THE EQUINOX
charity, has breathed upon this dust; and all that which was
dead has taken life again so really that one recognizes no
more yesterday’s corpses in these living creatures of to-day.
And why should one recognize them, since the world is
renewed, since St. Paul burned at Ephesus the books of the
hierophants? Was then St. Paul a barbarian, and was he
committing a crime against science? No, but he burned the
winding-sheets of the resuscitated that they might forget
death. Why, then, do we to-day recall the qabalistic origins
of dogma? Why do we join again the figures of the Bible
to the allegories of Hermes? Is it to condemn St. Paul, is it
to bring doubt to believers? No, indeed, for believers have
no need of our book; they will not read it, and they will not
wish to understand it. But we wish to show to the innumer-
able crowd of those who doubt, that faith is attached to the
reason of all the centuries, to the science of all the sages.
We wish to force human liberty to respect divine authority,
reason to recognize the bases of faith, so that faith and
authority, in their turn, may never again proscribe liberty
and reason.
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