The Sermons of Johannes Tauler · 14 of 124

Second Sermon for the Feast of the Epiphany

Where is He that is born King of the Jews? — Matt 11, 2.

Consider this birth attentively as to where it takes place. And as I have many times told you before, so now I say again: This eternal generation is in our souls, and that in no other way than it takes place in eternity. It is thus in the essence and depth of our souls. And this gives rise to some questions.

The first point is this: God is present in all things, and that more intimately and naturally than they are present to themselves. Now, wherever God is, He must act; that means He must know Himself and thereby utter His eternal Word. How, then, is the soul of man to be compared with other created things in reference to this Divine birth? In this way: God is in all things by His essence, His action and His power; but in the soul alone is He born. We find a trace of God and His footprints in all creatures; but the soul is by nature made after God’s likeness, and that likeness of God is perfected by this Divine birth. No other earthly creature is capable of experiencing it. Resemblance to God is the soul’s perfection, whether in form of light, or grace, or happiness; and this is bestowed only by the Divine generation. Await this in thy interior life, and thou shalt obtain all that is precious, consoling and joyful, most truly and most essentially. Neglect it, and thou neglectest everything good, and everything happy. It will bring thee pure and essential blessedness. Whatsoever joy thou seekest apart from it, will that Divine likeness in the soul, that has reference properly and peculiarly to the eternal generation, which, at the entrance of the heavenly Father into the soul’s deepest depths, is therein accomplished, no other image but God’s ever having penetrated there.

The second question is this: Inasmuch as the Divine birth is accomplished in the soul’s depths, why shall it not be in a sinner’s as well as in a good man’s? for the essential nature of one soul is the same as that of another. Yea, even in hell a man’s natural nobility of soul still subsists. And to this 1 answer, that it is proper to the Divine birth always to shed a new light upon the soul, pouring forth God’s own self in that illumination — first in the interior and essence, and then overflowing into all the faculties of the spirit, and finally into a man’s external life. It happened thus to St. Paul at Damascus, when God’s light smote him and spoke to him. A reflection of that light shone outwardly round about him and was seen by his companions. It is ever so with pious souls; God’s light fills their inner depths, and then its overflow is seen in their bodily existence, which is thereby made lightsome. Of all this the sinner is wholly incapable, totally unworthy, for he is filled with sin and wickedness, which bolds his spirit in darkness. As St. John says: The darkness did not comprehend the light. This is because the path of the light is blocked up by falsehood and darkness. Light and darkness cannot exist together in the soul. Nor can God and the creature rule there together; before God enters in, the creature must be driven out.

How does a man first perceive this light? When he is converted to God a light glimmers and shines in his soul, giving him to understand what he ought to do and what he ought not to do; many a plain guidance shall be thine which thou hadst not any notion of before. And if thou askest, How shall I know it? I answer that thy heart shall be touched by God and led away from worldly things. How can this be done except by enlightening thee? And it will be so gentle and so sweet, that everything that is not God or inclining thee to God shall distress thee. This enlightenment of soul will enrapture thee with God. Thou shalt become conscious of many good admonitions within thee, not knowing from whence they come to thee; only it shall be plain that this

God that reigns within thee. Therefore, one never goes astray if he keeps to this true way. But he does wander blindly if he leaves it and trusts for guidance to outward things. Hence St. Augustine teaches that many, indeed, seek the light and the truth, but only toward the exterior, where it is not, and they often go to such a length as never to turn their eyes into their own souls at all. They have not found the true path, because the guide is within and not without. Whosoever would learn how to find and to recognize the true light, let him wait and watch for the Divine birth in his inmost soul; soon all his spiritual powers will be lighted up, and also his outward faculties. For as soon as God touches the interior with His truth, all of a man’s forces are filled with light, and by that light he learns more than anyone can teach him. Hence the prophet says: “I have understood more than all my teachers” (Ps. cxviii, 99). But since such a light as this cannot shine in a sinful soul, it is impossible that the Divine birth can be accomplished there. This light can have no fellowship with the darkness of sin, for it acts not in the faculties, but in the essence of the soul.

It may reasonably be asked why this regeneration does not take place in the soul’s faculties. Now, consider that every act is done for a certain end, which has first place in intention and last place in fulfillment; and God intends a most blessed end in all His works, namely, His own very self. And He would bring the soul, with all its powers, to that same end — union with Himself. With this end in view, God does all His works; and He generates His Son in the soul so that all its powers may be made partakers of the Divine birth. All that the soul has and is, God gathers up, and He leads it all to this Divine entertainment. If, meanwhile, the soul turns its powers into the outer life, the eyes distracting it with their gazing, the ears with hearing, the taste with eating, and the like, in just that degree is it incapable of acting interiorly, for every mental power that lacks concentration is acting imperfectly. If the soul will have a forceful life it must call home all its powers, and all the bodily senses, and concentrate them upon an interior life. St. Augustine says: “The soul is more really present with what it loves than with its own body.” A certain heathen master was absorbed in a mathematical calculation to that degree that he forgot to eat and drink. A soldier rushed into his room and brandished a sword over his head, knowing nothing of who he was. “Tell me who thou art or I will kill thee!” he shouted. But the mathematician was so absorbed in his problem that he neither saw nor heard his enemy, nor was he able to utter a word. The soldier called and threatened loud and long without any response, and at last he cut off the master’s head. And this absorption was the fascination of purely natural science. How much rather ought we to withdraw ourselves from all things, and assemble all our mental forces to contemplate and to know the eternal and immeasurable truth that is God. Gather, therefore, all thy reason, faculties, and senses into the depths of thy soul, for there is thy hidden treasure. Freed from all action and holily unknowing of all things, thou shalt surely find God.

Thou mightest say: Dear brother, would it not be better that each of the soul’s powers should maintain its own peculiar activity, each one not interfering with the others? I answer that I can in no wise know created things without suffering some hindrance therefrom. How, then, does God know all things without hindrance, and His blessed saints also? It is because the saints behold God Himself; and in Him it is that they behold all things else, even in one single image. And so does God behold all things in Himself, having no need to turn from one thing in order to behold another, as we must do. If in this life we could have a mirror, in which with one glance and in one image we could see and know all things, then our activity and our knowledge would work no hindrance in our spiritual life. But since we must always turn away from one thing if we would know another, therefore our knowledge of the one must hinder our knowledge of the other; for the soul is so bound up with its faculties that, withersoever any one of them goes, the soul goes forth with it. It is present with every faculty in all its activity; if it is not with them thinking, then they cannot be acting. Hence if it is poured out with them in the care of external things, so much the weaker must it become for the care of interior things. And for the Divine generation God will and must have a soul free and unencumbered, a spirit in which there shall be naught but Himself alone. He demands a soul which waits on nothing and nobody but Himself alone; and thus did Christ teach: “If any man come to Me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke xiv, 26). He came upon earth not to send peace, but the sword” (Matt.

If thou wilt see all things and hear all, and if in thy heart thou wilt consider all things, then in very truth thy soul shall be wasted and scattered among them all. Hence a certain master says: “If a man would lead an interior life, let him draw all his powers, as it were, into a corner of his soul and hide himself with them there, far from all forms and images, and then he may act.” Now, that man must forget all things, ignore all things, and rest hushed in stillness, in order that the Divine Word may be born within him. Let him know that he can now serve God’s Word in no other way, except by being still and tranquil. He hears the Word speak amid his own silence; he sees the Divine light amid his own ignorance; when he has come to know nothing, then does the Word reveal itself to him.

You may say: Sir, thou placest all our perfection in a certain kind of ignorance, and ignorance is a fault, for God has made man to know, and the prophet prayed God to make men know. Ignorance is the cause of sin and vanity; an ignorant man is a fool, and is like an ape. And I answer thus: What thou sayest is all true if a man continue in his ignorance. But mark well that from the ignorance I speak of, a man emerges into a knowledge high above all forms and images. Again, this ignorance is not the continuance of a previous ignorance; it is from motives of wisdom that a man herein makes himself ignorant. We ought to make ourselves ignorant for the sake of having Divine wisdom; whereupon our souls, unknowing and empty, are presently adorned and ennobled with supernatural knowledge. In this process, if we but rest passive, we are made more perfect than if we actively worked. Hence the saying of a certain master: “We learn more wisdom by hearing than by seeing.”

It is related of a heathen philosopher, that as he was about to die his disciples told him of a great discovery in science. He raised his head and said: “Let me know about this, that I may enjoy it in eternity.” Hearing brings things into us; seeing gives us out to things. Hence in eternal life we shall have more joy in the faculty of hearing than in that of seeing, for my act of hearing the Eternal Word is all within me, and that of seeing goes forth out of me. By hearing I am made passive; by seeing, active; and our happiness does not consist in our activity, but in what we passively receive from God. As God is greater than all creatures, so is his action greater than mine. And it is by His infinite love that He has made our blessedness depend on His action and not on our

“Timothy is more perfect than all other men, because he is a man who is passive under God’s action.”

All this explains how this kind of ignorance is not a defect, but a perfection; and how thy not doing is thy highest work and far above thy doing. Cease from all activity, be silent in every one of thy powers and faculties, and thou shalt in very truth experience the birth of the Divine Word within thee, and find thy new-born King within thy soul. Whatever else besides Him thou now flndest there, thou must give up and cast away from thee. All whatsoever that is not pleasing to Him may He help us totally to reject — He Who was born a Child unto us that we might be made children of God. Amen.