If someone in Germany wanted to write a comedy of dilettantism, 
Herr Dr. O. F. Gruppe would be an indispensable character in it. 
Fate has equipped him with that iron tenacity which great men 
cannot do without, least of all the great men of dilettantism. Even 
if most of his adventures, like those of Sancho Panza, meet with 
ambiguous signs of acknowledgment, the monotony of this success 
is relieved and varied by the comic ingenuousness and touching 
naivety with which Herr Gruppe accepts his laurels. One cannot 
fail to perceive even a certain magnanimity in the consistency 
which has taught Herr Gruppe to conclude: Because I have been 
thrown out of the schoolroom of philology, it will be my mission to 
be thrown out also from the ball-room of aesthetics and the halls 
of philosophy. That is a lot, but it is not all. I shall not have played 
out my role until I have been thrown out of the temple of 
theology: and Herr Gruppe is conscientious enough to play out his 
role. 

In his latest performance, however, Herr Gruppe has to some 
extent departed from the height of his standpoint. We do not 
doubt for a moment that his latest work Bruno Bauer and Academic 
Freedom of Teaching has been by no means written “in the service 
of a party or under an influence”. Herr Gruppe felt the need to 
be thrown out of theology, but worldly wisdom here came to the aid 
of his comic instinct. As is fitting for comic characters, Herr 
Gruppe up to now has worked with most delightful seriousness 
and most unusual pomposity. Incompleteness, superficiality, and 
misunderstandings were his fate, but they were not his tendency. 
The great man acted according to his nature, but he acted for 
himself and not for others. He was a buffoon by profession: we have 

no doubt that in his latest performance he is a buffoon by order and 
for remuneration. The evil intention, the unscrupulous distortion, 
the base perfidy, will leave the reader, too, in no doubt about it. 

It would be contrary to our view of comic characters to waste an 
extensive critical apparatus on Herr Gruppe. Who wants a critical 
account of Eulenspiegel? Anecdotes are wanted, and we give an 
anecdote about Herr Gruppe which is the anecdote of his pamphlet. It 
concerns Bauer’s exposition of St. Matthew 12: 38-42. The kind 
reader will have to put up with theological matters for an instant, 
but he will not forget that it is our purpose to deal with Herr 
Gruppe and not with theology. He will find it only fair that the 
characteristic features of Bauer’s opponents should be brought to 
the notice of the newspaper public, since Bauer’s character and 
teaching has been made a newspaper myth. 

We shall quote the passage in question from St. Matthew in its 
entirety. 

“Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we 
would see a sign from thee. 

“But he answered and said unto them. An evil and adulterous. generation 
seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the 
prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so 
shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The 
men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn 
it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is 
here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, 
and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear 
the wisdom of Solomon, and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” 

The Protestant theologians were struck by the contradiction 
that Jesus here rejects miracles, whereas otherwise he performs 
miracles. They were struck by the even greater contradiction that 
at the very time when the Lord refuses the demand for a miracle, 
he promises a miracle, and indeed a great miracle, his three days’ 
stay in the underworld. 

Since the Protestant theologians are too ungodly to admit a 
contradiction of the scripture with their understanding, since they 
are too sanctimonious to admit a contradiction of their under- 
standing with the scripture, they falsify, distort and twist the clear 
words and the simple meaning of the scripture. They maintain 
that Jesus here does not counterpose his teaching and his spiritual 
personality to the demand for a sign; they maintain that 

“he is speaking of the whole of his manifestation, which is more than the 
manifestation of Solomon and of Jonas, and of which ‘in particular’ his miracles also 
were a part”. 

Yet Another Word on O. F. Gruppe’s Pamphlet 913 

By the most thoroughgoing exegesis, Bauer proves to them the 
absurdity of this explanation. He quotes for them St. Luke 
[11 : 29-30], in which the troublesome passage about the whale and 
the three days’ stay under the earth is missing. It says: 

“This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, 
but the sign of Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so 
shall also the Son of man be to this generation”, 

upon which St. Luke makes the Lord relate how the men of 
Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonas and the queen of the 
south came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the 
wisdom of Solomon. Bauer shows that the crux is given still more 
simply in St. Mark [8: 12-13]. 

“Why,” says Jesus, “doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, 
There shall no sign be given unto this generation. And he left them.” 

Bauer comes out against the theologians’ false interpretation 
and arbitrary distortion of the texts, and he refers them to what is 
actually written by once more summing up the meaning of Jesus’ 
speech in the following words: 

“Keep away from me, theologian! For, it is written: a greater than Jonas is here, a 
greaier than Solomon, that is to say, the men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of 
Jonas, the queen of the south came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear 
the wisdom of Solomon. But you have given no credence to my words, to my 
speech, yet these words are the expression of a personality, whose spiritual compass is 
infinite, whereas the personalities of Jonas and Solomon were still limited. But so it shall 
be, only the sign of Jonas shall be given to you, you shall not see any other sign 
than this my person and its expression, even if infinite, in the word.” 

After presenting Jesus’ speech in this way, Bauer adds: 

“Where then in particular are the miracles?” ae 

And Herr Gruppe? Herr Gruppe says: 

“The most unusual thing in this connection is that Bauer in his own baroque 
manner presents himself as a prophet. On p. 296 we read the emphatic passage: keep 
away from me, theologian!” etc. (p. 20). 

Herr Gruppe is so shameless as to want to make the reader 
believe that Bauer is speaking about himself, that he is making 
himself out to be the infinite personality, whereas Bauer is explain- 
ing Jesus’ speech. Much as we might like to, we cannot excuse this 
qui pro quo, this Eulenspiegel trick, as due to Herr Gruppe’s 
notorious weakness of intellect and dilettantist ignorance. The 
deception is obvious. It is not merely that Herr Gruppe does not tell 
the reader what it is all about. We might still think that the 
dilettante had accidentally opened Bauer’s work at p. 296 and in 

the happy-go-lucky haste of compiling his book did not have time 
to read the preceding and following statements. But Herr Gruppe 
suppresses the conclusion of the “emphatic passage”, the conclu- 
sion, which is beyond all possible misunderstanding: “But so it 
shall be, only the sign of Jonas shall be given to you, you shall not 
see any other sign than this my person and its expression, even if 
infinite, in the word. Where then ‘in particular’ are the miracles?” 

Herr Gruppe was aware that even the biassed reader, the reader 
who was so foolish as to look for Bauer not in Bauer’s writings, 
but in the writings of Herr Gruppe, could not fail to be convinced 
that Bauer was not speaking on his own account, but that he was 
saying what is written. Disregarding all other absurdities, what else 
could have been implied by the words “Where then in particular. 
are the miracles?” 

We doubt whether German literature has a similar specimen of 
shamelessness to offer. 

Herr Gruppe says in his foreword: 

“During my work it has become increasingly evident to me that we are living in 
g my wo! z singly 4 
an age of rhetoricians and sophists” (p. iv). 

If this is meant to be a confession, we must seriously protest 
against it. Herr Gruppe is neither a rhetorician nor a sophist. 
Until the period of his pamphlet on Bauer, he was a comical 
character, he was a rogue in the naive sense; since then he has 
lost nothing but his naivety, and hence he is now—but let his con- 
science tell him that. For the rest, Bauer can regard it an 
acknowledgment of his intellectual superiority that he could be 
opposed only by men so low in intelligence and so remote from 
any superiority that he could hit them only by allowing himself to 
fall to their level.