Chapter xlii.

“1. Then Job answered the Lord, and said,

“2. I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.”

Footnote 81:

The theriomorphic attributes are lacking in the Christian religion except as remnants, such as the Dove, the Fish and the Lamb. The latter is also represented as a Ram in the drawings in the Catacombs. Here belong the animals associated with the Evangelists which particularly need historical explanation. The Eagle and the Lion were definite degrees of initiation in the Mithraic mysteries. The worshippers of Dionysus called themselves βόες because the god was represented as a bull; likewise the ἄρκτοι of Artemis, conceived of as a she-bear. The Angel might correspond to the ἡλιόδρομοι of the Mithras mysteries. It is indeed an exquisite invention of the Christian phantasy that the animal coupled with St. Anthony is the pig, for the good saint was one of those who were subjected to the devil’s most evil temptations.

Footnote 82:

Compare Pfister’s notable article: “Die Frömmigkeit des Grafen Ludwig von Zinzendorf.” Wien 1910.

Footnote 83:

The Book of Job, originating at a later period under non-Jewish influences, is a striking presentation of individual projection psychology.

Footnote 84:

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (_I John_ i: 8).

Footnote 85:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (_Isaiah_ liii: 4).

Footnote 86:

“Bear ye one another’s burdens” (_Galatians_ vi: 2).

Footnote 87:

God is Love, corresponding to the platonic “Eros” which unites humanity with the transcendental.

Footnote 88:

Compare Reitzenstein (“Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen,” Leipzig and Berlin 1910, p. 20): “Among the various forms with which a primitive people have represented the highest religious consecration, union with God, belongs necessarily that of the sexual union, in which man attributes to his semen the innermost nature and power of God. That which was in the first instance wholly a sensual act becomes in the most widely separated places, independently, a sacred act, in which the god is represented by a human deputy or his symbol the Phallus.”

Footnote 89:

Take as an example among many others the striking psychologic description of the fate of Alypius, in the “Confessions” of St. Augustine (Bk. VI, Ch. 7): “Only the moral iniquity of Carthage, expressed in the absolute wildness of its worthless spectacles, had drawn him down into the whirlpool of this misery. [Augustine, at that time a teacher of Logic, through his wisdom had converted Alypius.] He rose up after those words from the depths of the mire, into which he had willingly let himself be submerged, and which had blinded him with fatal pleasure. He stripped the filth from off his soul with courageous abstemiousness. All the snares of the Hippodrome no longer perplexed him. Thereupon Alypius went to Rome in order to study law; there he became a backslider. He was transported to an unbelievable degree by an unfortunate passion for gladiatorial shows. Although in the beginning he abominated and cursed these shows, one evening some of his friends and fellow-students, whom he met after they had dined, in spite of his passionate refusals and the exertion of all the power of his resistance, dragged him with friendly violence to the Amphitheatre on the occasion of a cruel and murderous exhibition. At the time he said to them, ‘If you drag my body to that place and hold it there, can you turn my mind and my eyes to that spectacle?’ In spite of his supplications they dragged him with them, eager to know if he would be able to resist the spectacle. When they arrived they sat down where place was still left, and all glowed with inhuman delight. He closed his eyes and forbade his soul to expose itself to such danger. O, if he had also stopped up his ears! When some one fell in combat and all the people set up a mighty shout, he stifled his curiosity and prepared proudly to scorn the sight, confident that he could view the spectacle if he so desired. And his soul was overcome with terrible wounds, like the wounds of the body which he desired to see, and souls more miserable than the one whose fall had caused the outcry, which pressing through his ears, had opened his eyes, so that his weakness had been bared. Through this he could be struck and thrown down, for he had the feeling of confidence more than strength, and he was the weaker because he trusted himself to this and not to Thee. When he saw the blood, then at the same time he drew in the desire for blood, and no longer turned away but directed his looks thither. The fury took possession of him and yet he did not know it; he took delight in the wicked combat and was intoxicated by the bloody pleasure. Now he was no longer the same as when he had come, and he was the true accomplice of those who first had dragged him there. What more is there to say? He saw, he cried out, he was inflamed, and he carried away with him the insane longing, which enticed him again to return, not only in the company of those who first had dragged him with them, but going ahead of all and leading others.”

Footnote 90:

Destiny.

Footnote 91:

Compare the prayer of the so-called Mithraic Liturgy (pub. by Dieterich). There, characteristic places are to be found, such for instance as: τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης μου ψυχικῆς δυνάμεως ἤν ἐγὼ πάλιν μεταπαραλήμψομαι μετὰ τὴν ἐνεστῶσαν καὶ κατεπείγουσάν με πικρὰν ἀνάγκην ἁχρεοκόπητον (The human soul force which I, weighed down by guilt, would again attain, because of the present bitter need oppressing me), ἐπικαλοῦμαι ἕνεκα τῆς κατεπειγούσης καὶ πικρᾶς ἀπαραιτήτου ἀνάγκης (On account of the oppressing bitter and inexorable need).

From the speech of the High Priest (Apuleius: “Metamorphoses,” lib. XI, 248) a similar train of thought may be gathered. The young philosopher Lucius was changed into an ass, that continuously rutting animal which Isis hated. Later he was released from the enchantment and initiated into the mysteries of Isis. When he was freed from the spell the priest speaks as follows: “Lubrico virentis aetatulae, ad serviles delapsus voluptates, curiositatis improsperae sinistrum praemium reportasti.—Nam in eos, quorum sibi vitas servitium Deae nostrae majestas vindicavit, non habet locum casus infestus—in tutelam jam receptus es Fortunae, sed videntis” (But falling into the slavery of pleasure, in the wantonness of buxom youth, you have reaped the inauspicious reward of your ill-fated curiosity—for direful calamity has no power over those whose lives the majesty of our Goddess has claimed for her own service.—You are now received under the guardianship of fortune, but of a fortune who can see). In the prayer to the Queen of Heaven, Isis, Lucius says: “Qua fatorum etiam inextricabiliter contorta retractas licia et Fortunae tempestates mitigas, et stellarum noxios meatus cohibes” (By which thou dost unravel the inextricably entangled threads of the fates, and dost assuage the tempests of fortune and restrain the malignant influences of the stars).—Generally it was the purpose of the rite to destroy the “evil compulsion of the star” by magic power.

The power of fate makes itself felt unpleasantly only when everything goes against our will; that is to say when we no longer find ourselves in harmony with ourselves. As I endeavored to show in my article, “Die Bedeutung des Vaters,” etc., the most dangerous power of fate lies in the infantile libido fixation, localized in the unconscious. The power of fate reveals itself at closer range as a compulsion of the libido; wherefore Maeterlinck justly says that a Socrates could not possibly be a tragic hero of the type of Hamlet. In accordance with this conception the ancients had already placed εἱμαρμένη (destiny) in relation to “Primal Light,” or “Primal Fire.” In the Stoic conception of the primal cause, the warmth spread everywhere, which has created everything and which is therefore Destiny. (Compare Cumont: “Mysterien des Mithra,” p. 83.) This warmth is, as will later be shown, a symbol of the libido. Another conception of the Ananke (necessity) is, according to the Book of Zoroaster, περὶ φύσεως (concerning nature), that the air as wind had once a connection with fertility. I am indebted to Rev. Dr. Keller of Zurich for calling my attention to Bergson’s conception of the “durée créatrice.”

Footnote 92:

Power for putting in motion.

Footnote 93:

Schiller says in “Wallenstein”: “In your breast lie the constellations of your fate.” “Our fates are the result of our personality,” says Emerson in his “Essays.” Compare with this my remarks in “Die Bedeutung des Vaters.”

Footnote 94:

The ascent to the “Idea” is described with unusual beauty in Augustine (Bk. X, Ch. 8). The beginning of Ch. 8 reads: “I will raise myself over this force of my nature, step by step ascending to Him who has made me. I will come to the fields and the spacious palaces of my memory.”

Footnote 95:

The followers of Mithra also called themselves Brothers. In philosophical speech Mithra was Logos emanating from God. (Cumont: “Myst. des Mithra,” p. 102.)

Besides the followers of Mithra there existed many Brotherhoods which were called Thiasai and probably were the organizations from which the Church developed later. (A. Kalthoff: “Die Entstehung des Christentums.”)

Footnote 96:

Augustine, who stood in close relation to that period of transition not only in point of time but also intellectually, writes in his “Confessions” (Bk. VI, Ch. 16):

“Nor did I, unhappy, consider from what source it sprung, that even on these things, foul as they were, I with pleasure discoursed with my carnal pleasures. And yet these friends I loved for themselves only, and friends; nor could I, even according to the notions I then had of happiness, be happy without friends, amid what abundance soever of I felt that I was beloved of them for myself only. O, crooked paths! Woe to the audacious soul, which hoped, by forsaking Thee, to gain some better thing! Turned it hath, and turned again, upon back, sides, and belly, yet all was painful, and Thou alone rest!” (Trans. by Pusey.)

It is not only an unpsychologic but also an unscientific method of procedure to characterize offhand such effects of religion as suggestion. Such things are to be taken seriously as the expression of the deepest psychologic need.

Footnote 97:

Both religions teach a pronounced ascetic morality, but at the same time a morality of action. The last is true also of Mithracism. Cumont says that Mithracism owed its success to the value of its morale: “This stimulated to action in an extraordinary degree” (“Myst. des Mithra”). The followers of Mithra formed a “sacred legion” for battle against evil, and among them were virgins (nuns) and continents (ascetics). Whether these brotherhoods had another meaning—that is, an economic-communistic one—is something I will not discuss now. Here only the religious-psychologic aspects interest us. Both religions have in common the idea of the divine sacrifice. Just as Christ sacrificed himself as the Lamb of God, so did Mithra sacrifice his Bull. This sacrifice in both religions is the heart of the Mysteries. The sacrificial death of Christ means the salvation of the world; from the sacrifice of the bull of Mithra the entire creation springs.

Footnote 98:

This analytic perception of the roots of the Mystery Religions is necessarily one-sided, just as is the analysis of the basis of the religious poem. In order to understand the actual causes of the repression in Miss Miller one must delve into the moral history of the present; just as one is obliged to seek in the ancient moral and economic history the actual causes of repression which have given rise to the Mystery cults. This investigation has been brilliantly carried out by Kalthoff. (See his book, “Die Entstehung des Christentums,” Leipzig 1904.) I also refer especially to Pohlmann’s “Geschichte des antiken Kommunismus und Sozialismus”; also to Bücher: “Die Aufstände der unfreien Arbeiter 143 bis 129 v. Chr.,” 1874.

The other cause of the enormous introversion of the libido in antiquity is probably to be found in the fact that an unbelievably large part of the people suffered in the wretched state of slavery. It is inevitable that finally those who bask in good fortune would be infected in the mysterious manner of the unconscious, by the deep sorrow and still deeper misery of their brothers, through which some were driven into orgiastic furies. Others, however, the better ones, sank into that strange world-weariness and satiety of the intellectuals of that time. Thus from two sources the great introversion was made possible.

Footnote 99:

Compare Freud: “The Interpretation of the Dream.”

Footnote 100:

Compare Freud: “Sublimation,” in “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory.”

Footnote 101:

In a manner which is closely related to my thought, Kalthoff (“Entstehung des Christentums”) understands the secularizing of the religious interest as a new incarnation of the λόγος (word). He says: “The profound grasp of the soul of nature evidenced in modern painting and poetry, the living intuitive feeling which even science in its most austere works can no longer do without, enables us easily to understand how the Logos of Greek philosophy which assigned its place in the world to the old Christ type, clothed in its world-to-come significance celebrated a new incarnation.”

Footnote 102:

It seems, on account of the isolation of the cult, that this fact was the cause of its ruin as well, because the eyes of that time were blinded to the beauty of nature. Augustine (Bk. X, Ch. 6) very justly remarks: “But they [men] were themselves undone through love for her [creation].”

Footnote 103:

Augustine (ibid.): “But what do I love when I love Thee, Oh God? Not the bodily form, nor the earthly sweetness, nor the splendor of the light, so dear to these eyes; nor the sweet melodies of the richly varied songs; not the flowers and the sweet scented ointments and spices of lovely fragrance; not manna and honey; not the limbs of the body whose embraces are pleasant to the flesh. I do not love these when I love my God, and yet the light, the voice, the fragrance, the food, the embrace of my inner man; when these shine into my soul, which no space contains, which no time takes away, where there is a fragrance which the wind does not blow away, where there is a taste which no gluttony diminishes and where harmony abides which no satiety can remove—that is what I love, when I love my God.” (Perhaps a model for Zarathustra: “Die sieben Siegel,” Nietzsche’s works, VI, p. 33 ff.)

Footnote 104:

Cumont: “Die Mysterien des Mithra. Ein Beitrag zur Religionsgeschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit.” Übersetzt von Gehrich, Leipzig 1903, p. 109.

Footnote 105:

41st Letter to Lucilius.

Footnote 106:

Ibid.