THAN Sara ae
N
EAS
ES BY
V. | Franz Pfeiffer
Leipzig, 1857
TRANSLATION
WITH SOME OMISSIONS AND ADDITIONS
BY
C. pe B. EVANS
LONDON
JOHN M. WATKINS
21 CECIL COURT, CHARING CROSS ROAD, W.C. 2
First published 1924 Second impression 1947
Thealor; | Leary
m@HOO © |. OLOGY
=. California
University of Southern California Library
PRINTED BY THE REPLIKA PROCESS
IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
LUND HUMPHRIES
LONDON * BRADFORD
Transferred
Methodist World Service Fund
Av
Vig Hae
Preface
THE impossibility of completing my edition of Meister Eckhart as quickly as it has been at various times desired and as I should myself have liked to do, as well as the wish no longer to withhold from scholars the writings of one of the deepest thinkers of all time, has decided me to publish in the meantime the portion contained in the text. The second part, with literary-historical introduction, notes, glossary, and various additions and appendices, will follow as soon as I can spare the time from my new duties.
This first instalment. contains, with the exception of a few short pieces which I obtained only after it was prifited, everything of Eckhart’s which, during eighteen years of tireless research, I have been able to collect out of manuscripts and printed books. It is little enough compared with the works of Eckhart still known to Trithemius and of which he gives quite a long catalogue in his book De Scriptoribus Eccles. (s. Fabricii bibliotheca eccles. Ham- burgh, 1718, fol. pag. 180); but on the other hand what I offer here is at least three times the amount of what has hitherto been known, and the teaching, the philosophic system of this remarkable man can now be presented in a more definite and complete form than it was possible to do from the scanty and untrustworthy data possessed before.
In order to give an account of the means within my reach and at the same time to give the reader some idea of the extent and ~ difficulty of my work, I append a list of the printed matter and
nuscripts used, together with a statement of their contents arranged and numbered to correspond with my edition.
I. PARCHMENT MSS.
1. a. Strassburg, stadtbibliothek, A. 98. 14th cent. 4to. (I, 16, 17, 26-28, 30-39, 41, 44, 46, 48, 50-53; II, 6.)
2. B. Basel, universitätsbibliothek, B. XI, 10. 14th cent. 12mo. (I. 17-25; IH, 6,7; IV.)
(I, 29, 40, 45, 49, 56, 59, 60, 88-90 ; II, 2, 11-14, 16; III, 21; IV.)
. Berlin, k. bibliothek, cod. germ. 8, No. 12. 14th cent.
(I, 7, 8, 10, 11, 18, 15, 16, 18, 20, 37, 101; III, 49-65. IV.)
. Berlin, k. bibliothek, cod. germ. 8, No. 65. 14th cent.
(I, 6, 10, 12, 14, 19, 34, 51, 76 (a); III, 1.)
. Stuttgart, k. öffentl. bibliothek, brev. 4, No. 88. 14th
cent. (I, 1-5, 7, 8, 15,55; II,6; III, 2, 70.)
(I, 5, 11, 13, 15-18, 25, 42, 43, 51, 54, 57, 58, 78, 92, 98, 95, 99 ; III, 11, 12, 18, 20, 22, 25, 27, 28, 30; IV.)
. München, k. hof- und staatsbibliothek, cod. germ. 133.
14th cent. 12mo. (I, 45, 76 (a), 103; II, 6, 12; IV.)
. Kloster-Neuburg bei Wien, No. 1141. 14th cent. 8vo.
(I, 30, 33-35, 39, 72, 97, 98, 100; II, 2, 7, 10, 11, 13-16.)
. Wien, hofbibliothek, No. 2728. 14th cent. 4to. (I,
67, 68; Ii, 2.)
‘Ato. (I, 57, 61, 66, 71,98; II, 5; II, 10-16.)
. Frankfurt, stadtbibliothek (old Dominican library), No.
. Karlsruhe, grossherzogliche bibliothek, cod. s. Petri,
No. 85. 14th cent. 4to. (I, 8, 51, 70, 84; II, 12; II, 3, 15, 22, 25, 29.)
. Giessen (in private ownership) from the kloster Altenburg
bei Wetzlar. 14th cent. (III, 31-48.)
(Iii, 4, 5.)
II. PAPER MSS.
. München, k. hof- und staatsbibliothek, cod. germ. 365.
15th cent. (I, 6, 7, 18, 14, 47, 55, 57-59, 63-66, 713 11,:75 III, 66.)
. Stuttgart, k. privatbibliothek, No. 1, 26 (old numbering).
. Berlin, k. bibliothek, cod. germ. 4, 125. 14th cent.
. Basle, Adam Petri’s edition of Tauler’s sermons, 1521
pa SS
Ziel.
mS
40. u. 41. v.
PREFACE vii
and 1522. Fol. (I, 6-8, 10-14, 17-23, 25, 34, 36, 37,
40-43, 45, 56-60, 65, 73-92, 98, 101, 102; III, 1, 15,
21, 66.)
Berlin, k. bibliothek, cod. germ. 4, 191, 14th-15th cent. (I, 8, 15; II, 11, 12; III, 28, 24; IV.)
Melk, klosterbibliothek, L. 5. 15th cent. Fol. (iar: 76 (b), 105-110; II, 2, 11.)
. Coblenz, gymnasiums bibliothek, No. 48. 15th cent.
4to. (I, 15, 57; II, 9; III, 8.)
Stuttgart, own possession. 15th cent. 4to. (I, 9, 40, 57.)
Cologne, Jaspar von Gennep’s edition of Tauler’s sermons, 1543. Fol. (I, 69; II, 1; III, 70.)
Leipzig, Cunrad Kachelouen’s edition of Tauler’s sermons, 1498. 4to. (I, 1-4.)
Breslau, Gin possession of Cond. Prince-Bishop Melchior
v. Diepenbrock. 15th cent. Fol. Tractate on Active
and Potential Intellect.
. Stuttgart, k. öffentliche bibliothek, cod. theol. fol. No. |
155. 15th cent. (II, 4, 18.) Same, cod. theol. fol. No. 283. 15th cent. (III, 69.)
. Same, cod. theol. 8, No.18. 15th cent. (II, 8, 11, 14,
15; Iii, 9, 67.)
Colmar. 15th cent. (III, 1.)
München, k. hof- und staatsbibliothek, cod. germ. 116. 15th cent. 8vo. (III, 17-19, 68.)
Stuttgart, k. öffentliche bibliothek, cod. theol. 8, No. 13. 14th cent. (I, 40; II, 9; III, 13:)
Stuttgart, k. öffentliche bibliothek, cod. theol. fol. 33, v. j. 1426. (II, 7.)
Frankfurt, stadtbibliothek, No. 3500 (old Dominican library). 15th cent. 8vo. (II, 17.)
az”. München, hof- und staatsbibliothek, cod. germ. 218 and 4482. 15th cent. 4to. (II, 17.)
Stuttgart, k. öffentliche bibliothek, cod. theol. 4to. No. 50. 15th cent. (III, 67.)
In addition I have to note aMS. with forty sermons by Eckhart, paper, of the date 1440, in the possession of Prof. Karl Schmidt of Strassburg. Unfortunately this has remained inaccessible to me,
Viil MEISTER ECKHART
I only know what the possessor has disclosed in his French mono- graph on Eckhart (Mémoires de Vacadémie franc. mor. et polit. par savants étrangers. Paris, 1847. T. 2).
With regard to the internal arrangement and ordering of my material I make the following observations. The broad division into Sermons, Tractates, Sayings was obvious. On the other hand it was difficult to decide what sequence the sermons ought to follow. An arrangement which showed the changes in Eckhart’s teaching in a logical manner was out of the question, and the same applies to putting them in order of age or time of delivery; the data for this are wholly lacking. It is quite exceptional for Eckhart to make any reference to a previous sermon. Among the earliest of these sermons, belonging perhaps to the period of his Vicar-Generalship in Bohemia (about 1307), I reckon those numbered 105-110 from the Melk MS., L. 5. (No. 22.) In the superscription of these Eckhart is so called instead of Meister Eckhart, a designation which points to the time»when the memory of his final years of study in Paris was still lively. These I have placed last, simply on the grounds that, like all the MSS. obtained from Austria, they seem to be much edited; superficially, in diction, they certainly are and I think too their matter has been tampered with. As being the simplest arrangement, the liturgical order of the Gospels commended itself but here great difficulties were encountered the sermons being prefaced by texts chosen quite at random and as a rule all reference to the Sunday or festival is wanting. The titles of the old Basle edition are for the most part arbitrary.
I decided therefore to rely solely on my sources and the order in which their individual sermons were presented. With this end in view those manuscripts were chosen out which were specially distinguished for their age or authenticity, and from these again selection was made of those with superscriptions imputing them to Eckhart. In this way and in this way only I found it possible to enter into the genius and the method and the idiosyncrasy of Eckhart and gain a reliable standard whereby to determine those sermons which, though found among the authentic ones, were yet without his name. By this means I hope to have acquired the necessary practice and familiarity with Eckhart’s writings and I believe I need not fear that any important item of my collec- tion will ultimately prove to be wrongly attributed to Eckhart.
The Sayings, with few exceptions, bear all the marks of authen- ticity and need no further verification. Only a couple of them are traceable to the complete sermons and tractates included, though most are fragments and portions of larger works. From this we can form some notion of the amount of Eckhart still lost to. us.
PREFACE ie
With regard to the fourth section, which I have called Liber Positionum, I had no external evidence of Eckhart’s authorship, but Eckhart’s genius and characteristic outlook seem to me to be unmistakably shown in these arguments in which, in the form of dialogues between master and pupil, a series of weighty philo- sophical and theological questions are ventilated. Further, the separate items of this work which only loosely hang together, I have met with only among Eckhart’s writings. The title I have borrowed from Trithemius’ Catalogue (see above) ; it might have been made for it.
Obviously my text is not all of equal value and correctness ; who could expect it ? With the numerous pieces preserved only in late and bad MSS. it was often impossible owing to the careless- ness of the scribe to unravel the manifold confusion of thought and connection ; how was I to restore and supply words and whole sentences which had been omitted ? I mean to comment in the Notes on the passages which seem to me to be corrupt and give the emendations and conjectures which I have found it inexpedient to publish with the text. Of another kind but no less great was my difficulty with those passages which certainly appeared in the best MSS. but showed considerable variations among themselves. How important these discrepancies often are the variants will show. In cases of this sort the recognition and isolation of the authentic from the unauthentic later additions or distortions is rarely to be done with any certainty and for that reason I have sometimes adopted the expedient of putting the variants themselves in juxtaposition in the text.!
As to the diction of the contents of this volume, which I have neither wished nor been able to give much order to, I have followed the oldest and best MSS. which, consistently with Eckhart’s home and birthplace, Strassburg, are written almost entirely in the Alemanic idiom: Middle German and the speech of Cologne do appear occasionally but notwithstanding Eckhart’s long sojourn on the lower Rhine, only rarely and in late MSS.
STUTTGART, 5th July 1857.
The last two pages of Pfeiffer’s Preface are occupied with acknow- ledgments of the help and kindness received from professors, librarians, keepers of archives, etc. Among these appear the names of Wackernagel, P. Gall-Morel, Franz Hoffmann, and the Cardinal Prince-Bishop of Breslau, Melchior von Diepenbrock, 1 Many examples of this occur. See especially I, Ixxvi and II, xi.
= Meister Eckhart
‘ who never tired of lending me a helping hand.’ He is especially grateful to the then Prefect of the Vatican Archives who enabled him to trace and placed at his disposal eight documents (s. Pertz. archiv 9, 449) relating to Eckhart and of much importance ‘ as showing the relations of Eckhart with the Church, his position with regard to the Archbishop of Cologne and the justification of the latter for setting in motion the Inquisition against him, as well as for the history of the powerful spiritual movement which at the beginning of the fourteenth century took place on the Rhine.’ All these documents he reserves for his projected volume of Notes, with the exception of one short quotation from Eckhart’s Declara- tion at Cologne, 18 Feb. 1327. This, together with other relevant documents, was afterwards published by Preger at the end of the first volume of his Geschichte der deutschen Mystik.