For every tree is known by its own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.—LUKE 6:44
IF it were true, as a conceited cleverness believes, proud of not being imposed upon, that one should believe nothing that one does not see with the sensual eye, then must one first and foremost cease to believe in love. And if one did this and did it for fear of being deceived, would one then not be deceived? One may be deceived in many ways; one may be deceived by believing the false, but one may also be deceived by not believing the true; one may be deceived by appearances, but one may also be deceived by the appearance of shrewdness, by the flattering conceit which is absolutely certain it cannot be deceived. And which deception is the more dangerous? Whose recovery is the more doubtful, that of one who does not see, or his who sees and yet does not see? Which is more difficult—to awaken one who is sleeping, or to awaken one who, awaking, dreams that he is awake? Which sight is more distressing, one which immediately and unequivocally moves one to tears, the sight of the unhappy deception of love, or that which in a certain sense might occasion laughter, the sight of the self-delusion whose foolish conceit of being incapable of being deceived is certainly ridiculous and something to laugh at, were not the ridiculous here an even stronger expression for horror, because it indicates that the one self-deceived is not even worthy of tears?
To defraud oneself of love is the most terrible deception of all. It is an eternal loss for which there is no compensation either here or in eternity. For if otherwise, however else it may differ, the question is about being deceived about love, then the victim still retains his hold on love, and the deception consists merely in there being no love where it was supposed to be. But the self-deceived has excluded and does exclude himself from love. Much has also been said about being deceived by life or in life; but one who self-deceived defrauded himself of living, has suffered an irreparable loss. Eternity may yet richly compensate a man who all his life had been deceived by life; but the self-deceived has prevented himself from gaining the eternal. Oh, what has one whose love made him a victim of human deception really lost if in eternity it appears that love abides while the deception has ceased! But the one who by shrewdness defrauded himself by cleverly falling into the snare of cleverness, even if throughout his whole life he conceitedly deemed himself lucky, what has he not lost if in eternity it appears that he defrauded himself! For a man may perhaps succeed in getting along in the temporal existence without love; he may succeed perhaps in getting through time without discovering the self-deception; he may perhaps succeed—how terrible —in continuing in his self-conceit, glorying in it; but in eternity he cannot do without love, and he cannot fail to discover that he has forfeited everything. How earnest, how terrible existence is, just when it chastisingly permits the self-willed man to act for himself, so that he is allowed to live on, glorying in being deceived, until sometime he has to testify that he everlastingly defrauded himself! Truly, eternity will not be mocked; what is more, it does not even need to use force, but with supreme effectiveness it uses a bit of mockery to punish the presumptuous man most terribly. What is it which connects the temporal and the eternal, what except love, which just for this reason is before everything, and which abides when everything else is past? But precisely because love is the bond of the eternal, and because the temporal existence and eternity are heterogeneous, for that reason love may sometimes seem burdensome to the earthly prudence of the temporal existence, and therefore in this existence it may seem a tremendous relief to the sensual man to cast off this bond of the eternal.
The self-deceived man certainly believes that he can rely upon himself, moreover, that he has more than conquered. In his fool’s conceit it is hidden from him how distressing his life is. That “he has ceased to sorrow,” we shall not deny. But what advantage is this to him when his chance of salvation lies in his beginning in earnest to sorrow over himself! The self-deceived man even thinks perhaps that he is able to comfort others who were victims of a perfidious deception. But what madness for one who had sustained an eternal injury to wish to heal someone who at most is sick unto death! Through a strange contradiction, the self-deceived man perhaps believes that he is sympathetic with the unfortunate victims of a deception. But if you listen carefully to his consoling speech and healing wisdom, then you will know his love hy its fruits: by its bitter mockery, by the shrewdness of its reasoning, by its poisonous spirit of mistrust, by the cutting coldness of its obduracy; that is, it will be known by its fruits that there is no love in his sympathy. We know the tree by its fruits; we do not gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles; if you try to gather them there, then you will not - only gather in vain, but the thorns will prove to you that you gather in vain. For every tree is known by its OWN fruit. It may very well be that there are two fruits very closely resembling each other; the one is palatable and delicious, the other bitter and poisonous. Sometimes too the poisonous one is very palatable, the healthful one bitter to the taste. So also love is known by its own fruit. If a man makes a mistake, it must be either because he does not know how to judge rightly in this particular case, or because he does not know the fruits. Thus a man may make a mistake and call that love which is really self-love: when he is absolutely certain that he cannot live without the beloved, but he will listen to nothing about its being the task and requirement of love that a man should deny himself and renounce the selfishness of love. Or he may make a mistake and call a weak complacency by the name of love; or a demoralized whining, or harmful connections, or natural vanity, or selfish associations, or the bribery of flattery, or momentary impressions, or relationships of the temporal existence, by the name of love. There is a flower which is called the flower of eternity, but there is also, strange to say, a so-called everlasting flower which, like perishable flowers, blooms only at a certain time of year: what a misnomer to call the latter an everlasting flower! And yet at the time of blossoming it does not look so deceptive. But every tree is known by its own fruit, and love too is known by its fruit, and the love about which Christianity speaks is known by its own fruit because it has the truth of the eternal in it. All other love, whether, humanly speaking, it withers early and is changed, or cherished it endures throughout the temporal existence, is nevertheless perishable, it merely blooms. In this lies precisely its fragility and its sadness; whether it blossoms for an hour or for seventy years, it merely blossoms. But Christian love is eternal. Therefore no man who understands himself would think of saying of Christian love that it blossoms. No poet who understands himself would think of celebrating Christian love in song. For that which the poet sings must contain the sadness which is his own life’s mystery: it must bloom—and, alas, it must perish. But the Christian love abides, and just for that reason it is: for what blooms perishes, and what perishes blooms, but what is cannot be sung, it must be believed and it must be lived.