20071206.00 There occurred to me a persuasive anthropological- sociological explanation for the political success of Christianity. If it is valid to equate divinity with inwardness, and if, as the Scripture reports, Jesus was crucified because he claimed to be the son of God, then arguably Jesus' fault, his assertion of his divinity, was in fact an assertion of his inwardness, of his subjectivity, of that subjective essence which separated him, and continues to separate all "individuals" from the community of men. The Passion of Jesus, therefore, serves as a cosmic demonstration of the contradiction, of the dialectic, in which each one of us is enmeshed; a demonstration which one is inclined to embrace with enthusiasm, because it reflects the perplexity, if not the tragedy of ones own existence. Given the awkwardness and inadequacy of our understanding of ourselves and of our situation, that we should resort to, and ultimately rely on myth, - in this case the Christian "Gospel", - as an instrument of cognition, seems not only plausible, but perhaps inevitable. * * * * *

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