Christianity as Mystery

“Fools! for they have no far-reaching thoughts —
Who deem that what before was not comes into being,
Or that aught can perish and be utterly destroyed.
For it cannot be that aught can arise from what in no way is,
And it is impossible and unheard of that what is should perish;
For it will always be, wherever one may keep putting it.
A man wise in such matters would never surmise in his heart
That as long as mortals live what they call their life,
So long they are, and suffer good and ill;
While before they were formed and after they have been dissolved
They are just nothing at all.”
Empedocles (490–430 B.C.)

"For Philo there are only two paths. Either man can pursue the material world which is offered by perception and intellect, but then he is limited to his own personality, he withdraws from the cosmos; or he can become conscious of the all-embracing cosmic powers, experiencing the eternal within his personality. “One who runs away from God takes refuge in himself. There are two minds, that of the universe, which is God, and the individual mind. One who flees from his own mind flees for refuge to the Mind of all things. For one who abandons his own mind acknowledges all that makes the human mind its standard to be naught, and he refers all things to God. On the other hand, one who runs away from God declares Him to be the cause of nothing, and himself to be the cause of all things that come into being.”

"The initiate of ancient times experienced, in the spiritual world, how evolution points the way to the as yet “hidden Christ;” the Christian initiate experiences the hidden effects of the “revealed Christ.”

All that we perceive with the physical senses comes into existence and dies away. And this coming into existence and dying away is the cause of our being deceived. But if we examine objects more thoroughly with intelligent insight, then we partake of the eternal in them. But the physical senses do not convey to us the eternal in its true form. They deceive us when we rely implicitly upon them. They cease to deceive us if we confront them with logical insight, making everything conveyed by the senses subject to examination by this insight. But if logical insight is to judge the statements of the senses, must not something live within this insight which transcends the perceptions of the senses? Hence what is true and false in objects is judged by something in us which opposes the material body, and therefore is not subject to its laws. Above all, this something must not be subjected to the laws of growth and decay, for it bears truth within itself. Truth cannot have a yesterday and a tomorrow; it cannot be this on one occasion and that on another, as material things are. Hence truth in itself must be eternal. As the philosopher turns away from the transitory material world, and turns to truth, he approaches an eternal element, dwelling within him. If we immerse ourselves wholly in the spirit, then we live entirely in truth."

Rudolf Steiner, GA 8