were admittedly fairly superficial discussions on human relations. In other words, until one starts to love, righteousness is a completely superfluous and unnecessary idea. So apart from love, it doesn't exist. Confidence and lack of confidence are quite sufficient to describe and govern human relations. In short, you could not have a god who was righteous, who did not also love. This is recognised throughout the Bible; in Exodus as in the Gospels, the great commandment is to love God with all the heart, the mind, the soul, the strength. Without this love, all the rules and regulations that follow are like statutory instruments, organising society but without any moral force at all. The clergy do not always seem to have realised the implications of this; but christians and pagans alike ought to understand why it is important. Throughout history the clergy have tended to claim that they came between God and his people; and however natural this may have been, it is important to understand that it was, and is, a mistake; and important also to understand what the consequences of this mistake have been, and that the early Church was right to insist that life as it ought to be lived is a life against nature.