Resting in God alone: Eckhart on Mary's inner stillness

In omnibus requiem quaesivi (Ecclesiasticus 24): In all things I have sought rest. St Augustine says, My soul was created by you and for you, and so it is always restless until it finds you. In all created things, which I search through with understanding, there is no refuge for my soul, but in you, God, alone. In the living spring of your substance the perfections of all creatures are gathered into one, perfections that in the creatures themselves are scattered and divided. If there were any single creature with all creaturely perfections, both in quality and number, then God would not have made more than that one alone, as I pointed out in my discourse, Whoever would follow me, let him take up his cross. Now the whole happiness of creatures depends on resting in the highest good, which is the source of all good things, and so our Lady Mary speaks these words about herself, in which she counsels our inner man to nurture, in lowliness, the habit of divine rest in which the soul is most fully united, and without which it is not. She says, In all things I have sought rest for my inner man.

Notice here how the divine essence holds within itself, pent up, all creaturely perfection, since creaturely existence is the reflection of God's essence. St John says, Quod factum est in ipso vita erat: that which was made was life in God. Creatures, in their pre-existing form in God, have been divine life forever. So the opening words of our quotation from the Book of Wisdom, 'all things,' mean that our Lady sought peace for her inner man in the eternal good of the divine nature, in which, as in a magic mirror, the whole of creature-nature is one in God eternally. This refers to the pattern of all things in God, where they are one divinity.

Theologians raise three basic questions about these pre-existing forms in God, and some notable teachings and interesting facts attach to them. The first question is whether ideas of all creatures exist in God eternally or not. The second question is whether these ideas are one or many in number. The third question is whether the divine mind has ideas of everything it knows, or whether it knows some things without ideas.

To the first question Doctor Thomas answers that we must suppose ideas of all creatures exist in the divine being. His argument runs like this. The three terms form, idea, and likeness mean the same thing. Now the form, idea, or likeness of a thing, a rose for instance, is present in my soul, and must be there for two reasons. One is that from the appearance of its mental form I can paint the rose in physical matter, so there must be an image of the rose-form in my soul. The second reason is that from the subjective rose-idea I recognize the objective rose even though I am not copying it, just as I can carry in my head the notion of a house I never intend to build. In both these ways (that is, as types and as principles of knowledge) ideas exist in God, for in all natural things it is the rule that the natural form or character of the offspring or fruit should match the type belonging to its species. So with mankind, for instance, the generative power of the father's manhood is repeated in the son's born manhood, so that a man begets men, a lion begets lions, and a falcon begets falcons. The rose grows on a rose bush, not a cabbage stalk. Fire generates fire.

And sometimes the idea of a work exists in the practical power not as a natural species but as a plan, the way a house of wood and stone exists first in the architect's practical mind, who then makes the actual house as much like his idea as he can. Now since God created this whole world (not that all creatures descend by natural birth from God's nature, the way the eternal Word descends from the Father, for in that case all creatures would be God, which no sane mind can accept: the nature of creatures rejects this as impossible and false), God created all creatures through the practical understanding of the divine nature. So there must be, eternally, in the divine understanding, the pre-existing form or idea according to which God created this creature and not another, since God had no pattern in mind for the other.

The second question is whether the idea is one or many in number. To this the Doctor answers that the ultimate end of a work is always the real intention of the work's first cause. Now the ultimate end of the world is its good, that is, the divine ordering of all creatures, as Aristotle says. So this ordering of the world must be eternally foreknown and foreordained in God, who is its first cause. Therefore he has in him the particular ideas appropriate to that order, from which it follows that he must carry in him ideas of individual creatures. For just as no architect can hold in his head the plan of a whole house without the plans of all its details, so there must be in God as many forms as there are natural grades of created things flowing from him. The rose, for instance, has one special form, the violet another. Man has one distinct type, an angel has another, and so with other things.

The surprising thing is that this multiplicity of forms can exist alongside the simplicity of God, in whom all fundamental things are one. We can explain it this way. The idea of a work exists in the worker's practical mind as an object of his understanding, something he regards as expressing his idea, which he then shapes into the material work. It does not exist in the worker's mind as a form of understanding that shapes his mind and produces active thought in it. The plan of the house in the architect's mind is something understood by him. It is not against the simplicity of divine understanding for God to see and understand more than one thing as an object. But it would go against his simple nature if a multiplicity of objective forms stirred him and reduced him to the subjective act of understanding, as opposed to the mirror of God's own essence. Countless ideas exist in God in the sense that he sees and understands them, not in the sense that his intellect sees itself within them. To return to the point: God knows his essence perfectly, so far as it can be known, both in itself and so far as all creatures in their natural mode are shown forth in the divine essence. This express image of all creatures in the divine essence is their prototype, their idea. It follows that there are as many types as there are grades of nature to be typified.

As for how the countless forms in the divine essence can be the essence of God, given that they are many in number while the essence of God is only one, we can look at it this way. We call these ideas the essence of God, not as such, but in the sense that the essence of God is a mirror reflecting all creatures. And since in the undivided essence of God we have the pattern of all things, which we call their idea, the forms are many while the essence remains one. It is like a mirror holding many reflected forms, but an eye placed inside the mirror would see all these forms as a single object of its sight. They would not be innate in that eye, nor would they form the eye's own power of active or potential seeing, for then the image would be no more than one.

The third question was whether God has in him ideas of everything he knows, or whether he knows some things without ideas. Doctor Thomas answers it this way. These pre-existing forms are the origin or principle of the creation of all creatures, and in this sense they are types belonging to practical knowledge. These same forms are also the principle of all knowledge of creatures, and as such they are truly fundamental images of creatures. So for everything he knows, and for his conception of it, he must have an idea.

This raises a question. How does God know evil, which has no being in itself but is a privation of being? The answer is this. As I said above, all creaturely existence has its idea in God, but since evil or sin has no being at all (as Dionysius says), and instead strips good of its good or virtuous being, the way blindness in an eye has no positive existence but strips the eye of sight, in the same way God's mind perceives all sin and evil in the idea of the corresponding good, not in the form of the sin itself. For instance, he knows lying through the idea of truth.

Consider next how God knows virtue. In the eternal mirror of his works God knows all creaturely perfections, both natural and spiritual, perceiving in their pre-existing forms all accidents as if they were substantial being. But accidents vary. For the basic characteristics belonging to the lasting nature of their subject, God has no separate ideas apart from the ideas proper to that subject: the whiteness of the daisy, for example, is not known through a separate idea of whiteness. But accidents added later to the lasting nature he knows through particular ideas, apart from the idea of any subject they belong to. It follows that all the noble attributes of human beings, such as acquired virtues and spiritual wisdom, God knows through separate eternal forms that reflect the wisdom and virtue of souls in general.

Further, since grace is not natural to a creature, grace is given to the soul as an accident, and in the same way faith and other godly virtues are breathed supernaturally into the soul, along with love and, at times, divine wisdom, as with the prophets and apostles. Likewise the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are instilled supernaturally into the soul. Spiritual sweetness too is an inspired accident. So of all the graces found in mere creatures, God has ideas by which he knows these workings of grace.

In the divine essence, then, there also exist particular ideas reflecting the certainty, or hope, and divine charity of the soul, even though the soul is only a creature. In their own ideas there also exist all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which have an added character. I say this because the first gift, love, by which he gives all other gifts, is love that he himself is, in Person and in essence. And again, because all the sacred rites of the seven sacraments, by which the soul is made holy and brought into godly life, were instituted to show the workings of grace in the soul, God must know all seven sacraments in eternal pre-existing forms, each in its own distinct form. The cleansing power of baptism by natural water springs out of the eternal formal baptism found in the mirror of God's nature. In the same way, the original perfect conception of that nature survives in marriage, in which the changeable nature of the father is reborn into the immortal and impersonal nature of the soul of his child, where nature, no longer driven by the instinct for propagation that governs creatures, is in that sense carrying out the work of all creation. Marriage stays true to its pattern as long as we keep it in its natural purity, free from animal intention, which stands entirely against its divine ideal. I say the same about the other sacraments. God, then, has ideas of every longing, love, and godly intuition, whether of sweetness or of inwardness, through which he knows and feels all your desires the moment you call on him in prayer. And through these same ideas the soul of any saint we call on sees all our prayerful longings, from the beginning of the world to its very end, in one flash of God's essence, just as an angel sees creatures and their pattern in God all at once in the vision of God, in the dawn light and not the evening light, for otherwise they could not know our longing for them. Here ends the first part of this sermon.

Part II

Now it should be remembered that this rest of the inner man in the divine wonder born of vision and divine love surpasses, in its perfection and its sweetness, any activity of the outward man, and this for nine reasons.

The first reason is that in this passivity of the inner man, which consists of knowing and loving, the highest faculties in man are engaged in their noblest and most proper work, and so are detached and free from everything temporal and mortal, and these powers are knowledge and love. The life of the outward man, by contrast, consists of varying sensation. St Gregory says that Rachel, who stands for the interior life, signifies a vision of the source, while Leah, the other sister, means the life of the outward man, for she had weak eyes.

The second reason is that a person's inner habit of love and contemplation lasts longer, even though it is not at the highest point of actual vision, for the moment of supreme illumination is short-lived and passes like a flash of lightning. According to St Augustine, the common use of love and knowledge lasts longer with the inner man than with the outer.

The third reason is that a person's inner life of rest and spiritual leisure is somewhat like the peace of the divine eternal essence. For even though the Father is always in the act of engendering his Word, that does not disturb his rest, as our Lord says, 'My Father works until now.' The life of the outward man, by contrast, is one of constant physical unrest. Mary sat still and Martha kept busy about the house.

The fourth reason is that the interior life is more self-sufficient than that of the outward man. The inner man needs nothing for his work but freedom from bodily affairs, which comes with detachment of the soul's powers, together with knowledge and love. The freer and less occupied with mortal things, the better suited to God the life of the inner man becomes. But the life of the outward man needs many things that disturb: working and talking and giving and taking and eating and drinking. St Luke tells us how Martha, meaning the outward man, was burdened with too much serving. Yes, even when it is all done for God's sake, like works of mercy, it still brings a good deal of trouble.

The fifth reason is that the interior life is infinitely more enjoyable than that of the outward man. As the philosopher says, intellectual delights are free of drawbacks, but every mortal pleasure has its other side. St Augustine says that while Martha was distracted, Mary was keeping company with her interior man. Hence the comment of one teacher: 'Mary accused Martha before the eternal Word, Christ Jesus.' Why did Mary not answer? She did not hear, because she was not at home within herself. Where was she then? She was with her inner man in the Word, whose word she was attending to. For the soul is where she loves, rather than where she gives natural life.

The sixth reason is that the interior life, apart from knowledge and apart from love, is desirable in itself. But the outward life is desirable only insofar as it serves the greater good of the soul. The prophet cries, 'One thing I have desired of the Lord, and that same thing I will seek: to see God's will and behold his holy dwelling place.'

The seventh reason is that the inner life is concerned with things divine and the outer with things human. St Augustine says, 'Mary heard the Word in the beginning, while it was the human word that Martha served.'

The eighth reason is that the inner life belongs to the powers most proper to the soul. But the powers used for outward purposes we have in common with the animals, namely the senses. David says, 'Lord, you nourish man and beast.' And later he adds, 'But Lord, we men shall see your light in the light of your own self,' that is, in the light of understanding by which man is set apart from the animals.

The ninth reason is given by our Lord himself, who says, 'Mary has chosen the better part.' St Augustine says, 'Martha did not have a bad one; hers was a good one too, though Mary had the best.' Hers were the uses of the inner man, which, beginning here, continue on into eternity. But the outward life of works of mercy ends where there is no more poverty or suffering, that is, in eternity. Now though the inner life is in itself the best, the outward life is sometimes better, as in cases of bodily need. To feed the hungry, for example, is better than to spend the time in contemplation. According to one teacher, to see a man in any need and fail to help him would make me guilty before him, and St Augustine says I ought to give him aid. So in cases of real need, to use the works of the outward man for the relief of oneself or one's neighbor is better than to settle into the inner man's spiritual stillness of mind and will. This explains how our Lady rested in the eternal good. Let us too seek rest for the inner man as well as for the outer. So help us God. Amen.