Foreløbig Expectoration

Strangely enough, the saying does not fit the world where it is most at home; for the outward world is subject to the law of imperfection, and here it repeats itself again and again that even he who does not work gets the bread, that he who sleeps gets it more abundantly than he who works.

In the outward world everything belongs to the possessor; it is enslaved to the law of indifference, and the one who has the ring is obeyed by the spirit of the ring, whether he be a Noureddin or an Aladdin, and the one who has the world's treasures has them, however he came by them.

In the world of the spirit it is otherwise.

Here an eternal divine order reigns; here it does not rain upon both the righteous and the unrighteous.

here the sun does not shine upon both the good and the evil; here it holds that only he who works gets the bread, only he who was in dread finds rest, only he who descends into the underworld saves the beloved, only he who draws the knife gets Isaac.

He who will not work does not get the bread but is deceived, as the gods deceived Orpheus with an airy phantom instead of the beloved — deceived him because he was soft, not brave; deceived him because he was a lyre-player, not a man.

Here it is no help to have Abraham for a father, or seventeen ancestors; to him who will not work applies what is written of the virgins of Israel — he brings forth wind; but he who will work brings forth his own father.

There is a knowing that presumptuously wishes to introduce into the world of the spirit the same law of indifference under which the outward world groans.

It supposes that it is enough to know the great; no further work is needed.

But therefore it does not get the bread; it perishes of hunger while everything turns to gold.

And what, after all, does it know?

There were many thousands in the Greek age, countless in later generations, who knew all the triumphs of Miltiades, but there was only one whom they made sleepless.

There were countless generations who knew the story of Abraham word for word by heart — how many did it make sleepless?

The story of Abraham has the remarkable quality that it always remains glorious, however poorly one understands it; yet here too it holds whether one is willing to work and to be burdened.

But one will not work, and yet one wishes to understand the story.

One speaks in Abraham's honor — but how?

One gives the whole thing a quite commonplace expression: "the great thing was that he loved God so much that he was willing to sacrifice to him the best he had."

That is very true; but "the best" is an indefinite expression.

In the course of thought and of speech one quite securely identifies Isaac with the best, and the meditator may comfortably smoke his pipe during the meditation, and the listener may comfortably stretch out his legs.

If that rich young man whom Christ met on his way had sold all his goods and given them to the poor, we would praise him, as we praise all that is great, and not even understand him without working; yet he would not have become an Abraham, even though he sacrificed the best he had.

What one leaves out of Abraham's story is the dread; for toward money I have no ethical obligation, but toward the son the father has the highest and holiest.

Yet dread is a dangerous matter for the soft, and so one forgets it — and even so one wishes to speak of Abraham.

So one speaks, and in the course of the speech the two expressions alternate — Isaac and the best — and everything goes splendidly.

If, however, it should happen that among the listeners there was a man who suffered from sleeplessness, then the most dreadful, the deepest, tragic and comic misunderstanding lies very near.

He went home; he wanted to do just as Abraham did — for the son is, after all, the best.

If that speaker came to know of it, then perhaps he would go to him, gather all his clerical dignity, and cry out: "abominable man, outcast of society, what devil has so possessed you that you would murder your son!"

And the priest, who had felt no warmth or perspiration in preaching about Abraham, was astonished at himself, at the earnest wrath with which he thundered down upon that poor man; he was pleased with himself, for he had never spoken with such force and unction; he said to himself and his wife: "I am an orator; what has been lacking was the occasion — when I preached about Abraham last Sunday, I felt not in the least seized."

If the same speaker had a little surplus of understanding that could be lost, then I think he would lose it if the sinner answered, calmly and with dignity: but that is just what you yourself preached about last Sunday.

How indeed could the priest get such a thing into his head — and yet so it was, and the only fault was that he had not known what he was saying.

That there is, after all, no poet who could bring himself to prefer such situations to the trash and frippery with which comedies and novels are filled!

The comic and the tragic here touch one another in absolute infinity.

The priest's speech was perhaps ridiculous enough in itself, but became infinitely ridiculous in its effect — and yet that effect was entirely natural.

Or if the sinner, without raising any objection, really were converted by the priest's reproof — if this zealous cleric went home glad, glad in the consciousness that he had worked not only from the pulpit but above all, with irresistible power, as a curate of souls, inspiring the congregation on Sunday while on Monday, like a cherub with a flaming sword, he set himself against the man who by his deed would put to shame that old saying, that things do not go in the world as the priest preaches.

If, on the other hand, the sinner was not convinced, then his situation is tragic enough.

He was then presumably executed or sent to the madhouse — in short, he became unhappy in relation to so-called reality; but in another sense I rather think that Abraham made him happy, for he who works does not perish.

How does one explain such a contradiction as that speaker's?

Is it because Abraham has acquired a prescriptive right to be a great man, so that what he does is great, and when another does the same it is sin, a sin that cries to heaven?

In that case I do not wish to take part in such thoughtless praise.

If faith cannot make it a holy act to will the murder of one's son, then let the same judgment fall on Abraham as on everyone else.

If one perhaps lacks the courage to carry one's thought through — to say that Abraham was a murderer — then it is surely better to acquire that courage than to waste time on undeserved eulogies.

The ethical expression for what Abraham did is that he would murder Isaac; the religious expression is that he would sacrifice Isaac — but it is precisely in this contradiction that the dread lies, the dread that can indeed make a man sleepless, and yet Abraham is not who he is without this dread. (In the old days people said: it is sad that things do not go in the world as the priest preaches — perhaps the time will come, especially with the help of philosophy, when one may say: fortunately things do not go as the priest preaches, for in life there is at least a little sense, in his sermon none at all.)

Or did Abraham perhaps not do at all what is told of him — was it perhaps, owing to the conditions of those times, something quite different — then let us forget him; for what is the use of remembering a past that cannot become a present?

Or had that speaker perhaps forgotten something corresponding to the ethical forgetting — that Isaac was the son?