                           20020119.00

     In Sections 1 and 2 of Chapter One, of the first part of the
first volume of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript
Kierkegaard introduces the concept of zealotry.  Zealotry, he
says, is the inappropriate application of passion to an object of
approximation, i.e. an object the indefiniteness or uncertainty
of which can never be entirely removed.

     Kierkegaard gives three examples:

1) den bekymrede bibelske Exegeses Zelotisme,
the fanaticism of the anxious biblical exegete,
                               [Swanson-Lowrie]

2) the zealotry in respect to confessions of faith, and

3) the zealotry in respect to the sacraments.  Kierkegaard cites
adult baptism and the recurrent celebration of Holy Communion,
which are repeated, he speculates, "simply in order to make sure."

     Kierkegaard sees the Zealot as tragic insofar as his passion
is infinite; he sees him as comic, insofar as that passion is
misapplied.

Det Latterlige hos Zeloten laae i,
at hans uendelige Lidenskab kastede sig
paa en forkeert Gjenstand (en Approximations Gjenstand),
men det Gode hos ham var, at han havde Lidenskab.

"The ludicrousness of the zealot consisted in the fact
that his infinite passion had attached itself
to a mistaken object (an approximation object);
the good in him was that he had passion."
     (Conclusing Unscientif Postscript,
      Swenson and Lowrie translation, p. 36)

     As for myself, I find that images exist not only in bronze
and on canvas, but in poetry and prose as well, and I consider it
is no less idolatrous to worship a narrative account of God,
Biblical or otherwise, as having historical reality, than it is
to worship a painted picture as being God, even if that picture
is as majestic as the one on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

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