Jesus clears the temple: Eckhart on the soul as God's own house

Intravit Jesus in templum dei et ejiciebat omnes vendentes et ementes etc. (Matthew 21) We read in the gospel that our Lord went into the temple and cast out all those who sold and bought, and said to those who sold doves, 'Take these things away!' His purpose was to have the temple cleared, as if he said: this temple is by rights my own, and I want it to myself, to be lord in it. This temple that God means to rule in is the human soul, which he has made exactly like himself, as the Lord says, 'We will make man in our image and likeness.' And he did this. God made the soul so like himself that nothing else in earth or heaven resembles God as closely as the human soul does. God wants this temple cleared of everything but himself. This is because this temple pleases him so much, and he is so at home in this temple when he is there alone.

Now consider who were the ones who sold and bought there, and who they still are. Mark me well: I am not naming anyone but the virtuous. Yet even so, I can point out who the merchants were, and still are to this day, who buy and sell in this way: those whom our Lord drove out and cast forth. He still does this to those who buy and sell in this temple: he would not leave a single one in it. Look, they are all merchants who, while avoiding mortal sin and wanting to be virtuous, do good works for the glory of God, such as fasts, vigils, prayers, and so on, all excellent in themselves, but do them hoping that God will give them something in return, or do something for them that they want back. All such people are merchants. This is easy to see, for they reckon on giving one thing for another, bargaining with our Lord, though they are mistaken about the bargain. For everything they have, and all the power they have to act, they have from God and can only do by means of God alone. God is under no obligation to do anything for them or give them anything unless he chooses to. For what they are, they are from God, and what they have, they get from God, not from themselves. God is in no way bound to repay their actions or gifts, except insofar as he cares to do so by his own free will, apart from anything they do or give, for they give nothing of their own, nor do they act by their own power, as God says, 'Without me you can do nothing.' They are poor fools who bargain with our Lord like this. They know little or nothing of the truth. God cast them out of the temple and drove them forth. For light and darkness cannot live together. God is the truth, he is light itself. When God enters the temple he drives out ignorance and darkness, revealing himself in the light of truth. Merchants leave when the truth appears, for truth has no need of merchandising. God does not seek his own interest, he is perfectly free in all his acts, which he does in true love. So it is with the person who is at one with God: he is perfectly free in all his deeds, he does them out of love and without why, simply to glorify God, not seeking his own benefit in them, with God working in him.

Further, I maintain this: as long as we work at all for gain, as long as we desire anything God may have given or may give, we are no different from these merchants. Do you want to be free of any taint of trading? Then do whatever good you can, and do it solely for God's glory, as free from it yourself as though you were not there at all. Ask for nothing in return. Done this way your works are spiritual and godly. The merchants are driven out of the temple and God is there alone when a person has no intention but God. See then, your temple cleared of merchants. The person who is set on God alone and on God's glory alone is truly free of any taint of commerce in his deeds, and is in no way seeking himself.

I have also told how Jesus said to those who sold doves, 'Take these things away!' These people he did not drive out, nor did he rebuke them harshly. He said quite gently, 'Take these things away!' As if to say: this is not wrong, though it is a hindrance to the pure and simple truth. These are virtuous people, working for God without self-interest, yet still subject to personal limits, to time and number, to before and after. Their activities keep them from the highest truth, from being as absolutely free as our Lord Jesus Christ, who is receiving himself freshly and without ceasing, outside of time, from his heavenly Father, and in that same now is carried back again without ceasing, with praise and thanksgiving, into the Father, perfect, matching him in his majesty. In the same way, to be open to the highest truth, a person must be without before and after, without the hindrance of any acts or images that fall within their awareness, but must freely receive the divine gift in the eternal now and carry it back unhindered in that same light, with praise and thanksgiving, in our Lord Jesus Christ. Then the doves are gone, that is, the obstacle of ownership in actions that are good in themselves but in which one has any self-interest at all. 'Take these things away!' said our Lord, as if to say: they are blameless, but they are in the way.

When the temple is free of obstructions, that is, of possessions and of strangers, it looks truly beautiful, shining out bright and clear above everything God has created and through everything God has created, so that nothing can compare to it except the uncreated God alone. In very truth, there is nothing like this temple but the uncreated God himself. Nothing below the angels is in the least like this temple. The very highest angels are like this temple of the human soul in many ways, but not entirely. This partial likeness with the soul they have in love and knowledge. But there is a limit set for them that they cannot pass. The soul goes on beyond. Suppose the soul to be no greater than the highest human being living in time, still that person has the potential freedom to rise to untold heights above the angels, in the now of each moment, new beyond number, that is, beyond mode, above the angelic mode and above every created intelligence. God alone, who is uncreated, is her equal in freedom, though not in being uncreated, for the soul is created. Coming out into the unclouded light, she in her nothingness leaps so far into his nothingness that she is unable to return to the state of her created being. God, with his uncreatedness, holds up her nothingness, keeping the soul within his all-in-all. The soul has dared to come to nothing, and failing to reach herself by herself, she falls away before God comes to her rescue. It must be so.

Jesus, as I said, went into the temple and cast out those who bought and sold, and he began to command the rest, 'Take these things away!' The words I have read here are: Jesus went in and began to say, 'Take these things away!' Notice, there was no one there but Jesus when he began to speak in the temple of the soul. Be sure of this: while anyone else is speaking in the temple, that is, the soul, Jesus is silent, as if he were absent, and he is not at home in the soul while she has strange guests to talk to. For Jesus to speak in the soul she must be entirely alone, and she must be quiet in order to hear what he says. So then he comes in and begins to speak. What does he say? He says what he is. What is he, then? He is the Word of the Father. In this same Word the Father speaks himself, his whole divine nature, everything that God is, exactly as he knows it, and he knows it as it is, for he is perfect in knowledge and power. It follows that he is perfect in speech too. In speaking the Word he utters himself and all things in another Person, to whom he gives the same nature he has himself, and speaks all intelligences as an echo of the actual Word, according to the image within them, like sunbeams shining forth. Each intelligence is a word in itself, not identical in every way to the Word, but each has the power to receive by grace the same nature as the actual Word, and this Word as it is in itself, the Father spoke entirely in the Word, and everything within that Word.

If this is what the Father said, then what is Jesus saying in the soul? As I have told you, the Father speaks his Word, he speaks in this Word and nowhere else, and Jesus speaks in the soul. His way of speaking is to reveal himself and what the Father said in him, so far as the soul is able to receive it. He reveals the Father in the soul with infinite power. Experiencing this power in the Son, the soul grows powerful through the same outpouring, until she is the same in might and strength and every perfection, so that neither joy nor sorrow, nor anything God has made in time, can destroy that soul, for she stands firm in this divine power against which everything else is small and without weight.

Second, Jesus reveals himself in the soul in infinite wisdom, himself, that is, the wisdom in which the Father knows himself in full fatherly power. The Word itself, which is wisdom itself, and everything that is in it, is at the same time one single thing. When wisdom is united with the soul, doubt, error, and illusion are entirely removed, and she is set in the bright pure light of God himself, as the prophet says, 'Lord, in your light we shall see light.' Then God is known by God within the soul, she sees with his wisdom both herself and all things. She does not know this wisdom through herself, but through this wisdom she perceives the Father, fruitful in his labor, and his real being, which is one, undivided, without any distinctions.

Jesus also shows himself in infinite sweetness and fullness, in every heart open to receive him. When Jesus reveals himself in this fullness of sweetness, joining himself to the soul, then on this gentle tide the soul flows into herself and out of herself and beyond the gifts of grace, carried back in pure power into her first source. In this way the outward self is obedient, even unto death, to the inner self, now established in peace in the service of God forever.

May Jesus enter into us and clear out and cast away all hindrances of soul and body, so that we may be one with him here on earth and there in heaven. So help us God. Amen.