Andrew Weeks

Meister Eckhart and Valentin Weigel

This chapter considers the life and writings of Valentin Weigel with respect to the circumstances that conditioned them. In Weigel’s relation to Meister Eckhart, esoteric tradition and the mystical outsider take their place in a common world. Weigel’s writings explicitly acknowledge Eckhart. Their works represent a current of texts and ideas rather than a recurrent self-generating phenomenon or esoteric cult of mysticism. The chapter analyzes Weigel’s genuine Lutheran spirit and his un-Lutheran doctrinal deviations by considering his official defense of 22 August 1572. Weigel is orthodox in preaching contrition, but deviant in ascribing inner faith to those whose age or birthplace would make them unfamiliar with Christian doctrine. Weigel’s mystical-devotional treatise On Prayer illustrates how the seemingly contradictory sources and impulses of his thought are united in a scheme that is both hierarchical and egalitarian, and in which references to Eckhart are the paradoxical apex of a conceptual framework. Keywords:Lutheran theologians; Meister Eckhart; mysticism; On Prayer ; Valentin Weigel