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ABSTRACT
The Granum Sinapis – the ‘Mustard Seed’ – an early fourteenth century German poem, is a concise expression of the mystical and paradoxical precepts of Meister Eckhart. To find the way into the nothingness of God’s mystery, one must pursue the path into the desert– a path without a route leading into a space with no boundaries. The composition was given its title by a Latin scholar whose scholastic commentary was transmitted along with the poem. Appended to the commentary are two crude diagrams, one, an empty circle, the other a set of concentric circles, that in their simplicity both mirror the poem as well as provide a final, eloquent gloss on the interaction between the apophatic theologies of Dionysius the Areopagite and Meister Eckhart. Like the vision of the bat looking into the sun, so does human understanding fail when contemplating God. Yet it is precisely through the medium of blindness that man comes closest to union with the divine.
Notes on contributor
Philip Liston-Kraft, a graduate of Harvard College, Tufts University School of Medicine, and the Harvard Law School, has most recently served as in-house counsel at Biogen, Inc., located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is currently a student in the doctoral program in Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University where his research interests include medieval German mystical writings and medical treatises.
Notes
1 I have included the German text of the poem as an Appendix to this paper, along with my own translation. A non-rhymed translation by Karen J. Campbell may be found in German Mystical Writings, 141–4.
2 There are ten extant manuscripts containing the poem. Theben, Die Mystische Lyrik, 186. The transmission of the poem is remarkably consistent in the various manuscripts. Ibid., 277.
3 Turner, The Darkness of God, 32.
4 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 311 (‘eine genuine Schöpfung der Deutschen Mystik’). See also Haug, ‘Meister Eckhart und das ‘Granum Sinapis’’, 73–4, where he praises the poem as unique in every respect: ‘Einigkeit besteht sowohl im Hinblick auf die hohe formal-poetische Kunst des Liedes … als auch hinsichtlich seines herausragenden theologischen Niveaus.’
5 Dietrich, ‘Wilderness of God’, 37.
6 Ruh, ‘Textkritik zum Mystikerlied’.
7 Ruh, ‘Granum Sinapis’, 222. Maria Bindschedler, in her introduction to her edition of the Latin commentary, adopts a similar position, namely that the poem must have stemmed from someone close to Eckhart. Das Lateinische Kommentar, 15.
8 Ruh, Meister Eckhart, 49–50 (‘Ich habe heute keine Bedenken mehr, in ihm [Meister Eckhart] nicht nur den geistigen Anreger, sondern den wirklichen Verfasser zu sehen’).
9 Haug, ‘Meister Eckhart und das ‘Granum Sinapis’’, 90–1.
10 Ibid., 91. Haas remains non-committal as to authorship. Sermo Mysticus, 305.
11 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 306; Ruh, Textikritik zum Mystikerlied, 89 (‘Ich zweifle nicht daran, dass sie [die deutschen Strophen] in der Tat gesungen worden sind, bzw. als Gesang gedacht waren’).
12 Hellgardt, ‘Ein andechtige betrachtunge’, 301.
13 Ruh, Meister Eckhart, 49; Ruh, ‘Granum Sinapis’, 221.
14 Bindschedler, Der Lateinische Kommentar, 11, 16.
15 Ibid., 16–7.
16 Ruh, Meister Eckhart, 51 (‘Dieser Befund, der Kommentar als früheste Existenzform des Gedichts in der Überliefung, läβt sich zwanglos, wenn nicht durch die Personengleichheit, so doch nur durch die Personenverbindung von Dichter und Kommentator erklären’).
17 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 306.
18 Ibid. (‘Die gedankliche und stilitische Versheidenartigkeit der Quellentexte bedingt die unausgeglichen schillernde Vielfarbigkeit des sprachlichen Tenors’).
19 Haug, ‘Meister Eckhart und das ‘Granum Sinapis’’, 84–5; Radler, ‘Anatomy of a Mustard Seed’, 475.
20 Bindschedler, Der Lateinische Kommentar, 17–8. For a history of Eckhart’s trial and posthumous condemnation, see, e.g. McGinn, Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, 10–5, 71–81.
21 Radler, ‘Anatomy of a Mustard Seed’, 471.
22 Ibid., 475.
23 Ruh, Meister Eckhart, 51ff.
24 Köbele, ‘Von ‘Schrumpfen’ der Rede’, 130.
25 Kern, Trinität, 179. Kern speculates that the poem may have been influential on later Meisterlieder in which the theme of Word-Trinity was somewhat obscurely addressed. See ibid.
26 The poem actually says that the Word ‘is’ always born out of God – not ‘was’ (‘ist ie das Wort’). This presumed error was corrected by the majority of copyists, but as Ruh points out, this was hardly a mistake: The use of the present tense verb ist was entirely consistent with Eckhart's theology of the ever present, recurrent birth. Ruh, Meister Eckhart, 50.
27 Theben, Die Mystiche Lyrik, 325 (‘Zugleich ist die Liebe mit dem Heiligen Geist zu identifizieren, der aus dem Sohn floss, so wie der Sohn aus dem Vater geflossen sei. Die Liebe bringt die völlige Gleichheit der drei Göttlichen Personen zum Ausdruck – der Heilige Geist ist die Liebe, in der sich Vater und Sohn aufeinander beziehen und eins sind’); Haug, ‘Meister Eckhart und das ‘Granum Sinapis’’, 77 (‘Vater, Sohn und Geist – Eins sind, differenziert und doch ununterscheidbar’).
28 See Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 314–5.
29 Ibid., 314. The circle as metaphor for the divinity is used by other German mystics as well: Heinrich Seuse (c. 1295–1366), a disciple of Eckhart, for example, uses the metaphor of the circle in The Exemplar: ‘A wise teacher says that God in his Godhead is like a very large circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.’ Suso, The Exemplar, Chapter 53, 201. See also Müller, ‘Gott ist (K)eine Sphäre’, 311–2 (discussing Alan of Lille’s formula ‘Deus est sphaera intelligibilis, cujus centrum ubique, circumferentia nusquam’).
30 Cf. Suso, The Exemplar, Chapter 53, 203 (‘In its abiding simplicity, it is carried forth again with the three Persons into the abyss where it delights in its blessedness in highest truth’).
31 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 316.
32 See ibid.
33 See, e.g. Tobin, Meister Eckhart: Thought and Language, 162, ff. Ernst Hellgardt refers to the paradoxes of the Granum as ‘Rätsel-Paradoxien,’ in the genre of the riddle and ‘Wissenswettkampf’ tradition. Hellgardt, ‘Ein andechtige betrachtunge’, 321–2.
34 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 316 (‘Das Paradox liegt gerade in dieser Implikation vorstellbarer Gröβe in die mit ihr unverträgliche Kleinheit des Punktes’).
35 Haug, ‘Meister Eckhart und das ‘Granum Sinapis’’, 81.
36 McGinn, Mystical Thought, 48. See also McGinn, ‘Ocean and Desert as Symbols’, 155–81.
37 Dietrich, ‘Wilderness of God’, 36.
38 Ibid., 37.
39 Haug, ‘Meister Eckhart und das ‘Granum Sinapis’’, 89 (‘[D]as Zunichtwerden wird expliziert als Preisgabe der Raumzeitlichkeit, der Aufstieg zur Wüste wird zu einem weglosen Weg … ’).
40 Ibid., 91.
41 As Susanne Köbele points out, the Latin commentator would be particularly concerned to explain that the soul’s union with God would take place ‘non in hac vita.’ Köbele, ‘Von ‘Schrumpfen’ der Rede’, 132.
42 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 322.
43 See McGinn, Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart, 94 (‘What makes God utterly distinct or different from everything else is that he alone is totally one or indistinct from everything’).
44 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 319.
45 Ibid., 321.
46 See Falque, Imagery and Knowledge of God, 452–3.
47 Suso, The Exemplar, Chapter 53, 201.
48 Hamburger, ‘The Use of Images’, 27. See also Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 322 (‘Der Abbau der Erwartungs- und Bildmuster, der durch den aufgewiesenen Bildentzug im Prozeβ des Bilderaustriebens durch Bilder zustande kommt, ist nicht denkbar ohne die durch die Bilder gegebene Evokation dieses “Mehr”’).
49 Suso, The Exemplar, 203.
50 Haug cites similar instances of this paradox elsewhere in the Eckhartian oeuvre. Meister Eckhart, 82 (‘Blind werden, um Gott zu sehen, ist wiederum eine Eckhartsche paradoxe Formulierung’).
51 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 315.
52 Ibid., 324. See also Köbele, ‘Von ‘Schrumpfen’ der Rede’, 130 (Through its use of metaphor, paradox, and repetition, the poem creates a Leerstelle that marks off the vacuum around the deus absconditus).
53 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 326 (‘die mystiche Wahrheit, daβ Selbstverlust den Gewinn Gottes findet’).
54 Theben, Die Mystiche Lyrik, 133 (‘[S]obald das Lied mit dem Kommentar verbunden war … wurde es wohl nicht als für den Gesang bestimmtes Lied rezipiert, sondern eher als zur Andacht geeigneter Lesetext’). Independent of the Latin commentary, the poem itself became the object of a meditative German commentary dating from the early fifteenth century. In distinction to the Latin model, the German commentary does not concern itself with a scholastic explication of the poem’s text: ‘Es handelt sich vielmehr um fromme, ziemlich freie Meditationen beim Anlaβ des gegebenen Textes, die mit den sprachlichen Mitteln des Bitt-, Lob- und Dankgebetes formuliert sind.’ Hellgardt, ‘Ein andechtige betrachtunge’, 322. The German commentary is not the subject of this paper, although it is a prime example of how the Granum served as a ‘zur Andacht geeigneter Lesetext.’
55 Bindschedler, Der Lateinsiche Kommentar, §2.1, 34.
56 Mt 13, 31f; Mk 4, 30–32, Lk 13, 18f. See Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 307 (‘Das aufs Reich Gottes oder das Himmelreich bezogene evangelistiche Gleichnis indiziert hier das dialektische Verhältnis von minimaler Gestalt und maximaler Auswirkung’).
57 Horowitz, Seeds of Virtue, 55 (Seeds and sparks ‘are common in medieval thought, and the … two vegetative and light images lend themselves to mystical vision and artistic portrayal’). Eckhart, Tauler and other mystical theologians referred to the centre of the soul as the ‘spark,’ the ‘castle,’ the ‘seed,’ etc. McGinn, Mystical Thought, 41.
58 Ruh, Meister Eckhart, 55. Ruh refers to Dionysius as ‘d[ie] maβgebliche[] Autorität des europäischen Mittelalters in Fragen der Mystik.’
59 McGinn, Mystical Thought, 177 (‘[t]he full range of Dionysius’s impact on Eckhart’s mysticism could easily use a monograph of its own’).
60 Ibid. See also Chenu, Nature, Man and Society, 80.
61 Such metaphors had their origin in the encounter of Hebraic and Greek thought with the theology of the Christian West. See Turner, Darkness of God, 11–8.
62 Pseudo-Dionysius, Complete Works, ‘Mystical Theology,’ Ch. 1, 135.
63 Turner, The Darkness of God, 21.
64 Ibid., 42.
65 Pseudo-Dionysius, Complete Works, ‘Mystical Theology,’ Ch. 3, 139.
66 Ibid., Ch. 2, 138.
67 Bindschedler, Das Lateinische Kommentar, §1.1, 32.
68 Ibid., §44.6, 100.
69 Ibid., §44.7.
70 Ibid., §51.2, 110.
71 Ibid., §52.1–2, 112.
72 Ibid., §44.6, 100.
73 Ibid., §52.2, 112. See also Haug, ‘Meister Eckhart und das ‘Granum Sinapis’’, 82 (‘Und wenn schlieβlich gefordert wird, daβ das Etwas-Sein wie das Nichts zurückzulassen seien, so klingt die dionysische Forderung an, daβ sowohl alles Afiirmative wie alles Negierende in der Gotteserkenntnis übersteigen werden muβ’).
74 Chenu, Nature, Man and Society, 80.
75 See ibid. (Dionysian hierarchy fuses cosmology and soteriology).
76 Pseudo-Dionysius, Complete Works, ‘The Celestial Hierarchy,’ Ch. 1, 145.
77 Ibid.
78 Ibid., 146. The hierarchy ‘ensures that when its members have received this full and divine splendor they can then pass on this light generously and in accordance with God’s will to beings further down the scale.’ Ibid., Ch. 3, 154.
79 Ibid., Ch. 1, 146.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid., 145.
82 Ibid., 146.
83 Ibid., Ch. 3, 154.
84 Bindschedler, Das Lateinische Kommentar, 84 (‘sicut centrum finit lineas et ab ipso lineae deducuntur, ita deus deducit et limitat creaturas et finit eas’).
85 Ibid.
86 Although I have not focused on this point, the Latin commentary contributes its own vocabulary to the metaphor of the circle. For example, the divine light, once taken up by a transparent body (‘in corpore diaphano receptus’) is encircled from all sides (‘undique circumclusus’). Bindschedler, Das Lateinische Kommentar, §51.2, 110; elsewhere, the author cites the happy and joyous sphere (‘omnem sphaeram laetam iocundamque’) ibid., §50.9, 108, and so forth.
87 Hamburger, Rothschild Canticles, 131. The diagrams appear only in the Basel manuscript, the ‘oldest and best’ according to Bindschedler, Das Lateinische Kommentar, 246, 25.
88 Bindschedler, Das Lateinische Kommentar, §82.1–2, 160.
89 Ibid., §82.3.
90 Bindschedler notes that the constricted handwriting of the glosses to the diagrams is not indicative of another hand. Ibid., 246.
91 Kessler, Spiritual Seeing, 53.
92 Radler, ‘Anatomy of a Mustard Seed’, 557.
93 Louth, ‘Truly Visible Things’, 23.
94 Pseudo-Dionysius, Complete Works, ‘Letter Nine to Titus’, 283.
95 Louth, ‘Truly Visible Things’, 18.
96 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 336.
97 Müller, Gott ist (k)eine Sphäre, 318.
98 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 336.
99 Ibid.
100 Müller, ‘Gott ist (k)eine Sphäre’, 311–12. See also Kessler, ‘Medietas/Mediator’, 49ff.
101 Müller, ‘Gott ist (k)eine Sphäre’, 314.
102 Murdoch, Album of Science, 52.
103 Ibid., 52ff.
104 Ibid., 42.
105 Obrist, ‘Guillaume de Conches’, 144.
106 Ibid.
107 Ibid., 124.
108 Ibid., 144–5. William’s use of the term ‘firmamentum’ is also a new addition to the cosmological diagram.
109 Pseudo-Dionysius, Complete Works, ‘The Divine Names,’ Ch. 5, 97–8 (Divine intelligences are superior to creatures with reason, who are superior to creatures that merely perceive, who are above creatures that simply live).
110 See Saint Augustine, City of God, Book XI, Chapter 16, 447–8 (including inanimate objects within the ranking of beings ‘distinct from God’).
111 Carruthers, Book of Memory, 316.
112 Ibid., 317.
113 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 307 (‘von minimaler Gestalt und maximaler Auswirkung’).
114 Bindschedler, Das Lateiniche Kommentar, §28.12, 72, where the commentator cites Dionysius (‘quod in una domo sint multa luminaria et ad unum quoddam lumen unita omnium lumina et una claritate indiscreta resplendentia; et nullus, ut arbitror, possit huius luminaris lumen ab aliis ex aere omnia continente discernere et videre sine altero totis in totis sine commixtione concretis’).
115 Bindschedler, Das Lateinische Kommentar, §5.1, 42 (‘Materia huius libri dividitur primum in duas partes, in prima determinat auctor de theologia distinctiva, in secunda de unitiva’).
116 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 327.
117 Bindschedler, Das Lateinische Kommentar, §5.1, 42.
118 Pseudo-Dionysius, Complete Works, ‘The Divine Names,’ Ch. 2, 62.
119 Hamburger, The Rothschild Chronicles, 131.
120 Pseudo-Dionysius, Complete Works, ‘The Celestial Hierarchy,’ Ch. 3, 154.
121 Hamburger, The Rothschild Chronicles, 131.
122 Pseudo-Dionysius, Complete Works, ‘The Divine Names,’ Ch. 5, 103.
123 Cf. Müller, ‘Gott ist (k)eine Sphäre’, 343–4 (discussing the ‘Zusammenfall der Gegensätze’ in Cusanus's De docta ignorantia).
124 Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary, 278.
125 Haas, Sermo Mysticus, 312.
126 Tobin, Meister Eckhart: Thought and Language, 122.
127 Ströbele, ‘Die Einfachheit Gottes’, 125.
128 Ibid. 119.
129 Bindschedler, Das Lateinische Kommentar, §51.3, 110 (‘ut dicit auctor Perspectivae, scilicet reflexum, fractum et directum, relexum, sicut a speculo et allis politis corporibus, que reiciunt a se lumen receptum’).
130 Pseudo-Dionysius, Complete Works, ‘The Celestial Hierarchy,’ Ch. 3, 154.
131 Ball, Byzantinisches Christentum, 209 (‘Und so ergibt sich als Resultat: die Vereinfachung selbst ist hier Religion geworden’).
132 Ströbele, ‘Die Einfachheit Gottes’, 104.
133 The German is taken from Ruh, Meister Eckhart, pp. 47-49.