Meister Eckhart's Teaching on the Birth of the Divine Word in the Soul
It has been said of Meister Eckhart, the most eloquent proclaimer of German mysticism, its deepest thinker and its only creatively gifted speculative mind, that his genius lay in his being imbued with but one single truth, a truth ‘monumental in its simplicity, profound in its implications, impressi...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Cambridge University Press
1959
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| In: |
Traditio
Year: 1959, Volume: 15, Pages: 327-363 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | It has been said of Meister Eckhart, the most eloquent proclaimer of German mysticism, its deepest thinker and its only creatively gifted speculative mind, that his genius lay in his being imbued with but one single truth, a truth ‘monumental in its simplicity, profound in its implications, impressive in its sincerity.’ This one central idea, from which all others of the Master are derived and towards which all are orientated, is that of the generation or birth of the Divine Word, or Son, in the soul. Anyone who has not grasped that the generation of the Son through the Father in the Tittle spark of the soul’ (‘daz vünkelîn’) constitutes the sole motive, subject-matter and purpose of Eckhart's sermons and gives to them in various formulations, which are merely variants of the one great theme, a certain grand one-sidedness, has failed to understand the Master. To him there is lacking the knowledge of the unitive and orientating centre of Eckhart's intellectual heritage, whose meaning, inaccessible to him, becomes ever more and more entangled in an inextricable medley of contradictions and obscurities, until he is unable to see the wood for the trees. He does not comprehend that all the tracks of this mystic's speculative thought lead toward one predetermined goal: the mystic union of the intellect and will of man with the Godhead through the birth of the Divine Logos in the soul. |
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| ISSN: | 2166-5508 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Traditio
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0362152900008278 |