The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

Citation of Books Detail

Click here to return to the main list

Author QuotedHeinrich Schlier
Title QuotedEleutheros
Date (Year/Month/Day)1964/03/19
Imprint[S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1935
QuotationI am beginning to be glad I learned (barely) to read German in school, and regret that I have let it go for so long, because it is a very rich language. The perfect language for an existential theology. And how much language has to do with expressing a particular facet of reality? Things can be discovered in German, that can be perhaps reproduced afterwards in other languages. Deeply moved for instance by [Heinrich] Schlier's magnificent article "Eleutheria" [Freedom] in Kittel. A superb investigation of the relation of sin, death and works - which explains for one thing my disillusionment and exasperation with the proofs of my new book (The Black Revolution again). I am wrong, and wrong over again to expect some definitive meaning for my life to emerge from my works. All it points to is the end: death. It leads others to deception and hurries them along to their own death, yet even in this I must witness to life. Monastic implications of this fine article.
Quotation SourceDancing in the Water of Life: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 5, 1963-1965.; Edited by Robert E. Daggy. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1997, p. 91
Letter to 
Notes 
Link to Merton's Copy  

(If there is a link above showing up as a number, click it to open another window with a full text version.)