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Reiner Manstetten. Esse est Deus: Meister Eckharts christologische Versohnung von Philosophie und Religion und ihre Ursprunge in der Tradition des Abendlandes. Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber, 1993. Pp. 623. Cloth, DM 156.oo.
Reiner Manstetten has done an enormous service to Eckhart scholarship by writing this comprehensive and original work on the great master. As the title suggests, Manstetten takes as his task an elucidation of the interrelation between Eckhart's philosophy and his theology, by showing the way in which Eckhart's thought as a whole may be seen as a response to ancient metaphysics on the one hand, and Judeo-Christian revelation and church dogma on the other. The book's length accordingly reflects the breadth of the themes treated, but is no doubt also due to the author's lucid style, which refuses to succumb to the paradoxical and contorted language which plagues so much of the secondary literature. Careful attention is given to both the Latin and the German works, and translations of all citations are provided.
Manstetten rejects interpretations of Eckhart which view the scholastic language he often employs as a mere shell conveying a deeper mystical, transreligious content (Otto, Suzuki). Manstetten is equally critical of those who want to rescue Eckhart from the label of "mystic" and so shift the emphasis away from the religious-contemplative...