MEISTER ECKHART · 13TH–14TH CENTURY · DOMINICAN / RHINELAND MYSTIC
German Sermons
Summary and key themes of this work
The works for which Eckhart is most famous — over a hundred sermons delivered in the vernacular to Dominican nuns, Beguine communities, and lay audiences throughout the Rhineland. These are not devotional homilies but philosophical explosions: Eckhart uses paradox, negation, and startling imagery to shatter his listeners' habitual concepts of God and self. The sermons on spiritual poverty (especially Sermon 52, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit') and on the birth of the Word in the soul (Sermons 1–4) represent the summit of medieval German mysticism. Eckhart was the first major thinker to do serious theology in German, and he essentially created the philosophical vocabulary of the language in the process.
German Sermons is a central text in the Christian mystical tradition, offering insight into the spiritual life, the nature of divine union, and the transformation of the soul.
This work is central to the Dominican / Rhineland Mystic tradition, shaping the understanding of the spiritual life and the soul's journey toward union with God.
Selected Passages
The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.
God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk.
God must act and pour himself into you the moment he finds you ready.