IV. Theosophy and Christianity

Christ could not always express what he meant openly. You all know the saying: before the people he spoke in parables, but when he was with his disciples, he explained these parables to them. — Where did this intention of the founder of Christianity to speak two languages, so to speak, come from? A simple comparison can tell us where it came from. If you need an object, a table, for example, you don't go to just anyone, but to someone who knows how to make a table. And when they have made it, you don't presume to say that you made the table yourself. You calmly admit that you are a layman when it comes to table-making. But people do not want to admit that one can also be a layman in relation to the highest things that exist, that the simple mind, which is, so to speak, in a natural state, must first climb to the highest heights. From this arose the longing to bring this highest truth down to the level of common sense. But just as we, as laymen in table-making, know when a table is good and how to put it to use, so we know, when we have heard the truth, whether it speaks to our hearts, whether our hearts can use it. But we must not presume to want to produce knowledge ourselves out of the mere heart, out of simple human understanding. From this view arose the distinction that was always made in ancient times between priests and lay people. In ancient times, we are dealing with priestly wisdom and with highest truths that were not proclaimed out on the streets, but inside the mystery temples.