Nathan the Wise, a five Act dramatic poem. I have borrowed the German Library edition (Vol. 12) of this work of the Enlightenment period. Lessing’s message, conveyed in a simple love story, is that humanity can overcome hatred and the fear of difference. Revealed faiths are part of the same tradition, Judeo-Christian-Muslim. It should be possible for those who share their love of God in that tradition to love each other. In other words, Lessing is optimistic that rationalism and faith are not obstacles to a love of humanity. “…truth, as soon as it is uttered, is immediately transformed into one opinion among many, is contested, reformulated, reduced to one subject of discourse among others. Lessing’s greatness does not merely consist in a theoretical insight that there cannot be one single truth… but in his gladness that it does not exist…” page xxvii of the Foreword – move over Jacques Derrida.
odespinner 