es. [Sidenote: Suso, 1300-66] Suso's
ecstatic piety was of the ultra-medieval type, romantic, poetic, and
bent on winning personal salvation by the old means of severe
self-torture and the constant practice of good works. Tauler, a
Dominican of Strassburg, belonged to a society known as The Friends of
God. [Sidenote: Tauler c. 1300-61] Of all his contemporaries he in
religion was the most social and practical. His life was that of an
evangelist, preaching to laymen in their own vernacular the gospel of a
pure life and direct communion with God through the Bible and prayer.
Like many other popular preachers he placed great emphasis on
conversion, the turning (_Kehr_) from a bad to a good life. Simple
faith is held to be better than knowledge or than the usual works of
ecclesiastical piety. Tauler esteemed the holiest man he had ever seen
one who had never heard five sermons in his life. All honest labor is
called God's service, spinning and shoe-making the gifts of the Holy
Spirit. Pure religion is to be "drowned in God," "intoxicated with
God," "melted in the fire of his love." Transcending the common view
of the average Christian that religion's one end was his own salvation,
Tauler taught him that the love of God was greater than this. He tells
of a woman ready to be damned for the glory of God--"and if such a
person were dragged into the bottom of hell, there would be the kingdom
of God and eternal bliss in hell."

One of the fine flowers of German mysticism is a book written
anonymously--"spoken by the Almighty, Eternal God, through a wise,
understanding, truly just man, his Friend, a priest of the Teutonic
Order at Frankfort." _The German Theology_, [Sidenote: _The German
Theology_] as it was named by Luther, teaches in its purest form entire
abandonment to God, simple passivity in his hands, utter {32}
self-denial and self-surrender, until, without the interposition of any
external power, and equally without effort of her own, the soul shall
find herself at one with the bridegroom. The immanence of God is
taught; man's helpless and sinful condition is emphasized; and the
reconciliation of the two is found only in the unconditional surrender
of man's will to God. "Put off thine own will and there will be no
hell."

Tauler's sermons, first published 1498, had an immense influence on
Luther. They were later taken up by the Jesuit Canisius who sought by
them to purify his church. [Sidenote: 1543] _