Note: The circumstance that at the foot of this title page there is no indication of the date, the authorship, the publisher, or the printer, is due to the fact that this last number of the Instant was not issued in S.K.'s lifetime. It was found upon his desk, complete in every other detail, when he died. It was finished therefore before he was carried to the hospital on October 2, 1855. It is interesting to note that the dates attached to the several articles are far anterior to this.
What I call optical illusion
August 25
This consists in what looks as if it were serving a higher interest, the infinite, the idea, God; but upon closer inspection proves to be serving the finite, low things, profit. And it was this Bishop Mynster practiced with rare virtuosity.
As an example let me recall something which cannot by this time be quite forgotten, an incident which illustrates what I mean, and one in which the two bishops, the one who is deceased and the one now living, to wit, Mynster and Martensen, are the dramatis personae.
When Martensen had been a professor for several years,67 there began to be talk in Copenhagen about the longing Professor Martensen felt to preach the Word to the people, in addition to his activity in the University.
Very pretty! Martensen is Professor, has, humanly speaking, made a success — well then, this longing to preach the Word also to the people, is something he would keep pure, remote from every qualification by the finite, by temporal rewards and the like; for in him this is a really religious longing. And in fact the thing is easily arranged: if he feels this longing, he has only to beg one of the priests of the city to grant him his pulpit. Every priest would do it with pleasure.
If Martensen had done this, as sure as my name is Søren Kierkegaard it would not have found favor in the eyes of Bishop Mynster. With his delicate nose he would at once have scented out: "A man who has a longing in this sense is not of my crew; and to me as a Church ruler this sort of longing is heartily repugnant. How far such a longing may lead a man, it is impossible to reckon." Mynster was like that; no one can know it better than I who know it from the experience that Bishop Mynster undoubtedly accounted it a great act of grace he showed me (his enemies were inclined to understand it as fear) by even so much as tolerating me, not to say (as something quite out of the usual!) showing a bit of liking for me. For my whole nature was repugnant to him in the highest degree; it was not in the least declined according to the Christian paradigm he virtually acknowledged on Mondays, the paradigm of perfected Christianity, according to which every striving after the infinite is measurable by finite advantage and reward, which a domineering man does well in recognizing as the only paradigm, for what is declined in accordance with that is easy, all-too-easy to manage and subdue.
But back to Professor Martensen. What if this longing might be satisfied by becoming...Court Preacher? That's another thing! That is four hundred Danish dollars for twelve sermons, and thereto also a prospect of the bishop's chair made more probable, which otherwise would be very doubtful. In this position moreover there can no longer be any question of gathering a congregation about him, as he might have done even as a professor by selecting one definite church, and (what would be infinitely easy to attain) if he were to occupy the pulpit every sixth Sunday.
So then: Court Preacher, four hundred dollars for twelve sermons, the possibility of the bishop's chair. Now that was to Bishop Mynster's taste, now he could in every way understand and approve and sympathize with this longing, could find it a pretty longing Martensen feels to preach the Word to the people. With a tranquil mind the domineering Church ruler played that evening his game of ombre and appeared to be the soul of cheerfulness; for from a sort of longing like this of Martensen one has no reason to fear any disturbing movement, on the contrary it is precisely the right thing for quenching the Spirit.
So then, in the text: a religious longing — and the note reads: Court Preacher, four hundred dollars, prospect of the bishop's chair. However, the good-natured populace notices nothing, is deeply touched by this religious longing: "How fine it is that Martensen feels such a religious longing; what confidence one must have in a man who feels such a deep longing to preach the Word." This is optical illusion.
And to optical illusion the whole of Bishop Mynster's Church rule was directed; his virtuosity in ambiguity had become his second nature. For a long series of years, with a virtuosity worthy of admiration, he led (Christianly speaking) his generation by the nose, a generation which then out of gratitude desired to erect a monument to him, presumably in the capacity to which Martensen had promoted him...as a witness to the truth, one of the genuine witnesses, a link in the holy chain — Martensen, who knows as well as I do that Bishop Mynster's secret was that of the Epicureans, of the Hedonists, of the self-indulgent: après nous le déluge. Yea, that he knows as well as I. If he should wish to deny it, I shall come to the aid of his memory.
Translator's Footnotes
67He became Professor Extraordinarius in 1840, Court Preacher in 1845.