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    The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses
    The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses
    The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses

    By Søren Kierkegaard and Bruce H. Kirmmse

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    About this ebook

    A masterful new translation of one of Kierkegaard's most engaging works

    In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his followers to let go of earthly concerns by considering the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. Søren Kierkegaard's short masterpiece on this famous gospel passage draws out its vital lessons for readers in a rapidly modernizing and secularizing world. Trenchant, brilliant, and written in stunningly lucid prose, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air (1849) is one of Kierkegaard's most important books. Presented here in a fresh new translation with an informative introduction, this profound yet accessible work serves as an ideal entrée to an essential modern thinker.

    The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air reveals a less familiar but deeply appealing side of the father of existentialism—unshorn of his complexity and subtlety, yet supremely approachable. As Kierkegaard later wrote of the book, "Without fighting with anybody and without speaking about myself, I said much of what needs to be said, but movingly, mildly, upliftingly."

    This masterful edition introduces one of Kierkegaard's most engaging and inspiring works to a new generation of readers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateMar 1, 2016
    ISBN9781400880478
    The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses
    Author

    Søren Kierkegaard

    Nace en 1813 y fallece en 1854. Figura entre los grandes de la historia del pensamiento. Su personalidad y su obra han sido calificadas de «tumultuosas, desbordantes e incontenibles». Conviven en él una radical vanguardia en cuanto a los temas (valoración del individuo, crítica de la sociedad de su tiempo, angustia existencial, radicalidad de la culpa, sentimiento de soledad y abandono) y al estilo (cuestión de los pseudónimos, disolución de los géneros clásicos, diálogo entre literatura, filosofía y religión) con una vuelta al cristianismo originario, la reivindicación del patronazgo moral del socratismo platónico o la universalidad de la herencia clásica. Arrinconado al principio por su enfrentamiento con el cristianismo establecido de su época, fue rescatado por G. Brandes, T. S. Haecker y M. Heidegger. A España llegó tempranamente a través de Høffding y Unamuno, que le llamaba «el hermano Kierkegaard». Recientemente se ha recuperado el interés por su magnífica obra y su inquietante personalidad, fruto del cual son los numerosos estudios en torno a su pensamiento y la publicación de una nueva edición de sus escritos. En el marco de la edición castellana de los Escritos de Søren Kierkegaard, basada en la edición crítica danesa, han sido ya publicados: Escritos 1. De los papeles de alguien que todavía vive. Sobre el concepto de ironía (2.ª edición, 2006); Escritos 2. O lo uno o lo otro. Un fragmento de vida I (2006); Escritos 3. O lo uno o lo otro. Un fragmento de vida II (2007); Escritos 5. Discursos edificantes. Tres discursos para ocasiones supuestas (2010) y Migajas filosóficas o un poco de filosofía (5.ª edición, 2007). De Kierkegaard han sido también publicados en esta misma Editorial: Los lirios del campo y las aves del cielo (2007), La enfermedad mortal (2008), Ejercitación del cristianismo (2009), Para un examen de sí mismo recomendado a este tiempo (2011), El Instante (2.ª edición, 2012) y La época presente (2012), Apuntes sobre la Filosofía de la Revelación de F. W. J. Schelling (1841-1842)(2014), El libro sobre Adler. Un ciclo de ensayos ético-religiosos (2021) y Escritos 6. Etapas en el camino de la vida (2023).

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      Kierkegaard was a true servant of Christ. That's all you need to know.

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    Book preview

    The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air - Søren Kierkegaard

    the lily of the field

    and

    the bird of the air

    THE LILY OF THE FIELD

    AND

    THE BIRD OF THE AIR

    Three Godly Discourses

    SØREN KIERKEGAARD

    Translated and with an introduction

    by Bruce H. Kirmmse

    PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

    Princeton and Oxford

    Copyright © 2016 by Princeton University Press

    Published by Princeton University Press,

    41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

    In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,

    6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW

    press.princeton.edu

    Jacket photograph: Pink Lilies (Liliaceae), Some in Bloom, Others Wilting. Courtesy of David Axelbank/ Gallery Stock

    All Rights Reserved

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Names: Kierkegaard, Søren, 1813–1855.

    Title: The lily of the field and the bird of the air : three godly

    discourses / Søren Kierkegaard; translated and with an

    introduction by Bruce H. Kirmmse.

    Other titles: Lilien paa marken og fuglen under himlen. English

    Description: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2016.

    Identifiers: LCCN 2015035995 | ISBN 9780691170473

    (hardback : alk. paper)

    Subjects: LCSH: Christian life—Lutheran authors. |

    Philosophy, Danish.

    Classification: LCC BV4505 .K45513 2016 |

    DDC 242—dc23 LC record available at

    http://lccn.loc.gov/2015035995

    British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

    This book has been composed in Adobe Caslon Pro

    Printed on acid-free paper. ∞

    Printed in the United States of America

    1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

    CONTENTS

    Introduction: Letting Nature Point beyond Nature

    BRUCE H. KIRMMSE    vii

    THE LILY OF THE FIELD AND THE BIRD OF THE AIR

    BY SØREN KIERKEGAARD    1

    Preface    3

    Prayer    5

    The Gospel for the 15th Sunday after Trinity Sunday    7

    I. Look at the birds of the air; consider the lily of the field.    9

    II. No one can serve two masters, for he must either hate the one and love the other, or hold fast to one and despise the other.    39

    III. Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns—unconcerned about tomorrow. "Consider the grass of the field—which today is."    71

    INTRODUCTION

    Letting Nature Point beyond Nature

    BRUCE H. KIRMMSE

    SØREN KIERKEGAARD is perhaps most known for his pseudonymous works, including Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and The Sickness unto Death, all of which have a clear (if not always immediately visible) religious undercurrent. But he also wrote a good many non-pseudonymous, overtly religious works, most of which consisted of what he called discourses (because he was not ordained, he felt it inappropriate to label them sermons). He made frequent use of Matthew 6:24–34, a portion of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus tells his followers to let go of earthly concerns by considering the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. This is a passage that can be interpreted in various ways and put to many different uses, and Kierkegaard had done so on numerous occasions prior to publishing the present work, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air: Three Godly Discourses, in April 1849.¹ For example, the second part of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, which Kierkegaard had published in March 1847, consisted of three discourses collectively titled What We Learn from the Lilies of the Field and the Birds of the Air, and the first part of Christian Discourses, published in April 1848, consisted of seven discourses that were also based on the lilies and the birds of Matthew’s gospel.

    Kierkegaard delivered the manuscript of The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air to Bianco Luno’s Printing House in Copenhagen on April 17, 1849, and by May 9, the fifty-one pages that constitute the first edition had been typeset; proofread three times by Kierkegaard and his secretary, Israel Levin; printed and bound in printed paper covers; and was ready to be sent to bookshops. On May 14, it was advertised in the newspaper Adresseavisen as available for purchase from the publisher, university bookseller C. A. Reitzel.²

    Just over a year earlier, on March 6, 1848, Kierkegaard had delivered the manuscript of Christian Discourses to Bianco Luno. Christian Discourses was a composite work consisting of four separate parts, and, as noted above, the first part, The Cares of the Pagans, builds on Matthew 6:24–34 and makes much use of the lily and the bird, who serve as our teachers with respect to cares. Christian Discourses was ready at the printer’s on April 13, 1848, and would become available for purchase on April 25. Kierkegaard undoubtedly had his own copies of the book before Easter Sunday (April 23), and on that same Easter Sunday, he wrote a journal entry, under the heading New Discourses on the Lilies and the Birds, containing an idea for three additional discourses.³ Presumably, the circumstance that Christian Discourses, which was to go on sale two days later, had made much use of the lily and the bird is what inspired Kierkegaard to think of producing a new set of discourses on the lilies and the birds, which in the event became the work in the present volume.

    Kierkegaard also had a good deal of other work on his desk in 1848. He had begun writing The Sickness unto Death as early as February or March of that year, and he finished it in mid-May.⁴ He put that book aside, however, and it did not appear until July 30, 1849, that is, two and a half months after he published The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air. In the course of the summer and autumn of 1848 and into the early months of 1849, Kierkegaard wrote the three pieces that he would eventually consolidate as Practice in Christianity, which, however, did not appear in print until September 25, 1850.⁵ In addition to all this, during the summer and autumn of 1848, Kierkegaard wrote The Point of View for My Work as an Author (posthumously published in 1859) as well as several shorter pieces—he called them notes—also concerning his work and his development as an author. A reworked portion of these pieces eventually coalesced into The Accounting, which formed the principal part of the little book On My Work as an Author, which Kierkegaard published in 1851.

    Kierkegaard seems to have returned to the idea for new discourses on the lily and the bird in March 1849, and the writing then proceeded very quickly. Thus, the next month, April 1849, when The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air was already in the process of publication, Kierkegaard reflected on the difficulties he had experienced during the previous year in connection with the above-mentioned autobiographical notes concerning his life and work:

    It was divine fortune that I didn’t do it, didn’t publish the notes, or that God didn’t permit it to happen.…

    The degree to which

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