11. What Christ Judges of Official Christianity
Chapter Eleven
It might seem strange that only now do I move forward with this, because Christ’s judgment is surely decisive, however inconvenient it appears to the clerical guild of con men, which has seized the firm “Jesus Christ” and made brilliant profits under the name of Christianity.
At the same time, it is surely not without reason that only now do I bring what is decisive to light, and the one who attentively has followed my entire authorial activity cannot fail to notice that there is a certain method in the way I go about it, that it is characterized both by what I say—that the whole thing with “Christendom” is a criminal case corresponding to what people usually recognize as forgery, swindling, only that here it is religion that is used in this way—and of the fact that I actually am, as I put it, a police talent.
Just consider, then, so that you can follow the trail of the case. I started by posing as a poet, subtly taking aim at what I thought was the truth of official Christianity, that the difference between the freethinker and official Christianity is that the freethinker is an honest man, who literally teaches that Christianity is fiction, poetry; official Christianity is a forgery, which ceremoniously assures that Christianity is something else entirely, solemnly declaims against freethinking and, with the help of this, covers up that it is itself actually making Christianity into poetry, doing away with the imitation of Christ, so that one relates oneself to the archetype only through the imagination, even lives in entirely different categories, which is to relate oneself poetically to Christianity or to transform it into poetry, no more binding than poetry is. And, at last, the end comes, when one completely casts the archetype away and lets what one is—mediocrity—nearly hold true of the ideal.
In the name of being a poet, I then brought forward some ideals, recited what—yes, what 1,000 royal officials are bound to by oath. And these good men, they noticed nothing at all; they were perfectly secure, to the extent that, in Christian terms, everything was mindlessness and worldliness. These good men did not at all suspect that something was hiding behind this poet—that the procedure was police-intelligence, in order to make the men in question feel secure, what the police use precisely to get an opportunity to obtain a deeper insight.
Time passed in this way. I was even on quite good terms with these oath-bound men—and, in total silence, I both managed to plant the ideals and to get acquainted with those with whom I was having to deal.
And yet, these good men eventually grew impatient with this poet; he became too offensive to them. This happened by way of the article against Bishop Martensen regarding Bishop Mynster. Perfectly secure as they were, they now (one will remember it from the time) stressed that “much too great a measure was applied here,” etc.—perfectly secure.
Then this poet was suddenly transformed. He (if I dare say so) tossed aside his guitar and took out a book called “The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior” and with—yes, it was with the eye of a policeman—he let these good, oath-bound teachers, “witnesses to the truth,” understand: is it not this book to which they are bound by an oath, this book whose measure is a good bit greater than the one he had used?
As we know, silence set in from that moment. So impudent they were, so good to declaim as long as they thought they not only could get away but could act important in this way: “We have a poet before us; his ideals are exaggerated; the measure is much too great.” Then they became silent from the moment this book and the oath came into play.
This is precisely what happens in police business. One first makes the person in question secure, and if, by the way, a police agent possesses all other gifts, he is not any “definite police talent” if he is not a virtuoso in the art of being able to make one feel secure. In that condition, the opposing party turns the whole relationship around; he and only he is the upright man, and it appears certain that it was the police agent who got into trouble. But when, then, the latter has gotten to know what he wants to know by making the other feel secure in this way, he changes the procedure, proceeds in completely direct fashion—and then suddenly the opposing party becomes silent, bites his lip, and probably thinks like this: “That was a nasty business.”
That is why I took out the New Testament and most deferentially allowed myself to call to mind that these honored witnesses to the truth are bound by an oath to the New Testament—and then the silence set in. Was this not odd?
Meanwhile, for some time longer, I considered it most proper to keep them unclear, if possible, about how well informed I am and to what degree I have the New Testament on my side—something I managed to do, but it did not occur to me to boast about it.
Next I spoke in my own name, more and more decisively to be sure, since I indeed saw that they still rejected the fact that I first presented the case for the opposing party as favorably as it was possible for me to do it. And, at last, I took it upon myself to say in my own name that it is a guilt, a great guilt, to take part in the official worship of God as it now is. That was in my own name. Obviously, then, to escape from me in that way—to say that I am a poet, so it is indeed the others who display the truth—well, now, that was no longer possible. But it is still always somewhat reassuring that I speak in my own name, and therefore, in view of this reassurance, I yet again arrived at making the opposing party feel a little secure, so as to get an opportunity to get to know them even better: whether they intended to harden themselves against the charge. For, no doubt, conscience still must have struck the oath-bound men by hearing these all-transforming words: “It is a guilt, a great guilt, to take part in the official worship of God as it now is, because this is the greatest possible distance from being the worship of God.”
Yet, as stated, it was reassuring that I spoke in my own name. For even if it is the case that, with God, I know that I have spoken truthfully and spoken as I should speak; and even if what I have said is true and should be said; if also there were no words from Christ himself: then, after all, it is always good that we learn from the New Testament how Christ judges official Christianity.
And we know that from the New Testament; his judgment is found there. But, of course, I remain perfectly convinced that, whoever you are, if you do not know anything else about what Christianity is than from the Sunday sermons of “the witnesses to the truth,” then, year in and year out, you can go into three churches every Sunday and hear, ordinarily, any of the royal officials—and you will never have heard the words of Christ to which I refer. The witnesses to the truth presumably think like this: “The proverb says, ‘One should not talk about rope in the house of a hanged man’; so, too, it will be madness to bring these words from God’s Word—which loudly witness against the pastor’s catchpenny acting—to light in the churches.”
Yes, I could be tempted to make the following demand, which, so moderate and simple, is really the only punishment of the pastors that I want: unearth certain sections from the New Testament, and the pastor is obligated to read them aloud before the congregation. Naturally, I would have to reserve one thing—that it would not be that, as is customary, the pastor would lay aside the New Testament after having read such a passage in order to “lay out” what was read. No, thank you! No, what I could be tempted to propose is the following church service: the congregation is gathered; a prayer is offered at the church door; a hymn is sung; then the pastor mounts the pulpit, takes out the New Testament, calls on God’s name, and loudly and clearly reads the determined passage before the congregation—after that he has to fall silent and to remain silent for five minutes in the pulpit, and then he can go.
I would regard this as extremely beneficial. To get the pastor to blush does not occur to me. The one who consciously wants to understand by Christianity what he understands by Christianity, who has been able to take an oath on the New Testament without blushing—one does not easily get him to blush. And it probably ought to be said as well that part of properly being able to be an official pastor is that one, first and foremost, has weaned oneself from the childishness of youth and innocence—to blush and the like. But I assume that the congregation would come to blush on the pastor’s behalf.
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And now to the words of Christ that I am talking about.
They are found in Matthew 23:29–33, Luke 11:47–48, and read as follows:
Matthew 23:29–33. (29) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, (30) and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. (31) Wherefore you be witnesses unto yourselves, that you are the children of them which killed the prophets. (32) Fill you up then the measure of your fathers. (33) You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?
Luke 11:47–48. (47) Woe unto you! for you build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. (48) Truly you bear witness that you allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and you build their sepulchres.
But, now, what is “Christendom”? Is Christendom not the greatest possible attempt in the direction of: rather than following Christ, to suffer for the doctrine, as he has demanded; therefore instead to worship God by “building the tombs of the prophets, and garnishing the sepulchres of the righteous, and saying, ‘If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets’”?
I have said about this kind of divine worship that, compared with the Christianity of the New Testament, it is playing at Christianity. This expression is entirely true and perfectly characteristic. That is, if one thinks about how the words must be understood in this connection, what does it mean to play? It means to counterfeit, to mimic a danger where there is no danger, and in such a way that the more art one puts in, the more deceptively can one pretend as if danger were there. The soldiers play at war like this on the commons. There is no danger; one simply pretends as if there were, and the art consists in making everything truly deceptive, entirely as if it were a matter of life and death.
And Christianity is played this way in “Christendom.” Dramatically costumed, the artists step forward in artistic buildings—in truth, there is no danger, not in the least. The teacher is royal official, gradually advancing, making a career—and now he plays at Christianity in dramatic fashion. In short, he is performing a comedy. He declaims about renunciation, but he himself is gradually advancing; he teaches one to despise worldly titles and rank, but he himself is making a career; he depicts the glorious ones (“the prophets”) who were put to death, and the refrain is constantly: “If we had lived in the time of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in the blood of the prophets—we who, after all, are building their tombs and garnishing their sepulchers.” Accordingly, they will not even at least be so honest (as I constantly, urgently, and pleadingly have suggested) as to confess that they are not at all better than those who killed the prophets. No, they want to take advantage of this situation—that they are not contemporary with them after all, lying to themselves about being much, much better than those who killed, about being entirely different creatures than those monsters. Indeed, they are building the tombs and garnishing the sepulchers of those so unjustly put to death.
Nevertheless, to play at Christianity—however significant this expression can be, the person in authority cannot use such a phrase. He speaks about it differently.
Christ calls it—oh, pay attention!—he calls it: “Hypocrisy.” And not only this, but he says—shudder!—he says that this guilt of hypocrisy is just as great, precisely just as great a crime as that of killing the prophets, therefore: blood-guilt. Yes, if one could ask him, perhaps he would answer that the guilt of this hypocrisy is a greater guilt than the guilt of those who killed the prophets in a blazing fury, just because it is so pompously hidden and slowly carried on through a whole life.
Therefore this is the judgment—Christ’s judgment on Christendom, on the worship of God on Sunday, on official Christianity. Shudder, for otherwise you are still caught in it. It is so deceptive: “Are we not nice persons, true Christians, we who build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous? Are we not nice persons, and especially compared with the monsters who killed them? And, besides, what are we to do? After all, we cannot do more than be willing to give our money in order to build churches, etc., not to be sparing on the pastor, and then to listen to him ourselves.” The New Testament answers: “What you are to do is this—you are to follow Christ, to suffer, suffer for the doctrine. The worship of God that you want to arrange is hypocrisy and equal to blood-guilt. What ‘the pastor,’ along with his family, lives on, exists on, is that you are a hypocrite, or on making you into a hypocrite and keeping you in being a hypocrite.”
“Your fathers killed them, and you build their sepulchres. Truly you bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers.” Luke 11:48.
Yes, indeed, Sunday-Christianity and the immense guild of pastors who are tradesmen have to become furious at such talk, which, with one single word, closes all their boutiques, scraps the whole of this royally authorized industry, and not only that, but warns against such worship of God as against blood-guilt.
After all, this is Christ who is speaking. So deeply, then, does hypocrisy hang together with being human that, just when the natural human being feels best of all, just when he gets the worship of God set up properly in accordance with his taste, Christ’s judgment resounds: “This is hypocrisy, is blood-guilt.” It is not the case that, while your life on weekdays is worldliness, there is still this good in you—that, on Sunday, you attend church with the official Christianity. No, no, the official Christianity is much worse than all the worldliness of your weekdays, is hypocrisy, is blood-guilt.
At the foundation of “Christendom” lies the truth: the human being is a born hypocrite. The Christianity of the New Testament was the truth. But the human being shrewdly and roguishly invented a new kind of Christianity, one that builds the tombs of the prophets and garnishes the sepulchers of the righteous and says: “If we had lived in the time of our fathers.” And this is what Christ calls blood-guilt.
What Christianity wants is: imitation [Efterfølgelse]. What the human being does not want is to suffer, least of all the kind of suffering that is genuinely Christian—to suffer because of people. So he takes imitation away and suffering with it, the particularly Christian; then he builds the tombs of the prophets. That is the one thing. And then he lies to God, to himself, to others—that he is better than those who killed the prophets. That is the other thing. Hypocrisy first and hypocrisy last—and according to Christ’s judgment: “Blood-guilt.”
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Imagine when people are gathered in a church in Christendom, that then—Christ suddenly stepped into this assembly: what do you think he would do?
Now, after all, you can read in the New Testament what he would do.
He would direct himself against the teachers—for, I suppose, he would judge the parishioners as in former times: they are misled. He would direct himself against those “in long robes,” the merchants, the entertainers, who have transformed God’s house, if not into a den of thieves, then into a boutique or into a booth, and he would say, “You hypocrites, you serpents, you generation of vipers,” and, as before, he probably would fashion a whip of cords in order to chase them out of the temple.
You who are reading this—I am totally prepared for this—if you know nothing else about Christianity than from the blather on Sundays, you will be shocked at me. It will seem to you as if I were guilty of the most dreadful blasphemy at representing Christ in this way, “to put words in his mouth such as: serpents, generation of vipers; it is certainly frightful; they are certainly words that one never hears in the mouth of any cultured person; and to have him repeat them several times—it is certainly so terribly vulgar; and to make Christ into a person who uses force!”
My friend, you can consult the New Testament, after all. But when a comfortable, pleasure-filled life in an esteemed occupation is to be achieved by proclaiming and teaching Christianity, then the image of Christ must be changed somewhat. Finery, no, there will be no sparing of gold and diamonds and rubies, etc. No, the pastors regard it with pleasure and make people believe that it is Christianity. But the rigorousness, the rigorousness, that is inseparable from the earnestness of eternity—that has to go. Christ then becomes a languorous figure, nothing but a Mr. Goodman, so that the plate can go around during the sermon and so that the congregation can have a desire to spend something and to cough up a good amount, whereas the Christianity of the New Testament is: in fear of God to suffer for the doctrine because of people.
But “woe unto you because ye build the tombs of the prophets” (teaching people that this is the Christianity of the New Testament) and “garnish the sepulchres of the righteous” (constantly joining money and Christianity) and say, “If we”—yes, if you had lived at the same time as the prophets, then you would have killed them. That is to say, you secretly would have let the people do it and bear the guilt, as it indeed happened. In vain, however, do you hide yourselves in “Christendom.” Ultimately, what is hidden there will be revealed when the truth judges: “Truly you bear witness that you allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and you build their sepulchres.” In vain do you act holy; in vain do you, simply by building the tombs of the righteous, mean to show how different you are from the ungodly people who killed them. Oh, the powerlessness of hypocrisy to hide itself. You are seen through. Just building the tombs of the righteous and saying, “If we,” just this is: to kill them. It is to be the authentic children of those ungodly people, to do the same as they did, to attest to the deeds of the fathers, to consent to them, “to fill the measure of the fathers”—therefore, to do what is even worse.