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2. Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart: The Man from Whom God Hid Nothing (New York: Herder and Herder/Crossroad, 2001), pp. 305, cloth, $45.00, ISBN 0-8245-1914-0.
Bernard McGinn, the Naomi Shenstone Donnelly Professor in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, is probably best known today for his inprogress, multi-volume history of Western Christian mysticism, The Presence of God. In fact, McGinn interrupted the writing of Volume 4 in this series (to be called The Harvest of Mysticism: 1300-1500) in order to write his monograph on the mysticism of Meister Eckhart. Both the scholar of Eckhart as well as the serious general reader will be glad he did.
Although the price of this very modest length book (182 pages of actual text) would indicate that it is intended for academics with institutional budgets, the interested lay person who has some previous exposure to mystical theology will also find McGinn's work to be a treasure of scholarship, insight, and clarity on Eckhart's mystical thought. Many decades of studying the Meister and rigorous engagement with both his Latin and his High German works have enabled McGinn to set a new standard by which future Eckhart scholarship will be measured, while at the same time providing the novice Eckhart reader with a concise and comprehensible overview of a complex system of thought. Achieving this combination is in itself no small accomplishment
Key to McGinn's understanding of Eckhart's mysticism is the Dominican's creative use of the Middle High German word grunt ('ground'). Unlike other scholars who have touched upon Eckhart's teaching on grunt, McGinn believes this vernacular word, acting as an "explosive metaphor" and more dynamic than any of its Latin equivalents, is the single most helpful prism through which to understand the special character of Eckhart's mysticism. Grunt points to...