That looking back upon oneself makes one despondent. A medicine against it.
Addressee, date, and source
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, fifth century) — 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.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdii-thiii-061 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.