ECKHART, or ECKARDT, JoirANN•s (e. 12(10.1 327 ) A noted c horns n mystic, generally called Meister (blaster) Eckhart. Ile was of the Dominican Order, and in 1208 became prior at Erfurt ;Ind Vicar of Thuringia. ln 1303 he was made provincial of Ins Order for Saxony, and in 1307 1 icar-Gcneral of Bohemia. For several years he lectured at Paris. lie was distinguished for practical reforms and for his power as a preacher. lie systematized and expounded the fundamental notions of the lieghards (see 14: crixes) and brethren of the Free Spirit. The opponents of the Begha•ds found some proposi tions in Eckhart's works for which he was called to account by the Inquisition at Cologne in 1327. Ile made a recantation and appealed to the Pope, by some of his propositions were formally condemned. Probably before the issuing of this condemnation Eckhart died. ills works show that he was deeply learned in all the philosophy of the time, and a profound thinker. ills style is with out system, brief, mystical, and full of synilmlieal expressions; but his thinking was clear, calm, and logical, and he gave the most complete ex position of what may be called Christian pan theism. The starting-point of Ins doctrine is that, apart from God. there is no real beim. But, in his view, God is the unknown, ecm Pelves of the Godhead as without anything that can be affirmed concerning it. Anything defi nitely ascribed to it would limit and therefore destroy its infinity. The Godhead is not God as known to us. From it the triune God, who is known. The essence of the Godhead is what it is in itself; its nature is that which it becomes as an object for others. It reveals itself in the personal God, the Father. The Son is the word or expression through and hi which the Father beeomes self-conseious. The Father eter
nally begets the Son, and the Son's return into the Father in love and mutual will is the Spirit. The Father is Ind, before the Son; only through the begetting of the Son, only through arriving at self-consciousness. clues lie become the Father. The genesis of the Son from the Father involves also the produetion of the world of things; for God is reason. and in reason is contained the ideal world of creatures. In the Son all things are made in ideal form. As all things have arisen from God, so they all tend to return to Pepose in llim is the end of all things; and in man, the noblest of (Teatimes, this end is realized. In him, speoiall•, there is the power of reaching to the absolute, the ground both of God and the universe. This power—which Eck hart called the spar/—is in truth God working in man. In cognition of God, God and man are one; there is no distinction of knower and known. Union with God—the birth of the Son in the soul—is the ultimate end of activity, and is to be attained by resigning all individuality. \Vhen this is the soul is one with God: its will is Gods; it eannot sin. Yet all this applies only to the 'spark' in the scd. the other powers of wide]) may lie properly employed about other things. Thus. the way is left open to adjust the balance between feeling and action, between philosophieal theory and praetieal life. Consult: Pfeiffer. "Meister Eckart," seeond vol ume of Deutsche Mustiker (Leipzig. IS571, con taining a rich selection from his writings; Mar t ensen, Meister Eel,-hart (hamburg. I S42) : Preger, Gesrbirlite der deutschen llitlrlrriter (Lcilwig.1H74).