Truth and a living
Herr Zierlich, in the play by State Counselor Heiberg, 22 possesses, as everyone knows, the sense of decency to such a degree that he finds it indecent for men's and women's garments to be hung in the same closet.
We will leave that to Herr Zierlich. But on the other hand, what for us in our characterless age it is necessary to practice is separation, discrimination, between the infinite and the finite, between a striving for the infinite and for the finite, between living for something and living by something, which our age — most indecently! — has put together in the closet, got them to curdle together or coalesce into one, which Christianity on the contrary, with the passion of eternity, with the most dreadful either/or, holds apart from one another, separating them by a yawning abyss.
Christianity, which also has after all some acquaintance with man and knows what a fine chap he is, how easy it is to get him to engage in and take an oath upon whatsoever cause it may be, if only it is a way to a living, a way of making a career, of being able to get himself a wife, etc. — Christianity therefore, as warily as possible, as warily as the police can act, has erected a barrier with a view to preventing these things from coalescing completely into one: Christianity and a living, Christianity and a career, Christianity and a fiancée, etc.
It is quite different with the State, which has managed to make synonymous the notions of Christianity and a living, a bachelor of theology and an engagement, etc., etc. And therefore an entirely different kind of thing has been got out of Christianity from the moment the State took hold. Instead of the bagatelle which was all it came to, with Christ especially, but also with the Apostles, when only some few Christians were produced, it now went into the millions, millions of Christians and 100,000 livings — Christianity is completely triumphant.
Yes, or else under the name of Christianity a prodigious piece of knavery is triumphant. For like that well-known inscription, "This is supposed to be Troy,"23 instead of the simple word "Troy," or like the title stamped upon the binding of an empty volume, so it is with all this about "Christendom." In this way one can introduce any religion whatsoever into the world, and Christianity introduced in this way is unfortunately exactly the opposite of Christianity. Might there in these shrewd times be found even a youth who does not easily understand that, if the State got the notion, for example, of wanting to introduce the religion that the moon is made out of a green cheese, and to that end were to arrange for 1000 livings for a man with family, steadily promoted, the consequence would be — if only the State held to its purpose — that after a few generations a statistican would be able to affirm that this religion (the moon is made out of a green cheese) is the prevailing religion in the land?
A living — oh, these proofs which are advanced for the truth of Christianity, these devilish learned and profound and perfectly convincing proofs which have filled folios, upon which "Christendom" plumes itself as the State does upon the army, what do they all amount to in comparison with...a living, and the possibility of a career thrown into the bargain?
A living — and then Juliana, that Frederick and Juliana can come together. Oh, these proofs which are advanced for the truth of Christianity, these devilish learned and profound and perfectly convincing proofs, what do they all amount to in comparison with Juliana and the fact that in this way Frederick and Juliana can come together? If at any moment the thought should struggle in Frederick, "I myself do not really believe this doctrine, and then to have to preach it to others" — if such thoughts should struggle in Frederick, go to Juliana, she can drive such thoughts away. "Sweet Frederick," says she, "only let us manage to come together. Why go and torment thyself with such thoughts? There are surely 1000 priests like thee; in short, thou art a priest like the others."
In fact Juliana plays a great role in procuring clergy for the State. And hence they should have been wary about introducing Juliana, and also about introducing livings. For it may be, as Don Juan says to Zerline,24 that only in the soft arms of a blameless wife does true felicity reside, and possibly it is true, as both poets and prose writers have affirmed, that in these soft arms one forgets the world's alarms; but the question is whether there is not also something else one can only too easily forget in these soft arms — namely, what Christianity is. And the older I grow the clearer it becomes to me that the twaddle into which Christianity has sunk, especially in Protestantism, and more especially in Denmark, is due in part to the fact that these soft arms have come to interfere a little too much, so that for the sake of Christianity one might require the respective proprietors of these soft arms to retire a little more into the background.
To get an opportunity to know what the true situation of Christianity is in this land, it would be very important if we could manage to thrust aside the livings and Juliana so as to be able to see. How desirable it would be if the State understood it in this way, if it were to proclaim that it felt under obligation to pay the priests with whom it had already contracted, in case they thought they must resign from their office! There are doubtless many upright and honest men who would feel their consciences greatly relieved. And after all it is really the State which bears the responsibility, the State which, beckoning seductively, has pointed out to inexperienced young bachelors of theology and their fiancées a something which, Christianly, is without justification. Afterwards (when one has once become pater familias, etc.), yes, then it is too late, then one hasn't the power to break with this wrong situation one innocently got into, but remains in it...with a troubled conscience.
Translator's Footnote
22April Fools, scene 29 — but S. K. was here inexact: it was "Madam" who thought it unseemly that Miss Trummeir was shut in a closet with Herr Zierlich's coat.
23Holberg, Ulisses von Ithacia, act ii, scene 1.
24Act i, scene 9 (Kruse's trans.).