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

Replik

A ReplyBy Kaj ThaningIn this article the writer protests against what he calls »two attacks on his thesis »Man First - «« (1963). First, against Regin Prenter’s review of this book, which is quoted in J.H. Schjørring’s obituary of Prenter, then against W.Michelsen’s article »The Way from Force to Freedom in Grundtvig’s Life and Works«, both printed in Grundtvig Studier 1991. Thaning claims that the word .conversion. can be used both about turning to God and about turning to His Creation, which Grundtvig did in »Norse Mythology«, 1832. According to Thaning, Prenter has not rendered it probable that this conversion was provoked in Grundtvig by »the unshakable fact of the Church«.In his article, W. Michelsen refers to »Handbook on World History« I (1833), in which Grundtvig states that for »school use« he now prefers the Greek view of human life and history to the mosaic-Christian, because the Greek view lends itself more easily to being »practised scientifically«, but that he still considers the Mosaic-Christian view »the only divine, true, and eternal one«. Thaning claims, however, that from 1832 the word .view. denotes a contrast to the Christian »faith«. The Biblical view was of no avail on Greek soil, Thaning claims. In 1833 Grundtvig went over to »Polybius’s heathen view of history«, which built on the contrast between the truth and the lie. As he could not employ simultaneously the three concepts, a Greek view of history, a Biblical view, and the Christian faith, »the Biblical view now slips over to the side of the Church and becomes identical with faith (divine, true, and eternal)«. In 1832, it is true, it was called divine because of its historical effects, but not eternal. It became so, however, in 1833. According to Thaning it was on this background that Grundtvig spoke about the contrast between church and school, faith and science, the temporal and the eternal.In 1833 - unlike in 1832 - the Mosaic-Christian view has moved on to the side of the Church, faith and eternity, and is thus not entitled to impose ecclesiastical forms on state and school. Here, according to Thaning’s understanding of Grundtvig, the Greek view must prevail, and it thus becomes clear that Grundtvig now »has a changed view of life«, which further appears from his enthusiastic outbursts at »thus escaping from the chaos of the thought-world that we have found ourselves in through many centuries«. It is this constant consideration for life which is the need of the time, Grundtvig says. And this is what Thaning calls a »conversion«.Thaning also finds that Michelsen’s reference to the small pamphlet .On the Clausen Libel Case. is misunderstood, as is also his conjecture about the influence of Clara Bolton on Grundtvig’s view of freedom. According to Thaning, it was in the pamphlet .On the Baptismal Covenant. that the idea arose that it would be possible for Grundtvig and his opponents to be in the state church together, if only it was made legal for the individual churchgoer to frequent a church of his own choice. Later this thought leads to the church being renamed, in Grundtvig’s usage, »a social institution« (1834).There should be a generous competition, not a struggle in the church, Thaning writes, »....the thought of the Biblical view as common to people of spirit, among them the naturalists (H.N. Clausen) means that Grundtvig can offer them reconciliation and cultural cooperation«, he says. »It is a manifestation of a new view in Grundtvig,« he claims, »and of the new view of freedom which is proclaimed in the dedicatory poem of Norse Mythology which ... is a far cry from the small pamphlet against Clausen from 1831«

Svar til tre kritikere

Answer to tree critics from parish priest Kaj Thanin

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”

Holdt tesen?

Did the Thesis Hold? By Kaj Thaning A. Pontoppidan Thyssen, D. D. - like K. E. Bugge, D. D. in his thesis Skolen for livet - has taken up a critical attitude towards my work Menneske først -Grundtvigs opgør med sig selv. P. Th.’s criticism appeared in print in Kirke historiske samlinger V, 3, 1965. He attacks my main thesis according to which the year 1832 marked the turning point in Grundtvig’s life, because it saw his conversion to “life and human nature” resulting in a clash with his earlier outlook on Christianity and a gradually advancing clarification in all fields as he came to devote his energy to the various tasks confronting him. P. Th. maintains that the development was more gradual, that much was anticipated before 1832, and that decisive matters were not clarified until later, just as self-contradictions still occur in his outlook. Further, I am supposed to have made use of modem concepts in such a way as to smooth out contradictions. As regards the objections to my treatment of the period before 1832 my answer will have to be deferred to a later work. Of course it is true that everything before 1832 conditions the clarification of that year. Without this basis there would have been no problem. But the solution to the problem manifested itself in 1832. Bugge’s thesis confirms my view of the outlook characteristic of Grundtvig’s home (the Lutheran Christianity of repentance or “a kind of pietism” ), and he documents what I have inferred from the (later) heart-searchings of Grundtvig. I agree with P. Th. that Grundtvig is still marked by this outlook, but one might well ask whether the accents of a Christianity of repentance in his preaching are not due to his dependence on the Bible (the literature of St. John; St. Paul). Grundtvig was faithful to the Bible. P. Th. will not accept that a “profane” discovery of human life (the impressions from England) may have a positive influence on a view of Christianity, but this is a theological prejudice in him. The fact is that in this way a false view of Christianity may be divested of demonism. It will then serve and not rule, because Christianity is no longer the great heavenly example to be followed in our management of the world (this was Grundtvig’s earlier view), but a defenceless Gospel. By Christianity in Lutheran dress Grundtvig’s problem (the relation between Christianity and human life) was raised, and strictly speaking it would be biographically correct in his case to say “first a Christian”. But it was the solution to the problem that conditioned as a matter of principle his “motto” : “first a human being” . P. Th. will not be convinced that Mrs. Clara Bolton was the original cause of clarification, but the evidence as presented in my book may receive further substantiation. P. Th. criticizes my use of the word “secularization” as a means of interpretation with regard to Grundtvig’s work— the mythology, the world history, the church history, and the chief treatise on church politics: “Den danske Statskirke” . But nowhere did I use the word in the modern sense equivalent to a wiping out of the importance of Christianity or the Church (“secularism” ). It is only a means to interpret Grundtvig’s own intention, since he now consciously wants to give up his earlier inclination to christianize culture, politics, enlightenment etc. which made Christianity rule and not serve. Thus he now secularizes his view of the “spirit” (as distinct from the Holy Ghost), the writting of history, his view of society, poetry, and the church institution which is now something different from the Holy Universal Church, namely a thing of this world. Accordingly, when writing ecclesiastical history he points out the purely human basis of the church. The history of the Word of God itself is obviously not secularized: it is not considered a human phenomenon. P. Th. is right, however, in finding less than sufficient comment in my book on some passages in “Den danske Statskirke” concerning certain statements about the necessity of Christianity to culture. By juxtaposing a series of quotations from the treatise on the continuation of the Lutheran reformation (1831), from the treatise on the State church, and from an unprinted draft: “Om statsmæssig Oplysning” (both from 1834) I try to throw light on the gulf between Grundtvig’s outlook in 1831 and 1834 respectively, and upon the continuity between 1832 and 1834. Before, the preacher saw in a normative Christianity the necessary means to the preservation of culture; now, with arguments of statesmanship the historian urges that the ancestral faith should remain within the State church as long as this is not made impossible by the introduction and enforcement of new, modernized rituals. That is to say, the arguments have become secularized. And freedom is now a condition if the ancestral faith is to give inspiration to cultural life. Culture is no longer to be reformed according to a lofty Christian ideal. Rather, the State should just see to it that faith is left alone to work its wonders, little or great. The essential thing is really for a free and competitive spirit within the State church to promote enlightenment and influence culture in a decisive way. Of course Grundtvig does not pursue his line of thought without some deviations, but these are more fortuitous than P. Th. is willing to admit. Throughout I have tried to find Grundtvig’s real aim and thus to emphasize what seems to me essential in his work. In my opinion his separation of human and Christian makes it possible for him as a clergyman to preach the unity of God and man: God’s salvation concerns human life, but human life is there before being addressed by the word of salvation. That is why the dissociation receives emphasis. To maintain, as P. Th. does, that Grundtvig wants to assert “at the same time” the connection and the distinction between human and Christian is therefore an abstraction. The separation is the condition of any talk of connection or “interaction” . P. Th. maintains that I interpret Grundtvig by modem concepts (secularizaiotion, existentialist philosophy, “de-mythicization” ) to arrive at a “living” Grundtvig; he would rather have a correct picture of the “historical” Grundtvig. That is just what I meant to give, however, partly by understanding his ideology in comparison with Irenæus, Schelling, and others, partly by not bringing modem concepts into his view but explaining how he “secularizes” (what other word is there?), how he reflects on the human condition (as distinct from the present) and places such an understanding of life “before” the hearing of the Gospel. And how he distinguishes between letter and spirit in this connection. If we do not keep the historical distance, he will cease to be a challenge. His heart-searchings still concern us. The historical Grundtvig is the living Grundtvig

Grundtvig og den grundlovgivende rigsforsamling

Grundtvig and the Constituent Assembly, 1848—49. By Kaj Thaning. Grundtvig developed his political theories in England. In summing up his position with regard to the period from 1815 to 1848 he says: “ Of two evils one must choose the lesser, and freedom without order has always, at any rate since I first saw England, been in my opinion a lesser evil than order without freedom”. His opposition to the movement which was working for a free constitution only meant that he did not believe in “ the artificial, so-called free forms, which if they . . . were to rule unrestricted, would . . . make us all slaves, so that it would only be the freedom of death at the expense of life”. He abhorred and ridiculed the foreign word “ Constitution” and those who shouted loudly for it, but he fought for the freedom of human life, making a sharp distinction between life and forms. The passage which is central for an understanding of his political thought is this: “ Human life demands its rights: its needful sustenance, its beneficial freedom, and its high dignity under all forms of government, and naturally chooses (when it has the choice) the form which at the moment, in accordance with the nature of the people, time and place, seems likely to be most in harmony with the inalienable rights of human life and best to secure the indispensable freedom, necessary balance and ever-advancing enlightenment of that same human life”. The characteristic thing about him is that he will on no account be bound to fixed forms. They must change with the times. People must choose the form which at the moment suits the people, time and place — it is the life of the moment, life in a quite definite situation, that the form must serve. In this sense he is a realist, not an idealist. He is at pains to abjure general political ideas: ideas are always greedy for domination at the expense of life. Holding this view, he stood alone among his political contemporaries. The Conservatives, the men of the absolute monarchy, were overwhelmed by the course of events in 1848 and were obliged unresistingly to watch the old times and the old ideology sink into the grave. Taken by surprise, they submitted to the new state of things. And the Liberals enthusiastically introduced the new ideas after a foreign (mostly Franco-Belgian) pattern, but, when later on they were disappointed because developments did not answer to their bright expectations, they had to cut off a heel here and a toe there to save the system — and their own position — in the country. In reality Grundtvig’s political ideas had greater unity, because he did not idealise forms. Therefore he could, with head up and all the bands playing, go over from his belief in the absolute monarchy as the most popular (“ folkelig” ) form of government to the free Constitution, when it became clear that life could be served by it. In one place he quotes the Englishmen’s only argument for using a particular form: “ it works well”. Grundtvig, also, took the same sober view of the significance of forms, in opposition to the spokesmen of freedom around him, who in his opinion idealised and worshipped forms. Grundtvig has been called an out-and-out Liberal. But the word has many meanings. The National Liberals, his political opponents, were also “ Liberal” . Grundtvig drew a distinction, e.g., between “ the French freedom” which in his opinion was an individualistic conception and had the single individual as its goal, and the English freedom: “he only is free who is willing to let his neighbour be free along with him”. Freedom and inter-connection are here two sides of the same thing. Grundtvig’s “ Liberalism” had an English, not a Continental inspiration. This was of great significance for political development in Denmark. Through Grundtvig’s contribution to politics we get the most living close-up portrait of him which survives. The 4,000 columns of stenographers’ reports in the Parliamentary Gazette (“ Rigsdagstidende” ) for 1848—49 give a vivid impression of the dialogue carried on between Grundtvig and his period. As a writer he occupies an altogether isolated position. In Parliament, too, he stands completely alone, but at the same time in actual converse with his opponents. Sometimes there is a fulmination of retorts, so that the Speaker’s bell has to ring. On the election day itself Grundtvig failed to get elected in the Nyboder division of Copenhagen, where the rival candidate, the head of the Navy, had great influence upon the electors, who chiefly consisted of the men of the fleet. After the election, complaints were made about the indirect pressure which had been exercised upon the electors. (Voting was not by secret ballot at that time.) — But all the same Grundtvig got into the Constituent Assembly — through a bye-election in the Præstø division, his home district. A petition with 2,000 signatures had vainly urged his appointment by the King — a certain number of the members of the Assembly were directly appointed by the King. The new King, Frederik VII — unlike his predecessor — had no special acquaintance with Grundtvig. Grundtvig himself was very pleased at the way in which he got into the Assembly. He was elected with 600 votes against 11, and the election day ended with a festival at which, according to Grundtvig’s description, “ nobleman and clergyman, soldier, citizen and peasant . . . gave each other their hands in the kindly feeling that all Danes are the sons of one mother” . This idyll stood in sharp contrast to the conflict Grundtvig occasioned from the first moment in the Assembly. His first words were a protest — against the truce with the Germans and the general direction of the war —, and his last words were a protest, when in 1866 he, at the age of 83, let himself be elected to the Upper House simply in order to protest against the reactionary revision of the Constitution of 1849. In spite of the fact that he never let himself be captured by any Party, it became increasingly clear that he was the champion of the peasants in weal and woe, so that later on “ the Association of Friends of the Peasants” (“ Bondevennernes Selskab” ) were very glad to see him elected. His chief enemy was, and remained, “the Professors’ Party”, the National Liberals, who in his opinion wanted to misuse the Constitution to consolidate the power of the educated, lacking trust in the people. They put their stamp on the draft Constitution and the electoral law to such an extent that Grundtvig could not vote for either of them. He would not vote for the Constitution because it gave too little freedom. The “monied men” would be able to get power over the Upper House — here Grundtvig foresaw the conflict which eventually came and involved the country in a long, unhappy strife. Even his political opponent, Bishop Monrad, was obliged, many years after Grundtvig’s protest, to acknowledge that he had been right. — But neither would he vote against the Constitution: “ That would have meant siding with those whose views I could least of all share” — i. e., the Conservatives. Grundtvig’s work in the Assembly apparently had no special result. Still, he was one of the few who got something inserted in the draft Constitution. His insertion was: “ Public and oral proceedings shall, as soon and as widely as possible, be put into force in all the administration of justice”. The victory gave him pleasure. But many proposed alterations were rejected, many of them because of his peculiar way of formulating them, which the jurist members disliked. However, many of his ideas have subsequently triumphed. Undoubtedly none of the members of the Constituent Assembly provoked so many different moods in the Assembly as Grundtvig — from the heartiest merriment to fury. His speeches, according to the Parliamentary Gazette, were constantly interrupted by laughter. But sometimes a tumult arose, and once the stenographer had to give in altogether — he simply could not reproduce the commotion aroused by Grundtvig’s speech. The occasion was Grundtvig’s fight against universal military conscription, and it was no doubt the “ Friends of the Peasants” (“ Bondevennerne” ) who made the row. But in return it was also they who interrupted him with shouts of approval when he was attacking the proposal of the Constitution Committee that nothing should be taught “which is in conflict with morality or public order”. Some extracts from this speech give us a glimpse of the extent to which the people responded to Grundtvig’s fight against the State Church with its absolutist stamp, and indeed to his fight for freedom in general. “According to all that I know either of Christianity itself or of its history, it is so far from wishing in any way to limit the freedom of religious belief that it much rather establishes it in the strongest possible way; I am fully convinced that it is never the original, genuine Christianity, but always merely a false and merely a self-made Christianity which tries to obtain a kingdom of this world. (Hear! Hear!) It is always the case that anyone who knows that Christians in all ages have themselves demanded full freedom for their faith and worship of God must also be able to see that if Christianity were to deny the same freedom to others, it would both forfeit its own freedom and at the same time impair the element of freedom in which alone it can breathe and live and thrive. (Spoken like a Christian! Hear! Hear!) . . . the whole of world history teaches us that where this freedom is lacking, no civic freedom can rightly strike root or bear fruit; therefore, if not for its own sake, yet for the sake of all civic and human freedom, one should strive to have it as completely as possible; and if people try to frighten us out of this freedom by enumerating the many dangers which it might bring with it, we should behave as we would if someone tried to frighten the life out of us by enumerating and depicting all the dangers to which human life is undeniably exposed from the cradle to the grave: just as in that case we never ought to give any other answer than: ‘Life is good for everything, and death for nothing; therefore we will keep life and try to avoid and get through its dangers as well as we can’, so we shall also answer here: ‘Freedom is good for all that is good. Slavery is no good for anything that is good in the world of the spirit, therefore we will have freedom with all its dangers’”. Grundtvig left the speaker’s rostrum, greeted with shouts of “ Bravo!” Towards the close of the Constituent Assembly, Grundtvig in a letter to one of his sons surveyed his own part in the proceedings: “ It is a drama which is necessary under the circumstances, and in which I have freely undertaken to play a part on condition of never having to play the part of anybody but myself, and as I have always been doubtful as to how far I should be allowed to enjoy this my inalienable and undefended right, still I observe that on the whole it has been granted to me without grumbling, and, thank God, I believe that even if we seem to be only players, still people do feel it when we are human beings and men who will something good, know what we will, and dare whan we ought . . . So at bottom I have, as always on the whole, good hope and much more boldness to say and do what I consider good and beneficial than ever before ...

Prædikenen 31.7. 1825 og dens hidtil utrykte slutning

Grundtvig’s Sermon for July 31st, 1825 and its unpublished endingBy Kaj ThanningIn his Grundtvig selection Holger Begtrup included the Sermon for July 31st, 1825, in which Grundtvig proclaimed his “unparalleled discovery” for the first time; but the ending to the sermon was missing. During a registration o f the papers it was discovered amongst a number o f drafts for the articles in Th.M. (File 113 L), and it is published here with a brief introduction by Kaj Thaning.In the sermon several themes from his work during the previous week can be traced, and thus in the ending we find his reflections on the possible conflict between the creed and the scriptures.Both discoveries can be seen in the sermon - the matrix o f the Church and the significance o f the apostolic creed, but now they are fused into one.In one o f the drafts in File 97, written after the two discoveries, Grundtvig formulates his case concisely: the questions is, “whether the Church is built on a book or a rock, whether the scriptures derive from the Word, or the Word from the scriptures, whether the Spirit is plucked out o f the air or received in baptism, whether the head lives o ff the heart or the heart o ff the head”.

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