GERMANIC THEOLOGY. - Title (Theologia Teutsch or Deutsch) of an ascetic-mystical writing composed around 1400, whose author, anonymous, was a priest and guardian ("custos") of the house of the Teutonic Order in Frankfurt am Main.
Luther prepared its first edition (1516), then a second (1518), whose text, however, was different. The writing had wide diffusion and was translated into several languages. In 1850 another manuscript from 1497 was discovered, which is probably very close to the original, no longer preserved; it was published by Franz Pfeiffer (1851, 4th ed. 1900), and by W. Uhl under the title Der Frankfurter (1912).
With simple words, in 54 chapters, the T. G. directs one toward the search for Christian perfection, whose supreme end is union with God, through which man is divinized. With a certain reluctance, mystical experiences are mentioned here and there. The writing lacks a fully coherent overall unity of thought, and small contradictions are sometimes found in it. Some isolated propositions seem to deny all independence to created being and activity. But on the whole, self-abnegation, renunciation of one's own self, and humble obedience to the commandments of God and of the Church are supremely emphasized. The movement of the Brethren of the Free Spirit is sharply combated in it. The human nature of Christ is presented as exemplary in its union with the divinity, with divine knowing and acting. The T. G. is totally foreign to the Lutheran conception of Christianity. But, 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 hints manifest affinities with Dominican spirituality and mysticism. The T. G. may be called a brief synthesis of the German mysticism of the Middle Ages.
Of another nature is the T. G. of Berthold Pürstinger (1465-1543), bishop of Chiemsee from 1508 to 1526; his Teutsche Theologie (Munich 1528; reprint by W. Reithmeier 1852), which he reworked in Latin (Augsburg 1531), is the first treatise of dogmatic theology in German, on the basis of Sacred Scripture and of St. Thomas, and has great linguistic and doctrinal importance.