The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 8 of 124

Sermon for the Sunday after Christmas.

While all things were in quiet silence. — Wisd. xviii, 14.

We are to speak today of the eternal generation, by which in eternity and without cessation God the Father begets the Eternal Word, and now in our Saviour’s person born in time and in human nature. Says St. Augustine: “What is it to me that the eternal generation of the Word ceaselessly takes place if He is not generated in me? All depends on whether or not He is born in me.”

Thus it behooves us to speak of this generation, begun and perfected when God the Father utters His Eternal Word in a perfect soul. Herein understand me to be speaking of a perfect man, one who has walked in God’s paths, and that steadfastly until now, and not of men who are natural and unexercised in a devout life; for these are far removed from and unknowing of this Divine generation. The wise man Solomon says “While all things were in quiet silence * * * Thy Almighty Word leaped down from Heaven from Thy royal throne.” This Word is the subject of our sermon. Of it we remark three things. First, we ask: Where in the soul does God the Father utter His Word? What part of the soul is made conscious of this Divine operation? That must be the part that is purest, noblest and most delicately sensitive. Indeed, whatever of nobility God, with all His power, has implanted by creation in the soul’s nature, and whatever of nobility the soul has afterwards received from Him, upon all of this must God work in imparting this Divine generation. Therefore, the soul must keep itself all purified and high-minded, living in simplicity and wholly interiorly, restraining

The second question is this: Just how should the soul behave toward this Divine generation? Should it labor in co-operation with it, so as to facilitate the Divine birth, forming images in the understanding and in the thoughts, saying to itself such things as God is wise, almighty, eternal? Or is it better to assist the Divine fatherly act by withdrawing totally from all thoughts, words and acts, and from all images of the mind, resting quite passive under God’s influence, as far as this may be done, and letting Him alone to act? Which of these two ways best serves the Divine birth in the soul?

Thirdly, we are to consider how great are the benefits of this Divine generation.

And now, reverting to our first question. And I will herein use ordinary and natural language, easily understood. For, although I believe the Scriptures more than I do myself, yet ordinary terms will be better understood. Our text tells us that a secret word was uttered amid quiet silence. O Lord, where, then, is that silence, where is the spot in which that word is uttered? As I said before, so now say I again: It is the purest place the soul can offer and the noblest; it is in the soul’s very renovated depths; yea, in its most essential being. That place it is that holds the quiet silence ministering to this Divine birth. Never does any created thing or any image enter there; nor in that innermost soul is there any action, or understanding, or knowledge; no, nor any figure, whether of herself or of any creature. Everything the soul does it does by its faculties. If it thinks, it is with its reason; if it recalls the past, it is with the memory, and if it loves, it is with the will. Thus, it is ever with the soul’s faculties and not with its essential being that it acts; all its activity depends on some intermediary. The power of seeing works not without the eyes; without them, seeing is not. And the same is true of the soul’s activity through all the other senses; it always depends on an intermediary. But in the essential being of the soul there is no action, for the faculties with which it works flow out of this very essence. In this alone abides that silence, that perfect quiet, that proper condition for God to operate the Divine generation and speak His Eternal Word. In this depths of its being the soul is by its very nature incapable of receiving anything but God’s own essence, and that

None but God alone can have access to the soul’s essence; creatures cannot, for they must stay outside among the soul’s faculties, in which it beholds their image, by means of which it gives them entrance. When the soul’s faculties come into touch with creatures, these faculties form an image of them and present it to the soul, which in that way knows them. No deeper than this can creatures sink into the soul. Nor does the soul ever approach creatures except by willingly receiving an image of them, and by the presence of the same it is brought in contact with creatures. The soul forms the image from the thing itself by means of its own faculties; knowing, for example, and being joined to, a stone, a horse, or a man by the image thus made and perceived, the knowledge necessarily coming into the soul from outside through the senses. Hence it happens that nothing is so little known to the soul as its own real self. And hence a certain teacher says that the soul is unable to form or receive an image of its own self, for the reason that all images enter through the senses, and these cannot perceive the soul. It knows all other things, but itself it knows not. Of nothing is it so ignorant as of itself, and this is for lack of necessary intermediate image.

And be assured that when the soul is freed from all images and intermediaries, God can for that reason join it to Himself directly and without the interposition of anything whatsoever. Consider that whatever power thou dost claim for any human master, thou must own God to possess the sapie, and that beyond all measure. Now, the wiser and mightier such a master is, the less does he need means and instruments to influence thee and the simpler is his power. But man needs many means and instruments for his outward works, and between his planning and his performance there is much preparation. On the other hand, the moon and sun in their masterful work of illuminating the world, need no longer than the twinkling of an eye to fill all the ends of the earth with light. And an angel needs even less means and uses fewer images; while the very highest seraph has but one single figure in which he knows and acts his part, though lesser spirits need a multiplicity of such aids. But God needs no aid of images or instruments at all, not even of one. God acts upon the soul directly, without image or figure; yea, upon the soul’s deepest depths, into which no image has ever penetrated, nor any being other than God’s self. This can no created thing ever accomplish. God the Father thus begets His Son in

And how is this Divine generation accomplished in the soul? Remember that God the Father has a knowledge of Himself which penetrates His being perfectly and without the interposition of any image; and it is thus that God the Father generates His Son in true unity of Divine nature. Now in no other manner does God the Father beget His Son in the essence and being of the soul, and in doing so unite Himself with the soul. But if in this Divine work there were any intermediary of figure or image, there could be no true and perfect union, and upon such a union depends all the soul’s happiness.

But you may object that by nature the soul is ever full of images. I answer no; for if that were true the soul could never be happy, nor could God ever make a being capable of perfect bliss; nor would God be our greatest joy and last end — God, who is the beginning and the end of all. No creature can ever be the bliss of another creature, nor its perfection. The perfection of all virtue in this mortal life is followed by the perfection of immortal life hereafter, which consists in immediate union with God. If thou wouldst, therefore, enjoy here below a foretaste of thy future bliss, thou must needs retire inward and dwell in thy soul’s depths and essence. There must it be that God will touch thee with His most simple being, without medium or similitude. No image is for its own sake, but only to show its original, coming from without by means of the senses acting on creatures; and as no creature can ever make us happy, much less can any image of creatures.

And now let us consider our second question, namely: What shall one do to win and merit that this Divine generation shall take place within his soul? Shall we co-operate by meditating on God, and that by means of similitudes? Or shall one rather rest in mental silence and wait for God in quiet of mind, leaving to Him alone all active working? And now let me repeat what I have said before: Such a matter as this concerns only perfect souls, who have already won to themselves, as it were essentially, all virtuous living, doing good without any effort — men who are living examples of the life and teaching of our Lord. Let such as these know that if they would be granted this divine life, their best and highest part is to be still and let God act and speak.* When he exposes and condemns the quietism of the false mystics. There, too, he explains the restful and passive receptivity of real contemplation, just as it has ever been all the powers of a soul are withdrawn from all activity and all similitudes of creatures, then in that soul shall the Divine Word be uttered. According to our text: “While all things were in quiet silence the Almighty Word leaped down from Heaven.” Therefore, in proportion as thou dost earnestly gather inward all thy faculties in forgetfulness of all created things and of all their similitudes, being recollected wholly in thyself in obliviousness of creatures, the nearer art thou to receive the generation of the Divine Word.

O, if thou couldst but forget all things! Yea, if thou couldst but be unconscious of thy own very life, and be able to say, with St. Paul: “Whether in the body or out of the body, I know not, God knoweth” (II Cor. xii, 2) . In him had the spiritual part so entirely absorbed the natural faculties that he forgot his bodily existence; memory and understanding no longer acted, nor did the senses and powers whose office is to regulate corporal life. His bodily heat was suspended, and yet without hurt to his physical condition, and he suffered no injury from being for three days without meat and drink. The same was the case with Moses; he fasted during the forty days he was with God in the mountain, and was no weaker, but just as strong, the last day as the first. So must one withdraw from the life of the senses and, turning inward all his powers, forget everything, even his very self. Hence a teacher says: “Quit the unrest of external activity, fly and hide from the storms of outward things and inward thoughts, for these breed disturbance.” If God shall utter His Word in the soul, the soul must be in peace and tranquillity. It is then that He, indeed, utters His Word and His own self in the soul; it is not any resemblance, but it is His very self. St. Dionysius says: “God has no similitude or image of Himself, for He is essentially all good, all truth, all being.” He does all in the twinkling of an eye, whether He acts in Himself or out of Himself. Do not imagine that when God made the heavens and earth and all things, that he made one today and another tomorrow; for, even though Moses thus writes, he does so in order that his readers may the more easily understand God’s creative act, for He Himself was better informed. God’s act of creation was only this: He willed and it was done. God acts without means or figures; and the more thou art freed from them, the more apt art thou to receive His influence; and, being the absolute cessation of mental action. While the ordinary activity of the faculties is suspended, the soul is gazing into God with a distinct longing, intensely reaching onward into deeper and deeper joy of contemplation.

About this St. Dionysius counsels his disciple, Timothy: “Chasten thy senses, elevate thyself above thyself and all thy powers above speech and reason, above works and methods and existence, and abide in hidden, quiet darkness, and it is thus that thou shalt come to the knowledge of the unknown and all-good God.” There must be withdrawal of the soul from all things; God feels it beneath His diguity to act by means of images.

You might ask, Where does God act without any image? It is iu the depths and essence of the soul. I cannot know it in the ordinary way of knowing, for my soul’s faculties perceive nothing except in images, each object being necessarily known by its proper image; for example, the soul cannot see and recognize a horse in the figure of a man; and, because all images enter the soul from without, the Divine generation is hidden and mysterious to it, and that is all for the best. This Divine act within the soul being so unaccountable, it sinks it deep in amazement. Then it forthwith studies this event within its depths, and that very eagerly, and knows better and better that it is most real, though it cannot tell how it is, nor exactly what it is, only it soon knows that it is God. When a man knows the cause of anything, forthwith he tires of it and looks about to find something else to investigate, ever striving after knowledge and never resting content. But in this obscure knowledge of God acting within it, the soul is fixed fast and keeps on constantly enquiring. Hence the wise man’s teaching in our text, that His hidden Word was uttered amid quiet silence of all things, in a very secret way, stealing into my soul unawares. But you may ask how can this be a hidden Word, since the very nature of every word is to reveal something. And I answer that this Word, as it flashes forth in my soul does, indeed, reveal something, for it is a witness of God, and only therefore is it called a Word. But that it was the Divine Word, was at first hidden from me by reason of its stealing into my soul in secret and in stillness.

And the benefit of this is that it makes’ us search for it, since it is hidden and yet with us, appears and yet is concealed, and so perforce we must yearn and sigh after it. So St. Paul urges us to follow after it and never give over till we have possessed it; for he had come back from the third heaven, having there beheld all Divine things; yet he forgot them, and this was because he had been rapt so deep into God that his reason could not act there. When he would seek to tell of what happened, he found it concealed from him; and bo he looked for it within his very soul, and not by mental exertion toward what was outward; for such things are within and not without, absolutely within; and because he was interiorly sure of this so did he say: “I am sure that neither death nor life shall be able to separate us from the love of God” (Bom. viii, 38*39) ; namely, that love he felt the Divine Word had generated within him.

A heathen sage said this beautiful word: “I see something true within me, shining before my spirit. I know full well that it is something real, but what it is I cannot understand, only I believe that if I could but grasp it I should know all truth.” And then another sage answered him: “Ah, yes, keep up thy search for this hidden thing; for if thou canst but grasp it thou shalt have all good, thou shalt have eternal life.”

St. Augustine likewise teaches: “I have discovered something, in my soul which lights it up and which, if it could but be perfected within me, I would be life eternal. It is hidden and yet revealed, coming in secretly. And its meaning is that it will steal all things away from the soul. What it reveals to me is that it is come to gain entrance to my soul and lead it away, and cause it to strip itself of all things.” In the same sense the prophet prayed that the Lord might take from him his spirit and give him the Divine Spirit. And so spoke the love-stricken soul in the Canticle: “My soul melted when He [my beloved] spoke” (Cant, v, 6) . As if to say, when He entered my soul I fainted away with love. And such is Christ’s meaning when he tells us that whosoever leaveth father or mother for His sake shall receive a hundred-fold (Matt, xix, 29). And in St. John’s Gospel (xii, 26) : “He that would minister to Me, let him follow after Me,” and not after his senses.

Perhaps thou wilt say: Oh, Lord, wilt thou reverse the soul’s natural life and work against its nature? For by our senses and their imagemaking must we live. Art thou going to turn back this our soul’s order of life? No; by no means. But dost thou know what nobility God hath implanted in this same nature, yet all unknown, all hidden? Those who have written about the soul’s nobility have never come nearer to it than their natural reason could carry them. They have never entered into the depths, and hence much has been hidden from them and remains unknown. Hence the prophet says: “I will hear what the Lord will speak in me” (Ps. lxxxiv, 9). It was because of this hidden nobility of the soul that the Word came down in the darkness of night. And St. John says: “The light shineth in darkness.” And he also tells

Let us now consider our third point, the point of the Heavenly Word, and of the darkness which is His peculiar accompaniment. In brief, it is that thou Bha It be born as the heavenly Father’s child and nothing less, for herein He gives thee the power to be made a son of God.

Mark well this fruit. For all the truth that those teachers who follow reason alone have ever taught, all that such will ever teach till the last day, is nothing in comparison to the wisdom in the depths of this soul. Although this interior life is darkness and ignorance, yet it has more wisdom than all external knowledge whatsoever. It strips us of all knowledge of things gained by reason; it even strips us of self. As Christ says: “If any man cometh to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters; yea, and his own life also [and all the external things else], he cannot be My disciple” ( Luke xiv, 26) . It is as if He would say, whosoever does not give up all that is outward in creatures is incapable of this Divine inward generation. If thou wilt divest thee of thy own very self and of all that is external to thee, then God will in very truth give thee His Divine generation. And I firmly believe that the man who thus stands inwardly upright with God, would rather suffer the most shameful death than commit the least mortal sin. I will even aflinn that as long as he continues thus joined to God, he will not be guilty of ordinary daily venial faults against himself or others, as far as these are wilful, whether by act or permission. He is so strongly drawn to God that he feels as if he cannot turn away from Him, and always sighs and yearns after Him.

May God help us to obtain this Divine birth within us — God who is now born unto us a Man — so that we poor, weak men, as we are, may be divinely born unto Him. Amen.