The Christmas Gospel
Chapter 16
The law of neighbourly love can no more be fulfilled without an organic structure than the law of marriage
But how shall a being that organically is built to love only the opposite sex be able to fulfil such a law? How shall a being that is created to be able to feel the highest happiness through a home life with a mate or spouse be able to become happy to love also its neighbour, which is to say anyone, just as highly as it loves itself? How should the fulfilment of such a law be able to create happiness and joy in the kingdom of the perfect man and woman? To ask for this is indeed to ask for something of the beings that they are simply not at all organically built for. But one cannot possibly practise that which one is not at all organically built for. If one has no eyes, one cannot see. If one has no ears, one cannot hear. If one has no legs, one cannot walk, and so on. So it would indeed be just as impossible to love in a special set manner when one does not at all have organs for the expression of sympathy or love in the said indicated way. How shall a happy husband be able to love other men as highly as himself, that is as highly as he loves his wife? And how shall an equally happy wife be able to love other women just as highly as she loves herself or her husband? To fulfil "neighbourly love", as in "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself", can thus be just as poorly fulfilled without an organic structure as the "law of marriage", which commands: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh", just as the same law commands the woman to acknowledge that "the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church". As we see here, the law of marriage is tremendously profound in its demand. The two beings, man and woman, should forsake all other possible interests solely to completely devote themselves to one another. There is no question of any "neighbour" whom, in addition to the spouse, one shall "love as oneself". On the contrary, does not the same law command even the death penalty for any violation of its fundamental injunctions? Was it not in connection with this law that one wanted to stone the woman who was caught in adultery, and does it not state further in the same law's stipulations: "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death"; "If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death: their blood shall be upon them"?