SOURCE: Marx, Heidi. “Metaphors of Imaging in Meister Eckhart and Marguerite Porete.” Medieval Perspectives 8 (1998): 99-108.

In the following essay, Marx compares Porete's portrayal of the divine with that of Meister Eckhart, focusing on their use of metaphors associated with mirrors, mirroring, and painting.

A great deal of recent Eckhart scholarship has been devoted to the question of similarities and differences between his thought and that of a number of his contemporary female mystics, most of them beguines. In particular, a number of articles have focused on the sometimes uncanny similarities between his thought and that of Marguerite Porete as found in her The Mirror of Simple Souls.¹ Certain scholars have argued for the strong possibility that Eckhart may have read Porete's work; but whether or not this is the case, I find the endeavor of tracing out philosophical and theological intersections between these two thinkers a fruitful one...