Ruling the Spirit. Claire Taylor Jones
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Wan wenne zwei súllent eins werden, so můs sich daz eine halten lidende und daz ander wúrckende; sol min ouge enpfohen die bilde in der want oder waz es sehen sol, so můs es an ime selber blos sin aller bilde, wan hette es ein einig bilde in ime einiger varwen, so gesehe es niemer kein varwe; oder hat daz ore ein getöne, so gehört es niemer enkein getöne; so welich ding enpfohen sol, das můs itel, lidig und wan sin.45
For if two should become one, then the one must stay passive and the other active; if my eye is to receive the images on the wall or whatever it is supposed to see, it must in itself be pure of all images, since if it even had one image in it of whatever color, it would never see any color; or if the ear had a tone, it would never hear any tone; so anything that should be receptive must be empty, passive, and pure.
According to medieval Aristotelian theories of perception, sense impressions quite literally impressed the form of the object perceived into the soul’s cognitive faculty, causing that faculty momentarily to share the form of the perceived object. In order for this object impression to operate correctly, the faculty had to be itself formless and plastic, allowing it to receive foreign forms easily.46
The natural receptivity of the soul’s faculties is both an advantage and a disadvantage. If one turns inward, the soul will easily be able to receive (or conceive) God, but the faculties too often are oriented outward toward things in the world. These outer things occupy the soul and obstruct God’s natural desire to pour himself out. “Und darumbe soltu swigen,” Tauler explains, “so mag dis wort diser geburt in dich sprechen und in dir gehört werden; aber sicher, wiltu sprechen, so můs er swigen [And for this reason, you should be silent: so that the Word of this birth should speak in you and be heard in you; but certainly, if you want to speak, he must be silent].”47 The obstructive tones that may prevent an ear from hearing are here given a power that goes beyond inattention to full interruption. It is not merely that the soul cannot hear; unless silence is accomplished, God does not speak at all. In order passively to receive God’s will, one must empty the soul of the world. McGinn concludes that debating whether lidikeit in Tauler’s sermons should be translated as emptiness (Ledigkeit) or passivity (Leidendheit) argues a moot point: lidikeit represents a neologism that intentionally evokes both meanings.48 Emptying out the soul prepares it for true passivity.
In order to undergird his association of Christmas with Gelassenheit with silence, Tauler cites Wisdom 18:14–15, signaling explicitly that the text serves as the Introit for Mass on the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas.49 Because of its reference to the descent of the Word, the verse had long been used for the celebration of the Incarnation.50 After translating the entirety of the Introit, Tauler expounds the mention of silence as the purification of the soul required for Gelassenheit.
Hievon sol man singen in dem nehsten sunnendage in dem anhebende der messen: dum medium silencium fieret, do daz mittel swigen wart und alle ding in dem höhsten swigende worent und die naht iren louf vollebroht hette, herre, do kam dine almehtige rede von dem kúniglichen stůle, das waz daz ewige wort von dem vetterlichen hertzen. In disem mittel swigende, in disem do alle ding sint in dem höhsten swigende und ein wor silencium ist, denne wurt man dis wort in der worheit hörende; wan sol Got sprechen, du můst swigen; sol Got ingon, alle ding müssent uzgon.51
One sings about this next Sunday at the beginning of Mass: dum medium silencium fieret, when the middle/medium was silent and all things were in the highest silence and the night had completed its course, Lord, your almighty speech came from the royal seat, that was the eternal word from the Fatherly heart. In this silent medium, in this where all things are in the highest silence and there is a true silencium, here one will hear the word in truth; since if God should speak, you must be still; if God should go in, all things must go out.
By using the Introit for an upcoming Mass to illustrate his point, Tauler prepares his audience to understand that feast in light of his spiritual philosophy. The Christmas season and its celebration of Mary’s passive role should lead one to reflect on one’s own submission to God’s will. However, identifying silence as the ethical concern of a liturgical text produces an interesting paradox. Tauler urges his audience to consider their own pursuit of Gelassenheit while singing the Divine Office. This contemplative performance results in a curious situation in which the singers ought to be striving for inner silence, while they are singing outwardly. Seuse, with his greater attention to the immediate liturgical contexts, deals with this paradox of passive performance more effectively than Tauler, who remains more interested in the theological significance of feasts than in the spiritual interpretation of individual texts.
Liturgical Piety in the Global and the Particular
Tauler and Seuse deal with liturgical context in very different ways, which are at least partly motivated by the difference in genre. As sermons, Tauler’s works were naturally embedded in the liturgical context during which they would have been delivered. Although it is rarely explicitly noted, this context can be recovered from his interpretations of the pericopes, scriptural passages which rotated with the liturgical calendar. Finally, the manuscripts which contain large collections of his sermons frequently organize them according to the liturgical cycle rather than thematically. In contrast, Seuse contextualizes his visions and experiences within the liturgy through citation of Latin Mass texts. Neither Seuse nor Tauler represents liturgical performance with anything like the frequency or vividness of the sisterbooks. Moreover, whereas the sisterbooks employ Office texts, Tauler and Seuse both rely more heavily on the Mass for inspiration. Both friars also share an anxiety over the disruptive behavior that experiencing divine insight during communal celebration can cause.
Aside from the scriptural readings for a particular day, Tauler cites liturgical material less frequently and less systematically than even his prominent forebear Meister Eckhart.52 Tauler rarely offers specific liturgical texts as devotional inspiration, and when he does, as in the sermon for Christmas, he casts his net more widely than the context of a particular feast. Indeed, Joachim Theisen admits to being initially disappointed by Tauler’s apparent disregard for “the liturgical microcontext of the Mass.”53 Tauler does always explain the scriptural reading for the day, Theisen notes, but “läßt sich ansonsten jedoch nicht von den anderen Texten des Meßformulars leiten, sondern von den thematischen Vorgaben der liturgischen Zeit [otherwise is not directed by the other texts of the Mass formulary but rather by the thematic guidelines of the liturgical cycle].”54 Thus in sermon Vetter 1, Tauler describes the three Masses for Christmas Day as three kinds of divine birth and even assigns spiritual meaning to the fact that one is sung in the dark, one at dawn, and one when it is light. Rather than dwelling on the specific texts for a specific Mass, Tauler invests the entire feast and all that pertains to its celebration with spiritual meaning.
This orientation is likely what made Tauler an attractive choice for table readings at St. Katherine’s in Nürnberg.55 Divorced from the context of its original delivery during a Mass and relocated to the refectory or chapter, a focused explication of liturgical texts would no longer be as significant or as relevant. Devotional interpretation of the feast within the context of the liturgical year, however, would be eminently useful in orienting the audience in an informed, orderly performance of the liturgical duties of that season. Tauler’s sermons spiritualize the liturgy on a global scale, allegorizing large-scale practices such as the three Masses on Christmas Day. His interpretations prepare the audience especially for high times in the liturgical year, when the special feasts were celebrated with unique variations in the Rite. Tauler both provides theological explanations for these broader changes in liturgical practice and offers spiritual lessons which give the feasts personal import. However, Tauler is not sensitive to the devotional power of liturgical text within the context of its performance, something that inspires both Seuse and the women of the sisterbooks.
Liturgical performances certainly inspire many of Seuse’s visions, and he also uses liturgical citations to comment on or gloss visionary experience. Although most studies focus on the role of images and visual piety in Seuse’s devotional program,56 Steven Rozenski has compellingly argued that “the auditory often occupies a place of privilege vis-à-vis the visual: music and