by Meister Eckhart
In Principio erat Verbum is Sermon XVII in C. de B. Evans's 1924 translation of Franz Pfeiffer's collected works of Meister Eckhart. Its scriptural text is John 1:1 — "In the beginning was the Word" — and it opens with a characteristic paradox: God never spoke but one word, and that word is still unspoken. The explanation is ontological: the eternal Word is the logos of the Father, his only-begotten Son, in whom all creatures are pronounced without beginning and without end. Because the Word never left the Father, it remains unborn into any exterior form.
The sermon then offers four ways of knowing the eternal Word: on the altar, through the doctor's exposition, in the lives of God's friends, and — deepest and fourth — as spoken wordlessly within the virgin soul by God himself. This fourth knowing is the one Eckhart pursues: the soul, Eckhart declares, knows the eternal Word better than all the doctors can expound it, because what can be expressed is always too little. The soul bearing the Word in mind, silent before the Holy Ghost's teaching, flows into the One — naked into naked — and there the Godhead is revealed. The sermon closes with the image of the king and his intimate retainers: God gratifies their every want, and even those who know little of him on earth, knowing only as sun glimpsed through forest shadow, may yet reach him by practice and strength of will.
Eckhart (c. 1260–1328) was a Dominican friar, theologian, and mystic, born in Hochheim in Thuringia. He studied and taught in Paris, held the chair of theology at Cologne, and rose to the rank of Vicar-General of the Bohemian province. In 1326 the Archbishop of Cologne brought heresy charges against him; Eckhart appealed directly to the Pope, died in 1328 before the verdict, and was posthumously condemned in the bull In Agro Dominico (1329). This archive presents the complete text of the sermon in the translation of C. de B. Evans, published in London by John M. Watkins, 1924, as Volume I of his edition of Meister Eckhart's works. Evans translated from Franz Pfeiffer's 1857 critical edition of the Middle High German text (Deutsche Mystiker des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, vol. ii), where the work appears as Sermon XVII. Source digitised at the Internet Archive (identifiers: meistereckhart0001eckh; in.ernet.dli.2015.31707). The sermon is reproduced here as a public-domain archival text.
In principio erat verbum (Joh. 1). Theologians talk of the eternal Word. God never spoke but one word, and that is still unspoken. The explanation is this. The eternal Word is the logos of the Father which is his only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ. In him he pronounces all creatures without beginning and without end. This accounts for the Word remaining unborn, for it never came out of the Father. This Word is to be known in fourfold guise.
First, on the altar in the priest's hands. There it is ours to know and love the eternal Word as we, in his eternal Word, appear to the heavenly Father. Secondly, we know the eternal Word as expounded by doctors from the chair. We receive it in their person; like water flowing in a channel, so does the eternal Word flow through its teachers. We should pay no heed to any shortcomings in the doctor: we must fix our gaze on the eternal Word in him, as it comes pouring eternally out of the ground of itself. Thirdly, we can recognise the eternal Word in our Lord's friends who, having followed this eternal Word, have gotten proof of it in life eternal, and also those that follow it in time, such, namely, as are quick in our Lord Jesus Christ. Fourthly, we have the eternal Word as spoken in the virgin soul by God himself; wordlessly, to wit, since the soul is not able to express him.
I would have you know that the eternal Word is being born within the soul, its very self, no less, unceasingly. I tell you, the soul knows the eternal Word better than all the doctors can expound it. What we can express is all too little, so for the nonce she is bearing the eternal Word in mind. According to the masters we ought by rights to go to school where the Holy Ghost is teacher; and know, where he is teacher and is bound to be, there he finds students properly equipped to profit by his lofty teaching which issues from out the Father's heart. So the soul has, if she will, the Father and the Son and Holy Ghost: she goes flowing into the one where naked in naked is revealed to her. Our masters say that no one can attain to this so long as he retains of nether things as much as a needle-point can carry. Into the naked Godhead none may get except he be as naked as he was when he was spilt from God.
The masters say, giving us wise counsel, that leaving God his glory we ought to get all things direct from him and not from creatures. We shall leave God his glory by leaving him to work just how he will and when he will, we staying idle and free. For we must see that God does all for the best. And so I trow it lies with us, so far as it is in us, to help God to preserve his glory.
A master says: Little recks the king of those of his retainers who perform the drudgery. He notices the ones about his privy chambers and gratifies their every want. God does the same with his chosen friends, the intimates of his mysterious privacy: he never turns a deaf ear to their prayer. Withal the masters do affirm that numbers go to heaven who know no more of God on earth than, as it were, of sun in forest gloom. Desiring this supremely it rests with us to compass it by practice and by strength of will. Amen.
Colophon
In Principio erat Verbum (Sermon XVII in the Pfeiffer edition) by Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328). This archive reproduces the translation of C. de B. Evans, published in The Works of Meister Eckhart, Volume I, London: John M. Watkins, 1924. Evans translated from the Middle High German text established by Franz Pfeiffer in Deutsche Mystiker des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, vol. ii (Leipzig, 1857). The scriptural text is John 1:1. Source digitised at the Internet Archive (identifiers: meistereckhart0001eckh; in.ernet.dli.2015.31707). The sermon is reproduced here as a public-domain archival text.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
🌲