Sunday, May 08, 2022
Do Not Weep
Søren Kierkegaard, "Short and Sharp," no. 5, The Instant, no. 6 (August 23, 1855), tr. Walter Lowrie, in Kierkegaard's Attack upon "Christendom" 1854-1855 (1944; rpt. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 183, with note on p. 298:
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It is related of a Swedish priest35 that, profoundly disturbed by the sight of the effect his address produced upon the auditors, who were dissolved in tears, he said soothingly, "Children, do not weep; the whole thing might be a lie."
35 In the fifteenth century this story was told of a friar at Naples, who on Good Friday had harrowed the congregation by his description of the Lord's Passion, and seeing them in tears had tried to comfort them by the reflection that "all this was a long time ago, so let us hope it is not true."
