Note 432 — Chapter V

Recently edited (1908) by H. Mandel according to Luther’s edition with additions from MSS.; see “Theol. Literaturztg.,” p. 493 (1909). Mandel says in the preface: “It is obviously not correct to represent Luther’s well-known experiences in the monastery [which?] as directly connected with his fundamental ideas of reform. Rather it is evident, and acknowledged by Luther himself, that he learnt his root ideas in the school of Tauler and the ‘Theologia Deutsch.’” It is true that his misapprehension of the same strengthened his mistaken notions. The very first chapter in the booklet disproves the assertion frequently made that it is decidedly Pantheistic in tone; there a definite distinction is made between God and the creature as the “perfect” and the “divided” essence: “of all the divided none is perfect. Hence the perfect is no part of the divided.” In the light of this the obscure sentence which occurs in the “Theologia Deutsch,” that God, the Perfect, is the essence of all things, without which and outside of which there is no real being, must not be understood in the Pantheistic sense. The book, in fact, contains no sentence which cannot be understood in an orthodox fashion when taken in conjunction with others.