Ernst and Falk: Dialogues for Freemasons

question The previous page's catchword "Erstes" suggests the full thought was "First, the question arises..." to arise: why has one not long ago spoken out so clearly?

There are many possible answers to this question. Yet one will hardly find another question that bears a greater resemblance to it than this: why did systematic textbooks Lehrbücher: formal instructional manuals or compendiums of doctrine. arise so late within Christianity? Why were there so many and such good Christians who neither could, nor wished to, express their faith in an intelligible manner?

Furthermore, this would have still happened too early in Christianity—as the faith itself might have gained very little from it—had Christians not taken it into their heads to try and express it in a completely nonsensical original: "widersinnige"; meaning contrary to sense, absurd, or paradoxical. way.

Let the reader make the application of this for themselves. The author is suggesting that just as Christianity existed purely for a long time without formal "textbooks" until forced to clarify itself against nonsense, Freemasonry has followed a similar path of silent practice until now.