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

Alternatively, some Lutherans took it upon themselves to ferret through the theological
writings of the Middle Ages in search of documents that agreed with Luther’s new
theology, thus proving that Luther was only the latest in a line of witnesses to the Truth,
and that true theology could not be extinguished even under the tyranny of the papacy. 55
But whereas the question of how to value the theological writings of the Middle Ages
was an important issue for many Lutherans (regardless of how they answered the
question), it seems that history was not a pressing question for Weigel.
In short, Weigel was interested in Eckhart and Dionysius neither because they
were considered heretics nor because they antedated Luther’s writings. He did not turn to
these texts because they formed part of an anti-canon of books that pious Lutherans ought
to stay away from; if anything, Eckhart and Dionysius would have been part of the
eclectic reading list of a learned sixteenth century reader. Rather, I argue throughout this
dissertation that Weigel was keenly interested in what these texts had to say about
indifference. The concept of indifference is the key element of Weigel’s response to the
theological and ecclesiological challenges of his time, namely a lack of consensus about
fundamental issues: how should decisions about religious life be made, on what basis,
and more importantly, by whom? Indifference became key for Weigel because the
sixteenth century saw not only doctrine transformed in the wake of Luther’s reform
55 The most famous of these projects was headed by Matthias Flacius Illyricus, producing the Catalogus
Testium Veritate, qui ante nostram aetatem reclamarunt Papae (1556), reprinted in 1562 and translated
into German in 1573; and then the monumental Ecclesiastica Historia, better known as the Magdeburger
Centurien, published between 1557 and 1574. A good (albeit partisan) overview of Flacius’ enormously
interesting work is Oliver K. Olson, Matthias Flacius and the Survival of Luther's Reform (Wiesbaden:
Harrasowitz Verlag, 2002); see also Bruce Gordon, “The Changing Face of Protestant History and Identity
in the Sixteenth Century” and Markus Wriedt, “Luther's Concept of History and the Formation of an
Evangelical Identity”, in Protestant History and Identity in Sixteenth-Century Europe, ed. Bruce Gordon
(Brookfield, VT: Scolar Press, 1996); Martina Hartmann, "Matthias Flacius Illyricus, die Magdeburger
Centuriatoren und die Anfänge der quellenbezogenen Geschichtsforschung," in Catalogus und Centurien:
Interdisziplinäre Studien zu Matthias Flacius und den Magdeburger Centurien, ed. Martina Hartmann and
Arno Mentzel-Reuters, 1-17 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008).
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