Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks, Volume 7: Journals NB15-NB20 [Course Book ed.] 9781400848218

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KIERKEGAARD’S JOURNALS AND NOTEBOOKS

B RUCE H. KIRMMSE GE NERAL EDITOR

KIERKEGAARD’S JOURNALS AND NOTEBOOKS VOLUME 7 Journals NB15–20

Volume Edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, Bruce H. Kirmmse, David D. Possen, Joel D. S. Rasmussen, Vanessa Rumble, and K. Brian Söderquist

Published in cooperation with the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre Copenhagen

Princeton University Press Princeton and Oxford

KIERKEGAARD’S

JOURNALS and NOTEBOOKS Editorial Board Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, Bruce H. Kirmmse, Joel D. S. Rasmussen, Vanessa Rumble, and K. Brian Söderquist in cooperation with the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, Copenhagen Volume 7, Journals NB15–NB20 Originally published under the titles Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter: 23 Journalerne NB15–NB20 and Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter: K23 Kommentarer til Journalerne NB15–NB20 © 2007 by the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre Foundation, Copenhagen The Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre Foundation at Copenhagen University was established with support from the Danish National Research Foundation. English translation Copyright © 2014 by the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre Foundation at the University of Copenhagen, and the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Control Number 2011925169 ISBN: 978-0-691-16029-0 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available The publication of Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks is supported by grants from the Danish Ministry of Culture, the United States National Endowment for the Humanities, and Connecticut College. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks is based on Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, which is published with the support of grants from the Danish National Research Foundation and the Danish Ministry of Culture. Except as otherwise noted, all photographs have been provided by the photographic studio of the Royal Danish Library. This book has been composed in Palatino and Optima by K.Nun Design, Copenhagen, Denmark Text design by Bent Rohde Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Introduction

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Journal NB 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Journal NB 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

vii 1 95

Journal NB 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Journal NB 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

165

Journal NB 19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Journal NB 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

333

Notes for Journal NB 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

499

Notes for Journal NB 16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

571

Notes for Journal NB 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

613

Notes for Journal NB 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

653

Notes for Journal NB 19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

701

Notes for Journal NB 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

741

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789

.......................... Concordance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

797

Maps

Calendar

255 395

801

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Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks Introduction to the English Language Edition Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks is based on Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (hereafter, SKS) [Søren Kierkegaard’s Writings] (Copenhagen: Gad, 1997–2012), which is a Danish scholarly, annotated edition of everything written by Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), and comprises fifty-five volumes. SKS divides the entirety of Kierkegaard’s output into four categories: 1) works published by Kierkegaard during his lifetime (e.g., such well-known titles as Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and The Sickness unto Death); 2) works that lay ready―or substantially ready―for publication at the time of Kierkegaard’s death, but which he did not publish in his lifetime (e.g., titles such as The Book on Adler, The Point of View for My Work as an Author, and Judge for Yourself!); 3) journals, notebooks, excerpts, and loose papers, collectively titled Kierkegaard’s “journals and notebooks”; and 4) letters and biographical documents. Clearly, Kierkegaard was not only a prolific author, he was also a prolific writer, and his literary activity found expression not only in his published works but also in the mass of writings that were not published in his lifetime. It is these writings, the third category listed above, titled Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks (hereafter, KJN) that constitute the material of the present English language edition. For a detailed account of previous Danish and English language editions of Kierkegaard’s unpublished writings, see pp. vii–xii of the “Introduction to the English Language Edition” in volume 1 of KJN.

I. Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks Based as it is on the new Danish edition of SKS, the present English language edition of Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks employs the SKS principle of organization by archival unit: journals, notebooks, and loose papers. The materials constituting the present edition of KJN consist of the documents mentioned above as the third category of materials included in SKS as volumes 17 through 27. The eleven volumes of KJN contain the translated text of these eleven SKS volumes,

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plus most of the explanatory notes contained in the eleven SKS commentary volumes that accompany SKS 17–27. Specifically, the textual materials constituting KJN consist of the following documents: a) a set of ten journals to which Kierkegaard affixed labels designating them “AA” through “KK” (as “I” and “J” are identical in the classical Roman alphabet, there is no journal titled “II”); b) fifteen notebooks, designated “1” through “15” by the editors of SKS, sequenced according to the dates on which Kierkegaard first made use of them; Kierkegaard himself assigned titles to four of these notebooks, and the editors retain these titles in parentheses; c) a series of thirty-six quarto-sized, bound journal volumes to which Kierkegaard affixed labels designating them journals “NB,” “NB2,” “NB3,” through “NB36”; and d) a great variety of materials―a large number of individual folio sheets, pages, slips, and scraps of paper―which the editors of KJN, following the editors of SKS, title “loose papers.” There is a good deal of chronological back-and-forth in Kierkegaard’s posthumous papers. Kierkegaard often made use of several of the first twenty-four documents―the ten journals designated “AA” through “KK” and the notebooks “1” through “14”― simultaneously, and there is thus much temporal overlap among these journals and notebooks. (Indeed, it was only after they had been in use for some time, probably in mid- or late 1842, that Kierkegaard assigned the designations “AA” through “KK” to the journal volumes bearing those labels.) Nonetheless, the abovementioned archival units do fall into several broad temporal categories, and these twenty-four journals and notebooks can be collectively assigned to the period 1833–1846. Notebook 15, however, which is entirely devoted to Kierkegaard’s relationship to Regine Olsen, his onetime fiancée, stems from 1849. The journals titled “NB” through “NB36” were assigned their numbered titles in chronological order by Kierkegaard himself and stem from the period 1846–1855, though here, too, these journals contain additions and emendations, some of which stem from later periods, disrupting the general chronological sequence of the journals. The final group of materials, the “loose papers,” spans the entire period 1833–1855.

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KJN follows the editors of SKS in the choice of a two-column format, which best reflects Kierkegaard’s practice when keeping his journals and notebooks. Like many of his contemporaries, Kierkegaard’s usual custom with his journals and notebooks was to crease the pages lengthwise (vertically) so that each page had an inner column for the main text and a somewhat narrower outer column for subsequent reflections and additions. In this way, further reflections could be―and very often were―added later, sometimes much later, often on several subsequent occasions, e.g., when Kierkegaard read or thought of something that reminded him of something he had written earlier. As has been noted above, a certain degree of chronological organization is present in the documents themselves, but a strictly chronological presentation of all the material is neither possible nor, perhaps, desirable. A strict and comprehensive chronological organization of the material is impossible, for while we can often detect the sequence in which Kierkegaard altered and emended an original passage in a notebook or journal, it is frequently not possible to ascertain when these alterations and emendations took place―though in his earlier entries Kierkegaard often dated his marginal additions. Furthermore, there are also cases in which the very sequence of such changes cannot be determined with certainty. Finally, even if it could be established, a rigorously chronological sequencing of all the material would not necessarily be desirable, because such a serial presentation would render it more difficult to see the manner in which Kierkegaard could return to a passage on multiple subsequent occasions, adding to, deleting, and altering what he had originally written. (It is hoped that upon completion of all eleven volumes of KJN it will be possible to produce an electronic edition of the entire series; this would make it possible for readers to organize and search through the materials in a variety of ways.)

II. The Format and Organization of the Present Edition 1. Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks (KJN) and Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (SKS) As already noted, KJN is a translation of Kierkegaard’s journals, notebooks, and loose papers, using the text as established by the editors of SKS. The great majority of the materials included in the present volumes is taken from Kierkegaard’s surviving manuscripts, but some manuscripts were lost in the production of the

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first published selection of Kierkegaard’s papers, H. P. Barfod’s nine-volume edition of Af Søren Kierkegaards Efterladte Papirer (hereafter, EP). Thus, particularly in the early volumes of KJN, our only source for a number of Kierkegaard’s journal entries is the version originally published in EP. When this is the case, KJN indicates that the source is the published version from EP by employing justified right-hand margins, while most of the text of KJN, taken as it is from the surviving manuscripts, employs a ragged right-hand margin. In addition, there are a number of cases, typically involving short or fragmentary entries or lines, in which the only surviving source is Barfod’s catalogue of Kierkegaard’s manuscripts, while in still other cases material in the original manuscripts deleted by Kierkegaard has been deciphered and restored by the editors of SKS; both these sorts of material are reproduced in KJN without text-critical commentary. Scholars interested in these source details are referred to the text-critical apparatus of SKS. In addition, there are some cases in which Kierkegaard’s original manuscript cannot be read meaningfully, and the editors of SKS suggest a proposed reading of the passage in question. KJN has adopted all such proposed readings without comment. In some cases Kierkegaard’s spelling is erroneous or inconsistent or there is missing punctuation. On rare occasions the editors of SKS have corrected errors of this sort silently, while in other cases missing punctuation has been supplied (but placed within square brackets to indicate that this is the work of the editors of SKS), and in still other cases Kierkegaard’s errors of spelling or punctuation have been allowed to stand because they are indicative of the hasty and informal style that often characterizes his unpublished materials. Where they do not cause significant difficulties for English language readers, the editors of KJN have followed the editors of SKS in allowing a number of Kierkegaard’s spelling errors (e.g., of proper names) and punctuation lapses to remain. On the other hand, where the retention of Kierkegaard’s errors might cause significant difficulties for English language readers, the editors of KJN have absorbed without annotation the corrections made by the editors of SKS (both the silent and the bracketed corrections), and have occasionally corrected instances of erroneous spelling and missing punctuation that have been permitted to remain in SKS. Here―as in the above-mentioned cases involving materials that have their source in Barfod’s catalogue or in text deleted by Kierkegaard and restored by the editors of SKS―scholars who require access to the entire text-critical apparatus of SKS should consult that edition.

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2. Two-Column Format in the Main Text As already noted, a two-column format is employed where necessary in order to emphasize the polydimensionality of the original documentary materials; thus, for example, providing a spatial representation of a draft’s character as a draft with multiple alterations. 3. Typographical Conventions in the Main Text a) In Kierkegaard’s time, both “gothic” and “latin” handwriting were in common use among educated people. Generally, when writing Danish and German (which of course accounts for the bulk of his journals and notebooks) Kierkegaard used a gothic hand, while when writing Latin or French (which he did much less frequently than Danish or German) Kierkegaard used a latin hand. Following the editors of SKS, the editors of KJN have sought to preserve this feature by using ordinary roman type to represent Kierkegaard’s gothic hand, and a sans serif typeface to represent Kierkegaard’s latin hand. Greek and Hebrew appear in their respective alphabets. b) As in SKS, italic and boldface are used to indicate Kierkegaard’s degrees of emphasis. Italic indicates underlining by Kierkegaard. Boldface indicates double underlining by Kierkegaard Boldface italic indicates double underlining plus a third, wavy underlining by Kierkegaard. 4. Margins in the Main Text a) The SKS pagination of the journals appears in roman type in the margins of the present edition. This permits the reader to refer to SKS, which contains the entire apparatus of text-critical markers and notes concerning the manuscripts, including indications of Kierkegaard’s own pagination of his journals and notebooks. b) Two separate italic line counters are included in the inner and outer margins in order to facilitate specific line references to each of the two columns. c) The boldface entry numbers in the margins are not Kierkegaard’s own but have been added by the editors of SKS in order to facilitate reference to specific entries. Each journal or notebook has its own entry numbering in arabic numerals, e.g., “AA:1,” “DD:8,” “Not3:2,” etc., which refer to the first entry in Journal AA, the eighth entry in Journal DD, the second entry in Notebook 3, etc.

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Kierkegaard’s marginal additions to journal or notebook entries are indicated with lowercase alphabet letters, e.g., “AA:23. b,” which refers to Kierkegaard’s second marginal addition to the twenty-third entry in Journal AA. If a marginal addition itself has a marginal addition, this is also indicated by another layer of lowercase alphabet letters, e.g., “DD:11.a.a,” which refers to the first marginal note to the first marginal note to the eleventh entry in Journal DD. When Kierkegaard left a reference mark in his main text referring to a marginal note, the marginal note referred to is preceded by a lowercase alphabet letter, set in roman, with no enclosing brackets, e.g. “a.” When Kierkegaard did not leave a reference mark in his main text for a marginal note, but the editors of SKS are not in doubt about the point in Kierkegaard’s main text to which the marginal note refers, the reference symbol (a lowercase alphabet letter) preceding that marginal note is set in roman and is enclosed within roman square brackets, e.g., “[a].” When Kierkegaard did not leave a reference mark in his main text for a marginal note, and the editors of SKS could not determine with certainty the point in Kierkegaard’s main text to which the marginal note refers, the reference symbol (a lowercase alphabet letter) preceding that marginal note is set in italic and is enclosed within italic square brackets, e.g., “[a].” In these cases, the editors of KJN, following the usage of the editors of SKS, have situated Kierkegaard’s marginal additions approximately where they are found on the pages of Kierkegaard’s own journal manuscripts, which, as noted, employed a two-column format. If more specific reference than this is necessary, the system of KJN volume number, page number, and line number on the appropriate line counter is employed, e.g., “KJN 1, 56:11,” referring to a passage in the first volume of KJN, page 56, line 11 on the line counter for the inner column. If a marginal note (thus, a note in the outer column of the page) is referred to in this manner, the reference is in the format “KJN 9, 56m:3,” referring to a marginal note found in volume 9 of KJN, page 56, line 3 on the marginal or outer column line counter. 5. Footnotes in the Main Text a) Kierkegaard’s own footnotes are indicated by superscript arabic numerals, both in the main text and at the beginning of the footnote itself, and are numbered consecutively within a journal entry, with the numbering beginning at “1” for each new journal

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entry. Kierkegaard’s footnotes appear at the bottom of the text column or at the end of the entry to which they pertain, whichever comes first, but always above the solid horizontal line at the foot of the page. When the source for a footnote by Kierkegaard is Barfod’s EP rather than an original manuscript, the placement in the main text of the superscript reference number for that footnote is of course not known from Kierkegaard, but only from EP; in such cases, Kierkegaard’s footnote will appear at the bottom of the page (though above the solid line) as with all other footnotes by Kierkegaard, but the superscript reference number preceding the footnote will be followed by a close-parenthesis, e.g., “1).” b) Translator’s footnotes appear below the solid horizontal line at the foot of the page. 6. Foreign Language in the Main Text Foreign (non-Danish) words, expressions, and quotations that appear in Kierkegaard’s text are left in the original language. English translations of foreign language text are provided in translator’s footnotes at the foot of the page, below the solid horizontal line. In the event that extreme length or some other technical difficulty makes it impossible to accommodate a translation of a foreign language passage at the foot of the page, it will appear in the explanatory notes at the back of the volume. English translations of the titles of foreign language books, articles, poems, etc. are always in the explanatory notes, not in the translator’s footnotes. 7. Photographs of Original Manuscripts Selected photographs of original manuscript material are included in the main text. 8. Orthography of Classical Names The orthographical standard for all ancient Greek and Roman names and place names is The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 9. Material Included at the Back of Each Volume a) A brief “Critical Account of the Text” gives a description of the physical appearance, provenance, and whatever chronological information is known concerning a document. If the document is

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related to others―for example, in the cases where Kierkegaard is known to have used one of the journals in the AA–KK group in tandem with one or more of the notebooks numbered 1–14, which stem from the same period―this is also indicated. b) Each journal or notebook is accompanied by “Explanatory Notes.” In some cases, notes included in SKS have been shortened or omitted in KJN. In a number of cases, notes that do not appear in SKS have been added to KJN; typically, these serve to explain geographical or historical references that are obvious to Danes but are not likely to be known by non-Danes. Notes are keyed by page and entry number to specific lemmata; that is, to key words or phrases from the main text that appear in boldface at the beginning of each note. The running heads on each page of notes indicate the journal or notebook and entry number(s) to which the notes on that page refer, while the numbers in the margins of each column of notes indicate the page and line number in the main text where the lemma under discussion is found. When the text of a note mentions a lemma explained in another note for the same journal or notebook, an arrow (→) accompanied by a large and a small number–e.g., →110,22―serves as a cross-reference, indicating the page and line number (in this case, page 110, line 22) where that lemma occurs in the main text. Each journal or notebook is treated as a separate unit with respect to explanatory notes; thus the notes for a given journal or notebook contain no cross-references to notes for other journals or notebooks. (The explanatory notes for Notebooks 9 and 10 constitute an exception to this rule because those two notebooks are so closely connected that they should perhaps be considered a single document.) The notes are usually confined to clarifying historical, biographical, geographical, and similar information not readily available in a standard English language desk reference volume. Notes do not engage in critical interpretation or in discussions of the scholarly literature. As noted under 6 above, on some occasions―which presumably will be very infrequent, if they occur at all―it may not be possible to translate foreign language passages in translator’s footnotes at the foot of the main text page, and in such cases the translated passage will appear in an explanatory note at the end of the volume. There are no markers in the main text denoting the existence of an explanatory note pertaining to a particular word or passage. c) Maps of nineteenth-century Copenhagen, Denmark, etc., are provided where appropriate. d) Calendars of the years covered in the volume, indicating days of the week, holidays, etc., are provided.

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e) Illustrations referred to in Kierkegaard’s text are reproduced. f) A concordance to the Heiberg edition of the Papirer is provided in order to facilitate using the present edition in conjunction with works, including previous translations of Kierkegaard’s posthumous papers, that refer to the Papirer. 10. Abbreviations a) Abbreviations used in the main text In the main text an attempt has been made to preserve something of the feel of the original documents, in which Kierkegaard made liberal use of a great many abbreviations, shortening words in accordance with the common usage of his times. Naturally, many of these abbreviations cannot be duplicated in English, but where it has seemed appropriate a number of commonly used (or easily decipherable) English abbreviations have been employed in order to provide a sense of Kierkegaard’s “journal style.” b) Abbreviations used in “Critical Accounts of the Texts” and in “Explanatory Notes”

ASKB The Auctioneer’s Sales Record of the Library of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. H. P. Rohde (Copenhagen: The Royal Library, 1967) B&A

Breve og Aktstykker vedrørende Søren Kierkegaard [Let- ters and Documents Concerning Søren Kierkegaard], 2 vols., ed. Niels Thulstrup (Copenhagen: Munks- gaard, 1953–1954)

H. P. Barfod, “Fortegnelse over de efter Søren Aabye B-cat. Kierkegaard forefundne Papirer” [Catalogue of the Papers Found after the Death of Søren Aabye Kierke- gaard] Bl.art. S. Kierkegaard’s Bladartikler, med Bilag samlede efter Forfatterens Død, udgivne som Supplement til hans øvrige Skrifter [S. Kierkegaard’s Newspaper Articles, with an Appendix Collected after the Author’s Death, Pub- lished as a Supplement to His Other Works], ed. Rasmus Nielsen (Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1857) d.

Died in the year

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EP Af Søren Kierkegaards Efterladte Papirer [From Søren Kierkegaard’s Posthumous Papers], 9 vols., ed. H. P. Barfod and H. Gottsched (Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1869–1881) Jub.

G.W.F. Hegel, Sämtliche Werke [Complete Works]. Jubiläumsausgabe, 26 vols., ed. Hermann Glockner (Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann Verlag, 1928–1941)

KA The Kierkegaard Archive at the Royal Library in Copenhagen KJN

Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, 11 vols., ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Joel D.S. Ras- mussen, Vanessa Rumble, and K. Brian Söderquist (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007–)

KW

Kierkegaard’s Writings, 26 vols., ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978–2000) Occasionally, the explanatory notes will employ different English translations of the titles of Kierkegaard’s works than those used in KW. For example, Kierkegaard’s En literair Anmeldelse, which is translated Two Ages in KW, may appear in the explanatory notes as A Literary Review. All such departures from the English titles as they appear in KW will be explained in the explanatory notes in which they appear. Generally, however, the English titles used in KW will be used; these titles have been assigned standard abbreviations as follows: “Armed Neutrality” in KW 22 AN BA The Book on Adler in KW 24 C The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress in KW 17 CA The Concept of Anxiety in KW 8 CD Christian Discourses in KW 17 CI The Concept of Irony in KW 2 COR The “Corsair” Affair; Articles Related to the Writings in KW 13 CUP Concluding Unscientific Postscript in KW 12

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EO 1 Either/Or, part 1 in KW 3 EO 2 Either/Or, part 2 in KW 4 Early Polemical Writings: From the Papers of EPW One Still Living; Articles from Student Days; The Battle Between the Old and the New Soap- Cellars in KW 1 EUD Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses in KW 15 FPOSL From the Papers of One Still Living in KW 1 FSE For Self-Examination in KW 21 Fear and Trembling in KW 6 FT JC “Johannes Climacus or De omnibus dubi- tandum est” in KW 7 Judge for Yourself! in KW 21 JFY LD Letters and Documents in KW 25 “The Moment” and Late Writings: Articles M from Fædrelandet; The Moment, nos. 1–10; This Must Be Said, So Let It Be Said; What Christ Judges of Official Christianity; The Changelessness of God in KW 23 “Newspaper Articles, 1854–1855” in KW 23 NA NSBL “Notes on Schelling’s Berlin Lectures” in KW 2 OMWA On My Work as an Author in KW 22 P Prefaces in KW 9 PC Practice in Christianity in KW 20 Philosophical Fragments in KW 7 PF PV The Point of View for My Work as an Author in KW 22 R Repetition in KW 6 Stages on Life’s Way in KW 11 SLW SUD The Sickness unto Death in KW 19 TA Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age, A Literary Review in KW 14 TDIO Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions in KW 10 UDVS Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits in KW 15 WA Without Authority: The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air; Two Minor Ethical Religious Essays; Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays; An Upbuilding Discourse; Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays in KW 18 WL Works of Love in KW 16 WS “Writing Sampler” in KW 9

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Ny Kongelige Samling [New Royal Collection], a special collection at the Royal Library in Copenhagen

NRSV Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha (see part c below) NT

New Testament

OT

Old Testament

Pap.

Søren Kierkegaards Papirer [The Papers of Søren Kierkegaard], 2nd ed., 16 vols. in 25 tomes, ed. P. A. Heiberg, V. Kuhr, and E. Torsting (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1909–1978)

Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter [Søren Kierkegaard’s WriSKS tings], 28 text volumes and 27 commentary volumes, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Anne Mette Hansen, Johnny Kondrup, and Alastair McKinnon (Copenhagen: Gad, 1997–2012) The 28 text volumes of SKS are referred to as SKS 1 through SKS 28. The 27 commentary volumes that accompany the text volumes are referred to as SKS K1 through SKS K28. (The reason there are 27 rather than 28 commentary volumes is that a single com mentary volume, SKS K2–3, accompanies the two text volumes SKS 2 and SKS 3, which together comprise the massive two-volume work Enten―Eller [Either/ Or].) SV1 Søren Kierkegaards Samlede Værker [Søren Kierke- gaard’s Collected Works], 1st ed., 14 vols., ed. A. B. Drachmann, J. L. Heiberg, and H. O. Lange (Copen- hagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, 1901–1906) SV2 Søren Kierkegaards Samlede Værker [Søren Kierke- gaard’s Collected Works], 2nd ed., 15 vols., ed. A. B. Drachmann, J. L. Heiberg, and H. O. Lange (Copen hagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, 1920–1936)

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c) The Bible. All biblical quotations are from the following English translations: Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) (Standard for references to the authorized Danish translation of the New Testament from 1819 and used for many other biblical references.) The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) (Often used for references to the authorized Danish translation of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha from 1740 and occasionally used for other biblical references.) Occasionally, in order to help the reader understand the text of a journal entry, the translators of KJN may make minor modifications to one of the above Bible translations. Books of the Bible are abbreviated in accordance with the abbreviations used in the NRSV:

Old Testament Gen Genesis Ex Exodus Lev Leviticus Num Numbers Deut Deuteronomy Josh Joshua Judg Judges Ruth Ruth 1 Samuel 1 Sam 2 Sam 2 Samuel 1 Kings 1 Kings 2 Kings 2 Kings 1 Chr 1 Chronicles 2 Chr 2 Chronicles Ezra Ezra Neh Nehemiah Esth Esther Job Job Ps Psalms Prov Proverbs

Eccl Ecclesiastes Song Song of Solomon Isa Isaiah Jer Jeremiah Lam Lamentations Ezek Ezekiel Dan Daniel Hos Hosea Joel Joel Am Amos Ob Obadiah Jon Jonah Mic Micah Nah Nahum Hab Habakkuk Zeph Zephaniah Hag Haggai Zech Zechariah Mal Malachi

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Apocryphal Books Tob Tobit Jdt Judith Add Esth Additions to Esther Wis Wisdom Sir Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) Bar Baruch 1 Esd 1 Esdras 2 Esd 2 Esdras Let Jer Letter of Jeremiah Song Prayer of Azariah

of Thr Sus Bel 1 Macc 2 Macc 3 Macc 4 Macc Pr Man

and the Song of the Three Jews Susanna Bel and the Dragon 1 Maccabees 2 Maccabees 3 Maccabees 4 Maccabees Prayer of Manasseh

New Testament Mt Matthew Mk Mark Lk Luke Jn John Acts Acts of the Apostles Rom Romans 1 Cor 1 Corinthians 2 Cor 2 Corinthians Gal Galatians Eph Ephesians Phil Philippians Col Colossians 1 Thes 1 Thessalonians 2 Thes 2 Thessalonians

1 Tim 1 Timothy 2 Tim 2 Timothy Titus Titus Philem Philemon Heb Hebrews Jas James 1 Pet 1 Peter 2 Peter 2 Pet 1 Jn 1 John 2 Jn 2 John 3 Jn 3 John Jude Jude Rev Revelation

11. Variants While KJN does not include the full text-critical apparatus of SKS, a number of textual variants, deemed by the editors of KJN to be of particular interest, are included in the explanatory notes for each journal or notebook. The notation used to indicate different types of variants is explained below. (A list of selected variants for KJN 1 is included in volume 2, immediately following the explanatory notes for Journal KK.)

I NTRODUCTION

TO THE

E NGLISH L ANGUAGE E DITION

first written: changes determined by the editors of SKS to have been made in the manuscript at the time of original writing, including: (a) replacement variants placed in the line, immediately following deleted text; (b) replacement variants written directly on top of the original text; and (c) deletions changed from: changes determined by the editors of SKS to have been made in the manuscript subsequent to the time of original writing, including: (a) deletions with replacement variants written in the margin or on top of the original text, and (b) deletions without replacement text added:

additions determined by the editors of SKS to have been made to the manuscript subsequent to the time of original writing

12. Symbols [ ]

enclose the KJN editors’ supplements to the SKS text; also enclose reference symbols, added by the editors of SKS, to marginal annotations or footnotes for which Kierkegaard did not leave a symbol, but whose placement is beyond doubt

[ ]

enclose reference symbols, added by the editors of SKS, to marginal annotations for which Kierkegaard did not clearly assign to a specific locus in a specific main entry

Acknowledgments I am happy to acknowledge the support for Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks that has been provided by the United States National Endowment for the Humanities, the Danish National Research Foundation, the Danish Ministry of Culture, and Connecticut College. Bruce H. Kirmmse, General Editor, for the Editorial Board of Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks.

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JOURNAL NB15

JOURNAL NB15 Translated by Bruce H. Kirmmse Edited by Vanessa Rumble

Text source Journal NB15 in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter Text established by Finn Gredal Jensen, Kim Ravn, and Steen Tullberg

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NB15. January 6th, 1850

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Concerning the Title: A Contribution to the Introduction of Christianity into Christendom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concerning the Article against P. L. Møller by Frater Taciturnus . . . . . . . . . . . Concerning a Remark by Anti-Climacus Somewhere in Practice in Christianity, no. 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On My “Heterogeneity” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On the Two Pages That Are to Be Printed on a Half Page Preceding “The Accounting” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concerning the Publication of a Couple of the Writings about Myself or My Work as an Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Two Slips of Paper That Are Together with “From On High He Will Draw All unto Himself” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Significance of My Work as an Author to Me as My Upbringing in Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Misfortune in These Times, Why I Am Not Understood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On the Publication of “The Accounting” and “Three Notes” Now . . . . . . . . .

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The Possibility of Offense and “the Single Individual” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Difference between “Crowd,” “Public”—[and] “Community” . . . . . . . . . . . . Dialectic Oriented toward Becoming a Xn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Faith—and the Proof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Christendom” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rom 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Theme for a Sermon:

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The Proclamation of the Word here based on that hymn verse in the old hymn (O great God, we praise thee)

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The prophets announced him, The apostles proclaimed him, And the host of martyrs praised you Solemnly in the hour of death. a

in our time it is certainly just as ridiculous to sing something of this sort, as it is for the watchman to cry at 8 p.m. on a winter evening that now darkness blinds the earth and the day diminishes.

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certainly also noting that the host of martyrs exists in the present tense and is something not yet concluded so that something new can come, while on the other handa

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This is the true preaching; this is what it means to witness; Sunday chatter does not mean much. Incidentally, the fact that this verse says [“]announced him[”] and [“]proclaimed him[”] is prob. accidental, but it is something that could be made use of: It is only with respect to the host of martyrs that Xt himself is present, so that it says: it [“]praised you[“].a

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Luther rightly says that there rlly ought not be preaching in churches;a it is an accommodation to the sort of worship that exists for the sake of our weakness―alas, and we are so far behind that scarcely very many go to church―and nonetheless this is Christendom.

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in complete conformity with worldliness. They are also worshipers of voting and the majority, etc. And inasmuch as the modern political movement per abusum contains elements of religiosity, they find it to be splendid, almost making common cause with worldliness―rather, under such circumstances, they ought to be exceedingly zealous to ensure [their] difference. But these orthodox Christians―if you will―are as far as possible from being dedicated to the Christian principle: that to serve the truth is to suffer. They are imperious and seek power fully as much as any other political party.

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As has happened in the course of history―in which there have been entire eras when by means of sheer imagination people have become lost in Christian objectivity and have entirely forgotten themselves, while they cleverly elaborated the doctrine, produced artistic depictions of Xt and the like―this is still the case with most of those who have at least some relationship to Xnty. They do not notice that the real difficulties only begin when all this objectivity is to be transposed existentially into the life of the single individual. For safety’s sake they continue to shout that the objective is what is highest, that the subjective is something imperfect. And yet, the whole of Xnty is subjectivity. Xnty is no doctrine, it is a doctrine existentially transposed into one single hum. being, into the God-Man. But when will we gain control over this confusion from which hum. beings are not eager to remove themselves, for they are not eager to turn to existential tasks, to genuine self-denial, to acting in Christian fashion, to having God and the Exemplar so close to their lives that it literally has solely and only to do with me, the single individual[?] And people have decked out these cowardly, worldly, effeminate evasions as the highest of 4 per abusum] Latin, improperly.

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things―being subjective is nothing, indeed, it is an error. What profound cunning of evil is indeed always present in worldliness! To be objective is supposedly to be modest, humble―at least it is what is easiest. 14 5

The Grundtvigians fought like this: they maintained that the others were not Christians, and therefore they wanted them removed from their official positions. The entire concept of a State Church and the secure official positions that correspond to it is based on the illusion that we are all Christians. So the orthodox probably even wanted to make a sort of profit from the circumstance that there were so few Christians. Everything the Church owned was of course supposed to become the property of the few truly Christian priests. What worldliness in the midst of the holiness! But Grundtvig ought to be kept out of this. Incidentally, I am not aware that the party has been willing to make any sort of sacrifice. Grundtvig’s error was that he did not immediately understand the matter sufficiently deeply: that Xndom was the concept he should attack. The way he put the matter gave it the appearance that if Clausen were removed from his position, everything would be fine, then we would all be Xns, and the State Church would be a society of Christians. Only when this tactic foundered did he decide to resign his position. From the point of view of the principle, it was fortunate that the matter turned out as it did, for otherwise an absurd situation might easily have arisen in which Clausen’s removal would guarantee that the whole business was Xndom. Before long, incidentally, the question of Xnty can turn into a question of money. The syllogism will be: of course, everything the Church owns belongs only to the true Xns; we are the halfscore of people who are true Xns; ergo we take possession of the estate. The best thing to do would be to retain an attorney to plead the case―and then give oratorical assurances that this is a return to the apostolic Church. To a certain extent, this tactic would even get popular support; the popular aspect of it, of course, is that it is as unchristian as possible and as worldly as possible.

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Strictly speaking, the manner in which Peter defended himself when they wanted to remove him from his position is not Christian but legalistic. His unspoken assertion, like that of all Grundtvigians, is that they are the only true Xns―ergo they have to protest against the entire concept of Xndom and the State Church. Then the State Church says: [“]You must either do it or resign your position.[”] He replies: [“]Neither the one nor the other―if you want to dismiss me, that is your business.[”] But in doing this he indirectly recognizes the concept of the State Church and Xndom: that we are all more or less Xns. That is, he clings just as firmly to the concept of the State Church as do any of its defenders who happen to disagree with it on a particular point.

I cannot, alas, get anyone to understand me. For to understand what I say―well, that is something than can certainly be managed. But then, when all is said and done and it is to be actualized, things get confused. They are not constrained at every second, as I am, by a higher power who with inflexible rigor compels one to obey what has been understood down to the least detail and in connection with the least of things. Imagine a horse who admired a horse called “The Dancer” and who also wanted to dance―but this horse had no riding master who would use a whip and spurs and a sharp bit at every instant to force it to dance: Do you think that such a horse would learn on its own to dance that way, which seems to the horse to be cruelty? And in comparison with the other horse, the situation for this horse (which incidentally, was perhaps just as well-formed and had all the prerequisites) would be just like the situation of another person in comparison to myself: he begins to move and makes a sort of hop―and then a lot of clumsiness, and then another hop. At one instant a start is made at wanting to act in an ethical-religious manner, and almost at the same instant, he flops down into the use of impatient, finite, shabby means.―What is missing is the riding master and the whip and the spurs and the sharp bit.

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The system begins with “nothing”; mysticism always ends with “nothing.” The latter is the divine nothing, just as Socrates’ ignorance was fear of God―his ignorance, with which, again, he did not begin but ended, or at which he continually arrived.

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The passage in the scriptures is spoken of so often: [“]All is revealed in the mystery,[”] and a certain speculation has maintained that it was not profane speculation, but within the mystery. In connection with Xnty I would stress another aspect of the concept of mystery: the ethical-religious. Xnty entered as a mystery; the greatest possible hum. guarantee was sought before anyone was admitted―how profane they have now made Xnty with the slipshod manner in which they simply make everyone straightway into a Xn, and allow everyone to be one! Xnty understood very well that with respect to serving the truth, what matters especially is the transformation of the individual, so that one becomes a suitable instrument of the truth. But no one gives a thought to such things in our objective and busy times. Hence this unfortunate―and, objectively quite correct―preaching of Xnty by hum. beings who rlly have no notion whatever of Xnty. And nothing, nothing has confused―indeed abolished―Xnty so much as has precisely this unchristian way in which it is preached. Certainly, Xnty has never been―indeed, it has abhorred being―a mystery in the sense of existing only for a few brilliant minds who have become its initiates. No: God has chosen the lowly and the despised―but still there was no lack of initiation. It is not an intellectual but an ethical initiation, personality’s enormous respect for inclusion in the Christian community, and this respect is not expressed in assurances and by making a fuss, but existentially, in action. Do not I, a poor wretched hum. being, experience something like this in my petty circumstances[?] Change me into some doctrinal formulas and then let every faker teach them, and let his life be a satire of what he says: Is this not meaningless[?] And in what way am I different from this? Is it not the fact that―even though I am only striving―I have transformed my individuality to serve these ideas of mine existentially[?] That is, I have had an initiation. Therefore, what little there is within me has been

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a power―when it is taught as a doctrine it is only a little more nonsense in addition to all the other nonsense. Therefore I never forget that with respect to Xnty, a shoemaker, a tailor, a workman is just as much a possibility as the most learned person and the most brilliant intellect. Indeed, generally, the Church must always expect its salvation from a layman, precisely because he is closer to the ethical initiation.

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Prayer Father in Heaven! O, you who concern yourself with the sparrow―and not in such a way that you cruelly require that the sparrow be like yourself: No, you who lovingly concern yourself with the sparrow so that with fatherly concern you put yourself in its place―you indeed also concern yourself with a human being. And even though you require that he strive to be like you, which you cannot require of the sparrow, you do not require it of him cruelly. No, with fatherly concern you put yourself in his place, and you yourself are the one who provides the strength to strive.

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Prayer Lord Jesus Christ! Throughout your entire life you endured suffering in order to save me also: Alas, and the time of your suffering is not yet past; for will you not also, saving and redeeming, endure this suffering―this patient suffering of concerning yourself with me―I who so often wander from the right path or who, even if I remain on the right path, stumble on it, or rather move forward so slowly, creeping. Infinite patience, the suffering of infinite patience! How many times have I not become impatient, wanting to forsake everything, give everything up, take the frightfully easy shortcut, the shortcut of despair: but you did not lose patience. Alas, what your chosen servant says―that he completed your sufferings―does not apply to me. No, what applies to me is only that I have increased your sufferings, added new sufferings to those you once suffered in order to save me also.

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We hum. beings bear what is holy merely in a fragile vessel of clay. But you, O Holy Spirit, when you dwell in a hum. being, you dwell in something that is infinitely inferior: You, Spirit of Holiness, dwell with uncleanness and infection; you, Spirit of Wisdom, with foolishness; you, Spirit of Truth, with self-deception! Oh, continue to dwell [here]; and you, who do not conveniently search for the desirable dwelling that you would surely seek in vain; you, who yourself, in creating and giving rebirth, make your own dwelling place―o, continue to dwell [here], that one day you might be pleased with the dwelling place you yourself have prepared for yourself in my infected and foolish and deceitful heart.

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is correct with respect to categories; nothing is said of Denmark, or Germany, or Sweden, etc., nor of whether it is something present or past; no, it is the purely dialectical definition of the concepts: the relation between the two concepts: Xnty―and Xndom, with the qualification of introducing Xnty. It is spiritual fencing.

Lk 24:28 “… and it seemed as if he wanted to go further. And they constrained him and said, Stay with us, for it is almost evening and the day is almost over. And he went in to stay with them.” This is a metaphorical characterization of Xt’s relationship to the believer qua Exemplar. With one

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single step, the Exemplar is so far ahead that the believer is annihilated. But of course the believer must still strive. Therefore the Exemplar must patiently yield a little; then despite the infinite imperfection, there is still a slight bit of progress. But then it often happens that for a moment it looks as if the Exemplar wanted to “go further,” and further in such a way that the imitator is lost―then he prays for himself: Stay with me. This is the lingering, that, for a hum. being, is a need, even though for the Exemplar it is the suffering of patience.

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To become sober! From a Christian point of view, this idea is so gigantic in its simplicity that a person could almost become completely confused by it. How many people have in fact existed who―if they themselves were equipped with extraordinary abilities―have understood existentially, in their own lives, that the least bit of actual self-denial, even it were something of the greatest insignificance to daily life, is worth more than the greatest world-historical accomplishment even if, in an external sense, this [latter] reshapes an entire country or a world! How many people have in fact existed who existentially, in their own lives―if they themselves were millionaires―have understood that the widow gave more than they did when they gave 900,000 rd.! Fundamentally, it is alarming for a hum. being to consider the infinite unchangingness of spirit with which God makes this distinction―God, for whom the ethical and the ethical-religious are the only currency. One difficulty has always occurred to me in connection with the simple person. I imagine a young pers., a university student, for example; he becomes ill, cannot accomplish anything―his spirit is suffering. Then, if I were to offer consolation―and how gladly would I not do so!―then I would say: Consider that in God’s eyes your life is nonetheless absolutely as important and significant as that of someone who astonishes the world and transforms

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it with his ideas. But look, are not a powerful brain and significant intellectual strengths required in order truly to find rest in this exaltation? So of course we are back at the same point. But I cannot let go of the idea that every hum. being, absolutely every hum. being, however simple he is, or however much he suffers, is nonetheless capable of grasping what is highest, namely, the religious. If this is not so, then Xnty is rlly nonsense. For me, it is frightful to see the recklessness with which philosophers and the like apply categories of differentiation, such as genius, talent, etc. to the religious. They have no notion that the religious is thereby abolished. I have had only one consolation, this blessed one, that I know something that can provide consolation, blessed consolation, to every hum. being, absolutely every hum. being. Take away this consolation and I do not care to live―then I have spleen. Think of what is highest, think of Xt―imagine that he had come to world in order to save some brilliant intellects, for others could not understand him. Disgusting, revolting! He would have been disgusted not by any hum. suffering, nor by anyone’s limitations―but by the company of brilliant intellects: Yes, that would have disgusted him. There has been a sympathy in my soul for the hum. being, pure and simple, especially for the suffering, the unhappy, those of limited abilities, and the like. I have learned to thank God for this sympathy as a gift of grace. God knows, I have become a victim because of this very sympathy of mine, for without it I would never have involved myself so much with the common man and would never have exposed myself to the vulgarity of the mob, which I did in sympathy for the many, many who suffered innocently in the vilest fashion.―Nonetheless, it is my continuing prayer that God will preserve in me this sympathy and increase it more and more. Here one immediately sees an example of what nonsense it is [to say] that to expose oneself to danger voluntarily is to tempt God and that one ought not ask God that one be tried in life. Am I also not permitted to pray to God that he will grant that in the truly Christian sense, in the truly Christian sense, I might love hum. beings, love my neighbor[?] I would certainly think so. But then it is eternally certain that if I am merely somewhat successful in loving my neighbor in the truly Christian sense, suffering is unavoidable (this is Xnty’s own teaching, and I have had occasion to be assured, with eternal certitude, of its truth); but in that case my prayer will of course entail that I am put in danger.

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The frightful thing one discovers when one stands outside of Xnty (the crucifixion of the understanding and the consequent suffering, the unavoidable consequences in relation to the surrounding world)―this frightful thing, which could have an effect so powerful that one abandoned the hope and the resolution to become a Xn― this frightful thing is something else, however, when viewed from within. In the first place, for a person in love, suffering is different from suffering for the person who stands on the outside and sees the same suffering; but a believer is more than a person in love. In addition, it becomes quite obvious to the believer that all these sufferings in relation to the world are in no way the fault of Xnty, as if it were too strict or cruel―no, they are the fault of the world because it is evil. But this is an enormous difference. If a girl were to suffer much with a man because he was severe―well, she would likely put up with it if he were the beloved. But if it is infinitely clear to her that He is Love itself, that the sufferings are not his fault, but the fault of others, of evil ppl. who hate him precisely because He is Love: then the situation is different. This is correct. What is wrong is that people have made Xnty so mild that suffering has been completely eliminated. No: Xnty is not the teaching that there is no suffering; it is the teaching that there is enormous suffering, but that this enormous suffering is nonetheless light―not so light as to mean that there is no suffering, no, light despite the fact that it is equally true that the suffering is enormous―thus enormous suffering―yet light.

Hugo of St. Victore’s commentary on the passage [“]Many are called, but few are chosen[”] is excellent. (See Helfferich, Mystik, part 2, p. 319.) The story of Ahasuerus, who disowns Queen Vashti because of her pride. Then he gives orders that young, beautiful girls are to be brought together from the whole of his kingdom. They are to be brought to the person in charge of his female personnel. Then they are to be decked out in splendid garments; next they are to be anointed with balm and myrrh for 6 months, then with other spices for 6 months. Then they are to be brought before the king

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so that he could choose one. “Thus were many selected in order that one might be chosen. … The king’s servants select many in order to adorn them; the king chooses only one for his chambers. In accordance with the king’s command, the first choice fell upon many; the second choice fell only upon one, in accordance with the king’s will.” The story is found in the book of Esther, chap. II.

True religiousness cannot form any party or coterie, for it is an association of people who do not desire anything, either individually or together; rather, each is willing to sacrifice and then they unite simply for that purpose, so that each animates the other to sacrifice more and more. As soon as someone wants to have something he is eo ipso out of the association.

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What a sorry sight this is for me! I saw R. Nielsen’s ideal possibility―but I do not dare to tell him directly, nor would that do any good, for then it would of course become something quite different and not ideality in the strictest sense. He did not see it. I see Stilling’s possibilities; it is the same thing here. And so it is with many. I look forward with longing toward the moment when an existential ideality will appear in our relationship. Ah, and if it were something reserved only for those with superior gifts―but this sort of thing is a possibility for everyone: and that it should nevertheless be such a rarity!

Hugo of St. Victore. The little essay by him is also excellent: [“]The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit[”] (see Helfferich, vol. 2, pp. 332ff.) The man has real value. His individual sentences are so pithy that they are almost themes. For example, “If you pray for your spirit, then you are praying for the Spirit (namely the Holy Spirit).[”] The sketch of how the Holy Spirit as a medicine saves from sickness is excellent. “Do not be afraid to use the medicine 14 eo ipso] Latin, by that very fact.

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against the sickness. The sickness does not taint the medicine, but the medicine breaks the sickness.” If you are using the medicine, the suffering rlly stems from your not wanting to use the medicine properly and fully. “Two opposites are fighting against one another: the medicine and the sickness. The medicine for you, the sickness against you. Without resistance to the sickness, no healing; if there is no resistance to the medicine, there is no distress. The battle of the opposites is the distress under which you are suffering”―but why, then, do you also want to resist the medicine[?] “But nevertheless, accuse not the medicine but the sickness. The medicine will help, the sickness will harm. Therefore, by itself the sickness may well have peace, but not well-being; only the medicine has well-being and no distress. But when the two come together, the battle of the opposites is the distress from which the one wishes to emerge in order to help and which the other refuses to leave in order to do harm. But in this difficulty, the sickness, not the medicine is to blame.” [“]With the arrival of the Spirit you are enlightened and quickened, you who were blind and dead; quickened, so that you might perceive. One thing you see, another thing you see ahead; one thing you perceive, another thing you perceive ahead. You see the evil and you see it ahead; you see what is present at hand, what is to come you see ahead. You perceive the guilt, and you perceive the chastisement ahead. Before the arrival of the Spirit, like a blind person, you did not see, and like someone dead, you did not perceive. You did not see, because you did not look back; and you did not perceive, because you did not pay attention.―This is the source of the chastisement that heals: when, having been made empfindlich of the evil you suffer, you perceive the pain in order to amend it. If you felt no pain, you would not amend it; if you felt no fear, you would not pay attention. Therefore you are, one might say, enlightened about the guilt, so that you might see it; next, about the chastisement, so that you might fear it; so that finally, having been made empfindlich by the guilt, you might feel the pain and better yourself. If a person did not see the chastisement, which one fears, no one would feel the pain about the guilt that gives a person pleasure. Therefore, through the chastisement that follows upon guilt you are shown that the guilt in which you actually take pleasure will come to pinch and displease, so that you finally notice that even that which appears pleasant about it is evil, because the bitterness one tastes on account of it or in consequence of it is such a great evil. In this way you become enlightened and concerned, because you see what terrifies, what 28 empfindlich] German, sensitive.

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possesses, what gives pain.” “Every chastisement is indeed an evil, but not every chastisement is evil, for what helps and assists unto something else is a good. Through the chastisement we are freed from the chastisement, namely eternal [chastisement].” 5

Hugo of St. Victore has a correct thesis (Helfferich, Mystik, vol. 1, p. 368). “With respect to the things that surpass reason, faith is in fact not really supported by any reason, because reason does not comprehend what faith believes; but nevertheless here there is also a something through which reason becomes determined or is determined as honoring the faith that it nonetheless is incapable of grasping fully.” This is what I have explained (e.g., in Concluding Postscript): that not every absurdity is the absurd or the paradox. The activity of reason is precisely to know the paradox negatively―but no more than that. In an older journal or on a loose sheet of paper from an earlier period (when I was reading Aristotle’s Rhetoric) I have put forth the view that a Christian rhetoric ought to be introduced in place of dogmatics. It would relate to πιστις; in classical Greek πιστις is a conviction that relates to what is probable (more than δοξη, opinion). But Xnty, which always turns the concepts of natural man upside down, producing the opposite, lets πιστις relate to the improbable. Thus this concept, the improbable, the absurd, ought to be developed, for it is sheer superficiality to hold that the absurd is not a concept, that every sort of absurda is equally at home in the absurd. No, the concept of the absurd is precisely to grasp that it cannot and must not be grasped. This is a negative conceptual definition but is just as dialectical as any positive one. The absurd, the paradox, is constructed such that reason, on its own terms, is in no way capable of dissolving it into nonsense and showing that it is nonsense. No, it is a sign, a riddle, a compound riddle, of which reason must say: [“]I cannot solve it, it is not to be comprehended, but it does not at all follow from this that it is nonsense.[”] Yet it is obvious that if one utterly abolishes “faith” and lets the entire sphere disappear, then reason becomes conceited and perhaps concludes that ergo the paradox is nonsense. But how concerned people would be if, in another situation, the class of those who were knowledgeable had died out and those who 21 πιστις] Greek, belief, trust, confidence, faith, proof, evidence, production of evidence in court, persuasion. 22 δοξη] Greek, opinion, assumption. 28 absurda] Latin, absurdity.

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were not knowledgeable had then decided that one or another thing was nonsense―but faith is what is knowledgeable with respect to the paradox. It believes the paradox, and so―to recall those words of Hugo of St. Victore―reason can certainly be defined as honoring faith, namely insofar as reason immerses itself in the negative conceptual determinants of the paradox. In any case, it is a fundamental error to hold that there are no negative concepts. The highest principles of all thinking or the proofs of those principles are of course negative. Hum. reason has boundaries; that is where negative concepts lie. Boundary skirmishes are negative, constraining. But people have a twaddling and conceited concept of human reason, especially in our times, when one never thinks of a thinker, a reasonable hum. being, but of pure reason and the like, which do not exist at all, inasmuch as there is no one, be he a professor or whatever, who is pure reason. Pure reason is a fantasy, and this is also the seat of the fantastic boundlessness in which there are no negative concepts, but where everything is grasped, like the witch who ended by eating her own stomach.

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But fundamentally all understanding depends on one’s internal attitude. If at one point a person truly has faith and confidence― regardless of whether the most unfortunate thing befalls him― well, if he truly has faith and confidence, even if it was the most disastrous of things―he is immediately capable of explaining it in various ways as a happy event: that God has let something befall a person right now, because right now he has the strength to bear it; that he ought to make use of the opportunity to get to know himself in overcoming it, etc.―If a person is despondent, depressed, melancholic, merely the most insignificant thing is enough for a person to glimpse the rule of bad luck, of fatality, in what is happening. From this one sees that a person’s entire view of life is rlly a confession of how things are within him.

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An obvious factor in Xt’s death was his rejection of nationality, his wanting to have nothing to do with it. Now the orthodox are the true nationalists; they produce theories about Christian states and Christian peoples. If any people qua people could claim that they had an avenue to relate themselves as such to Xnty, it would surely be God’s chosen people―and they perished and have remained as an eternal reminder that Xnty is not related to nationality. But how convenient: precisely when nationality is on the agenda, it is difficult to bring up religion―and then the orthodox become recognizable precisely by their being genuinely nationalist fanatics. Grundtvig, who has always been a hater of discipline and rigor, has also formulated a theory of how the true Xn partakes of everything―he has surely forgotten the parable about those who run the race and exercise self-control in all things. It is unbelievable for what nonsense they have exploited the story of the wedding at Cana. To be consistent, the Grundtvigians must also be offended that Xt was not married, or, indeed, that he did not marry several times. This “partaking of everything” is fundamentally conceitedness: they will not admit what others admit, that it is beyond the powers of a hum. being to be everything equally.

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Always the same. A few years ago, the priests were busy “getting their robes turned, so that they almost looked like professorial gowns”―this was scholarly. Now they are taking off and are to sit in the parliament―a priest, that is not something to be. And this is prettied up under the highfalutin title of working for the whole―that is, lying about in Cph. and amusing oneself, consuming one’s per diem allowances, participating in voting and the like.―And this is earnestness! If someone, on his own account, renounced the income from his call and worked night and day for an idea―that would be fanaticism.

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Concerning the Article by Frater Taciturnus against P. L. Møller. Probably almost no one has thought about what I myself understood very well at the time. Usually, a pseudonym is simply an author. But my pseudonym was a poetical person in character. Therefore the entire article was held in his character. This was a very unusual task for a polemic. And naturally I had to put up with the fact that not one single person noticed it.

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The gospel says: Seek first the kingdom of God. Experience teaches that when ppl. have sought their peace and joy in every other place, then last of all they finally seek God.

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It is of course quite clear that it is Xt as Exemplar that must now be brought forward dialectically, precisely because the dialectical (Xt as gift) that Luther brought forward has been taken utterly in vain, so that “the imitator” resembles the Exemplar in no way whatever but is absolutely heterogeneous and then simply slips in grace. With respect to contemporaneity with Christ as a criterion, something that also has been noted in other journals must indeed be borne in mind: that Xt’s death is indeed the atonement, and in one sense it is from this event that grace can be dated. As long as Xt was alive, grace was not present in this sense―his own life was of course a trial for him, he himself was tested.―In another sense, his entire life was grace, as scripture says that grace and truth were made manifest in Xt.

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Since Visby lost the election, the people of Xnshavn seem to be entirely unwilling to listen to him. But for it [Visby’s church] to be as empty as it was today is really too bad. Naturally, the fools do not understand things in a particularly Christian manner. If someone is a court preacher and has an enormous number of listeners, everyone runs there. From a Christian point of view, the likelihood is that a person will perhaps get some worldly art, but not Xnty. From a Christian point of view, if a man is persecuted, the likelihood is that a person will perhaps get a bit of Xnty. Today he preached (Xt age 12 in the temple) on the theme: “seek and you shall find” 1) what is one to seek 2) how should one seek 3) where should one seek. This sermon was cut a bit short; otherwise if could have been excellent. He himself also understood how to make illuminating use of the gospel reading for the day. He did it quite nicely, but it could have been done better. Mary sought something that was not her own, something that was entrusted to her―and by God―something she had had: in this way we should seek lost innocence, to come into God’s kingdom as children. She sought it tirelessly. She sought it in the temple.

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At the beginning of his sermon for the 3rd Sunday after Easter, Luther correctly points out that it is Jewish to cling to this life in order that things might go well for a person and he might live long in the land; it is Christian to view oneself as a pilgrim here in this world, despite the fact that, in view of the excesses of the Middle Ages, Luther finds it necessary to warn against hastening to a monastery and the like. The consequence of the Jewish view is an intensified nationalist zeal―and now (yes, as Xnty has been inverted in every respect), now it has become precisely true orthodoxy to be as nationalistically zealous as any politician. This is the parallel of what I have shown elsewhere: Xnty praises the unmarried state―nowadays the married state is life’s

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earnestness, the unmarried state is fanaticism. Xnty was preached by men who asked for no pay―nowadays the word in Xndom is that if a man has a son who is not fit for anything else, let him become a theological graduate: after all, it is the safest way to a living, the real bread-study.

Moses and Elijah were present at the transfiguration―that is how it is with respect to every ecstasy and the like: the Law and the Prophets are present so that it does not become fantastical. Something like this is said by Richard of St. Victore.

Concerning a Remark by Anti-Climacus Somewhere in Practice in Christianity, no. 3.

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Christ thus remained an indirect communication to the end; for (as Anti-Cl. correctly notes somewhere in Practice in Christianity, no. 2) the fact that he was incognito in the form of a servant makes all his direct communication nonetheless indirect. But then his life does have a phase that is otherwise denied: the resurrection, the ascension―this is rlly the first direct communication.

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It is very well put by Richard of St. Victore: Eve ought to have been satisfied to be Adam’s companion, ought not have taken it upon herself to lead.

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The Dialectical Element in My Polemical Position. Others, at the head of the crowd, attack the single individual; qua individual, I attack the crowd, and I have never found it defensible or worth the trouble to attack an individual. But to attack an individual in the name of the crowd, of the public, is cowardly worldliness. No battle has ever been as cowardly as that of the daily press. When, in long bygone times, the government was the mighty power, it required courage to attack it; but now everyone knows very well that the crowd holds power in the state, and yet people continue to play the game that it is courageous to attack the government or, even better, an individual member of the government. What a lie. Every time the press is attacked―thus when one says Grüne, Ploug, etc.―they become angry and explain that they are a principle and insist that they be designated by abstract names. By contrast, as soon as they attack, they always pick only one individual officeholder, and they then aim at him the enormously disproportionate firepower that is the daily press. What profound cowardice it would be for someone to call it a duel when one party turned up qua individual with a pistol, and the other sat behind a battery or behind a regiment. It can easily be seen that my polemic is in the service of the truth, for it is eo ipso suffering. Therefore it is not understood― that is, most people actually do not understand it, and some few do not want to understand it.

This, too, is a form of taking what is holy in vain, e.g., when, after having tried to get power and advantage by every possible means, politicians are defeated, they deck it out as martyrdom. From this one can see that it is never the end, but the beginning, that is decisive for what a thing is. The voluntary element is decisive for what rlly constitutes martyrdom in the strictest sense: after having had the opponent in one’s power, then to have surrendered that power in order freely to choose humiliation. Thus understood, I may perhaps even have done damage with my efforts to glorify martyrdom and regain for it a bit of

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its respect; for now worldly shrewdness gets one thing more: a person sallies forth to conquer in worldly fashion―but he says to himself, If it fails, we will deck it out as martyrdom.

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The condition for a hum. being’s salvation is the faith that everywhere and at every moment there is an absolute beginning. If the person who has served himself egotistically in the service of illusions is to begin a purer striving, what matters is that he believe absolutely in the new beginning, for otherwise he will muddle the transition into the old ways.―This is also how it is with conversion in the stricter sense: faith in the possibility of a new, absolute beginning; otherwise things essentially remain the way they were. This is the infinitely intensive element in faith’s anticipation, which has the cheerful courage to dare to believe in it―to transform the old situation into something absolutely forgotten―and then to believe absolutely in the beginning. In other respects, however, the criterion of the truth of this faith will be the cheerful courage that, in the opposite direction, has the courage to grasp truly profoundly one’s previous wretchedness. Thus the one corresponds to the other: if a person does not truly profoundly feel this and have the courage for it, neither will he truly have a new beginning, because the reason he does not feel it so profoundly is simply that he covertly harbors the notion that if he truly looked at it, it would be so awful that there would be no new beginning for him. Therefore he makes it a bit milder and does not look at it too carefully, intending thereby to come more certainly to a new beginning―and for this very reason he does not come to it. A beginning always has a double impetus: in the direction of what has gone before and in the direction of the new. The new begins to the same degree that it pushes against the direction of the old.

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Could be used for a discourse.

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The last two lines of each stanza in no. 45 in Brorson’s Svanesang, for a discourse on “faith” or on “patience.”

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I have rearranged the stanzas; Brorson’s verse 3 is used as no. 2, and verse 2 as no. 3.

1) the greater the need, the more fixedly it looks toward the end. Thus it is not disturbed by the fact that the road is narrow and steep 3) Nor is it disturbed by the condition of the road, whether it “is roses or swamps” everything is the the same when our bent is toward heaven. 2) Nor by the length of the road The closer to its home The more briskly it advances.

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It is very well put by Richard of St. Victore. He points out that one must not be busy like Martha, but “idle” like Mary. Then he adds that there are nonetheless many whom this does not help either, for they certainly are free of the busyness of work, are not employed, “but all the same do not understand how to make a Sabbath of the Sabbath.”

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On My “Heterogeneity” Surely I have had a heterogeneity with respect to what is ordinary and general; this was essentially rooted in a primal suffering and subsequently was intensified even more through dialectical suffering that made me even more heterogeneous in my silence. But for one thing, I have never understood my heterogeneity as my perfection, but rather as my imperfection; for another, I have never understood myself absolutely with respect to it [heterogeneity], but only relatively. As a consequence, I can use direct communication to indicate to my contemporaries the indirect communication that is used. Understood in this way, every human being of at least some depth possesses a certain degree of heterogeneity. Because, for example, as long as he goes about pondering something, making only indirect remarks, he is heterogeneous. In my case this has taken place on a larger scale, inasmuch as I have the entire printed communication. Though I also understand the whole of my work as an author as my upbringing. Absolute heterogeneity remains indirect communication to the very end because it absolutely refuses to be in the context of the universal. But this heterogeneity is also superhuman―demonic or divine. All heterogeneity lies within the point of departure of particularity, but it then seeks to return to the universal. In this way a forward push is achieved. Absolute heterogeneity remains to the end in the heterogeneity of the point of departure. The effect is then qualitatively greater. Consequently, this is the category I employ: I have to make aware. I have never assumed the character of heterogeneity simply because I have understood it as my imperfection (therefore, no “authority,” either) and because the published writings constitute my own development. But making aware is a category that is still in the context of the universal. Absolute heterogeneity has nothing to do with making aware; it is in character and denies the context. The difference is easily discerned. The fact that I communicate the latter poetically and pseudonymously is a concession. If an individual communicated it in his own name and claimed that his life expressed it, the situation would be different.

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Absolute heterogeneity must begin approximately at the point where I now break off, that is, with the developed consciousness that I have attained through what has been traversed. But precisely because I have attained it through what has been traversed, I have also understood that I cannot assume its character, but have a poetic relation to it. Had I not understood this, and had I not been helped to understand it, I would presumably have taken a wrong turn in the direction of becoming a fanatic. Now, someone could say, [“]Yes, but the very fact that there are pseudonyms is itself indirect communication.” The reply to this must be: [“]You have not really taken a careful look; the Editor’s Preface always employs the category [‘]I am striving[’]; and I acknowledge that this is the more ideal Christian requirement. The maximum indirectness would be to produce a communication of this sort and allow the question of whether it was an attack on Christianity or a defense of it to remain utterly, absolutely ambiguous. Absolute heterogeneity would be to make it into an entirely direct communication, but then to oneself step into its character. Were this to happen, the established order would be absolutely exploded by this heterogeneous individual.[”] By contrast, the category of making aware, explained in more detail in my prefaces and safeguarded by my existence, is intended to do precisely the opposite, to allow the established order to exist right down to the least detail―and merely attempt to breathe inwardness into it, leaving it to each person to decide individually the extent to which he will make use of it. Anything more is absolutely impossible for me, for in that case I would have to have authority, which I have denied having from the very beginning―and why? Because I dare not appeal to God in such a way that I might dare say that he has chosen me for something special. What I can say again and again, and―compared to the need within me―never sufficiently, is merely how I have felt myself helped by him in connection with what I myself, to the best of my modest abilities, had begun. I did not begin with that infinite certainty that is inherent in having been chosen by God and that grants authority. On the contrary, I began by being the unhappy person, the suffering person―and thus I began. Then, bit by bit, it became larger, and I myself am the one who looks with greatest surprise upon what has been granted me. But it is impossible that this situation could confer authority. Indirect communication, therefore, is what has been appropriate for

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me. The only difference is that because the literary productivity is also my upbringing and development, it ends with a pseudonymity that poses the Christian requirement ideally and in relation to which I define myself as a someone who strives. Had I been merely a poet, I would surely have gotten into the nonsense of simply poetizing Christianity without noting that this cannot be done, that one must include oneself and either express the ideal existentially oneself (which cannot in fact be done) or define oneself as a someone who strives. Had I not been a poet, I would surely have gone and confused myself with the ideal and become a fanatic. What, then―in addition to the main thing, that I have been helped by Governance―has helped me? The fact that I am a dialectician.

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Concerning the Two Pages That Are to Be Printed on a Half Page Preceding “The Accounting” To many people, it will probably seem altogether too submissive. They do not consider (and they probably have no notion of) what it means to speak “before God.” But indeed, this was also included in [“]The Accounting[”], where I noted my relationship with God and where I understand the whole as my upbringing. Therefore it was printed on a half page in a different typeface in order to indicate that this is a matter before God.

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Look, this is a situation in “Christendom.” It is told of Bernard of Clairvaux that parents restrained their children, wives their husbands―lest Bernard convince them to become Xns in such a way that they actually abandoned everything. And this is how it always is with the essentially Xn person: he is like the πεισιϑανατος of antiquity, so much does he call a person away from the pleasures and the life and the joy of the sensual person―and yet we are all Xns in Xndom. And now in our times, when there lives not even so much as one πεισιϑανατος.

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31 πεισιϑανατος] Greek, a person who convinces others to die. (See also explanatory note.)

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Concerning the Publication of a Couple of Writings about Myself. I again brought up the matter I had considered: The Accounting, the Three Notes, and the first part of The Point of View. I made a couple of modifications. All my old doubts arose again, however, essentially concentrating on this point: It is inconsistent and impatient for me to include myself like this during my lifetime―and especially right now, when I want to stop―and, in so doing, risk taking on new impetus, even though in an earlier version from 1849 I had done everything to put forward the two postulates: that for me the entire work as an author has been my upbringing, and that its purpose is to make aware.

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This, too, seems to me an inexplicable form of spiritlessness― how, at a certain day and hour, a hum. being can have a particular impression of the religious: can be Christmas-merry at Christmastime and not at all think of Good Friday; can be profoundly sorrowful on Good Friday and then have no other impression whatever. This is the best proof that the religious is something entirely external to a person.

In defending the reality of art, also in relation to the spirit of religion, it is argued that spirit saturates a hum. being such that it can be seen what sort of man he is; e.g., when Luther said, [“]God help me, Amen,[”] he said this in order that people looking at him could look into his character and see what manner of man he was. To a certain extent, this must in fact be granted, though one must remember not to insist upon it too much, for if this transformed a pers. in that way, then of course his enemies might also immediately see the same thing. And next it must be borne in mind that this does not hold in relation to the object of “faith”―because precisely in order to test faith, and in order that faith can be faith, immediate straightforwardness is denied. That is, there may certainly have been a human transfiguration (even though it should always be remembered that the enemies did not see it―for to take a lesser example, those who stoned Stephen did not in fact see his face as the face of an angel), but indeed there is no straightforward immediacy that is knowable as being God. And thus the object of faith does not admit of artistic representation. And even in the relations betw. one hum. being and another, to the extent that a hum. being in relation to something else may be the object of a sort of faith, to that extent he cannot be painted or depicted in that relationship, for the fact that it must be faith means precisely there is no straightforward immediacy, for otherwise everyone would of course have to see the same thing, also his enemies, who draw the exact opposite conclusion. But in the midst of Xndom people are scarcely even aware of the Socratic notion: that the teacher of morals (the pure one, the noble one) was the ugliest man, with an apparent tendency toward everything evil―and this is in Xndom, which of course

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relates itself to the God-Man, the object of “faith.” And yet people believe that every inwardness can be painted, i.e., is straightforwardly recognizable. What, then, is “faith”? Well, it is obvious: nowadays “faith” is of course this and that, opinion, and the like―and art is a higher sphere; and in addition, we are all Xns.

Not only do people not understand my ideas, but what is far more grievous to me, they do not understand, they have no notion of the degree of conviction with which I hold my idea. That a pers. can fall into doubt about whether he is permitted to communicate directly, about whether God has something against it because He requires greater endurance from him in order that he might prevail: Yes, who thinks of such things[?] If one merely has a half-digested scrap of a half-idea, one immediately blesses everyone with it in straightforward fashion, one profits from it oneself, etc.―but to be capable of teaching it, and then to suffer by enduring with such rigor! Now, incidentally, it looks as if I have retreated a bit―alas and alack, what an accommodation I have had to make. Now I am seen less often, associate mostly with refined people: my reputation is rising. Alas, mundus vult decipi and only Xnty knows what truth is.

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It never occurs to a pastor on a Sunday to read aloud a sermon by Luther, for example, instead of preaching himself! But there is this nonsense about the living word; and there is also anxiety about being regarded as a parish clerk!

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son had to regard sorrowfully and with the thought “he is lost” everyone who adhered, e.g., to the ungodly “emperor,” the “ungodly pope,” the “ungodly bureaucracy,” and groveled before them―or as pious parents regarded their child going to court, so must one grieve deeply over everyone who participates in voting. However capable he might be in other respects―indeed, even if he were supremely gifted, it only makes matters all the worse―he is formally strengthening the evil: voting. And, spiritually understood, this idolatry cultivates voting rather like that disgusting worship of the lingam, for voting is of course the productive force in connection with the deification of the numerical. Alas, but how long, how long, will it be before individuals appear in opposition to it[?]

“Anxiety” is indeed rlly nothing other than impatience.

Stilling is situated at a critical turning point. What rlly occupies him is pride in realizing the ideal in relation to his late wife, in being true to her, not marrying. Alas, and even this pride has not made him quiet or truly determined: he experiments with decking himself out in this ideal, he anticipates. He has religious possibilities, but things may also go in a different direction. He could marry again― and then become a despairing assailant of the “inhuman rigor” of religion. And if that happens, whose fault is it but his own[?] He did not approach religion in a religious way―therefore it merely became inhuman rigor. But he remains a possibility. And if only he knows his limits―namely, that as an author he has the task of expressing passionately that he needs religion, and that the scientific-scholarly religion that is on offer cannot hold him―he cannot inflict injury on the terrain of religion.

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Stilling.

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It is indeed rather analogous to the prophetic (and this is something every more or less intelligent nature has experienced) for a person to say something that he himself understands in his own way―and eventually he understands that something much more profound lay within it. This contains an analogue to the prophetic: that the prophet spoke of something that perhaps was present or of something shrouded from him, in a more obscure future―and only when Xt appears does it become clear that it was he of whom they spoke. Thus the fulfillment is not merely a part of making the prophecy a prophecy, but actlly the prophecy is only completed in the fulfillment―even though it predicted it in advance.

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What people genrlly call Xndom (these thousands and millions) has in fact made Xnty into sheer nonsense. But actlly, the orthodoxy of established Xndom has also transformed Xnty into paganism. Xt is the paradox. Everything Xn is marked accordingly―or through the synthesis is such that it is marked―by the dialectical possibility of offense. This is now being removed by orthodoxy (especially the moving and emotional Grundtvigianism, for there is nonetheless strength in Grundtvig), which has everywhere put in its place the miraculous-delightful, the delightful, the match-

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lessly delightful and profound, etc., in short, straightforward categories. Thus Xt gains straightforward recognizability, but with straightforward recognizability Xt is not “the sign”; with straightforward recognizability Xnty is paganism. Then they spout a bit of nonsense about the sign and the offense en passant, albeit very infrequently―it does not help, for the possibility of offense is what is dialectically decisive, is “the boundary” between paganism, Judaism―Xnty. It is clear to me that this fundamental confusion is linked to the fact that people are educated in Xnty from childhood. In this way a straightforward impetus is imparted to everything; the repulsion of opposition is not imparted. Furthermore, through the possibility of offense one sees that, as the dialectical, Xnty is only concerneda with individuals, because the possibility of offense cuts off and isolates everyone as the transition to becoming a Xn.

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The Difference between “Crowd,” “Public”―and “Community.” In “the public” and the like, the single individual is nothing; there is no individual; the numerical is what is constitutive and is the law for coming into being, a generatio æqvivoca; apart from “the public” the single individual is nothing, and in a deeper sense, he is also nothing within the public. In the community, the single individual is; the single individual is dialectically decisive as the Prius for forming a community, and in the community the single individual is qualitatively something essential and at any moment can also become higher than “the community,” namely, as soon as “the others” fall away from the idea. What binds the community together is that each is an individual, and then the idea. What binds the public together, or itsa looseness, is that the numerical is everything. Every individual guarantees the community; the public is a chimera. In the community, the single individual is the microcosm who qualitatively repeats the macrocosm; here unum noris omnes holds true in a good sense. In the public there is no single individual; the whole is nothing; here it is impossible to say unum noris omnes, for here there is no One. “The community” is certainly more than a sum, but it is nonetheless a sum of ones. The public is nonsense: a sum 24 generatio æqvivoca] Latin, spontaneous generation. 28 Prius] Latin, precondition, presupposition. 37 unum noris omnes] Latin, if one knows one, one knows them all. (See also explanatory note.)

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of negative ones, of ones who are not ones, who become ones by means of the sum instead of the sum having to become the sum by means of the ones.

People understand everything politically (without “people” for that reason understanding much about politics), with the consequence that the religious person is hated as a proud person, an aristocrat and the like. The religious person expresses that there is a God; the life of the religious person expresses, first of all, [“]Please make room[”]―it is an expression of respect. Naturally, it is not exactly an expression of respect for “the public” and concepts of that sort―just the opposite. But it is nonetheless an expression of respect―namely, for God. But people do not have time to see what comes next, that the religious person is as far removed as possible from being a proud person, an aristocrat and the like―that in true humility and worship he bows 70 times deeper than any politician. But as noted, people do not see what comes next, do not understand it; and so people shout at the religious person: A proud man, an aristocrat!

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That Victor Hugo! Pampered, of course, for many years as one practiced in the sort of debauchery engaged in by novelists who pander poetically to emotions that are the opposite of those expressed in their own lives, he has now supposedly delivered a “brilliant address” attacking the clerical party. One can imagine him taking pleasure in advance, as he thought of the situation: to play “witness to the truth” like this, and to be esteemed and honored and admired. All praise to the clerical party―its cause is in the minority, and the natural sciences are celebrated. And now he dishes it out. Who denies that the natural sciences have also had their martyrs, but Victor Hugo appears to have completely forgotten that the names of these [martyrs] are all but absent from recent times when, on the contrary, it is precisely these sciences that are triumphant. And what tyrant, what idol is it that he serves with this speech of his? It is “the crowd,” “voting,” and the like. And has it

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perhaps claimed no victims? It claimed Xt and Socrates and “the host of martyrs.” And so, what are the examples of Christian religiousness? What a fool to want to speak of things of which he has absolutely no understanding. The examples he cites are of ordinary great and good deeds, in no way specifically religious, let along specifically Christian-religious deeds. Paganism has all sorts of examples of this sort. Great and noble deeds such as these are honored in the world―but Xt and his followers were surely just as practiced in magnanimity and the like, but they were persecuted and put to death for it. If it were up to me, V. Hugo would be jailed for half a year to take instruction in Xnty! But as noted, what a find for “the poet”! One can imagine that the other poets have become envious of him, for they have not become members of the Assembly. One thinks of Eugene Süe, who has written his way into being a millionaire―by depicting the poverty and wretchedness of actual life. Yes, thank you very much―he was able to give 50 rd. to the poor in exchange for his having been the fortunate one to whom this enviable opportunity was offered: that of playing the hero, the witness to the truth, with applause and laurels!

Two Slips of Paper That Were Together with “From On High He Will Draw All unto Himself.” This work cannot be made pseudonymous because it rails against the sermon having been turned into observations, i.e., into something impersonal―and of course a pseudonym is also something impersonal.

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NB This objection is responded to on an accompanying piece of paper, and the book was made pseudonymous Oct. 9, 49. That piece of paper has the following contents: In a way there is a dialectical heresy at one point in this book, namely, at the point where it is shown that the sermon has become impersonal, this is done by someone who is no one. The inconsistency is that this is done by a pseudonym, who himself is of course no one. But here is my boundary: I can make aware― nothing more. And on the other hand, I am still included as

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Entry NB15:63, which begins on the middle of the page, is a copy from two older slips of paper. Kierkegaard has added the words: “That piece of paper has the following contents:”

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editor and will of course bear the responsibility, and everything will be understood as though I myself had said it. Thus there is indeed a very essential forward step: both in getting it said and in the circumstance that people will in fact attribute it to me. The added factor here is actlly this: that even though the speaker is of course no one, a pseudonym, the editor is an actual person who acknowledges that he will be judged for this discourse written by a pseudonym.

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With Christianity, everything has been ushered into the realm of the spirit; now the scene is always set in the realm of the spirit. But now Xnty has actlly been transformed into a universalized tradition, has become an atmosphere. An analogue to antiquity now emerges. The negative principle was fate, a principle of nature. Fate was envious of the individual, especially of the eminent individual―the insignificant individual was not pursued by fate. In tragedy fate crushes the hero, but the chorus is oblivious to the blows of fate. The analogue will now emerge in the realm of the spirit. The concept of the universal, an abstraction, the public and the like, is fate, something negative in relation to the individual, but only in relation to the eminent individual. In a certain sense, the chorus no longer exists, for the chorus is actlly the public. The insignificant individual lives happily in the public while the eminent individual is leveled by the abstraction. This is the battle of the future, except that it will not be the single individual in the sense of a tyrant, but the religious individual whose intention is precisely to free individuals, though this is something the public does not understand. But there is also an ambiguity in “the public,” for although it is itself the power that levels, it is in a way itself also the spectator, the chorus. This stems from irresponsibility.

It is dangerous to live in times when the world’s tides are turning. It usually takes a generation or two before people become aware of where the evil now lies and that the attack must be changed. Those who represent a somewhat nobler form of suf-

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fering profit from this because now they are in fact victorious and yet also enjoy honor as martyrs. Thus in the states the opposition parties once stood at the head of what was then the weaker force, “the crowd,” which suffered in fighting against the more powerful “government.” Nowadays, “the crowd” has long been the dominant force in the state. Those who stand at the head of the crowd are by far the stronger force, and yet they profit from the honor and esteem owed to martyrs.―Similarly with the natural sciences, which still like to play the game of enjoying the honor and esteem owed to martyrs, though in fact the natural sciences are the dominant force, and theology has long since been dethroned.

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Real self-duplication without a third element that stands outside and constrains is an impossibility and makes all such existing into an illusion or experimentation. Kant held that the hum. being was his own law (autonomy), i.e., bound himself under the law he gave himself. In the deeper sense, what this really postulates is lawlessness or experimentation. Its earnestness will be no more rigorous than were the blows that Sancho Panza inflicted on his own backside. It is impossible for me actually to be stricter in A than I am or wish to be in B. There must be constraint if it is going to be in earnest. If I am to bind myself and there is no binding force higher than myself, then where, as the A, who binds, can I find the rigor I do not possess as B, the one who is to be bound, when, after all, A and B are the same self[?] This is especially clear in all religious realms. The transformation that is actlly from immediacy to spirit―this dying-away becomes unserious, becomes an illusion, experimentation, if there is no third factor, the constraining factor, which is not the individual himself. This is also why all eminent individuals have been constrained: they are actlly “instruments.” Not only is there no law that I myself give myself as the ultimate, but there is a law that is given to me by something higher. And not only that, but this lawgiver also takes the liberty of participating, in the capacity of educator, and makes use of compulsion. But if a hum. being is never in his life willing to act decisively enough for this educator to get hold of him, well, then it can

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certainly happen that a hum. being is permitted to live in selfsatisfied illusions and fancies and experimentation―but this also signifies supreme disfavor. A hum. being can be rigorous enough with himself to understand that [“]My rigor amounts to nothing; I must have another to help so that there can be rigor, even if he is also leniency.[”] But engaging with this other does not mean giving assurances upon assurances; it means acting. When a person acts decisively and enters into actuality, existence can take hold of him and Governance can bring him up. It may certainly happen that a person can spare himself ever so much, and it could still occur to Governance to take him to task. But this does not please Governance, it is almost wrath. Governance wills that a hum. being is to believe and have faith in Governance. Governance is no friend of the sissified cowardice of wanting to play autodidact when at the same time there lives so excellent an educator and teacher as Our Lord, to whom he can turn. But in ordinary hum. situations, to be sent to school or to try to get into school means that I go wherever it is the teacher dwells. Spiritually, the teacher immediately comes to dwell wherever I finally act decisively. For what do I want: I want to be brought up to be spirit―and yet do not want to act decisively? Nonsense.

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The more things a hum. being becomes accustomed to participating in―to the point of taking part in everything―the more the spirit within him is stunted―and the more successful he will be in the world.

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Ah, to receive the impression from a contemporary is indeed a frightful qualitative decision. One has historical knowledge that hundreds and hundreds were granted something extraordinary― and this one can easily understand and find acceptable. But, that this contemporary person―that it has been granted to him―no, this is something one cannot get into one’s head; it must be the other person’s fantasy. Yes, this is how it is with every situation of contemporaneity.

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The contemporary person who is himself absolutely capable of acquiring the impression that an embattled contemporary is someone extraordinary: he is himself rather extraordinary.

The Significance of My Work as an Author to Me as My Upbringing in Christianity. In The Point of View for My Work as an Author I have explained that I understood my task to be that of serving the cause of Xnty, to present what Xnty is, but that―in order that the situation not be reversed, so that it was Xnty that needed me, instead of me needing Xnty―Governance has also helped me in this respect by letting me understand that it was I who needed Xnty. The matter is quite simple. Religiously and with absolute piety in connection with Xnty, I had dedicated myself to come to clarity about what Xnty is―this for my own sake, and I understood as well that this was what the times needed. It was planned on this scale and with the risk, right from the beginning, that if it turned out that I could not accept Xnty, this was a blow I would accept. That is, Xnty was not to be accommodated to me, but what Xnty is was to be viewed absolutely fearlessly. But what if Xnty turned out to be something I myself could not accept? Well, then perhaps―out of piety for Xnty, with the intention of serving it―I would have publicly acknowledged this, but in other respects would have continued unchanged, occupying myself with Xnty and concerning myself with it. Had that happened, it was not my intention to forget the matter: no, Xnty and becoming a Xn were my life’s task because I understood, in deep piety, that even the longest life would not be too long for this task. I know of only one analogue to this situation, namely the plans I made, back then, about taking my theological examination. I decided to do so out of piety for my late father. Well, it was certainly possible that at the designated time, despite having read diligently, I could have decided for hypochondriacal reasons that I was not yet ready to sit for the examination―but what then? Well, then I would have continued to read for the theological examination. Even if I had never passed the examination, one thing would absolutely have happened: I would have continued to read for the theological examination.

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That is how it is with my relation to Xnty. It is not as if one makes a calculation, and then chooses either/or: no, I had chosen: Xnty. The fact that I did not dare call myself a Xn would only have been a concern in relation to the ideal. Fundamentally, all the anxiety is more an expression of my ideality, even though this is something that has made itself quite scarce in our times, when there is one thing everyone knows himself to be without further ado: a Xn. Most of all, what Xnty lacks are passion-filled circumstances in which to express that one wants to be a Xn. Confirmation accomplishes very little. But Governance has been especially helpful to me in connection with getting a proper impression of Xnty. 1) All of my original, internal suffering. 2) My relationship to “her.” 3) What I have suffered from persecution by mob vulgarity and hum. ingratitude. Truly, without this I would indeed have completely missed one aspect of Xnty. To live through a magnanimous action, undertaken out of love for others, and to see it rewarded like that; to experience being declared an egotist precisely because I was unselfish; to see all this egotism that is the fundamental driving force of society―to see it united in declaring me an egotist at the very moment that I was most compassionate: yes, that was rlly something to drive a person mad. Fortunately, I had been well-trained in Xnty from childhood on. That helped. But truly, I learned Xnty from the ground up.

Ah, how infinitely profound it is―and is not this rlly the reason for my and everyone’s misfortune: that we have no proper notion of what sin is in God’s eyes! Arndt (and likewise the old edifying writings) says in connection with Xt’s suffering and death that one must look upon it in order to get a notion of what sin means to God. I go and trifle with it and have no truly passionate notion of how abominable sin is in God’s eyes―this is something I must see in Xt’s sufferings for sin. Here, once again, is the dialectical: his sufferings are not, first of all, to console, but are first of all to terrify, to terrify me. Thus, first of all, Xst teaches desolation―precisely in order thereafter to console. But with his sufferings he makes me take notice in order that I might feel the terrors of sin truly deeply.

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The truth of the religious can be illuminated with the help of a not inappropriate analogy: by considering the idea of a distinguished person, a courtier, and then forgetting what ought to be forgotten. Imagine having insulted the king: who would despair more at having done this, a peasant or a courtier? Would it not be the courtier, far and away? And thus with the religious. The holy person understands what sin means―I, a sinner, go and trifle with it; it is precisely this trifling with it that is a part of my sin.

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With respect to J. Müller, it must be steadfastly maintained that he has a much more profound view, even if he does not possess its qualitative consequences and really formulate a μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος.

6 μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος] Greek, transition to another conceptual sphere. (See also explanatory note.)

See, here, too, I am not understood at all. All the more profound thinkers (Hegel, Daub―and to name someone less famous but very worthy of respect: Julius Müller, etc.), are agreed in situating evil in isolated subjectivity―objectivity is what saves. This has long since become a slogan, and of course every university student knows that I am an isolated individuality―ergo I am practically evil: “pure negativity, without seriousness, etc.” Oh profound confusion. No, the entire concept of objectivity, which has been made into our salvation, merely feeds the sickness, and the fact that it is praised as the remedy simply shows how fundamentally irreligious the times are; for this salvation is rlly a return to paganism. No, precisely in order to put an end to subjectivity in its untruth we must go all the way through to “the single individual”―directly before God. But people have absolutely no notion of what religiosity is. People have no notion that in one sense Xt and all the heroes of the faith were isolated individualities―aber they belonged entirely to God. Take Socrates! In those days, of course, one Sophist after another came forth and showed that the problem was lack of sufficient knowledge, that there had to be more and more research, that ignorance was the evil.―and then old father Socrates comes and says: No, ignorance is precisely the cure.

34 aber] German, but.

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Yet Another Example of Dialectic.

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I wonder if things did not go with Socrates, in his day, exactly as they have with me. He was regarded as representing evil, for in the view of the times, ignorance was evil―and yet Socrates was truly the physician. In areas like these it takes a fortunate genius (or an infinite profundity and an infinitely good ear, so that all the daimonic phenomena, inversely understood, can themselves proclaim what they need) in order to grasp things properly. I am not boasting of anything. It is quite true: according to the view of the times, isolated subjectivity is indeed evil; but the cure by “objectivity” is not one whit better. Salvation must come through subjectivity, i.e., through God, as the infinitely compelling subjectivity.

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Julius Müller has an excellent rejoinder to the explanation of sin as weakness: Has not evil been seen to impart intensified energy[?] And to this end he appeals to Plato, who characterizes η αδιϰια as τον εχοντα (την αδιϰιαν) μαλα ζωτιϰον παρεχουσα, ϰαι προς γ’ ετι ζωτιϰῳ αγρυπνον. (see Julius Müller, 1st part of The Doctrine of Sin p. 119 note). I myself have shown this in earlier journals, that the good certainly imparts strength, but also the sensitivity of eternity, which is why the good, the innocent suffer so deeply. Evil (precisely through 31 η αδιϰια] Greek, injustice. (See also explanatory note.) 31 τον εχοντα … αγρυπνον] Greek, that which renders its possessor very lively indeed, and not only lively but wakeful (See also explanatory note.)

[a]

in de republica Lib. X.

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despair) imparts a desperate lust for life and strength. (while the good longs to be quit of life). I have shown why baptized Jews in particular are good representatives of this sort of energy because most often they have no religion whatever and despairingly understand that they have been allotted only this life. This imparts impetus.

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Ah, but this book ends with remarkable words, the last part of Frater Taciturnus’s concluding words regarding himself: do not incite him, for then he could become dangerous.

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Dialectic Tending toward Becoming a Xn. Socrates did not first try to gather some proofs for the immortality of the soul in order that he might then proceed to live, having faith on the basis of these proofs. The situation was just the reverse―he said: The matter of immortality, of whether it exists, concerns me so much that I unconditionally venture to stake the whole of my life on it, as though it were the most certain thing of all. That is how he lived―and his life is a proof of the immortality of the soul. He did not first have faith on the basis of proofs and then live―no, his life is the proof, and only with his death as a martyr was the proof complete.―Look, this is spirit; it is a bit embarrassing for copycats and for all those who live at second- or at tenth-hand, for those who chase after results, and for cowardly and squeamish types. Used cautiously, this can be applied to the situation of becoming a Xn. First, quite rightly, comes Lessing’s doubt that one cannot base an eternal blessedness on something historical. Thus something historical exists here, the story of Jesus Xt.

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But, then, is this absolutely certain historically? To this it must be replied that even if it were the most certain thing in all, all of history, it would not help: no direct transition can be made from something historical to the basis for an eternal blessedness. This is something qualitatively new. What then? This―a hum. being says to himself, a la Socrates: [“]Here there exists something historical that teaches me that I must turn to Jesus Xt concerning my eternal blessedness. Now, I must be quite careful to guard against taking a wrong turn into scholarly dabbling and research about whether it is indeed quite certain historically; for it is sure enough historical―that is, even if it were 10 times more certain down to its least detail, it would not help me anyway, because I cannot be helped directly.[”] Then I say to myself: [“]I am choosing. This historical event is enough for me to decide to stake my whole life on this [‘]if.[’][”] Then he lives, he lives filled with this thought alone, venturing his life for it, and his life is proof that he believed. He did not have some proofs, then believe, and then begin to live. No, just the reverse. This is called venturing, and without venturing, faith is an impossibility. To relate oneself to spirit is to take an examination. To believe, to will to believe, is to transform one’s life into taking an examination. The daily examination is the tension of faith.―But one could preach about this to all the cowardly, squeamish, spiritless types until the end of the world, they will not grasp it, they rlly do not want to grasp it. To them it rlly seems that it is very well that someone else ventures, and that they then adhere to him―and give assurances. But to venture―no thanks. Still, with respect to becoming a Xn there is a dialectical difference from Socrates that must be kept in mind. Namely this: that with respect to immortality, a hum. being relates to himself and to the idea, nothing more. But when a hum. being chooses to believe in Xt on the basis of an [“]if,[”] that is, chooses to stake his life on it, then he is of course

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permitted to turn directly to Xt in prayer. Thus, the historical is the occasion and yet is also the object of faith. But all spiritless types turn the situation around. They say: [“T]o stake everything on an [‘]if[’] is a sort of skepticism, it is fantasy, not positivity.[”] This is because they do not want to “venture.” And Xnty has dragged along this swarm of spiritless people who have finally abolished Xnty.

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Indeed, it is certain that R. N. actlly began with egotistical and shrewd intent. Recently, he has often had to admit that slipping past me was what he viewed as the real difficulty. If that had succeeded, his idea was thus that with my support, clandestinely and half-understanding my efforts, he would gesticulate in the world a la myself. Ah, lamentable shrewdness! To tell the truth, at one point I thought he would succeed, however indignant it might make me. Yet something quite different has happened. I have remained silent―but the surrounding world has taken it upon itself to force him back upon me. This was a fateful counterweight to [his] worldly shrewdness. The fact is that I believed I was the object of envy, which indeed I am; therefore, also for a moment, I really believed that R. Nielsen might succeed in his deception. But I also knew that fundamentally people deep down had an enormous impression of me. Then what happened was that precisely because R. N. also wanted to be a sort of Mag. K―even though people had no suspicion of how treasonous that tactic was to me―precisely this caused a bit of the truth about me to emerge together with the envy. But in no way have I given up on R. N. It is not so easy to make the transition from the finite understanding to the service of the idea.

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He can still bring some truth to his position. He can live up to his beginnings, confess that he had rlly intended to profit from this new standpoint as he previously had profited from other scholarly standpoints, but that the more he involved himself with the cause, the more he realized that it took hold of him, indeed judged him―for in fact having rlly begun by taking the cause in vain. But he is rather tense, and what is the reason? Obviously because earthly and worldly shrewdness has quite a hold on him, and he has involved himself with something that could almost drive him mad, because his shrewdness cannot master it. It is possible that he has now mended his ways, for at least now I occasionally notice that it has become clearer to him that he has erred, item that I noticed this long ago. In the beginning it pained me deeply to look upon a deception of this sort right under my nose, while―slow to pass judgment and with God-fearing restraint―I remained silent and was delayed on my way.

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Yet it was indeed good fortune, an indescribable benefit to me, that I was as melancholic as I was. Had I been a happy type― and then experienced what I have experienced as an author―I believe a person would have gone mad. But I knew more frightful torments―inside, where I rlly suffer. And what happened then? Ah, something amazing―even if it has not yet entirely happened, although it has done so to a certain degree and will do still further, I believe―this amazing thing: that it is precisely this outward tumult that has lured my melancholia out of its hiding place and to some extent has already rescued me from it, and will do so even more fully! Oh, the depth of riches, how unsearchable are your ways, O God, yet all fatherliness and grace!

Petrarch puts is nicely: Anger is a brief rage, and if one does not constrain it―a lengthy rage.

14 item] Latin, as well as, also.

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On myself.

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It is indeed a foolish objection against me and my life (and for many of those concerned, to the degree that they themselves understand that it is untrue, a culpable objection): that I stand apart from life and that this is exactly what religiousness is not, because true religiousness grasps life actively. Oh, you fools, or you hypocrites: How do I stand apart from life? In such a way that, singled out as I am, there is literally not a single person here in this country who stands so foremost on the stage. No, living apart from life is precisely running along with the flock, being in “the crowd,” by which one gains inconspicuousness yet also influence and power. How do I stand apart? By having built a literary canon the likes of which would be hard to find! By being the only person who ventured to take action when “the rabble” raged and triumphed. This is how I stand apart from life: by being recognized by every child, a stock figure in your plays, my name a byword, my life a daily sacrifice in order, if at all possible, to make fast the end of the thread, to bring the religious to bear once more. But then, what is the source of this talk that I stand apart from life? Well, I will tell you―it comes from this: that with all my work I gain no earthly reward, that I am not applauded at assemblies, which I do not attend, but am mocked on the streets, where I do my work; it comes from this: that I have not made my life compatible with an appointment as cabinet minister; it comes from the fact that people have noted that I am a fool, a fool―who fears God! Oh, you hypocrites, with your love that does not stand apart from life―that is surely something your self-love would forbid you to do! Oh, you hypocrites, with your practicality that grasps life actively―yes, ora grasps―after advantages! Oh, you hypocrites, with your earnestness that makes no overwrought retreat from life into fantasy―truly, your cowardice would soon chase you back into the flock again, the flock of animals, away from the place where earnestness dwells: being the single individual. Oh, you hypocrites, with your patriotism

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that forbids you to lack sympathy for the nation’s woes and welfare; yes, thank you very much, you have saved Denmark, saved it from being a country into being a market town, the promised land of narrow-mindedness and mediocrity, saved it from belonging to history in the future. For if you really believe that your 4 shillings’ worth of accomplishments, your foolish remarks at assemblies, your names, will go down in history―for that to happen, first of all, everything, everything in existence, from the ground up, would have to be turned upside down so that “history” would take over the role always formerly assigned to “oblivion.” But perhaps this is what you are working for, that everything might be turned upside down, so that “history” becomes “oblivion” and those who are excellent are forgotten; that “oblivion” becomes “history” and “oblivion” historically takes along with itself everything, all of you, your speeches, and your 17th amendment to the 16th amendment, concerning nothing. There is something frightful in seeing individuals plunge down into these mutual assurances,b a commune naufragium. How many, many are there already living for whom no concepts exist, for whom all that matters is that there is a majority for something―to such an extent that they feel utterly unrepentant when this is the case! If there is a majority in favor of making whoredom into virtue and murder into justice, then it is so. And the “strict Xns,” as they are called, come running to this rallying ground and cast their ballots. Yes, sometimes they actually have a little amendment,c worshiping―Christianly!―the majority! But they see through the entire odious business― of course, thank you very much. In private conversation they babble tirelessly about how wretched and debased it all is. But there, at the point where, by energetic action―that is, by standing absolutely apart, not in order to remain silent, no, in order to stand as a bothersome and of course mistreated reminder that there is a God―there they cast their ballots, worshiping―Christianly!―the majority! 24 commune naufragium] Latin, common shipwreck. (See also explanatory note.)

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a little amendment in order to― improve!―the monstrous evil that has triumphed totally: even more insane than if someone wanted to extinguish a fire with water from an eyedropper! And when this is done, when they have “saved their conscience” in this way by improving and correcting the evil a little bit―that is, by making it worsea―then they cast their votes along with everyone else a

, if they accomplish anything at all,

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It is indeed a curious misunderstanding, a consequence of this deification of scholarship and science, for people also to want to use science in presenting the existential sphere. The existential as such is something far more concrete than the “scientific” (and to use learned science in presenting the existential is thus pure nonsense); its presentation is essentially either realization in life or poetic presentation loquere ut videam.

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In a time of moral dissolution such as ours, the concept of “complicity” must be sharpened quite significantly. It is so easy to say that one is participating out of zeal and earnestness and is also making an effort to do one’s little part to counteract what is wrong; that is, one permits all the corruption to remain in force and at most proposes a little amendment. And a person profits from doing so: by being in good standing with the corruption because, when one views the whole affair, he is a participant―and also by flattering himself in imagining that he is better than his times. The truth is quite different. The whole in which I participate is naturally far more important than my tiny little amendment from within. Therefore the participant is responsible for the whole. But this would be acting decisively; it would be exposing oneself to danger, acquainting oneself with the patient sufferings of seeming to accomplish nothing whatever (for at first the pure service of the idea is like standing completely aside, while the least little amendment immediately “accomplishes” a great deal), as if one were drowning in the crowd. In all critical periods a great deal of villainy is done by individuals almost all of whom are aware of the seat of the whole calamity, and then, instead

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11 loquere ut videam] Latin, speak, that I may see [you]. (See also explanatory note.)

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of taking decisive action and suffering, or refraining altogether from action, they convert it into an amendment, and as noted, through a culpable nefas they profit, in the worldly sense, in two ways. 5

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Unfortunately one must almost fear that Peter has now become a figure of this sort. He has always been something of a fuddy-duddy. Recently he has been rather devoid of ideas. But now it seems almost as if he has seen the light―he will find success as a cheerleader for mediocrity, triviality, and heartiness. It is true that he has needed diversion. I can understand that he is tired of living out there in the country with a sick wife―but what a diversion! Now he is running around to every assembly, speaking everywhere―naturally, with heartiness and earnestness, “in order to counteract.” At the Society of Friends of the Peasant to give assurances: I am not a member of the Friends of the Peasant― instead of acting by staying away.―He is intelligent and very knowledgeable, but he is disintegrating into a vapid gadabout, taking part in everything. It is a bad sign that he is living at Christian Lund’s, for he will surely become Christian’s ideal! The reduplication of form that is consistency of character is beyond his existential energy. He cannot actively remove himself from a situation and thereby express qualitative opposition and heterogeneity; he remains within the situation, giving assurances that he is not in agreement, more or less as when he was at the conventicle and served up a critique in which he gave assurances that it was not a critique.

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is rlly that for him religiousness is always a condition: it is―he presents everything in the sphere of being, Spinozistically. How it becomes, in the sense of coming into being and in the sense of being preserved, does not rlly concern him. Therefore he can only deal with a small portion of dogmatics. Every

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3 nefas] Latin, crime, sin, ungodliness.

Peter.

The error in Schleiermacher’s dogmatics

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This also explains why S. defines the feeling of absolute dependence as the principle of all religion. For this, too, is a condition, or is religiosity in being. As soon as the question becomes an ethical one, that is, one concerning the becoming of this condition, how it comes into being, what I must do in order that it can come into being, and how it can be preserved or how I can be preserved in it―which also is becoming―then the depiction of religiosity is changed. I believe it could be said that it is precisely in this way that S. has failed Christianity, because he understands it aesthetically-metaphysically merely as a condition, while Christianity, ethically, wants to be understood essentially as a striving. S. understands religiosity as wholly analogous to romantic love, for example. But this is a misunderstanding. With romantic love there cannot rlly be any talk of a striving. But Christianity is in the sphere of becoming. When this is understood, every Christian category is depicted differently than in S. And not only this, but it is only then that the most decisive Christian categories emerge―these are lacking in S., or at any rate what is decisive is lacking

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Christian category is marked by the ethical in the direction of striving. Hence the fear and trembling and that [“]thou shalt[”]; hence also the possibility of offense etc. All such things are of little concern to S[ch]leiermacher. He treats religiosity in being. This actlly is also the source of his principle that feeling is always true. On closer inspection its truth is rlly that it is. The whole battle arises only with becoming. Seen in “becoming,” the question emerges: But then, is that which is––the truth[?] Within being, the truth is that it is.

Ah, what an infinite difference: shielded by the illusion that it is one’s office and one’s living (within the illusion of a Sunday worship service for those who want to come and listen) to declaim some Christian truths―and in one’s daily life to be attractive in the eyes of the world, living one’s daily life existentially in sheer worldly categories, off on a political career, voting and dancing along as a participant in everything―what an infinite difference, then, to be obligated to set forth the Christian ideas in the midst of actuality, breaking through the illusions, accentuating personal existence by virtue of these ideas. Then the conflict will manifest itself―how far “actuality” is from Christianity must manifest itself. As long as the priests remain satisfied with having guaranteed themselves a living and with being permitted, once a week and at funerals to speak a peculiar jargon (like barristers or actors)―with no demands whatever as soon as the shop is closed: well, naturally, this is tolerated. This is precisely what is attractive in the eyes of the world. No one, perhaps no one, is as attractive as a priest who is a politician. For the world understands very well that a priest ought to be a witness for the religious in the midst of “actuality,” but now it [“actuality”] triumphs. Most of his time, his thoughts, are directed toward balloting and the like, so of course he expresses that being a priest is merely his way of making a living. And then there

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is this hypocrisy of a priest of this sort explaining his participation in politics as earnestness and religiosity. Oh, you blind person: If you want to be more than a priest, then become one of Christianity’s witnesses in the midst of actuality, but do not become a politician. Precisely this is the requirement of Christianity: It wants what is said in church to be expressed in “actuality,” saturating existences; in this, Christianity is different from the theater and the like. Thus the priest must go out among them in order to have a look, in order to make them aware. But does the priest go there[?] He certainly avoids doing that. As soon as he has removed his gown on Sunday he says: [“]For the sake of God in Heaven, let us not talk about that―I am just like you, a member of the club, a voting member of everything worldly, a pleasant dinner-party fellow, shrewdly aware of my own interests, just like you. How unseemly, how uncultivated it would be of me to want to remind you―or even to remind you existentially―about Xnty when outside of church; it would indeed be like an actor continuing to play a comedy out in society and in daily life.[”]

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With this unending voting, ethical concepts, too, will finally vanish from the race. The strength of ethical concepts is in the relation of conscience, but voting externalizes everything. Many people surely still live with the comforting notion that the world will never go so awry that, for example, theft becomes a virtue. Who knows that? Look at France! And in that case, how many would dare maintain that theft is sin[?] In that case it would in fact be a Christian collision. While everyone was stealing, one would oneself suffer being a victim of theft without daring to steal in return, and then suffer a second time by proclaiming one’s conviction that theft is sin. Indeed, at this moment, how many people dare to witness against voting! Höchstens one might 41 Höchstens] German, at most.

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after first having given a brilliant lecturea depicting the danger voting poses to morality and religion, a

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perhaps have “a profound seer” propose at an assemblya that a vote ought to be taken on whether to refrain from voting. And it is clear that having viewed things so deeply would be admired as the most profound wisdom and the purest sort of morality. Refined lack of character is the glittering sin of our time, the path to “fortune and power.”

An Objection to Xnty. Poetic. This objection could be thought of in connection with a particular individual in such a way that it had nothing whatever of the impudence that objections otherwise have. It might go like this:

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[a] In this way, too, original sin as guilt expresses that God is employing his criterion, for God sees everything in uno; and therefore it seems so burdensome to the merely hum. understanding.

8 in uno] Latin, as one.

Why, O God, did you want to do so much for hum. beings as to give them Xnty, which actlly makes them unhappy[?] Surely, you did it out of love, but you do not seem to have considered that a very subordinate and lowly person can come to suffer very much simply by becoming the object of the love of someone highly elevated. The highly elevated being immediately applies his criterion―he does what he does out of love, but indeed his application of his criterion cannot be avoided, for of course he is who he is. And so, what does he do? He actlly makes the other unhappy. This is also how it is with Xnty! It is your criterion, O God, that is Xnty. In Xnty you actlly relate yourself to yourself. Indeed, you say that it is out of love, that it is for our sake, that you do it, but the criterion in nonetheless yours. How in all the world could it occur to a hum. being that sin was something so frightful that your own Son, the Holy One, must suffer a gruesome death in order that your wrath be appeased[?] This is too lofty for a hum.

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being. It is you who have been appeased, but what sets you at rest is too lofty for a hum. being, and is distressing for precisely that reason. Suppose a girl is loved by a man who is absolutely her superior; the more sincerely he loves her, the unhappier he will make her―and out of love. He is applying his criterion, he cannot do otherwise. He loves her sincerely, and what happens: the very thing he sees as the most powerful expression of his love―this very thing will be too lofty for her and will distress her. This objection is quite unusual, but it takes quite a different view of the matter than do the ordinary objections against Xnty. Here, among other things, one sees the necessity of the absolute [“]Thou shalt[”] in order to get through.

Even the chosen apostle―and thus absolutely everyone―is qualitatively different from the God-Man in this: the apostle must be constrained. The GodMan is the only one who possesses pure ideality and therefore voluntarily does what is highest.

I remember one of Mynster’s ordination sermons in which Mynster, in one of his usual oratorical flights, says: If the truth were as frightful as it is sometimes described, why would I seek it out, etc. [?] In other words, M. does not in fact have any absolute notion about absolutely having to seek out the truth, whether it is something frightful, which crushes me, or not. But perhaps it is honest of him to say it so directly.

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Fundamentally, most people live in the same duplicity with regard to spirit as they do with regard to natural phenomena. Science explains that the sun stands still and the earth orbits around it: in everyday speech we continue to say that the sun comes up and goes down. Thus, science basically presents a view that is toto coelo different from what we in fact use in our daily lives, from what the priest preaches, etc.―and the most peculiar sort of affectation emerges in particular with respect to the latter, inasmuch as almost everyone says that this sort of thing can of course be used in popular presentations, though almost everyone is informed about what is “scientific.” Then, to whom is the popular presentation directed?

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If someone were to say, “Yes, of course you can be so altruistic, serving the truth so wholly, if you will―you, who are wealthy,” I would reply, [“]Well, there is some truth in that.[”] I do, however, have an unusual view of existence. For indeed, as soon as I no longer have the means to do things this way, I will modestly take up some activity in which I work for a living. If my needs in this connection are so great that I must work all day long, well, then I will confess that I regard it as my task to work for a living. If my needs are not that great, then I will see to it that I have a little time left over and a little spare money set aside so that I can serve the truth, even if it is on a much smaller scale. But there is one thing, one thing that I definitely do not want: I do not want there to be any confusion about whether I am working for my own advantage or for the truth. To my way of thinking, the world’s misfortune is simply that hum. shortsightedness, often with the best of intentions, has thought as follows: If in general you want the truth, then if you occasionally take account of your own interests―even if a less noble method sometimes intervenes―it is a matter of no importance, and furthermore, that is how the world really is, every practical hum. being knows that, and after all, I cannot remake the world. Ah, you who are impatient and shortsighted. No, you surely cannot remake the world. Well, then, just do what you can, live in quiet obscurity, working for your living. Truly, at least a person of this sort does no harm. But if you want to work for the

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6 toto coelo] Latin, as wide as the heavens.

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truth, then, before God, consider carefully on what scale you can do it. The scale may be modest, but in God’s name, promise and keep your promise to God and yourself that in accordance with this scale you will use the purest of means. The alternative is nothing but impatience and shortsightedness[,] which have done irreparable damage.

1st part, pp. 350 et al. No, no, it is not so much that Hegel is wrong in this way. J. M. [writes] that inasmuch as Hegel indeed also defines evil as abstract subjectivity, arbitrariness, the single individual’s usurpation of the universal―that is, also as egotism―then J. Müller would of course have to agree with him and would indeed be in agreement with him were it not clear that Hegel traces this presence of evil back to a higher necessity. No, the error lies principally in that fact that the universal, which Hegelianism makes into the truth (and the single individual participates in the truth by being subsumed into it), is an abstraction: the state, etc. He does not come to God, to subjectivity in the absolute sense, and to the truth: that in the final analysis the single individual is actually higher than the universal, namely the single individual in his relation to God. How often I have I not argued that Hegel basically makes hum. beings pagans, makes them into an animal race endowed with reason. For in an animal race “the single individual” is always lower than the “race.” The hum. race has the peculiarity that, precisely because every individual is created in the image of God, “the single individual” is higher than the “race.” That this can be taken in vain and dreadfully misused: concedo. But that is Xnty. And it is there that the battle must rlly be fought.

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The Shrewd―the Good and the True. Take a certain fraction of the good or of the true―this is the shrewdness with which you will succeed in the world. Take the 30 concedo] Latin, precondition, I concede.

[a]

Julius Müller on “Sin.”

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good or the true entirely, and the exact opposite will happen― you will come into total conflict with the world. I have an example of this. I had at first thought of an enigmatic dedication to the writings concerning my work as an author, inserting “her.” For other reasons, this cannot in fact be done, for however enigmatic it would be, it would nonetheless be easily understood, and furthermore, not only do I not have any guarantee that a newspaper will show respect and not take it upon itself to mention her name, but on the contrary, there is the greatest likelihood that this will happen, and then everything would be disturbed and I would perhaps have caused incalculable harm. But I would very much like to do it, because I would like to have the matter properly dealt with before my death, if this is possible. But I want to illuminate a different matter here. So, assuming I did do this―what then? Well, then I would have been wanting in shrewdness. Why? Because it is too lofty. By now, this story has been forgotten: I was a scoundrel, but now it has been forgotten and everything is all right again with respect to this matter―now it must not be touched upon. Yes, but in fact I was not quite entirely a scoundrel; the whole matter has a far deeper meaning. It does not make matters any better―this is precisely the problem, and it is also what would make such a step unwise. It would be so lofty that it would look as if I wanted to wrest people out of their pleasant routine for a moment by being able to explain everything and by having explained it―and then they would become annoyed, and so one comes into conflict.

Is it not a curious yet profound turn of phrase that one can say, [“]Here there is absolutely no talk of any choice―I am choosing such and such.[”] (A similar remark is found in J. Müller, but not put so precisely.) Furthermore, Xnty can say to a pers.: [“]You shall choose the one thing needful, but in such a way that there is no talk of any choice―that is, if you spend a long time talking nonsense, you are not actlly choosing the one thing needful; it must be chosen first, as with the kingdom of God.[”] So therefore there is something with respect to which there may not be―and in principle cannot be―any choice, and yet it is a choice. Thus, precisely the fact that there is no choice is the expression of the

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enormous passion or intensity with which one chooses. Can any more accurate expression be given for the fact that freedom of choice is only a formal category of freedom, and that emphasizing freedom of choice as such is simply the loss of freedom? The content of freedom is so decisive for freedom that the truth of freedom of choice is precisely that there must be no choice, even though it is indeed a choice. This is “spirit.” But precisely because hum. beings are far from being spirit, precisely for this reason, freedom causes them so many difficulties because they continually remain suspended in freedom of choice. Reflection, which in turn is linked to inertia and what is base, comes to stare fixedly at freedom of choice instead of remembering that there must be no choice―and then choose. Strange as it seems, one must thus say that only fear and trembling, only constraint, can help a pers. into freedom. For fear and trembling and constraint can gain mastery over one in such a way that there is no talk of any choice―and then one surely chooses the right thing. At the moment of death most people choose the right thing. But how is scientific scholarship supposed to help? In no way, no way. It releases all the tension in calm, objective observation― and then freedom becomes some inexplicable something. From a scientific and scholarly point of view, Spinoza is and becomes the only consistent thinker. Here it is just as with believing and speculating, and as Joh. Climacus has said, just like sawing wood: It is one thing to make oneself objectively light and something else to make oneself subjectively heavy: and then people want to do both at once. Freedom actually is only when―at the same instant, the same second that it is (freedom of choice)―it goes with infinite speed to bind itself unconditionally through the choice of submission, the choice whose truth is that there cannot be talk of any choice. It is inconceivable: the miracle of almighty love that God can actually grant a hum. being so much that, with respect to Himself, He could wish to say, almost like a suitor (here there is a fine play on words: to make free, to propose): [“]Will you have me, or will you not[”]―and then wait one single second for the answer. Alas, but the hum. being is not entirely spirit. He thinks: Because the choice has been left to me, I will take my time and first I will consider the matter truly earnestly. What a sorry anticlimax! “Earnestness” is precisely choosing God immediately and “first.” So a person lies there, contending with a phantom, freedom of

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choice: does he possess it or does he not, etc.?―even doing so from a scientific-scholarly point of view. He does not notice that he has missed freedom. Then he perhaps amuses himself for a while with the idea of freedom of choice until things change yet again and he comes to doubt whether he has freedom of choice. And now he has indeed lost freedom of choice. By grasping (in the military sense) the matter utterly erroneously, he has confused everything. By staring fixedly at “freedom of choice” instead of choosing, one loses both freedom and freedom of choice. It can never be regained through reflection; if it is to be regained it must be through intensified fear and trembling evoked by the thought of having wasted it. The enormous thing granted a hum. being is choice, freedom. If you want to save it and preserve it, there is only one way to do so: At that very second unconditionally and in utter submission to give it back to God, and yourself along with it. If this sight of what has been granted to you tempts you, if you yield to the temptation and gaze with selfish desire upon freedom of choice― you lose freedom. And then your punishment is to walk about in a sort of confusion, swaggering over having freedom of choice. [“]Woe to you, this is the sentence pronounced upon you: You have freedom of choice, you say, and you have not yet chosen God.[”] Then you become sick; freedom of choice becomes your obsession; finally you become like the rich person who melancholically imagines that he is impoverished and will die of want. You sigh that you have lost freedom of choice―and the error is simply that you are not sorrowing deeply enough, for then you would certainly regain it.

With respect to many mental sufferings, it may be said that the very offense of which the sufferer accuses himself is perhaps only really committed at that moment, but in a very different way. There was someone (it was a Catholic who became a Lutheran; Kofoed-Hansen told me this) who maintained that he had sinned against the Holy Spirit by having been disloyal to his convictions at a moment of difficulty, and that there was no grace for him. Perhaps the sin against the H. S. was rather the pride with which he would not forgive himself. There is also a stringency in condemning oneself, in not wanting to hear of grace―which is simply sin. As I pointed out to Kofoed-Hansen, this is something Anti-Climacus has already shown.

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So now Lic. Lind wants to give lectures at the Society for Workmen’s Culture, lectures on proofs of the truth of Xnty! This is certainly well-intentioned, but really, he does not know what he is doing. This social class has already become pampered so that as soon as it gathers at a meeting, it feels that it is an authority entitled to pass judgment. The person who speaks is not a “teacher” but is someone who defers to the crowd, to this esteemed gathering. And now “proofs”! Well, thank you very much, then everything will be in order: “Let us now hear what Xnty has to say in its defense,” etc. That will be the impression― and this is the abolition of Xnty. Priests are what are needed, priests with courage and authority. The confessional is what should be used. Alas, such efforts, well-intentioned in every way―which confuse more and more.

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For a long, long time the human race exhausted itself with the question of God’s personhood. If only we could comprehend that, people thought, we could put aside the matter of the Trinity. What happened? Then came Hegel and the Hegelians. They had a better understanding of the matter: They proved that God was personal simply from the fact that he is triune. Well, thank you very much, this is a real help. The whole business with the Trinity was a sham, it was the old trilogy of logic (thesis―antithesis―synthesis), and the “personhood” that resulted from it was more or less the X with which people began in those days, when they thought that if only they could comprehend God’s personhood, they could put aside the matter of the Trinity. On the whole, this is Hegelianism’s most profound confusion with respect to Xnty: that it has no time and no understanding for posing the Christian problem first, before one comprehends. Hegel’s results (which are proclaimed with the accompaniment of trumpets and drums as the explanation of everything) are an approximation of the form of the problem as that which one must now comprehend or comprehend that it cannot be comprehended.

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The point at which Hegel ends is more or less that at which Xnty begins: the misunderstanding is simply that Hegel thinks that there he is finished with Christianity―indeed that he has gone much farther. It is simply impossible for me to refrain from laughing whenever I think of Hegel’s comprehending Xnty, which defies comprehension. And what I have always said is and remains true: Hegel was a professor of philosophy, not a thinker, and he must also have been a rather insignificant personality without an impression of life―but a quite extraordinary professor, I do not deny that. But surely someday the time will come when this concept― professor―gains acceptance as a comical character. Think of Xnty! Alas how changed it is since the time when it hada confessors b ―and the time when it drew professors who can be inflected in all casibus.

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Speculation―Faith.

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Speculation can present the problems, can know that every single problem is a problem that exists for faith, is characterized and compounded in such a way that it exists [as a problem] for faith―and then ask: Will you believe or not[?] Furthermore, speculation can audit faith―i.e., that which at a given moment is believed or is the content of faith―in order to see whether faith contains an admixture of nonsensical categories that are not the objects of faith but, e.g., of speculation. All this is a very complicated task. Speculation sees―but only to the extent that it says: [“]Here it is.[”] Then it is blind. Then comes the faith that believes; it is the one who sees. in relation to the object of faith

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A Special Difficulty with My Life.

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If people had a notion of what I have suffered, of what I still suffer, of what sufferings are connected to such an existence, they would be much more accommodating. 16 casibus] Latin, grammatical cases.

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4 casus] Latin, grammatical case.

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Now it cannot be denied that in “the writings” I have presented this often enough and in frightening fashion―but personally, in my contact with others, I have been the easygoing fellow with a zest for life. People do not notice that this is a form of melancholia and is precisely a sign of how deeply I am suffering―just as I, in turn, also shudder at becoming the object of other people’s pity. Perhaps this is pride, though I understand it as God’s grace that he does not free me from the sufferings but grants me the consolation of being personally able to conceal them. There is, however, also the problem that one or another person is tempted by this and wants to copy me because he imagines that what is contained in the writings is an exaggeration, that I myself manage things so easily. I surely have no guilt in connection with this, for after all, he himself lacks earnestness, but I am painfully moved by it.

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Which is worse, then: to be executed or that slow death of being trampled to death by geese.

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There is something very telling in the story about Sibylla and Tarquinius Superbus. Lying and deceit always begin at a mendacious high point but then are willing to come down if the buyer does not want to pay so high a price. Truth always begins with the lowest possible though true price: then if the buyer does not want it, the price is a little higher the next time, and thus it goes up. Mendaciously obtained superiority always begins in the highest key―if this is not accepted, well, then it comes down. True superiority always begins as low as is truly possible; then, if it is disdained, it of course goes up.

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There is an excellent little section on evil, on sin as the incomprehensibleb, the world’s secret, precisely because it is the groundless.c I am also delighted to see that he cites Daub, who also takes this position in Judas Ischariot and is not without a tendency to assign evil to a particular category of the miraculous, though he later abandoned this view and was of the opinion that he could conceptualize evil as the negative, e.g., in his work Hypotheses on Hum. Freedom. J. M. is entirely right when he says that sin’s “incomprehensibility” is not caused by limited knowledge―as if the proper course would be for us to continue speculating and then we would certainly arrive at it. No, its incomprehensibility is precisely its nature. Quite simply, one could also view it as follows: If one took a hum. being who had once submitted to a sin and who has now been delivered, and one were to ask him whether he can now comprehend that he could sin in that manner, he would answer, No, not in the least. The purer a pers. becomes the more incomprehensible evil becomes to him. I can also demonstrate this inconceivability of sin in another fashion. Anti-Cl. has correctly shown that with respect to evil, possibility and actuality relate to one another in a manner that is the reverse of what they do otherwise. In other cases, actuality is higher than possibility, but in relation to evil, actuality is lower than possibility; the good as possibility is the imperfect, as actuality it is the perfect; but evil as possibility is better than [evil] as actuality. But of course to comprehend it [evil] is to dissolve actuality into possibility (see Joh. Climacus); but if in casu actuality is lower than possibility, it is of course impossible to comprehend, for of course sin only rlly is when it is actuality. But to comprehend is to dissolve into possibility; thus it is impossible to comprehend it because it is not evil when it is dissolved in possibility. The good can be comprehended because there is a direct relationship betw. possibility and actuality, while of course it must be borne in mind that the good in possibility 35 in casu] Latin, in this case.

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[a]

Julius Müller. Doctrine of Sin 1st part pp. 457ff. b

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Therefore we will also find that upon reflection, when a pers. considers sinning or having sinned, he is likely to describe his condition as that of a drunk person. He sank, or his consciousness sank into darkness, as it were. Here lies the category of the groundless. Yet we must not forget that evil can possess a frightful energy in a pers., so that he wants to cast himself into this darkness, and that this is something for which a person is responsible and which essentially inheres in the will. But just as the drunkard is guilty of having become drunk by having overindulged in strong drink, whereas the drunkenness itself is simply a sinking beneath consciousness, so it is with sin.

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is something lower, that comprehending the good is qualitatively removed from realizing it.

What J. Müller points out earlier is also correct, that freedom cannot be said to be equally the capacity for good and for evil, for then evil is actlly also a good. Nor can one say that misuse of the will is the ground of evil, for the very misuse of the will is of course evil itself.

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“Science”―The Existential. “Actuality” cannot be conceptualized. Joh. Climacus has already demonstrated this correctly and quite simply. To conceptualize is to dissolve actuality into possibility―but then it is of course impossible to conceptualize it, for to conceptualize it is to transform it to possibility and is thus not to hold fast to it as actuality. As far as actuality is concerned, conceptualizing is a regression, a step backward, not a step forward. It is not as if “actuality” were devoid of concepts―not at all, no, the concept that is found by conceptually dissolving it into possibility is also present in actuality, but of course there is something more: that it is actuality. From possibility to actuality is a step forward (except in connection with evil); from actuality to possibility is a step backward. But there is this ill-fated confusion in modern times, when people have incorporated “actuality” into logic, and then in their distraction they forget that in logic “actuality” is really only a “thought actuality,” i.e., a possibility. Art, science, poetry, etc., only concern themselves with possibility―that is, possibility not in the sense of an idle hypothesis, but possibility in the sense of ideal actuality. But is not history actuality? Yes, of course. But what history? The world’s 6000 years of history are certainly actuality, but an actuality that has been traversed and put behind; for me, it exists and can exist only as a thought actuality, i.e., as possibility. Whether or not the dead actually realized existentially the tasks posed for them in actuality has now been decided, has been

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concluded; there is no more existential actuality for them except in what has been put behind, which for me, in turn, exists only as ideal actuality, as thought actuality, as possibility. But it is as if people have gone mad with this pantheistic scientism. [“]Don’t mind me,[”] this sort of professor thinks, [“]the couple of years I live, the little bit I could accomplish―is it worth wasting a single moment on that[?] No, ‘science, science.’[”] But this is irreligious, a lack of religious discipline, a lack of “sobriety,” drunkenness, drunkenness in dreams. That “science” is lower than the existential is seen quite simply in the God-Man. Imagine yourself as a contemporary: “science” is impossible here because the God-Man is himself the existential. But then, when the pace has slackened―a couple of hundred years or so afterward―then, well, then there is less religiousness, and then “science” emerges. And 1800 [years] later the situation has been entirely reversed, then “science” is higher than the existential. Imagine yourself contemporary with Socrates. There is no science here; that is precisely what he wants to get rid of; he is “a gadfly,” himself the existential. But then he dies. In Plato, the existential slackens―then comes “science.” Well, then, is Plato greater than Socrates? Yes, perhaps when he is judged by docents; but then they must be consistent and judge that a professor of theology is greater than Xt. No―precisely when “science” has become what is unconditionally the highest, precisely at this point religion has as good as totally disappeared. There are two poles, and one could certainly cast a generation’s ethical-religious horoscope by learning what it judges concerning “science” in the area of religion. “The owl of Minerva takes wing only at dusk,” and “science” always comes afterward. What Joh. Climacus says is true: to transform Xnty into “science” is the greatest possible error, and if it succeeds absolutely (oh, how “the times” will cheer!)––then Xnty is absolutely abolished. But what the judge in Either/Or says is also true, that the finer, the more refined, the fluid to which one becomes addicted, the more difficult the healing. And now this addiction to “science.” Merciful God, what a world cataclysm would be required to wrest a person out of this drunkenness. When being drunk means being sober not only in one’s own eyes, but in the eyes of everyone―but what am I saying: [“]sober[”?]―yes, being more than sober, sober as a god who, in blessed levelheadedness, reposes in equilibrium, possessing that self-esteem and

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being respected as such by everyone―what hope then is there for salvation[?] A person who wants to speak of this sort of drunkenness will of course be regarded by the entire world, in scientific fashion, as a contemptible drunkard. 5

My Misfortune in These Times, Why I Am Not Understood.

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that I was a “serious” man, worthy of respect

My misfortune is that I have removed the illusions. Instead of having spent thousands and thousands supporting my existence as a writer like this, and instead of having strained myself so enormously, I should have secured myself a professorial position with a good salary (then I would have been understood by all the tradesmen––i.e., by just about everyone―I would have been understood, certainly not my philosophical positions, but I would have been understooda) and thus would have accomplished little but promised much (then I would have been understood by other professors and scholars). Then I would also have guaranteed that I would be understood by university students inasmuch as I would be examining them―which definitely helps and helps them to speak well of one, because one is, after all, the authorized teacher. (Instead of this I have lived in almost comradely fashion as though I were nobody.) I should have lived in “the circles,” in professorial seclusion; then I would have had a great reputation, and furthermore I would have been safeguarded by belonging to the great corps of civil servants who stick together in accordance with the law that when one is injured, all are injured (instead I have lived as the single individual in whose fate not one single person participates).

It is easy enough to defend the use of shrewdness in accomplishing something by appealing to Paul, who of course also made use of shrewdness. Well, let us see. An existence that has so qualitatively and totally guaranteed its heterogeneity as

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madnessa can make use of shrewdness without danger. The danger is when a person who is not remarkable in this way acts shrewdly―for then shrewdness takes advantage of him in toto. Such a man has not secured any heterogeneity for himself (which―understood in relation to Paul―can only be attained by at some point acting decisively in opposition to the understanding). The religious do not consider this. Unremarkable religious existences of this sort want to defend their shrewd conduct religiously by appealing to Paul, without noticing or wanting to notice that the “total madness” of Paul’s life―i.e., its incompatibility with shrewdness―was a sufficient guarantee, whereas their little fragment of religiosity drowns in the total shrewdness that belongs to the world and worldliness.

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That I continually go backward is an expression, a qualitative expression, of fear and trembling. I am not oriented in a way that permits me to speak grandly of what is to come and of what I want. No, oriented as I am, I understand that I am capable of nothing whatever. So I turn backward: I strive with all my talents to do the best I can today. And then month follows month, year follows year―and only then to I see what has been achieved.

Yes, it is true: how satirical when one suddenly thinks of the Old Testament command, “You shall not make for yourself any image of your God,” in our times, when God has become abstract. How the world has become reversed: Is it a step forward or backward[?] Fichte the younger has pointed this out in his Vorschule der Theologie § 108.

What inveterate effeminacy: for oneself, to want to proclaim Christianity in such a way that it procures for one all earthly advantages―and then, if pressed, to put up with someone pro-

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claiming it by making every sort of sacrifice―provided, please note, that he is willing to let himself be regarded as though this were a sort of idiosyncratic hobby (with the former alternative being true, earnest Christianity) and if, in addition, he personally adheres to a light, witty way of talking. And one is sufficiently stupid or inveterate to fail utterly to understand that he has been seen through, that such a person is actlly and seriously playing a cunning trick on him. Because for someone to want to have the advantages―well, after all, if he confesses it, no one else can really object to it―but to distort the relationship to such a degree that unselfishness is seen to be an exaggeration to the point of being ludicrous; and then for selfishness to profit still further by having something to amuse it―this is indeed to have sunk too low. It is true that the more refined sort of people do not actually do this so openly and brazenly; on the contrary, they occasionally give compliments, but shrewd in the ways of the world as they are, they do make an effort to advance the view that this sort of thing―which of course is something amiable, truly praiseworthy, and more than forgivable―is nonetheless an exaggeration, a hobby.

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In relation to Xnty the question is always to what extent must a pers. be reshaped toward becoming spirit before he dare appropriate grace. As the situation now is, things are just too crazy; it is rlly nothing but refined paganism. A person remains within all the categories of sensuousness and worldliness, lives his life within them; then he willingly acknowledges that he is far behind (this is called repentance) but remains in the same place; then he brings “grace” to bear―as a new patch on an old garment. On the other hand, if in order to dare appropriate “grace” a hum. being must be decisively developed into being “spirit,” then God knows how many there will be in each generation who would actually

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feel a need for Xnty or have any use for it. If I actually must die away from my most cherished wishes, forsake everything that delights an earthly hum. being, then humanly speaking, I indeed become as unhappy as possible―and so the question is if I then am “spirit” enough to actually have use for Xnty. There is a shameful abuse fostered by the division: the Law is frightening―the Gospel is reassuring. No, at first the Gospel itself is and must be frightening. Had this not been the case, how in all the world could things have happened as they did with Xt: when he said, [“]Come unto me[”]―everyone stayed away, they fled from him. But it is increasingly clear to me that only an apostle can proclaim Xnty in the stricter sense, for only he has the authority to be rigorous in that way. Thus a hum. being does not have authority of that sort and must lower the price. Only the person who has himself been transformed to “spirit” in the stricter sense, only he can no longer understand, will not understand, the confounded nonsense, the feebleness, in which we others are ensnared, which causes us to spare ourselves altogether too much and repose in grace all too early, reposing in it, away from the struggle, instead of reposing in it to become renewed for renewed struggle.

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Faith―The Proof Someone who is condemned to death as a criminal, a blasphemer; abandoned by everyone, he is flogged, mocked, spat upon, and finally nailed to the cross―and he says: Have faith in me. Indeed, this is truly the place for faith, for all immediacy testifies against it―crying out to heaven, if you will―saying, Do not have faith in him. 1800 years later there lives a speaker who proves on the basis of the consequences of that person’s life that he was the one he said he was. Well, if it can be proven, then he is no longer the object of faith.

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powers, the apostles were therefore equipped with superhuman powers in order to be able to endure having faith. We others have it somewhat easier, and then in addition we have “grace” as the fruit of Xt’s death. But it must never be forgotten that if it can be fully proven from the consequences that Xt is the one he said he was, then he is not the object of faith.

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If Xt had in any way been of this opinion, he would have said to his disciples, [“]Wait a while, and you will certainly come to see that I was right.[”] But he did not do that; he did not refer to the historical consequences of his life; he wanted to be the object of faith. If this does not help a person to see the confusion in which the whole of Xndom lies, it cannot do any good to talk to him.

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Luther was indeed no dialectician. In the sermon on the epistle for the 6th Sunday after Easter he argues, as he also argues elsewhere, that in relation to faith one must not take into account persons, but only the Word: Even if it were an apostle who taught something other than the Holy Scripture, one ought not follow him. That is right enough. But Luther ought nonetheless be a bit careful. Indeed, Xnty obviously came into the world in reversed fashion, so that the person is higher than the teaching. How am I to know whether something is God’s word or teaching? If Luther replies, [“]By testing the teaching[”], then all is lost, then Xnty is a hum. invention. Exactly the opposite takes place: I yield to someone’s authority, but then the person is higher than the teaching. Luther ought also have pointed this out, though in other respects he can be right in what he says about a hum. being’s presumptuousness with respect to God’s word.

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Concerning the Publication of “The Accounting” and the “Three Notes” Now. Perhaps “The Accounting” can be published, and in its latest version. As for “Three Notes,” I have returned to the original understanding: because I cannot after all present myself in accordance with my wretchedness, nor ought there be any attempt to present myself in accordance with my possible superiority. For me personally, both elements correspond precisely to one another; if one is taken away, the other becomes untrue. So “Three Notes” can either be left lying or the important categories of thought they contain can be used quite simply as theses without mentioning myself with a single word― the thesis “the crowd” is “untruth” and the thesis about “the single individual.” In its present version, “The Accounting” contains essentially nothing about me; if any objection were to be raised, it would more likely be that I am made too insignificant. But in fact my significance cannot be presented truthfully without including, as a counterweight, the fact that I myself am a penitent, and I cannot go that far in presenting my person as long as I am alive, not even for the sake of “her”―who would suddenly be thrust into a reinterpretation of the past, which perhaps would disturb her profoundly.

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The Holy Spirit.

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The H. S. is called the “the Comforter.” That name could lead one to think that it was supposed to comfort the disciples, and then also the Xns as well, because Xt went away and was no longer visible among them. This is not how it is at all. As Exemplar, Xt remains a form of the Law, indeed of the intensified Law, which is why Xt’s sufferings are also the sternest judgment upon the world and the human race, for there was not one single one who would persevere with him. (One sees from this how infinitely backward is the priestly prattle that at emotional moments―moved and movingly and thoughtlessly―or if it has a thought, it is only to the extent that flesh can be said to have a thought―expresses a wish to be contemporary with Xt.) To be contemporary with Xt is absolutely the most rigorous possible examination; if this remained the standard, then the Jews were under a more lenient judgment when they were under the Law. But then Xt dies―and his death is the atonement: here is grace. The Holy Spirit, which Xt will send, is now rlly the dispenser of grace, the grace that Xt earned. Hence the name, “the Comforter.” A hum. being, of course, will not have need of grace only with respect to what is past. That is how people generally think of it. It is said: All your sins have been forgiven you―restitution has been made. Fine, but if I do not die tomorrow, then it will soon become clear that despite the fact that I was granted “grace,” since then I have been far from pure and perfect. So in this respect the matter has in fact become worse. Because before I received grace I of course always had the consolation that grace was available, but now I have indeed misused grace.a Ergo I again need “grace” in connection with the poor use I make of grace, and so on endlessly. Grace is the everlasting fountain―and the H. S. is the dispenser,

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the comforter. The comforter also in the sense that Xt as Exemplar is of course a demand to which no hum. being is in fact equal. As long as Xt is visibly present as the Exemplar he cannot prevent this becoming a judgment. His life thus has a double aspect: he is the Exemplar―then he dies; and now he transforms himself, he becomes “grace” eternally, also in relation to our imperfect efforts to resemble “the Exemplar.”

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“Christendom” This is the enormous illusion that has actlly abolished Xnty. One can become quite dizzy when one gazes upon the dreadful conceptual confusion that has arisen in connection with Christianity. In brief, the confusion is this, but it has continued from generation to generation of these millions and millions: One enters into Xnty in the wrong way. Instead of entering as an individual, one enters with the others; the others are Xns―ergo I am one, too, and in the same sense that the others are. In this connection I come to think of old Socrates. Being a hum. being was something that gave him pause, for in his day the matter of being a hum. being was the way things are now with respect to being a Xn. The individual was not a hum. being qua individual, but inasmuch as the others are hum. beings, then I am one as well. But still, that confusion was nothing compared to the one in Xndom, because being a Xn should be the most mature and self-conscious decision.

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people understood that, humanly speaking, Xnty is the life view for which only one situation is favorable: that of death. The difficulty emerges when one must struggle. One postpones the acceptance of grace until it [the struggle] is past―then one accepts it; now restitution has been made for everything; then one dies blessed. But this is either melancholia or indeed worldly shrewdness that takes Xnty in vain.

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The Most Dangerous Situation for a Child with Respect to the Religious What is most dangerous is not for the father or the person bringing up the child to be a freethinker or even for him to be a hypocrite. No, what is dangerous is for him to be a pious and God-fearing man, for the child to be deeply and profoundly certain of this and yet nonetheless to notice a profound disquiet concealed in his father’s soul, for which not even the fear of God and piety can gain peace. The danger lies precisely in the circumstance that in this situation the child is prompted to draw a conclusion concerning God, almost to the effect that God is not, indeed, the infinitely loving being.

How suspect it is to bring up a child in Xnty can also be seen from this: Xnty has as its precondition the actuality of the consciousness of sin. It is the joyous news that God in Xt takes sinners upon himself; Xt is the friend of sinners―blessed news for every sinner, all the more blessed, the more profoundly he has sensed the power of sin and the pain of repentance. But now take the child: it has no actual consciousness of sin. What then? Well, the child must actlly have his own thoughts concerning all that is said about how good God and Xt are―that is, that the child notices that it is accompanied by an aber: if one has sinned. Take an analogy. Describe the family physician to a child as a particularly kind and loving man, etc.―what then? The child actlly thinks as follows: [“]Yes, it is indeed very possible that he is such a nice man; I would gladly believe it, but I would nonetheless prefer to be free of him, because for me to be the object of his special love means that I am sick, and being sick is not nice; therefore I am far from being happy at the thought that he is to be sent for.[”] Assume that there is a sickly person in the family who is inexhaustible in praising the physician’s love: the child thinks, Well, that is right enough―if one is sick. If one is actually sick, and the sickness is of a serious character, then one is happy that there is a physician; but when one is not sick, when one has absolutely no notion of being sick―then “the physician” is rlly an unpleasant thought.

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So in relating a child to Xnty, one must either omit what Xnty rlly is―and what sort of way is that to bring up a child in Xnty!―or one must say it, and this causes the child to be more afraid of Xnty than happy about it. Millions of people would have to have been aware of this were not the entire business with the many Xns and the upbringing of their children in Xnty a sham. Science wants to turn Xnty into mythology―and so there is an outcry. People do not notice that as it is currently and generally practiced, Xn upbringing is rlly mythology.

The difference between a pagan and a Xn is not that the latter is without sin. The difference is in how he regards his sin, and how he is kept striving. When a pagan sins―and precisely the more profound and noble he is―there is a frightful pause in striving: he descends into melancholia, broods ruminatively on his guilt, and sin perhaps gains more and more power over him, so that in desperation he sinks ever more deeply. The Xn has a savior; he takes refuge in “grace”; as if he were a child, his sin is transformed for him into fatherly chastisement that has the purpose of helping him forward―and now he perhaps takes a forward step that is more certain. Truly, cheerful courage is not rash irresponsibility, but is confidence in grace. It can be rash irresponsibility for a pers. hastily to leave behind the thought of a sin of weakness, but it can also be cheerful courage because he has such a profound and confident notion of “grace.”

Instead of all this priestly prattle and all these scholarly tomes that make the matter so serious, so infinitely serious and important, by showing how Xnty satisfies the deepest needs of the entire race, so that there is no mention―how frivolous or narrow!― of my little I, but―how grand and profoundly serious!―of the whole world. Instead, I could be tempted to reverse the discourse for once, saying, I feel a need for Xnty, and I can easily imagine that you others do not feel this, that you are better and stronger than I. There is a confounded hypocrisy concerning seriousness:

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that seriousness is supposedly to conceal oneself behind “the others,” these millions, instead of being “the single individual.”

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Actlly, the Formula of Concord and so forth indeed made the religious into legalisms; it is like an unending legal case in which one piously encounters narrow-minded hum. hairsplitting in favor of God. But, good Lord, does God need such pious Procuratores in order to win the case[?]

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My need for Xnty is so great (both because of my sufferings and my sins and because of my frightful introversion): therefore I am not understood. Therefore, as well, I have frequently even been afraid of making life altogether too serious for others as well; that is why I am so cautious.

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The use people make of “the Church” is indeed also an indulgence from making genuine decisions with respect to becoming a Xn. What a difference: the days when there was no Xnty but a beginning had to be made, and the weight of the world fell with an almost crushing impact upon “the single individual’s” decision whether to become a Xn―and now, when the gigantic, accumulated illusions of eighteen centuries transform it almost into foolishness, something one becomes without really knowing how. So far is it from being the case that the 1800 years are a proof of the truth of Xnty, that (in a way, religiously, even though to the extent that it is disobedient, it is irreligious) one could more easily transform the fact that Governance has permitted Xnty to sink into an illusion like this into an argument against Xnty. But it must not be forgotten that this is of course the Xns’ fault, so that Xnty almost comes to transform itself into the most terrifying accusation against the hum. race: that after Xnty was implanted in it, the race permitted it to degenerate to such a degree that it became meaningless, unrecognizable, an enormous illusion. If this fight is to be fought through, it will become more terrible than when Xnty came into the world. It will be said with intensified passion that true Xnty is odium totius generis humani.

7 Procuratores] Latin, administrators, lawyers. 36 odium totius generis humani] Latin, hatred of the entire human race. (See also explanatory note.)

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After the world has made its arrangements with Xnty, taken possession of it―then, to want to take Xnty from it (that is, make Xnty into what it was), then the world will certainly let go of it. The martyrs―this is almost crazy―will not bleed the way they did in the past, because they were Xns: no, they will be put to death because they are not Xns. The most frightful of dramas! And how solitary the martyr will stand! Because when Xnty came into the world―precisely because the contrast was truly striking, qualitative, crying out to the heavens―precisely for that reason it was easier to choose decisively: either/or. But now the illusion has enervated the contrast. When someone ventures forth, as soon as he encounters any resistance, at that very instant, the illusion is at his service with a new little refinement and he retreats again. In the beginning, the world forced the Xn into character; nowadays, illusion, inexhaustibly inventive, continually tears him out of character. When Xnty strove against paganism, there was no difficulty in finding a foothold, for the qualitative resistance of the antitheses to one another provided the foothold. Nowadays, almost superhuman powers are required simply to get a foothold, for the illusion continually wants to insinuate itself, day in and day out. If a man is condemned to life in prison for his convictions, that is certainly a test; but still, if the matter is settled with this, it is nonetheless something that can be managed. But if the punishment is made more stringent by interrogating him again and again every week, and he is presented with a form, and if he signs it, he will be set free: this is a terrible intensification. And yet, if it is the same form word for word, it can be managed. But if he is interrogated again and again every two hours and is continually presented with a new form, and if he signs it, he will be set free: this is beyond human strength. And this is how it is to battle an illusion. The illusion is improved at every instant, imitating the position of the witness to the truth, but as an illusion, saying, [“]Good Lord, then we are of course in agreement―why do you want to make yourself miserable and alarm us others.[”] You see, this is torture. Paganism truly did not insist that it possessed Xnty. But the illusion will not for any price part with the illusion that it possesses Xnty. Therefore the illusion is continually willing to offer something different, all according to the capacities of the witness to the truth. But it does not want any decision. The illusion is willing to make concessions on a grand scale (as in bidding at an auction)―but one thing must be made certain: that fundamentally the old arrangement remains in place.

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In order to fight his way forward in this situation, the witness to the truth must not only have an almost superhuman cunning, but an almost superhuman cunning in being cruel to himself. One weak moment―that is enough, then the illusion swallows him up; he himself does not know one thing from another, and this makes the task 50 percent harder for the next witness to the truth. The most dreadful battle is not when one opinion confronts another opinion; no the most dreadful battle is when two hum. beings say one and the same thing and the battle is over the interpretation, and this interpretation is nonetheless a qualitative difference. It is in the interest of the deceiver to let the original formulation intrude meaninglessly: “Of course, we are saying one and the same thing”―instead of letting the fight be over the interpretation. Everything has reversed itself: there was a time when the world wanted to do battle―then Xnty fought. Now the world is in mendacious possession of Xnty, so its strategy is to do its utmost to avoid doing battle at all costs. It is as if a confidence man has the suspicion that if a matter comes to trial, he would lose, and therefore the whole of his strategy consists of preventing it from coming to trial. In matters of the spirit this is much easier than in everyday civil life, for the strategy consists of continually imitating the position taken by the other party, so that to a certain extent one says the same thing―but Good Lord, then we are of course in agreement. So let people claim that the world has made progress since the days when Xns were persecuted with fire and the sword―and nowadays, when it fights with the power of lies for the appearance of being Xn. But what are they fighting about, then? Being a Xn of course includes a requirement of self-denial such as cannot be particularly inviting to the world. True, but the world regards Xnty differently. It has gotten it into its head that this teaching, after all, constitutes an insurance policy for eternity―and

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thus it would be unwise to abandon it. Naturally, to abandon this fantasy in order actually to become a Xn is equally unwise, for then the insurance policy is too expensive. It would of course be madness for a person to spend his entire fortune on insurance― for indeed, what would be left to insure. No, one pays a certain percentage; thus buying insurance is something no prudent man omits. And this is how the world wants to have Xnty. It is impossible to make it clear than one cannot have Xnty in this way because the world does not want to understand this, and the world does not want to take the matter so seriously. But that someone should compel it to give up the name of Xn and thus leave the insurance company[?]―no, never. The person who wants to work in that direction is not only the enemy of hum. beings, he is an enemy of God. Influenced as the world has been by a volatilized Christian tradition, the world’s impression is this: It is, after all, a question concerning eternal life―a wise man does something, after all, for safety’s sake: he takes out an insurance policy, paying a certain percentage each year. One takes out insurance―only now is one at peace; now one can enjoy life; only now―as “the priest” so nicely puts it―do the joys of life take on their true flavor. What joys? Well, let us not talk about that.a One takes out insurance; now―as “the priest” so nicely puts it―one possesses that which can alleviate one’s worries and sufferings―ah, yes! supposing that one is “earnest” enough to be capable of freeing himself entirely from the worry that the whole business about insurance might be a dubious matter, that it might be a chimera, so that what is needed is more likely to be an insurance company to guarantee the insurance policy. But of course, this is something we have; we of course have the clergy. Just look at them, and from their security you will easily see the security with which you can insure yourself with them―on very favorable and reasonable terms. Just listen to their arguments, their proofs―indeed, no insurance agent has known how to recommend his firmb like

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nor about their “true” taste.

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this. They take care of everything for you, without the least difficulty: you just give them your name, then the sexton enters it in “The Book of Life,” and then you are enrolled. And in order that you not be bothered in any way by anything in the external world, the clergy―who of course are solely concerned with the serious business of insurance for eternity, and thus might easily come to appear overly serious―have done everything in order to be exactly the way you are with respect to external matters and so forth. And then if anyonec says to “the priest”: “But is it quite certain, then, that there is an immortality[?],”d he replies, “Nothing is more certain; if―to make an unreasonable assumption for a moment―it turns out that there is no immortality, just make sure to get hold of me in the next life, and you will get your money back―and you will be entitled to call me a deceiver―indeed, if you wish, even to kill me. But one thing you will not reasonably be able to accuse me of, neither here nor in the hereaftere: that we are too expensive―for charts and tables show with complete accuracy that the Lutheran Church in Denmark offers something close to the lowest price, while its insurance policies are nonetheless in every respect entirely as safe, indeed, perhaps even more reassuring than those of Catholicism and other confessions, which, however, make much greater demands upon their participants.[”]

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This is how Xnty came into the world: it presupposed hardship, agony, the anguished conscience that suffered under the Law, the hunger that simply cries out for food―and then Xnty was the food. And nowadays, nowadays people think that an appetizer is needed in order to get people to go along with Xnty. What appetizers? The preaching of the Law? No, no, Xnty must be served with the spices that whet the appetite―proofs, reasons, probability, and the like. And most recently the sermon has essentially focused solely and exclusively on

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, it is as obvious as 2 and 2 make 4 that taking out insurance here is not to “venture” anything in the least way, that on the contrary, it is the shrewdest of all calculations, to pay a bargain price in purchasing the most invaluable of all goods, the true good, “which is the only thing that gives joys their true taste and gently alleviates the cares.”

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(who is registered with and known to the sexton, and thus― what amounts to the same thing― is certain of heaven)

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(and least of all in this final phase, where to your blessed surprise you will find that you have received indescribable blessedness beyond all measure, as Paul says)

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appetizers. In other words, they are betraying Xnty; they rlly deny that it is unconditionally the food, that the fault lies in hum. beings, that they should be properly starved―then they would surely learn to need Xnty. But nowadays it is Xnty that needs appetizers in order to have a bit of taste―otherwise it presumably tastes of nothing. And what does it taste like with the help of an appetizer? We have transformed Xnty from a radical cure (and that is what it is; therefore it presupposes in those concerned the resolve―resolvere, to open up―that is always required in connection with a radical cure) into a minor precaution, as that which is taken to avoid catching cold, getting a toothache, and the like. And curiously enough, whereas every inventor of drops, extracts, etc., “which neither harm nor help,” trumpets his medicine as a miraculous balm―Xnty is proclaimed in very subdued tones; a gang of reasons and proofs immediately marches up in order to make it at least somewhat probable that there is something to Xnty. And this is called preaching, for which a person is rewarded as a “servant of the Word.” Truly, if worse comes to worst, I believe Xnty would be better served by a charlatan than by a legion of such preachers.

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Proportions. These days most people (these thousands upon thousands) are Christians simply by virtue of being hum. beings. At the greatest possible remove from this would be a demon who managed with the assistance of Xnty to become a hum. being. He would be capable of carrying out a thorough audit of the illusions in established Christendom.

Poetic Lines by an Individual. “Instead of voting by ballot―where, after all, it is so easy for additional questions to arise, putting the outcome in doubt―I propose that in addition to the president, the secretary, etc. yet another official should be elected: the teller. He ought to be

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analogous to a Notarius publicus, i.e., a person specifically chosen for this function, who could be brought to wherever the assembly met or could be booked a day in advance. His task would be to count the buttons. As soon debate concerning an issue was completed, the president says to the teller, [‘]Would you now please count the buttons.[’] Then the position that wins is the truth; the entire assembly falls down in adoration and says, [‘]It is God’s will.[’] The teller ought also be a holy person, inasmuch as the state sees in him its principle; thus he is a sort of deity, or at any rate a mythological person who could be worshiped in the oriental manner, and an annual festival could be held in his honor.”

The error in much of what the Middle Ages practiced in order to express the heterogeneity of the Christian life and worldliness was that by doing it a person became self-important―indeed, even important before God. Christianity’s view is that the Christian should be so spiritual that he could do such things easily, as if they were nothing. If he can do it that way, Xnty is happy to see it. If he cannot, then it is preferable to make an honest confession and admission, to refrain from bungling things―and then Christianity is also satisfied.

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Goethe always presents his feminine characters solely in the light of male egotism. Take Clärchen! A man like Egmont, who bestrides the stage as he does, even when he is in mortal danger―that he can be so entirely certain that Clärchen will not allude with a single word or expression to all that she of course knows and in which she is infinitely interested―that she can simply love a pers. to that degree: yes, this little, insignificant girl is simply femininely great, an unusual girl in an entirely different sense from the silly way in which people speak of an unusual girl (with a bit of culture, etc.), a figure whom I, in complete agreement with Goethe, value very little. Take Margaret! To preserve that feminine insignificance when confronted by so marked a personality as Faust: yes, this is feminine greatness. But Goethe was such an egotist that he rlly did not even have honesty enough to have a sympathetic eye for evaluating what had been squandered on him. Even the diminutive form “Clärchen” is in one sense unfair if nothing further is said, for her insignificance is simply 1 Notarius publicus] Latin, notary public.

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greatness, even it is completely proper for Egmont to call her “Clärchen”; but perhaps it could be emphasized that it was only Egmont who called her that.

What and―How. The difference in life is not what is said, but how. With respect to [“]what,[”] the same thing has been said before, perhaps many times before―so that the old saying, [“]There is nothing new under the sun,[”] holds true, this old saying that nonetheless always remains new. But how it is said: this is what is new. And thus understood, it is true that everything is new, because just for safety’s sake, I ought to include the following: Even when an imitator repeats one or another old thing, down to the last little insignificant detail, there is still something new―that the old has now become nonsense, triviality. The eye for this [“]how[”] is actlly spirit, whereas there is (among other things) such a thing as spiritless learning of which the secret is: This new thing is the same as such and such from the 17th century and is also the same as such and such from the Middle Ages, etc. This is the intellectual difference: what and how. Again, the ethical-religious difference: what is said and how it is said. The words [“]I know nothing except Christ, and him crucified,” spoken by an apostle, cost him his life; by a witness to the truth, it becomes persecution; by someone lesser, by me, for example, it does become a sort of suffering; by a poet, it leads to success; by a declaiming priest, it not only brings him success, but he is really honored almost as someone holy. “The single individual”: this idea, enunciated by someone who is in the strict sense a witness to the truth, is death. Spoken by someone more imperfect, by me, for example, it still constitutes a decisive break with the world and what belongs to the world, thus at least some sacrifice; by a declaiming orator: he is a success. Here, [“]how[”] does not mean the aesthetic, the declamatory, whether in flowery language or in a simple style, whether with a sonorous organ or a scratchy voice, whether dryly and without emotion or with tears in one’s eye, etc. No, the difference is

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whether one speaks or acts by speaking: whether one uses one’s voice, facial expressions, arm movements, treble or perhaps tenfold emphasis of a single word, etc., whether one uses such things for emphasis in order to make an impression―or one uses his life, his existence, every hour of his day, sacrifices, etc., in order to exert pressure. This pressure is the high pressure that transforms what is said into something completely different than when an orator says the same thing, word for word. And, as I said today to His Excellency Ørsted, when a pers. puts his thought into the world it makes an infinite difference whether he understands that he is to be issued as a rix-dollar note or as a 10-rix-dollar note or as a 100-rix-dollar note. They all say the same thing, perhaps word for word, but it depends on who is saying it: it is not quite the same―no, there is an infinite difference. Abominable guilt, incurred so often in our times: when a shrewd thinker notices someone else whose life bears the marks of having been sacrificed for speaking some [truth] or the truth: when this shrewd thinker shrewdly says the same thing―and is a success. He says the same thing; indeed, perhaps he will even defend himself against the other by saying, “I am saying the same thing, word for word.” You hypocrite―yes, of course you are saying the same thing, but you do not act by speaking, you merely talk, and in doing so you do something completely different, so that you are a success―by saying the same thing, word for word. Truly, eternity will take this sort of guilt very seriously. There are not many crimes as aggravated as this one, and not many who have harmed the truth as have these shrewd thinkers.

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Rom. 7. The most severe judgment upon sin, and it is precisely there that the Redemption begins by saying the same thing but in another way. Rom. 7. Obviously, then, the most terrifying form of sin is when it has utterly taken away a hum. being’s power so that it has him in its power against his will. Seen from this perspective, all voluntary sin is far less terrifying, precisely because a person also sees that he had it within his power to have acted differ-

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ently. Thus, too, with the individual’s own condition, for indeed, it inherently contains much hope about the possibility of being saved by one’s own powers―that he could have acted differently. But when he can only say, Sin has such power over me that it is against my will―then despair is right at the door. And yet here, here is where the atonement and the redemption begin. So it says, Take courage, it is not you who wills the evil, it is the power of sin in you; console yourself in Christ. Remarkable, that the most frightful accusation from the one side is mercy’s exculpation from the other. It can easily be seen that this doctrine can be taken in vain. But the danger is not so great if we bear one thing in mind: that this shall happen, that a pers. is to emerge from sin. The frightful abuse of it is when the fact that it is against one’s will becomes the defense for―remaining in sin.

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To a Contemporary, whose name must still not be mentioned, but whom history will name―be it for a short time or long―as long as it names mine, is dedicated with this little work the whole of my work as an author, as it was from the beginning.

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JOURNAL NB16

JOURNAL NB16 Translated by Bruce H. Kirmmse Edited by Vanessa Rumble

Text source Journal NB16 in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter Text established by Finn Gredal Jensen, Kim Ravn and Steen Tullberg

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NB16. Febr. 14 1850.

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“Without Authority” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On the Publication of Writings about Myself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concerning Writings about Myself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On the “Three Notes” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

p. 5. pp. 68 et al. pp. 82 et al. p. 118.

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Concerning texts for the Friday sermons see the blank page at the beginning of Journal NB14.

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“Original Sin” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christian “Congregation” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “The Single Individual”―“Race” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Text for a Lenten Sermon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Misfortune of Christendom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Point in Christendom’s Confusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reduplication p. 160.

pp. 2, 11, 13 bottom of page p. 7. p. 23. p. 81. p. 97. p. 130.

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Julius Müller formulates very well the problem of whether original sin (peccatum originale) is guilt. He shows that guilt and sin are correlates―ergo where there is sin, there is also guilt; if one concedes A, one must also concede B. And the formulation of the principle that original sin is guilt, or that original sin exists, is similarly correct. Thus the condition from which actual sins necessarily emerge is also sin. It is quite simply in the categories of cause and effect. In addition, he correctly shows how the syllogism about guilt and sin can also be reversed, in Pelagian fashion, to its precise opposite. Guilt and sin are correlates; now, it is impossible for me to think of my guilt in relation to something I have not committed―ergo there is no original sin, so that by denying the concept of guilt I come to deny original sin simply by virtue of the thesis that guilt and sin are correlates.

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Incidentally, in my view, “original sin” is yet another expression of the fact that Xnty uses God’s standard of measure. God sees everything in uno. This is the deepest reason why offense is possible in relation to every category of Christianity and is inseparable from it: that Xnty has been invented by God; that at no point does it ever forget that God is included, and as a participant, which is something he has condescended to be―but of course, from this it follows that we (humnly speaking, if you will, we poor hum. beings) must put up with the fact that God’s standard of measure is used. The first consequence of this is that it recoils upon us to a degree that no hum. being would dream of or contemplate on his own[.] (Here is what is so masterful in the Augsburg Confession, etc.: that on his own, no hum. being has a true notion of how deep the corruption of sin is, that he must be enlightened about this through a revelation. And quite rightly, because having an inadequate notion of sin is precisely a part of what sin is; and furthermore because only God, the Holy One, has the true divine notion.) But the second consequence is that there is a restoration: 3 peccatum originale] Latin, original sin. (See also explanatory note.) 21 in uno] Latin, as one.

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for then it is also promised that the hum. being will become a child of God. 101

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Everything that neither occupies a specific sphere of activity assigned to it within the state and is thus subordinate to it nor directly acknowledges that it works for finite ends, makes the claim that it is in the service of ideas and as such must be kept chaste and pure, untouched by association with finite advantages. Working for an idea is also recognizable by the fact that it addresses itself ϰατα δυναμιν to everyone, to the people. A civil servant and the like has his specific sphere of activity, but an author, for example, an artist, etc., relates himself to the people. A merchant, for example, can also in a way be said to relate himself to the people, insofar as they want to buy from him, but he also acknowledges directly that he is working for a finite end. So think of what madness and immorality it is that something which by the form of its existence lays claim to serving the infinite, to being higher than a particular, specific, limited activity within the state―that journalism, for example, is in fact in the hands of tradesmen. The significance of being above relative things ought at least be purchased with cash sacrifices.

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“Without Authority” The reason I have continually said that I am without authority is that I myself have felt that there was too much of the poet in me, also that I feel that I have been helped by something higher; furthermore, that I am constructed in a backward fashion, but also that I understand that both the profound suffering of my life as well as my guilt make me need Xnty on so great a scale, while I am constantly afraid of making it too burdensome for anyone, for perhaps he does not need so great a standard of measure. Of course, neither the God-Man nor an apostle can have worries of this sort―but then, I am only a poor hum. being.

11 ϰατα δυναμιν] Greek, potentially.

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Or let me take another illustration. The individuals in a population who are so noteworthy and prominent that they must bear the burden that even the most trivial details of their lives are of interest, so that they can appear in print and become the subject of gossip―in brief, the individuals whose renown is the stuff of conversation

Someone purer than I, who had just as deep an impression of Xnty as I have: yes, I would count that straightforwardly in his faveur. With me it is another matter, because (everything else regarding intellectual gifts and other qualifications notwithstanding) the fact that I have so profound an impression of Xnty is, after all, “not owing to my virtue.” If someone―if we may put it like this―had the best understanding of Plato, even though he had been the greatest of sinners, the latter circumstance makes no difference whatever, is entirely a matter of indifference. This is not how it is in relation to Xnty. Such a person ought humbly bear in mind that he has a qualification that might indeed have helped him grasp Xnty more profoundly―but it is a qualification that is not a straightforward plus, but a straightforward minus.

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If a person wants to sit brooding and staring at his sin and is unwilling to have faith that it is forgiven, he is indeed also guilty of thinking poorly of Xt’s merits.

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I know nothing more illuminating to designate where it is located than an analogy, which, by the way, is sans comparaison. The world of criminals constitutes a little society of its own, situated outside hum. society, a little society that, by the way, also possesses an intense solidarity that is not very common in the world, perhaps because each person individually feels himself expelled from hum. society. This is how it is with the society of Christians. By accepting Xnty, thus by becoming a believer―that is, by accepting the absurd, indeed by staking his life on it―each person individually has said farewell to the world, has broken with the world. Precisely

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3 faveur] French, favor. 27 sans comparaison] French, beyond compare.

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for this reason, the society of these people who have voluntarily placed themselves outside society in the usual sense of the word is all the more intense because each individually feels how isolated he is in “the world.” But just as in that society of criminals great care must be taken to see to it that no one comes into that society unless he is marked as they are, so, too, in the society of Xns: they must take care that no one comes into this society except precisely the person whose distinguishing characteristic is that he is polemical in the extreme toward society in the ordinary sense―that is, the Christian congregation is a society consisting of those who are qualitatively individuals; the intensity of the society is also conditioned by this polemical stance toward the greater hum. society. But when in the course of time and with the steady advance of nonsense being a Xn has become identical with being a hum. being: then the Christian congregation became the hum. race―good night! Now the Christian congregation is the public, and in the eyes of every cultivated cleric, to say nothing of the eyes of the laity, it is offensive to speak of “the single individual.”

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It is splendidly put by Julius Müller (2nd part p. 430): that if one says that this doctrine of the personality, which does not speak of the race but makes the individual person into something atomistic― what, then, does the word [“]individual[”] mean? Is not an individual an ατομον that will not in any way permit itself to be viewed as the appearance or impression of another[?]

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That “Original Sin” Is “Guilt[”] is the real paradox. How paradoxical it is can best be seen as follows. It is formed from a composite 31 ατομον] Greek, atom, literally “uncuttable.”]

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for their bestial times―perhaps such individuals constitute a little society; perhaps the pressure of enduring this, plus disgust at general hum. bestiality, makes the association more intense. But this little society is situated outside of “society.” Among other things, the association consists of the shared consciousness of how each of the individuals has in a certain sense been deprived of universal hum. rights, of the right to be left alone, etc.

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of qualitatively unlike categories. To “inherit” is a category of nature; “guilt” is an ethical category of spirit. The understanding says, How could it ever occur to a person to put them together, to say that something can be inherited that according to its concept cannot possibly be inherited[?] It must be believed. The paradox in the Christian truth is always linked to the fact that it is the truth as it is for God. A superhuman measure and criterion is employed, and in relation to this only one relation is possible, that of faith.

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Here there is an error in Julius Müller. In connection with sin, as in connection with every expression of freedom, he rightly asserts (this is something the younger Fichte has already repeatedly enjoined) that it cannot be known with necessity (no, neither beforehand nor afterward, see Philosophical Fragments), but must be experienced. Fine. Then he should have turned decisively toward the ethical-religious, toward the existential, toward you and I. Earnestness is that I become conscious of myself as a sinner and in this respect apply everything to myself. But instead he gets involved with the ordinary difficulties concerning the universality of sin, etc. But if this is to be experienced, then either I must know everything―and in that case, since the world keeps going on, the whole thing becomes a hypothesis, which perhaps has held up until now, but (as I see Prof. Levy writes in a treatise on the lying-in hospital) is in no way tenable on that account. Or I must understand what Joh. Climacus has explained in Concluding Postscript, that in relation to actuality, every individual is rlly referred only to himself―all other individuals he can understand only in possibility.

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addition to this I have one and only one thing on which to focus all my earnestness: that I am a sinner.

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Clutter―and Category. It makes an infinite difference if one first makes a move in the direction of wanting to comprehend, to grasp speculatively and conceptualize―and then finally grants that there is, after all, something incomprehensible in faith―or from the very beginning one categorically grasps that faith cannot and shall not be comprehended. All speculative comprehension in the domain of Xnty (if it has not in fact emancipated itself totally and is open paganism) always ends with: So there is truly something incomprehensible remaining. But what confusion, and what is the point of all this yielding to speculative curiosity instead of dutifully and in Christian fashion immediately pointing out and energetically emphasizing that it is impossible and impermissible to comprehend a paradox, for then it is not a paradox. It is difficult to crack a peach pit; let us assume that it is impossible to do it. So what would one judge of a gathering in which each person put one in his mouth, making gestures: [“]Now, now, now―yes, sure enough, here it comes,[”] and then finally says, “To a certain degree, I cannot, however, crack it.” Yes, my friend, if to a certain degree you cannot crack it, this obviously means that you cannot crack it. What would one think of this? Would it not be better, after all, to refrain from the attempt, to begin by saying: I cannot―and thena perhaps show why it is an impossibility for human teeth. But people like the salivating. It is lack of character.

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Would it not be a rarity for there to be someone who could literally speak to a gathering of people exactly as one speaks with an individual because he had toughened his thinking and his mind against surrendering to the illusion of numbers, to the dizziness of animal categories. And in how many ways it is seen that as soon as hum. beings are in a crowd, they feel that they are cloaked with the impudence of animality. When two men

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converse it would of course never occur to one of them to say [“]bravo[”] or [“]Shut up[”]. But in a gathering this is done almost instinctively. In what capacity does the individual do this, then―because, damn it, qua talis the gathering certainly does not have a mouth. He does not do it as an individual, because the person who is properly conscious of himself as the single individual does not do it. And yet it is an individual who does it, or several individuals, but in such a way that each individual one of them does it. What, then, is the state of such an individual? A sort of confused state, such as when a schoolteacher cannot properly take charge and see the individuals―then the boys take advantage of the situation and have a lark, because there is no one there. Or it is a bestial state. Or a fatuous state, so that he confuses himself with an abstraction. Experience will also teach that it is precisely the most insignificant, the worst, least developed, least conscious people who go in for being an organ in this sense―and an organ in this sense can only be compared with what farting is for an organism. Then the newspaper provides an exact account of every Shut up! and Bravo!―and great importance is ascribed to this. Thus the crazy court of judgment is ventriloquism: the decisive voice in public life is not that of the mouth―buta the ass.

The existence of every state requires means of diversion. Thus in monarchies people were satisfied with the theater, Tivoli, and the like. But then the world became so frightfully serious―that is, utterly worldly. Now there had to be an entirely different means of diversion: on the one hand, the blissful illusion for each one individually: I am part of governing the state, perhaps my vote will decide the fate of the state (though when it comes down to it, it will be argued that―as now in the upper house of parliament with respect to the president’s participation in voting―that it is indefensible to require that a man vote on the condition that his vote decides the outcome―something my brother has exploited in an oafish manner, so that his entire attack was hot air and merely won him praise and approval); on the other hand, there is the tension of actuality: that here―unlike the theater―actual hum. beings are playing, that their fate will be decided by balloting, etc. 5 qua talis] Latin, as such, in itself.

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I find Peter inexplicable. He knows what is involved in getting elected; indeed, he knows the whole mirage rather well―and then he declaims that every member of parliament is a man of honor, that it is an honor to be a member, to have the confidence of the people, etc., etc., etc. And I am sure than when he orates on things of this sort he is moved almost to tears―risum teneatis amici. For the sake of a cause one can decide to go to a dance hall: eh bien! But we know the context of such phrasemongering only all too well: with all due respect, we are here, here where coteries and intrigue and chance are the powers that decide who is and who is not included and more or less what is to win and what is not. But this cozy-hearty pageantry: it certainly smacks a bit of country priest. Naturally, at the same time it flatters the assembly. Of course, the whole pack of intriguers cannot have anything against suddenly being cloaked with such splendid draperies and in such a ceremonious and touching manner. In this respect his speech reminds me of Michel Perrin who―in the company of police officers and as one of their initiates―still continues to be a country priest.

Just this alone―what sufferings of introversion there are in my life! Born for intrigue, gifted as few are in this respect―and then to be placed in the sole service of the idea. What a diversion, if I had been extroverted―whereas now all my intrigue is consumed in consuming the intrigues of others, but with an almost hairsplitting cruelty I prevent myself from making use of the least bit of shrewdness.

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“The Single Individual”―“The Race” There is something correct in the observation by Göschel: that the concept of the hum. race is actually one of self-sufficient personality that is prior to and independent of its temporal realization or development in personal individuals (cited by Julius Müller in the second part of The Doctrine of Sin p. 467). 8 risum teneatis amici] Latin, contain your laughter, friends. (See also explanatory note.) 10 eh bien] French, oh well.

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This is what I have frequently expounded, that what is characteristic of the hum. race in comparison with an animal race is that the single individual is higher than the race. Whereas, with respect to animal specimens, the primary factor is the race, here the single individual, that is, every individual if he truly is the single individual, is primary. The race is a lower commonality. This has been entirely forgotten in our time, when people have also forgotten entirely that the hum. being is in kinship with God. But God cannot be in kinship with an animal race; God is spirit, and it would be bestial for him to be in kinship with a “race.” He can be in kinship only with “the single individual,” and only “the single individual” can be in kinship with God. “Specimen” is less than “race”; the single individual is more than race, because he is the whole race and also the individuation. Therefore, as well, in eternity “race” will come to an end. This will be of great importance with respect to the entire doctrine concerning original sin. In pagan fashion, hum. beings rejoice at being in the race (it is an animal category); it is the greatest misfortune and the most profound pain to be outside “the race.” This also reproduces itself in the lives of young people, when a hum. being has not yet become spirit―which most never become, even though it is the criterion according to which eternity will judge them. From a Christian standpoint, a hum. being sighs under “the race.” As a synthesis, he is compelled to be a part of the race; the concretion thus given is something he must appropriate as his task, participating as an accomplice in the guilt of the race, augmenting the guilt of the race with his own guilt―but he longs to be in God. To think of “race” as the middle term in eternal life, as the middle term for being in God: is bestiality. Here is a simple psychological observation. Take someone in love whose beloved dies. Then let Xnty offer him immortality: if he thinks about it a bit, there might be many who would say: Immortality does not suit me, it is much too spiritual. And in like manner Xnty’s eternal life is much too spiritual for the entire mass of hum. beings. An eternal life in which there are no general assemblies, no running in herds, no animal odors, etc.: that would of course be worse than death.

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In contrast to the discourse of the Middle Ages and other such periods about possession and about individual hum. beings who made pacts with evil, I would like to write a book: On Possession and Being Possessed in Modern Times, and show how people submit to it en masse, how it is practiced en masse right now. That is why people run together in flocks: so that one can be seized by natural and animal frenzy, so that a person can feel himself stimulated and fired up, ausser sich. Scenes on the Brocken are perfect parallels to this demonic lust in which the lust is to lose oneself, to evaporate into a potentiation in which one is outside of oneself, not really knowing what one is doing or saying or who or what it is that is speaking through one, while one’s blood nonetheless courses more powerfully, one’s eyes sparkle and stare, the passions boil, the lusts seethe. Oh, what depths of confusion and corruption, when, furthermore, this is praised as life’s seriousness, as heartiness, love, yes―as Xnty.

Julius Müller put it well: “In creating the hum. being, God theomorphizes―precisely for this reason a hum. being does not anthropomorphize when he thinks of God as a being who resembles hum. beings. If one were subjectively compelled to regard everything that hum. beings say about God in terms of their own nature as mere anthropomorphism, then God could not have made hum. beings more incapable of knowing him than by creating him in his image.” (On Sin 2nd part p. 491.[)]

How bitter! These incomparable riches contained in my writings, served with such selflessness as mine, and, existentially in melancholy sympathy for every single pers., especially the lowly, and the poor, and those who suffer―and then to live in a provincial market town and to be totally subjected to crudity from one side and to envy from the other, totally subjected because totally deprived of the criterion. That when Goldschmidt says, [“]Mag. K himself gave me permission to abuse him[”]―that then everyone finds this retort fine and exhaustive, a full and sufficient explana-

8 ausser sich] German, outside himself.

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and that my suffering was simply that there is no stage larger than this in Denmark

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tion, without suspecting that it is a judgment upon him: that he is and was a boy:a God in Heaven! And then, then―then what comes next: yes, then I turn to the other side, where it is good to be: I thank you, God, beyond words, yes, beyond words, for you have done so infinitely much more for me than I ever could have expected, had expected, or dared expect.

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That God tests, indeed tempts (“lead us not into temptation”) a pers.―this thought must not horrify a person. What makes the difference is simply how one looks at it. Unbelief, melancholia, etc. immediately become anxious and afraid and actlly impute to God that he does this in order that a pers. shall succumb; for however far it may be from occurring to the melancholy anxiety in a person to think such things of God, in the deepest sense it does in fact do so, though without knowing it or being itself aware of it, as with an impassioned person of whom it is said, he does not know what he is doing. The believer, on the other hand, immediately approaches the matter from the opposite side: he believes that God does it in order that he pass the test. Alas, and in a certain sense this is exactly why unbelief, melancholia, anxiety, etc. most often succumb during the test, because they wear themselves out ahead of time and as a punishment for thinking so ill of God, whereas faith usually triumphs. But this upbringing from innate anxiety to faith is a rigorous upbringing. Anxiety is the most frightful sort of spiritual trial―until the point is reached at which this same pers. is practiced in faith―that is, in viewing everything inversely, becoming hopeful and confident when something happens that previously would almost have caused him to expire and swoon in anxiety―going courageously into that from which he previously had only had one avenue of rescue: flight, and so on.

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Therefore the person whose soul contains an innate anxiety can easily have an indeed fanatical notion of God’s love. But he cannot make his relation to God concrete. If this notion of his about God’s love is rooted more deeply in him, and if he is piously concerned to nourish and preserve it at all costs, then in many ways and for a long, long time his life may continue in this agonizing suffering in which he gets no impression in concreto that God is love,a while he nonetheless clings all the more firmly to the thought: Yes, but God is love just the same. This is a sign that he is being brought up to faith. Clinging fast in this way to the thought that God is love just the same―this is the abstract form of faith, and faith in abstracto. Then it will certainly come to pass―he will succeed in making his relation to God concrete.

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(for the anxiety continues to be too powerful for him, and it prevents him from seeing the danger, the test, the temptation, etc. from the right perspective: that they are there in order for him to pass the test)

How many people have even the slightest idea of how strenuous a life becomes through an actual relation to God. Merely to have totally removed the customary security in which most people live after they have reached a certain age, believing that now their development is essentially completed, that from now on it will simply be repetition, almost habitual repetition―merely to have this totally removed. And on the other hand, this daily fear and trembling, every day, the possibility of being thrust into making decisions of the highest order every moment of the day―or rather, that one is situated thus because every spiritual existence is in fact out upon “70,000 fathoms of water.”

M. began his activity as a docent at the peak of the speculative philosophy that spoke almost scornfully of the old principle that something is true in theology that is not true in philosophy and 9 in concreto] Latin, concretely. 15 in abstracto] Latin, abstractly.

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conversely. He ends his Dogmatics by proposing that there is even something that is true in popular presentations of Xnty that is not true in dogmatics, that αποϰατασταςις is untenable in scholarship, but it can be used in popular presentations―and so he has remained true to his first love, see the preface to his Dogmatics. He is a tissue of untruth and triviality who can only cause harm, because he has done a bit of reading and―has made sorry use of a rigorous religious upbringing.

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Something Arndt writes somewhere (one of the twelve chapters by Weigel) is beautiful and childlike: “It is quite true that God knows very well what you need, and thus you do not need to tell him it in prayer. But God has arranged matters such that he pretends he does not know it unless you yourself tell it to him in prayer.” This of course is also what parents sometimes do with a child; they say, they will be happy to give it to him, but he must ask for it himself.

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The railroad mania is altogether an attempt a la Babel. It is also connected with the end of a cultural era, it is the final dash. Unfortunately, something new began at almost the same moment: 1848. Railroads are related to the intensification of the idea of centralization. And this new development is related to splitting up into disjecta Membra. Centralization will probably also be Europe’s financial ruin.

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In governing the state and in almost all situations, older, sometimes much older, men were at the top. They governed with the thought: [“]It will surely hold as long as we live.[”] Oh, when no one takes hold of the reins with the strength and the will to make decisions, there are terribly propitious circumstances for a growing demoralization. 3 αποϰατασταςις] Greek, return to the previous situation. (See also explanatory note.) 25 disjecta Membra] Latin, unconnected members. (See also explanatory note.)

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In the other branches of public life as well, it was the older generation who, not knowing what to do, fought to maintain the appearance of being what they once were: e.g., Heiberg et al. Once again, propitious circumstances for the growth of demoralization. Fædrelandet as well has long been in this situation. It feels that it may stop publication any moment―therefore it will not take decisive action. The situation was already like this at the end of Christian VIII’s reign and is the same once again following the unnatural upturn of 1848. Everywhere, propitious circumstances for the rise of wretchedness and triviality. Denmark’s downfall is easy to recognize, i.e., to prognosticate. A physician can have no more certain symptoms of the presence of putrefaction in the body than a psychologist has here of the disintegration of the spirit. For a moment, the war and the blossoming of nationalism conceal or concealed the true situation. It is not the Germans who would devour us, oh, no. We ourselves are internally disintegrating. Public life culminates in the vacillation between envy and pity, but there is no passion, no enthusiasm for what is great, no gratitude, etc. Flyveposten is thus a completely normal phenomenon. It maintains itself by keeping pace with this oscillation. It tolerates anything tending toward envy―then the “good-natured” Dane says, [“]Dammit we should in turn do something for him, we will subscribe.[”]

This, too, is a part of the delight that triviality and nullity take in the fact that in Denmark renown is a veritable punishment. If for a single second the renowned person were to wince at the crazy criterion under which he must live in Denmark, the entire public shouts, [“]It is really nothing, everyone feels quite strongly, he really ought to put up with this sort of thing[”]―well, thanks anyway, he [the member of the public] does not realize that what helps him is the immediate certainty with which he knows that his obscurity protects him from the sufferings of fame. And furthermore he has no inkling of the significance of this daily situation, nor any inkling of what it means to be painfully aware that people do not occupy themselves in the least with ideas, truth, and the like, but only with nonsense. But as mentioned, this is a part of the delight: that the public, one by

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one, is given to believe that it is stronger than―the nation’s very few extremely gifted and developed personalities. 114

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Look, here we have the confusion as it is usually expressed. In his Ethics R. Rothe attacks Julius Müller and then shows that the problem is that J. M. places too much emphasis on the consciousness of guilt; next he says [“]The proper abhorrence of evil of course depends on its objective qualities, not on a person’s subjective relationship to it. The only proper hatred of evil is that which hates and condemns it because it is evil, that is, because it is opposed to God and our nature, and only for that reason, and not because it deserves [to be hated] by us.” Can a more immoral pronouncement be imagined! And this is scholarship! Look, this is the consequence of all this objectivity even in relation to the doctrine of sin, where “earnestness” consists precisely in the subjective fact that I am a sinner. J. M. properly rejects this assertion, showing that in this way sin rlly becomes Uebel, suffering, and the like. But J. Müller does not make it qualitatively ethical enough. The other typical expression of confusion is Dorner. He rejects J. M. on the ground that he places too much emphasis on the individual personality and overlooks the concept of the race. Well, thanks anyway―this is exactly what constitutes the demoralization of the times. J. Müller is an able man, but he is not a great ethicist; he lacks Socratic powers and that sort of education. He inhabits an antiquated position. He has not established the μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος to the existential thinker. Still, in this same place I see a more correct observation by Dorner: [“]Only when confronted with Xt does a hum. being make the most profound decision; all prior sins are something provisional and fundamentally do not decide a person’s total worth.” There is truth in this; it is quite correct that the situation of choice before Xt is qualitatively 22 Uebel] German, evil. 33 μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος] Greek, transition to another conceptual sphere. (See also explanatory note.)

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calculated to make a hum. being into the single individual. It is the real conversion of the mass into individuals; it is the decision of eternity, and eternity will come to the aid of memory in this respect. (Incidentally, Anti-Climacusb also illuminates this matter.) But Dorner is wrong in not regarding the hum. being as having been originally established to be the single individual, so that he has become the mass as a result of a qualitative decision. The situation is: first, the design to be the single individual―and through guilt to become spiritless, that is, the mass, part of the mass. But then comes “salvation,” that is, the second time, the choice of Xt. But in the atonement and the salvation Dorner rlly sees the first beginning instead of the second, which is implicit in the concept of salvation. I cannot in the strict sense “be saved” by an “Atoner” from a situation (however unfortunate it might be) into which I have not thrust myself through any guilt. According to Dorner, Xt is not “the second time,” but “the first time,” so all prior events fall away rather like a dust jacket that is not bound into the book, or like a rough draft on poor-quality paper in comparison with the document itself, which is on watermarked paper. With this the matter becomes all too easy. The intensification of the decisive choice with respect to Xt consists precisely in the fact that it is “the second time.” If one adopts Dorner’s position, one could be also be tempted to assume that Xt came yet another time in this life―as a Savior in the stricter sense. What is untenable in Dorner’s thinking also emerges in another way. For if it were the case that all sins were only provisional in the sense of being something insignificant, something that cannot be the object of God’s wrath―that prior to Xt the individual is actlly concealed in the mass and participates only in the general guilt, which after all is not properly guilt inasmuch as the individuals are not properly guilty (and one thus ends up with a negative sum instead of a positive one: that every individual in the race is also guilty)―if this were the case, why in all the world did Xt come into the

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world? If the guilt were no greater than that, then he was of course not needed. In that case, Xt comes to the world as the proclaimer of the law and as a demand. This is certainly connected to something else in Dorner, that he probably assumes that Xt rlly came into the world to save the race, to make satisfaction for the race. But this in turn is something very unclear: a race that has guilt―a race in which each individual has no guilt. As I have previously shown, the truth is that the hum. being was established to be the single individual; through guilt he became the mass. Now comes salvation, but salvation―that is, the fact that it is “the second time”―also clarifies the situation, and therefore the decisive choice when confronted with Xt is the even more intensified decision, and if the decision is to reject Xt, then it is even more intensified sin and guilt.

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J. M. has invented the theory of tracing original sin (peccatum originale) back to a timeless fall prior to all hum. beings’ lives in time. This is actlly a dislocation of Xnty. Joh. Cl. immediately comes with his problem: that an eternal blessedness or unblessedness is decided in time in relation to something historical. J. Müller believes he has extricated himself from the first difficulty―that of getting sin and guilt into the world and into every hum. being. But now the next problem: the decision of salvation, because it is an eternal decision, becomes just as incommensurable for a decision in a moment of time as the former one. Then J. M. was surely compelled to situate this decision, too, outside of time, in a timeless decision in each individual prior to the lives of all hum. beings in time. The consequence of this is that a hum. being has actlly lived out his entire life in a sort of timeless ideality before he lives it out in time.

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Of course, this sort of thing certainly admits of being thought―but then what is Xnty? The whole business is simply an indirect proof of the correctness of my view: posit the paradox. It is precisely through Müller’s position that the suspect nature of speculation emerges. The paradox is that an eternal decision is made in time. I say this cannot be comprehended, it must be believed: that is, it is a paradox. Now comes speculation; it says yes, indeed, I can surely comprehend it. I manage it by imagining myself in a timeless decision prior to all time―do we see that[?] Yes, by all means. But my dear friend, the problem was an eternal decision―in time, not an eternal decision outside of all time in a timeless manner. Fundamentally Kant was more honest with his radical evil, for he never pretended that this theory was supposed to be a speculative comprehending of the Christian problem. But the misfortune in all the speculation of our times is that it cannot define and stick to the problem―but comprehend it, yes, it can certainly do that. It is just as ridiculous as if someone wanted to occupy himself with drawing and had a man sit for him for a long time―finally the drawing was finished, the portrait: it depicted, e.g., a tree.b Someone sets up the problem; then the speculation begins; a long time passes during which the problem, so to speak, must endure sitting for speculation; finally it is finished―here it is―and then it is simply a different problem. The difficulty or the objection has become the problem. How, indeed, can it be comprehended that an eternal decision is decided in time[?] The speculative answer is that it can be decided in a timeless manner, i.e., not in time. The secret of speculation actlly is that it takes so long before the answer comes; if it came immediatelyc people would see that it was nonsense. But if it came immediately, how could it be a speculative answer! Ah, God help us, then it would of course be a popular answer. The speculative takes many years; a folio is written and many learned dissertations are cited―then the

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, which is an entirely excellent likeness to the tree that stands outside the man’s window―but it was the man who was to be drawn, not the tree; and why, then, have the man sit for him for such a long time!

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The difference between the popular and the speculative is in how much time is taken. If you ask a man, Do you know thus and such, or do you not―and he immediately answers Yes or No, that is a popular answer: he is a student. If it takes 10 years before the answer comes, and it comes in the form of a system and in such a way that it is not quite clear whether he knows it or not, then it is a speculative answer: he is a professor of philosophy, at least he ought to be one.

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answer is speculative and is the solution. It is speculative; at least it has been very cunningly devised, it reveals knowledge of the world and of hum. beings.



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To Be Nothing. To be nothing: oh, the happiest, most enviable lot in life! But to be nothing on the other side of being something, higher than the very, very most of being something―to be nothing on the far side of being something: oh, this is an eternally certain consignment to the most intense, daily mental sufferings. This is actually where the God-Man is situated. And why is mental suffering so inevitable here? It is easy to see. What corresponds to being nothing is no attention, and being nothing is what corresponds to no attention; so the relation is correct. Attracting attention to oneself corresponds to being something, and the more one is, the more attention one can thus attract to oneself and bear without disturbing the correct relation or proportions. But to attract infinitely more attention to oneself than the person who is the altogether the greatest of the greatest of those who are something―and then to be nothing: yes, this is as madness. And so on. For the person who is simply nothing and who thus attracts no attention to himself―no questions are asked concerning his life, nor does it need to be explained. To the degree that a person is something and thus attracts attention to himself, to that degree the issue of an explanation of his life arises; and indeed, this can be done: a person explains or understands his life in terms of the something that he is: this very something is the

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explanation. But an infinitely great amount of attention, and therefore the greatest possible question concerning the explanation―and then for him to be nothing: yes, it is as madness. Actually, this is the manner of the conflict: either we are all clever and he is mad, or we are all mad and he is clever. Oh, people think it is so easy to be nothing. Yes, in the straightforward sense in which it means a quiet, unnoticed, nondescript life. But to be nothing while at the pinnacle of the attention of one’s contemporaries: truly, there is usually only one word for this: it is madness, even though it must be noted that in such a case one’s contemporaries declare themselves to be just as mad or more so―for if this man is mad, what does it mean to focus attention on him uninterruptedly[?] Ah, I know―but of course I am only a poor lowly hum. being―I know a great deal concerning this. And if people want some elucidation, I will provide an illustration: my servant Anders, who is very devoted to me and very intelligent, has in his way suffered not a little in this connection. Of course he is subjected to this continual nonsense about me―and he cannot protect himself with my being something. For, particularly with respect to the social class to which he more or less belongs, for that very class, being something is pretty much the meaning of life. His class can understand a situation in which a man of means lives an unremarkable existence; but to work so hard and to be the object of attention as I am―and then to be nothing: that offends people.

Press Legislation. Because what rlly aggravates the offenses of the press is the degree of distribution (something that until now has been completely overlooked by the law, which has simply made this offense identical with all others); all fines and other sorts of punish-

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ment ought to be stiffened in relation, for example, to the number of subscribers. (I always have in view, in particular, the daily press, the government’s filth machine.) In similar fashion, fines and punishments ought to be stiffened in proportion to how often the mendacious, offensive things have been repeated and said, for in this way they become more widely distributed. If people do not want to consider prohibiting the daily press to some extent, they ought at least consider establishing a punishment for the crime of attempting to drive society mad by printing nonsense.

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It is an old story. A discovery is made―the human race is triumphant. Everything, everything is enthusiastically set in motion in order to make the discovery more and more perfect. The hum. race celebrates and worships itself. Finally there is a pause―people pause: [“]But is this discovery―in particular, its extraordinary perfection―a good thing![”] And then the most eminent minds are again needed in order to speculate, almost to the point of madness, inventing safety valves, dampers, brakes, etc., in order, if possible to slow things down so that this peerless and peerlessly perfected discovery, the pride of the hum. race, does not end by running over the entire world and destroying it. Think of the invention of the art of printing, perfected right down to the high-speed press, which can guarantee that no filth and sediment goes unnoticed. Think of railroads. Think of free constitutions, these peerlessly perfected discoveries―the pride of the hum. race―which awaken a longing for oriental despotism as a happier way of life.

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It can be frightful to see a single individual so feverishly buffeted about, but think of the life of the state as a whole! People debate § 14―in doing so, the question of the entire constitution arises en passant, and then they debate it as a part of § 14. They are sitting there and have just completed § 15―then news arrives that the sitting government that came to power the day before yesterday was overthrown by a popular uprising. So a new government arrives. It gets about as far as § 9. This is the rational state, the pride of the hum. race, the fruit of enlightenment, the result of the daily press (this inestimable good).

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What a frightful existential strain it is, and not only that: quite literally, one can only be a private person when one is alone; and on the other hand, to have the character of a public person visà-vis one’s servant, one’s barber, one’s closest family members. No―things can only go this wrong in a little, cooped-up place or an outhouse, the homeland of nonsense, the provincial market town Copenhagen. And then the Danish vanity about history and about intellectuality! Yes, it is obvious that quite a fuss will be made over me, God knows, and I am also quite certain to go down in history―but my times should not rlly look forward to that history.

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The extent to which there is absolutely no religious existence is often best seen indirectly. “The priest” preaches that “a pers. must sacrifice everything in order to save his soul.” Fine. Then, inasmuch as nothing more specific is said concerning this, one sees that it has never occurred to His Reverence to want to do it, for the collision will take quite a different form than what he imagines. If sacrificing everything in order to save one’s soul were to happen without further ado, then every hum. being would have to live in the most absolute isolation, so that he could make this move without intervening in disturbing fashion in the life of someone else. But no one does this―and if he did, sacrificing everything would mean very little, because that [“]everything[”] indeed contains relationships to others. He lives in a context. In sacrificing everything to save his soul he intervenes in the lives of others in an absolutely disturbing fashion, sets a standard of measure that is much too great, and becomes a real affliction for them; he will come to suffer for it. Here one sees how much closer the collision (to hate father and mother, etc.) lies than one imagines. For if a person was truly in earnest about actually sacrificing everything in order to save his soul, and was spiritual enough to actually do it, it is eternally certain that the judgment passed against him―even by those

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nearest to him, and perhaps especially by them―would be: He is a heartless egotist who is concerned only with himself, and he blithely makes us others miserable―he, who could make things so nice for us. There would also be very little mention of friendship, for it is hard to imagine a friendship based on sacrificing everything in order to save one’s soul; for a person who acts decisively to that degree must also in like measure find repose in God so decisively that friendship rlly cannot have very much meaning. And friendship, after all, is rlly based on relativities: to profit in this world, to help one another in various earthly adversities, etc. But when a person’s only concern is to save his soul―which is what it must be if he sacrifices everything for this―and if friendship certainly does not help him in this connection, how much, then, does friendship rlly mean[?] But the sermon is nonsense―and an indirect indictment.

Thus, it can easily be seen that if the question concerning what sort of self-denial and renunciation of worldly things is required in order to proclaim Xnty―that if this is to be decided by a forum, as it is called, composed of―Xns or the cultivated public― of Xns, etc.―then the matter is decided. This is something the clergy themselves seem to understand, and this is why on such occasions they are usually so ready and willing to put the matter before the great public. To cast ballots on whether and to what extent there is to be self-denial―yes, nothing will come of it. The deception is that the clergy should of course participate in educating this great public and therefore that it should express self-denial existentially, so that everyone, as soon as he looked at a cleric, would immediately see what Xnty requires. But instead the clergy has made common cause with the public; they have fallen completely out of their character as teachers, as God’s servants―and now they are delighted to be so well understood by their contemporaries.

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The dreadful disorder in which we live has been produced because people[a] have wanted to combine working for infinite and for finite ends. This can only give rise to confusion. Let it simply become clear which is which. Working for a finite end is indeed something honorable; what is dishonest only arises when a person wants to decorate such work with the illusion that it is also for an infinite end. No, no! All work for infinite ends must be viewed as a luxury, in the noble sense of the term. Make the attempt yourself, then: how far, how much, how long can you work like this;b but just keep it pure, then you will do some good. If you find absolutely no time or opportunity to work in this manner, well, at least you do no harm if you honestly confess that you are working solely and only for a finite end. Not only do you do no harm, no, you do good, for then, when someone comes who can and will work for an infinite end, he is more readily understood instead of continually being exposed to martyrdom because of the dishonest and ignoble mishmash of those who rlly work for finite ends and have mendaciously maintained that they also work for infinite ends.

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from generation to generation

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, without any trepidation whatever.

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On the Publication of Writings about Myself. “The Accounting” cannot be published now either. As I have always understood, there is a poetic element in me which precludes me from including myself in the account; and on the other hand, if it is to be done, it should be done on so decisive a scale that I would dare say absolutely everything about myself. There is an either/or here. One single word concerning myself, then a μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος has been made and I will be unable to stop. Let the times demand an explanation of me, and then we will see. And there is truth in this: it is not I who must provide the explanation, it is the times that must be good enough to respect a phenomenon of this significance and demand an explanation. There is one more point in addition to this. The reason I have to stop being an author at this point is that I can no longer afford to be an author. Thus understood, I both acknowledge with unspeakable gratitude how infinitely much more Governance has done for me than I could ever have expected, and in addition I understand that precisely this point (here, again, o the wonderful assistance of Governance!)―precisely this point is the right viewpoint, and the decisive stopping point right here. But I cannot officially communicate the former part in that way, and therefore there would also be something untrue in communicating the latter. Finally―however happily I repose in my gratitude toward Governance for what has been done for me―worries about my finances have pained me, and I have also reduced the stakes a bit too much. The Point of View for My Work as an Author, in its original version is the truest understanding. I understand myself extremely well, and this includes understanding what this activity as an author has cost me. From the start I had no intention of remaining an author all my life; I have known that the moment might come when I would have to work for a living, and that at that point I would have to give up being an author in order that I not mix together working for infinite and finite ends. So let them call it fanaticism (at any rate, it will be a fanaticism of the understanding, and Socrates also a fanatic): I myself understand extremely well that I have squandered money in order to reach the goal that, with the assistance of Governance, has been reached: directing attention to Christianity. My efforts have put a stop to the fatal confusion of the striving toward infinite and toward finite ends. It has cost me a great deal, but humanly speaking I believe that this has clarified the Christian cause. I do not put myself forth as someone extraordinary. I am essentially a poet―and then a penitent. If I did not live as the target of popular persecution, I could―as I had originally intended― tell my times straightforwardly and with a dash of humor that I can no longer afford to be an author. Now this cannot be done. Let the times themselves demand the explanation. This is an interpretation about which there is controversy, but it is an interpretation that is decisive for the whole of Xnty. I do not and never have put myself forward as an apostle or even merely as a witness to the truth (I have done my utmost to prevent this), but I want it to become clear that working for life’s finite ends is not life’s greatest seriousness―nor are things to be mixed together, but which is which must be kept clear and unsullied.

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In order to direct attention to this, I have kept 7 whole years’ work as an author absolutely free of any finite considerations, making use of the advantage that I had a bit of wealth. This is enough to awaken attention; in any case, I cannot hold out any longer. Without extravagance I would never have been able to work on the scale that I did; for my extravagance has always been calculated solely to keep me productive on this prodigious scale. In any case, it is a pious extravagance (connected to the fact that I am a penitent). If my having had too much imagination and having therefore been so active as a poet is nonetheless something that makes me guilty in the eyes of God, well, then I am very willing to confess this before God―before him I am of course always in the wrong. But I am eternally certain that, however much this may indeed be a fault, I am forgiven. And I really believe that it in fact only becomes a fault if I in any way assumed any importance before God, as though there were something meritorious in what I have done―though he will certainly prevent that, he, the loving father, whose paternal love it is my happy occupation to remember every day, remembering it again and again, and will remember eternally.

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a

, I would not be believed.

I best realize how infinitely much has been entrusted to me and how much I have succeeded when, on rare occasions, I talk about it a little with a single pers. In subdued fashion, knocking off 50 percent (for it is impossible for me to speak of myself in very grand terms when I am face to face with a pers.), I hint at things a little: and I see an almost suspicious expression, as though I were nonetheless revealing too much about myself. Oh, how sad it is, in a certain sense, to have so infinitely much entrusted to me! Now, under ordinary circumstances modesty would prevent me from speaking of it, but even if it did not and I spoke of it, it would do no good.a I really think that God has arranged matters such that the person to whom he entrusts infinitely much can only talk about it to God, for no one else would believe it or understand it. And it is also for the best this way. Alas, if a person could really talk to others about it, one could also easily come to take it in vain and become proud of it. Before God that is not possible―he can exert infinite pressure.

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“Bless those who persecute you.” Is this really possible? Think of it like this. Have you any notion of how blessed it is, the more intense your fellowship with God is[?] Oh, but when―precisely at the moment that this blessedness passes all understanding―when you honestly consider that it is indeed precisely the persecution by your enemies that has helped you to feel this blessedness: at such a moment, is it not possible, then, to bless them[?] To bless them! Yes, this is, if I dare say so, a festive expression of how indescribable is the blessedness that you sense. Just think of Socrates: when they handed him the cup of poison, and he said, Is it permissible to offer a libation?―how festive! And now the Xn: at the moment he most blissfully senses his fellowship with God―and he must admit that to a great extent he owes this to his persecutors―for him then to say, I will forgive them and I am not angry with them―how unfestive―no, I bless them. Ah, it is like the fairy tale. A cruel stepmother throws a little child down a well. The child is rescued by elves who take it to

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the happy land of enchantment. And here she sees her stepmother, and with the most blissful expression of a child’s innocent joy, she kisses her stepmother’s fingers―as if she were the dearest of mothers. Ah, my friend, what difference does it really make if in dastardly fashion you did everything you could in order to injure and embitter my life if this indeed was a help to me―if it was precisely by means of this help that I became blessed like this: what difference does it make? Yes, it indeed makes this difference: that I must bless you. But pay careful attention to this: forget about those who persecute you, but instead pay all the more attention to becoming blissful like this in fellowship with God. Alas, but we hum. beings think most about those who persecute us―less about using the persecution to further the relation with God. Alas, and many ended not only by cursing their persecutors, but cursing God as well.

Text for a Lenten Sermon. I will use the words from the passion narrative for it: the betrayer also knew the place.

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And then show that precisely this is the betrayal by the whole of “Xndom”: that it knows Xnty, is clear about it―but it goes no further. That every individual hum. being also has a constant tendency toward this betrayal: being satisfied with knowing the place―the betrayer also knew the place.

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Concerning Writings about Myself. This is something to which I often return, the original thought: that I was to die and that the whole latter portion of my literary production would be published after my death. At that time I felt so physically weak but so inexplicably rich. I had also succeeded in attaining complete transparency. Had I died at that time, it would have had the greatest possible effect, humanly speaking. As long as I live I will not be understood. Death must mitigate things in order to help the times out of their difficulty. I rlly have much too much ideality to be alive. As long as I am around, alive, it will be almost impossible for anyone to understand the degree to which I felt that I was right, that the truth was on my side, the degree to which I had been granted superior strength, how much I have had in my power, how―gradually, as I came to understand Governance’s plan―I systematically came to work counter to myself in order to inflict the wound that much deeper. Oh, there is something indescribably sad, and also painful, in this isolated knowledge of oneself, from which, incidentally, my attempts to escape were made in vain, because no one would believe me. I, who have felt infinitely deeply that I was scarcely a hum. being, lower than the lowest―and yet in another sense favored to the same degree. However, I did not die. This, then, became my upbringing: to have almost attained a transfiguration and then to have to understand that while I am alive, or at least for the time being, I am not permitted to publish it. That was certainly severe. At that moment I was in fact almost about to decide to publish it: then came the frightful spiritual trial. Then, when I gave up publishing it, having to deny myself like this became an exercise in patience. Then the spiritual trial returned in a new form, about whether the whole business was not fretful anxiety―and that I had to return to the point of being almost about to publish it―that I had to go back. The upbringing has been this: Having received myself in my ideality on such a grand scale, then, in addition, to rehearse the distinction―which, however, I have always done―between the ideality and myself as an actual person. Having the thought of death as much a presence as it was then was surely a contributing factor―along with the accelerated speed imparted by 1848―in reaching the overview I attained, a

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comprehensive view of history, of Xnty, of my work as an author. Well―this is how I imagine Governance thought of it―well, it will be granted to him. But then he may not die now, because this would be too likely to give rise to a confusion in which he becomes an almost superhuman ideality. What he has to put into the world, he is to put into the world, but he must be good enough to walk openly at its side, insisting: I myself am not this, I am a poor individual hum. being, my life is not so lofty as to correspond adequately to what I have been permitted to present. And this, indeed, is how I have understood my task from the beginning; now I understand it the same way, but much more clearly, now that I have undergone a temptation of this sort, which I had not done in the beginning, for in the beginning I had not understood myself fully, and therefore I could not quite explain myself, even if I had wanted to do so. It is now quite certain that in presenting myself I have again done everything I could to prevent this confusion of myself with the ideality. But the most consistent expression of this is: to remain silent. It is not dialectical to make a pronouncement in which one does everything to impose limitations and proclaim objections: what is consistent is to remain silent, however severe this may be for impatience. Let the times themselves demand the explanation, then we will see; but then at any rate I will know that I did not myself precipitate it through impatience. And truly, this matter can become extremely serious. For it could of course be possible that society would make so great a demand on me for an explanation that I would be compelled to make use of the ultimate explanation I possess, and that would surely be a great strain on me―but truly, in that case I would also push frightfully hard, for then the seriousness would become almost terrifying, especially because of the contrast of such seriousness to the incognito I have found myself induced and also obligated to maintain, an incognito that the world has more or less taken for my true nature.

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I imagine a figure such as Giordano Bruno or the like, in short, someone who became a martyr for an idea. In a weak moment,

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he gave way; he hid himself in order to escape danger. His hiding place has been discovered through treachery; he is seized― and now he is happy to have been forced to remain in danger. Then I imagine him brought before a judge (and I will fashion a couple of Socratic lines). He demands to know who it was who has revealed his hiding place and betrayed him. It turns out that it was his servant. He is confronted with the servant, who is very downcast because he now senses his guilt. Then he says to the servant: [“]Do not be distressed, I entirely forgive you; there certainly are not many servants who would have acted differently from you, for I well know that you have been suborned―how much was I worth, by the way[?”] The servant: [“]I received 250 rd.[”] The lord: [“]Well, that is indeed a handsome sum; by the way, you know, that it is actlly quite fortunate for you that I am not angry with you. For in my will you are to receive 500; if I had become angry with you, you would have been cheated: you have received 250 to betray me, 250―a crime; and otherwise you would have received 500 in the absence of anything dubious― thus, you would have lost more than half. Now, on the other hand, you will receive 500 after my death, from the will, and 250 extra as something you have earned on the side. My friend, those who paid you the 250 rd. have probably not admonished you to use the money well, so now accept my admonition and use the money well; do not despair because you were weak enough to betray me, be strong enough to believe both that God will forgive you completely and that I have entirely forgiven you.[”] One could also have the collision be such that there had been an earlier crime that had no connection to this man’s later life, a crime of which the servant was aware―and that the servant had now informed against him. What I want to portray is the sort of loftiness that the mass of humanity usually confuses with something close to madness.

Distance. In Kant’s little essay, “An Answer to the Question ‘What Is Enlightenment,’” he suggests the greatest possible expansion of the public use of reason and the limitation of its private use. By private he understands, e.g., that a civil servant qua civil servant must not quibble but do what is required―qua writer, on the other hand, this same man, addressing himself to the public,

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is permitted to use his reason publicly as freely as possible in order to illuminate all sorts of problems. Qua priest a priest is to proclaim what is commanded―qua writer he can present his own doubts about the faith. Now, I will not speak of the problem present here (which, however, K. himself parries to a certain extent), that in this way a civil servant becomes a double being, which is madness, especially in the domain of religion (which, by the way, has now been more or less attained). No, what I want to keep in mind is an exclamation by Kant. After having put all his hope in “the public, served by writers,” he exclaims: [“]that the people’s guardians in spiritual matters (that is, not private civil servants, but the writers and the people constitute the public) should themselves be without authority is an absurdity that ends up perpetuating absurdities.” Undeniably! But it is only a prophecy that has long since been fulfilled. But expired?―alas, no, “it indeed ends up perpetuating absurdities.”

The Greeks say that a man himself creates his situation and circumstances. The proverb puts it: Everyone forges his own fate. This same thought is expressed beautifully by Julius Müller: A person’s choice becomes his fate. At first glance this does not seem to be well put, for if he chooses it himself, there of course cannot be any talk of its becoming his fate―then it is of course his choice. But the fact is, it becomes clear that there was much more in what he chose than he perhaps knew; it has quite different consequences―and thus it becomes his fate.

Oh, what an illusion Kant has! There (on one of the pages just prior to the passage in the previously cited essay) he says that a king is to say: Argue as much as you want―but obey. I do not know what I should be most amazed at: either this philosopher’s indirectly indicated contempt for argumentation as being so impotent―or this unfamiliarity with human life. A little earlier in the same essay K. said that there is only one master in the world who can say, Argue as much as you want― only obey. I assume that here K. means God, and I find the thought beautiful, that is, that God Almighty could do this―be-

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cause he can compel. But look, however, and see whether God does it! And then to transfer this to an earthly king, and to pretend that arguing and obeying were not the most dangerous of neighbors one could imagine, as if arguing and obeying were separate in such a way that they had almost nothing to do with each other!

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To avoid scandal people remain silent, indulging contemptibleness, wretchedness, lies; people do not notice that the scandal engendered by this is infinitely more corrupting. This is now the world’s thieves’ argot: when someone indicts actual villainy, he responds, [“]He is the one who awakens scandal.[”] For the actual villainy is not a scandal; presumably it is nothing at all.

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Mynster’s error is not, after all, his initial failing: that he did not insist strongly enough on Xnty from the beginning and avoid the illusion―that his cultivated personality guaranteed a bit of esteem from the distinguished people. No, when one considers the situation of the times, Mynster’s significance was precisely that he at least did something; and they were difficult times that would have required a quite remarkable sacrifice if a higher standard were to be established; and finally, Mynster’s personality had its limitations (as every personality has its limitations), and I believe he understood himself―indeed, that he understood himself piously. No, his error, his fault, is the subsequent one: that he became so infatuated with himself and his method, that he converted it simply into “earnestness” instead of remaining on watch concerning its dubiousness from a Christian point of view; he made himself into a paradigm, while from a Christian point of view he is probably an unparadigmatic inflection; he enriched the country with nothing but priests of this type, who in the end installed on the throne of religion the worldly shrewdness under which I have been compelled to suffer―for people no longer know actual religion and regard it as something close to madness.

[a]

Stilling can easily cause a very fatal confusion concerning Xnty. What preoccupies him is actlly somewhat erotic, perhaps only to a lesser degree; principally it is pride that par tout wants to realize the idea of remaining unmarried, loyal to his wife. This is what he is suffering under now, as under a frightful self-torment, he says. But for the sake of God in heaven, what does this have to do with Xnty! Is it Christianity that forbids him to marry? It permits him to do it 7 times if he wants to. There is something confusing here. Now he talks ceaselessly about how Xnty appears to him to be the most dreadful self-torment, etc. But this talk is rlly deceptive. He is not involved with Xnty in any deep sense; he is tormenting himself with an obsession: I want to, and I do not want to. Now this is something he will not admit―and thus Xnty is supposedly causing him all this

[a]

26 par tout] French, properly “partout,” everywhere.

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Mag. Stilling

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suffering, Xnty, which of course says, You are entirely, entirely free―get married! Inasmuch as he cannot, at any rate openly, explain the way things actually are―that it is his relationship to his late wife, his desire to marry, and his wavering resolve not to do so after all, that are the source of the torment―there is a risk that in venting his feelings he will transfer this to Xnty, as if that were what preoccupies him and as if that were the most dreadful self-torment. I have said this to him with the utmost seriousness, shown him that he is turning everything topsy-turvy, told him that he should get married, that this entire collision as such has nothing to do with Xnty. Oh, I speak with him extremely seldom. But it can become a disaster. For a part of such sufferings is the feeling of a need to express oneself, indeed, very actively; and then, inherent in the deviousness of such sufferings is the tendency to seize upon something utterly different and exhaust oneself in speaking of it, as if that were the source of his suffering. This would be extremely unfair conduct in relation to Xnty. His life is very confused in other respects. He does concern himself somewhat with Xnty, but then this is also supposed to be research, yielding scholarly results, historical observations. Imagine oneself in such a situation―instead of adhering to the strictest diet, focusing solely on himself, he busies himself with freethinkers in order to describe them. Alas, first of all: silence! The only remedy in such a situation is to say to all reflection: Keep still. But he does not have any real personal concern for himself. It always has to be, in addition, a reflective dividend for thought. And thus he never actlly gets to live, at least not in the deeper, personal sense. But we will hope. If a person really wills, what possibilities he has! But he demonstrates precisely what it means that no one is given a Xn upbringing any more, and he shows precisely how necessary it is to have, if not the monastery, then something resembling it. A spiritual institute could help him. In my presentation, rigor is a dialectical element in Xnty, but leniency is represented just as strongly. The former is represented poetically by pseudonyms; the latter is represented personally by myself. This is what is needed by the times, which have taken Xnty in vain. But it becomes something entirely different when there is a despairing pers. who has nothing to say about Xnty other than that it is the cruelest self-torment. In order to put an end to this frivolousness I have had to posit rigor, and have posited it simply in order to provide impetus toward Xnty’s

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leniency. This is how I have understood Xnty and my task. Had I understood only its frightful rigor―I would have remained silent. This has already been pointed out by Johannes de silentio: that under such circumstances one should remain silent and at least show that one loves other people―by remaining silent: for merely negative outcomes, moreover, such a frightfully negative outcome, one must not communicate. That sort of thing is not communication, no, it is assault, treachery, weakness of character, which wants at least to have the satisfaction of having the sorry pleasure of making others just as unhappy and confused as one is oneself.

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How little Denmark is can be seen in the fact that a person who does not share my views might be entirely right in recommending in the strongest terms that actual writers use the strictest sort of anonymity. Everyone (provided he does not simply want to plunge into martyrdom at the hands of the mob) may demand a bit of distance. In a large country, this is of course easily managed and therefore one can of course use one’s name. But for a long time Denmark has not been a country, but a provincial market town. Literature does not rlly exist; that is, there are no barriers or anything of that sort. On the other hand, the daily press is all the more frightful, and muddies everything. To publish a book― there is no criterion for this in Denmark, not even so much as a little journal. So what happens? Well, something quite unusual happens. In becoming an author a man becomes a little better known than others (despite the fact that soon we will all know each other). Then the daily press takes the opportunity to write about him. They write about him―the hell with his book. The daily press writes for that class of society to whom it would never occur to read a book. Instead of writing a book, by riding behind a team of 4 horses, or having one’s house painted in a curious style, and the like, one could for example, attract equally much attention― and the daily press would also write about him. This is how being an author is a way of focusing upon oneself the attention of the curious.

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An author publishes a book in Denmark. He thinks it is “readers” to whom he addresses himself―you are wrong. If individual readers do exist here or there, they live as refugees in the provincial market town. No: with the help of newspapers, shop clerks, idlers, etc., etc. pay attention―no, not to the book, but to the man. So write something about him―you see, this is something for the public. As one might, for example, warn a person against attracting attention by going about dressed like a Turk, so in Denmark must one warn a person against becoming an author. In a way, there is only one thing remaining: strictest anonymity.

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The few excellent men we have are all older and the younger work en masse to debase the currency.

Denmark’s character is the most characterless nonsense. No nation, no nation whatever, is so on guard against authors who, for example, write in a foreign tongue―patriotism demands that one not do so. Then if he refrains from doing so, he is continually mistreated―that is his reward. If, in the other hand, someone does what he wants to do and has to do, and writes in a foreign language―and then gains renown: only then does Denmark take notice; now it dares believe in his talent, now that “people abroad” have passed favorable judgment on him. This is how Denmark continually vacillates between self-deification and self-contempt.

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My torment as an author is that the country has no standard by which to judge me, and this daily suffering is painful and furthermore intensifies over time. My literary productivity rescues me from a melancholia that is profoundly rooted in my nature; religiously obligated, I concentrate everything on making a great effort: and what do I achieve? First, to endure it all, to spend money on it―and then, because this sets the criterion much too high, the

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judgment is that I am a hack writer. Why? Because I can work so quickly, whereas every trivial thing on which more time is expended is something valuable. And not just this. People in fact notice that this judgment, that I am a hack, is not sufficient to keep me down. So then the judgment becomes that it is pride, an aristocratic temperament: [“]Why should he have such extraordinary abilities―what a bother, let us conspire against him and employ bestial crudity and envy to embitter him because he has been granted the extraordinary.[”] And not one single honest pers. among all of his contemporaries has endeavored to include a word of mitigation here. No, envy sits in its concealment and is delighted at crudity’s uprising against me. Yes, if I could split myself up and become ten people―now that would be something in Denmark. Then there would be the requisite variety, one author today, another tomorrow, none of them amounting to very much. Merely the brief pieces I toss off would be sufficient to establish a brilliant career in Denmark―and a career that would make me a great deal of money. But now I have to put things of that sort aside in order that they not become overly important and because they are too insignificant to measure up to my standards. Then come the books―and my fate is sealed. One word in print about the clothes I wear, and thousands upon thousands lap it up; it is remembered for ages; the gaze of a passerby reminds me of it―a work I have written vanishes without a trace; up to this point, the only trace it leaves is in my assets. Then I think of the words of Paul, that miraculous syllogism: The injustice I suffer proves that there must be justice―in the hereafter. Oh, excellent syllogism, even if in one sense, it must be tortured out of a pers.―but then it is all the more powerful. And incidentally, viewed from the other side― yes, from the other side, from that other side, as when a portrait painter choses to portray the side of a one-eyed person on which the subject has an eye―that is, seen from the other side, seen from the

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relation to God, do I have anything to complain about? Complain[?]―God forbid. Complain[?]―oh, no, I indeed can never thank God sufficiently for the indescribable goodness he has shown me, so much more than I had expected. Truly, a grain of wheat must die in order to sprout; in order to advance the development of historical progress, there must be suffering of this sort; though from a hum. point of view, one of course feels pain as a woman feels when she is to give birth―but, when the child is born!

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It is quite true that faith is “the point outside the world,” which therefore also moves the whole world. What emerges through the negation of all points in the world is the point outside the world―this is easy to see. That syllogism: that because there is no justice in the world― rather, sheer injustice―justice exists and, yes, must of course exist outside the world: here is the point outside. This is the syllogism of faith. Take the absurd. Negating all conceptualizing forces one outside the world, into the absurd―and here is faith. Alas, but faith has not been found in the world for a long, long time―therefore, neither does it move the world. Faith has permitted itself be duped and has become a point within the world, and therefore at best it moves as does any other point within the world: it gives rise to a few transactions based on probability; it occasions some minor incidents―but it does not move as the point outside. That was how Xnty moved when it entered the world, but the world―whose interests truly are not served by there being such a point outside that in fact wanted to keep the world in continual fear and trembling―the world duped itself or Xnty, and got Xnty inside. From being the point outside the world, Xnty―so they think―became the established order. Everything came to a halt. Then in more recent times people have been busy proving that Xnty has its beginnings in myth― yes, why not, as long as one does not notice that it is the most recent developments that are closer to being myth or fable. It depends on what one takes as one’s fixed point of departure. But it seems obvious to me that in its present form Xnty is the most fable-like thing one could imagine.

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If a former king is now living as a bartender on Knabrostræde, one is easily tempted (especially if one finds him to be a jolly fellow who is satisfied with everything, including himself) to view as a myth the story that he originally was a king. And one can be right about that, for in this case a person’s identity is verified. But one should be very cautious about simply transferring this to Xnty. Xnty, after all, is something quite specific; just because millions of people come up with the idea of calling something Xnty that does not at all resemble Xnty any more than a bartender resembles a king does not of course make it Xnty. Now the case becomes something different. In its original form Xnty is in its proper medium, its form is the reduplication of its content. There is nothing mythical in this. Now people have taken away the reduplication―and so Xndom is simply myth. There are two sorts of incognito: in the form of a servant Xt was God―in the form of the God-Man Xndom is paganism. The former contains no self-contradiction; in the latter hodgepodge there is a self-contradiction and thus in turn something mythical―unless one wants to say straightforwardly: This is a lie. So first sweep clean your own doorstep; see to it that you get rid of the lie; then we will surely be finished with the business about myth―that is, at the moment that it can properly be seen that Xndom is a lie, a deception: at that very moment it is seen that original Xnty is anything but myth. Here, again, the tactic is the opposite of what is customary. There are not to be counterarguments showing that Xnty is not a myth; there is not to be any defending, etc.―no, there should be an attack; it should be proven that Xndom is fable, then we will surely get rid of the business about myth.

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On the “Three Notes” They could perhaps be transformed quite simply into theses, so that there was not a word concerning myself, but only Theses on “Crowd” and “the Single Individual.”

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In the first lap of a hum. being’s life the greatest danger is that of not venturing. Then, when one has ventured profoundly, the greatest danger in the second lap is to venture too much. In the first case, by not venturing one veers off into the service of triviality; in the second, by venturing too much one veers off into fantasy, perhaps into presumption.

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By insisting on one single point, R. Nielsen has damaged the whole of my work as an author by making it appear as if the whole of my work as an author was solely concerned with that point. He makes no room whatever for me or for a vüe of my work as an author, but egotistically makes use of one single detail. In the multifarious details of my work as an author I have various different magical charms with which I captivate and conquer―he occasions the misunderstanding that I have just this one point which is supposed to conquer by means of his efforts.

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Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia in † 379, says it very well. In opposition to the allegorists he says, [“]As for myself, when I hear the word grass mentioned, I understand grass. I take plants, fish, and animals and cattle, everything exactly as it is said; for I am not ashamed of the gospel. Others have sought through certain παραγωγαι or τροπολογιαι to procure through their own ingenuity a certain venerableness for scripture.[”] (see Clausen’s hermeneutics, p. 165). This is what H. H. has done: that all the business about the lofty and the profound and the miraculous-delightful etc. is affectation that does not like to obey what is simple, or actlly does not like to obey, and therefore it leads everything into other categories, just as the Romans, when they felt they could not shake off the yoke of Augustus, poetized that he was a god―a substitution of different categories.

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12 vüe] French, properly “vue,” view. 26 παραγωγαι] Greek, false or incorrect derivations. 26 τροπολογιαι] Greek, metaphorical or unreal, allegorical interpretations.

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My “sad fate” is rlly that my nature is one of sheer intellectual elegance and that to some extent I presuppose this in others. For a time, I actlly did not notice this; I buried myself in my task, practiced and developed the dance steps without noticing that in so doing I became much too intellectual for this world in which everything depends on animal health and impudent directness and shabbiness. In this way I cannot but miss out on all advantages. Take a situation with Christian VIII―him, “the King”―and he the king who had such grand pretensions of intellect and elegance. Fine. The first time I spoke with him I said to him, [“]Things here are on much too small a scale; in other circumstances one generally says to an author, [‘]If you want to earn more, work more.[’] I have long been reduced to the situation: [‘]You must see to it that you work a bit less, because you can no longer afford to work so hard.[’][”] His Majesty beamed with delight and graciousness. Well, thanks a lot. Had I been king, I would never have permitted something like that to be said to me and then immediately joined in the laughter. I would first have come back with a serious rejoinder: [“]But, my God, is it really like that[?] Do you not at least want your expenses to be covered out of public funds[?]” Only then would I, qua king, have the advantage when I join in the laughter. Otherwise it is indeed actlly a satire on the king. It is a clearly satirical situation when one is king of a country that is so small that an author (that is, not a man who does it as a hobby), a real author, can truthfully talk like this. Now, it is certain that Christian VIII was unusually cultivated, but in pecuniary matters he was demoralized both by his own financial embarrassments and by foreign creditors. Incidentally, the rejoinder I imagined for myself had I been king would not have changed things one way or the other, because I would have responded, [“]No.[”] But interjecting this royal flourish makes a devil of a difference. On the other hand, that rejoinder would have pleased me for other reasons, because it would thereby have signaled that the king was at any rate aware of such things, so that at least some more serious emphasis fell on the sacrifices I have made and continue to make.

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But here once again is my elegance―which becomes my ruin. The mob rages against me; bourgeois philistinism and dailybread careerism quietly smile at my impracticality―I myself, religiously introverted, see the shabbiness with a keener eye than anyone, inwardly treating the matter with a seriousness that is far over a priest’s understanding―but the moment I speak of it, I transform it into a clever witticism―and everyone joins in the laughter. Nonetheless, the situation is of course as I have always said it was: the relationship to spirit is an examination. And here, once again, is the examination: I get a terrifying insight into the selfishness and worldliness of others, which I would not get if I were straightforwardly serious or even if I complained––whereas at the same time I secure for myself knowledge of how they themselves judge an existence that―if they themselves possessed spirit and earnestness in any deeper sense―contains infinitely more than enough to make them pay attention. The facts of my existence are clear enough. It is said that when one looks at a dancer one must not be able to see that he is breathing heavily. I have followed this rule with respect to spirit. And since I indeed do not breathe heavily, do not appear to be extremely earnest, do not lament―well, then the whole thing is fun and games. This conclusion is just as stupid as: [“]The dancer does not breathe heavily―ergo he did not leap at all; he has remained standing on the ground.[”] The difference is simply that as sense data, the one can verified by any bartender; the other―well, if someone does not himself have spirit and earnestness, he will not see it either. Therein lies the examination. “Spirit” always negates immediacy―therefore only “spirit” can become aware of spirit.

Everything gets reversed in this erroneous world: “the innermost” will soon become the extreme outermost (they are of course the extreme Left).

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A psychological observation on the love of boys in antiquity. The reason pederasty was so widespread in antiquity and was not rlly condemned was certainly because of paganism’s corruption, but psychologically something else must be borne in mind.

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In the relation between man and woman, in sexuality, there was no room whatever for intellectuality. The woman was situated in an altogether too inferior position for that, especially in man’s opinion, as is the case in the entire Orient. Here the relation is solely sexual. So intellectuality was situated in relation to the love of young peop., as Socrates says, that is, still in an innocent sense; and then it degenerated into that vice. But intellectuality had nothing whatever to do with loving the opposite sex. In Christendom intellectuality has been more or less related to loving the woman. The great question is and remains whether this entire admixture of intellectuality and an instinct such as this is not, from a moral point of view, a very dubious affair, whether what is being developed here is not a refinement in which little good comes of loving one person and being faithful to that one person, when one per abusum combines it with intellectuality in this manner.

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The Point in the Confusion of “Christendom.”

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The most deeply embedded confusion is the utterly wrong and unchristian notion of what it means to make use of personality in such a way as to take the liberty of resorting to personality in order to get personal. The bank rightly says that there can be no absolute guarantee that its bills cannot be copied, because it is the case that what has been made can also be imitated. This is also how things are in the domain of the spirit. A deception that is in fact taking place, a method by which to deceive, is pointed out in every detail. Now (a person thinks) people have been helped. Then the deception, in turn, copies the pointing-out of the deception, but in such a way that the very pointing-out of the deception becomes a new deception. It can go on like this to infinity. What then? Then we say, Stop, and add: There is only one solution left, a μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος: all assurances and guarantees lead to nothing―show me your existence, that is the guarantee. The deception has also realized this. And here it has erected a huge wall: to talk like this is to take the liberty of resorting to personalities, and it is uncultured to resort to personalities.

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You see, here the deception has triumphed eternally. So they also apply this to Xnty. Thus Xnty presumably came into the world without taking the liberty of resorting to personalities―Xt was crucified, the martyrs’ blood was shed, etc.. All of it took place without personalities. You see, this is where the secret of evil is situated. With the help of convention and public opinion, existences have been smuggled away―and then people are willing to struggle about the other things. Yes, it is obvious, for in this sort of situation it is absolutely true that the deception can copy everything. What should stop the deception is simply existence, the question of existence.

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To need to work in order to keep a profound melancholia in check;a not to dare to work because one no longer can afford it;b to suffer bestial abuse every day in this situation: well, then, this is difficult! And yet―yes, like someone who has worked his way through a primeval forest and managed to cut his way through―that is how I celebrate in delight: It has been reached, it has been cut through, through all the illusions to a vüe of Xnty such as has not been attained for many, many ages. And so, let me suffer, then―it has been reached. Truly, I have not worked in vain, have not been beating the air. There has been squandering, everything has been squandered, strained, strained―support has been provided by Governance: now it has been reached. In other respects―with indescribable gratitude―my situation may now become whatever it will, it has been appointed by God. It is certain that this was the only way to attain what has been attained; had it taken just one or two years’ less time, it would not have been attained. And the times have been harpooned―now they are merely still running with the line.

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From his standpoint Kant puts it pertly (in one of his essays): So, as far as I am concerned people may certainly call philosophy the handmaiden of theology, whether she walks behind, carrying the train―or walks ahead, carrying the torch.

Litera gesta docet, quid credas Allegoria Moralis quid agas, quo tendas Anagogia.

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God’s creative word creates omnipotently from nothing. A speaker, a rhetorician, produces an opposite effect: he speaks of how the truth is mocked―and he himself becomes honored and esteemed. An existential thinker produces what he says. When he says that the truth is persecuted―he strikes so emphatically that he is struck in return, and, pointing at himself, he can say: This is of course something you can observe in me.

When a teacher must accentuate worldly objectives or when he accomplishes them (which God has absolutely nothing against, so long as he honestly admits it), he must renounce the purely ideal sort of dignity and a certain sort of authority and admit it himself. Nevertheless, he must be treated properly and with respect. Otherwise one gets the idea of insulting a merchant because he is an honest merchant. And a teacher who conscientiously fulfills his obligations, though confessing that he does so in fact because he needs his pay: he is like the honest merchant. 8 Litera … Anagogia.] Latin, The literal meaning teaches what has taken place; the allegory, what one is to believe; the moral meaning, what one is to do; the anagoge, what one should aspire to. (See also explanatory note.)

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there has been a frightful advance of worldliness from both sides: “living off the gospel” became the greatest opulence and luxuriousness; and the congregation lost the idea of the gospel and gained all the more a sense for money. Just think: Now, when people say on the basis of long experience: [“]If a father has a son who is not good at any other sort of study, let him study theology―this is the safest way to a living.” Here there is error on both sides, both on the part of the clergy and on the part of the congregation―however, I think that this matter is to be kept as I in fact have had Anti-Climacus keep it: that the attack is to be directed at the congregation that, having become worldly, has no notion of the gospel, but only of money.

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The error is that people have also wanted to have the ideal dignity, and thus they actlly demanded more of the students than of themselves: they demanded that their students pay in so spiritual a way that they would not think of it as a payment. No, if things are to be so spiritual, then let the teacher renounce the payment.

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Of course, it follows of itself that whatever talent, etc. he might have helps him wield a certain power and superiority, but he himself must not confuse this with ideal dignity.

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Proportions Associated with Directing Attention.

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Had I had a fortune sufficient to enable me to continue being an author for the whole of my life, I would probably have become too sarcastic and light-headed and would have acted unjustly. Had I been able to force myself into a purely ascetic existence, meritoriousness would surely have emerged and spoiled it. Now the situation is as lenient as possible, and all the business of founding schools and the like has been prevented. Attention has been directed―and so I step back into more ordinary categories.

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And to my way of thinking this is also what is beautiful, but in addition is what safeguards the truth in the entire situation. It was certainly not I who went forth into the world with a ready-made theory about Xnty’s collision with the world. On the contrary, having a rather complete notion of the collision of inwardness with becoming and being a Xn, it was my idea to present this, to show that just as in earlier times the collision with the world was unavoidable, nowadays, by contrast, the task of inwardness in becoming and being a Xn must be assumed to be a more intense one, so that there would after all be equal conditions. I was absolutely unaware of the collision of Xnty with the surrounding world. What happens―the surrounding world helps me to discover it; yes, it compels me to discover it. Whatever rigor I exercise is rlly only the reduplication of what the times have done to me; the times punish themselves through me. Not to praise myself, but it would have been difficult to have presented Christianity more leniently than I have done. Denmark has scarcely had a more selfless author than myself―and then this treatment; and then that we all are Xns: 1000 Christian priests who all remain silent while vulgarity and nonsensical chatter were literally the only thing that flourished in Denmark. This is what is level-headed, what is reassuring, in it all: that there is no exaggeration―indeed, compared with the way I have been treated in a Christian country, for my part I have nonetheless truly kept the situation very lenient. I am rlly not partisan, but I express the ratio between the times and a Xn striving. As the rigor becomes greater in proportion to the way this latter [i.e., Xn striving] is treated, it is the times that pass judgment on themselves.

The Number Carried. It is what I have repeated and repeated, but can never repeat often enough, just as it actually was

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also what made me aware of the Xnty’s collision with the world: the calamity, the knot―the difficulty is located in an entirely different spot than people think. The difficulty is that if someone wants to do what the priest says, he is not permitted to do it; he is laughed at (because he more or less expresses loving one’s neighbor), ridiculed (because he is selfless), persecuted, etc. Oh, what a shortsighted person am I, whom life itself had to take hold of in order to make me aware of this; otherwise I would have entirely overlooked Xnty’s outward collisions. Christ, after all, was certainly the man who could fulfill his own teaching; he was himself was the existential expression of the teaching―and he is precisely the one who collides, and so terribly. And after him, all the martyrs, etc. But here, once more, see proof that Xnty has been essentially abolished. One can see it in the proportions. We of course have the clergy; they proclaim the teaching. The clergy’s objection to the times is essentially that no one does what we say. Thus (for it is indeed indirectly present in it) nothing more is required than to do what we say. Alas, and this is where Xnty begins in earnest, it begins with the difficulties, sufferings, etc. that are connected with following the teaching: the fact that one is not permitted to do it but must suffer for it.

Measure of Distance. In an earlier age the notion of distance from the ideal included the notion of the enormous effort and self-denial, etc. Nowadays the distance has much more than doubled, for now, in between (between the ideal and striving for it) there lies an extremely distinguished and refined reflection of the understanding that finds the whole attempt laughable, extremely laughable, a childish immaturity, and in addition the surest way (apart from all the exertions and all the self-denial, etc.) of exposing oneself to what is feared most of all: to make oneself laughable. Oh, the distance between the rich man and Lazarus was not as frightful as that which now exists betw. the ideal and the striving for it. No one is to be seen―truly, I have not seen anyone―not one single person, who sets sail for ideality; they all set sail with

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the reckoning: relative goals, either goals that are merely relative, pure and simple, or goals that are, at least for safety’s sake, relative goals like interpretation―perhaps (and a striving of this height is probably found only extremely rarely) in order to avoid the laughter. The relative goals are clothing; the ideal striving is like walking about stark naked: offensively striking, laughable. To be an individual hum. being―with sheer striving and with one’s sights on the ideal: No, you would die of shame (it is selfevident that shame is rather misplaced here―for it is rather the relative goals about which one is to be ashamed) or die from the terror of being laughed at. The currency of being an individual hum. being has been terribly debased. Therefore everyone tries to cover himself with one or another abstraction: we, our times, the public. And for the sake of “seriousness,” in order not to become laughable, one sticks to relative goals.

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The Corsair―and Me.

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This newspaper has really devoted itself to me. One could say that, after all, so many other people have been attacked and you are placing too much weight on yourself. Not at all. The situations are entirely different. 1) The attack on me is of a unique proportion. For a moment, this little country paused, seeing an entire issue of the paper containing nothing but insults directed at me. 2) In other cases this was the situation: for some time the public, public opinion (which Goldschmidt watched carefully) had spoken nonsense about one or another person―then The Corsair printed its attack in an appropriate little dosage. Everything was thus prepared in advance. Here was an author who was at his apex and enjoyed great respect. There were no spots or wrinkles―no agreement with the public concerning the attack. It came so suddenly, ordered by myself, and indeed it rlly was Goldschmidt who quite personally dared do it, putting himself in contradiction to his earlier encomium.―There was a lingering notion of my actual greatness, and the public was put in the difficult situation of having participated in something it would not have done by itself.

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3) In other cases, the person attacked usually regards it as a calamity, pure and simple, sees to it to get away from there as quickly as possible, to take a bow and utter thanks for the gracious punishment― and then the public is gracious. Here it can easily be seen that I regard the situation rather differently, have remained standing as a fixed point that takes up the fight with the whole business.

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Bible Interpretation.

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In the 17th century, which is where the understanding of Holy Scripture as doctrine rlly began, there appeared an equally imaginative notion of inspiration that corresponded to what allegory had been in its time, when every word, every letter had been allegorical. But as always is the case, here as well: precisely this imagining is an indirect attack on Xnty. People do not want to let Xnty be the paradox and be satisfied with that, so they think of substituting imagination which, be it noted, is not the

Previously, the Holy Scriptures reflected themselves imaginatively in the imagination: that is where the entire allegorical interpretation is situated. It is rlly an expression of the fact that people cannot get it into their heads how the infinite has taken place simply, historically. Allegory as the primary mode of interpretation is rlly an indirect attack on Xnty: that Xt was an individual hum. being, the apostle an individual hum. being, who in a prodigious effort dashed off a few words on a scrap of paper for a congregation. Then came the Reformation and asserted what had to some extent been previously asserted in principle (though not in decisive opposition to the established order―but rather “in agreement with the Catholic Church,” regardless of the fact that it was in the least possible agreement, but those involved (e.g., an Erasmus) dared not act decisively; they were interested only in getting it said) and introduced a sounder philological interpretation. But now we are once again absolutely drowning in sound scholarly interpretation. It is quickly forgotten that the Bible is Holy Scripture, whereas in the beginning, to the imaginative view, it meant everything that the Bible was Holy Scripture. Above all, it is quite naturally overlooked that the apostle is an existing person who with peerless agility dashes off a few words to keep a congregation going.

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First they imaginatively transformed the apostle’s “hasty letters” into God knows what. Now they are distorting them into teachings, doctrine. They are incitements. Where everything is at stake, where what counts every day is to gain more believers and to hold on to those who have already been gained, there is time neither for imaginings nor for learned dissertations. They forget Paul entirely in favor of the scrap of paper he produced, which they treat in the most un-Pauline way.

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A Satirical Collision. Sometimes, in an egotistical outburst of “spirituality,” the world shouts that if the teachers of religion were as they were in the days of the apostles, forsaking worldly advantage, doing it for nothing, etc., the congregation would do likewise―and then, if someone stands in their midst and does this, even sacrificing money, the world shouts: “He is mad” ―so much does worldliness have superior power, that in “actuality” the world is not even capable of recognizing what it demands and finds it to be quite simply madness for someone to do something without deriving an advantage from it― ― ―aber this was of course what it had itself demanded. Look, these are genuine Christian collisions for the person who sacrifices himself in this way.

An excellent saying: qui timide rogat, docet negare.

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Measure of Distance. Once it was the case that people frivolously, defiantly attempted to escape the idea of eternal punish24 aber] German, but. 29 qui timide … negare] Latin, he who requests fearfully prompts refusal. (See also explanatory note.)

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Xnty that always is situated in inverse dialectic―whereas imagination is the most superlative form of superlatively straightforward dialectic. This is a fundamental confusion that continually recurs. People refuse to be satisfied with simply positing the absurd, so they substitute the deepest depth of what is deepest and the most sublime sublimity of the sublime― well, thanks anyway, then Xnty is indeed paganism; and people nonetheless think that with this new approach they have elevated Xnty to something much higher. Look, this is a lack of respect for qualitative dialectic. The most superlative superlative of the superlative within straightforward dialectic is still qualitatively different from inverse dialectic.

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ment―nowadays even the ridiculous has inserted itself; the entire cultivated world assures a person that it is nonsense and that one makes oneself ludicrous by having such thoughts. 5

Oh, the world is so clever and everything is supposed to be so lofty, and the orthodox are not much better. It is supposed to be so lofty and so objective that something is of course equally true whether or not a man acts accordingly―oh, but let us be a little stupid and understand that this is a lie in your teeth, an invention of evil. It is supposed to be so lofty: I work on behalf of the truth―as for the fact that I do indeed also have every possible earthly benefit from doing this: who could be so prosaic as to think me so base, that this is why I do it! Oh, let us indeed be a little stupid and prosaic and at least look upon this with a bit of suspicion. But in the state the police are watchful, making sure that “poisons” are not delivered without great precautions―in matters of the spirit everyone handles poisons in the most reckless and carefree fashion. Truly, what the world needs is a truly stupid Socrates, who is so enormously stupid that he does not dare peg things so high. That which the noblest nature, who daily lived in fear and trembling, would perhaps dare to risk in an emergency: this of course becomes something else when it is the prevalent condition in a world of shrewd and suspect persons. If a man known for his honesty finds something on the street and says, [“]I shall certainly advertise it in the lost and found column,[”] it is perfectly in order. But when one of the suspect persons finds something and says, [“]I shall certainly have it advertised,[”] the police do think it would be better if he turned it over immediately. Alas, and who indeed is so good that he need not associate with himself as with a suspect per-

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son―and the person who does not do so, well, he is precisely one of the most suspect of all.

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It is easy enough for the orthodox in this country to object to me, saying that I exaggerate, am altogether too rigorous, etc. (which, by the way, is not true, because I myself have still not exceeded 50 percent of the standard set by the gospel), and then they conveniently forget that if that were the case, they themselves would of course be complicit. For I did not begin like this; it has been a continual ascent. If, either immediately or in a timely manner, the orthodox had been supportive, as was their obligation, I would scarcely have become so rigorous (which, incidentally, would possibly have been an error, albeit an excusable one, because the greater truth was hidden from me). But their silence and narrow-minded opposition is, among other things, also simply a part of why I have had to peg the price higher.

Principal Rule. Above all, read the N.T. without a commentary. Would it ever occur to a lover to read a letter from his beloved with a commentary! A commentator is an extremely dangerous interference in connection with everything that makes a qualitative claim of having purely personal significance for me. If the letter from the beloved were in a language I did not understand―well, then I learn the language―but I do not read the letter with commentaries by others. I read it, and because the thought of the beloved is truly present to me, and there is the intention, in everything, to will as the beloved wills and wishes: then I will surely understand it. It is the same with the Holy Scriptures. With God’s help

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letter from the beloved: that this passage, for example, can be understood in 10 ways―oh, no, what is important for you is that you come to act as soon as possible. And furthermore, should it not mean something to be a lover, should it not give you what the commentators do not have[?] Everyone is the best interpreter of his own words, they say. And next after that comes the lover and, in relation to God, the person who truly believes. Pereat the commentators!

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I will surely understand them. Every commentator detracts. The person who can sit with 10 open commentaries and read the Holy Scriptures―well, perhaps he will write the 11th, but he is associating with the Holy Scriptures contra naturam.

This is how it should be; this is how it was at one time: Xnty’s proclaimer (not “the teacher,” which is why he is not called that, but “the witness”) was a sonorous image of what was said. The sound pattern produced by vibrations of the air is the sonorous image, that is, the visible image of what has been heard―thus “the witness” was the sonorous image, the visible existential image of what he proclaimed.

The Deceptive Use of Luther. This is what is deceptive: what Luther did in opposition to and as if in defiance of a self-important, misunderstood, fantasy-laden asceticism―has been made into something true in and of itself, and although now everything has become worldliness (so that the opposition has totally disappeared), people nonetheless appeal to Luther. It was precisely in opposition to the overwrought and fantasy-laden meritoriousness of asceticism, that Luther, in godly fashion, emphasized simple worldliness in a good sense. But the opposition is the point in this. Nowadays Christianity has become utterly identical with sheer worldliness―and still people continue to appeal to Luther.

15 Pereat] Latin, Let them die.

5 contra naturam] Latin, against nature.

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Luther. When I look at Luther it often occurs to me that there is something very dubious about him: a reformer who wants to cast off a yoke―is a suspect matter. This is precisely why he was immediately taken in vain politically, for he himself has a common boundary with politics, as does his entire position: not attacking “the crowd,” but a particular high official. This is also why the battle was altogether too easy for Luther. What is difficult is to have to suffer simply because one must make things more difficult for others. When one fights to cast off burdens, one is naturally understood immediately by a great crowd of people whose interest it is to cast off burdens. Here, then, the true Christian mark of the double danger is absent. In a certain sense, Luther came to take the matter too lightly. He ought to have made it obvious that the freedom for which he was fighting (and in that fight he was right) leads to making life, the life of the spirit, infinitely more strenuous than it had been before. Had he kept strictly to that, then indeed no one would have supported him, and he would have had the double danger―for no one supports someone in order to make his life made more rigorous. But then he turned aside too quickly. With jubilation, political jubilation, his times took over his cause, formed a party. What Luther wanted: to overthrow the pope―bravo. Well, thanks anyway, this is of course sheer political fun and games. The only thing important to me is to get this matter dialectically clarified―Luther, by the way, is the object of my entire respect―but a Socrates, no, no, Luther was far from being that. When I speak of a hum. being, pure and simple, I say: O, greatest of all hum. beings, old Socrates, hero and martyr of intellectuality, you alone understood what it is to be a reformer, and understood yourself in being one, and were one.

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Reduplication. Every striving that does not make use of ¼, ⅓, ⅔, etc. of its power to work against itself systematically in doing its work is essentially a worldly striving; at any rate it is absolutely not reformative. Reduplication is to work against oneself when one works; it is like the pressure on the plow that determines the depth of the furrow, whereas a striving that does not also work against itself in doing its work is merely a smoothing over. What in fact does it mean to work against oneself? Quite simply this. If the established order, the traditional arrangement, etc., that one takes as the starting point is sound, thoroughly sound, one asserts what one asserts directly―in this case there can be no talk of anything reformative because if the established order is sound there is of course nothing to reform. To the degree that the established order―that is, there where one’s striving begins―is corrupted, the dialectic of working against oneself becomes increasingly necessary, so that what is new does not get corrupted and become an immediate success and the like by being stated directly instead of being asserted in its heterogeneity. Here again is the difference between what is direct and what is inverted, the dialectical. To work or strive directly is to work and strive. The inverse is: in working also to work against oneself. Ah, but who dreams that such a scale of measure exists and that I use it on such a grand scale! Understood I will never be. I am viewed as someone who strives directly―and now people think that I have made a sort of breakthrough! Oh, ignorance! After I published Either/Or, I had of course already had the brilliant success; it was within my power to continue. After all, what is the source of all the difficulties against which I strive if not in myself? It is well known that there has not been one single person who has actlly dared to oppose me. But I myself have done so. What a wrong turn on my part―if my striving had been direct, what a wrong turn on my part it was to publish Two Edifying Discourses after Either/Or, which could only confuse people, instead of letting Either/Or stand as a brilliant success and to continue in that direction, which was what the times required, merely in somewhat smaller portions. What an effort to counter

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myself―for me, the darling of the public, to bring up the subject of the single individual and finally to hurl myself into all the dangers of mockery! But matters of this sort can only be understood by someone who himself has dared to do something similar. Someone else could never think of it or believe in it. This is also how R. Nielsen causes confusion, for he depicts my striving as direct striving.

Gregory of Nyssa put it splendidly in connection with pilgrimages: “One does not come closer to God by changing one’s place.” Alas, no, it is only all too certain that it can only be done by changing oneself.

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The Socratic anecdote―“that when he would deprive them of one or another stupidity, people could get so angry that they really wanted to bite him”―is something one can experience for oneself. Every hum. being generally has a good helping of superstitions, habits, and the like. Perhaps he is willing to admit that these are weaknesses, but he does everything to preserve them, to make sure that no one touches him in this connection because it would upset him too much. If it happens anyway, it immediately seems to him as if he were in the grip of a hostile power that is pestering him―instead of humbly understanding that perhaps this is happening to him just in order to help him attain mastery over things of this sort. But this true “good behavior” of faith is extremely rare. But for the person who truly takes notice of this sort of thing it is no surprise that in many a weak moment he is almost afraid truly to involve himself with God, because it could come to involve a complete reformation of even the smallest aspects of an individual, even more powerfully than when a girl is loved by an absolutely superior intellect, so that she must leave her mental universe completely behind in order to love not merely as she understands it, but as he understands it.

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God creates out of nothing. If, as is said, one wants to say that a genius creates, one would have to say that to be able to create he must make sure that there is nothing. Everyone who begins with a something never gets to create. Let us take an example: the genius of being able to deceive in the Socratic sense. If, when he is to begin, a person thinks that there are 6 or 100 specific ways of doing it, he is not a genius. Genius has nothing, nothing whatever ready, has absolutely nothing―but merely the power and what power produces is indeed an ingenious production or creation, if one wants to use this word in connection with a human production.

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Augustine draws attention to the fact that even Christ himself did not fulfill the commandment, “when someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the left one toward him.” For when one of the servants of the high priest struck him on the cheek he said, [“]If I have spoken wrongly, prove it; but if I have spoken the truth, why do you strike me[?]” And Augustine explains that with this conduct he prevented an additional injustice from happening. Here is something I have often considered in connection with meekness: that when carried through unconditionally, in its very gentleness―which indeed lessens the guilt (see my discourses “The Gospel of Sufferings”)―there is the double danger: first, that it can almost reinforce the guilty person in thinking that his guilt is nothing, and, second, that the meekness itself can be too severe because of its gentleness, for if someone made him aware of his guilt, he might perhaps stop doing it. For that matter, the leniency of absolute meekness could in fact almost be cruelty, an almost ironical deception. All conditions of the spirit are so wonderfully dialectical that, depending on one’s point of departure, if one sets out to carry something through to its absolute limits, one can end up with an exact opposite outcome. As in this case: when it is carried through absolutely without regard to the consequences, meekness itself can very well be the most frightful severity.

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Augustine has a superb response to the question of whether a Christian dares be a soldier; he believes there is nothing standing in the way of this and says non benefacere prohibet militia, sed malitia. In addition he appeals to the fact that [John] the Baptist, did not say to soldiers, [“]Throw your weapons away,[”] but rather, [“]Do no violence or injustice to anyone, and be content with your wages.[”] But of course he was also a forerunner of Xnty.

In demonstrating that it is permissible for a Christian to serve the state (which at one time was a major issue of concern), it is rather dubious to argue, as Ambrose does at one point, that the scriptures say that a person who holds an office must be faithful to that office―for it is one thing have it [an office] and another thing to seek it. This is like demonstrating that Xnty praises marriage from the fact that it is written that hum. beings must not put asunder what God has joined together―for it is one thing to assert the sanctity of a pact that has been entered into and another thing to praise entering into the pact. Take another example: with respect to a rashly signed promissory note―because it is a promise, I ought to keep it. So when moral doctrine insists on this, does this mean it is praising the making of rash promises[?] This is only in order to shed light on the matter; I am very far from thinking that Xnty has anything against marriage―but Xnty always has a great deal against this sort of argumentation, which is in fact dishonest.

Something I read somewhere holds true with respect to certain things: [“]No pers. is to believe another in connection with this matter, and if he requires that one believe him, one must do so even less.”

This is yet another of the world’s hypocrisies: the maintaining of an illusion by saying that as long as a person’s character is not attacked, the rest is nothing. Oh, hypocrisy! The danger the world holds for a person is by no means that of being viewed as a bit corrupt in one’s inner being―no, no, just as long as he is not so stupid, so clumsy as to 3 non benefacere … malitia] Latin, it is not military service, but malice that prevents one from doing something good. (See also explanatory note.)

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be such a bungler in committing evil that he gets convicted under the law. And in that case what the world detests is the stupidity and the clumsiness. The world’s judgment is not the least bit moral (naturally, otherwise the world would not be the world), but aesthetic: it admires everything that possesses power, stealth, selfishness, etc.―successfully―that is, so as to win money, honor, respect. Therefore the world has actlly substituted ridicule, being made a laughingstock, for that which is most feared; this is most certainly an aesthetic judgment. This is why there is no fear whatever of having an erroneous opinion about something, as long as one is in the majority; rather, even if they have the truth itself, what people fear is to stand alone.

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It is mentioned in Neander’s Denkwürdigkeiten 2nd volume, somewhere in the notes.

There is a type of religiousness―yes, actlly the most common type―to which analogous forms still appear. In earlier times, in the first centuries [a.d.], many people believed that one related oneself to God only in connection with one’s eternal salvation; concerning earthly and temporal matters, one must stick with the old gods. This is the form: to live in completely different categories existentially, but in addition to have secured one’s eternal salvation with a sort of insurance policy.

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There continues to be this nonsense about how The Corsair was a joke, foolishness, etc.―presumably as opposed to the profound seriousness of other papers. No, The Corsair was a crime, a crime pure and simple, commensurate with the surreptitious demoralization of the public. This sort of thing cannot yet be heard, because of course the present generation is of course very much complicit. Incidentally, this phenomenon has caused irreparable damage all by itself. Comedy is an extremely important power―particularly in Denmark―principally in dealing with a stupid sort of seriousness. But now we are so inundated with depraved comedy that real wit must refrain from being comical because people immediately shout, “Corsair article.” And so this phenomenon of

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ridicule has promoted its precise opposite, a more prudish and stupid type of seriousness. Naturally, Goldschmidt always comes off in a good light when people disapprovingly call The Corsair a joke, foolery, and the like. Truly, I ought then be the first person to praise it. But it was a crime.

“Actuality” as It Actually Is. It is the masses who actually rule the state, and with the assistance of the daily press, chatter is the absolute power. God preserve us, we certainly do maintain an appearance of earnestness, but it is a lie, and it is an accident that “chatter” is not the only thing that is heard at every moment. Take whomever you like: an artist, a poet, a scholar, a priest, a civil servant, a journalist, etc., direct an attack at one or another of his activities, demonstrate that it is―and let us assume that this is the case― wretched, etc. An attack like this amounts to nothing; it remains essentially within that circle of society that occupies itself with this sort of thing and is soon forgotten―and in any event there is an enormous portion of society to which it would never occur to take an interest in this sort of thing. No, let the “chatter” begin. Write whatever nonsense you want concerning him; write the sort of rubbish that schoolchildren call fun and games: that yesterday he spilled food on himself at the dinner table; then depict him with his napkin; do it regularly, every other day for 14 days: then that frightful monster, the mob, rises up―this is something for them. These thousands upon thousands shout with joy or howl with delight like a beast of prey over its booty. You see, this attack is dangerous―and the people shout in nervous anxiety: It is nothing. Moses was a tormented man. Why? Was he persecuted by tyrants? No, no―that is almost mere child’s play compared with his sufferings, this most plagued of men. Why? Because it was his mission to bring a slavish-minded people to freedom. Every day he had to endure the bestiality, etc. of this slavish-minded people in order to bring them to freedom.―This has really struck me today, but also the sort of being scripture makes him out to be: that Holy Scripture calls him the most tormented of men. But back to “actuality,” the rational, Christian state, which still possesses many high-flown epithets, all of which are the most insulting sarcasms.

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Thus “chatter” is the power; as in mythology, where night is the mother of everything, so is chatter the womb, in particular of modern states, with their complete freedom, the freedom that allows all chatter to emerge, and the freedom for others to chatter along with them. That this is true is as certain as that the earth exists. But the fact is that one cannot even get it said. How should one say it so that it can be heard? In the daily press? Yes, hah! it is certainly very vigilant against letting this sort of news slip through. And that is how we live. “Earnestness,” “the truth,” “honest opinion,” lead a hidden, private existence―for almost everyone knows quite a bit better. Talk with them, with each one individually, the member of parliament, the journalist, the deputy, etc.―talk with each one privately, then you will get to hear his indignation about the intrigues in the parliament―but then, in parliament, that is, officially: there he is careful to guard against speaking of such matters; there he will speak emotionally of the advantages of this free constitution in promoting truth, etc. You will get to hear someone else’s indignation about the daily press, about the villainy practiced by the daily press―but in the daily press (for he himself makes use of the daily press), that is, officially: there he does not speak of such things―insignificant things like that are certainly not worth speaking about in public. Excellent: officially, people strengthen evil with major means of communication[;] privately, confidentially, people grant a bit of justice to the good and the true. And thus society is as if bewitched, as if possessed. Certainly most people rlly do not notice or discover anything in a deeper sense, for inasmuch as they never act or speak officially from the standpoint of the good, but of evil, they naturally meet with great success in the world. And at the same time, they flatter themselves about being privately aware of the lies and deceptions. This is truly a frightful flattery, frightful because in eternity their judgment will be precisely that they knew better privately; had they not had this consciousness, they would have been less guilty.

All of the modern entertainment involving popular assemblies in which a couple of speakers battle one another, and the

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assembly, casting ballots, shouts [“]Shut up[”] and [“]bravo[”]―is rlly nothing other than a revival of the pleasures of bullfighting, but with the difference that now it is the assembly, the public, the crowd, that takes it upon itself to be the beasts (the wild, ferocious animals whose [“]Shut up[”] and clamor constitute the danger), and this is a very small difference.

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that we should live according to what we have heard), people would find it either ridiculous and abgesmackt or presumptuous.

4 abgesmackt] German, properly “abgeschmackt,” tasteless.

How far from Christianity one is personally and existentially can be seen in this way: the same expressions, ideas, etc. that are used in the sermon (e.g., that all of life is an upbringing, that we should take everything to God, etc.) and that are accepted there―if a person in actuality were to say such things about himself and his life, (and the priest does indeed saya

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JOURNAL NB17

JOURNAL NB17 Translated by Bruce H. Kirmmse Edited by Joel D. S. Rasmussen

Text source Journal NB17 in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter Text established by Niels W. Bruun, Anne Mette Hansen, and Kim Ravn

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About Myself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Curious Situation with Respect to Prof. Martensen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Misunderstanding in My Situation as an Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The World’s Turning Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Situation in Relation to the Times, to the Extent That It Has Itself Given Rise to the Dubious Situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lines Concerning Myself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Absurd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . God’s Chosen Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Daily Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Confusion in Christendom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On Prof. Nielsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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It is a special sort of difficulty. In order to prove properly that a man is God’s chosen instrument, people attribute to him visions and revelations, dreams, etc. Now, I am not speaking of the apostles, for whom I always keep a separate account. But the difficulty is that a man of this sort is put forth as an example regardless of the fact that his situation is heterogeneous; he is supposed to be an example for those to whom nothing of this sort happens. Now here comes the question: did this happen to him because of an advance in piety, or did the fact that this happened to him help him acquire the courage, the faith, the fearlessness that made his godliness so great[?] If the former is the case, of course, then revelations and the like are of course straightforward superlatives in a straightforward, continuing striving; in the other case, the paradigm is heterogeneous and imitation is not possible. People have not noticed that here in the domain of religion a difference that is similar to that between people of genius and talent and ordinary hum. beings can easily arise. This is easily brought about when the ethical is not strongly enough present in the religious.

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Look, people call it wit, joking―and nothing: I call it quite simply, in the deepest sense, crime. This was what the vulgarity of the mob wanted, it wanted to present me to the mob as someone mad so that the mob could then decide how to treat me. The intention was thus either that I would have to leave town―so that people would see that the

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mob practices ostracism―or that I would actually be weakened. And during all this (in such petty circumstances and broadcast so grossly disproportionately) the cultivated world transformed itself into spectators―not one word slipped out concerning this villainy. Things went so far that I could even be exposed to personal attacks on the street. Had that happened, my entire circle of friends and acquaintances would have been afraid, and I would have been broken. But, as always, Governance has held its hand over me in fatherly, indescribably fatherly, fashion. The cleverness and personal virtuosity that I have been granted have of course also helped me to navigate under such difficult circumstances, in which everything depends on me, as the person attacked (instead of my finding support from one single person), having the lightness to make the matter so insignificant that friends (if I may call them such) do not after all betray me utterly. And how much has been gained in illuminating Xnty; and how many mortgages I hold on the state of affairs in Denmark! Truly, its time will come.

R.N.’s misfortune, after all, is rlly the fact that he has been warped by scholarliness and has not yet acquired any notion of what it is to be a personality that calmly reposes in its certainty of the rightness of a cause while also taking action as a personality. How simple and beautiful the whole matter would have been―instead of all the things he has brought up. He would have begun with a quite plain and simple declaration in which he―not without a certain decorous self-respect concerning the studies of philosophy he knows he has made―would have declared that these writings have changed his views. Then, with the composure of a complete personality, he would quite calmly have set to work illuminating the writings.

[a]

R. Nielsen.

1

[b]

And I had indeed arranged the matter dialectically in such a way that the very plainspokenness and certainty with which one declared, [“]Yes, call me a disciple or what you will, I support this cause, which has changed my views[”]― precisely this certainty would show that the man was truly anything but a Schüler.

11 Schüler] German, disciple.

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Then, however much he might have been offended by the preface to Martensen’s Dogmatics: well, then―a quite simple rejoinder with the self-respect and dignity of a personality. And now―this whole pack of semi-scholarliness with which he begins, and then the diversion against Martensen. This does not please me particularly with respect to the cause. I have never done battle with anyone in a situation in which victory would bring honor (for the battle with Heiberg was self-defense); fighting like this is worldliness. I have aimed at the true evil, the mob, the crowd, where no honor is to be won. That was also the way I wanted my cause stated. With all these halfway measures and erroneous tactics, almost 2 years have now passed. And how much has been lost! How beautiful it all would have been, how pure and transparent the situation would have been, so entirely free, without disciples or anything of that sort―no, a respectable personality who, at one with himself in having found something decisive in these writings, had decided to take action on behalf of the cause. But perhaps it is too much to require a transformation of this sort by a former speculative professor, at any rate on his first run. And how clear this would have made the heterogeneity with Martensen, whereas now the homogeneity is so obvious. I have learned awfully much from this test of patience.

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Generally speaking, sermons nowadays are utterly confusing. “The priest” has at his disposal, in the form of platitudes, the thoughts and words of those men whose lives expressed existentially what corresponds to those same words and thoughts―but none of us expresses this. So it becomes sheer self-contradiction. The priest says “that it is good to be in the house of the Lord―but a person’s work does not permit one to remain there, etc.”―what work? How much does a pers. really need in order to live? Yes, ask those ascetics. But we, we need so much more―and yet we talk like those ascetics, and the whole business becomes a satire on ourselves. The fact is that admissions must be made: we must admit that we are not so simply spiritual, that we are both more sensual and more intellectually developed―and then, for the rest, we take refuge in grace.

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This is how Xnty wants to rule. It does not require any particular thing―precisely when a pers., almost in impatient zeal, is most keen on wanting to do this particular thing, Xnty says: It is not needed, it is not required. In other words, Xnty wants a disposition of unconditional obedience. The notion of pleasing God by doing one or another thing was a childish misunderstanding that did not properly comprehend God as the infinite ruler whose loftiness cannot permit the sort of situation in which one could do him a service instead of having to ask for permission to dare venture forth into danger, ask for permission to have the honor to serve the truth, etc.

Just think of these things at the same time: the enormous criterion you establish for a person’s life, an eternal judgment―so that one would think that it was absolutely guaranteed that he would live for at least 30 years―and then, for example, that today a teeming capital city perishes in an earthquake: think of these things at the same time and you will understand how necessary grace is for a hum. being to be able to endure living for a single instant.

The person who really grasps his immortality or that an eternal life awaits him will quickly learn to take refuge in grace.

. . . . Simply to worship another, an individual human being, in a situation of contemporaneity: oh, how many are there, indeed, in each generation who have the courage and faith and humility for this. For of course what counts here and what is always the criterion for the personality is to be able to pack all the many thoughts into an action; what is required here is not oratory or argumentation or superlative upon superlative―no, to be quiet,

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taciturn, and to fall down in worship before an individual hum. being whose sensuous existence seems to do everything within its power to argue against this.

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About Myself. When I think back on it now, how remarkable was that stroke of the pen with which I hurled myself against the vulgarity of the mob! And this was the mood in my soul when I took the step: I thought of stopping as an author with Concl. Postscript, the entire manuscript of which had been delivered to Luno. Grateful, unspeakably grateful for what had been granted me, I decided― when the occasion was provided by that article in Gæa―to take a magnanimous step for the sake of “the others.” I was the only person who had the prerequisites for doing it emphatically―the prerequisites: 1) Goldschmidt had immortalized me and saw in me the object of his admiration, 2) I am a witty writer, 3) I have not taken the side of the elite or of any party whatever, 4) I possess a personal virtuosity in being able to associate with everyone, 5) I had up to that point a shining reputation that literally did not have a single spot of criticism or the like, 6) I have unselfishly used my own money to be an author, 7) I was unmarried, independent, etc. So, religiously determined, I did it. And look, precisely this step was decisive for my continuing to be an author! Ah, and what significance it has had, how I have learned to understand myself, learned to know “the world,” and learned to understand Xnty―yes, otherwise an entire aspect of Xnty, and a crucial aspect, would probably not have occurred to me at all, and perhaps I would not have been granted the situation in which I myself would come into the proper relation to Xnty. But on such a scale: a consummate and earned reputation as an author, then suddenly almost to begin all over again!

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About Myself. This is precisely what is reassuring, the guarantee of the correctness of my position in the religious sphere. My decision not to marry or shape my life in conformity with a striving for finite goals was not taken arbitrarily or by virtue of a theory. No, I have suffered as an αϕοριςμενος from my earliest days. There is a higher power that compels me. If, humanly speaking, I were free and unrestrained and in conformity with the universal, I would scarcely have become involved with all this sort of thing. But nonetheless let us assume that this was what had happened, that I myself had arranged my life like this theoretically or arbitrarily: then I would all too quickly have deceived myself into meritoriousness, and at the first opportunity I would have run wild in establishing schools. No, I am a reminder, as far as can be from requiring that others live like this, as far as can be from finding anything meritorious in my life. But I am a reminder to the times, reminding them that they ought to be very grateful in appreciating that it is both possible and permissible for them to have this palliative of occupying themselves with finite goals―and also of the fact that they will disgrace themselves if they impudently reverse the situation and make this lenient position into the greatest seriousness and the highest thing. This has become increasingly forgotten since the time of Luther, who has been taken in vain―and this is where I am situated. But the reassurance consists precisely in the fact that―especially in the beginning―I have been existentially compelled, in accordance with a criterion that is only altogether too frightful, to become aware (and in so doing, to make people aware) of a more rigorous religious existence, namely by my having been placed― in suffering and under compulsion―outside the universal. The pain and the suffering has been frightful, especially in the beginning―but precisely because of them I have also had quite other things to think about than becoming self-important through “meritoriousness” or busying myself with training imitators.

Fundamentally, there is something very comical in Goldschmidt lately. Now he is a respectable man, almost an aristocrat, 6 αϕοριςμενος] Greek, someone or something cut off; here, an exile, someone expelled.

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who speaks with dignity, saying, on the occasion of Schak’s article: “Without further ado, he reckons us among the ravens who live off the names of the famous,[”] etc.―and it is G. who is speaking. I imagine a situation. A hubbub in the street, a person has been seized by someone and held as a thief; the person is very well dressed, speaks for himself fluently and cleverly, saying: “Just seizing a man on the street and calling him a thief,” etc.; the public is surprised and indignant on his behalf―at that instant a police officer comes by; he goes over to see what is going on; he eyes the respectable man and instantly says, “Ah, is it you Svend Andreas Olsen[?”] That is how it is with G. What is more comical, however, is that of course those who were there did not know Svend Andreas Olsen―but of course we all know G.―

About Myself. Remarkable collision contained in my public life. I knew well the degree to which I was superior to everything celebrated in the literature of the time. I also knew the degree to which I was secretly envied by the literary bigwigs―but they dared not utter a single word.―Thus I had come to a point of rest, the position that had been triumphantly conquered by Either/Or and occupied thereafter. Then came that little article by P. L. Møller. Now, had I thought only of myself, I would have remained silent, because for my own sake there was truly nothing worth the trouble of dealing with, which I indeed told Gjødvad. But (something I also told Gjødvad and that is also included in my article itself) it seemed to me that I ought to do something about the situation in order, if possible, to stop the uprising of the rabble, which had subjected the literary elite to base injustice. So I hurled myself against the rabble. To tell the truth, among the things I had in mind was

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that however bitterly the elite might have envied me, this step would procure justice for them, and indeed, might perhaps get them to soften their position and make them willing to understand all my efforts. But no, it was precisely this envy by the elite that became my collision. It disseminated the view that I was mad for wanting to do―what everyone had said 100 times ought to be done. And now I am holding out for the 4th year. I am known by every servant, every scoundrel, every child, whose passing glances remind me of the mockery; my name is used as an invective that is shouted after me―as good as nothing is said in print concerning me and my work as an author; my price is not quoted on the exchange, while every day the abuse continues. Then the elite envy reasons as follows: So look, now we dare permit ourselves to do to him what we so much wanted to do at the time. Owing to the vulgar mob’s abuse, the elite envy thinks that I have been so weakened in people’s eyes that now, e.g., Martensen dares to swagger in a preface. And look, now my brother Peter―he, too, makes use of the fortunate moment for a frivolous acknowledgment that naturally contains the middle term to the effect that inasmuch as I have now been abused in this way, one might dare offer a pinch of me―and perhaps manage to have oneself regarded as noble and magnanimous,[a] But we will see. In any event, Xnty has been illuminated in accordance with a real criterion. Bishop Mynster, as always, is the only figure here on the hill, as he was, from the start, the only one I took into account. He has, however, taken some slight notice of the turn of affairs. At one point a couple of years ago he said to me: “But those who actlly come to bear the brunt will be other than those at whom you are taking direct aim.” Yes, quite true―but what about those who are accomplices through their traitorous silence[?] Mynster’s position does grasp one point well, however. The extent to which he, too, in ordinary Christian envy,

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while on the other hand his effusions were also, after all, certainly occasioned by a loving and “hearty” concern that the latest turn in theological literature would grant me too lofty a position.

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might have wanted to see me a bit broken―is something I will not decide. When I hurled myself at the mob he might in fact have thought that it could do me some good. Then in addition he thought that it would go no further than my getting a little blow. But what happens―now come my consequences: that I must present Xnty in accordance with its more rigorous criterion. You see, this is fatal for all those who had comfortably accommodated themselves to a low-price and advantageous edition of Xnty. And that was rlly what Bishop Mynster meant.

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[a]

The Absurd.

Spiritual Trial. As can happen with a woman precisely in connection with her truly beloved: that because she is preoccupied altogether too intensely with this single thought, there suddenly arises something almost like a disgust for the beloved, who nonetheless is truly the beloved―so, too, is there a religious spiritual trial (which indeed we also find described in ancient sources) in which there arises a loathing of the religious even though it nonetheless is the highest reality for the suffering person, but he has been too preoccupied with it. Here nothing can be done except to have patience and remain quiet, then the blessedness returns all the more strongly.

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In David we have an example (which Arndt also cites in the preface to the 3rd book p. 667) of sacrificing one’s will. 2 Sam 23:15: When he mightily desired to drink water from the well at Bethlehem and the three heroes forced their way past the enemy and brought water to the king, he poured it out for the Lord. Incidentally, this is a religious parallel to the story of Alexander who did it not for God, but out of hum. magnanimity and heroism.

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The Absurd.

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tent of faith is the absurd, and that in order to become a believer every person must be alone with the absurd. The immediate believer, as someone immediate, is not composite, cannot have a doubleness within himself, cannot contain it. When he speaks to another person he construes the absurd, with the best of intentions and enthusiastically, in the most superlative of superlatives―and then hopes that this will succeed in straightforwardly convincing the other person. What is lacking here is the elasticity of the dialectical: to understand that this is absurd for the understanding, to speak of this quite calmly to a third party, granting that it is the absurd, enduring the pressure that the other person has to regard it as the absurd―and then nonetheless to believe it. Whereas it naturally follows that it is not absurd for him as a believer. But the immediate person cannot remove himself from being in straightforward continuity with others; he cannot maintain that what is for him the most certain thing of all―blessedness―is and must be the absurd for others. This is the source of the unholy confusion in talk about faith. The believer is not dialectically consolidated as “the single individual”; he cannot tolerate this double vision, that the content of faith, seen from the other side, is the absurd. This is the tension, the tension of the life of faith, in which one must keep oneself. But everywhere there is a tendency to construe faith straightforwardly. The scholarly science that wants to comprehend faith is an attempt in this direction.

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Not one single objection against Xnty has arisen, not even from the most rabid rationalist and the most scandalized person, to which the “actual Xn” cannot reply quite calmly: Yes, that is the way it is. But the fact is that those in Xndom who want to be Xns are coddled; they are pampered by having and getting Christianity on terms that are altogether too cheap: that is why they were unable to resist.

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A Comment Concerning Something in Fear and Trembling Joh. de s. rightly says that passionate concentration is required in order to show the various psychological standpoints. That is how it is with respect to the decision about whether I am to assume that, humanly speaking, one thing or another is impossible for me. Here I am not yet thinking of the highest sorts of collisions in which what is expected is utterly at odds with the order of nature (e.g., that Sarah gets a child even though she is long past the natural age of childbearing). This is indeed why Joh. d. s. continually repeats that he is unable to understand Abraham, because in addition the collision here is so high that the ethical constitutes a spiritual trial. No, in lesser situations. There are many peop.―and probably by far the majority―who could live without consciousness rlly penetrating their lives. For them it is certainly possible that they never come to a passionately concentrated decision about whether they should relate themselves expectantly to this possibility or abandon it―thus they live this in unclarity. Not so with individuals whose nature is consciousness. They could very well give up one thing or another, even though it is their most cherished wish; but they must have clarity about whether or not they are to expect. Things of this sort can never in all eternity be made comprehensible to immed. or half-reflective natures. Therefore they never come to the distinction between resignation and faith. This of course is what Joh. d. s. has insisted upon again and again. Everything, he says, depends on passionate concentration. So when someone comes and wants to correct him by leading the matter back into ordinary intellectual unclarity (which undeniably is the way things generally are with peop.)―then, yes, then of course he manages to get understood by many. This is how it always goes when something a real thinker has pushed to its logical extreme is corrected with the help of what “he rejected before he began.”

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An Example of Faith in Which the Important Thing Is Turning Aside from Reflection. When the task is not to endure one thing or another, to work for, to will one thing or another, etc., in which, praying to God for help, I also think directly of one thing or another, which is the task. No, let the task be: to forget one thing or another. Inner experience will teach that there are many situations, especially those involving spiritual trial, in which the greatest danger is to continue to think about that which is to be put aside, that it does absolutely no good to employ all the efforts of the will in order to put it aside, that then one only gets stuck more and more fast in it, that it is a question of getting away from it, a question of the quiet humility that attends to forgetting. Thus the task is: to forget. And thus the embattled individual is a religious person who prays to God for help and assistance in order to―forget. And here again, if the prayer becomes prolix, wordy; if the prayer, as it were, becomes anxious about not having presented its plea with sufficient intensity: well, then precisely the opposite results―then I am continually reminded more and more of the thing against which I am supposed to protect myself by forgetting. Here what matters is a trusting sigh that takes only a second to make itself understood by God―and then away, to forgetting. Incidentally, it is likely that the prolix, wordy prayer often also conceals within itself unbelief. Thus, from such situations a pers. can learn very quickly to acquire the most intensive sort of trust in God. Here there is no time to add even a single word to the prayer, for then I am reminded of the thing I am to forget. Here prayer is the silent, trusting accord with God. Therefore this is rlly an education in prayer, because garrulousness is dangerous. And even if inwardness is present in a lengthy effusion to God, the question nonetheless is and remains whether this sort of prayer is not lingering instead of taking action. Certainly prayer has and must have its blessedness, but one can dwell too much upon this blessedness. Thus collisions of this sort can teach a pers. another aspect of prayer.

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My Curious Situation with Respect to Martensen. Of course there are some people who see a bit more deeply into the matter, but the tradition that goes from mouth to mouth concerning the difference betw. Prof. M. and myself is that he wants to vindicate thinking with respect to faith, wants to think about faith, and that I do not want to do so. Curious! Just look at my work as an author. At the time I started, I had about the same level of scholarly education as the prof. (perhaps a bit less German erudition, but on the other hand a bit more Greek). An entire pseudonymous literature makes use of many methods and a number of pseudonyms principally in order to illuminate the problem of faith, to discover the proper sphere of faith, to define its heterogeneity from other spheres of the intellect or spirit, etc., etc. And how is all this accomplished? With dialectic, with thinking. I daresay scarcely any other author has concerned himself with thinking about faith on such a scale―though admittedly not with speculating on and on about various dogmas, for I “thought,” yes, I thought (it was, after all, thinking) that one must first come to terms with the entire question of faith; I venture to assert that dialectical definitions of individual points have been set forth more precisely in my works than in any previously known. So this is what it is not to want to think about faith. Now, take Prof. M. He has written a dogmatics. Very well. In it he treats all the points and questions usually treated in dogmatics (concerning scripture, the Trinity, the creation and preservation of the world, redemption, atonement, angels, devils, hum. beings, immortality, etc.)[.] But there is one point he slides over rather lightly, this is the point concerning the relation of faith to thinking. You see, this is what people call thinking about faith―as opposed to my efforts. But the fact is: I have worked and accomplished something on this point―this is the sort of stuff no one has the time to read. Martensen has given as-

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surances upon assurances―that is something for everyone to run along with. My detailed books―yes, they frighten people off, they run away from them. Prof. Martensen’s winged assurances―people run along with them, es gehet vom Munde zu Munde.

Theme for a Friday Discourse.

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[a] I do not want to speak of other means of propulsion that favor Prof. M.: He is a prof.; he has an important position; a velvet sash or paunch; is a knight―whereas I am a nobody, have spent money in order to be an author. Would that someone or other might think seriously about this, just for half an hour; then perhaps he might come to have a different opinion of my efforts.

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Socrates. Indeed, it is clear that Socrates’ defense was precisely what embittered the judges so that they condemned him to death. Socrates had been viewed as an eccentric and as such was more or less left alone. Then he was accused. In itself the accusation was of no great significance. But then the situation of the accusation became the occasion that revealed what was rlly present in Socrates. The elevated self-esteem with which he related ironically to the summa summarum of the entire popular assembly, refusing to defend himself but jesting with them: this became what was rlly decisive. His behavior as the accused embittered the people so much that he was actually condemned for that behavior, and the accusation became the occasion. This has also been correctly grasped by Wieland in his Aristipp und seine Zeit 2nd part pp. 12 and 13.[b]

5 es gehet ... zu Munde] German, literally, it goes from mouth to mouth, i.e., everyone is talking about it. 23 summa summarum] Latin, sum of sums, sum total.

[a]

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[b]

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The Daily Press The daily press is what has destroyed the states. As long as it exists, much less grows and advances, Xnty is an impossibility in the states (apart from quiet, secluded life that is able to conceal itself here and there), and rlly the state itself is an impossibility. Here is where the martyrs should fall; they should be marked by the persecution and abuse of the daily press. There will be unbloody martyrs (for of course the press does not kill anyone―as is said hypocritically, even though God knows how many people the press has already killed)―but of the most complex and difficult sort, because every day a sufferer does in a way have it in his power to withdraw. The martyr must thus be noticed by his times in such a way that people deep down have an understanding of him and of the truth of his cause, but no one dares speak out of fear of the daily press. Then, when he is dead, he moves. But this martyrdom also has this difficulty: it must lift up the same thing―an entire life―every single day, so that in his death he can exert pressure with his entire life. If he permits any interval of time to pass, the impression is weakened and the degree to which his death was a martyrdom does not become clear. Here the category of “the single individual” is rlly the right one for the martyr.

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Poetic Lines. The most disgusting of all tyrannies: the tyranny of the daily press, of distribution. With another tyranny, one can travel to someplace else―but here, here one of the persecutors travels along with one; he usurps one’s reputation in the foreign locale, first relates that the famous Mr. X is living here in town, then gushes with praise in order to garner attention―and in order that one can taste the abuse that follows. You see, with the help of the press this can be achieved very quickly. Suppose there were no press, suppose one of those who hated the well-known person wanted to follow him by traveling to the foreign place and there to make an impression by slandering him verbally―no, it would not succeed. But it could be done with the help of the press, with the enormous mouthfuls that the press can take at a time.

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Ah, as a plant must feel when it cannot get rid of the wretched vermin that is both consuming and disfiguring it: so must a well-known person feel when he sees how this wretched vermin, which lives off “renown,” cannot be shaken off or avoided. 5

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About Theophilus Nicolaus.

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You see, this is what happens when clumsiness intervenes in opposition to an artistic design. Joh. Climacus himself declares that he does not have faith. Theophilus Nicolaus presents the believer. He takes absolutely no note of the fact that to be consistent he must present the matter in such a way that inasmuch as Joh. Climacus himself says that he does not have faith, is not a Xn, everything he says cannot, of course, prove anything. But Theophilus Nicolaus suspects nothing of this. He involves himself bona fide. Alas, how sad to live in such petty circumstances that as good as no one rlly has an eye for a profoundly executed artistic design. What has cost me days of diligence, enormous effort, an almost sleepless dialectical persistence in keeping the threads properly arranged in this delicate construction―this simply does not exist for others. I am simply identified with my pseudonyms, and then some nonsense gets patched together that―of course―is understood by many more: yes, of course!

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How does God go about securing himself an instrument among hum. beings? Quite simply as follows: He isolates such a person so that even if that person wanted to, it would be impossible for him to make himself understood by others. As soon as there is understanding by others, then comes bargaining, discounts, etc.―but he must hold out in this frightful isolation, constantly alone with God―then there will certainly be success in pegging the price of religion sufficiently high.

[a]

About Theophilus Nicolaus.

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God can isolate “the instrument” through sufferings, sufferings in which he cannot make himself understood by anyone else, sufferings to the point of madness. On the other hand, “the instrument” can be isolated like this by the extraordinary itself, e.g., through visions, revelations, and the like. But, is this in fact so isolating? Have we not indeed had millions who have lived very well by dint of Paul’s having been called by a revelation? Undeniably! At a distance (especially at a distance of 1800 years), a revelation is an extremely comfortable matter―but to be oneself the one who has had a revelation in a situation of contemporaneity, among one’s contemporaries: this is fundamentally the most absolute sort of isolation. Such a man constantly oscillates between what is highest―and madness: he cannot rlly be understood, understood to have had a revelation, by any third party.

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Is a Christian Permitted to Make Use of Shrewdness, except in an Inverse Sense: Not to Make Life Easier for Himself, but to Make It Burdensome, Not to Avoid Danger, but to Enter into It? Granted (as is said objectively) that Xnty is a doctrine, that is, a sum of doctrinal propositions. It is of course obvious that the same thing can be said in many different ways and yet remain the same qua doctrine. For example, the difference could be that one person (helped by the [“]how[”] with which he says it) is a brilliant success, and another (helped by the [“]how[”] with which he says the same thing) is persecuted: Is it the same thing, then, the same Xnty―is a Christian permitted to make use of his shrewdness in the manner of the former [“]how[”]? Note Here, incidentally, one sees how foolish it is to call Xnty a doctrine, for then the difference―that one person is a success in proclaiming the same thing for which another person must suffer―then the difference would be utterly unimportant, inasmuch as what they say was really the same thing. Thus, e.g., in relation to Plato’s philosophy: if two people present it equally truthfully, then the fact that the one employs his shrewdness to become a success and the other disdains this shrewdness and is persecuted: this difference is essentially trivial. But Xnty is no doctrine, it is an existential communication.

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Is There Not a Necessary Relation between What a Pers. Says and Teaches and What Follows from It, so That He Necessarily Brings Consequences upon Himself, and so That, if the Consequences Do Not Ensue, One Is Justified in Concluding: Well, Then He Has Not Truly Proclaimed This? Take an example: to proclaim Christian self-denial. If someone truly proclaims it, does it not follow with necessity that what he says will happen to him, so that the only true proof of the truth of the proclamation is that it produces what has been proclaimed―perhaps not in such a way that anyone does what he says, but at any rate that what happens to him takes place in accordance with what he says: that Christian self-denial happens to him. If, on the contrary, someone became a brilliant success by proclaiming Christian self-denial―is this not a direct proof of the fact that he is not proclaiming it truly[?] The Sophists are so reluctant to stop here; they keep it ambiguous, saying: Sometimes the truth must suffer in this world, but sometimes things go well for it. But when Christian self-denial is proclaimed in such a way that the person who proclaims it becomes a success, then he is not actlly proclaiming it; perhaps he is declaiminga, but he is not expressing it existentially, and this is why the consequences do not ensue. One sees here, once again, how foolish it is to call Xnty a doctrine instead of an existential communication.

Goldschmidt. Apart from the fact that 1) it is rlly nothing but impudence (though perhaps he himself does not understand this) and 2) nonsense that imitates what he has heard about metamorphoses and stages in the development of a life―what he has hit upon, that The Corsair is a first stage―apart from this, there remains the psychological oddity that he evinces the Merkwürdighed that the comic is the first stage. In other cases, after all, the comic is usually the last stage―comedy certainly concludes Hegel’s Aesthetics, 35 Merkwürdighed] German/Danish, peculiarity.

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and an Aristophanes would have found it strange if someone had suggested to him that he make his existence as a comic poet into a first stage―in order thereafter to become “earnest.” In general, the nonsense G. puts into the world with his personal existence is not without interest in relation to the investigation that has been assigned to me: Copenhagen in moral dissolution. As an author, I myself have never made use of the comic; it has been used in service of pseudonyms, who of course would quite consistently find it ridiculous if they were permitted to attain a new stage, because the comic is the designation for the highest sphere. I myself was an edifying author from the very first. In the pseudonyms, the comic is, if anything, too high a stage, because it is something demonic.

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and that is why it is learned so slowly, not as quickly and easily as one learns one more language or one more system by rote. No, in connection with virtue, there is always special emphasis on the inward, inward-turned, “the single individual.”

This Socratic thesis is also of the greatest importance for Christianity: virtue cannot be taught―that is, it is not a doctrine, it is an ability, a practice, an existing, an existential reformationa Here, in turn, is where I place myself with my thesis: Xnty is not a doctrine, but an existential communication. It is of such decisive importance to define the concept “teacher” in relation to Xnty. It is rlly the entire unholy pack of “priests and professors” that has, bona fide, confused “the faith.”

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A Curiously Ironic Honor. When a fire breaks out somewhere and the alarm is to be sounded, the drummer gets there first and beats the drum outside the place that is on fire. That is the last place he needs to beat the drum. It is if it were being shown honeur. An analogous case, would be, for example, if it was the custom, when a man was to be executed, for the guilty person to mount the scaffold, accompanied by an officer of the law and a priest, and for the executioner first to bow three times to the delinquent and then once to the authorities.

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Is it not strange that in the Republic Plato wants to have “the poets” exiled from the state, attacks “the poets” frequently―and yet was in fact himself a poet or a thinker of a predominantly poetic character. Again, what is remarkable here is that this is not an earlier stage and the decisively ethical a later stage. Alas, no, it is the reverse. It is a reversed μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος. This is reminiscent of Socrates, who himself actually was an ethicist and was right in wanting to get rid of “the poet.” With the second generation (Plato) we have come so far that Plato is the poet who wants to get rid of “the poet”―he poetizes wanting to get rid of the poet, that is how far things have gone backward. I have been struck by some words of Aristippus (in Wieland’s Aristipp und seine Zeit 4th vol. p. 34), where he speaks of Plato’s Republic: “You require,[”] he writes, [“]my views on this new poem by our declared enemy of poets.” This point about Plato has also been important to me personally. I have always recognized that there is something of the poet in me. Nonetheless I am struggling forward. I do not follow immediately after a Socrates and then let matters go backward.

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6 honeur] French, honor. 23 μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος] Greek, transition to another conceptual sphere. (See also explanatory note.)

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No, in the limitless confusion of religion, I am one step forward. I point out the turn that is to be made, but, almost fainting under that enormous intellectual task of clearing the ground, I myself point out the purely ethical existence as that which is higher.

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And thus even a pagan―he who was not in possession of the highest, the true Ideal―regarded the world in this way: how frightfully must it be regarded by Xnty, for the distance is proportional to the loftiness of the ideal, and therefore the world is completely good only for those who are wicked or who know no ideal. [b]

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What excellent praise of this world has been attributed to the eulogist of injustice: “The just person is whipped, stretched on the rack, put in chains; people want to burn out his eyes, and after he has suffered all imaginable abuse, he is nailed to the cross and now, too late, is compelled to realize that in this world one must strive to appear just, but not be mad by being just. How splendid, on the contrary, is the lot of the unjust in this world if he has the shrewdness to get public opinion on his side, and he is regarded as an honorable man while, under the guise of virtue, he allows himself to do everything. The highest posts of honor in the state await him; he can marry whomever he wishes and give his own children to whomever he wishes; everyone counts it an honor to associate and have connections with him; and because

Inversion. The Christian view that here in the world everything is reversed, that the more I try to practice virtue, the worse things go for me, etc.―all this is of course already to be found in the entire excellent presentation of the ethical in the first books of Plato’s Republic. The Sophists teach that committing injustice is advantageous, and that everyone knows this, though for safety’s sake they maintain the appearance of willing the good―Socrates wants a person to do the good and avoid the appearance of doing so, lest he be tempted by the reward. Here, incidentally, there is a little difficulty that can be easily removed. When, indeed, the Sophists teach that committing injustice is what is most advantageous and that, deep down, everyone views it in this way―why, then, the appearance of being regarded as just[?] If this is supposed to be an advantage, then of course the world must actually regard justice as the good, and thus the world cannot be so evil that the relationship is one of inversion. But this is precisely where the secret is lodged: it is only the appearance of being a virtuous person, a just person, etc.―it is in this superficial form that the world gives its approval, indeed almost as an expression of the cunning that cunningly knows how to preserve this appearance. As soon as one is actually in earnest about willing what is just, the world cannot bear it, and things do not go well for the just person; but this appearance, this interesting mystification in which the world itself half believes

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Without exactly flattering myself I dare believe that I am perhaps the person who enjoys the greatest respect in our situation. And how do I know this? I know it from the fact that people make it look as if I am eccentric, a bit mad, etc. Hum. beings understand one another mutually in their egotistical striving for the finite goals that constitute life’s earnestness for them; they pay honor to one another, etc. Whatever goes beyond this (and the world keeps a sharp eye out for whether something actually does) is certainly the object of their respect―but for the sake of God in heaven, it must be kept an appropriate distance from eccentricity and madness, forgivable, but nonetheless eccentricity―for otherwise it would of course also turn everything upside down, disturb the entire game. If, for his own reasons, someone of the more ideal sort is willing to be satisfied with conditions that make him an oddity (and to be quietly respected), then it is tolerated. If he is not willing, if he wants to attack the world, pass judgment on it, etc., then it becomes a matter of life and death, then the world will not be a peaceful place until this man is dead. Deep down, a refined prostitute has a great deal of respect for a moral girl, but this must not be expressed―she must be permitted to mock her morality a bit, as if it were an eccentricity, something odd. Now, if the young girl does not pay any further consideration to this matter, but simply reposes in herself―then things continue on; if she wants to reverse the relationship and pass judgment to the effect that the prostitute’s life is a bit more than an eccentricity, a lamentable eccentricity, perdition―then

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no means is too wicked for him in attaining his end, everything succeeds for him; he emerges successful from every situation; in brief, he becomes a rich and mighty man, able to help his friends and harm his enemies, indeed, even to win over the gods themselves with frequent sacrifices and expensive gifts, so that he will be dearer to them than the just person, who has nothing to give.”

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this girl’s fate is decided, then the prostitute will not rest until she is annihilated.

On the Abuse I Have Suffered. What interests me purely psychologically is to see which were the most dangerous of all the attacks― one learns to know the world from this. All the abuse was shabby; I was showered with mockery and brutality―it was all quickly forgotten. They took my first name and made it into a nickname, used it in comedies―in the street I was called by that name again and again: this was something dangerous. They made me into a caricature, known by every child―this was something dangerous. But the most dangerous thing was that they wrote that my trousers were too short, or even that one leg was ½ inch shorter than the other. Absolutely nothing could be done about all the other things. This was where the difficulty arose, about the fact that there was something striking―striking, be it noted, after the press had been used to direct everyone’s attention to it. This was what was dangerous. It was linked to my character, it was supposedly pride. The more respectable people felt that, after all, I could yield a bit―they simply did not consider the fact that actlly there has never been anything striking about the way I dress, and, on the other hand, if I made any sort of change whatever, that of course would also in turn be subject to public discussion―and (even though I kept everything unchanged) this happened in Flyveposten with P. L. Møller, where it was related that my trousers had now become too long. Look, this was dangerous, precisely because it was linked to my character. Indeed, what madness public life is! But truly, I would like to see how many could endure it: day in and day out to have these thousands

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of people―maidservants, children, scoundrels, etc.―reminded of one and the same thing. Never to be able to be private because even the humblest middle-class family was aware of the same thing, and if one called upon them, in their embarrassment they betrayed the fact that they knew it, betrayed it with a glance. And then the bitterness at being rewarded in this way for having worked as no author has, unselfishly as have no others, and finally for having wanted to benefit society.―What was dangerous was that it was linked to my character, and it looked as if something could be done about it and that it was my obligation to do it―instead, the entire society expressed madness on this occasion. The tragicomic situation of seeing the embarrassment of my tailor because he had come to participate in public life, etc., etc.; my servant’s shared knowledge of this, etc.―

Ordinarily, death, or at least a lifelong martyrdom, is the punishment for being in the right with respect to one’s times: God knows whether I will succeed in getting justice from the same times that have treated me unjustly and with respect to which I am in the right. My situation is quite unique. I have not attacked the times but have hurled myself against a sort of tyranny―indeed, soon it must become clear to the times how right I am, how unjustly they have treated me; and indeed, the confession will surely come when the ill-temperedness has properly subsided. My situation is also unique simply because I do not claim to be an ethical figure in any grand sense, have never made use of authority, thus have not placed great emphasis on a decisive turning point. If it happens, it will be of the greatest importance for the illumination of Xnty. I know nothing; I know only to marvel at Governance.

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And then every day, year after year, to be continually exposed to the possibility that a spiteful pers., a half-drunk student some evening, someone desperate to earn 10 rd., will again begin using the press to write about my clothing.

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Psyche would not be satisfied with having faith; it was of course possible that the invisible being that visited her was a monster―then she looked, and saw what she lost. This is also how it is with the relationship of reflection with respect to God. You are perhaps able to see that what has been traversed is something extraordinary, so this was granted to you: if you will not be satisfied with this, satisfied with living backward―if you want certainty in advance in order to be entirely certain that the way you are going is not a wrong way―this is indeed possible (just as it was possible that the invisible being that visited Psyche was a monster who, precisely in order to conceal that fact, was only willing to be seen in the dark, i.e., not to be seen, but believed): then everything is lost, you do not gain certainty after all, but only the certainty that now everything is lost.

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As I have said it here: where the real danger is, it is always said, “it is nothing.” This is the fundamental lie. Of course people very much want to be the earnest, the courageous man, the defender of virtue, etc.; now, if people conceded that there was real danger, then of course they would have to go into it―and they do not want to, ergo they are lying.

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Reply to Contemporaries I do think I ought to be shown a little reasonableness. In consideration of the fact that he was licensed contemptibleness, Goldschmidt was permitted to make use of all the weapons that no respectable author ought even dare touch. With the help of these weapons, favored by being licensed―he played the role of an invincible victor. I find this to be in order, or to put it more properly, I certainly do not find it in order, but I do find that it makes some sense if it is clear that it is as licensed contemptibleness that he triumphs in this way. But it is indeed entirely wrong for him to become en passant and without further ado a respectable author, and for him to have been allowed this without making a very official apology, for it is of course the most outrageous injustice against all of

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those who had to put up with his abuse―because at the time he was licensed contemptibleness. And indeed, it is even crazier than the craziest of things to turn the situation around so that it even becomes sort of meritorious that he is so good―that he wants to be respectable, almost as when parents who lack the strength to punish a naughty child want to thank the child when it becomes well-behaved.

Xnty Wants to Make Eternity Easy, but Makes This Life Burdensome. Xnty’s presupposition is rlly that the matter of eternity engages a hum. being absolutely. Xnty knows the remedy for this concern. But as we genrlly live, it simply does not occur to us that the matter of eternity is of any significance―we will all be saved, that is certain enough. So Xnty is therefore to be situated within this life, as though it were able to provide help for this life. But this is precisely what it cannot do at all; it can only make this life as strenuous as possible. Xnty’s presupposition is that the concern that things might go well for a person in eternity is so great that, in order to find peace in this respect, one gladly endures―indeed, one thanks God for―having this life made somewhat more, yes, infinitely more strenuous than it is if one does not involve oneself with Xnty. Merely having real concern about one’s eternal blessedness (as Xnty requires), this alone is of course an enormous burden compared with living in a way that leaves the eternal in abeyance.

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This criterion requires “spirit” of them, requires that they consider this matter on their own, without anything having been said to them directly. Ought I not say something directly, or travel abroad a bit, as I have indeed continually thought of doing for other reasons[?] This latter, traveling a bit, would be to give them sufficient time to take stock of themselves, and they would take notice―whereas now my personal, daily presence, the fact that my appearance makes it look as though it were nothing: this strengthens the established view of the matter. Yet I also in fact owe it to my cause and to the truth to hold out long enough so that I can have something to hold onto, something to which I can appeal. With my public existence I have rlly purchased a mortgage note on the public life of this country; it can be used in presenting Christianity. They say, “Your presentation is too lofty[.]” I answer, “That is impossible, it has of course taken place right in front of your noses; and it cannot be too lofty, because it corresponds precisely to the treatment I have endured qua author―so, therefore you yourselves have required it because I have had to stick to Christianity in order to endure your treatment.[”] Though, of course, now the situation will become clearer, because after all I am in the process of stopping as an author.

About Myself Personally. Humanly speaking, one could say that my misfortune is that I have been brought up so strictly in Xnty. From the earliest age I have been in the grip of a primal melancholia. Now, had I been brought up in a more ordinary way―yes, it is clear that I would scarcely have become so melancholic―then I would have been confronted earlier with the task of doing everything to force my way out of this melancholia, which almost kept me from being a hum. being―doing everything either to break it or be broken myself. But familiar as I was from my earliest age with this Christian notion of the thorn in the flesh, that such things are simply part of being a Xn―I found that nothing could be done about it, and in any case my melancholia found support in this entire outlook.

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So I reconciled myself to it religiously―it has made me, humanly speaking, as unhappy as possible, but then on the basis of this pain developed an extraordinary intellectual existence qua author. I came to terms with myself in this life. The torment was frightful―but the satisfaction was all the greater: I can never thank God sufficiently for what has been granted me. But then―then it was my fate to be an author―in Denmark. In any other country an author’s existence such as mine would have been the way to riches―in Denmark it cost me money. Insults were heaped upon me; almost everything was done to make my life intolerable: It makes no difference―this existence as an author, as it was and is my possibility, was a satisfaction, so that I can never thank Governance sufficiently; for the more opposition, the richer the literary productivity simply became. But―it costs money (yes, it is an almost crazy situation, to the jubilation of the provincial market town in which I live, surrounded by insults, pursued by envy)―and I can no longer afford it. I would gladly accept an official position―but here comes my melancholia and makes difficulties. No one has any notion of how I suffer, of the degree to which I have been placed outside what is universally human. And of course this would have to be removed if I were to be able to live together with peop. in an official position. Though one thing remains: that I can never sufficiently thank God for the indescribable good he has done to me, so much more than I had expected.

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Concerning Goldschmidt. It is likely that scarcely anyone in this country has paid as much attention to G. as I have; scarcely anyone has had such good intentions with respect to him: but 6 years of crime as editor of The Corsair must not and ought not disappear as nothing. In taking the step I did at that time, my thought was let the account be settled and then to do everything for him in as reasonable a fashion as possible―I wanted to be his defender―he made me into his accuser: in so doing, the situation has not exactly become easier for him.

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But had I not raised an objection at the time, he would have been able either to avoid any indictment for those activities or simply to escape them when he felt like behaving himself.

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The Misunderstanding in My Situation as an Author. The times have only worldly categories; thus they expected and continue to expect that I would either evade the abuse by traveling abroad, for example, or that I would defend myself. But I am immersed in religious prototypes whose distinguishing characteristic is suffering. I do not know if I am permitted to make my situation easier, because it is clear that the more I suffer, the more deeply I will wound the times, and the effect of my life will become all the greater. In this way (by not doing what people expect) I myself am a part of making the situation more difficult. But people do not really know me.

The World’s Turning Point. As I have demonstrated in the last section of the review of Two Ages, the punishment will fit the crime, and therefore it will simply be to have no government, so that the strenuousness, but also the step forward, will be that everyone must learn in earnest to be his own master, to govern himself without being helped by the dispensation of having governors and leaders (which had made matters easier, but which the generation disdained): thus the religious advance and the strenuousness will be that everyone must bear within himself the duplicity of knowing that Christianity conflicts with the understanding―and nonetheless believe it. This is the signal that the time of immediacy is past. Just as Quidam in the “Psychological Experiment” is no immediate unhappy lover (he himself sees that the matter is comical and yet clings to it tragically by virtue of something else, but therefore with constant discord, which is the sign that immediacy is over), so, also, with the religious.

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I feel that history will bear witness on my behalf, attesting to the significance I have had as an author, that it is a turning point for the world; moreover, that something extraordinary has been achieved: this is something I know, truly without conceit, I, who profoundly, ah, so indescribably profoundly, feel my own wretchedness as a poor miserable human being and a great sinner. But my times refused to accept the achievement. My writings were not read―on the contrary, the provincial market town amused itself by caricaturing me and making fun of me. With this, matters came to a deadlock. If people had immediately engaged with the matter, showing decent respect for what had been achieved, appreciating the great sacrifices I had made as an author, things would have gone easier. Now it will be difficult to avoid the confusion of disintegration―and they have put me aside. Now it will become increasingly costly to address what I have achieved, because now people will first have to make a little confession concerning the way in which I was treated. Ah, there might seem to be some pride in this thought: truly, to anyone who had even a hint of the torments by which I am bound to God, it would certainly not occur that I could be proud of it. Wretched, as I felt myself, a penitent, as I profoundly knew myself to be: God knows it was no great merit on my part, but it is true that I subjected myself to the humblest possible circumstances (willing to live together with the common man, always putting myself in a certain comical light, in order not to seem too severe). People then rejected me: yes, that aroused my pride, but nonetheless God always exerts such strong pressure on me that every second I am, if not actually, then potentially, out on the 70,000 fathoms of water. Usually, this is how I have lived: every single day of my life I have perhaps suffered more intensely than others do in an entire year. But it is clear that in this suffering there has also been a blessedness that others may never have sensed. Because, to put it briefly, I always have only one and the same thing to say: that I can never sufficiently thank God for the indescribable good he has done to me, so much more than I could ever have expected or dared expect.

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The Conflict between “Understanding” and “Faith,” Purely Psychologically. “The understanding” never comes to the absolute. Take an example. I am of course also responsible for my understanding. Fine. Now take a pers. who wants to break some deeply ingrained habit. First he says: [“]Now, you have gone around long enough, saying, [‘]Tomorrow,[’]―now begin today.[”] So he begins, and the first attack is quite violent. Then the understanding says, [“]This is wrong, you must proceed a bit more gently―there are of course also examples of a pers. destroying himself in this way. So back off a bit and postpone it until tomorrow.[”] In the highest ethical sense, the question here is this: Does a hum. being have no responsibility for what happens to him when he struggles against evil, daring to risk everything, placing the responsibility on God―that is, believing―and permitting himself to say that this danger of destroying himself is a spiritual trial, a new trick played on him by the bad habit[?] Nonetheless, it is undeniably true that one can indeed go astray by overstraining oneself in doing battle against evil. I know this from my own experience. But then one backs off and makes an admission to God and a promise to begin honestly once again where one left off. Such a humiliation (to the effect that one is not immediately able to do it) can also do its part in saving a person from stoical conceitedness. I also know from my own experience that (precisely because I am afraid of arbitrary caprices) I have the custom of giving due notice regarding the renunciation of one or another thing, one or another habit whose turn it now is. Suddenly to say, [“]Today[”] can be very dangerous, can be a false impatience. But it is the same with the understanding in this case as it is with the understanding in relation to believing Xnty. Faith has an interest in coming to a conclusion, an absolute decision; the understanding has an interest in keeping “deliberations” alive. Just as the police would find it awkward it there were no crimes, so would the understanding if deliberations were finished. “Faith” wants to posit the absolute; “the understanding” wants to continue deliberating.

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How difficult it is to have faith now, now in the 19th cent., now when everything has become a chaos of reflections and deliberations. Truly, therefore, it is always a great help to a person when it becomes quite clear to him that the object of faith is the absurd―it shortens things mightily. Yes, one could say among other things that it was out of concern for hum. beings―in order that they might, after all, come to have faith―that this was why God determined that the object of faith was to be the absurd and that he let it be said in advance that it was, and is, and shall be the absurd.

Lines Concerning Myself. True enough, I had not thought that the power of villainy was so great. When I hurled myself against it, I did, after all, count on the fact that, given the notion people had of me at that time, I would succeed in getting the literary world onto the right path, that it would be an honor to be mocked by contemptibleness― thus I was counting on the world being rather better than it is; I certainly did not think it was good, but I did expect that a step taken with such honesty and enthusiasm would help advance our situation somewhat. Alas, the problem was simply that the step was not understood―and thus things became worse, even more so because of my constancy. And what is the upshot? If at that time, without having taken this step, I had had the full-fledged notion I now have concerning the scale on which villainy rules by means of wretchedness and envy: would I not have prayed to God for the strength to take the step I have taken?

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I was willing to associate with everyone as an equal―now, good God, I was, after all, not the least among them. But to associate with them as their equal when, in their capacity as the public, these same peop. are then willing to participate in the mockery without the least embarrassment: that I will not do.

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Perhaps I have also been wrong, when associating with others, by constantly transforming the abuse I have suffered into witty conversation; after all, duping them like this (which could also conceal a profound contempt for peop.) also leads them astray.

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Yesterday I was miserable―but I could not, indeed, really put my hope in God; today I became even more miserable―it helped; now I can hope again. Oh, the danger, the danger―in spiritual situations it is what corporal punishment is in lesser situations.

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This is one of the reasons peop. so much prefer to be addressed in assemblies, not individually. The single individual― who is perhaps so very much superior to them that scarcely dare look at him when they are to speak with him individually―is physically overwhelmed by the impact of “the crowd,” and each individual in the assembly attributes this tension to himself, thinking that he himself is the one of whom the other is almost fearful in this way.

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Oh, it is indeed so difficult to do something “immediately.” A person so much wants to have a postponement of just half an hour, as if it would then become easier for a person, instead of merely becoming more difficult, or more likely not getting it done at all, or getting it only half done.

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unable to do it―instead of “immediately” having faith, faith that with God’s help the error itself will serve a person well. A person was so close to having convinced himself that when he believes, a misfortune, a danger, is transformed into an advance and a gain―but then came a little error and he did not succeed: So now immediately put to use what has been learned (that when you believe, everything serves you well), and believe that this error serves you well. Ah, but an enormous school is needed in order to become present to oneself in this way instead of constantly becoming distant from oneself.

Teach me, o God, not to stifle and torment myself in smothering reflection, but to breathe healthily in faith.

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Lines. Oh, dreadful depths of confusion, oh, dreadful because of errors hardened by custom. Generation after generation, these hundreds upon hundreds of professors―in Christendom―thus surely, after all, Xns indeed, all the more so because they were professors of theology. They wrote books, and more books about books, and books to provide an overview―and in turn journals existed solely to write about them, and book printers flourished, and many, many thousands had jobs ― ― ― and not one of these hirelings’ lives bore the most remote resemblance to a truly Christian existence―yes, it did not occur to a single one of them to take the N.T., read it straightforwardly and simply, and before God to present himself with the question: [“]Does my life bear any resemblance, even the most remote, to that of Christ, so that I might dare call myself an imitator: I, a prof. of theology, a Knight of the Dannebrog, honored and esteemed, with a regular salary and free professorial housing, and the author of many learned writings on the four journeys of Paul[?”] There are passages in the N.T. from which one can prove the propriety of having bishops, priests, deacons (however little those of the present day resemble the original design), but find a passage in the N.T. where there is mention of: professors of theology. Why does one come to laugh involuntarily if, to the

[a] “The professor” of theology.

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passage in which God appoints some to be prophets, others to be apostles, others to be leaders of congregations―why does one come to laugh involuntarily if to this were added: [“]some to be professors of theology[?”] Why could not there just about as well have been written: [“]God appointed some to be councillors of Chancery.[”] “The professor” is a later Christian invention―yes, later Christian, because it was invented at about the time that Xnty began its retreat, and the culminating point of “the professor” came precisely in our times―when Xnty has been entirely abolished. What is expressed by “the professor”? “The professor” expresses that religion is a matter for the learned; the professor is the greatest satire on “the apostle.” To be―a professor of what? Of something put into the world by a couple of fishermen: oh, what a splendid epigram. That Xnty should be capable of triumphing over the world: Yes, that was something prophesied by the founder himself, and the “fishermen” believed it. But this monument to victory: that Xnty would become so triumphant that there would be professors of theology―this was not prophesied by the founder, unless it was where there is mention of there being a “falling away” from the faith.

Eureka! I have it! “The professor” will rlly be the analogue to Don Quixote. Perhaps he will be an even more profoundly comical figure. Someone who has within himself absolutely no conception or anything human tending toward enthusiasm for personally taking action and living like the Exemplar, but who believes that this is a matter for the learned. “The truth” is crucified as a thief―before that, it is mocked, spat upon―in dying it cries out, Follow me. Only “the professor” (the unhuman) does not understand a word of this; he regards it as a matter for the learned. In “the pseudonyms” I have only made use of “the privatdocent,” but “the professor” is indeed a more genuine type, precisely because of the earnestness of his life, the His Eminence the Knight.

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The Daily Press.

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With every other crime, the qualitative aspect is and remains unchanged, and thus a crime cannot come into being as a result of a quantitative aspect (except in connection with slander and the like), but in that case it is not possible for an individual to promote the circulation of it on his own. If someone steals 10 rd. and someone else steals 10,000 rd., the qualitative aspect is the same, but the quantitative aspect is different; the qualitative aspect is the same: both are thefts. When a man, who is in the bedroom in the evening and is about to go bed, says to his wife, with whom he had been out that evening, [“]I really do think Miss Hansen wears a lot of makeup. Did you notice, etc.[”]―this is the most insignificant thing in the world. On the other hand, when a newspaper with 10,000 subscribers says the same thing, then poor Miss Hansen is annihilated (for a private person, especially a young woman, cannot bear publicity on that scale), thus, indeed, a crime has surely been committed. Here, I believe, is the special characteristic of crimes by the press, in which distribution qua talis (that is, not the distribution of something that is criminal in itself) is a crime. The daily press is capable at every moment of shaking up existence and making it insane. One could say that the same thing could be done by means of oral communication, for example, if that man did everything he could to tell the whole town that Miss H. wears a lot of makeup. No, this is not at all the case. Because it takes much more time for an oral communication to emerge and make an impression, and it takes many more middlemen to get the gossip going. And how many people really want to gossip about this sort of thing[?] But in print it can be done by one single person, and then it is established that the interesting thing about it―which is what makes people want to gossip about it―is precisely the fact that it has appeared in print. Superb! A person can use the press to distribute something that people do not even want to gossip about, and then people gossip about it because it has appeared in the papers. And how does this come about? Quite simply: when two people talk to one another, modesty prevents them from gossiping about such things, they are ashamed to gossip about such things. But the press―it is “no one,” and of course no one cannot be ashamed. And if it has been said in the press, then one of course has it to gossip about, because now there is something to gossip about, now there is 20 qua talis] Latin, as such.

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the daily press.

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something that has appeared in print, and the fact that something has appeared in print is of course something to gossip about.

As long as the daily press exists, Xnty is an impossibility. If Xnty is actually to be actualized (that is, not declaimed oratorically by a tradesman and officeholder in a church, with the shared understanding that he of course is not so uncultivated and personal as to have in mind those who are present here, or anyone now living, as if he wanted to place any obligation or pass any judgment upon them), then it is eo ipso unavoidable that the person who is proclaiming must direct a great deal of attention to himself. He must direct attention to his person without the use of any illusions (and this is precisely what is necessary to proclaim Xnty truthfully). The daily press will seize hold of him that very instant. It does not need to say a single mean-spirited word, no, only nonsense, everything that, in a conversation between a man and his wife in the bedroom, is utterly insignificant―and in a very short period of time he will be consumed, as it were. Let a newspaper appear twice a day every day, with 5,000 subscribers, depicting him and writing the most insignificant things concerning his person twice a day for 14 days: he is weakened. Heroism will be required to endure this treatment. Inasmuch as he has not yet been weakened, he is assumed to possess this heroism. But something additional will also be required, something close to heroism will be required of his contemporaries in order for them to be able to maintain their view of him. By reading all the nonsense about him that appears in print, by hearing the town echo day and night with the all this nonsense, it takes hold absolutely, and under such circumstances there will be very, very few people in each generation who will be able to maintain their view of him―the incessant nonsense will wield its absolute power over them as well―and then he is weakened. 13 eo ipso] Latin, by that very fact.

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But Xnty cannot truly be actualized in any other way than by a personality of that sort, who ventures to identify himself so markedly: ergo Xnty is an impossibility as long as the daily press exists, for it would be a self-contradiction for someone proclaiming Xnty to make use of the daily press. This is how the state, the Christian state, exists. There are 1,000 priests―serious men, in addition to many other serious men. They all know more or less clearly that the entire business is based on nonsense; they all know more or less clearly that there is a power, known as the daily press, that at any moment can perform a miracle like the one involving the vermin in Egypt: it can fall to earth and nonsense can rise up, swallowing its prey. [“]For the sake of God in Heaven, let us not have any contact with that,[”] think these 1,000 serious Christian priests―nonetheless, we will certainly preach Xnty. Oh, you fools, or rather: You, too, are, if not vermin, then an irritation, not much better than what you fear. I will give an example of the fate of someone abused like this. Of course, a man cannot himself be everything; he cannot be his own shoemaker, his own hatter, his own tailor, etc. Then let us assume that this man is unable to shave himself. Then let us write about him, set the whole town in motion, focus everyone’s attention on his beard (and this can be done, because he is a striking personality and the press is capable of everything in the line of nonsense). Criticize his beard, the way it sits.b What then? Then eo ipso the barber takes an interest in the persecution. The barber despairs. This man, whom I will call “the Apostle,” understands very well that nothing can be done about this, that the only thing to do is to leave everything unchanged (because the craziness consists in the fact that such things would be material for a story in the press), while it is also his Christian duty to remain at his post. But the barber! Well, he cannot get this into his head (for the barber is not a hero). Thus―and what heroism is involved in enduring being riveted fast to the barber like this, and it would do no good to

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And the less there is something striking about it, the better; the crowd’s gaze is only directed to it all the more crazily, because, Damn it, there must be something strange about it, inasmuch as the press is talking about it.

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choose another, because, owing to the efforts of the daily press, “the Apostle” is known by every barber―the barber cannot get it into his head that this is society, which is in the process of going crazy. He concludes that there must be something to it (inasmuch as it appears in print), that he must be trimming the man’s beard the wrong way. He decides to alter the beard a little. Because “the Apostle” indeed understands it to be his Christian duty to remain at his post, and thus does not dare conceal himself, it is easy enough to catch sight of him. Then the newspaper’s spies (who perhaps have already seen him at the barber’s, or who have taken control of the barber) immediately discover the change. New articles. The whole town’s interest once again focuses on the beard with renewed interest, and people also find it to be weakness of character, a sure sign that the Apostle is not an apostle, if he yields on matters like this―even though it was rlly the barber who yielded. This style is also wrong, however, and the barber grows desperate. He says right out: [“]I no longer dare to be this man’s barber; the little bit I earn from one customer is really too little in comparison to being made so ridiculous that I lose all my customers.[”] So then “the Apostle” goes to another barber (because he simply cannot shave himself), the same thing happens there. No barber dares take up the task of shaving him. So he has to let his beard grow and limit himself to trimming it once in a while. New articles. Meanwhile, undaunted, “the Apostle” proclaims God’s Word―well, no one is interested in that―but the business about the beard, and almost nothing else, is spoken of all day long, and people continually say, [“]It is nothing.[”] There are, however, a few people who take note of his teaching, his peerless gifts, etc. But these few dare not risk anything. They take quiet delight in his extraordinariness―but as for bringing any notice upon themselves: No, they say, we are not heroes; we could not endure being made ridiculous. Indeed, they almost become angry with “the Apostle” for remaining at his post. This is Dichtung und Wahrheit. I am no apostle―but in other respects this is close to my own life.

What is Xnty? Xnty is the suffering truth, or the teaching that the truth must suffer in this world. The idea is that, concerned solely for the salvation of your soul, you turn to Xt. He then says: [“]Be assured of your salvation. I am your Savior and Redeemer. But now, in this life 34 Dichtung und Wahrheit] German, poetry (i.e., fiction) and truth. (See also explanatory note.)

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(because I vouch for the other life), you must also become my imitator in being willing to suffer for the truth.[”] You see, this is Xnty. Now, suppose I am a proclaimer of Xnty―but also that I am a priest. Then I receive a message from a man, or he comes to speak with me. What does he want? If it is an anguished conscience―well, then, that is a task for me. But no, it is a happy-golucky, amusing man who has become engaged to an enormously rich and beautiful girl with whom he intends to travel around Europe immediately following their wedding―and I am to marry them. But, you see, as a proclaimer of Xnty, I have one and only reply: [“]So I declare unto you the gracious forgiveness of your sins in the name of the Father, etc.[”] Now, if I say that―and then: [“]Inasmuch as your sins are forgiven you and your eternal salvation is thus assured, your Savior and Redeemer obligates you in turn to live this life in imitation of him, suffering for the truth. And this ought not be any sacrifice to you, because if it is true that you are truly concerned for the salvation of your soul (and in the absence of this, you of course receive the forgiveness of sins in vain, a sin which in turn would be sufficient to plunge you into the deepest torment of an anguished conscience), then all earthly things are nothing to you, indeed, your sole wish must be to suffer for the truth in order at least to express some gratitude for what Xt is for you.[”] You see, this is Xnty. And a man is supposed to give me money for saying this to him. One thing or the other: Either this pers. understands what I am saying, and then he is an altogether different person, who has other things to think about than the girl’s enormous fortune, her beauty, and foreign travel―or he does not understand it, and in that case it is, after all, unreasonable that he must give me money to say such unpleasant and fatal things to him; indeed it is a crime on the part of the state to bring him into contact with the priest, either tempting the priest to adopt a different tone or tempting him to take in vain what is holy.

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There are cases in which long-drawn-out reflection about whether or not to take a very decisive step cannot simply be explained as lack of character. On the contrary, this continuing reflection can be a necessary exhaustion that is precisely the precondition for truly taking decisive action.

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But this is true only with respect to religious decisions. With aesthetic and aesthetic-ethical decisions what matters is precisely to make use of the passion of the first moment. But in religious matters, blood loss and exhaustion are necessary in order to become so annihilated that the action then becomes truly religious. In this respect, significant strength of character is also needed in order to keep oneself constantly at the pinnacle of the same discrimen, because to forget the whole business or become indifferent to it is something else again. But in keeping oneself at the pinnacle of decision day after day, one exhausts what is sensory, the attachment of the senses to worldly things―and so it succeeds. Thus we also frequently have examples of very great religious individuals who have continued for many years in keeping themselves at the pinnacle of deciding whether or not to enter a monastery, and this was precisely what helped them do it. Otherwise the step might have been the exaggeration of a momentary mood, which was later to be regretted, whereas now, through the loss of blood and the exhaustion, they were already in a condition approximating that of being in the monastery, so empty and indifferent had everything earthly and worldly become to them. If the audacious decision of a momentary mood had induced them to enter the monastery, the battle would only have begun there. In this case, on the contrary, they had kept their lives at the pinnacle of decision, obligating themselves every day not to let go of the thought about whether or not they should enter a monastery. Precisely this is an asceticism that is very capable of serving as a transition. For indeed: it is one thing to let it remain in abeyance as a whim: [“]Should you not enter a monastery[?”]―it is something else to summon forth the idea with the same intensity every blessed day, obligating oneself not to allow one’s life meanwhile to slip into any sort of distraction, but to occupy oneself solely with this decision. To endure this is fundamentally to be in a monastery already.

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And people still think they can use a new book to combat this boundlessly bloated, theological-scholarly confusion of Xnty. No, no, little child, the matter is very simple. Get hold of one single actual confessor―and then obligate the professor of theology to encounter God in the confessional, and ein, zwei, drei, I will get the entire theology confessed out of him, because it is all embed8 discrimen] Latin, turning point, outcome, decisive difficulty. 40 ein, zwei, drei] German, literally, “one, two, three,” i.e., without further ado. (See also explanatory note.)

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ded in the worldliness and worldly ease of talking about Xnty. What is lacking is the relationship of conscience to Xnty. The “professor of theology” is to learn what the N.T. quite simply obligates him, as every Xn, to do: then he will certainly learn to speak another language, then he will learn what indulgence he needs in order to dare continue being a professor, civil servant, knight, etc. (instead of being a missionary and martyr). You see, this is what he is to learn―then he will not reverse the situation and make his position into what is important. But in scholarly fashion―yes, it is true: the confusion cannot be cleared up in scholarly fashion.

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About Myself. Strangely enough. Melancholic as I was, when I began as an author, in a certain sense 100 years older than the eldest among us: a penitent; an unspeakably unhappy person; sadly sympathetic to the common man, in particular; aware of myself as an intellectual and aware of my superiority―it was as far as possible from being the case that my unfortunate exterior (my thin legs, etc.) bothered me; on the contrary, I was ironically satisfied with this incognito. I understood that fundamentally my intellectual task and my situation involved those people who had some sort of claim to being intellectuals. Living with the common man was something I found satisfying, both as relaxation and as a work of reconciliation. But look: then the bourgeoisie and the common man, etc. were supposed to follow the newspaper’s orders to judge me, and in particular my clothing. And for the common man, for all of those who are pretty much nothing, especially those who live in the capital, clothing is the most serious of matters. The common man is better able to tolerate an attack on his character than on his clothing. The common man understands very well that he is of course nothing special, and that therefore he will be judged more or less on how he looks; that is why clothing is the most important thing to him―and that is why an attack that would have been of minimal significance in any other circle was here the most dangerous. But what is strange here are the concepts. According to aesthetics, what is properly comical is when a person who, for example, has thin legs, wants to conceal this fact by wearing stuffed

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leggings and the like. But when the vulgarity of the mob comes to judge, what is comical becomes the fact that a person will not go to the trouble of concealing it. This is called irony―and I thought I knew what irony was. But the problem is that the entire country had lost the notion of what irony is; the vulgarity of the mob had turned things completely around. Therefore, action had to be taken. And it is true that Goldschmidt was an enormous power atop The Corsair―now he is nothing. And it is certain that it was cowardice for everyone to remain silent. And it is no less certain that in remaining silent and leaving me standing there, the respectable class committed shabby treason against me. Privately, both Heiberg and Ploug and Hage (then the editor of Folkebladet) thanked me. Yes, that is typical of the top literary figure and the editors of the newspapers, the ones who rlly ought to act, to thank me privately.

What I have said so many times is both certain and true: that a dead man is what Denmark needs in order to reveal all the interconnected villainy and envy and cowardice. As long as I remain alive and use 2/3 of my strength in transforming the whole business into nothing, as long as it remains in the interest of villainy and envy and cowardice to support the notion that the abuse I suffer is nothing―of course, they themselves are the guilty ones, and if a thief was supposed to decide whether theft is a crime, the result is easy to predict. And so of course it is nothing―that which is indisputably the most painful of sufferings: the daily suffering that, as it is daily, cannot possibly arouse pathos. To be thrown to wild animals―that at least comes to an end. But to live like this, thrown to hum. brutality and yet to be a respected person (for otherwise the abuse would quickly come to an end)―this is torture. Far from being a consolation, the freedom one has to remove oneself from this whenever one wants is on the contrary an intensification, inasmuch as one therefore must every day, freely and voluntarily, continue suffering, renewing one’s religious duty―unlike other cases, where at least it is up to a decision made by a force external to oneself. Had I been victorious in such a way that I stood in triumph, then what was supposed to have been illuminated would not have been illuminated, for in that case my superiority would

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have concealed the guilt of the others, which would have looked much smaller. No, a dead man―they cannot get rid of him in that way.

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The distinction that I have thought ought to be made, the expression of reflection in Christianity, that (just as the wise were are at first called σοϕοι and thereafter ϕιλοσοϕοι) instead of using the name or the term Christian, we must concede that the task of being a Christian is now so great, and we are so imperfect, that we must be satisfied with the term lovers of Christ or something like that―this distinction is indeed the basis for the earlier distinction, when a difference was drawn between fides humana and fides divina, and it was nonetheless conceded that a person who possessed only fides humana was also a Xn, despite the fact that his faith was actlly only that of a proselyte with respect to being a Xn, having been convinced by all sorts of historical reasons, etc.

... Oh, even this suffering: that even to the few who take a real interest in a person, the sight of that person is not a happy one. They feel very well that this life includes an exertion that places a demand upon them; they feel that they must either disapprove of this exertion (and in that case the contact is indeed not such a happy one), or they must praise it as something lofty, but, be it noted, lofty in such a way that one would prefer it to be at the remove of death, of history, from oneself. Alas, I actlly bother even those who mean well by me.

An eternal image of the relation of the God-fearing to God (namely, that it is an upbringing) is expressed in a peculiar feature of the language of God’s chosen people: it must be read backward. Existing backward is rlly the strictest sort of religiosity, the strongest expression of how God exerts pressure. The person who is oriented forward, who speaks exaltedly about what he will do in the future, etc.―he is by no means rigorously religious. 7 σοϕοι] Greek, wise men. 7 ϕιλοσοϕοι] Greek, lovers of wisdom. (See also explanatory note.) 12 fides humana] Latin, human certainty. 13 fides divina] Latin, divine certainty.

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No, backward―so that at every moment there perhaps is scarcely one more day, scarcely one more hour, for a person to live―to live like this is religiosity. But this also can only be read backward. Moses saw the back of God, not his face, i.e., there is no agreement in advance, the religious person is simply the unconditionally obedient instrument―and then afterward he sees how God has made use of him. To know that God is using one: this would be a dangerous thought for a hum. being; therefore he only came to know it afterward.

This is the measure of what a hum. being is: for how large a portion of his contemporaries does he dare exist and allow his life to be judged by them. In this connection one could go through an entire scale of relativities, from those who only exist for a very few (as, for example, women; then to those who exist for larger and larger, more and more numerous circles―but still for circles) to the highest category, the God-Man, who establishes the quality [“]hum. being[”] and therefore must be judged and wants to be judged by absolutely every hum. being, eternally, and divinely certain that he is precisely the one who expresses the quality of being a hum. being, whereas all other hum. beings do not express the quality except with the addition of accidental ingredients. Courage is daring to exist for the whole range of one’s times. Of course, a sensate being finds it comfortable to exist only for a particular circle of people who express exactly the same as himself, so existing for them designates the “solidarity,” that provides life with earthly security. For how many are there, really, in each generation who know what is what―for them the important thing is that all their views be shared by others, some others, many others. But the heterogeneous person who dares exist for others must of course be certain within himself (and, of course, certain most of all because he is helped by the fact that God shares in this knowledge) that he is a hum. being, for otherwise the judgment would soon be that this heterogeneity is madness and the like. But the courage of daring to exist for the whole range of one’s times is also punished―or, rather, distinguished―by the fact that

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the courageous person must come to grief because of it. This is difficult to avoid, simply because such a pers. can be labeled with a particular judgment that then becomes widely circulated with respect to him; but because the majority of people are supposed to be included in passing judgment, the verdict can become so tangled that this in itself is enough to create confusion in the entire affair. The situation is different for those who only exist for a smaller circle of people. That circle is in agreement with him about what it means to be a hum. being. This is in solidarity with the judgment of him that is in circulation. For the others he essentially does not exist; therefore they are satisfied with seconding the judgment passed by that group. Let me take an example. A learned man who is very careful about not existing for anyone except other learned people, who lives a very withdrawn life, etc.: learned people come to a judgment concerning him. As time goes by, many people other than the learned come to know something about him, but inasmuch as he has not given these others, these many others, occasion to judge him, the others limit themselves to putting that judgment into circulation: relata referre. Arranging one’s life in this way is the only prudent thing to do. (This is where Bishop Mynster is to be found.) I doubt whether a pers. is religiously permitted to do this; in any case he must make an admission. From a Christian standpoint, on the other hand, it is precisely the task for every generation to pose the question [“]What does it mean to be a hum. being[?”] ever more clearly, ever more specifically, for the more this is done, the more profoundly will the question of the relation between God and a hum. being emerge. Everyone who has his life merely within a particular circle contributes nothing toward clarifying and bringing to the fore the question of what it means to be a hum. being―he merely helps himself get through life as best he can, investigating nothing profound, but seizing hold of one or another set of external appearances more or less related to being a hum. being, wagering everything on that. He is utterly devoid of primitivity. Because the God-Man alone expresses qualitatively what it is to be a hum. being, it is of utmost importance to him to exist for every hum. being, unconditionally every hum. being. Insofar as this is the case, it could seem that the God-Man must become an enormously abstract hum. being. And that is indeed the case: he is literally Nothing. One could now have a detailed examination of all sorts of hum. relativities in order to establish the extent to which each of 19 relata referre] Latin, “to relate something one has [merely] heard” (i.e., without vouching for its truth).

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them could be commensurable with the God-Man, so that he could have been the God-Man in that relativity. Because he is, qualitatively, essentially equidistant from every relativity of custom connected with hum. beings, which relativity he chose could seem a matter of indifference. And one could of course say he chose a specific differentiation when he chose to be a poor and lowly hum. being as opposed to being someone of high birth. But this is not true, because he was not a poor and lowly hum. being in contrast to high birth and wealth―if that had been the case, he would have been a part of the solidarity of the poor and the lowly. He was purely and simply a hum. being who felt no pressure from the fact that he owned nothing (thus he was indeed not poor) and who found bliss in being nothing (thus he was indeed not lowly). He could also very well have been wealthy and wellborn were it not for the fact that solidarity would immediately have turned up there, and were it not for the fact that wealth and high birth are suspect qualities with respect to being a hum. being.

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To involve oneself with God, to be genuinely religious without bearing the mark that one has been wounded: well, I do not understand how such a thing should be possible. To be capable of saying, in relation to God: [“]I will involve myself with you to a certain extent; I will allow you a place among my feelings, but no more than that. I do not want to be a spectacle in the world as a religious person must be because his relationship with you has caused him to become heterogeneous with this life. In this earthly life I want to live healthy and strong, becoming a complete hum. being in the worldly sense―and then, in my innermost self, have a feeling. Because the person who has truly involved himself with God is instantly recognizable by the fact that he limps, as it is said, or at any rate that he has a suffering heterogeneity in this life.[”]

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But it is indeed impossible to involve oneself with God in any way other than one in which one will be wounded, for God himself is indeed this: how one involves oneself with him. In relation to sensory and external objects, the object, the matter, is something other than the mode, the manner; there are many modes―perhaps one stumbles upon a lucky mode, etc. In relation to God, [“]How[”] is [“]What.[”] A person who does not involve himself with God in the mode of absolute devotion does not in fact involve himself with God. In relation to God one cannot involve oneself to a certain degree, for God is precisely the antithesis of everything that is to a certain degree.

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Concerning R. Nielsen Last Thursday I took a walk with him and finally managed to say a bit about how I viewed his entire diversion―both the big book and the 12 lectures― as an attempt by a shrewd person (perhaps the shrewdest with respect to some matter) who wanted to further the matter instead of simply serving the cause; moreover, that the entire business with Martensen was a mistake that had nothing to do with my cause but was personal animosity; moreover, that he transformed it into a doctrine; lastly, that he plagiarized altogether too much, even including my conversations.[d] Given my reticence in saying such things, this was said in gentle tones, even if a little bitterness perhaps entered into it as a reflection of his vehemence; I also said to him that in this case I was judging in accordance with the criterion I apply to myself.f He became somewhat angry or, rather, testy. But I changed course and spoke of other things and we strolled home in bona caritate. 38 in bona caritate] Latin, in good charity.

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see p. 139.

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the 18th and 19th of April 50.

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My words were that, viewed as a whole, the diversion over which he had command (his 3 books) were not in the service of religion.

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And yet, from many subsequent utterances I had reason to conclude that he more or less thought that he had now done what he could do and would withdraw.

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And later in the course of conversation, when he said that I had wronged him, I replied, certainly not in an offensive manner, that if that was the case, I was indeed a pers. against whom it was certainly worth being in the right.

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and―with my view of the matter, the context of which only he and I are completely familiar with―that

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Then I thought that this Thursday I would raise the same subject again and that if he was willing to listen to reason and agree to the truth, it might perhaps have the fortunate result that he would feel himself obligated quite simply to do something in behalf of the cause as a reviewer and that sort of thing. But no, today I received a letter in which he renounces walking with me on Thursdays. It is better that it has happened. He has very much abused his relationship to me. Presumably this letter is yet another bit of coyness intended to make me give in―for in addition to having simply sought work after work of mine, he has indeed also taken advantage of my hypochondria. It is a good thing that it has happened. I bear no grudge against him, not in the least way, and I would be very willing to involve myself with him again, though it would scarcely be of any service to me, because his physical robustness is a poor match for my scrupulosity. He has grown, but there is still something of the docent about him. Incidentally, there is a continuing series of remarks on my relationship with him in the various journals and on various loose papers. I have suffered indescribably by the free and easy manner in which, privately, he understands and understands, and then, publicly, makes use of what has been written and said, both as his own and as misunderstood―which, in a way, is indeed truly his own. I thought that I would die; therefore I wished to make an attempt to familiarize someone with the cause. Prof. Nielsen has understood only all too clearly that he is alive.h Altogether overly hypochondriacal as I am, and in fear and trembling before God, I have been continually afraid of wronging him, hoping and hoping―and in this way I have been put off, expecting that now, “the next time,” I should just see. And when all is said and done, he has written a big book in which he ignored me completely (and an entire year and my copious communications with

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when I spoke of him to others, I emphasized the good aspects, including financial sacrifices he may have made and his exposing himself to unpleasantness. I also said to him that I had kept calm for so long because I had been continually considering how I should judge him. He must be aware that I am not in the habit of taking attacks into account, but that I paid closer attention where it was a matter of someone wanting to acknowledge me, that what was important to me was what judgment I should make concerning him.

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[g]

At first I thought of writing a few words to him, but now I think it best to let the matter remain as is until I hear from him.

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He thinks he is indispensable to me, that he is the only person I can get to support the cause properly, or at least to awaken attention. There is some truth in that view―all the same, he misuses this against me at times in order to make himself hard to get―but he does not consider that everything depends on whether my idea is one of wanting to triumph in a worldly way, or one of wanting to go down to defeat in a godly way, for in the latter case he is very dispensable if he does not share the same understanding―and in any case it will depend on his grasping the cause better and more wisely than in his writings thus far, item on the extent to which the cause itself does not gain new friends, and finally, what I emphasize here is after all essentially based on the fact that I was religiously motivated when I drew him to me or that 40 item] Latin, as well as, furthermore.

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I responded with alacrity when he asked me to dance, a turn of events that certainly surprised him and went far beyond his expectations because it was an action from the core of my being, an intensive action, the significance of which only became clear later on, in stages. Most likely he had thought only that he would sort of knock on my door and that I would then sort of open it a crack or not even that much; instead the double doors were flung open and he was invited to come in. That was more than a person could ask. True, but precisely this beginning may perhaps have changed the whole business, captured him for the cause in a quite different way, so that he may perhaps really come to serve it, which possibly he had not thought of doing; and in any case, were it to be possible to bind him to the cause, the beginning would have to have been made in this way, with this curious surprising quality and this qualitative intensity.

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him were expended on this). Next, he took several theses of one of the pseudonyms in order to attack Martensen; and finally he has made an attempt to transform it into doctrine―and not the least thing was done for the cause. Perhaps the problem was that he had come into too close a relationship with me. I need my freedom. Under freer terms, so that I do not feel obligated to place such strong emphasis on him, he can be of benefit to the cause, even if there is a deviation, because he does, after all, direct attention to it. But if he is to be a highly trusted interpreter I cannot remain indifferent concerning such a misunderstanding. In other respects, I think my personal presence disturbs him; if I were dead, I think he would present the cause better.

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[a]

R. Nielsen.

With the thought that death was imminent, with the feeling that it was my duty at least to make an attempt to inform another pers., if possible, about the cause I have the honor of representing, so that he could represent it in the same character, I drew him to me after he had himself sought to make an approach. I did not permit myself the least bit of direct influence on his work as an author; I regarded it as my duty that, if it were to happen, it would have to emerge in him independently―but I placed a great wealth of communication at his disposal. This hope of mine has been disappointed―I say no more than this, I add no adverb to express the degree, no adverb would satisfy me.

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Let someone capable of understanding me imagine what it means to me to keep myself inactive in this way, focused only on him in tense expectation―with a life as intense as mine, to endure this for 1½ or 2 years, but seeing gradually, as his works appeared, that I had been disappointed―and yet feeling myself obligated to hope, inasmuch as I had approached the matter religiously. Imagine what I have suffered! Though perhaps this is not at all his fault, but mine, for having had such hope―ah, perhaps it was my fault for having taken upon myself the responsibility of letting thoughts destined only to pass through my personality, with its pressures, find another path. Perhaps the criterion employed has been infinitely too high. In private conversation he has been very well able to understand and understand, understanding that what he had done was wrong, that the right thing would have been this―and then he nonetheless did the wrong thing again, or indeed even made use of the comment as an ingredient in his work. As noted, perhaps the criterion has been infinitely much, much too high. This is the source of the misfortune. As soon as I judge in accordance with that criterion, it is as if I am doing him an enormous injustice. If I take the criterion away, I will have no more difficulty with him than with Stilling, who certainly has never complained of injustice. But the fact is that I have never invested in Stilling in this way. Though Nielsen himself ought also understand this to some extent. But in this respect, perhaps I also was unjust to him with what I said last time.

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. . . . I have believed that it was a part of self-denial to remain silent with respect to what good, humanly speaking, I have done, and God has helped me to be able to do so. But my life will cry out after my death. And for a living person who makes use of these few moments

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to speak―what good does it do, compared with a dead person who continues to cry out[?] With respect to every living person, one at least has certainty that his talk must come to an end―but once a dead person (instead of behaving expressly in accordance with what is usual and customary by remaining silent) has begun with this strange business of crying out, how can one stop up his mouth[?]

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See, this is yet another consequence of the fundamental confusion: that Xnty is not proclaimed by witnesses, but by teachers. What is a witness? A witness is someone who directly demonstrates the truth of the teaching he proclaims―directly, yes, both by there being truth and blessedness in him, and by instantly offering his person and saying, [“]Now, see if you can force me to deny this teaching.[”] By means of this struggle, in which the witness perhaps succumbs in the physical sense―may die―the teaching triumphs. The opponents have no such view for which they risked dying. This is the ongoing, practical proof of the truth of the teaching. But a teacher! He has proofs and arguments―but he himself remains on the outside and the whole thing becomes ridiculous― all the objections triumph.

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It is very well put in the 4th book of Rousseau’s Emile, where the vicar speaks. And says: [“]Now, my young friend, I have given you my confession of faith ... You are the first person to whom I have confessed it, perhaps you will remain the only person to whom I will ever confess it.” Here comes the good part: “As long as any good faith is still to be found among peop., one must not disturb peaceful souls or trouble the faith of simple people by heaping up difficulties that they cannot resolve and that can only disturb them without enlightening them. But when everything has in fact been shaken, one must preserve the trunk by sacrificing the branches. Troubled, doubting, and almost dying consciences that are in the condition I have seen yours to be, are what need to be strengthened and awakened, and in order to

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fortify them once again on the foundation of eternal truths, it is necessary to complete the work by tearing away the shaky pillars by which they believe they are still being supported.

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Concerning Prof. Nielsen Melancholic and in much fear and trembling, as I always am, I had considered, after all, that I might write him a few words that would make it possible to restore the relationship. But no, it is the wrong thing. I ought to be happy to have received the letter of divorce. I find his physical robustness as well as a certain coarseness and a frightful vehemence to be simply a plague in a personal relationship. Just this: simply because he knows that I am melancholic and have a religious desire for a decision, were I to write a few words to him now, he could then get the notion (and of course I have had examples of this) to hold on to the note, perhaps for quite a while, without letting me know that he had received it. That by itself is enough to demonstrate a fundamental difference. In other respects, I like him and would be happy to see him and speak with him, acknowledge his talents―but no personal relationship. It was truly not my idea for things to turn out like this. I had indeed looked forward with pleasure to next Thursday, hoping that now that he had absorbed the shock, I could attain a more truthful relationship with him. He himself broke it off. I, who understand only all too easily that I am destined to suffer, I certainly did not have sufficient self-esteem to break it off, however much I had to put up with, for as a penitent who hates himself, I immediately realized that I did not dare evade it. Frightfully vehement person that he is, it is not at all impossible that he will now leap to the opposite extreme, wanting to injure me and my cause―now we will see. Presumably I will also be labeled a deceiver, a cunning person: “no one knows better than he, he who had trusted me.” Alas, yes. Had he been able to take that jolt and had he trusted me a little more than he trusted his own vehemence, it would have possible (and it would have pleased me very much) for us to have made progress to the point where I could have withdrawn

[a]

see p. 127.

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entirely and left the work to him. I have suffered terribly much with him, but precisely because of his vehemence at that time (in breaking off the entire relationship without further ado), I understood clearly how far from being realized were my earlier hopes that concessions would gradually mollify him, and it became clear to me how close had been the danger that he would gradually succeed in making me worldly, so that I would come to do the wrong thing and triumph in worldly fashion.

Perhaps the way in which Prof. N. has injured me most has been this unholy waiting while he procrastinates and the fact that my very being has been affected by this dawdling that is his forte. I have reined in my enormous speed for 1½ years―and waited―and in vain: frightful. I cannot defend telling him straightforwardly, directly what he should do, where his talent lies―it would upset me. It is accomplished indirectly often enough―but then, when he acts, the things I have communicated to him privately become a little comma in the argument―even in those things that should stand absolutely alone, in lapidary style, as something decisive―and thus he could have spared himself writing the two books. Oh, if he had been a man of character! That simple word could have expressed and illuminated the whole business, including the subtle conspiracy against me in this country. He has a notion of the value of my cause, but it is as if he thought that in view of unfavorable market conditions a person could perhaps make a little better buy on the public exchange if he were also willing to pay court to me in private, almost worshipfully―and he is not without talent in this respect. His worldliness seems to say to him, [“]What does he want―After all, I am, as he himself says, the cleverest fellow here on the hill, so he will surely have to accept the offer. If he is not satisfied, it is of course possible that what he wants to say is true in a certain infinitely lofty sense, but it is so very

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lofty that no one here on the hill can embrace it, especially if it is to go further than myself, I who of course am the only person who can serve as a sort of middleman. And thus I am safe.” This is surely the source of the worldly tactics he always uses, the only thing he knows how to use, because personally, face-to-face with me, he does not say anything, but when he is offended―he immediately says that he is withdrawing. Look, this is religiosity! But it hurts me, for I had hoped, after all, to make a religious impression upon him. Given my previous judgment of N. and given my knowledge of how others had judged him, it was of course a rather daring venture to choose precisely him. But that (in addition to many other qualifications present in him) was precisely what delighted me. Even now I have hopes for him. Were I to die today, I am certain that my death would take hold of him and pacify him so that he would be of use. But the worldliness in him is very powerful, this worldly notion that he is supposedly indispensable to me, etc. etc. And now, in addition to this, he may hear from others that he is mad to sacrifice himself for me in this way. Most likely he now explains this as cunning on my part, that only now (after he has done most of what he has done thus far, however flawed it might be) do I reproach him, for had I done it earlier, he would immediately have abandoned me and done nothing whatever. This is not cunning, however, it has been painful enough for me to endure, to have such expectations, for so long. If, however, he had had patience enough to want to understand that what was said was well-meant (even if it became a little bitter because of his vehemence, so that it might better have been said in my rooms, where the conditions are somewhat different), he would have come next Thursday: then there would have been some progress.b But true enough, he leapt aside, and that is where we now stand. For myself, however, I do believe that all this suffering is beneficial: it predisposes one to act religiously and is a tonic against the poetic capricious-

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(What I had imagined was: either daring to take upon myself the responsibility and tell him directly what he should do in various specific situations, or to make my relationship to him as free as that with Stilling, for example, so that we would see one another every once in a while, talk en passant about my work, and no more than that. I did not want to part from him in anger, because it is of course possible that my criterion is too great and in a way this could be unjust to him, even though he himself has had a part in applying this criterion.)

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ness by which I have always been somewhat affected, although the good effects of that capriciousness have of course also been what was unusual about me.

Oh, it is so true, so true: what Denmark needs is a dead man. At that very instant, I will have triumphed as any hum. being rarely triumphs. At that very instant, all the business about my thin legs and my trousers, and the nickname “Søren” will be forgotten―no, not forgotten, it will be understood differently, and it will impart enormous impetus to the cause. At that very instant envy will be stilled. At that very instant, those who are to witness for me will speak a different language from the one they speak now, for then no self-denial will be necessary. Then, even my least utterance will acquire meaning and acceptance―whereas now, gigantic achievements are rebuffed so that mockery and envy can take hold of me. Only the voice of a dead man can penetrate a moral dissolution such Denmark’s, a dead man whose whole life was a study in preparing for this situation: to be able to speak as a dead man.

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About Nielsen. I have always said that N. was and is the only possibility here. He has worked with great zeal, has the proper constitution for being truly capable of serving a cause―nor has he retreated. Given my criterion and my knowledge of his understanding of the cause, I could now be justified in requiring a great deal more; using my criterion I could also show that in terms of the idea, the cause has retreated. Oh, I have struggled much with myself over this point. Because, if I were now to do it, would it not be simply the impatience of the idea? Must this not happen with every cause: When it starts to gain broader following, it retreats in terms of the idea―and has not everyone who has put something ideal into the world had to endure this sorrow[?] Take that which is the highest: If Xt had suddenly turned to attack the apostles, saying, [“]The cause becomes something different when you present

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it―it is diminished, and it is precisely for this reason that more people embrace it[”]―what then? Yes, then Xt would rlly have to have refrained from coming to the world. In my case, however, such thoughts are connected with my notion that I would die before the cause had rlly taken hold. Given the thought that I was to die, I wanted to initiate N. into the cause―but I kept on living. Yet, as in every case, I am learning infinitely much. But now N. must either be drawn to me much more powerfully, so that he is directly made use of, so that I tell him directly what I think he is to do in various specific situations (for 1-3/4 years I have now endured knowing what he should do but have never told him directly, and thus it has pained me to see that it did not happen), or he and I must be made so much freer from one another that I will never have occasion to apply my criterion, by which, after all, I could be doing him an injustice and probably have done him an injustice. For the time being, this latter course is surely the best.

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There is psychological profundity in some lines in Emile (in the story called, “Emile and Sophia, or the Solitaries”): [“]I talk incessantly about forgiving (Sophie had been unfaithful to him) without considering that the person offended often forgives, but the person who offends never does.” And why is it so difficult for the person who offends to forgive? Because it is so difficult to humble oneself under one’s own guilt. This is the source of the hatred whereby the world never forgives its having wronged those who are good.―Rousseau has not understood this, however, because the explanation added by Emile makes the sentence meaningless: “undoubtedly, it was her intention to inflict on me all the evil she inflicted on me. Hah, how she must hate me.” But this is not at all the seat of the problem, which is that the guilty person indeed loves himself too much to be able to be properly penitent in hating himself. In order to be able to forgive entirely, the guilty person must feel his guilt infinitely―otherwise he prefers to be angry at the person he has wronged, or at any rate to flee from him, to avoid his forgiveness. Receiving the forgiveness of the person he has wronged is the humiliation he cannot tolerate―and therefore the offending party never forgives.

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The Religious. O, would that you, Lord J[esus] Xt, might fill my thoughts in such a way that people would indeed be able to see by looking at me that I was thinking of you. And how should a person see that?―From my gaze, turned toward heaven? Of course that could also signify that I was looking at the stars or at visions and hallucinations. No: would that your image might convince me so that I―lowly, despised, ridiculed―proclaimed your teachings; then people would see by looking at me (not at my gaze, but at my daily presence ) that I am thinking of you.

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* * You heavenly powers, you who support the good, you heavenly hosts, o help me to raise my voice so that, if possible, it could be heard over the whole world―I have only one single word to say, but if I am granted the power to say one single word or one single sentence so that it might take hold and never be forgotten―my choice is made, I have it, I would say: Our Lord Jesus Xt was a nobody, ah, remember that, Xndom!

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R. Nielsen. I wrote a note to N. (so that at any rate I would not be the one who has wronged him, not even in the least way). Then we spoke with each other on Wednesday April 30th. I told him I wanted a freer relationship. Hope is my element, especially when it contains a dash of hoping against hope. For his sake, I hope that it will at least be possible for him to end up properly, even though he began in the wrong way. Would that he had never written the big book. That behavior―after what happened between us―the behavior that in fact continued for a year: ah, it made me fix my policeman’s gaze on him―something so alien to my nature, something I had never wanted to do, even though I always have that gaze but never use it. Yes, if it were a matter of doing something very clever, and if perhaps he was not artful enough―oh, that sort of thing would not give me occasion to use that gaze. But the difficulty is

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precisely that he was supposed to do something uncomplicated and simple (something he himself has often enough admitted he understood) and that he nonetheless continues to do something clever instead. The difficulty, the danger, for him (he has admitted often enough that he understood this very well and that he understood it at the start) was to slip past me while he was steering―wanting to move ahead, while also making use of my views and attacking Martensen as well as winning a victory―in such a way as to avoid my mounting a flank attack against him, a fight he did not want to risk in any way. This is why he made his personal overtures. Now he probably thinks he has achieved this, and I have not stopped him. So he tried to sneak away with a sort of independence, without even signaling to me, whom he privately put off by saying that it was “the next one” on which things especially depended. Now he probably believes that he has succeeded in this, indeed, that now I cannot even stop him, whereas he had originally wanted to play the independent figure who not only had all of my works to draw upon, but also my conversations, a wealth completely unknown to others, and, finally the incalculable capital of having a contemporary life standing behind the teachings―but other contemporaries have not taken note of this, while on the other hand he has had private communication. But little by little he began wanting to come a bit closer to the truth and to take me along. Though it is always as if he is so reluctant to do what he very well understands as something uncomplicated and simple and true, but which he puts off as something he will do in an emergency, while he does something else, even though this something else gradually does become a little bit truer. But this is precisely what is wrong. Air was what was needed―what was needed in that connection was a primal, uncomplicated, and simple step; and instead he shut everything up even more with his big book, with his artfulness. Yet I do not want to be unjust to him; perhaps he means well, but it is so difficult to do the simple thing. And therefore I hope.

Stoicism―and My Life. Here, indeed, I can properly see my essential relation to Xnty: when I read a Stoic. What he says can be quite true, and it is of-

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ten expressed with energy and skill―but he does not understand me. With the Stoic everything is pride―there is no place for sadness. He has contempt for all these people, the ignorant rabble, he treats them like children, they do not exist for him, everything they do means nothing to the wise man, they are incapable of offending him, he does not merely forgive them for their offenses, but proudly thinks: Little children, you are utterly incapable of offending me. Oh, but this is not my life at all. Yes, I could be tempted to use this tactic against the elite and the respectable class, to arm myself in this way. That is why their behavior toward me has never rlly grieved me, I take a bit of stoical revenge. But the common man whom I loved! My greatest joy was to express at least some portion of love for my neighbor. When I saw that disgusting condescension toward the lower classes, it was my consolation to dare say to myself, “At least I do not live like that”―I took pleasure in alleviating the situation a little in this respect, if possible; it was my blessed pastime. My life was meant for this. And that is why it grieves me so indescribably when I have to bear the derision of the common man. Truly, there was scarcely anyone among us who loved the common man in this way―and now, to see him turned against me in hostility. A journalist who cheats the common man out of his money in exchange for confused concepts is regarded as a benefactor. And the person who sacrificed every advantage of belonging to the elite: he is presented as the enemy of the common man, as the one they should mock. You see, life is never like this for a Stoic.

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This, moreover, is a curious self-contradiction in Stoicism: it teaches that he [the Stoic] takes earthly sufferings, adversities, and the like so lightly that they simply do not exist for him―and then suicide is still recommended as the ultimate escape route. But, one thing or the other: either suicide is something ridiculous, because it is ridiculous to do something because of a nothing―or suicide is a reasonable step, i.e., a step that makes some sense, but in that case it has been proven that sufferings do exist for the Stoic and that they are not a nothing to him.

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Here, incidentally, we see the union of pride and cowardice. One keeps oneself at the pinnacle of pride as long as possible by continually keeping open the escape route of cowardice. This pride is thus like the profligacy of a bankrupt when he knows he will go broke anyway. It is not a case of pride transforming itself into cowardice when suicide enters the scene―no, during the entire period that pride was sustained by the thought of suicide, pride was cowardice. Incidentally, having suicide up one’s sleeve of course imparts a certain power to live life intensely. The thought of death focuses and concentrates life. If one did not already know how intensely Napoleon lived, one could draw that conclusion from the fact that he always carried a dose of poison on his person. Here again, Stoicism can be seen to be a false edition of Xnty. For it is quite true that Xnty also intensifies life through the thought of death, of impending death, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps today. If this does not lead a person to say “let us eat and drink,” it leads to making enormously intense use of this very day, today. But then Xnty takes on yet another weight: it is of course possible that death will fail to show up for a long time. This is what is so frightfully strenuous, this alternation.

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The person who is to indicate the criterion, as long as he functions in that capacity, has the task of keeping as close to peop. as possible, of being known and continually seen by them qua gadfly. This then gives rise to an almost insane confusion: in general, they know or are of the opinion that he is supposed to be rather extraordinary, but they have neither the time nor the opportunity to study or occupy themselves with his ideas and thoughts―so they fasten upon his accidental characteristics. Every hum. being has many of these, but his quickly become eccentricities. How does this happen? It happens because instead of focusing their attention on his teachings, his mission―in which case the situation would be as it ought to be―people focus their attention on his accidental characteristics, as though they were what was extraordinary. The attention is in inverse relation to what has become its object―and in their language this means: he is eccentric. Yes, no wonder―when it is something close to madness to focus attention in this manner.

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Thus there is a sort of fencing betw. peop. and the extraordinary person: they defend themselves against him. And why do they do that? Actlly, they do it because they want him to withdraw. They feel very much that his life is a challenge, but they do not want to be reminded of that, so they want him to withdraw, live in seclusion, so that they do not get to see him and feel the reminder―and then they will honor him.

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If I present, as a possibility, that the extraordinary person must always suffer―it will move everyone. In the situation of contemporaneity, if they are together with an extraordinary person, everyone will in fact say: [“]Well, with him it is another matter, his pride is altogether intolerable, it is not our fault that he is as eccentric as he is, etc.[”] This means: it is admitted in possibility―it is denied in actuality.

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The cunning of the world is great. If a famous man actually expresses the view that he is indifferent to its attentions; if, e.g., when he travels, he actually wishes to be incognito and actually takes action to that effect, the world becomes angry. It wants him to be willing to be stared at, etc.―and it also wants to be permitted to say that, after all, he is vain. The world always wants to take double advantage.

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I divide my life into two parts. On an everyday basis, I dutifully walk about and am recognized―once in a while, I take a little walk and wish to have the greatest possible incognito. This rlly demonstrates the seriousness with which I view my task. The world would rlly rather have the situation reversed: Once in a while, I ought to promenade triumphantly―on an everyday basis, I ought not be seen at all. Oh, yes, that would also be what was most comfortable for me.

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Offense Simply take this: that as a child Xt “was submissive to his parents”; thus, as Luther rightly puts it, he took part in their work, gathered up wood shavings, etc. The offense is immediately to be found in the circumstance that his divinity does not find a specific physical expression. Thus, even in lesser circumstances, the world is always offended simply by someone who is, in human terms, extraordinary, if this extraordinariness does not find physical expression but fits in perfectly with people in general. If he is someone extraordinary, they say, then he must have the mark of distinction and live among distinguished people―but he must not live among us, that is eccentricity, affectation. It is so difficult to love one’s neighbor. Ah, if God had not commanded it, one would rather put up with falling among thieves than express love for one’s neighbor in this world―but preachifying about it, well, that is profitable.

The Fate of the Extraordinary Person. There is a certain little knack to doing it; it depends on how the mid-level authorities react. To the crowd, the extraordinary person (that is, when he is not supported by illusions―and in that case is not rlly extraordinary) is a species of madness. But the crowd does not rlly believe that it has a right to an opinion. The crowd looks inquiringly to the mid-level authorities. If they absent themselves, the crowd concludes: ergo the man is rlly mad. If the mid-level authorities are envious of the extraordinary person and collude with the crowd’s confusion, it is even more certain that this will be the conclusion. Then the most various sorts of people unite for the downfall of the extraordinary person. The respectable people act as if they acknowledge and appreciate the extraordinary person, but they elevate him so high, so extraordinarily high, that it rlly becomes a sort of madness. They do not say this, however; in general they officially observe the most profound silence―but then they let the crowd execute the judgment. And when all who ought to be mid-level authorities keep silent, the crowd is permitted to judge entirely without constraints, and then it judges: it is madness, eccentricity, pride, etc.

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The Public. From one end to the other, every situation in public life is actlly lack of conscience. There exists a hungry monster―I will not decide whether it is still bloodthirsty, but recent times attest to how easily bloodthirstiness can awaken―a hungry monster: the public. It hungers with a desperate passion “to get something to chatter about.” And journalists are the animal-keepers who provide the public with something to chatter about. In the old days people were thrown to wild beasts―now the public consumes someone who has been tastily prepared by journalists as the dish the public finds most delicious: nonsense. A public personality is eo ipso sacrificed; “the journalist” knows how to determine exactly how long (depending on the degree of his celebrity) he can be served up and how many times a week he can be delectable to the public as nonsense. If the public personality is an egotist who endures all this because it is, after all, unavoidable if he wishes to obtain other worldly goods, then he suffers less, is not a martyr, is devoid of sadness, is better understood―but he is prepared as nonsense and the public consumes him all the same: the benefit that the “public” actlly has from celebrities is that it gets something to chatter about, a meal of nonsense. No one knows how this comes about; those without knowledge of public life are sometimes of the opinion that a public personality ought to defend himself at one point, illuminate some issue at another, etc., that not to do so is pride on his part―o, you ignoramuses and you ignorant wretches, no, this is least of all what the public demands, it only demands nonsense: “something to chatter about.” There is only one way out, that of shrewdness: to take care that one’s personal life is as secluded as possible and to show oneself in the role of public personality only in appropriately solemn situations―but Xnty does not rlly permit a person to live in that way. It is said that differences in social standing must make impossible a happy love-relationship between a man and a woman. Maybe, maybe not! But this difference: between being a private person, in a civil position, in a subordinate office―in brief, being situated such that one is not subject to the interest of the public and the journalist―and being a public person: these two can never come to an understanding; there is a qualitative difference

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between them every instant of their lives, all the more so when the public person is actually a servant of the truth, when it is not for the sake of his enjoyment or for earthly purposes that he endures being sustenance for the public so that it can get something to chatter about. Something to chatter about! God created hum. beings in his image; he also gave them the gift of the word and wanted hum. beings to talk, a man with his neighbor, the lover with the beloved, friend with friend, and also a number of men with each other―and about what? O, you Almighty One, you who have moved heaven and earth in order to create a world at which eternity eternally marvels, at its wisdom and its greatness―and at your love: but hum. beings found that this was not something worth talking about. O, you infinitely sublime being, whose sublimity the heavenly hosts are still struggling to express―you persuaded yourself to condescend to hum. beings, as the adult does to the child when, in order to delight the child, he promises to play with him―you performed something that, owing to your participation, became more than play: that wonderful interplay called history―and those serving spirits who stand closest to you, who assist you in arranging it all and who see most deeply into the matter, they have not yet fathomed it, much less grown tired of marveling: but hum. beings found that this was not something worth talking about. Hum. beings―that is, the public: they only demand something to chatter about, and by this they understand that we get something to chatter about concerning one another, concerning our insignificant lives and especially concerning our lives’ insignificant details. Everything else disgusts the public, which knows only one pleasure: that of masturbation in the form of talking, a pleasure in which it indulges with the help of “the journalist.”

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I do not understand it: to be able to be objective like that in relation to the religious. On Saturday a person takes out the religious (more or less as the jurist takes out law books) and “acquaints himself with it,” then puts together a sermon which he delivers on Sunday―but otherwise has nothing to do with the religious: it never overwhelms him, never seizes hold of him suddenly―no, it is a business like that of a merchant, a lawyer, a messenger in the Chancery!

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In relation to everything hum., the more one thinks about something, the better one understands it. In relation to the divine, the more one thinks about something, the less one understands it. This is the qualitative difference, which makes it impossible for this situation to be otherwise; the qualitative heterogeneity between God and hum. beings must display precisely this relationship. So should not a person simply refrain from thinking about the div[ine]? No, you fool. If possible, you are to spend every moment doing that, and with every moment spent properly in this way, you will learn to be all the more astonished. But if someone were to say to you that the situation is different from this, that the more you think about the div[ine], the better you understand it, you must say: You are lying in your teeth. Take a purely human relationship. Take an excellence actually demonstrated by someone, and you will see that at first it seems to you that you are quite close to understanding it―and the more you involve yourself with it seriously, the more you will confess, in astonishment, that you do not understand. Lies, and untruths, and deceptions always start coyly, by making themselves appear valuable. The truth always starts at an apparently reasonable price, but the more you involve yourself with it, the more will things happen. Then the astonishing thing happens: you now see that what you originally purchased inexpensively is worth a higher price, and it continues to rise like that. Except this: in hum. relationships, between one pers. and another, there is, after all, a limit―in the relationship between a hum. being and God there is never any limit, least of all in eternity. No, when the astonishment has forced its way through the constrictions of temporality, then, in eternity, then it finally becomes truly limitless. And this is why the believer longs for eternity, so that in limitlessness he can find room for his limitless astonishment, which in temporality had put him in an awkward position, like that of living in rooms that are so small one cannot move.

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About Myself. In many ways, this, too, contributes to increasing the difficulties and sufferings (but obviously, the effects will be correspondingly greater): the circumstance that I am as young as I am. Were I an older man, first of all, all the business about my thin legs and my short trousers would be of no significance, for, after all, it is really only at a certain youthful age that having a fine physique is regarded as desirable, particularly in relation to the opposite sex. Next, were I an older man, people would assume that by now I would surely have already enjoyed life, perhaps to the point of surfeit, and people could explain my present views on that basis. But (given my qualifications in the area of intellectual cultivation, which favor me in every way with respect to being able to enjoy myself and take pleasure, etc.) the fact that I am wasting my best years in occupying myself like this with the religious―it is a scandal. As everywhere, so also here, the curious thing (but also that which makes my life truly instructive and one of discovery) is that I continually discover that one is not permitted to occupy oneself with the religious, with Christianity, that the world will use the force and the might of the devil to drive a person in the opposite direction. To the best of my modest abilities I did at least strive to express a bit of loving my neighbor―what happens? The world wants to compel me with all its might to become and to remain a person of distinction―indeed, I even have to take some action along these lines so as not to make myself too vulnerable. I occupy myself with the religious, lead this very strenuous life―the world absolutely insists that I enjoy life, etc.―always the opposite. From this it can be seen that the only thing that really has an effect on the world is the purer sort of intellectual relationship as well as what the world may regard as something voluntary (even though this voluntary has within itself an inner necessity). Wherever this sort of intellectual relationship is absent, the world explains everything on the basis of finite reasons and thus receives no awakening impression.

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The Truth. The truth is always suffering and always defenseless in this world. It is not so difficult to find helpers and secure power, but in choosing helpers, the truth must exercise the infinite caution of truth, and therefore gets few helpers, perhaps none at all; so it is obliged to demonstrate the truth of the words that I read yesterday or the day before in one of Seneca’s letters (and that strangely reminded me of Frater Taciturnus’s lines in the first article in Fædrelandet, which, however, I find more felicitous, because in addition to the polemical element they also contain an element of sadness in expressing an inner satisfaction: “I am contented with being the author[”]): [“]I am contented with few, with one, with none.[”] (I have only just now begun to read Seneca.) The truth is constantly vulnerable to being deceived, especially by those closest to it. Because the outcome is never decided by [“] what,[”] but [“]how,[”] it is clear that false editions of the same truth are possible at every instant. So, take a person whom the teacher has most assiduously acquainted with the truth: he is precisely the person who has it in his power to state what appears to be the same truth, but with a different How―and become a success in the world, whereas the teacher must suffer. And he can be quite certain that this deception will not be discovered, for precisely because he is the one who is closest of all, he is the person who is closest to having understood the teacher. So if the teacher could not find anyone who came closer than this to understanding him, how could he find anyone capable of understanding the nature of this deception, the understanding of which would require an even better understanding of the teacher than the deceiver (who was the person closest to the teacher) had[?]

Coterie―and Unity in the Idea. The law of coteries is: the closer, the more intimate, the two are to one another, the more favorable, the more lenient, are their judgments of one another, the more likely they are to explain everything as perfection. In relation to the idea the law is: the closer you come, the more rigorous becomes the judgment; if you want to have a more lenient judgment that makes what is relative into something of importance or that overlooks imperfections―then

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move a little farther away: rigorous judgment is precisely making distinctions; the closer you come, the more this increases. Thus coteries are an impossibility.

The Common Run of Peop.―The Heterogeneous Person. The common run of people are rlly just examples, duplicates of what has been put into the world. One can say of them: they have the benefit of being alive, whereas the world derives no benefit from their having lived. As for the other class (the heterogeneous), it is most often the case that they derive no benefit from being alive (humanly speaking, one is tempted to say this when one sees how full of torment and suffering their lives are, in genrl consoled only by the thought of death), but the world derives a benefit from their having lived, for they are the ones who introduce what is new.

Either qualitative reduplication, which in working also works counter to itself, or qualitative simplicity of character. Tertium non datur.

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I am now reading Seneca’s letters, which I find excellent; the short sentences by Epicurus that have been inserted are also splendid. In the 22nd letter a passage by Epicurus is quoted, including the following: “a happy way out of even the most difficult situations is also to be hoped for if one neither rushes ahead of time nor hesitates when the time has come.”

The other Sunday I heard a theology graduate, Clemmensen, at vespers in the Church of Our Savior (it was my birthday). It was a simple sermon, but the kind I like. He inserted a bit of highly poetic beauty in this sermon, probably without knowing it. He had preached about life as a going-forth from the Father and a coming-home to the Father, as 18 tertium non datur] Latin, There is no third. (See also explanatory note.)

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in the gospel text. Then came the usual stuff about life as a path. Then there was a metaphor about a father who sends his son out into the world, very pretty. Then this metaphor was abandoned and became actuality, our relation to God. And then he said: And when the hour of death finally comes and the pilgrim’s cloak is cast off and the staff is laid down―and the child goes in to the father. Superb! I would bet that Clemmensen came to say it quite unwittingly; indeed, if he had thought about it, he might perhaps have preferred to say [“]the soul[”] or [“]the transfigured person[”] or something of that sort. But no, “the child” is masterly.

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Here is a new insight, or the same insight from a new angle. In Christendom teachers promise that they will teach in accordance with the N.T. Excellent. Subsequently a protracted conflict has arisen here concerning whether and to what extent they are also obligated by the symbolic books, etc., etc., something that has lasted a long, long time and about which entire libraries have been written. But good Lord, Christianity is no “doctrine,” so why this oath? If an oath is to be sworn, it must say that they promise to act according to the N.T., to live in conformity with the N.T. Or is the intention perhaps that “the teacher” must simply teach in accordance with the N.T., but that he is then supposed to obligate his listeners to act in conformity with it[?] Excellent, then we have the strange sight of having a teacher present a doctrine that convinces his listeners, inspires them to do what

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does not inspire him, convincing them of something of which he is not convinced. Or should we perhaps say: Well, of course, naturally, if one simply takes care that the doctrine is presented in pure fashion, of course people will act in conformity with what is taught. Sure, thanks a lot. If that were the case, then the whole of Xnty is rlly a fundamental error, for Xnty rlly consists of the fact that it by no means necessarily follows that a person simply does what he learns. Christianity’s claim is that there is actlly an infinite distance between these two things. But the tactic of the world is always to divert attention away from doing, acting, and toward matters of doctrine.

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The Issue. The matter is quite simple. The N.T. is extremely easy to understand. But we human beings, we are really rather cunning rogues, and we pretend that we cannot understand it because we understand very well that if it could be understood immediately, we would immediately have to act in conformity with it. But in order to mend relations a bit with the N.T., so that it does not become angry with us and find us to be completely in the wrong, we flatter it, we tell it that it is so enormously profound, so wonderfully delightful, so unfathomably sublime, etc., more or less as when a little child pretends that he cannot understand what is being commanded and is clever enough to want to flatter Papa. Thus, we human beings pretend that we cannot understand the N.T.; we do not want to understand it. You see, this is where Christian scholarship comes in. Christian scholarship is the human race’s enormous invention in order to protect itself against the N.T., in order to ensure that a person can continue to be a Christian without the N.T. getting altogether too close to him. It has invented Christian scholarship in order to interpret, clarify, more closely illuminate, etc., etc.,

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the N.T. Sure, thanks a lot! Yes, we human beings are scheming rogues―and our Lord is the Simple One, but true enough, the Simple One who cannot be fooled. Take any words whatever in the N.T., forget everything but that, obligate yourself to act accordingly―[“]O, God help me,[”] people would say, “at that very instant my entire life, in the temporal and earthly sense, runs aground.[”] So what is to be done? Priceless scholarship, what would we human beings be if you did not exist? It is frightful to fall into the hands of the living God―but it is even frightful to be alone with the N.T. I do not make myself out to be any better than I am; I confess that I (and I daresay it is possible that I am in fact one of the more courageous people around here) do not yet dare unconditionally to be alone with the N.T. Alone with it, that is, to be together with it as if I were alone in the whole world and as if God sat beside me and said, [“]Please take note of what is written there, and to the fact that you are to act in conformity with it.[”] Alone with it, that is, as if I were alone in the whole world, and as if Christ stood next to me, so that there would be no doubts concerning the fact that when it is written that one is to do something, then one is in fact supposed to do it―as Christ’s example demonstrates. Oh, how many have there really been in 1800 years of Christendom who have had the courage to dare be alone with the N.T. To what frightful consequences might it drive me―this defiant and domineering book―if I were alone with it like that! How different it is when I take a concordance to help me, a dictionary, a couple of commentaries, three translations―all in order to truly be able to understand this profound and wonderfully delightful and unfathomably sublime work―“because”―I say frankly―“if only I understand the N.T., I will surely be able to manage the part about living in conformity with it.” Truly, what good fortune, what a rare consolation, it is that the N.T. is so difficult to understand. I am speaking in behalf of the cause of the human race when I say: Let us stick together; by all that is holy, let us promise―and hold each other to it―unstintingly to spare no effort, no sleepless nights, in making the N.T. more and more difficult to understand; if what has been invented thus far does not suffice, let us invent more scholarly sciences―in order to explain and interpret Holy Scripture. I open up the N.T. and I read, “If you wish to be perfect, then sell all your goods and give to the poor and come and follow me.” Good Lord, all the capitalists, the big government officials, and

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those living on pensions, too―just about the entire race excepting the beggars―we would be done for, were it not for scholarship. Scholarship! The word has a splendid sound; honor be to everyone who consecrates his efforts to serving scholarship; praise be to everyone who works to establish people’s respect for scholarship― scholarship, which helps to restrain the N.T., that―as scholarship says―“inspired” book: that is, that confounded book that would bowl us all over ein, zwei, drei, if it got loose, that is, if scholarship did not restrain it. In vain does the N.T. raise its voice higher than did Abel’s blood, which cries out to heaven; in vain does it command with authority; in vain does it exhort and beseech: we do not hear it―that is, we hear this voice only through scholarship. As when a foreigner,a protests his rights in a foreign language, when he passionately ventures to say daring words―but look, the interpreter who is to translate it to the king does not dare translate it and puts something else in its place: this is how the N.T. sounds through scholarship. As those screams of people tortured in Phalaris’s ox sounded like music to the tyrant’s ear, so, through scholarship, does the div. authority of the N.T. sound like a tinkling cymbal or like nothing at all. Through scholarship―yes, because we hum. beings are cunning. Just as we lock up an insane person so that he does not disturb the world, just as a tyrant gets rid of an outspoken person so that his voice will not be heard, so, with the help of scholarship, have we imprisoned the N.T. In vain does it shout and scream, rage and gesticulate―it does not help: we perceive it only through scholarship. And in order to make ourselves completely safe, we say that scholarship exists precisely in order to help us understand the N.T. so that we might better hear its voice. Ah, no insane person, no prisoner of the state, was ever locked up like this, for of course we do not deny that they are locked up. But even greater precautions are taken in relation to the N.T.: we lock it up, but we say that we are doing precisely the opposite: we are busy at work, doing nothing other than helping it gain power and dominion. But it is obvious that no insane person, no prisoner of the state, would ever be as dangerous to us hum. beings as would the N.T. if it were set free. True enough, we Protestants indeed go to great lengths so that, if possible, every pers. can own a copy of the N.T.: ah, but to what lengths we go to in order to impress upon everyone that the N.T. can be understood only through scholarship. To want to open up the N.T., to understand what one reads in it as a direct order, to want immediately to act accordingly―what an error[!]

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No, the N.T. is a doctrine, and one must have the help of scholarship in order to understand it. You see, this is the issue. And the little bit I have intended to do is easily expressed: I have wanted to direct a bit of attention and to make the admission that I find it extremely easy to understand the N.T., but that up to now I have found extremely great difficulties within myself when it is a matter of literally acting in accordance with what is not difficult to understand. I could perhaps have taken a different turn, have seen to inventing a new scholarly discipline, but I am satisfied more with what I have done―with having made this admission concerning myself.

In the 26th letter of Seneca. Cited from Epicurus: [“]Prepare yourself for death, whether it is better that it comes to you or you come to it.[”] So says Seneca: that it is a splendid thing to learn to die. Do you perhaps think it superfluous to learn something one only has use for once? That is exactly why we must prepare ourselves. One must constantly learn what one cannot experience in advance, if we are indeed to understand it. In general, Seneca’s letters contain nuggets of nourishment.

53rd letter of Seneca: “Why does no one confess his errors? Because he is still ensnared in them. The person who is awake or who is waking up tells his dreams―to confess one’s errors is a sign of recovery. So let us awaken in order to be able to convince ourselves of our errors.”

About Myself. My guilt with respect to my times is too great, too aggravated, for it to be forgiven before death: I am right. Appalling guilt. The extent to which I am superior to them [my times], the extent to which Governance has favored me by making me capable of achieving extraordinary things, the extent to which the illusions and the egotism of my contemporaries are illuminated: people are

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beginning to notice these things increasingly. If I am used as the criterion, the others are downgraded altogether too much―ergo. I do not know of one single point (and from the standpoint of the idea, this is entirely correct) at which I have not collided with hum. egotism. The fact that I write large books―this is suspect to those who write pamphlets and newspaper articles, and inasmuch as I am more or less the only person who writes large books: then―ergo one is a fantast if one writes large books.―The fact that I am nothing―indeed, it is important to all those belonging to the brotherhood of officeholders that this does not become the criterion of seriousness: ergo it is fantasy.―The fact that I make no money―indeed, it is important to all the tradesmen that this does not become the criterion of seriousness: ergo it is fantasy. At no point can egotism judge truthfully concerning me without judging itself―ergo. The fact that an offense has been committed against me―yes, this must not be confessed in all eternity, for then they themselves would be the guilty ones: ergo I am the guilty one. Not only those who write for The Corsair, but all its 1000 subscribers have an interest in my remaining the guilty one. It is rlly no use to talk to anyone. They would listen to me, in a way it would amuse them to play with listening to me speak about what I must endure―but the egotism would remain essentially unchanged.

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Peter. With the notion that he is, after all, capable of having about what I have sacrificed, about how strenuous my life is, item with the notion that he is, after all, capable of having about what I have achieved: then, to write a little article like that about me, covering himself in cowardly fashion with every possible illusion―this is rlly a crime. But indeed he was honored for it, he benefited by making himself attractive in the eyes of “the crowd,” by ingratiating himself with the numerical: he who, on top of all this, “heartily” (which surely means that he is heartily tired of life out there in the parsonage and, as he himself said to me quite privately, is “very much in need of diversion[”]) decides to serve the state, an earnest friend of the fatherland, who enthusiastically hurries to vote. He can truly be happy that he has me: all he needs to do is to come to the assistance of the envy that is

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directed against me, and he is the most beloved person. Here in this country, the strictest vigilance is exercised lest anyone dare say what people have concluded concerning me―people know very well that I have been granted the extraordinary. In this connection, it might of course seem dangerous that I have a brother, a brother who indeed could suddenly feel himself obligated to bear witness for his brother. What a meritorious deed it is, then, when he demonstrates that he is happy to extend a hand to envy; how kind, what love and heartiness. This brother, the numbers say, is not at all strange and eccentric like that other brother; he is not proud and haughty, but is lovable and hearty, a serious man who accomplishes little things of this sort, who is not a fantast, but who seriously takes note of worldly advantages and who, in addition to all this, has the merit of having sided against his brother, and indeed, not with some great achievement, but with such a tiny little, half-hour article.

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You see, this is what a person wants: he wants to come up to you, sit down and chat, becoming self-important by joining in―and if one then wants to remind such a person that what rlly matters is taking action: then he becomes angry. And when the same person reads about someone who has died, a man of character who treated people in this manner, he admires the deceased. And the very people who never ventured the least thing for an idea, who never had the remotest idea of suffering in that respect: they are precisely the ones who drool to the point of disgustingness when they say that sufferings of that sort are nothing―that the inward satisfaction is such an enormous benefit that the suffering is nothing. Reply: if the inner satisfaction is actually such an enormous benefit, why―I almost said it―why the devil is not everyone a hero[?]

Priests are an intolerable tribe to talk with. They have become quite absurdly spoiled by declaiming about what is highest. And there is always this evasion about the quiet virtues that are practiced in secret.

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About Myself. How much I could do to make my position easier! So is it pride that prevents me? Certainly. There is also something else that is holding me back. I understand that the longer I can endure the torment, the more deeply I will wound. So it seems to me as if God wanted to test me. And if I had then taken steps and obtained or sought relief―and help came as I needed it, and I had to understand that if I had held out a little longer, I would not have needed to seek relief and would have benefited the cause more. It seems to me as if God would then say: You of little faith, why did you not hold out a little longer[?] Ah, it is frightful mental suffering to keep oneself in this tension; and suppose it is self-torment, or pride―but then suppose on the other hand that the task is precisely to endure in absolute silence.

The Proclamation of Christianity. What divine authority is indeed required in order to proclaim Xnty! To dare proclaim a teaching whose first result is to make hum. beings unhappy, humanly speaking. Here lies one my life’s difficulties. From childhood on I was unhappy, suffering unspeakable torments―and then a penitent: for my part, I find Xnty to be quite in order; I feel that Xnty must be what can help me, and furthermore in my childhood it was impressed upon me that I was to be bound by it. But then, to proclaim this teaching to others: that is something for which I almost do not have the courage. One must be more than hum. to have the courage, under the appearance of wanting to provide consolation―to begin by making the sufferer much, much unhappier. I do not dare do it. When I see someone suffering, I immediately provide consolation, and the sort of consolation that is hum., but this is not Xnty. I take delight in the happy lives of others; I would so very much like to provide support in this respect―ah, at one time I, too, wished to be happy like that. It was denied me and I was assigned to Xnty. But now, when I am supposed to proclaim Xnty truthfully, I am then supposed to disturb the whole of that

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happier existence that can be present when one has not come into contact with spirit. And I―right there, when I see the joy of a young girl, when I see the happiness of lovers, see the peaceful tranquillity of domestic life―then I am supposed to disturb this by proclaiming Xnty to them. Sometimes it seems to me that with this knowledge of mine about Xnty, it is as if I went about concealing a crime; it seems so natural to me that peop. must flee from me as an enemy of humanity: I see the young girl’s tears, her wrath: would that she might, after all, free herself from me in some way or other; I hear the prayers of the housewife, she prays to God that he will arrange things in such a way that I will go past her door, that my talk will not disturb the peace and joy of her beloved nest that she has built and where she dwells. Ah, to declaim once a year that the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world―yes, indeed, what does that do[?] But actualize this: a hum. being whose life expresses [“]the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.[”] Invite him to a wedding―ah, and if he comes, it must be as if cruelty on his part―and yet proclaiming Xnty is indeed supposed to be the truly good deed. Do not say that Xt himself went to a wedding. That was at the beginning of his life―before it became clear how evil the world was. And when his disciple had seen that, he said: I know nothing except Xt and him crucified―and he did not go to the wedding. You see, I do not have the strength for this. I, an unhappy person, have needed Xnty; my joy withered long ago, and only thorns bloom for me: I learned to have need of Xnty. I was the wretched person―but I do not have the strength to make others unhappy in order to help them gain an understanding of Xnty. I have understood this from the beginning, and therefore I had the idea of keeping hidden within myself an innermost compartment of Xnty. Something else happened. The world took me in vain. Against my will, its abuse forced the more rigorous proclamation of Xnty across my lips. Alas, I understand it well: I am, indeed, too much of a poet; I am, indeed, not spirit in the strict Christian sense of the term. But I well understand what frightful sufferings are required in learning to become spirit, and thus I am sure that all the poet’s objections―which are like the sigh of the hum. heart in opposition to Xnty―are totally without meaning for a person. And then, then I live in Xndom, where we are all Xns!

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The Voluntary.

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and of course Xt had it in his power to obtain bread. The voluntary is suffering in faith’s struggle with God. I have it in my power to escape this, but there is something in me that says to me that God would prefer that I endure―but of course this can also be pride, can also be tempting God. Crafty as it is, by emphasizing this concept of tempting God, the world has abolished Xnty.

This is a curious unclarity in Luther’s sermon on Xt’s temptations. Luther uses the gospel as an occasion to warn against self-chosen sufferings. He says that one should not choose sufferings oneself if the spirit does not drive one to do so. But when it is done because the spirit is driving a person, then it is nonetheless the voluntary. With respect to suffering, what is the difference between the voluntary and the involuntary? Suffering is involuntary if it is in fact present without any assistance of any sort on my part. If I cannot make a living despite all my efforts, then it is involuntary. If I am assaulted while walking down the street, this is involuntary. But if I step forth as Luther himself did, witnessing against the pope, this is the voluntary; he could of course have refrained from doing so. To say that he could not do otherwise is quite correct, but it is humbug if in this way he wants to make the prompting of the spirit identical with external necessity. Thus, what remains is the voluntary. Nor can it be otherwise: if the voluntary leaves, Xnty is abolished―which indeed it has been. With the disappearance of the voluntary, “spiritual trial” disappears, and with the disappearance of spiritual trial, Xnty disappears―as it has disappeared in Xndom. Xt’s entire life is voluntary suffering, as his coming in order to suffer is voluntary. Indeed, even in the story of the temptations, and precisely in the first incident (on the occasion of which Luther makes his remark), the voluntary appears. If I am hungry and have no bread, it is involuntary; but if I have bread or have the power to obtain bread and do not want to exercise that power: then it is voluntary―a

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JOURNAL NB18

JOURNAL NB18 Translated by Bruce H. Kirmmse Edited by Alastair Hannay

Text source Journal NB18 in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter Text established by Niels W. Bruun, Finn Gredal Jensen, and Steen Tullberg

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NB18. May 15th 1850.

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Concerning Texts for Friday Sermons See the blank sheet at the beginning of Journal NB14. Theme for a Friday Discourse Journal NB17 p. 30.

The Requirement―The Indulgence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Gospel the Great Supper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

p. 33. p. 86 et al.

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“Stopping” as Necessary in Order to Be Attentive to Xnty and to Become a Xn. Most people live from cradle to grave ceaselessly and unstopped in the medium of ceaselessness (temporality, the merely quantified, etc.). Then finally death comes along and stops them―and now they take notice of Xnty, repent of not having made it their own earlier; with the assistance of this repentance they attain a relationship to Xnty, and then die. In actual life, the natural hum. being fears death no more than he fears stopping. Now, death and stopping in fact have a great deal in common. Coming to a stop is as when a fish is taken out of water and has to breathe in the air. The natural hum. being shudders at this other element, at the prodigious power inherent in “the stopping” and concerning which he understands very well that as soon as it gets the least power over a person, it is incalculable to what limitless extent it gains power. And in turn, the natural hum. being fears this limitlessness as he fears death. To the person whose element is “to a certain degree,” the limitlessness, the infinite, the stationary character of the eternal in the stopping is just like dying. Transformed into doctrine, Xnty can very well merge with the busyness and quantification of temporality and ceaselessness: it does not lead a person to Xnty. On the other hand, “the stopping” can also become a § in Xnty’s doctrine: this helps just as little. In the story of the thief on the cross there is something typical of an aspect that is not emphasized. All, all have fallen away, even the apostle has denied Xt―the only Xn contemporary with Xt was the thief on the cross; Xnty, if I dare say it, is so infinitely much too lofty for hum. beings that (when the situation is most strenuous, specifically in contemporaneity with Xt) in real life not even the apostle can hold out with Xt. Only a thief―a dying thief―only he, through consciousness of sin and the situation of death, is helped in holding fast to Xt. What is it that makes death “the situation” for becoming a Xn? It is the conclusive and concluding fact that now it is over; it helps a person bid absolutely on the absolute. If one does not dare say to a dying person that this is death, but puts him off by saying that he will surely recover, then death is not “the situation” either.

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I believe that even in relation to the most sincere and earnest Xn who ever lived, it would nevertheless be the case that only at his death would it be absolutely true that he is a Xn. We all relate ourselves to Xnty in this way; we have bid on it, so to speak. But the higher one has bid on it while one was alive, the truer will be his final bid in death, the nearer will he be to reaching the moment in which he bids entirely absolutely. In actual life, only one person has bid on it absolutely and held out (even though he continued living) at every moment, expressing and standing behind one and the same absolute bid: he who himself was the absolute. We hum. beings need support; and at the moment of death a hum. being is helped by the situation to become the truest he can become.

The Proclamation of Christianity. I understand only one thing, that if Xnty is not kept at least more or less at its qualitative pinnacle (that it presupposes such suffering and wretchedness, as well as repentance, that this life is lost), then Xnty is rlly an impossibility. That was how Xnty came into the world. But what then? Then the hum. race’s affectation (since the days of the martyrs were long past) arrived at the assumption that Xnty was supposedly something extraordinary, and thus that it was supposed to play at Xnty―and this is Xndom. Try proclaiming Xnty in Xndom. Be yourself wretched like one of those whom hum. compassion, for safety’s sake, keeps far away from society, lest we become anxious and afraid by knowing that such sufferings exist: be yourself one such person, and then dare proclaim consolation for such suffering, thus reminding society that such sufferings exist―and you will see what commotion follows. And then we are all Xns. But the lepers, the insane, those possessed by demons, the publicans, and flagrant sinners: we take extreme precautions to keep them far removed from hum. society―and yet it was precisely for these people that Xnty was proclaimed. O hum. compassion―or, what is the same thing, o Christian compassion in Xndom, unchanged and just as cruel as ever it was in pagan times. Seneca tells of a man upon whom a king avenged himself by having his nose and ears cut off and, in brief, mistreated, after which he was locked in a cage in which he could

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not stand up. And what else does Seneca relate[?] He relates that when he was forced to remain in there with his own filth, finally even compassion turned its back on him because he was disgusting. Excellent compassion! But Xnty begins consolation at the point where hum. society wishes to be ignorant that such sufferings exist. And this is entirely unchanged in Xndom. True Xnty would outrage everyone, as it did in the past, because in proclaiming consolation for these dreadful sufferings it bothers society by exposing to the light of day these dreadful sufferings from which we otherwise cruelly shield ourselves, so that we do not become aware of them―we Xns!

The Sigh of Someone Praying. You loving Father, I fail at everything―and nonetheless you are love. Ah, this, too―insisting that you are love―I fail at―and nonetheless you are love. Whichever way I turn, this is the only thing I cannot be without or dispense with―that you are love. And therefore I believe that when I fail to insist that you are love, then it is nonetheless out of love that you allow this to happen. Oh infinite love!

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People have a notion of the enormous scale on which I have worked and that it might very well exhaust a person; people reckon that daily derision (especially under the crazy terms that stipulate that I am not compensated for it in any way) must indeed be exhausting and contribute to the circumstance that I am increasingly regarded by the public as an eccentric or a madman; people know (and Mynster at any rate knows) that the financial sacrifices become more and more burdensome for me, that, especially in financial respects, I am prevented from holding out for very long: ergo people then decree: just draw out the time. In the meanwhile, people concern themselves with making life profitable for themselves in every way (whereby one in turn gains

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popularity and is understood, respected, and esteemed by all the tradesmen, i.e., by everyone), and in the meanwhile the only thing that matters in connection with me is to draw out the time. Almost everyone knows privately of the treason committed against me―but it must not be spoken of. It is what I have said so often: a provincial market town conspiracy, and, each in his own way, the most various sorts of people are active in keeping it going.

. . . . I am watched with Argus-eyes by all those who are nothing, by all those who achieve nothing, who will nothing. And it is splendidly put by Hamann (3rd volume letter no. 67): “that Argus was a pers. who had nothing to do, which is indicated by his name.”

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Just as a rich man, who owns a valuable collection of works of art or a splendid palace or the like, delights in having everyone come to see it and then express his opinion about it: so is God’s delight with the world that everyone is to be an individual who relates, with primal originality, what it is that most astonished him. If in the rich man’s house there were a book in which previous visitors had written their feelings and opinions, he would not want a subsequent visitor to read this book before he went to see things. Ah, we hum. beings turn everything around. We read our way to everything. This has finally come to consume what is noble and essential about being a hum. being.

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31 das höchste Decorum ... Convention] German, often, the highest decorum consists of slandering subordinates, and propriety often breaks the most solemn conventions.

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Solomon’s judgment can be applied to the Church. It became evident that it was the true mother who would rather give up the child than have half of it. So, too, with the Church, the true mother: it would rather let go of the single individual, let him at least live, than have half of him―and it is just as impossible to have half of a person spiritually as it is bodily. It is beautifully put by Hamann (3rd bk. p. 72): mit einem getheilten Kinde ist einer wahren Mutter nicht gedient.

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What is villainous is that everywhere people cloak talk of the infinite in a personal existence that is wholly commensurable with finite goals, so that people have an ongoing understanding that this business about infinite striving is just something we say―we all know that there is of course another explanation that is the real explanation. What absolutely always offends peop. is any expression to the effect that there is something in and for itself: what offends them is not that this is said, but that it is expressed existentially. Take Prof. Martensen. Now, let us suppose that it has become clear to him that he ought to preach, or that there ought to be preaching. Next, suppose that he said to himself: [“]You are a prof. of theol., with an appropriate position and salary―so do it in your free time and gratis[”]: That would have offended people; they would have found it odd; and Bishop Mynster, among others, would not have appreciated it, and why? Because what is expressed here is that it was about Martensen in and for himself. But Martensen, the profound and earnest genius―yes, for sure, thanks a lot! What did he do? He became court preacher, took a salary for it, and then preached―every 6th Sunday. You see,

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this was understood. People declaimed about the profound religiosity in Martensen, who felt the need to proclaim Xnty from the pulpit as well. But this could easily become too lofty―then, of course, we all know how things really are. Is this how peop. want to have things? They want to have the infinite go up like a kite―but so as not to have it fly away, they have attached a little string to it. And so, too, it is with Christianity as well: it is declaimed: but that it is a declaimer speaking is of course something people know from the explanation they have of his life.

Today, the first day of Pentecost, Mynster preached against monasteries and hermits―oh, good Lord, to want to harp on that tune now, in the 19th cent., in order to be rewarded with applause. He did not polemicize against a single one of the forms of evil that are specifically characteristic of our times―ah, God preserve us, then it could easily have become too serious for him: No, he polemicized against―the monastery.

Virg. Mary. . . . . This is probably how it is with everyone, albeit to different degrees, whose life is singled out to have historical significance: they are not happy― but adoringly they praise God for what has been granted them, or for what it pleased God to allow to happen through them. Mary says: All generations will call me blessed. Mary felt herself to be sacrificed; she was not happy; and of course it was also prophesied that a sword would pierce her heart. Here again, incidentally, is an example of what sermons accomplish. Now the priest declaims on the humble faith shown in Mary’s words. Take the

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situation of contemporaneity: yes, for sure, thanks a lot! It would have been absolutely outrageous for a despised virgin to make so much of herself and proclaim that all generations would call her blessed. Her contemporaries would have said: [“]One might after all have a little sympathy for the poor girl, if she were not so insanely conceited.” Ah, this preaching, this preaching, it has entirely deranged Xnty. In possibility, we flirt with what is holy, and thereby become all the more proficient at persecuting it in actuality.

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There is indeed something very striking in the observation Luther makes in the sermon on the gospel text for the annunciation: Hum. beings have little hope that God will provide them with their bodily needs, and then they believe that God will surely give them eternal blessedness. Alas, the truth is that we let the matter of eternal blessedness remain more or less in abeyance; physical necessities we make use of immediately. The contexts are different, however. For, precisely because eternal blessedness is so great a good, we do indeed feel so a great need for it that this is why the need helps us. It is sometimes more difficult for one properly to think truly of God together with earthly necessities: He easily becomes too spiritual for one.

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The Sermon. There is disagreement about which sort of discourse is the proper one. The truth is that what people now call a sermon (i.e., discourse, rhetoric) is a wholly inappropriate form of communication in relation to Xnty. Xnty can only be communicated by witnesses, i.e., those who existentially express what is said, actualize it. Precisely at the point at which Mynster is most admired, at the most brilliant moments―precisely there, from a Christian point of view, he is most untrue. Ah, it is frightful to consider that this same crowd, which is hushed in admiration at precisely that point, would rage against a poor, abused apostle―who did what Mynster declaims about.

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If it is so easy for a person to fear that he is tempting God by daring to do genuinely Christian deeds, the reason is that he is not truly certain that the Bible is the word of God and that this is written about in the word of God.

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There is a certain sort of superiority that in the situation of contemporaneity can hardly escape becoming the object of a certain sort of sympathy, even from those who acknowledge this superiority. They sense his superiority, but they also see that it is so infinitely unlike everything temporal and worldly that it is indeed as if his superiority were impotence. Therefore, they dare not confess his superiority audibly (that would put them at odds with life), but are uplifted by it in a quiet hour.

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A Priest―A Police Officer. A police officer is not permitted to be a private person. If he passes by a place where there is a disturbance or a crime is being committed―and it would perhaps be most convenient for him to slip past without identifying himself as a police officer―if a bystander recognizes him, he is permitted to say to the police officer: Please be so kind as to do your job. Similarly, neither is a priest permitted to be a private person and arrange his affairs so that he only declaims one hour a week and is otherwise a private person. If he is contemporary with something demoralizing, he must bear witness.

Today I was struck by an observation by Kofoed-Hansen in a sermon for the 2nd day of Pentecost. “One could ask why God, who disrupted Babel (that is, he willed dispersal), why he then wanted ‘the Church’ (that is, unity).” This struck me in connection with all my modicum of religious activities: that I, in fact, want to keep the public away, and nonetheless want, if possible, to have everyone be the single individual, and thus, in fact, a unity.

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The mark of the religious is always a primary negative definition. The first stage is always the invention of humanity, of worldliness (Babel, the public, etc.); the religious negates this and then brings forth, in its true form, what hum. beings wanted to do in a false form.

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The whole difficulty can be avoided by not using the word “entry” (which could include an allusion to that specific event) but the word “procession,” so that it is understood as applying to his behavior in general. Incidentally, here what has happened to me is certainly what happens so often in connection with my hypochondriacal worries―to be sure, the original manuscript already has [“]procession[”].―Alas, indeed, the entire difficulty was avoided long ago, because everything is as it should be in the original manuscript, whereas this same worry has no doubt disturbed me at an earlier point (see Journal NB10 p. 116) and was only noted down because I am so reluctant to reopen my manuscripts. 24 June 1850.

It is perhaps best that the passage where there is an allusion to Christ’s entry be omitted. True enough, it does not say that this is a direct reference to the entry on Palm Sunday; true enough, in any case the entry cannot have been an absolutely triumphal procession, because all the forces capable of doing anything were against him, so that it is only the crowd that is cheering, while the disciples only understood the whole business afterward (Jn XII:16). But all the same it must have been triumphal for Xt, inasmuch as the Pharisees themselves say (Jn XII:19), [“]You are doing nothing. Look, all the world is following him![”], and because it is immediately preceded by the awakening of Lazarus. It is the last glimmering, the run-up to the downfall, in order truly to have momentum for the fall. Therefore it is perhaps best to omit it.

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Rigorousness―R. Nielsen. My task was to bring rigorousness to bear. I have done this and formulated it consistently. Then came N.; he was supposed to improve things. He goes and changes it into a debate. Nothing could be more foolish, and there is no more certain way of losing. If hum. beings themselves are to debate whether they want to have what is lenient or what is rigorous, the choice is easily made. No, rigorousness is brought to bear either with authority or without it, but mir nichts und Dir nichts above and beyond all debate. This is precisely the misfortune: we have brought Xnty down to our level to the point that we imagine that we are supposed to debate whether or not we want it to be so rigorous, while we believe that if we do not want to have it so rigorous, what we have is Xnty all the same. But then of course I would be mad to want to have the rigorous version. Eulenspiegel never did find the tree from which he wanted to be hanged (he had made it a condition that he would choose the tree himself)―and that is how it will go with rigorousness.

Perfect Love. Perfect love is to love the one by whom you were made unhappy. No hum. being has the right to demand to be loved like this. God can demand it; it is infinite majesty. For the person who is religious in the strictest sense, it is surely the case that in loving God, he loves the person by whom he was made unhappy in this life, humanly speaking―even though blessed. I do not have the strength to understand things in this way. Furthermore, I am very afraid of becoming tangled in the most dangerous of all snares, that of regarding myself as meritorious. The person who is religious in the strictest sense has also conquered this danger, however. 11 mir nichts und Dir nichts] German, without further ado.

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Erasmus concludes a letter to Zwingli with these words (quoted in Hamann 3rd vol. p. 145): [“]videor mihi fere omnia docuisse, quæ docet Lutherus, nisi quod non tam atrociter, quodque abstinui a quibusdam ænigmatibus et paradoxis.” I think of my own situation, which is on a smaller scale. Scharling, too, thinks that Martensen has emphasized Christianity as an existential relationship and its ethical side just as strongly as I have, presumably with the exception of some paradoxes, and that it is not tam atrociter.

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About Myself.

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Verily, verily, I was not the one who made the matter too rigorous or was too overbearing. I saw―and only all too clearly―that Xnty was not being proclaimed at all. And how did I communicate this? I did not rush forward in judgment; no, I transformed myself into a jokester, and I said this dreadfully serious thing in the gentler form of a joke―so that they might at least take ad notam and also so that I would not be too quick to adopt too elevated a tone. And what did they do? They found it to be fun and games or they ignored me, utterly excluded me, then let me walk about as a curiosity for the mob, whereas they were serious men who proclaimed Xnty and gained all worldly benefits. Oh, why did you yourselves [serious men] take the matter so seriously[?] Truly, I take no joy in this. In many ways I am a poetic soul, and thus even a pampered soul, I would gladly have the most reasonable terms―only it must be said. But you yourselves wanted something frightful. You thought it would be so easy to evade things in that way―and it is precisely this evasion that makes the matter more serious. And then, when we perhaps come to stand in the midst of that frightful situation, Mynster will then surely reproach me, saying that I am guilty. Me, guilty! No, truly, even if you [Mynster] are not the only one who is guilty, you, too, bear the guilt because you wanted to be clever and shrewd with respect to that which, 3 videor ... paradoxis] Latin, It seems to me that the doctrines I have presented are approximately the same as those Luther is setting forth, except that I have not done it in such a ferocious manner and that I have refrained from certain enigmas and paradoxes. 10 tam atrociter] Latin, in such a ferocious manner. 20 ad notam] Latin, notice.

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also out of respect for you, had been made as gentle as possible. Privately, you would say to me (and it was the first time I spoke with you, that is, after the publication of Concluding Postscript, which is now to be labeled an error) that we were “complements of one another”; privately, you would say (when R. N.’s Faith of the Gospels was published) “of course, Mag. K., we all acknowledge that we have been influenced by you”―but publicly, no, not one word; publicly Martensen was to be put on display, even after his impudent preface. And meanwhile I was to make all the sacrifices and the rabble permitted to eat away at my reputation. You see, this is the source of the confusion. The bourgeoisie, and rlly the entire population, is right to regard me as a sort of madman; for when all you who ought to witness in my behalf remain silent, and only the mob’s vulgar press is permitted to speak, then of course they will be mistaken. How in all the world is that class of society supposed to understand that deep, deep down, in the innermost regions of the heart, I am reckoned as extraordinary―deep, deep down, in the innermost regions of the heart, where people, who regard me as proud and will not defend me, expect that I will fall because they even know that financially I can so little afford it.

Leniency―Rigorousness. Ah, a person can certainly proclaim leniency. One spares oneself, one is loved by peop., receives their gratitude, their devotion; one can look out with self-satisfaction, or at any rate with tranquillity, upon the many, the many happy and smiling people who, presumably (and who themselves say so) find repose in what one proclaims. But proclaiming rigorousness! Sheer spiritual trial: whether you can endure it yourself; whether you ought not spare yourself; whether it might not end with corrupting instead of benefiting, tearing down instead of building up. Sheer unrest and worry and fear and trembling for the sake of others about whether you are not demanding too much of them. And then this dismal sight, to see their anger and bitterness―to have no one’s gratitude, but to have everyone eager to get away from you, not to mention those who directly accuse you of making them unhappy. On my own infinitely small scale, befitting a poor, lowly hum. being, I, too, have experienced this. Oh, but you, my Lord and

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Savior, you who were love, you who came to the world out of love, who suffered and died―sheer love: humanly speaking, you did, in fact, make your contemporaries unhappy. You could not reassure a single one of them with the joy of a secure life. No, they were rent asunder in terror and fear: you became a sword through the heart of your mother, a scandal to your disciples; all of existence appeared to be an accusation directed at you, for having presumably come into the world in order to make all peop. unhappy―you who were “love” and who came in love to save everyone. Oh, why did you not cut the price: then it would never have occurred to me that the problem is anything other than continually to cut the price. But now―yes, when I have doubts about myself, and it seems to me as if I must first and foremost cut the price for my own sake, and when it seems to me as if I owe it to others to cut the price―now it can cause me anxiety to think of you, as if you would become angry, you, who never cut the price yet nonetheless were love. You, who never cut the price. Ah, what is a poor hum. being’s little bit of forcing up the level of the task compared with the scale you employed, which was that of divinity. That, you see, is certainly how it should be. There is to be no reduction in the price―but the person who forced the task up highest must acknowledge, in boundless humility, that he, too, is saved by grace. That is how it should be. Ah, would that I were such a person. Ah, and that peop. then do nothing other than hinder me, intimidating me from doing the little I do toward forcing up the level of the task.

The Requirement―The Indulgence. The requirement is the universal, that which applies to all, the criterion against which everyone is to be measured. Therefore the requirement is what is to be proclaimed; the teacher is to proclaim the requirement and in this way stir up unrest; he dares not reduce the requirement. Indulgence is not to be proclaimed, nor can it be proclaimed, because it differs entirely for different people and constitutes their innermost, private understanding with God. Proclaiming of the requirement is to drive hum. beings to God and Xt in order to determine what indulgence they need, what

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indulgence they dare ask for before God, while the proclaiming of the requirement continually holds them to God. But people have reversed the relationship. The teacher (the priest) does not proclaim the requirement, but indulgence. Instead of indulgence having to be the deepest secret of the individual’s conscience before God, directly confronted with the requirement, people have reversed the relationship and, to mutual contentment and edification, proclaim indulgence simply and solely. People entirely omit the requirement, or indeed they even say that it applied only to the apostles, and so one hum. being enthusiastically proclaims indulgence to the others―indulgence, which, after all, is one of the prerogatives of God’s majesty, so that it can only be bestowed by him upon the single individual, i.e., to every individual, but to each quite separately. Am I permitted to say to another hum. being (if there are no quite special circumstances in which he has anxiety or is sick or the like, though still would rlly have to say to him that he must turn to God, and that then he will surely find peace): God does not require this of you (although it is indeed the requirement in the N.T.), let alone whether I am permitted to take it upon myself to be a teacher, to be paid for it, and then to proclaim to an entire assembly: God does not require this (when it is indeed the requirement in the N.T.), God is gracious, etc.[?] No, I am not permitted to do this. I must proclaim the requirement and then I have to add: If this is too burdensome for you, then turn to God (as I myself do, I who also need indulgence), and then, through him and before him, you will certainly come to understand what can be conceded to you. But people have taken indulgence in vain. It has become a sort of fable we tell one another (this is more or less what “the sermon” is), that God is not so strict, etc. And yet the intention is entirely different. God is the sole dispenser of grace. He wills that every individual hum. being―disciplined to this point through the proclamation of the requirement―is to turn to him separately, as an individual, and then separately receive the indulgence that can be granted to him. But we hum. beings have reversed the relationship, have robbed or deceived God out of the royal prerogative of grace, and then falsely distribute grace.

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About Myself. Oh, if only there had been truth in the situation: then I would have had my place. I had come in order to have my say―I who am surely one of those who has the most to say. But now I was to be elbowed aside, ignored, treated as though I were mad: this made me more and more introverted, and in turn I developed more and more, and then, alas, more and more out of proportion to these petty circumstances; and I sank under this disproportion. I have given offence to no one, no one. But unfortunately it is the case that Denmark is so small and such a provincial market town that The Corsair actlly constituted public opinion. You see, this is the root of my misfortune. I did an absolutely good deed―but it was understood to be a crime because people saw it as putting myself above public opinion. To whom shall I speak? There is no one. The crowd has long since sworn enmity to me; a very few individuals probably understand me to some extent, but find the conditions attached to bearing witness to be too burdensome. The literary elite are delighted at the misunderstanding.

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Hypocrisy. 1

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the preface to the second printing of Martensen’s Dogmatics.

This is the formula for all hypocrisy: to cloak purely worldly actions in the appearance of religion. There is something of hypocrisy in Prof. Martensen’s preface to the 2nd printing of Dogmatics. Recently, his entire tactics have in fact consisted of simple worldly shrewdness, which, however, may end in failure. It has been almost 9 months since the appearance of Nielsen’s review and Stilling and Paludan-Müller. But Martensen has had so much to attend to, etc. Now the word is that he hopes to finish a little piece by summer.―Oh, good Lord! But the hypocrisy really lies in the fact that he adds [“]if time and circumstance permit[”] (be it noted in parenthesi that I wager that Mynster dictated that to him, word for word, without himself considering that there is a difference between Mynster and Martensen, between Martensen vis-à-vis Nielsen and Mynster vis-à-vis Lindberg, a difference in their relationships, etc.) if time and circumstance permit. You see, this is hypocrisy. Privately, he himself knows very well that what he has lacked has been neither time nor circumstances, but it is rather sly to remain silent 32 in parenthesi] Latin, parenthetically.

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and delay (which he has in fact certainly done for all too long). That the new preface once again contains an attempt at worldly shrewdness in a dilatory direction―and then this godly stamp, “if time and circumstances permit.” The only thing missing was “God willing.” Thus a thief could say, God willing, on Monday I intend to commit a burglary on Amagertorv. What is godly does not rlly consist in adding “God willing” to an ungodly act, but in refraining from committing the ungodly act.

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And thus, if someone were to say to a believer: [“]But after all, suppose that it ended with God having deceived you,[”] he would reply, with Luther: [“]Hold your tongue, dear fellow, God does not do that.[”] And if the person were not satisfied with that answer he would say, [“]Well, then, if you want it that way, in any event I of course did not lose anything by having wagered everything on the one thing that occupies me. For even if I now renounced much in this life because I believed it to be God’s will, and it nonetheless ended, as you say, with God having deceived me, I would not have occupied myself with possessing these goods anyway, inasmuch as I would either also have known that God could deceive a person, thus, that God is a deceiver―that is, that everything is nothing―or, I would have shrunk back because of staking everything on involving myself with God.[”]

Just as Xt said at the dinner (when the woman anointed him): [“]She did this for my burial,[”] immediately after the entry [into Jerusalem] he says: [“]My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.[”]―Always the thought of death.

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Yes, of course there is strife between God and hum. beings. And if Xnty is to be implemented in accordance with its entire truth (something only its founder managed to do) or is to be implemented by an apostle, then the enmity becomes a matter of life and death. Oh, it makes one shudder merely to think of how dead from the world, from being a hum. being in the ordinary sense, a person must be in order truly to present Xnty. For my part, I feel how infinitely far I am from it. I love being a hum. being; I do not have the courage entirely to be spirit in that way. And nonetheless, in our circumstances, I am probably one of those farthest along. Therefore my life displays at least something of Christianity. To be sure, originally, it was not out of personal preference that I came to be sitting here like this, occupying myself with religious matters. No, from my earliest years I was miserable; I understood that for me no help, no recourse was to be found among hum. beings; I was placed outside human society, assigned to myself, reminded of my wretchedness every day―alas, in the days of youth, when the blood was warm and I wanted so very much to be like the others―alas, in the days of love, when the heart beat soundly and I wanted so very much to be like the others―I learned to cling to the religious as my only consolation. But nevertheless, I have always presented it in a lenient form, even when presenting it simply as I understood it; I have presented it in a lenient form in order to spare both myself and others. [“]Without authority,[”] that was my category; on the other hand, I have never presented matters as does Xnty: that love of God is hatred of the world and vice versa. I am not a happy person who, as a result of a spiritual impression, has freely chosen to involve myself with Xnty (and indeed, God knows if this can actlly be done if it is not preceded by suffering); from my earliest beginnings I have been an unhappy person, placed outside of what is universally human. You see, this is not a particularly happy situation―and therefore I never dare make a direct assault on others, because it seems to me that I would have to start by making them unhappy, and that I cannot do, I who―[“]unfortunately,[”] a strict Xn would surely say―still so much love to see the purely hum. delight that others take in life―something for which I have a better than ordinary eye, because I have a poet’s eye for it. Moreover, I am a penitent―and

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here again is something I cannot take upon myself to force others to be, but it is certain that this is what I am. In brief, I have met the preconditions Xnty sets (suffering in a greater than ordinary sense and guilt in a special sense) and I have found my stronghold in Christianity. But I cannot invoke authority or really proclaim this directly to others, because I cannot of course create the preconditions. I could very well accept appointment as a priest, because in no way is that, strictly speaking, the concept of proclaiming Xnty―there, I would least of all be serving as a missionary.

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A Trait of Father’s That Deserves to Be Preserved.

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One day I tipped over a saltcellar at the dinner table. Passionate as he was, and vehement as he could easily become, he began to scold so severely that he even said that I was a prodigal son and things of that sort. Then I objected and reminded him of an old family story of how my sister Nicoline had once broken a very valuable tureen and Father had not said a word, but acted as if it were nothing at all. He replied: [“]Well, you see, it was such a valuable piece that one did not need to scold―she herself certainly felt that it was wrong, but when it is a trifle, that is precisely when one must scold.[”] There is something of the greatness of antiquity in this little story. The objectivity that refrains from scolding on the basis of how one is oneself affected, but purely objectively, according to whether scolding is needed.

Christianity―Modern Methods of Cure. It is indeed fortunate that we have the old edifying writings that we can look to. Where in all the world could we find those psychological states in our times[?] The things that come to light when treating hum. beings as spirit―all those conditions of the soul, introversion―are cured nowadays by traveling to a spa, by leeches, bloodletting, etc.: but we are all Xns.

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My Misfortune. My misfortune is that I have served the idea, proclaimed Xnty, gratis, and also that I have done it better than any of the tradesmen. Gratis and better: both parts are required. Had I done it gratis, but worse than the tradesmen, they would not have had anything against it, but on the contrary would have made use of me as an deplorable example and said, Look at that, this is what things come to when they are gratis. Had I done it better than any of the other tradesmen but had myself been the tradesman who earned most, eh bien in that case the tradesmen (poets, priests, professors, etc.) would have tolerated it, because they would at any rate have found that my life confirms the principle of their trade.

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Judaism―Xnty. “In this world, it sometimes happens that the same thing befalls the just as befalls the unjust”―this “sometimes” is Judaism. From the Christian point of view this happens always, for Xnty is the suffering truth. But the priests are very careful not to proclaim Xnty.

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About Myself. Was I so proud, then? Has it to do with my wanting to make others feel the advantages I had as a person of means? God knows, no. But this is how things are. I had worked without pay and achieved what I wished. Then there was a villainous phenomenon in this country; I knew that it was a plague to all respectable people; I knew that it was a source of indignation that in a little country, which can scarcely afford to support a poet, there are means to support a scandal-monger; I knew that none of those who suffered under this villainy had the courage or the qualifications enabling them to do it; I knew that people looked to me as the only one: I did it. 11 eh bien] French, well then.

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You see, here comes the guilt. Now, instead of expressing appreciation for the step I took, of supporting me simply by a little written notice, in order, if possible, to elevate the times above this meanness and make it an honor to be mocked by these criminals―they betrayed me. This is why so much of my life now judges them so strictly―many things that I had never wished to emphasize except, at most, in the form of a joke.

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Edifying. In an old edifying work (Arndt) it says that God only sleeps lightly with a suffering person, as does a mother with a sick child―she awakens as soon as the child moves. Marvelous masterpiece of the emotive, which almost borders on lunacy. * *

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In one of the morning or evening prayers in the Evangelical Hymnal it says: “While we sleep, you keep watch, o God”―alas, as if we could help ourselves if only we were awake. No, this ought to be added: And when we awaken, we have no more understanding of our own welfare than when we lay in a deep sleep―so you, o God, must keep watch nevertheless. This observation is surely in an earlier journal, because I recall that it occurred to me earlier.

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Catachesis about My Life. The person who places himself entirely outside human judgment makes himself more than a hum. being. This is true. Have I done this in the least way[?] Was The Corsair Danish public opinion, was it the expression of the truth at that time? If you maintain that, then yes, then I am surely guilty.

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But look, fundamentally all of you admitted that it was a crime, even those who supported it most fervently admitted that it was fundamentally a crime. This untruth of yours was only rlly revealed by my action. So if that was a crime, then my action was a good deed in the strictest sense of the term―and yet The Corsair still perpetuates the untruth to the effect that my guilt and my crime were that I wanted to make myself more than a hum. being―and how do they prove that? From the fact that I hurled myself against what you yourselves acknowledge to be a crime. Ah, but there was an infinitely profound untruth in public life. People wanted to support crime, villainy―and yet to justify themselves by saying that it was villainous. It was egotism that took delight in the fact that there were wretches who were willing to commit criminal acts: then you wanted to support them financially and spread the slander, but you also wanted to be righteous, because you said: Of course, it is villainous. So how much guilt has been incurred at my expense? Especially by those who had a clear view of the situation―and did not bear witness for me, but remained silent.

Odd Testimonial to the Truth. Even though the priests have done everything to make Xnty into nothing but hum. compassion, have completely omitted its requirements or, if they are mentioned, they have in any case made use of “grace” to make them not the least bit disturbing or have made them into nothing: despite this, they still cannot get peop. to embrace Xnty. And why? Because there is after all some truth in peop.: they have a suspicion that this is not Xnty at all and that it is a dangerous power with which to come into contact.

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Here it is once again clear that if one is to get peop. to embrace it, it must be by presenting it in its rigorousness.

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About Myself. Never have I made even the slightest attempt or have I acted as though I wanted to obligate or compel another person to serve Xnty on the terms I do, nor have I judged anyone for not having done so. On the contrary, I have supported those who have proclaimed Xnty on very different terms, supported respectable people when I saw the confused revolt from below that characterizes the times. This must definitely be insisted upon, for otherwise I would indeed have some guilt with respect to them in this matter. But now their guilt has been completely exposed: not only were they themselves unwilling to proclaim Xnty on those terms, but they would not even permit me to do so; on the contrary, they judged me as a fantast, an eccentric, who was rightly a victim of the mob.

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What villainy! There is not a single one of my contemporaries, not a single one, whom I could not devastate with my comic abilities. People were well aware of it at the time, and that was why they all remained silent. I was honest enough with respect to the situation, wanting to throw off the tyranny of vulgarity that was despotic toward everyone―with myself as the deified exception―also exhibiting a vis comica, though of the more base sort. Then they betrayed me. And now people know that I cannota very well make use of my comic abilities. I can scarcely write a newspaper article, especially anything polemical, because I live constantly

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32 vis comica] Latin, comic force.

even if I wanted to, which, owing to higher considerations, is something that I would scarcely want to do nowadays,

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surrounded by the mob and the risk of violence is real. Now came the time when Prof. Martensen thought he could make use of the moment. But no, my good man. As honest as my work as an author has been, it is also watched over, with an inexplicable solicitude, by Governance. Furthermore, another point has now been reached: I can now use pathos as triumphantly as I once used the comic. But sometimes I could almost be tempted to recall earlier times with just half a score of those devastating comic lines.

Fædrelandet

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[a]

This was the situation prior to my taking action: Officially, people tried as best they could to maintain the view that such vulgarity was nothing, something to be ignored. Privately, people had long since admitted to one another that the entire situation was intolerable. The Corsair’s subscription numbers increased, the other newspapers’ decreased; it was read by the upper and the lower classes and with great curiosity; it was a power and sheer tyranny. People looked to one another; something had to be done; people looked to me. So I acted. That is, I changed the method. They knew very well that I alone possessed 10 times the polemical powers needed. The difficulty was simply to get it understood that the right course of action was to change the method. This was what Fædrelandet should have taken steps to do, should have published a few words―otherwise, why did

Everyone who was somewhat familiar with the situation knew how Fædrelandet winced under the vulgar press that had completely taken the wind out of its sails. I acted; Gjødvad stood impatiently at my side, waiting for the article in which I demanded to be abused. One thing or the other: either they must insist that that press be ignored―and then not even carry my article, even though I had asked them to do so; or (and this was the truth) they realized that their position was so desperate and the public sphere so distorted that action had to be taken―and then they would have to support my action, which would only have required a few words of acknowledgment. They did not do it, they betrayed me. After a long while, they finally dropped their subscription to The Corsair, as if that were doing something. In the course of conversation, when it seemed as if I were being asked whether they ought to do anything (without asking that question directly), I always said: Just do nothing. Truly, if people have no more feeling than that for a just cause, I am not the one who is to beg. Fædrelandet perhaps bears more guilt with respect to me than Goldschmidt does. And in any case there

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is always the guilt of not having sought to provide a bit of guidance with one single word. To tell me privately that my achievements are so extraordinary that no one can take it upon himself to review them is of course only a joke. They could say it openly, after all―and not remain silent while the mob alone does the talking. I am writing this down for the following reason in particular. My time will surely come. Then it will be convenient for Fædrelandet to cast blame on Heibergb and especially on Mynster for not having witnessed in my faveur―and then Fædrelandet will surely portray itself as so innocent. But I do not intend to tolerate that. I call Gjødvad my personal friend, and over the past three to 4 years I have spoken with him every single evening and found him to be an amiable hum. being―as I knew I would. If he had not been a journalist I would have found in him the person with whom I could come closest to having a real friendship. But it is a completely different matter with the journal Fædrelandet. I concede that they acted under very difficult circumstances at that time, but then, that was precisely the test.

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It really applies to me, Hamann 3rd vol. p. 400: Die Furcht des größten Kunstrichters, der Herzen und Nieren prüft, ist die wahre Muse.

About Myself. I will never be understood; this is something that happens again and again in every aspect of my life. If I were now to become sick―then everyone would think it was because I had worked too hard, and in fact the reason is precisely that in recent times I have had to stop my literary productivity― 12 faveur] French, favor. 30 Die Furcht ... die wahre Muse.] German, Fear of the greatest art critics, who search one’s hearts and reins, is the true muse.

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it run the article[?] But no. They thought it most prudent to flee back to the old tactic: that a paper like that is nothing, something to be ignored―and left me standing there like a semi-lunatic―and I was the country’s greatest younger luminary, without a single blemish until then. There was some truth (which I acknowledged at the time, but had other grounds for doing so) in what Goldschmidt said to me immediately after the first article was published (that is, before he had begun the attack): that he could not conceive that I would do so much for Fædrelandet; Ploug was after all not much better than he was. He said the same thing about Gjødvad, but I rebuffed it with the words, Gjødvad is my friend. But what an indirect concession it was when, after the first article had appeared, Goldschmidt came to me privately yet again and said: “Have you read that article―it utterly annihilates P. L. Møller.” Presumably he wanted me privately to prevent The Corsair’s attack, which naturally I would not do. And furthermore, there is the fact that Fædrelandet had after all rlly entrusted me with the task of dealing with the whole mob singlehandedly. And none of this is spoken of, while a class of people is incited against me, a class that has no notion of who I am and no inkling of the true situation. Note Privately, he also thanked me most emphatically for the article against P. L. Møller and added that I should have done it long ago. So he spoke like this privately, but publicly he remained silent.

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the only thing that has kept me alive and well and happy―because of financial considerations. But this is something no one understands, and in order at least to have a common language with other people, here, as always, I must put forward the explanation that it is because I have worked too hard. The reason that “they” only can and only want to understand this explanation is that they in fact will not accept the notion that there are peop. upon whom it has pleased Governance to bestow the extraordinary. So people explain it to themselves like this: I have become different from other people by having overexerted myself―and people are relieved. And I have to put up with this explanation, for otherwise there would be raging envy. This is how it is with every detail of my life; the provincial market town always has one or another squalid explanation, and in order merely to be tolerated sufficiently to be permitted to live among them, I have to act as though this is true. Now, occasionally this situation amuses me, but it does also have its tragic side.

An Actor―A Priest. An actor portrays, e.g., a nobleman, a hero, a witness to the truth, and the like; thus, he gives voice to all these noble, lofty, heroic feelings and thoughts. Now, would anyone deny that it would be offensive if the actor did this in his own name[?] But then, why should a priest be permitted to do this? The actor can be a believer, just like all the rest of us and the priest; in Xndom we are of course all Xns, and yet we conform to what is worldly. So why should a priest be permitted to declaim all these splendid virtues in his own person, continually giving occasion for the confusion that he himself is the one who puts them into practice[?] A very logical thinker could be tempted to make the following proposal: that we entirely abolish the pulpit, clerical vestments, ordination, and the like. A little stage would be set up in the church, with a proper curtain. There would be no objections if people wanted to use an organ. Then there would be a prelude. Next, the curtain would go up and “the priest” would step forward, or, if they wanted to have a variety show, several “priests”

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would step forward in historical dress. Then one of them would portray Luther, for example. The theater director (and, incidentally, one could very well use the fellow from the theater, because the Cultus Minister is of course also the Theater Minister) would make sure that the costumes were historically accurate―and then he would declaim one or another of Luther’s sermons. Naturally, people would weep, just as they indeed weep in the theater when a tragedy is presented―though genrlly speaking people do indeed believe that weeping in church is different from weeping in the theater, which sometimes can be true, but as a rule is not true.

A Lodger. In the place where I am now living on Nørregade, the lodger upstairs could certainly be called a quiet, peaceable lodger: He is out of the house all day long. Unfortunately he has a dog that is at home all day long. It lies by an open window and takes an interest in everything. If a man walks past and sneezes unusually loudly, the dog instantly barks and can go on barking for a long time. If a coachman drives past and cracks his whip, it barks; if another dog barks, it also barks. Thus there is not the least little incident in the street that I do not receive in a second edition, thanks to this dog.

One Aspect of My Public Position.

I know that this is how Bishop Mynster has understood my position, and with his conservative temperament, it was the only way he could support this sort of thing, as if I was the only person to whom he could make this concession. I represented movement, but, mind you, the movement of inwardness, so that the established order was not disturbed. Moreover, I exerted such pressure on the younger generation that none of the younger people were permitted to slip past me. Then I had the pleasure of transforming my existence into a sort of celebration in honor of Mynster. I spent everything, received no pay of any kind, drew

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It is easy to prove that this is the case, and the proof consists simply of the way things actually were with R. Nielsen: the only thing he was worried about was getting past me, and that was why he sought to approach me privately.

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upon myself the displeasure of the younger people who wanted to advance and from whom I ought naturally to have sought support. My project is so lofty that it is infinitely easy to mount a deceptive attack against me, as if I were doing something else. And now Martensen writes a preface that is supposed to make my work something trivial, and Mynster remains silent. In a certain sense, however, I am happy with Prof. Martensen’s preface, for I know well that with the help of public opinion certain people have done their utmost to oppose me. But if I were to prevail, inasmuch as this is the sort of thing that cannot be controlled, these same people naturally intend to say, [“]Yes, of course, as we have always said, Mag. K. is someone extraordinary.[”] But now I have a little fact: the two lines in that preface were a dietetic indiscretion, a dud.

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An Illusion

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The supposed humility and modesty in confessing that one does not call oneself an apostle. It is, after all, yet another confusion that has arisen with the help of “Christendom,” which has once again turned all Christian concepts topsy-turvy, i.e., has prevented them from being what they originally were: reversed. It is called humility and modesty when someone says: I do not indeed call myself an apostle. Thus, what is proud, what is haughty, is to call oneself an apostle. I do not deny that this can be pride and haughtiness, but I wish only to illuminate the situation in a little more detail. When one speaks like this, one proceeds from the assumption that being an apostle is a distinction; humility, modesty consist of not claiming distinction. Fine. But, like everything Christian, being an apostle is not a straightforward distinction, but an

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inverse one. You see, here comes a little N.B. With all straightforward distinctiveness or distinction, the matter is quite simple: If I truly do not make any claim to it, then this is modesty, because a straightforward distinction, without further qualifications or definitions, is straightforwardly an earthly good. But being an apostle is sheer earthly suffering. Indeed, if the apostle were permitted to live a second time, when his teachings had triumphed, well, then it would perhaps be a straightforward earthly good to be an apostle. But while he was alive, his calling himself an apostle surely did not help him gain honor and respect and earthly goods; precisely the fact that he called himself an apostle was the signal that he must suffer more than the other adherents, suffer unto death. This is what it is to be an apostle―something different from that retrospective view that, with the help of an illusion, takes the apostle in vain. But if this is the way things are, then this demand―that one summarily be regarded as modest because one does not call oneself an apostle―becomes suspect, because this could also be worldly shrewdness and cowardice. Here is the issue: instead of using the confusing term “apostle” (which has subsequently been made worldly and has been identified with other worldly distinctions) let us say this: an entire lifetime of being scorned, ridiculed, persecuted, impoverished, imprisoned, and put to death. When someone then says, [“]I am not so immodest as to demand to become an Excellency,[”] well, this is quite straightforward. But suppose someone says, [“]I am not so immodest as to demand to become poor, impoverished, the rubbish of the world, ridiculed, put to death―well, this is not quite so straightforward, for there are probably not ten people in every generation who have the courage for it. Thus it could be worldly shrewdness and cowardice that hold a person back but that also want to profit by being regarded as humility. You see, it is suspect. Ah, if only we could remain clear about what Xnty is! That it is not a doctrine, but an existence;

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And it must be borne in mind that there is nothing that all of us are so equidistant to as to being an apostle, precisely because this is not a matter of the aesthetic difference of being a genius, of being talented and the like. And surely, with respect to poverty, suffering for the truth, etc., every pers. is permitted to arrange his life exactly like that of an apostle, except he is not permitted to appeal to divine authority. But with respect to the former [being an apostle], he must not feel embarrassed, and least of all ought he do it out of modesty, for if there is to be any talk of true modesty here, it must be the admission that one is too weak and sensate, that is, one must accuse oneself―not as when I am too modest to demand to become a cabinet minister, a heroic artist, a knight of all the European orders and the like.

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that what is needed is not professors, but witnesses―then we would be free of all this self-important scholarliness, these fine men who are scholars―whom Xnty now needs. No, Xt did not need scholars, but could be satisfied with fishermen, so what is really needed now is many more fishermen. For, precisely because Xt was present, the danger would not have been so great if Xnty had fallen into the hands of students. The error is not the studying; rather, the error is that the emphasis continually falls on the wrong thing: on fathoming and presenting―so that it becomes ridiculous, a triviality, to do any of it. On the other hand, a simple man has no distractions. In this case one immediately focuses on his life: if he is without significance in this respect, he is without any significance whatever. But this simplification is extremely important with respect to drawing up the account: then the emphasis always falls on the right place, on existence.

About Myself, Personally. If I had had no fortune whatever, fundamentally I would have been better off, I think, because then I would have had to devote all my powers to earning a living and would have had no qualms of conscience to the effect that I was not allowed to do so. But now, when I can understand how extraordinarily much has been entrusted to me, how much good I am doing―it seems to me that inasmuch as I still do have money, I ought to remain at my post. In this conflict I face the difficult situation in which I fear “grieving the Spirit,” on the one hand, and “tempting God,” on the other. The financial crises of 1848 suddenly plunged me into this situation. And what now seems imminent is a tax on wealth, which will embarrass me financially. For I will not be understood at all. Even if I have been prodigal, it nevertheless has also had a purely ideal significance for me, precisely because I understood how much had been entrusted to me. Had I let myself be governed by worldly common sense, I would never have achieved what I have achieved; I would have become an entirely different pers. Before God, I will gladly confess that I have been prodigal, that here, as everywhere, I am in the wrong before him. He has it in his power to say to me, “You ought to have been frugal.” And yet he indeed knows how the matter can be understood differently from a different angle. But there is no other way in which

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one can involve oneself with God: He is always in the right. A person who actually ventures something―of course, it is not decided in advance whether he can bear it every moment (this is precisely what it means to venture)―so, if the person venturing something becomes afraid, God can say: Yes, you yourself are of course to blame in this matter. But, on the other hand, the person who lives trusting in God does indeed rest in the faith that God will surely help him. But one is always in the wrong before God. For if things succeed―it is nevertheless not owing to any merit of mine, but to help from God, who could have let go of me at every moment. If it fails, I am to blame for having ventured. Thus it is truly frightful to involve oneself with God, who cannot and will not provide any straightforward certainty or contractual relationship―and yet it is blessed, blessed to be as nothing in his hand, he who nonetheless eternally is and remains love, whatever happens. This alone is certain for me, this blessed fact: God is love. Even if I have erred on one or another point, God is nonetheless love―this I believe, and a person who believes this has indeed not erred. If I have erred, this will surely become clear to me, and I will repent―and God is love. He is it: not He was it, nor is it something he will be: Oh, no, even this future tense would be too slow for me―he is it. Ah, how wonderful. Sometimes, perhaps, my repentance must be waited for, so there is a future tense, but God never has to be waited for, he is love. As the water of a spring is equally cool, unchanged, in summer and winter―so, too, with God’s love. But as it occasionally happens that a spring runs dry―no, no―yes, whom shall I praise: I have indeed no exclamation other than that concerning precisely the one of whom I am speaking here: “God be praised!”―therefore, no, God be praised, God is not love in that way. His love is a spring, but it never runs dry.

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About Myself. In Denmark I have been offered an enormous fee to write in the newspapers (I was once offered 100 rd. per sheet by Carstensen, when he had Figaro or Portfeuillen, for an article against Heiberg)―I have spent very significant sums in publishing one or another large work, the fruit of a year’s or a year and a half’s untiring industry.

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The Essential Relationship of Reduplication to Xnty. It would have to be a very peculiar idea, thought, observation, and the like if, when one was excited about it and then wanted to use one’s powers straightforwardly to win peop. over to it―one was unable win some over. But this straightforward relationship is not rlly Xnty. Xnty consists precisely of the rigor of reduplication in which the teacher, in serving the idea, is even cruel to himself and is vigilant lest peop. be won over to it in illusory fashion, lest it become something they say, etc.―item lest the cause gradually weaken, become less urgent than it was originally, as often happens when more people join in.

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It can be seen in a number of ways, including this formula for “the apostle”: He begins by persecuting it [Christianity].

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The Distance from the Prototypes in Christendom.

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This is best seen indirectly, in the sermon, which in quite theatrical fashion does not give living presence to the difficulties bound up with putting it into practice, but lets everything remain one of those solemn, uplifting experiences in a quiet hour, based on the tacit agreement that it would not occur to any of us to do it,[a]

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At one point in the sermon “The Life of the Apostle Paul,” Mynster exclaims, [“]Who would not love the man who writes, [‘]Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we 13 item] Latin, as well as, furthermore.

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Hum. Deceit. This form of deceit occurs frequently in the business of everyday life: when you emphasize ethical tasks and prod someone a little in this direction, he replies, [“]I do not have the ability to do it.[”] The deceit consists in transforming an ethical task into a task involving differences. This is not at all a matter of abilities, but of will; the simplest person has the ability, if he wants to. But this is how people parry and then profit as well by seeming to be modest. Well, thank you very much. Let us take the most rigorous ethics, the Commandments. If, when you said to a thief, [“]You ought to refrain from stealing,[”] he were then to reply, [“]Yes, that is right enough for the person who has the ability for it; I do not have the ability for it,[”] would that not be a peculiar way of talking[?] But this is how it always is with the ethical. The ethical requirement that a man witness to the truth does not have to do with the intellect, but with the will. The requirement is not that he become a genius―oh, no, it is quite simple, but it is hard on flesh and blood, and therefore a person tries to get out of it by acting as if it were a matter of aesthetic difference, and says―modestly―I do not have such abilities. In so doing, incidentally, he lies in yet another way, for he weakens the impression of the truly ethical person, as if he were easily able to do so because he has such abilities― but it is not at all a question of abilities. But people fear the truly ethical person and would very much prefer to protect themselves against him by making him into someone with special gifts, so that his life in fact loses its power to serve as a demand―for if it is a question of abilities, it is of course nonsense to require of a pers. something he has not been given.

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A Reply that I could be tempted to make: Inasmuch as “the established order” is so strong that Prof. Martensen thinks that he can dismiss the entirety of my writings with two lines in a preface, it surely becomes my duty to take away the damping capacity of jest and the diverting capacity of indirection, which―in order to spare myself and others―I have employed until now in connection with my communications: to take these away and proceed in a direct manner. The established order is certainly strong enough; after all, it has Prof. Martensen, who, as can be seen from his preface, is considerably the stronger. Thus, directly: the entire proclamation of Xnty as it is now heard rlly omits what is essential in Xnty. And, to make it entirely direct: Prof. Martensen’s work, in all its foolishness, is actlly the betrayal and abolition of Xnty. Granted, this has helped him in his career and in the acquisition of worldly goods, but it is of course not identical with Xnty, which contains no § about providing worldly goods for Prof. M. by transposing Xnty’s message into unchristian forms of communication. Neither “the professor” nor “the court preacher” are mentioned in the N.T., which speaks only of “witnesses,” which does not mean people whose lives express precisely the opposite of the teachings while they provide assurances upon assurances that in their innermost being, etc. No, “witnesses” are those whose existences (personal existences) are the transparency of the teachings, so that they could indeed shut their mouths and proclaim the doctrine nonetheless, because their lives are “bearing witness.” By contrast, it would be a great embarrassment if Prof. Martensen remained silent, for then people would say, Of course, it is indeed a purely worldly existence. But then he speaks―and provides assurances―and Berlingske Tidende provides assurances that this is Martensen’s conviction, concerning which Miss Bremer and Flyveposten also provide assurances, and

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The God-Relationship. If possible, practice self-denial for 70 years, more passionately and truly than 1000 Xns; if possible, work harder than 1000 martyrs: nonetheless, that you are saved is grace, exactly as it is grace when the greatest sinner is saved. In a way, it could seem that whatever one does makes no difference―oh, yes, if you are a monster. But if God were not infinitely elevated in this way, he would not be God―then he would be more or less needy instead of being what he is, grace. The confusion consists simply in the fact that you compare yourself with others―alone before God, the matter is infinitely simple.

The Gospel: The Great Supper.

Theme:

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many believers who believe Martensen’s assurances assure us that one can quite safely believe them. Should not this be certain, seeing as there are so many assurances[?] And yet, it is suspect. For a life does not need one single assurance―it is of course something one can grasp. Where this is absent, the matter simply becomes more and more suspect the more assurances there are.

Life’s Earnestness.

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When we now read the gospel aloud here, each of us understands what is in fact easily understood,

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[c] Prayer. Father in heaven, you, who received our earliest promise, to whom we promised to be faithful when we were baptized, that in our lives we might not forget this our promise, forget that we are betrothed, forget to come to your wedding―whatever excuse we could come up with is a matter of

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indifference; what is decisive is that we did not come to the wedding (we who did not even excuse ourselves from accepting the invitation, as they did in today’s gospel, but who have indeed accepted it, have solemnly promised to come, so if we do not come after all, our guilt becomes all the greater).

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and he confesses that these were excuses, poor excuses, that ought not hold a pers. back. But now we are here, in God’s house, in a quiet hour, as it is called. Out there, where it is anything but quiet, the excuses that have been discussed here are reckoned as more or less life’s earnestness―and the only excuse for that is surely that out there the highest invitation is not heard―it has, as it were, retreated from actual life and resounds only in various quiet hours.

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One could say that this is a strange sort of invitation. An invitation, of course, leaves one free as to whether or not one will come. And then, when those who have been invited politely excuse themselves, the inviter has them put to death.―But that is God’s royal prerogative. This latter is not strange; rather, what is strange is the former, the fact that he would condescend to invite us.

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But is it not rlly the gospel’s invitation that is in the wrong, coming at such an inopportune moment, precisely when one is standing there about to get married, when one is most busy with his earthly doings, etc.[?] After all, the invitation could come at a moment when one had nothing else to do, in an idle moment, perhaps in a quiet hour―the gospel demands too much.―Yes, the gospel poses an either/or and does it deliberately in order to provide the proper tension for the choice. However mild the gospel is, however lovingly it extends the invitation, it has nonetheless not lost its sense of itself.

The curious fact is that it was a wedding to which they had been invited, and yet they excused themselves by saying that they had to go to a wedding―thus, two weddings. And God is gracious enough to describe his relationship to hum. beings as a relationship of love.

The Gospel of the Great Supper.

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Theme. Which is the greater guilt: to be like those in the gospel who excused themselves from accepting the invitation―or like us, who have solemnly answered:

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From My Life. Only once in my life have I been present at a general meeting (on very rare occasions I have been present at general meetings of the Student Association or the insurance company, but that is of course something else), and then I was the presiding officer. It was at the second general meeting of university students immediately following the accession of Christian VIII. After a couple of words of introduction from me about how profoundly flattered I felt at having been elected, we proceeded to business. This began with, and more or less consisted of, a Levin (not Israel, but another) who asked for the floor and was granted it. He said, Gentlemen, what is a petition? At this point he was interrupted. The uproar lasted a long time; finally, I managed to get the floor and then said, Hr. Levin has the floor. The scene was repeated, and the same thing happened once again. Gradually, Hr. Levin worked his way all the way up to the podium and wanted to explain to me privately what he rlly meant, apparently thinking that it was because I had a personal interest in what he had to say that I had made so many efforts to gain the floor for him. Then, French Bierring asked for the floor and began like an orator, saying, Is there anyone who dares oppose me in this matter[?] Here he was stopped when the gathering began to shout: Yes, yes. The noisy scene lasted a long time. Then my brother came over to me and asked for the return of the petition, which was what actlly was supposed to have been debated at the general

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meeting. In addition, he asked me to say―or he himself said― that the petition would be available for signature at his rooms. This of course was in conflict with all the rules. And to make matters complete, I finally took the floor and said: The general meeting is hereby adjourned. They approved this rather than depose the presiding officer. Oddly enough, by the way, even though it was a long time afterward, when I spoke with Christian VIII for the second time, he knew what had happened at that general meeting and that I had presided.

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Among the reasons that marriage is found unbearable by those who wish to separate is precisely this: that divorce is possible. Things might go better if divorce were impossible. Someone who raises doves knows that if he takes the two most quarrelsome doves (but a male and a female) and cages them together, they will eventually mate. How dependable is everything God does! With two males it surely would not work―they would kill each other. But a male and a female must be suited to one another, and if only it is made impossible for them to separate, things work out.

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Abraham is an eternal prototype of the religious person. As he had to leave the land of his forefathers for a foreign land, so indeed must the religious person leave, i.e., forsake, an entire generation of his contemporaries―even though he remains among them, albeit isolated, alien to them. Being an alien, being in exile―this is precisely the characteristic suffering of the religious person.

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About Myself. What I have achieved will be admired for a long time: I have had extraordinary abilities (alas, how I recognize myself in this past tense that I always use; even when I feel strongest, I say: I

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have had―this is a unity of melancholia, reflection, and piety, and this unity is my nature): what I lack is the animal side of being a human being. People use this against me. People feel more strongly anchored in the sensate world and are able to participate in everything― which I cannot, so they find it odd, affected, ridiculous, haughty, and God knows what else, that I am not just the same: People take a bestial delight in demanding of me what has been denied me, and they make fun of what has been granted me. And this can be very easily done, because in our petty circumstances I am so unusual that I am surely the only one of my kind―to whom, therefore, no one feels any connection. Even those who have some spirit enviously make use of this advantage. They, too, find it affected and odd and ridiculous of me, although it is in no way ridiculous, whether one looks at the suffering or at the fruits of the suffering. Often I suffer to the point of the weakness of death, undergoing frightful torment― then my spirit is strong and I am in the world of ideas, where I forget everything. But then I am reproached because I want only to be a thinker, not a hum. being like the others; people grant me every possible sort of suffering and abuse as the punishment I deserve. Oh, how false or foolish you are! Give me a body―or, had you given me one when I was 20 years old, I would not have become as I am. But you are envious, and this is the suffering that the very intellectually gifted person must suffer in his times. Oh, how easy it is to say in connection with something in the past: [“]That which is to be immortalized in song must die[”]―but in real life people themselves much prefer to be free of this, indeed, they are angry at the person whose life bears all the marks of being one of that sort. Incidentally, it is surely true that those sufferings that are immediately recognizable have at least the consolation of not being linked to a person’s character. If someone is a cripple, at least people do not say that this is odd, affected, ridiculous of him. But of course, all sufferings that are immediately recognizable are also exposed to that torment known as sympathy.

The Human―The Christian. The hum. is that we are the innumerable beings, the race, and I am one with the flock―therein is indulgence, distraction. The Christian is that what is needed is always only one―therein is

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the almost superhuman exertion for everyone who is able to grasp this. Humanly, all of us together must, if possible, make sure that we all stay together in order to pull the load along― therein is relief and freedom from cares, for how infinitely small becomes the share each one must bear. Xnly, one is enough―one who is, nonetheless, infinitely incapable of doing anything―but God is with you. Frightful burden: with the consciousness of being infinitely incapable of doing anything, to bear God, who is capable of doing everything. Humanly, for the understanding to be involved, if possible, in 17 plans at once is plenty to do; there is solace and levity in this. Xnly, there is nothing to do, only to be infinitely still so that God can approach―frightful exertion.

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Comic. In a very difficult affair, and in a hurry, where every second was valuable, a strategic position had to be taken up; there was one volunteer―the signal was given. Then he came at a run, his body bent over the horse, his left arm outstretched, giving the horse the reins; the spurs pressed in on its sides, his gaze daring, almost foolhardy: thus did he come dashing ahead at a full gallop―on a wooden horse. Ah, there are peop. who are capable of imitating perfectly the movements of someone in motion, and when one looks more closely, they do not move from the spot, the whole thing is a false alarm.

Just This One Collision in Christ’s Life―What Suffering! He who is himself an individual hum. being, stands in need of a hum. being! He is God; as far as that goes, he has indeed no need of any hum. being, not of all the millions who have lived, not of the hosts of angels. But he does not will to be God, he wills to be a hum. being. Ergo he needs a hum. being; he needs someone he can use as an apostle. This other hum. being is of infinite importance to him―naturally, if he wills to be God, then

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this hum. being is less than nothing to him; but he does not will to be God―thus this hum. being is infinitely important to him, for the sake of the cause, that the apostle truly remains faithful to the cause. Christ was capable of tears in pleading with him to be faithful―that is how much he needs him for the sake of the cause―and also because he does not will to be God. Xt did not will to be God; in an almighty decision he has compelled himself to be an individual hum. being―now, bearing humanity’s cause upon his heart, he must actually suffer all the impotent misery of being a poor, individual hum. being―and at every moment it is his voluntary decision that compels him; he of course has it within his power to break through and be God. This observation is surely true, but a hum. being ought to be cautious even in connection with observations of this sort, because what rlly is relevant to him is that it is also for his sake that Xt suffers, and that Xt’s suffering and death are atonement also for him. And now, think of the way in which speculation talks about the God-Man!

My Difficult Position in Presenting Xnty, in Which Everyone Is Placed, if Xnty Is to Be Presented Truthfully. It was undeniably a forgivable illusion for a pers. to be in. He lives in Xndom where all are Xns; there are a myriad of paid preachers of Xnty: well, then, what could be more natural than for him to hit upon the idea of truly illuminating Xnty―that would be a project for which everyone would thank you. My friend, this will soon be seen to be an illusion. Year after year, the egotism of the hum. race has cheated God out of Xnty to such an extent, has itself taken possession of it, reedited it―and almost nothing is more important to hum. egotism than to prevent a person from gaining enlightenment about what Xnty is. On this question, the congregation will be in agreement with more or less the entire paid staff. To the paid staff it is indeed of utmost importance that Xnty not emerge in its true form, but it will also be in the interest of the congregation to oppose this, because it believes it is better served by retaining Xnty at the bargain price at which it in fact has it, and to join with the hired servants in the illusion that this [truthful presentation of Christianity] is not Xnty.

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The more I consider my presentation of Xnty, the clearer it becomes to me that it is true, but the more do I also notice that Xnty of course becomes the point of conflict at which two opposed interests collide. Either Xnty is to be presented in God’s interest, if I dare put it this way: this is its truth. But this presentation is not at all in the interest of hum. beings. The interest of hum. beings consists precisely in cheating God out of it for the lowest possible price. It can never be in the interest of hum. beings for Xnty to be presented in its rigorousness, so that it becomes something truly in earnest―but of course, if I dare put it this way, this is in God’s interest or it is the truth. Therefore, the person who proclaims Xnty truthfully must himself understand that this is certainly not something for which peop. will thank him―precisely the opposite. The more truthfully he does it, the more will he be abandoned by peop., the more will they see in him their worst traitor and enemy. For a pers. to view the matter differently, the most profound sort of transformation must first have taken place within him, so that he has learned to love and fear God to the point of hating himself, i.e., he must be a true Xn. Now, such Xns will support the truthful preaching of Xnty to the utmost of their abilities― yes, this goes without saying. And now, imagine yourself in Xndom, where people have simply made arrangements for these 1000 clerical livings. Yes, I certainly believe that the priests do not preach Xnty. The sort of Xnty preached by the priests is indeed something the natural hum. being can even very profitably give money for. But take Xnty as it truly is. Have a man preach that you are to make sacrifices for the sake of this teaching, that you are to expose yourself to dangers, do without all worldly goods―[“]And I am supposed to give money for that![”] the natural hum. being will say. And he is really right about that. Try it! Have a man go to someone else and say: [“]You are to give a portion of your wealth to the poor. You shall have much more to think about than making money, and your diligencea is to be rewarded with mockery―I charge 100 rd. as the preacher of this teaching.[”] I think the natural hum. being would reply: [“]Is he mad? Does he want me to give 100 rd. in order to be informed that I am supposed to fork out 10,000 rd.?[”] How different it is when it is a man who uses his great gifts as a priest to lead a life full of enjoyment, is honored and esteemed, and who then preaches this lenient teaching: Yes, it is easy to understand that it is something one is to give money for. But it is not rlly Xnty.

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But there is another question: Has a hum. being the right to proclaim Xnty, if I dare put it this way, in God’s interest? Is not this presuming too much? The answer to this must be: Xnty cannot truthfully be proclaimed any other way. But the consequence is that those who have proclaimed Xnty truthfully have rarely done so, in the natural sense, willingly. They have been compelled to do so by inner and outward suffering, so that they dared not do otherwise, but, in the natural sense, would rather have been free of it. Nonetheless, the difference from an “apostle” is still the fact that he [the apostle] has div. authority.

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Ordination is clung to tenaciously in Xndom. So a new teacher is ordained. This takes place with fearsome solemnity in the “quiet, serious hours.” Now he is ordained. Thereupon he arranges his life in utterly worldly fashion like other secular or ordained people. This sort of religiosity is really a parallel to that noted at an earlier point in this journal: a thief says God willing, on Sunday I intend to commit a burglary on Amagertorv. Moreover, ordination is very rigorously defended by the zealous clergy, that is, at every opportunity that it does not inconvenience them, but can used in clerical fashion to harass others. If a lay person wants to preach―God preserve us, then the clergy make a great fuss about ordination, about the gifts of grace that are communicated to them through ordination. At the same time, however, a learned theological battle is being fought concerning the nature and significance of ordination from a speculative point of view―and from our profound thinker, genius, and ecclesiastical bartender, senior court preacher X we expect a work that will shed new light on this mystery. Fortunate Xndom! Everyone who is a lover of fun and nonsense is invited to stoop to Xndom. Everything means 17 different things in Xndom, and at root the basis of all these many meanings is that they mean nothing. Now, the fun consists in the

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fact that people completely turn things around, and invert them, and reverse them ad libitum according to their desire and the occasion. This nonsensical mush of all concepts is established Xndom. 5

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A Man Has the Following Advertisement Printed in the Newspaper. Invitation.

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If there should be five or 6 like-minded people who together with me and without a lot of solemn ceremonies are willing to commit themselves simply to try to understand the N.T. and simply to strive to express its demands in deeds, I propose to begin holding religious gatherings at which I will interpret the N.T. Admission will be open to all with the exception of the clergy. For clergy, admission will require the payment of 10 rd. each time, which will be distributed to the poor. It seems to me that those who, turning their backs on imitation, have made money on Xt, must pay something extra if they want to hear a real sermon once in a while. In the event that any professor of theology should wish to be present at these gatherings, the payment for him will be 20 rd. each time. This seems to me not unreasonable, when one considers what it means to become aa professor of Xt’s having been crucified, or ab professor of Peter and Paul’s having been flogged.

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“The Professor.”

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coming a professor of the subject he has presented. Because what is essential here is the doctrine, the science; the personal life of the teacher is something accidental. But from an ethical-religious point of view, and especially from a Christian point of view, there is no doctrine in the sense in which it is the essential and the person involved is something accidental: here, imitation is what is essential. What nonsense it is, then, when, instead of imitating Xt or the apostles and suffering as they suffered, a person becomes a professor―of what subject? Well, of the fact that Xt was crucified and the apostles were flogged. The only thing lacking was for a professor to have been present on Golgatha, who had then immediately established himself as a professor―of theology? Yes, we see that theology had not yet arisen at that time―at that time it would therefore have been quite clear that if he was to become a professor of anything, it would have to be of the fact that Xt was crucified. Thus, a professor of the fact that someone else was put to death. It could be quite curious to have such a professor accompany the entire campaign. Thus, he would first become a professor of the fact that Xt was crucified. Then the apostles began. Then Peter and James were brought before the council, after which they were flogged―there would immediately be a new § and that very day the professor would become a professor of the fact that Peter and James were flogged. Then the council forbade the apostles to preach Xt. But what do the apostles do? They remain imperturbable and continue to preach because one ought to fear God more than hum. beings―and the professor is also imperturbable: he becomes a professor of the fact that Peter and James, despite having been flogged, did not refrain from preaching the truth―for a professor ought to love new §§ more than God and the truth. “The professor” continually follows along―of course, a professor’s slogan is to follow along, to follow along with the times.a Assuming that there was a professor of theology at that time,b it would

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be possible for a person to study the acts of the apostles and keep oriented about what it was that he was now professor of. Then it ended with the apostle being crucified― and the professor became a professor of the fact that the apostle was crucified. Later, the professor finally died with a peaceful death. This, you see, is the way one can put an end to all this scholarliness when it becomes altogether too pompous and pretentious: one seizes hold of the professor and excludes him until admissions are forthcoming on this point―and then the entire established order can very well continue to exist. Incidentally, “the professor of theology” is a point de vüe in Xndom: to the same degree that “the professor” is regarded as what is highest, to that same degree people are most disoriented with respect to Xnty; from the way in which “the professor” is judged, one can see the state of Xndom and how it judges Xnty.

The Proclamation of Xnty.

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Rich―Poor Unfortunate―Fortunate, etc. rlly, the gospel says, surely, that the poor, the unfortunate, etc. are closer to the gospel, more susceptible to the gospel than are the fortunate, etc. I lack the courage to say this quite without reservations, but to me the matter seems simple put this way. Also as presented in the N.T., Xnty is proclaimed equally to all. But then when Xnty is proclaimed truthfully, as in the N.T., it appears that this teaching strikes the fortunate the wrong way, whereas sufferers, the wretched―especially those whose misfortune consists of having been denied hum. consolation―are more disposed to seize hold of this sole consolation. Consequently, the fortunate are not excluded at the outset, far from it. But Xnty is proclaimed truth14 point de vüe] French, properly “point de vue,” point of view, criterion.

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fully, and then in fact it turns out that the fortunate, the robustly sensate of this world, drift away. But people have substantially reduced the price of Xnty, and this has led to the illusion that nowadays things are no longer as they were at the outset, when the wretched, the poor, etc. were more disposed to accept Xnty. Unfortunately, there is a worldly shrewdness that for safety’s sake wishes to include Xnty among all earthly goods and worldly pleasures. This way of proclaiming Xnty is what has confused Xnty’s situation.

The Rigorousness of Reduplication. When I indeed have conviction for a cause, when I then speak enthusiastically in its behalf and see how the whole crowd accepts it: is it not asking too much of me that, instead of simply being encouraged by this, I must first take a careful look, become uneasy, indeed must even suspect that I am on the wrong path, that this is a misunderstanding because I am being understood so quickly and the truth is being received with open arms like this? But this is how rigorous the truth is.

About Myself. Worldliness―Religiousness.

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Nonetheless, one must also bear in mind that an element of self-torment can also emerge here. It could after all also be true that some people actually do appropriate what has been spoken of. Luther says that Christian life includes: faith―works of love―and then persecution because of the faith and love (the passage is noted in my copy of his sermon). At another point (which also is noted in my copy) he also says that where persecution is absent, there is something wrong with the preaching. In my view, however, here again one must be wary of self-torment, for otherwise the task of bringing the teaching into the world could of course involve taking constant care that it not be accepted but rejected. Here we must commend ourselves into God’s hands and ask him to watch over us.

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ticed―that this is tarted up so into “making it a point of honor to live quietly” (Thessalonians)―and that this is the maximum sort of religiousness. Yes, in a sermon (e.g., the one titled What Have Christ’s Witnesses Accomplished?) Mynster does indeed declaim about the glorious fact that these witnesses of Christ did not retreat, did not prefer to live in concealment, but dared draw attention to themselves―but if someone were to do this nowadays, in our times: ah, God preserve us, Mynster would say. Now, as for myself, I think that in this respect I have done everything humanly possible to keep the cause unsullied. First I acquired renown as an author―and then, when I had acquired it, I broke entirely with worldliness and began in earnest as a religious author: it seems to me that any child could see that had worldly glory and honor been what I wanted, I would of course have attained them. I do not think it is possible, in venturing to draw attention to oneself for the sake of religion, to do more to prevent being confused with these servants of vanity who desire renown and the like.

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Luther as a Point de Vue. I could be tempted to take Luther’s collection of sermons and excerpt from it a great many propositions and ideas, all of which are noted in my copy, and then publish them in order to show how far present-day sermons are from being Xnty, so that people do not say that it is I who have taken it into my head to exaggerate.

Mynster’s Sermons―and Me. I was brought up on Mynster’s sermons―aber by my father, a simple and unassuming and earnest and strict man to whom it would never in all the world have occurred not to act in accordance with what he read. Had I been brought up by Mynster, I would of course have found out on Mondays, Tuesdays, etc.―on weekdays―that a person is not after all a fantast who simply acts accordingly. 31 aber] German, but.

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What a difference! And alas, what a satire on Mynster have I not become. This is not seen: The reverence I have inherited for him is something I have preserved, and this has surely benefited me and prevented me from becoming guilty of exaggeration, something that, incidentally, is utterly foreign to the whole of my being, for what is characteristic of me is precisely the circumspection with which I serve, whereas another person could become giddy as easily as ein, zwei, drei. Incidentally, this also stems from my having understood very early on and very profoundly that I was the exception.

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The Untruthfully Lenient Proclamation of Xnty.

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Now, it is not merely untrue, but as such it also incurs a heavy responsibility. When, that is, Xnty is proclaimed as lenient, it also lacks the degree of consolation needed by someone who is truly wretched. The fact is that peop. wish to exclude the truly wretched person entirely, to remain ignorant of the fact that he exists―and there, you see, is where Xnty rlly begins. Take whatever sermon you like from our times―and then take, e.g., someone who is truly suffering, someone who has melancholia bordering on madness, someone possessed, or take someone who is suffering for the sake of the truth: offer it to him―it sounds like mockery of him; it dare not offer consolation because it dare not even think about his suffering. That sorrows and adversities and difficulties and the like exist―well, even the most fortunate person must surely be aware of this. The sermon also takes note of these, but, be it noted, it does so in so weak a fashion that the total impression in no way disturbs the impression of a pleasant life, full of delights. And that is what the fortunate want to hear, if they have the merest crumb of hum. common sense.―And this is supposed to be Xnty. The mere fact that Xnty drags these wretched people onto the stage, brings them into society’s consciousness, so to speak, is offensive to the natural hum. being. Drags them onto the stage: why? In order to console them. Yes, thanks anyway, says the natural hum. being, we would prefer to be completely ignorant of such sufferings; that, after all, is why we have out-of-the-way places, far from society, where we chase them. And as soon as we notice that a pers. is in this state, that he is wretched in this way, 8 ein, zwei, drei] German, literally, “one, two, three,” i.e., without further ado. (See also explanatory note.)

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we offer―presumably out of compassion!―to remove him far, far away from ourselves. And it is precisely these people who are among those whom Xt seeks. Oh, you handsome preachers, you who are admired and who surely admire yourselves for your kinship with the classicism of a Goethe, who knew how to distance himself: ah, what do you in fact rlly understand of Xnty! Originally I had had a rather better understanding of Xnty: ah, but what, after all, was that until the world itself really taught me to pay attention. What first helped me was my original inner suffering, which had the appropriate degree of torment―and yet I was entirely unaware of the most decisive strenuousness associated with Christianity.

The Various Gradations of Christianity. One can regard Xnty as a fluid that can then be graded. The law is: the greater the rigorousness―the greater the consolation. The rigorousness is the spiritual aspect, but the spiritual aspect is in turn the consolation. Assuming the N.T. registers 14 degrees, the ordinary sermon registers scarcely one degree. The consequence of this is also that the usual sermon can console only those who have no real need of consolation―whereas the N.T. can console the most wretched person of all, even someone whom the most deviant fantasy could imagine to be more wretched than the most wretched person who has ever existed. One would think that consolation was something every pers. would like to hear, the more consolation the better. No, no, this must be understood cum grano salis. The degree of consolation is of course a constant reminder of the degree of wretchedness; but there is a kind of wretchedness of whose existence the natural hum. being wants at all costs to remain ignorant; look, this kind of consolation he truly does not want to hear about. When wretchedness is depicted, what is called to mind is something that has happened to many, something that can happen to a pers.―but so, too, sounds the enthusiastic discourse of consolation. Yes, thanks anyway, says the natural hum. being, I would in fact rather remain ignorant for as long as possible that such wretchedness exists. 30 cum grano salis] Latin, with a grain of salt.

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Dare proclaim consolation of this sort, and you will see―you will be expelled from good society, treated as a malicious pest against whom people must protect themselves―but Xnty, that lenient doctrine, that is something that a cultivated society of lifeloving people of the world will certainly want to keep. Therefore it is also required that when proclaiming Xnty in our times, a priest must “have world” enough to be able―to omit Xnty.

Consolation. In one sense, it is certainly easier to console others when one is happy oneself than to have to console others when one is oneself a sufferer. Ah, but in the former case the consolation will perhaps be that much the weaker, and a person will scarcely dare involve himself with the truly suffering person.―Therefore the proper relationship involves a suffering person for whom it is a consolation to console other sufferers. (see the discourse, “The High Priest” in the Friday discourses.)

To Ignore the Rabble. True enough, the shrewdest thing may be to ignore the rabble (that is, daily, every blessed day of one’s life, while on an occasional Sunday one declaims oratorically about loving one’s neighbor), existentially expressing that only a tiny portion of society exists. But a Christian priest is truly not permitted to do this. God in Heaven, how dare a priest say: It is beneath my dignity to involve myself with the rabble. Miserable fellow, do you know what you are saying, that it is blasphemy, that you are mocking Xt who introduced a new concept of dignity, the Christian concept, which consists precisely of existing for the rabble, of suffering its misunderstanding, perhaps its persecution, but all in order to help it forward.

R. Nielsen―and Me. Never have I suffered, qua author, as I have suffered with him. In isolation with my own criterion, things go well; I do not

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think at all of other people’s criteria, or I imagine that deep down they live in accordance with a criterion that is the same as mine. But now, to have to endure using my criterion alongside his. There were moments when I was close to becoming anxious and afraid for myself. And then, on the one hand, to want to compel him, and on the other hand to be concerned about whether I might not be doing him an injustice―and then the equanimity with which he composes himself: that this is just the way most people are; that he is in fact probably quite a lot further along than most people, which indeed he doubtless is, even if I have occasionally found his contentment and composure appalling. And then having to lie still during all this and wait, feeling obligated to wait. For I was always bound by my God-relationship: that I had resolved before God to make the attempt with him, that therefore I had to put up with absolutely everything. And what have I learned? Well, if from the beginning I had the feeling that I was the exception, I have certainly had that feeling confirmed. But finally, it will in fact end with him, just like that girl, regarding me as the most cunning deceiver―and this precisely because I have not employed cunning against him, whereas he perhaps wanted to employ cunning against me, though he certainly also had honest intentions. The impression his big book made on me was that his cunning had deceived him and that in this way he had arrived at a desire to deceive me. This grieved me profoundly. But because of the God-relationship I felt obligated to put up with everything, obligated to refrain from breaking with him, but to hope. And then something different happens, then the situation is reversed in such a strange manner that he has rlly come to deceive himself. For basically the public took my side and now will presumably continue doing so, increasingly forcing him to acknowledge that he is rlly just a reviewer, and that the fact that his starting point was untrue means that it has this power over him. This is extremely simple, and yet to him it could perhaps come to look as if I had a head full of intrigue that had planned an enormous stratagem. Strange! Ah, but it is nonetheless true that one cannot deceive a simple person.

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Christianity―The Human. How far Xnty is from relating straightforwardly to being a hum. being in such a way that only a little eloquence would be needed to get people to accept it, can best be seen from the fact that the real proclaimers of Xnty have had to be forced against their will and, simply qua hum. beings, would much rather have been exempted from it. But we are pampered by being brought up in Xnty from childhood. This is how we rlly live: We make our lives as rich in pleasure as possible and then we have the consolation of having Xnty in reserve, but it this not rlly Xnty.

Mynster’s sermon, “Observation on the Fate of Those to Whom the Usual Abilities Are Denied,” is not rlly intended as consolation for people who suffer in this way, but as pleasant reassurance for fortunate people so that they might go home from church armed against the impression of people who suffer in this way. There is some cunning in this. M. believes he cannot entirely ignore those who suffer in this way, about whom the gospel speaks so frequently. So he deals with the issue in a manner that in the final analysis denies that such sufferings are rlly an affliction. He does not speak words of consolation to those who suffer, but to the fortunate he says: Cheer up―the situation is not in fact so terrible, it also has its gentler side: there are cases in which the blind have had a spiritual eye that is all the more perceptive (e.g., Homer comes to mind), and in which the deaf have been profound thinkers. Look, that is preaching! Actually, it is mocking those who suffer. But fortunate people―well, they are happy to have sermons of this sort, which give them complete reassurance so that they can take undisturbed pleasure in enjoying life on the grandest scale―undisturbed by the wretchedness of life: “it is not so awful, it also has its gentler side.” In all, what we have here is a whole field for psychological observation: the artfulness with which human egotism, disguised as compassion, seeks to protect itself against the impression made by life’s wretchedness, in order to keep it from disturbing the gluttony of the lust for life.

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It is a la Goethe. And Mynster has indeed modeled himself on him. But is it in fact Xnty! Is it in fact a sermon about Him, compassion, who sought out sufferers of this sort, putting himself entirely in their place[?] And how often we preachify, speaking of the poor as being so much happier than the rich―and this is done in the guise of compassion. It is presented so movingly: How happily the poor are able to live, free of all the burdens of wealth. Now, is this a discourse designed to provide consolation to the poor? No, it is a turn of phrase that is exceedingly welcome to the rich, because then they do not need to give anything, or anything in particular, to the poor―fundamentally, the poor are happier; poverty has its beautiful side. The rich man goes home from church to his treasure, to which he now clings all the more firmly, edified by the beautiful lecture that spoke the language of compassion. But is it in fact Xnty! Is it in fact a sermon about Him, compassion, who in order to console poverty subjected himself to the same circumstances[?] But just as “the Christian state” rlly recognizes only one type of crime: theft―a frightful, indirect piece of evidence against “the Christian state”―so, too, do the privileged classes also have their priests, who are like coconspirators. They know, you see, how to talk in such a way as not in any way to disturb the enjoyment of life. Such priests thus practice the art of coming as close as possible to the gospel, though in such a way as not to disturb the possession and enjoyment of all earthly goods or the life that occupies itself with their acquisition and possession. If someone were to proclaim the gospel to them free of charge, they would not put up with it. It is important to them that “their priest” possesses more or less the same goods as they themselves possess. His income must correspond more or less to theirs; his rank and position in society must correspond more or less to theirs; his house must correspond more or less to theirs; he must be a knight of more or less the same orders of knighthood: then people think that they have a guarantee that he will take all due consideration in proclaiming the gospel, a guarantee that he is duly discomfited, so that the gospel will be not be discomfiting. The same applies, for that matter, to all classes of society: everyone wants the external circumstances of his priest to correspond more or less to his own external circumstances. One is then assured that he will not go too far. The priest of the bour-

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geoisie may very well fulminate against the luxuries of the elite, etc.―this is even very popular with the bourgeoisie, who lack the means―but each must canonize the living standard of his respective social class. I have heard a priest rant against major ecclesiastical posts; in his view, a priest ought to be paid enough to enable him to live respectably, but not a bit more. And how much money was required for that? Well, it was more or less his own salary, right down to the mark and shilling―and he occupied a post from which he did not expect to be transferred. I have heard a priest rant against clergy being decorated with stars and sashes of various orders―but he believed that he could be a Knight of the Dannebrog without causing offense―naturally, he was himself a knight.

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Lines. (poetic) The present-day proclamation of Xnty. Even if it is not intended to do so, the present-day proclamation of Xnty nonetheless definitively tends not toward bringing Xnty in but, in the very course of its talk, to spirit Xnty away. I do not claim that this means that absolutely no one benefits from proclamation of this sort, by no means. Of course there are 1000 clergy, every one of whom derives a benefit: a living, for some of them a very handsome income. But I do not understand what benefit Xnty has from it or what interest it could have in it. Even if we went further down the beaten path and established 10,000 such livings, I still do not see how it could rlly be of interest to Xnty or what benefit Xnty could derive from it―assuming that it is in fact the case that it is Xnty that is supposed to benefit from having priests and not priests who are supposed to benefit from Xnty. As occasionally happens in everyday life, when an actual author is shouldered aside into poverty, treated as a sort of superfluity, while a group of middlemen, consisting of fiddlers and woodwinds―I mean journalists―establish a little business through writing about this author: it seems to me that Xnty has been shouldered aside in similar fashion while a group of middlemen, fiddlers and woodwinds, establish a business at its expense. Like a river that, higher than any other, plunges down from a cliff, so too, but from oh so much infinitely higher, Xnty

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plunged down in order eternally to save the hum. race: now Xnty has to provide benefits in another way, like the river that drives the greatest number of mill wheels, it drives even more of them, 1000 wheels―every such wheel is a clerical living, the dwelling place of “the priest” who benefits from Xnty. But I hear a scream, a frightful scream, the scream of all the priests in unison, and it is easy to understand how frightful this scream must be, because screaming is of course the priest’s profession, and now 1000 in unison, and it is finally about clerical livings. A frightful scream: [“]So, do you want there to be no instruction in Xnty at all[?”] Reply: Well, the schoolteacher of course instructs children in Xnty. Furthermore. If there is to be truth here, how do the schoolteacher and the priest really differ? The matter is quite simple. Everyone who knows anything about hum. life also knows very well that as children we all have an impression of the sublime―but that it is our misfortune that by the time we have reached the age of 25 we have already learned to laugh at this childhood impression as a piece of fantasy, as something out of place in this world, something a practical man―and what more splendid title is there than [“]a practical man[”?]― merely laughs at. Now, if there is to be any truth in “the priest,” this is where his task lies: to stand as a witness, through his personal existence and through proclamation of the Word, testifying that talk of this sort is the ungodliness of worldliness and that Xnty consists precisely in remaining true to this childhood impression throughout one’s entire life. But then the priest must take care that he himself does not become homogeneous with the whole of worldliness. In Xndom, most peop. live as follows: Naturally, they are Xns as a matter of course―so there is nothing to dwell upon―and then they get busy living. Priests are theology graduates. Naturally, they are Xns as a matter of course; if all of us are Xns, then a theological graduate must undoubtedly be a Xn.

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Then a number of years pass, years of expectation during which the graduate waits until it is his turn to begin to seek a position. Then he begins to look. Naturally, he is a Xn as a matter of course; if all of us are Xns, then could it be that an older theological graduate, indeed, someone who is seeking an ecclesiastical call, was not a Xn! Of course not; the only question is whether he should seek a call in a provincial town or in the country, and if so, whether in Jutland or in Zealand, how important a call dare he expect, etc. A laborer is worthy of his hire―certainly. So if someone wants to take it upon himself truly to proclaim Xnty―and there are some people to whom Xnty either was already a matter of infinite importance or to whom it became such precisely by means of his preaching, and these people then say: [“]A man cannot live on air, it is absolutely nothing more than our duty, beyond thanking him, to pay him for his work.[”]―yes, this is proper. But this also differs infinitely from the enormously complex but utterly worldly traffic in the 1000 clerical livings. Whether the theological graduate rlly cares about Xnty and whether the congregation to which he comes rlly cares about Xnty―no questions at all are raised concerning this. After all, the state has made arrangements for these 1000 clerical livings―and now indeed a living has just become vacant for which the theologian can have hopes. When it is a matter of physical necessities that simply announce their presence in straightforward fashion, it may perhaps be proper that the city, e.g., arranges for 50 bakeries, but Xnty has absolutely no interest in having 1000 clerical livings arranged―its interest is that Xnty be proclaimed truthfully. The God in Heaven who concerns himself with sparrows, the God in Heaven who has expressed in no uncertain terms that he takes an interest in Xnty, a cause that indeed is his cause: he will certainly see to it that true proclamation finds wages enough to live. Let Xnty become very valuable to you, then venture to believe in this God in Heaven―and then proclaim Xnty: do not be ashamed, if need be, to say

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Oh, do not believe that what Xt and the apostles and all the witnesses to the truth have sanctified and made into the highest dignity is beneath your dignity, but strive to understand that what is confusing things is the ungodly, worldly dignity that has been brought into the world by a worldly clergy.

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straightforwardly that you cannot live on nothing―it is a human need concerning which you need not be ashamed. But shame on you for being in kinship with all this worldly traffic that has seized hold of Xnty with its coarse, worldly hands and transformed it into 1000 livings; shame on you for accepting the hand that worldliness wants to extend to you.

Judaism―Christianity. Even for Luther, how Jewish religiosity and Christian religiosity differ remains unsettled. Jewish religiosity relates to this life, has promise for this life―Christian religiosity is essentially a promise for the next life, because Christianity is rlly suffering truth. In one and the same sermon (the sermon on the gospel for the first day of Pentecost)― indeed, separated by only a couple of sentences―Luther presents the Xn “as a man of God, a pers. for whose sake God spares the country and the people” and that the world must regard the Christian as [“]a bird of ill omen who brings corruption and damnation upon the country and the people.” And indeed Luther also speaks this way in other passages, where he says that a storm immediately arises wherever there is a true Xn and true Xn confession: “when Xt goes on board the boat, a storm will immediately arise”―so the Xn cannot exactly be welcome in the world “which lived in peace and quiet until that pers. came along and disturbed everything,” as it also says in one of Luther’s sermons.

Jewish Religiosity―Christian Religiosity. Of all religiosity, Jewish religiosity comes closest to simply being a hum. being. Its formula: Stay close to God, then things will go well for one here in the world. Christian religiosity is much, much too high for us. So it is certainly true that Xnty has proclaimed grace as the essential thing, but this, again, has been taken entirely in vain.

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About Myself. If only I could really impress this upon my contemporaries. I am not a hum. being who, possessing all the ordinary hum. prerequisites for leading a humanly happy life, then, through having read Holy Scripture, chose to suffer for the truth. Oh, far from it. I certainly believe that this can be done, indeed, that it is actlly required in the N.T. But nevertheless it was much too high for me. And in any case, I have rlly been brought up in a rather toned-down Xnty. If that [voluntarily choosing to suffer for the truth] had been the case with me, I would not have dared venture in that way; I would have feared coming too close to Xt. Then, with a joyful spirit and with gratitude to God, I would have seized the happy, smiling life offered to me, and for the rest I would have relied upon grace, which of course is something we all must do. But my situation is as different from that as can be. Ah, how my soul was filled with a yearning, especially in the days of my youth, to be a hum. being like others so that I could enjoy life. But frightful sufferings placed me outside the universal hum. sphere. I am not one of those profoundly religious types, in that sense [of having voluntarily chosen to suffer]. From my earliest days I have been a man under compulsion. Through all these torments occasioned by what was denied me, my task became clear to me for the first time and thus it bestowed upon me an indescribable satisfaction, for which I can never sufficiently thank God. I have often thought of my life in terms of a metaphor. Assume that somewhere or other there lived a mighty prince―and somewhere else there lived an artist who was capable of producing works of very great interest to this prince. Then I imagine that he had this artist taken captive and imprisoned. Then he said to him: [“]You are to have the best of everything here with me, but every day you are to work for a certain period of time until you are finished.[”] Thus, it has seemed to me as if Governance had caught hold of me and said to me: [“]You are to direct attention to Xnty; you have the prerequisites for doing this, and you are to have whatever else you need in addition. For the rest, you will be permitted to take whatever joy you can in life, you may have a certain number of hours of leisure every day and also make jokes and amuse yourself. But you are to work diligently every day. You shall also find an indescribable bliss through your

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work―but you are nonetheless a captive, and in many a weak moment it will in fact seem to you that you would rather be free. This will not help you, however: You shall. Be careful to do it with a good will, make sure you are grateful for the grace that is shown you, then in your bliss you will forget all your suffering, which is the bond with which I hold you. But if you will not, then you will be compelled.[”] I have not been able to understand my life in any other way. Had I been a happy person who had freely chosen Xnty, my situation would have been entirely different. One of the consequences of this is that I constantly say that I am without authority. Xnty has disappeared from the world to such an extent that what must be done first and foremost is to secure a reliable understanding of what it is. So this has been my task.

Prudence―The Good. Prudence also prevents a pers. from doing the good in this way. We all know that the good pays very poorly in this world, so that wanting to do it looks like stupidity. This is something I have often pointed out. But here is a new form. If it is true that the good pays very poorly in this world (something of which we all are highly aware), why, then, do I do it? It must certainly be because I ought to do it. But of course it is very “stupid” to express so emphatically that there is something one ought to do. A person is an adult, a man, a father, an intelligent man―and then is he supposed to have a relationship with Our Lord that is more or less like the relationship of a little boy to his parents: he simply shall and that is that. That would of course be ridiculous. The priest can declaim something about this on Sunday―but it does not actually admit of being realized. If someone wanted to proclaim Xnty because he ought, it would of course be enormously stupid and ridiculous for him to betray the fact that he was so afraid of God that he did it simply and solely because he should do it. But if it is someone’s living, perhaps a good and lucrative living―well, then, proclaiming Xnty is something serious, there is nothing stupid or ridiculous about it.

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Oh, infinite depth, oh, appalling bounty of fraud and cunning and deceit, conscious or unconscious, continued from generation to generation, practiced by these thousands upon thousands, established through practice―and then one poor, individual hum. being, a sickly person whose life hangs by a thread and who almost dies every day, sometimes every hour, an anxious and troubled conscience―and he is, as it were, ordered to take command against all this. It is indeed like a fairy tale; indeed, it is almost like a fairy tale in which the cruel stepmother thinks up one or another entirely impossible task in order to torment the stepchild―except that here it is the God of love, and it is out of love that he grants me all this.

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Confounded consequence of the fact that thousands upon thousands, who understand nothing, are supposed to pass judgment, guided by individuals who do not understand anything either―for, after all, I am truly the only person who rlly possesses the categories that are relevant to my cause. They continually turn my situation around: they explain that I broke with the vulgarity of the mob because I was an aristocrat who haughtily wanted to demonstrate his disdain for peop. What nonsense. It could never occur to an aristocrat to take such a step; such an action is simply unaristocratic. I acted precisely because I was aware that I was anything but an aristocrat, aware that my life had expressed this fact, aware that in my melancholia and religiosity I had at least been aware of what it is to love “the neighbor.” But now, because people assumed that I acted as an aristocrat, they also expected that I would continue to act like an aristocrat: travel abroad or withdraw completely in elite arrogance. Here it comes again: what occupies me is Xnty; and the common man has scarcely anyone who loves him more sincerely than I do. But this, which is so simply Christian―it has become something utterly alien in Xndom!―where all of us are Xns.

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Lines by the “Prudent Person.” The first time is always the most expensive. The first time one buys spinach even its weight in gold is hardly enough; later in the summer one can buy almost all too much for 2 shillings. It is the same with Xnty. Thus a prudent person is not so crazy as to bid on Xnty at its first appearance. No, but around 1800 years later it will have properly fallen in price to the point that prudence even advises bidding on it. This even holds true in connection with a genius. The first time, prudence refrains―as early as the second and third times, there may be talk of bidding, depending on how important a genius it is, for if it is a very important genius, one must wait until the 6th or 7th time. You see, this is prudence. And, precisely the way in which one proves the truth of Xnty nowadays― by the fact that it is accepted by reasonable and prudent people―precisely this is proof that Xnty no longer exists.

My Home. When one lives alone, as I do, one is all the more thrown back on one’s home, for there, at any rate, I can be comfortable. And the way things are in my home, nowadays! Last summer, when I was at the tanner’s place, I suffered indescribably from the stench. I did not dare risk spending another summer there, and furthermore the whole thing was too expensive for me. Where I now live, in the afternoons I suffer so much from reflected sunlight that I feared at first that I might go blind. And now the worries about Strube. That this pers. upon whom I depended as on no one else, the man I inherited from my father, have known for twenty years, whom I have regarded as one of those healthy, strong, powerful workers―that he should then, precisely during the time he was at my

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place, become unbalanced, that he should have to be admitted to the hospital, that he wants to reform the whole world, and the like. If a person works on intellectual matters on the scale that I do, one wants one’s associates to be as I had imagined Strube to be. And now all these provisions to be made for him, the sight of him suffering despite some success in calming him down; the concern that it might recur and come to stay, and then, because it is in my house, become a sensational event upon which the newspapers would seize.a And now from another quarter. Not long ago (when I was still living at the tanner’s) I happened to come home one day, and someone must have been in my desk and in one of my chests, the mahogany one. It is possible, though it is almost unthinkable, that I myself forgot to close it when I went out, but all the same it is extremely unpleasant. This sort of thing can make a home unpleasant, even if one has the most reliable household, as I have. It was extremely unpleasant for me for Anders’s sake, Anders, with whom I have been especially pleased because And when one comes home to all this and is tired, often also unpleasantly agitated by the coarseness to which I am exposed every day: oh, to proclaim Xnty in this way is something other than being a priest. And then, that I can no longer afford to produce literary work―because when I produce I forget everything.

About Myself, Personally. I see only all too clearly how each one of the people to whom I relate qua author rlly deceives me. But I cannot say it to him; in such matters I am always restrained by a modesty that enjoins silence; it seems to me that it is as if I wanted to make myself better than him, alas, I, a penitent. Furthermore, it also seems to me that it is as if I sometimes do

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, while on the other hand I have to fear that if I now let him go, it would have too strong an effect on him, and God knows, he remains, unchanged, the most good-natured pers. I have known, or one of the most good-natured, and solicitude itself with respect to me; but at that time I did see how heated he could be and how obstinate.

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them an injustice by using too great a criterion. But good Lord, is there not one criterion for everyone; or are there some people of the sort who are obligated to live up to a criterion that is so great that it is eo ipso given that they will be deceived by everyone with whom they come into contact, because according to the greater criterion, even when these others act honestly, they are in fact deceiving[?] When I speak with each one of them individually about one of the others, about how there could be deception there, he understands me―but he surely believes that I do not see that he himself is also deceiving me.

R. Nielsen―and Me. I am certainly no Socrates, Nielsen no Plato, but the relationship might nonetheless be analogous. Now, take Plato! No doubt, the great preponderance of ideas is of course from Plato himself, but in order to keep the point of departure unsullied, he did not hesitate to attribute everything to Socrates; he did not become weary at the possibility that people might get tired of it always being Socrates, Socrates. Ah, but Nielsen took the ideas and concealed their source; finally, he revealed his source, but concealed the scale on which he had taken things from it, item that I had privately gone to great lengths to familiarize him with my cause. I have done nothing, but have left everything in the hands of Governance.

About Myself. If, next to one of the booths on Deer Park Hill, where the shouts of the barkers and blasts from trumpets resound incessantly, there lived a nymph who had only a spirit voice: that is how I live. Nonetheless, it shall be heard long after silence has fallen upon all these robustly sensate fellows in clerical gowns who provide sensory satisfaction to the congregation by marrying 7 times and are busily engaged in worldly activities, while in addition shouting or declaiming Xnty once a week. 4 eo ipso] Latin, by that very fact.

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The Exertion. Ah, when everyone is a Xn and everyone, everyone who proclaims Xnty proclaims that it consists of making life as easy and as rich in pleasures as possible, and then in addition to assume that God is gracious, that God wants you to be happy and satisfied―indeed, that wanting to make life somewhat more strenuous is tempting God: how burdensome it is, then, to make life more difficult for oneself, almost as if one were getting involved with being meritorious. But, you, my God and Father, what then is Xnty[?] I am supposed to make my life easy for myself, be happy and contented. Thus, where there is danger, there truly I am not to go, God will surely not have it―where truth suffers, from there truly I am to stay away, for God wants me to have an easy life―so, if a nation is undergoing moral disintegration, if the existence of Xnty becomes an illusion, a hallucination, I am truly supposed to remain silent, this is God’s will. Ah, ungodly worldliness, which has taken Xnty in vain. No. I am supposed to suffer for the truth―when I see it suffer along my way, to suffer, even if it were unto death, but feel with infinite profundity, all the same, that I am saved by grace. And I am supposed to rejoice, always rejoice―“in God”―that is something a suffering witness to the truth knows best how to interpret. But woe to you who have taken Xnty in vain, for having done injury in this way, for causing a person so much trouble that he could have been spared had you not taken it upon yourselves to explain what Xnty is―and now his flesh and blood approve of your explanation.

How much Peter endured during the 3 days Xt was dead! To be separated from Xt like that, after having denied him. Dreadful. And yet Peter was not repudiated, but was forgiven and became the apostle he was. You see, this is indescribably lenient compared with Jehovah’s relation to Moses, who did not enter the Promised Land simply because he doubted.

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Ah, infinite leniency, of which I am almost fearful lest it enchant me into taking it in vain. This is almost what worries me most about Xnty: its leniency― I become so anxious that I might take it in vain. 5

The Judgment upon Xndom. If it were possible to defend the claim that nowadays Xnty was no longer embattled, that inasmuch as we are all Xns, we could no longer persecute one another, etc., but take life in straightforward fashion, not inversely―if this were so, a sign of this would be that if Xt came again, he would not be put to death. And yet in Xndom it is in fact commonly remarked that this is what would happen to him. If Xnty were a doctrine, this might also be possible. It could not happen to Plato, for example, if he were to come a second time and had been put to death the first time. But Xnty is no doctrine; it is an existence, an existing. Christianity is not the doctrine about denying oneself, about this being the right thing to do for 3 reasons, but is: to deny oneself. And because Christ would again instantly express self-denial absolutely, death would be certain.

Imagine the lovely church―the festive gathering―the young women with almost childlike piety―etc. etc.―now the organ stops playing, the speaker steps forward. He speaks enthusiastically of self-denial; he is moved, actually moved (this sort of thing also happens to “the poet,” the true poet); he moves everyone; he says it and he believes it (as the true poet also does; this is precisely the condition for the poem’s truth): that even if everything were required of him, he would be willing (perhaps prior to this we have sung hymn 595 in the Evangelical Hymnal) to sacrifice everything―and everyone is blessedly moved. Ah, my friend, my friend, do it, do it in reality―and everything is changed: you no longer enchant anyone, but everyone flees from you; you only make the girls anxious, and the men loathe you;

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you inspire no one; you are scarcely permitted to climb into the pulpit―in Xndom, where all are Xns and that speech is admired, that poet’s speech.

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About Myself. Christianity is rlly as good as abolished, as it were. But first a poet’s heart must break, or a poet must stand in the way in such a manner as to block the way for all illusions. This is the stopping; and in our petty circumstances, it is my task. This poet loves the ideal; he differs from a poet in the usual sense in that he is ethically attentive to the fact that the task is not to poetize the ideal but to resemble it. But this is precisely what he despairs over, as well as over the pain he must bring to people when this gets situated in actuality. But, he is scrupulous and exacting as no one else is―and as only unhappy love is (and thus his life is of course an unhappy love affair in relation to the ideal)―with respect to all the illusions, which he discovers and destroys on the grandest scale.

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Luther. This is where we really go to begin again: Luther. Coupling worldliness and religiousness together was done a little too quickly. Luther may have been right concerning himself: he certainly possessed the inner truth to dare to venture doing opposite things and yet be quite free in doing them: married and yet as if not married, within worldliness and yet as if alien to it despite partaking of everything, etc. Ah, but it was dangerous simply to teach this in straightforward fashion, because it made things altogether too easy for the whole of worldliness, which is satisfied with providing mere assurances and thus remains worldliness pure and simple. Truly, how many are there in each generation of whom it is truly the case that despite owning all earthly goods, they own them in such a way that they nonetheless do not possess them, are will-

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ing to surrender them, are not at all attached to them, would gladly let go of them[?] Oh, dangerous spirituality. It is so much simpler to say, I am afraid of myself, afraid that it could all be my own self-deception, so I would rather renounce them. Luther himself, incidentally, was greatly tried in external struggles, was not entirely in conformity with worldliness, and was kept in check by the enormous offense that was awakened by the step he took in marrying. Ah, but now all checks have disappeared! Luther’s true successor would come to precisely the opposite result of Luther, because L. came after fantastical exaggerations in the direction of asceticism, whereas he would come after the frightful deception to which Lutheranism gave birth.

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The Good Books. A priest sits and studies the writings of these devout, noble souls, and he learns them by heart―and declaims. If I were in charge, it is precisely books of this sort that would be burned, for they may certainly plunder the bad ones. But this wretched thievery: that something that another person learned in enormous torment, in mortal danger, in affliction and anxiety―is now declaimed by such a scoundrel, who does not bear the slightest resemblance to that sort of person.

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The Great Supper. One could ask, by what right does the inviter have those who were invited put to death because they did not come; this is indeed a rather peculiar sort of invitation. As far as we ourselves are concerned, we must say that we honestly deserve it because we of course promised to come when we were baptized. If one does not wish to emphasize this point, then the answer is that the inviter is God, who in fact has proprietary rights over us human beings.

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Spirituality―And Spirituality. People accuse the Middle Ages of overwrought spirituality for having taken seriously the idea of giving up the world―perhaps. But is it not a much greater sort of spirituality to come into possession of spirituality, to expend a great deal of time acquiring and preserving it, and then to believe oneself to be so spiritual that deep down one is infinitely elevated above all this[?] The Middle Ages had anxiety and said, [”]I dare not trust myself―therefore I do not want to have posts of honor and dignity.[”] Nowadays we are more spiritual; we aspire to such things, we arrange our entire lives around them―but deep down we are so spiritual that we are elevated above all such things as though above mere child’s play―whether we go about clothed in rags or in velvet with stars and sashes, it is all the same to us―though we do in fact prefer to go about in velvet with stars and sashes. But then this bespangled person says: I can assure you that deep down I, etc., and if it were required of me―and he gets to be 70 years old in a world he himself calls wretched and corrupt―but he encountered no summons, it was not required of him. Yes, truly, it was not required of him, for no one came to compel him, because he used all his cunning to avoid every danger, he used all his cunning to ally himself with whomever held power at the moment― but if it were required, etc. This is more or less making a fool of God; it is like when a child plays the game of hide and seek so that no one shall find him. Aloud a person says, If it were required of me, etc.―and then quite softly he says, Just see if Satan himself can get hold of me, that is how cleverly I shall conceal myself.

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Judaism―Xnty It makes an infinite difference, after all, whether I assume that the mark that I am the pious person whom God loves is that everything goes well for me, that I am in possession of worldly goods, and the like (this is Judaism), or that the mark is precisely the fact that I am a sufferer, that I always face adversities and difficulties (God’s fatherly solicitude in order that I remain vigilant), and finally suffer the opposition of the world because I remain with God and confess Xt (this is Xnty).

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JOURNAL NB19

JOURNAL NB19 Translated by Joel D. S. Rasmussen Edited by Bruce H. Kirmmse and K. Brian Söderquist

Text source Journal NB19 in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter Text established by Niels W. Bruun, Anne Mette Hansen, and Finn Gredal Jensen

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My concern with respect to the publication of the writings that are complete My boundary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

p. 52. p. 54.

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Light―To Lighten.

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Rigor lightens decision (as one says: I will lighten your load); from rigor the decision is lightest, light as the bird that takes off from the swinging branch which,a assists. (This thought was doubtless expressed in an initial draft of the three discourses on “The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air” in the opening of the first. Or it may be found recorded some other place, I don’t know where, for which reason I record it again.)

The Difference between Prof. Martensen and Me. Prof. M.’s entire life and also his work as an author indirectly show signs that right from the beginning he has labored under this notion: that it is naturally self-evident that he is Xn. He was raised (and strictly even) in Xnty, baptized early, and later confirmed: it is self-evident, then, that he is Christian. Then he became a student; chose to study theology―naturally it is self-evident that he was Xn. It was not that he chose to become Xn―no, that was obviously given―he chose between alternative courses of study and chose theology. Became a graduate. He has perhaps considered whether he should pursue the practical or theoretical path, become priest or professor. He became professor―naturally, that he is Xn is self-evident. Then he studied, and fixed his gaze upon all kinds of magnificent scholarly problems―a most serious man such as he was, he talks incessantly about seriousness and more seriousness. It’s otherwise with me. I was very strictly raised in Xnty; but its effects upon me were such that I at one point in my life understood that this being Xn was something imaginary, but the decision to be-

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come Xn was for me so weighty that I then invested my personal existence in Xnty, something which was already intimated by the fact that at an earlier time I had rlly been offended by it. I then occupied myself purely personally with this question. In everything I considered, I also thought: if this is Xnty, can you then seriously decide for yourself to become Xn[?] Or, if this is Xnty, does it not disturb you too much to be Xn[?] But on the basis of this imagined notion, I would with natural readiness to be Xn either actually become Xn, or straightforwardly break with it. That is why I have been so very much occupied with getting it firmly established what Xnty is, not for the sake of the doctrine, but for my sake, so I could get it decided whether I would be Xn. This is my life and my work as an author. I am not a serious man, at least not in the sense that I write systems, organize the doctrine of Xnty―while naturally it is self-evident that I am Xn.

What infinite confidence Martensen has! He talks incessantly about great matters: about the entire Church, the apostolic age, the dogmatics of the first three centuries, medieval dogmatics, the dogmatics of the Reformation period, the entire succession of famous doctors of the Church―and Christ says: I wonder whether faith will be found on earth upon my return. Such matters do not occupy Martensen―he is objective.

[a]

In Information on Dogmatics M. complains that Stilling addresses the issue with “unwashed hands,” which is why one cannot become involved with him. From the Christian point of view such matters should not be disturbing, since obviously Xt himself (who, in parenthesi noted, was no elegant court

[a]

39 in parenthesi] Latin, parenthetically.

Martensen

Martensen’s Information on Dogmatics.

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for to crucify the truth is presumably of no significance, the important thing is whether one does it with washed hands or―O horror!―with unwashed hands.

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preacher who in stately fashion brings Xnty back to external elegance) says: whether or not one eats with unwashed hands is of no significance. And how natural it is, then, that Xt judged thusly, he who was more strongly concerned with the very opposite, that, e.g., a Lady Macbeth can wash her hands from morning until night, use an ocean to wash them― and yet they do not become clean, or that Pilate of course also washed his hands, presumably so as not to crucify the truth―with “unwashed hands.”

The Parable of the Lost Sheep. This parable surely expresses in the strongest terms that the hum. being has nothing at all to contribute toward his own salvation: the shepherd takes the sheep, lays it across his shoulders, carries it, etc.―the sheep has only to lie perfectly still. Oh, but this is of course only one moment. If the sheep does not die in the same instant then it shall indeed have to strive again. And is it not then infinitely difficult to be able to lie so perfectly still that no new guilt arises, or that anxiety over the old guilt does not once again get the upper hand, etc. Xnty is mildness in severity. Yet since severity is thus the dialectical moment, hum. beings have completely abolished it and pretended that Xnty is mildness. It is the monstrous danger in everything that has a dialectical moment that surely ought to be sublated, transformed into its opposite (severity into mildness), that we make the matter all too easy by turning the dialectical into something about which we at most give assurances, that in our innermost we, etc. The greatest deception and cunning in the realm of the spirit is related to devious practices concerning such a dialectical element that, because it ought to be sublated, is then done all too easily, whereby the second thesis (mildness here) becomes untruth.

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Christianity’s Consolation―To Die Away from the World. Christianity is consolation and mildness, so it is said. Good. But one demand Xnty nevertheless makes is that a hum. being shall die away from the world. See, here we have it again. How many are there in each generation who would retain a suffering for which they sought consolation, if they first endured all the sufferings lying within the compass of dying away from the world. For here lie rlly almost all hum. anxieties. There is only one sorrow more―that over one’s sin―and how many have that, especially in the specific sense of the term. If then one wishes to say that it is a consolation that Xnty wants to help an individual to die away from the world―but, how many are there indeed who really desire it, such that they in truth find it consoling to be helped to it. No, Xnty rlly exists no more. The coiled spring― and which coiled spring? the absolute itself―has long since been slackened, and the whole thing has become nonsense.

Sadness. Oh, final consolation, to have only the consolation of consoling others. Oh sadness, when that which one calls consolation and by which one is oneself consoled, appears to others so terrible that they above all decline that sort of consolation, which seems to them the worst of all plagues.

My Category. What I rlly represent is: the obstruction, which puts an end to the reflections continuing from

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generation to generation and asserts Christian qualities.―I am supported in being able to do this, for I was myself “halted” very early in life, placed outside the universally hum. in unspeakable agonies, assigned solely to the relationship to God. Although standing in the middle of actuality on a scale unmatched by anyone else here at home (for I have in some measure reached “actuality”), in yet another sense I have lived as though I were in a world of my own. I have never doubted the rightness of my cause and its significance―doubted, no, I am as far as possible from that; I have had but one expression: that I am never able to thank God enough for what has been granted to me, so infinitely much more than I had expected or could have dared expect, and I have longed for eternity in order to thank God unceasingly. A lovely girl, my beloved―her name will go down in history with me―was to some degree squandered on me, so that through new sufferings (alas, it was a religious collision of a special sort) I might become what I became. In a certain sense I, again, was squandered for the cause of Christianity; in a certain sense, for humanly speaking, I have truly not been happy―Oh, but still I can never thank God enough for the indescribable good he has done for me, so infinitely much more than I had expected. Would anyone ask whether there was something I think could have happened differently, and that would then have been better? Oh, foolish question: no. There were a few things I think could have happened differently so that I then could have been happier, humanly speaking―Oh, but that it therefore would have been better, no, no. And in indescribably blissful wonder I also understand in retrospect more and more how that which happened was the only thing, the only right thing.

How the N.T. Wants Only to Be Read Captivatingly. The fundamental confusion in Christianity, as I have said often enough, is that it has been converted into doctrine. In relation to a doctrine one must first and foremost see synoptically in order to become familiar with the whole thing. With the N.T. it is just the opposite. It relates solely to the ethical, and therefore wants you to begin quite simply by taking a single point―but then see to it that you do it.

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Therefore, when an individual becomes conceited by wanting to understand the whole thing first etc., and pretends that this is love of the truth and not some cunning that wants to be free from actually doing it, then one can take these steps (and in case it is oneself who is the party concerned, then one should also behave in the following way toward oneself): take one or another of the passages in the N.T. that contain a demand for self-denial and renunciation―words that are always as simple as possible to understand but so difficult to execute―and now say to him: why do you not act according to these words which, after all, are so easy to understand―then one sees the cunning. Ethically the matter is never about all this understanding and comprehending, but rather about doing what one understands― and that which a hum. being rlly ought to do is always easy to understand. But this is also precisely what hum. cunning always pushes aside―in order to go into the profundity of the matter, while adding that obviously one cannot act upon something one has not understood. Yes, indeed, and that is also why God has always arranged things such that whatever ought to be done is so easy to understand that the stupidest person can understand it right away. What is easier to understand than: give your fortune to the poor―but there are other difficulties here. What is easier to understand than all the demands tending toward self-denial and renunciation[?] But we do not at all wish to hear such things mentioned. On the contrary, it has gotten turned around, as though we were to act according to the profundity. Were that the case then God would truly be a mediocre partner of a lawgiver who―presumably in order to experience the joy of not having his laws obeyed―made his laws so deep and profound that hum. beings had to devote their lifetimes to interpreting them―and thus they were legally justified because they did not have to comply with them, nor even indeed to make a start―for even at the final moment it would not have become clear to them what was required. “But, then, is it not of absolute importance first of all to understand?” No, ethically the important thing is that you do what is so infinitely easy to understand that you understand it right away, but which your flesh and blood want to prevent you from doing.

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The Pharisee―And the Tax Collector.

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by contrast

In his sermon on this, Luther rightly points out that the Pharisee’s guilt was also that he, since he felt himself superior to the tax collector, gave no thought at all to helping him toward salvation, but was contented with feeling superior, and thus used the tax collector, if I may say so, to illustratea his own virtue and piety.

It is also remarkable that the gospel puts a purely Christian prayer in the mouth of the tax collector, and thereby of course rlly introduces Christianity prior to Christianity. For this reason Luther also holds the opinion, in the same sermon, that one must suppose that the tax collector has heard Xnty’s proclamation. Thus, the parable is not showing differences within Judaism, but is showing this difference: Judaism―Xnty.

Contemporaneity with Xt―Dying Away. Let us suppose someone said: What impels me to Christ and binds me to him is not even so much the consciousness of sin as it is what Peter also says: To whom shall we go; I assume that the relationship to God, the salvation hereafter, is conditional on Xt, which is why I hold fast to him. Fine. But think now of contemporaneity. What does Xt express? Xt expresses dying away from the world, living in poverty, in contempt, in persecution. Should you now in the situation of contemporaneity wish to hold fast to him, then you must conform to his existence. For Xt has not lectured on a doctrine about dying away from the world, but is himself existentially the dying away from the world. Now, is eternal salvation really so great a good to you that you consider it the absolute good at this price? It is clear that at this price a good can indeed only be the absolute good. How pedagogically careful Xnty is! It does not speak immediately of all the difficulty, neither of course did Xt in relationship to the disciples. It says: would you like to become eternally blessed? If you answer “Yes,” then Xnty says: well, then embrace Xt, embrace him through and through―but he expresses exactly what is meant by being dead to the world.

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My Conception of Xnty. When it is introduced, an immense cry will be raised that it is an exaggeration, that I indeed actually want to abolish Xnty or frighten people away from it etc., etc. To that, this may be answered. When, generation after generation, these thousands and millions have been permitted unchallenged to knock down the price again and again: yes, then the reversal must indeed appear to be a frightful exaggeration, especially since―precisely because the error has persisted for such a long time―it must be taken if possible to a qualitative extreme, so that ultimately the reversal does not also become conformed to the error. But in such a case the mistake truly lies not in the reversal but in the earlier error.

My Opinion is that it is entirely in order that a teacher of Xnty be paid by the learners; but at the same time I also think that in all eternity it is unacceptable to alter Xnty in order to make people the more willing to pay the teacher―for what is then not rlly Xnty. If they would rather have that, fine, but then just let them quit calling it Xnty.

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The Difference between My Struggle and Earlier Ones.

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Previously, they contended over one or another doctrine, because one party would not accept the doctrine etc.a My struggle, much more inward, concerns: the how of the doctrine. I say that a person can accept the entire doctrine, but destroy it as he recites it. Here the contention is not, therefore, that about the others not wanting to accept Xnty, but about their wanting to have it in the wrong way. They want, e.g., to have the whole of Xnty―but by virtue of reasons: then it is not Xnty. They want to have the whole of Xnty, but by virtue of speculation:

a

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then it is not Xnty. They want to have the whole of Xnty, but as a doctrine: then it is not Xnty. This struggle is much more inward, and is unlikely to become popular. 5

The Middle Ages―The Modern Age.

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and then note well that it is nonetheless simply and solely unconditionally by grace that one is saved, quite the same as it is grace that saves someone who only converts on his deathbed.

Herein lay the error and also the vanity of the Middle Ages: running to a monastery, flagellating oneself―and then being admired for it. No, remain where you are―but witness for truth and against untruth, do not busy yourself with all manner of earthly and finite objectives, but work for the truth and the kingdom of God: and you will see, you will soon become unhappy in the world, hum. speaking, scourged in either one or another way―[a] But when one busily fills his time with all kinds of finite pursuits and then in ultimate matters gives an assurance concerning his inwardness etc.: yes, then he immediately conforms with worldliness and does not collide with it. Xnty must make a hum. unhappy, humanly speaking, if this hum. being is earnest about Xnty. It instantly directs his whole mind and effort toward the eternal; he thereby become heterogeneous with all worldliness and must collide. And then, without further ado, dozens are appointed as priests of this doctrine―this doctrine that, hum. speaking, is like a plague to the natural hum. being. Then again, the natural hum. being probably no longer exists―we are of course all Xns.

The Whole of Xnty Has Become a Figure of Speech. How many priests are there, indeed, who dare personally admit that they pray, they personally, that they personally consign their lives to God, praying to God in that connection. No, the priest personally arranges his life like other menfolk, i.e.:

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according to prudence and probability, and in a deeper sense it never occurs to him that God would intervene directly in his life etc.―but on Sundays he preachifies about how the Xn (in abstracto) prays, about how the one who prays (in abstracto) assigns everything to God. The whole thing has become figures of speech, which people find entirely in order for “the priest” to use on Sundays (just as lawyers and doctors of course also have their own language) but which they would permit neither the priest nor the layman to make personal use of on Mondays―that would of course be laughable. The sensibleness of the age has presumably long, long ago outgrown this childishness―nowadays it is a mannerism used when sermonizing, like the mortician’s manner, etc.

Judgment upon Myself. God knows I have been prodigal―I willingly recognize that and admit my guilt. However, I cannot in fact judge myself entirely as I now understand myself; for I did not originally understand myself in this way. What I state here is not intended to defend myself before God or myself, but is merely historical information. Indescribably unhappy as I felt at having to add, to all my inner torments, a new torment for having made “her” unhappy, I was, as it were, lost in this life―then awoke the enormous productivity, which I embraced with an equally enormous passion. My prodigality therefore has an essential relation to my productivity, which I understood as my only chance and on the other hand as an indescribable mercy from God to give my life such significance. Thus everything was squandered on me in order to keep me in a productive condition. I now un4 in abstracto] Latin, in the abstract.

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derstand that it would have been more pleasing to God or more truly Christian if on the contrary I had been thrifty as well. But I neither understood it at the time, nor do I even believe that this would have been possible for me. On the other hand, I certainly have related myself to God, prayed to him, every time I needed to resort to a costly diversion, and when I youthfully came to the self-understanding that it was permitted. I prayed to God that I might justifiably amuse myself with such a tour, and I assigned it to him. Thus the years passed by. I continually came to a clearer understanding of how much was granted to me with respect to achievement―and I understood myself such that I dared be extravagant in order to maintain myself in a productive state, hastened in addition by the thought that I would not live long. Besides that, I then had the reassuring thought that I was of course qualified to become a country priest, and that I in many ways desired that. In the year 1848 I received the decisive push in the direction of Xnty. The writings of that period still remain unpublished. It affected me (even despite a misunderstanding with Prof. Nielsen, whom I in the meantime had drawn close, and who has been a humiliation to me, without him quite knowing it) so powerfully that I wanted to move out into the country and express the Christian heterogeneity entirely. At almost the same moment, however, I recognized it as a deception by my imagination, something that overwhelmed my powers, and which I would perhaps come to regret throughout a long life. I remained standing. That first misunderstanding with Nielsen was also smoothed over the very same day, so the idea of such a decisive step was with me scarcely more than a day. I began to be aware, however, that the most recent productivity was so decisive, that it would perhaps place me entirely outside the universal, and that people could possibly also use it to deny me outright an appointment to a clerical living.

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I now had to look on this collision very anxiously, simply because now more than ever I had to think about my livelihood, and since I had now become older than 34 years (which I had always expected would be the age of my death), it could of course be possible that I would grow old. Thus engrossed in myself and cut off from the world, as it were, I had grasped what Xnty rlly is, and now I had to use good sense to determine the extent to which I had strength to carry it out―not understood in the sense that I was to get some advantage from it, no, because it was in fact to God that I had submitted the results of my reflections, in order to avoid possibly being deluded by imagination, and ending up bursting myself open and confusing everything by having willed to do too much. Neither do I deny that there was some hypochondria in this. Still, at the same time, I had set Nielsen to work, and I waited for him. He continually put me off, and said: I would see next time, etc. Nevertheless, I thought I ought to hold off publishing mine, in order to see first what could be counted on from him. This was a lamentable time. I suppose I felt that he rlly did nothing but delay me, not to say betray me (which, although possible, is incorrect, and is simply a consequence of applying my criterion)― and meanwhile precious time passed. Then I had troubles at home (Strube―I also suffered from the stench of the tanner in the warm weather). To keep going I needed to spend considerable money on carriage rides. And while nothing rlly happened, Nielsen went and became sycophantic toward me in private conversation, which did me no good whatever. Then I also thought I should seek an official appointment first, before I published anything―but here again were quite peculiar difficulties, of course, which are bound up with the inner anguish of my life. Yet I believe (and this is my consolation and joy) that all this serves to help me die away from the world, that I might become better suited to serve the

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[a]

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My many thoughts on this subject are found in the journals from the time, together with what preoccupied me so much concerning the publication during my life of the writings about myself: concerning whether or not it was contrary to self-denial to speak about myself, since there is an entire side I cannot bring out in this way, whereas viewed from the other side it also seemed it could be a duty both to God (in order to attribute everything to him) and toward my contemporaries for me to say something about myself.

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religious in a proper religious fashion, and to die away from my poet-impatience and so much else.

The Consolation of Christianity . . . . . Oh, but if you are really one of those who suffer so immeasurably that human sympathy and compassion only know how to defend themselves against you, to ostracize you from society, in brief, if you are one of those in relation to whom hum. compassion transforms into cruelty: yes, then there is Xnty’s consolation. Take heart―oh, praise God in heaven―there was one who sought out just such wretches, healed some of them, but in any case called them all to himself, indeed transformed his entire situation in life to be wholly in likeness to them: oh, God be praised for Xnty. The difficulty in Xnty is rlly to become so miserable that one really needs it―but if you are such a one, then truly it is also a consolation.

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The Consciousness of Sin Binds to Xt. 1

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But what faith indeed! to believe that the one who was under the same sentence, mocked, ridiculed, spat upon, cursed, nailed to a cross: to believe that his words have some significance, that he could be God who gives one a place in paradise, to maintain this faith even when it comes to the point that this crucified one himself cries: my God, My God, why have you forsaken me. (Tersteegen has called attention to this). Oh, they preachify so often that Xnty is direct communication. In

They all abandoned Xt, even the apostle denied him―only the thief on the cross remained faithful to him until the end and at the final moment; but he was of course bound by the consciousness of sin and the situation of death.

God’s Special Upbringing. For a hum. being who is the object of this, it perhaps goes something like this: From his earliest age he is bound to a suffering that is a thorn in the flesh to him, placing him outside the universally

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human. This prevents him from being able to enjoy life―and forces him into the God-relationship as the only consolation and salvation. It would be futile for him to pray and implore God to take this thorn from him. Perhaps when this hum. being has at long last died away from the world in such a way that the worldly and selfish enjoyment of life has lost its value to him as a godly individual, then perhaps the thorn will also be removed. Human beings are often quite cunning in relation to God; they will gladly pray and beseech him, and then perhaps also thank him―that they got their own way. Incidentally, this situation can also illuminate the forgiveness of sin. That which it continually depends upon is the kind of life to which one wants to return after having received the forgiveness of sins―what the integrum is to which there is a restitutio. Many a person essentially lives a life solely determined by the desire to enjoy life. At the same time there is a guilt that oppresses him. So he will readily pray and plead for the forgiveness of sin― so that when his load is lightened, he can properly enjoy life. But here God may restrain him again. The hum. being cannot truly find rest in the thought that his sin is actually forgiven. The thought continues to pursue him. Then perhaps years go by during which he dies away from the world―and then, then he also perceives that he now has the full forgiveness of sins.

Xt’s Garment I have read in something by an edifying author (Scriver) that there is a legend that says the Vrgn. Mary had knit this garment for him when he was a child, and that it then grew with him as he grew.

18 integrum … restitutio] Latin, allusion to restitutio in integrum: “restored to its original condition,” a term used in Roman law.

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truth, that a man, enduring the insults and curses of everyone, condemned as a criminal, nailed to a cross―when he then says: Believe in me, I am God―God in heaven, is this direct communication!

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The Difficulty of Christianity.

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especially the food for whose preparation heaven and earth were set in motion, so that the fare might be blissful and delicious― when one is famished to that degree.

Truly, the difficulty is not, when absolutely feeling one’s wretchedness, to grasp the consolation of Xnty, that (if I dare say) incomparable exaggeration that God let himself be crucified for my sake in order to save me, and in order to show how he loves me. No, the difficulty is to become so miserable as to want to risk discovering one’s own wretchedness. To be made healthy by the aid of Xnty is not the difficulty; the difficulty is to become truly and thoroughly sick. If you are sick in this way, then Xnty comes to you with incomparable ease, just as it comes with incomparable ease to the starving person to help himself to food.a Even if the entire world were to laugh you down―what does the starving person care about that in comparison with getting something to eat. So, too, with Christianity. If the world bothers you, then you are not absolutely sick. Just imagine that there was a hungry person at whom everyone would laugh in ridicule if he ate the food that was in front of him. Now, perhaps a few hours would still elapse during which he would prefer being hungry to being mocked. But if it ultimately became a matter of death, then he sure enough would choose to eat.

Tersteegen (Auswahl seiner Schriften v. Georg Rapp. Essen 1841.) p. 379, quotes from Psalm 77:3: [“]meine Seele soll sich weigern sich trösten zu laßen.” This is in contrast to being consoled solely by God. Here one could indeed say that this is tempting God, just as in those words in the Letter to the Hebrews where it speaks of those who “would not accept consolation,” that is, human consolation, again in contrast to being consoled solely by God.

31 meine Seele ... zu laßen] German, my soul refuses to be comforted.

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Is Hum. Nature, Christianly Understood, a Unity or a Duality? There is currently so much talk about this; and the philosophers naturally know that hum. nature is a unity―and my brother Peter also read a little article on this at the convention; in brief, it is indubitable, something one can appeal to as an axiom, that hum. nature is and must be a unity. When I last spoke with Bishop Mynster he brought the same matter up in connection with R Nielsen, about whom he said, in contrast to Stilling who was criticized only for his tone, “Nielsen I simply cannot understand; he seems to want to make a hum. being into a dual-entity.” To which I responded: Well surely, if it is so, Right Reverend Sir, it is in fact also the doctrine of Xnty, the conflict in every hum. being between the natural pers. and the new pers., a conflict that must in fact continue throughout an entire life. I then developed my conception approximately as follows. The category for the relationship betw. a hum. being and humanness is: the more I think about it, the better I understand it. In the relationship between the hum. being and God the category is: the more I think about the divine, the less I understand it. Two heterogeneous qualities could never become homogenous through continuous relating of themselves to each other―on the contrary the difference, the qualitative difference, the heterogeneity becomes more obvious. All true religiousness is therefore in a sense retrogression, i.e., not straightforward progress. As a child I think I am nearest to God; the older I become, the more I discover that we are infinitely different, the more deeply I feel the distance―and in casu: the less I understand God, i.e.: the more clear it becomes to me how infinitely exalted he is. Therefore: the more I develop in the direction of thinking and understanding and comprehending, the more natural it also becomes for me to then want to comprehend and comprehend. But see, I comprehend the divine all the less (on account of 35 in casu] Latin, in this case.

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the relationship betw. the qualities). And every time this happens, it is as though Xnty comes to me and says: Do you then wish to abandon me? To which the believer then responds: Oh, no, certainly not, I want to believe. This is the potentiation of faith: The less I can comprehend, if I nonetheless believe, then the more intensive the faith. But Xndom is vain, it wants to avoid the cross, the humiliation of simply and straightforwardly confessing that one has his life in something one cannot understand. Of course, this is foolish for an adult hum. being, not least in our speculative age, and all the more depending on how speculative one is. So one substitutes profundity and speculation―in order to avoid the cross. And Xndom is indolent, hence its tendency toward unity. The Xn categories that are valid for all of life are made into something transitory, a phase. It begins by being incomprehensible, but then gradually, etc.―that is to say: the natural hum. desire to comprehend is smuggled in, then gets unity into its essence―and complacency. For with the arrival of this unity, the restlessness and the striving and the fear and trembling, which should characterize all of life, go out. Moreover, that duality belongs to hum. nature is already inherent in the fact that God must be an absolute ruler. Consider a domineering hum. being who truly has a notion of the pleasure of ruling. Do you believe he is satisfied with ruling directly? No, for in order to enjoy the pleasure of domination, he establishes a duality in the other hum. being: he transforms himself into someone incomprehensible, and precisely by this repulsion he torments the devotion of adoration out of the other. In the relationship betw. hum. being and hum. being, this is ungodliness. But God cannot do it otherwise. God cannot be the highest superlative of the hum.; he is qualitatively different. Hence, first comes the incomprehensibility, which increases with the development of hum. understanding―and thereby faith, which believes against the understanding, is again potentiated. Finally, there must be Christian unity in the Church, which God wills for the sake of clarity. It ought not be such that the priest says one thing and the professor another; no, the professor ought to say that same thing but more intensively. When the priest proclaims in simple fashion that faith cannot be comprehended, it should not be assumed that this situation is somehow deficient, and that, by contrast, the professor comprehends it, presumably in order that conceited and cheeky noggins, bold souls, should disdain the priest and look to the professor. No, the rela-

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tionship must be this: if you will not be satisfied with the priest, then by going to the professor you shall come to something even more rigorous; for he can comprehend that faith cannot be comprehended; he cannot comprehend anything other than this, but this he can comprehend with such God-fearing power that he can bring to their knees all the insubordinate souls, who want to comprehend, who pretentiously want to negotiate with God on terms other than those of faith, which believes against understanding. See, this makes life strenuous, it is true; but that it is also Xnty, is also true. To make hum. nature into a unity in this life is a tendency toward indolence, even if one indicates an initial stage where the duality, the split, was present. Xnty has never taught that a hum. being in this life could become so perfect that he could rest in such a unity. With this it is as with suffering. Xnly understood, there is no initial stage where there was suffering, and then its cessation already in this life, and now a present state of sheer bliss. No, Christianly, suffering is the perpetual constituent in this life; if suffering disappears entirely, then it is not perfection but apostasy from Christianity, corresponding to the kind of security that is found in the purely worldly hum. being, except that the one who is also an apostate is even more corrupted.

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It is my conviction (and I have never understood Xnty differently) that as rigorous as it is, it is also lenient. It is not given to everyone, and therefore neither is it unconditionally required of everyone, that he in the most rigorous sense must live in poverty and humiliation. But he must be honest, he must frankly confess that such a thing is too high for him, and then rejoice as a child under the more lenient conditions, since ultimately grace is nonetheless the same for everyone. But one must not reverse the relationship, become conceited, and say: to include worldliness is even more perfect. I am as far from considering myself capable of living as an ascetic in the strict sense of the term as I am from ever having seen one single hum. being whom I could believe was capable of doing so. Oh, this alone, that in such a life the most insignificant thing becomes something of infinite importance, that everything, everything, even the least significant, becomes relevant in rela-

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tion to the question of my eternal salvation: oh, this surpasses the understanding. Quite possibly many an ascetic was spiritually conceited; but that is not for me to judge, since I have to confess that his first stage is something I can by no means achieve. Oh, but worldliness has conquered to a such a degree that the classification “the ascetic” is used as a refinement for flattering oneself in one’s sensate enjoyment of life, feeling that from a Christian point of view one is better than the ascetic. So let the nation’s 1000 clergy give us assurances that to live as an ascetic is not the highest, although were it required, they would be willing enough: I confess that whether the ascetic is the highest or not the highest, he nonetheless stands an entire stage higher than where I have my life, and furthermore I certainly do not have the right casually to ascribe spiritual pride to every ascetic―on the contrary, he simply has this additional great danger of feeling his own proximity to this temptation, something that alone would be enough for me not to dare venture such upon such a life, even if I otherwise―which is by no means the case―supposed myself to be so indifferent to flesh and blood that I did dare venture upon such a life. And furthermore, I confess that if I said: If it is required, then I am indeed immediately ready and willing―I confess that if I said this I would be lying in my teeth. Just as my own life hardly resembles an ascetic’s, so have I not in the slightest way demanded such a life of any other hum. being or passed judgment upon a single hum. being for not having done it―I, who only minimally, in accordance with my abilities, have sought to commit myself to a small portion of it, and who in any case have admitted to what I have been mindful of from the start: that I am without authority. I make no proposal in relation to the established order, not a single one. I think that for the sake of the cause it can continue as it stands, except that each individual should make a confession before God and compel oneself to remember it.

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But in my opinion, what has demoralized Xndom, especially Protestantism is this: that a clergy that has conformed with worldliness at every point, instead of admitting that from a Christian point of view this is an indulgence, has reversed the relationship, has made this worldliness into something Christianly far higher and truer than actual renunciation, than actually living in poverty and humiliation. The world has seen through this, and therefore the clergy is without influence. And in this I quite agree with the world. I find unbearable this endless nonsense and these assurances that if, and if, then they would gladly give up everything, live unmarried in poverty etc., etc. With me, at any rate, this is now how things are: I admit it, I have neither the strength nor the bravery for such a life. This I say directly, and then additionally I praise Xnty with all the ability granted to me. And yet I have held out as an author proclaiming Xnty at my own expense; but I have had wealth. Among the clergy, as is well known, it is not customary to do anything gratis. The custom is: one seeks first a living (yes, this certainly is not seeking first the kingdom of God)―and then one gives assurances that if, etc. I have not the slightest objection to the first part, I find it entirely in order (entirely in the same sense as I have fared well by having a little wealth) that a man secures himself a living. But I think nobody has the right to say the next part unless he does it himself. Otherwise it so easily becomes braggadocio, which weakens the impression of Xnty. It is not at all dangerous that we should come to know that a clergyman is like the rest of us, a hum. being, no hero; the danger is that he in such an easy way secures for himself a reserved place a la suite, an actual station among heroes, and is also a hero―if it were required. A person can be one thing―and perhaps also a lieutenant in the military reserve if the country were to get into war. But to live out life as a plain and ordinary hum. being, perhaps almost a bourgeois philistine, and also to be a hero [“]if[”]: that will not do. It is meaningless to will also to be the highest; for one must say to such 35 a la suite] French, that properly “à la suite” (military expression), belonging to the army and, despite not seeing active service, claiming that one will serve when needed and is thus entitled to a salary in the meanwhile.

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One can, being superior in this or that, offer assurances that if it is required he is also willing to be inferior in this or that; this is meaningful, precisely because the fact that one is superior furnishes the guarantee that one can easily be inferior. But when one who is inferior then gives assurances that if required he is also willing to be superior, this is nonsense, since being inferior is no guarantee, and the other is precisely that, quod erat demonstrandum. 13 quod erat demonstrandum] Latin (mathematical expression), that which was to be demonstrated.

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an individual: If it comes so easily to you, then you really ought to do it in earnest.

The Injustice of the Situation toward Me. Humanly speaking, I have correctly and clearly understood my task and what I was capable of doing. The poet in me predominates, but all the same I have depicted and illuminated Christianity. I have never permitted myself to use authority. Now, if those contemporaries with just a moderate love of the truth had been receptive of what I was doing, then everything would have been fine, then everything would have been as pleasant and peaceful as possible. Instead, from beginning to end I have been subjected to treachery that has forced me, or has wanted to force me, beyond my boundary. Initially, I was disproportionally gifted in relation to such a small-scale setting. The treatment I have suffered has developed me even more, such that I just become more and more disproportionate. As Asaph in relation to worldly goods prays that God will give him neither wealth nor poverty but moderation, so am I nearly brought to the point where in despondent moments I could be tempted to say: O God, do not grant me such all-too-extraordinary abilities when I have to live in such a small-scale setting―I could be tempted to say this in sadness, although on the other hand I recognize with deep gratitude that I can never thank God sufficiently for what has been done for me, so infinitely much more than I could or would have dared expect. As it happens, the entire Nielsen-ian diversion against Martensen has been uncomfortable to me, because it so easily contributes again to making me even more disproportionate.

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Actual Renunciation―The Important.

From a Christian point of view, it is more important that I deny myself in one respect or another, renounce one pleasure or another, than that I, indulging it, produce the most perfect masterwork of true thought, art, etc., or that I accomplish the most amazing thing, even if this is beneficial. See, this is authent. Xnty. But my life is not so lofty. I have taken childlike delight in many, many a pleasure, and have then been delighted once more when that has helped me find the strength to achieve again something I could understand was true and right, for which I have then thanked God. Oh, but this infinite sobriety, which is rigorous Christianity, is too lofty for me, I can only praise and extol it. This sobriety! For I and those like me, we are all more or less intoxicated in imagination, and involuntarily fashion God somewhat in likeness to that―whereas instead he, the sole blessed one, looks with blessed sobriety, if I dare say so, purely and simply at the ethical, and all this about achievement, about accomplishment, etc., means nothing whatsoever to him, does not move him at all. How many a hum. being is there, really, who could calmly maintain this, so it convinced him to act accordingly: if he, e.g., by living in abundance was actually able to produce a masterwork on a scale that, generation after generation, convinced thousands of the truth, and if he would be unable to do so were he not permitted to live in abundance―how many an individual would there be who was so sober that he understood that the latter is the important thing, that it was more important that he lived frugally and let all masterworks go. And yet so it is before God. But, on the other hand, for me, and surely for most hum. beings, this is how it is: it is as though I should perish if I were only to breathe in this pure air of the ethical. I do not say more; I merely continue to draw attention to it, and locate myself infinitely lower. If only people did not force me into being perfect, which I in no way am. In quiet thought I can sustain this infinite sobriety of the ethical; but acting in my own life I cannot compel myself in this way. Then I become anxious and fearful of it as of the most dreadful pedantry that would suffocate me inhumanly; yes, it seems to me as though God opposes my laboring under the delusion of attempting something so lofty. But I extol it anyway. And it is true

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that I, at peace with God as I always strive to be, can be happy in a serene and childlike manner living the way I live. I can say to God in altogether childlike fashion, as I would say to my father (and this comes to me so naturally): May I now have a little free time so I can enjoy myself[?]―and then I do enjoy myself. At other times it can occur to me that since this sobriety is the ethical, it is obviously my obligation, and thus I must be able to be like that. So sometimes I make a strenuous attempt―but I am nearly brought to despair, and must then retreat to my lower ways. Except I continually maintain that the other is the higher, and I define my life in relation to it by making confession about myself.

My Concern with Respect to Publishing the Writings That Are Ready. Although I know that with an almost exaggerated caution it is continually turned in the direction of a movement of inwardness, and never in the direction of a pietistic or ascetic awakening that wants to actualize it externally: nonetheless I constantly fear that such a communication would involve some obligation on my part immediately to express it existentially, which is beyond my powers, nor is it my intention, which is that it shall be used to intensify the need for grace―whereas I, even if I were more spiritual than I am, have an indescribable anxiety about venturing so far out or so high up. But so long as I lead the life I now lead, it could still so easily be misinterpreted, as if I intended to realize such a life. It is for that reason that I was thinking that I should first secure an official appointment or something similar, in order to convey that I do not consider myself better than others. But, again, that has its own specific difficulties, and so the time has passed, and I have suffered indescribably.

My Boundary. 1) There is in me a predominantly poetic element, which I am not spiritual enough to be able to slay, nor even rightly under-

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stand (precisely because this poetic element is present) that it should be God’s will with me; nor am I spiritual enough to live as an ascetic. 2) Then, on the other hand, I know to an exceptional degree what Xnty is, know how to present it, have uncommon abilities in that respect. 3) So with God’s assistance I use these gifts in order to present it, to win hum. beings for it, so that they at least get an impression, become aware. 4) Thus I believe there is one thing more that I will be granted the strength to do, to impress upon people a continuing reminder: just at that point when I have gotten people to accept it, then to remind them gently and kindly, but in truth-loving fashion, veraciously that the reason they now accept it is simply that I am not on any great scale a truly religious person, but something of a poet who has used gentler―though consequently in the highest sense less authentic means―whereas the truly religious person would be disliked and persecuted because he used the absolutely authentic means,[a] ethically actualized everything, instead of confessing to himself and others that, after all, he has a somewhat poetic relation to it.

A Misgiving. So and so many children are baptized every year, so many confirmed, so many become theol. graduates; there are 1000 priests; there are professors of theology, bishops, deans, there are sacristans, sextons, sub-sextons: everything is as it should be―if only Xnty also existed.

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The Absoluteness of Christianity. See, this alone is a proof of the divinity of Xnty, quite different from the proof based on the 18 centuries. A hum. being comes to Xt and wants to be his disciple, only he asks that Xt wait a few days while he buries his dead father, and then he will forsake everything and follow him. Xt answers: let the dead bury their dead; you come and follow me. God in

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Heaven, to require breaking with everything on this scale―see, this is a proof that one has an absolute conception of one’s cause as the absolute. Truly, no hum. being has ever spoken this way. True enough, the better one’s cause is, the more rigorous he is also in choosing disciples―but next to the absolute break, can anything more beautiful than this be imagined: simply to make the condition of a few days in order to bury a dead father! Never has any hum. being had a cause of the sort that could cause him to think of rejecting such a disciple, when, on the contrary, the filial piety he showed toward the dead father surely must recommend him. But only Xt had the absolute cause. And what sublimity, which again can only be divine: calmly resting in the idea of the absoluteness of one’s cause, to reject such a disciple. Never has any hum. being who has had a cause had such absolute independence with respect to needing another hum. being: this, again, is the absoluteness of the divine. Obviously, however, the cause Xt had has its own specific inner coherence. It was not a cause like any other, needing support to prevail, if possible. No, his cause was precisely to be careful that he did not come to prevail―he could easily prevail. Obviously, then, there is indeed a reason for being rigorous, for otherwise, you see, one could get disciples who help him to prevail. And Xt’s cause was: to make all the arrangements so he could be put to death. Strange cause! Yet here again is the expression for the absolute, which is divine; no hum. being has ever had a cause in this sense. Many a hum. being has lost a cause; but never has a hum. being had a cause whose purpose was that it should be lost, such that the effort was essentially in that direction. Again, it is the superhuman that, entirely heterogeneous with everything hum., relates itself only to itself, does not come to the world in order to get its destiny decided but, eternally resolved within itself regarding what it wills, comes to the world―to be put to death.

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The Deceit of the Human Heart.

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Oh, how cunning this heart of a hum. being really is, mine as well as others. A speaker steps forward, and―as we are used to hearing, and I also speak the same way, of course―prays: Lord Jesus Xt, draw me to you completely.

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God in heaven! That the one who throughout an entire life willed to suffer every agony, and finally an ignominious death, in order to save every hum. being: that there should be, on his part, anything preventing him from willing with the greatest joy to draw me entirely to himself―that would of course be charging him with an almost insane kind of self-contradiction. But then am I talking backward? Oh yes, indeed, and right there is the deceit. It is I whose conception of dying away from the world is so painful that I shrink from it. Instead of confessing in self-accusation: Lord Jesus Xt, forgive me for still being so far behind―instead of that, I speak backward, and pretend as though I were indeed willing enough, but that the problem is something else, presumably that Xt in his blessed sublimity does not have the time or the occasion to help me. “Tear me away from everything that holds me back.” But, my Lord and God, what then is it that holds me back? It is after all only myself; if I had not cunningly and surreptitiously colluded with that which holds me back, then it would be eo ipso certain that Xt would draw me entirely to himself, for of course he does nothing other than will to draw every hum. being to himself. Consequently, I speak backward again. Instead of accusingly judging myself and praying for forgiveness for being so far behind, for allowing so many things to hold me back; I pretend as though I were willing enough, but that there is something else that is holding me back. In this way my prayer becomes almost a reproach to Xt; for truly, if I am in truth unconditionally willing, but there is something else that holds me back, totally against my will―then it appears that Xt does not in fact will to be the Savior after all. Oh, but such is the deceitful human heart: desiring is rlly the maximum we achieve; and thus when this desiring is expressed really ardently, then we think we are extraordinarily advanced.

Nielsen―And Me. The difference is between a cause being served religiously or in any case in the interest of ideality, and being served in a worldly sense, with earthly impatience. And because it was my cause, I suffered greatly in looking at it, because I felt obliged to hope. 18 eo ipso], Latin, by that very fact.

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As in a worldly sense one would think that it is lacking in earnestness to serve a cause in such a way that one becomes nothing (even while, ideally, it is precisely earnestness), so too with serving a cause in such a way that one works solely to develop the idea, unconcerned with attacking anyone, fully assured of the correctness of one’s cause. The worldly mind will think that this is not proper earnestness, that earnestness consists in attacking others straightaway, which in the ideal sense is precisely not earnestness (and least of all when additionally there is personal animosity involved), since it is proof of a lack of faith both in the idea and in God. No cause that truly belongs to the idea passes away; its time will come. Were I now to go into the Nielsenesque, then I must really say that even if the direct attack had been appropriate, then it should have been far more energetic and resolute. His conduct does not bear the stamp of a character resting in a faith in the truth of the cause, but rather of one feeling his way forward. Still, the whole matter has turned in such a way that I suppose N. will be developed after all.

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Martensen

Martensen. M. has had the opportunity, disputing e concessis, with N. and Stilling, to use the pseudonyms against them, without therefore granting the pseudonyms any particular concessions, but merely showing that there was irregularity in their relationship to the pseudonyms. He did not do this in his Dogmatiske Oplysninger. He preferred to pretend he was superior to the pseudonyms. That was foolish of him. For deep down, people greatly respect the pseudonyms, but envy prevents this from being said. However, just let someone who lays claim to being respected speak contemptuously about them, and then the envy becomes inclined to be honest.

27 e concessis] Latin, properly “ex concessis,” from what has been conceded.

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The current proclamation of Christianity in Christendom makes roughly the same impression as, e.g., when one reads on a painted board out on the inclined glacis, placed right where a much-visited path over the glacis begins: No One May Walk on the Glacis― Violators Will Be Arrested.

R. Nielsen’s Offense. (His Big Book). Certainly with an idea of the degree to which I have suffered; with an idea of the exceeding significance that the cause I have the honor to serve had: then as a matter of coursea to want to turn everythingb to his own account, to ignore me and attempt to deploy the cause for his own advantage―and that after I had personally coached him for an entire year, and during the time that I was coaching him! The extent of his guilt depends upon what conception he had. For me it was the most painful impression, approaching sorrow, I have had. Such a betrayal right in the heart, and then that it is the man who steps up and pronounces judgment on “mediocrity.”c However, with my idea that for God all things are possible; with such ideals in view, ideals that have always intimated themselves to me―and then, once I had taken him into my God-relationship, I understood it to be my task to remain calm.

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Something Dubious Concerning the More Competent Proclamation of Xnty. Almost every one of the eminent personalities in the Church is also, as a rule, a case of someone who has previously been a sinner in the stricter sense.

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, almost with concealment of his source,

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while later he himself has often enough confessed to me that he originally understood that the decisive danger for him, the danger of the prima quality, was by no means that of attacking Scharling, Engelstoft, Martensen, etc. (he desired to do this precisely because he felt his superiority and the victorious nature of my standpoint), but that of failing to hold my attention, and therefore he attempted, where possible, to protect himself by making a personal approach to me, even though he certainly has never received any direct promise from me, or anything that could resemble such a thing. But see, again, this entire tactic of his is thus, of course, mediocrity; he evades the decisive danger, selects the danger that rlly is not one―and then plays the hero who judges “mediocrity.”

8 prima] Latin, first.

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This is precisely what has contributed to giving them the impression of Xnty―in the strictest sense of the term, they needed Xnty. But they have now suppressed this, and instead emphasize the concept of universal human sinfulness. The conditions that Xnty made manifest, when Xt himself proclaimed it, must of course still be typical. But at that time it was in fact tax collectors and sinners (consequently, those whom we call sinners in the stricter sense) who kept company with Xt.

The Category, “Xt, a Friend We Have in Heaven,” Is Sentimental. For his peace and rest and bliss a hum. being requires a God in heaven whom he―O inexpressible bliss!―dares call his father, regarding himself as the child.―Then he needs a savior and reconciler, so that despite his sin he dares believe God wants to be his father.―Then he needs a holy spirit, who strengthens him in the endeavor and witnesses with his spirit. But a friend! Just a friend, pure and simple! Has the Christian, then, grown so old that he is no longer a child, and therefore God is presumably no longer his father? If yes, then it is high time to have a look around for a friend. But if he is a child―a child does not usually have what one properly calls friends. All this about a friend in heaven is a sentimentality that has entirely warped Xnty. Yes, one may call Xt the friend of sinners, for this is the same as savior and reconciler. But just purely and simply to call Xt a friend in heaven is to do away with God the Father and make Xt into something entirely wrong. When we have grown so old that we persuade ourselves that we must be our own Providence, then we must look about for a friend, a friend who cannot rlly help us, but sympathizes with us. And this is how we have finally made Xt into a friend, a friend “on whose breast I can lean my tired head” (as it says in one of Mynster’s sermons).

Wonderful. Jehovah is revealed to Solomon in a dream and permits him to request something from him (1 Kings 3). Solomon requests

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wisdom. And this pleases God so much that he says, because you did not choose riches, or a long life, or victory over your enemies, but wisdom, thus you shall also receive wisdom such as no other has ever had. Wonderful; for in a certain sense one must of course say that Solomon’s choice showed that he had wisdom.

It is put excellently by Tersteegen (in a sermon am Erscheinungsfeste p. 131 in Rapp’s selections from his writings): the scribes knew enough to say where the Messiah would be born― but they remained quite complacently in Jerusalem, and did not go along to look for him. Alas, similarly in this same way a person can know all about Xnty, but it does not move him. This power that moved heaven and earth―it does not move him at all. On the whole, Tersteegen is incomparable. In him I find true and noble piety and simple wisdom. Alas, and what a difference: the three kings had only a rumor to go on―but it moved them to travel that great long distance. The scribes knew the message a different way entirely; they sat and studied the scripture as professors―but it did not move them. Where, then, was there greater truth―in the three kings who chased after a rumor, or in the scribes who, with all their knowledge, remained sitting[?] Tersteegen did not use the situation in this way. He uses it―and superbly―as the spiritual trial it must have been for the kings that the scribes, who told them the message, themselves remained passively in Jerusalem. “Surely we have been fooled, the kings must have thought”; for it is obviously a suspect self-contradiction that the scribes should really know this and nonetheless remain passive. It is just as suspect as when someone knows the message of Xnty―and his own life expresses the opposite. One is tempted to assume he wants to make a fool of a person― unless one assumes that he is just making a fool of himself.

The Potentiation of Being a Christian. What in our day is called humanity is not what one might call pure and simple humanity, but an enfeebled form of Christianity. 7 am Erscheinungsfeste] German, on the Feast of the Epiphany.

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Originally, the situation was this: to accept Christianity from the starting point of “general human consciousness.” Now the situation is: to become a Xn from a starting point which is a Xnty that has already been volatilized. Ergo becoming a Christian is potentiated. Here again one sees what I have developed in Armed Neutrality: the relationship becomes one of casting the entire process of reflection more inwardly, just as when the change happened whereby instead of σοϕοι one got ϕιλοσοϕοι simply because the task had become so enormously much greater.

Tersteegen says somewhere: Jesus arises from the love feast and goes out to―Gethsemane. It is always this way: Gethsemane lies closest to the highest bliss.

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When the situation is: “someone else makes me unhappy and afflicted―and now Christianity is the consolation”―this is not a situation of rigor. No, when it is Xnty itself that makes you unhappy, humanly speaking, for having a relationship with it―and that it then is nonetheless the consolation: then the situation is at its highest.

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The assurance of an eternal life is bound up with Xt. If, then, the matter of an eternal life becomes absolutely important to a person, he embraces Xnty. No essential change has yet taken place in this hum. being. He continues living in his own categories, except that through his relationship to the eternal he is bound to Xt. But if he subsequently becomes aware that wanting to be involved with Xt in this way means being involved with him completely, then he will be driven by constant dilemmas into actual imitation. Then, surely, little by little the divine sublimity of suffering will stir and move and coax him.

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Meanwhile, it will always remain a question whether such a relationship to Xnty can stand the test when a crisis that is decisive in the strictest sense sets in, when it becomes clear that religion is not immediately and primarily consolation, but rather that it first and foremost plunges me into sufferings and adversities.

The Sigh of a Struggling One.

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“Oh, my God, my God; this is beyond my strength; even in relation to the most insignificant matters it seems to me as though you pressed upon me with your entire weight; and constantly so―I barely stir, and immediately it seems to be an enormous guilt, a scandalous sin, certain to have the most dreadful consequences, and I sink under the weight of you. No, I no longer have the strength to bear you.” Answer: Though let me tell you―you are of course making the same mistake made by the man who believed he had gone blind when he had covered up the burning candle.―Or is it you, then, who is supposed to bear God? I thought it was God who, in infinite love, wants to bear you, and bear you just as lightly, yes, just as lightly as he certainly is heavy, if you were to bear him.

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My Operation in Relation to Christianity.

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It is to nail down the Christian categories in such a way that no doubt, no reflection, shall be able to get hold of them. It is like when someone locks a door and throws away the key: thus are the Christian categories made inaccessible to reflection. Only the choice remains: will you believe or will you not believe, but the prattle of reflection cannot get hold of it.

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Generally, a pers. begins by first seeing how far he dares― more or less―have dealings with Xnty. If he discovers something that does not require altogether too much from him, he calls that Xnty, and now proclaims Xnty.

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I have concerned myself first and foremost with the question of ideality: What is Xnty. Whether I myself might possibly sink under it has not occupied me. This interest in pure ideality is the more that I have; and as a consequence it has been natural and necessary for me to use pseudonyms.

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does not really pull his thoughts together, but speaks of one thing enthusiastically in one place, and then forgets that in another place he says something else, so it is difficult to act on such instructions. In the gospel about the hemorrhaging woman he says right at the end that even if it were the greatest thing of all, if a pers. has faith that it will happen, then it will happen. We see this, he says, in the gospel’s two miracles. But see, in other places Luther asserts that to expect miracles is to tempt God.

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The Hemorrhaging Woman.

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The words: if only I touch the hem of his garment, I will be made well. The words surely cannot be used immediately as a proof of a sort of extraordinary faith, which did not even insist upon speaking with Xt. One must of course remember that according to the Law of Moses the hemorrhaging woman was unclean, so she therefore preferred that the whole matter go unnoticed. So one could also understand the words in the following way: she has not had the courage to step forward, but she has believed that Xt was one who could help her, and if he is as she believed him to be, then he can surely also do it if I only touch his garment.

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Her words, then, should not be regarded as an expression of a faith that is intensified in comparison with those who openly turned to Xt, but she remains a prototype for those who have the faith but for certain reasons desire to approach Xt as secretly as possible. Bashfulness is that which holds her back.[a] As for the attitude of Xt, it may perhaps be interpreted in a somewhat different way than is usually done. He will not permit this secretive communication with him. He therefore draws her forward. This is understood as somewhat judgmental. But perhaps it is done precisely out of compassion, divine compassion, in order to show her that he is not apprehensive about a hemorrhaging woman touching him and making him unclean. In Xt’s place, a merely hum. being, even if he could work miracles and had done so, would have shared the woman’s interest in her remaining hidden; it was too much to ask of him that, in addition to everything else, he should expose himself to the people’s judgment.

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“The Missing Coin”― “The Lost Sheep”― “The Prodigal Son.”

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3 Christian Discourses.

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1) The missing coin. Here there can be no talk about straying; a coin can only be lost―it cannot go astray. Neither has a coin itself any guilt in being lost; if it is lost then it is the bearer’s fault, or the fault of the person who was supposed to take care of it. Finally, a coin can do nothing at all to help itself be found again. Therefore, we could say there is no wonder that the owner is so happy upon finding it; for since it is his own fault that he has lost it, by no means does he rejoice in the coin’s behalf, but entirely for his own sake―also in such a way that the guilt, the confusion involved in his losing it are now made good again.

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Therefore, neither does she have the same grandiosity in her appearance as does “the woman who was a sinner,” who openly goes in to Xt at the banquet.

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2) The lost sheep. There is no discussion of how it came about; its loss has no such history. The story begins with the fact that it is the lost sheep. Yet it is clear that a sheep can in a sense share some blame for its own loss by leaving the shepherd, even if the shepherd is perhaps guilty for not having watched carefully. The sheep itself, therefore, is capable of doing something to cause its loss. It can do nothing about its rescue. The shepherd must go out and seek it. He finally finds it, and in such a miserable state that he has to carry it home. The shepherd’s joy is great; but perhaps not entirely in the sheep’s behalf, insofar as the shepherd possibly has something to reproach himself for in connection with not having taken better care of the sheep. 3) The prodigal son. Here it begins with a story of how it happened that he became lost; and he has entirely and solely himself to blame for it. Next, he must nonetheless do something toward helping himself be rescued: turn home to the father and repent. Finally, the father’s joy is entirely in the son’s behalf. The father has nothing to reproach himself for; he has done everything for the son, and the son is at the age when the father could not justify treating him like a child but must let him try his hand in life by himself. There is, therefore, progression from the joy of the woman who lights the lamp, sweeps the house, finds the coin and calls together neighbors and friends, to the joy of the shepherd who goes out and seeks the lost sheep and finds it, to the joy of the father in regaining the prodigal son. Such is the joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. Just like this; for just as someone possesses all these many, many shillings and knows precisely how many he has and immediately misses the lost one, in the same way God possesses all of us human beings. And as the shepherd guarding his sheep knows them all and discovers immediately when one has gone astray, so is God like a shepherd in relation to all of us millions of hum. beings. And as a father loves his child, so does God love every hum. being, knows exactly how many children he has, and immediately misses the lost child. Oh, if someone possesses millions and millions of coins (as God possesses hum. beings) then he is perhaps tempted to think that the relationship here might be different than with the woman who possessed only ten coins and thus would indeed have to take notice when she lost one. Or if someone possesses millions and millions of sheep (as God possesses human beings) then he is perhaps tempted to assume that the relationship must be different than with the shepherd

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who does not have so many sheep and therefore may very well miss one. But when it is children! Is it conceivable that a father could have so many children that he would not know how many he had and would not immediately miss the one who is lost! It is quite possible that a man could possess so much money that he finally did not himself know what he possessed and became indifferent to it, although he nonetheless must be said to possess the money. But if a father had so many children that he became indifferent to them and did not himself know how many he had: then he would not be a father.

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The Prodigal Son―The Only Begotten Son.

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In this gospel the prodigal son has an older brother; but he will do nothing to save the prodigal. But Xnty itself is, indeed, ϰατεξοχην the gospel. And in this gospel the prodigal son (the hum. race) has an older brother (the only begotten Son) and he does everything, loses his life in order to save the prodigal, in agreement with the father on this from the beginning.

Mynster―Myself. I read in the N.T. that proclaiming Xnty is the way to get scorned, persecuted, killed. My life expresses, at least, that proclaiming Xnty is the way to become nothing. M. expresses that it is the way to have the most brilliant career, the way to the life of richest enjoyment. In truth, I would have to be an odd hum. being not to understand why all shun me and follow M. I read in the N.T. that proclaiming Xnty leads a hum. being to the point where, if there is no eternal life, he is the most wretched of all. My life is basically such that everyone will understand that, if there is no eternal life, then I have indeed been duped―I, for whom the world has opened up in a way it rarely does for anyone, but I have refused. M. expresses that whether or not there is an eternal life, he is not duped―he has enjoyed this life thoroughly. 16 ϰατεξοχην] properly ϰατ’ ἐξοχήν, Greek, to an extraordinary degree, “par excellence.”

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It will be M’s business to defend his. For let us forget about voluntary poverty and lowliness: if I am born a millionaire, born a count, Xnty assumes that I will remain in that state and nonetheless that I can very well be a Xn. But to become a millionaire by preaching Xnty, to become a count, an Excellency, by preaching Xnty―where is the place in scripture that speaks of that!

The Fraud. Yes, had Cato Uticensis refrained from committing suicide because it was greater not to do so: there would be meaning in that. But that every huckster who does not do away with himself is immediately greater than Cato: that is nonsense. So it is with Christianity in our time in relation to the ascetic and the candidate for the monastery.

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Luther.

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When Luther said: voluntary poverty, the unmarried state, spending the greater part of the day in prayer and supplication, fasting, etc., it does not depend on all such things―it is faith (in which connection it surely must be remembered that faith could of course be compatible with monasticism and was undoubtedly originally united with it, and the degeneration was not so much the monastic life as the meritoriousness it was imagined to have), this is certainly also true of Luther. Furthermore―to be on the safe side―he was also the man who had shown that he could, and could every moment, do the former. Oh, but Luther was not a dialectician―he did not see the tremendous danger involved in putting some other thing in the highest position, some other thing that relates to and presupposes a first thing concerning which there is no test whatsoever. He did

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not understand that he had provided the corrective, that the spigot ought to be turned off with utmost caution, so that people did not simply go and make him into a paradigm. This is just what happened. It was not long before worldliness understood: Why, of course, this is really the right man for us, this Luther! With the help of his theory we get permission to retain worldliness in its entirety, to arrange ourselves in as secular a manner as pleases us, and then also to say, “Giving everything to the poor, living in the monastery is not the highest good, that is what Luther said,” not even one of the most cunning among us had courage enough to devise that. And it is true; for it takes great courage, great faith and bravado in ordera to venture such things―and on the other hand it requires only a very ordinary scoundrel to take it in vain. Poor Luther! Just think how every Tom, Dick, and Harry appeals to you, how all these bread-andbutter fellows, “husbands, fathers, and reigning champions of the shooting club,” members of the Friendship [Club], etc., and how clergymen, too, call upon your name. For my part, among all the people I have known I have not found a single one whom I would dare believe was capable of voluntarily giving up everything in order to live in a monastic cell, any more than I dare claim this with respect to myself. And it is really hard when one is 37 years old, for many years a theol. graduate, has long since been a wellknown author, and then to discover that one is not in a position to do these things that, thanks to one’s upbringing, one already knew at age 16 have been left far behind.b

Luther―Mynster. Imagine M. as contemporaneous with L. Now let everything be said about M. that can be said truthfully, and a bit more. But if anyone wants to

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in godly fashion

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What wonder, then, that Luther very quickly got such great support? Worldliness understood immediately that here was an indulgence. That it was true of Luther did not matter to them; they understood immediately how through a little untruth this could be turned to greatest profit. They invented the assurance, they gave

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assurances that in their innermost spirit they were willing to give everything to the poor, etc., but because that was not the highest good they did not do it, kept every penny and grinned under their beards at our Lord, the N.T., Luther, especially at Luther, that chosen instrument of God, who had so marvelously helped hum. beings make a fool of God. Strangely enough, therefore, after the gospel was given its rightful place, and all that about voluntary poverty etc. was abolished, Luther himself had to confront the fact that he could barely get a bit of money for priests and schoolteachers. Presumably people answered: giving one’s possessions to the poor or churches is not the highest good―so says Luther―therefore we do not do it. If it were the highest, we would certainly do it. Thus, in the sermon on the gospel for the 26th Sunday after Trinity Sunday, among other places, L. complains that it was much better before than it is now, even though the gospel has been brought forth into the light of day. On the whole, Luther struck too hard. He should have done everything to remove the idea of meritoriousness from such works and, apart from that, let them stand―then regarded his marriage as an act of awakening. But then he went too far, the result being: getting married and not giving anything to the poor came to be seen as the great step forward in religiosity. Also in Tishreden (published by Benjamin Lindner, Salfeld 1745) (in a piece with the heading “von einem Fürsten, der in seinem

deny that what I now say about M. is true, then I will say he is a liar: M. is a clever, prudent man, who shrinks from nothing, nothing, as much as he shrinks from scandal, in relation to which he has an idiosyncratic aversion like one can have in relation to sharpening a saw, etc. And now, what is Christianity! Christianity is from first to last scandal, the divine scandal (σϰανδαλον) Every time someone dares raise the scandal to the highest order there is joy in heaven, for only the divinely chosen instrument is capable of raising the scandal to the highest order. And what is Luther’s greatness? His writings will perhaps be forgotten, even his conduct toward the pope (although that was certainly scandal enough) will perhaps fade away: but at the peak of the medieval mentality to dare to marry, himself a monk, and with a nun! Oh, God’s chosen instrument! For you it was reserved to raise the greatest scandal ever raised in Xndom by this act. First comes the entry of Christianity into the world, when Xt and the apostles preached it: this in itself was the divine scandal. But next, and in Christendom, Luther takes the prize for having occasioned the greatest scandal. And now Mynster with his―Christian―anxiety about even the most trifling scandal! And he inspires himself and others with Luther’s help. All is vanity, says the preacher.

44 Tishreden] German, properly, “Tischreden,” Table Talks. 46 von einem ... ausliehe] German, on a prince who in his last days lent money usuriously

9 σϰανδαλον] Greek, snare, stumbling block.

Qvantum satis of Xnty for the Merely Hum. Being. One perfects oneself in one’s ability to present the right, the good, one’s ability to sketch the wrong turns, truly and fittingly. It seems that this can be required of a hum. being; in any case, it is cultivation. But to want to begin carrying it out in daily life itself―that would of course be silly, almost affected, practically fussy, overly scrupulous, and thereby embarrassing to oneself and annoying to others. Besides, it is thought, there is no point to starting

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in on such things. If you begin it, then Christianity is something dangerous that takes the entire hand when you give it the little finger―and then you have to quit anyway; and so it is silly to have begun. Therefore, principiis obsta. The appropriate qvantum satis is that you know how to depict things tastefully and beautifully and fittingly, that you are enough of a psychologist to point out people’s wrong turns―but no more than that.

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letzten Ende Geld auf Wucher ausliehe,” found in the 2nd part, p. 229) Luther says: also ist es jetzt (namely, since the gospel has come to light) leider dahin kommen, daß man sagt: oh, gute werck, meine frömmigkeit macht mich nicht selig, darum wil ich geitzen, wuchern, und thun, was mir gefällt und wohl thut etc.

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In his sermon on the gospel for the 26th Sunday after Trinity Sunday Luther wants to show as a matter of course that in Mt 25:31, etc. there can be no talk of acts of compassion by heathens, because it says they are shown toward Xns, “and surely a heathen would hardly show compassion toward a Xn.” This is a somewhat mistaken and hasty conclusion. In an even more bitter relationship than that between heathen and Xn, in the relationship betw. Jew and Samaritan, the Samaritan after all showed compassion toward the Jew.

To God. Even if it were the case that, to the extent I could understand how good you were to me, then I was also, hum. speaking, grateful for your every benefaction―oh, this is nevertheless not rlly a relationship betw. you, O God, and a hum. being, that he has to be able to understand that you are good. Help me to thank you also when I do not understand that you are good, but almost childishly want to understand that it is as though you now were less loving. Abominable thought, by means of which I could make myself eternally unhappy.

5 principiis obsta] Latin, resist beginnings, i.e., nip it in the bud. (See also explanatory note.) 6 Qvantum satis] Latin, the amount needed.

3 also ist es jetzt ... thut] German, So it has now unfortunately come to the point that one says: Oh, good works, my piety does not save me, so I will be covetous, usurious, and do what pleases and benefits me.

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So often, however, it seems to me as though my relationship to you resembled that to an examiner: I must use my intelligence, my strength, and then it depended on whether I got it right; if I got it wrong, then you just said: well, you got it wrong, you made a mistake there―it is your own fault. Oh, my God, is this a relationship between God and hum. being! No, God be praised, we do not confront one another in such dignified fashion as equals, you and I. Oh, no, even when I made a mistake it was still with your Governance, your Governance, which permitted it to happen, and straightaway lovingly took it up into your fatherly purpose for me, lovingly disposing over these millions of possibilities so that even this mistake would become beneficial for me.

You let me succeed in everything: then there came a time when it seemed to me that you let me fail in everything. I then understood this to mean that it was now over, that now you would no longer have anything to do with me in that way. Then I believed, however, that one blessing still remained for me: to thank you unceasingly for the indescribable good you had done for me, so infinitely much more than I could have expected, or dared to have expected.―Oh, my petty heart, which despite everything thinks so ungenerously of you. No, your intention was that I should make progress, that from the indescribable good you have done for me in such a way that I could understand it, I should learn the blessedness of praising and thanking you even when I understand nothing other than that everything goes wrong for me.

The Discourse of a Religious Individual. There was a time, O God, when you showered me with good gifts, and in connection with each benefaction I thought of you: that was blessed.

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Then everything was changed; it seemed as though everything went wrong; and therefore every time a new misfortune came I thought of you, that you are love: that was even more blessed. For your love is not like that of a hum. being, who proves his love by what he does for me. Oh, no, your love is above all proof: whatsoever you do with me―it is infinite love.[a]

Christianity―Humanness. As soon as a hum. being shows that he believes God really helps him, he is immediately disliked by hum. beings. They take pleasure in injuring him, etc., in seeing whether God will help him, as they say. Since he is so distinguished as to live in such a relationship with God, as they say, then surely we have nothing in common with him. God in heaven, and every Sunday “the priest” preaches that every hum. being shall live in this way, believing in God’s assistance―and we are all Xns.

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[a]

And when, after all, is it most true of me that I perceive that you are infinite love? Surely not when I am helped by the proof, oh, no, when I perceive it without proof, when it is not a doctrine that always requires proof, but has become for me the axiom that never requires proof. Oh, but when my soul grows weary, then you will not let the proof fail to appear.

The Scandal. Act just one time in such a way that your action expresses that you fear God alone, and fear hum. beings not at all: then you will also immediately stir up a certain degree of scandal. That which avoids scandal is solely that which from fear of hum. beings and regard for hum. opinion is entirely conformed to worldliness.

Martensen Information on Dogmatics. He himself indicates in one place that the significance of the pseudonyms is probably mostly in the

[a]

Martensen Information on Dogmatics.

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direction of awakening personal life―and yet earlier he deprecatingly says: all these phrases about happy and unhappy lovers, the risk of faith, etc. But good Lord, having conceded the former point as he has, where then can an author who wishes to awaken personal life get other or better categories[?] But M. cannot remember from one moment to the next what he himself says.

To God

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Deep in my soul you planted the blessed assurance that you are love. Then you treated me as a father does a childa, and proved to me over and again that you were love. Then you fell silent for a moment, wanting me now to try my hand a little without proof, to discover whether I could do the same without proof. Then everything became confused for me, I became so anxious and afraid, such that I even thought this was infinitely too lofty for me, and I was afraid that I had gone too far, had become too presumptuous, had held to you for too longb. Just relieve me of one concern, I said: that it is not my own fault. Ungrateful scoundrel that I am, as though it were my earlier goodness that was the cause of your demonstrating your love up until now. Spare me from one concern, I said, that it should be my many errors that have made you tired of me: ungrateful scoundrel that I am, as though it were due to wisdom and merits that you previously had loved me. Oh, foolish, vain heart, which still wants to dissemble somewhat in relation to the past: not only to have perceived the blessedness that God is love and that he shows it to a person, but that one after all in some small way should have been worthy of it, even if only in comparison with his present unworthiness. Oh, no, no, God be praised that it has never been because of my worthiness that God has loved me. It is precisely this that gives me courage, for otherwise a hum. being would of course die of

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anxiety at the very same moment, lest at the next moment he was no longer worthy.

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If it were not in another sense madness, it would be an example of humor were a hum. being to say to God: despite having been raised strictly in Xnty, I was nonetheless, as you know, born in the 19th century, and therefore also have my share of the general superstitious belief in reason, etc. The humorous element would lie in this “as you know.”

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Tersteegen says it beautifully someplace in a Christmas sermon: (p. 108 in Rapp’s selections) Ja, Seelen, raümet eure Herzen aus von euren Sünden, von der Welt, und von allen ihren Eitelkeiten; denn Christus vil kommen und in uns geboren werden. O, daß es nicht auch heiße: Er fand keinen Raum in der Herberge!”

The Jews It is also remarkable, as Helveg observes in the introduction to the translation of the Book of Ezra (in Kalkar’s Bible), that whereas other peoples became increasingly removed from the faith of their fathers[a] the older they grew, it is the opposite with the Jews: whereas in their younger days they chased after false gods, the religion they rejected in the time of their youth became the consolation of their old age. But then it happened again that they became fixated so one-sidedly upon the old that for that very reason Xnty had to be an offense to them. The old culminates in such a way that it has to alienate itself from its own development. 15 Ja, Seelen … der Herberge] German, “Yes, souls, cleanse your hearts of all your sins, of the world, and all your vanities; for Christ wants to come and be born in us. Oh, let it not be said: He found no room in the inn!

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The Proclamation of Xnty―The Daily Press.

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The current proclamation of Xnty is nonsense. But if Xnty really is to be proclaimed, it will also become apparent that it is the daily press which will, if possible, make it impossible. Never has there been any power so diametrically opposed to Xnty as the daily press. Day out and day in the daily press does nothing other than delude hum. beings with this[a] axiom of lying, that numbers are decisive. And Xnty rests on the idea that the truth is the single individual.

Another Instance of Cunning. If then someone in serving the religious goes just a little bit beyond the purely worldly practice of treating it merely as a livelihood and means to all manner of earthly advantages, then the cry is heard at once: “Such things can only be required of an apostle, to attempt such things is to want to make oneself into an apostle.” Aha, in this way they win in two directions: they not only find a brilliant excuse for eschewing such things―no, it is laudable, it is indeed humility―but they also find a charge against the one who carries out such things: after all, it is presumptuous to make himself into an apostle in this way. Yes, the world is shrewd. But let us nonetheless look a little more closely. I do not know whether in any way it should be displeasing to God for a hum. being to be willing to make sacrifices in order to serve the truth, consequently to suffer, yes, even to be put to death. But this I know well, that God does not take pleasure in a hum. being going ahead and wanting to make himself into an apostle. See, here is the difficulty. Apostolicity is not defined by suffering, but by divine authority. All the witnesses to the truth have of course also suffered, suffered unto death, without it having occurred to them to make themselves into apostles. But the shrewdness consists in immediately pitching the matter so high that one is freed from doing it, wins honor and esteem

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for humility by not doing it, and gets an opportunity to charge the one who, without in the remotest way laying claim to authority, not even to mention div. authority, makes sacrifices, then into the bargain gets the added burden of being judged severely because he makes sacrifices.

The Priests’ Use of the Bible.

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How often have I heard the priests explain that the requirements found in the Sermon on the Mount were for the apostles alone and not for us (yet it must be recalled, however, that it reads, “he turned to the disciples,” and he had 70 disciples, after all, and we also see how absolute the requirement is in the cases where someone comes to him and wants to be a disciple; but between “the apostle” and the disciple lies the difference that the apostle has divine authority, whereas the requirement to give up everything is identical). On the other hand, the priests always as a matter of course make use of the words: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see,” as though they were simply said to everyone, and yet it expressly reads, “he turned to the disciples in particular and said: Blessed are the eyes, etc.[”]

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Luther’s Transformations.

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Those who were contemporary with Luther, especially those who were close to him, got the powerful impression that he was a hero of faith, at first melancholic beyond all measure and then awfully tested in the most frightful spiritual trials, that he was the pious, God-fearing man, who as such was essentially a stranger in the world. Soon, however, the impression of Luther changed―he rlly came to be regarded as a political hero, and the catchphrase by which he is remembered, became: Hear me, o pope, etc. Once again the impression changed, since now the pope’s hold was broken, and Luther was regarded as a cheery man of the world and good company, the catchphrase by which he was remembered both by clergy and lay folk became: wer nicht liebt Weiber, Wein, Gesang etc. Nowadays, one could quite colloquial35 wer nicht liebt Weiber, Wein, Gesang] German, who does not love women, wine, and song.

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ly say that the perception is: the significance of the Reformation is that Luther set girls and wine and card games in their rightful place in the Christian Church as an essential feature, yes, as the true perfection in contrast to the imperfect: poverty, prayer, and fasting. In view of this, his memory is best celebrated in the following way. Chorus of clergy and lay folk: [“]Let us now toast Martin Luther― Hurrah! And shame on anyone who will not drink a toast to Martin Luther, Hurrah, Hurrah, the toast was fine, Hurrah; still one more time―Hurrah, Hurrah![”] Having his portrait done as the jack of clubs could also preserve his memory. It is not enough to erect memorial columns to him; not enough to name one day of the year after him; no, make him into the jack of clubs: and there will scarcely be a clergyman who does not again and again have occasion to remember Martin Luther and the Reformation.

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Nonsense. On Good Friday they preach: the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Now do a thought-experiment. Think to yourself how the man whose life-view is contained in this phrase must appear. And then deny that we would not all really desire that such a hum. being hide himself in a monastery so we did not have to see him, so that he then would not completely disturb our joy in life. Deny that if he himself did not think of entering the monastery, then we would request it of him or force him to go there, just as they asked Xt to leave the place where they had become afraid of him. And then contemplate his plump, smiling, hypocritical Reverence who, cribbing a bit from one of Mynster’s sermons, gives this magnificent discourse. And then consider his Excellency himself, this fine man of the world, who has sucked enjoyment out of life as rarely, rarely, anyone has―and whose lifeview is: the world has been crucified to me, and I to

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It is just as if one (as was the case with my father’s brother when he was over here one summer) were to have three coats on in the summer and then said: my view is that one should dress as lightly as possible. Here we may likewise say: had you not said it yourself, one would have found it difficult to discover that this was your view.

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the world. Yes, if he did not say it himself, then you certainly would have found it difficult to discover that this was his life’s motto. But this is for a change! Priceless nonsense. For a change, perhaps, one has the view of delighting in life―and then for a change: the world has been crucified to me; or perhaps one has the first one for daily use, and for a change (for, after all, one does grow tired of everything), for a change one takes the view: the world has been crucified to me. Now, of course this is entirely in order, quite like in the theater: it will not do for every blessed evening to have tragedy, no, the usual must be comedy, ballet, and the like.―and once in a while, for a change, a tragedy, then one feels like weeping, has the pleasure of blubbering through several handkerchiefs―yes, just like in church when for a change it is preached: the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

The Test of Christendom. a

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Seeking First the Kingdom of God.

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One can truly say of anyone whose striving right from the start and later in all things is commensurate with one or another finite τελος that he does not seek first the Kingdom of God. From this it does not follow, however, that anyone whose striving has the heterogeneity of infinitude can be said to be seeking first the Kingdom of God, but he nonetheless has ideality.

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An example of making one’s striving commensurate with a finite τελος right from the start. When someone wants to be active by preaching Xnty, and then, right from the start, this striving becomes for him commensurate with finitude, e.g., which pastoral call he should now seek, whether preferably in a market town or out in the country, and in that case whether it should be in Jutland or Zealand, in order (once he first has obtained such a living) to preach undauntedly that a hum. being shall first seek the Kingdom of God. However, if the desire to be effective in this way is determined by the infinite, then he first scrutinizes whether he has qualifications enabling him to be effective in this way, and if not he immediately begins to acquire them, and if he has them then he begins straightaway, wastes not a moment―if it cannot be done any other way, he goes right out on the street and begins. Perhaps it then happens that he comes into conflict with the established order, gets arrested, etc., etc., never gets appointed to any official post, any living: see, this is the consequence of seeking first the Kingdom of God. Homogeneity with the world, on the other hand, means first seeking worldly advantage―then one does not collide either.

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Wilhelm Lund. It occurred to me today what a similarity my life has with his. Just as he lives over in Brazil, lost to the world, absorbed in excavating antediluvian fossils, so also do I live as if outside the world, absorbed in excavating the Christian concepts―alas, and yet it is in Christendom that I live, where Xnty is in full bloom, stands in luxuriant growth with 1000 clergy, and where we all are Xns.

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Tersteegen correctly says somewhere: if a sick person were to say, I believe there is a physician who lives in such and such a place, and who is perfectly able to cure me―how, then, does he demonstrate that he has this faith? By seeing to it that he gets in contact with this physician. So, too, with any faith: if it does not move a hum. being to act according to it, then having this faith is imaginary, just as anyone would realize the faith of the sick person was imaginary if he carried on without making the least attempt to get in contact with the physician whom he assured us he fully and firmly believed was entirely able to heal him.

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In the external world it surely does not happen that the farmer makes a mistake and believes the tares are the wheat, makes a great fuss over the tares, harvests them, carries them in, and lets the wheat lie and rot in the field. In relation to the spirit it usually happens that in this world the mistake is made of regarding the tares as wheat. Now obviously this is not so strange, since certainly, spiritually understood, more tare blossoms are always found even in the best wheat fields than wheat stalks are found in the tare fields of the world. And a parte potiori or majori fit denominatio: since the great, great majority are tares, then tares are wheat and wheat is tares; if not absolutely all, then at least the great, great majority are satisfied with this―and the majority are, of course, the truth. Since in the world of the spirit the concepts do not have an external actuality but are the notion, people therefore simply take advantage of the opportunity and relabel the concepts in a manner pleasing to the majority.

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Clerical-Worldly Nonsense. Look, such things appear again and again in diverse forms owing to this complete conformity of the clerical and the worldly. There is a priest. He is an extremely mediocre priest, as everyone knows. But in addition he is supposed to be an excellent farmer or horse and cattle breeder. The governmenta becomes aware of his merits―and he is made a Knight of the D. Instead of seeking to remove him from the clerical position and getting a position for him where he belongs―he remains in clerical office―and gets decorated, too. That he is decorated should really, it is true, signify that he was an even better than average clergyman, but here it signifies a minus, it is in his capacity as something else entirely that he is a knight. Priceless nonsense! In any case it really seems to me it ought to be forbidden for him to wear the decoration on his clerical gown. It can be bad enough for a priest to wear a decoration, even when this signifies that he is an unusually capable priest; but for him to wear a decoration in order to remind the congregation that he is something entirely different than a priest is after all utterly mad. This stems from the complete lack of respect for what it means to be a clergyman, which in turn is a consequence of the perfect conformity betw. the clerical and the worldly. Suppose a clergyman had the good fortune to become champion of the shooting club, then everyone really would find it improper were he to wear his mark of distinction in the pulpit. And yet that is basically not as ridiculous as for a clergyman constantly to wear a decoration that reminds the congregation that he is an excellent veterinarian or the like. After all, it is rlly not in his capacity as veterinarian that he wears the clerical gown―and yet it is in his capacity as veterinarian that he wears the cross of the knighthood on his clerical gown.

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But the government has an eye for merits―and on the other hand no eye for what it ought to mean to be a cleric.

Where Are We? We are here: when a man is not married, then it is improper, indeed scandalous, for him to want to be a priest. Yes, basically we have come even further, for we have come so far that one proves from the N.T. that this is how it should be. We are here: experience teaches that it is most appropriate for a father to permit his son to study theology, “for it is the surest way to secure a living.”

Why Do We See No Persecution at All? Because there is no Xnty. Let Xnty come, then persecution comes as well. And then passion comes again. Someone who has seen a hum. being he considered devout, God-fearing, and humanly speaking, righteous suffer abuse and persecution and finally death will surely develop ample passion, hatred of this world, if not on the monstrous scale as the apostles, who had seen the Holy One crucified, such that from that moment the world was crucified to them and they to the world.

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The Proclamation of Xnty. Xnty essentially cannot be proclaimed through speech,―but through action. Nothing is more dangerous than that all these lofty feelings and exalted resolutions etc. merely get an oratorical flourish. It then becomes an intoxication that is extremely dangerous, and the deceptive element is just that the entire thing becomes an ardent mood, and that it is, as they say, “so sincere of him”―alas, yes, in the sense of the mood of the moment. Proclamation by means of action is abstemious; it does not amass listeners seeking intoxication; it is almost boring, and what is boring is that it immediately becomes a matter of doing something about it, and one sees that the teacher does it.

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Before God. Well, now, granted there are two ways, and yet the latter of these should rlly be the more blessed: either that in an outward way everything is supported more and more by good fortune, and you thank God; or you learn to be able to bear more and more, to be able to do without more and more, learn it through fellowship with God.

Ethical Ideality. It is an entirely confused use of language to say, with respect to the higher thing one still has not accomplished: [“]I cannot[”]―as though there were talk of talent and the like. To use “can” here, it must be remembered, is so far from being an excuse that it is self-accusation. Paul does not say: [“]I cannot be perfect.[”] He says: [“]I press on.[”] When someone says: [“I cannot[”]―as a rule it means that he wants to turn aside and reassure himself.

Mynster―Luther. Luther says somewhere in his sermons that three things belong to a proper Christian life: 1) faith; 2) works of love; 3) persecution for this faith and these works of love. Now take Mynster. He has downgraded faith’s tension and inwardness. In place of works of love he has set legality. And persecution he has entirely abolished.

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Point de vue for Xndom. The usual thing now is to desire a speedy death―and in the still-authorized litany is the prayer that God will save us from, among other evils, a sudden death. * * 28 Point de vue] French, point of view, perspective.

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It is judged as a fault, as unchristian, for a hum. being to find consolation in death, to long to be out of this life. Well, I thank you ever so much, this is Xnty! Xnty means precisely that death is one’s essential consolation, that one’s day of death is one’s day of birth, and the longing for eternity grows greater and greater. But in fact, people deify the sensuous clinging to life, and longing for death is viewed as the condition of one who barely even assumes immortality. And this is in Xndom, where we all are Xns.

Introspection. People who warn against introspection might just as well warn against Xnty. Aided by grace they seek to block up the way leading inward and direct one away from it out into the worldly. But in fact, they are anxious about the real, strenuous life of the spirit that only emerges with introspection, while they now live in worldliness and then prattle on about the highest.

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It is in my nature to hide my inwardness―this, precisely, is inwardness. But inasmuch as Christianity really is such that distinctly expressing Christianitya will incur the world’s disfavor and ridicule, then it is in fact a question whether I dare maintain this hidden inwardness. True, my way of living as a spy can have and has had its significance; but it is still a question whether I have not many times also made things too easy for hum. beings with my cunning, and in that case this really ought to be redeemed someday through a direct declaration.

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“Socrates―The Ideal” Socrates did not have the true ideal, nor the conception of sin, nor that hum. salvation required a crucified God: his life’s motto could therefore never be: the world is crucified to me and I to the world. He therefore maintained irony, which simply expresses his elevation over the folly of the world. But for a Xn irony is not enough, it can never respond to the frightful fact that salvation entails that God be crucified, although irony can surely be used for some time in Xndom for awakening.

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JOURNAL NB20 Translated by Bruce H. Kirmmse Edited by Joel D. S. Rasmussen

Text source Journal NB20 in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter Text established by Niels W. Bruun, Anne Mette Hansen, and Steen Tullberg

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Concerning a remark in the Postscript to “Concl. Postscript” respecting publication of the writings about my activity as an author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How the new pseudonym Anti-Climacus came about . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concerning publication of the later writings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concerning publication of the finished writings that has now begun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The established Church―my position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concerning publication of the writing about my activity as an author . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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It is often said that were Christ to come again now, he would once again be put to death. That is quite true, but more to the point, it should be added that he will be sentenced and then put to death―because what he preached was not Xnty, but an insane, ungodly, blasphemous, misanthropic exaggeration and caricature of the gentle doctrine of Christianity, the true Christianity that is to be found in Christendom and whose founder was Jesus Christ.

Concerning a Remark in the Postscript to “Concl. Postscript” Respecting Publication of the Writings about My Activity as an Author. The remark is: [“]Thus in the pseudonymous books there is not a single word by myself. I have no opinion about them except as third party, no knowledge of their meaning except as reader, not the remotest private relation to them, that being impossible in a doubly reflected communication. One single word by me personally, in my own name, would be a case of presumptuous self-forgetfulness that, in this one word, from a dialectical point of view, would essentially incur the annihilation of the pseudonyms.” Now, one could say that in, e.g., “The Accounting” the pseudonyms are spoken of directly, these being the guiding thought throughout. On this one must observe: both, that what I wrote then can be quite true and the later just as true, because at the time, you see, I had not come further in my development, had not yet clearly come to terms with the definitive thought for the whole productivity, still not even dared to say definitely that it might not end with me finding something repellent in Christianity, while in religious enthusiasm I nevertheless kept on trying to the utmost of my ability to

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solve the task of accounting for what Christianity is: and that neither in the writings on my activity as an author do I talk directly about the pseudonyms or identify myself with the pseudonyms, but simply point to their significance as maieutic. Finally, that I do in fact add: This is how I understand the whole thing now, that I have in no way grasped it all in this way from the beginning, just as little as I dare to say that I have grasped straightaway that the τελος of the pseudonyms was maieutic, since it was also a moment in my own life’s development in the form of a poetic outpouring.

From Tersteegen: Wer glaubet, der ist gross und reich, Er hat Gott das Himmelreich. Wer glaubet, der ist klein und arm, Er schreiet nur: Herr Dich erbarm.

The Impossibility of Christianity Here at Present. )

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Even if there were no other obstacle―and God knows there is just about everything else in addition―this alone would be enough: there are 1000 people who have an extreme interest in making sure others do not discover what Xnty is. If people were to discover it, it is not that livelihoods would go down the drain, that is not what I mean; but there would be need for interpretation; and if someone were hot-headed and eager, he would not leave himself time to discover that it is just a question of interpretation and he would believe that it is a matter of livelihoods being abolished; and then all hell would be cut loose. It is not improbable that it would happena. The same glowing ardor and burning enthusiasm with 10 τελος] Greek, goal, purpose. 15 Wer glaubet ... Herr Dich erbarm] German, “Whoever believes they are great and rich, / They have God and the Kingdom of Heaven, / Whoever believes they are small and poor, / They cry only: Lord have mercy.”

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which a believing clergy kept hold of “faith” in former times, refusing to hear a word on this point, that same ardor and enthusiasm is still there― thanks to the clergy―except that it has taken another direction, not that of “faith” but of livelihoods and the protection of livelihoods. The same clergy that, with inconceivable calm (yes, inconceivable for a person who has no concept of clergy), has witnessed Xnty lose position after position in the 19th century, the same clergy that has looked on with inconceivable calm while the community (Xndom, where we are all Xns) has become afflicted with a moral corruption even more frightful than antiquity’s corruption, the same clergy that has lived undisturbedly because we are all Christians: yes, that same clergy is instantly prepared to take up arms when its livelihood is disturbed. Not a word, they say; with the whole passion of orthodoxy we cling to―the livelihood; if everything stays the way it is, we are of course willing to preach about the glory of giving everything away in order to belong wholly to Christ and we are willing to preach that one must first seek the kingdom of God, etc.b; but we are too serious to engage in witticisms and tomfoolery on Monday about seriously removing our livelihoods. Look at these 1000 men―and if we include the superiors, whose passionc must surely be even greater in proportion to their larger livelihoods, dwho stand as though in reserve, thoughe they are still interested in the livelihood, then there will surely be as many as 1100, a holy number that brings the 1100 martyrs to mind―look at these 1100, ready to become martyrs for the livelihood: they will rlly make Xnty impossible.

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Martensen―and Me. That it should be a dispute about terms has never occurred to me; I know better where the difficulty lies. That I consider him to be far, far, far stronger than me at the moment is something of which I make absolutely no secret. That there should be another fool like myself―who could get it into his head to go in for the kind of proclamation of Xnty that I represent, the more or less true proclamation―does not to occur to me. Martensen’s path suggests that proclaiming Xnty is the way to a brilliant career, the way to all worldly benefitsa―and that Xnty is what he proclaims, that is something Martensen assures us is so. And that it must be so is something the majority are only all too readily willing to believe. Then no wonder that they side with him in such numbers. That my proclaiming of Xnty should be the true proclamation of Christianity, and what I proclaim is Xnty, is something that on the contrary any pers. would so much prefer not to believe. And I have no enticements, since what is enticing is precisely what one misses with my proclamation. Nor have I any means of compulsion, for I am without authority. Then no wonder that I stand alone. This, you see, is the difference between Prof. M. and myself. That there should be a scholarly conflict has never occurred to me; daily suffering and sacrifice prevent me from forgetting what the conflict is really about.

Christianity’s Collision. If Christianity is again to find its place in actuality in its truth, something notable will happen: congregations and the priests will band together to

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protect themselves against Xnty. For to give up Xnty entirely is something the congregation will not do, it having once occurred to them that it can be quite convenient to be a Christian at a somewhat cheap and reasonable price―and Xnty in its truth is something the congregation will not agree to in all eternity. Let it pass, they then say; we can afford what it costs to support priests as we always have done; they strive inexpensively and with real engagement to secure a highly respected and cultivated public’s satisfaction by serving and waiting on them with Xnty.

The Strict Christian should be equitable and humane enough to elegantly put up with, yes, even apologize to his neighbor and others for being as he is, for not taking part in what they devote so much of their lives to, which, humanly speaking, can be so beautiful and worthy of love; he should apologize that they cannot find enjoyment with him in that way.

The Highest Form of Piety―and the Highest Egotism

The awful thing is that exactly the highest form of piety, quite letting go of everything earthly, can be the highest egotism. It can be an awful egotism so to express through one’s form of life that the others rlly in a deeper sense have no religiousness. And yet, this is of course the absolute form of devotion required by scripture.

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How the New Pseudonym Anti-Climacus Came About. This is recorded in the journals from that time. My thought was to lay aside the finished production and see if I could get a place at a seminary, in order to be active extensively and cut down a little in the intensive direction. I found repose in this. But then the opposite thought awoke so strongly (which is all related in the journals) that I thought I had to act. So I wrote to Luno about starting the printing. But the thought of an appointment at a seminary was accompanied by a thought of a possible reconciliation with “her.”[a] Then the odd thing happened that the same day or the day after I had written to Luno, and had been told that he expected the manuscript as soon as possible, I learned that councillor of state Olsen had died. If I had known this before I wrote to Luno, I would have waited a little while. But now I thought the whole thing had become a sort of nonsense that would choke me if I were to take it back again and write once more to Luno. So the printing began, and in the tension of real life (which I had wanted in order to learn more about myself) it became clear to me that I ought to introduce a new pseudonym.

Transforming Little into Much.

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The more I think of it, the more I come back to the thought that such a clergy in the older (medieval) style is an essential ingredient as a middle term in Xndom. Far, far the majority of peop. feel no need of Xnty in the strictest sense; on the contrary, it would make them unhappy and perplexed. True enough, from the idea’s perspective one must say that all of them should feel this need, and this is my blessed consolation, that no one, not one is excluded. But in real life it is not so. Xnty’s consolation rlly begins on the other side of all the usual hum. worries, its consolation is rlly the forgiveness of sins, and so far as that goes, far from being a relief, it requires one to suffer for the teaching. This, you see, is something most people cannot go along with, it would destroy their lives completely. They have an essential need of a relationship to Xnty. So life is for them as though a source of joy, and a pious joy. And we should all bear in mind that in the end, i.e., in eternity, we shall all be equally blessed. The mistake in Catholicism was that the clergy, egotistically and greedy for power, made itself into an intermediate authority in order to rule―rather than the direct opposite, that it exists and must exist in order to practice leniency such that the passage to stricter Xnty is open to anyone who wants it. Accordingly, Catholicism’s mistake was that the clergy, that is, a strict and more monastic holy order, egotistically desired to be the intermediate authority. Then, in the name of ordinary Xns, Luther rose up in order to shake off this intolerable yoke and to secure for everyone the immediate relationship to God. Excellent, all praise to him. But Luther was no dialectician. He failed to see that he was the extraordinary one, that perhaps in the final analysis the only one able to support this immediate relationship to God. Yet he set himself up as the benchmark. Protestantism’s watchword became: we are all priests, the consequence of which had to be either distressing extravagance or that one sank down into total worldliness. Look now at the situation in Protestantism. Yes, it is obvious, a given fact, it is established that the priests we now have are priests―yes, so we are all priests, that is to say, these priests are altogether indistinguishable from other innkeepers, shopkeepers, or for that matter from other worldly officials; in short they are just like us others: ergo we are all priests. The elevated spirituality assumed by Luther (for no one will dissuade me that when the gospels say give everything to the poor, the naive way of taking this is quite simply to do it, and

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the spiritually elevated way on the contrary is to say: I do not do it, but in my innermost being I am like the person who has done it and is every instant willing to do so), ah, nothing in the world is easier to falsify than just that. Luther was in his full right in crushing the egotistical element in the clergy’s power-hungry wish to be the intermediate authority; ah, but he has had only a poor knowledge of humanity in thinking that we can all be priests, that the only way this could be done in this earthly world was, as has happened, through the priests becoming innkeepers―and all of us priests. There ought to be a clergy as middle term. This clergy should have tight Christian reins, give expression at least in an approximate way to the strictest requirements of Xnty, for otherwise these die out and everything becomes sheer, out-and-out worldliness, as is the fact. Draconian laws lead to nothing, and this monstrous elevation with our all being priests leads to the distressing gibberish we see before us. This clergy would have to be recruited from such as whom were, either through great sins or very grievous misfortunes and the like, brought to the point of having to break completely with this world. But instead of gloomily and misanthropically making others unhappy by requiring the same of them, they should, from love of being a human being, and so far as truth allows, be lenient toward the weaker, or toward those who could not break so completely. Truly, this is indeed not to be greedy for power: to be oneself bound by stricter conditions―and naturally, willingly granting everyone who wishes it to submit to the more rigorous.

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It is easy to see that the N.T., particularly the gospels, contain only ideality’s demands, and do so absolutely. We have now grown accustomed to saying, without further ado, that it was solely for the apostles, it does not apply to us. You, my God, what a strange God, to grant a holy scripture that concerns only the few people who heard it word of mouth― and not the whole hum. race. No, each person must experience the demands of ideality, and as has been said in another place, it is apostolic to relate not to the demands of ideality, but to div. authority.

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Each person must measure him- or herself before God against the demand of ideality―and then, before God, but responsibly, have recourse to grace.

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To be allowed to live one’s life in such a way that one protects oneself and pampers oneself so as to have good days―and then to believe that one will be blessed by grace. Yes, that is hum. wisdom. But it is not Xnty. Xnty means one must live to see that it is precisely Xnty that, humanly speaking, makes one unhappy, that is, when one is tempted to think it a merit to endure: to then humble oneself infinitely before God in one’s sin, and understand that it is by grace that one is saved, by that and that alone: that is Xnty.

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Grace―Xndom Just as the most degenerate countries are those in which a rich and fertile nature produces everything without anyone being compelled to work, so too is Xndom, with the help of a “grace” that is taken in vain, demoralized in a way that was not even true of paganism.

A Penitent Is Best Able to Proclaim Truth. It can be seen also in this way: the fact that Peter denied [Christ] gave him headway, for in repenting he had infinitely much to make up for. The fact that Paul had persecuted the congregation, that gave him headway, for he had infinitely much to make good. Incidentally, there are some remarks from another angle about this idea that were placed in the Bible case on the desk last year, but which now lie in a bundle by itself placed in the middlemost broad drawer in the desk.

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It is easy to see that a pers. has to be brought to great extremes in order to take refuge in one who is crucified. True enough, one says: he suffered and died precisely to save me. Good, but it is just as true that his whole life was a kind of suffering in order to leave me a footprint. It does not really do to move from the crucified one to a dance hall, to let him be crucified so that I live according to this melody: Rejoice at life―and rejoice once again, quite unconcerned, because there is a person who has let himself be crucified for you. Even if it were possible that the crucified one could have gone in for such a thing, it would nevertheless be objectionable to any better pers. The fault of the Middle Ages was this monastic asceticism. What Xnty demands of Xns, on the contrary, is to be witnesses to the truth―and then suffering will surely come.

I wonder whether Bishop Mynster dares maintain that the world has now become better? He has not made such a claim, either; on the contrary he portrays it in sufficiently dark hues. But how then does he explain that Xnty is not persecuted these days? Alas, he does not involve himself in such questions, so circumspect is he, to be sure. The explanation is otherwise obvious enough: because Xnty has come to nothing. Satirically enough, for that matter: the world is becoming worse but Xnty is no longer persecuted―one should think this was proof that the world had become better. Xnty is no longer persecuted―yes, I can believe it, in a certain sense people will have a hard time persecuting it, inasmuch as it is nowhere to be found.

Martensen―and Me. Martensen’s bastion is essentially the clergy. It is obvious that the clergy hold me in suspicion because I have no livelihood.

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They have a certain suspicion that it could be risky to have Xnty proclaimed by a person who does it free of charge. Martensen’s “sound teaching” on the other hand finds the clergy’s support. They think like this: Xnty was originally an illness at the time it was proclaimed by those who offered their own lives. Thus Xnty came into the world as an invalid. But regardless of how well it went, or how badly it went, it gradually gained strength―and became “sound teaching”; the proclaimers did not become sacrificial offerings themselves but rather took offerings and grew fat through offerings and fees.

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The Daily Press. This dreadful evil has been produced, among other things, by the following: What rules the world is not exactly the fear of God but fear of man. Hence this anxiety about being a single individual, and this tendency to hide beneath one abstraction or another; hence the anonymity, hence calling oneself the editorship, etc., etc. On the other hand: what envy absolutely targets is the single individual; envy will not tolerate that a single individual is meaningful, let alone eminent. This is why envy nurtures pure abstractions: the editorship, anonymity etc., etc. It is in envy’s interest to uphold the idea that even the most eminent single individual is a trifle in the face of an abstraction, even if this notoriously arises through an individual man calling himself “the editorship.” Envy cannot bear the sight of superiority, it therefore protects the abstractions because they are invisible. Ultimately, an abstraction relates to hum. fantasy, and the imaginary exercises enormous power. Even the most remarkable individual is still just one actual being―but “the editorship”―yes indeed, no one, no one knows what huge capacity lurks behind it. Summa summarum: The hum. race ceased to fear God. Then came the punishment: the race became afraid of itself, and nurtures the imaginary before which it then trembles. * * Debate about the press laws in France interests me: at last it has come to the point where people are compelled to speak up. 33 Summa summarum] Latin, In summary.

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It is beyond compare to hear the journalists’ squeal that the daily press is an impossibility without anonymity. Truly an excellent admission of what weak characters they are; and from another angle, if everything depends on anonymity, then all the more important that, if possible, it is made impossible. But still the press defends itself: it is impractical, it is impossible to implement―and the journalists cheer. Imagine that the world of thieves had discovered a way of making it impossible to discover the perpetrator; what joy among the thieves! And what joy among the journalists that presumably it cannot be done. Whether it is true that anonymity is one of the greatest moral evils is not something the journalist troubles himself about at all; he says simply: thank heavens it is impossible to eradicate anonymity. Oh, of all the corrupters of the human race, the most abominable, you journalists! Oh, of all tyrants most detestable, you journalists, you who tyrannize through craven fear of man. The journalists could, however, be mistaken; perhaps it is feasible. But the fact is that no one dares speak out; many still live in the brutish bliss of the belief that the daily press is the greatest and most priceless good; others no doubt understand that it is not, but tremble before the power of the journalists. It was still the case not so long ago that anyone who dared to doubt that the daily press was an invaluable good, the pride of the human race, was considered a dolt who could not rise to such elevated thoughts. From what has been essayed so far, no one has reached a conclusion about whether or not it is impossible to legally put an end to anonymity. Let us imagine a state (it would be a self-contradiction, but we can imagine it) where theft was considered humankind’s greatest discovery, an invaluable good etc.―yes, legislation on theft under these conditions would surely be an impossibility. But when, in governments, people have peace and quiet to look on theft as a crime, and it is considered valuable to come up with sharper and sharper definitions: then we have really good theft laws. Likewise with anonymity. Let the gloss be removed from it, let the opinion be that anonymity is base. Not only is much gained by this alone, but then legal provisions against it will follow. It is one thing to write laws on condition that writing them is a martyrdom, another to dare in peace and quiet to employ one’s mental acuity working them out and to be rewarded with thanks for it as for a good deed.

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Mixture of Judaism and Xnty.

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And suffering will surely come. For the moment an imitator places an essentially Christian action in the world, with its qualitatively proper mark, he will also collide with the world, with Xndom. Every essentially Christian action has the mark of the quid nimis that offends. If you possess a million, give 100,000 rd to the poor,

8 quid nimis] Latin, excess.

The crumb of religiousness one sees in Christendom (and it is not much) is rlly Judaism with a confusing admixture of something Xn, as I have remarked elsewhere. Here is how one lives: One believes (God only knows how many do, but eh bien, I take it they do) there is a God, a Father in Heaven. This God controls everything; it is up to him whether things go well or ill in the world, whether I am to have success or adversity and the like. That is to say, nothing here is decided about the lot of the pious in the world; at times a pious person lives at ease and fortune smiles on him, while another pious person faces only misfortune, and yet both are pious―it is impossible to prove from their lives’ fates whether or not they are pious.―This God has written his law on the hum. heart and has also revealed it to him in other ways. But this God has never presented himself as an exemplar. This is the kind of religiousness peop. hold to now, and they then introduce Xt merely as the alleviating factor, as grace. But Xt is also the exemplar. In relating to Xt, and every instant that I relate to Xt, I commit myself to imitation. This has been totally abolished. Or is this what it means to imitate Xt, to let him, so to speak, go his own way in suffering―thus he brings about grace―which I then take and go my own way[?] Once there is an exemplar, imitation is obligatory. What does imitation imply? It means a striving for my life’s conformity with the exemplar. But the fact that there is an exemplar again posits a necessary relation between being the pious person and what befalls the pious person. This pious person who is not marked in a quite definite way is eo ipso not the pious person. Try it now. I can pray to God for a life of ease because God has posited no necessary relation 8 eh bien] French, very well. x eo ipso] Latin, by that very fact.

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between piety and suffering in this world. But what the exemplar expresses is, to the contrary, that piety is a matter of suffering in this world. Can I now beg Xt for a life of ease[?] That is impossible because it is Xt I am asking, and I am indirectly saying that I am asking him to exempt me from the imitation that is precisely what he demands. And yet in Xndom one invokes Xt’s name bluntly to secure a life of ease with the help of grace. The frightening thing about Xnty is not the suffering that comes, but the understanding that by involving myself with Xt, suffering must follow. So I can very well pray to him to help me endure, but not to be exempted, because that mocks him. Xnty could not present itself to the contemporary disciples as frighteningly as that, for they saw no necessary connection between suffering and Xnty; on the contrary, until the suffering arrived, they hoped for just the opposite. Nor did his contemporaries have the exemplar in quite the same sense (for contemporaneity with him was the time during which the exemplar developed, a development that accordingly ends with his death), nor did they have “grace,” which is earned through the suffering and death of the exemplar. But grace is not to be understood in the sense that I am exempted from suffering, but that I am treated gently, and that I am freed from the anxiety of merit as though, through suffering, I should obtain blessedness on my own.

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then you will make a hit; give everything then you will collide. Take a large livelihood, an honorable position in order to proclaim Xnty, then perhaps you will be a big hit; renounce everything, every advantage you might gain by proclaiming Xnty, then you will collide.

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Christianity always has reduplication within it. If “grace” stands in relation to living a life of pleasure and unconcern, then grace is taken in vain. Grace relates to my dying away, which is what the exemplar gave expression to at the time, while the exemplar’s suffering and death were the acquisition of grace. I too shall die away―but then be saved by grace. The hum. concept of grace is this: now we should be completely free, which is why there is grace.

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The Christian concept is: no, you shall suffer and suffer―and then be saved by grace. It is easy to see the mark of offense. For the natural man it can be offensive merely to hear talk of grace, insofar as he wants to make himself righteous. But, eh bien, he says, fine, I will humbly accept grace, but then I also want to be free. Alas, not so, says Xnty, you are going to suffer and suffer―and then you will have to humble yourself anyway and accept the fact that it is through grace that you are saved. Alas, only Xnty has a conception of the divine in which God is infinitely elevated; we hum. beings make God fairly insignificant.

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The Daily Press. I am not of the opinion that effective [anti-press] laws are an impossibility. But I do think that what will save humanity from this evil (over which Satan himself has proudly exulted and said: at last I have invented a depravation that is secured in such a way that any precautionary measure against it is practically unrealizable) is something quite different: true Xnty. A small flock of true Xns, spread out as single individuals, would be able to take the matter up. True Xns are to be understood as those who believe and whose lives express their dedication to suffering for the truth; there is no wavering in their action, as though they gradually figured out that one could also serve the truth―and enjoy success in this world. Look at such people, they are dead to the world, it is only they who manage to get the message across. The constant cry that it should be impossible to get the upper hand over the daily press is simply an expression of how little those now living have a conception of what it means to want to suffer

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for the truth, to stake a whole life; it is simply an expression of how effeminately peop. now live. And I do not deny that for peop. like those now living, it would indeed be an impossibility to take it up with the press, peop. who have no eternity to hope for and no life to sacrifice.

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The Jesuits―the Daily Press. The Jesuits, in their degeneration, represented the most disgraceful attempt to take control over conscience. The daily press is the meanest attempt to establish the lack of conscience as a principle of the state and humankind.

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Xnty―Infant Baptism. If Xnty were quite straightforwardly a good, like an earthly good, e.g., money, then it would be understandable if the child were put in possession of it as early as possible. But because Xnty is a good whose first principle is an obligation to be willing to suffer for truth, there is something not quite right about being in such a hurry. And on the other hand, there is also a question of what interest Xnty can have in being overloaded to such a degree with millions of―baptized Xns who otherwise have nothing to do with Xnty.

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Christianity―Suffering. With everything else in the world, it is true that if I start on something, it is possible that it might go well for me but also that it might go badly―but not with Xnty. Here, if no suffering follows, then neither has my life expressed true Xnty.

[a]

cf. p. 43. But such disingenuous talk is constant in Xndom. People say that Xnty is the highest and greatest good, but they keep silent about how this ought to be more deeply understood, namely that Xnty is the highest good in the sense of eternity, whereas in precisely the earthly sense it makes a pers. unhappy.―The Xn is blessed, people say, but then they fail to say in what sense, namely that in Xnty’s opinion this is in the sense of eternity, though the Xn is tormented in the earthly sense.―People say: Xnty is the healing power for sufferings, but they do not say what these sufferings are, namely that Xnty is thinking of the anxiety of conscience, fear of judgment, etc., whereas, in compensation for saving a pers. from these sufferings, it precisely imposes earthly sufferings on him, the sufferings of temporality.

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If this is not so, then the exemplar is, in one way or another, an untruth. Either because the exemplar has expressed something only accidental (that he, living at that time, experienced a particular kind of opposition, and so on) and thus is not essentially the exemplar, or because there ought to be several exemplars (one expressing that it is truth to suffer, another that it is truth to stay out of trouble, and so on), in which case the “exemplar” is untrue because it is only one among others. But, you say: [“]When a pers. professes to be Xn and in other respects lives like others, then he must leave to God the way things turn out for him in the world.” I will not speak now about the fact that there is something suspicious about the fact that professing Xnty is understood no differently than it is now understood in Xndom: to be baptized as a child, etc., or to seek a post as a theol. graduate; for if this is what it is to profess Xt, then it is unlikely that one will collide with the world, whereas from a Xn point of view one assumes a great responsibility by taking part in such an illusion. However I will not talk about that now. But beyond professing Xt (saying I am a Xn and believing what a Xn is supposed to believe), it is also required that I act in a Xn way (which corresponds especially to the fact that there is an “exemplar” and that true Xnty is imitation). So try it. Put in motion one of the actions marked as Christian and you shall indeed see collision. This world lies in sheer relativity―and the quality of being Xn is the absolute: such an action must collide quite decisively with actuality. Sure enough, no one, when putting the absolute into effect, not even an apostle, can sustain it to such a degree that sustaining it is identical with being the absolute―which is why, when it happened, everything split apart, the curtain of the temple, the graves, the whole of existence, all this relativity―but the collision will be perilous nonetheless. But the fact is, there may not be a single case of an action essentially marked as Christian seen in any generation; it only happens to a certain degree, and so too, correspondingly, with the collision.

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Unhappy―Guilty. Hum. sympathy protects itself against the misfortunate pers. by explaining his misfortune as guilt: then one is rid of him. And meanwhile we are all Xns.

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is that Xnty speaks incessantly of eternity, it thinks constantly of the eternal―and then Xndom comes along and says the same thing and thinks of the earthly life. The apostle says: rejoice always―that is, with the thought of eternity, for here in the world you shall have misery enough. Xndom too says: a Xn always rejoices, but understanding that to mean earthly joy, that he is sound and in good health, has zest for life, etc.―Xnty says that everything is bestowed on us by grace, happiness, health, blessedness―it thinks constantly of eternity, of which it has such an immense conception. Xndom repeats what is said and understands it as being about this life. And so it is everywhere.

One gets a beautiful result if one eliminates the first two lines and last two lines of a hymn for Ascension Day, and then alters the punctuation a little so it reads: Lehr’ mich nur im Geiste leben, Als vor Deinen Augen da: Fremd der Welt, der Zeit, den Sinnen, Bei Dir abgeschieden drinnen. 30 Lehr’ mich … abgeschieden drinnen] German, Teach me to live in spirit alone /As there before your eyes / Stranger to the world, to time, the senses / In thee, isolated within.

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Instead, Tersteegen has a period, and then two more lines, whereby the beauty is lost.

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The Proclamation Now Current in Christendom is lèse-majesté against Xnty. Instead of 1) bearing witness, 2) using authority 3) tendering a life that is willing to put up with the consequences of doing so―in brief, instead of staying close to God and leaving the rest to him―one wants, partly in a paltry mediocrity that has never had a notion of anything more elevated, partly from fear of man, and finally also for the sake of worldly gain, to be on good terms with peop., and therefore transform them endlessly into the authority that judges truth. Of course Xnty, too, would come off badly in our time. That a hum. being should be subject to a master so that every day and every hour was committed to serving God, that he should actually deny himself in this way, that loving God should be such a serious a matter that it meant hating the world―it is indeed seditious, one will say. Yes, quite right. Xnty is also “insurrection,” that is, as soon as Xnty is presented in its truth, peop. will rise up against it. But where in our time are those who have even suspected such a thing[?] For even that much requires being removed from one’s relationship to others so that coming passably near God is a possibility. But of course most peop. are, from birth to the grave, so babbled into a relation with “the others” so that it never occurs to them that absolute thoughts exist.

Concerning Publication of the Later Writings. I think I can see quite clearly that if I were to die now, the effect of my life would be extraordinary. Yet on the other hand, if I am to stay alive, I would of course have to publish them. The thought then arises again, is this not a little impatient― and suppose you died the day after you had published them! The fact of the matter is this. These writings would throw light on how much has been entrusted to me. But then it is so much a part of my nature to think less of myself than I am. Ah, it has

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done my spirit so much good to appear as a joker, frivolous, an egotist, etc., while I have been working day and night. And it will be as though to sadden my spirit were I myself to speak directly of the extraordinary things that have been granted me. And yet I understand that in another way it might be my duty, and that this hanging back is a kind of selfishness. While my situation is not what one otherwise finds―that it vexes a man to say more of himself than he is­―my collision is the opposite: I would so much rather say less of myself than I am. Yes, I confess it, there was an anger, an indignation in my soul, which meant that it did me much good when Martensen, e.g., was proclaimed the great genius, the earnest Xn who regenerated both science and Xnty in the Nordic countries―while I was a fugitive bird, a diffuse mind, etc. And so on, in so many ways.

Possibility―Actuality. Now Mynster pontificates and says: and he (Xt) did not hold it back but said the great words: I am a king―and then Mynster weeps, I, Miss Jespersen, student Møller, councillor Nissen, wholesaler Grønberg, etc., etc., and while weeping, we admire Mynster; many are no doubt unclear whether they weep at the thought of Xt or whether these are tears of admiration for Mynster. When he said these words―believe me, the Jews grinned, and Pilate shrugged his shoulders―and we others, what have we done[?] This, it seems to me, is something of which I could convince a stone. And yet, not even this may be said―or you will see how actuality judges it. You will touch no one (alas, like his excellency, his touching excellency) they would laugh you out of the place, then accuse you of conceit and pride, and impracticality. And one is not supposed to let oneself be consoled by the thought of death!

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He is, I would say, an egotist who has seen the significance of my cause, and then strictly egotistically thought: if only I could make it my own. Really, he would rather I were dead. If that were the case he would also give me what is mine with all stops out. But alive, I am an embarrassment. He began by trying to elbow me out almost completely so as to push himself forward with his independent

With regard to my primary aim, the accent should have fallen on the fact that it was a striving with no finite goal but, in service to the idea, undertaken with sheer self-sacrifice: I lost money while others earned it, I was derided while others received the highest honor, etc. And then attention should have been drawn to the way this sacrifice qualifies someone to pass indirect judgment on the Xndom of this age by examining how the age judged such striving. A notion of the activity of the clergy is also provided when they take someone to task for having no living or position even though he works as much as everyone else does. Nielsen’s self-denial should have consisted of the fact that he, Prof. and Knight of the Dannebrog and so on, was nonetheless honest enough to be willing to attest to it all. Instead he takes a couple of propositions (more or less as though I, too, were someone who had sought a professorship and then put some writings together), formulates some principles from these, and submits the matter for debate with another professor. And not only that, he makes an attempt (with the big book) to obscure the identity of the source from which these thoughts have come into the world, and has the audacity to assume independent originality. God in Heaven. And all this after having been privately tutored by me. Still, I do not pass judgment, for I have only my own benchmark and lack a conception of what it is like to be a pers. who has always been wrapped up in worldly concerns like that. The matter has been especially difficult for me because I had taken him into my God-relationship― but this has also had its significance for me.

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Christianity―Judaism. This is the only way one can one see how heterogeneous they are: Judaism postulates family life as the form that devoutness takes. Xnty shatters all this with the absoluteness of the God-relationship, which can lead to hatred of father and mother. Judaism is a fear of God that has its home in this world; Xnty is alienation from this world. In Judaism the reward for fearing God is blessedness in this world; Xnty is hatred of this world. The collisions related to piety, which Xnty itself establishes, must be regarded by Judaism as ungodly, that is, as distant as possible from being an expression of devoutness.

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magnum opus. But circumstances stood in his way and forced him to some extent into the truth.

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Christianity―To Die Away. [T]hat this is the case is seen alone from the fact that it is said: you shall love Xt. But to love is to be transformed in likeness with the beloved; otherwise it is simply a desire to profit from him. And if one wants to do so, to love Xt, then all Xndom cries out: it is presumptuousness―then on Sunday the priest preaches that this is exactly what one ought to do. The difference is that the priestly chatter on Sunday is a diversion; it is something else to take it seriously―and it is something people will not do. They stand there and conjure up what is the greatest for a pers. and say that this is what he must do―and then if he does it in earnest, they say it is presumptuousness.

Teacher―Disciple. Generally, it is the teacher, the master, who gathers everyone around himself. Then a disciple

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piety which out of God-fearingness does not risk it (though here it is always another matter), and it can be the most ungodly wretchedness that exploits the opportunity to be free of it, and, in addition, takes advantage of the claim that it is to avoid presumptuousness.

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comes and captures the attention of only a few. He explains that this is because he lacks the master’s abilities and gifts. Take Xt. Xt says: come hither―and everyone takes flight. The Right Reverend gentleman says: come hither all of you, etc.―and peop. rush to him. Isn’t this because the Right Reverend gentleman does it badly, since here again Xnty has inverse proportions[?] The invitation is not straightforwardly inviting (like the Right Reverend gentleman’s roaring, to which everyone flocks) but is just as much repulsive.

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Oh, were everyone to oppose me, and were misfortune to follow upon misfortune (which is often more painful than the opposition of men, which one knows must come), one thing remains, O God, the testimony of spirit. When you, who indeed dispose over everything, who at each instant have millions of possibilities, when you, infinite love, let all of this oppose me or, insofar as through some error of judgment I myself am responsible for some of it, when you, infinite love, thus let me make such a mistake, when, alas, it seems as if you have withdrawn: there is still a fellowship between us, the testimony of the spirit. If there were no testimony of the spirit, if, with its help, you did not, after all, hold on to the one you put to the hardest test, then I would not know whether I was coming or going, it would be impossible for me to know where I was, whether opposition and misfortune were your fatherly discipline to frighten me to turn back, or opposition and misfortune were signs that that I was on the right road, the narrow road, where the spirit’s testimony is the only sign.

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“The Monastery” was nevertheless a point de vüe to help a person determine where he was, whether he had climbed higher in perfection than the monastery or had sunk into rank worldliness. Then they let “the monastery” fall away, and for a long time now we have fooled around in utter darkness about where we are, and everything profane flourishes as never before. “Faith” has now to a great extent become hidden inwardness, not even remotely detectable in peoples’ lives, though they still protest that deep within, etc.―faith has become hidden inwardness to such an extent that ultimately a new kind of faith will be called for in relation to “faith,” having faith that I have faith. What once inspired a person to witness not only in word but to witness in deed, has now become something so imperceptibly recondite that not only a third party, but also the person himself needs faith to believe that he has faith,[a]

Today (in the sermon on the gospel about the false prophets) Visby correctly observed that sometimes one judges wrongly, believing a person’s fine words and manner of speech while his life shows the opposite. But one can sometimes also judge wrongly by concluding from a person’s speech that his life is depraved; for sometimes a person’s life is better than his speech.

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There is another reason I am uneasy about speaking to anyone about the economic concerns I might run into; for I have no doubt that everyone will say to me: You are not crazy enough to want to squander more; first secure the earthly, etc. 2 point de vüe] French, properly “point de vue,” point of view.

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yes, ironically enough, it most often takes an extraordinary faith to have faith that a person has faith, ora to have faith that he [himself] has faith. a

he himself needs an extraordinary faith

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That is just what frightens me, that my lower instincts will receive some disturbing approval that may end up destroying me. If there were someone whose life clearly bore the mark of being under a much greater strain than mine, much further along―yes, I could speak to him without danger. But in this worldliness into which the religious has sunk, where do I find such a person[?]

Christianity―Human Being. “But if Xnty, taken in its strictest form, will make a pers. unhappy, hmnly speaking, for the whole of this life, it is almost too much to demand that a pers. get involved.” To this Xnty would have to reply: the fact that you can speak like that reveals that you lack a divine understanding of how dreadful sin is, as well as a divine understanding of what eternal blessedness is; if you had this counterweight, you would discover that even on this account, Xnty is an absolute infinite gain. By the way, it is usually the case that those who have served Xnty on the strictest terms (provided that this has been the truth within them) have been forced to do so. Via unique circumstances, they have been brought to such extremities that they must proceed onward.

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In the sermon on the epistle for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany Luther touches on an interpretation of Xnty as though it were, in a way, God’s wrath. He explains that to love God is to love one’s neighbor. For two reasons. The first is because God does not need our love. The other is that God has made foolishness of the world and wants to be loved during affliction and lamentation. 1 Cor 1:21 (“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through sheer wisdom, etc.”). Therefore, says Luther, he has also sacrificed himself in lamentation and death on the cross, and let his believers suffer in the same way so that anyone who had not wanted to

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love God earlier when he gave them food and drink, honor and wealth, should now love him in hunger and sorrow, in misfortune and ignominy. So the category here is this: the God-relationship is not straightforward (as in Judaism) but is inversely identifiable. Here too is the mark of offense, to love God―not only when things go against one (for that is not enough to establish the possibility of offense categorically, since opposition and whatever comes with it can have a source other than God), no, when opposition comes precisely from the God-relationship, arises from abiding by God. As it says in the gospel: when persecution arises on account of the Word.

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Even the martyrs will differ in the present age. Dying from spiritual exertion, mental suffering, and the like could not occur in the past, when it was a matter of life and death from the start. Nor were there at that time the huge quantities of reflection to take care of, the purely intellectual tasks, those reflections complicated with all the counterfeit versions of Christianity, the millions of titular Xns. The fewer thoughts there are, the less reflection there is, the closer the decision is to life and death. It is the same everywhere. Just one example from another context: that is why in earlier times there was quick recourse to the corporeal when raising children. A bloodless martyrdom, then. Yet it is perhaps even more tormenting because the more extensive the reflection is, the more the mentally racking the vilification. Moreover, the bloodless martyrdom, unlike the catastrophe of life and death, lacks the support that otherwise gives strength and that defines one’s position and keeps one on the spot.

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Grundtvig himself has verbosely transformed Grundtvigian talk about the dead letter into a deadening conceit.

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In one sense Bürger’s Lenore is right: O, Mutter, Mutter, was mir brennt Das lindert mir kein Sacrament. Xnty knows but one suffering: that of sin. If Lenore wants to transform her suffering and, e.g., sorrow less over Wilhelm than over having rebelled against God in her despair, then Xnty can help. Her mother’s remark, by the way, is characteristic of Xndom: prescribing the sacrament without further ado for unhappy love―so why not also for fever and the like? (which has also been done).

Poverty, It is one thing to quite arbitrarily make poverty into piousness, as though poverty were something in and of itself. This basically transforms God into a kind of great pasha who sits there idly, and to whom the pious person says: look at me now; you shall see that I can live on bread and water. It is another thing when poverty relates to the idea that a person’s life serves. Assume, e.g., that conditions are such that if the idea is to be truly served, then there is scarcely time left over to dedicate to one’s livelihood, and then it is indeed a duty to choose scarcity of time and a meager livelihood rather than acquiring more at the expense of the idea. Or suppose that poverty relates to the idea itself. Take a theol. graduate who is practically offered a clerical post as the way to make a living, but has doubts about taking it because he fears contact with all this worldliness in the forecourt lest his life might express that this is how it ought to be. You see, here poverty is borne by the idea and bears the idea. And so on, in many ways.

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not the mouth. Take 3 clerics who live in different circumstances: a prelate, a well-to-do parish priest, a genuinely ascetic mendi-

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3 O, Mutter … kein Sacrament] German, Oh mother, mother, what is burning me / is something no sacrament relieves.

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cant friar. All three preach about the “daily bread” for which we pray; they may say the same thing―but here the speaker, his character, his daily existence, surely provides the interpretation. And so it is everywhere. This the shrewd world, too, knows how to exploit shrewdly, just as well as Xnty knows how to insist that it is with existence that preaching is to be done, lest the whole thing be a sham.

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However much I was under a Socratic influence, however much I was disposed with all my being toward the category of “the single individual” when I first introduced it in the foreword to the two ed. discourses [of] 1843, it nonetheless had purely personal significance for me as well. The idea was not clear enough to me that I could have introduced it right then without that personal significance. When I used it a second time, i.e., intensified, in the dedication to the ed. discourses in various spirits, I understood that I was acting in a purely ideal way. When I broke off my engagement, it was a purely personal act before God. Only later did I grasp the significance of this step for the idea supporting my cause. If I now give up plans to become a priest, it might be because I immediately understand the ideal meaning of this negative step for the idea supporting my cause, such that it no longer begins with an essentially personal understanding of my actions one way or another, which I understand afterward as an expression of my cause’s idea. My God, my God, in this way―no, you are not forsaking me, but helping me.

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About Myself. Previously I took pride in being able to see everything, to see that nothing escaped me. Now I take pride in seeing nothing, in calmly not seeing all the bestiality and sneering, and so on, that surrounds me.

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About Myself. And this is how I have been used. The category that was to come forth was “the single individual”―and then [my] existence more or less reached the mark. It has succeeded. But then who am I? Am I some devil of a pers. who understood it from the start, and who had the personal strength to hold on to it in daily existence? Oh, far from it. I have been helped. By what? By a fearful melancholia, a thorn in the flesh. I am a dreadful melancholic who has had the good luck and virtuosity to be able to hide it, and that is why I have fought. But Governance keeps me melancholic. However, I have understood the idea more and more and have had indescribable satisfaction and nothing but joy―but always helped by the torment that keeps me within bounds. What Governance would perhaps scarcely dare assign to any other pers., to approach the categorical expression of what it means to be the single individual without either straying into arrogance or being caught up in associations―here I have been somewhat successful. But Governance has made sure of quite another explanation―but the goal of making the category of the single individual visible has been achieved.

Strict Xnty. Mynster is an expression of the fact that proclaiming Xnty is one among many ways of finding a livelihood and becoming something in this world.―The ideal proclamation of Xnty seems to be proclaiming that Xnty is like (alas, remarkable company) gambling, drink, women, and so on. The way to waste money and become nothing. The fault I find in Mynster surely is not that he is not the idea itself, for wanting to be such a thing is insanity in a hum. being, but that he is able so purely sensuously and so narrow-mindedly to idolize this finite traffic.

That the life of Xt expresses the idea is self-evident. And these are the idea’s dialectical movements. When the absolutely extraordinary person leaves port and sets a course, his contemporaries are amazed that he is capable of absolutely everything. They follow him rejoicing, worried, and

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curious only as to what he wants of finitude, whether he wants to be king or merely secretary of state, etc. Here he is he at his peak. It is now that he and his contemporaries must come to an understanding, when they see what he wants of the earthly. But what happens? He stays on this summit and rejects every finite τελος, will not possess anything earthly, not so much as to secure the very least. Then comes the transformation. To his contemporaries he is without predicates. His extraordinariness is transformed into nothing, to have become nothing, to the most pitiful of all. And the accusation against him is this: it is his own fault that he let the opportunity go. And yet ideally he stands at the same point, at the same zenith. And his eulogy is: he let the opportunity go.

The Turning Point in the World of Spirit. It is less a matter of what is said than of the ministering existence in relation to what is said. This is responsible for those feigned movements, when what is said is true but the ministering existence comes to express the opposite, e.g., makes a brilliant career by proclaiming that the truth must suffer in this world. Ah, how close I have come to that! And if in daily torment I had not been aware of the leash with which a higher power holds me, as it were, so that I do not give it the slip, I would have made a wrong turn 17 times. Having drawn Nielsen to me, how close I was at that point, allied with him and Stilling, to exploiting the polemical upper hand granted me, to making a direct attack on Mynster and Martensen, competing directly about who should have power and esteem, indicating one or another earthly advantage that I was after. And, humanly speaking, it was possible, my side is the stronger. But on the other hand, that very move would have given the cause a quite different support among the crowd as it became clear to them that there was something earthly I fought for, that perhaps I sought a high civil office to use to the advantage of my

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allies or, if they had no need of it, in any case to gain for them a feeling of power. But now I am bound with the thorn in the flesh and have also discovered new burdens on top of it. If that were not the case, I would very probably have acted on the strength of this common thought: I can enjoy earthly advantages just as much as anyone else, seeing that what I proclaim is much truer than what the others proclaim. One of the most powerful attempts to show that the truth must suffer would then have been transformed into a brilliant career for the preacher. I would have been a success and, in the success, presumably forgotten what I was after. On the other hand, the thorn in the flesh is now teaching me something else. It punishes me, mockingly, and says: do not trouble yourself, you lack the condition for seizing the opportunity. Alas, yes, I who am born for suffering. But then another voice too is heard, which says to me: Oh, my little friend, it is so infinitely well-intentioned on your behalf; there is an infinite love that has bound you like this. Now many a time you feel only pain, especially when faith is weak; in the hereafter you will understand it differently. I have also been subject to this illusion: that just as I understood how much of the extraordinary has been entrusted to me and how this could be put into the world in such a way that it would be understood, so also must I be the one who was meant to succeed, the victor in an external sense. Something of the kind has no doubt also come to Nielsen’s mind, no doubt also Stilling’s. Privately they may have reproached me for not seizing the opportunity. Alas, if it were the case that without the thorn in the flesh I would have possessed the maturity and earnestness to understand how to hold back, entirely on my own, yes, then I would have been great. But I have help: the thorn in the flesh―here it is as if someone is swimming with the help of a belt of cork, only in reverse, as with everything in the religious. Plainly, help is what supports, suffering helps in the opposite way. Religiously it is not the external that is to triumph, it triumphs by succumbing. That is why inner torment is the help that keeps one on the proper path.

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Through a Miracle of Christ to Be Saved from One Evil or Another―and Dying Away. One usually appeals to the fact that Christ performed miracles, healed the sick, etc., to show how plainly intelligible it is that everyone plainly wants to be his contemporary in order to seek his assistance. Let us look at this matter a little more closely. The question will always be what kind of existence the individual returns to after being helped. Xt’s meaning is evident: the person assisted in this way should now side with him, be an imitator, forsake this world. And he can see what this implies by observing Xt; he will also easily discover the consequence of taking his side. But if that is so, then it will be the case that most hum. ills are easier to put up with than this operation that is so painful for flesh and blood―actually to die from the world. Let me give an example. A pers. living at the time of Christ, on whom fortune has smiled in all other respects―there is only one torment under which he suffers: this life, which otherwise was far, far happier than most people’s lives―this life rlly disturbs him. If this cross could be removed, how he would enjoy life, how much he would thank the one who assisted him. Imagine him living at the same time as Xt. I will not dwell on the fact that it would hardly occur to such a pers. to turn to Xt, that he would no doubt be afraid that the matter would become too serious. But let us assume this is the case. So he turns to him. Let us suppose that Xt wants to help him―but Xt adds: then you must become my disciple by imitation. What then? I imagine this man will say: this is a difficult situation. I wanted to be rid of this cross so that I could properly enjoy life, and you are willing to help me on condition that I then die completely to this world. But in that case I am better off staying as I am, enjoying life as best I can, in spite of this torment of mine, rather than being assisted in this way; on the other hand, if I were actually to die to the world as you require, this torment does not matter all that much, not so as to make any particular difference. Take a lame person. Yes, someone who wants to enjoy life on a grand scale (e.g., a Lord Byron) could certainly wish to be healed― but not on condition of having to die to the world altogether. On the other hand, if I should really die to the world, it makes no great difference one way or the other whether I am lame or not.

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But here again one is dallying with Xt. It makes him into a wonder healer who helps out with a miracle―it is forgotten that he is a teacher. And even if Xt did not bind the one helped in this way to imitation, every better pers. would feel bound to it―if he has been helped by him through a miracle. And the matter is therefore the same. If someone wanted to enjoy life if Christ helped him, [but] said not a word about imitation: ah, simply being guilty of such ingratitude would be enough to ruin one’s enjoyment of life, even if unable to decide on being an imitator. Of the 10 lepers only one turned back―but I wonder if the 9 rlly felt the great joy of being healed, which reminded them constantly of having taken Xt in vain. To perform miracles Christ presupposes faith. This rlly implies that anyone who wants to be helped must be at the point of being willing to die to the world. Then he receives assistance, though he is also obligated in imitation to die to this world altogether. This is the situation―so all this about the miracle loses its seductive power.

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Socrates could not prove the immortality of the soul; he simply said: this matter occupies me so much that I will order my life as though immortality were a fact―should there be none, eh bien, I still do not regret my choice, for this is the only matter that concerns me. What a great help it would already be in Xndom if there were someone who spoke and acted like that: I do not know whether Xnty is true, but I will order my whole life as though it were, stake my life on it―then if it proves not to be true, eh bien, I still do not regret my choice, for it is the only matter that concerns me.

The Wedding in Cana. Christendom has been making a terrible fuss about this wedding, but I do not know what they have proved from it.

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In the first place, the fact that Christ was present at a wedding proves nothing about marriage. As teacher it was his task to be present anywhere, always on the lookout for an opportunity to instruct. For he was not a professor who lectures at certain hours ex cathedra. Thus it proves nothing. Otherwise it could also be proven that Xt was an advocate of banquets and of Pharisees from the fact that Xt was frequently present at banquets and with Pharisees. But he changed the water into wine in order to gladden the party. True. But his mother had to prompt him to do it and he initially responded with a reprimand, so he was not especially inclined to do it. If we are to arrive at any conclusion from the story about Xnty’s judgment on marriage, we would have to say: marriage is related to Xnty in the same way as Mary here to the miracle; Xnty rlly does not want to have anything to do with it, is indifferent about whether one marries or not. But the woman pleads for it―and then Xnty gives in and, for an instant, enters into her conception of marriage.

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To Pray in Xt’s Name. This is how Xndom presents it. I have a God in Heaven from whom I may expect all that is good (for he is infinite love)―alas, if only I were not a sinner. But now, through his suffering and death, Xt has made up for it and reconciled me with God―ergo, I may expect all that is good, and I may ask God for it. Here again we break off too quickly. We forget that Xt is the exemplar. We transform the relationship as though God were a powerful prince, Xt the powerful courtier next to him, his influence so great that when I pray in his name, my prayer is heard.― But this courtier does not pass himself off as the exemplar―I merely take advantage of his influence. If then I pray to God in Xt’s name for one or another benefit, or exemption from one or another ill, there is an “aber” inasmuch as Xt’s name, by binding me to imitation, puts me under an obligation to far greater suffering and privation by actually dying to the world.

5 ex cathedra] Latin (literally), from the chair.

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When I had published Concl. Postscript, my intention was to withdraw and concentrate more on my own relationship to Xnty. But in the meantime the external circumstances of my public life were so arranged that I discovered the Christian collisions existentially. This is an essential element in my own upbringing.

The Forgiveness of Sin. Hamann quotes a passage (volume 1 of his collected works in letter no. 40): [“]Wie es von drey Männern Gottes in der Schrift heißt: daß Gott ihnen vergab und ihr Thun strafte Ψ 99.” These are, as Hamann adds in a parenthesis, “two opposing concepts that seem to rescind each other.” But it is also a fitting expression of the Christian concept of the forgiveness of sins. In one of my earliest journals (from before I started as an author), I have noted that the forgiveness of sin consists not so much in the removal of the punishment as in the altered view that it is not punishment, that God is showing me mercy. Perhaps the painful suffering of punishment is not removed and takes its time, but my conception of it has changed. Now, I no longer bear this suffering burdened with the thought that it is the expression of God’s wrath; I bear it with God as I bear any other suffering. Conceptually, this is quite properly what forgiveness of sin amounts to, as does, if you will, the remission of punishment. For what is punishment? Punishment is not pain in and of itself; the same pain or suffering can indeed happen to another sheerly by accident. Punishment is the idea that this particular suffering is punishment. When this idea is removed, so too, rlly, is the punishment.

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The Merely Human―The Christian. Mere human thought thinks like this: if I only succeed in getting through time―eternity is something I can surely get along with. The essentially Xn is: if only eternal happiness is a certainty for me, I shall no doubt manage time even if life should become difficult and burdensome for me. 10 Wie es … Thun strafte] German, Of three men of God, the scriptures say that God forgave them their sins but punished their actions.

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But the certainty of eternal happiness has been made too easy or wohlfeil for us, that is to say, we have transformed it into something imaginary.

In his sermon on “Christian prudence,” Mynster has an excellent passage on how worldly prudence busily occupies itself in immediately declaring anyone a fool who rlly risks something for truth, etc. Mynster then shows how this has always been the case, how this has happened not only to Xt and the apostles, but to all of truth’s zealous servants, how it is still true that worldly prudence calls them fools― alas, it does not occur to Mynster that worldly prudence, to be sure, has never called him a fool.

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[a]

Luther himself therefore insists that there should be fasting and the like,a though salvation must not to be made dependent upon it. Here is the dialectical aspect: salvation is not dependent on it ergo, one thinks, one can let go of striving completely. But this was never Luther’s view; if it was, he would have been a champion of dead faith. What he means is: if salvation is made dependent on it, then it is Law, and then it is through evil that a person is driven to strive. When it is faith that saves, a striving then follows,

What Luther says is quite true: if a pers. were to acquire his salvation through his own striving, it would have to end either in presumption or in despair, and that is why faith saves― Yet not in such a way that striving ceases completely. Faith ought to make striving possible, for the fact that I am saved by faith, that as far as that goes, nothing at all is demanded from me, ought to make it possible for me to strive, so that I do not collapse under impossibility but am encouraged and refreshed by the fact that my salvation has been decided, that I am a child of God on the strength of faith. This is how faith must relate to striving, both in its beginning and during its progress; but it cannot be the intention that striving should cease altogether.

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thus, e.g., in the sermon on the epistle for the 1st Sunday in Lent and many other places.

2 wohlfeil] German, cheap.

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Is There a Private Relationship with Xt? It is quite possible that in the case of my own life I often see Xt too much as the examiner, as if I was supposed to strive on my own and he was simply to look to see how far I was able to come. I realize this, and I know that as a penitent I have confessed many a time before God that these were rlly impious thoughts because it is impious to entertain such thoughts in relationship to a savior. For this is not in the least a savior’s love. But on the other hand, things have rlly gone too far in the other direction. People imagine they have a private relationship to Xt. They join up with Xt, as they say, they want to work for his cause, as they say; but then they also believe that Xt is not as strict with the people who join the cause in that way. They forget that with Xt no such private relationship is possible; he looks, unchanged, upon the person who joins with him to see whether he strives honestly and earnestly. But people have wanted to form a regular coterie with Xt. A coterie survives because of a mutual understanding that members are not strict with each other about honesty, honor, upright behavior―while outwardly, with regard to others, they are. We have almost forgotten in what sense Xt has a cause. Someone with a cause in the temporal, earthly sense must form a coterie and become dependent on those he is in league with. Xt’s only cause is truth, in the eternal sense. He will have absolutely nothing else. That is why he must be just as strict with the one who joins with him as with anyone else. Someone who wants something earthly could be well served by an adherent who successfully carries his cause forward against all others while making an exception of himself―Xt cannot in all eternity use such an adherent; it is blasphemy.

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nurtured with the help of the good. But if no striving at all follows faith, indeed even the opposite, then is such a one lost, and why? Is it because the striving was not forthcoming? If so, the salvation would still have depended on striving. No, it is because striving’s failure to appear makes it apparent that he does not have faith, and therefore he is lost, because he does not have faith.

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Can a Theol. Graduate Demand to Be Ordained without Wanting to Have Any Clerical Appointment? As things are at present, I do not see that a theol. graduate could be denied ordination, if he so demanded, even if he had no desire for an appointment. It was the State Church that linked ordination to an appointment and a livelihood, but the State Church is now essentially dissolved.

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Anonymity has also demoralized the times this way: it has helped make the times characterless by abolishing character. Anyone who is discontent with the establishment, who in any way wants to play the reformer, wants to protest against it, wants to speak the language of truth extra ordinem, i.e., outside the media recognized by the state―he must also stand up and take full responsibility. He must not be afraid of risk, for that very risk shapes him, or is in any case the examination that decides whether he is good at such things or not. But you see, a way out was discovered with the help of anonymity. Let us assume that an abuse, an injustice occurs in one way or another. Everyone suffers under it. Well and good. But just because one person suffers an injustice, it does not follow that he is rlly the man called to protest. Now the rule should be that if I lack the power to raise my voice against injustice earnestly and with integrity, if I lack the courage to witness for the truth like that, then my task is to hold my tongue and suffer. No impatience. The person who keeps quiet and suffers because he recognizes that he is unfit to be a reformer, he too, is a moral character. It is only after the situation has been intensified by a long period of suffering and silence that true character emerges. But with the help of anonymity a shortcut has appeared. Every impatient coward who has not dared to use his own name―it might cost him his position or cause him disgrace or some other problem―now becomes, anonymously, a witness to the truth. 17 extra ordinem] Latin, outside the ordinary.

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Yes, no doubt it is convenient. Someone came up with the idea that anonymity was something meritorious, that it implied “concentrating on the issue itself.” Yes, thank you very much, and it was for the sake of “concentrating on the issue itself” that someone anonymously attacks another by name. The anonymous one was afraid to use his own name but not afraid to attack the other by name. Truly, this kind of courage marks a brilliant advance for wretched cowardice. Then the door was opened. Every kind of impatience and irritation came running with every triviality from the school of suffering―and became an anonymous reformer. Sometimes even schoolboys became reformers of the school board or an individually named teacher―anonymously. And though we have a police notice prohibiting ale-house keepers from serving alcohol to schoolboys, we have no order forbidding schoolboys from working at newspapers―I almost wrote forbidding journalists from serving schoolboys. Indeed it cannot be prevented because they can remain anonymous. Anyone who knows something about hum. nature knows that mediocrity, triviality, and petty passions are tempted to play the reformer, to talk the bold language of truth. And now this is spoken from morning to evening―by all these cowards who, just for the sake of the issue itself, conceal their name. At the newspaper office, this quite ordinary scene takes place: A man bluntly admits that, for this or that reason, he cannot very well sign his name, and remains anonymous. The editor and the author understand each other; and neither of the parties blush. The article is published―one would think it was by one of the heroes of truth. What follows from this, again, is that the desire to be a person of actual character, who under his own name exposes himself to real risk, becomes ridiculous, unwise, because it is possible to do the same thing in a far more comfortable way and speak only to the issue itself. Oh, you wretches, yes, certainly one can accomplish the same thing in a more comfortable way―[a]demoralize the entire society by speaking the noble language of truth―if it were in fact the same thing for a moral character to do some good with his particular protest and to do an infinite good by being a person of character. A sight the world was privy to in former timesb―a coxcomb of an agitator jumps forward as a reformer and then stands there, a target of derision―this we no longer see. No, now things are

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more favorable for the strutting agitators―they remain anonymous and are thus never compromised. Meanwhile the anonymous ones thundered on― and they had to be heeded, for public opinion was being expressed, and anonymously “simply to serve the cause.”

The Religious State of Our Time is a fearful self-contradiction. In private one can get almost anyone to admit that he is a long way from Xnty, but officially the same people keep up appearances by claiming that we are all Xns.

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Until now people have done as follows. They have said: all scripture is div. revelation, inspired, etc., ergo there must be the most perfect harmony among the reports down to the most trivial detail; it must be the most perfect Greek, etc., etc. Let us look at the matter in another way. God surely knows what is it to “believe,” what it means to require faith, namely that implies a rejection of direct communication and posits an ambiguity. See, now we are getting somewhere. Precisely because God wants Holy Scripture to be the object of faith and an offense to any other way of looking at it, it is precisely for that reason that these discrepancies have been carefully contrived (which will in any case be resolved into agreements in eternity): that is why it is in bad Greek, etc., etc. Take another situation. As ruler of the world, God also wants to be the object of a faith; he wants you and me to believe that he is the loving father, etc. A theory corresponding to harmony-theory would then have to require that the world, too, be so devoid of ambiguity that it was possible directly to sense and feel that God is love. But the world

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is a long way from being like that. And why is it? Because God wants to be believed in faith. Similarly with Holy Scripture. But “faith” went out of fashion; the tension of passion, which is faith, seemed to peop. to be an exaggeration―and so if one wanted to concern oneself at all with the premise that there is a revealed word of God, it had to be of the kind that afforded a direct sense that it was God’s word, which must show perfect harmony throughout, etc. Scholarly efforts were not spared―yes, but even the most scholarly of efforts are still always as indolence compared with the kind of strenuousness belonging to faith.

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[a] In the Middle Ages, too, it was taught that the visible signs of the sacraments were there to “tempt” faith, i.e., to create an opposition, through the possibility of offense, from which faith could proceed so that the individual could choose faith, though there is no direct relationship.―Clement of Alex. taught that Holy Scripture employs allegories―so that the heretics would not be able to understand it, i.e., so that scripture would exist only for the faithful.

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The Need of Our Time, Religiously Speaking, is not a new masterly work of eloquence and profundity, not a hitherto matchless acuity in determining the conceptual content of faith, etc., etc. The unwholesomeness of the age can consume something like that in half a year and the matter will have come no further. No, more good is done by someone who, for the sake of Xt, denied himself something, however insignificant. Action is what the time needs. It was no doubt occasionally presumptuous in former times when in all too comradely a fashion people approached the thought that they might try to emulate the exemplar. It was no doubt a misunderstanding when they, all too childishly, kept company with God and thought that he sat and watched me denying myself, giving up this or that trifle. Ah, but those times had one great good―a childlikeness that made it possible to seize hold of the assigned duties. Now, on the contrary, the ideal has been placed at such a terrible distance from the single individual that the ideal has become merely the idea of the human race; the ideal has been placed at such a distance from the single individual that it never in

And in scientific distraction people made God into a rather stupid God, who―because they had themselves forgotten what it means to have faith, or perhaps never knew―had forgotten or perhaps never knew what arrangements were required for something to be an object of “faith.”

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the remotest manner occurs to an individual to want to strive for likeness, as if this were just as unprofitable and foolish as barking at the moon. So distant is the ideal from the single individual that a whole world of prosaic wisdom, which would find it ridiculous if he started on such things, lies between him and the ideal; yes, he would find himself ridiculous. This, you see, is also presumption.

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About Myself. If there were otherwise any similarity between my crumb of a duty in the world and that of a man like Moses, I would say the difference is this: he was afraid to take it on because he was not a gifted speaker―and a man who could speak was required. Alas, if that was the problem, I would be quite confident. But now an ascetic is required who can live on bread and water, and I am not that person. I have perhaps some robustness inasmuch as I am able to stand people’s judgment―but ascetic robustness is something I lack; it is foreign to my nature and entire upbringing, yes, I am even apprehensive about starting on such things because I am afraid of entering the field of the meritorious.

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To Give Offense―To Take Offense.

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Xt cries woe to those who give offense, to those by whom offense comes―and yet the possibility of offense is inseparable from any definition of what is Xn, and Xt repeats often enough “blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” The difference is[:] The div. truth is “the truth,” but in such a way that the world takes offense at it. It cannot be otherwise. But one cannot say for that reason that it gives offense. Giving offense is something quite different, it is, e.g., a desire to intentionally wrench faith from the believer. For when one points to the possibility of offense in order to strengthen faith, that is the authentic Christian proclamation of Xnty.

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An Agreement between Xndom and the World for Mutual Swindle. Hidden inwardness arose when concern and enthusiasm for actually being Xn gradually faded away even though, at the same time, no one wanted to break completely with Xnty. Hidden inwardness excuses one from actual renunciation, excuses one from all the inconvenience of suffering for Xnty’s cause. This became the agreement and on this condition everyone continued to be Xn―it was convenient. This was also convenient from another perspective, that of “the world.” If Xnty becomes nothing but this kind of extraord[inary], extraord[inary] hidden inwardness, which is about so viel wie nichts, then the world pledges to put up with Xnty. That was a fine world. Naturally, it saw with half an eye that, with hidden inwardness’s help, it had conquered Xnty. That enormous power, Xnty, declared that its friendship was a hatred of the world―no, the world could not calmly stand by, nor was it allowed to. But a Xndom that, in total and complete hidden inwardness, hated the world, but that otherwise in every utterance expressed an intimate friendship with the world, that was in complete conformity to the world: [“]Yes, by all means,[”] the world said and thought―this kind of hatred can be conceded with pleasure as something quite harmless―and besides, thought the world, this hate residing in the hidden inwardness could also be a lie because one hears of it only in preacher prattle, which again is not the preacher’s own conviction but something he declaims in an official capacity in order to make a living as a worthy member of the newest religious order: the bread and butter brothers. The notion that one could be a Xn, with an inwardness so hidden that Satan himself would never discover it, was glorified and admired as a matter of refinement. It was refinement―ah, indeed; instead of refinement we sometimes use another expression, to be men of the world. Therefore Mynster, e.g., will say: Yes, but by being a teacher in the Church I am still confessing Xt. To that the answer must be: This is a roguish trick because the livelihood and the official position disguise what is characteristic of confession. As for that, I confess that I have been a lover of hidden inwardness both as an ironist and melancholic, and it is certainly true that I have cultivated inwardness and made great efforts to conceal it. There is also something true in the shyness that conceals its inwardness. But as for me, I have tried to order my 11 so viel wie nichts] German, as much as nothing.

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actions as a striving for what is Xn. I have never maintained that I was Xn in hidden inwardness and then otherwise, with all life’s energy, organized my life secularly. To the contrary, I have kept my inwardness secret, appeared as an egotistical, frivolous person, etc.―and yet I have acted in such a way so as to experience the Xn collisions. However, the degree to which one is allowed to do this is another matter because it is characteristic of Xnty to immediately draw ridicule, persecution, etc., if I properly confess it. True enough, by acting according to the Xn standard I incur similar treatment, but it might be the case that the resentment would be even greater if everyone knew that it was in order to confess Xt. For if worse came to worst, the world would rather come to terms with the eccentricity of genius, or treat it more gently, than put up with Xnty. Besides, in my own case it must be remembered that in my past I have already marked my relationship to Christianity according to quite another standard of measure than that of the functionaries and the bread and butter brothers; but the question is whether I ought to do more, which, after all, reminds me that I have understood that it was my duty to operate as a spy. Had I not had this peculiar thought, I would have had to act differently from the outset. But then neither would the achieved results have been accomplished: the indirect evidence against the Xndom we find ourselves in―the fact that a person believes he is Xn and yet cannot recognize Xn action or what conforms to it, and sings out that it is eccentricity, exaggeration, and the like. This would never have been achieved by a direct attack, by declaring oneself to be a Xn and judging others not to be; for then they would appeal, without blinking, to their hidden inwardness. And hidden inwardness was the very thing to be prodded, which can only be done indirectly.

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In one of his Table Talks, Luther talks of what he does when the devil tempts him at night. He says to him: My good Satan, now you must really leave me in peace because you know that it is God’s will that peop. should work during the day and sleep at night.

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Luther―and the Situation in Protestantism. Luther complains (in the sermon on the epistle for the fourth Sunday in Lent) that there are far more people who prefer to hear a proclamation of the Law rather than a proclamation of the Gospel. In our time, it is just the opposite; we would prefer to hear nothing but the Gospel, the Gospel. But then again, our time has of course made such extraordinary progress in Xnty. Alas, no, the situation is quite different. When someone has a genuine interest in religion, the most immediate thing is for him to become enthusiastic and want to actualize it, to make himself worthy, and so forth. Certainly this can easily degenerate and become a dangerous fallacy, but it always proves a desire and interest in the matter. Then comes Luther, who, opposed to this juvenile approach, made faith the important thing. This was evidently too elevated for peop.; they were better able to understand, and preferred to hear, that they were to fast, to go on pilgrimages, etc.; but at least the desire to hear it and put it into action proves there is a desire for and interest in religion. Then, after Luther, came Protestantism. It found Luther’s approach to be excellent; that is, it did not have enough desire or interest to even try striving, fasting, giving alms, etc. It had something quite different to take care of―and just wanted to hear the gospel, the gospel. Oh Luther, Luther! Did you not know that draconian laws simply lead to an end to executions[?]―and so, too, when taken exponentially. However true it was for Luther, and however true it is for Christianity―it must be watched over with the greatest severity; otherwise worldliness takes it in vain, and it not only remains secularity through and through, but even boasts that it is the highest spirituality.

Human Drivel. Today I was speaking with a Right Reverend. He explained to me enthusiastically that what we rlly need are mendicant friars

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and the like. But why does the Right Reverend not become a mendicant friar himself? On this point it is not possible to say “I cannot,” for it is only a question of will. In other words, the Right Reverend prefers to occupy one of the big official positions. But next Sunday he will preach emotionally about that fact mendicant monks are what we rlly need. And we can go further: suppose such a mendicant friar actually arose and appeared among us, what would the Right Reverend do? He would immediately seize the opportunity to exclaim: This is what I have always said―and then he would all but imagine himself being that man, rather than imagining that his guilt becomes greater the longer and more loudly he preaches that mendicant friars are what is needed without acting accordingly. And even further: after the mendicant friar had been around for a year, the Right Reverend would be among those who cried: This is too much, this is too much―for now the matter will have become serious. Look at this Right Reverend, he sits calmly with his large salary, carefully watching out for a bigger post to become vacant so he can apply for that one. Amazing human drivel! Just give in to the drivel and that is where you find advancement and betterment. As for the truth, in this world there is no advancement, only regression.

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The Moravian Brothers do not accentuate imitation―they compensate with a lyrical blood-theory, all that staring at Xt’s suffering.

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In a Christian sense, it is altogether incorrect to accentuate that all humankind needs Xnty, and then to prove it again and again. This is the issue in Christianity: I have need of Xnty.

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savored it or not, seem altogether without consequence at the moment of death[?] And inversely, will not every good deed that you did not fail to carry out―yes, for the sake of God in Heaven do not fail to carry it out―seem of the utmost importance at the moment of death[?]―Alas, who has managed to do that?

That Which Ties Us to Xt

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There is a power called sin. If you want to be saved from it, then seek Xt. He is redemption―even though, humanly speaking, redemption is bitter; but if sin is truly more bitter to you, then there is no reason to hesitate. The final hour approaches, the hour of death. Xt promises you an infinite good right then. Heavenly bliss. Would you refuse it for anything else? So choose him. But in that case he makes it a condition to dispose over your life here in the world; he makes it somewhat more difficult for you―but he also helps you to bear it.

God is not worshiped in mood but in action; but here is the difficulty: it can so easily become narrow-mindedness and temptation toward thinking in terms of merit. Only the childlike disposition―or a love that loves God entirely―can do it properly. Here I am thinking of something like an ascetic action (for action in the way of testifying for the truth and against untruth is something one should quite plainly do). Take an example. Someone wants to devote certain days to holy thoughts; he knows there is a place, an environment which is particularly suited to preserving this earnest mood. But this place is some distance away so travel and lodging will cost quite a bit. Perhaps true worship in this case means saving the money, especially if he cannot afford it; in any case, maybe it is his duty to save. Yet even Xt approves a certain kind of pious squandering as, e.g., lavishing that expensive ointment on him. And here the point is that prudence is depravation.

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About Myself From early on I have had a thorn in the flesh, dreadful agonies, including isolation, which was by no means my own wish. If I had not been wealthy but had been forced to work for a living, I would have had to stake everything on getting rid of this evil, or I would have perished. But I had wealth―and I accepted that the suffering, through God’s infinite love, was again exactly the pressure that raised me above the commonplace. But it was my hope then that I would not be tested by economic difficulties. If, with all my advantages, I had been freed from the thorn in the flesh, it is not inconceivable that I would have made some attempt at asceticism; for I readily saw that in order properly to exercise power, one must also have complete control over oneself, or as much control as possible, also with regard to one’s body. I do not commend this motive, I simply say that I believe it would have been the case. As it happened, I have had clipped wings in the deepest sense―and I have been used to much enjoyment and comfort, always in order to be able to work all the more productively. Touching on this point is not such a good thing for me, because my whole existence is an artificial existence. The hard part is that someone with my working capacity and abilities is born in this little country; for in a large country I would have been assisted, there would have been enough to earn as an auth. However, in another way I am fond of this little country precisely because it is so well suited to my religious development and significance.

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Do not use your intellectual abilities to protect yourself. If you are weak, just dare act; confess your weakness before God, however anxious you are; he will then surely arrange everything so that you can bear it, and then by having dared, you still save your conscience.

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About Myself. Owing to the abuse and boorishness I have been exposed to, I felt a need to surround myself with a certain extravagance, which cost me much in spite of being little able to afford it. Yet as I, before God, understood it, I had the money and deemed that I should use it with thanks. Gladly giving thanks for the extraordinary things that were entrusted to me, living only for this cause, I understood, before God, that I could live extravagantly, as well. Racked by inner torments and placed in painful isolation outside the universal[,] which made it so very hard for me to work for a living, I understood, before God, that I had wealth and that it would last me as long as I lived. I was ready to expose myself to risk for the sake of the cause; but then I saw it as a mitigation granted to me that I should live without worries concerning subsistence. And it is also true that in another sense I have a very sharp intellect and once had great desire to earn money; had I been in an ordinary person’s situationa, I would have most willingly secured my future with an official appointment. Yet, as my whole life has been a constant upbringing, I will no doubt now too be led further. Without all my inner torment, without this bold imagination of mine, and without God’s help, none of the accomplishments would ever have been achieved. I cannot do two things at once, do something more “in addition.” I have always imagined that when I had run out of money, I would have to stop serving the idea and work solely for a living. It almost seems as though the next move could be completely different, that I should become an ascetic, something that has otherwise always been alien to my nature and that I have been uneasy about, especially because I fear I could become overwrought and that it would expose me to the temptation of meritoriousness, that it would make me cold, severe, and indifferent toward others and what is beautiful about hum. existence.

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The Turn in the Understanding of Xnty Occasioned also by the Year ’48. The conflict concerning Xnty will no longer be a conflict about doctrine. (This is the conflict between orthodoxy and heterodoxy.)

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The dispute (occasioned also by the socialist and communist movements) will be about Christianity as a form of existence. The problem will be about loving one’s “neighbor,” attention will be directed toward Xt’s life, and Xnty will essentially accentuate conformity with his life. The world has gradually consumed those myriad illusions and partition walls by which people have ensured that the question was merely about Xnty as a doctrine. The rebellion in the world shouts: We want to see action!

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Christian Order of Precedence. 1) If you have wealth and want to be perfect, then give everything to the poor. 2) If you have wealth and want to use it for one or another beneficial undertaking, that too is fine. 3) If you have wealth and want to use it to enjoy life, though, please note, in a permissible manner, Xnty no doubt tolerates it.―4) If you must earn a living―then Xnty prefers that you limit your needs in order to have more time for the religious rather than that you use more time working in order to have more money to spend. Xnty is suspicious of earning money. At the same time Xnty is lenient if you understand that the right to spend so much time earning money is an indulgence. But if you turn earning money into what is serious about life, then you have fallen from Xnty.

The Bible―for “The Single Individual.” Imagine a loving couple. The lover has written a letter to the loved one. Could it ever occur to the recipient to worry about how others would understand the letter, or will he read all by himself[?] Suppose now that this letter from the lover had the odd feature that every single pers. was the loved one, what then? Is the intention now that they should get together and confer with one another, even drag along a learned apparatus from countless generations? No, the intention is that each individual is to read this letter before God, wholly as an individual, as the single individual who has received this letter of God’s, this letter from God.

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But it is soon forgotten that this letter is from God and entirely forgotten that it is to the single individual. The human race has been put there instead. And for that reason, we have completely lost the impact of the Bible.

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“That Single Individual” What has puzzled me most about my production is how I ended up beginning with “that single individual,” with willing the single individual, this so altogether true principle. For imagine someone who has enthusiastically wanted something; he goes enthusiastically out into the world, has gathered followers; the years have passed, he is an old man; he himself is just about the only one who has been true to the ideal; in other respects he considers the cause a fiasco―and now he says, no, it rests on the single individual alone, sociality is essentially regression. This is how it goes for the old man at the end of his life―but how does a pers. of twenty-something years begin in this way[?] How did he figure this out[?] And how inverted, upside down must he have been to believe that it is the truth[?]―Alas, in general, nothing is more natural for a young man than to believe in fellowship.

There have been many of the opinion―indeed it has even become modern to be of the opinion―that they personally have no need of Xnty but they have accepted it anyway because there were many others who did, or they understood that others needed it and, so far as that goes, that others accepted it, but they do not personally accept it. With me, it is the other way around: I can well understand that I need Xnty―but I simply cannot understand what these millions of others want with it.

Christ opens his arms and says: come to me. The priest hurries to say: just dare throw yourself into his arms―this is life. Fine, but watch out, for this embrace of his comes only with death.

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He calls himself life, he says come to me―and were you to give yourself over completely, you would also be dead, you would have died away; for he is not simply life, he is life through death.

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Xt dies to save you―but on condition that you die away; but then nothing is gained, one will say. How? Is nothing gained[?] Even if you had fully died away, it does not follow that at death you enter into the eternal bliss that Xt has earned for you. But, you say, when someone has completely died away, he is also pure spirit and has essentially found the rest that Xnty offers.a Answer: let us suppose that this was so; it is still true that without Xt’s help, you are incapable of dying completely away, yes, incapable without his help, of beginning the assignment.

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In a sermon today, Pastor Smith said something that struck me: Xt has not spoken to us just with his life, he has also spoken for us with his death.

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Ah, if I were to wish something for myself, I would wish that I had Xnty’s conception of what infinite good eternal blessedness is, and that I had this conception with me every moment. What would I not be capable of, and how much would I not love Xt[?]―Alas, instead of being anxious all the time about involving myself with him and nonetheless being so often mistrustful because, to me, it seems that his salvation almost comes close to making me unhappy. And why does it seem so to me? Because I cling to the earthly―and have such a poor conception of eternal blessedness.

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Every other concern finds its expression in human life. The concern for accumulating money finds its expression and takes a long, long time; likewise the concern for honor and glory, and similarly with even the most trivial concern. Only the concern for one’s eternal blessedness finds no expression whatsoever―but we all have it, we are all Xns.

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Strange.

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In the world, in everyday dealings, only the highest good is presupposed without further ado. Suppose someone seeks the lowest kind of a position―his qualifications are by no means presupposed without further ado; they are first investigated―but the notion that one is Xn, that is presupposed without further ado. A man seeks a clerical living. Unbelievably much is investigated, and nothing concerning income, the parsonage, etc., is presupposed without further ado―but that he is Xn, this is naturally granted without further ado, that in hidden inwardness he loves God above all and is prepared to renounce everything at any moment it is demanded―this is presupposed without further ado.

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misfortune is rlly that he has begun at too advanced a stage; he has not begun in his youth by asking himself: will you be a Christian; he has begun by presupposing that naturally he was a Christian; and he has then asked himself: Do you want to be a priest, a professor, or perhaps a lawyer, etc. So he chose to be a priest, and then carefully made sure that he did not completely thoughtlessly discover what Xnty is. He has made, if you will, quite an acceptable deal; he has taken with him as much as he possibly could given the fact that he wanted to secure an earthly life replete with enjoyment.

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Absolute Devotion to God. The relationship to God is like a relationship to superiority, especially to absolute superiority: a moment comes when it seems as though God’s love were a delusion with which he deceives the pious. This is the moment when it really becomes clear that the God-fearing person is to be torn from his entire range of ideas and world of concepts and initiated into God’s ideas and concepts in order to learn from him what love is. A pers. initially lives in relation to God with the tempo of childhood and the religious impressions from that time, thinking he loves God, understands that God is love, is grateful for all the many good gifts, etc. But you see, God then sends constant adversity; Xnty, which is proclaimed as a consolation, metamorphoses into a monstrous burden laid on the believer, so that instead of being consoled, he must even suffer for Xnty, etc.; then no doubt it seems to him as though God were in a sense a deceiver who entices a pers. further and further out, and instead of adapting to him, orders everything in order to trap him in the service of his interests. It begins with God, who loves man, and then it appears that God is the one who wants to be loved; he has not the slightest intention of altering his conception of what love is, and his conception of what love is makes you, humanly speaking, unhappy in this life. This is spiritual trial. But this is quite as it should be; even the apostles experienced this in relation to Xt. And yet God is infinite love; but he has only a spirit’s concept of your happiness and blessedness―alas, and you are flesh and blood. So if you are to be blessed in your relationship to him, your concept must be transformed, and this transformation, this rebirth, is an immensely painful operation, and there comes a moment in the process when it looks to you as though God resembled a superior kind of seducer. God is no egotist, to be sure, but he is the infinite Ego who cannot possibly be altered so as to please you, but you must be absolutely transformed in order to please him. Forget everything, forget yourself absolutely, in the thought of God, in the thought that he is love: yes, then you are blessed in your relationship to him―but then you have also become spirit.

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The Testimony of the Spirit is present, strictly speaking, only when immediate testimonies witness against it. When everything goes your way and is in accord with your own understanding, you still cannot be sure that the joy you feel is the testimony of the spirit even if you refer everything to God; for it might also simply be an intensification of your own life through good fortune and prosperity. But when everything goes against you, and you nevertheless perceive a testimony within you that you are on the right path and are to continue along that path, where everything will likely go against you more and more; this, you see, is the testimony of the spirit.

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. . . . and even if you were eternally happy in the end, despite never having rlly found occasion to concern yourself with the matter, it seems to me that one day it would nevertheless be apparent to you that it was a sad and deplorable ingratitude that the good―which Christ suffered and died to attain―had not absolutely concerned you, no, had not concerned you at all. So you who suffer, you must rather count yourself lucky that God prevented you from frittering your life away and taught you to become attentive to that infinite good through difficult suffering. And this is what dying away rlly means: eternal blessedness appears unconditionally as the only good, and all else as nothing. But, alas, the way we live is such that we have time to think about and concern ourselves with everything else. But we either leave the question of eternal blessedness in abeyance or bring in “grace” in such a way that we have hope of becoming eternally blessed by grace, as we say―which is like saying that we are not concerned with it at all.

The Notion That Xnty Does Not Fit in with the World proves Xt’s own life altogether satisfactorily. The fact that it has now spread everywhere, as they say―yes, it goes unnoticed that one first ought to prove that it is Xnty that has spread everywhere, whereas there is no need to prove that what Xt proclaimed was Xnty.

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One boasts that everyone is Xn and fails to notice how satirical it is that when Xt proclaimed Xnty, everyone fled―so the fact that it is so widespread has doubtless to do with the fact that what is proclaimed is not Xnty.

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Delusion and Again Delusion. A whole mass of considerations are set in motion by means of which, and in which, it is proved that God is love: this is the Sunday discourse―Monday’s footnote is that you ought to be careful about getting too involved with God. And the religious person who talks piously about belonging wholly to God is even proud of his wisdom, of the fact that he has not been some fool who got too involved with God―and so God is love, and one is so sincerely convinced of it, etc.; at the same time one consorts with him as though he were a scheming despot.

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There is a sort of sermon that corresponds roughly to what a certain sort of popular novel is to the aesthetic. Thisted delivered a lot of them.

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Gibberish.

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One asks God to provide testimony of the spirit―and forgets that “testimony of the spirit” is really present, and decisively present, only when all immediate testimonies have been negated. How many rlly have the strength to bear the testimony of the spirit[?] But they do not know what they are talking about. In religious respects, far too many (priests and lay people) are like the Jew who signed a petition supporting the Norwegian constitution without knowing that it expelled Jews from the country. This is the way they consort with what is Christian, and if they knew themselves at all, they would thank God that, at the present,

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he did not grant their prayer, for one must be in a critical state before testimony of the spirit rlly helps; one must essentially be on the path to becoming spirit―and how many are in that critical state[?]

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Endless Sorrowfulness. that no pers. can grasp: out of love, Christ lets himself be born, suffers for an entire lifetime, finally dies to save us so we acquire the eternal good: deliverance from our sin and heavenly bliss― alas, and he is not understood; it seems to us hum. beings that he makes us unhappy, as though getting completely involved with him would make us unhappy; for we only have a sense of the earthly, and only want the earthly, are alone concerned with the earthly, and only want comfort in that respect; and in that respect he rlly offers no comfort, even wants to make life strenuous for us. But it is nonetheless just as certain that he did everything and suffered everything out of love―suffered also because we hum. beings did not want to understand him. Just consider this situation in a pers.’s life: consider how hard it is when one is honestly aware of doing a good deed, and must one suffer in order to do it; and consider how hard it is when the recipient thinks it has made him unhappy. Yet this is how it is with Xt: the merely hum. understanding of Xt is this: he makes us all unhappy; no one has made us hum. beings as unhappy as he has―in a divine sense, he is our savior. No one, no one has done, or could do it, what he has done for us. But in order to understand it, our whole disposition must be reshaped. This is the rebirth. But strict care must be taken that these two understandings are kept meticulously apart, that they are not jabbered together as if the natural hum. being, the sheerly human, could see a savior in Xt. This is where Xndom’s deepest confusion lies. This is why the possibility of offense must be raised again. The natural hum. being must first be reborn, learn from Xt what infinite good eternal blessedness is, what terror sin is, learn that without Xt we would be damned―then Xt is the one who obtains the highest good for us.

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Ah, but it is really a matter of keeping watch with all one’s might on the border conflicts between the hum. and the divine; otherwise all Xnty is nonsense, as it now is in Xndom.

The Old Approach―and Mine.

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The old approach was this: to be so eager and busy getting peop. en massea to agree to Xnty that they either forgot, or were not particularly concerned about, whether or not what was agreed to was Xnty. This is my approach: to make absolutely sure that it is clear what Xnty is―even if no one at all, not even myself, could agree to it.

Fraudulent Sermons. I remember having read in a sermon―indeed, by what they call a very orthodox man (and of course you can get anyone to say that)―something about the words of Peter. He wrote [“]it was presumptuous to say: ‘Look we have left everything, what then will we have?’ ” I wish all these priests were at Brocken. They do nothing but demoralize peop. with their Sunday rubbish. Yes, it is certainly presumptuous, if you will; but my own thought is that if it were really true that he sacrificed everything for the sake of Xt, our Lord Jesus Xt is not someone who would fail to show lenience or forgive if, in a moment of weakness, a man said “what will we have?” To truly sacrifice everything in earnest is no tomfoolery like the priest’s gabbling. But it is demoralizing that both the priest and the listeners naturally feel themselves better than an apostle who is “presumptuous”―these wretched milksops who have never in their lives once thought of offering a cent for the sake of Xt, yes, the priest least of all. Look, it is clear that when that is the case, one is not easily tempted to ask Xt “what will we have?”

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Possibility―Actuality. Mynster now pontificates about those far off times when God made his will known through extraordinary arrangements, with visions and dreams―imagine that it pleased our Lord to send Mynster a vision with orders to go out and preach it: Mynster would take cover, he would do everything, absolutely everything, would put up with every humiliation so as to be excused, because simply being afraid of ridicule would be enough for him.

When Xnty came into the world, a grandly passionate conception of visions and dreams and God’s revelations prevailed among the contemporaries, the Jews. Now on the contrary, all such concepts are abolished, almost laughable―but Xnty flourishes, we are all Xns. Mynster knows it but is careful not to say anything. He knows it. In a sermon (in the two volumes of sermons; either the one about earnestness in our Xnty or the one about how God wants us wholly to belong to him) he himself says: do not let the expression “to will the salvation of your soul” frighten you; do not be put off by it, [“]even if it is old and seems ridiculous to most peop.” Thus, to be concerned about the salvation of one’s soul seems ridiculous―and yet we are Xns, this is a Christian people, etc.―yes, otherwise the high and great office of bishop of the Zealand diocese would be unthinkable.

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In Montaigne, 2nd book, chapter 16 (on honor, renown) there are these splendid words by a sailor: My God, you can save me i