Soren Kierkegaard

of the Savior, the apostle, the witness to the truth; this is what the pastor
lives on; this is what he eats, feeding them to his wife and children in happy
enjoyment of life. He keeps these glorious ones in his brine barrel. Their
cries of ‘Follow me, follow me!’ are futile.”
The worst treatment is reserved for a certain “Ludvig From, Cand.
Theol.” [literally: “Louis Pious, theological graduate”], who was trotted out
in the little short story entitled “Firstthe Kingdom of God.” Ludvig From,
he is a seeker. “And when one hears that a ‘theological’ graduate is seeking,
one does not need a lively imagination to understand what it is he is seeking:
The Kingdom of God, that is of course what one must seekfirst. But no, it
is not that; what he is seeking is a royal appointment to a livelihood as a
pastor.” And before he arrived at this point, he hadfirstattended a prepara-
tory school; thereafter he hadfirsttaken the obligatory first and second ex-
aminations; and then, after four years of study at the university, he hadfirst
taken his examinations for the theology degree. So now he was a theological
graduate, but that did not mean he could begin to work on behalf of Chris-
tianity. No, no,firsthe of course had to spend half a year at the pastoral
seminary, and when that was completed, in accordance with the rules of
the times, he had to wait an additional eight years before he could begin in
earnest to dedicate himself to his real work: “And now we are at the begin-
ning of the story. The eight years are up, and he is seeking. / His life, which
up to now cannot be said to have had any sort of relation to the absolute,
suddenly enters into such a relation: He seeks absolutely everything. He fills
out sheet after sheet of official paperwork; he runs from pillar to post; he
ingratiates himself both with the cabinet minister and with the doorman;
in brief, he is entirely in the service of the absolute. Indeed, one of his
acquaintances who has not seen him during the past several years discovers
to his surprise that he has become smaller, which perhaps was because the
fellow had suffered the fate of Mu ̈nchhausen’s dog, which had started out
as a greyhound but which, after so much running, had become a
dachshund. / Three years pass in this way. Our theological graduate is really
in need of a rest; after such enormously strenuous activity he needs to be
taken out of action or find repose in a pastoral position and be looked after
a little by his future wife—for in the meantime he hadfirstbecome en-
gaged.” Finally he receives an appointment, but just as the appointment
becomes a reality he learns that “the income of the call” is about 150 rixdol-
lars less than he had counted on. Ludvig almost despairs. He quickly pur-
chases some more paper with official stamps on it, so that he can request that
the minister free him from the appointment, but one of his acquaintances
dissuades him from doing so, and From reconciles himself to his sorry fi-
nancial circumstances. “He is ordained—and the Sunday arrives when he