Master Kierkegaard: Summer 1847. Ellen Brown
knows where his treasure is laid up. He has renounced the pursuit of money and worldly honor for the sake of wisdom and grace. That to me is courage. But of course his father’s relentless pursuit of wealth and uncompromising avoidance of luxury (an asceticism resulting from the perception of some wrongdoing—the family curse again) has made my master’s seemingly contradictory course possible. A modern saint is a living contradiction, yet all saints are modern, witnesses to the moment in which they live. I believe in him, and he senses this.
I have doubts about keeping this journal though. It seems like a waste of time. I have no story to tell, or rather no story worth telling. I never was fond of involved plots. My days are boring and empty, and that is fine by me, though I fear getting lost in the vacancy of my life. But writing is a balm, a mercy, a way of being simple; pen to paper, thought by thought, impression after impression. Perhaps I should spend more time praying and less time writing, but simply to breathe conscious of a world of suffering is prayer. Otherwise, how could we pray always, as our Lord enjoined us?10
Matt 14:1–12. The “fury” of “a woman scorned.”11 The daughter of Herodias is used as a tool for her mother’s revenge against the Baptist. Herod so naive as to think Jesus was the resurrected Baptist and so rash as to make an open-ended promise to a charming little dancing girl. The story of the Baptist’s death, his head presented on a banquet platter—could it have been stuffed with an apple in the manner of roasted swine? No, Herod was a Jew of some sort after all12—all told in the past perfect, twice removed from the present—too awful to relate. A man who shouts “Repent!” must be thoroughly debased by those determined to stay their course.
And yet I feel for Herodias, hardly mistress of her fate, teaching her daughter the worst of feminine wiles as a matter of survival—for how was Herodias to have provided for herself and her daughter with their husband and father dead if Herod had obeyed the Baptist’s injunction against a purely figurative incest and repudiated her? Who would dare to have her and her child after that? All victims of a cosmic plotline in which the Baptist, who had given new life to so many, had by one device or another to die, in order to make way for Jesus. It is a wonder more people do not doubt the goodness of God on the basis of Scripture alone. Had the Bible been the work of one man, he would be considered a misanthrope.
Under the mattress with you; it is not safe to write so freely in such a heretical mood. If Mrs. H. were to find this and have someone translate it for her, I could be out on the street before my master or Emil would have a chance to intervene. Fortunately, I keep my own chamber and she is too proud to snoop.
June 9
Rain all day today. Helping in the kitchen. No skill, just the ability to take direction. A father cannot teach a girl how to cook, but he can habituate her to discipleship. Conversation in the kitchen is lively—a welcome relief from my relative isolation, though hardly edifying. Mostly gossip not worth relating. I enjoy watching the dog make itself comfortable by the stove—what a handsome and good-natured animal. Sometimes I think the true child of God is more like an animal than a human being in simply accepting the good that is at hand. My fingernails are still black from digging in the garden yesterday!
Matt 14:13–21. “And he had the people arrange themselves on the grass”—five thousand men, not counting the women and children, so five thousand families, really—an entire town, but not arranged as people arrange themselves, according to rank and wealth and language and livelihood, but in an order not known to us, of angels or animals, an invisible pattern, seemingly random, in which no one wonders where one belongs. The dog belongs beside the stove because that is where it is warm, that is all. He can feel the warmth—he does not have to see it. He does not have to ask after his food like the theologian who wants to know, why five loaves and two fishes precisely? He just eats and drinks and is satisfied. And yet it can be dangerous for a human being to be so simple-minded as to huddle with whatever warmth is offered. Not every man who offers what is needed in the moment is a son of God. How trite I have become in my disillusionment—how stupid!
June 10
My master told me a parable this morning—the story of three sons who loved their father so much that they gave up their lives for him, each in a different way. That was not what their father wanted for them, but they could not help it, he had so devoted himself to them. One gave up his life by trying to do everything right and going mad, another by running away and catching a fatal disease, the third by acquiring a name for himself that was not his own. But the saddest thing of all was that while they were living, the brothers could not abide one another, so intent was their focus on the father. And all died childless.
Matt 14:22–36. “O you little-believer, why do you doubt?”13 A little belief gets us into a lot of trouble. And so we sink before we can rise, because we are all littlebelievers at first. Even Peter, so full of himself—O Lord, let me do exactly as you are doing, whether it is walking on water or sitting with you at the right hand of the Father—sank like a stone.14
My master’s parable haunts me. He is too much like Peter, I fear, trying too hard to be the disciple who never disappoints, spurning established religion just as Jesus did, honoring the Father beyond all reason. More rain today.
June 11
Extremely damp and chilly today. Unpleasant outdoors, dark within. Even the gardener seems dispirited. Staying indoors by the fire I helped with the mending. I have learned so much in this household to make an honest woman—by that I mean a useful person—of myself. But my master’s influence, unlike that of his servants, takes me in a different direction—not exactly back to my childhood days spent in my father’s library with great curiosity but little sense of real purpose. No, with my master there is a sense of urgency, and not so much to know more as to be more. Book-learning is a paltry thing in comparison to—what? “Being” does not convey the quality, because we all in fact “are”—we exist, like it or not. But being—not exactly with a sense of purpose. Whatever it is, I feel it most in my master’s presence. Being with him I feel that being itself has new possibilities. And yet he barely takes note of my existence these days. He is mostly out on one of his infernal carriage rides,15 busy with his work, or sleeping off a night on the town.
Matt 15:1–20. “What goes into the mouth does not pollute the person, rather what comes out of the mouth pollutes the person . . . What comes out of the mouth, comes out of the heart.” A sinner knows what is in her heart and does not worry, therefore, about externals. Did Jesus really have such a grim view of humanity? He says nothing here about the good in people’s hearts. Maybe he does not want to get into a consideration of good and evil warring in people’s hearts; he just wants to keep the focus on the internal orientation of the conscious sinner, as opposed to the focus on externals which is typical of the unconscious sinner. Matthew must have been very angry at his own Jewish people who did not convert to Christianity. He makes it seem as though the non-Christian Jews have everything backward. I do not think Jesus could have hated his own people the way Matthew seems to. But then Jesus does say those who do not follow him are not his people. For a religious Jew, this statement is inconceivable. How angry was Jesus, I wonder.
June 12
More rain. Working my way through Faust (which I have read before but hardly remember) and finding Mephistopheles’ reputation for subtlety understated. Is he a mystic (“In the beginning was the void”), a Manichean, or merely evil? Merely evil seems the least profitable reading. Consider the following exchange with Faust.
Faust.
You call yourself a part, and yet you stand before
me complete?
Mephistopheles.
The modest truth I tell you.
Though humanity, the little world of fools,
Ordinarily considers itself a totality;
I am a part of that part that in the beginning was
everything,
A part of the darkness that gave birth to light,
The proud light, which henceforth Mother Night’s
Ancient rank and realm has troubled;