13. Concerning the Lost Temple and How it is to be Restored III (In connection with the Legend of the True Cross, or Golden Legend)

And here we come to the Cross's real meaning, which has led it to acquire such basic and real significance as a symbol of Christianity. What is the Cross? There are three Kingdoms towards which mankind is striving—the Plant Kingdom, the Animal Kingdom and the Human Kingdom. Today man finds his reality in the Mineral Kingdom, to which plants, animals and man belong. You should see it as it is meant in all creeds of wisdom, that man as a being of soul and spirit is a part of the universal soul, the world soul as Giordano Bruno, for example, called it.[^3] Perhaps the individual soul is like a drop in the world soul which we can imagine as a great ocean. Now Plato said about this, that the world soul has been crucified on the world body.[^4]