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philosophia Aristotelica…ingenio subtilis et clarus eloquio”) whose over-keenness for philosophy led him to use too many novel terms contrary to the customs of contemporary theology (“novitatem terminorum, contra theologrum consuetudinem”). 155 In den Schriften Tauleri viel gedacht: Early Modern Eckhartbilder After the Reformation, Eckhart is remembered in both Catholic and Protestant chronicles. On the Catholic side, he is included in the Annales Ecclesiastici, a project started by Caesar Baronius (1538-1607), in which Eckhart is portrayed as a blasphemer and arch-heretic (blasphemus and haeresiarcha), whose inexplicable enduring popularity amongst some Christians is to be deplored. 156 Though the Catholic Baronius portrayed Eckhart in a negative light, two Dominicans, Jacques Quétif and Jacques Echard, undertook to boost the reputation of their fellow Dominican, as Johannes Meyer had done in the fifteenth century. In their seventeenth century history of the Dominican order (Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum), they wrote that, although Eckhart did preach some unorthodox-sounding ideas, he was a great thinker whose greatness caused him to express himself in unusual ways, giving the impression of heresy. They point to Eckhart’s willingness to be corrected as proof that he was ultimately a faithful member of the Church. 157 Protestant historians, on the other hand, took less notice of Eckhart, taking their cue from Luther’s cautious and selective praise of Tauler and the Theologia Deutsch and 155 Trithemius, quoted in Degenhardt, 75, n. 2. According to Degenhardt, his list of Eckhart writings (the ones known to him) served as the only resource until Denifle’s 19 th century philological work (Degenhardt, 77). 156 Caesar Baronius, quoted in Degenhardt, 79. 157 Ibid, 84. 62
his neglect of Eckhart. 158 For instance, the Protestant historian Gottfried Arnold, in his monumental and popular Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie (1699-1700), lumps him together with another writer and mentions Eckhart only because he makes an appearance in Tauler: “M. Eckhardus, M. Dietrich, deren in den Schriften Tauleri viel gedacht wird.” 159 Arnold does mention Eckhart in the context of Jan Wycliffe and Jan Hus, who were “ein kleines licht des wahren wesens in Christo” who came a little way “auf den rechten weg.” However, it is not Eckhart who is the focus of controversy in the Middle Ages, in Arnold’s account, but rather Tauler. Tauler receives his own entry in the section entitled “Von denen [i.e. fourteenth century] vornehmsten Scribenten der kirchen,” and appears there as the “aus diesem seculo bekannt genug Johannes Taulerus, von dem offt viel streitens gewesen ist;” he is a “wunderbarer Prediger,” and his writings are “sehr nachdencklich zu lesen, und in unserer sprache gar wol zu bekommen.” 160 Tauler, not Eckhart, is the object of controversy and thought provoking, and it is Tauler’s writings whose vernacularity (“in unserer sprache”) Arnold emphasizes. There are of course exceptions, such that the Protestant world was not entirely ignorant of Eckhart. For instance, Daniel Sudermann (1550-1631), like Weigel and Arnold, called himself an “unparteiischen Liebhaber der göttlichen Wahrheit,” and was interested in spiritual and pious literature, regardless of its source and provenance. He was a passionate collector of manuscripts who, acting independently of congregation, parish and university, travelled throughout Germany, compiling religious writings from 158 See in particular Heiko A. Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986). See also Monica Pieper, Daniel Sudermann (1550- ca. 1631) als Vertreter des mystischen Spiritualismus (Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag, 1985). 159 Gottfried Arnold, Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie: Vom Anfang des Neuen Testamentsbiß auf das Jahr Christi 1688, Vol. 1 (Frankfurt a.M.: Thomas Fritschens sol. Erben, 1729), Book XIV, Chapter 2, 420. 160 Arnold, Chapter 3, 423. 63
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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
Page 15 and 16: interest, 31 and praised the Theolo
Page 17 and 18: one can observe the texture of the
Page 19 and 20: discourse and reasoned debate, or t
Page 21 and 22: with fragments of Eckhart and Taule
Page 23 and 24: Dionysius and Eckhart (for differen
Page 25 and 26: movement, but also profound shifts
Page 27 and 28: schools, as well as universities wh
Page 29 and 30: allowed them to cooperate effective
Page 31 and 32: made clear, would result in dismiss
Page 33 and 34: and in these external dealings, the
Page 35 and 36: same laws of physics, but while the
Page 37 and 38: Tertullian’s De Fuga in Persecuti
Page 39 and 40: as a martyr. Moreover, Holy Scriptu
Page 41 and 42: Alternatively, the so-called four-f
Page 43 and 44: tzeyger und unterrichter ist ynn di
Page 45 and 46: fellow Lutherans in studying books
Page 47 and 48: provoked into action unnecessarily,
Page 49 and 50: masses for the dead (for instance)
Page 51 and 52: traditional proof texts about the o
Page 53 and 54: positive understandings of indiffer
Page 55 and 56: insofar as their imperfection is ra
Page 57 and 58: Of these forms of indifference, I f
Page 59 and 60: to Dionysius’ authority. Two grou
Page 61 and 62: PART I • VALENTIN WEIGEL AND MEIS
Page 63 and 64: investigating his early modern read
Page 65: was a devilish heretic to others (
Page 69 and 70: “unheilvolle Kompliziertheit”).
Page 71 and 72: and Jerome (wearing what looks like
Page 73 and 74: title page, as mentioned above, des
Page 75 and 76: of a respectable though not fanatic
Page 77 and 78: himself, but rather cultivated part
Page 79 and 80: church that Luther, Melanchthon and
Page 81 and 82: kan”), and specifically the role
Page 83 and 84: soul become convinced that nothing
Page 85 and 86: that salvation can be attained thro
Page 87 and 88: more importantly, a theology that a
Page 89 and 90: Mit Recht der Meister genannt: Mode
Page 91 and 92: These role-reversal dialogues were
Page 93 and 94: As this chapter has shown, Eckhart
Page 95 and 96: philosophers from Hegel and Schopen
Page 97 and 98: CHAPTER 2 • GELASSENE GELASSENHEI
Page 99 and 100: the relationship between Tauler and
Page 101 and 102: e “as it was when it was not.”
Page 103 and 104: Eckhart agree that spiritual povert
Page 105 and 106: one-of-a-kind thing, or the best ki
Page 107 and 108: einvaltig stille), an uncreated lig
Page 109 and 110: e as free of willing and desiring a
Page 111 and 112: nestling inside the soul, but rathe
Page 113 and 114: Gelassenheit, das ist, das er nicht
Page 115 and 116: (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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apart, he suggested that true Chris
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and so did not dwell on the fact th
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Names, as the title suggests, is ba
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animals, through plants and non-liv
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of being.” 580 As we will see lat
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(“God is a rock”) or even a neg
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This is admittedly a nonsensical as
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compositions, most likely dating to
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Dionysius to show that, just as God
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efer to Greek and Hebrew, the bibli
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argues that there cannot be more th
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dicitur una.” 616 The stress that
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Weigel suggests will allow the soul
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saving sacraments by means of which
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Melanchthon’s Defence of the Augs
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alternative—namely prayer. 643 We
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Dionysius writes that the summit of
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leibet er illimitatus.” 658 Weige
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work, Weigel had written explicitly
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Luther did not ever use the exact p
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as opposed to an office-holder, an
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writing. By calling his Layman der
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Others are loyal to mere men (the P
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zuerzeigen einen rechtschaffen vnd
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and ceremonial ones at that. 694 Th
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himself returning gloriously from H
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all being. In relinquishing any cre
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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
Page 273 and 274:
Chenu O.P., M.-D. (1968). In M.-D.
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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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