In 1992 Fr Damian Byrne, Master of the Dominican Order, formally requested Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to abrogate In agro dominico, the bull that condemned numerous of Meister Eckhart's teachings (1329). The petition was the result of more than a decade of dedicated collaborative scholarship to demonstrate that Eckhart's teachings are consistently orthodox. On 19 April 2010 news were posted on the internet that the Eckhart scholar George Steer had found archival evidence that the Congregation had responded positively to the petition, and thus at least implicitly had cleared Eckhart's reputation as an orthodox author (http://curia.op.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=429:meister-eckhart-rehabilitated&catid=63:general, accessed 17 July 2010).

Sigrun Jäger's thoughtful and engagingly written theological study of four of Meister Eckhart's German sermons should be read against the backdrop of the still officially unrecognised wrongful condemnation of Eckhart's teachings and the efforts of major Eckhart scholars and the Dominican community to rehabilitate his name and reputation. What made Meister Eckhart, a dedicated and committed leader of the Dominican Order with a successful career as administrator and spiritual leader, so suspect to the church authorities? As Jäger points out, Eckhart underscored that his teachings revolved around only four themes: the mystical ability of mind to receive divine presence as knowledge and being; the birth of God in the human soul and the return of the human soul to God; the nobility or divine nature of the soul, the Seelenfünklein; and the brilliant purity of Divine nature (pp. 101, 376). His accusers' mildest criticism was that he could easily be misunderstood because he frequently taught such matters to those without theological training. Meister Eckhart's insistence on the primacy and objectivity of the unseen world and the divine nature of the soul (p. 99) remain challenging even today.

Jäger's study is divided into two main sections with an introduction, conclusion and summary. Part i contextualises the sermons with an introduction to Eckhart's life and works, including a review of recent scholarship on the Cologne inquisition and the condemnation at Avignon, a survey of the extant manuscripts, critical editions, and questions of the authenticity of source materials, and a summary of the intellectual context of Eckhart's work in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In the introduction, the author explains her unusual methodological approach, a preference for a line-by-line exegesis of a small sample over a broad-stroked study of Eckhart's complete oeuvre. She defends it against the argument that a close analysis of these four sermons constitute too narrow a sample to generalise about Eckhart's theological and mystical thought. Jäger – in my view convincingly – vindicates her approach by proposing and then demonstrating in her subsequent analysis that each text contains all the elements of Eckhardian thought in a tightly woven intertextuality.

Part ii offers a nuanced theological analysis of four sample sermons: ‘Intravit Jesus in templum et coepit eicere vendentes et ementes’ (Matthew xxi.12; DW 1), which is regarded as one of the most authenticated sermons, possibly composed in February 1326, the year in which the inquisitorial process against Meister Eckhart was initiated; ‘Ave, gratia plena’ (Luke i.28; DW 22), likely given in Cologne in December 1325; ‘Surrexit autem Saulem de terra apertisque oculis nihil videbat’ (Acts ix.8; DW 71), designed as a model for spiritual growth, likely written around 1302/1303 in honour of the feast of St Paul's conversion (25 January); and ‘Iusti vivent in aeternum’ (Sap. v.16; DW 6), a text that is also generally acknowledged as authentic work, with its composition dated to the decade 1313–23. It is especially significant since four of the twenty-eight articles of In agro dominico refer to this sermon. Each theological analysis follows a clear structure similar to the overall design of the first section of the book: an introduction with an up-to-date bibliography of scholarly commentaries on the specific sermon, a summary of relevant manuscript authentication issues, a description of the liturgical occasion for the sermon, its date of authorship and an outline of the thematic contents, followed by a detailed contextual and intertextual analysis of each theme. Extensive footnotes provide an array of cross-referencing quotations from primary and secondary sources. These include Meister Eckhart's Latin works, biblical sources, medieval theologians and contemporary scholarship. Consistently, Jäger employs remarkable sensitivity and scholarly acumen in uncovering intertextual depth dimensions and the nuances of Eckhardian ontology. Free of polemics, her analyses seamlessly engage theological, mystical and biblical layers. This is no small feat, and given the author's graceful style, it nearly turns a scholarly study into a lectio divina. Jäger's discussions of the inquisitorial attacks on Meister Eckhart in the introduction and final chapters frame her analysis of the sermons. Following her close analysis of the four representative sermons, one cannot but marvel at the wilful misreading produced by Eckhart's medieval enemies. In her own way, the author has not only rehabilitated the Meister, but also demonstrated why one ought to reflect on his teachings even today.