The German Works 64 Homilies for the Liturgical Year 1. « De tempore »

Présentation

This volume (based on Loris Sturlese’s Italian collection from the year 2014) contains the vernacular texts and English translations of 64 of Eckhart’s German sermons, which can be linked with the cycle of preaching during the liturgical year (De tempore). A second volume, currently in preparation, will be devoted to a further 56 vernacular sermons for the feasts of the saints (De sanctis). A further volume will contain Eckhart’s Latin homilies (both De tempore and the few surviving ones De sanctis). Loris Sturlese and Markus Vinzent will thus provide both the entire vernacular and Latin legacy of ’authentic’homilies, totalling over 100 vernacular and almost 100 Latin sermons. The first volume on the homilies De tempore centres on the time between Advent and Trinity with a major gap in the cycle in the summer time (absent are the weeks V-XV after Trinity Sunday) and gives us Eckhart’s preaching in literary form. As the collection has been reconstructed, it seems to go back to a written, arranged, and to a certain extent textualized and published opus, most likely by Eckhart himself. The corpus of sermons that have been relocated into their liturgical place from the critical edition of Kohlhammer represents a work situated midway between oral texts and their professional editor. It opens a door to students and interested readers into the world of Eckhart’s liturgical preaching, helped by a thorough general introduction, short prefaces to all homilies and notes.