PHILOSOPHY OF MYTHOLOGY AND REVELATION. 467 God, passes through two periods — heathenism, in which the second person works as a natural potency, and Christianity, in which it works with freedom. In the discussion of these positive philosophy becomes a philosophy of myth- ology arid revelation. The irresistible force of mythological ideas is explained by the fact that the gods are not crea- tions of the fancy, but real powers, namely, these potencies, which form the substance of human conciousness. The history of religion has for its starting-point the relative monotheism of humanity in its original unity, and for its goal the absolute monotheism of Christianity. With the separation into nations polytheism arises. This is partly simultaneous polytheism (a plurality of gods under a chief god), partly successive polytheism (an actual plurality of divinities, changing dynasties of several chief gods), and develops from star worship or Sabeism up to the religion of the Greeks. The Greek mysteries form the tran- sition from mythology to revelation. While in the mytho- logical process one or other of the divine potencies (Ground, Son, Spirit) was always predominant, in Christianity they return into unity. The true monotheism of revelation shows God as an articulated unity, in which the opposites are contained, as being overcome. The person of Christ constitutes the content of Christianity, who, in his incarna- tion and sacrificial death, yields up the independence out of God which had come to him through the fall of man. The three periods in the development of the Church (real, substantial unity — ideality or freedom — the reconciliation of the two) were foreshadowed in the chief apostles : Peter, with his leaning toward the past, repre- sents the Papal Church ; Paul the thinker the Protestant Church ; and the gentle John the Church of the future.
