Eckhart Review

ISSN: 0969-3661 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ymmt19

What is “mine” in union with God? The theological

anthropology of Meister Eckhart and St. John of
the Cross

E.W. Howells

To cite this article: E.W. Howells (1998) What is “mine” in union with God? The theological
anthropology of Meister Eckhart and St. John of the Cross, Eckhart Review, 7:1, 42-54, DOI:
10.1179/eck_1998_7_1_005

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Published online: 21 Apr 2015.

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 What is "mine" in union with God?
The theological anthropology of Meister Eckhart
and St. John of the Cross
E.W. Howells
On the face of it, S1.John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart do not have very
much in common. Eckhart lived from about 1260 to some time in the late
1320s in Germany; John of the Cross lived in Spain in the mid to late sixteenth
century. Eckhart was a Dominican and an academic master; John was a
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Carmelite (of the Discalced branch of the order) who spent only a brief spell at
university. When we consider their thought, Eckhart is what is known as a
"speculative" mystic, cC?ncemedwith pushing forward the boundaries of what
we say and know about God; while John is the emotional poet who has given
us, most famously, a highly psychological description of the states and
experiences of "the dark night of the soul."
Yet behind these different exteriors, Eckhart and John of the Cross have
much more in common than separates th~m. Eckhart and John of the Cross
belong to what can only be described as the same tradition, the late medieval
tradition of mystical writing. This is first of all a matter of the genre of the
writing: Eckhart eschews the style of the scholastic disputation and the Latin
language for his more daring theological. statements, Jurning instead to the
vernacular middle-high-German and the sermon. John of the Cross, similarly,
uses the poem-always in Spanish and not Latin-to describe the heights of
his thought, and then comments on the poem, almost as if it were a biblical
text. This change from the university or scholastic styIe, and from the monastic
style of writing also, signals other changes in.the ·ideas that late medieval
mystics like Eckhart and John of the Cross were' most concerned with. The
immediacy of contact between the individual soul and God,·usually called
-"union with God," is stressed to the extent that the soul has at least one foot
~l~e.aqyin heaven while still living this life. Not only is the soul already with
God in a relationship like the beatific vision, but it is able to combine this with
the ordinary actions of every day on earth. For these reasons, Bernard McGinn
and other scholars regard late medieval figures like Eckhart and John of the
..Cross as rooted in very much the same soil.1 In addition, John's short spell at
the university of Salamanca meant that on a more general level he shared with
Eckhart the same schohlstit background of thought from Augustine to
Aquinas, and in this respect he too was a "medieval" thinker, in spite of the
changes of "the Renaissance" in art and music which spelt the arrival of "early
modernity" in other areas in the sixteenth century.2 Whether John actually read
Eckhart is a harder question to answer. The likely answer is "no ,3 but the
lf

similarities in their thought are striking, not just in the concern for immediate
42
 contact with God already noted, but in the use of phrases like the "depth" and
"substance" of the soul in John of the Cross, referring to something like
Eckhart's "ground of the soul." John almost certainly took these terms from
Spanish translations of those close to Eckhart, such as Suso, Tauler and
Ruusbroec.4 I am not going to be able to go into the possible means of
transmission of these terms from Eckhart to John of the Cross here, but I do
think it very likely that John read Tauler and Ruusbroec in translation-and
maybe ~yen some of Eckhart.
The best way in to the thought of John of the Cross is to understand
something of his life. At the age of 21 he entered the Carmelite order, but soon
thought of changing to the Carthusians, seeking a more solitary and rigorous
life. He took a different direction, however, when shortly afterwards he met
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Teresa of Avila, then 52, who was in the full sway of her reform. of the
women's side of the Carmelite order and invited him to take charge of the
men's side of the reform. John's only condition was that he should be allowed
to start immediately. His zeal was effectively channeled by Teresa into the
project of reform, as he was set to work on founding a series of men's houses
to match Teresa's rapid expansion of the women's convents. For two years they
worked together on the reform of Teresa's own convent of the Incarnation in
A vila, .with John as the confessor to the nuns. However, the reformed or
"disclaced" Carmelites· (called discalced because they wore no sandals), as so
often in these reform movements, quickly attracted the hostility of the rest of
the order who remained unreformed. The old "calced" Carmelites attempted an
all-out suppression of the reform. John of the Cross was a prime target, a.nd
was taken into captivity by his former brethren of the calced Carmelites. They
kidnapped him. at night and took him blindfold to the prison of the Camielite
monastery in Toledo. He spent nine months in solitary confinement in a
window-less room about ten feet by six feet, being taken out only to be beaten
regularly and to have pressure. put on him to renounce the reform. At the end
of this period John made a miraculous escape, but it is no surprise to find that
the rest of his life was affected by the prison experience. lain Matthew, in his
excellent (and concise) recent study of John of the Cross,s points out that John
probably took the psychological attack on him harder than the physical-the
notion that he had been disobedient to his vows by following the reform,
combined with the verbal abuse and sheer mental strain of solitary
confinement-and he interpreted this as the darkness of God's absence, a
palpable dryness, emptiness and affliction. Yet his breakthrough was to find
the presence of God within such absence and affliction. As he later said, in the
darkness there is "a kind of companionship and inner strength which walks
with the soul and gives her strength"'6 For John, the paradox that God may be
closest to the soul when all outward indications would suggest that he is most
absent was to become the central point of his teaching.7
In this paper, I intend to look at a particular area of John's thought which
will shed light on his understanding of God's presence to the soul, which is his
43
 theological anthropology, and to compare it with Eckhart. "Theological
anthropology" is a jargon-term meaning the way the individual human soul
relates to God. Eckhart and John both derived their theological anthropology
from Augustine, w~'o regarded the soul as having a trinitarian structure
consisting of the soul's highest powers of memory, intellect and will ..
Augustine developed his theory of the trinitarian likeness of the soul to God in
his great work On the Trinity, and speculation on the role of memory, intellect
and will is to be found throughout his writings. Eckhart and John followed
Augustine in regarding the image of God, in which we are all created, as
residing principally in these three "rationar' or "spiritual" powers.s The soul is
divided into higher rational powers and lower bodily powers, which work
together-there is not a strong ,body-soul dualism as is often supposed-but on
a hierarchical view, the rational powers are closest to God. John of the Cross
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developed this Augustinian line of thought in his teaching on union with God
to a much greater extent than Eckhart. We can therefore notice some important
developments and differences between Eckhart and John in this area of their
teaching, as' John seeks'to give what is known as a "faculty psychology"-that
is, a consideration of the role of memory, intellect and will-a central place in
his teaching ~n union.-
Eckhart's theological anthropology is well represented by his German
SenTIOn 83~9Eckhart'begins with the traditional argument of Augustine that the
soul's highest powers of memory, intellect and will resemble the Trinity. In the
highest part: 'of the soul or mens there is a power, the power of memory, which
re'sembles the "Father in his outflowing divinity." The memory stores the
images"of things in the world and then pours them into the other powers
(intellect 'and will) in the process of remembering, which resembles the way
the Father pours his being into the Son and Holy Spirit in the unity of the
Trinity. Memory, intellect and will are thus explicitly related to Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. The essential point is that they func~ion as .a unity, bat are also
relationally distinct from one another in a manner that resembles the Persons
of the" Tri!,ity. However, Eckhart goes on to note that while .these higher
faculties may resemble God in their operation, we cannot actually know God
by· using them in the ordinary way, as God is very different from other objects
of our knowledge. As he points out in virtually every sermon, God is unlike
any. other created thing; he is not a thing at all, but the source and ground of
everything. The next part of Sermon 83 is an explanation of the way of
unknowing. It is impossible to know God by the common terms applied to
him. "If I say: "God is wise," that is not true .... H I say, "God is a being," it is
not true; -he is a being transcending being and transcending nothingness." We
cannot say either that God is something or nothing, as he transcends these
categories" For Eckhart, the soul must therefore proceed by a way of
unknowing. "If you do not wish to be brutish, n he says, t'do not understand the
.Clod who is beyond words." Unknowing is a spiritual method, a method which
brings about the detachment of the human soul from created things that is
44
 essential to enter into God. But by unknowing it is important to realise that
Eckhart does not mean merely turning away from other things and stopping all
mental activity. He goes on to explain:

Then what ought I to do? You ought to sink down out of all your your-
ness, and flow into his his-ness, and your "yours" and his "his" ought to
become one "mine," so completely that you with him perceive forever his
uncreated is-ness, and his nothingness, for which there is no name.10

The purpose of detachment is to remove what Eckhart calls "your your-

ness," a clear call to self-denial, but in this unknowing there is a new kind of
knowing, so that "you perceive forever his nncreated is-ness." The soul
becomes detached from the objects of its ordinary knowledge, but only in
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order to achieve a new kind of perception in which it knows God more

intimately. This returns Eckhart to further consideration of the role of the
soul's powers of memory, intellect and will in this new kind of knowing. In the
remainder of Sermon 83, he says that through grace or being "gilded with the
gold of divine love" the three superior powers no longer merely "resemble"
1t
God but "become God. The intellect becomes a single "is-ness" with God, no
longer perceiving God as separate from itself. "God must become me and I
must become God, so completely that this "he" and this "I" become and are
one "is"." For Eckhart it is important that the self does not simply pass into
oblivion by entering on the way of unknowing. Rather, the rational faculties,
supremely the intellect, become energised in a new way, participating in the
inner life of the Trinity, as he says, "without intermediary.tlll It is this that
permits him to say that this new way of knowing really is "mine." There. is a
strong subjective element. I have not merely given my self up to God, but my
own nlemory, intellect and will have become involved more intimately and
fully. The "I" has not been eradicated but transformed. As Eckhart says
elsewhere, "Whoever has so gone out of himself would be given back again to
himself, more his own.ttJ2
The question at the heart of Eckhart's theological anthropology,
therefore-and also at the heart of John's theological anthropology, as we shall
see-is how to account for the involvement of our rational powers in, knowing
God so that the knowing is genuinely our own, without regarding God as
simply another object of our knowledge alot:tgside other things. But there. is a
difficulty in Eckhart's teaching. This is what is known as his "negative
anthropology," which is his assertion that union actually takes place beyond
the involvement of the rational powers. This seems to contradict his view that
the rational powers are not less but more inolved in union than before. For
instance, in his famous. statement that there is a spark in the soul beyond the
Persons of the Trinity ~a light which "wants to go· into the simple ground, into
the quiet desert, into which distinction never gazed, not the Father, nor the
Son, nor the Holy Spirit, nIl he suggests that the rational powers are left behind.

45
 Both the soul and the Trinity unite in a common "ground" which is beyond all
distinction, so that God and the soul are an absolute unity beyond even the
relational distinctions of the Trinity. If there is no room for the Persons of the
Trinity, there is certainly no room for my memory, intellect and will. What
then can he mean by saying that the rational powers are involved in a new way
in union and that I become more my own?
Eckhart's answer relies on his dialectical method in which the distinctions
in the Trinity are said to be "distinction without distinction "14:distinctions
which the human mind requires to understand the Trinity, but which do not
actually exist in God. This view was considered "quite evil-sounding, very
rash and suspect of heresy" in Eckhart's bull of condemnation, but the point is
that even if Eckhart ultimately denies these distinctions, he still regards them
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as necessary to understanding the relation of the soul and God in union. IS

Specifically, he says that the distinction between "I" and God in union is the
same as the distinction between the Persons of the Trinity. I remain "me"
while uniting with God by entering into the active relationships of Persons that
we find in the the processions of the Trinity. In many places he speaks of the
inner boiling (bullitio) of the Trinity,16in which the Father is eternally "giving
birth" to the Son, a "giving birth" which is part of the "verdant and
blossoming" nature of the Trinity, and to be equated with the activity of the
Holy Spirit.17From this' same "giving birth," says Eckhart, "in the innermost
source', there I spring out in the Holy Spirit."18 My "I" is therefore constituted
by the Son's relation to the Father. I take up the Son's 'relation to the Father by
19

sharing in the same "giving birth" by which the Son proceeds from the Father,
and through this fruitful relation "I" arise, in the same procession as the Holy
Spirit. The distinction between the soul and God in union is not outside but
within God, in his own inner activity. This is most important in understanding
the nature of this "distinction without distinction" for Eckhart: it is not a static
kind of distinction between two separate entities, but a distinction within the
single activity of the processions of the Trinity. It is this that permits him to
say both that God and the soul have the same ground, and also "here I live
from what is my own, and God lives from what is his own.tr20 The soul retains
what is its "own", which Eckhart has already related to the rational powers, by
entering into the Trinity in the same relationship as the Son to the Father,
enabling the soul to unite with God while also remaining distinctly itself.
Turning to John of the Cross, we find that he uses a very similar trinitarian
basis for subjectivity in union with God to Eckhart's, but with much greater
attention to the precise status of memory, intellect and will at each stage of the
journey. This is perhaps partly because John is writing a formal treatise, as
opposed to Eckhart's briefer sermons on the subject. John begins his Spiritual
Canticle, for instance, with the indwelling of the Trinity in the soul, saying
that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are hidden "by essence and presence in the
innermost' being of the soul~"in a secret chamber which we ~ust give up all
else to find.21 He follows Augustine in regaiding the Trinity as providing the
46
 "map" of the human soul, with memory, intellect and will mapping onto the
three Persons. In the three rational powers he says that we find a "sketch" of
the three theological virtues: hope in the memory, faith in the intellect, and
love in the will.22 These give us an intense natural desire for God, but as we
search for God, for instance in the beauty of creation, the "traces" of his
presence all around us only increase our desire, and consequently, our sorrow
at his absence.23 The soul's desire is restless and endless. John goes on to say
that the soul cannot be satisfied with traces of God in creation, nor is it
satisfied even with the elevated state of grace, in which God reveals the
incarnation and the mysteries of faith in the articles of faith given to the
church. The mystic longs for something more. The soul cries, "Oh, if only the
24

truth hidden in your articles [the articles of faith], which you teach me in an
inexplicit and dark manner, you would give me completely, clearly, and
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explicitly, freed of their covering, as my'desire begs!"25The soul does not want
anything other than the articles of faith, but it wants to know them more
clearly. The clarity that John is asking for is that of the beatific vision, which is
normally reserved for heaven.26
John refers to the new knowledge that the soul seeks as "unmediated" or
"essential" knowledge of God. It is unmediated in the sense that it has no
created form: it does not use the usual mental images of created things that we
require in ordinary or "mediated knowledge. The aim of the one who enters
lt

on the path of contemplation, according to John, is to attain this unmediated

knowledge, which he regards as the most important aspect of union with God
and the essential feature of "mystical theology.tt27 He explains at some length
the change of epistemology that is required' to move from mediated to
unmediated knowledge. Briefly, he holds the Aristotelian theory of
knowledge, that all our natural knowing is mediated through the images and
forms we abstract from our bodily senses.28 For instance, we must have seen a
castle or a picture of a castle, or had it described to us using images of other
things we have seen, in order to understand what a castle looks like. The same
is true of our ordinary knowing of God, including that given us in revelation.
We know God through familiar images. We may understand that God is much
more than these images, but still we rely on images to understand anything of
what he is like. John then points out, in Eckhartian manner, that God in fact
resembles our images of him so little that we cannot claim to have any idea
what he is like. He is as different from our knowing as is the creature from the
creator and the temporal from the eternal.29 What we need therefore in order to
know God in a "proportional" way is a new means of knowing: not just new
knowledge, but a new way of knowing, to get away from knowing God as
another "thing", to knowing him "in himself', as he really is. This is achieved
by the transfonnation of the rational powers so that they are able to obtain
knowledge without images of things from the bodily senses but by God
infusing grace directly into them. John speaks of this new means of knowing
as "purely spiritual," requiring no created fonns, and producing knowledge of
47
 God trin himself. tr30
John is clear that the transformation of the soul to this new kind of
knowing is not a simple switch of what we know, but a profound change in
how we know, whicQ.entails a gradual process of renewal in the soul. It means
a change of self.31 As Eckhart put it, tryou must sink down out of your your-
ness." John puts an even greater stress on the necessity for detachment than
Eckhart. As anyone who has read John of the Cross will have noticed, union
with God does not constantly lie beneath the surface of our outer world, to be
realised in a moment of comprehension, as in Eckhart, but involves an arduous
ascent over a period of many years, which John explains step by step.32 In
John's longest treatise, the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Night (which
together form one treatise) each stage is called a different trnight" of the "dark
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night of the soul." Yet the reason for detachment is the same as in Eckhart,
which is to move us from an inadequate way of knowing God through images
and creatures to one in which we can be united with him, in himself. The soul
must be purged of its attachments to creatures, first in the senses and then in
the spirit. The purgation of the spirit is most important as it is here that
memory, intellect and will reside, which are the centre of all our knowing.
They must be "voided" or "emptied," John says, because they are full up with
the images and possessions of our minds which obscure and remove us from
God.33 Again, by this he does not lnean the removal of what we know, but a
fundamental change in our way of knowing. ~4 The will is crucial in this
change. The "voiding" of the rational powers means removing our desire for
creatures, as attachment to creatures excludes our attachment to 000.35 Once
this has been achieved, it is possible to reorientate all our rational powers from
the creaturely to the divine. More importantly, John regards "voiding" as the
expansion of the rational powers, so that they become capable of receiving
God in his "uncreated fullness", that is, wi~out.created image or form.36 This
is something like Eckhart's "sinking down" to the ground in the soul. Through
the voiding of the rational powers, the ~oul finds that it has what John calls an
"infinite capacity," which can be satisfied with nothing less than God in
himself.37 At this stage the soul perceives God only as a lack in itself, as
memory, intellect and will have become "as deep as the boundless.goods of
which they are capable," John says.38Nevertheless, this is the beginning of the
soul's new way of knowing. The soul is not looking for a creaturely image of
God, but for something infinite, which can only be God. It is therefore
orientated to God and no longer to creatures, which is the fundamental change
in the soul's way of knowing that detachment was designed to achieve.
John is often regarded as being excessively gloomy in his descriptions of
the sufferings of the dark night of the soul, and it is worth noting at this point
why he can have such a harsh view of detachment. In the general loss of the
images and forms of ordinary know ledge, the suffering of the soul is partly
because of the removal of its common comforts such as the feelings it
associates with' the presence of God in spiritual exercises and meditation, and
48
 even because of the removal of the images derived from private visions and
revelations.39 The soul suffers because it has a sense of being lost: John uses
terms like Eckhart's, of going by a way of "no modes" in the dark night,
because it Uhas lost all roads and natural methods in her communication with
God. "40 But more than this, the suffering is intense in anticipation of union, as
a sort of mirror image and opposite of the joy that it will have in union. The
soul in this state does not want its old spiritual exercises; it suffers because it
desires something more. It has a longing and a sense of absence proportional
to the love and knowledge of God of union that alone can satisfy it. John sees
it as self-denial patterned on Christ, who he says "was annihilated in his soul,
without any consolation or relief. "41 It reflects the greatness of union that is to
follow, just as Christ's resurrection is the ·goal and inverse of the sufferings of
the crucifixion.42
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Once the rational powers have been· voided, John turns from self-denial to
the positive role of the rational powers in union, and it is at this stage that the
soul's new way of knowing becomes truly the soul's own. The "infinite
capacity" for God in the rational powers makes the soul open to God in a new
way. It begins to notice a change in its perceptive powers, so ~at it is aware
not just of its imperfection and lack but of the spiritual light it possesses.43The
first PQsitive indication it receives of union with God is what Jo~n calls a
"touch of union" or tlspiritual feeling, which gives it a brief intimation of the
If

immediate knowledge of God.44 The differences from ordinary knowledge are

clear. First, it has no created form, but is knowledge of "naked truths." It has
no particular images like ordinary knowledge but simply is God himself.45
Second, when John calls it a "spiritual feeling,". he does not mean that it is any
less than ordinary knowledge, but that it engages the will first and then the
intellect, which is the reverse of ordinary knowing.46 Third, it comes through
immediate contact with God, between what John calls "the substance of the
soul" and the substance of God. He s·ays, "There is a touch of substances, that
is, of the substance of God in the substance of the soul. "47 By "the substance of
the seul" he means the same as the "infinite capacity" made by the voiding of
memory, intellect and wilL "The rational powers now have a depth which is
equal to God's and therefore they show an affinity with God's very nature and
essence. In all of John's thought, this theme bears the strongest relation to
Eckhart. John quotes the well-known text from the Psalms, that one abyss calls
to another abyss, like to like,48and suggests (in -a manner that is actually closer
to Hadewijch than Eckhart49) that God and the soul are united in their shared
depth. Elsewhere he calls this depth "the centre of the soul," and says, "the
centre of the soul is God."50 This set of terms, the "substance:' "depth," and
Ucentre" of the soul function very much as Eckhart's "ground of the soul."
Having been "voided" the soul gains a depth that is equal to God, and therefore
unites with God in this depth. However, while John maintains the likeness of
the soul's depth to God's depth, he maintains a stronger distinction between
them than Eckhart, because the two ·"substances" come into immediate
49
 Ucontact" but are not said to be the same substance.51
Nevertheless, the overall pattern of John's argument is the same as
Eckhait;s~- as he goes on to say that the likeness between God and the
substance of the soul is in a common sharing of the spiration of the Holy Spirit
that is between the Father and the Son in the Trinity:

(T)he Holy Spirit elevates the soul sublimely and infonns her and makes
her capable of breathing in God the same spiration of love that the Father
breathes in the Son and the Son in the Father, which is the Holy Spirit
Himself. 52

Thus the soul loves God from within God, "not through itself. .. but through the
Holy Spirit, as the Father and the Son love each other. "53The soul now has the
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ability to know everything it kno~s through God: its new knowledge is not
just of God, but of creatures through God, so that it need never tum from God
to know creaturely things.54 Equally, there is no further conflict between its
knowledge of creatures and its knowledge of Goq, as it can have both together.
The soul is no longer "lost" through having become detached from its ordinary
way of knowing with images and forms, as it has found itself more fully within
God, from where it can return to the use of the bodily senses without departing
from union with God. John is clear that the rational powers are involved not
less but more. The intellect can now "see" God without image or figure;55 the
memory has the uncreated form or'God impressed directly upon it, so that the
soul has in mind the "eternal years";56and the will is attached to God so that it
desires all things in God, rather than for themselves alone.57 The soul is
constantly activated by the spiratio,n of the Holy Spirit, so that it has a
knowledge and understanding which is "the lofty knowledge of the
Godhead."58 John and Eckhart share this un~sual feature of bringing the human
subject into the active processions in the l)inity,' and of identifying it with the
procession of the Holy Spirit. 59 .

At this point it would seem that John agrees with Eckhart that there is no
distinction between the soul and God except that between Father and Son in
the Trinity, as the "mapping" of the soul onto the Trinity in its rational powers
is now complete, with the soul united through the spiration of the Holy Spirit
within the Trinity. However, John has, an additional distinction between the
soul and God over Eckhart that we noted in passing, which is that he speaks of
the "touch" of the substance of the soul with the' substance of God: the two
beings remain distinct not just as Father and Son within the Trinity, but as
creature and creator, human and divine. In short, the soul has united with God
by·participation, rather than becoming God in su1;>stance.60But what does this
mean, given that John has gone to all the effort of showing that the soul can
kA<?wGod without, created forms and in his "nncreated fullness," in the
spiration of the Holy Spirit? John wants the soul to have a knowledge which is
not different in its essential features from the beatific vision-it is unmediated

50
 and uncreated-and yet he concedes that, this side of death, the soul must
necessarily know it in a somewhat human way .~1 John makes a concession that
Eckhart would never have.·made, .that in order for the soul to know the new
knowledge it has, its new way of·knowing must "res~mble" its old way of
knowing in certain particulars.62 First, as in Eckhart, the new knowing takes
place in our own memory, intellect and will: the soul does not give up these
powers, but sees their function expanded. Second, which we do not find in
Eckhart, there must be a subject-object relation in knowledge, even though in
this case the "object" is Goo.63 The difference from ordinary knowing is that
God is known in the substance and de.pth of the soul, rather than through the
l
senses, but he must remain as "object in relatiQn
' to the sours substance if the
soul is to know him. John replicates the structure; of ordinary knowing in the
rational powers when they are directed to God, while maintaining the use of
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only "spiritual fonns" and bypassing the bodily senses. He says that the
rational powers become "deep caverns of feeling" which can "feel" and· know
God directly, without the bodily senses, and' h~ likens their depth to the
"central sense" which collates information in ordinary knowing.64 Thus the
soul remains distinct from God not only in the internal distinction.within the
Trinity, but also in the structure of knowing that is specific to the creature.
A final difference between Eckhart and John clearly shows their different
approaches to the question of the role of the rational powers in union with
God. John favours the language of bridal union of the Song of Songs more than
Eckhart to describe the final relationship of God and the .soul, because bridal
union stresses the equality and mutuality between the soul and God while also
maintaining the existence of two partners as opposed to a single entity. In
particular, John says that in union "the soul reflects the divine light in aIDore
excellent way because of the active intervention of its will. "65 For the full state
of union to be attained, the soul must have the power to respond in a
relationship of two equal partners. He goes on: "a reciprocal love is thus
actually formed between God and the soul. "66 This idea of the activation of the
will depends on a certain distance between God and the soul being maintained
within the mutuality of a single love. .
In conclusion, it must be said that the similarity between the 'theological
anthropology of Eckhart and John of the Cross is extremely close. Most
striking is the fact that they both seek a union "without intermediary" that uses
no created forms, which requires severe detachment from ordinary knowledge
so that a new way of knowing can be formed in the soul, and yet which retains
the soul's own identity through the renewal and transformation of its rational
powers. What we see in John is the same Trinitarian argument as Eckhart's,
that the human subject in union is fundamentally constituted by the inner
activity of the processions of the Persons of the Trinity. Yet John adds a
distinction between creature and creator in union that is really quite antithetical
to Eckhart's argument. The reason was no doubt John's caution in trying to
avoid the sort heresy charges brought against Eckhart's "union of
51
 indistinc~ion."67But there is also a different emphasis in John, which is the
to'
desire to show that we retain an ability see and know God in union which
anticipates heaven but is also ,authentically human. "I" am no less closely
united to God than for Eckhart, "butI also remain a distinctly human being.

See Bernard McGinn, "The Changing Shape of Late Medieval Mysticism," Church History
65 (1996): 197-219
2 This is not to make light of the intellectual changes between the time of Eckhart and John of
the Cross; but the "watershed" in theology and philosophy did not come until Descartes in
the seventeenth century. See e.g. Pedro Cerezo Galan, "La Antropologia del Espiritu en Juan
de -laCruz;' in Actas del Congres Internacional Sanjuanista, III Pensamiento. Avila 23-28
Sept:.J991. Junta de Castilla y Le6n: Consejeria de Cultura y Turismo, 1993: pp.l26-153.
The move from "medieval" to "modern" in the history of thought is of course fraught with
difficulty. For some more general recent treatments, see Louis Dupre, Passage to Modernity,
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993; and Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis, Chicago:
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Univ~rsityof Chicago Press, 1992.

3 ", .,Eckhart's writings were not only suppressed shortly after his death but virtually all vernacular
spiritual writings were suppressed by the Inquisition in sixteenth century Spain: indexes
banning vernacular spiritual literature were drawn up in 1545, 1551 and 1559 - the latter
was the famous "Valdes Index" and the most harsh.
4 See J. Orcibal, "Le Role de l'Intellect Possible chez Jean de la Croix. Ses sources
scholastiques et nordiques," in La Mystique Rhenane, ed. Phillipe Dollinger. Paris: Presses
universitaires de France, 1963 (pp.235-279). Orcibal names in particular Surius' translations
"."of'fauler's works as the likely source of John of the Cross' "fondo del alma," an expression
which he calls "taulerienne par excellence." Surius published Tauler's sermons in several
editions at Cologne in the mid-sixteenth century, dedicating them to Philip II. "Among the
collection were 11 sermons attributed to Eckhart. Surius also produced the Pseudo-Taulerian
Institutions in Spanish translation, published at Coimbre in 1551.
5 lain Matthew, The Impact of God. Soundings from St. John of the Cross. London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1995.
6 N it" 11:7 (lain Matthew's translation, ibid p.12). The works of John of the Cros~,w~~1be
, abbreviated here as follows:
S Subida del Monte Carmela
N Noche Oscura
C Cdntico Espiritual (B redaction)
L Llama de Amor Viva
The texts used are San Juan de la Cruz. Obras Completas. Ed. Lucinio Ruano de la Iglesia.
14a edici6n. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1994; and for the English translation
(except where noted), Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (trans.), The Collected Works
of St. John of the Cross. Washington D.C.: ICS, 1979. Page numbers (in brackets) refer first
to the English translation and second to the Spanish text.
7 Among the sufferings of the darkest "midnight" part of the dark night, when God's presence
rather than absence is the cause of darkness in the rational powers of the soul, John describes
a prison-like experience: the soul "resembles one who is imprisoned in a dark dungeon,
bound hands and feet, and able neither to move, nor see, nor feel any favour from heaven or
earth." NIl 7:3 (341/534)
8 "Rational" or "spiritual" powers are the collective names preferred by John of the Cross for
memory, intellect and will. I shall use "ratiQnal,powers in this paper, though it should be
lt

noted that they are "rational" in the Augustinian s'ense,meaning the centre of personality, not
in the modem sense of mind as opposed to heart ona merely intellectual level.
9 Senn. 83. Edmund College and Bernard McGinn.(trans.), Meister Eckhart. The Essential
Sermons, Commentaries and Defense. New York: Paulist Press, 1981, pp.206-208.
Eckhart's Augustinian approach to theological anthropology is also found in his second
Genesis commentary, ibid,pp.l08-21. All the sennons referred to in this paper are Eckhart's
Gennan sennons, not his Latin ones.
10 ibid, p.207
11 See Eckhart's Comm. on Genesis, n.148, ibid, p.114, for the phrase "without intermediary" in
52
 this context.
12 Senne IS, ibid, p.190
13 Serm. 48, ibid, p.198
14 Serm. 10, Bernard McGinn (ed.), Meister Eckhart. Teacher and Preacher, New York: Paulist
Press, 1986, p.265
15 See the bull of condemnation (article 23), Essential Sermons pp.79-80. Eckhart differs from
Aquinas, who thinks that the distinctions between the Persons are really in the divine nature,
not just in our intellect: see Summa Theologiae Ia, q.39, a.8. But in Sennon 10 Eckhart notes
that absolute unity and the distinction within the Trinity coexist: "Distinction comes from the
absolute unity~ that is, the distinction in the Trinity" (Teacher and Preacher, p.265).
16 For a clear argument for the importance of the Trinity in Eckhart's teaching, see Bernard
McGinn, "A Prolegomenon to the Role of the Trinity in Meister Eckhart's Mysticism,"
Eckhart ..Review Spring 1997: 51-61. Also see the section on Eckhart and Porete in Mark
McIntosh's (forthcoming) book, The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology, Blackwell
publishers (1998), chapter 7, "Love for the Other and Discovery of the Self."
17 e.g. Serm. 6, Essential Sermons, p.187; Senne 2, ibid, p.179
18 Senne 6, ibid, p.187
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19 C.g. Eckhart's statement that "we are all one single Son." Senn. 22, ibid, p.196
20 Senne 5b, ibid, p.183 (my emphasis)
21 "Para 10 cual es de nolar que el Verbo Hijo de Dios, juntamente con el Padre yel Espiritu Santo,
esencial y presencialmente esta escondido en el intimo ser del alma." C 1:6 &f (418fn43t)
22 C 2:7; 12:1-7
23 C 4:3; 5:1; 6:1-2
24 C 5:3,4; 6:2,6
25 "jOh si esas verdades que informe y oscuramente me enseiias encubiertas en tus articulos de
fe acabases ya de dannelas clara y formalmente descubiertas en elIos, como 10 pide mi
deseo!" C 12:5 (455n82)
26 See n.61 below
27 Knowing God "without intennediary" in John of the Cross: see C 22:7; C 35:6 - but he also
qualifies this - see below. "Mystical theology" (mistica teologfa), see S II 8:6; N II 5:1; N
II 17:6; C 39:12.
28 e.g. S 13:3
29 See S 16:1-4; S II 4:3
30 S I 6:3-4; S II 23:3; 26:5; N II 17:6, etc.
31 John uses St. Paul's old man/new man contrast: 5 I 5:7; 5 11126:4; L 2:33. The "old man" is
attached to the sensory things of this world; the "new man" is attached to God.
32 See e.g. N II 1:1. Also S II 17:4: God brings the soul "step by step" to union, though he does
not always keep to the same order of steps as set down by John.
33 S 116:2; L 3:18
34 John points out that the soul does not lose its ordinary knowledge: in the new way of
knowing, the habits of acquired knowledge "win not be supplanted, but they will not be of
great benefit either." In comparison with the new way of knowing, they "seem to be
nothing." C 26:16-17 (515/846)
35 S 13:4
36 "hartura increada, ••S I 6:4 (85/272); hence the darkness caused to the soul~ because although
light is being infused into it, its capacity is not yet great enough to perceive it as light while it
is being expanded: rather, it is "blinded." NIl 5:1-3.
37 "capacidad infinita," S n 17:8 (159/345); also L 3:22
38 "las potencias de el alma: memoria, entendimiento y voluntad ... son tan profundas cnanto de
grandes bienes son capaces." L 3:18 (617/982). "(5)u sed es infinita, su hambre tambien es
profunda e infinita, su deshacimiento y pena es muerte infinita" (Their thirst is infinite, their
hunger is also deep and infinite, and their languishing and suffering are infinite death). L
2:22 (618/984)
39 N I 12:2; S II 24:9
40 "el alma que a este Ilega ya no tiene mod os ni maDera8," S II 4:5 (1141300); "se ha perdido a
todos los carninos y vias naturales de proceder en e) tIato con Dios." C 29: 11 (526/858); see
also L 3:46-48
41 "anihilado en el alma sin consuelo y alivio alguno." S n 7:9,11,(1241310). John cites the

53
 principle: "in the measure of the degree of love to which God wishes to raise a soul, he
humbles it with greater or less intensity." N 114:5
42 ibid; John says at the beginning of the Ascent of Mount Carmel that one must read to the end
to understand his teaching (S Prol. 9); and again in S II 5 that one must have an
understanding of union to shed light on the steps before union.
43 NIl 8:4
44 "toque de union", "sentimiento espiritual". S 1123:3; 32:4
45 S II 26:2,5
46 S II 24:4
47 "este toque es toque de sustancia, es a saber, de sustancia de Dios en sustancia de el alma." L
2:21 (6021955)
48 L 3:71
49 For Hadewijch's double abyss theory, see Letter 18, Mother Columba Hart (trans.),
Hadewijch. The Complete Works. New York: Paulist Press, 1980, p.86. A history of the
exegesis of the Psalm text quoted by John and behind Hadewijch's theory can be found in
Bernard McGinn, "Ocean and Desert as Symbols of Mystical Absorption in the Christian
Mystical Tradition," Journal of Religion 74:155-181 (1994).
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50 "EI centro de el elma es Dios." L 1:12 (583/923). My emphasis.

51 S II 5:7; L 2:34; L 2:21 (as quoted above, n.47); S II 26:5
52 "el Espiritu Santo... levanta el alma y la infonna y habilita para que ella aspire en Dios la
misma aspiraci6n de arnor que el Padre aspira en el Hijo y el Hijo en el Padre, que es el
mismo Espiritu Santo." C 39:3 (5581891)
53 "sino por EI mismo... porque arna por el Espiritu Santo, como el Padre y el Hijo se aman." L
3:82 (642/1026)
54 L 4:5; cf. Eckhart's similar conunent in the Cornm. on Genesis, Essential Sermons, n.154,
p.ll?
55 For "seeing" read "knowing" also. as they are equally the power of the intellect. S II 23:3
56 SIll 13:7-14:1;L 2:34
57 S IIf21: 1; L 2:34;·cf. L 4:5
58· L4:17
59 That is, both stressing die uncreated mode of reception of the Holy Spirit in the soul-the
soul's love is the Holy Spirit-and stressing the active processions in the Trinity, not just the
more static relations.
60 S II 5:7
61·0n the likeness of this type of knowing in-union to the beatific vision, see C 39:6; L 1:14: it
is a "foretaste and noticeable trace" and "greatly resembles the beatific state"; on the
differen·ce,see C 26:4: it is not "as essential and integral as in the beatific vision of the next
life."
62 "These apprehensions reach the soul in ways similar to those of the other senses (al modo
.que a los demds sentidos) ... vision... in a manner resembling sight (a modo de ver) ... And we
apply the term spiritual feelings to whatever is perceived after the manner of the other senses
(a modo de los demas sentidos):' S II 23:3 (188/375)
63 The subject-object relation intended here must be distinguished from the post-
Cartesian/modern understanding of subject-object relations (see note 2): frrst, in the medieval
epistemology used by John, the soul must become like the object of its knowledge in order to
know it, through a fundamental participation of the knowing subject in God as "Being"; and
second, when as here the "object" is God, the soul is not orientated as towards other objects,
but is in a special relation to God as the fulfilment (or realised "ground") of its knowing
capacity. Perhaps a more appropriate way to describe this relation would therefore be as a
"subject-subject" or "intersubjective" relation, as described for instance in the thought of
Bernard Lonergan.
64 "las profundas cavemas del sentido," L 3:18 (6171982); the depth of the soul is called the
"feeling of the soul" (sentido de el alma) here, which is likened to the "communal sense" (el
sentido comun), L 3:69 (637/1016-7)
65 "aunque estotro es en mas subida manera, por intervenir en ello el ejercicio de la voluntad."
L 3:77 (640/1022)
66 "asi entre Dios y el alma esta actualrnente fonnado un arnor recfproco." L 3:79 (64111024)
67 See the bull of condemnation. article 10. Essential Sermons~ p.78.

54