Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

THE PANCHATATTVA

deemed to be a sinless state. Thus Amalric of Bena (d. 1204) is reputed to have said that to those constituted in love no sin is imputed (Dixerat etiam quod in charitate constitutis nullum peccatum imputabatur). His followers are alleged to have maintained that harlotry and other carnal vices are not sinful for the spiritual man, because the spirit in him which is God is not affected by the flesh and cannot sin, and because the man who is nothing cannot sin so long as the spirit which isGodis in him. In other words sin is a term relative to man who may be virtuous or sinful. But in that state beyond duty, which is identification with the Divine Essence, which at root man is, there is no question of sin. The body at no time sins. It is the state of mind which constitutes sin, and that state is only possible for a mind with a human and not divine consciousness. Johann Harkmann is reputed to have said that he had become completely one with God; that a man free in spirit is impeccable and can do whatever he will, or in Indian parlance he is Svechchh&chari. (See Dollinger’s Beitrage zur Sektengeshichte des Mittelalter’s ii. 384). This type of Antinomianism is said to have been widespread during the later middle ages and was perpetuated in some of the parties of the so-called Reformation. Other notions leading to similar results were based on Quietistic.and Calvinistic tenets in which the human will was so subordinated to the Divine will as to lose its freedom. Thus Gomar (A. D. 1641) maintained that “sins take place, God procuring and Himself willing that they take place”. God was thus made the author of sin. It has been alleged that the Jesuit casuists were “ constructively antinomian ”’ because of their doctrines of philosophical sin, direction of attention, mental reservation, and probabilism, But this is not so, whatever may be thought of such doctrines. For here there was no question of opposition to the law of morality, but theories touching the question ‘in what that law consisted” and whether any particular act was in fact a violation of it. They did not teach that 365