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CONCLUSION • INDIFFERENCE AND HERESY The writings of Meister Eckhart and Dionysius the Areopagite, two of the principle writers from the tradition of negative theology, were not, in fact, lost to history between the Middle Ages and the modern era, but were indeed read in the sixteenth century. Moreover, both authors had a significant and substantial influence on the writer who is the subject of this dissertation, Valentin Weigel. Weigel was interested in Eckhart and Dionysius because both writers express ideas—Gelassenheit in the case of Eckhart, apophasis in the case of Dionysius—that can be described under the heading of what I have termed indifference. Both Gelassenheit and apophasis are rooted in a strong belief in the absolute unity of God and therefore God’s radical unknowability and radical unnameability. Gelassenheit is the affective correlate of a belief in divine unity. Rather than recommending ascetic practices or suffering to his spiritual charges, Eckhart taught that the soul should strive to attain a state of complete detachment that will bring about full union with God. In Gelassenheit, the soul must surrender more than its attachment to material things and to self-will, and must, above all, give up its attachment to any knowledge, image, names or concept about God. The soul must even forgo calling God “good” or “truth,” because even these lofty concepts belong to the realm of created things and therefore do not do justice to God as he was before the act of creation, the ground of 256
all being. In relinquishing any created thing so as not to fracture God’s perfect unity, Gelassenheit is about achieving a state of indifference that mirrors the Godhead’s own undifferentiation. Apophasis refers to the breakdown of speech that must occur when one tries to apply created language to God. Whereas Eckhartian Gelassenheit refers primarily to the union between God and soul, Dionysian apophasis grows out of his conviction that all created things participate in God. It was therefore appropriate to name God using language drawn from all creation, but that because these created things are by definition imperfect and limited, these names must also then be denied of God. In a final step, one must also deny that the denials say anything more true about God, which leaves nothing to do but lapse into silence. On this account, because God is both unnameable and omninameable, any name for God is just as correct or incorrect as any other: created language, in other words, is applied to God indifferently. Indifference was not an abstract interest for Weigel but a way of answering an urgent question with important practical consequences for him: is one obliged to risk martyrdom by speaking up and defending one’s beliefs? Weigel asked this question because, in Saxony in the sixteenth century, Church and State had joined forces and attempted to purify doctrine by publishing doctrinal statements requiring subscription, backed up by secular power for those who refused to sign. Weigel disagreed with both the practice of producing confessional documents and with much of the theological content of the document he was asked to sign, the Formula Concordiae—but he signed it all the same. A central theme in Weigel’s writings is how to relate to a church in which he was an ordained minister, one whose theology had formed him, and one that he had 257
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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
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enlightens all great thinkers in ev
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offered Dionysius to the Gelehrtenr
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nine distinct editions of Dionysius
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editions of Greek and Latin classic
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(Turin), and is a reprint of Lefèv
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presses in Spain (his first publica
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growing body of evidence suggesting
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Weigel concludes that, precisely be
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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
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 and 244: leibet er illimitatus.” 658 Weige
Page 245 and 246: work, Weigel had written explicitly
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: himself returning gloriously from H
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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