CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 6
No, a Christian’s task is to follow Jesus, to imitate him: see S. Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1991), 201–32.
Michael Pedersen helped to guide the Society’s financial affairs … he was regarded as one of the group’s most faithful members: in a letter dated 28 August 1838 (shortly after Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard’s death), the leader of the Copenhagen Society of Brethren wrote that, ‘Our society loses in him one of the most faithful members, both for the outer and for the inner … He has certainly done in the quiet more good than many have thought, who declare and take him for a miser … In him I lose a faithful brother in the true sense of the word, who at each opportunity told me his opinion openly, but in a very plain way, and who in our society’s affairs, which he covered with particular love and took to heart, has given us good advice for many a year.’ Quoted in Christopher B. Barnett, Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness (Ashgate, 2011), pp. 60–61.
‘We know we are sinners, great is our imperfection’: from a discourse by J. C. Reuss, quoted in Barnett, Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness, p. 52.
Mynster’s presence ‘inspired reverence’: see Andrew Hamilton, Sixteen Months in the Danish Isles, Vol. 2 (Richard Bentley, 1852), p. 187.
Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard went to Mynster for confession and communion: see Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, ‘Die ursprüngliche Unterbrechung’, in Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 1996, ed. N. J. Cappelørn and Hermann Deuser (Walter de Gruyter, 1996), pp. 315–88.
So it was Mynster who confirmed Kierkegaard in the Church of Our Lady: on Kierkegaard’s confirmation in 1828 and his mature view of confirmation, see Niels Thulstrup, ‘Confirmation’, in Theological Concepts in Kierkegaard, ed. Niels Thulstrup and M. Mikulová Thulstrup (Reitzel, 1980), pp. 247–53.
Kierkegaard remembers how, when he was a boy, his father promised him a rix-dollar if he would read one of these sermons aloud: see Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, ed. and trans. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Joel D. S. Rasmussen, Vanessa Rumble and K. Brian Söderquist (Princeton University Press, 2012), p. 299: NB10, 59 (1849).
‘The most fashionable place of worship in Copenhagen’: Hamilton, Sixteen Months in the Danish Isles, p. 180.
In 1834, following the death of his father-in-law: Mynster’s father-in-law died in 1830 and was replaced by Peter Erasmus Müller; Mynster then replaced him in 1834.
For Luther, it was words like these that expressed the clear certainty of faith: see Richard Rex, The Making of Martin Luther (Princeton University Press, 2017), for an analysis of certainty in Luther’s theology.
Yet for Kierkegaard they contain endless questions: Kierkegaard discussed this verse from Matthew several times in his authorship: see, for example, S. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Crumbs, ed. and trans. Alastair Hannay (Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 361, 367, as well as S. Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses / The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 2009).
‘The truth that divine governance embraces everything’: J. P. Mynster, Betragtninger over de christelige Troeslærdomme [Observations upon the Doctrines of the Christian Faith], 3rd edn, vol. I (Deichmanns, 1846), p. 311; quoted in Bruce H. Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark (Indiana University Press, 1990), p. 107.
‘certainty for the doubter, strength for the struggling, comfort for the sorrowful’: J. P. Mynster, Prædikener paa alle Søn-og Hellig-Dage i Aaret, vol. 2 (3rd edn, Gyldendal, 1837), p. 403. For more discussion of this sermon and Kierkegaard’s response to it, see Christian Fink Tolstrup, ‘“Playing a Profane Game with Holy Things”: Understanding Kierkegaard’s Critical Encounter with Bishop Mynster’, in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 20: Practice in Christianity, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Mercer University Press, 2004), pp. 245–74.
‘happiness and blessing’: Mynster, Prædikener paa alle Søn-og Hellig-Dage i Aaret, p. 414.
‘Though he possessed the blessing, he was like a curse for everyone who came near him’: S. Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 254.
‘Christianity has been taken in vain, made too mild’: see Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, p. 57: NB6, 74 (July or August 1848).
‘How quieting, how soothing – alas, and how much danger in this security!’: Christian Discourses, pp. 163–5.
On the first occasion he preached on Matthew 11:28: this first sermon was not documented, but it probably took place on 18 June 1847. See Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, ‘Søren Kierkegaard at Friday Communion in the Church of Our Lady’, trans. K. Brian Söderquist, in International Kierkegaard Commentary, Volume 18: Without Authority, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Mercer University Press, 2007), pp. 255–94.
‘I do not know what in particular troubles you’: Christian Discourses, p. 266.
‘like a flautist entertaining himself’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 9: Journals NB26–NB30, ed. and trans. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, Bruce H. Kirmmse, David D. Possen, Joel D. S. Rasmussen and Vanessa Rumble (Princeton University Press, 2017), p. 419: NB30, 41 (1854).
his ‘exceedingly weak but wonderfully expressive voice’: P. C. Zahle, Til Erindring om Johan Georg Hamann og Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (Copenhagen, 1856), pp. 9–10, quoted in Cappelørn, ‘Søren Kierkegaard at Friday Communion in the Church of Our Lady’. Cappelørn suggests that Zahle did not hear Kierkegaard’s first sermon in Vor Frue Kirke, and thinks it ‘more likely that he heard Kierkegaard preach in the Citadel Church on Sunday May 18th, 1851’: see ibid, pp. 285–6.
‘openly before everyone’s eyes, and yet secretly, as a stranger’: Christian Discourses, pp. 269–70. This is from the second Friday communion discourse that Kierkegaard preached in Vor Frue Kirke, on 27 August 1847.
‘with my father in mind I would very much like to do it’: see Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 4: Journals NB–NB5, ed. and trans. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Joel Rasmussen, Vanessa Rumble and K. Brian Söderquist (Princeton University Press, 2011), p. 263: NB3, 36 (November or December, 1847).
‘never been closer to stopping being an author’: Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, p. 262: NB9, 79 (9 February 1849): ‘Stopping being an author was an idea that occurred to me from my earliest days; I have often said that there was still a place available for the author who knew when to stop. In fact, I actually had already thought of stopping as early as Either/Or. But I was never closer to stopping than I was with the publication of Christian Discourses [in April 1848].’
‘Let us pay tribute to Bishop Mynster’: see Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 4: Journals NB–NB5, p. 252: NB3, 16 (November or December 1847).
he thinks that, for Jesus, becoming a monk or a hermit was a temptation: see Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, p. 164: NB8, 29 (November or December 1848).
he wonders whether Jesus wanted his followers: see Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 4: Journals NB–NB5, p. 377: NB5, 14 (May to July 1848).
‘an extremely unhappy man’: see Practice in Christianity, p. 275; Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, Volume 5: Journals NB6–NB10, p. 57: NB6, 74 (July or August 1848).