Meister Eckhart — from Hochheim to Heppenheim

        Buber once proclaimed Meister Eckhart to be the greatest of Europe’s religious geniuses, yet “but a late emissary of the Oriental master” (i.e., Jesus, “Spirit of the Orient,” 68, 1913). Eckhart was a frequent reference point for Buber and significantly influenced his thinking, thanks in large part to the influence of Gustav Landauer. Buber’s writing over the years included many references to Eckhart. See Turning to the Other, pages 107 and 235 for examples of Eckhart in Buber’s writings.

         Eckhart von Hochheim was a Dominican friar who was born in 1260 in Thuringia, now central Germany. He was a monastic leader who trained and supervised monks and nuns in Saxony, in Strasbourg, and at the University of Paris. He was a major link in a heritage of spirituality that began with Jesus and has included Pseudo-Dionysus, Heinrich Suso, The Cloud of Unknowing, Martin Luther, Saint John of the Cross, Jacob Boehme, and Matthew Fox. Eckhart was one of the first Roman Catholic clerics to preach sermons in the vernacular, thereby contributing to the development of the German language. More than half of his extant sermons were preached in Middle High German.  

Meister Eckhart  (1260-1328)

Gustav Landauer  (1870-1919)

            Buber’s friend Gustav Landauer was translating a selection of Eckhart’s works into modern German when Buber met him in 1900. Landauer published his translations under the title Meister Eckharts mystische Schriften (Meister Eckhart’s Mystical Writings) in 1903. In 1920, a year after Landauer’s murder, Buber published a re-edited version of this book as a memorial tribute to his friend. Buber’s choice of font for this publication stands out. Buber had worked as an editor for the publisher Rütten & Loening for over ten years beginning in 1904, the year he received his Ph.D. His dissertation had been on Heinrich Suso and Jacob Boehme, figures recommended to him by Landauer—both of these mystical thinkers who were heirs of Eckhart’s legacy. In Buber’s work as an editor he had modernized the publisher’s traditional style, incorporating Jugendstil motifs into Rütten & Loening’s publications. Landauer’s original 1903 book was set in a modern Roman font. Buber’s new release in 1920, when he lived in Heppenheim near Frankfurt, reverted to the older German fraktur font, perhaps as a gesture to highlight the heritage of the book as a memorial tribute to his friend. This change of style is clear in the examples below. 

Title Page -- Jugendstil format

Title Page -- German Fraktur Font