Preface

matches Chapter II in the "History of Doctor Tauler" Johannes Tauler (c. 1300–1361), a famous Dominican mystic and disciple of Eckhart. Could a piece by Eckhart have been chosen to exemplify a perverse way of preaching? However, the wearying enumeration of 24 signs of piety deviates too much from Eckhart's usual style. — Sayings 61–65 (p. 622) are fragments of Sermon LXXVII (pp. 249–251); Sayings 3, 12, and 26 are also taken from existing sermons. — Sermon LXXVI, 2 (pp. 243–249) repetitively merges Sermon LXXV (pp. 235–238) and LXXVI, 1 (pp. 238–243). — Treatise III (pp. 394–416) is composed of nothing but individual fragments of Eckhart's work, the majority of which we find again in their proper places within Pfeiffer's collection Franz Pfeiffer's 1857 edition of Eckhart's works was the first major attempt to collect his German writings. — In Greith (German Mysticism in the Order of Preachers, Freiburg im Breisgau 1861, pp. 96–202), the writing of a mystic is shared which—discounting a few passages borrowed from Suso Heinrich Suso (1295–1366), another influential student of Eckhart and Tauler—consists almost entirely of fragments from Eckhart; by far the largest part of these, about 100 in number, can still be identified in Pfeiffer's text. — More than 70 times, Eckhart cites statements that he himself has made, and these too are for the most part identifiable in our collection, just as the propositions of Eckhart condemned by the Pope Referring to the papal bull "In Agro Dominico" (1329) which condemned 28 of Eckhart's articles as heretical or dangerous are preserved for us in their correct and natural context. Thus, not only can the material in the Pfeiffer collection be proven authentic almost without exception, but it also seems to encompass the essential core of Eckhart's thoughts in sufficient completeness.

One must, of course, be prepared for the fact that the text has suffered unspeakably in parts through the misunderstanding or carelessness of the scribes. This is particularly easy to see in the pieces that formerly circulated under foreign names, such as many sermons found among those of Tauler (Sermons I–IV, VI, VII, XVII, XL–XLII, XLVII [attributed to Eckhart the Younger], LVII [attributed to Ruusbroec], LXIX, LXXVI, 1, LXXVII), as well as Treatise I, which is found in the Marrow of the Soul original: "Medulla animae" attributed to Tauler, Chapter 38, and Treatise XVII, which is found in the same place and as a writing of Ruusbroec On Certain Principal Virtues original: "de praecipuis quibusdam virtutibus". These pieces are undoubtedly Eckhart's property; but especially the