the mystical theology of valentin weigel - DataSpace at Princeton ...

Erkentnus und Liebe”). 287 This “something” is what allows the union of the soul with
God, rather than either knowing God or loving God (“an Erkentnus und Liebe”) as other
theologians have taught. 288 Although the BT and Weigel call it “ein Ding,” what follows
makes it clear that Eckhart is not talking about any ordinary kind of thing, since he
immediately denies it any of the attributes of a thing: “das erkennet selber nichts noch hat
nichts lieb...diß hat weder vor noch nach und es wartet keines zukunfftigen Dinges, denn
diß mag weder gewinnen noch verliehren.” This “something” is a relic of the soul’s
existence before creation and thus shares certain divine attributes, namely that it is eternal
and perfect. 289
Later in this same tract, Weigel makes an interesting editorial interpolation that
demonstrates he has understood the logic of Eckhartian Gelassenheit. Here, Weigel
quotes from another Eckhart sermon, making the now familiar argument that the soul
must detach itself from all created things. Weigel then inserts a clause into this sentence
that is not found either in the critical edition of the Eckhart sermon or the Basel Tauler
edition before resuming the Eckhart quotation (I have put the words that Weigel added in
Italics): “Der Mensch, der sich allzumal liese einen Augenblick inn gelassener
287 Weigel, Zwene nützliche Tractat, 64; BT, CCCVIIva. Unfortunately, the BT gives this lines as “ein
Ding” rather than as “einez,” because of course Eckhart took pains earlier in the sermon to emphasize that
God is no thing, neither this nor that. Although the sentences that follow immediately contradict the
conclusion that God is a thing, calling it an einez is perhaps the best way of talking about this thing-that-isno-thing.
Elsewhere Eckhart uses the indefinite pronoun ‘ein’ to refer to something that is indistinct rather
than a particular something. This becomes particularly important in Eckhart’s Christology, where the
distinction between ein Sohn and der Sohn expresses the idea that Christ took human nature upon himself
(see note 12, above). Actually, since Eckhart is referring to the no-thing that is God and the intellect,
perhaps a better translation for einez would be, not “something” but rather an “any” or a “one” in the soul,
even though this is not grammatically correct in English. As an indefinite pronoun, einez belongs to a small
group of grammatical categories that Eckhart deems particularly suitable to theological discourse. For
example, adverbs belong to this group, because they are wholly dependent on the verb for their meaning,
and, like the Bild in relation to its Urbild, or the image in relation to the mirror, cannot exist without it. V1,
112:24-114:7.
288 Weigel, Zwene Tractat, 63. BT, CCCVIIrb.
289 Ibid, 64; BT, CCCVIIrb
108