§ 7: The Soul’s Immortality as Demonstrated From the Holy Life

The holy life was considered the fitting and proper life for humanity, but why? What is the cause? What is holiness? What is the holy life? What do these abstract notions mean? Or are they empty words devoid of meaning? Or did humanity err in esteeming the moral law? Did erroneous ideas about the laws of life, about itself, about its destiny lead to absurd opinions and deceived principles, through which life was distinguished into holy and unholy, into sacred and profane? How was this error propagated throughout all the ends of the world? How is it that all humanity, all the tribes of the earth and all languages have words designating such notions? And even the savages preach them as a fundamental doctrine of their religions? Examine all the most ancient religions of all continents of the terrestrial globe, traverse the whole earth, search the depths of Africa and the vastness of America, enter the lands of the savages, visit the islands of the ocean, study closely the fundamental principles of the religions of the most remote lands isolated by ages of separation, and you will be assured that among all of them the holy and sacred life is honored, and all preach that only those who lived holily are blessed, beloved by God, and happy; no people has ever held that the unholy and profane life is the fitting and true human life, and that humanity need not recognize a moral law; in the poor and simple huts of ape-like cannibals we hear the good praised and the evil condemned, the virtuous honored and the wicked dishonored. [1] Behold the words of a man who spent many years among them studying the savage tribes of cannibals. Prioul says that in their huts are heard lofty teachings equal to those of the greatest philosophers; “the vulgar and wicked people are common as trampled grass;” “the good and those pleasing to the eye;” “hope is the pillar of the world;” “on perseverance the heavens rest;” “the dust returns to the one who threw it” etc.

Whence this distinction? What is the reason for this universal sentiment about virtue and wickedness? But also whence the disposition of inclination and aversion? Whence the predisposition to work toward good, to avoid evil? Whence the struggle for an abstract notion? Whence the persistence in struggle? Whence the fortitude in the course of the struggle? Whence self-denial? Whence the war against one’s own desires? Against what does it fight? For what does it struggle? Who will prevail after the subjection of the flesh’s mindset? After the mortification of the passions? What prize is offered? Is there an agonothete (judge of contests)? Does the crown of the athlete exist? How does one struggle zealously when seeing nothing? How does doubt not cause weariness in the contestant? How do the pleasures of the world, the enjoyments of the senses, selfishness and vanity, the brilliance of life lose their power over the earthly human? Whence the aversion from one’s own kind and affection for strangers? Did not the greatest of humans suffer madness? Was not their reason corrupted? Yet suffering and corruption advance and reveal humanity as an image of God, a citizen of heaven, an angel in a body; why should not this state be the healthy state of the human intellect? How do suffering and corruption produce opposite results? Why does the healthy intellect debase humanity to the level of bestialization? Whence this contrary logic? How can the healthy corrupt and destroy while the suffering cures and raises? Indeed even perfects and reveals? Who brought humanity to the splendid beauty that adorns it today? The unholy or the holy life? How can that which possesses such formative power be the result of a morbid condition? Is not the person formed and perfected a false appearance, an abortion of the distorted brutish mentality of the natural human?

Were not Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Newton, Copernicus—the great men of all nations—more imperfect than the unpolished, ignorant, and matter-wallowing humans? Yet how does common opinion acknowledge them as great wise and perfect men? Did common opinion err in its judgments? But common opinion is the sentiment of humanity in general; all are not deceived by God; therefore common opinion is the true judge who assuredly judges the worth or worthlessness of each thing; what it approves is truly worthy; what it disapproves is wholly unworthy. Therefore wise people are superior to the matter-wallowing, unpolished, and ignorant. Therefore the holy life is the perfecting power that reveals humanity as the brightest, most beautiful, and most noble of earthly creatures; but toward what end is this perfection? This vain toil, since the same fate awaits both the perfect and the imperfect? Since the cold stone of the grave will cover both completely? A false premise leads to a more erroneous conclusion; but then why would all-wise creative power implant in humanity the perfecting power, the power to turn aside from nature into the unnatural, so that it might appear more brilliant through toil, labor, and sacrifice, when there is no purpose to perfection? God’s wisdom rejects the purposeless, for it convicts of imperfection. What then is the purpose? Behold, this is the question demanding study and great care; we must seek then what is the purpose of humanity’s perfection through virtuous and holy life.

The purpose of perfection through moral and virtuous life, as a work of divine will and wisdom, must be a lofty, great, and divine purpose worthy of divine will; the perfection and holiness of humanity sought is the seeking of its deification; for only God is perfect and holy; therefore the purpose of humanity’s perfection through moral and holy life is humanity’s deification; God has sought to reveal humanity on earth as a god, and therefore implanted in it the power of development and love toward perfection, through which humanity toils and strives; the mystical voice of God speaking to the human heart strengthens it in the struggle; God is the agonothete who invisibly guides and sustains it; he sets its feet in a wide place; he calls words of life in its heart and guides it to the intended and calculated end for which it was formed; for this reason neither the world with all its pleasures, nor the senses with all their enjoyments and delights, nor pride, nor the brilliance and splendor of life can prevail against the one struggling for virtue and holy life; the voice speaking mysteriously to the human heart is so clear and distinct that it is understood equally by the civilized and by the savage; this voice raises even the impoverished savage cannibals, and it preserves the characteristics that distinguish humanity from irrational animals and the more advanced apes. Humanity, therefore, was not formed to sit idle, but to become a participant in God’s goodness and happiness; therefore it has an immortal soul.