Meister Eckhart has survived in our time as a practical mystic, a New Age seeker from the Dark Ages and an ecumenical model for the idea of many paths to God or truth. John Paul II expressed admiration, as did Jean-Paul Sartre. But as Vanderbilt history professor Joel F. Harrington points out, Eckhart was also a 14th-century Dominican friar, well versed in the Thomas Aquinas school of theology and philosophy and trained to teach. Some of his teachings, however, ran afoul of the Roman Catholic Church. Harrington does a good job writing the biography of a man who left no memoir or diary, placing him in the context of his era and drawing plausible conclusions about his life based on scarce evidence.
