o claim to papal authority. It gladly
concedes the possibility of error, and only claims to give an
interpretation of the evangelic writings, founded on nature and history.
It should answer, and at the same time appease, the very numerous and, at
bottom, honest men, who, like the Horseherd, declare the gospel
narratives, as ordinarily understood, full of falsehood and fraud or even
pure fancy, and who have consequently broken with the Christian revelation
from conscientious scruples. Their number is greater than is generally
supposed, and it must on no account be supposed that they are necessarily
wicked or even immoral men. When they declare the Christian revelation to
be an absurdity, it is because they do not know it in its historical
origin and its divine truth. To assume that every word, every letter,--for
it has been carried even so far,--that every parable, every figure, was
whispered to the authors of the Gospels, is certainly an absurdity, and
rests only on human and often only on priestly authority. But the true
revelation, the real truth, as it was already anticipated by the Greek
philosophers, slowly accepted by Jews like Philo and the contemporaries of
Jesus, taught by men like Clement and Origen in the ancient Greek church,
and, in fine, realised in the life of Jesus and sealed by his death, is no
absurdity; it is for every thinking Christian the eternal life or the
kingdom of God on earth, which Jesus wished to establish, and in part did
establish. To become a citizen of this kingdom is the highest that man can
attain, but it is not attained merely through baptism and confirmation; it
must be gained in earnest spiritual conflict.

In nearly all religions God remains far from man. I say in nearly all
religions; for in Brahmanism the unity, not the union, of the human soul
with Brahman is recognised as the highest aim. This unity with Deity,
together with phenomenal difference, Jesus expressed in part through the
Logos, in part through the Son. There is nothing so closely allied as
thought and word, Father and Son. They can be distinguished, but never
separated, for they exist only through each other. In this manner the
Greek philosophers considered all creation as the thought or the word of
God, and the thought "man" became naturally the highest Logos, realised in
millions of men, and raised to the highest perfection in Jesus. As the
thought exists only through the word, and the word only through the
though