “We shall be like
him, for we shall see him just as he is, having been made one in him
and through him" (1 Jn. 3:2; Jn. 17:21). At that time we shall have full
and perfect delight and we shall be at rest, as Augustine says, “You
have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in
you.”231 Thus in Luke, chapter ten, after he said that Martha was trou-
bled about many things, he says, “yet only one thing is necessary” (Lk.
10:42). Giving birth always involves plurality and disturbance; what
has been born and begotten is always one, something that remains and
holds fast as an heir. So there follows, “Mary has chosen the best part
and it will not be taken away from her" (Lk. 10:42). This is the same
as the text from John, chapter sixteen, cited above, “Your joy no one
will take from you" (Jn. 16:22). Galatians says, “If a son, then also an
heir" (Ga. 4:7). Heir is derived from “holding fast" and “remaining.”
“The Son remains in the house forever” (Jn. 8:35) in accordance with
the texts, “Your joy no one shall take from you,” and “The best part
will not be taken away.” In chapter sixteen below when the Savior
says, “Ask that your joy may be full,” the sense is, ask that you may
be sons. Immediately prior he said, “Hitherto you have not asked any-
thing in my name” (Jn. 16:24), who am the Son. One who is not yet
a son does not ask in the Son’s name.
131. This is what our text means, “We (yes we/) have seen his glo-
ry, like the Only-Begotten of the Father (that means the Son)." Then
follows, “full of grace and truth.” Only he who is a Son is full of grace
and truth. I have much more on this in my comments on verse seven-
teen below (“The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came
through Jesus Christ’’).232

173
 | jf s rin
Sort ET sb

Pagan. s deut LN

« ri aon SEC
Ha Erad :

Mes
d
um
MO
‘ En
35
it sd bs [OR
Dy: s «BEES "
;
n
; zu 2 ye
» uo

Ad ipa "E
H hy
aged
 Part Two

German Works

translated by
Edmund Colledge, O. S. A.
[72

t
1. SELECTED SERMONS

Sermon 2: Intravit Jesus in quoddam castellum et mulier quaedam,

Martha nomine, excepit illum in domum suam (Lk. 10:38).
I have begun with a few words in Latin that are written in the gos-
pel; and in German this means: “Our Lord Jesus Christ went up into
a little town, and was received by a virgin who was a wife.”2
Now notice carefully what this says. It must necessarily be that
the person by whom Jesus was received was a virgin. "Virgin" is as
much as to say a person who is free of all alien images, as free as he
was when he was not. Observe that people may ask how a man who
has been born and has advanced to the age of reason could be as free
of all images as when he was nothing; he who knows so many things
that are all images: How then can he be free? Keep in mind this dis-
tinction, which I want to make clear for you. If I were so rational that
there were present in my reason all the images that all men had ever
received,? and those that are present in God himself, and if I could be
without possessiveness in their regard, so that I had not seized posses-
sively upon any one of them, not in what I did or what I left undone,
not looking to past or to future, but I stood in this present moment free
and empty according to God's dearest will, performing it without ceas-
ing, then truly I should be a virgin, as truly unimpeded by any images
as I was when I was not.
But I say that because a man is a virgin, that does not deprive him
at all of any of the works he has ever done; but all this permits him
to remain, maidenly and free, without any obstacles between him and
supreme truth, just as Jesus is empty and free and maidenly in himself.
As the authorities say that only between equals can unity be produced,
so must a man be a maid and a virgin who is to receive the maidenly
Jesus.*

177
 MEISTER ECKHART

Now mark what I say and pay careful attention! For if a man were
to be a virgin forever, no fruit would come from him. If he is to be-
come fruitful, he must of necessity be a wife. "Wife" is the noblest
word one can apply to the soul, much nobler than “virgin.” That a
man conceives God in himself is good, and in his conceiving he is a
maiden. But that God should become fruitful in him is better; for the
only gratitude for a gift is to be fruitful with the gift, and then the spir-
it is a wife, in its gratitude giving birth in return, when he for God
gives birth again to Jesus into the heart of the Father.
Many good gifts are received in virginity and are not born again
in wifely fruitfulness with grateful praise to God. The gifts all spoil
and turn to nothing, so that the man is no better or more blessed be-
cause of them. So his virginity is no profit to him, because he is not,
in addition to his virginity, a wife with all her fruitfulness. That is
where the trouble is. That is why I have said: “Jesus went up into a
little town, and was received by a virgin who was a wife." This must
necessarily be so, as I have shown.
Married people seldom produce in a year more than one fruit.°
But I am now talking about a different kind of married people, about
all those who are possessively attached to prayer, to fasting, to vigils
and to all kinds of exterior exercises and penances. Every attachment
to every work deprives one of the freedom to wait upon God in the
present and to follow him alone in the light with which he would
guide you in what to do and what to leave alone, free and renewed in
every present moment, as if this were all that you had ever had or
wanted or could do. Every attachment or every work you propose de-
prives you again and again of this freedom, and is what I now call a
"year," because your soul produces no fruit unless it performs the
work to which you have been so attached; and you have no trust, not
in God or in yourself, unless you have performed the work on which
you seized with such possessiveness, and otherwise you have no peace.
That is why you too produce no fruit, unless you perform your work.
This is what I reckon as a “year,” and your fruit is small indeed, be-
cause it has been produced out of attachment to the work and not out
of freedom. And I call these married people, because they are pledged
to possessiveness. They produce little fruit, and what they do produce
is small indeed, as I have said.
A virgin who is a wife is free and unpledged, without attachment;
she is always equally close to God and to herself. She produces much
fruit, and it is great, neither less nor more than is God himself. This

178
 GERMAN WORKS

virgin who is a wife brings this fruit and this birth about, and every
day she produces fruit, a hundred or a thousand times, yes, more than
can be counted, giving birth and becoming fruitful from the noblest
ground of all—or, to put it better, from that same ground where the
Father is bearing his eternal Word, from that ground is she fruitfully
bearing with him. For Jesus, the light and the reflection of the Fatherly
heart—Saint Paul says that he is the glory and the reflection of the Fa-
therly heart, and with his power he illumines completely the Fatherly
heart (Heb. 1:3)—this Jesus is united with her and she with him, and
she shines and glows with him as one in oneness and as a pure bright
light in the Fatherly heart.
And I have often said that there is a power in the soul that touches
neither time nor flesh. It flows from the spirit and remains in the spirit
and is wholly spiritual. In this power God is always verdant and blos-
soming in all the joy and the honor that he is in himself. That is a joy
so heartfelt, a joy so incomprehensible and great that no one can tell
it all. For it 1s in this power that the eternal Father ceaselessly brings
his eternal Son so to birth, that this power also is bearing the Son of
the Father, and bearing itself, that same Son, in the single power of the
Father. If a man possessed a whole kingdom, or all the riches of the
earth, and gave up the whole of it for the love of God and became one
of the poorest men that ever lived on earth, and if God then gave him
as much to suffer as he has ever given any man, and if he suffered it
all until his death, and if God then gave him one single glimpse of what
he is in this power, his joy would be so great that all this suffering and
poverty would be too little. Yes, even if after this God never gave him
the kingdom of heaven, he still would have received a reward great
enough for all that he had ever suffered, for God is present in this pow-
er as he is in the eternal now. If the spirit were always united with
God in this power, the man could never grow old; for that now in
which God made the first man, and the now in which the last man will
have his end, and the now in which I am talking, they are all the same
in God, and there is not more than the one now. Now you can see that
this man lives in one light with God, and therefore there is not in him
either suffering or the passage of time, but an unchanging eternity.
From this man, truly, all wonderment has been taken away, and all
things are essentially present in him. Therefore nothing new will come
to him out of future events or accidents, for he dwells always anew in
a now without ceasing. Such a divine lordship is there in this power.
There is another power that is also not of the body; it flows out

179
 MEISTER ECKHART

of the spirit and remains in the spirit and is wholly spiritual. In this
power God is ceaselessly gleaming and burning with all his riches,
with all his sweetness and with all his joy. Truly, there is such delight
and such great, immeasurable joy in this power that no one can tell or
reveal it all. But I say: If there were a single man who were to con-
template rationally and truly in this for an instant the joy and the de-
light that is there, everything that he could have suffered and that God
would have wished him to suffer would be for him too little and, in-
deed, nothing; and I say more—it would always be his joy and his ease.
If you really want to know whether your sufferings are your own
or are God's, this is what you should observe. If you suffer for your
own sake, however this may be, the suffering hurts you and is hard for
you to bear. But if you suffer for God's sake and for his sake alone, the
suffering will not hurt you and will not be hard for you, because God
is carrying the burden. This is really true! If there were a man who
wanted to suffer for the love of God and purely for God alone, if all
the suffering came down on him at once that all men have ever suf- -
fered and the whole world has as its common lot, that would not hurt
him or be hard for him, because it would be God who was carrying
the burden. If someone loaded a hundredweight on my neck and then
someone else supported it on my neck, I should be as glad to carry a
hundred of them as one, because it would not be hard for me, nor
would it hurt me at all. In a few words: Whatever a man suffers for
the love of God and for him alone, God makes this easy and sweet for
him, as I said at the beginning, when we started our sermon: “Jesus
went up into a little town, and was received by a virgin who was a
wife." Why? It must necessarily be that she was a virgin and also a
wife. Now I have told you that Jesus was received, but I have not said
to you what the little town is; but now I want to talk about that.
I have sometimes said that there is a power in the spirit that alone
is free. Sometimes I have said that it is a guard of the spirit; sometimes
I have said that it is a light of the spirit; sometimes I have said that it
is a spark. But now I say that it is neither this nor that, and yet it is
a something that is higher above this and that than heaven is above the
earth. And therefore I now give it finer names than I have ever given
it before, and yet whatever fine names, whatever words we use, they
are telling lies, and it is far above them. It is free of all names, it is bare
of all forms, wholly empty and free, as God in himself is empty and
free. It is so utterly one and simple, as God is one and simple, that man
cannot in any way look into it. The same power of which I have spo-

180
 GERMAN WORKS

ken, in which God is verdant and growing with all his divinity, and
the spirit in God—with this same power is the Father bringing to birth
his Only-Begotten Son as truly as in himself, for he truly lives in this
power, and the spirit with the Father brings to birth the same Only-
Begotten Son, and it begets itself the same Son, and is the same Son
in this light, and it is the truth. If you could look upon this with my
heart, you would well understand what I say, for it is true, and it is
Truth's own self that says it.
And now see and pay heed! This little town, about which I am
talking and which I have in mind, is in the soul so one and so simple,
far above whatever can be described, that this noble power about
which I have spoken is not worthy even once for an instant to look into
this little town; and the other power too of which I spoke, in which
God is gleaming and burning with all his riches and with all his joy,
it also does not ever dare to look into it. This little town is so truly one
and simple, and this simple one is so exalted above every manner and
every power, that no power, no manner, not God himself may look
at it. [t is as true that this is true and that I speak truly as that God
is alive! God himself never for an instant looks into it, never yet did
he look on it, so far as he possesses himself in the manner and accord-
ing to the properties of his Persons.’ It is well to observe this, because
this simple one is without manner and without properties. And there-
fore, if God were ever to look upon it, that must cost him all his divine
names and the properties of his Persons; that he must wholly forsake,
if he is ever once to look into it. But as he is simply one, without any
manner and properties, he is not Father or Son or Holy Spirit, and yet
he is a something that is neither this nor that.
Observe that as he is one and simple, so he comes into the one,
which in the soul I have called a little town, and he does not come into
it in any other way; but so he comes there, and so he is there. In this
part the soul is like to God, and otherwise not. What I have said to you
is true; I call the truth to witness this, and I lay my soul as a pledge.
That we may also be a little town into which Jesus may come and
be received, and remain forever in us in the way that I have said, may
God help us to this. Amen.

Sermon 5b: In boc apparuit charitas dei in nobis.!

“In this God's love for us has been revealed and has appeared to
us, because God has sent his Only-Begotten Son into the world, so that

181
 MEISTER ECKHART

we live with the Son and in the Son and through the Son," because
those who do not live through the Son are not living as they should
(1 Jn. 4:9).
Suppose that there were a mighty king who had a fair daughter
whom he gave to the son of a poor man. All who were of that man's
family would be ennobled and honored by this. Now one authority
says: “God became man, and through that all the human race has been
ennobled and honored. We may well all rejoice over this, that Christ
our brother has through his own power gone up above all the choirs
of angels and sits at the right hand of the Father."? This authority has
said well, but really I am not much concerned about this. How would
it help me if I had a brother who was a rich man, if I still remained
poor? How would it help me if I had a brother who was a wise man,
if I still remained a fool?
I shall say something else that has more application to us: God did
not only become man—he took human nature upon himself.
The authorities commonly say that all men are equally noble by
nature.? But truly I say: Everything good that all the saints have pos-
sessed, and Mary the mother of God, and Christ in his humanity, all
that is my own in this human nature.^ Now you could ask me: *'Since
in this nature I have everything that Christ according to his humanity
can attain, how is it that we exalt and honor Christ as our Lord and
our God?" That is because he became a messenger from God to us and
brought us our blessedness. The blessedness that he brought us was
ours.?
Where the Father gives birth to his Son in the innermost ground,
there this nature is suspended. This nature is one and simple. Some-
thing may well look forth from it and somehow depend on it, but that
is not this, which is one.
I shall say something else that is harder: Whoever is to remain in
the nakedness of this nature without any medium must have gone out
beyond all persons to such an extent that he is willing to believe as well
of a man far beyond the seas, whom he never set eyes on, as he does
of the man who lives with him and is his closest friend. For so long
as you think better of your own people than you do of the man whom
you never saw, you are going quite astray, and you have never had a
single glimpse into this simple ground. You may well have seen in
some derivative image the truth in a similitude, but that was not the
best that could be.
Next, you should have a pure heart, for only that heart is pure

182
 GERMAN WORKS

which has annihilated everything that is created. Third, you must be-
come naked of what is nothing. People ask, “What is it that burns in
hell?” The authorities commonly say that it is self-will.? But I say truly
that what burns in hell is nothing. Take a comparison. Suppose that
someone takes a burning coal and puts it in my hand. If I were to say
that it was the coal that was burning my hand, I should be doing the
coal an injustice; but if Iwere to say properly what it is that is burning
me, it is nothing, because the coal has something in it that my hand
does not have. You must see that it is this nothing that is burning me.
But if my hand had everything in it that is in the coal and that the coal
can do, my hand would have all the nature of fire. If someone then
took all the fire that has ever burned and put it on my hand, that could
not hurt me. And in the same way I say: Since God and all those who
are in God's sight have in them, according to their proper blessedness,
something that those who are separated from God do not have, that
"nothing"? alone torments the souls who are in hell, more than self-
will or any fire. I say truly: So long as “nothing” holds you bound, so
long are you imperfect. Therefore, if you want to be perfect, you must
be naked of what is nothing.
That is what the text means with which I began: “God has sent
his Only-Begotten Son into the world." You must not by this under-
stand the external world in which the Son ate and drank with us, but
understand it to apply to the inner world. As truly as the Father in his
simple nature gives his Son birth naturally, so truly does he give him
birth in the most inward part of the spirit, and that is the inner world.
Here God's ground is my ground, and my ground is God's ground.?
Here I live from what is my own, as God lives from what is his own.
Whoever has looked for an instant into this ground, to such a man a
thousand marks of red, minted gold are no more than a counterfeit
penny. It is out of this inner ground that you should perform all your
works without asking, “Why?” I say truly: So long as you perform
your works for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, or for God's sake,
or for the sake of your eternal blessedness, and you work them from
without, you are going completely astray. You may well be tolerated,
but it is not the best. Because truly, when people think that they are
acquiring more of God in inwardness, in devotion, in sweetness and
in various approaches than they do by the fireside or in the stable, you
are acting just as if you took God and muffled his head up in a cloak
and pushed him under a bench. Whoever is seeking God by ways is
finding ways and losing God, who in ways is hidden.!? But whoever

183
 MEISTER ECKHART

seeks for God without ways will find him as he is in himself, and that
man will live with the Son, and he is life itself. If anyone went on for
a thousand years asking of life: “Why are you living?" life, if it could
answer, would only say: “I live so that I may live." That is because life
lives out of its own ground and springs from its own source, and so
it lives without asking why it is itself living. If anyone asked a truthful
man who works out of his own ground: “Why are you performing
your works?" and if he were to give a straight answer, he would only
say, "I work so that I may work."!!
Where the creature stops, there God begins to be. Now God wants
no more from you than that you should in creaturely fashion go out
of yourself, and let God be God in you. The smallest creaturely image
that ever forms in you is as great as God is great. Why? Because it
comes between you and the whole of God. As soon as the image comes
in, God and all his divinity have to give way. But as the image goes
out, God goes in. God wants you to go out of yourself in creaturely |
fashion as much as if all his blessedness consisted in it. O my dear man,
what harm does it do you to allow God to be God in you? Go complete-
ly out of yourself for God's love, and God comes completely out of
himself for love of you. And when these two have gone out, what re-
mains there is a simplified One. In this One the Father brings his Son
to birth in the innermost source. Then the Holy Spirit blossoms forth,
and then there springs up in God a will that belongs to the soul. So
long as the will remains untouched by all created things and by all cre-
ation, it is free. Christ says: "No one comes into heaven except him
who has come from heaven" (Jn. 3:13). All things are created from
nothing; therefore their true origin is nothing, and so far as this noble
will inclines toward created things, it flows off with created things
toward their nothing.
Now the question is: Does this noble will flow off in such a man-
ner that it can never return? The authorities commonly say that it will
never return, so far as it has flowed away in time. But I say: If this will
turns away from itself and from all creation for one instant, and back
to its first source, then the will stands in its true and free state, and
it is free, and in this instant all lost time is restored.
People often say to me: “Pray for me." Then I think: Why are you
coming out? Why do you not stay in yourself and hold on to your own
good? After all, you are carrying all truth in you in an essential man-
ner.
That we may so truly remain within, that we may possess all

184
 GERMAN WORKS

truth, without medium and without distinction, in true blessedness,

may God help us to do this. Amen.

Sermon 6: Justi vivent in aeternum (Ws. 5:16)

“The just will live forever, and their reward is with God." See ex-
actly what this means; though it may sound simple and commonplace,
it is really noteworthy and excellent.
“The just will live.” Which are the just? Somewhere it is written:
"That man is just who gives everyone what belongs to him";? those
who give God what is his, and the saints and the angels what is theirs,
and their fellow man what is his.
Honor belongs to God.? Who are those who honor God? Those
who have wholly gone out of themselves, and who do not seek for what
is theirs in anything, whatever it may be, great or little, who are not
looking beneath themselves or above themselves or beside themselves
or-at themselves, who are not desiring possessions or honors or ease or
pleasure or profit or inwardness or holiness or reward or the kingdom
of heaven, and who have gone out from all this, from everything that
is theirs, these people pay honor to God,* and they honor God prop-
erly, and they give him what is his.
People ought to give joy to the angels and the saints. What, does
this amaze you? Can a man in this life give joy to those who are in ev-
erlasting life? Yes, indeed, he can! Every saint has such great delight
and such unspeakable joy from every good work; from a good will or
an aspiration they have such great joy that no tongue can tell, no heart
can think how great is the joy they have from this. Why is that? Be-
cause their love for God is so immeasurably great, and they have so
true a love for him, that his honor is dearer to them than their bless-
edness. And not only the saints or the angels, for God himself takes
such delight in this, just as if it were his blessedness; and his being de-
pends upon it, and his contentment and his well-being. Yes, mark this
well: If we do not want to serve God for any other reason than the
great joy they have in this who are in everlasting life, and that God
himself has, we could do it gladly and with all our might.
And one ought also to give help and support to those who are in
purgatory, and improvement and edification? to those who are still liv-
ing.
: Such a man is just in one way, and so in another sense are all those
who accept all things alike from God, whatever it may be, great or

185
 MEISTER ECKHART

small, joy or sorrow, all of it alike, less or more, one like the other. If
you account anything more than something else, you do wrong. You
ought to go wholly out from your own will.
Recently I had this thought: If God did not wish as I do, then I
would still wish as he does. There are some people who want to have
their own will in everything; that is bad, and there is much harm in
it. Those are a little better who do want what God wants, and want
nothing contrary to his will; if they were sick, what they would wish
would be for God's will to be for them to be well. So these people want
God to want according to their will, not for themselves to want accord-
ing to his will. One has to endure this, but still it is wrong. The just
have no will at all; what God wills is all the same to them, however
great distress that may be.
For just men, the pursuit of justice is so imperative that if God
were not just, they would not give a fig for God; and they stand fast
by justice, and they have gone out of themselves so completely that
they have no regard for the pains of hell or the joys of heaven or for
any other thing. Yes, if all the pains that those have who are in hell,
men or devils, or all the pains that have ever been or ever will be suf-
fered on earth were to be joined on to justice, they would not give a
straw for that, so fast do they stand by God and by justice. Nothing
is more painful or hard for a just man than what is contrary to justice.
In what way? If one thing gives them joy and another sorrow, they are
not just; but if on one occasion they are joyful, then they are always
joyful; and if on one occasion they are more joyful and on others less,
then they are wrong. Whoever loves justice stands so fast by it that
whatever he loves, that is his being; nothing can deflect him from this,
nor does he esteem anything differently. Saint Augustine says: “When
the soul loves, it is more properly itself than when it gives life."7 This
sounds simple and commonplace, and yet few understand what it
means, and still it is true. Anyone who has discernment in justice and
in just men, he understands everything I am saying.
“The just will live." Among all things there is nothing so dear or
so desirable as life. However wretched or hard his life may be, a man
still wants to live. It is written somewhere that the closer anything is
to death, the more it suffers. Yet however wretched life may be, still
it wants to live. Why do you eat? Why do you sleep? So that you live.
Why do you want riches or honors? That you know very well; but—
why do you live? So as to live; and still you do not know why you live.
Life is in itself so desirable that we desire it for its own sake. Those

186
 GERMAN WORKS

in hell are in everlasting torment, but they would not want to lose
their lives, not the devils or the souls of men, for their life is so pre-
cious that it flows without any medium from God into the soul. And
because it flows from God without medium they want to live. What
is life? God's being is my life. If my life is God's being, then God's ex-
istence must be my existence and God's is-ness is my is-ness,? neither
less nor more.
"They live eternally “with God,” directly close to God, not be-
neath or above. They perform all their works with God, and God with
them. Saint John says: "The Word was with God” (Jn. 1:1). It was
wholly equal, and it was close beside, not beneath there or above there,
but just equal. When God made man, he made woman from man’s side,
so that she might be equal to him. He did not make her out of man’s
head or his feet, so that she would be neither woman nor man for him,
but so that she might be equal. So should the just soul be equal with
God and close beside God, equal beside him, not beneath or above.
Who are they who are thus equal? Those who are equal to nothing,
they alone are equal to God. The divine being is equal to nothing, and
in it there is neither image nor form. To the souls who are equal, the
Father gives equally, and he withholds nothing at all from them. What-
ever the Father can achieve, that he gives equally to this soul, yes, if
it no longer equals itself more than anything else, and it should not be
closer to itself than to anything else. It should desire or heed its own
honor, its profit and whatever may be its own, no more than what is
a stranger's. Whatever belongs to anyone should not be distant or
strange to the soul, whether this be evil or good. All the love of this
world is founded on self-love. If you had forsaken that, you would have
forsaken the whole world.
The Father gives birth to his Son in eternity, equal to himself.
“The Word was with God, and God was the Word” (Jn. 1:1); it was
the same in the same nature. Yet I say more: He has given birth to him
in my soul. Not only is the soul with him, and he equal with it, but
he is in it, and the Father gives his Son birth in the soul in the same
way as he gives him birth in eternity, and not otherwise. He must do
it whether he likes it or not. The Father gives birth to his Son without
ceasing; and I say more: He gives me birth, me, his Son and the same
Son. I say more: He gives birth not only to me, his Son, but he gives
birthto me as himself and himself as me and to me as his being and
nature. In the innermost source, there I spring out in the Holy Spirit,
where there is one life and one being and one work. Everything God

187
 MEISTER ECKHART

performs is one; therefore he gives me, his Son, birth without any dis-
tinction.!? My fleshly father is not actually my father except in one lit-
tle portion of his nature, and I am separated from him; he may be dead
and I alive. Therefore the heavenly Father is truly my Father, for I am
his Son and have everything that I have from him, and I am the same
Son and not a different one. Because the Father performs one work,
therefore his work is me, his Only-Begotten Son without any differ-
ence.
*We shall be completely transformed and changed into God"
(2 Co. 3:18). See a comparison. In the same way, when in the sacrament
bread is changed into the Body of our Lord, however many pieces of
bread there were, they still become one Body. Just so, if all the pieces
of bread were changed into my finger, there would still not be more
than one finger. But if my finger were changed into the bread, there
would be as many of one as of the other. What is changed into some-
thing else becomes one with it. I am so changed into him that he pro-
duces his being in me as one, not just similar.!! By the living God, this
is true! There is no distinction.!? |
The Father gives his Son birth without ceasing. Once the Son has
been born he receives nothing from the Father because he has it all,
but what he receives from the Father is his being born. In this we
ought not to ask for something from God as if he were a stranger. Our
Lord said to his disciples: *I have not called you servants, but friends”
(Jn. 15:14). Whoever asks for something from someone else is a servant,
and he who grants it is a master. Recently I considered whether there
was anything I would take or ask from God. I shall take careful
thought about this, because if I were accepting anything from God, I
should be subject to him as a servant, and he in giving would be as a
master. We shall not be so in life everlasting.!?
Once I said here, and what I said is true: If a man obtains or ac-
cepts something from outside himself, he is in this wrong. One should
not accept or esteem God as being outside oneself, but as one's own
and as what is within one; nor should one serve or labor for any rec-
ompense, not for God or for his honor or for anything that is outside
oneself, but only for that which one's own being and one's own life is
within one. Some simple people think that they will see God as if he
were standing there and they here. It is not so. God and I, we are one.
I accept God into me in knowing; I go into God in loving. There are
some who say that blessedness consists not in knowing but in willing.
They are wrong; for if it consisted only in the will, it would not be

188
 GERMAN WORKS

one. Working and becoming are one. If a carpenter does not work,
nothing becomes of the house. If the axe is not doing anything, nothing
is becoming anything. In this working God and I are one; he is work-
ing and I am becoming. The fire changes anything into itself that is
put into it and this takes on fire's own nature. The wood does not
change the fire into itself, but the fire changes the wood into itself. So
are we changed into God, that we shall know him as he is (1 Jn. 3:2).
Saint Paul says: So shall we come to know him, I knowing him just
as he knows me" (1 Co. 13:12), neither less nor more, perfectly equal.
“The just will live forever, and their reward is with God,” perfectly
equal.
That we may love justice, for its own sake and for God, without
asking return, may God help us to this. Amen.

Sermon 15: Homo quidam nobilis abiit in regionem longinquam

accipere regnum et reverti (Lk. 19:12).
These words are written in the gospel, and in German they mean:
“There was a noble man who went into a foreign land, away from him-
self, and he came back home richer." Now in one gospel we read that
Christ said, “No one can be my disciple unless he follow me" (Lk.
14:27), and forsake himself and keep nothing for himself, and then he
will have everything, for to have nothing is to have everything. But to
submit oneself to God with one's desire and one's heart, to make one's
will wholly God's will, never once to look upon created things—any-
one who had so forsaken himself, he would truly be given back to him-
self.
Goodness in itself, only goodness, does not bring peace to the
soul....! If God were to give me anything without his will, I should
not esteem it; but the very least that God gives me by his will, that
gives me blessedness.
All created things have flowed out of God's will. If I were able
only to long for God's goodness, his will is so noble that the Holy Spir-
it is flowing from his will without a medium.? All good flows out from
the overflowing of the goodness of God. Yes, God's will has savor for
me only in his unity where God's peace is for the goodness of all cre-
ated things. In this unity goodness and everything that ever gained be-
ing and life have peace, as in their last end. There you must love the
Holy Spirit, as he is there, in unity, not in himself, but there where
he alone with God's goodness has savor in that unity from which all

189
 MEISTER ECKHART

goodness flows out of the overflowing of the goodness of God. Such

a man "comes back home richer" than he went out. Whoever had so
gone out of himself would be given back again to himself, more his
own, and all the things he had in multiplicity and forsook will be whol-
ly given back again to him in unity, for he will find himself and all
things in the present now of unity. And anyone who had so gone out
would come back home far more noble than he went out. This man
lives now in utter freedom and a pure nakedness, for there is nothing
that he must make subject to himself or that he must acquire, be it little
or much, for everything that is God's own is his own.
'The sun in its highest part corresponds to God in his unfathom-
able depths, in his depths of humility.? Yes, the humble man does not
need to entreat, but he can indeed command, for the heights of the di-
vinity cannot look down except into the depths of humility, for the
humble man and God are one and not two. This humble man has as
much power over God as he has over himself; and all the good that is
in all the angels and in all the saints is all his own, as it is God's own. |
God and this humble man are wholly one, and not two; for what God
performs he performs too, and what God wishes he wishes too, and
what God is he is too—one life and one being. Yes, by God! If this man
were in hell, God would have to come down to him in hell, and hell
would have to be for him the kingdom of heaven. God must of neces-
sity do this, he would be compelled so that he had to do it; for then
this man is divine being, and divine being is this man. For here, from
the unity of God and from the humble man, there comes the kiss, for
the virtue that is called humility is a root in the ground of the divinity
in which it was planted, so that the virtue has its being only in the eter-
nal One and nowhere else. I said in Paris in the schools that all things
would be perfected in the truly humble man; and therefore I say that
for the truly humble man nothing can be harmful, nothing can lead
him astray. For there is nothing that does not flee what can annihilate
it. All created things flee this, for they are nothing at all in them-
selves;^ and therefore the humble man flees everything that could lead
him astray from God. This is why I flee from burning coals, because
they want to destroy me, because they want to rob me of my being.
Scripture said: “A man went out.” Aristotle began to write a book
in which he wanted to discuss all things.5 Now observe what Aristotle
said about this man. Homo means as much as a “man” who has been
endowed with form, and this gives him being and life with all created
things, rational and irrational—irrational with all corporeal creatures

190
 GERMAN WORKS

and rational with the angels. And he says: “Just as all created things,
with their images and forms, are comprehended in the rational angels,
and the angels know with reason every differentiated thing—which
gives the angel such delight that it would be amazing for those who
had not experienced and tasted this—so man understands rationally
the image and form of all created differentiated things."6 Aristotle said
that the attribute of a man that makes him to be a man is that he un-
derstands all images and forms;’ because of this a man is a man, and
that was the highest characteristic with which Aristotle could charac-
terize a man.
Now I too want to demonstrate what a man is. Homo means as
much as a “man” to whom substance has been given, which gives him
being and life and a rational being. A rational man is one who com-
prehends himself rationally, and who is himself separated from all mat-
ter and forms. The more he is separated from all things and turned
into himself, the more he knows all things clearly and rationally with-
in himself, without going outside; and the more he is a man.
Now I ask: How can it be that separation of the understanding
from form and image understands all things in itself, without going
out from or changing itself? I reply: This comes from its simplicity,
for the more purely simple a man's self is in itself, the more simply
does he in himself understand all multiplicity, and he remains un-
changeable in himself. Boethius says that God is an immovable good,
standing still in himself, untouched and unmoved and moving all
things.? A simple understanding is in itself so pure that it understands
the pure, naked divine being without a medium.? And in the inflowing
it receives divine nature just as do the angels, and in this the angels re-
ceive great joy. For anyone to be able to see an angel, he should be will-
ing to be a thousand years in hell; but this understanding is in itself
so pure and so clear that whatever one might see in this light would
be an angel.
Now notice carefully what Aristotle says about separated spirits
in the book called Metapbysics.!? He is the greatest of the authorities
who ever spoke about the natural sciences, and he deals with these sep-
arated spirits and says that they are not the form of anything, and that
they accept their being as it flows without medium from God; and so
they flow back in again, and receive the outflowing from God without
medium, above the angels, and they contemplate God's naked being
without distinction. This pure naked being Aristotle calls a “some-
thing."!! This is the most sublime thing that Aristotle ever said about

191
 MEISTER ECKHART

the natural sciences, and no authority can say anything more sublime
than this, unless he were to speak in the Holy Spirit. Now I say that
for this noble man the substance which the angels understood without
form and on which they depend without medium is not sufficient;
nothing but the Simple One suffices him.
I have also said more about the first beginning and the last end.
The Father is a beginning of the divinity, for he understands himself
in himself, and out of this the Eternal Word proceeds and yet remains
within, and the Holy Spirit flows from them both, remaining within
. and unbegetting, for insofar as he remains within he is an end of the
divinity and of all created things; he is a pure repose and a resting of
all that being ever acquired. The beginning is for the sake of the end,
for in the last end is the repose of everything that rational being ever
acquired. The last end!? of being is the darkness or the unknownness
of the hidden divinity, in which this light shines that the darkness does
not comprehend. Therefore Moses said, “He who is sent me" (Ex.
3:14), he who is without name, who is a denial of all names and who
never acquired a name; and therefore the prophet said: "Truly you are
the hidden God" (Is. 45:15), in the ground of the soul, where God's
ground and the soul's ground are one ground. The more one seeks you,
the less one finds you. You should so seek him that you find him no-
where. If you do not seek him, then you will find him. That we may
so seek him that we may eternally remain with him, may God help us
to this. Amen.

Sermon 22: Ave, gratia plena (Lk. 1:28).!

The Latin téxt that I have read is written in the holy gospel, and
its meaning in German is: “Greetings to you, full of grace, the Lord
is with you" (Lk. 1:28). The Holy Spirit will come down from above
the highest throne, and will enter into you from the light of the eternal
Father.?
There are three things here to understand. First, the lowliness of
the angelic nature; second, that he acknowledged himself unworthy to
name the mother of God; third, that he did not speak the word only
to her, but that he spoke it to a great multitude, to every good soul that
longs for God.
I say this: If Mary had not first given spiritual birth to God, he
would never have been born bodily from her.3 A woman said to our

192
 GERMAN WORKS

Lord: “Blessed is the womb which bore you” (Lk. 11:27). Then our
Lord said: “It is not only the womb which bore me which is blessed;
they are blessed who hear God's word and keep it" (Lk. 11:28). It is
more precious to God to be born spiritually from every such virgin or
from every good soul than that he was bodily born of Mary.
In this we must understand that we must be an only son whom
the Father has eternally begotten. When the Father begot all created
things, then he begot me, and I flowed out with all created things, and
yet I remained within, in the Father. In the same way, when the word
that I am now speaking springs up in me, there is a second process as
I rest upon the image,* and a third when I pronounce it and you all
receive it; and yet properly it remains within me. So I have remained
within the Father. In the Father are the images of all created things.
This piece of wood has a rational image in God. It is not merely ra-
tional, but it is pure reason.®
The greatest good that God ever performed for man was that he
became man. I ought to tell a story now that is very apposite here.
There were a rich husband and wife. Then the wife suffered a misfor-
tune through which she lost an eye, and she was much distressed by
this. Then her husband came to her and said: "Madam, why are you
so distressed? You should not distress yourself so, because you have lost
your eye." Then she said: “Sir, I am not distressing myself about the
fact that I have lost my eye; what distresses me is that it seems to me
that you will love me less because of it." Then he said: Madam, I do
love you." Not long after that he gouged out one of his own eyes and
came to his wife and said: “Madam, to make you believe that I love you,
I have made myself like you; now I too have only one eye.” This
stands for man, who could scarcely believe that God loved him so
much, until God gouged out one of his own eyes and took upon him-
self human nature. This is what “being made flesh" (Jn. 1:14) is. Our
Lady said: “How should this happen?" Then the angel said: The Holy
Spirit will come down from above into you" (Lk. 1:34-35), from the
highest throne, from the Father of eternal light.?
“In the beginning” (Jn. 1:1). *A child is born to us, a son is given
to us" (Is. 9:6), a child in the smallness of its human nature, a Son in
its everlasting divinity. The authorities say: “All created things behave
as they do because they want to give birth and they want to resemble
the Father."? Another authority says: “Every being which acts, acts for
the sake of its end, that in its end it may find rest and repose.”!° One

193
 MEISTER ECKHART

authority says: “All created things act according to their first purity
and according to their highest perfection."!! Fire as fire does not burn;
it is so pure and so fine that it does not burn; but it is fire's nature that
burns and pours its nature and its brightness Mene to its highest

soul according to the highest perfection, and poured into it in its first
purity all his brightness and yet he has remained unmixed.’
Recently I said in another place: “When God created all things,
even if God had not before begotten anything that was uncreated, that
carried within itself the images of all created things; that is the
spark”—as I said before in the Machabees' church (as you heard, if you
were listening)!?— "and this little spark is so closely akin to God that
‚it is an undivided simple one,!^ and bears within itself the images of
‚all created things, images without images and images beyond im-
| ages."15
Yesterday in the school among the important clerics there was a
disputation.!6 "I am surprised,” I said, “that scripture is so rich that
no one can fathom the least word in it." Now if you ask me, since I
am an only son whom the heavenly Father has eternally born, if then
I have eternally been a son in God then I say: “Yes and no. Yes, a son,
as the Father has eternally borne me, and not a son, as to being un-
borni44
“In the beginning." Here we are given to understand that we are
an only son whom the Father has eternally borne out of the concealed
darkness of the eternal concealment, remaining within in the first be-
ginning of the first purity, which is a plenitude of all purity. Here I
had my everlasting rest and sleep, in the eternal Father's hidden
knowledge, remaining unspoken within. Out of the purity he everlast-
ingly bore me, his only-born Son, into that same image of his eternal
Fatherhood, that I may be Father and give birth to him of whom I am
born. It is just as if someone were to stand before a high cliff and were
to shout: "Are you there?" The echo of his voice would shout back:
"Are you there?" If he were to say: “Come out of there!" the echo too
would say: “Come out of there!" Yes, if someone saw a piece of wood
in that light, it would become an angel and a rational being, and not
merely rational; it would become pure reason in primal purity, for
there is the plenitude of all purity. God acts like that: He gives birth
to his Only-Begotten Son in the highest part of the soul. And as he
gives birth to his Only-Begotten Son into me, so I give him birth again

194
 GERMAN WORKS

into the Father. That was not different from when God gave birth to
the angel while he was born of the Virgin.
I wondered—this is many years ago—whether I would be asked
how it is that each blade of grass can be so different from the others;
and it happened that I was asked how they could be so different. I said:
"What is more surprising is how they are all so alike." An authority
said that the fact that all blades of grass are so different comes from
the superabundance of God's goodness, which he pours superabun-
dantly into all created things, so that his supremacy may be the more
revealed.!? When I said: “It is more surprising that all the blades of
grass are so alike," I went on, “just as all angels in the primal purity
are all one angel, so are all blades of grass one in the primal purity, and
all things there are one."
As I was coming here, I was thinking that in temporal existence
man can reach the point where he is able to compel God. If Iwere up
here,!? and I said to someone, “Come up here,” that would be difficult.
But if I were to say, "Sit down there," that would be easy. God acts
like that. If a man humbles himself, God cannot withhold his own
goodness but must come down and flow into the humble man, and to
him who is least of all he gives himself the most of all, and he gives
himself to him completely. What God gives is his being, and his being
is his goodness, and his goodness is his love. All sorrow and all joy
come from love. On the way, when I had to come here, I was thinking
that I did not want to come here because I would become wet with
tears of love. If you have ever been all wet with tears of love, let us
leave that aside for now. Joy and sorrow come from love. A man ought
not to fear God, for whoever fears him flees from him. This fear is a
harmful fear. There is a rightful fear, when someone fears that he may
lose God. A man should not fear him, he should love him, for God
loves man with all his supreme perfection. The authorities say that all
things work with the intention of giving birth and want to resemble
the Father. They say: “The earth flees the heavens. If it flees down-
ward, it comes down to the heavens; if it flees upward, it comes to the
lowest part of the heavens."?? The earth can flee nowhere so deep that
the heavens will not flow into it and impress their powers on it and
make it fruitful, whether it likes this or not. This is how a man acts
when he thinks that he can flee from God, and yet he cannot flee from
him; every corner where he may go reveals God to him. He thinks that
he is fleeing God, and he runs into his lap. God bears his Only-Begot-

195
 MEISTER ECKHART

ten Son in you, whether you like it or not. Whether you are sleeping
or waking, he does his part. Recently I asked whose fault it is if a man
does not taste this,?! and I said that the fault was that his tongue was
coated with some impurity, that is, with created things, just as with a
. man to whom all food is bitter and for whom nothing tastes good.
Whose fault is it that food does not taste good to us? The fault is that
we have no salt. The salt is divine love. If we had divine love, God
would taste good to us, and all the works God ever performed, and we |
should receive all things from God, and we should perform all the
same works that he performs. In this likeness we are all one single Son.
When God created the soul, he created it according to his highest
perfection, so that it might be a bride of the Only-Begotten Son. Be-
cause he knew this, he wanted to come forth from the secret treasure
chamber of the eternal Fatherhood, in which he had eternally slept,
unspoken, remaining within. “In the beginning." In the first begin-
ning of the primal purity the Son had set up the pavilion of his ever-
lasting glory, and he came out from there, from what was most exalted
of all, because he wanted to exalt his beloved, whom the Father had
eternally betrothed with him, so that he might bring her back again
into the exaltation from which she came. Elsewhere it is written: “See!
Your king is coming to you” (Zc. 9:9). This is whyhe came out, and
came leaping like a young hart (Sg. 2:9), and suffered his ee.
love, and he did not go out without wishing to go in again into his
chamber with his bride. This chamber is the silent darkness of the hid-
den Fatherhood. When he went out from the highest place of all, he
wanted to go in again with his bride to the purest place of all, and
wanted to reveal to her the hidden secret of his hidden divinity, where
he takes his rest with himself and with all created things.??
In principio means in German as much as a beginning of all being,
as I said in the school. I said more: It is an end of all being, for the first
beginning is for the sake of the last end. Yes, God never takes rest there
where he is the first beginning; he takes rest there where he is an end
and a repose of all being, not that this being should perish, but rather
it is there perfected in its last end according to its highest perfection.
What is the last end? It is the hidden darkness of the eternal divinity,
and it is unknown, and it was never known, and it will never be
known. God remains there within himself, unknown, and the light of
the eternal Father has eternally shone in there, and the darkness does
not comprehend the light (Jn. 1:5). May the truth of which I have spo-
ken help us that we may come to this truth. Amen.

196
 GERMAN WORKS

Sermon 48: Ein meister sprichet: alliu glichiu dinc minnent sich
under einander.

An authority says: “All things that are alike love one another and
unite with one another, and all things that are unlike flee from one an- .
other and hate one another."! And one authority says that nothing is
so unlike as are heaven and earth.? The kingdom of earth was endowed
by nature with being far off from heaven and unlike it. This is why
earth fled to the lowest place and is immovable so that it may not ap-
proach heaven. Heaven by nature apprehended that the earth fled
from it and occupied the lowest place. Therefore heaven always pours
itself out fruitfully upon the kingdom of earth; and the authorities
maintain that the broad and wide heaven does not retain for itself so
much as the width of a needle's point, but rather bestows it upon the
earth.? That is why earth is called the most fruitful of all created things
that exist in time.
I say the same about the man who has annihilated himself in him-
self and in God and in all created things; this man has taken possession
of the lowest place, and God must pour the whole of himself into this
man, or else he is not God. I say in the truth, which is good and eternal
and enduring, that God must pour out the whole of himself with all
his might so totally into every man who has utterly abandoned himself
that God withholds nothing of his being or his nature or his entire di-
vinity, but he must pour all of it fruitfully into the man who has aban-
doned himself for God and has occupied the lowest place.
As I was coming here today I was wondering how I should preach
to you so that it would make sense and you would understand it. Then
I thought of a comparison: If you could understand that, you would
understand my meaning and the basis of all my thinking in everything
I have ever preached. The comparison concerns my eyes and a piece
of wood. If my eye is open, it is an eye; if it is closed, it is the same
eye. It is not the wood that comes and goes, but it is my vision of it.
Now pay good heed to me! If it happens that my eye is in itself one
and simple (Mt. 6:22), and it is opened and casts its glance upon the
piece of wood, the eye and the wood remain what they are, and yet in
the act of vision they become as one, so that we can truly say that my
eye is the wood and the wood is my eye. But if the wood were imma-
terial, purely spiritual as is the sight of my eye, then one could truly
say that in the act of vision the wood and my eye subsisted in one be-
ing.^ If this is true of physical objects, it is far truer of spiritual objects.

197
 MEISTER ECKHART

You should know that my eye has far more in common with the eye
of a sheep which is on the other side of the sea and which I never saw,
than it has in common with my ears, with which, however, it shares
its being; and that is because the action of the sheep's eye is also that
of my eye. And so I attribute to both more in common in their action
than I do to my eyes and my ears, because their actions are different.
Sometimes I have spoken of a light that is uncreated and not ca-
pable of creation and that is in the soul.5 I always mention this light
in my sermons; and this same light comprehends God without a me-
dium, uncovered, naked, as he is in himself; and this comprehension
is to be understood as happening when the birth takes place. Here I
may truly say that this light may have more unity with God than it
has with any power of the soul,” with which, however, it is one in be-
ing. For you should know that this light is not nobler in my soul's be-
ing than is the feeblest or crudest power, such as hearing or sight or
anything else which can be affected by hunger or thirst, frost or heat;
and the simplicity of my being is the cause of that. Because of this, if
we take the powers as they are in our being, they are all equally noble;
but if we take them as they work, one is much nobler and higher than
another.
That is why I say that if a man will turn away from himself and
from all created things, by so much will you be made one and blessed
in the spark in the soul, which has never touched either time or place.
This spark rejects all created things, and wants nothing but its naked
God, as he is in himself. It is not content with the Father or the Son
or the Holy Spirit, or with the three Persons so far as each of them per-
sists in his properties. I say truly that this light is not content with the
divine nature's generative or fruitful qualities. I will say more, surpris-
ing though this is. I speak in all truth, truth that is eternal and endur-
ing, that this same light is not content with the simple divine essence
in its repose,® as it neither gives nor receives; but it wants to know the
source of this essence, it wants to go into the simple ground, into the
quiet desert, into which distinction never gazed, not the Father, nor
the Son, nor the Holy Spirit. In the innermost part, where no one
dwells, there is contentment for that light, and there it is more inward
than it can be to itself, for this ground is a simple silence, in itself im-
movable, and by this immovability all things are moved, all life is re-
ceived by those who in themselves have rational being.
May that enduring truth of which I have spoken help us that we
may so have rational life. Amen.

198
 GERMAN WORKS

Sermon 52: Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum

caelorum (Mt. 5:3).}

Blessedness opened its mouth to wisdom and said: “Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs" (Mt. 5:3).
All angels and all saints and all who were ever born must keep si-
lent when the Wisdom of the Father speaks, for all the Wisdom of the
angels and of all created beings is mere folly before the unfathomable
Wisdom of God. It has said that the poor are blessed.
Now there are two kinds of poverty. There is an external poverty,
which is good and is greatly to be esteemed in a man who voluntarily
practices it for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he himself used
it when he was on earth. I do not now want to say anything more
about this poverty. But there is a different poverty, an inward poverty,
and it is of this that we must understand that our Lord is speaking:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit."
Now I beg you to be disposed to what I say;? for I say to you in
everlasting truth that if you are unlike this truth of which we want to
speak, you cannot understand me. Various people have asked me what
poverty may be in itself and what a poor man may be. Let us try to
answer this.
Bishop Albert says that a poor man is one who does not find sat-
isfaction in all the things God created;? and this is well said. But we
can put it even better, and take poverty in a higher sense. A poor man
wants nothing, and knows nothing, and has nothing. Let us now talk
about these three points; and I beg you for the sake of God's love that
you understand this truth, if you can, and if you do not understand it,
do not burden yourself with it, for the truth I want to expound is such
that there will be few good people to understand it.
First let us discuss a poor man as one who wants nothing. There
are some people who do not understand this well. They are those who
are attached to their own penances and external exercises, which seem
important to people.^ God help those who hold divine truth in such
low esteem! Such people present an outward picture that gives them
the name of saints; but inside they are donkeys, for they cannot distin-
guish divine truth. These people say that a man is poor who wants
nothing; but they interpret it in this way, that a man ought to live so
that he never fulfills his own will in anything, but that he ought to
comport himself so that he may fulfill God's dearest will. Such people
are in the right, for their intention is good. For this let us commend

199
 MEISTER ECKHART

them. May God in his mercy grant them the kingdom of heaven. But
I speak in the divine truth when I say that they are not poor men, nor
do they resemble poor men. They have great esteem in the sight of
men who know no better, but I say that they are donkeys who have
no understanding of divine truth. They deserve the kingdom of heaven
for their good intention, but of the poverty of which we want to talk
they know nothing.
If someone asks me now what kind of poor man he is who wants
nothing, I reply in this way. So long as a man has this as his will, that
he wants to fulfill God's dearest will, he has not the poverty about
which we want to talk. Such a person has a will with which he wants
to fulfill God's will, and that is not true poverty. For if a person wants
really to have poverty, he ought to be as free of his own created will
as he was when he did not exist. For I tell you by the truth that is eter-
nal, so long as you have a will to fulfill God's will, and a longing for
God and for eternity, then you are not poor; for a poor man is one who
has a will and longing for nothing.
When I stood in my first cause, I then had no “God,” and then I
was my own cause. I wanted nothing, I longed for nothing, for I was
an empty being,? and the only truth in which I rejoiced was in the
knowledge of myself. Then it was myself I wanted and nothing else.
What I wanted I was, and what I was I wanted; and so I stood, empty
of God and of everything. But when I went out from my own free will
and received my created being, then I had a “God,” for before there
were any creatures, God was not “God,” but he was what he was.® But
when creatures came to be and received their created being, then God
was not “God” in himself, but he was “God” in the creatures.
Now I say that God, so far as he is “God,” is not the perfect end
of created beings. The least of these beings possesses in God as much
as he possesses. If it could be that a fly had reason and could with its
reason seek out the eternal depths of the divine being from which it
issued, I say that God, with all that he has as he is “God,” could not
fulfill or satisfy the fly. So therefore let us pray to God that we may
be free of “God,” and that we may apprehend and rejoice in that ev-
erlasting truth in which the highest angel and the fly and the soul are
equal—there where I was established, where I wanted what I was and
was what I wanted. So I say: If a man is to become poor in his will,
he must want and desire as little as he wanted and desired when he did
not exist. And in this way a man is poor who wants nothing.
Next, a man is poor who knows nothing. Sometimes I have said

200
 GERMAN WORKS

that a man ought to live so that he did not live for himself or for the
truth or for God. But now I say something different and something
more, that a man who would possess this poverty ought to live as if he
does not even know that he is not in any way living for himself or for
the truth or for God. Rather, he should be so free of all knowing that
he does not know or experience or grasp that God lives in him. For
when man was established in God's everlasting being, there was no dif-
ferent life in him. What was living there was himself. So I say that a
man should be set as free of his own knowing as he was when he was
not. Let God perform what he will, and let man be free.
Everything that ever came from God is directed into pure activity.
Now the actions proper to a man are loving and knowing. The ques-
tion is: In which of these does blessedness most consist? Some authori-
ties have said that it consists in knowing, others say that it consists in
loving; others that it consists in knowing and loving, and what they say
is better. But I say that it does not consist in either knowing or loving,
but that there is that in the soul from which knowing and loving flow;
that something does not know or love as do the powers of the soul.
Whoever knows this knows in what blessedness consists." That some-
thing has neither before nor after, and it is not waiting for anything
that is to come, for it can neither gain nor lose. So it is deprived of the
knowledge that God is acting in it; but it is itself the very thing that
rejoices in itself as God does in himself. So I say that a man ought to
be established, free and empty, not knowing or perceiving that God is
acting in him; and so a man may possess poverty. The authorities say
that God is a being, and a rational one, and that he knows all things.
I say that God is neither being nor rational, and that he does not know
this or that.? Therefore God is free of all things, and therefore he is
all things. Whoever will be poor in spirit, he must be poor of all his
own knowledge, so that he knows nothing, not God or created things
or himself. Therefore it is necessary for a man to long not to be able
to know or perceive God's works. In this way a man can be poor of
his own knowledge.
Third, a man is poor who has nothing. Many people have said that
it is perfection when one possesses no material, earthly things, and in
one sense this is indeed true, if a man does this voluntarily. But this
is not the sense in which I mean it.
I have said just now that a man is poor who does not want to fulfill
God's will, but who lives so that he may be free both of his own will
and of God's will, as he was when he was not. About this poverty I

201
 MEISTER ECKHART

say that it is the highest poverty. Second, I say that a man is poor who
knows nothing of God's works in him. A man who is so established is
as free of knowing and perceiving as God is free of all things, and this
is the purest poverty. But a third form is the most intimate poverty,
on which I now want to speak; and this is when a man has nothing.
Now pay great attention and give heed! I have often said, and
great authorities say, that a man should be so free of all things and of
all works, both interior and exterior, that he might become a place only
for God, in which God could work. Now I say otherwise. If it be the
case that man is free of all created things and of God and of himself,
and if it also be that God may find place in him in which to work, then
I say that so long as that is in man, he is not poor with the most in-
timate poverty. For it is not God's intention in his works that man
should have in himself a place for God to work in. Poverty of spirit
is for a man to keep so free of God and of all his works that if God
wishes to work in the soul, he himself is the place in which he wants
to work; and that he will gladly do. For if he finds a man so poor as .
this, then God performs his own work, and the man is in this way suf-
fering God to work, and God is his own place to work in, and so God
is his own worker in himself. Thus in this poverty man pursues that
everlasting being which he was and which he is now and which he will
evermore remain.
It is Saint Paul who says: “All that I am, I am by God's grace"
(1 Co. 15:10). But if what I say? transcends grace and being and under-
standing and will and longing, how then can Paul's words be true?
People show that what Paul said is true in this way. That the grace of
God was in him was necessarily so, for it was God's grace working in
him that brought what was accidental to the perfection of the essential.
When grace had finished and had perfected its work, then Paul re-
mained what he was.
So I say that man should be so poor that he should not be or have
any place in which God could work. When man clings to place, he
clings to distinction. Therefore I pray to God that he may make me
free of “God,” for my real being is above God if we take “God” to be
the beginning of created things. For in the same being of God where
God is above being and above distinction, there I myself was, there I
willed myself and committed myself to create this man. Therefore I am
the cause of myself in the order of my being, which is eternal, and not
in the order of my becoming, which is temporal. And therefore I am
unborn, and in the manner in which I am unborn I can never die. In

202
 GERMAN WORKS

my unborn manner I have been eternally, and am now, and shall eter-
nally remain. What I am in the order of having been born, that will
die and perish, for it is mortal, and so it must in time suffer corruption.
In my birth all things were born and I was the cause of myself and of
all things;!? and if I would have wished it, I would not be nor would
all other things be. And if I did not exist, “God” would also not exist.
That God is “God,” of that I am a cause; if I did not exist, God too
would not be “God.” There is no need to understand this.
A great authority says that his breaking through is nobler than his
flowing out;!! and that is true. When I flowed out from God, all things
said: “God is." And this cannot make me blessed, for with this I ac-
knowledge that I am a creature. But in the breaking-through, when I
come to be free of will of myself and of God's will and of all his works
and of God himself, then I am above all created things, and I am nei-
ther God nor creature, but I am what I was and what I shall remain,
now and eternally. Then I received an impulse that will bring me up
above all the angels. Together with this impulse, I receive such riches
that God, as he is “God,” and as he performs all his divine works, can-
not suffice me; for in this breaking-through I receive that God and I
are one. Then I am what I was, and then I neither diminish nor in-
crease, for I am then an immovable cause that moves all things. Here
God finds no place in man, for with this poverty man achieves what
he has been eternally and will evermore remain. Here God is one with
the spirit, and that is the most intimate poverty one can find.
Whoever does not understand what I have said, let him not burden
his heart with it; for as long as a man is not equal to this truth, he will
not understand these words, for this is a truth beyond speculation that
has come immediately from the heart of God. May God help us so to
live that we may find it eternally. Amen.

Sermon 53: Misit dominus manum suam et tetigit os meum et dixit

mihi... Ecce constitui te super gentes et regna (Jr. 1:9).
When I preach, I am accustomed to speak about detachment, and
that a man should be free of himself and of all things; second, that a
man should be formed again into that simple good which is God; third,
that he should reflect on the great nobility with which God has en-
dowed his soul, so that in this way he may come to wonder at God;!
fourth, about the purity of the divine nature, for the brightness of the
divine nature is beyond words. God is a word, a word unspoken.

203
 MEISTER ECKHART

Augustine says: “All writings are in vain. If one says that God is
a word, he has been expressed; but if one says that God has not been
spoken, he is ineffable.”? And yet he is something, but who can speak
this word? No one can do this, except him who is this Word. God is
a Word that speaks itself. Wherever God is, he speaks this Word; wher-
ever he is not, he does not speak. God is spoken and unspoken. The
Father is a speaking work, and the Son is speech working.? Whatever
is in me proceeds from me; if Ionly think it, my word manifests it, and
still it remains in me. So does the Father speak the unspoken Son, and
yet the Son remains in him.* And I have often said: "God's going out
is his going in." To the extent that I am close to God, so to that extent
God utters himself into me. The more that all rational creatures in
their works go out of themselves, the more they go into themselves.
This is not so with merely corporeal creatures; the more they work,
the more they go out of themselves. All creatures want to utter God
in all their works; they all come as close as they can in uttering him,
and yet they cannot utter him. Whether they wish it or not, whether
they like it or not, they all want to utter God, and yet he remains un-
uttered.
David says: “The Lord is his name" (Ps. 67:5). “Lord” signifies be-
ing promoted in power, "servant" means subjection. There are some
names that are proper to God and inappropriate to all other things,
such as “God.” “God” is the name most proper to God of all names,
as “man” is the name of men. A man is a man, be he foolish or wise.
Seneca says: “That man is a pitiful creature who cannot rise above oth-
er men."5 Some names denote a connection with God, such as “father-
hood" and “sonship.” When one says “father,” one understands “son.”
No one can be a father if he does not have a son, nor can a son be a
son if he has no father; both of them have an eternal relationship that
is beyond time. Third, there are some names that signify a lifting up
to God and a regard to time. In scripture God is called by many names.
I say that whoever perceives something in God and attaches thereby
some name to him, that is not God. God is above names and above na-
ture. We read of one good man who was entreating God in his prayer
and wanted to give names to him. Then a brother said: Be quiet— you
are dishonoring God."6 We cannot find a single name we might give
to God. Yet those names are permitted to us by which the saints have
called him and which God so consecrated with divine light and poured
into all their hearts. And through these we should first learn how we
ought to pray to God. We should say: “Lord, with the same names that

204
 GERMAN WORKS

you have so consecrated in the hearts of your saints and have poured
into all their hearts, so we pray to you and praise you." Second, we
should learn not to give any name to God, lest we imagine that in so
doing we have praised and exalted him as we should; for God is *above
names" and ineffable.
The Father speaks the Son out of all his power, and he speaks in
him all things. All created things are God's speech. The being of a
stone speaks and manifests the same as does my mouth about God; and
people understand more by what is done than by what is said.” The
work that is performed by the highest nature in its greatest power is
not understood by an inferior nature.? If the inferior nature performed
the same work, it would not be subject to the highest nature—they
would be the same. All creatures would like to echo God in their
works, but there is little indeed they can manifest. Even the highest an-
gels, as they mount toward and touch God, are as unlike that which
is in God as white is unlike black. What all creatures have received is
quite unlike him, except only that they would gladly express him as
closely as they can. The prophet says: “Lord, you say one thing, and
I hear two things” (Ps. 61:12)? As God speaks into the soul, the soul
and he are one; but, as soon as this goes, there is a separation. The more
that we ascend in our understanding, the more are we one in him.
Therefore the Father speaks the Son always, in unity, and pours out
in him all created things. They are all called to return into whence
they have flowed out. All their life and their being is a calling and a
hastening back to him from whom they have issued.
The prophet says: “The Lord stretched out his hand" (Jr. 1:9), and
he means the Holy Spirit. Now he says: “He has touched my mouth,”
and goes on at once, “and has spoken to me." The soul's mouth is its
highest part, which the soul means when it says: “He has put his word
in my mouth" (tbid.). That is the kiss of the soul, there mouth touches
mouth, there the Father bears his Son into the soul, and there the soul
is spoken to.!? Now he says: “Take heed; today I have chosen you, and
have placed you above peoples and above kingdoms” (Jr. 1:10). In a “to-
day" God vows that he will choose us where there is nothing, and
where yet in an eternity there is a “today.” “And I have placed you
above peoples," that is, above all the world, of which you must be free,
“and above kingdoms,” that is, whatever is more than one, which is too
much, for you must die to all things and be formed again into the
heights, where we dwell in the Holy Spirit.
May God the Holy Spirit help us to that end. Amen.

205
 MEISTER ECKHART

Sermon 83: Renovamini spiritu (Ep. 4:23).

*Be renewed in your spirit" (Ep. 4:23), which is here called mens,!
that is, your disposition. This is what Saint Paul says.
Augustine says that in the highest part of the soul, which he calls
mens or disposition, God created together with the soul's being a pow-
er, which the authorities call a store or a coffer of spiritual forms or
formal images.? This power makes the soul resemble the Father in his
outflowing divinity, out of which he has poured the whole treasure of
his divine being into the Son and into the Holy Spirit, differentiating
between the Persons, just as the soul's memory pours the treasure of
its images into the soul's powers. So when the soul with these powers
contemplates what consists of images, whether that be an angel's image
or its own, there is for the soul something lacking. Even if the soul con-
templates God, either as God or as an image or as three, the soul lacks
something. But if all images are detached from the soul, and it contem-
plates only the Simple One, then the soul's naked being finds the na-
ked, formless being of the divine unity, which is there a being above
being, accepting and reposing in itself. Ah, marvel of marvels, how no-
ble is that acceptance, when the soul's being can accept nothing else
than the naked unity of God!
Now Saint Paul says: “Be renewed in the spirit." Renewal hap-
pens to all created beings under God; but no renewal comes to God,
but evermore only eternity. What is eternity? Pay heed! It is the prop-
erty of eternity that in it being and youth are one because eternity
would not be eternal if it could be renewed, if it did not always exist.
So I say: Renewal happens to the angels, as the future is intimated to
them, for an angel knows about future things, though only so much as
God reveals to him. And renewal happens also to the soul, so far as
"soul" is its name, for it is called soul because it gives life to the body
and is a form of the body. To a soul, too, renewal happens, so far as
"spirit" is its name. It is called spirit because it is detached from here
and now and from the whole natural order. But when it is an image
of God and as nameless as God, then no renewal happens to it, but
only eternity, as in God.
Now pay attention: God is nameless, because no one can say any-
thing or understand anything about him. Therefore a pagan teacher
says: "Whatever we understand or say about the First Cause, that is far
more ourselves than it is the First Cause, for it is beyond all saying and
understanding."? So if I say: “God is good,” that is not true.^ I am

206
 GERMAN WORKS

good, but God is not good. I can even say: “I am better than God,” for
whatever is good can become better, and whatever can become better
can become best of all. But since God is not good, he cannot become
better. And since he cannot become better, he cannot be best of all. For
these three degrees are alien to God: “good,” “better,” and “best,” for
he is superior to them all. And if I say: *God is wise," that is not true.
I am wiser than he. If I say: *God is a being," it is not true; he is a
being transcending being and a transcending nothingness. About this,
Saint Augustine says: “The best that one can say about God is for one
to keep silent out of the wisdom of one's inward riches."5 So be silent,
and do not chatter about God; for when you do chatter about him, you
are telling lies and sinning. But if you want to be without sin and per-
fect, you should not chatter about God. And do not try to understand
God, for God is beyond all understanding. One authority says: “If I
had a God whom I could understand, I should never consider him
God."6 If you can understand anything about him, it in no way be-
longs to him, and insofar as you understand anything about him, that
brings you into incomprehension, and from incomprehension you ar-
rive at a brute's stupidity; for when created beings do not understand,
they resemble the brutes. So if you do not wish to be brutish, do not
understand the God who is beyond words. "Then what ought I to do?"
You ought to sink down out of all your your-ness, and flow into his
his-ness, and your “yours” and his “his” ought to become one “mine,”
so completely that you with him perceive forever his uncreated is-ness,
and his nothingness, for which there is no name.
Now Saint Paul says: “You should be renewed in the spirit.” If we
want to be renewed in the spirit, each of the soul's six powers, the su-
perior and the inferior powers, must have a ring of gold, gilded with
the gold of divine love. Now pay heed! There are three inferior pow-
ers.’ The first is called "rational," and it is discretion, and on it you
ought to wear a golden ring, which is the light, a divine light, with
which your powers of discretion should always be illumined. The next
is called “irascible,” the “angry power,” and on it you ought to have
a ring, which is your peace. "Why?" Because as much as you are at
peace, so much are you in God, and as much as you lack peace, so much
do you lack God. The third power is called “appetitive,” and on it you
ought wear a ring, which is contentment; that is, you should be con-
tent with all creatures who are under God, but you should never be
content with God, because you can never be content with God. The
more you have of God, the more you long for him, for if you could be

207
 MEISTER ECKHART

content with God, and such a contentment with him were to come,
God would not be God.
And you must also wear a golden ring on each of the superior
powers. There are, too, three superior powers. The first is called a re-
tentive power, *memory." This power one compares with the Father
in the Trinity, and on it you should have a golden ring, that is, a re-
tention so that you hold on to everything that is eternal. The second
power is called "intellectual," understanding. This power one com-
pares with the Son, and you ought to wear on it a golden ring, that is,
an understanding so that you should always perceive God. “And
how?" You should perceive him without images, without a medium,
and without comparisons. But if I am to perceive God so, without a
medium, then I must just become him, and he must become me. I say
more: God must just become me, and I must just become God, so com-
pletely one that this “he” and this "I" become and are one “is,” and,
in this is-ness, eternally perform one work, for this he," who is God,
and this “I,” which is the soul, are greatly fruitful. But let there be a
single “here” or a single “now,” and the "I" and the “he” will never
perform anything or become one.? The third power is called “volun-
tary," the will, and one compares it with the Holy Spirit. On it you
should wear a golden ring, that is, love: You should love God. You
should love God apart from his loveableness, that is, not because he is
loveable, for God is unloveable. He is above all love and loveableness.
"Then how should I love God?" You should love God unspiritually,
that is, your soul should be unspiritual and stripped of all spirituality,
for so long as your soul has a spirit's form, it has images, and so long
as it has images, it has a medium, and so long as it has a medium, it
has not unity or simplicity. Therefore your soul must be unspiritual,
free of all spirit, and must remain spiritless; for if you love God as he
is God, as he is spirit, as he is person and as he is image—all this must
go! “Then how should I love him?" You should love him as he is a non-
God, a nonspirit, a nonperson, a nonimage,? but as he is a pure, un-
mixed, bright “One,” separated from all duality; and in that One we
should eternally sink down, out of “something” into *nothing."!9
May God help us to that. Amen.

208
2. TREATISES

A. The Book of “Benedictus”:

The Book of Divine Consolation

BENEDICTUS DEUS ET PATER DOMINI NOSTRI IESU

CHRISTI, ETC. (2 Co. 1:3).

The noble apostle Saint Paul says these words: “Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, a Father of mercy and God
of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulations." There are three
kinds of tribulation that touch and oppress a man in this sorrowful life.
One is the harm that may come to his material possessions. The second
is what may happen to his kinsfolk and his friends. The third is what
may happen to him, disgraces and sufferings, the pains of his body and
the sorrows of his heart.
That is why I want in this book to write some counsels with
which a man can-console himself in all his sufferings, afflictions and
sorrow; and the book has three parts. In the first he will find various
true sayings, and in them he will find the ready and complete comfort
he ought to have for all his sorrows. Then next there are some thirty
topics and precepts from each of which he can always gain great con-
solation. Then in the third part of the book he will find examples of
what wise men have done and have said when they were suffering.

First of all we ought to know that a wise man and wisdom, a truth-
ful man and truth, a just man and justice, a good man and goodness,
have a mutual relationship, and depend on one another, in this way.
Goodness is not created, not made, not born; rather it is what gives
birth and bears the good man; and the good man, insofar as he is good,

209
 MEISTER ECKHART

is unmade and uncreated, and yet he is born, the child and the son of
goodness. In the good man goodness gives birth to itself and to every-
thing that it is. Being, knowing, loving and working—goodness pours
all this into the good man, and the good man accepts all his being,
knowing, loving and working from the innermost heart of goodness,
and from it alone. That which is good and goodness are nothing else
than one single goodness in everything, apart from the one bearing and
the other being born; but that goodness does bear and that it is born
in the good man, this is all one being, one life. Everything the good
man has, he receives both from goodness and also in goodness. That
is where he is and lives and dwells. That is where he knows himself
and everything that he knows, and loves everything that he loves, and
he works with goodness in goodness, and goodness with him and in
him works all its works, according to what the Son says, as it is writ-
ten: “The Father, who remains and abides in me, does the works" (Jn.
14:10). “The Father works until now, and I work" (Jn. 5:17). “Every-
thing which is the Father's is mine, and everything which is mine and _
of me is my Father's" (Jn. 17:10), his in giving and mine in taking.
Then next we ought to know that the name or the word that we
use when we say “good” names and comprises in itself nothing else,
neither less nor more, than bare and pure goodness; and yet it gives it-
self. When we say “good,” people understand that their goodness has
been given to them, poured in and given birth by unborn goodness.
That is why the gospel says: “As the Father has life in himself, so he
has given to the Son, that he also may have life in himself" (Jn. 5:26).
He says “in himself,” not "from himself," because the Father has given
it to him.
Bid I have just now said about the good man and goodness
is just as true of the truthful man and truth, of the just man and justice,
of the wise man and wisdom, of the Son of God and God the Father,
of everything that is born of God and has no earthly father here, ev-
erything in which nothing created and nothing that is not God is born,
in which there is no image except God, bare, pure, alone. For as Saint
John says in his gospel: “To all those the power and might is given to
become the sons of God, who are born not of blood nor of the will of
the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (Jn. 1:12), and from God
alone.
By "blood" he means everything in man that is not subject to
man's will. By “the will of the flesh" he means everything that in man
is subject to his will, but that yet offers resistance and opposition, in-

210
 GERMAN WORKS

clining to the desires of the flesh, and that is common to the soul and
the body, and is not properly in the soul alone; and so it is that man's
powers grow weary and sick and old. By "the will of man" Saint John
means the highest powers of the soul, whose nature and works are un-
mixed with the flesh, residing in the soul's purity, separated from time
and place and all that, which neither regard nor take delight in time
and place, which have nothing in common with anything, and in
which man is formed after God's image, in which man is one of God's
family and of his kin.! And yet, because these powers are not them-
selves God, and are created in the soul and with the soul, they must
lose their own image, and be transformed above themselves into the
image of God alone, and be born in God and from God, so that God
alone may be their Father; for in this way they too are the sons of God
and God's Only-Begotten Son. For I am the son of everything that
forms and bears me to be like it and in its likeness. Such a man, God's
son, good and the son of goodness, just and the son of justice, so far
as he is their son alone, is the begotten son of what is unbegotten and
begetting, and he shares that one same being which justice has and is,
and he enters into all the attributes of justice and of truth.
From all this teaching, which is written in the holy gospel and is
recognized with certainty in the natural light of the rational soul, we
find true consolation in all our sufferings.
Saint Augustine says: “God is not distant or far off. If you want
nothing to be distant or far off from you, submit yourself to God,”
for there a thousand years are but as today. And so I say: In God there
is no sorrow or suffering or affliction. If you want to be free of all af-
fliction and suffering, hold fast to God, and turn wholly to him, and
to no one else. Indeed, all your suffering comes from this, that you do
not turn in God and to God and no one else. If you preserved yourself
as you were formed, in justice alone, and as you were born, then truly
nothing could cause you suffering, any more than justice can cause suf-
fering to God himself. Solomon says: Whatever may happen to one
who is just, it will not sadden him" (Pr. 12:21). He does not say “to a
man who is just,” or “to an angel who is just,” or this or that.? He says
"to one who is just." Apart from his justice and that he is just, what
makes him this particular just man is that he is a son and has an earthly
father, and is a creature, made and created because his father is a crea-
ture, made or created. But only his attribute of being just has no cre-
ated or made father, and God and justice are wholly one, and justice
alone is his father. Therefore he can be injured as little by sorrow or

211
 MEISTER ECKHART

affliction as can God himself. Justice cannot cause him sorrow, for jus-
tice is all joy and love and delight; and what is more, if justice were
to make the just man sorrowful, it would make itself sorrowful. Not
unlikeness, not injustice, not anything made or created can cause suf-
fering to one who is just, for everything that is created is as far beneath
him as it is beneath God; it makes no impression, it has no influence
on those who are just, it does not come to birth in them, for God alone
is their Father. Therefore a man must do all he can to lose the image
of himself and of all creatures, and to know no Father except God
alone, and so nothing can cause him suffering or sadness, not God or
his creatures, nothing created or uncreated, and all his being, living,
knowing and loving is from God, is in God, is God.
There is something else that we ought to know, that also comforts
a man in all his afflictions. It is certain that a just and good man re-
joices in his works of justice, more than will bear comparison or can
be told, finding in them more delight and joy than he or even the high-
est angel finds in his natural being or life. And that is why the saints
joyfully gave their lives for the sake of justice.
Now I say this: If outward harms come to the good and just man,
and if then he remains unperturbed with equanimity and peace of
heart, then what I have said is true, that nothing that happens to the
just man afflicts him. But if it happens that he is afflicted by outward
harms, it is very just and proper that God decreed that harm came to
a man who wished and believed himself to be just, and who yet could
be afflicted by such little things. If then this is God's decree, truly the
man ought not to be saddened by it, but he ought rather to rejoice over
it, far more than over his own life, which yet every man delights in and
values more than he does this whole world; for what use would this
whole world be to a man who did not exist?
The third counsel that we can and should know is that in natural
truth God alone is the single source and channel of all good, of essen-
tial truth and of consolation, and that everything that is not God pos-
sesses from its own nature bitterness, sadness and suffering. It
contributes nothing to the goodness that is from God and that is God,
but it saps and obscures and conceals the sweetness, joy and consola-
tion God gives.
And what is more, I say that all suffering comes from love for that
which harm has taken from me. If I sorrow for the harm done to ex-
ternal things, that is a true sign that I love external things, and that,
in truth, I love sorrow and desolation. Is it then surprising that I am

212
 GERMAN WORKS

afflicted, I who love and yearn for sorrow and desolation? My heart
and my love are squandering upon created things the good things that
are God's own possession. I run after created things, from which by
their nature desolation comes, and I run away from God, from whom
all consolation flows. Is it then surprising that I suffer and that I am
sad? Truly, God and the whole world make it impossible for a man to
find true consolation who seeks his consolation in created things. But
he who would in created things love God alone, and who would love
created things only in God, he would find true, just and unchanging
consolation everywhere. And let this be enough for the first part of
this book.

2
Here now in the second part are some thirty topics, each single
one of which ought readily to console a rational man in his sorrow.
The first is that there is no affliction and harm that is without con-
solation, nor is there any harm that is nothing but harm. That is why
Saint Paul says that God's faithfulness and goodness do not suffer any
temptation or sorrow to become unendurable (1 Co. 10:15). He always
makes and gives some comfort with which a man can help himself, for
the saints and the pagan philosophers also say that God and nature do
not permit unmixed evil or suffering to exist.
I give you an example: A man has a hundred marks, of which he
loses forty and retains sixty. If he is going to think day and night about
the forty he has lost, he will never stop feeling aggrieved and sorry for
himself. How could anyone find consolation and forget his sorrow
who keeps coming back to his loss and his grief, thinking about what
it has done to him and what he has become through it, staring at af-
fliction while affliction stares back at him, moaning over it whilst it
moans in reply, as they sit there, affliction and he, gazing into each oth-
er's eyes? But if he would just turn his mind to the sixty marks he still
has, and turn his back on the forty that are lost, and think of what the
sixty are to him, and if he would look at them face to face and chat with
them, he would certainly find consolation. What exists and what is
good can console me; but what is nonexistent and is not good, what is
not mine and what I have lost, that must of necessity bring desolation
and sorrow and affliction. Solomon says about this: “In the day of evils
do not be unmindful of the day of good things” (Si. 11:27). That is to
say: When you are in sorrow and affliction, think of the good things

213
 MEISTER ECKHART

and the comfort you still have and possess. And it ought to console a
man if he will think how many thousands of people there are who, if
they had the sixty marks he still has, would consider themselves fine
ladies and gentlemen and that they were very rich and would be glad
of heart.
But there is something else that should console a man. If he is sick
and in great bodily pain, he still has a house and what he needs to eat
and drink, doctors to treat him, his servants to look after him, his
friends to sympathize and be with him. What more does he want?
What do poor people do when they have times when they are as sick
or even sicker, and have no one to give them a cup of cold water? They
have to go out begging a crust of bread in the rain and the snow and
the cold from house to house. So if you want consolation, forget those
who are better off and think of all those for whom things are worse.
What is more, I say this: All sorrow comes from love and from
holding dear.* Therefore, if I feel sorrow because of perishable things,
my heart and I will still love and hold dear perishable things, and God
still does not have the love of my whole heart, and I still do not love
such things as God would have me love with him. Is it then any won-
der that God decrees that I so justly suffer harm and sorrow?
Saint Augustine says: “Lord, I did not want to lose you, but I
wanted to possess, along with you, the created things which I crave;
and that is why I lost you, because you do not want anyone to possess,
along with you who are the truth, the falsehood and deceits of created
things."? And in another place he says that “The man who is not con-
tent with God alone is too greedy by far."6 And somewhere else he
says: "How could God's gifts to his creatures content a man who is not
content with God himself ?"? Everything that is alien to God, and that
is not God himself alone, ought to be for a good man not consolation
but a torment. He ought always to say: “Lord, my God and my com-
fort, if you turn me away from yourself to anything, give me another
you, so that I pass from you to you, for I want nothing except you."
When the Lord promised Moses everything that is good and sent him
into the Holy Land, which signifies the kingdom of heaven, Moses
said: "Lord, do not send me anywhere if you are not willing to come
with me yourself" (Ex. 33:15).
All attraction and desire and love come from that which is like, be-
cause all things are attracted by and love what is like them.? The pure
man loves everything that is pure, the just man loves and is attracted

214
 GERMAN WORKS

to justice; a man's lips speak the things that are in the man, as our Lord
says: "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Lk. 6:45);
and Solomon says: “All the labor of man is in his mouth” (Qo. 6:7).
Therefore it is a true sign that not God but created things are in a
man's heart when he is still attracted and consoled by what is outside
him.
This is why a good man ought to feel great shame before God and
in his own eyes if he is made aware that God is not within him, and
that it is not God the Father who is performing his works in him, but
that miserable creatures still live in him and attract him and perform
his works in him. That is why King David in the Psalms says and la-
ments: "My tears have been my comfort day and night; all the time,
men could still say to me: ‘Where is your God?’ " (Ps. 41:4). For to be
attracted by external things and to find consolation in what is desola-
tion and to take delight in much talk about it is a true sign that God
does not appear in me, does not watch over me, does not work in me.
And what is more, a good man should feel shame before good men, that
they should detect this in him. He should never complain about his
harm and griefs; all that he ought to complain about is that he does
complain, and that he is aware of complaint and grief in himself.
The teachers say that under the sky there is a great fire, far and
wide, immediate and powerful in its heat, and yet the sky is never af-
fected by it at all.? Now one treatise says that the lowest part of the
soul is finer than the highest heaven.!? How then can a man misjudge
himself, thinking that he is a heavenly being with his heart in heaven,
if he can still be oppressed and suffer about such little things?
Now I shall say something else. There can be no good man who
does not will what is the particular will of God, for it is impossible for
God to will anything but good; and precisely because it is God's will,
it becomes and necessarily is good, and, what is more, it is the best.
And that is why our Lord taught the apostles, and us through them,
that we should pray every day for God's will to be done (Mt. 6:10). And
all the same, when God's will comes to pass and is achieved, then we
complain.
Seneca, a pagan philosopher, asks: “What is the best consolation
in sorrow and in misfortune?” And he says: “It is for a man to accept
everything as if he had wished for it and had asked for it; for you
would have wished for it, if you had known that everything happens
by God's will, with his will and in his will."!! A pagan philosopher

215
 MEISTER ECKHART

says: "Leader and commander, Father and Lord of high heaven, I am

ready for everything which is your will; give me the will to will ac-
cording to your will.”}2
A good man ought to have trust and faith and certainty in God,
and know him to be so good that it would be impossible to him and
to his goodness and to his love to suffer any sorrow or harm to come
to a man, unless he should wish to take a greater harm away from him,
or to give him greater consolation on earth, or, using the harm as in-
strument and material, to make something better with it, so that God’s
glory becomes more widely and more deeply revealed. But, however
this may be, in that alone, that it is God’s will that it should happen
so, a good man’s will ought to be so wholly one and united with God’s
will that he and God have only one will, though that should be for the
man’s harm or even for his damnation. This is why Saint Paul wished
that he might be separated from God, for the love of God, by the will
of God, and to the glory of God (Rm. 9:3). For a truly perfect man
should be accustomed to regard himself as dead, and his self as trans-
formed in God, and so supernaturally changed in God’s will that all
his blessedness consists in knowing nothing of himself or of anything,
and in knowing God alone, in willing and wanting to know nothing
but God’s will, and in wanting to know God as God knows him, as
Saint Paul says (1 Co. 13:12). God knows everything that he knows, he
loves and wills everything that he loves and wills, in himself in his own
will. Our Lord himself says: “This is eternal life, to know God alone”
(112173):
This is why the teachers say that the blessed in heaven perceive
creatures free from every creaturely image, and that they perceive
them in that one image which is God, and in which God knows and
loves and wills himself and all things.!? And that is what God himself
teaches us to pray and long for, when we say: “Our Father ... hal-
lowed be your name," that is, let us know you alone; “your kingdom
come," that is, that I may possess nothing that I regard as riches except
only you who are rich.!^ The gospel says about this: “‘Blessed are the
poor in spirit" (Mt. 5:3), that is, in the will; and we pray to God that
“his will be done on earth,” that is, in us, “as it is in heaven," that is,
in God himself. Such a man is so much of one will with God that he
wills everything that God wills, and in the fashion in which God wills
it. And therefore, because in some way or other it is God's will that
I should have sinned, I should not want not to have done so, for in this
way God's will is done “on earth,” that is, in misdeeds, “as it is in heav-

216
 GERMAN WORKS

en," that is, in good deeds. Thus a man wishes to be deprived of God
for God's own sake and for God's own sake to be separated from God,
and that alone is true repentance for my sins.!? And so my sins are to
me a painless pain, just as God suffers all wickedness without suffer-
ing. I do suffer, and I suffer as much as I can over sin, because I would
not commit a sin for the sake of everything that has been or could be
created, even if a thousand worlds could exist for evermore; but I suf-
fer without suffering. And I take and draw the suffering in God's will
and from God's will. Only such sorrow is perfect sorrow, because it
proceeds and springs from a pure love of God's purest goodness and
joy. So it is made true, and men come to know, as I have said in this
little book, that the good man, insofar as he is good, becomes possessed
of all the properties of goodness itself, which God is in himself.
Now see what a wonderful and joyful life man has, “on earth as
it is in heaven,” in God himself. Misfortune serves him as if it were
good fortune, and sorrow as much as joy. And see too that there is in
this a special consolation, for if I have the grace and the goodness of
which I have now spoken, I shall always be completely consoled and
joyful, at all times and under all circumstances; and if I do not have
this, I ought to do without it for the love of God and in his will. If God
wills to give what I ask for, I thereby have it and rejoice; and if God
does not will to give it, let me accept that I lack it in that same will
of God, for this is something that is not his will. And so I obtain, not
by obtaining but by lacking. For what is it that I then lack? And truly,
man obtains God more truly in lacking than in obtaining; for when a
man receives something, the gift possesses in itself that by which he
is glad and comforted. But if he does not receive it, he does not have,
he does not find, he does not know any cause for joy except God and
God's will alone.
But then there is another consolation. If a man has lost some ma-
terial possession, or a friend or a kinsman, an eye, a hand or whatever
it may be, then he should be sure that if he accepts this patiently for
the love of God, then by the loss he did not want to suffer he has in
God's reckoning gained at least as much. Suppose that a man loses an
eye; he would not for a thousand marks or six thousand marks or more
wish to be without the eye. Certainly in God's sight and in God he has
saved up for him at least as much as he did not want to lose through
such a harm or sorrow. And perhaps this is what is meant when our
Lord said: “It is better for you to enter into everlasting life having one
eye than to have two eyes and to be lost" (Mt. 18:9). It is perhaps also

217
 MEISTER ECKHART

what is meant when God said: “Everyone who has left father and
mother, sister and brother, house or land or whatever it may be, will
receive a hundredfold, and life everlasting” (Mt. 19:29). I am sure that
I can say in God's truth, and as I hope to be blessed, that whoever for
the love of God and goodness leaves father and mother, brother and sis-
ter or whatever it may be, he receives a hundredfold in two different
ways. One is that his father, mother, brother and sister will become a
hundred times dearer to him than they now are. The second way is
that not only a hundred people but all people, to the extent that they
are people and human beings, will become far dearer to him than his
father, mother or brother now are by his natural inclinations. A man
is not aware of this, simply and solely because he has not yet forsaken
father and mother, sister and brother and everything else, purely and
only for the love of God and goodness. How has a man left father and
mother, sister and brother for the love of God, who still here on earth
finds them occupying his heart, who still becomes oppressed and
thinks and searches after that which is not God? How has he forsaken
everything for the love of God who still is caring and seeking for one
good thing or another? Saint Augustine says: “Get rid of these and
those goods, and what will remain is pure goodness, moving in its own
bare and limitless orbit, and that is God."!6 For as I have already said,
goods of any sort do not add anything to goodness, but they conceal
and hide the goodness in us. Anyone who sees and contemplates in the
light of truth knows and perceives that this is so, because it is true in
truth and therefore one must perceive it there and nowhere else.
Yet one should know that possessing virtues and willingness to
suffer exist in a wide variety of degrees, just as we can see in nature
that one man is bigger and finer than another in stature, in complex-
ion, in knowledge and in accomplishments. And so I say too that a
good man may well be good, and still be moved and swayed by his nat-
ural love for his father, mother, sister, brother, sometimes less, some-
times more, and yet not be wanting in his love for God and for
goodness. Yet he becomes good and better in the measure, small or
great, to which he is consoled and touched by and is conscious of his
natural love and attraction to his father and mother, sister and brother,
and to himself.
Yet even so, as I have already written, if a man could accept this
as being in God's will—insofar as it is God's will—that human nature
should have these deficiencies, through God's particular justice, as a

218
 GERMAN WORKS

consequence of the sin of the first man, and also, even if that were not
so, if he would gladly accept it as God's will for him that he should
renounce such natural love, everything would then be well with him,
and he would certainly find consolation for his sorrows. That is what
is meant when Saint John says that the true “light shines in darkness"
(Jn. 1:5) and Saint Paul says that "virtue is made perfect in infirmity”
(2 Co. 12:9). If a thief were able to suffer death with a true, complete,
pure, glad, willing and joyful love of divine justice, in which and ac-
cording to which God and his justice will that the evildoer be put to
death, truly he would be saved and blessed.”
But another consolation is that probably one will find no one who
does not love some living person so dearly that he would not gladly
sacrifice an eye or go blind for a year, provided that he could have the
eye back again, if in this way he could save his friend from death. So
if a man would sacrifice his eye for a year, to save from death someone
who must still die in a few years' time, he ought rightly and more glad-
ly to sacrifice the ten or twenty or thirty years he might still have to
live so as to make himself eternally blessed, possessing the everlasting
vision of God in his divine light, seeing, in God, himself and all created
beings.
But there is a further consolation: To a good man, insofar as he
is good and born of goodness alone and an image of goodness, every-
thing that is limited and created is of no value and a bitter sorrow and
pain. And so for him to be deprived of them is to be deprived of and
freed from sorrow, affliction and loss. To be deprived of sorrow is in-
deed a real consolation. For this reason, a man should not complain
about loss. He ought to complain far more that he does not know con-
solation, that consolation cannot console him, just as sweet wine tastes
sour to a sick man. He ought to complain, as I have written before, that
he is not wholly free of creaturely images, and has not been trans-
formed with all that he is into the image of the good.
A man in his sorrow ought also to remember that God speaks the
truth and swears by himself, who is the Truth. If God were to fall
short of his word, his Truth, he would fall short of his divinity and
would not be God, for he is his word, his Truth. His word is that our
sorrow will be turned into joy (Jn. 16:20). Truly, if Iknew for certain
that every piece of stone that I had would be turned into gold, the
more stones I possessed and the bigger they were, the gladder I should
be; yes, I should go around begging for stones and collecting them, as

219
 MEISTER ECKHART

big and as many as possible; and the more of them there were and the
bigger, the happier they would make me. This surely would give a man
mighty comfort in all his sorrow.
And there is another like this: No cask can hold two different
kinds of drink. If it is to contain wine, then they must of necessity pour
the water out; the cask must become empty and free. Therefore, if you
are to receive God's joy and God, you are obliged to pour out created
things. Saint Augustine says: "Empty yourself, so that you may be
filled. Learn not to love, so that you may learn how to love. Draw back,
so that you may be approached."!? In a few words, everything that is
to receive and be capable of receiving should and must be empty. The
authorities say that if the eye had some color in it when it was observ-
ing, it would recognize neither the color it had nor the color it had
not;!? but because it is free of all colors, it therefore recognizes all col-
ors. A wall has its own color, and therefore it recognizes neither its col-
or nor any other color, and it takes no pleasure in colors, no more in
that of gold or lapis lazuli than in that of charcoal. The eye has no color
and yet truly possesses color, because it recognizes it with pleasure and
delight and joy. And as the powers of the soul become more perfect
and unmixed, so they apprehend more perfectly and comprehensively
whatever they apprehend, receiving it more comprehensively, having
greater joy, becoming more united with what they apprehend, to the
point where the highest power of the soul, bare of all things and hav-
ing nothing in common with anything, receives into itself nothing less
than God himself, in all the vastness and fulness of his being. And the
authorities show us that there is no delight and no joy that can be com-
pared with this union and this fulfilling and this joy.?? This is why our
Lord says so insistently: “Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Mt. 5:3). A
man is poor who has nothing. To be poor in spirit means that as the
eye is poor and deprived of color, and is able to apprehend every color,
so he is poor in spirit who is able to apprehend every spirit, and the
Spirit of all spirits is God. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy and peace
(Ga. 5:22). To be naked, to be poor, to have nothing, to be empty trans-
forms nature; emptiness makes water flow uphill, and many other mar-
vels of which we need not now speak.
Therefore, if you want to have and to find complete joy and con-
solation in God, make sure that you are naked of all created things, of
all comfort from created things; for truly, so long as created things con-
sole you and can console you, never will you find true consolation. But
when nothing but God can console you, then truly God does console

220
 GERMAN WORKS

you, and with him and in him everything that is joy consoles you. If
what is not God consoles you, then you will have no consolation, nei-
ther now nor later. But if creatures do not console you and give you
no delight, then you will find consolation, both now and to come.
If a man were able and knew how to make a goblet quite empty,
and to keep it empty of everything that could fill it, even of air, doubt-
less the goblet would forgo and forget all its nature, and its emptiness
would lift it up into the sky. And so to be naked, poor, empty of all
created things lifts the soul up to God. Likeness and heat too draw up
above. We attribute likeness in the divinity to the Son, heat and love
to the Holy Spirit. Likeness in all things, but more so and first of all
in the divine nature, is the birth of the One and the likeness of the One,
in the One and with the One; it is the beginning and origin of flow-
ering, fiery love. The One is the beginning without any beginning.
Likeness is the beginning of the One alone, and it receives that it is and
that it is beginning from the One and in the One.?! It is the nature of
love that it flows and springs up out of two as one. One as one does
not produce love, two as two does not produce love; two as one per-
force produces natural, consenting, fiery love.
Solomon says that all waters, that is all created things, flow and
run back to their beginning (Qo. 1:7). That is why what I have said is
necessarily true. Likeness and fiery love draw up the soul and lead it
and bring it to the first source of the One, which is “the Father of all,”
“in heaven and earth" (Ep. 4:6 and 3:15).?? And so I say that likeness,
born of the One, draws the soul into God, as he is one in his hidden
union, for that is what “One” signifies. Of this we have a plain exam-
ple: When material fire kindles wood, a spark receives the nature of
fire, and it becomes like pure fire, and without any medium sticks to
the lower heavens. At once it forgets and denies father and mother,
brother and sister down upon earth, and hastens up to the heavenly fa-
ther. The father of the spark down here is the fire, and its mother is
the wood, its brothers and sisters are the other sparks; but the first
small spark does not wait for them. Swiftly it hastens up to its true fa-
ther, which is the heavens; for anyone who recognizes truth knows
very well that the fire is not the real true father of the spark, once it
is fire. The real true father of the spark and of all fiery things is the
heavens. And it should also be carefully observed that this little spark
not only forsakes and forgets father and mother, brother and sister
here upon earth; it forsakes and forgets and denies its own self out of
its love to come to its lawful father, the heavens, because it must per-

221
 MEISTER ECKHART

force be extinguished in the coldness of the air; and yet it wants to

show its natural love, which it has for its true, heavenly father.
And as it has already been said about emptiness or nakedness, as
the soul becomes more pure and bare and poor, and possesses less of
created things, and is emptier of all things that are not God, it receives
God more purely, and is more totally in him, and it truly becomes one
with God, and it looks into God and God into it, face to face, as it were
two images transformed into one. This is what Saint Paul says,?? and
this is what I say now about likeness and about the heat of love; be-
cause as one thing becomes more like another, so it hastens always fast-
er toward it, and travels with greater speed, and its course is sweeter
and more joyful to it. And the further it goes away from itself and from
everything that is not the object of its pursuit, the less like it becomes
to itself and to everything that is not that object, and the more it be-
comes like the object toward which it drives. And because likeness
flows from the One and draws and attracts by the power and in the
power of the One, this does not pacify or satisfy that which is drawing
or that which is being drawn, until they become united into one.
Therefore the Lord said through the prophet Isaias and meant that “no
likeness, however exalted, and no loving peace will satisfy me, until I
shine out myself in my Son" (Is. 62:1), and until I myself am set on fire
and enkindled in the love of the Holy Spirit. And our Lord prayed his
Father that we might become one with him and in him (Jn. 17:11), not
merely that we should be joined together. Of what this says, and of its
truth, we have a plain example and proof even in the external natural
order: When fire works, and kindles wood and sets it on fire, the fire
diminishes the wood and makes it unlike itself, taking away its coarse-
ness, coldness, heaviness and dampness, and turns the wood into itself,
into fire, more and more like to it. But neither the fire nor the wood
is pacified or quieted or satisfied with any warmth or heat or likeness
until the fire gives birth to itself in the wood, and gives to the wood
its own nature and also its own being, so that they both become one
and the same unseparated fire, neither less nor more. And therefore,
before this may be achieved, there is always smoke, contention, crack-
ling, effort and violence between fire and wood. But when all the un-
likeness has been taken away and rejected, then the fire is stilled and
the wood is quiet.?* And I say something else that is true, that nature's
hidden power secretly hates likeness insofar as it carries within itself
distinction and duality, and nature seeks in likeness the One it loves

222
 GERMAN WORKS

for its own sake alone in likeness. So the mouth seeks and loves in the
wine and from the wine its flavor or its sweetness. If water had the fla-
vor that wine has, the mouth would love the wine no more than the
water.
And that is why I have said that the soul hates likeness in likeness
and does not love it in itself and for its own sake, but it loves likeness
for the sake of the One that is concealed in likeness, and is the true “Fa-
ther," beginning without beginning, “of all in heaven and on earth"
(Ep. 4:6 and 3:15). And therefore I say: So long as likeness can still be
perceived and appears between fire and wood, there is never true de-
light or silence or rest or contentment. That is why the authorities say:
Fire comes about in strife and contention and unrest, and it happens
in time; but the birth of the fire and joy is timeless, placeless. It seems
to no one that delight and joy are slow or distant. Everything I have
now said is signified when our Lord says: “When a woman gives birth
to a child she has pain and anguish and sorrow; but when the child is
born, she forgets the pain and anguish" (Jn. 16:21). Therefore too God
says in the gospel and admonishes us that we should pray to the heav-
enly Father that our joy may be complete (Jn. 15:11); and Saint Philip
said: “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us" (Jn. 14:8). For
"Father" implies birth, not likeness, and it signifies the One in which
all likeness is stilled, and everything is silenced that longs for being.
Now a man may plainly see why and because of what he is un-
consoled in all his sorrow, distress and hurt. This all comes from noth-
ing else than that he is far away from God, that he is not emptied of
created things, that he is unlike to God, cold toward divine love.
Yet there is another matter; and anyone who would observe it and
see it for what it is would soon be consoled in any worldly hurt and
sorrow. Suppose that a man goes on a journey or undertakes some ac-
tion or stops something else he is doing, and he suffers an injury. He
breaks a leg, an arm, or loses an eye, or becomes sick. If then he keeps
on thinking: If you had taken another road, or if you had done some-
thing different, that would not have happened to you, he will remain
unconsoled, and he is of necessity unhappy. That is why he should
think: If you had taken another road or if you had started or stopped
doing something different, some much worse injury or harm could eas-
ily have happened to you. And so he would rightly be consoled.
And I will put another case: If you have lost a thousand marks,
you ought not to lament the thousand marks that are lost. You should

223
 MEISTER ECKHART

thank God who gave you a thousand marks to lose, and who permits
you to exercise the virtue of patience and so to gain that eternal life
which many thousands of men will not possess.
Here is something else that can console a man. I put the case of
someone who has enjoyed honors and ease for many years, and now
loses it through God's decree. Then he should reflect wisely and thank
God. When he feels his present harm and hurt, he realizes for the first
time the profit and ease he used to have. He should thank God for the
ease he enjoyed for so many years and never acknowledged truly,
when he was so well off, and he should not complain. He ought to re-
flect that a man of his own true nature has nothing of his own except
sinfulness and weakness. Everything that is good and is goodness God
has loaned him, not given him. Anyone who sees the truth knows that
God, the heavenly Father, gives everything that is good to the Son and
to the Holy Spirit; but to his creatures he gives nothing good, he lets
them have it as a loan. The sun gives heat to the air, but makes a loan
of light; and that is why, as soon as the sun goes down, the air loses
the light, but the heat remains there, because the heat is given to the
air to possess as its own. And that is why the authorities say that God,
the heavenly Father, is Father and not Lord of the Son, nor is he the
Lord of the Holy Spirit. But God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit—this
is one Lord, and the Lord of created things. We say that God was ev-
erlastingly the Father; but in time, in which he made created things,
he is the Lord.
Now I say: Since it is so, that everything which is good or com-
forting or temporal is only loaned to man, what cause has he to com-
plain when he who has loaned it to him wishes to take it back? He
ought to thank God, who has loaned it to him for so long. And he
ought also to thank him that he does not take back everything he has
loaned to him, as he well might take all his loan back, when the man
becomes enraged because God takes from him a part of what was never
his and of which he was never the owner. And that is why Jeremias
the prophet truly says of when he was in great sorrow and distress:
“Many are the mercies of the Lord, that we are not wholly consumed"
(Lm. 3:22). If anyone had loaned me his coat and jerkin and cloak, and
were to take back his cloak and leave me the coat and the jerkin against
the cold, I ought to thank him greatly and be glad. And one ought to
see clearly how very unjust I am if Istorm and complain if I lose some-
thing; because if what I want is for the possessions I have to be given
to me and not loaned, that means that I want to be Lord, and God’s

224
 GERMAN WORKS

Son by nature, I who am not yet even God's son by grace, for it is the
property of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit to be unchanging
in all circumstances.
One ought also to know that beyond any doubt even natural, hu-
man virtue is so excellent and so strong that there is no external work
too difficult for it or great enough for it to manifest itself in it and
through it and to form itself in it. And there is an interior work, which
cannot be confined or comprehended by time or place; and in this
work is what is divine and like to God, whom neither time nor place
confine, for he is everywhere and present in all time, and this work is
also like to God in this, that no creature can perfectly receive him nor
form God's goodness in himself. And so there must be something,
more inward, more exalted, uncreated, lacking all measure, lacking all
manner, in which the heavenly Father can form and pour and manifest
his whole self; and that is the Son and the Holy Spirit. And no one can
hinder this interior working of virtue, any more than anyone can hin-
der God. The work gleams and shines day and night. It lauds and sings
God's praise and a new song, as David says: "Sing to God a new song”
(Ps. 95:1). God does not love that work whose praise is of the earth, for
it is external, it is confined by time and place, it is narrow, men can
hinder and force it, and it grows weary and old through time and la-
bor. This work?? is to love God, to want good and goodness, and in this
all that man wants and would do with a pure and perfect will in all
good works has already been done, and in this he is like God, of whom
David writes: "Whatever he pleased, he has already done and made"
(Ps. 134:6).
Of this teaching we have a clear example in stones, the external
function of which is to fall down and to lie on the ground. This func-
tion can be prevented, and a stone does not keep on falling all the time.
There is another function, more essential to the stone, and that is its
propensity to fall, and that was made with it; neither God nor his crea-
tures can take that away. The stone fulfills that function unceasingly,
day and night. It can lie on the ground for a thousand years, but it will
have the same propensity, neither less nor more, as on the first day.?°
This is what I mean when I say that virtue has an interior work,
to want and to incline to everything that is good, to flee and oppose
everything that is corrupt and evil and unlike goodness and God. And
the worse that a deed is and the more unlike God, the greater is the
opposition; and the greater a deed and the more like to God, the easier
and more willing and joyful virtue finds it. And all its lament and sor-

225
 MEISTER ECKHART

row, if sorrow could find any place in virtue, is that what is suffered
for God is too little, and that all external works performed in time are
too little, so that in them virtue cannot wholly show itself or fully man-
ifest itself or form itself in them. Exercising itself, virtue grows strong,
and in its generosity it becomes mighty. It would not wish to have fin-
ished suffering or to have vanquished sorrow and pain. It wishes and
would always want unceasingly to continue suffering for the love of
God and of doing good. All its blessedness is in suffering now, not in
having suffered, for the love of God. And therefore our Lord says very
plainly: “Blessed are they who suffer for the sake of justice" (Mt. 5:10).
He does not say “who have suffered." Such a man hates “having-suf-
fered," for having-suffered is not the suffering he loves; it is a release
from and a loss of suffering that he alone loves for the sake of God.
And therefore I say that such a man also hates “shall-suffer,” for that
also is not suffering. But he hates shall-suffer less than having-suffered,
because having-suffered is further away from suffering and more un-
like it, because it is wholly finished. If a man is yet to suffer, that does
not entirely deprive him of the suffering he loves.
Saint Paul says that he would be willing to be deprived of God,
for God's sake, so that God's glory might be increased (Rm. 9:3). They
say that Saint Paul said this at the time when he was not yet perfect;
but I think that this saying came from a heart that was perfect. They
say too that he meant that he wanted to be deprived of God for a time;
but I say that a perfect man would be as loath to be deprived of God
for one hour as for a thousand years. Yet if it were the will of God and
to God's glory for him to be deprived of God, that would be as easy
for him for a thousand years or for all eternity as for a day or an hour.
And the interior work is divine and of God and tastes of divinity
in the sense that, just as all created beings, even if there were a thou-
sand worlds, are not one hair's breadth better than is God alone, so I
say now as I have said before that this external work does not at all add,
not in its quantity or size or length or breadth, to the goodness of the
interior work, which possesses its goodness in itself. Thus the external
work can never be trivial if the interior work is great, and the external
work can never be great or good if the interior work is trivial or worth-
less. The interior work contains in itself all time, all vastness, all
breadth and all length. The interior work receives and creates its
whole being out of nowhere else than from and in the heart of God.
It receives the Son, and is born Son in the bosom of the heavenly Fa-
ther.7

226
 GERMAN WORKS

It is not so with the external work, for it has its divine goodness
brought and poured into it by means of the interior work, as the divine
nature stoops and clothes itself in distinction, in quantity, in division,
all of which, and everything like it, and likeness itself, are far from
God and alien to him. They seize upon and are seized and silenced by
that which is good, enlightened, creaturely. They are wholly blind to
whatisin itself the good and the light and to the One in which God
brings to birth his Only-Begotten Son, and in all who are God's chil-
dren, his begotten sons. Here is the flowing out and the springing up
of the Holy Spirit, from whom alone, as he is God's Spirit and himself
Spirit,-God the Son is conceived in us. Here is the flowing out of all
those who are the sons of God, to the measure, greater or less, in which
they are purely born of God alone, formed in God's likeness and in
God, and strangers to all multiplicity, even though one does find mul-
tiplicity in the highest angels by their nature. And if we will see things
truly, they are strangers to goodness, truth and everything that toler-
ates any distinction, be it in a thought or in a name, in a notion or just
a shadow of a distinction. They are intimates of the One-that-is bare
of every kind of multiplicity and distinction. In the One, “God-Father-
Son-an
-and-Holy Spirit" are stripped of every distinction and property,
and are one.?? And the One makes us blessed, and the further we are
away from the One, the less we are sons and the Son, and the less per-
fectly does the Holy Spirit spring up in us and flow out from us. And
the closer we are to the One, the more truly are we God's sons and his
Son, and also the more truly does God the Holy Spirit flow from us.
This is what our Lord, God's Son in the divinity, means when he says:
“Whoever drinks from the water which I shall give, in him will spring
a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting" (Jn. 4:14). And
Saint John says that he said that referring to the Holy Spirit (Jn. 7:39).
The Son in the divinity according to his proper attribute?? gives
nothing else than being son, nothing else than being born of God,
source, the springing up and flowing out of the Holy Spirit, the love
of God, nothing else than the full, true and complete tasting of the
One, of the heavenly Father. Therefore the Father's voice said from
heaven to the Son: “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am loved and
am well pleased" (Mt. 3:17). For beyond doubt, no one loves God suf-
ficiently and purely who is not God's son. For love, the Holy Spirit,
springs and flows from the Son, and the Son loves the Father for the
Father's sake, and loves the Father in himself, and loves himself in the
Father. And therefore indeed our Lord says that “the poor in spirit are

227
 MEISTER ECKHART

blessed" (Mt. 5:13), that is, those who have nothing of their own and
of human spirit, and who come naked to God. And Saint Paul says:
“God has manifested it to us in his Spirit" (Col. 1:8).
Saint Augustine says that that man understands the scriptures best
of all who is free of all intellectual ambition,?? and seeks for the sense
and truth of the scriptures in scripture itself, that is, in the Spirit, in
whom the scriptures were written and uttered, in the Spirit of God?!
Saint Peter says that all holy men have spoken in the Spirit of God
(2 P. 1:21). Saint Paul says: *No man knows what things may be in a
man but the Spirit which is in him, and no man can know what is the
Spirit of God and is in God except the Spirit, who is of God and is
God" (1 Co. 2:11).
Therefore one commentary, a gloss, says very truly that no one
can understand or teach Saint Paul's writings if he does not possess the
Spirit in which Saint Paul spoke and wrote.?? And this is what I al-
ways complain about, that crude men, empty of the Spirit of God and
not possessing it, want to judge according to their crude human under-
standing what they hear or read in holy scripture, which was spoken
and written by and in the Holy Spirit, and that they forget what is
written: That what is impossible to man is possible to God (Mt. 19:26).
That is also true in common things and in the natural order: What is
impossible to our lower nature is commonplace and natural to our
higher nature.
Understand too what I have just said, that a good man, a son of
God born in God, loves God for himself and in himself, and much else
that I have already said. To understand it better one should know, as
I have also often said, that a good man, born of goodness and in God,
enters into all the attributes of the divine nature.?? Now it is one at-
tribute of God, according to the words of Solomon, that he forms all
things for his own sake (Pr. 16:4), that is, that he does not look around
outside himself for any reason other than himself; he loves and per-
forms all things for his own sake. Therefore, if a man loves him and
all things and performs all his works not for reward or honor or ease,
but for God's sake and for his glory alone, that is a sign that he is God's
Son.
What is more: God loves for his own sake and performs all things
for his own sake; that is, he loves for love, and he works for working's
sake. For without doubt, God would never have begotten in eternity
his Only-Begotten Son, were not having begotten the same as beget-
ting. That is why the saints say that as the Son was eternally begotten,

228
 GERMAN WORKS

so is he still being begotten without ceasing.34 Nor would God ever

have created the world, were not having been created the same as cre-
ating. Therefore, God so created the world that he still without ceasing
creates it. Everything that is past and that is yet to come is unknown
to God and remote from him. And therefore, whoever, born of God,
is God's son loves God for his sake alone. That is, he loves God for the
sake of loving God, and performs all his works for the sake of work-
ing.?° God never wearies of loving and working, and everything he
loves is to him one love. And therefore it is true that God is love (1 Jn.
4:16). And that is why I said before that a good man wants and would
always want to suffer for God's sake, not to have suffered; for, suffer-
ing, he has what he loves. He loves suffering for God's sake, and he suf-
fers for the sake of God. Therefore and thereby is he God's son, formed
in God's likeness and in God, who loves for his own sake. That is, he
loves for love, works for working; and therefore God loves and works
without ceasing. And God's working is his nature, his being, his life,
his blessedness. So truly, for God's son, a good man, inasmuch as he
is God's son, to suffer and to work for the love of God is his being, his
life, his working, his blessedness; for so our Lord says: "Blessed are
they who suffer for justice's sake" (Mt. 5:10).
Furthermore, I make a third point: A good man, insofar as he is
good, has God's attributes not only in that he loves and works every-
thing that he loves and works for the sake of God, whom he loves in
everything and for love of whom he works, but he also loves and works
for the sake of himself, who is the one loving. For what he loves, that
is God, Father, Unbegotten; and he who loves is God, Son, Begotten.?6
Now the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father (Jn. 17:21).
Father and Son are one. Seek at the end of this book for how the in-
nermost and the highest part of the soul creates and receives God's Son
and becoming-God’s-Son in the bosom and heart of the heavenly Fa-
ther, in what I write about “the nobleman who traveled far into a dis-
tant land to accept a kingdom and to return” (Lk. 19:12)37
One ought also to know that in nature the impression and the in-
fluence of the highest and most exalted nature upon every man is to
him more joyful and delightful than his self's own nature and being.
By its own nature water flows downhill, and in its flowing downhill
is its being. But by the impression and the influence of the moon up
above in the heavens, it denies and forgets its own nature, and flows
uphill, and to flow uphill is much easier for it than flowing downhill.3®
Through this a man ought to know whether it be proper that he should

229
 MEISTER ECKHART

delight and rejoice in wholly abandoning and denying his own natural
will, and in completely forsaking himself in everything God wants him
to suffer. This is the best understanding of what our Lord said: “If any
man will come to me, he should forsake and deny himself and take up
his cross" (Mt. 16:24), that is, he should lay down and put away every-
thing that is a cross and suffering. For truly, if anyone had denied him-
self and had wholly forsaken himself, nothing could be for him a cross
or sorrow or suffering; it would all be a delight to him, a happiness,
a joy to his heart, and he would truly be coming to God and following
him. For just as nothing can grieve or afflict God, so nothing can make
such a man rueful or sad. And, therefore, when our Lord says: "If any
man will come to me, he should deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me," it is not merely a command, as people usually say and
think. It is a promise and a divine teaching about how all a man's suf-
fering, all his work, all his life can become joyful and happy for him,
and it is more a reward than a command. For such a man has every-
thing he wants, and he wants nothing that is wrong; and that is bless-
edness. And that is indeed why our Lord says: “Blessed are they who
suffer for the sake of justice" (Mt. 5:10).
Furthermore, when our Lord, the Son, says, *Let him deny him-
self and lift up his cross and come to me,” that means: Let him become
a Son, as I am Son,?? God-begotten, and let him become that same one
which I am, which I, being and remaining in the bosom and the heart
of the Father, create. “Father,” the Son also says, “I wish the man who
follows me, who comes to me, to be where I am" (Jn. 12:26). No one
truly comes to the Son as he is Son except the one who becomes son,
and no one is where the Son is, who is one in the One in the Father's
bosom and heart, except him who is son.
The Father says: "I will lead her into the wilderness and there
speak to her heart” (Hos. 2:14). Heart to heart, one in the One, so God
loves.^? Everything that is alien to the One and far from it God hates.
God invites and draws to the One. All creatures seek the One, the very
meanest of created things seek the One, and the highest creatures find
the One; drawn above their natures and transformed, they seek the
One in the One, the One in its self. Perhaps this is why the Son says:
“In the Son of divinity in the Father, where I am, he shall be who
serves me, who follows me, who comes to me."
But there is yet another consolation. One ought to know that it is
impossible to the whole of nature for it to break, spoil or even touch
anything in which it does not intend something better for the thing it

230
 GERMAN WORKS

touches. It is not enough for it to make something just as good; always

it wants to make something better. How? A wise physician never
touches a man's ailing finger so as to hurt the man if he cannot produce
an improvement in the finger itself or in the whole man, and do him
good. If he can cure the man and the finger too, he does so; if he can-
not, he amputates the finger to cure the man. And it is much better
to lose the finger and to save the man than to lose both finger and man.
One hurt is better than two, especially when one would be much great-
er than the other. One ought also to know that the finger and the hand
and every member are naturally more concerned for the man to whom
they belong than they are for themselves, and will gladly and unhes-
itatingly accept hardship and injury for the man's sake. I say with cer-
tainty and truth that the member does not love itself at all except
insofar as it is a member. Therefore it would be very proper and would
by nature be right for us not to love ourselves at all except for God's
sake and in God. And if that were so, everything God wanted from us
and in us would be easy and joyful for us, especially if we were con-
vinced that God could not so easily allow our loss or harm, if he did
not know and intend that it would bring us a much greater benefit.
Truly it is only too right for a man to suffer and be sad if he does not
trust God.
There is another consolation. Saint Paul says that God chastises all
those whom he receives and accepts as sons (Heb. 12:6). It is part of our
being a son for us to suffer. Because God's Son could not suffer in his
divinity and in eternity, the heavenly Father therefore sent him into
time, to become man and to be able to suffer. So if you want to be son
of God and you do not want to suffer, you are all wrong. In the Book
of Wisdom it is written that God tests and tries whether a man is just,
as men test and try gold and melt it in a furnace (Ws. 3:5-6). It is a sign
that the king or a prince has great trust in a knight when he sends him
into battle. I knew a lord who, when he had accepted a knight into his
service, would send him out by night and charge at him and fight with
him. And once it happened that he was nearly killed by a man whom
he wanted to test in this way, and he was much fonder of this soldier
afterward than he had ever been.
We read that Saint Anthony in the desert was once in particular
torment from evil spirits, and when he had overcome his distress, our
Lord appeared joyfully to him in bodily form. Then the holy man said:
*O, dear Lord, wherever were you when I was in such need?" Then
our Lord said: “I was here, just where I am now; but it was my will

231
 MEISTER ECKHART

and my pleasure to see how valiant you might be."*! A piece of silver
or gold may be quite pure; but if they want to make a vessel out of it
for the king to drink from, they will melt it down more thoroughly
than another. That is why it is written of the apostles that they re-
joiced that they were worthy to suffer contempt for the love of God
(Ac 541):
God's Son by nature wanted to become man as a favor, so that he
could suffer for your sake; and you want to become God's son and not
man, so that you cannot and need not suffer, either for love of God or
of yourself.
Then, too, if a man knew and would consider what great joy, tru-
ly, God himself in his fashion and all the angels and all who know and
love God have in the patience of the man who for God's sake suffers
sorrow and harm, indeed through that alone he should rightly be com-
forted. For a man sacrifices his possessions and suffers harm so that he
can bring joy to his friend and show some love for him.
And one might also think: If a man had a friend who for his sake
was suffering and in sorrow and distress, it would certainly be the
right thing to be with him and console him with his presence and with
the consolations he could bring him. Of this the Lord says in the
Psalms that he is with a good man in his sufferings (Ps. 33:19). From
these words one can draw seven teachings and a sevenfold consolation.
First, Saint Augustine says that patience in suffering for God's
sake is better, dearer, higher, nobler than everything men can take
away from a man against his will;^? for that is only his external pos-
sessions. God knows, one does not find anyone who loves this world
who is so rich that he would not willingly and gladly suffer even for
a long time great sorrow and pains, if afterward he might be the
mighty lord of all this world.
Second, I do not deduce from what God says merely that he is
with man in his sufferings; but from what he says and in its spirit I
deduce and say this: If God is with me in my suffering, what more or
what else do I want? If I think rightly, I want nothing else and I want
nothing more than God. Saint Augustine says: “He is too greedy and
foolish who is not satisfied with God”; and elsewhere he says: “How
can God's gifts, material or spiritual, satisfy the man who is not sat-
isfied with God's own self?”43 And that is why he says in another
place: “Lord, if you send us away from you, then give us another you,
because we want nothing else than you."^^ This is why the Book of
Wisdom says: “All good things come to me together with God, eternal

232
 GERMAN WORKS

Wisdom" (Ws. 7:11). In one sense that means that nothing is good or
can be good that comes without God, and everything that comes with
God is good, and good only because it comes with God. About God I
will not speak; but, if one were to take away from all the creatures of
this whole world the being God gives, they would remain a mere noth-
ing, displeasing, worthless and hateful. This saying contains much else
of most excellent meaning about how all good things come with God,
but it would take too long to talk about it now.
The Lord says: “I am with a man in suffering" (Ps. 90:15). About
this Saint Bernard says: “Lord, if you are with us in suffering, give me
suffering always, so that you are always with me, so that I always have
you."45
Third, I say: That God is with us in suffering means that he him-
self suffers with us. Indeed, anyone who sees the truth knows that
what I say is true. God suffers with man, he truly does; he suffers in
his own fashion, sooner and far more than the man suffers who suffers
for love of him. Now I say, if God himself is willing to suffer, then I
ought fittingly to suffer, for if Ithink rightly, I want what God wants.
I pray every day as God commands me to pray: “Lord, may your will
be done,” and yet, if God's will is for suffering, I want to complain
about suffering; and that is not right at all. And I say too with certainty
that since God suffers so willingly with us and for our sake, if we suf-
fer only for love of him, he suffers without suffering. Suffering is for
him so joyful that it is for him not suffering. And therefore, if we
thought rightly, suffering would not be suffering for us; it would be
our joy and consolation.
Fourth, I say that a friend's compassion naturally makes this suf-
fering less. If then the compassion that a man has for me can console
me, God's compassion should console me far more.
Fifth, If I should suffer with a man whom I loved and who loved
me, and I wanted this, then I ought gladly and fittingly to suffer with
God, who is suffering in this with me and suffers for my sake, out of
the love that he has for me.
Sixth, I say that if God has suffered already, before ever I suffer,
and if I suffer for the love of God, truly all my sufferings will easily
turn into my consolation and joy, however great and varied my suffer-
ing may be. This is true in the natural order: If a man does something
for something else’s sake, that for the sake of which he does it is closer
to his heart, and what he does is further from his heart, and only touch-
es his heart through that which is the object and cause of what he does.

233
 MEISTER ECKHART

If someone is building, hewing wood and breaking stone with the in-
tention of making a house as a shelter against the summer's heat and
the winter's frost, his heart is set, chiefly and wholly, on the house; he
is not cutting the stone or doing the labor except for the sake of the
house. We see well that if a sick man drinks sweet wine, it seems to
him bitter and he says that it is, and this is true, because the wine loses
all its sweetness outside, on the bitterness of the tongue, before it can
penetrate to where the soul recognizes and judges its flavor. This is so,
far more and more truly, of a man who performs all his works for the
love of God. Then God is the medium, and he is what is closest to the
soul. Nothing can touch a man's heart and soul that for God's sake and
through his sweetness does not lose and must lose its bitterness and be-
come wholly sweet, before it can ever touch a man's heart.
There is another token and simile that signifies this: The authori-
ties say that beneath the heaven there is a vast extent of fire, and that
therefore no rain or wind or any kind of storm or tempest from below
can reach so close to the heaven that anything can touch it; everything
is burned up and consumed by the fire's heat before it can reach heav-
en. So I say that everything a man suffers and performs for God's sake
becomes wholly sweet in God's sweetness, before it can reach the heart
of the man who works and suffers for the love of God. That is what
we mean when we say “for the love of God,"^9 for nothing can ever
come to the heart except by flowing through God’s sweetness, in
which it loses its bitterness. And it is also consumed in the fiery heat
of the divine love, which has wholly enclosed the good man’s heart.
Now one can plainly see how fittingly and variously a good man
is comforted on all sides in suffering, in sorrow and in working. One
way is for him to suffer and work for the love of God; another way
is for him to be in the divine love. And a man can see and know wheth-
er he performs all his works for the love of God and whether he is in
God’s love, for when a man finds himself sorrowful and unconsoled,
to that extent his work was not done for God alone, and you may be
sure that to that extent he is not wholly in God’s love. King David says
that a fire comes with God and before him, consuming everything God
finds opposed to him and unlike him (Ps. 96:3), that is, sorrow, despair’
strife and bitterness.
And the seventh teaching from the saying that God is with us in
suffering and suffers with us is that we should be mightily comforted
by God’s attribute, that he is the purely one, without any accidental
admixture of distinction, even in thought;^? that everything that is in

234
 GERMAN WORKS

him is God himself. And because that is true, therefore I say, every-
thing the good man suffers for God's sake, he suffers in God, and God
is suffering with him in his suffering. But if my suffering is in God
and God is suffering with me, how then can suffering be sorrow to me,
if suffering loses its sorrow, and my sorrow is in God, and my sorrow
is God? Truly, as God is Truth and as I find the Truth, I find my God,
the Truth, there; and too, neither less nor more, as I find pure suffer-
ing for the love of God and in God, I find God my suffering. If anyone
does not recognize this, let him blame his blindness, not me, and not
God's truth and loving generosity.
So suffer in this way for God's sake since this is so greatly prof-
itable and brings such blessedness. "Blessed are they," our Lord said,
"who suffer for the sake of justice" (Mt. 5:10). How can God, who loves
goodness, suffer his friends, who are good men, not to be in suffering
always and without ceasing? If a man had a friend who could, by suf-
fering for a few days, so earn great profit and honor and ease and pos-
sess it for a long time, and he wanted to hinder that or let it be
hindered by anyone else, no one would say that he could be the other
man's friend or that he loved him. Therefore, far less could God suffer
in any way that his friends, good men, should ever be without suffer-
ing, unless they were able to suffer without suffering. Any good in ex-
ternal suffering proceeds and flows from the goodness of the will, as
I have already written. And therefore everything a good man wished
and is ready and longs to suffer for God's sake, he suffers in God's
sight, and, for God's sake, in God. King David says in the Psalms: “I
am ready for every hardship, and my suffering is continually before
me" (Ps. 37:18), in my heart and in my sight. Saint Jerome says that
a piece of pure wax, quite pliable and serviceable to have this or that
made out of it according to someone's intention and wish, contains
within it everything anyone can make with it, even though no one ac-
tually makes anything from it.*? And I have written before that the
stone does not weigh any less if one cannot see it lying on the ground;
all its weight is completely present because it is in itself capable of fall-
ing and ready to fall. And I have also written already that the good
man has already performed in heaven and on earth everything he
wished to do, and in this too he is like God.
Now one can see and know how stupid the people are who are al-
ways surprised when they see good men suffering pain and harm; and
often in their folly they wrongly imagine that this must be for such
men's secret sins, and then sometimes they say: “Oh, I thought he was

235
 MEISTER ECKHART

a very good man! How can it be that he is suffering such great sorrow -
and harm, when I thought that he was perfect?" And I agree with
them: Certainly, if this were suffering, and if they did suffer sorrow
and misfortune, then they would not be good or free from sin. But if
they are good, then suffering for them is not sorrow or misfortune, but
it is their great good fortune and blessedness. "Blessed," said God, who
is Truth, “are all those who suffer for the sake of righteousness.”
Therefore the Book of Wisdom says that “The souls of the just are in
the hand of God. The unwise think and imagine that they die and per-
ish, but they are in peace" (Ws. 3:1), in joy and blessedness. When Saint
Paul writes how many of the saints have suffered so many great tor-
ments, he says that the world was not worthy of this (Heb. 11:36-38);
and for anyone who understands this saying, it has a threefold mean-
ing. One is that this world is not worthy that many good men live in
it. Another and better meaning tells us that what counts as goodness
in the world is base and worthless; God alone has worth, and therefore
they are worthy before God and of God. The third meaning, which is -
the one I now have in mind and wish to say, is that this world, that
is, the people who love this world, are not worthy to suffer sorrow and
hardship for God's sake. Of this it is written that the holy apostles re-
joiced that they were worthy to suffer torment for the name of God
(Ac. 5:41).
Let what I have said now be enough, because in the third part of
this book I want to write of various consolations with which a good
man can and should comfort himself in his sorrow, and which one can
find not only in the words but also in the deeds of good and wise men.

^ 3
We read in the Book of Kings that a man cursed King David and
said what was deeply shameful to him (2 S. 16:5 sqq). Then one of Da-
vid's friends said that he would strike this vile dog dead. But the king
said: "No! because perhaps it is God's will through this shame to do
what is best for me."
We read in the Lives of the Fathers that a man complained to a holy
father that he was suffering. Then the father said: “My son, do you
want me to pray to God to take it away from you?" Then the other
said: “No, father, because it is profitable to me—that I see well. But
pray to God to give me his grace so that I suffer it willingly."4?
Once someone asked a sick man why he did not pray to God to

236
 GERMAN WORKS

make him well. Then the man said that there were three reasons why
he would be sorry to do that. The first was because he wanted to be
sure that our loving God would never allow him to be sick, if that were
not the best thing for him. The second reason was that if a man is good,
he wants everything God wishes, and not that God should wish what
he may want, for that would be wholly wrong. And therefore if it is
his will that I should be sick—and if he did not will it so, it would not
be so—then I ought not to wish to be well. For without any doubt, if
it could be that God might make me well against his will, it would
seem to me unworthy and base that he should make me well. Willing
comes from loving, unwilling comes from unloving. It is dearer and
better and more profitable to me that God should love me and that I
should be sick than for me to be well in my body and for God not to
love me. What God loves, that is something; but what God does not
love, that is nothing, as the Book of Wisdom says (Ws. 11:25). And it
is also true that everything God wills, in that and because God wills
it, is good. Truly, to speak in ordinary language, I should rather that
some rich and mighty man, a king, maybe, should love me and yet
leave me for a while without any gift than that he should straight away
order me to be given something, and that he should not in fact love me.
Let him now not give me anything because of his love, and yet not give
me anything now because he wishes later to make me richer and great-
er gifts. And even if I suppose that the man who loves me and who
gives me nothing now does not propose to give me anything later, per-
haps he will think better of this afterward and will give me something.
I ought to wait patiently, especially because his gift is gratuitous and
unmerited. And certainly, if I do not esteem someone's love, and if my
will is opposed to his will, unless I receive a gift from him, it is very
right that he give me nothing, and that he hate me and leave me as
wretched as I am.
The third reason why it would not be of value and importance to
me to want to ask God to make me well is because I do not wish to
and I should not ask our mighty, loving, merciful God for so small a
thing. If Iwere to go a hundred or two hundred miles to see the pope,
and I were to come into his presence and say: “Lord, holy father, I
have come all of two hundred miles, a hard journey that has cost a lot,
and I ask your Holiness, because this is what I have come for, to give
me a bean"—truly, he and anyone else who heard it would say, and
rightly, that I was a perfect idiot. Now what I say is gospel truth: All
possessions and indeed all created things are in comparison with God

237
 MEISTER ECKHART

less than is a bean in comparison with all this physical world. There-
fore I should do well, if Iwere a good and wise man, to be ashamed
of asking that I might get well.
On this topic I say too that it is the sign of a sick heart if a man
becomes glad or sorry over the transitory things of this world. We
should feel shame for this in our hearts in the sight of God and his an-
gels, and in the sight of men, that we should detect this in ourselves.
We are ashamed soon enough of some facial disfigurement which is
there for people to see. What more do I need to say? The books of the
Old Testament and the New, and those of the saints and even the pa-
gans are full of this, how pious men for God's sake and also for the sake
of natural virtue have given their lives and have willingly sacrificed
themselves.
A pagan philosopher, Socrates, says that virtue makes impossible
things possible, and even easy and delightful.°° And I must not forget
that the blessed woman of whom the Book of the Machabees tells that
in a single day she saw enacted before her own eyes the horrifying and
horrible torments, intolerable even to hear about, that were inflicted
and imposed upon her seven sons, and she watched this cheerfully and
encouraged and particularly admonished them not to be afraid, and to
surrender willingly their bodies and their spirits for the sake of God's
justice. This could be the end of the book, but there are two more
things that I want to say.
The first thing is that truly a good and pious man ought to be bit-
terly and greatly ashamed that suffering ever moved him, when we see
how a merchant, for the sake of earning a little money, of which, too,
he cannot be sure, will travel so far overland on arduous tracks, up hill
and down dale, across wildernesses and oceans, risking robbery and as-
sault on his pérson and his goods, going in great want of food and
drink and sleep and suffering other hardships, and yet he is glad and
willing to forget all this for the sake of his small and uncertain profit.
A knight in a battle risks possessions and body and life for the sake of
a transient and very fleeting honor; and yet we think it such a great
matter that we should suffer a little for God's sake, who is everlasting
blessedness.
The second thing is that I expect that many stupid people will say
that much that I have written in this book and elsewhere is not true.
To that I reply with what Saint Augustine says in the first book of his
Confessions. He says that God has already made every single thing, ev-
erything that is still to come for thousands and thousands of years, if

238
 GERMAN WORKS

this world should last so long, and everything that is past during many
thousands of years he will make again today.5! Is it my fault if people
do not understand this? And he says in another place that a man's self-
love is too blatant when he wants to blind other men so that his own
blindness may be hidden.>? It is enough for me that what I say and
write be true in me and in God. If anyone sees a stick pushed down
into the water, it seems to him that the stick is bent, although it is quite
straight; and the reason for this is that water is cruder than air. But
yet the stick is straight and not bent, both in itself and also in the eyes
of anyone who looks at it only through the pure air.
Saint Augustine says: “Whoever without thought of any kind, or
without any kind of bodily likeness and image, perceives within him-
self what no external vision has presented to him, he knows that this
is true.”°3 But the man who knows nothing of this will laugh at me
and mock me, and I can only pity him. But people like this want to
contemplate and taste eternal things and the works of God, and to
stand in the light of eternity, and yet their hearts are still fluttering
around in yesterday and tomorrow.
A pagan philosopher, Seneca, says: “We must speak about great
and exalted matters with great and exalted understanding and with
sublime souls."5* And we shall be told that one ought not to talk about
or write such teachings to the untaught. But to this I say that if we are
not to teach people who have not been taught, no one will ever be
taught, and no one will ever be able to teach or write. For that is why
we teach the untaught, so that they may be changed from uninstructed
into instructed. If there were nothing new, nothing would ever grow
old. Our Lord says: “Those who are healthy do not need medicine"
(Lk. 5:31). That is what the physician is there for, to make the sick
healthy. But if there is someone who misunderstands what I say, what
is that to the man who says truly that which is true? Saint John nar-
rates his holy gospel for all believers and also for all unbelievers, so
that they might believe, and yet he begins that gospel with the most
exalted thoughts any man could utter here about God; and both what
he says and what our Lord says are constantly misunderstood.
May our loving and merciful God, who is Truth, grant to me and
to all those who will read this book that we may find the truth within
ourselves and come to know it. Amen.

239
 MEISTER ECKHART

B. The Book of *Benedictus": Of the Nobleman

Our Lord says in the gospel: “A nobleman went out into a far
country to obtain for himself a kingdom and returned" (Lk. 19:12). Our
Lord teaches us in these words how noble man has been created in his
nature, and how divine that is which he can attain by grace, and also
how man should attain to it. And in these words much of holy scrip-
ture is touched upon.
In the first place we should know what is very evident, that man
has in himself a twofold nature, body and spirit. Therefore it is said
in a treatise that whoever knows himself knows all created things, be-
cause all created things are either body or spirit.! That is why scrip-
ture says about what is human that there is in us one outward man and
a second inner man (2 Co. 4:16).? To the outer man belongs everything
that cleaves to the spirit, but that is captive to and mixed with the flesh
and that works in common with and in every bodily member, such as
the eye, the ear, the tongue, the hand and all others like them. And
scripture calls all this the old man, the earthly man, the outer man, the
hostile man, a subject man.?
The second man who is in us is the inner man, whom scripture
calls a new man, a heavenly man, a young man, a friend and a noble
man.* And this is what our Lord says, that “A nobleman went into a
far country, and obtained a kingdom for himself and returned."
Now we should know that Saint Jerome says,? and the authorities
generally say, that every man from the moment that he is a man has
a good spirit, an angel, and an evil spirit, a devil. The good angel coun-
sels and unceasingly inclines him to what is good, what is divine, what
is virtue and heavenly and eternal. The evil spirit constantly counsels
and inclines the man to what is temporal and transient, to what is vice
and evil and devilish. The same evil spirit is always talking to the outer
man, and through him he is always lying in wait for the inner man,
just as the serpent spoke to Mother Eve and through her talked to the
man Adam. Adam is the inner man, the man in the soul,’ who is the
good tree that never ceases to produce good fruit of which our Lord
also speaks (Mt. 7:17). This is also the field in which God has sowed
his image and likeness (Gn. 1:26), and has sowed the good seed (Mt.
13:24), the root of all wisdom, all knowledge, all virtues, all goodness,

240
 GERMAN WORKS

the seed of the divine nature. The seed of the divine nature is the Son
of God, God's Word (Lk. 8:11).
The outer man is the hostile, evil man, who has sowed and strewn
weeds on the field (Mt. 13:25). Saint Paul says about him: “I find that
in me which hinders me and fights against what God commands and
what God counsels and what God has spoken and still speaks in the
highest place, in the ground of my soul" (Rm. 7:23). And elsewhere he
says and laments: “Alas, unhappy man that I am! Who will deliver me
from this deadly flesh and body?" (Rm. 7:24). And he also says in an-
other place that a man's spirit and his flesh are at constant war with
one another. The flesh counsels vice and wickedness; the spirit coun-
sels the love of God, joy, peace and every virtue (Ga. 5:17-23). Whoever
follows and lives according to the spirit, obeying its counsels, belongs
to everlasting life. The inner man is he of whom our Lord says that
"A nobleman went out into a far country to obtain for himself a king-
dom.” That is the good tree of which our Lord says that it always pro-
duces good fruit and never bad, for that man wants goodness and is
inclined toward goodness, goodness as it is moved of itself, untouched
by anything particular.? The outer man is the bad tree that can never
produce good fruit.
The pagan teachers Cicero and Seneca also speak about the nobil-
ity of the inner man, of the spirit, and of the inferiority of the outer
man, of the flesh.? They teach that there is no rational soul without
God; God's seed is in us. If it were tended by a good, wise and indus-
trious laborer, it would then flourish all the better, and would grow
up to God, whose seed it is, and its fruits would be like God's own na-
ture. The seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree, the seed of a nut
tree grows to be a nut tree, the seed of God grows to be God. But if
it happens that the good seed has a foolish and evil laborer, then weeds
grow up and overgrow and smother the good seed, so that it cannot
grow up to the light and to its full size. Yet Origen, a great teacher,
says: “Because God himself has sowed and planted and given life to
this seed, even though it may be overgrown and hidden, it will never
be destroyed or extinguished completely; it will glow and shine, gleam
and burn, and it will never cease to turn toward God.”!°
The first stage of the inner and new man, Saint Augustine says,
is when a man lives according to the model of good and holy people,
though he still staggers from chair to chair and leans against the walls
and still feeds himself on milk.!!

241
 MEISTER ECKHART

The second stage is when he not only observes external models,

even of good people, but he runs and hastens to God's teaching and
counsel and to divine wisdom, turns his back on humanity and his face
to God, creeps out of his mother's lap and laughs up at his heavenly
Father.
The third stage is when the man withdraws himself more and
more from his mother, is further and further away from her lap, es-
capes from care, rejects his fears, so that even if he could without an-
gering everyone do what is wicked and wrong, he would have no
desire for this; for he is constrained by love and with a great zeal for
God, until God places and leads him into joy and sweetness and bless-
edness, where everything that is unlike and alien to God becomes
worthless for him.
The fourth stage is when he grows and becomes rooted more and
more in love and in God, so that he is ready to accept all opposition,
all temptation and downheartedness, and willingly and gladly to en-
dure sorrow, welcoming it and rejoicing in it.
The fifth stage is when he lives in peace in all his being, reposing
silently in the wealth and in the overflowing riches of supreme and in-
effable wisdom.
The sixth stage is when the man becomes free of images and is
transformed into the image of God's everlastingness and has attained
to a complete and perfect oblivion of this transient life in time, and has
been drawn and wholly changed into a divine image and has become
God's child. Truly, there is no higher stage than this, and there is in
it eternal repose and blessedness, for the end of the inner man and of
the new man is eternal life.
The great master Origen describes a simile of this inner noble
man, in whom God's seed and God's image have been impressed and
sowed, of how the seed and the image of the divine nature and the di-
vine being that is the Son of God will appear, and man will apprehend
him, though it may be that he is sometimes hidden. He says that God's
image, God's Son, is in the ground of the soul as a fount of living water
(Jn. 4:14). But if anyone throws earth, which is earthly desire, on it,
that impedes and conceals it, so that we do not perceive or grow aware
of it; but the fount itself goes on living, and when they take the earth
away that was thrown over it, then it appears, and we know that it is
there. And he says that this truth is signified in the first book of Moses,
where it is written that Abraham had excavated in his field living foun-
tains, and that evil-doers had filled them up with earth; and afterward,

242
 GERMAN WORKS

when the earth was thrown out, then the fountains appeared, living
yet.!?
And there is still another simile: The sun never stops shining; but
if there is a cloud or mist between us and the sun, we are not aware
that it is shining. And if the eye is diseased in itself or is ailing or cov-
ered, it knows nothing of the sunshine. And sometimes I have made
an evident comparison: If a master craftsman makes figures out of
wood or stone, he does not introduce the figure into the wood, but he
cuts away the fragments that had hidden and concealed the figure; he
gives nothing to the wood, rather he takes away from it, cutting away
its surface and removing its rough covering, and then what had lain
hidden beneath shines out.!3 This is the treasure that lay hidden in the
field, as our Lord says in the gospel (Mt. 13:44).
Saint Augustine says: “When all of man's soul mounts into eter-
nity to God alone, the image of God appears and shines" ;!^ but if the
soul is distracted toward external things, even to the outward exercise
of virtues, then this image is wholly concealed. And that, according to
Saint Paul's teaching, is why women have their heads covered and
men's heads are bare (1 Co. 11:4). And therefore everything in the soul
that declines receives a covering, a head veil, from that toward which
it declines; but that in the soul which ascends is a bare image of God,
a birth of God, uncovered and bare in the bare soul.!5 Of the noble-
man, as an image of God, God's Son, the seed of the divine nature that
is never destroyed in us, but only covered over, King David says in the
Psalms: “Though a man may be afflicted by all kinds of vanity, sorrow
and distress, still he remains in the image of God, and the image in
him.”1° The true light shines in the darkness, but we are not aware of
it (Jn. 1:5).
“Do not consider,” says the Book of Love, “that I am brown, for
I am beautiful and well-formed, but the sun has changed my color"
(Sg. 1:4-5). The sun is the light of this world and signifies that the high-
est and the best that has been created and made covers and discolors
in us the image of God. “Take away," Solomon says, “the rust from
the silver, and there will gleam and shine out the most pure vessel" (Pr.
25:4), the image, God's Son, in the soul. And that is what our Lord
means by these words when he says, that “A nobleman went out," be-
cause man must go out of every image and out of himself and out of
everything, he must go far off indeed, and become quite unlike all this,
truly, if he wishes to and shall receive the Son, and become son in the
bosom and heart of the Father.

243
 MEISTER ECKHART

Every kind of medium is alien to God. “I am," God says, “the first
and the last" (Rv. 22:13). There is no distinction in God's nature or in
the Persons, according to the unity of the nature. The divine nature
is one, and each Person is also one, and it is the same one the nature
is.17 Distinction between being and essence!? is apprehended as one
and is one. Only when it is no longer contained within itself does it
accept and possess and bestow distinction. Therefore man finds God
in the One, and he who will find God must be one. “One man,"!? our
Lord says, “went out." In distinction we do not find either one, or be-
ing, or God, or rest, or blessedness or satisfaction. Be one, so that you
may find God! And truly, if you were indeed one, you would also re-
main one in distinction, and distinction would be one to you, and there
would be nothing that could in any way hinder you. One always re-
mains one, in a thousand times a thousand stones just as in four stones,
and a thousand times a thousand is as truly a single number as is
four.?°
A heathen philosopher says that the One is born from the highest
God.?! Its property is that of being one with One. Whoever looks for
it anywhere beneath God is deceiving himself. And the same philos-
opher says as his fourth point that this One has no more real friendship
than with virgins or maidens. As Saint Paul says: “I have betrothed
and espoused you as chaste virgins to the One” (2 Co. 11:12). And this
is as men should be, for so our Lord says: “One man went out."
The true meaning of the Latin word for “man” is in one sense he
who subjects himself wholly to God,?? and surrenders everything that
he is and that is his, and looks upward to God, not to what is his, which
he knows to be behind him, below him, beside him. This is perfect and
real humility, which has its name from “earth.”23 But of this I do not
want to say more now. And when one says “man,” the word also
means something that is above nature, above time, and above every-
thing that has inclination toward time or tastes of time, and I say the
same about place and about corporeality. Nor, indeed, has man in one
sense anything in common with anything, that is, he is not formed or
made like this thing or that thing, and he knows nothing about noth-
ing, so that one finds nowhere anything of this nothing in him, and
this nothing is thus wholly taken away from him so that in him there
is found only life, being, truth and goodness. Thus he who is such a
man is “a nobleman,” indeed neither less nor more.
And in what our Lord calls a *nobleman" there is another sense
and teaching. We ought also to know that those who know God alone?^4

244
 GERMAN WORKS

also know along with him created things; for knowledge is a light of
the soul, and all men naturally long for knowledge,?5 for even the
knowledge of bad things is good.?6 The authorities say that when one
knows creatures in themselves, that is called an "evening knowledge,"
and then we see created things in images of various distinctions; but
when one knows created things in God, that is called and is a “morn-
ing knowledge,” and then we can see created things without distinc-
tion and transformed from every form and made unlike every likeness
in the One that is God himself. This is also the nobleman of whom our
Lord says: “One nobleman went out," noble because he is one and be-
cause he knows God and created things in one.
Now I want to discuss and touch upon another sense "the noble-
man" may have. I say that as man, the soul, the spirit, contemplates
God, he also knows and perceives himself perceiving; that is, he per-
ceives that he is contemplating and perceiving God. Now some people
have thought, and it seems quite plausible, that the flower and core of
blessedness consists in knowledge, when the spirit knows that it knows
God. For if I possessed all joy, and I did not know it, how could that
help me and what joy would that be to me? Yet I say certainly that this
is not so. It is only true that without that the soul would not be blessed;
but blessedness does not consist in this, for the first thing in which
blessedness consists is when the soul contemplates God directly.?8
From there, out of God's ground, it takes all its being and its life and
makes everything that it is, and it knows nothing about knowing or
about love or about anything at all.?? It comes to rest completely and
only in the being of God, and it knows nothing there except being and
God. But when the soul knows and perceives that it contemplates, per-
ceives and loves God, this is in the natural order a going out and a re-
turn to the starting point; for no one knows himself as being white
except the man who is in fact white.?? Therefore whoever knows him-
self as being white is building and erecting his knowledge upon being
white, and he does not receive his knowledge without a medium or
without previous knowledge of the color; but he derives his perception
of it and his knowledge about it from things that are white, and so he
forms his perception not purely from the color as such, but his perceiv-
ing and knowledge are formed from what is colored, that is, what is
white, and he then recognizes himself as white. But "white" is far in-
ferior to, more external than “being white."?! The wall is something
very different from the foundation on which the wall is built.??
The authorities say that there is one power with which the eye

245
 MEISTER ECKHART

sees, and another with which it knows that it sees.?? The first, that it
sees, it takes wholly from the color, not from that which is colored.
Therefore it is all the same whether what is colored is a stone or a piece
of wood, a man or an angel; its essential property is only that it is
something that has color.
So I say that the nobleman takes and draws all his being, life and
blessedness from God, by God and in God, simply and solely, not from
knowing God, contemplating or loving him or anything like that.
Therefore our Lord says well from his whole heart that everlasting life
is to know God alone as the one true God (Jn. 17:3), not to know that
we know God.3* How could a man know himself to be knowing God
who does not know himself? For certainly that man does not know
himself or other things in any way, but only God, God in whom he
becomes blessed and is blessed, in the root and the ground of blessed-
ness. But when the soul knows that it knows God, then it has knowl-
edge of God and of itself. |
And so there is one distinct power, as I have already said, by
which man sees, and another power by which he knows and recognizes
that he sees. It is true that the power here in us now by which we
know and recognize that we see is nobler and higher than the power
by which we see; for nature begins its work in what is feeblest, but
God begins his work in what is most perfect. Nature forms the man
from the child and the hen from the egg, but God makes the man be-
fore the child and the hen before the egg. Nature makes the wood first
warm, then hot, and so it forms the being of the fire; but God first
gives being to all created things, and thereafter gives in time, and yet
gives outside time and outside everything that pertains to it.35 And
God gives the Holy Spirit before the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
So I say that there is no blessedness unless man perceives and
knows well that he contemplates and perceives God, and yet God for-
bid that my blessedness should consist in that. If someone is satisfied
with something else, let him keep it for himself, but I pity him. The
heat of the fire and the being of the fire are quite different, utterly sep-
arated in nature from one another, and their only proximity is in terms
of time and of place. God's contemplating and our contemplating are
wholly separate and different from one another.
Therefore our Lord says very truly that “A nobleman went out
into a far country to obtain for himself a kingdom and returned.” For
man must be one in himself, and must seek that in himself and in One,
and he must receive it in One, that is to contemplate God alone; and

246
 GERMAN WORKS

to return is to know and perceive that we perceive and know God. And
everything I have said was foretold by the prophet Ezechiel, when he
said that a mighty eagle with great wings, long-limbed, full of various
feathers, came to the pure mountain and took the marrow or the kernel
of the highest tree, tore off the tops of its branches, and carried it down
(Ezk. 17:3-4). What our Lord calls a nobleman the prophet names a
great eagle. Who is then nobler?? than he who on one side is born of
the highest and the best among created things, and on the other side
from the inmost ground of the divine nature and its desert? “I,” says
our Lord through the prophet Osee, “will lead the noble soul out into
a desert,?? and there I will speak to her heart" (Os. 2:14), one with One,
one from One, one in One, and in One, one everlastingly. Amen.

C. Counsels on Discernment

These are the conversations that the vicar of Thuringia, the

prior of Erfurt, Friar Eckhart of the order of Preachers, held
with those young men who, conversing, asked him about
many things as they sat with each other at Collation.!

Counsel 1. First, about true obedience.

True and perfect obedience is a virtue above all virtues, and no
work is so great that it can be achieved or done without this virtue; and
however little and however humble a work may be, it is done to great-
er profit in true obedience, be it saying Mass, hearing it,? praying, con-
templating or whatever else you can think of. But take as humble a
work as you like, whatever it may be, true obedience makes it finer and
better for you. Obedience always produces the best of everything in ev-
erything. Truly, obedience never perturbs, never fails, whatever one
is doing, in anything that comes from true obedience, for obedience ne-
glects nothing that is good. Obedience need never be troubled, for it
lacks no good thing.
When a man in obedience goes out of himself and renounces what
he possesses, God must necessarily respond by going in there, for if
anyone does not want something for himself, God must want it as if

247
 MEISTER ECKHART

for himself. If I deny my own will, putting it in the hands of my su-

perior, and want nothing for myself, then God must want it for me,
and if he fails me in this matter, he will be failing himself. So in all
things, when I do not want something for myself, God wants it for me.
Now pay good heed. What is it that God wants for me that I do not
want for myself? When I empty myself of self, he must necessarily
want everything for me that he wants for himself, neither more nor
less, and in the same manner as he wants it for himself. And if he were
not to do this, by that truth which is God, he would not be just, nor
would he be the God that it is his nature to be.
In true obedience there should be no trace of “I want it so, or so,”
or “I want this or that,” but there should be a pure going out from
what is yours. And therefore in the best of all prayers that a man can
pray, there should not be “Give me this virtue, or that way of life,” or
"Yes, Lord, give me yourself, or give me everlasting life," but “Lord,
give me nothing but what you will, and do, Lord, whatever and how-
ever you will in every way." That is superior to the first way of pray- —
ing as the heavens are above the earth. And when one has concluded
that prayer, one has prayed well, for then one has in true obedience
wholly entered into God. And just as true obedience should have no
“I want it so," so also one should not hear from obedience “I do not
want,” because “I do not want” is a sure poison of all obedience. That
is what Saint Augustine says: “God’s faithful servant has no desire for
people to say or to give to him, or what he likes to hear or see, for his
first and his greatest aim is to hear what is most pleasing to God."?

Counsel 2. Of tbe most powerful prayer, and of the bighest work of

all.
The most powerful prayer, and almost the strongest of all to ob-
tain everything, and the most honorable of all works, is that which pro-
ceeds from an empty spirit.^ The emptier the spirit, the more is the
prayer and the work mighty, worthy, profitable, praiseworthy and
perfect. The empty spirit can do everything.
What is an empty spirit?
An empty spirit is one that is confused by nothing, attached to
nothing, has not attached its best to any fixed way of acting, and has
no concern whatever in anything for its own gain, for it is all sunk
deep down into God's dearest will and has forsaken its own. A man

248
 GERMAN WORKS

can never perform any work, however humble, without it gaining

strength and power from this.
We ought to pray so powerfully that we should like to put our ev-
ery member and strength, our two eyes and ears, mouth, heart and all
our senses to work; and we should not give up until we find that we
wish to be one with him who is present to us and whom we entreat,
namely God.

Counsel 3. Of people who have not denied themselves and are full of
their own will.
People say: *O Lord, how much I wish that I stood as well with
God, that I had as much devotion and peace in God as others have, I
wish that it were so with me!” Or, “I should like to be poor,” or else,
“Things will never go right for me till I am in this place or that, or
till I act one way or another. I must go and live in a strange land, or
in a hermitage, or in a cloister.”
In fact, this is all about yourself, and nothing else at all. This is
just self-will, only you do not know it or it does not seem so to you.
There is never any trouble that starts in you that does not come from
your own will, whether people see this or not. We can think what we
like, that a man ought to shun one thing or pursue another—places and
people and ways of life and environments and undertakings—that is
not the trouble, such ways of life or such matters are not what impedes
you. It is what you are in these things that causes the trouble, because
in them you do not govern yourself as you should.
Therefore, make a start with yourself, and abandon yourself. Tru-
ly, if you do not begin by getting away from yourself, wherever you
run to, you will find obstacles and trouble wherever it may be. People
who seek peace in external things—be it in places or ways of life or
people or activities or solitude or poverty or degradation—however
great such a thing may be or whatever it may be, still it is all nothing
and gives no peace. People who seek in that way are doing it all wrong;
the further they wander, the less will they find what they are seeking.
They go around like someone who has lost his way; the further he
goes, the more lost he is. Then what ought he to do? He ought to begin
by forsaking himself, because then he has forsaken everything. Truly,
if a man renounced a kingdom or the whole world but held on to him-
self, he would not have renounced anything. What is more, if a man

249
 MEISTER ECKHART

renounces himself, whatever else he retains, riches or honors or what-

ever it may be, he has forsaken everything.
About what Saint Peter said: “See, Lord, we have forsaken every-
thing" (Mt. 19:27)—and all that he had forsaken was just a net and his
little boat—there is a saint who says: “If anyone willingly gives up
something little, that is not all which he has given up, but he has for-
saken everything which worldly men can gain and what they can even
long for; for whoever has renounced his own will and himself has re-
nounced everything, as truly as if he had possessed it as his own, to dis-
pose of as he would."5 For what you choose not to long for, you have
wholly forsaken and renounced for the love of God. That is why our
Lord said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Mt. 5:3), that is, in the will.
And no one ought to be in doubt about this; if there were a better form
of living, our Lord would have said so, as he also said: “Whoever wish-
es to come after me, let him deny himself" (Mt. 16:24), as a beginning;
everything depends on that. Take a look at yourself, and whenever you
find yourself, deny yourself. That is the best of all.

Counsel 4. Of the profits of self-abandonment, which one should

practice inwardly and outwardly.
You should know that there was never any man in this life who
forsook himself so much that he could not still find more in himself
to forsake. There are few people who see this to be true and stick by
it. This is indeed a fair exchange and an honest deal: By as much as
you go out in forsaking all things, by so much, neither less nor more,
does God go in, with all that is his, as you entirely forsake everything
that is yours. Undertake this, and let it cost you everything you can
afford. There you will find true peace, and nowhere else.
People ought never to think too much about what they could do,
but they ought to think about what they could be. If people and their
way of life were only good, what they did might be a shining example.
If you are just, then your works too are just. We ought not to think
of building holiness upon action; we ought to build it upon a way of
being, for it is not what we do that makes us holy, but we ought to
make holy what we do. However holy the works may be, they do not,
as works, make us at all holy; but, as we are holy and have being, to
that extent we make all our works holy, be it eating, sleeping, keeping
vigil or whatever it may be. It does not matter what men may do whose
being is mean; nothing will come of it. Take good heed: We ought to

250
 GERMAN WORKS

do everything we can to be good; it does not matter so much what we

may do, or what kinds of works ours may be. What matters is the
ground on which the works are built.

Counsel 5. See what can make our being and our ground good.
A man's being and ground—from which his works derive their
goodness—is good when his intention is wholly directed to God. Set
all your care on that, that God become great within you, and that all
your zeal and effort in everything you do and in everything you re-
nounce be directed toward God. Truly, the more you do this in all
your works, whatever they are, the better they are. Cleave to God, and
he will endow you with all goodness. Seek God, and you will find God
and every good thing as well. Yes, truly, with such an attitude you
could tread upon a stone, and that would be a more godly thing for you
to do than for you to receive the Body of our Lord, if then you were
thinking more of yourself with less detachment. If we cling to God,
then God and all virtues cling to us. And what once you were seeking
now seeks you; what once you hunted after now hunts you, and what
you once wished to shun now avoids you. Therefore to him who clings
greatly to God, everything clings that is godly, and from him every-
thing takes flight that is unlike God and alien to him.

Counsel 6. Of detacbment and of tbe possession of God.

I was asked: “Since some people keep themselves much apart from
others, and most of all like to be alone, and since it is in this and in
being in church that they find peace, would that be the best thing to
do?" Then I said: *No! and see why not!” If all is well with a man, then
truly, wherever he may be, whomever he may be with, it is well with
him. But if things are not right with him, then everywhere and with
everybody it is all wrong with him. If it is well with him, truly he has
God with him. But whoever really and truly has God, he has him ev-
erywhere, in the street and in company with everyone, just as much
as in church or in solitary places or in his cell. But if a man really has
God, and has only God, then no one can hinder him.
Why?
Because he has only God, and his intention is toward God alone,
and all things become for him nothing but God. That man carries God
in his every work and in every place, and it is God alone who performs

251
 MEISTER ECKHART

all the man's works; for whoever causes the work, to him it belongs
more properly and truly than it does to the one who performs it. Then
let our intention be purely and only for God, and then truly he must
perform all our works, and no person, no crowds, no places can hinder
him in all his works. In the same way, no one can hinder this man, for
he intends and seeks and takes delight in nothing but God, for God has
become one with the man in all his intention. And so, just as no mul-
tiplicity can disturb God, nothing can disturb or fragment this man,
for he is one in that One where all multiplicity is one and is one un-
multiplicity.
A man should accept God in all things, and should accustom him-
self to having God present always in his disposition and his intention
and his love. Take heed how you can have God as the object of your
thoughts whether you are in church or in your cell. Preserve and carry
with you that same disposition when you are in crowds and in uproar
and in unlikeness. And, as I have said before, when one speaks of like-
ness, one does not mean that we should pay like attention to all works
or all places or all people. That would be quite wrong, because praying
is a better work than spinning, and the church is a better place than
the street. But you ought in your works to have a like disposition and
a like confidence and a like love for your God and a like seriousness.
Believe me, if you were constant in this way, no one could come be-
tween you and the God who is present to you.
But a man in whom truly God is not but who must grasp God in
this thing or in that from outside, and who seeks God in unlike ways,
be it in works or people or places, such a man does not possess God.
And it may easily be that something hinders such a man for he does
not possess God, and he does not seek him alone, nor does he love and
intend him alone; and therefore it is not only bad company that
hinders him. Good company can also hinder him— not just the street,
but the church too, not only evil words and deeds, but good words and
deeds as well, for the hindrance is in him, because in him God has not
become all things. Were that so, everything would be right and good
for him, in every place and among all people, because he has God, and
no one can take God away from him or hinder him in his work.
On what does this true possession of God depend, so that we may
truly have him?
This true possession of God depends on the disposition, and on an
inward directing of the reason and intention toward God, not on a con-

252
 GERMAN WORKS

stant contemplation in an unchanging manner, for it would be impos-

sible to nature to preserve such an intention, and very laborious, and
not the best thing either. A man ought not to have a God who is just
a product of his thought, nor should he be satisfied with that, because
if the thought vanished, God too would vanish. But one ought to have
a God who is present, a God who is far above the notions of men and
of all created things. That God does not vanish, if a man does not wil-
fully turn away from him.
'The man who has God essentially present to him grasps God di-
vinely, and to him God shines in all things; for everything tastes to him
of God, and God forms himself for the man out of all things. God al-
ways shines out in him, in him there is a detachment and a turning
away, and a forming of his God whom he loves and who is present to
him. It is like a man consumed with a real and burning thirst, who may
well not drink and may turn his mind to other things. But whatever
he may do, in whatever company he may be, whatever he may be in-
tending or thinking of or working at, still the idea of drinking does not
leave him, so long as he is thirsty. The more his thirst grows, the more
the idea of drinking grows and intrudes and possesses him and will not
leave him. Or if a man loves something ardently and with all his heart,
so that nothing else has savor for him or touches his heart but that, and
that and nothing but that is his whole object: Truly, wherever he is,
whomever he is with, whatever he may undertake, whatever he does,
what he so loves never passes from his mind, and he finds the image
of what he loves in everything, and it is the more present to him the
more his love grows and grows. He does not seek rest, because no un-
rest hinders him.
Such a man finds far greater merit with God because he grasps ev-
erything as divine and as greater than things in themselves are. Truly,
to this belong zeal and love and a clear apprehension of his own in-
wardness, and a lively, true, prudent and real knowledge of what his
disposition is concerned with amid things and persons. A man cannot
learn this by running away, by shunning things and shutting himself
up in an external solitude; but he must practice a solitude of the spirit,
wherever or with whomever he is. He must learn to break through
things and to grasp his God in them and to form him in himself pow-
erfully in an essential manner. This is like someone who wants to learn
to write. If he is to acquire the art, he must certainly practice it hard
and long, however disagreeable and difficult this may be for him and

253
 MEISTER ECKHART

however impossible it may seem. If he will practice it industriously

and assiduously, he learns it and masters the art. To begin with, he
must indeed memorize each single letter and get it firmly into his
mind. Then, when he has the art, he will not need to think about and
remember the letters’ appearance; he can write effortlessly and easi-
ly—and it will be the same if he wants to play the fiddle or to learn
any other skill. It will always be enough for him to make up his mind
to do the hard work the art demands; and even if he is not thinking
about it all the time, still, whatever he may be thinking when he does
perform it, this will be from the art he has learned.
So a man must be penetrated with the divine presence, and be
shaped through and through with the shape of the God he loves, and
be present in him, so that God's presence may shine out to him with-
out any effort. What is more, in all things let him acquire nakedness,
and let him always remain free of things. But at the beginning there
must be attentiveness and a careful formation within himself, like a
schoolboy setting himself to learn.

Counsel 7. How a man sbould perform bis work 1n tbe most

reasonable way.
One often finds people who are not impeded by the things that are
around them—and this is easy to attain if one wishes—nor do they
have any constant thought about them. For if the heart is full of God,
created things can have and find no place in it. But, what is more, this
alone should not satisfy us. We ought to turn everything into great
profit, whatever it may be, wherever we may be, whatever we see or
hear, however strange or unlikely it may be. Then for the first time
all is well with us and not until then, and one will never come to an
end in this. One can always go on increasing in this, gaining more and
more from it in true growth.
And in all his activities and under all circumstances a man should
take care to use his reason, and in everything he should have a reason-
able consciousness of himself and of his inwardness, and find God in
all things, in the highest degree that is possible. For a man ought to
be as our Lord said: “You should be like men who are always watching
and waiting for their master" (Lk. 12:36). Truly, people who wait stay
awake and look around them for whence he for whom they are waiting
may be coming; and they are on the lookout for him in whatever may

254
 GERMAN WORKS

come, however unknown it may be to them, for perhaps he might

somehow be in it. So we should have in all things a knowing percep-
tion of our master. We must show zeal in this, and it must cost us ev-
erything we are capable of in mind and body, and so it will be well
with us, and we shall find God in everything alike, and find God al-
ways alike in all things.
Certainly, one work differs from another; but whoever undertakes
all his works in the same frame of mind, then, truly, all that man's
works are the same. Indeed, for the man for whom God shines forth
as directly in worldly things as he does in divine things and to whom
God would be so present, for such a man things would be well. Not
indeed that the man himself would be doing worldly things, unlike to
God; rather, whatever external matters he chanced to see and hear, he
would refer it all back to God. Only he to whom God is present in ev-
erything and who employs his reason in the highest degree and has en-
joyment in it knows anything of true peace and has a real kingdom of
heaven.
For if things are to go well with a man, one of two things must
always happen to him. Either he must find and learn to possess God
in works, or he must abandon all works. But since a man cannot in this
life be without works, which are proper to humans and are of so many
kinds, therefore he must learn to possess his God in all things and to
remain unimpeded, whatever he may be doing, wherever he may be.
And therefore if a man who is beginning must do something with oth-
er people, he ought first to make a powerful petition to God for his
help, and put him immovably in his heart and unite all his intentions,
thoughts, will and power to God, so that nothing else than God can
take shape in that man.

Counsel 8. Of constant zeal for tbe bigbest growtb.

A man should never be so satisfied with what he does or accom-
plish it in such a way that he becomes so independent or overconfident
in his works that his reason becomes idle or lulled to sleep. He ought
always to lift himself up by the two powers of reason and will, and in
this to grasp at what is best of all for him in the highest degree, and
outwardly and inwardly to guard prudently against everything that
could harm him. So in all things he will lack nothing, but he will grow
constantly and mightily.

235
 MEISTER ECKHART

Counsel 9. How the inclination to sin always helps a man.

You must know that when vices attack us, this is never for the just
man without great profit and utility. See carefully. There are two men,
and one of them may be so disposed that shortcomings never or seldom
touch him; but it is the other man’s nature that they do. The outward
presence of things so stirs the outer man in him that he is easily moved
to anger or to vain ambition or it may be to bodily lusts, whatever the
circumstance may be. But in his highest powers he always stands firm
and unmoved, never willing to commit sin, not anger or any other, and
he puts up great resistance against sin, because the sin is perhaps a
weakness of his nature, as many men are naturally wrathful or proud
or whatever it may be, and yet he does not want to sin. This man is
far more to be praised, and his reward is much greater and his virtue
is much more excellent than that of the first man, for the perfection
of virtue comes from fighting, as Saint Paul says: “Virtue is made per-
fect in infirmity” (2 Co. 12:9).
The inclination to sin is not sin, but to want to sin is sin, to want
to be angry is sin. Indeed, if a man thought rightly, and if he had the
power to choose, he would not want to choose that his inclination to
sin should die in him, because without it he would lack decision in ev-
erything and in all that he did he would be without care in these mat-
ters, and, too, he would lose the honor of the battle and of the victory
and of the reward; for it is the assault and the force of vice that bring
virtue and the reward for striving. It is this inclination that makes a
man ever more zealous to exercise himself valiantly in virtue and im-
pels him mightily toward virtue, and it is a stern whip driving a man
on to caution and virtue. For the weaker a man finds himself, the more
should he protect himself with strength and victory. For virtue and
vice too are a question of the will.

Counsel 10. How the will can do all things, and how all virtues are
a question of the will, if only it is just.
A man should not be too afraid of anything, so long as he sees that
he has good will, nor should he be depressed if he cannot accomplish
his will in his deeds; but he should not consider himself deprived of
virtue if he finds in himself a will that is just and good, because the
virtues and everything that is good are a question of good will. You can
want for nothing if you have a true and just will, not love or humility

256
 GERMAN WORKS

or any virtue. But what you desire with all your might and all your:
will, that you have, and God and all created things cannot take it away
from you, if only your will is wholly just and godly and is directed to-
ward the present. So do not say: “One day I should like...," because
that would be for the future, but "I want it to be so now." Pay good
attention: If something is more than a thousand miles away and I want
to have it, I really have it—more than what is lying in my lap and what
I do not want.
What is good has not less power to draw toward good than what
is evil has to draw toward evil. Pay heed: Though I might never per-
form any evil deed, if I have the will to evil, I have the sin, as if Ihad
performed the deeds; and I could commit as great sins only in my will
as if I had murdered the whole human race, even if I had actually never
done anything of the kind. So why should the same thing not be true
of a good will? Truly, and far more so!
Indeed, with my will I can do everything. I can take on myself ev-
ery man's toil, I can feed every poor man, I can do every man's work
and anything else that you could think of. If you are not lacking in will
but only in power, in truth in God's sight you have done it all, and no
one can take it away from you, or stop you for a moment from doing
it; for wanting to do something as soon as I can and having done it are
the same in the sight of God. What is more, if Iwanted to have as great
a will as the whole world has, and if my longing for that is great and
complete, then indeed I have it; for what I want to have, I have. And,
too, if Itruly wanted to have as much love as all men have ever gained,
or to praise God as much, or anything else you can think of, then, in-
deed, you have it all, if only your will is complete.
Now you might ask, “When is the will a just will?”
The will is complete and just when it is without any self-seeking,
and when it has forsaken itself, and has been formed and shaped into
God's will. And the more this is so with a man, the more is his will
just and true. And in that will you can accomplish everything, be it
love or whatever you want.
Now you ask: “How could I have this love, whilst I do not feel it
and am not aware of it, and yet I see many people who accomplish
great deeds, and I see in them great devotion and marvelous qualities
I do not have?"
Here you ought to observe two properties that love possesses; one
is the being of love, the other is the deeds or the manifestation of love.
The place where love has its being is only in the will; the man who

257
 MEISTER ECKHART

has more will, he also has more love. But no one knows about anyone
else, whether he has more of it; that lies hidden in the soul, so long as
God lies hidden in the soul's ground. This love lies wholly in the will;
whoever has more will, he also has more love.
Yet there is something else, which is a manifestation and a deed
of love. Often this appears plainly as inwardness and devotion and ju-
bilation; and yet this is not always the best that could be. For it may
be that it does not come from love, but perhaps it only comes from na-
ture that a man experiences such savor and sweetness. It may be sent
down from heaven, or it may be borne in from the senses. And those
who have more of this are not always the best men; for even if such
a gift be truly from God, our Lord often gives it to such people to en-
tice and draw them on, and also to make them, through it, very with-
drawn from others. Yet these same people, when later they have
obtained more love, may then well not experience so much emotion
and feeling, and from that it is well seen that they have love, if they
cleave faithfully and steadily to God without such a prop. |
And even if this really be love, it still is not the very best love.
That can be seen when sometimes a man must abandon this kind of
jubilation because of a better kind of love, and sometimes to perform
a work of love, whether spiritual or bodily, when someone has need of
him. I have said before: If a man were in an ecstasy, as Saint Paul was,
and knew that some sick man needed him to give him a bit of soup,
I should think it far better if you would abandon your ecstasy out of
love and show greater love in caring for the other in his need.®
Nor should a man think that in doing so he will be deprived of
grace, for whatever he willingly abandons out of love will become a
much greater reward for him, as Christ said: “Whoever has given up
something for love of me, he will receive in return a hundred times as
much" (Mt. 19:29). Yes, truly, when a man forsakes something and de-
nies it to himself for the love of God, yes, even if it be that a man has
a great desire to experience such consolations and inwardness and does
everything he can to obtain this and God does not give it to him, and
he willingly relinquishes and forgoes this for God's love, then such a
man will find in God what he seeks, just as if he had possessed as his
own all the riches that ever were and had willingly relinquished, aban-
doned and denied them for God's sake. He will receive a hundred
times as much. For whatever a man would gladly have that he relin-
quishes and goes without for God's love, be it something material or
spiritual, he will find all of it in God, just as if he had possessed it and

258
 GERMAN WORKS

had willingly abandoned it; for a man ought gladly be robbed of all
that he has for the love of God, and out of love he should wholly aban-
don and deny love's consolations.
That a man ought sometimes out of love to forgo such sensations,
Saint Paul in his love admonishes us when he says: “I have wished that
I might be separated from Christ for the love of my brothers" (Rm.
9:3). By that he means not the pure love of God,’ for from that he did
not wish to be separated for one instant, not for the sake of everything
that might be in heaven and on earth. He means the consolations of
love.
But you must know that God’s friends are never without conso-
lation, for whatever God wills is for them the greatest consolation of
all, whether it be consolation or desolation.

Counsel 11. What a man should do when God has hidden himself and
be seeks for bim in vain.
You ought also to know that a man with good will can never lose
God. Rather, it sometimes seems to his feelings that he loses him, and
often he thinks that God has gone far away. What ought you to do
then? Just what you did when you felt the greatest consolation; learn
to do the same when you are in the greatest sorrow, and under all cir-
cumstances behave as you did then. There is no advice so good as to
find God where one has left him; so do now, when you cannot find
him, as you were doing when you had him; and in that way you will
find him. But a good will never loses or seeks in vain for God. Many
people say: “We have a good will," but they do not have God's will.
They want to have their will and they want to teach our Lord that he
should be doing this and that. That is not a good will. We ought to seek
from God what is his very dearest will.
This is what God looks for in all things, that we surrender our
will. When Saint Paul had done a lot of talking to our Lord, and our
Lord had reasoned much with him, that produced nothing, until he
surrendered his will, and said: *Lord, what do you want me to do?"
(Ac. 9:6). Then our Lord showed him? clearly what he ought to do. So
too, when the angel appeared to our Lady, nothing either she or he had
to say would ever have made her the Mother of God, but as soon as
she gave up her own will, at that moment she became a true mother
of the everlasting Word and she conceived God immediately; he be-
came her Son by nature. Nor can anything make a true man except

259
 MEISTER ECKHART

giving up his will. Truly, without giving up our own will in all things,
we never accomplish anything in God's sight. But if it were to progress
so far that we gave up the whole of our will and had the courage to
renounce everything, external and internal, for the love of God, then
we would have accomplished all things, and not until then.
We find few people, whether they know it or not, who would not
like this to be so for them: to experience great things, to have this way
of living and this treasure. But all this is nothing in them except self-
will. You ought to surrender yourself wholly to God in all things, and
then do not trouble yourself about what he may do with his own.
There are thousands of people, dead and in heaven, who never truly
and perfectly forsook their own wills. Only a perfect and true will
could make one enter perfectly into God's will and be without will of
one's own; and whoever has more of this, he is more fully and more
truly established in God. Yes, one Hail Mary said when a man has
abandoned himself is more profitable than to read the Psalms a thou-
sand times over without that. With that, one pace forward would be
better than to walk across the sea without it.
The man who in this way had wholly gone out of himself with ev-
erything that he possessed would indeed be established wholly in God,
so that if anyone wanted to move him, he would first have to move
God. For he is wholly in God, and God is around him as my cap is
round my head. If anyone wanted to seize hold of me, first he would
have to seize hold of my coat. In the same way, if I want to drink, the
drink must first pass over my tongue; in this way the drink gives its
flavor. If the tongue is coated with bitterness, then truly, however
sweet the wine itself may be, it must become bitter through the means
by which it comes to me. In truth, if a man had completely abandoned
everything that is his, he would be so surrounded by God that no cre-
ated thing could move him, unless it had first moved God. Whatever
would reach him would first have to reach him by means of God. So
it will find its savor from God, and will become godlike. However
great a sorrow may be, if it comes by means of God, then God has suf-
fered it first. Yes, by that Truth which is God, however little a sorrow
may be that comes upon a man, as he places it in God, be it some dis-
pleasure or contradiction, it moves God immeasurably more than the
man, and if it is grievous for the man it is more so for God. But God
suffers it for the sake of some good thing that he has provided in it for
you, and if you will suffer the sorrow that God suffers and that comes
to you through him, it will easily become godlike—contempt, it may

260
 GERMAN WORKS

be, just as respect; bitterness just as sweetness; the greatest darkness

just as the brightest light. It takes all its savor from God, and it be-
comes godlike, for it forms itself wholly in his image, whatever comes
to this man, for this is all his intention and nothing else has savor for
him; and in this he accepts God in all bitterness, just as in the greatest
sweetness.
The light shines in darkness, and there man perceives it. What is
the use to people of teaching or light, unless they use it? If they are in
darkness or sorrow, they ought to see the light.
Yes, the more that we possess ourselves, the less do we possess.?
The man who has gone out of what is his own could never fail to find
God in anything he did. But if it happened that a man did or said some-
thing amiss, or engaged in matters that were wrong, then God, since
he was in the undertaking at the beginning, must of necessity take this
harm upon him too; but you must under no circumstances abandon
your undertaking because of this. We find an example of this in Saint
Bernard and in many other saints. One can never in this life be wholly
free from such mishaps. But because some weeds happen among the
corn, one should not for that reason throw away the good corn. Indeed,
if it were well with a man and he knew himself well with God, all such
sorrows and mishaps would turn into his great profit. For to good men
all things come to good, as Saint Paul says (Rm. 8:28); and, as Saint Au-
gustine says, “Yes, even sins."!?

Counsel 12. Of sins and of how we should act when we find ourselves
in sin.
Indeed, to have committed ‘sins is not sin, if we have sorrow for
them. A man should never wish to commit sin, not for anything that
could be in time or in eternity, not mortal sins, not venial, not any sins
at all. A man who knew himself well with God ought always to see that
our faithful and loving God has brought man out of a sinful life into
a life that is divine, and out of him who was his enemy God has made
a friend, and that is more than to create a new earth. This would be
one of the greatest reasons for a man to become wholly established in
God; and it would be astonishing how greatly it would kindle the man
to a stronger and greater love, so that he would wholly abandon what
is his own.
Yes, that man would indeed be established in God’s will who
would not wish that the sin into which he had fallen had never been

261
 MEISTER ECKHART

committed;!! not because it was against God, but since, through that,
you are obliged to greater love, and, through that, brought low and
humbled. He should only wish that he had not acted against God. But
you should indeed trust God, that he would not have inflicted this on
you, had he not wished to produce from it what is best for you. But
when a man with all his resolution rises up from his sins and turns
wholly away from them, our faithful God then acts as if he had never
fallen into sin. For all his sins, God will not allow him for one moment
to suffer. Were they as many as all men have ever committed, God will
never allow him to suffer for this. With this man God can use all the
simple tenderness that he has ever shown toward created beings. If he
now finds the man ready to be different, he will have no regard for
what he used to be. God is a God of the present. He takes and receives
you as he finds you—not what you have been, but what you are now.
All the harms and the insults that could come upon God for all sins
he is gladly willing to suffer and to have suffered for many years so
that a man thereafter may come to a greater knowledge of his love and -
so that man's love and gratitude may be so much greater and his zeal
may be so much more ardent, which properly and frequently follows
after our sins.
Therefore God gladly suffers the harm of sins, and has often suf-
fered it, and most often he has permitted it to happen to men for whom
he has provided that he would draw them to great things. Notice well:
Who was dearer or closer to our Lord than were the apostles? But there
was no one of them who did not fall into mortal sin; they had all been
mortal sinners. In the Old Law and the New he often showed this
through men who afterward were by far the dearest to him. And even
now one seldom finds that people attain to anything good unless first
they have gone somewhat astray. Our Lord's intention in this is that
we should recognize his great mercifulness; and through it he wishes
to exhort us to a greater and truer humility and devotion. For when
repentance is renewed, so too love should be greatly increased and re-
newed.

Counsel 13. Of a twofold repentance.

Repentance is of two kinds; one is of time and of the senses, the
other is divine and supernatural. Repentance in time always declines
into greater sorrow and plunges a man into lamentation, as if he must

262
 GERMAN WORKS

now despair; and there repentance remains in its sorrow, and can make
no progress; nothing comes of it.
But divine repentance is quite different. As soon as a man has
achieved self-loathing, at once he lifts himself up to God, and establish-
es himself in an eternal turning away from all sin in an immovable
will; and there he lifts himself up in great confidence to God, and
achieves a great security. And from this there comes a spiritual joy that
lifts the soul up out of all sorrow and lamentation, and makes it secure
in God. For the weaker a man finds himself and the more have been
his misdeeds, the more cause he has to bind himself to God with an un-
divided love in which there is no sin or weakness. Therefore the best
path up which a man can proceed when he wants to go to God in all
devotion, is for him to be sinless, made strong by a godly repentance.
And the heavier a man's sins are as he weighs them, the readier
is God to forgive them, and to come to the soul, and to drive the sins
out. Every man does his utmost to get rid of what most irks him. And
the greater and the more the sins are, still immeasurably more is God
glad and ready to forgive them, because they are irksome to him. And
then, as godly repentance lifts itself up to God, sins vanish into God's
abyss, faster than it takes me to shut my eyes, and so they become ut-
terly nothing, as if they had never happened, if repentance is complete.

Counsel 14. Of true confidence and of bope.

One ought to test whether love be true and perfect by asking if
one has great hope and confidence in God, for there is nothing by
which one can better see whether one's love is total than by trust. For
if one man loves another greatly and completely, that causes him to
have trust; for everything that we dare trust to be in God we find in
him truly and a thousand times more. And so, since no man could ever
love God too much, so also no man could ever trust him too much.
Nothing that a man can do is so fitting as to have great trust in God.
God never ceased to achieve great things through those who ever
gained great confidence in him. He has truly shown to all men that this
trusting comes from love, for love not only has trust, it also has true
knowledge and unshakeable certainty.

263
 MEISTER ECKHART

Counsel 15. Of a twofold certainty of everlasting life.

In this life we have a twofold knowledge of everlasting life. One

knowledge is when God himself imparts it to a man or sends it to him
through an angel or shows it through a special illumination; this hap-
pens seldom and to few people.
The second knowledge, which is incomparably better and more
profitable and happens often to all who are perfect in their love, is
when a man, through the love and the intimacy that exist between his
God and him, trusts in him so fully and is so certain of him that he
cannot doubt. What makes him so certain is that he loves God in all
his creatures without any distinction. And even if all God's creatures
were to deny him and abjure him, yes, if God himself were to deny
him, he would not mistrust; for love cannot mistrust, love has trust in
everything that is good. There is no need for one to say anything to
the lover and to his beloved, for once the lover knows that his beloved
loves him, he knows at once everything that is for his good and makes
for his happiness.!? For however great your love for him may be, of
this you are sure: His love for you is greater beyond measure, and his
trust in you is incomparably more. For he is Trust himself; one should
be sure of this with him, and they are all sure of it who love him.
This certainty is by far greater, more complete and true than is the
first, and it cannot deceive. To be told it in words could deceive, and
could easily be a false light.!? But this certainty one receives in all the
powers of the soul, and it cannot deceive those who truly love God;
they doubt as little as a man doubts in God, because love drives out all
fear. “Love has no fear,” as Saint Paul says,!* and as it is also written:
“Love covers a*multitude of sins" (1 P. 4:8). For when sins occur, there
cannot be complete trust or love, for love completely covers sin over;
love knows nothing about sin. It is not as if a man had not sinned, but
that love wholly destroys and drives out sin, as if it had never been.
For all God's works are wholly perfect and superabundant, so that
whomever he forgives, he forgives wholly and completely, and great
sinners more gladly than the lesser ones, and this makes a perfect trust.
I estimate this to be far and incomparably better than the first knowl-
edge; and it brings a greater reward and is more true, for it is not hin-
dered by sin or by anything else. For if God finds a man to be in such
a state of love, he judges him just as lovingly, whether or not the man
may have done something greatly amiss. But the man who receives

264
 GERMAN WORKS

greater forgiveness should love more, as Christ our Lord said: “To
whom more is forgiven, let him love more" (Lk. 7:47).

Counsel 16. Of true penitence and a blessed life.

Many people think that they ought to perform great exterior
works, such as fasting, going barefoot and such things as that, which
are called “penitence.” But the true and very best of all penitence,
which greatly improves men and raises them to the highest, is for a
man to have a great and perfect aversion from everything in himself
and in all creatures that is not wholly God and godly, and for him to
have a great and perfect and complete conversion to his dear God in
a love so unshakeable that his devotion to God and his longing for him
be great. The more you have of this in any work, the more you are jus-
tified; and as this grows and grows, so you have more and more true
penitence, and this will the more blot out sin and even sin's punish-
ment. Yes, you could in a short time with great resolution turn away
from all sin with a true disgust for it, and with equal resolution betake
yourself to God, so that even if you had committed all the sins that
have ever been done since the days of Adam and will ever be done, all
that would be completely forgiven you and its punishment remitted,
so that if you were to die this moment you would come into the pres-
ence of God.
This is true penitence, and it comes, particularly and most perfect-
ly, from what our Lord Jesus Christ suffered so fruitfully in his perfect
penitence. The more that a man forms himself in that, the more do all
sins and the pains of sin fall away from him. And it ought to be a man's
habit at all times and in all his works to form himself in the life and
the works of our Lord Jesus Christ, in everything he does and refrains
from and suffers and experiences. And let him think constantly of him
as our Lord thought of us.
This penitence is a complete lifting up of the mind away from all
things into God, and whatever the works may be in which you have
found and still find that you can most perfectly achieve this, do them
with no constraint; and if you are impeded in this by any exterior
works, whether it be fasting, keeping vigil, reading or whatever else,
give it up and do not be afraid that in this you may be forgoing any
of your penitence, because God has no regard for what your works are,
but for what your love and devotion and intention in the works are.

265
 MEISTER ECKHART

Our works do not greatly matter to him, but only our intention in all
our works, and that we love him alone in all things. For the man is far
too greedy who is not satisfied with God.!5 All your works will be re-
warded in your God's knowledge of them, and that in them he was
your intention; and always be content with that. And the more that
your intention is directed wholly and simply toward him, the more
truly will all your works atone for all your sins.
And you must also reflect that God was the general redeemer of
all the world, and I owe him far more gratitude for that than if he had
redeemed me alone. So too ought you to be a general redeemer of ev-
erything in you that you have spoiled with your sins; and, doing that,
put your whole confidence in him, for with your sins you have spoiled
everything there is in you: Your heart, your intellect, your body, your
soul, your powers, everything about you and in you, all of it is sick and
spoiled. So take refuge in him in whom there is nothing lacking, but
everything that is good, so that he may be the general redeemer of all
your shortcomings both internal and external.

Counsel 17. How a man should preserve himself in peace, 1f be does

not find himself severely tried as Christ and many saints were;
and how he ought to follow God.
People may become anxious and distressed because the lives of our
Lord Jesus Christ and of the saints were so harsh and laborious, and
a man may be able to perform little like this and may not feel himself
forced to do so. Therefore, when people find themselves unequal to
this, they think that they are far away from God, and that they cannot
follow him. No one ought to think this. No man ought ever under any
circumstances to think himself far away from God, not because of his
sins or his weakness or anything else. If it should ever be that your
great sins drive you so far off that you cannot think of yourself as being
close to God, still think of him as being close to you. For a man does
himself great harm in considering that God is far away from him;
wherever a man may go, far or near, God never goes far off. He is al-
ways close at hand, and even if he cannot remain under your roof, still
he goes no further away than outside the door, where he stands.!®
And it is the same with the labor of following God. Take heed of
how you ought to follow him. You ought to know and to have taken
heed of what it is that God is requiring most of you; for not everyone
is called to come along the same way to God, as Saint Paul says.!? So

266
 GERMAN WORKS

if you find that your shortest way does not consist of many external
works and great labors or mortifications—which, to look at things sim-
ply, are not so very important unless a man is especially called to them
by God and has the strength to perform them all without damage to
his spiritual life—and if you find that you are not like this, keep quite
calm and do not let yourself be too concerned about it.
But you may say: “If this is not so important, why have so many
of our forebears, so many saints practiced it?"
But consider: Our Lord gave them this manner of life,!8 and he
also gave them the strength to act like that, so that they could follow
this way of life, and what they did was very pleasing to him, and it was
in so doing that they were to achieve their very best. But God has not
made man's salvation depend on any such particular way of life. What
is peculiar to one way of life is not found in another; but it is God who
has endowed all holy practices with the power of fulfillment, and it is
denied to no good way of life. For one good thing is not in opposition
to another. And from this people ought to learn that they are doing
wrong if they see or hear that some good man is not following their
way of life and they decide that what he is doing is useless. If they do
not like what he does, immediately they shut their eyes to what is good
in what he does and his intention in doing it. That is not right. People
should have regard to the true devotion that is to be found in men's
practices, and they should not despise what anyone does. It is not pos-
sible for everyone to live alike, for all men to follow one single way of
life or for one man to adopt what everyone else or what some one other
man may be doing.
So let every man keep to his own pious practices, let him mix in
it any other practice, accepting into what he does everything that is
good and all practices. To change from one to another makes for in-
stability in one's piety and in one's intention. What one such practice
could give you, you could also obtain from another, if they are both
good and praiseworthy and have only God as their intention; everyone
cannot follow one single way. And it is the same with imitating the
mortifications of such saints. You may well admire and be pleased by
practices you still are not required to imitate.
But now you may say: “Our Lord Jesus Christ always practiced
what was the very best, and it is always he whom we should imitate."
That is very true. One ought indeed to imitate our Lord, but still
not in everything he did. Our Lord, we are told, fasted for forty days.
But no one ought to undertake to imitate this. Many of his works

267
 MEISTER ECKHART

Christ performed with the intention that we should imitate him spiri-
tually, not physically. And so we ought to do our best to be able to im-
itate him with our reason, for he values our love more than our works.
Each of us ought in our own ways to imitate him.
“And how?”
Take good heed: in everything.
“How, and in what way?"
As I have often said: “I esteem a work of the reason far higher than
a work of the body.”
“And how?”
Christ fasted for forty days. Imitate him by considering what you
are sure that you are most inclined and ready to do; apply yourself to
this and observe yourself closely. It is often more profitable for you to
refrain from these things than to go without any food. Similarly, it is
sometimes harder for you to suppress one word than to keep complete-
ly silent. So it is harder at times for a man to endure one little word
of contempt, which really is insignificant, when it would be easy for
him to suffer a heavy blow to which he had steeled himself, and it is
much harder for him to be alone in a crowd than in the desert, and it
is often harder for him to abandon some little thing than a big one,
harder for him to carry out a trifling enterprise than one that people
would think much more important. Thus a man in his weakness can
very well imitate our Lord, and he need never consider himself far off
from him.

Counsel 18. The way for a man to make proper use of the delicate
food and fine clothing and pleasant companions to which his
natural disposition inclines him.
You must not concern yourself about food or clothing, by worry-
ing if they seem too good for you, but train the ground of your being
and your disposition to be far above all this; and nothing ought to
move your disposition to delight or to love except God alone. It should
be far above everything else.
Why?
Because a man’s interior life would indeed be deficient if he need-
ed outer garments to guide it for him; it is the interior that should
guide the exterior, so far as that is in your power. But if something dif-
ferent comes your way, in the ground of your being you can be content

268
 GERMAN WORKS

that you are so disposed that even if another time something else
should be given to you, you would receive that just as willingly and
gladly.!? And it is the same with food and friends and relatives and ev-
erything else that God may give or take away.
And that is why I think it better than everything that a man
should abandon himself wholly to God, whatever it may be his will to
impose on him, be it contempt or heavy labors or any other kind of suf-
fering, so that he accepts it joyfully and thankfully, and lets himself be
guided by God rather than trying to arrange things for himself. So if
you will learn gladly from God and follow him, things will be all right
for you. With such a disposition one can well accept honors and ease.
But if hardships and disgrace come to a man, he must bear it and be
glad to bear it. And so people can with every justification and right
judgment eat well, if in the same spirit they would be prepared to fast.
And this is probably the reason why God spares his friends many
great sorrows; for his immeasurable faithfulness to them could not oth-
erwise suffer it to be so, because so great and so many profits are con-
tained in suffering, and he does not wish, nor would it be fitting, to
let them lack such benefits. But he is content when their will is good
and just. Were it not so, he would not permit them to escape any suf-
fering because of the innumerable benefits suffering brings.
Therefore, so long as God is well content, be at peace; but if it
pleases him that something different should happen with you, still be
at peace. For inwardly a man ought to entrust himself so completely
to God with his whole will that he is not greatly concerned about his
way of life or the works he performs. And you ought especially to
avoid anything extraordinary, whether in clothing or food or speech—
such as indulging in fine talk—or extraordinary gestures,?? because
this leads to nothing. But still you must know that not everything ex-
traordinary is forbidden to you. There are many extraordinary things
one has to do at certain times and among certain people, because if a
man is extraordinary he must act in various extraordinary ways on
many occasions.
A man ought to have formed his inward disposition in our Lord
Jesus Christ in all respects, so that people can see in him a reflection
of all our Lord's works and of his divine image; and within himself a
man ought, so far as he can, to carry out a perfect imitation of all these
works. You must work, and he ought to receive. Perform your works
with all your devotion and all your intention; let this always be your
disposition, and may you in all your works form yourself into him.

269
 MEISTER ECKHART

Counsel 19. Why God often permits good men, who are genuinely
good, to be often bindered in tbeir good works.

Our faithful God often permits his friends to weaken so that any
support on which they might depend or rely should be taken from
them. For to a man who loves God it would be a great joy if he could
perform many great deeds, perhaps keeping vigil or fasting or other ex-
ercises, and such remarkable, great and difficult matters. To be able to
do this is a great joy and a prop and gives hope, and it lends people
support and help and confidence in their undertakings. But our Lord's
will is to take this away from them, because he wants to be their only
support and confidence. And his only reason for doing this is simply
his goodness and mercy. God is not moved to perform any deed by
anything else than his own goodness. Our deeds do not move him to
give us anything or to do anything for us. Our Lord wants his friends
to forget such false notions, and this is why he takes this support away
from them so that he may be their only support. For he wants to en- |
dow them richly, and this only out of his generous goodness; and he
should be their support and comfort, and they should see and consider
themselves as a mere nothing among all God's great gifts. For the more
man's spirit, naked and empty, depends upon God and is preserved by
him, the deeper is the man established in God, and the more receptive
is he to God's finest gifts. For man should build upon God alone.

Counsel 20. Of the Body of our Lord: bow one should often receive it,
and with what manner and devotion.
Whoever would gladly receive the Body of our Lord ought not to
wait until he discovers certain emotions or sensations in himself, or un-
til his inwardness and devotion are great; but he ought to make sure
that he has the proper will and intention. You should not attach such
importance to what you feel; rather, consider important what you love
and what you intend.
The man who freely wants and is able to go to our Lord should
as the first condition have a conscience free from every reproach of sin.
The second condition is that his will be turned to God, that he intends
nothing and delights in nothing except in God and what is wholly god-
ly, and that everything should displease him that is unlike God. And
it is in this way too that a man should test how far away from God or

270
 GERMAN WORKS

how close to him he may be, and this will tell him how near or far
away from God he is.?! The third condition is that his love for the
blessed sacrament and for our Lord ought to grow in him more and
more, and that his reverent awe for it should not decrease because of
his frequent receiving; because often what is life for one man is death
for another. Therefore you should observe whether your love for God
grows and your reverence does not decrease; and then the oftener that
you go to the sacrament, the better by far will you be, and the better
and more profitable by far will it be for you. So do not let people talk
and preach you away from your God; the oftener, the better, and the
dearer to God. For it is our Lord's delight to dwell in man and with
him.
Now you may say: "Alas, sir, I know how empty and cold and in-
ert I am, and that is why I dare not go to our Lord!”
But what I say is, all the more reason for you to go to your God;
for it is in him that you will be warmed and kindled, and in him you
will be made holy, to him alone will you be joined and with him alone
made one, for you will find that the sacrament possesses, as does noth-
ing else, the grace by which your bodily strength will be united and
collected through the wonderful power of our Lord's bodily presence,
so that all man's distracted thoughts and intentions are here collected
and united, and what was dispersed and debased is here raised up again
and its due order restored as it is offered to God. The senses within
are so informed by our indwelling God, and weened from the outward
distractions of temporal things, and all at once become godly; and as
your body is strengthened by his Body it becomes renewed. For we
shall be changed into him and wholly united, so that what is his be-
comes ours, and all that is ours becomes his, our heart and his one
heart, our body and his one Body. Our senses and our will, our inten-
tion, our powers and our members shall be so brought into him that
we sense him and become aware of him in every power of our bodies
and our souls.
Now you may say: “Alas, sir, I can find nothing better than pov-
erty in myself. How could I dare to go to him?"
Be sure of this, if you want all your poverty to be changed, then
| go to that abundant treasury of all immeasurable riches, and so you
will be rich; for in your heart you should know that he alone is the
treasure that can satisfy and fulfill you. So say: "This is why I want
to come to you, that your riches may replenish my poverty, that your

271
 MEISTER ECKHART

immeasurable wealth may fill out my emptiness, that your boundless

and incomprehensible divinity may make good my so pitiful and de-
cayed humanity."
* Alas, sir, I have committed so many sins that I cannot atone for
them!”
Go to him for this, for he has made fitting atonement for all guilt.
In him you may well offer up to the heavenly Father an offering wor-
thy enough to atone for all your sins.
* Alas, sir, I should like to utter my praises, but I cannot!”
Go to him, for he only is the thanks the Father will accept and he
alone is the immeasurable, truth-revealing, perfect praise of all the di-
vine goodness.
In short, if you want all your sins to be wholly taken from you and
to be clothed in virtues and graces, if you want to be led back joyfully
to the source and to be guided by every virtue and grace, see to it that
you are able to receive that sacrament worthily and often; so you will
become one with him and be ennobled through his Body. Yes, in the
Body of our Lord the soul is joined so close to God that not even the
angels, not the cherubim or seraphim, can find or tell the difference
between them. For as the angels approach God they approach the soul,
as they approach the soul they approach God. There was never union
so close; for the soul is far more closely united with God than are the
body and soul that form one man. This union is far closer than if one
were to pour a drop of water into a cask of wine;?? there, we still have
water and wine, but here we have such a changing into one that there
is no creature who can find the distinction.
Now you may say: “How can this be? I don't feel anything of the
kind."
What does that matter? The less that you feel and the more that
you believe, the more praiseworthy is your faith, the more regarded,
and the more praise will it receive, for a perfect faith is far more in a
man than a mere supposing. In God we have true knowledge. In truth,
all that we lack is true faith. We may think that what we feel benefits
us more than faith, but that is only because we obey external rules.
There is no more in the one than in the other. If a man believes con-
stantly, he will receive constantly and possess constantly.
Now you say: “How could I have faith in greater things, when I
am not disposed to this, but know myself to be deficient and distracted
by many things?"
Well, you ought to be aware of two properties in yourself that our

212
 GERMAN WORKS

Lord too had in him. He possessed superior and inferior powers,

which in their turn performed two works; for his superior powers pos-
sessed and enjoyed everlasting blessedness, but at the same time here
on earth his inferior powers were engaged in the greatest suffering and
strife. Yet this working of the inferior powers did not deter the supe-
rior powers from attaining their object. It ought to be so in you; your
superior powers should be elevated to God, wholly offered and bound
to him. But beyond doubt we ought to consign all our sufferings to the
body and the inferior powers and the senses; but the spirit ought with
all its might to lift itself up, and then, liberated, sink down into its
God. But the sufferings of the senses and of the inferior powers, and
the opposition they meet, is not the spirit's concern; for the greater and
the more violent the conflict is, the greater and more praiseworthy is
the victory and its glory. For the greater the opposition, the more vio-
lent the onslaughts of vice, the more does man possess virtue if he con-
quers, and the dearer he is to God. And therefore, if you wish to
receive your God worthily, be sure that your superior powers are di-
rected toward your God and that your will is seeking his will, that you
are intending him, and that your trust is based on him.
When a man is so disposed, he never receives the precious Body
of our Lord without receiving extraordinary and great graces, and the
oftener, the greater profit to him. Yes, a man might receive the Body
of our Lord with such devotion and intention that if it were already
ordained for him to come into the lowest order of angels, he might by
so receiving on that one occasion be raised up into the next rank. Yes,
you could receive him with such devotion that you might be seen in
the eighth or in the ninth choir. And therefore, if there were two men
alike in their whole lives, and one of them had received the Body of
our Lord once more often than the other, through that he could appear
like a shining sun in comparison with the other, and could receive a
singular union with God.
This receiving and this blessed enjoyment of the Body of our Lord
does not consist only in an external enjoyment. Its enjoyment is also
spiritual, with a heart that yearns and in a union in devotion. A man
may receive it in such faith that he becomes richer in graces than any
other man on earth. A man may receive spiritually, whatever he may
be, a thousand times and more in a day, whether he be sick or well.
But one ought to approach such spiritual communion as the sacrament
itself, according to the dictates of good order and with great longing.
But even if one does not have the longing, one should incite it and pre-

293
 MEISTER ECKHART

pare for it and act as it requires, and so one will become holy here in
time and blessed there in eternity; for to go after God and to follow
him, that is eternity. May the teacher of truth and the lover of chastity
and the life of eternity grant us this.?? Amen.

Counsel 21. Of zeal.

If a man wishes to receive the Body of our Lord, that should be
done without any great anxiety. So it is fitting and very profitable to
go to confession first, even if we have not incurred any blame, so that
we may have the fruits of the sacrament of penance. But if it were the
case that a man had incurred some blame, and it is difficult for him to
go to confession, then let him have recourse to his God, and admit his
guilt with great contrition, and then let him be at peace until he can
make his confession. And if recollection of his sins or of their punish-
ment intrude, then let him think that God too has forgotten them. It
is God to whom we should confess sooner than to men, and if we are
guilty of sin, it is our confession and our self-reproaches before God
to which we should attend carefully. And if we want to go to the sac-
rament, we ought not to neglect this confession before God in favor
of external penance, for it is what is in our intention as we perform
our works that is just and godly and good.
People ought to learn to be free of their works as they perform
them. For a man who has not practiced this, it is hard, learning to at-
tain to a state in which the people around him and the works he per-
forms are no hindrance—and much zeal is needed to achieve this—so
that God is present to him and his light shines in him undiminished,
whatever the occasion, whatever the environment. For this a lively zeal
is needed, and, particularly, two things. One is that a man should have
his inwardness well protected, and that his mind be on its guard
against the images that surround him outside, keeping them out, never
letting them intrude to occupy him and accompany him, never letting
them find a home in him. The second is that a man does not allow him-
self to be weakened or distracted or alienated by any multiplicity, not
by his own inward images, whether these be his own imaginings or an
exaltation of his perceptions, nor by outward images or whatever else
it may be that he has present to him. To this he ought to apply and
turn all his power.
Now you may say: "If a man is to perform outward works he must

214
 GERMAN WORKS

go outside himself, for no work can be accomplished except in the form

that is proper to it."
That is indeed true. But to practiced men the outwardness of im-
ages is not outward because to inward men all things possess a divine
inwardness.
Above all things, it is necessary that a man should apply and ex-
ercise his reason, firmly and constantly directing it toward God, and
so always inwardly it will become divinized. To reason, nothing is so
proper or so present or so close as God. Reason never turns itself in
any other direction. It does not have recourse to creatures, unless it
suffers violence and injustice, and it is then all broken down and dis-
tracted. If, in someone young—or whoever he may be—reason has suf-
fered injury, great zeal must be used, and he must do all he can to coax
reason back again and to tend and foster it. For however proper or nat-
ural God may be to reason, if people begin by misdirecting reason and
making it rely upon creatures, perverting it into their forms and ap-
plying it to them, reason will lose some of its health and its power, and
its noble intentions will be so hindered that all the zeal men can use
is not too much for him to restore himself. When he has done all this,
still he must be on constant guard.
Above everything else a man should see to it that he applies him-
self vigorously and well. If someone who does not apply and exercise
himself wants to be and act like a man who applies himself, he will go
completely astray, and nothing will become of him. Even if a man has
begun by freeing and separating himself from all things, after that he
can still perform all his works discerningly, learning to use them with-
out possessiveness or to forgo them without distress. But if a man finds
all his love and delight in something, and pursues it with all his will,
whether it be food or drink or whatever else, this cannot but bring
harm to an inexperienced man.
A man should accustom himself to seeking and wanting nothing
for himself in anything, and to finding and accepting God in every-
thing. For God does not give, he has never given any gift so that we
might have it and then rest upon it; but all the gifts he ever gave in
heaven and on earth he gave so that he might give us the one gift that
is himself. With all these other gifts he wants to prepare us for the gift
that he himself is. All the works God has ever performed in heaven and
in earth he performed for the sake of one work, so that he might per-
form that, and it is to be himself blessed, so that he may make us

275
 MEISTER ECKHART

blessed. Therefore I say: In every gift, in every work, we ought to learn

to look toward God, and we should not allow ourselves to be satisfied
or be detained by any thing. Whatever our way of life may be, we must
not cease to progress; this has been true for everyone, however far he
might have advanced. Above all else, we should always be preparing
ourselves, always renewing ourselves to receive God's gifts.
Let me tell you briefly about someone who greatly longed to ob-
tain something from our Lord; but I said she was not nearly ready for
it, and if God were to give her the gift, unready as she was, it would
have been the ruin of her.
One may ask, “Why was she not ready? She had a good enough
will; and do you not say that this can accomplish all things, and that
in this everything and every perfection consist?"
That is true, but “will” is to be understood in two senses. There
is one will that is accidental and inessential, another will that is deter-
mining, creative, habitual.
Indeed, it is not enough for a man's disposition to be detached just |
for the present moment when he wants to be bound to God, but he
must have a well-exercised detachment from what is past and from
what is yet to come. Then one is able to receive from God great things
and, in the things, God. But if a man is not ready, the gift is ruined,
and God with the gift. This is the reason why God cannot always give
us as we ask from him. This is no fault in him, for he is a thousand
times swifter to give than we are to receive. But we do him violence
and injustice, because we with our unreadiness are obstacles to the
works that belong to his nature.
A man with all his gifts should learn to take himself out of himself,
to keep nothing for himself, to seek nothing, not profit or delight or
inward joy or sweetness or reward or the kingdom of heaven or his
own will. God never gave himself or gives himself according to anyone
else's will. He gives himself only by his own will. When God finds
someone who is of one will with him,?4 he gives himself to him and
lets himself be in him, with everything that he is. And the more that
we cease to belong to ourselves, the more truly do we belong to this.
Therefore it is not enough for God that we should once surrender our-
selves and all that we possess and can do, but we should renew this in
us again and again, uniting ourselves with him and emptying ourselves
of self in all things.
And it is also very profitable for a man not to be content because
he is disposed toward virtues such as obedience, poverty and other

276
 GERMAN WORKS

such, but he should exercise the works and the fruits of these virtues,
trying himself often, and he should wish and long for other people to
exercise and try him. For it is not enough for a man to perform the
works of virtue, or to practice obedience, or to accept poverty or con-
tempt, or that he should in other ways humble or detach himself; but
one must persist in this, never giving up, until one has gained the es-
sence and the foundation of these virtues. And we can test if we have
them by this: When a man finds himself inclined above all else to vir-
tue, and if one performs the works of virtue without preparing one's
will, and if one carries them out without any special intention of ob-
taining some just or important matter, acting virtuously for virtue's
own sake, for the love of virtue and no other reason—then one pos-
sesses the virtues perfectly, and not until then.
Let us go on learning to abandon ourselves until we hold on to
nothing that is our own. All our tempests and strife come only from
self-will, whether we see this or whether we do not. We should put
ourselves and all that we are in a pure cessation of will and desire, into
God's good and dearest will, with everything that we might will and
desire in all things.
A question: “Ought one willingly to forgo even God's sweetness?
Could that not come from inertia and from too little love for him?”
Yes, provided that one can recognize the distinction. If we want
to know whether this comes from inertia, or from a true detachment,
or from surrender to God’s will, we ought to observe, when we expe-
rience such inward surrender, whether we find ourselves as faithful to
God as ever we could be in times of great emotion, whether then we
do all that we would at other times do, and not less, and that we keep
ourselves as detached from all consolations and helps as we would if
we were to feel God himself present to us.
Then no time can be too short for a just man who is in perfect
good will. For when the will is so disposed that it wants to accomplish
every single thing of which it is capable—not just now, but if the man
were to live for another thousand years, he would want to do all he was
capable of—then the will gains as much as a thousand years of works
could do; in God’s eyes, he has all this.

277
 MEISTER ECKHART

Counsel 22. How man should follow God and of a good manner of
living.

A man who wants to establish himself in a new life or a new way

of working must go to his God, and with great force and with all de-
votion he must entreat of him that he will furnish him with what is
best of all, with what is dearest and the greatest honor to God, and he
must want and intend nothing for himself, but only God's dearest will
and nothing else. Whatever God may then send him, let him accept it
directly?5 from God himself and let him regard it as the best of all that
could come to him, and let him be wholly and utterly at peace in it.
And if later some other manner of living pleases him better, he
ought to think: God gave you this manner; and so let it be the best that
he could wish. In this he should have faith in God, and he should draw
all that is good in other manners of living into this one manner, and
accept everything, whatever its nature be, in this and according to this.
For whatever good God has performed and endowed one manner with
may also be found in all good manners; for one ought to take from one
manner of living the good that is common to all of them and not what
is peculiar to that one. For a man must always accomplish some one
thing; he cannot do everything. It has to be one thing and in that one
thing we ought to find everything. Because if a man wanted to do ev-
erything, this, that and the other, leaving his own manner of living and
taking on another that for the moment pleased him better, in truth that
would produce great instability. For a man who has renounced the
world and entered a religious order is more likely to achieve perfection
than is someone who has left one order to join another, however holy
he may have been. That is what changing one's way of life does. Let
a man decide on one good way and persist in it, and introduce into it
all ways that are good, and let him consider that he has received this
way of life from God, and not set off today on one way and then to-
morrow on another, and let him never be afraid that in doing this he
is missing anything. Because with God one cannot miss anything; as
little as God himself can, so little can man miss anything with God.
Therefore accept some one thing from God, and into it bring every-
thing that is good.
But if it happens that it cannot be that one thing be reconciled
with another, that is a certain sign for you that it is not from God. One
good is not in opposition to another; for, as our Lord said: *Every king-
dom which is divided in itself must perish" (Lk. 11:17); and as he also

278
 GERMAN WORKS

said: "Who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather
with me scatters" (Mt. 12:30). So let this be a certain sign for you; if
something good cannot tolerate another good thing, or, it may be, a less
good thing, then that is not from God. It ought to bring in and not dis-
perse.
So it was said in a few true words that were added here: *Our
faithful God disposes the best of all for every man, of that there is no
doubt."
This is certainly true, and he never takes anyone lying down
whom he could have found standing upright, for God's goodness in-
tends all things for the very best.
Then I was asked why God did not therefore dispose for men
who, he knew, would fall from the grace of baptism to die in childhood
before they had reached years of discretion, since he knew that they
would fall and not rise again—would not that be the very best for
them?
So I said: God is no destroyer of any good thing, but rather he
brings it to perfection. God does not destroy nature, he perfects it. And
grace too does not destroy nature, but perfects it. If in the beginning
God had destroyed nature, it would have suffered violence and injus-
tice; and this God does not do. Man has a free will, with which he may
choose good and evil, and God offers death in return for evil deeds, and
in return for good deeds he offers life. Man must be free, and the mas-
ter of all his actions, unimpeded and unconstrained. Grace does not de-
stroy nature, it perfects it. Glory does not destroy grace, it perfects it,
for glory is perfected grace. Therefore it is not in God to destroy any-
thing that has being, but rather he is a perfecter of all things. So we
should not destroy in ourselves any good thing, however small it may
be, even for the sake of something great, but we should rather bring
it to the greatest perfection.
Then we talked about one man who was supposed to be beginning
a completely new life, and I said something like this: He ought to be-
come a man who seeks for God and finds God in all things, always, ev-
erywhere, with everyone, in every way. Doing this, we can always go
on growing and increasing, and never come to the end of our increas-
ing.

279
 MEISTER ECKHART

Counsel 23. Of interior and exterior works.

If a man wished to withdraw into himself with all his powers, in-
terior and exterior, and if he could maintain this state in such a way
that there was neither imagining nor activity?® in him, and he could
remain free of all activities, interior or exterior, he ought to be on his
guard in case this very state itself may become a form of activity. But
if a man is not attracted toward works and does not want to be engaged
in them, he ought to force himself to do something, whether it be an
interior or exterior work, because he should not allow himself to be-
come self-complacent in anything, however good it may seem or may
be. If he experiences such struggle or compulsion that it seems that he
is being acted upon rather than himself acting, so let him learn to co-
operate with his God. He ought not to flee or deny or suspect his own
inwardness. He should learn to work in it and with it and from it, so
that he can transform inwardness into activity and bring his activities
into his inwardness, and so that he can train himself to act in freedom.
For we ought to keep our eye on this interior work and on what we
produce from it, reading, praying, or, if need be, exterior activities. But
if an exterior activity is hindering our interior work, we should prefer
what is interior. But if both could exist together in one form of work-
ing, that would be the best, for man and God to work together.
Now if it be asked: “How could a man cooperate in this way when
he is detached from himself and from all works—as Saint Dionysius
said, that man says the finest things about God who has learned out
of the fullness of his inward riches to keep silence about him?’—and
when for such a man images and works, praises and thanks, or any-
thing else he could do have departed?"
The answer is that there is still one work that remains proper and
his own, and that is annihilation of self. Yet this annihilation and dim-
inution of the self, however great a work it may be, will remain un-
completed unless it is God who completes it in the self. Humility
becomes perfected only when God humbles man with man's cooper-
ation. When this happens, it is sufficient for the man and for the vir-
tue, and not until then.
A question: “How should God annihilate a man, even with his co-
operation? It would seem that man's annihilation would be his exalta-
tion by God, for the gospel says: ‘Whoever humbles himself will be ex-
alted' " (Mt. 23:12).
Answer: yes, and no! A man ought to humble himself, and even

280
 GERMAN WORKS

that cannot be enough if God does not do it; and he ought to be exalted.
Not that humbling is one thing and exaltation another; but rather the
most exalted exaltedness of exaltation lies in the very depths of humil-
ity. The deeper and lower the depth is, the higher and more immea-
surable the exaltation and the heights, and the deeper the fount, the
higher it springs; height and depth are the same. Therefore, the more
a man can humble himself, the higher he will be, and that is why our
Lord said: *Whoever wants to be the greatest, let him become the least
among you" (Mk. 9:34). Whoever wants to be the one must become the
other. Being this is learned only by becoming that. He who will be-
come the least will in truth be the greatest, but he who has become the
least is here and now the greatest of all. And so the words of the evan-
gelist become true and fulfilled: *Whoever humbles himself will be ex-
alted." For all our being consists in nothing but becoming nothing.
It is written: “You have become rich in all virtues" (1 Co. 1:5).
Truly that can never happen until first one has become poor in all
things. Whoever wants to receive everything must also renounce ev-
erything. That is a fair bargain and an equal return, as I said a while
ago. Therefore, because God wants to give us himself and all things as
our own free possessions, so he wants to deprive us, utterly and com-
pletely, of all possessiveness. Yes, truly, God in no way wants us to
possess even as much as I could hold in my eye. For none of the gifts
he ever gave us, neither gifts of nature nor gifts of grace, did he give
for any other reason than that he wishes us to have nothing that is our
own; and he never gave anything as their own to his mother or to any
man or to any creature in any way at all. And so that he may teach us
and make us aware of this, he often takes away from us both earthly
and spiritual possessions, for it should not be for us but for him alone
to possess them as honors. But we ought to have everything as if it
were loaned to us and not given, without any possessiveness, whether
it be our bodies or our souls, our minds, powers, worldly goods or hon-
ors, friends, kinsmen, houses, lands, all things.
What is God's intention in this which he considers so important?
Because he wants himself to be, solely and wholly, what we pos-
sess. This is what he wants, this is what he intends, this alone is im-
portant to him, that he may be and he must be this. In this consists his
greatest delight and pleasure; and the more fully and generously he
may be this, the greater is his delight and joy. For the more that we
possess all things, the less do we possess him, and the less the love we
have for all things, the more do we have him and all that he has to be-

281
 MEISTER ECKHART

stow. Therefore when our Lord wanted to speak about every form of
blessedness, he put poverty of spirit at the head of them all; and it was
put first as a sign that all blessedness and perfections together have
their beginning in poverty of spirit.28 And truly, wherever that was
the foundation, all good things could be built upon it, and without this
there would be nothing.
If we strip ourselves of everything that is external, in return God
wishes to give us as our own everything that is in heaven, and heaven
itself with all its powers, yes, everything that ever flowed out from him
and that all the angels and saints possess, that it may be our own as
much as it is theirs, and more our own than any external thing can be.
In return for my going out of myself for love of him, God will wholly
become my own, with all that he is and all that he can bestow, as much
my own as his own, neither less nor more. He will be my own a thou-
sandfold more than any man ever owned anything that he has in his
coffer, more than he ever owned himself. Nothing was ever owned so
much as God will be my own, with everything he can do and is.
We ought to earn the owning of this by living here without own-
ership of ourselves and of anything that is not God, and the more per-
fect and unimpeded this poverty is, so is our owning it more our own.
We ought not to intend or look for such a return as this, we ought nev-
er to give one glance at whether we are going to gain or receive any-
thing, but all should be for the love of virtue alone. The less we own,
the more it is our own, as the great Paul says: “Possessing, we should
be as if we possess nothing, and still we should possess all things"
(2 Co. 6:10). A man is free of possessiveness who covets nothing, who
wants to have nothing, not of himself, not of everything that is exter-
nal to him, yes, not even of God or of all things.
Do you want to know what a truly poor man is like?
That man is truly poor in spirit who can well forgo everything
that is not necessary. That is why the man who sat naked in the barrel
said to the great Alexander, who had all the world subject to him: “I
am," he said, “a far greater lord than you, for I have despised more
than you have possessed. All the things that you thought so great that
you wanted them were too little for me to despise."?? He is more
blessed who can forgo all things and has no need of them than is the
man who possessed everything and needed it. The best man is the one
who can forgo what he does not need. Therefore the man who can best
of all forgo and despise has forsaken most of all. We think it something
great that a man should for the love of God give a thousand gold marks

282
 GERMAN WORKS

and with his riches build convents and monasteries and feed all the
poor; that would be something great. But a man would be far more
blessed who for the love of God despised all this. A man would possess
a truly heavenly kingdom who knew how to renounce everything for
God, whatever God might or might not give him.
Then you say: "Yes, sir, but would not I, with my shortcomings,
be an occasion of possessiveness or a hindrance to true poverty?"39
If you have shortcomings, ask God earnestly to take them away,
if that be to his glory and pleasing to him, because without him you
can do nothing. If he takes them away, then thank him; and if he does
not do this, suffer it for his love, but not as a shortcoming through sin,
but rather as a good exercise through which you will gain reward and
exercise patience. You must be at peace, whether he gives you his gifts
or not.
God gives to every man according to what is best and most fitting
for him. If you are making a coat for someone, you must make it to his
measure; what fits one man will not fit another at all. You take every-
one's measure, and then it fits him. And so God gives to everyone the
very best that he sees to be closest to his needs. Truly, anyone who
trusts God completely in this accepts and receives as much from his
smallest gift as from the greatest of all. If God wanted to give me what
he gave Saint Paul, I should be glad to accept it, if that were his will.
But since he does not want to give me that—for there are very few peo-
ple whom he wishes to know so much in this life—he is as dear to me,
I pay him as much thanks and I am as much at peace because God does
not give it to me, that he withholds it from me, as if he were giving
it to me. I am as satisfied and well pleased with that as if he were to
give it to me, if either be acceptable to me.?! Truly, this is how God's
will ought to content me: Everything God might wish to do or to give
ought to be to me so dear and so precious, because it is so according
to his will, that for him not to give me the gift, not to do the thing,
would be as pleasing to me as if he did. So all God's gifts and all his
deeds would be mine, and let every created thing do its best, or its
worst, they could deprive me of nothing of this. So what do I have to
complain about if all men's gifts are mine? In truth, I am so well con-
tented with what God does or does not give to me and do for me that
I would not pay a copper penny for being able to live the finest life
I could think of.
Now you say: "I am afraid that I am not working as hard as I
ought at this and I am not keeping it up as I could."

283
 MEISTER ECKHART

Accept it as suffering, suffer it patiently, take it as an exercise, and

be at peace. God is glad to suffer shame and adversity and is happy to
forgo service and praise so that they who intend and obey him should
possess him in peace. Why should we not be at peace, whatever he may
give us or whatever we may lack? It is written and our Lord says that
“They are blessed who suffer for the sake of justice" (Mt. 5:10). Truly,
if there was a thief whom they were about to hang who deserved to
hang because he had stolen, and if there were another who had com-
mitted murder and whom justly they were going to break on the
wheel—if these two found it in themselves to say: *Look, what you
will suffer is for the sake of justice, for they are treating you justly,”
they would at once be blessed.??
In truth, however unjust we may be, if we accept from God what-
ever he may or may not do to us as justice, and suffer it for justice's
sake, then we shall be blessed. So do not complain about anything; all
you need to complain about is that you go on complaining and that
nothing satisfies you. All that you should complain about is that you
have too much. Anyone properly disposed would accept want as if it
were plenty.
Now you say: “Alas, God does such great things in lots of people,
and they become so transmuted in the divine life, and God does all this
in them and they do nothing."
Thank God for what he does in them, and if he gives this to you,
take it, for God's sake; and if he does not give it, then you ought will-
ingly to lack it, and intend nothing but him, and do not be upset,
whether God does your works for you or whether you perform them
yourself, because if you intend God alone, he must perform them,
whether he likeit or not.
Do not upset yourself, whatever form of life or devotion God may
give to anyone. If I were so good and holy that they had to raise me
to the altars with the saints, still people would be talking and worrying
about whether this were grace or nature working in me, and puzzling
themselves about it. They are all wrong in this. Leave God to work in
you, let him do it, and do not be upset over whether he is working with
nature or above nature; for nature and grace are both his. What has
that to do with you, what it suits him to work with, or what he may
work in you or in someone else? He must work how or where or in
what way it is fitting to him.
There was a man who would dearly have liked to make a stream
flow through his garden, and he said: “If the water could be mine, I

284
 GERMAN WORKS

should not care what sort of channel brought it to me, iron or timber,
bone or rusty metal, if only I could have the water." And so anyone
is quite wrong who worries about the means through which God is
working his works in you, whether it be nature or grace. Just let him
work, and just be at peace.
For as much as you are in God, so much are you at peace, and as
far as you are distant from God, so far are you from peace. Whatever
is in God, it has peace. As much in God, so much in peace. So see by
this how much you are in God, or if you are not, whether you are or
are not at peace; for if you are not at peace, there cannot then be peace
in you, for lack of peace comes from created things and not from God.
And there is nothing in God that is to be feared; everything that is in
God is only to be loved. And so there is nothing in him that is to be
mourned.
He who has all his will and his wish has all his joy; and no one
has this whose will is not wholly one with the will of God. May God
grant us this union. Amen.

D. On Detachment

I have read many writings both by the pagan teachers and by the
prophets and in the Old and the New Law, and I have inquired, care-
fully and most industriously, to find which is the greatest and best vir-
tue with which man can most completely and closely conform himself
to God, with which he can by grace become that which God is by na-
ture, and with which man can come most of all to resemble that image
which he was in God, and between which and God there was no dis-
tinction before ever God made created things. And as I scrutinize all
these writings, so far as my reason can lead and instruct me, I find no
other virtue better than a pure detachment from all things; because all
other virtues have some regard for created things, but detachment is
free from all created things. That is why our Lord said to Martha:
“One thing is necessary” (Lk. 10:42), which is as much as to say: “‘Mar-
tha, whoever wants to be free of care and to be pure must have one
thing, and that is detachment."
The teachers have great things to say in praise of love, as had Saint

285
 MEISTER ECKHART

Paul, who says: “Whatever I may practice, if I do not have love, I am

worth nothing at all" (1 Co. 13:12). And yet I praise detachment above
all love.! First, because the best thing about love is that it compels me
to love God, yet detachment compels God to love me. Now it is far
greater for me to compel God to come to me than to compel myself
to come to God; and that is because God is able to conform himself,
far better and with more suppleness, and to unite himself with me than
I could unite myself with God. And I prove that detachment compels
God to come to me in this way; it is because everything longs to
achieve its own natural place.? Now God's own natural place is unity
and purity,? and that comes from detachment. Therefore God must of
necessity give himself to a heart that has detachment. Second, I praise
detachment above love because love compels me to suffer all things for
God's love, yet detachment leads me to where I am receptive to noth-
ing except God. Now it is far greater to be receptive to nothing except
God than to suffer all things for God's love, for man when he suffers
has some regard for the created things from which he receives the suf-
fering, but detachment is wholly free of all created things. And that
detachment is receptive to nothing at all except God—that I prove in
this way: Whatever is to be received must be received by something;
but detachment is so close to nothingness that there is nothing so sub-
tle that it can be apprehended by detachment, except God alone. He
is so simple and so subtle that he can indeed be apprehended in a de-
tached heart. And so detachment can apprehend nothing except God.
The authorities also praise humility above many other virtues. But
I praise detachment above all humility, and that is because, although
there may be humility without detachment, there cannot be perfect de-
tachment withóut perfect humility, because perfect humility proceeds
from annihilation of self. Now detachment approaches so closely to
nothingness that there can be nothing between perfect detachment and
nothingness. Therefore perfect detachment cannot exist without hu-
mility. Now two virtues are always better than one. The second reason
why I praise detachment above humility is that perfect humility is al-
ways abasing itself below all created things, and in this abasement man
goes out of himself toward created things, but detachment remains
within itself. Now there can never be any going out of self so excellent
that remaining within self is not itself much more excellent. The
prophet David said of this: “All the glory of the king's daughter is from
her inwardness."^ Perfect detachment has no looking up to, no abase-

286
 GERMAN WORKS

ment, not beneath any created thing or above it; it wishes to be neither
beneath nor above, it wants to exist by itself, not giving joy or sorrow
to anyone, not wanting equality or inequality with any created thing,
not wishing for this or for that. All that it wants is to be. But to wish
to be this thing or that,> this it does not want. Whoever wants to be
this or that wants to be something, but detachment wants to be noth-
ing at all. So it is that detachment makes no claim upon anything.
Now a man could say: “All virtues were most perfectly present in
our Lady, so that she must have had perfect detachment." But if de-
tachment is more excellent than humility, why did our Lady single out
not her detachment but her humility when she said: “Because he has
regarded the humility of his handmaid" (Lk. 1:48)? Why did she not
say: "He has regarded the detachment of his handmaid?" To this I an-
swer and say that detachment and humility are in God, so far as we
can speak of virtues as present in God. Now you must know that it was
loving humility that brought God to abase himself into human nature;
yet when he became man, detachment remained immovable in itself as
it was when he created the kingdoms of heaven and earth, as afterward
I intend to say to you. And when our Lord, wishing to become man,
remained immovable in his detachment, our Lady knew well that this
was what he desired also from her, and that on that account it was to
her humility that he was looking, not to her detachment. So she re-
mained immovable in her detachment, and praised in herself not de-
tachment but humility. And if she had by so much as a word
mentioned her detachment, and had said: *He has regarded my detach-
ment," detachment would have been troubled by that, and would not
have remained wholly perfect, for there would then have been a going
out. There can be no going out, however small, in which detachment
can remain unblemished. And so you have the reason why our Lady
singled out her humility and not her detachment. The prophet spoke
about that: “I shall hear what the Lord God will say in me" (Ps. 84:9),
that is, I shall be silent and hear what my God and my Lord may say
in me, as if he were to say: “If God wishes to speak to me, let him come
in here to me; I do not want to go out."
I also praise detachment above all mercifulness, because merciful-
ness is nothing else than man's going out of himself to the shortcom-
ings of his fellow men, and through this his heart becomes troubled.
But detachment remains free of this, and remains in itself, and allows
nothing to trouble it, for nothing can ever trouble a man unless things

287
 MEISTER ECKHART

are not well with him. In a few words, if I regard all virtues, I find
not one so much without shortcomings and so leading us to God as de-
tachment.
An authority called Avicenna says: “The excellence of the spirit
which has achieved detachment is so great that whatever it contem-
plates is true, and whatever it desires is granted, and whatever it com-
mands one must obey."6 And you should know that this is really so;
when the free spirit has attained true detachment, it compels God to
its being; and if the spirit could attain formlessness, and be without all
accidents, it would take on God's properties. But this God can give to
no one but to himself; therefore God cannot do more for the spirit that
has attained detachment than to give himself to it. And the man who
has attained this complete detachment is so carried into eternity that
no transient thing can move him, so that he experiences nothing of
whatever is bodily, and he calls the world dead, because nothing earth-
ly has any savor for him. This is what Saint Paul meant when he said:
“I live, and yet I do not; Christ lives in me” (Ga. 2:20).
Now you may ask what detachment is since it is in itself so excel- ©
lent. Here you should know that true detachment is nothing else than
for the spirit to stand as immovable against whatever may chance to
it of joy and sorrow, honor, shame and disgrace, as a mountain of lead
stands before a little breath of wind. This immovable detachment
brings a man into the greatest equality with God, because God has it
from his immovable detachment that he is God, and it is from his de-
tachment that he has his purity and his simplicity and his unchange-
ability. And if man is to become equal with God, insofar as a creature
can have equality with God, that must happen through detachment. It
then draws a màn into purity, and from purity into simplicity, and
from simplicity into unchangeability, and these things produce an
equality between God and the man; and the equality must come about
in grace, for it is grace that draws a man away from all temporal
things, and makes him pure of all transient things. And you must
know that to be empty of all created things is to be full of God, and
to be full of created things is to be empty of God.
Now you must know that God has been in this immovable detach-
ment since before the world began, and he still remains so; and you
must know that when God created heaven and earth and all created
things, that affected his immovable detachment as little as if no crea-
ture had ever been made. And I say more: All the prayers and good
works that man can accomplish in time move God's detachment as lit-

288
 GERMAN WORKS

tle as if no single prayer or good work were ever performed in time,

and yet for this God is never any less gentle or less inclined toward
man than if he had never achieved prayer or good works. And I say
more: When the Son in his divinity wished to become man, and be-
came man, and suffered his passion, that affected God's immovable de-
tachment as little as if the Son had never become man. Now you may
say: “If I hear rightly, all prayers and good works are wasted, because
God does not accept them in such a way that anyone could move him
through them; and yet people say that God wants to be asked for ev-
erything." But here you must pay me good attention, and understand
properly, if you can, that God, in his first everlasting glance—if we can
think of his first glancing at anything—saw all things as they were to
happen, and in that same glance he saw when and how he would make
all created things, and when the Son would become man and would
suffer. He also saw the smallest prayer and good work that anyone
would ever perform, and he took into his regard which prayers and de-
votion he would or should give ear to. He saw what you will earnestly
pray and entreat him for tomorrow; and it will not be tomorrow that
he will give ear to your entreaty and prayer, because he has heard it
in his everlastingness, before ever you became man. But if your prayer
is not insistent and lacks earnestness, it will not be now that God re-
fuses you, because he has refused you in his everlastingness. And so
God has looked upon all things in his first everlasting glance, and God
does not undertake anything whatever afresh, because everything is
something already accomplished. And so God always remains in his
immovable detachment, and yet men's prayers and good works are not
on this account wasted; for whoever does well will also be well reward-
ed, whoever does evil will be rewarded accordingly. This is the mean-
ing of what Saint Augustine says in the fifth book of On the Trinity,
in the last chapter, where he begins: “Yet God ...7 which has this
sense:

God forbid that anyone should say that God loves anyone in
time, because with him nothing is past, and nothing is to
come, and he had loved all the saints before ever the world
was created, when he foresaw that they would be. And when
it comes to pass in time that he in time regards what he has
looked upon in eternity, then people think that God has
turned to them with a new love; yet it is so that whether God
be angry or confer some blessing, it is we who are changed,

289
 MEISTER ECKHART

and he remains unchangeable, as the light of the sun is painful

to sick eyes and good for healthy ones, and yet the light of the
sun remains in itself unchangeable.

And he touches on the same meaning in the twelfth book of On the

Trinity, in the fourth chapter, where he says: God does not see in tem-
poral fashion, and nothing new happens in his sight."? Isidore also
means this, in his book about the highest good where he says: "Many
people ask what God did before he created heaven and earth, or when
did the new will in God, to make created things, come about?"? He an-
swers this so: “No new will ever came about in God, because when it
was so that the creature was in itself nothing"—of what it now is—
“still it was before the world began, in God and in his mind." God did
not create heaven and earth in the temporal fashion in which we de-
scribe it—‘‘Let there be!"—because all created things were spoken in
the everlasting Word. We must also deduce this from the Lord's col-
loquy with Moses, when Moses said to the Lord: “Lord, if Pharaoh asks -
me who you are, what shall I say to him?" and the Lord said: “Say, ‘He
who is has sent me’ ” (Ex. 3:10-14), which is as much as to say: He who
is in himself unchangeable, he has sent me.
Now someone might say: “Did Christ have immovable detach-
ment, even when he said: 'My soul is sorrowful even to death' (Mt.
26:38), and did Mary, when she stood beneath the cross—and people
tell us much about her lamentations. How can all this be reconciled
with immovable detachment?" Here you must know that the authori-
ties say that in every man there are two kinds of man: One is called
the outer man, which is our sensuality, with the five senses serving
him, and yet the outer man works through the power of the soul. The
second man is called the inner man, which is the man's inwardness.
Now you should know that a spiritual man who loves God makes no
use in his outer man of the soul's powers except when the five senses
require it; and his inwardness pays no heed to the five senses, except
as this leads and guides them, and protects them, so that they are not
employed for beastly purposes, as they are by some people who live for
their carnal delight, as beasts lacking reason do. Such people deserve
to be called beasts rather than men. And whatever power the soul pos-
sesses, beyond that which it gives to the five senses, it gives wholly to
the inner man, and if he has a high and noble object, the soul draws
to itself all its powers it had loaned to the five senses. Then the man
is called senseless and rapt, for his object is an image which the reason

290
 GERMAN WORKS

can apprehend, or, it may be, something reasonable which has no im-
age. Yet know that God requires every spiritual man to love him with
all the powers of his soul. Of this he said: “Love your God with your
whole heart" (Dt. 6:5, etc.). But there are people who squander all the
soul's powers on the outer man. They are those who apply all their in-
telligence and reason to perishable goods, and who know nothing
about the inner man. Now you must know that the outer man may be
active whilst the inner man remains wholly free and immovable. In
Christ, too, there was an outer man and an inner man, and also in Our
Lady; and whatever Christ and Our Lady may have said about outward
affairs, they acted according to the outer man, and the inner man re-
mained in an immovable detachment. And Christ spoke in this sense
when he said: “My soul is sorrowful even to death"; and however
much Our Lady lamented, and whatever else she may have said, still
always her inwardness remained in an immovable detachment. Consid-
er a simile of this: A door, opening and shutting on a hinge. I compare
the planks on the outside of the door with the outer man, but the hinge
with the inner man. As the door opens and shuts, the outside planks
move backwards and forwards, but the hinge remains immovable in
one place, and the opening and shutting does not affect it. It is just the
same here, if you can understand it rightly.
And now I ask, what is the object of this pure detachment? My an-
swer is that neither this nor that is the object of pure detachment. It
reposes in a naked nothingness, and I shall tell you why that is: Pure
detachment reposes in the highest place. If a man has repose in the
highest place, God can work in him according to his whole will. But
God cannot work according to his whole will in every man's heart, for
though it may be that God is omnipotent, still he cannot work except
where he finds or creates a willing cooperation. And I say “or creates"
because of Saint Paul, for in him God did not find willing cooperation,
but he made Paul willing by the inpouring of grace.!? So I say: God
works according as he finds willingness. He works in one way in men,
and another in stones. We can find an analogy of this in nature: If
someone heats a baker's oven, and puts in one loaf of oats and another
of barley and another of rye and another of wheat, there is only one
temperature in the oven, but it does not have the same effect upon the
different doughs, because one turns into fine bread, another is coarse
and a third even coarser. And that is not the fault of the temperature
but of the materials, which are not the same. In the same way, God
does not work alike in every man's heart; he works as he finds willing-

291
 MEISTER ECKHART

ness and receptivity.!! There may be one thing or another in some

heart, on which one thing or another God cannot work to bring it up
to the highest place. And if the heart is to be willing for that highest
place, it must repose in a naked nothingness; and in this there is the
greatest potentiality that can be. And when the heart that has detach-
ment attains to the highest place, that must be nothingness, for in this
is the greatest receptivity. See an analogy of this in nature. If I want
to write on a wax tablet, it does not matter how fine the words may
be that are written on the tablet, they still hinder me from writing on
it. If I really want to write something, I must erase and eliminate ev-
erything that is already there; and the tablet is never so good for me
to write on as when there is nothing on it at all. In the same way, if
God is to write on my heart up in the highest place, everything that
can be called this or that must come out of my heart, and in that way
my heart will have won detachment. And so God can work upon it in
the highest place and according to his highest will. And this is why the
heart in its detachment has no this or that as its object.
But now I ask: “What is the prayer of a heart that has detach-
ment?" And to answer it I say that purity in detachment does not
know how to pray, because if someone prays he asks God to get some-
thing for him, or he asks God to take something away from him. But
a heart in detachment asks for nothing, nor has it anything of which
it would gladly be free. So it is free of all prayer, and its prayer is noth-
ing else than for uniformity with God.!? That is all its prayer consists
in. To illustrate this meaning we may consider what Saint Dionysius
said about Saint Paul's words, when he said: “There are many of you
racing for the crown, but it will be given only to one" (1 Co. 9:24). All
the powers of the soul are racing for the crown, but it will be given
only to the soul's being—and Dionysius says: ‘The race is nothing but
a turning away from all created things and a uniting oneself with that
which is uncreated."!? And as the soul attains this, it loses its name and
it draws God into itself, so that in itself it becomes nothing, as the sun
draws up the red dawn into itself so that it becomes nothing. Nothing
else will bring man to this except pure detachment. And we can also
apply to this what Augustine says: ‘The soul has a secret entry into
the divine nature when all things become nothing to it."!^ This entry
here on this earth is nothing else than pure detachment. And when this
detachment ascends to the highest place, it knows nothing of knowing,
it loves nothing of loving, and from light it becomes dark. To this we
can also apply what one teacher says: “The poor in spirit are those who

292
 GERMAN WORKS

have abandoned all things for God, just as they were his when we did
not exist."!? No one can do this but a heart with pure detachment. We
can see that God would rather be in a heart with such detachment than
in all hearts. For if you ask me: “What is it God seeks in all things?"
then I answer you out of the Book of Wisdom, where he says: “In all
things I seek rest" (Si. 14:11). Nowhere is there complete rest, except
only in the heart that has found detachment. Hence God would rather
be there than in other virtues or in any other things. And you should
also know that the more a man applies himself to becoming susceptible
to the divine inflowing, the more blessed will he be; and whoever can
establish himself in the highest readiness, he will also be in the highest
blessedness. Now no one can make himself susceptible to the divine in-
flowing except through uniformity with God, for as each man becomes
uniform with God, to that measure he becomes susceptible to the di-
vine inflowing. And uniformity comes from man's subjecting himself
to God; and the more a man subjects himself to created things, the less
is he uniform with God. Now a heart that has pure detachment is free
of all created things, and so it is wholly submitted to God, and so it
achieves the highest uniformity with God, and is most susceptible to
the divine inflowing. This is what Saint Paul means when he said:
"Put on Jesus Christ" (Rm. 13:14). He means through uniformity with
Christ, and this putting-on cannot happen except through uniformity
with Christ. And you must know that when Christ became man, it was
not just a human being he put on himself; he put on human nature.!®
Therefore, do you too go out of all things, and then there will be only
what Christ accepted and put on, and so you will have put on Christ.
Whoever now wishes to see properly what is the excellence and
the profit of perfect detachment, let him take good heed of Christ's
words, when he spoke about his human nature and said to his disciples:
“It is expedient for you that I go from you, for if I do not go, the Holy
Spirit cannot come to you” (Jn. 16:7). This is just as if he were to say:
“You have taken too much delight in my present image, so that the per-
fect delight of the Holy Spirit cannot be yours. So detach yourselves
from the image, and unite yourselves to the formless being, for God’s
spiritual consolation is delicate; therefore he will not offer it to anyone
except to him who disdains bodily consolations.”
Now, all you reasonable people, take heed! No one is happier than
a man who has attained the greatest detachment. No one can accept
fleshly and bodily consolations without spiritual damage, “because the
flesh longs in opposition to the spirit and the spirit to the flesh” (Ga.

293
 MEISTER ECKHART

5:17). Therefore whoever sows in the flesh inordinate love will reap ev-
erlasting death, and whoever in the spirit sows a well-ordered love will
from the spirit reap everlasting life (Ga. 6:8). So it is that the sooner
a man shuns what is created, the sooner will the creator come to him.
So take heed, all you reasonable people! Since the delight we might
have in Christ's bodily image deprives us of receptivity for the Holy
Spirit, how much more shall we be deprived of God by the ill-ordered
delight that we take in transient consolations! So detachment is the
best of all, for it purifies the soul and cleanses the conscience and en-
kindles the heart and awakens the spirit and stimulates our longings
and shows us where God is and separates us from created things and
unites itself with God.
Now, all you reasonable people, take heed! The fastest beast that
will carry you to your perfection is suffering, for no one will enjoy
more eternal sweetness than those who endure with Christ in the
greatest bitterness. There is nothing more gall-bitter than suffering, |
and nothing more honey-sweet than to have suffered; nothing disfig-
ures the body more than suffering, and nothing more adorns the soul
in the sight of God than to have suffered. The firmest foundation on
which this perfection can stand is humility, for whichever mortal
crawls here in the deepest abasement, his spirit will fly up into the
highest realms of the divinity, for love brings sorrow, and sorrow
brings love. And therefore, whoever longs to attain to perfect detach-
ment, let him struggle for perfect humility, and so he will come close
to the divinity.
That we may all be brought to this, may that supreme detachment
help us which is God himself. Amen.

294
NOTES

PREFACE

1. The Transformation of Nature in Art (Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 1934), p. 61.
2. Claude Levi-Strauss, Mytb and Meaning (New York: Schocken Books,
1979), p. 14.
3. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Grove Press, 1964), p. 205.

INTRODUCTION: 1. HISTORICAL DATA

1. See Sermon 9 (DW I, pp. 152-54).

2. For bibliographies of discussions of Eckhart’s biographical data, see
Thomas Kaeppeli, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum medii aevi (Rome, 1970) I, p.
354 sqq.; Josef Koch, Kleine Schriften (2 vols., Rome, 1973); R. M. Kully, “Eck-
hart," in W. Kosch and B. Berger, ed., Deutsche Literatur-Lexikon 3 (Berlin-Mu-
nich, 1972), pp. 872-87; Kurt Ruh, “Meister Eckhart" (Verfasserlexikon).
Edmund Colledge is much indebted to Professor Ruh for an advance view of
proofs of his article.
3. Koch, "Kritische Studien zum Leben Meister Eckharts,” in Kleine
Schriften, vol. 2, p. 249.
4. D. Prümmer, ed., Fontes vitae S. Thomae (Toulouse, 1912), no. LXXXII.
5. Koch, "Kritische Studien," pp. 245-47.
6. See below, p. 86.
7-«9ee- Defense; p.72.
8. Adolar Zumkeller, *Ein Zeitgenosse Eckharts zu Fehlentwicklung in
der damaligen mystischen Bewegung: kritische Bemerkungen in neuentdeck-
ten mystischen Traktaten Heinrichs von Friemar des Älteren O.S.A.," Würz-
burger Diözesangeschichtsblätter 37/38, Kirche und Theologie in Franken (Würzburg,
1975), pp. 229-38. Edmund Colledge is indebted to Fr. Adolar Zumkeller for
drawing his attention to this important article.

795
 NOTES

9. See Edmund Colledge, “Liberty of the Spirit: The Mirror of Simple

Souls,” in L. K. Shook, ed., Congress on the Theology of Renewal in the Church
(Montreal, 1968), 2, pp. 100-17; and Edmund Colledge and Romana Guarnieri,
“The Glosses by ‘M.N.’ and Richard Methley to The Mirror of Simple Souls,”
Archivio Italiano per la Storia della Pietà 5 (1968): 357-82.
10. P. Glorieux, Répertoire des maitres en théologie de Paris au xiii€ siecle (Par-
is, 1933), I, no. 65.
11. The best study of the manifestations and origins of such movements
remains that of Herbert Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter, 2nd
ed. (Darmstadt, 1970); and an excellent recent survey will be found in Robert
E. Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1972).
See also Edmund Colledge and J. C. Marler, "Tractatus Magistri Jobannis Gerson
De Mistica Theologia: St. Pölten, Diózesanarchiv MS. 25," Mediaeval Studies 41
(1979): 354-86.
12. See Edmund Colledge, “Meister Eckhart: His Times and His Writ-
ings," The Thomist 42 (1978): 240-41.
13. Ibid., quoting from Koch, Kleine Schriften, p. 202.
14. Translated with an introduction in A. Maurer, Meister Eckbart, Pari-
stan Questions and Prologues (Toronto, 1974).
15. G. Thery, "Édition critique des piéces relatives au procés d'Eckhart
contenues dans la manuscrit 33b de la Bibliothéque de Soest,” Archives d histoire
doctrinale et littéraire du moyen age | (1926): 129-268.
16. F. Pelster, *Ein Gutachten aus dem Eckehart-Prozess in Avignon,”
Festschrift Martin Grabmann (Münster, 1935), pp. 1099-1124.
17. M.-H. Laurent, “Autour du procés de Maitre Eckhart: les documents
des Archives Vaticanes," Divus Thomas 39 (1936): 331-48, 430-47.
18. See J. Koch's important essay, “Philosophische und theologische Irr-
tumslisten von 1270-1329," reprinted from Melanges Mandonnet 2 (1930) in
Kleine Schriften 2, pp. 423—50.
19. Described in greater detail in Colledge, "Meister Eckhart: His Times
and His Writings," pp. 245-48.
20. Information on this was generously supplied by Damasus Trapp,
O.S.A., who is preparing for publication an edition of the Ten Responses.
21. The Bull is edited in Denzinger-Schónmetzer, Enchiridion symbolorum,
nos. 950-80.
22. Koch's chief contribution on this matter is the paper he read to a
Strassburg conference, “Meister Eckharts Weiterwirken im deutsch-niederlän-
dischen Raum im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert,” published in La mystique rhénane
(Paris, 1968), pp. 133-56.
23. Denzinger-Schónmetzer, no. 979. See below, p. 80.
24. Koch, “Weiterwirken,” p. 135.
25. "Die Gottesgeburt: die Lehre der Kirchenvater von der Geburt Chris-
ti aus dem Herzen der Kirche und der Glaubigen,” Zeitschrift für katholische

296
 NOTES

Theologie 59 (1935): 333-418; reprinted in his Symbole der Kirche (Salzburg, 1964),
pp. 13-87.
26. Denzinger-Schónmetzer, no. 964. See below, p. 79.
27. See below, pp. 216-17.
28. See below, p. 261.
29. Colledge, “Meister Eckhart: His Times and His Writings," pp. 251-52.
30. Denzinger-Schónmetzer, no. 980. See below, p. 81.
31. F. Vetter, ed., Die Predigten Taulers (Berlin, 1910), p. 69.
32. "Weiterwirken," p. 142 sqq.
33. See Colledge, "Meister Eckhart: His Times and His Writings," p. 254,
n. 45. This character is usually called in English “the Wild Man.” Romana
Guarnieri pointed out that it is a "Thing," not only nameless but sexless, as
she doubtless observed from Josef Koch's commentaries.
34. On this passage in The Little Book of Truth, see Karl Bihlmeyer, Hein-
rich Seuse: Deutsche Schriften (Stuttgart, 1907, repr. Frankfurt, 1961), pp. 352-57;
Koch, “Weiterwirken,” pp. 142-43; Colledge, “Meister Eckhart: His Times and
His Writings,” pp. 253-54.
35. Denzinger-Schonmetzer, no. 963; see below, p. 79.
36. Bihlmeyer, Deutsche Schriften, p. 355.
37. F. Pelster, “Ein Gutachten,” p. 1120.
38. This translation of Sermon 5a will appear in a subsequent volume; see
in this volume Sermon 5b, p. 182.
39. Bihlmeyer, Deutsche Schriften, p. 356.
40. Bihlmeyer, Deutsche Schriften, p. 22, n. 28.
41. Kaepelli, Scriptores I, pp. 358-60.
42. Bihlmeyer, Deutsche Schriften, "Introduction," pp. 132-34.
43. MHG: selig, which, as in modern German, need mean no more than
"departed."
44. MHG: blos vergotet.
45 "That is, Suso himself.
46. Bihlmeyer, Deutsche Schriften, pp. 22-23.
47. B. M. Reichert, ed., Acta capitulorum generalium ordinis praedicatorum 2
(Monumenta ordinis fratrum praedicatorum historica 4, 1889), p. 258.
48. De viribus illustribus ordinis praedicatorum (Bologna, 1517).
49. Quétif-Echard: Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum (Paris, 1719-1721), I, p.
593.
. 50. Koch, “Weiterwirken,” p. 139; and see Colledge, “Meister Eckhart:
His Times and His Writings," pp. 255-56.
51. Koch, “Weiterwirken,” pp. 13940.
52. See M. G. Sargent, “The Transmission by the English Carthusians of
Some Late Medieval Spiritual Writings," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27
(1976): 225-40.
53. Koch, “Weiterwirken,” pp. 137-38.

297
 NOTES

54. Colledge, “Meister Eckhart: His Times and His Writings," p. 256,
where the sources for this are quoted. Reprinted with the kind permission of
the editor, The Thomist.
55. Bibliotheca dominicana neerlandica manuscripta 1224-1500 (Louvain,
1970).
56. Albert Ampe, ed., Den Tempel onser Sielen (Antwerp, 1968).
57. Ibid., pp. 300-301.
58. See below, p. 202.
59. Edmund Colledge and J. C. Marler hope soon to publish their account
of Beati pauperes spiritu, of Eckhart’s sources for his doctrine of “poverty of the
will,” and of Ruysbroek’s trenchant criticism of the doctrine in The Twelve Be-
guines.

INTRODUCTION: 2. THEOLOGICAL SUMMARY

1. For a general introduction to the relation between thought and style in

Eckhart, see J. Quint, "Mystik und Sprache: Ihr Verhaltnis zueinander, insbe-
sondere in der spekulativen Mystik Meister Eckeharts," in Altdeutsche und alt-
niederländische Mystik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964),
pp. 113-51. In English, see F. Tobin, *Eckhart's Mystical Use of Language:
The Contexts of eigenschaft,” Seminar 8 (1972): 160-68.
2. J. Quint, Meister Eckehart. Deutsche Predigten und Traktate (Munich: Carl
Hanser, 1955), pp. 22-23.
3. For the history of the interpretations of Eckhart, both old and new, see
I. Degenhardt, Studien zum Wandel des Eckbartbildes (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967);
and T. Schaller, “Die Meister Eckhart-Forschung von der Jahrhundertwende
bis zur Gegenwart," Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 15 (1968):
262-316, 403-26; and "Zur Eckhart-Deutung der letzten 30 Jahre," Freiburger
Zeitschrift 16 (1969): 22-39.
4. 'The Work of Propositions was to consist of a thousand or more propo-
sitions divided into fourteen treatises. Only a brief account of the first prop-
osition (Existence is God") survives in the General Prologue to the Three-Part
Work and in the Prologue to the Work of Propositions itself. See LW I, pp. 148-
84; and the translation by A. Maurer, Parisian Questions and Prologues (Toronto:
Pontifical Institute, 1974), pp. 78-104.
5. J. Koch, “Sinn und Struktur der Schriftauslegungen," in Meister Eckhart
der Prediger (Freiburg: Herder, 1960), pp. 73-103.
6. In this connection we might advert to the special role of *communica-
tions" as one of the functional specialties of theology in B. Lonergan's Method
in Theology (New York: Longmans, 1972), pp. 355-68.
7. E.g., the birth of the Son in the soul; see below pp. 50-52.

298
 NOTES

8. E.g., the key notion of the negation of negation appears explicitly only
in Sermon 21 (DW I, pp. 361-62).
9, S Tb la.1.1.
10. E.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 6, 23, 36, 96 (pp. 124, 129, 134, 158). Such intermin-
gling occurs throughout the work, e.g., nn. 137, 142, 444 and 509 (LW III, pp.
110, 119-20, 380, and 441). See also the natural arguments for the Trinity in
n. 160 (LW III, p. 132).
11. See Sermon XL.2 (LW IV, p. 343).
12. C. F. Kelley, in his Meister Eckbart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1977), argues that Eckhart is a “pure metaphysician"
(e.g., pp. 106-10), though it is difficult to understand exactly what Kelley
means by this.
13. As noted by H. Fischer in “Die theologische Arbeitsweise Meister
Eckharts in den lateinischen Werken," Miscellanea Mediaevalia 7. Methoden in
Wissenschaft und Kunst des Mittelalters (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1970), pp. 68-69.
14. Comm. Jn. n. 185 (LW III, pp. 154-55).
15. Comm. Jn. nn. 96 and 124-25 (pp. 158, 171).
16. On Christ as the Truth, see Par. Gen. nn. 2-3 (pp. 94-95), and Comm.
Jn. n. 109 (pp. 163-64). That truth and science pertain to the supernatural
realm and only the likeness of truth to the natural is found in Comm. Wis. n.
274 (LW II, p. 604).
17. E.g., Sermon 15 (pp. 191-92). See also Sermon 9 (DW I, p. 152).
18. Comm. Jn. n. 361 (LW III, p. 307). On the relation between knowledge
by faith and knowledge by science, see Comm. Jn. n. 405 (LW III, pp. 343-44).
19. Comm. Jn. n. 2 (p. 123). See also nn. 3, 13, and 36-37 (pp. 123, 126,
134-35).
20. K. Weiss, "Meister Eckharts Biblische Hermeneutik,” in La mystique
rbénane (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1963), pp. 107-08, has speculated that
Eckhart consciously abandoned work on the other two parts of the Three-Part
Work to concentrate on the Work of Expositions, but this cannot be proven.
21. Sermon 51 (DW II, pp. 465-66). The image is a patristic one, the lambs
being humble souls, the cows crude souls, and the elephants clever ones.
22. Par. Gen. nn. 1-6 (pp. 92-95). On Eckhart's exegesis, besides the works
of Weiss and Koch (see notes 5 and 20), see E. Winkler, Exegetische Methoden bei
Meister Eckhart (Tübingen: Mohr, 1965).
23. On Maimonides’ influence on Eckhart, see J. Koch, “Meister Eckhart
und die jüdische Religionsphilosophie des Mittelalters," Jahresbericht der Schle-
sischen Gesellschaft für vaterländische Kultur 1928 101 (1929): 134-48.
24. See Weiss, pp. 96-104; and Winkler, pp. 51-54.
25. E.g., Par. Gen. n. 1 (p. 92). See also Comm. Jn. n. 3 (p. 123).
26. The division of science into theological, natural, and moral truth ap-
pears to be a mixture of the Aristotelian division of speculative philosophy into

299
 NOTES

physics, mathematics, and theology (Mer. 6.1), and the traditional Platonic-Sto-
ic division of physics, logic, and ethics found in Augustine, among others (e.g.,
City of God 8.4.6-8).
27. Comm. Ex. n. 211 (LW II, p. 178).
28. Par. Gen. n. 2 (p. 93).
29. Par. Gen. nn. 135-36 (p. 108). For the attack, see G. Théry, “Edition
critique des pieces relatives au procés d’Eckhart,” Archives d histoire littéraire et
doctrinal du moyen age 1 (1926): 170, 193. (Hereafter referred to as Théry.)
30. Par. Gen. nn. 4-6 (p. 105).
31. Sermon 53 (p. 203). For a presentation of Eckhart’s mysticism based on
this sermon, see R. Schürmann, “The Loss of Origin in Soto Zen and in Meis-
ter Eckhart," The Thomist 42 (1978): 281-312.
32. Sermon 52 (p. 203).
33. Sermon 15 (pp. 189-92).
34. Sermon 22 (p. 196).
35. Sermon 53 (pp. 204, 205). In the treatises, see Bened. 2 (p. 245).
36. LW IV, p. 237.
37. Sermon LVI (LW IV, p. 466).
38. On bullitio/ebullitio, see below pp. 37-41.
39. Eckhart cites Augustine's reflection on the paradox of speaking about
the ineffable God (Christ. Doct. 1.6) in several places, e.g., Sermon 53 (p. 204).
40. E.g., Sermons 15, 22, 53 and 83 (pp. 192, 196, 204—05, 206—08).
41. “That God is neither good, nor better, nor best; hence I speak as in-
correctly when I call God good as if I were to call white black" (p. 80). The
Bull places the article in the category of statements only doubtfully ascribed
to Eckhart, but both at Cologne and at Avignon the Meister accepted this text
as his own—it comes from Sermon 9 (DW I, p. 148)—and defended it as a le-
gitimate expression of negative theology. See also Sermon 83 (p. 207).
42. LW I, pp. 166-82 (trans. in Maurer, pp. 93-104). On Eckhart’s doctrine
of esse, see K. Albert, Meister Eckbarts These vom Sein (Saarbrücken: Universitats-
und Schulbuchverlag, 1976).
43. LW V, pp. 37-48 (trans. in Maurer, pp. 43-50). On this text, see R. Im-
bach, Deus est Intelligere. Studia Friburgensia, N.F. 53 (Freiburg, Switzerland:
Universitätsverlag, 1976); and in English, J. Caputo, ““The Nothingness of the
Intellect in Meister Eckhart’s ‘Parisian Questions,’ " The Thomist 39 (1975): 85-
115.
44. God is esse simpliciter or luter wesen: e.g., Comm. Jn. n. 60 (p. 143), Sermon
IV.1 (LW IV, pp. 24-25), and throughout the Comm. Ex.; as well as in such Ger-
man works as Sermon 39 (DW III, p. 266), Bened. 1 (p. 220), and Detach. (p. 293).
God is above esse in some way: e.g., Sermons XL2 and XXIX (LW IV, pp. 112
and 270); and Sermons 52 and 83 (pp. 201, 206) and Detacb. (p. 291).
45. Among the texts given here, see Comm. Gen. n. 11 (p. 86), Comm. ye

300
 NOTES

n. 34 (p. 133). On the characteristics of intelligere in Eckhart, see Imbach, Deus

est Intelligere pp. 173-80.
46. See B. McGinn, “The God beyond God: Theology and Mysticism in
the Thought of Meister Eckhart,” Journal of Religion 61 (1981): 1-19. I do not
see my conclusions as fundamentally different from those of the most detailed
and insightful study of Eckhart’s negative theology, V. Lossky’s Théologie nég-
ative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maitre Eckhart (Paris: Vrin, 1960).
47. On Eckhart’s doctrine of analogy, see especially J. Koch, “Zur Analo-
gielehre Meister Eckharts,” Mélanges offerts a Etienne Gilson (Paris: Vrin, 1959),
pp. 327-50; and F. Brunner, "L'analogie chez Maitre Eckhart," Freiburger
Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 16 (1969): 333-49.
48. Sermons and Lectures n. 53 (LW II, p. 282).
49. Art. 26 taken from Sermon 4 (DW I, pp. 69-70), an extract condemned
as suspect of heresy. See Eckhart's defense of this position, both at Cologne
(Théry, pp. 247-48) and at Avignon, in F. Pelster, *Ein Gutachten aus dem
Eckehart-Prozess in Avignon," Aus der Geisteswelt des Mittelalters. Festgabe Mar-
tin Grabmann (Beitrage Supplement III. Münster, 1935), pp. 1112-113. (Hereaf-
ter referred to as Pelster.)
50. Sermon 6 (p. 187). For a similar text in the Latin works, see Comm. Jn.
n. 96 (pp. 158-59).
51. Théry, p. 193. For an interpretation of the meaning of this distinction
in Eckhart, see B. Muller-Thym, The Establishment of the University of Being in
the Doctrine of Meister Eckhart of Hochheim (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1939),
pp. 84-88, 110-13.
52. Par. Quest. q. 1 n. 8 (LW V, p. 45; trans. of Maurer, p. 48).
53. Of the previous studies of Eckhart's dialectic I would note especially
Lossky's book and the article of M. de Gandillac, “La ‘dialectique’ du Maitre
Eckhart," in La mystique rbénane, pp. 59—94.
54. Comm. Wis. nn. 144-57 (LW II, pp. 481-94). The two other major dia-
lectical texts are to be found in Comm. Ex. nn. 110-26 (LW II, pp. 109-17), and
Sermons and Lectures on Ecclesiasticus nn. 42-61 (LW II, pp. 270-90).
55. The dialectic of distinction/indistinction has been studied by Lossky,
Théologie negative, pp. 254-75. In English, there is a discussion in K. Kertz,
*Meister Eckhart's Teaching on the Birth of the Divine Word in the Soul,"
Traditio 15 (1959): 342, n. 53, and 351-53. Kertz's stress on seeing "not-separate"
as one of the crucial components in the meaning of indistinct is well taken, but
he misses the dialectical character of the term.
56. Comm. Wis. n. 144 (LW II, p. 482).
57. Comm. Wis. n. 147 (LW II, p. 485).
58. Comm. Wis. n. 148 (LW II, p. 486).
59. Among the texts given here, see Comm. Jn. n. 99 (p. 160) on the divine
indistinction. On God as Absolute Unity, see, e.g., Comm. Gen. nn. 12, 26 (pp.

301
 NOTES

87, 91); Par. Gen. nn. 13-15 (pp. 96-99); Sermons 2, 15, and 83 (pp. 180-81, 191,
206, 208); as well as Bened. 1 (pp. 221-23, 227, 230).
60. See note 8 above. Although Aquinas had spoken of unum as the nega-
tion of negation, Eckhart was probably more influenced by the Commentary on
tbe Parmenides of Proclus, available to him in William of Moerbeke's transla-
tion. On this comparison, see W. Beierwaltes, Proklos. Grundzüge seiner Meta-
physik (Frankfort: Klostermann, 1965), pp. 395-98.
61. E.g., Sermon XXIX (LW IV, pp. 263-70), and Comm. Jn. n. 34 (p. 133)
and Comm. Gen. n. 11 (p. 86). On the relation of unum and intelligere, see Im-
bach, Deus est Intelligere, pp. 188-94.
62. Comm. Jn. nn. 511-13 (LW III, pp. 442-45). It is important to note,
however, that an earlier text, commenting on Jn. 3:34, identified unum with the
divine substance, and ens, verum, and bonum with the three divine Persons (LW
III, pp. 304—06).
63. Comm. Jn. n. 562 (LW III, p. 489).
64. On the coincidence of opposing predicates in God, see Sermon XVIII
(LW IV, p. 171).
65. I have investigated this in my article “The God beyond God: Theol-
ogy and Mysticism in the Thought of Meister Eckhart," especially pp. 11-15.
A discussion of the key texts can be found in S. Ueda, Die Gottesgeburt in der
Seele und der Durchbruch zur Gottheit (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1965), pp. 103-07,
though I would not agree with all his conclusions.
66. “In agro dominico,” arts. 23 and 24, both centering on the crucial no-
tion of distinction/indistinction. Note that these articles, however, are only
"suspect of heresy."
67. Sermon XI.2 (LW IV, p. 112).
68. Comm. Ex. nn. 58 and 61 (LW II, pp. 64, 66). The combination of these
two passages, largely a quotation from Maimonides, made up art. 23 of the
Bull. Compare with Aquinas, $T» Ia.13.4.
69. Comm. Ex. n. 65 (LW II, p. 70). See Thomas's rejection of this in $77
Ia.28.2. Eckhart does stress that substance and relation are the only two Aris-
totelian categories that may be applied (though in transcendental fashion) to
God; see Comm. Ex. n. 62 (LW II, pp. 66-67), and Comm. Jn. 198 (LW III, p.
167).
70. Sermon 48 (p. 198). See also Sermons 2, 52, 83 (pp. 181, 200, 202, 206).
Among sermons not available here, see also 67 and 80 (DW III, pp. 132, 379).
71. E.g., Comm. Jn. n. 67 (p. 146). Among the German works, see Sermon
24 (DW I, p. 419).
72. DW I, p. 178. The text refers to the Latin sermons II-IV for Trinity
Sunday (LW IV, pp. 5-32), and although no passage in these sermons as now
available is exactly parallel, the teaching is similar.
73. The theme appears in the discussion of formal emanation in implicit
fashion, e.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 25, 61-69 (pp. 129-30, 144-47).

302
 NOTES

74. Comm. Jn. n. 342 (LW III, p. 291). The text as given by Koch reads ebul-
litio as the equivalent of the formal emanation (line 8), but since this goes
against every other use as well as the tenor of Eckhart's thought, I suggest that
it is a scribal error for bullitio. For other uses in the Latin works, see Comm.
Wis. n. 283 (LW II, pp. 615-16), and Sermons XXV.1 and 2, and XLIX (LW IV,
pp. 236, 239, 425-26).
75. Comm. Ex. n. 16 (LW II, pp. 21-22).
76. Sermon 35 (DW II, p. 180). See also Sermons 3 and 7 (DW I, pp. 54, 123).
77. E.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 4-13, 66, 75 (pp. 123-26, 145-46, 148-49). See also
Par. Gen. n. 3 (p. 94). Among the vernacular works translated here, see, e.g.,
Sermons 22 and 52 (pp. 193, 200). The importance of the principial point of view
has been stressed by C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckbart on Divine Knowledge; and in
“Meister Eckhart's Doctrine of Divine Subjectivity,” Downside Review 76
(1958): 65-103.
78. For an important discussion of the three types of production, see Ser-
mon XLIX.3 (LW IV, pp. 424-26). Compare also with Par. Gen. n. 9 (p. 96).
79. Comm. Jn. n. 43 (p. 137), following ST» Ia.41.5. See also Comm. Jn. n.
67 (p. 146).
80. Sermon 15 (p. 192). See also, e.g., Par. Gen. n. 12 (pp. 97-98).
81. E.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 513, 562 (LW III, pp. 444, 489), based on Augustine,
Christ. Doct. 1.5.
82. E.g., Comm. Jn. n. 19; Comm. Gen. n. 20 (pp. 128, 89).
83. E.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 23-27 (pp. 129-30). See also, Comm. Wis. n. 283 (LW
II, pp. 615-16), and Sermon 69 (DW III, pp. 168, 176-79).
84. E.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 25, 57 (pp. 129-30, 142-43).
85. E.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 35, 82 (pp. 132, 152-53). For a more extended anal-
ysis, see Comm. Jn. nn. 362-67 (LW III, pp. 307-12).
86. E.g., Par. Gen. nn. 9-15 (pp. 96-99).
87. E.g., Comm. Gen. n. 7, Par. Gen. n. 16, Comm. Jn. n. 73, and Sermon 53
(pp. 85, 99, 148, 205).
88. E.g., Par. Gen. nn. 10, 15 (pp. 96, 98-99).
89. Comm. Gen. n. 21, Par. Gen. nn. 9, 160 (pp. 89—90, 96, 119-20).
90. On acting with complete freedom without an intermediary, see Comm.
Gen. nn. 10-11 (pp. 86-87); and on God as final cause see Comm. Jn. nn. 42-43
(pp. 136-37). For an extended analysis of the end of creation, see Comm. Wis.
nn. 19-40 (LW II, pp. 339-61).
91. E.g., Comm. Gen. nn. 26-28; Par. Gen. nn. 11, 16, 19 (pp. 91; 97, 99, 100).
92. Comm. Gen. n. 4 (pp. 83-84).
93. See Ambrose, Hexaemeron 1.4; cf. Augustine, Conf. 12.20.
94. On the unity of Gn. 1:1 and Jn. 1:1, see Comm. Gen. n. 3 and Comm.
Jn. n. 56 (pp. 83, 142).
95. The first interpretation of Jn. 1:1 centers on the relation of the Word
to its Principle, the Father. There are three sections: (a) nn. 4-13 containing

303
 NOTES

fifteen general rules governing the relation of the Word to the Father; (b) nn.
14-22 on the relation of the just man to justice; and (c) nn. 23-27 on the Word
as the Father's Image.
96. The second through sixth interpretations of Jn. 1:1 describe facets of
the formal causality of the Word: (2) nn. 28-31—the Word as Principle; (3) n.
32— dea as definition; (4) nn. 33-34—four properties of the Word; (5) n. 35—
the four properties in relation to the Father; (6) nn. 36-37—the Word as Ex-
emplar.
97. Comm. Jn. n. 38 (p. 135).
98. Sermon 53 (p. 205).
99. Things pre-exist in their ideas (see Comm. Jn. nn. 9, 12, 54; Comm. Gen.
n. 25 on pp. 125, 126, 141; 91), and since they are in the Word they thus possess
virtual existence as Word in the Father, the ultimate Principle (cf. Comm. Jn.
nn. 44-45, and Sermon 52, on pp. 137, 200). The same teaching appears through-
out the Latin works, e.g., Comm. Gen. nn. 77-78 (LW I, pp. 238-39), and Comm.
Ex. n 121 (ELW. LIE, p.114).
100. E.g., Par. Gen. n. 62 (LW I, p. 529); Comm. Ex. n. 85 (LW II, p. 88);
Comm. Jn. n. 323 (LW III, p. 271); and Defense (p. 75 below).
101. Eckhart cites passages from the eleventh book of the Confessions in his
support, see Comm. Jn. nn. 217-18 (LW III, pp. 182-84). See also the text from
the Defense (p. 75).
102. Comm. Gen. n. 7 (p. 85). This forms art. 3 of the Bull; art. 1 is taken
from the passage immediately preceding. Art. 2 is from Comm. Jn. n. 216 (LW
III, p. 187).
103. E.g., Comm. Jn. n. 18 (p. 127); Sermon XLV (LW IV, p. 380); Bened. 2
(pp. 238-39); and Detach. (p. 290).
104. Théry, p. 194. See also the appearance of the same argument in the
general principles of the Defense translated here (p. 73). Eckhart also used the
response at Avignon (Pelster, pp. 1109-110).
105. See Pelster, pp. 1110-111. The commission theologians give five rea-
sons why the Meister's distinction cannot apply to creation.
106. Sermon XV.2 (LW IV, pp. 147-48).
107. Two of the most important of these are: (a) the distinction between
two kinds of efficient causality, univocal and analogical, in, e.g., Comm. Jn. nn.
5, 31 (pp. 124, 131-32) and especially Par. Gen. nn. 116-27 (LW I, pp. 582-91);
and (b) the discussion of the principles of created being, the extrinsic, i.e., active
and passive, or heaven and earth (Par. Gen. nn. 21-26 on pp. 101-03) and the
pairs of intrinsic principles, form and matter (Par. Gem. nn. 28-33 on pp.
103-05) and existence and essence (Par. Gen. n. 34 on pp. 105-06).
108. Comm. Gen. nn. 10-13 (pp. 86-87). See also the discussion in Comm.
Wis. nn. 35-37 (LW II, pp. 355-59). For Eckhart the very etymology of univer-
sum said the same—uni-versum, or "toward the One."

304
 NOTES

109. The three levels of creation are discussed in Comm. Jn. nn. 83 (4
grades counting angels) and 89 (pp. 153, 155-56); and Par. Gen. n. 151 (p. 115).
110. Comm. Jn. n. 63 (p. 144-45).
111. Comm. [n. n. 64 (p. 145).
112. Sermon 15 (p. 192).
113. Sermon 2 (pp. 179-81). See also Sermon Sb and 52 (pp. 183, 200).
114. E.g., Sermons 22 and 48 (pp. 194, 198).
115. E.g., Sermon 2 (p. 181). For questions regarding such terminology a
useful starting place is B. Schmoldt, Die deutsche Begriffsprache Meister Eckbarts
(Heidelberg: Quelle and Meyer, 1954).
116. E.g., Sermons 17 (DW I, p. 242), 77 (DW III, pp. 337-38), and LV.4
(LW IV, p. 458).
117. See B. McGinn, "The Negative Element in the Anthropology of
John the Scot," in Jobn Scot Erigéne et l'histoire de la Philosophie (Paris: Editions
du Centre National, 1977), pp. 315-25, for the history. For a contemporary ver-
sion, see K. Rahner, “An Tobestipation of the Incomprehensibility of God in
Thomas Aquinas,” in Theological Investigations, Vol. XVI (New York: Seabury,
1979), pp. 244-54.
118. Sermon IV.1 (LW IV, p. 28).
119. Sermon 48 (p. 198). Such statements appear in other places in the ver-
nacular sermons, e.g., Sermon 13 (DW I, p. 220).
120. “In agro dominico," appended art. 1, taken from Sermon 13 (see p. 80).
121. Théry, pp. 188, 191, 201, 211, 214-15; and Pelster, pp. 1111-112.
122. G. Théry, “Contribution à l'histoire du procés d'Eckhart. IV,” La vie
spirituelle. Supplement 13 (1926): 58-59, tried to find a psychological explanation
in Eckhart's successive changes of mind.
123. The language of “piece” or "part" was apparently what disturbed
Eckhart in the public statement he made in the Dominican Church at Cologne
on Feb. 13, 1327; see M.-H. Laurent, "Autour du procés de Maitre Eckhart. Les
documents des Archives Vaticanes," Divus Thomas (Piacenza), Ser. III, 13
(1936): 345. See also the same theme at Avignon, in Pelster, pp. 1111-112. J. M.
Clark in his Meister Eckbart. An Introduction to tbe Study of His Works witb an
Antbology of bis Sermons (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1957), p. 89, also has a suggestion
along these lines.
124. E.g., Bened. 2 (pp. 240—42); Detach. (pp. 290—91).
125. Par. Gen. nn. 135-65 (pp. 108-21), based on Augustine, Trin. 12.13.30, etc.
126. Par. Gen. nn. 139, 145-48 (pp. 109-10, 112-14).
127. Sermon 83 (p. 208).
128. Sermon 2 (pp. 179-80). In defenseof this passage at Cologne Eckhart
said: “God is taken by the intellect under the aspect of the true, by the will
under the aspect of the good (these are powers in the soul); under the aspect
of existence he penetrates the essence of the soul" (Théry, p. 204).

305
 NOTES

129. On the Word as imago Dei see especially Comm. Jn. n. 23 (p. 129) and
Sermon 69 (DW III, p. 168). For Eckhart's notion of image in general, see Comm.
Wis. nn. 143, 283 (LW II, pp. 480-81, 615-16) and Sermon XLIX (LW II, pp.
421-28).
130. See my article *Meister Eckhart's Condemnation Reconsidered,” The
Thomist 44 (1980), p. 404, for further reflections on this.
131. For the soul as imago Dei, see Comm. Jn. nn. 84, 119-20 (pp. 153,
168—69); Par. Gen. nn. 139-40 (pp. 109-10); Bened. 2 (p. 243); Detach. (p. 285); and
Sermon 83 (p. 206).
132. E.g., Comm. Jn. n. 123; Par. Gen. nn. 138, 143, 154; Bened. (pp. 170; 109,
112, 116-17; 243). K. Kertz, Meister Eckhart's Teaching," pp. 34446, stressed
the importance of the ad imaginem texts.
133. S. Ueda, Die Gottesgeburt, pp. 62, 82-84, sees a dialectical transition
from ad imaginem Dei to imago Dei in Eckhart's thought on deification. The fre-
quent interchangeability of formulae is evident in the Meister's commentary
on Gn. 1:26 (“Let us make man in our image and likeness”) in Comm. Gen. nn.
115-20 (LW I, pp. 270-76). See also Comm. Wis. n. 274 (LW II, p. 609).
134. E.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 52, 55 (pp. 140, 141-42).
135. Comm. Jn. nn. 52, 91 (pp. 140, 156-57).
136. Par. Gen. n. 139 (p. 109).
137. E.g., Comm. Jn. n. 75 (pp. 149—50). See also Par. Gen. n. 89 (LW I, pp.
551-52), where sin in the broad sense of any evil is something alien or dissimi-
lar to the form that should be present.
138. Comm. Gen. n. 21 (p. 90). See also Comm. Gen. n. 153 (LW I, pp. 303-
04).
139. Comm. Jn. n. 494 (LW III, p. 426).
140. Art. 15 is close to a passage in Couns. 12 (pp. 261-62). The Avignon
report, however, says that the error had been preached (predicavit—Pelster, p.
1123), so it may come from a lost sermon. Art. 14 is taken from Bened. 1 (pp.
216-17) and was also cited at Cologne (Théry, pp. 162, 189).
141. Pelster; pp. 1113-114.
142. Pelster, p. 1124.
143. Pelster, ibid.
144. Par. Gen. n. 144 (p. 112).
145. Comm. Gen. n. 115 (LW I, p. 272).
146. Sermon XVII (LW IV, p. 158).
147. H. Fischer, "Die theologische Arbeitsweise Meister Eckharts," pp.
58-59, n. 11, criticizes B. Weiss, Die Heilsgeschichte bei Meister Eckhart (Mainz:
Grünewald, 1965) for not realizing that Eckhart's writings do not try to pre-
sent a synthesis, or summa, of the whole of Christian belief, and therefore do
not fully develop all elements of Christian belief.
148. For a study of the Incarnation in Eckhart's thought, see Ueda, Die
Gottesgeburt, pp. 39—50.

306
 NOTES

149. Sermon XXV.1 (LW IV, pp. 237-38). On the theology of grace in Eck-
hart, see Clark, Meister Eckbart, pp. 54-57.
150. He does cite familiar Thomistic divisions in Comm. Wis. nn. 272-74
(LW II, pp. 602-04), and Sermon XXV.1 (LW IV, p. 235).
151. There is one interesting discussion of the relation of grace and free-
dom in Detach. (pp. 291-92) where it is said that God “finds or creates a willing
cooperation." The example given, that of the loaves in the oven, may seem to
give away too much to free will, but it is important to note that according to
the same analogy it is the baker (i.e., God) who creates the various kinds of
loaves.
152. See the summaries in Sermon 11.2 (LW IV, pp. 16-20), and the Sermon
for the Feast of St. Augustine n. 11 (LW V, pp. 97-98).
153. Comm. Jn. n. 89 (p. 156); Sermon IX (LW IV, pp. 93-94).
154. Par. Gen. n. 145 (pp. 112-13); Sermons IX, XVII.5 (LW IV, pp. 94, 168);
Comm. Wis. n. 273 (LW II, p. 603); Comm. Jn. n. 521 (LW III, pp. 449-50).
155. Comm. Jn. n. 120 (p. 169); Sermon XXV .2 (LW IV, p. 240).
156. Théry, pp. 229-35.
157. Théry, pp. 230-31. On Christ assuming human nature, see also Ser-
mon 5b (p. 182).
158. Comm. Jn. n. 102 (p. 161). Remember that Eckhart had spoken of the
Incarnation as the mid-point between emanation and creation in the text cited
onip. 27.
159. Comm. Jn. nn. 106, 117-20 (pp. 162, 167-69), and Sermon 22 (pp. 192-
93). See also Detach. (p. 287).
160. Théry, p. 202.
161. Théry, pp. 233-34.
162. LW IV, pp. 380-87.
163. E.g., Sermon 22 (p. 196); Bened. 1 (pp. 230, 231-32); Couns.20 (p. 272).
164. On Church and sacraments in Eckhart, see Clark, Meister Eckhart, pp.
66—68.
165. Kertz, “Meister Eckhart's Teaching,” pp. 347-51, 362-63, has argued
that the Meister's understanding of the birth of the Son in the soul is based
on the doctrine of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. See below, pp.
50-53.
166. Sermons V.1-3 for the Feast of Corpus Christi are heavily Thomistic
(LW IV, pp. 33-49). Sermons 20a and b (DW I, pp. 326-52) make use of the Eu-
charist to initiate discussion of the internal appropriation of God in the soul.
167. Couns.20 on the Eucharist, and Couns.21 on zeal (pp. 270-77). On the
latter, see also Sermon X (LW IV, pp. 102-03).
168. E.g., Couns.18 and 23 (pp. 268-69, 280-85).
169. E.g., Sermon 52 (p. 199). See the discussion on interior and exterior
works below on pp. 58-59.
170. Detach. (p. 288).

307
 NOTES

171. Ibid. See also Bened.1; and Couns.7 (pp. 220-21; 254-55).
172. E.g., Comm. Jn. n. 100; Par. Gen. n. 31; Bened.1 (pp. 160; 104-05; 220).
173. Comm. Jn. n. 110; Sermon 15 (pp. 164; 191).
174. Sermon 5b (p. 183).
175. Arts. 7, 8, 9. Art. 7 is drawn from Comm. Jn. n. 611 (LW III, p. 534).
176. Detach. (p. 286).
177. Sermon 15 (p. 190). See also Sermons 48 (p. 197), 69 (DW III, p. 163),
and VI.1 (LW IV, p. 54).
178. Sermon 6 (p. 187).
179. Detach. (pp. 285-87).
180. Detach. (p. 294).
181. On the importance of humility, see Sermon15 (p. 190); Couns. 23 (pp.
280—81); and Comm. Jn. n. 90 (p. 156).
182. Detach. (p. 292).
183. Sermon 83 (p. 208).
184. Comm. Wis. n. 282 (LW II, pp. 614-15).
185. Sermon 22 (p. 196). See also Sermon 53 on the kiss (p. 205); Par. Gen.
nn. 146, 152 (pp. 113, 116); and Comm. Jn. nn. 292-93 commenting on the mar-
riage at Cana (LW III, pp. 244-45).
186. Bened.1 (pp. 228-29). See also Bened.1 (pp. 221-22); and Couns.15 (pp.
264-65).
187. Sermon 2 (p. 178).
188. The importance of love for Eckhart the preacher is evident by listing
the sermons that take caritas as their major theme—Sa, 5b, 27, 28, 41, 48, 63,
65, 67, 75, and 82; and VI.14, XXX.1-2, XL.1-3, and XLVII.2-3.
189. The theme is not totally absent from the Latin works. See, e.g.,
Comm. Jn. nn. 119, 130-31 (pp. 168-69, 172-73); Par. Gen. n. 180 (LW I, p. 650);
Comm. Wis. nn. 281, 283 (LW II, pp. 613, 615-16); and Sermons VI.2 and LV.2
(LW IV, pp. 57, 455-56).
190. See above pp. 7-9.
191. H. Rahner, “Die Gottesgeburt. Die Lehre der Kirchenvater von der
Geburt Christi aus dem Herzen der Kirche und der Glaubigen,” in Symbole der
Kirche (Salzburg: Müller, 1964), pp. 13-87.
192. On Gregory and his follower Maximus the Confessor, see Rahner,
“Die Gottesgeburt," pp. 48-56.
193. Rahner, “Die Gottesgeburt,” pp. 71-79.
194. Rahner, “Die Gottesgeburt,” pp. 82-86.
195. Important treatments are found in Sermons 2, 4, 5b, 6, 11, 14, 19, 22,
25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 46, 50, 59, and 75. It also appears in the
treatises, especially in the Bened.1 and 2 (e.g., pp. 227, 243).
196. For a useful summary of texts, see Ueda, Die Gottesgeburt, especially
pp. 81-97. Ueda stresses that the birth of the Son is the natural culmination

308
 NOTES

of the soul's character as image of God (p. 61). Among English works, the ar-
ticle of Kertz, "Meister Eckhart's Teaching," is of merit, but see also R. Schür-
mann, Meister Eckhart. Mystic and Philosopher (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1978), pp. 18-26, 74-80; and J. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s
Thought (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1978), pp. 113-18.
197. Besides Comm. Jn. nn. 14-22 (pp. 126-29), see also Comm. Gen. n. 20;
Par. Gen. nn. 147-49; and Bened.1 (pp. 89; 113-14; 209-12).
198. Sermon 6 (p. 185). This statement was the source of art. 8 of the Bull.
Eckhart's defense, both at Cologne (Théry, pp. 239-40) and at Avignon (Pel-
ster, p. 1115) was to insist that God alone is the reward of the soul.
199. On the in quantum principle, see below, pp. 53-54.
200. This absolute equality is the source for the statement made toward
the end of the sermon (p. 188) about not asking God for anything because this
would presuppose the status of a servant. The passage became art. 9 of the Bull.
201. Sermon 6 (p. 187). Together with another sentence from this para-
graph this forms art. 22 of the “In agro dominico.”
202. Sermon Sb (p. 183). See also Sermons 2 and 53 (pp. 180-81, 205).
203. Sermon 6 (p. 187). The MHG text does not contain “as,” added here
to bring out the sense.
204. Sermon 22 (p. 194). Similar texts concerning the soul's identity with
the Father in bearing the Son are found in Sermons 2 and 83 (pp. 179, 206), and
in the Latin Sermons XL.3, LI and LV.2 (LW IV, pp. 345, 433, 455-56).
205. Sermon 6, “... there I spring out in the Holy Spirit" (p. 187). See also
Bened. (p. 227).
206. Sermon 52 (p. 202), and also the text on p. 203 where the soul is said
to create all things.
207. Kertz, "Meister Eckhart's Teaching," pp. 329, 331-32, in reference to
the text from Sermon 52 cited above.
208. Pelster, p. 1117. The phrase appears in both the Cologne lists as well
(Théry, pp. 177, 242—see Eckhart's responses on pp. 199, 243-44).
209. Arts. 10, 11, 12, condemned as heretical, and arts. 20 and 21 as suspect
of heresy. Art. 13, also judged as heretical, states: "Whatever is proper to the
divine nature, all that is proper to the just and divine man. Because of that this
man performs whatever God performs, and he created heaven and earth to-
gether with God, and is the begetter of the Eternal Word, and God would not
know how to do anything without such a man." It is noteworthy that arts. 11,
13, and 20 in this group are not verbatim from Eckhart's surviving works,
though 11 does relate to Sermon 5a (DW I, p. 77) and 20 to Bened.1 (p. 229).
210. Sermon 6 (p. 188), and "In agro dominico," art. 10 (p. 78).
211. Théry, pp. 199 and 244. See also Pelster, p. 1118.
212. See Kertz, "Meister Eckhart's Teaching, pp. 358-62, a strained read-
ing.

309
 NOTES

213. In the course of the Cologne proceedings Eckhart admitted error and
falsity twelve times and six times characterized articles as “evil-sounding,” or
the equivalents. All these cases refer to extracts from the vernacular sermons.
214. Pelster, p. 1117. For Eckhart's responses to attacks on his claims on
the equality of God and man, see Théry, pp. 198-99, 201, 214-15, 220, 231-32,
243-44, 265, and 266.
215. E.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 106, 115, 117, and 123 (pp. 162, 167, 167-68, 170).
See also Bened.1 (pp. 224-25).
216. See Kertz, “Meister Eckhart's Teaching," pp. 341-50. For the doc-
trine of the Body of Christ in Eckhart, the /ocus classicus is his commentary on
Jn. 4:38 in Comm. Jn. nn. 381-404 (LW III, pp. 324-43).
217. Pelster, p. 1120.
218. Defense, pp. 72-73.
219. E.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 16 and 18 in the texts given here (pp. 127-28); and
among later texts, nn. 362, 389, 426, and 438 (LW III, pp. 307, 324, 362, and 376).
220. Comm. Jn. n. 455 (LW III, p. 389). My italics.
221. Pelster, p. 1117 (my italics).
222. E.g., D. T. Suzuki, Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (New York: Mac-
millan, 1957), pp. 13-20. More accurate treatments can be found in the works
of Ueda, Schürmann, and Caputo.
223. Sermon 52 (p. 203).
224. Sermon 83 (p. 206).
225. Sermon 48 (p. 198).
226. Par. Gen. n. 165 (p. 121). See also Sermon 15 (p. 192).
227. The theme of the spiritual itinerary in Eckhart is stressed by Schür-
mann, Meister Eckhart, e.g., pp. 59sqq.
228. Bened.2 (p. 247). The desert metaphor occurs mostly in the vernacular
works, e.g., Sermons 10, 12, 29, 60, 81, and 86. In the Latin works we find it in
Par. Gen. n. 149 (p. 114).
229. E.g., Sermons 15 and 83 (pp. 191, 208); Bened.2 (p. 244); and Par. Gen.
nn. 147-48 (pp. 113-14).
230. E.g., Sermons 6 and 83 (pp. 188, 208); Bened.1 (pp. 221-23); Comm. Wis.
n. 282 (LW II, pp. 614-15); Sermon XLIV (LW IV, p. 367).
231. Par. Gen. n. 32 (p. 105).
232. Sermon XI (LW IV, p. 105). See also Sermon XXIV.2 (LW IV, p. 225).
233. E.g., On Loving God 10.28; and Sermons on the Song of Songs 71.7-10.
The phrase unus spiritus is from 1 Co. 6:17.
234. Sermon XIX.1 (LW IV, p. 276).
235. Sermon XLIV (LW IV, p. 367). See also Sermons XL.2 and LV 4 (LW
IV, pp. 111, 465).
236. Par. Quest. q. 3 (LW V, pp. 55-71). See also the reference to this in
Sermon 9 (DW I, pp. 152-54).

310
 NOTES

237. E.g., Comm. Jn. nn. 673, 697 (LW III, pp. 587-88, 612); and Sermon X1.2
(LW IV, pp. 110-15).
238. Sermon 52 (p. 201). See also Sermon XI.2 (LW IV, p. 115).
239. Couns.23 (p. 282).
240. Sermon 52 (p. 199).
241. Couns.17 (pp. 266-68).
242. Sermon 5b (p. 183).
243. Bened.l, passim; Couns. 18 (pp. 268-69); and Detach (p. 294). See also
Comm. Jn. nn. 76-77 (pp. 150-51), and Sermon XLV (LW IV, pp. 380-87).
244. E.g., Par. Gen. nn. 37-40; and Couns. 20 (pp. 106-07, and 270-74). See
also Sermons XXX.1-2 and XLL1-2 (LW IV, pp. 271-81, 335-43). The meta-
physical roots for the command are investigated in Comm. Jn. nn. 543-44 (LW
III, pp. 474-75).
245. E.g., Comm. Wis. nn. 99, 109 (LW II, pp. 434-35, 445); Comm. Jn. nn.
389-91 (LW III, pp. 332-34); Sermon 30 (DW II, p. 103).
246. Art. 25 drawn from Comm. Jn. n. 728. On the equal love owed to all
men, see, e.g., Sermon Sb (p. 182), and in the negative form, Comm. Jn. n. 112
(p. 165).
247. Art. 16 and 17 from Par. Gen. n. 165 (p. 121); art. 18 from Comm. Jn.
n. 646 (LW III, p. 561); art. 19 from Comm. Wis. n. 226 (LW II, p. 561).
248. On the heresy of the “Free Spirit,” first condemned at the Council
of Vienne in 1312, see G. Leff, Heresy in tbe Later Middle Ages, 2 vols. (New
York: Barnes and Noble, 1967), 1: 308-407, for the traditional picture. This
view has been challenged by R. E. Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit in tbe
Later Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), who doubts
that a “Free Spirit" movement ever really existed apart from the minds of
Church leaders.
249. At Cologne (Théry, p. 195), he incorrectly cited $77 Iallae.20.4 in his
defense.
250. Par. Gen. n. 165 (p. 121).
251. E.g., Lectures and Sermons on Ecclesiasticus n. 26 (LW II, p. 253); Comm.
Jn. n. 307 (LW II, p. 255); Bened. 1 (pp. 225-27; Couns. 16 (pp. 265-66).
252. Pelster, p. 1114. Couns. 23 (p. 280).
253. Detacb. (pp. 292-93).
254. See also Couns. 1 (p. 248) on true prayer.
255. On art. 7 see note 175 above.
256. Arts. 8 and 9 can be found on pp. 185 and 188 of Sermon 6.
257. Translated on pp. 72-73.
258. E.g., "In agro dominico," art. 13 (p. 79). See such expressions as those
in Sermon 83 (p. 208) and Comm. Jn. n. 68 (pp. 146-47).
259. Sermon 5b (p. 184). See also Sermons 26, 39, and 41 (DW II, pp. 27, 253-
54, 289, and 293). For a good study, see J. Caputo, The Mystical Element, Part

311
 . NOTES

III. “The Rose Is Without Why: Meister Eckhart's Mysticism”; and his article
“Fundamental Themes in Eckhart's Mysticism,” The Thomist 42 (1978): 197-
225.
260. Sermon 28 (DW II, p. 5).
261. Comm. Ex. n. 247 (LW II, p. 201). See also Sermon IV.1 (LW IV, pp.
22-23). On God's having no “why,” see Comm. Jn. n. 50 (p. 139).
262. DW III, pp. 481-92. On this sermon, see Caputo, The Mystical Element,
|» pp. 137-39.
263. Eckhart follows the traditional interpretation in Comm. Jn. n. 130 (pp.
172-73).
264. DW III, pp. 491-92.
265. E.g., Sermon 75 (DW III, pp. 301-02); Couns.10 (pp. 256-59).
266. Sermon 5b (p. 183).
267. Couns. 6 (p. 252). See also p. 255.
268. Couns. 4 (p. 250).
269. Schürmann, Meister Eckbart, p. 47.
270. E.g., Sermon 86 (DW III, p. 482). Couns.10, 15, and 20 (pp. 258—59, 264,
271-72).
271. Sermon 16b (DW I, p. 272).
272. See the detailed study of these texts in R. Kieckhefer, “Meister Eck-
hart's Conception of Union with God," Harvard Theological Review 71 (1978):
221-24.
273. Kieckhefer (p. 224) sees him as a proponent of habitual or nonabstrac-
tive union. See also my paper “The God beyond God: Theology and Mysticism
in the Thought of Meister Eckhart," pp. 17-19.
274. Sermon 66 (DW III, pp. 113-14).

INTRODUCTION: 3. A NOTE ON ECKHART'S WORKS

1. The most complete study of the history of Eckhart's reputation is to be

found in I. Degenhardt, Studien zum Wandel des Eckhartbildes (Leiden: Brill,
1967). On the Romantic revival, see pp. 105-31.
2. H. Denifle, “Meister Eckharts lateinische Schriften und die Grundans-
chauung seiner Lehre," Archiv für Literatur-und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters
2 (1886): 417-615.
3. For the work of such scholars as Strauch, Spamer, Jostes, Pahncke, etc.,
see also T. Schaller, “Die Meister Eckhart-Forschung von der Jarhun-
dertwende bis zur Gegenwart,” Freiburger Zeitschrift fur Philosophie und Theo-
logie 15 (1968), especially pp. 262-84.
4. One interesting textual question concerns the two recensions of the
“Prologues” to the Three-Part Work, the Comm. Gen. and the Comm. Ex., one ac-
cording to an Erfurt ms. (E) found in LW I, pp. 1-104, and the other, partially

312
 NOTES

translated here, according to mss. in Kues and Trier (CT), found in LW I, pp.
105—702.
5. LW I, pp. 149-51.
6. LW I, pp. 166-82, translated by A. Maurer, Parisian Questions and Pro-
logues (Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1974), pp. 93-104.
7. LW V, pp. 27-83. From Eckhart’s Paris periods we also have a brief
“collation,” or introductory lecture to Peter Lombard’s Sentences (LW V, pp.
17-26), as well as a university sermon delivered on the Feast of St. Augustine
(LW V, pp. 89-99).
8. The Par. Quest. have been translated by A. Maurer in Master Eckhart,
pp. 43-75.
9. See above, p. 28.
10. These have been edited in LW I, the Comm. Gen. on pp. 185—444, and
the Par. Gen. on pp. 447-702.
11. Comm. Ex. in LW II, pp. 1-227; Comm. Wis. in LW II, pp. 301-634.
12. LW II, pp. 231-300.
13. LW II, pp. 636 sqq.
14. LW III, nearly complete in nine fascicules and 624 pp.
15. E.g., Sermons IV.1-2, V1.1-3, X1.1-2, XXIX, XL.1-3, XLV, XLIX.2-3,
and LV.4.
16. LW V, pp. 109sqq.
17. Both of the authors of the Introduction have studied Eckhart’s trial in
greater detail, respectively in E. Colledge, “Studies on Eckhart’s Life and
Works,” The Thomist 42 (1978): 240-58; and B. McGinn, “Meister Eckhart’s
Condemnation Reconsidered,” The Thomist 44 (1980): 390—414.
18. M.-H. Laurent, “Autour du procés de Maitre Eckhart. Les documents
des Archives Vaticanes," Divus Thomas (Piacenza), Ser. III, 13 (1936): 331-48,
430-47.
19. F. Pelster, “Ein Gutachten aus dem Eckehart-Prozess in Avignon,"
Aus der Geisteswelt des Mittelalters. Festgabe M. Grabmann (Beitráge Supplement
III. Münster, 1935), pp. 1099-124.
20. See below, p. 74.
21. One may note that only 33 of Pfeiffer's 111 sermons appear among
Quint’s 86.
22. DW V, pp. 185-311.
23. See "In agro dominico," arts. 14 and 15 and notes.
24. DW V, pp. 8-61.
25. DW V, pp. 109-19.
26. DW V, pp. 400-37.

313
 NOTES

PART ONE: 1. DOCUMENTS RELATING TO ECKHART'S

CONDEMNATION
A. SELECTIONS FROM ECKHART'S DEFENSE

NOTES. 'The critical edition of Eckhart's Defense has not yet appeared in vol-
ume V of the LW. This translation follows the order and text of the edition
of G. Théry, “Edition critique des piéces relatives au procés d'Eckhart conten-
ues dans le manuscrit 33b de la Bibliothéque de Soest,” Archives d'histoire doc-
trinale et littéraire du moyen age 1 (1926): 185-87, 195-97, 205-07. (Hereafter
referred to as Théry.) In addition, I have compared Théry's text throughout
with the earlier edition of A. Daniels, “Eine lateinische Rechtfertigungsschrift
des Meister Eckhart,” Beitráge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters 23.5
(1923): 1-4, 12-13, 34-35, 65-66. In several places noted I have preferred his
readings.

1. Reiner, a canon of the Cologne Cathedral, was later replaced by a sec-

ond Franciscan, Albert of Milan. A Custodian in the Franciscan order was a
brother in charge of a custodia, or subdivision of a province. In this sentence
I read coram with Daniels, rather than contra with Théry.
2. Eckhart's appeal to the exemption of the Dominican order from the lo-
cal bishop was an important principle in the complex negotiations of late 1326
and early 1327.
3. Reading nationis with Daniels, rather than rationis with Théry.
4. Henry of Virneburg, the Archbisbop of Cologne, was the chief insti-
gator of the proceedings against Eckhart. This sentence also seems to refer to
the activities of two renegade Dominicans, Hermann de Summo and William
of Nideggen, in attacks on Eckhart.
5. This is a reference to the investigation leading to the condemnation of
suspect propositions by Bishop Stephen Tempier in 1277.
6. A reference to the canonization of Saint Thomas in 1323 by John XXII.
7. The vernacular work here translated as the Book ‘Benedictus.’
8. This response of Eckhart to attacks on the Bened. has not survived.
9. Letter 60.
10. That is, God insofar as he is (has existence) is not evil, although God
insofar as he is understanding knows evil. This is true even though existence
and understanding are the same in God. On the importance of the i» quantum
principle, see Introduction, pp. 53-54.
11. The "absolute," common, or essential acts of God are those performed
by all three Persons in common. Eckhart's point is that even these are “appro-
priated," or metaphorically ascribed, to one or the other of the divine Persons
according to their individual attributes or properties, e.g., sanctification to the

»M
 NOTES

Holy Spirit. For the use of the term "absolute" regarding predications of God,
see Thomas Aquinas, /n I Sent. 23.1.3.
12. On Consideration 5.5.
13. Compare this with the extended treatment of the identity of the just
man and justice in the Comm. Jn. nn. 14-22 (pp. 126-29).
14. The analogical relation of goodness in God and in us is important to
keep in mind in assessing Eckhart's desire to maintain necessary distinctions
between God and the justified individual.
15. "Existence," literally, id quo est. See the distinction between id quo est,
or existence, and 1d quod est, or essence, in Par. Gen. n. 34 (pp. 105-06).
16. Phys. 7.1 (241b24).
17. On this principle, see, e.g., Comm. Jn. n. 20 (p. 128).
18. On this, see Comm. Jn. nn. 41, 57 (pp. 136, 142-43).
19. See Thomas Aquinas, $75 Ia.13.7, 14.8, and 28.1.
20. See, e.g., Comm. Gen. n. 24 (p. 90), and Comm. Jn. n. 107 (pp. 162-63).
21. On tbe Trinity 2.
22. Eckhart's refusal to admit to any accusation of heresy was the key-
stone of his Defense.
23. In responding to some ninety-two excerpts drawn from the vernacular
sermons in both the List of Forty-nine and the List of Fifty-nine Articles (some .
single articles contain several excerpts), Eckhart admitted error or falsity in
twelve cases and described six others as in some way “evil-sounding.”
24. The text was originally from Augustine’s Gospel Questions 2.40. Pseudo-
Bede, Exposition on Luke 5, which served as a homily in the Dominican office,
also used it.
25. Eckhart concludes by citing a text from Augustine's Trin. 1.3.6 where
the bishop defends himself from misunderstandings of his views that have led
some into error.
26. Augustine's teaching, e.g., Letter 43.1, was repeated by many later
theologians and incorporated in Gratian's Decretum, II c.xxiv, q.3, cap.xxix.
27. See the fifth and sixth articles of the second group (Théry, pp. 169,
192).
28. See the response to the fourteenth article of the first group (Théry, p.
191).
29. Eckhart is incorrect in claiming that this was a common opinion of the
Schoolmen, and in his response to this point (Théry, p. 195) he falsely cites
Thomas Aquinas (STh Iallae.20.4) as agreeing with him. The Meister's views
about the relation of internal and external acts were condemned in articles 16-
19 of the Bull “In agro dominico" (p. 79). See Introduction, pp. 57-59.
30. Both Théry and Daniels read in alio nunc eternitatis, but on the basis
of Eckhart's constant usage, as reflected below in the repetition of this point
on p. 76, the original reading must have been im alto nunc quam in nunc eter-
nitatis, as translated here.

315
 NOTES

31. The implications that Eckhart drew from this teaching were con-
demned in articles 1-3 of “In agro dominico." See Comm. Gen. n. 7 (pp. 84-85).
32. Conf.1.6.3. A favorite Augustine quotation of Eckhart's, appearing,
e.g., in Comm. Jn. nn. 580 and 638 (LW III, pp. 508, 554).
33. This position too was finally condemned in article 26 of "In agro do-
minico.”
34. Eckhart is attempting to turn the tables on his opponents by claiming
that their attacks on his teaching imply the following five errors, which, if ob-
stinately defended, would be equivalent to heresy.
35. Conf.1.6.3.

B. THE BULL “In agro dominico"

NOTES. This translation is based on the text given by M.-H. Laurent, *Autour
du procés de Maitre Eckhart. Les documents des Archives Vaticanes," Divus
Thomas (Piacenza), Ser. III, 13 (1936): 435-46, as compared with the partial text
given in Denzinger-Schönmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum (Freiberg: Herder,
1976), nos. 950-80.

1. The text of the Bull reads primo (first), but the passage on which it is
based and Eckhart’s general use argue that prius (earlier) is correct.
2. Based on Comm. Gen. n. 7 (p. 85), but the second part is more a para-
phrase and adaptation than a translation. On the first three articles, see Intro-
duction, pp. 40-41.
3. From Comm. Jn. n. 216 (LW III, p. 187).
4. Also based on Comm. Gen. n. 7.
5. From Comm. Jn. n. 494 (LW III, p. 426). The next two articles are drawn
from the same passage. For a discussion, see Introduction, pp. 44-45.
6. “Anything particular = hoc aut hoc. On this question, see Introduction,
p. 48. x
7. Comm. Jn. n. 611 (LW III, p. 534). On this article and the following two,
see Introduction, p. 59.
8. From Sermon 6 (p. 185).
9. From Sermon 6 (p. 188).
10. From Sermon 6 (p. 188). See Introduction, pp. 52-53.
11. This is close to a passage in Sermon 5a (DW I, p. 77) that appears in
abbreviated fashion in Sermon 5b (p. 182). On this article, see Introduction, pp.
17 and 52-53. i
12. From Sermon 24 (DW I, pp. 421-22).
13. Not found verbatim in Eckhart's surviving works, though there is a
distant parallel to a passage in Bened.1 (p. 228). For Eckhart’s defense of this
article, see Introduction, pp. 53-54.
14. Probably drawn from Bened.1 (pp. 216-17), though, as Introduction,

316
 NOTES

pp. 13-14, points out, the same teaching is found in Couns.11 (p. 261). For theo-
logical reflections on this, see Introduction, pp. 44-45.
15. Seems to depend on Couns.12 (pp. 261-62), though it is a paraphrase.
16. From Par. Gen. n. 165 (p. 121), which is also the source for the follow-
ing article. On Eckhart's view of the relation of interior and exterior acts con-
demned in this and the following three articles, see Introduction, pp. 57-59.
17. From Comm. Jn. n. 646 (LW III, p. 561).
18. From Comm. Wis. n. 226 (LW II, p. 561).
19. This is related to a passage in Bened.1 (p. 229), but more by way of sum-
mary than by quotation.
20. From Sermon 14 (DW I, p. 239). See Introduction, p. 54 for Eckhart's
response to this before the Avignon Commission.
21. From Sermon 6 (p. 187). See the discussion in Introduction, pp. 51-52.
22. The text of the Bull reads nec ponit in unum cum aliquo, but what Eck-
hart wrote was nec ponit in numerum cum aliquo, as translated here.
23. From Comm. Ex. nn. 58-60 (LW II, pp. 65-66). The first sentence is a
quotation from Maimonides, Guide 1.51. See Introduction, pp. 36-37 for this
and the next article.
24. From Bened.2 (p. 244).
25. From Comm. Jn. n. 728. What is under attack here is Eckhart's notion
that in perfect love as it exists in the One, there can be no question of degrees.
See Introduction, p. 58.
26. From Sermon 4 (DW I, pp. 69—70). See Introduction, p. 33.
27. Close to a passage in Sermon 13 (DW I, p. 220). See also Sermon 48 (p.
198), among other places. On the problems raised by this article and Eckhart's
denials that he had made such statements, see Introduction, pp. 13 and 42.
28. From Sermon 9 (DW I, p. 148).
29. This apparently refers to a document signed by Eckhart on his death-
bed, and not the similar public protestation he had made in Cologne on Feb-
ruary 13, 1327.
30. See Introduction, pp. 14-15, for the importance of this phrase.

PART ONE: 2. COMMENTARIES ON GENESIS

1. Eckhart wrote two commentaries on Genesis: Commentary on tbe Book
of Genesis, a more literal and basic interpretation (LW I, pp. 185-444); and the
Book of the Parables of Genesis, a more allegorical and metaphysical treatment
(LW I, pp. 447-702).
2. Eckhart briefly lays down the nature and purpose of the exegetical part
of his Three-Part Work in two Prologues. This is the first, as translated from
LW I, p. 183.
3. The first selection is the account of Gn. 1:1 found in Comm. Gen. (LW
I, pp. 185-206).

317
 NOTES

4. These are the major patristic sources for interpretation of the hexae-
meron, or work of the six days of creation.
5. The influence of Maimonides on Eckhart has been studied by J. Koch,
“Meister Eckhart und die jüdische Religionsphilosophie des Mittelalters,"
Jabresbericht der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für vaterlandische Kultur 1928 101 (1928):
13448.
6. The Latin principium can mean both “beginning” and “principle.” Eck-
hart emphasizes now one and now the other of these aspects (as the translation
tries to indicate), but both senses are always present.
7. The correlation of the Genesis account with Si. 18:1 was a traditional
problem in Christian exegesis that had been discussed by Augustine.
8. Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption 2.10 (336227).
9. These four preliminary points outline the first part of the exegesis of
the verse. They are taken up respectively in nn. 3-7, 8-9, 10-13, and 14.
10. “Ideal reason" (ratio idealis). Augustine, Lit. Comm. Gen. 6.9sqq. says
that the first creation in which God makes all things at the same time is the
ratio creandi and not the actio creandi.
11. The close relationship between the opening verses of Gn. 1 and the
Johannine Prologue indicate that the two texts are meant to be mutually illu-
minating.
12. See the discussion in the Comm. Jn. n. 4 (p. 123).
13. This axiom is based on a conflation of two texts in Republic 6.19 (508E
and 509B), and is cited elsewhere by the Meister (e.g., Par. Gen. n. 52 in LW
I, p. 520). It was known and used by many of the Scholastics.
14. Averroes, Commentary on tbe Metapbysics 7.5 (on 1028b).
15. "What-it-is" (quidditas) is a term of scholastic coinage. The technical
term translated here as “what” (quod quid est) and “why” (propter quid est) de-
pend on Aristotle, e.g., Met.1.8 (988b29) and Post. Anal. 2.2 (90a31-34). Eckhart
took this basic vocabulary from Thomas Aquinas, on whose use see B. Loner-
gan, Verbum: Werd and Idea in Aquinas (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1967), pp. 11-25.
16. Post. Anal. 1.8 (75b31).
17. Eckhart's point is that proof in metaphysics is always in the realm of
formal causality.
18. Consolation of Philosophy 3, poem 9. This text on creation is also cited
in Comm. Jn. nn. 41 and 60 (pp. 136, 143).
19. The identification of the Son with the “Principle” is found as early as
Ambrose, Hexaemeron 1.4.15, and was repeated by many subsequent authors.
See also Comm. Jn. nn. 13, 56 (pp. 126, 142).
20. À number of thirteenth-century authors (e.g., Thomas Aquinas, On
Trutb 3.1.1) ascribe such a text to Augustine's City of God, but it is not found
there.
21. On Free Choice 3.5.13, a favorite text (see Comm. Jn. n. 55 on p. 142).

318
 NOTES

22. Book of Causes, prop. 9, and its attendant commentary.

23. Eckhart joins Thomas Aquinas and the other Scholastics in attacking
the necessitarianism of the Arab philosophers, e.g., Avicenna in his Metapbysics
9.4.
24. This paragraph, which seems to assert the eternity of creation, was at-
tacked in the Cologne proceedings (Théry, pp. 174-75).
25. The preceding three sentences (with some additional material not
found in Eckhart's surviving works) formed the first of the condemned prop-
ositions of "In agro dominico." On the problem of this aspect of the Meister's
doctrine of creation, see the Introduction, pp. 40-41.
26. This sentence formed the third of the propositions of the papal Bull.
27. A popular text with Eckhart; see, e.g., Comm. Jn. n. 73 (p. 148), and In-
troduction, p. 39.
28. Aristotle, On Interpretation 2.10 (20b1).
29. Top.3.2 (117b10-17).
30. Averroes, Commentary on tbe Pbysics 4.43 (on 212a-b).
31. This part of the Work of Questions has not survived.
32. Aristotle, On Heaven and Earth 2.2 (284b28).
33. E.g., Augustine, Lit. Comm. Gen. 4.35; Bonaventure, Breviloguium 2.5;
and Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia.74.2.ad 2, etc.
34. A key principle of the Thomistic doctrine of creation.
35. This slighting reference seems to be directed at Siger of Brabant, the
radical Aristotelian, who holds such a position in his Questions on tbe Metapbys-
ics 5.10. See Introduction, p. 6.
36. The identification of God's nature with intellect or understanding is
one of the key elements in Eckhart's thought, especially evident in Par. Quest.
1-2. On this identification, see Introduction, pp. 32, 34-35.
37. Another important feature of the Meister's thought; see, e.g., Comm.
Jn. n. 60 (p. 143), and Comm. Wis. n. 197 (LW II, p. 531).
38. Proclus, Elements of Theology, prop. 11.
39. Conf.1.6.10. Also used in the Comm. Jn. n. 52 (p. 140).
40. This treatise has not survived.
41. General Prologue nn. 15-21 (LW I, pp. 159-65).
42. A popular preacher's example found in Stephen of Bourbon's Treatise
on Various Materials for Preaching.
43. An abbreviation of Horace, Ep.1.16.52.
44. On True Religion 38.20.39.
45. Cf. n. 5 (p. 84).
46. Guide 2.31. Eckhart made use of a Latin translation of the Guide that
has not yet been critically edited but appears to differ in some details from the
original.
47. Ibid.
48. Comm. Wis. nn. 19-22 (LW II, pp. 339-53).

319
 NOTES

49. Conf.4.12.18.
50. For a more detailed treatment of this central theme, see Comm. Jn. nn.
14-22, especially n. 19 (pp. 126-29).
51. Avicenna, Metaphysics 9.4. Eckhart attacks this view in other places,
e.g., Comm. Wis. n. 36 (LW II, p. 356), and Sermon XXXVI (LW IV, p. 314).
52. See Comm. Jn. n. 125 (p. 173).
53. A position also held by Thomas Aquinas, e.g., SCG 3.71; STh Ia.22.2.ad
We atop, Gress (kes
54. A common teaching based on Aristotle, Phys. 3.3 (202b10-14).
55. See note 13 above.
56. This part of the Work of Propositions has not survived.
57. Eckhart is probably referring to his famous Sermon XXIX on this text
(LW IV, pp. 263-70).
58. Gabirol, The Fountain of Life 5.24. What Gabirol means is that the four
fundamental questions (based on Aristotle, Post. Anal. 2.1-2) express the four
essential levels of existence. See also Comm. Jn. n. 47 (p. 138).
59. The following three selections from Par. Gen. are translated from LW
I, pp. 447-56, 479-507, and 601-36.
60. These three kinds of truths correspond to the three divisions of sci-
ence found in medieval authors. Jerome had emphasized that all three truths
were to be found in scripture, e.g., Letter 30.1. See Introduction, pp. 28-29.
61. Maimonides, Guide, Preface.
62. Conf.6.5.8.
63. Guide, Preface.
64. Augustine, Enarration on Ps. 118.
65. Cf. Lk. 6:1. The Augustine text referred to seems to be Lit. Comm.
Gen.1.20, but the image was a popular one in medieval exegesis.
66. Eckhart here partially cites Thomas Aquinas, $7» Ia.1.10, but without
Thomas’s distinction that the literal sense must be one because words intend
one thing and that the further spiritual meanings come from the fact that the
things signified by the words can themselves signify other things in God's in-
tention. Thus Eckhart's position implying the multiplicity of literal senses is
really closer to Augustine, e.g., Conf. 12.31.42.
67. Conf 12.27.37.
68. Conf.12.18.27.
69. Ibid.
70. Thomas Aquinas, ST» Ia.1.10c.
71. Christ. Doct. 3.27.38.
72. A position based on Plato, e.g., Meno 15 (810) and Phaedo 22 (76D-77A),
and taught by Plato's followers in the Academy. See Aquinas, On Truth 11.1.
73. "By metaphors and allegories" (sub metapbora fabulorum). On this im-
portant principle of teaching in parabolis, see the classic account in Macrobius,
Commentary on tbe Dream of Scipio 1.2.17.

320
 NOTES

74. Art of Poetry, lines 333 and 343.

75. Cf. Bede, Allegorical Exposition on the Parables of Solomon.
76. Ambrose, Exposition on Luke 6.93.
77. Terence, Andria 1.1.87.
78. In this lengthy question Thomas actually discusses both the literal and
the mystical meanings of the various ceremonies of the Old Law.
79. Comm. Jn. nn. 661-62 (LW III, pp. 576-78).
80. Eckhart thinks of the virtues as the principles of ethical science, as in
Par. Gen. n. 83 (LW I, pp. 549-51).
81. The same point is made more briefly in Comm. Jn. n. 3 (p. 123).
82. Eckhart agrees with Thomas that the parabolical or spiritual sense
cannot be the basis for a theological demonstration; see $75 Ia.1.10.ad 1.
83. Guide, Preface. The two kinds of parables also appear in Comm. /n. n.
174 (LW III, p. 143).
84. Ibid.
85. The first example is drawn from Maimonides, the second is not.
86. The order of the commentary on Gn. 1:1 is as follows: (1) nn. 9-20.
The differences between the divine and natural modes of producing; (2) nn.
21-27. The two external principles of the universe (the active and passive) and
their properties, plus a moral application; (3) nn. 28-33. The composition of
material things from matter and form; (4) nn. 34-36. Five other understand-
ings of the meaning of "heaven" and "earth"; (5) nn. 37-40. Ten moral inter-
pretations.
87. Aristotle, Met. 5.2 (1013a29-32), as interpreted by Thomas Aquinas,
Commentary on tbe Metapbysics 5.2, lect. 2, 515a.
88. As J. Koch remarks in LW I, p. 480, Eckhart seems to mean that a
horse is produced from the male seed that is not a horse itself.
89. An example also used by Thomas in his discussion of creation in ST»
Ia.45.1.
90. Augustine, Trin.7.3.4, citing the words of the Nicene Creed.
91. Cf. Comm. Jn. n. 60 (p. 143).
92. Aristotle, Met. 10.1 (1052b18-30).
93. Maimonides, Guide 1.59.
94. See Comm. [n. nn. 14-22 (pp. 126-29).
95. Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption 2.10 (336a27). Aristotle's gener-
al principle regarding making is here used as a springboard for a discussion of
God as the One and his relation to creation.
96. Eckhart here indulges in a wordplay (adnominatio) between effectum
and antefactum.
97. A noted text from Augustine, Christ. Doct. 1.5.5, attributes unity to the
Father. On the Father as the One in Eckhart, see Introduction, p. 35.
98. Thomas Aquinas, $T» Ia.33.3.
99. A quotation from the Nicene Creed.

321
 NOTES

100. Boethius, Trinity 2.

101. Thomas Aquinas, Jn J Sent. 29.1.1.
102. Cf. Comm. Jn. n. 5 (p. 124).
103. An expansion of Augustine’s Trin.6.1.1 taken from Peter Lombard.
Also cited in Comm. Jn. n. 31 (p. 132).
104. A theological axiom clearly formulated by Augustine (see his Com-
mentary on John 95.1) and well known to medieval thinkers.
105. Elements of Theology, prop. 1.
106. Commentary on tbe Dream of Scipio 1.6.7—9.
107. An axiom found in the Sentences from Aristotle, a text falsely attributed
to Bede.
108. For a treatment of the Selfsame (id ipsum) as a divine name, see
Comm. Ex. n. 165 (LW II, pp. 145-46).
109. Conf.9.4.11.
110. As contrasted with spiritual beings, or angels, each of whom consti-
tutes its own species.
111. Metaphysics 8.6.
112. Both Aristotle, Met. 10.1 (1053230), and Aquinas, S75 Ia.11.1. ad 1,
teach that each number is composed of units or ones.
113. That is, number occurs only when something departs from the prin-
ciple.
114. Albert the Great, On Indivisible Lines 5-6. This teaching on point and
line is basic to Euclid's Geometry, a work that was available to the Middle Ages
in Boethius's translation.
115. Immortality of tbe Soul 4.6.
116. Porphyry, /sagoge 2.
117. Aristotle, Met. 11.1 (1059b36); Porphyry, /sagoge 2.
118. Aristotle, Soul 3.5 (430a10-12).
119. Aristotle, On Heaven and Earth 1.22 (270233-35).
120. Thomas Aquinas, STh Ia.66.2. ad 2.
121. In these six points Eckhart is speaking of efficient causes that are ana-
logical, not of the univocal efficient causes (e.g., fire causing fire) that are dis-
cussed in twelve points commenting on Gn. 2:21-25 in nn. 116-27 (LW I, pp.
582-91). These two passages are central to the Meister’s teaching on natural
causality.
122. See, e.g., Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, 3.2, lect. 4.5.
123. See the more complete discussion of this in Comm. Jn. nn. 70-72 (pp.
147-48).
124.- Aristotle, Soul 3.9 (432b21).
125. No such commentary on the parable of the sower survives from Eck-
hart's pen.
126. Cf. n. 122 of this exposition (LW I, pp. 587sqq.).

322
 NOTES

127. Lectures and Sermons on Ecclesiasticus nn. 42-61 (LW II, pp. 270-90). See
also Comm. Jn. n. 182 (LW III, p. 150).
128. This commentary has not survived.
129. E.g., Ps. 113:1, Ba. 5:7, Heb. 5:4.
130. The same point is made in Comm. Jn. n. 70 (pp. 147-48).
131. The quotation is from the doxology at the end of the Canon, or Eu-
charistic prayer, of the liturgy (cf. Rm. 16:27).
132. After speaking of the extrinsic principles of created being in the last
section, Eckhart now turns his attention to the intrinsic principles.
133. Metaphysics 2.4.
134. Thomas Aquinas, Jn J Sent.3.4.2.ad 4.
135. See nn. 124-27 (LW I, pp. 589-91).
136. Aristotle, Soul 2.1 (412b5-9).
137. Cf. Comm. Jn. n. 100 (p. 160).
138. Trinity 2. Eckhart means that a pure form cannot be the subject of
accidents, but only a being composed of form and matter.
139. Aristotle, Soul 2.7 (418b26-28).
140. Soul 3.1 (425b25-26).
141. A text known from Aristotle, Phys. 8.5 (256b25) and Soul 3.4 (429a18—
20). Eckhart cites it frequently.
142. Soul 3.4 (429b31).
143. Cf. Comm. Jn. n. 107 (pp. 162-63).
144. Eckhart seems to adhere to the Thomistic teaching of the real distinc-
tion of essence (quod est) and existence (quo est) in creatures and their identity
in God, but B. Muller-Thym, The Establishment of the University of Being in the
Doctrine of Meister Eckhart (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1939), pp. 78-79, points
out the Avicennan cast of his understanding of the distinction.
145. Metaphysics 5.1.
146. Cf. Comm. Jn. n. 45 (p. 135).
147. J. Koch suggests that the phrase “by which they are directed to the
will” should be added here to complete Eckhart’s thought, as in other passages.
148. Eckhart appears to refer to the brief treatments in Comm. Gen. n. 77
and n. 68 (LW I, pp. 238, 232).
149. This passage has not survived, but see Comm. Gen. n. 21 above (p. 90).
150. Comm. Gen. n. 25 (p. 91), and Par. Gen. n. 217 (LW I, pp. 692-95).
151. Enarration in Ps. 32.
152. In a number of places the Meister identifies Sarah with the rational
faculty in man and Hagar with the sensitive; see, e.g., Comm. Gen. nn. 229-33
(LW I, pp. 374-78).
153. Guibert of Nogent makes the same identification in his Moral Com-
mentary on Genesis 1.1.
154..See nn. 135-37 (pp. 108-09).

323
 NOTES

155. This Augustinian theme was a popular one with Eckhart; see nn.
138-40 below (pp. 109-10) and Sermon XXI (LW IV, p. 189).
156. Conf. 1.12.19.
157. Letter 87.24.
158. Augustine, City of God 14.28.
159. Eckhart does not treat cupidity explicitly in nn. 9-36.
160. Comm. Gen. nn. 15sqq. and nn. 22sqq. (pp. 88-91).
161. Trin. 12.13.20, etc.
162. The following position on parabolical or allegorical interpretation
was attacked by the Cologne inquisitors. The Meister's response is worth quot-
ing: “It must be said that this is true as it stands, but this is not to say that
scripture is not true and is not to be explained in literal and historical fashion"
(Théry, p. 193).
163. Peter Lombard, Sentences II. 24.4-11, popularized this Augustinian in-
terpretation among medieval theologians.
164. The tropological sense can be taken either broadly as any symbolic
or allegorical reading, or narrowly as a specifically moral allegory. Eckhart
seems to intend the former.
165. Eckhart here agrees with Thomas Aquinas’s principle that there are
times when the figurative meaning is what the text literally intends. See STh
Ia.1.10.ad 3, and 13.6.
166. Eckhart uses both “made to God's image" and "God's image,” e.g.,
Comm. Jn. n. 31 (p. 132). Sermon XXV.1 (LW IV, pp. 234-35) seems to suggest
that the former expression highlights the distinction between God and the
soul, the latter the conformity. See Introduction, pp. 43-44.
167. Aristotle, Soul 3.4 (430a1).
168. Averroes, Commentary on the Soul 3.19 (on 430a).
169. Aristotle, On Memory and Reminiscence (449b31).
170. Aristotle, Soul 1.4 (408b11-25).
171. Aristotle, Soul 3.3 (439a1). I have translated phantasia as “imagina-
tion."
172. Cf. nn. 21 and 28 above (pp. 101, 103-04).
173. Avicenna, The Soul 1.5.
174. E.g., Trin. 12.30.20, etc. See also Sermon XXI (LW IV, p. 189).
175. The relation of the good to order was discussed by Augustine in The
Nature of the Good 3sqq., and frequently by Thomas, e.g., $7? IIallae.81.2.
176. This notion of the concatenation of all reality into the great chain of
being by the joining of the highest point of the lower to the lowest point of
what is higher is a general Neoplatonic principle. Eckhart's direct source ap-
pears to be the Pseudo-Augustinian The Spirit and tbe Soul 14, as is also suggest-
ed by the use of the term "height of the soul" (supremum animae) in n. 140
below.
177. Maimonides, Guide 3.53.

324
 NOTES

178. Ibid.
179. Augustine, Enarration on Ps. 41:7.
180. Conf. 10.26.37.
181. Brief fragments of Eckhart's Commentary on tbe Song of Songs have be-
gun to appear in LW II, pp. 637sqq.
182. Nichomachean Ethics 1.13 (1102b25-31).
183. Book of Causes, prop. 3.
184. That is, the four elements and the heavenly bodies, which are com-
posed of only form and matter. See Comm. Ex. n. 128 (LW II, p. 118).
185. Eckhart gives a fuller account of this in Comm. Jn. n. 265 (LW III, p.
220).
186. See his Commentary on tbe Metapbysics 12.8.lect.6.
187. That is, the “quintessence,” or gether, which makes up the heavenly
bodies in Aristotelian cosmology.
188. Aristotle, On Heaven and Earth 1.2 (269a30-32).
189. Thomas Aquinas, ST» Ia.94.1.
190. STb Ia.94.2.
191. Based on Aristotle, Met. 11.1 (1059b30).
192. Aquinas, ST» IalIae.109.7, 113.1.
193. Comm. Ex. n. 219 (LW II, p. 185).
194. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, $7» Illa.69.3.ad 3.
195. This account of the threefold division differs slightly from that in n.
141 above (p. 111) where it is the sensitive faculty that is rational through par-
ticipation.
196. On Eckhart’s doctrine of loving union “without any medium" (sine
medio), see Introduction, p. 56.
197. Aquinas, STh 1a.54.4.
198. See Comm. Jn. n. 14 (p. 126).
199. “Concrete being" (id quod est), "essence" (quod quid est), and “what-
it-is" (quidditas). For a discussion of these terms, see Sermon XXV (LW IV, p.
230).
200. The Meister's exposition of this verse has not survived.
201. Averroes, Commentary on tbe Soul 3.5 (on 429a).
202. Conf.4.11.16.
203. Conf.9.10.24.
204. This passage is one of the rare appearances in the Latin works of the
these of the journey into the desert that is frequent in the vernacular works.
The translation tries to convey something of Eckhart's wordplay of so/itudo
and so/us. See also the use of Hos. 2:14 in Bened.1 and 2 (pp. 230, 247).
205. Augustine's interpretation of Paul's blindness after the incident on
the road to Damascus (Ac. 9:9), as found in his Sermon 279.1.1, et al.
206. Soul 2.8 (419b 25-27).
207. Conf.10.6.9-10, abbreviated and somewhat altered.

375
 NOTES

208. The same example is found in Sermon LV.2 (LW IV, p. 455).
209. These three classes of beings appear elsewhere in Eckhart's works,
e.g., Comm. Jn. n. 63 (pp. 144-45). The source is in the Pseudo-Dionysius, Di-
vine Names 5.2.
210. Soul 3.2 (425b25). Before the act of sight takes place, the power of
sight and the visible object are only potentially seeing and seen. They are iden-
tical in the act of seeing.
211. See note 181 above.
212. Jerome, Hebrew Names 5.15.
213. See Comm. Wis. n. 91(LW II, pp. 424-25).
214. On Free Choice 3.25.77.
215. Isidore of Seville, Etymologies 14.3.2.
216. Thomas Aquinas, $T» Ia.94.1.
217. Lit. Comm. Gen. 11.33. Also cited by Aquinas in ST» Ia.94.1.
218. Aristotle, Soul 2.9 (421a20-26).
219. This is based on $75 Ia.98.2.ad 3.
220. ST 1a.91:3:ad 1:
221. Aristotle, Soul 2.9 (421a18-21).
222. This opinion and its refutation are taken from Albert the Great’s
Commentary on tbe Soul 2.3.23.
223. STb 1a.91.3.ad 1.
224. The teaching of this paragraph is drawn from a number of places in
Thomas Aquinas.
225. E.g., n. 92 (LW I, pp. 556—58).
226. See nn. 111 and 93 (LW I, pp. 576, 559).
227. That is, a tendency whose external act is hindered or blocked, a stan-
dard Thomistic teaching, e.g., $75 Iallae.85.2, SCG 3.12.
228. Synderesis is the ineradicable tendency toward the good that belongs
to man's rational nature. Cf. Par. Gen. n. 168 (LW I, p. 638). Eckhart follows
Thomas, e.g., On»Truth 16.
229. Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names 4.23.
230. This sentence forms the sixteenth of the propositions of “In agro do-
minico" (p. 79).
231. This sentence is the seventeenth of the propositions. Eckhart's re-
sponse to the Avignon Commission on the question of the goodness of the ex-
ternal act is instructive. “He [Eckhart] proves these four articles because God
commands the exterior act, but he does not command it properly. This is be-
cause the exterior act has no moral goodness without the goodness of the in-
terior act, and hence God desires the good interior act more principally than
the exterior one" (Pelster, p. 1114). See also the response given during the Co-
logne proceedings (Théry, p. 195). On this question, see Introduction, pp. 58-
59;
232. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.1 (109422).

326
 NOTES

233. On this principle, see n. 86 (LW I, pp. 548-49).

234. Trin.8.3.4.
235. Aristotle, Met. 9.8 (1050a5-8).

PART ONE: 3. COMMENTARY ON JOHN

Translated from the critical edition of J. Koch in LW III, nn. 1-131, pp. 3-114.
I have profited from a careful consultation of Koch's German version, as well
as from a perusal of J. Clark's earlier translation of nn. 1-53 for some turns of
phrase.

1. Albert the Great begins his commentary on John with the same cita-
tion. John was traditionally identified with the eagle figure of the four beasts
of Ezk. 1:5-10 and Rv. 4:6-8.
2. This quotation and the following are taken from an anonymous pro-
logue to Augustine's Commentary on John.
3. On Eckhart's manner of proceeding by natural arguments, see the In-
troduction, pp. 27-28; n. 3 below shows that the Meister believed that the com-
plete conformity of reason and revelation could be demonstrated, a standard
position of many Christian Platonists.
4. Interlinear Gloss on Rm. 1:20.
5. Conf. 7.9.13. Augustine actually said that much of John's Prologue could
be read out of the books of the “Platonists,” that is, Neoplatonic philosophers,
especially Plotinus and Porphyry; but some medieval manuscripts of the Con-
fessions contained the reading “books of Plato" rather than “books of the Pla-
tonists." See notes 151, 169, and 225 below.
6. City of God 10.29.
7. For the structure of argument in nn. 4-37, see Introduction, p. 40, notes
95—96.
8. “In its principle,” i.e., in principio. The Latin principium means both
"beginning" and "principle." Eckhart plays with this semantic ambiguity
throughout his treatment of John and frequently in his other works too.
Though both senses are always present to some degree, I have alternated be-
tween the two in this translation depending on which sense seems uppermost.
. 9. “Idea and likeness,” i.e., ratio et similitudo. On the notion of ratio, see
nn. 30 and 32 below.
10. A supposit is an individual subsisting in a nature, the concrete subject
of predication. See Thomas Aquinas, ST» IIIa.2.2.
11. This emphasis on the substantive sense seems to be based on John the
Scot, Homily on John’s Prologue 6, as known through its use in Thomas Aquinas,
Exposition on Jobn 1:1.
12. Jordan of Quedlinburg, Sermon 68, makes a similar point.

3527
 NOTES

13. Aristotle, Mer. 1.1 (980b27).

14. Aristotle, Met. 4.8 (1012224).
15. Aristotle, Post. Anal. 1.8 (75b31).
16. In the discussion that follows Eckhart frequently moves back and
forth between a discussion of the ideas of things to a discussion of their arche-
typal Idea, that is, the Word or Logos, in order to show the isomorphic relation
between the two.
17. ‘“‘What-it-is” = the technical scholastic quidditas.
18. Book of Causes, prop. 20.
19. Trin.6.10.11.
20. The just man's principial relation to justice is treated frequently in the
Latin works and also appears in the vernacular Book "Benedictus." A remote
source may be found in Augustine's discussion of the just man in Trin. 8.6, but
the Meister's development of the theme is highly original. The important prin-
ciple “insofar as" (in quantum), indicating that the discussion is based on a lim-
ited, formal and abstract point of view, was one of the key issues in Eckhart's
defense of his thought during the process against him. See the Defense, pp. 72-
13.
21. “The man that is taken up" (bomo assumptus) is the sacred humanity |
of Christ. The text (auctoritas) cited here in a form found in many other scho-
lastic authors is based on Isidore of Seville, Questions in Exodus 42.3.
22. Aristotle, Cat. 5 (3b19).
23. See n. 5 (p. 124). The equality of the just man with justice is one of
the sources for Eckhart's many daring ascriptions of divine predicates to man.
We must remember that he is speaking in quantum.
24. Le., justitia genita, an important technical term for Eckhart.
25. The Father is called “Principle without principle" in Peter Lombard’s
Sentences 1.29.1.
26. Literally, "because it exists along with fear of the other side [being
true].” This is the teaching of Aquinas, e.g., On Truth 14.1.
27. For the doctrine of the image in Eckhart’s thought, see especially Ser-
mon XLIX.3 (LW IV, pp. 425-28).
28. Emanatio formalis is a key notion for the Meister. See, e.g., Sermon
XLIX.3, and Comm. Wis. n. 283 (LW II, pp. 615-16).
29. Averroes, Commentary on the Soul 2.67 (on 418a). In scholastic terminol-
ogy the visible species (species visibilis) is the form impressed on the faculty of
sight by means of which we actually come to see.
30. For this theory of sight, see also Bonaventure, Jn II Sent. 13.2-3.
31. That is, like is known by like, a principle that Eckhart and other Scho-
lastics received from Plato by way of Aristotle, e.g., Soul 2.3 (427428).
32. Book of Eighty-Three Questions 63.
33. See Hugh of St. Victor, Guide to the Arts (Didascalicon) 1.11.

328
 NOTES

34. See Thomas Aquinas, ST» Ia.15.1.

35. The "principle by which" (principium quo) of any action is the form
according to which the agent models its effects. The principium quod of an ac-
tion is the supposit, or concrete acting subject.
36. Trin. 6.1.1, as expanded in Peter Lombard's Sentences 1.9.2.
37. Commentary on the Metaphysics 7.5 (on 1028b).
38. See n. 8 (pp. 124-25).
39. Aquinas, $77 Ia.28.1.ad 4.
40. Christ. Doct. 1.3 and 5. Two passages combined in Peter Lombard's
Sentences 1.1.2.
41. The Latin text of the Book of Causes contains a brief commentary on
each of the propositions.
42. Book of Causes, prop. 4.
43. Conf. 10.27.38.
44. What follows is based on Albert the Great's commentary on Jn. 1:1.
45. The Orthodox Faith 1.7.
46. Letter 65.7.
47. Commentary on the Metaphysics 12.36 (on 1072a).
48. Met. 5.2 (1013b34-1014a6).
49. Par. Gen. n. 180 (LW I, p. 650).
50. Aristotle, Soul 3.4 (429b22-24).
51. Consolation of Philosophy 3, poem 9.
52. The “it” (ipsum) of “it comes" must refer to the exemplar as received
by the artist and not as taken by itself.
53. Met. 12.7 (1072b3).
54. E.g., Phys. 2.3 (194b32), and Met. 2.2 (994b 9-11).
55. Met. 2.2 (994b13sqq.).
56. Soul 3.10 (433b14).
57. A lost part of the Work of Propositions.
58. On this disputed question among the Scholastics, Eckhart here follows
Thomas Aquinas, ST» Ia.41.5.
59. The difference between the simple existence (esse simpliciter) of God
and the limited particular existence (esse hoc et boc) of any created thing is fun-
damental to Eckhart's thought.
60. See nn. 52-53 (pp. 140-41).
61. Intellect or understanding (intellectus) is here taken as higher than ex-
istence (esse), as in the Par. Quest. 1-2 (LW V, pp. 37-54).
62. Par. Gen. nn. 55, 58-72 (LW I, pp. 523-24, 526-37).
63. Trin. 8.6.9. Eckhart has rendered Augustine's argument obscure by ab-
breviating the passage, as J. Koch notes in LW III, p. 38, note 4.
64. Ibid.
65. Post. Anal. 2.1 (89b23).

329
 NOTES

66. These four questions are not quite the same as those of Aristotle in
Post. Anal. 2.1, but are closer to those of the Jewish philosopher Ibn Gabirol
in The Fountain of Life 5.24. See Comm. Gen. n. 27 (p. 91).
67. E.g., Augustine, Trin. 8.6.9; Thomas Aquinas, $T» Ilallae.58.11.
68. The “land of unlikeness," a much used theme among Christian mys-
tics, goes back to Plato (Statesman 273D), but was made popular for medieval
authors by its appearance in Conf. 7.10.16.
69. “Drawn” (afficitur). This paragraph and the next base their argument
in part on the rich implications of the verb affıcıo, literally, “to exert an influ-
ence on something so that it is brought into a certain state or condition." I have
rendered afficio and its compounds in various ways, including "affect,"
"draw," "change," and "transform," to bring out this richness.
70. On the Epistle of John to the Parthians 2.2, a key auctoritas that Eckhart
frequently refers to in defense of his doctrine of divinization.
71. Homilies on Jobn 26.5.
72. Conf. 10.23.34.
73. Conf. 10.40.65.
74. Soliloquy of tbe Soul's Pledge.
75. Seein^6 (ps2).
76. The theme of living “without a why" (sunder warumbe, sine quare) is
central to Eckhart’s mysticism. In attaining to life “without a why” we ap-
proximate the divine existence, which is essentially *without a why." See In-
troduction, pp. 59-60.
77. Divine Names 4.32.
78. Met. 1.1 (980627).
79. On Free Choice 1.6.15.
80. Conf. 1.6.10.
81. A Thomistic principle (e.g., STb I1la.77.3. ad 3), based on Aristotle,
Met. 7.7 (1032a 20sqq).
82. Commentary on John 1.13, a text incorporated into the Ordinary Gloss.
83. See the Par. Quest. 1.4 (LW V, p. 41).
84. Ratio. As J. Koch notes (LW III, p. 45, note 1), ratio is used in three
senses in the following interpretations, as cause or ground, as idea, and as rea-
son.
85. Timaeus 28A.
86. That is, everything that is in God (preexisting in him insofar as he is
the First Cause) is in him eternally as an idea.
87. Trin. 3.4.9.
88. Augustine, Lit. Comm. Gen. 1.6.12.
89. Augustine, Enarration on Ps. 38.
90. Augustine, On Free Choice 3.5.13.
91. Augustine, Lit. Comm. Gen. 1.6.13 also sees the Holy Spirit indicated
in this verse.

330
 NOTES

92. Soul 3.2 (425b26).

93. See note 47 above.
94. Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption 1.1 (314215).
95. Averroes, Commentary on the Physics 4.124 (on 2222).
96. Consolation of Philosophy 3, poem 9.
97. Book of Causes, prop. 10.
98. Soul 2.2 (414211).
99. Boethius, 7rinity 4.
100. Book of Causes, prop. 12.
101. In the Par. Quest. 1 (LW V, pp. 42-43) Eckhart seems to reject this dis-
tinction, though we find it used in other contexts besides the one here, ea.
Sermon 82 (DW III, p. 262). On the relation of existence and understanding, see
Introduction, pp. 32-35.
102. See Thomas Aquinas, ST» Ia.79.2.
103. John Chrysostom, Homilies on John 5.
104. Origen, Commentary on Jobn 2.20 (cited in the Ordinary Gloss on Jn.
1:9).
105. Porphyry, /sagoge 4.
106. Book of Causes, prop. 4.
107. Aristotle, Met. 5.2 (1013b36); Phys. 2.3 (195232).
108. Aristotle, Met. 7.8 (1034a 5-8).
109. Aristotle, Soul 2.4 (415a 26-29).
110. Aristotle, Met. 5.15 (1021211).
111. Thomas Aquinas, ST» IIallae.95.5.
112. The notional acts are the distinguishing or personal realities in the
Godhead, e.g., begetting as proper to the Father.
113. From the Ordinary Gloss on Jn. 1:4.
114. Letter 64.10.
115. Art of Poetry, v. 180.
116. Seneca, Letter 1.6.
117. See nn. 11-12 and 20-22 (pp. 125-26, 128-29).
118. For the metaphysical background to the Meister's theory of light, see
Par. Gen. nn. 116-22 (LW I, pp. 582-88).
119. Literally, “not east before west, or west before east."
120. “In the manner of a reception" (per modum passionis). Passio here is to
be taken in the technical sense as that which is opposed to actio in the Aris-
totelian theory of movement.
121. See n. 12 (p. 126). A similar interpretation of the darkness is found
in John the Scot's Homily on tbe Prologue ofJobn 13.
122. See note 118.
123. Ps. 61:12, a favorite text of Eckhart's; see Introduction, p. 39.
124. Augustine, Sermon 279.1.
125. See the Comm. Ex. n. 237 (LW II, pp. 195-96).

331
 NOTES

126. Celestial] Hierarchies 1.2.

127. 'The Meister is speaking of the fire found in the highest sphere, or
empyreum, of Aristotelian cosmology.
128. This is the interpretation of Maimonides, Guide 2.30. It is also noted
by Thomas Aquinas, $7» 1a.66.1.ad 2.
129. Aristotle, Soul 3.6 (430b21-23).
130. Pseudo-Bede, Exposition on Luke 5, following Augustine, Gospel Ques-
tions 2.40. See the appeal to the same text in the documents from the Defense,
pa
131. Gregory the Great, Dialogues 1.5.
132. Eadmer, Anselm s Book of Resemblances 95.
133. Aristotle, Soul 2.4 (415a16-22).
134. Augustine, On Patience 12.9.
135. Augustine, Letter 138.2:12.
136. Aquinas, ST» Ia.21.4.ad 4.
137. Not in Chrysostom, but found in the ninth-century Christian of
Stablo’s Commentary on Matthew.
138. Pseudo-Chrysostom, /ncomplete Commentary on Matthew, hom. 18.
139. Eckhart seems to be referring to a lost commentary on Romans.
140. Conf. 11.8.10.
141. Book of Causes, prop. 24.
142. Conf. 4.11.16.
143. Conf. 9.10.24. A condensation of the stages of the famous ascent to
God in the vision of Ostia.
144. Comm. Wis. n. 280 (LW II, pp. 612-13).
145. Aristotle, Sophistical Refutations 1.15 (174b5-7).
146. Peter Lombard, Sentences IV.46.5.
147. Thomas Aquinas, ST» IallIae.29.2.
148. Enarration on Ps. 98.12.
149. The distinction of the two levels of reason is a familiar one in Eck-
hart; see especially Par. Gen. nn. 138-41 (pp. 109-11).
150. For a study of the history of this Augustinian theme, see R. Mulligan,
"Ratio Superior and Ratio Inferior: The Historical Background," The New
Scholasticism 29 (1955): 1-32.
151. Conf. 7.9.13.
152. Lit. Comm. Gen. 4.28.45.
153. On Faitb 2.2.
154. Eckhart follows Thomas here, see STh Ia.13.3. For more detailed
treatments of the Meister's teaching on the divine names, see the two extended
treatments in the Comm. Ex. nn. 27-78 and 143-84 (LW II, pp. 32-82, 130-58).
155. Cf. n. 74 (p. 149).
156. Cf. n. 21 (pp. 128-29).

332
 NOTES

157. Continuous Gloss (Catena aurea) on John 1:9.

158 . Book of Causes, prop. 21.
159. Per se in the Latin. Eckhart is following Thomas Aquinas, who in his
Commen tary on the Book of Causes lecture 21, n. 372, says: "In any genus what-
ever, th e first is that which exists through itself (per seipsum). What exists
through itself (per se) is prior to that which exists through another (per aliud).”
160 . Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Posterior Analytics 1.2, lect. 4.
161 . Pseudo-Augustine (Ambrose Autpert), Sermon 208.10.
162 . On Consideration 3.2.6.
163 . Perhaps an allusion to City of God 5.19.
164 . Book of Causes, prop. 1. The commentator is Thomas Aquinas, Com-
mentary on tbe Book of Causes, lect. 1, n. 26.
165 . God's equally immediate presence to all things, studied by Boethius
in the fifth book of the Consolation of Philosophy, was strongly emphasized by
Thomas, e.g., STb 1a.22.3; SCG 3.76.
166 . Soul 3.5 (430215).
167 . This etymology is repeated in several sermons, e.g., Sermon XXII
(LW IV, p. 199).
168. Conf. 11.8.10.
169. Conf. 7.9.13.
170. Book of Causes, prop. 21.
15: From a liturgical oration in the Gregorian Sacramentary.
172. Commentary on John 12.12.
173; Conf. 12.8.8., etc.
174. Trn213.13:23:
175. See n. 70 (pp. 147-48).
176. On the dialectic of distinction and indistinction, see Introduction,
pp: 34-35:
177 . Conf. 10.27.38.
178 . Soul 2.2 (414211).
9 . Soul 2.7 (418b26).
180 . Soul 2.5 (41726).
181 . Literally, “is nothing of all the things that are" (nibil omnium est).
This doctrine, crucial to Eckhart's thought, is based on Aristotle, Soul 3.4
(429224).
182. Soul 3.4 (429b25).
183. Soul 3.4 (429b31).
184. Met. 1.8 (989b6).
185. See n. 53 (p. 141).
186. The Ortbodox Faitb 3.6.
187. Peter Lombard, Sentences 11.4.2.
188. Peter Lombard, Sentences I11.3.4.

333
 NOTES

189. Thomas Aquinas, S7» IIIa.14.1; 15.1.

190. This theme was brought up against Eckhart in the Cologne proceed-
ings, but did not figure in the final condemnation.
191: SZ 5:12:35.
192. Aristotle, Met. 3.3 (998b20-28).
193. This interpretation is based on Augustine, Commentary on John 2.12,
and was repeated by many authors.
194. Soul 3.4 (430a3) and 3.2 (425b26). The words “is the intellective power
the same as the intelligible object” are not in the text, but J. Koch rightly sug-
gests that Eckhart left them out by mistake in his paraphrase of Aristotle (LW
III, p. 91, note 4).
195. Trin. 9.12.18.
196. Conf. 6.4.7.
197. These positions were held by two Dominican contemporaries of Eck-
hart, Hervaeus Natalis and Durand of St. Pourcain. The Meister’s attack on
these views in the Work of Questions has not survived.
198. “Positive and negative appetites” (appetitus concupiscibilis et irascibilis).
These are the two inferior parts of the threefold classification of powers that
goes back to Plato. See Sermon 83 (p. 207).
199. Nicomachean Ethics 1.11 (1102b28-31).
200. The Vulgate text, following the Greek, does use the plural (non ex
sanguinibus), and Eckhart here attempts to explain this grammatical anomaly.
The passage from Augustine is found in the Commentary on John 2.14.
201. See n. 96 (pp. 158-59).
202. See n. 105 (p. 162).
203. Book of Causes, prop. 24.
204. See n. 97 (p. 159).
205. Jerome, Little Book on tbe Psalms, Ps. 26.
206. On Order 1.2.3.
207. On True Religion 34.64.
208. On Trae Religion 35.65.
209. On True Religion 36.66. Eckhart has slightly altered the text.
210. The interchangeability of the transcendentals was a key to Eckhart's
thought, as it had been for Thomas Aquinas (e.g., On Trutb 1.1). For more ex-
tended treatments later in the Commentary see nn. 513, 546-47, and 562 (LW
III, pp. 444, 477, 489).
211. Commentary on Ecclesiastes 4.6.
212. Par. Gen. nn. 73-74 (LW I, pp. 538-40).
213. See n. 98 (p. 159).
214. Eckhart frequently uses this etymology of “son” (filius) from philos.
215. A story from Aesop well known to the preachers of the Middle Ages.
216. See n. 106 (p. 162).

334
 NOTES

217. Eckhart's wordplay here between habitavit and babituavit cannot be

brought out in English.
218. This is the basis for one of the most controversial aspects of Eckhart's
preaching, most boldly expressed in the vernacular works in such formulae as
“The Father gives birth to the Son without ceasing and I say more: he gives
me birth, me, his son and the same son" (Sermon 6, p. 187). Three excerpts re-
lating to the birth of the Son in the soul were included in the Bull “In agro
dominico." On these issues, see Introduction, pp. 50-52.
219. This theme (central to Eckhart), as well as the mirror analogy, go
back to Augustine, Enarration on Ps. 10.
220. In this convoluted sentence the Meister is interested in stressing the
agreement of 1 Jn. 3:1 and Rm. 8:29 in their use of the subjunctive to express
the purpose of the Incarnation.
221. Soul 3.2 (425b26).
222. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Jobn 12.
223. Aristotle (citing Plato) in Soul 1.2 (404b17).
224. Augustine, Trin. 7.6.12.
225. Augustine, Conf. 7.9.13.
226. “Share the modes of predication proper to each" (communicant idio-
mata). This technical phrase, originating with John Damascene, generally used
to describe how both divine and human things are predicated of Christ, is here
used in a more extended sense.
227. Soul 1.1 (403a5-10).
228. This text has not been identified.
229. The following theme and the example of fire that illustrates it are fre-
quent in Eckhart, e.g., Comm. Ex. n. 140 (LW II, pp. 127-28).
230. Eckhart here makes use of the traditional understanding of Martha
as entailing a form of life inferior to that of Mary. For a daring reversal of this,
see Sermon 86 (DW III, pp. 481-92).
231. Conf. 1.1.1.
232. See nn. 184-86 (LW III, pp. 153-56).

PART TWO: 1. SELECTED SERMONS

SERMON 2 (Translated from DW I, pp. 24-45.)

1. For a detailed exegesis of this sermon, see R. Schürmann, Meister Eck-

hart. Mystic and Philosopher, pp. 9-47.
2. “Received” the MHG: enpfangen also means “conceived,” a wordplay
that is basic to the sermon.
3. MHG: enpfangen.
4. Again enpfangen with the sense of “receive-conceive.”

335
 NOTES

5. MHG: vrubt also has the sense of “offspring.”

6. "Simple one" = MHG: einic ein, a favorite expression for God as Ab-
solute Unity. See Sermon 15 (p. 192).
7. "Properties" = MHQG: eigenschaft. This is another key word in this ser-
mon, at the beginning indicating the selfish possessiveness of the soul, and here
the distinction of Persons that stands between the soul and the simple unity
of the divine ground. See Introduction, pp. 34-37, 42-44.

SERMON 5b (Translated from DW I, pp. 85-96.)

1. Quint considers this version of Sermon 5a to be only partially authentic.

Although it is recorded in eight manuscripts, with fragments quoted in an-
other nine, only one attributes it to Eckhart by name; and it is Quint's opinion
that this is a later editor's attempt to render the original sermon, with its con-
demned passages, harmless. He thinks that the passage on the will is interpo-
lated from another source, though he concedes that earlier scholars have
shown that it was used by Tauler, though this in Quint’s opinion does not nec-
essarily imply that Tauler believed it to be by Eckhart.
2. Eckhart here appears to be citing himself. On the Incarnation's effect
on the entire human race, see Introduction, p. 46.
3. Quint cites Thomas Aquinas, in /n II Sent., 32.2.3, making the specific
equality of human beings compatible with substantial inequality in human
souls.
4. "Everything good ... in this human nature" is a close parallel to art.
11 from "In agro dominico": “Whatever God the Father gave his Only-Begot-
ten Son in human nature, he gave all this to me. I except nothing, neither
union nor sanctity; but he gave the whole to me, just as he did to him." The
Latin has all of the authentic Eckhart ring, and it may well support Quint's
theory that there was a more authentic German version that has not survived.
Art. 11 was condemned as heretical. See Introduction, pp. 17, 50-52, for back-
ground.
5. Here Quint suspects a missing passage that should introduce the next
theme, the birth of the Son.
6. MHG: insweben, “is suspended,” or “hovers.” The nature referred to in
this difficult passage seems to be human nature in its principial existence.
7. Thomas Aquinas, STh, Suppl. 70.3.
8. This is difficult to translate, since MGH nibt can be either adverb,
"not," or noun, "nothing," but the context demands a noun.
9. On the importance of the identity of the soul's ground with God's
ground, see Introduction, pp. 42-44.
10. Cf. Is. 45:15.
11. On living “without a why,” see Introduction, pp. 59-60.

336
 NOTES

SERMON 6 (Translated from DW I, pp. 99-115.)

1. For an important study of this sermon, see K. Kertz, “Meister Eckhart's

Teaching on the Birth of the Divine Word in the Soul," Traditio 15 (1959): 336-
39, 359-62.
2. Justinian, Znstitutes I, 1.
3: CE Tim. 1:1.
4. "Who are not desiring possessions .. . these people pay honor to God”:
this is the material for art. 8 of "In agro dominico," which is condemned as
heretical.
5. "Improvement and edification" is supplied, where the German manu-
scripts have a lacuna, from Quint’s citation of a parallel passage in Comm. Wis.
n. 59 (LW II, p. 386).
6. On the basis of one manuscript, Quint here supplies a phrase that could
be translated something like: “that he is not indifferent to all things."
7. This is actually from Bernard of Clairvaux, Of Precept and Dispensation,
20.60; the Latin is making a play on amat, animat.
8. Isticheit, a term coined perhaps by Eckhart. This sentence appears in the
Cologne proceedings (Théry, p. 240), where isticheit is rendered as quidditas
(^what-it-is"), but it is not certain that this is what Eckhart had in mind, for
his response here is totally in terms of esse or "existence."
9. Bi gote; Eckhart makes much play with 5?’s two senses, “close beside"
and “at the home of."
10. Art. 22 from "In agro dominico," deplored as suspect of heresy, is ex-
tracted from this.
11. This is Quint's interpretation of a difficult and doubtful phrase—
MHG: ein unglich; Latin: unum, non simile. For a slightly different rendering
of the Latin translation as found in the Bull, see p. 78.
12. “We shall be completely transformed ... There is no distinction”: this
is the material for art. 10 from “In agro dominico," beginning, “We are wholly
transformed and changed into God," as if the notion were Eckhart's and not
Paul's, and omitting the conceit about Eckhart’s little finger. The article was
condemned as heretical.
13. "Recently I thought ... life everlasting": this is the material for art.
9 from “In agro dominico," very accurately translated and condemned as he-
retical.

SERMON 15 (Translated from DW I, pp. 244-53.)

1. The single manuscript, St. Gall 972a, in which this entire sermon is re-
corded is here extremely corrupt. Quint has with the help of corresponding
passages elsewhere conjectually restored some of it but any translation would

337
 NOTES

be no more than a conjectural amplification of Quint's conjectures. The drift

is clear: Goodness is a divine attribute, and the soul cannot be satisfied with
attributes, only with essence.
2. That is, the Holy Spirit is flowing out with God's goodness, so that the
soul, desiring only the attributes, obtains the essence.
3. Cf. Ps. 41:8. Quint interprets differently: “The sun corresponds to God;
the highest part of God's unfathomable depths replies to what is most abased
in the depths of humility." But the text as we have it shows that Eckhart is
pursuing the theme of Sermon 14, of the debased God.”
4. On Eckhart’s teaching that all created things are nothing in themselves,
see Introduction, p. 33.
5. Le., the Metapbysics. But Eckhart seems to have in mind the discussion
in Soul 2:1 (412ab) in what follows.
6. This teaching is that of St. Thomas rather than of Aristotle, see, e.g.,
STb l1a.57.2.
7. Possibly a reference to Soul 3.8 (431b20-27).
8. Consolation of Philosophy 3, poem 9.
9. “Without a medium" 2 MHG: sunder mittel, or ane mittel. For this im-
portant theme, see Introduction, p. 56.
10. What Aristotle says about separated substances is found in Mer. 12.8.
11. "Something" = MHG: was, Eckhart's simplification of the Scholas-
tics’ rendering of Aristotle's “that which was to be."
12. “The last end” is supplied by Quint.

SERMON 22 (Translated from DW I, pp. 375-89.)

1. This sermon has been discussed by H. Fischer, *Grundgedanken der

deutschen Predigten," in Meister Eckbart der Prediger (Freiburg: Herder, 1960),
pp. 45-50, 55.
2. A conflation of Lk. 1:35, Ws. 18:15 and Jm. 1:17.
3. As sources Quint quotes Leo the Great's First Sermon on tbe Nativity:
"She conceived her divine and human child in the mind before she did in the
body"; and Augustine's Holy Virginity: “When she said ‘Behold the handmaid
of the Lord,' she was conceiving Christ in her mind before she did in her
womb."
4. That is, the idea represented by the word conceived.
5. See Par. Gen. n. 11 (p. 97) as a parallel.
6. On the notion of existence in the principle as found in this paragraph
and frequently throughout Eckhart, see Introduction, pp. 39-40.
7. Eckhart tells the same story in Comm. Jn. n. 683 (LW III, p. 598).
8. See note 2.

338
 NOTES

9. See Thomas Aquinas, SCG 3.21: *A created thing by what it does tends
towards its divine likeness."
10. See Comm. Wis. n. 27 (LW II, p. 346).
11. The source of this has not been identified.
12. See Comm. Gen. n. 166 (LW II, p. 312): "God is at rest in every work,
from every work, for he is not mixed in the things which are worked, as it says
in the Book of Causes."
13. The reference is to either Sermon 12 or 13, which Eckhart says were
preached at the Benedictine convent of this name in Cologne (DW I, pp. 203,
209). Cross references to this sermon in Sermon 13 say that it was delivered at
the Cistercian convent of Mariengarten in the same city, a fact that may ac-
count for the Bernardine themes at the end. These cross references and many
similarities of themes led Quint (DW I, pp. 372-74) to argue that Sermons 10—
15 and 22 were all delivered to groups of nuns at Cologne late in Eckhart's ca-
reer.
14. Just as the “little town" of Sermon 2 (p. 181) is a "simple one" (MHG:
einic ein), since it is identified with God who is the supreme “Simple One" (see
Sermon 15, p. 192, and Sermon 83, p. 206).
15. This sentence is an anacoluthon, but the general sense is evident.
16. Quint considers that this must have been the Dominicans' institute of
general studies at Cologne (DW I, p. 381).
17. That is, insofar as the soul is the “little spark,” it is both eternally being
born from the Father and eternally unborn as one with the Father. See Intro-
duction, pp. 42-43.
18. The exact source for this has not been identified, but the idea is close
to one found in Thomas Aquinas in STb Ia.47.1.
19. Presumably in the pulpit.
20. See Sermon 14 (DW I, p. 233) and elsewhere, for similar passages.
21. That is, the birth of the Son.
22. This rich paragraph combines the typically Eckhartian language of
the hidden darkness of the divinity with both courtly imagery (the knight and
lady in the pavilion) and Bernardine love mysticism (see the interpretation of
Sg. 2:8-9 in Bernard's Sermons on the Song of Songs 53-55). See also Introduction,
p. 49.

SERMON 48 (Translated from DW II, pp. 413-21.)

1. Of the possible sources indicated by Quint, the closest is Thomas Aqui-

nas, STh Iallae.29.1.
2. The “authority” seems to be Aristotle, On Heaven and Earth, passim, as
used by Maimonides and others.

339
 NOTES

3. The parallel passages, e.g., Sermon XXXVIII (LW IV, pp. 327-28), seem
to indicate that Eckhart is citing himself again as "the authorities.”
4. Aristotle, Soul 2.7 (418b26). See, e.g., Par. Gen. n. 31, (p. 105) for a par-
allel use.
5. The Bull “In agro dominico" condemned as heretical the proposition
that there is something in the soul that is uncreated and not capable of cre-
ation, although Eckhart denied making such statements. It seems clear from
this passage and others (e.g., Sermon 13 in DW I, p. 220), however, that he did.
On this problem, see Introduction, p. 42.
6. A conjectural rendering of a difficult and unclear phrase.
7. “Of the soul” is Quint’s gloss, plainly justified.
8. "Divine essence" = MHG: gotlich wesen.

SERMON 52 (Translated from DW II, pp. 486-506.)

1. Three different vernacular introductions to this sermon are extant in

various manuscripts, and there is a Latin version in a Koblenz ms. edited by
Quint in DW II, pp. 517-21.
2. Quint translates: “Be poor like this, to understand what I say.” This
seems unjustified, and the manuscript variants he quotes show that contempo-
rary scribes did not so interpret it.
3. Albert the Great (c. 1200-1280), the famous Dominican theologian and
teacher of Thomas Aquinas. The reference is to his Commentary on Mattbew 5.3.
4. On this theme, see Introduction, pp. 46-47, 57.
5. Ledic sin, “empty being” in the sense of free and absolute. On the prin-
cipial existence discussed in this paragraph, see Introduction, pp. 39-40.
6. A reminiscence of Ex. 3:14.
7. On the debates concerning the concept of true beatitude and Eckhart's
position, see Introduction, pp. 56-57.
8. “This or that,” that is, particular beings.
9. Literally, "the saying." Quint translates to show that the "saying" is
not Paul's, but what Eckhart has written. The Latin, however, does not sup-
port this.
10. On the soul as creator of itself, see Introduction, p. 52. “In agro do-
minico," art. 13 (p. 79) condemned the view that the divine man created heaven
and earth together with God.
11. Some suggest that the "great authority" is Eckhart himself. For a simi-
lar instance, see Sermon 5b (p. 182). On this passage and the notion of the break-
through, see Introduction, pp. 30, 55.

340
 NOTES

SERMON 53 (Translated from DW II, pp. 528-38.)

1. Quint translates: “... so that he may come to God in a wonderful way,”

and cites a parallel from Sermon 24 (DW I, p. 415).
2. This seems to be a free rendition of Christ. Doct. 1.6.6: "Whatever has
been spoken by me, if it were ineffable could not be spoken, and for this reason
God is not to be said to be ineffable, because even when this is said something
is said. A sort of verbal conflict ensues, because if that is ineffable which can-
not be spoken, then that is not ineffable which can be spoken of as ineffable."
The paradox of God's being both a Word and yet ineffable does not come
across as clearly in Eckhart's rendition. Augustine discusses the ineffability of
the Word of God in a number of places in the Lit. Comm. Gen.
3. The Son is "speech working” because all things are made through him
(Jn. 1:3).
4. On the Son's remaining in the Father even when he is spoken, see Ser-
mon 9 (DW I, p. 157).
5. See Seneca, Natural Questions 1.5.
6. Quint also finds this anecdote in a manuscript of Marquard of Lindau's
The Ten Commandments. The observation echoes many passages in Eckhart's
works, e.g., Comm. Ex. n. 174 (LW II, p. 150), quoting Maimonides.
7. Quint cites Thomas Aquinas, $T» Ia.13.8 as a source.
8. See also Bened. 1 (pp. 225, 228).
9. On Eckhart's use of this text, see Introduction, p. 39.
10. For a parallel passage, see Par. Gen. n. 146 (p. 113).

SERMON 83 (Translated from DW III, pp. 437-48.)

1. Mens = mind.
2. Quint adduces Augustine's Enarration on Ps. 3.3, and also Albert the
Great, On Man and On the Good, as sources.
3. Book of Causes, prop. 6.
4. A similar expression of apophatic theology was condemned by “In agro
dominico" (p. 80).
5. In the Counsels on Discernment and the Commentary on Exodus, Eckhart
attributes this (correctly) to pseudo-Dionysius, Mystical Theology 1.1.
6. Quint has several quotations, from Augustine, Albert the Great, and
John Damascene, saying something like this, but none of them is the exact
source.
7. The three lower powers of the soul are originally Platonic in origin. On
the powers of the soul, see Introduction, pp. 43-44.
8. That is, if the work in question descends from the realm of eternity into

341
 NOTES

that of time (the “here” and “now”), the ideal cooperation between God and
the soul becomes impossible.
9. “A nonGod, a nonspirit, etc.” (MHG: ein nit-got, ein nit-geist) might also
be translated as “One not-God, One not-spirit, etc."
10. The reading “out of something” (MHG: ire) is Quint's plausible con-
jecture to make sense of a difficult passage.

PART TWO: 2. TREATISES

A. THE BOOK "BENEDICTUS": THE BOOK OF DIVINE
CONSOLATION (Translated from DW V, pp. 3-61.)

1. Compare with the exegesis of Jn. 1:12 in Comm. Jn. nn. 106-15 (pp. 162-
67).
. Enarration on Ps. 36.1.3.
. MHG: noch diz noch daz, i.e., in any limited way.
. “Love and holding dear" = MHG: liebe und minne.
. Conf. 10.41.
. Sermon 105.3.4.
. Sermon 53.6.6.
tA
QN
—1
OO
r2
pW. Aristotle,Nicomachean Ethics 8.5.
9. See Aristotle, Phys. 4.1 (2082).
10. Augustine, On tbe Greatness of tbe Soul 6.9.
11. Natural Questions 3.12.
12. Seneca, Letter to Lucilius.
13. Thomas Aquinas, $T» [a.12.9.
14. Eckhart is here using a wordplay on MHG riche, which can mean ei-
ther “kingdom” or “riches.”
15. The source of art. 14 of “In agro dominico." See. p. 79, and Introduc-
tion (pp. 13-14). |
16. See Trin.8.3.4; moving in its own bare and limitless orbit" seems to
be Eckhart's own adornment.
17. Eckhart may have in mind the good thief of Lk. 23:41.
18. Enarration on Ps. 30.3.
19. Aristotle, Soul 2.7 (418b26).
20. See Thomas Aquinas, $7» Iallae.3.2.ad 4.
21. On God as the One or Absolute Unity, see Introduction, pp. 34-36.
22. On the identification of the One with the Father as the source of the
Trinity of Persons, see Introduction, ibid.
23. E.g., 1 Co. 13:12, and 2 Co. 3:18.
24. For this common scholastic teaching on fire, see also Comm. Ex. n. 140
(LW II, pp. 127-28).

342
 NOTES

25. “... this inner work" (Quint) as contrasted with the external work just
described.
26. Cf. Par. Gen. n. 162 (p. 120).
27. "... and is born Son" = MHG: und wirt sun geborn. MHG capitalizes
no nouns, modern German all nouns, and English usage allows the translator
to proceed at his own risk. On the identity and difference between "son of
God” and “Son of God,” see Introduction, pp. 52-54.
28. The preceding five sentences form one long and obscure sentence in
the MHG, for which this rendering is conjecturally advanced.
29. “... proper attribute" = MHG: eigenschaft, a central term in Eckhart's
vocabulary. See Sermon 2, p. 181.
30. “... intellectual ambition" = MHG: geist. This creates a paradoxical
wordplay with the “Spirit” in the second half of the sentence that the English
does not bring out.
31. Christ. Doct. 3.27.38. Augustine teaches how profitable it can be to
demonstrate the truth of one passage in scripture from others, since all scrip-
ture is the work of the Holy Spirit. But there is not Eckhart’s reprehension
of intellectual ambition.
32. From the Glossa ordinaria (Quint.).
33. “To understand it better ... the divine nature.” This is the closest
source that has been found to art. 13, condemned as heretical, from “In agro
dominico" (p. 79). The parallel is not close, though Eckhart elsewhere very of-
ten writes and speaks of the just man as co-creator and co-begetter of the Word.
Even the last clause is not more audacious than some other statements of his.
34. See Peter Lombard, Sentences 1.9.4.
35. For Eckhart’s teaching on disinterested love, see Introduction, p. 49.
36. M.-H. Laurent adduced this as the source for art. 20 of the Bull, but
the parallel is distant at best (see p. 79).
37. This indicates that Eckhart intended the sermon “Of the Nobleman"
to be the complement of the Book of Divine Consolation and thus form the sec-
ond part of the Book "Benedictus. "
38. Eckhart is here writing of the sea's tidal motion up the shore.
39. See note 27 above.
40. Compare with Par. Gen. n. 149 (p. 114).
41. See The Lives of the Fathers 1.9.
42. Letter 138.3.12.
43. Sermons 105.3.4, and 53.6.6. See notes 6 and 7 above.
44. The source of this quotation has not been identified.
45. Sermon 17.4.
46. Literally “through God” = MHG: durch got.
47. See art. 23 of “In agro dominico,” p. 79.
48. Quint observes how freely Eckhart has translated his source, Jerome’s

343
 NOTES

Letter 120.10, and how far scribes have been led astray by mistaking Eckhart's
wabs (wax), for fasz, Jerome's vas (vessel), which metaphor Eckhart chose to re-
place with his own.
49. Lives of tbe Fatbers 3.
50. Quint suggests that this alludes to the Chalcidius version of Plato's Ti-
maeus.
51. Conf.1.6.10.
52. Conf. 10.23.34.
53. Lit. Comm. Gen. 12.14.19.
54. Letter 71.24.

B. THE BOOK “BENEDICTUS”: OF THE NOBLEMAN (Translated from

DW V, pp. 109-119)

. Isaac Israeli, The Book of Definitions.

. See Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on 2 Corinthians 4.1.5.
. Cf. Ep. 4:22, Mt. 13:28, Lk. 19:13.
. Cf. Rm. 6:6, 1 Co. 15:47, Jn. 15:15; Ps. 102:5.
ph
wm
eS. Commentary on Matthew 3.18.10.
WN

6. On Adam, Eve, the serpent and their conversation, see Par Gen. nn.
137sqq. (pp. 108sqq.).
7. By “the man in the soul,” vir in anima, Eckhart commonly designates
the “higher intellect.”
8. “... anything particular" = MHG: diz und daz.
9. Cicero, Tusculan Questions 3.1.2; Seneca, Letter 73.16.
10. Homilies on Genesis 13.4.
11. Quint is probably correct in indicating On True Religion 26.49 as the
source for this; but Eckhart’s recollection of what Augustine wrote seems
vague, and he may have confused it with other treatments of this very popular
theme. Augustine says that in the first age of this new and inner and heavenly
man he is nourished with examples from the breasts of profitable history, but
the infant staggering about as it learns to walk is not there.
12. Homilies on Genesis 13.4.
13. The same example is found in the Comm. Jn. n. 575 (LW III, p. 503).
It is drawn from the Pseudo-Dionysius, Mystical Theology 2.
14. Trin.12.7.10.
15. This is Quint’s interpretation, fully justified and documented, of this
admittedly difficult passage.
16. A free rendition of elements of Ps. 4:2-7.
17. These two sentences form art. 24 of “In agro dominico," deplored as
suspect of heresy (see p. 79).
18. “... being and essence" = MHG: in wesene und in wesunge.

344
 NOTES

19. MHG: ein mensche, which could, and in modern German still can,
mean "one man" or “a man."
20. On unity and distinction, see Introduction, pp. 34-36.
21. Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 1.6.7-10.
22. Eckhart here is indicating a derivation of *man" (bomo) from “hum-
ble" (humilis).
23. This is Isidore of Seville’s etymology of humilis from humus
(“ground”).
24. "... alone” = MHG: blöz. Eckhart often plays on the senses of this
word—“alone,” “merely,” “directly,” “barely,” » 66 *nakedly," ” etc.; but in what
follows there is no such play, and there seems to be no reason for translating
it, as Quint does, unverhillt.
25. Aristotle, Met. 1.1 (980221).
26. Thomas Aquinas, SCG 1.71.
27. Augustine, Lit. Comm. Gen. 4.23.40.
28. Blóz. See note 24.
29. Close to a passage in Detach. (p. 292).
30. "... going out and return" = MHG: ein üszlac und ein widerslac. On
exitus and reditus as the basic structure of the natural (and supernatural) uni-
verse in Eckhart, see Introduction, pp. 30-31. Here the soul's contemplation
of God is what reveals to it its true metaphysical essence as an example of this
emanation and return.
31. That is, the ideal form, reason or principle is superior to what partic-
ipates in it.
32. The justifications of this translation of an exceedingly difficult passage
will be found in Quint’s elucidatory notes, and his references to the contro-
versies of the age between Thomists, who parted from Thomas over this, and
Franciscans, who did not, about the nature of blessedness.
33. Quint points out, citing John of Pouilly, that Eckhart is here writing
about the Scholastics’ “particular sense" and “common sense."
34. Eckhart is attacking the view that beatitude consists in a reflexive act
(knowing that we know God) rather than in direct, “medium-less” awareness.
Reflexive knowledge is a necessary accompaniment, but is not the essence of
beatitude.
35. J. Koch suggested, and Quint is prepared to accept, that the text as he
gives it here and as it has now been translated may be corrupt (see DW V, p.
135, 1:56).
36. The play here is upon adeler = "eagle," and edeler = “noble.”
37. “... desert” = MHG: einoede, continues the play on ein, the One.

345
 NOTES

C. COUNSELS ON DISCERNMENT (Translated from DW V, pp. 185-309.)

1. Collation, i.e., the evening meal of the Dominican community.

2. "Hearing" could also mean “hearing confessions" or “listening to read-
ings."
3. Conf. 10.26.37.
4. "Empty spirit" = MHG: ledige gemüete. One might also say “free heart,
disposition or intention." Gemüete, meaning all man's capacities of thinking
and feeling, is a frequent term in this treatise.
5. Probably Gregory the Great, Homilies on tbe Gospels 5.2.
6. On the relation between contemplation and action and Eckhart's lack
of interest in ecstasy, see Introduction, pp. 60-61.
7. Literally, “love of the first kind."
8. This is the reading of one ms., which gives a better sense than the read-
ing “knew” found in the others.
9. Quint conjectures: “... the less does God possess us.”
10. Although for art. 14 from “In agro dominico” Laurent suggested as a
source a passage from the Book “Benedictus,” he overlooked this Augustine ci-
tation. Quint provides the exact context in On Free Will 3.9: “Even our sins are
necessary to the universal perfection which God has established.” On this, see
Introduction, pp. 13-14.
11. On Eckhart’s teaching on not wishing not to have committed sins, see
Introduction, pp. 44-45.
12. Quint’s interpretation of this is: “Once the lover [God] knows that the
beloved [the soul] loves him, he knows at once everything which is for his [the
soul’s] good.” This is ingenious and plausible.
13. Eckhart is here referring to the opening of this chapter and observing
that “private revelations” can often be deceptive and false.
14. Eckhart is actually thinking of 1 Jn. 14:18.
15. See Bened, 1 (p. 214, note 6).
16. Plainly, Eckhart has in mind Mt. 8:8 and Rv. 3:20.
17. Probably Eckart is referring to 1 Co. 12:4-11.
18. MHG: wise = “manner of life" or "religious practice."
19. This is written for such religious as Dominicans who were assigned
their clothing, including laundered habits, from a common store, following the
Rule of Saint Augustine: "You should not call anything your own, but all
things should be held by you in common; and let food and clothing be distrib-
uted to each one of you by your superior."
20. This seems to allude to the ostentatious piety of “enthusiasts.”
21. That is, the attitude that one intends nothing or delights in nothing
but God is a test of closeness to him.
22. The mixing of water and wine as an analogy for the union of God and
the soul was traditional in Christian mysticism, used, for instance, by Saint

346
 NOTES

Bernard in On Loving God 10.28. Eckhart employed it again in Sermon 82 (DW

III, p. 430).
23. This epiclesis has been variously translated. Quint is undoubtedly
right in his reading "lover," which he interprets as appositional to "teacher,"
and so too, one considers, is "life." Eckhart seems to have in mind “The way,
the truth and the life" of Jn. 14:6.
24. Literally, *when God finds his will."
25. "Directly" = MHG: ane mittel. In later works this will have the tech-
nical meaning “without a medium.”
26. Literally, “compulsion,” that is, to perform good works.
27. Mystical Theology 1.1. See also Sermon 83 (p. 207).
28. “Poverty of spirit” is one of the eight beatitudes (Mt. 5:3).
29. This was Diogenes. Eckhart probably knew the story through Cicero,
Tusculan Questions 5.92.
30. Literally, “an occasion and a hindrance,” which Quint, after having
,

emended from the corrupt mss. readings, still calls an “improvised formula-
tion” of Eckhart’s. This, in the context, seems to be what he may have meant.
31. Quint rightly describes the syntax of this as “loose and colloquial.”
This translation can only be approximate.
32. See Bened. 1, p. 219, note 17.

D. ON DETACHMENT (Translated from DW V, pp. 400-34.)

1. On the relation between love, humility and detachment, see Introduc-

tion, pp. 47-49.
2. Aristotle, Phys. 4.5(212b).
3. “Purity” = MHG: lüterkeit, where lüter has the same ambiguity as mod-
ern German /auter, that is, “pure” and also “mere” and “only.” Unity and pu-
rity distinguish God’s natural place because nothing else intrudes there; it is
only “detachment.” So Suso, borrowing from this work, writes in his German
Book of Eternal Truth, "Keep yourself detached from all men,” and in his Latin
Horologium, “You must withdraw yourself... from all mortal men ... for pu-
rity of heart exerts first claim." Later in the treatise, it will be seen that Eck-
hart equates the notions of "purity" and “emptiness.”
4. Eckhart quotes Ps. 44:14 in Latin and then translates it into the vernac-
ular. His translation is an interpretive one where the Latin ab intus (“from
within") becomes MHG von ir inwendicheit (“from her inwardness").
5. MHG: diz oder daz = Latin: hoc et boc, that is, “a particular thing."
6. Avicenna, On the Soul 4.4.
T» dtit. 5.16.17.
8. Actually Trin. 12.7.10. Eckhart quotes the Latin and provides his own
translation.

347
 NOTES

9. Sentences 1.8.4.
10. The reference is to the famous conversion on the road to Damascus;
see Ac. 9:1-18.
11. On the relation of this analogy to Eckhart's theology of grace, see In-
troduction, note 151.
12. An additional passage on prayer, first identified by K. Ruh, is printed
by Quint in DW V, pp. 434-35, but its authenticity is questionable.
13. Divine Names 4.9 and 13.3.
14. This does not seem to be Augustine, and Quint is not satisfied with
the “pseudo-Augustine” sources that have thus far been suggested.
15. Who this "teacher" may have been, or whether this is a scribal tam-
pering with what was originally a reference to one of Eckhart's own sermons,
has occasioned much controversy, and in Quint’s opinion is still unresolved.
16. On the meaning of this passage, see Introduction, p. 46.

348
BIBLIOGRAPHY

There are several recent Eckhart bibliographies, notably that contained in The
Thomist 42 (1978): 313-26. Hence, the following list need not pretend to any
completeness, but can be selective and critical.

I. EDITIONS

The texts translated in this volume are primarily taken from Meister Eckhart.
Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke. Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Deutschen Fors-
chungsgemeinschaft. Stuttgart and Berlin: W. Kohlhammer, 1936-.
The following have also been used:
Laurent, M.-H., *Autour du procés de Maitre Eckhart. Les documents des Ar-
chives Vaticanes." Divus Thomas (Piacenza). Ser. III 13 (1936): 331-48, 430-
A
Pelster, Franz. “Ein Gutachten aus dem Eckehart-Prozess in Avignon.” Aus der
Geisteswelt des Mittelalters. Festgabe Martin Grabmann (Beitrage Supplement
III). Münster, 1935, pp. 1099-1124.
Thery, Gabriel. “Edition critique des pieces relatives au procés d’Eckhart con-
tenues dans le manuscrit 33^ de la Bibliothéque de Soest.” Archives d’his-
toire littéraire et doctrinal du moyen age 1 (1926): 129—268.

Il. ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS

Blakney, Raymond B. Meister Eckbart. A Modern Translation. New York and

London: Harper and Row, 1941 (with many reprints). Contains the Ger-
man treatises, twenty-eight vernacular sermons (not all authentic) and the
Defense. Filled with errors.
Clark, James M. Meister Eckbart. An Introduction to tbe Study of His Works witb
an Anthology of His Sermons. Edinburgh: Nelson, 1957. Twenty-five vernac-
ular sermons along with some documents relating to the trial and condem-

349
 . BIBLIOGRAPHY

nation. Translations are of mixed value, but the lengthy Introduction is

generally good.
Clark, James M., and Skinner, John V. Treatises and Sermons of Meister Eckhart.
New York: Harper, 1958. Contains the German treatises, two vernacular
sermons, eight Latin sermons, and selections from two of the Latin com-
mentaries. Translations are generally good, and the Introduction is help-
ful.
Evans, C. de B. Meister Eckbart by Franz Pfeiffer. 2 vols. London: Watkins, 1924,
1931. An almost unreadable translation of Pfeiffer's edition.
Maurer, Armand. Master Eckhart. Parisian Questions and Prologues. Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974. Generally good transla-
tions of some of the important Latin works.
Schiirmann, Reiner. Meister Eckhart. Mystic and Philosopher. Bloomington and
London: Indiana University Press, 1978. Eight vernacular sermons well
translated, along with an extensive major study of Eckhart’s thought.

Ill. MONOGRAPHS AND COLLECTIONS

Albert, Karl. Meister Eckbarts These vom Sein. Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik des
Opus tripartitum. Saarbriicken: Universtats-und Schulbuchverlag, 1976.
Detailed study centering on the difference between esse simpliciter and esse
boc et boc.
Altdeutsche und altniederländische Mystik. Ed. Kurt Ruh. Darmstadt: Wissens-
chaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964. An important selection of essays origi-
nally published in different contexts.
Ancelet-Hustache, Jeanne. Master Eckhart and the Rhineland Mystics. New York:
Harper, 1957. A brief introduction, useful for the beginner.
Caputo, John. The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought. Athens, Ohio: Ohio
University Press, 1978. A confrontation between Eckhart and Heidegger
that manages to avoid many of the pitfalls of this genre and has some origi-
nal insights into the Meister's thought.
Clark, James M. The Great German Mystics: Eckhart, Tauler, and Suso. Oxford:
Blackwells, 1949. Introductory.
Degenhardt, Ingeborg. Studien zum Wandel des Eckbartbildes. Leiden: Brill, 1967.
The history of Eckhart studies.
Haas, Alois M. Sermo mysticus. Studien zu Theologie und Sprache der deutschen Mys-
tik. Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitatsverlag, 1979. Major new study con-
taining a survey of Marxist interpretations of Eckhart.
Hof, Hans. Scintilla animae. Eine Studie zu einem Grundbegriff in Meister Eckbarts
Philosophie. Lund: Gleerup, 1952. Marred by tendentious interpretations.
Imbach, Ruedi. Deus est Intelligere. Das Verhältnis von Sein und Denken in seiner
Bedeutung für das Gottesverstándnis bei Tbomas von Aquin und in den Pariser

350
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Quaestionen Meister Eckbarts. Freiburg, Switzerland: Universitatsverlag,

1976. A useful, detailed treatment.
Kelley, C. F. Meister Eckbart on Divine Knowledge. New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 1977. An important study marred by unfortunate
polemics and idiosyncratic use of text.
Le mystique rbénane. Colloque de Strasbourg 1961. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1963. An important collection of papers, five dealing with Eck-
hart.
Lossky, Vladimir. Théologie négative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maitre Eckhart.
Paris: Vrin, 1960. A major book of central importance for Eckhart studies.
Meister Eckhart der Prediger. Festschrift zum Eckhart-Gedenkjahr. Edd. Udo Nix
and Raphel Ochslin. Freiburg, Germany: Herder, 1960. A group of essays,
including valuable ones by Fischer and Koch.
Muller-Thym, Bernard J. The Establishment of the University of Being in the Doc-
trine of Meister Eckhart of Hochheim. New York and London: Sheed and
Ward, 1939. The only part published of a planned major study of Eckhart
from the Gilsonian point of view.
Otto, Rudolf. Mysticism East and West. A Comparative Analysis of tbe Nature of
Mysticism. New York: Macmillan, 1932. An interesting treatment of Eck-
hart and Shankara.
Schmoldt, Benno. Die deutsche Begriffssprache Meister Eckharts. Heidelberg:
Quelle and Meyer, 1954. A useful tool for the study of Eckhart's technical
vocabulary.
The Thomist. Vol. 42, No. 2. Meister Eckhart of Hochheim, 1227/28—1978. An
uneven selection of essays.
Ueda, Shizuteru. Die Gottesgeburt in der Seele und der Durchbruch zur Gottheit. Die
mystische Anthropologie Meister Eckharts und ihre Konfrontation mit der Mystik
des Zen-Buddbismus. Gütersloh: Mohn, 1965. A summary of Eckhart's
teaching on these key issues.
Welte, Bernard. Meister Eckbart. Gedanken zu seinen Gedanken. Freiburg, Germa-
ny: Herder, 1979. A major new interpretation.
Winkler, Eberhard. Exegetische Methoden bei Meister Eckhart. Tübingen: Mohr,
1965. Fullest treatment of Eckhart’s exegesis.

IV. ARTICLES

Albert, Karl. “Der philosophische Grundgedanke Meister Eckharts.” Tijd-

schrift voor Filosofie 27 (1965): 320-39. Summarizes Albert’s thesis.
Brunner, Fernand. “L’analogie chez Maitre Eckhart.” Freiburger Zeitschrift für
Philosophie und Theologie 16 (1969): 333-49. A useful study.
Caputo, John. “Fundamental Themes in Meister Eckhart's Mysticism." The
Thomist 42 (1978): 197-225. A fine survey.

351
 . BIBLIOGRAPHY

. "The Nothingness of the Intellect in Meister Eckhart's 'Parisian Ques-

tions.' " The Thomist 39 (1975): 85-115.
Colledge, Edmund. “Meister Eckhart: Studies in His Life and Works.” The
Thomist 42 (1978): 240-58.
Denifle, Heinrich. “Meister Eckharts lateinische Schriften und die Grundan-
schaung seiner Lehre." Archiv für Literatur-und Kirchengeschichte des Mitte-
latters 2 (1886): 417-615.
Fischer, Heribert. “Grundgedanken der deutschen Predigten.” In Meister Eck-
hart der Prediger, pp. 25-72. A major summary article.
—
———. “Die theologische Arbeitsweise Meister Eckharts in den lateinischen
Werken." In Miscellanea Mediaevalia 7. Metboden in Wissenschaft und Kunst
des Mittelalters. Berlin: DeGruyter, 1970, pp. 50-75.
Gandillac, M. de. “La ‘dialectique’ de Maitre Eckhart." In La mystique rbénane,
pp. 59-94. An essential article.
Grundmann, Herbert. “Die geschichtlichen Grundlagen der deutschen Mys-
tik.” In Altdeutsche und altniederlandische Mystik, pp. 72-99. The best study
of the historical context of Eckhart’s thought.
Kelley, Dom Placid ( = C.F.). “Meister Eckhart's Doctrine of Divine Subjec-
tivity.” Downside Review 76 (1958): 65-103. A summary of the thesis later
developed in the book.
Kertz, Karl G. “Meister Eckhart’s Teaching on the Birth of the Divine Word
in the Soul." Traditio 15 (1959): 327-63. One of the most important articles
on this theme.
Kieckhefer, Richard. “Meister Eckhart's Conception of Union with God."
Harvard Theological Review 71 (1978): 203-25.
Koch, Josef. “Kritische Studien zum Leben Meister Eckharts." Archivum Fra-
trum Praedicatorum 29 (1959): 1-51; 30 (1960): 1-52. Reprinted in his Kleine
Studien. The most important work on Eckhart's life.
—
——.. “Meister Eckhart und die jüdische Religionsphilosophie des Mittel-
alters." Jabresbericht der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für vaterlandische Kultur 1928
101 (1929): 134-48. A key article.
. “Meister Eckharts Weiterwirken im Deutsch-Niederlandischen Raum
im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert.” In La mystique rhenane, pp. 133-56.
—
——. “Philosophische und theologische Irrtumslisten von 1270-1329." In
Mélanges Mandonnet. Paris: Vrin, 1930. Vol. 2, pp. 305-29. Reprinted in his
Kleine Studien.
. "Sinn und Struktur der Schriftauslegung." In Meister Eckhart der Pre-
diger, pp. 73-103. Valuable study of Eckhart's exegesis.
. "Zur Analogielehre Meister Eckharts." In Mélanges offerts à Etienne Gil-
son. Paris: Vrin, 1959, pp. 327-50. The best study of Eckhart's view of anal-
ogy.
McGinn, Bernard. *Eckhart's Condemnation Reconsidered.” The Thomist 44
(1980): 390-414.

352
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

———. “The God beyond God. Theology and Mysticism in the Thought of
Meister Eckhart." Journal of Religion 61 (1981): 1-19.
. "Meister Eckhart on God as Absolute Unity." To appear in the Pro-
ceedings of the International Colloquium on Neoplatonism in the History
of Christian Thought. Albany: SUNY Press, 1981.
. "St. Bernard and Meister Eckhart.” Citeaux 31 (1980): 373-86.
Quint, Josef. "Einleitung." In Meister Eckebart. Deutsche Predigten und Traktate.
Munich: Hanser, 1959, pp. 9-50. Perhaps the best short introduction to
Eckhart’s thought.
. "Mystik und Sprache." In Altdeutsche und altniederlandische Mystik, pp.
113-51. An important study.
Rahner, Hugo. “Die Gottesgeburt. Die Lehre der Kirchenvater von der Ge-
burt Christi aus dem Herzen der Kirche und der Gläubigen.” Zeitschrift
für katholische Theologie 59 (1933): 333-418. Reprinted in Symbole der Kirche
(Salzburg: Müller, 1964), pp. 13-87. Valuable for background to one of the
Meister's favorite themes.
Schaller, Toni. “Die Meister-Eckhart Forschung von der Jahrhundertwende
bis zur Gegenwart." Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 15
(1968): 262-316, 403-26.
. “Zur Eckhart-Deutung der letzten 30 Jahre." Freiburger Zeitschrift ...
16 (1969): 22-39.
Schneider, Richard. “The Functional Christology of Meister Eckhart." Re-
cherches de tbéologie ancienne et médiévale 35 (1968): 291-322.
Schürmann, Reiner. The Loss of Origin in Soto Zen and Meister Eckhart.”
The Thomist 42 (1978): 281-312. A summary of the themes of Schürmann's
book.
Théry, Gabriel. “Contribution à l'histoire du procés d'Eckhart." La vie spiri-
tuelle. Supplement 9 (1924): 93-119, 164-83; 12 (1925): 149-87; 13 (1926): 49-
95; 14 (126): 45-65.
Tobin, Frank. “Eckhart’s Mystical Use of Language: The Contexts of eigen-
schaft." Seminar 8 (1972): 160—68.
Weiss, Karl. “Meister Eckharts Biblische Hermeneutik." In La mystique rhén-
ane, pp. 95-108.

353
INDEX TO PREFACE,
INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

Acarie, Barbe, 21. 319, n. 33; 320, n. 64, n. 65, n. 66; 321,
Acts, 9:1—18, 348, n. 10; 9:9, 325, n. 205. 90,.n..97:,322,.n21034n.104:,32%
Adam, 45; 344, n. 6. Satie, 163402175, 32 S179.
Aesop, 334, n. 215. M205 327.1. 2, 1*5: 328002207329
Agnes of Hungary, 68. . 63; 330, n. 67, n. 88, n. 89, n. 90,
Albert, K., 300, n. 42. 91:331; ne 124::33255n::130: n2. 134,
Albert of Hapsburg, 68. 2135, n: 150;334- n31935n- 2005835;
Albert of Milan, 314, n. 1. 4219, n. 224. n.225; 338..n.2:341;
Albert the Great, 5—6, 9, 322, n. 114; 326, . 2, n. 6; 342, n. 10; 343, n. 31; 344,
n. 222; 327, n. 1; 329, n. 44; 340, n. 3; . 115 345, n. 27; 346, n. 10, n. 19; 348,
BS5555959295235
341, n. 2, n. 6. B 14.
Alberti, Leander, 19. Augustine, Pseudo-, 324, n. 176; 333,
Ambrose, 39, 303, n. 93; 318; n. 19; 321, n. 161; 348, n. 14.
n. 76. Augustinians, 7, 21.
Ampe, Albert, 21, 22, 298, n. 56. Averroes, 318, n. 14; 319, n. 30; 324,
Anselm, 25. n. 168; 325, n. 201; 328, n. 29; 331,
Aristotle, 27, 41, 299, n. 26; 302, n. 69; n. 95.
5318. im485mn105:03,19/ 0428/10432. mà 355 Avicenna, 319, n. 23; 320, n. 51; 323,
320, n. 54, n. 58; 321, n. 87, n. 92, n. 95; n. 144; 324,. n. 173; 347, n. 6.
372 na ln Gore ANTE Tee Axter, Stephanus, 21.
n. 124; 323, n. 136, n. 139, n. 141; 324, Bartholomew of Capua, 6.
. 167, n. 169, n. 170, n. 171; 325, Baruch, 5:7, 323, n. 129.
. 187, n. 188, n. 191; 326, n. 218, Bede, 321, n. 75; 322, n. 107.
. 221, n. 232; 327, n. 235; 328, n. 13, Bede, Pseudo-, 315, n. 24; 332, n. 130.
14, n.15,m. 22, n: 31: 329,.n,50; 330, Beierwaltes, W., 302, n. 60.
. 66, n. 81; 331, n. 94, n. 107, n. 108, Benedict XII, 12.
. 109, n. 110, n. 120; 332, n. 127, Berengar of Landorra, 8.
30299-20332 nee 45) 3335 me 18122334 Berger, B., 295, n. 2.
21922 n3194::335::2223::338: m6, n0; Bernard of Clairvaux, 56, 337, n. 7; 339,
..A15 339; n. 2; 340,.n.. 4; 342. n. 8, n:9,
5252522225235 1:15:n222:946—3
4 «922:
n. 19; 345, n. 25; 347, n. 2. Bihlmeyer, Karl, 18, 297, n. 34, n. 36,
Asceticism, 57, 67. n. 39, n. 40, n. 42, n. 46.
Atheism, xv. Boethius, 322, n. 100, n. 114; 331, n. 99;
Augustine, 9, 14, 22, 25, 27, 29, 31, 38, 40, 333, n. 165.
43,44, 61,.300,05 26,30,39:303,n281, Bonaventure, 25, 319, n. 33; 328, n. 30.
11.93::305. 0.212595: m5 244 0925; Borgognoni, Hugo, 6.
1.26; 316, n. 32; 318, n. 7; n. 10,.n.20; Brunner, F., 301, n. 47.
 INDEX

Bullitio, 31, 37, 38, 47, 51,52, 303, n. 74. Dionysius, Pseudo-, 326, n. 209, n. 229;
Canfield, Benet, 21. 341, n. 5; 344, n. 13.
Caputo, J., 300, n. 43, 309, n. 196; 310, Dominic, 25.
n. 222; 311, n. 259; 312, n. 262. Dominicans, and Eckhart, xiii, xvii, 5-8,
Carthusians, 19. 10, 11, 15, 19, 25-26, 56, 314, n. 2.
Causality, efficient, 38, 39, 304, n. 107; Durandus of Saint-Pourcain, 9, 11, 334,
322, n. 121; exemplary, 40; final, 38, 39 , n. 197.
303, n. 90; First-, 330, n. 86; formal, 38, Eadmer, 332, n. 132.
318, n. 17; and science, xiii. Ebullitio, 31, 38-45, 47, 52, 303, n. 74.
Christ, being of, 17; blood of, 30; Body Echard, 19, 297, n. 49.
of, 46, 53, 307, n. 165; 310, n. 216; Eckhart, and authenticity, 9, 63, 64,
humanity of, 46, 53, 307, n. 157; 328, 66—68, 300, n. 41; 316, n. 13; 336, n. 1;
n. 21; imitation of, 46, 57; man formed 348, n. 12; condemnation of, xiii, xv,
in, 16, 17, 45, 52, 53; mystery of, 45; 11; 12-15,.16/117. 18,023. 355.40! 42:144.
Passion of, 46; and predicates, 335, 48, 50, 52, 53, 55, 58, 67; 315, n. 29; 316,
n. 226; presence of, 27; and sin, 54; n. 31, n. 33; 319, n. 25; 334, n. 190; 336,
teaching of, 28. 1154::3372n342]212-m313::340 Taos
Christian of Stablos, 332, n. 137. n. 10; 341, n. 4; 343, n. 33; Defense of,
Chrysostom, 331, n. 103; 332, n. 137; 335, xiii, 6, 10, 14, 20, 41, 42, 54, 63, 65, 66,
n.222. 68, 300, n. 41; 301, n. 49; 304, n. 101;
Chrysostom, Pseudo-, 332, n. 138. 305, n2 128; 309.n. 19857310,.n7213:3315,
Church, as Body of Christ, 46, 53, 307, n. 22, n. 23; 316, n. 13; 326, n. 231; 328,
n. 165; and controversy, 5, 9; and n. 20; 332, n. 130; editions of, xviii,
Eckhart, xiii, xvii, 15, 26; Fathers of, 24--25, 62-68; and exegesis, 17, 28, 39,
xiii, 50; harmony of, xiii; laws of, 8, 40, 50, 65, 66, 299, n. 22; 317, n. 2; 318,
15; as mediator, 47; and mysticism, n. 9; 324, n. 162, n. 164; 342, n. 1; and
xvi; and sacraments, 45, 46, 307, n. 164. heresy, xiv, 9-13, 15, 16, 18-20, 40, 42,
Cicero, 347, n. 29. 44, 52, 53, 58, 301, n. 49; 306, n. 140;
Cistercians, 50. 310, n. 209; 315, n. 22; 316, n. 34; 336,
Clark, J., 307, n. 149, n. 164; 327, Notes. n94..3372n- 4; nJjl0 in 12 Sn. 135340)
Cock, Simon, 21. n. 5; 343, n. 33; 344, n. 17; influence of,
Colledge, Edmund, xi, xiii, xviii, 295, xviii, 9, 15, 19, 21, 62; life of, 5-12;
27 2:0. 879296, neo nt -nc127m» 19: manuscripts of, 24, 62, 64, 66, 68; 337,
297, Mazo. n: 33» nt 34, n7 50; 298. n..54; n. 5, n. 6; n. 15; 340; n: 1, n. 2; 346; n, 8;
29:33 ms 17. 347, n. 30; and mysticism, xiv-xvil, 55,
Contemplation, 16, 21, 23, 55, 56, 345, 57—61, 300, n. 31; 330, n. 76; orthodoxy
n. 30; 346, n. 6. of, xiii, 10, 37, 52; and preaching, 10,
Coomaraswamy, A.K., xi. 11, 12, 14, 15, 25-26, 28, 30, 31, 45, 50,
1 Corinthians, 12:4—11, 346, n. 17; 13:12, 65, 67, 308, n. 188; and scripture,
342-0. 23: 15:47, 344, n: 4t: 26-29; theology of, 24-61.
2 Corinthians, 3:18, 342, n. 23. Emanationism, 30, 31, 37, 38, 39, 43, 302,
Creation, end of, 303, n. 90; eternity of, n. 73; 303, n. 74; 328, n. 28; 345, n. 30.
40—41, 319, n. 24; and fall, 39—45; and Ephesians, 1:18, xiv; 4:22, 344, n. 3.
God, 20, 31-34, 37—40, 44-46, 53, 318, Eucharist, 27, 46, 52, 307, n. 166, n. 167;
1159102321 395: 3232 m9 14
Daniels, A., 63, 314, Notes, n. 1, n. 3; 315, Eve, 344, n. 6.
n.30. Exodus, 3:14, 37, 340, n. 6.
Degenhardt, I, 298, n. 3; 312, n. 1. Ezekiel, 1:5-10, 327, n. 1.
Denifle, Henrich, 11, 62, 63, 312, n. 2. Faith, xiv, 15, 16, 28, 35; and reason,
Detachment, 30, 47—51, 55, 57, 59, 60, 27-28.
347, n. 3. Father, being of, 17; and Christ, 17; is
Dietrich of Freiburg, 10. God, 35, 41; hidden-, 49; image of, 38,
Diogenes, 347, n. 29. 40, 51, 53, 304, n. 95; and man, 17, 48,

335
 INDEX

51, 32, 309 ?n..204;335,.n..218;7339; Gregory the Great, 332, n. 131; 346, n. 5.
n. 17; Person of, 38-39; and Son, 17, Grundmann, Herbert, 296, n. 11.
23, 30, 38, 40, 41, 48, 51, 52, 54, 335, Guarnieri, Romana, 296, n. 9; 297, n. 33.
n. 218; 336, n. 4; 341, n. 4; and unum, Guibert of Nugent, 323, n. 153.
35, 321, n. 97; 342, n. 22; and Word, 40, Guldenschaf, John, 20.
43, 303, n. 95; 304, n. 96, n. 99. Hagar, 323, n. 152.
Fischer, H., 299, n. 13; 338, n. 1. Hebrews, 5:4, 323, n. 129.
Fournier, James, 11, 12, 13. Henry of Friemar, 7-9, 50.
Gabirol, Ibn, 320, n. 58; 330, n. 66. Henry of Virneburg, 10, 314, n. 4.
Galatians, 2:20, 146, 288; 3:20, 91, 165, Heresy, cf. also Eckhart; 8-9, 23.
166; 4:6, 76, 159, 167; 4:7, 167, 173; Herman de Summo, 314, n. 4.
4:19, 173; 5:17, 107, 293-294; 5:17-23, Holy Spirit, and bonum, 35, 38, 338, n. 2;
241; 5:22, 220; 6:8, 107, 294. born of, 17; is God, 35; light of, 28;
Gandillac, M. de, 301, n. 53. prompting of, 8; spiration of, 38-39,
Genesis, 1:1, 66, 303, n. 94; 317, n. 3; 318, 54; union with, 22, 51.
n. 11; 321,.n..86; 1:26, 306, n: 133; Horace, 319, n. 43.
2.212232 322, n.2121. Horner, Michael, xii.
Gilbert of Poitiers, 36. Hosea, 2:14, 325, n. 204.
Glorieux, P., 296, n. 10. Hugh of St. Victor, 328, n. 33.
God, cf. also, Man, Soul; and being, Imbach, R., 300, n. 43; 301, n. 45.
32-33, 35, 41, 60; -beyond God, 31, 35, Incarnation, 17, 27, 45, 46, 306, n. 148;
37, 42; commands of, 58-59; and 307, n; 158;:3357n:220; 336:mU2:
creation, 20, 31—34, 37—40, 44—46, 318, Intellect, xiv, 41, 56, 319, n. 36; 329, n. 61;
n. 10; 321, n. 95; death of, xii; 344, n. 7.
emanations in, 27, 38, 39, 41, 43; Isaiah, 45:15, 42, 336, n. 10.
essence of, 32-33, 35, 36, 56; and evil Isidore of Seville, 326, n. 215; 328, n. 21;
(sin), xv, 13, 14, 44—45, 314, n. 10; 346, 345, n. 23.
n. 10; and existence, xv, 27, 33, 35, 37, Israeli, Isaac, 344, n. 1.
31,329) n. 5933305 n7 76; gifts of, 7, 17: James, 1:17, 338, n. 2.
ground of, 35, 36, 37, 42, 43, 48, 51, 54, Jerome, 29, 320, n. 60; 326, n. 212; 334,
5525361575 8,259 2603/61:3369 n: enna Os n. 205; 343-344, n. 48.
hidden, xiv, 35, 38, 42, 54, 57, 339, John, 1:1, 66, 303, n. 94, n. 95; 304, n. 96;
n. 22; image of, 17, 22, 30, 43, 53, 306, 1:1=14,165;:133, 3419n2351:4, 372 1:12,
n. 129, n. 131, n. 133; 324, n. 166; and 342 m5 1:145:46:3319 n290 3, 3:67:
indistinction, 42, 49; ineffabiity, 31, 42, 3:34,302; n^62;- 3:357 17:4:38, 310,
300, n. 39; 341, n. 2; and love, 49, 56, n. 216; 10:30, 35;- 14:6, 347, n. 23; 15:15,
58, 59, 346, n. 12; nature of, 17, 30, 31, 344, n. 4.
32, 33, 35, 42, 52, 53, 319, n. 36; power John XXII, xvii, 11, 12, 13, 19, 35.
of, 9; and predicates, 31-35, 53, 56, John Damascene, 335, n. 226; 341, n. 6.
314, n. 11; presence of, xiv, 31, 46, John of Basel, 12.
process in, 38; return to, 22, 30, 45-57, John of Pouilly, 345, n. 33.
68; and reward, 48, 51; sons of, 46, 53, John Petri of Godino, 13.
343, n. 27; uncreated, xiv; union with, John the Scot, 50, 327, n. 11; 331, n. 121.
17, 36, 43, 47, 50, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 1 John, 3:1, 335, n. 220; 14:18, 346, n. 14.
61, 346, n. 22; will of, xiv, xv, 13, 44, Jordan of Quedlinburg, 327, n. 12.
57, 58. Justinian, 337, n. 2.
God-man, 27, 45. Kaeppeli, Thomas, 18, 19, 295, n. 2; 297 ,
Gonsalvo of Spain, 56, 64. n. 41.
Gorp, A. van, xviii. Kelley, C.F., 299, n. 12; 303, n. 77.
Grace, 7, 26, 30, 45-47, 52, 307, n. 149, Kertz, Karl, 52, 301, n. 55; 306, n. 132;
n. 151; 348, n. 11. 307, n. 165; 309, n. 196, n. 207, n. 212;
Gratian, 315, n. 26. S10; ny 216533 7enal
Gregory of Nyssa, 50, 308, n. 192. Kharraqani, Abu ’l-Hasan al-, xv.

356
 INDEX

Kieckhefer, R., 312, n. 272, n. 273. Moses, 27.

Klibansky, R., 63. Muhammad, Elijah, xiii.
Knowledge, and God, xiv, 29, 44, 345, Muller-Thym, B., 301, n. 51; 323, n. 144.
n. 34; limits to, xii, 6; and science, xi- Mulligan, R., 332, n. 150.
xiii; ways of, xi, xii, 28, 36, 49, 345,n. 34. Mumford, Lewis, xii.
Koch, Josef, 6—7, 9, 11, 12, 13:- 14; 15,16; Mysticism, xv-xvi, 50, 330, n. 68; 339,
i LOS 226, 63. 2955 nr 2, n5 3» nW95 n. 22; 346, n. 22; and Eckhart, xiv—xvii,
296. n. 13, n. 18, n222,n.24: 2975 ne 33; 55, 57-61, 300, n. 31; 330, n. 76.
n. 34, n. 50, n. 51, n. 53; 298, n. 5; 299; Natalis, Hervaeus, 334, n. 197.
n. 22, n. 23; 301, n. 47; 303, n. 74; 318, Neoplatonism, xiv, 34, 40, 41, 44, 64, 324,
n. 5; 321, n. 88; 323, n. 147; 327, Notes; 1.:176::327 245:
329, n. 63; 330, n. 84; 334, n. 194; 345, Nicholas of Cusa, 19, 20.
n. 35. Origen, 331, n. 104.
Kosch, W., 295, n. 2. Paul, 14, 43, 61, 325, n. 205; 337, n. 12;
Laurent, M.-H., 11, 13, 65, 296, n. 17; 305, 340, n. 9.
n. 123; 313, n. 18; 316, Notes; 343, Pantheism, 33, 56.
n. 36; 346, n. 10. Pelster, Franz, 10, 65, 296, n. 16; 297,
Leeuw, John van, 21. n. 37; 301, n. 49; 304, n. 104, n. 105;
Leff, G., 311, n. 248. 305, n. 121, n. 123; 306, n. 140-n.143;
Leo the Great, 338, n. 3. 309, n. 198, n. 208, n. 211; 310, n. 214,
Lerner, R. E., 296, n. 11; 311, n. 248. n2217:m31221:0310n225225]3n919:
Levi-Strauss, xii, 295, n. 2. 326, n. 231.
Loer, Derk, 21. Perfection, 8, 14, 58, 346, n. 10.
Logos, 38, 39, 40, 50. Peter, 58.
Lonergan, B., 298, n. 6; 318, n. 15. Peter John Olivi, 9.
Lossky, V., 301, n. 46, n. 53, n. 55. Peter Lombard, 7, 313, n. 7; 322, n. 103;
Luke, 1:35, 338, n. 2; 19:13, 344, n. 3; 324. n. 163; 328, n. 25; 329, n. 36, n: 40;
23:41, 342, n. 17. 332, n. 146; 333, n. 187, n. 188; 343,
Macrobius, 320, n. 73; 345, n. 21. n; 34.
Maimonides, 28—29, 299, n. 23; 302, n. 68; Pfeiffer, Franz, 21, 62, 313, n. 21.
3177110237318! n:75;1320 n7 60:321; Plato, 32035 722.3275 1s 328. oi 3305
n. 85, n. 93; 324, n- 177; 332, n. 128; n. 68; 334, n. 198; 335, n. 223; 344,
339, n. 2; 341, n. 6. n. 50.
Malcolm X, xiii. Platonism, 27, 30, 327, n. 3, n. 5; 341, n. 7.
Man, divinization of, 46, 330, n. 70; Plotinus, 327, n. 5.
existence of, xv; fallen, 46; and God, Porette, Margaret, 8, 19.
xiii, xiv, xv, 31, 43, 46, 47, 53, 68, 315, Porphyry, 322, n. 116; 327, n. 5; 331,
n. 14; 337, n. 12; as image of God, 43; n. 105.
just-, 13, 17, 48, 51, 52, 53, 54, 59, 68, Prayer, 16, 48, 59, 348, n. 12.
328, n. 20, n. 23; 343, n. 33; nature of, Proclus, 64, 302, n. 60; 319, n. 38.
17, 43, 46, 59, 336, n. 4, n. 6; perfection Proverbs, 16:4, 60.
of, 8, 44, 48; power of, xi, xii, 43. Prümmer, D., 295, n. 4.
Marler, J.C., 296, n. 11; 298, n. 59. Psalm, 4:2-7, 344, n. 16; 41:8, 338, n. 3;
Martha, 60, 335, n. 230. 44:14, 347, n. 4; 61:12, 39, 331, n. 123;
Mary, 8. 102:5, 344, n. 4; 113:1, 323, n. 129.
Mary (of Bethany), 60, 335, n. 230. Quétif, 19, 297, n. 49.
Matthew, 5:3, 347, n. 28; 8:8, 346, n. 16; Quint, Josef, 14, 21, 22, 25, 63, 67, 68,
13, 23; 13:28, 344, n. 3. 20825712042: 313:m921:4536)/ n^ 15 n: 3;
Maurer, A., 296, n. 14; 298, n. 4; 300, ne4 neo; 3375 De), n26*n5117n317 338,
n. 42, n. 43; 301, n. 52; 313, n. 6, n. 8. n. 1, n. 3, n. 12; 339, n. 13, n. 16, n. 1;
Maximus the Confessor, 50, 308, n. 192. 3400.70. n219m.J2»n29: 34 1:5n?12 5:76,
McGinn, Bernard, xi, xviii, 301, n. 46; Wy , flees yO S42 ene ONS 45.0. 20),
305 091177531259 n9973- olsen. lie . 32,Pen:n.48; 344; n. 50, n. 11, n. 15; 345,

357
 INDEX

n. 24, n. 32, n. 33, n. 35; 346, n. 9, n. 10, 336, n. 9; nobility of, 30; powers of, 22,
n. 12: 347, n. 23, n. 30, n; 31; 348, n. 12, 42, 43, 341, n. 7; pre-existence of, 52;
n. 14, n. 15. uncreated, 13, 42, 340, n. 5; and Word
Rahner, Hugo, 13, 50, 305, n. 117; 308, (Son), 7,:8,9; 13,315 507 51; 525.54, 57.
n. 191, n. 192, n. 193, n. 194. Spirit, liberty of, 8, 9, 16.
Redemption, 45-57. Stephen of Bourbon, 319, n. 42.
Reichert, B.M., 297, n. 47. Suso, Henry, 15-19, 46, 297, n. 45; 347, n. 3.
Reiner, 314, n. 1. Suzuki, D.T., 310, n. 222.
Revelation, 3:20, 346, n. 16; 4:6-8, 327, Tauler, Johann, 15, 16, 19, 46; 336, n. 1.
nol: Tempier, Stephen, 6-7, 314, n. 5.
Romans, 1:20, 327, n. 4; 6:6, 344, n. 4; Terence, 321, n. 77.
8:29, 335, n. 220; 11:36, 42; 16:27, 323, Theology, and anthropology, 42-43;
nalsl. anthropomorphic-, xvi, 61; apophatic,
Ruh, Kurt, xviii, 295, n. 2; 348, n. 12. 31, 35-36, 49, 55, 341, n. 4;
Ruysbroek, John, 21, 298, n. 59. Augustinian, 9, 29; cataphatic, 55; and
Sacraments, 45, 46, 52, 307, n. 164. controversy, 5; mystical-, 49, 56;
Salvation, 27, 45. negative, 31, 300, n. 41; 301, n. 46; and
Sarah, 323, n. 152. preaching, 31; scholastic, xvii, 9, 26,
Sargent, M.G., 297, n. 52. 27; and scripture, 26-29; theocentric,
Schaller, T., 298, n. 3, 312, n. 3. 61; Western, 25.
Schmoldt, B., 305, n. 115. Théry, Gabriel, 10, 63, 296, n. 15; 300,
Schürmann, Reiner, 61, 300, n. 31; 309, n. 29; 301, n. 49, n. 51; 304, n. 104; 305,
n. 196: 310,n. 2220. 2277312,.n.209; n. 121, n. 122, n. 128; 306, n. 140; 307,
BIT. n. 156, n. 157, n. 160, n. 161; 309,
Scripture, 26-29; and exegesis, 17, 28, 29, n. 198, n. 211; 310, n. 214; 311, n. 249;
39, 40, 43, 50, 65, 66, 320, n. 65; 324, 314; Notes, n. 1, n. 3; 315, n. 27, n. 28,
n. 162, n. 164; 343, n. 31; and God, 29; n. 29, n. 30; 319, n.24; 324, n.162; 326,
and theology, 26-29. 122315337, ms 8:
Self, xiii-xvi. Thomas Aquinas, 5-7, 9, 25, 26, 27, 29,
Seneca, 331, n. 116; 341, n. 5; 342, n. 12; 32, 36, 38, 44, 56, 58, 61, 64, 302, n. 60,
344, n. 9. n. 68, n. 69; 305, n. 117; 307, n. 166;
Shook, L.K., 296, n. 9. 314. n«6; 315) ine 11,0n,199n.293118;
Siger of Brabant, 6, 319, n. 35. n. 15, n. 20; 319, n. 23, n. 33, n. 34; 320,
Sin, xv, 13, 14, 44, 45, 54, 346, n. 10, . 53, n. 66, n. 70, n. 72; 321, n. 78,
nod 82, n38721989, 15982322 n310]s
Sint Feijth, J. van, xviii. :1322n3120,7n.122:3323 «n 3134-
Sirach, 18:1, 318, n. 7. 2044::324 sn. 165.00. 1533206 melo:
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, xi. . 192, n. 194, n. 197; 326, n. 216,
Son, birth of in soul, cf. under Word; 3217. 598224 192272032 7: 98] 0 m» LE:
and creation, 341, n. 3; and Father, 17, 28,4n.205,329,n234,.n.
—"-DBDonoganp3o 39,,n. 58: 330,
235 38=39) 405 415-48. Sie 52,0545 335, 2815 33155m3102 ene 1 10; 3332-3128;
n. 218; 336, n. 4; 341,-n. 4; is God, 35, 1136; n21#7,n.1547333,.n.159,
41; mediation of, 30; and soul, 22, 47, . 160, n. 164, n. 165; 334, n. 189,
48, 50, 51, 52, 57; and verum, 35. . 210; 336, n. 3, n. 7; 338, n. 6; 339,
Song of Songs, 2:8-9, 339, n. 22. 5
Ss
BE. 9, n. 18,n. 1; 340, n. 3; 341, n. 7; 342,
Soul, created, 13, 42, 52, 340, n. 10; and n. 13, n. 20; 344, n. 2; 345, n. 26, n. 32.
detachment, 30, 47-51, 55, 57, 59, 60, Tobin, Frank, xviii, 298, n. 1.
347, n. 3; divinized, 18; essence of, 45; Trapp, Damasus, 296, n. 20.
and God, 22, 23, 31, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, Trinity, birth of, 38; and distinction, 36;
52, 54-56, 58, 60, 61, 305, n. 128; 307, and emanation, 31, 37, 38, 39, 43;
n. 166; 324, n. 166; 336, n. 7; 342, n. 8; essence of, 35, 36; ground of, 37, 51,
346, n. 12, n. 22; and grace, 7; ground 54-55; and mystery, 27; relations in,
of, 42, 43, 45, 48, 51, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 36; and salvation, 30; and soul, 22, 36,
 INDEX

51-52, 54, 55; source of, 342, n. 22; William of Ockham, 9, 11.
unity of, 39. Winkler, E., 299, n. 22, n. 24.
Ueda, S., 302, n. 65; 306, n. 133, n. 148; Wisdom, 7:27, 34; 8:15, 338, n. 2.
308, n. 196; 310, n. 222. Word, birth of in soul, 7, 8, 9, 13, 31, 47,
Vetter, F., 297, n. 31. 483502519652. 54- 5722082: 7: 1307;
Victorines, 50. n. 165; 308, n. 196; 309, n. 204; 335,
Vienne, Council of, 7, 311, n. 248. n. 218; 336, n. 5; and creation, 39-40,
Weiss, B., 306, n. 147. 304, n. 99; 343, n. 33; as Exemplar,
Weiss, K., 299, n. 20, n. 24. 39—40, 304, n. 96; 328, n. 16; and
Wenck, John, 20. Father, 40, 43, 303, n. 95; 304, n. 96,
Will, conformity of, 13, 58; of God, xiv, n. 99; humanity of, 46, 53; as image,
xv, 13, 44, 57, 58; of man, xv, 13, 22, 43, 306, n. 129; nature of, 53;
44, 56; poverty of, 23, 298, n. 59. proceeding of, 38-39, 41, 54.
William of Moerbeke, 302, n. 60. Ypma, Eelcko, xviii.
William of Nideggen, 314, n. 4. Zumkeller, Adolar, xviii, 8, 295, n. 8.

359
INDEX TO TEXT

Abraham, 242. 102, 105, 106, 128, 140, 145, 152, 161,
Acts, 1:1, 147; 2:17-18, 111; 2:32, 170; 165, 200, 206; and essence, 244; and
5:412232-1236:.9:671259:0177:20 7801327 existence, 159; and God, 73, 140, 205;
Acts, absolute, 72; and becoming, 189; hierarchies of, 144—145, 153;
and distinction, 161; and existence, intellectual, 109, 128, 132, 144-145;
105, 162-163, 171; external, 75, 76, 79, participating-, 144; powers of, 198;
120, 121, 139, 225-227, 274; and form, principles of, 105, 106, 109, 126; and
73; and God, 72, 76, 79, 86, 87, 97, 98, renewal, 206; spiritual, 129;
114, 120, 121, 139, 146, 147, 159, 172, substantial, 109; uncreated, 105, 152.
187, 189, 190, 194, 195, 196, 201, 202, Bernard, 73, 156, 233, 261.
203, 225, 226, 234, 246, 251, 252, 275, Boethius, 74, 84, 98, 105, 136, 143, 191.
280, 284, 285, 291, 292; and goodness, Cain, 121.
75, 79, 146; ground of, 183, 184; Callias, 146.
internal, 75, 76, 79, 121, 139, 225-227; Cause, active-, 101, 102, 103; and
and nature, 73, 102. creation, 96, 105, 134; efficient, 83, 136,
Adam, 104, 107, 119, 150, 240, 265. 137, 145, 146; exemplary, 136; and
In agro dominico, 77—81. existence, 137; exterior, 83, 84, 136;
Alexander, 282. final, 83, 121, 136, 146; First, 75, 83, 87,
Ambrose, 82, 94, 154. 94: 121,126; 136, 140 151 T3555 157
Anaxagoras, 105, 135, 143. 206; formal, 136; and God, 83, 85, 136,
Anthony, 231. 156, 157; and Logos, 132; original-, 106;
Aristotle, 73, 83, 96, 97, 105, 109, 115, proximate, 131; secondary, 141.
116, 118, 125, 1345136, 142, 145, 146, Charity, and God, 73, 146, 181.
158, 161, 162, 164, 169, 190, 191. Christ, birth of, 178, 192-193, 195; Body
Averroes, 83, 86, 109, 132, 134. of, 78, 271-274; and creation, 75;
Avicenna, 86, 90, 99, 104, 106, 109, 172, divinity of, 122, 182, 227, 231, 289; and
288. Father, 75, 94, 113, 127, 129, 130, 139,
Augustine, 75, 76, 82, 84, 86, 88, 89, 92, 173, 178, 179, 182; following of, 189,
93, 98, 99, 100, 107, 108, 109, 110, 114, 266-268, 274; humanity of, 78, 182,
1157117 121/122 123126. 430 331. 231, 232, 259, 287, 289, 293;
132, 133, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 149, Incarnation of, 162, 182; and Law, 162,
150, 151, 153, 154, 156, 158, 159, 160, 262; as light, 179; love for, 199, 258;
163, 165, 166, 171, 173, 186, 204, 206, and man, 75, 76, 78, 102, 167, 168, 173,
207,211, 214,218; 220) 228) 232.238: 177, 180, 182, 288, 293; receiving of,
239, 241, 243, 248, 261, 289, 292. 177, 180, 181, 226; and Spirit, 94; and
Basil, 82. suffering, 231, 232, 266, 273, 284,
Bede, 74, 149. 289—291, 294; teachings of, 75, 76; and
Being, and cause, 202-203; concrete-, Truth, 94; unity of, 179.
114; corporeal-, 109, 129, 162; created, Chrysostom, 145, 151, 170.

360
 INDEX

Cicero, 75, 241. Essence, desire for, 104; fifth, 111; and
Colossians, 1:8, 228; 1:15, 129, 133, 170. form, 90, 104; and Godhead, 137, 153,
Confession, 274. 158; of Persons, 94; unity of, 153.
Consolation, 209—239, 259, 277, 293. Esther, 15:17, 172.
Contemplation, 115, 117, 180, 191, 206, Eucharist, 78, 188, 247, 251, 270-274.
218, 245, 246, 247, 253, 288. Eve, 104, 107, 119, 240.
1 Corinthians, 1:5, 281; 2:11, 228; Existence, cf. also Form, God; actual,
2:14—15, 107; 6:17, 116; 9:24, 292; 10:15, 104; and becoming, 102; Begotten, 89;
21354118, 102: 194. 243-:011:6—7. 153; conferring of, 73, 87; desire for, 99,
11:7, 102; 11:9, 104; 11:11, 104; 13:1-2, 121; distance from, 100; and exemplar,
286; 13:12, 113, 164, 189, 216; 15:10, 129; and externality, 83, 87, 89, 124,
202; 15:40, 103; 15:46, 107; 15:47, 107; 133; formal-, 106; from another, 128,
15:47—48, 103. 129, 163; and ideas, 83; immediate-,
2 Corinthians, 1:3, 209; 3:18, 111, 162, 90—91; intellectual, 91; interior-, 133,
169, 188; 4:4, 129; 4:16, 240; 5:7, 164; 135; material, 91; particular, 96; pre-,
6:10, 282; 11:12, 244; 12:9, 150, 219, 256. 123, 126; is primary, 89; and
Creation, cf. also, Christ, Father, God, principles, 83, 89, 130; and simplicity,
Logos, Son, Word; in the beginning, 87; virtual-, 137; Unbegotten, 89.
82-121; and causality, 96, 105, 134; and Exodus, 3:10—14, 290; 3:14, 192; 20:17,
darkness, 148; of earth, 82-121; and 1122021149533 15908153538: 1520214:
eternity, 75-78, 85, 96, 229; and Ezekiel, 17:3-4, 122.
Exemplar, 94, 136, 142, 143; of heaven, Faith, and Church, 77; and God, 216,
82-121; and ideas, 91, 101, 123; and 278; and ideas, 126; profession of, 74,
image, 194; and intellect, 91; and 81; and scripture, 92, 123; and Son,
nothingness, 96, 152, 184; and number, 146, 162, 182.
99, 100; and suffering, 212, 213, 214; Fasting, 178.
and wisdom, 84, 141. Father, cf. also Man; and causality, 98;
Creatures, and existence, 75; and God, and Christ, 75, 94, 113, 127, 129, 130,
75, 165, 184, 200, 205; and ideas, 126; 139, 178, 179, 182; and creation, 98,
nature of, 96, 165; and nothing, 75, 76, 143, 193; essence of, 72; and
80, 128; and One, 230; and perfection, generation, 72, 98, 132, 134, 136, 143,
85; properties of, 96, 109; and reason, 193, 194; gifts of, 78, 187; and good, 73;
73, 128; and relation, 73; and works, and Holy Spirit, 98, 192, 225; nature
204. of, 183, 192; paternity in, 72, 98, 194,
Daniel, 3:57, 102; 3:72, 151. 211; and Son, 78, 79, 89, 94, 98, 119,
David, 110, 147, 204, 215, 234, 235, 236, 127, 129, 130, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137,
243, 286. 143,149) 167,.170,171, 1725173500179;
Detachment, 251-254, 285-294. 181, 182, 183, 184, 187, 188, 195, 204,
Deuteronomy, 6:4, 91; 6:5, 291. 205.210) 2255227229) 238
Dionysius, Pseudo-, 140, 149, 280, 292. Unbegotten, 94, 229; and Word, 122,
Dominicans, exemptions of, 71, 74. 130, 133, 136, 137, 161, 204; works of,
Earth, creation of, 82-121; and essence, 89, 199, 210.
105; and formal existence, 106; as Form, 86; and act, 104, 109; and being,
matter, 103; as passive, 101, 103; and 191; destruction of, 120; and essence,
sin, 216. 90; and existence, 90, 104, 105, 119,
Ecclesiastes, 1:7, 221; 6:7, 215; 7:30, 112. 130, 131, 171; and God, 87, 136; and
Eckhart, 247; condemnation of, 75, 80; heaven, 102, 103; and idea, 131;
and heresy, 71, 72, 74-76, 80, 81. internal, 118; and matter, 87, 90, 104,
Emanation, formal, 129; of Persons, 84, 105, 160, 191; and medium, 102, 104;
85, 94, 96, 97, 98, 124, 130, 134, 142, properties, 104; substantial, 104, 131,
152,192. 157, 160.
Ephesians, 2:19, 159; 3:15, 143, 221, 223; Friso, Reiner, 71.
4:6, 221, 223; 4:23, 206. Gabirol, Ibn, 91.
 INDEX

Genesis, 1:2, 149, 153; 1:3-4, 123; 1:4, 137; properties (attributes) of, 80, 94, 96, 98,
1:26, 116, 170; 1:28) bid, 158; 1:315 106; 119, 123, 159, 228, 229, 234, 288; seeing
2:8, 1916: 2:16; 1:197 1202218204222ir of, 113, 149, 170, 188, 219; seeking of,
148; 2:24, 102, 105, 115; 2:25, 104; 4:7, 106, 178, 183—184, 192, 244, 251, 252,
164; 15:1, 151; 18:2, 135; 32:30, 113. 254, 259—261; separation from, 183,
God, cf. also Acts, Intellect, Sin; and 1952211. 2132172226822 1/02/39
being, 73,1159, 187519 15019520197:4201- 270—271, 285; serving of, 185, 188, 248;
202, 207, 233, 245, 246; cleaving to, 108, simplicity of, 86, 87, 91, 97, 180, 288;
110, 112, 116, 211, 251, 276; commands sons of, 71, 76, 90, 107, 159, 162, 164,
of, 119, 120, 121, 147, 167, 233, 241; 167, 168, 169, 170, 193, 194, 210, 211,
and creation, 75-78, 83-121, 123, 136, 225, 227, 229, 232, 242, 243; thanks to,
141, 142, 143, 144, 148, 158, 159, 179, 224; transformation into, 188, 189, 203,
187, 194, 195, 196, 202, 205, 224, 229, 207, 208, 242, 284; unchangeableness
246, 287, 288, 290; desire for, 198, 200, of, 99, 117, 290; understanding in, 72,
207, 232, 242, 294; and distinction,
79, 86, 87, 94, 115, 207, 208; union with,
94. 160, 198, 202, 227, 234, 244; essence 75, 76, 97, 98, 116, 188, 190, 198, 207,
of, 94; as Exemplar, 84, 94; and 208, 220, 222, 247, 249, 260, 271-273,
existence, 72, 75, 77, 83, 85, 86, 87, 89, 285, 286, 294.
90, 91, 94, 102—103, 115, 119, 134, 137, Godhead, emanations in, 96, 97, 119, 134,
140, 141, 156, 158, 159, 160, 163, 165, 135; and essence, 146; and processions,
187, 203; face of, 113, 119, 140, 156, 123; relations in, 133, 136; and Son,
222; free of, 200, 202; gifts of, 90, 114, 129, 132; substance of, 143; and Word,
121, 178, 189, 195, 196, 212, 214, 217, 125132;
224, 232, 237, 258, 270, 275, 276, Good, departure from, 100; desire for,
281-283; Glory (honor) of, 78, 102, 120, 121; and evil, 120, 149; and fear,
103, 111, 114, 120, 152, 162, 185, 188, 88, 107; and God, 159, 166, 189, 190,
196, 216, 226, 228, 278, 283; ground of, 191, 193, 195, 203, 206-207, 212, 213,
183, 190, 192, 198, 247; is hidden, 183, 215-217, 224, 233, 272, 279; and love,
192, 196, 259—261; image of, 84, 109, 88, 90, 107, 152, 210, 217, 218; nature
110, 111, 112, 115, 116, 117, 129, 132, of, 121; participation in, 209, 210, 211;
133, 143, 153, 169, 187, 193, 206, 210, source of, 110; uncreated, 209; and
211, 216, 227, 229, 240, 242, 243, 269, will, 215.
285; as ineffable, 204; Light of, 93, 110, Grace, 112, 115, 156, 158, 161, 169, 170,
1155148, 149.152, 153, 154, 155; 156; 171,372, 173,192. 2025217, 2258236.
157, 178, 179, 204, 227, 274; love for, 240, 279, 284, 285, 288, 291.
80, 147, 150, 152, 179, 180, 184, 185, Gregory, 150, 159.
195, 196, 199, 208,214, 216, 217, 218, Hagar, 107.
226, 228, 229, 232-235, 241, 245, 252, Heaven, as active, 101, 103; creation of,
258, 259, 260, 264, 265, 268, 270, 271, 82-121; and earth, 197; and existence,
274, 277, 279, 282, 285, 290-291; love 105, 106; and form, 102, 103; and good,
of, 181, 184, 193, 195, 196, 216, 228, 217; Kingdom of, 78, 168, 179, 185,
229, 230, 234, 237, 239, 261, 289; names 190, 199, 200, 214, 283.
of, 204—205, 206, 236; nature of, 79, 86, Hebrews, 1:3, 179; 1:10, 83, 85, 86; 1:12,
94, 124, 170, 196, 197, 198, 202, 203, 85; 2:11, 169; 2:17, 169; 11:6, 164;
219, 227, 241, 243, 247, 248, 292; 11:36—38, 236; 12:6, 71, 231.
oneness of, 79, 80, 83, 87, 91, 96, 97, 98, Heliodorus, 72.
99, 101, 159, 165, 166, 180, 184, 189, Hell, 183, 186, 187, 190, 191.
190, 192, 206, 208, 221, 224, 230, 234, Henry, Archbishop of Cologne, 71, 77.
244, 252; praise of, 78, 102, 103, 121, Heresy, 71, 72, 74—76, 80, 81.
163, 178, 205, 257, 272; and predicates, Holiness, 250-251.
206-207; presence of, 158, 159, 165, Holy of Holies, 110.
168, 179, 214, 232, 233, 234, 249, Holy Spirit, and creation, 98, 123, 142;
251-254, 255, 274, 275, 277, 279: and existence, 96; and Father, 98, 192,

362
 INDEX

255; gifts of, 246; and good, 73; and 170; 10:30, 96, 98, 127, 129, 139; 12:26,
grace, 76; and love, 133, 189, 221, 222, 230; 13:3, 170; 13:13, 91; 14:6, 144, 146;
227; and man, 167, 187, 192, 193, 205, 14:8, 223; 14:9, 130; 14:10, 210; 14:11,
246, 293, 294; and One, 97; procession 96, 98, 129; 14:12, 76, 172; 15:4, 146;
of, 76, 94, 97, 133, 152, 167; and USS, 223 2095145 188:005:1558113:4106:75
sanctification, 169; and Son, 76, 98, 2952 1618093094. 16:15. lisse 70281620!
167; and truth, 93, 94; withdrawal of, 2/195916:27819/22133:016:22 95168919727
92—93. 173; 16:24, 172, 173; 16:28, 162; 16:33,
Horace, 93, 147. 164; 17:3, 163, 164, 216, 246; 17:10, 116,
Hosea, 2:14, 230; 12:10, 94. 1570210 8157:18124222 2217:2/ 997:559023 92205
Hugh of St. Victor, 139. 17:2 450197 81/7:2:5 200397: ol Satta Oe
Ideas, and creation, 91, 101, 123, 126, 130, 1 John, 1:5, 128, 149, 155; 3:1, 168, 169;
131, 141; and definition, 125; and 3:24 1707 217351189:73:91075::14:0 182) 4:16,
existence, 83, 91; and God, 141; and 146, 229; 5:4, 164; 5:7, 96, 98; 5:20, 173.
knowledge, 83, 91, 125; and Logos, John Damascene, 134, 161.
101, 126, 131, 132; and Son, 84. John the Baptist, 129, 154.
Illumination, 117, 125, 128, 156, 158, 164. Joy, 179, 180, 185, 186, 195, 212, 217, 220,
Image, cf. also God, Son; derivative, 182; 221, 230, 233, 241, 242, 263, 281, 285.
and exemplar, 129, 130, 134, 143; and Judas, 152.
Father, 193; free of, 177, 184, 211, 212, Judges, 9:8, 108.
239, 242, 274, 293; and memory, 206; Justice, 107, 110, 120; exemplar in, 127;
and Word, 130, 133. and God, 97, 106, 152, 154, 186, 211,
Imagination, 74, 109, 274. 218, 248, 284; participation in, 113,
Incarnation, 152, 162, 167-170, 193. 126-130, 139, 146, 147, 154, 169, 186,
Intellect, and abstraction, 131; agent-, 209, 211; striving for, 138, 186, 215,
158; and creation, 141; as empty tablet, 219; Unbegotten, 113, 128.
105; and existence, 160; and God, 79, Kingdom, of God, 88, 106; of heaven, 78,
86, 93, 141; and heresy, 72; and idea, 168, 179, 185, 190, 199, 200, 214, 283.
133, 137; and imagination, 74, 109; Knowledge, and blessedness, 188, 201,
knowing-, 137; and Logos, 132; and 245; dependent, 85; free of, 201, 202;
nature, 84, 108, 137; object of, 105, 125, and God, 73, 85, 110, 114 117, 127, 163,
162, 163; and phantasms, 109, 153; and 164, 189, 198, 201, 216, 232, 245, 246,
truth, 106, 116, 117; and Word, 133. 247, 264, 272; and Holy Spirit, 228;
Isaiah, 7:14, 168; 9:6, 193; 11:6, 112; 12:6, and ideas, 83, 91, 125-126, 132; and
168; 45:6—7, 106; 45:7, 90; 45:15, 149, justice, 120; of man, 85, 107, 128;
W922 59:25 1123 62:1, 222; 66:24, 121- object of, 163; and phantasms, 128,
Isidore, 290. 216; and principles, 128, 130; self-, 200,
Jacob, 95, 119. 210, 240, 271; and truth, 73.
James, 1:17, 154: 1:21, 132; 2:10, 166; 3:2, Lamentations, 3:22, 224.
166. Life, 144—147, 164, 170, 182, 185, 186, 187,
Jeremiah, 1:9, 203, 205; 1:10, 205; 23:24, 188, 190, 210, 264-265, 267.
158; 32:19, 153. Light, cf. also God, Man; and darkness,
Jerome, 72, 147, 165, 166-167, 235, 240. 147-153, 155, 196, 219; and Father,
Job, 5:6, 141; 7:20, 88; 22:14, 85; 33:14, 99, 193; and knowledge, 245; of truth, 77,
148; 36:33, 113; 39:27-28, 122. 117, 198, 218; uncreated, 198.
Joel, 2:28-29, 111. Logos, and causality, 141; and creation,
John, Tel 18721939135 735 les 19619: 83, 89, 101, 123, 126, 130, 131, 132, 141;
243; 1:12, 90, 210; 1:14, 193; 1:16, 169; and idea, 101, 126, 131, 132; and
1:18, 127, 3:6) 164, 1727.3:13,-184;/3:215 reason, 83; and Word, 123, 133, 141.
146; 3:31—34, 154; 4:14, 227, 242; 5:17, Love, cf. also God, Good; and
89, 121, 210; 5:19, 73; 5:26, 210; 5:39, blessedness, 201, 294; Concomitant-,
94; 5:46, 94; 7:39, 227; 8:25, 89, 151; 94; for enemies, 150; and Holy Spirit,
8:35, 173; 8:44, 166; 10:10, 170; 10:29, 133, 189, 221, 222, 227; and justice, 120,

363
 INDEX

189; Notional-, 94—95; and One, 221; 230, 235, 284; 5:13, 228; 5:16, 147; 5:44,
for self, 231, 239; and similar, 197, 150; 5:45, 151; 5:48, 164; 6:9, 163; 6:10,
222-223; and suffering, 212, 214, 226, 151, 167, 215; 6:22, 197; 6:33, 88, 106;
229, 286; and trust, 263, 264; for truth, 7:9, 151; 7:17, 240; 9:34, 281; 10:35, 164;
138-139; and will, 257-258. 10:36, 150; 11:19, 154; 11:27, 127, 130,
Luke, 1:28, 192; 1:34-35, 193; 1:35, 136, 154; 11:29, 147, 156; 12:30, 279; 13:9, 94,
16971:48.0156, 287, 3:31, 239: 6:45, 2157 138; 13:13, 138; 13:24, 240; 13:25, 161,
7:47,1265::8:115 0123. 1241::821:3540102^ 241; 13:26, 152; 13:28, 77; 13:43, 123;
10:38, 177; 10:41, 173; 10:41—42, 165; 13:44, 243; 16:24, 147, 230, 250; 18:9,
10:42, 173, 285; 11:4, 165; 11:17, 278; 217: 19:26, 2285:19:27, 2508 19:29) 218,
11:275:193: 11:28, 1105 /193:-12:367 254; 258; 23:9, 164; 23:12, 280; 24:22, 167;
14:11, 156; 142275 18901721, 168; 19212, 24:35, 141; 24:47, 90; 26:38, 290; 28:18,
189, 229, 240; 23:4, 151. 90.
2 Maccabees, 7:28, 142. Mercy, 152, 159, 161, 200, 209, 224, 237,
Macrobius, 99. 239, 287.
Maimonides 82, 86, 88, 92, 95, 110. Moses, 84, 94, 97, 98, 104, 106, 142, 149,
Man, and distinction, 202; and divine 173, 192, 214, 242, 290.
nature, 79, 190, 197, 225, 240, 285; Multiplicity, 97-100, 165-168, 190, 191,
earthly, 103, 107; and essence, 109; as 208, 227, 252, 274.
eternal, 202-203; faculties of, 164; and Nature, cf. also God, Man; and action,
Father, 78, 79, 164, 187, 188, 193, 210, 73, 102, 126, 160, 205; bodily-, 106, 132;
212; and God, 184, 193, 194, 197, 201, and existence, 126; and generation,
203, 211, 212, 220, 247-255, 280, 291, 124, 127; and grace, 112, 279, 284-285;
293; ground of, 183, 184, 251; inner-, and ideas, 126; intellectual-, 106, 132;
240, 241, 242, 274-275, 280, 290, 291; necessity of, 86; and One, 146, 222;
integrity of, 109; just- (good), 73, 78, order of, 88, 107; and principle, 100,
79, 88, 90, 103, 106, 110, 113-114, 120 101; and soul, 84; states of, 112-113;
126-130, 139, 154, 185, 186, 187, 189, and suffering, 212-213; and
209-212, 214—218, 228, 229, 231, 234, understanding, 84.
235, 237, 251, 256, 261, 270; knowledge Number, 91, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 167.
of, 85, 107, 128; light of, 125, 126, 128, Obedience, 115, 120, 247—248, 276, 284.
145, 146, 147, 153, 156; nature of, 78, Origen, 75, 145, 241, 242.
109, 125, 145, 158, 182, 191, 193, 218, Osee, 2:14, 247.
224, 225, 228, 229, 240; outer-, 240, 241, Parables, 92-121.
256, 290, 291; and Son, 182, 227; is Paradise, 116, 117, 119, 162.
Son, 79, 188, 194, 211, 224—230; stages Paul, 71, 76, 85, 102, 104, 114, 149, 179,
of, 241-242; suffesing of, 179—180, 186, 1897 2025: 206,:2072:209 213: 211691222"
209, 211-219, 229, 230, 232-236, 238, 226, 228, 231, 236, 241, 243, 244, 256,
260—261, 284, 286, 294; as virgin, 258, 259, 261, 264, 266, 283, 286, 288,
177-179, 193; and Word, 79, 126. 291, 292, 293.
Marcellinus, 150. Penance, 178, 274.
Mark, 7:37, 114, 151; 8:24, 88. Penitence, 265—266.
Martha, 173, 177, 285. ] Peter, 2:2, 140; 4:8, 264.
Mary, 182, 192, 193, 195, 259, 287, 290, 2 Peter, 1:21, 93, 228.
291. Peter, (Simon), 79, 152, 250.
Mary (of Bethany), 173. Peter of Estate, 71.
Matter, and earth, 103; and existence, 90, Pharaoh, 290.
104, 105, 143; and form, 87, 90, 104, Philippians, 1:21, 146; 3:19—20, 103.
105, 160, 191; and potency, 104, 109, Plato, 83, 91, 93, 123, 154, 158, 171.
160; prime-, 95, 105, 109, 160; Polycletus, 134, 145.
properties of, 104. Porphyry, 145.
Matthew, 1:23, 168; 3:17, 227; 5:3, 199, Poverty, of spirit, 199—203, 250, 276,
216,220; 250:25:105 715, 1505 2262229) 281-283.
 INDEX

Prayer, 78, 178, 184, 204, 205, 215, 216, Seneca, 75, 107, 134, 147, 204, 215, 239,
233, 236, 247—249, 288, 289, 292. 241.
Prime Mover, 111. Senses, and Christ, 271; exterior, 118;
Proclus, 87, 98. faculty of, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111,
Proverbs, 1:6, 94; 5:2-3, 95; 8:7, 74; 12:21, UPA UE Woy AKT SIS 0197
211; 16:4, 228; 25:4, 243; 25:11, 92. 162-163; images of, 114, 290-291;
Psalms, 4:3, 166; 4:6—7, 140; 4:7, 110, 156; object of, 105, 114, 163, 169; and
8:5, 158; 8:8, 158; 16:2, 140; 16:3, 150; reason, 110, 111, 112, 290-291.
18:2, 120; 18:2-4, 114; 18:4-5, 120; 18:7, Simon, (Peter), 79.
158; 24:11, 166; 26:4, 165; 32, 107; 32:6, Sin, after-, 109, 112; before-, 109, 112;
141; 32:9, 85, 119, 120; 33:19, 150, 232; escape from, 108, 265; existence of,
35:10, 110; 37:18, 72, 235; 38:5, 141; 140; fall into, 108, 261-262; and God,
1:4, 15022155 21:5 10: 50507, 1271; 75, 78, 79, 112, 217, 219, 261-263, 266,
51:5, 166, 59:14, 146; 60:4, 156; 61:12, 274; inclination to, 256; and
85, 99, 205; 62:9, 110; 64:5, 127; 67:5, multiplicity, 166; and punishment, 88,
204; 72:28, 110; 79:6, 150; 84:9, 114, 287; 108, 119, 235, 236, 274; and repentance,
20:159/150:233::05:12225:96:3 21234: 217; and sorrow, 261; under-, 109, 112;
99:3,.120,.16252101:26,:832.101:27,.85; and will, 79, 216.
101:27-28, 99, 141; 102:24, 84; 103:5, 86; Sirach, 1:2, 166; 4:33, 146; 7:30, 161; 11:10,
103:24, 141; 115:6, 138; 118:89, 121; 165711:27,. 213214211, 2932174727112;
301815179038: :0126:1.0112:7134:67 225: 18:1, 83, 86; 24:5, 162; 24:12-13, 119;
135:5, 84, 91, 106, 141; 138:8, 90; 148:6, 24:29, 102; 24:30, 146; 24:41-42, 162;
120: 121: 26:19, 169; 27:6, 150.
Reason, and action, 140; and creation, 88, Socrates, 146, 238.
141, 142; faculty of, 108, 125; Ideal-, 84, Solomon, 94, 211, 213, 215, 221, 228, 243.
87; inferior, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, Son, cf. also Word; Only-Begotten, 94,
112, 113, 114, 116, 119, 153; and Logos, 127, 129, 149, 170, 171, 172, 173, 181,
83; and principles, 128; and senses, 183, 188, 194—196, 211, 227, 228; birth
110, 111, 112; and simplicity, 87; of, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 187, 188,
superior, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 194, 196, 205, 226, 227; and creation,
113, 114, 116, 119, 153; and Word, 140. 78, 84, 89, 90, 98, 142, 143; and
Repentance, 262-263. Existence, 89, 96; and Father, 78, 79,
Revelation, 1:8, 139; 2:17, 127, 154; 3:20, 89, 94, 98, 119, 127, 130, 132, 134, 135,
151; 21:3, 168; 22:135244722:17, 110: 1364137 9143" 149167, 1707171; 172,
Romans, 3:2, 162; 3:20, 167; 4:17, 111, 173, 179, 181, 182, 184, 187, 188, 195,
151; 7:14, 92; 7:23, 241; 7:24, 241; 8:13, 204, 205, 210, 225, 227, 229, 231;
107; 8:15, 107, 168; 8:17, 168; 8:18, 150; generation of, 78, 85, 97, 119, 125, 127,
8:28, 88, 261; 8:29, 168, 169; 8:32, 171; 132, 133, 134, 135-136, 142, 148, 152,
O23 el SAPO 220 259.12 el 40: 131), 167, 228-229; and good, 73; and Holy
109; 13:14, 293. Spirit, 76, 98, 159, 167; as Image, 84,
Salvation, 151, 267. 170, 222, 243; image of, 168, 169, 221;
1 Samuel, 16:12, 147; 17:42, 147; 18:7, 147. Incarnation of, 152, 156, 168, 170; as
2 Samuel, 16:5 ff., 236. power, 123; as Principle, 84; and
Sarah, 107. world, 164, 181, 183.
Saul, 147. Song of Songs, 1:1, 113, 168; 1:3, 110;
Scripture, and exegesis, 74, 82, 88, 93, 94, 1:4-5, 243; 2:9, 196; 2:10, 116; 2:14, 110;
95, 106, 108, 116, 123, 129, 162, 228; 2:11, 168; 2:13, 168; 2:16, 116; 4:11, 168;
and God, 93; and Holy Spirit, 228; and SG EOP 6835/51 Of T6:
parables, 92-121; and truth, 92, 95, 123. Soul, activities of, 118; birth of Son in,
Self, -knowledge, 200, 210, 240, 271; 187, 194, 196, 205, 229, 243; as bride,
renunciation of, 249-251, 260-261, 196; disordered, 107, 117; divine seed
265, 280, 282, 283; -will, 183, 186, 200, in, 75, 240-241, 243; emptying of,
201, 203, 230, 248—250, 259, 260, 276. 220-223; and Father, 206, 208, 221;

365
 INDEX

form of, 87; and God, 181, 184, 187, Will, and blessedness, 188, 189;
198, 202, 203, 205, 206, 220-222, 243, conformity of, 79, 189, 190, 215, 216,
258, 272, 292, 294; ground of, 241, 242, 260, 273, 278, 285; of Father, 167, 216;
258; and images, 206; intellectual, 138, of flesh, 162—167, 210, 211; freedom of,
139, 166, 208; light of, 198, 207; and 137, 184, 186, 190, 200, 201, 203, 279,
multiplicity, 165—166, 190; powers of, 291; of God, 79, 162-167, 184, 186, 189,
112, 116. 1337 171-179) 201-2206; 199, 200, 201, 203, 210, 215-219, 226,
207—208, 211, 220, 246, 290-291; 231, 233, 236, 237, 248, 257, 259, 260,
rational, 87, 109, 118, 207; and 261, 269, 270, 277, 278, 283, 285, 290,
simplicity, 181, 208; uncreated, 80; as 291, 292; and good, 116, 257, 259, 268,
wife, 178. 276; and heresy, 72; and Holy Spirit,
Spirit, emptying of, 248—249; poverty of, 208; object of, 163; poverty of, 200;
199—203, 250, 276, 281-283. self-, 183, 186, 200, 201, 203, 230,
Substance, and existence, 124; and 248—250, 259, 260, 276; and sin, 79, 216;
generation, 124; and God, 143; and and virtue, 256—259.
matter and form, 104-105; and Wisdom, 1:1, 166; 1:5, 89; 3:1, 236; 3:5-6,
principles, 132; and simplicity, 87; and 231; 5:16, 185; 7:11, 171, 233; 7:25—26,
Word, 125. f 130; 11:25, 237; 15:3, 164; 18:14, 152.
Terence, 94. Wisdom, and creation, 84, 141; of Father,
Thomas Aquinas, 72,75, 82, 83, 86, 111, 155. 199: and God, 96, 130, 199, 207, 242;
1 Timothy, 1:17, 102; 6:16, 149. participation in, 209, 210; spiritual, 92,
Titus, 3:4—5, 161. 122:
Trinity, cf. also Emanation; and creation, Word, begetting of, 79, 85, 119, 125, 130,
153; and differentiation, 206; image of, 132-133, birth of, 179; and creation,
170; and knowledge, 127; mystery of, 83, 85, 122-126, 128, 130, 131, 132, 136,
122; properties of, 181, 198, 227; unity 137, 140, 141, 161, 162, 290; and divine
of, 98, 227; works of, 98. nature, 124; and Father, 122, 130, 133,
Truth, and Christ, 94; divine, 199—200; 136, 137, 161, 179, 204; glory of,
and existence, 106; and God, 73, 93, 170-173; and God, 119, 124, 127, 130,
117, 218, 219, 235, 236, 239, 248, 260; 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 138, 152-153,
ground of, 74; and Holy Spirit, 93, 94; 187, 204; humanity of, 145, 161,
and knowledge, 73; light of, 77, 117, 167—170; and idea, 133, 135; and image,
198, 218; love for, 138-139; and 130, 133; as principle, 83; and reason,
scripture, 92, 95; and Word, 139. 140; receiving of, 115, 159, 161—167,
Understanding, and form, 191—192; of God, 168; is Son, 85, 152, 159, 167, 169, 241.
72, 86, 87, 94, 115, 207, 208; mystical 93; Zechariah, 9:9, 196.
and nature, 84;simplicity of, 191. Zeal, 274-277.

A 033645
THEOLOGY LIBRARY
CLAREMONT, CALIF.
366
 Meister, de 1327.
Eckhart, the essential see
Meister Eckhart, 2)
(Card
c198 1e edzee
d by Edmu nd Coll
/ translate The book
Selected sermonSe Treatises:
The book of divi ne
of "Benedictus":
The book of "Renedic tus":
consolatione. on
Of the noblemane Counsels
discernmente On detachmente

Ages, 600-1500
1e Mysticism--Middles
essays? lecturese
——Addresses,
2. Catholic Church--Sermonse
Edmund, 1910-
Ie Colledze; 1937-
II. McGinn, Bernard,
Title IV. Series
III.

81-82206
 SMITH HUSTON
: BY PREFACE
McGINN BERNARD
AND OSA. COLLEDGE,EDMUND
BY INTRODUCTI
AND ON TRANSLATION