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

ungewisser”) and finds that his footing becomes less and less certain: “ich konte weder
grundt noch warheitt finden.” Having used the word grundt throughout this text as
referring primarily to God’s presence in the soul, Weigel’s use of the word grundt here
expresses more than mere intellectual certainty, it expresses his profound separation from
God, what we might even call his un-Gelassenheit.
In addition to feeling destabilized and uncertain, Weigel is not enlightened by
these books, and in fact the only insight he gained was that he began to contemplate his
own lack of insight: “ich sahe an und bedachte unsere klegliche erbermliche finsternis,”
which he compares to swordfighting in the dark (“in der finsternis zu fechten”). Finally,
he describes his experience of reading books as unsatisfying (“mir geschahe keine
gnuge”). This word genuge or Genüge has often been used in a theological context, either
to describe the true plenitude of God, the fulfilment the Christian will experience through
faith in God, or ironically to contrast with the false fulfilment of worldly pleasures. 332 But
whereas genug in modern German means “to be sufficient,” the older meaning of the
term describes not only an adequate quantity of something but rather an abundance of
something (the Grimm dictionary glosses Genüge with the Latin abundantia). The New
Testament describes itself as food or drink, 333 but in contrast to the true nourishment of
biblical wisdom, Weigel receives no satisfaction, no genuge, from the other books he
reads.
332 “Genüge,” Vol. 5, in Deutsches Wörterbuch, Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, (Leipzig: S. Hirzel),
3503-3515.
333 For instance, Christ tells the Samaritan woman he meets at a well that he is the living water that
extinguishes all thirst (John 4:10); Christ says that his flesh is real food (John 6:55); Paul describes the
message he preaches as milk (1 Corinthians 3:2) and the Gentiles as branches grafted on to a tree receiving
“nourishing sap” from Christ (Romans 11:17).
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