About a silly assumption of importance over against me and the view of Christianity I stand for
May 13, '55. S. Kierkegaard.
Though I regard this self-importance as so silly that not the least attention ought to be paid to it, yet for the sake of the many it is best perhaps for me to say a word about it once for all.
That I, a laureate in theology like others, and what is more, a pretty old hand at authorship, so that I am at least on a par with the parsons — that I should not know just as well as any priest or professor in the land what is commonly said in defense of the Establishment and its Christianity — that really is a silly asumption.
The fact is that in works under my own name or that of pseudonyms I have treated and described fundamentally, as I always do, the various stages through which I passed before reaching the point where I now am. So in those books more especially which are ascribed to the pseudonym Johannes Climacus33 one will find pretty much all that can be said in defense of that sort of Christianity which is rather closely akin to that of the Established Church, and will find it described in such a way that I should like to see if there is any contemporary in our land who can do it better.
How silly then to inculcate in a lecturing tone and with great assumption of importance over against me the thing that I have finished and left behind me in order to get further forward in the direction (if I may so speak) of discovering the Christianity of the New Testament! Do not misunderstand me: I do not find it silly for one to hold that view of Christianity which I, after I had made it known, left behind me; but I find it silly for a man to want to inculcate that over against me in a lecturing tone and with great assumption of importance, to want to talk of my lack of acumen in not being able to see — to see that very thing which one will find presented in my works, with certainly as much acumen as the person in question who says this to my face is able to do it.
To name one exponent of this silly assumption of importance I will mention Dr. Zeuthen.34 He has, it appears, established himself in the Evangelical Weekly and now inculcates from time to time in an instructive manner and with great assumption of importance what he might have read, e.g. in the Concluding Postscript. But this is inculcated for my instruction by Dr. Z., who thus implies that he is in possession of the acumen which he expressly says is lacking in me. It is a modest kind of pleasure he gets out of this — and yet in another sense it is neither modest nor humble, as Dr. Z. himself must know better than anyone, since in the role of an author, as everybody knows, he has devoted himself principally to the subject of modesty and humility, but of course without being guilty of any one-sidedness, such, for example, as the notion that theory and practice ought to correspond.
This was the word I wanted to say. One can read my works. He who does not want to do so can leave them alone. But really I do not care to go through the lesson over again with everyone who wants to inculcate, and for my instruction at that! what I have fully discussed.
Only one thing more, since I have my pen in hand. The fact that by this sort of Christianity which Bishop
Mynster and now Bishop Martensen represent one can readily beguile oneself and thereupon make a brilliant
career in this world which is the inventor of it — that I admit, I have never had any doubt of it. If anyone
can furnish me with a communication from the other world, and if it is to the effect that this sort of
Christianity is recognized there as the Christianity of the New Testament, then I am fighting a phantom and
am a fool. But then there still remains One whom I take with me (in my disrepute),35 God in heaven, whose word indeed is the New
Testament; for if the report from the other world is as I have assumed it to be, then God, the God of truth,
is the greatest liar of us all.
April 1855.
I wrote these lines towards the end of April. But, thought I, there is no haste about having them printed — perhaps there may come an additional incentive to print them.
It did not fail to come. For as I see now, that the Dr. Bartolo of the Evangelical Weekly (i.e. Zeuthen) has found his grateful Basil,36 an anonymous writer in the Copenhagen Post who would disarm me with the scattered remarks of Dr. Zeuthen which are interspersed in various articles, to which I have not replied. In this, as in every untruth, there is some truth. The truth is that I have passed over in silence Dr. Z.'s scattered remarks. This truth, and the circumstance that Dr. Zeuthen's utterances are found in a weekly which surely is read only by theologians, is used to produce a fantastic effect, as though what Dr. Z. expounds were something very important. Perhaps it may be possible to succeed in fooling somebody in this way.
With the anonymous writer in the Copenhagen Post I shall deal no further. But let me take this opportunity to recall how the case truly stands with me and my appearance in a daily paper. I am not a completely unknown person who writes a newspaper article and then ought to submit to the necessity of discussing things on perfectly equal terms with every chap who writes. No, the question here is about a matter which in one sense was finished in a whole literature of important works, to which works of mine I refer those who really are interested. It was for religious reasons I decided to use a widely circulated political journal — to make people take notice. This I have religiously understood as my duty, and I do it also with joy, even though it is very distasteful to me. But, humbly before God, with a proud consciousness of my right, which I dare and ought to have, I shall guard myself well against too much chumminess with everyone who writes some sort of a thing in a newspaper.
Translator's Footnote
33The pseudonym to whom was attributed both the Fragments and the Postscript. The reference is to the latter.
34The Danish editors quote the relevant passages in Dr. Zeuthen's series of articles in the Ugeskrift, which deal only incidentally with S. K.
35In the original draft S. K. wrote: "As one says petulantly that where a fool goes he takes one with him, so there is One with me."
36Another reference to the individuals alluded to in Article III. Cf. note 8 above.