ABSTRACT
One pervasive theme in Søren Kierkegaard’s thought is the gripping conviction that nineteenth-century Danish Christendom was but a mere shadow of “true Christianity.” To explicate this conviction, his primary rhetorical technique was to juxtapose the earnestness of New Testament Christianity against his contemporaries’ “playing at Christianity,” against the “Christianity of the majority.”1 Yet, there are a few moments when Kierkegaard also appeals to the early Church to highlight the sharp decline that occurred over the centuries. Although Kierkegaard rarely read the theologians of the early Church, their occasional addition to the conversation helps us to discern-although by no means exhaustively or uniformly-how Kierkegaard perceived his own task in relation to the long and winding history of Christianity.
