Christian Mysticism Part 11

But this theory cannot be found in Eckhart. The "necessity" which impels G.o.d to "beget His Son" is not a physical but a moral necessity.

"The good must needs impart itself," he says.[242] The fact is that his view of the world is much nearer to acosmism than to pantheism.

"Nothing hinders us so much from the knowledge of G.o.d as time and place," he says. He sees in phenomena only the negation of being, and it is not clear how he can also regard them as the abode of the immanent G.o.d.[243] It would probably be true to say that, like most mediaeval thinkers, he did not feel himself obliged to give a permanent value to the transitory, and that the world, except as the temporary abode of immortal spirits, interested him but little. His neglect of history, including the earthly life of Christ, is not at all the result of scepticism about the miraculous. It is simply due to the feeling that the Divine process in the "everlasting Now" is a fact of immeasurably greater importance than any occurrence in the external world can be.

When a religious writer is suspected of pantheism, we naturally turn to his treatment of the problem of evil. To the true pantheist all is equally divine, and everything for the best or for the worst, it does not much matter which.[244] Eckhart certainly does not mean to countenance this absurd theory, but there are pa.s.sages in his writings which logically imply it; and we look in vain for any elucidation, in his doctrine of sin, of the dark places in his doctrine of G.o.d.[245]

In fact, he adds very little to the Neoplatonic doctrine of the nature of evil. Like Dionysius, he identifies Being with Good, and evil, as such, with not-being. Moral evil is self-will: it is the attempt, on the part of the creature, to be a particular This or That outside of G.o.d.

But what is most distinctive in Eckhart's ethics is the new importance which is given to the doctrine of immanence. The human soul is a microcosm, which in a manner contains all things in itself. At the "apex of the mind" there is a Divine "spark," which is so closely akin to G.o.d that it is one with Him, and not merely united to Him.[246] In his teaching about this "ground of the soul" Eckhart wavers. His earlier view is that it is created, and only the medium by which G.o.d transforms us to Himself. But his later doctrine is that it is uncreated, the immanence of the Being and Nature of G.o.d Himself.

"Diess Funkelein, das ist Gott," he says once. This view was adopted by Ruysbroek, Suso, and (with modifications by) Tauler, and became one of their chief tenets.[247] This spark is the organ by which our personality holds communion with G.o.d and knows Him. It is with reference to it that Eckhart uses the phrase which has so often been quoted to convict him of blasphemous self-deification--"the eye with which I see G.o.d is the same as that with which He sees me.[248]" The "uncreated spark" is really the same as the grace of G.o.d, which raises us into a G.o.dlike state. But this grace, according to Eckhart (at least in his later period), is G.o.d Himself acting like a human faculty in the soul, and transforming it so that "man himself becomes grace."

The following is perhaps the most instructive pa.s.sage: "There is in the soul something which is above the soul, Divine, simple, a pure nothing; rather nameless than named, rather unknown than known. Of this I am accustomed to speak in my discourses. Sometimes I have called it a power, sometimes an uncreated light, and sometimes a Divine spark. It is absolute and free from all names and all forms, just as G.o.d is free and absolute in Himself. It is higher than knowledge, higher than love, higher than grace. For in all these there is still _distinction_. In this power G.o.d doth blossom and flourish with all His G.o.dhead, and the Spirit flourisheth in G.o.d. In this power the Father bringeth forth His only-begotten Son, as essentially as in Himself; and in this light ariseth the Holy Ghost. This spark rejecteth all creatures, and will have only G.o.d, simply as He is in Himself. It rests satisfied neither with the Father, nor with the Son, nor with the Holy Ghost, nor with the three Persons, so far as each existeth in its particular attribute. It is satisfied only with the superessential essence. It is determined to enter into the simple Ground, the still Waste, the Unity where no man dwelleth. Then it is satisfied in the light; then it is one: it is one in itself, as this Ground is a simple stillness, and in itself immovable; and yet by this immobility are all things moved."

It is G.o.d that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure; but our own nature and personality remain intact. It is plain that we could not see G.o.d unless our personality remained distinct from the personality of G.o.d. Complete fusion is as destructive of the possibility of love and knowledge as complete separation[249].

Eckhart gives to "the highest reason[250]" the primacy among our faculties, and in his earlier period identifies it with "the spark."

He a.s.serts the absolute supremacy of reason more strongly than anyone since Erigena. His language on this subject resembles that of the Cambridge Platonists. "Reasonable knowledge is eternal life," he says.

"How can any external revelation help me," he asks, "unless it be verified by inner experience? The last appeal must always be to the deepest part of my own being, and that is my reason." "The reason," he says, "presses ever upwards. It cannot rest content with goodness or wisdom, nor even with G.o.d Himself; it must penetrate to the Ground from whence all goodness and wisdom spring."

Thus Eckhart is not content with the knowledge of G.o.d which is mediated by Christ, but aspires to penetrate into the "Divine darkness" which underlies the manifestation of the Trinity. In fact, when he speaks of the imitation of Christ, he distinguishes between "the way of the manhood," which has to be followed by all, and "the way of the G.o.dhead," which is for the mystic only. In this overbold aspiration to rise "from the Three to the One," he falls into the error which we have already noticed, and several pa.s.sages in his writings advocate the quietistic self-simplification which belongs to this scheme of perfection. There are sentences in which he exhorts us to strip off all that comes to us from the senses, and to throw ourselves upon the heart of G.o.d, there to rest for ever, "hidden from all creatures[251]." But there are many other pa.s.sages of an opposite tendency. He tells us that "the way of the manhood," which, of course, includes imitation of the active life of Christ, must be trodden first by all; he insists that in the state of union the faculties of the soul will act in a new and higher way, so that the personality is restored, not destroyed; and, lastly, he teaches that contemplation is only the means to a higher activity, and that this is, in fact, its object; "what a man has taken in by contemplation, that he pours out in love." There is no contradiction in the desire for rest combined with the desire for active service; for rest can only be defined as unimpeded activity; but in Eckhart there is, I think, a real inconsistency. The traditions of his philosophy pointed towards withdrawal from the world and from outward occupations--towards the monkish ideal, in a word; but the modern spirit was already astir within him. He preached in German to the general public, and his favourite themes are the present living operation of the Spirit, and the consecration of life in the world. There is, he shows, no contradiction between the active and the contemplative life; the former belongs to the faculties of the soul, the latter to its essence. In commenting on the story of Martha and Mary, those favourite types of activity and contemplation[252], he surprises us by putting Martha first. "Mary hath _chosen_ the good part; that is," he says, "she is striving to be as holy as her sister. Mary is still at school: Martha has learnt her lesson. It is better to feed the hungry than to see even such visions as St. Paul saw." "Besser ein Lebemeister als tausend Lesemeister." He discourages monkish religiosity and external badges of saintliness--"avoid everything peculiar," he says, "in dress, food, and language." "You need not go into a desert and fast; a crowd is often more lonely than a wilderness, and small things harder to do than great." "What is the good of the dead bones of saints?" he asks, in the spirit of a sixteenth century reformer; "the dead can neither give nor take[253]."

This double aspect of Eckhart's teaching makes him particularly interesting; he seems to stand on the dividing-line between mediaeval and modern Christianity.

Like other mystics, he insists that love, when perfect, is independent of the hope of reward, and he shows great freedom in handling Purgatory, h.e.l.l, and Heaven. They are states, not places; separation from G.o.d is the misery of h.e.l.l, and each man is his own judge. "We would spiritualise everything," he says, with especial reference to Holy Scripture.[254]

In comparing the Mysticism of Eckhart with that of his predecessors, from Dionysius downwards, and of the scholastics down to Gerson, we find an obvious change in the disappearance of the long ladders of ascent, the graduated scales of virtues, faculties, and states of mind, which fill so large a place in those systems. These lists are the natural product of the imagination, when it plays upon the theory of _emanation_. But with Eckhart, as we have seen, the fundamental truth is the _immanence_ of G.o.d Himself, not in the faculties, but in the ground of the soul. The "spark of the soul" is for him really "divinae particula aurae." "G.o.d begets His Son in me," he is fond of saying: and there is no doubt that, relying on a verse in the seventeenth chapter of St. John, he regards this "begetting" as a.n.a.logous to the eternal generation of the Son.[255] This birth of the Son in the soul has a double aspect--the "eternal birth," which is unconscious and inalienable,[256] but which does not confer blessedness, being common to good and bad alike; and the a.s.similation of the faculties of the soul by the pervading presence of Christ, or in other words by grace, "quae lux quaedam deiformis est," as Ruysbroek says. The deification of our nature is therefore a thing to be striven for, and not given complete to start with; but it is important to observe that Eckhart places no intermediaries between man and G.o.d.

"The Word is very nigh thee," nearer than any object of sense, and any human inst.i.tutions; sink into thyself, and thou wilt find Him. The heavenly and earthly hierarchies of Dionysius, with the reverence for the priesthood which was built upon them, have no significance for Eckhart. In this as in other ways, he is a precursor of the Reformation.

With Eckhart I end this Lecture on the speculative Mysticism of the Middle Ages. His successors, Ruysbroek, Suso, and Tauler, much as they resemble him in their general teaching, differ from him in this, that with none of them is the intellectual, philosophical side of primary importance. They added nothing of value to the speculative system of Eckhart; their Mysticism was primarily a _religion of the heart_ or a rule of life. It is this side of Mysticism to which I shall next invite your attention. It should bring us near to the centre of our subject: for a speculative religious system is best known by its fruits.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 188: _Conf._ viii. 2-5. The best account of the theology of Victorinus is Gore's article in the _Dictionary of Christian Biography_.]

[Footnote 189: So Synesius calls the Son [Greek: patros morphe].]

[Footnote 190: "Non enim vivimus praeteritum aut vivimus futurum, sed semper praesenti utimur." "aeternitas semper per praesentiam habet omnia et haec semper."]

[Footnote 191: "Effectus est omnia," Victorinus says plainly.]

[Footnote 192: Victorinus must have got this phrase from some Greek Neoplatonist. It was explained that [Greek: to me on] may be used in four senses, and that it is not intended to identify the two extremes.

But the very remarkable pa.s.sage in Hierotheus (referred to in Lecture III.) shows that the two categories of [Greek: aoristia] cannot be kept apart.]

[Footnote 193: "Ipse se ipsum circ.u.mterminavit."]

[Footnote 194: _De Trin_. vii. 4. 7; _de Doctr. Christ_. i. 5. 5; _Serm_. 52. 16; _De Civ. Dei_, ix. 16.]

[Footnote 195: _Contr. Adim. Man._ 11.]

[Footnote 196: _De Ord._ ii. 16. 44, 18. 47.]

[Footnote 197: _Enarrat. in Ps._ 85. 12.]

[Footnote 198: _Conf._ vii. 13 _ad fin._]

[Footnote 199: Compare with this sentence of the _Confessions_ the statement of Erigena quoted below, that "the things which are not are far better than those which are."]

[Footnote 200: _Ep._ 120. 20. St. Augustine wrote in early life an essay "On the Beautiful and Fit," which he unhappily took no pains to preserve.]

[Footnote 201: _De Ord._ ii. 16. 42, 59; Plot. _Enn._ i. 6. 4.]

[Footnote 202: _De Lib. Arb._ ii. 16. 41; Plot. _Enn._ i. 6. 8, iii.

8. 11.]

[Footnote 203: _Enarr. in Ps._ xliv. 3; _Ep._ 120. 20. Plot. _Enn._ i.

6. 4, says with more picturesqueness than usual [Greek: kalon to tes dikaiosynes kai sophrosynes prosopon, kai oute hesperos oute eoos outo kala]. (From Aristotle, _Eth._ v. 1. 15.)]

[Footnote 204: _Ench._ iii. "etiam illud quod malum dicitur bene ordinatum est loco suo positum; eminentius commendat bona." St.

Augustine also says (_Ench._ xi.), "c.u.m omnino mali nomen non sit nisi privationis boni"; cf. Plot. _Enn._ iii. 2. 5, [Greek: holos de to kakon elleipsin tou agathou theteon.] St. Augustine praises Plotinus for his teaching on the universality of Providence.]

[Footnote 205: _De Civ. Dei_, iv. 12, vii. 5.]

[Footnote 206: _De Quant.i.tate Animae_, x.x.x.]

[Footnote 207: _Conf._ vii. 10. I have quoted Bigg's translation.]

[Footnote 208: _Conf._ xi. 9.]

[Footnote 209: St. Augustine does not reject the belief that visions are granted by the mediation of angels, but he expresses himself with great caution on the subject. Cf. _De Gen. ad litt._ xii. 30, "Sunt quaedam excellentia et merito divina, quae demonstrant angeli miris modis: utrum visa sua facili quadam et praepotenti iunctione vel commixtione etiam nostra esse facientes, an scientes nescio quo modo nostram in spiritu nostro informar visionem, difficilis perceptu et difficilior dictu res est."]

[Footnote 210: See Lotze, _Microcosmus_, bk. viii. chap. 4, and other places. We may perhaps compare the Johannine [Greek: kosmos] with the Synoptic [Greek: aion] as examples of the two modes of envisaging reality.]

[Footnote 211: Eriugena is, no doubt, the more correct spelling, but I have preferred to keep the name by which he is best known.]

[Footnote 212: Erigena quotes also Origen, the two Gregorys, Basil, Maximus, Ambrose, and Augustine. Of pagan philosophers he puts Plato first, but holds Aristotle in high honour.]

[Footnote 213: Stockl calls him "ein falscher Mystiker," because the Neoplatonic ("gnostic-rationalistic") element takes, for him, the place of supernaturalism. This, as will be shown later, is in accordance with the Roman Catholic view of Mysticism, which is not that adopted in these Lectures. For us, Erigena's defect as a mystic is rather to be sought in his extreme intellectualism.]

[Footnote 214: "Dum vero (divina bonitas) incomprehensibilis intelligitur, per excellentiam non immerito _nihilum_ vocitatur."]

[Footnote 215: This is really a revival of "modalism." The unorthodoxy of the doctrine becomes very apparent in some of Erigena's successors.]

[Footnote 216: _De Div. Nat._ i. 36: "Iamdudum inter nos est confectum omnia quae vel sensu corporeo vel intellectu vel ratione cognosc.u.n.tur de Deo merito creatore omnium, posse praedicari, dum nihil eorum quae de se praedicantur pura veritatis contemplatio eum approbat esse." All affirmations about G.o.d are made "non proprie sed translative"; all negations "non translative sed proprie." Cf. also _ibid._ i. 1. 66, "verius fideliusque negatur in omnibus quam affirmatur"; and especially _ibid._ i. 5. 26, "theophanias autem dico visibilium et invisibilium species, quarum ordine et pulcritudine cognoscitur Deus esse et invenitur _non quid est, sed quia solummodo est._" Erigena tries to say (in his atrocious Latin) that the external world can teach us nothing about G.o.d, except the bare fact of His existence. No pa.s.sage could be found to ill.u.s.trate more clearly the real tendencies of the negative road, and the purely subjective Mysticism connected with it. Erigena will not allow us to infer, from the order and beauty of the world, that order and beauty are Divine attributes.]

[Footnote 217: But it must be remembered that Erigena calls G.o.d "nihilum." His words about creation are, "Ac sic de nihilo facit omnia, de sua videlicet superessentialitate producit essentias, de supervitalitate vitas, de superintellectualitate intellectus, de negatione omnium quae sunt et quae non sunt, affirmationes omnium quae sunt et quae non sunt."]

[Footnote 218: So Kaulich shows in his monograph on the speculative system of Erigena.]

[Footnote 219: Erigena was roused by a work on predestination, written by Gotteschalk, and advocating Calvinistic views, to protest against the doctrine that G.o.d, who is life, can possibly predestine anyone to eternal death.]

[Footnote 220: Berengar objected to the crudely materialistic theories of the real presence which were then prevalent. He protested against the statement that the trans.m.u.tation of the elements takes place "vere et sensualiter," and that "portiunculae" of the body of Christ lie upon the altar. "The mouth," he said, "receives the _sacrament_, the inner man the true body of Christ."]