Soul and Body

 

by L. E.

 

The late-classical, Christian concept holds that there is a deep difference of essence between body and soul. Both are of different origin: the body is of an earthy-materialistic source, the soul of a godly-spiritual origin. Both have a different fate: the body dies and decays, the soul is eternal and lives on after death. Both stand in the greatest contradiction of values: the body is the source of drives, of the base, of anti-values and evil; the soul is the carrier of the high and good and hence of limitless value. Between both gapes and unbridgeable gorge, they stand opposed to each other. The unholy body is the chain of the free, godly-spiritual high flight of the soul; it is its impure, earthly prison.

 

Our life feeling and our breed’s natural feeling do not agree with these tenets of a dying and collapsing world:

 

We know that both - soul and body - are entrusted to us directly by the creator. Both equally are the manifestation of the eternally creating and wonderfully working godly nature.

 

We know that we have inherited both from our ancestors and that both live on in our children. We know that the decision of continued life or death of both is placed into our hands with self-responsibility. We live in reverence that we are called upon to help preserve the creator’s work and to proliferate it through the eras.

 

We know that the nobility and purity of our body is simultaneously that of our soul and vice versa. We know that whoever spoils his body also spoils his soul, that whoever decays his soul also marks his body. We know that we can only educate and form our soul along with our body and vice versa.

 

We know that essentially, we are one and the same with our body and our soul, and that the sanctification of one is also the sanctification of the other.