I’m finally reading Luthardt. [Alex, sorry it’s taken me eight years.] This reminds me of the C. S. Lewis reflection from a few weeks ago.
The remembrance, more or less obscure, of a fall at the beginning of history, survives among all nations. We everywhere meet with legends of a better state in the early days of our race, with echoes of the Scripture narrative of a temptation from without, and of a yielding thereto on the part of man, entailing fatal consequences on the race of man and his earthly abode. They are but obscure and confused reminiscences, that have been preserved in the memories of the various nations; yet they are reminiscences, and when compared with the account given in Scripture, we easily perceive how they serve to confirm it.
The unadorned simplicity of the Biblical account plainly testifies that the tradition here deposited, is the source of all the traditions which have, in their course through the various countries and tribes, sometimes taken so fantastic a form. Even ancient philosophy bears similar testimony, after its fashion. Plato speaks of remembrances which the soul bears within her,—remembrances of original higher intuitions of celestial beauty, the echoes of which, during this dark earthly existence, accompany her in the mysterious depths of her inner life, and are raised to consciousness as soon as the certain word is uttered by which those slumbering ideas are awakened. He has but transferred to the individual man that which applies to the whole race; for we certainly all bear within us, so to speak, the memory of a lost home.
We feel like exiles, longing for the native land from which they have been driven; a craving for a better future, a home-sickness for a lost home, everywhere accompanies us. In old age it often takes the form of a melancholy regret for the days of childhood. Yet this is, in truth, not a regret for the days of our individual childhood, but for the childhood of the race. Whatever of good or noble human nature may bear within it, its ideas of the good, its moral efforts, its higher, nobler feelings, are the ruins of a past greatness. We are all walking among such ruins. They are bearing testimony to what has been; and we involuntarily receive their testimony.
Man is neither an angel nor an animal, but a fallen child of God; and he feels his fall. He has at least preserved remembrances of his dignity. It is true that he now goes about, as it were, in rags; but, beggar as he is, he once wore a crown. It is evident that he was born a king. Is it to be wondered at that he should long to recover his crown?
Luthardt, C. E. (1872). Apologetic Lectures on the Saving Truths of Christianity (S. Taylor, Trans.; Second Edition). T. & T. Clark.
Jordan Cooper has published the edition I’m reading at Just and Sinner. You can also access the PDF for free here.
