It may be, as the American orator said, “An honest god’s the noblest work of man”; and innumerable hearts enshrine fair personal ideals under uncomprehended names for deity; but each such private ideal is unconsciously antagonistic to every “collectivist” deity to whom the creation or the government of the world is ascribed.
The human heart kneels before its vision, and with Mary Magdalene cries Rabboni, My Master; but Theology recognizes only the perfunctory Rabbi, and carries her beloved off into union with thunder-god, war-god, or with a deified predatory Cosmos. Yet will not the heart be bereaved of its vision; it still sees a smile of tenderness in the universe. And philosophy, though it regard that smile as a reflection of the heart’s own love, may with all the more certainty itself find a religion in this maternal divinity in the earth, ever aspiring to its own supreme humanity.
Solomon passes, Jesus passes, but the Wisdom they loved as Bride, as Mother, abides, however veiled in fables. She is still inspiring the unfinished work of creation, and her delight is with the children of men.
[1] Paul (1 Tim. ii. 14), supposing him to have written the passage, uses the story simply to justify the subordination of woman to man, but a witty lady remarked to me that according to the story in Genesis no harm came to the world by Eve’s eating the fruit of knowledge. It was only by the man’s eating it that the thorns sprang up.
Index.
[A] | [B] | [C] | [D] | [E] | [F] | [G] | [H] | [I] | [J] | [K] | [L] | [M] | [N] | [O] | [P] | [Q] | [R] | [S] | [T] | [U] | [V] | [W] | [Z]