"As a good wine must be kept in a good cask, so a wholesome body is the proper foundation for a well-appointed inner ground"
About this Quote
Tauler’s line slips a spiritual directive into the language of craft and appetite. The wine-and-cask metaphor isn’t decorative; it’s a tactical concession to the stubborn reality that medieval mysticism could never quite float free of flesh. If the “inner ground” is the soul’s prepared soil - the cultivated space where God can be encountered - then the body is not an embarrassing obstacle but the container that determines whether anything sacred can be preserved, aged, and made potent.
The intent reads as corrective. Tauler, a 14th-century Dominican shaped by the Rhineland mystics, speaks to audiences tempted by extremes: either indulgence that dulls attention, or ascetic heroics that treat the body like a disposable enemy. He refuses both. A “wholesome body” is not a luxury; it’s infrastructure. The spirituality he’s selling requires stamina: fasting, prayer, vigilance, humility, service. None of it survives long in a body wrecked by neglect or performative self-harm.
The subtext is almost managerial: tend to your vessel because your inner life depends on it. “Well-appointed” hints at order and readiness, not mere purity. This is sanctity as maintenance rather than spectacle. By choosing wine - a substance that needs time, care, and the right conditions - Tauler also implies that spiritual maturity is slow and contingent. Grace may be divine, but its human reception is profoundly material. Even mystics, he suggests, have to eat, sleep, and heal if they want their souls to stay open.
The intent reads as corrective. Tauler, a 14th-century Dominican shaped by the Rhineland mystics, speaks to audiences tempted by extremes: either indulgence that dulls attention, or ascetic heroics that treat the body like a disposable enemy. He refuses both. A “wholesome body” is not a luxury; it’s infrastructure. The spirituality he’s selling requires stamina: fasting, prayer, vigilance, humility, service. None of it survives long in a body wrecked by neglect or performative self-harm.
The subtext is almost managerial: tend to your vessel because your inner life depends on it. “Well-appointed” hints at order and readiness, not mere purity. This is sanctity as maintenance rather than spectacle. By choosing wine - a substance that needs time, care, and the right conditions - Tauler also implies that spiritual maturity is slow and contingent. Grace may be divine, but its human reception is profoundly material. Even mystics, he suggests, have to eat, sleep, and heal if they want their souls to stay open.
Quote Details
| Topic | Health |
|---|
More Quotes by Johannes
Add to List
