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RELIGION AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION
no doubt about it when St. Paul deliberately describes them as such. In the Epistle to the Galatians he devotes no less than eleven verses to the subject, and explains as much of the hidden sense of the teaching as he thought safe to do, by means of another allegory. The text of the Epistle in this regard runs as follows (see Galatians iv. 21-31) :
" Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law ?
“For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid and the other by a free woman.
"But he who was of the bond-woman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise.
“Which things are an allegory ; for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai that gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
“For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
“ But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
“For it is written, Rejoice thou barren that bearest not : break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she wbich hath an husband.
“Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
“But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, even so it is now.
“Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.
"So then, brethren, we are not the children of the bond-woman, but of the
free."
The significance of the allegory is as follows: the bond-woman is the condition of the bondage of the soul, while Jerusalem represents a state or condition of the spiritual nature. Hence, Hagar (the bond-woman) is symbolical of Jerusalem which now is, that is to say, of the present condition of the spiritual nature of the unredeemed soul. But Jerusalem that is above is spirit in its natural purity, free from all kinds of bondage and bonds. The son of the bond-woman is the apparent or the outer ego, the lower self; and the son of the free woman is the real or higher self that is to be saved. But the lower self is the fleshly lustful ego of desires, and the persecutor of the real Self. Hence is he to be cast out, so that the true Self may enter into life that is glorious and blissful and eternal. The barren
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