III. LATE MEDIEVAL EXEGESIS
7. Meister E&art and a Millennium with Mary and Martha
Blake R. Heffner
Prologue
Since the rise of the historical-critical method, interpreters of the Bible have taken the search for meaning beyond the received text. The horizon for investigation has widened to include the historical situation behind the text and the author/editor’s peculiar rendition of it (redaction criti- cism), the way a passage functions within its literary context (form criti- cism), and the variations which accrued during its scribal transmission (textual criticism).
More recently, the reader/heare’r’s own context has become a signif- icant focus of our search for meaning (witness the new hermeneutic). In this way, the horizon for interpretation has also become more refined as the received text is scrutinized through specific contextual lenses (e.g., liberation and feminist perspectives).
This paper is grounded upon the principle that the meaning of the received text of the Bible is not exhausted by either the original intention of the author or the contemporary questions which we may bring to the text. To ask what a text means should also involve asking what it has meant.
Every text has its own history of interpretation: a story which can itself be revelatory.1
1. For contemporary literature suggesting this perspective see Donald K. McKim, ed., A Guide to Contemprary Hermeneutics: Major Trenak in Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), esp. the following articles: Karlfried Froehlich, “Biblical Her- meneutics on the Move,” 17591 (esp. 188-89); David C. Steinmetz, “Theology and Exegesis:
Ten Theses,” 27; idem, “The Superiority of F’recritical Exegesis,” 65-77.
117
< 118 BLAKE R. HEFFNER
To illustrate this, we will trace the interpretive history of a familiar gospel narrative - viz., Jesus’ visit to the house of Mary and Martha at Bethany, found in Luke 10:38-42:
Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.”
Luke alone tells this story - situating it between Jesus’ teaching about the Good Samaritan and the Lord’s Prayer.2
Traditionally, this passage is the locus classicus in Christian spiritu- ality for comparing the ways of action and contemplation.3 Such a typology would seem quite simple to apply: Mary is the pious, prayerful contem- plative; while Martha is the less spiritual, active one. Yet, by the late Middle Ages, Meister E&hart, the famous Dominican preacher, actually cast Mar- tha, not Mary, as the more mature and fruitful disciple. Quite contrary to the literal sense of the text, he depicted Martha as the happier, freer, and more fulfilled of the two sisters!4 We hope to show how this interpretation
2. Scholars have filled reams of paper discussing just the textual and redactional questions spawned by this pericope. G. B. Caird suggests that “few stories in the Gospels have been as consistently mishandled as this one” (&zint Luke, Pelican Commentary [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963],149), cited by Robert W. Wall in “Martha and Mary (Luke 10.38-44) in the Context of a Christian Deuteronomy,” JSHT 35 [ 19891: 29 n. 2.
Other recent studies include: Jutta Brutscheck, Die Maria-Martha-Ertihlung: Eine reduktions-kritische Untersuchung zu Lk 10.38-42 (Frankfurt/Bonn: Hanstein, 1986); and Gordon D. Fee, “ ‘One Thing Needful’?, Luke 10:42,” in New Testament Textual Criticism:
Its Significance for Exegesis: Essays in Honour of Bruce M. Metzger, ed. E. J. Epp and G. D.
Fee (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), 61-75.
For a stimulating theological discussion see Elisabeth Schilssler Fiorenza, “Theological Criteria and Historical Reconstruction: Martha and Mary, Luke l&38-42,” Center for Her- meneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modem Culture, Colloquy 53, ed. Herman Waetjen (Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union and University of California at Berkeley, 1986), 63 pp.
3. For the early exegetical history of this text, see D. Csanyi, “Optima Pars: Die Auslegungsgeschichte von Lukas 10,38-42 bei den Kirchenvatern der ersten vier Jahrhunderte,” Studia Monastica 2 (1960): 5-78. For the medieval period, see Dietmar Mieth, Die Einheit von vita activa und vita contempkztiva in den deutschen Predigten und Traktaten Meister Eckhurts und bei Johannes Tauler (Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1969), as well as other works cited below. For a study in English, see M. E. Mason, Active Life and Contemplative Life: A Study of the Concepts from Plato to the Present (Milwaukee, 1961) 68ff.
4. Meister E&hart, “Intravit Jesus in quoddam castellum . . .” (Sermon 86). See .
MEISTER ECKHART AND MARY AND MARTHA 119
may not be as outrageous as one might think, but actually fits creatively within a rich and variegated hermeneutical history.5
We will trace the path of this history over roughly the millennium between Origen of Alexandria (d. ca. 254) and Meister E&hart (d. 1328).
Picture the following as a Dantean excursion through the school of exegeti- cal tradition.
Scene One
Peering into the room, we see a panel discussion in progress. Clement and Origen of Alexandria are engaged in a lively dialogue with some of the pagan philosophers - Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. The classroom is filled with auditors listening intently as Origen speaks.
Origen is the father of the allegorical or “mystical” interpretation of this pericope.6 Like Plato, who taught that “the world is not our home,“7 Origen believes we have a destiny which cannot be fully achieved here:
“We are on a journey; we have come into this world that we may pass from virtue to virtue, not to remain on earth for earthly things.“8
Origen interprets Luke’s Bethany narrative as an allegory of the classic Aristotelian distinction between the civic or “practical” life (Biog
&xr~xos) and the spiritual or “theoretical” life (Bias &o&rxos), which became better known as the “active” and “contemplative” ways.9 Martha, being troubled about the demands of hospitality, represents the way of action; while Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus and waiting upon his every word, is the epitome of contemplation. In rebuking Martha for her labors, and praising Mary for choosing the best part and the one thing necessary, Origen hears Jesus sanctioning his Gnostic intuition that the active life is
Bernard McGinn, ed., with Frank Tobin and Elvira Borgstadt, Meister E&hart: Teacher and Preacher (New York: Paulist, 1986), 338-45. Original text in Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und luteinischen Werke (Stuttgart/Berlin: W. Kohlhammer, 1936-), Deutsche Werke III (hereafter, DW), 481-92.
5. One burden of this paper is to show that E&hart’s interpretation is not “so original and antitraditional” as is commonly thought. Cf. Frank Tobin’s comment appended to his Eng. trans. in Meister Eckhart, 345 n. 1.
6. Mieth, Einheit, 76.
7. Diogenes Allen’s phrase, in Philosophy for Understanding Theology (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), 39ff.
8. Origen, “Homily XXVII on Numbers, ” in Origen, trans. Rowan A. Greer (Toronto:
Paulist, 1979) 254.
9. Alois M. Haas, “Die Beurteilung der Vita contemplativu und activa in der Dom- inikanermystik des 14. Jahrhunderts, ” in Arbeit Musse Meditation: Betrachtungen zur Vita activa und Vita contemplativa, ed. B. Vickers (Zurich, 1985), 109ff.
_ 120 BLAKE R. HEF’FNER
subordinate to the contemplative. They are not exclusive options, but two stages on the single Christian path toward perfection. The active, ascetic life is ordered toward temporal things, “passing from virtue to virtue”; but only the contemplative life, ordered toward God alone, leads one beyond earthly things toward our eternal Home.10
The large group of auditors surrounding Origen and his partners consists of the theologians Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399), Jerome (d. 419), John Cassian (d. 432), and others -who laid the foundation for monastic spirituality in the medieval West.
On our way out, we are met by an odd, gaunt gentleman standing by the door distributing leaflets. He is John Chrysostom (d. 407) from the School of Antioch, who is filing a minority report. Like his namesake, John the Baptist, Chrysostom appeared as a voice crying in the wilderness, rejecting the “allegorical” interpretation of this story. He contends that Jesus’ counsel to Martha implies neither wholesale reproof of work nor a categorical approval of leisure. Everything hinges, rather, on the signifi- cance of the moment. Christ does not praise Mary for her “contemplative life” but rather for her knowledge of “the time” @a~&). Likewise, he does not reprove Martha for her active hospitality; rather, it is her concern for peripheral matters Q&uva) that is awry. 11 When the Lord comes to one’s house declaring the in-breaking of the Kingdom, then it is time to drop everything and be attentive.
Scene Dvo
Turning into the next room, we perceive the sanctuary of Hippo Cathedral, with the unmistakable form of Augustine preaching on the story of Martha and Mary with all his rhetorical genius. The bishop was himself steeped in Hellenistic philosophy and generally thought to adopt the Neoplatonic view that subordinates action to contemplation.r* In his preaching, however, we get a more balanced picture: Augustine lauds both women and views them as complementing each other.13
10. Ibid., 111.
11. Mieth, Einheit, 45-46, esp. n. 65.
12. Paul Kuntz is correct that this view (shared by Etienne Gilson among others) must be qualified; see “Practice and Theory: Civic and Spiritual Virtues in Plotinus and Augustine,”
in Arbeit Muse Meditation, 65-86 (esp. p. 85 n. 27).
13. lbo sermons are of particular importance here: nos. 103 and 104. See PL 38:613- 18. (Hereafter these sermons will be cited by sermon number, with chapter, section, and PL column number.)
MEISTER ECKHART AND MARY AND MARTHA 121
To begin with, Augustine declares, there are notable similarities between Martha and Mary: they “were two sisters, both siblings in the flesh but also in religious observance; both cling to the Lord; both served the Lord present in the flesh harmoniously.“14 Even as they prefigure two forms of life, “both were pleasing to the Lord, both amiable, both disciples [giving shape to] two types of life: present and future, laborious and quiet, calamitous and blessed, temporal and eternal . . . two lives - both inno- cent, both laudable - two lives in the same house and just one fountain of life.“15
Martha is not considered a second-rate disciple. On the contrary, she
“received him as pilgrims are customarily received; indeed, as a handmaid received her master [Do&rum], as a sick person her healer [Salvutorem], as a creature her Creator. “16 Indeed, Martha complements her sister Mary:
“this one is disturbed [with feeding], so that one may [simply] feast; this one orders many things, so the other may [simply] behold one.“17 If these sisters are headed in different directions, they are for that very reason indispensably connected. And this connection is not so much hierarchical as dialectical. “Martha has to set sail in order that Mary can remain quietly i n port.“18
Why would Augustine give so much esteem to Martha and the active way? It is probably due to the course of his personal life. From the sheltered life of a contemplative philosopher in Thagaste, Augustine was thrust into an exceedingly active (and practical!) life as a priest and later bishop in Hippo.19 He preached with the heart of a pastor who knows and loves his sheep. Unlike the idyllic “flight from the world” which one finds in the Gnostically oriented writings of Origen and other monastic theologians, Augustine’s incarnational balance led him to depict the Christian journey as a being “otherworldly in the world.“*0
This incarnational view continued to develop throughout the Middle Ages. Augustine’s voice is still audible in the preaching of John Tauler (d. 1364), a notable disciple of Eckhart, who declared: “Amen! Our Lord did not scold Martha for her works, for they were holy and good; rather,
14. Sermon 103, I, 2; PL 613.
15. Sermon 104, III, 4; PL 617-18.
16. Sermon 103; PL 613.
17. Sermon 103, II, 3; PL 614.
18. Sermon 104, II, 3; PL 617.
19. Peter Brown gives insight into the “intensely personal” nature of this change, far deeper than the superficial differences between the quiet and leisure of Thagaste and the obvious strain and demands of his duties in Hippo (P. Brown, Augustine ofHippo [Berkeley:
University of California, 19691, 204-5).
20. Ibid.. 324.
_ 122 BLAKE R. HEFFNER
he rebuked her for her ‘fretting and fussing about so many things”’
(NEB)?
Scene Three
In the next room we encounter a colloquy of Cistercians discussing the ideal of a “mixed life,” including both active charity and contemplative prayer. By the eleventh century, Luke 10:38-42 had become the Gospel lesson for the Feast of Mary’s Assumption (August 15).2 When Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153), the most renowned Cistercian, preached on this occasion, he likened the village of Bethany to the world and the sisters’ . house to Mary’s womb. Both sisters dwell therein: Martha, the elder, has the privilege of receiving the Savior on earth in her womb; while Mary, the younger, prepares herself to receive the heavenly Christ. “Martha dec- orates the house; Mary fills it. The busyness [negotium] of Martha and the
‘not idle leisure’ [non otioswn otium] of Mary are both united in the Blessed Mother Mary. The ‘best part’ belongs to her, who is simultaneously a mother and a virgin.“*3 Bernard views the contemplative life as only the
“better part.” The best would comprehend both Martha’s and Mary’s por- tions.
Although Bernard had doubts as to whether such a goal is achievable in this life, his confrere Aelred of Rievaulx (d. 1167) was convinced that Martha and Mary must be united in a soul. Their tasks dare not be divided among different people. Just as Jesus did not come to Mary only spiritually but also bodily, likewise, the individual who, in imitating Mary, would prepare to receive Jesus must receive him in this life both physically and spiritually. “As surely as Christ is poor and walks by foot on the earth, and gets hungry and thirsty, it is necessary that both these women are in the same house and both these actions are in the same soul.“*4
Later, Caesarius of Heisterbach (d. ca. 1245) began extolling the life of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia as a perfect illustration of the “mixed life.” She
21. Tauler’s word is sorgvultikeit. See Johannes Tauler, “Divisiones ministracionum sunt,” in Die Predigten Taulers aus der Engelberger und der Freiburger Handschrifi . . ., ed. Ferdinand Vetter (Berlin: Weidmannsche, 1910), 178,l. 23.
22. This feast was instituted as early as the 9th century, according to Martina Wehrli- Johns, “Maria und Martha in der religiosen Frauenbewegung,” in Abendliindische Mystik im Mittelulfer: Symposion Kloster Engelberg 1984, ed. Kurt Ruh (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche,
1986), 355 and 363 n. 7.
23. Ibid., 355.
24. PL 195, 303-16; cited in ibid., 356.
MEISTER ECKHART AND MARY AND MARTHA 123
conceived her vocation as reflecting both Bethany sisters. Like Martha, she busied herself in caring for the sick and the poor. At the same time, like Mary, she surrendered herself deeply in contemplation. She wanted to combine a daily love of neighbors with the love of God through inner prayer.25
Caesarius goes on: “She satisfied Christ through works of mercy, like Martha, and was satisfied, like Mary, through his divine Word.” He praises her as the embodiment of both Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Bethlehem, meaning “house of bread,” signifies the active life; while Jerusalem, mean- ing “vision of peace,” symbolizes the contemplative way.26
This sphere of Cistercian mysticism was like a womb within which important themes of later medieval piety were nurtured: veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a focus on the incarnate life of Jesus, and the spread of this “mixed ideal.” In addition, Cistercians have been connected with the nascent cult of the Bethany sisters themselves, typified by the hagio- graphical Life of Saint Mary Magdalene and of her Sister Saint Martha.27 Finally, one sees an unmistakably Cistercian influence upon later spiritual movements: including the mendicants (particularly the Franciscans), the religious “women’s movement” (notably the lay Beguines), and the hospital movement or “Revolution of Charity.” Many of the early Beguines and other communal groups situated themselves near a hospital; for it was deemed the house of Mary and Martha, Christ’s earthly quarters.28
Scene Four
The next room is a scriptorium, where we find Franciscan and Dominican friars copying manuscripts from their spiritual masters. These mendicant (or begging) orders emerged in the early thirteenth century out of the fertile spiritual soil of the itinerant lay preachers, canons regular, and Cistercians of the twelfth. With the friars, apostolic life moved directly into the world.
25. Ibid., 354. Cf. A. Huyskens, cd., Die Schriften des Casarius von Heisterbach iiber die heilige Elisabeth von Ttiringen . . . (Bonn, 1937), 329-90.
26. Ibid., 354-55.
27. Paralleling the rise of Marian veneration and the spread of this “mixed” ideal, there developed a cult of the Bethany sisters. Veneration of Mary Magdalene began as early as the middle of the 11th century and peaked in the late 12th. Even a cult of Martha arose in Tarascon ca. 1187. See ibid., 356ff. See also the recent Eng. trans. and excellent annotations by David Mycoff, The Life of Saint Mary Magdalene and of her Sister Saint Martha, Cistercian Studies Series 108 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1989), 166 pp.
28. Wehrli-Johns, “Maria und Martha, ” 356. Cf. Michel Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 98-102.
< 124 BLAKE R. HEFFNER
In direct contrast to the early church ascetics who fled cities to seek God in the desert, the Franciscans and Dominicans were led into the streets of cities and towns to preach the gospel and to beg for alms. Surely, this prompted a fresh hearing of the Martha/Mary pericope.
Francis of Assisi is renowned for his engagement with the world and fraternity with his brothers. He also had zeal for contemplative prayer and periods of solitude. He encouraged those friars who desired to pursue a life of prayerful seclusion. In designing a “Rule for Hermitages,” Francis em- ployed the story of Martha and Mary as his blueprint. Every hermitage should be limited to three or four brothers. Wo of them are to serve as “mothers”
and follow the life of Martha, while the two “sons” should follow the life of Mary. The mothers are to provide the climate wherein contemplation may flourish, “[protecting] their sons from everyone, so that no one can talk with them.” The sons, in turn, “should sometimes assume the role of the mothers, as from time to time it may seem good to them to exchange roles.“*9 Francis saw that the two ways are complementary and interdependent. The idea that those roles can and should be exchanged reflects his profound spiritual insight: that humility ranks with poverty among the “few” things needful.
Thomas Aquinas, the most illustrious Dominican friar, turned to the Bethany pericope in order to develop a systematic treatment of action and contemplation. He takes every advantage the pericope affords to exalt the superiority of contemplation: “Mary has chosen the best part and that will not be taken from her” (Luke 10:42).30 Unlike Francis’s idea that those who are active Marthas should serve as “mothers,” Thomas holds that the active life is “more the servant than the mistress of the contemplative.“31 Nevertheless, Thomas allows that the very “best” part is not contemplation alone, but the active teaching and preaching which flow from the fullness of contemplation. “ It is a greater thing to give light than simply to have light, and in the same way it is a greater thing to pass on to others what you have contemplated than just to contemplate.“32 This captures the very essence of Dominic’s founding vision for an Order of Preachers. Hence,
29. Francis of As&i, “The Rule for Hermitages,” in Regis J. Armstrong, OFM Cap., and Ignatius C. Brady, OFM, Francis and Clare: The Complete Works (New York: Paulist, 1982) 147-48.
30. Paul Kuntz rightly notes, however, that one cannot glibly summarize Thomas’s position (as Hannah Arendt has) by saying, “The contemplative life is simply better than the active life” (Kuntz, “Practice and Theory,” 77). As usual Thomas’s view is much more synthesized and nuanced than that; see below. For Thomas’s analysis, see Summa Theologiae (hereafter ST) 2.2 qq. 179-82, in Albert & Thomas: Selected Writings, ed. Simon Tugwell (New York: Paulist, 1988), 534-85.
31. ST 2.2 q. 182, a. 1; T&well, 577.
32. ST 2.2 q. 188, a. 6; Tugwell, 630.
MEISTER ECKHART AND MARY AND MARTHA 125
at the summit of perfection, Thomas falls in with the increasing tendency to fuse Mary and Martha.
Scene Five
Just down from the mendicants, we enter a convent where religious women and Beguines are excitedly discussing a poem entitled “Life of the Blessed Virgin and Teaching Savior.“33 This poem presents an intriguing image of Mary the virgin mother of Jesus which plays upon the traits of both Bethany sisters: “a contemplative/active Mary who, after the resurrection of Christ put herself completely into the service of preaching.“34 Mary is remarkably depicted as if she lived in such a Beguinage.
Until her wedding, Mary lives together with other virgins near the temple. She is never idle, but always occupied in good works. Her principal occupation is weaving; however, she also exercises the other works of mercy. It is in Martha’s house at Bethany where Mary learns of her son’s imprisonment. Both women betake themselves to Golgotha.
After Christ’s resurrection Mary devotes herself (in the house of John the theologian) to Bible study and preaching. Later she entrusts John with the preaching and leads a retired life in the house of holy Zion, in community with other brothers and sisters “who spent their faculties and resources on the necessities of the apostles.“35
Now we are not far removed from that remarkable scene wherein Martha is cast as the more mature and fulfilled sister.
Scene Six
The next chamber is a magnificent courtroom. Meister E&hart is standing before a panel of judges commissioned to examine his works for heresy.
As we enter, he is confidently summarizing his message:
When I preach, I am careful to speak about detachment and that a person should become free of self and of all things. Secondly, that one should be re-formed in the simple good that is God. Thirdly, that one should
33. A rough translation of “Vita beata virginis et salvatoris rhythmica”; Wehrli-Johns,
“Maria und Martha,” 360.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., 360-61.