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Editorial Note: This essay by Reik has been acknowledged as seminal in the methodology of the psychoanalysis of religion. It has never been translated before.
The relationship of the Jews to their God changed under the influence of the hard fate which befell them—it was transformed into a masochistic-feminine attitude: Suffering was accepted as well deserved punishment, and a passive homosexual tie was then established.
Christ is one of the many personifications of the rebellious tendencies among the Jews, who again and again protested covertly against the feminine-masochistic attitude towards Yahveh, a figure, strange and sinister, yet familiar enough during the infancy of the people. Here too, as in the cult of Mary, a partial breakthrough of the repressed impulses had been reached. Here too, in the final accounting, the attempt floundered on the success. When Jehoshaphat, who rebelled against the Pharisees and against the strangulation of all life by the Law, himself became God, his regime was no less severe than that of the previous God.3