III. Progress in the Knowledge of the Christ: The Fifth Gospel

What is learned about the higher worlds is not learned merely through teaching, but rather through facts that are experienced in the higher worlds. But the full significance of such a revelation is then experienced in an infinitely deeper way than one can ever experience something through teachings or theories. A new great sorrow settled in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. He had before him in a particularly clear case the whole misery that pagan revelations had become, and could now contrast it with what they had once been. Just as he could say in the midst of the Jewish people: And even if the voice of the great Bath-Kol were to resound today, there are no longer any people here who could understand it ; one is alone with it, – so he could now say in relation to the pagan people: And even if the voices of the old pagan mysteries were to resound again everywhere, there would no longer be any people here who could understand them.