Eckhart and Luther: German Mysticism and Protestantism

ECKHART AND LUTHER: GERMAN MYSTICISM AND PROTESTANTISM THERE IS A TEMPTATION today to minimize his~ torical differences for the sake of ecumenical dialogue. There is also a temptation to become so fascinated with the internal logic of writings by creative thinkers like Eckhart and Luther that we forget that their meaning is also determined by the historical forces of the age in which they lived. To avoid such temptations we must bear in mind not only that Eckhart and Luther lived two centuries apart from each other, but also that they were schooled in different intellectual traditions and wrote in response to different historical crises. This is not to say that they do not have some striking similarities. They were both Thilringians and both were friars. The teaching of each was roundly condemned by the church. Each exercised a very formative influence on the German language. And each had a revolutionary impact on laity who were attracted to the egalitarian and anti-hierarchical strains in their theologies. Here, however, the similarity ends and the topic " Eckhart and Luther" becomes a door to many problems. There is, first of all, the sheer complexity of each man. Eckhart was both a careful Latin scholar and a daring vernacular preacher. His friends continue to see him as a misunderstood and falsely accused loyal son of the church, while his critics believe he was at least an unwitting theorist for heterodox religious movements . He is both praised as a brilliant Neoplatonist and Thomist and spurned as a second-rate scholastic and purveyor of heresy.1 Luther is equally complex. A rebel and heretic condemned by the pope, he came to be rejected by many of his fellow Protestants as a reactionary who clung to too many 1 On contemporary and modern assessments of Eckhart, see Ingeborg Degenhardt, Studien zum Wandel des Eckhartbildes (Leiden, 1967). 259 260 STEVEN OZMENT traditional teachings and practices.2 On the topic before us Luther appears to be even more problematical than Eckhart, since, as a young theologian, he was enamoured with German mysticism, while in his later years he could associate mysticism with sectarian fanaticism. Beyond the problem of identifying each man in his respective historical dress, there is the question of exactly what is compared when the two are finally brought together. We have no evidence that Luther ever had direct, conscious contact with the writings of Eckhart. He did unknowingly read and comment on several of Eckhart's sermons, which were interspersed in the collection of John Tauler's sermons which Luther annotated in 1516.3 Luther may also have seen editions of Tauler to which sermons of Eckhart were appended. But Luther's knowledge of Eckhart and German mysticism came almost exclusively from sources other than Eckhart. Unless we are to pursue the topic " Eckhart and Luther " on a purely literary and theoretical level, it must be reshaped into the question of Luther's relation to the German mystical tradition as it was mediated to him by Eckhart's student and disciple John Tauler and by an anonymous mystical tract, twice edited by Luther, known as the German Theology.• This raises the further issue of the role played by German mysticism in the formation of Protestant theology and religious practice apart from and even against Luther. This issue is forced upon us by the fact that it was not Luther and the Lutherans but their Anabaptist and Spiritualist opponents who embraced the German mystical tradition most enthusiastically and in its purest form. • On Luther's Protestant critics, see Mark Edwards, Luther and the Fake Brethren (Stanford, 1975). 8 See Ozment, "An Aid to Luther's Marginal Comments to Joh. Tauler's Sermons," HThR 63 (1970), 805-11. • Alois Dempf depicts Tauler as a faithful mediator of Eckhartian concepts and language to Luther: Meister Eckhart (Ba.sel, 1960). See also my Homo Spiritualis (Leiden, 1969). A third channel of German mysticism was Luther's spiritual mentor Joh. von Staupitz. See David C. Steinmetz, Misericordia Dei: The Theology of Joh. von Staupitz in its Late Medieval Setting (Leiden, 1968). ECKHART AND LUTHER 261 There are two final issues raised by the topic " Eckhart and J,uther." The first...