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final work), Weigel strongly criticizes what Luther had defined as the task of the theologian: correctly distinguishing God’s Law from God’s Gospel, a practice termed orthotomia (Greek for “correctly cutting” language about God). Instead, Weigel offers a passionate defence of a theology that is respectful of God’s unity by practicing apophasis—an indifferent signification that does not divide God’s unity into attributes and properties. This indifferent signification sets laypeople free from the confessional church, leaving the attainment of salvation as a matter for God and devout soul alone. That is, guided by Dionysius’ theory of apophasis, Weigel imagines a church in which the ultimate spiritual power rests with laypeople rather than with a professional clergy. In this respect, the positive valuations of indifference that Weigel absorbs from his pre-modern influences—Dionysius’ apophasis and Meister Eckhart’s Gelassenheit— both serve to bring about harmony amongst Christians by suppressing human capabilities. As discussed above, good Christians should strive to attain a state of Gelassenheit in order to suppress their unruly epistemological activity, which only separates them from God rather than uniting them. Likewise, Christians should cultivate the spiritual practice of apophasis in order to bring about a failure of ordinary signification, particularly the way that language is used to write doctrine (and confessional documents in particular), which only introduces unnecessary distinctions into God’s supreme unity. Dionysius on God’s Unity Examining Dionysius’ writings more closely, we find that he does not embrace hierarchy for its own sake. Rather, Dionysius’ hierarchically structured universe follows, paradoxically, from the most important assertion in his theology: God is One. The Divine 208
Names, as the title suggests, is based on Dionysius’ insight that God can be called by all names; Dionysius sets out to praise all of God’s so-called conceptual names (the names drawn from abstract ideas rather than from objects) starting from God’s lowest name (Good) and ending with the highest name (One), which he calls “the most enduring [name] of them all.” 564 This section explores how Dionysius treats the apparent contradiction of praising God’s perfect unity and simultaneously asserting that all things in the hierarchy participate in God. Dionysius’ definition of unity implies a very delicately balanced relationship between immanence and transcendence—or, using Dionysius’ preferred terms, between simplicity and complexity. The first part of his definition of God’s unity emphasizes God’s complete transcendence: “Theology, attributing every quality to the cause of everything, calls him ‘Perfect’ and ‘One.’ He is perfect not only insofar as he is absolute perfection, defining perfection in himself and from his singular existence and total perfection, but also because he is far beyond being so. He sets a boundary to the boundless and in his total unity he rises above all limitation. He is neither contained nor comprehended by anything. He reaches out to everything and beyond everything and does so with unfailing generosity and unstinted activity.” 565 However, Dionysius then goes on to say in this same passage that God’s unity means simultaneously asserting God’s complete immanence: “To speak of perfection is to proclaim that it cannot be increased or diminished, for it is eternally perfect, that it contains all things beforehand in itself, that it overflows in one unceasing, identical overflowing, and undiminished supply, 564 DN, 597B and 977B. Unless otherwise noted, all Dionysius citations are from Dionysius the Areopagite, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, ed. Paul Rorem, trans. Colm Luibheid (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987). 565 DN, 977B. 209
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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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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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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 221 and 222: This is admittedly a nonsensical as
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Page 257 and 258: and ceremonial ones at that. 694 Th
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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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