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Note: The following text shall inspire and thus does not claim completeness.
Click here for excerpts from Mechthild’s book
Mechthild’s book “The Flowing of the Godhead”
Mechthild’s literary work touches us deeply when ever she “sings” about love. As if 800 years did not exist, the beautiful sound of her metaphors moves us gently. And yet we need to overcome the challenges of comprehension of her book, in order to understand her metaphorical images, e.g. a world of ideas filled with allegories, angels and demons; so here it is important to understand the medieval worldview and mentality. What does it have to do with our Life? How does the hostility of corporal asceticism go with the courtly love lyric of the inner life? The Year of Mechthild 2007/8 presents the opportunity to discover.
Mechthild of Magdeburg’s book “The Flowing Light of the Godhead” (abbr. FL) is a special piece of literature combining different text genres: It contains visions, teachings, contentions, allegories, codes of conduct in order to guide a religious community and sayings but also divine love poetry – poetic love dialogues.
“The Flowing of the Godhead”
Introduction
1. Survival of the book
2. Title and its self-conception
3. Chronology of writing
4. “… it could be burned.” – Mother tongue as provocation?
5. Bibliography (German)
6. Editions (German)
1. Survival of the book
Mechthild of Magdeburg is famous worldwide because of her book “the Flowing Light of the Godhead” (FL). It is confusing that the book is divided in seven “books”. From today’s point of view we would refer to the seven “books” as chapters of one whole book, because none of these single “books” has its own title. Mechthild also means the whole book, when she speaks of the “buoch”.
Just like most of the citizens of the medieval town, Mechthild’s name is not mentioned in any surviving document. Therefore, her book is the only proof of the Mechthild’s life.
Former research assumed that the seven “books” are in chronological order starting with the earliest writing. By comparing different editions and excerpts, it is now certain that several writings were edited according to the different “books”. Supposedly a phase of oral tradition preceded the transcription. It is possible that besides Mechthild, her confessor and other Beguines had an influence on the form and order of the texts during this “testing phase” (transcription process).
Compared with the famous mystics, Mechthild’s writings were little-known during her lifetime. But her influence on the language of German mysticism is unquestioned (cp. Weiß). That Mechthild’s book as a piece of German mysticism survived, is due to a translation into Alemannic German, the language of southwest Germany. Heinrich of Nördlingen, the spiritual advisor of the mystic Margareta Ebner, might have done this translation into Middle High German between 1343 and 1345 in Basel.
After the rediscovery of the scripture by Father Gall Morel, the librarian of the Benedictine abbey of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, the bishop Carl Greith was the first who presented excerpts out of it in the thirties of the 19th century. These excerpts were used for edification and prayer books.
Thanks to medieval studies of the 19th century, Mechthild’s book was considered scientifically as the first German book of mystic literature and is now recognized as a gem of medieval literature. The book was rediscovered for a second time by the North American feminist movement of the 20th century.
The only complete extant copy in Middle High German is located in the library of the Benedictine abbey of Einsiedeln in Switzerland. A single complete copy of the Latin translation has also survived and is located in the University Library Basel. Its new edition will be published in the summer of 2008.
2. Title and its self-conception
In the prologue God himself reveals the name of the book:
“It shall be called a light of my godhead flowing into all hearts that live without falseness.”
Here we find combined two testimonies of Jesus taken from the Gospel of John:
“I am the light of the world and I am the living water.” (John 4)
Meaning: The secret of his life will be illuminated and his desire for truth and fulfillment will be satisfied to whom, who meets God.
God is light. This experience widened the Gothic church buildings heavenwards. And Mechthild realized that this divine light, this divine life energy, is stronger than all misery and all darkness of death she has to face in the alleys of a medieval town. The light seeps through the cracks of the broken lives. Its glow lies on the mask of poverty, thus lights up the divine of the suffering human being.
3. Chronology of writing
At the age of twelve Mechthild received for the first time “God’s call”. But almost thirty years passed before Mechthild wrote down her revelations encouraged by her confessor, the Dominican Heinrich of Halle. He was convinced that God himself spoke through Mechthild’s words. Heinrich of Halle edited her writings and placed titles by taking into account verbal passing on; he composed units easy to memorize and often to count. This way six “books”, consisting of single chapters varying in amount and length, were written and edited while Mechthild was living in the city of Magdeburg. Heinrich’s editing ends with the end of the sixth “book” affirming the truth.
Losing her eyesight, Mechthild wrote and dictated the seventh “book”, living in the convent of Helfta. Text and diction vary notably from those which were written during her life in Magdeburg. Is the seventh “book” more original then the other six? Is it the characteristic style of her old age? Or it may be because she had adjusted her life more liturgically due to entering the Order of Cistercians? But in the 7th “book” the embers of Mechthild’s divine love poetry definitely still glow underneath the ashes of her languishment at her old age.
4. “… it could be burned.” – Mother tongue as provocation?
There was a third reason why she was caught in the crossfire:
What Mechthild had to say, she could neither express properly in Latin, which was spoken by the clergy, nor in German. She wrote: “Now my German fails me; I do not know Latin”. Therefore Mechthild wrote in her mother tongue, which she widened poetically by using the language of courtly love and by that created a self-responsible, innovative language. In which sense she became a mature woman. (See “Mysticism and Minnesang”)
The Beguine courted the resentment of the local clergy not only because of her way of living, but also because of her open criticism against some representatives of the clergy. Therefore it was almost obvious to accuse Mechthild of heresy.
Mechthild indicated several times that she had to face hostility and in one passage of her book she expressed clearly the threat she had to bear: “I was warned against writing this book. People said: If one did not watch out, it could be burned”. (FL II, 26)
But she appealed to God and He comforted her: “No one can burn the truth.”
A few decades after Mechthild, in 1310 to be exact, the French mystic and Beguine Marguerite Porete was actually burned for her views (cp. Unger).
Katharina Wieacker
5. Bibliography (German)
Keul, Hildegund: Verschwiegene Gottesrede – Die Mystik der Begine Mechthild von Magdeburg, Innsbrucker Theologische Studien. Insbruck ; Wien : Tyrolia-Verlag, 2004
Unger, Helga: Die Beginen – Eine Geschichte von Aufbruch und Unterdrückung der Frau. : Herder-Verlag, 2005
Weiß, Bardo: Mechthild von Magdeburg und der frühe Meister Eckhart. In: Theologie und Philosophie, Jg 70, Heft 1, 1-40
Bei Balázs J. Nehmes, Seminar für Germanistik der Universität Freiburg, bedanke ich mich für die hilfreichen Hinweise, vor allem bezüglich der Überlieferungsgeschichte.
Tobin, F.: Mechthild of Magdeburg - The flowing light of the godhead. Mahwah, New Jersey : Paulist Press, 1998
6. Editions (German)
Das fließende Licht der Gottheit. Übersetzung, Einführung und Kommentar von Margot Schmidt. MyGG I 11. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog Verlag 1995
Das fließende Licht der Gottheit. Hrsg. V. Gisela Vollmann-Profe. Frankfurt (Deutscher Klassiker Verlag) 2003
[Ein vliessende lieht miner gotheit] Offenbarungen Schwester Mechthild von Magdeburg oder Das fließende Licht der Gottheit aus der Handschrift des Stiftes Einsiedeln.
Unveränderter reprografischer Nachdruck der Ausgabe Regensburg 1869. Darmstadt 1989
Das fließende Licht der Gottheit. Nach der Einsiedler Handschrift in kritischem Vergleich mit der gesamten Überlieferung. Hrsg. von Hans Neumann. München (Artemis Verlag)
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