1840-01-29. Edgar to Bruno, from Berlin

46 You think that I had not properly examined myself in my apostasy from theology. I have. You think that I have no interest in religion. I have. But precisely this interest, which is however as different from faith as heaven from earth, compels me to leave the circle of theology. You think that you believe, but what you call believing is precisely only interest in religion. Interest presupposes division; genuine faith is without all division. If you believed, you would not be allowed to examine the dogmas, you would not be allowed to criticise the Bible. What I say here is perhaps either all old or false: it is the thoughts of a student who only a year ago left school, where truly no opportunity was offered him to reflect on such problems. Added to this is that I do not feel in myself the strength to solve them. For that a man is needed who can study his whole life long: such a man must be blessed inwardly as well as outwardly; he must not always have to pose the question: what do you live on? This question I must pose to myself every day; I may not study what concerns mankind, but what brings me forward and to an office. Pastor I cannot become: I therefore study philology, become a schoolmaster, drill declensions and conjugations and die as an honest philistine. As I am born on the day of Spes, after having passed by Fides and Caritas, so it will probably always remain with me only hopes for science

47 You ask whether Adolph is curious about politics. He read your letter very indifferently; he would certainly have preferred it if you had sent him instructions on how to become a pious and praiseworthy pastor. After he has grown weary of his teaching office, he intends at Easter to take his second theological examination and then accept the first good parish that is given to him. As preparation he reads Goldsmith's Vicar and Voss's Luise. He also zealously defends the Christian dogmas.

48 Marheineke speaks in his dogmatics of the passion history of Christ and indeed he explains it allegorically. The Jews and Romans are representatives of the whole of mankind, which still today daily crucifies Christ. That Jesus died through the world and for the world is shown by those two criminals who were crucified with him. The one denies him — and so Christ dies through the world; the other acknowledges him, to him he promises the kingdom of heaven, and so he dies for the world. Christ's suffering is no bodily suffering, but a spiritual one over the sins of the world. Were it a bodily one, it would be finished at one stroke; but Christ is daily crucified still!! .....

49 Berlin, 29th January 1840. Edgar