the good seed...

"Even pagan masters, such as Cicero and Seneca, speak of the nobility of the inner man, that is the spirit, and the worthlessness of the outer man, that is the flesh,

saying that no rational soul can exist without God and that the seed of God is in us.

With a good, wise and industrious farmer, that seed would flourish all the more and would grow up towards God, whose seed it is,

and the fruit would be akin to God's nature.

The seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree, that of a nut tree into a nut tree, and the seed of God grows into God.

But if the good seed has a foolish and wicked farmer, then weeds will grow, smothering the good seed and pushing it out, so that it cannot reach the light or grow to its full height.

But as the great master Origen says:

since it is God himself who has engendered this seed, sowing and implanting it, it can never be destroyed or extinguished in itself, even if it is overgrown and hidden.

It glows and gleams, shines and burns and always seeks God."



Meister Eckhart
"On the Noble Man"
in Meister Eckhart — Selected Writings
Translated by Oliver Davies
Penguin Classics