‘Hearing the Inner Word’: The Eckhartian Roots of Radical Dissent and ‘Enthusiasm’

ABSTRACT This paper will focus on the progenitorial influence of Meister Eckhart’s mystical thought and its theological and historiographical legacy vis-à-vis his own writings and those of his disciples, Johannes Tauler and Henry Suso, including the mystical treatises influenced by them, the Theologia Deutsch among them. It will contextualize the intrigue with late-medieval German mysticism among sixteenth-century ‘radical’ reformers, who ironically have been called the ‘unruly offspring of Luther.’ In particular, it will provide a succinct overview of how the constellation of mystical teachings integral to Eckhart’s theology of the Word were selectively appropriated by radicals and ‘Spiritualists’ like Thomas Müntzer, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, Sebastian Franck, Valentin Weigel and others who reconceptualized and prioritized the authority of the Inner Word over the Outer Word. Because they confused the proper ordering of external and internal divine revelation, many of them were condemned and vilified by Luther as Schwärmer (‘enthusiasts’) ─as if ‘swarmed’ by bees.