Two Master and Eyes

Let us remember how it is written and said that the soul of Christ had two eyes, a right and a left
eye. In the beginning, when the soul of Christ was created, she fixed her right eye upon eternity
and the Godhead, and remained in the full intuition and enjoyment of the divine Essence and Eternal
Perfection; and continued thus unmoved and undisturbed by all the accidents and travail, suffering,
torment and pain that ever befell the outward man. But with the left eye she beheld the creature
and perceived all things therein, and took note of the difference between the creatures, which were
better or worse, nobler or meaner; and thereafter was the outward man of Christ ordered.





Thus the inner man of Christ, according to the right eye of His soul, stood in the full exercise
of His divine nature, in perfect blessedness, joy and eternal peace. But the outward man and the
left eye of Christ’s soul, stood with Him in perfect suffering, in all tribulation, affliction and travail;
and this in such sort that the inward and right eye remained unmoved, unhindered and untouched
by all the travail, suffering, grief and anguish that ever befell the outward man. It hath been said
that when Christ was bound to the pillar and scourged, and when He hung upon the cross, according
to the outward man, yet His inner man, or soul according to the right eye, stood in as full possession
of divine joy and blessedness as it did after His ascension, or as it doth now. In like manner His
outward man, or soul with the left eye, was never hindered, disturbed or troubled by the inward
eye in its contemplation of the outward things that belonged to it.
Now the created soul of man hath also two eyes. The one is the power of seeing into eternity,
the other of seeing into time and the creatures, of perceiving how they differ from each other as
afore-said, of giving life and needful things to the body, and ordering and governing it for the best.
But these two eyes of the soul of man cannot both perform their work at once; but if the soul shall see with the right eye into eternity, then the left eye must close itself and refrain from working, and be as though it were dead.
For if the left eye be fulfilling its office toward outward things; that is, holding converse with
time and the creatures; then must the right eye be hindered in its working; that is, in its contemplation.
Therefore whosoever will have the one must let the other go; for “no man can serve two masters.
- From Theologica Germanica