Consequently whatever your fortune was in love or friendship, whatever your need was, whatever your loss, whatever the despondency of your life in your confidence in the poet: the highest still remains—love your neighbor Him you can easily find, that is certain; you can unconditionally always find him, that is certain; you can never lose him. For the beloved can behave toward you in such a way that he is lost, and you can lose a friend; but however your neighbor treats you, you can never lose him. It is true that you may continue to love the beloved and the friend, however they treat you, but you cannot continue truly to call them the beloved and the friend when they, so much the worse, have in truth changed. On the other hand, no change can take your neighbor from you, for it is not the neighbor who holds you fast, but it is your love which holds the neighbor fast; if your love for your neighbor remains unchanged, then the neighbor also remains unchanged just by the fact of existing. And death cannot deprive you of your neighbor, for if it takes one, then life at once gives you another. Death can deprive you of a friend, because in loving your friend you are really united with the friend; but in loving your neighbor you are united with God, and therefore death cannot deprive you of your neighbor. If you have therefore lost everything in love and friendship, if you have never enjoyed any of this happiness: you still have the best left in loving your neighbor.

Love to the neighbor has, namely, the perfections of eternity. And is it really a perfection in love to have as its object the superior, the extraordinary, the unique? I thought that would be a perfection in the object, and this perfection of the object like a subtle misgiving against the perfection of love. Does it indicate a superior quality in your love if it can love only the extraordinary, the rare? I should think it would be an advantage to the extraordinary and the rare that it is extraordinary and rare, but not to love. And are you not also of the same opinion? For have you never thought about God’s love? If it were to love’s advantage to love the extraordinary, then, if I dare say so, God would be embarrassed, for the extraordinary simply does not exist for Him. The advantage of being able to love only the extraordinary is hence rather an accusation, not against the extraordinary, or against love, but against the love which can love only the extraordinary. Or is it an advantage to a man’s sensitive well-being that he can feel well only in one single place in the whole world, surrounded by every favorable circumstance? If you see a man who has thus arranged his life, what is it then you praise? Of course, the convenience of his arrangements. But have you never noticed that it is actually true that every word you utter in your panegyric over this magnificence really sounds like ridicule of the poor man who can live only in this magnificent environment?

Consequently the perfection of its object is not the perfection of love. And just because the neighbor has none of those perfections which the beloved, the friend, the admired, the cultured, the rare, the extraordinary man has to so high a degree, just for that reason the love for the neighbor has all those perfections which the love for the beloved, the friend, the cultured, the admired, the rare, the extraordinary man, does not have. Let the world dispute as much as it will about which object of love is the most perfect: there can never be any dispute about the fact that love to the neighbor is the most perfect love. And therefore all other love has the imperfection that concerning it there are two questions and consequently some ambiguity: there is first the question about the object and then about the love, or both questions are about the object and the love. But as to love for one’s neighbor, there is only one question, that about love, and there is only the single answer of eternity: this is love. For this love to one’s neighbor is not like the relation of one kind of love to other kinds of love. Earthly love is qualified by its object, friendship is qualified by its object, love to one’s neighbor alone is qualified by love. When the neighbor is every man, unconditionally every man, then are all the distinctions taken away from the object and consequently this love is recognizable by the fact that its object is without any closer qualifications of difference, that is to say, that this love is recognizable only by love. Is not this the highest perfection? For insofar as love can and may be recognizable in some other way, then this other way, by that very fact, makes this love suspect, in that it is not comprehensive enough, and hence not in an eternal sense infinite; this other love is a love which is even unconsciously predisposed to morbidness. In this suspicion, therefore, there dwells concealed the apprehension which makes love and friendship dependent on their object, the apprehension which is able to inflame jealousy, the apprehension which can drive one to despair. But love for one’s neighbor is without suspicion in the relationship, and therefore cannot become suspiciousness in the lover. Nevertheless, this love is not proudly independent of its object, its equality does not arise from the fact that love proudly withdraws into itself, indifferent to its object; no, the equality arises from the fact that love humbly turns out toward its object, embracing everyone, and yet loving each one individually, but no one in particular.

Let us consider here what we developed in the preceding chapter, that love in a man is a necessity to him, is an expression of his wealth. Hence the deeper this need is, the greater his wealth; if the need is infinite, then, too, is his wealth. When a man’s need for love is satisfied with loving only one, then we must nevertheless, although admitting that this need is wealth, say concerning it, that he really needs that man. On the other hand, when a man’s need of love consists in loving everyone, then it is a need, and it is so powerful that it is almost as if it must be able to produce its own object. In the first case the emphasis lies on the particular object of love, in the second case on the essentiality of the need, and only in the latter sense is the need an expression of wealth; and only in the latter case are the need and the object in an infinite sense related to one another on equal terms, for to the first man every man is the neighbor, or there is in a special sense no object, while in an infinite sense every man is the object. If one feels a need to talk with a certain particular man, then he really needs this man; but if his need for talking is so great that he must talk even if he is placed on a desert isle or in solitary confinement; if his need is so great that any man is the one he wishes to talk to, then his need is wealth. And he who loves his neighbor, his love is a need, the deepest need; he does not need men in order to have some one to love him; but he needs to love men. Still there is no pride or arrogance in this wealth, for God is the middle term, and the “shalt” of eternity binds and directs this powerful need so that it does not go astray and become pride. But there are no limitations in the object, for the neighbor is all men, unconditionally every man.

The man who truly loves his neighbor, therefore loves also his enemy. This distinction, “friend or enemy,” is a difference in the object of love, but love for one’s neighbor truly has an object which is without discrimination; the neighbor is the absolutely indistinguishable difference between man and man, or it is the eternal resemblance before Godand the enemy also has this resemblance. We think that it is impossible for a man to love his enemy, alas! for enemies can hardly bear to look at each other. Oh, well, then close your eyes—then the enemy absolutely resembles your neighbor; close your eyes and remember the commandment that thou shalt love, then you love—your enemy? No, then you love your neighbor, for you do not see that he is your enemy. That is, if you close your eyes, then you do not see the earthly difference; but enmity is also one of the earthly differences. And when you close your eyes, then your mind is not distracted and diverted at the very moment when you should listen to the word of the commandment. Then when your mind is not distracted and diverted by looking at the object of your love and at the difference in the object, then you become merely an ear for hearing the word of the commandment which said to you, and to you alone, that “thou” shalt love thy neighbor. Lo, then are you on the way of perfection toward loving your neighbor, when your eye is closed and you are become only an ear for hearing the commandment. And it is true (as we have already explained where we showed that the idea of neighbor is a purely spiritual determination) that one sees the neighbor only with the eye closed, or by looking away from the differences. The sensual eye always looks at the differences. Therefore earthly prudence always cries early and late: “Look out, whom you love!” Alas, if one truly loves his neighbor, then it is better not to look out for everything; for this prudence, when it comes to testing the object, will actually bring it about so that you never get to see your neighbor because he is every man, any man taken quite blindly. The poet despises this seeing blindness of prudence which teaches that one should take care as to whom one loves; the poet teaches that love is blind; according to the poet, the lover will find his object in a mysterious, inexplicable manner, or fall in love and so become—blind from love, blind to every fault, every imperfection in the beloved, blind to everything except this beloved—but yet not blind to the fact that this is the only beloved in the whole world. When this is so, then certainly earthly love makes a man blind, but it also makes him very particular not to confuse any other man with this one beloved; hence it makes him blind as regards the beloved, by teaching him to make a tremendous distinction between this one beloved and all other men. But love for one’s neighbor makes a man blind in the deepest and noblest and most blessed sense, so that he blindly loves every man as the lover loves the beloved.

Love for the neighbor has the perfections of eternity—which is perhaps the reason why it sometimes seems to fit in so little with the relations of the earthly life, with the temporal difference of worldliness; that it is so easily misunderstood and subjected to hate; that in any case it is a very unthankful task to love one’s neighbor.

Even the one who is not ordinarily inclined to praise God and Christianity, nevertheless does so when he shudderingly contemplates the terrifying facts of how in paganism the discriminations of the earthly life, or how the caste system, inhumanly separate man from man; how this ungodly wickedness inhumanly teaches one man to disavow kinship with another; teaches him presumptuously and madly to say about another man that he does not exist, that he is “not born.” Then even that man praises Christianity which has saved men from this evil by deeply and forever unforgettably emphasizing the kinship between man and man, because the kinship is assured by every individuals equal kinship with and his relation to God in Christ; because the Christian teaching applies equally to every individual, and teaches him that God has created him, and that Christ has redeemed him; because that Christian teaching calls every man aside and says to him, “Close your door and pray to God, then you have the highest a man can have; love your Saviour, then you have everything both in life and death; and disregard the differences, they neither add to nor subtract from.”

And I wonder if the one who from the mountain peak sees the clouds below him, I wonder if he is disturbed by this sight; I wonder if he is disturbed by the thunder storm that rages in the region down below him. And so high has Christianity set every man, unconditionally every man—for before Christ, as little as before the face of God, there is no number, no multitude, the innumerable are numbered to Him, the multitude is made up of individuals; so high has Christianity set every man, so that he may not harm his soul by becoming arrogant, or by groaning over the discriminations of the earthly life. For Christianity has not taken away the differences, any more than Christ Himself would, or would ask God to take the disciples out of the world—and this amounts to one and the same thing. There has never lived in Christendom, any more than in heathendom, any man who has not been arrayed in or clothed upon with the differences of the earthly life. As little as the Christian lives or can live without a physical body, just as little can he live outside the differences of the earthly life to which every individual by birth, by condition, by circumstances, by education and so on, specially belongs—none of us is the pure man. Christianity is too earnest to talk nonsense about pure man, it only wishes to make all men pure. Christianity is not a fairy tale, although the happiness it promises is more glorious than that in any fairy tale; nor is it an ingenious caimera which is intended to be difficult to understand, and which also requires one single condition, an idle head and an empty brain.

Consequently Christianity has a horror of that heathendom, and has once for all overridden it; but it has not taken away the differences in the earthly life. These must continue as long as the temporal existence continues, and must continue to tempt every man who comes into the world. For by being a Christian he is not exempt from the differences, but by triumphing over the temptation of the differences, he becomes Christian. In the so-called Christendom, therefore, the earthly difference is always a temptation. Alas! perhaps it does more than tempt, so that one man becomes arrogant, the other defiantly envious. Both cases are rebellion, rebellion against the Christian. Far be it from us, in truth, to confirm anyone in the presumptuous error of assuming that only the powerful and the distinguished are guilty of this; for if the poor and the impotent man merely defiantly aspires to the advantages denied him in the earthly life, instead of humbly aspiring to the blessed equality of the Christian life, then he also harms his own soul. Christianity is not blind, nor is it one-sided; with the calm of eternity it looks dispassionately at all the differences of the earthly life, but it does not contentiously take sides; it sees, and certainly with sadness, that earthly busyness and the false prophets of worldliness will conjure up this appearance of equality in the name of Christianity—as if it were only the powerful who are tempted by worldly differences, as if the poor would be justified in doing everything to gain equality—not merely by becoming a Christian in deed and in truth, I wonder if by that way one could come any nearer to the Christian likeness and the Christian equality.

Christianity will not take the difference away, either the difference of rank or the difference of insignificance; but on the other hand, there is no temporal difference, not the most favorable and acceptable in the eyes of the world, with which Christianity will side in partiality. Whether the temporal difference, in which a man offends by clinging fast to it in worldliness, is in the eyes of the world revolting and shocking, or innocent and honorable, simply does not interest Christianity, which makes no worldly distinctions, which does not look at that thing by which a man harms his soul, but only at the fact that he does injure his soul—is that an insignificance? Perhaps; but the fact that he does injure his soul is certainly not insignificant. Between the extremes of distinction and insignificance there lie a great many closer qualifications of worldly differences; but there are none of these closer and therefore less obvious differences of which Christianity makes an exception. The worldly differences are like a huge net in which the temporal existence is caught; the meshes in this net are of varying sizes, one man seems more bound and snared in the net of existence than another; but all these differences, the difference between difference and difference, the comparative difference, have no interest for Christianity, not the least; such an occupation and concern remains a worldly one. Christianity and worldliness can never come to understand each other, even if for a moment—to a lesser scrupulousness, they may delusively seem to. To secure an equal place in the world with other men, to make temporal conditions as similar as possible for all men, those are certainly things that worldliness considers of extreme importance. But even in this respect, what we may venture to call the well-intentioned worldly effort never completely understands Christianity. The well-intentioned worldliness holds itself piously—if one wishes to call it that—convinced that there must be one temporal condition, one earthly difference—which one may find by the help of calculations and surveys, or in any other preferred manner—where there is equality. If this condition were to become the only one for all men, then equality would be brought about. But partly, this cannot be done, and partly, this common equality of all arising from having the same temporal differences, is not at all Christian equality; worldly equality, even if it were possible, is not Christian equality. And to bring about a perfect worldly equality is an impossibility. The well-intentioned worldliness itself really admits it; it rejoices when it succeeds in making temporal conditions more and more equal, but it recognizes that its attempt is a pious wish, that it has set itself a tremendous task, that the chances of success are remote—if it rightly understood itself it would see that this could never be attained in the temporal existence; that even if this endeavor were carried on for a thousand years, it would never attain its goal. Christianity, on the contrary, by the help of the short cut of eternity, is immediately at the goal: it allows all the differences to continue, but it teaches the equality of eternity. It teaches everyone to rise above the earthly distinctions. Pay close attention to how equitably it speaks; it does not say that it is the humble who should lift himself up, while the mighty man should perhaps descend from his exalted position; ah, no, such a speech is not equitable. And the equality which is brought about by the mighty descending and the humble ascending, is not Christian equality, it is worldly equality. No, whether it was the one who stood highest, even if it were the king, he must lift himself above the differences of high place, and the beggar must lift himself above the difference of insignificance. Christianity always allows the differences of the earthly life to persist, but this equality in rising above earthly differences is implicit in the commandment of love, in the loving one’s neighbor.

Because this is so, because the humble as completely as the distinguished and powerful, because every man in his own particular manner, may lose his soul by not being willing to rise above earthly differences in the Christian way, and, alas, because it happens in both and in the most diversified ways: therefore it happens that wishing to love the neighbor is frequently exposed to a double, moreover, a multiple danger. Everyone who has despairingly clung to one or another of life’s earthly discriminations, so that his life is centered in it and not in God, he also demands that everyone who belongs in this same category, should ally with him—not in the good (for the good forms no union, unites neither two nor hundreds, nor all men together), but in an unholy union against the universal-human. The desperate call it treachery to wish to have fellowship with others, with all men. On the other side, those other men are again differentiated by other differences of the temporal existence, and then perhaps misunderstand it if some who do not belong to their class wish to unite with them. For as regarding the differences of the earthly life, there is strangely enough, due to misunderstanding, both strife and unity at the same time; one man wishes to do away with one difference, but he wishes to have another in its place. The difference can, as the word says, indicate the great difference, the supreme difference; but everyone who contends against discrimination in such a way that he wishes to abolish one definite discrimination in order to substitute another, he indeed fights to maintain discriminations. Whoever, then, wishes to love his neighbor, consequently does not concern himself in abolishing this or that discrimination, or, from a worldly point of view, in doing away with all of them, but is devoutly concerned in interpenetrating his own difference with the saving thought of Christian equality: he easily becomes as one who does not fit into the earthly life, not even into the so-called Christendom; he easily becomes exposed to attack from all directions; he becomes like a lost sheep among ravening wolves. Everywhere he turns he meets natural differences (for as was said, no man is pure man, but the Christian rises above earthly differences); and those worldly ones who have clung fast to temporal differences, any of them would be like those who are ravening wolves. Let us take some examples from the differences of the earthly life, in order to make the matter clear, and let us proceed very carefully. And may you only have the patience to read, as I devote my time and industry to writing; for since being an author is my sole occupation and my sole task, I both can and am in duty bound to employ a precise, a petty, if you will, but certainly also a rewarding carefulness which others are not able to, since in addition to being authors, they must also use their possibly longer day, their possibly richer gifts, their possibly greater skill in other ways.

It is true that the time is past when only the powerful and the distinguished were men, the others thralls and slaves. This is due to Christianity, But this does not imply that the powerful and the distinguished can no longer become a snare to a man, if he looks too long at these differences and harms his soul, forgetting what it means to love his neighbor. If this should take place, it must certainly happen in a more hidden and secret way than before, but at bottom it remains the same. Whether a man openly, enjoying his arrogance and his pride, indicates to other man that they do not exist for him, and desires for sustaining his arrogance that they should feel it when he demands the expression of slavish submission from them—or whether cunningly and secretly by avoiding every contact with them (possibly also for fear lest the manifestation of his arrogance might arouse them and become dangerous to him), he shows that they do not exist for him: at bottom these are one and the same thing. The inhuman and the un-Christlike is not determined by the way in which it is manifested, but by a man’s wishing to disavow his kinship with all men, with every man unconditionally. Alas, alas, to keep one’s self unspotted from the world is the problem and teaching of Christianity—God grant that we may all accomplish it! But to cling in worldliness to this inhumanity, as if it were the most glorious of all differences, just that is defilement. For it is not the rough labor that defiles—if it is performed in purity of heart; and it is not humble circumstances which defile—if you reverently take pride in living quietly; but silk and ermine can defile, if they cause a man to injure his soul. It is defilement if the humble so shrinks from his misery that he does not have the courage to wish to be edified by the Christian teaching; but it is also defilement when the distinguished man so swaddles himself in his distinction that he shrinks from being edified by the Christian teaching. And it is also defilement if one whose distinction consists in being as most people are, never overcomes this difference in Christian elevation.

So this distinguished depravity wishes to teach the distinguished man that he exists only for the distinguished; that he must live solely in their restricted circle, that he must not exist for other men, just as these must not exist for him. But take care, it says, he must know how to do this as easily and adroitly as possible, so that it may not provoke men, that is to say, the secret and the art consist precisely in keeping this secret to himself. The avoiding of contact with others must not seem to be intended, nor must it be done in an obvious way, which would attract attention; no, it must be done evasively, and consequently as cautiously as possible, in order to make sure that no one notices it, to say nothing of any one’s taking offense at it. Therefore he must walk with downcast eyes (alas, but not in the Christian sense), when he mingles in the throngs of men; proudly—and yet stealthily, he must flee from one distinguished circle to another; he must not look at these other men—so that they will not look at him; he must conceal the interest in his eyes if he should meet a fellow creature or an even more distinguished man; his glance must waver vaguely, hesitantly, over all these men, so that no one may catch his eye to remind him of their kinship; he must never be seen among the humbler classes, at least never in their society, and if this cannot be avoided, then must he display an aristocratic condescensionyet in its lightest form—in order not to offend or excite; he must be ready to employ exaggerated courtesy toward the humbler classes, but he must never associate with them as equals for that would indicate that he was—human, but he is an—aristocrat. And if he can do this easily, skillfully, elegantly, evasively, and yet always preserve his secret (that other men do not exist for him, or he for them), then will the aristocratic snobbery vouch for him that he has—good form. Yes, the world has changed—and the form of snobbery has also changed; for it would still be overhasty if we were to believe that the world has become good because it has changed. If we imagine one of those proud, wayward figures who took pleasure in this ungodly sport of openly letting “those men” feel their wretchedness, how astonished would he not be if he came to know how much caution had now become necessary in order to preserve this secret! Alas, but the world has changed; and gradually as the world changes, the forms of snobbish depravity become more cunning, more difficult to detect—but they truly do not become better.

Such is the aristocratic snobbery. And if there were a distinguished man whose life by birth and circumstances belonged to the same earthly classification, a distinguished man who would not consent to this conspiracy of dissension against common humanity, that is, against the neighbor; if he could not find it in his heart to consent to it, if he, perceiving very well the results of this conspiracy, still trusted to God to give him strength to endure these things, while he did not have the strength—to harden his heart: experience might well teach him what he risked. First the aristocratic snobbishness would accuse him of treason and selfishness—because he wished to love his neighbor; for maintaining his connection with snobbery would be love and loyalty and sincerity and devotion. And if then, as so often happens, the lower class, in turn, from the standpoint of their differences, misunderstood and misjudged him, him—who did not belong to their synagogue, rewarded him with mockery and insults—because he wished to love his neighbor: then, indeed, he would stand there in a twofold danger. Had he been willing to place himself at the head of the lower classes—so that by means of a rebellion he might have swept away the class distinctions: then they might possibly have loved and honored him. But he did not wish to do this; he wished only to express what to him was a Christian need, the need to love his neighbor. And this was why his lot was so dubious; the twofold danger came from this.

Then the aristocratic snobbishness might exultantly ridicule him, derisively condemn him and say it served him right. It would use his name as a bugbear to prevent inexperienced aristocratic youth from straying away—from the “good form” of snobbishness. And many of the better men among the aristocrats, under the powerful influence of the “good form” of snobbishness, would not dare to defend him; would not risk being laughed at by the “counsel of the scornful,” and this ridicule would reach its maximum if anyone were bold enough to defend him. Thus we might easily imagine that an aristocrat within the inspired circle of aristocrats might eloquently defend the idea of love to one’s neighbor, but when it actually came to the point, he might not be able to subject his mind in obedience to the view he had perhaps successfully defended. However, to defend an opposing view within the partition wall of the differences, to defend behind this wall a view which, in the Christian sense (not in the sense of raising a rebellion), wishes to take the differences away, that is simply to preserve the differences. In the company of the learned, or within a circle of associates which assures and emphasizes his distinction as such, the scholar might perhaps be willing to deliver an inspired lecture on the equality of all men; but that is simply maintaining the differences. In the company of the wealthy, in surroundings which simply make the advantages of wealth obvious, a rich man might perhaps be willing to make every concession about equality between men; but this also means preserving the differences. The distinguished man who might possibly victoriously succeed in overriding all objections arising in that exclusive company out of court, would perhaps snobbishly and cowardly avoid coming in contact with real objections to the differences. “Go with God!” We use this expression as a salutation—if that better-intentioned man among the distinguished, instead of proudly avoiding men, were to go out with God among men, then he would perhaps try to hide from himself—and consequently from God, what he got to see—but what God saw that He hid. That is, if one walks with God, then one certainly walks free from danger; but one is also compelled to see, and to see in a quite peculiar manner. When you walk in company with God, then you need see but one wretched man, and you will not be able to evade what Christianity wishes to have you understand, the human equality.

Alas, but perhaps that superior man would not quite dare risk having to endure this walking in company with God.and the impression it made upon him; he would perhaps withdraw—while, nevertheless, that same evening in the exclusive society of his friends, he would again defend the Christian view of life. Moreover, this walking with God (and it is only in company with God that one discovers his “neighbor,” for God is the middle term) for the sake of learning to know life and to know himself, is a serious walk. Then honor, power and glory lose their worldly glamor; in company with God you cannot take pleasure in worldliness. If you unite (for union is not always for the good) with some other men with a definite standing and position in life, even if it is only with your wife, then the worldly tempts you; even if it may not have great significance in your eyes, it tempts you comparatively in respect of persons; perhaps it tempts you for her sake. But when you walk with God, when you unite only with God, and in all that you understand, you understand that God is underneath: then you discover—shall I say to your own hurt’—then you discover your neighbor; then God compels you to love him—shall I say to your own hurt? For loving your neighbor is a thankless task.

It is one thing to let thought fight against thought; it is one thing to fight and conquer in a dispute; it is another thing to conquer one’s self when one fights in the realities of life; for however closely one conflicting thought presses on the other in life, however closely one contender presses on the other in a dispute, all this conflict is still carried on at a distance, like a battle in the air. On the other hand, this is a measure of a man’s disposition, of what he is; how far it is from what he understands to what he does; how great a distance there is between his understanding and his actions. At bottom we all understand the highest things; a child, the simplest man, the wisest man, they all understand the highest things, and all understand the same things; for it is, if I dare say so, a lesson set for us all. But that which makes the difference is whether we understand it only remotely—so that we do not act accordingly; or near at hand—so that we do act accordingly, and “cannot do otherwise,” cannot refrain from doing it, like Luther, who understood quite definitely what he had to do, when he said: “God help me, I cannot do otherwise. Amen.”

At the distance of a quiet hour from all the turmoil of life and of the world, every man understands what the highest is; when he starts out, he has understood it. When life looks like fair weather to him, he still understands it: but when confusion begins, then the understanding flees, or it appears that this understanding was at a distance. To sit in a room where everything is so still that one can hear a grain of sand fall, and understand the highest, is something every man is able to do; but, speaking figuratively, for one to sit in a kettle while the coppersmith hammers upon it, and then to understand the same thing about the highest: to do this one must have his understanding in himself; otherwise it will appear that his understanding was at a distance—because he was absent-minded.

At the distance of a quiet hour from the turmoil of life, the child and the simplest man and the wisest man understand, and almost equally easily, what every man ought to do—what every man should do; but in the midst of life’s confusion, when the only question is about what he will do, then it perhaps appears that that understanding was at a distance from him—was at the distance of humanity from him.

While a dispute is still remote from action, while the lofty resolutions are still awaiting action, while the solemn vows are unfulfilled and repentance still not proved, every man understands what the highest is. Within the habitual security of unchanged conditions, everyone can understand that a change is desirable, for this understanding is remote from the change. Is not the unchanged a tremendous distance from the changer? Alas, in the world there is perpetually the pressing question about what one can do and what one cannot do: eternity which speaks of the highest, calmly assumes that every man can achieve it, and therefore asks only whether he did so. From the height of his superior condescension, the great man understands equality between man and man. From the height of their mysterious superiority the scholar and the educated man understand equality between man and man; granted a little advantageous concession, the man whose difference consists in being like most other people, understands equality between men—at a distance the neighbor is recognized by everyone: God alone knows how many really recognize him, that is, close by. And yet at a distance the neighbor is merely a figment of the imagination; he who is neighbor by virtue of being near by, is any man, unconditionally every man. At a distance the neighbor is a shadow who in imagination passes through every man’s thought—but, alas, perhaps he did not discover that the man who at that very moment really did pass by him, was his neighbor. Everyone knows his neighbor at a distance, and yet it is impossible to see him at a distance; if you do not see him so close at hand that, before God, you see him unconditionally in every man, then you do not see him at all. Let us now consider the differences in the lower classes. The times are past when what one calls the lower classes had no conception of themselves, or only the conception of being slaves, not merely poor men, but actually not even men. The wild rebellions, the horror which followed on horror, are perhaps also past; but I wonder if viciousness cannot therefore lie hidden in a man. If so, then the vicious inferiority complex will make the poor man imagine that he sees an enemy in the powerful and the rich, in everyone who is favored by some advantage. But caution, it says, for these enemies still have so much power that it might easily become dangerous to break with them. Therefore the hidden viciousness will not teach the poor man to raise a rebellion, or absolutely refuse every expression of deference, or let his secret become manifest; but it will teach him that the deference shall be expressed and still not expressed, expressed and yet expressed in such a way that the powerful will find no pleasure in it, while he is still not able to say that this homage is refused him. Therefore in this submission there must be a cunning defiance which secretly embitters, a reluctance which secretly says “no” to what the tongue affirms; a dissonance of suppressed envy in the jubilation which honors the powerful. There must be no force used which might become dangerous; there must be no breach which might become a source of danger; but a secret hidden bitterness, a remotely suspected, painful dejection must make the power and the honor and the distinction into a torment for the powerful, the honored, the distinguished man, who yet is not able to put his finger on any definite cause of complaint; for therein lies exactly the art and the secret of the resistance. And if there was a poor man whose heart did not harbor this secret envy, and who was unwilling to permit this viciousness from without to get this power over him; a poor man who without being servilely submissive, without fear of man, modestly but above all gladly, gave every advantage of the earthly life its due, happier and more joyful in the giving perhaps than the one frequently is and can be who will receive it: then he would also surely discover the twofold danger. His equals will perhaps thrust him out as a traitor, despise him as servilely minded; and those favored of fortune will, alas, perhaps misunderstand him and make fun of him as a boot-licker. What in the preceding relationship might be regarded as too belittling for the distinguished—to love his neighbor, would here be regarded as too presumptuous for the humble —to love his neighbor.

So perilous a task it is to wish to love one’s neighbor. For there are still distinctions enough in the world; there are distinctions everywhere in the temporal existence, which is precisely the different, the manifold. Perhaps too a man may be successful by virtue of his own personality, in getting on well with all the differences in a gentle and complaisant agreement which strikes a little off from one place and so requires a little again in a different place: but the equality of eternity, the willing to love one’s neighbor, seems both too little and too much, and therefore, as applied to this love for the neighbor, does not really pertain to the relations of the earthly life.

Imagine a man who arranged a banquet and to it invited the halt, the blind, the lame, the beggars: now far be it from me to think that the world would find this anything but beautiful, even if peculiar. But imagine that this man who gave the banquet had a friend to whom he said: “Yesterday I gave a great banquet” —is it not true that the friend would first and foremost wonder that he had not been among those invited? Then when he came to know who had been invited: then far be it from me to think that the friend would regard it as anything but beautiful, even if peculiar. Still he would wonder, and he would perhaps say: “It is a strange use of words to call such a gathering a banquet, a banquet—where your friends are not present, a banquet—where the question is not about the quality of the wine, the choice of the company, the number of servants who waited on the table,” that is, the friend would think one might call such a feeding an act of charity, but not a banquet. For however good the food they received had been, even if it had not been merely as “strengthening and palatable” as that of charitable institutions, but had really been choice and costly, aye, even if they had received ten kinds of wine: the company itself, the idea of the whole affair, a certain something lacking, I know not what, would preclude calling such a gathering a banquet; it is contrary to customwhich draws distinctions. Suppose now that this man who had given the banquet, answered: “Then I still believe I had usage on my side; do we not read in Luke’s Gospel these words of Christ: When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen nor thy rich neighbors: lest they also invite you again, and you receive recompense. But when thou makest a banquet, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind’; for here not only is the word banquet used in this way, but at the beginning a less festal expression is used, the midday or the evening meal,’ and not until the speech refers to inviting the poor and the crippled, is the word banquet used Does it not seem to you that it is as if Christ wished to indicate that to invite the poor and the lame is not only what we should do, but is also something far more festal than eating at midday or evening with friends and relatives and rich neighbors, which one ought not to call a banquet; for to invite the poor, that is really to give a banquet? But I perceive that our usage of words is different, for as commonly used, a list of those who are invited to a banquet is sufficient: friends, brothers, relatives, rich neighbors—who are able to reciprocate. But so scrupulous is the Christian equality and its usage, that it requires not only that you shall feed the poor, it requires that you shall call it a banquet. If, however, in actual daily life you wish to stand strictly on this usage, and do not think that in the Christian sense it is a matter of indifference under what name the meal is served to the poor, then will men laugh at you. But simply let them laugh, they laughed, too, at Tobias; for the fact of wishing to love one’s neighbor is always exposed to a twofold danger, as we see from the example of Tobias. The ruler had forbidden under pain of death that he should bury the dead; but Tobias feared God more than the ruler, he loved the dead more than his own life: he buried him. This was the first danger. And then when Tobias dared this heroic deed—then his neighbors laughed at him.” That was the second danger…” Thus spoke the man who gave the banquet. My hearer, does it not seem to you that he was right? But might there not be something else to object to in his conduct? For why so insistent on inviting only the halt and the poor, and, on the other hand, why take such pains, even almost defiantly, to omit to invite friends and relatives, when he might equally well have invited all? Undeniably. And if he was thus insistent, then we shall not commend him or his choice of words. But according to the words of the evangelist, the meaning is, however, that these others would not come. For that reason, too, the friend’s surprise at not being invited also ceased as soon as he heard what company had been invited. Had the man, according to the friend’s use of words, made a banquet and not invited him, then he would have been angry; but now he was not angry—for he would not have come anyway.

O my hearer, does it seem to you that what we have discussed here is only a dispute about the use of the word “banquet”? Or do you not see that the dispute is about loving your neighbor? For he who feeds the poor, but does not at the same time triumph over his own feelings so that he may call this feeding a banquet, he sees in the poor and the humble only the poor and the humble; he who gives a “banquet,” he sees in the poor and humble his neighbor—however laughable this may seem in the eyes of the world. Alas, for it is still not so unusual for us to hear complaints in the world against this or that man because he is not earnest; but the question is, what the world understands by earnestness, whether it does not almost understand by it the pressure of the worldly concern. And the question is whether the world through constantly confusing earnestness and vanity, is not, in spite of its earnestness, so facetious that if in the highest sense it became earnest enough to see from this that one should thereby set about it earnestly, the question is, whether the world would not quite involuntarily burst into laughter. So earnest is the world! If the many and complicated distinctions of the temporal existence did not make it equally as difficult to see whether one loves his neighbor as it is difficult to see “the man’: then would the world always have cause for laughter—if there were otherwise a sufficient number of those who loved their neighbor.

To love the neighbor, while allowing the earthly difference to continue, is, as was here pointed out, essentially to wish to exist equally for every man unconditionally. Manifestly, merely wishing to exist for other men in proportion to the advantages provided by earthly distinctions, is pride and presumption; but the clever idea of not being willing to exist at all for others, in order secretly to enjoy the advantage of distinction in union with equals, is cowardly pride. In both cases there is dissension; but he who loves his neighbor is calm. He is calm through being satisfied with the conditions of the earthly life assigned to him, be they those of distinction or of poverty, and for the rest, he allows every earthly distinction to retain its power, and to pass for what it is and ought to be here in this life. For you shall not covet that which is your neighbor’s, not his wife, nor his ass, and hence not that advantageous position vouchsafed to him in life. If it is denied you, then you should still be glad that it was granted to him. In this way one who loves his neighbor is reassured; he does not servilely avoid the more influential men, but he loves his neighbor; nor is he supercilious to the humble, but he loves his neighbor, and wishes essentially to live equally for all men, whether he is actually known by many or not. It is undeniably a considerable wing-stretch, but it is not a proud flight which soars above the world; it is the humble and difficult flight of self-denial near the earth. It is far easier and far more comfortable to creep through life by living in more aristocratic seclusion, if one is a distinguished man, or in inconspicuous privacy if one is poor; moreover, one may, however strange it is, even seem to accomplish more by this surreptitious mode of life, simply because one exposes himself to much less opposition. But even if it is so pleasant for flesh and blood to avoid opposition, I wonder if it is also consoling in the hour of death? In the hour of death the only adequate consolation is that one has not evaded life, but has endured it. What a man shall accomplish or not accomplish, does not lie in his power to decide; he is not the One who will guide the world; he has only to obey. Everyone has, therefore, first and foremost (instead of asking which place is most comfortable for him, which connection is the most advantageous to him), to assure himself on the question of where Providence can use him, if it so pleases Providence. The point consists precisely in loving his neighbor, or, what is essentially the same thing, in living equally for every man. Every other point of view is a contentious one, however advantageous and comfortable and apparently significant this position may be. Providence cannot use one who has placed himself there, for he is plainly in rebellion against Providence. But he who duly took that overlooked, that despised and disdained place, without insisting on his earthly rights, without attaching himself to just one single man, essentially existing equally for all men, he will, even though he apparently achieves nothing, even if he becomes exposed to the derision of the poor, or to the ridicule of his superiors, or to both insult and ridicule, yet in the hour of death, he will confidently dare say to his soul: “I have done my best; whether I have accomplished anything, I do not know; whether I have helped anyone, I do not know; but that I have lived for them, that I do know, I know it from the fact that they insulted me. And this is my consolation, that I shall not have to take the secret with me to the grave, that I, in order to have good and undisturbed and comfortable days in life, have denied my kinship to other men, kinship with the poor, in order to live in aristocratic seclusion, or with the distinguished, in order to live in secret obscurity.”

So let the one who, by the help of his associations and by not living for all men, accomplished so much, look well to it that death does not alter his life for him when it reminds him of his responsibility. For he who did his best to make men attentive, the humble or the distinguished, he who in his teaching, acting, striving, lived equally for all, he is not responsible if men, by persecuting him, showed—that they had become attentive. He has no responsibility, no, he has even benefited, for the condition through which one might derive benefit is always, first and foremost, that one become attentive. But the one who in cowardice would only exist within the partition wall of associations where he would accomplish so very much and gain so many advantages; the one who in cowardice dared not attract the attention of men, the poor or the rich, because he suspected that the attention of men was a dubious good—if one has something true to communicate; the one who in cowardice carried on his famous activities within the security of respect for persons: he bears the responsibility—that he did not love his neighbor. If such a one were to say: “Well, what good does it do to plan one’s life according to such a standard?” then I should answer: “How do you think this excuse will help you in eternity?”

For the command of eternity is infinitely higher than any clever excuse. I wonder, too, if a single one of those whom Providence has used as instruments in the service of truth (and let us not forget that every man should and ought to be so used, at least he ought to plan his life so that he might become an instrument) has ever planned his life in any other way than for existing equally for every man. No such man has ever joined himself in alliance with the poor or with the distinguished, but has lived equally for the distinguished and the humblest. Truly, only through loving one’s neighbor can a man accomplish the highest; for the highest consists in being capable of being used as an instrument in the hand of Providence. But as was said, everyone who has placed himself at some other point, everyone who forms parties and factions, or joins such, he steers on his own responsibility, and all his achievement, even if it were the transformation of the world, is a delusion. Nor will he have great joy from it in eternity, for it is certainly possible that Providence might make use of it, but, alas, it would not have used him as an instrument; he was a self-willed, a conceited man, and Providence also uses the efforts of such a man by accepting his difficult labor and letting him lose the reward.

However laughable, however slow, however inexpedient, loving one’s neighbor may seem to the world, it is still the highest act a man is able to accomplish, But the highest has never quite fitted into the relations of the earthly life, it is both too little and too much.

Look sometime at the world which lies before you in all its diversified manifestations; it is as when you look at a stage, except that the variety is far, far greater. Every individual of this innumerable multitude is someone in particular through his difference from others; he represents something definite, but essentially he is something different. However, you do not get to see this in life; here you see only what the individual represents and how he does it. It is as it is in a play. But when the curtain falls on the stage, then the one who played the king and the one who played the beggar, and so on severally, they are all much alike, all one and the same: actors. And when in death the curtain has fallen on the stage of reality (for this is an ambiguous expression, if we speak about the curtain being rolled up on the stage of eternity in the moment of death, for eternity is not a stage, it is truth), then they too are all one, they are men, they are all what they essentially were, which you did not see because of their differences; you see that they are men. The professional theater is an enchanted world; but imagine some evening that through a general absent-mindedness, the players all became confused so that they believed they actually were what they represented: would this not be what we might call, in contrast to the artistic enchantment, the enchantment of an evil spirit, a black art? And so too if in the enchantment of reality (for we are all under this spell through being fascinated by its differences) our fundamental ideas became confused, then would we believe that we essentially are what we represent. Alas, but is this not exactly the case? That the differences of life are only like the player’s costumes, or like a traveling cloak which everyone ought to take care of and see that the strings with which this overgarment is fastened are loosely tied, and particularly not in hard knots, so that when the time comes to change, it may easily be thrown off: this seems to be forgotten. And yet we all have artistic understanding enough to be critical, if at the moment when he should cast off his outer garment, the player has to run off the stage to get the strings untied. Alas, but in actual life one fastens the upper garment of his difference so tightly that it completely conceals the fact that this difference is an outer garment, because the inner glory of the likeness to others never or so very infrequently shines through, as it nevertheless should and ought to do. For the player’s art is the delusive one, the art of make-believe, the art of deceiving and being deceived on an equally large scale; therefore we must not be able or wish tg see the player through the costume; therefore it represents the highest art when the player becomes identical with the character he represents, because this is the supreme delusion. But the reality of life, even if it is not, like eternity, the truth, ought to be truthful, and therefore the other man, who everyone essentially is, ought always to be glimpse through the disguise. Alas, but in actual life, the individual in his temporal growth grows together with the temporal differences; this is the opposite of the growth of eternity which grows away from the differences; every such individual is crippled, is in the sense of eternity a deformity. Alas, in real life the individual grows fast to his differences, so that at last death must use force to tear them away from him. Nevertheless, if one is truly to love his neighbor, he must remember every moment that the difference between them is only a disguise. Foras was said, Christianity has not wished to storm forth to abolish the differences, neither those of distinction nor of humbleness, nor has it wished in a worldly sense to effect a worldly agreement between the differences; but it wants the difference to hang loosely about the individual, loosely, like the cape the king casts off to reveal himself; loosely, like the ragged cloak in which a supernatural being has concealed itself. When the difference hangs thus loosely, then that essential other is always glimpse in every individual, that common to all, that eternal resemblance, the equality. If it were this way, if every individual lived in this way, then would the temporal existence have attained its highest point. It cannot be like eternity; but this expectant solemnity, which, without halting the course of life, renews itself every day through the eternal and through the equality of eternity, every day saves its soul from the differences in which it still continues: this would be the reflection of eternity. Then you would indeed see the ruler in real life, gladly and respectfully offer him your homage; but you would, nevertheless, see in him the inner glory, the equality of glory which his magnificence merely conceals. You would indeed cee the beggar, perhaps in your sorrow for him suffering more than he, but you would still see in him the inner glory, the equality of glory, which his shabby cloak conceals. Moreover, wherever you turned your eyes, you would see your neighbor. For there neither is nor has there ever been from the beginning of the world, a man who was a neighbor in the same sense as a king is a king, a scholar a scholar, your relative your relative, that is, in particular, or what amounts to the same thing, in the sense of discrimination; no, every man is your neighbor. In being king, beggar, scholar, rich, poor, man, woman and so on, we do not resemble one another, for just therein lie our differences; but in being a neighbor we all unconditionally resemble one another. The difference is the confusion of the temporal existence which marks every man differently, but the neighbor is the mark of the eternal—on every man. Take a number of sheets of paper; write something different on each of them so that they do not resemble each other; but then take again each individual sheet, do not be confused by the different inscriptions, hold it up to the light, and then you see a common mark in them all. And so the neighbor is the common mark, but you see it only by the light of the eternal, when it shines through the differences.

My hearer, there can certainly be no doubt that this must seem glorious to you, that it must constantly appear thus to you, whenever in quiet exaltation of spirit you allow the thought of the eternal to counsel you, and give yourself up to meditation; only then are you near this understanding. Oh, but might this not seem so glorious to you that for your part you would decide to make this agreement with God; that you wish to unite with Him in order to maintain this understanding, that is, to express in your life that with Him you will maintain this understanding as the only true understanding, whatever may befall you because of it, even if it should cost you your life; that with God you will hold it fast as your victory over all indignities and injuries. Remember that he, who in truth chose the one thing needful, wished the truly good, he has this blessed consolation that one suffers but once, but one conquers eternally. oo

Lo, the poet knows how to say much about the beginning of love, about what an ennobling power loving and being loved exercises over a man; about the transfiguration which penetrates his whole being; about what a heavenly difference, according to the poet, there is between one who is in love and one who has never felt the transforming power of love. Oh, the true consecration is nevertheless the one which surrenders all claims on life, all claims to power and honor and advantage, all claims—but the happiness of love and friendship are indeed the strongest claims—hence which surrenders all claims, in order to understand what a tremendous claim God and eternity have upon one’s self. He who will accept this understanding is prepared to love his neighbor. A man’s life begins with the illusion that a long, long time and a whole world lie before him, and he begins with the foolish conceit that he has plenty of time for all his many claims. The poet is the eloquent, inspired advocate of this foolish but beautiful conceit. But when in the infinite transformation a man discovers the eternal so near to life that there is not a single one of its claims, not a single one of its evasions, not a single one of its excuses, not a single one of its moments at a distance from what he must do at this very moment, this very second, this very instant: then he is in the way of becoming a Christian. The sign of childishness is to say: “Me wants, me—me”; the sign of youth is to say: “I,”—and “I”’—and “I”; the sign of maturity and the introduction to the eternal is to will to understand that this “I” signifies nothing if it does not become the “thou” to whom eternity unceasingly speaks, and says: “Thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt.” The youth wishes to be the only “I” in the whole world; maturity consists in understanding this “thou” for itself, even if it is not said to any other single man. Thou shalt, thou shalt love thy neighbor. O my hearer, it is not you to whom I speak; it is to me, to whom eternity says: “Thou shalt.”

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