How came it that Christ was crucified
1854
Bishop Mynster44
March 1, 1854. So now he is dead.
If only it had been possible to persuade him to end his life with the admission that what he represented was not really Christianity, but a mitigation of it: that would have been most desirable, for he carried a whole age along with him.
The possibility of this admission had therefore to be kept open to the last, to the very last, lest he should perhaps make it dying. Therefore he had never to be attacked; and I had to submit to everything, even when he did such desperate things as in the case of Goldschmidt, for no one could tell whether it would not have an effect upon him and so move him to make the admission.
Dead without having made that admission, everything is altered; now it merely remains that his preaching hardened Christianity into a deception.
The situation is also changed as regards my melancholy devotion to my father’s priest; for it would be too much of a good thing if I could not talk about him more freely even after his death, however well I know that my old devotion to him and my æsthetic admiration will always continue to be attractive to me.
Originally I wanted to transform my whole thing into a triumph for Mynster. Later, as I understood it more clearly, my wish remained unchanged, but I had to require this one little admission, though not for my sake and therefore, so I thought, it could perfectly well be done in such a way as to become a triumph for Bishop Mynster. . . .
And yet it almost came to a point where I thought I should have to attack him. I only missed one of his sermons, that was the last; I was not prevented by illness, on the contrary, I went to hear Kolthorf. To me that meant: it must happen now, you must break with your father’s tradition : that was the last time Mynster preached. God be praised, surely that is very like providence.
If Bishop Mynster could have given in (which could have been concealed from everyone, and to them it would thus have become his triumph) then my outward position would have been made easier; for Bishop Mynster, who at the bottom of his heart certainly made me certain spiritual concessions, reckoned cleverly from a worldly point of view that in the end I should have to give way to him in one way or another, because I could not compete with him financially. An expression which he often used in conversation with me was very instructive: it is not a question of who has most strength, but who can last longest.
God’s Majesty—the only thing which interests him is obedience
It is so easy to see that one to whom everything is equally important and equally insignificant can only be interested in one thing : obedience.
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a corrective—but a corrective made into the norm, the whole, is eo ipso confusing in the next generation (when that which it was meant to correct no longer exists). And as long as this continues things get worse with every generation, until in the end the corrective produces the exact opposite of what was originally intended.
And such, moreover, is the case. Taken by itself, as the whole of Christianity, the Lutheran corrective produces the most subtle type of worldliness and paganism.
“Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also”
Luke 2. 34, 35. Coming as an interpolation, in conjunction with the words about Christ being a sign which shall reveal the thoughts of many hearts, these words must not only be understood to refer to the pain at the sight of the Son’s death, they must be understood to mean that the moment, the moment of pain and agony will come for her when she will—at the sight of the Son’s suffering—doubt whether the whole thing was not imagination, a deceit, the whole story of Gabriel being sent by God to announce to her that she was the chosen one.
Just as Christ cried out : my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me—in the same way the Virgin Mary had to suffer something which humanly corresponded to it.
A sword shall pierce through thy own soul—and reveal the thoughts of the heart, yours also, whether you dare still believe, are still humble enough to believe, that you are in truth the chosen among women, she who found grace in the sight of God.
Oh, Luther
Luther; your responsibility is great indeed, for the closer I look the more clearly do I see that you overthrew the Pope—and set the public on the throne.
About myself
Among those who have been ordered out extraordinarily by providence not a few have had greater abilities, and greater learning, all perhaps greater zeal and ardour—but none, none has had a more difficult task, in all Christendom none.
To battle against princes and popes—and the nearer we come to our own times the truer this is—is easy compared with struggling against the masses, the tyranny of equality, against the grin of shallowness, nonsense, baseness and bestiality.
Outside Christianity Socrates stands alone—noble, simple and wise, you were indeed a true reformer.
On Arthur Schopenhauer
A.S.45 is unquestionably an important writer, he has interested me very much and I am astonished to find an author who, in spite of complete disagreement, touches me at so many points.
I have two objections in particular to his ethic.
His ethical point of view is: the individual succeeds in seeing through the wretchedness of this existence either through the intellect, and consequently intellectually, or through suffering (δευτερος πλονς), and then decides to deaden or mortify the joy of life; this is where asceticism comes in; and so, as a result of complete asceticism we reach contemplation, quietism.—And this the individual does out of sympathy (here we find A.S.’s moral principle), out of sympathy, because he sympathises with all the misery, which is existence, and consequently sympathises with the misery of others, which is to exist.
Against this I would urge: that I am almost tempted to reverse everything, also be it noted—out of sympathy. Now whether a man reaches asceticism as a result of a profoundly personal intellectuality, because he sees through the misery of everything, or better still the misery of existing, or whether he is brought by suffering to the point where it is relief to let the whole thing come to a rupture, to a break with everything, with life itself, i.e. with the joy of life (asceticism, mortification), and where all the small and ever new miseries are concerned this may bring much relief, like breaking into a sweat compared with the painful heat one endures when one cannot begin sweating : in each case I should reverse the question; might it not be that it is this very sympathy which should hold him back, prevent his going so far, sympathy with all the thousands and thousands who cannot possibly follow him, thousands upon thousands who live in the happy illusion that life is pleasure—and whom he would therefore merely disturb and make unhappy without being able to help them up to his level. Cannot sympathy also put the question in that way, though I readily admit it easily conceals a swindle, by not daring to go to the bitter end itself, and so merely gives the appearance of sympathy?
Secondly, and this is the main objection. After reading through A.S.’s Ethic one learns—naturally he is to that extent honest—that he himself is not an ascetic. And consequently he himself has not reached contemplation through asceticism, but only a contemplation which contemplates asceticism.
This is extremely suspicious, and may even conceal the most terrible and corrupting voluptuous melancholy, item : a profound misanthropy. In this too it is suspicious, for it is always suspicious to propound an ethic which does not exert so much power over the teacher that he himself expresses it.
A.S. makes ethics into genius—but that is of course an unethical conception of ethics. He makes ethics into genius, and although he prides himself quite enough on being a genius it has not pleased him, or nature has not allowed him, to become a genius where asceticism and mortification are concerned.
Here I come to a point which S. scornfully dismisses, namely this: Thou shalt, item: eternal punishment etc. The question is whether that kind of asceticism and mortification is really possible for a man if he does not respect the “Thou shalt,” and is not determined by the motive of eternity, not by genius however, but ethically. S. who really gives up Christianity always praises Indian Brahminism. But those ascetics, this he must himself admit, are determined by considerations of eternity, religiously, not by genius; it is put to them as a religious duty.
As I have said, A.S. interests me very much. And so of course does his fate in Germany.
S. has quite rightly learnt and felt that (like the parsons in religion) there is a class of men in philosophy who under the guise of teaching philosophy live by it . . . S. sees quite rightly that these respected gentlemen are the dons: On this point his rudeness is unsurpassed.
But here we have it again; S. is not a character, not a moral character, not a Greek philosopher in character, still less a Christian polite-official
If I could talk with him I am sure he would shudder or laugh if I were to show him the standard.
S. has seen quite rightly that this donnish meanness consists mainly in using one method: ignoring whatever is not of the faculty. S. is really charming, admirable and unequalled in effective rudeness.
But then look how S. lives! He lives a retired life and once in a while sends forth a thunderbolt of rudeness—which is ignored. There we have it.
No, tackle the problem differently. Go to Berlin, force all those swindlers down into the street, endure being famous, known to everyone. Endure personally a sort of intercourse and understanding with the rascals so that people see one together in the street, and so that if possible everyone knows that they know each other. That is how to undermine their mean way of “ignoring.” That is what I have done, on a smaller terrain certainly, here in Copenhagen : they have been made fools of for all their “ignoring” . . .
But A.S. is quite different; in that respect he is not a bit like S.A. He is, after all, a German thinker, hipped on recognition. To me it is inconceivable that a brain like S., a capital writer into the bargain, can be so unironical where character is concerned (for stylistically he has a lot of it), so wanting in lightness of touch and superiority.
There can be no doubt that the position in Germany is this, that—it is easy to see because all the literary gossips, journalists and authorlings have begun to busy themselves with S.—that he is now to be dragged forward on the scene and proclaimed. And I bet 100 to i he will be awfully glad; it does not even occur to him to keep the scum down, no, he will be delighted.
That is surely inexplicable. Representing, and with so much talent, such a misanthropic point of view as he does, he is then extremely happy, really seriously happy that the Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Trondhjem (Good God, in Trondhjem) crowns his Prize Essay—it never occurs to him that perhaps the Society values it as a rare honour to have an essay sent them by a German. Pro dii immortales! And then because Copenhagen did not crown another of his prize essays S. makes an awful fuss, quite seriously, in the preface that accompanies it.
To me that is inexplicable. I could understand S. having to do with these societies in order to play a joke on them —and having laughed at being crowned in Tronhjem. no less than at not being crowned in Copenhagen. Oh, but not the way S. takes the whole thing.
. . . He was scurvily treated, but that did not break him, it developed him into an important writer. . . .
It may therefore be said of S. that in a scurvy way he was the victim of the whole mean donnish racket, but ethically, religiously S. is not a victim—for above everything he wished to be proclaimed.
. . . The important thing is that it should be made perfectly plain that suffering is chosen freely.
That is true, noble tragedy. . . . In pure comedy, elevated comedy, or purified comedy one never laughs at something which in another sense is fundamentally misery. Oh, but in the common run of things, the majority of writers help themselves along by laughing—at misery. And they speculate successfully, because what they are after is bigger sales. . . .
Greek
July. There were philosophers even before Hegel who took it upon themselves to explain existence, history. And it is true of all such attempts that providence can only smile at them. Though perhaps it has not exactly roared with laughter at them; for there was always something honest, human and serious in them.
But Hegel—oh let me think in Greek!—how the gods must have laughed! A miserable don like that who had seen through the necessity of everything and got the whole thing off by heart : ye Gods !
It amused me more than I can say to read Schopenhauer. What he says is perfectly true and then, what I allow the Germans, he is rude as only a German can be.
“ Windbag”
An excellent word; I envy the Germans for having it; particularly because it can be used both as an adjective and a noun. A. Schopenhauer makes excellent use of it, I might almost say, what a quandary he would be in if he did not have that word, for he has to talk about Hegelian philosophy and the whole of donnish philosophy.
That is why the Germans have the word, because there is constant use for it in Germany.
We Danes have not got it; but then neither is what it describes characteristic of us Danes. It is not really part of the Danish character to be a windbag.
On the other hand we Danes have another failing, alas, a corresponding fault; and for this the Danish language has a word, a word which perhaps the German language has not got: windsucker. It is commonly used of horses but can be put to ordinary use.
That too is roughly the relation between them: a German to produce wind and a Dane to swallow it : for a long time past that has been the relation of the two countries.
Luther
. . . The longer I study Luther the more clear does it become that Luther also makes this confusion : he confuses what it means to be the patient with what it means to be the doctor. He is an extremely important patient for Christianity, but he is not the doctor; he has the patient’s passion for expressing and describing his suffering, and what he feels the need of as an alleviation. But he has not got the doctor’s breadth of view. And in order to reform Christianity the very first requirement is surely a view of the whole of Christianity.
Denmark
Christianity’s first and foremost duty is to return to the monastery from which Luther broke away.
Providence really makes use of only one power, time; it gives time, gives the mistakes time—on a scale which a mere man cannot grasp at all—to unfold themselves in all their consequences.
In order to make the absurdity, the dishonesty, and the corruption of protestantism manifest when—instead of being a necessary corrective at a given moment—it sets up as a religion, as Christianity : in order to get that made manifest it required a country which was not even assisted —as in Germany and other countries—by having Catholicism close at hand.
No, Protestantism had to go its own way, left entirely to itself in a country which even has a language all of its own.
So it required—in order to make everything perfectly plain—a worldly wise, pleasure-seeking, artistically gifted epicurean, a master in the art of conjuring up and maintaining a show—a man of that kind is required at the head of the Church. Then, if he is granted a long life, then practically the whole depths of nonsense and confusion will have been revealed.
This has happened under Bishop Mynster—but naturally the country, the people do not see it, they are very well pleased with that kind of Christianity and with the condition of Christianity in the country.
From a Christian point of view it is just about as pitiful as it could be—indeed, to use the predicate Christian of conditions in Denmark, even though it is in order to add that conditions are extremely poor, is really saying too much. The predicate “Christian” is ridiculous when it is applied to Denmark. Take an illustration. If a man comes dragging along with the most miserable nag of a horse there is nothing ridiculous in his saying it is a horse. If on the contrary he comes along with a cow and says it is a horse, then it is ridiculous. It is no good his being willing to admit that it is a poor kind of horse—it is a cow.
Denmark has fallen so low religiously that it is not only lower than anything hitherto seen of Christianity but lower than Jewry, in fact it can only be compared to the lowest forms of paganism—to such a degree have people forgotten the point in Christianity: self-denial, while worldly well-being and soft-hearted mediocrity are idolised.
Christianity as a regulating weight
. . . And because Christianity has been abolished it has also been possible to muddle up the whole of temporal existence, and consequently it is no longer a question of there being a revolution once in a while—but beneath everything is a revolution which may break out at any moment.
This is closely related to the fact that Christianity has been abolished as the regulating weight, consequently as a weight, but a regulating weight. . . .
There must be a weight—a clock or the works cf a clock need a heavy weight to make them go properly, a ship needs ballast. This weight, this regulating weight is supplied by Christianity, which makes the fact that his eternal happiness is decided in this life the important thing in the life of every individual. . . . And this weight was calculated to regulate temporal existence, both its good and its evil days.
And because the weight was lost—the clock cannot go, the ship turns turtle—and human life is a vortex.
The Sexual relationship
The lower man is in the degree of consciousness, the more natural the relationship.
But the more intellectually developed a man is, the more the conscious life penetrates it—the closer one gets to the point where lies Christianity and whatever resembles it in religious and philosophic outlook: where continence becomes the expression for spirit.
Between these two extremes lies incompleteness (half measures) where the sexual relationship has lost its immediacy, and where one does not wish to attain to spirit.
There one feels—this may be considered partly as a kind of bashfulness, partly perhaps it is a little hypocrisy or sometimes a hypocritical refinement—the need to decide to marry—for reasons. The fact that one has reasons is, in a way, going to spiritualise marriage, make it something more than the satisfaction of an instinct.
Rubbish! Either simply and solely the satisfaction of an instinct, or spirit.
The Vicar of Wakefield begins like this: “I was always of the opinion that the honest man who married and brought up a large family did more service to the state than he who continued single and only talked of population.”
There we have one of the reasons for marrying: to produce children to serve the state—risum teneatis amici! No, the thing is this, with the increase of culture and the increase of conscious life man in a sense grows out of the instinct, in any case of the immediacy of the instinct. A certain intellectual embarrassment enters in (which must not be confused with the immediate bashfulness, pudor) in specie in man. That is the reason why he must have reasons behind which to hide, however poorly one may be hidden, as, for instance, behind the very transparent screen of producing children to serve the state. To serve the state ! Yet perhaps there is something in that, perhaps the state is best conceived as a stud—and the King ought not to be compared to a shepherd but to the master of the stud.
About myself
Slight, delicate, and weak, denied in almost every respect the physical requirements in order to be able to pass for a complete man as compared with others; melancholy, soul-sick, profoundly and absolutely a failure in many ways, one thing was given to me : a pre-eminent intelligence, presumably so that I should not be quite defenceless.
Even as a child I was conscious of my intelligence and that such was my strength in face of those much stronger boys.
It was intelligence and nothing else that had to be opposed. Presumably that is why I, who have had the job, was armed with an immense intelligence. . . .
The imagination
is what providence uses in order to get men into reality, into existence, to get them far enough out, or in, or down in existence. And when imagination has helped them as far out as they are meant to go—that is where reality, properly speaking, begins.
Johannes v. Müller says that there are two great powers, around which everything revolves : ideas and women. That is quite true, and is intimately connected with what I have just said about the importance of the imagination : women, or ideas are what tempt a man out into existence. Naturally there is this great difference, that among thousands who run after a skirt there is not always one who is moved by ideas.
As for me, it was so difficult to get me out that a girl was used against me in a quite unusual way, as an intermediary, in order to get me out, and in the interest of ideas.
The system
Aug. Personality is aristocratic—the system a plebeian invention; with the help of the system (that omnibus) everybody can get about. . . .
The New Testament
. . . And all this tom-foolery with Bible societies distributing New Testaments by the million, is supposed to be Christianity.
No, I am tempted to make a different proposal to Christendom. Let us collect all the New Testaments there are in existence, let us carry them out to an open place or up upon a mountain, and then, while we all kneel down, let someone address God in this fashion : Take this book back again; we men, such as we are now, are no good at dealing with a thing like this, it only makes us unhappy. My proposal is that like the inhabitants of Gadara we beseech Christ to “depart out of our coasts.” That is an honest and human way of talking, quite different from that disgusting, hypocritical, mealy-mouthed trash about life being of no value to us apart from the inestimable blessing of Christianity.
. . . Protestantism is the crudest and most brutal plebeianism. People will not hear of there being any dif ference of quality between an apostle, a witness to the truth and oneself, in spite of the fact that one’s existence is completely different from theirs, as different as eating from being eaten.
About myself
One gift has been given me and in such a degree that I can call it genius—it is the gift of conversation, of being able to talk with everyone.
This happy gift was given to me in order to conceal the undoubted fact that I am the most silent man of my day.
Silence hid in silence is suspicious, arouses mistrust, it is just as though one were to betray something, at least betrayed that one was keeping silence. But silence concealed by a decided talent for conversation—as true as ever I live—that is silence.
All—Nothing
God creates everything out of nothing—and everything which God is to use he first reduces to nothing.
The sign by which it may be known whether a given condition is ripe for decline:
. . . If the conditions at a certain time are such that almost everyone knows privately that the whole thing is wrong, is untrue, while no one will say so officially; when the tactics used by the leading people is : let us simply hold on, behave as though nothing had happened, answer every attack with silence, because we ourselves know only too well that the whole thing is rotten, that we are playing false: then in that case the conditions are eo ipso condemned, they will crash. Just as one says that death has marked a man, so those conditions are the symptom which unquestionably calls for attack. There can be no question of something truer standing side by side with something which honourably believes itself to be true. It is a battle against lies.
But fundamentally that is the condition in Christendom, particularly in Protestantism, particularly in Denmark.
Tribulations
The tactics are perfectly simple : remain quite indifferent towards them, absolute indifference towards them is victory. Such thoughts aim at making you anxious, they want to make you so anxious that in your cowardice you imagine that you are responsible for them, they want to enter into you by way of anxiety, father upon you the idea that you listened to them and rested in them and so on, and all this in the agony of your responsibility. If once you begin to think that, there is the devil to pay. Therefore absolute indifference! more indifferent than you would be to a slight rumbling in your stomach. Or else get angry, as angry as you get when a man stands knocking at your door at an impossible hour and you rush out and say : what sort of behaviour is this, etc. i.e. get angry so that you are not afraid; for the thing that must be avoided more than anything is fear.
You are right to fight temptation by flying, running away. It does not help against tribulation because the thoughts follow you. Here the proper tactics are : do not be afraid, keep perfectly calm, absolutely indifferent.
But tribulation is unknown nowadays among Christians, particularly the Protestants, particularly in Denmark . . . a progress of the same kind as the doctor’s cure in Barselstuen : the patient died, but the fever left him entirely.
One must take the world as it is
or: life is what one makes it, though of course understood to mean : one must take the world as it is, that is the content of the life of all these millions of sample-men and of life.
Existence does not really notice the existence of all these millions, where existence is concerned the same thing happens to the sample-man as to the stickleback in relation to the net which is set to catch bigger fish, the net is certainly there (and existence is also a net) in order to catch fish—but the sticklebacks have free passage. The fact that sample-men become masses does not help, they do not in consequence weigh any more: one sample-man and a million touch existence, which produces them lavishly out of a horn of plenty, just as little.
But as soon as a man with originality comes along, and consequently does not say: one must take the world as it is (the sign for a free passage, like a stickleback), but saying : whatever the world may be, I remain true to my own originality, which I do not intend to change according to the good pleasure of the world; the moment that word is heard, there is as it were a transformation in the whole of existence, as in the fairy story—when the word is said the magic castle, which has been under a spell for a hundred years, opens again and everything comes to life: in the same way existence becomes all eyes. The Angels grow busy, look about with curiosity to see what is going to happen, for that is what interests them. On the other side : dark and sinister demons who have sat idle for a long while gnawing their fingers—jump up, stretch their limbs : “this is something for us” they say, for they have waited long for something of the kind, for the sample-men give them nothing to do, they no more than the angels.
This is what the apostle means when he says that the Christian’s fight is not merely against flesh and blood but with principalities and powers. . . .
The existence of a Christian touches existence. It is no doubt true that he cannot be said to bring with him originality in the sense of genius, but he personally assumes the demands of Christianity with originality, in regard to being a Christian,46 and therefore pays no attention to the miserable saying: that one must take the world as it is.
On having an objective relation to one’s own subjectivity
The majority of men are curtailed “I’s”; what was planned by nature as a possibility capable of being sharpened into an I is soon dulled into a third person.
It is a very different thing to have an objective relation to one’s own subjectivity.
Take Socrates ! He is not a third person in the sense that he avoids going into danger, avoids staking his life, which one avoids doing if one is a third person—not an “I.” In no sense is that true. But actually in danger he has an objective attitude to his own personality, and when he is about to be condemned to death speaks of his condemnation like a third person. He is subjectivity raised to the second power, his attitude is as objective as that of a true poet to his poetic works; he is just as objective to his own subjectivity. That is an achievement. Otherwise one invariably gets one of two things, either an objective something, an objective bit of furniture which is supposed to be a man, or else a miscellaneous hodge-podge of accidents and spontaneity. But the task is to have an objective attitude to one’s own subjectivity.
The maximum which anyone achieves in this respect may serve as an infinitely weak analogy of how God is infinite subjectivity.
The sense of majesty
I am therefore suspicious of the way people use the expression “to serve God”; for one cannot serve God as one serves another monarch, who has objects to attain. No, the only adequate way to express a sense of God’s majesty is to worship him. Generally one makes a distinction and says that what is involved in worshipping God is feelings, moods, and their expression in words, whereas serving God suggests actions. No, your action is true worship, and it is that most clearly when it is free from all bustle and the notion that God has a cause. To renounce everything as an act of worship offered to God, and so not because he needs to use you as an instrument; but to renounce everything yourself as the most insignificant superfluity and article of luxury—that means to worship.
“Man”
All those who have been exceptional, who have lived sparsely scattered through time, have each of them delivered their judgment on “man.” According to the report of one : man is an animal; according to another : he is a hypocrite; according to another : he is a liar etc.
Perhaps I shall not hit it off least happily when I say: man is a twaddler—and that with the help of speech.
With the help of speech every man participates in the highest—but to participate in the highest with the help of speech, by talking nonsense about it, is just as ironical as to participate in a royal banquet, as a spectator from the gallery.
Were I a pagan I would say: an ironical deity gave mankind the gift of speech in order to have the amusement of watching that self-deception.
From a Christian point of view of course it is out of love that God gave man the gift of speech, and thereby made it possible for every one really to grasp the highest—oh, with what sorrow must God look upon the result.
A personal God
. . . God is certainly personal, but whether he wishes to be so in relation to the individual depends upon whether it so pleases God. It is the grace of God that he wishes to be personal in relation to you; if you throw away his grace he punishes you by behaving objectively towards you. And in that sense one may say that the world has not got a personal God (in spite of all the proofs!) . . .
But while dons and parsons drivel on about the millions of proofs of God’s personality, the truth is that there are no longer the men living who could bear the pressure and weight of having a personal God. There is something moving about the way in which a patriarch or an apostle talks of dying tired of life; that can well tire a man. Figuratively : a cart-horse, even though it has worked hard before the plough—has no suspicion of the exhaustion of a highly-trained horse after it has been ridden.—Alas, even if my life were without pain and suffering; this alone would be enough, the disgust which comes over me every time I think of the nonsense in which men waste their time and lives. It would after all disgust one to think of mankind not eating food but living off filth, eating vermin and the like—but it is just as disgusting when one thinks that men consider themselves fortunate in being able to live off and pay parsons and dons exorbitant prices for—rubbish.
Human Education
Providence has given every man certain characteristics.
The important thing in life should therefore be to develop that characteristic, strengthened and confirmed by the conflicts which it must produce with its surroundings.
Human education, on the other hand, is demoralising, is calculated to teach a man how not to have an air, not to use a word, not to undertake the least thing without having a guarantee that numbers of others have done the same thing before him. . . .
The human race
. . . Christianity is God’s thought. To be a man was, for God, an ideal which we can hardly even imagine; the fall was a guilt which involved a degradation, and in order to feel the painfulness of it one must have an impression of the ideal which went before. . . .
THE DOMESTIC GOOSE
a moral tale
Try to imagine for a moment that geese could talk-that they had so arranged things that they too had their divine worship and their church-going.
Every Sunday they would meet together and a gander would preach.
The sermon was essentially the same each time—it told of the glorious destiny of geese, of the noble end for which their maker had created them—and every time his name was mentioned all the geese curtsied and all the ganders bowed their heads. They were to use their wings to fly away to the distant pastures to which they really belonged; for they were only pilgrims on this earth.
The same thing happened each Sunday. Thereupon the meeting broke up and they all waddled home, only to meet again next Sunday for divine worship and waddle off home again—but that was as far as they ever got. They throve and grew fat, plump and delicious—and at Michaelmas they were eaten—and that was as far as they ever got. It never came to anything. For while their conversation on Sundays was all high-sounding, on Mondays they would tell each other what had happened to the goose who had taken the end set before them quite seriously, and in spite of many tribulations had tried to use the wings its creator had bestowed upon it.
All that was indeed common knowledge among the geese, but of course no one mentioned the subject on Sundays, for as they observed, it would then have been obvious that to attend divine service would have been to fool both God and themselves.
Among the geese were several who looked ill and wan, and all the other geese said—there, you see what comes of taking flying seriously. It is all because they go about meditating on flying that they get thin and wan and are not blessed by the grace of God as we are; for that is why we grow fat, plump, and delicious.
And so next Sunday off they went to divine service, and the old gander preached of the glorious end for which their Maker (and at that point all the geese curtsied and the ganders bowed their heads) had created them, and of why they were given wings.
And the same is true of divine worship in Christianity.
How I understand the future
Certainly things will be reformed; and it will be a frightful reformation compared with which the Lutheran reformation will be almost a joke, a frightful reformation that will have as its battle-cry “Whether faith will be found upon earth?” and it will be recognisable by the fact that millions will fall away from Christianity, a frightful reformation; for the thing is that Christianity really no longer exists, and it is terrible when a generation which has been molly-coddled by a childish Christianity, fooled into thinking it is Christianity, when it has to receive the death blow of learning once again what it means to be a Christian. . . .
Mediocrity
Among the mediocre, individuals are certainly not unreasonable towards each other, they do not provoke impudence, they respect each other’s mediocrity.
But contemporary mediocrity, the whole mass of mediocrity, or mediocrity en masse is an impertinence to God, because it tries to raise itself up to the highest position, that of the ideal. Just as people insure one another against fire, mediocrity as a whole insures the individuals who go to make up that mediocrity, that mediocrity is the truth.
How came it that Christ was crucified
I can answer that in such a way as to show at the same time what Christianity is.
What is “spirit”? (for Christ is spirit, his religion that of the spirit). Spirit is: to live as though dead (dead to the world).
This way of life is so entirely foreign to man that to him it is quite literally worse than death.
Very carefully introduced for an hour or so in the distance of the imagination, natural man can bear it, it even pleases him. But if it is brought nearer him, so near that it becomes, in all seriousness, something required of him : the natural instinct of self-protection rises up so powerfully in him that a regular uproar follows, as with drink or as one talks of a furor uterinus. And in that condition, in which he is beside himself, he demands the death of the man of spirit, or rushes upon him to put him to death. . . .
End of the Journal