The human protects (its protégé) the divine!
It is easy enough to understand that this thing of the human protecting the divine is an abracadabra. How in the world could a notion like this occur to such a sensible being as the State?
Well, it's a long story; but principally it is due to the fact that in the course of time Christianity came to have less and less men who served it with an appreciation of what it is — the divine.
Imagine a statesman who lived at the time when Christianity came into the world, and say to him, "Quid tibi vedetur, don't you think that this would be the religion for the State?" Presumably he would regard you as mad, would hardly condescend to make a reply.
But when Christianity is served by human fear, by mediocrity, by temporal interests — yes, then it makes a rather different appearance, then it really may seem as if Christianity (which with that sort of service had gradually become spavined, knock-kneed, and lame in the shoulder, a pitiful "critter") might be exceedingly glad to be protected by the State and thus brought to honor.8
In view of this, the responsibility lies with the clergy, who have made a fool of the State, put into its head the notion that here was something for the State to do — which may end with the State having to pay the piper because it got too highfalutin. For though it is certainly not too high for the State to patronize that sort of thing which people made out Christianity to be, yet as soon as it becomes again what it is, the State seems foolishly highfalutin, and may well wish for its own sake to get down to earth again, the sooner the better.
This thing of Christianity being protected by the State is like a fairy tale or a story: A king, dressed as a common man, lives in a provincial town, and the Burgomaster is so kind as to wish to patronize this burgher — then suddenly there comes an emissary who with a deep bow and then on bended knee addresses this burgher as "Your Majesty." If the Burgomaster is a sensible man, he sees that, though well-meaningly, he was too highfalutin in patronizing this burgher.
Imagine — not what has been talked about so much that it has almost become trivial, that Christ returned to the earth — no, imagine that one of the Apostles were to return. He would shudder at seeing Christianity patronized by the State. Imagine him approaching Christianity so deeply degraded, and bowing low before it — the most narrow-minded statesman would see that he had got in wrong by wanting to treat Christianity as a protégé, that it is a shocking mistake to confuse the fact that the priests want the protection of the State with the notion that this is wanted by Christianity, which, if it had any want whatever, would want to be rid of such priests, who do not know how to bow before Christianity (for to it one bows by willingness to offer sacrifices, to suffer for the doctrine), but only know how to bow before the King, to do homage on receiving a rank equivalent to that of Counselor of State, or for being made a Knight of Dannebrog, etc., which is faithlessness on the part of one who in the character of a teacher of Christianity is bound by an oath upon the New Testament, it is faithlessness to the New Testament.9
For there Christianity teaches: "Fear God, honor the King." A Christian ought to be if possible His Majesty's best subject. But, Christianly, the King is not the prerogative authority, he is and can and must and will not be the prerogative authority in relation to a kingdom which is not willing at any price to be of this world, come life, come death, will not be of this world. Faithfulness to the oath upon the New Testament would therefore help one to avert that which a man, precisely if he loves the King, must wish to avert, that His Majesty be put in a wrong light. With its lofty divine seriousness Christianity has always maintained the seriousness of the kingly power; it is only the detestable play at being Christian which, being treasonable to the New Testament, was also treasonable to the King by presenting him in a light which is prejudicial to the dignity and seriousness of the kingly power.The moment will therefore surely come when a king will rise in his seat and say, "Now I see it; these rascally priests, this is what they have brought me to, the last thing I wanted to become — to become ridiculous. For, by my royal honor, I know, if anybody does, what the King's majesty means, and I know also what I have in my power: gold and goods and rank and dignity and all badges of honor, yea, even kingdoms and lands I can bestow, I who above other kings have crowns to dispose of. But what now is Christianity? Christianity is the renunciation of all this, Christianity is not merely not to pursue such aims; no, it is not being willing at any price to accept them if they are offered, to shun them with greater dread than the earthly mind shuns misery and sufferings, to shun them more passionately than the earthly mind aspires after them. How in the world did I fall into such madness, thinking that with gold and goods and titles and dignities and stars and badges of honor I could patronize...that which shuns all such things more than the pest? I am indeed ridiculous! And who is at fault for it?
Who but these rascally priests that have transformed Christianity into the very opposite of what it was in the New Testament, and thereby put the idea into my head that I could patronize Christianity! Fool that I am! For what is it I have patronized? Verily not Christianity, which for all its lowliness is more lofty than I, but it is a lot of rascals who precisely for this cause are the least deserving of my protection."
Translator's Footnote
8This is said more effectively in the parable of the cabman, in the Journal. See my Kierkegaard, pp. 532 f.
9Since this charge is constantly reiterated in the Instant, it is important to know that the second part of the oath at that time required of priests before their ordination was as follows (translated from the Latin): "In the second place I promise that I will labor with great diligence in order that the heavenly instruction contained in the Prophetic and Apostolic books may be faithfully imparted to the hearers."