Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
madness imaginable. There surely is but one possibility of being
madder than a madman, which is the higher madness of joining
a madman in all seriousness and regarding him as a sage."
Do not say that the whole presentation above is exaggerated.
Ah, you know (but, possibly, have not fully realized it) that
among all the respectable men, among all the enlightened and
sensible men, there was but one--though it is easily possible
that one or the other of them, impelled by curiosity, entered
into conversation with him--that there was but one among them
who sought him in all seriousness.[19] And he came to him--in
the night! And as you know, in the night one walks on forbidden
paths, one chooses the night to go to places of which one does
not like to be known as a frequenter. Consider the opinion of
the inviter implied in this--it was a disgrace to visit him,
something no man of honor could afford to do, as little as to
pay a nightly visit to--but no, I do not care to say in so many
words what would follow this "as little as."
Come hither to me now all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
THE SECOND PHASE OF HIS LIFE
His end was what all the wise and the sensible, the statesmen and
the citizens and the mockers, etc., predicted it would be. And as
was later spoken to him, in a moment when, it would seem, the
most hardened ought to have been moved to sympathy, and the very
stones to tears: "He saved others; let him save himself,[20]"
and as it has been repeated thousands upon thousands of times,
by thousands upon thousands: "What was it he spoke of before,
saying his hour was not yet come[21]--is it come now, perchance?"--It
has been repeated, alas, the while the single individual, the
believer, shudders whenever considering--while yet unable to
refrain from gazing into the depth of what to men is a meaningless
absurdity--shudders when considering that God in human guise,
that his divine teaching, that these signs and wonders which
might have made a very Sodom and Gomorrha reform its ways, in
reality produced the exact opposite, and caused the teacher
to be shunned, hated, despised.
Who he is, one can recognize more easily now when the powerful
ones and the respected ones, and all the precautionary measures
of those upholding the existing order, have corrected any wrong
conception one might have entertained about him at first--now
when the people have lost their patience to wait for a Messiah,
seeing that his life, instead of rising in dignity, lapsed into
ever greater degradation. Who, pray, does not recognize that a
man is judged according to the society in which he moves--and
now, think of his society! Indeed, his society one might well
designate as equivalent to being expelled from "human society";
for his society are the lowest classes of the people, with sinners
and publicans among them, people whom everybody with the slightest
self-respect shuns for the sake of his good name and reputation--and
a good name and reputation surely are about the least one can
wish to preserve. In his company there are, furthermore, lepers
whom every one flees, madmen who can only inspire terror, invalids
and wretches--squalor and misery. Who, then, is this person
that, though followed by such a company, still is the object
of the persecution of the mighty ones? He is one despised as
a seducer of men, an impostor, a blasphemer! And if any one
enjoying a good reputation refrains from expressing contempt
of him, it is really only a kind of compassion; for to fear
him is, to be sure, something different.
Such, then, is his appearance; for take care not to be influenced
by anything that you may have learned after the event--as, how
his exalted spirit, with an almost divine majesty, never was
so markedly manifest as just them. Ah, my friend, if you were
the contemporary of one who is not only himself "excluded from
the synagogue" but, as you will remember, whose very help meant
being "excluded from the synagogue"--I say, if you were the
contemporary of an outcast, who in every respect answers to
that term, (for everything has two sides): then you will scarcely
be the man to explain all this in terms directly contrary to
appearances;[22] or, which is the same thing, you will not be
the "single individual" which, as you well know, no one wants
to be, and to be which is regarded as a ridiculous oddity, perhaps
even as a crime.
And now--for they are his society chiefly--as to his apostles!
What absurdity; though not--what new absurdity, for it is quite
in keeping with the rest--his apostles are some fishermen, ignorant
people who but the other day followed their trade. And tomorrow,
to pile one absurdity on the other, they are to go out into the
wide world and transform its aspect. And it is he who claims to
be God, and these are his duly appointed apostles! Now, is he to
make his apostles respected, or are perhaps the apostles to make
him respected? Is he, the inviter, is he an absurd dreamer?
Indeed, his procession would make it seem so; no poet could
have hit on a better idea. A teacher, a sage, or whatever you
please to call him, a kind of stranded genius, who affirms himself
to be God--surrounded by a jubilant mob, himself accompanied by
some publicans, criminals, and lepers; nearest to him a chosen
few, his apostles. And these judges so excellently competent as
to what truth is, these fishermen, tailors, and shoe-makers,
they do not only admire him, their teacher and master, whose
every word is wisdom and truth: they do not only see what no
one else can see, his exaltedness and holiness, nay, but they
see God in him and worship him. Certainly, no poet could invent
a better situation, and it is doubtful if the poet would not
forget the additional item that this same person is feared by
the mighty ones and that they are scheming to destroy him. His
death alone can reassure and satisfy them. They have set an
ignominious punishment on joining his company, on merely accepting
aid from him; and yet they do not feel secure, and cannot feel
altogether reassured that the whole thing is mere wrong-headed
enthusiasm and absurdity. Thus the mighty ones. The populace
who had Idolized him, the populace have pretty nearly given
him up, only in moments does their old conception of him blaze
forth again. In all his existence there is not a shred the most
envious of the envious might envy him to have. Nor do the mighty
ones envy his life. They demand his death for safety's sake, so
that they may have peace again, when all has returned to the
accustomed ways, peace having been made still more secure by
the warning example of his death.
These are the two phases of his life. It began with the people's
idolizing him, whereas all who were identified with the existing
order of things, all who had power and influence, vengefully,
but in a cowardly and hidden manner, laid their snares for him--in
which he was caught, then? Yes, but he perceived it well. Finally
the people discover that they had been deceived in him, that
the fulfillment he would bring them answered least of all to
their expectations of wonders and mountains of gold. So the
people deserted him and the mighty ones drew the snare about
him--in which he was caught, then? Yes, but he perceived it
well. The mighty ones drew the snare together about him--and
thereupon the people, who then saw themselves completely deceived,
turned against him in hatred and rage.
And--to include that too--compassion would say; or, among the
compassionate ones--for compassion is sociable, and likes to
assemble together, and you will find spitefulness and envy keeping
company with whining soft-headedness: since, as a heathen philosopher
observed long ago, no one is so ready to sympathize as an envious
person--among the compassionate ones the verdict would be: it is
really too bad that this good-hearted fellow is to come to such
an end. For he was really a good sort of fellow. Granting it was
an exaggeration to claim to be God, he really was good to the
poor and the needy, even if in an odd manner, by becoming one of
them and going about in the company of beggars. But there is
something touching in it all, and one can't help but feel sorry
for the poor fellow who is to suffer such a miserable death.
For you may say what you will, and condemn him as strongly as
you will, I cannot help feeling pity for him. I am not so heard-hearted
as not to feel compassion.
We have arrived at the last phase, not of Sacred History, as
handed down by the apostles and disciples who believed in Christ,
but of profane history, its counterpart.
Come hither now, all ye that labor and are heavy laden; that is,
if you feel the need, even if you are of all sufferers the most
miserable--if you feel the need of being helped in this fashion,
that is, to fall into still greater suffering, then come hither,
he will help you.
III
THE INVITATION AND THE INVITER
Let us forget for a little while what, in the strictest sense,
constitutes the "offense"; which is, that the inviter claims
to be God. Let us assume that he did not claim to be more than
a man, and let us then consider the inviter and his invitation.
The invitation is surely inviting enough. How, then, shall one
explain the bad relation which did exist, this terribly wrong
relation, that no one, or practically no one, accepted the invitation;
that, on the contrary, all, or practically all--alas! and was
it not precisely all who were invited?--that practically all
were at one in offering resistance to the inviter, in wishing
to put him to death, and in setting a punishment on accepting
aid from him? Should one not expect that after an invitation
such as he issued all, all who suffered, would come crowding
to him, and that all they who were not suffering would crowd
to him, touched by the thought of such compassion and mercy,
and that thus the whole race would be at one in admiring and
extolling the inviter? How is the opposite to be explained?
For that this was the outcome is certain enough; and the fact
that it all happened in those remote times is surely no proof
that the generation then living was worse than other generations!
How could any one be so thoughtless as to believe that? For
whoever gives any thought to the matter will easily see that
it happened in that generation only because they chanced to
be contemporaneous with him. How then explain that it happened--that
all came to that terribly wrong end, so opposite to what ought
to have been expected?
Well, in the first place, if the inviter had looked the figure
which purely human compassion would have him be; and, in the
second place, if he had entertained the purely human conception
of what constitutes man's misery--why, then it would probably
not have happened.
In the first place: According to this human conception of him
he should have been a most generous and sympathetic person, and
at the same time possessed of all qualifications requisite for
being able to help in all troubles of this world, ennobling the
help thus extended by a profound and heartfelt human compassion.
Withal (so they would imagine him) he should also have been a
man of some distinction and not without a certain amount of
human self-assertion--the consequence of which would be, however,
that he would neither have been able, in his compassion, to
reach down to all sufferers, nor yet to have comprehended fully
what constitutes the misery of man and of mankind.
But divine compassion, the infinite unconcern which takes thought
only of those that suffer, and not in the least of one's self,
and which with absolute unconcern takes thought of all that suffer:
that will always seem to men only a kind of madness, and they will