Kenosis — Divine Self-Emptying

Kenosis (from Philippians 2:7, ekenosen heauton — 'he emptied himself') describes Christ's self-emptying in taking the form of a servant, and in mystical theology extends to the soul's own radical self-dispossession as the precondition for divine indwelling. Meister Eckhart radicalized this in his German sermons: the soul must achieve Gelassenheit (releasement), becoming so empty that even the concept of God is surrendered — 'I pray God to rid me of God.' This is not nihilism but the apophatic logic of the Godhead (Gottheit) beyond God: the vessel must be emptied of everything, including its own emptiness, before it can receive the birth of the Word (Geburt des Wortes) in the ground of the soul (Seelengrund).