The immediate consequence of this first principle was the rupture of
the organic union realised in the Gospel of Christ between the
religious element and the moral element. Nothing is more striking in
the Sermon on the Mount and in all the Parables of Jesus, nothing
better attests the superiority of Christianity to anterior cults,
nothing proves with greater force and clearness that it is the perfect
and definitive Religion, than that mutual penetration, that fusion,
that identification, in a word, of religion and morality, till then
separate and often opposed to each other. The Christ did not desire in
religion anything that was not in morality, or in morality anything
that was not religious. Thus did He bring back piety from without, and
made of it the inner inspiration which penetrates and transforms the
whole life, a hidden flame, a ferment acting from the centre to the
surface, the soul in the body, ever invisible and everywhere present.
He thus founded the absolute autonomy of the religious and of the moral
life which no longer are divided, but appear simply as the two sides of
consciousness; the one interior and turned towards God, the other
exterior and turned towards the world. In creating in us the sense of
our sonship to God, Jesus did not admit the intervention of any
external authority between the Father and the child. The universal
priesthood, with which, by His spirit, He invests the least of His
disciples, excludes in principle all supernatural priesthood. "Call no
man master on earth, for one is your Master in heaven; and all ye are
brethren." The children must have free access to the Father.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account