Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 3 (of 3)
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy -- History
In this regard the nature of the text describing the method in which the
first manifestation of Christianity took place, must be remarked upon;
it cannot as yet expressly contain that which rests in the principle of
Christianity, but only somewhat of an anticipation of what spirit is and
will know as true. This also is expressly said in the text itself. Christ
says: “If I depart, I will send the Comforter, the Holy Ghost.... He will
guide you into all truth,” He—and not Christ’s earthly presence nor His
spoken words. It was only to be after Him, and after His teaching through
the text, that the Spirit was to come into the Apostles, and that they
were to become full of the Spirit. It might almost be said that when
Christianity is carried back to its first appearing, it is brought down
to the level of unspirituality, for Christ Himself says that the Spirit
will not come until He Himself has departed. In the text of the first
manifestation of Christianity we, on the other hand, see Christ only as
the Messiah, or under the more explicit designation of a mere teacher;
for His friends and apostles He is a present man whom they can perceive
by the senses, and who does not yet hold to them the relationship of
the Holy Ghost. His friends have seen Him, heard His doctrine, seen His
miracles, and have thereby been brought to believe in Him. But Christ
Himself sternly rebukes those who demand miracles of Him; if He thus be
made as God to man, God in the heart of man, He cannot have a sensuous
and immediate presence. The Dalai-lama, in the form of a sensuous man, is
God to the inhabitants of Thibet, but in the Christian principle, where
God dwells in the hearts of men, He cannot be present to them in sensuous
form.
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