He. I dwell in absolute Freedom.
I. What is that?
He. When a man lives as he list, without distinction (Otherness, Anderheit), without before or after. The man who hath in his Eternal Nothing become nothing knows nought of distinctions.
I. But to violate distinction is to violate order, and to break that is to be a slave. That is not the freedom indeed, which the truth gives. He that committeth sin is the servant of sin. No man can be so utterly self-annihilated and lost in God,—can be such a very nothing that there remains no remnant of the original difference between creature and Creator. My soul and body are one, are not separate; but they are distinct. So is it with the soul united to God. Mark the difference, friend, I prithee, between separation and distinction (Geschiedenheit und Unterschiedenheit).
He. The teacher saith that the saintly man is God’s son, and what Christ doth, that doth he.
I. He saith that such man followeth Christ in righteousness. But our personality must ever abide. Christ is son of God by nature, we by grace. Your pride blinds you. You are enlightened with a false light, coming whence I know not. You try and ‘break through’ to the Oneness, and you break through reason and reverence.
He replied by telling me that I was in thick darkness, and the boy coming with my horse, I left him.[[93]]
As I rode homeward I thought on the contrast I had seen. This man who came last is the natural consequent on the two who preceded him. So doth a hypocritical, ghostly tyranny produce lawlessness. I have seen the Priest and the Levite, and methinks one of the thieves,—where is our good Samaritan? I know not which extreme is the worst. One is selfish absoluteness, the other absolute selfishness. Oh, for men among us who shall battle with each in the strength of a truth above them both! Poor Alsace!
Here Atherton laid aside his manuscript, and conversation commenced.