Meister Eckhart, The German Works: 64 Homilies for the Liturgical Year. 1. De tempore: Introduction, Translation and Notes

This volume (based on Loris Sturlese’s Italian collection from the year

2014) contains the vernacular texts and English translations of 64 of

Eckhart’s German sermons, which can be linked with the cycle of

preaching during the liturgical year (De tempore). A second

volume, currently in preparation, will be devoted to a further 56

vernacular sermons for the feasts of the saints (De sanctis). A

further volume will contain Eckhart’s Latin homilies (both De

tempore and the few surviving ones De sanctis). Loris

Sturlese and Markus Vinzent will thus provide both the entire vernacular

and Latin legacy of ‘authentic’ homilies, totalling over 100 vernacular

and almost 100 Latin sermons. The first volume on the homilies De

tempore centres on the time between Advent and Trinity with a major

gap in the cycle in the summer time (absent are the weeks V-XV after

Trinity Sunday) and gives us Eckhart’s preaching in literary form. As

the collection has been reconstructed, it seems to go back to a written,

arranged, and to a certain extent textualized and published opus, most

likely by Eckhart himself. The corpus of sermons that have been

relocated into their liturgical place from the critical edition of

Kohlhammer represents a work situated midway between oral texts and

their professional editor. It opens a door to students and interested

readers into the world of Eckhart’s liturgical preaching, helped by a

thorough general introduction, short prefaces to all homilies and notes.