Dear friend,
I should be sorry if we were to lose Dr Forster because of some displeasure on his part. None the less I must concede that you were right to want to see certain remarks of his removed from so meritorious an essay as the one he wrote for the Bayreuther Blätter. I am almost afraid that we shall have difficulty in reaching an understanding with our friends and patrons on the future meaning and significance of the incomparably and sublimely simple and true redeemer who appears to us in the historically intelligible figure of Jesus of Nazareth, but who must first be cleansed and redeemed of the distortion that has been caused by Alexandrine, Judaic and Roman despotism. Nevertheless, although we are merciless in abandoning the Church and the priesthood and, indeed, the whole historical phenomenon of Christianity, our friends must always know that we do so for the sake of that same Christ whom - because of His utter incomparability and recognizability - we wish to preserve in His total purity, so that - like all the other sublime products of man’s artistic and scientific spirit - we can take Him with us into those terrible times which may very well follow the necessary destruction of all that at present exists. -
In other words, what we are happy to abandon to the most pitiless destruction is all that impairs and distorts this saviour of ours: that is why we ask for sensitivity and care in the way we express ourselves, lest we end up working with the Jews and for the Jews. -
You should none the less suggest some decision!
Cordially yours,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 475