Thus, martyrdom would be a nondialectical situation. Unlike dialectics,
death is in fact irreversible.
Two Ethical-Religious Essays
This conflict between dialectical thinking and dramatic action constitutes
the principal theme of one of the two peculiar treatises that were published
on May 19, 1849, bearing the common titleTwo Ethical-Religious Essays.
The essay in question was entitled “Has a Human Being the Right to Allow
Himself to Be Put to Death for the Truth?” and was accompanied by the
essay “On the Difference between a Genius and an Apostle.” The two
essays were, respectively, the third and the sixth pieces included inA Cycle
of Ethical-Religious Essaysfrom 1848, which in turn consisted of six usable
sections fromThe Book on Adler. Kierkegaard considered publishing the
remaining essays—excepting the fifth one, “the one about Adler”—under
the titleThree Ethical-Religious Essays, but nothing ever came of it.
While the second of the two essays was taken fromThe Book on Adler
without major changes, the first essay was reworked separately and was only
finished at the end of 1847. During his final editing of the manuscript,
Kierkegaard left himself (and posterity) a little, impressive piece of informa-
tion: “N.B. This book must be handled very carefully in writing up the fair
copy, because I was lucky enough to be able to write it in the course of
eight hours. Gratitude thus requires that the really routine part of the work
be done all the more carefully.” TheEthical-Religious Essaystotal eighty-
five small pages, and the press run was the usual 525 copies. The book’s
typographical design was borrowed from Mrs. Gyllembourg’s books, for in
the final copy Kierkegaard gave the following instructions to the typesetter:
“Format as inStories of Everyday Life, but more closely printed and in a
smaller font.” And lastly, in this same note, Kierkegaard requested “six cop-
ies on vellum.”
TheTwo Essayswere authored by “H. H.” He was a determined gentle-
manandwasnotatallmarkedbythethrobbingjollitywegenerallyencoun-
ter in Kierkegaard’s characters. At one point in the draft of the first of the
two essays, Kierkegaard made the mistake of letting H. H. say the word
“frivolousness,” but he regretted this soon after, adding the note: “N.B.
The tone of this line is much too profane.” In other words, H. H. bears the
stamp of the seriousness of his subject matter and he thus does not expect
a large readership; this is also clear from his preface—which amounts to one
and one-half (yes, 1#) lines—where he states that the essays “will probably
only be of interest to theologians.”