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.
tation than those contained in themselves seem to me inad-
missible in the case of these writers, and particularly in the
case of John.
Fichte - Nature of the Scholar
org/access_use#pd-google
? LECTURE V.
455
this view the peculiar, self-subsistent Reality;--that by
which the World arose, and in which it has its root. Should
any one here wonder how a Law, which indeed, as such an
one would say, is only a relation--a mere abstract concep-
tion,--can be regarded as an independent existence, the
wonder of such an one can proceed only from his inability
to comprehend anything as real except visible and palpable
matter; and thus he also belongs to that class to whom we
have nothing to say. A Law, I say, is to this view of the
World the first thing; --that which alone truly is, and through which everything else that exists first comes into
existence. Freedom and a Human Race is to it the sec-
ond thing;--which exists only because a Law that is ad-
dressed to freedom necessarily assumes the existence of
freedom and of free beings; and in this system the only
foundation and proof of the independence of man is the Mo-
ral Law that reveals itself within him. A Sensible World,
finally, is to it the third thing;--and this is only the sphere
of the free action of man, and only exists because free ac-
tion necessarily assumes the existence of objects of such
action. As to the sciences that arise out of this view,--it
may lay claim not only to Jurisprudence, as setting forth
the legal relations of men, but also to the common doctrine
of Morals, which merely goes the length of forbidding in-
justice between man and man, and merely rejects whatever
is opposed to Duty whether forbidden by an express law of
the State or not. Examples of this view of the World can-
not be adduced from common life, which, rooted in matter,
does not raise itself even thus far; but, in philosophical
literature, Kant is the most striking and consequential ex-
ample of this view, if we do not follow his philosophical
career farther than the Critique of Practical Reason;--the
peculiar character of this mode of thought, as we have ex-
pressed it above,--namely, that the reality and indepen-
dence of man are evidenced only by the Moral Law that
rules within him, and that only thereby does he become
anything in himself,--being expressed by Kant in the same
words. We ourselves, too, have pointed out and investi-
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? 456
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
gated this view of the world, never indeed as the highest,
but as the foundation of a Doctrine of Jurisprudence and a
Doctrine of Morals in our treatment of these subjects; and
have there, as we are conscious, set it forth not without
energy:--and there can therefore be no lack of examples,
in our own age, of this second view of the World, for those
who take a closer interest in what has now been said. For
the rest, the purely moral inward sentiment -- that man
ought to act only in obedience to, and for the sake of, the
Law--which also enters into the sphere of this Lower Mo-
rality, and the inculcation of which has not been forgotten
either by Kant or by us, does not belong to our present
subject, where we have to do only with objective beliefs.
One general remark, which is of importance for all our
subsequent points of view, I shall adduce here as the place
where it may be made with the greatest distinctness. This,
namely:--In order to have a firm standpoint for any view
of the World, it is necessary that we should place the real
and independent being and root of the World in one definite
and unchangeable principle, from which we may be able to
educe the others as only partaking in the reality of the first,
and only assumed by reason of it; just as we have already,
when speaking of the second view of the World, educed the
Human Race as a second element, and the Sensible World
as a third, from the law of Moral Order as the first . But it
is by no means allowable to mix and intermingle realities;
and, it may be, to ascribe to the Sensible World what is
supposed to belong to it, at the same time not denying to
to the Moral World any of its rights;--as is sometimes at-
tempted by those who would get rid of these questions al-
together. Such persons have no settled view whatever, and
no fixed direction of their spiritual eye, but they continually
turn aside amid the Manifold. Far better than they, is he
who holds firmly by the World of Sense, and denies the re-
ality of everything else but it; for although he may be as
short-sighted as the others, yet he is not at the same time
so timid and spiritless. In a word :--a higher view of the
World does not tolerate the lower beside it; but each high-
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? LECTURE V.
457
er step abolishes the lower as an absolute and highest stand-
point, and subordinates it to itself. ^
The Third view of the World is that from the stand-
point of the True and Higher Morality. It is necessary
that we should render a very distinct account of this stand-
point, which is almost wholly unknown to the present
age. To it also, as well as to the second of the views we
have now described, a Law of the Spiritual World is the
first, highest, and absolute reality; and herein these two
views coincide. But the Law of the third view is not, like
that of the second, merely a Law of Order, regulating pre-
sent existence; but rather a Creative Law, producing the
new and hitherto non-existent, even within the circle of that
which already exists. The former is merely negative,--
abolishing the opposition between diverse free powers, and
establishing equilibrium and peace in its stead; the latter
desires to inform the powers, thus lulled to rest, with a new
life. We may say that it strives, not like the former after
the mere form of the Idea but, after the qualitative and real
Idea itself. Its object may be briefly stated thus;--it seeks,
in those whom it inspires, and through them in others, to
make Humanity in deed, what it is in its original intention,
--the express image, copy, and revelation of the inward and
essential Divine Nature. The process of deduction, by which
this third view of the World arrives at reality, is therefore
the following:--To it, the only truly real and independent
being is the Holy, the Good, the Beautiful;--the second is
Humanity, as destined to be the manifestation of the first;--
the ordering Law in Humanity, as the third, is but the means
of bringing it into internal and external peace for the fulfil-
ment of this its true vocation; -- and finally, the World of
Sense, as the fourth, is only the sphere both of the outward
and inward, the lower and higher, Freedom and Morality;
--only the sphere of Freedom, I say,--that which it is to all
the higher points of view, and thus remains, and can never
assume to itself any other reality.
Examples of this view in human history can be seen only
by him who has an eye to discover them. Through the
Nb
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? 458
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
Higher Morality alone, and those who have been inspired
by it, has Religion,--and in particular the Christian Reli-
gion,--Wisdom and Science, Legislation and Culture, Art,
and all else that we possess of Good and Venerable, been
introduced into the world. In Literature there are to be
found, except in the Poets, but few scattered traces of this
view:--among the ancient Philosophers, Plato may have
had some presentiment of it; among the moderns, Jacobi
sometimes touches upon this region.
The Fourth view of the World is that from the stand-
point of Religion; which, since it arises out of the third
view which we have just described, and is conjoined with it,
must be characterized as the clear knowledge and convic-
tion that this Holy, Good, and Beautiful, is by no means a
product of our own spirit, light or thought, or of any other
knowledge which in itself is nothing, but that it is the
immediate manifestation in us of the inward Divine Na-
ture, as Light ;--his expression, his image, wholly, absolute-
ly, and without abatement, in so far as his essential Nature
can come forth in an image or representation. This, the
Religious view, is that same insight for the production of
which we have prepared the way in our previous lectures,
and which now, in the connexion of its principles, may be
thus more precisely and definitely expressed:--(1. ) God alone
is, and nothing besides him:--a principle which, it seems to
me, may be easily comprehended, and which is the indis-
pensable condition of all Religious insight . (2. ) But while
we thus say " God is," we have an altogether empty concep-
tion, furnishing absolutely no explanation of God's essential
Nature. From this conception, what could we answer to
the question:--What then is God 1 The only possible ad-
dition we could make to the axiom,--this, namely, that he
is absolutely, of himself, through himself, and in himself,--
this is but the fundamental form of our own understanding
applied to him, and expresses no more than our mode of
conceiving him; and even that negatively and as we can
not think of him,--that is, we mean only that we cannot
educe his being from another, as we are compelled by the
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? LECTURE V.
459
nature of our understanding to do with all other objects of
our thought . This conception of God is thus an abstract
and unsubstantial conception; and when we say " God is,"
--he is to us essentially nothing; and, by this very expres-
sion itself, is made nothing. (3. ) But beyond this mere
empty and unsubstantial conception, and as we have care-
fully set forth this matter above, God enters into us in his
actual, true, and immediate Life ;--or, to express it more
strictly, we ourselves are this his immediate Life. But we
are not conscious of this immediate Divine Life; and since,
as we have also already seen, our own Ex-istence--that
which properly belongs to us--is that only which we can
embrace in consciousness, so our Being in God, notwith-
standing that at bottom it is indeed ours, remains neverthe-
less for ever foreign to us, and thus, in deed and truth, to
ourselves is not our Being;--we are in no respect the better
of this insight, and remain as far removed as ever from God.
We know nothing of this immediate Divine Life, I said;--
for even at the first touch of consciousness it is changed in-
to a dead outward World, which again divides itself into a
five-fold form according to the point of view from which we
regard it. Although it may be that it is God himself who
ever lives behind all these varied forms, yet we see him not,
but only his garment; we see him as stone, plant, animal,
&c. , or, if we soar higher, as Natural Law, or as Moral Law:
--but all this is yet not He. The form for ever veils the
substance from us; our vision itself conceals its object; our
eye stands in its own light. I say unto thee who thus com- plainest:--" Raise thyself to the standpoint of Religion, and
all these veils are drawn aside; the World, with its dead
principle, disappears from before thee, and the God-head
once more enters and resumes its place within thee, in its
first and original form, as Life,--as thine own Life, which
thou oughtest to live, and shalt live. Still the one, irrever-
sible form of Reflexion remains,--the Infinitude, in thee,
of this Divine Life, which, in God himself, is but One; but
this form troubles thee not, for thou desirest it and lovest
it; it does not mislead thee, for thou art able to explain it
.
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? 460
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
In that which the Holy Man does, lives, and loves, God ap-
pears, no longer surrounded by shadows nor hidden by a
garment, but in his own, immediate, and efficient Life; and
the question which is unanswerable from the mere empty
and unsubstantial conception of God,--" What is God ? "--ia here answered:--" He is that which he who is devoted to
him and inspired by him does. " Wouldst thou behold God
face to face, as he is in himself? Seek him not beyond the
skies; thou canst find him wherever thou art. Behold the
life of his devoted ones, and thou beholdest him; resign
thyself to him, and thou wilt find him within thine own
breast. "
This, my friends, is the view of the World and of Being,
from the standpoint of Religion.
The Fifth and last view of the World is that from the
standpoint of Science. Of Science, I say,-- One, Abso-
lute, and Self-complete. Science thoroughly comprehends
all these points of the transition of the One into a Manifold,
and of the Absolute into a Relative, in their order and in
their relations to each other; being able, in every case, and
from each individual point of view, to carry back that Mul-
tiplicity to its primitive Unity, or to deduce from the origi-
nal Unity that Multiplicity of form:--as we have laid before
you the general characteristics of such Science in this and
our two preceding lectures. Science goes beyond the insight
into the fact that the Manifold is assuredly founded on the
One and is to be referred to it, which is given to us by Reli-
gion,--to the insight into the manner of this fact; and to it,
that becomes a genetic principle which to Religion is but
an absolute fact . Religion without Science is a mere Faith,
although an immovable Faith;-- Science supersedes all
Faith, and changes it into sight. We do not, however, ad-
duce here this Scientific standpoint as properly belonging
to our present inquiry, but only for the sake of complete-
ness; and therefore it is sufficient at present to add the fol-
lowing respecting it:--Science is not indeed a condition of
the Divine and Blessed Life; but nevertheless this Life de-
mands of us that we should realise this Science, in ourselves
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? LECTURE V.
461
and in others, within the region of the Higher Morality.
The true and complete Man ought to be thoroughly clear
in himself; for universal and complete clearness belongs to
the image and representative of God. But, on the other
hand, no one can make this demand upon himself in whom
it has not already been fulfilled without his own aid, and has
thereby itself become already clear and intelligible to him.
We have yet to make the following remarks on the five
points of view which we have now indicated, and thus to complete our picture of the Religious Man.
Both of the two last-mentioned points of view, the Scien-
tific as well as the Religious, are only percipient and con-
templative, not in themselves active and practical They
are merely inert and passive moods, which abide within the
mind itself; not impulses moving towards action, and so
bursting forth into life. On the contrary, the third point of
view, that of the Higher Morality, is practical, impelling to-
wards action. And now I add:--True Religion, notwith-
standing that it raises the view of those who are inspired by
it to its own region, nevertheless retains their Life firmly
within the domain of action, and of right moral action. The true and real Religious Life is not alone percipient and con-
templative, does not merely brood over devout thoughts, but
is essentially active. It consists, as we have seen, in the in-
timate consciousness that God actually lives, moves, and
perfects his work in us. If therefore there is in us no real
Life, if no activity and no visible work proceed forth from
us, then is God not active in us. Our consciousness of union
with God is then deceptive and vain, and the empty shadow
of a condition that is not ours; perhaps the vague but life-
less insight that such a condition is possible, and in others
may be actual, but that we ourselves have, nevertheless, not
the least portion in it. We are expelled from the domain
of Reality, and again banished to that of vain and empty
conception. The latter is Fanaticism and idle dreaming, be-
cause it answers to no Reality; and this fanaticism is one
of the faults of that system of Mysticism which we have
elsewhere described, and contrasted with the True Religion:
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? 4G2
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
--it is by living activity that the True Religious Life is dis-
tinguished from this Fanaticism. Religion does not consist
in mere devout dreams, I said:--Religion is not a business
by and for itself, which a man may practise apart from his
other occupations, perhaps on certain fixed days and hours;
but it is the inmost spirit that penetrates, inspires, and per-
vades all our Thought and Action, which in other respects
pursue their appointed course without change or interrup-
tion. That the Divine Life and Energy actually lives in us,
is inseparable from Religion, I said. But this does not de-
pend upon the sphere in which we act, as may have become
evident from what we said when speaking of the third point
of view. He whose knowledge extends to the objects of the
Higher Morality, if he be animated by Religion, will live
and act in this sphere, because this is his peculiar calling.
But to him who has only a lower vocation, even it may be
sanctified by Religion, and will receive thereby, if not the
material, yet the form of the Higher Morality;--to which
nothing more is essential than that we should recognise and
love our vocation as the Will of God with us and in us. If
a man till his field in this Faith, or practise the most un-
pretending handicraft with this truthfulness, he is higher
and more blessed than if, without this Faith, if that were
possible, he should confer happiness and prosperity upon
mankind for ages to come.
This then is the picture--the inward spirit of the true
Religious man:--He does not conceive of his World, the
object of his love and his endeavour, as something for him
to enjoy;--not as if melancholy and superstitious fear
caused him to look upon eujoyment and pleasure as some-
thing sinful, but because he knows that no such pleasure
can yield him true joy. He conceives of it as a World of
Action, which, because it is his World, he alone creates,
in which alone he can live, and find enjoyment of himself.
This Action again he does not will for the sake of a result in
the World of Sense;--he is in no respect anxious about the
result or no-result that may ensue, for he lives only in Ac-
tion, as Action;--but he wills it, because it is the Will of
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? LECTURE V.
463
God in him, and his own proper portion in Being. And so
does his Life flow onwards, simple and pure, knowing, will-
ing, and desiring nothing else than this,--never wandering
from this centre, neither moved nor troubled by aught ex-
ternal to itself.
Such is his Life. Whether this be not of necessity the
most pure and perfect Blessedness, we shall inquire at an-
other time.
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? 40
LECTURE VI.
EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE JOHANNEAN
GOSPEL:--ITS ACCORDANCE WITH
OUR OWN DOCTRINE.
Oub whole Doctrine, as the foundation of all that we have
yet to say at this time, and generally of all that we can
say at any time, is now clearly and distinctly set forth, and
may be surveyed at a single glance. There is absolutely
no Being and no Life beyond the immediate Divine Life.
According to the essential and irreversible laws of Con-
sciousness,--laws which are founded in the very nature of
Consciousness itself,--this Being is veiled and darkened in
Consciousness by manifold concealments;--but, freed from
these disguises, and modified only by the form of Infinitude,
it reappears in the life and actions of the God-inspired man.
In his actions it is not man who acts;--but God himself, in
his primitive and inward Being and Nature, acts and ful-
fils his work in Man.
I said, in one of the first and introductory lectures, that
this doctrine, however new and unheard of it may seem to
this age, is nevertheless as old as the world;--and that, in
particular, it is the doctrine of Christianity, as this, even to
the present day, lies before our view in its purest and most
excellent record, the Gospel of John; and that this doctrine
is there set forth with the very same images and expres-
sions which we here employ. It may be well, in many re-
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? THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
405
spects, to make good that statement, and to this purpose
we shall devote the present lecture. It will be understood,
even without a special declaration on our part, that we by
no means intend to prove our doctrine, or even to add to
it an outward support, by demonstrating this harmony be-
tween it and Christianity. It must already, by what we
have previously said, have proved itself, and that with abso-
lute evidence,--and it needs no further support. And in
the same way must Christianity, as in harmony with Rea-
son, and as the pure and perfect expression of this Reason,
beyond which there is no truth,--so, I say, must Christiani-
ty prove itself, if it is to lay claim to validity and accept-
ance. It is not by philosophers that you need fear to be
led back again into the chains of blind authority.
In my lectures of last winter,* I have distinctly an-
nounced the grounds upon which I regard the Apostle John
as the only teacher of true Christianity:--namely, that the
Apostle Paul and his party, as the authors of the opposite
system of Christianity, remained half Jews, and left unal-
tered the fundamental error of Judaism as well as of Hea-
thenism, which we must afterwards notice. For the present
the following may be enough:--It is only with John that
the philosopher can deal, for he alone has respect for Rea-
son, and appeals to that evidence which alone has weight
with the philosopher--the internal. "If any man will do
the will of him that sent me, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God. " But this Will of God, according to
John, is that we should truly believe in God, and in Jesus
Christ whom he hath sent. 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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? +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.
? LECTURE V.
455
this view the peculiar, self-subsistent Reality;--that by
which the World arose, and in which it has its root. Should
any one here wonder how a Law, which indeed, as such an
one would say, is only a relation--a mere abstract concep-
tion,--can be regarded as an independent existence, the
wonder of such an one can proceed only from his inability
to comprehend anything as real except visible and palpable
matter; and thus he also belongs to that class to whom we
have nothing to say. A Law, I say, is to this view of the
World the first thing; --that which alone truly is, and through which everything else that exists first comes into
existence. Freedom and a Human Race is to it the sec-
ond thing;--which exists only because a Law that is ad-
dressed to freedom necessarily assumes the existence of
freedom and of free beings; and in this system the only
foundation and proof of the independence of man is the Mo-
ral Law that reveals itself within him. A Sensible World,
finally, is to it the third thing;--and this is only the sphere
of the free action of man, and only exists because free ac-
tion necessarily assumes the existence of objects of such
action. As to the sciences that arise out of this view,--it
may lay claim not only to Jurisprudence, as setting forth
the legal relations of men, but also to the common doctrine
of Morals, which merely goes the length of forbidding in-
justice between man and man, and merely rejects whatever
is opposed to Duty whether forbidden by an express law of
the State or not. Examples of this view of the World can-
not be adduced from common life, which, rooted in matter,
does not raise itself even thus far; but, in philosophical
literature, Kant is the most striking and consequential ex-
ample of this view, if we do not follow his philosophical
career farther than the Critique of Practical Reason;--the
peculiar character of this mode of thought, as we have ex-
pressed it above,--namely, that the reality and indepen-
dence of man are evidenced only by the Moral Law that
rules within him, and that only thereby does he become
anything in himself,--being expressed by Kant in the same
words. We ourselves, too, have pointed out and investi-
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? 456
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
gated this view of the world, never indeed as the highest,
but as the foundation of a Doctrine of Jurisprudence and a
Doctrine of Morals in our treatment of these subjects; and
have there, as we are conscious, set it forth not without
energy:--and there can therefore be no lack of examples,
in our own age, of this second view of the World, for those
who take a closer interest in what has now been said. For
the rest, the purely moral inward sentiment -- that man
ought to act only in obedience to, and for the sake of, the
Law--which also enters into the sphere of this Lower Mo-
rality, and the inculcation of which has not been forgotten
either by Kant or by us, does not belong to our present
subject, where we have to do only with objective beliefs.
One general remark, which is of importance for all our
subsequent points of view, I shall adduce here as the place
where it may be made with the greatest distinctness. This,
namely:--In order to have a firm standpoint for any view
of the World, it is necessary that we should place the real
and independent being and root of the World in one definite
and unchangeable principle, from which we may be able to
educe the others as only partaking in the reality of the first,
and only assumed by reason of it; just as we have already,
when speaking of the second view of the World, educed the
Human Race as a second element, and the Sensible World
as a third, from the law of Moral Order as the first . But it
is by no means allowable to mix and intermingle realities;
and, it may be, to ascribe to the Sensible World what is
supposed to belong to it, at the same time not denying to
to the Moral World any of its rights;--as is sometimes at-
tempted by those who would get rid of these questions al-
together. Such persons have no settled view whatever, and
no fixed direction of their spiritual eye, but they continually
turn aside amid the Manifold. Far better than they, is he
who holds firmly by the World of Sense, and denies the re-
ality of everything else but it; for although he may be as
short-sighted as the others, yet he is not at the same time
so timid and spiritless. In a word :--a higher view of the
World does not tolerate the lower beside it; but each high-
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? LECTURE V.
457
er step abolishes the lower as an absolute and highest stand-
point, and subordinates it to itself. ^
The Third view of the World is that from the stand-
point of the True and Higher Morality. It is necessary
that we should render a very distinct account of this stand-
point, which is almost wholly unknown to the present
age. To it also, as well as to the second of the views we
have now described, a Law of the Spiritual World is the
first, highest, and absolute reality; and herein these two
views coincide. But the Law of the third view is not, like
that of the second, merely a Law of Order, regulating pre-
sent existence; but rather a Creative Law, producing the
new and hitherto non-existent, even within the circle of that
which already exists. The former is merely negative,--
abolishing the opposition between diverse free powers, and
establishing equilibrium and peace in its stead; the latter
desires to inform the powers, thus lulled to rest, with a new
life. We may say that it strives, not like the former after
the mere form of the Idea but, after the qualitative and real
Idea itself. Its object may be briefly stated thus;--it seeks,
in those whom it inspires, and through them in others, to
make Humanity in deed, what it is in its original intention,
--the express image, copy, and revelation of the inward and
essential Divine Nature. The process of deduction, by which
this third view of the World arrives at reality, is therefore
the following:--To it, the only truly real and independent
being is the Holy, the Good, the Beautiful;--the second is
Humanity, as destined to be the manifestation of the first;--
the ordering Law in Humanity, as the third, is but the means
of bringing it into internal and external peace for the fulfil-
ment of this its true vocation; -- and finally, the World of
Sense, as the fourth, is only the sphere both of the outward
and inward, the lower and higher, Freedom and Morality;
--only the sphere of Freedom, I say,--that which it is to all
the higher points of view, and thus remains, and can never
assume to itself any other reality.
Examples of this view in human history can be seen only
by him who has an eye to discover them. Through the
Nb
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? 458
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
Higher Morality alone, and those who have been inspired
by it, has Religion,--and in particular the Christian Reli-
gion,--Wisdom and Science, Legislation and Culture, Art,
and all else that we possess of Good and Venerable, been
introduced into the world. In Literature there are to be
found, except in the Poets, but few scattered traces of this
view:--among the ancient Philosophers, Plato may have
had some presentiment of it; among the moderns, Jacobi
sometimes touches upon this region.
The Fourth view of the World is that from the stand-
point of Religion; which, since it arises out of the third
view which we have just described, and is conjoined with it,
must be characterized as the clear knowledge and convic-
tion that this Holy, Good, and Beautiful, is by no means a
product of our own spirit, light or thought, or of any other
knowledge which in itself is nothing, but that it is the
immediate manifestation in us of the inward Divine Na-
ture, as Light ;--his expression, his image, wholly, absolute-
ly, and without abatement, in so far as his essential Nature
can come forth in an image or representation. This, the
Religious view, is that same insight for the production of
which we have prepared the way in our previous lectures,
and which now, in the connexion of its principles, may be
thus more precisely and definitely expressed:--(1. ) God alone
is, and nothing besides him:--a principle which, it seems to
me, may be easily comprehended, and which is the indis-
pensable condition of all Religious insight . (2. ) But while
we thus say " God is," we have an altogether empty concep-
tion, furnishing absolutely no explanation of God's essential
Nature. From this conception, what could we answer to
the question:--What then is God 1 The only possible ad-
dition we could make to the axiom,--this, namely, that he
is absolutely, of himself, through himself, and in himself,--
this is but the fundamental form of our own understanding
applied to him, and expresses no more than our mode of
conceiving him; and even that negatively and as we can
not think of him,--that is, we mean only that we cannot
educe his being from another, as we are compelled by the
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? LECTURE V.
459
nature of our understanding to do with all other objects of
our thought . This conception of God is thus an abstract
and unsubstantial conception; and when we say " God is,"
--he is to us essentially nothing; and, by this very expres-
sion itself, is made nothing. (3. ) But beyond this mere
empty and unsubstantial conception, and as we have care-
fully set forth this matter above, God enters into us in his
actual, true, and immediate Life ;--or, to express it more
strictly, we ourselves are this his immediate Life. But we
are not conscious of this immediate Divine Life; and since,
as we have also already seen, our own Ex-istence--that
which properly belongs to us--is that only which we can
embrace in consciousness, so our Being in God, notwith-
standing that at bottom it is indeed ours, remains neverthe-
less for ever foreign to us, and thus, in deed and truth, to
ourselves is not our Being;--we are in no respect the better
of this insight, and remain as far removed as ever from God.
We know nothing of this immediate Divine Life, I said;--
for even at the first touch of consciousness it is changed in-
to a dead outward World, which again divides itself into a
five-fold form according to the point of view from which we
regard it. Although it may be that it is God himself who
ever lives behind all these varied forms, yet we see him not,
but only his garment; we see him as stone, plant, animal,
&c. , or, if we soar higher, as Natural Law, or as Moral Law:
--but all this is yet not He. The form for ever veils the
substance from us; our vision itself conceals its object; our
eye stands in its own light. I say unto thee who thus com- plainest:--" Raise thyself to the standpoint of Religion, and
all these veils are drawn aside; the World, with its dead
principle, disappears from before thee, and the God-head
once more enters and resumes its place within thee, in its
first and original form, as Life,--as thine own Life, which
thou oughtest to live, and shalt live. Still the one, irrever-
sible form of Reflexion remains,--the Infinitude, in thee,
of this Divine Life, which, in God himself, is but One; but
this form troubles thee not, for thou desirest it and lovest
it; it does not mislead thee, for thou art able to explain it
.
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? 460
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
In that which the Holy Man does, lives, and loves, God ap-
pears, no longer surrounded by shadows nor hidden by a
garment, but in his own, immediate, and efficient Life; and
the question which is unanswerable from the mere empty
and unsubstantial conception of God,--" What is God ? "--ia here answered:--" He is that which he who is devoted to
him and inspired by him does. " Wouldst thou behold God
face to face, as he is in himself? Seek him not beyond the
skies; thou canst find him wherever thou art. Behold the
life of his devoted ones, and thou beholdest him; resign
thyself to him, and thou wilt find him within thine own
breast. "
This, my friends, is the view of the World and of Being,
from the standpoint of Religion.
The Fifth and last view of the World is that from the
standpoint of Science. Of Science, I say,-- One, Abso-
lute, and Self-complete. Science thoroughly comprehends
all these points of the transition of the One into a Manifold,
and of the Absolute into a Relative, in their order and in
their relations to each other; being able, in every case, and
from each individual point of view, to carry back that Mul-
tiplicity to its primitive Unity, or to deduce from the origi-
nal Unity that Multiplicity of form:--as we have laid before
you the general characteristics of such Science in this and
our two preceding lectures. Science goes beyond the insight
into the fact that the Manifold is assuredly founded on the
One and is to be referred to it, which is given to us by Reli-
gion,--to the insight into the manner of this fact; and to it,
that becomes a genetic principle which to Religion is but
an absolute fact . Religion without Science is a mere Faith,
although an immovable Faith;-- Science supersedes all
Faith, and changes it into sight. We do not, however, ad-
duce here this Scientific standpoint as properly belonging
to our present inquiry, but only for the sake of complete-
ness; and therefore it is sufficient at present to add the fol-
lowing respecting it:--Science is not indeed a condition of
the Divine and Blessed Life; but nevertheless this Life de-
mands of us that we should realise this Science, in ourselves
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? LECTURE V.
461
and in others, within the region of the Higher Morality.
The true and complete Man ought to be thoroughly clear
in himself; for universal and complete clearness belongs to
the image and representative of God. But, on the other
hand, no one can make this demand upon himself in whom
it has not already been fulfilled without his own aid, and has
thereby itself become already clear and intelligible to him.
We have yet to make the following remarks on the five
points of view which we have now indicated, and thus to complete our picture of the Religious Man.
Both of the two last-mentioned points of view, the Scien-
tific as well as the Religious, are only percipient and con-
templative, not in themselves active and practical They
are merely inert and passive moods, which abide within the
mind itself; not impulses moving towards action, and so
bursting forth into life. On the contrary, the third point of
view, that of the Higher Morality, is practical, impelling to-
wards action. And now I add:--True Religion, notwith-
standing that it raises the view of those who are inspired by
it to its own region, nevertheless retains their Life firmly
within the domain of action, and of right moral action. The true and real Religious Life is not alone percipient and con-
templative, does not merely brood over devout thoughts, but
is essentially active. It consists, as we have seen, in the in-
timate consciousness that God actually lives, moves, and
perfects his work in us. If therefore there is in us no real
Life, if no activity and no visible work proceed forth from
us, then is God not active in us. Our consciousness of union
with God is then deceptive and vain, and the empty shadow
of a condition that is not ours; perhaps the vague but life-
less insight that such a condition is possible, and in others
may be actual, but that we ourselves have, nevertheless, not
the least portion in it. We are expelled from the domain
of Reality, and again banished to that of vain and empty
conception. The latter is Fanaticism and idle dreaming, be-
cause it answers to no Reality; and this fanaticism is one
of the faults of that system of Mysticism which we have
elsewhere described, and contrasted with the True Religion:
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? 4G2
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
--it is by living activity that the True Religious Life is dis-
tinguished from this Fanaticism. Religion does not consist
in mere devout dreams, I said:--Religion is not a business
by and for itself, which a man may practise apart from his
other occupations, perhaps on certain fixed days and hours;
but it is the inmost spirit that penetrates, inspires, and per-
vades all our Thought and Action, which in other respects
pursue their appointed course without change or interrup-
tion. That the Divine Life and Energy actually lives in us,
is inseparable from Religion, I said. But this does not de-
pend upon the sphere in which we act, as may have become
evident from what we said when speaking of the third point
of view. He whose knowledge extends to the objects of the
Higher Morality, if he be animated by Religion, will live
and act in this sphere, because this is his peculiar calling.
But to him who has only a lower vocation, even it may be
sanctified by Religion, and will receive thereby, if not the
material, yet the form of the Higher Morality;--to which
nothing more is essential than that we should recognise and
love our vocation as the Will of God with us and in us. If
a man till his field in this Faith, or practise the most un-
pretending handicraft with this truthfulness, he is higher
and more blessed than if, without this Faith, if that were
possible, he should confer happiness and prosperity upon
mankind for ages to come.
This then is the picture--the inward spirit of the true
Religious man:--He does not conceive of his World, the
object of his love and his endeavour, as something for him
to enjoy;--not as if melancholy and superstitious fear
caused him to look upon eujoyment and pleasure as some-
thing sinful, but because he knows that no such pleasure
can yield him true joy. He conceives of it as a World of
Action, which, because it is his World, he alone creates,
in which alone he can live, and find enjoyment of himself.
This Action again he does not will for the sake of a result in
the World of Sense;--he is in no respect anxious about the
result or no-result that may ensue, for he lives only in Ac-
tion, as Action;--but he wills it, because it is the Will of
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? LECTURE V.
463
God in him, and his own proper portion in Being. And so
does his Life flow onwards, simple and pure, knowing, will-
ing, and desiring nothing else than this,--never wandering
from this centre, neither moved nor troubled by aught ex-
ternal to itself.
Such is his Life. Whether this be not of necessity the
most pure and perfect Blessedness, we shall inquire at an-
other time.
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? 40
LECTURE VI.
EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE JOHANNEAN
GOSPEL:--ITS ACCORDANCE WITH
OUR OWN DOCTRINE.
Oub whole Doctrine, as the foundation of all that we have
yet to say at this time, and generally of all that we can
say at any time, is now clearly and distinctly set forth, and
may be surveyed at a single glance. There is absolutely
no Being and no Life beyond the immediate Divine Life.
According to the essential and irreversible laws of Con-
sciousness,--laws which are founded in the very nature of
Consciousness itself,--this Being is veiled and darkened in
Consciousness by manifold concealments;--but, freed from
these disguises, and modified only by the form of Infinitude,
it reappears in the life and actions of the God-inspired man.
In his actions it is not man who acts;--but God himself, in
his primitive and inward Being and Nature, acts and ful-
fils his work in Man.
I said, in one of the first and introductory lectures, that
this doctrine, however new and unheard of it may seem to
this age, is nevertheless as old as the world;--and that, in
particular, it is the doctrine of Christianity, as this, even to
the present day, lies before our view in its purest and most
excellent record, the Gospel of John; and that this doctrine
is there set forth with the very same images and expres-
sions which we here employ. It may be well, in many re-
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? THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
405
spects, to make good that statement, and to this purpose
we shall devote the present lecture. It will be understood,
even without a special declaration on our part, that we by
no means intend to prove our doctrine, or even to add to
it an outward support, by demonstrating this harmony be-
tween it and Christianity. It must already, by what we
have previously said, have proved itself, and that with abso-
lute evidence,--and it needs no further support. And in
the same way must Christianity, as in harmony with Rea-
son, and as the pure and perfect expression of this Reason,
beyond which there is no truth,--so, I say, must Christiani-
ty prove itself, if it is to lay claim to validity and accept-
ance. It is not by philosophers that you need fear to be
led back again into the chains of blind authority.
In my lectures of last winter,* I have distinctly an-
nounced the grounds upon which I regard the Apostle John
as the only teacher of true Christianity:--namely, that the
Apostle Paul and his party, as the authors of the opposite
system of Christianity, remained half Jews, and left unal-
tered the fundamental error of Judaism as well as of Hea-
thenism, which we must afterwards notice. For the present
the following may be enough:--It is only with John that
the philosopher can deal, for he alone has respect for Rea-
son, and appeals to that evidence which alone has weight
with the philosopher--the internal. "If any man will do
the will of him that sent me, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God. " But this Will of God, according to
John, is that we should truly believe in God, and in Jesus
Christ whom he hath sent. 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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? +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.
