412. Eckhart and German Mysticism. -- Eckhart is not the great man of genius it has been customary to represent him. History of course gives a large place to his name, but chiefly as the promoter of a national literature and of a new mystical movement called "German Mysticism".

This new mysticism was popular in its appeal. It was embodied mainly in sermons and was characterized by the language it made use of no less than by the teaching it contained. It created a German terminology and carried over the scholastic vocabulary into the language of the people: therein lay its great merit. Its favourite themes also were borrowed from the treasures of scholasticism: over and over again the German mystics studied the Deity in the majestic tranquillity and impenetrable mystery of His Being: exalted outpourings of the soul in the contemplation of the Divine Life, the Divine Knowledge and the intercommunications of Divine Love in the Blessed Trinity, are the constantly recurring subjects of their writings and discourses.

Eckhart was not the founder of this mystic school, but he is its first great representative.^{1} His Latin works were forgotten even by his own contemporaries, but his sermons in the vernacular were carried far and wide beyond the cloisters of the convent in which they were originally composed.

{1} his forerunners were MATILDA OF MAGDEBURG (fl. 1277) and especially THEODERIC OF FREIBURG, "the first scholastic to preach in German after the manner of what is known as German mysticism" (DENIFLE, op. cit., p. 528. Cf. 353, e).