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Meister Eckhart ca.
1260 - ca. 1328
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 Maintained by George
Valsamis. This
site features works by and about Meister Eckhart.
Site Includes:
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This page provides an overview of the beliefs of this medieval theologian and his influence on Christianity with links to further sources of information.
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Excerpt:
Eckhart (c. 1260 - 1327/8) is one of the great
Christian mystics. He was born near Erfurt in Thuringia and in his
distinguished career became a Parisian Professor of Theology and took a
leading pastoral and organisational role in the Dominican
Order.
In the language of the Christian tradition Eckhart expounds the eternal
mysteries in a style that is fresh and original in the best sense.
Through the vividness of his use of imagery (alluding to the mysteries
of the spark of the soul, the Abyss, the desert, the birth of the Word
in the heart, etc.) Eckhart paradoxically directs us to that which lies
beyond image.
The depth and universality of Eckhart's teaching has drawn seekers of
truth Christian and non-Christian alike. His radical and penetrating
insight makes him a natural point of reference for a genuinely
ecumenical understanding...
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From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Excerpt:
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 cannot be too
implicitly accepted. This article will attempt merely to give accredited
facts and indicate the present state of the questions...
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Excerpt:
Wholly irradiated by the feeling that things are
reborn as higher entities in the spirit of man, is the conceptual world
of Meister Eckhart. He belonged to the Order of the Dominicans, as did
the greatest Christian theologian of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas,
who lived from I225 to 1274. Eckhart was an admirer of Thomas in the
fullest sense. This is altogether understandable when one examines the
whole conceptual framework of Meister Eckhart. He considered himself to
be as much in harmony with the teachings of the Christian church as he
assumed such an agreement for Thomas. Eckhart did not want to take
anything away from the content of Christianity, nor to add anything to
it. But he wanted to produce this content anew in his way. It is
not among the spiritual needs of a personality such as he was to put new
truths of various kinds in place of old ones. He was intimately
connected with the content which had been transmitted to him. But he
wanted to give a new form, a new life to this content. Without doubt he
wanted to remain an orthodox Christian. The Christian truths were his
truths...
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By Brian J. Pierce, OP
Excerpt:
Eckhart links together several themes around that of
living life with equanimity: detachment, the will of God, and the birth
of the Word in the soul are among the most important. He believes that
anyone who is truly serious about a spiritual path must grow in
detachment, that is, seek nothing, cling to nothing, desire nothing, but
to be the beloved child of God. Or as he says in the treatise On
Detachment, "Detachment is nothing else but a mind that stands
unmoved by all accidents of joy or sorrow, honour, shame or
disgrace." In Sermon 43 he says, "The less we turn our aims or
attention to anything other than God, and in so far as we look to
nothing outward, so we are transformed in the Son, and so far the Son is
born in us and we are born in the Son and become the one Son." The
birth of God or the birth of the Word in each of us, then, is possible
only to the extent that we let go of the outward, often obsessive search
for some-thing which will make us complete.
In this letting go, or detachment, we allow ourselves to be carried
along by the will of God, and thus are free to be who we really are.
"How do I know if it is God's will?" we ask ourselves. Eckhart
replies: "If it were not God's will for a single instant, it would
not be--it must always be God's will (43)." So allowing what is to
simply be is both a daily lesson in detachment and a sure path towards
the inner calm which Eckhart calls equanimity...
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