Fire og Tyve Prædikener
FIRE OG TYVE PRÆDIKENER
til Opbyggelse for de Dannede
forfattede af
MAGISTER THEOPHILUS SOPHIENSEN
Sognepræst ved en af Hovedstadens Kirker
udgivne med Fortale af
NICOLAUS NOTABENE
KJØBENHAVN
FAAES HOS UNIVERSITETSBOGHANDLER C. A. REITZEL
TRYKT I BIANCO LUNOS BOGTRYKKERI
Tilegnet, med dybeste Ærefrygt og i fasteste Forventning om snart at blive superseret, den dannede Menighed i den danske Hovedstad og den Idee, hvorved de paa een Gang ere constituerede og transcenderede.
Octavo, bound in dark plum cloth with a single Greek cross blind-stamped at the centre of the front board — no gilding, the Magister having let it be known that he wished the volume to be sober. Pages of a heavy white paper, ruled with a thin line in the upper margin in the manner adopted by certain liturgical publications. The titles of the sermons are set in small caps; the biblical texts are set in italic and translated, where the Magister judged the cultured reader incapable of unaided Greek, into a Danish so Hegelian-sounding that the original is sometimes hard to recover. Bookmark of black silk, sufficient for one reading per Sunday over six months. Price: three Rigsdaler bound, two Rigsdaler stitched, with a discount of five per cent for those who subscribe to the entire series of which the present volume is to be the first.
NOTABENES NOTE TIL LÆSEREN
Jeg skylder Læseren en Forklaring. Det Bind, der følger, er ikke i nogen rigtig Forstand af mig. Jeg er bleven betroet dets Udgivelse af dets Forfatter, den lærde Magister Sophiensen, hvis Beskedenhed ikke vilde tillade ham at udsende det under sit eget Navn uden et eller andet Mellemled — en Delicatesse, jeg deler, eftersom det ofte har forekommet mig, at en Bog udgiven af sin Forfatter ingen Ven har i Verden, medens en Bog udgiven af en tredie Part dog har Skinnet af een.
Jeg har paataget mig Embedet med Glæde, des meer som Magisterens Arbeide forekommer mig at fylde et Hul i vor Litteratur, der længe og smerteligt er blevet føltes. Det dannede Publikum i Kjøbenhavn har indtil nu været tvunget til at nære sig paa den høiærværdige Bisps Prædikener, hvis Samling, omendskjønt beundringsværdig paa sin Maade, blev affattet, før den dannede Læser var blevet, hvad han nu er, og henvender sig med en Directhed, der ikke altid er behagelig, til en Tilhører, der forudsættes endnu at besidde saadanne gammeldags Ting som en særlig Synd, en særlig Sorg, et særligt Behov. Den dannede Læser har forlængst givet Afkald paa disse Særligheder. Han fordrer en Opbyggelse, der svarer til hans Standpunkt. Magisterens fire og tyve Prædikener levere denne Fordring; hvorvidt de levere den tilfredsstillende, formaster jeg mig ikke til at dømme, idet jeg har intet Standpunkt af mit eget, hvorfra jeg kunde veie Sagen, men Magisteren forsikrer mig, at de gjøre det, og hans Forsikring støttes af den forudgaaende Forsikring fra hans egen Lærer, Professor M——n., hvis Navn vil være bekjendt for enhver Læser, der har holdt sig à jour med det forløbne Decenniums speculative Theologie.
Jeg tilføier alene dette: Magisteren har underrettet mig om, at nærværende Bind skal betragtes som det første af en Række, og at han er i Correspondance med flere af sine yngre Collegae, der allerede have udført Supersederingen af det her repræsenterede Standpunkt og i sin Tid ville bidrage med Bind af deres egne. Dette er en Indretning, hvortil jeg er tilbøielig til at give min varmeste Godkjendelse, baade fordi den giver nærværende Bind en Fremtid, der er paa een Gang værdig og uundgaaelig, og fordi det i en Tidsalder, hvori enhver er ivrig efter at gaae ud over, er en Trøst at vide, at Hindenforgangen er bleven planlagt forud og betroet Skriften, paa det den dannede Læser maa consultere Schemaet og forberede sig.
Læseren vil finde vedføiet, efter den afsluttende Prædiken, en kort Notice fra een saadan Collega, der allerede er gaaet ud over Magister Sophiensen, og som har været saa god at angive Retningen, hvori hans eget forestaaende Bind vil bevæge sig. Jeg har inkluderet den med Magisterens Tilladelse, der i Sagen om sin egen Supersedering har viist en Magnanimitet, som den dannede Læser, jeg tiltro, vil finde exemplarisk.
Nicolaus Notabene
I owe the reader an explanation. The volume which follows is not, in any proper sense, by me. I have been entrusted with its publication by its author, the learned Magister Sophiensen, whose modesty would not permit him to issue it under his own name without some intermediary — a delicacy I share, since it has often appeared to me that a book published by its author has no friend in the world, while a book published by a third party has at least the appearance of one.
I have undertaken the office gladly, the more so because the Magister's labour appears to me to fill a gap in our literature which has been long and grievously felt. The cultivated public of Copenhagen has, until now, been compelled to nourish itself on the sermons of the high-reverend Bishop, whose collection, though admirable in its way, was composed before the cultured reader had become what he now is, and addresses itself, with a directness that is not always agreeable, to a hearer who is presumed still to possess such old-fashioned things as a particular sin, a particular sorrow, a particular need. The cultivated reader has long since dispensed with these particularities. He requires an edification commensurate with his standpoint. The Magister's twenty-four sermons supply this requirement; whether they supply it satisfactorily I do not presume to judge, having no standpoint of my own from which to weigh the matter, but the Magister assures me that they do, and his assurance is supported by the prior assurance of his own teacher, Professor M——n, whose name will be familiar to every reader who has kept abreast of the speculative theology of the last decade.
I add only this: the Magister has informed me that the present volume is to be considered the first of a series, and that he is in correspondence with several of his younger colleagues who have already accomplished the supersession of the standpoint here represented and will, in due course, contribute volumes of their own. This is an arrangement to which I am inclined to give my warmest approval, both because it provides a future for the present volume which is at once dignified and inevitable, and because, in an age in which everyone is anxious to go beyond, it is a comfort to know that the going beyond has been planned in advance and committed to writing, so that the cultured reader may consult the schedule and prepare himself.
The reader will find appended, after the closing sermon, a brief notice from one such colleague who has already gone beyond Magister Sophiensen, and who has been so good as to indicate the direction in which his own forthcoming volume will move. I have included it with the Magister's permission, who in the matter of his own supersession has shown a magnanimity which the cultured reader will, I trust, find exemplary.
Nicolaus Notabene
PASTOR SOPHIENSENS FORTALE
To Ting have bevæget mig til at undertage nærværende Værk. Det første er den Omstændighed, ofte bemærket i den periodiske Presse, men aldrig adæqvat behandlet fra Prædikestolen, at den dannede Deel af vor Befolkning — de, der læse, der frequentere Theatret, der følge Dagens philosophiske Drøftelser, der ere, med eet Ord, af Tidsalderen — finde sig for Tiden uden en opbyggelig Litteratur skikket til deres Tilstand. Det andet er den Omstændighed, at jeg selv i Løbet af mine Sognepligter er bleven hyppigt henvendt af Medlemmer af min Menighed tilhørende denne samme dannede Klasse, der med den Delicatesse, der sømmer sig deres Stand, have antydet for mig, at den homiletiske Belæring for Tiden tilgjengelig for dem ikke tilfredsstiller en vakt Bevidstheds Trang.
Den høiærværdige Bisps Prædikener, hvortil jeg henviser ikke uden Veneration, henvende sig, som den dannede Læser vil have iagttaget, til en Tilhører, der indbydes til at overveie sit eget særlige Liv, sine egne særlige Mangler, sin egen særlige Sorg, og at finde i Evangeliet en særlig Trøst. Dette er en Procedure af utvivlsom Værd, og var i sin Dag tilstrækkelig. Men Dagen er bevæget. Den dannede Bevidsthed i nærværende Tidsalder er gaaet ud over Særlighedens Standpunkt. Den ønsker ikke at vendes tilbage til sig selv; den ønsker at hæves over sig selv, ind i hiint Universelle, som vor Tids speculative Philosophie for første Gang i Menneskehedens Historie har gjort fuldt tilgjengeligt for Tænkningen. Det er nærværende Bindes Ærgjerrighed at udføre denne Ophøielse i det homiletiske Medium.
Jeg er des meer opmuntret til at undertage Opgaven, fordi den dannede Menighed ved selve sin Natur er sit eget Correctiv. Skulde de nærværende Discurser mislykkes i deres Maal, vil den dannede Læser allerede være gaaet ud over dem, før han har endt Bindet; skulde de lykkes, vil han gaae ud over dem i Øieblikket af at ende det; i ethvert Tilfælde ville Discurserne have tjent deres Formaal, der ikke er at tilbageholde Læseren, men at bistaae hans Bevægelse. Jeg fremlægger dem derfor med hiin fuldkomne Eqvanimitet, der sømmer sig et Arbeide, hvis Værd er uafhængigt af dets Modtagelse, eftersom baade dets Antagelse og dets Forkastelse, ved den vor Tid eiendommelige Dialectik, bidrage til samme høiere Resultat.
Et Ord angaaende Formen. De fire og tyve Discurser staae ikke i Isolation. Hver Prædiken tager en særlig bibelsk Text og bringer den i Forhold til en særlig speculativ Bestemmelse — en Categori, det vil sige, af vor Dages philosophiske Tænkning; og Prædikenernes Procession optegner i homiletisk Register den Procession af Categorier, der constituerer Systemet, hvoraf Christendommen er paa een Gang det historiske Antecedens og det evige Indhold. Den dannede Læser, der holder Bindet i sine Hænder, holder altsaa, in nuce, Systemet selv, i dets Prædikestols-Form. Han indbydes til at læse Prædikenerne i Orden, men han vil ikke fare meget vild, om han læser dem i hvilkensomhelst Orden, eftersom Systemet i sit Væsen lige fuldt er nærværende i hvert af sine Momenter.
Et andet Ord, om disse Prædikeners Forhold til den danske Kirkes Gudstjeneste, som den for Tiden bedrives. Jeg vilde ikke ønske at forstaaes som foreslaaende, at disse Discurser skulde holdes i deres nærværende Form fra Sognenes Prædikestole. Den dannede Menighed, selv i Hovedstaden, er endnu ikke et særskilt kirkeligt Legeme, og de eenfoldige Tilhørere, blandt hvilke de Dannede for Tiden ere blandede, vilde være ilde tjente med dem. De ere bestemte til Studerekammeret, og til hiin Time paa Søndag Eftermiddag, da den dannede Læser, havende overværet den offentlige Gudstjeneste om Morgenen, trækker sig tilbage til sit Studerekammer for at modtage en Opbyggelse svarende til hans Standpunkt. De ville maaskee i en eller anden fremtidig Tidsalder høres fra et dannet Sogns Prædikestol, naar saadanne Sogne ere blevne stiftede ved den naturlige Udvikling af vore kirkelige Institutioner; men Tiden er endnu ikke kommen, og jeg vil ikke foregribe den.
Jeg afslutter med det sædvanlige Udtryk for Uværdighed. Den Magister, der har sat sin Haand til dette Bind, er ikke uvidende om, at Arbeidet overskrider hans Capaciteter. Han skrider ikke desto mindre videre, i den Overbeviisning, at Arbeidet overskrider enhver Capacitet, eftersom det er Ideens eget Arbeide, der virker gjennem en særlig Pens contingente Instrumentalitet. Har Ideen valgt denne Pen, hvem er jeg da til at afslaae Ideen?
Theophilus Sophiensen Kjøbenhavn, anden Søndag i Advent, 1844
Two things have moved me to undertake the present work. The first is the circumstance, often remarked upon in the periodical press but never adequately addressed from the pulpit, that the cultivated portion of our population — those who read, who attend the theatre, who follow the philosophical debates of the day, who are, in a word, of the age — find themselves at present without an edifying literature suited to their condition. The second is the circumstance that I have myself, in the course of my parish duties, been frequently approached by members of my congregation belonging to this same cultivated class, who have intimated to me, with the delicacy proper to their station, that the homiletic instruction at present available to them does not satisfy the wants of an awakened consciousness.
The high-reverend Bishop's Prædikener, to which I refer not without veneration, addresses itself, as the cultured reader will have observed, to a hearer who is invited to consider his own particular life, his own particular failings, his own particular grief, and to find in the Gospel a particular consolation. This is a procedure of undeniable merit, and was, in its day, sufficient. But the day has moved. The cultivated consciousness of the present age has gone beyond the standpoint of particularity. It does not wish to be returned to itself; it wishes to be raised above itself, into that universal which the speculative philosophy of our time has made, for the first time in human history, fully accessible to thought. It is the ambition of the present volume to perform this elevation in the homiletic medium.
I am the more emboldened to undertake the task because the cultivated congregation, by its very nature, is its own corrective. Should the present discourses fail of their aim, the cultivated reader will have already gone beyond them before he has finished the volume; should they succeed, he will go beyond them at the moment of finishing it; in either case the discourses will have served their purpose, which is not to detain the reader but to assist his motion. I therefore submit them with that perfect equanimity which is proper to a labour whose worth is independent of its reception, since both its acceptance and its rejection contribute, by the dialectic peculiar to our age, to the same higher result.
A word concerning the form. The twenty-four discourses do not stand in isolation. Each sermon takes a particular biblical text and brings it into relation with a particular speculative determination — a category, that is, of the philosophical thought of our day; and the procession of sermons traces, in homiletic register, the procession of categories which constitutes the System, of which Christianity is at once the historical antecedent and the eternal content. The cultured reader who holds the volume in his hands therefore holds, in nuce, the System itself, in its pulpit form. He is invited to read the sermons in order, but he will not be far astray if he reads them in any order, since the System is, in its essence, equally present in each of its moments.
A second word, on the relation of these sermons to the worship of the Danish Church as it is at present conducted. I would not wish to be understood as proposing that these discourses should be delivered in their present form from the pulpits of the parishes. The cultivated congregation, even in the capital, is not yet a separate ecclesiastical body, and the simple-hearted hearers among whom the cultured are at present mingled would be ill served by them. They are intended for the closet, and for that hour on the Sunday afternoon when the cultivated reader, having attended the public service in the morning, retires to his study to receive an edification proportioned to his standpoint. They will, perhaps, in some future age, be heard from the pulpit of a cultivated parish, when such parishes have been established by the natural evolution of our ecclesiastical institutions; but the time is not yet come, and I do not wish to anticipate it.
I close with the customary expression of unworthiness. The Magister who has set his hand to this volume is not unaware that the labour exceeds his capacities. He proceeds nevertheless, in the conviction that the labour exceeds every capacity, since it is the labour of the Idea itself, working through the contingent instrumentality of a particular pen. If the Idea has chosen this pen, who am I to refuse the Idea?
Theophilus Sophiensen Copenhagen, the second Sunday in Advent, 1844
INDHOLD
I. Om Ordet, der var i Begyndelsen, og det Begreb, der er dets Sandhed. — Joh. 1, 1.
II. Om Edens Have og Umiddelbarhedens nødvendige Fald i Reflexion. — 1 Mos. 3, 6.
III. Om Patriarcherne og den endelige Religions Moment i Aandens Udvikling. — 1 Mos. 12, 1.
IV. Om Loven givet paa Sinai og det abstracte Universelle som Negation af det særlige Vilkaarlige. — 2 Mos. 20.
V. Om Propheterne og Ideens Indtrædelse i Historien. — Es. 6, 8.
VI. Om Visdomslitteraturen og den speculative Reflexions Vækkelse i den religiøse Bevidsthed. — Ord. 8, 22.
VII. Om Bebudelsen og det Moment, hvori Ideen bestemmer sig til at indtræde i det Endelige. — Luc. 1, 28.
VIII. Om Fødselen og det speculative Indhold af Formelen Gud-Mand. — Luc. 2, 7.
IX. Om Bjergprædikenen og Lovens Ophævelse i Kjærlighedens høiere Eenhed. — Matth. 5, 17.
X. Om Lignelserne og Ideens nødvendige Selv-Tilhylling i Forestillingens Form. — Marc. 4, 11.
XI. Om Gethsemane og den dialectiske Identitet af Lidelse og Bevidsthed. — Matth. 26, 39.
XII. Om Korset og den absolutte Negation, hvori Aanden vender tilbage til sig selv. — Joh. 19, 30.
XIII. Om Opstandelsen og den speculative Mening af den tomme Grav. — Marc. 16, 6.
XIV. Om Himmelfarten og Universaliseringen af den enkelte Gud-Mand. — Ap. Gj. 1, 9.
XV. Om Pintsen og den dannede Menigheds Constitution som Aandens nutidige Form. — Ap. Gj. 2, 1.
XVI. Om St. Pauli Omvendelse og Ophævelsen af det Standpunkt af umedieret Udvælgelse. — Ap. Gj. 9, 4.
XVII. Om Jerusalems Concilium og Opløsningen af det jødiske Særlige i det christne Universelle. — Ap. Gj. 15, 28.
XVIII. Om de apostoliske Fædre og Ideens umiddelbare Reflexion efter dens Bærers Forsvinden. — Phil. 1, 6.
XIX. Om Nikæa-Conciliet og Ideens Indtrædelse i den speculative Bestemmelse. — Joh. 10, 30.
XX. Om Reformationen og Negationen af den medierende Institution til Fordeel for Inderligheden. — Rom. 1, 17.
XXI. Om Oplysningen og Negationen af Inderligheden til Fordeel for den universelle Fornuft. — 1 Cor. 13, 12.
XXII. Om den nærværende Tidsalder og den høiere Synthese af Inderligheden og den universelle Fornuft i den dannede Menighed. — Eph. 4, 13.
XXIII. Om den dannede Læsers Pligt til at modtage sin Opbyggelse med Magnanimitet. — Phil. 4, 8.
XXIV. Om Supersederingen af det nærværende Standpunkt og Pligten til glædesfuldt at afvente det næste. — 1 Cor. 13, 10.
Notice fra en Collega, der er gaaet ud over.
Udgiverens Efterskrift.
I. On the Word that was in the Beginning, and the Concept which is its Truth. — Joh. 1, 1.
II. On the Garden of Eden, and the necessary fall of immediacy into reflection. — 1 Mos. 3, 6.
III. On the Patriarchs, and the moment of finite religion in the development of Spirit. — 1 Mos. 12, 1.
IV. On the Law given upon Sinai, and the abstract universal as the negation of particular caprice. — 2 Mos. 20.
V. On the Prophets, and the entry of the Idea into history. — Es. 6, 8.
VI. On the Wisdom Literature, and the awakening of speculative reflection within the religious consciousness. — Ord. 8, 22.
VII. On the Annunciation, and the moment in which the Idea determines itself to enter the finite. — Luc. 1, 28.
VIII. On the Nativity, and the speculative content of the formula God-Man. — Luc. 2, 7.
IX. On the Sermon on the Mount, and the abrogation of the Law in the higher unity of love. — Matth. 5, 17.
X. On the Parables, and the necessary self-veiling of the Idea in the form of representation. — Marc. 4, 11.
XI. On Gethsemane, and the dialectical identity of suffering and consciousness. — Matth. 26, 39.
XII. On the Cross, and the absolute negation in which Spirit returns to itself. — Joh. 19, 30.
XIII. On the Resurrection, and the speculative meaning of the empty tomb. — Marc. 16, 6.
XIV. On the Ascension, and the universalisation of the singular God-Man. — Acts 1, 9.
XV. On Pentecost, and the constitution of the cultivated Congregation as the present-day form of Spirit. — Acts 2, 1.
XVI. On the conversion of St. Paul, and the cancellation of the standpoint of unmediated election. — Acts 9, 4.
XVII. On the Council of Jerusalem, and the dissolution of the Jewish particular into the Christian universal. — Acts 15, 28.
XVIII. On the Apostolic Fathers, and the immediate reflection of the Idea after the disappearance of its bearer. — Phil. 1, 6.
XIX. On the Council of Nicea, and the entry of the Idea into the speculative determination. — Joh. 10, 30.
XX. On the Reformation, and the negation of mediating institution in favour of inwardness. — Rom. 1, 17.
XXI. On the Enlightenment, and the negation of inwardness in favour of universal reason. — 1 Cor. 13, 12.
XXII. On the present age, and the higher synthesis of inwardness and universal reason in the cultivated Congregation. — Eph. 4, 13.
XXIII. On the duty of the cultivated reader to receive his edification with magnanimity. — Phil. 4, 8.
XXIV. On the supersession of the present standpoint, and the duty of joyfully awaiting the next. — 1 Cor. 13, 10.
Notice from a colleague who has gone beyond.
Editor's afterword.
PRÆDIKEN I
Om Ordet, der var i Begyndelsen, og det Begreb, der er dets Sandhed
I Begyndelsen var Ordet, og Ordet var hos Gud, og Ordet var Gud. — St. Joh. i. 1.
Dannede Tilhører, naar den hellige Evangelist sætter dette Postulat i Spidsen for sit Evangelium, meddeler han os ikke — som den ureflecterede Læser altfor ofte har formodet — et Stykke historisk Oplysning, som om paa en eller anden fjern Dato en Begivenhed kaldet Ordet skulde være forekommen. Han meddeler os snarere den speculative Bestemmelse, hvorpaa alt, hvad der følger i hans Evangelium, og ja i hele Christendommen, maa forstaaes at hvile. Ordet — som den græske Text kalder Logos, og som den philosophiske Tradition fra sine tidligste Begyndelser har anvendt til at betegne Værensens rationelle Structur — var i Begyndelsen: hvilket vil sige, før al Adskillelse, før al Modsætning, før hiin Spaltning af det Ene i det Mange, der constituerer det endelige Skins Verden. Og dette Ord var hos Gud: hvilket vil sige, at det ikke var en blot Abstraction overfor det guddommelige, men stod i hiint inderlige Forhold til det guddommelige, som vor Tids speculative Tænkning har lært at kalde Identitet-i-Forskjellighed. Og dette Ord var Gud: hvilket vil sige, at Forskjellen mellem Ord og Gud, havende først været sat for at der maatte være Forhold, paa samme Øieblik er overvunden, saa at det, der stod som to, atter staaer som eet, og Identiteten, havende gjennemgaaet Forskjellen, vender beriget tilbage.
Dannede Tilhører, De vil maaskee tænke, at dette er en usædvanlig Maade at begynde en Prædiken paa. Jeg benægter det ikke. Men jeg beder Dem at overveie, at Evangelisten selv er begyndt paa denne Maade; at han har afslaaet ved sit Evangeliums Indledning at trøste os med en Fortælling angaaende Bethlehem eller med en Slægtebog nedstammende fra David; han er begyndt i Stedet med et Postulat. Og har Evangelisten, der kjendte sine Tilhørere, dømt at Postulatet var den rette Begyndelse, da maae vi, der vilde opbygges af ham, ikke begynde andetsteds. Postulatet er Døren. Skulle vi overhovedet indtræde i Evangeliet, da maae vi indtræde gjennem Postulatet.
Det er sagt af nogle, der ikke have forstaaet Sagen, at den speculative Læsning af denne Vers tømmer den for sit religiøse Indhold; at den eenfoldige Troende, der hører i Ordet Manden Jesus af Nazareth, har Substansen, medens den speculative Læser, der hører i Ordet Begrebet, kun har Formen. Jeg vover at antyde, at det modsatte er Tilfældet. Den eenfoldige Troende, hørende Ordet og findende kun Manden, har kun et Tilfælde — et Særligt, der, hvor dyrebart det end er ham, ikke kan mediere sig til det Universelle, hvori alene noget Særligt finder sin Sandhed. Den speculative Læser, hørende Ordet og findende Begrebet, har det Universelle, hvori ethvert Særligt, indbefattet Bethlehems Særlige, finder sin Plads. Den speculative Læser taber ikke Manden Jesus; han vinder ham for første Gang som et forstaaeligt Moment af en Proces, der ellers vilde forblive et raat Datum.
Der er, omtrent her, en Vanskelighed, som den dannede Tilhører allerede vil have foregrebet. Er Ordet Begrebet, og er Begrebet i Begyndelsen, og er Begrebet Gud, hvad bliver der da af hiint andet Postulat, lige bekjendt for os fra Katechismen, at Gud skabte Verden af Intet? Jeg svarer: Postulatets Intet er det abstracte Intet, som vor Tids speculative Tænkning har viist at være den abstracte Værens tomme Correlat, og som gaaer over ved sin egen indre Bevægelse i Vorden. Ordet, sat i Begyndelsen, er Princippet for denne Vorden. Verden skabes af Intet ikke som en Tryllekunstner frembringer en Hare af en tom Hat, ved en vilkaarlig Handling, men som Begrebet frembringer sit Andet ved sin egen Selvbestemmelses immanente Nødvendighed. Det er i denne Forstand — og i ingen lavere Forstand — at den dannede Tilhører skal modtage Skabelsens Lære.
Jeg skal ikke forfølge Sagen videre paa nærværende Time. De resterende Prædikener i nærværende Bind ville optegne, i det religiøse Livs forskjellige Sphærer, Følgerne af den her fastslaaede speculative Bestemmelse. Jeg afslutter, som jeg skal afslutte hver Discurs, med en enkelt Bemærkning rettet til den dannede Læser: at det her opnaaede Standpunkt ikke er et endeligt Standpunkt. Begrebet, der er Ordet, er selv kun et Moment af en høiere Bevægelse, hvis Bestemmelse det vil være paafølgende Tænkeres Arbeide at gjøre udtrykkelig. Nærværende Prædiken har, havende naaet sit Standpunkt, allerede ved selve Handlingen at naae det forberedt sig til at blive transcenderet. Den dannede Tilhører indbydes til at udføre Transcendensen i sin Magelighed. Amen.
On the Word that was in the Beginning, and the Concept which is its Truth
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. — St. John i. 1.
Cultivated hearer, when the holy Evangelist sets this proposition at the head of his Gospel, he does not — as the unreflective reader has too often supposed — communicate to us a piece of historical information, as if at some distant date an event called the Word should have transpired. He communicates to us, rather, the speculative determination upon which all that follows in his Gospel, and indeed in the whole of Christianity, must be understood to rest. The Word — which the Greek text calls Logos, and which the philosophical tradition has, from its earliest beginnings, employed to designate the rational structure of being — was in the beginning: which is to say, before all separation, before all opposition, before that splitting of the One into the Many which constitutes the world of finite appearance. And this Word was with God: which is to say, that it was not a mere abstraction over against the divine, but stood in that intimate relation to the divine which the speculative thought of our age has learned to call Identity-in-Difference. And this Word was God: which is to say, that the difference between Word and God, having been first posited in order that there might be relation, is at the same moment overcome, so that what stood as two stands again as one, and the identity, having passed through difference, returns enriched.
Cultivated hearer, you will perhaps think this an unusual manner of beginning a sermon. I do not deny it. But I beg you to consider that the Evangelist himself has begun in this manner; that he has refused, at the outset of his Gospel, to comfort us with a narrative concerning Bethlehem or with a genealogy descending from David; he has begun, instead, with a proposition. And if the Evangelist, who knew his hearers, judged that the proposition was the proper beginning, then we, who would be edified by him, may not begin elsewhere. The proposition is the door. If we will enter the Gospel at all, we must enter through the proposition.
It has been said, by some who have not understood the matter, that the speculative reading of this verse evacuates it of its religious content; that the simple believer, who hears in the Word the man Jesus of Nazareth, has the substance, while the speculative reader, who hears in the Word the Concept, has only the form. I venture to suggest that the contrary is the case. The simple believer, hearing the Word and finding only the man, has only an instance — a particular which, though precious to him, cannot mediate itself to the universal in which alone any particular finds its truth. The speculative reader, hearing the Word and finding the Concept, has the universal, in which every particular, including the particular of Bethlehem, finds its place. The speculative reader does not lose the man Jesus; he gains him, for the first time, as an intelligible moment of a process which would otherwise remain a brute datum.
There is, hereabouts, a difficulty which the cultured hearer will already have anticipated. If the Word is the Concept, and the Concept is in the beginning, and the Concept is God, then what becomes of that other proposition, equally familiar to us from the Catechism, that God created the world out of nothing? I answer: the nothing of the proposition is the abstract nothing, which the speculative thought of our age has shown to be the empty correlate of abstract being, and which passes over, by its own internal motion, into becoming. The Word, posited in the beginning, is the principle of this becoming. The world is created out of nothing not as a magician produces a rabbit from an empty hat, by an arbitrary act, but as the Concept produces its other from the immanent necessity of its own self-determination. It is in this sense — and in no lower sense — that the cultivated hearer is to receive the doctrine of creation.
I shall not pursue the matter further at this hour. The remaining sermons of the present volume will trace the consequences, in the various spheres of the religious life, of the speculative determination here laid down. I close, as I shall close every discourse, with a single observation directed to the cultivated reader: that the standpoint here attained is not a final standpoint. The Concept which is the Word is itself only a moment of a higher movement, the determination of which it will be the labour of subsequent thinkers to make explicit. The present sermon, having reached its standpoint, has already, by the act of reaching it, prepared itself to be transcended. The cultivated hearer is invited to perform the transcendence at his leisure. Amen.
PRÆDIKEN VII
Om Bebudelsen og det Moment, hvori Ideen bestemmer sig til at indtræde i det Endelige
Og Engelen kom ind til hende og sagde: Hil være Dig, Du Benaadede, Herren er med Dig; Du Velsignede iblandt Qvinder. — St. Luc. i. 28.
Dannede Tilhører, naar den engelske Sendebud fremtræder for Jomfruen af Nazareth, hvad er det, der finder Sted? Den ureflecterede Indbildningskraft danner sig et Billede: en ung Qvinde, opskrækket ved sine Andagter, en bevinget Skikkelse staaende i Døren, en Samtale angaaende en extraordinær Bestemmelse. Dette Billede er ikke uden sin Fromhed. Men Billedet, som Billede, hører til Forestillingens Form, som vor Tids speculative Tænkning har viist at være en foreløbig Form, bestemt til at vige Pladsen i den dannede Bevidsthed for Begrebets Form.
Hvad finder da Sted under Billedet? Jeg svarer: Ideen — som indtil dette Øieblik har bestaaet i den rene Tankes Element, uden nogen særlig Incarnation fornøden til dens Selv-Forstaaelse — bestemmer sig til at indtræde i det Endelige. Engelen er Bestemmelsens Form; Maria er det Endeliges Element, hvori Bestemmelsen skal modtages; Ordene »Hil være Dig, Du Benaadede« bekjendtgjøre, at Bestemmelsen er gjort, og at Indtrædelsens Moment er nær. Den dannede Tilhører, der læser Verset paa denne Maade, vil finde, at han taber intet af dens andagtsfulde Værd, medens han vinder det uundværlige Element af speculativ Forstaaelighed.
Det vil maaskee indvendes, at denne Beretning bortskaffer det Mirakuløse. Jeg svarer, at den bortskaffer kun det raa Mirakuløse. Det egentlige Mirakel er Ideens Indtrædelse i det Endelige som saadan; at denne Indtrædelse skulde finde Sted i en særlig Landsby, til en særlig Jomfru, paa en særlig Dato, er i sig selv en Sag af Indifference, eftersom den speculative Betydning er udtømt i Indtrædelsen, og Landsbyens, Jomfruens og Datoens Særligheder ere blot de contingente Omstændigheder, hvorunder Indtrædelsen paa hiint Øieblik af Verdens Historie var mulig. At insistere paa Særlighederne paa Indtrædelsens Bekostning er at forvexle Skallen med Kjernen. At insistere paa Indtrædelsen paa Særlighedernes Bekostning — dette er at gjøre, som den dannede Tilhører indbydes til at gjøre, og at modtage Bebudelsen i sin Sandhed.
Bemærk, beder jeg Dem, Momentets dialectiske Structur. Før Bebudelsen bestaaer Ideen i ren Tanke, ubestemt med Hensyn til sin endelige Incarnation. Efter Bebudelsen har Ideen bestemt sig og er ikke længere fri til at bestaae i ren Tanke; den maa, ved sin egen Selvbestemmelses Nødvendighed, skride frem gjennem Svangerskab, Fødsel, Vækst, Tjeneste, Lidelse, Død, Opstandelse, Himmelfart og Menighedens Constitution, til sin endelige Forsoning med sig selv i den nærværende Tidsalders dannede Bevidsthed. Christendommens hele paafølgende Historie — og ja Vestens — indeholdes in nuce i den engelske Hilsen. Den dannede Tilhører, opfattende dette, vil forstaae, hvorfor Kirken har anvist Bebudelsen en saa fremtrædende Plads i sin Calender; hun har opfattet, selv i sin uspeculative Periode, hvad vor Tids speculative Tænkning nu har gjort udtrykkelig.
En Reflexion paatrænger sig her, om Jomfruens Værdighed. Den ureflecterede Fromhed har altfor ofte betragtet hende som et blot Kar, vurderet for intet andet end sin Modtagelighed. Den dannede Læser vil i den speculative Læsning finde en høiere Værdighed. Jomfruen er det Endeliges Element, hvori Ideen har valgt at incarnere sig; hun er derfor i sin Capacitet som Element af cosmisk Betydning. At venerere hende under dette Aspect er ikke Mariolatri, hvorimod Reformationen med Rette protesterede; det er snarere den rette Erkjendelse af hendes structurelle Rolle i Dialectiken. Jeg anbefaler denne Betragtning til den dannede Læsers Meditation, særligt saadanne af mine Læsere, som tilhøre det qvindelige Kjøn, der i den speculative Maria ville finde en Skikkelse paa een Gang meer værdig og meer tilgjengelig end den eenfoldigt-troende Maria fra en tidligere Tidsalder.
Jeg afslutter, som det er min Skik, med et Blik mod det Standpunkt, der skal supersere det nærværende. Bebudelsens Lære, selv i sin speculative Form, forudsætter, at Ideen i at bestemme sig til at indtræde i det Endelige ikke altid har været saaledes bestemt. Et høiere Standpunkt vil maaskee opfatte, at Bestemmelsen var evig, og at Bebudelsen ikke er Indtrædelsens Moment, men Momentet af Bevidstheden om en Indtrædelse, der allerede havde fundet Sted. Jeg indtager ikke selv dette høiere Standpunkt, men jeg er underrettet af visse af mine yngre Collegae om, at de ere begyndte at skimte det. Nærværende Prædiken har, havende naaet sit Standpunkt, afventet sin Supersedering med hiin Eqvanimitet, som den dannede Tilhører nu vil have lært at vente af den. Amen.
On the Annunciation, and the moment in which the Idea determines itself to enter the finite
And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. — St. Luke i. 28.
Cultivated hearer, when the angelic messenger appears to the maiden of Nazareth, what is it that takes place? The unreflective imagination forms to itself a picture: a young woman startled at her devotions, a winged figure standing in the doorway, a colloquy concerning an extraordinary destiny. This picture is not without its piety. But the picture, as picture, belongs to the form of representation, which the speculative thought of our age has shown to be a provisional form, destined to give place, in the cultivated consciousness, to the form of the Concept.
What, then, takes place under the picture? I answer: the Idea — which until this moment has subsisted in the element of pure thought, with no particular incarnation requisite to its self-understanding — determines itself to enter the finite. The angel is the form of the determination; Mary is the element of the finite into which the determination is to be received; the words "Hail, thou that art highly favoured" announce that the determination has been made, and that the moment of entry is at hand. The cultivated hearer who reads the verse in this manner will find that he loses nothing of its devotional value, while gaining the indispensable element of speculative intelligibility.
It will perhaps be objected that this account dispenses with the miraculous. I reply that it dispenses only with the crude miraculous. The genuine miracle is the entry of the Idea into the finite as such; that this entry should occur in a particular village, to a particular maiden, on a particular date, is in itself a matter of indifference, since the speculative significance is exhausted in the entry, and the particularities of village, maiden, and date are merely the contingent circumstances under which the entry was, at that moment of the world's history, possible. To insist on the particularities at the expense of the entry is to mistake the husk for the kernel. To insist on the entry at the expense of the particularities — this is to do as the cultivated hearer is invited to do, and to receive the Annunciation in its truth.
Notice, I beg you, the dialectical structure of the moment. Before the Annunciation, the Idea subsists in pure thought, undetermined as to its finite incarnation. After the Annunciation, the Idea has determined itself, and is no longer free to subsist in pure thought; it must, by the necessity of its own self-determination, proceed through gestation, birth, growth, ministry, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and the constitution of the Congregation, to its final reconciliation with itself in the cultivated consciousness of the present age. The entire subsequent history of Christianity — and, indeed, of the West — is contained, in nuce, in the angelic salutation. The cultivated hearer, perceiving this, will understand why the Church has assigned to the Annunciation a place of such eminence in her calendar; she has perceived, even in her unspeculative period, what the speculative thought of our age has now made explicit.
A reflection here imposes itself, on the dignity of the Virgin. The unreflective piety has too often regarded her as a mere vessel, valued for nothing but her receptivity. The cultivated reader will find, in the speculative reading, a higher dignity. The Virgin is the element of the finite in which the Idea has chosen to incarnate itself; she is therefore, in her capacity as element, of cosmic significance. To venerate her under this aspect is not Mariolatry, against which the Reformation rightly protested; it is rather the proper acknowledgement of her structural role in the dialectic. I commend this consideration to the meditation of the cultivated reader, particularly such of my readers as belong to the female sex, who will find in the speculative Mary a figure both more dignified and more accessible than the simply-believing Mary of an earlier age.
I close, as is my custom, with a glance toward the standpoint which is to supersede the present. The doctrine of the Annunciation, even in its speculative form, presupposes that the Idea, in determining itself to enter the finite, has not always been so determined. A higher standpoint will perhaps perceive that the determination was eternal, and that the Annunciation is not the moment of entry but the moment of the consciousness of an entry which had already taken place. I do not myself occupy this higher standpoint, but I am informed by certain of my younger colleagues that they have begun to glimpse it. The present sermon, having reached its standpoint, awaits its supersession with that equanimity which the cultivated hearer will, by now, have learned to expect of it. Amen.
PRÆDIKEN XV
Om Pintsen og den dannede Menigheds Constitution som Aandens nutidige Form
Og da Pintse-Dagen var fuldkommen, vare de alle eendrægtig samlede paa eet Sted. — Apostlenes Gjerninger ii. 1.
Dannede Tilhører, Pintse-Dagen er Menighedens Dag. Indtil denne Dag bestod Ideen, havende indtraadt i det Endelige ved Bebudelsen, havende dvælet i det Endelige under den jordiske Tjeneste, havende undergaaet Korsets absolutte Negation, havende vendt tilbage til sig selv i Opstandelsen, havende universaliseret sig i Himmelfarten, som et Løfte. Fra Pintsen frem bestaaer Ideen som en Menighed. Dette er Festens speculative Betydning, og det er ved denne Betydning, jeg foreslaaer at dvæle.
Menigheden er ikke, som den ureflecterede Tilhører undertiden har formodet, en Samling af Troende. En Samling er et Aggregat af uafhængige Enheder, eksternt forbundne med hverandre ved deres fælles Antagelse af en Lære; den styres af Arithmetikens Categorier, ikke af Speculationens. Menigheden er derimod en organisk Totalitet, hvori de enkelte Medlemmer ikke ere eksterne for hverandre, men internt forbundne, hver constitueret som det, han er, ved sin Deeltagelse i det Hele. Den dannede Tilhører vil opfatte, at Menigheden paa denne Beretning er en Aand — en Geist — og ikke en blot Forsamling. Det er Aanden, der nedfor ved Pintsen; ikke i enkelte Hjerter taget hver for sig, men i Forsamlingen som saadan, constituerende den for første Gang som en Totalitet.
Dette har Følger for den Maade, hvorpaa den dannede Tilhører skal forstaae sit eget Medlemskab i Menigheden. Han er ikke, som den ældre Fromhed formodede, en Troende, der paa egen Beretning har antaget visse Postulater, og som i Kraft af sin Antagelse er Medlem af Kirken. Han er snarere et Moment af den Aand, der nedfor ved Pintsen — et Moment, der i at være sig selv paa samme Tid er det Hele; der er, hvad det er, alene ved at være det Hele, og som, abstraheret fra det Hele, vilde være Intet. Den dannede Tilhører indbydes derfor til at give Afkald, med den Magnanimitet, der er den dannede Charakters høieste Yttring, paa Standpunktet af den adskilte Troende, og at indtage Standpunktet af Aandens Moment.
Det vil maaskee indvendes, at dette Afkald netop er Afkaldet paa personlig Religion, og at den dannede Tilhører i at udføre det ophører at være Christen i nogen Forstand, som Kirken historisk har anerkjendt. Jeg svarer: Afkaldet er Afkaldet paa et Standpunkt, ikke paa personlig Religion som saadan. Personlig Religion er i sin rette Form bevaret i Aandens Moment, eftersom Momentet netop er det Personlige under sin høieste Bestemmelse. Hvad der gives Afkald paa, er det Personliges Isolation, dets Staaen-i-Side fra Totaliteten. Den dannede Tilhører vinder, i at give Afkald paa Isolationen, det Personlige i sin Sandhed. Pintse-Aanden tilintetgjør ikke den Troende; den constituerer ham.
En videre Reflexion. Den dannede Menighed i nærværende Tidsalder er ikke identisk med den historiske Pintse-Menighed i det første Aarhundrede. Det er den samme Aand — Geisten multipliceres ikke ved Aarhundrederne — men Aanden har i de forløbne atten hundrede Aar undergaaet en Udvikling. Aanden, der nedfor ved Pintsen, var en umiddelbar Aand; den constituerede sine Medlemmer ved en Begeistring, der, omendskjønt sublim, manglede den speculative Form. Aanden, der constituerer den dannede Menighed i nærværende Tidsalder, er en udviklet Aand; den constituerer sine Medlemmer ved en Begeistring, der har gjennemgaaet Conciliernes dogmatiske Klargjørelser, Reformationens Inderlighed, Oplysningens universaliserende Arbeide, og er fremstaaet i vor egen Dag som den selvbevidste Aand. Den dannede Tilhører indbydes derfor til at modtage sin Pintse ikke som en Gjentagelse af den oprindelige Pintse — der vilde være en Regression — men som det nærværende Moment af en enkelt Nedstigen, der ogsaa er en enkelt Opstigen, samme Aand omsider naaet til Bevidsthed om sig selv.
Det er i den dannede Menighed, da, og ikke andetsteds, at Christendommen i vor Tidsalder har sit rette Hjem. Den eenfoldigt troende i Landsognet forbliver en Deeltager af Aanden, men en Deeltager af Aanden i dens tidligere Form; han skal respekteres, som man respekterer en Forfader, og ikke at sammenblandes med een selv. Den dannede Læser i Hovedstaden er en Deeltager af Aanden i dens nærværende Form; det er i ham, at Ideen for Øieblikket har naaet sin høieste Selv-Articulation. Han er derfor det rette Subject for nærværende Prædiken og den rette Modtager af den Opbyggelse, nærværende Prædiken er bestemt til at meddele.
Jeg afslutter, som altid, med et Blik mod Supersederingen. Den Aand, der constituerer den dannede Menighed som sin nærværende Form, vil ikke forblive i denne Form. Ideens Bevægelse er ikke ophørt med den dannede Menighed, ligesaa lidt som den ophørte med den historiske Pintse-Menighed. En høiere Form af Aanden afventer, hvori den dannede Menighed vil fremtræde som et Moment, ligesom Pintse-Menigheden nu fremtræder som et Moment af den dannede. Jeg veed ikke, hvad den høiere Form vil være; jeg veed alene, at den vil komme, eftersom Ideen ikke kan staae stille, og at den dannede Tilhører, der virkelig har forstaaet nærværende Prædiken, vil modtage Tidenden om sin egen Supersedering med samme Magnanimitet, hvormed han har modtaget Tidenden om sit nærværende Standpunkt. Amen.
Prædikenerne VIII til XIV og XVI til XXIII forbigaaes her af Pladshensyn; den dannede Læser vil finde dem i Bindets Krop. Deres Indhold er tilstrækkelig angivet ved Indholdsfortegnelsen ovenfor. Magisteren har anmodet om, at den afsluttende Prædiken gjengives i Helhed, da den efter hans Dom staaer i et særligt Forhold til Bindet som Heelhed.
On Pentecost, and the constitution of the cultivated Congregation as the present-day form of Spirit
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. — Acts of the Apostles ii. 1.
Cultivated hearer, the day of Pentecost is the day of the Congregation. Until this day, the Idea, having entered the finite at the Annunciation, having sojourned in the finite during the earthly ministry, having undergone the absolute negation of the Cross, having returned to itself in the Resurrection, having universalised itself in the Ascension, subsisted as a promise. From Pentecost forward, the Idea subsists as a Congregation. This is the speculative significance of the festival, and it is on this significance that I propose to dwell.
The Congregation is not, as the unreflective hearer has sometimes supposed, a collection of believers. A collection is an aggregate of independent units, externally related to one another by their common acceptance of a doctrine; it is governed by the categories of arithmetic, not of speculation. The Congregation, by contrast, is an organic totality, in which the individual members are not external to one another but internally related, each constituted as what he is by his participation in the whole. The cultivated hearer will perceive that the Congregation, on this account, is a Spirit — a Geist — and not a mere assemblage. It is the Spirit which descended at Pentecost; not into individual hearts taken severally, but into the assembly as such, constituting it for the first time as a totality.
This has consequences for the manner in which the cultivated hearer is to understand his own membership in the Congregation. He is not, as the older piety supposed, a believer who has, on his own account, accepted certain propositions and who is, on the strength of his acceptance, a member of the Church. He is rather a moment of the Spirit which descended at Pentecost — a moment which, in being itself, is at the same time the whole; which is what it is only by being the whole, and which would, abstracted from the whole, be nothing. The cultivated hearer is therefore invited to surrender, with that magnanimity which is the highest expression of the cultivated character, the standpoint of the separate believer, and to take up the standpoint of the moment-of-the-Spirit.
It will perhaps be objected that this surrender is precisely the surrender of personal religion, and that the cultivated hearer, in performing it, ceases to be a Christian in any sense which the Church has historically recognised. I answer: the surrender is the surrender of a standpoint, not of personal religion as such. Personal religion, in its proper form, is preserved in the moment-of-the-Spirit, since the moment is precisely the personal under its highest determination. What is surrendered is the isolation of the personal, its standing apart from the totality. The cultivated hearer, in surrendering the isolation, gains the personal in its truth. The Pentecostal Spirit does not annihilate the believer; it constitutes him.
A further reflection. The cultivated Congregation of the present age is not identical with the historical Pentecostal Congregation of the first century. It is the same Spirit — the Geist is not multiplied by the centuries — but the Spirit has, in the intervening eighteen hundred years, undergone a development. The Spirit which descended at Pentecost was an immediate Spirit; it constituted its members by an enthusiasm which, while sublime, lacked the speculative form. The Spirit which constitutes the cultivated Congregation of the present age is a developed Spirit; it constitutes its members by an enthusiasm which has passed through the dogmatic clarifications of the Councils, the inwardness of the Reformation, the universalising labour of the Enlightenment, and has emerged, in our own day, as the self-conscious Spirit. The cultivated hearer is therefore invited to receive his Pentecost not as a repetition of the original Pentecost — which would be a regression — but as the present moment of a single descending which is also a single ascending, the same Spirit at last arrived at consciousness of itself.
It is in the cultivated Congregation, then, and not elsewhere, that Christianity has, in our age, its proper home. The simple-hearted believer in the country parish remains a participant of the Spirit, but a participant of the Spirit in its earlier form; he is to be respected as one respects an ancestor, and not to be confounded with oneself. The cultivated reader of the capital is a participant of the Spirit in its present form; it is in him that the Idea has reached, for the moment, its highest self-articulation. He is therefore the proper subject of the present sermon, and the proper recipient of the edification which the present sermon is intended to convey.
I close, as ever, with a glance toward the supersession. The Spirit which constitutes the cultivated Congregation as its present form will not remain in this form. The motion of the Idea has not ceased with the cultivated Congregation, any more than it ceased with the historical Pentecostal Congregation. A higher form of the Spirit awaits, in which the cultivated Congregation will appear as a moment, just as the Pentecostal Congregation now appears as a moment of the cultivated. I do not know what the higher form will be; I know only that it will come, since the Idea cannot stand still, and that the cultivated hearer who has truly understood the present sermon will receive the news of his own supersession with the same magnanimity with which he has received the news of his present standpoint. Amen.
Sermons VIII through XIV, and XVI through XXIII, are passed over here for reasons of space; the cultivated reader will find them in the body of the volume. Their content is sufficiently indicated by the table of contents above. The Magister has requested that the closing sermon be reproduced in full, since it bears, in his judgment, a particular relation to the volume as a whole.
PRÆDIKEN XXIV
Om Supersederingen af det nærværende Standpunkt og Pligten til glædesfuldt at afvente det næste
Naar det Fuldkomne kommer, da skal det, som er Stykkeviis, afskaffes. — 1 Corinthier xiii. 10.
Dannede Tilhører, vi ere komne til den sidste af disse Discurser. Det vil ikke have undgaaet Deres Opmærksomhed, at hver af de tre og tyve foregaaende har sluttet med et Blik mod sin egen Supersedering. Nærværende Prædiken, værende den sidste, har ingen Efterfølger indenfor Bindet, til hvem den kan overlevere sit Standpunkt; den maa derfor udføre Supersederingen paa sig selv. Dette er det for nærværende Time foreslaaede Arbeide.
Apostlen, da han skrev til Corinthierne om det, der er Stykkeviis, og det, der er Fuldkomment, mente uden Tvivl en eschatologisk Fuldendelse — en Fuldkommenhed, der skulde aabenbares ved Tidsalderens Ende, hvori nærværende Livs Stykkeviis-Erkjendelse skulde vige Pladsen for den tilkommende Verdens Ansigt-til-Ansigt Beskuelse. Den dannede Tilhører vil dog opfatte, at Versets speculative Sandhed overskrider dens eschatologiske Anledning. Det, der er Stykkeviis, er det bestemte Standpunkt, gyldigt indenfor sine Grændser, men begrændset af dem; det, der er Fuldkomment, er det høiere Standpunkt, der, indbefattende det lavere, ophæver det. Aandens Historie er Historien om det Stykkeviis, der afskaffes af det Fuldkomne, der i sin Tur bliver stykkeviis i Forhold til et endnu høiere Fuldkomment, og saa fremdeles uden Termination — thi var der en Termination, vilde Aanden have ophørt sin Selvbestemmelse og vilde forfalde til hiin abstracte Identitet, hvorfra hele Dialectiken blev paabegyndt for at frelse den.
Nærværende Bind er selv et Tilfælde af det Stykkeviis. Dets Standpunkt er bestemt; det er bleven articuleret i fire og tyve Prædikener; det er — indenfor sine Grændser — adæqvat til sin Gjenstand. Men det er stykkeviis. Et høiere Standpunkt er selv nu under Dannelse; det vil blive articuleret i det Bind, der skal følge dette, af en Collega, til hvem Magisteren har betroet Embedet, og som har været saa god at angive, i den nedenfor vedføiede Notice, den almindelige Retning af sit Arbeide. Nærværende Bind afventer det høiere Standpunkt ikke med Modstand, ikke med den jaloux Hengivenhed, der vilde tilhøre et lavere Standpunkt, der ikke havde forstaaet sig selv, men med hiin glædesfulde Magnanimitet, der er det rette Sindelag af et Standpunkt, der har fuldkomment forstaaet sig selv, og som veed Supersederingen at være sin egen Sandhed.
Jeg skal vove i Slutning en enkelt Bemærkning om al dettes practiske Bæring for den dannede Læsers daglige Livs Førelse. Den dannede Læser, havende læst nærværende Bind, skal ikke formode, at han er færdig med det. Han skal snarere betragte det som et Stadium i sin vedvarende Bevægelse. Han skal læse det; han skal opbygges af det; og han skal da lægge det til Side og afvente det næste. Han skal ikke i Mellemtiden være urolig over Spørgsmaalet, hvorvidt det nærværende Standpunkt er eller ikke er Sandheden; thi han veed, ved den Dialectik, hvori han nu er grundigt instrueret, at det nærværende Standpunkt er Sandheden under sin nærværende Bestemmelse, og at det vil give Pladsen til en høiere Sandhed paa den fastsatte Time. Den dannede Læsers Opgave er Taalmod. Han skal vente, med den elegante Roe, der adskiller ham fra den ophidsede ureflecterede Troende, paa det næste Bind; og naar det er fremkommet, skal han vente med samme Roe paa det Bind derefter.
Det kan her indvendes — og jeg foregriber Indvendingen alene for at affærdige den — at denne uophørlige Venten berøver den dannede Læser enhver fastsat Besiddelse, ethvert endeligt Hvile, enhver afgjørende Trøst. Jeg svarer, at Berøvelsen er Trøsten. Den dannede Læser skal ikke søge endeligt Hvile; endeligt Hvile tilhører et lavere Standpunkt, der ikke har forstaaet, at Aanden er Bevægelse. Den dannede Læser skal finde sit Hvile netop i Bevægelsen — i Forsikringen om, at Bevægelsen er rationel, at den gaaer et Sted hen, at den gaaer der ved en Nødvendighed, der paa een Gang er Ideens Nødvendighed og hans egen Bevidstheds Nødvendighed. Han skal, med eet Ord, finde sit Hvile i Dialectiken. Dette er den høieste Trøst, som Religionen har at tilbyde de Dannede i vor Tidsalder; den tilbydes i nærværende Bind med den Beskedenhed, der sømmer sig et Bidrag, der selv kun er et Moment af den større Trøst, og med den Tillid, der sømmer sig et Moment, der veed sig at være nødvendigt.
Og saaledes, dannede Tilhører, tager jeg min Afsked. De nærværende Discurser, havende været holdte, ere ikke længere mine; de tilhøre Dem, og gjennem Dem den Aand, der er Menigheden, og gjennem Menigheden det næste Standpunkt, der skal supersere det nærværende. Modtag dem, og lad Dem opbygge, og giv dem videre. Amen.
Theophilus Sophiensen
On the supersession of the present standpoint, and the duty of joyfully awaiting the next
When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. — 1 Corinthians xiii. 10.
Cultivated hearer, we are come to the last of these discourses. It will not have escaped your attention that each of the preceding twenty-three has closed with a glance toward its own supersession. The present sermon, being the last, has no successor within the volume to which it can hand on its standpoint; it must, therefore, perform the supersession upon itself. This is the labour proposed for the present hour.
The Apostle, when he wrote to the Corinthians of that which is in part and that which is perfect, intended, no doubt, an eschatological consummation — a perfection to be revealed at the end of the age, in which the partial knowledge of the present life should give place to the face-to-face vision of the world to come. The cultivated hearer will, however, perceive that the speculative truth of the verse exceeds its eschatological occasion. That which is in part is the determinate standpoint, valid within its limits but bounded by them; that which is perfect is the higher standpoint which, including the lower, sublates it. The history of Spirit is the history of the partial being done away by the perfect, which in its turn becomes partial in relation to a still higher perfect, and so without termination — for if there were a termination, the Spirit would have ceased its self-determination, and would lapse into that abstract identity from which the entire dialectic was undertaken to deliver it.
The present volume is itself an instance of the partial. Its standpoint is determinate; it has been articulated in twenty-four sermons; it is — within its limits — adequate to its object. But it is partial. A higher standpoint is, even now, in process of formation; it will be articulated, in the volume which is to follow this one, by a colleague to whom the Magister has entrusted the office, and who has been so good as to indicate, in the notice appended below, the general direction of his labours. The present volume awaits the higher standpoint not with reluctance, not with the jealous attachment which would belong to a lower standpoint that had not understood itself, but with that joyful magnanimity which is the proper temper of a standpoint that has perfectly understood itself, and that knows the supersession to be its own truth.
I shall venture, in closing, a single observation upon the practical bearing of all this for the conduct of the cultivated reader's daily life. The cultivated reader, having read the present volume, is not to suppose that he has finished with it. He is rather to consider it as a stage in his ongoing motion. He is to read it; he is to be edified by it; and he is then to set it aside and await the next. He is not, in the interim, to be agitated by the question whether the present standpoint is or is not the truth; for he knows, by the dialectic in which he is now thoroughly instructed, that the present standpoint is the truth under its present determination, and that it will give place to a higher truth at the appointed hour. The cultivated reader's task is patience. He is to wait, with that elegant tranquillity which distinguishes him from the agitated unreflective believer, for the next volume; and when it has appeared, he is to wait, with the same tranquillity, for the volume after that.
It may here be objected — and I anticipate the objection only in order to dispose of it — that this ceaseless waiting deprives the cultivated reader of any settled possession, any final repose, any decisive consolation. I reply that the deprivation is the consolation. The cultivated reader is not to seek a final repose; final repose belongs to a lower standpoint, which has not understood that the Spirit is motion. The cultivated reader is to find his repose precisely in motion — in the assurance that the motion is rational, that it is going somewhere, that it is going there by a necessity which is at once the necessity of the Idea and the necessity of his own consciousness. He is, in a word, to find his repose in the dialectic. This is the highest consolation which religion has, in our age, to offer to the cultivated; it is offered, in this volume, with the modesty proper to a contribution which is itself only a moment of the larger consolation, and with the confidence proper to a moment which knows itself to be necessary.
And so, cultivated hearer, I take my leave. The present discourses, having been delivered, are no longer mine; they belong to you, and through you to the Spirit which is the Congregation, and through the Congregation to the next standpoint which is to supersede the present. Receive them, and be edified, and pass on. Amen.
Theophilus Sophiensen
NOTICE FRA EN COLLEGA, DER ER GAAET UD OVER
Til den dannede Læser, Hilsen fra een, der har havt den Forret at læse den foregaaende Prædikener af sin ærede ældre Collega, Magister Sophiensen, forud for deres Udgivelse, og som er bleven bevæget af Læsningen til at undertage det videre Bind, som nærværende Række fordrer.
Det Standpunkt, Magisteren har naaet, er, som han selv saa aabenhjertigt har angivet, et stykkeviis Standpunkt. Den dannede Menighed, som Magisteren har identificeret som Aandens nutidige Form, er selv et Moment af en høiere Form, hvis Bestemmelse det vil være det næste Binds Embede at gjøre udtrykkelig. Jeg nøies for nærværende med Antydningen om, at den høiere Form vil være kjendt under Navnet den Selvtransscenderende dannede Menighed; det vil sige, den dannede Menighed bleven bevidst om sin egen Status som Moment, og derfor virksomt engageret i sin egen Overgaaens Arbeide. Det Bind, hvori denne videre Bestemmelse skal udfoldes, vil fremkomme, om Gud vil, i Efteraaret 1845 og vil bære Titelen Tolv Prædikener for den Selvtransscenderende Dannelse, et Fortsættelses-Skrift. Subscriptioner modtages af Forlæggeren.
Jeg burde maaskee ogsaa angive det Standpunkt, der skal supersere mit eget forestaaende Binds Standpunkt, eftersom den dannede Læser vil ønske at planlægge sine Subscriptioner forud. Det tredie Bind af Rækken, ved en Collega endnu yngre end jeg, vil behandle Aandens Frasigelse af den dannede Menighed Overhovedet og vil fremkomme i Foraaret 1846. Et fjerde Bind, om Christendommens Reconstitution Hindenfor det dannede Standpunkt, er i Overveielse. Den dannede Læser indbydes til at subscribere paa hele Rækken til en nedsat Pris.
Med broderlig Agtelse, Magister C. C. Hegelius-Berlin
To the cultivated reader, greetings from one who has had the privilege of reading the foregoing sermons of his esteemed elder colleague, the Magister Sophiensen, in advance of their publication, and who has been moved by the reading to undertake the further volume which the present series demands.
The standpoint reached by the Magister is, as he himself has so candidly indicated, a partial standpoint. The cultivated Congregation, which the Magister has identified as the present-day form of Spirit, is itself a moment of a higher form, the determination of which it will be the office of the next volume to make explicit. I content myself, for the present, with the indication that the higher form will be known by the name of the Self-Transcending Cultivated Congregation; that is to say, the cultivated Congregation become aware of its own status as moment, and therefore actively engaged in the labour of its own surpassing. The volume in which this further determination is to be expounded will appear, God willing, in the autumn of 1845, and will bear the title Tolv Prædikener for den Selvtransscenderende Dannelse, et Fortsættelses-Skrift. Subscriptions are received by the publisher.
I ought, perhaps, to indicate also the standpoint which is to supersede the standpoint of my own forthcoming volume, since the cultivated reader will wish to plan his subscriptions in advance. The third volume of the series, by a colleague still younger than myself, will treat of the Spirit's Renunciation of the Cultivated Congregation Altogether, and will appear in the spring of 1846. A fourth volume, on the Reconstitution of Christianity Beyond the Cultivated Standpoint, is in contemplation. The cultivated reader is invited to subscribe to the entire series at a reduced rate.
With brotherly esteem, Magister C. C. Hegelius-Berlin
EFTERSKRIFT AF UDGIVEREN
Notabene beder Læseren om Overbærenhed for een afsluttende Reflexion.
Det Bind, han nu har fuldendt, er paa sin Overflade et Svar paa en Klage, der længe er blevet trukket frem i vor By — at den dannede Deel af vor Befolkning mangler en opbyggelig Litteratur skikket til dens Standpunkt. Magister Sophiensen har svaret paa Klagen med fire og tyve Discurser, og hans Collega har lovet tolv til, og en tredie har lovet meer efter dem, og en fjerde er i Overveielse. Successionen synes endeløs. Den dannede Læser vil maaskee lykønske sig med, at hans Opbyggelses Problem omsider er bleven adæqvat behandlet.
Jeg tilstaar, med en Tøven, som Læseren, jeg haaber, ikke vil tage feil for Mangel paa Ærefrygt, at jeg ikke er fuldkommen rolig i mit eget Sind ved denne Sag. Det forekommer mig — omendskjønt jeg er ingen lærd Mand og maaskee tager feil — at den høiærværdige Bisp i hine Prædikener, som Magisteren saa høfligt har sat til Side, forsøgte noget, som Magisteren og hans Efterfølgere ikke forsøge. Den høiærværdige Bisp forsøgte at henvende sig til en særlig Tilhører angaaende denne Tilhørers særlige Liv: hans virkelige Synd, hans virkelige Sorg, hans virkelige Behov for Naade. Magisteren henvender sig til den dannede Tilhører angaaende det Standpunkt, hvoraf den dannede Tilhører er et Moment. Disse ere ikke samme Foretagende. De ere faktisk saa langt fra at være samme Foretagende, at jeg finder det vanskeligt at afgjøre, hvilket af dem er den rette Forlængelse af det andet, eller hvorvidt nogetsomhelst er det.
Jeg trænger ikke paa Sagen. Jeg er, til syvende og sidst, alene Forlæggeren; jeg har intet Standpunkt af mit eget og vilde ikke formaste mig til at indskyde et imellem Magisteren og hans dannede Læsere. Jeg vil tillade mig alene denne ene Bemærkning, som den dannede Læser har Frihed til at afskedige som et Stykke borgerlig Sentimentalitet: at der i den høiærværdige Bisps gammeldags Procedure findes et Træk, jeg ikke finder i Magisterens, og som jeg tilstaar at savne. Den høiærværdige Bisp formodede, naar han havde endt sin Prædiken, at han havde gjort et særligt Værk i en særlig Tilhørers Sjel — at en eller anden enkelt Person i et eller andet enkelt Sogn paa en eller anden enkelt Søndag Eftermiddag ved Prædikenens Ord var bleven bragt til en særlig Anger-Handling, eller en særlig Beslutning, eller en særlig Trøst. Magisteren formoder ingen saadan Sag. Magisteren formoder, at han har bidraget med et Moment til Aandens Selv-Articulation. Dette er ikke samme Formodning. Og det forekommer mig — som det er forekommet ingen anden, maaskee fordi ingen anden er saa uphilosophisk — at den høiærværdige Bisps Formodning, hvor besynderlig den end er, dog har den Fordeel, at den i Princippet kunde være sand; medens Magisterens Formodning, hvor elegant den end er, har det eiendommelige Træk, at den kunde være sand eller falsk i ethvert givet Tilfælde, og Magisteren vilde have ingen Maade at vide det paa, og vilde efter de i Bindet fastslagne Principer ikke særligt bryde sig om det.
Læseren vil, jeg tiltro, tilgive Indiscretionen. Jeg udgiver Bindet; jeg endosserer det ikke. Den dannede Læser, der er tilfreds med det, vil finde sin Tilfredshed i dets Sider. Den eenfoldige Læser, om en saadan skulde være snublet over det, vil med Lettelse vende tilbage til den høiærværdige Bisp. Forfatteren af nærværende Forord, havende udført sit Embede som Mellemled, trækker sig tilbage for at afvente det næste Bind af Rækken og at overveie, hvorvidt han ønsker at undertage dets Udgivelse, naar det ankommer. Jeg er for nærværende tilbøielig til at tænke, at han ikke gjør det.
Nicolaus Notabene
Faaes hos Universitetsboghandler C. A. Reitzel. Pris 3 Rdl. indbunden, 2 Rdl. heftet.
Subscriptioner paa den fortsættende Række modtages.
Notabene begs the reader's indulgence for one closing reflection.
The volume he has now completed is, on its surface, an answer to a complaint which has been long urged in our city — that the cultivated portion of our population lacks an edifying literature suited to its standpoint. The Magister Sophiensen has answered the complaint with twenty-four discourses, and his colleague has promised twelve more, and a third has promised more after those, and a fourth is in contemplation. The succession appears interminable. The cultivated reader will perhaps congratulate himself that the problem of his edification has, at last, been adequately addressed.
I confess, with a hesitation which the reader will, I hope, not mistake for irreverence, that I am not perfectly easy in my own mind upon this matter. It seems to me — though I am not a learned man, and may be mistaken — that the high-reverend Bishop, in those Prædikener which the Magister has so politely set aside, was attempting something which the Magister and his successors are not attempting. The high-reverend Bishop was attempting to address a particular hearer concerning that hearer's particular life: his actual sin, his actual sorrow, his actual need of grace. The Magister addresses the cultivated hearer concerning the standpoint of which the cultivated hearer is a moment. These are not the same enterprise. They are, in fact, so far from being the same enterprise that I find it difficult to determine which of them is the proper extension of the other, or whether either is.
I do not press the point. I am, after all, only the publisher; I have no standpoint of my own, and would not presume to interpose one between the Magister and his cultivated readers. I will permit myself only this single observation, which the cultivated reader is at liberty to dismiss as a piece of bourgeois sentimentality: that there is, in the high-reverend Bishop's old-fashioned procedure, a feature which I do not find in the Magister's, and which I confess I miss. The high-reverend Bishop, when he had finished his sermon, supposed that he had done a particular work in the soul of a particular hearer — that some single person, in some single parish, on some single Sunday afternoon, had been brought, by the words of the sermon, to a particular act of contrition, or a particular resolve, or a particular consolation. The Magister supposes nothing of the kind. The Magister supposes that he has contributed a moment to the self-articulation of the Spirit. These are not the same supposition. And it occurs to me — as it has occurred to no one else, perhaps because no one else is so unphilosophical — that the high-reverend Bishop's supposition, however quaint, has at least the merit that it could, in principle, be true; whereas the Magister's supposition, however elegant, has the peculiar feature that it could be true or false in any given case, and the Magister would have no way of knowing, and would not, on the principles laid down in the volume, particularly care.
The reader will, I trust, forgive the indiscretion. I publish the volume; I do not endorse it. The cultivated reader who is satisfied by it will find his satisfaction in its pages. The simple reader, if any such have stumbled upon it, will return with relief to the high-reverend Bishop. The author of the present preface, having performed his office of intermediary, withdraws to await the next volume of the series, and to consider whether he wishes to undertake its publication when it arrives. I incline at present to think that he does not.
Nicolaus Notabene
Faaes hos Universitetsboghandler C. A. Reitzel. Pris 3 Rdl. indbunden, 2 Rdl. heftet.
Subscriptioner paa den fortsættende Række modtages.
Editor’s Introduction
Editor's Introduction
Volume VI
Fire og Tyve Prædikener til Opbyggelse for de Dannede
Twenty-Four Sermons for the Edification of the Cultivated
by MADS FEDDER HENRIKSEN
I. Publication and the attributed authorship
The Fire og Tyve Prædikener presents the editor with the most complicated authorial situation in the Notabene corpus. The volume was published by C. A. Reitzel in the second week of December 1845, in an edition of 1,200 copies (Reitzel-arkivet, Kgl. Bibl., NKS 4° 2989-A, fasc. 1845-46, fol. 213r), with a title page attributing the sermons to Magister Theophilus Sophiensen and indicating that the volume was "udgivne med Fortale af Nicolaus Notabene." The corporate fiction — that Notabene served only as the editor of a volume of sermons by an independent clerical author — is sustained throughout the volume's front matter; Sophiensen's own Preface (pp. 4–7 of the present edition) sets forth the speculative-theological programme of the sermons in a voice clearly distinct from Notabene's.
The historical existence of "Magister Theophilus Sophiensen" has long been doubted. No clergyman of that name appears in the Den Danske Geistlighed registers for 1820–60; the parish church described in the title-page indication — "Sognepræst ved en af Hovedstadens Kirker" — has not been identified; and the manuscript materials in the Notabene-arkivet (see Vol. I, § III) include a folder marked, in Notabene's hand, "Sophiensen-Stykkerne," containing drafts of nine of the twenty-four sermons in the same hand as the Notabene compositions of the period. The modern consensus, established with Lindhardt (1969) and confirmed in Holm (2011), is that Sophiensen is a Notabene pseudonym and that the entire volume — Sophiensen's preface, the twenty-four sermons in their varying states of completion, and the closing Notice from a Colleague who has gone Beyond — is of Notabene's composition.
The present edition accepts this consensus. The apparatus retains "Sophiensen" as the title-page attribution and reports the modern scholarship in note 1 to the Fortale.
A small subsidiary question concerns the Notice from a Colleague who has gone Beyond, attributed in the volume to a younger pastor whose name is given only as Magister A. T. Hegelius-Berlin. The Notabene-arkivet contains no draft of this section. Holm (2011, p. 119) suggests that the Notice may be by a different hand — possibly that of a member of the Kierkegaard circle who had taken Notabene's invitation in earnest and contributed the section as a piece of collaborative satire; Lindhardt (1969) holds that the Notice is Notabene's alone. The present editor records the disagreement but inclines toward Lindhardt; the Notice's prose rhythm and vocabulary are consistent with Notabene's at every paragraph the editor has been able to test, and the second-hand hypothesis has no positive support beyond the absence of a draft.
II. Contemporary reception in Denmark
The volume was widely noticed at the time of publication. The principal Danish notices are:
- Berlingske Tidende (no. 297, 22 December 1845): a respectful notice of three columns, treating the volume as a serious theological undertaking and recommending it "to those of our readers whose theological reading has not in recent years kept pace with the speculative developments of the day."
- Fædrelandet (no. 2106, 6 February 1846): a longer and more critical notice, by an unsigned correspondent who identifies the volume as a satire upon the Heibergian-Hegelian theological establishment and as a "polemic against the very productions which the Berlingske notice has commended." The reviewer concludes by recommending the volume "to those of our readers who can be trusted to read it in the spirit in which it was written."
- Maanedsskrift for Litteratur (vol. XXXIV, 1846): a substantial fifteen-page essay by H. L. Martensen, occasioned by the volume but treating it chiefly as a foil for Martensen's own emerging dogmatic position. Martensen does not discuss Sophiensen's identity; he refers throughout to "the author" in the singular and treats the speculative sermons as if delivered in earnest. Modern scholarship has divided on whether Martensen recognised the satire and pretended otherwise (Lindhardt 1969) or whether he genuinely did not recognise it (Holm 2011). The matter is not now decidable.
- Dansk Kirketidende (no. 19, 8 February 1846): a sharply critical notice, by an anonymous correspondent identifying himself as a country pastor, who denounces the volume as "speculation in homiletic dress" and warns the parish clergy against attempts to imitate it. The notice is the only contemporary one in which the satirical character of the volume is not in doubt; the country pastor evidently understood Sophiensen as a parody of the Copenhagen speculative theology, and welcomed the parody, while warning against any uncritical appropriation of the speculative manner from the pulpit.
III. The 1849 Berlin piracy
In May 1849, a German edition of the Fire og Tyve Prædikener appeared in Berlin under the imprint of F. C. W. Vogel, Berlin und Leipzig, with the title Vierundzwanzig Predigten für die Gebildeten. The translator is identified on the title page as Magister Theophilus Sophiensen, ehemaliger Pastor in Kopenhagen, selbst übersetzt; the corporate fiction is, in the German edition, extended to the further claim that Sophiensen has translated his own sermons into German.
The Berlin Vogel firm did not have, by the standards of the German book trade, a record for textual probity. The 1849 Vierundzwanzig Predigten was a pirated edition, prepared without communication with Reitzel or with Notabene; the translation was almost certainly the work of a hand other than Notabene's. The translator's identity has not been established; Held (1989, pp. 47–51) suggests on internal grounds that the German is the work of a German divinity student at one of the Hegelian theological faculties, possibly at Halle or Tübingen.
The 1849 German edition is significant for the volume's reception history. It was, in Germany, taken at face value: that is, it was read as a serious volume of speculative-theological sermons by a Danish pastor whose work the editor had had the courtesy to translate. Notabene's German reception was therefore, for the second half of the nineteenth century, the reception of the Vierundzwanzig Predigten — and the reception was that of an earnest Hegelian preacher whose work, while perhaps not of the first rank, had its uses in the seminary classroom.
The volume was, in the event, adopted in two German theological faculties as a teaching text for homiletic instruction: at the Theologische Fakultät of the University of Halle (1851–63), under the direction of Tholuck, who used it to demonstrate the speculative tendency he wished his students not to follow; and at the Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät of the University of Tübingen (1864–73), under F. C. Baur's successor G. F. Heinrici, who used it to illustrate the positive assimilation of speculative motifs to homiletic practice. The two pedagogic uses of the volume are documented in the Halle and Tübingen Fakultätsakten respectively (Halle: Universitätsarchiv, Theol. Fak. Akten 1851/4 ff.; Tübingen: Universitätsarchiv, Akten der Evang.-Theol. Fakultät, Band IX); the documentation is summarised in Held (1989, ch. 3).
In neither faculty does the seminary record indicate that the satirical character of the volume was suspected. The seminarians who studied the Vierundzwanzig Predigten in those decades — among whom Held has identified a number who went on to substantial homiletic careers in the German Protestant Church — therefore took their sermon-models from a volume composed as a parody of the very speculative theology they were being taught to practise. The pedagogical significance of this is a matter on which the present editor will not enter; the reader who wishes to pursue the question is referred to Held (1989) and to the more recent monograph by Schäfer (2017).
IV. Reception in the twentieth century
The volume's twentieth-century reception has concentrated on the relation between Sophiensen's speculative theology and the actual speculative theology of Martensen, of which Notabene's volume is generally taken to be the principal satirical document. Lindhardt (1969, ch. 7) provides the standard treatment; subsequent contributions include Aage Henriksen (1972, "Sophiensen og Martensen: et komparativt studium," Kierkegaardiana vol. IX, pp. 124–47), Pattison (2002, ch. 5), and Cappelørn (2008, "Notabene, Martensen, og det danske Hegelianismes nedfald").
The volume was translated into English in 1981 by Howard and Edna Hong (Princeton, in the Kierkegaard's Writings series, where it appears as Vol. XXIII, in association with the Notabene authorship more broadly). The Hong translation is acknowledged in the apparatus (witness L) as the standard English text; the present edition supplies a new translation, which departs from the Hong on a number of speculative-theological terms in directions consistent with the editorial principles set forth in § VI below.
A French translation by Jacques Brunschwig appeared in 1988 (Aubier); a German re-translation, replacing the 1849 Vogel piracy with a scholarly edition, was published in 2003 by Klaus Held and Hermann Deuser (Felix Meiner, Hamburg). The 2003 Meiner edition is, on the whole, accurate, and is the basis for the German variants reported in the present apparatus.
V. The structure of the volume and the question of the unwritten sermons
The volume's title promises twenty-four sermons; the volume's Indhold lists twenty-four sermon titles; the body of the volume contains only four sermons in full (numbers I, VIII, XII, and XXIV in the volume's numeration). The remaining twenty are present in the volume only as their titles in the Indhold and as the brief speculative-theological summaries listed alongside the titles.
The status of the twenty unwritten sermons has been debated. Lindhardt (1969, p. 248) reads the structure as a satirical commentary on Martensen's own habit of announcing more works than he completes; Holm (2011, p. 124) reads it as a structural exemplification of the Aufhebung gesture announced in Sophiensen's own preface — the unwritten sermons being, in their unwrittenness, the higher standpoint from which the four written ones are already superseded; Cappelørn (2008) reads it as a piece of practical economy — Notabene wishing to publish before the New Year's gift season and having drafted only the four he had time to draft. The present editor inclines toward Holm, on grounds set forth in the apparatus to the Indhold.
The Notabene-arkivet contains no drafts of the twenty unwritten sermons beyond their titles. The present edition therefore reproduces the Indhold and the four written sermons as in witness A, with no attempt to reconstruct the unwritten matter.
VI. Editorial principles for the present edition
The text is based on the 1845 first printing (witness A; Kgl. Bibl., 17,-265 8°), collated against a Reitzel reprint of 1860 (witness B, of limited authority) and the 1849 Berlin Vogel piracy (witness G). The Berlin Vogel piracy is reported in the apparatus where its German variants suggest a Danish reading divergent from witness A; in such cases the present editor has, in each instance, retained witness A and reported the divergence as evidence of the piracy's editorial liberties.
The Danish facing-page text retains the orthography and punctuation of witness A. The English facing-page text is a new translation. The Hong 1981 English is cited in the apparatus where the present translation departs from it on substantive grounds; the Meiner 2003 German is cited where it bears on the present translator's choices.
The closing Notice from a Colleague who has gone Beyond is printed as in witness A; the modern scholarly debate concerning its authorship is reported in the apparatus.
— M.F.H. Forskningscentret, December 2024
Textual Apparatus
Textual Apparatus
Volume VI — Fire og Tyve Prædikener til Opbyggelse for de Dannede
Selected Notes
Model spread; the full apparatus is in the electronic edition at `forskningscentret.ku.dk/notabene/vi`.
Conventions
Sigla:
— A. Fire og Tyve Prædikener til Opbyggelse for de Dannede, forfattede af Magister Theophilus Sophiensen, udgivne med Fortale af Nicolaus Notabene. Kjøbenhavn: C. A. Reitzel, December 1845. First and only Danish printing in Notabene's lifetime. Edition of 1,200 copies. Textual basis: Kgl. Bibl., 17,-265 8°.
— B. Fire og Tyve Prædikener. Reitzel reprint, 1860 (after Notabene's death). Standing-type reprint of A with three minor corrections of evident typographical error; no substantive variants. B reports only at the three corrections.
— G. Vierundzwanzig Predigten für die Gebildeten, von Magister Theophilus Sophiensen, ehemaliger Pastor in Kopenhagen, selbst übersetzt. Berlin und Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, 1849. The 1849 Berlin piracy. Anonymous translator (almost certainly not Sophiensen-Notabene). The Vogel firm proceeded without Reitzel's authorisation or Notabene's permission; the legal-bibliographical status of G is treated in Held (1989, pp. 47–51). G is reported in the apparatus where its variants suggest a Danish reading divergent from A (and so may preserve a tradition independent of the printed text) and where its renderings indicate the German seminary reception of the volume.
— G². Vierundzwanzig Predigten für die Gebildeten. Edited by Klaus Held and Hermann Deuser. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2003. The modern scholarly German edition, replacing the 1849 Vogel piracy. G² is reported where it bears on the present translator's choices and where it supplies textual judgements the present editor adopts or departs from.
— L. Twenty-Four Sermons for the Cultivated. Translated by Howard V. and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981 (in Kierkegaard's Writings XXIII, in association with the Notabene authorship more broadly). Standard English text. L's principal interpretive moves are summarised in the apparatus where they bear on the present translator's choices.
— M. Notabene-arkivet, Kgl. Bibl., NKS 4° 3204, fascicle 10 ("Sophiensen-Stykkerne"). Twenty-three quarto leaves in Notabene's hand, comprising drafts of nine of the twenty-four sermons (Sermons I, IV, VIII, X, XII, XIV, XVIII, XX, XXIV), the Notabene Fortale, and Sophiensen's own Preface. M's drafts of the nine sermons are in close agreement with the printed forms; substantive variants are reported below. M does not preserve a draft of the Notice from a Colleague who has gone Beyond (q.v.).
— HH. Reference text for the standard Kierkegaardian renderings of speculative-theological terminology; cf. Vol. VII apparatus.
Cross-reference conventions follow those established in the apparatus to Vol. VII.
I. The Sophiensen pseudonym
General note. The principal textual-historical question of Vol. VI is the identity of "Magister Theophilus Sophiensen." The modern consensus, established with Lindhardt (1969, ch. 7) and confirmed by Holm (2011, ch. 7), holds that Sophiensen is a Notabene pseudonym and that the entire volume is Notabene's composition. The principal evidence has been summarised in the General Editor's Introduction to the present volume, § I; the apparatus here records the documentary materials in greater detail.
The "Magister Theophilus Sophiensen" name does not appear in any contemporary register of the Copenhagen clergy. The Den Danske Geistlighed (Berling, Copenhagen, 1846 ed.) lists no such name in any parish of the kingdom. The University of Copenhagen's Akademisk Aarbog for 1820-1860 lists no candidate of that name in the theological faculty. The parish records of all Copenhagen parishes for 1840-1846 contain no reference to a Pastor or Sognepræst Theophilus Sophiensen. The pseudonymic character of the name was, on this evidence alone, sufficient grounds for Lindhardt's identification in 1969.
The Notabene-arkivet's "Sophiensen-Stykkerne" folder (M), recovered in the 2019 Reitzel-firm centenary inventory, is the definitive evidence: the drafts of the nine sermons present are in Notabene's hand throughout, with corrections and marginal annotations in the same hand. The closing folio (fol. 23v) bears, in Notabene's hand, the marginal annotation: "Sophiensen er ikke mig, og dog er han min Pen" ("Sophiensen is not me, and yet he is my pen") — the most explicit acknowledgement in Notabene's hand of the relation between pseudonymous author and writing self.
The construction of the name itself has been read by Cappelørn (1997) as a Sophie-reference (cf. Sophie = wisdom + -sen (Danish patronymic) = "son of wisdom"); the Sophie association is then linked to S. Kierkegaard's contemporary engagement with the Sophia theme. The reading is suggestive but does not enter the present apparatus's textual decisions.
Notabene's Note to the Reader
General note. The opening Note to the Reader is Notabene's editorial framing of the Sophiensen pseudonym and the place at which the fictional editor-author distinction is most carefully sustained. The textual situation is straightforward: A, B agree; M (fols. 1r–3v) preserves drafts in close agreement with A.
The principal interpretive question is whether the Note is itself in the same speculative-theological pastiche register as the sermons that follow, or whether it stands in Notabene's own (less Hegelianised) prose voice. Lindhardt (1969, p. 237) reads it as the latter; Holm (2011, p. 121) finds Lindhardt's distinction overdrawn and proposes a third option: that the Note's register is intermediate, neither fully Notabenian nor fully Sophiensenian, and that the intermediacy is itself a deliberate piece of editorial-fictional positioning.
Note 4. the high-reverend Bishop, whose collection, though admirable in its way, was composed before the cultured reader had become what he now is ] A: den høyærværdige Bishop, hvis Samling, om end beundringsværdig efter sit Slags, blev skrevet før den dannede Læser var bleven det han nu er. — The reference is to J. P. Mynster's Prædikener (in various editions from 1810; the standard collection in 1845 was the third edition of 1837), which were the dominant homiletic publication of the period. The implicit contrast Notabene's Note draws — between Mynster's "particular" pastoral homiletic and Sophiensen's "speculative" homiletic addressed to "the cultured reader" — is the volume's principal critical structure. The Mynster collections are not directly cited in the Sophiensen sermons themselves; the contrast is established only in the framing Note and in Sophiensen's own Preface. See Lindhardt (1969, pp. 240–43) for the development of the Mynster-Martensen contrast in 1845–46 and the volume's place in it.
Sophiensen's Preface
General note. Sophiensen's own Preface (pp. 4–7 of the present edition) is the volume's principal speculative-theological statement and the place at which the Hegelianised homiletic programme is set out at greatest length. The textual situation: A and B agree; M (fols. 4r–5v) preserves the Preface in fair copy, with three substantive variants reported below.
The Preface introduces Sophiensen's Aufhebung-doctrine: that the sermons are self-superseding, in that each is constructed to be already overcome by the standpoint to which it leads. The doctrine is the volume's principal structural innovation and the place at which the satirical-philosophical content of Vol. VI is most concentrated.
Preface 8. the cultivated congregation, by its very nature, is its own corrective ] A: den dannede Menighed er, ved sin Natur, sit eget Corrective. M (fol. 4v, line 8): den dannede Menighed er, ved sin Idee, sit eget Corrective ("the cultivated congregation is, by its Idea, its own corrective"). — The substitution between M and A removes "Idee" (the specifically Hegelian determinacy of Idea) in favour of "Natur" (a more generic determinacy of nature). The substitution moves the Preface's register one step toward the less-Hegelianised; Sophiensen, in A, is less aggressively Hegelian than in M. Holm (2011, p. 124) reads the adjustment as evidence of Notabene's careful calibration of Sophiensen's voice: too much Hegelianism would have rendered the pastiche transparent; too little would have failed the satirical strategy; the Idee-to-Natur adjustment is one of several places where Notabene chose intermediate.
Preface 14. labour exceeds every capacity, since it is the labour of the Idea itself, working through the contingent instrumentality of a particular pen ] A: Arbeidet overgaaer enhver Evne, da det er Ideeens eget Arbeide, virkende gjennem den tilfældige Instrumentalitet af en enkelt Pen. M (fol. 5v, line 14): den enkelte Pen — the enkelte (single, individual) is in A retained, but the M reading attaches the enkelte directly to Pen with the (definite) article omitted. The Danish syntactic relation is the same; the substitution is purely stylistic and is reported here only because the enkelte Pen connects, by lexical echo, to the hiin Enkelte of Vol. II (q.v.). The connection has been noted by Cappelørn (1997) and is one of the principal pieces of evidence for the interconnection of vocabulary across the eight volumes.
Sermon I — On the Word that was in the Beginning, and the Concept which is its Truth
General note. Sermon I is the volume's opening homiletic and the first place at which Sophiensen's pastiche-method is sustained at length. The textual situation: A, B agree; M (fols. 6r–8v) preserves the sermon in fair copy in close agreement with A.
The sermon's text is John 1:1 ("In the beginning was the Word"); its speculative-theological structure dissolves the Johannine Logos into the Hegelian Begriff (Concept). The procedure has been read by Hong & Hong (1981, translators' introduction, p. xxii) as "the most precise pastiche of Martensen's homiletic in the entire Notabene corpus"; the Hong characterisation has, in subsequent scholarship, become standard.
Sermon I, line 14. the Logos which the cultivated reader will at once recognise as the Begriff of speculative theology ] A: Logos som den dannede Læser strax vil gjenkjende som den speculative Theologies Begreb. G (1849 Berlin): Logos welcher der gebildete Leser sofort als Begriff der spekulativen Theologie erkennt. G² (Meiner 2003): Logos den der gebildete Leser sogleich als den Begriff der spekulativen Theologie wiedererkennt. — The 1849 Vogel piracy renders the passage in a register substantially heavier in Hegelian terminology than A's already-Hegelianised Danish. Held (1989, p. 102) identifies the Vogel translator's procedure: where Sophiensen's Danish admits ambiguity between conventional theological and speculative-philosophical readings, the Vogel translator consistently chooses the more speculative German term. The procedure is consistent across G; the consequence is that the 1849 German circulated in the Halle and Tübingen seminaries (see § below) in a form more Hegelian than Notabene had composed.
Sermon I, line 22. the necessary self-positing of the Begriff in the moment of its incarnation ] A: Begrebets nødvendige Selv-Sætten i Inkarnationens Øieblik. — The line is one of the principal places in the Sophiensen-Stykkerne where the pastiche-method is most visible at lexical level: the conjunction of Selv-Sætten (self-positing; calque from Fichtean Sich-Setzen), Begreb (concept; from Hegelian Begriff), Øieblikket (moment; from broader Vigilian-Notabenian usage), and Inkarnationen (incarnation; from Lutheran homiletic tradition) compresses several historical-theological-philosophical vocabularies into a single sentence. The compression is, on Lindhardt's reading (1969, p. 251), the precise marker of speculative-theological homiletic — and so the precise target of the volume's satire.
The Halle and Tübingen seminary uses, 1851–1873
General note. The 1849 Berlin Vogel piracy (G) was adopted as a teaching text in two German Protestant theological faculties during the third quarter of the nineteenth century: the Theologische Fakultät of the University of Halle (under F. A. G. Tholuck, 1851–1863) and the Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät of the University of Tübingen (under G. F. Heinrici, 1864–1873). Both adoptions are documented in the respective university Fakultätsakten; the documentation is summarised in Held (1989, ch. 3) and in Schäfer (2017, ch. 5).
The two adoptions are interpretively distinct: Tholuck used the Vierundzwanzig Predigten as a negative example, demonstrating "die spekulative Tendenz, welcher der evangelische Prediger nicht folgen soll" ("the speculative tendency that the evangelical preacher should not follow") (Halle, Universitätsarchiv, Theol. Fak. Akten 1851/4, fol. 12r); Heinrici used the volume as a positive example, illustrating "die fruchtbare Assimilation spekulativer Motive an die Predigt-Praxis" ("the fruitful assimilation of speculative motifs to homiletic practice") (Tübingen, Universitätsarchiv, Evang.-Theol. Fak. Akten Band IX, fol. 78r). Neither use indicates that the satirical character of the volume was suspected by either professor or by the seminarians of either faculty.
The principal scholarly question is what the Halle and Tübingen seminarians who studied the Vierundzwanzig Predigten during 1851–1873 did with the volume, and what their subsequent homiletic practices owed to it. Held (1989, ch. 4) identifies seven Halle alumni and four Tübingen alumni who, in their subsequent published sermons, deploy formulae traceable to Sophiensen; Schäfer (2017) extends Held's list to eleven Halle and seven Tübingen alumni. The two scholars do not agree on the precise list (Schäfer accepts some of Held's identifications but adds others Held had rejected on stylistic grounds); both agree that the Sophiensen influence on the German Protestant homiletic of the third quarter of the nineteenth century, while modest, is non-trivial. The matter is the principal historical-reception question of Vol. VI; the present apparatus reports the principal scholarly contributions without proposing a settlement.
Notice from a Colleague who has gone Beyond
General note. The closing Notice from a Colleague who has gone Beyond, attributed in A to Magister A. T. Hegelius-Berlin, is the volume's structural completion: a forward announcement of a future volume by an even-younger pastor who has already superseded Sophiensen. The fictional structure is consistent with the volume's broader Aufhebung-doctrine: every sermon supersedes the previous; the volume supersedes itself; the next volume in the series, by another author, supersedes the present.
The authorship of the Notice itself is the principal disputed question of Vol. VI's apparatus. Lindhardt (1969) holds that the Notice is by Notabene alone, in continuation of the Sophiensen pastiche. Holm (2011, p. 119) proposes the alternative that the Notice may be by a different hand — possibly a member of the Kierkegaard circle who had taken Notabene's invitation in earnest and contributed the section as a piece of collaborative satire. The two positions are reported below.
Notice, paragraph 1. The undersigned wishes to communicate to the cultivated reader that, while the Magister Sophiensen's twenty-four sermons present an adequate statement of the speculative-theological standpoint of which they are the homiletic form, the speculative-theological standpoint has, in the months since the Magister's volume was set in type, undergone a further development from which the present writer has had the privilege of contributing certain elements ] A: Undertegnede ønsker at meddele den dannede Læser at, medens Magister Sophiensens fire og tyve Prædikener afgive en tilstrækkelig Fremstilling af det speculativ-theologiske Standpunkt hvis homiletiske Form de er, har det speculativ-theologiske Standpunkt, i de Maaneder siden Magisterens Bind blev sat i Skrift, gjennemgaaet en yderligere Udvikling fra hvilken den nærværende Skribent har havt den Lykke at bidrage visse Elementer. — The Notice's opening sentence is, on Lindhardt's reading, in Sophiensenian register but with characteristic Notabenian flourishes (the "tilstrækkelig" qualifier, the "Lykke"-construction, the parenthetical "i de Maaneder"); on Holm's reading, the same features could equally be a careful imitation of Notabenian register by a different hand. The lexical-statistical evidence is, on Holm's analysis (2011, pp. 119–20), inconclusive at the present sample size. The present editor inclines toward Lindhardt — the Notice's prose rhythm and vocabulary are consistent with Notabene's at every paragraph the editor has been able to test — but reports the disagreement.
Notice, paragraph 3. The forthcoming volume, by Magister Hegelius-Berlin, will accordingly present the speculative-theological standpoint as it has gone beyond the Sophiensen standpoint, which the present volume's Pastor has, with magnanimity I cannot too strongly commend, acknowledged as in due course inevitable ] A: paraphrased identical. — The "Magister Hegelius-Berlin" name is one of the volume's most evident jokes: the name compounds Hegel (the philosopher) with Berlin (his city) and prefixes the conventional Danish Magister. No "Hegelius-Berlin" appears in any contemporary register of Danish or German theologians; the figure is, beyond reasonable doubt, fictional. The closing of the Notice announces that Hegelius-Berlin's volume "is in preparation for the autumn of 1846"; the volume did not, in the event, appear, and no Notabene draft for such a volume exists in any of the Notabene-arkivet materials.
The complete apparatus to Vol. VI addresses all twenty-four sermons individually (the four printed in full and the twenty represented by titles and summaries only), the closing Hegelius-Berlin Notice, and the Halle/Tübingen reception in greater detail than the model spread permits. The 1849 Vogel piracy (G) is collated against A at every passage where the German renderings suggest a Danish reading divergent from the printed text; the 2003 Meiner edition (G²) is the modern critical German equivalent. The Hong & Hong 1981 translation (L) is acknowledged in the apparatus at points of divergence from the present new translation. The full electronic apparatus supplies the secondary apparatus of typographical and minor variants which the printed edition does not report.
— M. F. H. Forskningscentret, December 2024