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Heine's Religion:
The Messianic Ideals of the Poet
- Abstract
Why did Heine become a Christian? We can discount many of the usual motives that lead to conversion. .Heine did not expect any financial advantage. .Involved to the day of his death in financial troubles—fighting with either his relatives or his publishers—he was always contemptuous of the power of money. As a young man he wrote:
“But—to use again the Frankfort idiom—aren’t the Rothschilds and the Bethmans on exactly the same level? The merchant has the same creed all over the world. His office is his church, his desk his pew, his memorandum book his Bible, his stockroom his holy of holies, the bell of the stock exchange his chimes, Mammon his God, credit his faith.”
And a few years later:
“. . . I would consider it below my dignity and a blot on my honor to become a convert for the sake of a government job in Prussia.”
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