Posterity
The lack of imprimatur from the Church and anonymity of the author of the "Theologia germanica" did not lessen its influence for the next two centuries — including Martin Luther at the peak of public and clerical resistance to Catholic indulgences — and was viewed by some historians of the early twentieth century as pivotal in provoking Luther's actions and the subsequent Protestant Reformation.
"The two eyes of the soul of man", says the Theologia Germanica, "cannot both perform their work at once: but if the soul shall see with the right eye into eternity, then the left eye must close itself and refrain from working, and be as though it were dead. For if the left eye be fulfilling its office toward outward things, that is holding converse with time and the creatures; then must the right eye be hindered in its working; that is, in its contemplation. Therefore, whosoever will have the one must let the other go; for ‘no man can serve two masters.’"
Read more about this topic: Meister Eckhart
Famous quotes containing the word posterity:
“Because men really respect only that which was founded of old and has developed slowly, he who wants to live on after his death must take care not only of his posterity but even more of his past.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best? Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have been changed into a pine at last? No! no! it is the poet.... All the pines shudder and heave a sigh when that man steps on the forest floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)