But the everlasting theme of the spiritual renovation of the life of humanity, as represented and symbolized by the Festival of the Nativity, was never touched with a finer or defter hand than by Schleiermacher, the greatest theologian of the nineteenth century, who found in brooding over its spiritual suggestions the central thought which was to determine the power of his own system, and to give new life and purpose to a higher reflection in Christendom. His ‘Dialogue on the celebration of Christmas’ is one of the most characteristic products of his genius, and it has an enduring value, not only from its relation to the great theologian himself, but from its bearing upon the living currents of Christian thought. Apart from his earliest sermons, it was the first literary production which he published with his name; and it is significant that it gave the first expression to the central idea of his new Christian faith. In his anonymous ‘Discourses on Religion,’ which appeared in 1799, he had opened again the overgrown and choked-up fountain of the original religious feeling in humanity; and with beneficent originality he had made its sweet and fertilizing water flow into the parched domain of theology. In his ‘Monologues,’ published in 1800, as a greeting and gift to the new century, he realized the strength and significance of human individuality, and spoke forth in ardent prophetic glow the watchword of the new moral freedom. But it was in this Christmas Dialogue that he first attained to clear insight into the vitality and power of the Christian regeneration, and its supreme significance for the whole life of mankind. He had passed through all the terrible struggle of the perplexed soul when the traditional creed upon which it has been resting, gives way; and he, too, had wrestled in his Gethsemane sweat of spiritual agony, amid the darkness and loneliness of unspeakable doubt and despair. Then it was, when shaken from his self-confidence and pride by a humbling sense of common human frailty and error, that the bright star of the East rose clear upon his view, and led him with all his weight of philosophic learning and wisdom, like the sages of old, to the manger at Bethlehem. And here in the vision of the Virgin Mother and the Infant Christ he found the end of all his search and longing, a new and higher view of the Divine idea there finally exhibited to the world, and a sure sense of spiritual peace and certainty which was never to leave him again.

It is not necessary to pause over the literary or artistic merit of this ‘precious jewel’ of our modern theological literature, as it has been called. Much has been written by way of criticism and adulation upon it; and it has received the sincerest flattery in various attempts to imitate it and to supersede it. It may suffice in this formal relation to refer to the exposition and summary reproduced in the Appendix to the translation, giving the view of one of the most critical and cultured recent representatives of the advanced wing of Schleiermacher’s School, and it may be taken either as an introduction to the perusal of this little work of the master, or as a recapitulation of it, according to the taste or need of the reader.¹ Schleiermacher’s Dialogue has been aptly called a Christian ‘Symposion’ in the manner of the Platonic Dialogues, and the student of Plato will readily appreciate the reference. Brief and popular though it be, it is not to be taken as a mere pastime for an unoccupied hour, nor will it give up its essential meaning to the frivolous soul. Its relevancy and subtlety, even through a certain bewildering variety and playfulness, cannot escape the most cursory reader; nor will it be denied its right to a special place high over all the accumulating masses of trivial and irrelevant Christmas literature. Its light and airy grace, its natural simplicity and refinement, its sympathetic and tender individuality, its catholic comprehensiveness and breadth, its elevating points of view, and its deep spiritual insight, cannot fail to find and satisfy the earnest hearts that are at once lightened and brightened by the proper mood of the Christmas-tide. A more genuine Christmas book was never written; for no Christmas book has ever dealt more directly, or more thoughtfully, with the essential theme of the Festival. And its sweet blending of high thought and social feeling, of science and religion, philosophy and poetry, insight and joy, make it not unworthy of its subject or of the genius of its author.

A genuine Christmas book unquestionably it is; but it is more, for it is an interesting and enduring contribution to Christian theology. The student of Christian life and thought will find in it original points of view which have not yet been exhausted, and which were perhaps never more significant than now. Without entering upon these in detail, or blunting the edge of anticipation, it may be premised that the various standpoints of the living Schools of Theology will here be found strikingly exhibited in distinctive contrast, and yet in sympathetic union. The standpoints of our contemporary critical rationalism, of the new spiritual theology (which is indeed only the highest form of natural theology), of lofty speculative thinking, and of quiet mystic feeling, are here presented in their varied aspects, and in their relative significance for the living tasks of Christian theology. They are brought with deep thoughtfulness into relation with the subject of the Christmas Festival, which is shown to involve the cardinal point in the interest of modern theology. And in dealing with this delicate and difficult theme, the genius of the profound theologian leads to the most suggestive and pregnant results. In his human and ideal apprehension, the unreal asceticism of the East and the crass naturalism of the West, are spiritually overcome; and the true and eternal idea of the Christian redemption is significantly, if not yet completely, set forth in the light of the modern time.

It is this which the Church above all things needs at the present hour. Her chief necessity is to find a way out of the lower entanglements and conflicts of carnal and worldly relationships into the higher catholicity and freedom of the Ideal, while losing no hold upon reality, but rather securing it by a stronger and firmer grasp. Of all the sons of men who have given themselves to solving this task during the past hundred years, no one has succeeded so largely, through the leading of the spirit and the ideas delineated here, as Schleiermacher; and the leaders of our own theology have only become leaders in his train.

It is also this illumination and guidance which the world mainly wants, and is craving for at the present hour. Amid the deepening darkness of the natural life and the intensified struggle for existence, the overcast horizon, and the new social problems and difficulties of the day, it is religion that must come once more to deliver and save the worn heart of humanity. And here, if anywhere, is to be found again the gleaming of the ancient joy, and a new herald voice proclaiming, in view of all the sadness and sorrow of the time: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.’

And in this feeling we welcome again the Christmastide, and keep the old celebration, not as ‘an ancient form, through which the spirit breathes no more,’ but with the very freshness and sincerity of the prime. The celebration has now become coextensive with Christendom, and all misunderstanding is at an end. For the great theologian has shown us in the Christ as the Divine ideal of humanity, that the glory of the Nativity is essentially involved in all human birth, and is consciously diffused by the higher Birth over all; and that all human life has thus become sacred and divine. Let his cheerful yet solemn voice, then, be heard, along with all besides, bidding us celebrate the mystery of this higher life joyfully and freely, yet without the profaning presence of an unhallowed thought, and recognise it in its harmony with all the wonders of love and science. And so let ‘the merry, merry bells of Yule’ chime once more as they ring in ‘the Christ that is to be,’ in response to the heavenly chorus over ‘the good tidings of great joy,’ the birth of ‘a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.’ Amid all suffering and wrong, all burdens of toil and care, the shortening day of life and the dark and fateful ministrations of death, let the old faith live anew and rejoice in the ideal vision of the Redeemer. The eternal Love once more hallows and gladdens the passing night by its own supreme gift; and the one stedfast star amid the universal change and whirl of things, points brightly beyond it to the happier morn.

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn, Draw forth the cheerful day from night: O Father, touch the East, and light The light that shone when Hope was born.

W. H.

Edinburgh, December 1889.

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Contents · Christmas Eve →

Footnotes

1. The reader may also be referred to Dr. Lichtenberger’s excellent summary of the Dialogue, as well as to his admirable exposition of the whole Theology of Schleiermacher, in his History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century (T. & T. Clark, 1889). ↩