opment of the
new religion. But the living nerve of the Christian religion, which was
its closest bond to the highest spiritual acquisitions of the ancient
Greek world, was thus severed. First, the Logos, the Word, the Son of God,
was misunderstood, and mythology was employed to make the dogma, thus
misconceived, intelligible. In modern times, through continued neglect of
the Logos doctrine, the strongest support of Christianity has been cut
from under its feet, and at the same time its historical justification,
its living connection with Greek antiquity, has almost entirely passed out
of view. In Germany it almost appears as though Goethe, by his _Faust_, is
answerable for the widespread treatment of the Logos idea as something
obscure, incomprehensible, mystical. Many, when reading the opening of the
Fourth Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word," say to themselves, "No one
understands that," and read on. He who does not earnestly and honestly
make an effort to understand this beginning of the Gospel, shows that he
is but little concerned with the innermost essence of Christianity, as
clearly presented to us in the Fourth Gospel. He forgets that not only
faith, but thought, pertains to a religion. It is no excuse to say, "Did
not the learned Dr. Faust torment himself to discover what 'the word' here
meant, and did not find it out?" He says in Goethe:--

"'Tis writ: 'In the beginning was the Word'!
I pause perplexed! Who now will help afford?
I cannot the mere Word so highly prize,
I must translate it otherwise."

But this is just what he ought not do. It was not necessary to translate
it at all; he only needed to accept the Logos as a technical expression of
Greek philosophy. He would then have seen that it is impossible to prize
the Word too highly, if we first learn what the Word meant in the idiom of
contemporary philosophy. Not even to a Faust should Goethe have imputed
such ignorance as when he continues to speculate without any historical
knowledge:--

"If by the spirit guided as I read,
"In the beginning was the Sense," Take heed.
The import of this primal sentence weigh,
Lest thy too hasty pen be led astray.
Is force creative then of sense the dower?
"In the beginning was the Power."
Thus should it stand; yet, while the line I trace,
A something warns me once more to efface.
The spirit aids, from anxious scruples freed,
I write: 'In the beginning was the Deed.' "(11)

Had Goethe wished to scourge t