In 1327 Archbishop Heinrich of Cologne launched an inquiry into Meister Eckhart’s teachings, identifying forty-nine articles from Eckhart’s “books, remarks, and sermons” that were deemed false and, in some cases, even heretical. Eckhart’s initial reaction was to mount a vigorous defense. In his formal response to the accusations, he challenged the validity of the inquisitors’ commission, questioned the motives of his accusers, and laid out a detailed refutation of the specific charges. As you read these excerpts from his defense, pay particular attention to his characterization of his critics. What light does the document shed on the contested nature of religious authority in fourteenth-century Europe?

Response to the List of Forty-nine Articles

In the year of our Lord 1326, the 26th of September, on the day set for the response to the articles taken from the books, remarks and sermons ascribed to Meister Eckhart that seem to some erroneous, or what is worse, to smack of heresy, as they say.

Introduction

I, the aforesaid Brother Eckhart of the order of Preachers, respond. First, I protest before you the Commissioners, Master Reiner Friso, Doctor of Theology, and Peter of Estate, lately Custodian of the order of Friars Minor, that according to the exemption and privileges of my order, I am not held to appear before you or to answer charges. This is especially true since I am not accused of heresy and have never been denounced overtly, as my whole life and teaching testify, and as the esteem of the brethren of the whole order and men and women of the entire kingdom and of every nation corroborates.

Second, it is evident from this that the commission given you by the venerable father and lord, the Archbishop of Cologne (may God preserve his life!), has no force inasmuch as it proceeds from a false suggestion and an evil root and stem. Indeed, if I were less well known among the people and less eager for justice, I am sure that such attempts would not have been made against me by envious people. But I ought to bear them patiently, because “Blessed are they who suffer for justice’ sake” (Matthew 5:10), and according to Paul, “God scourges every son he receives” (Hebrews 12:6), so that I can deservedly say with the Psalm, “I have been made ready in scourges” (Psalm 37:18). I ought to do this particularly because long ago, but in my own lifetime, the masters of theology at Paris received a command from above to examine the books of those two most distinguished men, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Brother Albert the Bishop, on the grounds that they were suspect and erroneous. Many have often written, declared and even publicly preached that Saint Thomas wrote and taught errors and heresies, but with God’s aid his life and teaching alike have been given approval, both at Paris and also by the Supreme Pontiff and the Roman curia.

Conclusion

Finally, I want to note that even though the ignorance and stupidity of those who try to condemn them appear in considering each of the articles I preached, taught or wrote, their truth also is evident from the expositions given above. The first mistake they make is that they think that everything they do not understand is an error and that every error is a heresy, when only obstinate adherence to error makes heresy and a heretic, as the laws and the doctors hold. The second error is that although they say they are inquisitors in search of heresy, they turn to my books and object to things that are purely natural truths. Third, they object to things as heretical that Saint Thomas openly uses for the solution of certain arguments and that they either have not seen or not remembered. An example is the distinction and nature of univocal, equivocal and analogous terms, and the like.

Fourth, they attack as harmful places where I have merely used the words of Cicero, Seneca and Origen’s gloss, such as on the divine seed in the soul. “He who is born from God does not commit sin, because his seed [i.e., God’s] abides in him” (1 John 3:9). Fifth, they attack many things as erroneous that are the common opinion of the doctors. An example would be that the exterior act of itself has no moral goodness and consequently adds to the goodness of the internal act only accidentally. Likewise, they think that God exists and creates in another now than the now of eternity, although the world was created in time. They do not know what Augustine says: “All tomorrows and beyond them, and all yesterdays and what is behind them, you are making today and have made today. What is it to me if someone does not understand this?”

Sixth, they oppose some things as false and heretical [and thus imply] that man cannot be united with God, which is against the teaching of Christ and the Evangelist. “You, Father, are in me, and I am in you, that they also may be one in us” (John 17:21). Seventh, they say that a creature or the world is not nothing in itself apart from God, which is against the Gospel text, “All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing” (John 1:3). Further, to say that the world is not nothing in itself and from itself, but is some slight bit of existence is open blasphemy. If that were so, God would not be the First Cause of all things and the creature would not be created by God in possessing existence from him. Eighth, they attack the idea that the godlike man can perform God’s works, against the teaching of Christ and the Evangelist: “He who believes in me, the works I do he shall also do, and greater than these” (John 14:12). Again, they also deny that the godlike man by means of charity receives the things made in charity that are nothing outside charity, contrary to what the Apostle says in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. That is enough for now.

Source: Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn, trans., Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense (Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1981), pp. 71–72, 75–76.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER