Letters · Zweiter Band · Theil III (1775)

That looking back upon oneself makes one despondent. A medicine against it.

Bd II · Th III · Brief 61 · Der einundsechzigste Brief

Addressee — To Georg Heinrich Fischer — a brother (on the Otterbeck) then travelling ("du seyest noch zu N." — "you are still at N."), who had written of his despondency at looking back on his own faults. Written in the intimate du (English you). Salutation Hertzlich geliebter Bruder! → "Dearly beloved brother!"; no subscription — the letter closes with the dateline only.
Date — Mülheim, 23 January 1745 — the print dateline reads Mülheim, den 23. Jan. 1745.
Provenance — *Translated from the public-domain 1775 first edition (Theil III, pp. 188–190), in normalized GS-1845 house orthography. All rendered words are from public-domain prints.

The Sixty-First Letter.

That looking back upon oneself makes one despondent. A medicine against it.

Dearly beloved brother!

Because I suppose you are still at N., I wanted to greet you heartily with a hasty pen. Jesus bless you! You do nothing but look back upon yourself; that must surely make you despondent and restless. Had I done so, I should long ago have perished in my misery; for I am not so pious as some others take me to be. But I keep silent, and even let myself be praised to my face for it, so that they may not on top of that scold me for being falsely humble. I believe only the light of truth, in which I secretly and simply hold myself the most wretched of all, and I do not defend myself when others praise me. The committing of my faults — especially when it also became known to others — once made me as sick as you now are; afterward a medicine against it was shown to me, namely the sweet love of self-disdain, which, whenever I used it, has always wonderfully calmed and so refreshed me that I quite forgot my sickness over it. But one must drink this medicine down bravely, and not merely lick it with the lips, or else it tastes far too bitter.

I am not jesting; there is more truth in what I have just said than I can tell. Looking back upon yourself harms you more than all your faults. Surely the ground of it is only self-love! But why are you so dismayed at this discovery? Did you not know, then, that you were a self-loving child of Adam, like me and others? Should one become melancholy over such discoveries, and not rather strike up a Te Deum laudamus, that the Lord imparts to us so precious a grace in the knowledge of ourselves? No one can sing the Te Deum laudamus more gracefully than a soul that knows and disdains itself.

The pain — you say in your last — over what I have done, still holds on keenly. I do not understand this. I do not know what you have done. Give yourself up to it, in God's name! We are not a thing worth so much looking-at. If you cannot give yourself up to it as you would wish, then bear yourself willingly and calmly, and let your inner little eye stay turned sweetly away from yourself — inward, upon Him in whom your whole salvation is.

That we are wretched, evil, and unfit for good, we ought to believe from the heart, but not tell everyone; but that our God is so great, so good, so blessed, and that in Him is all salvation and good — that should be our matter: what we think upon, what we speak of, and sing, and in which we together rejoice. Amen!

Mülheim, the 23rd of January 1745.

❦

German

Der einundsechzigste Brief.

Das Zurücksehen auf sich selbst machet muthlos. Arznei dagegen.

Herzlich geliebter Bruder!

Weil ich vermuthe, du seyest noch zu N.; so wollte dich mit eilender Feder herzlich grüßen. JEsus segne dich!

— 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 letter of consolation to Georg Heinrich Fischer, an old friend who had written in despondency over his own faults — and it is one of Tersteegen's most disarmingly candid. His diagnosis reverses the patient's: the sickness is not the faults but the looking back on them. "You do nothing but look back upon yourself; that must surely make you despondent and restless." He answers not as a healthy man to a sick one but as one former patient to another: "Had I done so, I should long ago have perished in my misery; for I am not so pious as some others take me to be." The medicine he was once shown, and now passes on, is "the sweet love of self-disdain" — self-forgetfulness turned into a positive affection — and it comes with a warning about how to take it: "one must drink this medicine down bravely, and not merely lick it with the lips, or else it tastes far too bitter."

From there the letter opens outward. Self-scrutiny "harms you more than all your faults," because its root is only self-love; and the discovery that one is "a self-loving child of Adam, like me and others" is no cause for melancholy but for a Te Deum — the Lord has granted "so precious a grace in the knowledge of ourselves," and "no one can sing the Te Deum laudamus more gracefully than a soul that knows and disdains itself." To Fischer's lingering pain over some particular thing he had done, Tersteegen returns a gentle refusal to dwell: "I do not know what you have done… we are not a thing worth so much looking-at." The cure is to turn "the inner little eye" away from oneself and in toward God — and to make God, not the self, the whole "matter" of one's thinking, speaking, and singing. Wretchedness we may believe in the heart, "but not tell everyone"; God's goodness is what we say aloud and rejoice in.

A few words and echoes.

the medicine of self-disdain. Tersteegen's Selbst-Verschmähung — a "sweet love" that heals the sickness of self-preoccupation; to be taken boldly, "not licked with the lips."
I am not so pious as some take me to be. A rare autobiographical admission — and his own remedy: he keeps silent, lets himself be praised, and trusts only "the light of truth" in which he holds himself "the most wretched of all."
a self-loving child of Adam. The discovery of one's self-love is universal and expected — cause not for melancholy but for thanks.
Te Deum laudamus. The ancient hymn of praise (the "Ambrosian" Te Deum, 5th c.) — sung most truly by "a soul that knows and disdains itself."
turn the inner eye away from yourself. Not brooding self-repair but a quiet turning "inward, upon Him in whom your whole salvation is."
our God is our "matter." Echoing Psalm 25:8, "Good and upright is the Lord": what we are to think on, speak of, sing, and "together rejoice" in — God, not ourselves.

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Zweiter Band, III. Theil, Brief 61 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-061.html.

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