THE ENLIGHTENMENT
553
actually betrayed the fact that it has evaluated and utilized religion
in
this
manner.
But every "enlightenment" concerning such a misuse of re–
ligion is in the direction of religious truth, thus showing that the con–
cept of enlightenment cannot be narrowed down to this radical
concept.
In the earliest Christian theology we find an expression which
points to a Christian conception of enlightenment:
obsequium ra–
tionale,
rational obedience, reasonable faith. This expression of "ra–
tional faith," of "enlightened faith," can be cited against hundreds
of other passages which speak of the mystery of faith, not least the
provocative saying of Anselm of Canterbury:
Credo quia absurdum;
I believe because it is absurd-which means: because here it is a
matter of a truth which I cannot know ,and "comprehend," but
must "apprehend" in another way, through faith. Obviously Chris–
tian faith aims at a reality which is mysterious and "passes all com–
prehension"-but within Christian faith there is a tendency to
clarity, to clarification, to insight. "One day," on the day, that is,
which Luther so beautifully called the "dear last day," faith will
even lead to the triumphant supplantation of faith. For then those
who have thitherto believed in the mystery and lived by it will behold
the mystery: the history of the Church will end with an act of con–
summate eRlightenment.
Hence true mysticism, in contrast to "mysticism" vulgarly so
called, is a kind of enlightenment movement: it leads close to the
secret, it leads into the light, and if the true mystic is overcome by
the secret and feels its incomprehensibility more strongly than before,
this is because he sees more clearly. He discovers more darkness be–
cause he is closer to the light. The "mysticist," to
be
sure, prizes
darkness for its own sake. The statue of the scourged Saviour which
is reverenced in the Wieskirche near Steingaden and which it was
long possible to see only rather obscurely through a pane of glass,
has, since last year, stood wholly visible in its niche: the glass and all
sorts of pious trimmings, rosaries and votive offerings, have been
removed. The curates who take care of the church report that cer–
tain visitors have been of the opinion that the "mystical effect" of
the statue has been destroyed. This very banal remark expresses the
bad concept of mysticism to which we have referred-darkness for
