Kierkegaard (31 page)

This is the first book by the pseudonym Anti-Climacus, a character devised by Kierkegaard to stand for an expression of Christianity Søren himself aspired to. He placed himself below Anti-Climacus but above Johannes Climacus. This book sets up major themes such as the becoming of a self as a religious act, the possibility of offence at Jesus, and a veiled “attack upon Christendom”: all will be put to great effect in Anti-Climacus's next book,
Practice in Christianity
.

Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays

November 13, 1849

Søren Kierkegaard

Altogether, Kierkegaard wrote thirteen “Friday Communion” discourses, three of which he delivered in person at the Church of Our
Lady in Copenhagen. Seven Communion discourses were published as part of the
Christian Discourses
in 1848. One was included in
Practice in Christianity
in 1850. Three were issued as
Three Discourses
in 1849 and
Two Discourses
in 1851. A fourteenth piece on the woman who was a sinner in Luke 7 was originally intended as a Communion discourse but was instead published separately as an
Upbuilding Discourse
in 1850. Although the Communion discourses receive relatively little attention in comparison with his other works, Kierkegaard mentions in his journals how he likes to think the rest of his authorship was drawn together here, finding its rest at the altar of contemplation and communal worship.

The three 1849 discourses are “The High Priest” (Hebrews 4:15), “The Tax Collector” (Luke 18:13), and “The Woman Who Was a Sinner” (Luke 7:47). Here, Søren develops the theme that Christ as High Priest is the greatest sufferer who can understand one's affliction more than any friend. In turn, Christ's sacrificial love demands from the follower a new pattern of holiness. The Tax Collector is examined for his humility. Christendom has managed to turn acts of humility into a source of pride: one takes the lowest place with head up and eyes open, waiting to be ushered to the best seat. Instead, the man from Luke 18 stands afar from the crowd. With downcast eyes he waits, and it is thus he meets God. The woman who is a sinner is a favourite of Kierkegaard's themes, and he returns to her often in his discourses. He highlights all the contrasts the story throws up: banquets as a place of confession, the Pharisee's house as a place of grace, and the woman finding salvation by forgetting herself. In her love for Jesus she did not regard herself, and herein precisely lies the salvation of herself. “This woman was a sinner—yet she became and is a prototype. Blessed is the one who resembles her in loving much!” (142–43).

Practice in Christianity

September 27, 1850

Anti-Climacus (with S. Kierkegaard named as editor)

“If you cannot bear contemporaneity . . . then you are not
essentially
Christian” (65).

It is well known Jesus issued a lot of “hard sayings”: Turn the other cheek; Sell all you have and give to the poor; If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even their own life, such a person cannot be my disciple; and so on. Anti-Climacus in
Practice in Christianity
alights on another saying, not often considered as a difficult command: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Christendom has forgotten this is a hard saying, because the citizens of Christendom have forgotten to live in the present with Jesus ever before them. The potential offensiveness of “come unto me” is nullified if we imagine the one speaking is obviously able to give desired rest to suffering souls; if the one speaking is obviously God. Christendom looks to the great number of years that have passed, people who call themselves Christian, or nations that are founded on Christian morality and concludes Jesus was God as a matter of common sense. The only reason someone does not believe in Jesus is because they do not know enough information about him and the history of the culture of his followers. Yet, Anti-Climacus is keen to remind us, this is not the person who the first disciples met. The “obviousness” of Jesus' divinity is not apparent if one is standing directly before him. Thus, to have the faith of the disciples Jesus demanded cannot be to assent to the historical and intellectual data that comprises the Christian religion. Even the miracles recorded in the New Testament are not presented as proof of Jesus' status. They are instead crisis points at which the people around him are brought up short before someone who looks and sounds and smells like a finite person and yet who talks and acts like an infinite one. “It is in the situation of contemporaneity with an individual human being, a human being like others—and he speaks about himself in such a manner! . . . he directly makes himself totally different from what it
is to be a human being, makes himself the divine—he, an individual human being” (100).

The rest Jesus offers is authentic rest, which cannot be had apart from faith.
Practice in Christianity
suggests the opposite of faith is not doubt. It is offence. Only if an individual is presented with the potential offensiveness of Jesus the Christ, and wills not to turn away in disgust, can that person be said to have a right relation to the incarnation. This potential for offence can only be encountered in contemporaneity with Christ, by being aware of his call in the moment. The potential offensiveness comes in many forms, and Anti-Climacus charts them all. The first form of offence is the challenge Jesus poses to the institutions and morals of his day and ours. Anti-Climacus does not think this is a minor aspect of Jesus' life by any means, but it is not
the essentially
offensive thing about him as this form of offence is open to anyone who imitates Christ. The essential offence occurs in a “lofty” and a “lowly” form. The lofty offence is that this man before you
is God
. The lowly is that God
is this man
. In all cases, Jesus stands as a figure who represents the impossibility of direct communication. Even when he says direct statements to his divinity (“I and the father are one” [John 10:30]), or acts in divine ways (raising Lazarus from the dead), it is still
this man
who is doing and saying it, and thus the communication is rendered indirect. There is nothing Jesus does that automatically results in faith. The listener must choose how she or he will respond every time. The final section of
Practice
is a long reflection on John 12:32: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” Its theme is crucifixion, suffering, and imitation. The cross is a sign of offence. It is also that to which Jesus calls his disciples. The ones who are not offended by the God-Man will obey and imitate him by denying themselves and taking up their own crosses. By doing so, Jesus' disciples will be putting themselves in positions where they too will stand as signs of offence, acting as catalysts for others to be ushered into contemporaneity with Christ. “One becomes a Christian only in the situation of contemporaneity
with Christ, and in the situation of contemporaneity everyone will also become aware” (102).

Historically
Practice in Christianity
has not been Kierkegaard's most widely read or reviewed book; however, he considered it “without a doubt [the] most perfect and truest thing I have written” (JP 6501). It is arguably his most important text. The pseudonym Anti-Climacus was invented to represent the highest expression of Christianity—a position to which Søren aspired. The book contains a “Moral” that offers a defence of the established church by calling on the preachers and teachers of Christendom to confess that the Christianity they promote is not the Christianity of the New Testament and potentially offensive contemporaneity. The “Moral” was primarily aimed at Bishop Mynster, who read the book and privately told Søren of his displeasure but who did not address the charges in print or from the pulpit. Mynster's public silence about
Practice
paved the way for Søren's silence. He would soon give up publishing for three years while waiting for Mynster to admit his church's part in the illusion of Christendom. The confession never came and the attack upon Christendom ensued. When the book was re-printed in 1855, Søren claimed if he was to write it again he would leave everything the same, but take away the pseudonym and retract the “Moral.”

An Upbuilding Discourse: The Woman Who Was a Sinner

December 20, 1850

Søren Kierkegaard

The short essay was originally part of the longer series of Friday Communion discourses before Kierkegaard decided it worked better as a separate “upbuilding” work. (See the above entry for
Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays
.) With this 1850
Discourse
Kierkegaard
returns to the woman caught in adultery. Kierkegaard's writings contain many harsh sounding words about women springing from his views on marriage as an example of Christendom's dissipation. However, this
Discourse
is not one of those times. It finds the women of the New Testament, especially the woman caught in adultery, as teachers of authentic Christianity and existential existence. She did not plead or argue with Jesus. She did not do anything to earn forgiveness. She waited with sorrow for her sins. “You can similarly learn from a woman how to sorrow rightly over sin, from the sinful woman whose sins have long, long since ceased to be and have been forgotten but who is herself eternally unforgettable” (149–50).

Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays

August 7, 1851

Søren Kierkegaard

The
Two Discourses
of 1851 consider how it is that in Luke 7 “The One Who Is Forgiven Little Loves Little” and how in 1 Peter 4:8 “Love Will Hide a Multitude of Sins.” The first discourse returns to the sinful woman but this time is intentionally unsettling, aiming for disquiet rather than comfort for the person approaching the Lord's Table. Whereas Jesus' call for people to come to him is a word of rest for people outside the church, his warning here in Luke 7 is for Christianised people who may take their forgiveness for granted. Do you feel little forgiveness? Then perhaps you have little love. The second discourse is addressed to the one who in truth has recognised and confessed their sins. Individual conscience might be able to confess, but it is unable to forget sin. Fortunately, God not only forgives, he
forgets
the sin of the penitent. The book ends with Kierkegaard's view of communion as forgiveness and identity formation: “Only by remaining in him, only by living yourself into him are you under cover . . . it is the communion, this communion that you are to
strive to preserve in your daily life by more and more living yourself out of yourself and living yourself into him, in his love, which hides a multitude of sins” (188).

A notable and biographically important element of
Two Discourses
is its opening dedication: “To One Unnamed, Whose Name Will One Day Be Named, is dedicated with this little work, the entire authorship as it was from the beginning.” It is significant the discourses were published the same day Kierkegaard issued
On My Work as an Author
. The discourses and their indirect dedication to Regine were intended to be read in the light of this companion piece.

On My Work as an Author

August 7, 1851

Søren Kierkegaard

Later readers of Kierkegaard's journals and posthumous books are well aware how much he wrote about himself and his authorial project. However, contemporary readers had only scattered material to go on, such as the comedic “review of recent Danish literature” in
Concluding Unscientific Postscript
.
On My Work as an Author
was the only piece of autobiographical accounting Kierkegaard released in his lifetime. The occasion springs from the reprinting of
Either/Or
in 1849. The reissue of the earliest and most popular book in the “authorship” led to a new round of self-reflection. Kierkegaard felt the need to reiterate the Christian direction of his life's work, so as not to let the project slip back into the mere aestheticism and moralism of the first book. He considered publishing
The Point of View for My Work as an Author
to accompany the rerelease but then held back, deeming this long work would be too open to misunderstanding. Instead, a shorter version,
On My Work as an Author
, was created. (
Point of View
would be published after his death.) The pamphlet is not part of the authorship
per se
. It is
“an act” and thus is supposed to be short and sweet. It runs to just under twenty pages.

In this piece Kierkegaard reiterates his intention to stir up “the crowd” so “the Individual” might emerge. His goal is to introduce Christianity back into Christendom, an aim that can only be done with craftiness thanks to the illusion Christendom has perpetuated. In a world in which everyone assumes they are Christian as a matter of course, Kierkegaard saw fit to pepper his authorship with people who not only are
not
Christian, they know it and can say it. Kierkegaard explains the disunity, obfuscation, and even deception in his authorship as a “godly endeavour” working to communicate the authentically religious in the only way it can be communicated—indirectly and dialectically. Kierkegaard describes his authorship as a “working also to work against oneself” (9). Like a farmer with his plough, Kierkegaard crosses and re-crosses the field several times in order to furrow deeply. Kierkegaard concludes the main section of his accounting by insisting he is a writer “without authority.” He asks to be considered not only as the author of the works but as their reader too. The challenges and edification are for him as much as for anyone else. “Before God,” he states, “I call my whole work as an author my own upbringing and development, but not in the sense as if I were now complete” (12).