This bull is interesting as showing what were the points in
Eckhart's teaching which in the fourteenth century were considered
dangerous. They also indicate very accurately what are the real
errors into which speculative mysticism is liable to fall, and how
thinkers of this school may most plausibly be misrepresented by
those who differ from them. After expressing his sorrow that "a
certain Teuton named Ekardus, doctor, ut fertur, sacrae paginae, has
wished to know more than he should," and has sown tares and thistles
and other weeds in the field of the Church, the Pope specifies the
following erroneous statements as appearing in Eckhart's
writings[5]:--1. "God created the world as soon as God was. 2. In
every work, bad as well as good, the glory of God is equally
manifested. 3. A man who prays for any particular thing prays for an
evil and prays ill, for he prays for the negation of good and the
negation of God, and that God may be denied to him.[6] 4. God is
honoured in those who have renounced everything, even holiness and
the kingdom of heaven. 5. We are transformed totally into God, even
as in the Sacrament the bread is converted into the Body of Christ.
Unum, non simile. 6. Whatever God the Father gave to His
only-begotten Son in His human nature, He has given it all to me. 7.
Whatever the Holy Scripture says about Christ is verified in every
good and godlike man. 8. External action is not, properly speaking,
good nor divine; God, properly speaking, only works in us internal
actions. 9. God is one, in every way and according to every reason,
so that it is not possible to find any plurality in Him, either in
the intellect or outside it; for he who sees two, or sees any
distinction, does not see God; for God is one, outside number and
above number, for one cannot be put with anything else, but follows
it; therefore in God Himself no distinction can be or be understood.
10. All the creatures are absolutely nothing: I say not that they
are small or something, but that they are absolutely nothing." All
these statements are declared to have been found in his writings. It
is also "objected against the said Ekardus" that he taught the
following two articles in these words:--1. "There is something in
the soul, which is uncreated and uncreatable: if the whole soul were
such, it would be uncreated and uncreatable: and this is the
intelligence.[7] 2. God is not good or better or best: I speak ill
when I call God good; it is as if I called white black."[8] The bull
declares all the propositions above quoted to be heretical, with the
exception of the three which I have numbered 8-10, and these "have
an ill sound" and are "very rash," even if they might be so
supplemented and explained as to bear an orthodox sense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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