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Meister Eckhart's Sermons (Field translation) · 13 of 23 · tr. Claud Field

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THE SELF-COMMUNICATION OF GOD St John xiv. 23 .—“If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” We read in the Gospels that Our Lord fed many people with five loaves and two fishes. Speaking parabolically, we may say that the first loaf was—that we should know ourselves, what we have been everlastingly to God, and what we now are to Him. The second—that we should pity our fellow Christian who is blinded; his loss should grieve us as much as our own. The third—that we should know our Lord Jesus Christ’s life, and follow it to the utmost of our capacity. The fourth—that we should know the judgments of God. All that may be said of the pains of hell is true. St Dionysius saith, “To be separated from God is hell, and the sight of God’s countenance is heaven.” The fifth is—that we should know the Godhead which has flowed into the Father and filled Him with joy, and which has flowed into the Son and filled Him with wisdom, and the Two are essentially one. Therefore said Christ, “Where I am, there is My Father, and where My Father is, there am I” And They have flowed into the Holy Ghost and filled Him with good will. Therefore said Christ, “I and My Father have one Spirit,” and the Holy Ghost has flowed into the soul. The soul has by nature two capacities. The one is intelligence, which may comprehend the Holy Trinity with all its works and be contained by It as water is by a vessel. When the vessel is full, it has enclosed all that is contained in it, and is united with that which it has enclosed, and of which it is full. Thus intelligence becomes one with that which it has understood and comprehended. It is united therewith by grace, as the Son is one with the Father. The second capacity is Will. That is a nobler one, and its essential characteristic is to plunge into the Unknown which is God. There the Will lays hold of God in a mysterious manner, and the Unknown God imparts His impress to the Will. The Will draws thought and all the powers of the soul after it in its train, so that the soul becomes one with God by grace, as the Holy Ghost is one with the Father and with the Son by nature. In God it is more worthy to be loved, than it is in itself. Therefore St Augustine saith that the soul is greater by its love-giving power than by its life-giving power. If man might only abide in this union, and do all the works which have ever been done by creatures, he would be no other than God, if his higher powers so brought his lower powers under control, that he could only work God-like works. That however may not be, and man’s highest faculty therefore contemplates God as best it can, and so influences his lower faculties that they can discern between Good and Evil. Adam possessed that union with God which we have spoken of, and while he had it, his capacity contained the capacities of all creatures. The load-stone attracts the needle, and the needle receives the magnetic power, so that it can also attract other needles and draw them to the load-stone. But if one draws the first needle away, all the other needles come with it. Thus was it with Adam: when, in his highest capacity, he was separated from God all his capacities deteriorated. Thence came also discord and the clashing of oppugnant wills among the lower creation, and deterioration of their powers down to the lowest.
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Themes
Anamnesissoteriology

Platonic recollection: knowledge as the soul's recovery of what it knew before birth, with learning as remembering rather than acquisition.

Knowing what we have been everlastingly to God implies a recovery of primordial knowledge.

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Apophatic Theologytheology

Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.

The Will is described as plunging into the Unknown which is God, emphasizing divine transcendence beyond comprehension.

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Divine Hiddennesstheology

The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.

God is characterized as the Unknown into which the Will plunges, indicating radical concealment.

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Divine Simplicitytheology

The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.

The Godhead is described as a single undivided essence from which the three persons flow, with the Father and Son declared 'essentially one' and sharing one Spirit.

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Emanation Hierarchycosmology

A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.

The text describes the Godhead flowing into the Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and then into the soul.

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Emotional Epistemologysoteriology

The doctrine that emotions constitute a valid and necessary mode of knowing reality, complementing or surpassing intellectual cognition.

The Will is declared 'nobler' than intelligence, the soul is 'greater by its love-giving power than by its life-giving power,' and love is the condition for divine indwelling, making affective capacity the higher mode of divine knowledge.

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Eschatological Judgmentsoteriology

Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.

The fourth loaf instructs believers to know the judgments of God and the pains of hell.

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Evil As Privationtheology

Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.

Hell is defined as separation from God, implying evil is the absence of divine presence rather than a positive substance.

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Gnosis Direct Knowledgesoteriology

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

Salvation and union are framed through knowing the Godhead, Christ's life, and oneself rather than ritual alone.

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Kingdom Withinanthropology

The claim that the divine realm is present inside the individual, accessible without external mediation.

God makes his abode within the believer and flows into the soul, locating the divine realm internally.

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Living Godtheology

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

God is depicted as active, flowing into the Trinity and soul, loving, and making an abode.

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Love Of Neighbourethics

Active compassionate care for others as a central spiritual obligation or expression of divine love.

The second loaf of the parable instructs believers to pity their fellow Christian as much as themselves.

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Microcosm Macrocosmcosmology

The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.

Adam's capacity is described as containing the capacities of all creatures, mirroring the cosmos within the human.

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Monadcosmology

The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.

The Godhead is presented as a single undivided essence from which the three persons and the soul's participation all flow, with the Father and Son described as 'essentially one.'

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Mystical Unionsoteriology

The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.

[auto] The passage centrally describes the soul becoming one with God by grace and making an abode within the believer.

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Paradox As Teachingethics

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

The text presents the paradoxical claim that a man in union would be no other than God.

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Return To Sourcesoteriology

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

The narrative of Adam losing union and the soul seeking to become one with God implies a journey back to origin.

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Self Knowledgesoteriology

The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.

The first loaf of the parable is defined as knowing ourselves and what we have been everlastingly to God.

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Separation From Sourcesoteriology

The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.

The text defines hell as being separated from God and describes Adam's deterioration following separation.

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Theosis Deificationsoteriology

The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.

[auto] Eckhart explicitly states that if man abides in union, he would be no other than God, reflecting the doctrine of deification.

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Trinitytheology

The doctrine that the one Godhead or first principle subsists as three co-equal aspects or persons rather than a bare unity — the Christian Father/Son/Holy Ghost invoked in the recurring liturgical formula 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' but structurally the same pattern as the Egyptian Amen/Ptah/Osiris, the Hindu Brahma/Vishnu/Siva, and the Kabbalistic Chochmah/Binah/Kether triads that esoteric writers explicitly map onto it as instances of one universal law. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about internal plurality) and divine_simplicity (God as having no parts or divisions at all) in asserting a definite three-aspected differentiation within a single divine essence.

The entire passage is structured around the Godhead flowing into Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as three co-equal aspects of one essence, with explicit scriptural citations confirming their unity.

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Unity Of Beingtheology

The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.

The text asserts that the Father and Son are essentially one and the soul becomes one with God.

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