30 Meister Eckhart: Semon One
MEISTER ECKHART
SERMON # 1
THIS IS MEISTER ECKHART FROM WHOM GOD HID
NOTHING
Dum medium silentium tenerent omnia et nox in suo cursu
medium iter haberet etc.1
- Wisdom of Solomon (18: 14)
[1] Here in time we make holiday because the eternal birth
which God the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity
is now born in time, in human nature. St Augustine says this
birth is always happening. But if it happens not in me what
does it profit me? What matters is that it shall happen in
me.
[2] We intend therefore to speak of this birth as taking
place in us: as being consummated in the virtuous soul; for
it is the perfect soul that God speaks his Word. What I shall
say is true only of the perfect man, of him who has walked
and is still walking the way of God; not of the natural
undisciplined man who is entirely remote from and
unconscious of this birth.
[3] There is the saying of the wise man: ‘When all things
lay in the midst of silence then leapt there down into me
1 [Translation: ‘For while all things were in peaceful
silence and the night was in the midst of her course, etc.’]
from on high, from the royal throne, a secret word.’ This
sermon is about that word.
[4] Concerning it three things are to be noted. The first is:
Where in the soul does God the Father speaks his Word,
where is she receptive of this act, where does this birth take
place? It is bound to be in the purest, loftiest, subtlest part of
the soul. Verily, if God the Father in his omnipotence had
endowed the soul with a still nobler nature, had she received
from him anything yet more exalted, then must the Father
have delayed this birth for the presence of this greater
excellence. The soul in which this birth shall come to pass
must be absolutely pure and must live in gentle fashion,
quite peaceful and wholly introverted: not running out
through the five senses and into the multiplicity of created
things, but altogether within herself and harmonized in her
single purity. That is its place; it disdains anything less.
[5] The second part of this sermon has to do with man’s
conduct in relation to this act, this interior speaking, this
birth: Whether it is more profitable to co-operate in it —
perhaps by creating in the mind an imaginary image and
disciplining oneself thereon by reflecting that God is wise,
omnipotent, eternal, or whatever else one is able to
excogitate about God — so that the birth may come to pass
in us through our own exertion and merit; or whether it is
more profitable and conducive to this birth from the Father
to shun all thoughts, words, and deeds, as well as all mental
images, and empty oneself, maintaining a wholly Godreceptive
attitude, such that one’s own self is idle, letting
God work. How shall one best serve the eternal birth?
[6] The third point is the profit, and how great it is, that
accrues from this birth.
[7] Note in the first place that in what I am about to say I
intend to avail myself of natural proof that ye yourselves
can grasp, for though I put more faith in the scriptures than
in myself, nevertheless it is easier and better for you to learn
by means of arguments that can be verified.
Meister Eckhart, “Sermon #1” 2 of 4
[8] First we will take the words: ‘In the midst of the silence
there was spoken in me a secret word.’
[9] — But, Sir, where is the silence and where the place in
which the word is spoken?
[10] As I said just now, it is in the purest part of the soul, in
the noblest, in her ground, aye in the very essence of the
soul. There is the central silence, into which no creature
may enter, nor any image, nor has the soul there either
activity or understanding, therefore she is not aware of any
image either of herself or any creature. Whatever the soul
effects she effects with her powers.
[11] When she understands, she understands with her
intellect. When she remembers, she does so with her
memory. When she loves, she does so with her will. She
works then with her powers and not with her essence. Now
every exterior act is lined with some means. The power of
seeing is brought into play only through the eyes; elsewhere
she can neither do nor bestow such a thing as seeing. And so
with all the other senses: their operations are always
effected through some means or others.
[12] In Being, however, there is no action, and thus none in
the essence of the soul; the faculties she works with emanate
from the ground of the essence but in her actual ground
there is a central stillness; here alone is rest and a habitation
for this birth, this act, wherein God the Father speaks his
Word, for it is intrinsically receptive of naught save the
divine essence, without means. Here God enters the soul
with his all, not merely with a part. God enters the ground of
the soul. None can touch the ground of the soul but God
alone. No creature is admitted into her ground, it must stop
outside in her powers. There it sees the image whereby it
has been drawn in and found shelter. For when the soulpowers
contact a creature they set to make of the creature an
image and likeness which they absorb. By it they know the
creature. Creatures cannot go into the soul, nor can the soul
know anything about a creature which she has not willingly
taken the image of into herself. She approaches creatures
through their present images; an image being a thing that the
soul creates with her powers. Be it a stone, a rose, a man, or
anything else that she wants to know about, she gets out the
image of it which she has already taken in and is thus
enabled to unite herself with it.
[13] But an image received in this way must of necessity
enter from without through the senses. Consequently there
is nothing so unknown to the soul as herself. The soul, says
a philosopher, can neither create nor absorb an image of
herself. So she has nothing to know herself by. Images all
enter through the senses, hence she can have no image of
herself. She knows other things but not herself. Of nothing
does she know so little as of herself, owing to this
arrangement.
[14] Now thou must know that inwardly the soul is free from
means and images, that is why God can freely unite with her
without form or similitude. Thou canst not but attribute to
God without measure whatever power thou dost attribute to
a master. The wiser and more powerful the master the more
immediately is his work effected and the simpler it is. Man
requires many instruments for his external works; much
preparation is needed before he can bring them forth as he
has imagined them. The sun and moon, whose work is to
give light, in their mastership perform this very swiftly: the
instant their radiance is poured forth, all the ends of the
world are full of light. More exalted are the angels, who
need less means for their works and have fewer images. The
highest Seraph has but a single image. He seizes as a unity
all that his inferiors regard as a multitude. But God needs no
image and has no image: without image, likeness, or means
does God work in the soul, aye, in her ground into which no
image did ever get but only himself with his own essence.
This no creature can do.
[15] — How does God the Father give birth to his Son in the
soul? As a creature might, in image and likeness?
[16] No, by my faith! but just as he gives him birth in
eternity and not otherwise.
[17] — Well, but how does he give him birth there?
[18] Let us see. God the Father has perfect insight into
himself, profound and thorough knowledge of himself by
means of himself, not by means of any image. And thus
God the Father gives birth to his Son, in the very oneness of
the divine nature. See, thus it is and no other way that God
the Father gives birth to his Son in the ground and essence
of the soul and thus he unites himself with her. Were any
image present there would not be real union and in real
union lies your entire beatitude.
[19] Now you might say: ‘But there is nothing innate in the
soul save images.’ No, not so! If that were true the soul
would never be happy, for God cannot make any creature in
which you can enjoy perfect happiness, otherwise God
would not be the highest happiness and final goal, whereas
it is his will and nature to be the alpha and omega of all. No
creature can be happiness. And here indeed can just as little
be perfection, for perfection (perfect virtue that is to say)
Meister Eckhart, “Sermon #1” 3 of 4
results from perfection of life. Therefore you truly must
enter into and dwell in your essence, in your ground, and
there God will mix you with his simple essence, without the
medium of any image. No image represents and signifies
itself; it stands for that of which it is the image. Now seeing
that you have no image save of what is outside yourself, it is
impossible for you to be beatified by any image
whatsoever.
[20] The second point is this: What should a man do in order
to deserve and procure this birth to come to pass and be
consummated in him? Is it better for him to do his part
towards it, to imagine and think about God, or should he
keep still in peace and quiet so that God can speak and act in
him while he merely waits on God’s operation? At the same
time I repeat that this speaking, this act, is only for the good
and perfect, those who have so absorbed and assimilated the
essence of virtue that it emanates from them naturally,
without their seeking; and above all there must live in them
the worthy life and lofty teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Such are permitted to know that the very best and utmost of
attainment in this life is to remain still and let God act and
speak in you.
[21] When the powers have all been withdrawn from their
bodily form and functions, then this Word is spoken. Thus
he said: ‘in the midst of the silence the secret word was
spoken to me.’ The more completely you can withdraw your
faculties and forget those things and their images which you
have taken in, the more, that is to say, you forget the
creature, the nearer you are to his, and the more sensitive
you will be to it. If only you could suddenly be altogether
unaware of things, then you would pass into the oblivion of
your own existence, as St Paul did when he said: ‘Whether
in the body I know not, or out of the body I know not, God
knows!’ Here the spirit had so entirely absorbed the
faculties that it had forgotten the body: memory no longer
functioned, nor understanding, nor the senses, nor even
those powers whose duty it is to give and grace the body.
Vital warmth and energy were stopped, so that the body did
not fail during the three days he neither ate nor drank. Even
so fared Moses when he fasted forty days on the mount and
was none the worse for it: on the last day he was as strong
as on the first. Thus a man must abscond from his senses,
invert his faculties and lapse into oblivion of things and of
himself. As one philosopher spoke to his soul: ‘Withdraw
from the restlessness of external activities!’ And again: ‘Fly
away and hide yourself from the turmoil of outward
occupations and inward thoughts for they create nothing but
discord!’
[22] If God is to speak his Word in the soul she must be at
rest and at peace; then he speaks in the soul his Word and
himself — not image but himself. Dionysius says: ‘God has
no image nor likeness of himself seeing that he is
intrinsically all good, truth and being.’ God performs all his
works, in himself and outside of himself, simultaneously.
Do not fondly imagine that God, when he created the
heavens and the earth and all creatures, made one thing one
day and another the next. Moses describes it thus, but he
knew better. He did so merely on account of those who are
incapable of understanding or conceiving otherwise. All
God did was this: He willed and they were. God works
without instrument and without image. And the freer you
are from images, the more receptive you will be to his
interior operation; and the more introverted and oblivious
you are, the closer you will be to it.
[23] It was in this sense that Dionsyius exhorted his disciple
Timothy: ‘My dear son Timothy, you should soar above
yourself with untroubled mind, above all your powers,
characteristics, and states, up into the still, secret darkness,
so that you may come to know the unknown God above all
gods. Forsake everything. God despises ideas.’
[24] But perhaps you now say: ‘What is it that God does,
without images, in the ground and essence?’ That I am
incapable of knowing, for my soul-powers can receive only
images; they have to recognise and lay hold of each thing in
its appropriate image: they cannot recognise a bird in the
image of a man. Now since images all enter from without,
this is concealed from my soul, which is most salutary for
her. Not-knowing makes her wonder and leads her to eager
pursuit, for she knows clearly that it is but knows not how
nor what it is. No sooner does a man know the reason of a
thing than immediately he tires of it and goes casting about
for something new. Always clamoring to know, he is ever
inconstant. The soul is constant only to this unknowing
knowing which keeps her pursuing.
[25] The wise man said concerning this: ‘In the middle of
the night when all things were in quiet silence there was
spoken to me a hidden word.’ It came by stealth. like a thief.
What does he mean by a word that was hidden? The nature
of a word is to reveal what is hidden. It appeared before me,
shining out with intent to reveal and give me knowledge of
God. Hence it is called a word. But what it was remained
hidden from me. That was its stealthy coming ‘in a
whispering stillness to reveal itself.’ It is just because it is
hidden that one is and must be always after it. It appears and
disappears: we are meant to yearn and sigh for it.
Meister Eckhart, “Sermon #1” 4 of 4
[26] St Paul says we ought to pursue this until we espy it and
not stop until we grasp it. Once he was caught up into the
third heaven of the knowledge of God and saw everything.
When he came back he had forgotten nothing, but it was so
deep down in his ground that his intellect could not reach it:
it was veiled from him. He was therefore obliged to pursue
it and search for it in himself, not outside himself. It is not
outside, it is inside: wholly within. And being convinced of
this he said, ‘I am sure that neither death nor any affliction
can separate me from what I find within me.’
[27] There is a fine saying of one heathen philosopher to
another about this, he says: ‘I am aware of something in me
which sparkles in my intelligence; I clearly perceive that it
is something but what I cannot grasp. Yet I think if I could
only seize it I should know all truth.’ To which the other
philosopher replied: ‘Follow it boldly! for if you can seize it
you will possess the sum-total of all good and have eternal
life!’ St Augustine expresses himself in the same sense: ‘I
am conscious of something within me that plays before my
soul and is as a light dancing in front of it; were this brought
to steadiness and perfection in me it would surely be eternal
life!’ It hides yet it shows. It comes, but after the manner of
a thief, with intent to take and to steal all things from the
soul. By emerging and showing itself somewhat it purposes
to decoy the soul and draw it towards itself to rob it and take
it from itself. As said the prophet: ‘Lord take from them
their spirit and give them instead thy spirit.’ This too the
loving soul meant when she said: ‘My soul dissolved and
melted away when Love spoke his word: when he entered I
could not but fail.’ And Christ signified it by his words:
‘Whosoever shall forsake everything for my sake shall be
repaid an hundredfold, and whoever will possess me must
deny himself and all things and whosoever will serve me
must follow me nor go any more after his own.’
[28] Now perhaps you are saying: ‘But, Sir, you are wanting
to change the natural course of the soul! It is her nature to
take in through the senses, in images. Would you upset this
arrangement?’
[29] No! But how do you know what nobility God has
bestowed on human nature, what perfections yet
uncataloged and undiscovered? Those who have written of
the soul’s nobility have gone no further than their natural
intelligence could carry them; they never entered her
ground, so that much remained obscure and unknown to
them. ‘I will sit in silence and hearken to what God speaks
within me,’ said the prophet. Into this retirement steals the
Word in the darkness of the night. St John says: ‘The light
shines in the darkness: it came unto its own and as many as
received it became in authority sons of God: to them was
given power to become God’s sons.’
[30] See now the fruit and use of this mysterious Word and
of this darkness. In this gloom which is his own the
heavenly Father’s Son is not born alone: you too are born
there, a child of the same heavenly Father and no other, and
to you also he gives power. Observe how great the use. No
truth learned by any master by his own intellect and
understanding, or ever to be learned at this side the day of
judgment, has ever been interpreted at all according to this
knowledge, in this ground. Call it ignorance, an unknowing,
yet there is in it more than all knowing and understanding
without it, for this outward ignorance lures and attracts you
from all understood things and from yourself. This is what
Christ meant when he said: ‘Whosoever does not deny
himself and leave father and more, and is not estranged from
all these, he is not worthy of me.’ As though to say: he who
abandons not creaturely externals can neither be conceived
nor born in this divine birth. But divesting yourself of
yourself of everything external thereto does indeed give you
it. And in very truth I believe, nay I am sure, that the man
who is established herein can in no wise be at any time
separated from God. I hold he can in no wise lapse into
mortal sin. He would rather suffer the most shameful death,
as the saints have done before him, than commit the least of
mortal sins. I hold that he cannot willingly commit, nor yet
consent to, even a venial sin, whether in himself or in
another. So strongly is he drawn and attracted to this way,
so much is he habituated to it, that he could never turn to
any other; to this way are directed all his senses, all his
powers.
[31] May the God who has been born again as man assist us
in this birth, continually helping us, weak man, to be born
again in him as God. Amen.
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