[Introduction to First Point of Doctrine]
§128. The authority of Holy Scripture cannot be the basis of faith in Christ; rather, in order to accord special authority to Holy Scripture, this fact already must be presupposed.
1. The polemical introduction of this proposition simply rests on the fact that what we deny here is actually claimed, and in practice it might well be assumed far more frequently than it is decidedly asserted, in that all books on doctrine and all confessional writings that preface the doctrine of Scripture as the source of Christian faith seem definitely to encourage precisely this view.
Now, on this account, the need arises herewith to place the misunderstanding that underlies this practice in its proper light. That is, when faith in Jesus as the Christ or as the Son of God and the Redeemer of human beings is supposed to be based on the authority of Scripture, the question arises as to how one intends to establish a ground for this authority, since this must, nevertheless, obviously be done in such a way that one would impress a conviction upon the minds and hearts of those who are not faithful such that they would also come to faith in the Redeemer along this pathway. Now, if one has no starting point other than common reason, then it would have to be possible, first and foremost, to demonstrate the divine authority of Scripture purely on the grounds of reason, and two considerations are to be recalled in opposition to that move. The first consideration is that, in any case, this effort presupposes a critical and scientific use of intellect, of which not all persons are capable. Thus, only persons who are competent in these skills could have faith handed down to them1 in an original and authentic fashion; all others would simply have faith only secondhand and on the authority of those experts.
Now, if the matter were that of providing insight into the doctrine and evaluating various conceptions of it, we could indeed assume such a gradation2 in our arena, too. However, to assume such a gradation for possession of genuinely salvific faith does not at all comport with the sense of equality among Christians that the Evangelical church declares. Rather, after the manner of the Roman church, it would demand of the laity an unconditional, obedient faith in those who alone have authority over the grounds of faith. This is so, for the right of access to the divine word that we afford to all Christians and the zeal with which we seek to keep it in vital circulation in no way relate to a supposition that everyone is supposed to be able to offer proof that these books contain a divine revelation.
Second, suppose that such a proof could be offered and that faith could be grounded in this way, and consequently, given a certain degree of intellectual culture,3 that one could come close to demonstrating this faith. Then, by this route faith could exist even in persons who have no consciousness of a need for redemption at all, thus could also exist independently of repentance and change of mind, and thus, by virtue of this mode of emergence, this faith would not actually be the true and vital faith. Consequently, in and of itself, this conviction, attained by proof, would not be of any use. That is to say, this conviction would not, of itself, sprout true and vital community with Christ. However, wherever the need for redemption would ring true, quickening faith4 would also arise from tidings5 of Christ that are not tied at all to conviction regarding a special quality of these books. Instead, this faith could rest on that other witness, which is itself tied to a perception6 of Christ’s spiritual effects; consequently, it could also rest on oral tradition.
2. Now, where the issue concerns the ground for faith, we would scarcely be able to allow a distinction between different classes of people,7 any more than we would be able to allow a distinction between different times. Rather, the ground of faith must be the same among us as among the first Christians. Suppose one then wanted to say that among those early Christians from the apostles onward, the ground of faith would have emerged, in any case, from their faith in Scripture, namely, the Old Testament and especially the prophetic sayings regarding Christ contained therein. Then here the only thing to be added to what was said above8 is this: Although already at the outset of their relationship with Jesus, the apostles designated him as the one predicted by the prophets,9 this can in no way be understood as if they would have been brought to faith by studying these prophecies and comparing their content with what they saw in Jesus and heard from him. Instead, the immediate impression in their minds and hearts, prepared by the witness of John the Baptist, had awakened faith, and that early faith was simply an affirmation regarding this faith aroused by John the Baptist, itself tied to their faith in the prophets. In their proclamation10 the apostles also struck the same path themselves, in that, referring first of all to Jesus’ deeds and discourses, they expressly shared their own faith and only then cited the prophetic witnesses as confirmation. Accordingly, just as their faith arose from Christ’s own preaching regarding himself, so did faith arise in others from their preaching regarding him and from the preaching of many others.
Now, to the extent that the New Testament writings are such a preaching that has come to us, our faith also arises from them. In no way, however, is this the case under the condition that a special doctrine concerning these writings, namely, that they would have arisen from a special divine revelation or inspiration, would have to have been set forth and assumed in advance.11 Instead, this faith would have been able to arise in the same manner even if there would have remained to us only those testimonies, of which one could not deny that, alongside Christ’s essential testimonies regarding himself and alongside the original preaching of his disciples, in the particulars they contained much that would be misunderstood or would be improperly conceived or in the confusions of memory would be set forth in an improper light.
Thus, if we do not need such a doctrine in order to attain faith, and if the attempt to require people not of faith to come to faith by means of such a doctrine could never succeed, the consequences are as follows. First, we notice that the apostles already had faith before they entered into a position rather different from faith itself, a position in which they were able to contribute their part to these books. Likewise, among us faith already has to precede, before we are led by reading these writings to assume both a position like that in which they had been written down and a makeup of these books grounded in this position. Second, it will always be possible to make such a doctrine acceptable only to those who have already become persons of faith.
3. Hence, in the entire explication of faith up to now, we have presupposed only this faith itself as it is contained in a mind and heart that is in need of redemption, by means of whatever tidings it may have arisen. We have cited Scripture, however, only as it affirms that same faith in detail. Moreover, only at this point is Scripture first dealt with, especially in its natural relation to the Christian church, and only at this point is the question of its distinction from other books brought into consideration. Even so, that method which places the doctrine of Scripture in front—whether it appears in confessional writings or in books of doctrine—is not to be absolutely reproved if by proof of doctrinal propositions from Scripture one simply understands nothing other than a demonstration that a proposition documented in such a way expresses an authentic and original feature of Christian piety. Further, this process works only if caution is exercised so that it does not appear that a doctrine is supposed to belong to Christianity because it is contained in Scripture—since, on the contrary, it is contained in Scripture only because it belongs to Christianity. If we were to be satisfied with the first of these two options, then dogmatic theology would also remain only an aggregate of individual propositions, the internal interconnectedness of which is not elucidated. Their relationship to the common faith of the church would then be one or the other of two things. First, true and complete surety of faith would exist only where readiness to prove the divinity of Scripture exists. All who are not so greatly educated scientifically, however, would simply “believe” on authority, and thus piety would proceed from and depend on such science. Second, to the extent that the laity would be cut loose from this process and would ground their faith in their experience and rejoice in the vitality of that faith, for the community of the church scientific presentation would become something useless and vapid. Therefore, it has been of importance for this present mode of presentation to grasp its true aim independent of Scripture and to assign to the doctrine of Scripture its locus only at this spot, where by this time its distinctive authority12 can come to clear consciousness in the relation of what is self-identical to what is changeable in the church and in proper interconnection with the other essential features of the church.
1. Ed. note: The phrase “have faith handed down to them” translates den Glauben … überkommen.
2. Abstüfung. Ed. note: That is, a “gradation” that reflects a passing down from experts to others who are presumed to be at a lower level.
3. Geistesbildung. Ed. note: Or “cultivation of the mind”; in significant contrast, “spiritual formation” would be geistige Gestaltung.
4. Ed. note: der lebendig machende Glaube.
5. Kunde. Ed. note: In this context, it is fitting to recall that the word for “proclamation”—as in preaching good tidings, the good news—is Verkündigung.
6. Anschauung.
7. Ed. note: On the affirmation that in its view of the roles of clergy and monks versus laity, Protestantism tends to be closer to the true church than Roman Catholicism, see OR IV, supplemental note 13. See also CF §§24, 127.1, 143.3, and references to each church in the index.
8. In §14.P.S.
9. John 1:45. Ed. note: Sermon on John 1:43–51, July 21, 1823, SW II.8 (1837), 100–111.
10. Verkündigung.
11. Ed. note: On “inspiration,” see §14.2.
12. Ansehn. Ed. note: Not Autorität, which was used just above in the phrase “on authority.” Ansehn is the term that is translated throughout this work as “authority,” to refer to what is a properly authoritative source, also bearing within it normative dignity and importance.
§129. On the one hand, the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament are the first member in the whole series of presentations of Christian faith, continued ever since. On the other hand, they comprise the norm for all succeeding presentations.1
1. That the Holy Scriptures are the first member in an incipient series presupposes that the succeeding members are of the same kind, and this goes for their form as well as their content. If one divides the New Testament writings, as usual, into books of history and of teaching, this arrangement is actually correct only to the extent that one divides them not according to their predominant content but according to their external form. The reason is that in the historical books the didactic discourses of Christ and the apostles form a highly significant part, and, with few exceptions, the letters of the apostles are intelligible only to the extent that they either contain historical elements straightaway or as we are able to construct their historical circumstances out of them.
Whether we then keep to this division or set it aside and attend more to the form of particular features in these books, we will always have to say that everything that has attained currency as presentation of Christian piety through language in later periods of the Christian church has moved within the same original forms or has been attached to them as an explanatory accompaniment. We find this to be so, for even religious poetic art in the lyrical form, which is the only true poetic form used in the church, already has its seed in the New Testament, and, on the other hand, all the explanatory and systematic works that have less originality and autonomy as presentations of Christian piety serve only as aids for interpreting those original products and those compilations that are derived from them.
As regards contents, the general rule is to be applied first and foremost, here too, that in every community any particular attains currency only to the degree that it expresses the community’s common spirit. In this respect too, we will also have to view everything of this sort that still bears influence alongside the Holy Scriptures as bearing similarity to them, but concerning what does not still bear influence we also cannot demonstrate that it has a place in the series.
2. Suppose, however, that redemption is increasingly to be realized over time in the historical development of the Christian church and that, consequently, the Holy Spirit is also to penetrate the whole of it ever more completely. Then, on the contrary, it does not seem that the first member of this series, or of any other series, can, at the same time, be the norm for all the members that follow, not if every later stage in this development is to be more complete than its predecessors. This point also bears some truth, but only if one combines two elements, each in its entirety, for if we observe the Christian church during the apostolic age as a unity, then the totality of the thoughts engendered in it cannot also serve as the norm for the thoughts engendered in subsequent ages. The reason lies in the naturally very unequal apportionment of the divine Spirit among those thoughts. Moreover, since not everyone produced religious notions only in accordance with the degree of one’s participation in this common spirit, in those days religious presentations could very easily have arisen that, strictly taken, came more from Jewish or Gentile thought that was affected by Christianity than from Christianity itself, because Jewish and Gentile views and maxims were still rooted in their thought, and the contradictions they bore over against the Christian spirit could come to be recognized only gradually. Consequently, viewed as Christian presentations, these presentations were imperfect to the highest degree.
Contemporaneous with these most imperfect presentations, however, were the proclamatory presentations of Christ’s immediate disciples. Among them, the danger of an unconscious, contaminating influence from their previous Jewish forms of thought and life on their presentation of what is Christian in word and deed would have been averted, depending on how near to Christ they had stood, through the purifying influence of their living memory of the whole and undivided Christ. That is to say, thereby in all that developed to such clarity of consciousness, since such clarity of consciousness must precede any presentation in discourse, anything contradictory to the Spirit that brings life and to the teaching of Christ would have to have been immediately disclosed to them. Consequently, this process would apply, above all, to their accounts of Christ’s very discourses and deeds, by means of which what was to exert the most general, purifying influence was being established. Then, however, this process would apply, first and foremost, to all that the apostles taught and arranged for Christian congregations, because there they were acting in the name of Christ, though even when they proceeded more as individuals on their own, each one would also find not only his complement but also his correction in some other apostle.2
Thus, in these two ways, within the apostolic age itself the most complete and the most incomplete material stood side by side, viewed as “canonical” and “apocryphal,” respectively. Both terms are taken in the sense that resulted from earlier discussion here—that is, as two extremes that could not return in any later age in the same manner. This was the case, for presentations in the church increasingly had to distance themselves from what was apocryphal, because influence on the church of alien religious features—though in particular instances new portions were still constantly accruing to the church from the domain of Judaism—nevertheless subsided proportionately as the greatest portion of Christians had already come to be born and raised in the bosom of the church. In comparison, however, after that time the church could also no longer attain to what was canonized, because the living perception3 of Christ could no longer ward off contaminating influences in the same immediate way but only in a way that was derived from those writings and thus was dependent on them.
Hence, if we take the two together, canonical and apocryphal writings, even the apostolic age is seen to have stood under the general rule indicated, for the efficacy of the canonical writings seems to have been more secure and their influence more widespread as influence from the apocryphal writings faded, even at the very edges of the church. So, viewed as a whole, the later presentation would also seem to be the more nearly perfect one. In contrast, if we consider the canonical writings in and of themselves, these do bear in themselves a normative value for all times. We do not ascribe this value to every aspect of our Holy Scriptures equally but only to the degree that the authors are found to be in the situation just described. Accordingly, occasional utterances and purely incidental thoughts do not accrue the same degree of normative value as what belongs to the main subject in each instance. Further, we do not understand the Holy Scriptures in such a way that all later presentation would have to be uniformly derived from the canon and be inchoately contained in it already. That is to say, since that time when the Spirit was poured out upon all flesh,4 no era was also to be without a distinctive originality with respect to Christian thought. Yet, on the one hand, nothing is to be regarded as a pure product of the Christian spirit unless it is possible to demonstrate that it is in accord with those original products; and, on the other hand, no later product accrues an authority equal to those original writings if the aim is to ensure the Christian character of a given presentation or to point out the non-Christian character of one.
1. Ed. note: See OR (1821) V, supplemental note 17, for further explication of “the normative biblical power” of the New Testament canon, even though it has to be open to new discoveries.
2. Cf. Gal. 2:11ff. Ed. note: See also Acts 11:19–26 for closely related examples.
3. Anschauung.
4. Ed. note: Acts 2:17.
§130. First Doctrinal Proposition. The individual books of the New Testament are inspired by the Holy Spirit, and their collection has arisen under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
(1) First Helvetic Confession (1536) I: “The canonical scriptures, the Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit, delivered to the world by the prophets and apostles,” etc.1
(2) Gallican Confession (1559) V: “We believe that the Word contained in these books has proceeded from God and receives its authority from him alone and not from men.”2
(3) Scots Confession (1560) XVIII: “The interpretation of Scripture … appertains to the Spirit of God by whom the Scriptures were also written.”3
(4) Belgic Confession (1561) III: “We confess that … holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost … and that afterwards God … commanded his servants, the prophets and apostles, to commit his revealed Word to writing.”4
(5) Declaratio Toruniensus (= Acta synodua generalis Toruniensus, 1645), in the general confession: “We confess … that we embrace the holy canonical … scriptures … written originally by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,” and so forth.5
1. It is not easy to assign an exact boundary to the ecclesial expression “inspiration.”6 Before special treatment of the matter, moreover, we intend at this point to offer only the following preliminary remarks regarding the word. The expression “inspired by God”7 refers to writings in the Old Testament, which historical reference, in turn, most decidedly underlies this terminology. The expression does, to be sure, lead very easily to the thought of a relationship of the Holy Spirit to a given writer, a relationship that refers especially to this act of writing and does not exist otherwise. Less subject to this collateral notion is the expression “moved by the Holy Spirit,”8 for here the interpretation that these men were already constantly moved by the Holy Spirit and in this state then also spoke and wrote is, in and of itself, just as obvious as the interpretation that they were first moved to spoken discourse and writing.
Now, since the ecclesial expression is not exactly in accordance with Scripture and is figurative besides, it will be necessary to define it in relation to cognate expressions that also designate how a person comes to form one’s notions. In this regard, then, on the one hand, what is inspired along with what is learned from it is in contrast to what is thought out, just as what has emerged under the influence of another’s self-activity is in contrast with what is devised based entirely on one’s own activity. In turn, what is inspired contrasts, on the other hand, with what is learned, in that what is learned is derived from something communicated from without, whereas what is inspired emerges for others as something original that is entirely dependent on communication from within. Hence, what is presented by a person who has learned may approximate something mechanistic as nearly as you please, whereas what comes to the fore in what is inspired can be seen as due to the complete freedom of a person’s own productivity.
The general practice of also calling Sacred Scripture “revelation,” however, gives rise to the not infrequent practice of mixing up the two concepts, which cannot but lead to some confusion. This occurs in that if one should understand the matter in such a way that by writing down Sacred Scripture in a state of inspiration these authors would declare9 its content in a special divine fashion, this would be an entirely groundless claim. This is the case whether one looks more at the act of composing a sacred book itself or more at the arousal of thoughts that precede and underlie that act. That is to say, because all that they teach is traceable to Christ, the original divine declaration of whatever is contained in the Sacred Scriptures also has to be present in Christ himself. This material should in no way be isolated after the manner of inspiration, however, but should be one indivisible declaration from which all the particulars develop organically. Thus, the speaking and writing of the apostles, moved as they were by the Spirit, was also a communicating of the divine revelation that existed in Christ.
Now, our proposition ascribes to the Holy Spirit not only the composing of the individual books, however, but also their compilation so as to form the New Testament canon, and another expression does service for the latter process. Thus, this distinction rests, first and foremost, on the fact that we regard the composition of a book as the intentional act of an individual, but compilation of the canon is the result of a complex process of collaboration and counteraction in the church, so that not everything that has contributed to that compilation can be equally attributed to the Holy Spirit. Yet, generally the same value is not assigned to each of the two concepts as it is here; rather, some would be satisfied with only a guiding activity of the Spirit even in the process of composing the books, while others also raise this activity to the point of inspiration in the process of compilation as well.
2. If we return to the concept of the Holy Spirit as the common spirit of the Christian church, hence also as the source of all spiritual gifts and good works, then all production of thoughts is also to be traced back to, and is thus inspired by, this common spirit insofar as that production belongs to the reign of God. Thought production in the apostolic age, however, fits this description in such a way that the two contrasting features, apocryphal and canonical, are included. Accordingly, in the apocryphal writings only particular traces of a connection with the collective life of Christians are seen to stem from the Spirit, and in the canonical writings the efficacious action of the Spirit is more closely detected only in terms of an individual entity10 in each case, almost without being weakened or altered thereby, yet in such a way that in no individual person is the distinction from Christ entirely removed.
Now, suppose that the contrast between these two features were filled out through gradual transitions. Then the efficacious action of the Spirit would be most complete and most concentrated in the particularly notable circle of those who had walked with Christ from the very beginning of his public life, in the circle of Peter and with agreement of the entire community at that time.11 This is explained in that within this apostolic class, as one might call it, the individual members would have been so equally balanced among themselves that without violation of conscience the number of original apostles could be increased simply by lot from among the wider circle. This would have been possible in that this continuity guaranteed both purity of their zeal and integrity of their conception. However, even in this original circle no one could fail to appreciate the significant difference between elements that belonged only to the private life of individuals and those that were devoted to leadership regarding Christian concerns. This difference becomes evident, for even among the apostles the human factor would more readily have come to the fore in private life, whereas in the practice of leadership the will to let the spirit of the whole hold exclusive sway would have had to be far more determinative. Hence, what would be said and done in this role could be called inspired in a far more rigorous and definite sense.
On the other hand, a person would destroy the unity of life among these apostolic men in the most hazardous fashion if that person wanted to claim, in order really to emphasize the inspiration of Sacred Scripture above all else, that they were less animated and moved by the Holy Spirit in other aspects of their apostolic office than in the acts of writing, and, in turn, less so in formulating such material also from writings pertaining to ministry to congregations, writings that were not previously destined to be taken up into the canon and likewise stood out more in those public discourses or parts of discourses which were later preserved in the History of the Apostles,12 than in all other materials. Moreover, with or without their knowing it, this distinction was based on the fact that these discourses and writings were determined to be relevant to all future times as well, though detached from their original aims. Consequently, distinctively apostolic inspiration is not something that befits the New Testament books exclusively. Rather, these books participate in apostolic inspiration, and inspiration in this narrower sense—as it is determined by the purity and integrity of the apostles’ conception of Christianity—also extends only as far as that officially apostolic efficacious action which proceeded from this conception.
Now, suppose that in this connection someone does consider inspiration of Scripture as a special part of the apostles’ official life, which was generally guided by inspiration. Then one would hardly go so far as to bring up all the difficult questions about the prolongation of inspiration that have been answered for so long in such a way that the subject is shoved entirely outside the arena wherein it could be adjudged in terms of experience. Only an entirely dead scholasticizing outlook could either somehow want to draw a distinct boundary along the way from the initial impulse to write thence to the word actually put down or even want to present the latter in its external form, in and of itself, as a special product of inspiration.
Here the natural canon is analogous to the doctrine of Christ’s person, on condition that in the apostles’ vocational life, viewed in its totality, the efficacious action of the common spirit that holds sway within the church actually came as close as can be imagined to that person-forming union of the divine being with human nature that has constituted Christ’s person, without canceling out the specific distinction between the two modes of union. The analogy would also fit, in accordance with this criterion, only if in any apostolic act its external aspect could, in part, exist only due to a source different from that internal aspect which is decisive for its presentation. The negative answer to the question as to whether, on account of divine inspiration, the sacred books would require hermeneutical and critical treatment divergent from generally valid rules is readily understandable based on these presuppositions. Moreover, on that ground all other difficulties would automatically be disposed of.
3. In this fashion, inspiration of Scripture is traced back to the Holy Spirit’s influence in the official activity of the apostles. Thus, it could easily seem as though this determination would apply only to the books that present teaching and not likewise to the historical books as well. Regarding the latter kind, it might be thought that they would not at all be about communicating someone’s thoughts but that instead everything would simply have to do with compiling and sorting out authentic remembrances and doing so in a proper way. On the one hand, however, the apostles’ thoughts were supposed to be simply extrapolations upon Christ’s own expressions, but these expressions could be fully understood only in their context on each occasion, as they were induced by circumstances, since Christ’s discourses were indeed also occasional ones in large part. This being so, an integrated and unadulterated conception of the elements of Christ’s life would seem to be a necessary condition for the entire official activity of the apostles. We affirm, moreover, that no element of Christ’s public life can be thought of as completely divorced from his instructive and life-giving discourse but that, at the same time, all of his actions were also selfpresentations and as such were fruitful for proclamation of God’s reign by him. Yet, these elements of Christ’s public life could be conceived in the most varied way. Moreover, they could be conceived so truly for some that the natural impression that these elements made on them would also have had to grow into being a factor in their recognition of Christ’s divine dignity. That natural impression would have had to be just the reverse for others, so that the impression could be transformed into an apocalyptic caricature or could even serve toward disproving Christ’s messianic dignity.
Accordingly, we naturally find the most genuine conception of the elements of Christ’s life—a conception also in a certain sense already to be ascribed to the divine Spirit—in the same circle as those who from the very beginning followed Christ’s public life with increasing trust, having discovered the messianic promises in him. As a consequence, we find that in this same circle the genuine conception of Christ and the genuine advancement of his teaching and prescriptions belong inseparably together.
On the same basis, however, before long it became a supremely important task for the entire church to secure proper remembrances from Christ’s life according to the criterion of how each element cohered with the vision of God’s reign through Christ. Hence, we too, in service of this general apostolic purpose, must think of this recollection as subject to the influence of the Holy Spirit. We too, moreover, cannot assume any distinction in this respect between the apostolic teaching and those Gospel narratives, just as we also then find the apostles themselves telling the tale, both orally and in writing. This is the case even though this teaching issues from distinct official circumstances, consequently from vocational activity in the narrower sense. Still, the narrating too was grounded in a cooperative effort encompassing and benefiting the entirety of the church, thus in its vocational activity in the broader sense. So, the matter does not at all come down to deciding the question of whether or not the Gospel narrations were a special office of the church, one either adjacent or subordinate to apostolic proclamation. Rather, in no instance is the rendering of remembrance to be entirely sundered from historical composition, no less in oral than in written transmission, not even if we are considering only narration of a particular fact. Furthermore, the effort to make the Redeemer appear therein exactly as he was in reality is, in any case, the work of the Spirit of truth, and only to the extent that this was so can such a narration assume a place in Sacred Scripture.
Let us suppose, on the other hand, that the communication of such individual narratives is the original communication, also that the subsequent collection of these narratives actually ended up in the compilations that comprise three of our Gospels. Then the possibility must also be granted that in the process a person who would report only in a certain interconnected form what that person had experienced oneself could just as well blend into what one has experienced oneself something credible that one has heard from another person. Indeed, it is just as possible that a person who had not experienced something at all could, motivated by the same effort and by the same Spirit, compile what was derived from some purer and more original conception just as fruitfully as an actual eyewitness would have been able to do. So, if the proper choice and interconnection of historical elements already available is of primary importance in this process, then the efficacious action of the Holy Spirit in this particular enterprise would be completely contained in the analogy drawn with efficacious action in the selection of individual books for the canon.
4. Finally, as concerns the role of the Holy Spirit in the collecting of these books, the first differentiation that anyone has to take notice of is the following. Even if all the individual books in this collection do belong within the apostolic age, the collection itself certainly does not belong to it. Moreover, no tidy apostolic limit regarding what is canonical and normative can have been transmitted to us. For this matter, therefore, scarcely any other analogy remains than this, that we manage to think of the Holy Spirit ruling in the thought world of the overall Christian collectivity then in the same way as every individual does in one’s own thought world. This analogy holds, for anyone knows how to sort out one’s outstanding thoughts and to preserve them in such a way that their being brought to mind can be secured. In contrast, one lays other thoughts aside, in part to process them further, or one even disregards them entirely, leaving to chance whether they will present themselves to oneself again or not, just as one can certainly also come to the point of rejecting some thoughts entirely, sometimes precisely when they have arisen and sometimes later on. In the same way, the faithful preservation of apostolic writings would be the work of the divine Spirit in giving recognition to its own products, the work of that Spirit by which what is to remain unchanged would be distinguished from what, in the further development of Christian teaching, would be multiply transformed and over against what is apocryphal. In part, the latter products would be thrown out as soon as they would have emerged, and, in part, they would be treated in such a way that in the church both the given mode of production of such products and any taste for such products would gradually disappear.
In this connection, the only thing that can appear difficult is this, that in relation to individual books, opposing elements would succeed each other in history, in that they would first be accepted as canonical and later on would be rejected as uncanonical, and vice versa. However, on the one hand, it would not have been the judgment of the whole church that changed in this way; rather, what was earlier accepted in one region and later rejected in another region would still later be generally accepted or rejected. Moreover, for the church organized as a sizeable unity, some books could be considered disposable, in comparison with other books that were acceptable among isolated congregations and that were effective for them alone, or the reverse could be the case. On the other hand, this situation makes it clear that the collection of Sacred Scripture came into being as such only gradually and by approximation. Likewise, this same activity then continually persisted in the careful adjusting of the various degrees of normative worth that people would be able to assign to particular components of Scripture and in making decisions about lacunae and interpolations of all sorts. The result was that the church’s judgment only gradually approached complete rejection of all apocryphal writings and thus gained the position of holding all canonical writings sacred.
Now, what supported this gradual process and also guided the whole course of its procedures is simply the Holy Spirit holding sway in the church. In contrast, all wavering and all that held back this gradual approach can be somehow grounded only in the world’s influence on the church.
Hence, if in this relation someone wants to draw a sharp line between certain things that are forever settled and other things with which the church could still be occupied, one cannot recommend too much caution. The reason is that even the sense for what is truly apostolic is, as history teaches us, a gift of the Spirit that gradually ascends within the church. Accordingly, at times much can have slipped into the sacred books through people’s oversight or blunders, things which, in turn, can be recognized and definitely proved to be uncanonical only at a later time. Yet, staying on this tack also with respect to the entire collection obscures the fact that this collection has always remained self-identical ever since it first existed as such in the church, though it is not as if this determination were irrevocable. On the contrary, we are not able to provide the particulars of this determination—which we would have had so little warrant to regard as an absolute miracle or as a completely isolated work of the Holy Spirit, since that work, in accordance with its origin, is wholly unknown to us. Nor are we able even to view this determination simply as an element that could be fully accounted for only if the church were to have remained continually occupied with this enterprise and were to have been able to establish the truth ever more completely through its ever-renewed confirmatory activity but also were to have remained subject to the possibility of being corrected.
Therefore, even though many a symbolic writing of our church defines the canon,13 further free investigation concerning the canon ought not to be hindered thereby. Instead, critical research must repeatedly investigate the individual writings anew, in order to probe whether these writings are rightly included in the sacred collection. This task must be done, for only an increasingly greater surety can emerge from calling what is “genuine” into question. Even a particular situation cannot bear a negative influence on this task, a situation wherein writings exist that are otherwise undeniably apostolic or wherein writings that are closely linked with them have disappeared. This is so, for we are justified in our belief that nothing essential to the preservation and well-being of the church will have been withdrawn from us by such losses, and we are also at least equally justified in the belief that the well-being of the church can only be advanced if what does not truly belong in Sacred Scripture is differentiated from it.
1. Ed. note: ET Tice, here drawn from the original German and Latin versions in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 211; cf. Cochrane (1972), 100.
2. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 362; also Cochrane (1972), 145; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 330. The Latin text quoted by Schleiermacher ends with ab uno Deo esse profectum.
3. Ed. note: ET Tice, drawn from the original English and Latin versions in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 463, cf. also Cochrane (1972), 172; an inferior Latin version is given in Niemeyer (1840), 350, and a closely related ET was made by Bulloch (1960).
4. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 385, also Cochrane (1972), 190; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 361.
5. Ed. note: ET Kienzles; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 669.
6. Ed. note: On “inspiration,” see §14.2 and §132.
7. 2 Tim. 3:16. Ed. note: Θεόπνευστος.
8. 2 Pet. 1:21. Ed. note: ὑπὸ πνεύματος ἁγίον ϕερόμενοι. Regarding the Holy Spirit conceived as “common spirit,” see §116n1.
9. Ed. note: kundgemacht (“declare,” or “pronounce,” “make generally known,” or “publish”). At its root, this verb and the nominative Kundmachung mean “to give notice of” and “what is announced or made known.” The allied words ordinarily seen in Schleiermacher’s discourse are verkundigen, Verkundigung (“proclaim” and “proclamation”), and offenbaren, Offenbarung (“reveal” and “revelation”). In the present context, however, Schleiermacher’s choice is the most fitting. In none of the three words, however, is the corresponding event normally epistemic—that is, solely or even primarily conveying knowledge.
10. Individuum. Ed. note: That is, the collective appropriation and realization of the Spirit is indeed defined, thus detected (bestimmt) as occurring, almost without diminution, through some individual entity (Individuum, e.g., called “Luke” or “Peter” or “John” or “Paul”), yet no such individual person (Einzeln) is thereby totally identified with Christ, without any distinctive characteristics of one’s own.
11. Acts 1:21f.; cf. John 15:27.—Paul did not belong to this circle, and yet the church never placed him behind the other apostles even with respect to inspiration. Thus, the church recognizes in him the same merits even though in a way he acquired them by another path. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) Acts 1:21–22, June 3, 1832, SW II.3 (1835), 276–88, and (2) John 15:18–16:4, July 30, 1826, SW II.9 (1847), 495–509.
12. Apostlegeschichte. Ed. note: This is the German title of the Acts of the Apostles, or “Acts” for short.
13. (1) Gallican Confession (1559) 3; (2) Anglican Articles of Religion (1571) 6; (3) Belgic Confession (1561) 4. Ed. note: (1) ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 360; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 329. (2) ET from the 1571 edition in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 489. See §37n5. (3) ET in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 386; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 361.
§131. Second Doctrinal Proposition. The Scriptures of the New Testament are authentic in their origination and sufficient as norm for Christian doctrine.
(1) Smalcald Articles (Luther 1537) Part II: “This means that the Word of God—and no one else, not even an angel—should establish articles of faith.”1
(2) Gallican Confession (1559) IV: “We know these books to be canonical, and the sure rule of our faith, not so much by the common accord and consent of the church as by the testimony and inward illumination of the Holy Spirit.”2
(3) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) I: “We believe … the canonical scriptures … to be the true Word of God and to have sufficient authority of themselves, not of men. … And in this Holy Scripture the universal church of Christ has the most complete exposition of all that pertains to a saving faith and also to the framing of a life acceptable to God.”3
(4) Anglican Articles of Religion (1562) VI: “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith.”4
(5) Belgic Confession (1561) VII: “We believe that these holy scriptures fully contain the will of God, and whatsoever man ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently taught therein. … Therefore, we reject with all our hearts whatsoever doth not agree with this infallible rule.”5
(6) Confessiones Marchicae (= Confessio Fidei Ioannis Sigismundi Electoris Brandenburgici, 1613) II: “From the outset … we give witness to … the true, infallible and alone salvific Word of God, as that Word … is written down in the holy Bible, which Word is and shall be the sole standard (Richtschnur, plumb line) for all the faithful … complete and sufficient for all blessedness, even to decide all conflict in religion, and will ever remain so.”6
1. From the above discussion it is already evident that the authenticity of Scripture does not at all require that every book should actually derive from the person attributed to it. Rather, in all the extant manuscripts, a given piece of writing could have been falsely ascribed to a particular author by some later judgment. Consequently, it would not be authentic in this sense, and yet it would belong to the only circle in which we are to seek canonical writings. Hence, it would nonetheless remain an integral component of Sacred Scripture. Indeed, even at its first appearance a piece of writing could have borne at the top the name of someone other than its actual author. In that case, if that name were simply based on a fiction regarded to be innocent and on a moral feeling regarding the author in keeping with the shared moral feeling of the author’s contemporaries, even a book conveyed in this fashion could always be authentically a part of the Bible. Only if such a designation were to have been an intentional deception would this piece of writing not be qualified to complement the normative presentation of Christianity. Hence, even if a number of doubts raised as to the correctness of statements given by the authors of individual sacred books were to be more nearly substantiated, there would still be no justification, much less a duty, to exclude such books from the collection.
In no way, however, would it be permissible to draw up a list of authors to whom individual writings would have to belong in order to be canonical, or to specify a class the productions of which would all have a definite right to be called canonical. On the contrary, even if writings were discovered today that, with the greatest certainty humanly possible, would be ascribed to a direct disciple of Christ or to an actual apostle, we would not incorporate them into the New Testament without further ado but would at most attach them as an appendix.
Now, even the early church, especially given that it was not able to demonstrate an apostolic sanction for individual writings,7 cannot bind us to what it established, not even if its manner of determining the canon had been harmonious. Thus, probably the first half of our proposition can hardly intend to indicate anything more exact than what the above-cited symbolic writings also intend, namely, that we trust the general experience of Christians, viewed as a product of the Holy Spirit, that certain components of the canon handed down to us by the church failed to be accepted not out of deceit, on the one hand, or out of ignorance, on the other. Instead, such components would actually have belonged to an apocryphal or heretical region of Christianity and could not be assigned such an outstanding worth without danger. In this light, we do nevertheless admit that in content and form not all of these books are equally suited to having their canonical status truly validated.
Now, since determination of the canon has also occurred only in a gradual process, and what is more, since we know that in the church all errors and imperfections can be uncovered and removed only gradually by the efficacious action of the Holy Spirit, that trust to which we referred must be protected just as much by according the greatest freedom to treatment of the canon as by the most rigorous conscientiousness. What is implied by this consideration? First, all activity that is directed to correct exposure of authorship or to the genuine or spurious character of individual passages must be able to progress undisturbed, and no doubt that arises should be met with untoward prejudice or be cast off unexamined. Such practice not only affects the completeness of our information about Scripture; it is also not without influence on the interpretation and use of individual passages. Second, we must not admit anything misleading into exercise of the purest hermeneutical procedures possible or, as it were, knowingly prefer artfully to elaborate in our interpretation rather than to set forth a result that could disclose a conception of Christian faith less pure. Only under these conditions can we be proud of our work. Likewise only thus—though limited to a smaller compass of controversial issues and equipped both with more numerous technical aids and with a more trained sensibility—can we be actively engaged in appreciation of Scripture as were those Christians who first sorted out and established Sacred Scripture from the total mass of written Christian works.
2. Now, if this second doctrinal proposition is to be understood in its entire compass, we must, first of all, refer back to the original efficacious action of these writings. If the books of teachings are then to be grasped in terms of the life circumstances of Christians at that time, and in such a way that the apostles’ expressions bore influence upon the formation of the guiding thoughts as well as of the practical purposes of Christians, and if the historical books are also supposed to have replicated the similarly effectual discourses and deeds of Christ and the apostles, they should then also become the regulative typus8 for our own generating of thoughts, a typus from which that process too does not distance itself, in turn. Moreover, if Sacred Scripture is described as sufficient in this respect, this means that the Holy Spirit can guide us into all truth through its use, just as the Holy Spirit did the apostles themselves and all others who were gladdened by the direct instructions of Christ. In consequence, if in future the complete model for Christ’s vital knowledge of God will be present in the church, we can quite rightly regard this as a fruit of Scripture, without anything originally alien to it needing to have been added to it—except that, of course, the effect of whatever was already formed by Scripture on what came later will also be attributed to it. In this manner, correct expressions of Christian piety emerge, in proportion to the distinctive domain of each person’s thinking and speaking, as one’s own individualized understanding of Scripture. Moreover, whatever gains currency in each period as a conception of Christian faith occasioned by Scripture is also the unfolding of the genuine and original conception of Christ and his work that is most appropriate for this moment, and it constitutes, for this time and place, true Christian faithfulness held in common.9
To this constitutive efficacious action of Scripture is then related the second critical efficacious action, which people often solely have in mind when they speak of the normative worth of Scripture, yet it is simply a subordinate action, almost a shadow of the first. To be sure, it is possible to imagine a generating of thoughts that is independent of the efficacious action of the Holy Spirit through Scripture but that is still religious in content and Christian in its original grounding, the products of which are rather meager and fruitless or erroneous and bordering on heresy. Any such generation of thoughts, which originates in a state that is cloudy or as yet undeveloped on the part of those who receive or process them, must then be put to the test in Scripture. Moreover, if it at least intends to be Christian, it can secure this only if it seeks to be founded on Scripture and thus admits of such testing. Obviously, however, this critical aspect of the normative use of Scripture must decrease to the degree that the productive aspect gains ground and, at the same time, as interpretation of Scripture progresses toward completion, ameliorating misunderstanding of it.
As concerns scientific10 expression of Christian faith in proper faith-doctrine,11 this expression, to be sure, is realized only in scientific individuals and also exclusively in those who want to be organs moved by the Spirit as it is operative in Scripture. This process involves bringing what is fragmentary in these expressions together. In addition, it both refers the various presentations to each other—those that were originative and those that turned against Judaism and paganism—and, through each other, it brings the whole matter to completion. Accordingly, the productive, normative power of Scripture is evident here as well, though in itself the distinction between a more popular and a more scientific universe of discourse is scarcely indicated. On the other hand, many misgivings must arise, at the same time, toward a system of faith-doctrine that, after it has gone its own way completely, intends to allow a critical use of Scripture only in order to prove that some particulars are likewise to be found in Scripture as are set forth in the system of doctrine12 and that nothing in this system contradicts the sayings of Scripture, rightly understood. In that case as well, it cannot be expected that every single dogmatic locus should also be represented by a scriptural passage especially devoted to it.
3. If one takes the statement that Scripture is to be sufficient as norm for Christian doctrine exactly, then nothing in it would have to be superfluous. This would be so, for anything superfluous would be something confusing,13 thus is always but a negative factor, and would take a comparatively great effort to meet its fruitless demand. However, Scripture contains much that is virtually repetitious and that indeed more frequently comes from elsewhere, and this appearance of superfluity is all the more striking in comparison with a given system of doctrine the less complete that system is. Yet, since Scripture itself has not emerged as a complete whole, this is in accordance with the nature of the matter itself. Furthermore, in this respect our proposition expresses the conviction, which already lies in all proper use of Scripture and is also repeatedly confirmed by any proper hermeneutical treatment of it, that the presence of repetitions in the historical books offers all the better warrant for what is authentic in tradition, though without excluding the possibility of their complementing each other. The same thing goes for the more frequent treatments of the same subjects in the books of teaching. This holds true in that thereby the identity of the Spirit’s working in different elements and individuals is all the better testified to, even though an influence on different conditions and circumstances would not be held in view more in one instance than in another.
1. Ed. note: ET Book of Concord (2000), 304; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 421.
2. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 361, also Cochrane (1972), 145; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 330.
3. Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 224; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 237; cf. note at §37n3.
4. Ed. note: Schleiermacher’s actual quote is from the 1562 Latin edition. ET from the 1571 edition in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 489f. See §37n5.
5. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 387f, also Cochrane (1972), 192; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 362f.
6. Ed. note: ET Tice, from the German text in Niemeyer (1840), 643f.
7. What Irenaeus and Eusebius reported no one is likely to view as authentic accounts, all the less so the further they were from the events. See Irenaeus (ca. 130–ca. 200), Against Heresies (ca. 190) 3.1, and Eusebius (ca. 260–ca. 340), The Church History (303–323) 2.15, 3.24, 39, and 5.8, etc. Ed. note: Subsequent introductions handle the subject still differently, tending to give scant credibility to these early reports. For Irenaeus, ET Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, 414–15; Greek: Migne Gr. 7:844f. For Eusebius, ET Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. 2, vol. 1, 196, 234–37, 250–52, and 304–7.
9. Ed. note: The phrase is gemeinsame christliche Rechtgläubigkeit.
10. Ed. note: wissenschaftlichen (“scientific”) refers not to the physical sciences but to any study pursued in an orderly, properly interconnected fashion and in accordance with rules pertinent to that study. Cf. §28.
11. Ed. note: eigentlichen Glaubenslehre, or that which is genuine and actual at any given time and place.
12. Lehrgebäude.
13. Ed. note: Verwirrt (“confusing”) literally connotes an “entanglement,” either in something inappropriately sensory (or “organic”) or in something else that does not clearly belong, thus leading to “confusion” and to the corresponding need to disentangle and clarify what is to be said.
§132. Addendum to This Point of Doctrine. The Old Testament writings owe their place in our Bible in part to New Testament references to them, in part to the historical connection of Christian worship with the Jewish synagogue, without their sharing the normative worth or the inspiration of the New Testament writings on that account.
1. The presentation of this point of doctrine already diverges from the customary one in its treatment only of the New Testament writings in its two doctrinal propositions. This addendum is designed to ground this divergence and to lay it out distinctly. Intentionally, however, it is declared to be only an addendum, because it is simply polemical1 in nature, hence will become superfluous once the differentiation between the two sorts of writing would be generally recognized. Yet, the further away this point in time seems to be, the more risky it would also be to set forth such an entirely divergent proposition as a doctrinal one within an ecclesial system of doctrine. This same view predominates especially outside the schools, in that very often, indeed not uncommonly with special preference, Old Testament passages are used as a foundation in Christian formation, with the result that the New Testament seems to make its claims almost only in proportion to its size. Moreover, for contrasting reasons this happens quite often both among those who place less value on what is distinctive about Christianity and among those who recognize this distinctiveness solely and exclusively to constitute the salvation of human beings. Here we seek to accord currency to our claim only for the second group, in that the first one lies outside our domain.
2. Now first of all, as concerns inspiration of the Old Testament writings, we still have to distinguish, above all, between the law and the prophets. So, suppose that the apostle is right to present the law, though taken to be a divine ordinance, as something placed between the promise to Abraham’s seed and its fulfillment by an “intermediary”2 and to claim besides that it lacks the power of the Spirit, from which the Christian life must spring.3 Accordingly, it certainly cannot be claimed that the law is inspired by this same Spirit, of which this apostle says that he would no longer hear of the law and its works.4 Rather, God sends the Spirit into our hearts by virtue of our joining with Christ. Likewise, even Christ never or in any way presents the sending of this Spirit, the witness of which he conjoins with the witness of the disciples,5 as the return of something that was already present before and then afterward disappeared for a time. At the same time, however, all the Old Testament’s historical books, from the giving of the law onward, are attached to the law. This is so, for if we contrast messianic prophecy, viewed as that which has the greatest affinity with Christianity, with the law, viewed as that which is the most alien to it, surely no one will venture to claim that the Jewish historical books contained more of the history of messianic prophecy than that of the law. Indeed, most of what the prophetic books contain refers to the legal system and to the actual circumstances of this people. Moreover, the spirit from which they proceed is the common spirit of the people, nothing else, thus not the Christian common spirit, which as one Spirit was to break down the dividing wall between this people and all others.6 So, all that would be left is the messianic prophecy itself, which could have its part in inspiration as we think of it. If we bear in mind, however, that only in particular moments did the prophets rise to the pitch of inspiration and that only in relation to these moments is the spirit driving and animating them called “holy,”7 we must surely conclude that even this ascription is made only in an inappropriate manner. This is so inasmuch as this common spirit, which is tied to consciousness of the need for redemption and expresses itself as a presentiment of a more internal and spiritual dominion of God, carried within itself an utmost receptivity to the Holy Spirit and could rouse and sustain this receptivity even beyond itself.
Now, if we inquire, in the second place, about normative worth and indeed especially productive worth, on the whole it is undeniable that by and large the religious sense of Evangelical Christians recognizes a great difference between the two kinds of Sacred Scripture. That is to say, even the noblest psalms always contain something that Christian piety cannot appropriate as its purest expression. In consequence, only after deluding oneself by performing unconscious additions and subtractions could one possibly bring oneself to hold that a Christian doctrine of God could be assembled from the prophets and the psalms. On the other hand, there is an overweening penchant for using Old Testament sayings as expressions for religious self-consciousness, almost always accompanied by a ruleoriented way of thinking or by a slavish deference to the letter.8
Finally, as concerns the critical aspect of a normative use of Scripture, admittedly there are indeed few Christian doctrines that people, within certain time periods, would not have wanted to overlay with Old Testament passages. However, how could it be possible for anything belonging to the doctrine of redemption through Christ to have been so clearly presented, in the period of mere presentiment, that it should be used with equal profit alongside what Christ himself said or what his disciples said once the work of redemption was completed! Alternatively, if one wants to think this is possible precisely by means of inspiration, how was it that an entirely different recognition would not then have been prepared thereby among the biblically literate portion of his people, a recognition for the Redeemer and the way he announced the reign of God, so that the effect would in no way be proportionate to the cause they want to ascribe to it?
The history of Christian theology also shows plainly enough how much these efforts to find our Christian faith in the Old Testament has, in part, redounded to the detriment of our application of interpretive art and also, in part, swamped the further formation of doctrine and controversy over its more precise definitions with useless entanglements. As a result, well-grounded improvement of doctrine has had to await people’s entirely relinquishing Old Testament proofs for distinctively Christian doctrines and preferring wholly to set aside whatever chiefly relies on such proofs for support.
3. Yet, when something that has had currency in the church for such a long time is to be reformed, it becomes necessary to show how this practice has arisen. Now, this external placement of the two collections on the same level rests on two platforms. The first platform is the belief that not only did Christ himself and the apostles teach about Old Testament passages that were read but that this practice also continued in public gatherings of Christians, both before and after the New Testament canon was formed. It cannot possibly follow from this fact, however, that identical homiletic use of the Old Testament as well as of the New Testament should persist even to this day, or that we have to consider it a corruption of the church if our own generation of Christians is not just as conversant with the Old Testament as with the New Testament. On the contrary, the gradual, everbroadening subsidence of the Old Testament lies in the nature of the matter. It does so to the degree that its currency in the church has flowed from the historical connection just mentioned. Least of all, moreover, is this connection able to guarantee the normative worth and inspiration of these Old Testament books. The Pauline passages that attest to the usefulness of the Old Testament writings9 refer most of all to the usage indicated above, and the free manner in which the apostle himself makes use of those writings is completely in accord with that statement, so that he would surely give us witness for the claim that we no longer have any need for such proofs.
The second platform on which external placement of the two collections on the same level rests is the fact that Christ and the apostles themselves refer to the Old Testament writings as if to divine authorities advantageous for Christianity. However, it does not at all follow from this fact that we still have need of these preliminary intimations, since we have the experience, and the New Testament Scripture gives countenance to it, that one ceases to have faith on account of such testimonies10 if one has gained immediate certitude based on one’s own perception.11 To be sure, on this account it does indeed simply belong to historical accuracy and integrity that what Christ and his first heralds appealed to is also to be preserved. However, this appeal touches almost exclusively on the prophetic writings and the Psalms, and the practice of attaching these to the New Testament as an appendix is justified on this basis. Yet, since at the time of Christ these writings were not available separately but only as parts of the sacred collection and since they are often quoted only in this way and, moreover, particular quotations are also drawn from other books, one can raise no objection to the Old Testament’s accompanying the New Testament whole and entire, even though for us it cannot possibly be an indivisible whole in the same sense as it is for the Jewish people. The proper sense of the matter, however, would be better expressed if the Old Testament followed the New Testament as an appendix, since where it is placed at present does unclearly set forth the presumption that one would have to work through the entire Old Testament in order to get onto the right path to the New Testament.
1. Ed. note: Schleiermacher largely directs polemical activity inside the church, not outside. See Brief Outline §§40–41.
2. Gal. 3:19.
3. Rom. 7:6ff. and 8:3–4.
4. Gal. 3:2.
5. John 14:26 and 15:26–27. Ed. note: Sermons on (1) John 14:25–31, June 18, 1826, SW II.9 (1847), 457–68; and (2) John 15:18–16:4 (see §130n11).
6. Ed. note: Cf. Eph. 2:14.
7. As in 2 Pet. 1:21.
8. Ed. note: Cf. 2 Cor. 3:6. In the RSV “letter” becomes “written code,” whereas other passages (e.g., Rom. 7:6) have rather suggested adherence to a supposed literal meaning versus the spirit of what is said.
9. Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:11; and 2 Tim. 3:16.
10. John 4:42. Ed. note: Sermon on John 4:35–42, April 11, 1824, SW II.8 (1837), 291–302.
11. Anschauung. Ed. note: John 4:42 RSV states, in part: “We have heard for ourselves.”
[Introduction to Second Point of Doctrine]
§133. Those members of the Christian community who conduct themselves predominately by their own self-initiative carry out their ministry of the divine Word through self-communication directed to members who are conducting themselves in a predominately receptive fashion; this ministry is in part undefined and fortuitous, in part formal and orderly.1
1. The presupposition of an unequal distribution of the common spirit that holds true for every sort of community has already been claimed for the Christian community as well in an earlier discussion.2 Now, even this distinction between relative strength and weakness as well as of purity and impurity of presentation and conception—each of these contrasts being viewed of itself as in conjunction with the other one—existed in the early church, as in every province of the church, most strongly from its beginning onward, and was destined gradually to decrease. Yet, for a long time, and in all parts of the church, this distinction has also remained significant enough as a lack of parity among persons. Suppose, moreover, that this lack of parity had also entirely ceased to exist. Even then there would remain such a lack of parity within each individual as to one’s mood that sometimes one would find oneself to be active on one’s own initiative and sometimes simply receptive to prompting. Thus, the contrast indicated here is always present, and the task based on it is always to be fulfilled. This is the case, for those who have weakness and impurity in them, even if only for an instant, belong to the community only inasmuch as they are receptive to being cleansed and strengthened;3 also, the community really retains them only inasmuch as persons are present within it who by their own initiative offer cleansing and strengthening to them. Further, here this process must be considered to be present among the regenerate themselves, irrespective of the distinction between an inner and an outer circle in the church.4
Now, that the conduct of self-initiating members toward receptive ones is a communication and that every such communication of the former to the latter is an offering and tendering of the divine Word may well be shown to hold true in the following way. That is, self-communication5 exists in no way other than by a self-presentation that works stimulatively, in that the motion stirred up by a reproductive process in the one presenting becomes in those who are receptively bestirred a force that calls forth the same motion. If this motion effects some cleansing or strengthening or both, this event can only be a powerful working of the Holy Spirit in an individual, as is the case in all similar instances of the common spirit’s working in an individual. Moreover, this Holy Spirit, in assuming everything from Christ, is always that same Holy Spirit that has also inspired Scripture. So, every expression an individual utters will be able to generate a similar effect only insofar as it is analogous to Scripture and consequently can also be justified as scriptural. Thus, it can be said with equal justice that each self-communication that serves to effect godliness is certainly scriptural as well, and everything scriptural is also edifying. This is to be explained as follows. First, no true Christian, as such, can want to adhere to something in one’s inner depths and let it be a force in one’s life except to the extent that one in turn recognizes Christ in it. Second, neither, therefore, can anyone in one’s self-communication—in relation to the Christian community, that is—want to commend and propagate oneself and what is one’s own, but one can commend and propagate Christ alone and that which lives within oneself from Christ. Finally, likewise no one can want to take up something into oneself in order to further one’s growth except as it is received from Christ.
Accordingly, every communicative and bestirring activity in the Christian community is bound up with self-knowledge—for “self-denial” would be an unsuitable term for it—such that the effective content of that activity can be ascribed neither to the person oneself nor to a divine revelation distinctively one’s own. Rather, everything must be referred to the conception of Christ that comes from Scripture, with the result that everyone may work only as a remembering and developing organ of Scripture. Otherwise, non-Christian claims and separatist operations would just disintegrate the community. So too, a truly Christian receptivity would spurn adopting the word and deed of some individual as a model and accepting it as truth. Moreover, this same effort of refusal will gladly make a distinction within what is scriptural itself so as not to be deceived when something is presumed to be justified by a particular biblical passage but does not reflect the spirit of the whole.
2. If we then reflect on this influence of the stronger upon the weaker members, we observe that it encompasses the entire Christian life. This is so, for insofar as even the actions of individuals express the same Spirit, they are just such a proffering of the Word as follows from what was said earlier6 concerning Christ’s prophetic office, to which this ministry is correlated. This is why the distinction made at the end of our proposition is of importance. All of the influences just indicated variously occur in an individual’s life, often in part not intended and in part not sought. These influences comprise the undefined and relatively fortuitous ministry referred to in the proposition. We cannot deal with these here, in that the proper arrangement for these belongs in Christian ethics. However, some mention of them must be made here too, where we have to do only with ministry that is formal and orderly, because the Evangelical notion of ordained ministry has its most reliable grounding in the fact that in all essentials it is homogenous with that other more general and undefined ministry. Moreover, this combining of all ministries into one, which does not permit any sharp distinction to be made between those who perform the functions of ordained ministry and other Christians, we already find in Scripture as well. That is, where Paul lists the various gifts and offices,7 he unambiguously mixes the two together. Likewise, Christ too summoned many to be his followers in a way not specially designated, apart from the distinct relationship in which the Twelve stood with him or similarly the SeventyTwo who were sent out on a particular mission. So too, in the early church the apostles’ ministry was an especially ordained one, since they kept to a definite number8 and acted on decisions made in common. The same thing applies to the office of deacons, first in Jerusalem9 then also in other congregations after that model. However, already the effort of the deacon Stephen to defend Christianity at trial belonged not to the special ministry assigned him, in that he spoke out solely as an individual; and this is how it was with all who were suited for the general and undesignated ministry within the congregations: they were commended and challenged to it.10
The distinction also lies in the nature of the matter, but not to the degree that higher and special attributes necessarily belong to ordained ministry. Rather, even though in civil society the common life cannot be completely broken down into distinct leadership functions allocated by the society as a whole, such a strict division of leadership functions is much less feasible with regard to religious communication and influence in ecclesial community. This is so, for, on the one hand, the Holy Spirit can never be inactive and, on that account, also cannot be bound to particular times in all its activities since it rather moves each person to do all that comes ready to hand. On the other hand, it is not possible to imagine such a spiritual community to be well-ordered without any distribution of work, in that otherwise none of the various gifts could reach its maximum effectiveness. Above all else, the distribution can be all the more readily and securely effected the more the one Spirit also guides decisions harmoniously.
1. Ed. note: Cf. OR (1821) discourses III and IV, supplemental note 5.
2. §129.2. Ed. note: See also Brief Outline §§3, 236, 267–70, 307–8. Regarding the Holy Spirit as the common spirit of the church, see CF §116n1.
3. Geläutert und gestärkt. Ed. note: Cleansed in the sense of being helped to clear out and clean up, to enter a process of further refining. In contrast, gereinigt refers to being made pure, unrein to being “impure,” a distinction Schleiermacher has just used.
5. Selbstmitteilung. Ed. note: This kind of communication comes directly from within oneself; Selbstdarstellung is a presentation given in the same way.
6. In §103.
7. See 1 Cor. 12:8–10 and 28–30.
8. Acts 1:17.
9. Acts 6:2. Ed. note: The story of Stephen and his defense at trial is related in Acts 6:8–7:60. Before that the Twelve chose seven good men to serve tables, among them Stephen. Sermon on Acts 6:1–5, July 8, 1832, SW II.3 (1835), 303–14.
10. Eph. 4:29; 5:19. Ed. note: The latter verse was prefaced, in 5:18, with the charge “and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Generally the citations made here refer to the Spirit’s working.
§134. First Doctrinal Proposition: A public ministry with respect to the Word exists in the church as a leadership function entrusted under specific forms, and from this ministry also proceed all the organizations of the church.
(1) Augsburg Confession (1530) V: “To obtain such faith God instituted the office of preaching, … thereby the Holy Spirit works as through means and comforts people’s hearts … when and where God wills.” XIV: “Concerning church government it is taught that in the church no one should publicly teach, preach or administer the sacraments without a proper call.”1
(2) Saxon Confession (= Melanchthon, Repetitio Confessionis Augustanae, 1551): “We give thanks to God … that … he has preserved public ministry and upright gatherings, who himself also distinguished certain times for these.”2
(3) Second Helvetic Confession (1566) XVIII: “God has always used ministers for the gathering or establishing of a church for himself . … no man ought to usurp the honor of the ecclesiastical community. … But let the ministers of the church be called and chosen by lawful and ecclesiastical election. … Not any one may be elected, but capable men,” etc.3
(4) First Helvetic Confession (1536) XVI: “The church’s ministers are co-workers with God … through whom God imparts and offers to his faithful people knowledge of him and remission of sins, converts men to him, sets them aright and consoles them … so that power and efficacy in all this is ascribed to the Lord, service to his ministers.”4
(5) Gallican Confession (1559) XXIX: “As to the true church, we believe that it should be governed according to the order established by our Lord Jesus Christ; that there should be pastors, overseers and deacons, so that true doctrine may have its course, that errors may be corrected and suppressed, and the poor and all who are in affliction may be helped in their necessities, and that assemblies may be held in the name of God, so that great and small may be edified.”5
(6) Anglican Articles of Religion (1571) XXIII: “It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching … before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same”6
1. If, in inquiring as to the origination of this public ministry, we go back to the commission7 Christ gave to the apostles, we see that this commission was directed predominately outward from the community. This is shown in that as regards a commission directed to the community’s internal life,8 this commission can also be understood to apply to its general, undefined ministry. Of necessity, however, the internal ministry emerged from the external one, since the newly converted had need of a continual process of instruction and correction and were consequently also contained in Christ’s commission as a natural implication of that call to go out into the world. However, the apostles themselves also proposed a division of this general ministry, and they left it to the whole communal body9 to charge others with the ministry of serving.10 This is also how the ministry of teaching became a charge to them from the communal body, just as the communal body had earlier entrusted the two ministries combined to a new member of the group of twelve. Accordingly, the two ministries have continued to exist in the church as the main branches of that public ministry, for it is self-evident that the diaconate too can be an ecclesial office only inasmuch as it is a proffering of the Word. That is to say, it is an expression and announcement of love by Christian brethren through one’s own deed.
In contrast, a triple ministry, however it may be construed, is an arbitrary division. In essence it has to refer back to that original distinction between teaching and serving, which has its true basis in the fact that the gifts requisite for either one of these sets of tasks are least conditioned by those requisite for the other one. This is why the female gender has always, from the very beginning on, attended its serving in public11 but has always been excluded from the public stewardship of teaching.12
2. Now, no one individual or any small band of them can act in Christ’s place.13 All the more do we have to regard only the totality of the Christian community as the source of this commissioning. Furthermore, the formation of the clergy as a self-contained and self-replenishing official body is lacking any scriptural foundation whatsoever. Rather, Scripture distinguishes only two elements regarding this replenishment of clergy: determination of the attributes requisite for the functioning of a given set of tasks and selection from among those known to be so equipped.
Accordingly, a large space remains here for allotting a different part in ministry to different people without abandoning the principle that the entire community arranges for its leadership and apportions this leadership among its members. Such a transmittal of responsibility is not possible without a distinct separation of affairs and an exact delineation of the sphere within which each leader is to carry out one’s set of tasks.
Now, in this respect too, what can be vested in a person and what cannot be vested must be established. Thus, in an indirect fashion even undefined ministry is assumed within organizing activity, and the contrast between the defined and undefined ministry is blurred. For example, from time to time it happens in this way: that in order to enable a ministry that is not assigned, temporary associations arise made up of individuals who share closely related interests. However, even the ministry of the Word, defined in the narrower sense, can never be commissioned in such an exclusive manner that just such self-communications cannot take place between individuals apart from public ministry. The reason is that following this practice would be both to lord it over conscience14 and to quench the Spirit.15 From this commissioning, however, there does arise a twofold relation: the relation of every person in need to a number of communicators, in accordance with the variety of the person’s needs and of the communicators’ functions, and likewise the relation of every communicator to many recipients with respect to some specific need and within the circle to which the communicator is assigned. As a result, wherever we imagine a sizeable stable quantity of Christian life to exist, separate congregations form within certain boundaries through a combination of these two relations. Each becomes a sphere in which all the gifts necessary for the advancement of Christian life are present and all assignable sets of tasks are distributed accordingly. Delineation of ecclesial offices, as well as delineation of the form under which they will be transmitted, can be very different, and the theory of all this has its proper place in practical theology.16 Here it is necessary only to point out, in general terms, that these offices will be good only to the extent that, on the one hand, their allotment is realized and occurs as an act of the total community, either directly or indirectly, but, on the other hand, that the most spiritual17 ministry—namely, the ordained proffering of the divine Word—preserves currency as the center from which everything proceeds and to which everything relates.
3. Without this ordained public ministry and the constitution of Christian congregations that depend on its existence, all Christian communication would simply be isolated and sporadic and would be fortuitous to all appearances. In truth, however, Christian communication could not even start off without a confusing stagger, in which much energy would have to be expended in vain, if no receptive person, with that person’s need, were directed to designated communicators and, vice versa, if no communicator, with attendant gifts, were directed to a particular circle of recipients. Suppose, however, that someone wanted to assert that in the power of the Spirit every gifted person would do everything in order to apply one’s gifts for the common good, and likewise that every person in need would have enough proper sensibility for testing the spirits,18 consequently that everything that is ordinarily achieved only imperfectly even in the best apportionment of energies would be done by individuals. Then everything would still rest on the arousal of personal religious self-consciousness and of sporadic shared feeling. In contrast, a true communal consciousness, a vital conviction of the identity of spirit in all, cannot be realized in this way. Without this conviction, however, generally a selfrecognition of the Holy Spirit could not exist in us, no more than could a proper consciousness of our mode of vital communion with Christ exist, if we have not become conscious of ourselves as members of his body.19 Hence, it is possible only for a completely superficial view of Christianity to trace Christian community back to domestic life and to tranquil, private circumstances devoid of any public character. Rather, public gatherings for shared confession of faith and for shared edification20 are of primary importance, and the transfer of executive and leadership activities within those gatherings exclusively to certain persons remains only a secondary matter. In this regard, it is also true that an ecclesial community that grants no significance to such a transfer of authority, but accords the right and responsibility21 of leadership within those gatherings to every Christian, can exist wholly in the Evangelical spirit.
1. Ed. note: ET Tice, cf. Book of Concord (2000), 40, 46; Latin and German: Bek. Luth. (1963), 58, 69.
2. Ed. note: ET Kienzles/Tice; Latin: CR 28:442. Schleiermacher here refers to the edition by Twesten, Die drey ökumenischen Symbole (1816), 196.
3. Ed. note: ET Cochrane (1972), 271; Latin only: Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 278, 280. See §37n3.
4. Ed. note: ET Tice, drawn from the original German and Latin in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 219f.; cf. chap. 15 in Cochrane (1972), 105.
5. Ed. note: ET and French in Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 376f., also Cochrane (1972), 154; Latin: Niemeyer (1840), 336f.
6. Ed. note: The quote is from the 1562 Latin edition; ET Creeds, vol. 3 (1919), 501. See §37n5.
7. Matt. 10:6ff.
8. E.g., Matt. 18:15–20.
9. Gemeine. Ed. note: Hereafter, “congregation” is used to translate this word only where the reference is clearly to a local communal body.
10. Acts 6:2. Ed. note: See §133.2.
11. See 1 Tim. 5:9; Luke 8:3.
12. Ed. note: It may be noted, first, how uncharacteristically slim is the evidence evinced in §134n11 and, second, how carefully, indistinctly phrased are the distinctions between gender roles. These were indeed the roles generally assigned to women in German culture at that time and within the Evangelical church. Moreover, women were not admitted to German universities until 1906, hence could not be “equipped” with “gifts” attendant upon a theology degree, necessary for ordination to ministry of the Word. It is clear in other writings, however, that Schleiermacher’s principles did not go in the direction of exclusion of women, or of any other qualified person among the regenerate, for that matter. Here too, the necessary grounding of the distinction between ministries is not articulated as gender related. Although he did not choose openly to call present custom into question, he did slyly refer to the traditional female-oriented diaconal ministry as “public” too, not domestic. Compare his sermons in The Christian Household (1820, ET 1991). Obviously, as he words it, serving (Handreichung, extending a helping hand) could just as well be a man’s role too, and stewardship of the Word (Verwaltung des Wortes) could just as well be that of a woman. The two ministries are one (vereinigt, united).
13. Ed. note: On limitations of religious communities wherein the techniques for leading lie among one or a few experts, and the rest are relatively passive, see OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 9. In the following supplemental note 10, Schleiermacher admits that “the external church” has “gradations” in its development too, as does the internal church and all institutions in human affairs. Moreover, “the individual who divorces oneself from the common life gives up the greatest portion of one’s religious consciousness.” See also §§137–38, all under the heading of “baptism” (justification and further nurture in faith) for all who come to be regenerate and, as such, are members of the church (§125).
14. See 2 Cor. 1:24. Ed. note: Cf. 1 Pet. 5:3.
15. See 1 Thess. 5:19. Ed. note: Sermon on 1 Thess. 5:19–21, June 11, 1810, SW II.7 (1836), 427–36.
16. Ed. note: See Brief Outline §§257–338. This set of disciplines is especially directed to the functions of leaders in congregational ministry and to their functions with respect to church polity and governance. See also CF §§144–45.
17. Geistigste. Ed. note: In ordinary German usage there exists an ambiguity in the word geistig, which can mean “spiritual,” “mental,” or “intellectual.” Ordained ministers are supposed to be both highly educated and highly spiritual in regard to religious matters.
18. Ed. note: See 1 John 4:1.
19. Ed. note: This metaphorical phrase, referring to the body of Christ’s community of faith, is to be found in Rom. 12:5 (“one body in Christ,”), thence in the shortened version (the church as “the body of Christ”) in 1 Cor. 10:16–17 and 12:27, and in Eph. 4:4, 12, 16, and 5:30.
20. Ed. note: For Schleiermacher, Christian education in the broader sense (Erziehung) belongs to the domain of practical theology, hence he scarcely alludes to such practices in CF, except to say here that, like edification, all aspects of educative activity, in church and at home, must be done “in the Evangelical spirit.” See also his 1818 Christian Household sermons (1820) and his numerous lectures and writings on education, which spearheaded movements into progressive education in Germany. See also OR Epilogue, supplemental note 2, which discusses child rearing and other upbuilding educational practices in the family. Here in CF “edification” (Erbauung) also means, more nearly literally, “upbuilding” and in a developmentally appropriate way.
21. Die Befugnis … zugesteht. Ed. note: The verb seems to imply that one who is accorded such a right or warrant is also to be zuständig, i.e., held to be responsible in it. Thus, the entitlement is not necessarily accorded where one has no qualifications. Presumably the more mature among the regenerate are basically qualified. The essential primacy of community is a major theme in this work; cf. On Religion III–IV.
§135. Second Doctrinal Proposition: The church’s public ministry is, at all points, bound to the Word of God.
1. Even the isolated and informal communications of Christians, to the extent that they communicate something effected by the Holy Spirit, can likewise simply be elucidations of the divine Word or ways of putting it into action.
Now, suppose that the same thing is to apply to public ministry of the Word not only in the two ways just indicated but also in a special way inherent in its own distinctive character. If so, this can happen only by the fact that this being bound to the divine Word is taken up into the form of public communication. In relation to doctrine, the process occurs in one of two ways. In part, it occurs directly in that particular acts of expounding religious thoughts appear, in their entire arrangement, as interpretation of individual passages of Scripture. In part, it occurs indirectly, through some confession of faith, which is a brief embodiment of doctrine that refers back to Scripture, and which, given the presupposition of its scriptural character and as something ever present, is supposed to hold the course of everyone’s consciousness in check and against which all doctrine is supposed to be measurable.1 Both modes of communication, however, must degenerate into empty form, one easily bypassed, if in the same circle free and informal communication is not also of itself scriptural. Thereupon, ordinarily a confession of faith intends to assert itself as an authentic explication of Scripture, so as to prevent an even greater variance with respect to Scripture. However, there does arise an unevangelical deference to the letter thereby, and, at the same time, deeper penetration into Scripture is made impossible.
The same scriptural character is also to be required of Christian poetic art insofar as its products, though originally intended only for individual life, are to cross over into the public use of a congregation. This scriptural character is displayed in one way in the psalmodic type of Christian poetry. This type treats individual passages and situations from Scripture in attaching itself, whether more closely or more distantly, to the periphrastic translations of the psalms after the mode of the oldest Christian hymns. The scriptural character is displayed somewhat differently in those symbolic types of Christian poetry which, in referring to generally held confessions of faith, bring the embodiment of common doctrine into poetic harmonies. The more Christian poetry distances itself from these two basic forms and presents elements of religious life of a purely individual sort, the more it limits its efficacy to smaller circles of society.2
Yet, if we have also assimilated everything that constitutes an act of the congregation, as such, into the concept of public ministry, then the requirement of scriptural character must extend to all these acts as well. Accordingly, these active public communications also show themselves to be bound to the Word. In part, this occurs directly, insofar as particular demonstrations of this tie to the Word are grounded in exhortations distinctly expressed in Scripture and make these exhortations real or insofar as they adhere to some example given in Scripture. In part, this occurs indirectly, in setting forth ecclesial rules that, being derived from Scripture after the manner of confessions of faith, intend to establish an order for Christian life, one that is linked to public ministry. Not only is all active public communication to take shape in accordance with this order; it is also possible to recognize in this order which sorts of individual actions the congregation acknowledges as its own and which it does not.
2. Now, from all this follows how confessions or creedal symbols and church rules or canons3 arise in the church—that is, not as a standard for various presentations of faith by word and deed, but in order all the more surely to mediate an individual’s measuring up to the original expressions of the Spirit. In no way does it follow, however, that these phenomena can at all times correspond to this idea as much as they did in the period when they were originally formed. That this is not the case already flows from the fact that in each instance they are a work of the church as a whole. Thus—if we embrace the church within the contrast just set forth—these phenomena are the work both of those who are self-active and communicative and, at least indirectly, of those who are receptive and in need. This is true, not only insofar as these phenomena can derive their efficacy simply from the free acknowledgment of those in need, even if they also proceed from those who are communicating something, but also because the shared knowing in regard to the need of these persons, consequently the special character of this element of their common life, contributes as a defining feature. Hence, from the very outset every such product remains short of the original idea, because within the oscillating advance of the church sequences of retrogressive movements are also coposited in every element. These movements then have currency for us only under the reservation that their scriptural character must always remain an object of probing. Thus, an organism that is as fully formed as possible must also be associated with public ministry within the church so as to preserve a technically adept understanding of Scripture and so as to realize improvement in this understanding through constant pursuit of that understanding. It does not follow from this that, in general and at all times, those who perform public ministry must obtain a special standing within the Christian community. Rather, our two propositions establish that even if in particular instances the ecclesial contrast between those who discharge public ministry and those for whom they discharge it comes quite strongly to the fore, this contrast still remains subordinate. On the one hand, the contrast is subordinate to the unity and selfsameness of the Spirit in both parties and, on the other hand, to their common, direct dependence on Scripture. This implies, in turn, that the contrast between the two parties must become more and more blurred, as also follows from the generally demonstrable affinity between sporadic, informal efficacious action and officially allotted, ordained efficacious action. If we then add to this observation that the critical aspect of people’s normative use of Scripture must also come to an end one day, at that point this contrast will also disappear, viewed as a personal contrast in an immediate surety shared by both parties concerning the scriptural character of both doctrines of faith and rules for life.
1. Ed. note: Behind this discussion is the classic contrast between “the Spirit and the letter.” See OR (1821) II, supplemental note 9, where “notions and concepts” are taken to be “the original, constitutive factors” in the domain of dogmatics, but “to avoid delivering the spirit unto death along with the letter, it secures the vital mobility of the letter” and does so also to build “a variety of distinctive positions” into its structure. See also OR (1821) IV, supplemental note 8, against separation based on a narrowly restrictive, dead letter. Cf. also in CF §§96.2–3, 123.1–2, also 15.2, 25.1.
2. Ed. note: For further elaboration, see the corresponding section in the practical theology lectures. During the years Schleiermacher was completing this second edition, he was also preparing the Berliner Gesangbuch (1830). There he was contributing his own principles for what may appropriately be included in Evangelical hymnbooks, as much as he could within this officially joint enterprise.
3. Ed. note: Such orders, or sets of rules or canons, include polity (Verfassung) for governance. Here the concept is broader, referring to Christian life as a whole and as that life can be acknowledged as belonging to the community of faith.