Revelations of Divine Love · 74 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack
Chapter LIf
Thus was He, the Servant, afore His coming into earth standing ready afore the Father in purpose, till what time He would send Him to do that worshipful deed by which mankind was brought again into heaven;—that is to say, notwithstanding that He is God, even with the Father as anent the Godhead.
But in His foreseeing purpose that He would be Man, to save man in fulfilling of His Father's will, so He stood afore His Father as a Servant, willingly taking upon Him all our charge.
And then He started full readily at the Father's will, and anon He fell full low, into the Maiden's womb, having no regard to Himself nor to His hard pains.
The white kirtle is the flesh; the singleness is that there was right nought atwix the Godhead and Manhood; the straitness is poverty; the eld is of Adam's wearing; the defacing, of sweat of Adam's travail; the shortness sheweth the Servant's labour.
And thus I saw the Son saying in His meaning : Lo!
my dear Father, I stand before Thee in Adam's kirtle, all ready to start and to run: I would be in the earth to do Thy worship when it is Thy will to send me.
How long shall I desire?
Full soothfastly wist the Son when it would be the Father's will and how long He should desire: that is to say, [He wist it] anent the Godhead: for He is the Wisdom of the Father; wherefore this question was shewed with understanding of the Manhood of Christ.
For all mankind that shall be saved by the sweet Incarnation and blissful Passion of Christ, all is the Manhood of Christ: for He is the Head and we be His members.
To which members the day and the time is unknown when every passing woe and sorrow shall have an end, and the everlasting joy and bliss shall be fulfilled; which day and time for to see, all the Company of Heaven longeth.
And all that shall be under heaven that shall come thither, their way is by longing and desire.
Which desire and longing was shewed in the Servant's standing afore the Lord,—or else thus in the Son's standing afore the Father in Adam's kirtle.
For the longing and desire of all Mankind that shall be saved appeared in Jesus: for Jesus is All that shall be saved, and All that shall be saved is Jesus.
And all of the Charity of God; with obedience, meekness, and patience, and virtues that belong to us.
Also in this marvellous example I have teaching with me as it were the beginning of an A.B.C., whereby I have some understanding of our Lord's meaning.
For the secret things of the Revelation be hid therein;—notwithstanding that all the Shewings are full of secret things.
The sitting of the Father betokeneth His Godhead: that is to say, by shewing of rest and peace: for in the Godhead may be no travail.
And that He shewed Himself as Lord , betokeneth His [governance] to our manhood.
The standing of the Servant betokeneth travail; on one side , and on the left , betokeneth that he was not all worthy to stand even-right afore the Lord; his starting was the Godhead, and the running was the Manhood: for the Godhead started from the Father into the Maiden's womb, falling into the taking of our Kind.
And in this falling he took great sore: the sore that He took was our flesh, in which He had also swiftly feeling of deadly pains.
A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.
The passage describes a visionary experience where the author sees and interprets specific imagery (the Servant, the kirtle) as a form of symbolic meditation.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The text emphasizes the Father's will and the Son's willing obedience to a pre-ordained plan for the salvation of mankind.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
The passage declares 'Jesus is All that shall be saved, and All that shall be saved is Jesus,' describing a total ontological unity between the Savior and the saved.
Eckhart's radical reading of Matthew 5:3 — the saint as one who wants nothing, knows nothing, and has nothing, having emptied even the will and the self with which to receive God; distinct from renunciation_of_wealth (material poverty).
The 'straitness' of the kirtle is explicitly interpreted as poverty, and the Son's willingness to take on Adam's condition reflects a radical self-emptying.
The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.
The entire narrative arc describes the Son's descent to bring mankind 'again into heaven,' reversing the fall and restoring humanity to its divine origin.
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.
The text explicitly teaches that all saved mankind is the Manhood of Christ, with believers as members of His body, indicating a profound union and participation in the divine nature.