Meister Eckhart, Entirely within, entirely without

(From Meister Eckhart: the Essential sermons, commentaries, treatises and defense, translation and introduction by E. Colledge O.S.A. and B. McGinn, NY 1981). Footnotes are not included in the excerpts here selected. 

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Second, it is preexistent in it as a seed is in its principle; and this is what the text says, "In the beginning was the Word." "The seed is God's Word" (Lk. 8:11). Third, note that what is produced from something is universally its word. It speaks, announces and discloses whence it comes - hence he says, "In the principle was the Word." The fourth point is that what proceeds is in its source according to the idea and likeness in which and according to which what proceeds is produced by the source. This is in the Greek: "In the principle was the Word," that is, the Logos, which in Latin is Word and Idea. (...) 

9. In the tenth place, note that it is proper to the intellect to receive its object, that is, the intelligible, not in itself, insofar as it is complete, perfect and good, but to receive it in its principles. This is what is meant here: "In the principle was the Word." And again, "This Word was in the principle with God."

In the eleventh place, mark that the word, that is, the mind's concept or the art itself in the maker's mind, is that through which the maker makes all that he does and without which he does nothing as a maker. Hence there follows: "All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made." 

10. Twelfth. The chest in the mind or in the art itself is neither a chest nor something already made, but it is art itself, is life, the vital concept of the maker. This is what follows: "What was made in him was life." Thirteenth. The word, as idea, belongs to the rational faculty, which is proper to man. For man is a rational animal, and "The human race lives by art and reason," as the first book of the Metaphysics says. Therefore, the word is not only life, but the life is the light of men. Hence there follows: "And the life was the light of men." 

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   Related: Meister Eckhart Site, The Condemnation of Meister Eckhart  Erigena, By His seeing and running all things are made,  Maximus Confessor, He divided the Ages wisely  Symeon the New Theologian, When shall the Day of the Lord come?  Papacy

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