The Unspoken Word: Negative Theology in Meister Eckhart’s German Sermons by Bruce Milem (review)

328 BOOK REVIEWS hope for a real effective participation in the stewardship of historical existence by a wisdom that is both functionally specialized and ordained by the Divine entrance into the world mediated by meaning. Mount Marty College Yankton, South Dakota DAVID FLEISCHACKER The Unspoken Word: Negative Theology in Meister Eckhart's German Sermons. By BRUCE MILEM. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 2002. Pp ix+ 192. $44.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-8132-1019-4. Meister Eckhart's life and works continue to fascinate scholars, religious people, non-Christians, and even atheists. His texts, both in Latin and in his elegantly expressive Middle High German, have received much academic attention on both sides ofthe Atlantic and indeed worldwide. The interpretation of his treatises and sermons depends to a great extent upon the interpreter-scholars, Christians, Buddhists, etc. All seem to find some basis for their own beliefs or a connection to their opinions in the writings of the Master. The effort to unearth the riches of his teachings has produced some bizarre conclusions. In this book, Bruce Milem makes an effort to place Eckhart's use of negative theology in a broader context and succeeds in reminding anyinterpreter of Eckhart's writings of some essential facts which, if ignored, lead to very strange interpretations of the Master's theology and method. According to the title, Milem is presenting to the scholarly community a study of negative theology in Meister Eckhart's German sermons. However, it seems that he relegates this goal to a place of secondary importance. Instead, he proposes to describe "a new way of reading Meister Eckhart's sermons" (4). Milem argues that "instead ofstating doctrine or describing mystical experience, Eckhart ... primarily involves his audience in a complex interpretive exercise by deliberately giving difficult sermons that emphasize their own status as products of language. The sermons' self-referential quality opens the door to thinking about the relation between the sermons and the divine truths they claim to articulate" (ibid.). As a starting point, Milem considers Eckhart's own agenda, using the famous quotation from German sermon 53 (Misit Dominus) and from which the title of this study derives: "God is a word, an unspoken word." He concludes that "any consideration of [Eckhart's] preaching must begin with the problems raised by God's ineffability" (5), and goes on to pose a very important question: "Ifdivine nature is truly unspeakable and ineffable, how can Eckhart even name it, let alone say something about it?" (6). To grapple with this issue he makes use of BOOK REVIEWS 329 Michael A. Sells's Mystical Language of Unsaying. In using Sells's theory regarding any possibility of using human language to speak of the utterly transcendent, he returns to Eckhart's sermon and asks: "What does it mean to call God an ineffable, unspoken word? What kind of word is this, and why is it unspoken?" (8). Milem employs this use of interrogative technique throughout his study to do exactly what he claims Eckhart is up to in his sermons. Eckhart wanted to get the hearers of his sermon to think, to be actively engaged in the sermon and to be challenged by its difficulties. He wanted "to transform their understanding of themselves and God" (150). Milem takes his readers along the same path by constantly posing multiple questions in order to engage the reader's mind in the difficulties of Eckhart's thought. He wants the reader to think of Eckhart's teachings according to his own methodology so that they will understand Eckhart, his method, and his message in a new way. Surprisingly, Milem also uses the drama theory of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) to conclude something about Eckhart's preaching method. Both authors, operating within the limits of their creative works, had a primarily didactic purpose in mind. According to Milem, an appreciation of Brecht's use of an .alienation effect (Verfremdungseffekt) helps the modern reader understand the sermons in a new way. "Eckhart wanted his audience to remember that they [the sermons] were being given by a human being in time" (12). He continues this comparison: "Strange though it may seem, Eckhart's sermons are like...