MEISTER ECKEHART
1260 - 1327
German Theologian
Johannes Eckhart was born in Hocheim, Germany. He entered the Dominican order, studied and taught in Paris. He faced the Franciscans in several famous theological debates and became Dominican provincial in Saxony (1303--11). From 1312 he preached at Strasbourg, Frankfurt, and Cologne.
His teaching was a mystic pantheism, influential on later religious mysticism and speculative philosophy. In both his Latin and German works Eckehart describes the four stages of union between the soul and God as dissimilarity, similarioty, identity, and breakthrough.
In 1325 he was charged for heresy by the Archbishop of Cologne, and two years after his death his writings were condemned by Pope John XXII.