A man's self­ love is too blatant when he wants to blind other men so that his own blindness may be hidden

On this topic I say too that it is the sign of a sick heart if a man becomes glad or sorry over the transitory things of this world. We should feel shame for this in our hearts in the sight of God and his an­ gels, and in the sight of men, that we should detect this in ourselves.

We are ashamed soon enough of some facial disfigurement which is there for people to see. What more do I need to say? The books of the Old Testament and the New, and those of the saints and even the pa­ gans are full of this, how pious men for God's sake and also for the sake of natural virtue have given their lives and have willingly sacrificed themselves.

A pagan philosopher, Socrates, says that virtue makes impossible things possible, and even easy and delightfui. And I must not forget that the blessed woman of whom the Book of the Machabees tells that in a single day she saw enacted before her own eyes the horrifying and horrible torments, intolerable even to hear about, that were inflicted and imposed upon her seven sons, and she watched this cheerfully and encouraged and particularly admonished them not to be afraid, and to surrender willingly their bodies and their spirits for the sake of God's justice. This could be the end of the book, but there are two more things that I want to say.

The first thing is that truly a good and pious man ought to be bit­terly and greatly ashamed that suffering ever moved him, when we see how a merchant, for the sake of earning a little money, of which, too, he cannot be sure, will travel so far overland on arduous tracks, up hill and down dale, across wildernesses and oceans, risking robbery and as­sault on his person and his goods, going in great want of food and drink and sleep and suffering other hardships, and yet he is glad and willing to forget all this for the sake of his small and uncertain profit.

A knight in a battle risks possessions and body and life for the sake of a transient and very fleeting honor; and yet we think it such a great matter that we should suffer a little for God's sake, who is everlasting blessedness.

The second thing is that I expect that many stupid people will say that much that I have written in this book and elsewhere is not true. To that I reply with what Saint Augustine says in the first book of his Confessions. He says that God has already made every single thing, ev­erything that is still to come for thousands and thousands of years, if this world should last so long, and everything that is past during many thousands of years he will make again today. Is it my fault if people do not understand this? And he says in another place that a man's self­ love is too blatant when he wants to blind other men so that his own blindness may be hidden. It is enough for me that what I say and write be true in me and in God. If anyone sees a stick pushed down into the water, it seems to him that the stick is bent, although it is quite straight; and the reason for this is that water is cruder than air. But yet the stick is straight and not bent, both in itself and also in the eyes of anyone who looks at it only through the pure air.

Saint Augustine says: "Whoever without thought of any kind, or without any kind of bodily likeness and image, perceives within him­ self what no external vision has presented to him, he knows that this is true."53 But the man who knows nothing of this will laugh at me and mock me, and I can only pity him. But people like this want to contemplate and taste eternal things and the works of God, and to stand in the light of eternity, and yet their hearts are still fluttering around in yesterday and tomorrow.

A pagan philosopher, Seneca, says: "We must speak about great and exalted matters with great and exalted understanding and with sublime souls." And we shall be told that one ought not to talk about or write such teachings to the untaught. But to this I say that if we are not to teach people who have not been taught, no one will ever be taught, and no one will ever be able to teach or write. For that is why we teach the untaught, so that they may be changed from uninstructed into instructed. If there were nothing new, nothing would ever grow old. Our Lord says: "Those who are healthy do not need medicine" (Lk. 5:3 1). That is what the physician is there for, to make the sick healthy. But if there is someone who misunderstands what I say, what is that to the man who says truly that which is true? Saint John nar­rates his holy gospel for all believers and also for all unbelievers, so that they might believe, and yet he begins that gospel with the most exalted thoughts any man could utter here about God; and both what he says and what our Lord says are constantly misunderstood.

May our loving and merciful God, who is Truth, grant to me and to all those who will read this book that we may find the truth within ourselves and come to know it. Amen.

Meister Eckhart
From The Book of Divine Consolation
Meister Eckhart
The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defence