Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard 133
place between father and son. To be sure, we know well enough—it was but a trial!
If Abraham had doubted, when standing on Mount Mo- riah ; if he had looked about him in perplexity ; if he had accidentally discovered the ram before drawing his knife; if God had permitted him to sacrifice it instead of Isaac— then would he have returned home, and all would have been as before, he would have had Sarah and would have kept Isaac; and yet how different all would have been! For then had his return been a flight, his salvation an accident, his reward disgrace, his future, perchance, perdition. Then would he have borne witness neither to his faith nor to God's mercy, but would have witnessed only to the terror of going to Mount Moriah. Then Abraham would not have been forgotten, nor either Mount Moriah. It would be men- tioned, then, not as is Mount Ararat on which the Ark landed, but as a sign of terror, because it was there Abra- ham doubted.
Venerable patriarch Abraham! When you returned home from Mount Moriah you required no encomiums to console you for what you had lost ; for, indeed, you did win all and still kept Isaac, as we all know. And the Lord did no more take him from your side, but you sate gladly at table with him in your tent as in the life to come you will, for all times. Venerable patriarch Abraham! Thousands of years have passed since those times, but still you need no late-born lover to snatch your memory from the power of oblivion, for every language remembers you—and yet do you reward your lover more gloriously than any one, rendering him blessed in your bosom, and taking heart and eyes captive by the marvel of your deed. Venerable patriarch Abraham! Second father of the race! You who first perceived and bore witness to that unbounded passion which has but scorn for the terrible fight with the raging elements and the strength of brute creation, in order to struggle with God; you who first felt that sublimest of all passions, you who found the holy, pure, humble expression for the divine madness which was a marvel to the heathen—forgive him who would speak in your praise, in case he did it not fittingly. He spoke humbly.
