Jung has another conversation with the anchorite. Jung says he has learned more, but the anchorite is still a mystery. He is from a world that is strange to Jung. When asked of his morning prayer Jung says he has none. That he prayed to Helios, the sun, the scarab, and the earth. The anchorite tells him not to be concerned and asks if he wishes to talk more about Philo and the notion of the various meanings of a sequence of words. The anchorite tells of his meaning with a man sent to him by his father. The name of the anchorite is Ammonius.
Then Ammonius tells Jung that he has seen him lecture and he is to concerned about the judgment of the people who listen to him, even to the point of trying to include witty jokes in his lecture. JUng says he is correct.
Then Ammonius tells more about the man who gave him the good news that God has become flesh and brought salvation. Ammonius says he has heard of this tale that was brought by a jewish trader. He says it is the story of either Osiris or Horus or Seth. The old man says he was the son of God who was called Jesus Christ. The words ‘a man and yet the Son of God’ seemed significant and brought Ammonius to Christianity.
Jung asks what if Christianity is a jewish transformation of Egyptian ideas? Then Ammonius told of a black slave who spoke to him of his religion, a religion that in a simple symbolic language the same story that cultured people had developed into systems. All religions are the same in their innermost essence.
Jung asks if he has found the meanings yet to come. And if he needs to be nearer to men. Ammonius loves the desert but becomes concerned that Jung is Satan, Jung is in the 20th century and can feel “spirit of life, … mask of day, …mask of night…rushing near him…as a breeze …near me, within me” He asks “Multicolored in-between world, are your spaces wide enough for life to find its dwelling?”
