Every Good Gift and Every Perfect Gift Is from Above
EVERY GOOD GIFT AND EVERY PERFECT GIFT IS
FROM ABOVE289 [IV 38]
THE EPISTLE: JAMES 1:17-22
The same apostle from whose epistle the above text is taken warns in the very next passage against the worldly endeavors that sought to penetrate also the congregation in order to establish difference and distinction in the service of vanity, to emancipate it from the bond of perfection that knits its members together in equality before God, and to make it a slave in subjection to the law that rules the world and presumably has always ruled it: “to flatter people for the sake of advantage” (Jude 16). The idea so frequently stressed in Holy Scripture for the purpose of elevating the lowly and humbling the mighty, the idea that God does not respect the status of persons, this idea the apostle wants to bring to life in the single individual for application in his life. And this is perfectly true; if a person always keeps his soul sober and alert in this idea, he will never go astray in his outlook on life and people or “combine respect for the status of persons with his faith.”290 Then he will direct his thoughts toward God, and his eye will not make the mistake of looking for differences in the world instead of likeness with God. If a man comes to an assembly of the congregation with a gold ring on his finger and wearing fine clothes, he will not stare at the fine clothes, will not let [IV 39] his sensate eye be entertained by this splendor, will not let his sensate mind make him a slave to a human being, a slave who does not know how to rise above the concern occasioned by the lack of all this show. If a poor man comes in wearing shabby clothes, his eyes will not banish him to the most inferior place by his footstool.291 And even if he sometimes forgets about equality again and loses himself, distracted by life’s confusing distinctions, nevertheless his mind, every time he goes to the hallowed place, will be preserved in equality before God during that time and will be educated to preserve increasingly this equality in the clamor of the world and with it to penetrate the confusion. In the world, the differences work frantically to embellish and to embitter life, as beckoning goals, as rewards of victory, as oppressive burdens, as attendants of loss; in the world, external life takes arrogant pride in differences—or cravenly and worriedly sighs under them. But in the hallowed place, the voice of the ruler is heard no more than in the grave; there is no difference between man and woman, no more than in the resurrection;292 the presumptuous demands of wisdom are not heard there, the pomp and glory of the world are not seen there, for it is seen as something that is not seen. There even the teacher is the servant, and the greatest is the lowliest, and the most powerful person in the world is the one who needs intercessory prayer more than anyone else; there every externality is discarded as imperfect, and equality is true for all, redeeming and equally redeeming. When the person who possesses the world is like one who does not possess it,293 and the person who does not possess the world is like one who does not crave it, “or when the lowly boasts in his exaltation, and the rich in his lowliness” (1:10, 11),294 or when the woman seized in open sin here finds forgiveness,295 and the man who merely looks at a woman with lust is condemned296—is not equality then present in its truth, is not the thralldom of the world abolished, its law gone like a shadow and forgotten like something learned as a child and everything made perfect under equality’s “divine law to love one’s neighbor as oneself”297 in such a way that no person is so exalted in rank that he is not your neighbor in exactly the same sense as no person is so inferior in rank or so wretched that he is not your neighbor, and the equality is [IV 40] incontrovertibly demonstrated by your loving him as you love yourself! Indeed, woe to the person so arrogant that even here he could not forget the difference, but woe, too, to the person so base that even here he could not forget the difference.
But just as equality, figuratively speaking, stands guard at the entrance to the hallowed place and keeps watch so that no one enters without having discarded that which belongs to the world, the power and the squalor, so that the intercessory prayer can be prayed equally truly and interchangeably for the ruler and the powers that be and for those who are sick and sorrowful, for the person who leans on his scepter and for the overburdened person who has to be contented that God is his rod and his staff298—in the same way every upbuilding view of life first finds its resting place or first becomes upbuilding by and in the divine equality that opens the soul to the perfect and blinds the sensate eye to the difference, the divine equality that like a fire burns ever more intensely in the difference without, however, humanly speaking, consuming it.299
In the hallowed places, in every upbuilding view of life, the thought arises in a person’s soul that helps him to fight the good fight with flesh and blood, with principalities and powers,300 and in the fight to free himself for equality before God, whether this battle is more a war of aggression against the differences that want to encumber him with worldly favoritism or a defensive war against the differences that want to make him anxious in worldly perdition. Only in this way is equality the divine law, only in this way is the struggle the truth, only in this way does the victory have validity—only when the single individual fights for himself with himself within himself and does not unseasonably presume to help the whole world to obtain external equality, which is of very little benefit, all the less so because it never existed, if for no other reason than that everyone would come to thank him and become unequal before him. Such a rash and worldly haste, which presumably even thinks that some external condition or other is the genuine equality to which anything that stands higher must be brought down, to which anything that stands lower must be lifted up, produces nothing but confusion and self-contradiction, as if true equality could be expressed in any externality as such, although it can be victorious and be preserved in any [IV 41] externality whatever, as if a painted surface were the true equality that brings life and truth and peace and harmony to everything, when on the contrary it seeks to kill everything in a spirit-consuming uniformity.
The differences, however, are so numerous and so variable, inasmuch as what seems a bagatelle to one person grows to be something enormous to another, that it is difficult to speak of them or to find a characteristic and conclusive term for the particular. Yet, when we consider the apostle’s words that every good and perfect gift is from above, the fact of difference in life that comes to everyone’s mind first, either as an experientially derived and set-aside recollection or as a present experience, has found a more specific expression that has been acknowledged as describing a rather common contrast in life. To be able to give or to be obliged to receive, this difference encompasses the great multiplicity of human beings, even though within its own compass it characterizes a large number of more closely defined forms. This being able to give or being obliged to receive divides people into two great classes, and at the mere mention of this brief phrase everyone understands it more extensively, associates with it many happy or many sad recollections, many confident hopes or painful expectancies. How much deliberation this little phrase has evoked! How much the veteran in the toilsome service of this difference could tell! How very much has the youth discerned when for the first time he was startled by this inscription over life’s door and, before he had clad himself in the difference, became immersed in pondering: whether it would be happier to give, and how happy it would be; whether it would be harder to be obliged to receive, and how hard it might be; what would be more desirable; what he would choose if he had the choice; whether what he had heard was true, that the most glorious thing to do was to have nothing to do with the world, to be able to say: I came into the world naked, I possessed nothing, I was a stranger in it, and I leave it again naked;301 whether it would be very hard and irksome to possess the treasures of the world; whether being able to communicate to others would be so difficult a work and involve so much responsibility. Yet any such deliberation, which flirts with the circumstances and premises of life as a game for the power of the imagination, serves only to halt freedom’s power to act and to grieve the spirit302 in romantic hankering and pain. Even with regard to a more profound contrast, Paul suggests in a brief statement that there is no time for prolonged deliberation: “Were you a [IV 42] slave when called? Then do not let this bother you. If you can be free, then rather choose that.”303 Even though no one is as capable of being potent in brevity as an apostle, we shall still not add to the deliberations but summon the soul from distractions into the equality that manifests itself when we pierce through differences by means of the apostle’s words. Let us, then, try to make a pilgrimage, as it were, with the text into differences as we continually let the words remind us that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. If that stands firm, then the difference is indeed canceled, because a difference in imperfection, which is indigenous in people’s gifts, can only be transient, then at last the words of the apostle are continually heard as a divine refrain that is able to perfect every difference in equality before God.
The words of the apostle require, then, that the person able to give must humble himself and his gift under the words. If he is not disposed to want to give, these words have no meaning for him. If he sits and broods like a dragon on his earthly treasures, or if he has at his disposal the hypocritical explanation that whatever help he could give is already given, “is a gift,”304 if he hoards, like a miser, the good things of the spirit, jealous of them—well, of what benefit is it to him that the words wanted to teach him to bestow them in the right way? After all, he needed no such guidance. The words cannot help him, these words that were able to help the most wretched of all.
But when you are willing to give, then the words check to see whether your willingness means that you are a joyful giver, who is well pleasing to God.305 But if your willingness does not signify joyfulness, then just pour out your rich gifts, throw away the wealth that bored and wearied your soul, whose value is but a plague to you; change the state of the earth, if that were possible, relieve every need until you are the only one who begs—ah, every good and every perfect gift still comes down from above, and thus providence does not need specifically your treasure and your goods, since it always has twelve legions of angels306 ready to serve humankind, and if it needed specifically your possessions, then it certainly could take them away from you, just as it gave them to you. But you learned another kind of wisdom, that there is no good gift either up there or down here, and you could just as [IV 43] well keep everything or give everything away; you still would not achieve or produce equality before God. —Or if it was illicit goods and your hands were defiled, what would the gift be then but a blasphemy against God, how would you be able to grasp that the good gift is from above, you who did not even know how to give to each one his own.
When you are willing to give, then the words are on the alert so that you are not inclined to take back, so that equality before God is brought about, not the equality that is achieved when birds of a feather flock together and the rich man gives a banquet307 for the rich man, so that he must invite him in return, and the powerful support the powerful. You were willing to give and to assist someone in need who had nothing to give in return, and yet you demanded something from him: his respect, his admiration, his subservience—his soul. How much, really, is the little you possess, even if you were the richest of men, even if your name were to supersede the name of that man who for centuries was called the richest man and after whom the richest were named!308 How high, really, was that mountain one could climb without seeing anything that did not belong to you? Have you forgotten that there was one who could climb the highest mountain, the peak of which pierced the clouds, could scan the kingdoms and lands of the earth and say to the one who was famished from fasting, “All this I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.”309 Have you forgotten that this was the tempter? Would you actually do another person a good turn that would do him harm; would you want to be his benefactor in such a way that you became his soul’s enemy? How much does a person really need for living, since his life does not consist in food and drink?310 You who want to make the needy one anxious in subservience, are you not afraid that with one single word he may strip the glamour from all your glory and turn your silver and gold into counterfeit coin that no one will take? Would you betray your neighbor with a kiss311 in this way, murder his soul as you saved his body?312 Oh, every good and every perfect gift is indeed from above, and earthly treasures as such have no promises, no preeminent right to be called that. If, then, you are able to give, for your own sake and for the sake of the other never forget that it is from above, lest you, who want to be and could be his benefactor, may need him instead, need him to decline to receive, need him to make you learn that you two are incompatible, that he is not as down and out [IV 44] as you are high and mighty, that you are not able to corrupt his soul even though you can make his body suffer. Do not be a profiteer with your goods, do not do as the person who knows how to make his gift yield even more after he has given it away; do not bring about the even more dreadful thing, which you and the whole world cannot make good again—that he suffers injury to his own soul.313 Give your gift, keep an eye on it, and even though you yourself are not to blame for it, if you see that the needy one is being led into temptation, then come with the admonition, direct him to God, or preferably abstain entirely from giving to him; in all the prolixity of philanthropy that enables you to rejoice in your wealth, do not forget that it is better and more blessed and infinitely more important to save a soul. When this idea comes alive in your soul, it will humble you and your gift in fear and trembling314 under the apostolic words so that your gift becomes sufficiently insignificant in your own eyes, and you yourself even more insignificant than the gift.
Or you are really willing to give, but you need a long time to deliberate so that the gift may prove to be rightly and wisely considered in keeping with your sagacity. Ah, there is much deliberation that certainly makes a person more sagacious and demonstrates his sagacity but does not make him better or more pleasing to God. All the scruples that the left hand discovers when the right hand consults with it315 are not of the good and are sufficiently well known, and even if you discovered a new one, it would be a very dubious honor. And why does the deliberation that follows such philanthropy generally last so long again, unless it is because its reward is missing316 and therefore it must be satisfied with the deliberation? But when you consider that every good gift is from above, then the right hand you stretched out to give will quickly hide itself, and the left hand will never find out anything; then you will rejoice in secret, as a benefactor may, rejoice in the same way as he who received the gift, and both of you rejoice over the same thing, that the gift came from above, since there really was an invisible hand that gave it—it was your hand; and you are convinced that there is an invisible hand that will truly make it a good gift—it is God’s hand.
Or you are willing to give; you put the gift aside, so to speak, for the needy one, but you let him wait for it. My friend! “An expectancy that is protracted for a long time makes the heart sick, but the desire fulfilled is a tree of life” [IV 45] (Proverbs 13:12). What indeed would you give the other person to understand by your conduct except that it was for you that he had to wait? Would this be such a glorious piece of information that you would like him to understand it; would not such an understanding easily be harmful to him in the matter of his salvation? And how would it benefit you—would it make you more perfect? God in heaven surely knows best what is the highest that a person can aspire to and complete. But Scripture declares that no more is required of a person than that he be trustworthy as a steward.317 But a steward is more insignificant than the house and goods he administers. You, however, wanted to be the lord and master; consequently, you did not want to be perfect. By your delaying, you wanted the needy one to understand that you had other things to take care of, that he had to allow time, that he, the nobody, had to wait. Ah, God in heaven does not let one sparrow keep waiting for him. Therefore, do not let the needy one implore at length; otherwise it becomes obvious that you are not giving for the sake of God but perhaps to buy your freedom from his pleas. Was it not unjust of the judge to do justice only to free himself from the widow’s pleas;318 was he not an unjust man even when he did justice; was it not an injustice to the widow that she later thanked him for doing his duty as if it were a great benefaction? The longer you let the needy one plead, the deeper he is mired in his earthly need, until he may not be able to lift his soul up out of it even with the help of your gift. And what you have to give either is not a good and a perfect gift or, if it is that through you, is that because you are only the steward and consequently more insignificant than the gift.
Or you were willing to give, but your gift was so insignificant that you hesitated to give. Oh, but every good and every perfect gift is from above, and therefore your insignificant gift can be the good gift just as well as the greatest gift may be. And the one who gives in the right way shuts his eyes; then you do not see the gift, how small it is, before you plainly see what God made it into, and once again you confess that you are more insignificant than the gift, which is always the case with the giver when he gives a good gift or does his part so that it can become that.
Yet it is not only by means of external and earthly goods that one person can help another; he may also help him by means of guidance and advice, consolation and admonition and sympathy, and here, of course, the giver apparently becomes more important. Perhaps you purchased your experience at a high price; the admonition you have to offer you [IV 46] acquired on the day of affliction and extorted from life’s hardships with much toil, and so you are unwilling to squander it, trifle with it, since what you acquired the hard way you will also hold high in value. Ah, but the one from whom you bought it was in fact life, and at the time you bought it, life, as you say, was not good to you—do you now want to be for someone else what life was for you, so that someday he, too, will say: I bought it at a high price and had to pay for it the hard way? If you have an admonition to offer, then is it not a gift if you are unable to dissociate it from yourself and yourself from it? Or would your admonition be of less value if the one who received it saw that you, who presumably needed it less now, submitted to it, that it influenced you first and foremost as if you needed it most of all, saw that in repetition it became as fresh and vivid in your soul as it was in the moment of acquisition, so that you yourself were more insignificant than your admonition. If, then, you do have an admonition to give, do not lift your head high in censure, do not open your eyes to probe, but bow your head and your eyes under the admonition so that it may sound from above just as meaningfully for you as for the other. Every good and every perfect gift is indeed from above, and even if your admonition were the very best, you still do not know whether it will incite the soul of another to rebelliousness or preserve it in humility, whether it will be unto salvation for him or unto damnation.
Or it is your sympathy you have to bestow, and you are willing to do this if someone really needs it, but this requires that he be weaker than you, show less strength in distress and less intrepidity in tribulation than you are capable of, and if that is the case, then your sympathy rushes to strengthen the exhausted and raise the fallen. Ah, but every good and every perfect gift is from above, and the person who offers his gift, let him first see to it that he does not have anything against his brother,319 so that the sympathy is bestowed on a condition, which eliminates the reward by reimbursing itself. What is it that he needs—it is sympathy, not you—so be yourself more insignificant than your sympathy so that it may be from above, higher than yourself, so that it may be sympathy and not a violation, so that it may not originate in your own heart but be there from above.
Or you are gifted with intellectual power that is rare for a human being. You know how to penetrate truth with your thought, you know how to capture men for it as you see it so [IV 47] that they gladly remain in this indissoluble association, but you could not set yourself aside so that they could know the truth through you and remain in it without you. Were you such a person? We do not presume to address you any more than to address the least distinguished; we merely bear in mind what happens and what could happen. Ah, but every good and every perfect gift is from above, and even the wisest thing a person has grasped nevertheless always becomes dubious in someone else, or he must himself acquire it in the very same way. What would people really gain if you allowed them to entrust themselves to you in this way; indeed, what would you gain if you won the satisfaction you were seeking? Alas, a person can encumber his soul not only with meat and drink but also with the world’s honor and people’s admiration. And what is the world’s honor, which is prinked up to look so fair,320 and where is the sanctuary in which it dedicates itself so that its honor might be truly worthy of desire! And what is people’s admiration, which is wasted on the unrighteous and the dissolute just as much as it is offered to the righteous! Yes, even though it falls upon those entitled to it, how injudicious and foolish this admiration often is. They seem unwilling to be concerned about themselves but concern themselves only with admiring and thereby cause new sorrow for the person admired—if he otherwise was more concerned for their welfare than itching for their admiration. Therefore, if you have any truth to offer mankind, reduce the impact of yourself, nullify yourself, sacrifice yourself when offering your gift, lest people take you instead of the gift, lest their lives be ruined in an illusion by possessing truth without, however, possessing it. Since you are the strong one, you know best how this can be done. Then you are indeed the giver, but nevertheless more insignificant than the gift, and every good and perfect gift is from above, even though it came through you.
Or you were such a simple person that you for that reason remained quiet, and it never entered your mind that some word from you would be able to guide or help another person. Ah, but a simple word from a simple person has accomplished marvelous things in the world, has imprinted itself on the memory of the wise one who in all his wisdom had forgotten these words, has made the mighty pause, has disarmed the violent, has shaken the shrewd, has saved the desperate. And why not, for your gift was indeed a good gift and you yourself more insignificant than your gift.
The apostolic words are directed to the one whose humble lot it was to be obliged to receive and, like every sacred word, are a gospel for the poor,321 a heavenly voice that calls to him, that inspires the courage to prevail in the terrible struggle in which one contends, so to speak, with one’s friend or in [IV 48] which it is at least very difficult to tell friend from foe, inspires the bold confidence to lift his heart in thanks to God every time his soul is in danger of being imprisoned in the world by becoming a debtor to another person. Or is this perhaps ingratitude that we are recommending? Are the words of the apostle unable to effect equality before God, or do they teach an unfair equality when they say that every good and perfect gift is from above and that consequently every human being, whether he gives or receives, essentially has to thank God, since it is proper to thank only for the good and the good indeed comes only from God? No, the words certainly will not abolish thankfulness, because just as it is a disgrace for the person who gives that he himself knows it, that he does not at least try to make himself invisible in every sense, or nevertheless knows how to make himself invisible in a higher sense even though he is visibly present, just so is it a disgrace for the one who receives that he does not know and does not do his utmost to find out from whom he received. But in this effort of the one to find out what the other is hiding, both will be united in finding God, and when God is found, the disgrace is removed from both of them, the disgrace of being discovered from the one who wished to hide himself, the disgrace of not having discovered him from the one who should discover. In other words, if the person who receives the benefaction does not go out in his thankfulness to find his benefactor, he will never find God; it is in this search that he finds God: by not finding his benefactor, by finding him as he ought to be and then in turn with his assistance finding God, by finding him as he ought not to be and then in turn finding God in his thanksgiving’s search. If a person with his thanks romantically seeks to discover God and loses sight of earthly thankfulness, he had better watch out for himself, because if he is not willing to thank the benefactor he sees, how would he truly thank God, whom he does not see?322 Let a Pharisee propound the truth in order to make bad use of it; the truth still remains that one shall give God the honor for what one owes to a sinful human being, that no one may exalt himself over another so that he makes it impossible for the other to thank God because he stands in his way, that no one may be so base, so cowardly, so cozy and comfortable, so soft, so engrossed in earthly things that he is content to thank a human being for giving him what he craved—but that is still no basis for denying [IV 49] that to repudiate his benefactor openly and to accept his gifts secretly are as detestable to both God and men as being ashamed of one’s parents, an abomination that tries to make the giver of the gifts into the only injured party in life. We praise that blind man in the Gospel323 because the first use he made of his sight was to look around to see whether he could find his benefactor; we praise him because the judgment of the world did not bring him to repudiate his benefactor, as it prevailed upon Peter to do;324 we praise him because he preferred remaining with his benefactor and being held in contempt to being honored and perhaps serving as a tool in the hands of the powerful. But suppose he had been unwilling to do more, suppose his benefactor had been like one of us, a sinful mortal, by whose benefaction they were bound together in indissoluble friendship instead of being united by their mutual thanks to God, to whom they gave the honor—then would not the end have spoiled what was begun so beautifully? Even though Christ accepted the blind man’s adoring worship, this nevertheless was not primarily a response to the benefaction but was worship in faith, and the situation here was most likely of such a nature that it could not possibly tempt any sinful man to a similar request. Christ made the benefaction itself as covert as possible, because when he had made it possible for him to recover his sight, he sent him away and said: Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. Here he received his sight, but the Lord was not standing with him there, and in this way he who was his benefactor knew how to make himself invisible to him, even though his benefaction consisted in giving him his sight.
How diverse are the ways in which one person can become indebted to another we have already seen in the discussion of those whose happy lot it was to be able to do good. When you are willing to give thanks, the words watch over you so that you do not do injury to your soul by being obliged to receive and by wanting to thank people. Perhaps you were a nobody in the world, and your place at the rich man’s door and your life were a confirmation of the experience that one can also live on scraps325 and of the experience that sometimes they are thrown to a human being as if he were a dog. You accepted the gift thrown to you; it was hard to need it—alas, but you could not do without it; it helped you only for a moment, and then you would again feel just as oppressively as before how [IV 50] hard it is to be obliged to receive. Before you had lifted your bowed head again, he, your benefactor, had vanished, not just because he wanted to be anonymous and hurried away to hide himself, but because he had something entirely different to take care of. You sent your expression of thanks after him, but it did not catch up with him, not just because he felt shamefully inferior to his gift, but because his ears were not attentive, since the whole affair was trifling and meaningless to him. And if your thanks had reached him, he presumably would have said: It is hardly worth thanking for, and that would have been his honest opinion, and also that your expression of thanks had no value. Oh, but every good and every perfect gift comes down from above. The powerful man must be content that the lowly man serves him, but the lowly man is served by the powerful, and in your thanksgiving you lifted your heart up to God for having used that powerful man as an instrument to help you.
Or your situation was more favorable; you had your modest subsistence, you lived in frugal contentment in your humble quarters at the bottom of the rich man’s palace. But you owed it to him; you owed everything to him, and you yourself felt that the service you could do for him was only a poor repayment—but you were all the more willing to thank him. At times you invited him home, but the way he looked at you easily convinced you of how little your thanks meant to him and that he did not know how to let himself be paid in that coin but knew how to be repaid in another way. Then you could wish that you were a sparrow of the air that had only God to thank for its subsistence,326 a lily in the field that had only God to thank for being dressed so gloriously,327 that you had only God to thank, whom it is an immeasurable joy to thank again and again. Oh, but every good and every perfect gift is from above. If your benefactor disregards your thanks, then lift up your heart to God, from whom his gift came, but do not fail to thank him; do for him what you can, which is not little; allow him to have bought, with his dubious mammon, a friend who can receive him in the heavenly mansions.328
Or you were unacquainted with this kind of distress, you did not need to thank some human being for earthly gold and goods, for they were your possession; but your soul had been tossed about in the confusion of life, you had been unable to rescue yourself from the difficulty in which you were situated, one that overwhelmed your mind and paralyzed your will. Then you had sought advice and support from another person, whose clear discernment soon penetrated the darkness around you. Now you were happy and contented, your life [IV 51] flowed on quietly and calmly, but you confessed in your heart and with your mouth that you owed it to him. But he refused to accept your thanks. When you spoke to him about it, you readily perceived that your life and its complications had perhaps once occupied his mind, but you had not occupied him, and therefore he could not let himself be thanked. Yes, the person to whom you owed all this may even have been your enemy, who for that very reason refused to accept thanks. Oh, but every good and every perfect gift is from above. If a human being wants to stop being human, if he wants to be just a force of nature, then you certainly cannot thank him any more than the sailor can thank the wind when it fills his sail and he uses it properly, or any more than the archer can thank the string when it propels the arrow and he hits the mark. So do not fall prey to earthly care but lift yourself up to God with thanksgiving. But do not therefore fail to thank your benefactor; your thanks still belong to him. Guard it as property entrusted to your care, as one conserves the property of someone who has died or of someone who has gone to a far country, so that he can receive it, honestly administered, if at any time he desires it.
Or you owed another person something you could not forget any more than he could—your insight, your education, your firmness of thought, your power of speech. He regarded your soul as his debtor, would permit no day of atonement that would give you back to yourself as your own possession.329 He would probably accept your thanks, but not as that which absolved your life of its debt to him. Ah, but no man can give what he himself has not been given, and of course the greatest gift one human being can give another is life, and even for this the father teaches the child to thank God, who gave it and who in turn is the one who takes it. Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and the pupil certainly is not above the teacher,330 but if the teacher loves him, then he wishes that the pupil might be as he himself is.
“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”331 The words express the difference that prevails in earthly existence—without mirroring human passions or borrowing its expression from them—that it is better, happier, more glorious, more desirable to be able to give than to be obliged to receive. But the words indicate the difference as it is in the loving heart. [IV 52] Therefore the person who says that it is better or happier or more glorious or more desirable does not say what use he is going to make of this power that is granted to him; neither does he witness to what he has understood in using it properly. But the person who knows that it is more blessed to give than to receive has grasped the fact of difference in life, but as far as he is concerned, he has also reconciled it by giving joyfully and by having his blessedness in giving. Yet the difference remains if the person who has to receive does not perceive a similar blessedness. Should he not? Should not the person who was tried in a more difficult struggle have a similar reward, and yet it is in truth greater to receive than to give—that is, if both are done in the right way.
So let us now consider the apostle’s words to see whether they do not express the equality. The one who gives admits that he is more insignificant than the gift; after all, it was this confession that the apostle’s words gladly accepted from the individual as willingly given or extorted from him against his will. The person who receives confesses that he is more insignificant than the gift, because it was this admission that the words gave as the condition in order to exalt him, and indeed this admission in all its humility is often heard in the world. But if the person who gives is more insignificant than the gift and the person who receives is more insignificant than the gift, then equality has indeed been effected—that is, equality in insignificance, equality in insignificance in relation to the gift, because the gift is from above and therefore actually belongs to neither or belongs equally to both—that is, it belongs to God. The imperfection, then, was not that the needy one received the gift but that the rich one possessed it, an imperfection he removed by giving away the gift. Equality was effected not by the needy one’s possessing the gift but by the rich man’s not having it any longer as a possession, because he had given it to the one in need; and neither did it belong to the needy one as a possession, because he had received it as a gift. When the rich man thanks God for the gift and for being granted the opportunity of bestowing it in a good way, he does indeed thank for the gift and for the poor man; when the poor man thanks the giver for the gift and God for the giver, he does indeed also thank God for the gift. Consequently, equality prevails in the giving of thanks to God, equality vis-à-vis the gift in the giving of thanks. This is devoid of difficulty and easy to understand. Insofar as difficulty does at times tempt a person, it is because the earthly gifts, which regrettably come to mind first when we think about the difference between being able to give and being obliged to receive, are in themselves very imperfect and therefore have this power of imperfection to make distinctions. The more perfect the gift, however, the more clearly and incontrovertibly the [IV 53] equality promptly manifests itself. But it is, of course, the good and perfect gift of which we say that it is from above, but the only good and perfect gift a human being can give is love, and all human beings in all ages have confessed that love has its home in heaven and comes down from above.332 If a person does not want to accept love as a gift, he inspects what he gets, but if he receives it as a gift, the giver and the receiver are inseparable in the gift, and both are made essentially and entirely equal vis-à-vis the gift in such a way that only earthly understanding in its imperfection can make duplicitous [tvetyde] that which signifies [betyde] one and the same. And the more a person weans his soul from understanding the imperfect to grasping the perfect, the more he will appropriate the explanation of life that comforts while it is day and remains with him when night comes,333 when he lies forgotten in his grave and has himself forgotten what moth and rust have consumed334 and human sagacity has found out, and yet he will have a thought that can fill out the long interval for him, that will know nothing of the difference that troubled him but is aware only of the equality that is from above, the equality in love, which lasts and is the only thing that lasts, the equality that does not allow any human being to be another’s debtor, except, as Paul says, in the one debt, the debt of loving one another.335