Samuel [email protected]
Centre for Medieval and Renaissance StudiesMonash University
The Dominican Rhetoric of Ineffability: Teaching and Preaching the Silent Praise of God
International Medieval Congress, July 9th 2014
University of Leeds
Thomas Aquinas(1225 – 1274) Meister Eckhart
(c.1260 – 1328)Aquinas and Eckhart each argue for the silent praise of
God in their scholastic treatises and commentaries
Dominicans as Silent?
• Dominicans commonly portrayed as anything but silent.
• The Friars often contrasted with Monks. The former teach and preach, the latter are silent and weep.
• Dominicans were in fact committed to silent observance. They saw it as an important aspect of their spirituality and vocation.
• Furthermore, the ineffability of God requires the crafting of an “active rhetoric directly related to a community’s needs for a common sense of purpose.” (Paul Gehl)
Dominicans as Silent?
• William Peraldus’ Summa et virtutibus et vitiis: Praises the silence of the cloister and recommends handing “the key to the door” of the mouth to prelates.
• Humbert of Romans’ Liber de eruditione praedicatorum: Silence necessary for good words. “The discipline of silence is a kind of cultivation of speech.”
Thomas Aquinas and the Silent Praise of God
• Two ways to speak of God:• “in regard to his
essence, and as such he is incomprehensible, ineffable, and above all praise…”
• by praising him, "insofar as he effects our good…”
• The silent praise of God entails that God is beyond comprehension. One can only know that God is, not what God is.
• Liber de Causis: “The First Cause [God] is superior to speech and languages ... it is above all causes.”• Results in reverence for that
which lies beyond language.
The Way of Remotion/Way of Negation
• Aquinas argues that “we are able to have some knowledge of [God’s essence] by knowing what it is not.”
• The insufficiency of language for Aquinas does not necessarily entail the end of language, but instead leads to exploring alternate paths to a satisfactory divine language.• The solution is the via negativa (way of negation), derived from the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.
Meister Eckhart and the Silent Praise of God
• A stricter approach to the “silent praise of God.”• “the sages find it is
dangerous, harmful, and unfitting to hear someone piling up words about God even in prayer, due to the imperfection which names and words entail in their distance from God’s simplicity.”
• Eckhart follows Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed: “he who praises through speech only makes known what he has represented to himself.”
Meister Eckhart and the Silent Praise of God
• God is totally beyond language. To speak about God is to lie and commit a sin.
• God can be known, however, through the via negativa. • “the more one
ascribes unlike things to him, the closer one comes to knowing him than if one tried to express a likeness…”
• This process results in a state of amazement and then silence. God then enters into the soul.
Dominican Rhetoric of Ineffability
• It is possible to know that God exists but not precisely what God is.
• An approximate knowledge of divinity is attainable through the via negativa.
• This ultimately results in a state of silence.
The Rhetoric put into Practice: Rhineland Mysticism
• The Dominicans of the 14th Century Rhineland (and their followers) stress the importance of practicing silence.
• Meister Eckhart in his Expositio libri Sapientiae offers one of the principle arguments which motivates this idea.• “it is necessary
that rest and ‘silence keep all things’ so that God the Word can come into the mind through grace and that the Son can be born in the soul.”
The Rhetoric put into Practice: Rhineland Mysticism• Inner silence
increasingly becomes identified with spiritual poverty.
• Eckhart the first to make this identification. Teaches that through detachment (abgescheidenheit) God is able to speak directly into the soul.• “in that ground
[of the soul] is the silent ‘middle’: here nothing but rest and celebration for this birth, this act, that God the Father may speak His word there… Here God enters the soul with His all.”
The Rhetoric put into Practice: Rhineland Mysticism
• Johannes Tauler, spiritual disciple of Meister Eckhart, explains the importance of silence in a sermon to religious women.• “there is no better
way of serving the Word than by silence and by listening.”
• Dominican Sisters demonstrate their understanding of silent practice in the Schwesternbücher.• “…just as the heat
of an oven is warmed with its opening obstructed, so with the observation of silence is the grace of the Holy Spirit retained in the heart…”
The Rhetoric put into Practice: Rhineland Mysticism
• Identification between silence and poverty of spirit also present in Daz Buch von geistlichen Armuth (Book of the Poor in Spirit).• Traditionally (and
erroneously) attributed to Johannes Tauler. Most likely written by a Dominican or Gottesfreund in 1350s.
• “Silence and long-suffering are the most perfect acts that a man may have… If he really wants to live, he should always remain silent and suffer God alone to speak, for what God utters is life.”
Conclusion
• Aquinas and Eckhart in their scholastic treatises argue for a “rhetoric of ineffability.”
• This rhetoric informs the understanding of silent practice in the Rhineland during the 14th Century.
• The via negativa as detachment results in inner silence. This allows God to act directly in the soul by creating a space for his Word.
