OF LOVE FOR ONE'S NEIGHBOUR
"Ye throng round your neighbour and have fine words for that. But I tell you, your love for your neighbour is your bad love for yourselves.
Ye flee from yourselves unto your neighbour and would fain make a virtue thereof; but I see through your ' unselfishness.'
The thou is older than the I ; the thou hath been proclaimed holy, but the I not yet ; man thus thrusteth himself upon his neighbour.
Do I counsel you to love your neighbour ? I rather counsel you to flee from your neighbour and to love the most remote.
Love unto the most remote future man is higher than love unto your neighbour. And I consider love unto things and ghosts to be higher than love unto men.
This ghost which marcheth before thee, my brother, is more beautiful than thou art. Why dost thou not give him thy flesh and thy bones ? Thou art afraid and flecst unto thy neighbour.
Unable to endure yourselves and not loving your- selves enough : you seek to wheedle your neighbour into loving you and thus to gild you with his error.
80
�� �
