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THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
Fichte - Nature of the Scholar
The other promulgators of
Christianity, however, rely upon the external evidence of
Miracle, which to us at least, proves nothing. Further, of
the four Gospels, only that of John contains what we seek
and desire,--a Doctrine of Religion; while, on the contrary,
the best that the others offer to us, without completion and
explanation by John, amounts to nothing more than Mo-
rality ;--which to us has but a very subordinate value. As
* " Characteristics of the Present Age," Lecture VII.
ob
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THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
to the assertion that John had the other Evangelists before
him, and only designed to supply what they had omitted,
we shall not here inquire into it;--should that be the case,
then, in our opinion, the supplement is the best part of the
whole, and John's predecessors had passed over that precise-
ly which was of essential importance.
As to the principle of interpretation which I apply to
this as well as to all the other authors of the Christian
Scriptures, it is the following;--So to understand them as
if they had really desired to say something, and, so far as
their words permit, as if they had said what is right and
true:--a principle that seems to be in accordance with jus-
tice and fairness. But we are wholly opposed to the her-
meneutical principle of a certain party, according to which
the most earnest and simple expressions of these writers are
regarded as mere images and metaphors, and thus explained
and re-explained away, until the result is a flat and insipid
triviality such as these interpreters might themselves have
discovered and brought forward. Other means of interpre-
tation than those contained in themselves seem to me inad-
missible in the case of these writers, and particularly in the
case of John. Where, as in the case of the profane authors
of classical antiquity, we can compare several contemporary
writers with each other, and all of them with a preceding
and succeeding republic of letters, there is room for the em-
ployment of external aids. But Christianity, and particu-
larly John, stands alone and isolated, as a wonderful and
inexplicable phenomenon of Time, without precedent and
without succedent.
In what we shall set forth as the substance of the Johan-
nean doctrine, we must carefully distinguish between that
in it which is true in itself, true absolutely and for all time,
and that which has been true only for the standpoint of
John and the Jesus whom he announces, and for their time
and circumstances. This latter, too, we shall faithfully set
forth; for any other mode of interpretation than this is not
only dishonest, but leads to perplexity and confusion.
The portion of the Gospel of John which must necessarily
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? LECTURE VI.
467
attract our attention at the very outset is the dogmatic in-
troduction which occupies a part of the first chapter;--as it
were the preface. Do not regard this preface as a special
and arbitrary philosopheme of the author himself,--a specu-
lative prelude to his historical narrative, of which, holding
only to the facts themselves, we may, according to the pro-
per intention of the author, adopt whatever opinion we
please;--as some appear to regard this proem. It is much
rather to be considered in relation to the whole Gospel, and
to be understood only in that connexion. Throughout the
whole Gospel, the author represents Jesus as speaking of
himself in a certain manner, which we shall afterwards ad-
vert to; and it is without doubt the conviction of John that
Jesus did speak precisely in this way and in no other, and
that he had heard him thus speak;--and it seems to be his
earnest desire that we should believe him in this. Now the
preface explains how it was possible that Jesus could think
and speak of himself as he did: and it is therefore neces-
sarily assumed by John that not only he himself, and ac-
cording to his own mere personal opinion, so regarded Jesus
and would so interpret him, but that Jesus had likewise re-
garded himself in the same way in which he is here depic-
ted. The preface is to be taken as the essence, the general
standpoint, of all the discourses of Jesus;--it has, therefore,
in the view of the author, the same authority as these dis-
courses themselves. In the sight of John, this preface is
not his own doctrine but that of Jesus, and indeed is the
spirit, the innermost root, of the whole doctrine of Jesus.
Having thus clearly set forth this not-unimportant point,
let us proceed, by the following preliminary remark, to the
subject itself.
The notion of a creation, as the essentially fundamental
error of all false Metaphysics and Religion, and, in particu-
lar, as the radical principle of Judaism and Heathenism,
arises from ignorance of the doctrine which we have pre-
viously laid down. Compelled to recognise the absolute
unity and unchangeableness of the Divine Nature in itself,
and being unwilling to give up the independent and real
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THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
existence of finite things, they made the latter proceed from
the former by an act of absolute and arbitrary power;
whereby, in the first place, the fundamental conception of
Godhead was utterly destroyed, and an arbitrary power es-
tablished in its room,--an error that ran through the whole
of their religious system; and, in the second place, Reason
was for ever preverted, and Thought changed into a dream of
fancy, for of such a creation it is impossible even to conceive
rightly in Thought--what can properly be called Thought
--and no man ever did so conceive of it. In relation to the
doctrine of Religion, in particular, the supposition of a crea-
tion is the first criterion of the falsehood,--and the denial
of such a creation, should it have been set up by any pre-
vious system, is the first criterion of the truth,--of such a
Doctrine of Religion. Christianity, and especially the pro-
found teacher of it of whom we now speak, John, stood in
the latter position;--the existing Jewish Religion had set
up such a creation . "In the beginning God created"--thus
do the Sacred Books of this Religion commence:--" No,"--
in direct contradiction to this, and setting out with the very
same words, in order more distinctly to mark the contradic-
tion, but instead of the second and false expression giving
the truth in its place,--"No," said John--"In the begin-
ning,"--in the same beginning that is there spoken of,--that
is, originally and before all time, God did not create, for no
creation was needed, but there was already;--" In the be-
ginning was the Word, . . . and through it are all things
made that are made. "
In the beginning was the Word,--in the original text, the
Logos; which might also be translated Reason, or,-- as
nearly the same idea is expressed in the book called the
Wisdom of Solomon,--Wisdom; but which, in our opinion,
is most exactly rendered by the expression "the Word,"
as it also stands in the oldest Latin version, doubtless in
consequence of a tradition of the disciples of John. What
then, according to the view of our author, is this Logos, or
Word? Let us not cavil too nicely about the expression,
but rather candidly note what John says of this Word:--
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? LECTUBE VI.
4G9
the predicates applied to a subject usually determine the
nature of the subject itself, especially when they are applied
to that subject exclusively. He says,--that the Word was
in the beginning; that the Word was with God; that God
himself was the Word; that the Word was in the begin-
ning with God. Was it possible for him to express more
clearly the doctrine which we have previously taught in such
words as the following:--Besides God's inward and hidden
Being in himself (Seyn), which we are able to conceive of in
Thought, he has besides an Ex-istence (Daseyn), which we
can only practically apprehend; but yet this Ex-istence ne-
cessarily arises through his inward and absolute Being it-
self:--and his Ex-istence, which is only by us distinguished
from his Being, is, in itself and in him, not distinguished
from his Being; but this Ex-istence is originally, before all
time, and independently of all time, with his Being, insepar-
able from his Being, and itself his Being:--the Word in the
beginning,--the Word with God,--the Word in the begin-
ning with God,--God himself the Word,--and the Word it-
self God? Was it possible for him to set forth more dis-
tinctly and forcibly the ground of this proposition:--that
in God, and from God, there is nothing that arises or be-
comes; but that in him there is but an "Is,"--an Eternal
Present; and that whatever has Existence must be original-
ly with him, and must be himself? "Away with that per-
plexing phantasm! "--might the Evangelist have added, had
he wished to multiply words; "away with that phantasm
of a creation from God of something that is not in himself
and has not been eternally and necessarily in himself! --an
emanation in which he is not himself present but forsakes
his work; an expulsion and separation from him that casts
us out into desolate nothingness, and makes him our arbi-
trary and hostile lord! "
This "Being with God," or, according to our expression,
this his Ex-istence, is farther characterized as the Logos or
Word. How was it possible more clearly to declare that it
was his spiritual expression, his self-evident and intelligible
Revelation and Manifestation ? --or, as we have given utter-
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THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
ance to the same idea, that the immediate Ex-istence (Da-
seyn) of God is necessarily Consciousness, partly of itself,
partly of God ? --for which proposition we have adduced the
clearest proof.
If this be now evident in the first place, then there is no
longer the slightest obscurity in the assertion contained in
verse 3, that "all things are made through it; and without
it is not anything made that is made, &c. ;" and this pro-
position is wholly equivalent to that which we propounded:
--that the World and all things exist only in Conception,--
according to John, in the Word,--and only as objects of
Conception and Consciousness, as God's spontaneous expres-
sion of himself;--and that Conception, or the Word, is the
only Creator of the World, and, by means of the principle of
separation contained in its very nature, the Creator of the
manifold and infinite variety of things in the World.
In fine: I would express these three verses in my own
language, thus;--The Ex-istence (Daseyn) of God is origi-
Ynal and underived like his Being (Seyn);--the latter is in-
separable from the former, and is indeed in all respects the
same as the former;--this Divine Ex-istence, in its sub-
stance, is necessarily Knowledge;--and in this Knowledge
alone has a World, and all things present in the World,
arisen.
In like manner the two succeeding verses are now clear
to us. In him, in this immediate Divine Ex-istence, was
Life,--the deepest root of all living, substantial Existence,
which nevertheless remains for ever concealed from view;
and in actual men this Life is Light, or conscious Reflexion;
and this one, eternal, primitive Light shines for ever in the
Darkness of the lower and obscure grades of Spiritual Life,
supports and maintains these in existence, itself unnoticed,
and the Darkness comprehends it not
.
So far as we have now proceeded in our interpretation of
the proem to the Johannean Gospel, we have met only with
what is absolutely and eternally true. At this point begins
that which possesses validity only for the time, for Jesus
and the establishment of Christianity, and for the necessary
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? LECTURE VI.
471
standpoint of Christ and his Apostles;--namely the histori-
cal, not in any way metaphysical proposition, that this abso-
lute and immediate Existence of God, the Eternal Know-
ledge or Word, pure and undefiled as it is in itself, without
any admixture of impurity or darkness, or any merely indi-
vidual limitation, manifested itself in a personal, sensible,
and Human Existence,--namely in that Jesus of Nazareth,
who at a certain particular time appeared teaching and
preaching in the land of Judea, and whose most remarkable
expressions are here recorded,--and in him, as the Evange-
list has well expressed it, became flesh. As to the differ-
ence, as well as the agreement, of these two standpoints,--
that of the absolutely and eternally true, and that which is
true only from the temporary point of view of Jesus and his
Apostles,--it stands thus. From the first standpoint, the
Eternal Word becomes flesh, assumes a personal, sensible,
and human existence, without obstruction or reserve, in all
times, and in every individual man who has a living insight
into this Unity with God, and who actually and in truth
gives up his personal life to the Divine Life within him,--
precisely in the same way as it became incarnate in Jesus
Christ. This truth, which, be it observed, speaks only of
the possibility of being, without reference to the means of its
actual attainment, is neither denied by John nor by the
Jesus to whose teachings he introduces us; but on the con-
trary, they insist upon it everywhere in the most express
terms, as we shall afterwards see. The peculiar and exclusive
standpoint of Christianity, which has validity only for the
disciples of that system, looks to the means of attaining this
True Being, and teaches us thus regarding them;--Jesus of Nazareth, absolutely by and through himself, by virtue
of his mere existence, nature or instinct, without deliberate
art, and without guidance or direction, is the perfect sen-
sible manifestation of the Eternal Word, as no one whatever
has been before him; while those who become his disciples
are as yet not so, since they still stand in need of its mani-
festation in him, but they must first become so through
him. This is the characteristic dogma of Christianity, as a
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THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
phenomenon of Time, as a temporary form of the religious
culture of man,--in which dogma, without doubt, Jesus and
his Apostles believed:--set forth purely, brightly, and in the
highest sense, in the Gospel of John, to whom Jesus of Naza-
reth is indeed the Christ, the called Saviour of Mankind, but
only in virtue of this Christ being to him the Word made
flesh;--in Paul and the others, mixed up with Jewish dreams
of a Son of David, an abolisher of an Old Covenant, and a
mediator of a New. Everywhere, but particularly in John,
Jesus is the first-born, and only-begotten Son of the Father,
not as an emanation or anything else of that kind,--these
irrational dreams arose only at a later period,--but in the
sense above explained, in eternal unity and equality of na-
ture; and all other men can become children of God only
mediately through Jesus, and by means of a transformation
into his nature. Let us, in the first place, distinctly recog-
nise this; for otherwise we shall partly interpret Christiani-
ty dishonestly, and partly not understand it at all, but only
be led into perplexity and confusion. Let us, therefore, at
least endeavour rightly to apprehend and judge of this point
of view, which must remain open to every one, it being of
course distinctly understood that we ourselves have no in-
tention of adopting it here. With reference to this matter,
then, I remark (1. ) An insight into the absolute unity of the
Human Existence with the Divine is certainly the profound-
est knowledge that man can attain. Before Jesus, this
knowledge had nowhere existed; and since his time, we
may say down even to the present day, it has been again as
good as rooted out and lost, at least in profane literature.
Jesus, however, was evidently in possession of this insight;
as we shall incontestibly find, were it only in the Gospel of
John, as soon as we ourselves attain it. How then came
Jesus by this insight? That any one coming after him,
when the truth had already been revealed, should again dis-
cover it, is not so great a wonder; but how the first dis-
coverer, separated from centuries before him and centuries
after him by the exclusive possession of this insight, did at-
tain to it,--this is an exceeding great wonder. And so it is
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? LECTURE VI.
473
in fact true, what is maintained in the first part of the
Christian Dogma, that Jesus of Nazareth is, in a wholly pe-
culiar manner, attributable to no one but him, the only-be-
gotten and first-born Son of God; and that all ages, which
are capable of understanding him at all, must recognise him
in this character. (2. ) Although it be true, that in the pre-
sent day, a man may re-discover this doctrine in the writ-
ings of Christ's Apostles, and for himself and by means of
his own conviction recognise it as the Truth ;--although it
be true, as we likewise maintain, that the philosopher, so far
as he knows, discovers the same truths altogether indepen-
dently of Christianity, and surveys them in a consequenti-
al! ty and universal clearness in which they are not delivered,
to us at least, by means of Christianity;--yet it nevertheless
remains certain, tha^we, with our whole age and with all
our philosophical inquiries, are established on and have pro-
ceeded from Christianity; that this Christianity has en-
tered into our whole culture in the most varied forms; and
that, on the whole, we might have been nothing of all that
we are, had not this mighty principle gone before us in
Time. We can cast off no portion of the being that we
have inherited from earlier ages; and no intelligent man
will trouble himself with inquiries as to what would be, if
that which is, had not been. And thus also the second part
of the Christian Dogma,--that all those who, since Jesus,
have come into union with God, have done so through him,
and by means of his union with God,--is likewise unques-
tionably true. And thus it is confirmed in every way, that,
even to the end of Time, all wise and intelligent men must
bow themselves reverently before this Jesus of Nazareth; and
that the more wise, intelligent and noble they themselves are,
the more humbly will they recognise the exceeding nobleness
of this great and glorious manifestation of the Divine Life.
So much to guard the view of Christianity which pos-
sesses but temporary validity against false and unfair judg-
ment where this may naturally be anticipated;--but by no
means to force this view upon any one who either has not
directed his attention to the historical side of the matter, or
pb
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? 474
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
who, even if he have investigated that side of it, has been
unable to discover there what we think we have found.
Therefore, by what we have now said, we by no means wish
to be understood as joining ourselves to the party of those
Christians to whom things have a value only on account of
the name they bear. The Metaphysical only, and not the
Historical, can give us Blessedness; the latter can only give
us understanding. If any man be truly united with God,
and dwell in him, it is altogether an indifferent thing how
he may have reached this state; and it would be a most
useless and perverse employment, instead of living in the
thing, to be continually repeating over our recollections of
the way toward it. Could Jesus return into the world, we
might expect him to be thoroughly satisfied if he found
Christianity actually reigning in the minds of men, whether
his merit in the work were recognised or overlooked; and
this is, in fact, the very least that might be expected from a
man who, while he lived on earth, sought not his own glory
but the glory of him who sent him.
Now that, by means of distinguishing these two stand-
points, we possess the key to all the expressions of the Jo-
hannean Jesus, and the certain means of referring back
whatever is clothed in a merely temporary form to its origi-
nal source in pure and absolute Truth, let us comprise the
substance of these expressions in the answer to these two
questions:--(1. ) What does Jesus say of himself, regarding
his relation to the Godhead ? --and (2. ) What does he say of
his disciples and followers, regarding their relation, in the
first place to himself, and then, through him, to the God-
head?
Chap. 1. verse 18--" No man hath seen God at any
time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of
the Father, he hath declared him :"--or, as we have
said: The essential Divine Nature, in itself, is hid-
den from us; only in the form of Knowledge does it
come forth into manifestation, and that altogether as
it is in itself.
Chap. V. verse 19--" The Son can do nothing of him-
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? LECTURE VI.
-475
self, but what he seeth the Father do; for what
things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son
likewise :"--or, as we have expressed it, his separate
independent life is swallowed up in the life of God.
Chap. X. verses 27, 28--" My sheep hear my voice, and
I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto
them eternal life; and they shall never perish, nei-
ther shall any pluck them out of my hand. "--Ver.
29. "My Father who gave them me, is greater than
all; and none is able to pluck them out of my Fa-
ther's hand. " Who is it then, it may be asked, who
holds and keeps them,--Jesus or the Father? --The
answer is given in verse 30: " I and my Father are
one :" that is to say, the same;--identical principles
in both. His life is my life, and mine is his; my
work is his work, and his is mine;--precisely as we
have expressed ourselves in our preceding lecture.
So much for the clearest and most convincing passages.
The whole Gospel speaks in the same terms on this point,
uniformly and with one voice. Jesus speaks of himself in
no other way than this.
But further, how does Jesus speak of his followers, and of
their relation to him? He constantly assumes that, in
their actual condition, they have not the true life in them,
but, as he expresses it in Chap. III. with reference to Nico-
demus, must receive a wholly different life, as much op-
posed to their present life as if an entirely new man should be
born in their stead :--or,--where he expresses himself with
the strictest precision,--that they have not, properly speak-
ing, either existence or life, but are sunk in death and the
grave, and that it is he who must first give them life.
On this point, consider the following decisive passages:--
Chap. VI. verse 53--" Except ye eat my flesh and drink
my blood," (this expression will be afterwards ex-
plained), "ye have no life in you:"--Only by means
of thus eating my flesh and drinking my blood is
there aught in you;--without this there is nothing.
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47(5
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
Chap . V. verse 24--"He that heareth my word," &c.
"hath everlasting life, and is passed from death unto
life. "--Verse 25--"The hour is coming, and now is,
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God; and they that hear shall live. " The dead! Who
are these dead 1 Those who are to lie in their graves
till the last day? A coarse, crude interpretation;--
in Scriptural language, an interpretation according to
the flesh, and not according to the spirit. The hour
was even then: they themselves were the dead who
had not yet heard his voice, and even on that ac-
count were dead.
And what is this life, that Jesus promises to give his fol-
lowers?
Chap. VIII. verse 51--" Verily, verily, I say unto you,
If a man keep my word, he shall never see death,"--
not as dull expositors take it; -- "he shall indeed
once die, only not for ever, but he shall again be a-
wakened at the last day,"--but" he shall never die:"
as the Jews actually understood it, and attempted to
refute Jesus by an appeal to the death of Abraham,
while he justified their interpretation by declaring
that Abraham, who had seen his day,--who had,
doubtless through Melchisedek, been initiated into
his doctrine,--was actually not dead.
Or yet more distinctly,--
Chapter XI. verse 23--" Thy brother shall rise again.
Martha" (whose head was filled with Jewish notions)
"saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in
the resurrection at the last day. " No, said Jesus--
"I am the Resurrection and the Life:--he that be-
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall
never die. " Union with me is union with the Eter-
nal God and his Life, and the certain assurance
thereof; so that in every moment of time, he who is
so united with me, is in complete possession of Eter-
nity, and places no faith whatever in the fleeting and
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? LECTURE VI.
477
illusive phenomena of a birth and a death in Time,
and therefore needs no re-awakening as a deliverance
from a death in which he does not believe.
And whence has Jesus this power of giving Eternal Life
to his followers? From his absolute identity with God.
Chap. V. verse 26--" As the Father hath life in himself, so
hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. "
Further,--in what way do the followers of Jesus become
partakers of this identity of his Life with the Divine Life?
Jesus declares this in the most manifold and varied ways,
of which I shall here adduce only the most clear and for-
cible,--those which, precisely on account of their absolute
clearness, have been the most completely unintelligible and
offensive, both to his contemporaries and to their descen-
dants even to the present day. Chap. VI. verses 53-55--
"Except ye eat the flesh of the the Son of Man, and drink
his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh,
and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. For my flesh is
meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. " What does
this mean? He explains himself at v. 56--" He that eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in
him," or, reversing the expression, He that dwelleth in me
and I in him, he hath eaten my flesh, &c. To eat his flesh,
and drink his blood, means--to become wholly and entirely
he himself;--to become altogether changed into his person
without reserve or limitation ;--to be a faithful repetition
of him in another personality;--to be transubstantiated
with him,--i. e. as he is the Eternal Word made flesh and
blood, to become his flesh and blood, and--what follows from
that, and indeed is the same thing--to become the very
Eternal Word made flesh and blood itself;--to think wholly
and entirely like him, and so as if he himself thought, and
not we;--to live wholly and entirely like him, and so as if
he himself lived in our life. As surely as you do not now
attempt to drag down my own words, and reduce them to
the narrow meaning that Jesus is only to be imitated, as an
unattainable pattern, partially and at a distance, as far as
human weakness will allow, but accept them in the sense in
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? 478
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
which I have spoken them,--that we must be transformed
into Christ himself,--so surely will it become evident to you
that Jesus could not well have expressed himself otherwise,
and that he actually did express himself excellently welL
Jesus was very far from representing himself as that unat-
tainable ideal into which he was first transformed by the
spiritual poverty of after-ages; nor did his Apostles so re-
gard him :--among the rest Paul, who says:--" I live not,
but Christ liveth in me. " Jesus desired that he should be
repeated in the persons of his followers, in his complete and
undivided character, as he was in himself; and indeed he
demanded this absolutely, as an indispensable condition of
discipleship:--Except ye eat my flesh, &c. , ye have no life
whatever in you, but ye abide in the graves wherein I found
you.
Only this one thing he demanded: not more, and not
less. He did not, by any means, propose to rest satisfied
with the mere historical belief that he was the Eternal
Word made flesh,--the Christ,--for which he gave himself
out. He certainly did demand, even according to John, as
a preliminary condition,--only to secure attention and con-
sideration to his teachings--he did demand Faith, that is,
the previous admission of the possibility that he might be
indeed this Christ; and he even did not disdain to facilitate
and strengthen this admission by means of striking and
wonderful works which he performed. But the final and
decisive proof, which was first to be made possible through
the preliminary admission or Faith, was this :--that a man
should actually do the will of him who had sent Jesus,--
that is, in the sense we have explained, should eat his flesh
and drink his blood, whereby he should then know of the
doctrine, that it was from God, and that he spake not of
himself. As little is his discourse of faith in his expiatory
merits. According to John, Jesus is indeed a Lamb of God
that taketh away the sins of the world; but by no means
one who with his blood appeases an angry God. He takes
them away:--According to his doctrine, man does not exist
at all out of God and him, but is dead and buried; he does
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? LECTURE VI.
479
not even enter into the Spiritual Kingdom of God:--how
then can this poor, non-existent shadow introduce dissen-
sion into this Kingdom, and disturb the Divine Plan? But
he who is transformed into the likeness of Jesus, and there-
by into that of God,--he no longer lives himself, but God
lives in him;--but how can God sin against himself? Thus
has he borne away and destroyed the whole delusion of sin,
and the dread of a Godhead that could feel itself offended
by men. Finally, if any man in this way should repeat the
character of Jesus in his own person, what then, according
to the doctrine of Jesus, is the result? Thus does Jesus, in
the presence of his disciples, call upon his Father :--Chap.
XVII. verse 20--" Neither pray I for these alone, but for
them also which shall believe on me through their word;
that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I
in thee, that they also may be one in us. "--One--in us.
Now, according to this consummation, all distinctions are
laid aside; the whole community--the first-born of all, with
his more immediate followers, and with all those who are
born in later days--here merge together into one common
source of all life -- the Godhead. And thus, as we have
maintained above, does Christianity, assuming its purpose
to be attained, again fall into harmony with the Absolute
Truth, and itself maintain that every man may and ought
to come into unity with God,--and himself, in his own per-
son, become the Divine Ex-istence, or the Eternal Word.
And thus it is proved that the doctrine of Christianity,
even in the system of images under which it represents Life
and Death, and all that flows therefrom, is in strict harmo-
ny with that doctrine which we have set forth to you in our
previous lectures, and have combined into one single view
at the beginning of to-day's discourse.
In conclusion, listen once more to that with which I
closed my last lecture, but now in the words of the same
Apostle John.
Thus he combines, doubtless with reference to his Gos-
pel, the practical results of the whole: Epistle I. Chap. I. --
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard
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? 480
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked
upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life. "
Do you observe how anxious he is to appear, not as having
given forth his own thoughts in his Gospel, but as the mere
witness of what he had seen ? " That which we have seen
and heard declare we unto you, that ye also "--in spirit and
on the foundation of the last words we have quoted from
Jesus--" may have fellowship with us; and truly our fel-
lowship"--ours, the Apostles, as well as yours, the newly
converted--" is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus
Christ. . . If we say that we have fellowship with him,
and walk in darkness"--if we think that we are united
with God while yet the Divine Energy does not burst forth
in our lives--" we lie, and do not the truth "--we are but
fanatics and visionaries. --" But if we walk in the Light, as
he is in the Light, we have fellowship one with another, and
the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God"--not, in the theo-
ological sense, his blood shed for the remission of our sins,
but his blood and mind entered into us,--his Life in us--
"cleanseth us from all sin," and raiseth us far above the
possibility of sin.
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? *
481
APPENDIX TO LECTURE VI.
THE HISTORICAL AND THE METAPHYSICAL IN
CHRISTIANITY.
That the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, as a special
institution for the development of Religion in the Human
Race:--i. e. that in Jesus Christ, for the first time, and in a
way predicable of no other man, the Eternal Ex-istence
(Daseyn) of God has assumed a human personality; and
that all other men can attain to union with God only
through him, and by means of the repetition of his whole
character in themselves:--that this is a merely historical,
and not in any way a metaphysical proposition, we have already said in the text--(page 471. ) It is perhaps not su-
perfluous to~point out here, still more clearly, the distinc-
tion upon which this declaration is founded; since I am
not entitled, in the case of the general public to whom it is
now presented, to make the same assumption as in the case
of the majority of my immediate hearers,--that they are fa-
miliar with this distinction through my other teachings. \y
If we take these expressions in their strict signification,
the Historical and the Metaphysical are directly opposed to
each other; and that which is really historical is, on that
very account, not metaphysical--and the reverse. The His-
torical, and what is purely historical in every possible phe-
nomenon, is that which may be apprehended as simple and
absolute Fact, existing for itself alone and isolated from
everything else, not as receiving its explanation and deriva-
Qb
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? iS-2
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
tion from a higher source:--the Metaphysical, on the con-
trary, and the metaphysical element in every particular
phenomenon, is that which necessarily proceeds from a
higher and more comprehensive law, and which may be
again referred to that law, and therefore cannot be compre-
hended as simple fact; and, strictly speaking, can only by
means of a delusion be regarded as fact at all, since in truth
it is not apprehended as fact but only in consequence of
the Law of Reason that rules within us. The latter ele-
ment of the phenomenon never extends to its actuality, and
the actual phenomenon never altogether disappears in it;
and therefore in all actual phenomena these two elements
are inseparably combined.
It is the fundamental error of all pretended science that
does not recognise its own boundaries,--in other words, of
the transcendental use of the understanding,--that it is not
satisfied to accept the fact, simply as a fact, but must in-
dulge in metaphysical speculation concerning it. Since, on
the supposition that what such a Metaphysic labours to re-
fer to a higher law is in truth simply actual and historic,
there can be no such law, at least none accessible to us in
the present life, it follows, that the Metaphysic we have de-
scribed, arbitrarily assuming that such an explanation is to
be found here,--which is its first error,--must then have
recourse to its own invention for such an explanation, and
fill up the chasm by an arbitrary hypothesis,--which is its
second error.
With regard to the case now before us,--the primitive
fact of Christianity is accepted as historical, and simply as
fact, when we say, what is evident to every man, that Jesus
knew what he did know before any one else knew it, and
taught and lived as he did teach and live;--without de-
siring to know further how all this was possible, which, ac-
cording to well established principles, not however to be
communicated here, can never be ascertained in this life.
But the same fact is metaphysisized by the transcendental
use of the understanding, soaring beyond the fact itself,
when we attempt to comprehend it in its primitive source,
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? APPENDIX TO LECTURE VI.
483
and to this end set up an hypothesis as to how the individu-
al Jesus, as an individual, has emanated from the essential
Divine Nature. As an individual, I have said;--for how
Humanity as a whole has come forth from the Divine Na-
ture may be comprehended, and must have been made in-
telligible by our preceding lectures; and is, according to us,
the theme of the introduction to the Johannean Gospel.
Now to us, who regard the matter only historically, it is
of no importance in which of these two ways the above-
mentioned principle is received by any one else, but only
in what way it was accepted by Jesus himself, and his
Apostle John, and how they authorized others to accept it;
and it is certainly the most important element in our view
of the matter, that Christianity itself, as represented by Je-
sus, has by no means accepted that principle metaphysically.
We retrace our argument to the following proposi-
tions :--
(1. ) Jesus of Nazareth undoubtedly possessed the highest
perception, containing the foundation of all other Truth, of
the absolute identity of Humanity with the Godhead, as re-
gards what is essentially real in the former. Upon this
merely historical proposition, every one to whom the follow-
ing evidence is to prove anything whatever, must first of all
come to an understanding with me; and I entreat my read-
ers not to hurry over this point. In my opinion, no one
who has not previously attained, by another way, to the
knowledge of the One Reality, and who does not possess
this knowledge in living activity within him, will easily dis-
cover it where I, being first penetrated by this condition,
have found it. But if any one have already fulfilled this
condition, and thereby created for himself the organ by
which alone Christianity may be comprehended, then he will
not only clearly re-discover this fundamental truth in Chris-
tianity, but he will also discern a higher and holier signifi-
cance spread over the other, often apparently extraordinary,
expressions of these writings.
(2. ) The mode and manner of this knowledge in Jesus
Christ, which is the second point of importance, may be best
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? 484
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
characterized by contrast with the mode and manner in
which the speculative philosopher arrives at the same know-
ledge. The latter proceeds upon the problem, which in it-
self is foreign to Religion, and even profane in its sight, and
which is imposed upon him merely by his desire of know-
ledge,--to explain Existence. Wherever there is a learned
public, he finds this problem already proposed by others be-
fore him, and he finds fellow-labourers in its solution both
among his predecessors and his contemporaries. It can
never occur to him to regard himself as in any respect
singular or distinguished on account of the problem becom-
ing clear to him. Further, the problem, as a problem, ap-
peals to his own industry, and to the personal freedom of
which he is clearly conscious; and being thus clearly con-
scious of his own personal activity in its solution, he cannot,
on that very account, regard himself as inspired.
Suppose, finally, that he succeed in the solution, and that
in the only true way,--by means of the Religious Principle;
his discovery still proceeds upon a series of preparatory in-
vestigations, and in this way it is to him a natural result
.
Religion is but a secondary matter to him, and is not there
purely and solely as Religion, but only as the solution of the
problem to which he had devoted his life.
It was not so with Jesus. In the first place, he did not
set out from any speculative question, which could be solved
only by a Religious Knowledge attained at a later period
and only in the course of the investigation of that question;
for he explained absolutely nothing by his Religious Prin-
ciple, and deduced nothing from it; but he presented it,
alone and by itself, as the only thing worthy of know-
ledge, passing by everything else as undeserving of no-
tice. His Faith, and his conviction, never allowed the
question to arise as to the existence of finite things. In
short, they had no existence for him;--only in union with
God was there Reality. How this Non-Entity could assume
the semblance of Being, from which doubt all profane spec-
ulation proceeds, he cared not to inquire.
As little had he his knowledge by outward teaching and
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? APPENDIX TO LECTURE VI. 485
tradition; for with that truly sublime sincerity and open-
ness which are evident in all his expressions,--and here I
venture to assume on the part of my reader that he has
created for himself an intuitive perception of this sincerity
by means of his own personal relation to this virtue and by
a profound study of the life of Jesus,--he would in that
case have said so, and directed his disciples to the sources
of his own knowledge. It does not follow, because he him-
self indicated the existence of a true religious knowledge
before Abraham, and one of his apostles distinctly refers
to Melchisedek, that Jesus had any connection with that
system by direct tradition; but it might readily happen
that he should re-discover, in his study of Moses, that which
was already present in his own mind; since it is evident
from numerous other instances that he had an infinitely
more profound comprehension of the writings of the Old
Testament than the Scriptural students of his day and the
majority of those of our own; while he likewise proceed-
ed, as it appears, upon the sound hermeneutical principle,
that Moses and the Prophets really desired to say something
and not nothing.
To say that Jesus did not receive his knowledge either
by means of his own speculation, or by communication
from without, is equivalent to saying that he had it through
his mere being and life, -- that it was to him primary
and absolute, without any other element whatever with
which it was connected,--purely through Inspiration, as we
coming after him, and in contrast with our own knowledge,
may express it, but as he himself never could express it.
And what knowledge had he in this way? That all Being
is founded in God alone; and consequently, what immedi-
ately follows from this, that his own Being, with this know-
ledge and in this knowledge, had its foundation in God and
proceeded directly from him. What immediately follows, I
say:--for to us certainly the latter is an inference from the
universal to the particular, since we must first of all re-
nounce our existing personal Ego, as the particular in quest-
ion, and merge it in the universal: but it was by no means
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? 486
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
the same,--and this I entreat you to remark as the chief
point,--it was by no means the same with Jesus. In him
there was no intellectual, questioning, or learning Self to
be renounced, for in this knowledge his whole spiritual self
was already swallowed up. His Self-consciousness was at
once the pure and absolute Truth of Reason itself; self-ex-
istent and independent,--the simple fact of consciousness:
--by no means, as with us, genetic, arising from another
preceding state, and hence no simple fact of consciousness,
but an inference. In that which I have thus endeavoured
to express with the utmost precision and distinctness must
have consisted the peculiar personal character of Jesus
Christ, who, like every other true Individuality, can have
appeared but once in Time, and can never be repeated
therein. He was the Absolute Reason clothed in immediate
Self-consciousness; or, what is the same thing,--Religion.
(3.
Christianity, however, rely upon the external evidence of
Miracle, which to us at least, proves nothing. Further, of
the four Gospels, only that of John contains what we seek
and desire,--a Doctrine of Religion; while, on the contrary,
the best that the others offer to us, without completion and
explanation by John, amounts to nothing more than Mo-
rality ;--which to us has but a very subordinate value. As
* " Characteristics of the Present Age," Lecture VII.
ob
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? +66
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
to the assertion that John had the other Evangelists before
him, and only designed to supply what they had omitted,
we shall not here inquire into it;--should that be the case,
then, in our opinion, the supplement is the best part of the
whole, and John's predecessors had passed over that precise-
ly which was of essential importance.
As to the principle of interpretation which I apply to
this as well as to all the other authors of the Christian
Scriptures, it is the following;--So to understand them as
if they had really desired to say something, and, so far as
their words permit, as if they had said what is right and
true:--a principle that seems to be in accordance with jus-
tice and fairness. But we are wholly opposed to the her-
meneutical principle of a certain party, according to which
the most earnest and simple expressions of these writers are
regarded as mere images and metaphors, and thus explained
and re-explained away, until the result is a flat and insipid
triviality such as these interpreters might themselves have
discovered and brought forward. Other means of interpre-
tation than those contained in themselves seem to me inad-
missible in the case of these writers, and particularly in the
case of John. Where, as in the case of the profane authors
of classical antiquity, we can compare several contemporary
writers with each other, and all of them with a preceding
and succeeding republic of letters, there is room for the em-
ployment of external aids. But Christianity, and particu-
larly John, stands alone and isolated, as a wonderful and
inexplicable phenomenon of Time, without precedent and
without succedent.
In what we shall set forth as the substance of the Johan-
nean doctrine, we must carefully distinguish between that
in it which is true in itself, true absolutely and for all time,
and that which has been true only for the standpoint of
John and the Jesus whom he announces, and for their time
and circumstances. This latter, too, we shall faithfully set
forth; for any other mode of interpretation than this is not
only dishonest, but leads to perplexity and confusion.
The portion of the Gospel of John which must necessarily
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? LECTURE VI.
467
attract our attention at the very outset is the dogmatic in-
troduction which occupies a part of the first chapter;--as it
were the preface. Do not regard this preface as a special
and arbitrary philosopheme of the author himself,--a specu-
lative prelude to his historical narrative, of which, holding
only to the facts themselves, we may, according to the pro-
per intention of the author, adopt whatever opinion we
please;--as some appear to regard this proem. It is much
rather to be considered in relation to the whole Gospel, and
to be understood only in that connexion. Throughout the
whole Gospel, the author represents Jesus as speaking of
himself in a certain manner, which we shall afterwards ad-
vert to; and it is without doubt the conviction of John that
Jesus did speak precisely in this way and in no other, and
that he had heard him thus speak;--and it seems to be his
earnest desire that we should believe him in this. Now the
preface explains how it was possible that Jesus could think
and speak of himself as he did: and it is therefore neces-
sarily assumed by John that not only he himself, and ac-
cording to his own mere personal opinion, so regarded Jesus
and would so interpret him, but that Jesus had likewise re-
garded himself in the same way in which he is here depic-
ted. The preface is to be taken as the essence, the general
standpoint, of all the discourses of Jesus;--it has, therefore,
in the view of the author, the same authority as these dis-
courses themselves. In the sight of John, this preface is
not his own doctrine but that of Jesus, and indeed is the
spirit, the innermost root, of the whole doctrine of Jesus.
Having thus clearly set forth this not-unimportant point,
let us proceed, by the following preliminary remark, to the
subject itself.
The notion of a creation, as the essentially fundamental
error of all false Metaphysics and Religion, and, in particu-
lar, as the radical principle of Judaism and Heathenism,
arises from ignorance of the doctrine which we have pre-
viously laid down. Compelled to recognise the absolute
unity and unchangeableness of the Divine Nature in itself,
and being unwilling to give up the independent and real
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? 4G8
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
existence of finite things, they made the latter proceed from
the former by an act of absolute and arbitrary power;
whereby, in the first place, the fundamental conception of
Godhead was utterly destroyed, and an arbitrary power es-
tablished in its room,--an error that ran through the whole
of their religious system; and, in the second place, Reason
was for ever preverted, and Thought changed into a dream of
fancy, for of such a creation it is impossible even to conceive
rightly in Thought--what can properly be called Thought
--and no man ever did so conceive of it. In relation to the
doctrine of Religion, in particular, the supposition of a crea-
tion is the first criterion of the falsehood,--and the denial
of such a creation, should it have been set up by any pre-
vious system, is the first criterion of the truth,--of such a
Doctrine of Religion. Christianity, and especially the pro-
found teacher of it of whom we now speak, John, stood in
the latter position;--the existing Jewish Religion had set
up such a creation . "In the beginning God created"--thus
do the Sacred Books of this Religion commence:--" No,"--
in direct contradiction to this, and setting out with the very
same words, in order more distinctly to mark the contradic-
tion, but instead of the second and false expression giving
the truth in its place,--"No," said John--"In the begin-
ning,"--in the same beginning that is there spoken of,--that
is, originally and before all time, God did not create, for no
creation was needed, but there was already;--" In the be-
ginning was the Word, . . . and through it are all things
made that are made. "
In the beginning was the Word,--in the original text, the
Logos; which might also be translated Reason, or,-- as
nearly the same idea is expressed in the book called the
Wisdom of Solomon,--Wisdom; but which, in our opinion,
is most exactly rendered by the expression "the Word,"
as it also stands in the oldest Latin version, doubtless in
consequence of a tradition of the disciples of John. What
then, according to the view of our author, is this Logos, or
Word? Let us not cavil too nicely about the expression,
but rather candidly note what John says of this Word:--
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? LECTUBE VI.
4G9
the predicates applied to a subject usually determine the
nature of the subject itself, especially when they are applied
to that subject exclusively. He says,--that the Word was
in the beginning; that the Word was with God; that God
himself was the Word; that the Word was in the begin-
ning with God. Was it possible for him to express more
clearly the doctrine which we have previously taught in such
words as the following:--Besides God's inward and hidden
Being in himself (Seyn), which we are able to conceive of in
Thought, he has besides an Ex-istence (Daseyn), which we
can only practically apprehend; but yet this Ex-istence ne-
cessarily arises through his inward and absolute Being it-
self:--and his Ex-istence, which is only by us distinguished
from his Being, is, in itself and in him, not distinguished
from his Being; but this Ex-istence is originally, before all
time, and independently of all time, with his Being, insepar-
able from his Being, and itself his Being:--the Word in the
beginning,--the Word with God,--the Word in the begin-
ning with God,--God himself the Word,--and the Word it-
self God? Was it possible for him to set forth more dis-
tinctly and forcibly the ground of this proposition:--that
in God, and from God, there is nothing that arises or be-
comes; but that in him there is but an "Is,"--an Eternal
Present; and that whatever has Existence must be original-
ly with him, and must be himself? "Away with that per-
plexing phantasm! "--might the Evangelist have added, had
he wished to multiply words; "away with that phantasm
of a creation from God of something that is not in himself
and has not been eternally and necessarily in himself! --an
emanation in which he is not himself present but forsakes
his work; an expulsion and separation from him that casts
us out into desolate nothingness, and makes him our arbi-
trary and hostile lord! "
This "Being with God," or, according to our expression,
this his Ex-istence, is farther characterized as the Logos or
Word. How was it possible more clearly to declare that it
was his spiritual expression, his self-evident and intelligible
Revelation and Manifestation ? --or, as we have given utter-
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? 470
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
ance to the same idea, that the immediate Ex-istence (Da-
seyn) of God is necessarily Consciousness, partly of itself,
partly of God ? --for which proposition we have adduced the
clearest proof.
If this be now evident in the first place, then there is no
longer the slightest obscurity in the assertion contained in
verse 3, that "all things are made through it; and without
it is not anything made that is made, &c. ;" and this pro-
position is wholly equivalent to that which we propounded:
--that the World and all things exist only in Conception,--
according to John, in the Word,--and only as objects of
Conception and Consciousness, as God's spontaneous expres-
sion of himself;--and that Conception, or the Word, is the
only Creator of the World, and, by means of the principle of
separation contained in its very nature, the Creator of the
manifold and infinite variety of things in the World.
In fine: I would express these three verses in my own
language, thus;--The Ex-istence (Daseyn) of God is origi-
Ynal and underived like his Being (Seyn);--the latter is in-
separable from the former, and is indeed in all respects the
same as the former;--this Divine Ex-istence, in its sub-
stance, is necessarily Knowledge;--and in this Knowledge
alone has a World, and all things present in the World,
arisen.
In like manner the two succeeding verses are now clear
to us. In him, in this immediate Divine Ex-istence, was
Life,--the deepest root of all living, substantial Existence,
which nevertheless remains for ever concealed from view;
and in actual men this Life is Light, or conscious Reflexion;
and this one, eternal, primitive Light shines for ever in the
Darkness of the lower and obscure grades of Spiritual Life,
supports and maintains these in existence, itself unnoticed,
and the Darkness comprehends it not
.
So far as we have now proceeded in our interpretation of
the proem to the Johannean Gospel, we have met only with
what is absolutely and eternally true. At this point begins
that which possesses validity only for the time, for Jesus
and the establishment of Christianity, and for the necessary
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? LECTURE VI.
471
standpoint of Christ and his Apostles;--namely the histori-
cal, not in any way metaphysical proposition, that this abso-
lute and immediate Existence of God, the Eternal Know-
ledge or Word, pure and undefiled as it is in itself, without
any admixture of impurity or darkness, or any merely indi-
vidual limitation, manifested itself in a personal, sensible,
and Human Existence,--namely in that Jesus of Nazareth,
who at a certain particular time appeared teaching and
preaching in the land of Judea, and whose most remarkable
expressions are here recorded,--and in him, as the Evange-
list has well expressed it, became flesh. As to the differ-
ence, as well as the agreement, of these two standpoints,--
that of the absolutely and eternally true, and that which is
true only from the temporary point of view of Jesus and his
Apostles,--it stands thus. From the first standpoint, the
Eternal Word becomes flesh, assumes a personal, sensible,
and human existence, without obstruction or reserve, in all
times, and in every individual man who has a living insight
into this Unity with God, and who actually and in truth
gives up his personal life to the Divine Life within him,--
precisely in the same way as it became incarnate in Jesus
Christ. This truth, which, be it observed, speaks only of
the possibility of being, without reference to the means of its
actual attainment, is neither denied by John nor by the
Jesus to whose teachings he introduces us; but on the con-
trary, they insist upon it everywhere in the most express
terms, as we shall afterwards see. The peculiar and exclusive
standpoint of Christianity, which has validity only for the
disciples of that system, looks to the means of attaining this
True Being, and teaches us thus regarding them;--Jesus of Nazareth, absolutely by and through himself, by virtue
of his mere existence, nature or instinct, without deliberate
art, and without guidance or direction, is the perfect sen-
sible manifestation of the Eternal Word, as no one whatever
has been before him; while those who become his disciples
are as yet not so, since they still stand in need of its mani-
festation in him, but they must first become so through
him. This is the characteristic dogma of Christianity, as a
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? 472
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
phenomenon of Time, as a temporary form of the religious
culture of man,--in which dogma, without doubt, Jesus and
his Apostles believed:--set forth purely, brightly, and in the
highest sense, in the Gospel of John, to whom Jesus of Naza-
reth is indeed the Christ, the called Saviour of Mankind, but
only in virtue of this Christ being to him the Word made
flesh;--in Paul and the others, mixed up with Jewish dreams
of a Son of David, an abolisher of an Old Covenant, and a
mediator of a New. Everywhere, but particularly in John,
Jesus is the first-born, and only-begotten Son of the Father,
not as an emanation or anything else of that kind,--these
irrational dreams arose only at a later period,--but in the
sense above explained, in eternal unity and equality of na-
ture; and all other men can become children of God only
mediately through Jesus, and by means of a transformation
into his nature. Let us, in the first place, distinctly recog-
nise this; for otherwise we shall partly interpret Christiani-
ty dishonestly, and partly not understand it at all, but only
be led into perplexity and confusion. Let us, therefore, at
least endeavour rightly to apprehend and judge of this point
of view, which must remain open to every one, it being of
course distinctly understood that we ourselves have no in-
tention of adopting it here. With reference to this matter,
then, I remark (1. ) An insight into the absolute unity of the
Human Existence with the Divine is certainly the profound-
est knowledge that man can attain. Before Jesus, this
knowledge had nowhere existed; and since his time, we
may say down even to the present day, it has been again as
good as rooted out and lost, at least in profane literature.
Jesus, however, was evidently in possession of this insight;
as we shall incontestibly find, were it only in the Gospel of
John, as soon as we ourselves attain it. How then came
Jesus by this insight? That any one coming after him,
when the truth had already been revealed, should again dis-
cover it, is not so great a wonder; but how the first dis-
coverer, separated from centuries before him and centuries
after him by the exclusive possession of this insight, did at-
tain to it,--this is an exceeding great wonder. And so it is
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? LECTURE VI.
473
in fact true, what is maintained in the first part of the
Christian Dogma, that Jesus of Nazareth is, in a wholly pe-
culiar manner, attributable to no one but him, the only-be-
gotten and first-born Son of God; and that all ages, which
are capable of understanding him at all, must recognise him
in this character. (2. ) Although it be true, that in the pre-
sent day, a man may re-discover this doctrine in the writ-
ings of Christ's Apostles, and for himself and by means of
his own conviction recognise it as the Truth ;--although it
be true, as we likewise maintain, that the philosopher, so far
as he knows, discovers the same truths altogether indepen-
dently of Christianity, and surveys them in a consequenti-
al! ty and universal clearness in which they are not delivered,
to us at least, by means of Christianity;--yet it nevertheless
remains certain, tha^we, with our whole age and with all
our philosophical inquiries, are established on and have pro-
ceeded from Christianity; that this Christianity has en-
tered into our whole culture in the most varied forms; and
that, on the whole, we might have been nothing of all that
we are, had not this mighty principle gone before us in
Time. We can cast off no portion of the being that we
have inherited from earlier ages; and no intelligent man
will trouble himself with inquiries as to what would be, if
that which is, had not been. And thus also the second part
of the Christian Dogma,--that all those who, since Jesus,
have come into union with God, have done so through him,
and by means of his union with God,--is likewise unques-
tionably true. And thus it is confirmed in every way, that,
even to the end of Time, all wise and intelligent men must
bow themselves reverently before this Jesus of Nazareth; and
that the more wise, intelligent and noble they themselves are,
the more humbly will they recognise the exceeding nobleness
of this great and glorious manifestation of the Divine Life.
So much to guard the view of Christianity which pos-
sesses but temporary validity against false and unfair judg-
ment where this may naturally be anticipated;--but by no
means to force this view upon any one who either has not
directed his attention to the historical side of the matter, or
pb
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? 474
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
who, even if he have investigated that side of it, has been
unable to discover there what we think we have found.
Therefore, by what we have now said, we by no means wish
to be understood as joining ourselves to the party of those
Christians to whom things have a value only on account of
the name they bear. The Metaphysical only, and not the
Historical, can give us Blessedness; the latter can only give
us understanding. If any man be truly united with God,
and dwell in him, it is altogether an indifferent thing how
he may have reached this state; and it would be a most
useless and perverse employment, instead of living in the
thing, to be continually repeating over our recollections of
the way toward it. Could Jesus return into the world, we
might expect him to be thoroughly satisfied if he found
Christianity actually reigning in the minds of men, whether
his merit in the work were recognised or overlooked; and
this is, in fact, the very least that might be expected from a
man who, while he lived on earth, sought not his own glory
but the glory of him who sent him.
Now that, by means of distinguishing these two stand-
points, we possess the key to all the expressions of the Jo-
hannean Jesus, and the certain means of referring back
whatever is clothed in a merely temporary form to its origi-
nal source in pure and absolute Truth, let us comprise the
substance of these expressions in the answer to these two
questions:--(1. ) What does Jesus say of himself, regarding
his relation to the Godhead ? --and (2. ) What does he say of
his disciples and followers, regarding their relation, in the
first place to himself, and then, through him, to the God-
head?
Chap. 1. verse 18--" No man hath seen God at any
time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of
the Father, he hath declared him :"--or, as we have
said: The essential Divine Nature, in itself, is hid-
den from us; only in the form of Knowledge does it
come forth into manifestation, and that altogether as
it is in itself.
Chap. V. verse 19--" The Son can do nothing of him-
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? LECTURE VI.
-475
self, but what he seeth the Father do; for what
things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son
likewise :"--or, as we have expressed it, his separate
independent life is swallowed up in the life of God.
Chap. X. verses 27, 28--" My sheep hear my voice, and
I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto
them eternal life; and they shall never perish, nei-
ther shall any pluck them out of my hand. "--Ver.
29. "My Father who gave them me, is greater than
all; and none is able to pluck them out of my Fa-
ther's hand. " Who is it then, it may be asked, who
holds and keeps them,--Jesus or the Father? --The
answer is given in verse 30: " I and my Father are
one :" that is to say, the same;--identical principles
in both. His life is my life, and mine is his; my
work is his work, and his is mine;--precisely as we
have expressed ourselves in our preceding lecture.
So much for the clearest and most convincing passages.
The whole Gospel speaks in the same terms on this point,
uniformly and with one voice. Jesus speaks of himself in
no other way than this.
But further, how does Jesus speak of his followers, and of
their relation to him? He constantly assumes that, in
their actual condition, they have not the true life in them,
but, as he expresses it in Chap. III. with reference to Nico-
demus, must receive a wholly different life, as much op-
posed to their present life as if an entirely new man should be
born in their stead :--or,--where he expresses himself with
the strictest precision,--that they have not, properly speak-
ing, either existence or life, but are sunk in death and the
grave, and that it is he who must first give them life.
On this point, consider the following decisive passages:--
Chap. VI. verse 53--" Except ye eat my flesh and drink
my blood," (this expression will be afterwards ex-
plained), "ye have no life in you:"--Only by means
of thus eating my flesh and drinking my blood is
there aught in you;--without this there is nothing.
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?
47(5
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
Chap . V. verse 24--"He that heareth my word," &c.
"hath everlasting life, and is passed from death unto
life. "--Verse 25--"The hour is coming, and now is,
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God; and they that hear shall live. " The dead! Who
are these dead 1 Those who are to lie in their graves
till the last day? A coarse, crude interpretation;--
in Scriptural language, an interpretation according to
the flesh, and not according to the spirit. The hour
was even then: they themselves were the dead who
had not yet heard his voice, and even on that ac-
count were dead.
And what is this life, that Jesus promises to give his fol-
lowers?
Chap. VIII. verse 51--" Verily, verily, I say unto you,
If a man keep my word, he shall never see death,"--
not as dull expositors take it; -- "he shall indeed
once die, only not for ever, but he shall again be a-
wakened at the last day,"--but" he shall never die:"
as the Jews actually understood it, and attempted to
refute Jesus by an appeal to the death of Abraham,
while he justified their interpretation by declaring
that Abraham, who had seen his day,--who had,
doubtless through Melchisedek, been initiated into
his doctrine,--was actually not dead.
Or yet more distinctly,--
Chapter XI. verse 23--" Thy brother shall rise again.
Martha" (whose head was filled with Jewish notions)
"saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in
the resurrection at the last day. " No, said Jesus--
"I am the Resurrection and the Life:--he that be-
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall
never die. " Union with me is union with the Eter-
nal God and his Life, and the certain assurance
thereof; so that in every moment of time, he who is
so united with me, is in complete possession of Eter-
nity, and places no faith whatever in the fleeting and
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? LECTURE VI.
477
illusive phenomena of a birth and a death in Time,
and therefore needs no re-awakening as a deliverance
from a death in which he does not believe.
And whence has Jesus this power of giving Eternal Life
to his followers? From his absolute identity with God.
Chap. V. verse 26--" As the Father hath life in himself, so
hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. "
Further,--in what way do the followers of Jesus become
partakers of this identity of his Life with the Divine Life?
Jesus declares this in the most manifold and varied ways,
of which I shall here adduce only the most clear and for-
cible,--those which, precisely on account of their absolute
clearness, have been the most completely unintelligible and
offensive, both to his contemporaries and to their descen-
dants even to the present day. Chap. VI. verses 53-55--
"Except ye eat the flesh of the the Son of Man, and drink
his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh,
and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. For my flesh is
meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. " What does
this mean? He explains himself at v. 56--" He that eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in
him," or, reversing the expression, He that dwelleth in me
and I in him, he hath eaten my flesh, &c. To eat his flesh,
and drink his blood, means--to become wholly and entirely
he himself;--to become altogether changed into his person
without reserve or limitation ;--to be a faithful repetition
of him in another personality;--to be transubstantiated
with him,--i. e. as he is the Eternal Word made flesh and
blood, to become his flesh and blood, and--what follows from
that, and indeed is the same thing--to become the very
Eternal Word made flesh and blood itself;--to think wholly
and entirely like him, and so as if he himself thought, and
not we;--to live wholly and entirely like him, and so as if
he himself lived in our life. As surely as you do not now
attempt to drag down my own words, and reduce them to
the narrow meaning that Jesus is only to be imitated, as an
unattainable pattern, partially and at a distance, as far as
human weakness will allow, but accept them in the sense in
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? 478
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
which I have spoken them,--that we must be transformed
into Christ himself,--so surely will it become evident to you
that Jesus could not well have expressed himself otherwise,
and that he actually did express himself excellently welL
Jesus was very far from representing himself as that unat-
tainable ideal into which he was first transformed by the
spiritual poverty of after-ages; nor did his Apostles so re-
gard him :--among the rest Paul, who says:--" I live not,
but Christ liveth in me. " Jesus desired that he should be
repeated in the persons of his followers, in his complete and
undivided character, as he was in himself; and indeed he
demanded this absolutely, as an indispensable condition of
discipleship:--Except ye eat my flesh, &c. , ye have no life
whatever in you, but ye abide in the graves wherein I found
you.
Only this one thing he demanded: not more, and not
less. He did not, by any means, propose to rest satisfied
with the mere historical belief that he was the Eternal
Word made flesh,--the Christ,--for which he gave himself
out. He certainly did demand, even according to John, as
a preliminary condition,--only to secure attention and con-
sideration to his teachings--he did demand Faith, that is,
the previous admission of the possibility that he might be
indeed this Christ; and he even did not disdain to facilitate
and strengthen this admission by means of striking and
wonderful works which he performed. But the final and
decisive proof, which was first to be made possible through
the preliminary admission or Faith, was this :--that a man
should actually do the will of him who had sent Jesus,--
that is, in the sense we have explained, should eat his flesh
and drink his blood, whereby he should then know of the
doctrine, that it was from God, and that he spake not of
himself. As little is his discourse of faith in his expiatory
merits. According to John, Jesus is indeed a Lamb of God
that taketh away the sins of the world; but by no means
one who with his blood appeases an angry God. He takes
them away:--According to his doctrine, man does not exist
at all out of God and him, but is dead and buried; he does
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? LECTURE VI.
479
not even enter into the Spiritual Kingdom of God:--how
then can this poor, non-existent shadow introduce dissen-
sion into this Kingdom, and disturb the Divine Plan? But
he who is transformed into the likeness of Jesus, and there-
by into that of God,--he no longer lives himself, but God
lives in him;--but how can God sin against himself? Thus
has he borne away and destroyed the whole delusion of sin,
and the dread of a Godhead that could feel itself offended
by men. Finally, if any man in this way should repeat the
character of Jesus in his own person, what then, according
to the doctrine of Jesus, is the result? Thus does Jesus, in
the presence of his disciples, call upon his Father :--Chap.
XVII. verse 20--" Neither pray I for these alone, but for
them also which shall believe on me through their word;
that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I
in thee, that they also may be one in us. "--One--in us.
Now, according to this consummation, all distinctions are
laid aside; the whole community--the first-born of all, with
his more immediate followers, and with all those who are
born in later days--here merge together into one common
source of all life -- the Godhead. And thus, as we have
maintained above, does Christianity, assuming its purpose
to be attained, again fall into harmony with the Absolute
Truth, and itself maintain that every man may and ought
to come into unity with God,--and himself, in his own per-
son, become the Divine Ex-istence, or the Eternal Word.
And thus it is proved that the doctrine of Christianity,
even in the system of images under which it represents Life
and Death, and all that flows therefrom, is in strict harmo-
ny with that doctrine which we have set forth to you in our
previous lectures, and have combined into one single view
at the beginning of to-day's discourse.
In conclusion, listen once more to that with which I
closed my last lecture, but now in the words of the same
Apostle John.
Thus he combines, doubtless with reference to his Gos-
pel, the practical results of the whole: Epistle I. Chap. I. --
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard
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? 480
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked
upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life. "
Do you observe how anxious he is to appear, not as having
given forth his own thoughts in his Gospel, but as the mere
witness of what he had seen ? " That which we have seen
and heard declare we unto you, that ye also "--in spirit and
on the foundation of the last words we have quoted from
Jesus--" may have fellowship with us; and truly our fel-
lowship"--ours, the Apostles, as well as yours, the newly
converted--" is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus
Christ. . . If we say that we have fellowship with him,
and walk in darkness"--if we think that we are united
with God while yet the Divine Energy does not burst forth
in our lives--" we lie, and do not the truth "--we are but
fanatics and visionaries. --" But if we walk in the Light, as
he is in the Light, we have fellowship one with another, and
the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God"--not, in the theo-
ological sense, his blood shed for the remission of our sins,
but his blood and mind entered into us,--his Life in us--
"cleanseth us from all sin," and raiseth us far above the
possibility of sin.
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? *
481
APPENDIX TO LECTURE VI.
THE HISTORICAL AND THE METAPHYSICAL IN
CHRISTIANITY.
That the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, as a special
institution for the development of Religion in the Human
Race:--i. e. that in Jesus Christ, for the first time, and in a
way predicable of no other man, the Eternal Ex-istence
(Daseyn) of God has assumed a human personality; and
that all other men can attain to union with God only
through him, and by means of the repetition of his whole
character in themselves:--that this is a merely historical,
and not in any way a metaphysical proposition, we have already said in the text--(page 471. ) It is perhaps not su-
perfluous to~point out here, still more clearly, the distinc-
tion upon which this declaration is founded; since I am
not entitled, in the case of the general public to whom it is
now presented, to make the same assumption as in the case
of the majority of my immediate hearers,--that they are fa-
miliar with this distinction through my other teachings. \y
If we take these expressions in their strict signification,
the Historical and the Metaphysical are directly opposed to
each other; and that which is really historical is, on that
very account, not metaphysical--and the reverse. The His-
torical, and what is purely historical in every possible phe-
nomenon, is that which may be apprehended as simple and
absolute Fact, existing for itself alone and isolated from
everything else, not as receiving its explanation and deriva-
Qb
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? iS-2
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
tion from a higher source:--the Metaphysical, on the con-
trary, and the metaphysical element in every particular
phenomenon, is that which necessarily proceeds from a
higher and more comprehensive law, and which may be
again referred to that law, and therefore cannot be compre-
hended as simple fact; and, strictly speaking, can only by
means of a delusion be regarded as fact at all, since in truth
it is not apprehended as fact but only in consequence of
the Law of Reason that rules within us. The latter ele-
ment of the phenomenon never extends to its actuality, and
the actual phenomenon never altogether disappears in it;
and therefore in all actual phenomena these two elements
are inseparably combined.
It is the fundamental error of all pretended science that
does not recognise its own boundaries,--in other words, of
the transcendental use of the understanding,--that it is not
satisfied to accept the fact, simply as a fact, but must in-
dulge in metaphysical speculation concerning it. Since, on
the supposition that what such a Metaphysic labours to re-
fer to a higher law is in truth simply actual and historic,
there can be no such law, at least none accessible to us in
the present life, it follows, that the Metaphysic we have de-
scribed, arbitrarily assuming that such an explanation is to
be found here,--which is its first error,--must then have
recourse to its own invention for such an explanation, and
fill up the chasm by an arbitrary hypothesis,--which is its
second error.
With regard to the case now before us,--the primitive
fact of Christianity is accepted as historical, and simply as
fact, when we say, what is evident to every man, that Jesus
knew what he did know before any one else knew it, and
taught and lived as he did teach and live;--without de-
siring to know further how all this was possible, which, ac-
cording to well established principles, not however to be
communicated here, can never be ascertained in this life.
But the same fact is metaphysisized by the transcendental
use of the understanding, soaring beyond the fact itself,
when we attempt to comprehend it in its primitive source,
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? APPENDIX TO LECTURE VI.
483
and to this end set up an hypothesis as to how the individu-
al Jesus, as an individual, has emanated from the essential
Divine Nature. As an individual, I have said;--for how
Humanity as a whole has come forth from the Divine Na-
ture may be comprehended, and must have been made in-
telligible by our preceding lectures; and is, according to us,
the theme of the introduction to the Johannean Gospel.
Now to us, who regard the matter only historically, it is
of no importance in which of these two ways the above-
mentioned principle is received by any one else, but only
in what way it was accepted by Jesus himself, and his
Apostle John, and how they authorized others to accept it;
and it is certainly the most important element in our view
of the matter, that Christianity itself, as represented by Je-
sus, has by no means accepted that principle metaphysically.
We retrace our argument to the following proposi-
tions :--
(1. ) Jesus of Nazareth undoubtedly possessed the highest
perception, containing the foundation of all other Truth, of
the absolute identity of Humanity with the Godhead, as re-
gards what is essentially real in the former. Upon this
merely historical proposition, every one to whom the follow-
ing evidence is to prove anything whatever, must first of all
come to an understanding with me; and I entreat my read-
ers not to hurry over this point. In my opinion, no one
who has not previously attained, by another way, to the
knowledge of the One Reality, and who does not possess
this knowledge in living activity within him, will easily dis-
cover it where I, being first penetrated by this condition,
have found it. But if any one have already fulfilled this
condition, and thereby created for himself the organ by
which alone Christianity may be comprehended, then he will
not only clearly re-discover this fundamental truth in Chris-
tianity, but he will also discern a higher and holier signifi-
cance spread over the other, often apparently extraordinary,
expressions of these writings.
(2. ) The mode and manner of this knowledge in Jesus
Christ, which is the second point of importance, may be best
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? 484
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
characterized by contrast with the mode and manner in
which the speculative philosopher arrives at the same know-
ledge. The latter proceeds upon the problem, which in it-
self is foreign to Religion, and even profane in its sight, and
which is imposed upon him merely by his desire of know-
ledge,--to explain Existence. Wherever there is a learned
public, he finds this problem already proposed by others be-
fore him, and he finds fellow-labourers in its solution both
among his predecessors and his contemporaries. It can
never occur to him to regard himself as in any respect
singular or distinguished on account of the problem becom-
ing clear to him. Further, the problem, as a problem, ap-
peals to his own industry, and to the personal freedom of
which he is clearly conscious; and being thus clearly con-
scious of his own personal activity in its solution, he cannot,
on that very account, regard himself as inspired.
Suppose, finally, that he succeed in the solution, and that
in the only true way,--by means of the Religious Principle;
his discovery still proceeds upon a series of preparatory in-
vestigations, and in this way it is to him a natural result
.
Religion is but a secondary matter to him, and is not there
purely and solely as Religion, but only as the solution of the
problem to which he had devoted his life.
It was not so with Jesus. In the first place, he did not
set out from any speculative question, which could be solved
only by a Religious Knowledge attained at a later period
and only in the course of the investigation of that question;
for he explained absolutely nothing by his Religious Prin-
ciple, and deduced nothing from it; but he presented it,
alone and by itself, as the only thing worthy of know-
ledge, passing by everything else as undeserving of no-
tice. His Faith, and his conviction, never allowed the
question to arise as to the existence of finite things. In
short, they had no existence for him;--only in union with
God was there Reality. How this Non-Entity could assume
the semblance of Being, from which doubt all profane spec-
ulation proceeds, he cared not to inquire.
As little had he his knowledge by outward teaching and
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? APPENDIX TO LECTURE VI. 485
tradition; for with that truly sublime sincerity and open-
ness which are evident in all his expressions,--and here I
venture to assume on the part of my reader that he has
created for himself an intuitive perception of this sincerity
by means of his own personal relation to this virtue and by
a profound study of the life of Jesus,--he would in that
case have said so, and directed his disciples to the sources
of his own knowledge. It does not follow, because he him-
self indicated the existence of a true religious knowledge
before Abraham, and one of his apostles distinctly refers
to Melchisedek, that Jesus had any connection with that
system by direct tradition; but it might readily happen
that he should re-discover, in his study of Moses, that which
was already present in his own mind; since it is evident
from numerous other instances that he had an infinitely
more profound comprehension of the writings of the Old
Testament than the Scriptural students of his day and the
majority of those of our own; while he likewise proceed-
ed, as it appears, upon the sound hermeneutical principle,
that Moses and the Prophets really desired to say something
and not nothing.
To say that Jesus did not receive his knowledge either
by means of his own speculation, or by communication
from without, is equivalent to saying that he had it through
his mere being and life, -- that it was to him primary
and absolute, without any other element whatever with
which it was connected,--purely through Inspiration, as we
coming after him, and in contrast with our own knowledge,
may express it, but as he himself never could express it.
And what knowledge had he in this way? That all Being
is founded in God alone; and consequently, what immedi-
ately follows from this, that his own Being, with this know-
ledge and in this knowledge, had its foundation in God and
proceeded directly from him. What immediately follows, I
say:--for to us certainly the latter is an inference from the
universal to the particular, since we must first of all re-
nounce our existing personal Ego, as the particular in quest-
ion, and merge it in the universal: but it was by no means
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? 486
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
the same,--and this I entreat you to remark as the chief
point,--it was by no means the same with Jesus. In him
there was no intellectual, questioning, or learning Self to
be renounced, for in this knowledge his whole spiritual self
was already swallowed up. His Self-consciousness was at
once the pure and absolute Truth of Reason itself; self-ex-
istent and independent,--the simple fact of consciousness:
--by no means, as with us, genetic, arising from another
preceding state, and hence no simple fact of consciousness,
but an inference. In that which I have thus endeavoured
to express with the utmost precision and distinctness must
have consisted the peculiar personal character of Jesus
Christ, who, like every other true Individuality, can have
appeared but once in Time, and can never be repeated
therein. He was the Absolute Reason clothed in immediate
Self-consciousness; or, what is the same thing,--Religion.
(3.
