Note 6 — Chapter XVI · THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND HEATHENISM.

But Christianity, it is contended, demanded only a spiritual freedom. True; but what is that spiritual freedom which does not pass into action, which does not attest itself in practice? Or dost thou believe that it only depends on thyself, on thy will, on thy intention, whether thou be free from anything? If so, thou art greatly in error, and hast never experienced what it is to be truly made free. So long as thou art in a given rank, profession, or relation, so long art thou, willingly or not, determined by it. Thy will, thy determination, frees thee only from conscious limitations and impressions, not from the unconscious ones which lie in the nature of the case. Thus we do not feel at home, we are under constraint, so long as we are not locally, physically separated from one with whom we have inwardly broken. External freedom is alone the full truth of spiritual freedom. A man who has really lost spiritual interest in earthly treasures soon throws them out at window, that his heart may be thoroughly at liberty. What I no longer possess by inclination is a burden to me; so away with it! What affection has let go, the hand no longer holds fast. Only affection gives force to the grasp; only affection makes possession sacred. He who having a wife is as though he had her not, will do better to have no wife at all. To have as though one had not, is to have without the disposition to have, is in truth not to have. And therefore he who says that one ought to have a thing as though one had it not, merely says in a subtle, covert, cautious way, that one ought not to have it at all. That which I dismiss from my heart is no longer mine,—it is free as air. St. Anthony took the resolution to renounce the world when he had once heard the saying, “If thou wilt be perfect, go thy way, sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.” St. Anthony gave the only true interpretation of this text. He went his way, and sold his possessions, and gave the proceeds to the poor. Only thus did he prove his spiritual freedom from the treasures of this world.6