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poverty. 270 Eckhart begins by setting aside what he calls outer poverty (“ein ûzwendigiu armuot” 271 ), the giving up of earthly possessions. Though he does concede that it is praiseworthy to live as Jesus lived on Earth, Eckhart is more interested in an inner poverty (“ein inwendigiu armuot”), the spiritual poverty that Christ praises in the Sermon on the Mount, and, crucially, the spiritual poverty that constitutes their claim to the kingdom of Heaven. Eckhart’s definition of spiritual poverty proves to be far more complex than the simple formula by which he introduces it: spiritual poverty is wanting nothing, knowing nothing, and having nothing (“Waare Armut des Geistes ist, do der Mensch nichts will, nichts weiß und nichts hat”). 272 In the first of these three things—willing nothing—Eckhart demanded a greater sacrifice than other theologians might. It is not enough simply to desire only what God desires (to align one’s own will with God’s will), since this still implies the presence of will—the will to do God’s will is still a will. 273 Nor is it enough to cease desiring frivolous earthly things and begin desiring lofty things such as eternity or even God himself (“etwas Begehrung hat der Ewigkeit und Gottes”). 274 Eckhart calls for the soul to 270 The pericope for the sermon is the opening to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3): “Selig sind, die da geistlich arm sind, Denn das Himelreich ist ir.” Discussing this work in this chapter is in danger of becoming unwieldy because of the many different versions of Eckhart’s work in play: the Baseler Taulerdruck version (Weigel’s source), Weigel’s relatively faithful transcription of the Baseler Taulerdruck, as well as the modern critical edition of Eckhart’s work. Although the rest of this dissertation uses the critical edition of Eckhart’s works, in my discussion of Weigel’s text in this section, I will quote directly from Weigel’s own text, noting any significant divergences from the Baseler Taulerdruck if they are relevant or if Weigel does not copy that particular phrase, and will provide a reference to the modern critical edition. 271 BT, CCCVIvb. V1, 550:11. 272 Weigel, Zwene nützliche Tractat, 62; BT, CCCVIvb. 273 Ibid; BT, CCCVIIra. “Dann also lang der Mensch das hat, das inn seinen Willen ist und das sein Wille ist, das er will erfullen den liebsten Willen Gottes, dieser Mensch hat nicht Armut, von welchen wir alhier reden, denn dieser Mensch hat einen Willen, mit welchen er genüge will sein den Willen Gottes, und das ist nicht recht.” 274 Weigel, Zwene nützliche Tractat, 63; BT, CCCVIIra. 104
e as free of willing and desiring as it was “when it was not,” as Eckhart puts it (“so mus er seines geschaffenen Willens also ledig sein, als er wahr, da er noch nichts wahr”). 275 Breaking through to an uncreated or pre-created state is important to Eckhart because he conceives of creation as a separation from God—a separation that somehow diminishes both God and creature. Echoing Yahweh speaking to Moses from the burning bush, Eckhart says that before creation flowed out from Him, God was simply what God was (“er was das er was”), but God is now God-in-creatures (“sunder in den creaturen was er got”). 276 After creation, God is no longer the perfectly fulfilling end of creation (“nun das mag mich nicht seelig machen, denn hie erkenn ich mich Creatur”) no matter how great the God-in-creatures may still be. 277 God-in-creatures contains one distinction (God vs. God’s creation) that the soul must strive to break through into union, because, as described above, for Eckhart, God is perfectly and entirely One, and thus cannot have any distinction within him that would mar this unity. 278 The second element of spiritual poverty—knowing nothing (“zum andern ist der arm, der nichts weiß”)—calls for the creature to return to the state of spiritual ignorance it 275 Weigel, Zwene nützliche Tractat, 62; BT, CCCVIIra. Kurt Flasch points out that Eckhart is playing with time designations here (“spielt...mit den Zeitbestimmungen”), since, strictly speaking, time is created as well, and thus there is no time before creation. Giving up ideas of before and after, past and future also belongs to spiritual poverty. Kurt Flasch, "Preidgt Nr. 52," in Lectura Eckhardi: Predigten Meister Eckharts von Fachgelehrten gelesen und gedeutet, (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1998), 188. 276 BT, CCCVII. Michael Sells points out that modern editions of this sermon explain away some of the sermon’s radical charge by making some kind of editorial intervention to distinguish God from God-increatures (by adding quotation marks around one ‘God”, for example) Those listening to Eckhart deliver the the sermon (or reading a pre-modern edition or manuscript) would have been left to sort out the difference between got and “got” on their own. What this means is that the sermon, as it was heard rather than read, would have sounded far more radical, but at the same time would have better captured Eckhart’s dialectical thinking. Michael A. Sells, Mystical Languages of Unsaying, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 1. Weigel does not quote these two particular lines here, but he does cite similar ones that are repeated at the end of the sermon (Weigel, Zwene Tractat, 67-68); for clarity’s sake, I discuss them here as they occur in Eckhart’s line of reasoning, rather than in Weigel’s text. 277 Weigel, Zwene nützliche Tractat, 67-68. 278 Flasch, 186; Turner, Darkness, 162-167. 105
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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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positive understandings of indiffer
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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
Page 77 and 78: himself, but rather cultivated part
Page 79 and 80: church that Luther, Melanchthon and
Page 81 and 82: kan”), and specifically the role
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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 and 100: the relationship between Tauler and
Page 101 and 102: e “as it was when it was not.”
Page 103 and 104: Eckhart agree that spiritual povert
Page 105 and 106: one-of-a-kind thing, or the best ki
Page 107: einvaltig stille), an uncreated lig
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
Page 151 and 152: CHAPTER 3 • DIONYSIUS, WHOEVER HE
Page 153 and 154: demonstrated for Eckhart, I will de
Page 155 and 156: destroyer that Dionysius is most of
Page 157 and 158: 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
Page 277 and 278:
Israel, A. (1888). M. Valentin Weig
Page 279 and 280:
MacCulloch, D. (2010). Christianity
Page 281 and 282:
Payne, R. J. (Ed.). (1981). Meister
Page 283 and 284:
Schindling, A., & Ziegler, W. (1990
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Verkamp, B. J. (1975). The Limits u
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