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CHAPTER XVII.

THE CHRISTIAN SIGNIFICANCE OF VOLUNTARY CELIBACY
AND MONACHISM.


The idea of man as a species, and with it the significance of the life of the species, of humanity as a whole, vanished as Christianity became dominant. Herein we have a new confirmation of the position advanced, that Christianity does not contain within itself the principle of culture. Where man immediately identifies the species with the individual, and posits this identity as his highest being, as God, where the idea of humanity is thus an object to him only as the idea of Godhead, there the need of culture has vanished; man has all in himself, all in his God, consequently he has no need to supply his own deficiencies by others as the representatives of the species, or by the contemplation of the world generally; and this need is alone the spring of culture. The individual man attains his end by himself alone; he attains it in God,—God is himself the attained goal, the realized highest aim of humanity: but God is present to each individual separately. God only is the want of the Christian; others, the human race, the world, are not necessary to him; he has not the inward need of others. God fills to me the place of the species, of my fellow-men; yes, when I turn away from the world, when I am in isolation, I first truly feel my need of God, I first have a lively sense of his presence, I first feel what God is, and what he ought to be to me. It is true that the religious man has need also of fellowship, of edification in common; but this need of others is always in itself something extremely subordinate. The salvation of the soul is the fundamental idea, the main point in Christianity; and this salvation lies only in God, only in the concentration of the mind on Him. Activity for others is required, is a condition of salvation; but the ground of salvation is God, immediate reference in all things to God. And even activity for others has only a religious significance, has reference only to God, as its motive and end,