Letters · Erster Band · Theil II (1773)

On the benefit of inner detachment.

Bd I · Th II · Brief 43 · Der 43te Brief

Addressee — "Geliebter Bruder!" — a male friend (intimate du → you); not identified (1773 redacts).
Date — Mülheim, 1 January 1731 (dated + signed in 1773)
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil II, pp. 140–142), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd 8) and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Forty-third Letter.

On the benefit of inner detachment.

Beloved brother!

Your welcome letter I have received. Be assured that I do not forget you in my weakness; and although I am so full of miseries, yet I do not fail to make my hearty longing for your progress known to the Lord. Let your ground always stand open toward God, that nothing may be held back, but that your All may be to Him a whole offering. The less one gives to nature and the senses, the easier and the more blessed becomes the exercise of prayer. A detached heart unites itself without trouble with God, and can mark the hidden drawings of His love, which one otherwise fails to hear. It does not, indeed, go without hardship and pain when a child is to be weaned from the breast; yet it must be, especially when the milk is unwholesome. Let go the poisoned breast of vanity; do not fear the little pain. Only have your delight in the Lord, through constant hearty recollection and cleaving to Him; He will give you at last what your heart desires.

You say of your reason that it always wants to see, feel, and perceive. It seems to me just as when a blind man, in order to see the light, turned his head now here, now there. Ah, poor blind-born one! hold your eyes still, first, before the heavenly Physician, that He may open them; then you will see the light quite naturally, and without so much turning to and fro. Yes, dear brother! childlike and simple must we become in our inner exercise. Experience will teach you that, when we do not always want to hinder and confuse ourselves, we must in this matter too become quite will-less, and want to see, taste, or feel nothing in particular, so that we may not lose that which is more than all that can be seen, tasted, and felt.

I close, because company is coming, and offer you up to the Lord in the name of Jesus. Forget me not either, and do not fear that you burden me too much: God has given me willingness enough to serve you, in my poverty, where I can — although I myself am often so very dark and wretched that many would not believe it if I said it. God be praised! in whom I greet you heartily and remain

Your

Mülheim, 1 January 1731.

weak brother.

❦

German

Der 43te Brief.

Von dem Nutzen der inneren Abgeschiedenheit.

Geliebter Bruder!

Dein Angenehmes habe erhalten. Sey versichert, daß ich deiner in meiner Schwachheit nicht vergesse, und ob ich gleich so voller Elenden bin, so unterlasse ich doch nicht, mein herzliches Verlangen nach deinem Fortgang dem HErrn kund zu thun.

— 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 New-Year letter (1 January 1731) to a man who found his own restless intellect an obstacle — his "reason always wants to see, feel, and perceive." Tersteegen's answer is the single theme named in the title: Abgeschiedenheit, inner detachment. A heart "detached" from the clamour of nature and the senses, he says, "unites itself without trouble with God" and grows sensitive to "the hidden drawings of His love, which one otherwise fails to hear." He drives it home with two images that are among his most tender. The first is weaning: growing up in God is like a child taken from the breast — painful, but necessary "especially when the milk is unwholesome"; so "let go the poisoned breast of vanity, and do not fear the little pain." The second is the man born blind: an anxious intellect trying to grasp God is like a blind man twisting his head about to catch the light — better to "hold your eyes still before the heavenly Physician, that He may open them," and then "you will see the light quite naturally." The whole is warm and unfussy, and ends with a very human touch: he breaks off "because company is coming."

A few words and echoes.

"Have your delight in the Lord… He will give you what your heart desires." Psalm 37:4 — "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." The one place the letter sets the divine name in the emphatic spaced capitals of the original.
"Weaned from the breast." Psalm 131:2 — "as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child." Tersteegen turns it sharp: the breast to be given up is "the poisoned breast of vanity."
"Poor blind-born one… the heavenly Physician." The man born blind of John 9, whose eyes Christ opened — here the soul that must stop straining and simply "hold still" to be healed.
"Childlike and simple must we become." Matthew 18:3 — the recurrent Tersteegen refrain: the inward life advances by becoming small, not clever.
"More than all that can be seen, tasted, and felt." The hidden good that outweighs every sensible consolation — cf. 1 Corinthians 2:9, "the things which God hath prepared," beyond eye, ear, and heart.
"Detachment" (Abgeschiedenheit). A weighty word in the German mystical tradition (Eckhart's abegescheidenheit); in Tersteegen it means not coldness but a heart set loose from lesser attachments so as to be wholly available to God.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, II. Theil, Brief 43 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-043.html.

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