then I could not do anything, having a lord and master.’Zinzendorf
considers that if everybody were the servant of Christ, then no one
would need to leave his or her ordinary tasks. Instead, they would
perform them with a new heart and spirit. The Lord Christ willingly
promotes the labour of the servants that proceeds from their hearts.^52
In this dialogical manner, lord and servant resemble friends.
The dialogical nature of Christ’s labour is also manifest in the view
of Speech Eight that Christ confessed himself in our favour:‘He loved
us until death; he confessed himself publicly in our favour (zu uns),
and laboured on the cross, so that he need not hide us, but can show
us everybody as a sign of victory, as rescued allies.’^53 One thusfinds
the idea of mutual religious recognition in Zinzendorf. The aspect of
liberation and victory also entails the idea of battle or struggle in that
we should have our pride and joy in the struggle (erkämpfung) that
Christ won for us all.^54
Zinzendorf can also describe this struggle as knowledge or epi-
stemic recognition of the new order. Christ
will make himself known in that indispensable order, in which we are
his purchased goods, his labour-requiring bride (erarbeitete braut), his
friends through struggle (erstrittene freunde), the wages of his cross, his
delightful plays (lustspiele) and crowns, so that on the day of the joy of
his heart he may be crowned.^55He goes on to remark that the crown of Christ is a crown of thorns; in
that sense the king and the lord was a servant.^56 Zinzendorffinishes
the speech with admonition that his hearers should not remain
servants of sin.^57 In this sense, the dialogical interplay between
being a lord and being a servant pertains both to Christ and the
believers.
Although Zinzendorf does not employ the German wordanerken-
nen, hisBerlin Speechesare significant for our history for several
reasons. First, he exemplifies the Pietist conviction that knowing
Christ should be the primary and immediate event of true religion.
Second, his view of personal appropriation is highly reciprocal and
dialogical: Christ confesses his believers and endows them with new
‘rights’that empower them to become mature persons. Third, one
may even detect some concepts which are relevant for Hegel, such as
(^52) Reden,86–8. (^53) Reden, 112. (^54) Reden, 111.
(^55) Reden, 111–12. (^56) Reden, 112. (^57) Reden, 116.
124 Recognition and Religion