This is long and not easy. I don't post it to engage debates but because it is so well written and so well expresses Christmas, I think some might like it.



Suppose there was a king who loved a peasant girl. But the reader
has perhaps already lost patience when he hears that the beginning
is like that of a fairy-tale and not at all systematic. Yes, the learned
Polos found it tedious that Socrates constantly spoke only of food
and drink and physicians and other such inconsequential things
that Polos thought unworthy of discussion (see Gorgias). But did
not Socrates have one advantage, however, in the fact that he, himself,
and everyone else from childhood on was in possession of the
required foreknowledge, and would it not be desirable, though far
beyond my abilities, for me to confine my considerations to food and
drink rather than be forced to include kings, whose thoughts are not
always like everyone else’s, if they are actually regal? But perhaps I
may be forgiven, I who am only a poet who, mindful of Themistocles’
lovely words, would roll out the carpet of the discourse, so that its
workmanship would not be hidden by being rolled up.

Suppose there were a king who loved a peasant girl. The king’s
heart was not polluted with the wisdom, which is proclaimed loudly
enough, was unacquainted with the difficulties the understanding
discovers in order to trap the heart and which preoccupy poets and
make their magic spells necessary. His decision to marry the girl was
easy to carry out; because every politician feared his wrath and dared
not even to hint at anything that might arouse it, every foreign state
trembled before his power and dared not fail to send ambassadors to
the wedding with congratulations, and no cringing courtier grovelling
in the dust dared to hurt him, lest his own head be crushed. So
let the harp be tuned, let the poets’ songs begin, let everything be
festive while love celebrates its triumph; because love exults when
it unites the equal, but it triumphs when it makes that which was
unequal equal in love.

But then there awoke a concern in the king’s soul — who would
dream of such a thing except a king who thinks regally! He spoke
to no one of his concern, because had he done this, every courtier
would have said: ‘Your Majesty, you are doing this girl a favour
for which she will never, in her whole life, be able to thank you.’
But then the courtier would have awakened the king’s wrath, so that
he would have executed him for high treason against the beloved,
and thus in another way he would have caused the king grief. Alone
the king grappled with this sorrow in his heart: would the girl be
happy, would she win the confidence never to remember what the
king wished only to forget: that he was the king, and that she had
been a peasant girl? Because if this did happen, if the memory
awakened and, like a favoured rival, sometimes called her thoughts
away from the king, if it tempted her into the seclusion of a secret
grief, or if it occasionally passed through her soul as death over the
grave; what then would be love’s glory? Then she would have been
happier if she had remained in obscurity, loved by an equal, content
in a humble cottage, but confident in her love, cheerful early and
late. What a rich surplus of sorrow there is here almost ripe, almost
sinking under the weight of its fecundity, merely waiting for harvest,
when the king’s thoughts will thresh the kernels of concern from it.
Because even if the girl were satisfied with becoming nothing, this
could not satisfy the king, precisely because he loved her and because
it was harder for him to be her benefactor than to lose her. If she
could not understand him (because when we speak loosely about
the human, we can assume an intellectual difference between them
which would make understanding impossible), what deep sorrow
slumbers in this unhappy love, who dares to awaken it? A human
being need not endure such a thing, however, because we would
refer him to Socrates, or to what in an even more beautiful sense is
able to make the unequal equal.

If the moment is to have decisive significance (and without this we
revert to the Socratic, even if we think we are going beyond this),
the learner is in error, is there through his own fault — and yet, he
is the object of the god’s love, the god who wants to be his teacher,
whose concern is to effect equality. If this cannot be effected, then
the love becomes unhappy and the instruction meaningless, because
they would not be able to understand each other. One might think
the god would not care about this, since he does not need the learner.
One forgets though — or more correctly, one shows how far one is
from understanding him — that the god loves the learner. And just
as the regal sorrow of which we spoke can be found only in a regal
soul, and the speech of the masses of humanity does not touch on it
at all, so is all human language so marked by self-love that it has no
intimation of such sorrow. The god thus reserved this sorrow, this
unfathomable grief, for himself; he knows he can repel the learner,
can do without him, that the learner is lost through his own fault,
that he can let him sink — he knows how nearly impossible it is to
keep up the learner’s confidence without which understanding and
equality are lost and the love unhappy. Anyone who does not have
at least an intimation of this grief is a shabby soul of base coinage,
bearing neither Caesar’s nor God’s image.

The task is thus set, and we will invite the poet, if he has not
already been invited somewhere else, and if he is not like those who,
along with the flute-players and other noise-makers, must be driven
out of grief ’s house in order that happiness can come in. The poet’s
task is to find a solution, a point of union where there is true understanding
in love, where the god’s concern has overcome its pain,
because this is the unfathomable love which is not satisfied with what
the object of love might in his foolishness rate as happiness.

The union may be brought about by an elevation. The god wants
to draw the learner up to himself, to glorify him, to delight him with
a millennial happiness (because a thousand years is as a day to him),
allow him to forget the misunderstanding in the tumult of joy. Ah
yes, the learner would be inclined to consider himself happy with
this. And was it not glorious, just like the lowly peasant girl, suddenly
to have his fortune made by the fact that the god’s eye had fallen on
him, glorious to help him take it all vainly, deceived by his own heart!
The noble king had, however, already seen the difficulty. He knew
something about human nature and so understood that the girl was
fundamentally deceived, which is the worst thing possible when one
has oneself no intimation of it but is as if bewitched by the change of
costume.

The union could be brought about by the god’s showing himself to
the learner, accepting his adoration, allowing the learner to forget
himself in this. The king could have shown himself in this way, in
all his splendour, to the peasant girl. He could have allowed the sun
of his magnificence to rise above her humble cottage, to shine upon
that spot where he showed himself to her, and allowed her to forget
herself in adoring wonder. Alas, this might have satisfied the girl. It
could not satisfy the king though, because he does not wish his own
glorification, but the girl’s. This was why his sorrow that she did
not understand him was so heavy. Even heavier still, though, would
be his sorrow at deceiving her. Simply giving his love an imperfect
expression was in his eyes a deception, even if no one understood
him, even if reproaches tried to injure his soul.

Love cannot be made happy in this way. The learner and the girl
may appear to be happy, but the teacher and the king cannot be happy.
They cannot be satisfied with an illusion. Thus the god delights in
decorating the lily more gloriously than Solomon. But if we are to
speak of an understanding, then the lily would be the victim of a painful
illusion if it thought that it was beloved because of its decoration;
and while it now stands undaunted in the field, playing with the wind,
as carefree as a gust of wind, then it would sicken and lack the boldness
even to lift its head. This was precisely the god’s concern, because the
lily’s shoot is tender and easily broken. But if the moment is to have
decisive significance, would his concern not be inexpressible?

There was a people with a profound understanding of the divine.
They believed that to see God was fatal. — Who grasps the contradiction
of this grief ? That not to reveal oneself is precisely the death
of love, and to reveal oneself is the death of the beloved! O, how
the minds of human beings crave power and might, and how their
thoughts eagerly seek these things, as if when they were achieved,
everything would be made clear. They do not understand that there
is not simply joy in heaven, but also sorrow, the sorrow of having to
deny the learner what he longs for with his whole soul and to have to
deny him this precisely because he is the beloved.

The union must therefore be brought about in another way. We
must remember Socrates again here, because what was his ignorance
if not an expression of union with the learner through his love for
the learner? But this union was also the truth, as we have seen. If, on
the other hand, the moment is to have decisive significance, then this
is not the truth; because the learner will owe the teacher everything.
Just as, from the Socratic perspective, the teacher’s love was only
that of a deceiver if he allowed the disciple to continue to believe
that he actually owed him something, rather than helping him to
become self-sufficient, when the god wants to become a teacher, his
love must not simply be assisting but procreative. He must, through
his love, give birth to the learner, or as we have called him, the
one reborn, with which expression we designate the transition
from not being to being. The truth is thus that the learner owes
him everything. But it is precisely this that makes understanding so
difficult: that the learner becomes nothing and yet is not annihilated,
that he owes the teacher everything and yet becomes confident, that
he understands the truth and yet the truth liberates him, that he
grasps the guilt of error and yet triumphs confidently in the truth.
Between one human being and another, to assist is the highest. To
give birth is reserved for the god whose love is procreative, not that
procreative love of which Socrates was able to speak so beautifully
at a certain banquet. That love does not designate the relation of
the teacher to the disciple, but the relation of the autodidact to the
beautiful, in that by looking beyond beauty in its scattered forms,
he glimpses the beautiful itself and then gives birth to many beautiful
and glorious speeches and thoughts ... Here it is a case of his giving birth to or bringing forth what he has already long carried about within himself.
He has the condition within himself and the appearance (the birth) is
only a manifestation of what was already there. Thus the moment is
once again, in this birth, instantly swallowed up by recollection. And
he who is born knows that he also dies, and that he can less and less
be said to be born in that he is only more and more clearly reminded
that he is. And he who again gives birth to expressions of the beautiful
does not himself give birth to them, but allows the beautiful that
is within him to give birth to them.

If the union is not to be brought about by an ascent, then it must
be attempted through a descent. Let the learner be an x, this x must
include the humblest, because was not Socrates himself indifferent
to the company of the clever? How could the god then care about
such things! In order for the union to be brought about, the god must
become equal to such a one. He will thus show himself as equal to
the most lowly. But the most lowly is precisely he who must serve
others. Thus the god will reveal himself in the form of a servant. But
this servant form is not something put on like the king’s humble
cloak, the loose flapping of which, precisely because it was put on,
betrayed that he was the king. It is not like the light Socratic summer
robe which, despite being woven from nothing, is both concealing
and revealing; it is his true form. This is the unfathomable nature
of love, not in fun, but in seriousness and truth to want to be equal
to the beloved. And this is the omnipotence of the decisive love, to
be able to do what neither the king nor Socrates was able to do and
which was the reason that their assumed forms were really a kind of
deception.

Look, there he is — the god. Where? There; can you not see him? He
is the god and yet he has no place to lay his head, and he dare not
seek shelter with another person in order not to offend him. He is the
god and yet he makes his way more cautiously than if an angel bore
him, not in order to avoid stumbling, but in order to avoid trampling
people in the dust if they should be offended by him. He is the god
and yet his eye rests with concern on the human race, because the
tender shoot of the individual can be crushed as quickly as that of a
blade of grass. What a life, sheer love and sheer sorrow: to want to
express the unity of love and yet not to be understood; to fear for
everyone’s damnation and yet to be truly able to save only a single
soul; sheer sorrow, even while his days and hours are filled with the
sorrows of the learner who trusts in him. Thus the god is on earth
like unto the lowest through his omnipotent love. He knows the
learner is in error — if he misunderstood, if he weakened and lost
his boldness! O, to bear heaven and earth with an omnipotent
‘Let it be!’ so that if it were absent for even the briefest time, everything
would collapse. How easy that is compared to bearing the
possibility of offending the race when one would become its saviour
through love!

But the servant form was not a costume. The god must, therefore,
suffer everything, endure everything, hunger in the desert, thirst
in anguish, be forsaken in death, absolutely equal to the lowest —
behold the man! It is not the suffering of death that is his suffering,
the whole of this life is a story of suffering, and it is love that
suffers, love that gives everything, which is itself needy. Marvellous
self-denial, even if the learner is the lowest, still he asks anxiously:
Do you now really love me? Because he knows where the danger lies,
and yet he knows that any easier way would be a deception even if
the learner did not understand this.

Any other revelation would, for love, be a deception, because
it would either first have had to undertake a transformation of the
learner and hidden from him that this had been necessary (but love
does not alter the beloved, rather it alters itself ), or it would have had
to allow him to remain ignorant of the fact that the whole understanding
was an illusion. (This is the untruth of paganism.) Any other
revelation would, according to the god’s love, be a deception. And if
I cried more tears than a repentant sinner, and if my tears were more
precious than the many tears of the woman whose sins were forgiven,
and if I should find a humbler place than at his feet, and if I could
sit there more humbly than a woman whose heart’s only wish was to
sit this way, and whether I loved him more honestly than a faithful
servant, who loved him to the last drop of his blood; whether I was more
pleasing to his eyes than the purest among women — if I entreated him
to change his decision, to show himself in another form, to protect himself,
then he would look at me and say: Man, what have you to do with
me, get thee behind me, for you are Satan’s even if you do not understand
this yourself ! Or if he just once stretched out his hand to order that
something should come to pass, and I thought that I understood him
better or loved him more, then I would see him weep also for me and
hear him say: That you could thus be unfaithful to me, and in this way
wound love. Do you then love only the omnipotent one who performs
miracles, not the one who lowered himself to be equal to you?
But the form of the servant was not a costume; therefore he must
breathe his last breath in death and once again leave this earth.
And if my sorrow were deeper than the mother’s when the sword
pierces her heart, and if my situation were worse than that of a
believer when he loses his faith, and if my wretchedness were more
moving than that of one who crucifies his hope and is left with only
the cross — if I would ask him to protect himself and remain, then
I would see him grieved unto death, but also concerned for me,
because this suffering was to benefit me; but his sorrow was that I
could not understand him. O bitter cup, more bitter than wormwood
is the violence of death for one who is mortal, how bitter is it then
for one who is immortal! O sour drink, more sour than vinegar, to
be refreshed through the misunderstanding of the beloved! O what
comfort there is in the necessity of suffering when one is guilty. What
comfort is there though to suffer innocently!

Thus the poet presents our hypothesis. For how could it occur
to him, that the god would want to reveal himself in such a way as
to produce the most horrible decision; how could it occur to him to
want to play lightheartedly with the god’s suffering, deceitfully dismissing
love in order to make room for wrath?

And the learner, his suffering is not that of the teacher, but has he no
share or part in this story of suffering? And yet it must be like this
and it is love that occasions all this suffering, precisely because the
god does not think of himself, but wants, because of love, to be equal
to the lowest. When one plants an acorn in a clay pot, the pot bursts.
When one pours new wine in old skins, they burst. What happens
then when the god plants himself in a frail human form, if he does
not become a new person and a new vessel! But this becoming, how
arduous it is, how like a difficult birth! And the situation of the understanding,
how precarious it is, poised at every moment at the edge of
misunderstanding as the anxieties of guilt threaten the peace of love;
how terrifying, because it is less terrifying to fall prostrate while the
mountains tremble at the voice of the god, than to sit with him as with
an equal, and yet it is precisely the god’s desire to sit this way.

S. Kierkegaard