[Image] [Hi-Res Image]
Page 67
Eck - 87 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Eckhart I. Life. Various Appointments (§ 1). Heresy Charges (§ 2). II. Eckhart as Author, Schoolman, Mystic, and Preacher. His Works (§ 1).
Meister Eckhart, as he is generally called, Dominican and mystic, was a man almost forgotten after the middle of the fifteenth century until Franz von Baader in the first half of the nineteenth century revived his memory. Since then he has been highly praised. But Denifle again passed a somewhat derogatory judgment upon him on the basis of newly discovered Latin writings; inasmuch as Denifle has published but a small part of these writings his opinion can not be too implicitly accepted. This article will attempt merely to give accredited facts and indicate the present state of the questions.
I. Life: The long controverted question concerning the locality of Eckhart's origin has been settled by Denifle. who states that he was born at Hochheim, a village 8 miles north of Goths. The year of his birth was probably 1260, and he joined the Dominicans at Erfurt. The lighter studies he no doubt followed at Cologne. Later he was prior at Erfurt and provincial of Thuringia.
r. Various In 1300 he was sent to Paris to lecture Appoint- and take the academical degrees, and
meats. remained there till 1303. In the latter year he returned to Erfurt, and was made provincial for Saxony, a province which reached at that time from the Netherlands to Livonia. Complaints made against him and the provincial of Teutonia at the general chapter held in Paris in 1306 concerning irregularities among the ternaries, must have been trivial, because the gen eral, Aymeric, appointed him in the following year his vicar-general for Bohemia with full power to set the demoralized monasteries there in order. In 1311 Eckhart was appointed by the general chapter of Naples as teacher at Paris. Then follows a long period of which it is known only that he spent part of the time at Strasburg (cf. Urkundenbuch. der Stadt Strassburg, iii. 236). A passage in a chronicle of the year 1320, extant in manuscript (cf. Preger, i. 352-399), speaks of a prior Eckhart at Frankfort who was suspected of heresy, and some have re ferred this to Meister Eckhart; but it is highly improbable that a man under suspicion of heresy would have been appointed teacher in one of the most famous schools of the order.Eckhart next appears as teacher at Cologne, and the archbishop, Hermann von Virneburg, accused him of heresy before the pope. But
z. Heresy Nicholas of Strasburg (q.v.), to whom Charges. the pope had given the temporary charge of the Dominican monasteries in Germany, exonerated him. The archbishop, however, pressed his charges against Eckhart and against Nicholas before his own court. The former now denied the competency of the archiepiscopal inquisition and demanded litterce dimissorice (aioos toli) for an appeal to the pope (cf. the document in Preger, i. 471; more accurately in ALKG, ii. ECKHART. Schoolman and Mystic (§ 2). As a Preacher (§ 3). III. System. His Fundamental View of Deity (§ 1). The Trinitarian Process (§ 2). God in Creation (§ 3). The Relation of the Soul to God ($ 4). Sin and Redemption (§ 5). The Place of Christ (§ B). Eckhart's Ethics (§ 7).627 sqq.). On Feb. 13, 1327, he stated in his protest, which was read publicly, that he had always detested everything wrong, and should anything of the kind be found In his writings, he now retracts. Of the further progress of the case there is no information, except that John XXII. issued a bull (In agro dominico), Mar. 27, 1329, in which a series of statements from Eckhart is characterized as heretical, another as suspected of heresy (the bull is given complete in ALKG, ii. 636-640). At the close it is stated that Eckhart recanted before his death everything which he had falsely taught, by subjecting himself and his writings to the decision of the apostolic see. By this is no doubt meant the statement of Feb. 13, 1327; and it may be inferred that Eckhart's death, concerning which no information exists, took- place shortly after that event. In 1328 the general chapter of the order at Toulouse decided to proceed against preachers who " endeavor to preach subtle things which not only do (not) advance morals, but easily lead the people into error." Eckhart's disciples were admonished to be more cautious, but nevertheless they cherished the memory of their master.
II. Eckhart as Author, Schoohaaa, Mystic, and Preacher: For centuries none of Eckhart's writings were known except a number of sermons, found in the old editions of Tauler's sermons, published by Kachelouen (Leipaic, 1498) and by Adam
(Stuttgart), which is wholly devoted to Eckhart, added considerable .manuscript material. Pfeiffer was followed by others, especially Franz Joetes, Meister Eckhart and seine Jiinger, ungedrz<ckte Texts zur Geschichte der deutschen Mystik (Cotlectanea Frz3urgensia, iv., Freiburg, 1895). But some pieces are of doubtful genuineness, and the tradition concerning others is very unsatisfactory. It was a great surprise when in 1880 and 1886 H. Denifle discovered at Erfurt'and Cues two manuscripts with Latin works of Eckhart, the existence of which Nicholas of Cuss. and Trittenheim had indeed mentioned, but which had since then been considered lost. There can be no doubt as to their genuineness, but thus far only the (comparatively extensive) specimens which Denifle had published (in ALKG, ii.) are known. The extant writings appear to be only parts of a very large work, the Opus tripartitum, which, to judge from the prologue in the first part treated of more than 1,000 propositions, in the second part debated a number of special questions, and in the third part, first expounded Biblical texts (opus aermonunx) and afterward explained the books of the Bible in their order with special reference to the important passages. Entirely unknown at present are the contents of the more important manuscript of Cues,