Prof. J.E. van der Stok.

We can truly say that the body is a most wonderful gilt from the Most High so that we have a right to speak of the divinity of the body. This divinity is most easily conceived in the body of a child. We know that St. Paul insisted upon this view, but he was considering the mature body. According to him in his letter to the Corinthians, the body was to be considered as a temple of the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost was from God, from the Divine, elsewhere also, in one of the Gospels some very curious remarks are made to the same end, pointing to the same doctrine as it were. It is that we should consider ourselves holy, the body included, thus body, soul and spirit. to use the usual constitution of man in that way. We should think of ourselves as body, soul and spirit from God, as though born not out of the will and the desire of man but out of the Divine Will. the body included, so that we in reality should become ''sons of God", this is the term which is used.

If we look at the body of man from a mystical point of view it is threefold. There is a body of light and there is a body of fire, divine light and divine fire, and there is quite a different body that is of a transcendent nature. Every creature has these three bodies of divine fire, divine light and that which comes from Brahman as the Hindus call it, but in man all three are very strongly marked. This is not the case with the Angels. With them the body of light is very prominent and if we think of the good Spirits and Geniï, it is the body of fire which in them is very prominent- Both Angels and Geniï have also the two other bodies for every thing in this world of matter, of form, of creatures and of beings is intimately and functionally connected. Not one element, not one atom can be excluded.
When we reverently consider the Divine Child born of a Virgin we may have a full vision and thereby the power to restore the purity of the human body, the fulcrum, the upadhi which is of such an immense importance for the whole man, for the complete,- the total man. In the intensely beautiful image of the Divine Child two aspects arc prominent, one that predominantly pertains to the vision of the Angels, this is the body of light in all the prime purity of the child. Great 'painters have taken this body of light in all the prime purity of the child. Great painters have taken this body of light as their chief aim in exhibiting the glories of the Christ child, the child Jesus. Others include the body of fire, because they are of that temperament but that fire is very pure and virginal and never very prominent. Besides the body of light there is also the perishable body, the body that has to be absolutely transcended, that has to be involved in the Sacrifice and to be a great instrument in the Absolving Power which alone has been given to man, the greatest power of all.

The glory of the human child cannot be se, fully by the Angels, nor by the good Spirits. They have not the vision that goes beyond the worlds of being and existence which man has, and which brings suffering on his path. If you look at the image which has been chosen by Van Eijck -- he made many presentations of the Virgin and the Child - if you look at the child, there is already the shadow of the mystery of death resting upon it, and if you look further. it releases the highest power that of the Sacrificer, who must sacrifice everything, giving him the power completely to absolve the world, to come to a full accomplishment of a Deed or Glorious Charity in His death. In this mystery and grandeur of death the body cannot be left out. The body of fire comes very much to the foreground with the outpouring of Whitsunday the festival of the pouring out of the powers of the Holy Ghost. It first starts with a curious form resting upon the heads of the apostles; the flames have the form of cockscombs.

It is as it were the seed of the form of the body of fire of man. Take the person of St. John the Baptist. He was about 6 months older than Jesus, so he was born at about midsummer in the time of fire. When he was born there was as it were the complete baby of fire. You will remember that his festival is white and not red, because the symbol of a baby, the bambino, as the Italians say, is always white. Even when it stands for divine fire, it is pure white virginal fire.
The seed of fire rather bears the colours of the Holy Ghost. so of a beautiful transparent red. But in man, whose dharma it is to transcend fire and light, the golden body of transcendence is of the greatest importance and this golden body has its vehicles, its reflections on all planes, also on the physical plane. In this golden Brahman the divinity of the body, the divinity of the principle of corporeality is vested.