{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this

...106 Wentworth. You can just put them under the door, and I shall then be able to -- to begin my chores. For you it must make no difference. After all, the classes are over, and the sooner you do it, the fresher should be your memory.

The task before us, once more, is the meaning of our own era. I tried to tell you at the -- in the last meeting, that our era is in danger. It is officially and publicly today under attack. And more and more scientists, more and more historians, more and more politicians, more and more Communists, or what-not say, "There is no Christian era. That's a dream. This insignificant young man in -- in Palestine didn't change the times, after all. There has been no reversal of the order of evolution." Any evolutionist must be against the Christian era. If he is a Darwinian, he says it -- nothing has changed. Absolutely the same direction of life keeps on going. New things come, the news. You read any paper. It certainly denies the Christian era, because how can the New York Times or the Herald Tribune or any of these great papers admit that the -- life doesn't consist of news? Today these news, tomorrow the other news. Never can there be a change in direction. I'm convinced that it can be scientifically proven, it's a very simple fact that every one of these gentlemen of Times Square, and what-not, depend on this change of direction which take -- took place in this remote corner of Palestine for the first time 1957 years ago.

And therefore, the Christian era cannot be understood, gentlemen, as an annex of past history. It has nothing to do with all these -- glib eloquence by which you are told that dinosaurs are 400 million years old, and cave man is 100 million years old, and all this other nonsense with which you are fed: an infinite length of history inside which, of course, the last 2,000 years can make no change. Because if you begin to believe that your history is involved with the dinosaurs or with the stars, then the last 1900 years become so insignificant that it is quite impossible to assume that these suddenly change direction in 1957. Yes, you must see, gentlemen, that modern scientists form an atheistic party. They are all lined up in declaiming that the eras, the eons, the time spans of -- of natural things, of -- of cells, and of insects are so long that man himself doesn't have to worry. He's just a discreet -- of inevitable evolution, and therefore, why bother? They are carried along with these primitive forms, and we can't do anything about it. We just do our daily task. We follow the li- -- line of least resistance. And obviously the line of least resistance, gentlemen, is the line of nature, the line of evolution.

Now Christianity, gentlemen, is only in existence at all--it is not a dream--if it did change direction. And the point -- Christ tried to make was that

man is the one being -- the one animal, the one animated being--to be an animal, gentlemen, is a very high honor, because it means animation, it means to be alive, to be -- to have wind in your lungs, and to live. The breathing creature, man, gentlemen, is that one animal that takes the line of hardest resistance. You are a man in as far as you take the line of hardest resistance. And you are animals or beasts in as far as you take the line of least resistance. Of course, modern man is appealed to as the animal that must always take the line of least resistance. Take this business of inflation today; the installment buying, it's the line of least resistance. So we all perish and go into the abyss, unless there is a statesman who says, "We'll take the line of last -- hardest resistance. We will resist the temptation of installment-plan buying, and we will have no inflation." It won't happen in this country, and that's why the Russians laugh at us, and say, "The American people cannot take the line of hardest resistance, therefore they are doomed."

Any civilization, gentlemen, is doomed as soon as the people take the line of least resistance. You are not doomed as long as there is one soldier who was willing to lay down his life in Korea, because that's the line of hardest resistance, to be a soldier. Because it is very disagreeable to die. Any country relies on one man at least being willing to die for the cause, for the law of the country, for the Constitution. If you haven't even one man who takes the line of hardest resistance, gentlemen, out goes the social order, gentlemen, because human history is based on the line of hardest resistance. It's as simple as that. And it is a physical law. You -- you believe that the only laws that exist are natural laws. In natural law, the line of least resistance can be proven. You know how it is called in physics, the line of least resistance? What is it, gentlemen? What's the fundamental law in physics, Mr. Newton's --.

(Gravity.)

Gravity. "Gravity" is the description -- is just another term for the line of least resistance.

Things fall to the ground. Gentlemen, when you are in love, or when the salmon goes upstream, he does not follow the line of least resistance. Even the animal -- in the animal kingdom, where there is life, is able to forgo food for three months and to forge against stream, uphill, upstream. And that's why love is conquering death. That's why even in the animal kingdom we already have a great advantage when the salmon takes the line of hardest resistance. It is more difficult to go upstream than downstream. It's fantastic. Take the porpoise, take the seals in Pacific, there is even a { } movie { }. Are they seal lions? Or what are they? Seals. { } They don't eat for six months, you see. They starve themselves to death. That's unnatural. You wouldn't do that.

Now gentlemen, Jesus came in Palestine. To be recognized as the Son of God among the most pious and religious people of his day was much more difficult than to become the -- called the Son of God in Egypt, where they had sons of God by the dozen, or in Greece, or in any -- all of the outlaying districts. The old -- ancient world could only be conquered when it was attacked at it -- the seat of its best. Paul -- the Apostle Paul had to go to Greece in order to conquer the Greek spirit of genius. And Mark and Peter had to go to Rome. And the greatness of Peter and Paul was that they died in the heart of the Greek-Roman world, you see, where it was most difficult to attack that what had been created. Just as Jesus had to be decapitated -- crucified by the most religious people of His era. If He had been crucified by -- by the inhabitants of the Stork Club, New York, what would it matter? But go back, { } Yahweh were the greatest religious beings, and prophets, He { } of His day, { } wicked people { } and the -- and the high priests, and the Pharisees, and the { }. They were far above you, gentlemen. They were really pure-hearted and pure-religious {leaders} -- {leaders}. They were not full of superstitions, and mass media, and {something}. They were austere, and great aesthetics, and they wanted to serve their God. But Jesus had to attack at the heart and core of the thing. The center of our era, gentlemen, is that this is -- which is the most difficult is the only thing that's worthwhile conquering.

If you do not understand this, gentlemen, then you will always, for example, make a mismarry -- mis- -- mismate. It isn't interesting to marry your sister, or to marry your cousin. That's why incest is no good. It's too easy. There's some -- no power in this. If you can marry with real courtship, you must break down a resistance which is really there, which is important, which really conquers, which breaks into some other world by which you show that you have really a primary power of -- of reconciling this world. That's important. That's what is called a love -- marriage, a love-marriage. The others are just custom, routine, I mean. You go out with the girl since you are 12, and what else can happen at the end? You get married, because you don't know better.

All great, creative effort, gentlemen, is measured by the resistance it overcomes. That -- by the way, I -- I think--I'm not a physicist--coincides with all our experiences in -- in the realm of physics, too. You get more resistance, and you get a higher { }. Isn't that true? Wie? You don't know, but you haven't learned anything, Prensner. That's the whole story.

So with this -- { } new idea of Christianity laying down the law from the experiences of old. That's why Jesus said, "I have come to save the sinners," and not the saints, because it is more difficult to climb into them and to convert them. Not because it is easier.

I tried to show you that Egypt was such a hard proposition, because it was flooded. It was useless. It was dangerous, and people had to make a great sacrifice in order to -- to go there. I also tried to show you that the step from animal to -- the animal has an instinct to run away from death. And the first tribesman who overcame this fear, you see, and who looked into the face of the dying, old man, and did not kick him out of the tribe, as in The Jungle Book, the old wolf, you know. You remember? Have you read it? You haven't? But that's a prerequisite for this school. How can I teach you anything if you haven't read The Jungle Book? You haven't? Go and read it. It is still a very great book. There Mr. Kipling, with his {growing}, you see, and of the world imagination -- he of course was already formed -- hit by the catastrophe of the two world wars--tried to go back to the -- to the animals, and describe what it -- would happen to a young boy -- was brought up among the wolves. The one great thing that's outstanding in The Jungle Book is the description, how this wolf is, you see, dismissed from the pack, because he no longer functions, you see, as the strongest { }. That's you -- that's the animal. That's how you treat your old men in this country. Well, especially the emeriti professors. You think old? The -- the ances- -- the -- the old tribes said, "Old? We reverse the process." It is most hard -- an old man doesn't smell good, an old woman even less. And -- yes. So they dismissed them. They bur- -- they kicked them out. They killed them in the -- in the pack. But not so { } human. The more the -- defective, physically, the old person, the more in honor was he held in the tribe.

That's -- what I call the line of hardest resistance. Perfectly unnatural. The tribe is the most unnatural institution, gentlemen, because it conquered, you see, the hatred of death, and said, "The dying has to stay with us." And you go to the Philippines, a -- a man dies -- there's the whole family, all the relatives, all the cousins are there in the hospital, crowded into the room, trying to catch the last breath of such a Filipino, because they still have this old, fundamental belief that man begins where the dying and the living remain together, where they do not separate.

So what I'm trying to say is that of course Jesus only capitalized on these great creations of the past, too, where the line of hardest resistance had been taken once. Egypt was the creation based on this principle. I want to show you, gentlemen, that the -- the foundations through which Christianity then offers its unifying effort, were also already based on this Christian principle of taking the line of hardest resistance. Everything human is based on this principle. Never has man been man where he followed the line of least resistance.

And since you do not believe this, and since this whole country is based on the assumption that in a democracy, the electorate has to be treated as animals, who want to take only the line of least resistance--tax cuts and what-not,

inflation--it is impossible to govern this country. It's a sham. If it isn't shocked into real -- into seriousness from the outside by the Israeli, or the Russians, or something, this country is in a coma. Because the politicians believe--I think they are quite wrong--that you can only be appealed to by the line of least resistance. I don't think that -- you are all much better men than you are made out in politics. I think that a -- Mr. Eisenhower, if he took the lead and told the country that savings have to be honored, and -- and there shouldn't be any inflation, that everybody would -- would give in. But there is nobody in the leading group in this country who sends -- says something unpleasant, officially. He's not allowed to. I don't know who prevents them. Probably the Madison Avenue guys, or whoever. They know better. They say you always have to save the line -- follow the trend. That's the line of least resistance. The least { }.

Gentlemen, that's very poor policy. If you want to master a situation, say the most unpleasant thing, and the most expensive thing first. And say, "We don't know if we can pull through, but if we can invest all our strength, we might." That's a worthwhile undertaking. But if you say at first, "It will cost $10," and tomorrow you have to admit it costs 20, and so you go on, gentlemen, you whittle down your faith, your energy, and all your prospects. It isn't -- and that's how we have lost the Sec- -- First and Second World War. We have lost them, gentlemen, because it has cost $200 mil- -- billion, and it would have only cost us $10 billion if we had acted right, if we had told the country beforehand what it was. And that isn't -- that -- you can't do that. You cannot just say, "It doesn't matter what it costs in the end, but -- but I cannot say anything in { }."

We live in a country, gentlemen, in which I have heard with my own ears, the president of the United States say over the radio on September 2nd, 1939, "There shall be no blackout of peace in America." And the same man, and all his whole entourage, and every reasonable statesman in this country knew { } in 1937 that America in the Second World War would be in -- after six months. It was -- everybody knew, but it had to be said to these damned Mothers of America, and Women's Clubs, et cetera, because nothing unpleasant must ever be said. And so it was a very costly event. And it cost 20 times as much as it would have had to cost. And you can't go on like that forever.

What do we do again? I mean, do we dec- -- decentralize? Do we protect ourselves against the bombs? Because no bomb has fallen upon the United States, it is the --. The officers don't do their duty, the Pentagon doesn't do its duty, Mr. Eisenhower doesn't do his duty, the press doesn't do its duty. Nobody says every day, "Decentralize." Quite the contrary. All the tank production of this country is in -- geared to be put in one place, where one bomb can wipe it out. It's called "economical." It's just stupidity, cowardice. Because nobody can do anything unpleasant in this country, officially.

As long as you don't wake up to this fact, gentlemen, that to be a college man is to be ripened to the point where you can say an unpleasant truth in public, you are absolutely supernumerary; you are su- -- superfluous. Most of you are superfluous, and will remain superfluous for the rest of your lives. Man becomes only a man that cou- -- who counts if he says something unpleasant, and recommends the line of hardest resistance. Never if he says the pleasant thing. That's good for country clubs. That's not serious.

You can throw down all the country clubs of the United States at this moment. Would it make any difference? Not the slightest. But think of the few places where people gather who are willing to say something unpleasant. I think they do -- don't find many in this country. They you -- those you cannot cut down without depriving the country of its great resources of -- of health and -- and vitality, isn't that true? Where three or four people at this moment try to find ways of -- of putting through an unpleasant measure, that's serious. That's important. What do you prefer for the future of this country in your hearts? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because you do not prepare yourself to do the -- take the line of hardest resistance.

There's one profession in the United States, gentlemen, that takes the line of hardest resistance. That's why it is the most distinguished profession in the country. Which is the most distinguished profession in the country?

(Medicine.)

Medicine. Because an internist is terribly { }. It's the line of hardest resistance. He has to work 24 hours a day. That's the condition under which he can become a good man, a good doctor. But to become a minister in this country, or to become a college professor, or become a politician is nothing, child's play, because he's not asked to take the line of hardest resistance. It's very pleasant. You see, it's just pleasant. How can he be important? Absolutely unimportant. If you close down all the colleges in this country, nobody would make the -- would know the difference. People would be ignorant as before. It wouldn't make any difference, gentlemen, if you close down the colleges at this moment, because in -- no college of this country at this moment has prepared the education for taking the line of hardest resistance. Perhaps in football. That may be. I mean, in the sports. There are some -- certain groups who take the line of hardest resistance, who exercise themselves to the point, you see, where it is hardest. -- Through good training, there is value.

This is -- the -- the -- cry for pleasantness, gentlemen, has suffocated here the -- our membership in the Christian era. The membership of the Christian era is only bought by a generation which knows that anything important, creative,

life-saving, and reforming is meant to cost, you see, the hardest exertion, the most unpleasant exertion, the most unexpected. And that's why it is impossible to teach you much, here, because you have eliminated one-half of the future from the beginning. You only want to learn something that is easy, and that is pleasant, like this boy who -- here in this class, who came after my first lecture here and said, why I didn't give him the recipe in a quarter of an hour. He was {sorry}. Why couldn't it have been? Well, if it could be done, it wouldn't be a -- {recipe}. It takes 10 years, gentlemen, to prepare yourself for this. At 30, you may be ready. But not now. And to you -- to get -- try to get -- get away with official -- with a -- with a -- with a formula in 10 minutes, just shows you that you are out of luck. He will never amount to anything, because he won't sweat. I mean, this formula of Cher- -- Churchill, gentlemen, is -- is a -- you have heard it all. But have -- you know what it meant? That it is an eternal truth. Sweat, toil, and tears. "I have nothing to offer you but sweat, toil, and tears." Nothing to offer you.

I recommend to you, if you want to know the story of the Christian era, that you read by Chesterton, his greatest poem, "The Ballad of the White Horse," where Alfred saves England from the Danes by going around, under the aegis of the Virgin Mary, who says to him, "Do you have faith without a hope? And joy -- and joy without -- certainty"--I don't know the verse now. But these are the two things, that a man can only win in an important battle if he has no hope, but faith. Because he must stand the onslaught of despair, the onslaught of pessimism. If the man in -- in -- who said, "Nuts!" in -- in the -- Second World War. Wie?

({ }.)

Yes. Well, what was the place? In Bastogne, you see, when he was asked to surrender, you see. Faith without a hope. He didn't know what was going to happen. But "Nuts! Nuts!" that's -- was his answer. That's faith without a hope. And that was the important turning point. I mean, that was -- was the end of -- Hitler's last offensive.

It's easy { }. If he had known that he -- that the -- that he -- everything was safe, his answer wouldn't be recorded, I mean. To say "Nuts!" after you have an overwhelming security that you will be safe, you see, that's just boastful. You have to say "Nuts!" without this certainty. Then it is interesting. Then it means something and adds something to the action. Can you see that? You have to say "Nuts!" in this hiatus of complete uncertainty, where there is no hope, where your faith shone -- shines.

Well, gentlemen, it is next to impossible, of course, to distinguish in your minds faith and hope. But hope is a Greek virtue, and faith is a Christian virtue. May I remark -- I had -- got a letter on this topic today, where a man wrote me a

lengthy letter from Germany saying that he couldn't understand the distinction. It has been lost today. But may I tell you that in the four Gospels, the word "hope" does not occur. The only word that occurs in the four Gospels themselves is "faith." Because it is based on this new doctrine that the line of hardest resistance is the only line that can produce lasting results. You are all hopefuls, gentlemen--full of hope, but you have no faith. And as I said, most people decline to admit that there is a distinction between hope and faith.

It is important, gentlemen, that our era is based on faith and not on hope. Hope is admitted as a lenient thing. I told you that the human mind is so restless that the Greek mentality is given us as a comforter, as in -- a relief. You can go to the theater, you see, 10 times a -- week. But it doesn't make a dent about your future. It is a relief. The real future is made up out of years, and of decades, not what you do there in the evening. That's an avocation. That's leisure. You remember. And we said the human mind is leisure-filled, and is hope-full. But your real life must be based on faith, that you are drawn into some fulfillment which--like becoming a surgeon--which is a hard, torturous way, very -- indefinite, very dark. And you don't know how you come out at the other end of the tunnel, for a long time.

Take Fridtjof Nansen, for example. Before he had crossed Greenland, everybody said he was a fool, you see. You couldn't do it in this wrong direction. So all this time, gentlemen, Nansen had to be -- live on faith, exclusively, because all the expectations, the Greek hope, the Greek mind was against his crossing Greenland. You may have heard of Nansen, perhaps. Who has not heard, by the way, of him? Fridtjof Nansen, already unknown? Gentlemen, the greatest {explorer} that lived in the last 50 years. That's a great word, but I know what I'm saying. You should really know him. He's a very great man. Fridtjof Nansen. All the stateless people in the world owe him the Nansenpass. He invented the passport for the stateless, that they have a place in this world, although their own country has denied them. If you are now today for example expelled from Hungary, or expelled from -- from Russia, you cannot wait for Mr. Dulles and the state department, because they say one day one -- one thing, and on the other day, they say the opposite. They do. But -- but the sta- -- Nansen said, "We'll say the same thing all the time. They still are human beings, and they have to be recognized." And he invented this. He is the great father of the first League of Nations, because he filled it with real compassion and real humanity. But he's also the first man who -- who had this great idea of the passage of the -- around the ice, and said that the ship would move by itself, and so discovered the current in the northern ice, of which the Russians and -- take advantage now, and of which the whole Antarctic expeditions now are -- are the outcome, so to speak. He did this 50 years before. His -- his ship was called Fram, "Advance," F-r-a-m. Haven't you heard of this? You ought to know.

Well, certainly Nansen was the man who took the line of hardest resistance. That's why he was so important, because he proposed to cross Greenland in the most unexpected manner, in the hardest manner, nobody had thought possible, before. Why -- I don't know why -- I hadn't planned to mention him. What was it?

Wherever you look into the -- the history of -- of our Christian era, gentlemen, you will see that invention, and discovery, and exploration, and progress has been based on the line of hardest resistance. The difference between the people who went around the coast of Africa to India--Vasco da Gama and -- who discovered the cape, you see, and Columbus--was exactly this, that he went out of his way to leave behind Africa, the coastline, you see, whereas all the others had striven to stay next to the -- to the African coast, you see, not to get too far out on a limb.

That -- such a thing I would call the line of hardest resistance. And he did this on principle. It wasn't by accident that he went -- drifted west of the Azores, and west of the Canary Islands, and west of the Gold Coast. All these things in Africa were known, and the islands around it, too, you see. But he -- his new principle was to avoid this vicinity of the -- known places, and the peopled places. You can see this. Oppose, take an opposite direction.

Well, I think medicine and in chemistry, it was always the same, I mean. All organic chemistry was based on the assumption of the Benzol ring, which was against all assumptions of the chemists up to that time. And the same is true -- of short waves, as you know, I mean. This bouncing up to -- to the upper ceiling, so to speak, of the atmosphere, that was quite out of the reckoning, before, you see, somebody took this view. That's always the unexpected, you see, that suddenly reverses the trend.

So the reversing of the trend, gentlemen, is the essence of Christianity, because the trend is nothing but gravity translated into social history. You are out of history, gentlemen, as long as you believe in trends. And you all believe in trends. You all believe that a predictor can come and -- because he has a -- take the population problem of the United States, gentlemen, in the last 20 years. Twenty years ago--you still perhaps can remember, 10 years ago--America had to be, by the trend, an o- -- over-aged country. By 1954, we were told that the number of people over 50 would outnumber the number of people under 50 in this country. We would be a senescent and obsolescent, you see, gerontocracy. And it was all predicted, because that was the trend.

Now fortunately, the -- vitality of this country was still strong enough to reverse the trend. And all the statisticians are now eating crow, because -- yes,

because any one of their predictions has been proved fallible, because the people took matters in hand, and took the line of hardest resistance, because obviously to have a family of six at home is harder than to have a family of nobody at home. And in the '30s, the people took the line of least resistance, and had -- tried to have no children, and to be pleasant, and go to cocktail parties, and beat Prohibition. And now they have forgotten this irritant, or incentive, you see, and -- to have a pleasant life, and they -- they are suffering agonies to -- in bringing up these many brats without help.

That's the line of hardest resistance, is it not? It's the unexpected. How can you explain why anybody wants to have a large family? It's most unpleasant. It's not pleasant; it's a hardship. But it is the human thing to do. It is human, because man only is man when he in any way -- in any -- any line of action prefers the line of hardest resistance, because that's creative. What's the reason for this, gentlemen? Nothing stays with us that is not wrested from the most resisting material. If the Jews hadn't begun -- in Peter and Paul, if the pious Jew, like Paul, hadn't believed in the coming of the Messiah, it wouldn't have made a dent. There would be no Christian Church today. It had to be a zealot, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a man with all the education of the Greeks, and all the traditions of Judaism--like the Apostle Paul--in order to enable Christianity to become a reality. If he had -- that's the only way under which it can be done. You have to attack at the core, if you want to have a lasting result. You can nibble away at the outskirts.

But gentlemen, if you -- if you come to a -- to Japan, and you convert--also India, the untouchables in India--to Christianity, that's not a conversion of India to Christianity. It's too easy to explain why the untouchables in India want to get out of their narrow caste system, and Christianity offers them a relief. Then what is Christianity, then? A relief organization, you see, like the Salvation Army. But that's not the proud Christianity by which Mr. Nehru one day would have to have admit, or Gandhi, you see, that the Cross has saved him and his country.

Therefore, the problem of -- of the -- any Christianity in India, of course, is bound up with the line of hardest resistance. You have to tackle a very proud Brahmin, or what- -- whatever there is--I don't know India enough--before it is important to speak of Christianity in India. And as you know, Gandhi always said that he owed all his inspiration to Christianity. And that's important. For this very reason, he didn't have to belong to an established Christian Church. The inspiration came { }. The same is true of Chiang Kai-Shek. The same is true of all the influential gang in Japan. Christianity has played a tremendous role. Whether you like it or not, people in this country today are very, very debonair about Christianity and about missions.

But gentlemen, the -- the downfall of our behavior in the Arab world is bound up with the fact that our oil companies hoist the flag of the prophet Mohammed in Saudi Arabia. "Allah is great and Mohammed is his prophet," and they deny their own Christian background. For this we will have to pay for this treachery against the white race, and about Christianity -- against Christianity. That's an American scandal. We have done many terrible things, but that's the most terrible. That Mr. Eisenhower went to the airport to welcome a man who will not receive a -- a citizen of the United States, as a soldier of this country, and who does not permit Christian services to be held in his country, even by the Americans who work there, and who -- who tempts Aramco to hoist the green flag of the prophet over Christian institutions, that's the line of -- of least resistance. That's the American businessman; he'll always take the line of least resistance. And that's the end, always of the same -- of the same order, gentlemen.

Any order that takes the line of least resistance is doomed. Be- -- because the man becomes despicable. { } what do you think Mr. -- Ibn Saud thinks of Mr. Eisenhower, that he's the only -- monarch for whom -- whose sake he came to the airport. How would he...

[tape interruption]

...because he didn't see the king of Denmark and -- at the airport. He didn't see anymore -- any- ...

[tape interruption]

...but now Mr. Ibn Saud says, of course, "Oil." Very simple.

I -- yesterday, a very wise old man told me that in the Roman tradition, already, who were of course very near to Christianity, the -- it was always said that it was wrong to -- to cater to the...

[tape interruption]

...and in his character, you would show -- send him a horse or some present, and -- and ask how his wife felt yesterday, you see, after the races, and so on. And -- and would try to have friends in common with him, who would talk well of him -- of you. But that -- the judge would very soon find out that you thought he was a weak man who could be influenced in that way, and therefore he would lean over backwards, the other side, in order not to be taken.

Now that's the same, of course, in foreign policy. And this old man told me yesterday that he thought it was a terrible mistake to cajole Mr. Ibn Saud,

because it shows that we didn't trust in the goodness of our case.

Of course, or whatever you --. I mean, to -- to add -- to -- to receive a man who declines to have a Jewish sailor sai- -- enter his country on an American man-of-war, gentlemen, that's -- beats me. As an American citizen, I say that's the end of America. It's the sell-out of the white man. It's the sell-out of Christianity, the sell-out of all our constitutional rights. It's bad enough that it happens, but then to honor this man for the break of our Constitution and of all international law, and no protest in this country because it might interfere with the oil business, gentlemen, that's the line of least resistance--and any such natural state of a society ends in disaster, because we are not natural beings, gentlemen. We are absolutely unnatural beings. All our power is based on our humanity, and not -- beastliness. And the -- humanity of man is that he can create foundations that beat gravity. Whether you take electricity, whether you take helicopters, whether you take love, whether you take inspiration, whether you take sacrifice, whether you take -- genius, every force in man that is important, that is human, beats gravity, beats the line of least resistance, does the unexpected thing. It's very simple.

I have to dwell on this, gentlemen, because I have tried to -- cry you awake to the fact that the Christian era is disappearing at this moment under your noses by your slow, but in- -- resistible influence, that you are giving up the Christian era. You are giving it up, and you want {to give it up}, because there is no reconciliation between the picture of ours, which is spread everywhere, that man is a product of psychology, of sociology, of {histology}, or that he is a proce- -- product of creation. That he's created at this moment in order to resist the powers of gravity.

Every human being is at every moment asked, "Are you on the side"--formerly they said, on the al- -- "side of life," or "the angels"--"or on the powers of darkness?" The powers of darkness are nothing but the power of gravity. That's all there is to it. It's nothing bad about the -- gravity, gentlemen. But it's too cheap. No society can go on if it only relies on gravity, you see.

Give you a simple example, gentlemen: the power of gravity in -- in this college. What is the power of gravity, that you try to cut classes. That you try to go to -- away to Smith first on Saturday morning, then on Friday night, and finally on Sunday morning. You return first on Sunday night, and then on Monday morning, finally on Monday evening.

That's the line of least resistance. Now you admit, you whittle this down, everybody is tempted. Do you think I'm tempted, too? We are just as stupid, we professors, as you are, in this respect. The line of least resistance is tempting to

everybody who is in any order that -- what is the line of least resistance? To do it more cheaply. With less effort, get more results. We all want this. If I would do this -- if I -- you proceed to do it, you say there is no administration who clubs down and says, "We have a monitor. Attendance has to be taken. You can't get away," the college would dissolve.

Don't you see this, that the one action by which you are prevented of following the line of least resistance saves this college from disintegration? It is necessary. It can't be helped. Since it isn't in your own heart, some watchdog has to be appointed to keep up this, you see, this tenure, and this -- this austerity, this discipline, because we all try to get away with less effort, you see, for more results. And you look around, gentlemen, every human institution: the family, the -- the -- the town, the school, there isn't -- the bureaucracy in Washington, the government of the president--everyone tries to play more golf and do less work. And they try -- every one of us reasons it out, so yes, I can get in more -- one more -- play a game of golf, and one hour of secretarial work less. And so on it goes.

And finally, you see, we had a -- a dean here in this college of whom it was said--it's long ago, so I can tell the story--he invented the two-hour week.

Well, you know -- and how this man ended? It's a very tragic story. He was dean of the faculty. And he was a very good mathematician. And then the war broke out. And he sent around a circular letter to all of us: could we help in the war effort? And we all -- of course, responded. And I even was coached so that I could teach physics. And we nearly lost the war.

Now this -- we needed mathematicians, we needed physicists, we needed chemists at that moment, so what can you do? But not so, he. He had invented the two-hour week, and in his fabulous search for animal prestige--just he was the dean, nobody could ask it from him. He had sent the letter to us, but he did not volunteer his services, and he did not participate, although he was one of the best-trained mathematicians on this campus, and it was needed. But he felt that it was beneath his dignity. He could ask us to serve, but he was in -- in the administration building. That's gravity, I mean. Line of least resistance. He -- nobody could force him to do it, and so he didn't.

Now gentlemen, a few years later, he took his life. And I think rightly so. He was in -- off -- complete despair. And that's the end of it. That's all there is to him.

These things work out this way, automatically. He -- he killed himself, long before -- before he killed himself physically. He killed himself as a citizen of

the United States. He -- he declined the honor of helping in the war effort. A ridiculous man, just because he had -- he thought that it would, you see, take away from his stature as -- as the dean. Well, all pride does exactly this, exactly this, you see. Where you are too proud to sit -- settle down and work, or to work hard, or to sacrifice, you are already doomed. You are counted out, because you behave naturally. It is natural to follow your pride. It is very natural. It is natural to follow your bent.

And that's why, gentlemen, if man cannot reverse the trend, he is -- nothing but a beast, and all history is wiped out. You can wipe out the history of the United States at this moment, gentlemen, by saying that you follow the line of least resistance. Pardon me for insisting that the invention of Christianity--the power of reversing the trend--is an invention. And it can be forgotten. And it has been forgotten by a partial country, like Spain or so. It can always be forgotten. We have Christian countries where it has been denied. And I think you are just in the process of denying it. If this country ends up in a big inflation, I would say the last chance for this country has been lost. Because three times it has been challenged in the last 50 years: the First World War, in the Second World War, in the Korean adventure--and it has three times denied its Lord, because its Lord says, "The hardest resistance," you see.

So -- I'm -- the -- the history has two aspects, gentlemen. It has the evolutionary aspect in which you cannot understand anything. If you read Toynbee or Spengler, for example, there is no meaning in history. It all goes up and down, flash in the pan. Because there is no group that carries on the torch of the line of hardest resistance. What is this, gentlemen? The line of hardest resistance disn't -- doesn't give up in bankruptcy. It says that defeat is a way to victory. And that's why the Lord had not to come as a king, or as a prophet, or as a victor, but He had to come as a lowly slave, without citizen rights, without a trial--a real trial--crucified with two criminals, to show that at the moment of defeat, the human spirit is on its way of conquering the line of hardest resistance. If Jesus had come with any power and strength, there would be no hope for the future of the human race, because we could always then say, "Our circumstances are poorer, therefore we have no chance. Oh, He had so many allies, He had so many, you see, prospects. So it was no wonder that He founded the Church."

So it had to be based, gentlemen, the rever- -- power of reversing the trend on a situation which will never exist in your own life. Because you always have a predecessor. He had none. The whole difference, gentlemen, between Christ and the Christians is that we know that one man did it before us. And He didn't, because nobody had done it before.

And I mean to say, gentlemen, that this is the whole content of the -- our --

your Christian faith. There is no more. For example, for those of you who belong to the Roman Catholic faith, it is important to -- to write down, and to take in the fact that the greatest sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church officially and dogmatically to this day is the Crucifixion, and not Communion supper, or baptism, these so-called "seven sacraments." The greater sacrament instituted for all mankind is His own Crucifixion. That is the great sacrament, the fundamental sacrament. What you repeat there is a little ecclesiastical thing compared to the -- the -- to the Crucifixion.

Now you have never heard of this. It is unprecedented, this fact. The Church -- churches have become so subjective, so pietistic, they're only concerned with your private salvation, that even in the Catholic Church this great truth is not told -- you are not told, this redeeming truth, that the Crucifixion is the first sacrament. You will admit--who is a Roman Catholic--you will not -- not mind my question, but you have never heard this, isn't that true? It isn't said. Yet it's very important, that all the other sacraments, you see, are overshadowed by this one, central, historical action, you see. That is the great fundamental sacrament. Ja?

({ }.)

I should take now the line of hardest resistance, but I won't.

[tape interruption]

...this about the reversing the trend, because I have to emphasize that the Christian era has only one theme, one topic, although it consists of three different terminologies, or different epochs. The through-going thread of the 3,000 years of the Christian era, in which we are engaged at this moment--197- -- -57 means that 2,000 years have gone by, and we have to prepare for the third thousand years, obviously. Now if we take the Christian era as more or less certain to have to cover 3,000 years, we have to ask ourselves: what is the unity in these 3,000 years which will allow us to speak of the Christian era, and not just of empires, and kingdoms, and poetry, and -- or -- or philosophy, or -- or religion as with the Jews; or family life, and racial life as with the tribes?

What is -- will be, or must remain the significant -- distinction of our own era, why you think that you are not superstitious, that you are advanced, that there is progress possible, why you feel that we live ahead of the people of old? What gives you this certainty? As you know, the ancients didn't believe this. They thought they lived in a cycle, they lived in cycles, they lived in a circulatory movement. No Egyptian would have thought that in 1321 he was more advanced than he was in 2780. Because the Great Year was just coming back. And as you

know--or don't know--Mr. Friedrich Nietzsche, the great man who -- who -- who -- who said this--the downfall of the western world, before the two world wars--said that he believed in eternal recurrence. He didn't believe in progress, because he abandoned the Christian era. He didn't think there was any freedom, any rever- -- power of reversing the trend. Now as a warning landmark, I think he's very important, because Nietzsche can show you what happens. We had this same man -- type of man in this country under the name of -- of Henry Adams. Henry Adams predicted exactly the same, that this Christian era would come to an -- end in 1917. And in a way, it has, with the First World War. America is no longer sure of progress.

And in -- therefore, I have to throw out a bait, so to speak, to make you see that even if it isn't the -- the -- the visible Church that may make headway in the future, or if even the whole world has been discovered, the problem of the Christian era is nothing something so specific as having in a -- constantly a -- growing numbers of confessing Christians, or such things, but that it is in the power of every generation to believe that it can reverse the trend. As long as you get people who believe this, and if they openly can join hands with each other, you have the Christian era. Because the Christian is a successor of Christ when he believes that he is called forth to reverse the trend. If he doesn't believe this, he is--like Kierkegaard said--one of these damned, existing Christians who defy Christianity. The whole problem of Kierkegaard--you have heard of this man--was that he looked around--and you can do this in America, too--and you feel that all the Christians are the friends of the trend. And therefore they are not Christians. They have ceased to be Christians. The Christian who is for the trend is not a Christian. He denies the Lord. They all deny the Lord today. By far the majority of the church-going people, you see, I think their only saving grace is that they keep the doors of the Church open for real Christians to come in.

I think it's quite important. Don't -- don't -- don't laugh. If I go to church, I have no merit, except that I keep the door open for some soul who really means business. I'm not saved except by -- if I help somebody else. And it's very questionable, if I help anybody else, unless I believe that one day there may be a lost soul who enters this -- this church. And because he finds the church still -- services going, you see, can at that moment get the strength of the full understanding of the faith.

Don't betray yourself. What we do when we are members of a church is: just hold on to something as an opportunity for -- sa- -- souls who need it at this moment. That I think is our main function.

Well, that's a long story, but the -- the mo- -- main point is, gentlemen: if we can in- -- convey, transmit to future generations this firm faith that they can

reverse the trend, we still continue the Christian era. If you, however, as they have in the last 30 years, knuckle down to the fact that you are the product of your environment, that psychologically and sociologically you can be predicted, that you are statistically measured and -- and contained in the statistics, then there is no Christian era. And some -- it is a great fight today on between the devil and God. Most -- I think the majority of Americans are convinced that the Christian era is just a -- a pious memory of the past.

Now I don't believe it, but I feel very strongly that in getting the kernel out of the tradition, this power of reversing the trend, I can shoot you into the {awareness}, gentlemen, that you cannot judge the existence of the Christian era by the membership in the Christian Churches. That doesn't prove anything.

And I want therefore now to come to the sober realization, gentlemen, that in the first thousand years, undoubtedly, down to Mr. {Tryggvesson's} conversion of Iceland--when was it?

({990}.)

What?

(1000.)

When was it?

(1000.)

Well, you -- you said no, I was wrong, when I said 1000. You think 940. What true? What's right?

({ }.)

I say 990. And he said 1000. And I'm right.

Well, I say the history of the Church in the western world certainly ends in the conversion of the ultima Thule, of the last island in the -- north of Iceland. And therefore, it's very handy for -- just convenient -- for convenience's sake, I always say the -- the Church is the leading agent of history in the first thousand years of our era. It is not the leading agent in the second thousand years of our era. You can formula- -- formulate it this way, gentlemen: that the power of reversing the trend is visibly vested in the Church in the first thousand years of our era. And therefore, all the interesting events of the first thousand years of our era are church events, are events in ecclesiastical history.

And I give you right away a list of these interesting events. There's the birth of Christ, probably 4 B.C. or 7 B.C.--we are not quite sure--and there is His crucifixion, about we say 31, 32, 33 of our era. More sure is the death of Peter and Paul in Rome. And in 54, Paul came -- comes to Athens and begins his mission of the Greek spirit. And in 70 the temple is destroyed, and the whole chapter of Israelitic antiquity ends. Then you go on to the first great heresy in the second century, the so-called Marcionite heresy, an attempt of the Greeks to do -- go it alone without the Old Testament. That's the so-called second -- the great temptation of the Church, to do --. Marcionite heresy is important, because it's the fundamental heresy. It is all -- with us all the time. All the liberal arts colleges are Marcionites today. They think they don't have to have the Old Testament; they can do it just with the mind, with the Greek spirit here, up here; with -- with departments of religion, and such things.

Marcionite heresy is the second century, gentlemen. Then you get in the third century, of course, the last great persecutions, and the first monks, the first withdrawal of the Christians from the empire, the first -- fou- -- fou- -- founda- -- settlement in the desert of the Church. That's the third century.

The fourth century is famous, gentlemen, because the emperor becomes a Christian. Constantine becomes a Christian, gentlemen. And since a god becomes a Christian, Jesus has to be proclaimed God. Because if -- if -- an emperor who -- who had divine worship in antiquity, you see, is now to be a Christian, the test can only be that -- that the founder of Christianity is above him. Otherwise there is a great danger that all the divine honors go further on, are given to the emperors; and therefore, Christ is lowered -- below the emperor.

So the famous Nicaean Creed, gentlemen, the famous faith -- proclamation of the Trinity, by Athanasius--of which -- whom you may have heard--is of course bound up with the Christianization of the empire. If an emperor becomes a Christian, there must be an expression of the fact that he is a mortal man and not a god. And the only way of expressing this really stringently is to exalt Christ, you see, clearly. And as you know, the { } heresy was waged around this point: is Christ god-like, or is He God? And there -- could be no -- no confession to Him, because if the Roman emperor, who for -- who for 300 years, the people had worshiped in their temples as a god now could claim to be a -- a -- a Christian, he had to be put down in his place. Christ had to be exalted above him very visibly. And at that time, therefore, in 325, there could be no -- evading the issue, so to speak. The proclamation had to be strict: Christ was above the emperors.

You always forget how difficult it is to exalt in -- in this country, for example, somebody above the president. It's not so easy. How do you do it? You

can lower the presidents, or you can exalt the other. Probably you have to do both.

(You mean that Christ is -- really is not God, then?)

Oh yes, but it was now imposed on the faithful to confess it. They could not be asked -- the individual could not be allowed to go outside -- to -- to -- not to say that -- give it in the Creed. As you know, the formula of Nicaea was that the Trinity had to be said, had to be told.

My dear man, it has always been the truth. It has always been the fact. But you can do a long time without formulation of something when is not under attack. But to impose on every faithful to say so on Sunday in the Creed in the Church became necessary, because these same men paid taxes to the emperor, you see, and had worshiped the emperor. Now they suddenly felt -- pretended to be Christians, it would have been lip service, you see, and not true if they had not said that Christ was God, because then they still would con- -- could continue otherwise to say that Augustus was God, Caesar was God, you see, Nero was God. { } You understand that?

There was a decision to be made. You couldn't allow any leeway, you see, any -- any variegation, any prevarication. It -- is never mentioned in your books that these people who struck out the famous iota--god-like or god-equal, you see--that they had just no choice in the matter. That if they wanted to stay Christians, it is -- I think the trinitarian dogma, gentlemen, is the greatest action of Christianity, and you have to understand that. And it is terrible that this country you all afford to laugh at dogmas. Gentlemen, you would be lost without this dogma. There would be no freedom in America, if people had not shed their blood for this fact that Christ was God and Caesar Augustus was not God. You laugh at this, and you say, "They quibbled over -- over some words." They didn't. They paved the road for your own freedom. You don't believe that a man is God. Isn't that true? It saves you from tyranny. The people -- the Japanese had to lose the Second World War before they could learn that Hirohito was not God. It's very expensive.

You laugh at every effort of your ancestors to free you -- make you free. Like -- as you laugh at the Puritans, as you laugh at original sin. Gentlemen, I warn you against this. You will lose everything if you do not rally and say how great these people were. You can be as great as them. Don't think that I'm denying you. But don't -- don't rid yourself of your supports, of your real friends, of your real allies in -- in the past. They are your allies, and not these -- these cynics who say that they were stupid.

They leave you without any weapons, without any hope, because what do these cynics say? That man can never reverse the trend. That's selling you all into nature, into -- into slavery, into total blindness, absolute despair. And you will all end up like this dean of this college, committing suicide.

Gentlemen, we go on. The third century gives you this decisive fight. The first century wages war against the synagogue, against the Jewish temple. The second century wages war against the Greek spirit, with the Marcionite heresy. The third century takes the first people outside the empires into the desert. And on this foundation in the fourth century, the Church is able even to overcome its own environment, the imperial forces, and to say, "My dear emperor, we're very glad you become a Christian, under one little condition, that you frankly confess that you are not God." Constantine thought of course for the rest -- all his life that he could be both, you see. Caesar, unvanquished, you see, the great ruler of the empire, and little bit of a Christian on the side. So he waited into his deathbed before he was baptized, you see, because he couldn't see it. But in Nicaea, he was conquered.

And again, your textbooks all lie, because they don't give you the greatness of this moment, of this surrender of the -- Caesars to Christ.

Now let me say one more word, gentlemen, about this relation of the second and the third century -- third and fourth century. Athanasius, the bishop -- the deacon of Alexandria, the successor in the Church of St. Mark, the -- the author of the Gospel of St. Mark, who had go -- gone to Rome to resist the imperial forces, the forces of priesthood and -- and of -- or -- and of empire -- emperors, the pharaonic influence of antiquity -- this successor to St. Mark, Athanasius, had to flee from his See in Alexandria, for about 30 years out of 40 in which he was patriarch of Alexandria. He died in 7- -- at the age of 76, and this problem of the last 40 years of his life was: where to live, outside the influence of these Aryan emperors, who didn't want this Nicaean trinity, because it was too dangerous for their own dignity, for their own authority. And Athanasius had to flee into the desert of the Coptic monks. And he lived many years in the desert. And so the monks that had -- began to leave the -- the fruit-lands of the empire, and gone into the desert in the third century, have rescued our faith. If there had not been the desert added to the imperial, agricultural area, so to speak, you see, walled in by the empire, Athanasius could not have survived. And I think that's very important.

Christianity has then always--as we said last time--a head start. Christ was ahead 40 years to the destruction of Jerusalem. The first father of the monks, Pachomius, went into the desert -- in 280 we know, 281. In 325, Council of Nicaea. Forty years ahead. Forty-five years. These first settlements of the desert, the

monks, received Athanasius. And for this very reason, he was able to beat down the imperial opposition which tried to -- to -- to massacre the new faith. Because you must not think that the Council of Nicaea was all rose-water. From 325 to the end of the fourth century, the Aryans, the people who -- the Caesarians, the people who -- who loved the emperor, and who wanted his authority protected, fought back and said, "Athanasius has added to the Creed, we are -- will not subscribe to the divinity of Christ," you see. Well, it was a real battle of these old Romans. And a very exciting battle. And the problem of Athanasius then was for the first time in Christianity, gentlemen, to live in an -- veneer of Christian environment, in a baptized state, which on the surface called itself Christian, but wasn't.

And for this reason, gentlemen, ever since 300, there have been monasteries in -- to be the desert within the empire. That's the meaning of monasticism, gentlemen. When Athanasius returned to Alexandria, among his many attempts to have peace with the emperor again, the monks said, "Don't forget us." And Athanasius then said the famous words, "If I forget thine Jerusalem, my hand may dry up," { } Psalm. I think that's the 148th Psalm. By which he meant that the monks were the New Jerusalem, the new desert, the new -- the desert people who had left Egypt, you see, and gone out into the wilderness.

Or to give you another story of the monks -- one of the bishops visited in this desert of the -- the old -- first mona- -- hermits, and they found -- he found that this hermit had to go six hours a day to get a -- some water which he needed of course for his support, and then return trip, six hours again. And he said, "Couldn't you settle a little nearer to the fruit-land of Egypt?" As you all would think. He wanted to have -- would of course -- would like to have a monastery with central heating. So they had it { } -- in this country. So that's why they have no monasteries.

So the -- the monk replied, "Is -- even that is too close to the fruit-land, because I have to prove to these unbelie- -- unfaithful people that God created the desert as well as the fruit-land." This -- this -- {third} -- world outside human -- human work as much as these empires, you see, with their agricultural system, and their calendars, and their Chinese or -- Mexican, or Egyptian, you see, rigmarole, of New Year celebration, and the emperor Horus as -- as ruler of all.

So what I -- I cannot give you the whole story, gentlemen. You can read any of these wonderful stories of the Church. I think they are today written -- they are written prosaically. They don't tell you the heroic story, that every one of the achievements of antiquity had to be overcome by voluntarily reversing the trend. Nobody can force a monk to live six hours away from the next water hole, you see. If he doesn't see the importance that someone has to prove that all this

nice civilization is quite all right, but it { } is dependent on the -- this standard of living, he is going to perish. You all are going to perish as long as you depend on your standard of living. That's the golden calf.

What's the standard of living? Ridiculous. You can do without all these things very well. You don't have to have telephone, you don't have to have television. Prove it to yourself that you can. Well, most of you do. You go to Canada on a fishing trip, and you live four weeks, you see, outside, because you want to prove to yourself that some hardihood is in order, don't you? Every one of us has to prove at times to oneself that you can live without these things. They aren't important. And you cannot have the politics of a country geared to the standard of living. That's impossible. Don't do it, gentlemen. Laugh at the politicians who -- who sell you Sylvia Porter's editorials. Just laugh at them. It isn't -- it isn't important. It's very nice to have these things, gentlemen, but isn't -- it important, isn't first-rate.

So the monks had to prove it. And they did. And this life six hours away form the next water hole may strike you as ridiculous, but it worked. Ever since, human beings have known that they can reverse the trend towards luxury and away from luxury, just as well. It is both -- both things are right at times. Sometimes it's nice to be rich; sometimes it's nice to be poor.

The fourth century then, gentlemen, finds the Christian Church already supported by a non-Greek, non-Roman, non-Jewish force--the desert--something left out in -- by antiquity, you see, only remembered in the Israelitic { }. You can also say the modern mon- -- monks, gentlemen, are still the last successors of the Mosaic Israel, living in the desert without entering the Promised Land. You will not do justice to monasticism if you don't take it up that high, as the successors to the anti-Egyptian Moses, and his -- his group. And it is Moses' conception of freedom that it is better to live in the desert than to live with the fleshpots of Egypt under -- under this servitude of { }. And don't think that it is the poor treatment of the -- of the Jews that drove this professor of philosophy out of -- of Egypt, Moses. Moses had to join up with these -- with these underdogs. But he did it, of course, because he knew what -- what freedom is, where God is, and that he wasn't in this calendar-sorcerers, witchcraft, and con- -- astrology, the horoscopes.

In your modern books again, Moses is always omitted and it is always said that the Jews were oppressed. Gentlemen, if it was to be oppressed which would have made Israel, they would never have known anything of the true God. Rebellion doesn't need to truth -- lead to truth. That's nonsense. Where would the -- if this country only rebelled against Amer- -- England, it wouldn't have to offer anything to the world. But here was Washington, and here was the Bill of

Rights, and here was the Declaration of Independence, and these were the great spirits of the age. They didn't act as rebels, did they? But then { } greater...

[tape interruption]

...where is the Church? Is it doomed with the Roman empire, or can it live with the new Germanic, and Islamic, and barbaric -- barbarian tribes, now, Vandals, and Goths, and so on? And as you know, there was written this great book, The City of God, by St. Augustine in 416 of our era, which perhaps you take it down. It's as important as 395, the Council of Nicaea, as important as the monks going to the desert in 280, and as important as the Marcionite heresy beaten down by the Church in 106. It was the destruction of the temple in 70. All these dates, gentlemen, mark a significant growth of Christianity outside the old chapters of antiquity. What happens in 416 is that St. Augustine said, "The Roman Church can live without the Roman empire." The Roman empire can fall, and Christianity is therefore not interested in it, in itself. That's the meaning of the City of God against the city on earth. And therefore that had to be lived through. Actually Rome was conquered in 410 by Alaric the Goth. And it was destroyed. And it was { } people were { }; the women were raped; the treasures were carried away; the Romans were enslaved. And at that moment, St. Augustine wrote this City of God, which we today still read, gentlemen, to understand that God is not identified with the history of the United States of America, or with Europe, that God is not refuted because Europe today is falling down. That's not a refutation of the { } of salvation by our creator, you see. He has not promised eternal life to Europe. And He has not promised eternal life to the United States of America.

That's the fifth century, gentlemen. The en-migration, you may call it, of the whole church outside the pattern of antiquity. They could not save the empire. They could not save the -- {straight} schools; they could not save the temple of Jerusalem. They all had to be left behind.

The fifth century, gentlemen, about what time { }?

(Yeah. Three minutes.)

Ja. Then -- that's enough for today. And I will say this about the next century. The sixth century, gentlemen, sees the introduction of the Christian era. We count the years since Christ. But that wasn't done before 534 of our own era. { } before, all the years were counted by the consulates of the city of Rome, or by some other era.

Gentlemen, all the eras that exist today are not older than the sixth cen-

tury. The first is the Christian era, of 534, beginning. A monk, Dionysius, said, "I'm no longer c- -- to count the years from these wicked Caesars. I'm going to count them only from the incarnation of our Lord." And that was a great revolution of course in all history books. So never before 534 do you find any old book, any mentioning of the Christian era. It took 500 years to become conscious of itself. That's why it is so solid, today, gentlemen. Five hundred years is a normal thing for something important in history. You must learn this, gentlemen. Five hundred years is not a long time. It's a short time.

If you take these steps, gentlemen: the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, in 70; Marcionite heresy, the attempt of the Greeks to go it alone, to separate from the other commission of Christianity, to deal with the tribes at this -- the Jews, and with the empires, as well as with the schools of { }, you see, then you understand that to con- -- convert or to win out over the {temple} in Jerusalem, had to win out over the school in Athens, were the first necessities to remain united, and be really Christian, to be wholesale, to make -- be the whole man, and not just a Greek man now improved on, or a Jew improved on. That was very difficult. In the third century, the -- the -- Christianity finds that the task becomes harder, still. After they conquered the Greeks and the Jews, there is still the Roman empire; and there are still the savages, the Germanic tribes, and the -- Arabs in the whole Arabian world, as of today, still. And therefore, they get armed and go into the desert and line up with the part of the world not yet tame, not yet civilized, not touched by { } you see, in order to show that they believe in God as the comprehensive power, transforming the whole world, and not just { }.

Then you get the immediate result: now with this new ally, the Roman empire itself can be tackled. The emperors have to come -- be brought down to their knees. They have to admit their mortality. Caesar is only a man, despite the fact that he rules the empire. It seemed quite impossible. As you know, Mr. Hitler and Mr. Stalin also had to be aggrandized to mi- -- to divine rulers. They felt they couldn't stand it otherwise. I mean, Stalin -- this whole cult of Stalin is exactly in line with the situation of the Roman empire in 325. And Mr. Malenkov has just brought back Russia to civilization by saying, "We can't worship," you see. He felt that he was lost if he went on worshiping this monster as God. But Stalin in his own life can't help being worshiped as God, very practically. It's a very, I mean, Christian story, this story of the downfall of the worship of -- of the cult of -- of Stalin. It's repeated in every century, ever since.

Now the four- -- fifth century, as I told you, brought the consciousness of the Church, that it had to throw overboard its identification with the area of the Roman emperor, that it could not be a Roman Church only, that the Church had a life separate and different in size, and -- and time, and chronology, from the --

all the powers of antiquity, that it could also live with these new forces of history. Just as today the Christian Church has to know that China and Russia are waiting for it. And if you identify the Church with the Episcopal Church of the state of New York, there is no Christianity. That's not important that the Episcopal Diocese of New York is saved. And that's behind this whole { } business, of course, and so on. It's a great problem in this country: can there be Christians in America, when the Dies committee, and the McCarthys are after them to prove that they are 100 percent Americans? No Christian can be 100 percent American. It's impossible. The Church was founded to disprove this, that this was possible. That's the essence of it.

And the last thing is, the Church becomes conscious of its own chronology, and introduced the Christian era. You may be interested that 622, the -- Mohammedan era, and the Jewish era of -- from the creation of the world are consequences of the Christian era. The Jewish era which counts, as you know, 5- -- what's the year now?

({ }.)

What?

({ }.)

Ja. That was only introduced in 600 of our era. The Jews never before counted the years at all. It was considered, you see, wrong. But now in antithesis of the Christian era, they now count from the creation of the world. And this counting of the Jewish year is -- was only introduced after the Christian era had come into being. And then the Islamic era is the third era. They were all put in within one century.

At this point, let's stop.