Comment on I am a Friend of Difficulties or Kierkegaard Against the Coteries

[Author’s note in the text] See N. E. Balle’s sermon, “Bispevielse i Frue Kirke: 10de Søndag efter Trinit. d. 18. Aug. 1805” [Episcopal Consecration in the Church of Our Lady: 10th Sunday after Trinity, August 18, 1805] in Theologisk Maanedskrift for Fædrelandets Religionslærere, ed. Lorenz Nikolai Fallesen, vol. 6 (July-December 1805), pp. 300f. and 309. Oehlenschläger is not mentioned by name in Balle’s criticism, but his Jesus Nature poem is the unmistakable target: “But are we supposed to think that the story of Jesus is to be defined as a painting of the various transformations of Nature? It can only depict, not narrate – a gold mine for poets, but not a spring from which to draw the concepts of true religion. Oh God! What perversions!” (p. 309).

Last updated 30.12.2016