Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher

By Meister Eckhart

Book Overview

"Bargains in books are rare today, but one would be hard put to find in American publishing anything superior to these in content and format." The Parish Visitor Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher edited by Bernard McGinn with the collaboration of Frank Tobin and Elvira Borgstadt preface by Kenneth Northcott "When this temple is thus free of all obstacles, namely, possessiveness and ignorance, then it sparkles so beautifully and shines so purely and bright above everything that God created and through everything that God created that no one can be compared to it in brightness but the uncreated God alone...If the soul of a man still living in time were standing on the same level as the highest angel, this person could reach immeasurable higher in his free capability above the angel in ever 'now', new beyond number, that is, and beyond manner and above the manner of the angels and any created intellect." Meister Eckhart (c.1260-1327) Here are the texts that illustrate the diversity of one of the most enigmatic and influential mystics of the Western Christian tradition. Eckhart the teacher is represented by the Commentary on Exodus and by selections from six other commentaries, including the Commentary on Wisdom 7:14, the Commentary on Ecclesiasticus 24:29, and the Commentary on John 14:8. Eckhart's ministry as a preacher was an equally important part of the man, and thus his sermons, from both the Latin and the Middle High German manuscripts, are included. What emerges is a comprehensive picture of the works of this great speculative theologian. Together with Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries and Treatises, this work form the most extensive corpus of Eckhart's writings in English. +

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809128276
• ISBN13: 9780809128273
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Paulist Press
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great medieval mystic and philosopher

Meister Eckhart has become something of a spiritual celebrity these days; one often finds him discussed widely in many forums interested in spirituality, or discussed by members of Eastern religions who seem interested to draw parallells between Eckhart and Eastern philosophy, or in philosophers who find Eckhart's often bold, Zen-like pronouncements baffling and strange. Eckhart was certainly one of the most interesting thinkers of the medieval period. Associated with the Rhineland mystical movement in Germany, Eckhart appears to describe in many of his sermons powerful mystical experiences of various kinds, and at times his language seems to indicate he and God are united in essence. For this Eckhart was formally condemned for the heresy of pantheism, the only theologian to have been condemned this way in the medieval period. This volume of the Classics of Western Spirituality presents some of Eckhart's key sermons, some of his Biblical commentaries, and some of his written works aimed at fellow Dominicans or Christians in his pastoral care. It also includes essays on Eckhart's theology, philosophy and mysticism by Bernard McGinn, one of the world's leading scholars on Christian mysticism and on Eckhart's mysticism in particular. Eckhart's themes are complex, but appear to revolve around a very personal and intimate experience of the Absolute. Eckhart strongly emphasized the apophatic approach to experiencing God, negating all predicates and names and concepts which might apply to God, leaving behind only a naked, formless 'One' above Being and above concepts, even above the 'Trinity' itself. From this silent, unmoving, and unchanging entity, which is in Eckhart's view, neither 'nothing' nor 'being' but 'a nothing' and 'a something', both the Holy Trinity and all reality emerge, 'overflowing' like water flooding from a bursting spring in the ground. The human mind meets this reality, in its innermost 'ground', a place where the human soul or mind meets God devoid of all concepts, images and forms, but in doing so encounters God's prescence in so powerful a manner the soul fuses into God by a remarkable divinisation which makes the soul so like God all distinction between the soul or the person and God seems to completely vanish. Indeed, in his bolder sermons, God will often equate the 'ground' to the Godhead itself. Eckhart also develops a rich set of metaphors revolving around God's nothingness or darkness, both in terms of his unknowability and incomprehensibility, and his infinity and transcendant being. No other Catholic Christian mystic so strongly developed this theme, except perhaps for St John of the Cross. Eckhart also boldly describes the birth of the Christian believer into becoming God's son, when the ground becomes alive with its divinisation into God or the Absolute itself, to the point where God has as much joy over this 'birth' as he does in the Trinity itself. Eckhart also lies out a program where this myst

You'll never be the same again!

This book supplements the first volume on Eckhart from the Classics of Western Spirituality series with great reading. The sermons alone are worth the expense as they are chalk full of Eckhartian charm and challenge. In this work, you'll find solid translations of important medieval literature.