Author Guide · Medieval Christian Mysticism
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On 13 February 1327, in Cologne, a Dominican friar in his sixties preached a sermon and then had his secretary read out a protest of innocence, translated into German so the lay people in the church could follow it. Eckhart von Hochheim was on trial for heresy, the only medieval theologian tried as a heretic by the Inquisition. He appealed to the Pope, travelled to Avignon, and died there, probably in 1328, before the verdict. He had been a master of theology at Paris twice, which is why he is called “Meister”, but he is read today for his German sermons: 123 survive in the critical edition, preached to nuns, friars and townspeople about detachment, the emptiness of the self and God born in the soul. Almost nothing he wrote carries a date, so English readers meet him through translations. This guide covers his 8 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 1941–2009 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Meister Eckhart left 123 German sermons in the critical edition, a handful of German treatises, including the Talks of Instruction and the Book of Divine Consolation, and a large but unfinished body of Latin work. English readers know him through selections, above all Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense (1981), translated by Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn, and Oliver Davies’s Penguin Selected Writings (1994). Start with the Penguin. Below are 8 key English translations in order, his own works, and the story of his trial.
Where to Start with Meister Eckhart
If you want one paperback selection
→ Selected Writings (1994) — the Penguin Classics edition.
If you want the sermons and the trial documents
→ Meister Eckhart (1981) — including his defence.
If you want every German sermon
→ The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart (2009) — the complete German works in one volume.
If you want the Paris theologian
→ Parisian Questions and Prologues (1974) — his early Latin questions.
8 Meister Eckhart Books in English, in Order
Meister Eckhart
Raymond B. Blakney’s selection of sermons and treatises, published by Harper in New York in 1941. It was made before the modern critical edition of the German works began in 1936, so it rests on older texts whose authenticity was then less settled. It was one of the earliest book-length English selections.
Treatises and Sermons of Meister Eckhart
A selection of treatises and sermons translated by James M. Clark and John V. Skinner and published by Faber & Faber in London in 1958. It was reprinted by Octagon Books in 1983.
Parisian Questions and Prologues
Armand Maurer’s edition and translation of Eckhart’s Latin academic work, published by the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto in 1974. It contains the Parisian Questions, disputations from his time teaching in Paris that were only discovered in 1927, and prologues to his unfinished Latin Opus tripartitum (Three-Part Work). This is Eckhart the university theologian, not the preacher.
Breakthrough
Sermons in new translations by Matthew Fox, published by Doubleday in 1980 and arranged around Fox’s own idea of “creation spirituality”. As the subtitle says, it reads Eckhart through Fox’s own framework rather than presenting a scholarly edition.
Meister Eckhart
Translated by Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn for Paulist Press in New York (and SPCK in London), in 1981. As the title says, it puts German sermons and treatises beside Latin biblical commentary and the documents of his defence at the heresy trial, so readers see the preacher, the scholar and the accused together. It is the standard scholarly selection, and was reissued in 2005 as a shorter selection with a foreword by John O’Donohue.
Meister Eckhart
A companion to the 1981 volume, edited by Bernard McGinn with Frank Tobin and Elvira Borgstadt and published by Paulist Press in 1986. As its title signals, it covers both sides of Eckhart’s work: the teacher of the schools, writing in Latin, and the preacher, speaking in German.
Selected Writings
Oliver Davies selected, translated and introduced this volume for Penguin Classics in 1994; the current paperback runs to 336 pages. The publisher presents Eckhart as trying to bring together ancient Greek thought and Christianity, joining Neoplatonic ideas of oneness with belief in the Trinity, and as a writer concerned with the limits of language in speaking about God.
The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart
Maurice O’C. Walshe’s translation of the German sermons and treatises, first published by Watkins in three volumes from 1979 as Sermons and Treatises, revised by Bernard McGinn and reissued in one volume by Crossroad in New York in 2009. It is the fullest English version of the German works.
In What Order to Read Meister Eckhart
Eckhart wrote no single book that sums up his thought, and very little of what he wrote can be dated. The Talks of Instruction, given to Dominican novices in about 1295–1298, is probably his earliest surviving work; the Latin works come mostly from his years teaching in Paris; the German sermons were preached over decades and survive in some 200 manuscripts, often as notes taken by listeners. There is no reading order in the usual sense.
In practice, readers start with a selection that mixes sermons and treatises, then go deeper in one direction: the full German sermons for the preacher, or the Latin commentaries for the theologian. The documents of his trial, included in the Colledge and McGinn volume, are worth reading once you know the sermons the accusers quoted.
A reading path
1. Selected Writings, Oliver Davies (Penguin, 1994)
2. The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, Colledge and McGinn (1981)
3. The Complete Mystical Works, Walshe and McGinn (2009)
4. Teacher and Preacher (1986) and Parisian Questions and Prologues (1974) for the Latin works
Eckhart’s Own Works
Beyond the 8 key books: 10 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
German works
4
4 books · c. 1295–98–Disputed
- c. 1295–98Talks of InstructionReden der Unterweisung, talks given to Dominican novices; probably his earliest surviving work
- UndatedBook of Divine Consolationpart of the Liber Benedictus, with the sermon The Nobleman; passages from it were later used against him
- UndatedGerman sermons123 in the critical edition: 86 traditionally accepted, 30 added later, six in two versions
- DisputedOn DetachmentVon Abgescheidenheit; accepted by the critical edition, but now generally thought not to be his
Latin works
4
4 books · Paris–1326
- ParisParisian Questionsearly disputations from his Paris teaching, rediscovered in 1927
- UnfinishedOpus tripartitumthe planned Three-Part Work; prologues, six biblical commentaries and 56 Latin sermons survive, the second part is lost
- UndatedCommentarieson Genesis, Exodus, Wisdom and the Gospel of John, plus the Book of the Parables of Genesis and a treatise on the Lord’s Prayer
- 1326Defensehis answer to the charges at Cologne, citing his sources
Editions
2
2 books · 1857–1936
- 1857Meister EckhartFranz Pfeiffer’s edition of the German works, with 17 treatises, of which modern scholarship accepts four
- 1936Die deutschen und lateinischen Werkethe critical edition of the German and Latin works, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, completed in 2022
The years · 1260–1981
Quick facts about Meister Eckhart
- Known for
- Preaching in German about detachment, the emptiness of the self and God born in the soul, in sermons so daring that he became the only medieval theologian tried by the Inquisition as a heretic.
- 1260
- Born, probably in Tambach, Thuringia
- 1329
- Papal bull In agro dominico; he had died, probably in 1328
- 1857
- Franz Pfeiffer edits his German works
- 1981
- Colledge and McGinn, The Essential Sermons
- Born
- Eckhart von Hochheim, c. 1260, probably in Tambach, near Gotha, Thuringia
- Died
- 1328, probably in Avignon, while his appeal to the Pope was pending
- Order
- Dominican; joined the convent at Erfurt at about 18, and was later provincial of Saxony (1303–1311)
- Title
- “Meister” = Magister in theologia, Paris; he held the Dominican chair there in 1302–03 and 1311–13
- Works
- 123 German sermons in the critical edition, a few German treatises, and unfinished Latin works
- Trial
- Accused of heresy at Cologne in 1326; 28 articles condemned by Pope John XXII in 1329
The red mark is 1981, when Colledge and McGinn’s Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense gave English readers the scholarly selection most still use.
How Meister Eckhart Wrote: Sermons, Paradox and Two Languages
Eckhart worked in two languages for two audiences. In Latin he wrote as a university theologian: disputed questions, prologues and line-by-line commentaries on Genesis, Exodus, Wisdom and John, for a planned Three-Part Work he never finished. In German he preached to Dominican nuns, friars and townspeople, and most of what he is read for today survives as sermons in Middle High German, many written down by listeners rather than by Eckhart himself.
Each sermon starts from a short Latin Bible text, often only a phrase, such as Qui audit me (“He who hears me”, Sirach 24:30), and then pushes it somewhere unexpected. He summed up his own preaching as being about detachment, the emptiness of the self, the simple good that God is, the nobility God placed in the soul and the purity of the divine nature. He liked paradox and overstatement, and knew it: in Sermon 52 he tells listeners that whoever does not understand what he says should not burden their heart with it.
His followers Johannes Tauler and Henry Suso preached the same themes more cautiously after his condemnation. Nicholas of Cusa studied and annotated his Latin works in the fifteenth century; German Romantics and Idealists revived him in the nineteenth; Heidegger took his idea of Gelassenheit, releasement, from Eckhart, and D. T. Suzuki and Erich Fromm compared him with Zen Buddhism and brought him to new readers in the twentieth.
Frequently asked questions about Meister Eckhart’s books
How many books has Meister Eckhart written?
Not books in the modern sense. The critical edition counts 123 German sermons, a few German treatises (modern scholars accept four of the 17 once printed under his name), and a large body of Latin work, much of it unfinished. In English he is read in selections; this page lists 8 key translations, from 1941 to 2009.
What are Meister Eckhart’s books in order?
His own works are mostly undated: the Talks of Instruction (c. 1295–98) is probably the earliest, the Parisian Questions date from his Paris teaching, and the sermons span decades. The English translations on this page, in order, are Blakney (1941), Clark and Skinner (1958), Maurer (1974), Fox (1980), Colledge and McGinn (1981), McGinn, Tobin and Borgstadt (1986), Davies (1994) and Walshe revised by McGinn (2009).
Where should I start with Meister Eckhart?
With Oliver Davies’s Selected Writings (Penguin Classics, 1994), a single-volume selection with an introduction. If you want the trial documents as well, choose Colledge and McGinn’s Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense (1981).
What is Meister Eckhart’s most famous book?
He is best known for his German sermons rather than for one book, and the most quoted line comes from a sermon: “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.” Of his treatises, the Talks of Instruction and the Book of Divine Consolation are the best known. In English, the most widely used scholarly selection is Colledge and McGinn’s The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense (1981).
Was Meister Eckhart condemned as a heretic?
His teaching was; he himself was not condemned by name. In 1326 Archbishop Henry of Virneburg opened an inquisitorial trial in Cologne. On 13 February 1327 Eckhart publicly protested his innocence, said he rejected any error found in his writings, denied the inquisitors’ authority and appealed to the Pope. In Avignon, two commissions cut some 150 suspect articles to 28. Eckhart died, probably in 1328, and on 27 March 1329 Pope John XXII’s bull In agro dominico condemned some of the articles as heretical and the rest as suspect, adding that Eckhart had recanted before his death anything he had taught falsely. In 2010 a 1992 Vatican letter became public which, according to Timothy Radcliffe, former Master of the Dominicans, meant he could be called a good and orthodox theologian.
Was Meister Eckhart a Zen Buddhist?
No, he was a Dominican friar and Catholic theologian. But readers have long noticed parallels: Schopenhauer compared his views with Buddhist teaching, D. T. Suzuki found parallels with Zen, and Erich Fromm brought him to Western readers interested in Eastern thought. The philosopher Reiner Schürmann disputed some of Suzuki’s claims.
Did Meister Eckhart write On Detachment?
Probably not. The short treatise On Detachment was accepted into the critical edition, but most scholars today think it is not by Eckhart, even though detachment is one of the central themes of his sermons.
Is Meister Eckhart connected to Eckhart Tolle?
Not historically: Eckhart Tolle, born Ulrich Leonard Tölle, is a modern spiritual writer. He quotes Meister Eckhart in The Power of Now (“Time is what keeps the light from reaching us”), and according to some reports his chosen first name is a homage to the medieval mystic.
Which translation of Meister Eckhart should I read?
For a first read, Oliver Davies’s Penguin Selected Writings (1994). For a scholarly selection with Latin works and the trial documents, Colledge and McGinn (1981), with its companion Teacher and Preacher (1986). For all the German sermons, Walshe’s Complete Mystical Works, revised by McGinn (2009). Matthew Fox’s Breakthrough (1980) is popular but reads Eckhart through Fox’s own framework.
Footnotes
- Meister Eckhart — Wikipedia
- Meister Eckhart — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy bibliography (PhilPapers)
- Selected Writings, Meister Eckhart, trans. Oliver Davies — Penguin
- Meister Eckhart, Part 2 — Center for Action and Contemplation
- Eckhart Tolle — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me: my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing and one love.”
— Meister Eckhart, sermon Qui audit me, in Maurice O’C. Walshe’s translation, The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart (2009)
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