By the limit of empiricism the domain of Christianity is divided into an empiricist oriented Christianity that is devoted to the Apostles of negative development, and its opposite, a Christianity devoted to infinite, positive development that opens the heavens on earth.

A lingering trace of the empiricist type of Christianity can be found in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).  The great B minor Mass opens with a orchestral and choral passage that is centered on the words Kyrie (King) and Jesu (Jesus).  It represents a type of Christianity that perceives Jesus as King.

This deification and glorification of Jesus as King, that sets the man apart from humanity, effectively separates man from God.  It makes Jesus appear unique and special, and renders him as someone far out of reach, rather than presenting him as the great Exemplar of the fundamental nature and capacity of man.  By this isolating effect the miracle-theology separates Jesus from the Christ-idea that he exemplified, and renders his grand example as functionally irrelevant to the present age.  It separates the example from its object.

In real terms his example presents the leading edge of the achievable.  It gives a taller identity of man than has ever before been given.  It lifts man above the identity of a slave, serve, or chattel, to be subjected, sold, or killed at will.  It presents man as a creative spirit having dominion over all things.

By rendering the Exemplar of the true nature of man as a miracle maker and and some kind of specially privileged king, humanity denies itself the chance to explore the achievable.  It denies its creativity and corresponding dominion, and whatever else the human intellect has made man capable of.

According to Scriptures, Jesus himself, never identified himself as any type of king.  When he was questioned by Pilate at his trial: ". . . art thou a king then . . ." he replied emphatically, "Thou sayest that I am a king.  To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."*(John 18:37)  Most modern religion, however, perhaps even all religions today, celebrate Jesus as some kind of exalted king of the past.  This view came out of a long development of perception contrary to the spirit of the Renaissance.  The great composers of the late renaissance period, already, were caught up in the tend to celebrate this king image, even in their greatest works.  It pervades nearly all sacred music.

It seems that Mahler, however, in his 8th symphony, breaks the empiricist limit.  Here, the 'will of heaven,' as it were, is reflected in creativity and love.  The work has bee created in two parts.  The first part is based on an old hymn: "Come Now Creative Spirit."  In Goethe's work "Faust," that Mahler's 8th symphony is based on, "Faust" steps beyond the empiricist limit.  The result of this act defuses the devil's magic and the hold the devil has on him.  It opens the horizon of humanity to the infinite potential of man as the reflex image of God in conscious awareness of man's higher (infinite) potential.

One of the spiritual drivers that created the foundation for the Golden Renaissance, which unfolded in Italy, was the poet Dante (1265-1321).  Dante was deeply committed to exploring of what he called "the Trinity:" the unity of God (understood as Principle, referred to by Dante as "love"), man (as son), and the Christ (as the spiritual idea of God).  In the last canto of the third part of his trilogy, the Divine Comedy, Dante (as a Pilgrim) gazes into the Divine Light.  "He sees three rings of three different colors all of which share the same circumference.  The first ring of color reflects the second; both reflect the third; the miracle of the Trinity."*(The Portable Dante, Penguin Books, p.580 (Paradiso, canto xxxiii)

The perceived unity of God, man, and the Christ idea, became the foundation on which the renaissance was built in the 15th century.  It wasn't built on the Kiry Jesu mysticism that took away that immediate unity.  Mary Baker Eddy brought it back into the foreground, in the late 1800s.  She points out in her writings that in Hebrew text, "the word 'son' is defined variously; a month is called the son of a year."*(Miscellaneous Writings 180:26)  She points out that this term can be applied also to man, both in the material and the spiritual sense.  We find this applied in her Glossary definition for the term, SON, which she presents in two parts: (1) "The Son of God, The Messiah or Christ." (2) "The son of man, the offspring of the flesh."  Then, following these two definitions she presents the reminder, in quotes: "'Son of a year.'"

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Stories about War from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche