Meister Eckhart

Eckhart was born around 1260 in Thuringia and entered the Dominican order as a young man. He studied and twice held the chair of theology at the University of Paris, an honour he shared with Thomas Aquinas, and was known as “Meister”, master of theology. He held high office in his order, as prior at Erfurt and as vicar of Thuringia, and later as provincial of Saxony.

From around 1313 he preached in Strasbourg and then Cologne, often to communities of Dominican nuns and Beguines, in German. His German sermons and treatises, among them The Book of Divine Consolation and the Talks of Instruction, are among the first great works of German prose; his Latin works were more scholastic.

In 1326 the archbishop of Cologne began proceedings against him for heresy. Eckhart defended himself, appealed to the pope, and died around 1328 before the case was decided. In 1329 the papal bull In agro dominico condemned twenty-eight propositions drawn from his works. His disciples Johannes Tauler and Henry Suso carried on his teaching, and in the modern period he has been rediscovered by philosophers and by readers of the world’s mystical traditions.