TEOLOGIA GERMANICA. — Title (Theologia Teutsch or Deutsch) of an ascetic-mystical work composed around 1400, whose anonymous author was a priest and guardian (« custos ») of the house of the Teutonic Order in Frankfurt am Main.
Luther edited its first edition (1516), followed by a second (1518), whose text, however, was different. The work achieved wide circulation and was translated into several languages. In 1850 another manuscript, dated 1497, was discovered; it is probably very close to the original, which is no longer preserved. It was published by Franz Pfeiffer (1851, 4th ed. 1900), and by W. Uhl under the title Der Frankfurter (1912).
In simple language, in 54 chapters, the T. G. directs the reader toward the pursuit of Christian perfection, whose supreme end is union with God, through which man is divinized. Mystical experiences are mentioned here and there with a certain reserve. The work lacks full overall coherence of thought, and minor contradictions are sometimes found in II. Some isolated propositions seem to deny all independence to created being and activity. On the whole, however, it strongly emphasizes self-denial, renunciation of the self, and humble obedience to the commandments of God and the Church. The movement of the Brethren of the Free Spirit is harshly opposed. Christ’s human nature is presented as exemplary in its union with the divinity, with divine knowing and activity. The T. G. is entirely foreign to the Lutheran conception of Christianity. Yet, beginning with Luther, it was often misrepresented in Protestant circles, and was especially favored by the Pietists (S. Franck [1499–1543], who made a Latin paraphrase of it; Ph. J. Spener; J. Arndt). Calvin, on the other hand, rejected the T. G.; the Latin translation by the humanist S. Castellio (1515–63) has been on the Index since 1612. Various Catholics have wrongly discerned in the T. G. a pantheistic spirit hostile to the Church. Significant passages reveal affinities with Dominican spirituality and mysticism. The T. G. may be called a brief synthesis of medieval German mysticism.
The T. G. of Bertoldo Pürstinger (1465–1543), bishop of Chiemsee from 1508 to 1526, is of a different nature. His Teutsche Theologie (Munich 1528; reprinted by W. Reithmeier in 1852), which he reworked in Latin (Augsburg 1531), is the first treatise on dogmatic theology in German, based on Holy Scripture and St Thomas, and is of considerable linguistic and doctrinal importance.