Soren Kierkegaard

mind had been overwhelmed by Søren Kierkegaard.” Indeed, Nielsen was
so much under the influence that in his “intoxication he did not even bor-
row his ideas from Kierkegaard himself, who indeed showed his true face
only rarely, but from one of his masks, the pseudonym J. Climacus. So great
was the dependence that he did not even make the attempt to convert the
words of this mask—which had been spoken in the form of humorous and
mocking witticisms—into an instructive lecture, but he incorporated them
in unmediated form and treated them as dogmatic statements.”
However much Martensen and Kierkegaard might have disagreed on
other issues, they were united in their irritation at the lack of nuance in
Nielsen’s use of the pseudonyms as authorities on dogma. Thus Martensen
recountedhowoneSundayafternoonhe hadstrolledouttoChristianshavn,
where he ran into Kierkegaard, who accompanied him on a walk along the
Christianshavn rampart. There they had a lengthy conversation about the
wretched state of Danish letters, including of courseThe Corsair, to which
Martensen felt Kierkegaard adverted all too often. On the way home the
two men stopped at 68 Østergade, the site of the Athenæum, a private
library. Martensen gestured as if to indicate to Kierkegaard that now they
were going their separate ways, but Kierkegaard accompanied him inside.
“And here—it came up of itself so to speak—a conversation started about
my dispute with Rasmus Nielsen. I expressed unreserved indignation over
what I found objectionable in Rasmus Nielsen’s behavior, especially the
completely distorted, erroneous, and improper way in which he had used
Kierkegaard’s Johannes Climacus, crudely taking sentences from that work
out of context, investing them with dogmatic significance, and making di-
rect use of them.” Kierkegaard did not contradict Martensen, nor did he
offer the least gesture of support for Rasmus Nielsen. On the contrary, he
criticized “particular expressions in the introduction to myDogmatics, which
hebelieved would best havebeen omitted.” Here Martensen was apparently
referring to the introduction of hisDogmatic Information, written in large
measure as a refutation of Rasmus Nielsen, where he spoke of Kierkegaard’s
writings as “that long-winded body of literature” which—and this was em-
phasized no fewer than two times--was “of absolutely no concern” to him.
It goes without saying that Kierkegaard was not pleased with this, but
that Sunday afternoon in the Athenæum he apparently did not snap at Mar-
tensen. Martensen could even remember that Kierkegaard had said that
despite everything their disagreement was a “difference within Christian-
ity,” a phrase that Martensen interpreted as a sort of “rapprochement,” inas-
much as “a differencewithinChristianity could perhaps be worked out,”
and he therefore requested that Kierkegaard “explain himself in more de-
tail.” Then Kierkegaard explained that in his view people “should not try