What a cruel punishment!
April 25, 1855. S. Kierkegaard.
Dean Bloch introduces the article he writes against me in No. 94 of this newspaper by referring to another article written against me earlier in the same paper by an anonymous author, whose article Dean Bloch (an obsequious Basil) recognizes appreciatively in the strongest and most deferential terms as what might be called a "leading article." And there is something in that, for it leads astray, and it is natural therefore that it was anonymous, as a leading article under the present circumstances certainly could not be.
However, Dean Bloch is by no means in complete agreement with the anonymous author; only for a short stretch can he follow the leading article of the anonymous author; the Dean soon has to turn off and strike into another path. His article then becomes what one might call a thunder-leading article (a lightning conductor), if by that one does not think of leading the lightning away but of leading the thunderstorm down upon a man, upon poor me.
If I do not reform, the Dean would have me punished ecclesiastically. And how? Indeed the punishment is cruelly devised; it is so cruel that I counsel the women to have their smelling salts at hand in order not to faint when they hear it. If I do not reform, the church door should be closed to me. Horrible! So then, if I do not reform, I should be shut out, excluded from hearing on Sundays during the quiet hours the eloquence of the witnesses to the truth, which if it is not literally unbezahlbare, is yet priceless. And I, silly sheep, who can neither read nor write, and therefore, being thus excluded, must spiritually pine away, die of hunger, by being excluded from what can truly be called nourishing, seeing that it nourishes the priest and his family! And I should be excluded from the other services of divine worship which the royally authorized (but the fact that they are royally authorized is, Christianly, the scandalous part of it), spiritually-worldly entrepreneurs have arranged. Terrific! Terrific punishment, terrific Dean! Alas, where are ye now, my vanished poet-dreams? I dreamed that I was called Victor29 — and the truth is that it is Dean Bloch who bears this name; what not even Bishop Martensen was capable of doing, Dean Bloch is capable of, he is able to tag me.
However, it turns out so fortunately for me that whereas, for example, the punishment of compelling me several times every Sunday to hear the eloquence (if not unbezahlbare, at least priceless) of the witnesses to the truth would create disturbance in my customary mode of life, the application of that other punishment would not in the least alter a way of life which for Christian reasons I have chosen and to which during a considerable time I have already become accustomed. So if this punishment should be inflicted upon me, I shall live on without noticing it any more than I notice here in Copenhagen that in the distant town of Aarhus30 a man is giving me a thrashing. Only I have one wish. If that is fulfilled, the infliction of this punishment will not cause even the very least change in my customary mode of life upon which I set such great store. The wish is that I may be permitted to continue without any change to pay the tithes (which we call priest's money), lest the altered form of the tax bill might cause me to notice the change.
By way of a postscript
Here I might conclude. But since Dean B. has cut such a great figure (perhaps with the feeling that he too is representative of the whole order), l shall nevertheless seize this opportunity of introducing a doubtful Christian query. Can one be a teacher of Christianity by royal authorization? Can Christianity (the Christianity of the New Testament) be preached by teachers royally authorized? Can the sacraments be administered by them? or does not this imply a self-contradiction? By ordination the priest is properly related to a kingdom which is not of this world, but having also royal authorization — ah, this "also," is it not an exceedingly questionable word, or do also and either/or come perhaps to the same thing? "Also" — does not a teacher of Christianity by being also royally authorized become something just as curious and remarkable as the thing they are making such a complaint about in the newspapers, that a Jewish priest (rabbi), by being also a Knight of Dannebrog, is assumed to be a professor of the Evangelical Christian religion?31 But if such is the case, might it not end with the pipe playing another tune, so that it would not be a question of shutting the door on me, but it would be the priest who had to shut up the shop, or (recalling the thundering Dean) the firecracker booth?
Allow me moreover — for I see from Dean B.'s article that it is necessary — to quote again a Scripture text which I have quoted before. It is Christ's own word: "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" So then, Christ conceives of a possibility that at His coming again the situation might be such that Christianity does not exist at all. And it is also implied in this word that Christ conceived more particularly of this apostasy from Christianity as due to craftiness and knavery; He does not seem to expect that the situation would be such that there was no one who called himself a Christian; He does not ask whether the Son of Man will find any Christians. What if He had conceived it thus: there will be found millions of Christians, Christian states and countries, a Christian world, thousands of mercantile priests — but faith (what He understands by faith), will that be found on earth? The apostasy from Christianity will not come about openly by everybody renouncing Christianity; no, but slyly, cunningly, knavishly, by everybody assuming the name of being Christian, thinking that in this way all were most securely secured against...Christianity, the Christianity of the New Testament, which people are afraid of, and therefore industrial priests have invented under the name of Christianity a sweetmeat which has a delicious taste, for which men hand out their money with delight.
Finally, a word to thee, O thou who with some interest for thine own sake readest what I write. Let me urge upon thee one thing: read my articles often, and impress upon thy mind especially the Scripture texts, so that thou hast them by heart. What I bring forward is precisely what it is the priest's interest to hide, suppress, tone down, leave out. If then thou hast no other information about what Christianity is than at the very most what thou dost get by hearing the priest, thou canst be pretty sure of living on in complete ignorance of what does not suit the convenience of official Christianity. It is in that state they propose to deliver thee over at death to the accounting of eternity, where doubtless it will serve for thy excuse that others more especially bear the guilt, but where nevertheless it remains thy responsibility whether thou hast not taken the thing too light-mindedly, by believing too light-mindedly the priest, perhaps just for the reason that he has royal authorization.
Translator's Footnotes
29The name of the pseudonym who appeared as the editor of Either/Or.
30Block was Dean of the Cathedral at Aarhus.
31 It was the case of Rabbi A. A. Wolff. That he should be wearing a cross, the insignium of the Order of Dannebrog, was absurd enough, even if the statutes of the order had not required that none but Evangelical Christians be admitted to it.