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

“interrogating the category of tradition itself,” as she puts it), allowing her to look at both
the variance and stability in the manuscript tradition. 51
Finally, discussing the influence of Eckhart and Dionysius in particular calls for
some ground-clearing, since these figures occupied a much different cultural space in the
sixteenth century than they do in the twenty-first: that is, Weigel was certainly interested
in Dionysius and Eckhart, but not necessarily for the reasons a modern scholar might
imagine, making it also necessary to discuss the reasons why Weigel was not interested
in Eckhart and Dionysius. First, Weigel was not interested in Eckhart and Dionysius
because they were considered great heretics by his contemporaries. Rather, in the
sixteenth century, Eckhart’s name was not nearly so well known as his twentieth century
reputation might suggest. Though some writers who mention his name also seem to have
known that he had once been suspected of heresy, they do not seem to be much bothered
by it or even to know his ideas enough to know why he was investigated by the
inquisition. The story of Dionysius’ fate around 1500 is rather different, in that he had
been read intensively throughout, but his authority was increasingly called into question
in the early sixteenth century, when Desiderius Erasmus first voiced his serious doubts
that the author was not, in fact, the Dionysius whom the Apostle Paul converted in the
Areopagus as he claimed, but rather a Greek or possibly Syrian Christian, later
hypothesized to be a disciple of Proclus writing around the turn of the sixth century, for
whom Dionysius was simply a literary persona. 52 Because the weight of Dionysius’
authority resulted from his proximity to the Apostle, the role he played in mainstream
theological discourse was impaired when it was suggested he was not. In short, both
51 Poor, Mechthild, 15.
52 Karlfried Froehlich, "Pseudo-Dionysius and the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century," in Pseudo-
Dionysius: The Complete Works (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1987), 38-39.
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