Letters · Erster Band · Theil II (1773)

How one is to conduct oneself in darknesses and sufferings.

Bd I · Th II · Brief 109 · Der hundertundneunte Brief

Addressee — An einen ungenannten Bruder — "Lieber Bruder!", a man, addressed with intimate du; he had lately visited Tersteegen and departed ("Dein Weggehen von hier… hätte gern gesehen, daß du noch einen Tag hättest gewartet"). Not further identified (1773-only); very likely the same brother as Brief 108 (adjacent, intimate du, same theme of inward suffering). Intimate du → English you.
Date — Mülheim, 30 Nov. 1736 (dateline in the print).
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil II, pp. 328–329), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd 8) and Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Hundred-and-Ninth Letter.

How one is to conduct oneself in darknesses and sufferings.

Dear brother!

—— You can ask afterward for that which you know of, and for whatever else you desire of me; and if I had anything that were still too dear to me to give you gladly, that thing (as it seems to me) I would myself not gladly keep. —— Your going away from here was not quite right to me lately either; I should therefore gladly have seen that you had waited one more day; but so it was to be.

Do not deliberately reflect upon it, and do not stand still at what goes on in your reason and in your natural being; it does not concern you, and has little to signify. The darknesses, strangeness, oppression, and sufferings that one must undergo in such circumstances are, meanwhile, not slight — yet they can be unspeakably profitable for coming to the peaceable life of the spirit, when the soul bears itself fittingly under them. In the dark ground lies the pearl hidden. Through much taking-to-heart and disturbance over what goes on in the lower part — as also through reasonings, unwillingness, and exertions to be otherwise — everything is only the more troubled and covered over: but through forgetting, through sweet, patient union with God's good pleasure, and now and then through a gentle, unmarked heeding of faith upon God's nearness in you, everything remains quiet, and the will dies, to unite itself more closely with God. Love solitude, but beware of all exertion. Suffer, and be content!

Mülheim, the 30th of November, 1736.

❦

German

Der hundertundneunte Brief.

Wie man sich in Dunkelheiten und Leiden zu verhalten.

Lieber Bruder!

—— Du kanst das Bewußte hernach nur forderen, und was du sonst von mir begehrest; und wann etwas hätte, das mir noch zu lieb seyn sollte, dir nicht gerne zu geben, solches möchte (wie mir deucht) selbst nicht gerne behalten.

— 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, tender note — probably to the same brother as the previous letter — written after a visit that had ended a little too abruptly ("your going away… was not quite right to me lately… I should gladly have seen that you had waited one more day; but so it was to be"). Its whole burden is one counsel: how to bear oneself in inward darkness and suffering.

Its argument. Do not, Tersteegen says, "deliberately reflect" on the turmoil in your reason and nature: "it does not concern you, and has little to signify." The darkness, strangeness, and oppression one meets "are… not slight — yet they can be unspeakably profitable for coming to the peaceable life of the spirit, when the soul bears itself fittingly." Then the image that carries the letter: "In the dark ground lies the pearl hidden." The wrong response — brooding over what goes on "in the lower part," arguing with it, straining "to be otherwise" — only "covers the pearl the more." The right one is release: "through forgetting, through sweet, patient union with God's good pleasure," and a "gentle, unmarked heeding of faith upon God's nearness in you," until "everything remains quiet, and the will dies, to unite itself more closely with God." The closing is almost a rule of life in four words: "Love solitude, but beware of all exertion. Suffer, and be content!"

A few words and echoes.

"That which you know of." Das Bewußte — the matter already understood between them (not a thing needing to be named again); the same idiom as in Brief 3.
"In the dark ground lies the pearl hidden." Matthew 13:45–46 — the "pearl of great price," here hidden in the dark ground of the soul's own night: the treasure is found precisely where the soul would least look for it.
"They can be unspeakably profitable… to the peaceable life of the spirit." Cf. 2 Corinthians 4:17 and Hebrews 12:11 — affliction that "worketh" a weight of glory, and chastening that "afterward… yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness."
"The will dies, to unite itself more closely with God." The recurring Tersteegen motion: the death of the self-will is not loss but the very means of nearer union.
"Love solitude, but beware of all exertion." Solitude yes; strain no. The soul is not to force its way to peace, but to sink quietly into God's good pleasure.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, II. Theil, Brief 109 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-109.html.

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