Throughout the Exemplar Seuse delights in playing with the word Gelassenheit in its various grammatical forms and realms of meaning. Whether in spite of or because of this, he does not represent Gelassenheit as something one could discursively or intellectually grasp, but rather, as Susanne Bernhardt argues, “als praktisches Wissen, das es nachzuvollziehen gilt [as practical knowledge that one must understand by doing].”22 For Seuse, Gelassenheit and its attendant practices link the philosophical-theological concept of the ground of the soul to the concerns of practical theology. Seuse does not rest at providing a theoretical description of the human soul, but further presents a devotional program, illustrated in the three stages of the Vita. Each of the three stages of spiritual progression entails particular exercises which gradually reveal new levels of meaning corresponding to new forms of imitatio Christi.
The first stage involves developing the appropriate attitude toward one’s own body. The Servant practices severe self-castigation in many ways similar to those used by Elsbeth von Oye, a sister from the convent of Oetenbach whose life is recounted in their sisterbook. For example, he explicitly compares himself to the tortured Christ while flagellating himself with a thorny scourge.23 This practice, however, must be surpassed, because in choosing to inflict such discipline on himself, Seuse still follows his own will rather than God’s.24 Similar to many accounts in the sisterbooks, the transition to the intermediate stage entails ceasing self-castigation in order to accept suffering inflicted by “wolfish people.”25 Gelassenheit at this stage is understood in the sense of humility and patience or equanimity in the face of adversity, which Richard Kieckhefer has identified as one of the characteristic virtues of fourteenth-century holiness.26 This advanced stage entails not literal imitation of Christ’s acts or suffering but creative imitation of his virtue in all events and experiences.27
The final, highest stage of Gelassenheit paradoxically incorporates both the sense of trust in God, that is, leaving oneself in God’s hands, and that of abandonment, the feeling of having been left by God. Bernhardt demonstrates this multiplicity of the meanings of Gelassenheit and Seuse’s practical understanding in an analysis of Seuse’s lament over being accused of having impregnated a woman.28 Noting that the term lassen-gelassen-gelassenheit permeates the passage, she shows that it is used even within the same sentence to mean both his abandonment by God and entrusting his troubles to God. In this semantically charged outcry, Seuse wears himself out and finally grasps true Gelassenheit when he stills himself, accepts his lot, and cites Christ: fiat voluntas tua.29 As Bernhardt summarizes, “Gelassenheit wird semantisch entfaltet im Spektrum Gleichmut—Gottvertrauen—Gottverlassenheit sowie mit Geduld und natürlich mit Leiden in Beziehung gesetzt [Gelassenheit semantically unfolds along the spectrum: equanimity—trust in God—abandonment by God and is placed in relation to patience and, naturally, suffering].”30 This coincidence of meanings must also be at work in the compressed statement in the Little Book of Eternal Wisdom: “Ein gelazenheit ob aller gelazenheit ist gelazen sin in gelazenheit [the greatest self-abnegation of all is being patient/humble/trusting when abandoned].”31 Imitation of Christ in Gelassenheit does not necessarily entail physical suffering, but rather the patient acceptance of the will of God in whatever suffering is sent.
Seuse offers a deeper discussion of Gelassenheit in the Little Book of Truth, which recounts a philosophical dialogue between a disciple and the personified figure of Truth as she coaches him in the true spiritual way.32 The work begins more or less at the same point as the conversion of the Servant in chapter 19 of the Vita. The disciple has long practiced the forms of asceticism common to beginners but knows that he is missing something, for he remains “ungeübt in sin selbs nehsten gelazenheit [unpracticed in his own innermost Gelassenheit].”33 Gelassenheit, as Truth explains in Chapter 4, entails sich lassen, abnegation of the self.34 However, Seuse intentionally softens Eckhart’s philosophy of essential unity in the ground whereby the soul loses or destroys its created nature in order to be “one only one” with God.35 Truth clarifies that Gelassenheit does not entail total annihilation of the self and indistinct union with God.36 On the contrary, each person has five kinds of “self,” and only the last is at issue. Each person possesses a being self, which stones also have; growing, which humans share with plants; feeling, which animals enjoy; human nature, which all humans share; and finally, individual personhood.37 The middle three selves are identifiable as Aristotle’s nutritive, sensitive, and rational souls.38 All of these selves are created but nevertheless do not prevent perception of God in the divine ground; only the characteristics of individual personhood obstruct Gelassenheit. Even so, Truth specifies that these traits must not be destroyed but simply given up or despised (ufgeben oder verahten).39 Here as in the Vita, self-denial, defined as the recognition of one’s own powerlessness and the acceptance of suffering, allows one to un-become (entwerden) and unite with Christ in the divine ground. Truth summarizes, “dis gelassen sich wirt ein kristförmig ich [this gelassen self becomes an I according to Christ’s form].”40 Abandoning one’s own identity, goals, aspirations, and practices produces a Christlike self through acceptance of God’s will in suffering.
Tauler’s understanding of Gelassenheit is similarly broad but often more abstract than Seuse’s. In her systematic analysis of Tauler’s use of Gelassenheit throughout the surviving sermons, Imke Früh notes that Tauler never explicitly defines Gelassenheit as Seuse does, so that the term comes to encompass a broad range of virtues, importantly including the monastic virtues of humility and obedience.41 Moreover, although Tauler does also endorse contemplation and imitation of Christ’s passion, suffering does not pervade his sermons as it does Seuse’s writings. When he does speak of it, Tauler tends quickly to abstract the concept of leiden from the experience of pain to a state of passivity. As Alois Haas explains, “Gotliden meint die Absenz allen menschlichen wúrkens … und damit die schrankenlose Offenheit und Empfänglichkeit für die von Gott gewirkte Einigung des Menschen mit Gott [suffering God entails the absence of all human work … and therefore the unbounded openness and receptivity for the union of the person with God, effected through God himself].”42 Früh also emphasizes passivity in Tauler’s conception of Gelassenheit, noting that “leaving oneself” constitutes “weniger eine aktive Handlung als vielmehr einen Übergang in die Passivität [less an active deed than a transition into passivity].”43 This passivity is not a form of quietism but rather a receptivity to the workings of God, who can only enter an empty vessel. Achieving this state of receptivity (“reine Empfänglichkeit und Bestimmbarkeit” in Markus Enders’s words44) by preparing the ground of the soul proves absolutely central to Tauler’s concept of Gelassenheit.
This concept of Gelassenheit as receptive passivity is worked out in a sermon for Christmas. Tauler explains that the three Masses celebrated on Christmas day honor three different ways in which Christ is born. First, the birth of the Son from the Father, second, the birth of Jesus from Mary, and third, the eternal birth of God in the soul should be commemorated over the course of the day. In explaining the first form of birth, Tauler draws on the Johannine association of Christ with the Word of God. Echoing the inward turn that he will argue the human soul must take, Tauler explains that God turned inward to the abyss (abgrund) of his own being and, in pure understanding of himself, spoke himself out as a Word, that is, Christ the Son. If one wishes to receive God in the soul,