Words Worth Noting - July 30, 2025

“Once men had sublimated their longing for grandeur and continuance in the glory and survival of their family and their clan, and then of a state that was their creation and collective self. Now the old clan lines were melting away in the new mobility of peace; and the imperial state was the spiritual embodiment only of the master class, not of the powerless multitude of men. Monarchy at the top, frustrating the participation and merger of the citizen in the state, produced individualism at the bottom and through the mass. The promise of personal immortality, of an endless happiness after a life of subjection, poverty, tribulation, or toil, was the final and irresistible attraction of the oriental faiths and of the Christianity that summarized, absorbed, and conquered them. All the world seemed conspiring to prepare the way for Christ.”

Will Durant Caesar and Christ, end of Chapter XXIV [though he was too worldly a modern to notice what he just said let alone take it seriously.