There is throughout Paul’s writings an irrational or pathological element which could not but repel the disciples of the Rabbis. Possibly his pessimistic mood was the result of his physical condition; for he suffered from an illness which affected both body and mind. He speaks of it as “a thorn in the flesh,” and as […]

Augustine, one of the greatest teachers of western Christianity, derived many of these attitudes from the story of Adam and Eve: that sexual desire is sinful; that infants are infected from the moment of conception with the disease of original sin; and that Adam’s sin corrupted the whole of nature itself.

by Sigmund Freud. They concern impressions of a sexual and aggressive nature and also early injuries to the self (injuries to narcissism) . We should add that children at that early age do not yet distinguish between sexual and purely aggressive actions so clearly as they do later on; (the ” sadistic ” misunderstanding of […]