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etween his work as a parish minister and his work as a theologian, he neither preached the beliefs he expressed in writing from the pulpit, nor did he choose to bring his works into wide circulation by having them published. 559 Indeed, in his later years, he elaborated a theology that explicitly allowed Christians (not only laypeople but ministers as well) to abstain from expressing heterodox opinions if doing so would endanger their safety, as I will discuss in the following chapter. Weigel’s disinclination to bring his true inner beliefs into line with his outwardly professed ones is symptomatic of his larger disregard for the institution of the Church as a whole, such a complete disregard that he does not even think the Church worth abolishing, never mind reforming. The key authority to which Weigel turns in support of his dismissive attitude towards ecclesiastical institutions turns out to be Dionysius—a curious choice given that others at a not-too-distant intellectual remove from Weigel had used Dionysius’ statements in favour of hierarchy to defend the existence of the (Roman) church. In the following chapter, I will argue that, in Weigel’s account of Dionysius, hierarchy is not a one-way street, and the downward procession of divine illumination cannot be conceived of separately from the upwards “gathering-up” back into Divine unity. Thinking of hierarchy solely as downwards procession, Dionysius goes so far as to say, blasphemes against God’s unity. 560 If God is truly One (as Dionysius strenuously and repeatedly asserts), then God must paradoxically be beyond both unity and multiplicity—a view that considerably relativizes the importance of hierarchy. That is, whereas for Clichtove and Cochlaeus (the anti-Lutheran polemicists discussed above), a hierarchically structured universe seemed to imply the need for a correspondingly hierarchical (earthly) church, 559 See Introduction, p. 1-5. 560 DN, 636C. 202
Weigel concludes that, precisely because the universe is hierarchical, there is no need for an earthly church to administer the saving sacraments, since the means for creation to return to the Divine are built into the universe itself. 203
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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
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Of these forms of indifference, I f
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to Dionysius’ authority. Two grou
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PART I • VALENTIN WEIGEL AND MEIS
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investigating his early modern read
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was a devilish heretic to others (
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his neglect of Eckhart. 158 For ins
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“unheilvolle Kompliziertheit”).
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and Jerome (wearing what looks like
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title page, as mentioned above, des
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of a respectable though not fanatic
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himself, but rather cultivated part
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church that Luther, Melanchthon and
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kan”), and specifically the role
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soul become convinced that nothing
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that salvation can be attained thro
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more importantly, a theology that a
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Mit Recht der Meister genannt: Mode
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These role-reversal dialogues were
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As this chapter has shown, Eckhart
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philosophers from Hegel and Schopen
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CHAPTER 2 • GELASSENE GELASSENHEI
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the relationship between Tauler and
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e “as it was when it was not.”
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Eckhart agree that spiritual povert
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one-of-a-kind thing, or the best ki
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einvaltig stille), an uncreated lig
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e as free of willing and desiring a
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nestling inside the soul, but rathe
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Gelassenheit, das ist, das er nicht
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(necessarily inferior) knowledge pr
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context is that he picks up on Eckh
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he begins to steer the discussion a
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further proof for Weigel’s theory
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understood that the mind cannot pos
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wait in stiller Gelassenheit, recei
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truth as an educated theologian or
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ungewisser”) and finds that his f
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die Blinden an ein ander gehetzett,
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gesagett das ist er selber und ist
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Gelassenheit for the Bible, which i
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that the kind of Gelassenheit Weige
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indifference that allows Weigel to
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teacher. 366 However, the turning p
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Weigel gives the passage an unexpec
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Murren”)—and they do this “in
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and all the more so since he saw li
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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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Page 167 and 168: Outside the universities, Dionysius
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Page 179 and 180: The primary piece in the compilatio
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Page 205: growing body of evidence suggesting
Page 209 and 210: apart, he suggested that true Chris
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Page 213 and 214: Names, as the title suggests, is ba
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Page 217 and 218: of being.” 580 As we will see lat
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Page 221 and 222: This is admittedly a nonsensical as
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Page 225 and 226: Dionysius to show that, just as God
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Page 231 and 232: dicitur una.” 616 The stress that
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Page 241 and 242: Dionysius writes that the summit of
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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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