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all the named things derive their being to begin with. 664 If God is all things such that he can be given all names, concludes Weigel, then creation must be nothing. By understanding that God can be given all names, a creature is led to recognize its own nothingness and, Weigel concludes, will understand that salvation comes from God alone and not from anything created. In rejecting anything created as the means of salvation, Weigel does away with almost everything that the earthly church has to offer, including interpreting the Bible, preaching sermons and administering sacraments such as baptism and the Eucharist, all of which are the created images of their divine exemplar. Nevertheless, Weigel does not imagine that laypeople will be left spiritually bereft as a result. As the next section discusses, Weigel envisages a laity that will be spiritually sufficient outside of an ecclesiastical institution, able to achieve salvation without doctrine, sermons or sacraments. Dionysius in Weigel III: Orthotomia and Indifferent Signification (Or, God is One and so are we all) Weigel tries to imagine what a truly Christian Church might look like in his last extant work, the Dialogus de Christianismo from 1584, which pits a layman against a clergyman in a debate about the role and function of the Church, mediated by the figure of Death. The Dialogus marks an important shift in Weigel’s writing, since, until this last 664 As such, God must be identical with his names—he must be whatever he is called—otherwise ascribing a name would introduce division into God’s unity. Weigel, Seligmachende Erkenntnis, 44-4. However, God’s names only become a problem since God insists on being named—by producing Scripture, or by sending his Son the Word, or by letting the Spirit descend on the Apostles with a preaching mission; the names attributed to a completely ineffable and transcendent divinity would be straightforwardly equivocal. 240
work, Weigel had written explicitly or implicitly in the voice of a minister of the church, but in the Dialogus he inhabits, for the first time, the position of the layperson. This shift in perspective mirrors Weigel’s changing views on the importance of the earthly Church, and his corresponding positive valuation of the layperson’s spiritual independence. Ultimately, the Dialogus stages a battle between clerics and the laity, a battle in which the laity triumphs and gains spiritual independence. Indeed, the Dialogus ends with the promise of eternal happiness for those who follow their own religious path, and the threat of eternal suffering for those who coerce others to obey them in matters of religion. In the Dialogus, the Layman signals this independence by means of a peculiar way of using language that can only be described as what I call indifferent signification. And although Weigel nowhere in the Dialogus mentions Dionysius’ name, this indifferent signification bears many of the traits of the apophatic speech described in the Mystical Theology, as the Layman strings together nouns and adjectives in a way that the Preacher finds objectionable. To give one example here, he says that “die Wiedergeburth in uns ist Christus inhabitans et regnans und ist der Glaube und die Liebe, die Gerechtigkeit, Friede und Seiligkeit.” 665 The Preacher tells him that he speaks strangely and confusedly (“Du bringest seltzame, frembde Reden fur und mengest eins in das ander”), 666 admonishing him to practice what he calls orthotomia, which translates from the Greek as “correctly cutting” his words. 667 Separating off the Law from the Gospel, sin from salvation, man from God, and preachers from laypeople constitutes sound theology, in the Preacher’s opinion. The Layman on the other hand, believes that this parsing of nouns 665 Weigel, Dialogus, 17. 666 Ibid. 667 Ibid, 18. 241
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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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served as cornerstones in defences
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(Acts 17: 15-34), one of the skepti
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to make the interpretation of these
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Outside the universities, Dionysius
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defiled the “sacred things” by
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other leaders of the Protestant Ref
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valorization of hierarchy per se in
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as well as the with the arguments u
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freedom, but rather obedience. 468
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The primary piece in the compilatio
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It is hardly surprising that Cochla
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it does during the Council of Trent
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for a hierarchical church, seizing
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the ancient teaching”) that “be
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Dionysiacum. For Lefèvre d’Étap
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Aristotle would have been glad to h
Page 193 and 194: enlightens all great thinkers in ev
Page 195 and 196: offered Dionysius to the Gelehrtenr
Page 197 and 198: nine distinct editions of Dionysius
Page 199 and 200: editions of Greek and Latin classic
Page 201 and 202: (Turin), and is a reprint of Lefèv
Page 203 and 204: presses in Spain (his first publica
Page 205 and 206: growing body of evidence suggesting
Page 207 and 208: Weigel concludes that, precisely be
Page 209 and 210: apart, he suggested that true Chris
Page 211 and 212: and so did not dwell on the fact th
Page 213 and 214: Names, as the title suggests, is ba
Page 215 and 216: animals, through plants and non-liv
Page 217 and 218: of being.” 580 As we will see lat
Page 219 and 220: (“God is a rock”) or even a neg
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
Page 227 and 228: efer to Greek and Hebrew, the bibli
Page 229 and 230: argues that there cannot be more th
Page 231 and 232: dicitur una.” 616 The stress that
Page 233 and 234: Weigel suggests will allow the soul
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Page 237 and 238: Melanchthon’s Defence of the Augs
Page 239 and 240: alternative—namely prayer. 643 We
Page 241 and 242: Dionysius writes that the summit of
Page 243: leibet er illimitatus.” 658 Weige
Page 247 and 248: Luther did not ever use the exact p
Page 249 and 250: as opposed to an office-holder, an
Page 251 and 252: writing. By calling his Layman der
Page 253 and 254: Others are loyal to mere men (the P
Page 255 and 256: zuerzeigen einen rechtschaffen vnd
Page 257 and 258: and ceremonial ones at that. 694 Th
Page 259 and 260: himself returning gloriously from H
Page 261 and 262: all being. In relinquishing any cre
Page 263 and 264: improve appearances but, because it
Page 265 and 266: than resolve it, because the proble
Page 267 and 268: parcels God, who by rights is supre
Page 269 and 270: Appendix • The Works of Valentin
Page 271 and 272: BIBLIOGRAPHY Abad, J. M. (1999). Th
Page 273 and 274: Chenu O.P., M.-D. (1968). In M.-D.
Page 275 and 276: Eckhart, M. (1993). Werke I (Vol. 1
Page 277 and 278: Israel, A. (1888). M. Valentin Weig
Page 279 and 280: MacCulloch, D. (2010). Christianity
Page 281 and 282: Payne, R. J. (Ed.). (1981). Meister
Page 283 and 284: Schindling, A., & Ziegler, W. (1990
Page 285 and 286: Verkamp, B. J. (1975). The Limits u
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