The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE EQUINOX The object of faith is a mathematical problem, whose x escapes the procedures of our algebra. Absolute mathematics prove only the necessity, and, in consequence, the existence of this unknown which we represent by the untranslatable ~. Now science progresses in vain; its progress is indefinite, but always relatively finite; it will never find in the language of the finite the complete expression of the infinite. Mystery is therefore eternal. To bring into the logic of the known the terms of a profession of faith is to withdraw them from faith, which has for positive bases anti-logic, that is to say, the impossibility of logically explaining the unknown. For the Jew, God is separate from humanity; He does not live in His creatures, He is infinite egoism. For the Mussulman, God is a word before which one prostrates oneself, on the authority of Mohammed. For the Christian, God has revealed Himself in humanity, proves Himself by charity, and reigns by virtue of the order which constitutes the hierarchy. The hierarchy is the guardian of dogma, for whose letter and spirit she alike demands respect. The sectarians who, in the name of their reason or, rather, of their individual un- reason, have laid hands on dogma, have, in the very act, lost the spirit of charity; they have excommunicated themselves. The Catholic, that is to say the universal, dogma merits that magnificent name by harmonizing in one all the religious aspirations of the world ; with Mosesand Mohammed, it affirms the unity of God; with Zoroaster, Hermes and Plato, it recognizes in Him the infinite trinity of its own regeneration; 78