inned, and upon the whole brotherhood. Here, and in a hundred similar
rites, we see the three phases of tribal psychology--the first, in which
the individual member simply remains within the compass of the tribal
mind, and only acts in harmony with it; the second, in which the
individual steps outside and to gratify his personal SELF performs an
action which alienates him from his fellows; and the third, in which,
to make amends and to prove his sincerity, he submits to some sacrifice,
and by a common feast or some such ceremony is received back again
into the unity of the fellowship. The body of the animal-divinity is
consumed, and the latter becomes, both in the spirit and in the flesh,
the Savior of the tribe.

In course of time, when the Totem or Guardian-spirit is no longer merely
an Animal, or animal-headed Genius, but a quite human-formed Divinity,
still the same general outline of ideas is preserved--only with gathered
intensity owing to the specially human interest of the drama. The
Divinity who gives his life for his flock is no longer just an ordinary
Bull or Lamb, but Adonis or Osiris or Dionysus or Jesus. He is betrayed
by one of his own followers, and suffers death, but rises again
redeeming all with himself in the one fellowship; and the corn and the
wine and the wild flesh which were his body, and which he gave for the
sustenance of mankind, are consumed in a holy supper of reconciliation.
It is always the return to unity which is the ritual of Salvation, and
of which the symbol is the Eucharist--the second birth, the formation of
"a new creature when old things are passed away." For "Except a man be
born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God"; and "the first man is of
the earth, earthly, but the second man is the Lord from heaven." Like
a strange refrain, and from centuries before our era, comes down this
belief in a god who is imprisoned in each man, and whose liberation is a
new birth and the beginning of a new creature: "Rejoice, ye initiates
in the mystery of the liberated god"--rejoice in the thought of the hero
who died as a mortal in the coffin, but rises again as Lord of all!

Who then was this "Christos" for whom the world was waiting three
centuries before our era (and indeed centuries before that)? Who was
this "thrice Savior" whom the Greek Gnostics acclaimed? What was the
meaning of that "coming of the Son of Man" whom Daniel beheld in vision
among the clouds of heaven? or of the "perfect