Yet Another Citation Examination

There is a quote I have seen online attributed to Søren Kierkegaard (sometimes written Soren Kierkegaard), a famous Danish Lutheran theologian. That quote is this one:

"In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense: Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the death of Christ The Atoner. What Martin Luther, in his reformation, failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity had become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ. Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down, making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ."

However, no one I have found gives a citation any more specific than saying he wrote it in "The Journals", and some do not even give that. Such a vague citation by itself means one should be skeptical of this quote, but I was nevertheless curious and decided to try to look into it for myself. To give spoilers, the quote up through "Christ the Atoner" is an edited jumble of several separate remarks that Kierkegaard made. Everything after that (namely, the portion where it switches to criticizing Paul), however, appears to be completely made up.

Now, "The Journals" must refer to the "Journalen" (Danish for journals), which were... well, journals. Kierkegaard wrote a lot of his thoughts in them, and they were later published. The problem is that simply saying "The Journals" is not particularly useful when one considers the fact that taken altogether, these are thousands of pages long. This is how we know those who copy this have not verified it, for if they had they would be more specific about where it was found.

The good news for us is that the Journals have been translated into English, but they are very lengthy; the English translation I consulted is seven volumes, including an index. However, simply telling us it's in "The Journals" gives us little hint as to where it is.

The English translation I am using is the one from the 1970's entitled "Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers". This one does not present the journal entries in the original order, but instead reorders them by subject matter; however, it does present the original locations they were found, which I will include in my citations in parentheses. Now, searching through thousands of pages is infeasible for obvious reasons. But, again, there is an index. On pages 70-71 the Index volume has an entry for Paul (and sub-entries for "Life of Paul" and "Writings of Paul"), which give a list of all the times he is mentioned. So, I decided to look up every single one of these (including the subcategories) to see if I could find this quote.

For the record, most of the volumes are available online. Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 4, and Volume 7 (Index). Unfortunately, volumes 3, 5, and 6 do not seem to be; I had to get the physical copies from a library.

Having looked through every case in the index where it says Paul is mentioned, it appears that the above quote is a hoax. Or, more accurately, the latter portion of it is. The opening can be found, although edited and cobbled together from several different quotes, but everything from "What Martin Luther, at the Reformation" to the end appears made up.

However, even the less inaccurate beginning portion is not exactly accurate either, being an edited conglomeration of multiple separate things Kierkegaard says. In #4455, page 296 of volume 4 (X1 A 383 n.d. 1849) he writes the following:

"As soon as the religious leaves the existential present, where it is sheer actuosity, it immediately becomes milder. The process of religion's becoming milder and thereby less true is directly recognizable by its becoming a doctrine. As soon as it becomes doctrine, the religious does not have absolute urgency.* In Christ the religious is completely present tense; in Paul it is already on the way to becoming doctrine.
One can imagine the rest! And the tendency to become essentially a matter of doctrine, the complete departure from the religious begins, and this trend has been kept up for God knows how many centuries.
In margin: * Note. There comes to be more and more delay before I get around to doing it, and finally (when the religious has become doctrine completely) it all becomes total delay."

Bolded is the section from the quote. So we do see "is completely present tense". However, this does not quite match the quote; in the actual statement he says "In Christ the religious is completely present tense" but the alleged quote swaps it to "In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense." This difference, perhaps, can be ascribed to difference of translation. What cannot be ascribed to translation difference is the fact that the alleged quote follows this with "Jesus is the prototype", but this is nowhere to be found in the actual quote, which continues differently. The next sentence of the alleged quote is from Kierkegaard, but from a different part of his work entirely. So the alleged quote has simply plucked one sentence out of context and then, without using any kind of ellipsis to admit it, acts as if what came afterwards came right after.

The next portion of the alleged quote is "Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the death of Christ The Atoner". This is an edited version of something Kierkegaard says in another entry altogether. In section 1877 (x3 A 409 n.d., 1850) it says, on pages 333-334 of volume 2:

"When Jesus Christ lived, he was indeed the prototype. The task of faith is not to be offended by this particular man who is God, but to believe–and then to imitate [følge efter] Christ, become a disciple.
Then Christ dies. Now, through the apostle Paul, comes a basic alteration."

I have bolded the sections that match the quote (or at least sort of match it); the bracketed text is in the translation I consulted. As one can easily see, the quote skips over various things Kierkegaard said with no indication it is doing so. Kierkegaard goes on in this entry, and the quote then skips over multiple sentences until it reaches the next part of the quote which I bolded:

"He puts infinite stress on the death of Christ as the Atonement; the object of faith becomes the atoning death of Christ.
In this way the prototype qua prototype is shifted further away. As long as Christ was living and the prototype walked and stood here on earth, existence [Tilværelsen] was as if shattered–the absolute always shatters existence.
Now comes the alteration: the prototype is turned in such a way that his very death, his death of Atonement, becomes particularly emphasized.
While the apostle is enunciating this doctrine, his life meanwhile expresses imitation. But in order that no blasphemy may appear, as if the apostle thought he could attain to Christ by imitating him, he draws attention away from imitation and fixes it decisively upon the death of Christ the Atoner.
This is Christianity for us men. Christ's life on Earth is Christianity, which no man can endure."

So the alleged quote skips over all of those sentences until it reaches the bolded part, which it cuts into mid-sentence, removing the context. After that the alleged quote turns to being severely critical of Paul, which is not what Kierkegaard does at all afterwards. Here is the rest of that entry, showing what he actually said:

"Then in the course of time imitation or discipleship, again misconceived, is emphasized.
Then Luther puts the relationship straight again.
But then Luther is misused. Imitation is excluded completely and "grace" is taken in vain.
Imitation there must be, but not in such a way that one becomes self-important by it or weeks thereby to earn salvation. No, grace is the decisive factor.
But if the relationship is to be true, then it is particularly "grace," grace alone, which must be declared by the person whose life nevertheless expresses imitation in the strictest sense. If the person who is preaching grace is someone whose life expresses the opposite of imitation, then it is taking grace in vain. No, but when someone whose life rigorously expressed imitation preaches grace, then the relationship is true–grace, in very truth, is kept at par value. The more it might seem, humanly speaking, as if such a person were almost looking for credit, the more true his proclamation is that it is sheer grace by which a man is saved.
Here we see again that Christianity is related to the person who proclaims it–consequently it is as far as possible from a "doctrine.""

Outside of sharing a mention of Luther, this bears no resemblance to the rest of the quote attributed to Kierkegaard (claiming "Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ"). Nor is the latter portion of the alleged quote ("Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul" through "the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ") found anywhere else I have been able to find in the Journals. That portion appears completely made up.

I did rely on the Index, so there is a possibility that it was missed in the Index. But there are two additional good reasons to be skeptical that Kierkegaard would make such critical remarks about Paul. The first is that, having read all of the other things in the journals that mention Paul, Kierkegaard is clearly positive about him. Does one think the same man who wrote " I do not listen to Paul because he is brilliant or incomparably brilliant, but I submit to him because he has divine authority" would be claiming Paul subverted Christianity? (the quote I gave is from from 3088, page 405 of volume 3 (VII2 B 256:9 n.d., 1846-47)).

However, someone might claim that Kierkegaard changed his mind and the alleged quote comes from later in his life. This brings us to the second reason to be very skeptical of this quote. Kierkegaard was a pretty famous theologian. If a prominent theologian like him had said something like the alleged quote has, I'm sure it would be better known and would be mentioned by writers about Kierkegaard, and not a vaguely cited quote online mentioned by a few fringe writers. Yet I have looked at several encyclopedia articles on Kierkegaard, as well as scholarly articles specifically regarding Kierkegaard and Paul, and none mention Kierkegaard as having any particular animus towards Paul.

So the alleged quote seems to be a hoax... or, at least, the latter part of it where it suddenly turns to being harshly critical of Paul is a hoax. The first part of the alleged quote is somewhat more legitimate, but it is also the part that lacks the "controversy" of the later part, and even that more legitimate part involves combining multiple separate writings while cutting out entire sentences without giving any indication it is doing so.

I understand that not everyone has the time to do what I did, but surely the vagueness of the citation--not giving any page number or edition--should be a tip-off that the quote is questionable and people should avoid citing it without verification? And yet, as is the case with so many of these sorts of vaguely cited quotes, some people see them and just assume they're accurate when they're not. And if someone does not care enough about getting things right to avoid a mistake like this, why should one believe that they care enough about getting other things right, such as any other vaguely cited quotes they offer?