Meister Eckhart (updated version)

Eckhart of Hochheim (c. 1260–1328), a lead- ing figure within the Dominican order, was a professional theologian and as such he performed all the three duties related to his profession: lecturing on the Bible and on the Sentences, disputing questions, and preaching sermons. He was twice appointed as theology professor at the University of Paris. Eckhart’s reputation is confirmed by the several senior posts he held in the administration of his order. One original characteristic of Eckhart’s work lies in the fact that he carried out a large part of his literary activity in Middle High German by reframing for wider audiences the issues discussed during disputations in class and the themes explored in his specialist lec- tures on the Bible. In so doing, he contributed to the creation of a German technical philo- sophical vocabulary. Eckhart’s effort to present the arduous contents of scholastic speculation to common people seems to have been a crucial factor in the proceedings for heresy to which he was subjected toward the end of his life and which led to a posthumous condemnation of some propositions drawn from his works. Eckhart of Hochheim (c. 1260–1328) was born into a family of the lower aristocracy in Tambach, a town south of Gotha in Thuringia. It is not known when he entered the Dominicans; the ear- liest evidence indicates that in 1293–1294 he acted as Bachelor of the Sentences (lector sententiarum) in Paris. From 1294 through 1298, he served simultaneously as prior of the Domini- can convent at Erfurt and as vicar of Thuringia. In 1302–1303, he was called to Paris to teach theol- ogy as magister actu regens. In 1303, he was elected first provincial of the newly created prov- ince of Saxonia, to which he added the office of vicar-general for Bohemia in 1307. The 1310 provincial chapter held in Speyer elected him provincial of Teutonia, but Master General Eymerich of Piacenza did not confirm the elec- tion. In 1311, Eckhart was sent to Paris as theol- ogy professor for a second time, an honor which only Aquinas among Dominicans had received before him and which shows how distinguished his reputation was during his lifetime. Eckhart remained in Paris until 1313, thereafter returning to Germany. The widespread assumption that between 1314 and 1322 Eckhart resided in Strasbourg with the special office of spiritual counselor and preacher to convents of Dominican nuns and houses of Beguines lacks evidence. In fact, this idea is due to the misinterpretation of three documents which attest Eckhart’s presence in or near Strasbourg at three different times (1314, 1316, 1322), but from which nothing can be inferred regarding Eckhart’s alleged official appointment as responsible for the so-called cura monialium (see Sturlese, in Quero- Sánchez and Steer 2008). In 1324, Eckhart was certainly in Cologne, where he has long been conjectured to have car- ried out the office of lecturer at the Studium generale. In 1326, following the accusations of two of his brethren, inquisitional proceedings for heresy against him were started by the Archbishop of Cologne, Henry II of Virneburg. The trial, which continued at the Papal Court in Avignon after Eckhart’s appeal to the Holy See in 1327, would eventually lead to the bull “In agro dominico” by Pope John XXII (1329), condemning 28 excerpts from Eckhart’s works. In the meantime, Eckhart had already died (1328). Despite the condemnation, his thought did not cease to be influential and themes charac- teristic of his teaching found their way into the writings of John Tauler, Henry Suso, and Berthold of Moosburg. The idea that man, in the deepest ground of his soul, is intimately conversant with God lies at the heart of Eckhart’s thought. The human intellect is an image of God and therefore stands in a rela- tionship of coessential univocity with Him, from Whom it goes forth and to Whom it comes back in a timeless movement and in a dialectic of identity and difference. In his writings Eckhart explores the metaphysical, anthropological, ethical, and religious aspects and implications of this privileged connection God-ground of the soul, a connection which constitutes an exception to the general rule of analogy predominant in the God- creatures relation. Moreover, since people usually live plunged in the dimension of creatureliness and estranged from their authentic self, Eckhart’s preaching aims at making them become conscious of their inner union with God. Recent scholarship has shed light on the depen- dence of Eckhart’s speculation about the nobility of the soul on the noetics and the anthropology of Albert the Great, whose name appeared in Eckhart’s first work, the Sermo Pasqualis, and whose teachings set the intellectual background in Germany from the mid-thirteenth to the mid- fourteenth century. It has also been rightly empha- sized how relevant some teachings of Dietrich of Freiberg (e.g., the doctrine of image), with whom Eckhart was personally acquainted (between 1294 and 1298 Eckhart was the vicar of Dietrich, pro- vincial of the Dominican province of Teutonia), were for his thought.