ABSTRACT
The word “monasticism” corresponds to the Danish Munkevæsen, and “Monastery” or “cloister” to the Danish Kloster. A cloister is a building or house that is a residence for a community of monks or nuns, and it sometimes refers to this community itself.1 Kierkegaard gave considerable attention to the monastic movement, and his dialectical account of it is utilized to criticize the Christendom of his time. One of his pseudonyms, Johannes Climacus, which was also the title of an unpublished work, comes from the name of a monk (c. 570-649) who wrote the book Ladder of Paradise, whose thirty chapters describe the steps of the ladder to perfection.2 In his published writings, Kierkegaard gives his readers the fullest analysis of monasticism through the pen of Johannes Climacus’ Concluding Unscientific Postscript. He provides much briefer treatments of this notion in Either/Or, For Self-Examination, and Judge for Yourself! Passing references to monasticism can be found in The Concept of Irony, Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety, Stages on Life’s Way, Practice in Christianity, The Point of View, as well as in Kierkegaard’s early and late polemical writings. We can also learn much about his understanding of the concept in the close to fifty journal entries in which he discusses it.
