[Bremen, about April 23-May 1, 1839] 

Fritz Graeber, I am very busy at present with philosophy and 
critical theology. When you get to be eighteen years of age and 
become acquainted with Strauss, the rationalists and the Kirchen- 

Zeitung? then you must either read everything without thinking or 
begin to doubt your Wuppertal faith. I cannot understand how 
the orthodox preachers can be so orthodox since there are some 
quite obvious contradictions in the Bible. How can you square the 
two genealogies of Joseph, Mary’s husband, the different accounts 
of the institution of the Eucharist (“this is my blood”; this is “the 
new testament in my blood”>), of the men possessed by the devil 
(one says simply that the devil left him, the other that he entered 
into the swine), the statement that the mother of Jesus went out to 
look for her son, whom she believed to be mad, although she had 
conceived him miraculously, etc., with the authenticity, the literal 
authenticity of the Evangelists? And the discrepancy in the “Our 
Father”, in the sequence of the miracles, John’s peculiarly deep 
interpretation, through which, however, the form of the narrative 
is obviously obscured — what about that? Christi ipsissima verba‘ of 
which the orthodox boast come out differently in every gospel. 
Not to speak of the Old Testament. But nobody tells you this in 
dear old Barmen; there one is taught according to quite different 
principles. And on what does the old orthodoxy base itself? On 
nothing but—the old routine. Where does the Bible demand 
literal belief in its teachings, in its accounts? Where does a single 
apostle declare that everything he says is directly inspired? This is 
not surrendering reason in obedience to Christ, as the orthodox 
people affirm; no, it is a killing of the divine in man to replace it 
with the dead letter. I am therefore just as good a super-naturalist 
as I was before, but I have cast off orthodoxy. Thus I cannot now 
or ever believe that a rationalist who seeks with all his heart to do 
as much good as possible, should be eternally damned. That is at 
odds with the Bible itself, for it is written that no one is damned 
on account of original sin but only because of his own sins. But if 
a person resists original sin with all his might and does what he 
can, then his actual sins are only a necessary consequence of 
original sin and therefore they cannot damn him. 

April 24. Ha, ha, ha! Do you know who wrote the article in the 
Telegraph? The author is the writer of these lines,* but I advise you 
not to say anything about it, I could get into a hell of a lot of 
trouble. I know about Kohl, Ball and Hermann almost exclusively 
from reviews by W. Blank and Stricker, which I copied almost 

To Friedrich Graeber, about April 23-May 1, 1839 427 

word for word. But that Kohl talks nonsense* and Hermann is a 
feeble pietist, I know from my own ears. D. is Duirholt, office boy 
at Wittenstein’s in Unterbarmen. For the rest I am pleased with 
myself for not having said anything in the article that I cannot 
prove. There is only one thing which annoys me: I haven't 
presented Stier in as important a light as I ought to have done. He 
is not to be disregarded as a theologian. Aren’t you astonished at 
my knowledge of the characters, especially of Krummacher and © 
Doring (what I said about his sermon I heard from P. Jonghaus), 
and of literature? The remarks about Freiligrath must have been 
really good, otherwise Gutzkow would have cut them out. But the 
style is atrocious. By the way, the article seems to have caused a 
sensation. I put all five of you under obligation on your word of 
honour not to tell anyone that I am the author. Understood? As 
far as abuse is concerned, I heaped most of it on you and Wilhelm 
because I had the letters to you right in front of me when the 
urge to abuse somebody overcame me. F. Plimacher especially 
must not get to know that I wrote the article. What a lad that Ball 
is though! He is to preach on Good Friday, does not feel like 
studying and so learns by heart a sermon he finds in the 
Menschenfreund and gives that. Krummacher is in church, the 
sermon seems familiar to him, and it finally occurs to him that he 
had preached that sermon himself on Good Friday 1832. Other 
people, who have read the sermon, also recognise it. Ball is called 
upon to account for it and must confess. Signum est, Ballum non 
tantum abhorrere a Krummachero, ut Tu quidem dixisti.” I am very 
much obliged to you for the detailed review of Faust. The 
treatment of this piece certainly bears the stamp of that wretch 
Raupach.™ This low cur pokes his nose into everything and ruins 
not only Schiller by using his images and ideas over and over 
again in his tragedies, but also Goethe by maltreating him. I doubt 
very much if my poems will have a big sale; more likely they'll 
have a stinking one, since they are going for waste paper and 
bumf. I could not read what you wrote in red ink, so shall send 
you neither 5 silver groschen nor cigars. This time you will get 
either the canzone or part of the comedy which I have begun but 
not finished. Now I must go to my singing lesson. Adieu. 

Frederick Engels