ul of Jesus or with the soul of any other man
or god or spiritual entity, the figure of Christ has come now at last
to be for humanity the only god we need; for he is the only god
whose love for all living things is beyond question and dispute,
and whose existence is assumed and implied when any soul in the
universe loves any other soul.

It is necessary then to do two things. To accept without reserve the
vision which Jesus had as to the secret of love; because to nothing
less than this does the love which we possess in our own souls
respond. And in the second place to be merciless and drastic, even
at the risk of pain to the weakness of our human flesh, in
separating the personality of Christ, the immortal god, from the
historic figure of the traditional Jesus. By doing these two things,
and by this alone, we establish what the complex vision desires,
upon a firm ground. For we retain what the vision of Jesus has
revealed to us as to the inherent nature of the invisible companions
and we are saved from all controversy as to the historic reality of
the life of Jesus.

It does not matter to us whether Jesus "really lived"; or whether,
like other great figures, his personality has been created by the
anonymous instinct of humanity. What matters to us is that
humanity itself, using the vision of Jesus as its organ of research
or as the focus point of its own passionate clairvoyance has in
some way or another recognized that the secret of the universe is
to be found in the unfathomable duality of love and malice. From
this point, now it has been once reached, the intrinsic nature of all
human souls makes sure that humanity cannot go back. And it is
because, either by his own sublime insight or by the accident and
chance of history, the figure of Jesus has become associated with
the reality of the immortal gods that we are justified in using for
our symbol of these sons of the universe no other name than the
name of Christ.

We shall, however, be doing wrong to our conception of Christ, if,
while recognizing that the kind of love, of which Jesus revealed
the secret, is the essence of Christ's soul, we refuse to find in him
also many aspects and attributes of life which occupy but little
place or no place at all in the traditional figure of Jesus.

All that is most beautiful and profound, all that is most magical
and subtle, in the gods of the ancient world, must be recognized as
existent in the soul of Christ who is o