Lo, all this, all these strange difficulties, which, as it were, heap themselves up against this strange saying, indicate that the matter may have a peculiar connection, so that a certain reorganization of mind and thought is needed in order merely to realize what the discourse is really about.

Let us begin with a little thought-experiment. If the lover, humanly speaking, had done something for the beloved so extraordinary, so exalted, so self-sacrificing, that men might say, “This is the greatest thing one man can do for another”: then this would be beautiful and good. But suppose he were to add: “See, now I have paid my debt!” Would this not be ungracious, cold, and, strictly speaking, if I may venture, an indecency which ought never to be heard, and which never is heard in the good society of true love! If, on the other hand, the lover had done this high-minded and self-sacrificing thing, and now were to add: “I still have one prayer—oh, let me remain in your debt”: would this not be graciously said! Or if the lover by means of every sacrifice indulges the wishes of the beloved, and now says, “It is a joy to me to pay off by this means a fragment of the indebtedness—in which, however, I still wish to continue”: would this not be graciously said! Or if he simply kept silent about its involving sacrifice, merely to avoid the confusion it might produce, in that this sacrifice might for a moment seem like a partial payment on the debt: would this not be a gracious thought! If this is true, has it not really indicated that any business relation is inconceivable, is most abominable to love? Reckoning can only find a place where there is a finite relation, because the relation of finite to finite permits calculation. But love cannot calculate. If its left hand never gets to know what its right hand does, then it is impossible to cast up the accounts, and equally so when the debt is infinite. To reckon with an infinite greatness is impossible, for reckoning is exactly to make finite. The lover consequently wishes for his own sake to remain in debt; he does not wish exemption from any sacrifice, far from it Willing, indescribably willing, as the prompting of love is, he will do everything, and fear only one thing, that he might thus do everything so that he would get out of debt. Rightly understood, this is fear; the wish is to remain in debt, but it is also a duty, a task. If the love in us is not so perfect that we truly wish this, then duty will help us to remain in debt.

When it is a duty to remain in the debt of love to each other, then must there be eternal vigilance, early and late, so that love never comes to dwell upon itself, or to compare itself with the love in other men, or to compare itself wnth its own deeds which it has performed.

In the world we often hear enthusiastic and exciting speeches about love and faith and hope, and about the heart’s goodness, in short, about all spiritual categories, speeches which describe and fascinate through their use of the most burning expressions, the most glowing colors. And yet such a discourse is really only a painted wall; it is to a closer and more serious inspection a deception, since it must either flatter the listener or make fun of him. Sometimes we hear a Christian discourse whose whole secret, like the narration and instruction noted, consists of this deceitful enthusiasm. If, for example, such a speech is heard, and a man now quite simply and honestly (for honesty precisely consists in wishing to act in accordance with what is said, in wishing to shape one’s life accordingly) asks, “What shall I do, how shall T get love thus to inflame me?” then the speaker might answer literally, “That is a strange question; he who has love and faith and hope and goodness of heart, has these in the manner described, but he who does not have them cannot be helped by talking about them.” Strange! One would, nevertheless, suppose that it would be of special importance to talk to those who are not this way—in order that they might become so. But here lies just the deception in the delusion: to speak as if one would guide men, and then to be obliged to confess that one can only speak about those who need no guidance, because those whom the speech addresses are already so perfect. But who is it then to whom one speaks, who will be benefited by this speech, which at most has some individual abou? whom it speaks—if.it is otherwise true that such an individual exists? But could such poetic nonsense also be Christianity? If so, it is a mistake on the part of primitive Christianity, that in the sermon about righteousness and purity, it constantly refers to publicans and sinners, who certainly are not righteous! Then should not Christianity, instead of speaking sarcastically about the righteous, who need no conversion, more correctly have embellished the speech into a eulogy upon—the righteous! But if this is done, then not only does Christianity have no one to speak fo, but neither does it have anyone to speak about, that is, Christianity is silenced. No, Christianity has least of all announced itself as a eulogy, and it has never concerned itself with describing or dwelling upon the fact of how a man is now; it has never made distinctions between men so it might only speak about those who are now so fortunate as to be lovable. Christianity begins at once with what every man must become. Therefore Christianity calls itself a guide, and rightly so; for no one will ask Christ, who is the Way, or the Scriptures, which are the guidance, in vain about what he ought to do: the questioner will get to know immediately—if he himself wills to know. This in order to prevent misunderstanding. Anyone who does not wish to understand the discourse about what one must do in relation to love, in that there is truly much, or rather everything, to do both in acquiring and preserving it: he has placed himself outside of Christianity, he is a pagan who admires the lucky, hence the accidental, but just because of this he gropes in darkness—does it really become lighter, however many will-o’-the-wisps play around him?

Hence, there is something to do, and which must be done, in order to continue in the debt of love to each other. When a fisherman has caught a fish and wishes to keep it alive, what must he do? He must at once place it in water, otherwise it weakens and dies after a longer or shorter time. And why must he put it in water? Because water is the natural element of fish, and everything which is to be kept alive must be kept in its own element. But the natural element of love is infinity, inexhaustible, immeasurable. If, therefore, you wish to preserve your love, then you must take care that by the aid of infinite indebtedness, ensnared by liberty and life, it constantly remains in its element, otherwise it sickens and dies—not after a longer or shorter time, for it dies at once, which is exactly the sign of its perfection, that it can only live in infinity.

That love’s natural element is infinity, inexhaustible, immeasurable, certainly no one will deny, and it is indeed easy to see. Assume, we can only assume it, that a serving-man or a man whose labor and trouble you can pay for, does exactly the same work for you as do your friends, so that there is consequently not the slightest discoverable difference between the result of their work and that of the servant: and yet, yet there is an infinite difference, an immeasurable difference. There is, namely, always in the one case something extra, which, strangely enough, is worth infinitely more than that to which it is added as an extra. This is exactly the concept, “immeasurable” In everything which the friend does for you, in the least trifle as in the greatest sacrifice, he is constantly giving his love with it, and thereby the smallest service, which in connection with your servant you would hardly consider worth reckoning, becomes immeasurable. Or imagine that a man conceived the idea of wishing to see whether he, without loving the other man yet because he wished to do it (hence, for the sake of the experiment—not because it was his duty), could not be, as we say, equally indefatigable in sacrifices, in services, in expressions of devotion as the one who really loved the same man: you readily see that he does not approach this; there is, on the contrary, an incommensurable difference between the two. He who actually loves always has a headstart, and an infinite headstart; for by the time the other has unearthed, computed and discovered a new expression of devotion, the friend has already carried it out, because the friend does not need to calculate, and hence wastes no time in doing so.

But the fact of being and continuing in an infinite indebtedness, is exactly an expression for the infinity of love, so that by remaining in debt, love remains in its element. It is here a reciprocal relation, but infinite from both sides. In the one case it is the beloved who in each one of the lover’s affectionate expressions of love grasps the incommensurability of the love; in the other case it is the lover who feels the incommensurability, because he knows the debt to be infinite: it is one and the same thing which is infinitely great and infinitely small. The object of love confesses in love that the lover in the smallest things does infinitely more than all others through all the greatest sacrifices; and the lover confesses that even with all possible sacrifices he does infinitely less than he feels the debt to be. What a wonderful like for like in this infinity! Oh, the scholars are proud of their calculation of the infinite, but here is the philosopher’s stone: the least expression of love is infinitely greater than all sacrifices, and all sacrifices are infinitely less than the least expression of love in reducing the debt!

But what, then, can take love out of its element? As soon as love becomes self-centered, it is out of its natural element. What does it mean to be self-centered? It means to become itself the object. But an object is always a dangerous matter if one wishes to move forward; an object is like a finitely fixed point, a boundary and a hindrance, a dangerous matter for the infinite. Infinitely it cannot be that love itself becomes the object, nor is there danger therein. For infinitely to be itself its own object is to remain in the infinite, and insofar only to exist or to continue to exist, since love is a reduplication in itself, as different as the particularity of the natural life is from the spiritual reduplication. Hence, when love becomes self-centered, it must be in its own individual expression that it becomes itself the object, or that another distinct love becomes the object, the love in the one man, and the love in the other man. When the object is thus finite, love becomes self-centered; for infinitely to become self-centered is exactly to be in movement. But when love is finitely self-centered, everything is lost. Imagine an arrow that flies, as we say, with the speed of an arrow; imagine that for a moment it gets the idea of halting its flight, perhaps in order to see how far it has come or how high it has soared above the earth, or how its speed compared with that of another arrow, which also flew with the speed of an arrow: at that very moment, it falls to the ground.

So too with love when it becomes finitely self-centered, or becomes itself the object, which more exactly defined, is comparison. Love cannot infinitely compare itself with itself, for infinitely it so resembles itself that this would be merely saying that it is itself. There is in the infinite comparison no third party, that is a reduplication, hence there is no comparison. The third party belongs to all comparison, together with likeness and unlikeness. If there is no dwelling on itself, there is no comparison; if there is no comparison, there is no dwelling on itself.

But what then can the third party of the comparison be? The love in the individual man can compare itself with the love in others. Then he discovers, or thinks that he discovers, that his love is greater than that in the others, or that in certain others it is greater, but in others less. Perhaps at first he believed that the comparison was but a fleeting side-glance in passing, something which required neither time nor effort. Alas! the side-glance of comparison discovers only too easily a whole world of relationships and calculations. This causes a stoppage; at that very moment he is prepared to get out of debt, or is perhaps already out of debt—that is, out of love. Or the third party of the comparison may be those hitherto unaccomplished works of love. At the very moment when reckoning and weighing he is prepared to get out of debt, or perhaps with great self-satisfaction, he sees himself already more than out of debt—he is more than out of love.

In the comparison everything is lost, love is made finite, the debt is to be paid—quite like every other debt; in contradistinction to the debt of honor which is peculiar in that it must be paid at once, the sooner the better, the debt of love is peculiar in being infinite. What does comparison always lose? It loses the moment, the moment which should be filled with an expression of the life of love. But fo lose the moment is to become immediate. A moment lost, then is the chain of eternity broken; a moment lost, then is the continuity of eternity disturbed; a moment lost, then is the eternal lost; but to lose the eternal is precisely to become immediate. A moment wasted on comparison, then is everything forfeited The moment of comparison is, namely, a selfish moment, a moment which wishes to be for itself; just this is the breach, the fall—as the fall of the arrow is due to dwelling on itself. In comparison, everything is lost, love made finite, the debt to pay, position of no consequence, even if it were the highest; love thinks to participate comparatively in proportion to the love of others, or in proportion to its own special impulses. Let us understand each other.

If it were really true, we may for a moment assume this, that it were considered unbecoming and unseemly for the king’s son to associate with common men—if he nevertheless did this, and now in his own defense said, “I am by no means surrendering my dignity, I shall certainly know how to assert myself as the first among all these men”: I wonder if the subtle courtier would not say: “Your Highness, you do not understand; the unseemliness lies in the fact of your associating with such men. Your Highness will himself realize that it would sound like mockery for it to be said about you, the Prince, that you are the highest among those common men. In that comparison there is nothing for you to gain, practically nothing, by being first among them; for the relation itself, the possibility of comparison is a faux pas, and to remain outside of the possibility of comparison is the only thing worthy of the royal dignity.” Still this is nothing but a jest. But when that which is and ought to be infinite seeks the evil companionship of intercourse and comparison with the finite, then this is unseemly, undignified; then is the debasement deserved, even if within the comparison one thinks to be the first. For even if it looked and were true, comparatively to love better than all other men, is not to love. To love is to remain in infinite indebtedness, the infinity of the debt is the bond of perfection. Let me elucidate this by speaking about another infinite relationship. Imagine an enthusiast who enthusiastically desires only one thing, and who will enthusiastically sacrifice everything for that one good. Imagine that it now happens (that which does not happen accidentally, but which will absolutely happen as long as the world is the world) that to the degree he labors more and more disinterestedly, more and more sacrificingly, more and more strenuously, to that same degree the world works more and more against him; imagine him to have reached the pointwhere if for a single moment he makes a mistake and compares his effort with the reward which the world gives; or makes a mistake and compares his effort with his hitherto unrealized ambition; or makes a mistake and compares his lot with that of those distinguished ones who do not seem to be fired by enthusiasm: alas! then is he lost. Now the Tempter enters and says to him: “Halt your striving, lessen your exertions, have a good time, enjoy life in comfort and accept the flattering condition which is offered you of being known as one of the greatest enthusiasts”—for the Tempter does not speak ill of enthusiasm, he is too clever for that; nor does he fool men so easily into dropping the matter. However, if the enthusiast will not yield to the Tempter, he renews his efforts. Then again the Tempter comes to him and says: “Halt your labors, lessen your exertions, have a good time, enjoy life in comfort by accepting the most unconditionally flattering terms that can certainly ever be offered you, the being recognized as the world’s greatest enthusiast, a recognition which will make your life easier and secure for you, the enthusiast, the admiration of the world, whereas you are now only making your life strenuous and arousing the opposition of the world.” Alas, to be comparatively enthusiastic is not to be enthusiastic at all.

Woe to the man who has corrupted his soul by the defilement of comparison, for he cannot understand his neighbor except as tremendous pride and vanity. For the enthusiast says to the Tempter: “Be off, and take your comparisons with you.” And this is exactly the right procedure. Therefore we urge upon an enthusiast: “Shut your eyes, close your ears, stick to the demand of the infinite; then no comparison will slink in to assassinate your enthusiasm, and to tempt you to become the greatest enthusiast—comparatively! In the sight of the infinite demand your greatest efforts are but a childish performance, and this fact should prevent your becoming self-important, since you will just begin to understand how infinitely much more is required of ou.”’ We warn the one on a ship which is sailing ahead before the wind, not to look at the waves lest he should become giddy; in the same way the comparison between the finite and the infinite makes a man giddy. Guard yourself, therefore, against the comparison which the world wishes to force upon you; for the world understands no more about enthusiasm than a capitalist does about love, and you will always find that dullness and stupidity are first of all intent on making comparisons, and in catching everything in the muddy “actuality” of comparison. Therefore do not look about you, “salute no man on the way,” listen to no cry or shout which wishes to dupe you out of your enthusiasm and trick it into spending its strength laboring in the treadmill of comparison. Let it not disturb you if the world calls your enthusiasm madness, calls it selfishness—in eternity everyone will be forced to understand what enthusiasm and love are. Do not accept the terms offered you: the admiration of the whole world in exchange for half the labor. Continue in the debt of the infinite, happy in its terms: the opposition of the whole world because you will not bargain. Do not listen, for then it is already too late—to disbelieve it. On the other hand, do not listen to what is lyingly said about enthusiasm, lest you be injured in another way, by believing it, as if every man who wills it is not equally near to the infinite, and hence equally near to becoming enthusiastic. For what is enthusiasm? Is it not merely being willing to do and suffer everything? Is it not also wishing always to remain in the debt of the infinite? For every time the arrow will speed forth, the bowstring must be tense, but for every time the enthusiasm renews or in the renewal maintains its impetus, the infinitude of the debt must be kept in mind.

So too with love. If you wish to preserve love, then you must preserve it in the infinite debt. Guard yourself, therefore, against comparisons! One who watches over the most precious treasure in the world does not need to exercise so much caution to prevent anyone from learning to know about it; for you must also be on guard so that you yourself do not learn to know something about love through comparisons. Guard against comparison! Comparison affords the most fatal connection into which love can enter. Comparison is the most dangerous acquaintance love can establish. Comparison is the worst of all seducers. And no seducer is so swiftly at hand, and no seducer is so everywhere present as is the comparison as soon as your side-glance beckonshowever, let no one seduced say in his own defense, “The comparison seduced me,” for he was the one who discovered the comparison. We all know how timidly, how ineffectively, and with how much difficulty a man walks when he knows he is walking on smooth ice; but we know, too, that if because of darkness or for some other reason he does not know that he is walking on it, then he steps forth quite firmly and confidently. Be on guard therefore against the comparison! Comparison is the adventitious sucker on the root which takes the strength from the tree: as if cursed the tree becomes a withered shadow, but the adventitious sucker flourishes in its unwholesome growth. Comparison may be likened to your neighbor’s marshy ground; even if your house is not built on it, all the surrounding ground also sinks. Comparison is like the hidden worm of secret consumption which does not die, at least not until it has taken the life of love. Comparison is a loathsome skin-eruption which strikes inward and consumes the marrow. Be vigilant, therefore, in your love against the comparison.

But if the comparison is the only thing which could get love out of debt, or which is ready to get it out of debt, and the comparison is avoided, then the love remains, sound and vital—in the infinite debt. Remaining in debt is an infinitely artful and yet infinitely satisfying expression for the infinitude of love. When one says about a force of nature, for instance, that it is blowing a gale, or that it bursts forth with an infinite power and force, there is always the possibility that it may cease or become exhausted. But that which infinitely in itself has also an infinite debt behind it, is a second time made infinite; it has in itself the vigilance which always takes care that it does not cease —the debt is the second time the accelerating force. When it is a duty to remain in the indebtedness of love to one another, then the remaining in debt is not merely an enthusiastic expression, not a mere concept of love, but it is action; then the love remains, by the aid of duty, Christian love in action, in the haste of action, and just thereby in the infinite debt.

To love is to assume an infinite debt. The wish to remain in debt might seem to be only an interpretation of a concept of love, a last and most extreme expression which is incident to it—like the garlands at a festival. For even the most precious goblet filled with the choicest wine still lacks something: that the goblet be garlanded! And even the most lovable soul in the form of the most lovely woman—still lacks something: the bridal garland which perfects her! So it must also be said, when one talks merely humanly about love: this wish to remain in debt is the highest festal expression, it is the garland at the festival, something which in a certain sense makes no difference (for one certainly does not drink the enwreathed goblet, nor do the garlands become a part of the bride), and just for that reason it is the expression of the beautiful enthusiasm. Only in the human sense is a beautiful enthusiasm the highest.

But Christianity does not speak enthusiastically about love; it says it is a duty to remain in the debt of love, and it says this not as a giddy thought now for the last time and as the result of intoxicationfor the wish to continue in debt would be an exaggerated expression, and yet it might possibly seem to become more exaggerated through being regarded as a duty. Even the exaggeration has, against its will, an appearance of paying off on the debt, but if it is a duty to remain in debt, then the impossibility soars even higher. It might seem like a case of intoxication, where a sudden moment of sobriety means an increase of intoxication; for enthusiasm becomes even more enthusiastic when it is expressed quietly and coolly; the marvelous becomes even more marvelous when it is described quite simply, as an ordinary event. But Christianity does not speak in this way. It speaks about remaining in debt in quite the same fervent way that a noble human love speaks about it, but it says it quite differently. Christianity simply makes no fuss over it; it is not, like the purely human interpretation of love, overwhelmed by the sight; no, it speaks equally as earnestly about it as about that which seems to a merely human enthusiasm entirely unlike it. It says it is a duty, and thereby it takes away from love everything inflaming, everything immediate, everything giddy.

Christianity says it is a duty to remain in debt, and means thereby that it tnvolves action, not a mere expression about love, not a reflective interpretation of love. In the Christian sense no human being has ever accomplished the highest in love; and even if it were possible, this impossibility, there would at that very moment, from the Christian standpoint, be a new task. But if there is immediately a new task, then it is impossible to have time to know whether one has achieved the highest or not; for at the moment when one would get to know it, he is engaged in accomplishing the new task, and hence is prevented from knowing anything about the preceding moment, for which he has no time; he is occupied with the haste of action, whereas even in the moment of the greatest enthusiasm there is a certain lingering.

Christianity understands what action means, and how incessantly action is able to occupy love. The merely human interpretation of love admires love, and that is why it so easily comes to a standstill, a moment where there is nothing to do, an idle moment, that is the moment of enthusiasm. Love is to the merely human understanding as the extraordinarily gifted child is to the simple parents: the child finishes his task so quickly that the parents are at a loss to know what they can find to keep him busy. Love is to the merely human understanding of the conception, like the fiery snorting steed which quickly rides the horseman tired, instead of the horseman being able, if necessary, to ride his steed tired. And Christianity can do this. Its purpose is not to work love tired, far from it; but Christianity knows, by virtue of its eternal nature and by the earnestness of eternity, that it can master love, and therefore it speaks so simply, so earnestly, about the matter—just as the skilled horseman who knows that he can manage his horse, is not surprised at its mettle, for he says it ought to be mettlesome; and he does not destroy its spirit, but by training it he improves the horse. So Christianity knows how to constrain love, and to teach it that at every moment there is a task; it knows how to bear with love so that love may humbly learn that wishing to remain in debt is not a mere form of words, not merely enthusiasm, but that it is earnestness and truth.

The danger would be, as certainly happened, that love would come to dwell comparatively upon itself. This must be prevented, but when it is prevented by the aid of duty, something else also happens—Ilove comes into a relation with the Christian concept, or in the Christian sense with the God-idea. This debt-relation is carried over into the relation between man and God. It is God who, so to speak, kindly takes charge of the demand of love; by loving a man the lover comes into an infinite debt—but also a debt to God as guardian of the beloved. Now comparison becomes impossible, and now love has found its master.

There is no more talk about festal moods and showy achievements; love will no longer, if I may speak thus, play on the childish stage of men, which leaves it doubtful whether it is jest or earnest. While love in all its own expressions turns outward toward men, where it has its object and its tasks, it still knows that this is not the place where it shall be judged, but that in its innermost being, where love lays hold on God, there is the judgment. It is as when a child is out among strangers, it behaves as it has been taught. But whether strangers think well of the child or not, whether it occurs to the child that it behaves better than the other children or not: the seriously trained child never loses sight of the fact that the decision will be made at home, where the parents do the judging. And yet the training is not planned for fitting the child to remain at home with its parents; on the contrary, it is planned to fit the child to go out into the world. So too with love when it is understood in the Christian way. It is, so to speak, God who trains the love in a man; but God does not do this just for His own pleasure, just to delight Himself with the sight. On the contrary, He does it in order then to send love out into the world, perpetually busy with its task. Nevertheless, the earnestly trained, the Christian love never for a moment forgets where it shall be judged; at evening, or morning, or whenever it may be, in short every time it temporarily leaves all its tasks in order to come home, it is catechized—in order to be immediately sent out again. For even with the greatest enthusiasm love may still tarry a little before it goes out again, but with God there is no tarrying.

Thus understood, earnestness and truth consist in remaining in the debt of love to each other. Even the most sincerely intended and, humanly speaking, the noblest enthusiasm, even the most fervent and disinterested enthusiasm, is still not earnestness, even though it accomplishes astonishing things, and even if it also wishes to remain in debt. The deficiency in even the noblest human enthusiasm is that it, as merely human, in the final analysis is not itself powerful, because it has no higher power over it. Only the God-relationship is earnest; the earnestness consists in forcing the task to its highest achievement because there is One who compels by the power of the eternal; the earnestness consists in the enthusiasm having power over itself and compulsion in itself. The individual is bound by his debt of love to other men; but it is neither the individual himself nor the other men who shall judge his love. If this is true, then must the individual remain in the infinite indebtedness. God has the infinite conception of truth and of the infallibility of love. God is love, hence the individual must remain in debt—as God judges him, or as he abides in God, for only in the infinitude of debt can God abide in him.

He is in debt, and he also recognizes that it is his duty to remain in debt, his duty to admit this, which from the Christian standpoint is not the admission of a fanatic, but of a humble, loving soul. The humility consists in making the confession; the loving, as it were, consists in being infinitely willing to make it because it belongs to love, because there is the meaning and coherence of eternal happiness in this confession; the Christian meaning consists in simply not ceasing to do this, because it is his duty. “Therefore owe no man anything except to love one another”; no, “pay everyone everything which you owe them; tribute to whom tribute is due; duty to whom duty, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.” In this way owe no man anything, not what you have borrowed from him, not what you have promised him, not what he might rightly demand of you in repayment. If possible, owe no man anything, no favors, no service, no sympathy in joy or sorrow, no forbearance of judgment, no assistance in life, no advice in danger, no sacrifice, not even the hardest—no, in all these, owe no man anything; but still remain in debt, which with all this you have by no means desired, and which before God you have by no means been able to pay, the debt of loving one another!

Oh, do this! And then only one thing more: “Remember in time that if you do this, or if you try to comply with this, then will things go ill for you in the world.” This is especially important to keep in mind with a particular reference to the conclusion of this discourse, and with a general reference to the conclusion of this little book, so that the discourse may not fascinate you with untruth, Therefore the world will simply find the conclusion entirely wrong, which fact again has significance in proving that the conclusion is—right.

We read and sometimes hear with sadness a Christian discourse which really leaves out the final danger. What is said about faith and love and humility is entirely right and wholly Christian; but nevertheless such a discourse may mislead a youth, instead of guiding him, because it neglects to tell him what happens to the Christian in the world. The discourse demands that a man shall work self-sacrificingly to develop his Christian nature—but then, yes then, there is no more said, or the supremely serious, more definite categories are suppressed, while such assertions are made that the good has its reward, that the good is loved both by God and man. If this Christian nature is rightly recommended as the highest, then the youth must surely believe that if he accomplishes the required task, or at least works honestly to accomplish it, then things will go well for him in the world. Oh, but this silence about the final difficulty (that, humanly speaking, it will go badly with him in the world, and so much more so as he develops his Christian character) is a deception, which may either lead the youth to selfdespair (as if the fault lay squarely in himself, because he was not a true Christian) or to his despondently giving up his struggle, as if something quite unusual had happened to him, while nevertheless he had only experienced the ordinary consequence which the apostle John refers to when he says: “Marvel not at this.” Consequently, the speaker has deceived the youth by keeping silent about the true sequence of events, as if, from the Christian standpoint, there were a conflict only in one place, instead of the true Christian struggle always being a twofold danger because there is a conflict in two places: first, in the inner man, where he must fight with himself, and then, when he has made progress in this conflict, outside of himself, where he must fight with the world. Alas, perhaps such a speaker is afraid to recommend the Christian and the good in this certainly strange but veracious way, by saying that it has no reward in the world, and that, moreover, the world always works against it. Perhaps it may seem to the speaker like smiting himself on his own—eloquent lips, if, after having recommended the good in the most laudatory and particularly fortunately chosen turns and expressions, and after having almost brought the listener to go out even this very day and act in accordance with his teaching, it may perhaps seem to him like smiting himself upon the lips, moreover, it would really be a sin, considering the impression produced by his inspired eloquence, if among his recommendations he should now interject this statement: that the good is rewarded with hate, contempt, and persecution. For, if this is true, would it not be more natural to warn against the good? To put it even more exactly, one does just this by recommending it in this way. The speaker is certainly in a difficult position. Well-intentioned perhaps, he really wishes to attract men: so he omits the final difficulty, the one which makes the recommendation so difficult —and then the discourse flows on, elevating and tear-compelling in its polished delivery. Ah, but this, as everyone knows, is deception. If, on the contrary, the speaker makes use of—the difficult recommendation, then he “frightens his audience away,” perhaps the speech almost frightens himself. He, who is so highly popular, honored and appreciated, certainly proves that the good Christian has his reward in the world. He has, namely, his reward, even if eternity believes ten times over that he has lost it. It cannot be denied that he has a reward, but a somewhat worldly one, and it is not the compensation which Christianity at the time had promised its adherents, and by which it had directly recommended itself.

We should truly hate to make a youth conceited, and early teach him to form the habit of judging the world; God forbid that any word of ours should be able to contribute to the development of such unsoundness in a man. We believe in making his inner life so strenuous that from the very beginning he learns to think otherwise; for it is certainly a perverted hatred of the world which, possibly without even having once considered the tremendous responsibility involved, wishes to be persecuted. But, on the other hand, we should truly hate to deceive a youth by keeping silent about the difficulty and keeping silent at the very moment when we are trying to recommend the Christian way of life, for then and just then is the time to speak. Confidently and fearlessly we dare to recommend the Christian way of life, and to add that its reward, to put it mildly, will be the ingratitude of the world. We regard it as our duty to say this in time, so that we may not sometimes recommend Christianity by omitting any of its essential difficulties, and at other times, perhaps because of some particular text, find some ground of comfort for it in the life attempted. No, just at the time when the Christian way is being most strongly recommended, the difficulty must be simultaneously emphasized. It is unchristian sophistry if anyone reasons in this way: “Let us use every means to win men to the Christian way of life, and then when sometime adversities come upon them, then we shall have the remedy, then will be the time to speak about it.” But this is the deception: that it might be possible for a Christian to escape these adversities, just as some people are fortunate in not being tried by poverty or sickness. That is, it places the opposition of the world in an accidental relation to the Christian way, not in an essential relation: opposition may perhaps come, but then again it may not. However, such a consideration is absolutely unchristian. If a pagan may rightly deem himself fortunate at his death because he was through with life and past all adversities, well, that is possible; but a Christian ought to be a little doubtful in this joy at the moment of death—for from the Christian standpoint, the opposition of the world has an essential relation to Christian inwardness. Besides, in the very moment of choosing Christianity, one should have an impression of its difficulties, so that he may know what it is he is choosing. Nothing should be promised the youth except what Christianity can hold to, but Christianity cannot hold to anything other than what it has promised from the beginning: the world’s ingratitude, opposition, insults, and always increasingly so, the more earnestly Christian one becomes. This is the final difficulty in the Christian way of life, and least of all must there be silence about it when one is recommending Christianity.

No, if there is to be silence regarding the final difficulty, then there is really nothing to be said about the Christian way of life. If the world is not as Christianity originally assumed it to be, then is Christianity essentially abolished. That which Christianity calls self-denial simply and essentially implies a double danger, otherwise the self-denial is not Christian self-denial. Therefore, if anyone can show that the world or Christendom have now become essentially good, as if they were the eternal, then I can also show that the Christian self-denial is made impossible and Christianity abolished, just as it will be abolished in eternity, where it will cease to be a striving.

A merely human self-denial thinks as follows: give up your selfish wishes, desires and plans—then you will be honored and respected and loved as just and wise. It is easy to see that this sort of self-denial does not lay hold of God or the God-relationship, but remains on the worldly plane of a relationship between men. The Christian self-denial thinks: give up your selfish wishes and desires, give up your selfish plans and purposes in order to work for the good in true disinterestedness—and then prepare to find yourself, just on that account, hated, scorned and mocked, and even executed as a criminal; or rather, do not prepare to find yourself in this situation, for that may become necessary, but choose it of your own free will. For Christian self-denial knows beforehand that these things will happen, and chooses them freely. Christianity has the eternal understanding of what it costs to give up its own selfish purposes; therefore it does not let the Christian go for half-price. One can readily see that the Christian self-denial lays hold on God, and in God has its only stronghold. But only thus is Christian self-denial to be relied upon—in the double danger. The other danger, or the danger in another place, is precisely the guarantee that the selfdenial has the right God-relationship, that it is purely a God-relationship. And if there were no other double danger except that of wishing thus to be relied upon, the world regards as stupidity or folly that which it is very far from honoring and admiring. The world understands self-denial only as shrewdness, and therefore honors only the self-denial which shrewdly remains within the compass of the worldly. Therefore the worldly always sees to it that there shall be an adequate number of the counterfeit notes of the false self-denial in circulation; alas! and sometimes the crossing of the ratios and thoughts becomes so complicated that it needs an expert eye immediately to detect the counterfeit notes. For one can also take God along secularly into worldliness, and hence get a self-denial which bears the God-mark and yet is a forgery. Secularly it may sometimes look as if it is called to deny itself for the sake of God, yet not in that reliable confidence in God of the double danger, but in such a way that worldliness understands that man and honors him accordingly. Yet it is easy to recognize the forgery, for as soon as the double mark is lacking, then the self-denial is not the Christian self-denial.

It is human self-denial when a child denies himself while the arms of the parents encouragingly and promptly open to it. It is human selfdenial if a man denies himself, and the world now opens its arms to him. But it is Christian self-denial if a man denies himself, and then, just because the world for that reason closes its arms to him, repulsed by the world he now must seek confidence in God. The twofold danger lies in the fact that he met opposition just where he had expected to find help, and consequently he must turn twice, instead of, as in human self-denial turning but once. No self-denial, therefore, which is encouraged by the world, is Christian self-denial. This was the meaning of the early Church Fathers when they said that all the virtues of the heathen were shining vices. It is merely human self-denial: without fear for one’s self or for the consequences, to rush into dangerinto a danger where honor awaits the victor, where the admiration of the environment, of the spectators, allures the one who only dares. It is easy to see that this self-denial does not lay hold on God, but is delayed by human relativities. Christian self-denial rushes into danger without fear of the consequences to itself, into a danger which the environment cannot understand will bring any honor to the victor, because the environment is itself blinded, entangled and guilty. Consequently, it is not only perilous to rush into the danger, but there is here a double danger because the contempt of the spectators awaits the hero, whether he wins or loses.

In the one instance the idea of danger is conceded; the environment is agreed that there is danger, danger in venturing, and hence honor to gain by victory, since the conception of the danger has made his contemporaries ready to applaud the one who dares. In the second case the hero must himself discover the danger and strive to get the right to call it danger, which his contemporaries are not willing to do, who, although they admit that it is possible to lose one’s life in this danger, yet deny that it is really danger, since from their point of view it is ridiculous, and hence it is doubly ridiculous to lose one’s life for the sake of something ridiculous. Thus Christianity discovered a danger which is called everlasting perdition. The world found this danger ridiculous. Let us now imagine a Christian witness. For the sake of this doctrine he rushes into a struggle with the powerful who hold his life in their hands, and who must look upon him as an agitator—a fact which will cost him his life. At the same time his contemporaries, with whom he has no immediate quarrel, but who are spectators, find it ridiculous that anyone should risk death for such foolishness. Here is life to lose and truly no honor or admiration to gain! Still, thus to be forsaken, only thus to be forsaken, is Christian self-denial.— —If now the world, or Christendom, had been essentially good, then this selidenial would have been impossible; for under such conditions the world, as essentially good, would honor and praise the one who denied himself and who always had the true conception of where the danger was and what it truly was.

Therefore we wish to end this discourse like all our discourses which, according to the ability vouchsafed us, recommend the godly life, with this little ingratiating word of exhortation: watch yourself at the beginning of your task—lest you find that you are not truly in earnest in truly wishing to deny yourself. Our understanding of what Christianity is, is too serious to wish to entice anyone; we would almost rather warn against it. He who in truth will appropriate the Christian teaching, he will yet come to experience inward terrors quite different from the bit of terror dramatically set forth in a discourse; he must make an outward resolution quite different from one he could make by the aid of the painted falsity of a bit of eloquence. We leave it to anyone to decide whether this, our earnest understanding of what Christianity means, could seem cold, cheerless and lacking in enthusiasm.

So far as one might speak of his own personal relation to the world, since this would be a different matter, it would be one’s duty to speak as mildly, as apologetically as possible, and even if one does speak, it is his duty to remain in the debt of love. But when we speak instructively we dare not keep silent, a fact that is little calculated to win favor for the discourse in the longing understanding of an enthusiastic youth. Nor dare we recommend, smilingly to wish to elevate himself above the world’s opposition and folly; if this could be done as it is done in heathendom, it can only be done in heathendom, because the heathen does not have the true Christian’s earnest, eternally concerned conception of the truth: yet to the truth it is by no means ridiculous that others do not have it. From the Christian point of view the world’s essential foolishness is not at all ridiculous, however ridiculous it is; for when there is an eternal happiness to win or lose, then it is neither a jest if I win it, nor laughable if someone loses it.

On the other hand, it would be an absurdity we should guard against, to speak complacently about the Christian truth. If a man were handing another man a terribly sharp, polished two-edged tool, would he hand it to him with the manner, bearing and gestures with which he would hand him a bouquet of flowers? Would not this be a crazy thing to do? How does one do it? If he is certain of the dangerous nature of the tool, while he may recommend it unhesitatingly, he also adds a word of caution And so with the Christian truth. If necessary we should not hesitate, conscious of the greatest responsibility, in our Christian preaching, precisely in our Christian preaching, to preach against Christianity. For we know perfectly well in these times how anything unpleasant stings: so that the preacher by foolish and flattering sermons has tricked Christianity into becoming an illusion and us men into imagining that as such we are Christians. Still, if a man had thought that he was holding a flower in his hand, a flower which he half foolishly, half thoughtlessly has enjoyed looking at, and then some one, with truth, remember, cried to him, “You fool, do you not see that you are holding a terribly sharp, polished, two-edged tool I”“—would he not for a moment be horrified? But, but—did the one who truthfully said that, deceive him or the truth? Therefore, if someone were to call that man’s attention to the fact that the flower he held in his hand was no common, ordinary flower, but a very rare one, this would again be to confirm him more strongly in his misunderstanding. No, Christianity is not from the human point of view the extremely rare blossom, nor is it the rarest of all—so the sermon becomes pagan and worldly within the limitations of the merely human understanding. Divinely understood, Christianity is the highest good, and therefore also, humanly understood, a tremendously dangerous good, because when only humanly understood, it is so far from being the rare flower that it is offense and foolishness, now as once in the beginning, and as long as the world stands.

Wherever the Christian religion is, there is the possibility of offense, but offense is the supreme danger. Everyone who hasin truth appropriated the Christian teaching, or something of it, has been obliged thus to pass by the possibility of offense so that he has seen it, and with it before his eyes—has chosen the Christian way. If Christianity is to be discussed, the discourse must constantly hold the possibility of offense open, but hence it can never bring itself to recommend Christianity immediately, so the difference between the speakers would merely be that one used a stronger, a second a weaker, a third the strongest possible expression of praise. Christianity can only be recommended if at every point the possibility of the danger is constantly made manifest: that to the merely human understanding the Christian way is foolishness and offense. But by making this clear and explicit, the warning is given. So earnest is Christianity. Whatever stands in need of men’s applause immediately tries to curry favor with them; but Christianity is so certain of itself, and recognizes with such earnestness and severity that it is men who need it, that just for that reason it does not recommend itself directly, but first startles them—just as Christ early commended Himself to His disciples by predicting to them that they would be hated for His sake; that the one who smote them would think that he was doing God service.

When Christianity came into the world it was not necessary for it to call attention to the fact (although it did so) that it would be a source of offense, for the world which was offended, discovered this soon enough. But now, now since the world has become Christian, now must Christianity first of all look out for offense. If it is therefore true that so many “Christians” in these times are disappointed in Christianity, how does this happen except because the possibility of offense escapes them, this frightfulness, please notice! What wonder, then, that Christianity and its eternal happiness and its duties are no longer able to satisfy the “Christians” —they cannot even be offended by them! When Christianity came into the world it was not necessary even for it to call attention to the fact that it was contrary to human reason (although it did so), for the world discovered this readily enough. But now, now, since Christianity has lived through hundreds of years in the complex intercourse with the human reason; now, since a fallen Christianity, like those fallen angels who married earthly women—has entered into a marriage with the human reason; now, since Christianity and reason have become on “du” terms: now Christianity must ever be on the watch for offense. If Christianity (alas! this sounds like the fairy story about the palace under enchantment for a hundred years) is to be preached out of the enchantment and the deformed metamorphosis of delusion, then must first the possibility of offense again be revived as the basis of preaching. Only the possibility of offense (the antidote against the sleeping potion of apologetics) is able to wake the slumberer, able to overcome the enchantment, so that Christianity may again be itself.

If then the Holy Scriptures say, “Woe to the one by whom the offense cometh,” then we can confidently say, “Woe to the one who first hit upon the idea of preaching Christianity without the possibility of offense.” Woe to the one who in ingratiating, amorous, attractive, convincing words foisted off something unworthy of men as Christianity! Woe to the one who would make a miracle comprehensible, or at least suggest that there were clear probabilities of soon being able to do so! Woe to the one who betrayed and broke the secret of faith, corrupted it into a popular wisdom by taking the possibility of offense away! Woe to the one who would lay hold on the secret of the atonement without perceiving the possibility of offense, and again, woe to him because he thought thereby to make God and Christianity into an esthetic coterie! Woe to all those faithless stewards who sat down and falsified their records, and thereby gained friends for Christianity and themselves by writing off the possibility of offense in Christianity, and imputed to it a hundred kinds of foolishness! Oh, what a sorry waste of ability and shrewdness! Oh, what an appalling waste of time spent on the tremendous task of defending Christianity! Truly, when Christianity again arises in its power through the possibility of offense, then will this horror again scare men up: then will Christianity need no defense.

And, on the other hand, the more scholarly, the more excellent the defense is, the more is Christianity corrupted, done away with, shrunken like a half-man. For the defense wishes out of the goodness of its heart, to take the possibility of offense away. But Christianity will not be defended; rather it is men who should look to it to learn whether they are able to defend themselves and defend for themselves that which they choose, when Christianity sometime terribly offers them the choice, and terribly forces them to choose: either to be offended or to accept Christianity. Therefore, take away from Christianity the possibility of offense, or else take away from the forgiveness of sins the anxious debate of conscience (to which still, according to Luther’s excellent explanation, this whole matter must be referred), and then lock the churches, the sooner the better, or make them into recreation centers which stand open all day.

But while the whole world has been made Christian through the taking away the possibility of offense: the strange circumstance constantly manifests itself: that the world is offended at the real Christian. Here the offense enters, if the possibility of offense is still inseparable from the Christian belief. Only the confusion becomes worse than ever; for if once the world was offended at Christianity—there was meaning in that; but now the world has the illusion that it is Christian, that it has appropriated Christianity, without paying any attention to the possibility of offense—and so it is offended at the real Christian. Truly, escape from such a delusion is difficult. Woe to the swift pens and busy tongues, woe to all the busyness which because it neither knows the one nor the other, therefore finds it so infinitely easy to reconcile both the one and the other!

The Christian world is always offended by the true Christian. Only now the passion of offense is not ordinarily so strong that it wishes to eradicate him; no, it will only continue to mock and insult him. This is easy to explain. At the time when the world was itself conscious of not being Christian, then there was something to fight about, then it was a fight to the death. But now, when the world is proudly and calmly certain that it is Christian, the true Christian insistence is merely something to laugh at. The confusion is even more distressing than in the first period of Christianity. That was distressing, but there was meaning in it, since the world was fighting to the death against Christianity. But the world’s present lofty calmness in its consciousness of being Christian, its cheap bit of mockery, if one wishes to call it that—of the real Christian: this almost borders on madness. For never in its first period was Christianity thus made the object of ridicule.

I Love Edifieth 169 IT Love Believeth All Things—and Yet

Is Never Deceived 182 IIT Love Hopeth All Things—and Yet

Is Never Put to Shame 199 IV Love Seeketh Not Its Own 214 V Love Covereth a Multitude of Sins 227 VI Love Abideth 243 VII Mercy, a Work of Love, Even If It Can

Give Nothing and Can Do Nothing 255 VIII The Victory of Reconciliation in Love,

Which Wins the Vanquished 268 IX The Work of Love in Remembering the Dead 278 X The Work of Love in Recommending

Love 289 Conclusion 302

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