Johannes Tauler

Johannes Tauler OP (c. 1300 in Strasbourg â€" 15 June 1361) was a German mystic, a Catholic preacher and a theologian. A disciple of Meister Eckhart, he belonged to the Dominican order. Tauler was known as one of the most important Rhineland Mystics. He promoted a certain neo-platonist dimension in the Dominican spirituality of his time.

Life

He was born about the year 1300 in Strasbourg, entered the Dominican order (probably at the age of about fifteen) and was educated at the Dominican convent in that city. Meister Eckhart, who greatly influenced him, was active in Strasbourg c1313-26, though it is unclear what relationship they may have had. From Strasbourg he went to the Dominican college of Cologne, and perhaps to St James's College, Paris, ultimately returning to Strasbourg. In 1324 Strasbourg, along with other cities, was placed under a papal interdict, and so all Dominican friars left the city. Tauler went to Basel. The legend that he stayed in Strasbourg and continued to perform religious services for the people is probably due to the desire of the 16th century reformers to enroll the famous preachers of the Middle Ages among their forerunners.

Around 1330 Tauler began his preaching career in Strasbourg. The city contained eight convents of Dominican nuns and perhaps seventy smaller beguine communities. It seems likely that (as with Meister Eckhart and Henry Suso), much of his preaching was directed to holy women. Most of Tauler's nearly eighty sermons seem to reflect a convent situation, although this may partly reflect the setting in which such sermons were most likely to be written down and preserved.

In 1338 or 1339 the Dominicans were exiled from Strasbourg as a result of the tensions between Pope John XXII and Lewis of Bavaria. Tauler spent his exile (c1339-43) in Basel. Here, he became acquainted with the circles of devout clergy and laity known as the Friends of God (Gottesfreunde). Tauler mentions the Friends of God often in his sermons. Evidence for further connections with this group is found in the letters exchanged between the secular priest Henry of Nördlingen and his spiritual friend, the Dominican nun Margaret Ebner. Through Henry, Tauler also became acquainted with Mechthild of Magdeburg's Flowing Light of the Godhead.

Tauler worked with the Friends of God, and it was with them that he taught his belief that the state of the soul was affected more by a personal relationship with God than by external practices. In this way, he was more of a proselytizer than his counterpart, Eckhart.

Tauler returned to Strasbourg around 1343, but the following years brought various crises. Strasbourg experienced a devastating earthquake and fire in 1346. From late 1347 until 1349, the city was ravaged by the Black Death. It is said that when the city was deserted by all who could leave it, Tauler remained at his post, encouraging his terror-stricken fellow-citizens with sermons and personal visits.

Tauler travelled fairly extensively in the last two and a half decades of his life. He made several trips to Cologne. A number of his sermons were clearly delivered there, as indicated by their survival in the Cologne dialect of Middle High German. A credible tradition suggests he visited John Ruusbroec in Groenendaal at some point in the 1350s.

According to tradition, Tauler died on 16 June 1361 in Strasbourg. He was buried in the Dominican church in Strasbourg with an incised gravestone that still survives in the Temple Neuf.

The well-known story of Tauler's conversion and discipline by "The Friend of God from the Oberland" cannot be regarded as historical.

Sermons

Tauler leaves no formal treatises, either in Latin or the vernacular. Rather, he leaves around eighty sermons.

Tauler's sermons began to be collected in his own lifetime - three fourteenth-century manuscripts date from around the time of Tauler's return to Strasbourg after his exile in Basel.

Tauler's sermons were printed first in Leipzig in 1498, reprinted in 1508 at Augsburg, and then again with additions from Eckhart and others at Basel (1521 and 1522), at Halberstadt (1523), at Cologne (1543), and in Lisbon (1551). A Latin translation was printed first at Cologne in 1548 and 1553. In the nineteenth century, editions were produced by Julius Hamberger (Frankfurt, 1864) and Ferdinand Vetter (Berlin, 1910, reprinted Dublin/Zürich, 1968;).

Tauler was famous for his sermons, which were considered among the noblest in the German languageâ€"not as emotional as Henry Suso's, nor as speculative as Eckhart's, but rather intensely practical, and touching on all sides the deeper problems of the moral and spiritual life.

Tauler was one of several notable Christian universalists in the Middle Ages, along with Amalric of Bena, John of Ruysbroeck, and Julian of Norwich. He taught that "All beings exist through the same birth as the Son, and therefore shall they all come again to their original, that is, God the Father."

See also

• List of Latin nicknames of the Middle Ages: Doctors in theology
• Tauler

Hearken: God is infinite and without end, but the soul's desire is an abyss which cannot be filled except by a Good which is infinite; and the more ardently the soul longeth after God, the more she wills to long after Him; for God is a Good without drawback, and a well of living water without bottom, and the soul is made in the image of God, and therefore it is created to know and love God.

- Tauler

Modern editions

There are various foreign language editions of the sermons:

• Ferdinand Vetter, Die Predigten Taulers, (Berlin: Weidmann, 1910; photomechanical reprint, 1968), is based on only a few manuscripts and does not adhere to the proper liturgical order of the sermons. It lists a few variant readings, but lacks an apparatus of sources. Several of its sermons are not authentic.
• A complete French translation exists as E Hugueny, G Thery and A-L Corin, Sermons de Tauler: Traduction faite sur les plus anciens mss. allemands, 3 vols, (Paris, 1927â€"35).
• Georg Hofmann, Johannes Tauler: Predigten, (Freiburg: Herder, 1961; reprint, Einsiedeln, 1979) provides a helpful German version, but not a critical version of the Middle High German text.

A good English translation of Tauler's sermons is lacking.

• Spiritual Conferences by Johann Tauler, OP (1300-1361), trans Eris Colledge and Sister Mary Jane, OP, (New York: Herder, 1961; reprint 1978), contains a rather loose translation of sermons and excerpts of sermons from Vetter. It rearranges that according to theological headings rather than keeping the order of the sermons themselves.
• Johannes Tauler, sermons, translation by Maria Shrady; introduction by Josef Schmidt, (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), translates 23 sermons, but from the modern German edition of Hofmann, not directly from the Middle High German. The version also contains various omissions and errors, and lacks notes.

Older English translations of Tauler include various inauthentic pieces, and were often made from the Latin version of Laurentius Surius. They are therefore problematic. These include:

• Catherine Winkworth, History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler with Twenty-Five of his Sermons, (London, Smith, Elder, and comp., 1857.) [Available at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/winkworth/tauler]
• Meditations on the life and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, translated by APJ Cruikshank, (London: Thomas Richardson and Son, 1875) [Available at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/tauler/meditations]
• The following of Christ, translated by JR Morell, (London: T Fisher Unwin, 1886) [Available at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/tauler/following]
• The Inner Way, being Thirty-Six sermons for festivals by John Tauler, translated from the German, with introduction, by Arthur Wollaston Hutton, (London: Methuen & Co, 1901) [Available at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/tauler/inner_way]

Further reading

• Davies, Oliver: God Within: The Mystical Tradition of Northern Europe, (London: DLT, 1988), p71-78.
• Eck, Suzanne: Gott in uns. Hinführung zu Johannes Tauler. Ãœbersetzt von Viktor Hofstetter OP und Hildegard Stoffels (Dominikanische Quellen und Zeugnisse Bd. 8). Leipzig 2006.
• Gnädinger, Louise: Johannes Tauler. Lebenswelt und mystische Lehre, (München, 1993).
• Hamburger, Jeffrey F.: D.Verschiedenartigen Bücher der Menschheit. Johannes Tauler über d. "Scivias" H.s v.B. Trier 2005 (=Mitt. u. Verz. aus d. Bibl. d. Bischöfl. Priesterseminars zu Trier; 20).
• Leppin, Volker: Artikel „Tauler Johannes“, in: Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Bd. 32, Berlin/ New York 2001, S. 745-748.
• Mayer, Johannes G.: Die "Vulgata"-Fassung der Predigten Johannes Taulers. Würzburg 1999 (Texte und Wissen. 1).
• McGinn, Bernard: The Harvest of Mysticism, (2005), pp240â€"296.
• Mösch, Caroline F.: "Daz disiu geburt geschehe". Meister Eckharts Predigtzyklus von d. ewigen Geburt u. Johannes Taulers Predigten zum Weihnachtsfestkreis. Fribourg 2006.
• Otto, Henrik: Vor- und frühreformatorische Tauler-Rezeption. Quellen und Forschungen zur Reformationsgeschichte Bd. 75 Gütersloh 2003.
• Sturlese, Loris: Tauler im Kontext. Die philosophischen Voraussetzungen des "Seelengrundes" in der Lehre des deutschen Neuplatonikers Berthold von Moosburg. In: PBB 109 (1987), S. 390-426.
• Theißen, J.: Tauler und die Liturgie. In: Deutsche Mystik im abendländischen Zusammenhang. Hg. v. W. Haug und W. Schneider-Lastin, Tübingen 2000, S. 409-423.
• Weigand, Rudolf Kilian: Predigen und Sammeln. Die Predigtanordnung in frühen Tauler-Handschriften. In: Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur. FS Konrad Kunze. Hg. von Werner Williams-Krapp. Hamburg 2004, S. 114-155.

• Denifle, Dis Buck von geistlicher Armuth (Strassburg, 1877);
• Carl Schmidt, Johann Tauler von Strassburg (Hamburg, 1841);
• Vaughan, Robert Alfred, Hours with the Mystics, 3rd ed., vol. i. pp. 214â€"307;
• Wilhelm Preger's Gesch. der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter, vol. iii;
• W. R. Inge, Christian Mysticism;
• R. M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion (1909).
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Jole D'Anna, Johannes Tauler. Dottore illuminato e sublime, Simmetria, Roma 2006.

References

• Jole D'Anna,Johannes Tauler. Dottore illuminato e sublime, Simmetria, Roma 2006.
• Jole D'Anna, Una introduzione alla mistica di Johannes Tauler, in "Rivista di Ascetica e Mistica", n. 1, 2009, pp. 139â€"148.
• Jole D'Anna, La teologia della perfezione in Johannes Tauler, in "Perennia Verba", nn. 6-7, 2002-2003, pp. 181â€"200.

External links

• The History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler of Strasbourg; With Twenty-Five of His Sermons in English archive.org
• Johannes Tauler in the German National Library catalogue
• Works by or about Johannes Tauler in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Die Predigten Taulers im digitalen mittelhochdeutschen Textarchiv der Universität Trier
• "Johannes Tauler". Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). 
• Ausführliche Würdigung
• Taulerdruck von 1621, PDF
• Beschreibung von mittelalterlichen Handschriften mit Taulerpredigten im Marburger Repertorium, Universität Marburg
• Godfriends: The Continental Medieval Mystics