Second Point of Doctrine
	Regarding Communication of the Holy spirit

[Introduction to Second Point of Doctrine]

§121. All who are living in the state of sanctification are conscious of an inner drive to become increasingly at one in a common cooperative and mutually interactive existence, this driving force being viewed as the common spirit of the new collective life founded by Christ.

1. This fact is itself most distinctly expressed in all the biblical narratives regarding the initial planting of the Christian church. Moreover, even the encouraging impression made on non-Christians is always definitely presented there as occurring by means of this becoming one,1 just as this commonality is brought into the closest connection with the new life of every individual. Indeed, all the instructive depictions of Christian community also agree in their describing all individuals within it as integral components of one whole and in ascribing everything to the one Spirit active within that whole and enlivening it.² Suppose, moreover, that adherents of the twofold, already frequently failed, separatist tendency of the naturalistic and enthusiastic kinds have chosen to offer the rejoinder that this commonality rightly had currency only in the early stages of the Christian church, but that it was in no way essential to the church and that it would increasingly have had to fade away, in that every basis for relating to one another in that manner would have fallen by the wayside as the new life came to be more securely established and could be perfected in every individual out of the common source. Then the countering reply to them would be as follows. First of all, what can peter out or recede through the gradual strengthening of individuals is only one aspect of one half of what our proposition expresses—that is, only that part of the process of mutual interaction which falls under the analogy of teaching and learning³ or of communicating and receiving—for no one who is truly taught of God is in need of another teacher. In a certain respect, this part of the community is also always in the process of being out of a job.⁴ They are so, that is, if they are continuously looking at the same persons. However, in that new persons are constantly entering, that part keeps winding on too, in that those who were once receptive eventually communicate as givers to later comers.

Still, this same process of mutual interaction has yet another aspect, namely, a reciprocity of communication and comprehension among equals. This reciprocity is grounded in the fact that the new life also comes to be different on account of different personally distinctive qualities in each individual. Moreover, in the same way in which each individual might receive Christ himself wholly into oneself, one strives also to receive as much as possible of everything that has been wrought by him. In this way, each individual is, in turn, moved by Christ to present the power of Christ that is efficacious within oneself just as Christ has presented himself, which process does indeed happen through all the good works of the regenerate. Still less, however, is the other aspect, the cooperative one, ever in process of fading away. Rather, this aspect can be made easier and progress only in the same measure as the new life gains strength in each individual. Moreover, manifestly, each one must also lay claim to related powers and must do so to the degree that one’s will for the reign of God, which is simultaneously grounded in a vital faith in Christ, is more definitely formed in oneself and develops within an interconnected body of functions. Accordingly, by virtue of the selfsame nature of the new life in all, there arises within this intertwining of these mutually interactive and cooperative efforts the tendency toward a work shared in common, a work that is to be advanced in a convergent manner, only through an interlocking of all powers and activities. Even at a point when the entire human race would have been taken up into the community of redemption, in no way would this work be finished, because already in itself it would still persist as the endless, reciprocal presentation of what is communal in what is distinctive and of what is distinctive in what is communal. The reason is that this is an essential feature in the life of a people, and Christians have always wanted to be viewed as such, or as a household of God.5

In the second place, in this respect there are, to be sure, two sorts of human association that are contrasted to each other. There are associations that of themselves intend to peter out, thus in which no increasing unity is sought, and there are those that intend to remain, thus in which a diminution of differences has to be sought and unity has to be secured. The first sort, however, are always merely fortuitous, being, in part, associations that by nature can no more be put into distinct forms than they can be placed within distinct boundaries. This is true of all associations of free sociality,6 though even here something similar to a common spirit is formed under certain circumstances, and being, in part, associations in which some definite cooperation is all that matters, without internal agreement, but the work is done in such a way that each participant can have one’s own purposes, in and of oneself. Moreover, if there can be religious communities that come close to having this character, this is not true of Christian community. The reason is as follows: that which each participant recognizes in any other participant is their shared love for Christ; thus, an uninterruptible, efficacious, unifying principle is present in that community.

2. Now, when we designate this endeavor by the term “common spirit,” we essentially understand by it what is meant in worldly governance.⁷ That is, in all who together form a moral person⁸ there exists a shared tendency to advance the whole, a tendency that in each individual is, at the same time, a distinctive love for every individual. Hence, up to this point, no objection to our proposition can easily be raised, though if one compares the content of this proposition with the heading and rightly infers that this common spirit is supposed to be the Holy Spirit and that the communication of it is supposed to be that of the Holy Spirit, the suspicion will quite easily arise that the latter expression has been taken in an entirely different sense from what Holy Scripture gives it. However, we must not confuse all those notions that have emerged through the place given to the Holy Spirit in the doctrine of the Trinity, this placement being, in part, so as to elucidate this doctrine and, in part, so as to refute it—when, for example, the Holy Spirit has been presented as an exalted individual being, albeit only as one that is created—with sayings of the New Testament Scriptures, which always present the Holy Spirit as present only in the faithful. The Holy Spirit is always promised to that entire company,⁹ and wherever an original communication of the Holy Spirit is spoken of, it issues in one act, an act which is directed to a number of persons,¹⁰ who form a totality precisely by means of that act, a totality that is moved to engage in the same activity and that is generated in and of one another. The Holy Spirit is also presented, however, as one and the same in all, and the different things that the Holy Spirit forms in different persons are distinguished from this very Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit’s gifts.11 Moreover, this idea of gifts is not conceived as if some advantage were to be indicated by it, an advantage that some individuals possess and then, of course, in such a way that in each individual the Holy Spirit would be a distinct property of one’s personal existence—even if similarly held and in its kind the same as that of another person, just as we imagine special talents and perfections to be. Rather, on the one hand, the Holy Spirit is depicted as a true unity, by which precisely the entire gathering of Christians also becomes a unity, and the many particular personal modes of existence become a true collective life or moral person. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit is not seen to be added in a scattered and disconnected fashion, as it were, to a few individuals thus viewed as a phenomenon that now appears and then, in turn, disappears, but, instead, the presence of the Holy Spirit in each individual is seen to be the condition of one’s participation in that collective life.¹² This is so, for only when this common spirit of the whole is beginning to manifest itself as efficacious in a person does one know that the person is a member of the whole,¹³ and likewise when an individual attaches oneself to the whole, people are then sure of the communication of the Holy Spirit for that individual.¹⁴

Now, from time immemorial conflict has persisted over similar matters in the domain of thinking, over the extent to which what exists in a number of people is, nonetheless, also one and the same thing, and over which is correct, or to what extent it is correct, that a given thought or state of volition in a number of people is one and the same thing or a particular thing in each one. In this place, we do not, in addition, have to make a decision on differences of this sort, either in themselves or even in that we might preemptorially present one or the other position as incompatible with this point of Christian faith. To the contrary, we do not want to enter into this territory at all but simply want to set forth two views as expressions of our Christian self-consciousness.

The first view, then, is that the unity of the Spirit of which we have spoken is to be understood in the same sense as anyone would regard even the distinctive formation of humanity in a people to be one, and also in the same sense as those who attribute being only to individuals, who can say, nonetheless, that the personal existence of each individual consists of the distinctive character of a people modified by one’s original disposition. This is the case, for we, likewise, say that the new life of each individual consists of the efficacious action, itself conditioned by the situation in which rebirth finds that individual, of this common spirit’s being manifested in the same way as in all the others; and the Christian church is likewise one that exists by this one Spirit, just as a given people is one by that selfsame distinctive character of a people which is common in all.

This observation leads to the second view as well, that this common spirit is also one because it exists in all from one and the same source, namely Christ, in that each individual is conscious of the communication of that Spirit as most closely interconnected with the origination of faith in Christ and in that each individual also knows Christ to be in the same interconnection with the others. Indeed, in like manner, faith too comes only through preaching, which always goes back to Christ’s commission and thus stems from him. However, just as in Christ himself everything proceeds from the divine in him, this is also the case with this communication of the Holy Spirit, which now becomes the power of new life in each individual, a power that is not different in each, but is the same in all.

3. Another objection that could still be raised is as follows. If we are proceeding from the view that all religious communities are destined to be submerged into Christianity, thus all peoples are also destined to pass over into Christian community, the common spirit of the Christian church would then also be that of the human race. Then, however, in analogy with the common spirit of a people, there must also exist one common spirit that we would not know how to designate otherwise than by the expressions “species-consciousness” and “love for humanity as a species.” That being so, however, it follows that the species is also just as much one as the church is one, and since there cannot be two unities of life for the same whole, that which we wanted to denote by the expression “Holy Spirit” would be completely at one with species-consciousness. So, runs the argument, either species-consciousness would be something supernatural, which no one would want to assert, or the Holy Spirit would have to be something natural, and if the Holy Spirit proceeds from Christ, it would then, nevertheless, have to come from what is human in him. As a result, communication of the Holy Spirit would be no different from the awakening of pure species-consciousness wrought through Christ.

For the subject to be treated just now, this argument would be the most logical presentation of the outlook that views the awakening and spreading of the general love of human beings as the distinctive and essential fruit of Christ’s appearance. For us, however, it is certain not only that our participation in the Holy Spirit also actually belongs to that of which we are aware as communicated through Christ, but it is also certain that in Christ everything proceeds from the absolute15 and exclusive strength of his God-consciousness. On the other hand, when, in addition, we take into consideration our self-consciousness, as it still presents our participating in the collective life of sinfulness, we find therein so many kinds of interest of a solely individual personal existence, but so many kinds of interest of a broadened personal existence as well, that pure species-consciousness, viewed as something that would provide impetus, can no more gain currency than can a moral law that would be drawn up under some other form. Rather, such self-consciousness as this serves only as a check against selfishness16 of both a personal and a broadened kind.

Thus, it is, to be sure, only through Christ, viewed as founder of a union that can encompass all human beings, and also in that this union has absolutely appropriated individual human beings solely to it, that species-consciousness has, at the same time, come to be a powerful impetus along with God-consciousness and in relation to God-consciousness. Precisely on this account, however, no natural principle that would have developed of itself from human nature as it would have continued to be without Christ is operative in this powerful impetus of species-consciousness. Rather, we know this powerful impetus only as the utmost originative expression of the Holy Spirit, as consciousness of the need for redemption within all alike and also consciousness of the capacity in all to be taken up into Christ’s community of life. Moreover, we know the general love of human beings only as one and the same thing as willing the reign of God in its full extension. For us, furthermore, only in this sense are the common spirit of the Christian church and the general love of human beings the same one Holy Spirit. The general love of human beings is itself experienced in every Christian as love both toward those who have already settled into the reign of God¹⁷ and toward those who are yet to take part in this reign.

1. Acts 1:13ff.; 2:42ff.; 4:32ff.; 5:12–14; and 9:31. Ed. note: Sermon only on Acts 2:41–42, June 10, 1821, Festpredigten (1826), SW II.2 (1834), 216–30. Regarding the Holy Spirit as the common spirit of the church, see §116n1. On the distinction between societal and religious common spirit (Gemeingeist), see also OR (1821) V, supplemental note 2.

2. Rom. 12:3–6; 1 Cor. 12:4ff.; Eph. 2:17–22 and 4:16; 1 Pet. 4:5–10. Ed. note: Sermon only on 1 Cor 12:3–6, June 17, 1821, Festpredigten (1826), SW II.2 (1834), 249–66. The focus of §§121–25 is on how grace works by God’s Spirit. See further explanations of the Holy Spirit that follow from here to §169, also OR (1821) III, supplemental note 2. There he speaks of inspiration as being “an instrument of the divine Spirit” in serving “to awaken new life” in others. However, “no other should suppose that the fashioning of that new life lies within one’s own power.” That is, the energic source of grace working within oneself is God alone, even when it is gradually transmitted through communities of faith and whatever influences and stirrings from divine and Holy Spirit have been formed within those communities.

3. John 6:45. Ed. note: Sermon on John 6:45–61, Nov. 28, 1824, SW II.8 (1837), 443–54. See also Brief Outline §3 and other references there to relations between clergy and laity, or church leaders and ordinary members.

4. Eph. 4:11–13. Ed. note: Sermon on Eph. 4:11–12 (re: Augsburg), Aug. 29, 1830, SW II.2 (1834), 692–709.

5. Eph. 2:19; Titus 2:14; 1 Pet. 2:9. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) Eph. 2:19–21, Aug. 5, 1797, sermon outline for a Saturday preparatory service, Bauer (1908), 328–30; (2) Titus 2:11–15, April 6, 1794, his ordination sermon, SW II.7 (1836), 193–202.

6. Ed. note: The words “free sociality” translate freien Geselligkeit, as in the salons that Schleiermacher frequented. This kind of social life is represented in his philosophical ethics as affording more open and mutually attentive dialogue, creativity, and play.

7. Regiment. Ed. note: Usually “church government” is used to translate Kirchenregiment. For Schleiermacher, this is, at best, essentially a shared democratic process, not top-down.

8. Ed. note: At that time, “person” could designate a human organization, such as a church or a state, that bears characteristics of individual agency.

9. John 16:7ff.; Acts 1:4–5. Ed. note: Gesamtheit, ordinarily translated “totality,” as just below. Sermon only on Acts 1:4, May 30, 1824, SW II.4 (1834), 602–19.

10. John 20:22–23; Acts 2:4. Ed. note: eine Mehrheit. Sermon only on Acts 2:1–42, June 10, 1810 (Pentecost), SW II.7 (1836), 419–26.

11. See 1 Cor. 12:4. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) 1 Cor. 12:4–6, Aug. 10, 1806, SW II.1 (1834), 191–207, and (2) 1 Cor. 12:3–6, June 17, 1821 (see §121n2).

12. As in 1 Cor. 12:3, Rom. 8:9. Ed. note: See §121n2 for sermon on 1 Cor 12:3–6.

13. Acts 10:47; 19:2.

14. Acts 2:38.

15. Ed. note: Here “absolute” translates absoluten, which denotes incomparably to the nth degree. Here the noun Kräftigkeit could also be translated “powerfulness,” viewed as an exact synonym of “strength.”

16. Selbstsucht.

17. Einbürgert. Ed. note: Or naturalized, become citizens of.

§122. Only after Christ had departed from the earth was it possible for the Holy Spirit to be fully communicated and received as this common spirit.

1. Let us first compare this proposition with what is most often heard on the subject, not only in the treatment of it before a congregation but also prominently laid down in public teaching. That is, there the procession of the Spirit in the doctrine of the Trinity is indeed posited as timeless and eternal, but the outpouring of the Spirit is first tied to the event of Pentecost as the beginning of the Spirit’s efficacious action in the Christian church. Thus, what is to be defended, first of all, is the claim that earlier—as is being at least intimated here—that same Holy Spirit was to have been effectual already, at least in an incomplete way.

Now, it is true, to be sure, that Christ himself made his death a condition of the Spirit’s sending,1 but it is likewise true that he had himself communicated the Spirit to his followers already before his total departure from the earth,² indeed, that even earlier he had presupposed the Spirit’s presence among them, for whatever exists, in relation to Christ himself, as a divine revelation in the soul³ is also seen to be a work of the Spirit. Furthermore, these various sayings certainly do not easily harmonize, unless what Christ enjoined them to expect on the occasion of his ascension in Jerusalem⁴ was simply their being fully saturated⁵ with the Spirit.

If we now proceed from the explanation that the Holy Spirit is the innermost life force of the Christian church as a whole, then we must also refer back to the two most primary stirrings of life, namely, vital receptivity and free self-initiated activity,⁶ the relation of which to each other first constitutes life, with the result that the more complete and developed life is, the greater is the domain of each of these primary stirrings and the more exactly they correspond to each other. The receptivity of the disciples developed with their being in Christ’s company, and the basis for their future efficacious action for the reign of God was laid down in their persistent apprehension of what Christ offered them. Hence, in that they also related their apprehension entirely to the reign of God proclaimed by Christ, they likewise recognized this receptivity, each disciple in the others, as that same reign of God, established and maintained in them all in the same manner. Moreover, in that a community of apprehending was occurring among them and each was also able to be a representative of the others in asking questions and answering in front of Christ,⁷ this receptivity was shown to be the single essential factor of the common spirit, in which sense the proper apprehension of Christ too was already ascribed to the Holy Spirit.8

In contrast, at that time an actual self-initiated activity had not yet come within their province. Rather, what Christ expected of them in this interchange was only a self-initiated activity in training, not in outright practice. Precisely on that account, it was also not free self-initiated activity but merely a self-initiated activity that still needed some particular impetus for each expression of it. The first-cited communication of the Spirit in the days of Christ’s resurrection shows us a transition toward full maturity of this same self-initiated activity. That is to say, in accordance with the main matter here, the proper retainment⁹ and forgiveness of sin is simply an expression of properly formed receptivity for what relates to the reign of God, but in that this expression is unthinkable without some reaction to the person whose sin is forgiven or retained, it already contains a transition to free self-initiated activity. Clearly, moreover, receptivity most distinctly reveals itself as the common spirit in these expressions, regarding which it is presupposed that they will be of one voice therein.

2. Yet, if the common spirit was still incomplete, then at the time of the personal existence of Christ the collective life wherein the reign of God presented itself cannot have been complete either, and this was also in fact the case. That is to say, a collective life is all the less a life in common, the more it depends on the life of an individual. The reason is that, in part, it is not equipped to remain ever the same in the cycle of death and procreation; also, in part, a collective life is indeed supposed to be a singular life but not that of one individual. In contrast, the more everyone depends on an individual and each person receives one’s motivation from this individual, the more are all of them mere instruments or limbs of this individual, and the whole is but an extension of this one personal existence. Or, if someone should want also to look at the variability of individual lives, the whole is more like a household or a school than like a commonwealth. This is how the ancients regarded any state in which everyone is unconditionally subjected to the will of a single individual, namely, as an extended household wherein many enlivened instruments move at the command of one individual. Moreover, school, for us, is any collective life, focused on intellect, that hangs entirely on one individual’s power of thought and way of organizing people, which one impressed on a number of them in common. Accordingly, Christ’s being together with his disciples was, to be sure, a household of companions, on the one hand, and a school, on the other hand. A household, however, is scattered upon the death of its head, and if a new bond is not formed for all its members, certain ones will disperse of themselves. Further, in a school too if some other common impetus does not enter in to spur adherence and the desire to learn, as the initial impetus did, no further advance takes place after the master’s death. Rather, the earlier union gradually disappears. Just so, after Christ’s death we find the disciples about to disperse, and up to his ascension the continuity of their being together was interrupted and was diminished to the point of losing its shape. In contrast, while Christ was alive, it could not be otherwise than that each disciple wanted chiefly to adhere to him and receive from him, without any one of them having gained the maturity for free self-initiated activity in the reign of God that was to be forming.

3. Now, someone certainly could say that if we were not willing to hold fast to the view that the Holy Spirit is an entirely distinctive divine communication—even though the Holy Spirit were taken to be conditioned by Christ, yet would not be linked with Christ’s earlier influences in the way described—thus, the distinction that is supposed to be given currency here would not even be tenable. This would ostensibly be the case, for in accordance with our own assertions, in the vital community of the regenerate with Christ, everything would always proceed from Christ; consequently, even today, strictly speaking, in each person there would ostensibly be only receptivity and not self-initiated activity. Hence, even collective life today would no more be an existence in common10 than it was then. The reason is that self-initiated activity already then too, as now, would have been completely in Christ, and today too the life of faithful persons together with Christ would consist only in a mutual communication of what each person would have received from Christ.

Yet, to this conclusion the claim is to be countered that whenever we have perceived¹¹ the way redemption unfolds only in individual human beings, in and of themselves, this has been an incomplete observation. In addition, from the very outset we have referred to the present situation by saying that preparatory grace¹² would already have come to each person from this existence in common.

Now, that in the regenerate everything proceeds from Christ was true of the communication of his sinless perfection,¹³ which consists simply in a pure will that is oriented to the reign of God. We have said that in individual aims such a perfection would no longer exist.¹⁴ Thus, if we ask how individual aims arise for us from that pure will, the answer is that this happens only in the collective life. This is so, for the individual regenerate does not have anything directly from Christ any longer, and to no one as an individual is anything commanded by Christ as happened to the disciples in their time. Rather, just as no individual can arrange something by oneself in the reign of God, so too no aim can attain actual shape in anyone except a person for whom one foresees that one would be supported in it by others—thus as an aim the seed for which already lies in others. Moreover, in reverse, by every such shared impulse only so much will be advanced as a proper communal consciousness underlies it. In this context, therefore, receptivity in individuals is not present by itself, and one’s truly active and effectual self-initiated activity is not simply the activity of Christ channeled through oneself; but the common spirit expressing itself in this self-initiated activity is the Holy Spirit, only inasmuch as the preliminary activity for it lies in the continuation of Christ’s activities. Likewise, the receptivity of individuals is no longer simply receptivity for what directly proceeds from Christ as it was in the days Christ was alive. Rather, it is also receptivity for the self-initiated activity of others.

Now, suppose that we want to apply to this situation the general rule15 that everything that essentially coheres with our partaking of redemption must exist in us just as it did in the first disciples. Then we will affirm that as long as all self-initiated activity was in Christ alone, but in the disciples there was only receptivity, in that respect the reign of God, in the narrower sense, would have existed in Christ alone, but the disciples would have represented only the external circle of preparatory grace, in which circle receptivity is also alone present. Likewise, moreover, just as occurred at that time in the disciples, so in each person today, the remembered apprehension of Christ has to be formed into the self-initiated activity of imitation. Furthermore, in its unity and selfsameness this shared self-initiated activity—which indwells everyone, rectifies itself in each person through all and continues in activity of a personal nature—we quite rightly term the common spirit of the Christian church. This communal activity corresponds to all that Christ promised concerning the Holy Spirit and to what was presented as the working of the Holy Spirit.

Hence, in putting all this together, we will now be able to state the following. First, in the group of disciples after Christ’s departure, their shared apprehension of Christ’s community-forming activity was transferred into a self-initiatively active continuation of it. Moreover, only in that this self-initiated activity—related as it was to the established apprehension of Christ—came to be the imperishable common spirit did the Christian church emerge. Thus, just as the sway of God’s reign is likewise grounded in oneself through faith, anyone who possesses this Christian common spirit only as receptivity—within the circle of preparatory grace, by the workings of Christian life upon oneself and in the streaming of others’ activity through oneself—has to transfer one’s relation to the apprehension of Christ that is established within the collective life into such a self-initiated activity. This, moreover, is what is called the communication of the divine Spirit.

Now, if the divine activity that justifies16 could be conceived under the form of particular divine actions, then we would have to say that today this communication would be, as it were, the final element of this act for each person; during Christ’s lifetime, however, this final act would have been postponed, as it were, until after his departure from the earth. However, we do not have to accept such a paradoxical formulation by assuming any particular and temporal divine act. Instead, we will be able to express the homogeneity between the first disciples and ourselves just as well when we affirm the following. Precisely because the disciples had been taken up into Christ’s community, even at the time of Christ they would already have had the principle¹⁷ of the new life as well, not only as receptivity but also as self-initiated activity, except that as long as these disciples had Christ among them, this self-initiated activity came to be merged entirely into the constant desire¹⁸ to receive from him. Consequently, only thereafter could there be a true community among them, manifesting itself as the Holy Spirit. These circumstances are to be more fully explicated in the doctrinal propositions that follow.

1. John 16:7. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) John 16:5–7, May 14, 1795 (Thursday, Ascension Day), Bauer (1909), 31–33; and (2) John 16:4–15, (1826), SW II.9 (1847), 510–23.

2. John 20:22.

3. Matt. 16:17. Ed. note: Sermon on Matt. 16:13–19, Nov. 28, 1819, separately published (1820), also SW II.4 (1835), 87–99, and (1844), 120–32.

4. Acts 1:4, 5, 8. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) Acts 1:4, May 30, 1824, separately published (1826), also SW II.4 (1834), 602–19, and (1844), 653–70; and (2) Acts 1:6–11, May 7, 1812 (Ascension), Festpredigten (1833), SW II.2 (1834), 318–30.

5. Sättigung. Ed. note: The reference in Acts is to being baptized in the Spirit—thus completely saturated or suffused by it—as Christ had been.

6. Ed. note: These two “primary stirrings” (ursprünglichsten Lebenseregungen) were featured in Schleiermacher’s psychological and ethical writings from early on, though ordinarily without the qualifying adjectives: lebendige Empfänglichkeit and freie Selbsttätigkeit. The latter is a transcription of a Latinate term he sometimes used: Spontaneität. Cf. §4.1.

7. Matt. 16:16; John 14:8–9, 11ff. Ed. note: Peter answers and Philip asks on behalf of all the disciples in these two biblical examples. Sermons on (1) Matt. 16:13–19, Nov. 28, 1819 (see §122n3); (2) John 14:7–17, May 21, 1826, SW II.9 (1847), 428–42; and (3) John 14:5, May 27, 1832, SW II.3 (1835), 265–75.

8. As in 1 Cor. 12:3. Ed. note: See §121.2.

9. Behalten. Ed. note: The allusion is to John 20:23, in which the resurrected Christ breathes the Spirit on those gathered and bestows the responsibility to forgive or to retain sin.

10. Gemeinwesen. Ed. note: Or, “a communal being/entity.”

11. Ed. note: Here, as usual, “perceived” translates anschauten. In this same sentence, “observation” translates Betrachtung.

12. Ed. note: E.g., cf. §§117.1 and 118.1.

13. Ed. note: E.g., cf. §100.

14. Ed. note: E.g., cf. §§58–61, 68.2, and 68.3.

15. Kanon. Ed. note: That is, this rule has already been established within the overall account.

16. Ed. note: Cf. §107.

17. Prinzip. Ed. note: In this usage, a “principle” as an underlying, driving force behind a process, action, or state of affairs, not a guiding statement.

18. Willen.

§123. First Doctrinal Proposition: The Holy Spirit is the uniting of the divine being with human nature in the form of the common spirit that animates the collective life of faithful persons.

1. In the doctrine of Christ, as we dealt with the union of the divine with the human in his person, we completely set aside the question of whether this divine aspect, apart from its union with human nature, would have been, and would still be, something special like a second person of the Godhead and relatively separate in the divine being, or not. Here too, in that we do set forth a similar formulation for the Holy Spirit, we can likewise suspend this consideration, despite the threeness¹ having full status among us today. We can do so, in that the only thing that belongs to this locus of doctrine is dealing with the relation between Supreme Being and human nature insofar as this relation is present, with its workings, in our Christian self-consciousness. Now, since these workings will first be completely demonstrated only in the next division2 and since the content of the section that just follows³ has also been assigned for us already, a summary of these relations can find its place only in the doctrine of the Trinity⁴ at the conclusion of our entire presentation.

However, at this point we do have to make some prefatory remarks about something else. That is, our definition is not at all meant to encompass all passages in our Holy Scriptures in which this expression appears, any more than it is meant to include all the ways this expression is dealt with in dogmatic treatments. Rather, here we have to do only with the Holy Spirit in the Christian church, and we leave it wholly undecided whether or not the expression means the same thing when used outside this relation. Yet, the choice does signify this much, that for us the “Holy Spirit” to be treated here is not the same thing as the Spirit to which some participation in creation of the world is ascribed⁵ or from the indwelling of which outstanding talents of all sorts issue.⁶ Indeed, it is also not the Spirit mentioned with respect to Christ’s becoming human, at least not insofar as a physical effect therewith is ascribed to it,⁷ however exactly even this effect may, in itself, be connected with the Christian church. Yes, we even divorce ourselves from the usage according to which the Holy Spirit is presented as already active in the prophets before Christ’s appearance.⁸ Moreover, we will not be obliged, thereupon, to identify the common spirit of the Jewish theocracy with that of the Christian church. Furthermore, in this regard we have the spirit of the Holy Scripture of the New Testament to back us up, however the letter of it might appear to be contrary to that spirit, for in Christ’s promises⁹ of the Spirit of truth there is also not even the slightest suggestion that this Spirit was something that existed earlier and simply disappeared for awhile, or that it was something other than what it was for the disciples of Christ. Otherwise, the disciples would also clearly have been prophets at that time, and Christ could hardly have said that prophecy had come to a close with John.10

2. Now, having provisionally set aside what we have set forth in both of the last two propositions, let us go back to the fact that in the church, from time immemorial, and so also in the New Testament Scriptures, all powers that are efficacious in the Christian church—not, perchance, simply the gifts of miracles, for these are quite incidental in this respect—have been traced back to the Holy Spirit,¹¹ and let us ask what has been meant by this claim all that time. The following, then, will certainly have to be conceded. First, there has been the claim that these powers are not, perchance, to be found outside the Christian church as well and, consequently, do not also develop elsewhere, either through the general arrangement of human nature—for otherwise Christ would indeed also be superfluous—or even based on any other sort of divinely instituted organization.¹²

Second, the claim has been made that this Spirit is indeed not, perchance, something supernatural and mysterious but is also not immediately divine. Rather, the claim further asserts, it is a higher being, to be sure, but one that is created, nonetheless, and one that places itself in relation to human beings in hidden fashion. Rightly, the Christian church has rejected this last assertion in the same way and in the same sense in which it has rejected all Arian notions regarding Christ. It has done this, for just as in Christ what is human would also no longer be human if we had to imagine it as conjoined with a higher nature in one person, so too our own life and that of all persons of faith would no longer appear to be humanly connected if our consciousness and conduct were thought to be determined by influences of a superhuman nature.¹³

Third, the claim has been made that the Holy Spirit too is indeed not, perchance, something divine, yet it is not united with human nature either but in some fashion simply works upon it from without. The reason given is that something enters into us from without only through the senses, but thereby it always becomes simply an occasion for our actions. However, the way such occasionings are then handled, this process is a determination that proceeds from within, and this latter domain is that of the Holy Spirit, whereas the domain of the senses is not that of the Holy Spirit at all. That these occasionings are given to us from outside does not block the unity of our self-consciousness or our self-determination; however, this unity of our self-consciousness would be dissolved straightaway if determinations of it were themselves to be given from outside. Moreover, if there are scriptural passages, mostly determined by prophetic linguistic usage, that seem literally to claim such an external working,14 these passages would likewise definitely have the letter of other passages countering them.¹⁵

It is also totally unimaginable how the gifts of the Spirit could exist in us¹⁶ while the Spirit itself is taken to be and remain outside us. It is no less unimaginable how it should be supposed that the Spirit could work on us from outside in any way other than by way of human discourse and presentation, which indeed means that the Spirit would exist within and work within someone else. In this case, however, the person on whom the Spirit would be working would not yet be partaking of the Spirit thereby, but only a person in and through whom the Spirit is already working¹⁷ would have received the Spirit. Moreover, this would be how the Spirit would bring about the gifts in each person and, indeed, we would not be conscious of the gifts as internal gifts but be conscious of the power that brings them about as an external power. Rather, we would distinguish those on whom the Spirit is working, viewed as those in whom no gifts have as yet been brought about, from those who are already in the process of sanctification, in whom the Holy Spirit is bringing about the gifts.¹⁸ As a result of these considerations, we are conscious, as Scripture also says, of both the Spirit and the gifts as something internal—of the gifts, however, as different in different persons and, on the contrary, of the Spirit as one in various people, despite the diversity of gifts.

Now, from these considerations it follows, consistent with the witness of those who first possessed the Holy Spirit, that they presented this same Spirit as a distinctive divine efficacious action in persons of faith, yet one not to be separated from recognition of the being of God in Christ. The two things, however, also exactly cohere. This is the case, for if the divine had not come into human nature in the person of Christ yet something divine would be present in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, then this divine factor could not have proceeded from Christ but would have to have been communicated in particular and in an absolutely miraculous fashion. Yet, at that point it would also have to have been possible for this divine factor to be communicated over and over again in the same way and, on account of the absolute arbitrariness involved, without any such supposed possessor of the Spirit being able to lay claim to it, or even to be recognized by others as such a person. As a result, precisely the characteristic of working upon and with one another would be wiped out, and anyone who would have the Holy Spirit would also have it only for oneself alone, an idea that the church has rejected from the very outset, viewing the idea as contradictory to its own consciousness.

On the other hand, if it is supposed that the divine has indeed come into human nature through Christ but that after the disappearance of his person it would not have remained on earth, not even in human nature, then nothing of what in Christ depended on the being of God in him could have remained in human nature. Consequently, there would be no communication of Christ’s sinless perfection or of his unclouded blessedness.

3. Thus, it is plain to see that the testimony of Christ’s first disciples harmonizes with what was set forth in the previous two propositions as statements concerning our consciousness, and it remains only to justify the expression in our present proposition, based on those two.

However, if the Holy Spirit is an efficacious spiritual power in the souls of persons of faith, we must represent it as united in them with their human nature, or we must abrogate the unity of their existence. This latter view would be true if, on the one hand, they were persons in whom human nature turns out to be efficacious and, on the other hand, if they were persons in whom the Holy Spirit, separated from human nature, were proved to be efficacious. The second assumption so greatly emphasizes a total split in human life that it could never be upheld. To be sure, the theory concerning a single distinct and direct efficacious action of the Holy Spirit has been taken to such an extreme as this, not, however, when this efficacious action was still taking place but only long after the action had ceased to occur.19 Thus, what is yet to be settled is simply that this union persists in the form of the common spirit. Yet, consider human nature even independently of redemption. There, we do not regard whatever is completely the same and incapable of individualizing modifications, that is in all individuals of the species as spiritual power, to be something multiple according to the measure of individual beings. This is so of reason above all else. Rather, we view it as the same in all and in each.

Now, if we were to separate the Spirit from the gifts, which are, to be sure, modified individually and personal in nature, then the Spirit would simply be one and the same in all who partake of the Spirit’s gifts, without being multiplied when the partakers come to be more multiple or diminished when they come to be fewer, and without being something in one person that it would not be in another, except that it would show itself to be the same more strongly in one person and more weakly in another. However, the Spirit is not one in all solely to the extent that its life and work in one person cannot be distinguished from that in some other person. Rather, just as we have already said above that overall each person attains to the new life only in and through the community, so each person partakes in the Holy Spirit and does so not in one’s personal self-consciousness, considered in and of itself, but only inasmuch as one is conscious of one’s being in this whole—that is, as consciousness held in common.20 Hence, the union of the divine with human nature in persons of faith is not a person-forming union, for otherwise it would not be distinguishable from the union that is in Christ, and the distinction between Redeemer and redeemed would be abrogated.

When we observe an individual in the individual’s inborn and inherited collective life, we do not find such a distinction there, as the formulation already set forth above²¹ also states. Yet, if the question is of a collective life into which an individual enters only after one’s personal existence has developed up to a certain point, it cannot be said that this personal existence is nothing other than the common spirit that is being distinctively formed. Rather, only increasingly does this personal existence come to be exactly this common spirit. If we could isolate the new life of an individual, begun with rebirth, and put it together in and of itself, we would doubtless be able to say: first, that this life is wholly determined by the Holy Spirit and, second, that the new creature is nothing other than the Holy Spirit itself in conscious possession of this distinctive ratio of components within a mixture,²² made up of natural human powers. However, the new life is no homogenous whole, and it does not evenly permeate the entire organism of the person. Rather, the person, viewed as a steady unity of self-consciousness, is a mixture²³ of the divine and the human, being separate and being one. Moreover, even though an individual might actually attain to a state wherein the new life would be spread over one’s entire being, the part of one’s life from before rebirth²⁴ would still belong to one’s person, nevertheless. In the end, the divine efficacious action that constitutes the new life in the individual is also the common spirit, and for two reasons. It is so, in part—without any consideration of special personal attributes—because this efficacious action exists in each individual inasmuch as one belongs to the community through whose efficacious action one’s rebirth was also conditioned, and from which community, by means of preaching, in the broadest sense of the word,25 this new life has passed over into that individual just as it took shape in the disciples through the power of Christ’s self-communicating life. It is also so, in part, because this divine efficacious action takes hold of the individual only for the sake of the community and forms the individual only for one end, namely, so that, and in such a way that, it can best work through the individual for the sake of the whole.

1. Dreiheit. Ed. note: “Threeness,” here not Dreieinigkeit, which would refer to the triune God, the doctrine of which latter “threeness-in-one” is often designated in Schleiermacher’s discourse by the term Trinitätslehre (see §123n4 below).

2. Ed. note: §§126–56, on the continuance of the church in its coexistence with the world.

3. Ed. note: §§164–69, on the divine attributes of love and wisdom.

4. Trinitätslehre. Ed. note: The “oneness” or “unity” of God, relatively speaking, is scarcely in dispute among Christians, compared with God’s purported “threeness.” Hence, normally any doctrine that considers how the concept “triune God” is to be understood is simply called “the doctrine of the Trinity.” In contrast, the church that Schleiermacher served in Berlin was named—not by him—the Dreifältigkeitskirche, literally, “the church of the Threefolded God” (or triune God).

5. Gen. 1:2; Ps. 33:6. Cf. Augustine (354–430), On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book (393) 4.16. Ed. note: “The Spirit of God was borne over matter … by a productive and creative power. Thus, that over which the Spirit is borne is produced and created.” ET cf. Fathers of the Church 84 (1991), 155; Latin: Migne Lat. 34:226.

6. Exod. 31:2–3.

7. Matt. 1:18 and Luke 1:35.

8. Isa. 34:16; 61:1; and Mic. 3:8.

9. John 14:16–17; 16:7ff. Ed. note: Sermon on (1) John 14:7–17, May 21, 1826, SW II.9 (1847), 428–42; and (2) John 16:4–15, Aug. 13, 1826, SW II.9 (1847), 510–23.

10. Matt. 11:13 and Luke 16:16.

11. See 1 Cor. 12; Eph. 1:17; and 2 Tim. 1:7. Ed. note: Especially sermons on gifts of the Spirit and unity in the Spirit: (1) 1 Cor. 12:3–6 (see §121n2); (2) 1 Cor 12:13–14, April 15, 1824, Bauer (1909), 111–25; (3) on the end of miraculous expressions at Pentecost, 1 Cor. 12:31, May 15, 1826, Festpredigten (1833), then SW II.2 (1834), 532–48; also (4) 2 Tim. 1:7, May 1, 1833, SW II.3 (1835), 550–62.

12. Gal. 3:2–5.

13. Ed. note: These points have already been worked out in earlier sections, especially at the christological core in §§91–101.

14. Acts 1:5; 2:3; 8:29, 39; 10:19, 44.

15. Mark 13:11; Rom. 8:9, 11; 1 Cor. 6:19; Gal. 4:6; and Jas. 4:5.

16. 1 Cor. 12:7.

17. Acts 10:44–47.

18. Gal. 5:22 and Eph. 5:9.

19. Ed. note: This point was carried in the phrase “in particular and in an absolutely miraculous fashion” in subsection 2 just above.

20. Gemeinbewußtsein. Ed. note: That is, this consciousness is “held in common,” or “shared,” as individuals’ consciousness of the community, which is to that extent “communal,” just as species consciousness comes out of and is directed to one’s being a member of the species called “humanity.”

21. In §121.2.

22. Mischungsverhältnisses. Ed. note: This is a technical term from chemistry.

23. Mischung.

24. Ed. note: In this, as in other contexts, Wiedergeburt means both “rebirth” and “regeneration,” without distinction.

25. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s broadest sense of preaching (Predigt) includes all forms of proclamation in words and actions. See §§127.3 and 133–35, where he made this broader meaning explicit.

§124. Second Doctrinal Proposition: Every regenerate person partakes of the Holy Spirit, so that there is no vital community with Christ without an indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and vice versa.

1. We have asked ourselves the question of how redemption is realized in human souls and thence have answered that it happens by being taken up into vital community with Christ, and here the claim is set forth that each person has to partake of the Holy Spirit. This process is in no way to be understood as if, by the nature of the case, it involves two different things and as if something special happens to a regenerate person in one’s partaking of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, temporally, as well as by the nature of the case, the two phenomena are not to be distinguished. Rather, strictly speaking, this process would have to entail that in one’s coming to be regenerate, one also comes to be partaking of the Holy Spirit. The reason is that being taken up into vital community with Christ includes in itself, at the same time, that we are conscious both of being children of God and of being under the dominion of Christ, both of which Scripture has already ascribed to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.¹ Thus, we also cannot conceive of how either one could exist if the other were missing.

Suppose we were fictively to assume, instead, that we could find ourselves to be in a collective life such that it would present the reign of God and be driven by the Holy Spirit as its common spirit, except that we would be unaware of any founder such as Christ. Suppose, too, that we were then to view this situation over against the collective life of sin. In that case, we would certainly not be able to derive that condition from the collective life of sin. Consequently, because sin would indeed not be intended in this case but would, nonetheless, constantly exist in all members of that collective life, we would not be able to consider that condition to be grounded in and of itself—that is, also to have emerged originally in the way it now exists. This, in turn, would be so precisely because sin would likewise have to have been able to emerge in some other fashion and from some other points of origin as well.2

Speaking incidentally, this is also the reason why persons who generally proceed based on such an incomplete and sundered divine revelation still easily recognize one another, even if they are in conflict with one another. Thus, as long as we do not assume, at the same time, that other such divine reigns could emerge independently of the Christian church, also in other times and places, we would be forced to recognize an origin outside the collective life of sin, an origin from which this divine communication within that life would be a mere derivative. Then, however, even membership in this collective life of sin would, at the same time, be viewed as a being placed within the circle wherein this sole founder does his work. In this way, moreover, we would also find ourselves articulating the belief that such an outpouring of the Spirit would have been possible only after the Son of God had appeared and on the basis of his personal efficacious action. Now, already implied therein is the fact that our partaking in that Spirit and our own connection with the vital efficacious action of Christ are simply one and the same thing.

Likewise in beginning with Christ, in reverse order, we do not give up the proposition that union of the divine with his human personal existence was, at the same time, an endowment of human nature in its entirety. From this it follows, first, that in general, a continuation of this union must also exist after Christ’s departure and, second, that since this continuation is also supposed to proceed from that original union, wherever it exists a connection with Christ must also exist, and vice versa. Moreover, since after Christ’s departure the broadening of the connection with him can proceed only from the community of persons of faith, these three things must have one and the same meaning: to-be-drawn-into-the-community-of-persons-of-faith-through-the-community-itself, to-partake-in-the-Holy-Spirit, and to-have-been-drawn-into-vital community-with-Christ.

2. Herewith it is quite natural to ask how the two expressions that the same apostle employs relate to each other: that “Christ lives in us” and “led by the Spirit of God.”³ Now, when the same apostle says that those whom the Spirit of God leads are “children of God,” he would have to be contradicting another of his statements, which says that those who have taken up Christ are children of God,⁴ and no one would believe that, or here too these two statements—“the life of Christ in us” and “the leading of the Spirit in us”—are one and the same thing within that third category, being children of God. Further, either there are two different ways of being children of God—which none of us would concede any more than Paul or John5—or the two expressions are the same.

Suppose that we were to answer the question based on how interconnected ecclesial expressions are. Then, first of all, the latter of the two expressions, “led by the Spirit of God,” has its proper application at a higher level than the first one, and, on that account, it has also won wider scope in scholastic language and in that formation of ascetic language, which places special value on what is easily understood. The first expression, “Christ in us,” on the other hand, is quite recessive in scholastic language, and it has gained its place, above all, in that ascetic language which is customarily termed “mystical.”

If we go on to consider that the Holy Spirit is also called “the Spirit of Christ,”⁶ it is likewise true that elsewhere we also say, more distinctly, that “the spirit of another lives in us” than that “the other lives in us,” without our intending to denote something else by the one expression than by the other. Consequently, already on that account, nothing else could be understood by the one expression than by the other.

Now, if we add the union of the divine with the human in Christ to these considerations, then obviously the human in him can be in us only as the properly conceived image of him. In contrast, the divine is, to be sure, also in us as a powerful impetus, though not so exclusively determining the whole person as it did in him. Rather, it is in us only in and with his properly conceived image, which can also more properly and fully take shape in us only in the degree to which that divine impetus illumines⁷ it in us. Yet, the work of the Holy Spirit is also precisely the same: to bring and to illumine Christ in memory. So, in every way, both expressions show themselves to be one and the same.

We also reach the same result when we compare the contents of the two expressions in accordance with their effects. This is so, for if we imagine ourselves to be completely in vital community with Christ, all our actions can then be viewed as his as well. However, if, on the one hand, the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth in the knowledge of Christ,⁸ it cannot, on the other hand, also lead us to actions other than to those from which Christ can be made known. Moreover, the fruits of the Spirit9 are nothing other than the virtues of Christ. This is the case, for to avow a leading of the divine Spirit in our souls that would not be linked with what we have received from Christ’s words and from his life, viewed as Christ’s mode of conduct, would mean to open the door to all sorts of enthusiastic behavior that the Evangelical church has vigorously opposed from the very outset. Accordingly, the leading of the Holy Spirit in us is never anything other than the divine impetus to conformity with what Christ has been and done humanly by virtue of the existence of God in him. Moreover, the life of Christ in us is nothing other than efficacious action for the reign of God through the embrace of human beings in the love that proceeds from Christ—that is, the strength of the Christian common spirit.

Further, if to have faith in Christ and to have Christ living in ourselves is the same thing, this account also explains how it can be said, on the one hand, that the Holy Spirit brings forth faith and, on the other hand, that the Holy Spirit actually comes through faith.¹⁰ That is, through the activity of those who already partake in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit effects faith in others insofar as these others attain to recognition of what is divine and salutary¹¹ in Christ, and thereby precisely in these persons the Holy Spirit becomes their motivating principle.¹² So, precisely the fact that just as the divine being was united with the human person of Christ, so too, after Christ’s personal influences had ceased and hence efficacy of a strictly personal nature no longer existed in any individual, the divine being shows itself to be efficacious in the community of persons of faith as its common spirit—that is, the manner and means by which the work of redemption is advanced and extended in the church.

3. Now if, in accordance with their content, the two expressions mean the same thing, those Christians who like best to designate their experiences in the domain of grace as the immediate existence and life of Christ in them are not to be blamed, nor are those any the more blameworthy who prefer to describe, and almost exclusively do so, the exposition of their new life in terms of the indwelling of God’s Spirit in us. Dogmatic language, however, is obliged not only to preserve both tendencies but also to allocate proper usage to each of them, so as to point out the dangers inherent in one-sided usage. Accordingly, the one tendency could lead to detachment from the community, in that its adherents might claim to enjoy more direct influences from Christ; the other tendency could lead its adherents to imagine that the Spirit that is at work within the community could help them advance even when they are detached from Christ or could lead them beyond Christ.

We could hardly leave this subject, however, without posing the question as to whether the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is to be conceived as a new divine revelation—although conditioned by Christ’s becoming human, yet original in its distinctive character—or rather as a fact that is not only dependent on Christ’s appearance but that also naturally follows from it. In the latter case, Christ’s appearance would be the sole supernatural foundation of Christianity—in the sense already indicated. Moreover, in this latter case Christianity and the entire development of spiritual life would advance naturally from this source. In the first instance, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit would be a second miracle13 like unto the first one and of equal necessity.

In any case, the question is not a dogmatic one in the narrowest sense, for we cannot decide it on the basis of our Christian self-consciousness. The reason is that today the communication of the Spirit to individuals presents itself to each one as a natural working of the presence and efficacious action of the same Spirit within the whole of the Christian community. It follows, however, that the basis for accepting the first miracle would have to be given in unmistakable witnesses. Now, the phenomena at Pentecost¹⁴ do clearly enough bear signs of what is miraculous in itself. Still, on the one hand, so do later communications of the Spirit through preaching, which communications thus lie fully in an analogy with our own current situation, yet likewise—and indeed described with attention to the sameness these phenomena have¹⁵—in such a way that here what is miraculous does not adhere to the essence of the matter, based on which the first miracle can also then be considered complete in itself. On the other hand, it is nevertheless difficult to claim that this outpouring of the Spirit was also the first communication of the Spirit to the disciples, since it is reported that Christ had already communicated the Spirit to them earlier,¹⁶ at a time when neither the words he used nor the accompanying symbolic action could possibly be construed as a mere promise. So, we would certainly not in any way consider this miraculous event as essentially attaching to the matter itself but would consider it as belonging to that particular time and leave the question entirely up to exegesis to deal with.

Yet, leaving aside those accompanying phenomena, communication of the Spirit cannot be more or less of a miracle in one case than in another. Moreover, in this connection one could say that this communication is not a miracle in any instance if one considers the gradual spread of the Spirit to be wrought by the life force of the church, any more than it could be a miracle if it were wrought by the life force of Christ. In contrast, this communication of the Spirit would always be a miracle if one considered it to be a sudden leap from fragmentarily aroused receptivity into an interconnected, shared self-initiated activity. In such a leap the communication of the Spirit would have burst forth on the day of Pentecost and, through proclamation of this original event, would have engendered something miraculous in its train. Likewise, today too the more conversion appears to be something sudden in similar circumstances, the more we are inclined to consider anomalous appearances accompanying it to be miraculous.

1. 1 Cor 12:3 and Gal. 4:6. Ed. note: Sermon on 1 Cor 12:3–6, June 17, 1821. See §121n2.

2. Ed. note: For further clarifications, see §§66–73.

3. Gal. 2:20 and Rom. 8:14. Ed. note: Sermon on Gal. 2:19–21, July 18, 1830 (re: Augsburg), SW II.2 (1834), 653–65.

4. Ed. note: Gal. 3:26; cf. Rom. 8:14, 17, 21.

5. Ed. note: John 1:12; 11:52; and 1 John 3:1.

6. Ed. note: Rom 8:9; see also Gal 4:6; Phil 1:19; and 1 Pet 1:11. Sermon on Phil. 1:19–20, Mar. 10, 1822, in SW II.10 (1856), 408–25.

7. Verklärt. Ed. note: Perhaps both “illumines” and “transfigures.” The same verb leads to both, but it leads to “illumines” only figuratively. In some biblical and ecclesial language, those who are “blessed” (“the blest”) are imagined to be made effulgent, radiant with light.

8. Ed. note: Cf. 1 John 5 and Eph. 1:17, also John 16:14–15 and 1 Cor. 4:6. Sermon on 1 John 5:5, Dec. 26, 1833, in SW II.3 (1835), 738–51, and (1843), 763–76.

9. Ed. note: Gal. 5:22; cf. Rom. 8:23.

10. See 1 Cor. 14:3 and Gal. 3:5, 14. Sermon on Gal. 3:14, Trinity Sunday, May 25, 1823, first published in Bauer (1909), 34–44.

11. Heilbringend. Ed. note: Or, bringing what is holy, beneficial, of saving grace.

12. Ed. note: Here “motivating principle” translates bewegende Prinzip. That is, the Holy Spirit is the principle that is moving them, that is thus their “impetus” (Antrieb).

13. Ed. note: Elsewhere in this book, Schleiermacher depicts Christ’s appearance as itself the one great miracle (§93.3) and the reign of God in humankind as itself “the miracle” accomplished by Christ (§103.1). The latter was, is, and is to be effected, however, only through him as its source. Apart from Christ, the whole idea should be completely abandoned (§47.1–3). For other comparisons of Christ and the Holy Spirit in this respect, see also §§108.5, 117.2, 123.2, and 130.4.

14. Acts 2:2ff. Ed. note: Sermon on Acts 2:1–42 on Pentecost, June 10, 1810, in SW II.7 (1836), 419–26.

15. Acts 10:47; 11:15. Ed. note: Sermon on Acts 11:15–17, Sept. 3, 1810, in SW II.7 (1836), 470–78.

16. John 20:22. Ed. note: This conferral of the Holy Spirit to the disciples is appended to verse 21, regarding his commissioning of them. See the sermon on John 20:21, May 12, 1833, in SW II.3 (1835), 550–62, and (1843), 581–91.

17. Reinheit und Vollständigkeit.

§125. Third Doctrinal Proposition: In its purity and fullness¹⁷ the Christian church, being animated by the Holy Spirit, is formed as the perfect image of the Redeemer; every regenerate person is a complementary, constituent part of this community.¹

1. If we reflect on the Redeemer in the maturity of his human life, we see that the totality of his powers was a sufficient organism for the multiple impetus that proceeded from the existence of God placed within him. In this respect, no individual regenerate person can be regarded as an image of Christ even once, because the state of differentiated sinfulness2 in which divine grace finds that person does not permit a likeness in the relation of the person’s psychological capacities to the multiple impetus of the Spirit.

We suppose, however, that the Christian church is a true collective life, a unified, moral person, to use customary terminology. Yet, on the other hand, the church is not a hereditary or natural person. Thus, on this latter account, the church is indeed not like a personal existence that has been produced by the person-forming activity of nature, in that entering and exiting are related in very different ways within each of the two cases, though the church can and must be an image of personal existence. It can and must be so, for since the divine being is but one being, everywhere self-identical, even though the way God exists in the individual being of Christ and in the collective life of the church is not the same, nevertheless, in the two cases the impetus that proceeds from the divine being can only be that which we have named. Hence, both the church’s modes of apprehension and its modes of conduct are also like those of the Redeemer, in that precisely in each individual member, and thus also in the whole, the same human powers exist that in the Redeemer were also taken up into unity with the divine principle.³

Now, in a certain sense such a whole comprised of human powers exists in every mass of human beings that belong to one another, within which the most significant contrasts that human life offers are customarily present at the same time. This situation is also true of the early church, wherein, despite its limited compass, it was already presaged that it would very soon be spread among both Jews and Gentiles and consequently embraced the most significant contrast in this relation within one community. In this way, every further development by the assumption of subordinate contrasts was prepared for and introduced. However, if we seek the true perfection of its likeness,⁴ we must also consider the church in its absolute purity and fullness. Obviously, its purity is seen only if we do not observe the entire life of individual regenerate persons, even after their rebirth, as a feature of the church but, instead, count only that within it which constitutes their good works but does not belong to their sins. Moreover, from this consideration it follows that the absolute fullness of the church is to be seen only in the totality of the human race. The reason is as follows. Just as we are able to imagine the first human beings—presupposing that they were the first parents in general—as having no differences of temperament or constitution, precisely because everything is supposed to have developed from them, whether of a more individualized or of a more climatic5 nature—in such a way that the image of the first human beings is completely given only in the basic types of all the human races and tribes into which each of these types falls. Furthermore, these types, in turn, would be completely presented only in terms of the entirety of all those individual beings who belong to them. The same must be the case in relation to Christ. That is to say, also in relation to Christ as the actually given spiritual prototype—with reference to discussion of his sinless perfection, on the one hand, and of the basis for sinfulness in all others, on the other hand—after the same fashion, it must follow that not only is each individual imperfect in every particular attribute but also that, considered in one’s entirety, each one is a one-sided, fragmentary likeness, in all aspects needing to be supplemented. Further, based on this consideration, it is self-evident that only in the collectivity composed of all formations of spiritual life that are grounded in the variety of people’s natural dispositions⁶ is the perfect likeness of Christ to be found. That is, only in this way would the one-sided tendencies of people be supplemented among themselves, and only in this way would the imperfections that can persist in one person be offset by others.

The same thing would result if we look more at the work of Christ instead of his person and, in that respect, consider the church as an organic body equipped to be a collectivity of activities, a body in which the perfection⁷ of each expression of life is conditioned by the fullness brought by the various members.⁸ This is so, for diverse works can be appropriately distributed only if a variety of gifts underlies the distribution, and in reverse, if a variety of gifts is to arise naturally, a variety of personal unity of life must be presupposed along with that variety of gifts. In this fashion, the following two statements harmonize with each other very well: that the church is called “the body of Christ,” governed by its head,⁹ and that the more the church spreads externally and improves internally, the more will the church also come to be the likeness of Christ.10

2. The second half of our proposition then also follows from this consideration. This is so, for suppose that one can already say, directly with respect to the last statement, that everything that anyone contributes to the continuance and growth of the whole by one’s activity must ever be supplemented by the joint action of numerous others, because otherwise Christ would have been wrong in saying that when all is said and done, each one of us is still an unworthy servant.¹¹ Then, with respect to what was stated earlier, each individual, despite all imperfection and one-sidedness, is, viewed as a subordinate unity within the whole, a part of it not needing to be supplemented by anyone else. This contrast is explained in that there are numerous basic formations, even within the domain of the new human being. Here these formations are the same thing as a people’s characteristics are on the side of the natural human being. Thus, here too each of these basic types would also include a mass of subordinate varieties that we can indeed neither measure nor count. Yet, our shared feeling as Christians compels us to hold each of these varieties complete and to regard each one as a self-contained whole, no less than our species-consciousness compels us to do in that domain. Moreover, we find our justification¹² for this fact not only in the biblical images already cited but also in the recognition we are admonished to give to all such distinctive parts, without limitation or exception.¹³ Correspondingly, we must also say of the temporal development of the Christian community that nothing would happen in the church as it does happen without each individual member being as that member is. Also immediately connected therewith is the fact that everything in the church is a common deed and a common work, consequently a common merit and a common fault as well, but this commonality simply presents itself unevenly in different individuals.

Now, if, accordingly, the church grows toward being the perfect likeness of Christ only gradually, we will also be able to express what the divine order is in the gradual addition of individuals and in the further extension of the whole in the following formulation. Such an advancement ensues in such a way that in every instant, viewed in and of itself, not only is the whole as fully developed as possible, but also every instant also bears within it the basis for the greatest possible fulfillment for instants that follow. This formulation can always be affirmed, though only in faith, and it can never be demonstrated in direct experience.14

Postscript to the First Division (§§115–125)

The last reflection¹⁵ sums up the many relations that have already issued from the foregoing doctrinal proposition, in part directly and in part indirectly. This is the case, in that a relationship to the doctrine of regeneration was shown that is similar to that of election, with the result that combining the two doctrines within one point of doctrine on the emergence of the church can no longer seem strange. Rather, it must appear quite natural that the elect are chosen precisely for communication of the Spirit. At the same time, however, the same reflection forms a transition to the next point of doctrine, regarding the continuance of the church in its coexistence with the world.¹⁶ The reason is that if the discourse here could be focused only on communication of the Holy Spirit, it would happen, then, that since the church is preserved only by the same principle by which it has emerged and is renewed, the ongoing efficacious action of the Holy Spirit is to be described in teaching regarding the basic features¹⁷ of the church’s life. Moreover, what will come up in this next point of doctrine is, in the same sense, the same as the doctrinal proposition regarding sanctification, just as what has just been treated is the same in content as that regarding regeneration.¹⁸

1. Ed. note: On Schleiermacher’s depiction of the “ideal church,” see OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 4. Having discussed largely written modes of communication in supplemental notes 1–3, here he emphasizes “equality for all,” the essential place of order (“disorder destroys community”), and total independence from the state’s “civic” order. Supplementary note 5 then holds up the “royal priesthood” of all (1 Pet. 2:5, 9) and aspects of common concord for service ranging from Christian nurture to care for those more poor, and he again treats of relations between clergy and laity, also between more cultured and less cultured members, and mentions visits to, and understandings of, congregations different from their own. See also his wrap-up on “the true church” in OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 11. There he also addresses the issue as to whether Christianity is destined to absorb all forms of religion into itself. He doubts that even Christianity will have within it an external unity that transcends its external diversity, a state wholly defined by “a pure form of mutual sharing,” wherein its communication is such that “there is no inequality and no need of prayers.” Inside or outside the Christian church, then, “new forms” are bound to arise under temporal and finite conditions. He therefore describes even what Christian unity can be attained as inclusive and tolerant of diversity, as both “cosmopolitan” and “triumphant” in that sense alone. See also OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 15. See further CF §§134–35 and 127–32; also OG 63.

2. Ed. note: In the phrase “differentiated sinfulness” (differentierter Sündhaftigkeit), the adjective refers to sin’s being both actual and original, i.e., both originating in each person and originating collectively within the human race. In both respects, Schleiermacher takes Christ to be sinless, thus in that way unlike any other human being.

3. Prinzip. Ed. note: That is, the divine impetus (Impulse), or driving, initiating principle within, which God conferred upon him as the special human being that he was.

4. Abbild. Ed. note: As in a sketch or portrait, the comparison being with Christ’s perfection.

5. Klimatischen. Ed. note: In Schleiermacher’s time, this term referred to geographical conditions, which can serve to divide human groupings from each other. The lives of peoples were thought to be greatly affected by the different climes, or surroundings, in which each was rooted.

6. Naturanlage. Ed. note: This term also suggests talents or gifts.

7. Vollkommenheit. Ed. note: Throughout the discussion of §125, this term directly refers to a state of being completed, the usual translation. Thus, here a “perfect likeness” is one completed through all its parts, which supplement (ergänzen) each other.

8. As in 1 Cor. 12. Ed. note: See §123.2.

9. Eph. 1:23 and Col. 1:18. Ed. note: Sermon on Col. 1:18–23, Aug. 8, 1830, in SW II.6 (1835), 244–55.

10. Eph. 4:13 and 1 John 3:2.

11. Luke 17:10.

12. Rechtfertigung. Ed. note: This “justification,” when viewed as a defense, is not greatly different from that in typical ecclesial parlances, in saying that we are justified by Jesus’ death on the cross. The meaning that Schleiermacher adopts, however, is that of being made righteous in blessed community with Christ.

13. See 1 Cor. 12:19–26.

14. Ed. note: Here “direct experience” translates erfahrungsmäßig, to convey the meaning that shared experience would always carry an element of indirect experience as well, for each person of faith, based on observation of others.

15. Betrachtung.

16. Ed. note: §§126–56, which are divided into eight points of doctrine: regarding Scripture, ministry, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the office of the keys, and prayer in Jesus’ name in the first half, and in the second half regarding the plurality and capacity for error in the visible church versus the unity and unfailing reliability of the invisible church.

17. Grundzügen.

18. Ed. note: Especially §§110–12 on sanctification and §§107–9 on regeneration. Following the point of doctrine on Christ’s person and work above (§§92–105), the doctrinal propositions regarding regeneration and sanctification were presented under a single point of doctrine (§§106–12) regarding “the way in which community with the perfection and blessedness of the Redeemer is expressed in the individual soul.”

Division Two

Regarding the Continuance of the Church in Its Coexistence with the World

[Introduction to Division Two]

§126. Animated by the Holy Spirit, the community of persons of faith remains ever self-identical in the way it is situated in relation to Christ and to this Spirit, but in its relationship to the world it is subject to variation and change.¹

1. If the community of persons of faith is to exist and to continue in constantly efficacious action as a historical body within the human race, it must unite two things within itself: both a self-identical feature, by virtue of which it remains the same in the midst of change, and a variable feature, in which that selfsameness is made manifest. If we consider it solely in its coexistence with the rest of contemporary human existence, as is condensed in Scripture in the expression “world,” then, it would seem that it can indeed be said that the church could just as easily be recognized in its difference from the world as the world could be recognized in its difference from the church. In any case, moreover, among persons of faith themselves there is no lack of people who believe that they recognize themselves and those who are like them, especially in their not being what the world is. Still, this view leans just as much toward separatism as toward legalistic righteousness. The reason is that sinful collective life—with the exception of the residual feeling of dire need² within that collectivity, which feeling underlies the church’s original claim upon the world and which already actually belongs to the church itself—is an actual emptiness and a sheer negative factor, as was sufficiently elucidated by all that was brought out concerning sin.³ Thus, the world can indeed be recognized by persons of faith as amorphous and disordered, in that the world is excluded from participation in what the church essentially is, but not the reverse. The scriptural language that uses “world” for that part of the human race that is not yet church is quite natural, because the entire human race, designated as world, would have become what the whole of that world would have been continuously, as this part that is not yet church would then remain. However, that usage bears the dubious quality of seeming very much to foster the impression that the world could, in this sense, be a whole just as well as the church, since the church would be described as, in fact, only an aggregate of individual elements striving in manifold ways against each other and combining only arbitrarily and in a transitory fashion. This impression simply increases when the church, over against the world, is continually described as a little band,4 thus, even on its own part, described only as an aggregate, indeed a negligible one. Hence, this use of the expression “world,” taken from the ascetic domain, would do better gradually to disappear, being reserved only for the dogmatic domain, in that here its true value is easier to determine and to secure.

What is self-identical in the Christian church, however, can refer only to the fact that the divine’s existing within what is human remains ever the same and to the fact that what the church seeks to approximate in all that it does also remains the same. In Christ too, the union of the divine with the human was always the same. Moreover, because there could be no talk of approximation in his case, the exact fit of what came to be human in him to the divine impetus in him was also the same, but all else was determined by his locus in the world and in accordance with temporal laws. Likewise, the relation of the Holy Spirit to the church as its common spirit also remains the same, and, viewed as the locus of the Holy Spirit within the human race, the church remains ever self-identical, as it also is in its being the selfsame image of Christ, to which it ever strives to be conformed.

As concerns what is variable, however, the situation is as follows. This feature also existed in Christ, as such, though without struggle or strife; yet, it was determined not by the divine in him, for the divine is not subject to any temporal determination, but by the human nature that is united with the divine. Likewise, here too what is variable, as such, is determined not by the Holy Spirit but by the human nature on which and through which the Holy Spirit works.

Now, if we designate “world” to be the entire compass of human nature within which human nature is not determined by the Holy Spirit, then we will also be able to say that everything variable in the church is, as such, determined by the world, only not everything in the same manner. That is, what has happened and has gradually come to exist in human beings by the Holy Spirit is as it is because the world on which the Holy Spirit works was as it was. Recognizable in all the gifts of the Spirit is a determinate basis in human nature by virtue of which it has had to be shaped in such and such a way. Moreover, in the entire development of the new human being, the manner and degree of progress depends on the development of nature in any given subject and on the state of the subject’s environs. Likewise, however, the manner in which Christian community takes shape within a people depends on that people’s distinctive mode of being. This is the case, in that apart from this distinctive mode of being there would be no basis for the Holy Spirit’s shaping Christian community in such and such a way in one place and differently in another place.

Consequently, the determining basis for all the Holy Spirit’s community-forming activity is in the world, by virtue of the principle5 that Christianity is to develop as a historical force, and the world shows up in contexts provided by that force as that force is moved and suffused by the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, everything that is indeed within the church—because it is in and on those through whom the Holy Spirit works—but that is within the church, though not by virtue of the Holy Spirit’s activity, is determined by the world. It is all so determined inasmuch as it inveighs against the Holy Spirit and presents an intrusion of the world into the domain of the church. Included therein is not only what is, in the strict sense, to be called sins of regenerate persons, but also all obstructive and distortive influence that their sinfulness exercises alongside the efficacious action of the Holy Spirit and, likewise, all falsity and perversity that insinuates itself into religious consciousness.

Now, although all this interference is constantly in process of disappearing, it is also renewed over and over again as often as the Holy Spirit takes possession in some new area, just as both the signs of being grasped and the signs of resistance are already no less to be found in the domain of preparatory grace. The same thing also applies to those variations in Christian community which depend on the multiplicity that is posited in human nature. Not only is what develops out of this multiplicity by virtue of adherent sinfulness in the church supposed to be in process of disappearing, but also the more close-knit that community becomes, the more is each person, as one seeks what others possess, also supposed to take that up into oneself, and in this way the differences between them will, of course, also then naturally diminish proportionately. Yet, if that process also occurs in some fashion in every generation, the task is, nonetheless, renewed undiminished in the next one.

2. Now, if what is self-identical in the Christian church is to be considered in and of itself, inasmuch as it can be viewed, to a certain degree, as a manifold, then this self-identity is laid down within the disciplines both of Christian faith-doctrine and of Christian ethics.6 This is so, for the following reasons. First, if we want to depict⁷ the likeness of Christ, which we would increasingly strive to approximate, then this depiction consists in the basic characteristics of Christian life most recently laid down in Christian ethics. Therein, however, the explication⁸ of Christian consciousness is already coposited as an integrating component. Second, if we want to depict the self-identity of the Christian church as the locus of the Holy Spirit, then the church has to be presented as bearing within itself the truth into which the Holy Spirit can lead. Yet, third, those two disciplines cannot be presented in any way other than in terms of temporal and spatial differences. Thus, we can only say that in those two disciplines, and in all that are attached to them, what we actually aspire to present is that which is self-identical, but for this purpose there is not any means of presentation other than that variable one. However, fourth, the same is likewise the case in all Christian elements of life, inasmuch as the truth to which the Spirit leads underlies them and inasmuch as they contain within them characteristics of the likeness of Christ.

Now, the totality of these Christian elements of life is none other than the historical reality of the Christian church over its entire course. Accordingly, we would also have to turn to this historical reality if we would want to depict what is variable and changing, and thus we would also not be able to do this without having coposited what is unvarying and self-identical in this reality at the same time. This is all the more obvious as all such efforts, from which those changing formations of faith-doctrine and Christian ethics emerge, are seen to comprise a small portion of the church’s overall course. Consequently, neither discipline is to be presented without the other.

Suppose that someone should want to set forth what is self-identical and unvarying in Christianity in complete separation from what is historical in it. Then one’s undertaking would scarcely be distinguishable from that of people who believe they have presented Christianity by communicating pure speculation. Suppose, furthermore, that someone should want to bring to light9 only what is entirely variable in Christian history, entirely apart from what is self-identical. Then this person would seem to have intended to do nothing other than what those do who, by sticking with the outermost shell, show us only the ruinous contributory play of blind delusion and passion in the history of the Christian church.

Now, it is clear that the two elements cannot be presented in isolation from each other without making the distinctive nature of the church unrecognizable. Yet, here we cannot handle the two elements bound together exactly in the way that was pointed out just above, either. Thus, in the doctrine of the church in its coexistence with the world, it will be possible to proceed only as follows. First, we must set forth those main activities by the constancy of which the explication regarding this whole over time actually becomes the explication belonging to the Christian church. Moreover, these main activities will consequently form the church’s own essential and invariable basic characteristics. Next, we must set forth those properties of community by which it distinguishes itself during its coexistence with the world from what it can also be in its appearance only once this obstructive contrast between church and world will have come to an end; yet, that is what the church, viewed internally, also is all along, inasmuch as it is the same entity under both forms. Now, that invariable element is essentially grounded in the fact that the church can endure and attain to its perfection¹⁰ only through that whereby it has also emerged. As determined by the world, the second, changeable element, however, is also especially traceable to what the world offers to that efficacious action of the church’s moving principle, which, in turn, ever presses upon the world.

Accordingly, this second section falls into two halves. The first half contains the essential—and irrespective of its coexistence with the world—invariable basic characteristics of the church. The second half presents what is changeable, what the church bears within itself by virtue of its coexistence with the world.

1. Ed. note: Schleirmacher often speaks of expecting considerable diversity in and among churches as to expressions and practices of piety, beliefs, and other distinctive characteristics—many by virtue of their visible relation to the external world. Their strengths in relation to the divine (Holy) Spirit’s work in the Christian church (viewed as its “common spirit”) comprise the “united,” “invisible” church (cf. §§21–22, 121–25). On his carefully nuanced position concerning smaller separatist communities such as the Herrnhüter Brethren, see OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 8.

2. Hilfsbedürftigkeit. Ed. note: Literally, needing help (redemption).

3. In §65ff.

4. Häuflein. Ed. note: Cf. Luke 12:32 (“little flock,” kleine Herde).

5. Gesetz.

6. Glaubenslehre. Ed. note: As indicated earlier, the first German term translates doctrina fidei, doctrine concerning Christian faith. Likewise, the second German term means doctrine concerning Christian life, thus all that is customary (Sitte) there, not only what some narrower conception points to as morals. This is one of the many locations in which Schleiermacher describes a close coordination between faith doctrine and Christian living. For a full explanation of the latter term, see Hermann Peiter’s Christliche Ethik bei Schleiermacher / Christian Ethics according to Schleiermacher (2010).

7. Ed. note: Here “depict” translates vorstellig machen, which means to give the best, most approximate depiction (Abbild, “likeness”) or notion (Vorstellung) of Christ that we possibly can. The same locution is used in relation both to Christ and to the Holy Spirit.

8. Entwicklung. Ed. note: Although Christian consciousness can indeed be thought of as “unfolding” or “developing” over time—two other meanings of the word—these meanings do not appear to be appropriate in this context.

9. Ed. note: The expression “bring to light” translates zur Anschauung bringen.

10. Vollkommenheit. Ed. note: In §§157–63, what Schleiermacher calls “prophetic doctrine” regarding such a “perfection” of the church is referred to as its “consummation” (Vollendung).

THE FIRST HALF [OF THE SECOND DIVISION]

The Essential and Invariable Basic Characteristics¹ of the Church

[Introduction to the First Half]

§127. Irrespective of the changeable characteristics² that are inseparable from its coexistence with the world, the Christian community is still always and everywhere self-identical: first, inasmuch as witness to Christ is ever the same within the community—and this selfsame witness is found in Holy Scripture and in ministry with respect to the Word of God; second, inasmuch as joining into and maintaining vital community with Christ rests on the same ordinances of Christ—and these are baptism and the Lord’s Supper;³ third, inasmuch as the mutual influence of the whole on the individual and of the individual on the whole is always ordered in the same way—and this is displayed in the office of the keys and in prayer in Jesus’ name.⁴

1. To begin with, it is certainly necessary to dispel the objection as to how the unity and self-sameness of the church is to rest on these points of doctrine, among which none would have escaped being an object of controversy. Indeed, among these points of doctrine, several have been so differently formulated in different regions of Christendom that, precisely on that account, they have constituted particular mutually exclusive communities and, in reverse, others who also want to be regarded as Christians have been rejected by particular communities. First of all, this objection is the most direct confirmation of what was said above,⁵ that it is not possible to present either one of the two features6—changeableness and selfsameness—in isolation from the other. Indeed, in accordance with what was indicated in the Introduction⁷ concerning the relationship between Catholicism and Protestantism, it will appear quite natural that Evangelical doctrine on almost all these subjects must be found to be in contradiction to Roman doctrine. The same is true, however, with respect to a number of small church communities that are, to be sure, essentially Protestant and that leave us far behind in their opposition to the Roman church. Yet, in any case, a distinction between internal and external factors is to be drawn here. This is needed, for no Christian community will concede that such a community could persist without witness regarding Christ and, indeed, in such a way that what is essential in that witness would be the same overall. Just as little could such a community persist without a continuity of vital community with Christ, to which also belongs a linking of that community with the newly arisen life at the turnover of generations. Further, wherever there is talk of a perfect community that rests in a common spirit, there a mutual influence of the whole and individuals on each other has to be presupposed as well. Thus, the variations only in part affect how some external factor is to be fitted to the internal factor and only in part affect notions of the necessity and exactness of the connection between this internal factor and some external factor, however the connection may be formed. So, the most important thing, with respect to these variations, is that one judge correctly whether they are based on spatial and temporal variations in the spiritual nature of human beings, and are thus unavoidable, or whether they are to be regarded as fallible⁸ because they are based on encroachments of the world upon the church. The latter variations are then all the more resolutely to be resisted, the more those encroachments reach into the innermost sanctum of the church, while the former variations are counterbalanced of themselves through mutual recognition.

2. The next task is to comment a bit more on the relation in which these ecclesial institutions are set here and on how they fit together. If we proceed from the principle that our Christianity is to be the same as that of the apostles, then ours too must arise through the personal influences of Christ, since spiritual states are not independent of the way in which they emerge. Today, however, these influences of Christ cannot proceed from him directly, because they could never be recognized as having proceeded from him in a supernatural manner, with a surety such that they should not also have to have a confirmatory proof of their identity with those original influences. In consequence, we would always have to trace influences of Christ back to those that are given to us in presentations regarding Christ’s personal existence. Moreover, just as a self-initiated activity for the sake of the reign of God through the communication of the Spirit could never have come to pass, even in the disciples, without those influences, so the efficacious action of those presentations regarding Christ would always be an indispensable condition if the Holy Spirit is to be communicated.

Now, this position certainly does not seem to embrace the entirety of what is written in the New Testament. Nor would it necessarily allow everything that is taught about the church to be explicated using that source alone. However, as regards the latter process, we do assign that to the further progress of the church. As regards the first process, we observe that, in general, the existing letter of Scripture does not even seem to be an essential factor for the given purpose; rather, the possibility also of an oral transmission must be granted, inasmuch as an intact identity of tradition could be guaranteed only by it. Moreover, to that extent we can consent to the view that this form in which the personal existence of Christ is presented to us does not belong indispensably to the very being of the church but belongs more to its well-being. Yet, as pertains to the greater portion of the New Testament writings, which do not actually have to do with the gospel: on the one hand, these writings contain proof that the church-forming self-initiated activity that Christ promised actually derived from the influences of Christ himself and from the witness of his disciples that Christ called for, and to that extent these writings are the charter for what we possess; on the other hand, they are a supplement to those direct expressions of Christ, in that we are able to derive from the disciples’ arrangements and actions Christ’s own instructions and expressed intentions, conceived as their source.

However, as it is, Scripture—both each individual book in and of itself as well as the collection, a treasure laid up for all subsequent generations of the church—is always the work of the Holy Spirit as the common spirit of the church. However, Scripture is only a particular instance of the witness to Christ expressed, in a general way, in our proposition. This is explained by the fact that originally oral and written teachings and stories about Christ were the same and were only incidentally varied. Today Scripture is something special, because its unaltered preservation guarantees, in a distinctive way, the identity of our witness to Christ with the original one. Still, Scripture would be only a lifeless holding if this preservation were not an ever-renewing self-initiated activity of the church that, at the same time, becomes manifest in that living witness to Christ which refers back to Scripture or harmonizes with it in meaning and spirit. Moreover, here the expression “ministry of the divine Word” is to be understood only under this perspective in its general character as a duty and calling of all members of the church—provisionally apart from its every specific formation.

Considered in this general sense, however, and related to each other in this way, these two first points of doctrine9 are necessary, because otherwise faith could arise only through direct influences, wherewith the selfsameness of faith could not be expected nor could the truth of it be authenticated. Yet, this ministry of the Word proves to be efficacious, as it were, not only outwardly; rather, it is an organic constitutive feature when viewed within the church as well, stemming as it does from Christ himself for the sake of more enlivening and strengthening communication.

For the same reason, namely, that we have nothing more to expect from the direct personal influences of Christ, today entering into vital community with Christ and renewal of it must also proceed from the church, and these activities must be traced back to the church’s actions, but traced back only to such actions as are to be viewed as activities of Christ, at the same time, so that in no way would Christ retain a passive stance therewith and stay in the shadows over against the church. This communality, moreover, comprises the distinctive nature of the two sacraments.¹⁰ This is the case, for although, in accordance with its original institution, baptism did not initiate the relationship between the church and individuals, everything that preceded it first attained confirmation through baptism, in such a way that continuity of conscious vital community with Christ did first begin with baptism. Further, the Lord’s Supper is also not the sole medium for sustaining vital community with Christ, and, even in a preliminary way at this point, this observance is not to be conceived as something that can be isolated so as to produce a distinct effect. Nevertheless, we hold it to be the supreme action of this kind and engage in all other enjoyment in Christ as subsidiary approximations to it or as continuations of it. Hence, here we keep ourselves more to this idea of the Lord’s Supper underlying its observance than to the external form under which it is realized.

In the same manner, all influence of the whole on individuals is concentrated in the forgiveness of sin. This is the case, for to the degree that the sins and good works of the regenerate persist over against each other, good works can be recognized only to the degree that any sin adhering to them is taken away. At the same time, however, good works are the seed and fruit of the gifts of the Spirit, which develop in such a way within each person that forgiveness of sin also first assigns to these good works their locus in the community of the faithful.¹¹

Finally, as concerns prayer in Jesus’ name, the influence of individuals on the whole is to be represented by this prayer. Without prayer in Jesus’ name there can be no progress in a whole that is animated by a common spirit and that is, to this extent, a self-contained whole. Accordingly, there can be no prayer in Jesus’ name except with respect to the affairs of his reign. Thus, the efficacious action of this reign, which Christ has promised even to the smallest association of individuals, underlies an influence of individuals on the whole. However, if we view this prayer as the representative of all such individual influences on the whole, then this characteristic rests on a presupposition that is immediately evident to any Christian, namely, that prayer necessarily includes and assumes one’s own activity for the purpose of obtaining what is asked for. Consequently, without these last two institutions there would be no order, nor progress or success, in the church’s collective life.12

3. Still, it will best be shown that everything on which the unity and selfsameness of the Christian church rests in all times and places is also fully assembled here if we return to the church’s relationship to Christ. That is, in that, on the one hand, the church as Christ’s organism—which is meant when it is called “the body of Christ” in Scripture¹³—relates to Christ as outer factor relates to inner factor; accordingly in its essential activities it must also be the likeness of Christ’s activities. Moreover, in that what is effected through the church is nothing other than the progressive realization of redemption in the world, accordingly its activities must, at the same time, consist of further progressions of Christ’s activities. Thus, in the same way in which we have referred these activities of Christ to the scheme of his three offices,¹⁴ it must be possible also to demonstrate the likeness and further progression of these offices in the essential activities of the church to be set forth here.

Accordingly, prayer in Jesus’ name, inasmuch as it includes the whole activity to which each individual is called, is the likeness of Christ’s kingly activity, both in and of itself and as regards the relationship of Christ’s rule to that of the Father. It is the latter to the extent that it ends up in any given person’s expression of thoughts concerning the spread of God’s reign, which is left in God’s hands, and to the extent that it concerns encroachment of the world. It is the former in that all purposes that proceed from the strength of God-consciousness are contained therein. In addition, the office of the keys comprises everything that belongs to order in the church and to that valuing of persons¹⁵ in the church which derives from a consciousness belonging to the whole. Thus, here we have the further progression of Christ’s kingly activity, which began with Christ’s selection of the disciples and selection of ordinances for the community to follow.

Further, Christ’s prophetic activity consists of his self-presentation and his summons to enter the reign of God. Thus, Holy Scripture—inasmuch as its composition and preservation, viewed as a work of the church, most directly brings Christ to mind—is also the most steady likeness of his prophetic activity. In contrast, we can view ministry of the Word only as the further progression of that activity, since applying a presentation in common with Christ and a summoning of people in his name are the essential features of that ministry.

Finally, if one separates the activity of Christ’s high-priestly office as far as possible from his prophetic and kingly offices, what is essential in this office is chiefly to be found in the fact that he mediates communion of human beings with God; then we will not hesitate to acknowledge a reference to this office in the two sacraments. Indeed, we will do so in such a way that baptism will be viewed more as a likeness,16 on account of its more symbolic character, while the Lord’s Supper will be viewed more as a further progression, on account of its more real contents.

At the same time, a result of this systematic combination of doctrines is that everything that belongs to Christ’s activity finds its likeness and its further progression here, in that the first three points of doctrine also likewise belong to Christ’s redeeming activity, just as the three succeeding ones belong to Christ’s reconciling activity.¹⁷ Also, in our Evangelical conception of Christianity we will have nothing to exhibit in the Christian church that we would want to put at equal rank with these six institutions. Instead, we desire neither to place tradition alongside Scripture nor to subordinate ministry of the Word to any symbolic observances. We desire neither to let the sacraments multiply nor to destroy their analogy with the other points of doctrine by assuming magical effects in them. We desire neither to limit prayer in the name of Christ by seeking intercession of the saints nor to grant validity for the office of the keys to a special representative of Christ, whether it be individual or collegial in nature.

1. Das wesentlichen und unveränderlichen Grundzüge.

2. Das Wandelbaren. Ed. note: See the title for the second half, just before §148, for the account of what is set aside here.

3. Ed. note: See also OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 12, on the regulation that all who are allowed to partake of the Lord’s Supper are to engage first in “previous meditation and preparation.” In place of this regulation, Schleiermacher proposes welcoming all who desire to be there. The event itself, in his view, offers the core experience of mystery and grace within worshiping Christian communities of faith. His own practice as a presiding pastor was closer to Huldrych Zwingli’s internal emphasis than to Luther’s sense of the “outward” manifestation of grace. See esp. §§139–42.

4. Ed. note: See OR (1821) I, supplemental notes 1 and 2, on values for faith and ministry, also contrary to use of anthropomorphisms, of “a more deeply speculative sensibility,” in which “faith is already essentially posited.” See also OR II, subsections “Rationalism and Superstition” and “Religion as System (like Music).”

5. Ed. note: In §126.

6. Elementen. Ed. note: As elsewhere here “features” translates this word, to save the English “element” to translate Moment.

7. See §24.

8. Ed. note: für fehlerhaft zu achten.

9. Ed. note: §§128–32 and 133–35, on Scripture and ministry, respectively.

10. Ed. note: §§136–38 and 139–42, on baptism and the Lord’s Supper, respectively.

11. Ed. note: See §§144–45 on the power of the keys, and finally §§146–47 on prayer in Jesus’ name. On both, see Matt. 18:19–20. On prayer in Jesus’ name, see John 14:13–14; 15:16; and 16:23–26.

12. Gesamtleben. Ed. note: Here, as elsewhere in this work, the “collective life” of the church, itself quite differently constituted, is always to be contrasted with the “collective life” of sin.

13. Ed. note: 1 Cor. 10:16; 12:27; and Eph. 4:12. In this respect, as a “body” the collectivity of the church becomes distinctively corporate.

14. Ed. note: §§102–5: prophet, high priest, and king.

15. Personen.

16. Abbild. Ed. note: Throughout this consideration of the three offices of Christ, this term “likeness” is used to relate the church’s essential activities or basic, invariable characteristics directly to the activities, or work, of Christ.

17. Ed. note: Thus, §100 is further explicated in §§128–38, and §101 is further explicated in §§139–47.