Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa: Eucharist and Mystical Transformation

We are told that Eckhart taught the following: ‘We shall all be transformed totally into God and changed into him. In the same way, when in the sacrament bread is changed into Christ’s Body, I am so changed into him that he makes me his one existence, and not just similar. By the living God it is true that there is no distinction here’.1 So reads the tenth article that Pope John XXII condemned as heretical in his infamous bull on Eckhart’s teachings, In agro dominico. The article is surely provocative. Unlike much late medieval piety, it does not say that receiving the Eucharist unites us with Christ, but rather sets two transformations side by side: bread into Christ’s body, and the human self into God’s very being. It therefore seems that mystical union can occur without the sacrament – on a parallel track, so to speak. Yet what alarms Eckhart’s critics is not that he sets the Eucharist aside, but that the parallel between the sacrament and mystical transformation appears to abolish all distinction. For we become God as completely as Eucharistic bread becomes Christ’s body. Bernard McGinn describes this parallel as an ‘unfortunate analogy’ (Eckhart, 1981, p. 52), and indeed it was for Eckhart’s reputation. However, I fi nd it a useful comparison for two reasons. First, it leads us to examine more closely Eckhart’s views on the Eucharist and its relation to his broader mystical themes. Second, in the fi fteenth century Nicholas of Cusa – who knew Eckhart’s work well – created a similar analogy, which thus provides a focus to compare two of my favourite thinkers. So for me the analogy is a fortunate one, because it gives me something to talk about today. My task is not to rehabilitate Eckhart, which – thanks in large measure to the Eckhart Society – has already been done. Rather, I shall discuss his theology of the Eucharist and mystical transformation, and compare it with Nicholas of Cusa’s. As we shall see, both emphasize a ‘spiritual’ understanding of the sacrament as receiving the divine Son or Word. As we perpetually hunger for and eat this extraordinary food, we undergo powerful transformations as we enter union with God and immortal life.