Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/125

The proof, however, that this particular individual is the Christ, is of another kind, and has reference only to the specific statement that this particular individual is the Christ, and not any other individual, and has not to do with the question as to whether in this case the Idea does not exist at all. Christ said, “Run not hither and thither; the Kingdom of God is within you.” Many others amongst Jews and heathen were revered as divine messengers or as gods. John the Baptist went before Christ; amongst the Greeks, statues were erected, for instance, to Demetrius Poliorcetes as if he were a god; and the Roman Emperor was revered as God. Apollonius of Tyana and many others passed for being workers of miracles; and for the Greeks, Hercules was the man who by his deeds, which were at the same time deeds of obedience merely, took his place amongst the gods, and became God; without mentioning that great number of incarnations, and the deification implied in being raised to Brahma, which we meet with amongst the Hindus. But it was to Christ only that the Idea, when it was ripe and the time was fulfilled, could attach itself, and in Him only could it see itself realised. In the heroic deeds of Hercules the nature of Spirit is still imperfectly expressed. But the history of Christ is a history for the Spiritual Community, since it is absolutely adequate to the Idea; while it is only the effort of Spirit to reach the determination implied in the implicit unity of the Divine and the Human, which lies at the basis of those earlier forms, and can be recognised as present in them. This is what must be regarded as the essential thing, this is the verification, the absolute proof; this is what is to be understood by the witness of the Spirit; it is the Spirit, the indwelling Idea which attests Christ’s mission, and for those who believed, and for us who are in possession of the Notion in its developed form, this is verification. This is also the kind of verification whose force is of a spiritual kind, and is not