13. From on High He Will Draw All to Himself
Chapter Thirteen
Exposition V
Lord Jesus Christ, it is certainly from on high that you draw a person to yourself, and it is to victory that you call him. But this is indeed to say that you call him to conflict and promise him victory in the strife to which you call him from on high, you, the great victor. Just as you keep our souls from all other error, so also keep us from this one—that we imagine ourselves to be members of a church already triumphant here in the world. After all, your kingdom was not and certainly is not of this world. Your church’s place is not here in the world; there is only a place for it if it will struggle and by struggling secure itself a place to exist. But if it will struggle, then it will never be driven out by the world either; you will vouch for that. On the other hand, if it imagines that it is supposed to triumph here in the world—alas, then indeed it has itself to blame that you withdrew your assistance. Then it has foundered; then it has confused itself with the world.
So, then, be with your militant [stridende] church, so that it would never happen that it—and, of course, this is the only way in which it could happen—would be obliterated from the earth by becoming a triumphant church.
John 12:32: And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me.
“Yes, this is easy to understand; he has been victorious. We have only to go along with him in order to share the victory with him. Just no delays or hairsplitting; then the matter is entirely simple.” Hardly anyone, I hope, would express himself quite this way in words, but perhaps there was still such and such a person who thought like this in secret. And what, then, do we have to say from our side?
One could point out that, even if nothing else was a hindrance, it cannot be done easily, because in one sense Christ’s life stands outside a direct relation to each individual in the human race, so that he as the God-man [Gud-Mennesket], though a true human being [Menneske], is still so heterogeneous with the individual human being that it cannot be done very directly without further ado, to want to go alongside him like this in a kind of impudent tactlessness. One could point out that Christ’s (the God-man’s) heterogeneity with all individual human beings is also expressed by the doctrine of his second coming. For it is not with him as with another human being, who has lived at one time, perhaps has won one or another great victory, whose consequences we appropriate as a matter of course, whereas nothing is heard from him, still less that he could come again to settle accounts with us, to judge us by demanding his due or in turn demanding ourselves of us.
With Christ it is different. He lived here on the earth; this, his life, is the archetype. After that, he enters into exaltation, and then he says, as it were, to the generation: “Now you begin.” And what is it they are supposed to begin? To live in conformity with the archetype—but, he adds, I am coming again some day at the end of time. Accordingly, if I dare to put it like this, this form of existence makes the church’s whole existence here on the earth into a parenthesis or into something parenthetical in Christ’s life. The contents of the parenthesis begins with Christ’s ascension into exaltation and closes with his second coming. Here, therefore, it does not end in one thing, as is usual in the historical relation between an individual and the others who profit from his victory as a matter of course. For neither is such an individual the archetype, nor is such an individual the one who will come again. Christ alone is the one who can make his life into the test for all persons. As he ascends into heaven, the time of examination begins. It has now lasted for 1,800 years; perhaps it shall last for 18,000. But (and just this is part of the fact that the intervening time is an examination) he is coming again. And when this is the case, then all direct connection to him in order to profit from his victory as a matter of course is more impossible than in relation to any other person.
Here, however, we will not detain ourselves further; we prefer to advance another consideration: is truth such that, in relation to it, one may believe that one can appropriate it with the help of another, just like that? Just like that, in other words, without starting to want to be developed in a similar way oneself, to be tried, to fight, to suffer like the one who acquired the truth for him? Is it not just as impossible as sleeping or dreaming oneself into the truth, just as impossible as appropriating it just like that, however wide awake one is? Or if one is wide awake, is this not just a fantasy when one does not understand or does not want to understand that, in relation to the truth, no cutback is given that leaves out acquiring it and, in relation to acquiring it from generation to generation, no essential foreshortening—so that every generation and every person in the generation essentially must begin from the beginning?
For what is truth? And in what sense was Christ the truth? As is well known, Pilate asked the first question, and another question is whether he actually cared to get this question answered. In any case, his question in one sense was absolutely on the spot and in another sense missed the mark as much as possible. Pilate asks Christ this question: “What is truth?” But Christ was indeed the truth; therefore the question is quite in order. Yes—and yet in another sense, no. That in the moment it can occur to Pilate to question Christ in this way just proves that he has no eye for the truth at all. That is, Christ’s life was the truth, and therefore Christ himself says (as he more precisely explains the words: “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews”): “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” Christ’s life on the earth, every moment in this life, was the truth.
In what, then, lies the basic confusion in Pilate’s question? It lies in the fact that it can occur to him to question Christ in this way. For as he questions Christ like this, he informs against himself, you see. He reveals about himself that Christ’s life has not explained to him what truth is. But how, then, should Christ verbally be able to enlighten Pilate about the truth, when that which is the truth—Christ’s life—has not opened Pilate’s eyes to what truth is! It appears that Pilate had an inquiring mind, was willing to learn, but truly his question is as foolish as possible. Not that he asks, “What is truth?” but that he asks Christ about it, whose very life is the truth and so, in every moment, demonstrates what truth is by his life more powerfully than all the most long-winded lectures of the sharpest thinkers. Every other human being—a thinker, a teacher of science, etc.; yes, it absolutely does not matter, every other human being, a farmhand, a postman, etc.—there really is a kind of point in asking him: “What is truth?” But to ask Christ, who stands alive and kicking before one, to ask Christ about it is the most complete possible confusion. Should Christ answer this question, he would have to appear, falsely, as if he were not the truth for a moment. No human being but Christ is the truth. In relation to every other human being, the truth is something infinitely higher than his being, and that is why it is natural to ask, “What is truth?” and to reply to this question. Pilate is obviously of the opinion in relation to Christ that Christ, too, is a human being such as others, and therefore he falsely makes him into whatever he wishes by his question (a kind of thinker) and asks him—I suppose almost in the character of a highly distinguished man who basically sees thought as something that does not have a home anywhere but, with aristocratic condescension and for the sake of curiosity, takes pleasure in dealing with this man for a moment—in this way Pilate asks Christ: “What is truth?” And Christ is the truth!
Poor Pilate. After all, your pitying words about him, the crucified one, are preserved: “Behold the man!” But regarding this your question, there is surely reason to say about you: “Behold the fool!” For this your question, even if you could not understand it this way, is unconditionally the most foolish and most confusing question ever posed in the world. The question is just as foolish, precisely just as foolish, as if someone were to ask a man he stood and talked with: “I have to ask you: do you exist?” For Christ is the truth. And what should that man probably answer? “If one cannot be convinced that I exist by standing and talking with me, then my assurance cannot help at all, because it is indeed something far inferior to my existence.” And it is also like this with Christ in relation to Pilate. Christ is the truth. “If my life cannot open your eyes to what truth is,” he might say, “then to say it to you is the most impossible of all for me. My difference from all other human beings lies in this. It is certainly never quite true what any other person states in order to answer the question, ‘What is truth?’, but I am the only human being who cannot answer this question. For I am truth.”
Consequently, Christ is the truth in the sense that to be the truth is the only true explanation of what truth is. One, then, can ask an apostle or can ask a Christian what truth is, and then, in answer to the question, the apostle and this Christian point to Christ and say: “Look at him; learn from him; he was the truth.” This means that the truth, in the sense in which Christ is the truth, is not a sum of propositions, not a conceptual definition, etc., but a life. The being of truth is not the direct redoubling of being in relation to thought, which only gives hypothetical being, only secures thinking against being a figment of the imagination that does not exist, reassuring it to think with validity, that what is thought exists—that is, has validity. No, the being of truth is the redoubling in yourself, in me, in him, that your life, that my life, that his life expresses the truth approximately in the striving after it; that your life, that my life, that his life is approximately the being of truth in the striving after it, just as the truth was a life in Christ. For he was the truth.
And, of course, that is why the truth, Christianly understood, is not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all the latest philosophy, there is an infinite difference in this, which is best seen in Christ’s relation to Pilate. For Christ could not—could only falsely—answer the question “What is truth?” just because he was not the one who knew what truth is but was the truth. Not as if he did not know what truth is, but when one is the truth, and when the demand is to be truth, to know the truth is an untruth. For to know the truth is something that entirely of itself goes with being the truth, not the other way around. And just for that reason it becomes untruth when knowing the truth is separated from being the truth, or when knowing the truth and being the truth are made into a single thing, since they are related in reverse order: to be the truth is one with knowing the truth, and Christ would never have known the truth, if he had not been it. And no human being knows more of the truth than what he is of the truth.
Indeed, one cannot actually know the truth. For, after all, if one knows the truth one must know that the truth is to be the truth, and then one surely knows in his knowledge of the truth that to know the truth is an untruth. If one wants to say that one is the truth in knowing the truth, then one is indeed admitting that the truth is to be the truth, as one is saying that to know the truth is to be the truth, since one would have to say in the other case: the truth is to know the truth. Otherwise the question about the truth only returns, so that the question is not answered but the only decisive answer postponed, because, of course, one again must be able to know whether one is the truth or not. That is to say: my knowledge is related to the truth, but while I am falsely outside of myself. The truth is within me, in other words, when I am truly within myself (not falsely outside of myself). The truth, if it is there, is a being, a life. That is why it is said: “And this is life eternal, that they might know the only true God, and the one whom he sent,” the truth. This means that I only know the truth in truth when it becomes a life in me. For that reason, Christ compares the truth with food and acquiring the truth with eating, because just as, bodily, food becomes that which sustains life by being acquired (assimilated), so also is the truth, spiritually, both that which gives and sustains life; it is life. And therefore one sees what a monstrous delusion it is—something close to the greatest possible—to didacticize Christianity. And hence one sees how changed Christianity has become through this continual didacticizing—that now all expressions are formed according to the view that truth is cognition, knowledge (now one talks constantly about comprehending, speculating, considering, etc.), whereas in original Christianity all expressions were formed according to the view that truth is a being.
There is a difference between truth and truths, and this difference is especially recognizable in the determination “to be,” or it is recognizable in that a distinction is made between a way and a final decision, which is reached at the end, the result. In relation to the truth, where there is a difference between a way and what is reached by going or by having gone along the way, a change can set in for the successor in comparison with the predecessor. He can come to begin in a different place than this successor; he can be let off far more easily—in short, the change that takes place consists in the way being shortened, yes, shortened to the degree that, in certain cases, it seems to fall away entirely. Yet, when the truth is the way, to be the truth is a life—and, after all, Christ does say this about himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In that case, no essential change is thinkable in the relation between predecessor and successor. Indeed, the change consisted in the fact that the way was shortened, which was possible because the way was not essentially synonymous with the truth. Yet, when the truth itself is the way, then the way cannot be shortened or fall away without the truth being distorted or falling away.
This is not difficult to understand; anyone who will just give himself a little time will be able to understand it easily. It can also become clearer by being illustrated in some examples, and it is important that it becomes clear—this difference between truth and truth. For what has utterly confused Christianity and what to a great extent has occasioned the fantasy of a triumphant church is this—that one has considered Christianity as truth in the sense of results, instead of its being truth in the sense of the way.
Here are some examples. A person invents something—for example, gunpowder. Perhaps he, the inventor, has spent many, many years of his life pondering and devising. Perhaps many before him have spent a long time in similar fashion but in vain. Now he is successful; now gunpowder is invented. In that same moment, the way almost entirely falls away; it is very shortened. That for which he has spent twenty years can be learned by another in half an hour with the help of his directions about how one sets about doing it. The twenty years stand in an altogether accidental relation to the invention. One actually cannot say that he has spent twenty years discovering gunpowder; no, he invented the gunpowder in half an hour really. One must rather say that he did not discover gunpowder in those twenty years; they have, in a certain sense, no worth, since they were not used to invent gunpowder but in a vain attempt to invent powder—consequently, not to invent gunpowder. If a person could prove with evidence that he has worked to invent gunpowder day and night for thirty whole years but did not invent it, then “the way” as such has absolutely no meaning. If he who invented it invented it by stumbling over a gutter plank one evening as he walked home drunk from a party, then the way is absolutely a trivial matter. In such a case, the inventor will merely stand in a direct line with the dog who discovered purple, though his invention would have just as much worth for this generation—which, if the invention were of another kind, perhaps would call him a benefactor of the human race but not its teacher. For to be a teacher, especially of the human race, “the teacher of humanity,” corresponds to the fact that the truth is the way.
A person laboriously works his way into an obscure period of history; no researcher has been capable of shedding light on it up till now. At last he is successful; he has spent twenty years bringing the historical truth to light and making it indisputable. This gain benefits the successor; the way is shorted quite significantly. The successor needs perhaps scarcely three months in order to have that obscure period’s true context fully explained to him.
A person cultivates a language that no one has known up till now. He makes immense efforts his whole life through, but also leaves behind as the yield of his life and of his striving great means of help through which the successor perhaps comes just as far in the course of two years as he did in twenty years. Here the way is shortened significantly for the successor; the disciple (despite the fact that he perhaps is only a bungler in comparison with the master) is always above the master; through the master’s preliminary work, he is able to begin at another point and to reach further than he. And this is pretty much the way it is wherever truth is knowledge.
But it is different where the truth is being, is “the way.” Here, even if the world lasted for 18,000 years, it is impossible for any essential shortening in the relation between predecessor and successor to take place from generation to generation, since the truth is not different from the way but is exactly the way. Christ was the truth, was the way, or was the way in the sense that the truth is the way. That he has traveled over “the way” surely changes nothing at all in the relation for the successor, who, if he is of the truth and wants to be of the truth, can only be that by going along “the way.” That up to a given time there have lived thirty generations who have traveled the way changes nothing at all in the relation for the next generation, or for each individual in this one, who must begin in absolutely the same place—from the beginning, at the beginning of the way—in order to travel it. For that reason, there is no cause or occasion to triumph, because only the who one has traveled the way could triumph. Yet, he is no longer in the world; he has entered into exaltation, as Christ was indeed also the way when he ascended into heaven. If, on the other hand, someone later wants to take occasion to triumph from the fact that someone earlier has traveled the way, then this is, after all, just as foolish as if a student were to triumph on the occasion of another student having finished his examination.
If one wants to hold fast to this—which is indeed Christ’s own statement, that the truth is the way—one will perceive more and more clearly that a triumphant church is a fantasy in this world, that only a militant church can be truly talked about in this world. But the militant church relates itself and feels itself drawn to Christ in lowliness; the triumphant church has taken Christ’s church in vain. To make this clear is the task of this exposition, and it simply must be remembered that what is constantly meant by a “triumphant church” is a church that wants to be triumphant here in this world. For a triumphant church in eternity is, of course, quite in order, corresponding to Christ’s being taken up into exaltation.
What made one even come up with the fantasy of a triumphant church? And what is understood by a “triumphant church”?
It was already observed above that what has especially contributed to the delusion of a triumphant church is that people have understood Christianity as the truth in which there is a difference between result and way or Christianity’s truth is understood as a result—what in Danish one perhaps could call the remainder, a profit. For in relation to the truth as the way, this is just what the emphasis lies on—that there is no remainder, no profit, no result left by the predecessor for the successor. That is, if Christianity were the truth in this sense, then it would be quite in order with triumph. Hence, with respect to the invention of gunpowder and the art of printing, etc., with respect to the many conquests that have been made in the fields of science, the arts, etc., this generation is deservedly triumphant. For here the truth is a result; here the emphasis is not laid on the way and on each individual who, responsible before God, has to decide himself whether or not he wants to go along the way, indifferent, absolutely indifferent, to whether no one or everyone is going along the same way, indifferent, absolutely indifferent, to whether no one or countless millions have gone along the same way. No, here the emphasis is placed upon the truth, the profit, and on the generation, human society, the company, “the community,” which takes over the truth as a matter of course, and it is by accident that an individual has discovered it, invented it, fathomed it, etc.
Thus if Christ had been, for example, a teacher of the truth, a thinker, who had made a discovery or fathomed what perhaps had cost him indescribable intellectual trouble, but what also then (because the way only stood in an accidental relation to the truth) could become a result: then it would be quite in order that the succeeding generation would relate itself triumphantly to it as a matter of course. The successors, who were exempted from all these immense intellectual troubles—these many, many years of effort—could at most feel obliged to remember with gratitude him who had persevered. Yet, in other respects, there was nothing other to do than to triumph. That this is a delusion has already been shown. Here it only need be added that this is why Christ’s teaching is infinitely exalted over all the inventions of this era and of all time, an eternity older and an eternity higher than all systems, even the very latest, also even the one that is the very latest in ten thousand years. For his teaching is the truth, but in the sense that the truth is the way, and he is and remains as the God-man the way himself—something that no human being, however zealously he professes that the truth is the way, would dare to say about himself without blasphemy.
Yet—besides the delusion that, as confused as is possible, has failed Christianity by understanding the truth as result—there is also another delusion that has contributed to producing the fantasy of a triumphant church. This delusion is the appearance, which has arisen over the course of time, that we as such are all Christians. For if this is a given, a militant church seems to be an impossibility. Wherever there seems to be—wherever people assume that there is—an established Christianity, there is an attempt to form a triumphant church, even if people do not use these words. For the militant church is in the making; an established Christianity is, is not becoming.
Finally, this fantasy lingers: a triumphant church, together with human impatience, wants to grasp in advance that which comes later. And just as one now almost universally sees the years of childhood or youth wanting to absorb the whole of life in advance, so that nothing remains for adulthood and old age: so has this generation—this generation or Christendom—wanted to absorb eternity with a similar impatience and (instead of that which is God’s invention and thought with all existence—that temporality, this life, is the time of struggle, the time of testing, and eternity the time of victory) lodge triumph within temporality, which is to abolish Christianity. Because what Christ said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” was not said in a special sense about the relation to those time periods; it is eternally valid, therefore a valid statement about the relation between Christ’s kingdom and this world for every time period. As soon as Christ’s kingdom makes a deal with this world and becomes a kingdom of this world, Christianity is abolished. When, on the other hand, Christianity is in truth, it is surely a kingdom in this world but not of this world. That is, it is militant.
What, then, is meant by a “triumphant church”? By this is meant a church that assumes that the time of struggling is over, that the church, although it is still in this world, has nothing more to struggle about or for. But then, of course, the church and this world have become synonymous, and this is the very situation not only with everything that has called itself the triumphant church, but with what is called an established Christendom. For truly Christ’s church can only exist by struggling in this world, that is, by fighting to exist each moment. If it is the established church, then it is grounded in the fact that it has been victorious. The militant church exists by struggling, but, after all, the church that is called “established” must be the one that exists after having been victorious.
And this triumphant church or established Christendom resembles the militant church no more than the square resembles the circle. It would—if we imagined a Christian from those times when the church was truly militant—it would be absolutely impossible for him to recognize Christianity in this distortion. He would hear Christianity declaimed and hear that what was said was entirely true, but, to his greatest surprise, he would see that the existential conditions for being a Christian had become the very opposite of what they were in his day, so that now to be a Christian did not resemble being a Christian in his day any more than walking on one’s legs resembles walking on one’s head.
In the militant church, to be a Christian means to express being a Christian within an environment that is the opposite of being a Christian. In a triumphant church, in an established Christendom, to be a Christian means to express being a Christian within an environment that is synonymous, homogeneous with being a Christian. If I am a true Christian in the first instance, then naturally this will (since, after all, the theater is the opposite) be inversely recognizable by what opposition I suffer, and to the degree that I am a Christian has more truth, to the same degree would this be recognizable by the fact that the opposition is greater. In the second instance, to be a Christian will of course (for, after all, the theater is homogeneity) be directly recognizable by the favor, honor, and prestige I win in this world. Why, however, am I saying “in this world”? After all, “this world” is Christendom; accordingly, it will be directly recognizable by the favor, honor, prestige I win in Christendom. To the degree that I am a Christian has more truth, to the same degree will this also be recognizable by the quite extraordinary prestige I enjoy in this world. But what am I saying? After all, “this world” is Christendom; accordingly, it will be recognizable by the extraordinary prestige I enjoy in Christendom.
This is an utterly unavoidable consequence when the assumption is: a triumphant church. There where, if I lived in a militant church, precisely suffering would come, now reward comes. There where, if I lived in a militant church, insult and derision would befall me, now honor and prestige beckon. There where death would be inevitable, now I celebrate the highest triumph. Since, according to the assumption, I am living among nothing but Christians, then surely they must recognize my genuinely Christian disposition at once and therefore hasten to meet me with honors and distinctions instead of offering me resistance. Yes, if one imagined a member of the Christian church from the time when it was militant—one who became a witness to this—I suppose he would almost have to laugh for a moment that what in his day was frightful earnestness has become a pleasant game.
There stands Christianity with its demands for self-denial: deny yourself—and then suffer because you deny yourself. This was Christianity. But how absolutely different it is now. If I imagine a youth who, with a lovely lack of sophistication, decided to adapt his life to Holy Scripture: how surprised would he be (yes, I wonder if he could help laughing at himself and at the whole of existence) because what happens in the very moment that, according to the instructions of Christianity, he had prepared himself to suffer—he comes into honor and prestige. He composes himself in order to endure the opposition; he dares to take the step—dash, and he is hailed with acclaim. He at least prepares for chilling derision and coldness, and he is received with the warm compress of an almost dainty admiration. That is, the youth had forgotten (what, after all, is not found in the Bible either) that he lived in Christendom, in Christendom where all are Christians, in the triumphant church where there is no more struggling, but where being the true Christian is rewarded with distinction.
This is the situation in the triumphant church, where it really pays to be a Christian, and the only thing that does not pay is not being a Christian. On the other hand, insofar as the so-called established Christendom does not call itself the triumphant church, perhaps it rejects this externality but produces the same confusion by way of the hidden feeling. For, again, the established Christendom, where all are Christians but in a hidden feeling, resembles the militant church just as little as the silence of death resembles the noisiness of passion.
Only the fantasy of a triumphant church was successful in really implementing the thought that those of a certain profession constituted the actual Christians. The task, the business, of this profession was to be Christian, and so here directness applied—that the more someone was a true Christian, the more he would increase in honor and prestige. The rest of the world indeed furnished the spectators, the chorus, but accordingly not any opposition to being a Christian; on the contrary, it furnished an environment of admiration in relation to that profession, which represented being Christian.
Yet, when this difference in rank disappeared, the triumphant church disappeared as well. Since now everyone was supposed to join in the game, direct recognizability (the degree of being the true Christian in direct correspondence to the honor and prestige one enjoys) encountered a peculiar difficulty that made it impossible. The clergyman had essentially nothing other to do than to express being a Christian, and as long as the Christian masses were actually content with perceiving themselves in the rank representing them, it suited the triumphant church. But it was otherwise when this difference in rank no longer satisfied the Christian masses. The Christian masses also have—yes, viewed mainly in external fashion—something else to take care of in the world than to express being a Christian (in the sense of the triumphant church). Now how could the direct recognizability of being a Christian be expressed in what is heterogeneous with being a Christian but not really hostile to it, only indifferent? Yes, it was an impossibility. In the militant church, direct recognizability is impossible, because to be a Christian is expressed within the contrast of being a Christian. Now, on the other hand, direct recognizability became impossible, because to be a Christian was supposed to be expressed within what is indifferent in relation to being a Christian.
Please understand me properly. A citizen, for example, is a Christian. Let us assume that this citizen is, say, a shoemaker. It is his livelihood; naturally, he is occupied with the practice of his trade for the better part of the day. Now, should direct recognizability in relation to being a Christian be possible here, then the one who was the truest Christian among the shoemakers—or the fact that he was the truest Christian—would therefore have to be recognizable by his having the most to do, retaining the most assistants, so that perhaps the king, the queen, as well as the whole royal house (or, in any case, the clergy) let him make shoes for them. That this could not be carried out naturally became more and more obvious in the course of time. The direct recognizability in relation to being a Christian ran into another kind of opposition than the one known by the militant church. This opposition was not the contrast to being a Christian but the indifference to being a Christian. This “opposition of indifference” does not turn the relation upside down to an inverted recognizability, as in the militant church, but it does make direct recognizability impossible.
So a complete change of scene in relation to being a Christian entered Christendom. People dropped the fantasy of a triumphant church; they let the whole externality stand and, in relation to it, the law of indifference toward being a Christian—that the best shoemaker was the one who sewed best, the best poet the one who wrote the best poems, etc., etc. In this way, people let go of the externality and now transferred being a Christian to a matter of feeling. A universal discharge is given and assumed for all of us; it is settled that we are all Christians, quite in the same sense as it is given that we are all human beings—the assumption, therefore, with which the game of life or of actuality first begins. For that reason, it would be foolishness, even madness, if someone were specifically to argue that he is a human being, since, after all, that would seek to bring a presupposition to consciousness that, assumed once and for all and by all, lies at the basis of everything.
Here we have the concept of established Christendom. In established Christendom, we are all Christians, albeit in a hidden feeling. The external world has nothing at all to do with the fact that I am a Christian; that is why my being a Christian is not detectable. If I own a pub, then I do not at all expect that my being a true Christian is supposed to be recognizable by the fact that I have the best patronage; no, whether I as a pub owner shall have the best patronage depends on the extent to which I know how to please an esteemed, cultured public, and the true Christian I am is something by itself, something for myself, something I am in a hidden feeling—quite like all the others, not only like all the other pub owners, but quite literally like every other person in Christendom. To the degree it is true that I am a Christian, it is absolutely just as true of me as of all the others. If I am a pastor, then I do not at all expect that my being a true Christian is going to be recognizable by the fact that I am the most heeded and most esteemed preacher. No, whether I will have the most support as a pastor depends on which gifts of eloquence I artistically possess, depends on whether I have a good voice, how the clerical gown becomes me, how much I have studied the latest philosophy, so that I can satisfy the demands of the times. The true Christian that I am, or that I am the true Christian, is something by itself, something for myself, something I am in a hidden feeling—quite like all the others. But that I am a true Christian—that is certain enough; it is just as certain as it is that all the others are.
And why this hiddenness then? Why this hiddenness, which I maintain by watching over it very carefully? Why, naturally, because I am afraid that, if one got to know to what degree I am a true Christian, then I would be rewarded with extraordinary honor and prestige. And I am too much of a true Christian for that, to want to be honored and esteemed because I am a true Christian. See, that is why I keep it stored in a hidden feeling. For if people got to know it, then it would not be possible to avoid being extraordinarily honored and esteemed, since it is, after all, established Christendom in which I am living—where we are all true Christians, albeit in a hidden feeling.
If a Christian from that time when the church was militant were to be thrown into established Christendom, he would fall into the most profound bewilderment. In the militant church, to be a Christian was recognizable by the opposition one suffered. In the triumphant church, it was recognizable by the honor and prestige one enjoyed. But “established Christendom” has invented something new: one hides that one is a Christian—out of fear that it would be rewarded with honor and prestige in an unchristian manner. In the militant church, it was indeed sometimes the case that one person or another would hide that he was a Christian out of fear of the opposition connected with being a Christian, but in “established Christendom” it is out of fear of receiving honor and prestige. So “established Christendom” really is something infinitely much higher than the militant church, which has hardly had an intimation of such exalted piety! In the militant church, it was piety to confess Christianity; in established Christendom, it is piety precisely to keep it secret! Oh, infinite depth of piety, since the whole thing could so very easily be a show! Oh, countless flock of pious people, when all the millions of every country are such pious people—and we are all that, after all! Take off your shoes, because the ground on which you stand is holy when you are standing in Christendom, where there are nothing but true Christians! Let God keep eternity, where, all in all, he will scarcely get as many true Christians as there are at any moment in established Christendom, where all are Christians.
Imagine a youth who grew up in established Christendom, but previously unacquainted with the conditions of actuality into which he is to enter, brought up by Holy Scripture in almost monastic remoteness from life: he will experience something extremely bizarre, something ridiculous in one sense. He is, then, well versed in Christianity—assuming that one can become this through Holy Scripture, and, indeed, one must allow this assumption for the poor little guy. It has been said to him that the requirement is to confess Christ before the world. He is well informed—that is to say, insofar as one can become that through Holy Scripture, and, indeed, one must allow this assumption for the youngster. He is informed about what the consequence of this will be. Having well considered all this, the youth is determined to adapt his life to the rule. But what takes place? He happens to live in established Christendom. While he makes as if to want to venture a step, a benevolent man, a kind of spiritual adviser, intervenes and “makes such a speech”: “Young friend, you are delusional. You do not realize just where you are: this is established Christendom, and, in truth, there is nowhere to confess Christ. For between us—but it is between us and is already a weakness, an oversight, on my part to say so much—we are all Christians, and the true Christian is precisely the one who keeps it most hidden.”
If a youth who was brought up on fairy tales in his childhood and is therefore familiar with the idea of monsters who dwell in the woods but are killed—if he, ready for battle with an immense broadsword at his side and equally immense courage in his heart, now went out into actuality, nothing stranger could happen to him than what happened to that youth in established Christendom. If, that is, a monster even stranger than anything he had heard or read about were to meet him, it would not be the strange thing, or still not be enough in comparison with the strange thing, that happened to him—that he could not at all catch a glimpse of anything that resembled a monster. Then a benevolent elderly man would come to him and say: “My young friend, you are delusional; you are not in the world of fairy tales but in the civilized and polished world, where no such monsters exist, where you are living among cultured and well-bred persons, and where, moreover, the police watch over your security, the clergy over your morality, and the gas lighting makes the night just as safe as the day. Consequently, since the time of monsters ended long ago, put your sword into its scabbard and learn what the task is now—to be an agreeable person, quite like the rest of us. Learn that you must recognize yourself in every other person, and every other person must recognize himself in you, up to the greatest possible disillusionment.”
As has been said, the triumphant church resembles the militant church no more than the square resembles the circle, and “established Christendom” resembles it just as little. Nevertheless, the militant church alone is truth; the triumphant church and established Christendom are a fantasy.
“But,” I hear someone say, “it is indeed an absurdity and an impossibility with a militant church nowadays. If we are all Christians, then what are we supposed to fight against?” Dear me! In order to find something to fight against, we could at the very least fight against this—that we are all Christians and, with that, how it all adds up. “How dare you presume to be a knower of hearts, who judges what lies deep within human beings! If a person himself says that he is a Christian, then surely you do not presume to deny it?” You see, we do have something to fight against. But does he really say that? I thought that, in established Christendom, it was the hidden feeling, that we were supposed to keep it hidden. “Yes, we certainly are to keep it hidden, precisely because it is a given that all are Christians.” How, then, is it a given, when each person individually keeps it hidden? Are all Christians, because it is a given?
The situation is this. When, around the circle, everyone decides to be a Christian just like “the others,” then no one, if you will, actually confesses Christ. On the other hand, it is well known that everyone, if you will, is a Christian of sorts. Everyone is baptized as a child and later confirmed—yes, also almost as a child (presumably so that everything in this respect can be in order and correct as early as possible regarding what really is necessary as a permit, if one is to go through the world without the indictment of the authorities). And it is certain that everyone who is baptized as a child and confirmed as a boy or a girl is a Christian; after all, by opening the parish register, one can look it up. Yet, later in life, they presumably cannot come to confess Christ, because, of course, they are living in established Christendom, where it is known of all (see the parish register) that they are Christians. It applies even to the pastors in “established Christendom” that they do not so much “confess Christ” as “it is known of them” (as of everyone) that they are Christians. If one were to say that pastors obviously confess Christ through their sermons, then it must be replied that the fact that preaching is their livelihood, plus the fact that they do what they do as civil servants, has the result that the emphasis still does not fall upon personally confessing Christ.
All are Christians in a hidden feeling. Who would dare deny that? Indeed, the one who would take it upon himself to deny it quite rightly runs the risk of wanting to play the knower of hearts. Consequently, no one can deny it. That everyone is a Christian in a hidden feeling becomes a secretiveness that is, so to speak, jammed shut. It is impossible to get to know whether all these thousands and thousands actually are Christians, because, as it is said, they are all Christians in a hidden feeling. And it is valid, not only for the church but for everyone, that one does not judge of what is hidden, because one does not know how to judge.
But, really, should it not be possible to be able to break this secretiveness and to get a little disclosed without becoming guilty of being a knower of hearts? Well, yes! Then how? In this way—that someone simply and personally takes it upon himself to confess Christ in the midst of Christendom. He does not judge a single person, far from it. But many will be exposed by how they judge him. He does not claim to be a more perfect Christian than the others, no, far from it. On the contrary, he concedes to others that they certainly are more perfect Christians than he—they who keep it hidden out of a religious fear of winning honor and prestige, whereas he, being a poor simpleton, is so afraid for his own sake that it should become a pretense with such a decidedly steep Christianity, and that is why he holds to the old Christianity of confessing Christ. Therefore he does not indicate that any of the others are not Christians, oh, far from it. He only informs against himself—that he is such a poor simpleton. Still, the thoughts of many hearts would be disclosed by how they judge this poor simpleton, this imperfect Christian. He only expresses that, as he has been taught, he is a member of the militant church. Then it will be manifest whether or not this peaceful society, established Christendom, will come to help him—help him through persecution and the like, so that it will become entirely true that he is a member of a militant church.
But is the point, then, that as long as this world stands, or as long as the Christian church shall exist in this world, it is to be and must be a militant church? Answer: yes, this is quite certainly the point. It is quite certainly the point of Christianity, and, also quite certainly, there is meaning in this point. “What absurdity,” I hear someone say, “what absurdity. After all, it is impossible that we all could become martyrs. If all of us are to become martyrs and be beaten to death, who, then, is going to kill us? If all of us are to become martyrs and be persecuted, mocked, reviled, who, then, is going to persecute and mock us?” This would be right on target—if only the presupposition that, as it were, tightens the bowstring for this shrewd objection were correct (the presupposition that we all are Christians), if this presupposition were correct (in other words, true at any given moment), or even if it were only at all true that it is Christianity’s idea that the moment should come when literally all would truly be Christians in this world.
The situation is this. Through the continual observation of world history and the story of this generation, through continual talk about world-historical considerations, etc., it finally has gotten only all too easy to start making Christianity into revenue for world history; it has gotten to be entirely in order that Christianity becomes a development within the category, “the human race.” People have utterly forgotten that Christ’s life on earth (and this is Christianity, distinct from the history of Christians or the story about the lives, biographies, destinies of Christians, also of heretics, also of science) is the sacred history, which must not be confused with the history of the generation and of the world. People have utterly forgotten the essential heterogeneity of the God-man in relation to every other individual human being and to the entire human race. People have utterly forgotten that Christianity essentially relates itself to eternity, that life here on earth (to call to mind an earlier explanation) is a time of testing for every single individual of the innumerable millions who have lived and are going to live.
It is certainly Christianity’s idea that it will be proclaimed to all persons. But does it ever follow from this that Christianity’s idea has been that all persons should happen to adopt it and to become true Christians? If so, then I would have to say that one has not properly looked into God’s counsel at the time it was decided from eternity that Christ should come into the world, Christ who proclaimed that life here on earth is a time of testing. One of two things: either it has been the thought of Providence (to be sure, in foreknowledge, Providence can be knowledgeable about the fact that something will happen, whereas human beings bear responsibility for the fact that something does happen) that it would never be the case that, at a given time, all persons or at least the greatest number of persons become true Christians, or even Providence has not seen far enough ahead. For if it is the case that all persons are actually Christians in truth, then this life is no longer the time of testing. The testing is, namely, self-denial, to deny oneself. To be a Christian is the test, and to be a Christian is to deny oneself. But if, at a given time, all persons are actually true Christians, then self-denial is not connected with being a Christian, at least not Christian self-denial.
Magister Kierkegaard (at the conclusion of the first part of Works of Love) has shown what is understood by Christian self-denial—that it only exists where there is a double-danger, and that the decisive qualification is the second danger of suffering because one denies oneself. But, of necessity, this danger must fall away if all persons are true Christians during the time in which I live. For then, after all, everything around me will be sheer encouragement and incentive for me to become a true Christian as well. And if that is so, if I lived under such conditions, then it would not be true with regard to me and to my life to call this life in a Christian sense—and it is indeed Christianity that is the inventor of this expression—a time of testing. No, then Providence has not actually known how to administer a test; it has overlooked one contingency, overlooked the possibility of its onset, a contingency that could turn upside down its whole purpose with Christianity.
But if one takes Christianity as it presents itself, instead of flippantly blurring Christianity with world history in a human way, if one believes that this life is a time of testing, if one believes that Providence sufficiently knows what it is doing, if one believes that it was and is Christianity’s will to want to be proclaimed to all persons but that by no means is it Christianity’s opinion that all will accept it: then everything is in order. Then this life becomes a time of testing for each individual, and the Christian church always becomes a militant church here in this world. A concept such as “congregation,” with which people busy themselves so much in these times, is actually used in this life as an impatient anticipation of the eternal. “The individual” corresponds to struggling—that is to say, when struggling is in a spiritual and Christian sense, rather than in the fleshly sense of equipping a battlefield, where it does not so much depend on the individual as on how many thousands there are, how many cannons they have, etc. In Christian terms, struggling is always done by individuals, because the fact that each person is an individual before God is precisely spirit, that “community” is a lower category than “the individual,” which everyone can and should be. And even if the individuals were in the thousands and thus struggling in union, each individual—Christianly understood—really is struggling within himself, as well as in union with the others, and shall give an individual account on judgment day, when his life will be judged as an individual. That is why the congregation actually belongs to eternity first; “the congregation” is in rest what “the individual” is in unrest. But, of course, this life is precisely the time of testing, the time of unrest, and therefore the “congregation” is not at home in time but only in eternity, where, in rest, it is the assembly of all the individuals who endured in the struggle and passed the test.
As long as this world stands and the Christian church in it, it is a militant church. However, it has the promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. But woe, woe to the Christian church, when it wants to be victorious in this world. For then it is not the church that has been victorious; then the world has been victorious. Then the heterogeneity between Christianity and world has been cut out; the world has won, and Christianity has lost. Then Christ is no longer the God-man but a distinguished human being whose life is related homogeneously to the development of the human race. Then eternity is abolished, and the scene for the completion of everything is transferred within temporality. Then the way to life is no longer narrow and the gate strait, nor are there only a few who find it; no, then the way is broad and the gate wide open—the gates of hell have prevailed, and many, indeed all, are admitted.
Christ has never wanted to be victorious in this world. He came into the world in order to suffer; he called that being victorious. Yet, when human impatience and pert tactlessness ascribes its own thoughts and conceptions to Christianity, instead of letting its thoughts and conceptions be transformed by Christianity, when this has gotten the upper hand, then to be victorious takes on the old human meaning of being victorious in this world, and then Christianity is abolished. It was not a petty bickering that was between Christ and the world, so that, at bottom, he was in the wrong in not being able to get along better with the world; no, love of God is hate to the world. And the day when Christianity and the world become friends, yes, then Christianity is abolished. Then there is no more talk about the fact that Christ shall come again and judge; no, then the judgment has passed on him that, in the end, he was a dreamer, an imprudent human being. For, if he had not been so imprudent, then he would have gotten along well with the world; then he would not have been killed—something totally unnecessary. Then he would become something great in the world, just as his disciples in the triumphant church became something great in the world, which also abolished or rendered false the saying that the disciple is not greater than the master. For he was crucified, but they became powerful through honor and prestige, just as his disciples in established Christendom became great, not because of their Christianity, but because—they Christianly keep their Christianity in a hidden feeling and use their natural talents and gifts to be successful in the world.
In the meantime, however, the one we introduced before as an interlocutor, perhaps returns to his first remark and says: “In spite of everything you say, I can do nothing other than repeat that it is and remains an impossibility that we all could become martyrs.” Answer: “Is it, then, an impossibility for you to become a martyr?” “Yes, naturally, if everyone is supposed to be that.” But what do you really have to do with everyone? Is your opinion actually this meaningless opinion—that you, as you will to arrange your life and to try yourself in the test of becoming and being a Christian, that you then must first ask about others or get to know something about everyone else before you can begin? I believed that the very beginning of the test to become and to be a Christian is to become so introspective that it is as if all the others did not exist in the least for a person, so introspective that one quite literally is alone in the whole world, alone before God, alone with Holy Scripture as guidance, alone with the archetype before one’s eyes. And, in contrast, the language you are speaking is the language of extroversion according to the greatest possible degree; it quite resembles the way a newspaperman expresses himself.
This is easy to understand. The first condition for becoming a Christian is to become unconditionally introspective. Infinitely turned inward in this way, the introspective person has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else—this is earnestness, and it applies far more stringently than when the schoolteacher orders that each pupil keep his eyes to himself and not to look at the others at all. Turned inward in this way, the learner understands or comes to understand what the task is: to become and to be a Christian. Every moment he is turned outward is wasted, and if these moments become numerous, then everything is squandered. Perhaps, then, he is well informed about the task and has learned it by heart; perhaps he even recited it to others and actually became a pastor and was compensated by the state. But one thing has escaped him, the crucial point from a Christian perspective—that what he says concerns himself, and it concerns himself in infinite introspection, whereas perhaps he is of the opinion that what he says concerns the congregation and only the salary and the promotion concern him.
Accordingly, if he becomes introspective to the utmost, the infinitely introspective person comes to understand what the task is to the utmost—that to be a Christian is to believe in Christ and to suffer for the sake of this belief, or that to be a Christian is self-denial in a Christian sense. Yet, in order to properly show the foolishness of that objection (“it really is impossible that all could become martyrs”), let us now assume the absurd claim that literally all among whom this Christian is living are true Christians. Then, after all, it is impossible that he can become a martyr. Most certainly. But at what point will he come to know this? I wonder if it would be at the beginning, so that this becomes an evasion, an excuse, which hinders him in beginning the task? Impossible. For, after all, he is infinitely introspective; he knows nothing and wants to know nothing about the others. Therefore he will first come to know that he did not become a martyr at the end of his life. This “at the end of his life” must be taken quite precisely—that is, at the moment he dies, not before, because before he admittedly still cannot know whether or not it could happen to him. Yet, in the moment he dies, this indeed no longer concerns him in the least. So, in any case, he has experienced martyrdom in possibility. And this was, as said, under the assumption of what is most absurd—that literally all or merely the majority of the contemporaries were true Christians, and therefore the gate to life, in spite of Christ’s statement, is not narrow but either unconditionally is wide open or nevertheless is considerably enlarged and expanded through renovation.
“But,” I hear someone say, “do you who are speaking here have the strength to become a martyr in this way? Or do you have enough courage, to say nothing of impudence, to claim that no one was a true Christian who did not become a martyr? Or were you always so strong that you never felt the need for gentle and soothing words to be spoken to you? Or perhaps you are just in the situation that you yourself, anxious and afraid, need gentleness but take joy in scaring others, as is often the desire of one who is afraid?” I do not lack an answer to these questions, and I only wish that the questioner would not misunderstand the answer, since I by no means fail to appreciate the significance of the questions. That I feel the need for gentleness is granted. But I owe it to the truth to confess that I feel this need precisely because I have been brought up by and have lived under rigorousness for a long, long time—yes, I will be under it again at any moment. I have never taken joy in “making someone anxious.” I myself am aware that I can talk gently and soothingly to the suffering, the sick, the sorrowful; I know that I have had my joy from that. I have never asserted that every Christian is a martyr or that no one was a true Christian who did not become a martyr, even if I think that, precisely in order to be a true Christian, every true Christian—and I include myself among them—is to make an admission of mortification that he really has gotten off easier than true Christians in the strictest sense. Moreover, he shall make this admission so that, if I dare put it this way, the Christian order of rank shall not be confused and the number one place altogether disappear while the number two place assumes its position.
And now, finally, this is my principal answer. Christianity has been quite literally dethroned in Christendom, but, if that is so, then it is abolished as well. For a king does not cease to exist because, for example, the place in which he lived made itself into a republic and him into a president. But Christianity is abolished as soon as it is kicked off the throne. Christianity is the unconditioned; it has only one way of being—the unconditioned being. If it is not unconditioned, it is abolished. In relation to Christianity, this is unconditionally valid—either/or. Now this brazen talk has been heard long enough and loudly enough—that one must go further, that one cannot stop at Christianity, with faith, with what is simple, with obedience, with this “you shall.” And it has penetrated further and further down among the people, who naturally are influenced by the way the highest circles, if I dare say so, have passed judgment. It has penetrated, and only all too easily, since it is too bad that every human being has a natural, innate inclination to disobedience. That is why “reasons,” believing for three reasons, were put in place of obedience: people were ashamed to obey. That is why lenience was put in place of rigorousness: people did not dare to command, and people shrank from letting themselves be commanded. The ones who should command became cowardly; the ones who should obey became defiant. Christianity was abolished in Christendom in this way—by lenience. Without authority, Christianity tiptoes around Christendom in worn-out, decrepit clothes, and we do not know whether we should doff our hats for it or whether it should bow before us, whether we need its compassion or whether it needs our compassion.
Yet, if Christianity is the only salvation for us, there truly is only one possible salvation for Christianity: rigorousness. It cannot be saved by the help of lenience—that is to say, it neither can nor shall be saved. This thought is a crime of high treason against Christianity, but by rigorousness it will be put in its rightful place again as ruler. And even if I myself should sink under the weight of the benchmark I am developing, and even if I should be the first who incurred judgment, and even if I should be the only one—I can do nothing else. I know well what I am doing; I also know what I—in fear and trembling, pursued by spiritual trials—have suffered by venturing out so far, solitary, occupied day and night with such thoughts, and solitarily occupied with them in escalating exertion for so long a time, and solitary even though I have lived in Christendom where, of course, all are Christians but where I have never really heard any talk or any conversation or sermon about which I (if this question were put to me before God) unconditionally would dare to say that it was Christian. For even the most Christian talk I have heard still always had an uneasy admixture of “reasons,” a slight taste of human whining and pity, an ingratiating unpleasantness.
I had no monastery to which I could flee, seeking an environment that roughly corresponded to my intensive preoccupation. I chose the only way out that was left in Christendom: to seem to be the most irrational person of all, to “become a fool in the world,” in order to guard (if possible in this earnest world) what I hid in my heart of hearts, a bit of earnestness, and in order that this intensity could get the peace of inner reserve to grow in stillness. By this life, I have further learned what perhaps in this way—through awareness of the thoughtless frivolity and self-satisfied bewilderment of human beings—one learns even better than in the desert and from the stillness of the night. By this life amid the human swarm—by this false life, if you will, because truly enough I hid something else in my heart of hearts, but I hid the best; I have never, never deceived in such a way that I have pretended to be better than I was—by this life amid the human swarm I learned with frightful certainty to understand that rigorousness is the only thing that can help.
I have used that. But I have no power, neither soldiers nor any other power. I have no powerful connections; I have zero, zero influence or power over the fates of others. In a worldly sense, I am the most solitary, the most powerless, of all persons. To use rigorousness can easily rile people up. That is why the one who wants to use rigorousness usually first secures power for himself. Thus I neither can nor want to use rigorousness, because I do not want to rule. I only want to serve the truth or, what is the same thing, to serve Christianity.
Rigorousness is the only thing that can help a human being. A child, then, is capable of so much and is much hardier than an adult, because there is still some rigorousness in being brought up. And what could a child not do, when rigorousness was greater! Therefore the Romans always prevailed in battle—why? Because rigorousness helped them, helped them to fear that which was worse than death, and therefore helped them be victorious. And so it is with Christianity too. There was a time when it, with divine authority, exercised dominion over human beings, when it directed the words “You shall” to each individual concisely, laconically, commandingly, when it terrified each individual with a rigorousness hitherto unknown: eternal punishment. This rigorousness helped. In fear and trembling, before the unavoidable life to come, the Christian was capable of scorning all the dangers and sufferings of this life as child’s play and a half-hour’s tomfoolery.
Yes, this rigorousness helped; it made it true that to be a Christian is to be in kinship with divinity. This was the militant church. Satan himself had no power against it, except to give the faith’s heroes the desired occasion to shine with the incorruptible radiance of martyrdom, the necessary occasion for the hidden glory of a person to become transparent—for the Christian glory is an inner person, an intensity that must be held up to the light if it is to make itself truly manifest. Then Satan said to himself: “I am not winning like this,” and he changed his method. Little by little he got the Christian church to imagine that it had now been victorious, that now it should have a good rest after the struggle and enjoy the win. And it looked seductive enough. For, during the time of the militant church, a man still hesitated to embrace Christianity. At that time, its growth was not even very great. But after it had been victorious—yes, then it won followers by the millions. What more does one want? For should there be any hesitancy connected with a victorious church, it would indeed have to be that it would gradually shrink, lose numbers. But just the opposite was the case. Yes, indeed, it did not shrink or decrease in number. No, it increased, truly like a person with edema grows larger; it swelled up in unhealthy fat, almost disgustingly thickened in fleshly chubbiness, scarcely recognizable.
Now all had become Christians. But power and authority were lost as well. People were pampered by hearing the never-ending litany of Christian truths recited—great things if anyone took the trouble to hear any more: good God, and the scene was in Christendom where all were Christians and where it nevertheless was doubtful whether anyone bothered to hear the Christian truths. But to speak in the now quite antiquated, almost laughable language that Christianity spoke when it exercised dominion over people with divine authority and brought them up by fear of eternal punishment with a previously unknown rigorousness—a punishment that only Christianity has attempted to apply: Christianity’s preachers in Christendom dared not speak this language. “That will never do,” such a person has said to himself. “Not only would I become laughable, not only would people perhaps even put me to death; but even if I would dare to do this, I would achieve nothing. I would only make persons so furious that they would totally throw off the yoke.” Here was a difficult situation. Then a perhaps well-meaning human shrewdness began the saddest of all undertakings: to betray Christianity by defending it. And then the devil laughed to himself and said: “See, now I can keep calm; now the game is won.”
Thus the ones who defend Christianity know not what they do. The secret is hidden deeply. They constantly want to seek the error in the defense’s imperfection up till now and then rush ahead more and more zealously, become more and more absorbed in the defense—who would even guess that the one who defends is precisely the betrayer, even if he does not know it. So they defended Christianity—righteous God, and the scene was in Christendom. Accordingly, it was exactly to Christians that Christianity defended itself, as if a king had to defend himself directly before his subjects. They defended Christianity; there was never any talk about or use of authority. This “you shall” was never heard, lest it cause laughter. They defended Christianity and said: “Do not reject Christianity; it is a gentle teaching, which contains all the gentle reasons for solace that every human being nevertheless can come to need so easily in life. Lord God, life is not always smiling; we all need a friend, and Christ is such a friend. Do not reject him. He means well by you.” And it was successful. People actually listened attentively to this talk; people actually gave an audience to this beggar, the Lord Jesus Christ (for even if he himself was not the beggar, he was still the one on whose behalf the begging was done). There was something in it, they found. It tickled the ears of power-hungry Christendom, so that it indeed was almost as if there should be a vote by ballot: “Let it pass; we accept Christianity on these terms.” Righteous God, and the scene was in Christendom, where all are Christians, and Christianity was accepted by Christians on these terms.
Christianity went backwards in this way. And now in established Christendom, where certainly there is never any talk about rigorousness, there lives a spoiled, proud, and yet cowardly, defiant, and in fact indulgent generation that occasionally hears these gentle reasons for solace recited but barely knows whether it will make use of them even when life smiles most beautifully and that is offended in the hour of need, when it is seen that they are not actually so gentle. Righteous God, and the scene is in Christendom! Righteous God—yes, whoever wants to see, he sees the righteous God precisely here. Terrible punishment, because the militant church became the triumphant church or established Christendom. Truly, when you see a person who is an addict, when you see him in all his wretchedness, disgrace, misery, if you can see the righteous God, then you must see the righteous God in “established Christendom,” if you have been granted the grace that you were brought up with rigorousness in Christendom.
For only the militant church is truth, or the truth is that, as long as the church exists in this world, it is the militant church, which relates itself to Christ in his mortification even if drawn to him from on high. On the other hand, this talk whereby people flatter the human race and themselves—that the world is progressing—is untruth. For the world neither progresses nor regresses; it essentially remains the same, like the sea, like the air—in short, like an element. That is to say, the world is and shall be the element that can administer the test of being a Christian, who is always a member of the militant church in this world. This is the truth. The triumphant church and established Christendom are untruth—an untruth that is the greatest adversity that can befall the church, is its downfall, and its punishment to boot, since, after all, it can only be self-inflicted.