The great supper and the spark of the soul

Homo quidam fecit coenam magnum (Luke 14:16, a certain man made a great supper): St Luke tells in his gospel how a certain man gave a great supper, or evening banquet. Who gives it? A certain man. Why does he call it a supper? One master says this shows great affection, since only God's close friends are invited to it. (When we give a morning gathering, all and sundry are invited, but to an evening meal we invite important people, the people we like, our own close friends.) Second, he has in mind how complete are the souls who share this evening meal. Evening never comes without a whole day having gone before it. If there were no sun there would be no day. Sunrise, the morning light, keeps growing brighter until midday. In the same way the divine light rising in the soul gradually takes over the powers of the soul until noon comes. No day, no spiritual day at all, can dawn in the soul unless she receives divine light. (Divine light breaks into the soul and makes her morning, and the soul rises up in this light into open space, to the height of noon.) Third, he means that to share this supper worthily we have to come at evening. When the light of this world fails, that is evening. As King David sings, 'He rises in the evening, and his name is the Lord.' So Jacob lay down to sleep at evening. This stands for peace of mind. Fourth, he remembers, as St Gregory points out, that no other meal comes after supper. (When the spark in the soul takes in divine light it needs no other food, but holds forever to this divine light.)

See also Jostes, numbers 1 and 69, and Spamer's Texte, A.4 (three versions), from which the starred passages are added.

To whom God grants this food, so fragrant and so delicious, that soul will never care for any other fare. St Augustine says God is of such a nature that once we embrace him we can never rest anywhere else. St Augustine says, 'Lord, if you take yourself from us, give us another you, or we will have no rest; we want nothing but you.' One holy man says of the God-loving soul that she gets out of God whatever she wants, fooling him so completely that he can refuse her nothing. He took himself in one way and gave himself in another: he took himself as God-and-man and gave himself as God-and-Man, another self in a hidden vessel. Very precious holy things are not carelessly exposed to public sight and touch. So he clothed himself in the appearance of bread, just as my bodily food is changed within my soul, which cannot for an instant exist in my nature without joining with it. For there is a power in nature that separates out what is base and throws it away, and the higher thing reaches into the lower down to the last point and is taken into it. The food I ate a fortnight ago is every bit as united with my soul as what I received in my mother's womb. Whoever takes this food while fasting becomes as truly one with it as flesh and blood are with my soul.

There was a certain man; the man had no name, because this man is... The philosopher says of the first cause that it is beyond speech. All words fail before it, because of the surpassing purity of its nature. We have only three ways of speaking about things: first, in terms of what is above them; second, in terms of their likeness; and third, in terms of their works. Here is an example. The power of the sun draws the precious sap up out of the roots into the shoots and brings it out in flower, the solar power here working above it. (As we speak of the tree, so we speak of what is above the tree, of the sun, for instance, which is working in the tree.) In the same way I say the divine light is working in the soul. (The spark in the soul is drawn up in this light and in the Holy Spirit and carried aloft to its first source. But nothing true can be said of God, because there is nothing above him.) That the soul expresses God does not touch his real, inner being in any way: no one can say what he actually is. Sometimes we say one thing is like another. (We can say nothing of God, because nothing is like him.) Creatures hold only a mere nothing of God, and so they cannot reveal him. A painter who has painted a good portrait shows his skill in it; it does not reveal to us who he himself is. Creatures can no more give out God than they can take in exactly what he is.

The God-and-Man has prepared this supper, the unspeakable man who is beyond words. As St Augustine says, what we say about God is not true, and the things we say he is not are true. What we say God is, he is not; what we say he is not, he is, more than what we say he is.

Who has prepared this meal? A man, the man who is God. King David says, 'O Lord, how great and manifold is your bounty, the sweetness you have laid up for those who love you' (not for those who fear you). St Augustine, thinking about this food, looked on it with distaste and loathing, when suddenly he heard a voice from within: 'I am the food of grown men; grow great by eating me. And do not think that I will be turned into you: you will be turned into me.' When God works in this fiery heat, the different things within the soul melt and burn away. By the plain truth, the soul enters more fully into God than any food enters into us; in fact the soul is changed into God. There is a power in the soul that splits off what is base and is taken up into God. Namely, the spark of the soul. My soul becomes more one with God than food becomes one with my soul.

Who has prepared this evening meal? A man. Do you know his name? Not I. His name is not spoken. He speaks through silence, beyond any name. What food has he prepared for this feast? Himself, fully and completely himself. (What does the servant mean?) According to St Gregory, the servant means preachers. In another sense the servant means the angels, the angels who are always calling us with an inward voice. Third, I think this servant is the spark of the soul, which is sent there by God and is his light striking down from above, the reflection, or image, of his divine nature, and always opposed to anything ungodly: a lasting bent toward good, yes, inclined to good even in hell, though some theologians describe it as a power of the soul. According to the masters, this light is of the nature of ceaseless striving; it is called synderesis, that is, a joining to and a turning away from. It has two works. One is remorse for what is imperfect. The other work is to keep calling good toward itself and bringing it straight into the soul, even if she is in hell. It is a great supper. He said to the servant, 'Go out and make them come in, those who were invited, for everything is now ready.' All that he is, the soul receives. What the soul wants is now prepared. What God gives has always existed. See it new and fresh, all at once, in the eternal now.

A great philosopher says that anything I see comes into my eyes purified and made spirit-like, and that the light that comes into my eyes would never reach my soul without a power above it. (There is a power of sight that is higher than the eyes set in the head, and reaches further than heaven and earth. This power takes hold of everything that comes into the eye and carries it up into the soul.) St Augustine says the spark comes nearer to the truth than any human knowledge does. Light burns. They say one light is lit from another. If that is so, the light is higher than the thing burning. Take, for instance, a candle that has been put out but is still glowing and smoking, and hold it to a flame; the flame will reach down and light it again. They say one fire kindles another. But I cross that out. Fire, I think, burns on its own. For one thing to kindle another it must stand above it, like the sky, for example, which does not burn and is cold, yet it sets things on fire, by its contact with the angels. The soul prepares for this by practice. Then she is set alight from above, by the light of the angels. He says to the servant, 'Go out and tell those who were invited, Come, for everything is now ready.'

Then one said, 'I have bought a piece of land, I cannot come.' These are the ones who still hold worldly cares; they never taste this supper. A second said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen.' These five yoke, I think, stand for the five senses, for each sense is itself and also something else, and even the tongue is double. So, as in my story yesterday, when God said to the woman, 'Bring me your husband,' she answered, 'I have none.' To which he said, 'You speak the truth: you have had five, and the one you have now is not your husband.' The meaning is that those who live by the five senses never taste this food. The third one said, 'I have married a wife, so I cannot come.' The soul is wholly single when she turns toward God. Looking in this direction she is woman; but seeing God in himself and visiting God at home, she is the man. In old times it was forbidden for men to wear women's clothing or women men's. She is man when she enters into God without division and without anything between. But when she looks outward at all, she is woman. (As I have said many times, the man in the soul is the intellect. When the soul looks straight up to God with her mind, then the soul is the man, she is one and not two. But in thinking and looking downward she puts on women's clothing.) Our Lord said, 'Truly, these will not taste my supper,' and he commanded the servant, 'Go out into the streets and lanes, into the highways and hedges,' the narrower the wider, and hedged about. (The more gathered in the soul is, the less scattered she is, and the more concentrated, the wider her reach.) And some of her powers are confined to one sense. The power I see with, I do not hear with, and with my power of hearing I cannot see. The same is true of the rest of the five senses. But the soul exists whole in every part of the body; there is a power, then, that is not confined to any one place.

What is the servant? Angels and preachers, so says St Gregory. But as I see it, the servant stands for the spark. He says to the servant, 'Go out into the hedges and bring in these four kinds of people: the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind. Truly, no one else will taste my supper.' Let us throw off those three and rise up as man. So help us God. Amen.

Appendix 1: Synderesis

Oxford manuscript.

The food and drink I took a fortnight ago has turned into my blood, my flesh, my nature. That is due to the power of the soul that brings it into my nature; it is as truly one with me as what was born with me.

In the same way the power of the Holy Spirit takes the purest, lightest, highest part, the spark of the soul, and carries it up in the fire of love. Just like the power of the sun, which takes hold in the roots of the tree of what is purest and finest, drawing it up into the branches where it flowers. In the same way the spark of the soul is always being drawn up in this light and in the Holy Spirit and carried into its source, becoming wholly one with God and searching him so thoroughly that it is more one with God than food is with my life.

I say it is the light in the soul where the soul's nature is...

Notice first in St Andrew his singleness of life and his spiritual attainment, through which his soul was able, in her intellect, to rise by the grace of God above all creatures into God.

For the power of the Holy Spirit seizes what is highest and purest, the spark of the soul, and carries it up in the flame of love. Just as the power of the sun draws what is purest and finest out of the roots of the tree into the branches where it flowers. In the same way the soul-spark is carried up into its source and is taken up into God and made one with God and is the spiritual light of God.

There are two lights in the soul, one is a light up in the

See Zuchhold, No. 26. Parallel passages from an Oxford MS. of Eckhart's Sermons (Sievers' copy), and a sermon on St Andrew, evidently by the same hand, but bearing the name of Nikolaus von Landau. See also Jostes, Nos. 1 and 69.

touches angelic nature and passes into the angelic nature; it is from God and pours into the soul above nature.

Some say it is a power. It is not. A servant is mentioned, and that is the intellect. There the soul reaches angelic nature and is the image of God.

In this light the soul has dealings with angels, and also with those angels who have fallen into hell. There the spark exists without any kind of suffering, turning straight up into God.

And with this she is like the good angels in this power, who work without ceasing in God, beholding God in God and returning all their work into God.

This light the soul carries within her. The masters call it a power in the soul, this synderesis. It is not. It means something that hangs on God and is always turned away from evil.

In hell it still turns toward God. It is

soul at the point where the soul is by nature in contact with the angels' nature. The other light is the one I am speaking of. This light pours into the soul from on high, above nature.

Some call it a power of the soul. But it is not. It is called synderesis. That is to say, the intellect, which is a spark, or ray, of God the Father, given by God out of the nature of his Godhead, and is the form of God without any difference at all. In it the soul is in touch with angelic nature.

In this light the soul has fellowship with angels, and also with those cast into hell. There the spark is free from all suffering and faces straight up into God and has exactly his nature.

And with this she has something, call it mind, in common with the good angels, who work without ceasing in God and flow out from God and carry all their work back into God and receive God from God in God.

The intellect is like these good angels, drinking God in his eternal savor, his living sweetness, in his own ground. She is sent out from God and is a light that returns, the reflection of the divine nature that the soul has cast into her. The masters call it synderesis, which is as much as to say something hanging on God all the time and which never does wrong.

In hell, says St Augustine, it

is ever at war in the soul with whatever is impure and ungodly.

is turned toward God. In the soul it wages constant war with things that are not pure and not godly.

It looks neither to God's glory nor to possessions. It presses up into the goal of the divine essence and is the true messenger of God, who leads and draws mankind to the heavenly feast: et misit servum suum hora cenae, and he sent his servant at the hour of supper.