Emerson’s sacrilegious Divinity School address

On July 15, 1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed a class of Harvard Divinity School graduates. He wasn’t invited back to Harvard for three decades. Given what he said, I can understand why.

The complete address can be read here. I’ll share some of my favorite passages:

Meantime, whilst the doors of the temple stand open, night and day, before every man, and the oracles of this truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition; this, namely; it is an intuition. It cannot be received at second hand. Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or reject; and on his word, or as his second, be as he may, I can accept nothing.

He [Jesus] spoke of miracles; for he felt that man’s life was a miracle, and all that man doth, and he knew that this daily miracle shines as the character ascends. But the word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain.

Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion. As it appears to us, and as it has appeared for ages, it is not the doctrine of the soul, but an exaggeration of the personal, the positive, the ritual. It has dwelt, it dwells, with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus. The soul knows no persons. It invites every man to expand to the full circle of the universe, and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous love.

That is always best which gives me to myself. The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, Obey thyself. That which shows God in me, fortifies me. That which shows God out of me, makes me a wart and a wen.

It is already beginning to indicate character and religion to withdraw from the religious meetings. I have heard a devout person, who prized the Sabbath, say in bitterness of heart, “On Sundays, it seems wicked to go to church.”

Let me admonish you, first of all, to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those which are sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil. Friends enough you shall find who will hold up to your emulation Wesleys and Oberlins, Saints and Prophets. Thank God for these good men, but say, “I also am a man.” Imitation cannot go above its model. The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

Comments

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear Brian,
Although my remark is quite aside from the point of your composition today (mostly taken from Emerson) .......: according to the "Bible" (as used by Christians), the "Sabbath" is Saturday (not Sunday). Ask any Jew. (Or ask any well-informed student of Biblical history.) Of course, when I have pointed that out to some certain Christian believers, they have told me that I should go to hell for eternity for saying such a thing. Unfortunately, that sort of reaction is far too common among far too many "Christians" (and paralleled by far too many others of other strains of "religious belief"). Most regretable.
Robert Paul Howard

[tao]

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[Edward]

Emerson at Harvard Divinity

The thrush itself brings deception, and the wine is out of season.
From Spring we have grieved for what hasn’t happened, wasted
Nines, evensong; and I haven’t seen my family since Christmas.
Lo, the Genius of our administration has brought forth a poet

To break Our Lord’s balls. Steeped in community three decades, and now
Besought to look, oh inward, for the pulse pushing piety, or the true
Ignominy. I will have enough trouble with a parish, my poverty
And the artfulness of the seven sins: In illness best seek hospice.

Certainly this private prince is alone in the world, closeted in prayer,
Yet closeted in thought, deed and further deprived of compassion.
Any common cluck has read the Vedant: What contradiction is this?
We are told not to tell; sought not to seek; taught not to teach.

Gracious God, weakly we thank thee, and more weakly still, humanity.
The races and faiths of ages rising from debasement to debasement
Are further abused by the rule of Holy Days, coupled with such
Precious lavation. Jesus, Jesus and your sparrow are falling.