Passion for Creation

These words are written in the book of wisdom. We wish at this time to explain them as if the eternal wisdom were conducting a dialogue with the soul, saying: “I have sought repose in all things” (Si. 24:11). And the soul replies: “He who created me has rested in my tent” (Si. 24:12). Next the eternal wisdom says: “My repose is in the holy city” (Si. 24:15).

If I were asked to give valid information concerning what the Creator’s aims were when he created all creatures, I would say: “Repose.” If I were asked for the second time what the Holy Trinity was seeking in all its deeds, I would answer: “Repose.” If I were asked for the third time what the soul was seeking in all its motions, I would answer: “Repose.” If I were asked for the fourth time what all creatures were seeking in all their natural efforts and motions, I would answer: “Repose.”

First, we should understand and know how the divine countenance, by its divine nature, maddens and drives all souls out of their senses with longing for it so as to draw them to itself. For God enjoys the divine nature, which is repose, so much, and repose is so pleasing to him that he has placed it outside himself in order to attract the longing of all creatures and to draw them to himself. Not only is the Creator seeking his own repose in that he has placed it outside himself and formed it for all creatures, but at the same time he is seeking to draw all creatures with him back again to their origin, which is repose. Moreover, God loves himself in all creatures. Just as he is seeking love for himself in all creatures, he is seeking also his own repose in them.

Second, the Holy Trinity is seeking repose. The Father seeks repose in his Son in that he has poured out all creatures in him and “formed” them in him. Both seek repose in the Holy Spirit because he has proceeded from both of them as an eternal immeasurable love.

Third, the soul seeks repose in all its powers and motions, whether people know this or not. People never open or shut their eyes without seeking repose. Either they will cast something away from them that hinders them or they will draw something to themselves in which they will rest. People do all their deeds for the sake of these two things. I have also said that people can never feel joy or pleasure in any creature if God’s likeness is not within it. I love the thing in which I most recognize God’s likeness. But nothing resembles God in all creatures so much as repose.

Concerning this third point, we should know how the soul should be in which God wishes to rest. It should be pure. In what way does the soul become pure? By clinging to spiritual things. By being raised up. The higher it is raised up, the purer it will become in its devotion. The purer its devotion is, the more powerful its deeds will be. In consideration of this, an astronomer says: “The nearer the stars shine to the earth, the weaker are they in their effect because they are not in their proper situation. If, however, they reach their proper situation, they are at their highest point. Then, however, they cannot be seen on earth, and yet their effect on earth is most powerful.” Saint Anselm says to the soul: “Withdraw a little from the commotion of external deeds. Second, flee, and conceal yourself before the storm of thoughts that also bring great unrest to the soul. Third, people can request nothing more precious than repose.” God neither heeds nor needs vigils, fasting, prayer, and all forms of mortification in contrast to repose. God needs nothing more than for us to offer him a quiet heart. Then he accomplishes in the soul such secret and divine deeds that no creature can serve them or even add to them. Indeed, not even the soul of our Lord Jesus Christ can gaze into that place. The eternal wisdom is of such delicate tenderness and so shy that it cannot allow any kind of an admixture of any creature to be in the place where God alone has effect in the soul. For this reason the eternal wisdom cannot allow any creature to gaze into that place. On this account our Lord says: “I shall lead my bride out into the desert and shall speak there into her heart” (Ho. 2:14). This means in the wilderness, away from all creatures.

Fourth, Anselm says that the soul should rest in God. God cannot accomplish divine deeds in the soul so long as “everything that enters the soul is surrounded by measure.” But measure is what excludes or includes something in itself. This is not how it is with divine deeds, however. They are unlimited, and unreservedly determined in divine revelation. On this account David says: “God is enthroned above the cherubim” (Ps. 80:1). He does not say that he is enthroned above the seraphim. The word “cherubim” means wisdom, which is knowledge. This is what takes God into the soul and leads the soul to God. But it cannot bring the soul into God. For this reason God does not accomplish his divine deeds in knowledge because knowledge is surrounded by measure. He accomplishes them much more as God in a divine way. But then, after knowledge has conducted the soul to God, the highest power comes forward—this is love—and penetrates God and leads the soul with knowledge and with all its other powers into God, and is united with God. God has effect there above the powers of the soul, not in the soul—that is, not in the realm of the soul—but in a divine way as God. The soul is there submerged in God and baptized in the divine nature. It receives there a divine life and takes on the divine order so that it is ordered according to God.

We can learn from a comparison. The masters of the natural sciences write that as soon as a child is conceived in the womb, it has the formation and appearance of the limbs. When the soul is infused into the body, however, the form and sensation that the child had at first yield, and the child becomes something unique. Through the power of the soul it receives another form from the soul as well as a new appearance that is proportionate to the life of the soul. This also takes place with the soul. When it is completely united with God and baptized in the divine nature, it loses all its hindrances and weakness and inconstancy, and is completely renewed in the divine life. It is ordered in all its habits in the same way we can recognize from the light. The nearer a flame burns to the wick, the blacker and coarser it will be, while the higher a flame blows above the wick, the clearer it will be. The higher a soul is carried above itself, the purer and clearer it will be, and all the more completely can God accomplish his divine deed in it within his own likeness. If a mountain were to rise up two miles high above the earth, and if we were to write upon it letters in dust or sand, the letters would remain entirely, so that neither rain nor wind could destroy them. Similarly, truly spiritual people should be raised up—completely and unchangeably in the divine deeds—in the right kind of peace. Spiritual people can well feel ashamed because they are so easily subject to a change of behavior to grief, anger, and annoyance. Such people have not yet become spiritual to the proper degree.

Fourth, all creatures seek repose from their efforts, whether they know it or not. They prove this through their deeds. A stone will never be deprived of its drive to fall constantly to the earth so long as it is not right on the earth. Fire acts in the same way, it strives to rise, and every creature seeks its own place according to its nature. In this they reveal similarity with the divine repose that God has allotted to all creatures.

May God help us to seek the divine similarity of divine repose and to find it in God! Amen.

COMMENTARY: The Panentheistic Pleasure Called Repose/How the Creator Seeks Repose and the Trinity Seeks Repose/How the Soul That Has Broken Through into God Experiences Repose/How Repose Is the Law of Pleasure for All Creatures

In the previous sermon Meister Eckhart spoke of grace as the “face of God.” He said: Grace is “a face of God, that is, of the Holy Trinity, and it is infused in unmixed form into the soul with the Holy Spirit and ‘shapes’ the soul according to God.” In the present sermon he elaborates on this shaping process that takes place before the face of God. What does the face of God do to the soul? It drives it and draws it to itself. The divine countenance, by its divine nature, maddens and drives all souls out of their senses with longing for it so as to draw them to itself. Coming face to face with God by grace, all souls are driven mad by the divine beauty and the taste of one’s own divine nature. But what is this divine nature to which we are so madly driven? The divine nature . . . is repose.

Eckhart derives his appreciation of the divine love of repose from wisdom literature, where, in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, we read:

“I came forth from the mouth of the Most High,

and I covered the earth like mist.

I had my tent in the heights,

and my throne in a pillar of cloud . . .

Over the waves of the sea and over the whole earth,

and over every people and nation I have held sway.

Among all these I searched for rest,

and looked to see in whose territory I might pitch camp

Then the creator of all things instructed me,

and he who created me fixed a place for my tent

He said, “Pitch your tent in Jacob,

make Israel your inheritance.”

From eternity, in the beginning, he created me,

and for eternity I shall remain.

I ministered before him in the holy tabernacle,

and thus was I established on Zion.

In the beloved city he has given me rest,

and in Jerusalem I wield my authority.

I have taken root in a privileged people,

in the Lord’s property, in his inheritance . . .

I am like a vine putting out graceful shoots,

my blossoms bear the fruit of glory and wealth.” (Si. 24:3–4, 6–12, 17)

For Eckhart, eternal wisdom dialogues with the soul about repose and promises repose because eternal wisdom promises a return to our origins. But our origins are divine and the divine nature is repose. God the Creator is seeking to draw all creatures with him back again to their origin, which is repose. As we saw in Sermon Nineteen, purity is the search for one’s origins and so a soul in search of repose is a pure soul. We should know how the soul should be in which God wishes to rest. It should be pure.

The creature is by no means alone in seeking repose. Repose is a divine activity and an activity of enjoyment: God enjoys the divine nature, which is repose. And God the Creator, one might say, depends on creatures to repose in, to “pitch his tent in.” That is why he has placed repose outside himself as a kind of antechamber to beckon creatures in to what is ultimately the divine repose itself. Repose is the form and “shape” of the divine countenance, remade for creatures to share and delight in. In that divine tent God finds pleasure. God loves himself in all creatures. Just as he is seeking love for himself in all creatures, he is seeking also his own repose in them. There, in this tent of union between God and the soul, the “greatest of all blessings” (Sermon Twenty-six) is bestowed, the divine nature itself is shared. And there, too, the divine repose is also shared, for that is the divine nature.

The rest promised the soul is the rest of being in God and of God being in it. It is the rest, therefore, of panentheism—a panentheistic repose. “The soul would never come to rest unless God brought himself into the soul and the soul into God.”¹ The soul should rest in God, we are told. But how is this done? It is not done by a multiplication of tactical ecstasies. God neither needs nor needs vigils, fasting, prayer, and all forms of mortification. What is it that God needs to accomplish the divine nature which is repose? God needs nothing more than for us to offer him a quiet heart. An existence of letting go and letting be, a place in the wilderness away from all creatures even if in the midst of them—that is the only preparation this delicate, tender, and shy eternal wisdom requires. Take the eye, for example. When the eye is shut it is for the sake of repose, but when it is open, it also reposes in the light and color that come to it. Therefore it can be said that people never open or shut their eyes without seeking repose. There is a dual dynamic to all living—open/shut, in/out—and people do all their deeds for the sake of these two things. Yet the goal of each, open-and-in or shut-and-out, is repose. People will either cast something away from them that hinders them or they will draw something to themselves in which they will rest. When we throw a hindrance off, it is for the sake of repose; when we draw something lovable near, it is for the sake of repose. This is the law of all creatures. It is the dialectical law of pleasure. Everything creatures do is for the sake of pleasure, which is repose. Even the law of gravity is a law of pleasure and repose.

All creatures seek repose from their efforts, whether they know it or not. They prove this through their deeds. A stone will never be deprived of its drive to fall constantly to the earth so long as it is not right on the earth. Fire acts in the same way, it strives to rise, and every creature seeks its own place according to its nature.

This quest for repose, omnipresent in creation, is a divine likeness in all things. Pleasure is a divine likeness in all things. People can never feel joy or pleasure in any creature if God’s likeness is not within it. The greater repose and pleasure a creature extends to us, the more we love it. I love the thing in which I most recognize God’s likeness. But beyond all the beauties of God found in creation, nothing resembles God so much as repose. It is because the divine pleasure and the divine repose are so intimate to all creatures that elaborate tactical ecstasies are a distraction to true spiritual living. If we only let go and let be we shall sink into the divine repose that is everywhere present.

Nor can we find true divine repose through knowledge and reason itself. For knowledge fakes God into the soul and leads the soul to God, but it cannot bring the soul into God. Knowledge does not bring about the breakthrough that is our entrance info God. Therefore it does not lead us info repose. Repose is a gift of panentheistic breakthrough and rebirth. It is a gift that accompanies our divinization. The breakthrough is a divine way of knowing. God does not accomplish his divine deeds in knowledge . . . he accomplishes them much as God in a divine way. It is accomplished in a new birth, a breakthrough and a baptism into God. When it is completely united with God and baptized in the divine nature, it loses all its hindrances and weakness and inconstancy, and is completely renewed in the divine life. Once again Eckhart links breakthrough to baptism, but the baptism he speaks of is a baptism into the Holy Spirit’s river of divinization, a baptism of fire, a baptism of metanoia and renewed life, a baptism that breaks through life as well as death. A baptism into God, into the panentheistic ocean. There God affects us in a divine way as God and there we swim in the divine sea, submerged in God and baptized in the divine nature. There we become divinized and like the Creator who creates harmony from all watery chaos. The soul receives there a divine life and takes on the divine order so that it is ordered according to God. Truly, a new creation emerges.

Like any birth, it takes place in water, our oceanic origin, in a womb. And there is an evolution of growth in our constancy, our maturity, our capacity to let go and let be in order to remain deeply in God and in the repose and peace of God, even when confronted with grief, anger, and annoyance. Indeed, until our repose can endure such troubles, and in the midst of activity, we have not yet developed, spiritually speaking. We are still fetuses clinging to the womb. For the repose that Eckhart speaks of is not a repose in competition with activity nor is it a flight from activity. It is rather a repose in the midst of activity (see Sermon Thirty-four) and, indeed, in the midst of the most strenuous activity. Such repose becomes a source of strength for the most God-like of activities—creativity. The more in touch with our origin we are, the more powerful [our] deeds will be. These powerful deeds of creativity imitate the divine deeds, and divine deeds are unlimited. If we are divinized, so must our works be divinized. We shall do the works of the Father. Our works, like the Son’s works, will imitate those of the Father. They will be creative and they will be compassionate, as we will see in Sermon Thirty-one, for they will flow from that one womb, that ocean, that is the origin of divine repose and divine birthing. For that which is in God is God.