so forth—then the collision between the person who acts in this manner
and his contemporaries can become a catastrophe.”
Here we are presumably confronted with the major, strategic point of
Kierkegaard’s campaign: It must come as a surprise to everyone. It must
seem to be genuine madness. It must call forth the most complete overturn-
ing of all values. In short, it must be a catastrophe, destructive both of the
banal, everyday optimism of the bourgeoisie and of the Protestant cultural
self-understanding of the clergy. “Catastrophe” is, so to speak, the formula
under which all of Kierkegaard’s maneuvers can be summed up. It is clear
that Martensen merely served as an occasion for all this and that he was not
the cause of the attack. And indeed, several years earlier Kierkegaard had
told C. T. Engelstoft that as soon as Mynster was dead he would “blow the
trumpet loudly.”
An undated journal entry that was writtenafterthe publication of Kier-
kegaard’s article on December 18, titled “To Bring About a Catastrophe,”
sketches out his strategy: “However afraid people would be of me if they
found out, however strange it would seem to them, it is certain that what
has occupied me in recent times has been whether God in fact wants me
to stake everything on bringing about a catastrophe, on getting arrested,
convicted—executed if possible. And in my soul I am concerned that if I
refrained from doing so I would regret it eternally....SoIhave great
misgivings concerning myself, about whether I am in fact capable (if it
comes to that) of going to prison, of possibly being executed, whether all
this sort of fighting would have a disturbing effect on me.” Here, with a
peculiarly academic sort of daring, Kierkegaard imagined the worst con-
ceivable catastrophe, and even though we might smile a little at his fear
concerning the disturbing consequences of such “fighting,” we must not
overloo ktherealismwith which he thought through his campaign.
The journals come to an end a couple of days later with an entry about
“the death of the person of spirit.” The remainder of this final journal—
journal NB 36—consists of blan kpages. From here on Kier kegaard can
only be followed fragmentarily on loose sheets of paper—and of course in
his public actions.
Once again, after four years of silence.
“A Devil of a Witness to the Truth”
The article against Martensen caused an enormous outcry and immediately
set spirits stirring, both the great and the less great. The less great were the
first on the scene. The very next day,Dagbladetcarried a piece by “A,” who