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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
panionship of beautiful nymphs, and all other pleasuregiving things after death, in lieu of devotion to himself, can be no friend of the soul, whose inner divinity cannot possibly shine forth, so long as it remains engrossed in the enjoyment of sensual attractions, be they of this or of the heavenly world. Redemption, then, is the doctrine of Perfection, not of remission of sin by another ; and the true Redeemer is the individual soul itself, not any outside agency, however great or sublime.
We must now turn to the Bible itself to see what it teaches us about redemption; but we shall begin our enquiry with a study of the life of the founder of the Christian faith whose teachings constitute the major portion of the New Testament. .
The very first question which arises in connection with the Bible has reference to its authenticity as a true narrative of events that happened in the past. So far as the Old Testament is concerned, it has been made apparent, at least in respect of the third and fourth chapters of the book of Genesis, that the facts recorded are not the events of history, but those invented by the imagination of man to clothe some of its most abstruse conclusions of a psychological nature. Philo (30 B. C. ---50 A. D.) and Origen (185—254 A. D.) seem to have taken a similar view. The following from 'The History of The New Testament Criticism 'is an admirable summing up of the latter's argument against an historical interpretation of the Bible: --
“He premises, firstly, that the Old Testament is divinely inspired, because its prophecies foreshadow Christ; and, secondly, that there is not either in the old or New Testament a single syllable void of divine meaning and import. But how, he asks, can
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