Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/135

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE HYMN OF CREATION
77
good works. Not forgetting our own assembling together as is the custom of some, but exhorting one another."—Heb. x:24-25.

We might say that the real transference taught in the Christian community is the condition absolutely necessary for the efficacy of the miracle of redemption; the first letter of John comes out frankly with this:

"He that loveth his brother abideth in the light."—I John ii:10.

"If we love one another, God abideth in us."—I John iv:12.

The Deity continues to be efficacious in the Christian religion only upon the foundation of brotherly love. Consequently, here too the mystery of redemption is the unresisting real transference.27 One may properly ask one's self, for what then is the Deity useful, if his efficacy consists only in the real transference? To this also the evangelical message has a striking answer:

"Men are all brothers in Christ."

"So Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time apart from sin to them that wait for him unto salvation."—Heb. ix:28.

The condition of transference among brothers is to be such as between man and Christ, a spiritual one. As the history of ancient cults and certain Christian sects shows, this explanation of the Christian religion is an especially important one biologically, for the psychologic intimacy creates certain shortened ways between men which lead only too easily to that from which Christianity seeks to release them, namely to the sexual relation with all those