Paganism - Christianity - Judaism: A Confession of Faith

Foreword to the English Translation

FOREWORD TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION I AM WRITING THESE INTRODUCTORY LINES IN THE SPRING OF 1968 IN Tel Aviv, where I have been living for almost thirty years. The book itselfwas writteninPrague and Marienbad in the last years of World War 1-1917 and 1918. As may be deduced from me mention of Gustav Landauer's death, me last part of the book was written in the days of the Raete Rebellion in Munidh. The epilogue to the second edition (1921), "Concerning the Talmud," must have been written in 1920. Thus some fifty years separate the original composition of this book and the present English language edition, the first in this language , published under the good auspices of the University of Alabama Press. It is hardly surprising that during tlhis long interval the author's experiences-mostly painful ones-have multiplied and his insights have somewhat matured. A Greeksage said long ago: "Only beatings lead to education"-an observation that Goethe would later make the motto of his autobiography. My own generation has received too many beatings in ~he school of life. Many hundreds of millions did not, to use the expression of Heinrich Mann's Professor Unrat, "reach the goal of their class." Hitler and World War II offered quite a mad course of studies, into which mankind was forced to enroll by several rabid tyrants. Fire, storm, and stress-fanaticism-are the prerogative of youth. This book of my own youth contains many thoughts that I chose to express more sharply than I would express them today. But this does not touch on ,the merits of the basic ideas. All I had to do when revising this book was to smooth out certain especially sharp and Vlll FOREWORD harsh points. For the rest, unless truth was at stake, I preferred not to obscure the passionate language of the young man through the circumspection of the later years. By way of corrective supplement, I must emphasize, first, that classical antiquity has not been done justice enough. At the ,time of writing I saw only Homer's world, and it was not until a long time after this book was first published that I saw the religious significance of Plato-and also of Goethe. Even so, the present book does include certain instances of a proper evaluation of that factor. Second, the book lacks a detailed discussion of the great Christian authors-except for Dante and Kierkegaard. Additional reference to the ideas of Thomas Aquinas, Novalis, Holderlin, Flaubert, Tolstoi, and others would have given a truer and fairer picture, I think now, in consideration of what was initiated in the second Vatican Council. Third, it is no longer quite true "today" that the forces of the "Caucasian" nations determine world history. The "today" of yesterday has changed into "at that time." Currendy, the Mra-Asian peoples are increasingly expressing their independence from Europe and America. One of the new creations is the State of Israel, established twenty years ago, and this is opening up significant avenues, for the first time in two thousand years. Many of the new nation's spiritual aspects have yet to be clarified, and many things that were and are hopes are far from being fulfilled. It is regrettable that many expansionist states prevent the setdement of the Arab-Jewish conflict , which could be solved through a realistic approach. In their efforts in that direction these states use means of propaganda that have nothing to do with truth. Our world is involved in a stormy process of change, and the very danger that this ohange could well lead to total destruction adds actuality to the present book, whioh was written during a wild and merciless war. For the main theme of the book is the distinction between "noble" and "ignoble" misfortune. War is an avoidable and thus, according to my terminology, an ignoble misfortune. It depends solely upon man's will whether he wishes to utilize all possibilities for the ultimate abolition of war, without rising luciferically above all things irrational, witthout giving up the humility he owes those metaphysical powers on which our spiritual nature depends. "To venerate and to help"-this is the proper double watchword, FOREWORD ix as against the one-sided materialistic motto of the East, the totalitarian states. To venerate-to recognize noble misfortune as an essential part of being human, which means to have religion; and at the...