Page:My Religion.djvu/168

 ''to love the Eternal, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, that thou mayest live. … I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed: to love the Eternal, to obey his voice, and to cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days.''” (Deut. xxx. 15–19.)

The principal difference between our conception of human life and that possessed by the Jews is, that while we believe that our mortal life, transmitted from generation to generation, is not the true life, but a fallen life, a life temporarily depraved,—the Jews, on the contrary, believed this life to be the true and supreme good, given to man on condition that he obey the will of God. From our point of view, the transmission of the fallen life from generation to generation is the transmission of a curse; from the Jewish point of view, it is the supreme good to which man can attain, on condition that he accomplish the will of God. It is precisely upon the Hebraic conception of life that Jesus founded his doctrine of the true or eternal life, which he contrasted with the personal and mortal life. Jesus said to the Jews:—

“Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” (John v. 39.)

To the young man who asked what he must do to have eternal life, Jesus said in reply, “If thou wilt