Equally as a picture of
historical Christianity in all ages is meant the satirical presentment
of the religious condition of Judaea--of indolent and luxurious church
dignitaries, fanatics looking for signs and wonders, denouncing the
sins of their generation, and giving themselves up to the antics of
the spirit.
But it is in the last and longest segment of the poem that its real
power and interest are to be found. Its theme is the second coming of
Christ and his experiences in lands professing his religion. In a
scene, compared with which the Prologue in Heaven of Faust is
decorous, God the Father ironically suggests that the Son would find
scope for his friendly feeling to the human kind if he were to pay a
visit to the earth. Alighting on the mountain where Satan had tempted
him, the Son, filled with tender yearning for the race for whom he had
died, has already anxious forebodings of woe on earth. In a soliloquy,
which we may take as the expression of Goethe's own deepest feelings,
as it is the expression of his finest poetic gift, he gives utterance
to his boundless love for man, and his compassion for a world where
truth and error, happiness and misery, are inextricably linked.
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