Meister Eckhart

The library

Meister Eckhart's sermons and treatises

Every sermon in plain English, with a short explanation, the key terms, and the 1924 Evans translation one click away.

Sermons

Sermon 1The eternal birth of the Word in the soulThis is one of Eckhart's best known sermons.Sermon 2The birth of God in the ground of the soulEckhart takes the Christmas question, where is the newborn king, and turns it inward.Sermon 3Being about the Father's business: the birth of God and the active lifeEckhart takes the boy Jesus's words, 'I must be about my Father's business,' and turns them toward something happening inside every person: a birth of God in the ground of the soul.Sermon 4The eternal birth: finding God in the ground of the soulEckhart starts from the gospel story of the boy Jesus lost in the temple crowd and found again only when his parents go back to where they started.Sermon 5God is love: Eckhart on the soul's union with GodThis sermon takes a single line from the First Letter of John, God is love, and turns it over from several sides.Sermon 6Jesus clears the temple: Eckhart on the soul as God's own houseEckhart takes the gospel scene of Jesus driving the money-changers from the temple and reads it as a picture of the soul.Sermon 7How we become the sons of GodEckhart takes a line from the first letter of John, that we are called the sons of God, and pushes on the word 'are.' Not called sons as a kind of honorary title, but actually sons, in nature.Sermon 8The castle of the soul: virgin and wifeEckhart takes a line from Luke's gospel, where Jesus is received by a woman who was both virgin and wife, and turns it into a picture of the soul.Sermon 9The eternal birth and the soul's threefold imagesThis piece reads more like a short lecture than a sermon on a Bible text.Sermon 10How the soul flows out from God and flows back to GodThis sermon opens with a hard instruction: look for God in error, forgetfulness, and foolishness, not in certainty and cleverness.Sermon 11The hour that is coming and now isEckhart takes up a line from the story of the woman at the well: 'the hour cometh and now is, when true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.' He says this hour is already here, because there is a part of the soul that stands outside time altogether.Sermon 12Contemplation, costly poverty, and the birth of God in the soulThis sermon is about what it actually takes to reach contemplation, the quiet, direct awareness of God that Eckhart treats as the height of the spiritual life.Sermon 13Sharing Christ's nature and living without a whyEckhart starts from a line in 1 John about God sending the Son so that we might live through him.Sermon 14Like a vase of gold: becoming an image of GodEckhart takes a verse about a golden cup set with jewels, used in scripture for a great saint, and asks what it says about any soul.Sermon 15Why no word or thought can reach GodThis sermon is Eckhart at his most philosophical.Sermon 16Three degrees of blessedness and the eternal nowThis sermon starts from the beatitude 'blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness' and asks what kind of hunger Eckhart means.Sermon 17The eternal Word and its birth in the soulEckhart preaches on the opening line of John's Gospel, 'in the beginning was the Word.' He says God has only ever spoken one word, the eternal Word, and that word is still being spoken, still unborn in the sense that it never left the Father.Sermon 18Caught up into the third heaven: Eckhart on Paul's raptureThis sermon starts from a strange verse in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, where Paul speaks of a man, almost certainly himself, who was carried up into heaven fourteen years before and could not say whether he was in the body or out of it.Sermon 19Paul rose from the ground, seeing nothingEckhart takes one line from the Acts of the Apostles: after his vision on the road to Damascus, Paul got up from the ground with his eyes open and saw nothing.Sermon 20On Simeon: union, likeness, and the birth of God in the soulEckhart preaches on the gospel story of old Simeon meeting the infant Christ in the temple (Luke 2:25).Sermon 21He that hates his soul: the self beneath the selfEckhart takes a hard saying of Jesus, that whoever hates his soul in this world will keep it forever, and asks what it could mean to hate your own soul.Sermon 22The Lord put forth his hand: Eckhart on the unspoken WordThis sermon starts from a line in Jeremiah where God touches the prophet's mouth and speaks to him.Sermon 23The spirit of the Lord fills the worldEckhart takes a single line from the Book of Wisdom, that the spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world, and uses it to open up two big claims.Sermon 24The Lamb on the mountain: Eckhart on becoming the mountain yourselfThis sermon starts from St John's vision in the book of Revelation: a lamb standing on Mount Sion, with a company of virgins around him who sing a new song and carry his name on their foreheads.Sermon 25Peter's angel and the soul's sure knowingEckhart starts from the story of Peter freed from prison by an angel, in Acts.Sermon 26The feast of the Virgin and the birth of God that never stopsThis sermon was preached for a feast day of Mary, but Eckhart turns almost at once from her to something that happens in any soul that loves God.Sermon 27Rejoicing in the Lord beyond time and careThis sermon starts from Paul's line to the Philippians, 'Rejoice in the Lord alway.' Eckhart takes that word 'Lord' apart.Sermon 28The angel Gabriel and the birth of God in the soulThis sermon is preached on the Annunciation, the moment in Luke's gospel when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary.Sermon 29The birth of God in the soul, beyond timeEckhart starts from the Gospel line about the angel Gabriel being sent to Mary, but he barely stays with the story.Sermon 30Peter's four names and what it takes to see GodThis sermon takes a single verse, Christ's blessing of Simon Peter, and works through the four names Peter is given in scripture: Peter, Barjona, Simon, and Cephas.Sermon 31The man in the soul: Eckhart on intellect as the soul's husbandEckhart takes a small, strange biblical story, a widow facing debt collectors who comes to the prophet Elisha, and reads it as a picture of the soul.Sermon 32The great supper and the spark of the soulEckhart preaches on the parable of the great supper in Luke 14, and he turns an ordinary dinner party into a picture of the whole inner life.Sermon 33Rising with Christ into the God who is nowhereThis sermon starts from St Paul's line about being risen with Christ and seeking the things that are above.Sermon 34The three lights: natural, ghostly and divineEckhart takes a scheme from Dionysius the Areopagite and asks how the soul comes to know God at all.Sermon 35Standing in the gate: Eckhart on silence, prayer and the inner WordEckhart takes a line from Jeremiah, where the Lord tells the prophet to stand in the gate of the Temple and speak.Sermon 36The young man of Naim and the soul's own resurrectionEckhart takes the gospel story of Jesus raising a widow's dead son at the gate of Naim and reads it as a picture of something that happens inside a person.Sermon 37Young man, arise: understanding, love, and the soul's rebirthEckhart takes a short gospel story, a widow whose only son has died and whom Jesus raises, and reads it as a picture of what happens inside a person.Sermon 38Peace, Jacob's nameless place, and rest beyond willEckhart starts from the risen Christ standing among the disciples and saying 'Peace' three times.Sermon 39Every good gift: on the gift that comes from aboveThis page actually holds two sermons preached on the same verse from the Letter of James, about every good gift coming down from the Father of lights.Sermon 41A little while: Eckhart on four ways to see GodEckhart preaches on a line from John's gospel where Jesus tells his disciples that in a little while they will not see him, and in a little while they will see him again.Sermon 42The image and its object: seeing God without anything in betweenThis sermon starts from a single word in John's Gospel: 'a little.' Christ tells his disciples that a little while, and they will not see him.Sermon 43Knowledge, love, and the ground where God and the soul meetThis sermon opens with a question the medieval schools argued over: is knowledge or love the nobler way to God?Sermon 44Sermon 44: in all things I seek restEckhart starts from a line in Ecclesiasticus, 'In all things I seek rest,' and asks what it would mean for God to actually rest somewhere.Sermon 45Rest: what the soul is really looking forEckhart starts from a line in Ecclesiasticus where Wisdom says she sought rest in all things.Sermon 47This is life eternal: becoming the only SonEckhart takes Jesus' words to the Father, 'this is life eternal, to know thee the only true God,' and pushes them further than most preachers would dare.Sermon 48The angel who prepares the soul for God's birthThis sermon takes a line often read in Advent, about a messenger sent ahead to prepare the way, and turns it inward.Sermon 49Angels, the eternal now, and the soul's oneness with GodEckhart takes the line 'Behold, I send my angel' and uses the old picture of angels, pure minds that see God directly and without the passing of time, to ask what it would mean for a person to know in the same way.Sermon 50How the Father's going out becomes the soul's going inThis sermon starts from a single verse in John's Gospel, where Jesus says he came from the Father and is going back to the Father.Sermon 51Seeing Jesus by breaking through all thingsThis sermon starts from the story of Zacchaeus, the rich man in Luke's gospel who climbs a tree because he is too short to see Jesus over the crowd.Sermon 52The good housewife: watching over the soul's powersEckhart takes a line from the Book of Proverbs about a good housewife who looks after her household and never eats the bread of idleness.Sermon 53Taking up the cross: Eckhart on forsaking the selfThis sermon starts from Christ's words about taking up the cross and following him, and asks what it actually means to forsake yourself.Sermon 54Sermon 54: from him, through him, in himThis sermon takes a single verse from Paul, 'from him and through him and in him are all things,' and uses it as a door into the inner life of the Trinity.Sermon 55Seeking nothing but God's willThis piece is a collation rather than a sermon on a Bible text, but it reads like one of Eckhart's sharpest pieces of spiritual advice.Sermon 56God's work in the soul: the flowing out and the returnThis sermon starts from a line in Matthew about not fearing those who can kill the body but not the soul, and moves quickly into some of Eckhart's boldest claims.Sermon 57Hidden in God: Eckhart on suffering without complaintThis sermon starts with a bold claim: Christ hid his divine power inside an ordinary human life, and he asks us to do the reverse, to hide our human weakness inside his divine life.Sermon 58Divine understanding and the Father's eternal playThis sermon is Eckhart at his most densely theological.Sermon 59The just man lives in God, without a whyEckhart takes a line from the book of Wisdom, 'the just lives in eternity,' and asks what it means to be just.Sermon 60Likes love and unite: the soul's spark and the ground beyond GodEckhart starts from an old idea: things that are alike are drawn together, things that are unlike keep apart.Sermon 61The rod out of the root of JesseThis sermon takes a short verse from Isaiah, read at Advent Mass, and turns it into a picture of how God and the soul are joined at the root.Sermon 62The hand of the Lord and the child of pure graceThis sermon starts from a line about John the Baptist as a baby: people wonder what kind of child he will turn out to be, since the hand of the Lord is with him.Sermon 63Abiding in God: three conditions for union with himEckhart takes two verses that, to him, say the same thing: 'abide in me' from John's gospel, and 'blessed is the man that continues in wisdom' from Ecclesiasticus.Sermon 64The swift river: how grace fills the soul without meansEckhart takes a line from the Psalms about a river that makes glad the city of God, and reads it as a picture of the Holy Spirit pouring into the soul.Sermon 65The just live for ever: justice, equality, and birth in the soulEckhart takes a line from the Book of Wisdom, 'the just live for ever and their reward is with God,' and turns it over slowly.Sermon 66God creates the world now, in the ground of the soulEckhart takes St Paul's charge to Timothy, 'preach the word,' and asks what it means for something to come forth and yet stay within.Sermon 67The soul as heaven: Eckhart on the powers that are movedEckhart takes a strange line from the Gospel, 'the powers of heaven shall be moved,' and turns it into an image of the soul.Sermon 68The powers of the soul and the birth of God within herEckhart starts from the opening of Genesis, where the heavens and the earth are finished and furnished.Sermon 69The kingdom of God is nearer than you thinkEckhart takes a line from Luke's gospel, 'the kingdom of God is at hand,' and asks what that nearness actually means.Sermon 70The bread of heaven, of angels, and of sorrowThis sermon is built around a word play that Eckhart's hearers would have caught at once: the bread of the altar has several names in scripture, and he picks out three of them.Sermon 72On mercy, detachment, and the Pharisee who asked Christ to dineThis sermon starts from a small gospel scene: a Pharisee invites Jesus to dine with him, and elsewhere Jesus tells a woman to 'go in peace.' Eckhart uses these two moments to ask what real peace is.Sermon 73Two lights in the soul, and why God loves only himselfThis sermon was preached for the feast of St Benedict.Sermon 74The promise of the Father and the life that asks no whyThis sermon is preached on the passage where Christ tells his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, the coming of the Holy Spirit.Sermon 75Why Christ had to leave: the soul as a spark of GodThis sermon is preached on Ascension Day, on the words where Jesus tells his disciples it is better for them that he go away.Sermon 76It is expedient that I go: the hindrances to the SpiritThis sermon is preached for Ascension Day, on Christ's words to his disciples that it is better for them if he goes away, because only then can the Holy Spirit come.Sermon 77The hidden image of God at the root of the soulEckhart takes the line from Genesis where God says 'let us make man in our image' and asks what it means for God to speak.Sermon 78A mind that is free, held, and able to see GodThis sermon asks what it takes for a person to really see God, not just believe things about him.Sermon 79The widow's son: intellect, grace, and the birth of God in the soulThis sermon starts from the gospel story in Luke 7, where Jesus meets a widow carrying her only son to burial and says to the dead young man, 'Young man, arise.' Eckhart reads the story as a picture of the soul.Sermon 80The power in the soul that time cannot touchEckhart preaches on the gospel story of the young man raised from death at Nain.Sermon 81Love without why and the true meaning of letting goThis sermon was preached on the feast of Barnabas, and it starts from Christ's words, 'I have chosen you out of the world.' Eckhart uses that as a way into a bigger question: what does it mean to love God, or anyone, without wanting something back?Sermon 82On the martyrs: losing life to find true beingEckhart preaches for the feast of martyrs, taking as his text the verse from Hebrews that says they were slain by the sword.Sermon 83On St Germanus: the soul's day, God's day, and the just manThis sermon is preached for the feast of St Germanus, on a text from Ecclesiasticus that says he pleased God in his days and was found just.Sermon 84Like the morning star: Eckhart on God beyond beingThis sermon was preached for the feast of St Dominic, founder of Eckhart's own order.Sermon 85The three loves of God and the birth of the Son in the soulEckhart takes Jesus's words to his disciples, love one another as I have loved you, and asks what kinds of love God actually has.Sermon 87On poverty of spirit: willing nothing, knowing nothing, having nothingThis sermon takes one line from the Beatitudes, 'blessed are the poor in spirit', and asks what that poverty actually means.Sermon 88The virgin birth: how God is born in every soul, and not in Mary aloneThis sermon starts from the angel's greeting to Mary in Luke 1:28, but Eckhart is after something bigger than the story of one woman long ago.Sermon 89The eternal Word of God spoken in the soulThis sermon, which the editor Franz Pfeiffer thought was pieced together from more than one original, starts with the Trinity.Sermon 90Sermon 90: when God's Son is born in the soulEckhart takes the birth of John the Baptist, the child born when Elizabeth's time was full, and reads it as a picture of something that can happen in anyone.Sermon 91God's joy, God's poor, and the light of the worldThis sermon takes two short Bible verses and turns them over slowly.Sermon 92God-children, the christened, and the godfathers in Sermon 92Eckhart takes a line from John's gospel, where Christ tells his disciples he has set them to go and bear fruit, and asks what it means to go rightly.Sermon 93The crossing: how one true act outweighs a lifetime of effortEckhart takes a line from Paul about yielding your members to righteousness and asks what parts of us are actually fit for that kind of service.Sermon 94Putting off self: the soul's hidden likeness to GodEckhart starts from Paul's call to put off the old self and put on Christ, and asks what is actually revealed once that self is set aside.Sermon 95The light in God and the soul beyond timeEckhart starts from a line of Paul's: once you were darkness, now you are light in God.Sermon 96Hearing the eternal Word, and St Paul's wish to leave God for GodThis sermon starts from a line in Ecclesiasticus, 'he that heareth me is not ashamed,' and asks what it takes to really hear God's word.Sermon 97The rich man with no name: God beyond understandingEckhart takes the opening line of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus and uses it as a door into speaking about God himself.Sermon 98Going up the mountain: knowing God without imageEckhart starts from the line in Matthew where Jesus leaves the crowd and goes up a mountain to teach.Sermon 99On being renewed in the mind, and the nameless GodThis sermon starts from a single line of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, about being renewed in the spirit of the mind.Sermon 100One God and Father of all: Eckhart on divine onenessEckhart takes a single phrase from Paul, 'one God and Father of all,' and a single line from the Gospel, 'Friend, go up higher,' and weaves them together into a sermon about what it means for God to be one.Sermon 101Resting in God alone: Eckhart on Mary's inner stillnessThis sermon starts from a line given to Mary, borrowed from the Wisdom literature: 'in all things have I sought rest for my inner man.' Eckhart reads it as a statement about where the soul actually settles.Sermon 102Honouring the Father and finding light in the darkThis sermon starts from a simple commandment, honour your father and mother, and uses it to ask a much bigger question: what does it mean to honour God as Father.Sermon 103The eternal birth of the Word in the GodheadEckhart takes a line from Ecclesiasticus, 'I proceeded forth out of the mouth of the Most High,' and reads it as the voice of the eternal Word, the Son, speaking from within the life of God.Sermon 104Sermon 104: suffering as the noblest thing next to GodThis sermon makes a hard claim.

Treatises

Tractate 1The kingdom of God: in the Trinity and in the soulThis piece reads more like a careful theology lecture than one of Eckhart's sermons to ordinary people.Tractate 2The nobility of the soulThis piece is less a sermon than a teaching text, close to a classroom lecture.Tractate 3The rank and nature of the soulThis piece is not a sermon on one Bible verse but a long treatise gathering Eckhart's teaching on the soul: what she is, where she comes from, and what becomes possible in her.Tractate 4On the soul's final perfection and true poverty of spiritThis piece is not a sermon preached on a Bible verse.Tractate 5Why only God can truly comfort you in sufferingThis is the opening of what is usually called the Book of Divine Consolation, written for a person going through hard times.Tractate 6Sister Katrei: a soul's dialogue with her confessorThis piece is not a sermon but a story.Tractate 7Signs of the true ground: Eckhart's test for a soul rooted in GodThis piece reads less like a sermon and more like a checklist.Tractate 8The birth of the eternal Word in the soulThis tractate was preached near Christmas, and Eckhart uses the feast as a doorway.Tractate 9On detachment: Eckhart's treatise on letting go of all thingsThis is one of Eckhart's best known pieces of writing, sometimes printed as Tractate 9 and sometimes under its own title, Of Detachment.Tractate 10Spiritual poverty: becoming nothing so God can be allThis piece takes as its text the Beatitude, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' Eckhart means a poverty that reaches the will itself, rather than poverty of money, a letting go so complete that nothing is left in the soul to call her own, not even her wanting of God.Tractate 11The drowning: losing the self in the Godhead's unityThis tractate is unusual in shape.Tractate 12The flow into the Father and the soul's fall into nothingThis piece is not a sermon on a Bible verse but a short, dense treatise on the inner life of God and how the soul is drawn into it.Tractate 13The Word in God and the Godhead beyond the TrinityThis piece is one of Eckhart's most compressed and demanding.Tractate 14The three creations and the soul's passage into the GodheadThis tractate opens with a distinction Eckhart uses often: the difference between God's essence, which is simply one, and the three Persons of the Trinity, who know and give to one another.Tractate 15The soul's rage to be nothing less than GodThis short piece reads less like a sermon and more like a confession spoken in the voice of the soul herself.Tractate 16The twofold way: Christ's manhood and Christ's GodheadEckhart takes Jesus's words 'I am the way' and splits them in two.Tractate 17Eckhart's commentary on the prologue of John's GospelThis is Eckhart's commentary on the opening of John's Gospel, 'In the beginning was the Word.' Rather than a line by line explanation, it moves back and forth between the eternal life of God and the inner life of a praying soul.Tractate 18Grace, the eternal image, and seeing God beyond all lightThis tractate asks an old question that theologians argued over in Eckhart's day: when we see God face to face, what do we see him by?

Sayings

The SayingsSayings of Meister Eckhart: God born in the soul, part oneThis is not one sermon but a long collection of short sayings, remembered lines, dialogues and questions and answers gathered under Eckhart's name.