But the second commandment is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself —MATTHEW 22:39
EVERY speech, especially a portion of a speech, usually presupposes something from which it proceeds. He who desires to make the speech or the assertion a subject of reflection does well, therefore, to look first for this presupposition, in order to start from it. So there is also a presupposition contained in the text we read, which although it comes last is nevertheless the starting point. Therefore when we are told: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” then this statement contains the presupposition that every man loves himself. Consequently Christianity presupposes this, since Christianity, unlike those ambitious thinkers, by no means begins without presuppositions, or with a flattering assumption.
And would we dare to deny that what Christianity presupposes is true? But, on the other hand, could anyone so misunderstand Christianity as to believe it was its intention to teach that which worldly wisdom unanimously—alas, and yet divisively—teaches, that everyone loves himself best? Could anyone misunderstand this, as if it were the intention of Christianity to hold self-love in honor? On the contrary, it is its intention to strip us of our selfishness. This selfishness consists in loving one’s self; but if one must love his neighbor as himself, then the commandment opens the lock of self-love as with a picklock, and the man with it. If the commandment about loving one’s neighbor were expressed in some other way than by the use of this little phrase, “as thyself,” which is at once so easy to use and yet has the tension of eternity, then the commandment would not be able thus to master the self-love. This “as thyself” does not vacillate in its aim, and so it enters with the condemning inflexibility of eternity into the most secret hiding place, where a man loves himself. It does not leave self-love the least excuse, the least loophole open. How strange! Long and shrewd speeches might be made about how a man ought to love his neighbor; and then, after all the speeches had been heard, self-love could still hit upon an excuse and find a way of escape, because the subject had not been absolutely exhausted; all alternatives had not been canvassed; because something had been forgotten, or not accurately and bindingly enough expressed and described.
But this “as thyself”! Certainly no wrestler can get so tight a clinch upon his opponent as that with which this commandment embraces the selfishness which cannot stir from its place. Truly, when selfishness has striven with this word, which yet is so easy to understand that no one should break his head on it, then it must perceive that it has been striving with the stronger power. As Jacob limped after he had wrestled with God, so shall the selfishness be broken when it has striven with this word, which, however, does not wish to teach a man that he ought not to love himself, but, on the contrary, simply wishes to teach him the proper kind of self-love. How strange! What struggle is so protracted, so terrible, so complicated, as the battle of self-love in its own defense? —and yet Christianity decides everything with a single blow. The whole is swift as a handspring, everything is decided, like the eternal decision of the resurrection, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye”: Christianity presupposes that a man loves himself, and merely adds to this the word about loving your neighbor “as yourself.” And yet there lies the difference of eternity between the first and the last.
But would this really be the highest form of love? Would it not be possible to love a man better than one’s self? We hear such talk now and then, the expression of a poet’s enthusiasm. Could it perhaps be true that it was because Christianity was not able to soar so high, presumably also because it addresses itself to simple, commonplace men, that it wretchedly continues to stress the requirement of loving one’s neighbor “as one’s self’? Could that be why, instead of basing its demand on that object of ambitious love which poets celebrate, “a beloved,” “a friend,” it bases it on the apparently very unpoetical “neighbor”? For certainly no poet has ever sung about loving one’s neighbor, any more than he has sung about loving him “as one’s self.” Could this perhaps be the case? Or should we, as we make a concession to the love which the poet sings as compared with the love commanded, humbly praise the circumspection of Christianity and its understanding of life, because it holds itself to earth more soberly and more enduringly, perhaps with the same import as that of the proverb which says: “Love me little, love me long”?
Be this far from us! Christianity knows a better answer to the question of what love is and about loving than does any poet. Precisely therefore it knows too that which perhaps escapes the attention of many poets, that the love they praise is secretly self-love, and that this explains its intoxicated expression: about loving another man better than one’s self. Earthly love is still not the eternal love, it is the beautiful fantasy of the infinite, its highest expression is mysterious foolishness. That is why it even tries its hand at an even more fantastic expression, the “loving a man more than God.” And this foolishness pleases the. poet beyond all measure, it is delicious in his ears, it inspires him to song. Alas, Christianity teaches that this is blasphemy.