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object:1.05 - Christ, A Symbol of the Self
book class:Aion
class:chapter
author class:Carl Jung



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF

68 The dechristianization of our world, the Luciferian develop-
ment of science and technology, and the frightful material and
moral destruction left behind by the second World War have
been compared more than once with the eschatological events
foretold in the New Testament. These, as we know, are con-
cerned with the coming of the Antichrist: "This is Antichrist,
who denieth the Father and the Son." x "Every spirit that dis-
solved! Jesus ... is Antichrist ... of whom you have heard
that he cometh." 2 The Apocalypse is full of expectations of ter-
rible things that will take place at the end of time, before the
marriage of the Lamb. This shows plainly that the anima Chris-
tiana has a sure knowledge not only of the existence of an
adversary but also of his future usurpation of power.

6 9 Why- my reader will ask- do I discourse here upon Christ
and his adversary, the Antichrist? Our discourse necessarily
brings us to Christ, because he is the still living myth of our
culture. He is our culture hero, who, regardless of his historical
existence, embodies the myth of the divine Primordial Man, the
mystic Adam. It is he who occupies the centre of the Christian
mandala, who is the Lord of the Tetramorph, i.e., the four sym-
bols of the evangelists, which are like the four columns of his
throne. He is in us and we in him. His kingdom is the pearl of
great price, the treasure buried in the field, the grain of mus-
tard seed which will become a great tree, and the heavenly

1 1 John 2 : 22 (DV).

2 I John 4 : 3 (DV). The traditional view of the Church is based on II Thessalo-
nians 2 : 3ff., which speaks of the apostasy, of the SivOpw-rros rijs avofxias (man of
lawlessness) and the vlbs rijs d7rw\et'as (son of perdition) who herald the coming of
the Lord. This "lawless one" will set himself up in the place of God, but will
finally be slain by the Lord Jesus "with the breath of his mouth." He will work
wonders /car' evepyeiav rod oarava. (according to the working of Satan). Above all,
he will reveal himself by his lying and deceitfulness. Daniel 1 1 : 36ft. is regarded
as a prototype.

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CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



city. 8 As Christ is in us, so also is his heavenly kingdom. 4
7 These few, familiar references should be sufficient to make
the psychological position of the Christ symbol quite clear.
Christ exemplifies the archetype of the self. 5 He represents a
totality of a divine or heavenly kind, a glorified man, a son of
God sine macula peccati, unspotted by sin. As Adam secundus
he corresponds to the first Adam before the Fall, when the latter
was still a pure image of God, of which Tertullian (d. 222) says:
"And this therefore is to be considered as the image of God in
man, that the human spirit has the same motions and senses as
God has, though not in the same way as God has them." 6 Origen
(185-254) is very much more explicit: The imago Dei imprinted
on the soul, not on the body, 7 is an image of an image, "for my
soul is not directly the image of God, but is made after the like-
ness of the former image." 8 Christ, on the other hand, is the

3 For "city" cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pp. 104s.

4 'H paaiXela rov 6eov ivrbs vfiwv toriv (The kingdom of God is within you [or
"among you"]). "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall
they say, Lo here! or, lo there!" for it is within and everywhere. (Luke 17 : 2of.)
"It is not of this [external] world." (John 18 : 36.) The likeness of the kingdom
of God to man is explicitly stated in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13 : 24,
Cf. also Matthew 13 : 45, 18 : 23, 22 : 2). The papyrus fragments from Oxyrhyn-
chus say: . . . if /3ao-[i\eta riav ovpavtav] ivrbs v/xcov []
yvu> ravTtjv evp'ij[cei\ eavrovs yvwaeade kt\. (The kingdom of heaven is within you,
and whosoever knoweth himself shall find it. Know yourselves.) Cf. James, The
Apocryphal New Testament, p. 26, and Grenfell and Hunt, New Sayings of
Jesus, p. 15.

5 Cf. my observations on Christ as archetype in "A Psychological Approach to the
Dogma of the Trinity," pars. 226ff.

6 "Et haec ergo imago censenda est Dei in homine, quod eosdem motus et sensus
habeat humanus animus, quos et Deus, licet non tales quales Deus" (Adv. Mar-
cion., II, xvi; in Migne, P.L., vol. 2, col. 304).

7 Contra Celsum, VIII, 49 (Migne, P.G., vol. 11, col. 1590): "In anima, non in
corpore impressus sit imaginis conditoris character" (The character of the image
of the Creator is imprinted on the soul, not on the body). (Cf. trans, by H. Chad-
wick, p. 488.)

8 In Lucam homilia, VIII (Migne, P.G., vol. 13, col. 1820): "Si considerem Domi-
num Salvatorem imaginem esse invisibilis Dei, et videam animam meam factam
ad imaginem conditoris, ut imago esset imaginis: neque enim anima mea spe-
cialiter imago est Dei, sed ad similitudinem imaginis prioris effecta est" (If I
consider that the Lord and Saviour is the image of the invisible God, I see that
my soul is made after the image of the Creator, so as to be an image of an image;
for my soul is not directly the image of God, but is made after the likeness of the
former image).

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true image of God, 9 after whose likeness our inner man is made,
invisible, incorporeal, incorrupt, and immortal. 10 The God-
image in us reveals itself through "prudentia, iustitia, modera-
tio, virtus, sapientia et disciplina." u
7 1 St. Augustine (354-430) distinguishes between the God-
image which is Christ and the image which is implanted in
man as a means or possibility of becoming like God. 12 The God-
image is not in the corporeal man, but in the anima rationalis,
the possession of which distinguishes man from animals. "The
God-image is within, not in the body. . . . Where the under-
standing is, where the mind is, where the power of investigating
truth is, there God has his image." 13 Therefore we should re-
mind ourselves, says Augustine, that we are fashioned after the
image of God nowhere save in the understanding: ". . . but
where man knows himself to be made after the image of God,

9 De principiis, I, ii, 8 (Migne, P.G., vol. 11, col. 156): "Salvator figura est sub-
stantiae vel subsistentiae Dei" (The Saviour is the figure of the substance or sub-
sistence of God). In Genesim homilia, I, 13 (Migne, P.G., vol. 12, col. 156): "Quae
est ergo alia imago Dei ad cuius imaginis similitudinem factus est homo, nisi
Salvator noster, qui est primogenitus omnis creaturae?" (What else therefore is
the image of God after the likeness of which image man was made, but our
Saviour, who is the first born of every creature?) Selecta in Genesim, IX, 6
(Migne, P.G., vol. 12, col. 107): "Imago autem Dei invisibilis salvator" (But the
image of the invisible God is the saviour).

10 in Gen. horn., I, 13 (Migne, P.G., vol. 12, col. 155): "Is autem qui ad imaginem
Dei factus est et ad similitudinem, interior homo noster est, invisibilis et incor-
poralis, et incorruptus atque immortalis" (But that which is made after the image
and similitude of God is our inner man, invisible, incorporeal, incorrupt, and
immortal).

11 De princip., IV, 37 (Migne, P.G., vol. 11, col. 412).

12 Retractationes, I, xxvi (Migne, P.L., vol. 32, col. 626): "(Unigenitus) . . . tan-
tummodo imago est, non ad imaginem" (The Only-Begotten . . . alone is the
image, not after the image).

13 Enarrationes in Psalmos, XLVIII, Sermo II (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 564):
"Imago Dei intus est, non est in corpore . . . ubi est intellectus, ubi est mens,
ubi ratio investigandae veritatis etc. ibi habet Deus imaginem suam." Also ibid.,
Psalm XLII, 6 (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 480): "Ergo intelligimus habere nos
aliquid ubi imago Dei est, mentem scilicet atque rationem" (Therefore we under-
stand that we have something in which the image of God is, namely mind and
reason). Sermo XC, 10 (Migne, P.L., vol. 38, col. 566): "Veritas quaeritur in Dei
imagine" (Truth is sought in the image of God), but against this the Liber de
vera religione says: "in interiore homine habitat Veritas" (truth dwells in the
inner man). From this it is clear that the imago Dei coincides with the interior
homo.

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CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



there he knows there is something more in him than is given to
the beasts." 14 From this it is clear that the God-image is, so to
speak, identical with the anima rationalis. The latter is the
higher spiritual man, the homo coelestis of St Paul. 15 Like
Adam before the Fall, Christ is an embodiment of the God-
image, 16 whose totality is specially emphasized by St. Augustine.
"The Word," he says, "took on complete manhood, as it were in
its fulness: the soul and body of a man. And if you would have
me put it more exactly- since even a beast of the field has a 'soul'
and a body- when I say a human soul and human flesh, I mean
he took upon him a complete human soul." 17
72 The God-image in man was not destroyed by the Fall but
was only damaged and corrupted ("deformed"), and can be
restored through God's grace. The scope of the integration is
suggested by the descensus ad inferos, the descent of Christ's
soul to hell, its work of redemption embracing even the dead.
The psychological equivalent of this is the integration of the
collective unconscious which forms an essential part of the indi-
viduation process. St. Augustine says: "Therefore our end must
be our perfection, but our perfection is Christ," 18 since he is the
perfect God-image. For this reason he is also called "King." His
bride (sponsa) is the human soul, which "in an inwardly hidden
spiritual mystery is joined to the Word, that two may be in one
flesh," to correspond with the mystic marriage of Christ and the
Church. 19 Concurrently with the continuance of this hieros

14 Enarr. in Ps., LIV, 3 (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 629): "... ubi autem homo
ad imaginem Dei factum se novit, ibi aliquid in se agnoscit amplius esse quam
datum est pecoribus."

15 1 Cor. 15 : 47.

16 In Joannis Evangelium, Tract. LXXVIII, 3 (Migne, P.L., vol. 35, col. 1836):
"Christus est Deus, anima rationalis et caro" (Christ is God, a rational soul and
a body).

17 Sermo CCXXXVII, 4 (Migne, P.L., vol. 38, col. 1124): "(Verbum) suscepit totum
quasi plenum hominem, animam et corpus hominis. Et si aliquid scrupulosius
vis audire; quia animam et carnem habet et pecus, cum dico animam humanam
et carnem humanam, totam animam humanam accepit."

18 Enarr. in Ps., LIV, 1 (Migne, P.L., vol. 36, col. 628).

19 Contra Faustum, XXII, 38 (Migne, P.L., vol. 42, col. 424): "Est enim et sancta
Ecclesia Domino Jesu Christo in occulto uxor. Occulte quippe atque intus in
abscondito secreto spirituali anima humana inhaeret Verbo Dei, ut sint duo in
carne una." Cf. St. Augustine's Reply to Faustus the Manichaean (trans, by
Richard Stothert, p. 433): "The holy Church, too, is in secret the spouse of the

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gamos in the dogma and rites of the Church, the symbolism
developed in the course of the Middle Ages into the alchemical
conjunction of opposites, or "chymical wedding," thus giving
rise on the one hand to the concept of the lapis philosophorum,
signifying totality, and on the other hand to the concept of
chemical combination.
73 The God-image in man that was damaged by the first sin
can be ''reformed" 20 with the help of God, in accordance with
Romans 12:2: "And be not conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove
what is . . . the will of God" (RSV). The totality images which
the unconscious produces in the course of an individuation
process are similar "reformations" of an a priori archetype (the
mandala). 21 As I have already emphasized, the spontaneous sym-
bols of the self, or of wholeness, cannot in practice be distin-
guished from a God-image. Despite the word ^era^op^ovaBe ('be
transformed') in the Greek text of the above quotation, the
"renewal" (dyaKaiVwo-is, reformatio) of the mind is not meant as
an actual alteration of consciousness, but rather as the restora-
tion of an original condition, an apocatastasis. This is in exact
agreement with the empirical findings of psychology, that there
is an ever-present archetype of wholeness 22 which may easily
disappear from the purview of consciousness or may never be
perceived at all until a consciousness illuminated by conversion
recognizes it in the figure of Christ. As a result of this "anam-
nesis" the original state of oneness with the God-image is re-
stored. It brings about an integration, a bridging of the split in
the personality caused by the instincts striving apart in different
and mutually contradictory directions. The only time the split

Lord Jesus Christ. For it is secretly, and in the hidden depths of the spirit, that
the soul of man is joined to the word of God, so that they are two in one flesh."
St. Augustine is referring here to Eph. 5 : 3 if.: "For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be
one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church."

20 Augustine, De Trinitate, XIV, 22 (Migne, P.L., vol. 42, col. 1053): "Reforma-
mini in novitate mentis vostrae, ut incipiat ilia imago ab illo reformari, a quo
formata est" (Be reformed in the newness of your mind; the beginning of the
image's reforming must come from him who first formed it) (trans, by John
Burnaby, p. 120).

21 Cf. "Concerning Mandala Symbolism," in Part I of vol. 9.

22 Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 323ft.

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CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



does not occur is when a person is still as legitimately uncon-
scious of his instinctual life as an animal. But it proves harmful
and impossible to endure when an artificial unconsciousness-
a repression- no longer reflects the life of the instincts.

74 There can be no doubt that the original Christian concep-
tion of the imago Dei embodied in Christ meant an all-
embracing totality that even includes the animal side of man.
Nevertheless the Christ-symbol lacks wholeness in the modern
psychological sense, since it does not include the dark side of
things but specifically excludes it in the form of a Luciferian
opponent. Although the exclusion of the power of evil was
something the Christian consciousness was well aware of, all it
lost in effect was an insubstantial shadow, for, through the doc-
trine of the privatio boni first propounded by Origen, evil was
characterized as a mere diminution of good and thus deprived
of substance. According to the teachings of the Church, evil is
simply "the accidental lack of perfection." This assumption
resulted in the proposition "omne bonum a Deo, omne malum
ab homine." Another logical consequence was the subsequent
elimination of the devil in certain Protestant sects.

75 Thanks to the doctrine of the privatio boni, wholeness
seemed guaranteed in the figure of Christ. One must, however,
take evil rather more substantially when one meets it on the
plane of empirical psychology. There it is simply the opposite
of good. In the ancient world the Gnostics, whose arguments
were very much influenced by psychic experience, tackled the
problem of evil on a broader basis than the Church Fathers. For
instance, one of the things they taught was that Christ "cast off
his shadow from himself." 23 If we give this view the weight it

23 Irenaeus (Adversus haereses, II, 5, 1) records the Gnostic teaching that when
Christ, as the demiurgic Logos, created his mother's being, he "cast her out of
the Pleroma- that is, he cut her off from knowledge." For creation took place
outside the pleroma, in the shadow and the void. According to Valentinus {Adv.
haer., I, 11, 1), Christ did not spring from the Aeons of the pleroma, but from the
mother who was outside it. She bore him, he says, "not without a kind of
shadow." But he, "being masculine, ' cast off the shadow from himself and
returned to the Pleroma (/cat tovtov [Xpierbv] p.kv are &ppeva vwapxovTa diroKo^apra
&
behind in the shadow, and deprived of spiritual substance, ' there gave birth to
the real "Demiurge and Pantokrator of the lower world. ' But the shadow which
lies over the world is, as we know from the Gospels, the princeps huius mundi,
the devil. Cf. The Writings of Irenaeus, I, pp. 45L

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AION

deserves, we can easily recognize the cut-off counterpart in the
figure of Antichrist. The Antichrist develops in legend as a per-
verse imitator of Christ's life. He is a true avn/u/xov wvevfia, an
imitating spirit of evil who follows in Christ's footsteps like a
shadow following the body. This complementing of the bright
but one-sided figure of the Redeemer- we even find traces of it
in the New Testament- must be of especial significance. And
indeed, considerable attention was paid to it quite early.

7 6 If we see the traditional figure of Christ as a parallel to the
psychic manifestation of the self, then the Antichrist would cor-
respond to the shadow of the self, namely the dark half of the
human totality, which ought not to be judged too optimistically.
So far as we can judge from experience, light and shadow are so
evenly distributed in man's nature that his psychic totality
appears, to say the least of it, in a somewhat murky light. The
psychological concept of the self, in part derived from our
knowledge of the whole man, but for the rest depicting itself
spontaneously in the products of the unconscious as an arche-
typal quaternity bound together by inner antinomies, cannot
omit the shadow that belongs to the light figure, for without it
this figure lacks body and humanity. In the empirical self, light
and shadow form a paradoxical unity. In the Christian concept,
on the other hand, the archetype is hopelessly split into two
irreconcilable halves, leading ultimately to a metaphysical dual-
ism-the final separation of the kingdom of heaven from the
fiery world of the damned.

77 For anyone who has a positive attitude towards Christianity
the problem of the Antichrist is a hard nut to crack. It is noth-
ing less than the counterstroke of the devil, provoked by God's
Incarnation; for the devil attains his true stature as the adver-
sary of Christ, and hence of God, only after the rise of Chris-
tianity, while as late as the Book of Job he was still one of God's
sons and on familiar terms with Yahweh. 24 Psychologically the
case is clear, since the dogmatic figure of Christ is so sublime
and spotless that everything else turns dark beside it. It is, in
fact, so one-sidedly perfect that it demands a psychic comple-
ment to restore the balance. This inevitable opposition led very
early to the doctrine of the two sons of God, of whom the elder

24 Cf. R. Scharf, "Die Gestalt des Satans im Alten Testament."

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CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



was called Satanael. 25 The coming of the Antichrist is not just a
prophetic prediction- it is an inexorable psychological law
whose existence, though unknown to the author of the Johan-
nine Epistles, brought him a sure knowledge of the impending
enantiodromia. Consequently he wrote as if he were conscious
of the inner necessity for this transformation, though we may be
sure that the idea seemed to him like a divine revelation. In
reality every intensified differentiation of the Christ-image
brings about a corresponding accentuation of its unconscious
complement, thereby increasing the tension between above and
below.
78 In making these statements we are keeping entirely within
the sphere of Christian psychology and symbolism. A factor that
no one has reckoned with, however, is the fatality inherent in
the Christian disposition itself, which leads inevitably to a re-
versal of its spirit - not through the obscure workings of chance
but in accordance with psychological law. The ideal of spiritu-
ality striving for the heights was doomed to clash with the ma-
terialistic earth-bound passion to conquer matter and master the
world. This change became visible at the time of the "Renais-
sance." The word means "rebirth," and it referred to the re-
newal of the antique spirit. We know today that this spirit was
chiefly a mask; it was not the spirit of antiquity that was reborn,
but the spirit of medieval Christianity that underwent strange
pagan transformations, exchanging the heavenly goal for an
earthly one, and the vertical of the Gothic style for a horizontal
perspective (voyages of discovery, exploration of the world and
of nature). The subsequent developments that led to the En-
lightenment and the French Revolution have produced a world-
wide situation today which can only be called "antichristian" in
a sense that confirms the early Christian anticipation of the "end
of time." It is as if, with the coming of Christ, opposites that
were latent till then had become manifest, or as if a pendu-
lum had swung violently to one side and were now carrying out
the complementary movement in the opposite direction. No
tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to
hell. The double meaning of this movement lies in the nature of
the pendulum. Christ is without spot, but right at the begin-
ning of his career there occurs the encounter with Satan, the
25 "The Spirit Mercurius," par. 271.

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Adversary, who represents the counterpole of that tremendous
tension in the world psyche which Christ's advent signified. He
is the "mysterium iniquitatis" that accompanies the "sol iusti-
tiae" as inseparably as the shadow belongs to the light, in exactly
the same way, so the Ebionites 26 and Euchites 27 thought, that
one brother cleaves to the- other. Both strive for a kingdom: one
for the kingdom of heaven, the other for the "principatus huius
mundi." We hear of a reign of a "thousand years" and of a "com-
ing of the Antichrist," just as if a partition of worlds and epochs
had taken place between two royal brothers. The meeting with
Satan was therefore more than mere chance; it was a link in the
chain.
79 Just as we have to remember the gods of antiquity in order
to appreciate the psychological value of the anima /animus
archetype, so Christ is our nearest analogy of the self and its
meaning. It is naturally not a question of a collective value
artificially manufactured or arbitrarily awarded, but of one that
is effective and present per se, and that makes its effectiveness
felt whether the subject is conscious of it or not. Yet, although
the attri butes of Christ (consubstantiality with the Father, co-
eternity, filiation, par thenogenesis, crucifixion, Lamb sacrificed
between opposites, One divided into Many, etc.) undoubtedly
mark him out as an embodiment of the self, looked at from the
psychological angle he corresponds to only one half of the arche-
type. The other half appears in the Antichrist. The latter is
just as much a manifestation of the self, except that he consists
of its dark aspect. Both are Christian symbols, and they have the
same meaning as the image of the Saviour crucified between two
thieves. This great symbol tells us that the progressive develop-
ment and differentiation of consciousness leads to an ever more
menacing awareness of the conflict and involves nothing less
than a crucifixion of the ego, its agonizing suspension between
irreconcilable opposites. 28 Naturally there can be no question

26 Jewish Christians who formed a Gnostic-syncretistic party.

27 A Gnostic sect mentioned in Epiphanius, Panarium adversus octoginta haereses,
LXXX, 1-3, and in Michael Psellus, De daemonibus (in Marsilius Ficinus, Auc-
tores Platonici [Iamblichus de mysteriis Aegyptiorum], Venice, 1497).

28 "Oportuit autem ut alter illorum extremorum isque optimus appellaretur Dei
films propter suam excellentiam; alter vero ipsi ex diametro oppositus, mali dae-
monis, Satanae diabolique filius diceretur" (But it is fitting that one of these two
extremes, and that the best, should be called the Son of God because of his excel-



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CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



of a total extinction of the ego, for then the focus of conscious-
ness would be destroyed, and the result would be complete un-
consciousness. The relative abolition of the ego affects only
those supreme and ultimate decisions which confront us in
situations where there are insoluble conflicts of duty. This
means, in other words, that in such cases the ego is a suffering
bystander who decides nothing but must submit to a decision and
surrender unconditionally. The "genius" of man, the higher
and more spacious part of him whose extent no one knows, has
the final word. It is therefore well to examine carefully the psy-
chological aspects of the individuation process in the light of
Christian tradition, which can describe it for us with an exact-
ness and impressiveness far surpassing our feeble attempts, even
though the Christian image of the self- Christ- lacks the shadow
that properly belongs to it.
80 The reason for this, as already indicated, is the doctrine of
the Summum Bonum. Irenaeus says very rightly, in refuting the

lence, and the other, diametrically opposed to him, the son of the evil demon, of
Satan and the devil) (Origen, Contra Celsum, VI, 45; in Migne, P.G., vol. 11, col.
1367; cf. trans, by Chadwick, p. 362). The opposites even condition one another:
"Ubi quid malum est . . . ibi necessario bonum esse malo contrarium. . . .
Alterum ex altero sequitur: proinde aut utrumque tollendum est negandumque
bona et mala esse; aut admisso altero maximeque malo, bonum quoque admissum
oportet." (Where there is evil . . . there must needs be good contrary to the
evil. . . . The one follows from the other; hence we must either do away with
both, and deny that good and evil exist, or if we admit the one, and particularly
evil, we must also admit the good.) (Contra Celsum, II, 51; in Migne, P.G., vol. 11,
col. 878; cf. trans, by Chadwick, p. 106.) In contrast to this clear, logical statement
Origen cannot help asserting elsewhere that the "Powers, Thrones, and Prin-
cipalities" down to the evil spirits and impure demons "do not have it- the con-
trary virtue- substantially" ("non substantialiter id habeant scl. virtus adversaria"),
and that they were not created evil but chose the condition of wickedness
("malitiae gradus") of their own free will. (De principiis, I, vin, 4; in Migne, P.G.,
vol. 11, col. 179.) Origen is already committed, at least by implication, to the
definition of God as the Summum Bonum, and hence betrays the inclination to
deprive evil of substance. He comes very close to the Augustinian conception of
the privatio boni when he says: "Certum namque est malum esse bono carere"
(For it is certain that to be evil means to be deprived of good). But this sentence
is immediately preceded by the following: "Recedere autem a bono, non aliud est
quam effici in malo" (To turn aside from good is nothing other than to be per-
fected in evil) (De principiis, II, ix, 2; in Migne, P.G., vol. 11, cols. 226-27). This
shows clearly that an increase in the one means a diminution of the other, so
that good and evil represent equivalent halves of an opposition.

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AION

Gnostics, that exception must be taken to the "light of their
Father," because it "could not illuminate and fill even those
things which were within it," 29 namely the shadow and the
void. It seemed to him scandalous and reprehensible to suppose
that within the pleroma of light there could be a "dark and
formless void." For the Christian neither God nor Christ could
be a paradox; they had to have a single meaning, and this holds
true to the present day. No one knew, and apparently (with a
few commendable exceptions) no one knows even now, that the
hybris of the speculative intellect had already emboldened the
ancients to propound a philosophical definition of God that
more or less obliged him to be the Summum Bonum. A Protes-
tant theologian has even had the temerity to assert that "God
can only be good." Yahweh could certainly have taught him a
thing or two in this respect, if he himself is unable to see his
intellectual trespass against God's freedom and omnipotence.
This forcible usurpation of the Summum Bonum naturally has
its reasons, the origins of which lie far back in the past (though
I cannot enter into this here). Nevertheless, it is the effective
source of the concept of the privatio boni, which nullifies the
reality of evil and can be found as early as Basil the Great
(330-79) and Dionysius the Areopagite (2nd half of the 4th
century), and is fully developed in Augustine.

81 The earliest authority of all for the later axiom "Omne
bonum a Deo, omne malum ab homine" is Tatian (2nd cen-
tury), who says: "Nothing evil was created by God; we ourselves
have produced all wickedness." 30 This view is also adopted by
Theophilus of Antioch (2nd century) in his treatise Ad Autoly-
cum. sl

82 Basil says:

You must not look upon God as the author of the existence of evil,
nor consider that evil has any subsistence in itself [tStav inrooratnv
rov kclkov dvai\. For evil does not subsist as a living being does, nor
can we set before our eyes any substantial essence [ovaiav ewiroo-Tarov]
thereof. For evil is the privation [cn-ep^cn?] of good. . . . And thus
evil does not inhere in its own substance [v ISia v-n-dpia], but arises

29 Adv. haer., II, 4, 3. 30 Oratio ad Graecos (Migne, P.G., vol. 6, col. 829).

31 Migne, P.G., vol. 6, col. 1080.

46



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



from the mutilation [n-qpwfiamv] of the soul. 32 Neither is it uncreated,
as the wicked say who set up evil for the equal of good . . . nor is
it created. For if all things are of God, how can evil arise from
good? 33

83 Another passage sheds light on the logic of this statement. In
the second homily of the Hexaemeron, Basil says:

It is equally impious to say that evil has its origin from God, be-
cause the contrary cannot proceed from the contrary. Life does not
engender death, darkness is not the origin of light, sickness is not
the maker of health. . . . Now if evil is neither uncreated nor
created by God, whence comes its nature? That evil exists no one
living in the world will deny. What shall we say, then? That evil is
not a living and animated entity, but a condition [Sia&o-is] of the soul
opposed to virtue, proceeding from light-minded [paOvfiots] persons
on account of their falling away from good. . . . Each of us should
acknowledge that he is the first author of the wickedness in him. 34

8 4 The perfectly natural fact that when you say "high" you
immediately postulate "low" is here twisted into a causal rela-
tionship and reduced to absurdity, since it is sufficiently obvious
that darkness produces no light and light produces no darkness.
The idea of good and evil, however, is the premise for any moral
judgment. They are a logically equivalent pair of opposites and,
as such, the sine qua non of all acts of cognition. From the
empirical standpoint we cannot say more than this. And from
this standpoint we would have to assert that good and evil, being
coexistent halves of a moral judgment, do not derive from one
another but are always there together. Evil, like good, belongs
to the category of human values, and we are the authors of moral
value judgments, but only to a limited degree are we authors of
the facts submitted to our moral judgment. These facts are
called by one person good and by another evil. Only in capital
cases is there anything like a consensus generalis. If we hold with
Basil that man is the author of evil, we are saying in the same
breath that he is also the author of good. But man is first and

32 Basil thought that the darkness of the world came from the shadow cast by the
body of heaven. Hexaemeron, II, 5 (Migne, P.G., vol. 29, col. 40).

33 Homilia: Quod Deus non est auctor malorum (Migne, P.G., vol. 31, col. 341).

34 De spiritu sancto (Migne, P.G., vol. 29, col. 37). Cf. Nine Homilies of the
Hexaemeron, trans, by Blomfield Jackson, pp. 6if.

47



AION

foremost the author merely of judgments; in relation to the facts
judged, his responsibility is not so easy to determine. In order
to do this, we would have to give a clear definition of the extent
of his free will. The psychiatrist knows what a desperately diffi-
cult task this is.
8 5 For these reasons the psychologist shrinks from metaphysical
assertions but must criticize the admittedly human foundations
of the privatio boni. When therefore Basil asserts on the one
hand that evil has no substance of its own but arises from a
"mutilation of the soul," and if on the other hand he is con-
vinced that evil really exists, then the relative reality of evil is
grounded on a real "mutilation" of the soul which must have an
equally real cause. If the soul was originally created good, then
it has really been corrupted and by something that is real, even
if this is nothing more than carelessness, indifference, and frivol-
ity, which are the meaning of the word paBvjda. When something
-I must stress this with all possible emphasis- is traced back to
a psychic condition or fact, it is very definitely not reduced to
nothing and thereby nullified, but is shifted on to the plane of
psychic reality, which is very much easier to establish empirically
than, say, the reality of the devil in dogma, who according to the
au thentic sources was not invented by man at all but existed
long before he did. If the devil fell away from God of his own
free will, this proves firstly that evil was in the world before
man, and therefore that man cannot be the sole author of it,
and secondly that the devil already had a "mutilated" soul for
which we must hold a real cause responsible. The basic flaw in
Basil's argument is the petitio principii that lands him in in-
soluble contradictions: it is laid down from the start that the
independent existence of evil must be denied even in face of the
eternity of the devil as asserted by dogma. The historical reason
for this was the threat presented by Manichaean dualism. This
is especially clear in the treatise of Titus of Bostra (d. c. 370),
entitled Adversus Manichaeos^ where he states in refutation
of the Manichaeans that, so far as substance is concerned, there
is no such thing as evil.

John Chrysostom (c. 344-407) uses, instead of o-rep^ats (priva-
tio), the expression Iktpott^ tov ko.\ov (deviation, or turning away,

35 Migne, P.G., vol. 18, cols. n$2t.

48



86



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



from good). He says: "Evil is nothing other than a turning away
from good, and therefore evil is secondary in relation to good." 36

8 7 Dionysius the Areopagite gives a detailed explanation of evil
in the fourth chapter of De divinis nominibus. Evil, he says, can-
not come from good, because if it came from good it would not
be evil. But since everything that exists comes from good, every-
thing is in some way good, but "evil does not exist at all" (to

8c KCLKOV OVTC OV IcTTlV) .

88 Evil in its nature is neither a thing nor does it bring anything
forth.

Evil does not exist at all and is neither good nor productive of

good \ovk ecrrt Ka66\ov to kclkov ovt ayadbv ovre dya0o7roi6vj .

All things which are, by the very fact that they are, are good and
come from good; but in so far as they are deprived of good, they
are neither good nor do they exist.

That which has no existence is not altogether evil, for the abso-
lutely non-existent will be nothing, unless it be thought of as sub-
sisting in the good superessentially [Kara to wrcpovmov]. Good, then,
as absolutely existing and as absolutely non-existing, will stand in
the foremost and highest place [ttoWw npoTepov wrepi8pvp.vov], while
evil is neither in that which exists nor in that which does not exist
[to 8c kclkov ovtc iv Tois ovctlv, ovtc iv tois p,yj ovctlv]- 37

8 9 These quotations show with what emphasis the reality of
evil was denied by the Church Fathers. As already mentioned,
this hangs together with the Church's attitude to Manichaean
dualism, as can plainly be seen in St. Augustine. In his polemic
against the Manichaeans and Marcionites he makes the follow-
ing declaration:

For this reason all things are good, since some things are better than
others and the goodness of the less good adds to the glory of the
better. . . . Those things we call evil, then, are defects in good
things, and quite incapable of existing in their own right outside
good things. . . . But those very defects testify to the natural good-
ness of things. For what is evil by reason of a defect must obviously
be good of its own nature. For a defect is something contrary to
nature, something which damages the nature of a thing- and it can

36 Responsiones ad orthodoxas (Migne, P.G., vol. 6, cols. 1313-14).

37 Migne, P.G., vol. 3, cols. 716-18. Cf. the Works of Dionysius the Areopagite,
trans, by John Parker, I, pp. 53ft*.

49



AION

do so only by diminishing that thing's goodness. Evil therefore is
nothing but the privation of good. And thus it can have no existence
anywhere except in some good thing. ... So there can be things
which are good without any evil in them, such as God himself, and
the higher celestial beings; but there can be no evil things without
good. For if evils cause no damage to anything, they are not evils; if
they do damage something, they diminish its goodness; and if they
damage it still more, it is because it still has some goodness which
they diminish; and if they swallow it up altogether, nothing of its
nature is left to be damaged. And so there will be no evil by which
it can be damaged, since there is then no nature left whose goodness
any damage can diminish. 38

9 The Liber Sententiarum ex Augustino says (CLXXVI):
"Evil is not a substance, 39 for as it has not God for its author, it

38 "Nunc vero ideo sunt omnia bona, quia sunt aliis alia meliora, et bonitas
inferiorum addit laudibus meliorum. . . . Ea vero quae dicuntur mala, aut vitia
sunt rerum bonarum, quae omnino extra res bonas per se ipsa alicubi esse non
possunt. . . . Sed ipsa quoque vitia testimonium perhibent bonitati naturarum.
Quod enim malum est per vitium, profecto bonum est per naturam. Vitium
quippe contra naturam est, quia naturae nocet; nee noceret, nisi bonum eius
minueret. Non est ergo malum nisi privatio boni. Ac per hoc nusquam est nisi
in re aliqua bona. ... Ac per hoc bona sine malis esse possunt, sicut ipse Deus,
et quaeque superiora coelestia; mala vero sine bonis esse non possunt. Si enim
nihil nocent, mala non sunt; si autem nocent, bonum minuunt; et si amplius
nocent, habent adhuc bonum quod minuant; et si totum consumunt, nihil
naturae remanebit qui noceatur; ac per hoc nee malum erit a quo noceatur,
quando natura defuerit, cuius bonum nocendo minuatur." {Contra adversarium
legis et prophetarum, I, 41".; in Migne, P.L., vol. 42, cols. 606-7.) Although the
Dialogus Quaestionum LXV is not an au thentic writing of Augustine's, it reflects
his standpoint very clearly. Quaest. XVI: "Cum Deus omnia bona creaverit,
nihilque sit quod non ab illo conditum sit, unde malum? Resp. Malum natura
non est; sed privatio boni hoc nomen accepit. Denique bonum potest esse sine
malo, sed malum non potest esse sine bono, nee potest esse malum ubi non fuerit
bonum. . . . Ideoque quando dicimus bonum, naturam laudamus; quando dici-
mus malum, non naturam sed vitium, quod est bonae naturae contrarium repre-
hendimus." (Question XVI: Since God created all things good and there is
nothing which was not created by him, whence arises evil? Answer: Evil is not a
natural thing, it is rather the name given to the privation of good. Thus there can
be good without evil, but there cannot be evil without good, nor can there be evil
where there is no good. . . . Therefore, when we call a thing good, we praise its
inherent nature; when we call a thing evil, we blame not its nature, but some
defect in it contrary to its nature, which is good.)

39 "Iniquity has no substance" (CCXXVIII). "There is a nature in which there is
no evil- in which, indeed, there can be no evil. But it is impossible for a nature
to exist in which there is no good" (CLX).

50



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



does not exist; and so the defect of corruption is nothing else
than the desire or act of a misdirected will." 40 Augustine agrees
with this when he says: "The steel is not evil; but the man who
uses the steel for a criminal purpose, he is evil." 41

These quotations clearly exemplify the standpoint of Diony-
sius and Augustine: evil has no substance or existence in itself,
since it is merely a diminution of good, which alone has sub-
stance. Evil is a vitium, a bad use of things as a result of errone-
ous decisions of the will (blindness due to evil desire, etc.).
Thomas Aquinas, the great theoretician of the Church, says with
reference to the above quotation from Dionysius:

One opposite is known through the other, as darkness is known
through light. Hence also what evil is must be known from the
nature of good. Now we have said above that good is everything
appetible; and thus, since every nature desires its own being and its
own perfection, it must necessarily be said that the being and per-
fection of every created thing is essentially good. Hence it cannot
be that evil signifies a being, or any form or nature. Therefore it
must be that by the name of evil is signified the absence of good. 42

Evil is not a being, whereas good is a being. 43

That every agent works for an end clearly follows from the fact
that every agent tends to something definite. Now that to which
an agent tends definitely must needs be befitting to that agent, since
the latter would not tend to it save on account of some fittingness
thereto. But that which is befitting to a thing is good for it. There-
fore every agent works for a good. 44

St. Thomas himself recalls the saying of Aristotle that "the
thing is the whiter, the less it is mixed with black," 45 without
mentioning, however, that the reverse proposition: "the thing is
the blacker, the less it is mixed with white," not only has the
same validity as the first but is also its logical equivalent. He

40 Augustini Opera omnia, Maurist edn., X, Part 2, cols. 2561-2618.

41 Sermones supposititii, Sermo I, 3, Maurist edn., V, col. 2287.

42 Summa theologica, I, q. 48, ad 1 (trans, by the Fathers of the English Dominican
Province, II, p. 264). 43 Ibid., I, q. 48, ad 3 (trans., p. 268).

44". . . Quod autem conveniens est alicui est illi bonum. Ergo omne agens agit
propter bonum" (Summa contra Gentiles, III, ch. 3, trans, by the English
Dominican Fathers, vol. Ill, p. 7).

45 Summa theologica, I, q. 48, ad 2 (trans., II, p. 266, citing Aristotle's Topics,
iii, 4).

51



AION



might also have mentioned that not only darkness is known
through light, but that, conversely, light is known through dark-
ness.

93 As only that which works is real, so, according to St. Thomas,
only good is real in the sense of "existing." His argument, how-
ever, introduces a good that is tantamount to "convenient, suf-
ficient, appropriate, suitable." One ought therefore to translate
"omne agens agit propter bonum" as: "Every agent works for
the sake of what suits it." That's what the devil does too, as we
all know. He too has an "appetite" and strives after perfection-
not in good but in evil. Even so, one could hardly conclude from
this that his striving is "essentially good."

94 Obviously evil can be represented as a diminution of good,
but with this kind of logic one could just as well say: The tem-
perature of the Arctic winter, which freezes our noses and ears,
is relatively speaking only a little below the heat prevailing at
the equator. For the Arctic temperature seldom falls much lower
than 230 C. above absolute zero. All things on earth are
"warm" in the sense that nowhere is absolute zero even approxi-
mately reached. Similarly, all things are more or less "good,"
and just as cold is nothing but a diminution of warmth, so evil
is nothing but a diminution of good. The privatio boni argu-
ment remains a euphemistic petitio principii no matter whether
evil is regarded as a lesser good or as an effect of the finiteness
and limitedness of created things. The false conclusion neces-
sarily follows from the premise "Deus = Summum Bonum,"
since it is unthinkable that the perfect good could ever have
created evil. It merely created the good and the less good (which
last is simply called "worse" by laymen). 46 Just as we freeze
miserably despite a temperature of 230 above absolute zero, so
there are people and things that, although created by God, are
good only to the minimal and bad to the maximal degree.

95 It is probably from this tendency to deny any reality to evil
that we get the axiom "Omne bonum a Deo, omne malum ab
homine." This is a contradiction of the truth that he who
created the heat is also responsible for the cold ("the goodness
of the less good"). We can certainly hand it to Augustine that

46 in the Decrees of the 4th Lateran Council we read: "For the devil and the
other demons as created by God were naturally good, but became evil of their
own motion." Denzinger and Bannwart, Enchiridion symbolorum, p. 189.

52



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



all natures are good, yet just not good enough to prevent their
badness from being equally obvious.



96 One could hardly call the things that have happened, and
still happen, in the concentration camps of the dictator states an
"accidental lack of perfection"- it would sound like mockery.

97 Psychology does not know what good and evil are in them-
selves; it knows them only as judgments about relationships.
"Good" is what seems suitable, acceptable, or valuable from a
certain point of view; evil is its opposite. If the things we call
good are "really" good, then there must be evil things that are
"real" too. It is evident that psychology is concerned with a
more or less subjective judgment, i.e., with a psychic antithesis
that cannot be avoided in naming value relationships: "good"
denotes something that is not bad, and "bad" something that is
not good. There are things which from a certain point of view
are extremely evil, that is to say dangerous. There are also things
in human nature which are very dangerous and which therefore
seem proportionately evil to anyone standing in their line of
fire. It is pointless to gloss over these evil things, because that
only lulls one into a sense of false security. Human nature is
capable of an infinite amount of evil, and the evil deeds are as
real as the good ones so far as human experience goes and so far
as the psyche judges and differentiates between them. Only un-
consciousness makes no difference between good and evil. Inside
the psychological realm one honestly does not know which of
them predominates in the world. We hope, merely, that good
does- i.e., what seems suitable to us. No one could possibly say
what the general good might be. No amount of insight into the
relativity and fallibility of our moral judgment can deliver us
from these defects, and those who deem themselves beyond good
and evil are usually the worst tormentors of mankind, because
they are twisted with the pain and fear of their own sickness.

9 8 Today as never before it is important that human beings
should not overlook the danger of the evil lurking within them.
It is unfortunately only too real, which is why psychology must
insist on the reality of evil and must reject any definition that
regards it as insignificant or actually non-existent. Psychology is
an empirical science and deals with realities. As a psychologist,

53



AION



therefore, I have neither the inclination nor the competence
to mix myself up with metaphysics. Only, I have to get polemical
when metaphysics encroaches on experience and interprets it
in a way that is not justified empirically. My criticism of the
privatio boni holds only so far as psychological experience goes.
From the scientific point of view the privatio boni, as must be
apparent to everyone, is founded on a petitio principii, where
what invariably comes out at the end is what you put in at the
beginning. Arguments of this kind have no power of convic-
tion. But the fact that such arguments are not only used but are
undoubtedly believed is something that cannot be disposed of
so easily. It proves that there is a tendency, existing right from
the start, to give priority to "good," and to do so with all the
means in our power, whether suitable or unsuitable. So if Chris-
tian metaphysics clings to the privatio boni, it is giving expres-
sion to the tendency always to increase the good and diminish
the bad. The privatio boni may therefore be a metaphysical
truth. I presume to no judgment on this matter. I must only
insist that in our field of experience white and black, light and
dark, good and bad, are equivalent opposites which always predi-
cate one another.
99 This elementary fact was correctly appreciated in the so-
called Clementine Homilies, 47 a collection of Gnostic-Christian
writings dating from about a.d. 150. The unknown author un-
derstands good and evil as the right and left hand of God, and
views the whole of creation in terms of syzygies, or pairs of oppo-
sites. In much the same way the follower of Bardesanes, Marinus,
sees good as "light" and pertaining to the right hand (8eidV), and
evil as "dark" and pertaining to the left hand (aptarepov) , 48 The
left also corresponds to the feminine. Thus in Irenaeus (Adv.
haer., I, 30, 3), Sophia Prounikos is called Sinistra. Clement
finds this altogether compatible with the idea of God's unity.

*7 Harnack (Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, p. 332) ascribes the Clementine
Homilies to the beginning of the 4th cent, and is of the opinion that they contain
"no source that could be attri buted with any certainty to the 2nd century." He
thinks that Islam is far superior to this theology. Yahweh and Allah are un-
reflected God-images, whereas in the Clementine Homilies there is a psychological
and reflective spirit at work. It is not immediately evident why this should bring
about a disintegration of the God-concept, as Harnack thinks. Fear of psychology
should not be carried too far.
48 Der Dialog des Adamantius, HI, 4 (ed. by van de Sande Bakhuyzen, p. 1 19).

54



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



Provided that one has an anthropomorphic God-image - and
every God-image is anthropomorphic in a more or less subtle
way - the logic and naturalness of Clement's view can hardly
be contested. At all events this view, which may be some two
hundred years older than the quotations given above, proves
that the reality of evil does not necessarily lead to Manichaean
dualism and so does not endanger the unity of the God-image.
As a matter of fact, it guarantees that unity on a plane beyond
the crucial difference between the Yahwistic and the Christian
points of view. Yahweh is notoriously unjust, and injustice is
not good. The God of Christianity, on the other hand, is only
good. There is no denying that Clement's theology helps us to
get over this contradiction in a way that fits the psychological
facts.

It is therefore worth following up Clement's line of thought
a little more closely. "God," he says, "appointed two king-
doms [BaaiXelas] and two ages [afovas], determining that the pres-
ent world should be given over to evil [wovrjpu], because it is small
and passes quickly away. But he promised to preserve the future
world for good, because it is great and eternal." Clement goes
on to say that this division into two corresponds to the structure
of man: the body comes from the female, who is characterized
by emotionality; the spirit comes from the male, who stands for
rationality. He calls body and spirit the "two triads." 49

Man is a compound of two mixtures [4>vpaixa.Twv, lit. 'pastes'], the
female and the male. Wherefore also two ways have been laid before
him - those of obedience and of disobedience to law; and two king-
doms have been established - the one called the kingdom of heaven,
and the other the kingdom of those who are now rulers upon
earth. ... Of these two, the one does violence to the other. More-
over these two rulers are the swift hands of God.

That is a reference to Deuteronomy 32 : 39: "I will kill and I
will make to live" (DV). He kills with the left hand and saves
with the right.

49 The female or somatic triad consist of kiridvu'ta (desire), dpyri (anger), and
X6x7? (grief); the male, of \oy 107x6s (reflection), yvwais (knowledge), and
(fear). Cf. the triad of functions in "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy-
tales," Part I of vol. 9, pars. 425ft.

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AION



These two principles have not their substance outside of God, for
there is no other primal source [dpx 7 ?]- Nor have they been sent forth
from God as animals, for they were of the same mind [6/xdSo|ot] with
him. . . . But from God were sent forth the four first elements-
hot and cold, moist and dry. In consequence of this, he is the
Father of every substance [ovo-i'as], but not of the knowledge which
arises from the mixing of the elements. 50 For when these were com-
bined from without, choice [irpoaipecn
child. 51

That is to say, through the mixing of the four elements in-
equalities arose which caused uncertainty and so necessitated
decisions or acts of choice. The four elements form the fourfold
substance of the body (reTpaytvrjs tov crw/xaros ovcria) and also of
evil (tov irovrjpov). This substance was "carefully discriminated
and sent forth from God, but when it was combined from with-
out, according to the will of him who sent it forth, there arose,
as a result of the combination, the preference which rejoices in

evils [17 kclkoi<; x

101 The last sentence is to be understood as follows: The four-
fold substance is eternal (oiW dei) and God's child. But the
tendency to evil was added from outside to the mixture willed

by God (/caTa rrjv tov deov fiovkrjcnv e|o> Trj Kpdau o~o(x(Si^r)Ktv). Thus

evil is not created by God or by any one else, nor was it pro-
jected out of him, nor did it arise of itself. Peter, who is engaged
in these reflections, is evidently not quite sure how the matter
stands.

102 It seems as if, without God's intending it (and possibly with-
out his knowing it) the mixture of the four elements took a
wrong turning, though this is rather hard to square with Clem-
ent's idea of the opposite hands of God "doing violence to one
another." Obviously Peter, the leader of the dialogue, finds it
rather difficult to attri bute the cause of evil to the Creator in
so many words.

">3 The author of the Homilies espouses a Petrine Christianity
distinctly "High Church" or ritualistic in flavour. This, taken

50 p. de Lagarde (Clementina, p. 190) has here . . . wdffTjs ovcrlas . . . otfcrrjs
yvwfirjs- The reading ov ttjs seems to me to make more sense.

51 Ch. Ill: Tys fierh ry\v icpaaiv.

52 The Clementine Homilies and the Apostolical Constitutions, trans, by Thomas
Smith et al., pp. 3i2ff. (slightly modified).

56



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



together with his doctrine of the dual aspect of God, brings him
into close relationship with the early Jewish-Christian Church,
where, according to the testimony of Epiphanius, we find the
Ebionite notion that God had two sons, an elder one, Satan,
and a younger one, Christ. 53 Michaias, one of the speakers in the
dialogue, suggests as much when he remarks that if good and
evil were begotten in the same way they must be brothers. 54

In the (Jewish-Christian?) apocalypse, the "Ascension of
Isaiah," we find, in the middle section, Isaiah's vision of the
seven heavens through which he was rapt. 55 First he saw Sam-
mael and his hosts, against whom a "great battle" was raging in
the firmament. The angel then wafted him beyond this into the
first heaven and led him before a throne. On the right of the
throne stood angels who were more beautiful than the angels on
the left. Those on the right "all sang praises with one voice,"
but the ones on the left sang after them, and their singing was
not like the singing of the first. In the second heaven all the
angels were more beautiful than in the first heaven, and there
was no difference between them, either here or in any of the
higher heavens. Evidently Sammael still has a noticeable influ-
ence on the first heaven, since the angels on the left are not so
beautiful there. Also, the lower heavens are not so splendid as
the upper ones, though each surpasses the other in splendour.
The devil, like the Gnostic archons, dwells in the firmament,
and he and his angels presumably correspond to astrological
gods and influences. The gradation of splendour, going all the
way up to the topmost heaven, shows that his sphere interpene-
trates with the divine sphere of the Trinity, whose light in turn
filters down as far as the lowest heaven. This paints a picture of
complementary opposites balancing one another like right and
left hands. Significantly enough, this vision, like the Clementine
Homilies, belongs to the pre-Manichaean period (second cen-
tury), when there was as yet no need for Christianity to fight
against its Manichaean competitors. It might easily be a descrip-

53 Panarium, ed. by Oehler, I, p. 267.

54 Clement. Horn. XX, ch. VII. Since there is no trace in pseudo-Clement of the
defensive attitude towards Manichaean dualism which is so characteristic of the
later writers, it is possible that the Homilies date back to the beginning of the 3rd
cent., if not earlier.

55 Hennecke, N eutestamentliche Apokryphen, pp. 3ogff.

57



AION



tion of a genuine yang-yin relationship, a picture that comes
closer to the actual truth than the privatio boni. Moreover, it
does not damage monotheism in any way, since it unites the
opposites just as yang and yin are united in Tao (which the
Jesuits quite logically translated as "God"). It is as if Mani-
chaean dualism first made the Fathers conscious of the fact that
until then, without clearly realizing it, they had always believed
firmly in the substantiality of evil. This sudden realization
might well have led them to the dangerously anthropomorphic
assumption that what man cannot unite, God cannot unite
either. The early Christians, thanks to their greater unconscious-
ness, were able to avoid this mistake.

1Q 5 Perhaps we may risk the conjecture that the problem of the
Yahwistic God-image, which had been constellated in men's
minds ever since the Book of Job, continued to be discussed in
Gnostic circles and in syncretistic Judaism generally, all the
more eagerly as the Christian answer to this question- namely
the unanimous decision in favour of God's goodness 56 - did not
satisfy the conservative Jews. In this respect, therefore, it is sig-
nificant that the doctrine of the two antithetical sons of God
originated with the Jewish Christians living in Palestine. Inside
Christianity itself the doctrine spread to the Bogomils and
Cathars; in Judaism it influenced religious speculation and
found lasting expression in the two sides of the cabalistic Tree
of the Sephiroth, which were named hesed (love) and din (jus-
tice). A rabbinical scholar, Zwi Werblowsky, has been kind
enough to put together for me a number of passages from
Hebrew literature which have bearing on this problem.

106 R. Joseph taught: "What is the meaning of the verse, 'And
none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the
morning?' (Exodus 12 : 22.) 57 Once permission has been granted
to the destroyer, he does not distinguish between the righteous
and the wicked. Indeed, he even begins with the righteous." 58
Commenting on Exodus 33 : 5 ("If for a single moment I should
go up among you, I would consume you"), the midrash says:
"Yahweh means he could wax wroth with you for a moment-

66 Cf. Matt. 19: 17 and Mark 10: 18.

57 A reference to the slaying of the first-born in Egypt.

58 Nezikin I, Baba Kamma 60 (in The Babylonian Talmud, trans, and ed. by
Isidore Epstein, p. 348 [hereafter abbr. BT\, slightly modified).

58



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



for that is the length of his wrath, as is said in Isaiah 26 : 20,
'Hide yourselves for a little moment until the wrath is past'-
and destroy you." Yahweh gives warning here of his unbridled
irascibility. If in this moment of divine wrath a curse is uttered,
it will indubitably be effective. That is why Balaam, "who
knows the thoughts of the Most High," 59 when called upon by
Balak to curse Israel, was so dangerous an enemy, because he
knew the moment of Yahweh's wrath. 60

i7 God's love and mercy are named his right hand, but his
justice and his administration of it are named his left hand.
Thus we read in I Kings 22 : 19: "I saw the Lord sitting on his
throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his
right hand and on his left." The midrash comments: "Is there
right and left on high? This means that the intercessors stand
on the right and the accusers on the left." 61 The comment on
Exodus 15:6 ("Thy right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, thy
right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy") runs: "When the chil-
dren of Israel perform God's will, they make the left hand his
right hand. When they do not do his will, they make even the
right hand his left hand." 62 "God's left hand dashes to pieces;
his right hand is glorious to save." 63

108 The dangerous aspect of Yahweh's justice comes out in the
following passage: "Even so said the Holy One, blessed be He:
If I create the world on the basis of mercy alone, its sins will be
great; but on the basis of justice alone the world cannot exist.
Hence I will create it on the basis of justice and mercy, and may
it then stand!" 64 The midrash on Genesis 18 : 23 (Abraham's
plea for Sodom) says (Abraham speaking): "If thou desirest the
world to endure, there can be no absolute justice, while if thou
desirest absolute justice, the world cannot endure. Yet thou
wouldst hold the cord by both ends, desiring both the world and
absolute justice. Unless thou forgoest a little, the world cannot
endure." 65

59 Numbers 24: 16. 60 Zera'im I, Berakoth 7a (BT, p. 31).

61 Midrash Tanchuma Shemoth XVII.

62 Cf. Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos . . . and Rashi's Commentary, trans, by
M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, II, p. 76.

63 Midrash on Song of Sol. 2 : 6.

64 Bereshith Rabba XII, 15 (Midrash Rabbah translated into English, ed. by
H. Freedman and M. Simon, I, p. 99; slightly modified).

65 Ibid. XXXIX, 6 (p. 315).

59



AION

10 9 Yahweh prefers the repentant sinners even to the righteous,
and protects them from his justice by covering them with his
hand or by hiding them under his throne. 66

no With reference to Habakkuk 2 : 3 ("For still the vision awaits
its time. ... If it seem slow, wait for it"), R. Jonathan says:
"Should you say, We wait [for his coming] but He does not, it
stands written (Isaiah 30 : 18), 'Therefore will the Lord wait,
that he may be gracious unto you.' . . . But since we wait and
he waits too. what delays his coming? Divine justice delays it." 67
It is in this sense that we have to understand the prayer of
R. Jochanan: "May it be thy will, O Lord our God, to look upon
our shame and behold our evil plight. Clo the thyself in thy
mercies, cover thyself in thy strength, wrap thyself in thy lov-
ing-kindness, and gird thyself with thy graciousness, and may
thy goodness and gentleness come before thee." 68 God is prop-
erly exhorted to remember his good qualities. There is even a
tradition that God prays to himself: "May it be My will that
My mercy may suppress My anger, and that My compassion may
prevail over My other attri butes." 69 This tradition is borne out
by the following story:

R. Ishmael the son of Elisha said: I once entered the innermost
sanctuary to offer incense, and there I saw Akathriel 70 Jah Jahweh
Zebaoth 71 seated upon a high and exalted throne. He said to me,
Ishmael, my son, bless me! And I answered him: May it be Thy
will that Thy mercy may suppress Thy anger, and that Thy com-
passion may prevail over Thy other attri butes, so that Thou mayest
deal with Thy children according to the attri bute of mercy and
stop short of the limit of strict justice! And He nodded to me with
His head.? 2

111 It is not difficult to see from these quotations what was the
effect of Job's contradictory God-image. It became a subject for
religious speculation inside Judaism and, through the medium

66 Mo'ed IV, Pesahim 119 (BT, p. 613); Nezikin VI, Sanhedrin II, 103 (BT,
pp. 6g8ff.). 67 Nezikin VI, Sanhedrin II, 97 (BT, p. 659; modified).

QSZera'im I, Berakoth 16b (BT, p. 98; slightly modified). 69 Ibid. 7a (p. 30).

70 "Akathriel" is a made-up word composed of ktr = kether (throne) and el, the
name of God.

71 A string of numinous God names, usually translated as "the Lord of Hosts."

72 Zera'im I, Berakoth 7 (BT, p. 30; slightly modified).

60



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



of the Cabala, it evidently had an influence on Jakob Bohme. In
his writings we find a similar ambivalence, namely the love and
the "wrath-fire" of God, in which Lucifer burns for ever. 73

Since psychology is not metaphysics, no metaphysical dualism
can be derived from, or imputed to, its statements concerning
the equivalence of opposites. 74 It knows that equivalent oppo-
sites are necessary conditions inherent in the act of cognition,
and that without them no discrimination would be possible.
It is not exactly probable that anything so intrinsically bound
up with the act of cognition should be at the same time a prop-
erty of the object. It is far easier to suppose that it is primarily
our consciousness which names and evaluates the differences be-
tween things, and perhaps even creates distinctions where no
differences are discernible.

I have gone into the doctrine of the privatio boni at such
length because it is in a sense responsible for a too optimistic
conception of the evil in human nature and for a too pessimistic
view of the human soul. To offset this, early Christianity, with
unerring logic, balanced Christ against an Antichrist. For how
can you speak of "high" if there is no "low," or "right" if there
is no "left," of "good" if there is no "bad," and the one is as real
as the other? Only with Christ did a devil enter the world as the
real counterpart of God, and in early Jewish-Christian circles
Satan, as already mentioned, was regarded as Christ's elder
brother.

But there is still another reason why I must lay such critical
stress on the privatio boni. As early as Basil w r e meet with the
tendency to attri bute evil to the disposition (SmfleoW) of the soul,
and at the same time to give it a "non-existent" character. Since,
according to this author, evil originates in human frivolity

73 Aurora, trans, by John Sparrow, p. 423.

74 My learned friend Victor White, O.P., in his Dominican Studies (II, p. 399),
thinks he can detect a Manichaean streak in me. I don't go in for metaphysics,
but ecclesiastical philosophy undoubtedly does, and for this reason I must ask
what are we to make of hell, damnation, and the devil, if these things are eternal?
Theoretically they consist of nothing, and how does that square with the dogma
of eternal damnation? But if they consist of something, that something can hardly
be good. So where is the danger of dualism? In addition to this my critic should
know how very much I stress the unity of the self, this central archetype which
is a complexio oppositorum par excellence, and that my leanings are therefore
towards the very reverse of dualism.

6l



AION



and therefore owes its existence to mere negligence, it exists,
so to speak, only as a by-product of psychological oversight, and
this is such a quantite negligeable that evil vanishes altogether
in smoke. Frivolity as a cause of evil is certainly a factor to be
taken seriously, but it is a factor that can be got rid of by a
change of attitude. We can act differently, if we want to. Psy-
chological causation is something so elusive and seemingly un-
real that everything which is reduced to it inevitably takes on
the character of futility or of a purely accidental mistake and is
thereby minimized to the utmost. It is an open question how
much of our modern undervaluation of the psyche stems from
this prejudice. This prejudice is all the more serious in that it
causes the psyche to be suspected of being the birthplace of all
evil. The Church Fathers can hardly have considered what a
fatal power they were ascribing to the soul. One must be posi-
tively blind not to see the colossal role that evil plays in the
world. Indeed, it took the intervention of God himself to deliver
humanity from the curse of evil, for without his intervention
man would have been lost. If this paramount power of evil is
imputed to the soul, the result can only be a negative inflation
-i.e., a daemonic claim to power on the part of the unconscious
which makes it all the more formidable. This unavoidable con-
sequence is anticipated in the figure of the Antichrist and is
reflected in the course of contemporary events, whose nature is
in accord with the Christian aeon of the Fishes, now running
to its end.
li 5 In the world of Christian ideas Christ undoubtedly repre-
sents the self. 75 As the apotheosis of individuality, the self has
the attri butes of uniqueness and of occurring once only in time.
But since the psychological self is a transcendent concept, ex-
pressing the totality of conscious and unconscious contents, it

75 It has been objected that Christ cannot have been a valid symbol of the self,
or was only an illusory substitute for it. I can agree with this view only if it refers
strictly to the present time, when psychological criticism has become possible,
but not if it pretends to judge the pre-psychological age. Christ did not merely
symbolize wholeness, but, as a psychic phenomenon, he was wholeness. This is
proved by the symbolism as well as by the phenomenology of the past, for which-
be it noted- evil was a privatio boni. The idea of totality is, at any given time,
as total as one is oneself. Who can guarantee that our conception of totality is
not equally in need of completion? The mere concept of totality does not by any
means posit it.

62



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



can only be described in antinomial terms; 76 that is, the above
attri butes must be supplemented by their opposites if the tran-
scendental situation is to be characterized correctly. We can do
this most simply in the form of a quaternion of opposites:

UNITEMPORAL



UNIQUE



UNIVERSAL



ETERNAL



This formula expresses not only the psychological self but
also the dogmatic figure of Christ. As an historical personage
Christ is unitemporal and unique; as God, universal and eternal.
Likewise the self: as the essence of individuality it is unitempo-
ral and unique; as an archetypal symbol it is a God-image and
therefore universal and eternal. 77 Now if theology describes
Christ as simply "good" and "spiritual," something "evil" and
"material" - or "chthonic" - is bound to arise on the other
side, to represent the Antichrist. The resultant quaternion of
opposites is united on the psychological plane by the fact that
the self is not deemed exclusively "good" and "spiritual"; conse-
quently its shadow turns out to be much less black. A further
result is that the opposites of "good" and "spiritual" need no
longer be separated from the whole:



GOOD



SPIRITUAL



MATERIAL OR CHTHONIC



76 Just as the transcendent nature of light can only be expressed through the
image of waves and particles.

77 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 323ft., and "The Relations between the Ego
and the Unconscious," pars. 398ft.

63



AION

1 7 This quaternio characterizes the psychological self. Being a
totality, it must by definition include the light and dark aspects,
in the same way that the self embraces both masculine and
feminine and is therefore symbolized by the marriage qua-
ternio. 18 This last is by no means a new discovery, since accord-
ing to Hippolytus it was known to the Naassenes. 79 Hence
individuation is a "mysterium coniunctionis," the self being ex-
perienced as a nuptial union of opposite halves 80 and depicted
as a composite whole in mandalas that are drawn spontaneously
by patients.

118 It was known, and stated, very early that the man Jesus, the
son of Mary, was the principium individuationis. Thus Basili-
des 81 is reported by Hippolytus as saying: ''Now Jesus became the
first sacrifice in the discrimination of the natures [v\oicpivri
and the Passion came to pass for no other reason than the dis-
crimination of composite things. For in this manner, he says, the
sonship that had been left behind in a formless state [anopsia] . . ,
needed separating into its components [
same way that Jesus was separated." 82 According to the rather
complicated teachings of Basilides, the "non-existent" God be-
got a threefold sonship (vlorijs). The first "son," whose nature
was the finest and most subtle, remained up above with the
Father. The second son, having a grosser (iraxv^pio-Tepa) nature,
descended a bit lower, but received "some such wins: as that
with which Plato . . . equips the soul in his Phaedrus." 83 The
third son, as his nature needed purifying (air oKaOdpms), fell deep-
est into "formlessness." This third "sonship" is obviously the
grossest and heaviest because of its impurity. In these three
emanations or manifestations of the non-existent God it is not
hard to see the trichotomy of spirit, soul, and body (irvev/m#cov,
\pvxiKov, uapKLKov). Spirit is the finest and highest; soul, as the
ligamentum spiritus et corporis, is grosser than spirit, but has
"the wings of an eagle," 84 so that it may lift its heaviness up to

78 Cf. "The Psychology of the Transference," pars. 425s.

79 Elenchos, V, 8, 2 (trans, by F. Legge, I, p. 131). Cf. infra, pars. 358ft.

80 Psychology and Alchemy, par. 334, and "The Psychology of the Transference,"
pars. 457ft. 81 Basilides lived in the 2nd cent.

82 Elenchos, VII, 27, 12 (cf. Legge trans., II, p. 79).

83 Ibid., VII, 22, 10 (cf. II, pp. 69-70).

84 Ibid., VII, 22, 15 (II, p. 70). The eagle has the same significance in alchemy.

64



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



the higher regions. Both are of a "subtle" nature and dwell, like
the ether and the eagle, in or near the region of light, whereas the
body, being heavy, dark, and impure, is deprived of the light
but nevertheless contains the divine seed of the third sonship,
though still unconscious and formless. This seed is as it were
awakened by Jesus, purified and made capable of ascension
(avaS pofxrj), 85 by virtue of the fact that the opposites were sepa-
rated in Jesus through the Passion (i.e., through his division
into four). 86 Jesus is thus the prototype for the awakening of the
third sonship slumbering in the darkness of humanity. He is the
"spiritual inner man." 87 He is also a complete trichotomy in
himself, for Jesus the son of Mary represents the incarnate man,
but his immediate predecessor is the second Christ, the son of
the highest archon of the hebdomad, and his first prefiguration
is Christ the son of the highest archon of the ogdoad, the
demiurge Yahweh. 88 This trichotomy of Anthropos figures cor-
responds exactly to the three sonships of the non-existing God
and to the division of human nature into three parts. We have
therefore three trichotomies:

85 This word also occurs in the well-known passage about the krater in Zosimos.
(Berthelot, Alch. grecs, III, li, 8: dva8pap. eirl rb yivos rb adv.
86 1 must say a word here about the horos doctrine of the Valentinians in
Irenaeus (Adv. haer, I, 2, 2ff.) Horos (boundary) is a "power" or numen iden-
tical with Christ, or at least proceeding from him. It has the following synonyms:
bpodeT7)s (boundary-fixer), fieraywyevs (he who leads across), Kap-Kiarr\% (eman-
cipator), \vrpwTT]$ (redeemer), cravpos (cross). In this capacity he is the regulator
and mainstay of the universe, like Jesus. When Sophia was "formless and shape-
less as an embryo, Christ took pity on her, stretched her out through his Cross
and gave her form through his power," so that at least she acquired substance
(Adv. haer., I, 4). He also left behind for her an "intimation of immortality."
The identity of the Cross with Horos, or with Christ, is clear from the text, an
image that we find also in Paulinus of Nola:

". . . regnare deum super omnia Christum,
qui cruce dispensa per quattuor extima ligni
quattuor adtingit dimensum partibus orbem,
ut trahat ad uitam populos ex omnibus oris."

(Christ reigns over all things as God, who, on the outstretched cross, reaches out
through the four extremities of the wood to the four parts of the wide world,
that he may draw unto life the peoples from all lands.) (Carmina, ed. by Wilhelm
Hartel, Carm. XIX, 639*?., p. 140.) For the Cross as God's "lightning" cf. "A
Study in the Process of Individuation," pars. 535L

87 Elenchos, VII, 27, 5 (Legge trans., II, p. 78).

88 Ibid., VII, 26, 5 (II, p. 75).

65



AION
I II III

First sonship Christ of the Ogdoad Spirit

Second sonship Christ of the Hebdomad Soul

Third sonship Jesus the Son of Mary Body

11 9 It is in the sphere of the dark, heavy body that we must look
for the a/xo P La, the "formlessness" wherein the third sonship lies
hidden. As suggested above, this formlessness seems to be prac-
tically the equivalent of "unconsciousness." G. Quispel has
drawn attention to the concepts of ayvuala in Epiphanius 89 and
kvbr\rov in Hippolytus, 90 which are best translated by "uncon-
scious." 'AfjLop4>ia, ayvuvia, and b.v6r)rov all refer to the initial state
of things, to the potentiality of unconscious contents, aptly
formulated by Basilides as ovk bv cnrkpua tov kogixov iro\vtJiop
kcl I iroXvovaiov (the non-existent, many-formed, and all-empower-
ing seed of the world). 91

120 This picture of the third sonship has certain analogies with
the medieval filius philosophorum and the filius macrocosmi,
who also symbolize the world-soul slumbering in matter. 92 Even
with Basilides the body acquires a special and unexpected sig-
nificance, since in it and its materiality is lodged a third of the
revealed Godhead. This means nothing less than that matter is
predicated as having considerable numinosity in itself, and I
see this as an anticipation of the "mystic" significance which
matter subsequently assumed in alchemy and- later on- in
natural science. From a psychological point of view it is par-

89 Panarium, XXXI, 5 (Oehler edn., I, p. 314).

90 Elenchos, VII, 22, 16 (Legge trans., II, p. 71). Cf. infra, pars. 298ft.

91 Ibid., 20, 5 (cf. II, p. 66). Quispel, "Note sur 'Basilide'."

92 With reference to the psychological nature of Gnostic sayings, see Quispel's
"Philo und die altchristliche Haresie," p. 432, where he quotes Irenaeus (Adv.
haer., II, 4, 2): "Id quod extra et quod intus dicere eos secundum agnitionem et
ignorantiam, sed non secundum localem sententiam" (In speaking of what is
outward and what is inward, they refer, not to place, but to what is known and
what is not known). (Cf. Legge, I, p. 127.) The sentence that follows immediately
after this- "But in the Pleroma, or in that which is contained by the Father,
everything that the demiurge or the angels have created is contained by the
unspeakable greatness, as the centre in a circle"- is therefore to be taken as a
description of unconscious contents. Quispel's view of projection calls for the
critical remark that projection does not do away with the reality of a psychic
content. Nor can a fact be called "unreal" merely because it cannot be described
as other than "psychic." Psyche is reality par excellence.

66



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



ticularly important that Jesus corresponds to the third sonship
and is the prototype of the "awakener" because the opposites
were separated in him through the Passion and so became con-
scious, whereas in the third sonship itself they remain uncon-
scious so long as the latter is formless and undifferentiated. This
amounts to saying that in unconscious humanity there is a latent
seed that corresponds to the prototype Jesus. Just as the man
Jesus became conscious only through the light that emanated
from the higher Christ and separated the natures in him, so the
seed in unconscious humanity is awakened by the light emanat-
ing from Jesus, and is thereby impelled to a similar discrimina-
tion of opposites. This view is entirely in accord with the psy-
chological fact that the archetypal image of the self has been
shown to occur in dreams even when no such conceptions exist
in the conscious mind of the dreamer. 93



I would not like to end this chapter without a few final re-
marks that are forced on me by the importance of the material
we have been discussing. The standpoint of a psychology whose
subject is the phenomenology of the psyche is evidently some-
thing that is not easy to grasp and is very often misunderstood.
If, therefore, at the risk of repeating myself, I come back to
fundamentals, I do so only in order to forestall certain wrong
impressions which might be occasioned by what I have said,
and to spare my reader unnecessary difficulties.

The parallel I have drawn here between Christ and the self
is not to be taken as anything more than a psychological one,
just as the parallel with the fish is mythological. There is no
question of any intrusion into the sphere of metaphysics, i.e., of
faith. The images of God and Christ which man's religious
fantasy projects cannot avoid being anthropomorphic and are
admitted to be so; hence they are capable of psychological elu-
cidation like any other symbols. Just as the ancients believed
that they had said something important about Christ with their
fish symbol, so it seemed to the alchemists that their parallel
with the stone served to illuminate and deepen the meaning of
the Christ-image. In the course of time, the fish symbolism

93 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 52ft., 122ft., and "A Study in the Process of
Individuation," pars. 542, 550, 58 if.

67



AION

disappeared completely, and so likewise did the lapis philoso-
phorum. Concerning this latter symbol, however, there are
plenty of statements to be found which show it in a special light
-views and ideas which attach such importance to the stone
that one begins to wonder whether, in the end, it was Christ who
was taken as a symbol of the stone rather than the other way
round. This marks a development which - with the help of cer-
tain ideas in the epistles of John and Paul - includes Christ in
the realm of immediate inner experience and makes him appear
as the figure of the total man. It also links up directly with the
psychological evidence for the existence of an archetypal con-
tent possessing all those qualities which are characteristic of the
Christ-image in its archaic and medieval forms. Modern psy-
chology is therefore confronted with a question very like the
one that faced the alchemists: Is the self a symbol of Christ, or
is Christ a symbol of the self?
2 3 In the present study I have affirmed the latter alternative.
I have tried to show how the traditional Christ-image concen-
trates upon itself the characteristics of an archetype- the arche-
type of the self. My aim and method do not purport to be any-
thing more in principle than, shall we say, the efforts of an art
historian to trace the various influences which have contri buted
towards the formation of a particular Christ-image. Thus we
find the concept of the archetype in the history of art as well as
in philology and textual criticism. The psychological archetype
differs from its parallels in other fields only in one respect: it
refers to a living and ubiquitous psychic fact, and this naturally
shows the whole situation in a rather different light. One is then
tempted to attach greater importance to the immediate and liv-
ing presence of the archetype than to the idea of the historical
Christ. As I have said, there is among certain of the alchemists,
too, a tendency to give the lapis priority over Christ. Since I
am far from cherishing any missionary intentions, I must ex-
pressly emphasize that I am not concerned here with confessions
of faith but with proven scientific facts. If one inclines to regard
the archetype of the self as the real agent and hence takes Christ
as a symbol of the self, one must bear in mind that there is a
considerable difference between perfection and completeness.
The Christ-image is as good as perfect (at least it is meant to be
so), while the archetype (so far as known) denotes completeness

68



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



but is far from being perfect. It is a paradox, a statement about
something indescribable and transcendental. Accordingly the
realization of the self, which would logically follow from a rec-
ognition of its supremacy, leads to a fundamental conflict, to a
real suspension between opposites (reminiscent of the crucified
Christ hanging between two thieves), and to an approximate
state of wholeness that lacks perfection. To strive after teleiosis
in the sense of perfection is not only legitimate but is inborn
in man as a peculiarity which provides civilization with one of
its strongest roots. This striving is so powerful, even, that it can
turn into a passion that draws everything into its service. Nat-
ural as it is to seek perfection in one way or another, the arche-
type fulfils itself in completeness, and this is a TeAetWi? of quite
another kind. Where the archetype predominates, completeness
is forced upon us against all our conscious strivings, in accord-
ance with the archaic nature of the archetype. The individual
may strive after perfection ("Be you therefore perfect- ri Add-
as also your heavenly Father is perfect." 94 ) but must suffer from
the opposite of his intentions for the sake of his completeness.
"I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present
with me." 95
24 The Christ-image fully corresponds to this situation: Christ
is the perfect man who is crucified. One could hardly think of a
truer picture of the goal of ethical endeavour. At any rate the
transcendental idea of the self that serves psychology as a work-
ing hypothesis can never match that image because, although it
is a symbol, it lacks the character of a revelatory historical event.
Like the related ideas of atman and tao in the East, the idea of
the self is at least in part a product of cognition, grounded
neither on faith nor on metaphysical speculation but on the
experience that under certain conditions the unconscious spon-
taneously brings forth an archetypal symbol of wholeness. From
this we must conclude that some such archetype occurs uni-
versally and is endowed with a certain numinosity. And there is
in fact any amount of historical evidence as well as modern case
material to prove this. 90 These naive and completely uninflu-
enced pictorial representations of the symbol show that it is
given central and supreme importance precisely because it

94 Matt. 5 : 48 (DV). 95 Rom. 7:21 (AV).

96 Cf. the last two papers in Part I of vol. 9.

69



AION



stands for the conjunction of opposites. Naturally the conjunc-
tion can only be understood as a paradox, since a union of oppo-
sites can be thought of only as their annihilation. Paradox is a
characteristic of all transcendental situations because it alone
gives adequate expression to their indescribable nature.

25 Whenever the archetype of the self predominates, the in-
evitable psychological consequence is a state of conflict vividly
exemplified by the Christian symbol of crucifixion- that acute
state of unredeemedness which comes to an end only with the
words "consummatum est." Recognition of the archetype, there-
fore, does not in any way circumvent the Christian mystery;
rather, it forcibly creates the psychological preconditions with-
out which "redemption" would appear meaningless. "Redemp-
tion" does not mean that a burden is taken from one's shoulders
which one was never meant to bear. Only the "complete" per-
son knows how unbearable man is to himself. So far as I can
see, no relevant objection could be raised from the Christian
point of view against anyone accepting the task of individuation
imposed on us by nature, and the recognition of our whole-
ness or completeness, as a binding personal commitment. If he
does this consciously and intentionally, he avoids all the un-
happy consequences of repressed individuation. In other words,
if he voluntarily takes the burden of completeness on himself,
he need not find it "happening" to him against his will in a
negative form. This is as much as to say that anyone who is
destined to descend into a deep pit had better set about it with
all the necessary precautions rather than risk falling into the
hole backwards.

126 The irreconcilable nature of the opposites in Christian psy-
chology is due to their moral accentuation. This accentuation
seems natural to us, although, looked at historically, it is a legacy
from the Old Testament with its emphasis on righteousness in
the eyes of the law. Such an influence is notably lacking in the
East, in the philosophical religions of India and China. Without
stopping to discuss the question of whether this exacerbation of
the opposites, much as it increases suffering, may not after all
correspond to a higher degree of truth, I should like merely to
express the hope that the present world situation may be looked
upon in the light of the psychological rule alluded to above. To-
day humanity, as never before, is split into two apparently irrec-

70



CHRIST, A SYMBOL OF THE SELF



oncilable halves. The psychological rule says that when an in-
ner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.
That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and
does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must
perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.



7



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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16115364-the-miracles-of-ordinary-men
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