The Lord put forth his hand: Eckhart on the unspoken Word

Misit dominus manum suam et tetigit os meum et dixit mihi, etc. (Jer. 1:9). "The Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth and said to me."

When I preach it is my habit to speak about detachment, about the duty of ridding ourselves of self and of things. Or again, about returning to the undivided good, which is God. And third, about the duty of remembering the high and noble nature God has placed in the soul, so that mortals may wonder about God. Fourth, about the pure nature of God, the ineffable splendor of God. God is a Word, an unspoken word. Augustine says: "All scripture is vain." We say that God is unspoken, but he is unspeakable. Grant that he is something: who can pronounce this word? None but the Word. God is the Word which speaks itself. Where God exists he is saying this Word; where he does not exist he says nothing. God is spoken and unspoken. The Father is the speaking power and the Son is that power in speech. What is in me goes out from me; I have only to think and my word goes out, while at the same time it stays within. In the same way the Father speaks forth his Son, who meanwhile remains in him unspoken. I have said many times, God's going out is his coming in. The nearer I am to God, the more he speaks himself into me. With rational creatures, the more they go out of themselves in their works, the more they come into themselves. It is not so with bodily things: the more active these are, the farther they get from themselves. All creatures want to speak God in their works. They all speak him as well as they can, but they cannot truly pronounce him. Whether they will or not, in well-being or in suffering, they are all trying to utter God, who still remains unspoken.

David said, "The Lord is his name." Lord means one set in authority; knave means an underling. Some names belong to God alone and are forbidden to anything besides God. God is the name that belongs only to God, just as man is the name for mankind. A man is a man whether he is foolish or wise. Seneca says, "A man is worthless if he does not rise above mere humanity." Another name we connect with God is fatherhood. When we call a man father we assume a son. No father can exist without having a son. True, beyond time, these merge into eternal nature. The third name, in its higher sense, belongs to God, and in its lower sense belongs to time. God is called by many names in scripture. Now I say, whatever we can think of in God, or give any name to, that is not God. God is beyond name, beyond nature. We hear of a good man who in prayer asked God for his name. Then a brother said, "Peace! You are demeaning God." We can find no name to give to God; but we are allowed to use the names his saints have called him by, those whose hearts, filled by God, were flooded with his divine light. From this we learn, first, how to pray to God. We ought to say: Lord, in those very names which you placed in the hearts of the saints, filling them with your light, we praise you and worship you. And second, we learn that by giving God no name at all we praise and honor him enough, since God is above name and beyond words.

Out of the fullness of his power the Father speaks the Son, and in him all things. All creatures are the utterance of God. Just as my lips proclaim and tell of God, so does a stone's existence, and we can learn more from the fact of it than from any telling of it. A work done by the highest nature in its sovereign power cannot be grasped by a lower nature. If a lower nature did the same work, it would no longer be lower, but the same. All creatures want to copy God in everything they do. But it is very little that they are able to show. Even the highest angels, in so far as they rise up and come into contact with God, are no more like him than black is like white, compared to what is in God. What creatures have received is altogether different, yet they all want to speak as closely as they can to the same thing. The prophet says: "Lord, you say one thing and I understand two." When God speaks into the soul, it divides as it falls. The higher we rise in our understanding, the more we are in him. In eternity, the Father is speaking his Son the whole time, and pouring out all creatures in him. They are all called to return to the place they came from. Their whole life and nature is a calling, a flight back to what they came out of.

The prophet says, "The Lord sent forth his hand," meaning the Holy Spirit. He says, "He touched my mouth," and right after come the words, "he spoke to me." The mouth of the soul is the highest part of the soul, and she has this in mind when she says, "He has put his Word into my mouth," this being the kiss of the soul. Mouth to mouth the Father brings his Son into the soul, and then he speaks to her, saying, "See, this day I have chosen you to set you over nations and over kingdoms." God says he will choose us today. There, in eternity, where time does not exist, it is always today. "And I have set you over nations," that is, above this world which you must be free of; "and over kingdoms," meaning that more than one thing is too much; it falls to you to die to all things and return to the height where we live in the Holy Spirit. Amen.