Meister Eckhart
About this site
This site exists to make Meister Eckhart readable without flattening him. He preached in German to ordinary people and to nuns, and he wrote in Latin for scholars, and both kinds of writing can be hard going now, seven hundred years later. The aim here is simple: give you his own words first, then a plain explanation of what he seems to be saying, so you can judge for yourself whether the explanation holds up.
This presents Eckhart's own words, quoted, followed by a reading of them. If you want to go further you can look at the library in full or start with start here.
His words first
Every page that quotes Eckhart marks the quote clearly and gives you the sermon or tractate it comes from. The explanation that follows is ours, and it is written to sit next to his words, not to replace them.
If I were asked to say what end the creator has created creatures for, I would answer: rest. And if I were asked a second time, what are all creatures seeking so eagerly by nature? I would answer: rest. And if a third time I were asked what the soul seeks in all her restlessness, again I would say: rest.
Sermon 45: Rest: what the soul is really looking for
That line is from Sermon 45. Read it on its own and it already says most of what needs saying. The plain-English part exists to give it context: who he was preaching to, what rest meant for him, how it connects to other things he said about detachment or the ground of the soul. The quote does the main work. The explanation is scaffolding.
How quotes are checked
Every quote on this site is checked against the Evans translation before it goes up. Nothing is paraphrased and then put in quotation marks as if it were Eckhart speaking. If a line looks like Eckhart but cannot be found in the text, it does not get used, and if we ever catch one that slipped through, we fix it and say so.
This matters more with Eckhart than with most writers, because he was investigated for heresy in Cologne in 1326 and died before Rome ruled on his case. The bull In agro dominico, issued in 1329, condemned twenty-eight statements attributed to him, some of them taken out of the context he gave them. Readers deserve better than another round of that. If you want to read about the trial itself, see the life.
Why the Evans translation
The quotes here come from C. de B. Evans's English translation of Franz Pfeiffer's German edition, published in 1924 as volume 1 of Meister Eckhart. It is public domain, which means it can be quoted here in full and at length without restriction, and it covers most of the German sermons and treatises that made Eckhart's name: the sermons themselves, the Book of Divine Consolation, the treatise on detachment, and more.
It is not the only translation worth reading. Modern scholars such as Bernard McGinn and Oliver Davies, working from Josef Quint's critical edition, use different sermon numbers and sometimes render passages quite differently. If you want to compare editions and see where the numbering diverges, there is a page on editions.
Who runs this
This site is edited by Gregory Lahn.
Sources
Free by email
30 Days with Meister Eckhart
One short passage from his sermons each day for thirty days, with a plain paragraph on what he means. It is free, and leaving takes one click.