Meister Eckhart, Explained

What this is

This ebook gathers 119 pieces from C. de B. Evans's 1924 English translation of Franz Pfeiffer's edition of Meister Eckhart, volume 1: 100 sermons, 18 treatises including On Detachment, and the collection known as the Sayings. That translation is in the public domain, and we have kept Evans's English as he wrote it, with only the scanning errors of the old printed copy corrected.

For every piece the book gives three things. A modern plain-English version of the piece, written by the editor, Gregory Lahn, so you can read Eckhart's sense without working through a hundred-year-old translation style. Evans's 1924 translation itself, kept in full. And a spiritual guide to the piece, covering the inner journey it describes, where that journey touches ordinary life, the common ways people go wrong trying to live it, a practice to try for the week, a short meditation, questions for reflection, and a list of key terms.

The book also has a long introduction to Eckhart's life and thought, a section on how to read him that deals honestly with the difficulty of his style and sources, and an afterword.

Who this is for

This is for people who already have some practice of Christian contemplation, through centering prayer or lectio divina, and want to sit with the preacher who shaped so much of that tradition's language about the soul's depth.

It is for readers who come from Zen, meditation or nonduality and keep hearing Eckhart's name mentioned alongside those paths, and want to read him for themselves instead of taking someone else's word for it.

It is also for students of philosophy and theology who want the full range of his sermons, treatises and sayings in one place, with help getting oriented in a body of work that was never written for easy reading.

Who this is not for

This is not a critical edition. You will not find the Middle High German here, nor footnotes on every manuscript variant, nor commentary on current scholarly debates about which pieces are authentic. For that level of apparatus, seek out a university press edition.

The spiritual guide that follows each piece focuses on practice and reflection. It includes a practice for the week and a short meditation, offering simple ways to sit with Eckhart's words without turning them into a slogan or a formula for inner peace. He is a demanding writer, and the guide helps readers stay with that difficulty, honoring its weight and complexity.

If you already own a full scholarly translation and read Middle High German comfortably, you probably don't need this. It's fine to pass.

What's inside

Each of the 119 pieces, the 100 sermons, the 18 treatises and the Sayings, appears in Evans's 1924 English in full, alongside a modern plain-English version of the same piece written by the editor, Gregory Lahn.

After each piece there is a spiritual guide. It sets out the inner journey the piece is describing, points to where that journey shows up in ordinary life, and names some of the common ways people go wrong trying to live it out. Each guide also gives a practice to try for the week, a short meditation, and a set of questions for reflection, along with a list of key terms used in that piece, words like Abgeschiedenheit (detachment), Gelassenheit (letting-be), the spark of the soul, or the birth of God in the soul.

The long introduction at the front covers Eckhart's life, his two terms as master of theology in Paris, his preaching in Strasbourg and Cologne, the 1326 heresy accusation, and the 1329 bull In agro dominico. A separate section on how to read Eckhart addresses the style and the difficulty of the material before you start. An afterword closes the book.

About the translation

C. de B. Evans published his English translation of Franz Pfeiffer's German edition of Eckhart in 1924. It is now in the public domain, which is why we can offer the full text here. The English is a little older in style, closer to the English of a hundred years ago, and we've left it as Evans wrote it rather than modernizing his wording. The modern plain-English version that sits alongside each piece is there for readers who want Eckhart's sense without working through that older style first.

Pfeiffer's edition uses its own numbering and ordering for the sermons, which differs from the numbering used in later translations such as Maurice O'C Walshe's or the Colledge and McGinn selection. If you've read Eckhart in one of those editions before, a sermon you know by one number may appear here under another. The introduction explains this so you're not caught off guard.

A plain note on reading Eckhart

Eckhart preached most of these sermons in German, to ordinary parish congregations and to nuns, not as formal Latin lectures for other theologians. That shapes the style: he repeats himself, he circles back, he pushes an image further than feels comfortable, because he was speaking out loud to people who needed to hear a thing more than once.

Some of his statements were judged too bold by the church of his own time, and twenty eight of them were condemned after his death, in a process he never saw concluded. That history is part of why Eckhart still gets read closely rather than taken at a glance. This book doesn't try to settle whether he was right. It tries to help you read what he actually wrote, in context, so you can weigh it for yourself.

What you get

• All 119 pieces, 100 sermons, 18 treatises and the Sayings, in C. de B. Evans's 1924 English translation, complete.
• A modern plain-English version of every piece, written by the editor, Gregory Lahn.
• A spiritual guide after every piece: the inner journey it describes, where it meets ordinary life, the ways people go wrong trying to live it, a practice for the week, a short meditation, and questions for reflection.
• A list of key terms for each piece, such as detachment, letting-be, the ground of the soul and the birth of God in the soul.
• A long introduction covering Eckhart's life, his preaching, the 1326 accusation and the 1329 condemnation.
• A section on how to read Eckhart, and an afterword.
• A note on how the Pfeiffer sermon numbering compares to the numbering used in other common English editions.
• Delivered as an EPUB and a designed PDF covering the complete collection, also published as a 10-volume edition on Amazon Kindle.

Get the complete Eckhart

Or get all five, the book, the course, the devotional, the journal and the guided audio, as The Complete Meister Eckhart Collection for $89, and save $29. Get the collection

The 30-day guarantee

Take 30 days with it. If it is not right for you, email Gregory@meistereckhart.com and you will get a full refund. You do not need to give a reason. The details are in the refund policy.

Questions

Is this different from the free Evans translation I can find online?

The Evans text itself is the same public domain translation you can find elsewhere. What this book adds is a modern plain-English version of every piece, written by the editor, Gregory Lahn, plus a spiritual guide with key terms, a weekly practice, a meditation and reflection questions, all gathered into one ebook along with a long introduction and an afterword.

Do I need a background in theology or medieval history to read this?

No. The modern plain-English versions and the spiritual guides are written for readers meeting Eckhart for the first time as well as for readers who already know his work. Theological terms are explained as they come up rather than assumed.

Why do the sermon numbers here look different from other Eckhart books I own?

This book follows the sermon numbering from the Pfeiffer edition as Evans translated it in 1924. Later translators, including Walshe, used a different numbering based on Josef Quint's scholarship. The introduction explains this so you can find your way between editions if you need to.

What formats do I get?

You get the complete book as an EPUB and as a designed PDF, covering all 119 pieces. The same content is also published as a 10-volume edition on Amazon Kindle, if you'd rather read it in smaller parts.

Does this tell me what to believe?

No. The spiritual guides explore what each piece is saying and offer ways to sit with it, through a weekly practice, a short meditation or questions for reflection. They don't ask you to adopt a particular belief. Eckhart wrote within the Christian tradition and the guides treat that seriously, without insisting on any one reading.

Who is Gregory Lahn?

Gregory Lahn is the editor of this book. He wrote the modern plain-English version of each piece and the spiritual guide that follows it.

Get the complete Eckhart

Or get all five, the book, the course, the devotional, the journal and the guided audio, as The Complete Meister Eckhart Collection for $89, and save $29. Get the collection