Meister Eckhart

Extract

Little is kown about the outer life of Meister Eckhart. Born somewhere in Thuringia about 1260, he probably entered the Dominican Convent at Erfurt as a youth. His great intellectual gifts were soon recognised, for he was sent to Paris to complete his education at the fount of medieval scholarship. On his return to Germany he was elected Provincial of his Order. As such he was entrusted with the supervision of all Dominican convents in Northern Germany, and, after some time, with the reform of the houses in the Bohemian Provinnce as well. About 1310 he was relieved of these administrative duties, and again sent to Paris as teacher of his Order. Three years later he returned to Germany, living first at Strasbourg and afterwards at Cologne, where he became one of the most influential preachers. As, at that time, one of the chief duties of the Dominicans was the spiritual direction of numerous communities of religious women, Meister Eckhart’s sermons were mostly addressed to them. In these communities an exuberant inner life had sprung up, and Eckhart, reared in the intellectual discipline of St. Thomas, brought his great learning to the task of leading the devout women away from visions and ecstatic experiences to the heights of mystic contemplation.

But in these heights human language becomes sadly inadequate. It was Meister Eckhart’s tragedy that he tried to express the inexpressible, and in doing so had to use paradoxical statements that savoured of false doctrine. So the last years of his life were overshadowed by a trial for heresy, which eventually led to the condemnation of twenty-six of his theses, though most of these were admitted to be susceptible of an orthodox interpretation.