In this Book
- Kierkegaard's Writings, XVII, Volume 17: Christian Discourses: The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress.
- Book
- 2009
- Published by: Princeton University Press
- Series: Kierkegaard's Writings
First published in 1848, Christian Discourses is a quartet of pieces written and arranged in contrasting styles. Parts One and Three, "The Cares of the Pagans" and "Thoughts That Wound from Behind--for Upbuilding," serve as a polemical overture to Kierkegaard's collision with the established order of Christendom. Yet Parts Two and Four, "Joyful Notes in the Strife of Suffering" and "Discourses at the Communion on Fridays," are reassuring affirmations of the joy and blessedness of Christian life in a world of adversity and suffering. Written in ordinary language, the work combines simplicity and inwardness with reflection and presents crucial Christian concepts and presuppositions with unusual clarity.
Kierkegaard continued in the pattern that he began with his first pseudonymous esthetic work, Either/Or, by pairing Christian Discourses with The Crisis, an unsigned esthetic essay on contemporary Danish actress Joanne Luise Heiberg.
Table of Contents
- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. i-iv
- Historical Introduction
- pp. xi-xvii
- Christian Discourses
- Introduction
- pp. 9-12
- I. The Care of Poverty
- pp. 13-22
- II. The Care of Abundance
- pp. 23-36
- III. The Care of Lowliness
- pp. 37-47
- IV. The Care of Loftiness
- pp. 48-59
- V. The Care of Presumptuousness
- pp. 60-69
- VI. The Care of Self-Torment
- pp. 70-80
- Part Two: States of Mind in the Strife of Suffering
- Part Three: Thoughts That Wound from Behind—for Upbuilding
- VII. He Was Believed in the World
- pp. 234-246
- Part Four: Discourses at the Communion on Fridays
- I. Luke 22:15
- pp. 251-261
- II. Matthew 11:28
- pp. 262-267
- III. John 10:27
- pp. 268-274
- IV. I Corinthians 11:23
- pp. 275-281
- V. II Timothy 2:12-13
- pp. 282-288
- VI. I John 3:20
- pp. 289-295
- VII. Luke 24:51
- pp. 296-300
- Addendum: Phister as Captain Scipio
- pp. 327-344
- Supplement
- p. 345
- Key to References
- pp. 346-347
- Editorial Appendix
- pp. 429-430
- Acknowledgments
- pp. 431-432
- Bibliographical Note
- pp. 467-468