Testament to the New, from the dominion of Law to that of Faith, from justification by works to redemption through the Mediator, from the domain of sin and death to eternal life in Christ, means, when taken in its real sense, the transition from the merely moral virtues to the denial of the will to live.  My philosophy shows the metaphysical foundation of justice and the love of mankind, and points to the goal to which these virtues necessarily lead, if they are practised in perfection.  At the same time it is candid in confessing that a man must turn his back upon the world, and that the denial of the will to live is the way of redemption.  It is therefore really at one with the spirit of the New Testament, whilst all other systems are couched in the spirit of the Old; that is to say, theoretically as well as practically, their result is Judaism—­mere despotic theism.  In this sense, then, my doctrine might be called the only true Christian philosophy—­however paradoxical a statement this may seem to people who take superficial views instead of penetrating to the heart of the matter.

[Footnote 1:  Cf.  Romans vii; Galatians ii, iii.]

If you want a safe compass to guide you through life, and to banish all doubt as to the right way of looking at it, you cannot do better than accustom yourself to regard this world as a penitentiary, a sort of a penal colony, or [Greek:  ergastaerion] as the earliest philosopher called it.[1] Amongst the Christian Fathers, Origen, with praiseworthy courage, took this view,[2] which is further justified by certain objective theories of life.  I refer, not to my own philosophy alone, but to the wisdom of all ages, as expressed in Brahmanism and Buddhism, and in the sayings of Greek philosophers like Empedocles and Pythagoras; as also by Cicero, in his remark that the wise men of old used to teach that we come into this world to pay the penalty of crime committed in another state of existence—­a doctrine which formed part of the initiation into the mysteries.[3] And Vanini—­whom his contemporaries burned, finding that an easier task than to confute him—­puts the same thing in a very forcible way. Man, he says, is so full of every kind of misery that, were it not repugnant to the Christian religion, I should venture to affirm that if evil spirits exist at all, they have posed into human form and are now atoning for their crimes.[4] And true Christianity—­using the word in its right sense—­also regards our existence as the consequence of sin and error.

[Footnote 1:  Cf.  Clem.  Alex.  Strom.  L. iii, c, 3, p. 399.]

[Footnote 2:  Augustine de civitate Dei., L. xi. c. 23.]

[Footnote 3:  Cf. Fragmenta de philosophia.]

[Footnote:  4:  De admirandis naturae arcanis; dial L. p. 35.]