A challenge to me by Pastor Paludan-Moller

January 11. S. Kierkegaard.

Pastor Peludan-Moller has published a brochure against me which a reviewer in the Berlin News has of course extolled as exceedingly fine — a situation which recalls the scene in Figaro⁸ where Bartolo and Basil thank one another in sign-language for having espoused the cause of Signorina Marcellina. Honestly, I find it quite reasonable that, seeing that I, even if I would, cannot possibly manage to answer or thank all of the many who oppose me — I find it quite reasonable in them that they contrive to answer and thank one another reciprocally.

So then a brochure against me by Pastor P. M., and in it a feature to which the Berlin News has promptly given the greatest possible publicity, namely, a challenge to me which assumes perhaps (who knows?) that as usual I will preserve silence. In my article in the Fatherland I said of Mynster's preaching that "it soft-pedals, slurs over, suppresses, omits, something decisively Christian." That gives occasion for challenging me to prove this with the New Testament for reference, so that somehow it might be worth noticing. For that is the way Pastor P. M. would confute it.

"So that somehow it might be worth noticing" — what can this mean? If I now were to enter into this plan, I might find in the end that I was an April fool, because I had not made sure of an authentic interpretation of the phrase "so that somehow it might be worth noticing."

This, however, I shall o verlook; but the reason why I do not propose to enter into this plan is that I am fearful it might be a trap, so that, if I went into it, it would come about that the whole question and the statement of it would in a short time become quite different from what it is. The question is: "Was Bishop Mynster a witness to the truth, one of the genuine witnesses to the truth, one link in the holy chain of witnesses? Is this the truth?" The question is about an energetic protest from my side against representing from the pulpit Bishop Mynster as a witness to the truth, one of the genuine witnesses to the truth, one link in the holy chain of witnesses. And this would now perhaps be consigned to oblivion, the whole thing being transformed into a prolix, learned, theological investigation, with citations and citations, etc., about Bishop Mynster's preaching, an investigation in which by reason of the great number and learning of the participants we would soon find ourselves buried up to our ears. No, I thank you!^*

What I have said is short and to the point. Bishop Mynster's preaching soft-pedals, slurs over, suppresses, omits something of the most decisively Christian. When that is said, everyone can see it, especially the plain man. To the man who, being better educated, knows all about this sort of thing I can say: Bishop Mynster's preaching is related to the Christianity of the New Testament as Epicureanism is to Stoicism, or as cultivation, refinement, education, is related to a fundamental change of character, to a radical cure. In no instance does his preaching bring Christianity up to what it is everywhere in the New Testament, namely, a breach, the very deepest and most incurable breach with this world — any more than did Bishop Mynster's life (as is easily explained by his infinite dread of everything radical) resemble even in the remotest way a breach with this world — unless we are satisfied with the explanation: One is tout-à-fait a man of the world, a man entirely of this world, and "at the same time" one has broken with this world — which corresponds with attaining and enjoying all worldly goods and advantages by the preaching of Christianity, and being "at the same time" a witness to the truth; and that, as I showed (alluding also to maidenhood, virginity, as a beautiful symbol of heterogeneity to this world) corresponds to a virgin with her numerous flock of children.

Here I might end. Let me, however, add a few words prompted by an utterance made as I recall by one of his defenders,⁹ the justice of which even the most zealous admirers of Mynster will surely admit. "Bishop Mynster was not really a preacher of repentance." But this, especially in the case of a witness to the truth, is a dubious recommendation; for all true Christian preaching is first and foremost a preaching of repentance. "Bishop Mynster was rather a preacher of peace." But this, especially in the case of a witness to the truth, is a dubious recommendation: in the character of a preacher of peace to proclaim the doctrine of Him Who Himself said (these are known to be His own words), "I came not to bring peace but dissension" — He came indeed into the world not to enjoy but to suffer. And therefore it is that I have said of Bishop Mynster, that viewed in the light of a witness to the truth and Christianly appraised, he was self-indulgent: self-indulgently he loved "peace," the first requisite for enjoying life, according to the old saying of Epicurus,¹⁰ nihil beatum nisi quietum, i.e. the first requisite for the enjoyment of life is peace.

Let then so much suffice for this time. It is an exception I have made. In the main I must leave it to the many who oppose me to answer and thank one another reciprocally.

Kierkegaard's Footnote

^*I beg of everyone who may be willing to follow my advice that, if he is minded to make a public utterance, he would observe the strictest diet with respect to not entering into general, broad, learned, prolix, academic discussions with lexicon and grammar and the immense mass of scholarly apparatus and the multitude of citations, enough to obscure even what is as clear as the sun; for thereby he will only be of service to my opponent, who precisely by this device (just as one quenches fire with featherbeds, and as one produces oblivion by prolixity) may manage to elude the short, clear factual point, the point which perhaps for the Established Church is definitive, namely, this thing of representing from the pulpit Bishop Mynster as a witness to the truth, one of the genuine witnesses to the truth, one in the holy chain of witnesses, a statement which was not improved but aggravated, to the detriment of the Church, by the ill-advised impudence of this same man — the chief pastor of the Church, the Honorable and Right Reverend Bishop Martensen — in the face of a protest which Christianly was justified in the very highest degree.

Translator's Footnotes

⁸Marriage of Figaro, Danish trans, by Ponte, act iii, scene 10.

⁹ The theological candidate W. Hjort, in the Berlinske Tidende for Jan. 6, 1855: "In the strictest sense of the word Mynster is not a preacher of repentance but a messenger of peace."

¹⁰Taken not directly from Epicurus but (with some change) from Cicero, De naturadeorum, 1, 20, 52.