Johannes Tauler

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Statue of Johannes Tauler on the outside of the church Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune protestant in Strasbourg

Johannes Tauler (* around 1300 in Strasbourg; † 16 June 1361 in Strasbourg) was a Dominican German theologian and preacher who belonged to the neo-platonic movement. Alongside Meister Eckhart and Heinrich Seuse, he is one of the most important representatives of German mysticism.

Life and work

Tauler came from a wealthy family, as his own words indicate. The name of the family, which had been living in Strasbourg for decades, is mentioned several times in contemporary documents. A Klaus Tauler, presumably Johannes Tauler's father, was a councillor.

Tauler entered the Dominican convent in his home town. He underwent the usual training for priests of the Dominican Order, i.e. a course of study lasting six to eight years, which imparted extensive philosophical and theological knowledge. This probably did not take place in Strasbourg, but in another monastery of the Dominican province of Teutonia in southern Germany. It was probably in the Strasbourg Dominican convent that he met Meister Eckhart, who is documented as having visited the city several times between 1314 and 1322/1324. After his training, Tauler was mainly active in the pastoral care of spiritual women (Dominican nuns and Beguines). For them he wrote his approximately 80 German-language sermons, which were early compiled into collections; the handwritten tradition begins during his lifetime. Apart from a personal letter, these sermons are his only surviving authentic work.

During the conflict between Emperor Louis the Bavarian and Pope John XXII, Strasbourg decided to support the Emperor and was given an interdict by the Pope. Since the Strasbourg Dominicans obeyed the Pope's instruction and refused to continue celebrating mass for the citizens, they were expelled from the city in 1339. Tauler had probably already left Strasbourg in 1338. Like most of his confreres affected by the expulsion, he went to Basel. He remained there at least until the Dominican convent returned to Strasbourg (1342/43).

Tauler spent the last part of his life, weakened by illness, in the garden house of the Dominican convent of St. Nikolaus am Gießen (St. Nicolaus in undis) in Strasbourg. After his death on 16 June 1361, he was buried in the Dominican monastery; the grave slab showing a drawing of his figure has been preserved.

Rudolf Steiner on Johannes Tauler

„Christian esotericism has a powerful foundation, of which only a faint ray penetrates into the outer world through the works of the Christian mystics, Meister Eckhart, [Johannes] Tauler and Jakob Böhme. Tauler and his work "The Layman and the Unknown from the Oberland" give only a faint semblance of the secret doctrine of Christian esotericism.“ (Lit.:GA 111, p. 117f)

„At the time of Johannes Tauler there lived a personality who is called "The Unknown from the Oberland". This personality taught Johannes Tauler, who afterwards preached so powerfully that some of the listeners remained as if dead. The individuality which appeared in this personality was the individuality of the Master Jesus, who had always guided the development of the West, even if in secret. Together with this individuality, the other Master individuality worked in the West: Christian Rosenkreutz. They are also now the Masters of the West who are guiding the development in Central Europe.“ (Lit.:GA 264, p. 330)

„The mystic feels united with the primordial divine life: this is being enlightened, which in mysticism is called man's self-knowledge. It shows that, just as the mathematician produces numbers, man can produce the highest from himself. Self-knowledge becomes immediate enthusiasm, because self-knowledge means devotion to the divinity.

In Johannes Tauler, this moodiness of the mystic comes out in his whole life: his life was an exposition of the divine life. He says that as long as I only discuss and present the highest divine wisdom, I have not achieved the right thing. I must disappear completely myself and let God speak from me. He says God looks at his own laws, by which he created the world, through me, my self is the self-life: I must let God experience himself in me.

Eckhart's mysticism is a mystical knowledge; in Tauler we find mystical life. From that time on, a special artistic expression of the mystic is found: he who experiences God in himself is called "God-friend".

An unknown personality appeared during Tauler's sermon; he is called the "God-friend from the Oberland". We never encounter him in any other way than that he appears, as it were, as a mirror of the other personalities who are influenced by him. Johannes Tauler states in his master book that he communicated knowledge of God to people, but he could not yet let life overflow; then the Friend of God came and gave Johannes Tauler his enlightenment. The original source itself came alive in him. For a long time he gave up all preaching and withdrew with the unknown man from the upper country, in order to bring himself into the state of mind in which this life of the spirit was rising, so that he made himself the channel of divine wisdom and through him it overflowed into others. His speech gained fire, he made the greatest impression; people were transformed by his words, through which people found the spark within them kindled. The dying to all that lives in the outer world, that is the revival of the new man: that is what Johannes Tauler could now bring about through the power of his word. Goethe says: "For as long as you do not have this, this dying and becoming, you are only a dull guest on the dark earth." The experience of the conceptio immaculata is dying and becoming, in the lower sense and in the higher sense. Those who listened to Tauler experienced the unio mystica. Just as man feels all external beauties that come from outside through sensation, so the mystic feels the beauty of the spiritual world through Christ, whom he experiences; it is an experience that makes him drunk: this is the true music of the spheres. Just as man feels the sensual harmony in the world of sensation, so the mystic feels in the soul the coherence of the great laws of the world, the working, the creating of the Logos, of God Himself, the music of the spheres. Through the human soul, the eternal God expresses himself in his Logos.“ (Lit.:GA 51, p. 208ff)

Literature

German
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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