And H. H. was right about that. The topics he has decided to treat are
indisputably so specialized that even among theologians there are only a
very few people—perhaps, in the final analysis, only one person, namely
Kierkegaardhimself,whowasnotanapostlebutwasnonetheless(orperhaps
for that very reason) a genius—who might have an interest in reading an
explanation of the extent to which a genius may allow himself to be put to
death for the truth. At the very least, it takes a willful lack of imagination to
keep from associating the problem posed in the essay with Kierkegaard him-
self, and, likePractice in Christianity,theTwo Essayswere originally to have
been published in Kierkegaard’s ownname. Atthelast momentKierkegaard
instead chose the letters “H. H.,” which were more a sort of personal cipher
than a new pseudonym. He justified the arrangement dialectically: “The
little book by H. H. was completely right. One cannot oneself simply adopt
a position such as this, which is so difficult and also so full of responsibility.
So one dangles a little invitation in order to make the present day into one’s
partner. If someone stumbles over this little book he will raise an enormous
hue and cry—and he is right to do so, because it is an extremely strange
little book. But in that case it is he who raised the hue and cry; now I am
the ‘other.’ Therefore this little book had to be published—either in my
name (and with the greatest possible emphasis) or as it actually was pub-
lished.” The purpose of publishing it in H. H.’s name was, first of all, to
avoid giving the impression that Kierkegaard regarded himself as a martyr,
and second—as a cunningly contrived possibility—to serve as an occasion
for someone else to take on that role in Kierkegaard’s stead.
Thus the author had significant expectations for hisEssays, all the more
so because they were the very “key to the greatest possibility of all my
work.” Naturally, Kierkegaard had to attribute a special status to a roman a`
clef of this sort: “TheTwo Ethical-Religious Essaysare thus not a part of the
canon. They are not an element in it, but a point of view. If the canon
were to come to a stop, they would be like a point one projects ahead of
oneself in order to come to a stop there. They also contain the virtual and
the actual high point: a martyr, indeed, an apostle—and a genius. But if one
looks in the essays themselves for some information concerning me, it is of
course this: that I am a genius—not an apostle, not a martyr.”
Kierkegaard had a very peculiar way of being modest.
The Will to Powerlessness
“Has a Human Being the Right to Allow Himself to Be Put to Death for
the Truth?” takes the form of a meditation on two questions. The first is