This Has to be Said; so Be it Now Said

[Issued on May 16, 1855] S. Kierkegaard

December 1854.
This has to be said; I oblige no one to act accordingly, I have no authority to do so. But having heard it, thou art made responsible, and now must act upon thine own responsibility, in such a way that thou canst justify thine action before God. Perhaps one will hear it in such a way that he does what I say; another in such a way that he understands it as well-pleasing to God and thinks he does God a service by taking part in raising a cry against me. Which of the two matters not to me, to me it matters only that it has to be said.

This has to be said; so be it now said.
Whoever thou art, whatever in other respects thy life may be, my friend, by ceasing to take part (if ordinarily thou dost) in the public worship of God, as it now is (with the claim that it is the Christianity of the New Testament), thou hast constantly one guilt the less, and that a great one: thou dost not take part in treating God as a fool by calling that the Christianity of the New Testament which is not the Christianity of the New Testament.

Herewith — Yea, O God, let that now come to pass which thy will is, infinite Love! — herewith I have spoken. If an ambiguous shrewdness which in its own mind knows best what the situation really is should think it shrewdest, if possible, to act as if nothing had happened — nevertheless I have spoken...and the Establishment has perhaps lost; for one can also lose by keeping silent, especially when the situation is, as it is, that not a few know more or less clearly what I know, only that no one will say it; for when such is the case, one thing only is needed, a sacrifice, one person to say it — and now it is said.

May 1855.
Yes, such is the fact: the official worship of God (with the claim of being the Christianity of the New Testament) is, Christianly, a counterfeit, a forgery.

But thou, thou plain Christian, on the average thou hast no suspicion, art entirely bona fide, confiding in the conviction that everything is all right, that it is the Christianity of the New Testament. This forgery is so deeply ingrained that doubtless there even are priests who continue to live on in the vain conceit that everything is all right, that it is the Christianity of the New Testament. For really this forgery is the counterfeit which came about in the course of centuries, whereby little by little Christianity has become exactly the opposite of what it is in the New Testament.

So I repeat. This has to be said: by ceasing to take part in the official worship of God as it now is (if in fact thou dost take part in it) thou hast one guilt the less, and that a great one: thou dost not take part in treating God as a fool.

It is a path full of dangers along which thou goest towards the reckoning of eternity. The priest says pretty much the same thing; but there is one item he forgets to mention and to warn against: the danger of letting thyself be caught, or that thou art caught, in the monstrous illusion the State and the priest brought about, making men believe that this is Christianity. Therefore wake up, be on thy guard, lest thou mightest think to secure eternity for thyself by taking part in what is only a new sin. Wake up, look out! Whoever thou art, this much thou canst perceive, that he who is here speaking does not speak in order to earn money, for rather he pays money out; nor to win honor and prestige, for he has voluntarily exposed himself to the opposite. But if such is the case, then thou canst also understand that this means that thou shouldst take notice.

From the Journal

WORKING CATASTROPHICALLY

I had reflected that, if a catastrophic effect were to be produced, I must come out, after the most complete silence, unexpectedly with "the Cry" that our public worship is mockery of God and to take part in it is a crime. But before I was yet quite clear about this there was something else I did, namely, bring out the article about Mynster against Martensen. By that the catastrophic effect was already weakened. Besides when I consider that "Cry" I see that, as I have planned it, it needs an accompanying sheet, but this accompanying sheet would again weaken the catastrophic effect. Then I have great misgiving with regard to myself, whether — if the thing should be attained — I am up to going to prison, to being if possible executed, whether all this sort of combat would not upset me so that I should be unable to perform my part. However, in any case this must be left to God.

It must be gone about in this way. One must begin by showing that the thing is so serious that all learned strife is a childish prank. One must therefore require of the Establishment, require of it in the name of Christianity, that it employ the means it possesses to protect itself. So one must oneself demand that the case be brought to trial.
XI2 A 263, 265

THE MIDNIGHT CRY

April 9, 1855.
Just as carefully as it has been hidden hitherto what my task might be, just as cautiously as I have remained in impenetrable obscurity with respect to my purpose, just so decisively shall I now, when the instant has arrived, make it known.

The question about what Christianity is, and therewith in turn the question about the State Church, or the National Church, as they now want to call it, the amalgamation or union of Church and State, shall be brought to the most definite decision. It cannot and shall not go on from year to year as it did under the old bishop [who might be supposed to say], "It will last anyway as long as I live," nor as the new one seems to want it to do by understanding our age as a great period of transition, which in plain language comes to the same thing as, "It will last anyway as long as I live."

To be so sorely taxed as I am and must continue to be is certainly not a thing which, humanly speaking, one could call desirable, though in a far deeper sense I must thank divine governance for it as for the greatest benefaction. To be so sorely taxed as the contemporary age must be if the matter is to be taken in hand decisively, is, as I can understand very well, a thing which, humanly speaking, no one can desire, a thing which one would wish at almost any price to avoid, if one does not learn to be uplifted by the thought that the decisive thing is in a far deeper sense the most beneficial. It is my firm conviction that it could have been avoided, that the decision could have been postponed for a generation, if the deceased bishop had not been what he was, if his whole relation to me had not been from year to year a more revolting untruth. It is my opinion that it perhaps might have been avoided if the present bungler (with such a business as I have in hand one employs the true word, like a natural scientist in his descriptions; there is no place here for compliments) had not cut such a dash [literally: struck so hard] that by the necessity of contradiction I must carry the thing to the utmost extreme. In any case, now it has been determined: the case, the question, shall be pressed to the last conclusion.

The only thing I could wish to learn as soon as possible is whether the Government is of the opinion that Christianity (at least what calls itself Christianity — and in parenthesis be it remarked that, if it wishes the help of Government, it betrays the fact that it is not the Christianity of, the New Testament) should be defended by the use of judicial power or should not.

Do not misunderstand me, as though it were my thought that, if this was the opinion of the Government, I then would be willing to keep my mouth shut, go around by another street. By no means. Doubtless for a man in my state of health, when by reason of an unfortunate physical weakness one needs exercise in a very special degree, it may be a very serious thing, a thing one must shrink from, the thought of arrest, etc. But I dare not give way; a higher power compels me, one which bestows power, it is true, but also will be unconditionally obeyed, unconditionally, blindly, as a soldier obeys the word of command, if possible with the involuntary precision with which the cavalry horse obeys the signal.

Do not misunderstand me either in another sense, as though in any way it were my intention, if on the part of the Government measures were taken against me, then if possible by the aid of a popular movement to try to make a counter demonstration. By no means. I am so far from this that I understand it as my task to ward off such a thing as well as I can, I who never have had anything to do with popular movements but have been kept pure in the separateness of "the single individual," purer if possible than the purest virgin in Denmark.

I only wished to learn whether my task will be to arm myself with patience and peace of mind in the prospect of trial, arrest, etc., or whether the Government is of the opinion that Christianity must defend itself, and that 1000 priests with family over against literally one single man may be regarded as having sufficient physical power, an almost inhuman disproportion, so that the State ought rather (for I never can forget the joke, even when I am talking of the greatest decision of my life) to give me the aid of several policemen against these 1000 priests, forbid them to act against me en masse, apprehend some of the worst twaddlers and when they are guilty for the third time prosecute them for twaddle, contributing in that way to insure that the question of spirit (and Christianity is surely spirit) would be so far as possible decided by spirit.

It cannot escape the vigilant eye of the Cultus Minister that I do not in the remotest degree infringe upon any civil institution whatsoever, and indeed a man who literally stands alone can never become a physical power. I pay the Church tithes like everybody else, I exhort everyone to whom my words have any weight to behave as I do, and I am firmly resolved to have no dealings with any man of whom I learn that in a civil sense he gives the priests even the very least annoyance. It is, Christianly, a galimatias in which we live; but this is not something the present-day priests have brought about; no, it goes far back in time. We are all of us to blame, and all of us deserve punishment; but really that would after all be a very gracious punishment to be let off with the obligation to support the actual garrison of priests we now have.³⁹

April 11, 1855.
In torments such as seldom a man has experienced, in spiritual exertions which in the course of a week would deprive another man of his senses, it is true that I am also a power — undeniably a seductive conviction for a poor man, if the torment and exertion did not predominate to such a degree that often enough my wish is death, my longing the grave, and my request that my wish and my longing might soon be fulfilled. Yea, O God, if Thou wert not omnipotence which is able omnipotently to compel, and if Thou wert not love which is able irresistibly to move, on no other terms, at no other price, could it for one second occur to me to choose that life which is mine, and which is further embittered by what for me is unescapable, the impression I must get of men, and not least of their mistaken admiration. Every creature is at its best in its own element, can properly only live in its element, the fish cannot live on the land, nor the bird in the water — and to require spirit to live in the environment of spiritlessness means death, means to die slowly in agony, so that death is a blessed relief. Yet thy love, O God, moves me, the thought of daring to love Thee prompts me (under the possibility of being almightily compelled) with joy and gratitude to will to be what is the consequence of being loved by Thee and loving Thee: to be a sacrifice, sacrificed on behalf of a generation for which ideals are nonsense, are naught, for which the earthly and the temporal are seriousness, a generation which worldly shrewdness in the form of Christian teachers has shamefully, in a Christian sense, demoralized.

Translator's Footnote

³⁹It is said that the Prime Minister made it known that if S. K. were arrested he would at once liberate a man who had shed so much luster upon Denmark.