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The First German Movement In Its European Setting (1270-1350)
Page 10
Eckhart's unsystematic way of thought rebelled against systems which he saw as threats of domination by alien powers (powers, that is, which were alien to the soul). The dynamic and alarming character of his ideas was an expression of the almost desperate situation in Germany, so desperately in need of his message of consolation. Every representative of the old order had failed; not one had been able to find the word which would reach the soul of the German people. Even Bernard of Clairvaux, to whom Eckhart owed so much, failed to find it when he came to Cologne [27]. Eckhart found the word. In his attempts to resolve the antinomies and intellectual difficulties of the Thomist and the Scotist systems, he plumbed the depths of the soul of his people. He became the very expression of its yearning to penetrate the ultimate depths of God and to proceed outwards from God to comprehend the whole world of things. It was he who moulded the language of German thought and its mystical, dialectical logic. Henceforth, spirit was to stand higher than God in the framework of German thought, and Godhead higher than God the Father. All the mediators - Christ, the priesthood, political society - withdrew into the background. Within the soul God created the entire world. The German soul was king, pope, priest and prince - everything, in fact, which further west became the political rights first of the prince and then his heirs, the "elect people". The universe was not a cosmic state under the rule of reason but an immensity of sheer strength and power. The world was "being" and "becoming" and the presence of God. "All creatures are pure nothingness" - Omnes creaturae sunt unum purum nihil. The Ego says this "no", because it contemplates and achieves itself in the all [28].
Eckhart replaced the dualities of the Western Roman Christian world (nature-mind, logos-nature, thing-concept) with the old monism of archaic society. The soul was the crown of the new system. It hovered in sovereign majesty together with God. The next step was taken by a disciple, Johannes of Star Alley, who asked if the word of the soul was not as mighty as the word of the Heavenly Father. In fact, that word of power was pronounced in each of the great systems of German philosophy. Eckhart had established within the very heart of German thought that divine Trinity which was invoked as witness and as ultimate refuge in every imperial edict from Charlemagne to Frederick II. It was in the ground of the soul that the Holy Trinity dwelt, doing its noble work and playing its endless play [29]. Every good man was God's Heaven [30]. God had all power in Heaven and on earth, except in one respect: man has been unworthy [31].
Cf. Meister Eckhart von Friedrich Heer ||| Mail: Heer, Tauler & nazism
