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Predigten: Werke 1 von Meister Eckhart
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1107 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2008
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About the author
Meister Eckhart
271 books514 followersEckhart von Hochheim, commonly known as Meister Eckhart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in Thuringia.
Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris. Coming into prominence during the decadent Avignon Papacy and a time of increased tensions between the Franciscans and Eckhart's Dominican Order of Preacher Friars, he was brought up on charges later in life before the local Franciscan-led Inquisition. Tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII, his "Defence" is famous for his reasoned arguments to all challenged articles of his writing and his refutation of heretical intent. He purportedly died before his verdict was received, although no record of his death or burial site has ever been discovered.
Meister Eckhart is sometimes (erroneously) referred to as "Johannes Eckhart", although Eckhart was his given name and von Hochheim was his surname.
"Perhaps no mystic in the history of Christianity has been more influential and more controversial than the Dominican Meister Eckart. Few, if any, mystics have been as challenging to modern day readers and as resistant to agreed-upon interpretation."
—Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart
Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris. Coming into prominence during the decadent Avignon Papacy and a time of increased tensions between the Franciscans and Eckhart's Dominican Order of Preacher Friars, he was brought up on charges later in life before the local Franciscan-led Inquisition. Tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII, his "Defence" is famous for his reasoned arguments to all challenged articles of his writing and his refutation of heretical intent. He purportedly died before his verdict was received, although no record of his death or burial site has ever been discovered.
Meister Eckhart is sometimes (erroneously) referred to as "Johannes Eckhart", although Eckhart was his given name and von Hochheim was his surname.
"Perhaps no mystic in the history of Christianity has been more influential and more controversial than the Dominican Meister Eckart. Few, if any, mystics have been as challenging to modern day readers and as resistant to agreed-upon interpretation."
—Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart
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April 7, 2024
The great fourteenth-century mystical theologian Meister Eckhart was rediscovered during the awakening of incipient German national consciousness in the era of Romanticism, when things medieval were all the rage. Eckhart occupies a high point in the mystical tradition, coming well after the patristic age when one was, by and large, preoccupied with threshing out the dogmas of who Jesus is and who God is but long before its dissolution in the early modern period. For Eckhart, in contrast, the great doctrinal controversies have already been settled centuries ago and the interest centers on a cultivation of the knowledge and experience of God, in the wake of Pseudo-Dionysius’ pregnant writings. Why he should be of interest to us today: his metier is a high though not at all pretentious intellectuality combined with a serious ascetical theology – as with his signature concepts of gelassenheit and abgeschiedenheit: but above all for his original insights into the nature of God, eternity, love, mystical union – a distinctive voice, neither grim, as one takes certain currents in modern French or Spanish mysticism to be (such as Pascal’s Jansenism), nor clueless like à la mode New Age spirituality, but a mature synthesis of exquisite learnedness with a pure affective tendency, evincing a serene harmony between the contemplative and active lives. Thereby, through his teaching he enables us to become not unlike Christ himself, who, one imagines, in opposition to many distraught souls only just embarking on their spiritual journey was supremely self-possessed and at peace with himself, thus empowered to intervene wisely in the world around him for its good.
The sermons are usually short, 4-6 pages, printed with the original verso and the translation by Josef Quint into modern German recto, which one should consult only when the original contains unfamiliar vocabulary. For various reasons, medieval German is more readable to a modern man than is his contemporary, Chaucer, to a native English speaker – after a while one gets used to the strange spelling and can recognize the precursors of common words in modern German (or so it seems to this native English speaker; maybe since medieval German syntax resembles English, being less strictly verb-final than is modern German). Eckhart always starts from a scriptural text taken from the liturgy of day on which he is preaching, which he expounds and interprets in a allegorizing direction – the literal sense serves only a jumping-off point. But Eckhart is not ordinarily much of a symbolist, however, such as one might find in the popular monastic literature of the day. With Eckhart one gets instead the fruit of the lofty speculations of a master, condensed into a simple and approachable format, not a pastiche of scriptural allusions and stereotypical symbolic imagery such as the monks tended to indulge in. Eckhart will often cite the views of other masters or ancient pagans (whom he seems to regard as equally authoritative in their domain of competence), in the style of his day, without attribution (one has to look to the end notes where the modern scholar gives formal references to the works Eckhart cites informally).
The Deutscher Klassiker Verlag edition supplies no overall introduction, but the supportive end notes by Niklaus Largier for each sermon will first paraphrase Eckhart’s argument in terminology that should be more congenial to a student of philosophy or theology, then appends a line-by-line commentary that elaborates on hard passages and identifies Eckhart’s sources. Thus, by consulting the notes one can take in a fairly clear formulation of what one has just read, but of course they are scholarly and dry and less poetic than the original. It is always a mistake, anyway, to put too much of a premium on clarity when sounding out divine matters, for such clarity as one can attain will normally conceal a superficial grasp of the difficult subject matter. Thus, by all means scan the commentary in case one has missed anything, but be prepared to spend much more time pondering, or feasting upon the original.
What one may gather from a meditative perusal of Meister Eckhart’s sermons: a heartfelt internalization of the gospel call to detach oneself from creatures and to be transported into a calm contemplation of God, undisturbed by any ecstatic excesses. For in the generation of the Son by the Father and in the overflowing of the Holy Spirit, we can discern a prototype for our own spiritual lives, once one has gotten past the stage of distraction by worldliness. We are meant, like the Mother of God, to become bearers of Christ within our own souls – thus transformed, we emulate the angelic intelligences in their zeal to make the wonderful news of God’s salvation known to a world that cannot find peace, as long as men’s desires persist in the prevailing disorder. There is a profound reason why, in the Orient, Buddhist scholars who take the trouble to study Occidental spirituality, tend to find in Eckhart the figure closest to their own religious tradition of compassion. Eckhart sees well that attachment to disordered desires is the cause of our disquiet and summons us detach ourselves from these so as to become godlike, in grace like Christ himself. No doubt, Eckhart himself will remain pivotal to the dialogue between East and West, for he firmly anchors his views on suffering and on how to be released from it in a rigorous and integrally scholastic psychology of the soul and theology of God – what one will not typically find among Buddhists themselves. They have as much to learn from us as we from them!
The sermons are usually short, 4-6 pages, printed with the original verso and the translation by Josef Quint into modern German recto, which one should consult only when the original contains unfamiliar vocabulary. For various reasons, medieval German is more readable to a modern man than is his contemporary, Chaucer, to a native English speaker – after a while one gets used to the strange spelling and can recognize the precursors of common words in modern German (or so it seems to this native English speaker; maybe since medieval German syntax resembles English, being less strictly verb-final than is modern German). Eckhart always starts from a scriptural text taken from the liturgy of day on which he is preaching, which he expounds and interprets in a allegorizing direction – the literal sense serves only a jumping-off point. But Eckhart is not ordinarily much of a symbolist, however, such as one might find in the popular monastic literature of the day. With Eckhart one gets instead the fruit of the lofty speculations of a master, condensed into a simple and approachable format, not a pastiche of scriptural allusions and stereotypical symbolic imagery such as the monks tended to indulge in. Eckhart will often cite the views of other masters or ancient pagans (whom he seems to regard as equally authoritative in their domain of competence), in the style of his day, without attribution (one has to look to the end notes where the modern scholar gives formal references to the works Eckhart cites informally).
The Deutscher Klassiker Verlag edition supplies no overall introduction, but the supportive end notes by Niklaus Largier for each sermon will first paraphrase Eckhart’s argument in terminology that should be more congenial to a student of philosophy or theology, then appends a line-by-line commentary that elaborates on hard passages and identifies Eckhart’s sources. Thus, by consulting the notes one can take in a fairly clear formulation of what one has just read, but of course they are scholarly and dry and less poetic than the original. It is always a mistake, anyway, to put too much of a premium on clarity when sounding out divine matters, for such clarity as one can attain will normally conceal a superficial grasp of the difficult subject matter. Thus, by all means scan the commentary in case one has missed anything, but be prepared to spend much more time pondering, or feasting upon the original.
What one may gather from a meditative perusal of Meister Eckhart’s sermons: a heartfelt internalization of the gospel call to detach oneself from creatures and to be transported into a calm contemplation of God, undisturbed by any ecstatic excesses. For in the generation of the Son by the Father and in the overflowing of the Holy Spirit, we can discern a prototype for our own spiritual lives, once one has gotten past the stage of distraction by worldliness. We are meant, like the Mother of God, to become bearers of Christ within our own souls – thus transformed, we emulate the angelic intelligences in their zeal to make the wonderful news of God’s salvation known to a world that cannot find peace, as long as men’s desires persist in the prevailing disorder. There is a profound reason why, in the Orient, Buddhist scholars who take the trouble to study Occidental spirituality, tend to find in Eckhart the figure closest to their own religious tradition of compassion. Eckhart sees well that attachment to disordered desires is the cause of our disquiet and summons us detach ourselves from these so as to become godlike, in grace like Christ himself. No doubt, Eckhart himself will remain pivotal to the dialogue between East and West, for he firmly anchors his views on suffering and on how to be released from it in a rigorous and integrally scholastic psychology of the soul and theology of God – what one will not typically find among Buddhists themselves. They have as much to learn from us as we from them!
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