Master Kierkegaard: The Complete Journals: Summer 1847, Fall / Winter / Spring 1847–1848, and Summer 1848

Master Kierkegaard: The Complete Journals

Summer 1847,Fall/Winter/Spring 1847–1848,and Summer 1848

Ellen Brown

MASTER KIERKEGAARD: THE COMPLETE JOURNALS

Summer 1847, Fall/Winter/Spring 1847–1848, and Summer 1848

Copyright © 2013 Ellen Brown. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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ISBN 13: 978-1-61097-232-1

EISBN 13: 978-1-62189-658-6

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Brown, Ellen.

Master Kierkegaard : the complete journals : summer 1847, fall/winter/spring 1847–1848, and summer 1848 / Ellen Brown.

viii + 218 p. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 13: 978-1-61097-232-1

1. Kierkegaard, Søren, 1813–1855—Fiction. 2. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749–1832. Faust. 3. Bible—in literature. 4. Devil in literature. 5. Spirituality. 6. Eichendorff, Joseph, Freiherr von, 1788–1857. I. Title.

B4376 B4400 2013

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

To Elsie, Eleanor, Edythe, and Eva

Life is extremely profound, and its governing power knows how to intrigue in a way entirely different from that of all the poets in uno.

Constantin Constantius

¹

To every thing there is a season . . .

²

Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field . . .

³

Wander like children of light . . .

⁴

1. Kierkegaard, Repetition, 183.

2. Eccl 3:1 (KJV).

3. Mic 4:10 (KJV).

4. Eph 5:8.

Abbreviations

BLRT Die Bibel, oder die ganze Heilige Schrift des Alten und Neuen Testaments nach der Übersetzung Martin Luthers mit Apokryphen. Revidierter Text. Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1973

CD Church Dogmatics. Karl Barth

KJV Authorized King James Version. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments. New York: World Publishing, n.d.

LBVN Die Luther-Bibel von 1534, Vollständiger Nachdruck. Biblia, das ist die ganze Heilige Schrifft Deutsch. Mart. Luth. Wittemberg. Band 2: Das Neue Testament. Köln: Taschen Verlag, 2003

LXX Septuaginta. Rahlfs-Hanhart editio altera. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006

NAB The New American Bible. Iowa Falls: World Publishing, 1987

NJPS TANAKH: A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures according to the Traditional Hebrew Text. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985

NovT Novum Testamentum Graece. Nestle-Aland 27. revidierte Auflage. Herausgegeben von Barbara und Kurt Aland et al. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

SKS-E Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter elektronisk version 1.6

Summer 1847

Translator’s Preface

To my reader is owed an explanation of the circumstances under which the work at hand came to light. I have a fondness for used furniture and a constant need for more bookcases. So when I learned of the death of a colleague of mine at the seminary where we both had taught, and, subsequently, the sale of a few remaining household items not taken possession of by his heirs, a mixture of affection, curiosity, and opportunism impelled me to attend.

One bookcase in particular drew my interest. A simple, almost rickety affair—weakened by much moving about the country for fellowships and teaching posts, no doubt—it held itself together by a series of crosses. Not being a woodworker, I can only give a layman’s description of its construction. Each shelf had two tabs of wood projecting from each end, and these extended through holes cut in the side panels. Likewise, each tab had a hole cut in it, and through these, square dowels had been wedged, thus securing the side panels to the shelves. This simple but ingenious portable design was barely adequate to unify the structure of the whole—it had a tendency to lean to one side or the other—without its accustomed weight of books, nearly all of which had by this time been given away, sold, or thrown out.

A single volume remained, printed in the German script known as Fraktur, a rune-like font tiresome even to native German readers, but especially trying for those coming to the language later in life. Thus the little book lay pale and neglected on the bottom shelf. Most likely, the executor of my colleague’s estate (a nephew, I believe), intimidated by the mystery of its gothic typeface, had been reluctant to merely toss it into the dumpster. The appeal of Fraktur, commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian and banned during the Third Reich, faded altogether after the Second World War. It was still much in vogue in the nineteenth century, however, which is when this modest and decaying little book, cloth-bound and sewn, is likely to have been produced. No date is given by the publisher, a house in Berlin of no particular reputation engaged in publishing authors of similar stature. The author’s family name is also withheld.

What follows is an annotated translation of that volume, containing the journals of a woman of feeling and intellect. I will not forecast her circumstances, which are both affecting and instructive, as premature disclosure would weaken their influence upon the reader. To whom this solitary and thoughtful creature may be compared in the history of female writers is a speculation I will not venture upon. Perhaps Kierkegaard himself overstated the case when he wrote that all comparison injures. Yes, it is evil,¹ but one senses he was not far from the truth.

I would just add that our author was evidently a student of theology—informally, of course—in her own right, being an attentive reader of the Gospels as conveyed by Martin Luther. Not having access to the same editions against which to compare and correct her extracts and paraphrases, I have translated them as she gave them to us, which is, I like to think, doing justice to her, who had made them her own.

Evagrius Brooks, Th.D.

Princeton, New Jersey

1. Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart, 208.

Journal One

(May 29–July 13, 1847)

May 29

I, Magda, a servant in the house of Kierkegaard, answer to the younger living son, who is my master. As I am slight of build and not raised up to do the work of a charwoman, my household duties are light, though not supervisory in nature. Mrs. H. holds the keys. I would be a mere chambermaid had my master not taken an interest in my peculiar circumstances and temperament. His inquisitiveness into these matters is most surprising for two reasons. Before coming to work here three months ago, I had heard unkind things said about him in particular, who is known to have a razor-like tongue, while the whole family, though quite wealthy, seems to have lived and died under a curse of some sort. Copenhagen is not so large and sophisticated a town as not to indulge itself in village gossip of a superstitious and petty nature. I know better than to trust entirely in such reports, therefore. More surprising is my master’s capacity for taking an interest in one such as me, not the most unfortunate of women, but fallen in rank and esteem sufficiently to have suffered rudeness and indifference from previous masters. An afflicted person (particularly an unmarried woman) becomes an easy target for those enamored of their little bit of power, but for those possessing both wealth and nobility of mind, a stinting meanness holds no appeal. He is more generous in every way than most people realize. And more kind.

My own pride and memory of my former prospects impel me to make plain the fact that I have not sought the sympathy of my master. He has found me out, not through embarrassing questions that might cause me to dissemble, but through sheer attentiveness—no, I mean attention. He has a way of looking at me that feels as though he is looking through me, though not beyond me as in a vacant stare, but with a piercing gaze that picks up my essence and drives it deeper within, yet also out into the light, where I may see it for what it is, without boasting or shame. I hear he is a terrific critic of others, however, especially intellectuals who pretend to lead the elect to enlightenment by means of the catchphrases² of the day. I am not surprised. The sharpness of his tongue (or pen) is matched only by the sharpness of his gaze, which cuts through me quite painlessly. But enough of that.

Tonight’s Holy Scripture³ is Matt 13:24–30. Allowing the weeds to grow alongside the wheat until the harvest—what patience this requires! One of my favorite activities is helping the gardener pull weeds. Imagine if we house servants were to let the dirt run its course—alongside the cleanliness?—what nonsense! The weeds, like the dirt, will overtake everything. But I suppose patience looks like foolishness, imprudence, naiveté, to the impatient. The last parable was about a sower sowing seeds. That is my master. This parable is about the servants tending the crop. This is I. And yet we are the seeds and the crop as well. Blessed be God forever!

May 30

Moving about the house today, accomplishing little, wanting to be out of doors, I finally told Mrs. H. I would go for a walk. She consented of course, not being my jailor, but with a worried look. Too much freedom for a servant leads to no good, she has told me before in dark tones. I have heard gossip—not from Mrs. H., who is all discretion, as a person in her position must be—that the freedom of a servant was the cause of this family’s supposed curse. I do not subscribe to primitive notions of cause and effect, though I think if there had been any grievous wrongdoing, the personal guilt attached to it could bring about any manner of unhappiness, illness, even death. Humanity is so deeply moral that it finds ways to punish itself one might not think possible. My master seems bent on some form of penance, though for whose sins is not quite clear to me. And yet he never takes the tone of a preacher with regard to either morality or religion—he is quite clear on the difference between the two. He seems to believe God could command a person to behave immorally and that person would have no choice but to comply. Such thinking frightens me, I confess. I believe my master takes Holy Scripture to heart in a manner most of us would never dare to do, the Old as much as the New Testament, maybe even more so.

Matt 13:31–32. Birds sheltering in the tree that grows from the tiniest of seeds, the mustard. The kingdom of heaven is not the tree, but the seed. Our souls are the birds. Our souls are the fruition of our bodies, in the same way that the tree is the fruition of the seed. When our bodies complete themselves, they will be at ease in the sky. The man who plants the seed is our Lord Jesus Christ. He grows a home for our souls that is rooted in the earth.

I sometimes help the gardener plant seeds and wonder how something that looks so dead could bring forth life. The gardener tells me the seed contains within it not only the pattern of its future life but also all the food it needs until it can take in the nutrients of soil, water, and light. I imagine what it would be like to be the seed, buried in the ground, straining toward the surface. How do people who live crowded together in large cities make sense of these parables, I wonder? Do they have little gardens of their own, at their windows or on their rooftops?

On my walk, feather-like seeds, a steady stream in the sky, followed by a yellow-green wave of finer particles, barely discernible yet pervasive. The whole a flow for long enough to suggest that with stronger vision I might see everything that way. I wish my master would walk out more. Mrs. H. wishes I would stay in more. I asked my master what sort of plant the mustard is and he said, Irrepressible—a weed, essentially.

June 1

The Sunday before last was Pentecost. We were called to the altar to renew our baptismal vows and confirmation. I touched the hem of the altar linen and felt a current pass through me, then returned to my seat and wept for all my losses. Was this my healing miracle? No one noticed anything I did, which in our small church is a miracle in itself. My boldness often gets me into trouble, but just as often it is my salvation. My master, who knows Greek, tells me the Gospel word for faith or belief can also mean trust or confidence. It seems different words speak to different situations.

I am reluctant to write about my master. He is a mystery to me and would not wish to be written about, I feel, whether I understood him or not. When he first found me, in the library looking into one of his German books (I cannot read Danish)—I was supposed to be dusting but became curious—he was not angry with me. He did not seem the least annoyed, in fact, at the liberty I had taken. It was Faust, which had fallen open to the garden scene. With a slight smile, my master gently took the volume from my hands, casting a quick glance onto the pages before closing the book and returning it to its place on the shelf. I have remarked already on his manner of looking, accentuated by his awkward posture (unfortunate in such an otherwise elegant man), which makes him seem to stoop to peer at the world from a discomfiting elevation, rather like a vulture, I am sorry to say.

Matt 13:33–35. The kingdom is like yeast that a woman mixes with three measures of flour. Jesus speaks only in parables. This woman⁴—I identify with her. I help in the kitchen too—all I do here is help because I have no real housekeeping skills of my own, not having been raised to this kind of work. What I was raised to is a good question—for dependence on men, but with sufficient education to make them entirely wary of me. I can learn about this yeast by working with it. Its growth is mysterious, miraculous to the ancient mind, but not the modern (though while I believe science can explain the growth of yeast under certain conditions, I myself do not understand what happens). What is important is the experience, the handling, of warm, soft dough with the expectation of the desired result: bread. Maybe ein Weib understands this better than eine Frau.

June 2

Matt 13:36–43. One minute Jesus speaks only in parables and the next he is explaining his own parable (the one about weeds). But he is at home in this scene. Maybe he only speaks in parables in public, so that those who would kill him cannot quite be sure what he is talking about. Goethe has his Doctor Faust say that those few who knew something of the goal of knowledge who were foolish enough to bare their hearts to the people have always been crucified and burned⁵ (yes, I have been back to the library). Jesus knew this as well as anyone. He was cagier than most, and yet he also understood the goal of his existence—death for the sake of life outside time. This harvest, Jesus says, is the work of the angels.

If people, Christian people, really believed this, then death would not be a curse. I wonder what my master really thinks about death. He seems to believe in this family curse—only he and an older brother surviving of seven children—as much as anyone. The town talks of the father having been a pious man, a devoted parent, perhaps less devoted as a husband (the first wife died childless), but nonetheless an excellent provider and a model of fidelity to his second wife, my master’s mother—though as a former servant in his house and a distant cousin, I understand, she never rose to the rank of a true wife and matriarch. In short, she never gained her husband’s respect. But she had my master’s love—I can tell from Mrs. H.’s remarks, which she lets out from time to time with a sigh, absent-mindedly, as though there were no one to hear her. She does not talk to herself on other topics, only this—how much our master loved his mother, a former servant in the house of Kierkegaard. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect from his realm all who give offence and who do wrong and will throw them into the furnace.

June 3

On my errands I found a dog lying in the gutter—run over by a vain and careless driver. A pedestrian had pulled the poor creature to the side to prevent its being struck repeatedly. Bleeding from both ends—I cannot get the sight out of my mind. My master, noticing my red and swollen eyes this afternoon, asked what was the matter. I told him what I had chanced upon and said I stayed, looking on helplessly, until the trembling animal died. He looked at me in his characteristic way for quite some time, and then said, There is only one way to understand the suffering and death of the innocent. They are selected by God for the sacrifice. But what of the carelessness of people? I asked. And he answered, They will be dealt with in time.

I now understand why my master was never ordained. He is too honest to be a minister. Most Christians are not comforted by truth. How ironic, when our Lord taught us that he is the great liberator by being the embodiment of truth. Perhaps people do not wish to be liberated from falsehood. And I cannot blame them, really, when I consider that our choice is between being sacrificed and being punished, unless, as ordinary people who are neither entirely innocent nor inveterately wicked, we repent and seek the narrow path of faith and love.

When I find myself overcome with evil, I think on our Lord’s mother and what she must have felt, and I pray to her that all the innocent may be allowed to live free and happy, as I am sure she would have them do, and the wicked may be relieved of their impulses, and the rest of us may live in peace. Why this machinery of good and evil, in which all creation is ground to a pulp? To teach us forgiveness?

Matt 13:44–46. Or to teach us what is truly of value—like the treasure in a field or the precious pearl, buried or locked away in nature’s vaults, which only great effort and expense will secure? The heavenly kingdom has its own resources and economy so unlike our own, and seemingly so unjust at times. It is the injustice that makes me angry, and the anger that stays with me. Mother Mary help me!

June 4

I woke up this morning with a heavy head and went down to the kitchen to help, but Mrs. H. sent me right back up to my room with a bit of bread and a cup of steaming broth telling me to keep my cold to myself. She has learned from her midwife-friend that colds and fevers can pass from one person to another, even through a healthy person, though she says doctors do not seem to know this. They go from the bed of a patient who is seriously ill to the bed of a healthy woman in labor and soon the mother is dead of childbed fever. Midwives attend to only one mother at a time. Mrs. H. says the midwives have long noticed that the doctors lose many more mothers than they do, but neither the doctors nor the fathers who hire them seem to notice or care. The arrogance of men, she said with some heat, and I thought, the bitterness of women, but kept that to myself.

Along with the dinner left at my door this afternoon there appeared the volume I looked into a few days ago containing Faust. My master’s contribution, as neither Emil nor Mrs. H. would recommend such reading. He does not wish me to be lonely or bored. I feel a fever coming on and wonder how this fantastic seduction is likely to affect my addled brain. Perhaps this is an experiment on the part of my master. He is so curious about everything, and to me, likewise.

My mother died of childbed fever soon after giving birth to me. In addition to being something of an orphan and, one might say—metaphorically, at least—a widow, I am also an alien. Like Ruth, I meet all the criteria for the mercy which does not seem at all characteristic of the northern European Christian temperament. This is not self-pity, but honest self-appraisal, along with an unflinching indictment of my brothers and sisters in Christ. I find the Danish not that different from Berliners. I say not self-pity, but then illness does cause one to feel a bit sorry for oneself, as it heightens ongoing affliction. I have never felt I held a proper place in this world, and being ill I feel it more strongly. A small death I have heard illness called. The advantage of deadly disease is twofold: one’s self-cherishing is no longer exaggerated when it quite suddenly becomes short-lived. The dying person has a moral superiority and even spiritual acumen that no sane person could possibly envy, and yet the benefit is real—perhaps a recompense for what is