Poor in Spirit: Spiritual Poverty in Meister Eckhart's German Works Restricted; Files & ToC

Abstract

This dissertation explores the fourteenth-century Dominican friar Meister Eckhart’s teachings on spiritual poverty in three of his German works. In this study, I argue that spiritual poverty is an overlooked yet central theme throughout Eckhart's career, from his earliest works to his latest. Through a careful analysis of Eckhart's vernacular writings, I contend that Eckhart's teachings on poverty evolve quite radically over the course of his career as a friar, preacher, and scholar. As I demonstrate, the key to this evolution lay in his evolving exegesis of Matthew 5:3 and his various attempts to define what poverty is and what a poor person is. To contextualize this argument, I situate Eckhart as a Dominican in the problem complex of late-medieval poverty debates in which poverty had become a catalyst of church reform and a source of grave controversy in the preceding centuries. After offering an overview of these medieval poverty debates, I examine Eckhart’s vernacular writings on poverty chronologically from his earliest accounts of spiritual poverty centered around striving after God's will in Die rede der underscheidunge (Talks of Instruction) to knowing God by having nothing in common with anything in the Daz buoch der goetlichen troestunge (Liber Benedictus) and on to his Armutspredigt in which Eckhart argues that we must give up all willing, knowing, and having and be free of God. In this analysis, I show that the changes in his account of poverty of spirit stem from his continuous exploration and expansion of the possible meanings of “spirit” in “poor in spirit” and his ability to present the full spectrum of “spirit's” meanings comprehensively in his mature work.

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About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Religion
Subfield / Discipline	Historical Studies in Theology and Religion
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Religion, History of History, Medieval Theology
Keyword	Vernacular Theology German Dominican Spirituality Medieval Christianity Meister Eckhart Poverty Spiritual Poverty Mendicants Medieval Philosophy Medieval Theology
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Philip Reynolds, Emory University Jonathan Strom, Emory University
Committee Members	Kevin Corrigan, Emory University James Morey, Emory University

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