Grundtvig, an Introduction

Grundtvig, en introduktionAf Kaj Thanin

Ejvind Larsen: Grundtvig - om noget om Marx

Grundtvig and MarxEjvind Larsen: Grundtvig - og noget om Marx. Studenterkredsen, ÅrhusReviewed by Kaj ThaningEjvind Larsen has put a considerable amount of work into his book. It is obvious that he not only knows his Grundtvig and his Marx, but he has also studied the sociology of Grundtvigianism and is thoroughly conversant with the research work on Grundtvig. But above all, what he writes is based on strong personal commitment, which leads to criticism of both Grundtvig and Marx, but at the same time to a synthesis of both, since, to Ejvind Larsen, between them they indicate solutions to the social problems of today.The starting-point for both of them is a clash with German idealism on the one hand and the materialistic conception of man on the other. To Grundtvig man is a »Divine Experiment« of dust and spirit, to Marx man is the creator of history, while he is also a product of history, of production. Ejvind Larsen asserts emphatically that Marx is no economic determinist. The two great rebels can also be compared in that they oppose the dissociation of manual and spiritual work and are against all elites, hierarchies and bureaucracies. The people must be liberated from all this, but they must liberate themselves.Ejvind Larsen stresses, however, the influence that Grundtvig had on the emancipation of the Danish peasants and in connection with this gives the quotation, »Åndens løsen er bedrifter« (The watchword of the Spirit is deeds). It is in the significance of the spirit and in Grundtvig’s emphasis on dialogue as a basis for any emancipation of the people that he finds the explanation of the fact that the Danish peasantry was made free »despite the economic conditions« and »even though the prevailing tendencies should have reduced it to a powerless pettybourgeoisie and reactionary proletariat.«Ejvind Larsen emphasizes Grundtvig’s dissociation of his work in the Church and his work for the people, and is himself opposed to any mingling of religious and political activity. He rejoices in the fact that Grundtvig does not talk of »original sin« in a historical and political context, as opposed to the Church, which makes use of this concept to stop political progress. But he has not noticed that Grundtvig has, in a sense, secularized original sin, and as a mythologian and a historian talks of the »great calamity«, which »very early on« befell man, making his existence one of conflict and predicament. In Ejvind Larsen’s book there is a discrepancy, in that his reduction of the obvious conflicts of existence to historical calamities (in the plural), which can and should be overcome by mankind (as opposed to the sin that faith alone reveals in man and which can only be overcome through the grace of God), is at variance with his constant emphasis on the »principle of contradiction« and on the fight for man being considered a living person placed between absolute contradictions. Ejvind Larsen will, however, undoubtedly continue his work - and will deal with this inner contradiction in his book, which, despite its lack of clarity on various other points, is an inspiring achievement

To årstal. Replik

Two Years. A ReplyBy Kaj ThaningRecently a collection of essays by Anders Pontoppidan Thyssen has been under the title ‘Grundtvig and the Grundtvigian Heritage’. One of the articles is a reprint of A.P. Thyssen’s critical examination of K. Thaning’s thesis .Menneske f.rst Grundtvigs opg.r med sig selv., (1963). In his article Thyssen has opposed Thaning’s views that the year 1832 should be seen as the decisive turning point in Grundtvig’s life. This view caused an extensive debate, in the course of which Thaning also wrote a rejoinder to Thyssen and other critics. In the present short contribution Kaj Thaning reconsiders his point of view

Den »mageløse opdagelse«s tilblivelse

The Origin of the “Incomparable Discovery”By Kaj ThaningWhat has been called Grundtvig’s “ incomparable discovery” was that it is not the Bible but the Apostolic Creed which expresses true Christianity.In 1824 Grundtvig saw it as his task to answer two questions that must be kept separate:1) What is true Christianity, and 2) Is Christianity credible? The first question is historical, and must be answered by the apostles and the early Christians. The second will always be a matter o f conscience. In 1825 he says, “None but God knows how many or how few will come to possess the Christian faith, but we shall find out when its voice becomes clear and we cannot help but hear it, but not before” . (Theologisk Maanedsskrift, Theological Monthly I p. 33). In the first three parts of the dissertation On True Christianity in the same journal he defends Luther’s faith and his Little Catechism as the expression of true Christianity, in contrast to the false Christianity o f Grundtvig’s own times. He speaks o f “God’s Word in Holy Writ” and distinguishes between the “ general creed” o f the Lutheran fathers, which is “ particularly evangelical” , and the “Confessio Augustana” , which accords with the New Testament, but is intended for “ teachers” . But in the 4th Part of On True Christianity the Apostolic Creed appears by way o f answer to the question as to the nature of true Christianity, an answer that the ordinary man can grasp and believe. This “ incomparable” discovery (the expression is not Grundtvig’s own) is not proclaimed publicly until the sermon for the 9th Sunday in Trinity on July 31st 1825. But in his study Grundtvig has solved the problem during his work on the essay O m the Credibility of Christianity. A number o f drafts for this are to be found in Fasc. 97, the last two o f which were written after the discovery. Before these, however, we find Fasc. 106, published in Danish Church Times (Dansk Kirketidende) 1876 under the heading “True and False Christianity” . It is here that he makes his discovery. But it is remarkable that he does so while at work on proving Christianity’s credibility. However, as he himself says, one must first know what Christianity is before one can prove its credibility.These drafts are so closely linked that they must have been written in close connection with one another. And they must have been written after July 24th, for in his sermon on that date he maintains several times that “diligent reading o f God’s Word” is the only means by which false teachers can be repudiated. The discovery was therefore made between July 24th and 31st. But in two stages. The actual discovery of the Apostolic Creed as the criterion for Christianity presupposes a prior discovery that did not necessarily involve the second. He discovers that the church came before the book. His starting-point is that the history of Christianity proves what the church must profess. Christianity is a “ recognisable” faith - or it wouldn’t be distinguishable from Judaism, Paganism and Islam. One must therefore follow the Bible’s teaching. Grundtvig is moving on to the Christianity “which is believed in the world and has the proof o f experience” , and he rejects the “new” Christianity, rationalism. Rationalism, on the other side, claims that the Christian’s Creed conflicts with the Bible and must therefore be false.This claim by the enemy sets Grundtvig o ff on a new track: if his opponents were right, then the faith that the first Christians professed must be the true Christianity! It is not the letter of the Bible but the spirit o f faith that has been at work in the world, and it has been passed on “by word of mouth” . Grundtvig draws this conclusion: “The greater the difference to be found between the Bible and Christianity, the more sharply we must distinguish them from one another” . And he insists that it is only a denial o f the original creed that brings exclusion from the Christian community, not the denial of the Bible, even though the apostles wrote as they spoke. In contrast, Christianity cannot be destroyed so long as there is a single person left “who openly dares to profess (deleted: the second article of faith) the three articles of faith” . It is natural that at first he should name the second article of faith, since it is still the content o f that article that he uses to oppose the “new” faith. But then via a correction the whole of the creed appears - without him realising what he has discovered! As yet he does not call the creed “ apostolic” . But as a result of the first discovery - that the Church came before the Bible - Grundtvig’s previous scripture-based apologetic begins to crumble, and he produces a powerful document o f self-knowledge (F) in which he attacks the injustices he may have committed as an apologist with the Bible in his hand. He will now strive to emulate Irenaeus, Augustine and Luther in their belief that the spirit is o f Christ, and the Word is the guardian o f the spirit in the Church. He has recognised “ the links in the altar-chain” , the oral continuity in the Church from the apostles onwards. Later he places Polycarp between Irenaeus and John - the oral chain is closed. He regrets his former blindness to the fact that it was the spirit and not written words that made us Christians: he forgot that it was to the Church that he owed the spirit he received at baptism together with the bond that through the eucharist united him with the body o f Christ, his Church and Himself. He had been striving in vain to “ speak according to his mother’s heart” . He has previously discussed baptism and communion, but not until now does he perceive their meaning.Grundtvig wishes to remain an apologist, but no longer on the old foundations o f the Bible. Now it is the Church’s word he will bear witness to, but he also wishes to defend “ the rights o f the heart” against rationalism’s cultivation o f reason - precisely as he has done in the essay On Nature and Revelation (Th. M.) that he has just finished.In a new draft (G), where the feeling o f relief in Grundtvig comes across very clearly, the tone is playful, and lines appear from Ludvig Holberg’s poetry. At the same time the expression “ common sense” has begun to play a role (as it did in On Nature and Revelation, where feeling and intellect are contrasted with “ reason” ). Both leave their mark on the two following drafts, written in dialogue form as a debate between “ common sense” and “ theology” : the “ intellect” a cheeky servant-girl (Holberg’s Pernille) and her former mistress, who represents rationalism, the “new” faith or the “ true” protestantism.The dialogue is in fact a veiled attack on the young professor H. N. Clausen, whose major work on Catholicism and protestantism Grundtvig had subscribed to. It appeared in August, to be met by Grundtvig’s bull of excommunication The Church’s Reply (Kirkens Gienmæle), a work that builds on the triumphant discovery of the Apostolicum as the criterion for Christianity. The discovery takes place between the two dialogues mentioned. There is a strange disparity between the broad, Holbergian comic style and the central question that Grundtvig is discussing. In the first dialogue he goes no further than demonstrating that the “new” Christianity is different from the old. On the last page of the draft the writing is tired and careless. Does he want to sleep after his futile work?An account has been handed down of Grundtvig working away in the desperate hope o f finding the final weapon against his opponents and dreaming one night that he is playing a game of chess that he is about to lose. He looks up at his opponent and sees that it is the devil. But a bright figure is standing by Grundtvig’s side making a move for him, so he wins the game. He has told a friend that it was this that made him realise that he should look to the baptismal creed.At any rate, he begins a new dialogue and the writing is far more single-minded. The beginning corresponds to the start o f the first dialogue, but gradually the intellect – the servant-girl - starts to raise her voice, and when she talks about “ the Christianity of old times and I know where to find it” , the theologian - her mistress - grows suspicious and suggests a compromise, which is rejected. Finally the hallmark of “ the Christian religion” is revealed: the Apostolic Creed and its means of grace: baptism and Holy Communion.In Grundtvig Studies 1957 Kaj Baagø demonstrated that Grundtvig’s discovery of the creed took place after a discussion on the need for symbols in the Church had been going on in Copenhagen for some time. Rudelbach (who took Grundtvig on to the staff of Th. M.) was particularly active. He knew the Berlin theologians Marheinicke and Neander personally and almost certainly gave Grundtvig the latter’s book Antignostikus. Geist des Tertullianus for review. We must assume that Grundtvig read the 525 pages before his great discovery, even though the review did not appear until December 1825. This may be why in the various drafts mentioned above Grundtvig begins to place the New Testament and the history o f the Church side by side as witnesses to true Christianity. And what he gradually clarifies for himself as he is writing can all be found in Neander’s book - with the exception o f the connection between the creed and baptism, which Grundtvig immediately emphasizes. Neander may well be the inspiration for both discoveries - even though Grundtvig surrenders only very slowly. Nor does he lay any particular claim to originality in his review. He refers the people who refuse to believe him to the Berlin professors.The two discoveries had two completely different consequences for Grundtvig. From the first sprang his hymns - without it they would simply not have been possible. But they would have been all the better without the second discovery, as would his preaching of baptism and communion and “the Word from the Lord’s own mouth” . His discovery o f the creed as the criterion for Christianity and “ the Word o f Faith” served to narrow Grundtvig’s thought and cloud his other discoveries. But it must be added that looking back later in life Grundtvig declared that a lifetime ago he had expected wonders o f the discovery o f the division between true Christianity and Christianity’s truth, but that had proved itself o f no use. For its “ authenticity and truth stand and fall with each other”

Enkens søn fra Nain

The Son of the Widow from Nain.By Kaj ThaningThis article intends to elucidate the distinctions that Grundtvig made in his world of ideas in the course of the years from 1824 to 1834, first between spirit and letter, church and church-school (1826-1830), and then between natural life and Christian life (in 1832). In His "Literary Testament" (1827), Grundtvig himself admits that there was a "Chaos" in his writings, due to the youthful fervour that pervaded his literary works and his sermons in the years 1822-1824. But not until 1832 does he acknowledge that "when I speak or write as a citizen, or a bard, or a scholar, it is not the time nor the place to either preach or confess, so when I have done so, it was a mistake which can only be excused with the all too familiar disorder pertaining to our church, our civic life, and our scholarship...", as it says in a passage omitted from the manuscript for "Norse Mythology”, 1832. (The passage is printed in its entirety in ”A Human first...”, p. 259f.)The point of departure for Thaning’s article is a sermon on the Son of the Widow from Nain, delivered in 1834, which the editor, Christian Thodberg also found "singularly personal”, since Grundtvig keeps using the pronoun ”1”. In this sermon Grundtvig says that those who have heard him preaching on this text before, would remember that he regarded the mourning widow as ”an image of the same broken heart at all times”, and her comforter, Jesus, not only as a great prophet in Israel, but ”as the living Being who sees us and is with us always until the end of the world”. Thodberg is of the opinion that Grundtvig refers to his sermon from 1823. Thaning, however, thinks that the reference is to the sermon from 1824. But Grundtvig adds that one may now rightly ask him whether he ’’still regards the gospel for the day with the same eyes, the same hope and fear as before.” He wants to discuss this, among other things ’’because the best thing we can do when we grow old is ... to develop and explain what in the days of our youth .. sprang up before our eyes and echoes in our innermost mind.” In other words, he speaks as if he had grown old. So Thaning asks: "What happened on the way from Our Saviour’s Church to Frederick’s Church?"Thaning’s answer is that there was a change in Grundtvig’s view of life. Already in his first sermon in 1832, he says that his final and truly real hour as a pastor has now arrived. Thaning’s explanation is that Grundtvig has now passed from the time of strong emotions to that of calm reflections. Not until now does he realize "what is essential and what is not". And in 1834 he says that our Christian views, too, must go through a purgatorial fire when we grow older. This is not only true of the lofty views of human life which, naturally, go through this purgatory and most often lose themselves in it. Here Grundtvig distinguishes between natural and Christian life which is something new in a sermon. Thaning adds that this purgatorial fire pervades Grundtvig’s drafts for the Introduction to "Norse Mythology" in 1832. But then, Grundtvig’s lofty views did not lose themselves in purgatory. He got through it. His view of life changed. (Here Thaning refers to his dissertation, "A Human First...", p. 306ff).This is vaguely perceptible throughout the sermon in question. But according to Thaning Grundtvig slightly distorts the picture of his old sermon. In the latter he did not mix up natural and Christian life. It is Thaning’s view that Grundtvig is thinking of the distinct mixture of Christianity and Danish national feeling in the poem "New Year’s Morning" (1824). But he also refers to Grundtvig’s sermon on Easter Monday, 1824, printed in Helge Toldberg’s dissertation, "Grundtvig’s World of Symbols" (1950), p. 233ff, showing that he has been captured by imagery in a novel manner. He seems to want to impose himself upon his audience. In 1834 he knows he has changed. But 1832 is the dividing year. In the passage omitted from the manuscript for "Norse Mythology", Grundtvig states explicitly that faith is "a free matter": "Faith is a matter of its own, and truly each man’s own matter". Grundtvig could not say this before 1832. Thaning is of the opinion that this new insight lies behind the distinction that he makes in the sermon in 1834, where he says that he used to mix up Christian life with "the natural life of our people", which involved the risk that his Christian view might be misinterpreted and doubted. Now it has been through purgatory. And in the process it has only lost its "absurdity and obscurity, which did not come from the Lord, but from myself”.Later in the sermon he says: "The view is no more obscured by my Danish national feeling; I certainly do not by any means fail to appreciate the particularly friendly relationship that has prevailed through centuries between the Christian faith and the life of this people, and nor do I by any means renounce my hope that the rebirth of Christianity here will become apparent to the world, too, as a good deed, but yet this is only a dream, and the prophet will by no means tell us such dreams, but he bids us separate them sharply from the word of God, like the straw from the grain...". This cannot be polemically directed against his own sermons from 1824. It must necessarily reflect a reaction against the fundamental view expressed in "New Year’s Morning" and its vision of Christianity and Danishness in one. (Note that in his dissertation for the Degree of Divinity, Bent Christensen calls the poem "a dream", as Thaning adds).In his "Literary Testament" (1827) Grundtvig speaks about the "Chaos" caused by "the spirits of the Bible, of history, and of the Nordic countries, whom I serve and confuse in turn." But there is not yet any recognition of the same need for a distinction between Danishness and Christianity, which in the sermon he calls "the straw and the grain". Here he speaks of the distinction between "church and church-school, Christianity and theology, the spirit of the Bible and the letter of the Bible", as a consequence of his discovery in 1825. He still identifies the spirit of human history with the spirit of the Bible: "Here is the explanation over my chaos", Grundtvig says. But it is this chaos that resolves itself, leading to the insight and understanding in the sermon from 1834.In the year after "The Literary Testament", 1828, Grundtvig publishes the second part of his "Sunday Book", in which the only sermon on the Son of the Widow in this work appears. It is the last sermon in this volume, and it is an elaboration of the sermon from 1824. What is particularly characteristic of it is its talk about hope. "When the heart sees its hope at death’s door, where is comfort to be found for it, save in a divine voice, intoning Weep not!" Here Grundtvig quotes St. John 3:16 and says that when this "word of Life" is heard, when hope revives and rises from its bier, is it not then, and not until then, that we feel that God has visited his people...?" In the edition of this sermon in the "Sunday Book" a note of doubt has slipped in which did not occur in the original sermon from 1824. The conclusion of the sermon bears evidence that penitential Christianity has not yet been overcome: "What death would be too hard a transition to eternal life?" - "Then, in the march of time, let it stand, that great hope which is created by the Word ... like the son of the great woman from Nain."It is a strange transition to go from this sermon to the next one about the son of the widow, the sermon from 1832, where Christ is no longer called "hope". The faith has been moved to the present: "... only in the Word do we find him, the Word was the sign of life when we rose from the dead, and if we fell silent, it was the sign of death." - "Therefore, as the Lord has visited us and has opened our mouths, we shall speak about him always, in the certain knowledge that it is as necessary and as pleasurable as to breathe..." The emphasis of faith is no longer in words like longing and hope.In a sense this and other sermons in the 1830s anticipate the hymn "The Lord has visited his people" ("Hymn Book" (Sangv.rk) I, no. 23): the night has turned into morning, the sorrow has been removed. The gospel has become the present. As before the Church is compared with the widow who cried herself blind at the foot of the cross. Therefore the Saviour lay in the black earth, nights and days long. But now the Word of life has risen from the dead and shall no more taste death. The dismissal of the traditional Christianity, handed down from the past, is extended to include the destructive teaching in schools. The young man on the bier has been compared with the dead Christianity which Grundtvig now rejects. At an early stage Grundtvig was aware of its effects, such as in the Easter sermon in 1830 ("Sunday Book" III, p. 263) where Grundtvig speaks as if he had experienced a breakthrough to his new view. So, the discovery of the Apostles’ Creed in 1825 must have been an enormous feeling of liberation for him – from the worship of the letter that so pervaded his age. Grundtvig speaks about the "living, certain, oral, audible" word in contrast to the "dead, uncertain, written, mute" sign in the book. However, there is as yet no mention of the "Word from the Mouth of our Lord", which belongs to a much later time. Only then does he acquire the calm confidence that enables him to preach on the background of what has happened that the Word has risen from the dead. The question to ask then is what gave him this conviction."Personally I think that it came to him at the same time as life became a present reality for him through the journeys to England," Thaning says. By the same token, Christianity also became a present reality. The discovery of 1825 was readily at hand to grant him a means of expression to convey this present reality and the address to him "from the Lord’s own mouth", on which he was to live.  It is no longer enough for him to speak about "the living, solemn evidence at baptism of the whole congregation, the faith we are all to share and confess" as much more certain than everything that is written in all the books of the world. The "Sunday Book" is far from containing the serene insight which, in spite of everything, the Easter sermon, written incidentally on Easter Day, bears witness to. But in 1830 he was not yet ready to sing "The Lord has visited his people", says Thaning.In the sermon from 1834 one meets, as so often in Grundtvig, his emphasis on the continuity in his preaching. In the mourning widow he has always seen an image of the Church, as it appears for the first time in an addition to the sermon on the text in the year 1821 ("Pr.st. Sermons", vol I, p. 296). It ends with a clue: "The Church of Christ now is the Widow of Nain". He will probably have elaborated that idea and concluded his sermon with it. Nevertheless, as it has appeared, the sermon in 1834 is polemically directed against his former view, the mixture of Christian and natural life. He recognizes that there is an element of "something fantastic" sticking to the "view of our youth".Already in a draft for a sermon from March 4,1832, Grundtvig says:"... this was truly a great error among us that we contented ourselves with an obscure and indefinite idea of the Spirit as well as the Truth, for as a consequence of that we were so doubtful and despondent, and we so often mistook the letter for the spirit, or the spirit of phantasy and delusion for that of God..." (vol. V, p. 79f).The heart-searchings which this sermon draft and the sermon on the 16th Sunday after Trinity are evidence of, provide enough argument to point to 1832 as a year of breakthrough. We, his readers, would not have been able to indicate the difference between before and now with stronger expressions than Grundtvig’s own. "He must really have turned into a different kind of person", Thaning says. At the conclusion of the article attention is drawn to the fact that the image of the Son of the Widow also appears in an entirely different context than that of the sermon, viz. in the article about Popular Life and Christianity that Grundtvig wrote in 1847. "What still remains alive of Danish national feeling is exactly like the disconsolate widow at the gate of Nain who follows her only begotten son to the grave" (US DC, p. 86f). The dead youth should not be spoken to about the way to eternal life, but a "Rise!" should be pronounced, and that apparently means: become a living person! On this occasion Grundtvig found an opportunity to clarify his ideas. His "popular life first" is an extension of his "a human being first" from 1837. He had progressed over the last ten years. But the foundation was laid with the distinction between Christian and natural life at the beginning of the 1830s

Götz Harbsmeier 1910-1979.

Götz Harbsmeier in memoria