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esse distinctum and the latter is esse indistinctum. 258 Esse distinctum means, as Eckhart puts it, being a “this and that” (hoc et hoc), a thing that can be counted with numbers. 259 It is called distinctum because each created thing is bounded off from other created things—this chair is a chair because it is not a table, or this chair is this chair because it is not that chair, his body is not her body, and so on. 260 Crucially, esse distinctum is only “being” in a partial sense of the word (it is “limited being”), because for Eckhart, things do not have being from themselves, they have it because God has given it to them. God, on the other hand, is esse indistinctum because God is not, in fact, any kind of thing at all, but rather the cause of being in the first place. Thus, only God, as esse indistinctum, can be said to truly exist; as Eckhart says, “ist got aleine in der wârheit.” 261 God is not even a 258 A particularly clear discussion of Eckhart’s thinking on being and intellect (no easy feat) is found in Chapters 6 and 7 of Denys Turner’s The Darkness of God. Denys Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). See also Largier’s notes in Meister Eckhart, Werke, Vol. I, 838-853. 259 As Turner explains it: “We cannot distinguish between God and the soul as kinds of things, for though our soul is a thing of a kind, God is not. Nor can we distinguish between God and the soul as individuals; for though my soul is one and distinct numerically from yours (your soul plus my soul equals two souls) God is not ‘one’ in the sense that my soul plus God equals two of anything at all, even individuals. For, not being a kind of thing, God is not and cannot be an additional anything. God is absolutely unique. There is not any collectivity to which God could be added as a further item.” Turner, Darkness, 161. 260 Sermon 46: “sol der mensche got bekennen, in dem sîn êwigiu sælicheit bestât, sô muoz er ein einiger sun sîn mit Kristô des vaters; und dar umbe: wellet ir sælic sîn, sô müezet ir éin sun sîn, niht vil süne, mêr: éin sun. Ir sult vol underscheiden sîn nâch lîplîcher geburt, aber in der êwigen geburt sult ir ein sîn, wan in gote enist niht wan éin natiurlîcher ursprunc.” Eckhart, Werke, Vol. 1, 490:10-16. (“And thus if a person is to know God (in whom his eternal happiness consists), he must be an only Son of the Father with Christ. Therefore, if you want to be happy, you must be one Son, not many sons; rather, one Son. You should, of course, be different according to your corporeal birth, but in the eternal birth you should be one because in God there is only one natural fountainhead.” Eckhart, Teacher and Preacher, 304.) Being a Son versus this particular son follows from the fact that God did not become a particular human as Christ (“dísen menschen noch dén menschen”), but rather took human nature upon himself, becoming a Son in general. ‘Daz merket! Daz êwige wort ennam niht an sich dísen menschen noch dén menschen, sunder ez nam an sich eine vrîe, ungeteilte menschlîche natûre, diu dâ bloz was sunder bilde [Largier translates bilde as Individualzüge]; wan diu einvaltige forme der menscheit diu ist sunder bilde.” Eckhart, Werke, Vol. 1, 490:21-25. (“Follow carefully! The eternal Word did no assume this human being or that human being. Rather, he assumed a free, undivided human nature which was bare, or without a [formed] image, for the simple form humanity does not have a [formed] image.” Eckhart, Teacher and Preacher, 304.) 261 This passage is from Sermon 77: “wan alle crêatûren sint ein snœde dinc und ein blôz niht gegen gote. Dar umbe: waz sie sint in der wârheit, daz sint sie in gote, und dar umbe ist got aleine in der wârheit...Daz ander: ez meinet, daz got ungescheiden ist von allen dingen, wan got ist in allen dingen, wan er ist in inniger, dan sie in selben sint. Alsô ist got ungescheiden von allen dingen.” Werke, Vol. 2, 140:28-142:6. (“All creatures are worthless and a mere nothing compared with God. Therefore, what they are in truth they 100
one-of-a-kind thing, or the best kind of thing. For Eckhart, this indistinctness is how God is absolutely One; to put it another way, “God’s esse is to be ‘neither this nor that,’” or yet another way, God is “nothing in particular.” 262 Over and over, Eckhart admonishes his listeners and readers to do away with distinctions. Names, images, concepts, identity, time, and ultimately even the distinction between distinction and similarity—all of these must be rejected as the soul returns to God. Indeed, as we will see later in this chapter, the abandoning of distinctions is the subject of the Eckhart sermon (Sermon 52) to which Weigel devoted a careful and close reading. The flip side of Eckhart’s surprising definition of God’s unity (God is One because God is indistinct) is an equally surprising understanding of the union of God and soul, which is the overwhelming emphasis of Eckhart’s work. The basis of this union is Eckhart’s definition of intellect. Just as the existence of created objects was determined by their distinctness from each other, so too is the intellect’s knowledge of them. When the intellect considers, for instance, a square object, it perceives its squareness only by contrast with non-square things. Moreover, Eckhart (following Aristotle) argues that to know an object is to become it, 263 and so in order for the intellect to continue perceiving a are in God, and thus God alone is in truth...God is unseparated from all things, for God is in all things and is more inwardly in them than they are in themselves. That is how God is unseparated from all things.” This English translation is from Meister Eckhart, The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart, ed. Maurice O'C. Walshe and Bernard McGinn [New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009].) We know that this is the case from Eckhart’s theory of analogy. In things related by analogy, what is in one of the analogates is not formally in the other, which in plain(er) English means that “if something is affirmed about God, it must be denied of creatures” and vice versa. McGinn, Harvest, 137. Or, as Eckhart writes in Sermon 9: “Ein ieglich dinc würket in wesene, kein dinc enmac würken über sîn wesen. Daz viur enmac niht würken dan in dem holze. Got würket über wesene in der wîte, dâ er sich geregen mac, er würket in unwesene; ê denne wesen wære, dô worhte got; er worhte wesen, dô niht wesen enwas.” (“Everything works in being; nothing works above its being. Fire cannot work except in wood. God works above being in vastness, where he can roam. He works in nonbeing. Before being was, God worked. He worked being when there was no being.” Eckhart, Teacher and Preacher, 256.) Werke, Vol. 1, 106:15-20. 262 Turner, Darkness, 165. 263 Eckhart imagines an eye looking at a piece of wood: “Geschihet aber daz, daz mîn ouge ein und einvaltic ist in im selben und ûfgetan wirt und ûf daz holz geworfen wirt mit einer angesiht, sô blîbet ein 101
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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,
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masses for the dead (for instance)
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traditional proof texts about the o
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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
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Page 71 and 72: and Jerome (wearing what looks like
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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
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Page 97 and 98: CHAPTER 2 • GELASSENE GELASSENHEI
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Page 101 and 102: e “as it was when it was not.”
Page 103: Eckhart agree that spiritual povert
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Page 109 and 110: e as free of willing and desiring a
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Page 113 and 114: Gelassenheit, das ist, das er nicht
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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
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Page 125 and 126: wait in stiller Gelassenheit, recei
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Page 129 and 130: ungewisser”) and finds that his f
Page 131 and 132: die Blinden an ein ander gehetzett,
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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
Page 151 and 152: CHAPTER 3 • DIONYSIUS, WHOEVER HE
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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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