The Christianity of the spiritual man / the Christianity of us men
When I thus confront one Christianity with another, it surely could not occur to anyone to misunderstand this, as though now I were in agreement with the veterinary surgeon Pastor Fog30 that there are two sorts of Christianity. No, I confront them with the unaltered conviction that the Christianity of the New Testament is Christianity, the other being a knavish trick, and that they no more resemble one another than a square resembles a circle. But my purpose in confronting them is to illustrate in a few words the question I raised in an article in the Fatherland, whether we, i.e. the human race, are not so degenerate that men no longer are born who are able to endure this divine thing which is the Christianity of the New Testament. If this is so, it erects in the simplest possible way an obstacle to the proof offered by the perjured priests that the official Christianity is the Christianity of the New Testament and that Christianity exists.
There are two points of difference between the spiritual man and us men, to which I would especially draw attention, and thereby in turn illustrate the difference between the Christianity of the New Testament and the Christianity of "Christendom."
(i) The spiritual man differs from us men in the fact that (if I may so express it) he is so heavily built that he is able to endure a duplication in himself. In comparison with him we men are like frame walls in comparison with the foundation wall, so loosely and frailly built that we cannot endure a duplication. But the Christianity of the New Testament has to do precisely with a duplication.
The spiritual man is able to endure a duplication in himself; by his understanding he is able to hold fast to the fact that something is contrary to the understanding, and then will it nevertheless; he is able to hold fast with the understanding to the fact that something is an offense, and yet to will it nevertheless; that, humanly speaking, something makes him unhappy, and yet to will it, etc. But the New Testament is composed precisely in view of this. We men on the other hand are not able to support or endure a duplication within ourselves; our will alters our understanding. Our Christianity therefore, the Christianity of "Christendom," takes this into account; it takes away from Christianity the offense, the paradox, etc., and instead of that introduces, probability, the plainly comprehensible. That is, it transforms Christianity into something entirely different from what it is in the New Testament, yea, into exactly the opposite; and this is the Christianity of "Christendom," of us men.
(2) The spiritual man differs from us men in being able to endure isolation, his rank as a spiritual man is proportionate to his strength for enduring isolation, whereas we men are constantly in need of "the others," the herd; we die, or despair, if we are not reassured by being in the herd, of the same opinion as the herd, etc.
But the Christianity of the New Testament is precisely reckoned upon and related to this isolation of the spiritual man. Christianity in the New Testament consists in loving God, in hatred to man, in hatred of oneself, and thereby of other men, hating father, mother, one's own child, wife, etc., the strongest expression for the most agonizing isolation. — And it is in view of this I say that such men, men of this quality and caliber, are not born any more.
The Christianity of us men is, to love God in agreement with other men, to love and be loved by other men, constantly the others, the herd included.
Let us take an example. In "Christendom" this is what Christianity is: a man with a woman on his arm steps up to the altar, where a smart silken priest, half educated in the poets, half in the New Testament, delivers an address half erotic, half Christian — a wedding ceremony. This is what Christianity is in "Christendom." The Christianity of the New Testament would be: in case that man were really able to love in such a way that the girl was the only one he loved and one whom he loved with the whole passion of a soul (yet such men as this are no longer to be found), then, hating himself and the loved one, to let her go in order to love God. — And it is in view of this I say that such men, men of such quality and caliber, are not born any more.
Translator's Footnote
30Who wrote an article in the Berlinske Tidende criticizing Prof. Nielsen's defense of S. K. No special reason is evident for calling him a veterinary, but "veterinary science" was often mentioned by S. K. by way of reminding "scientists" that not every science is sublime.