Standing in the gate: Eckhart on silence, prayer and the inner Word

STAND IN THE GATE {{Q1}} The Lord says, 'Stand in the gate of God's house and proclaim his word, extol his word.' The heavenly Father speaks one Word, and he speaks it eternally, and in this Word he spends all his power: he utters his whole God-nature in this Word, and the whole of creation with it. This Word lies hidden in the soul, unnoticed and beyond our knowing, and if it were not for rumors in the ground of hearing we would never notice it at all. But all sounds and voices have to stop, and silence, complete stillness, must reign. This is a meaning I will not pursue further.

Stand in the gate. Whoever stands there has his limbs arranged in order. He is about to speak, and the head of the soul is held upright and still. What is ordered is subject to an order higher than itself. Creatures do not belong to the order of God until the soul's natural light, in which they have their being, falls over them, and until the angelic light falls over the light of the soul, preparing and fitting it for the divine light to work in it. For God's work takes place in the eternal, beyond all that is bodily. That is why the soul must be gathered and brought together into the spirit. It is there that God works, and there that all works please God. Nothing is ever pleasing to God unless it is made there.

Stand in the gate, in the house of God, meaning his unity of being. What is one is best kept by itself. So this unity stays close to God and holds God together, adding nothing to him. There he sits in his own presence, in his is-ness, wholly within himself, never outside himself. But as he melts, he flows outward. He melts and pours out in his goodness, which, as I have explained, is made of knowledge and love. Knowledge is the flowing, for knowledge is hotter than love. But two are better than one. And this knowledge is soaked through with love. Love is fooled and caught by kindness; in love I linger at the gate, turning a blind eye to the true vision. Even stones have a kind of love, a love that seeks the ground below. If I settle for goodness in that first outpouring, and take hold of it only where it is good, then I have taken hold of the gate, not of God himself. Knowledge is the better of the two, being the head and the front of love. Love is the will toward something, the intention. No single thought clings to this knowledge: wholly detached and having let go of itself, it runs bare into the arms of God and grasps him in himself.

Lord, it is fitting that your house be holy and a house of prayer. What is prayer? It is the practice of pure being and the glorying in it. What is this glory? It is the clothing of man in the likeness of God within him. But as long as any image remains in the soul, there is no glorifying God in it, the way one would glorify him in a house of prayer, through length of days. I do not mean days in the ordinary sense here. When I say length without length, I mean the true length; breadth without breadth means the true breadth. When I speak of all time, I mean above time, and above time, as I have explained, there is no here or now.

The woman asked our Lord when we ought to pray. Our Lord answered, 'The hour is coming, but is not yet, when true worshippers will worship in spirit and in truth.' For God is spirit, and they must worship in spirit and in truth the one who is truth itself. This we are not: we may be true, but falsehood is mixed in with it. For we do not exist in God in that first outbreak where truth comes pouring forth from its source. In the gate of God's house the soul must stand and sound forth his Word. Everything that is in the soul must give praise, standing deaf to the whole world, in silence and in peace, the way I described the angels sitting there with God. In that choir of wisdom and of burning, God suddenly declares himself to the soul, pledging himself to her for good. It is the Father begetting his Son, and in his Word he takes such delight, he is so fond of it, that he never stops, but goes on pledging his Word the whole time, timelessly, that is. And here we should notice that the house in which God pledges himself is empty: bare spirit, above time. Fitting for your house are holiness and praise; nothing may be there that does not praise you.

Our theologians ask what it is that praises God. Likeness does. Any likeness to God that lives in the soul adds to the glory of God. Things that are altogether different from God do not glorify him. A portrait, for example, reflects credit on the painter, who puts into it his dearest idea of his art and makes it the image of himself. The likeness in the portrait praises its maker without a word. Spoken praise, or praying with the lips alone, is worth little. Our Lord said once, 'You pray, not knowing what prayer is. True prayers are coming, who will pray to my Father not in words but in spirit and in truth.' What is prayer? Dionysius says, 'The mind's rising up to God, that is what prayer means.' It took a pagan to observe that where spirit is, and unity, and eternity, there God will be at work. Where flesh wars against spirit, where division wars against union, where time wars against eternity, there God does not work: he can do nothing with it. Further, any pleasure we may have, or contentment or comfort, must be given up. To worship God the soul must be holy, gathered into a whole, one spirit and nothing beside, lifted all at once into the eternal eternity on high, above everything. I do not mean all created things, it is not them I mean, but everything he could do if he willed it. The soul must go beyond this too. As long as there is anything above the soul, as long as there is anything standing before and in front of God, she can never enter his ground, not in the length of days.

Now, according to St Augustine, when the light of the soul outshines creatures, it is dawn. When the angelic light outshines the light of the soul and swallows it up, then it is broad day. David says, 'The righteous man climbs up and up to the perfect day.' His path is fair and smooth and pleasant and familiar. And when the light of the soul and the angelic light are both swallowed up in the divine light, he calls that high noon. Now the day is at its longest, at its height, when the sun at its peak pours its light into the stars, and the stars pour it into the moon. These are members of one system. And in the same way the light of God takes in the angelic light and the light of the soul, an ordered array, a rising scale climbing steadily through the day, all praising God together. There is nothing above that does not praise God: they are all alike, and the more alike, the more full of God, all praising him together. The Lord said, 'I will stay with you in your house.' Dear God, we ask you to stay with us here, so that we may stay with you forever.