Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/63

 A PSYCHO-ANALYTIC STUDY OF THE CHRISTIAN CREED 55

find a parent substitute for their libido, have regressed to the infantile level. The paternal symbolism satisfies the desire of both sexes for a supreme father imag-o and at the same time forms a defence against the boyish tendency to rebellious hatred of the earthly father.

When infantile self-love is overlaid by the higher stage of object-love, the child identifies itself with the beloved parent who is loved like a god. By this introjection of the parent into the self, the child can offer a willing obedience. To obey the parent is to obey oneself. This psychical stage in religion is represented by the joy and freedom felt by the child of God in a slavish service of his will. In the boy there soon arise the iconoclastic forces of jealousy in regard to the mother and rebellious hatred of paternal authority. Consequently the father is now felt to be an inadequate ideal and the boy may take as father substitute some real or imaginary hero who for a time can satisfy the emotional needs. With adolescence however comes the increased critical power to see that even heroes have feet of clay. If the CEdipus complex is still dominant, new sublimations are now required, such as patriotic love of the Fatherland or religious love of the Father God.

In the case of Jesus there are traces of an attempt to throw off a strong attachment to his mother ; and this may be one cause of his conscious preoccupation with the Father. The story of the child Jesus in the Temple marks the change from entire parental obedience to a self-conscious spirit of revolt. Jesus is no longer - satisfied to make Joseph his ideal (a hard task for a boy with a strong Mother-fixation of love) and henceforth calls no man his father but substitutes the heavenly image. We may conjecture that Jesus, in spite of his conscious revolt against his family, never wholly outgrew his identification with his mother. This would account for his strongly marked feminine traits, his desire for self- abasement in order to enjoy parental lifting up, and his deliberate choice of death on the cross as a means to a new life. Jesus' identification with his mother would act as a barrier against his love of any other woman and account for his failure to

marry.

In the case of the girl, faith in God is easier, because more in line with the infantile libido trend, than in the case of the boy. The girl who has sufficiendy outgrown her Electra complex seeks