A scholarly German-language collection devoted to the reading and interpretation of Eckhart’s sermons
What the Work Is
Lectura Eckhardi is a German-language scholarly publication first issued in 1998, catalogued under the subject headings of Eckhart’s Latin and German sermons, medieval sermons, and the criticism and interpretation of his preaching. Its title — Latin for “Reading of Eckhart” — signals its purpose: it is a companion for the close reading of Meister Eckhart’s sermons, gathering interpretive essays and commentary on individual sermon texts. The cataloguing of the work under “Translations into German” indicates that it presents Eckhart’s sermon material in German translation alongside the interpretive discussion. It belongs to the modern scholarly literature on Eckhart rather than to his own corpus.
What the Book Is About
The work addresses the preaching of Meister Eckhart, the late-medieval Dominican theologian and philosopher (born around 1260 in Thuringia, died before 30 April 1328, probably in Avignon). Eckhart’s sermons were the vehicle through which he reached not only his contemporaries but also later generations, and they are the texts that Lectura Eckhardi takes as its subject. The book’s central concern is the interpretation of these sermons — reading them closely, explaining what they say, and situating them within Eckhart’s thought. Because Eckhart’s German sermons were addressed deliberately to the unlearned as well as the learned, and because their meaning is often compressed and unconventional, they have long demanded exactly the kind of sustained commentary a lectura provides.
Key Ideas and Themes
The interpretive material in Lectura Eckhardi engages the central concepts of Eckhart’s preaching, which revolve around two poles: God and the human soul. Eckhart sought to instruct his hearers about the nature of the soul, about God so far as God can be known, and about how the two stand in relation to one another — always with a practical aim, guiding the listener toward a consistently spiritual conduct of life in the everyday.
A foundational distinction in his preaching is that between “God” and “Godhead.” Eckhart does not treat these as synonyms. He holds that God and the Godhead differ as much as heaven and earth. Through revelation, the person seeking knowledge of God first encounters the triune God of Christian doctrine — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — who creates and begets. But beyond this, Eckhart distinguishes a higher level of divine reality, the “Godhead” or the “simple One,” which stands “above God.” On this level the divine reality neither begets nor creates; it relates to nothing but itself, and nothing determinate can be predicated of it, since it lies beyond all differentiation. Eckhart’s counsel is that one should not “stand still” at God but “break through” to the Godhead. His terminology is not always consistent — he sometimes uses “God” for what he elsewhere calls “Godhead” — and the intended sense must be gathered from context.
Another theme central to the sermons is the “ground of the soul.” Eckhart’s claim that the soul’s ground is not, like everything created, made by God, but is itself divine and uncreated, was among his most controversial assertions. On his account, the Godhead is always immediately present in the ground of the soul. This teaching drew on the Neoplatonic tradition, which Eckhart repeatedly took up, and it was one of the positions that later attracted suspicion of heresy.
The sermons also develop Eckhart’s understanding of knowledge and faith. For him, faith stands to sight, or perfect knowledge, as opinion stands to proof, or the imperfect to the perfect; one should not remain at faith but advance from faith to knowledge. He treats theology and philosophy as a unity rather than as separate domains, holding that every area of theology is in principle open to philosophical reflection. He likewise regards the distinction between natural and supernatural events as inessential, since both are equally wrought by God.
Eckhart’s method of persuasion is itself a theme of the sermons. He cites authorities abundantly — biblical texts, ancient and medieval church writers, and non-Christian philosophers — and uses the Aristotelian terminology of the university learning of his day, though in substance he stands closer to Neoplatonism than to Aristotelian thought. Among the authors he especially valued, Augustine and the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides hold prominent places. Yet his core claims rest less on any received tradition than on insight grounded in reason and experience. He considered his insights universally valid and wanted his audience to follow even demanding content for themselves. But he insisted that genuine understanding requires more than grasping an argument: the hearer must first create the necessary conditions within himself, since, as he put it, one will not understand this teaching so long as one does not resemble this truth. He was aware of the shocking boldness of some of his statements; in the prologue to his Opus tripartitum he remarked that some of what he wrote would at first glance appear monstrous, doubtful, or false.
Structure and Approach
The work is organized around the close reading of individual sermons, in keeping with the lectura form named in its title. Its approach is interpretive and expository rather than biographical or systematic: it takes particular sermon texts and works through them, explaining their language and argument. This reflects the character of Eckhart’s preaching itself, which was delivered in Middle High German to audiences that included hearers with little philosophical or theological preparation, and which often departs from the literal sense of the biblical passages being expounded in order to find a hidden meaning. Modern scholarship has established that the surviving sermon texts are unlikely to be unauthorized records taken down by listeners; philological and historical evidence indicates that Eckhart authorized them, and he probably fixed a collection of his German sermons in writing himself — not as mere copies of delivered addresses but as versions edited for a reading public. Later redactors, however, substantially reworked some of the transmitted texts, and textual corruption must also be reckoned with. These conditions make careful, text-based interpretation of the kind Lectura Eckhardi undertakes especially necessary.
Significance and Influence
Eckhart’s preaching had a strong effect on his contemporaries and continued to impress later generations, and he made an important contribution to the shaping of German philosophical vocabulary. His thought exercised considerable influence on late-medieval spirituality in the German- and Dutch-speaking regions. At the same time, his unconventional and sometimes provocatively formulated statements, and his sharp contradiction of widely held convictions of his day, aroused attention and opposition. In his later years he was accused of heresy by two fellow Dominicans in 1325; the proceedings begun in Cologne were taken up at the papal court in Avignon and concluded in 1329, after his death, when Pope John XXII condemned a series of his propositions in the bull In agro dominico and forbade the dissemination of the works containing them. Because Eckhart had submitted himself from the outset to the pope’s judgment, he escaped being classified as a heretic as a person. The scholarly study of his sermons — the task to which Lectura Eckhardi is devoted — thus concerns a body of preaching that was both widely influential and, in its own time, the subject of doctrinal controversy.
Eckhart was born around 1260 in what is today the district of Gotha in Thuringia, either in Hochheim or in Tambach. He was probably a son of the knight Eckhart, “called von Hochheim,” whose death is established in a document of 19 May 1305. Presumably around 1275 he entered the Order of the Dominicans (Friars Preachers) in Erfurt, where he likely received his basic education in the Dominican convent. At one of his order’s high schools (Studium generale), presumably in Cologne, he completed a course of study. This began with the artes (“arts”), by which, in the order’s internal training, was understood not the entirety of the Seven Liberal Arts but specifically the logic of Aristotle. The next section comprised the naturalia (“natural science”) and moral philosophy. There followed theological training and reception of priestly ordination. In Cologne Eckhart may perhaps still have met Albertus Magnus, who died in 1280. It has been conjectured that he studied in Paris, but there is no concrete evidence for this.
From 1293 to 1294 Eckhart was active at the University of Paris, then the most famous university of the West, as lecturer on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. A minimum age of 33 was prescribed for this office. He delivered his inaugural lecture, with which he opened his teaching activity in Paris, in September or October 1293. The first securely established date of his life is 18 April 1294, an Easter Sunday, on which he preached the feast-day sermon in the church of the Dominican convent of St. Jacques in Paris. Before the end of 1294 he returned to Erfurt.
In 1302 Eckhart was promoted to Master of Theology in Paris. The common designation “Meister” Eckhart refers to his Germanized master’s title. After his promotion he received for one year the chair of the Dominicans reserved for non-Frenchmen. His duties included, besides lecturing and directing disputations, preaching.
In 1294 Eckhart became prior of the Erfurt Dominican convent and vicar (deputy) of the provincial who led the order province of Teutonia, in Thuringia. The office of provincial was then held by the philosopher Dietrich von Freiberg; influences between the two — in both directions — are discussed in scholarship.
At the provincial chapter held in Erfurt for the first time on 8 September 1303, Eckhart was elected first provincial of the order province of Saxonia, which encompassed large parts of northern and central Germany as well as the present-day Netherlands and extended eastward to Latvia. The Saxonia had emerged from the division of the overly large province of Teutonia (Eckhart’s home province), which the order’s general chapter had decreed for Pentecost 1303. At its founding the Saxonia consisted of 47 male convents, to which three more were added during Eckhart’s term of office, and some female convents. It was governed from Erfurt. At the general chapter in Toulouse at Pentecost 1304, Eckhart’s election was confirmed. Probably on this occasion the new provincial delivered at the provincial and the general chapter one sermon and one lecture each on the 24th chapter of the Book of Jesus Sirach (Ecclesiasticus).
At Pentecost 1307 Eckhart was appointed at the general chapter in Strasbourg as vicar general (representative of the master general) for the Bohemian Dominican province. In the convents there he was to carry out thoroughgoing reforms. In autumn 1310 he was elected at the provincial chapter of the order province of Teutonia in Speyer as its provincial. The master general, however, refused to confirm the election. The general chapter in Naples released Eckhart on 30 May 1311 from his office as provincial of the Saxonia and sent him to a second teaching activity at the University of Paris. There he again occupied the chair designated for non-Frenchmen. The repeated assumption of the chair was a distinction that before him had been granted only to Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274).
Eckhart’s stay in Strasbourg, often called his “Strasbourg decade,” is supposed to have lasted from 1313/1314 to 1322/1324. In scholarship it is assumed that as vicar general he was assigned to the Dominican convent there. However, a continuous stay in Strasbourg is doubted by some scholars, since it is supported by only three dated documents from 1314, 1316, and 1322. The view is often held that during these years pastoral care in female convents was among his main duties. According to another scholarly opinion, he was entrusted with teaching duties in Strasbourg.
From 1323/24 Eckhart was in Cologne. Among his main duties there was preaching. There is no evidence for a teaching activity, but in view of his qualification it is plausible that the order employed him as lector at the Studium generale.
The Accusation and the Cologne Proceedings
In Cologne in 1325 Eckhart was accused of heresy (deviation from orthodoxy) by his fellow brethren Hermann de Summo and Wilhelm von Nidecke before the local archbishop Heinrich II von Virneburg. According to a statement drawn up in 1327 by Gerhard von Podanh, who was vicar of the general procurator of the Dominican order, both accusers were monks who had made themselves liable to punishment for serious violations of order discipline; Gerhard demanded their arrest. Although the two accusers evidently had no backing within their own order, their move was successful. The archbishop, known for severity in cases of suspected heresy, initiated an investigation, with which he charged two inquisitorial commissioners, Reinerius Friso and Petrus de Estate. Reinerius was a canon of Cologne cathedral; Petrus belonged to the Franciscan order, which rivaled the Dominicans. Between August 1325 and September 1326 the accusation was raised. The commissioners, who were at the same time the judges in the heresy trial, presented the accused with two lists of his objected statements. The first contained 49 propositions from his Latin works and — in Latin translation — from one of his German writings (the Trostbuch) and from his German sermons. The second list consisted of 59 propositions translated into Latin from the German sermons. Evidently further lists were still drawn up. Even earlier the Dominican Nikolaus von Strassburg, who was then vicar general of the order province of Teutonia, had initiated an internal order review of Eckhart’s orthodoxy, thereby reacting to accusations. Nikolaus found nothing objectionable. Because he advocated for Eckhart, he too was accused. The charge was that he had favored heresy.
On 26 September 1326 Eckhart handed the inquisitorial commissioners a statement, the Responsio ad articulos sibi impositos de scriptis et dictis suis. In it he denied not only his guilt but also the legal basis of the proceedings, since because of his order’s privileges an archiepiscopal court was not competent for his case. Nevertheless he was prepared to take a position on the charges. The absence of a precedent — a heresy proceeding had never before been conducted against so high-ranking a theologian and member of an order — apparently unsettled the inquisitors. In any case the proceedings were delayed. On 24 January 1327 Eckhart appealed to the Apostolic See. In doing so he complained that the judges repeatedly set dates but never reached a verdict, and that the commission gave more trust to persons of ill repute (the accusers) than to him. Moreover, he had already been exonerated by Nikolaus von Strassburg’s investigation. On 13 February 1327 he had a written blanket revocation of any possible errors of faith publicly read out in the Dominican church. This declaration (protestatio), which was notarially certified, he translated personally into German. It is generally formulated and contains no distancing from individual objected statements, but only the assurance that he revoked in advance every error that could be proven against him. Thereby he forestalled the accusation of being a stubborn heretic, which under the law of the time would have had to lead to a death sentence in the event of a guilty verdict.
The Avignon Proceedings and Death
The Cologne inquisitorial commission did not accept the appeal to the pope and informed the accused of this on 22 February 1327. Nevertheless the proceedings in Cologne were broken off and the clarification of the matter left to the pope. At that time the pope resided not in Rome but in Avignon. Eckhart betook himself there. He was accompanied by several fellow brethren, among them the provincial of the Teutonia, and emphatically supported by the vicar of the general procurator of the Dominicans. At this point, then, his order still stood behind him.
Now a papal investigative commission examined the files sent from Cologne and gave the accused an opportunity to respond. Of the roughly 150 suspect statements that the prosecution had assembled in Cologne, 28 remained, which the commission classified as reprehensible. As already in Cologne, the accused also in Avignon asserted that he might indeed have erred in his theological assumptions, but that this was no reason to doubt his orthodoxy and to classify him as a heretic. Heresy could exist only if the will for it were present. This time he was successful with this argumentation. In the new trial at the papal court the question was no longer whether he was to be classified as a heretic; rather, only in a doctrinal-objection proceeding was it examined whether his suspect statements contained heretical errors.
Finally the commission produced a protocol, the “Avignon Opinion,” in which it established and justified the reprehensibility of the 28 propositions. As was customary in such proceedings, not whole writings of the accused or his entire oeuvre were judged, but only individual propositions according to their wording (prout sonant) without consideration of the sense of the texts from which they were taken. Eckhart’s works were not available to the commission. The cardinal Jacques Fournier, the later Pope Benedict XII, produced an additional detailed opinion in which he declared a part of Eckhart’s propositions heretical.
Eckhart died between July 1327 and April 1328 before the conclusion of the proceedings, in all probability in Avignon, for it is to be assumed that he had to hold himself available to the papal court for the entire duration of the trial. The traditional date of death is 28 January 1328, for according to a note by the Dominican Friedrich Steill from 1691, the memory of his death was observed in the order on 28 January. Whether the commemoration was based on actual knowledge of the date of death is, however, unclear.
After Eckhart’s death the proceedings were continued. They ended with the condemnation of the 28 propositions, which were classified partly as heretical, partly as suspect of heresy. In the bull In agro dominico (“In the field of the Lord”) of 27 March 1329 the pope announced that Eckhart had before his death completely revoked his errors. The wording of this document, however, reveals that Eckhart avoided designating his attacked teachings as untrue. Rather, he held fast to his theological convictions and did not distance himself from what he had meant with his objected statements. He rejected only in blanket fashion possible heretical, faith-hostile misinterpretations of his theses. With this the pope was satisfied.
The Works
Eckhart’s works are composed partly in Latin, partly in Middle High German. None of them survives as an autograph written in his own hand. The German works are transmitted substantially more widely than the Latin ones. Besides complete works, drafts, in part tiny fragments, as well as quotations in others’ writings survive. In some cases the authenticity is disputed.
German Works
With his German works Eckhart addresses himself expressly also and especially to the “unlearned people.” He rejects the notion of a truth accessible only to theologically educated Latin-readers, to be concealed from the simple folk. In his conviction, even the most exalted teachings should be proclaimed to the general public, for the unlearned are those who need instruction. The risk that some things will not be correctly understood is to be accepted. The German works are:
Die rede der underscheidunge (often translated as “Talks of Instruction”; the transmitted title is not authentic). This is a collection of loosely strung-together instructions on a multiplicity of spiritual themes and questions of conduct of life. The writing, composed between 1294 and 1298 in Erfurt, contains answers to questions of the (spiritual) “children,” that is, the monks with whom the author conducted instructional conversations as prior. It is the most widely transmitted work of Eckhart.
The Sermons. Among the best-known sermons are No. 86 Intravit Iesus in quoddam castellum and No. 32 Beati pauperes spiritu. A 14th-century sermon collection, the Paradisus anime intelligentis (“Paradise of the Rational Soul”), contains 64 sermons, half of which are by Eckhart. In older scholarship it was conjectured that the surviving sermon texts were for the most part unauthorized records by hearers. According to the present state of research, however, that is unlikely. Philological and historical indications suggest that Eckhart authorized the texts (apart from isolated exceptions). He probably himself fixed in writing a collection of his German sermons, whereby these were not mere copies of delivered addresses but versions edited for a reading public. However, the transmitted texts were in part substantially reworked by later redactors. Moreover, text corruption due to transmission must be reckoned with.
The “Book of Divine Consolation.” Eckhart wrote the work, belonging to the genre of consolation writings, for the widowed Queen Agnes of Hungary, whose father, King Albrecht I, had been murdered in 1308. That the queen commissioned Eckhart with the composition of this writing testifies to his high reputation. Together with the sermon “On the Noble Man,” the “Book of Divine Consolation” forms the Liber Benedictus (“Book ‘Blessed'”), so named after the Latin opening words Benedictus deus (“Blessed be God”).
The poem Granum sinapis (“The Mustard Seed”), whose authenticity is not secured but plausible. It is transmitted together with a Latin commentary that was earlier wrongly ascribed to Eckhart himself.
The authenticity of the tract “On Detachment,” in which a central concept of Eckhart’s teaching is explained, is disputed. The editor Josef Quint holds the tract to be genuine; other scholars dispute the authenticity. In the view of Kurt Ruh, there are extensive agreements with Eckhart’s authentic teaching and his style, but the writing does not stem from him himself.
Latin Works
Among the Latin works the unfinished “tripartite work” (Opus tripartitum) occupies the largest space. In the three parts the author intended to inform comprehensively about his teaching as well as to assemble his hints and instructions for the conduct of life. According to his plan set out in the preface, the first part was to be formed by the “Work of Propositions” (Opus propositionum), for which the treatment of more than a thousand propositions was envisaged, distributed over 14 treatises (tractatus). In each treatise Eckhart wanted first to discuss and clarify a fundamental philosophical term and its opposite (for example being and nothing, the one and the many, the true and the false, the good and evil) and then to present the propositions that relate to the respective term. As the second part a “Work of Questions (Problems)” (Opus quaestionum) was planned. The third part, the “Work of Expositions” (Opus expositionum), was to comprise the exegetical works and to consist of two components: the biblical commentaries — Eckhart planned to comment on all books of both Testaments — and a collection of Latin sermons in which biblical texts were expounded. The enormous undertaking could be realized only in part. Some of the commentaries on books of the Bible are extant.
Of the Latin works the following have survived:
- Prefaces to the Opus tripartitum: a general preface (Prologus generalis) and prefaces to the “Work of Propositions” and to the “Work of Expositions”
- Two commentaries on the Book of Genesis. The second, with the title “Book of the Parables of Genesis” (Liber parabolarum Genesis), treats the symbolic interpretation of events narrated in the Book of Genesis.
- The commentary on the Book of Exodus
- The commentary on the Book of Wisdom (Expositio libri Sapientiae)
- The exposition of the Gospel according to John
- Two sermons and two lectures on the 24th chapter of the Book of Jesus Sirach (Sermones et lectiones super Ecclesiastici caput 24)
- A fragment of a commentary on the Song of Songs
- The “Parisian Questions” (Quaestiones Parisienses), problem discussions arising from teaching activity, in which Eckhart sets out among other things his position on the question of the relation of being and knowing in God and in creatures and thereby works out the opposition between his theology and the Thomist one.
- The inaugural lecture (principium) held in Paris in 1293 on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (Collatio in libros Sententiarum)
- The sermons (sermones). Only a part of them is fully elaborated; for others only drafts or mere collections of keywords are available.
- A short explanation of the Lord’s Prayer
Doctrine
Eckhart’s doctrine revolves around two poles: God and the human soul. He wants to enlighten his hearers or readers about the constitution of the soul and (so far as possible) about God, and to instruct them how God and soul relate to one another. In this, the practical reference of his expositions plays a central role for him. The hearer or reader is to be guided to arrive at the insights described by Eckhart by means of his own self- and God-experience. The starting point of the treatment of this theme is the question of how knowledge of God can come about and what preconditions must be fulfilled for it.
In the broader public and in a part of the specialist literature Eckhart is perceived as a mystic. In more recent research, however, it is variously emphasized that the variously defined concept “mysticism” is problematic as a designation for elements of his doctrine, at least in need of explanation and only of limited use.
Procedure
To support and illustrate his assertions, Eckhart cites authorities abundantly: both biblical texts and ancient and medieval church writers and non-Christian philosophers. He makes use of the terminology of the university science of his time, shaped by Aristotelianism; in content, however, he stands closer to Neoplatonism than to Aristotelian thought. Among the authors he especially values, alongside the late-antique church father Augustine the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides plays an outstanding role. The core statements of his doctrine, however, despite this intellectual-historical background, are not based primarily on a generally recognized philosophical and theological tradition to which he attaches himself. More important than the appeal to authorities is for him the insight grounded in reason and experience. He holds his insights to be universally valid and wants to make it possible for his public to follow even demanding content. However, the following requires much more than a purely mental grasping of the conclusiveness of the expositions. Everyone who truly wants to understand and judge Eckhart’s central statements must first create in himself the necessary preconditions: for, so long as the human being does not resemble this truth, so long will he not understand this speech; for this is an unveiled truth that has come from the heart of God immediately. That we may so live that we experience it eternally, may God help us. If the preconditions are created, then the truth as such can be recognized with certainty.
With this approach Eckhart arrives at results that are unusual for a church author of his time and make his thought appear bold and original. In this there is — contrary to a formerly widespread view — no opposition between the German and the Latin works. Eckhart wants to reach not only an educated public but all who take an interest in his doctrine. As a preacher he addresses himself in German also to hearers or readers who have little philosophical or theological prior knowledge. But he makes high demands on the public’s willingness to engage with unusual and sometimes exaggeratedly formulated lines of thought. In exegesis he often deviates from the literal meaning of the biblical passages to be interpreted in order to find a hidden sense. He is aware of the shocking boldness of his assertions; in the prologue to the Opus tripartitum he writes that some things appear at first glance monstrous, doubtful, or false.
Doctrine of God and the Godhead
God is for the medieval scholastics the object of both philosophical and theological cognitive efforts. He is to be known on the one hand through revelation and on the other by means of reason. Eckhart does not distinguish between these two approaches. Theology and philosophy form a unity for him; neither is philosophy subordinate to theology (Philosophia ancilla theologiae) nor are they to be separated because of different methodology. Philosophical considerations and arguments stand equally alongside theological ones. For Eckhart — in contrast to the view of many patristic and medieval theologians — every area of theology is in principle accessible to philosophical reflection and graspable with philosophical statements. In accordance with this basic attitude, Eckhart also holds the difference between natural and supernatural events to be inessential and recommends that one should not concern oneself with it, since both are equally wrought by God. Fundamental for the human being’s relation to God is the difference between faith and knowledge; faith relates to sight or perfect knowledge as an opinion to a proof, as something imperfect to the perfect. So it is not a matter of remaining at faith but of advancing from faith to knowledge.
God and Godhead Eckhart does not assign the same meaning to the concepts “God” and “Godhead,” but designates with them different levels on which the divine reality can show itself to the human being. He asserts that God and Godhead are as far different from one another as heaven and earth. Through revelation the human being striving for knowledge of God first encounters the triune God in the sense of the doctrine of the Trinity. As Father, God begets; as Creator, he is the exemplary cause of all created things; as Trinity, he appears in three persons. The three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) form a unity because of their consubstantiality, yet at the same time there exists between them a real difference, so that within the Trinity inner-divine relations and processes are possible.
From the existence of God insofar as he is Creator and encounters his creatures in this capacity, Eckhart distinguishes a higher level of the reality of the divine, on which this appears as “Godhead” or as “simple One,” “above God.” Terminologically, however, the distinction between God and Godhead is not consistently carried through in Eckhart. He also uses the word “God” for statements that relate to what he otherwise calls “Godhead.” In this he follows the manner of expression familiar to his public — especially the hearers of his sermons. What is meant is in each case evident from the context.
On the level of the “Godhead” or the “One,” the divine reality is for one who wants to approach it no longer an instance determinable in the sense of the doctrine of the Trinity, which begets and creates. The Godhead brings forth nothing, does not communicate itself begetting and generating, but is related to nothing but itself. Yet although on the Godhead level the relation between Creator and creature precisely does not come into consideration, it is just as really accessible to the human being as the level of the Creator God. One should not “stand still” at God but “break through” to the Godhead. The Godhead is the suprapersonal aspect of the total divine reality. Nothing determinate can be predicated of it, since it is situated beyond all differentiation. It is “wayless” (without properties by which it could be defined).
