Christianity as Mystical Fact, and the Mysteries of AntiquitySteiner, Rudolf
Religion
Christianity as Mystical Fact, and the Mysteries of Antiquity
Steiner, Rudolf
Anthroposophy; Christianity and other religions; Mysteries, Religious; Mysticism
Only in the soul of initiated man. Then wisdom finds its right
relation to the cosmos. The resurrection, the liberation of God, that
is wisdom. In the _Timaeus_ the development of the world is traced from
the imperfect to the perfect. An ascending process is represented
imaginatively. Beings are developed. God reveals Himself in their
development. Evolution is the resurrection of God from the tomb.
Within evolution, man appears. Plato shows that in man there is
something special. It is true the whole world is divine, and man is
not more divine than other beings. But in other beings God is present
in a hidden way, in man he is manifest. At the end of the _Timaeus_ we
read: "And now we might assert that our study of the universe has
attained its end, for after the world was provided and filled with
mortal and immortal living beings, it, this one and only begotten
world, has itself become a visible being embracing everything visible,
and an image of the Creator. It has become the God perceptible to the
senses, and the greatest and best world, the fairest and most perfect
which there could be." But this one and only begotten world would not
be perfect if the image of its Creator were not to be found amongst
the images it contains. This image can only be engendered in the human
soul. Not the Father Himself, but the Son, God's offspring, living in
the soul, and being like unto the Father, him man can bring forth.
Philo, of whom it was said that he was the resurrected Plato,
characterised as the "Son of God" the wisdom born out of man, which
lives in the soul and contains the reason existing in the world. This
cosmic reason, or Logos, appears as the book in which "everything in
the world is recorded and delineated." It also appears as the Son of
God, "following in the paths of the Father, and creating forms,
looking at their archetypes." The platonising Philo addresses this
Logos as Christ, "As God is the first and only king of the universe,
the way to Him is rightly called the 'Royal Road.' Consider this road
to be philosophy ... the road which the company of the ancient
ascetics took, who turned away from the entangling fascination of
pleasure and devoted themselves to the noble and earnest cultivation
of the beautiful. The law names this Royal Road, which we call true
philosophy, God's word and spirit."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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