Autobiography: Truth and Fiction Relating to My Life

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Then, in conclusion, that the whole may be made holy, the feet also are anointed and blessed. They are to feel, even in the event of possible recovery, a repugnance to touching this earthly, hard, impenetrable soil. A wonderful elasticity is to be imparted to them, by which they spurn from under them the clod of earth which hitherto attracted them. And so, through a brilliant cycle of equally holy acts, the beauty of which we have only briefly hinted at, the cradle and the grave, however far asunder they may chance to be, are joined in one continuous circle.

But all these spiritual wonders spring not, like other fruits, from the natural soil, where they can neither be sown nor planted nor cherished. We must supplicate for them from another region,—a thing which cannot be done by all persons nor at all times. Here we meet the highest of these symbols, derived from pious tradition. We are told that one man may be more favored, blessed, and sanctified from above than another. But, that this may not appear as a natural gift, this great boon, bound up with a heavy duty, must be communicated to others by one authorized person to another; and the greatest good that a man can attain, without his having to obtain it by his own wrestling or grasping, must be preserved and perpetuated on earth by spiritual inheritance. In the very ordination of the priest is comprehended all that is necessary for the effectual solemnizing of those holy acts by which the multitude receive grace, without any other activity being needful on their part than that of faith and implicit confidence. And thus the priest joins the line of his predecessors and successors, in the circle of those anointed with him, representing the highest source of blessings, so much the more gloriously, as it is not he, the priest, whom we reverence, but his office: it is not his nod to which we bow the knee, but the blessing which he imparts, and which seems the more holy, and to come the more immediately from heaven, because the earthly instrument cannot at all weaken or invalidate it by its own sinful, nay, wicked, nature.

How is this truly spiritual connection shattered to pieces in Protestantism, by part of the above-mentioned symbols being declared apocryphal, and only a few canonical!—and how, by their indifference to one of these, will they prepare us for the high dignity of the others?

In my time I had been confided to the religious instruction of a good old infirm clergyman, who had been confessor of the family for many years. The "Catechism," a "Paraphrase" of it, and the "Scheme of Salvation," I had at my finger's ends: I lacked not one of the strongly proving biblical texts, but from all this I reaped no fruit; for, as they assured me that the honest old man arranged his chief examimation according to an old set form, I lost all pleasure and inclination for the business, spent the last week in all sorts of diversions, laid in my hat the loose leaves borrowed from an older friend, who had gotten them from the clergyman, and unfeelingly and senselessly read aloud all that I should have known how to utter with feeling and conviction.

But I found my good intention and my aspirations in this important matter still more paralyzed by a dry, spiritless routine, when I was now to approach the confessional. I was indeed conscious of having many failings, but no great faults; and that very consciousness diminished them, since it directed me to the moral strength which lay within me, and which, with resolution and perseverance, was at last to become master over the old Adam. We were taught that we were much better than the Catholics for the very reason, that we were not obliged to confess any thing in particular in the confessional,—nay, that this would not be at all proper, even if we wished to do it. I did not like this at all; for I had the strangest religious doubts, which I would readily have had cleared up on such an occasion. Now, as this was not to be done, I composed a confession for myself, which, while it well expressed my state of mind, was to confess to an intelligent man, in general terms, that which I was forbidden to tell him in detail. But when I entered the old choir of the Barefoot Friars, when I approached the strange latticed closets in which the reverend gentlemen used to be found for that purpose, when the sexton opened the door for me, when I now saw myself shut up in the narrow place face to face with my spiritual grandsire, and he bade me welcome with his weak, nasal voice, all the light of my mind and heart was extinguished at once, the well- conned confession-speech would not cross my lips: in my embarrassment I opened the book I had in my hand, and read from it the first short form I saw, which was so general, that anybody might have spoken it with quite a safe conscience. I received absolution, and withdrew neither warm nor cold; went the next day with my parents to the Table of the Lord, and, for a few days, behaved myself as was becoming after so holy an act.

In the sequel, however, there came over me that evil, which, from the fact of our religion being complicated by various dogmas, and founded on texts of scripture which admit of several interpretations, attacks scrupulous men in such a manner, that it brings on a hypochondriacal condition, and raises this to its highest point, to fixed ideas. I have known several men, who, though their manner of thinking and living was perfectly rational, could not free themselves from thinking about the sin against the Holy Ghost, and from the fear that they had committed it. A similar trouble threatened me on the subject of the communion; for the text, that one who unworthily partakes of the sacrament /eateth and drinketh damnation to himself/, had, very early, already made a monstrous impression upon me. Every fearful thing that I had read in the histories of the Middle Ages, of the judgments of God, of those most strange ordeals, by red-hot iron, flaming fire, swelling water, and even what the Bible tells us of the draught which agrees well with the innocent, but puffs up and bursts the guilty,—all this pictured itself to my imagination, and formed itself into the most frightful combinations; since false vows, hypocrisy, perjury, blasphemy, all seemed to weigh down the unworthy person at this most holy act, which was so much the more horrible, as no one could dare to pronounce himself worthy: and the forgiveness of sins, by which every thing was to be at last; done away, was found limited by so many conditions, that one could not with certainty dare appropriate it to one's self.

This gloomy scruple troubled me to such a degree, and the expedient which they would represent to me as sufficient seemed so bald and feeble, that it gave the bugbear only a more fearful aspect; and, as soon as I had reached Leipzig, I tried to free myself altogether from my connection with the church. How oppressive, then, must have been to me the exhortations of Gellert, whom, considering the generally laconic style with which he was obliged to repel our obtrusiveness, I was unwilling to trouble with such singular questions, and the less so as in my more cheerful hours I was myself ashamed of them, and at last left completely behind me this strange anguish of conscience, together with church and altar.

Gellert, in accordance with his pious feelings, had composed for himself a course of ethics, which from time to time he publicly read, and thus in an honorable manner acquitted himself of his duty to the public. Gellert's writings had already, for a long time, been the foundation of German moral culture, and every one anxiously wished to see that work printed; but, as this was not to be done till after the good man's death, people thought themselves very fortunate to hear him deliver it himself in his lifetime. The philosophical auditorium [Footnote: The lecture-room. The word is also used in university language to denote a professor's audience.] was at such times crowded: and the beautiful soul, the pure will, and the interest of the noble man in our welfare, his exhortations, warnings, and entreaties, uttered in a somewhat hollow and sorrowful tone, made indeed an impression for the moment; but this did not last long, the less so as there were many scoffers, who contrived to make us suspicious of this tender, and, as they thought, enervating, manner. I remember a Frenchman travelling through the town, who asked what were the maxims and opinions of the man who attracted such an immense concourse. "When we had given him the necessary information, he shook his head, and said, smiling, "/Laissez le faire, il nous forme des dupes./"

And thus also did good society, which cannot easily endure any thing worthy near it, know how to spoil, on occasion, the moral influence which Gellert might have had upon us. Now it was taken ill of him that he instructed the Danes of distinction and wealth, who were particularly recommended to him, better than the other students, and had a marked solicitude for them; now he was charged with selfishness and nepotism for causing a /table d'hôte/ to be established for these young men at his brother's house. This brother, a tall, good-looking, blunt, unceremonious, and somewhat coarse, man, had, it was said, been a fencing-master; and, notwithstanding the too great lenity of his brother, the noble boarders were often treated harshly and roughly: hence the people thought they must again take the part of these young folks, and pulled about the good reputation of the excellent Gellert to such a degree, that, in order not to be mistaken about him, we became indifferent towards him, and visited him no more; yet we always saluted him in our best manner when he came riding along on his tame gray horse. This horse the elector had sent him, to oblige him to take an exercise so necessary for his health,—a distinction for which he was not easily to be forgiven.

And thus, by degrees, the epoch approached when all authority was to vanish from before me, and I was to become suspicious—nay, to despair, even—of the greatest and best individuals whom I had known or imagined.