September 10
1852
“The Don”
Jan. In the early days of antiquity the philosopher was a power, moral power, character—the empire safeguarded itself by recompensing them, by making them into “dons.” The same thing is true of Christianity.
The don is the eunuch; but he has not emasculated himself for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, but on the contrary, in order to fit better into this characterless world.
The Annunciation
Theme: That the Angel chose the right person—because Mary chose rightly.
Certainly, she was the chosen one, and so decidedly so that she was chosen. But there is also another factor, freedom and the moment of choice, where we see that such a one is the right one. Had the angel not found her as he did find her, she would not have been the right one.
She said: Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word.
We are so accustomed to hear this that we easily overlook its meaning, and even imagine that we should have made the same answer under similar circumstances.
Let us consider what she might—oh, much more naturally—have replied. It is profitable for us to consider this matter in other terms than those of a pious fear of God, which not unbeautifully decorates the situation with its emotions, and for example dwells on the fact that when the angel had spoken to Mary the whole creation called out to Mary : say yes, only hasten to say yes etc. . . .
She could then—yes, she could have smiled, like Sarah—there was just as good cause. And if she could not have smiled then she might have felt ashamed at the words addressed to her, and rejected them.
Or she might have said: this is too much above me, it is beyond me, spare me, it is beyond my strength. And it is clear that the angel thought it beyond her strength: therefore the strength of the Holy Ghost shall overshadow her. All that is very well, but it is precisely this believing and being nothing, a mere instrument—which is more difficult than anything a man can possibly attempt.
Cupid and Psyche
Only to-day I was reading the story in Apuleius. The fourth test which Venus sets Psyche is to fetch the casket from Proserpine—and the dangers besetting the road consist in a large measure of meeting such sights and objects as will move her to compassion and so hold her up, and back.
This is something I have also noticed in other myths, that in relation to the Exceptional, what one would have to call in Greek, the divine risk, that which holds one back, or tempts one to remain behind is compassion.
That is perfectly right. For dangers and everything belonging thereto frighten the ordinary man back. But then there are the courageous ones. They are not frightened by dangers and the like. And so the trial is in the sense of compassion. And it is precisely the courageous who are normally inclined to show most compassion towards others. The ordinary man would not perhaps let himself be held back by compassion, if he himself only had the courage to go to meet the dangers; but it is the courageous who are weakest where showing compassion is concerned.
Pascal
Who in modern times has been used so much by parsons and professors as Pascal? His ideas are appropriated—but Pascal’s asceticism and his hair-shirt are omitted; or else they are explained away as the hallmark of his day which no longer concerns us. Brilliant! Pascal was original in every other respect—only not in this.
But was asceticism really so general in his day, or had it not been done away with long ago, so that it was for Pascal to reassert its rights in face of the whole age ?
Everywhere it is the same; everywhere that infamous and disgusting cannibalism whereby (just as Heliogabalus ate ostrich brains) men eat the ideas, opinions, expressions, and moods of the dead—but as for their lives and characters; no thank you, they will have none of that.
My life’s course
In frightful inner suffering I became an author.
And so I was an author year after year, I suffered too for the idea, in addition to what I suffered within me.
Then came 1848. That helped. There came a moment when overcome with blessedness I dared say to myself : I have understood the highest. In truth, that is not given to many in every generation.
But almost at the same time something new rushed upon me : the highest of all is not to understand the highest but to act upon it.
I had certainly been aware of that from the very beginning, and I am therefore something other than an author in the ordinary sense. But what I was not so clearly aware of was that, by having means and being independent, it was easier for me to give existential expression to what I had understood.
When I understood this I was ready to declare myself a poet, namely because I have had means, which has made action easier for me than for others.
But it all comes to this, that the highest is not to understand the highest, but to act upon it, and be it noted, with all stress upon it. Then I understood properly for the first time that “Grace” must be introduced or else men are stifled just as they are about to begin. But “Grace” must not be introduced in order to hinder endeavour, no, it comes again in the form : the highest is not to understand the highest but to act upon it.
The difficulty with our age
June 4. The fact that enthusiasm lies beyond “reason,” that is the goal of the struggle.
But oh, for the man who has to awaken that enthusiasm there can be no question of being understood in his own age. Everywhere nothing but these half-experienced, blase, individualities, who when quite young had a dash of enthusiasm, but who when still almost as young became reasonable. They are so far from allowing themselves to be carried away that on the contrary they immediately supply an envious opposition, and instead of taking part —think they ought simply to “observe” the enthusiastic person, hoping that it will culminate in his either becoming reasonable or ending badly.
Have you seen a boat aground in the mud, it is almost impossible to float it again because it is impossible to punt, no punt-pole can touch bottom so that one can push against it. And so the whole generation is stuck in the mud banks of reason; and no one grieves over it, there is only self-satisfaction and conceit, which always follow on reason and the sins of reason. Oh, the sins of passion and of the heart, how much nearer to salvation than the sins of reason.
About myself
June 19. Understanding myself to be fundamentally different from others, also with a thorn in the flesh, I became an author in great inner suffering.
Thus I had held out year after year in spite of suffering, and in spite of the new sufferings : a rabble’s persecution : I can never thank God enough for what has been done for me.
Then came 1848. I was lifted up to a height which I had never before known, and perfectly understood myself in what had gone before, and the past. So I understood my task to be, or I thought of it in this way: to give myself entirely in a pure intellectual enthusiasm to the task of making it clear what Christianity Is—yet without defining unconditionally my relation to Christianity, on the other hand to endure everything for the idea in intellectual enthusiasm.
That is how I understand it and myself in my difference. I wished to go into the country in order to stress it even more clearly.
However, that did not happen at once, a suspicion awoke in me, and my worries began. Whether, the first time the cares of life grew really serious, whether I should not regret having so decisively missed the possibility, which always remained to me, of getting a position in the Church. Whether it was warrantable both in regard to the Church and mankind, whether I could not whip things up so that I became the stumbling-block for Christianity. Then the thought of her awoke again strongly in me. . . .
From the moment I gave up the idea of going into the country I suffered greatly and in ways which I have never otherwise known : cares and misfortunes in all the small things of life, all of which has been increased by financial anxieties. I have certainly prayed for some time past for education, and those particular cares grew greater after that time. But I have certainly developed.
And now I have returned to the point I was at in 1848, but with a higher understanding. Once again I have been strongly reminded of my difference, and reminded of what I had almost forgotten, that I cannot take ecclesiastical office. Ordination is an obstacle to me. Moreover my idea was rather to get a position at a seminary. And so I understand myself in being different. On the other hand I have a direct relation to Christianity so that what I may suffer in the future does not belong under the rubric of intellectual enthusiasm for the question “what is Christianity” (that was how I understood my task in 1848), but under that of suffering for the doctrine, so that in bearing it I have the direct support of Christianity. . . .
It is the “imitation of Christ” that must now be introduced—and I must be what I am, in being different from others. O my God, it was thou who didst hold thy hand over me so that in the long hours of anguish I should not go and take a step in the direction of becoming like others and thereby becoming guilty of procuring an abortion (to use the strong expression employed in one of the Journals of that date, to describe what I then feared), and furthermore embroiling myself in something which in time I should have discovered to hold nothing but worry, because I am not at home in it, and finally should incur a protest when I come into eternity.
The “imitation” must be introduced. But without authority, that is and remains my category.
That has moreover happened, for in On my work as an author and in the preface to Two Discourses at communion service and later in For Self-examination I declare myself to be a poet.
For “Grace” is the decisive point, but the “imitation” must be introduced; but I am not anxious about my ability or about others, therefore I am only “a poet”; yet my life has already expressed for more than being a poet, and expresses more if I remain different.
The polemical craft which is my natural characteristic and is inseparable from my very being is here again in place. For how Ironical—there are 1000 parsons, i.e. teachers (which is something far higher than being merely a poet)—and I am only a poet.
O my God, how clearly it now all stands out before me, how endlessly much has already been done for me. It is not difference that I must pray myself out of, that is not the task, but alas, I shall never know security, which consists in being like others. No, I remain different. There I remain with thee—and verily I know its happiness; the only thing that has made me anxious was the thought that possibly the task was another, namely that I should escape from that unlikeness, a thought which may very well have been prompted by the wish to make my life secure.
So I also feel courage and happiness—not indeed with an ebullient joy as in 1848; but then anxiety for my livelihood was more remote—if I were free from that at the present moment I should once again rejoice, for otherwise everything is well. However, I have suffered so very much in the past year and had to consider everything so seriously that doubtless I am a good deal changed.
But even with the financial anxieties I have, and some idea of what I, with my knowledge of the world, can foresee of the rumpus which will ensue, I feel peaceful and happy, perhaps more definitely so and with a more tranquil confidence than in 1848.
Conservatism
What may be explained as a result of something ethical in a man may also find its explanation in a paramount love of pleasure : the desire to retain the old, the established.
It is the very man whose one intention is to enjoy life, and make a brilliant worldly career, to whom it may be of the greatest importance that there should be no disturbances where religion is concerned. Once the “spirit” begins to move, life becomes unsettled, and one cannot concentrate properly on making a career. That is why it is so important that it should be kept as it is, that religion should be taken over exactly as it was transmitted by the last generation, with at the most a few little modifications. For epicureanism always retains something of the old epicurean saying : nil beatum nisi quietum.
Marcus Aurelius—Epictetus
How insignificant Marcus Aurelius’s works are compared with those of Epictetus ! There is nothing real about him, he is almost affected, like a don. But a slave—his works have style and the nobility of stoicism, where truth is the only way out. Marcus Aurelius helped himself along in a lot of little ways—by being Emperor.
The “in-and-for-itself”—and my task
With the N.T. before me I ask myself the following question: how do we men, nowadays, stand in relation to the whole view of life expressed in the N.T.; has there not, by comparison with it, been a whole qualitative change in the race, and what it means to be a man?
Yes there has, and nothing is easier to see.
Where does the change lie? It is that the “in-and-for-itself,” the absolute, has gone out of life, and reason has been put in its place so that the “in-and-for-itself,” the absolute, has not only gone out of life, but has become something ridiculous in the eyes of men, a comic exaggeration, something quixotic which one would laugh at were one to come across it, though one never does see it because it has gone out of life.
The “in-and-for-itself” and reason are related to one another inversely; where the one is the other is not. When reason has completely penetrated all relationships and everything the “in-and-for-itself” will have disappeared entirely from life.
That is more or less where we stand now. Reason is everywhere : instead of love—a mariage de convenance, instead of unconditional obedience—obedience as a result of reasoning, instead of faith—reasonable knowledge, instead of confidence—guarantees, instead of daring-probability, clever calculation, instead of action—events, instead of “the individual”—several people, instead of personality—impersonal objectivity etc.
But the N.T. presents the “in-and-for-itself,” simply and solely, and nothing else; and so I ask : what does it mean when we continue to behave as though all were as it should be, calling ourselves Christians according to the N.T., when the nerve of the N.T. the “in-and-for-itself” has gone out of life?
The tremendous disproportion which this state of affairs represents has, moreover, been perceived by many. They like to give it this turn : the race has outgrown Christianity.
I think the very reverse: the race has gone backwards (or is a mariage de convenance even though there were 170,000 of the choicest reasons for it; not a step back as compared to a love match), the kind of men Christianity has in mind no longer exist; on the average the human race has progressed, but there are no more individuals who could bear Christianity. That in my opinion is where we stand. And again it is my belief that the race must go through reason to the absolute.
Goethe as the representative of modern characterlessness —the sins of reason more frightful than other sins.
. . . Now take a richly gifted, egoistical nature with a strong desire to enjoy life. He is at the same time too gifted and too highly developed intellectually not to see that without ideas and ideals, and some relation to them, life becomes all too insignificant.
But at the same time he is a complete egoist and sensibly egoistic. So what does he do? He distinguishes. With the help of his imagination he is related to all that is noble, good, unselfish, elevated—and it gives him exquisite pleasure; as he knows well enough. . . . Poetically, then, he seizes hold of the ethical ideal, poetically he exhausts himself—but he is clever where his worldly profit is concerned, and is not such a fool as to step forward in the role of goodness. How charming ! There is a double profit: first of all the direct worldly profit which one gains by being an egoist; and then the appearance of nobility which the poetic works cast over him.
Preaching of the Gospel
Parson : Thou shalt die unto the world.—The fee is one guinea.
Neophyte: Well, if I must die unto the world I quite understand that I shall have to fork out more than one guinea; but just one question: Who gets the guinea?
Parson : Naturally I get it, it is my living, for I and my family have to live by preaching that one must die unto the world. It is really very cheap, and soon we shall have to ask for considerably more. If you are reasonable you will easily understand that to preach that one must die unto the world, if it is done seriously and with zeal, takes a lot out of a man. And so I really have to spend the summer in the country with my family to get some recreation.
God’s guidance
Originally I was in possession of the outward requirements for the enjoyment of life; and within me, that is all too certain, there was desire enough to enjoy life—but there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a cross: and I could not really succeed in enjoying life.
Then, as the conditions for enjoying life began to disappear, and financial worries came upon me, it occurred to me that it might be possible for the thorn in the flesh to be taken from me. I would then have been able to put the abilities and gifts granted me to my own use, and humanly speaking I should certainly have secured, by acquisition, the conditions for enjoying life, and so all the same have succeeded in enjoying life. . . .
And now things begin to happen as I expected. That thorn in the flesh will perhaps be taken from me; but by then I shall no longer be in possession of the requirements necessary for enjoying life, and I will be so tried in suffering and so far out, that I shall have cut myself off from all possibility of acquiring the conditions.
So perhaps there will be still one more course left for me to go through. The thorn in the flesh will be taken from me—and then suddenly all the requirements for enjoying life will be offered to me, almost forced upon me. And then the task will perhaps be for me to be so dead to the world, so mature a spirit, as to have the strength to say freely : no, I will not accept them.
And so in the end I shall never enjoy life. Oh, my God, that was certainly my qualification; you had something far better for me than that I should waste my life in enjoyment —and repent through all eternity.
But at first I could not understand that and could not do it, and so force had to be used, just as one puts splints on a broken leg. The education consisted in leading me to being able to do freely what at first I had to be compelled to do.
. . . I cannot possibly make it clear enough that the Exceptional has nothing whatsoever to do with ethics; ethically there is nothing exceptional, for the highest is quite simply what is demanded. . . . The “Exceptional” has nothing to do with ethically fulfilling what is demanded, but is a particular relation to God.
Renunciation as it is commonly understood appeared to me to be an attempt to make God out a foolish pedant, and the relation of God to man always petty and mean. And that did not appeal to me. But the real situation is entirely different; for renunciation, yes, the delight of renunciation, is simply a lover’s understanding with God. So far as I am concerned, truth obliges me to admit that it was God who gave me the hint. I had not dreamed of it, neither had I believed myself capable of it. But it was as though God had whispered the secret to me : Renunciation is a higher relation to God, it is really a love-relationship : and for me at least an enchantment was spread over renunciation—I have never been so enchanted.
That thought I have loved like my very life—I was on the point of reconciling myself to the notion that I must give it up, that it was my duty to submit to the humiliation of giving it up because I could no longer afford to live for it.
Now—O, blessed fortune!—I am again restored to this thought of mine, but in a far higher sense. It seems as if God said to me : My little friend, I who am love would find the greatest joy in using an expedient to make you independent again; but then your cause will not go forward, then you will not learn to love me in a higher sense. You are now so far developed that, were I to bestow riches upon you, I should almost have to be angry with you if you did not instantly give them back, saying: No, under the circumstances, I dare not. Surely you are too developed not to recognise how unseemly it is to preach the blessedness of doing without while living in opulence, too developed to help yourself out by saying, what it will always be a good thing that you had the honesty to say, that you are only a poet. And so it is; even though humanly speaking I can be said to have been something more than a poet.
September 10
And so it is 12 years ago to-day that I got engaged.
“She,” naturally, did not fail to meet me. . . . She looked at me to-day : but she did not bow to me, nor did she talk to me. Oh, perhaps she expected me to do so. My God, how I should like to do so, and do everything for her. But I dare not take the responsibility: she must ask for it herself.
Yet I should have liked it this year; and moreover it is painful to keep something at breaking point like this, year after year.
However, it was well that nothing happened. For there is always the possibility that the effect upon me might have been such that in order to bedeck her with celebrity I might have been tempted to strive for success from a worldly point of view, and make a sort of success in the world.
For that very reason I was profoundly impressed by the fact that to-day everything went, or passed off quietly. I was profoundly and vividly reminded that she has not, after all, the first place in my life. No, no, humanly speaking certainly—and how willingly would I not prove it, she has and shall have the first place in my life—but God has the first place. My engagement to her and the break are really my relation to God, they are, if I may say so, divinely speaking, my engagement with God.
And so September 10 is the anniversary of my engagement; so understood that I remembered it in solitude—oh, and perhaps I was urged on to be reminded of this, to be reminded not to go and become a Sophist, making a success in the world by preaching that it is blessed to suffer, a Sophist who though he does not really enjoy life himself might yet be delighted by enjoying a woman’s pleasure at celebrity shining upon her.
Perhaps she will meet me to-morrow and will ask for it herself, perhaps the day after to-morrow, perhaps in a year’s time—I shall be willing enough. But oh, the fact that nothing happened to-day of all days was such a valuable lesson.
I might perhaps have misunderstood it as a hint from God in the sense of wishing to enjoy life, a temporal victory—and so I should have disturbed the spirit, but perhaps only at the hour of death would I have become aware that I had taken a wrong turning.