LUKE 21:19
How someone in the hour of danger and in the moment of terror displayed a strength of soul that might truly be called wondrous has often been witnessed with amazement and told with admiration. How swiftly and how resolutely the understanding surveyed everything and the horrifying situation, how quickly presence of mind assuredly chose the right thing as if it were the fruit of the most mature reflection, how the will, even the eyes, defied the threatening terrors, how the body did not even feel the exertion, the agonizing suffering, how the arms lightly carried the burden that far exceeded human strength, how the feet stood firm where others did not dare to look down because they saw the abyss!
If you have never seen this, my listener, you have nevertheless heard about it. You may have heard how someone who had thoughtlessly frittered away his life and never understood anything but wasted the power of his soul in vanities, how he lay on his sick bed and the frightfulness of disease encompassed him and the singularly fearful battle began, how he then for the first time in his life understood something, understood that it was death he struggled with, and how he then pulled himself together in a purpose that was powerful enough to move a world, how he attained a marvelous collectedness for wrenching himself out of the sufferings in order to use the last moment to catch up on some of what he had neglected, to bring order to some of the chaos he had caused during a long life, to contrive something for those he would leave behind. You may have heard it from those who were there with him, [IV 76] who with sadness, but also deeply moved, had to confess that in those few hours he had lived more than in all the rest of his life, more than is lived in years and days as people ordinarily live.
Let us praise what is truly praiseworthy, the glory of human nature; let us give thanks that it was granted also to us to be human beings; let us pray that we might be granted the grace to perfect this glory gloriously in a more beautiful and more unambiguous way. But we could not praise in this way the single individual of whom we spoke, for a consideration of him makes the soul double-minded, and thought does not give its unqualified approval. Or does not even a mentally handicapped person frequently demonstrate how strong a human being is, and yet we do not praise the mentally handicapped, even though he puts many to shame. Let us then praise what there is to praise and see whether this could lead us to find the place where truth and complete devotion are the yes and amen in praise. No wonder that terror, when it comes externally and with all its horrors, torments the last strength out of a person, that in a way it gives him strength, as it gives even to the animal, but more gloriously, because the essence [Væsen] of man is the most glorious. The lesson we could derive from this is very dubious, and the conclusion we could draw is very ambiguous, since probably no one has seen a human being fight this way in mortal danger or with death without having to admit that the outcome at any time could be just the opposite and that moreover such a battle would not decide anything about or for the rest of the combatant’s life. However, if a person discovered the danger while all speak of peace and security,3 if he discerned the horror and after having used the healthiest power of his soul to make himself fully aware of it, again with the horror before his eyes, now developed and preserved the same strength of soul as the one who fought in peril of his life, the same inwardness as the one who fought with death—yes, then we shall praise him. It was already praiseworthy that he discovered the danger. The power required for this is far greater than the power people admire in a crucial moment, because the idea that there is peace and security and people’s assurances of it are like a magic spell that readily bewitches with its powerful stupefaction and requires the soul’s total power if it is to be broken. But this energy that discovers is not to be praised unconditionally. If like an adventurer someone dared to go out into the remotest regions where men had rarely set foot, if he gazed down and spotted something hidden, discovered something frightful, and then, [IV 77] gripped by anxiety, struck with fear, fell back from the horrors he himself had exposed, tried in vain to escape them, tried in vain to find a hiding place in the throng of people because the horrors pursued him everywhere; and if a person with troubled imagination conjured up anxieties he was unable to surmount, while he still could not leave off staring at them, evoking them ever more alarmingly, pondering them ever more fearfully, then we shall not praise him, even though we praise the wonderful glory of human nature. But if he brought out the horror and detected the mortal danger, without any thought of providing people, by pointless talk, with subject matter for pointless pondering, but grasped that the danger had to do with himself—if, then, with this in mind, he won the strength of soul that horror gives, this would in truth be praiseworthy, would in truth be wondrously wonderful. Who, indeed, would understand it, since no one saw the danger and consequently no one could grasp what otherwise is easy to understand—that the man known to have had a shocking experience became mature in earnestness.
Although all such talk that danger and terror give a person power is fraudulent talk, which people are all too willing to hear because they are all too willing to be deceived, it nevertheless is always beneficial to consider that it also takes power, indeed, literal power, to discover the danger, beneficial to understand the truth that there is always danger because a person “walks in danger wherever he walks”4 and because a person is never saved except by “working in fear and trembling.”5
Yet the dangers can be very diverse. People are prone to pay attention to earthly dangers. Even though the terrors of war do not rage destructively and disruptively with violence and lawlessness, but there is peace and justice in the land, even though the destroying angel of pestilence6 does not proceed from house to house in the cities and kingdoms, but there is health and happiness everywhere—yet there is danger, as we all know, danger to life and land, to health, honor, to welfare and property. People therefore seriously think about preserving and safeguarding what they possess; they therefore distrust each other and life; this mistrust is therefore so common among people that no one finds it offensive, not even one’s [IV 78] best friend. Ah, anyone who has just come of age, as it is called, in the world understands very well what I mean. Even though it was your best friend who appealed to you, one whom you trusted more than gold, even though you would not offend him for anything in the world, when you have most kindly complied with his wish, you say these brief words to him, or he himself says, “since life is uncertain,”7 and you understand each other; it does not offend him to hand you these words in writing, “since life is uncertain” . . . . . so, since life is uncertain. Thus, if a young man who left his parental home and up to now had not had much to do with the world were to hear the words “since life is uncertain,” do you suppose he would guess what usually follows this beginning? Do you suppose that an experienced man of the world, a go-getter, if these words were said to him, would make any other connection with this beginning than the one with which he was sufficiently familiar? In such a curious way, life is earnest. That earnest expression goes from mouth to mouth, is heard in the streets and alleys, is heard especially in the noise where busyness seems to have the least understanding of the idea of the shortness of life and the certainty of death.
So, since life is uncertain, there is something one desires to preserve, desires to keep safeguarded for oneself. So, there is a means by which a person can achieve his goal, a means that has been tested from generation to generation, for the written word stands fast, and when it has been drawn up under the apprehensive supervision of earthly caution, it does not deceive; then one can safely bargain and trade, exchange and divide, then one discovers with anticipating ingenuity or with belated dismay the hazards of life, but one thinks up shrewd expedients against them—and so life goes on in a very serious dream until death comes and puts an end to the account and the account reckoner.
But the soul of anyone who was suddenly aroused by that expression was gripped by its curious mysteriousness, gripped by new anxiety, since again and again he heard it used light-mindedly, casually dropped as a remark that concerned everyone but was of no particular concern to anyone; least of all was anyone concerned, since life is uncertain, to find out what, since life is uncertain, is truly worth preserving. It could not be something temporal, inasmuch as for life’s sake it probably would be desirable to preserve it, but how could one wish to preserve it for death’s sake, since it is precisely that which one abandons in death, which without envy and without preference makes everyone equal, equally poor, equally powerless, equally miserable, the one who possessed a world and the one who had nothing to lose, the one who left behind a claim upon [IV 79] a world and the one who was in debt for a world, the one whom thousands obeyed and the one whom no one knew except death, the one whose loveliness was the object of people’s admiration and the poor wretch who sought only a grave in order to hide from people. It would have to be something eternal, then, that the discourse was about or, more accurately, what it could truly be about, and, in a single word, what else could that be but a person’s soul? And it was an important matter, of utmost importance, not to postpone deliberation about it until tomorrow, for just as the expression abruptly connects life and death, so do life and death alternate abruptly down here, and the next moment could perhaps be too late. It is already bad enough that death can come to a person like a thief in the night8 before he has learned what is worth preserving, and if that was his soul and consequently he had not preserved it and death could demand it of him or steal it from him, then his loss would be irreparable. Therefore, to lose one’s soul—that is the danger; that is the terrible thing, and what one does not preserve one can indeed lose.
Thought itself scarcely comprehends this horror. Language is unable to articulate it clearly. Only the soul’s anxiety has a presentiment of what the obscure talk is about. But the anxiety awakens to new terror; at the same moment the danger becomes more multifarious, because the soul desires to be possessed and preserved in a different way than earthly goods are and the terror stretches its snare in a different way. If a person who wanted to keep his earthly goods had found a place, an out-of-the-way place in the world where no thieving hand would reach it, where no one would look for it, he could safely deposit his treasure there, certain of preserving it without needing to check on it frequently. But if a person wanted to preserve his soul in that way, he would indeed have lost it. But would it not be terrible if the rich man never dared to put away his treasure, since that would be most risky of all, but carried it around with him night and day and in this way ran the risk of losing it at every moment! If a man did lose his earthly treasure, he presumably would seek to console himself for the loss; he would avoid any reminder of past glory, which would now only cause him pain, and in this way he probably would win peace of mind again. But if someone by being lost himself had lost his soul, then he could not avoid recollection in this way, because the loss would continually be with him [IV 80] through time and eternity in perdition. But such perdition is truly horrible. If someone lost his earthly treasure, it still would be lost only for this life, perhaps not permanently, but even if this did happen, death would still reconcile him to the loss and remove it from him when in the moment of death he became like one who previously had not lost anything. But if he lost his soul, it would be lost for all time and for eternity; if he lost it for a single moment, it would be lost permanently, and death would be unable to help him, but precisely for death’s sake he is bound to wish to have preserved it and to preserve it. —Indeed, the more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. Finally he scarcely dared to think about it, because it seemed as if he had already lost it, and yet he dared not stop, for then how would he avoid losing it!
How should we judge someone like that? Should we say that the soul is the only certainty and that, although people can take away everything else, they still allow a person to keep his soul? Or should we not commend him for discovering the danger, that it was something different from what it was generally thought to be, and for being anxious about preserving his soul? The deliberation, however, was too disquieting; therefore, he would not succeed in understanding the thought. Just as there is only one means for preserving it, so is this means necessary even in order to understand that it must be preserved, and if this were not the case, the means would not be the only means. This means is patience. A person does not first gain his soul and then have the need for patience to preserve it, but he gains it in no other way than by preserving it, and therefore patience is the first and patience is the last, precisely because patience is just as active [handlende] as it is passive [lidende] and just as passive as it is active. The issue is not as terrible as anxiety thought it was, but on the other hand it is earnest, earnest in the deepest sense as patience understands it.
To Preserve One’s Soul in Patience.
To preserve one’s soul in patience—that is, through patience to ascertain what it is that one has to preserve. If a person does not use the help of patience, he may, with all his efforts and diligence, come to preserve something else and thereby to have lost his soul. Not only did he lose his [IV 81] soul who was infatuated with temporality and worldly desires, but also the one who, indeed moved in spiritual concern, nevertheless energetically created only an illusion. Not only did he lose his soul who gave it up to love the world and to serve it alone, but also the one who looked at himself in a mirror9 but did not see properly and continued in the illusion. Not only did he lose his soul who callously seized the certainty of the moment, but also the one who ran aimlessly [paa det Uvisse] because he began with the uncertainty [det Uvisse] and shadowboxed in the air,10 since he himself was a fleeting wind. Not only did he lose his soul who danced the dance of pleasure until the end, but also the one who slaved in worry’s deliberations and in despair wrung his hands night and day.
When we speak about it in this way, everyone readily perceives how necessary deliberation is for a person, and how necessary patience is for deliberation, and in reflection one sees the terrifying difference between the latter and the former, although they are essentially the same, and the terror nowhere intrudes in a decisive way but arises because the latter is actually no different from the former. But in life this is not obvious, inasmuch as there time lies divisively between the former and the latter, and one must be farsighted to discern it immediately, quick of hearing to understand its witness, because time has a rare persuasiveness, continually talks in between them, and is always saying, “As long as I am, there is always time.” Neither does the patient task of deliberation seem necessary in life, since one can very well live and associate with others and represent oneself to others just as one is without rightly understanding oneself. Every day has its trouble11 but also its pleasure, its goal but also its reward—so why, then, deliberation, which does not make one richer, more powerful? One accomplishes nothing by it, achieves nothing; one does not amount to anything by it but simply and solely finds out what one is—which is indeed a very poor and meager observation.
For example, in the external sense a person can even engage, as we say, in big business; he gives every man his due, designs new plans every day, his enterprise expands more and more, but he never has time to square the accounts12—which, of course, would be needless delay. Then perhaps life submitted to him an unexpected claim that he could not pay, and he discovered to his horror that he possessed nothing. Spiritually, deliberation is a difficult and rather unrewarding labor. One dares leave nothing out in the fog, leave no little secret lying there in concealment. Perhaps one discovers that the tower [IV 82] cannot be as high as desired.13 Perhaps one had never seriously made a beginning on it and therefore did not really find out that one was incapable of doing it; but then one nevertheless had kept this dream in one’s soul, this seductive fantasy with which one could at times entertain oneself—why destroy it, since it neither injures nor benefits? One discovers a little defect in one’s work—well, the building could last for all that, just as well as all the others, because, after all, one does not build for an eternity—so why make difficulties for oneself? Suppose one discovered no irregularity at all, then why all this deliberation?
No human being is entirely lacking in deliberation; every age has its rights. There sits youth, pensive in the evening hours, and by its side there sits a captivating figure. One hardly dares to call this impatience, since it is only full of longing, and all it talks about is wishes, and no one knows better how to speak for itself or how to speak suitably to youth. So one wishes, and it is indeed blissful that the wish is fulfilled, but it is delicious and beautiful just to hear someone speak who is speaking about the wish. The individual who wishes cannot understand another, even less be of any benefit to him, because there is no limit to the wish. He to whom much was given wishes for more, and he to whom little was given wishes for a little more; the one is astonished at the other’s moderation or at his greediness, without a legitimizing of the complaint, however, since they are both wishing. But who dares to speak against it, who dares to interrupt, who has the heart to disturb this whispering in the gloaming; so ingratiating is impatience that it captivates even someone not involved. Yet patience dares to do it, since the profundity of it is that it discovers the danger; and the soundness of patience is that it does not make a great noise but earnestly and quietly helps a person, since it is the only one that truly wishes a person well. Youth does not perceive this immediately; as long as it has ears only for impatience, which very obsequiously ingratiates the wish, this is futile, but when youth becomes a bit troubled, then patience stands by. Even if its words are not the speech of flattery, what it says is still indescribably comforting. “No man can add a foot to his growth even if he were concerned about it; no man can take what has not been given to him.”14 Is this not persuasive for all time and against all doubt; can these words not remain with one in joy and sorrow; are they not strong enough to preserve a person’s soul? And even though [IV 83] the saying seems to want to weed out the luxuriance of the wishes, is it in order to kill the soul, or is it not rather to preserve it, so that through patience it may become what it is and be confident of becoming what it is. Does patience jeeringly tell a person that no one can add a foot to his growth, as if it wanted to make him feel how small he is and how powerless. Not at all; far be it from patience, which even knows how to make the reproach very gentle; “even if he were concerned about it,” it says, by which it also says as mildly as possible that he really should not be concerned about it.
Patience discovers the danger, and the danger would be right there if a person was able to obtain something by wishing in this way, because then it would be impossible to save him; and the danger is precisely that it is supposed to be better to become great in this way, because then life would be without meaning and without truth. Does patience perhaps say with the cold calculation of the understanding that wishing is useless and that therefore one must stop wishing? Not at all; it does not speak about the fulfillment and the nonfulfillment of the wish, for it says: Even if the wish were fulfilled, it would be to a person’s loss; he would lose the best, the holiest, to be what God has intended him to be, neither more nor less. Therefore, let us not disturb with thoughts of how mockery or sagacity or discouragement would warn against the wish, but let us be built up by the warning from patience, which truly thinks of everything for the best. It sees the danger in the way impatience infatuates the young person; it sees that impatience could take on a new form and sit grieving with the young person and wish that it had been possible, if only it had been possible. This is why patience speaks earnestly, breaks off all connection with the wish, but then it also strengthens the heart with the strong nourishment of truth,15 so that to be even the most insignificant and inferior of human beings and to be true to oneself is much more than to become the greatest and most powerful by means of the shabby partiality of the wish. Or do we not scorn the person who sneaks his way ahead by unworthy means to power and might, the person who gathers gold and goods by gambling—if so, should we not also scorn a person if he became what he is by means of a wish? Youth is certainly commended for manifesting its boldness by its bold wishing, but this in truth would be the only wish worthy of praise: if the youth’s soul had the depth to wish that no wish might disturb his struggle in life with its humbling obligingness.
Yet no human being is entirely lacking in resolution; youth [IV 84] also has its rights. At its side in the morning hours there stands a triumphant figure, its look so confident, its expectancy so high; it wants to be on the move, on the move to come and to see and to conquer.16 The young person standing beside this figure becomes full of confidence himself, and no boon companion is as pleasing to him, no one fills him with such zeal—as purpose [Forsæt]. Who would say a word against it—who would dare! Yes, purpose is indeed to be praised—the soul’s first thought, the will’s first love. Who would dare to call it impatience? Even one who is not involved is carried away by it. Yet patience dares just that. Indeed, as long as youth confidently turns up its nose and arrogantly touches the heavens with its proud head,17 it will not listen to anything. But when it becomes earnest enough in deliberation to want to tear itself away from the impatience that is promising so much and even now is changing its form, when care makes the young person’s knees tremble and his arm weak, who, then, is the loving figure in whom he finds rest? It is patience.
Patience has discovered the danger and the terror, but it also comforts: Today we shall do this, tomorrow that, God willing.18 Are these words not indescribably comforting; do they not take all the premature hardships away from the purpose? And yet the purpose is not thereby destroyed; does it not become truly glorious only in this way! For God in heaven swears by himself,19 as Scripture says, because he has nothing higher by which to swear, but human purpose swears by God, and if it swears by itself, it swears by something inferior. Patience discovered the danger, but the danger was not that the purpose would fall short but that the purpose merely as such would supposedly have the power to be victorious and that everything would be decided by the bold purpose of youth; in that case a person’s essence would be perverted, and the most sacred power in him, the will, would become a wish. Even though a person won everything by such a purpose, he still would have lost infinitely in comparison with the one who, in accordance with God’s will and with his help, walked the little distance to the grave, attained the seemingly lowly station given to him as his task. Patience does not keep company with despair’s mockery, which smiles at purpose as at a childish prank, does not keep company with the miserableness of the understanding that makes purpose petty, since the purpose [IV 85] that makes up its mind to act with the help of God is certainly not petty! Even if the task was lowly, to will to fulfill it with God makes the purpose greater than anything that arose in the natural man’s heart. It is not distrust of life that patience teaches, not in distrust that it discovers that the purpose never attains its goal, inasmuch as it always attains its goal, because the goal is God, and in this sense patience teaches trust in life, and probably its purpose is poor in attire, but inwardly it is glorious, faithful, and unswerving at all times.
So it was, then, that the young person went out into life. Fortunate the young person who did that! He went with the help of patience, not rich in wishes, not intoxicated with purpose, but in faith’s covenant with the eternal, in hope’s covenant with the future, and love’s covenant with God and human beings. And patience blessed the covenant and promised not to forsake him. Even though he lost the wish and the youthful purpose, he still would not lose his soul; if a person does not believingly aspire to the eternal, is not hopefully tranquil about the future, is not lovingly in peace and unity with God and human beings, then he has lost his soul. However lowly he is, however small in stature, however poor in talents, whatever his soul is more specifically, in itself and in its difference from everyone else’s, his soul nevertheless is preserved in whatever he lost and whatever he was denied.
In deliberation, he understood this with the help of patience, and without patience he would not have understood it.
To preserve one’s soul in patience—that is, to keep the soul bound together in patience so that it does not go outside this and thereby become lost when he must begin the long battle with an indefatigable enemy, time, and with a multifarious enemy, the world.
So, then, the young person went out into the world. My listener, whether this discourse seems like an old story that wants to anticipate what you are just about to do, or whether it comes afterward like an old story about what you left behind long ago, this is how it is, this is how the young person goes out into the world. But the next part, yes, it is very different, and the single individual—well, if the discourse were to address all individuals, then each one might shake his head and say, “No, it did not happen that way with me; my experience was very different from what you are talking about.” Perhaps so; the discourse certainly desires no praise. But would not this emphasis on the different, if it becomes a staring at heterogeneity, have a certain similarity to the wish, and impatience, which once was the ingratiating friend, become the ingenious confidant? Try to break with it sometime, and [IV 86] then you will see how this thought becomes violent and vehemently complains about patience, as if it wants to make life sheer boredom, wants to make everyone a poor repetition of the same. And yet if unity does not lie at the base of diversity, similarity at the base of dissimilarity, then everything has disintegrated. If, then, no one else dares to say a well-intentioned word against the diversity that will enrich life to the point of disorder, patience does. It has seen the danger and the terror, that if every person were capable of essentially effectuating diversity, then life would be disordered, his own life also; it sees very well that the danger is not that life forbids it, but that the danger would exist if life permitted it. Is, then, patience yoked with the thin-lipped sagacity that thinks life merely grinds down the variegated character of primitivity, or with the defiance that thinks that only a favored few are capable of asserting diversity? Not at all! Patience speaks very doubtfully about that kind of favored status. Patience wants to preserve only the soul; it has the courage to give up everything else; and when the soul does not believingly aspire to the eternal, does not hopefully hurry toward the future, is not lovingly in understanding with God and human beings, then the soul is lost; but if, on the contrary, it announces itself in this powerful presence, then the single individual has indeed saved his soul, however diverse the meanings the words may have for different people.
So the young person went out into life. Yet the path that stretches before him is long, and the world will probably be difficult for him at times. If he does not enlist the help of patience now, then all his strife and struggling will be of little benefit to him; ultimately he will be fighting in a foreign service for something else and will have lost what he should preserve. Not only did he who looked improperly into the mirror lose his soul, but also the one who immediately went away and forgot what he looked like; and not only did he who remained standing all day in the marketplace lose his soul,20 but also the one who, although called in the first hour, soon left the work and once again stood in the marketplace; and not only did he who never began the race lose his soul, but also the one who, although he began, nevertheless fell short of the goal;21 and not only did he who never came to the light lose his soul,22 but also the one who, although enlightened after having once tasted the heavenly gift,23 nevertheless fell away.
[IV 87] When one speaks about it in this way, it is easy to see the danger, the terror, because one sees it as decisive and because one consults only with patience. In life, diversity has a scattering effect, and when one person perseveres in something longer than another, he holds it up as evidence, and he does not understand the one who failed and is of no help to him, thinks he has succeeded because he persevered a little longer, something that he cannot even know definitely. In various ways they contend with each other over who is going to sit at the head or at the foot, a futile battle since they will all be shut out.24 So they end up sitting together in the council of the mockers and in the assembly of the discontented, who are unable to dig and are too proud to beg.25
Then the young person went on his way, and patience repeated its promise not to abandon him if he would keep to it. His path was delightful, his walking was easy, and not at all as his fatherly friend patience had taught him it would be. The young people joined him enthusiastically; the elderly turned and looked wistfully after him. So quickly did he go that he even left expectancy behind him without missing it, because fortune followed his steps, advancement his deeds, success his plans. His gold procured everything for him, even the service of envy; his favor was the price that bought everything, even the applause of his rivals. His plans became bolder and bolder; even fortune became so happy about them that in order to contend with him it became bolder and bolder. Patience called to him in vain; when at every moment there is a world to win—something patience, in fact, had never spoken of—then patience can very well wait until tomorrow. Then he stood on the pinnacle26—proudly he gazed downward. He was nauseated by all of it, by the glitter of gold, by the vanity of pleasure, by the cowardliness of men—everything, in fact, was for sale, everything. Was it fortune that had made him impatient? It certainly had indulged him in everything; it would still indulge him, and nevertheless he languished in the cold heat of impatience.
So, then, the young person went on his way; upon his departure, patience repeated its promise. And the path was narrow, his walking was laborious, and yet it seemed as if he did not move from the spot, so swiftly did the others hurry by, and every time this happened, a shudder went through his soul. The powerful insulted him, the prosperous misunderstood him, the person he had trusted disappointed him. No one stayed with him for fear of being held back; only discouragement stayed behind and wound itself around his soul more [IV 88] tightly than a woman around her love. In vain did patience tell where the danger was—was there, then, not danger enough? At the same moment someone else passed him so swiftly that he grew faint and dizzy comparing his puny hope with the other’s fortune. He sank down; he could not go on.
What indeed is this existence, where the only certainty is the only one about which nothing can be known with certainty, and that is death! What is hope?27 An importunate pest one cannot get rid of, a cunning deceiver who holds out even longer than integrity, a cantankerous friend who always retains his rights even when the emperor has lost his. What is recollection?28 A troublesome comforter, a cowardly knave who wounds from behind, a shadow one cannot get rid of, even if someone would buy it.29 What is bliss? A wish one gives away to whoever wants to have it! What is friendship?30 A figment of the imagination, a superfluity, an added plague! What is all this, what is all this . . . . . and what is this? Who does not know—it is impatience. That old hypocrite who even more hypocritically than those Pharisees31 binds on heavy burdens that it itself does not touch with a finger! That liar who, case-hardened in lying, finally believes his own fiction! That adored idol who makes everything into nothing! That everlasting windbag who still wants us to listen to him patiently!
Impatience can take many forms this way. In the beginning, one scarcely recognizes it—it is so gentle, so indulgent, so inviting, so encouraging, so wistful, so sympathetic—and when it has exhausted all its arts, it finally becomes loudmouthed, defiant, and wants to explain everything although it never understood a thing.
Should we hesitate to call all of that impatience, even though impatience cunningly refuses to admit it but admits only to being close to it (which nevertheless has little attractiveness), although that is what it worked at night and day, early and late, tempting with good fortune and tempting with bad fortune equally ingeniously, even though the one tempted does not understand the latter. It worked at that in order to establish itself in all its agonizing emptiness, not as impatience about one thing or another, but as that cold fire that consumes the soul, even though it seems to be powerfully present in its passionate expressions! Or may impatience be in the wrong; is everyone perhaps willing to find that it is in the wrong but that the individual who yielded to it is in the right?
[IV 89] Is not patience itself bound to be shocked by this! Admittedly there is no one who perseveres this way in the world and perseveres this way in being concerned about human beings, but patience still refuses to let itself be mocked. It refuses to stand as a liar, and if there is a suffering or distress that cannot be endured, then patience, which wants to overcome everything, lies. Oh, let us not seek escapes, let us not praise it with our lips in such a way that we treacherously assassinate it in the heart, let us not slander it in our eulogy, as if it were capable of very much but the individual dared to reserve for himself one instance in which it was not able to be victorious. No, it shall be victorious; it must be victorious. It is in truth as patience itself says: it abandons no one, does not abandon anyone in any distress, even when one defiantly pushes it away; it still waits for him, and woe to him if he never reconciled himself with it, because it still waits for him, and it will judge him sometime when it is gloriously manifest that patience was capable of overcoming everything, is capable of forcing this admission out of impatience itself.
Or is patience perhaps a phantom figure that beckons in the clouds, that has itself experienced nothing, attempted nothing in life? Patience? This spiritual adviser that knows every distress and every suffering and has persevered and perseveres with it until it will not go on—no, until it cannot—because finally impatience itself is unwilling! Is patience perhaps unsympathetic because its righteous wrath is terrible, or is it not always merciful? Oh, it is in truth that compassionate Samaritan;32 and no matter how deep the wound is, how old, even how malignant, if only the sufferer utters even a faint wish, patience comes; it knows how to bind up the wound, how to pour oil on it. It always has a little cordial for the sick one, always has a little fund for traveling expenses, just enough for the next moment. It is only a little, not because patience is unwilling to give more, but it does not have much at its disposal and must be sparing with the little it has;33 patience is always just as active [handlende] as it is passive [lidende] and just as passive as it is active. Patience comforts the sick one so that he is capable of this little, it tells him the truth: In relation to the condition in which I found you, it is already much that you are capable of doing this little, and if you were really grateful, it would seem marvelous to you.34 This kind of talk is difficult, because one is loath to hear those words “in relation to” and would very much like to forget what they bring to mind. . . . . if one could immediately begin again as if nothing had happened or if one could still be helped for a little longer. Alas, we are all in debt to patience; patience can justly say to all of us “in relation to,” and yet, mercifully, it does not say it often.
[IV 90] Here, too, patience knows very well where the danger and the terror are, that they do not arise because one does not manage to carry through one’s plans, does not recover one’s earthly losses, does not gain something temporal, does not find some new pleasure to keep one from being nauseated by life. Patience does not fear such things, and it still has a good hope in reserve against those dangers. But patience discovers that the danger was whether the old condition could continue and make the sickness even more dreadful, if that were possible, before the sick one learned once again where the danger really was.
Does patience, then, have something in common with that miserable commonsensicality that comprehends that desire nevertheless ends sometime and ends in nausea, that hardship sometimes ends in despair, and therefore thinks that the sagacious thing to do is to take care to be neither cold nor hot35—as if this were not the most despairing condition of all? Or does not patience perceive that the greatest danger is that the elucidating understanding’s fears prove not to be the case, for then not even patience could comfort anymore? Now it can, if only the sick one so desires, since the danger is whether the sick one is to be allowed to emancipate himself from the eternal, to wither away in commonsensicality, to expire in callousness, to be desouled in spiritlessness. And against this danger there is still a resource. He who, believing, continues to aspire to the eternal never becomes satiated in such a way that he does not continue blessedly to hunger; he who hopefully looks to the future can never be petrified at some moment by the past, because he always turns his back to it;36 he who loves God and human beings still continually has enough to do, even when need is the greatest and despair is most imminent. Before he lies down to die, he asks once again: Do I love God just as much as before, and do I love the common concerns of human beings? If he dares to answer in the affirmative, then he does not die or he dies saved; if he dares not, then he certainly has enough to do. Then in love and for the sake of his love he must deliberate whether it is not possible to see, to glimpse, to presage the joy and comfort that still must hide in the sadness, since this must still truly serve him for good.37 And even if he finds nothing, this deliberation will serve him for good, this deliberation that the impatient person, who is so teeming with ideas and so inventive in turns of phrase, would be able to do even more beautifully if he wanted to.
Shall we now say: Happy the unfortunate one who lay on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem, because patience passed by him as the good Samaritan? Shall we begin from the beginning? Or shall we not say that it passes by everyone, and happy the person who himself was not to blame that it passed [IV 91] by him without helping. Indeed, this is why we call God the God of patience38—because he himself is patience and is nowhere far away from us.
To preserve one’s soul in patience—that is, to hold it in the power of patience so that it does not slip away when the terrible struggle is with the eternal, with God, and with oneself, because this struggle is such that the person who loses the eternal loses God and himself, and the person who loses God loses the eternal and himself, and the person who loses himself loses the eternal and God. This is indeed the way it is, as the simple person easily understands—and the educated person could only demand that it be made somewhat more difficult so that he might better understand it.
Whether with the help of patience in life’s distress a person accepted the comfort that the danger was different from what he had thought it was or a person himself discovered the danger and the terror and in good time was cured of fearing what corrupts the body,39 the struggle itself can still be terrible. At the same moment when the soul perceives this, it promptly needs patience lest it retreat and prefer to fight the futile struggle with the world. If patience has helped until now, then it is appropriate to use its assistance again in order to understand in all quietness that the most crucial issues are decided slowly, little by little, not in haste and all at once; in this struggle patience is the sole sovereign, is not to be confused with anything else—it prescribes the laws and it awards the symbol of victory.
But this is not learned immediately, and the soul must fight many a hard battle and many a time must begin from the beginning. Then impatience, which has its spies everywhere, sneaks in there also. It has assumed a new form, designed specifically for the struggler’s condition. It is not ingratiating, not defiant and stubborn; it is anxious. Let no one venture to spy inquisitively on the soul when it is struggling in extreme anxiety; it is a danger that can end with terror. The struggle begins most terribly when eternity transforms itself into a moment, and this moment will nevertheless be decisive for all eternity. Then impatience sighs its last anxious sigh: It is too late.
Is there no danger, then? Impatience itself screams that there is. But patience has discovered the danger, that the danger is not that it is too late but that impatience itself is wasting the last moment. What human being was ever as mean as [IV 92] impatience! Is it not friendship of sorts to sit with the unfortunate one and wring one’s hands and wail with him40—and make him forget that there was time.
If, then, patience does have a resource here, it certainly has nothing in common with a miserable commonsensicality, because that never speaks of such distress, scarcely knows that it exists. And even if the understanding has a word that seems to be appropriate, it is only a deception. There was once a king41 well known among the people; even in this generation he rambles around capriciously in anecdotes just as he did in life. He had a saying: Tomorrow there is another day [atter en Dag]. This essentially comforting phrase he understood very light-mindedly, but for that reason (this is what the legend seems to want to teach us) he also had a wish, the fulfillment of which would compensate him for the blessedness of heaven42—in case it had always been true, also in eternity: Tomorrow is another day.
Patience has another phrase, a powerful phrase, just what the anxious one needs: This very day,43 says the Lord. Let us not rashly venture to fathom deeply the mystery here; let us not become too engrossed in this phrase; but let us not forget, either, that it is there. Let us regard it as an angel of deliverance who stands there with his flaming sword, and every time the soul is about to rush out to the outermost boundary of despair it must pass by him; he judges the soul but also strengthens it. The phrase is like a mighty warrior who stands at his post on the outermost boundary of the kingdom, always engaged in that terrible border dispute. When people in the interior of the country have an intimation of the terror and the women and children rush out—he stands there, he soberly turns them back and says: Take courage; I am standing here, I never doze off; go home again, prepare your souls in patience and quiet alertness.
Thus the phrase gives comfort to a person and will comfort him and will also come to meet and comfort him before he goes very far.
My listener, surely you also have struggled in this conflict in which one does not struggle with the world and does not struggle with the aid of cunning or power, because all one’s cunning has been seen through and all external power is powerless. What your struggle was we do not know—whether you struggled with the repercussions of a dissolute life; whether it was your thoughts that had plotted against you and [IV 93] stood up like the Pharisees to tempt you with crafty talk,44 so that the next moment they brought upon you every horror you dreaded—indeed, you did not even dare to give thanks that any one of them was omitted, since it seemed as if it would immediately follow upon this invitation; whether it was offense you saw, and you could not get rid of the sight of it—we do not know. But probably you did indeed also fight the good fight45 and did overcome and calm your soul in patience. Oh, but moments also came when you did not overcome the temptation, but the temptation overcame you. Then when everything was lost, when you were all alone with your defeat, when the silence deepened around you, and from afar despair beckoned to you, and its enthusiasm already wanted to intoxicate you—alas, despair, too, is an enthusiasm—then perhaps these words came to mind: God will make the temptation and its outcome such that we are able to bear it.46 Not only the temptation—that we know, that we confess, and happy is he who needs no other gospel—but also its outcome. And the outcome of the temptation is frequently the most dangerous temptation, whether we were victorious and were tempted to arrogance and thus fell after having been victorious, or we lost so that we were tempted to want to lose everything. The words came to your mind, and your soul became sober again, and patience began its good work again.
So let us not forget the phrase—not the latter phrase, that it is there, and not the earlier phrase that comes to meet us. Praised be the God of patience. This is the end of this discourse.
We have spoken about the power of patience to preserve the soul. We have spoken as if patience were outside a person; we are well aware that this is not so. And nevertheless I ask you, you who know better how to praise it than I, know better how to accomplish the good, how to commend it to people, since you have known it better, more inwardly and for a longer time—was it nevertheless not so at times, when concern and your laboring thoughts piled up deliberations that were of no benefit except to give birth to new deliberations, that then the plain, simple, but nevertheless forgotten words of patience prodded you from another direction, was it not as if patience stood on the outside? We have made it appear as if patience [IV 94] were outside, and we have let it speak, as it were, for itself. Who speaks properly about it? The older person, who was old in years, old in experience, venerable in patience? Yes, it is truly beneficial to hear him; he does a good deed by speaking, since only he has the proper authorization, in comparison with which all other education, all seductive glory of the mind, all the eloquence of the angels are but vanity and jest. But sometimes it is not easy for the older person to speak simply, solely, and purely out of patience and to witness only to that. He saw much, he experienced much, he learned many priceless words, which still are not those of patience but of life experience, with which he can benefit himself, also others, but not always another.
The younger person knows so little; the moment may come when it is manifest that he exerted his thought and his eloquence for nothing, when it is manifest that his words were a fraud, not to deceive others, far from it, but a fraud in which he himself was deceived. Then he will even have done damage, done damage with the view that perhaps could not be carried through, done damage by making people busy themselves with ridiculing the physician who cannot help himself,47 ridiculing the one who was strong in patience at a distance and thereby forgetting to pay heed to themselves and to consider the business that every human being has with himself. This, you see, is why we chose to let patience itself speak! It does not seek confirmation in someone’s experience but, as it says, will gloriously strengthen every experience; it does not seek borrowed bombast but, as it says, will stand behind what it promises. And this every human being ought to be prepared for—to bind himself by the charter that if patience ever collapses for him and the kingdom of eternity thereby drops out of his hand, he nevertheless will at least exert his whole soul for the last time to praise patience, to do it the justice of saying it was innocent.
Praised be the God of patience. This is the end of this discourse.