Medieval Masters: Essays in Memory of Msgr. E. A. Synan ed. by R. E. Houser (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 331 course of negative theology only after God has spoken the word. The paradoxes that Eckhart preaches come out of the inherent paradoxes of Christian truths. It took the Church centuries to formulate anything accurate, incomplete as the Nicene Creed may be, about the identity ofJesus, who is both tme God and tme Man, born in time and yet eternal, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with the Father, etc. The Fathers of the early ecumenical councils produced a creedal statement of tmth expressed, believed, and affirmed while acknowledging that there is much more that cannot be expressed about God. God has revealed himself through his Word, Jesus Christ, and through the inspired texts, and yet remains shrouded in transcendent mystery, unable to be grasped completely by human knowing. This interesting study could have been improved by the inclusion of complete new translations of the German sermons considered here. The quotations used to illustrate the author's point differ enough from any text available that a complete translation would have been very useful. The conclusion of Sermon 6 illustrates the difference in translation and therefore in interpretation. Eckhart's conclusion, in Middle High German, runs "Daz wir die gerehticheit minnen