¹meinen:  to direct one’s thoughts at God
²tätige Vernunft: creative reason
³Licht der Glorie:  state of grace
⁴Meister: the Church Fathers, Church authorities
⁵This "fliessendes liecht" clearly parallells the «fließendes Licht der Gottheit», Mechthild von Magdeburg’s attempt to describe divine grace.
⁶Schwung:  leap
⁷Dionysios Areopagites (after the Areopagus, ancient Athens’s highest court, of which the legendary first bishop of Athens was a member);  here the name refers to an anonymous apocryphal Christian writer of the 6th century who advocated a form of theology which assumes one can only say and understand that which is not God.  His treatises deeply influenced medieval mystical thinkers.  A manifestation of this negative theology can even be detected in the writings of the Baroque poet Angelus Silesius.
⁸Urbild:  the soul as the primordial image of God
⁹that is, the soul is now subject to its own desires which in turn alienate it from God.
¹⁰die nicht nach Gut noch Ehre noch Gemach noch Lust noch Nutzen noch Innigkeit noch Heiligkeit noch Lohn noch Himmelreich trachten:  those who seek neither worldly possessions nor external honor, neither amenities nor gratification of their desires, neither utility nor intimate relationships, neither holiness nor rewards or the kingdom of heaven
¹¹anschlagen:  to value
¹²es steckt ein Makel darin:  ‘this kind of thinking is flawed’
¹³Ungemach:  adversity
¹⁴that is, not care anything at all about God
¹⁵gleichmütig:  imperturbable, that is, accepting
¹⁶Wesenheit:  existence
¹⁷that is, the cognitive process