The more vivid and profound the church consciousness is in a
Christian, the more vividly and profoundly does he feel himself, I
shall not say a philo-Semite, but truly a Semite in spirit. We have so
thoroughly confused, distorted and forgotten all the holy and true
traditions, we have so thoroughly lost the habit of applying our
reason to the lucid, old truths learned by heart, that this statement
may sound like a paradox.
Vladimir Solovyov's touching affection for Judaism is a plain and
natural manifestation of his love for Christ and of his inner
experience of being merged in the Church. The body of the Church is
for the mystic the true, although invisible body of Christ, and
through Christ it is the body begotten of Abraham's seed. The latter
body, like the curtain of the temple in Jerusalem in the hour of our
Saviour's death, was rent in twain, and that half of it which is
Judaism passionately seeks the whole, longs and yearns, and pours out
its wrath upon the second half, which in its turn longs for the
reunion and the integrity of mystic Israel.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133