Lessing refused to surrender Christianity, on proof of error in its
first teachers, uncertainty in its reported miracles, contradictions
in its early literature, misapplication of Messianic prophecies. All
these he regards as but the external accidents, the transitory media,
of the religion, constituting, it may be, its support in one age and
its weakness in another. They do not belong to its inner essence, in
which alone the real evidence of spiritual truth is found; and he who
detects anything amiss with them may even render a service by driving
men from sham-proofs, that really persuade no one, to true ones that
lie at the heart of things. Religious doctrine cannot be deduced from
mere historical facts without a μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος vitiating the
whole process. _Facts_ indeed _may_ become the proper ground of moral
and spiritual faith; but then they must be facts which come over again
and again, and betray an element that is permanent and eternal; which
form part of the experience and consciousness of humanity; and ally
themselves with the Divine by not losing their _presence_ in the
world. But _unrepeated facts_, which limit themselves to a moment,
which are the incidents of a single personality, and are left behind
quite insulated in the past, show--were it only by your not expecting
them again--that they are detached from the persistent and essential
life of the universe and humanity. They are but once and away; and
least of all, therefore, can testify of the untransitory and
ever-living. The real can teach us only so far as it has an ideal
kernel, redeeming it from the character of a solitary phenomenon.
Among the various expositions and applications of this favorite theme
of Lessing's, we select the following sentences from his Axiomata.