Owe no man anything but to love one another.—ROMANS 13:8
MEN have tried in various ways to depict and describe how love is felt by the one who has it, his condition in love, or what it means to love. Love has been called a feeling, a mood, a life, a passion; yet since these are very general definitions, an effort has been made to describe love more precisely. Someone has called it a want, but it is worth noticing that the lover constantly wants what he already possesses; it has been called a longing, but, it is well to note, a constant longing for something the lover already has—for otherwise the love described is an unhappy one.
That simple wise man of old said that “love is the son of wealth and poverty.” Who in truth could be poorer than the one who has never loved! But, on the other hand, does even the poorest, who bending over gleans up the crumbs and is humbly grateful for a penny, really have any idea how small a trifle may have infinite value for the lover; how small the trifle may be which the lover (in his poverty) gathers up with infinite care and cautiously hides—like the most precious treasure! I wonder if even the poorest is able to see that which may be so little that only the sharp glance of passion (love in its poverty!) sees and tremendously magnifies! But the smaller the object which poverty gathers up, when it is grateful beyond all measure for it, as if the object were extraordinarily great, the greater it proves the poverty to be. Not even all the assurances about the greatest poverty prove this so conclusively; as if the poor man to whom you gave less than a shilling were to thank you for it as passionately as if you had given him wealth and superfluity; as passionately as if he were now rich. Alas, for it is only too certain that the poor man remained essentially as poor as before, so it was only his—crazed idea that he had now become rich. So poor is the poverty of love!
A noble man has said about love: “It takes everything and it gives everything.” Who indeed received more than the one who received a man’s love? And who gave more than he who gave a man his love? But, on the other hand, can even envy, when it enviously strips a man of his actual or supposed greatness, thus penetrate to the inmost undergarment! Oh, envy is still so stupid; it does not even suspect where the enclosure might be, or that this enclosure exists, where the really rich man has his true treasure hidden. It does not even suspect that there is a burglar-proof receptacle against thieves (hence, also against envy), just as there is treasure which thieves (hence, also envy) are not able to steal. But love can press forward into the inmost enclosure and strip a man so that he has nothing left, owns nothing, so that he must himself admit that he has nothing, simply nothing, owns nothing. Wonderful! Envy takes, as it thinks, everything, and, when it has thus taken, the man says, “I have really lost nothing.” But love can take everything, so that the man himself says, “I own nothing at all.” However, love is perhaps most correctly described as an infinite debt: so that when love seizes upon a man he feels that he is infinitely in debt. Generally we say about the one who is loved, that through being loved he becomes a debtor. Thus we say that children are in love indebted to their parents, because these have loved them first, so that the children’s love is only a partial payment on the debt, or a repayment. And this of course is true. But still such a statement reminds one too much of an actual business relation: where an indebtedness has been incurred and must be paid off in installments. It is love which has been shown us, and it must be repaid with love. We are not now speaking of the fact that by receiving one runs into debt. No, he who loves is in debt; when he feels himself gripped by love, he feels this as being in an infinite debt. Wonderful! To give a man his love is, as was said, the highest thing one man can give another—and yet, just when he gives his love and just through giving it, he becomes infinitely indebted. Therefore can one say: this is love’s characteristic, that the lover by giving, finitely, comes—into infinite debt. But this is the relation of the infinite, and love is infinite. By giving away money one does not really run into debt; on the contrary, the receiver is in debt. On the contrary, when the lover gives what is infinitely the highest gift one man can give another, his love, then he places himself in an infinite debt. What a beautiful, what a sacred diffidence does not love bring with it; it not only dares not persuade itself to regard its own act as something meritorious, but it is ashamed even to regard its own act as a part payment on the debt; its own gift becomes consciously like an infinite debt which it is impossible to repay, since in giving, it is constantly running into debt.
Thus one might describe love. Yet Christianity never lingers on the condition or on the description of it; it always hastens to the task, or hastens to set the task. This is precisely expressed in the Gospel passage we read: “Owe no man anything except to love one anpther,” which words we shall use as the basis for this meditation: OUR DUTY TO REMAIN IN THE DEBT OF LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER. To remain in debt! But should that be difficult? Nothing is easier than running into debt! And, on the other hand, could remaining in debt be a task? We usually think otherwise, that our problem is the one of getting out of debt: the indebtedness may be anything, there are money debts, debts of honor, promissory notes, in short, anything whatever, the problem ordinarily always being how to get out of debt, the sooner the better. But here the task would be, and hence the honor, to remain in debt! And if this is the task, then it must be an action, perhaps an extensive, a difficult action. But to stay in debt is still precisely the expression for not undertaking the least thing; it is the expression for inactivity, indifference, sluggishness. And this same phrase, as used here, will be the expression for that which is precisely the opposite of indifference, the expression for infinite love.