The Victory of the Reconciliation in Love, Which Wins the Vanquished
There is presupposed consequently, when there is talk about a “vanquished,” a first victory which has been already won. What is this? It is overcoming evil with good. The conflict may have been slow and difficult enough; for if the lover is to overcome evil with good, this is not decided all at once or with one blow; on the contrary the combat often becomes more and more strenuous, and, if you will, more dangerousif one is willing to understand what the dangerous is. The more good the lover has shown toward the unloving, the longer he has held out in requiting evil with good: the nearer, in a certain sense, comes the danger that at last the evil might still overcome the lover, if in no other way, then by making him cold and indifferent toward such an unkind man. Oh, there must be a great depth of wealth in goodness, as only the lover has it, a steady warmth of inextinguishable, purifying fire over a long time, to be able to hold out in requiting evil with good — But this victory is won, the non-lover is vanquished.
What is the relationship in this conflict? On the one side stood the lover (or what we might also call him: the good, the noble; for in the first conflict it was not readily apparent that he was the lover), and he had the good on his side. On the other side stood the non-lover, fighting by the aid of evil. Thus they strove. The lover had for his task to preserve himself in the good, so that the evil might get no power over him. Consequently he did not have so much to do with the non-lover as with himself. It was not for the sake of the non-lover but for the sake of the good, also in a noble sense for his own sake, that he strove to conquer in this conflict. The two consequently, as regards themselves, are striving with each other, but, outside of each other, they are in a certain sense irreconcilably striving, as the conflict is between good and evil. The one strove by the help of the good, the other in a covenant with evil; and the latter was vanquished.
Now the relationship is changed; it now becomes readily apparent that the lover is present in the conflict; for he not only fights that the good may abide in himself, but he fights appeasingly so that the good may triumph in the unloving, or he fights in order to win the vanquished. The relationship is consequently no longer a simple conflict-relationship, for the lover fights on the side of his enemy in his behalf; he wishes to fight out the cause of the non-lover to victory.
This is reconciliation in love, For when the enemy, or the one who committed the wrong, comes to you and seeks forgiveness—so that you are willing to forgive: that is commendable and praiseworthy, and also loving. Oh, but how tardy! Do not say that “you granted it immediately, as soon as he begged for it”—consider rather what promptitude in reconciliation true love has in comparison with that, or in comparison with a promptitude which, by being dependent on another’s haste or slowness in asking for forgiveness, is precisely essentially, thereby tardiness, even if accidentally it comes very swiftly.
Long, long before the enemy considers seeking reconciliation, the lover is already reconciled with him. And not only this; no, he has gone over to the enemy’s side, he fights for his case, even if he does not understand or wish to understand it; therefore he labors to bring about the reconciliation. Lo, we may call it the fight of love, or the fight in love! To fight with the assistance of the good against the enemy—that is praiseworthy and noble; but to fight for the enemy—and against whom? against himself, if you wish to express it thus: that is, yes, that is loving, or it is reconciliation in love! And thus, too, is reconciliation enjoined in the Holy Scriptures. The words read, “When you offer your gift upon the altar, and there remember…”—but what would you expect would now follow? Is it not that you have something against someone? But that is not the way it is. It reads “… and you there remember that your brother has aught against you, then leave your gift before the altar (for there is no hurry about the gift if this is so), and go out and be reconciled with your brother (for reconciliation needs this haste, also for the sake of the gift which waits upon the altar), and then come and offer your gift.” But is not this too much to ask? Who is it who needs forgiveness: the one who did the wrong or the one who suffered the wrong? Certainly it is the one who did the wrong who needs forgiveness. Oh, but the lover, who suffered wrong, he needs to forgive, he needs reconciliation, appeasement, which word, unlike the word “forgiveness,” makes a distinction by reminding about right and wrong, but lovingly notes that both are needed. It is not in the most perfect sense reconciliation to forgive when forgiveness is asked for; but it is reconciliation to need to forgive almost before the other has thought of seeking forgiveness. Therefore the Scriptures say, “Agree with thine adversary quickly”; but one can never be more benevolent then when one is one’s self the needy; and “quicker” to forgive than when one gives his forgiveness before it is asked, fights to give it while there is still opposition—not against giving, but against receiving forgiveness.
Oh, heed well what the relationship is; for the true Christian is always exactly the opposite of that which the natural man most easily and most naturally understands. “To fight for forgiveness,” who does not understand this immediately about fighting in order to get forgiveness? —Alas, for humanly speaking this is often considered hard enough. And yet it is not simply that about which we are speaking; we are talking about lovingly fighting to have the other accept forgiveness, to allow himself to be reconciled. Is not this the Christian way? It is God in heaven who through the apostle says: “Be ye reconciled”: it is not men who say to God, “Forgive us.” No, God loved us first. And, again another time, when the question was about reconciliation, God was the one who came first—although yet, from the standpoint of righteousness, He was the one who had waited longest. So, too, in the relation between man and man: the true reconciliation is, it is well to note, when the one who offers forgiveness is not the one who needs it.
So the lover then in reconciliation fights to win the one vanquished. —To win the one vanquished! What a beautiful use of language, of the word “to win”! For listen to what follows! When we say “to win” a victory, then we immediately hear the violence of the conflict; but when we speak of winning someone, of winning someone to ourselves, what an infinite gentleness is not contained in that word! What is so intriguing as the thought and the phrase, “to win one”; how could it suggest any thought of strife! For in all strife two are needed, and here there is only one: the non-lover; for the lover is in his reconciliation his best friend, who wishes to win the vanquished. To win the vanquished. What a wonderful reversal is not this whole idea! One might believe that the winning would be less than the overcoming, for “over” suggests how it surpasses winning. And yet the speech here is really an ascending climax, is about the higher, although it is still about winning the one overcome. Perhaps from the standpoint of pride overcoming is greater, but in the understanding of love, this less is the greater, “the winning of the overcome,” Beautiful conflict, more beautiful than the lovers’ quarrel when the lover must be the one, and hence so much more the loving, when he must be the one to fight through to reconciliation! Beautiful victory, most beautiful of all victories, when the lover succeeds in winning the vanquished!
To win the vanquished. Do you now see the twofold victory we are speaking about! For if the lover only wishes to fight the one war, to overcome evil with good, and he has then conquered, then let him look well to it that he stands after having overcome everything. Oh, his fall is only too near at hand, if he does not let love and the godly reflection carry him at once into the next conflict, the winning of the vanquished. When this is done, then he has steered safely past the dangerous rocks, where one becomes proud of having held out in requiting evil with good; where one becomes self-important because of having requited evil with good. For if you go immediately into the next conflict, who then becomes the more important? Still, I suppose, the one you are striving to win. But consequently, you are not the more important. Still, just this is the humiliating thing which only love can endure, that one goes backward, as it were, when one is going forward, so everything is reversed: when one has one’s self vanquished everything, the vanquished has become the more important. Let us assume that the brother of the prodigal son had been willing to do everything for his brother—one thing had still never entered his head, that the prodigal brother could become the more important. Now it is difficult to get this idea into one’s head; it does not enter into a man in that way.
But to win o vanquished adversary is always difficult and has in the relationship of which we speak, a special difficulty. To be vanquished gives a humiliating feeling; therefore the one vanquished prefers to avoid the one who vanquished him; for by contrast his defeat becomes greater, but no one makes the fact of his defeat so clear as the one who overcame him. And yet it is here the victor who must win the vanquished, consequently they must be brought together. Again the situation has a special difficulty. In less important matters it might be handled so that the victor concealed from the vanquished that he was the vanquished, piously deceived him, as if it were he who was right; appeasingly yielded, even to allowing him to be right where he was wrong. We shall not attempt to decide how far this may ever be permissible; but in the relationship of which we are speaking, the lover dared least of all to do this. It would have been weakness, not love, to allow the non-lover to imagine that he had been right in the evil he did; it would not have been reconciliation, but a betrayal, which would confirm him in the evil. No, it is precisely of importance, it belongs to the works of love, that by the help of the lover it should become obvious to the non-lover how unjustifiably he had acted, so that he may deeply feel the wrong he has been guilty of. This the lover must do; and thereby he will also win the vanquished; yet, no, it is not “also,” for it is one and the same thing, since he can truly only wish to win him for himself, or to win him for the truth and himself, not to win him for himself by deceiving him. But the more profoundly the vanquished comes to feel his wrong, and also insofar his defeat, the more he must feel repelled from the one who—lovingly inflicts upon him this deathblow. Oh, difficult task: at once to repel from one’s self, and to win to one’s self; at one and the same time to be as severe as the truth demands, and yet also as gentle as love desires, in order to win the one against whom severity is used! In truth, a miracle, if one succeeds; for it, like everything Christian, contradicts the proverb: that one cannot do two things at the same time. That a vanquished man should attempt to see how he could falsely find the most lenient interpretation is easy to understand; but to win one to one’s self by the help of the strict interpretation of the truth—that is difficult.
Reflection is halted by the idea of the task. Consider what might happen if the non-lover came into collision with another non-lover, who had nourished and stimulated all his evil passions. Consider this, as you pause for the purpose of seeing clearly how the lover behaves.
The non-lover is vanquished. But what does this mean, that he is vanquished? It means that he has been overcome by the good, the true. And what is it the lover desires? He wishes to win him to the good and the true. But to be overcome, when this means being won for the good and the true—is this then so humiliating? Look at love and reconciliation. The lover does not let it appear at all, nor does it occur to him that it is he who has conquered, that he is the victor—no, it is the good that has conquered. In order to take the humiliation and injury away, the lover slips a higher one between himself and the non-lover, and thereby removes himself. When there is not a third party between man and man, every such relation becomes a false one, either too passionate, or too resentful. This third, which philosophers would call the Idea, is the true, the good, or, more correctly, the God-relationship; this third is in certain phases of the relationship the cooling, in other instances the appeasing element. Truly, the lover is too loving thus to place himself over against the vanquished, and himself to be the victor who enjoys the victory—while the other is the vanquished; it is precisely unloving thus to wish to dominate another man. By the help of the third party whom the lover brings in between them, they are both humbled: for the lover humbles himself before the good whose humble servant he is, and, as he himself confesses, in weakness: and the vanquished humbles himself not before the lover, but before the good. But when in a relationship between two, both are humbled, there is nothing humiliating for either of them. How resourceful love can be, what a jack-of-alltrades it is! Would you rather that I should, as you say, speak more seriously? Oh, you may believe that the lover would rather that I should speak thus; for even in connection with what occupies one with the earnestness of eternity, there is a joy in succeeding which makes one prefer to speak in this way. There is, too, in speaking in this manner, a kind of shyness, and insofar also, a solicitude for the one who was wrong. Alas, a reconcilement in love is perhaps often unsuccessful because one took it too earnestly, that is, because one had not learned from God the art (and one learns it from God) of being earnest enough, but being able to do it so easily, as even the truth can permit. Never believe that earnestness is surly, never believe that that is earnestness, that distorted face which makes one sick to look at it: no one was ever earnest who had not learned from earnestness that one can also appear too earnest. If it has really become second nature with you to wish to win your enemy, you will also have become so familiar with that kind of problems that they will occupy you merely as stopgaps. If there is constantly in you a fresh influx of love, if the source of this supply is in order, then there is also time to be resourceful. But if there is opposition in the man himself, if in contemplating the law’s severe command, he must force himself to go to become reconciled with his enemy: then the matter may easily become too earnest, and fail just because of—overmuch earnestness. But this “great earnestness,” however respectable it may be, especially in contrast to irreconcilement, is still not that which we should strive for. No, the true lover is very resourceful.
So the lover also conceals something from the vanquished. But not as the weakly indulgent does, who hides the truth: for the lover hides himself. That he may not disturb the vanquished, he is, as it were, only secretly present, while that which really is present is the lofty majesty of the good and the true. If one is only heedful of it, there is also something so elevated present, that the slight difference between man and man readily disappears. And this is the way that love always behaves. The true lover, who cannot find it in his heart, at any price, to allow the beloved maiden to feel embarrassed, conveys the truth to her in such a way that she does not notice that he is teaching her. He elicits the truth from her; he places it upon her lips; and consequently he does not hear himself, but he hears her speaking it; or he promotes the truth, and conceals himself. Is it then humiliating to her to learn the truth in this way?
And so with the vanquished of whom we are speaking. The expression of pain for the past, the dejection over his offense, the prayer for forgiveness: all these in a certain sense the lover accepts, but he immediately pushes them to one side with a sacred horror, as one puts aside that which is not his due; that is, he indicates that this is not due him: he transfers everything to a higher category, ascribes everything to God, as the one to whom it belongs.
That is the way love always behaves. If the maiden, indescribably happy over the joy she finds in union with the beloved, were to thank him for it, would he not then, if he were a true lover, prevent this trepidation, and say, “No, dear, that is a little misunderstanding, and there must be no misunderstanding between us; you must not thank me, but you must thank God, if this means as much to you as you think. If you do this, then you will be sure of not making any mistake, for even supposing your happiness were not as great as you thought, it would still be a great happiness that you had thanked God for it.” This is what is inseparable from all true love: the sacred bashfulness. For woman’s modesty is beyond the earthly, and in her bashfulness she feels superior, while the converse pains; but the divine bashfulness is caused by the fact that God exists, and in his bashfulness man feels his own humility. As soon as the most remote allusion wishes to recall what modesty is ignorant of, there is bashfulness in the woman; but as soon as a man in relation to another man considers that God exists, then is the divine bashfulness there. One is not bashful before the other man, but before the third who is present; or one is bashful before the other man insofar as one considers what the presence of this third makes the other man. This is true even in human relationships. For when two men are talking together, and the king is present as a third party, but only recognized by one of them, then that one acts somewhat differently, for he is somewhat bashful—before the king. The thought about God’s presence makes a man bashful with respect to the other man, for God’s presence makes the two essentially equal. As to the rest, whatever difference, humanly speaking, there had been between the two men, even if it were the most glaring: God has it in His power to say: “When I am present no one will presume to be conscious of this difference; for that would be standing and talking with each other before me, as if I were not present.”
But when the lover himself is bashful, when he scarcely dares to raise his eyes to look at the vanquished, how can it be so humiliating to be the vanquished? A man is bashful if another looks at him; but if this other, who by looking at him makes him bashful, is himself bashful, then there is no one who looks at him. But if there is no one who looks at him, then there can be nothing humiliating in humbling himself before the good, or before God.
Consequently the lover does not look at the vanquished. This was the first step, in order to prevent humiliation. But in another sense the lover still looks at him. This is the next step.
Oh, that I were able to describe how the lover looks at the vanquished, how the joy shines in his eyes; how his loving glance rests so mildly upon him; how, alluring and beckoning, it seeks to win him! For to the lover it is so indescribably important that nothing disturbing should enter; that no ill-omened word should inadvertently pass between them; that no unpremeditated glance should accidentally be exchanged between them, which might perhaps disturb everything again for a long time. Thus the lover looks at him; as calm as only the eternal can make a man. For the lover truly wishes to win this vanquished, but this, his wish, is too sacred to have the kind of passion a wish ordinarily has. The mere desire of passion very frequently makes a man a little confused; on the contrary, the purity and sacredness of this wish gives the lover an exalted tranquillity, which again helps him to win the victory of reconciliation, the most beautiful and the most difficult, for mere strength here is not enough, the strength must be in weakness.
But is there anything humiliating in feeling that one is so important to another man? Is there anything humiliating to the girl that the lover solicits her love? Is there anything humiliating to her that it is so evident how much he is interested in winning her? Is there anything humiliating to her in seeing his gladness in advance, if he succeeds? No, there certainly is not. But the lover who by reconciliation would win the vanquished, he is, in a far higher sense, in precisely the same situation in apprehending the other man’s love. And the lover knows only too well how difficult it is to free in this way, to set one free from the evil, to free him from the humiliation of defeat, to free him from thinking dejectedly of the forgiveness which he needs: consequently, in spite of all these difficulties, to win his love.
Yet the lover succeeds in winning the vanquished. Everything confusing, every conceivable object is removed as by an enchantment: while the vanquished lays hold on forgiveness, the lover lays hold on the love of the vanquished. Oh, it is not true: that one always gets an answer if one asks; Christianity has also made this proverb untrue, like all the proverbs of human wisdom. For when the vanquished asks, “Have you now really forgiven me?” the lover answers, “Do you now really love me?” But he does not answer the question asked him. No, he does not answer it, he is too loving to do so, he will not even answer the question about forgiveness; for this word, especially if it were emphasized, might easily make the matter too serious, in a harmful sense. Wonderful conversation! There seems to be no meaning in it. The one asks in the east, and the other answers in the west; and yet they say, moreover love understands it, they both say one and the same thing. But the lover has the last word. For whenever there is an exchange between them, then so the one says, “Have you really forgiven me?’ and the other answers, “Do you now really love me?’ Behold, nothing, nothing, can hold out against a lover, not even the one who begs forgiveness. At last he will break himself of asking for forgiveness.
So he, the lover, has conquered, for he has won the vanquished.
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