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277 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Tauter

tion. It may be shown, however, that this Evangelical tone appears prominently in the popular parts of his preaching. Sifted down to his elemental speculations these impressions disappear. That immediacy and personal experience of the divine in the place of dead formalism and works was Evangelical can not be gainsaid. This does not imply that he had wholly overcome traditional views; he revered the saints, but direct communion with God stood first (setmon, xxxiii.). Sometimes this communion seems to be mediated through the work of Christ (death on the cross), and the acceptance of it by faith (LYV., lxxxiii.). While it appears that the conception of faith as assenting to the truth of the promise of forgiveness is advanced, yet the other idea, of trust, is the essential and avails with God. To this the fundamental significance of Scripture receives the supreme emphasis, likewise in the Evangelical sense, as the ultimate source of truth. Tauter also warns against the contemplative life and impractical quietism, and values, though in the lowest degree, the works of the earthly vocation; and he ascribes full worth to deeds of loving service (lxxxvii.). He counsels his hearers to shun lofty speculations, such as the mystery of God, but to know themselves in spirit and nature and maintain a pure and simple faith (liv.).

However, the interest in the practical appears always as one of expedience and somewhat strained, while his tendency is ever backward to the deep and mysterious ground of things, a field which he regards as reserved for the speculative select. He deplores that the masses of the people Speculative pass through their lifetime with the

Doctrines. help of the grace of God, and yet, like blind fowls, remain ignorant of what lies concealed within (cxix.). He has reference here, with Eckhart, to the speculative fundamental es sence of the soul, which is essentially the core of his doctrine and rests upon his views of the divine and the human. The former is the divine darkness to the whole understanding of man and angel. But as God the heavenly Father, in self-knowledge be getting his beloved Son, or speaking by his eternal Word, proceeded out of himself, indeed in such manner that Father and Son remained one, joined in a new unity, and sent forth from them both the Holy Spirit, in an indescribable compass, as the love of both-so has he also further poured himself out to the creatures (lxxx.). What man, created, is in himself he was untreated from eternity in God (exix.). By laying aside every appetency to the lower, or animal, alienated from all sense and sor row, man returns not only to a vision of the essence of the soul as a rational image of its source (xciii.), but also to behold with raptures the abyss of God, who now first emerges from the darkness. This image is not a picture or resemblance of the divine, but it is that in which God loves, knows, and en joys himself, and acts within himself. In this unity God and the soul are one. It would be difficult to acquit Tauter of pantheism in this light. As to the final estimate of these pensive speculations, the gradual union of the divine and human is illustrated (xxvi.) by the grape-cluster and the sun. In the first stage must be overcome the man who exerts

himself in sensuous tasks and works of fasting, watching, and prayer; but who, unable to realize his essence purely, regards himself with sensuous satisfaction, or pleasure and displeasure. In the second stage is to be discarded the man who has despised all temporal things and overcome the coarser instincts. As the weeds are removed, the divine sun begins to shine upon the ground.

In the third stage, just as the sunshine clasps the grape, when the leaves are cut away, so all images of saints, as well as knowledge, works, and prayer fall away; man is absorbed in God like a drop of water in a cask of wine; all differences disappear. But where in this deification reaching to " annihilation," to " actless passivity " (xlix.), has he left behind his regard for the practical, the earthly vocation, the service of love, and, above all, the redemptive work of Christ? While the renewal of grace by the acceptance of Christ through the sacrament, taking into account his suffering and death, and union with the Father through him as prototype (cxxviii., Ixxii.), are emphasized; yet the basis of grace is not in the restored relation of love between man and God, but the essence of the soul. It is but a figure for Tauter to say that man is born in Christ of the Father and with the Son returns again into the Father to become one with him (lxix.). To remove Christ and his work from Tauler's views would not alter his fundamental conceptions. At bottom the entire interpolation of Christian thoughts and modes may be designated as an accommodation to the churchly and Christian mode of speech. That he did not see clearly how, though with the best intentions, he clothed his mystical ideas in Christian form is certain; that he also sometimes felt the necessity of distinguishing himself as a Christian preacher from the adherents of a false mysticism is likewise shown (xxxi.). In this he severely censures those brethren of the free spirit who mistake idle inertness for unity with God; the latter is not possible, and no one is free without the keeping of the commandments, good works, and divine love add aspiration. The difference was not inherent in the doctrines but in the attitude toward the teaching of the Church and the different spirit in which Tauter proclaimed them. At bottom he was in accord with the libertine trend. Likewise in his attitude to the revealed Word, he is no more entitled to the name of forerunner of the Reformation. In particular instances he insisted upon the fundamental importance of the Scriptures (Ixxxviii., xci.), but at the same time he placed the inner Word, or Christ enthroned within obedient man, as of higher authority (lxxxii.). As to the Church he is so prepossessed by his estimation of the personal relation to God that he loses all appreciation for the ordinances, in spite of incidental recognition of them (cxxxi.). To him the Friends of God, who are in immediate contact with God, take the place of the Church (cxiii., cxxvii., cxxxi.) The visible Church has only a preliminary pedagogical worth, to be forsaken as soon as the inner Word is perceived.

(FERDINAND COHRS.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Works of Tauter recently made accessible in in English are A. W. Hutton, The Inner Way, 3G Sermons for Festivals by John Tauter, Transl. with Introduction. London, 1905; and Conferences and Sermons of John Tauter;