ABSTRACT
Frederik Ludvig Zeuthen (1805-74) and Søren Kierkegaard collided during the latter’s attack on the Church in 1854-55. Zeuthen, a pastor in the Danish church, swung the sword over the church stormer with a certain unctuousness, and although Kierkegaard considered an extended response, it ended only with a brief piece against the attacker. Zeuthen was a warrior for the Lord. In the history of the Danish church he is remembered as an energetic critic of Grundtvig’s and his followers’ view of the origin of the creed. Not least of all Kierkegaard’s elder brother, Peter Christian Kierkegaard (1805-88) bore the brunt of his critique,2 although responded at length and sharply3-it was not without reason that during his journey abroad from 1828 to 1830 he was given the nickname, “Der Disputierteufel aus Norden.”4 Jakob Peter Mynster (1775-1854), the bishop of Zealand, seems to have appreciated Zeuthenalthough he had noted a characteristic unctuous element in his preaching style.5 Zeuthen was also a warm follower of the bishop’s and his successor’s, Hans Lassen Martensen’s (1808-84) theology of mediation, according to which Christianity and bourgeois culture constitute a unity. It was this unity that Søren Kierkegaard designated mockingly as “Christendom.” But whereas Søren Kierkegaard, according to Zeuthen’s view, had to say “either Christianity or culture,” the relation between bourgeois culture and Christianity was, for Zeuthen, a “both/and.” They have, he claims, “stood together in history, and it is to Christianity’s merit that it has furthered
1 Pap. XI-3 B 142, p. 227 / M, Supplement, p. 533. 2 Cf. Frederik Ludvig Zeuthen, Om den saakaldte “Kirkelige Anskuelse,” Copenhagen: Andr. Fr. Høst 1858, Nogle Ord om Troesbekjendelsen og Daaben, Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad 1873. 3 “Oplysninger og Bemærkninger til Forsvar for Læren om Kirke-Ordet og dens Venner,” in Nordisk Tidsskrift for christelig Theologi, vol. 2, 1840, pp. 58-96; pp. 218-28, republished in P.C. Kierkegaard, Samlede Skrifter, vols. 1-6, 1902-06, Copenhagen: K. Schönberg, vol. 1, pp. 356-405. 4 Carl Weltzer, Peter og Søren Kierkegaard, Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad 1936, p. 25.
