§ 2'J. MEISTER ECKART. 243
devotional ; in Suso, the emotional; in Groote and other men of the Lowlands, the practical.
§ 29. Meister Echart.
Meister Eckart, 1260-1327^ the first in the line of the German mystics, was e_xcelled in vigor of thought by no religious thinker of his century, and was the earliest theologian who wrote in Germaii.i The philosophical bent of his mind won for him from Hegel the title, " father of German philosophy.'* In spite of the condemnation passed upon his writings by the pope, his memory was regarded with veneration by the succeeding generation of mystics. His name, however, was almost forgotten in later times. Mosheim barely mentions it, and the voluminous historian, Schroeckh, passes it by altogether. Baur, in his History of the Middle Ages, devotes to Eckart and Tauler only three lines, and these under the head of preaching, and makes no mention at all of German mysticism. His memory again came to honor in the last century, and in the German church historj^ of the later Middle Ages he is now accorded a place of pre-eminence for his freshness of thought, his warm piety and his terse German stj'le.^ With Albertus Magnus and Rupert of Deutz he stands out as the earliest prominent representative in the history of German theology.
imitators. Harnack, however, goes on to give credit to the German mystics for fulfilling a mission when he says they are of invaluable worth for the history of doctrine and the church history of Germany. In the same connection he denies the distinction between mysticism and scholastic theology. " Mysticism," he asserts, " cannot exist in the Protestant Church, and the Protestant who is a mystic and does not become a Roman Catholic is a dilettante." This condemnation is based upon the untenable premise that mysticism is essentially conventual, excluding sane intellectual criticism and a practical out-of-doors Christianity.
1 Eckart's name is written in almost every conceivable way in the documents. See Biittner, p. xxii, as Eckardus, Eccardus, Egghardus ; Deutsch and Delacroix, Eckart ; Pfeiffer, Preger, Inge and Langenberg, Eckhart ; Denifle and Biittner, Eckehart. His writings give us scarcely a single clew to his fortunes. Qui^tif-Echard was the first to lift the veil from portions of his career. See Preger, I. 325.
2 Deutsch, Herzog, V. 149, says that parts of Eckart's sermons might serve as models of German style to-day.
244 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
During the century before Eckart, the German church also had its mystics, and in the twelfth century the godly women, Hildegard of Bingen and Elizabeth of Schonau, added to the function of prophecy a mystical element. In the thirteenth century the Benedictine convent of Helfta, near Eisleben, Luther's birthplace, was a centre of religious warmth. Among its nuns were several by the names of Gertrude and Mechthild, who excelled by their religious experiences, and wrote on the devotional life. Gertrude of Hackeborn, d. 1292, abbess of Helfta, and Gertrude the Great, d. 1302, professed to have immediate communion with the Saviour and to be the recipients of divine revelations. When one of the Mechthilds asked Christ where he was to be found, the reply was, " You may seek me in the tabernacle and in Gertrude's heart." F'rom 1293 Gertrude the Great recorded her revelations in a work called the Communications of Piety — Insinuationes divince jnetatis. Mechthild of Magdeburg, d. 1280, and Mechthild of Hackeborn, d. 1310, likewise nuns of Helfta, also had visions which they wrote out. The former, who for thirty years had been a Beguine, Deutsch calls " one of the most remarkable personalities in the religious history of the thirteenth century. " Mechthild of Hackeborn, a younger sister of the abbess Gertrude, in her book on special grace, — Liber specialis gratice, — sets forth salvation as the gift of grace without the works of the law. These women wrote in German. 1
David of Augsburg, d. 1271, the inquisitor who wrote on the inquisition, — De inquisitione hcereticoru^n, — also wrote on the devotional life. These writings were intended for monks, and two of them ^ are regarded as pearls of German prose.
1 Flacius Illyricus includes the second Mechthild in his Catal. vcritatis. For the lives of these women and the editions of their works, see Preger, I. 71-132, and the artt. of Deutsch and Zockler in Herzog. Some of the elder Mechthild's predictions and descriptions seem to have been used by Dante. See Preger, p. 10.3 sq. Mechthild v. Magdeburg : D. flicssencle Licht der Gottheit, Berlin, 1007.
2 Die siehen Vorreripln der Tngend and der Spiegel der Titgend, both given by Pfeiffer, together with other tracts, tlie genuineness of some of which is doubted. See Preger, I. 268-283, and Lempp in Herzog, IV. 603 sq.