A person hanging on the cross is encouraged to die, and invited to the crib, to the little child Jesus.
The Seventh Letter.
A person hanging on the cross is encouraged to die, and invited to the crib, to the little child Jesus.
The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and in us. Selah!
In the great God and poorest little child dearly beloved sister!
Though I can write but little, my heart remains for all that unchanged toward Jesus and His children, and in childlike love: yet in this time of preparation it goes through strange and manifold sufferings and provings. God's ways are godly — that is, incomprehensible, but holy and good.
Just now I hear, from a few words in N.'s letter, that you too still live on the cross, and for distress would gladly climb down. Only do not attempt it, dear sister, for you are nailed fast; your wounds would only smart so much the more fiercely. Bow and bend your head; commit your spirit into the hands of the Father, and die — so one comes out of the distress; though one must still moulder a couple of days in the grave. Dying, dying is the way to life, peace, and glory. But that you may not be terrified, come with me to the crib: there you will find your salvation and counsel just as well as at the cross.
Say, then: how would we poor children have been helped, if the Son of God had let himself be frightened off by our misery, and out of abhorrence at our sins had withdrawn himself? This Word, worthy of all adoration, became flesh and dwelt among us — and we want to dwell straightway in paradise as soon as we get a little abhorrence of the stench of sin. O yes, dear sister! we too would dwell with God ever more in paradise alone — but in the manner of our little child in the crib. The little Jesus was, according to His eternal Godhead, and also according to His human spirit, which was perfectly united with the Godhead, in paradisal pliancy, surrender, and peace; while His more outward part was subject to all temptations and sufferings, and was clothed with our misery without number or measure. Thou sweetest God-child! thus we adore thee; thus we love and behold thee, and would behold thee so long with unaverted eyes, till through beholding we be essentially transformed into thine image! Amen.
Come then, sister! bend with me again to the crib, and do thus: look not on yourself, look not around, but on Jesus, and let Him rule with you unconditionally in time and eternity! You are secured against all sin while you remain such a little child. Only lay yourself beside Jesus, and with Jesus, in the cradle, and rest in Him. Soon comes the day of the innocent children: that you, with me, may become such a one after the martyrdom, is the heartfelt wish of
Your weak yet true-minded fellow-brother.
Mülheim, the 26th of December 1739.
German
Der siebente Brief.
Eine am Kreuz hangende Person wird zum Sterben aufgemuntert, und zur Krippen zum Kindelein JEsu eingeladen.
Das Wort ward Fleisch, und wohnete unter und in uns. Sela!
In dem großen GOtt und ärmsten Kindlein vielgeliebte Schwester!
Ob ich gleich wenig schreiben kann, so bleibet doch darum mein Herz zu JEsu und seinen Kindern unverändert, und in kindlicher Liebe: Doch gehets in dieser Zubereitungs-Zeit durch wunderliche und mancherlei Leiden und Proben.
— 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. Written the day after Christmas to a sister in long suffering — one who, as Tersteegen has just heard at second hand, "still lives on the cross, and for distress would gladly climb down." The letter refuses her the climb and offers her instead a second station of the same mystery: the crib. Its motto stands over it like a text over a sermon — "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and in us" — where Tersteegen has quietly added the last three words to the Gospel's sentence: the Incarnation, for him, does not stop at Bethlehem.
The counsel about the cross is among the most unsparing he ever wrote to a sufferer, and among the most tender: "Only do not attempt it, dear sister, for you are nailed fast; your wounds would only smart so much the more fiercely. Bow and bend your head; commit your spirit into the hands of the Father, and die — so one comes out of the distress; though one must still moulder a couple of days in the grave." The way off the cross is not down but through: "Dying, dying is the way to life, peace, and glory." Yet the letter does not leave her only on the cross: "But that you may not be terrified, come with me to the crib." The child in the manger is the same Word, and the crib teaches what the cross demands: the little Jesus, perfectly united with the Godhead, lay "in paradisal pliancy, surrender, and peace," while His outward part was "clothed with our misery without number or measure." Then, for one sentence, the letter stops counseling and starts praying — the apostrophe to the Christ-child, in the old language of adoration: "Thou sweetest God-child! thus we adore thee… till through beholding we be essentially transformed into thine image!" The letter closes on the feast two days ahead — the day of the innocent children (December 28) — and turns it into the wish of the whole letter: "that you, with me, may become such a one after the martyrdom." A child, and a martyr; the crib, and the cross; the two ends of the one mystery.
A few words and echoes.
- The Word became flesh… and in us. John 1:14, with Tersteegen's characteristic extension; the old print set the word Word in emphatic type at its second coming.
- Commit your spirit… and die. Luke 23:46 — "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" — the sufferer is to die her death inside His.
- Selah. The Hebrew word of the Psalms — a rest, a lifting of the eyes; here sealing the motto.
- Paradisal pliancy. Beugsamkeit — the bendableness of a little child; the inner posture of the crib.
- The day of the innocent children. Matthew 2:16–18; the feast of the Holy Innocents, December 28.
- With unaverted eyes… transformed. 2 Corinthians 3:18 — "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, [we] are changed into the same image."
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-007 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.