NOTES
Following are abbreviations of primary source texts used in the notes:
| DW | Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen Werke, ed. by Josef Quint, vols. I, II, III, V (Stuttgart: 1958–76). |
| LW | Meister Eckhart: Die lateinischen Werke, ed. by E. Benz, J. Koch, et al., vols. I-V (Stuttgart: 1938–75). |
| Q | Meister Eckhart: Deutsche Predigjten und Traktate, ed. and tr. Into modern German by Josef Quint (Munich: 1963). |
Following are abbreviations of primary translations, other than my own, used in the notes:
| ANC | Jeanne Ancelet-Hustache, Master Eckhart and the Khineland Mystics (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1957). |
| CL | James M. Clark, Meister Eckhart: An Introduction to the Study of His Works with an Anthology of His Sermons (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd., 1957). |
| M | Armand A. Maurer, Master Eckhart: Parisian Questions and Prologues (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1974). |
| SH | Reiner Schürmann, Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philosopher (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1978). |
| SK | James Clark and John V. Skinner, Meister Eckhart: Selected Treatises and Sermons Translated from Latin and German with an Introduction and Notes (London: Faber & Faber, Ltd., 1958). |
Introduction
1. Bengt R. Hoffman, Luther and the Mystics (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1976), pp. 124, 154, 41ff., and passim.
2. ANC, p. 171. The connection between the Rhineland mystics and the Spanish Carmelite school preoccupied my former professor, Louis Cognet, for years. See Louis Cognet, Introduction aux Mystiques Rhéno-Flamands (Paris: Desclée et Cie, 1968), p. 343. It has been said that “Ignatian spirituality has much in common with that of Meister Eckhart; it is impossible, indeed, to approve the one while rejecting the other” (Walter Nigg, Warriors of God [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959], p. 338).
3. Ernst Bloch, Atheism in Christianity (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972), pp. 63ff.; Erich Fromm, To Have or To Be? (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), says: “Eckhart has described and analyzed the difference between the having and being modes of existence with a penetration and clarity not surpassed by any teacher” (p. 59). See also: Matthew Fox, “Meister Eckhart and Karl Marx: The Mystic as Political Theologian,” Listening (Fall 1078), pp. 233–57.
4. D. T. Suzuki, Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (New York: Harper, 1957), p. 3; Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New York: New Directions, 1968), p. 13; Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1968), p. 53. On the Zen/Eckhart influence on Merton, see Sister Therese Lentfoehr, Words and Silence (New York: New Directions Publishing Corp., 1979), pp. 55–63, 106–8.
5. C. G. Jung, Commentary to Richard Wilhelm’s translation and explanation of The Secret of the Golden Flower (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1962), p. 93. Jung’s references to Eckhart are numerous, as one can learn from the General Index to the Collected Works of C. G. Jung, compiled by Barbara Forryan and Janet M. Glover (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), Bollingen Series XX, Vol. 20, p. 238.
6. ANC, p. 178.
7. The Imitation of Christ, Bk. Ill, ch. 42. The same kind of attitude of struggle against nature and creation prevails in our society today, for exam-pie, in big-business farming, as Berry points out. See Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (New York: Avon Books,
8. Matthew Fox, “Meister Eckhart on the Fourfold Path of a Creation-Centered Spiritual Journey,” in Matthew Fox, ed., Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes (Notre Dame, Ind.: Fides/Claretian, 1979), pp. 215–47.
9. Philippe Dollinger, “Strasbourg et Colmar Foyers de la Mystique Rhénane (xiiie-xive siècles),” in La Mystique Rhénane (Paris Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), pp. 4ff
10. Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), p. 24.
11. See David M. Nicholas, ‘Town and Countryside: Social and Economic Tensions in Fourteenth-Century Flanders,” Comparative Studies in Society and History (1968), pp. 458f, 471.
12. Tuchman, op. cit., pp. 38, xvi.
13. Dollinger, op. cit., p. 4.
14. Tuchman, op. cit., pp. xix, 575.
15. Ibid., pp. 26f.
16. See Richard K. Weber, “The Search for Identity and Community in the Fourteenth Century,” The Thomist (April 1978), pp. 182–96.
17. Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1972), pp. 318, 137.
18. Tuchman, op. cit., pp. 40, 42.
19. Ibid., p. 322.
20. Ibid., p. 104.
21. SH, p. 89.
22. ANC, p. 27.
23. Ibid., p. 132.
24. Ibid., pp. 124f.
25. Merton, Conjectures, pp. 53f.
26. M. D. Knowles, “Denifle and Ehrle,” History LIV (1969), 4. Cited by Armand A. Maurer, Master Eckhart: Parisian Questions and Prologues (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1974), p. 7.
27. Lossky’s study is a fine one and one of the few theological studies on Eckhart, yet it is far weaker than Eckhart in biblical spirituality. See Vladimir Lossky, Théologie Négative et Connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart (Paris: J. Vrin, 1973).
28. Q, p. 416.
29. Q, pp. 262f.
30. I am referring to C. F. Kelley commenting on LW IV, pp. 5ff. In C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 27.
31. See p. 143, comparing C. H. Dodd’s theology to Eckhart’s. See also Helen A. Kenik, “Toward a Biblical Basis for Creation Theology,” in Fox, Western Spirituality, pp. 27–75.
32. See Philip David Bookstaber, The Idea of Development of the Soul in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Philadelphia: Maurice Jacobs, 1950), pp. 21, 65.
33. Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees, Celtic Heritage (London: Thames & Hudson, 1978), p. 99; John B. Noss, Man’s Religions (New York: The Mac-millan Company, 1969), p. 73.
34. Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality Among the Greeks (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 19J50), p. 158.
35. Patrick’s Creed is reproduced in Mary Aileen Schmiel, “The Finest Music in the World: Exploring Celtic Spiritual Legacies,” in Fox, Western Spirituality, pp. 173L I am indebted to Ms. Schmiel’s work on Celtic spirituality.
36. Ibid., p. 172. Robert F. Evans, Four Letters of Pelagius (New York: Seabury Press, 1968), comments on Pelagius’ meaning or justitia. It is his “characteristic and all-embracing word for the complete obedience to all that God commands. It includes both ‘not sinning’ . . . and the doing of those good works enjoined upon all Christians” (p. 76). For Pelagius’ relationship with women, see Robert F. Evans, Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals (New York: Seabury Press, 1968), pp. 32ff.
37. William Blake, “The Laocoon,” in Complete Writings, Geoffrey Keynes, ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 776.
38. Rees, op. cit., p. 213.
39. See Krister Stendahl, “Judgment and Mercy,” in Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), pp. 100f. It is peculiar to English and German to separate “justice” from “righteousness” but not so in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. “Righteousness and justice . . . are the one and only justitia.”
40. Rees, op. cit., p. 17.
41. See Edward A. Armstrong, Saint Francis: Nature Mystic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 40f.; and A. N. Tommasini, Irish Saints in Italy (London: Sands & Co., 1937).
42. Armstrong, op. cit., p. 34. See pp. 34–41.
43. Jean A. Potter and Myra L. Uhlfelder, eds., John the Scot: Periphyseon on the Division of Nature (Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1976), p. xx.
44. See Armstrong, op. cit., pp. 127–31, 189, 231–35.
45. Christopher J. Kauffman, Tamers of Death: The History of the Alexian Brothers (New York: Seabury Press, 1976), p. 123. Kauffman demonstrates the connection between Eckhart and the Beghards and the Beghards and the Alexian Brothers.
46. See also Q, Sermon #31.
47. SK, p. 148.
48. ANC, p. 10.
49. Dayton Phillips, Begtdnes in Medieval Strassburg (Stanford University, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1941), p. 27.
50. Ibid., pp. 224, 228.
51. R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1978), p. 324.
52. Cited in Ernest W. McDonnell, The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1954), p. 524. I am indebted for this section on the Beguines to the excellent study done by Anne Metzler, “The Beguines: An Alternative life-style for Medieval Lay Women” (Chicago: Mundelein College Master Thesis, unpublished, 1979).
53. Martin Erbstosser and Ernst Werner, Ideologische Probleme de Meitteldterlichen plebejertums (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1960), p. 34.
54. Joan Evans, ed., The Flowering of the Middle Ages (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 258.
55. Kelley, op. cit., p. 82.
56. SH, pp. 230, n. 21, 38.
57. Ibid., pp. 140f.
58. Thomas Franklin O’Meara, “Meister Eckhart’s Destiny,” Spirituality Today (December 1078), p. 357. This two-part article provides an excellent summary of EcKnart’s influence through the ages. The same author has also put together a most useful and comprehensive bibliography on Meister Eckhart in The Thomist, April 1978, pp. 313–36.
59. Kenik, op. cit., p. 63.
60. DW III, p. 582.
61. C. G. Jung, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959), Bollingen Series XX, Vol. 9, Part II, p. 40.
62. Claude Tresmontant, A Study of Hebrew Thought (Paris: Desclée et Cie, 1960), p. 26.
63. SH, p. 13.
64. Ibid., p. 69.
Path One
1. See Helen A. Kenik, “Toward a Biblical Basis for Creation Theology,” in Matthew Fox, ed., Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes (Notre Dame, Ind.: Fides/Claretian, 1979), pp. 62f.
Sermon One
1. Cited in C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 72.
2. DW III, p. 587.
3. SK, p. 134.
4. Q, p 421.
5. SK, p. 134.
6. SK, p. 175.
7. SK, p. 219.
8. Q p. 346.
9. CL, pp. 163f.
10. P. van Imschoot, “Word,” Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible, Louis F. Hartman, tr. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), col, 2598.
Sermon Two
1. CL, p. 248.
2. SK, p. 199.
3. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, W. J. H. Sprott, tr. (London: Hogarth Press, 1933), p. 99.
4. SK, p. 201.
5. CL, p. 212.
6. SK, p. 183.
7. LW I, pp. 161f.
8. SK, p. 129.
9. Q, p. 329. Translation in SH, p. 123.
10. SK, p. 78,
11. Q, p. 329. Translation in SH, p. 123.
12. Q, p. 332. Translation in SH, p. 126.
13. M, pp. 77f.
14. “That which is in God is God” Compendium Theologiae, 37, 41.
15. See Sermon Twenty-three.
Sermon Three
1. CL, p. 246.
2. See John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 106.
3. See Sermon Fourteen.
4. DW I, p. 156.
5. Q, p. 295. Translation by Caputo, op. cit., p. 243.
6. CL, p. 163.
7. CL, p. 167.
8. CL, p. 241.
9. Q p. 350.
10. M, p. 91.
11. Cf. Matthew Fox, WHEE! We, wee M the Way Home: A Guide to the New Sensual Spirituality (Wilmington, N.C.: Consortium Books, 1976).
12. SH, p. 91.
Sermon Four
1. SK, p. 175.
2. M, p. 88.
3. CL, p. 167.
4. LW III, p. 51.
5. SH, pp. 62f.
6. DW III, p. 587.
7. LW II, p. 282.
8. LW III, p. 77; LW I, p. 169.
9. See M, pp. 77–98.
10. DW I, pp. 106, 115. Translation by C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 230–31.
11. LW II, p. 65.
Sermon Five
1. See LW I, p. 235. Cf. SH, p. 154, and also Jean A. Potter and Myra L. Uhlf elder, eds., John the Scot: Periphyseon on the Division of Nature (In dianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1976). See also Vladimir Lossky, Théologie Négative et Connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart (Paris: J. Vrin, 1973), pp. 182f.
2. Q, p. 167.
3. DW III, p. 582.
4. DW I, p. 646.
5. Q, p. 215.
6. DW I, p. 148.
7. DW III, p. 579.
8. Q, pp. 226f. Translation in SH, p. 102.
9. DW III, p. 570.
10. DW I, p. 376.
11. See Sermon Twenty-nine.
12. DW III, p. 587.
13. M, p. 70.
14. DW III, p. 510.
15. M, p. 72.
16. SH, p. 89.
17. LW III. p. 189.
18. See Sermon Twenty-three.
Sermon Six
1. DW III, p. 582.
2. Q, p. 171.
3. Q, p. 140.
4. SK, p. 129.
5. Q, p.153.
6. DW’ill, p. 514.
7. Q, p. 226.
8. CL, p. 216.
9. Q, p. 344.
10. Q, p. 230.
11. Q, p. 229.
12. Q, p. 231.
13. Q, p. 197. Translation by John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 108.
14. Q, p. 180.
15. SH, pp. 144f.
16. DW II, p. 676.
17. SH, p. 145.
18. Caputo, op. cit., p. 110.
19. Q, p. 210.
20. M, p. 60.
21. CL, p. 209.
22. Q, p. 340.
23. CL, p. 214.
24. CL, p. 198.
25. DW III, p. 584.
26. CL, p. 160.
27. LW IV, p. 145.
28. M, p. 78.
29. DW II, p. 595.
30. M, p. 90.
31. DW III, p. 589.
32. M, p. 92.
33. LW IV, p. 147.
34. LW IV, p. 149.
35. LW IV, pp. 351f.
36. Q. p. 341.
37. SK, p. 94.
38. Q, p. 249. Translation in ANC, p. 116.
39. Q, p. 162.
Sermon Seven
1. Q, p. 153.
2. Q, p. 141.
3. Q, p. 142.
4. Ibid.
5. SK, p. 233.
6. DW III, pp. 585f.
7. DW III, p. 587.
8. Q, p. 431.
9. Q, pp. 166.f
10. SH, p. 291.
11. Q, p. 167.
12. Q, p. 291
13. DW III, p. 582.
14. SK, p. 97.
15. SK, p. 101.
16. SK, p. 97.
17. SK, p. 103.
18. SK, p. 101.
19. DW II, p. 691.
20. St. Augustine, Literal Commentary on Genesis, XII, 7.16; On Music, VI, 5, 13. Translations in Vernon J. Bourke, The Essential Augustine (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing Co., 1978), pp. 94, 46f.
21. DW II, p. 747.
22. See M, pp. 26f. Cf. M. D. Chenu, “Body and Body Politic in the Creation Spirituality of Thomas Aquinas,” in Matthew Fox, ed., Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes (Notre Dame, Ind.: Fides/Claretian, 1979), pp. 193–214.
23. Q, p. 296.
24. DW III, p. 580.
25. Q p. 295
26. CL, p. 198.
27. See M. D. Chenu, “Spiritus: Le vocabulaire de l’âme au XIIe siècle,” Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques, XLI (1957), pp. 227ff.
28. DW I, p. 523.
29. DW III, p. 585.
30. DW I, p. 490
31. Q, pp. 290f.
32. Q, pp. 294f.
33. DW I, p. 490.
34. DW III, p.586.
35. DW III, p.587.
36. DW III, p.511.
Sermon Eight
1. CL, p. 199.
2. Q, p. 265.
3. DW III, p. 589.
4. Ibid.
5. DW II, p. 690.
6. DW III, p. 521.
7. DW III, p. 515.
8. SK, p. 71.
9. SK, p. 72.
10. SK, p. 96.
11. DW II, p. 666.
Sermon Nine
1. Cf. C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (London: Fontana Books, 1967), pp. 28ff.; Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971).
2. Dodd, op. cit., p. 35.
3. Ibid., p. 41.
4. Ibid., p. 144.
5. Cf. Rosemary Ruether, The Radical Kingdom (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), pp. 15ff.
6. See Matthew Fox, “Sexuality and Compassion: From Climbing Jacob’s Ladder to Dancing Sarah’s Circle,” in Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion (Minneapolis, Minn.: Winston Press, 1979), pp. 36ff.
7. The Jerusalem Bible, Alexander Jones, Gen. Ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1966), p. 1019, note j.
8. SK, p. 86.
9. SK, p. 97.
10. See Dodd, op. cit., pp. 34f.
11. Claus Westermann, Blessing in the Bible and the Life of the Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), pp. 3f.
12. Cited in ibid., pp. 20f.
13. DW II, p. 706.
14. DW III, p. 575.
15. DW II, p. 704.
16. Ibid.
Sermon Ten
1. Raymond Bernard Blakney, Meister Eckhart: A Modem Translation (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1941), p. 245.
2. Q, p. 267.
3. Q, p. 214.
4. CL, p. 226.
5. See Sermon Nineteen.
6. See Sermon Twenty-three.
7. SK, p. 104.
8. Q, p. 169.
9. SK, p. 79.
10. SK, p. 140.
11. For the God who suffers and is passionate, see Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 92, 190, 232, 237f., 319–21, 435, 484–88, and passim.
12. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1966), p. 536.
13. M, pp. 107f.
14. M, p. 108.
15. See Brown, op. cit., pp. 342ff.
16. See M, p. 33, note 70.
17. CL, p. 230.
18. Ibid.
19. Claus Westermann, Blessing in the Bible and the Life of the Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 18.
20. Cited in Westermann, p. 20.
21. Q, p. 255.
22. Westermann, op. cit., p. 18.
23. Ibid., pp. 18f.
24. CL, p. 232.
25. SK, p. 247.
Path Two
1. CL, p. 165.
2. DW III, p. 522.
3. DW III, p. 580.
Sermon Eleven
1. CL, p. 216.
2. Q, p. 55. Translation by John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 186.
3. C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (London: Fontana Books, 1967), pp. 108, 110.
4. DW III, p. 521.
5. DW II, p. 692.
6. DW II, p. 706.
7. Q, pp. 19 5L
8. CL, p. 236.
9. Q, p. 193.
10. SK, pp. 100f. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. theol., I, q. 1, art. 1, ad 2.
11. DW III, p. 514.
12. SK, p. 69.
13. Q, pp. 55f
14. CL, p. 247.
15. CL, p. 248.
16. SK, p. 205.
17. CL, p. 248.
18. Cited in C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 139.
19. DW III, p. 574.
20. Pseudo-Dionysius, De mystica Theologica, 3:2. A contemporary study of this same theme is Eulalio R. Baltazar, The Dark Center (New York: Paulist Press, 1973).
21. CL, p. 217.
22. CL, pp. 158f.
23. DW I, pp. 95f.
24. Cf. M, pp. 40f.
25. CL, p. 159.
Sermon Twelve
1. CL, p. 158.
2. DW III, p. 574.
3. SK, p. 194.
4. SK, p. 93.
5. SK, pp. 181f.
6. See Mary Constance Barrett, An Experimental Study of the Thomistic Concept of the Faculty of Imagination (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1941 ). Barrett describes the medieval term “imagination” as: “the mere conservation of the images of past experiences . . . very much the same thing as that which modern psychology deals with under the name of memory” (p. 45). See also Etienne Gilson, Christian Philosophy of Aquinas (New York: Random House, 1956). Imagination for the medievals is a “power to preserve,” a “treasury in which the forms apprehended by the senses are stored” (pp. 205L). Our contemporary use of the word “imagination” owes much to Coleridge for whom imagination is a source of art. It is in this sense that I apply the term to Eckhart’s notion of “soul.” For Coleridge, imagination “disciplines, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create . . . it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital.” (Cited in A. R. Manser, “Imagination,” Encyclopedia of Philosophy, III [New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967], p. 137.)
Sermon Thirteen
1. Victor Paul Furnish, “The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians,” The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible, Charles M. Laymon, ed. (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1971), p. 841.
2. LW II, p. 77.
3. SK, p. 108.
4. DW III, p. 583.
5. Q, pp. 328, 331. Translation in SH 122, 125.
6. John D. Caputo, “The Nothingness of the Intellect in Meister Eckhart’s ‘Parisian Questions,’” The Thomist, XXXIX (January 1975), p. 91.
7. LW V, p. 44.
8. LW V, p. 50.
9. Caputo, op. cit., p. 98.
10. Ibid., p. 104.
11. Ibid., p. 114.
12. DW II, p. 594.
13. SK, p. 103. See also the fine study by Maurice de Gandillac, “La ‘dialectique’ de Maître Eckhart,” in La Mystique Rhénane, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), pp. 59–94.
14. CL, p. 205.
15. SK, p. 107.
16. SK, p. 89.
17. LW III, p. 70.
18. LW III, p. 69.
19. LW III, p. 202.
20. SK, p. 191.
21. DW III, pp. 579f.
22. DW III, p. 580.
23. SK, p. 124.
24. DW II, p. 326.
Sermon Fourteen
1. DW III, #82, p. 583.
2. LW III, p. 41.
3. Q, p. 384.
4. LW II, p. 22.
5. Q, p. 300.
6. SK, pp. 133f.
7. SK, p. 64.
8. SK, p. 97.
9. SK, p. 98.
10. Q, p. 299.
11. Q, p. 227. Translation in SH, p. 102.
12. Cf. my understanding of adult prayer as a “radical response to life” in Matthew Fox, On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style (New York: Paulist Press, 1976).
13. Q, p. 171.
14. Q, p. 334. Translation in SH, p. 128.
15. SK, p. 68.
16. SK, p. 69.
17. SK, p. 70.
18. SK, p. 86. For an explanation of “tactical ecstacies,” see Matthew Fox, WHEE! We, wee All the Way Home: A Guide to the New Sensual Spirituality (Wilmington, N.C.: Consortium Books, 1976).
19. DW III, p. 515.
20. CL, p. 236.
21. See Sermon Fifteen.
22. Q, p. 175. Translation in ANC, pp. 105f.
23. DW II, p. 751.
24. Q, p. 171.
25. DW III, p. 587.
26. DW II, p. 705.
27. SK, p. 240.
28. Q, pp. 328, 332.
29. DW III, p. 522.
30. Q, pp. 328, 332, 333.
31. Q, p. 332.
32. DW III, p. 523.
Sermon Fifteen
1. SH, p. 84.
2. DW V, p. 542.
3. DW V, p. 540.
4. John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 15.
5. DW V, p. 546.
6. DW V, p. 542.
7. Q, pp. 214f.
8. SK, p. 130.
9. SK, p. 70.
10. SH, p. 85.
11. Caputo, op. cit., p. 119.
12. SK, p. 123.
13. SH, p. 16.
14. DW III, p. 514.
15. Caputo, op. cit., p. 180.
16. SK, p. 70.
Sermon Sixteen
1. DW III, p. 513.
2. SK, p. 75.
3. DW II, p. 610.
4. SK, p. 66.
5. SK, p. 196.
6. SK, p. 114.
7. SK, p. 98.
8. SK, p. 135.
9. See Sermon Twenty.
10. SK, p. 114.
11. SK, p. 115.
12. John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 209.
13. SK, p. 78. Translation adapted.
14. See Sermon Twenty.
15. SK, p. 79.
16. SH, pp. 41–42.
17. Q, p. 386. Translation in SH, p. 58.
18. SK, p. 89.
19. SK, p. 135.
20. See Sermon Twenty-three.
21. Ibid.
22. See Sermon Two.
23. SK, p. 75.
Sermon Seventeen
1. SK, p. 122.
2. See Vladimir Lossky, Théologie Négative et Connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart (Paris: J. Vrin, 1973), p. 431.
Sermon Eighteen
1. SK, p. 161. Translation adapted.
2. SK, p. 167.
3. SK, p. 168. Translation adapted.
4. SK, p. 160.
5. SH, p. 91.
6. Cf. Thorleif Boman, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, tr. by Jules L. Moreau (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), pp. 2o6ff., for a discussion of a hearing-oriented as distinct from a seeing-oriented culture.
7. CL, p. 162.
8. See Sermon Thirty-six.
9. Ibid.
10. For more on the relationship between anti-intellectualism and sentimental spiritualistic pieties, see Anne Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977).
11. My WHEE! We, wee AH the Way Home: A Guide to the New Sensual Spirituality (Wilmington, N.C.: Consortium Books, 1976) is an attempt to mend the damage done by this dualism in spirituality and to put the via afflrmativa and the via negativa back in their proper place of dialectical tension and harmony.
12. SK, p. 167. Translation adapted.
Sermon Nineteen
1. DW III, p. 581.
2. SH, p. 17.
3. SK, p. 124.
4. CL, p. 214. It is true, of course, that the philosophical tradition of Plato and Aristotle had developed doctrines of pre-creation of the soul and Eckhart was familiar with these traditions, especially through Albert the Great’s influence. However, we must not ignore the biblical traditions on this subject, for Eckhart does not ignore them.
5. See Sermon Three.
6. DW I, p. 94.
7. Ibid., p. 95.
8. DW I, p. 521.
9. DW II, p. 595.
10. Ibid.
Sermon Twenty
1. Albert the Great, for example, translated “Martha” in an allegorical sense. See SH, p. 228, note 2.
2. William Baird, for example, in his “The Gospel According to Luke,” The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible, Charles M. Laymon, ed. (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1971), p. 689, sees the story as an illustration of the command of compassion or loving one’s neighbor.
3. SH, p. 11.
4. SH, p. 19.
5. SH, pp. 23; 230, note 21; 38, 47.
6. Cf. Jon Sobrino, “Prayer in the New Testament and Early Christian Community,” in Matthew Fox, éd., Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes (Notre Dame, Ind.: Fides/Claretian, 1979), pp. 76–114, for a consideration of prayer that takes one beyond the contemplation/action dilemma. Also, Matthew Fox, On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style (New York: Paulist Press, 1976).
7. John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 180.
8. Ibid., p. 139.
9. SH, p. 32.
10. SH, p. 36.
11. William Eckhardt, Compassion: Toward a Science of Value (Oakville, Ontario, Canada: CPRJ Press, 1973), pp. 4f.
12. Q, p. 75.
13. SH, p. 28.
14. SK, pp. 82f.
15. CL, p. 215.
16. SK, p. 82.
17. Q, p. 214.
18. DW II, p. 595.
19. LW IV, p. 408.
20. SK, p. 215.
21. DW III, p. 587.
22. SH, p. 210.
23. SH, p. 18.
24. Gabriel Théry, éd., Rechtfertigungsschrift (Eckhart’s Defense), #11, art. 51, Solution. Translation in SH 46.
25. See SH, pp. 24f., 43, 46f.
Path Three
1. Q, p. 425. See Sermon Eighteen.
2. See Otto Rank, Art and Artist (New York: Agathon Press, 1975), pp. 37–65.
3. The idea that the artist must himself or herself undergo a profound death and rebirth is also invoked by Rank, who says that a “new type of humanity” can be born from the artist who “will be able to put his creative impulse directly in the service of his own personality.” (See Rank, op. cit., pp. 43of.)
Sermon Twenty-one
1. Q, p. 220.
2. SH, p. 23.
3. CL, p. 203.
4. CL, p. 214.
5. Q, p. 203.
6. SK, p. 123.
7. Q, p. 61.
8. Q, p. 265.
9. Q, p. 385.
10. Q, p. 384.
11. Q, p. 237.
12. Q, p. 332. Translation in SH, p. 126.
13. DW III, p. 315.
14. Q, p. 185.
15. Q, p. 186.
16. LW III, pp. 101f.
17. See John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 115.
18. SK, p. 111.
19. See pp. 251, 252, 254.
20. Q, p. 425.
21. DW II, p. 677.
Sermon Twenty-two
1. DW II, p. 752.
2. DW II, p. 705.
3. Q, p. 175.
4. Clement of Alexandria, The Pedagogue, III, 1. Translation in SH, p. 24.
5. DW III, p. 574.
6. From Eckhart s Defense; translation in SH, p. 160.
7. SH, p. 82.
8. SK, p. 190.
9. SK, p. 132.
10. Q, p. 208.
11. Q, p. 185. Translation in John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 114.
12. SK, pp. 126f.
13. SK, p. 133.
14. Q, p. 172.
15. See Sermon Two.
Sermon Twenty-three
1. DW II, p. 677.
2. CL, p. 201.
3. SK, pp. 234f.
4. CL, p. 214.
5. SK, p. 132.
6. See Adolf Deissmann, Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History, tr. by William E. Wilson (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1957), pp. 295–99.
7. DW II, p. 707.
8. DW III, p. 588.
9. SK, p. 119.
10. SK, p. 126.
11. Q, p. 208.
12. CL, p. 219.
13. CL, p. 222.
14. CL, p. 201.
15. Q. p. 332.
16. See Sermon Fifteen.
17. SH, p. 110.
18. SH, p. 147.
19. Vladimir Lossky, Théologie Négative et Connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart (Paris: J. Vrin, 1973), p.188.
20. SK, p. 126.
21. SK, p. 78.
22. DW I, p. 521.
23. CL, p. 248.
24. See Sermon Four.
25. DW III, p. 569.
26. CL, p. 218.
Sermon Twenty-four
1. SK, p. 246.
2. SK, pp. 221f.
3. See Sermon Twenty-eight.
4. SK, p. 221.
5. See Sermon Twenty.
6. DW III, p. 528.
7. SK, p. 178.
8. SK, p. 89.
9. Q, p. 226.
10. See Sermon Thirty-two.
11. See Sermon Fifteen.
12. SH, p. 17.
13. SK, p. 170.
14. SK, p. 111.
15. SK,pp. 237ff.
16. DW II, p. 528.
17. See Sermon Fifteen.
18. LW IV, p. 429. Eckhart links redemption and reminding: “For this reason, therefore, has the wisdom of God wanted to show our redemption by himself assuming flesh—in order that our instruction in divine, natural, and moral matters would be remembered” (LW III, p. 156). C. F. Kelley writes: “Christ is before all else the ‘Reminder/He reminds us of the truth that has been ‘forgotten’ and hidden from our conscious and subconscious minds” (Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge [New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1977], p. 131).
19. SK, p. 150.
20. DW III, p. 587.
21. SK, p. 240.
22. In Gen. II, 1.1. Translation in ANC 57.
23. LW III, p. 13.
24. DW II, p. 690.
25. CL, p. 168.
26. D, p 343.
27. Q, p. 200.
Sermon Twenty-five
1. See Sermon Two.
2. Q, p. 431.
3. DW II, p. 707.
4. Ibid.
5. Bernhard W. Anderson, Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974), p. 131. Cf. Ps. 74.
6. SK, pp. i33f.
7. DW I, p. 377.
Sermon Twenty-six
1. DW III, p. 575.
2. LW III, p. 285.
3. Q, p. 233.
4. Cited in C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 223.
5. DW I, p. 522.
6. DW II, p. 676.
7. CL, p. 219.
8. SK, p. 131.
9. SK, p. 132.
10. Ibid.
11. SK, p. 189.
12. See Sermon Four.
13. Q, p. 201; DW III, p. 582.
14. See William James, Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Mentor Books, 1958), p. 164.
15. Q, p. 385.
16. CL, p. 219.
17. SH, p. 146.
18. DW III, p. 590.
19. CL, p. 167.
20. DW I, p. 521.
21. Ibid., p. 522.
22. Raymond Bernard Blakney, Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1941), p. 237.
23. DW II, p. 326.
Sermon Twenty-seven
1. See Sermon Twenty-six, p. 366.
Sermon Twenty-eight
1. DW III, p. 522.
2. CL, p. 203.
3. Q, p. 216. Translation in John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 126.
4. Cited in C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 68.
5. CL, p. 223.
6. CL, p. 203.
7. SK, pp. 92f.
8. CL, p. 203.
9. DW II, p. 751.
10. CL, p. 164.
11. DW III, p. 589.
12. DW III, p. 582.
Sermon Twenty-nine
1. C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 29.
2. CL, p. 249.
3. Q, p. 302.
4. CL, p. 164.
5. SK, p. 249.
6. LW III, p. 10.
7. See Otto Rank, Art and Artist (New York: Agathon Press, 1975); Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: The Free Press, 1973); Matthew Fox, “Otto Rank on the Artistic Journey as a Spiritual Journey, the Spiritual Journey as an Artistic Journey,” Spirituality Today, March 1979, pp. 73–83; Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion (Minneapolis, Minn.: Winston Press, 1979), chapter 4: “Creativity and Compassion.”
8. DW II, p. 515.
9. SK, p. 257.
10. SH, p. 19.
11. Cf. Matthew Fox, “The Case for Extrovert Meditation,” Spirituality Today, June 1978, pp. 164–77. A classic work on extrovert meditation is Mary Richards, Centering (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1964).
12. Q, p. 301.
13. CL, p. 249.
14. SK, pp. 234f.
15. Q, p. 176.
16. DW III, p. 582.
17. DW I, pp. 269, 271. Translation in SH, p. 94.,
18. DW III, p. 515.
19. SK, p. 251.
20. SK, p. 97.
21. SK, p. 229.
22. Q, p. 342.
23. Q, p. 425.
24. DW II, p. 706.
25. SH, p. 105.
26. See Sermon Thirty-six.
27. See Silvano Arieti, Creativity: The Magic Synthesis (New York: Basic Books, 1976).
Path Four
1. Samuel H. Dressner, Prayer, Humility and Compassion (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1957), pp. 236f. See also Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion (Minneapolis, Minn.: Winston Press, 1979), chapter 1.
2. Q, p. 300.
3. LW IV, p. 396.
4. This point was made in the previous sermon.
5. LW IV, p. 396.
Sermon Thirty
1. Thorleif Boman, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, tr. by Jules L. Moreau (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), p. 173. Cf. 1 Co. 8:6; Mt. 11:25.
2. See William Eckhart, Compassion: Toward a Science of Value (Oakville, Ontario, Canada: CPRI Press, 1973), pp. 4f.
3. LW IV, p. 396.
4. Sifra Deuteronomy 49. Rabbi Heschel said: “God created a reminder, an image. Humanity is a reminder of God. As God is compassionate, let humanity be compassionate” (“Abraham Joshua Heschel, Last Words: An Interview by Carl Stern” in Intellectual Digest, June 1973, p. 78).
5. SK, p. 221.
6. The Jerusalem Bible, Alexander Jones, Gen. Ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1966), p. 961, note f.
7. DW III, p. 588.
8. LW IV, p. 392.
9. SK, p. 238.
10. SK, p. 239.
11. SK, p. 111.
12. LW IV, p. 395.
13. See Sermon Twenty-three.
14. LW IV, p. 384.
15. Thomas Aquinas, Super II Cor,, ch. XI, 6.
16. DW II, p. 752.
17. DW III, p. 590.
18. LW IV, pp. 395, 396.
Sermon Thirty-one
1. See Sum. theol., I, q. 21., a. 4.
2. Q, p. 299.
3. DW II, p. 746.
4. Thomas Merton, “Marxism and Monastic Perspectives,” in John Moffitt, éd., A New Charter for Monasticism (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970), p. 80. I relate this mystical insight to that of contemporary science in Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion (Minneapolis, Minn.: Winston Press, 1979), chapter 5.
5. DW I, p. 56.
6. C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 221. The citations within Kelley are from DW V, pp. 413–22.
7. See Sermon Twenty-three.
8. ANC, p. 135.
Sermon Thirty-two
1. See B. Kuske, Quellen zur Geschichte; Jacques Heers, L’Occident aux XIVe et XVe Siècles: Aspects Économiques et sociaux (Paris: 1970); David M. Nicholas, “Town and Countryside: Social and Economic Tensions in Fourteenth-Century Flanders,” Comparative Studies in Society and History (1968), pp. 458–72.
2. LW IV, p. 389.
3. SK, p. 186
4. Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1972), for his chapter on “Filthy Lucre,” pp. 234–304, and “The Excremental Vision,” pp. 179–201.
5. SH, p. 13.
6. CL, p. 199.
7. LW IV, p. 186.
8. C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 14.
9. Q, p. 177.
10. Q, p. 55. Translation by John D. Caputo in The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 136.
11. Caputo, ibid.
12. SK, p. 257.
13. Q, p. 174.
14. Cf. LW I, pp. 246–50.
15. SK, p. 196.
16. SK, p. 201.
17. Kelley, op. cit., p. 72.
18. Thomas Aquinas, De malo, XI, a. 3, ad 4.
19. CL, p. 199.
20. Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1978), p. 165.
21. Caputo, op. cit., p. 188.
22. See Matthew Fox, “Meister Eckhart and Karl Marx,” in Richard Woods, éd., Understanding Mysticism (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1980), pp. 555–60 for the section on “Eckhart’s Political Condemnation.”
Sermon Thirty-three
1. LW IV, p. 392.
2. LW III, p. 210.
3. SK, p. 112.
4. DW II, p. 690.
5. DW II, p. 707.
6. SK, p. 255.
7. See SBC, pp. 111, 237.
8. SK, p. 238.
9. SK, p. 239.
10. DW III, p. 586.
11. SK, p. 255.
12. SK, p. 245.
13. Q, p. 299.
14. SK, p. 134.
15. DW II, p. 707.
16. SK, p. 254. Elsewhere, Eckhart writes: “Who are the just? A writer says: ‘One is just who gives to each person what is his or her due.’ They are just who give to God what is his, and to the saints and the angels what is theirs, and to one’s fellow human beings what is theirs” (Q, p. 182).
17. SK, p. 185.
18. DW II, p. 691.
19. Q, p. 180. Translation by John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 100.
20. DW II, p. 707.
21. William Eckhardt, Compassion: Toward a Science of Value (Oakville, Ontario, Canada: CPRI Press, 1973), pits compulsion against compassion throughout his study. See especially pp. 256–71.
22. SK, p. 102.
23. SK, p. 67.
24. SK, p. 68.
25. CL, p. 249.
26. Q, p. 342.
27. CL, p. 249.
28. CL, p. 162.
29. SK, p. 102.
30. SK, p. 95.
31. SK, p. 131.
32. SK, p. 86.
33. SK, p. 131.
34. Q, p. 154. Translation by Caputo, op. cit., p. 189.
35. SK, p. 80. We who are responsible for the new creation are the adverbs to God’s verb or holy work of creation (Q, p. 200). Cf. Abraham Heschel, God in Search of Man (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1955) : “We have no nouns by which to describe God’s essence. We have only adverbs by which to indicate the ways in which he acts toward us” (p. 161).
36. SK, p. 131.
Sermon Thirty-four
1. John D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1978), p. 138.
2. See E. F. Schumacher, “Good Work,” Address at the Thirty-second National Conference on Higher Education, Chicago, March 23, 1977.
3. Caputo, op. cit., pp. 138, 137.
4. Ibid., pp. 138f.
5. SK, p. 99.
6. William Baird, in his “The Gospel According to Luke,” The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible, Charles M. Laymon, ed. (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1971), p. 689.
7. See Matthew Fox, WHEEl We, wee M the Way Home: A Guide to the New Sensual Spirituality (Wilmington, N.C.: Consortium Books, 1976), especially Parts I and IV.
8. See Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion, chapter 5; Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture 6 Agriculture (New York, Avon Books, 1977), chapter 7, “The Body and the Earth.”
9. SK, p. 221.
10. Q, p. 265.
11. DW III, p. 582.
Sermon Thirty-five
1. See Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1976).
2. SK, p. 103.
3. Ibid.
4. SK, p. 104.
5. SK, p. 128.
6. Ibid.
7. SK, p. 115.
8. See Sermon Ten.
Sermon Thirty-six
1. Helen A. Kenik, “Toward a Biblical Basis for Creation Theology,” in Matthew Fox, ed., Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes (Notre Dame, Ind.: Fides/Claretian, 1979), p. 48.
2. Ibid., pp. 32f.
3. Q, p. 175.
4. Ibid.
5. DW II, p. 646.
6. DW III, p. 582.
7. Cf. Dayton Phillips, Beguines in Medieval Strassburg (Stanford University, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1941), p. 27: “It is obvious, therefore, that the Beguine condition found its greatest following among the lower classes.”
8. SK, p. 148.
9. Kenik, op. cit., p. 47.
10. Ibid., p. 42.
11. Ibid., p. 37.
12. Ernst Bloch, Atheism in Christianity (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972), pp. 63–65.
13. DW II, p. 704.
14. SK, p. 76.
15. Gregory Baum, New Horizons (New York: Paulist Press, 1972), pp. 141f.
16. Kenik, op. cit., pp. 48, 73, note 26. Cf. W. A. Brueggemann, “David and His Theologian,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 30 (1968), pp. 156–81.
Sermon Thirty-seven
1. ANC, p. 67.
2. LW III, p. 342; see also Sermon Twenty-three.
3. CL, p. 240.
4. Cf. José Cardenale: “All things love another,” from “hymn.”
5. SK, p. 112.
6. SK, p. 113.
7. SK, p. 187.
8. Q, p. 170.
9. Raymond Bernard Blakney, Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1941), p. 297.
10. SK, p. 106.
11. See Sermon Thirty-five, p. 501.
12. See Sermon Thirty-three, p. 464.
13. Helen A. Kenik, “Toward a Biblical Basis for Creation Theology,” in Matthew Fox, ed., Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes (Notre Dame, Ind.: Fides/Claretian, 1979), p. 55.
14. DW II, p. 706.
15. LW IV, p. 346.
16. CL, pp. 158L
17. LW IV, p. 37.
18. SK, p. 92.
19. Q, p. 246.
20. CL, p. 159.