§ 29. MEISTER ECKART. 253
condition of AbgescJiiedenheit, it is necessary for the soul first to meditate and form an image of God, and then to allow itself to be transformed by God.^
What, then, some one might say, is the advantage of prayer and good works ? In eternity^ God saw every prayer and every good work, and knew which prayer He could hear. Prayers were answered in eternity. God is unchangeable and cannot be moved by a prayer. It is we who change and are moved. The sun shines, and gives pain or pleasure to the eye, according as it is weak or sound. The sun does not change. God rules differently in different men. Different kinds of dough are put into the oven; the heat affects them differently, and one is taken out a loaf of fine bread, and another a loaf of common bread.
Eckart is emphatic when he insists upon the moral obligation resting on God to operate in the soul that is ready lo receive Him. God must pour Himself into such a man's being, as the sun pours itself into the air when it is clear and pure. God would be guilty of a great wrong — G-ehrechen — if He did not confer a great good upon him whom He finds empty and ready to receive Him. Even so Christ said of Zaccheus, that He must enter into his house. God first works this state in the soul, and He is obliged to reward it with the gift of Himself. " When I am blessed, selig^ then all things are in me and in God, and where I am, there is God, and where God is, there I am." 2
Nowhere_does Eckart come to a distinct definition of justification by faith, although he frequently speaks of faith as a heavenly gilt. On the other hand, he gives no sign of laying stress on the penitential system. Everywhere there are symptoms in his writings that his piety breathed a different atmosphere from the pure mediteval type. Holy living is with him the product of holy being. One must first be righteous before he can do righteous acts. Works do no^ sanctify^ The righteous soul sanctifies the works. _So long as one does^od warksiofUihe-sakejaf the kin^dorn of heaven or for the sake of God or for the sake of salvation or for an^
iPfeiffer, II. 484. 2 Pfeiffer, pp. 27, 32, 479 sq., 547 sq.
254 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1291-1517.
external causCj he is on the wrong path. Fastings, vigils, asceticisms, do not merit salvation. ^ There are places in the mystic's writings where we seem to hear Luther himself speaking.
Tlie stress which Eckart lays upon piety, as a matter of the heart and the denial to good works of meritorious virtue, gave plausible ground for the papal condemnation, that Eckart set aside the Church's doctrine of penance, affirming that it is not outward acts that make good, but the disposition of the soul which God abidingly works in us. Jolm XXII. rightly discerned the drift of the mystic's teaching.
In his treatment of Mary and Martha, Eckart seems to make a radical departure from the mediieval doctrine of the superior value of pure contemplation. From the time of Augustine, Rachel and Mary of Bethany had been regarded as the representatives of the contemplative and higher life. In his sermon on Mary, the German mystic affirmed that Mary was still at school. Martha had learned and was engaged in good works, serving the Lord. Mary was only learning. She was striving to be as holy as her sister. Better to feed the hungry and do other works of mercy, he says, than to have the vision of Paul and to sit still. After Christ's ascension, Mary learned to serve as fully as did Martha, for then the Holy Spirit was poured out. One who lives a truly contemplative life will show it in acti^^~w^orfes. A life of mere contemplation is a selfish life. The modern spirit was stirring in him. He saw another ideal for life than mediieval withdrawal from the world. The breath of evangelical freedom and joy is felt in his writings. 2
^ckart's speculative mind carried him to the verge of pantheism, and it is not surprising that his hyperbolical expressions subjected him to the papal condemnation. But his pantheism was Christian pantheism, the complete union^of
1 Pfeiffer, II. 546, 564, 633, Niht endienent unserin were dar zuo dass uns Got iht gebe oder tuo.
2 Es (jeht ein Geist evangelischer Freiheit durch EckarVs Sittenlehre belcher zugleich rin Geist der Freudigkrit ist, Preger, I. 452. Seethe sermon on Mary, Pfeiffer, pp. 47-53. Also pp. 18-21, 607.