Meister Eckhart - Life

Life

Eckhart was probably born in the village of Tambach in the Landgraviate of Thuringia, approximately 1260. He was born to a noble family of landowners, but little is known about his family and early life except that he attended the University of Paris. There is no authority for giving him the Christian name of Johannes which sometimes appears in biographical sketches, his Christian name was Eckhart; his surname was von Hochheim.

Eckhart joined the Dominicans at Erfurt, and it is assumed he studied at Cologne. Later he was Prior at Erfurt and Provincial of Thuringia. In 1300, he was sent to Paris to lecture and take the academic degrees, and remained there till 1303. At this point he returned to Erfurt, and was made Provincial for Saxony, a province which reached at that time from the Netherlands to Livonia. Complaints made against him and the provincial of Teutonia at the general chapter held in Paris in 1306, concerning irregularities among the ternaries, must have been trivial, because the general, Aymeric of Piacenza, appointed him in the following year his vicar-general for Bohemia with full power to set the demoralized monasteries there in order.

In 1311, Eckhart was appointed by the general chapter of Naples as teacher at Paris. Then follows a long period of which it is known only that he spent part of the time at Strasbourg. A passage in a chronicle of the year 1320, extant in manuscript (cf. Wilhelm Preger, i. 352–399), speaks of a prior Eckhart at Frankfurt who was suspected of heresy, and some have referred this to Meister Eckhart. It is unusual that a man under suspicion of heresy would have been appointed teacher in one of the most famous schools of the order, but Eckhart's distinctive expository style could well have already been under scrutiny by his Franciscan detractors.

Eckhart next appears as teacher at Cologne, where the archbishop, Hermann von Virneburg, eventually accuses him of heresy before the Pope. But Nicholas of Strasburg, to whom the pope had given the temporary charge of the Dominican monasteries in Germany, promptly exonerated him. The archbishop, however, further pressed his charges against Eckhart and against Nicholas before his own court, forcing them to deny the competency of the archepiscopal inquisition and demanded litterce dimissorix (apostoli) for an appeal to the Pope.

On 13 February 1327, he stated in his protest, which was read publicly, that he had always detested everything wrong, and should anything of the kind be found in his writings, he now retracts. Of the further progress of the case there is no information, except that Pope John XXII issued a bull (In agro dominico), 27 March 1329, in which a series of statements from Eckhart is characterized as heretical; another as suspected of heresy (the bull is given complete in ALKG, ii. 636–640). At the close, it is stated that Eckhart recanted before his death everything which he had falsely taught, by subjecting himself and his writing to the decision of the Apostolic See. By this is no doubt meant the statement of 13 February 1327, and it may be inferred that Eckhart's death, concerning which no information or burial site exists, took place shortly after that event.

In 1328, the general chapter of the order at Toulouse decided to proceed against preachers who "endeavor to preach subtle things which not only do (not) advance morals, but easily lead the people into error". Eckhart's disciples were admonished to be more cautious, but nevertheless they cherished the memory of their master. The lay group, Friends of God, followers of Eckhart, existed in communities across the region and carried on his ideas under the leadership of such priests as John Tauler and Henry Suso.

Pfeiffer puts it like this: Nikolaus of Strassburg was appointed Meister Eckhart's special Inquisitor and his case came before the Inquisition in Venice. He delivered his protest in person before that body on 24 Jan 1327 and on 13 Feb following made his public Declaration of orthodoxy in the Domincan church at Cologne. This was the last date on which he was known to have been alive. The Inquisition refused to accept his appellation, their refusal is dated 22 Feb 1327. Eckhart was excommunicated by the Bull of John XXII, 27 March 1329. After his excommunication his writings were kept alive in monasteries and groups both orally and by transcriptions with the names of other authors on them.