XXI. The Fatherland, Saturday, May 26, 1855

That Bishop Martensen's silence is, Christianly, (1) unjustifiable, (2) comical, (3) dumb-clever, (4) in more than one respect contemptible

(1) That, Christianly, it is inexcusable. It is the duty of a Christian, as an Apostle also enjoins, to be always ready to give answer concerning the hope that is in him, that is, concerning his Christianity. And how reasonable that is. A Christian, the lover and votary of the truth, ought he not always to be willing to give a good account of himself and the views which he holds, always ready to witness to truth and against falsehood, abhorring most of all the thought of hiding himself from anything or anybody? And now a Christian bishop, and the chief bishop of the land! The chief bishop of the land — it is to him the community looks, from him it expects guidance, upon him it relies to witness against falsehood and declare himself for the truth.

But how does this chief bishop of the land comport himself? Pretty much like the boys on New Year's Eve, who when they see their chance seize the opportunity to throw a pot at people's doors, and then make off, around by another street, so that the police may not catch them. Thus Bishop Martensen thought he saw his chance in the big rumpus occasioned by my article about Bishop Mynster, and threw over my head a garbage-pail of abuse and coarse words — and then made off. From that instant he preserved the profoundest silence, in spite of the fact that the thing only began to be really serious after that time; for with every subsequent article in the Fatherland it has become far more serious than was the question whether I really had been too impertinent to a deceased person.

But Bishop Martensen preserves the profoundest silence. And that in spite of the fact that he had been challenged to express his view.⁴⁰ Not only did he not reply to this challenge, but there came out in the Berlin News an anonymous article counseling him against answering this challenge.

And this (which recalls Leporello's line: "I answer not, whoever it may be"⁴¹), this we are asked to regard as justifiable in a witness to the truth, a Christian bishop, the highest in the land, upon whom the community can depend! No, such a silence is, Christianly, unjustifiable; and such a pitiful exhibition is, Christianly, far worse than if the Bishop had taken to drink.

(2) It is comical. Wherever the comical is, there is also, as one of my pseudonyms teaches,⁴² a contradiction. So it is now with silence. Silence may have many various qualities in the direction of good or of evil, but silence is comical when it has the confounding quality that it speaks. This is comical — a silence which speaks, speaks in a loud voice and says what it conceals in a tone which everyone can hear, says precisely what one wants to hide by means of silence, as when the Countess Orsini says to Marinelli,⁴³ "I want to whisper something to you," and thereupon shouts in a loud voice what she wanted to say, so does this silence shout in a loud voice what it conceals. Like making oneself invisible by putting a white stick in the mouth, whereby nothing more is attained than to make the white stick also visible — so does this silence shout louder than the most solemn declaration of the Bishop: it says clearly, "I am in a fix." It shouts so clearly that it can be heard not only by men of superior understanding, but that the people, the plain man, can understand it; and it shouts so loud that it can be heard in a neighboring kingdom.⁴⁴

(3) It is dumb-clever. It is not simply dumb; no, it is dumb by wanting to be clever, dumb-clever. It is as when there is something a teacher doesn't know — which may perfectly well occur — and he then does not himself say straightforwardly, "I don't know it," but shrewdly wants to make as if he knew it, and the pupils then quietly take it upon themselves to subtract from his reputation the amount they infer from this. Presumably this shrewdness is thought to be so clever, but nevertheless it is dumb, for with every day Bishop Martensen maintains silence people quiedy subtract from his reputation. Even if a silence has not the fatal characteristic of betraying what it conceals, yet to be able to hold out requires a reputation acquired and maintained through many years, when it is not an entirely unimportant person who is the opponent. And here it is a beginner in the episcopate, a beginner who began as lucklessly as did Bishop Martensen with his talk in the Berlin News; and the opponent is from an intellectual and literary point of view at least equally qualified, except that I have not the, Christianly, comic qualification of being Privy Counselor and earning many thousands in wages.

No, this silence is dumb-clever. This even those can see who have not the true measure of what this silence signifies.

For Bishop Martensen and I are, as they say, not entirely unacquainted. For many years there has been literarily a difference between us.⁴⁵ But as long as the old bishop lived, who was definitely such a friend of quietness, I was watchful on my part {also out of piety towards a deceased father) that the thing might pass off quietly. It passed off quite quietly in the affair of the System,⁴⁶ where Bishop Martensen did not pull the longest straw. I did not want to attack him by name — and Bishop Martensen preserved silence. Even when he who might well be regarded by Bishop Martensen as the most dangerous person to say it, that is, when Professor Nielsen gave him to understand in print⁴⁷ that my pseudonym had disposed of him, which then the next most dangerous person to say it, namely, Dr. Stilling, in print⁴⁸ gave him to understand again, what subsequently has been said to him in print very straightforwardly⁴⁹ — Bishop Martensen preserved silence.

Then he thought I had put my foot in it by talking about Bishop Mynster, that the feeling was hostile to me, and one saw from his article how eager he was to overwhelm me with coarse language, how eager he was to speak, if only he thought he could come out best.

And so again he wants to assume silence! Indeed, as a dumb-clever silence, this silence deserves to be called the Martensian silence, in distinction from the silence of Brutus and of William of Orange.

(4) It is in more than one respect contemptible. I will only stress two points. When one is a man, it is contemptible not to behave like a man, not to face danger manfully, to win or to lose decisively, but to try to slink from it. And this is doubly contemptible when one allows oneself to be paid by the State for assuming a position of rule, and perhaps apart from that has a tendency to play the role of ruler.

And this silence is contemptible because it is as though calculated to mean various things according to the outcome.

Worldly wisdom teaches that one "should never have anything to do with a phenomenon."⁵⁰ And I am to be classed under the category of a phenomenon: I am in fact one of those incommensurables who have not standardized their effort for a government post, etc.

So one keeps silent. If it proves that the phenomenon forces his way through — why, good gracious, one has said nothing, one's silence was respect, or perhaps "Christian resignation," which is the word Professor Nielsen unfortunately played into Martensen's hand,⁵¹ without taking the precaution to have Bishop Martensen at least recant his abuse, for otherwise it is a queer sort of Christian resignation which keeps silent after having poured out all the abuse, such a resignation is pretty much like the repentance for theft which retains the stolen property. — If on the contrary it proves that the phenomenon does not force his way through — well, then one's silence was superiority, which so long as the outcome is critical one tries one's best to make it appear, in order to weaken the phenomenon.

How contemptible such a silence is, which instead of acting resolutely wants to await the outcome in order to give a false coloring to one's silence!
S. Kierkegaard.

Postscript

This, religiously, is a case I have to prosecute; therefore I must do what I am doing, whether personally it is agreeable to me or repugnant.

I understand very well that when one at such an early age as Bishop Martensen⁵² has (yea, when I think of the New Testament and the oath made upon it, it is highly satirical!) been so fortunate (!) as to make a glittering (!) career (!), I understand very well that one may wish for rest (but the Christianity of the New Testament is precisely unrest) in order to enjoy (but the Christianity of the New Testament means to suffer) these earthly goods: the rich revenues, the consideration in the community, the agreeable feeling of having an influence upon the welfare of many men. I understand also very well (and in one sense this is no disparagement of Bishop Martensen) that Bishop Martensen could not wish to be so audacious as to declare publicly in his own name and as Bishop that the official Christianity is the Christianity of the New Testament or even merely an effort in that direction, and that therefore he might come to the conclusion (for indeed he first made what for silence was a very luckless attempt at speaking) that for him silence was the only way out or the only shift. But it does not follow from this that I have to keep silent to this silence, or to what, although impotently, yet perhaps insolently, it aims to bring about, namely, that a man who by divine governance was very early singled out and slowly educated for a particular work (and this is my case), a man who with a disinterestedness, exertion and diligence which in our situation is almost unique has only wished one thing⁵³ — that such a man (perhaps also as a reward for uprightly renouncing the things which are Christianly questionable, like profit, rank, titles, decorations, etc.) might come to be regarded as a sort of ranter whom the higher clergy did not think it worthwhile to answer, so that the plain man, relying upon the higher clergy might think himself justified in thinking that what this ranter says is twaddle (though what he says is Christianly perhaps the most thoroughly justified protest that ever was made), a notion to which someone already has tried to give currency. This was in the Daily Sheet, an anonymous writer ⁵⁴ — presumably a pastor of souls! True, he was himself kind enough to concede to me "great talents," but for all that he came out with it that to the plain man what I said appeared to be twaddle. O honest, upright, conscientious care for souls! Say that the plain man says this...in order to get him to say it! I however am of a different opinion, I who after all have perhaps some acquaintance too with the plain man. For is it not true, thou plain man, that thou art very well able to understand this? My notion is that precisely thou art able to understand it much more easily and better than demoralized priests and a depraved gentility. It is true I am sure that thou canst perfectly well understand that it is one thing to be persecuted, maltreated, scourged, crucified, beheaded, etc., another thing when comfortably settled, with family, and steadily promoted, to live off the description of how another was scourged, etc. But this also is a difference between the Christianity of the New Testament and the official Christianity.

If now, as by the prompting of Professor Nielsen's article, there should come out here again in the Berlin News anonymous articles, perhaps even from Norway, counseling Bishop Martensen against letting himself in for it, surely the populace will gradually understand what such a thing signifies and will be obliged to Bishop Martensen for the contribution he makes to the public entertainment by means of anonymous articles which counsel him against letting himself in for it. Or should Bishop Martensen (as I hear is the case with individual priests here in the city) prefer to say one thing or another in a church — then it is not my fault if it should come to the pass that people laugh aloud in church; for regarded from the comical side this line of action is an exceedingly valuable contribution to the understanding of what "the witnesses to the truth" mean by "witnessing."

Do not misunderstand me, as though it were my notion with this that I am here writing, to wish to provoke Bishop Martensen to a discussion, thinking that we should learn from it something very important and instructive. By no means. In this respect I am essentially through with Bishop Martensen and know well what there is in him. Not that; but Bishop Martensen is in fact the chief bishop, it is owing to him I succeeded in getting in a blow at this thing about "witnesses to the truth" — and, as I have said, religiously regarded, this is a case I have to prosecute, and therefore it is my duty to take advantage of everything that turns up, to make it visible, so that everyone who will see can see:
(i) what these witnesses to the truth really are, that what concerns them is not the truth, but to produce or maintain an appearance; (2) what miserable expedients they employ, wherefore it surely will also end in failure; (3) that the question about the Established Church is not a religious but a financial question, that what keeps up the Establishment is the 1000 royally authorized teachers, who standing to the Establishment in the relation of shareholders, quite rightly are silent about what I talk of, for I have no power to take from them their incomes; (4) what good reason and right that man has to be tranquil and unconcerned who in the matter of eternal blessedness relies upon "the witnesses to the truth."

Finally, what was so desirable for the cause (and so desirable that I hardly dared to expect it, and was fully prepared to see that from the very beginning Bishop Martensen would keep silent) — that has been attained. The thing was to get Bishop Martensen to speak, if only for once, in order that whosoever is willing to see might have a measure of what power he has when it comes to a pinch. Then the thing was to force him if possible back into silence. That was done. Let him then go on playing with silence. When one knows what his speech signifies, one knows also what his silence signifies. By his silence he succeeded perhaps, yet hardly, in fooling himself, but not anyone who is willing to see — and that is what he fairly deserves.

Translator's Footnote

⁴⁰By Prof. Nielsen in the Fatherland, which is quoted fully enough in a note by the Danish editors.

⁴¹In Don Juan (Kruse's trans.), act ii, scene 8.

⁴²Johannes Climacus in the Concluding Postscript, pp. 504 ff.

⁴³Lessing's Emilia Galotti, act iv, scene 5.

⁴⁴In Norway, where the Christiania Post published several articles defending S. K. and criticizing Bishop Martensen.

⁴⁵S. K.'s polemic in the Fragments and the Postscript against "speculation" was directed principally at Martensen, though without mentioning his name; and in return Martensen, in the Preface to his Dogmatic, but again without mentioning names, spoke disparagingly of S. K.'s philosophical works. Cf. the Journal, X 1 A 553 ff.

⁴⁶"The System" always means the Hegelian philosophy, which Martensen was one of the first to introduce into Denmark.

⁴⁷Gospel Faith and the Modern Consciousness, a book in which Prof. Nielsen, who, hitherto had been close to Martensen, appeared for the first time as an adherent of S. K., though without mentioning either man by name.

⁴⁸"On the imagined reconciliation of faith and knowledge, with special reference to Prof. Martensen's Dogmatic," Copenhagen, 1850. Prof. Stilling mentions Johannes Climacus only incidentally, but evidently he was deeply influenced by S. K., and (as he remarks in the Preface) he too had long been in friendly relations with Martensen.

⁴⁹Again by Prof. Nielsen, in two books (published in 1849 and 1850) in which he expressly compared Martensen's Christian Dogmatic with S. K.'s works.

⁵⁰Quoted from Training in Christianity, p. 52. Alas, in my translation I said, "not ally," when I should have said, "have nothing to do with."

⁵¹In the above-mentioned article in the Fatherland, urging Martensen to withdraw the term "witnesses to the truth," he assumed, perhaps too politely, that the Bishop "had already put himself in the position of Christian resignation."

⁵²He was forty-six years of age when he was consecrated.

⁵³This, it will be remembered, is S. K.'s definition of purity of heart.

⁵⁴The anonymous writer of this letter may have been a pastor, but he said he was not a theologian and claimed a right to speak only on the ground that he is a daily reader of the Scriptures. He says of S. K., "While the priests see in him almost a personal enemy, plain, sensible people call his talk twaddle."