The taste in reading is a hidden power and unction.
The Fiftieth Letter.
The taste in reading is a hidden power and unction.
Beloved brother!
Herewith comes, at P.'s request, Lucas's booklet. —— There occurs to me, as I write, a beautiful hymn out of it, which stands on page 79, and which from of old I still partly know by heart, and which is a splendid testimony to the purity of this soul. May the unction teach you richly, as you read, the truths that come before you, and lead you — with me, unworthy as I am — into them itself! The taste that one feels in the heart under the reading or hearing of an inward truth is a hidden power of the unction, whereby we are allured, as from afar, to the actual experience and enjoyment of it, and assured of the eternal Wisdom's favor toward our soul. Blessed are we, when she so motherly draws us! And more blessed still, when we run after her in the fragrance of these ointments!
Mülheim, 13 December 1731.
German
Der 50te Brief.
Der Geschmack unterm Lesen ist eine verborgene Kraft und Salbung.
Geliebter Bruder!
Hiebei kommt auf Begehren des P. Lucas Büchlein. —— Mir fällt über dem Schreiben ein schönes Lied daraus ein, welches pag.
— 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. The shortest letter in this stretch, and the 200th of the collection overall — a single paragraph that is really a cover-note for a book. Tersteegen is forwarding a devotional booklet (sent "at P.'s request"), and the act of packing it up jogs a memory: a hymn on "page 79" that he "still partly knows by heart from of old." That is the whole occasion — but out of it he draws one of his most compact statements about how spiritual reading actually feeds the soul. The profit, he says, is not in the words as information but in "the unction" (die Salbung) — the inward anointing that makes a truth tasted rather than merely read. That felt "taste" (Geschmack) is itself "a hidden power of the unction," by which the soul is quietly "allured, as from afar," toward really experiencing the truth. So he prays that the anointing itself would "teach you richly, as you read… and lead you into" the truths — and ends on his beloved image of the drawing, motherly Wisdom, whom the soul "runs after in the fragrance of these ointments."
A few words and echoes.
- "The unction" / "the anointing" (die Salbung). Straight from 1 John 2:20, 27 — "ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things… the anointing which ye have received… teacheth you of all things." Tersteegen's point exactly: it is the inward anointing, not the human teacher or the printed page, that truly teaches.
- "The taste… in the heart" (der Geschmack). Psalm 34:8, "O taste and see that the Lord is good" — spiritual truth known by an inward relish, not by argument. This "taste" is the sign that the unction is at work.
- "The eternal Wisdom… so motherly draws us." Divine Wisdom personified as a woman who draws her children — the tradition of Proverbs 8 and the Wisdom books, joined to Tersteegen's constant theme of the gentle drawing (John 6:44).
- "Run after her in the fragrance of these ointments." Song of Solomon 1:3–4, "because of the savour of thy good ointments… draw me, we will run after thee" — the same verse that closes Brief 42, here tied to the "ointment" (Salbung/Salben) pun on the anointing.
- "Lucas's booklet" / "P." Redacted references, as throughout: a devotional booklet ("Lucas") forwarded at the request of "P." — most likely the "Br. P." greeted in the previous letters. The precise book is not identifiable from the initials alone.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-050 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.