Let us review some of the basic mythological heroes who work through for us the crisis of resolution by which the classical mythological cycle is completed.

We begin with Moses, the symbol of one who goes off alone, leaving his people only to return with a law for them. This is the identical hero journey that we find in all of the old ethnic traditions. Every one of the social orders is finally traced back to the realization and experience of some single individual who alone experiences the mystery, passes the test, as it were, and returns with a message for mankind, as in the case of Moses, his coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments.

The next great figure in this tradition is Christ. How was Christ understood by the original Christians, all of whom were Jews? The key word is found in Paul who wrote to the Galatians that Christ redeemed man from the curse of the Law. The “Establishment” may be understood as a system of laws through which one’s experiences of life are filtered. One must be redeemed from this through the doctrine of love. From Christ’s words, we have learned that we should love our neighbors. We are not-as in previous times-to hate our enemies, but to love them instead. Christ also said that man is not made for the Sabbath, but that the Sabbath is made for man. In other words, the Law is to serve man and not man the Law. This represents an enormous transformation of our spiritual understanding of our relation- ship to each other, God, and laws fashioned by other men in His Name.

Let me remind you of that moment in which Christ transcended all the laws. It is the story of His forty days in the desert. In this case, the Devil represented the Law that had to be transcended. The very first question the Devil put to Christ was, “Why don’t you turn these stones into bread?” Christ replies that man lives not by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He rejects the economic theory of the spiritual life, thereby refuting Bernard Shaw’s notion that one must be economically well-off before one can practice spiritual exercises.

In the second temptation, the Devil takes Christ up onto the mountain top, showing and offering to Him the lands of the world if He will bow down to him. And Christ says, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” thereby transcending the seduction of political power as life’s aim.

The Devil then takes Him up to the pinnacle of the temple, suggesting that if Christ is so spiritual, He can cast himself down and God will bear Him up. Christ rejects this temptation to spiritual inflation by saying, “You shall not tempt the Lord thy God.” Christ returns then from the desert to preach to the people the new message of the spirit, the message of love.