THE NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY
The deepest effect must have been produced upon believers in
Christianity by the fact that the Divine, the Word, the eternal Logos, no longer came to them in the dim twilight of the Mysteries, as Spirit only, but that when they spoke of the Logos, they were made to think of the historical, human personality of Jesus. Formerly the Logos had only been seen in different degrees of human perfection. The delicate, subtle differences in the spiritual life of personalities could be observed, and the manner and degree in which the Logos became living within those seeking initiation. A higher degree of maturity was to be interpreted as a higher stage of evolution of spiritual life. The preparatory steps had to be sought in a spiritual life already passed through, and the present life was to be regarded as the preparatory stage for future degrees of spiritual evolution. The conservation of the spiritual power of the soul and the eternity of that force might be stated in the words of the Jewish occult teaching in the book of Sohar, "Nothing in the world is lost, nothing falls into the void, not even the words and voice of man: everything has its place and purport." Personality was but a metamorphosis of the soul, which develops from one personality to another. The single life of the personality was only considered as a link in the chain of development stretching backwards and forwards.
This Logos metamorphosing itself in the many separate human
personalities has through Christianity been directed away from these
to the one unique personality of Jesus. What had previously been
distributed throughout the world was now united in a single
personality. Jesus became the unique God-Man. In Jesus something was
present once which must appear to man as the greatest of ideals, and
with which, in the course of man's repeated earthly lives, he ought
to be more and more united. Jesus took upon Himself the divinisation
of the whole of humanity. In Him was sought what formerly could only
be sought in a man's own particular soul. One did not any more behold
the divine and eternal within the personality of a man; all that was
now beheld in Jesus. It is not the eternal part of the soul that
conquers death and is raised through its own power as divine, but it
is that which was in Jesus, the one God that will appear and raise the
souls.
It follows from this that an entirely new meaning was given to
personality. The eternal, immortal part had been taken from it. Only
the personality, as such, was left. If immortality be not denied, it
has to be admitted as pertaining to the personality itself. Out of the
belief in the soul's eternal metamorphosis came the belief in personal
immortality. The personality acquired infinite importance, because it
was the only thing which was left to man.
Henceforth there is nothing between the personality and the infinite
God. A direct relation with Him must be established. Man was no
longer capable of himself becoming divine, in a greater or less
degree. He was simply man, standing in a direct but outward relation
to God. This brought quite a new note into the conception of the world
for those who knew the point of view held in the ancient Mysteries. There were many people in this position during the first centuries of Christianity. They knew the nature of the Mysteries. If they wished to become Christians, they were obliged to come to an understanding with the older conceptions. This brought them most difficult conflicts within their souls. They sought in most various ways to effect a settlement between the two tendencies in the conception of the world. This conflict is reflected in the writings of early Christian times: in those of heathens attracted by the sublimity of Christianity, as well as in the writings of those Christians who found it hard to give up the conceptions of the Mysteries. Slowly did Christianity grow out of these Mysteries. On the one hand Christian convictions were presented in the form of the Mystery truths, and on the other, the Mystery wisdom was clothed in Christian words.