MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG
herself individually, she can never write enough. "I also may not suffer that any single comfort move me, save my love alone. I love my earthly friends in a heavenly fellowship, and I love my enemies with a holy longing for their salvation. God has enough of all good things, save of union with the soul."
But where Mechthild seems to strike an original note for her time is in her insistence on God's craving for the soul, as well as the soul's craving for God. We find the same insistence in Meister Eckhart, who followed her closely in time, and perhaps, in this respect, in thought also. "God needs man," says Eckhart, quite simply. And again, "God can do as little without us as we without Him." With Mechthild it is from ecstasy to ecstasy that "heart speaks to heart." Says the soul of Mechthild: "Lord, Thou art ever sick of love for me, and that hast Thou Thyself well proved. Thou hast written me in the Book of the Godhead. Thou hast fashioned me after Thine own image. Thou hast bound me hand and foot to Thy side. O grant it to me, Beloved, to anoint Thee."
"Where wilt thou get thine ointment, dear one?"
"Lord, I will tear my happy heart in twain, and lay Thee therein."
"It is the most precious ointment thou couldest give Me, that I should evermore hover in thy soul."
Further God says: "I longed for thee ere
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