Three Upbuilding Discourses

Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 was to be published at Bianco Luno Press. As Søren Kierkegaard arrived he stood at the end of a long line of authors. Another person walked in behind him and immediately tried to go to the front of the line, but the first person in line wouldn’t let him in, so he tried the second, and then the third, and so on until he came to Søren. He took one look at Søren and said, "On wild trees, the flowers are fragrant, on cultivated trees, the fruits." Søren let him stand in front of him.

By this time a very pensive individual had stepped in line behind him and said, "What Tarquinius Superbus said in the garden by means of the poppies, the son understood but the messenger did not." These were code words for the spy network Magister Kierkegaard set up in opposition to the “deified established order”.

His trusted spies were Johannes de Silentio, and Constantin Constantius. Johannes handed him a note and said nothing more. The note said, “in modern philosophy, every assistant professor, tutor, and student, every rural outsider and tenant incumbent in philosophy is unwilling to stop with doubting everything but goes further. … people are unwilling to stop with faith.”

Constantin said, “Repetition and recollection are the same movement, except in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been, is repeated backward, whereas genuine repetition is recollected forward. Repetition, therefore, if it is possible, makes a person happy-assuming, of course, that he gives himself time to live and does not promptly at birth find an excuse to sneak out of life again, for example, that he has forgotten something. … Hope is a new garment. … Recollection is a discarded garment. ... Repetition is an indestructible garment. ... it takes courage to will repetition.”

Søren thought for a moment and said, The Bible says the world has four corners but science now says the world is round. What if someone where to say, “Boom! The earth is round!” and to continually repeat this generation after generation? Wouldn't it seem to be some kind of insanity, since everyone knows the earth is round? Kierkegaard wondered how this kind of statement could affect faith. He gave his soldiers their orders and they departed.

This whole scene is for illustrative purposes only. The three of them never have met at Bianco Luno Press, the books were printed there but Three Upbuilding Discourses was published by Bookdealer P. G. Philipsen.Fear and Trembling, by Johannes de Silentio, and Repetition, by Constantin Constantius, were both published by C.A. Reitzel's. No good spy master would get all his books published at the same place. All three books were published by the same person, Søren Kierkegaard, and all three were published on the same date, October 16, 1843.