Three Strands in the Thought of Eckhart, The Scholastic Theologian

THREE STRANDS IN THE THOUGHT OF ECKHART, THE SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGIAN ECKHART THE MYSTIC is the Eckhart who attracts readers these days. But often he is appreciated for the ideas he shares with other mystics, non-Christian as well as Christian, rather than for the specific theological issues with which he struggled. To accept uncritically the statement that Eckhart dis.solved the Christian dogmas of the Trinity and Incarnation into an impersonal Gotthei,t indistinguishable from the Absolute of oriental mysticism 1 is to neglect the fact that Eckhart was by profession a scholastic theologian. Although he became a popular preacher, even his German sermons .show a constant effort to correlate spiritual experience and Christian dogma by the highly technical methods of university scholasticism.2 If one looks only at the technical language of an Aquinas, an Eckhart, or a Bonaventure one can facilely reduce their thought to the philosophies from which their diverse languages derive, but this ignores the fact that for them such language is only a tool for the translation of a Biblical revelation which remains the essential message. 1 E.g. Walter Stace, Time and Eternity (Princeton: University Press, 195!l), pp. 153 ff. F-0r a criticism of this see R. C. Zaehner, Mysticism, Sacred and Profane (Oxford: University Press, 1961). Frits Staal concludes modestly, "We have surveyed some of the many religious and philosophical evaluations and interpretations of mystical experiences. . . . This immense variety is consistent with an equally immense variety of experiences, but it is also consistent with a very small number of basic experiences, -0r even with one kind of basic experience. We cannot determine this at present." Exploring Mysticism (London: Penguin, 1975), p. 178. • On Eckhart's significance as the founder of German vernacular preaching see Udo M. Nix and R. Ochslin, Meister Eckhart der Prediger (Freiburg: Herder, 1960). ECKHART THE SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGIAN 227 Three strands in Eckhart's thought must be distinguished and then interrelated. Eckhart began teaching just at the time when the Dominican Order was beginning to insist on uniform adherence to Thomism by all its members. Eckhart, however, still felt free to pursue a very different direction, but he always attempted to correlate his own thought with the characteristic Thomistic positions.8 A second strand is not academic but experiential. At this time mystical life was flourishing not only in German religious houses but also among the laity. Already in Germany in the 12th century the Benedictine nuns Hildegarde of Bingen and Elizabeth of Schonau had written mystical works in the manner of St. Bernard. This tradition spread not without abberation 4 among the Beguines and Beghards, those devout women and men who lived at home or in communities independent of the canonical formalities of religious life. In the 13th century the Beguine Mechtilde of Magdeburg (d. circa 1282) had inspired the Benedictine nuns of Helfta, including Mechtilde of Hackebourn (d.1295) and Gertrude the Great (d. 1302) .5 • In 1286 all Dominican teachers were required to promote Thomistic positions "at least as to opinions." However, "The Order applied this degree benignly. Friars were to promote and defend the doctrine of Thomas and must not attack it, but they were not forbidden to engage in original speculation of their own. They were unmolested so long as they did not assail Thomistic doctrine or depart blatantly from it. This is illustrated by the German Dominicans, who, though they knew and studied the works of Thomas, also followed the Neoplatonic trend initiated by Albert the Great, such men as Hugh of Ripelin, uirich of Strassburg, Meister Eckhart, Berthold of Moosburg and Theodoric of Freiburg. . . . Furthermore the Thomistic school itself had not yet developed its cohesiveness." William A. Hinnebusch, The; History of the Dominican Order (New York: Alba House, 1965-78), II, p. 155 f. The crack-down came as a result of the controversy over Durandus of St. Pou~ain and James of Metz (who were Parisian colleagues of Eckhart) in the general chapters of 1390 to 1329. •Auguste Jundt, Histoire du pantheisme populaire au nwyen age et au sefaieme siecle (Frankfurt-am-Main: Minerva, 1964); and Robert E. Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages...