Meister Eckhart's doctrine of the creative principle of man. "Intertext": Meister Eckhart. Why detachment is higher than love. Love is strong as death

Biographical information. Johann Eckhart (1260-1327/1328) nicknamed Meister (Meister) 1 - German theologian and philosopher. Coming from a knightly family, at the age of 15 he joined the Dominican Order and began studying theology in the monastery. Studied in Paris (c. 1277) and Strasbourg, and then

1 The nickname arose due to the fact that in 1302-1303 he taught in Paris as ma gister a ctu r egens

in K. 1 - among the students of Albertus Magnus. In 1293-1294. Eckhart taught at the Sorbonne, soon became vicar-general in Bohemia, and later taught in Strasbourg, Paris and Linen.

In 1326, the Bishop of Flax appointed a commission to verify the correctness of Eckhart’s ideas; a year later, the commission’s materials were sent to Avignon, 2 where Eckhart also went to defend himself, but did not have time to do so. After his death, Pope John XXII in 1329 condemned 28 of Eckhart's theses, recognizing 17 of them as heretical, but it was reported that Eckhart himself renounced heretical ideas before his death.

Although already in 1278 the Dominican Order recognized Thomism as its official philosophy, there was no complete unity among the Dominicans on this issue. In particular, in Germany, among the students of Albertus Magnus, the development of Neoplatonist traditions and his mystical tendencies continued. They also influenced Meister’s teaching, in which they originally combined with Aristotle’s teaching about the World Mind (which is at the same time the First Cause, the Highest Goal and the First Form of all things).

Main works."Three-Part Work" (first published in 1924); “Research”, “Spiritual Sermons” 3.

Philosophical views.The doctrine of unity. In Eckhart's teaching, the central idea is unity man and God, the natural and supernatural worlds. The world exists because God has the idea of ​​creation and the will to create. This idea of ​​unity has a connection with the concept of the One among the Neoplatonists and their Christian followers. But for Eckhart this unity is life itself, it is also the religious meaning of life and final goal human existence. In the integrity of the triune Christian God 4, the trinity embodies the eternal rhythm of generating love that does not go beyond itself, constantly remaining in its own circle of perfection.

God is also unity of being and knowledge. God is intellect, whose existence consists in knowing itself: “God is reason and rational knowledge... is the basis of his existence” 5 (in this, Eckhart’s God is similar to Aristotle’s World Mind). Somewhat later 6 Ek-

1 Eckhart no longer found Albert himself or his student Thomas Aquinas there.

2 During this period, the papal throne was located there.

3 These sermons were written in German because they were intended for nuns who did not know Latin.

4 God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

5 Quoted from: “New Philosophical Encyclopedia”: In 4 volumes. M., 2001. T. IV. P. 429.

6 In 1302-1303. - "Parisian period".

Hart speaks of a change in his point of view: he no longer believes that God knows because he exists, but, on the contrary, “God exists because He knows.”

Based on the Gospel of John, which begins with the words “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” Eckhart concludes: since in the very beginning there was the Word, then in the hierarchy of perfections the highest place is occupied by knowledge (carried out through words), and then comes existence and being. In the spoken Word there is hidden both being and non-being. Hence it can be said of God as pure intellect that He is non-existence. However, it can be said about Him that He is being, 1 but not because He creates being and, of course, not as a created thing, but as “the purity of being,” i.e. as the cause of everything that exists - for the sake of which everything else exists (here God in Eckhart appears as an analogue of the First Cause in Aristotle).

The intellect is always one, although one can distinguish between the Divine and the human. Thanks to the presence of reason, a person is initially involved in God, although he cannot understand Him through his reason. To understand God, one must merge with Him. This is the main task of human existence, since outside of God nothing makes sense. How to do this is explained by Eckhart in his “Teaching of Emptiness.”

Teaching about emptiness. The essence of man, just like any other creature (i.e., everything created), is in God. Therefore, if a person wants to find himself, he must return to God. This process begins in the human soul, endowed with intellect. Inflamed, the mind deepens into the idea of ​​God. But in order to “remelt into God,” one must leave oneself, one’s created nature, and including the man-made image of God. There must be “poverty of spirit” and “death of the soul” must occur, and for this there must be nothing material in it, i.e. you need to make your soul “empty”. But since the world is the unity of the natural and the supernatural, then when we expel the natural from our soul, it is inevitably filled with the supernatural; since the intellect is one, then, expelling everything human from our mind, we free the divine mind (diagram 78): To be “empty” is to be “full of God” 2.

1 The thesis about God as being and non-being took place in Kabbalah, but received a different justification there.

2 This “emptiness of the soul” filled with God is somewhat reminiscent of the state of samadhi in yogic practice (see p. 54) or the comprehension of the identity of “I” and Brahma in Vedanta (see pp. 162-163).

Scheme 78. Liberation of the soul

A righteous person with God in his soul does not care about anything earthly and is not attached to anything; he is not interested in property, career, etc. He perceives everything that happens around him and with himself in the “infinitely loving will of God.” Even the suffering, hardship and shame sent by God is accepted by the righteous with joy and does not complain. Such a person leaves the stamp of divinity on everything he does, for his actions are rather the actions of God. The righteous man himself does not want anything, and therefore wants the same thing as God.

However, characterizing this process“melting into God,” Eckhart does not write anything about experiencing a special state of enlightenment - unlike mystics in general and Neoplatonists in particular, he does not have ecstasy in the most important way knowing God and getting closer to Him.

Eckhart's doctrine of emptiness can be considered original solution problems of knowledge and faith. If Thomas Aquinas spoke about the harmony of knowledge and faith, the Averroists - Duns Scotus and William of Ockham (each in his own way) - argued for the incompatibility of reason and faith, then in Eckhart the human mind turned out to be a specific tool for communion with God.

The fate of the teaching. Eckhart's mysticism was developed by his students, and many later philosophers, including Russians, turned to him (Diagram 79). The doctrine of the unity of the Divine and human, natural and supernatural played a significant role in the formation of pantheism, in particular among Nicholas of Cusa.

Scheme 79. Eckhart: origins and influence

Late scholasticism

Late scholasticism covers the period of the 14th-15th centuries, when the Renaissance had already begun in Italy. During this historical period, many European countries were shaken by major popular uprisings. The long-term struggle of the Roman catholic church with secular power ended in the defeat of the clergy. At the end of the 13th century. The relationship between the pope and the French king Philip IV (the Handsome) became especially strained, as a result of which French troops invaded Rome and captured Pope Boniface VIII (he died in captivity). The papal throne was moved from Rome to the French city of Avignon (“The Captivity of Avignon” lasted from 1303 to 1377). At this time, attacks on the Church and Franciscan calls for apostolic poverty intensified. In the 20s XIV century A new political conflict unfolded in Europe - between Pope John XXII and the Emperor (Holy Roman Empire of the German people) Louis of Bavaria, who assumed the imperial crown, despite the pope's resistance.

IN transition period from mature scholasticism to late scholasticism, the Franciscan stood out especially William of Ockham(1288-1349), who, in particular, opposed the papacy's claims to secular power. His followers, called Ockhamists - Jean Buridan (1290-1358), Jean Jeandin (died c. 1324) and others - played an important role in late scholasticism. Thus, Marsilius of Padua (c. 1280-1342) in his political theory developed Occam's ideas about the primacy of imperial power. In his opinion, the church should be separated from the state, like reason from faith, and the church should be subordinate to the state. But secular power also loses its “divine halo” from Marsilius. The state is a purely human institution, based on the reason and experience of people. The highest thing in a state is not the monarch or other ruler, but the law established by the people. These political views and Averroist views of Marsilius led to him being declared a heretic by Pope John XXII and forced to flee (like Ockham) to Louis of Bavaria. Together with the latter, he took part in the victorious campaign in Italy and the removal from the papal throne of John XXII, proclaimed antipope.

1 The Franciscan Order was founded by St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th century. One of the main ideas of St. Francis was that the monks of his order had to lead the lifestyle of the apostles, i.e. live in poverty, giving up all property. St. himself Francis gave all his property to the poor. Many Christians in that era were outraged by the fact that the clergy (especially the higher ones) led a luxurious lifestyle, and demanded that their “spiritual fathers” follow the precepts of “apostolic poverty.”

Mystical teachings also occupy an important place in late scholasticism, especially the followers of Meister Eckhart, for example his students Johann Tauler (1300-1361), Heinrich Suso (1296-1366), etc.

Occam

Biographical information. William of Ockham (1288-1349) was born in the village of Ockham near London. At the age of 20 he joined the Franciscan Order. He received his education at Oxford, and in 1324 he moved to the Franciscan monastery in Avignon. Pope John XXII accused him of heresy, and in 1328 Occam was forced to flee from Avignon to Emperor Louis of Bavaria, who was then at enmity with the pope. According to legend, Ockham told the emperor: “Defend me with the sword, and I will protect you with the word.” In 1349, William of Ockham died of cholera.

Main works.“The Sum of All Logic” (Summa logicae), “Treatise on the Sacraments” (Tractatus de sacramentis), “Work of 90 Days”, “Compendium of the Errors of Pope John XXII”.

Philosophical views.The problem of knowledge and faith. Ockham is characterized by a complete separation of philosophy and theology. Philosophy is not the “handmaiden of theology,” since the truths of religion are not rationally provable. Reason is not capable of supporting faith, because the truths of faith are not self-evident, like axioms, and not deducible, like theorems. Theology is not a science, but a set of principles connected only by faith. The spheres of human reason and faith do not intersect, they are separated and will forever remain so. “I believe and understand”- Occam's slogan in solving this problem.

The problem of universals. Occam developed a special version of nominalism, called "terminism". For the followers of Plato and Aristotle, ideas or forms (universals) play a mediating role between God and the world of individual concrete things. But Occam notes that if the power of the Creator is infinite, then he does not need any mediating links, but is able to create many specific things by a direct act of his Divine will. Hence the world turns out to be a multitude of individual objects, and only they, and not the general (ideas, forms, universals), can be the subject of study in science. Universals are not necessary to explain existence, so they should be excluded from our picture of the world. “Entities should not be multiplied beyond what is necessary” - Occam’s thesis, called "Occam's razor" (this principle later became the main tool for criticizing Platonism and Aristotelianism). There are no universals in things and before things, they represent

only terms, signs of things that record the similarity between all objects called by the same term.

The fate of the teaching. During the period of late scholasticism, Occam's teaching had a large number of followers, they were called "Occamists", and the movement itself - " new way”, as opposed to the “old way”, i.e. scholasticism. This movement influenced the development of empiricism in the 17th century.

Buridan

Biographical information. Jean Buridan (1290- 1358) - French philosopher, follower of Occam. From 1328 he taught at the University of Paris at the artistic (philosophical) faculty.

Main works. Most of Buridan's works are commentaries on the works of Aristotle, and they were structured in the form of “questions.” His first works were published in the XV-XVII centuries.

Philosophical views.Natural science ideas. Jean Buridan did not study theology at all; his focus was on natural scientific problems. In particular, he developed the doctrine of impulse, or force (impetus), which played an important role in the further development of physics and contradicted Aristotle's doctrine of motion.

The problem of free will. Of all Buridan's ideas, the most famous are his arguments in defense of the thesis of free will and the example illustrating them, the so-called "Buridanov's donkey." And although, according to a number of studies, this example does not belong to him, in the history of world culture it turned out to be closely connected with the name of Buridan.

The essence of the example is as follows: imagine a donkey standing between two bundles of hay. These fagots are absolutely identical and are located at completely equal distances (to the right and to the left) from the donkey. If all the behavior of living beings were causally conditioned (determined), then in such a situation the donkey would die of hunger, since he has no reason to choose a fagot with which he can start eating hay. But since in real life no donkey died in such a situation, hence even donkeys have free will.

Meister Eckhart

Spiritual Sermons and Discourses

Translation from Middle High German by M.V. Sabashnikova.

Ein mensche klagte meister Eckeharten, es künne sone predlè nieman verstehn. Dô sprach er: swer mine predie welle vestkn, der sol fünf stücke haben. Er sol gesigen an allen striten unde sol al son oberster guot kapfende son, unde sol dem genuoc son, dar zuo in got vermanet, unde sol ein anheber son mit anhebenden liuten unde solle sich selber vernihten, unde son selber alsô gewaltic son, daz er dekeinen zorn geleisten müge.

Cod. Monac. Germ. 365 Fol 192 b.

FOREWORD BY THE TRANSLATOR

Meister Eckhart met a beautiful naked boy and asked him where he was coming from. He said: “I come from God.” -Where did you leave Him? - "In virtuous hearts." - Where are you going? - “To God.” -Where will you find Him? - “Where I leave all creation.” - Who are you? - "Tsar". -Where is your kingdom? - "In my heart". - Make sure that no one shares your power with you. - “That’s what I do.” Meister Eckhart took him to his cell and told him: “Take yourself any clothes.” - “Then I would not be a king” - and disappeared. It was God Himself who joked with him like that.

This fairy tale, which Meister Eckhart himself told about himself, says the main thing about him. So his soul, encountering the Unknown, tried to clothe him, and one after another threw away the clothes rejected by the royal Guest, and fell silent before the unconditional nakedness of the ineffable. “Never in time did God speak His name,” says Eckhart. Only where there is neither “now” nor “never,” where all faces and differences fade away, “in deep silence God pronounces His Word.”

Eckhart's life was hearing this Word, confessing It. That is why, being a very bright and original personality, he is silent about the personal, and we do not know the spiritual life of the greatest thinker and activist of that century, great in religious creativity. And contemporary writers of the Dominican Order (to which he belonged) avoid mentioning his name as condemned by the Inquisition.

Eckhart was born in Thuringia in 1260.

This was a turning point in the life of Christianity. On the one hand, the keys of ancient clairvoyance were, as it were, finally imprinted, and the edifice of scholastic thought was erected and strengthened on petrified traditions, on the other hand, hope for a new revelation, a thirst for the direct manifestation of the spirit of Christ as a living and invariably creative force in the world awoke in people. Eckhart begins a new era of religious life. He tries to free souls from everything frozen and conditional. He calls on people to open their hearts to the spiritual world, not to look for “the Living among the dead.”

Eckhart came from the knightly family of Hochheim. His chivalry was reflected in the whole spirit of his teaching, in the images of his speech. “A good knight does not complain about his wounds, looking at the king who is wounded with him,” he says about the courage with which one must endure suffering, sharing it with Christ. And further about suffering: “I knew one prince who, when he accepted someone into his retinue, sent him out at night and rode towards him and fought with him. And it happened to him once that he almost was killed by the one he wanted test. And from that time on he especially appreciated and loved that servant.” Meister Eckhart was such a knight to God. A God-fighter and a son, he knew and preached the New Testament with God, based on freedom. His courage is not like the audacity of a freedman and a slave.

The area of ​​the spirit where a person is involved in the Creator, where “he sees himself as the one who created this person,” Eckhart calls the impenetrable castle of the soul. In those days, the structure of earthly life, more than now, was a reflection of the spiritual structure. Forms were more consistent with essences. Everything was a symbol. And Meister Eckhart, born a knight, having abandoned everything worldly, remained a knight in spirit. His courageous, warrior spirit wielded his words like a sword.

The best people of that time saw in Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Dominic the messengers of God who came into the world to gather the lost Christian people and restore God to them. Both orders acted with amazing self-denial and inspiration. The Dominicans produced the best schools and the best theologians of that century. In the Romanesque countries, their zeal was aimed mainly at the development of scholasticism, the glorification of the dominant church and the fight against heretics; in the German countries, where the spirit of a young people full of creative powers was awakening, this zeal was expressed in a different way: in a hidden feat. Mysticism and profound Christian teaching, the creators of which were soon recognized by the Inquisition as heretics.

One must think that Eckhart entered the Erfurt Dominican Order at the age of fifteen, where, after two preparatory years, he spent three years studying the so-called Studium logicale: grammar, rhetoric and dialectics; then two years of Studium naturale: arithmetic, mathematics, astronomy and music. After this, the study of theology began, which lasted three years; the first year was devoted to Studium biblicum, the last two to dogmatics; they were called Studium provinciale. At the time of Eckhart, there was only one such school in Germany, in Strasbourg. Spiritual education for the majority ended there. They took priestly orders and began their ministry. Those who were distinguished by special talent and could become good preachers were sent to the highest school of the Order. At that time there were five such schools. The first place after Paris was occupied by Cologne, and Eckhart stayed there for three years. There he went through the circle of ideas of the great scholastics - Albertus Magnus and his student Thomas Aquinas.

In the nineties, Eckhart held the position of Prior of Erfurt and Vicar of Thuringia.

Throughout his life, he constantly occupies responsible positions in church administration, which indicates a clear outlook on life, abilities in practical activities great mystic.

His “speeches on differences,” a free kind of teaching during the monks’ meals, date back to that time. This earliest sermon that has reached us already expresses the main idea Eckhart about poverty in spirit, which he understood more broadly and spiritually than the religious people of his time, the followers of Francis of Assisi. Eckhart is far from that naivety and from that sometimes petty, stuffy, literal understanding of things that was characteristic of people of the Middle Ages. Everything that freezes even for a second in the formula tends to break its living spirit. And he understands poverty as the complete removal from oneself of everything isolated, the surrender of one’s “I”, its destruction in merging with a single, central world will. He speaks in this sermon about the difference between essential and non-essential things, and what is remarkable here is his free attitude towards all sorts of supernatural phenomena and visions, which often then appeared in the people gripped by the religious movement and occupied the minds, going against the mood of that time. “This is good,” he says, “and yet it is not the best; even when it is not imagination, but a true experience caused by true love to God; yet this is not its highest manifestation.”

In 1300, the Order sent Eckhart to Paris for three years, spiritual center Western Europe, where he holds the position of lecturer biblicum at the university. These are troubled years for the Parisian university of the struggle between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip IV, whose side is also taken by part of the French clergy. In 1302, Eckhart received the title of master, but did not remain for the third year; whether due to these troubles or recalled to Germany, where church reforms required every effort. His comments on the “Sentences” of Peter of Lombardy, which then served as the basis for teaching dogmatics, date back to his Parisian stay. At home, Eckhart becomes the head of the Saxon Order and his power for eight years extends from Thuringia to the German Sea, from the Netherlands to Livonia. 51 male and 9 female monasteries are under his jurisdiction. He probably continues to live in Erfurt. But in 1307, Earhart was accused of encouraging the heresy of the free spirit, and he was forced to leave his position. On general meeting in Strasbourg in 1307, he apparently managed to justify himself, because in the same year he was appointed to Bohemia, where he transformed the Bohemian monasteries, replacing the general of the Order. He was given full trust and given unlimited power. His influence is great here too: “The sun that shines in Cologne also shines in the city of Prague,” says a beggar at a meal in an anonymous dialogue of that time “Das ist Meister Eckart Bewirtung”.

In 1311, Eckhart was elected head of the German province (Upper Germany and the Rhineland to Cologne), but the Order again sent him to Paris, where he occupied the chair in higher school. At this time, Meister Eckhart meets in Paris representatives of the degenerating dead scholasticism, which has found shelter in the Franciscan Order. They are busy with politics and secular issues. Meister Eckhart opposes them as the harbinger of a living religion of the future. The more independently and freely he asserts his teaching, the more hostile traditional thought becomes towards him.

From 1312 to 1320, Eckhart occupied the chair of the Strasbourg theological school of the Order.

This was the time when young Germany and especially the Rhine countries were entering a new, original life. The Union of Cities strengthened the sense of personal independence; the struggle between the king and the pope freed the people's thoughts. New art is blooming. Its colors are bright, its forms are filled with strong spiritual movement; Sensual realism is organically combined with mystical realism. Everything is tense from an excess of spiritual forces: this is why the images are often so absurd, awkward, sometimes funny and at the same time full of such genuine strength, the strength of earth and sky. Just as a youth emerging from childhood and becoming a man loses his childish charm and absurdly manifests his awakening self, so the spirit of that people, freeing itself from the shackles of the old culture frozen in the forms, began a new individual life. And this individual freedom was at first to the detriment of the external beauty, property and gift of the old feminine culture. The courageous German spirit felt the earth deeply in a new way, captured the deep furrow, and we see how new images arise in art and in life, as if under the pressure of a strong current of spiritual life, as if a whirlwind lifted them from the depths. And they all talk about one thing, they are full and filled with one thing. The cathedral stones profess the same idea as Eckhart.

This spirit manifests itself in free religious communities in mystical teachings. The people are aware of themselves. Living Christian thought touches souls. The soul recognizes Christ within itself.

Meister Eckhart was the center where the spiritual rays of that time crossed and flared up with fire.

He was the greatest theologian and preacher in Germany, but in other countries where his voice did not reach, his teachings spread through rewritten Latin and German sermons. Not only did Eckhart preach in his Order and in schools, but he called on the entire class to participate in high religious life. His German sermons were heard in convents, in the houses of beguines, and among the laity. He created a new language, because he was the first to speak in his native language about the depths of mystical and philosophical thought.

True, even before him we encounter similar attempts in the works of Methilda of Magdeburg and in the song about the trinity, but all this is insignificant compared to the work of Eckhart. The plasticity, simplicity and clarity of his language reached such completeness that the mystics of subsequent times could no longer give anything new in this direction. With fearless simplicity he approaches the most subtle and difficult objects point-blank. He boldly creates words that convey the most abstract concepts; is not afraid to immediately make comparisons from everyday life; makes listeners as if witnesses to the inner growth of his thoughts. He asks, answers, and his strict logic is filled with living fire. It is always unexpected; one can feel with what passion he wants to make everyone a participant in the high freedom and joy that has opened up to him. Wanting to make his thoughts accessible, he never reduced them to the level of the crowd; he wanted to raise everyone to himself. We often hear how, foreseeing the difficulties of any interpretation, he convincingly asks: “Be careful now, understand me well now!”

Because he always burns in this fire, which burns everything that is not unconditional, genuine in the face of eternity, his voice is stern. This is not his severity. It is the severity of eternity speaking through him. This is not the rigorism of an ascetic who demands from others what he himself struggles with. He never tires of fighting that spirit of “philistinism” that can manifest itself in all areas and everywhere, even in the spiritual worlds he seeks comfortable reassurance in the dogma of well-being, and certainly in one way or another achieves for himself a small benefit, recognition...

Every “beautiful soul”, “vague feelings”, “spiritual pleasures” is pursued by his ridicule. At the end of one particularly lofty sermon, he suddenly exclaims, as if in despair: “Blessed is the one who understood this sermon! If there were no one here, I would have to tell it to this church circle.

There will be miserable people who will say: I will return to my home, sit in my place, eat my bread and serve God. Such people will never understand true poverty in spirit!"

Sometimes the excess of joy from the knowledge revealed to him gives his words unexpected courage.

In one sermon, Eckhart, responding to the reproach that he initiates the crowd into too high mysteries, says: “If ignorant people are not taught, then no one will become a scientist. Then the ignorant are taught, so that they become knowledgeable from the ignorant. Then the doctor to heal sick. John writes the Gospel for all believers and also for unbelievers, and yet he begins with the highest thing that a person can say about God. And if there is a person who misunderstands such a word, what can he do who correctly teaches what is true. word? Were not the words of John and the words of the Lord also often misunderstood?

For such misunderstood words, Eckhart was condemned by the church.

The religious movements that swept the people spread among the mendicant orders, among the Begards and Beguines. Their main Sermon was “The Kingdom of God is within man,” the consubstantiality of God, poverty in spirit, a new free understanding of the Gospel, directly from which people drew their teaching. The difference between these teachings was the attitude towards the church. For some, the new mystical faith did not contradict the church, and they remained in its bosom (friends of God), while others completely rejected its mediation.

A picture of the religious movement of that time is given to us by a treatise on Sister Katrei, the spiritual daughter of Meister Eckhart of Strasbourg, written in 1317. It gives us not only an idea of ​​Eckhart’s attitude to the mystical teachings of that time, but also illuminates the spiritual path of the preacher himself.

In the same year that the treatise about Sister Katrei was written, the Strasbourg Bishop John von Ochsenstein begins the persecution of the heretical Begards and Beguines. Penitents attach a wooden cross to their dress. Many of them burn at the stake and die in the water. Others flee to neighboring areas, but persecution spreads there as well.

Most of those who perished in this way professed the principles that Meister Eckhart openly preached from the pulpit.

Perhaps Eckhart's move to Frankfurt in 1320 was connected precisely with this persecution.

Eckhart could not fight the inquisitorial power of the bishop. Those beguines and begards who were assigned to some order and for whom Eckhart could intercede were not subject to persecution. Eckhart continued to preach loudly and openly what people were executed for every day. “In such an explanation of the words of Christ, you can calmly refer to me,” he says in one sermon, “I answer for this with my life”; in another place he says: “Let my soul be a guarantee of this.” Such words were not just red words at a time when fires burned wherever his teachings were spread.

But the persecution does not affect him personally yet. The order is for him and in these same years gives him an honorary and influential position as a teacher of dogmatics at a higher school in Cologne. Cologne has long been the spiritual center of Germany. Before Eckhart, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus lived and taught there. Now the Begards and Beguines, persecuted in the upper countries of the Rhine, flock there, but are met in the person of Archbishop Heinrich strong enemy. At the same time, Walter, the head of the sect, was burned, and many died in the fire and in the waves of the Rhine. Eckhart lived there last years own life.

His disciples, among whom were then Tauler and Suso, call him “holy teacher,” “divine teacher.” Eckhart's moral character was so pure that all the efforts of his enemies to collect any incriminating facts from his personal life were in vain.

In 1325, at the Council of Venice, a complaint was made against the brothers of the German province, “who in their sermons teach the people some things that could easily lead listeners to heresies.” This denunciation applied to Eckhart and the young priests who followed him. The first attempts to blame Eckhart were unsuccessful. When Eckhart's rivals, the theologians of the Higher Franciscan School in Cologne, appeared as inquisitors, the Dominican Order stood up for Eckhart and his orthodoxy was restored. Dissatisfied with his acquittal, the archbishop himself collects evidence against him using unseemly means, and when this does not lead to the desired results, he begins a formal trial against Eckhart on January 14, 1327.

On January 24, Eckhart and witnesses appear before the inquisitors and rebel against their way of doing things. He believes that unworthy behavior with eavesdropping, slander and tricks is complete arbitrariness, which is an insult to the entire Order. He considers it beneath his dignity to answer their accusations and invites them on May 4th with him to Avignon, where he, Eckhart, will prove to the pope and the entire church the purity of his teaching, which was simply misunderstood by them.

On February 13, 1327, in the Dominican Church in Cologne, Eckhart, having finished his sermon, asked the people to read the manuscript he was holding in his hand in Latin, and when it was read, he himself translated it into German and explained it. Then he invited the notary who was here to draw up a protocol about this. Several clergy and two Cologne citizens signed as witnesses. This statement, which was later falsely called a renunciation, read:

“I, Meister Eckhart, Doctor of Holy Theology, declare first of all, calling God as a witness, that I have avoided every error in the faith and distortion of it as far as I could, for such errors have always been hateful to me and are still hateful to this day, as a doctor and a member of the Order If there was anything wrong in this regard that I wrote, said or preached, openly or unopenly, directly or indirectly, with bad intent or for the sake of the spirit of resistance, I renounce it directly and openly to everyone. is present here in the meeting, because from this moment I look at this as unsaid and unwritten, especially because I hear that they misunderstood me, as if I preached that my little little finger created everything, but I did not think or say that; what do these words say; and I said this about the fingers of that little boy Jesus.” Then, having refuted another distortion of his doctrine of the soul and explained it, Eckhart says: “I correct all this, and renounce all this, and will correct it, and will renounce in general and in particular whenever it would be necessary, from everything , which would be recognized as a lack of common sense."

There is nothing in all this that can be called renunciation.

Eckhart is only willing to give up what could be proven to be contrary to correct teaching and common sense. He claims that he was not understood and does not admit guilt at all.

Eckhart wanted to prove by this that his conscience was clear before the church. And he wanted to explain this to the people, in order to thereby remove the accusation from the Order, which stood for him.

This was not a response to the inquisitors.

Eckhart did not wait for a resolution to his case. He died in 1327. And two years later (March 27, 1329), the papal bull so desired by the bishop of Cologne appeared, recognizing 26 provisions of Eckhart’s teaching as heretical and calling the above statement his own renunciation of this teaching.

Eckhart himself believed that his teaching was completely consistent with the teaching of the church. He professed the same truths as his teacher Thomas Aquinas, but approached them in a different way, gave them new look and new life.

Both mysticism and scholasticism take as their basis the direct insight of God. But scholasticism accepts this insight, or revelation, given from the outside; it relies on the experience of others, on the authority of Holy Scripture. On this basis, she builds a system of concepts that makes dogma acceptable to reason. Rising above nature with reason, she explains its laws. But abstract thought remains closed in itself, rational, understanding things from the outside.

The scholastic thinks about God, the mystic thinks about God. Or even more precisely: he thinks divinely.

For the mystic, the essence of human thought and divine thought is one. Human thought is a reflection of divine thought and follows its movements, therefore it is valid. God thinks of Himself in man. The mystic’s thought is the organic life of his “I”, the revelation of this “I”, the basis and essence of which is divine. "Here God's depth is my depth, and my depth is God's depth."

Living revelation, burning reality, which the spirit immersed in itself reveals as something unconditional in clarity and joy, does not need external reinforcement, in a symbol, in a dogma.

While the established church is established on tradition and scripture, on trust in the testimony of the Word of life of those “who have heard and seen with their own eyes, who they themselves have witnessed, whose hands have touched...” the mystic knows the same Word in his soul, born of the Father in its basis and essence.

Eckhart says, explaining the words of Christ: “It is good for you that I leave you, for if I had not left you, you could not partake of the Holy Spirit.” It is as if He is saying: “Until now you have seen too much joy in My visible presence, so you have not been able to partake of the perfect joy of the Holy Spirit...”

God gives birth to His Son in eternity, and just as this birth took place once in time, it takes place in the basis and essence of the human soul. "God became man so that I could become God." The great “I am” of the world, the Word, became incarnate in man, so that man would recognize within himself the great “I am” of the world. Renouncing his temporary face, he recognizes the immortal “I am” in himself and in it becomes a participant in the world’s creative will; there he is in the center from which its rays emanate, there he sees himself “as the one who created this man.” In this depth, in which life emerges from itself, without any “why” - necessity and freedom become one. By merging his “I” with the world’s, a person comprehends the world’s will as his own. Having understood the pattern with his whole being, he ceases to feel the law, like external force. Not only does he understand that he fulfills the law, he creates it.

A person comprehends things not only with external feelings, but also with internal insight. The light of this inner knowing is what Eckhart calls the “spark” of the soul. Whoever is enlightened by this “spark” knows the world not only sensually and rationally, he knows things, merging with their essence, knows them from the inside: he ceases to be in the world as something separate, he finds everything in himself and himself in everything.

Man became a man thanks to his independent self. But he becomes a man in the highest sense of this word, when through self-knowledge he rises above this limited “I” to accept the world into himself. “Where creation ends, God begins. And God wants nothing more from you than for you to come out of yourself, since you are a creature, and let God be God in you.”

According to Eckhart, the very essence of God is love. God must love man. “I swear by the eternal truth of the Lord, God must pour out all His power into every person who has reached the depths. Be poured out completely, so that nothing can be retained either in His life, or in His essence, or in His nature, or even in His very divinity.” for oneself, but to be poured out generously and fruitfully into a person who has surrendered to God.” So, inner illumination is inevitably given to those who achieve detachment, whose personal, separate will is silent. “The spirit of that person cannot desire anything other than what God desires. And this is not his bondage, this is his own freedom. For freedom is our unboundness, clarity, wholeness, what we were in our first origin and what we became liberated in the Holy Spirit.” .

This liberation in the Holy Spirit is a return to the Divine, merging with the Divine, but not the former unconscious and impersonal stay in the bosom of the Divine, but a new union with God, through Sonship, in freedom. New Testament. Eckhart says about the return to God: “And my mouth is more beautiful than my source, for here I am alone, lifting all creatures from their minds into mine, so that they too become one in me.” And in another place: “And I alone return all creatures to God.”

“A righteous man serves neither creation nor God, for he is free, and the closer he is to justice, the more freedom he himself is.” Such a person becomes a conscious builder in the world, consciously fulfilling world goals. The Apostle Paul says: “For the creation waits with hope for the revelation of the sons of God, because the creation was subjected to vanity, not voluntarily, but by the will of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be freed from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God, for we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together.”

In Eckhart's teachings there is not that Buddhist withdrawal from life, which strives only for personal liberation. Eastern contemplation leads a person in the opposite way, to his source, to merging with the Divine; in this path, a person, as it were, denies the evolution of the world, and comes back empty-handed. Eckhart is a Christian, “its mouth is higher than its source.” Contemplation of it fertilizes the creativity of real life, and vice versa, the creativity of real life is contemplation. After the Word became flesh, the spirit does not run away from the earth, but, having loved it, takes it into itself; Transfigured in spirit, she returns to the Father.

Eckhart's entire moral teaching flows from this view. Evil, according to Eckhart, is the actions of an isolated, self-contained person who only wants his own. "For a person who is in God's will and in God's love, for him joy is to do good deeds that God wants, and leave evil ones that are against God. And it is impossible for him not to do the work that God wants to be done."

His teaching is imbued with a joyful, creative spirit. He also sees creativity in suffering. "God is not the destroyer of nature, but its builder; he destroys only what he can replace with something better." In great suffering he sees a shortening of the path of one who is loved by God. “The joy of God and the righteous are one.”

They reproach Eckhart that Christ, born in the soul, overshadows Christ born of Mary in his teaching, and this explains his interpretation of the Gospel events. “We have to spiritualize everything,” he says. The five husbands of the Samaritan woman are for him five senses; the widow Nainskaya is reason, the deceased husband is the creative beginning of the soul, the son is the higher mind. “Joseph and Mary lost Christ in the crowd and, in order to find him, had to return to where they left - to the temple. So we must return to where we came from.”

This reproach is unfair. For Eckhart, the Word was truly incarnate in Christ, and all Palestinian action, all events and every person were truly a reflection of the spiritual world. All participants in that great mystery were both living people and pure embodiments of spiritual beings. What was accomplished in prototypes and rituals in the ancient mysteries became life. Then, truly, everything that happened on earth happened in heaven, and all events on earth took place at the same time full reality spiritual, that is, a pure symbol. Comprehending this mystery, Eckhart could see the events taking place in the soul in the images of that action, and vice versa, the events of Palestine - as an image and symbol of the spiritual world.

Name: Treatises. Sermons
Author: Meister Eckhart
Publisher: Nauka
Year: 443
Pages: 2010
Format: DjVu
Size: 5.22 MB
Quality: Scanned pages + recognized text layer
Russian language
ISBN: 978-5-02-036865-1
Series Literary monuments

The publication includes translations of the most important works of the great German mystic of the Late Middle Ages, John Eckhart of Hochheim (c. 1260-1328). These works include four treatises written by Eckhart in different periods creativity - “Speeches of Instruction”, “Book of Divine Consolation”, “About a Man of High Birth”, “On Detachment” - as well as more than thirty sermons, some of which attracted the attention of the Cologne Inquisition. The main section of the collection is accompanied by “Additions”, which includes the early debate “Are being and knowledge identical in God”, “Prologue to the Work of Theses” and the most important documents The Cologne-Avignon trial carried out against Eckhart in 1325-1329, the main of which is the bull of Pope John XXII “In the Field of the Lord”. The edition includes “The Book of Truth” by the Dominican Heinrich Suso: a posthumous apology for Eckhart and the “sum” of his theological ideas. The accompanying article offers an outline of the work of the German mystic and its cultural and historical context.

TREATISE
Discourses 7
Book of Divine Consolation 40
About a person of high birth 67
About detachment 74
SERMONS
Sermon 1 85
Sermon 2 89
Sermon 3 93
Sermon 4 96
Sermon 5 a 100
Sermon 5 b 103
Sermon 6 106
Sermon 7 109
Sermon 8 111
Sermon 9 114
Sermon 10 119
Sermon 11 123
Sermon 12 126
Sermon 13 130
Sermon 13 a 132
Sermon 14 133
Sermon 15 136
Sermon 16 a 139
Sermon 16 b 140
Sermon 17 144
Sermon 18 146
Sermon 19 149
Sermon 20 a 151
Sermon 20 b 154
Sermon 21 157
Sermon 22 160
Sermon 23 164
Sermon 24 167
Sermon 50 169
Sermon 51 171
Sermon 52 174
Sermon 53 179
Sermon 71 181
Sermon 54 (Pf.) 186
Latin Sermon 49 188
ADDITIONS
Scholastic writings
Are being and knowledge identical in God 193
Prologue to the Work of Theses 198
Materials for the inquisition process
Statement by Meister Eckhart to the Cologne Inquisitors dated 26
September 1326 205
Appeal of Meister Eckhart of January 24, 1327 206
Meister Eckhart's acquittal speech, delivered on 13
February 1327 209
Reply of the Inquisition Commission dated February 22, 1327 211
Bull of Pope John XXII “In the Field of the Lord” dated March 27, 1329 213
Literature of Eckhart's era
Granum sinapis (Sequence “Mustard Seed”) (Translation by E.V. Ro-
dionova) 219
Heinrich Suso. Book of Truth 222
Toten tanz (Wurzburg “Dance of Death”) (Translation by E.V. Rodio-
new) 243
APPLICATIONS
M.Yu. Reutin. Meister Eckhart: in search of the “unknown God” 255
Notes (compiled by M.Yu. Reutin) 351
Literature on German mysticism of the Middle Ages and the “new”
piety" in Russian 431
List of abbreviations 434
List of illustrations 435

I read many scriptures and sought in them with all seriousness and zeal what is the best and highest virtue, which would most bring man closer to the Lord, and through which man would most closely resemble the image in which he abided in God, when there was no difference between him and God until God created creation. And when I delve into all these scriptures, as far as my understanding can reach in knowledge, I do not find anything that would be so unclouded as pure detachment, free from all creation. That is why our Lord said to Martha: “Only one thing is needed.” This sounds equivalent to the following: “Whoever wants to be unclouded and pure needs to have only one thing, and this one thing is detachment.”

Teachers glorify love most of all, like St. Paul, who says: “Whatever I do, if I do not have love, then I am nothing.” And I glorify detachment more than love (Minne), for the best thing about love passion (Liebe) is that it forces me to love God. But it is much more precious if I attract God to myself than if I attract myself to God. This happens because my eternal bliss lies in my being reunited with God, and it is more fitting for God to enter into me than for me to enter into God. That it is detachment that attracts God to me, I prove by this that every thing prefers to exist in its natural place. But God’s natural place is unity and purity. They come from detachment. Therefore, God must, of necessity, give himself to a detached heart.

Further, I praise detachment more than love because love draws me to endure everything for the sake of God. Detachment leads me to perceive nothing else but God. After all, this is much more precious - not to perceive anything at all except God, for in suffering a person is still related in some way to the creature from which he must suffer, while detachment, on the contrary, remains free from all creatures.

Teachers and humility are praised above other virtues. And I praise detachment before all humility, and here’s why: humility can exist without detachment, but there is no perfect detachment without perfect humility. For humility leads to the denial of one’s own selfhood and places oneself lower than all creatures. And detachment remains in itself. After all, it is impossible for any going out to be so noble that remaining in oneself is not something even more sublime. Perfect detachment

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is directed towards nothing and places itself neither below nor above the creature. She does not want to be either below or above, does not want either likeness or dissimilarity, does not crave anything other than to be detached, not a single thing is burdened by her.

I also praise detachment before any compassion, for compassion is nothing other than a person’s going outside of himself to the sorrows of his neighbors, so that his heart is then contrite. But detachment is self-sufficient, abides in itself and nothing can crush it. That is why, when I reflect on all the virtues, I do not find any one as blameless and as leading us to God as detachment. A person who is thus in such perfect detachment is then raptured into eternity, and nothing transitory will touch him anymore. He no longer likes anything earthly. The Apostle Paul meant this when he said: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

Now you might ask: what is detachment, if it is so blissful in itself? You should learn that true detachment is nothing other than the spirit, which in all cases of life, whether in joy, in sorrow, in honor, in humiliation, remains motionless, like a huge mountain against a weak wind. This detachment elevates man to the greatest God-likeness, insofar as it is possible for a creature to have God-likeness. Such likeness to the Lord comes from grace, for grace turns a person away from everything temporary and cleanses him from everything transitory. You should also know: to be empty of all creation means to be full of God, and to be filled with creation is to be empty of God.

Then someone may ask, did Christ have a motionless detachment when he said: “My soul is sorrowful unto death”? And when did Mary stand at the cross? Don't they talk so much about her crying? How is all this compatible with motionless detachment?

Here you should know: in every person there are two people. One is called the external man - this is human sensuality; That person is served by five senses, which act, however, not from themselves, but from the strength of their soul. Another person is called the inner man - this is the innermost human. Know that everyone who has loved God devotes to the external man no more of the strength of his soul than is necessary for the five senses; and the innermost is not addressed to the five senses - it is only a mentor and guide who protects a person so that he does not live in lust, like many, like foolish cattle. Yes, such people, in essence, should be called brutes rather than humans. So, the soul rests on the powers that it gives not at all to the five senses - it gives these powers to the inner man. And if a person is offered some sublime and noble

– 153 –

goal, then the soul draws into itself all the forces that it lent to the five senses - such a person is called raptured into eternity. However, there are so many people who exhaust their spiritual strength entirely on the external person. These are the people who direct all their feelings and thoughts to external and transitory goods, those people who know nothing about inner man. And how, for example, good husband takes away all spiritual strength from the outer man, while highest goal carries within itself, so those bestial people take away everything mental strength in the inner man, depleting them in the outer man. Know that the outer man can, perhaps, be completely immersed in activity, while the inner man can be free and motionless. Likewise in Christ there was a man outside and a man inside, and so in our Lady Theotokos. What they said about external things was done in them by the external man, while the internal one remained in motionless detachment. Understand this through the following image: the door closes and opens, holding on door hinges- so I liken the outer door of the door to the outer man, and door hinge I liken it to an inner man. After all, when the door closes and opens, the outer door moves this way and that, but the hinge remains unshakable and does not change at all. And we do it the same way.

However, it is impossible for God to act His will completely in all hearts. For although He is omnipotent, He only acts when He finds readiness or receptivity. In many hearts there is some “this” or “that”, in which there may be something that makes it impossible for God to act as befits the Highest. For when the heart must rest in readiness for things above, then what is called “this” or “this” should come from the heart. This is how it should be with a detached heart. And then the Lord can act completely with His purest will.

Now I ask: what is the prayer of a detached heart? and I answer: detachment and purity, what to pray for? For whoever prays thirsts for something. A detached heart neither desires nor has anything from which it would like to be free: therefore it remains free from petitionary prayer. His prayer cannot be anything other than abiding in God-likeness. And when the soul comes to this, then it loses its name and draws God into itself, so that its selfhood disappears - just as the sun absorbs the morning dawn and it disappears. This is what brings people to this point other than pure detachment. St. says Augustine: “The soul has a heavenly entrance into the Lord’s Nature: in this place all things disappear for it.” Here on earth, this entrance is only pure detachment. And when detachment reaches the highest, then it becomes in knowledge

– 154 –

free from all knowledge, and in love - from love, and in illumination plunges into darkness. We can also understand this as one teacher says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, who have left all things to God, just as He possessed them when we were not yet.” This is only possible for a detached heart.

Know, you prudent people: there is no one in a higher mood than one who is in the greatest detachment. No bodily, carnal pleasure can cause spiritual damage. After all, the flesh then again and again thirsts for the spirit, and the spirit again and again thirsts for the flesh. Therefore: whoever sows perverted lust in his flesh will reap death; Whoever sows righteous love in his spirit will reap eternal life. How more people the creation runs, the faster the Creator overtakes it. Therefore, detachment is the best; for it cleanses the soul and clears the conscience, kindles the heart and awakens the spirit, knows God and separates from creation, and unites the soul with God, for love separated from God (Liebe) is like fire in water, and love united with Him (Minne) is like honey in a honeycomb.

Learn everything, you wise in spirit: the fastest horse that will carry you to perfection is suffering; for no one tastes eternal bliss more than those who remain with Christ in the greatest sorrow. There is nothing more bitter than suffering, and nothing sweeter than what has been suffered. The surest foundation on which such perfection can rise is humility; for whose nature drags here in the deepest humiliation, his spirit soars to the highest heights of the Divinity (Gottheit); for love brings suffering, and suffering brings love. Human ways are different: one lives this way, another lives that way. Whoever wants to ascend to the highest in our time, let him take from all my writings a short teaching, which goes like this: “Keep yourself detached from all people; keep yourself untouched by any sensory image; free yourself from everything that can fetter, limit or darken you Continually turn your soul to sacred contemplation, in which you bring the Lord in your heart to ugliness and super-clever leap. And other exercises in virtue, such as fasting, prayer, vigil, you need to take care of them insofar as they help you. They mean that you will finally find detachment."

Then someone will ask: “Who can bear this penetrating vision of Divine ugliness (Inbild)?” I answer: none of those currently living in temporary fluidity. But this was only said so that you would know what is higher, and what you should strive for, what you should strive for. When the vision of heavenly things is taken away from you, then you should, if you are a good husband, feel as if your eternal bliss was taken away from you, and you should return as soon as possible

– 155 –

to him, so that you can again become this vision. And you must listen to yourself all the time and find your refuge within yourself, turning your thoughts there as far as possible.

Lord God, blessed be forever! Amen.

– 156 –

The text is given according to publication:

Eckhart M. About detachment // Beginning. 2001, No. 11, p. 152-156 (translated from Latin by V.V. Mozharovsky).

Numbers pages go after text.

The famous medieval German theologian and philosopher, one of the largest Christian mystics, who taught about the presence of God in everything that exists. The title "Meister", meaning "master, teacher" in German, indicates academic title Master of Theology (Master in theologia), received in Paris.

Born into a noble family in Hochheim around 1260. Having joined the Dominican Order, he studied in Dominican schools and became a master of theology in 1302. He studied at the University of Paris. In 1303-1311 - provincial prior of the order in Saxony. From 1311 - a professor in Paris, from 1313 - in Strasbourg and from 1320 - a reading teacher in Cologne.

Teaching

Author of sermons and treatises, which were preserved mainly in the notes of his disciples. The main theme of his thoughts: Divinity is the impersonal absolute behind God. Divinity is incomprehensible and inexpressible, it is “the complete purity of the divine essence”, where there is no movement. Through its self-knowledge, the Divine becomes God. God is eternal being and immortal life. According to Eckhart's concept, man is able to know God because human soul there is a “divine spark”, a particle of the Divine. A person, having muffled his will, must passively surrender to God. Then the soul, detached from everything, will ascend to the Divine and in mystical ecstasy, breaking with the earthly, will merge with the divine. Bliss depends on the inner activity of a person. Catholic teaching could not accept Eckhart's concept. In 1327, a papal bull declared 28 of his teachings false. Eckhart gave a certain impetus to the development of German Christian mysticism, anticipated the idealistic dialectics of Hegel, and played a major role in the development of literary German language. He is the teacher of I. Tauler and G. Suso. Luther owes him a lot. In the 20th century, the Vatican raised the question of Eckhart’s rehabilitation.