I had an extremely pleasant talk with my favourite professor today on a subject that seems to be a common ground between us: Meister Eckhart, the german 14th-century mystic, theologian and philosopher. For more information on the biography and works of Meister Eckhart, please visit the Wikipedia article on him, which I edited and expanded.
Eckhart was condemned for many of his propositions and is considered by orthodox catholics to be heretic until today, although the late pope John Paul II was in favour of the rehabilitation and confirmation of Eckhart’s orthodoxy. In 1985 John Paul II, said: “Did not Eckhart teach his disciples: ‘All that God asks you most pressingly is to go out of yourself - and let God be God in you‘? One could think that, in separating himself from creatures, the mystic leaves his brothers, humanity, behind. The same Eckhart affirms that, on the contrary, the mystic is marvelously present to them on the only level where he can truly reach them, that is in God.”
Eckhart’s sermons, compiled today in many editions and translated in part to many languages, were the primary source of my amazement at him. As I read these sermons, which he delivered to nuns who wrote it down in the vernacular of the time (Middle High German, Mittelhochdeutsch), I acknowledged his unique mysticism and groundbreaking notions. The problem with his writings are the variety of interpretations they are open to, and this is the reason I am writing this.
The tasks of a Dominican intellectual at the 14th century were threefold: explaining the scriptures (lectio), sustaining technical discussions (disputatio) and preaching (praedicatio). Eckhart’s threefold opera reflects his threefold activity. Long story short, when explaining the scriptures, Eckhart was a theologian. When sustaining technical discussions, Eckhart was a philosopher (and here lie many of his most striking ideas). And when Eckhart spoke before the Communion, he was a preacher, and due to his own character, a mystic.
What I’ve come to know just recently in a conference held in my own university during a series of lectures on medieval philosophy, was that one of the most cited writers on germanic medieval philosophy of today, Kurt Flasch, holds an interpretation I can only call assailable. The lecturer who came to speak of Meister Eckhart was in agreement with Flasch’s interpretation, so I came to know it by a so-called proponent of this idea. In short, Flasch considers Eckhart a philosopher and nothing else. He calls to attention that the opposition between “mystic” and “scholastic” isn’t pertinent because the mysticism of Eckhart — if it is indeed mysticism — is penetrated by the academic spirit in which it was born, since Eckhart was a professor at the University of Paris, where he obtained his title of Magister.
This interpretation goes against every historian of medieval philosophy and mysticism’s work up to this day. The very biography and works of Eckhart say to the contrary. So why would a man who is respected for his works on the subject of medieval philosophy (although he is no autority as Gilson or Ueberweg) should propose such an opinion? This is what I’m set out to found out, and as soon as I do, I will try my best at refuting such an interpretation.
