402 "...if following Him wherever we find traces of His presence, we have an obligation to investigate the authentic spiritual life of non-Christians. This raises the question of Christ's presence outside Christian history. The strikingly evangelical quality of many non-Christians obliges us, moreover, to develop an ecclesiology and a missiology in which the Holy Spirit necessarily occupies a supreme place....
It comes down to this: contemporary theology must go beyond the notion of 'salvation history' in order to rediscover the meaning of the oikonomia. The economy of Christ cannot be reduced to its historical manifestation but indicates the fact that we are made participants in the very life of God Himself.... The very notion of economy is a notion of mystery. To say mystery is to point to the strength that is breathing in the event. It also points to the freedom of God who in His work of providence and redemption is not tied down to any event. The Church is the instrument of the mystery of the salvation of the nations. It is the sign of God's love for all men. It is not over against the world, separate from it; it is part of the world. The Church is the very breath of life for humanity, the image of the humanity to come, in virtue of the light it has received. It is the life of mankind itself, even if mankind does not realize this. It is, in Origen's words, the 'cosmos of the cosmos.' If, as Origen also says, the Son remains 'the cosmos of the Church," then clearly the Church's function is, by means of the mystery of which it is the sign, to read all the other signs which God has placed in the various times in human history. Within the religions, its task is to reveal to the world of the religions the God who is hidden within it, in anticipation of the final concrete unfolding and manifestation of the Mystery."
403 "This significant relationship to Christ is also applicable outside Israel inasmuch as the other nations have had their own types of the reality of Christ, whether in the form of persons or teachings. It is of little importance whether the religion in question was historical in character or not. It is of little importance whether it considers itself incompatible with the Gospel. Christ is hidden everywhere in the mystery of his lowliness. Any reading of religions is a reading of Christ. It is Christ alone who is received as light when grace visits a Brahmin, a Buddhist or a Muhammadan reading his own scriptures. Every martyr for the truth, every man persecuted for what he believes to be right dies in communion with Christ. The mystics of Islamic countries with their witness to suffering love lived the authentic Johannine agape. For if the tree is known by is fruits, there is no shadow of doubt that the poor and humble folk who live for and yearn for God in all nations already receive the peace which the Lord gives to all whom He loves (Lk. 2.14).
This work of salvation outside Israel 'according to the flesh' and outside the historical Church, is the result of the resurrection which fills everything with the [404] fulness of Christ."
404 "All who are visited by the Spirit are the people of God. The Church represents the first-fruits of the whole of mankind called to salvation. 'In Christ all will be brought to life' (I Cor. 15.22) because of this communion which is the Church. At the present moment the Church is the sacrament of this future unity, the unity of both 'those whom the Church will have baptized and those whom the Church's bridegroom will have baptized,' to use Nicholas Cabazilas's wonderful expression."
405 "What we have to do is to penetrate beyond the symbols and historical forms and discover the profound intention of religious men and to relate their apprehension of divinity to the object of our Christian hope. This means that we must use the apophatic method in speaking of God not only, among Christians, in the knowledge that all concepts of God are idols, but apply this method also to our ways of talking about God as He appears through the scriptures of the non-Christian religions. When we seek to understand the adherent of another religion, we should not be concerned to arrive at a descriptive account of him as an example of his particular faith, but we must rather treat him as someone who has something to teach us and something to manifest to us of God."