"I can never see God except in that in which God sees Himself"

"I can never see God except in that [itself] in which God sees Himself [inwardly]."

"Niemermê enmac ich got gesehen wan in dem selben, dâ got sich selben inne sihet."

      Meister Eckhart, Sermon 69 (or 42) on Jn 16:16 in German, as trans. Maurice O’C. Walshe (Complete mystical works of Meister Eckhart (New York:  A Herder & Herder Book, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009), 236, inexpert interpolations mine.  German from p. 175 l. 5 of Meister Eckharts Predigten, ed. Quint, Bd. 3, Die deutschen Werke 3 (1976) =l. 12 of Predigt 69.  For an earlier edition, see p. 144 of the 1857 edition by Pfeiffer.
     Eckhart refers next to the "inaccessible light" in which, according to St. Paul, "God dwells," but would it be twisting him (with whose thought I am extremely unfamiliar) to see the eternal Word in this (and therefore ultimately the Incarnation), too?  In context, probably.

"Since God loves the soul so mightily, the soul must be a very important thing."

      "Know then that God loves the soul so mightily, it is a wonder.  If anyone were to rob God of loving the soul, he would rob Him of His life and [his] being, or he would kill God, if one may say so; for the self-same love with which God loves the soul is His life, and in that same love the Holy Ghost blossoms forth, and that same love is the Holy Ghost.  Since God loves the soul so mightily, the soul must be a very important thing."

     "Nû wizzet, daz got die sêle als krefticlîche minnet, daz ez wunder ist.  Der daz gote benæme, daz er die sêle niht enminnete, der benæme im sîn leben unde sîn wesen, oder er tôte got, ob man daz sprechen sölte; wan diu selbe minne, dâ mite got die sêle minnet, daz ist sîn leben, und in der selben minne blüejet ûz der heilige geist, und diu selbe minne ist der heilige geist.  Sît got die sêle alsô krefticlîche minnet, sô muoz diu sêle ein alsô grôz dinc sîn."

     Meister Eckhart, Sermon 69 (or 42) on Jn 16:16 in German, as trans. Maurice O’C. Walshe (Complete mystical works of Meister Eckhart (New York:  A Herder & Herder Book, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009), 234.  German from p. 163 l. 6-p. 164 l. 2 of Meister Eckharts Predigten, ed. Quint, Bd. 3, Die deutschen Werke 3 (1976), =ll. 34-39 of Predigt 69.  For an earlier edition, see p. 141 of the 1857 edition by Pfeiffer.
     My thanks to Dr. Matthew Milliner for the Facebook post that first flagged this passage for me.
     I'm not sure, though, that the whole of this is entirely orthodox (the Holy Spirit being the Love of the Father for the Son, not (?) the human being), but that last line is nice.

"Now it is no longer, 'Dust you are and to dust you shall return,' but 'You are joined to heaven and into heaven you shall be taken up.'"

Οὐκέτι, Γῆ εἶ καὶ γῆν ἀπελεύσῃ, ἀλλὰ τῷ οὐρανίῳ συναφθεὶς πρὸς οὐρανὸν ἀναληφθήσῃ.

     Saint Basil the Great, Homily no. 2 on the Theophany (or Epiphany, otherwise known as the homily In sanctam Christi generationem, On the holy birth of Christ) 6, as translated (for now) here.  Greek from p. 857 col. 1B of the 1839 De Sinner ("apud Gaume") reprint of the Garnier (or Maurist) edition of the Opera omnia of 1721-1730.  For a comment on the "technical" superiority of this edition, see p. 31 n. 5 of Mark DelCogliano, "Tradition and Polemic in Basil of Caesarea’s Homily on the Theophany," Vigiliae Christianae 66, no. 1 (2012) (where the CPG's revised position on its authenticity is also noted), and of course the latest (2022) edition of the ODCC.  Holman and DelCogliano, by contrast (St. Basil the Great On fasting and feasts, Popular patristics series 50 (Yonkers, NY:  St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2013)), translate the edition of Luigi Gambero (L'omelia sulla generazione di Cristo di Basilo di Cesarea:  Il posto della vergine Maria, Marian studies library 13-14 (Dayton, OH:  University of Dayton, 1981-1982), 177-200).  Their translation of this sentence, on p. 39, runs as follows:

No longer are you dust and to dust you shall return; rather, joined now to heaven, you shall be taken up into heaven.

My thanks to Dr. Matthew Milliner for the Facebook post that introduced me to this passage.

"a lot of what the West is ever going to be"

AEI

"'Do you think there are a lot of new ideas in politics?'

"'No, I, I certainly don’t.  I’m a conservative.  I think very little has been learned since St. Thomas finished compiling the connection between Aristotle and Judaism and Christianity.  At that point we basically knew a lot of what we’re ever going to know.  You know.  You add to Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics the insight that God created the heavens and the earth, and you got a lot of what the West is ever going to be.  I do think there have been new ideas in politics since then.  I think liberalism properly understood is a new idea that is a very good idea.  Not that new anymore, but it’s newer than classical politics.  It was an innovation that was genuinely, that opened genuinely new vistas in the human experience and was fantastically worthwhile.  I also think that there have been bad innovations since that time.  There, you know, totalitarianism was not, the possibility of it was not evident to classical philosophy.  But. . . .'"

     Yuval Levin, as interviewed by Jonah Golberg on The Remnant podcast, "Theory, properly misunderstood," 4 July 2024, at 41:36.

Everlasting Father

Is 9:6:

אֲבִיעַ֖ד.  NRSVue:  "Everlasting Father".  Alter:  "eternal father"

Septuagint:  nothing comparable

Pater futuri saeculi.  Douay-Rheims:  "Father of the world to come"

"begotten before all ages, he has begun to exist in time"

Honthorst, "Adoration" (1620)

"on the feast of this awe-filled mystery, though invisible in his own divine nature, he has appeared visibly in ours; and begotten before all ages, he has begun to exist in time; so that, raising up in himself all that was cast down, he might restore unity to all creation and call straying humanity back to the heavenly Kingdom."

"Qui, in huius venerandi festivitate mysterii, invisibilis in suis, visibilis in nostris apparuit, et ante tempora genitus esse coepit in tempore; ut, in se erigens cuncta deiecta, in integrum restitueret universa, et hominem perditum ad caelestia regna revocaret."

     Preface II for the Nativity of the Lord, newly composed for the Missal of Paul VI on the basis of Sermon 22.2 of St. Leo the Great (trans. Freeland & Conway, FC 93, pp. 81 ff. (80-87); CCSL 138, ed. Chevasse (1973), pp. ; PL 54, cols. 195-196), "of the phrasing" of which there were "already reminiscences . . . in a variety of liturgical texts" reproduced at Anthony Ward and Cuthbert Johnson, The prefaces of the Roman missal:  a source compendium with concordance and indices (Rome:  C.L.V. - Editioni Liturgische, 1989), 76-82.  Previous ICEL "translation," as reproduced on p. 81:

Today you fill our hearts with joy as we recognize in Christ the revelation of your love.  No eye can see his glory as our God, yet now he is seen as one like us.  Christ is your Son before all ages, yet now he is born in time.  He has come to lift up all things to himself, to restore unity to creation, and to lead mankind from exile into your heavenly kingdom.

For God is not destitute, having, for his glory, made you, too, a god.

Source

οὐ γὰρ πτωχεύει θεὸς καὶ σὲ θεὸν ποιήσας εἰς δόξαν αὐτοῦ.

     St. Hippolytus (c. 170-c. 236), Refutatio omnium haeresium X.33, translation mine.  Greek from Hippolytus Werke, vol. 3 =GCS, ed. H. Achelis and G. Bonwetsch, vol. 26, ed. Paul Wendland (1916), p. 293, line 15.  Immediate context:  creation in and restoration to the imago Dei.  As attractive as "stingy" continues to be for me, the lexica, at least (LSJ; Lampe), do not allow for it.  "lacking" in something (Lampe), "badly off for" specifically πραγμάτων (LSJ), deficient in.  πτωχός + gen. can mean "beggared of, poor in" (LSJ).  A few additional translations of this sentence, of "much concern to commentators" (F. Legge):

• Liturgy of the hours:  "God is not beggarly, and for the sake of his own glory he has given us a share in his divinity."  According to the Oxford Latin dictionary, mendicus can mean both "destitute," and "beggarly" or "mean" (stingy?).  But "mean" is not present in the Greek lexica, just for example the Patristic Greek lexicon.
• M. David Litwa, 2015:  "God is not poor; for his glory, he makes you also a god!"
• F. Legge, 1921:  "For God asks no alms, and has made thee God for His own glory."
• J. H. MacMahon, ANF 5:  "For the Deity, (by condescension,) does not diminish aught of the divinity of His divine perfection; having made thee even God unto His glory!"

The whole of this, as quoted in the Liturgy of the hours (above) is beautiful.