Question: Hi. Is there a difference between Christ and Socrates, or Joan of Arc?

LaRouche: Oh sure! Absolutely! More interesting, of course, are the relationship of similarities. For example, the beatification of Jeanne d'Arc by the Papacy, which has been recently reaffirmed, in a certain, special way, by the present Pope, shows precisely that: That there's a similarity. She represented the sublime, as Schiller defines it. Socrates absolutely defines the sublime, in the broadest way, as Plato presents us Socrates.

Christ is very unique in this respect: Because Christ is what? What does Christ say? The thing that is most celebrated about Christianity in music, for example the Bach St. John Passion and St. Matthew Passion, typifies this: That the audience--just imagine what it's like. You have a great performance (unfortunately, they keep spoiling them these days), but a great performance of the St. John or St. Matthew Passion. In this, you have the entire church, is filled with this--the orchestra, the soloists, the chorus, the congregation, the conductor--they're all participating in one, organic event: Re-living of the experience of the Gethsemane and the Crucifixion of Christ--re-living that. This interrelationship is the essence of Christianity, and thus, Bach's Passions--and you have the same kind of thing, done by Mozart, in his Requiem; or Beethoven, and his Missa Solemnis--you get this quality. It's a total experience. And it's fixed on the role of Christ, willfully confronting death, confronting the challenge of the Sublime, even if it means death, to free man from the evil, which was the Roman Empire, and the things that had led into it, of ancient Babylon and so forth. And it's this very specific dedication, to the whole of humanity, which impresses itself upon the audience, as making Christ unique--even though the resemblances are there. That's the essence of Christianity, everything else is bunk. That is Christianity, as John and Paul portray it.

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