Dear John,
Porete does indeed share a large part of her theological vocabulary with
Eckhart, notably such themes as living 'without a why', detachment
('abgeschiedenheit' in Eckhart), spiritual poverty, the 'ground' of the
soul, union of indistinction, that those who seek to locate God with
mediaries and the human reason are 'merchants', 'asses', etc.
The correspondances between them tend to predominate in the vernacular:
Eckhart's Latin works are theologically more precise, which is to be
expected given that they were intended to be delivered to an
ecclesiastical (monastic/scholastic) rather than a tertiary
(beguine) audience. This is not to say that the concerns themselves or
his faculty theology are different, merely that the expressions he uses
in his German works seem to share more of Porete's bold and radical
formulae. These correspondances exist in other of the Rhineland
'mystics', and in apocryphal works of the Eckhart canon, such as the
anonymous 'Schwester Katrei' treatise.
Making more of this connection than can be claimed with certainty, I
would not advise: I believe that their similarities attest more to a
prevalent theological vocabulary than to any direct influence. This
matter however I won't explore at length here: my own work on Porete
addresses it in more detail.
As for websites, there are indeed several sites of interest on Eckhart,
including one run by us here at the Eckhart Society. If you would like
to know more about the Eckhart Society, please address queries to the
Secretary, address below:
Ashley Young
Secretary
The Eckhart Society
Summa
22 Tippings Lane
Woodley
Reading
Berkshire
RG5 4RX
I hope this is of assistance.
Rebecca A. Stephens
University of Birmingham.
On Fri, 5 Feb 1999,
John B.Wickstrom wrote:
> Porette is usually thought to have great affinities with Meister
> Eckhart, the true magister of negative theology. Sampling his Latin
> sermons followed by a few of the German sermons gives a good sense of
> his thought. His more abstract discussions can be found in his
> Exegesis of the Gospel of John (prob. lots of this on the web; I just
> haven't looked lately)
>
> --
>
>
>
> John B. Wickstrom
> Kalamazoo College
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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