Mynster was the first to note how Adler, from “some remnants of several
philosophical studies and some loose theological reading,” had formed “sev-
eral sentences that he repeats again and again.” Kierkegaard observed the
same thing and bluffly asserted that if one omitted the repetitions inStudies
and Examples, Adler’s “573-page-long book would hardly amount to more
than a little essay of eighty or one hundred pages.” He actually sat down and
counted the repetitions in Adler’sStudies and Examplesand could present the
following accounting: “On pages 105 and 106, the very same six-line bibli-
cal passage is printed in its entirety six times; and the words Adler appends to
this are repeated word for word in the three aphorisms. Since the individual
aphorisms are separated by empty lines, there are only twenty-five lines per
page. 2×25 = 50 lines; 6×6 = 36 lines; the words repeated word for word
by Adler himself are about 3×3 lines = 9;9+36=45lines. Result: 5
lines. From the bottom of page 121 to the middle of page 123 the same one
and one-half lines are printed word for word thirteen times. On pages 137–
139 the same one and one-half lines are printed word for word seventeen
times. I could easily cite even greater examples, but they surely are scarcely
needed to convince the reader that such behavior either is a sort of mental
illness or is literary shamelessness.”
“The Sensual Pleasure of Productivity”
Kierkegaard does not need to cite additional examples. He has already con-
vinced his reader that Adler’s conduct must be attributable to a “sort of
mental illness.” But on the other hand Kierkegaard still owes his reader a
explanation for why he finds it necessary to occupy himself so intensely
with this Adler in the first place. Why, after all, spend one’s time on a long
since concluded case concerning a second-rate, mixed-up pastor who gave
assurances about his heavenly mission and claimed to have had a personal
revelation, but who probably was only a sick charlatan who had run amok
on an island many miles from civilization?
The answer to this question is not immediately obvious, but what is most
likely is that Adler was bound up with two closely related problems that
had long captivated Kierkegaard. One was the problem of authority or au-
thorization, and the other was the problem of revelation. Both of these
problems are central toFear and Trembling, and Kierkegaard had been work-
ing on the manuscript of that work when Adler had published his claim of
having had a personal revelation. “I cannot deny that when I... heard that
Magister Adler had come forward with the claim that he had had a revela-
tion, I was surprised,” Kierkegaard readily confessed. But immediately