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sits at the heart of Weigel’s own network of ideas) and productive (i.e. the after-effects of his intellectual engagement with Eckhart are to be observed throughout Weigel’s entire oeuvre). I will examine the dynamics of binarism in Eckhart and Weigel, and show how both writers deconstruct various dichotomies, particularly between self and God. Weigel’s treatment of Eckhartian Gelassenheit occurs, broadly speaking, in three phases: the first in which Weigel familiarizes himself with Eckhart’s writings, the second in which he transforms Eckhart’s ideas to serve as the crucial argument in his own theological projects and the third in which Weigel deploys Gelassenheit in a practical, pastoral context as a model for how Christians should behave in turbulent times. 254 This first phase, Weigel’s initial contact with Eckhart, is documented in a short treatise from 1570 entitled Zwene nützliche Tractat, der erste von der Bekehrung des Menschen, der ander von Armut des Geistes oder waarer Gelassenheit, a text that essentially consists of Weigel’s reading notes on sermons by Eckhart and Tauler, through which he becomes thoroughly acquainted with his medieval source material. Here, Weigel zeroes in on the concept of spiritual poverty, including his nearly word-for-word transcription of Eckhart’s sermon on that same subject, and the treatise demonstrates that Weigel was well-acquainted with the idea of Gelassenheit from the very beginning of his career as a writer. Eckhart is Weigel’s temporal as well as intellectual point of origin. As for the second phase, the key productive transformation of Eckhart’s idea of spiritual poverty appears in his treatise on epistemology, Der güldene Griff. Eckhart’s treatment of spiritual poverty pushes the process of detachment beyond giving up possessions, knowledge, and desires to the point of abandoning one’s very self, his goal being to return the soul to the unity it enjoyed with God before creation: the soul should 254 Zeller, “Eckhartiana,“ 338. 96
e “as it was when it was not.” For Weigel, this ultimate spiritual poverty has important epistemological ramifications. Abandoning the self entails abandoning the self’s cognitive faculties, allowing God’s own cognition to take over instead, leaving God to peacefully contemplate God’s own self without interference. In such a scenario, there cannot be, by definition, any disagreement or disunity, as the various selves abandon themselves and resolve into a single viewer (God) contemplating a single object (which is also God) through a medium that is identical with both viewer and object (in God’s own self). In the third and final phase, Eckhartian spiritual poverty appears in Weigel’s oeuvre as guidance for Christians living in discordant times. As is fitting for giving practical advice, Weigel takes up a pastoral form—the sermon. The sermon in question belongs to his most controversial work, the Kirchen- und Hauspostille, and treats the flight of the Holy Family from Herod’s violent revenge upon all the male children in Bethlehem. Weigel asks why Christ did not intervene to prevent this terrible injustice: surely the King of Kings incarnate need not fear a mere earthly king, and be reduced to sneaking away at night? Weigel reads the flight into Egypt as a defence of nonintervention in political affairs: it is better to refuse to be tempted into violence altogether by fleeing and hiding, which is therefore not cowardice, but rather imitation of Christ Himself. Just as Christ chose not to return Herod’s violence with violence, a Christian should avoid intervening in earthly affairs because any intervention (even on God’s side) can only fuel conflict—never extinguish it. Moreover, Weigel draws parallels between Herod’s Judaea and the Saxony of his own time, where corrupt priests, blinded by selfinterest, cooperate with an earthly ruler to persecute the innocent and the faithful. 97
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MYSTICISM & CONFESSIONAL CONFLICT I
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ABSTRACT This dissertation investig
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INTRODUCTION • ES IST DIR NICHT B
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mostly undisturbed by his Lutheran
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yet have signalled his assent with
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in a context where action is expect
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Protestant Mysticism: Not a Contrad
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interest, 31 and praised the Theolo
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one can observe the texture of the
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discourse and reasoned debate, or t
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with fragments of Eckhart and Taule
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Dionysius and Eckhart (for differen
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movement, but also profound shifts
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schools, as well as universities wh
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allowed them to cooperate effective
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made clear, would result in dismiss
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and in these external dealings, the
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same laws of physics, but while the
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Tertullian’s De Fuga in Persecuti
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as a martyr. Moreover, Holy Scriptu
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Alternatively, the so-called four-f
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tzeyger und unterrichter ist ynn di
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fellow Lutherans in studying books
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provoked into action unnecessarily,
Page 49 and 50: masses for the dead (for instance)
Page 51 and 52: traditional proof texts about the o
Page 53 and 54: positive understandings of indiffer
Page 55 and 56: insofar as their imperfection is ra
Page 57 and 58: Of these forms of indifference, I f
Page 59 and 60: to Dionysius’ authority. Two grou
Page 61 and 62: PART I • VALENTIN WEIGEL AND MEIS
Page 63 and 64: investigating his early modern read
Page 65 and 66: was a devilish heretic to others (
Page 67 and 68: his neglect of Eckhart. 158 For ins
Page 69 and 70: “unheilvolle Kompliziertheit”).
Page 71 and 72: and Jerome (wearing what looks like
Page 73 and 74: title page, as mentioned above, des
Page 75 and 76: of a respectable though not fanatic
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Page 79 and 80: church that Luther, Melanchthon and
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Page 85 and 86: that salvation can be attained thro
Page 87 and 88: more importantly, a theology that a
Page 89 and 90: Mit Recht der Meister genannt: Mode
Page 91 and 92: These role-reversal dialogues were
Page 93 and 94: As this chapter has shown, Eckhart
Page 95 and 96: philosophers from Hegel and Schopen
Page 97 and 98: CHAPTER 2 • GELASSENE GELASSENHEI
Page 99: the relationship between Tauler and
Page 103 and 104: Eckhart agree that spiritual povert
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Page 107 and 108: einvaltig stille), an uncreated lig
Page 109 and 110: e as free of willing and desiring a
Page 111 and 112: nestling inside the soul, but rathe
Page 113 and 114: Gelassenheit, das ist, das er nicht
Page 115 and 116: (necessarily inferior) knowledge pr
Page 117 and 118: context is that he picks up on Eckh
Page 119 and 120: he begins to steer the discussion a
Page 121 and 122: further proof for Weigel’s theory
Page 123 and 124: understood that the mind cannot pos
Page 125 and 126: wait in stiller Gelassenheit, recei
Page 127 and 128: truth as an educated theologian or
Page 129 and 130: ungewisser”) and finds that his f
Page 131 and 132: die Blinden an ein ander gehetzett,
Page 133 and 134: gesagett das ist er selber und ist
Page 135 and 136: Gelassenheit for the Bible, which i
Page 137 and 138: that the kind of Gelassenheit Weige
Page 139 and 140: indifference that allows Weigel to
Page 141 and 142: teacher. 366 However, the turning p
Page 143 and 144: Weigel gives the passage an unexpec
Page 145 and 146: Murren”)—and they do this “in
Page 147 and 148: and all the more so since he saw li
Page 149 and 150: the strength of the intellectual re
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CHAPTER 3 • DIONYSIUS, WHOEVER HE
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demonstrated for Eckhart, I will de
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destroyer that Dionysius is most of
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ears good news to the church.” 39
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points out, with a purification, a
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served as cornerstones in defences
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(Acts 17: 15-34), one of the skepti
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to make the interpretation of these
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Outside the universities, Dionysius
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defiled the “sacred things” by
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other leaders of the Protestant Ref
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valorization of hierarchy per se in
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as well as the with the arguments u
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freedom, but rather obedience. 468
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The primary piece in the compilatio
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It is hardly surprising that Cochla
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it does during the Council of Trent
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for a hierarchical church, seizing
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the ancient teaching”) that “be
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Dionysiacum. For Lefèvre d’Étap
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Aristotle would have been glad to h
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enlightens all great thinkers in ev
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offered Dionysius to the Gelehrtenr
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nine distinct editions of Dionysius
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editions of Greek and Latin classic
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(Turin), and is a reprint of Lefèv
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presses in Spain (his first publica
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growing body of evidence suggesting
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Weigel concludes that, precisely be
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apart, he suggested that true Chris
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and so did not dwell on the fact th
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Names, as the title suggests, is ba
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animals, through plants and non-liv
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of being.” 580 As we will see lat
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(“God is a rock”) or even a neg
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This is admittedly a nonsensical as
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compositions, most likely dating to
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Dionysius to show that, just as God
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efer to Greek and Hebrew, the bibli
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argues that there cannot be more th
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dicitur una.” 616 The stress that
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Weigel suggests will allow the soul
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saving sacraments by means of which
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Melanchthon’s Defence of the Augs
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alternative—namely prayer. 643 We
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Dionysius writes that the summit of
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leibet er illimitatus.” 658 Weige
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work, Weigel had written explicitly
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Luther did not ever use the exact p
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as opposed to an office-holder, an
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writing. By calling his Layman der
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Others are loyal to mere men (the P
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zuerzeigen einen rechtschaffen vnd
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and ceremonial ones at that. 694 Th
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himself returning gloriously from H
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all being. In relinquishing any cre
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improve appearances but, because it
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than resolve it, because the proble
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parcels God, who by rights is supre
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Appendix • The Works of Valentin
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Abad, J. M. (1999). Th
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Chenu O.P., M.-D. (1968). In M.-D.
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Eckhart, M. (1993). Werke I (Vol. 1
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Israel, A. (1888). M. Valentin Weig
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MacCulloch, D. (2010). Christianity
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Payne, R. J. (Ed.). (1981). Meister
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Schindling, A., & Ziegler, W. (1990
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Verkamp, B. J. (1975). The Limits u
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