Parallel passages from an Oxford MS. of Eckhart’s Sermone (Sievers’ copy), and a sermon on St Andrew, evidently by the same hand, but bearing the name of Nikolaus von Landau.
Evans (Oxford MS.)
The meat and drink I took a fortnight since has turned into my blood, my flesh, my nature. That is due to the power of the soul which brings it into my nature ; it is as truly one with me as what was born with me.
So does the power of the Holy Ghost take the purest and lightest and highest and the spark of the soul and carry it up in the fire of love. Just like the sun’s power : this lays hold in the roots of the tree of what is most pure and essential, drawing it up into the branches where it flowers. Even so is the spark of the soul being always drawn up in the light and in the Holy Ghost and conveyed into its source, becoming all-to one with God and searching him so throughly that it is more the same as God than food is with my life.
I say it is the light up in the soul where the soul nature touches angelic nature and passes into the angelic nature ; it is from God and is pouring into the soul above nature.
Some say it is a power. It is not. A servant is mentioned, that is the intellect. There soul attains angelic nature and is the image of God.
In this light the soul has intercourse with angels and eke with those angels that are fallen into hell. There the spark subsists without any kind of suffering, turning straight up into God.
And withal she is like the good angels in this power, who work unceasingly in God, beholding God in God and returning all 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 hanging to God and is ever averse from evil.
In hell it tends to God. It is ever at war in the soul with the impure and the ungodly.
Evans (on St Andrew)
The meat and drink I took a fortnight since has turned into my blood, my flesh, my nature. That is due to the power of the soul which brings it into my nature ; it is as truly one with me as what was born with me.
So does the power of the Holy Ghost take the purest and lightest and highest and the spark of the soul and carry it up in the fire of love. Just like the sun’s power : this lays hold in the roots of the tree of what is most pure and essential, drawing it up into the branches where it flowers. Even so is the spark of the soul being always drawn up in the light and in the Holy Ghost and conveyed into its source, becoming all-to one with God and searching him so throughly that it is more the same as God than food is with my life.
I say it is the light up in the soul where the soul nature
Mark first in St Andrew his singleness of life and spiritual attainments whereby his soul was enabled, in her intellect, to ascend in the grace of God above all creatures into God.
For the power of the Holy Ghost seizes the very highest and purest, the spark of the soul, and carries it up in the flame of love. Just as the power of the sun takes what is purest and subtlest out of the roots of the tree and draws it into the branches where it is in flower. Likewise the soul-spark is conveyed aloft into its source and is absorbed into God and is identified with God and is the spiritual light of God.
There are two lights in the soul, one is a light up in the soul at the point where the soul is by nature in contact with the angels’ nature. The other light is what I speak 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. To wit, the intellect which is a spark (or ray) of God the Father given by God out of his Godhead’s God-nature, and is the form of God without any difference at all. In it she is in touch with the angelic nature.
In this light the soul has community with angels also those cast into hell. There the spark is free from all suffering and faces straight up into God and has precisely his nature.
And withal she has a somewhat, mind, in common with good angels who are constantly working in God and emanating from God and bearing back all their work into God and receiving God from God in God.
The intellect is like to these good angels, drinking God in his eternal savour, his living sweetness and in his own ground. She is sent away from God and is a light that (re)tums : the reflection of the divine nature which the soul has cast into her. The masters call it synderesis which is as much as to say something suspended from God all the time and which never does wrong.
In hell, says St Augustine, it is turned to God. In the soul it wages constant war with things that are not pure and are not godly.
It looks neither to God’s glory nor possessions. It presses up into the goal of divine essence and is the true God’s messenger which leads and draws mankind to the celestial feast: et misit servum suum hora cene.