Christianity as Mystical Fact
GA 8
XII. Christianity and the Pagan Wisdom
[ 1 ] At the time of the primal beginnings of Christianity there appear in antique pagan culture conceptions of the universe which present a continuation of the Platonic philosophy, and which may also be taken as a deepening and spiritualization of the wisdom of the Mysteries. They began with Philo of Alexandria (25 B.C.-50 A.D.). From his point of view the processes leading to the Divine take place in the innermost part of the human soul. We might say that the temple in which Philo seeks initiation is solely his inner being and its spiritual experiences; and processes of a purely spiritual nature replace the initiatory cere: monies of the sanctuary.
According to Philo, sense-observation and knowledge gained through the logical intellect do not lead to the Divine. They have merely to do with what is perishable. But there is a way by which the soul may rise above these methods. She must leave what she calls her ordinary self; must be lifted out of it. Then she enters a state of spiritual exaltation and illumination in which she no longer knows, thinks, and learns in the ordinary sense of the words; for she has become merged, identified with the Divine. The Divine is experienced in its essence which cannot be fashioned in thoughts nor communicated in concepts.
It is experienced, and one who goes through this experience knows that he can speak about the Divine only if he is able to imbue his words with life. The visible world is an image of this mystic reality experienced in the inmost recesses of the soul. The world has come forth from the invisible, inconceivable God. The harmony of the cosmos, which is steeped in wisdom and to which sense-phenomena are subject, is a direct reflection of the Godhead, its spiritual image. It is divine spirit poured out into the world—cosmic reason, the Logos, the off-spring or Son of God. The Logos is the mediator between the world of sense and the unimaginable God. By steeping himself in cognition man unites with the Logos. The Logos becomes embodied in him. The person who has developed spirituality is the vehicle of the Logos. Above the Logos is God; beneath is the perishable world. It is man’s vocation to form the link between the two. What he experiences in his inmost being as spirit is the universal Spirit. Such ideas are directly reminiscent of the Pythagorean manner of thinking (cf. p. 48 et seq.).
The center of existence is sought in the inner life, out this life is conscious of its cosmic import. St. Augustine was thinking in virtually the same way as Philo when he said: “We see all created things because they are; but they are, because God sees them.” And he adds, concerning what and how we see: “And because they are, we see them outwardly; because they are perfect, we see them inwardly.”
Plato has the same fundamental idea (cf. p. 53 et seq.) . Like Plato, Philo sees in the destiny of the human soul the consummation of the great cosmic drama, the awakening of the divinity that is under a spell. He thus describes the inner actions of the soul: the wisdom in man’s inner being “emulates the ways of the Father, and shapes the forms by beholding the archetypes.” It is accordingly no personal matter for man to create forms in his inner being: they are eternal wisdom, they are cosmic life.
This is in harmony with the interpretation of th¢ myths of the people in the light of the Mysteries. The mystic searches for the heart of truth in the myths (cf. p. 77 et seq.). And as the mystic treats the myths of paganism, Philo handles the Mosaic story of the creation. The old testament accounts are for him images of inner soul-processes. The Bible relates the creation of the world. One who takes it merely as a description of outer events knows but half of it. It is certainly written: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.” But the real inner meaning of such words must be experienced in the depths of the soul. God must be found within, then He appears as the “Primal Splendor, who sends out innumerable rays, not perceptible by the sense, but wholly thought.” This is Philo’s expression. In the Timæus of Plato the words are almost identical with those in the Bible: “Now when the Father, who had created the universe, saw how it had become living and animated, and an image of the eternal gods, he felt pleasure therein.” In the Bible we read, “And God saw that it was good.”
The recognition of the Divine is for Philo, as well as for Plato, and in the wisdom of the Mysteries, to experience the process of creation as the destiny of one’s own soul. The history of creation and the history of the soul who is becoming divine in this way flow into one. Philo is convinced that the Mosaic account of the creation may be used for writing the history of the soul who is seeking God. Everything in the Bible thereby acquires a profoundly symbolical meaning, of which Philo becomes the interpreter. He reads the Bible as history of the soul.
[ 2 ] We may say that Philo’s manner of reading the Bible corresponds to a feature of his age that originated in the wisdom of the Mysteries. He even relates that the Therapeuta interpreted ancient writings in the same way. “They also possess works by ancient authors who once directed their school and left behind many explanations about the customary method pursued in allegorical writings... The interpretation of such writings is directed to the deeper meaning of the allegorical narratives” (cf. p. 161). Thus Philo’s aim was to discover the deeper meaning of the “allegorical” narratives in the Old Testament.
Let us try to realize whither such an interpretation could lead. We read the account of creation and find in it not only a narrative of outward events, but an indication of the way the soul must take in order to attain to the Divine. The soul must reproduce in herself the ways of God microcosmically, and in this alone can her striving for wisdom consist. The cosmic drama must be enacted in each individual soul. The inner life of the mystic sage is the realization of the model given in the account of the creation. Moses wrote not only to relate historical facts, but to represent pictorially the paths the soul must travel if it would find God.
[ 3 ] All this, in Philo’s world-conception, is enacted within the human soul. Man experiences within himself what God has experienced in the universe. The Word of God, the Logos, becomes an event in the soul. God brought the Jews from Egypt into Palestine; He caused them to suffer distress and privation before giving them that Land of Promise. That is the outward event. Man must experience it inwardly. He goes from the land of Egypt, the perishable world, through the privations that lead to the suppression of the sense-nature, into the Promised Land of the soul; he attains to the Eternal. In Philo’s philosophy, all that is an inner process. The God who poured Himself forth into the world consummates His resurrection in the soul when that soul understands His creative word and echoes it. Then man has spiritually given birth within himself to Divinity, to the Divine Spirit which became man, to the Logos, Christ. In this sense enlightenment was, for Philo and those who thought like him, the birth of Christ within the world of spirit. The NeoPlatonic philosophy, which developed contemporaneously with Christianity, was an elaboration of Philo’s thought.
Let us see how Plotinus (204-269 A.D.) describes his spiritual experiences:
[ 4 ] “Often when I come to myself on awaking from the sleep of my bodily nature and, turning from the outer world, enter into myself, I behold wondrous beauty. Then I am sure that I have been conscious of the better part of myself. I live my true life, I am one with the Divine and, rooted in the Divine, gain the power to transport myself beyond even the super—world. After thus resting in God, when 1 descend from spiritual vision and again form thoughts, I ask myself how it has happened that I now descend and that my soul ever entered the body at all, since, in her essence, she is what she has just revealed herself to me... What can the reason be for souls forgetting God the Father since they come from the beyond and belong to Him, and, when they forget Him, know nothing of Him or of themselves? The first false step they take is indulging in presumption, the desire to become, and in forgetfulness of their true self and in the pleasure of only belonging to themselves. They coveted self-glorification, they rushed about in pursuit of their desires and thus went astray and fell completely awayThereupon they lost all knowledge of their origin in the beyond, just as children, early separated from their parents and brought up elsewhere, do not know who they themselves and their parents are.” Plotinus delineates the kind of life the soul should strive to develop: “The life of the body and its longings should be stilled, the soul should find calm in all that surrounds her: in earth, sea, air, and heaven itself 10 movement. She should learn to see how the soul pours herself from without into the serene cosmos, streaming into it from all sides; as the sun’s rays illuminate a dark cloud and make it golden, so does the soul, on entering the body of the world encircled by the heavens, give it life and immortality.”
[ 5 ] It is evident that this world conception has a profound similarity to Christianity. Believers of the community of Jesus said: “That which has occurred from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life... declare we unto you.” In the same way it might be said in the spirit of Neo-Platonism: That which has occurred from the beginning, which cannot be heard and seen, must be spiritually experienced as the Word of Life.
And so the development of the old world conception suffers a split. It leads in Neo-Platonism and similar systems to an idea of Christ that is purely spiritual; on the other hand, it leads to a fusion of the idea of Christ with a historical manifestation, the personality of Jesus. The writer of the Gospel of St. John may be said to have united these two conceptions. “In the beginning was the Word.” He shares this conviction with the NeoPlatonists. The Word becomes spirit within the soul, thus do the Neo-Platonists conclude. The Word was made flesh in Jesus, thus does St. John conclude, and with him the whole Christian community. The inner meaning of the manner in which the Word alone could be made flesh was made clear through the whole development of the ancient cosmogonies. Plato says of the macrocosm: God has extended the soul of the world on the body of the world in the form of a cross. The soul of the world is the Logos. If the Logos is to be made flesh He must recapitulate the cosmic process in fleshly existence. The Logos must be nailed to the cross and rise again. In spiritual form this most momentous thought of Christianity had long before been prefigured in the old cosmogonies. The mystic went through it as a personal experience at initiation. The Logos become man had to go through it as a fact valid for the whole of humanity. Something which was present in the development of ancient wisdom as an incident in the Mysteries becomes a historical fact through Christianity. Hence Christianity was the fulfilment, not only of what the Jewish prophets had predicted, but also of the truth prefigured in the Mysteries.
The Cross on Golgotha is the Mystery cult of Antiquity epitomized in a fact.
We find the cross first in the ancient cosmogonies. At the starting-point of Christianity it confronts us in a unique event intended for the whole of mankind. It is from this point of view that reason is able to apprehend the mystical element in Christianity. Christianity as mystical fact is a milestone in the process of human evolution; and the incidents in the Mysteries, with their attendant results, are the preparation for that mystical fact.
Christentum und Heidnische Weisheit
[ 1 ] In der Zeit, in der auch das Christentum seine ersten Anfänge hat, treten innerhalb der antiken heidnischen Kultur Weltanschauungen auf, die sich als eine Fortführung der platonischen Vorstellungsart darstellen, und die auch als eine verinnerlichte, vergeistigte Mysterienweisheit aufgefaßt werden dürfen. Ihren Ausgang nahmen sie von dem Alexandriner Philo (25 v. Chr. bis 50 n. Chr.). Ganz ins Innere der Menschenseele scheinen bei ihm die Vorgänge verlegt, die zum Göttlichen führen. Man möchte sagen: der Mysterientempel, in dem Philo seine Weihen sucht, ist einzig und allein sein eigenes Innere und dessen höhere Erlebnisse selbst. Durch Prozesse rein geistiger Art ersetzt er die Prozeduren, die sich in den Mysterienstätten abspielen. Das Sinnesanschauen und die logische Verstandeserkenntnis führen nach seiner Überzeugung nicht zum Göttlichen. Sie haben es nur mit dem Vergänglichen zu tun. Aber es gibt für die Seele einen Weg, sich über diese Erkenntnisarten zu erheben. Sie muß aus dem heraustreten, was sie ihr gewöhnliches «Ich» nennt. Sie muß diesem «Ich» entrückt werden. Dann tritt sie in einen Zustand spiritueller Erhöhung, Erleuchtung ein, in dem sie nicht mehr im gewöhnlichen Sinne weiß, denkt und erkennt. Denn sie ist mit dem Göttlichen verwachsen, mit ihm ineinander geflossen. Das Göttliche wird erlebt als ein solches, das sich nicht in Gedanken formen, nicht in Begriffen mitteilen läßt. Es wird erlebt. Und der es erlebt, weiß, daß er von ihm nur Mitteilung machen kann, wenn er dazu kommt, den Worten Leben zu geben. Von dieser mystischen Wesenheit, die man in den tiefsten Schachten der Seele erlebt, ist die Welt das Abbild. Sie ist aus dem unsichtbaren, undenkbaren Gott hervorgegangen. Ein unmittelbares Bild dieser Gottheit ist die weisheitsvolle Harmonie der Welt, der die sinnlichen Erscheinungen folgen. Diese weisheitsvolle Harmonie ist das geistige Ebenbild der Gottheit. Es ist der in die Welt ergossene göttliche Geist: die Weltvernunft, der Logos, der Sproß oder Sohn Gottes. Der Logos ist der Vermittler zwischen der Sinnenwelt und dem unvorstellbaren Gott. Indem der Mensch sich mit Erkenntnis durchdringt, vereinigt er sich mit dem Logos. Der Logos wird in ihm verkörperlicht. Die zur Geistigkeit entwickelte Persönlichkeit ist Träger des Logos. Über dem Logos liegt Gott; unterhalb desselben die vergängliche Welt. Der Mensch ist berufen, die Kette zwischen beiden zu schließen. Was er in seinem Innern als Geist erlebt, ist der Weltengeist. Unmittelbar wird man bei solchen Vorstellungen an die pythagoreische Denkart erinnert. Im Innenleben wird der Kern des Daseins gesucht. Aber das Innenleben ist sich seiner kosmischen Geltung bewußt. Es ist im wesentlichen aus einer Vorstellungsart hervorgegangen, die der des Philo ähnlich ist, was Augustinus sagt: «Wir sehen alle Dinge, die gemacht sind, weil sie sind; aber weil Gott sie sieht, sind sie.» — Und über das, was und wo durch wir sehen, fügt er bezeichnend hinzu: «Und weil sie sind, sehen wir sie äußerlich; und weil sie vollkommen sind, sehen wir sie innerlich.» Bei Plato ist die gleiche Grundvorstellung vorhanden. Philo hat genau wie Plato in den Schicksalen der menschlichen Seele den Abschluß des großen Weltendramas, die Erweckung des verzauberten Gottes, gesehen. Er hat ja die inneren Taten der Seele mit den Worten beschrieben: die Weisheit in dem Innern des Menschen geht «die Wege des Vaters nachahmend und formt, auf die Urbilder schauend, die Gestalten». Es ist daher keine persönliche Angelegenheit, wenn der Mensch in sich Gestalten formt. Diese Gestalten sind die ewige Weisheit, sind das kosmische Leben. Das ist im Einklang mit der Mysterienauffassung von den Volksmythen. Der Myste sucht in den Mythen den tieferen Wahrheitskern. Und was der Myste mit den heidnischen Mythen tut, das vollbringt Philo mit den mosaischen Schöpfungsberichten. Die Berichte des alten Testamentes sind ihm Bilder für innere Seelenvorgänge. Die Bibel erzählt die Weltschöpfung. Wer sie als Darstellung äußerer Vorgänge nimmt, der kennt sie nur halb. Gewiß steht geschrieben: «Im Urbeginn schuf Gott Himmel und Erde. Und die Erde war wüst und leer, und es war finster in der Tiefe; und der Geist Gottes schwebte über den Wassern.» Aber der wahre, innere Sinn solcher Worte muß in den Tiefen der Seele erlebt werden. Es muß der Gott im Innern gefunden werden, dann erscheint er als der «Urglanz, der unzählige Strahlen aussendet, nicht sinnlich-wahrnehmbar, sondern insgesamt gedanklich». So drückt sich Philo aus. Fast genau wie in der Bibel heißt es bei Plato, im «Timäos»: «Als nun aber der Vater, welcher das All erzeugt hatte, es ansah, wie es belebt und bewegt und ein Bild der ewigen Götter geworden war, da empfand er Wohlgefallen daran.» In der Bibel liest man: «Und Gott sah, daß alles gut war.» — Das Göttliche erkennen, heißt wie bei Plato, wie in der Mysterienweisheit auch im Sinne der Bibel: den Schöpfungswerdegang als eigenes seelisches Schicksal erleben. Geschichte der Schöpfung und Geschichte der sich vergöttlichenden Seele fließen dadurch in Eins zusammen. Man kann den Schöpfungsbericht des Moses nach Philos Überzeugung dazu verwenden, die Geschichte der Gott suchenden Seele zu schreiben. Alle Dinge in der Bibel erhalten dadurch einen tief symbolischen Sinn. Philo wird zum Ausleger dieses symbolischen Sinnes. Er liest die Bibel als Seelengeschichte.
[ 2 ] Man darf sagen, daß Philo mit dieser Art die Bibel zu lesen, einem Zuge seiner Zeit entsprach, der aus der Mysterienweisheit geschöpft war; konnte er ja dieselbe Art der Auslegung alter Schriften von den Therapeuten berichten. «Sie besitzen auch Werke alter Schriftsteller, die einst ihre Schule leiteten und viele Erklärungen über die in den allegorischen Schriften übliche Methode hinterließen . . . Die Auslegung dieser Schriften ist bei ihnen auf den tieferen Sinn der allegorischen Erzählungen gerichtet». So war Philos Absicht auf den tieferen Sinn der «allegorischen» Erzählungen des alten Testaments gerichtet. Man vergegenwärtige sich, wozu eine solche Auslegung führen konnte. Man liest den Schöpfungsbericht und findet darin nicht nur eine äußerliche Erzählung sondern das Vorbild für die Wege, welche die Seele nehmen muß, um zum Göttlichen zu gelangen. Die Seele muß also — darin nur kann ihr mystisches Weisheitsstreben bestehen — in sich die Wege Gottes mikrokosmisch wiederholen. Es muß sich in jeder Seele das Weltendrama abspielen. Eine Erfüllung des im Schöpfungsbericht gegebenen Vorbildes ist das Seelenleben des mystischen Weisen. Moses hat nicht nur geschrieben, um geschichtliche Tatsachen zu erzählen, sondern um in Bildern zu veranschaulichen, was die Seele für Wege nehmen muß, wenn sie Gott finden will.
[ 3 ] Das alles bleibt in der Weltanschauung Philos innerhalb des Geistes beschlossen. Der Mensch erlebt in sich, was Gott in der Welt erlebt hat. Das Wort Gottes, der Logos, wird Seelenereignis. Gott hat die Juden aus Ägypten nach dem gelobten Lande geführt; er hat sie durch Qualen und Entbehrungen gehen lassen, um ihnen dann das Land der Verheißung zu schenken. Das ist der äußere Vorgang. Man erlebe ihn im Innern. Man geht aus dem Lande Ägypten, der vergänglichen Welt, durch die Entbehrungen, welche zur Unterdrückung der sinnlichen Welt führen, in das gelobte Land der Seele ein, man erreicht das Ewige. Bei Philo ist das alles innerlicher Vorgang. Der Gott, der in die Welt ausgegossen wurde, feiert seine Auferstehung in der Seele, wenn sein Schöpfungswort verstanden und in der Seele nachgebildet wird. Dann hat der Mensch in sich den Gott, den Mensch gewordenen Gottesgeist, den Logos, Christus, auf geistige Art geboren. In diesem Sinne war die Erkenntnis für Philo und für diejenigen, die in seinem Sinne dachten, eine Christusgeburt innerhalb der Welt des Geistigen. Eine Fortbildung dieser philonischen Denkungsart war auch die neuplatonische Weltanschauung, die sich mit dem Christentum zugleich fortbildete. Man sehe, wie Plotin (204 bis 269 n. Chr.) seine geistigen Erlebnisse schildert:
[ 4 ] «Oftmals, wenn ich aus dem Schlummer der Körperlichkeit erwache, zu mir komme, von der Außenwelt abgewendet in mich einkehre, so schaue ich eine wundersame Schönheit; dann bin ich gewiß, meines besseren Teiles inne geworden zu sein; ich betätige das wahre Leben, bin mit dem Göttlichen geeint, und in ihm gegründet, gewinne ich die Kraft, mich noch über die Überwelt hinaus zu versetzen. Wenn ich dann nach diesem Ruhen in Gott aus dem Geistesschauen wieder zur Gedankenbildung herabsteige, dann frage ich mich, wie es zuging, daß ich jetzt herabsteige, und daß überhaupt einmal meine Seele in den Körper eingegangen ist, da sie doch in ihrem Wesen so ist, wie sie sich mir eben gezeigt hatte», und «was mag denn der Grund sein, daß die Seelen den Vater, Gott, vergessen, da sie doch aus dem Jenseits stammen und ihm gehören, und so von ihm und sich selbst nichts wissen? Des Bösen Anfang ist für sie der Wagemut und die Werdelust und die Selbstentfremdung und die Lust, nur sich zu gehören. Es gelüstete sie nach Selbstherrlichkeit; sie tummelten sich nach ihrem Sinne, und so gerieten sie auf den Abweg und schritten zum vollen Abfalle vor, und damit schwand ihnen die Erkenntnis ihres Ursprungs aus dem Jenseits, wie Kinder, früh von ihren Eltern getrennt und in der Ferne aufgezogen, nicht wissen, wer sie und ihre Eltern sind». Die Lebensentwicklung, welche die Seele suchen soll, wird von Plotin dargestellt: «Befriedet sei ihr Körperleben und dessen Wogenschlag, befriedet sehe sie alles, was sie umgibt: die Erde und das Meer und die Luft und den Himmel selbst, ohne Regung. Sie lerne darauf achten, wie die Seele von außen her in den ruhenden Kosmos gleichsam sich ergießt und einströmt, von allen Seiten andringt und einstrahlt; wie die Sonnenstrahlen eine dunkle Wolke erleuchten und goldig erglänzen machen, so verleiht die Seele, wenn sie in den Leib der himmelumspannten Welt eingeht, ihm Leben und Unsterblichkeit.»
[ 5 ] Es ergibt sich, daß diese Weltanschauung mit dem Christentum eine tiefgehende Ähnlichkeit hat. Bei den Bekennern der Jesusgemeinde heißt es: «Was von Anfang an geschehen ist, was wir gehört und gesehen haben mit Augen, was wir selbst geschauet, was unsere Hände berührt haben von dem Worte des Lebens ... das melden wir euch»; so könnte im Sinne des Neuplatonismus gesagt werden: Was vom Anfange an geschehen ist, was man nicht hören und sehen kann: das muß man spirituell erleben als das Wort des Lebens. — Die Entwicklung der alten Weltanschauung vollzieht sich somit in einer Spaltung. Sie führt zu einer Christus-Idee, die sich auf rein Geistiges bezieht, im Neuplatonismus und ähnlich gerichteten Weltanschauungen; und andrerseits zu einem Zusammenfließen dieser Christus-Idee mit einer geschichtlichen Erscheinung, der Persönlichkeit Jesu. Den Schreiber des Johannes-Evangeliums kann man den Verbinder der beiden Weltanschauungen nennen. «Im Urbeginne war das Wort.» Diese Überzeugung teilt er mit den Neuplatonikern. Das Wort wird Geist im Innern der Seele: das folgern die Neuplatoniker. Das Wort ist in Jesus Fleisch geworden, das folgert der Schreiber des Johannes-Evangeliums, und mit ihm die Christengemeinde. Der nähere Sinn, wie das Wort allein Fleisch werden konnte, war durch die ganze Entwicklung der alten Weltanschauung gegeben. Plato erzählt ja das makrokosmische: Gott hat auf den Weltleib in Kreuzesform die Weltseele gespannt. Diese Weltseele ist der Logos. Soll der Logos Fleisch werden, so muß er im Fleisches-Dasein den kosmischen Weltprozeß wiederholen. Er muß ans Kreuz geschlagen werden und auferstehen. Als geistige Vorstellung war dieser wichtigste Gedanke des Christentums in den alten Weltanschauungen längst vorgezeichnet. Als persönliches Erlebnis machte es der Myste bei der «Einweihung» durch. Als Tatsache, die für die ganze Menschheit Geltung hat, mußte es der «Mensch gewordene Logos» durchmachen. Etwas, was also Mysterienvorgang in der alten Weisheitsentwicklung war: das wird durch das Christentum zur historischen Tatsache. Dadurch wurde das Christentum die Erfüllung nicht nur dessen, was die jüdischen Propheten vorhergesagt hatten; sondern es wurde auch die Erfüllung dessen, was die Mysterien vorhergebildet hatten. — Das Kreuz auf Golgatha ist der in eine Tatsache zusammengezogene Mysterienkult des Altertums. Dieses Kreuz begegnet uns zuerst in den alten Weltanschauungen; es begegnet uns innerhalb eines einmaligen Ereignisses, das für die ganze Menschheit gelten soll, am Ausgangspunkte des Christentums. Von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus kann das Mystische im Christentum begriffen werden. Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache ist eine Entwicklungsstufe im Werdegang der Menschheit; und die Ereignisse in den Mysterien und die durch dieselben bedingten Wirkungen sind die Vorbereitung zu dieser mystischen Tatsache.
Christianity and pagan wisdom
[ 1 ] In the period in which Christianity also had its first beginnings, world views emerged within the ancient pagan culture which can be seen as a continuation of the Platonic way of thinking and which can also be understood as an internalized, spiritualized mystery wisdom. They originated with the Alexandrian Philo (25 BC to 50 AD). He seems to have transferred the processes that lead to the divine completely into the interior of the human soul. One could say that the mystery temple in which Philo seeks his consecration is solely his own inner self and its higher experiences. He replaces the procedures that take place in the mystery sites with processes of a purely spiritual nature. According to his conviction, sensory perception and logical understanding do not lead to the divine. They only deal with the transient. But there is a way for the soul to rise above these forms of knowledge. It must step out of what it calls its ordinary "I". It must be removed from this "I". Then it enters a state of spiritual elevation, enlightenment, in which it no longer knows, thinks and recognizes in the ordinary sense. For it has grown together with the divine, merged with it. The divine is experienced as something that cannot be formed in thoughts, cannot be communicated in concepts. It is experienced. And he who experiences it knows that he can only communicate it if he comes to give life to the words. The world is the image of this mystical entity that is experienced in the deepest recesses of the soul. It has emerged from the invisible, unthinkable God. A direct image of this deity is the wisdom-filled harmony of the world, which is followed by sensual phenomena. This wisdom-filled harmony is the spiritual image of the deity. It is the divine spirit poured into the world: the world reason, the Logos, the offspring or Son of God. The Logos is the mediator between the world of the senses and the unimaginable God. By imbuing himself with knowledge, man unites himself with the Logos. The Logos is embodied in him. The personality developed into spirituality is the bearer of the Logos. God lies above the Logos; below it lies the transient world. Man is called to close the chain between the two. What he experiences within himself as spirit is the spirit of the world. Such ideas immediately remind us of the Pythagorean way of thinking. The core of existence is sought in the inner life. But the inner life is aware of its cosmic validity. It has essentially emerged from a way of thinking that is similar to that of Philo, which Augustine says: "We see all things that are made because they are; but because God sees them, they are." - And about what and where through we see, he adds significantly: "And because they are, we see them outwardly; and because they are perfect, we see them inwardly." The same basic idea is present in Plato. Philo, like Plato, saw in the destinies of the human soul the conclusion of the great world drama, the awakening of the enchanted god. He described the inner deeds of the soul with the words: the wisdom within man "imitates the ways of the Father and, looking at the archetypes, forms the figures". It is therefore not a personal matter when man forms shapes within himself. These forms are the eternal wisdom, the cosmic life. This is in line with the mystery concept of folk myths. The Myst seeks the deeper core of truth in the myths. And what Myste does with the pagan myths, Philo accomplishes with the Mosaic accounts of creation. For him, the accounts of the Old Testament are images of inner soul processes. The Bible tells of the creation of the world. Anyone who takes it as a depiction of external processes knows it only halfway. It is certainly written: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was upon the face of the waters." But the true, inner meaning of such words must be experienced in the depths of the soul. God must be found within, then he appears as the "primordial radiance that emits innumerable rays, not sensually perceptible, but all in thought". This is how Philo expresses himself. Almost exactly as in the Bible, Plato says in the "Timaeus": "But when the Father, who had created the universe, saw how it was animated and moved and had become an image of the eternal gods, he was pleased with it." In the Bible we read: "And God saw that everything was good." - To recognize the divine means, as in Plato, as in mystery wisdom, also in the sense of the Bible: to experience the course of creation as one's own spiritual destiny. The history of creation and the history of the divinizing soul thus merge into one. According to Philo's conviction, Moses' account of creation can be used to write the story of the God-seeking soul. All things in the Bible thus take on a deeply symbolic meaning. Philo becomes the interpreter of this symbolic meaning. He reads the Bible as a story of the soul.
[ 2 ] It can be said that Philo's way of reading the Bible corresponded to a trend of his time, which was drawn from the wisdom of the mysteries; after all, he was able to report the same way of interpreting ancient writings from the therapists. "They also possess works of ancient writers who once directed their school and left many explanations of the method used in the allegorical writings . . . Their interpretation of these writings is directed towards the deeper meaning of the allegorical narratives". Thus Philo's intention was directed towards the deeper meaning of the "allegorical" stories of the Old Testament. Consider what such an interpretation could lead to. One reads the account of creation and finds in it not only an external narrative but the model for the paths that the soul must take in order to reach the divine. The soul must therefore - only in this can its mystical striving for wisdom consist - microcosmically repeat in itself the ways of God. The drama of the world must take place in every soul. A fulfillment of the model given in the creation account is the soul life of the mystical sage. Moses wrote not only to recount historical facts, but to illustrate in images the paths the soul must take if it wants to find God.
[ 3 ] This all remains resolved within the spirit in Philo's world view. Man experiences in himself what God has experienced in the world. The Word of God, the Logos, becomes a soul event. God led the Jews out of Egypt to the promised land; he let them go through torment and hardship in order to then give them the land of promise. That is the outward process. Experience it on the inside. One goes from the land of Egypt, the transient world, through the hardships that lead to the suppression of the sensual world, into the promised land of the soul, one reaches the eternal. For Philo, this is all an inner process. The God who was poured out into the world celebrates his resurrection in the soul when his word of creation is understood and imitated in the soul. Then man has given birth in himself to God, the Spirit of God made man, the Logos, Christ, in a spiritual way. In this sense, for Philo and for those who thought along his lines, knowledge was a birth of Christ within the world of the spiritual. The Neoplatonic worldview, which developed at the same time as Christianity, was also a further development of this Philonic way of thinking. See how Plotinus (204 to 269 AD) describes his spiritual experiences:
[ 4 ] "Often, when I awaken from the slumber of corporeality, come to myself, turn away from the outside world and enter into myself, I behold a wondrous beauty; then I am certain that I have become aware of my better part; I experience true life, am united with the divine, and founded in it, I gain the strength to move myself even beyond the overworld. When, after this resting in God, I descend again from the spiritual vision to the formation of thoughts, then I ask myself how it happened that I now descend, and that my soul has entered the body at all, since it is in its essence as it had just shown itself to me," and "what may be the reason that souls forget the Father, God, since they come from the beyond and belong to him, and thus know nothing of him and themselves? For them, the beginning of evil is daring and the lust for value and self-alienation and the desire to belong only to themselves. They lusted after self-importance; they romped about according to their senses, and so they went astray and progressed to full apostasy, and with it the knowledge of their origin from the beyond disappeared from them, just as children, early separated from their parents and brought up in the distance, do not know who they and their parents are. The development of life that the soul should seek is described by Plotinus: "Let its bodily life and its waves be pacified, let it see everything that surrounds it pacified: the earth and the sea and the air and the sky itself, without emotion. She learns to observe how the soul pours itself from outside into the dormant cosmos, as it were, and flows in, penetrates and radiates from all sides; just as the sun's rays illuminate a dark cloud and make it shine golden, so the soul, when it enters the body of the heaven-embraced world, gives it life and immortality."
[ 5 ] It turns out that this worldview has a profound similarity with Christianity. The confessors of the Jesus church say: "What has happened from the beginning, what we have heard and seen with our eyes, what we ourselves have seen, what our hands have touched of the Word of Life ... this we report to you"; this could be said in the sense of Neoplatonism: What has happened from the beginning, what cannot be heard or seen: that must be experienced spiritually as the Word of Life. - The development of the old world view thus takes place in a split. It leads to an idea of Christ, which refers to the purely spiritual, in Neoplatonism and similarly oriented world views; and on the other hand to a confluence of this idea of Christ with a historical phenomenon, the personality of Jesus. The writer of the Gospel of John can be called the connector of the two world views. "In the beginning was the Word." He shares this conviction with the Neoplatonists. The Word becomes spirit within the soul: that is the conclusion of the Neoplatonists. The Word became flesh in Jesus, concluded the writer of the Gospel of John, and with him the Christian community. The closer sense of how the Word alone could become flesh was given by the entire development of the ancient world view. Plato tells the macrocosmic story: God has stretched the world soul over the world body in the form of a cross. This world soul is the Logos. If the Logos is to become flesh, he must repeat the cosmic world-process in his fleshly existence. He must be crucified and resurrected. As a spiritual concept, this most important idea of Christianity had long been outlined in the old world views. The Myste went through it as a personal experience at the "initiation". The "Logos made man" had to go through it as a fact that is valid for all mankind. Something that was therefore a mystery process in the ancient development of wisdom became a historical fact through Christianity. Thus Christianity not only became the fulfillment of what the Jewish prophets had foretold, but it also became the fulfillment of what the mysteries had foreshadowed. - The cross on Golgotha is the mystery cult of antiquity condensed into one fact. We first encounter this cross in the ancient world views; we encounter it at the starting point of Christianity within a unique event that is supposed to apply to the whole of humanity. It is from this point of view that the mystical in Christianity can be understood. Christianity as a mystical fact is a stage in the development of mankind; and the events in the Mysteries and the effects caused by them are the preparation for this mystical fact.