willow, a staff is mentioned, it signified a prophecy about the wood of the cross; even the setting up of the unicorn and the brazen serpent, even Moses stretching out his arms in prayer, even the spits on which the Easter-lamb was roasted—all were allusions and, so to speak, preludes to the cross. Did anybody who put forward these things ever believe them? Remember that the Church did not shrink from enriching the text or Septuaginta (as, for instance, in Psalm xcvi., v. 10), in order afterwards to avail herself of the surreptitious passages in the direction of Christian prophecies. Well, they were engaged in a combat, and thought of their foes more than of their honesty.
83
‘’Subtlety in deficiency.’’—Do not mock at the mythology of the Greeks because it is so unlike your profound metaphysics. You ought to admire a people who, at this very point, checked their quick understanding, and, for a long time, had sufficient tact to avoid the danger of scholasticism and hair-splitting superstition.
86
‘’The Christian interpreters of the body.’’—Whatever may be caused by the stomach, the intestines, the pulse of the heart, the nerves, the bile, the seed—all those illhumours, debilities, over-excitements, and the whole contingency of the machine which is so little known to
