The Autobiography of Goethe / Truth and Poetry: From My Own Life

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sacraments of the Church.

On this occasion, I cannot forbear recalling somewhat of my earlier youth, in order to make it obvious that the great affairs of the ecclesiastical religion must be carried on with order and coherence, if they are to prove as fruitful as is expected. The Protestant service has too little fulness and consistency to be able to hold the congregation together; hence, it easily happens that members secede from it, and either form little congregations of their own, or, without ecclesiastical connexion, quietly carry on their citizen-life side by side. Thus for a considerable time complaints were made that the church-goers were diminishing from year to year, and, just in the same ratio, the persons who partook of the Lord's Supper. With respect to both, but especially the latter, the cause lies close at hand; but who dares to speak it out? We will make the attempt.

In moral and religious, as well as in physical and civil matters, man does not like to do anything on the spur of the moment; he needs a sequence from which results habit; what he is to love and to perform, he cannot represent to himself as single or isolated, and if he is to repeat anything willingly, it must not have become strange to him. If the Protestant worship lacks fulness in general, so let it be investigated in detail, and it will be found that the Protestant has too few sacraments, nay, indeed he has only one in which he is himself an actor,—the Lord's Supper: for baptism he sees only when it is performed on others, and is not greatly edified by it. The sacraments are the highest part of religion, the symbols to our senses of an extraordinary divine favour and grace. In the Lord's Supper earthly lips are to receive a divine Being embodied, and partake of an heavenly under the form of an earthly nourishment. This sense is just the same in all Christian churches; whether the Sacrament is taken with more or less submission to the mystery, with more or less accommodation as to that which is intelligible; it always remains a great holy thing, which in reality takes the place of the possible or the impossible, the place of that which man can neither attain nor do without. But such a sacrament should not stand alone; no Christian can partake of it with the true joy for which it is given, if the symbolical or sacramental sense is not fostered within him. He must be accustomed to regard the inner religion of the heart and that of the external church as perfectly one, as the great universal sacrament, which again divides itself into so many others, and communicates to these parts its holiness, indestructibleness, and eternity.

Here a youthful pair give their hands to one another, not for a passing salutation or for the dance; the priest pronounces his blessing upon them, and the bond is indissoluble. It is not long before this wedded pair bring a likeness to the threshold of the altar; it is purified with holy water, and so incorporated into the church, that it cannot forfeit this benefit but through the most monstrous apostacy. The child in the course of life practises himself in earthly things of his own accord, in heavenly things he must be instructed. Does it prove on examination that this has been fully done, he is now received into the bosom of the church as an actual citizen, as a true and voluntary professor, not without outward tokens of the weightiness of this act. Now is he first decidedly a Christian, now for the first time he knows his advantages, and also his duties. But, in the meanwhile, much that is strange has happened to him as a man; through instruction and affliction he has come to know how critical appears the state of his inner self, and there will constantly be a question of doctrines and of transgressions; but punishment shall no longer take place. For here, in the infinite confusion in which he must entangle himself, amid the conflict of natural and religious claims, an admirable expedient is given him, in confiding his deeds and misdeeds, his infirmities and doubts, to a worthy man, appointed expressly for that purpose, who knows how to calm, to warn, to strengthen him, to chasten him likewise by symbolical punishments, and at last by a complete washing away of his guilt, to render him happy and to give him back, pure and cleansed, the tablet of his manhood. Thus prepared, and purely calmed to rest by several sacramental acts, which, on closer examination, branch forth again into minuter sacramental traits, he kneels down to receive the host; and that the mystery of this high act may be still enhanced, he sees the chalice only in the distance; it is no common eating and drinking that satisfies, it is a heavenly feast, which makes him thirst after heavenly drink.

Yet let not the youth believe that this is all he has to do; let not even the man believe it. In earthly relations we are at last accustomed to depend on ourselves, and, even there, knowledge, understanding, and character, will not always suffice; in heavenly things, on the contrary, we have never finished learning. The higher feeling within us, which often finds itself not even truly at home, is, besides, oppressed by so much from without, that our own power hardly administers all that is necessary for counsel, consolation, and help. But, to this end, that remedy is instituted for our whole life, and an intelligent, pious man is continually waiting to show the right way to the wanderers, and to relieve the distressed.

Catholic Sacraments.

And what has been so well tried through the whole life, is now to show forth all its healing power with tenfold activity at the gate of Death. According to a trustful custom, inculcated from youth upwards, the dying man receives with fervour those symbolical, significant assurances, and there, where every earthly warranty fails, he is assured, by a heavenly one, of a blessed existence for all eternity. He feels himself perfectly convinced that neither a hostile element nor a malignant spirit can hinder him from clothing himself with a glorified body, so that, in immediate relation with the Godhead, he may partake of the boundless happiness which flows forth from Him.

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 nimbleness 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 circle 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 bound 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 can be more favoured, 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 heirship. 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 steps forth in 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.