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Reference Series:

The Inner Way:
Selected Sermons of
John Tauler, OP
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2
THE INNER WAY
BEING
THIRTY-SIX SERMONS
FOR FESTIVALS BY
JOHN TAULER
FRIAR PREACHER OF
STRASBURG

A NEW TRANSLATION FROM
THE GERMAN EDITED WITH
AN INTRODUCTION BY

ARTHUR WOLLASTON

HUTTON, M.A.

RECTOR OF ST MARY-LE-BOW
CHEAPSIDE

METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX ST. W.C.
LONDON

SECOND EDITION

FIRST PUBLISHED MAY 1901
SECOND EDITION NOVEMBER 1909

3
Contents

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................7

I...............................................................................................................................................7
Scope of the Present Publication..................................................................................7
II............................................................................................................................................10
Some Notes on Tauler’s Life........................................................................................10
III...........................................................................................................................................13
Notes on Tauler’s Teaching..........................................................................................13
IV...........................................................................................................................................15
Tauler and Mysticism.....................................................................................................15
V............................................................................................................................................20
The Versions of Tauler’s Sermons..............................................................................20

THE INNER WAY...................................................................................................................22

SERMON I...........................................................................................................................22
On The Feast Of St Andrew The Apostle...................................................................22
SERMON II..........................................................................................................................27
On St Barbara’s Day, Or That Of Any Other Holy Virgin.........................................27
SERMON III.........................................................................................................................30
On the Conception of Our Lady, also on Her Birth...................................................30
SERMON IV........................................................................................................................34
On the Feast of St Stephen or of St Lawrence..........................................................34
SERMON V.........................................................................................................................41
On St John the Evangelist’s day..................................................................................41
SERMON VI........................................................................................................................45
Of the Feast of the Holy Virgin St Agnes....................................................................45
SERMON VII.......................................................................................................................49
Our Lady’s Candle-Mass..............................................................................................49
SERMON VIII......................................................................................................................54
On the Feast of St Agatha, or the Holy Virgins.........................................................54
SERMON IX........................................................................................................................57
On The Annunciation of our Lady................................................................................57
SERMON X.........................................................................................................................62
On the Nativity of John the Baptist the First Sermon..............................................62
SERMON XI........................................................................................................................67
On the Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist...................................................67
SERMON XII.......................................................................................................................73
On the Feast of St Timothy, or the Memorial of St Peter.........................................73
SERMON XIII......................................................................................................................76
On the Feast of St Paul the Apostle............................................................................76
4
SERMON XIV.....................................................................................................................79
On the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, or on the Octave of Her Nativity.......79
SERMON XV.......................................................................................................................84
On the Feast of St Mary Magdalene...........................................................................84
SERMON XVI.....................................................................................................................90
On the Feast of the Holy Martyr, St Laurence...........................................................90
SERMON XVII....................................................................................................................95
Of the Assumption of our Lady....................................................................................95
SERMON XVIII...................................................................................................................99
On the Feast of St Augustine.......................................................................................99
SERMON XIX...................................................................................................................103
On the Nativity of Our Lady........................................................................................103
SERMON XX.....................................................................................................................107
On the Exaltation of the Holy Cross..........................................................................107
The first Sermon.......................................................................................................107
SERMON XXI...................................................................................................................110
On the Exaltation of the Holy Cross..........................................................................110
The Second Sermon................................................................................................110
SERMON XXII..................................................................................................................114
On the Exaltation of the Holy Cross..........................................................................114
The Third Sermon....................................................................................................114
SERMON XXIII.................................................................................................................118
On the Feast of St Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist............................................118
SERMON XXIV.................................................................................................................122
On the Feast of St Michael and All Angels..............................................................122
SERMON XXV..................................................................................................................126
All Saints’ Day...............................................................................................................126
SERMON XXVI.................................................................................................................132
All Saints’ Day...............................................................................................................132
The Second Sermon................................................................................................132
SERMON XXVII................................................................................................................136
All Saints’ Day, or St Ursula’s Day............................................................................136
The Third Sermon....................................................................................................136
SERMON XXVIII...............................................................................................................139
On the Feast of the Holy Virgin, St Catherine.........................................................139
SERMON XXIX.................................................................................................................142
On the Feast of the Twelve Apostles........................................................................142
SERMON XXX..................................................................................................................145
On the Feast of Martyrs..............................................................................................145
SERMON XXXI.................................................................................................................150
On a Holy Martyr’s Day...............................................................................................150
SERMON XXXII................................................................................................................155
On the Feast of a Holy Bishop...................................................................................155
5
SERMON XXXIII...............................................................................................................161
On the Feast of a Holy Confessor.............................................................................161
SERMON XXXIV..............................................................................................................164
On the Feast of a Holy Virgin.....................................................................................164
SERMON XXXV...............................................................................................................168
At the Dedication of a Church....................................................................................168
The First Sermon......................................................................................................168
SERMON XXXVI..............................................................................................................171
At the Dedication of a Church....................................................................................171
The Second Sermon................................................................................................171

THREE THOUGHTFUL INSTRUCTIONS AND SOME USEFUL ADVICE ON CONFESSION.............176

INSTRUCTION I...............................................................................................................176
The first instruction teaches us to confess, simply and sincerely, and to search
out the very depths of our hearts...........................................................................176
INSTRUCTION II..............................................................................................................177
The Second Instruction gives a short Form for the common Confession of
Monks or Nuns, and shows how they may be absolved....................................177
INSTRUCTION III.............................................................................................................177
The third Instruction shows man how he must take as his Example, the
peculiar Attributes and Names assigned to God, and to His Divine Being; and
how, on the other hand, he must bear his own nothingness, and then
contemplate the unknown wastes and deserts of the Divine Attributes in quiet
seclusion....................................................................................................................177
6
INTRODUCTION

I

Scope of the Present Publication

In this volume are contained the thirty-seven Sermons of John Tauler, which form
the Third Part of the complete editions published at Frankfort in 1826 and at Prague (ed.
Hamberger) in 1872. These are the Sermons for Festivals (de sanctis), while the First
and Second Parts contain the Sermons for the Christian Year (de tempore); the total
number being 145. Should this volume of the Festal Sermons meet with a favourable
reception, the Sermons for the Christian Year may follow in two or three volumes. Up to
the present time only twenty-seven of Tauler’s sermons have appeared in English,
these being contained in Miss Susanna Winkworth’s well-known but now scarce
volume, to which Charles Kingsley contributed a preface.1 Of the thirty-seven Festal
Sermons Miss Winkworth translated only three (nos. 4, 12, and 31 in the present
volume) so that thirty-four of those now presented to the reader appear here for the first
time in English. The Sermons for the Christian Year were translated into French by M.
Charles Sainte-Foi, and were published in Paris in 1855; but he did not include the
Sermons de sanctis. They are to be found, however, together with all else that is rightly
or wrongly ascribed to Tauler, in the Latin version, or rather paraphrase, by Laurentius
Surius, a Carthusian,2 which was based on the Cologne German edition of 1543, and
which was reprinted at least twelve times before the end of the seventeenth century,
while it was also translated into Italian, French and Dutch.

Until the appearance of Hamberger’s edition (Prague, 1872), the standard
German edition of the Sermons was that published at Frankfort, in 1826, without an
editor’s name. This was used by Miss Winkworth, and also by M. Sainte-Foi; and it
forms the basis of the present publication, as I have only been able to refer to
Hamberger’s edition in the British Museum. In the anonymous Introduction are indicated
the MSS. sources on which the earlier standard German editions (Leipzig, 1498;
Augsburg, 1508; Basle, 1521; Halberstadt, 1523; Cologne, 1543; Frankfort, 1565;
Amsterdam, 1588; Antwerp, 1593; and Hamburg, 1621) were based. The original
Leipzig edition (1498) was printed from MSS. at Strasburg, said to be contemporary
with Tauler, and to have been corrected by him. The eighty-four sermons in this edition
may therefore be reckoned as authentic, with the exception of four, which are known to
have been Eckhart’s. To the Basle edition of 1521 forty-two sermons were added, the
editor, John Rymann, saying of them that “they have been more recently discovered

1 “The History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler of Strasbourg; with Twenty-five of his
Sermons (temp. 1340) translated from the German with additional Notices of Tauler’s Life and Times, by
Susanna Winkworth.” London, 1857.
2 D. Joannis Thauleri preaclarissimi viri sublimisque theologi tam de tempore quam de sanctis conciones
plane pilassimae...eaeteraque opera omnia...nune primum ex Germanico idiomate in Latinum transfusa
sermonem, interprete Laurentio Surio, Lubecensi, Carthusiae Coloniensis alumno, Coloniae, 1548.
7
and collected with great care and diligence. Although there may be a doubt about some
of them, let not that offend thee, for it is certain that they have been written by a right
learned man of that age, and are all based on one foundation, namely, true self-
surrender and the preparation of the spirit for God.” Some of these are probably to be
ascribed to Eckhart, Suso or Ruysbroek. Such of them as are found in this volume are
distinguished by the mark * in the Table of Contents. Of this Basle edition it should be
noted that it was issued in the interests of the Reformation; and the article on Tauler in
the new edition of the Kirchenlexicon (1899) seems to ignore these forty-two additional
sermons altogether, and to admit as authentic only five of those added to the Cologne
edition presently to be referred to. Something is said below as to the sense in which
alone Tauler can be described as “a Reformer before the Reformation”; but it may be
convenient here to note that Luther, who in 1517 put forth an edition of the Theologia
Germanica, the work of one of Tauler’s contemporaries, had in the previous year written
to Spalatin a commendation of Tauler’s sermons, of which, as a recognition of their
Protestant tendency, too much has certainly been made. The fact that the words were
written when Luther was still Prior of Wittenberg, and before there was any breach with
Rome, should have sufficed to secure them from such misinterpretation.3 Finally, to the
Cologne edition of 1543 (the standard for all subsequent ones) Petrus Noviomagus, the
editor, added twenty-five sermons more, which he had found chiefly in the library of St
Gertrude’s Convent in Cologne; and the authenticity of these is in a general way
supported, both by internal evidence, and by the fact that to the nuns at St Gertrude’s
Tauler frequently preached. Of the Festal Sermons contained in this volume, eighteen
are to be found in the original Leipzig edition, fifteen form part of the Basle supplement,
and four are of those that were added to the Cologne edition. Miss Winkworth, selecting
from the whole number of 145 sermons, took eleven from the original edition, eleven
from the Basle supplement, and five from the Cologne supplement. Of the Festal
Sermons she selected only three, her principle of selection being rather edification than
authenticity.

But, on the general question of authenticity, it must be confessed that not one of
the 145 sermons can claim such as it would have possessed had it been written by
Tauler’s own hand and been put forth by him as representing what he said or desired to
say on the occasion. His sermons were always spoken; and the MSS. are at best only
the reports of those who heard him; and such reports, it is hardly necessary to say, do
not reproduce the sermons as they actually were delivered; though the way in which the
sermons have thus come down to us explains the differences of reading in various
editions and also the obscurity of certain passages. A critical edition of Tauler’s
Sermons by a competent hand is doubtless a thing to be desired; but it would be a

3 Luther’s commendation is as follows: - “Si te dilectat puram, solidam, antiquae simillimam theologiam
legere in Germanica lingua effusam, sermones Johannis Tauleri, praedictoriae professionis, tibi
comparare potes, cujus totius velut epitomen ecce hic tibi mitto. Neque enim in Latina neque in nostra
lingua theologiam vidi salubriorem et cum Evangelio consonantiorem.” On this Weiss, in the Biographic
universelle (edition of 1826) comments as follows: - “Les eloges donnes a ses i.e. Tauler’s ouvrages par
Luther, Melanchthon, et la plupart des chefs de la reforme religieuse, avaient fait soupconner ia purete
des principes de Tauler; mais d’illustres ecrivian catholiques ont pris soin de justifier sa menoire; et
Bossuet dit (“Instruction sur les etats d’oraison”) qu’il le regarde comme un des plus solides et des plus
corrects des mystiques.”
8
misfortune, from the point of view of edification, if, in such an edition, matter otherwise
admirable found no place, on account of the uncertainty of its authorship.

The scope of Miss Winkworth’s edition of Tauler’s Sermons differed from that of
the present publication. She had learnt to admire them by hearing some of them read in
German Protestant households as a part of domestic worship; and her idea was to
introduce a previously unknown preacher to an English audience, compiling “a volume
of sermons for the Sundays and Holy-days of the year, such as any head of a family
might read to his household, or any district visitor among the poor.” But as she was very
properly anxious to publish in their entirety such sermons as she selected, she felt
compelled to omit such as, either in whole or in part, were “too much imbued with
references to the Romish ritual and discipline to be suitable for the Protestant common
people.” I cannot say that any of the sermons strike me as particularly suitable for such
a purpose. They contain, indeed, many thought that have become pulpit commonplaces
since Tauler’s day, and other thoughts that might very well acquire such acceptance;
but for such a use as Miss Winkworth contemplated, the sermons need more than mere
translation. Their spirit must first be made his own by any man who is to expound it
profitably; and this he then must do in his own language. My idea has therefore rather
been to present these sermons of Tauler’s in such a form as may aid towards a more
accurate historical appreciation of the man and his teaching. I have had no thought of
either pruning or adapting his words. He was a Dominican friar of the fourteenth
century, and he held all the beliefs of his age and of his Church without any trace of
reserve. The ardour of his Marian devotion is especially noticeable; and it would be as
improper to omit this or to tone it down in a translation, as it would be to correct any
other illustrations of his beliefs and practices, crude and almost grotesque as some of
them undoubtedly are.4 Indeed, in order to preserve throughout the impression of a
Catholic preacher addressing a Catholic congregation, I have even gone out of my way
to give the English translation of the Scripture texts from the Douai version; since,
though that did not exist in Tauler’s day any more than our own Authorized Version, it is
a faithful translation from the Vulgate, which Tauler used in the pulpit, translating it into
German for the benefit of his hearers. Such at least has been my intention; though, from
inadvertence and a greater familiarity with King James’ version, I may not have adhered
to it throughout. To the lady, by her own desire anonymous, to whose patient labour the
bulk of the translation of the Sermons is due, I desire here to record my most sincere
thanks. Tauler’s sentences are sometimes obscure because they are so long; and that
obscurity the translator has in many cases succeeded in removing by breaking up a
sentence into two or more; but it has not been found possible to remove in all cases the
obscurity of the original. (See, at the end of this Introduction, an illustration of the
methods used by some earlier translators of Tauler.) The version here presented will,
however, be found as a whole, readable and easy; and it should serve to render more

4 With reference to the singularly detailed account of the way in which the Blessed Virgin occupied her
time, given by Tauler in the Sermon here numbered vii., the Rev. Andrew Burn, rector of Kynnersley,
Salop has called my attention to similar language in the gnomes of the Nicene Synod, quoted by
Professor Achelis (Journal of Theological Studies, II., 128) which certainly suggests that the two have a
common source in traditions contained in some now lost Apocryphal Gospel. The Gnomes are at present
only available in two Coptic MSS.; the supposed date of the treatise is c.400.
9