NEUOFFENBARUNGDeutscher Text · Book contents
27 January 1844, evening
[Ste.01_023,01] ‘You blind guides, who strain out the gnats and swallow the camel!’
[Ste.01_023,02] This again is a verse for all times, and its meaning, as with other verses, is immediately plain enough to grasp with the hands.
[Ste.01_023,03] Who, then, are these benighted or blind guides? They are the people who hammer away at little faults, or who ride upon the letter of the law. They strain things out and bawl all day long. Yet they often know nothing of the great faults upon which a person's whole salvation and life depend. When they do know them, they shut their eyes for political reasons as if nothing were at stake.
[Ste.01_023,04] To make this as clear as possible I will give you examples. We shall go up from small to great, or from the particular to the general.
[Ste.01_023,05] Let us look into a family, a single household. The father has children of both sexes. In a somewhat wealthier household the boys are diligently urged to study, and the girls likewise have various masters. They learn to speak some foreign language haltingly, to draw, to play music, and to do other fine feminine work besides.
[Ste.01_023,06] The sons are urged to study with all zeal. They must excel, or they will have a bad time of it. Every neglect is sharply rebuked, and punishments do not fail to follow. In the same way the other so-called rules of polite conduct are firmly enforced. Woe to the boy who carelessly offends against them! Father, tutor and schoolmaster nag him daily.
[Ste.01_023,07] Someone will ask, ‘Well, is that wrong?’ I say only this: here, too, little gnats are strained out while the camel is swallowed without anyone noticing.
[Ste.01_023,08] What is the camel here? It is studying itself and the polished making of a young person into a person of the world. By swallowing this camel, the young person generally loses the last drop of what might have awakened the life of the spirit within him and is thereby thrust entirely out into the barest worldliness.
[Ste.01_023,09] It goes just the same with the girls. The strict mother talks all day until her tongue is almost sore. One daughter has made a stitch a little too long, a little spot is found somewhere on another, the third has not known her lesson well enough in this or that subject, and one has not got her hair quite in order. In short, every awkward posture and a host of other scarcely noticeable faults are often rebuked with bitterness. There is plenty of correcting, nagging and urging all day long.
[Ste.01_023,10] See, here again little gnats are strained out. But that the girls are killed outright for all inward spiritual life by all this worldly trumpery is the camel swallowed without a second thought.
[Ste.01_023,11] I think no further explanation need be added to this example, since it is exceedingly clear in itself. Let us go on to a more general example.
[Ste.01_023,12] In the Church as it is among you, great care is taken that the so-called ecclesiastical ordinances are observed, especially by the common people, under pain of absolution being withheld. Whoever observes them meets with no objection from the Church on certain occasions. Yet there is sharp preaching every Sunday and holy day, and for a poor sinner against such an ordinance hell is made terribly hot. He has plenty to do before he regains the favour of the Church. A rich man has a somewhat easier time, of course, but the poor man has his troubles!
[Ste.01_023,13] But what of the living proclamation of My Word and of guidance according to it? Things stand thus: if a Christian merely fulfils his duties to the Church, he may sin against many of My commandments and be sure he will be given no severe penance for it.
[Ste.01_023,14] If he can prove that he attended the Church's ceremonies on Sunday morning, he may then visit gaming houses, taverns and dance floors in the afternoon without concern. He can gamble and revel, dance and consort with prostitutes throughout the night. He can also cheat on occasion, speak ill of others, lie, be miserly and harm another person, through methods sanctioned by civil law, of course.
[Ste.01_023,15] At the next confession, especially with a discreet confessor, all this goes away for five Our Fathers and Hail Marys, and certainly for a paid Mass. If our penitent can even produce an indulgence, he goes spotless as a sun from the confessional to the Lord's table, and thence out of the church like an angel.
[Ste.01_023,16] Who will fail to see in this example the straining out of little gnats and the outright swallowing of the camel?
[Ste.01_023,17] I do not, of course, mean to reproach all confessors with this. There are several here and there who are in earnest about taking the better side of the matter. But generally this is what happens.
[Ste.01_023,18] Nicodemus also belonged to the Pharisees and scribes. Yet he was an exception among them, so he was no strainer of gnats and swallower of camels, for he knew Me and held to My Word. This will be excuse enough for faithful confessors. So let us go on to a large and general example!
[Ste.01_023,19] The princes of the world issue a host, indeed a dreadful host, of laws. A breach of them, whether knowing or unknowing, is punished strictly by the articles. But as to My laws, only those are incorporated into the laws of the state that can serve worldly security. Chief among these are the seventh, the fifth and, in cases of all too openly flagrant conduct, the sixth commandment. The state cares little for the other seven, unless political considerations move it to do so. Thus a state concerns itself exceedingly little, or not at all, with guiding peoples according to My Word, and says, ‘We will leave the rest to the clergy!’
[Ste.01_023,20] Then on both sides little gnats are strained out and camels are swallowed by the thousand. The Pharisaic way never dies out. For if one side is caught, the other has all the more room to breathe, and whatever one does, one usually goes from bad to worse.
[Ste.01_023,21] The world wishes to rule and can make everything serve this end. Divine and worldly laws are yoked together and made to draw the people into ruin.
[Ste.01_023,22] What good is it for a person to stand there ever so polished and fit for the state? What good is it if a state has the best constitution in worldly terms, yet always entirely disregards the main thing upon which all the life of the spirit turns?
[Ste.01_023,23] I think it would be better for someone to enter life as a cripple in worldly terms than to enter eternal death polished for the world.
[Ste.01_023,24] It would be needless to say more about this. So you too, look less to the little gnats and more to swallowing no camels, and you will have eternal life! Amen.