Somewhere around 1350, someone penned what would become a devotional masterpiece. The author was likely a priest in Frankfurt, but the resulting book, Theologia Germanica, or Theologia Deutsch, is formally anonymous. But its faceless authorship has not detracted from its fame. Martin Luther published it in 1516 and called it second only to the Bible and Augustine.
Its renown lies in its simple comprehensiveness. This is a manual on the Christian life.
It begins with the deep problem of man: self-will, a deep-rooted independence from God. The solution is the opposite: union with God by self-emptying and yielding to God.
“And therefore it is true to the very letter, that the creature, as creature, hath no worthiness in itself, and no right to anything, and no claim over any one, either over God or over the creature, and that it ought to give itself up to God and submit to him because this is just.”
From this union comes a life of obedience and imitation of Christ. “In brief: whether a man be good, better, or best of all; bad, worse, or worst of all; sinful or saved before God; it all lieth in this matter of obedience.”
The Theologia belongs to the mystical tradition, but not the semi-Gnostic form of mysticism that advocated a kind of mindless melting into God. The Theologia belongs to the tradition that calls for an experiential knowledge of God that comes from living in communion with God. “And he who would know before he believeth, cometh never to true knowledge…We speak of a certain Truth which it is possible to know by experience, but which ye must believe in, before that ye know it by experience, else ye will never come to know it truly.”
The Theologia shows that there was a strong evangelical stream in the Western Church, long before Luther, Calvin or Zwingli. The author believed in a true, inward religion, marked by humility and love, and censored superficial religion based on rituals alone. Words like these should stir the heart of the most ardent Protestant evangelical:
“And where a creature loveth other creatures for the sake of something that they have, or loveth God, for the sake of something of her own, it is all false Love; and this Love belongeth properly to nature, for nature as nature can feel and know no other love than this; for if ye look narrowly into it, nature as nature loveth nothing beside herself. But true Love is taught and guided by the true Light and Reason, and this true, eternal and divine Light teacheth Love to love nothing but the One true and Perfect Good, and that simply for its own sake, and not for the sake of a reward, or in the hope of obtaining anything, but simply for the Love of Goodness, because it is good and hath a right to be loved.”
Here is a 700 year-old booklet that has earned a space in your reading list. Read it and find out why a “catholic” book so delighted the Reformer Martin Luther.
