"First the kingdom of God"46
A kind of novel.
The theological candidate Ludvig From — is seeking. And when one hears that a "theological" candidate is seeking, one need not have a specially vivid imagination to understand what it is he seeks, of course it is the kingdom of God, which indeed one must seek first!
No, it is not that after all. What he seeks is a royal appointment to a living. And before he got that far there first occurred a great many things, which I shall indicate with a few strokes.
First he went to high school, from which he eventually graduated. Thereupon he first took two examinations, and after four years of reading he first took the professional examination.
With that he is a theological candidate, and one would perhaps suppose that after he had first passed all this, he would finally have reached the point of working for Christianity. Oh, yes, if it were for an artisans' guild. But, no, first he must go to the Seminary for half a year,47 and when that is finished it means that eight years have first gone by during which there was no question of being able to seek.
And now we have reached the beginning of the novel: the eight years are past, he seeks.
His life, which hitherto cannot be said to have had any relation to the absolute, suddenly assumes such a relation: he seeks absolutely everything; he writes one sheet after another of officially stamped paper,48 filling four pages of each; he runs from Herod to Pilate; he recommends himself to the ministers of state and to the porters; in short, he is entirely in the service of the absolute. Indeed, one of his acquaintances, who for the past few years has not seen him, thinks to his amazement that he discovers a decrease in his size, which perhaps may be explained by supposing that it happened to him as to Munchausen's dog, which was a greyhound, and by much running became a dachshund.
Thus three years pass. Our theological candidate really is in need of repose, after such prodigious exertion in running on commissions, he needs to be put out of commission or else to come to rest in a living and be nursed a little by his future wife — for meanwhile he first became engaged.
Finally, as Pernille says to Magdalone,49 the hour of his "redemption" strikes, so with the whole power of conviction he will be able from his own experience to "bear witness" before the congregation that in Christianity there is salvation and redemption — he is appointed to a living.
What happens? By procuring more precise information about the revenues of the living, he discovers that they are about 150 dollars less than he had supposed. The game is up. The unfortunate man is almost in despair. He already has bought stamped paper in order to approach the Cultus Minister with the petition that he may be allowed to be regarded as not called (and then to begin all over again from the beginning),50 when one of his acquaintances persuades him to give this up. So it remains at that, he keeps the call.
He is ordained — and the Sunday arrives when he is to be presented to the congregation. The Dean, by whom he is presented, is more than an ordinary man; he not only has what all priests have (and all the more developed, the higher their rank), an unprejudiced eye for earthly profit, but he also has a speculative eye for universal history,51 which he does not keep to himself but allows the congregation to share. By a stroke of genius he chooses for his text the words of the Apostle Peter: "Lo, we have left all and have followed Thee," and he then explains to the congregation that precisely in times such as ours there must be men like that as teachers, and in connection therewith he recommends this young man, of whom he knows how near he has been to drawing back for the sake of 150 dollars.
The young man himself now mounts the pulpit — and, strangely enough, the Gospel for the Day is: "Seek first the kingdom of God." He delivers his sermon. "A very good sermon," says the Bishop, who himself was present, "a very good sermon; and it produced a proper effect, that whole part about 'first' the kingdom of God, and the way he stressed this word first." "But does it not seem to your Lordship that in this instance a correspondence between speech and life would be desirable? Upon me this word first made an almost satirical impression." "What an absurdity! He is called to preach the doctrine, the sound, unadulterated doctrine of seeking first the kingdom of God, and that he did very well."
This is the sort of divine service one dares — under oath! — to offer unto God — the most dreadful mockery.
Whoever thou art, think merely on this word of God, "First the kingdom of God," and then think on this novel, which is so true, so true, so true — and thou wilt not need more to make it clear to thee that the whole official Christianity is an abyss of falsehood and illusion, something so profane that the only thing that with truth can be said about it is: By ceasing to take part (if usually thou dost) in the public worship of God as it now is, thou hast constantly one sin the less, and that a great one: thou dost not take part in treating God as a fool (cf. "This has to be said, so be it then said").
God's Word reads, "First the kingdom of God," and the interpretation of it, perhaps a way of completing and "perfecting" it (for one wants to do the thing handsomely) is: first everything else, and last the kingdom of God; after a long while the earthly is first attained, and then finally comes at last a sermon about seeking first the kingdom of God, then one becomes a priest; and the priest's whole profession is a constant practice of this: first the earthly...and then the kingdom of God, first regard for the earthly, whether the thing pleases the Government or the majority, or whether a man is himself a big enough bug to do it, i.e. first regard for what the fear of man bids or forbids...and then the kingdom of God, first money...and then thou canst get thy child baptized, first money...then there will be earth thrown on and a funeral oration corresponding to the tariff, first money...then I will visit the sick, first money...and then, virtus post nummos (first money, then virtue52), then the kingdom of God, the last being in such a degree last that it doesn't come at all, and the whole thing stops with the first, with money — the only case where one does not feel the need of "going further."53
Such at every point and in all respects is the relation of official Christianity to the Christianity of the New Testament. And furthermore this is not what people themselves admit is a pitiable situation; no, they impudently brave it out that Christianity is perfectible, that one cannot stop with the first form of Christianity, that this is merely a phase, etc.
Therefore there is nothing so displeasing to God as official Christianity and taking part in it with the claim that this is worshiping Him. If thou dost believe, as surely thou dost, that to steal, rob, plunder, commit adultery, slander, gormandize, is displeasing to God, then official Christianity and its worship is infinitely more abhorrent to Him; that man can be sunk in such a brutish stupidity and spiritlessness as to offer God worship of this sort where everything is thoughtlessness, spiritlessness and torpor — and then that man can impudently regard this as a stage of progress in Christianity! It is this which it is my duty to say: "Whoever thou art, whatever in other respects thy life may be, by ceasing to take part (if usually thou dost) in the public worship of God as it now is, thou hast one sin the less, and that a great one." The responsibility is thine, and thou shalt bear it, for the way thou dost act, but thou hast been warned.
Translator's Footnotes
46Cf. the Journal, XI 2 A 211.
47The Seminary was founded in 1809, with the expectation that the course would last a whole year, but by this time it had been shortened to one half.
48As everywhere else on the Continent, all official documents bore a stamp equivalent in cost to the tax imposed.
49Holberg,
50This is pretty much what happened to S. K.'s elder brother Peter. The living he had applied for and obtained proved not to his liking, and the King, with a reprimand, allowed him to withdraw his application.
51Like Martensen, who was a good Hegelian.
52Horace's Letters, I, 1, 54.
53There is hardly any phrase S. K. so often uses with reprobation. He has in mind Martensen's boast of "going further" than Hegel, but also further than the naive phase of Christianity registered in the New Testament. This hangs together with the claim that Christianity is "perfectible."