Meister Eckhart

Agora

Meister Eckhart

c. 1260–1328

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Let go of everything, even your wishes about God, and God will be born in the deepest ground of your soul.

Placement

Medieval & Scholastic · Western Europe · Religion, Metaphysics, Existence & Self

Mystic: detachment (Abgeschiedenheit), releasement (Gelassenheit) and the birth of God in the ground of the soul.

Key ideas

Detachment (Abgeschiedenheit) and releasement (Gelassenheit)
Ground of the soul

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Influence

Influenced by 7

Augustine

influenced by
Eckhart radicalised Augustine’s turn inward – God more inward than our inmost self – into the birth of God in the ground of the soul. Augustine, Confessions III.6.11; Meister Eckhart, German sermons; SEP “Meister Eckhart”
Evidence: AI draft
Augustine › 354–430
Proclus

influenced by
Eckhart knew Proclus’ metaphysics chiefly through the Liber de causis, an Arabic reworking of the Elements of Theology, citing it on the first cause’s immanence, transcendence and ineffability. Liber de causis; M. Raschietti, ‘Meister Eckhart leitor do Liber de causis’, Kriterion 60 (2019); SEP “Meister Eckhart”
Evidence: AI draft
Proclus › 412–485
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

influenced by
Eckhart took up Dionysius’ negative theology – God beyond being and every name – and cited him for the soul’s union with the hidden God. Meister Eckhart, German sermons and Latin works; SEP “Meister Eckhart”; SEP “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite”
Evidence: AI draft
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite › c. 480–530
Maimonides

influenced by
Eckhart often cited ‘Rabbi Moses’ in his Latin works, taking up Maimonides’ negative theology of divine names, notably in his commentary on Exodus. Meister Eckhart, Expositio libri Exodi; SEP “Meister Eckhart”; SEP “Maimonides”
Evidence: AI draft
Maimonides › 1138–1204
Albertus Magnus

influenced by
Eckhart’s thought shows the influence of Albert’s Neoplatonic Aristotelianism; he cited Albert in an Easter sermon of 1294, but whether he studied under him in Cologne is uncertain. Meister Eckhart, Sermo Paschalis (Paris, 1294); SEP “Meister Eckhart”; SEP “Albert the Great”
Evidence: AI draft
Albertus Magnus › c. 1200–1280
Thomas Aquinas

influenced by
Trained in the Thomism of the Dominican order, Eckhart departed from Thomas in his Parisian Questions (1302–03) by placing understanding above being in God. Meister Eckhart, Quaestiones Parisienses I (1302–03); SEP “Meister Eckhart”
Evidence: AI draft
Thomas Aquinas › c. 1225–1274
Marguerite Porete

influenced by disputed
Eckhart’s teaching on the soul’s nothingness and detachment has close parallels in Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls; he was in Paris in 1311, but direct use is disputed. Marguerite Porete, Le Mirouer des simples ames; B. McGinn (ed.), Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics (1994); SEP “Meister Eckhart”
Evidence: AI draft
Marguerite Porete › c. 1250–1310

Influenced 4

Nicholas of Cusa

influenced
Cusanus owned and annotated a large manuscript of Eckhart’s Latin works and defended Eckhart in his Apologia doctae ignorantiae (1449), while warning against reading him publicly. Nicholas of Cusa, Apologia doctae ignorantiae (1449); Cod. Cus. 21 (Bernkastel-Kues); SEP “Nicholas of Cusa”
Evidence: AI draft
Nicholas of Cusa › 1401–1464
Martin Heidegger

influenced
Heidegger took the word Gelassenheit from Meister Eckhart for a thinking that lets things be, distancing it from Eckhart’s surrender of self-will to God’s will (Gelassenheit, 1959). M. Heidegger, Gelassenheit (1959); Der Feldweg (1949); J. D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (1978); SEP “Meister Eckhart”
Evidence: AI draft
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976
Erich Fromm

influenced ✓
Fromm took Meister Eckhart’s sermon on poverty of spirit as a model of the being mode, as opposed to the having mode (To Have or to Be?, 1976). E. Fromm, To Have or to Be? (1976); Meister Eckhart, sermon “Beati pauperes spiritu”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Erich Fromm › 1900–1980
Nishitani Keiji

influenced
Nishitani read Meister Eckhart’s breakthrough into the ‘ground’ of the Godhead as a Western counterpart to absolute nothingness (‘God and Absolute Nothingness’, 1948; Religion and Nothingness, 1961). Nishitani Keiji, Kami to zettai mu (1948); Shūkyō to wa nanika (1961); SEP “Nishitani Keiji”
Evidence: AI draft
Nishitani Keiji › 1900–1990

Works

c. 1320German Sermons and Treatises
On detachment, releasement and the birth of God in the soul.

Position

Eckhart’s preaching aims at the union of the soul with God. Beyond all images and concepts lies the “ground” of the soul, where God gives birth to his Son in us. To reach it one must let go of everything – possessions, plans, even one’s own will and images of God: this is “releasement” (Gelassenheit) and detachment. God himself is ultimately beyond being, a silent “desert” prior to the persons of the Trinity. Eckhart forged much of the abstract vocabulary of the German language, and his bold paradoxes inspired the German mystics, later Hegel and Heidegger, and modern dialogue with Buddhism and Vedanta.

Life & context

Born around 1260 in Thuringia, Eckhart became a Dominican, held the master’s chair in Paris twice and led his order in Saxony. Later he preached to religious women and lay people in Strasbourg and Cologne, in German. Accused of heresy in Cologne, he defended himself before the papal court in Avignon and died around 1328, shortly before some of his propositions were condemned in 1329.