"One drags the other into error, and how can we attain to salvation when no one bids us halt, when all the world drives us in deeper?"
"Do you ever come across a man unafraid in danger, untouched by desires, happy in misfortune, peaceful in the midst of a storm, elevated above ordinary mortals, on the same plane as the gods, does not reverence seize you? Are you not compelled to say, 'Such an exalted being is certainly something different from the miserable body which he inhabits'? A divine strength rules there, such an excellent mind, full of moderation, raised above all trivialities, which smiles at that which we others fear or strive after: a heavenly power animates such a person, a thing of this kind does not exist without the coöperation of a deity. The largest part of such a being belongs to the region from which he came. Just as the sun's rays touch the earth in reality and yet are at home only there from whence they come, so an eminent holy man associates with us. He is sent to us that we may learn to know the divine better, and although with us, still really belongs to his original home. He looks thither and reaches towards it; among us he walks as an exalted being."
The people of this age had grown ripe for identification with the λόγος (word) "become flesh," for the founding of a new fellowship, united by one idea,32 in the name of which people could love each other and call each other brothers.33 The old vague idea of a μεσίτης (Messiah), of a mediator in whose name new ways of love would be created, became a fact, and with that humanity made an immense step forward. This had not been brought about by a speculative, completely sophisticated philosophy, but by an elementary need in the mass of people vegetating in spiritual darkness. The profoundest necessities had evidently driven them towards that, since humanity did not thrive in a state of dissoluteness.34 The
