How lucky we are not all priests!
Imagine that a society was formed for the purpose of counteracting the drinking of wine.
To that end the director of the society thought it expedient to engage a number of men who as emissaries, speakers, call them "priests," could travel through the whole land, working to win men and persuade them to join the society.
"But," said the director at the meeting when the thing was decided, "to economize on the priests doesn't do a damn bit of good, to require them not to drink wine leads to nothing, all we get out of that is the watery and fasting talk which doesn't fill anybody with enthusiasm for joining our association. No, we must not economize on the priest, he must have his bottle of wine every day, and in proportion to his zeal something extra, so that he may have a liking for his work, and with warmth, vigor, the whole power of conviction, he will carry people away, so that they will enter our society in countless numbers."
Suppose that all of them became, not members of the society, but priests in the service of this society.
So it is with Christianity and the State. Christianity, the teaching about renunciation, about heterogeneity to this world, a teaching which issues no checks except those payable in another world, this teaching the State wants to have introduced. "But," says the State, "to economize on the priests really doesn't do any good, all we get out of it is a kind of fasting and waterish something which wins nobody for the teaching but rather scares them all away. No, the priest must be remunerated in such a way, his life arranged in such a way, that he can find pleasure, both for himself and with his family, in preaching this doctrine. Thus there can be hope for winning men for the renunciation of the earthly; for the priest will be in the mood to describe to men with warmth, vigor, the whole power of conviction, how blessed this renunciation and suffering is, how blessed it is to get checks payable only in another world, that it is [listen to him!] blessed, blessed, blessed!"
How lucky we are not all priests!
God in heaven behaves in a different way when He wants to introduce Christianity. He assures Himself that in any case at least one man becomes a Christian: the teacher of Christianity. And then off He goes winning men for the doctrine. Well, yes, it goes slowly, and in the same degree that it is certain the teacher is a Christian, the likelihood is that it will end with the teacher being put to death, and the whole outcome would be one: the teacher.
However, God in heaven is entirely lacking in shrewdness, especially the high shrewdness of statesmanship; He is a poor narrow-minded fellow of the old school, simple enough really to believe that when one wants to sew one must knot the thread,11 He has no notion of that which is the secret of the statesman's shrewdness, no presentiment how much faster it goes if one lets such foolishness alone and takes the matter up seriously, that then with a turn of the hand one has millions of Christians by the help of teachers who are not Christians.
O human nonsense! And this has been called seriousness! Centuries have been thrown away upon that costly foolishness, which has been paid for with money at a dear price, and paid for still more dearly...by having forfeited eternity!
Translator's Footnote
11This simple parable, to which S. K. often refers, meant to him that, if anything is to be accomplished (if the sewing is not to come undone because there was no knot made in the thread), someone has to die for it. Cf. the Journal, XI 2 A 281.