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Why were Eckhart's propositions condemned?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Oliver Davies
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The promulgation of the Bull In agro dominico in March 1329, which condemned twenty-eight propositions taken from the work of Meister Eckhart, is an event which has attracted the attention of many scholars in recent years. This interest is the result not only of the ‘rehabilitation’ of Eckhart by the theological fraternity (the greater part of which is now convinced of his fundamental orthodoxy) but also of the extraordinary character of the condemnation itself. In the present article I do not intend to repeat the work of Bernard McGinn, Edmund Colledge and others, who have shown the extent to which Eckhart was misunderstood by the commission which examined his work, but rather to enquire why it was that such misgivings were ultimately translated into a formal condemnation of Eckhart’s work by the Holy See itself.

In agro dominico stands out from other such condemnatory Bulls in a number of ways. Firstly, it was the first and only occasion when the full machinery of the Inquisition was used against a member of the Dominican Order, and it was similarly the first and only time in which a theologian of the first rank was charged with the inquisitio haereticae pravitatis: the most serious accusation which the Inquisition had at its disposal and the one which carried the heaviest penalties. Despite its extraordinary character, however, Eckhart’s trial remained fundamentally within the bounds of legality, as Winfried Trusen’s recent study has shown. Trusen also reveals, however, the malevolence of his detractors and their determination to inflict maximum damage upon Eckhart within the strict letter of the law.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 71 , Issue 842 , October 1990 , pp. 433 - 445
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Among English‐language works, see in particular McGinn, Bernard, ‘Eckhart's condemnation reconsidered’, The Thomist, XLIV, 3 (July 1980), pp. 390–414CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also: Walshe, Maurice O'C., ‘Was Meister Eckhart a heretic?’, London German Studies, 1 (1980), pp. 67–85Google Scholar; Woods, Richard, Eckhart's Way (Delaware, 1986; London, 1987), pp. 151–178Google Scholar; Colledge, Edmund, ‘Eckhart's Orthodoxy Reconsidered’, New Blackfriars, Vol. 71 (1990), pp. 176–184CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 See Trusen, , Der Prozess gegen Meister Eckhart, Paderborn, 1988Google Scholar. With regard to Eckhart's objection that the trial was invalid in that Nicholas of Strasburg had already examined his work, Trusen points out that Nicholas, as Visitor, could not have conducted proceedings for heresy (p. 71), and with regard to his objection that the commissars had no authority over him as a Master of Theology, Trusen points to the precedent of the condemnations by Bishop Stephan Tempier and Archbishop Robert Kilwardby (p. 91). But Trusen believes that the commissioners may in fact have gone beyond the letter of the law in their determination to proceed against Eckhart on the grounds of heresy rather than the lesser charge of censure (p. 97).

3 I am therefore inclined to agree with Kurt Run (Meister Eckhart, Munich, 1985, pp. 171ff)Google Scholar against Joseph Koch (Kleins Schriften, I, Rome, 1973, pp. 314ff) on this point. Koch argues that the ‘error’ concerned is of a political nature and to do with the role of the Dominican Order in the conflict between the Papacy and the Emperor. Ruh, on the other hand, argues that ‘error’ is generally the medieval shorthand for heresy. Ruh also makes the important point that simple and uneducated people played no part in the political controversy between the Papacy and the Emperor. The repetition of the injunction in 1328, which uses precisely the same formula as the 1325 injunction (‘ducunt populum in errorem’: Monumenta ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum historica, IV, p. 180) with the addition of the word subtilia seems also to support Ruh's case.

Trusen argues forcefully for Koch's reading, providing new and interesting material to illuminate the tensions in the Dominican Order surrounding the controversy. But his statement that it is now ‘evident’ that the 1325 declaration had ‘nothing whatsoever to do with Eckhart’ (p. 60) must be balanced by the fact that Trusen never actually addresses the two main points made by Ruh, nor the fact that the same formula is used in both injunctions. The matter appears, in any case, far from resolution.

4 This observation seems first to have been made by X. Hornstein in his Les grandes mystiques allemands du 14e siècle (Lucerne, 1922), p. 34Google Scholar. Trusen's (p. 66) view that this cannot have been the case on the grounds that Nicholas was not himself empowered to initiate such proceedings in the absence of other persons acting as accusers seems strange. It cannot have been beyond the initiative of Nicholas to find just such persons if he did indeed wish to conduct an inquiry of this kind. Trusen makes the good point, however, that the legal status of Nicholas' enquiry was not sufficient to undermine the legality of the later trial, as Eckhart claimed (p. 71).

5 This seems the case even though the original source of the complaint against Eckhart is likely to have been those of his Dominican brethren who were envious of him and to whom he himself refers (Rechtfertigungsschrift, Daniels, 1; Thery, 185). But it is not at all clear that we need resort to the theory that Eckhart was the victim of internecine conflict within the Dominican Order between reformers and their opponents (pace Trusen, p. 70).

6 For the following, see Gregor Schwamborn's detailed study of Henry II of Virneburg (Heinrich II, Erzbischof von Köln, Neuss, 1904), especially pages 8–12. I was wrong to state that Henry was a Franciscan in my own God Within (London, 1988)Google Scholar, as is Richard Woods in his Eckhart's Way.

7 Schwamborn, p. 72.

8 Schwamborn, p. 22.

9 In his actual edict, Henry refers only to the begardi, but we may assume that this term embraces the women too, or Beguines.

10 See Lerner, R.E., The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages, London, 1972CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 See Verdeyen, Paul, ‘Le procès d’ Inquisition contre Marguerite Porete et Guiard de Crossonessart (1309–1310) in Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, 81, 1986, pp. 47–94Google Scholar.

12 This is the view also of Schwamborn (p. 66, n. 2). Lerner records that the Vienne decrees were drawn up by commissions and not at plenary sessions, which again supports the theory that Ad nostrum may have been the expression of a small, radical German faction, motivated by animosity towards the Beguines. It is also noteworthy in this respect that the Pope was obliged to promulgate the Bull Ratio recta in 1318 in order to counteract excessive persecution of the Beguines in Germany and to reinforce the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Beguines which was made in Cum de quibusdam mulieribus, the earlier of the two Vienne decretals.

13 Trusen, pp. 19–61. What Trusen does not notice, however, is the network of relations which connects Archbishop Henry with the Vienne decretals against the Beguines, and with John of Dürbheim, Bishop of Strasburg. Henry and John were also united in their support of the Habsburg candidate against Lewis of Bavaria (see Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, Vi, 495). It is also possible that there is a parallel to Eckhart's move in the appearance of the leading Franciscan theologian Duns Scotus in Cologne in 1307 (the same year in which the Archbishop made his first attack upon the extraregulars of that city). This possibility has been disputed (see E. McDonnell, The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture, Brunswick, 1954, p. 519, where there is also a good bibliography on this question), but there is certainly a tradition going back to the early seventeenth century which suggests that Duns Scotus might have been sent to Cologne to combat heresy among the Beguines and thus by inference to defend the Franciscan Order. See Wadding, Annales Minorum, 1636, vol. III, p. 71 and Ferchius, Oratio in lonnem Dunsium Scotum, 1634, p. 10.

14 See Langer, Otto, Mystische Erfahrung und spirituelle Theologie, Munich, 1987, pp. 36–38Google Scholar. Southern, R. W. (Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages, Harmondsworth, 1970, pp. 327f)Google Scholar writes: ‘of the hundred and sixty‐seven individual beguines whose exact address in Cologne is known between 1263 and 1389 a hundred and thirty‐six lived in the neighbourhood of the Dominicans and Franciscans’. See also McDonnell, p. 203f.

15 Phillips, D., Beguines in Medieval Strasburg, Palo Alto, 1941, pp. 90ffGoogle Scholar.

16 McDonnell, pp. 528ff. There is also a good discussion of the situation in Strasburg in Run, pp. 112ff and Trusen, pp. 24ff.

17 McDonnell, p. 533.

18 Trusen, p. 26. See Patschovsky, A., ‘Strasburger Beginenverfolgungen im 14. Jahrhundert’ in Deutsches Archiv 30, 1974, pp. 94–161Google Scholar for relevant documents from this period.

19 See note 13 above.

20 Offler, H.S., ‘Empire and Papacy: the Last Struggle’ in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, series 5, vol. VI, 1956, p. 25Google Scholar.

21 Monumenta Germaniae Historica Const., v. nr. 729, p. 568 (quoted in Offler, p. 24).

22 Offler, pp. 31f.

23 Between the years 1320–1 and 1325–6 the papal income advanced from 112,490 to 528, 857 florins, of which some 336,000 florins were used for the war in Lombardy. See Offler, p. 27.

24 Müller, Carl, Der Kampf Ludwigs des Baiern mil der römischen Curie, Tübingen, 1879, vol. I, p. 151Google Scholar.

25 Müller, ibid. Müller's reference for this letter is Oberbairisches Archiv I, 64, no. 25f.

26 Ruh, p. 173.

27 See Koch, p. 321, n. 195.