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Life and teaching of Meister Eckhart

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Meister Eckhart : Biography

Dominican preacher, theologian and mystic, born about 1260 at Hochheim, near Gotha; died in 1327 at Cologne. He made his philosophical and theological studies in the Dominican Order. Although a profound mystic he was also an able man of affairs, admirably manifesting the spirit of his order by uniting throughout his career great activity with contemplation. After a period of teaching he was made, in 1298, prior of the Dominican convent at Erfurt and vicar-provincial of Thuringia. Two years later he began to lecture at Paris, where in 1302 his order gave him the degree of Master of Sacred Theology. In the following year he was elected provincial of the province of Saxony, to which office he was re-elected in 1307, when he was also appointed vicar-general of Bohemia and charged to reform its convents. His term of office having expired in 1311, he again took a professorial chair at Paris, whence he went in 1314 to teach at Strasbourg. After three years he was made prior at Frankfort. He finally returned to the schools in 1320, when he was made first professor of his order at Cologne, where he remained until his death.

  
  
  



Meister Eckhart : Bibliography

- Meister Eckhart, The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, Classics of Western Spirituality 28, ed. Edmund Colledge & Bernard McGinn (New York: Paulist Press, 1981) paperback, $18. Eckhart was one of the most radical of the medieval mystics: he writes using brilliant paradoxes, striking imagery, provocative claims—yet was schooled in all the subtleties of medieval scholasticism. His orthodoxy was challenged, and some of his positions were posthumously condemned.
- Meister Eckhart, Teacher and Preacher, Classics of Western Spirituality 52, ed. Bernard McGinn & Frank Tobin (New York: Paulist Press, 1986) paperback, $18.
- Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings, ed. Oliver Davies (New York: Penguin Book, 1994) paperback, $12.

Meister Eckhart : Portraits

Eckhart
Meister Eckhart

Meister Eckhart : Links


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