Pathway to Japanese Literature

1 Behold the Man

About ten years ago, I loved Christianity—particularly Catholicism—as an art form.
The "Temple of Japan's Holy Mother" in Nagasaki still lingers in my memory.
Such a one as I am is but a crow that had been diligently picking up the seeds sown by Mr. Kitahara Hakushū and Mr. Mokutarō Kinoshita.
And then, some years before that, I had felt a certain interest in the Christians who had been martyred for Christianity.
The psychology of martyrs gave me a morbid interest, just like that of all fanatics.
I have finally come around this time to love the man called Christ, transmitted to us by four biographers.
To me today, Christ cannot be viewed as a mere wayfarer.
That would likely be laughed at by Westerners, of course, and by today’s youths as well.
But I, born at the end of the nineteenth century, had grown weary of what they too had seen—and began instead to fix my gaze upon the cross they would not hesitate to topple.
"My Christ," born in Japan, does not necessarily gaze upon the Sea of Galilee.
Beneath persimmon trees laden with crimson fruit, Nagasaki’s inlet too comes into view.
Therefore, I shall pay no heed to historical or geographical facts.
(That is not, at least for the Jesuitic, to avoid difficulties.
If one were to take it seriously, five or six volumes of biographies of Christ would easily serve this purpose.) Furthermore, I have no leisure to faithfully list every word and deed of Christ.
I will simply record "my Christ" exactly as I have perceived him.
Even strict Japanese Christians would likely overlook the Christ written by a mercenary scribbler.

2 Mary

Mary was merely a woman.
But one night, moved by the Holy Spirit, she suddenly gave birth to Christ.
We might sense a measure of Mary in every woman.
At the same time, we might also sense a measure of Mary in every man—
No—we might sense a trace of Mary even in the fire burning in the hearth, the vegetables of the field, the unglazed jars, and the seats formed upon rocky layers.
Mary was not "the Eternal Feminine."
She was merely "that which eternally seeks to protect."
The life of Christ’s mother, Mary, too passed through the valley of tears.
But Mary walked through this life with steadfast endurance.
Worldly wisdom, folly, and virtue dwelt as one within her life.
Nietzsche’s rebellion was a rebellion against Mary more so than against Christ.

3 Holy Spirit

We could sense something of the Holy Spirit even in wind and flags.
The Holy Spirit was not necessarily "holy."
It was merely "that which eternally seeks to surpass."
Goethe had always bestowed upon the Holy Spirit the name Daemon.
Not only that—he had ever remained vigilant against being seized by this Holy Spirit.
Yet the children of the Holy Spirit—all Christs—carried within them the peril of one day being seized by it.
The Holy Spirit was neither devil nor angel.
Of course, it differed from God as well.
At times we might glimpse the Holy Spirit walking beyond good and evil.
Beyond good and evil—yet whether by fortune or misfortune, Lombroso had discovered the Holy Spirit treading upon the very brains of the mad.

4 Joseph

Christ’s father, Joseph the carpenter, was in fact Mary herself.
The fact that his Mary is not revered as much is based on this truth.
Joseph, no matter how favorably viewed, was ultimately the foremost of superfluous beings.

5 Elizabeth

Mary was Elizabeth’s friend.
The one who gave birth to John the Baptist was Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah.
The blooming of poppies among the wheat was nothing but sheer coincidence.
The force that governs our lives is also at work there.

6 Shepherds

That Mary conceived through being moved by the Holy Spirit was indeed a scandal enough to stir the shepherds.
Christ’s mother, the beautiful Mary, embarked upon the path of human suffering from this time onward.

7 The Wise Men

The Wise Men from the Eastern country saw that Christ’s star had appeared, and offering gold, frankincense, and myrrh in a treasure box, they went forth.
However, they numbered merely two or three among the Wise Men.
The other Wise Men did not notice that Christ’s star had appeared.
Moreover, one of the Wise Men who had noticed it stood upon a high platform (he was older than anyone), gazed up at the glittering star, and pitied Christ from afar.

“Again?!”

8 Herod

Herod was a kind of great machine.
Such machines are always necessary for us—through violence—to save some trouble.
He slaughtered all the infants in Bethlehem out of fear of Christ.
Of course, other Christs besides Christ must have been mixed among them.
Herod’s hands may have been dyed crimson with their blood.
We would probably be unable to feel anything but discomfort before these hands.
But that discomfort is toward the guillotine of centuries past.
We cannot hate Herod—much less despise him.
No—rather, we can only feel pity for him.
Herod is always on his throne, his melancholic countenance fixed straight ahead as he gazes down upon the land of Bethlehem among olive and fig trees.
He did not leave behind even a single line of poetry....

9 Bohemian Spirit

The young Christ would go to Egypt at times and stay in "the town called Nazareth, having taken refuge within Galilee" at others.
We might find such children in the households of naval officers transferred to Sasebo or Yokosuka.
Christ's Bohemian spirit may have been latent in these circumstances even before his own character emerged.

10 Father

After living in Nazareth, Christ must have realized he was not Joseph’s child.
Or that he was a child of the Holy Spirit—but this was by no means a more significant event than the former.
"Son of Man"
From this moment, Christ truly underwent his second birth.
"A maid's child"
Strindberg first rebelled against his family.
That was his misfortune and at the same time his happiness.
Christ was likely the same.
In such loneliness, he fortunately encountered Christ—John the Baptist—who had been born before him.
Within ourselves, we too sense the shadows of Christ’s heart before he met John.
John ate wild honey and locusts, dwelling in the wilderness.
However, the wilderness where he lived was not necessarily devoid of sunlight.
At least when compared to the dim wilderness that existed within Christ himself...

11 John

John the Baptist was a Christ who could not understand romanticism.
His dignity remained there, shining like unrefined gold.
That he could not surpass Christ likely lay in that very fact.
John, who had baptized Christ, had been as sturdy as an oak tree.
Yet John, now imprisoned, had lost the vigor of that oak tree once brimming with branches and leaves.
His final lamentation—like Christ’s own final lamentation—continues to move us.—

“Was Christ you, or was it I?”

John’s final lamentation—no, it was not merely lamentation.
The stout oak tree had withered, yet still spread its branches in semblance alone.
Had even this vitality been lacking, Christ in his twenties would never have uttered these words with such composure.

“It would be well for me to tell John of what I now am.”

12 Devil

After fasting for forty days, Christ engaged in dialogue with the Devil face-to-face.
We too require some manner of fasting to hold discourse with the Devil.
Some among us would succumb to the Devil's temptation in this exchange.
Others might guard themselves without yielding to temptation.
Yet there are those who never hold such dialogue with the Devil throughout their lives.
Christ first rejected bread.
Yet he did not neglect to append the annotation: "Man cannot live by bread alone." Then he spurned the Devil's idealistic counsel that he should rely on his own strength.
But he had also readied the dialectic: "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."
Finally, he rejected "the kingdoms of the world and their glory."
This might seem equivalent to rejecting bread—or perhaps not.
For rejecting bread amounted merely to refusing realistic desires.
In this third response, Christ cast out every earthly dream that ceaselessly dwells within us.
This duel surpassing logic could only conclude with Christ's victory.
Jacob's wrestling with the angel likely constituted this same manner of combat.
The Devil had no recourse but to bow his head before Christ.
Yet he did not forget being the child of the woman Maria.
This dialogue with the Devil eventually came to bear grave significance.
Still, within Christ's lifetime, this could hardly be deemed a major event.
Many times throughout his life did he utter: "Satan, begone."

Indeed, one of his biographers—Luke—after recording this event, added: "The Devil, having completed all these temptations, left him for a time."

13 The First Disciples

Christ had demonstrated his genius at merely twelve years of age.
However, even after being baptized, no one became his disciples.
As he walked from village to village, he must have felt profound loneliness.
Yet in time four disciples—four fishermen—came to follow at his side.
Christ's love for them permeated his entire life.
Surrounded by them, he swiftly transformed into an ancient analyst endowed with a piercing tongue.

14 The Holy Spirit’s Child

Christ became an analyst of antiquity.
At the same time, he became a Bohemian of old.
His genius kept making leaps; his life trampled an era's social conventions.
While sometimes inciting hysteria among disciples who failed to understand him,
—yet for him personally, it was largely permeated with joy.
How much passion must Christ have felt coursing through his poetry?
"The Sermon on the Mount" was a creation brimming with the fervor of his twenties.
He sensed no predecessors could rival him.
This analytical genius of his—swollen like the sea—must have drawn enemies, naturally.
Yet they couldn't avoid fearing Christ.
This was precisely because for them—men who knew life more deeply than Christ and therefore carried terror of it—their failure to grasp the scope of this genius stemmed from nothing else.

15 Women

Many women loved Christ.
Mary Magdalene, above all others, forgot the seven demons that had assailed her after meeting him once, and even came to feel a poetic love that transcended her profession.
After Christ’s life had ended, it was the power of such love that she was first to see him.
Christ also loved many women—Mary Magdalene above all others.
Their poetic love remains as fragrant as irises.
Christ must have comforted his loneliness each time he saw her.
Later ages—or rather, the men of later ages—were indifferent to their poetic love.
(Admittedly, outside artistic themes) However, the women of later generations were always jealous of this Mary.

“Why didn’t Lord Christ show his resurrection to his mother Madam Mary before anyone else?”

That was the most hypocritical sigh they had ever let out.

16 Miracles

Christ sometimes performed miracles.
But for him himself, that was easier than creating a metaphor.
For that reason as well, he had harbored a feeling of disgust toward miracles.
For that reason as well—it was teaching his path that he felt was Christ’s mission.
Performing his miracles was, just as Rutsouo would later roar in posterity, undoubtedly an inconvenience to teaching his path.
However, his "lambs" always longed for miracles. Christ too could not help but comply with their wishes one out of three times.
His human—all too human—nature revealed itself even in this aspect.
But every time Christ performed miracles, he invariably evaded responsibility.

“Your faith has healed you.”

Yet this did not differ from scientific truth either.
On another occasion, when compelled to perform a miracle—when a woman who had long suffered from illness touched his garment—Christ felt his power drain away.
That he always hesitated somewhat in working miracles became evident through such visceral experiences.
Christ was a far keener rationalist than not only later Christians but even his twelve disciples.

17 The Transgressor

Christ’s mother, the beautiful Mary, was not necessarily a mother to Christ.
Those he loved most were the ones who followed his path.
Christ, burning with passion, did not even hesitate to boldly declare such feelings of his before a large crowd of people.
Mary must have been standing forlornly outside the door, listening to his words.
We feel Mary’s suffering within ourselves.
Even if we feel Christ’s passion within ourselves—still, Christ himself must have pitied Mary at times.
When he gazed upon Jerusalem as it was, without beholding the glorious gates of heaven.……

18 Christianity

Christianity is a poetic religion rich in paradoxes—one that even Christ himself could not practice.
He laughed away even life itself for his genius' sake.
It was only natural that Wilde recognized in him the foremost romanticist.
According to his teaching: "Not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these lilies swaying in the wind."
His path existed solely in poetry—in living without care for tomorrow.
For what purpose?
—That was assuredly to enter the Jews' heaven.
Yet no heaven can remain unchanging.
The Christian heaven filled with soap-scented roses eventually vanished into air.
But we have instead forged several heavens.
Christ first awakened within us this vague longing for heaven.
Moreover, his paradoxes spawned countless theologians and mystics in later ages.
Their arguments must have left Christ utterly confounded.
Yet some among them became more Christian than Christ himself.
Christ ultimately pointed us toward what lies beyond this world.
We shall ever sense in Christ what we seek—the trumpet blast driving us down infinite paths.
Simultaneously, we cannot but feel through him that which endlessly torments us—the world-weariness we call "modern."

19 Parabolist

We could see nothing beyond what lay near to ourselves.
At least, what came pressing upon us were only those things close to ourselves.
Christ, like all parabolists, had intuitively grasped this fact.
Bride, vineyard, donkey, laborer—his teachings never once failed to make use of what lay before their eyes.
"The Good Samaritan" and "The Prodigal Son’s Return" were masterpieces of his poetry in this vein.
The later Christian parabolists—those pastors who used nothing but abstract words—likely never once considered the efficacy of Christ’s parablism.
He was by no means an inferior parabolist compared to them—nor even when measured against later Christs.
His parablism stood shoulder to shoulder with Western classics for that very reason.
He was truly a parabolist who added new fuel to the old flame.

20 Jehovah

What Christ repeatedly preached was, of course, the heavenly God.
“It is not God who created us; it is we who have created God.” Such words from the materialist Gourmont would surely delight our hearts.
It was words that severed the chains hanging at our waists.
But at the same time, they were words that added new chains to our waists.
Moreover, these new chains might have been stronger than the old ones.
God descended from great clouds into fine nervous systems.
And yet He remained enthroned there under every name.
Christ must have seen this God time and again before his eyes.
(It was unthinkable that Christ—who had never met God—could have met the Devil.) His God too was one imbued with strong social characteristics like all gods.
But in any case, it must have been “the Lord God” born with us.
Christ fought on for this God—for poetic justice.
All his paradoxes originated there.
Later theology tried to interpret those paradoxes as furthest removed from poetry.
And then—they left behind countless tedious books no one ever read.
Voltaire today brandishes his sword to slay this “theological” God to comical lengths.
Yet “the Lord God” did not die.
Nor did Christ die.
As long as moss grows on concrete walls, God will always preside over us.

Dante cast Francesca into hell.
But Christ had saved this woman from the flames.
Those who have repented even once—those who have had a single beautiful moment—are always entering into "eternal life."
That He is easily called a God of sentimentalism is likely due to this very fact.

21 Hometown

"A prophet is not accepted in his hometown."—That may have been Christ’s first cross.
He ultimately had to make all Judea his hometown.
Trains, automobiles, steamships, and airplanes have today made the entire world a hometown for all Christs.
Of course, again, all Christs must undoubtedly have been denied entry into their hometowns.
Indeed, it was France, not America, that embraced Poe.

22 Poet

Christ felt a single lily flower to be more beautiful than "Solomon in all his glory."
(To be sure, none of his disciples were as entranced by the beauty of lily flowers as he was.) Yet when conversing with his disciples, he did not hesitate to breach conversational decorum and speak barbarously.
“Do you not know that what enters a person from outside cannot defile them?
“It does not enter the heart, but goes into the stomach and is expelled into the latrine.
“That is, what is eaten does not defile.”…

23 Lazarus

When Christ heard of Lazarus’s death, he shed tears unlike any he had shed before.
Tears unlike any before—or perhaps tears he had not shown until now.
That Lazarus came back to life was due to this sentimentalism of his.
He who did not look back at his mother Mary—why did he shed tears before Lazarus’s sisters, Martha and Mary?
Those who understand this contradiction are those who understand Christ’s—or rather, all Christs’—genius-like egotism.

24 The Feast of Cana

Although Christ loved women, he refrained from engaging with them.
This was equivalent to having permitted association with Mohammed’s four women.
Neither could transcend an era—or perhaps society.
Yet it was certain that his heart—which cherished freedom above all else—stirred there too.
Later-day supermen needed to wear masks among dogs.
But Christ counted even mask-wearing among his constraints.
The falsehood of so-called 'hearthside happiness' must have been clear to him.
America’s Christ—Whitman was another who chose this freedom.
We sense Christ time and again in his poetry.
Christ still laughed uproariously as he looked down upon Cana’s feast brimming with dancers, bouquets, and instruments.
Yet in exchange for that redemption, some measure of loneliness must have lingered there.

25 Dialogue on the Mountain Close to Heaven

Christ spoke on a high mountain with the Christs born before him—Moses and Elijah.
This event must have been an even more profound occurrence than his battle with the Devil.
A few days earlier, he had prophesied to his disciples that they would go to Jerusalem and that he would be crucified.
That he had met Moses and Elijah was evidence that he was standing in a certain spiritual crisis.
That his face "shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light" was not necessarily solely because the two Christs had descended before him.
At this moment more than any other in his life, he was solemn.
His biographers did not leave a record of the dialogue between them.
However, the question he hurled was "How ought we to live?"
Christ’s life must have been brief. Yet at this moment—when he had barely reached thirty—he had tasted the agony of having to make a total reckoning of his life.
Moses was, as Napoleon also said, a general skilled in strategy.
Elijah too was likely richer in political genius than Christ.
Moreover, today is not yesterday.
In this day and age, the waves of the Red Sea no longer rise like walls, nor do chariots of fire descend from heaven.
While conversing with them, Christ could not help but feel his disgraceful death drawing ever nearer.
On the mountain close to heaven, there were only clusters of rocks towering in ice-clear sunlight.
But in the depths of the valley below, pomegranates and figs must have been fragrant.
There too, perhaps, the faint smoke of households rose.
Christ too must likely have felt a certain nostalgia for life in the lower world.
However, his path was inevitably heading toward a heaven devoid of people.
The star that announced his birth—or perhaps the Holy Spirit that begot him—does not seek to grant him peace.

"When descending the mountain, Jesus commanded them (Peter, James, and his brother John), saying: 'You shall not tell anyone what you have seen until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.'"—That Christ had spoken with the "great dead ones" who preceded him on the mountain close to heaven was something he truly wished to preserve solely in his diary.

26. Like a Young Child

One of the paradoxes Christ taught was: “Verily I say unto you: Unless you turn and become like young children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
“Verily I say unto you: Unless you turn and become like young children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
This statement contains not a trace of sentimentalism.
Christ revealed in this statement that he himself was closer to a young child than anyone else.
At the same time, it clarified his own position as a child of the Holy Spirit.
Goethe, in his *Tasso*, likewise sang out his own suffering as one who was a child of the Holy Spirit.
"To be like a young child" is to return to kindergarten days.
According to Christ’s words, those who cannot endure life without someone’s protection are the only ones who may enter the golden gate.
There also lies concealed his contempt for worldly wisdom.
His disciples must have honestly—(what gives us discomfort in the image of Christ before a young child is later generations' hypocritical sentimentalism)—been unable to help but be surprised at the young child standing before him.

27 To Jerusalem

Christ became a prophet of his generation.
At the same time, the prophet within himself—or rather, the Holy Spirit that begot him—began to toy with him.
We would sense him even among moths burned by candle flames.
Moths were burned by candle flames because they had been born as mere moths.
Christ too did not differ from a moth.
Shou gave a thunder-like sneer to Christ, who had gone to Jerusalem to be crucified.
However, before Christ entered Jerusalem driving a donkey, he had already been bearing his cross.
It must have been something akin to a fate he could do nothing about.
He was a genius there as well, yet ultimately remained "the Son of Man."
Moreover, this fact taught us that the word "Messiah," accumulated over centuries, had dominated Christ.
Christ, riding a donkey along the path strewn with tree branches while being struck by cries of "Hosanna, O Hosanna," was both himself and all the prophets of Israel.
One of the Christs born after him conveyed how he had been pressed by the resurrected Christ on a distant road of Rome: "Where are you going?"
Had Christ too not gone to Jerusalem, he would likely have been pressed by one of the prophets: "Where are you going?"

28 Jerusalem

After entering Jerusalem, Christ fought his final battle.
It lacked vigor, yet brimmed with a certain ferocity.
He cursed the fig tree by the wayside.
This was because the fig tree had betrayed his expectations by bearing not a single fruit.
He who cherished all things now wielded his destructive power with near-hysterical intensity.

“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”

That was no longer the utterance of the young Christ burning with passion.
These were the words of the aged Christ against life that had begun to take revenge on him (he was, of course, a poet who valued heaven over life).
What lurked there was not solely his worldly wisdom.
He must have grown utterly weary of human folly, unchanged since Moses’ time. Yet his irritation now drove him to overturn Jehovah’s "tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves," expelling from the temple all who bought and sold therein.

“This temple too shall soon be destroyed.”

A certain woman poured perfumed oil on his forehead for him who spoke thus.
Christ commanded his disciples not to rebuke this woman.
And then—the feelings of Christ, who faced the cross, lurked within the gentle words directed at them who did not understand him.
He, with the fragrance of perfumed oil still upon him—an undoubted rarity for one so often covered in dust—quietly spoke to them.

“This woman has poured perfumed oil on me to bury me.”
“I cannot always be with you all.”

The olive of Gethsemane was more poignant than the cross of Golgotha.
Christ, summoning every last ounce of his strength, tried to fight there against himself—and against the Holy Spirit within himself.
The cross of Golgotha was beginning to cast its shadow over him.
He was fully aware of this fact.
But his disciples—even Peter—could not comprehend his state of mind.
Christ’s prayer still holds a power that compels us even today—

“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. But if You declare there is no other way, then let Your will be done.”

All Christs invariably prayed like this in the desolate midnight.
At the same time, all of Christ’s disciples were sleeping under the olive trees without comprehending his state of being "deeply anguished to the point of death."…………

29 Judas

In time, later generations would cast a halo of evil upon Judas as well.
However, Judas was not necessarily particularly evil even among the twelve disciples.
Even Peter had said three times that he did not know Christ before the rooster crowed.
Judas’s betrayal of Christ must have been no different from today’s politicians selling out their leaders.
Papini too counted Judas’s betrayal of Christ as a great mystery.
But Christ was clearly facing a crisis where he could be betrayed by anyone.
The chief priests must have counted several more Judas figures besides Judas himself.
Judas alone had met all the various conditions to become this tool.
Of course, chance must have been added to those conditions.
Later generations made Christ into the “Son of God.”
That also simultaneously led to the discovery of the devil within Judas himself.
However, after betraying Christ, Judas hanged himself on a poplar tree.
The fact that he had been Christ’s disciple—that he had heard the voice of God—might perhaps be discerned there as well.
Judas hated himself more than anyone else.
The crucified Christ must, of course, have tormented him as well.
However, the sneers of the chief priests who had used him must also have angered him.
“Do what you will.”

Christ’s words to Judas overflowed with contempt and pity.
“Son of Man”
Christ may have felt Judas within himself as well.
However, Judas unfortunately did not understand Christ’s irony.

30 Pilate

Pilate was merely a chance occurrence in Christ’s life.
He was nothing more than a pronoun.
Later generations too endowed this official with legendary hues.
Yet only Anatole France remained undeceived by such hues.

31. Barabbas over Christ

Barabbas over Christ—that remains the same even today.
Barabbas must have plotted rebellion.
At the same time, he must have killed people as well.
However, they naturally understood his deeds.
Nietzsche compared later Barabbases to street dogs.
They must have felt hatred and anger toward Barabbas’s deeds. But toward Christ’s deeds—they likely felt nothing at all.
If they felt anything at all, it was what they believed they were socially obliged to feel.
Their spiritual slaves—the soldiers robust in body alone—made Christ wear a crown of thorns, wrapped a purple robe around him, and then shouted “Hail the King of Jews!”
Christ’s tragedy is all the more wretched for being situated precisely in the midst of such comedy.
There is no doubt that Christ was indeed the spiritual King of Jews.
But the dogs who do not believe in genius—or rather, the dogs who believe discovering genius is easy—mock the true King of Jews under the name of King of Jews.
“To the governor’s great astonishment, Jesus answered not a word.”—Christ likely gave no response to their interrogations or mockeries, just as biographers recorded.
Moreover, it is certain he could not give any answer at all.
However, Barabbas must have raised his head and answered everything clearly.
Barabbas is merely rebelling against his enemies.
But Christ is rebelling against himself—against Mary within himself.
That was rebellion far more fundamental than Barabbas’s.
At the same time it was also “Human, All Too Human”
rebellion.

32 Golgotha

Christ upon the cross was ultimately none other than the "Son of Man".

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Of course, hero worshippers sneered at his words.
How much more so those who were not children of the Holy Spirit found nothing but self-inflicted suffering in them.
“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” was in fact nothing more than Christ’s scream.
Yet through this scream, Christ drew closer to us.
Not only that—it taught us the tragedy of his life all the more realistically.

33 Pietà

Christ’s mother, the aged Mary, was lamenting before his corpse.—Such a depiction called *Pietà* cannot necessarily be deemed sentimental.
However, painters attempting to depict the *Pietà* must portray Mary alone.

34 Christ’s Friends

Christ had twelve disciples.
But he had not a single friend.
If he had even one friend, it was Joseph of Arimathea.
At dusk came Joseph of Arimathea, the honorable council member.
This man was one who could hope for the kingdom of God.
"He went without hesitation to Pilate and requested Jesus’ body." —Mark, said to be older than Matthew, left this profound passage in his biography of Christ.
This passage differed entirely in tone from the words that spoke of Christ’s disciples as "those who followed and served him are."
Joseph was likely a Christ even more endowed with worldly wisdom than Christ himself.
He "went without hesitation to Pilate and requested Jesus’ body"
This act showed how deep his sympathy for Christ was.
Joseph of Arimathea, the cultivated council member, was frankness itself at this moment.
Later generations were far more indifferent to him than to Pilate or Judas.
Yet he may have known him better than the twelve disciples did.
The one who placed John’s head upon the platter was the cruelly beautiful Salome.
But after his life ended, Christ had counted Joseph of Arimathea among those who buried him.
He had found there a happiness still greater than John’s.
If Joseph had not also become a council member—like all "what if... then" scenarios, perhaps it was just as well not to question it in the end.
However, under fig trees or before inlaid cups, he had likely been remembering his friend Christ from time to time.

35 Resurrection

Renan attributed having seen Christ’s resurrection to Mary Magdalene’s imagination.
For imagination’s sake—but it was Christ who gave her imagination its leap.
The mother who had lost her child had time and again seen his resurrection—seen him reborn as something.
He became sometimes a daimyo, sometimes a duck upon a pond, or even a lotus flower.
Yet Christ revealed his posthumous self even beyond Mary.
This fact likely shows how many people had loved Christ.
He was resurrected after three days.
But for Him—having lost His physical body—to move the world required still more years.
The one who held greatest power for this was Paul, the analyst who felt Christ’s genius throughout his being.
Those who crucified Christ came over centuries to acknowledge His resurrection just as they did Shakespeare’s revival.
Yet it is certain that even after death, Christ underwent transient changes.
The trends governing all things came to govern Christ too.
The Christ Clara loved was not the Christ Pascal revered.
But after Christ’s resurrection, the dogs making him into an idol—and wielding violence in his name—remained unchanged.
It was for this that the Christs born after Christ became his enemies.
Yet they too could not help seeing the Holy Spirit among their enemies on the road to Damascus.

“Saul，Saul，why do you persecute me?
“To kick against a whip of thorns is never an easy thing.”

We are merely standing in the midst of a vast and uncertain life.
What grants us peace can only lie beyond sleep.

All naturalists dissected this fact as cruelly as surgeons.
But the children of the Holy Spirit always left something beautiful on such a life.
Something "that eternally strives to transcend."

36 Christ's Life

Of course, Christ’s life was one burning with passion, like the lives of all geniuses.
He was governed more by his father the Holy Spirit than by his mother Mary.
The tragedy upon his cross lay precisely there.
One of the Christs born after him—Goethe—had wished, "I would rather go swiftly to hell than grow old slowly."
Yet he did grow old gradually and, as Strindberg noted, became a mystic in his later years.
The Holy Spirit dwelled within this poet, counterbalancing Mary.
The title of "Great Pagan" given him was not entirely misplaced.
In life he was indeed greater than Christ.
Needless to say, he was greater still than other Christs.
The star announcing his birth must have shone more fully and brilliantly than the star that heralded Christ’s.
Yet we do not love our Goethe because he was Mary’s child.
Mary’s children teem even in wheat fields and on benches.
No—they likely swarm through barracks, factories, and prisons too.
We love our Goethe solely because he was a child of the Holy Spirit.
We shall someday dwell with Christ within our lifetimes.
Goethe too plucked at Christ’s beard time and again in his poetry.
Christ’s life was wretched.
Yet it symbolized the lives of the Holy Spirit’s children born after him.
(Even Goethe did not escape this.) Christianity may perish.
At least, it ceaselessly changes.

But Christ's life will always move us.
That is a ladder mercilessly broken in the attempt to climb from heaven to earth.
In the midst of torrential rain pounding down from a dim sky, it remains tilted.
......

37 People of the East

Nietzsche called religion "hygiene." It was not limited to religion. Morality and economics too were "hygiene." These would naturally keep us healthy until death. The "People of the East" had largely attempted to base this "hygiene" upon Nirvana. Laozi sometimes exchanged greetings with Buddha in the Land of Nothingness. Yet we did not divide East and West as clearly as skin color. This was why Christ's—or rather, the Christs'—lives moved us. The song declaring "Since ancient times, all heroic men return to mountain valleys" had always been transmitted to us. But the voice proclaiming "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" still would not let us remain standing. Laozi was there engaging in dialogue with young Confucius—or perhaps the Chinese Christ. Barbaric life would always cause some suffering to the Christs. The "People of the East" who wished to become plants of peace were no exception to this fate. Christ had said: "Foxes have holes. Birds of the air have nests. Yet the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." His words contained a terrifying fact of which even he himself had likely been unaware. We could not easily find a roost except by becoming foxes or birds.

(July 10, 1927)