And one of the astonishing things about Jesus is that his twelve disciples never seem to have contemplated leaving him before his arrest, even when everyone else fell away. His authority over them was almost complete. Even if his disciples had little understanding of him, he evidently inspired them with complete confidence that he knew what he was doing. So how was it that he came to see and then interpret his Messianic mission?
It is easy enough putting oneself into his shoes, as it were, and considering what one would have done oneself in his position; much harder to penetrate his mind, and speculate how he did it. In Chapter 18 of a Religious View of Nature and the Universe I do briefly try to see things through Jesus’ eyes, but deliberately expressing myself in the first person I am in fact saying what I would have done in his position. Then I translate the reader to the present day, and consider what it would be like if we applied the same process to the situation now. But to speculate how he viewed and interpreted his mission goes much further than that. Obviously to start with, he would have been guided by the Law and the Prophets; he said he came to fulfil them. And as any lawyer knows, it is easier to start drafting a document from a precedent however inappropriate, and modify that; rather than start from scratch. But there comes a time when you have to break free of other peoples’ preconceptions, wipe the slate clean, and construct your own plan.
So let us start from scratch, and consider the factors that will have weighed with him. As I see religious vocation, and Jesus certainly had one, it is rather like falling in love. On the human level, Jung postulated that every man had a spirit companion who was female, and whom Jung called the “anima”; and every woman had a spirit companion who was male, and whom Jung called the “animus”. No-one is wholly male or wholly female, as we all know; and they would be monstrous creatures if they were. So my hunch is that when a young man falls in love, and “falling in love” is nothing if not communication between the two of you, he meets a woman whose spirit arouses his “anima”. And probably he projects onto his anima her identity. Hence the difficulty of changing women, when she does not live up to the picture he has created in his mind; because if he has projected her onto his anima, he thinks he is being false to himself if he reluctantly admits that her identity is different from what he imagined. We all know that a new “love” does not replace the old, however glamorous she may be. And the reason is that you have allowed something of her to enter into your soul, either deliberately or without knowing it. And the “thing” which one allows into one’s soul is her spirit, because you cannot allow flesh into spirit. You can only allow flesh into flesh, and spirit into spirit, even though the two are irrevocably bonded in this world.
Religion Rewritten, a religious view of nature and the universe.
Essay 2 - Man Made In The Image Of God.