Luther
1849
It is high time that Christianity was taken away again from men in order to teach them to appreciate it a little.
What does being a poet mean? It means having one’s own personal life, one’s reality in quite different categories from those of one’s poetic work, it means being related to the ideal in imagination only, so that one’s own personal life is more or less a satire on poetry and on oneself. In that sense all modern thinkers, even those of standing (I mean the Germans, there are no Danish ones at all), are poets. And altogether that is the maximum which life shows. The majority of people live entirely without ideas; then there are the few who have a poetic relation to the ideal, but deny it in their personal lives. And so the parsons too are poets, and because they are parsons they are “deceivers” in a far deeper sense than the sense in which Socrates long ago called the poets.
The second time I talked to Christian VIII was at Sorgenfrie many months later. Moreover his conversations were in a certain sense not very important to me, for he wished me to talk. But it was stimulating to talk with him and I have never seen an oldish man so animated, in a fever of excitement, almost like a woman. He was a sort of spiritual and intellectual voluptuary. I saw at once that here was danger, and I was therefore very careful to keep as far from him as possible. In the presence of a king I found it unsuitable to make my eccentricity into a pretext for not visiting him and so used different tactics, saying I was unwell.
Christian VIII was brilliantly gifted but ran to seed, lacking a moral background of corresponding proportions. If he had lived in a southern country, I can imagine that Christian VIII would have been the certain prey of a cunning priest. No woman would ever really have got power over him, not even the most gifted, partly because he was too intelligent and partly because he shared a little the manly superstition that man is more intelligent than woman.
But a Jesuit—he could have turned and twisted Christian VIII any way he liked, but the Jesuit would have had to have complete command of the interesting, for that was what he was really panting for. But without a doubt he was captivating, extraordinarily subtle, and had an unusual eye for whatever could please or satisfy the individual, just that particular individual.
And so I went in. He said: “It is a long time since I have seen you here.” To that I answered, still at the door: “Your majesty will perhaps first of all let me explain myself. I must ask your majesty to rest assured how much I appreciate the graces and favours which you show me; but I am poor in health and that is why I come so seldom, I cannot endure waiting in an antechamber, it exhausts me.” He answered that I need not wait, but that in any case I could write to him. I thanked him for that. Thereupon we began talking, walking about part of the time. He always preferred to talk about the government’s affairs, or general remarks about some political theme or other. That day he led the conversation to communism of which he was plainly enough anxious and afraid. I explained to him that as I understood it the whole movement which was impending was a movement which did not come in contact with kings. It would be a fight between classes, but the fighting parties would always find it in their interest to be on good terms with the King. It was a return to the problems of antiquity and it was therefore easy to see that in a sense the king would stand outside them. It would be like the fights in a house between the cellar and the ground-floor, and between these and the first floor, but the landlord would not be attacked. I talked next of how to fight with “the masses” : simply remain quite quiet; that “the masses” were like a woman with whom one never fought directly but indirectly, and helped them to put their foot in it, and since they were wanting in intelligence they would always lose in the end—but simply stand fast. Here he said : “yes, of all people a king should do that.” To that I answered nothing. And so I said that what the whole age needed was education, and that what became violence in a large country, in Denmark became rudeness. Then he said some complimentary things to me about my mind etc. I made use of the situation and said: Your Majesty sees best of all from me that what I say is true, for where I am concerned everything really turns upon the fact that I am well brought up, and therefore really upon my father. And so we talked about Guizot, an attack which had just been made upon him. I explained how ambiguous the position was in modern states, where scandal has really been given an official position, and the right tactics were, consequently, to ignore it, but that they suddenly took it into their heads one day to take such an attack seriously. “I imagine Guizot reading the attack, and then at the most, perhaps, looking in the glass to see that his smile and appearance were the same as usual—and then, then people hit upon the idea of taking it seriously; and if on the other hand he had taken such an attack seriously he would have been laughed out of court as a country bumpkin who was not used to life in a big city.”
Then he talked a little about Sorø, gave a sort of lecture on it, and questioned me : I answered that I had never thought about Sorø. He asked me whether I would not like to have a position there. Now I knew that he had been out fishing that very morning and so my answer contained an allusion to it. That in addition to the real line fishermen had a special little line on which they sometimes caught the best fish—and I was a little line of that kind.
Then he thanked me for the book I had lately brought him, he had read in it, “it was very profound but above him,” I answered : “Your majesty naturally has not got time to read books and what I write is not intended for you. On the other hand you have recently had the natural scientists with you, that is something for you, something which satisfies your sense of beauty at the same time.” At that he was obviously a little vexed and said : yes, yes, the other can also be good.
I had several times made as though to depart and said I would not keep him longer. Each time he answered : yes, yes, I have plenty of time. When it happened the third time I said: yes, your majesty will understand that I have enough time, I was afraid your majesty might not have time. Afterwards I learnt from a more experienced man, to whom I related it, that I had behaved like a bungler, that by trying to be polite in that way to a king one is being impolite, since one has only to wait till he bows.
In the end I got away. He said that it would be a great pleasure for him to see me. Thereupon he made a movement with his hand meaning, as I knew from the last time, that he wished to give me his hand; but as the same man told me it was the custom, when the king offered one his hand, to kiss his hand, and as I could not bring myself to do it, I behaved as though I did not understand and bowed.
In the meanwhile I resolved to visit him as rarely as possible.
The third time I visited him was at Sorgenfrie, I gave him a copy of Works of Love. Parson Ibsen had told me that he had once and for all got it into his head that he could not understand me, and I was unable to get that idea out again. That was what I had in mind. I came in, handed him the book, he looked at it a little, noticed the arrangement of the first part (Thou shalt love, thou shalt love thy neighbour, thou shalt love thy neighbour) and understood it immediately; he was really very gifted. Thereupon I took the book back from him and asked him whether I might read him a passage, choosing part one (p. 150). It moved him, moreover he was always easily moved.
Then he walked over to the window and so I followed him. He began to talk about his government. I said that I could naturally tell him one or two things which perhaps he would not otherwise get to know, for I could tell him what he looked like from the street. “But am I to speak, or am I not to speak; for if I am to speak I shall speak quite straight out.” He answered: “Go on then.” And so I told him that he allowed himself to be seduced by his personal gifts and that a king should in this respect be like a woman, who ought to hide her personal talents and simply be the woman of the house—and he simply a king. “I have often pondered over what a king should be. In the first place he can perfectly well be ugly; then he ought to be deaf and blind, or at least pretend to be so, for that gets over many difficulties, a tactless or stupid remark which being addressed to a king has a certain importance is best put off by a :“ I beg your pardon”—i.e. that the king has not heard it. Finally the king ought not to say much but have some expression or other which he can use on every occasion, and which is consequently meaningless. He laughed and said: a charming portrait of a king. So I said :“yes, it is true, one thing more: the king must take care to be ill every now and then, so as to arouse sympathy.” Then he broke in, with a peculiar expression which was almost one of joy and delight: “Oh, that is why you go talking about being ill, you want to make yourself interesting.”
It was really like talking to a woman, he could get so animated. Then I showed him that he had done harm to himself by his audiences, that he was too familiar with Tom, Dick, and Harry, that by doing so he alienates the upper official class in particular, who are impatient at the fortuitous kind of influence of unauthorised people, that he would have to admit that it was impossible to rule by talking with all his subjects in that way. He did not perhaps realise that everyone he spoke to went away and gossiped. That the mistake must be apparent at this very moment as I stood here talking with him, though I was certainly an exception because I considered myself religiously bound not to divulge a single word. (That is moreover true, as long as he lived I never said a word about it to anyone, and afterwards only to one and then only partially.) He answered : that I must not think that it was only due to his possible gifts, but that when he came to the throne he was of the opinion that to be a king no longer meant prestige, but little by little he had changed his mind.
I had said that I had had occasion to make some of these observations the very first day he came to the throne. To which he said : yes, wasn’t that the time when there was a general meeting35 of which you were president.—He certainly had a good memory.—At that moment a side door opened, but was immediately closed again. I stepped back a yard. He went to the door, but as he went he said it was sure to be the Queen : she very much wishes to see you, now I will fetch her. So he came leading the Queen by the hand—and I bowed. That was really not polite to the Queen, who did not get a chance of making a proper entry, she even looked rather insignificant—but what else can happen if a queen suddenly has to appear like that.
The King showed the Queen the copy of my new book, to which I answered: Your majesty makes me feel embarrassed at not having brought a copy for the Queen. He answered : Oh, we can share one.
The Queen said she already knew me, she had seen me once on the ramparts (where I ran away and left Tryde in the lurch), that she had read part of “your Either and Or, but could not understand it.” To which I answered : your majesty will easily understand that that is all the worse for me. But there was something even more notable about the situation. Christian VIII immediately heard the mistake “Either and Or” and I certainly did; I was surprised to hear the Queen saying exactly what servant girls say. I caught the King’s eye; I looked away. After we had spoken a few words the King said to the Queen : is Juliana alone in your room? She answered “yes”—and went away.
I went on talking with the King. He asked me whether I was going away this year. I answered that if I did it would only be for a very short time, to Berlin. “You are sure to know a lot of interesting people there.” “No, your majesty, in Berlin I live completely isolated and work harder than ever.” “But then you might just as well go to Smørum-Ovre” (and then he laughed at his own joke). “No, your majesty, whether I go to Smørum-Ovre or to Smørum-Nedre I do not find an incognito, a hiding-place of 400,000 people.” Now that was a little pointed, he answered : yes, that is perfectly true.
Then he asked me about Schelling. I tried to give him a rough impression. He asked me about Schelling’s personal attitude towards the court and his reputation at the university. I said that Schelling was like the Rhine at its mouth where it became stagnant water—Schelling was degenerating into a Prussian “Excellency.” I talked a little more to him about Hegelian philosophy having been the government philosophy, and that now it was supposed to be Schelling.
This last visit was an example of Christian VIII’s delicacy in showing exactly the right attentions to people, it was as flattering as could be to have made it into a sort of family visit.
I did not speak to him again. I had resolved to visit him as little as possible, preferably when I had a book to give him. But I did not regret having been to see him; it is a very pleasant memory. If he had lived longer it would have been awkward for me, for he could not bear anyone being a private individual, he thought it was part of the king’s right to show everyone exactly what they had to do. And so it was when I first began to think of taking an official position that I went to see him.
The whole episode is a charming memory, he never had occasion to receive anything but an impression of animation, and I only saw him as charm and liveliness itself.
Moreover in one sense I owe much to Christian VIII, namely the pleasant and comfortable impression of life which he taught me. I have always had far too great a tendency not to bother about worldly things; and if my expeditions to see the King had taken an unpleasant turn it would certainly have made me even more indolent. The very reverse happened. And then the relationship was useful to me in another connection. Surrounded by vulgarity and petty envy and without the assistance of even the smallest illusion, since I was nothing but a private individual, and having become an eccentric in the eyes of the masses through that which is best in me, as a result of the wretched conditions in Denmark and because they could not understand me. It was to that extent a good thing that the envious superior classes, who always made underhand use of all that vulgarity against me, should have something to bite on to, and so my life had to be thrown into relief. That is where my relations with the King come in. In a sense it was just the thing for me : only one man, an absolute King and what is more Christian VIII. I quickly perceived that the situation might become dangerous, that Christian VIII might appreciate me too much; I therefore took the greatest care, as everyone would admit who knew how much he made up to me. But on the other hand the relationship was so clearly marked that I could at any moment, had it become necessary, have emphasised it.
Christian VIII was only intelligent up to a point and, having an almost superstitious belief in his own sagacity, he became almost fantastic if he was impressed by a superior intelligence, and was easily alarmed. His nerves were not strong, his life had left its mark on his intellectual constitution, he had no moral attitude, religion only touched him aesthetically—and so he was clever. It is obvious that such a constitution was lacking in proportion and would inevitably be the prey to fraud, though, be it noted, in the most comfortable and pleasant way possible. He was afraid of real character. Fundamentally he was very domineering. The fact that he preferred to use other than official roads was an artifice of his sagacity. He was afraid of real character. If such a person were so powerfully built that the muscular development was, so to speak, visible, he kept him at a distance. But his limit was an unshakable character, concealed by the flexibility of intelligence and imagination. He could not solve that X, and as though by a law of nature he would have been in the power of such a man.
Altogether Christian VIII enriched me with a number of psychological observations. Perhaps psychologists ought to take notice of kings and particularly absolute kings, for the more free a man is, the less he is bound by the cares of every day, the better one can know him.
Feb. 9. The end of Luther’s sermon on 1 Cor. xiii, where he concludes that faith is more than love, is sophistry. Luther always wants to explain love as love of one’s neighbour, as though it were not also a duty to love God. Luther really put faith in the place of love of God, and then called love, love of one’s neighbour.
This is what happens. I set the problem, the problem which faces the whole age: equality between man and man. I put it into practice in Copenhagen. That is something more than writing a few words on the subject : I expressed it approximately with my life. I have levelled in a Christian sense, not in rebellion against power and worth which I have upheld with all my strength.
But people do not know what they are talking about—and I am sacrificed, guilty of pride; I, who with every sacrifice, have fought for equality.
And the result. Well, the result is quite simply that had I not been so thoroughly influenced by religion I would have been forced to withdraw and associate—with the upper classes: i.e. I should have become proud.
Oh, you fools!
I drew Rasmus Nielsen into my intimacy because 1 looked upon it as my religious duty; so that there should be at least one man, so that it could not be said that I had overlooked the human factor.
He cannot of course be very much use to me; he is too heavy, too thick-skinned, too corrupted by the age of Christian VIII. If I were to become worldly he would of course be useful.
I have had to make him keep his distance, otherwise he gossips about my matter in a friendly sort of way, and it must either be strung to a high pitch or hidden in complete silence.
It is as though a man possessed a great treasure and kept it so safely hidden that he threw away the key. The thought that troubles me is whether I have a right to do that, whether this silence is permissible in relation to God, whether it is permissible, with respect to a work which is so infinitely indebted to Him for its acuteness, to let it remain an enigma and for many a mere curiosity. And why? Partly because the author thinks it is self-denial, partly because he thinks he is unable to take over all the misunderstandings in reality consequent upon giving the explanation.
(The fact that I exposed myself of my own free will to becoming a laughing-stock.)
. . . There is one thing, in this connection, which fills me with sadness; for no one in Copenhagen has loved or does love what are called the simple classes, the ordinary man, with so unselfish and Christian a love as I do. But here as everywhere there are plenty of those who in the capacity of journalists wish to take his hard-earned money —by teaching him false ideas which only make him unhappy and help to embitter the relations between the classes; plenty of those who, in the capacity of agitators and what not use his number in order to help him to be shot down by taking a false view from above and saying: the simple classes are demoralised, they must be shot down. No, no, no, the misfortune is the bourgeoisie and if there is any suggestion of shooting people down, then let it be the journalists for the way in which they have used and profited by the simple classes. God knows that I am not bloodthirsty and I think I have in a terrible degree a sense of my responsibility to God; but nevertheless. I should be ready to take the responsibility upon me, in God’s name, of giving the order to fire if I could first of all make absolutely and conscientiously sure that there was not a single man standing in front of the rifles, not a single creature, who was not—a journalist. That is said of the class as a whole.
The Middle Ages went further and further astray in stressing the aspect that Christ was the model—then came Luther and stressed the other aspect, that Christ is a gift which must be received through faith.
As for the rest, the closer I examine Luther the more convinced do I become that he was muddle-headed. It is a comfortable kind of reforming which consists in throwing off burdens and making life easier—that is an easy way of getting one’s friends to help. True reforming always means to make life more difficult, to lay on burdens; and the true reformer is therefore always put to death as though he were the enemy of mankind.
Luther’s “Hear me, thou Pope” not to mention anything else, sounds to me almost disgustingly worldly. Is that the sacred earnestness of a reformer concerned only with his own responsibility, who knows that true reformation consists in becoming more inward. Such an expression is just like a journalist’s slogan. That unholy political attitude, that desire to overthrow the Pope is what is so confusing about Luther.
But in our times it is obvious that the aspect of Christ which must be stressed is that he is the model. The only point being to avoid the confusion of the Middle Ages. But that is the side that must be stressed, for in Lutheranism faith has simply become a fig-leaf behind which people skulk in the most unchristian way.
NB NB
On each of the later works there is, on the title page:
Poetic, in order to show that I do not proclaim myself to be an exceptional Christian, or to be what I describe.
Without authority, in order to denote that I do not lay others under an obligation, or judge them.
A spiritual revival, in order to show that I have nothing to do with outward changes, or that kind of reformation.
One man alone cannot help or save the age in which he lives, he can only express the fact that it will perish.
NB NB
Oh, what are the dangers to which one could possibly expose oneself! Danger is my very element.
But there is one danger, or rather there is something which is in such complete contradiction with the whole structure of my personality that it is really a revolution: and that is to have to speak of my inwardness, of my relation to God. In that connection I would pray that it might be taken from me, it seems as though it would make my spirit heavy. I have been willing to expose myself to everything and I still am so, but that is something quite different, that is not polemic but resignation.
And that is why the publication of my last books costs me so much suffering.
In the meanwhile it may be my duty to God. To have to say how I spend my time in prayer, how it is that I really live with God like father and son: that baring of myself, if I may so describe it, I find so difficult, so difficult; my inwardness is too true for me to be able to talk about it.
And yet perhaps it is my duty to God, and my hidden inwardness something which God countenanced my having until I had grown strong enough to talk about it. My unhappy childhood, my boundless melancholy, my miserable personal life until I became an author, all that helped to develop in me a hidden inwardness. . . .
Job endured everything—until his friends came to comfort him, then he grew impatient.
As far as I know no one has ever thought of writing a comedy:
A play in 
or almost 6 Acts.
Just try to imagine quite clearly to yourself that the model is called a “Lamb,” that alone is a scandal to natural man, no one has any desire to be a lamb.
The misfortune of Christianity is clearly that the dialectical factor has been taken from Luther’s doctrine of faith so that it has become a hiding-place for sheer paganism and epicureanism; people forget entirely that Luther was urging the claims of faith against a fantastically exaggerated asceticism.
Should my journals be published after my death it might be done under the title:
The Book of the Judge.
NB NB NB NB
How wonderfully melancholy and religion can blend together, and how dangerous it is to have such tremendous powers as have been granted me—and then to have to live in such restricted circumstances.
I have considered the possibility of taking another step forward and steering systematically on, with the possibility of being put to death always before my eyes. The aim and everything was right—oh, and in this I recognise myself again: in being able to review all the circumstances just as easily as though it were a love affair—the conflict was right—succumbing before the rabble urged on by the envy of the upper classes. It would certainly have happened the moment I came forward decisively, in character, with the proper incentive for all the clique, and gave the signal: that there was no Christianity in the land, and that it was necessary to introduce it. The clergy would have raved, and would have been pleased that I was already in such a scuffle with the rabble—and would have used it.
I do not doubt for a second that Christendom needs to be made aware in that sense, or rather I am absolutely certain. I am also convinced that I should have succeeded. I know that, humanly speaking, more could not have been expected of my life.
But now we come to what is melancholy and untrue. That it was important for me to succumb. I had reckoned upon having enough fortune to last for a few years longer, and the catastrophe of 1848 helped me quite extraordinarily: otherwise I should have avoided the question of my livelihood. Furthermore I fought with men and perhaps it pleased my pride to let them imagine that they had fought with me; for I have studied the passive way of fighting as much as any general has studied the active, and the passive way is the religious and profound way.
It must be said in my defence that what makes my position in a little hole like Copenhagen so difficult, so long as I am to be a public personality, is that I must always have the idea with me. The nonsense men talk can, when it is brought up against the ideal, become something very serious; and that was really my thought. That my life should take the turning it has taken, not to say end in a martyrdom, is something which has never occurred to a single one of my contemporaries. It is I who secretly direct the intrigue—and according to my tactics my contemporaries were not to have their eyes opened before it happened—and by themselves: look, here I come again.
But in this there is also an injustice towards men. Men are really only children and so it is unjust towards them, just as it is wrong towards oneself, to allow them to be guilty on that scale.
That is how I take the final view of my life. I now turn away, faithful to my original self: I am essentially a poet and shall be obliged to give up being an author in any real sense as soon as I have no more money.
And so I draw away. The problem is then quite a different one; I am no longer in the role of being that which is depicted.
But I shall never be able to thank providence enough for all it has done for me and the way in which it helps me. And as regards my really having thought of taking that step seriously, of being put to death: I must certainly regret it. But for one thing it never got further than my thoughts, and for another as soon as I was aware (or God helped me to become aware) of where it was leading me, and as soon as I felt my genius rebel against it I also opposed it. And providence, which is infinite love, has also bequeathed me this marvellous fund of profundities which I have understood, a present which I can dispose of poetically, and can also put to good use by communicating it in the proper way: poetically.
How shall I ever be able to thank God sufficiently.
And so now I am enriched by a loving providence with an eminent understanding of truth, such as has seldom been given to a man, and moreover armed by the same loving providence with outstanding gifts with which to set forth what I have understood. In that respect I only have to humble myself beneath one thing: the fact that I have not the strength myself to be that which is understood. Had I not been in financial difficulties and yet understood what I have understood, that would not perhaps have been clear to me. But providence knew how to humble me. Nevertheless it has at the same time done so indescribably much more than ever I expected.
. . . Sometimes I am almost afraid for the man when I think of Bishop Mynster. He is now 72 and soon he will go to his judgment. And what has he not done to harm Christianity by conjuring up a lying picture—so that he could sit back and rule. His sermons are quite good—but in eternity he will not have to preach—but be judged.
The truth that is troubled
is the truth which while itself eternally certain of being the truth, is essentially concerned with communicating it to others, concerned that they should accept it for their own good in spite of the fact that the truth does not force itself upon them.
This is the dialectical point. Mere dabblers, half-men, desire to communicate simply in order to reassure themselves. The purely intellectual effort is only concerned with discovering the truth. The “troubled” truth is certain enough of being the truth but is concerned, or “troubled,” to communicate it. That is Christianity. . . .
The idea of attaining the peak of one’s development—and then of breaking off absolutely, and abiding by my achievement, of attaining to my peak as an author and then stopping completely and never again setting pen to paper (an idea which came to me very early and pursued me), that thought (even if I could realise it) is not religious but proud and worldly.
. . . Like the Guadalquivir which somewhere rushes below ground and later on appears again, I must now sink myself behind pseudonyms, but now I understand where I shall reappear again with my name.
The thoughtlessness, carelessness, and cocksureness with which children are brought up is frightful to see: and yet everyone is essentially what they are to be when they are ten years old; and yet one would find that almost everyone bears with them a defect from their childhood, which they do not overcome even in their seventieth year; together with the fact that all unhappy individualities are related to a false impression received in childhood.
Oh, piteous satire upon mankind; that providence should have endowed almost every child so richly because it knew in advance what was to befall it: to be brought up by “parents,” i.e. to be made a mess of in every possible way.
My misfortune, or the thing that made my life so difficult, is that I am strung a whole tone higher than other men, and where I am and what I am about does not have to do with the particular, but always also with a principle and an idea. At the best, most people think which girl they ought to marry; I had to think about marriage. And so in everything.
Now the same thing is happening to me. At the best, most people consider what occupation they are to take up, now I am in the midst of the stream, of the struggle with ideas and questions of principle whether, from a Christian point of view, there should be official Christian offices.
What makes me unpopular is not so much the difficulty of my works as my own personal life, the fact that in spite of all my endeavours I do not achieve anything (the finite teleology), do not make money, do not get a position, am not decorated, but achieve nothing all along the line and am despised into the bargain. Now in my opinion that is what is great about me, if indeed there is greatness. But it costs me many a struggle and great efforts, for I too am flesh and blood—and yet that is exactly why I am misunderstood and ill-treated.
. . . Frederica Bremer has been pleased to favour Denmark with a criticism. It is naturally an echo of what the people in question have told her. That can best be seen from Martensen who has been in close touch with her. [In the margin: She has lived here for a long time and has had sexual intercourse with the notables; she also wanted to have sexual intercourse with me; but I was virtuous.] She was sweet enough to invite me, in a most obliging billet, to a conversazione. I almost regret now that I did not answer, as I first intended: no, many thanks, I don’t dance. But in any case I refused her invitation and did not go. And then one discovers in print that one is “unapproachable.” It is presumably owing to Martensen’s influence that Frederica has made me into a psychologist and nothing else, and has given me a wide public among women readers. That is really funny, how in all the world can I be looked upon as a ladies’ author? But that is Martensen’s fault. He sees right enough that his star is declining in the university. It would be quite amusing to read to Rasmus Nielsen and the younger generation: that I am a ladies’ author.
Sept. Nowadays one does not become an author as a result of originality and inspiration but—by reading.
One becomes a man by imitating others. One does not know instinctively that one is a man, but as a result of a deduction: one is like others—ergo one is a man. God knows whether any of us really are men!
The majority of men in every generation, even those who, as it is described, devote themselves to thinking (dons and the like), live and die under the impression that life is simply a matter of understanding more and more, and that if it were granted to them to live longer, that life would continue to be one long continuous growth in understanding. How many of them ever experience the maturity of discovering that there comes a critical moment where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood.
That is Socratic ignorance, and that is what the philosophy of our times requires as a corrective.
As Johannes Climacus truly observes, the majority of men turn aside precisely where the higher life should begin for them, turn aside and become practical, “Man, father and champion bowler”; and, as Anti-Climacus truly remarks, the majority of men never experience the spiritual life; they never experience that qualitative encounter with the divine. To them the divine is simply a rhetorically meaningless hiatic superlative of the human: which explains their satisfaction with the idea of being able to form ever clearer conceptions of it, so that if they only had time, did not have to go to the office or their club or talk to their wives, if they only had time enough they would manage to understand the divine perfectly.
Socratic ignorance, but nota bene modified by the Christian spirit, is maturity, is intellectually speaking what conversion is morally and religiously, is what it means to become a child again.
It is quite literally true that the law is: increasing profundity in understanding more and more that one cannot understand. And there once again comes in “being like a child,” but raised to the second power. The man who is mature in that sense is naive, simple, and he marvels, but he is all that essentially humorously, and yet not in such a way that it is humour.
And that this life is happy, is blessed as it is blessed to adore, more blessed even than for a woman to be in love, well, as to that, those who are made happy by their conceits have no conception what it means. They never feel the pressure of quality but deceive themselves more and more.
It is the tolerance of the orthodox which best shows how completely Christianity is lost. Their solution is: if only we may keep our faith to ourselves, the world can take care of itself. Merciful God, and that is supposed to be Christianity. That is the power which once broke upon the world and through readiness to suffer forced Christianity on the world, compelled it more forcefully than any tyrant.
The orthodox do not even suspect that this, their tolerance, is the effect of sheer worldliness, because they have not really either understanding, respect or courage for martyrdom or a true belief in eternity, but really desire to have a good time in this world.
And now, what makes the position more terrible is that this “tolerance” is willing to allow the tremendous falsehood to continue, namely for the whole world to call itself Christian—when the private belief of the orthodox is, nevertheless, that the world is pagan.
How low has Christianity sunk, how powerless and miserable it has become! It is reason that has conquered: reason that has tyrannised enthusiasm and the like, making it ridiculous. That is why people dare not be enthusiastic, do not acknowledge that martyrdom is a glory beyond all comparison, they are afraid of being laughed at instead of put to death—and so people come to an agreement; they wrap themselves up in their donkey-skin only asking to be allowed to be Christians themselves, call that tolerance and flatter themselves that they are true Christians.
Christianity’s position in possibility—and in reality
The moment I take Christianity as a doctrine and so indulge my cleverness or profundity or my eloquence or my imaginative powers in depicting it: people are very pleased; I am looked upon as a serious Christian.
The moment I begin to express existentially what I say, and consequently to bring Christianity into reality: it is just as though I had exploded existence—the scandal is there at once.
On “the voluntary”
I now understand perfectly why Christianity clings to the idea “voluntary.” The existential authority to teach corresponds to “the voluntary.” Who is to teach poverty? The person who is himself struggling for money or has it can talk about it, but without authority; only the “voluntary” poor, the person who has freely given up riches and is poor, has authority.
It may truly be said that there is something socratic about me.
Indirect communication was my natural qualification. As a result of all I experienced, all I went through and thought out last summer on the subject of direct communication, I have made a direct communication (the thing about my literary work with its category: the whole thing is my education) and at the same time acquired a deeper understanding of indirect communication, the new pseudonymity.
To me there is something so inexplicably happy in the antithesis Climacus—Anti-Climacus, I recognise myself, and my nature so entirely in it that if someone else had discovered it I should have thought he had spied upon me. —The merit is not mine, for I did not originally think of it.
The category of my work is: to make men aware of Christianity, and consequently I always say: I am not an example, for otherwise all would be confusion. My task is to deceive people, in a true sense, into entering the sphere of religious obligation which they have done away with; but I am without authority. Instead of authority I make use of the very reverse, I say: the whole thing is my own education. That, once again, is a truly socratic discovery. Just as he was ignorant, in my case it is: instead of being the teacher, being the one who is educated.
People must have lived ever so much more simply in the days when they believed that God made his will known in dreams. Even from the point of view of diet they must have lived more simply. The idyllic life of a shepherd and living partly on vegetables—then it is possible. Think of life in big cities and the manner of life: no wonder people attribute their dreams to devils and demons.—Moreover the poor opinion in which dreams are held nowadays is also connected with the intellectualism which really only values the conscious, while in simpler ages people piously believed that the unconscious life in man was the more important as well as the profounder.
About Peter
I have been an author all this time, and Peter found no occasion to speak his mind. But hardly does it begin to seem as though I were to be singled out on an important scale before he is busy unburdening himself, presumably in order to bid for me on behalf of the party, and assuredly led on by the excellent opportunity of attacking R.N.36 (a very profitable task at the moment) and making an example of him for being a disciple—he who has been the imitator and follower of Grundtvig to the point of ridiculous affectation.
The whole thing has hurt me very much. Peter was so entirely unsympathetic all the time I endured the persecution of the mob, literally never a word either written or spoken on the subject; we were never very close to one another, but from that time on he withdrew. He knows that I am worried about my financial position—never a word about it. He knows that I suffer from being out of proportion to this little country—never a word about it.
In the end he sees his opportunity. He takes up an attitude superior to the two directions: Martensen—and S.K. He hits out in the popular and careless jargon of the day, which is quite capable of dismissing in half an hour the work of seven years; he movingly proclaims the supremacy of the country parson and the sovereignty of mediocrity, carefully shielding himself behind the excuse that it was only a hurried piece of work; he profits by the deceit: I, as the author’s elder brother, must know about the whole thing (which is the most frightful untruth, so much so that he ought, for that very reason, to have emphasised it); he has tied my hands, for I cannot make a single move without everyone shouting “Shame;” and remain affectionate, for it is after all a favourable discussion of me, which once again I shall have to put up with, for people will say that it is prejudice; he complicates my relations with R.N. who may think that I am behind the attack upon him, and then if R.N. attacks Peter he will certainly believe that I am behind R.N. I do not mean that all this was clear to Peter, but part of it should have been clear to him, and moreover would have been clear to him if he had not grown self-complacent among the parsons and Conventions, so complacent that he perhaps even thought in some kind of stupid gemütlich way that he was doing me a kindness, in spite of the fact that he should understand that in order to do so he would have to show up the real proportions of my work, and least of all connive at the numerical evaluation of men and the whole deceit.
About Peter
Peter came down here in the month of December. He told me that he had given a lecture at the last Assembly in which he spoke about Martensen and me, and was surprised I had not heard of it. He went on to say that in the same lecture he had spoken against R. Nielsen and a certain H.H. Thereupon I said to him: H.H. is me. He was rather put out by that; for he had presumably not read the little book carefully, quite convinced that it was not by me. So we spoke about it a little. Then Peter said: yes, now there is no point in our talking about it any further; for I have still to write the lecture. So he wrote the lecture. He was very brief in what he said about H.H. and remarked at the same time: that it bore a striking resemblance to S.K. God knows what he really said at the Assembly. . . .
In all that is usually said about Johannes Climacus being purely subjective and so on, people have forgotten, in addition to everything else concrete about him, that in one of the last sections he shows that the curious thing is: that there is a “how” which has this quality, that if it is truly given, then the “what” is also given; and that it is the “how” of “faith.” Here, quite certainly, we have inwardness at its maximum proving to be objectivity once again. And this is an aspect of the principle of subjectivity which, so far as I know, has never before been presented or worked out.
There is yet another reason, too, why Christianity should be delineated by an unmarried man. In the end the whole of Christendom’s little crumb of Christianity ends in: Christmas and Christmas pudding. The little child Jesus, that is the sort of Christianity which is furthest from emphasising the idea of: imitation. The point is not even to become a child—no, the Saviour himself is neither more nor less than a child, and it stops short at that; and father and mother both look upon little Sophie as a little God-child. What twaddle! Altogether that absolute emphasis upon Christmas, to the exclusion of all else, turns Christianity all topsy-turvy. Moreover Christmas only appeared in the IVth century; but in that respect orthodoxy does not cling zealously to the first three centuries.
Luther
Here one sees the result of not being dialectical. In a sermon Luther inveighs most violently against the faith which clings to the person instead of to the word; true faith clings to the word no matter who the person is.
Well, that is all very well among men. But as for the rest this theory does away with Christianity. We thus receive a doctrine in the ordinary sense, where the doctrine is more than the teacher, instead of which Christianity is this paradox, that the person is all important. Why does St. Paul inculcate so clearly that he is an apostle oυκ απ ανθρωπων oυδε δι ανθρωπoυ37 except to show the difference in kind, which again is authority. In another connection St. Paul can, quite consistently, do away with that his difference, when it is a matter of bringing in Christ in person, as for example when he inveighs against some for saying “I am of Paul,” others of Apollos, others of Cephas instead of all being of Christ.38
And once again Christianity’s paradoxical difference from every other doctrine, from a scientific point of view, is that it posts: authority. A philosopher with authority makes nonsense. For a philosopher goes no further than his doctrine; if I can show that his doctrine is self-contradictory, incorrect etc. he has nothing to reply. The paradox is that the personality is above the doctrine. It is therefore also nonsensical of a philosopher to demand faith.