Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 418

;

394

UNIVERSALITY OF THIS PRIXCIPIUM

§ 72.

[Div. Ill

originating in Asia, j)assed over from the Semitic to

tlie

Indo-Germanic race, presently conquered the Northern Coast of Africa and the entire south of Europe, and never allowed Christ had humanized his confesitself to be nationalized. sion, by breaking down every partition wall (/uecrdrot^j^oz/) and this universal human character stands in immediate connection with the possession of a sj^ecial principium of knowledge. That which is national may give tradition, but cannot provide a special principium for our consciousness. It is seen, therefore, that every effort, applied outside of this principium, has merely led to national forms of religion

and even Buddhism of

pantheism, lent

its

many

nations

— remains

world of thought. notice

—

acter,

which

is

— which,

still

itself

stealthy invasions

to

in principle, nevertheless,

Islam alone

— and

exhibits, to a certain extent, is

;

by the chameleon character

this

is

among

an Indian

worthy

of

an cecumenic char-

attributable to the fact that

Mohammedanism

grafted upon the special principium, such as

it

flourished,

thanks to the Scripture, in the Christian life-circle.

Even

thus Islam has never taken root in the finer branches of the

human

Islam is and remains Arabic, and outside of tree. Arabia has gained an entrance only among those nations, which either have taken no part in the general human deEven the velopment, or have stood at a much lower level. accession of Persia to Islam is attended with the disappearance of this nation, once so great, from the world stage. If thus we leave out of account for a moment the working of this special principium before Golgotha,

we face the fact human life has

that for almost twenty centuries a separate

developed itself in our human race; principally in the nobler branches of the human tree and among the more finely organized nations; and that the development of this separate life has not taken place with isolated nations such as China and

now

and chiefly which has carried the hegemonjr, and caused the development of our human race India, but even

in five parts of the world,

in that current of our

human

to ascend to its present heights. life

life

We

see that this separate

has been characterized everywhere by the action, in

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