Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
ever be puzzled whether to laugh or to weep about it. Even if
nothing else had militated against the inviter, this alone would
have been sufficient to make his lot hard in the world.
Let a man but try a little while to practice divine compassion,
that is, to be somewhat unconcerned in his compassion, and you
will at once perceive what the opinion of mankind would be.
For example: let one who could occupy some higher rank in society,
let him not (preserving all the while the distinction of his
position) lavishly give to the poor, and philanthropically (i.e.
in a superior fashion) visit the poor and the sick and the wretched--no,
let him give up altogether the distinction of his position and
in all earnest choose the company of the poor and the lowly,
let him live altogether with the people, with workmen, hodmen,
mortar-mixers, and the like! Ah, in a quiet moment, when not
actually beholding him, most of us will be moved to tears by
the mere thought of it; but no sooner would they see him in
this company--him who might have attained to honor and dignity
in the world--see him walking along in such goodly company,
with a bricklayer's apprentice on his right side and a cobbler's
boy on his left, but--well, what then? First they would devise
a thousand explanations to explain that it is because of queer
notions, or obstinacy, or pride, or vanity that he chooses this
mode of life. And even if they would refrain from attributing
to him these evil motives they will never be reconciled with
the sight of him--in this company. The noblest person in the
world will be tempted to laugh, the moment he sees it.
And if all the clergymen in the world, whether in velvet or
in silk or in broadcloth or in satin, contradicted me I would
say: "You lie, you only deceive people with your Sunday sermons.
Because it will always be possible for a contemporary to say
about one so compassionate (who, it is to be kept in mind, is
our contemporary): I believe he is actuated by vanity, and
that is why I laugh and mock at him; but if he were truly compassionate,
or had I been contemporary with him, the noble one--why then!"
And now, as to those exalted ones "who were not understood by
men"--to speak in the fashion of the usual run of sermons--why,
sure enough, they are dead. In this fashion these people succeed
in playing hide and seek. You simply assume that every contemporary
who ventures out so far is actuated only by vanity; and as to
the departed, you assume that they are dead and that they, therefore,
were among the glorious ones.
It must be remembered, to be sure, that every person wishes
to maintain his own level in life, and this fixed point, this
steady endeavor, is one of the causes which limit human compassion
to a certain sphere. The cheese-monger will think that to live
like the inmate of a poorhouse is going too far in expressing
one's sympathy; for the sympathy of the cheese-monger is biased
in one regard which is, his regard of the opinion of other cheese-mongers
and of the saloon-keepers. His compassion is therefore not without
its limitations. And thus with every class--and the journalists,
living as they do on the pennies of the poor, under the pretense
of asserting and defending their rights, they would be the first
to heap ridicule on this unlimited compassion.
To identify one's self wholly and literally with him who is
most miserable (and this, only this, is divine compassion),
that is to men the "too much" by which one is moved to tears,
in a quiet Sunday hour, and about which one unconsciously bursts
into laughter when one sees it in reality. The fact is, it is
too exalted a sight for daily use; one must have it at some
distance to be able to support it. Men are not so familiar with
exalted virtue to believe it at once. The contradiction seen
here is, therefore, that this exalted virtue manifests itself
in--reality, in daily life, quite literally the daily life.
When the poet or the orator illustrates this exalted virtue,
that is, pictures it in a poetical distance from real life,
men are moved; but to see this exalted virtue in reality, the
reality of daily life, here in Copenhagen, on the Market Square,
in the midst of busy every-day life--! And when the poet or
the orator does touch people it is only for a short time, and
just so long are men able to believe, almost, in this exalted
virtue. But to see it in real life every day--! To be sure,
there is an enormous contradiction in the statement that the
most exalted of all has become the most every-day occurrence!
Insofar, then, it was certain in advance what would be the inviter's
fate, even if nothing else had contributed to his doom. The
absolute,[23] or all which makes for an absolute standard, becomes
by that very fact the victim. For men are willing enough to
practice sympathy and self-denial, are willing enough to strive
for wisdom, etc.; but they wish themselves to determine the
standard and to have that read: "to a certain degree." They do
not wish to do away with all these splendid virtues. On the
contrary, they want--at a bargain and in all comfort--to have
the appearance and the name of practicing them. Truly divine
compassion is therefore necessarily the victim so soon as it
shows itself in this world. It descends on earth out of compassion
for mankind, and yet it is mankind who trample upon it. And
whilst it is wandering about among them, scarcely even the sufferer
dares to flee to it, for fear of mankind. The fact is, it is
most important for the world to keep up the appearance of being
compassionate; but this it made out by divine compassion to
be a falsehood--and therefore: away with divine compassion!
But now the inviter represented precisely this divine compassion--and
therefore he was sacrificed, and therefore even those that suffered
fled from him; for they comprehended (and, humanly speaking, very
exactly), what is true of most human infirmities, that one is better
off to remain what one is than to be helped by him.
In the second place: the inviter likewise had an other, and
altogether different, conception than the purely human one as
to what constitutes man's misery. And in this sense only he
was intent on helping; for he had with him neither money, nor
medicine, nor anything else of this kind.
Indeed, the inviter's appearance is so altogether different
from what human compassion wold imagine it that he is a downright
offense to men. In a purely human sense there is something positively
cruel--something outrageous, something so exasperating as to make
one wish to kill that person--in the fact of his inviting to
him the poor and the sick and the suffering, and then not being
able to do anything for them, except to promise them remission
of their sins. "Let us be human, man is no spirit. And when a
person is about to die of starvation and you say to him: I promise
you the gracious remission of your sins--that is revolting cruelty.
In fact it is ridiculous, though too serious a matter to laugh about."
Well (for in quoting these sentiments I wish merely to let offended
man discover the contradiction and exaggerate it--it is not I who
wish to exaggerate), well then, the real intention of the inviter
was to point out that sin is the destruction of mankind. Behold
now, that makes room, as the invitation also made room, almost
as if he had said _procul, o procul este profani_, or as if,
even though he had not said it, a voice had been heard which
thus interpreted the "come hither" of the invitation. There
surely are not many sufferers who will follow the invitation.
And even if there were one who, although aware that from this
inviter no actual wordily help was to be expected, nevertheless
had sought refuge with him, touched by his compassion: now even
he will flee from him. For is it not almost a bit of sharp practice
to profess to be here out of compassion, and then to speak about sin?
Indeed, it is a piece of cunning, unless you are altogether
certain that you are a sinner. If it is tooth-ache which bothers
you, or if your house is burned to the ground, but if it has
escaped you that you are a sinner--why, then it was cunning on
his part. It is a bit of sharp practice of him to assert: "I
heal all manner of disease," in order to say, when one approaches
him: "the fact is, I recognize only one disease, which is sin--of
that I shall cure all them 'that labor and are heavy laden,' all
them that labor to work themselves free of the power of sin, that
labor to resist the evil, and to vanquish their weakness, but
succeed only in being laden." Of this malady he cures "all"
persons; even if there were but a single one who turned to him
because of this malady: he heals all persons. But to come to
him on account of any other disease, and only because of that,
is about as useful as to look up an eye-doctor when you have
fractured your leg.
CHRISTIANITY AS THE ABSOLUTE; CONTEMPORANEOUSNESS WITH CHRIST
With its invitation to all "that labor and are heavy laden" Christianity
has entered the world, not--as the clergy whimperingly and falsely
introduce it--as a shining paragon of mild grounds of consolation;
but as the absolute. God wills it so because of His love, but it
is God who wills it, and He wills it as He wills it. He does not
choose to have His nature changed by man and become a nice, that
is to say, humane, God; but He chooses to change the nature
of man because of His love for them. Neither does He care to
hear any human impertinence concerning the why and wherefore
of Christianity, and why it entered the world: it is, and is
to be, the absolute. Therefore all the relative explanations
which may have been ventured as to its why and wherefore are
entirely beside the point. Possibly, these explanations were
suggested by a kind of human compassion which believes it necessary
to haggle a bit--God very likely does not know the nature of
man very well, His demands are a bit exorbitant, and therefore
the clergymen must haggle and beat Him down a bit.[24] Maybe
the clergy hit upon that idea in order to stand well with men
and reap some advantage from preaching the gospel; for if its
demands are reduced to the purely human, to the demands which
arise in man's heart, why, then men will of course think well
of it, and of course also of the amiable preacher who knows
how to make Christianity so mild--if the Apostles had been able
to do that the world would have esteemed them highly also in
their time. However, all this is the absolute. But what is it
good for, then--is it not a downright torment? Why, yes, you
may say so: from the standpoint of the relative, the absolute
is the greatest torment. In his dull, languid, sluggish moments,
when man is dominated by his sensual nature, Christianity is
an absurdity to him since it is not commensurable with any definite
"wherefore?" But of what use is it, then? Answer: peace! it is
the absolute. And thus it must be represented; that is, in a
fashion which makes it appear as an absurdity to the sensual
nature of man. And therefore is it, ah, so true and, in still
another sense, so true when the worldly-wise man who is contemporaneous
with Christ condemns him with the words: "he is literally nothing"--quite
true, for he is the absolute. And, being absolute, Christianity
has come in the world, not as a consolation in the human sense:
in fact, quite on the contrary, it is ever reminding one how
the Christian must suffer in order to become, or to remain, a
Christian--sufferings which he may, if you please, escape by
not electing to be a Christian.
There is, indeed, an unbridgeable gulf fixed between God and
man. It therefore became plain to those contemporary with Christ
that the process of becoming a Christian (that is, being changed