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1ngement, the liturgical order of the Gospels commended itself but here great difficulties were encountered the sermons being prefaced by texts chosen quite at random and as a rule all reference to the Sunday or festival is wanting. The titles of the old Basle edition are for the most part arbitrary. I decided therefore to rely solely on my sources and the order in which their individual sermons were presented. With this end in view those manuscripts were chosen out which were specially distinguished for their age or authenticity, and from these again selection was made of those with superscriptions imputing them to Eckhart. In this way and in this way only I found it possible to enter into the genius and the method and the idiosyncrasy of Eckhart and gain a reliable standard whereby to determine those sermons which, though found among the authentic ones, were yet without his name. By this means I hope to have acquired the necessary practice and familiarity with Eckhart’s writings and I believe I need not fear that any important item of my collec- tion will ultimately prove to be wrongly attributed to Eckhart. The Sayings, with few exceptions, bear all the marks of authen- ticity and need no further verification. Only a couple of them are traceable to the complete sermons and tractates included, though most are fragments and portions of larger works. From this we can form some notion of the amount of Eckhart still lost to. us. PREFACE ie With regard to the fourth section, which I have called Liber Positionum, I had no external evidence of Eckhart’s authorship, but Eckhart’s genius and characteristic outlook seem to me to be unmistakably shown in these arguments in which, in the form of dialogues between master and pupil, a series of weighty philo- sophical and theological questions are ventilated. Further, the separate items of this work which only loosely hang together, I have met with only among Eckhart’s writings. The title I have borrowed from Trithemius’ Catalogue (see above) ; it might have been made for it. Obviously my text is not all of equal value and correctness ; who could expect it ? With the numerous pieces preserved only in late and bad MSS. it was often impossible owing to the careless- ness of the scribe to unravel the manifold confusion of thought and connection ; how was I to restore and supply words and whole sentences which had been omitted ? I mean to comment in the Notes on the passages which seem to me to be corrupt and give the emendations and conjectures which I have found it inexpedient to publish with the text. Of another kind but no less great was my difficulty with those passages which certainly appeared in the best MSS. but showed considerable variations among themselves. How important these discrepancies often are the variants will show.
2tures which I have found it inexpedient to publish with the text. Of another kind but no less great was my difficulty with those passages which certainly appeared in the best MSS. but showed considerable variations among themselves. How important these discrepancies often are the variants will show. In cases of this sort the recognition and isolation of the authentic from the unauthentic later additions or distortions is rarely to be done with any certainty and for that reason I have sometimes adopted the expedient of putting the variants themselves in juxtaposition in the text.! As to the diction of the contents of this volume, which I have neither wished nor been able to give much order to, I have followed the oldest and best MSS. which, consistently with Eckhart’s home and birthplace, Strassburg, are written almost entirely in the Alemanic idiom: Middle German and the speech of Cologne do appear occasionally but notwithstanding Eckhart’s long sojourn on the lower Rhine, only rarely and in late MSS. STUTTGART, 5th July 1857. 1 The last two pages of Pfeiffer’s Preface are occupied with acknow- ledgments of the help and kindness received from professors, librarians, keepers of archives, etc. Among these appear the names of Wackernagel, P. Gall-Morel, Franz Hoffmann, and the Cardinal Prince-Bishop of Breslau, Melchior von Diepenbrock, 1 Many examples of this occur. See especially I, Ixxvi and II, xi. = MEISTER ECKHART ‘ who never tired of lending me a helping hand.’ He is especially grateful to the then Prefect of the Vatican Archives who enabled him to trace and placed at his disposal eight documents (s. Pertz. archiv 9, 449) relating to Eckhart and of much importance ‘ as showing the relations of Eckhart with the Church, his position with regard to the Archbishop of Cologne and the justification of the latter for setting in motion the Inquisition against him, as well as for the history of the powerful spiritual movement which at the beginning of the fourteenth century took place on the Rhine.’ All these documents he reserves for his projected volume of Notes, with the exception of one short quotation from Eckhart’s Declara- tion at Cologne, 18 Feb. 1327. This, together with other relevant documents, was afterwards published by Preger at the end of the first volume of his Geschichte der deutschen Mystik. Eckhart! (d. cir. 1827) has been called the father of the German mystics,’ the philosophical creative genius of the German mystics 3 and the father of German speculation.t According to Dean Inge he is ‘next to Plotinus the greatest philosopher-mystic’ > and the most Plotinian of all Christian philosophers.’ ‘He was a learned ? member of the Dominican or Preaching Order and sometime lector biblicus at the University of Paris, then the Dominican College of St Jacob where he was given his title of Meister by Pope Boni- face VIII.
3philosopher-mystic’ > and the most Plotinian of all Christian philosophers.’ ‘He was a learned ? member of the Dominican or Preaching Order and sometime lector biblicus at the University of Paris, then the Dominican College of St Jacob where he was given his title of Meister by Pope Boni- face VIII. But it was probably at Cologne that he graduated in the Scholasticism of Albertus Magnus (1205-1281) and Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274) whose system was at that time rapidly acquiring its hold. He held at different times important provincia posts and proved himself an able administrator and reformer of the numerous religious houses in his care but it was principally at Strassburg and afterwards at Cologne that he established his great influence as a teacher and ‘for an entire generation, with the boldest freedom, preached to the multitudes in the German tongue on topics bristling with difficulties for the orthodox faith.’ § For he had conceived the then novel idea of instructing the laity . and the many semi-religious communities and brotherhoods of that date—Beguines, Beghards, Friends of God (Gottesfreunde), ete.— no less than the religious of his Order, and for this purpose it was necessary to make the further innovation of using the vulgar tongue instead of Latin, the teaching medium of that day. His success in expounding the abstruse tenets of the Scholastic philosophy in an undeveloped language which he had to supply with words and fashion to his needs, has earned for Eckhart the titles of father of the German language and the father of German philosophic ® prose. Ultimately the Church authorities became alarmed at the enthusiasm roused by his teaching and especially at its effect upon the laity. He was accused of preaching to the people in their own language 1 The following facts are taken chiefly from Preger’s Geschichte and Lasson’s Meister Eckhart. (See Bibliography for full titles.) 2 Bach, p. 1. 3 Wackernagel, p. 298. * Bach. 5 Light, Life and Love, p. xv. 6 Philosophy of Plotinus, vol. ii, p. 107. 7 Tauler (1300-1361) describes him as ‘a man of prodigious learning, too profoundly versed .in the subtilties of God- and nature-wisdom for many of the scholars of his day rightly to understand him ’ (Sermons, Basle ed., 1521). ® Rufus M. Jones, p. 218. ® Lasson, pp. 66, 69. xi - xii MEISTER ECKHART things that might lead to heresy ! and this led to his excommunica- tion in 1829, after his death, on the general grounds of preaching to the laity the secrets of the Church, a list of seventeen specific heretical and eleven objectional doctrines being appended to the inditement.2 To the first accusation he replied : ‘ If the ignorant are not taught they will never learn’; ‘the business of the doctor is to heal.’ The charge of heresy he strenuously denied and largely succeeded in rebutting while he lived.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1ngement, the liturgical order of the Gospels commended itself but here great difficulties were encountered the sermons being prefaced by texts chosen quite at random and as a rule all reference to the Sunday or festival is wanting. The titles of the old Basle edition are for the most part arbitrary. I decided therefore to rely solely on my sources and the order in which their individual sermons were presented. With this end in view those manuscripts were chosen out which were specially distinguished for their age or authenticity, and from these again selection was made of those with superscriptions imputing them to Eckhart. In this way and in this way only I found it possible to enter into the genius and the method and the idiosyncrasy of Eckhart and gain a reliable standard whereby to determine those sermons which, though found among the authentic ones, were yet without his name. By this means I hope to have acquired the necessary practice and familiarity with Eckhart’s writings and I believe I need not fear that any important item of my collec- tion will ultimately prove to be wrongly attributed to Eckhart. The Sayings, with few exceptions, bear all the marks of authen- ticity and need no further verification. Only a couple of them are traceable to the complete sermons and tractates included, though most are fragments and portions of larger works. From this we can form some notion of the amount of Eckhart still lost to. us. PREFACE ie With regard to the fourth section, which I have called Liber Positionum, I had no external evidence of Eckhart’s authorship, but Eckhart’s genius and characteristic outlook seem to me to be unmistakably shown in these arguments in which, in the form of dialogues between master and pupil, a series of weighty philo- sophical and theological questions are ventilated. Further, the separate items of this work which only loosely hang together, I have met with only among Eckhart’s writings. The title I have borrowed from Trithemius’ Catalogue (see above) ; it might have been made for it. Obviously my text is not all of equal value and correctness ; who could expect it ? With the numerous pieces preserved only in late and bad MSS. it was often impossible owing to the careless- ness of the scribe to unravel the manifold confusion of thought and connection ; how was I to restore and supply words and whole sentences which had been omitted ? I mean to comment in the Notes on the passages which seem to me to be corrupt and give the emendations and conjectures which I have found it inexpedient to publish with the text. Of another kind but no less great was my difficulty with those passages which certainly appeared in the best MSS. but showed considerable variations among themselves. How important these discrepancies often are the variants will show.
2tures which I have found it inexpedient to publish with the text. Of another kind but no less great was my difficulty with those passages which certainly appeared in the best MSS. but showed considerable variations among themselves. How important these discrepancies often are the variants will show. In cases of this sort the recognition and isolation of the authentic from the unauthentic later additions or distortions is rarely to be done with any certainty and for that reason I have sometimes adopted the expedient of putting the variants themselves in juxtaposition in the text.! As to the diction of the contents of this volume, which I have neither wished nor been able to give much order to, I have followed the oldest and best MSS. which, consistently with Eckhart’s home and birthplace, Strassburg, are written almost entirely in the Alemanic idiom: Middle German and the speech of Cologne do appear occasionally but notwithstanding Eckhart’s long sojourn on the lower Rhine, only rarely and in late MSS. STUTTGART, 5th July 1857. 1 The last two pages of Pfeiffer’s Preface are occupied with acknow- ledgments of the help and kindness received from professors, librarians, keepers of archives, etc. Among these appear the names of Wackernagel, P. Gall-Morel, Franz Hoffmann, and the Cardinal Prince-Bishop of Breslau, Melchior von Diepenbrock, 1 Many examples of this occur. See especially I, Ixxvi and II, xi. = MEISTER ECKHART ‘ who never tired of lending me a helping hand.’ He is especially grateful to the then Prefect of the Vatican Archives who enabled him to trace and placed at his disposal eight documents (s. Pertz. archiv 9, 449) relating to Eckhart and of much importance ‘ as showing the relations of Eckhart with the Church, his position with regard to the Archbishop of Cologne and the justification of the latter for setting in motion the Inquisition against him, as well as for the history of the powerful spiritual movement which at the beginning of the fourteenth century took place on the Rhine.’ All these documents he reserves for his projected volume of Notes, with the exception of one short quotation from Eckhart’s Declara- tion at Cologne, 18 Feb. 1327. This, together with other relevant documents, was afterwards published by Preger at the end of the first volume of his Geschichte der deutschen Mystik. Eckhart! (d. cir. 1827) has been called the father of the German mystics,’ the philosophical creative genius of the German mystics 3 and the father of German speculation.t According to Dean Inge he is ‘next to Plotinus the greatest philosopher-mystic’ > and the most Plotinian of all Christian philosophers.’ ‘He was a learned ? member of the Dominican or Preaching Order and sometime lector biblicus at the University of Paris, then the Dominican College of St Jacob where he was given his title of Meister by Pope Boni- face VIII.
3philosopher-mystic’ > and the most Plotinian of all Christian philosophers.’ ‘He was a learned ? member of the Dominican or Preaching Order and sometime lector biblicus at the University of Paris, then the Dominican College of St Jacob where he was given his title of Meister by Pope Boni- face VIII. But it was probably at Cologne that he graduated in the Scholasticism of Albertus Magnus (1205-1281) and Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274) whose system was at that time rapidly acquiring its hold. He held at different times important provincia posts and proved himself an able administrator and reformer of the numerous religious houses in his care but it was principally at Strassburg and afterwards at Cologne that he established his great influence as a teacher and ‘for an entire generation, with the boldest freedom, preached to the multitudes in the German tongue on topics bristling with difficulties for the orthodox faith.’ § For he had conceived the then novel idea of instructing the laity . and the many semi-religious communities and brotherhoods of that date—Beguines, Beghards, Friends of God (Gottesfreunde), ete.— no less than the religious of his Order, and for this purpose it was necessary to make the further innovation of using the vulgar tongue instead of Latin, the teaching medium of that day. His success in expounding the abstruse tenets of the Scholastic philosophy in an undeveloped language which he had to supply with words and fashion to his needs, has earned for Eckhart the titles of father of the German language and the father of German philosophic ® prose. Ultimately the Church authorities became alarmed at the enthusiasm roused by his teaching and especially at its effect upon the laity. He was accused of preaching to the people in their own language 1 The following facts are taken chiefly from Preger’s Geschichte and Lasson’s Meister Eckhart. (See Bibliography for full titles.) 2 Bach, p. 1. 3 Wackernagel, p. 298. * Bach. 5 Light, Life and Love, p. xv. 6 Philosophy of Plotinus, vol. ii, p. 107. 7 Tauler (1300-1361) describes him as ‘a man of prodigious learning, too profoundly versed .in the subtilties of God- and nature-wisdom for many of the scholars of his day rightly to understand him ’ (Sermons, Basle ed., 1521). ® Rufus M. Jones, p. 218. ® Lasson, pp. 66, 69. xi - xii MEISTER ECKHART things that might lead to heresy ! and this led to his excommunica- tion in 1829, after his death, on the general grounds of preaching to the laity the secrets of the Church, a list of seventeen specific heretical and eleven objectional doctrines being appended to the inditement.2 To the first accusation he replied : ‘ If the ignorant are not taught they will never learn’; ‘the business of the doctor is to heal.’ The charge of heresy he strenuously denied and largely succeeded in rebutting while he lived.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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