Meister Eckart

"Meister Eckart" by H. Martensen is a theological study written in the mid-19th century. It examines medieval German Christian mysticism as a form of speculative theology, centering on Meister Eckhart while also engaging Tauler, Suso, and the anonymous author of the Theologia Deutsch. The work probes mysticism’s concepts of divine essence, union with God, and the tension between faith and reason, situating them amid late medieval ecclesiastical turmoil and later Romantic and philosophical revivals. The opening of this study moves from editorial notes and a table of contents into a preface explaining the author’s aim to introduce German mysticism to a wider readership and to treat it philosophically rather than romantically. The introduction defines mysticism as a rigorous speculative theology, highlights the 14th–15th century German current as a first flowering of German philosophy, and selects Eckhart as its keystone, while critiquing Romantic portrayals (notably Görres) and invoking Hegel and Schelling. It sketches the medieval backdrop (papal controversies, eschatological debates on the beatific vision, and sects like the Brethren of the Free Spirit), defends Eckhart against charges of antinomianism, and describes his surviving sermons and their paradoxical, aphoristic style. A substantial extract of Eckhart’s preaching follows, presenting core themes—detachment, eternity as the timeless Now, seeking God for God alone, the birth of the Son in the soul, the “spark” beyond images, the Godhead beyond “God,” and metaphors of eye, mirror, and union—before the first analytic chapter frames mysticism through akosmism and the via negationis, treating “Wesen,” “Freiheit,” and the “reine Nichts” as keys to understanding its path to union and blessedness. (This is an automatically generated summary.)