Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/145

MYSTICISM 133 cessors. In his speculative depth as well as in the fond ness for reconciling apparent contradictions which often lends an air of paradox to his statements Eckhart bears a striking resemblance to Hegel ; but in some determinations of his system, such as his doctrine of the Absolute, he approaches more nearly to Schelling. In view of these affinities, it has been customary to say that his interest is prevailingly intellectual, and that he is lacking in religious warmth. But this is largely due to the fusion of intellect and feeling which is often found in highly speculative natures. Eckhart s system is in itself the expression or formulation of religious feeling, and the speculative state ment possesses for him a rich spiritual unction of its own. In this he is the typical representative of German, in op position to what is often called Romanic, mysticism. The latter, both in scholastic times and in its later Catholic representatives, confines itself to the facts of religious feeling without showing itself attracted by ontological speculation. Eckhart distinguishes between the godhead and God. The godhead is the absolute Essence (Wesen), unknowable not only by man but also by itself ; it is darkness and absolute indeterminateness, " Nicht " in contrast to " Icht " or definite and knowable existence. Yet it is the poten tiality of all things, and its nature is, in a triadic process, to come to consciousness of itself as the triune God. Crea tion is not a temporal act, but an eternal necessity of the divine nature. I am as necessary to God, Eckhart is fond of saying, as God is necessary to me. In my knowledge and love God knows and loves Himself. " The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. My eye and God s eye are one eye, one vision, one recog nition, one love." To know God, we must become ignorant of ourselves and of all creatures. " Couldst thou annihilate thyself for a moment, thou wouldst possess all that God is in Himself." The complete renunciation of selfhood is called by Eckhart " decease ; " and when I am in this state God brings forth His Son in me. Or, conversely, it is I who beget God anew in my soul ; " God has begotten me from eternity that I may be Father and beget Him who begat me." Our identity with God is recognized by the purely rational and uncreated activity of the soul, which Eckhart calls the " Fiinklein," or spark. By this we press on beyond God into the abyss of the godhead, and Eckhart prays paradoxically "to be rid of God, that is, that God by His grace would bring him into the Essence that Es sence which is above God and above distinction." In spite of Eckhart s daring assertions of the identity of the human and the divine, there is no reason to call in question his genuinely religious and Christian spirit. His spirit, however, was Christian in a wide sense rather than ecclesiastical ; it showed itself in zeal for the upbuilding of Christian life among the people. The condemnation of the church had its effect in later times in obscuring Eckhart s importance, but it did not avail to check his powerful influ ence upon his contemporaries. They constantly appeal to him as "the master," the "wise," the "divine" master, "from whom God concealed nothing." The political circumstances of Germany in the first half of the 14th century were in the last degree disas trous. The war between the rival emperors, Frederick of Austria and Louis of Bavaria, and the interdict under which the latter was placed in 1324 inflicted extreme misery upon the unhappy people. From some places the interdict was not removed for twenty-six years. Men s minds were pained and disquieted by the conflict of duties and the absence of spiritual consolation. The country was also visited by a succession of famines and floods, and in 1348 the Black Death swept over Europe like a terrible scourge. In the midst of these unhappy sur roundings religion became more inward in men of real piety, and the desire grew among them to draw closer the bonds that united them to one another. Thus arose the society of the Friends of God (Gottesfreunde) in the south The and west of Germany, spreading as far as Switzerland on Gottes- the one side and the Netherlands on the other. TIieyS reunde formed no exclusive sect. They often took opposite sides in politics, and they also differed in the type of their religious life ; but they uniformly desired to strengthen one another in living intercourse with God. Among them chiefly the followers of Eckhart were to be found. Such were Heinrich Suso of Constance (1295-1366) and John Tauler of Strasburg (1300-61), the two most cele brated of his immediate disciples. Suso was a remarkable combination of self-torturing austerity with an inexhaust ible play of poetic fancy. He has been called " the minnesinger of the love of God." Tauler s eloquence may be said to have made him the centre of religious life in the south-west of Germany for more than quarter of a century. In his sermons, while the standpoint is the same as Eckhart s, the speculative groundwork tends, as is natural, to be less insisted on, and more scope is given to its practical consequences and to direct religious ex hortation. Nicolas of Basel, the mysterious layman from whose visit Tauler dates his true religious life, seems to have been the chief organizing force among the Gottes- freunde. He was known as "the great friend of God in the Oberland," and Basel continued to be a quiet haven of reunion for the members of the society. Tauler and others retired thither at intervals from the political storms of the time. The society counted many members among the pious women in the convents of southern Germany. Such were Christina Ebner of Engelthal near Nuremberg, and Margaretha Ebner of Medingen in Swabia. Laymen also belonged to it, like Hermann von Fritzlar and Rulman Merswin, the rich banker of Strasburg (author of a mystical work, Buch der neun Felsen, on the nine rocks or upward steps of contemplation). Letters passed between the members, as well as presents of books or relics. Some of them, like Heinrich von Nordlingen, the friend of Margaretha Ebner, went much from place to place, and in that way helped to keep up a living connexion among the friends. It was doubtless one of their number who sent forth anonymously from the house of the Teutonic Order in Frankfort the famous handbook of mystical devotion called Eine deutsche Theologie. Shortly after the middle of the century most of the friends of whom anything is known drop out of sight. But the combina tion of warm piety and spiritual freedom in Tauler s sermons and the Deutsche Theologie exercised a continuous influence on the religious life of Germany till the time of Luther. As is well known, the Deutsche Theologie was first published in 1516 by Luther, who accompanied it by a pre face expressing his own obligations to the " noble book," and ranking it inferior only to the Bible and St Augustine. The fact that the book was put into his hands by Staupitz, the vicar -general of the Augustinian order, shows that Luther s high estimate was not singular at the time. John Ruysbroeck (1293-1381), the father of mysticism R uys - in the Netherlands, stood in connexion with the Friends of broeck. God, and Tauler is said to have visited him in his seclusion at Vauvert (Griinthal) near Brussels. He was decisively influenced by Eckhart, though there is noticeable occa sionally a shrinking back from some of Eckhart s phrase ology. The sect of the Free Spirit is the frequent object of his polemic, and this leads him into somewhat careful definitions of truth and error. For the rest, Ruysbroeck s mysticism is more of a practical than a speculative cast. He is chiefly occupied with the means whereby the unio mystica is to be attained, whereas Eckhart dwells on the