Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (913 page)

So long as faith in the mystery of the Lord’s Supper as a holy, nay the holiest, highest truth, governed man, so long was his governing principle the imagination. All criteria of reality and unreality, of unreason and reason, had disappeared: anything whatever that could be imagined passed for real possibility. Religion hallowed every contradiction of reason, of the nature of things. Do not ridicule the absurd questions of the Schoolmen! They were necessary consequences of faith. That which is only a matter of feeling had to be made a matter of reason, that which contradicts the understanding had to be made not to contradict it. This was the fundamental contradiction of scholasticism, whence all other contradictions followed of course.

And it is of no particular importance whether I believe the Protestant or the Catholic doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. The sole distinction is, that in Protestantism it is only on the tongue, in the act of partaking, that flesh and blood are united in a thoroughly miraculous manner with bread and wine;
while in Catholicism, it is before the act of partaking, by the power of the priest, — who however here acts only in the name of the Almighty, — that bread and wine are really transmuted into flesh and blood. The Protestant prudently avoids a definite explanation; he does not lay himself open like the pious, uncritical simplicity of Catholicism, whose God, as an external object, can be devoured by a mouse; he shuts up his God within himself, where he can no more be torn from him, and thus secures him as well from the power of accident as from that of ridicule; yet, notwithstanding this, he just as much as the Catholic consumes real flesh and blood in the bread and wine. Slight indeed was the difference at first between Protestants and Catholics in the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper! Thus at Anspach there arose a controversy on the question — “whether the body of Christ enters the stomach, and is digested like other food?”

But although the imaginative activity of faith makes the objective existence the mere appearance, and the emotional, imaginary existence the truth and reality; still, in itself or in truth, that which is really objective is only the natural elements. Even the Host in the pyx of the Catholic priest is in itself only to faith a divine body, — this external thing, into which he transubstantiates the divine being is only a thing of faith; for even here the body is not visible, tangible, tasteable as a body. That is: the bread is only in its significance flesh. It is true that to faith this significance has the sense of actual existence; — as, in general, in the ecstasy of fervid feeling that which signifies becomes the thing signified; — it is held not to signify, but to
be
flesh. But this state of being flesh is not that of real flesh; it is a state of being which is only believed in, imagined,
i.e
., it has only the value, the quality, of a significance, a truth conveyed in a symbol.
A thing which has a special significance for me, is another thing in my imagination than in reality. The thing signifying is not itself that which is signified. What it
is
, is evident to the senses; what it
signifies
, is only in my feelings, conception, imagination, is only for me, not for others, is not objectively present. So here. When therefore Zwinglius said that the Lord’s Supper has only a subjective significance, he said the same thing as his opponents; only he disturbed the illusion of the religious imagination; for that which “is” in the Lord’s Supper, is only an illusion of the imagination, but with the further illusion that it is not an illusion. Zwinglius only expressed simply, nakedly, prosaically, rationalistically, and therefore offensively, what the others declared mystically, indirectly, — inasmuch as they confessed
that the effect of the Lord’s Supper depends only on a worthy disposition or on faith;
i.e
., that the bread and wine are the flesh and blood of the Lord, are the Lord himself, only for him for whom they have the supernatural significance of the divine body, for on this alone depends the worthy disposition, the religious emotion.

But if the Lord’s Supper effects nothing, consequently is nothing, — for only that which produces effects,
is
, — without a certain state of mind, without faith, then in faith alone lies its reality; the entire event goes forward in the feelings alone. If the idea that I here receive the real body of the Saviour acts on the religious feelings, this idea itself arises from the feelings; it produces devout sentiments, because it is itself a devout idea. Thus here also the religious subject is acted on by himself as if by another being, through the conception of an imaginary object. Therefore the process of the Lord’s Supper can quite well, even without the intermediation of bread and wine, without any church ceremony, be accomplished in the imagination. There are innumerable devout poems, the sole theme of which is the blood of Christ. In these we have a genuinely poetical celebration of the Lord’s Supper. In the lively representation of the suffering, bleeding Saviour, the soul identifies itself with him; here the saint in poetic exaltation drinks the pure blood, unmixed with any contradictory, material elements; here there is no disturbing object between the idea of the blood and the blood itself.

But though the Lord’s Supper, or a sacrament in general, is nothing without a certain state of mind, without faith, nevertheless religion presents the sacrament at the same time as something in itself real, external, distinct from the human being, so that in the religious consciousness the true thing, which is faith, is made only a collateral thing, a condition, and the imaginary thing becomes the principal thing. And the necessary, immanent consequences and effects of this religious materialism, of this subordination of the human to the supposed divine, of the subjective to the supposed objective, of truth to imagination, of morality to religion, — the necessary consequences are superstition and immorality: superstition, because a thing has attributed to it an effect which does not lie in its nature, because a thing is held up as
not
being what it in truth
is
, because a mere conception passes for objective reality; immorality, because necessarily, in feeling, the holiness of the action as such is separated from morality, the partaking of the sacrament, even apart from the state of mind, becomes a holy and saving act. Such, at least, is the result in practice, which knows nothing of the sophistical distinctions of theology. In general:
wherever religion places itself in contradiction with reason, it places itself also in contradiction with the moral sense
. Only with the sense of truth coexists the sense of the right and good. Depravity of understanding is always depravity of heart. He who deludes and cheats his understanding has not a veracious, honourable heart; sophistry corrupts the whole man. And the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is sophistry.

The Truth of the disposition, or of faith as a requisite to communion, involves the Untruth of the bodily presence of God; and again the Truth of the objective existence of the divine body involves the Untruth of the disposition.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE CONTRADICTION OF FAITH AND LOVE.

The
Sacraments are a sensible presentation of that contradiction of idealism and materialism, of subjectivism and objectivism, which belongs to the inmost nature of religion. But the sacraments are nothing without Faith and Love. Hence the contradiction in the sacraments carries us back to the primary contradiction of Faith and Love.

The essence of religion, its latent nature, is the
identity
of the divine being with the human; but the form of religion, or its apparent, conscious nature, is the
distinction
between them. God is the human being; but he presents himself to the religious consciousness as a distinct being. Now, that which reveals the basis, the hidden essence of religion, is Love; that which constitutes its conscious form is Faith. Love identifies man with God and God with man, consequently it identifies man with man; faith separates God from man, consequently it separates man from man, for God is nothing else than the idea of the species invested with a mystical form, — the separation of God from man is therefore the separation of man from man, the unloosing of the social bond. By faith religion places itself in contradiction with morality, with reason, with the unsophisticated sense of truth in man; by love, it opposes itself again to this contradiction. Faith isolates God, it makes him a particular, distinct being: love universalizes; it makes God a common being, the love of whom is one with the love of man. Faith produces in man an inward disunion, a disunion with himself, and by consequence an outward disunion also; but love heals the wounds which are made by faith in the heart of man. Faith makes belief in its God a law: love is freedom, — it condemns not even the atheist, because it is itself atheistic, itself denies, if not theoretically, at least practically, the existence of a particular, individual God, opposed to man. Love has God in itself: faith has God out of itself; it estranges God from man, it makes him an external object.

Faith, being inherently external, proceeds even to the adoption of outward fact as its object, and becomes historical faith. It is therefore of the nature of faith that it can become a totally external confession; and that with mere faith, as such, superstitious, magical effects are associated.
The devils believe that God is, without ceasing to be devils. Hence a distinction has been made between faith in God, and belief that there is a God.
But even with this bare belief in the existence of God, the assimilating power of love is intermingled; — a power which by no means lies in the idea of faith as such, and in so far as it relates to external things.

The only distinctions or judgments which are immanent to faith, which spring out of itself, are the distinctions of right or genuine, and wrong or false faith; or in general, of belief and unbelief. Faith discriminates thus: This is true, that is false. And it claims truth to itself alone. Faith has for its object a definite, specific truth, which is necessarily united with negation. Faith is in its nature exclusive. One thing alone is truth, one alone is God, one alone has the monopoly of being the Son of God; all else is nothing, error, delusion. Jehovah alone is the true God; all other gods are vain idols.

Faith has in its mind something peculiar to itself; it rests on a peculiar revelation of God; it has not come to its possessions in an ordinary way, that way which stands open to all men alike. What stands open to all is common, and for that reason cannot form a special object of faith. That God is the creator, all men could know from Nature; but what this God is in person, can be known only by special grace, is the object of a special faith. And because he is only revealed in a peculiar manner, the object of this faith is himself a peculiar being. The God of the Christians is indeed the God of the heathens, but with a wide difference: — just such a difference as there is between me as I am to a friend, and me as I am to a stranger, who only knows me at a distance. God as he is an object to the Christians, is quite another than as he is an object to the heathens. The Christians know God personally, face to face. The heathens know only — and even this is too large an admission — “what,” and not “who,” God is; for which reason they fell into idolatry. The identity of the heathens and Christians before God is therefore altogether vague; what the heathens have in common with the Christians — if indeed we consent to be so liberal as to admit anything in common between them — is not that which is specifically Christian, not that which constitutes faith. In whatsoever the Christians are Christians, therein they are distinguished from the heathens;
and they are Christians in virtue of their special knowledge of God; thus their mark of distinction is God. Speciality is the salt which first gives a flavour to the common being. What a being is in special, is the being itself; he alone knows me, who knows me
in specie
. Thus the special God, God as he is an object to the Christians, the personal God, is alone God. And this God is unknown to heathens, and to unbelievers in general; he does not exist for them. He is, indeed, said to exist for the heathens; but mediately, on condition that they cease to be heathens, and become Christians. Faith makes man partial and narrow; it deprives him of the freedom and ability to estimate duly what is different from himself. Faith is imprisoned within itself. It is true that the philosophical, or, in general, any scientific theorist, also limits himself by a definite system. But theoretic limitation, however fettered, short-sighted and narrow-hearted it may be, has still a freer character than faith, because the domain of theory is in itself a free one, because here the ground of decision is the nature of things, argument, reason. But faith refers the decision to conscience and interest, to the instinctive desire of happiness; for its object is a special, personal Being, urging himself on recognition, and making salvation dependent on that recognition.

Faith gives man a peculiar sense of his own dignity and importance. The believer finds himself distinguished above other men, exalted above the natural man; he knows himself to be a person of distinction, in the possession of peculiar privileges; believers are aristocrats, unbelievers plebeians. God is this distinction and pre-eminence of believers above unbelievers, personified.
Because faith represents man’s own nature as that of another being, the believer does not contemplate his dignity immediately in himself, but in this supposed distinct person. The consciousness of his own pre-eminence presents itself as a consciousness of this person; he has the sense of his own dignity in this divine personality.
As the servant feels himself honoured in the dignity of his master, nay, fancies himself greater than a free, independent man of lower rank than his master, so it is with the believer.
He denies all merit in himself, merely that he may leave all merit to his Lord, because his own desire of honour is satisfied in the honour of his Lord. Faith is arrogant, but it is distinguished from natural arrogance in this, that it clothes its feeling of superiority, its pride, in the idea of another person, for whom the believer is an object of peculiar favour. This distinct person, however, is simply his own hidden self, his personified, contented desire of happiness: for he has no other qualities than these, that he is the benefactor, the Redeemer, the Saviour, — qualities in which the believer has reference only to himself, to his own eternal salvation. In fact, we have here the characteristic principle of religion, that it changes that which is naturally active into the passive. The heathen elevates himself, the Christian feels himself elevated. The Christian converts into a matter of feeling, of receptivity, what to the heathen is a matter of spontaneity. The humility of the believer is an inverted arrogance, — an arrogance none the less because it has not the appearance, the external characteristics of arrogance. He feels himself pre-eminent: this pre-eminence, however, is not a result of his activity, but a matter of grace; he has been made pre-eminent; he can do nothing towards it himself. He does not make himself the end of his own activity, but the end, the object of God.

Faith is essentially determinate, specific. God according to the specific view taken of him by faith, is alone the true God. This Jesus, such as I conceive him, is the Christ, the true, sole prophet, the only begotten Son of God. And this particular conception thou must believe, if thou wouldst not forfeit thy salvation. Faith is imperative. It is therefore necessary — it lies in the nature of faith — that it be fixed as dogma. Dogma only gives a formula to what faith had already on its tongue or in its mind. That when once a fundamental dogma is established, it gives rise to more special questions, which must also be thrown into a dogmatic form, that hence there results a burdensome multiplicity of dogmas, — this is certainly a fatal consequence, but does not do away with the necessity that faith should fix itself in dogmas, in order that every one may know definitely what he must believe and how he can win salvation.

That which in the present day, even from the stand-point of believing Christianity, is rejected, is compassionated as an aberration, as a misinterpretation, or is even ridiculed, is purely a consequence of the inmost nature of faith. Faith is essentially illiberal, prejudiced; for it is concerned not only with individual salvation, but with the honour of God. And just as we are solicitous as to whether we show due honour to a superior in rank, so it is with faith. The apostle Paul is absorbed in the glory, the honour, the merits of Christ. Dogmatic, exclusive, scrupulous particularity, lies in the nature of faith. In food and other matters, indifferent to faith, it is certainly liberal; but by no means in relation to objects of faith. He who is not for Christ is against him; that which is not christian is antichristian. But what is christian? This must be absolutely determined, this cannot be free. If the articles of faith are set down in books which proceed from various authors, handed down in the form of incidental, mutually contradictory, occasional dicta, — then dogmatic demarcation and definition are even an external necessity. Christianity owes its perpetuation to the dogmatic formulas of the Church.

It is only the believing unbelief of modern times which hides itself behind the Bible, and opposes the biblical dicta to dogmatic definitions, in order that it may set itself free from the limits of dogma by arbitrary exegesis. But faith has already disappeared, is become indifferent, when the determinate tenets of faith are felt as limitations. It is only religious indifference under the appearance of religion that makes the Bible, which in its nature and origin is indefinite, a standard of faith, and under the pretext of believing only the essential, retains nothing which deserves the name of faith; — for example, substituting for the distinctly characterized Son of God, held up by the Church, the vague negative definition of a Sinless Man, who can claim to be the Son of God in a sense applicable to no other being, — in a word, of a man, whom one may not trust oneself to call either a man or a God. But that it is merely indifference which makes a hiding-place for itself behind the Bible, is evident from the fact that even what stands in the Bible, if it contradicts the stand-point of the present day, is regarded as not obligatory, or is even denied; nay, actions which are essentially christian, which are the logical consequences of faith, such as the separation of believers from unbelievers, are now designated as unchristian.

The Church was perfectly justified in adjudging damnation to heretics and unbelievers,
for this condemnation is involved in the nature of faith. Faith at first appears to be only an unprejudiced separation of believers from unbelievers; but this separation is a highly critical distinction. The believer has God for him, the unbeliever, against him; — it is only as a possible believer that the unbeliever has God not against him; — and therein precisely lies the ground of the requirement that he should leave the ranks of unbelief. But that which has God against it is worthless, rejected, reprobate; for that which has God against it is itself against God. To believe, is synonymous with goodness; not to believe, with wickedness. Faith, narrow and prejudiced, refers all unbelief to the moral disposition. In its view the unbeliever is an enemy to Christ out of obduracy, out of wickedness.
Hence faith has fellowship with believers only; unbelievers it rejects. It is well-disposed towards believers, but ill-disposed towards unbelievers.
In faith there lies a malignant principle
.

It is owing to the egoism, the vanity, the self-complacency of Christians, that they can see the motes in the faith of non-christian nations, but cannot perceive the beam in their own. It is only in the mode in which faith embodies itself that Christians differ from the followers of other religions. The distinction is founded only on climate or on natural temperament. A warlike or ardently sensuous people will naturally attest its distinctive religious character by deeds, by force of arms. But the nature of faith as such is everywhere the same. It is essential to faith to condemn, to anathematize. All blessings, all good it accumulates on itself, on its God, as the lover on his beloved; all curses, all hardship and evil it casts on unbelief. The believer is blessed, well-pleasing to God, a partaker of everlasting felicity; the unbeliever is accursed, rejected of God and abjured by men: for what God rejects man must not receive, must not indulge; — that would be a criticism of the divine judgment. The Turks exterminate unbelievers with fire and sword, the Christians with the flames of hell. But the fires of the other world blaze forth into this, to glare through the night of unbelief. As the believer already here below anticipates the joys of heaven, so the flames of the abyss must be seen to flash here as a foretaste of the awaiting hell, — at least in the moments when faith attains its highest enthusiasm.
It is true that Christianity ordains no persecution of heretics, still less conversion by force of arms. But so far as faith anathematizes, it necessarily generates hostile dispositions, — the dispositions out of which the persecution of heretics arises. To love the man who does not believe in Christ, is a sin against Christ, is to love the enemy of Christ.
That which God, which Christ does not love, man must not love; his love would be a contradiction of the divine will, consequently a sin. God, it is true, loves all men; but only when and because they are Christians, or at least may be and desire to be such. To be a Christian is to be beloved by God; not to be a Christian is to be hated by God, an object of the divine anger.
The Christian must therefore love only Christians — others only as possible Christians; he must only love what faith hallows and blesses. Faith is the baptism of love. Love to man as man is only natural love. Christian love is supernatural, glorified, sanctified love; therefore it loves only what is Christian. The maxim, “Love your enemies,” has reference only to personal enemies, not to public enemies, the enemies of God, the enemies of faith, unbelievers. He who loves the men whom Christ denies, does not believe Christ, denies his Lord and God. Faith abolishes the natural ties of humanity; to universal, natural unity, it substitutes a particular unity.