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. 

1. "In the beginning was the Word." "A large eagle with great wings, long-limbed, full of feathers and dappled plumage, came to Lebanon and took away the marrow of the cedar. He cropped off the top of its foliage and carried it away to the land of Chanaan" (Ezk. 17:3-4). John the Evangelist himself is the eagle who "makes the nest" of his attention, contemplation and preaching "among the steep crags and inaccessible rocks" (Jb. 39:27-28). "He came to Lebanon and took away the marrow of the cedar. He cropped off the tops of its foliage and carried it away to the land of Chanaan" when he drank in the Word who was in the Father's breast and manifested him to men with the words "In the beginning was the Word." He is "the first among the Evangelists in penetration of the depths of the divine mysteries," as Augustine says: 

In the figure of the four animals of Ezekiel, chapter one, and Revelation, chapter four, he is compared to the eagle which flies higher than other birds and gazes at the sun's rays with undazzled eyes. He rested on the Lord's breast at the Last Supper and drank a draught of heavenly wisdom better than that received by the others from the source itself, the Lord's heart. His concern was to intrust us with Christ's divinity and the mystery of the Trinity. 

This is what is said here, "In the beginning was the Word." 

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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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