Soren Kierkegaard

allusions,”itcrackledwithpolemicsdirectedatvariousaspectsofecclesiasti-
cal and cultural life in Copenhagen. Martensen himself was the unnamed
principal figure in the book, its first-person narrator. After a moving funeral
(where Paulli gives the “funeral oration” Martensen had written for him-
self), the Martensen figure is sent down to the underworld, which he tours
with hisDogmatics—“the unsullied doctrine”—under his arm, searching for
the New Jerusalem. No sooner does he escape from a number of ferocious
snakes and lizards—over whose sinful heads he had waved hisDogmaticsso
that “light had leapt forth from the gilded letters”—than he hears a voice
that commands him, “Stand back!” The voice emanates from a “simple
man wearing a shirt and cap,” and this strangely dressed man turns out to
be none other than Kierkegaard, who in the three ensuing chapters appears
as an apocalyptic figure, urging Martensen to be more sober-minded and
presenting him with a number of subjective truths. Thus one of the first
questions he puts to Martensen is: “What are you?” Martensen replies: “Es-
teemed Sir! Who I am and what I am are things you yourself will be able
to state when you see that I am a man with aDogmaticsand an image of
Christ. It is ratherI, who should askyou, What are you? Who are you?
And who has authorized you to address me in such a manner?” To which
Kierkegaard replies: “Man, look where you are standing!” Martensen sees
that he is standing on a narrow, rickety bridge over a dark chasm. The
bridge collapses shortly thereafter, but he is rescued and comes to a ravine
in the mountains, where he sees that he is surrounded on every side by
white marble statues depicting figures, each of whom, like Martensen, is
standing on a granite column and bearing a book: “Men of all confessions
in the Church—Greeks, Romans, Calvinists, Anglicans, Lutherans—who
became fossilized in what they termed the unsullied doctrine.” Martensen
himself feels fossilized and is uncertain whether he has been addressed by
an actual spirit or merely by Kierkegaard. “Demon, angel, power, might,
potency, I do not know what you call yourself,” he exclaims, both scandal-
ized and fearful, “You wish to condemn me to stand on this column like a
stone because I cling to the unsullied doctrine; this judgment is unjust....
Perhaps these fossilized spirits have only had the doctrine, but of course I
have both the life and the doctrine.”
The voice asks Martensen to name the most important thing in his life,
and when he replies “the cause of Jesus Christ and his congregation,” he is
required to give an accounting of what he has done for the sake of Christ,
exclusively and solely for the sake of Christ. Martensen is unable to do so,
and in any event certainly not in a single word, because it would require a
“coherent, edifying lecture,” and he therefore asks for time in order to write
a sermon. For this purpose he is given access to a comfortable study, com-