Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

On the excellent medicine of humility.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 78 · Der achtundsiebzigste Brief

Addressee — "Lieber Bruder!" — an unnamed brother to whom Tersteegen is sending an actual medicine (the requested Essentia dulcis) with the letter, then turning it into a meditation on humility as the "sweet essence" distilled from the poison of our corruption. Intimate (du).
Date — none explicit.
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil I, pp. 213–214), in GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Seventy-Eighth Letter.

On the excellent medicine of humility.

Dear Brother!

Herewith comes the requested Ess. dulcis.... May the creating, sustaining, and gladdening Word of Life accompany its use with His blessing-power — then it will be the true Essentia dulcis! Amen!

You have surely heard, dear brother, that out of poison one can also make excellent medicine; but it takes much labour, and a good watch, that nothing of the poison come in unkilled. So it is with our corruption: it is a poison, and in itself most harmful and evil; one has high cause to shun it, to abhor it, and not to play with it. But if we, with all that, give ourselves over to the dearest little Jesus into His working, and hold still under His hand without shrinking from the short pain, then He tinctures it with the power of His blood, kills all that is harmful and poisonous, so that out of all our miseries only the divine medicine of humility comes forth at last, and upon all particular occasions. This medicine is compounded of a sincere disdain of oneself and a childlike trust in God, and a true secret [means] of attaining to the divine union, wherein alone one finds thorough and eternal salvation and life.

Now I see, for the first time, that you ask how one must go about it, to become truly a wholly God-devoted child. I answer briefly: to deal much, through prayer, with the child Jesus, and to receive everything that befalls us, with thanks, from Him.

I greet you heartily in the spirit. Pray for me,

Your weak brother.

❦

German

Der achtundsiebzigste Brief.

Von der vortrefflichen Arznei der Demuth.

Lieber Bruder!

Hiebei kommt die begehrte Ess. dulcis....

— Opening lines of the original German. The complete transcription of all 605 letters appears in the forthcoming Encounter Press critical edition; Brief 1 is shown in full as a sample.

German text: public domain (1773–75 first edition / 1845 Gesammelte Schriften).

Translator’s notes

What this letter is. A short, warm covering-note that turns into a little meditation. Tersteegen — who kept a dispensary for the poor at Mülheim and mixed medicines with his own hands — sends a friend the remedy he had asked for, then reads the whole thing spiritually: just as an apothecary can draw a good medicine even out of a poison, so God draws the "sweet essence" of humility out of the poison of our own corruption, if we will only hold still under his hand through the short pain. Playful and tender, it ends with the simplest of recipes for becoming "a wholly God-devoted child": deal much with the child Jesus in prayer, and take everything that comes as from his hand.

A few words and echoes.

The sweet essence. The medicine he sends is a real one — Essentia dulcis, "sweet essence," a mild tincture of the day. He prays the "Word of Life" will make it the true sweet essence, and the pun becomes the whole letter.
Tinctured with his blood. His word for what Christ does to our poison is an alchemist's word — to tincture, to steep and transmute a base thing — so that even our miseries are distilled into humility.
The medicine of humility. Humility, he says, is "compounded" of two ingredients: an honest disdain of self and a childlike trust in God — and it is the secret way into union with God.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 78 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-078.html.

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