IV. Theosophy and Christianity

What did they understand by the risen Christ? We can learn that from Paul, too. He tells us clearly and distinctly what his confession of the resurrection is based on. Everyone knows that Paul is, so to speak, a posthumous apostle, that he owes his conversion to Christianity to the appearance of Christ, who had long since left the earth. Only the theosophist can recognize the truth of this appearance of a high spiritual being. Only he knows what an initiate like Paul means when he speaks of the risen Christ appearing to him alive. And Paul tells us even more, and we must take this to heart. He tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8: "I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. Last of all, as to one untimely born, was I shown."