This
would be a victory of time over eternity, a victory of irreligion over
religion.
I regard it as the greatest achievement of that great time that
spontaneous religion again became possible. Eckhart rediscovered the
divine nature of man; never has the consciousness of timeless eternity
been expressed as he expressed it in his tract, _On Solitude_. Doubtless
there have been men before him who possessed direct religious
intuitions, and now and then gave timid utterance to them; but the
authority of tradition has always been too great, and they never did
more than compromise between the historical events on which the
Christian religion is based and the genuinely religious experience of
their own souls. Eckhart, too, was careful not to offend against the
letter, and his pupils, after suspicion had fallen on them, made many a
concession in terms, and perhaps even in thought. St. Augustine already
had steered a middle course between the historical and the religious
conception, in his phrase: _Per Christum hominem at Christum deum_, and
Suso (in his _Booklet of Eternal Wisdom_) followed his lead.
Pages:
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177