ECKHART, JOHANNES ["MEISTER ECKHART"' (I260? 1327), German philosopher, the first of the great speculative mystics of the West, was • born at Hochheim, near Gotha. He entered the Dominican order and in 1302 became a master of theology at Paris. Two years later he was made provincial of his order for Saxony, and in 1307 vicar-general for Bohemia. In both provinces he was distinguished for his practical reforms and for his power in preaching.
Released from his offices in 1311, Eckhart taught in Paris until 1314, when he was sent to Strasbourg. Later he was transferred to Cologne, where, in 1326, the archbishop took proceedings against his doctrines. In the following year, that of his death, Eckhart publicly declared his orthodoxy and appealed to Pope John XXII. In 1329, 28 of his propositions were condemned by the Holy See.
Eckhart has been termed a scholastic mystic, ,rather than a mystical scholastic, because he colours the Aristotelian elements in Aquinas with the mysticism of the pseudo-Dionysius. The two most important doctrines in his, as in all mystical systems, are those of the Divine nature and of the relation between God and creatures, especially the human soul.
For Eckhart, God is the absolute and infinite Being best char acterized as nothing on the ground that His simplicity is irrec oncilable with a plurality of predicates. If any attribute could be ascribed to Him, it would be the esse implied in the scriptural Ego sum qui sum, though strictly speaking, God is, rather than has esse. In spite of this assertion that the Divine essence and existence are identical, Eckhart goes on to declare that apart from the Divine existence there is nothing. Ens tantum unum est et Deus est. Every creature has its own essence, but its existence is that of God, and God and the creature are more closely re lated than matter or form or than the parts and the whole. In addition to this pantheistic leaning, the statement that at the same time that God engendered His Son, co-eternal and equal to Himself, He created the world, brought Eckhart's orthodoxy under suspicion. The statement may not apply to the exterior effect of the eternal act of God, but Eckhart's interpretation of the in principio of Genesis as the nunc acternitatis suggests that it does.
Although the Divine existence permeates all being, it is re garded by Eckhart as especially manifested in the human soul, whose end is union with God. This union is to be accomplished through knowledge. The soul must first understand that creatures in themselves are nothing, and then, having perceived the con tinuity of its being with the Divine being, it can dispense with the external means of salvation and abandon itself to God, Who finds in it His own existence.
Eckhart's style is unsystematic and abounding in symbolical expression, but his successful exposition of scholastic doctrines in an undeveloped tongue has made him the father of German philosophical language.
For the German writings of Eckart see F. Pfeiffer, Deutsche Mys tiker, vol. ii. (Leipzig, 1857; Eng. trans. by C. B. Evans, 1924) ; for the Latin works, H. Denifle in Archiv f. Litt.- and Kirchengeschichte d. Mittelalters, ii. (1886) ; German translations by G. Landauer (Ber lin, 1903) , and Buttner (Leipzig, 2 vols., 1917) ; M. Grabmann, "Neuaufgefundene Pariser Quaestionem Eckharts," in Abhand. d. Bayr. Akademie der Wiss. (1927) ; E. Longpre, "Quaestions inedites de, maitre Eckhart," in Rev. Neoscol (1927); A. Daniels, Eine lateinische Rechtfertigungsschrift des Meisters Eckhart (Munster, 1923) and G. Thery, "Edition critique des pieces relatives au proces d'Eckhart," in Arch. d'hist. doctrinale et litt. du moyen age, i. (1926). See further A. Lasson, Meister Eckhart der Mystiker (1868) ; W. Preger, Geschichte d. deutschen Mystik, 3 vols. (1874-92) ; H. Delacroix, Le Mysticisme speculatif en Allemagne au XIVe siecle (Paris, 1900) ; A. Spamer, "Zur Uberlieferung der Pfeifferschen Echeharttexte," in Beitr. z. Gesch. de deutschen Sprache (1908) and in the same periodical for 1909, M. Pahncke, "Untersuchungen zu den deutschen Predigten M. Eckharts" ; P. Strauch, Meister Eckhart- Probleme (Halle, 1912) ; X. de Hornstein, Les grands Mystiques allemands du XIVe Siecle (Lucerne, 1922) ; O. Karrar, Meister Eckhart (Munich, 1926) ; Ueberweg, Grundriss der Gesch. der Phil., bd. ii., containing a full bibliography (1928) . (See MYSTICISM.)