there appeared yet another article in which Kierkegaard, after a sort of sum-
mary of events thus far, passed the following, unflattering verdict: “Bishop
Martensen’s silence is: (1) indefensible from a Christian point of view, (2)
ludicrous, (3) stupid-shrewd, (4) contemptible in more than one sense.”
With this, the first phase of Kierkegaard’s attack was concluded. The
second could begin, but time was running out.
The Moment
“Apropos of witnesses to the truth, now Søren is bringing out the big guns
and has opened up his batteries in an article inFædrelandetand in a sort of
journal,The Moment,” wrote Hans Brøchner in a letter dated May 29, 1855,
to his old friend Christian K. F. Molbech, then a professor of Danish lan-
guage and literature down in Kiel. As usual, Brøchner was well-informed.
Five days earlier, the first issue of the newsletter had been published and
suddenly begun circulating in Copenhagen, then sweltering under an al-
most subtropical heat wave, and it had caused an unusual stir. Brøchner had
scant hope that the newsletter would make an impact on the clergy, how-
ever. “Our witnesses to the truth are like the people in Sebastopol,” he
wrote, comparing the ecclesiastical situation to the famous naval port in the
Crimea, which at the time was surrounded by English forces, who had
fruitlessly laid siege to the city for months. “As long as they are not starved
out, they don’t care at all about anything else; they are quiet and continue
their studies of ombre and parish tax rates—the Old and New Testaments
of our clergy.”
It had long been clear to Kierkegaard that he could not continue his
campaign inFædrelandet. While he had good relations with J. F. Giødwad,
he was reluctant to overplay his hand. By now,Fædrelandethad lent its name
and great quantities of printer’s ink to no fewer than twenty-two articles
from Kierkegaard’s hand, and he did not want the newspaper to become his
official journal. “So,” as Kierkegaard subsequently wrote in retrospect, “after
considering many different factors, I decided to begin publishing some
newsletters myself and thus have an organ solely for myself as an individual.”
But it took time to get the newsletters off the ground. For one thing,
there were certain difficulties with respect to finances, since Kierkegaard
himself had to assume responsibility for the production costs. For this pur-
pose he had to draw on the last of the five thousand rixdollars remaining
from his sale, on August 25, 1854, of the mortgage on 2 Nytorv to his
brother-in-law, the banker Henrik Ferdinand Lund. For another thing,
Kierkegaard was fearful of ending in a nasty journalistic paradox. From an