Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/246

210 what said the commandment: "Love thine enemy!" If my mind, athirst for beauty, longed for scenes and rites from the bygone world of Greece, Christianity swooped down on me with its "Seek the one thing needful!" If I felt the sweet lusts of the flesh towards this or that, the Prince of Renunciation terrified me with his: "Kill the body that the soul may live!"—All that is human has become unlawful since the day when the seer of Galilee became ruler of the world. Through him, life has become death. Love and hatred, both are sins. Has he, then, transformed man's flesh and blood? Has not earth-bound man remained what he ever was? Our inmost, healthy soul rebels against it all;—and yet we are to will in the very teeth of our own will! Thou shalt, shalt, shalt!

And you have advanced no further than that! Shame on you!

I?

Yes, you, the man of Athens and of Ephesus.

Ah, those times, Maximus! 'Twas easy to choose then. What were we really working at? A philosophic system; neither more nor less.

Is it not written somewhere in your Scriptures! Either with us or against us"?