Sartor Resartus · Chapter
II: Church-Clothes explained
Teufelsdröckh defines Church-Clothes as the forms and vestures through which humanity embodies the Religious Principle, arguing they are essential to society.
What happens
Teufelsdröckh defines Church-Clothes as the forms and vestures through which humanity embodies the Religious Principle, arguing they are essential to society. He laments that in the modern era these garments have become hollow masks, with religion withdrawing to weave new vestures, and hints at a forthcoming volume on the rebirth of society.
Themes in this chapter
Spiritual Crisis and Faith
Teufelsdröckh discusses the decline of living faith, with Church-Clothes becoming hollow masks, and the need for a new embodiment of the Religious Principle.
Critique of Society and Materialism
The chapter criticizes the empty forms of religion that persist without spirit, likening them to masks inhabited by 'spiders and unclean beetles.'
Historical and Social Transformation
Teufelsdröckh foresees a 'Palingenesia, or Newbirth of Society,' indicating a transformative process in which spiritual tissues are rewoven.
Characters to notice
- Diogenes Teufelsdröckh
Author of the chapter on Church-Clothes, presenting his oracular philosophy on religion and society.
- The Editor
Translates and presents Teufelsdröckh's chapter, adding no further commentary.
Key passages
“By Church-Clothes, it need not be premised that I mean infinitely more than Cassocks and Surplices; and do not at all mean the mere haberdasher Sunday Clothes that men go to Church in.”
Church-Clothes are not literal garments but the forms and structures through which religion is expressed.
Teufelsdröckh clarifies his symbolic use of the term.
“Church-Clothes are, in our vocabulary, the Forms, the Vestures, under which men have at various periods embodied and represented for themselves the Religious Principle; that is to say, invested The Divine Idea of the World with a sensible and practically active Body, so that it might dwell among them as a living and life-giving Word.”
Church-Clothes are the historical and social forms that give tangible expression to the divine idea, making it active in human life.
Definition of the central concept of the chapter.
“in our era of the World, those same Church-Clothes have gone sorrowfully out-at-elbows; nay, far worse, many of them have become mere hollow Shapes, or Masks, under which no living Figure or Spirit any longer dwells; but only spiders and unclean beetles, in horrid accumulation, drive their trade; and the mask still glares on you with its glass-eyes, in ghastly affectation of Life—some generation-and-half after Religion has quite withdrawn from it, and in unnoticed nooks is weaving for herself new Vestures, wherewith to reappear, and bless us, or our sons or grandsons.”
In the modern age, religious institutions have become empty shells, devoid of genuine spirit, while true religion quietly prepares new forms for the future.
Teufelsdröckh's critique of contemporary religion and his hope for renewal.