I
STAR WISDOM,
MOON RELIGION, SUN RELIGION
WE will continue our study
of the Mystery of Golgotha. At the very outset it must be realised
that happenings on the Earth are not determined by earthly conditions
alone but by the whole Universe. It is difficult for the modern mind
to grasp what this means, but without the knowledge that influences
pour down unceasingly upon the Earth from cosmic space, no event of
human life, however simple, can be understood. I have spoken about
this on many occasions and I shall speak of it to-day in connection
with the Mystery of Golgotha.
I told you that
the Jews — I mentioned them as the fourth people in the evolutionary
process
[See the lectures in the first volume of this series:
The Birth of Christianity,
and
Christianity and the Mysteries of Antiquity.]
— experienced the reality of the fourth member of man's being,
namely the “I,” the Ego. This fourth member, which the
Jews conceived to be the divine, innermost core of the human being,
they called Jahve. And they saw a connection between Jahve and the
universe of stars.
You know, of
course, that Palestine was the birth place of Christianity. Jesus of
Nazareth lived in Palestine, in a Jewish environment. The Jewish religion
prevailed in Palestine and although the Romans were the political
rulers, in those far-off lands they were not in a position to abolish
the established religion. Jesus of Nazareth, therefore, grew up in
the environment of the Jewish religion.
It will be easier
for you to understand the character of the Jewish religion if I say something
about the peoples who were living in Mesopotamia, that is to say,
further to the East, namely, the Babylonians, the Assyrians. These
peoples were neighbours of the Jews and their religion was connected
essentially with the stars — it was a Star Religion. One often
ears it said that the Assyrians “worshipped” the stars.
They did not worship the stars but the instinctive wisdom of those
times enabled them to know much more about the stars than is known
nowadays, despite the claims of modern scholarship.
You may have read
in the newspapers recently that this hitherto undisputed knowledge of the
stars threatens to collapse as a result of the discovery that the
Earth is not surrounded by empty, celestial space but that at a
height of 400 kilometres there are solid crystals of nitrogen! It
would seem, therefore, that science is finding confirmation of the
“crystal heavens” spoken of in Greek antiquity. I mention
this merely in parenthesis. Such things may bring home to
scholars how little is really known about the world of stars.
And now imagine
a being inhabiting the planet Mars. If such a being were to look downwards
without a powerful telescope, he would not see any human beings on
the Earth: he would simply see the Earth radiating a greenish light
into cosmic space. Yet the Earth swarms with human beings who are in
turn connected with Spiritual Beings. And just as the physical forces
of the stars have an influence upon the Earth, so too the
spiritual forces of the stars have an influence upon the
Earth, above all upon man. The ancient, instinctive wisdom of
the East revealed the existence of Spiritual Beings in the stars and
it was to these Spiritual Beings, not to the physical stars, that men
looked with veneration. In this sense the religion in Western Asia in
those early times was a Star Religion. It was accepted as a matter of
course that Spiritual Beings belonging to Saturn, Jupiter and the
other heavenly bodies have a certain influence upon men and upon
their earthly life. Now what the Jews had adopted from ancient
religions was the teaching concerning the influence of the
Moon; they paid little attention to the other heavenly bodies.
Jahve or Jehovah was connected with the spirituality of the Moon. The
Jewish religion in its earliest, original form taught that Jahve, or
Jehovah, as a living reality within the human “I,” was
connected with the spiritual forces of the Moon. This is not a mere
legend, neither is it an idea born of religious superstition; it
relates to something of which there is scientific evidence. During
the pregnancy of the mother — a period of great importance for
earthly existence — when the human being is still an embryo, he
is essentially dependent on the Moon. This dependency of the human
embryo on the Moon has long been known and the period of pregnancy
computed as ten lunar months. It is only comparatively recently that
the ten lunar months have been changed to nine solar months. But
these ten lunar months, which have rightly been connected with the
period of pregnancy, are in themselves an indication that the
embryonic human being in the body of the mother is dependent on the
Moon. What does this mean? In its earliest condition after
fertilisation, the ovum really contains earthly substance that has
been broken down, pulverised, and nothing whatever would arise from
it if it were exposed to the influence of earthly forces alone! The
development into a human embryo is only able to take place because
influences from the Moon play down upon the Earth. It can truly be
said that the forces of the Moon lead the human being into earthly
life. And so in its veneration of Jahve as a Moon God, the Jewish
religion was really pointing to this dependency of the human being
upon the forces of the Moon when he is entering earthly
existence.
Now the peoples
living further to the East, in Asia — the Babylonians, the Assyrians
— recognised other planetary influences as well as those
of the Moon. They said, for example: Whether a human being
subsequently becomes wise or remains a dullard, depends to a certain
extent upon the influence of Jupiter. But the Jews did not concern
themselves with these other influences. They venerated the one God
— a Moon God. The fact that the Jews turned from many Gods to
one God is generally regarded as a great step forward in religious life.
Jesus of Nazareth
heard much of the one God, the God Jahve, for the Jewish religion was all
around him and He was instructed in its teachings.
You can understand
why a people who venerated only the Moon God, the God whose influence upon
the human being works above all during the period while he is in the
mother's body, believed that a man brings the whole of his being with
him when he comes to the Earth. And this found expression in the
ancient Jahve religion. If an ancient Jew who had fallen sick were
asked: Why has this befallen you? — he answered: It is the will
of Jahve. If his house had been set on fire and he were asked: Why
has your house been burnt? — again his answer would have been:
It is the will of Jahve ... He attributed everything to the one God,
Jahve, through whose power man is led into the earthly world, and he
saw the will of Jahve in everything that happened. Hence there was a
kind of frozen rigidity about the Jewish religion. Through the whole
of his life a man felt that his existence was determined by what he
had brought with him to the Earth.
Other religious
teachings, as well as those of the Jews, came to the knowledge of Jesus
of Nazareth. These other religions taught that many heavenly bodies
— not only the Moon — have an influence upon the human
being. There is an indication in the Gospels of a connection between
the Star Religions of the East and the country inhabited by the Jews
where Jesus of Nazareth was born. For the Gospels tell of the Wise
Men from the East who had seen a star and were led by this star to
the birthplace of Jesus.
The story as it
stands in modern versions of the Gospels gives rise to misunderstanding.
The truth of the matter is that with their knowledge of the heavenly
constellations the Wise Men recognised from the position of the stars
that a momentous event was about to take place. And so at the very
birth of Jesus of Nazareth we have the indication of a link with the
Star Wisdom of Asia, of the East. And this link remained.
The aim of Jesus
of Nazareth was to enable man — while he is actually living on the
Earth — to become aware of an inner reality of being, an inner
selfhood. The Jews said: Everything comes from Jahve. — But in
reality it is only until birth that the influence of Jahve holds
sway, and once the human being is born, his life on the Earth is not
simply a continuation of the Jahve impulse. The great truth
brought by Christ Jesus was that during earthly life man is not like
a rolling ball, impelled only by the impetus given by Jahve before
his birth, but that he possesses an inner power of will by means of
which he can ennoble or debase his own nature, his own personality.
This was a truly epoch-making teaching. For the Star Wisdom had been
kept very secret; nothing was known of it in Palestine, let alone in
Rome. The Star Wisdom had been kept strictly secret and it was
therefore profoundly significant that Jesus of Nazareth should have
taught: It is not only from the Moon that influences pour down upon
man; influences also pour down upon him from the Sun.
This was a
momentous teaching. But such things must not be regarded merely as theories;
they must be studied in the light of reality. What is it that the
influence of the Moon really brings about while the human embryo
still rests within the body of the mother? The being of soul, the
being of soul-and-spirit comes from the Moon-sphere and passes
into the physical body. Man descends as a soul from the heavens by
way of the Moon. When the Jews said: Jahve has an influence upon the
human being in the womb of the mother — what did this really
indicate? It indicated the view: The soul-and-spirit of man comes
from the Moon; there, in the Moon, is the Creator of the soul. The
physical, material constitution of man comes from the Earth; but the
soul-and-spirit comes from the great universe, entering into man by
way of the Moon. — The Jews, therefore, maintained that the
soul entered into man by way of the Moon and received its endowments
and gifts from the Moon God.
Jesus of Nazareth
taught that in truth man has the soul within him but that the soul can
change, can be transformed in the course of his life because he has
freedom of will.
What underlay this
teaching of Jesus of Nazareth? This question is profoundly significant and in
order to find the answer we must consider the following:
The Jews are
always distinguished in a certain way from other peoples of the Earth. The
difference is due to the fact that throughout the centuries the Jews
have been brought up in the Moon religion and have refused to
recognise any other influence. Real understanding of these things
requires a knowledge of certain characteristics of Judaism. There is
abundant evidence that the Jews have a great talent for music; but on
the other hand they have no outstanding gift for sculpture,
painting and arts of this nature. The Jews have a flair for
materialism but little aptitude for acknowledging the reality of the
spiritual world. And this is because their veneration has always been
paid to the Moon and the Moon only; the rest of the super-earthly
universe has hardly entered their ken. The Jewish character and the
Greek character are in complete contrast. The talent and inclination
of the Greeks lay above all in the direction of sculpture, pictorial
art, architecture — architecture which embodied the art
of sculpture. The Jews have always been, and are by nature, a musical
people, a sacerdotal people; they unfold more particularly the inner
activity which has its source in the talents bestowed during
embryonic life. At the time when Jesus of Nazareth lived, this
tendency was very strongly marked. The Jews one meets in Europe
to-day have of course been living among other peoples for a long
time, and they have assimilated many traits from them. But anyone of
discernment can readily distinguish the fundamental character of the
Jews from that of other peoples. As I said, the hearts and minds of
the ancient Jews were directed entirely to the Moon God. Therefore
they developed the traits which are connected with the Moon, not
those which are connected with the Sun. The Sun was completely
forgotten. If Jesus of Nazareth had remained a Jew, even He could
only have taught a Moon Religion. But a different impulse, a
spiritual influence proceeding directly from the Sun entered
into him in the course of His life.
As a result of
this, He was “born a second time.” Eastern religions all knew
what it meant to be born a second time, but to-day it is nothing more than
a tradition and is no longer understood. At a certain moment in
His life, Jesus of Nazareth knew that he had been born again, that
the soul with which he had been endowed by the forces of the Moon
while still within the mother's body had been quickened and filled
with new life by the Sun ... And from that moment, He who had been
Jesus of Nazareth was known among the initiated as Christ Jesus. It
was said: Like all other Jews, Jesus of Nazareth became a man through
the forces of the Moon; but because at a certain moment in his life
the Sun influence poured into him, He has been born a second time
— as CHRIST.
Obviously, an
average man of to-day who cannot take these things in their spiritual sense,
will never be able to make anything of them. Having no idea that the human
being is united with his soul in the mother's body before birth, he
thinks that the soul must come in some way from the external world.
And he certainly can make nothing of the teaching that a Sun Being, a
second “personality” as it were, entered into Jesus of
Nazareth. Just as the first personality enters into the mother's
body, so did the Sun Being enter into Jesus of Nazareth as a second
personality.
The words used
in the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church make no reference to what I
have just told you. But at any celebration of High Mass you will see on
the altar the Sanctissimum, the Monstrance containing the
Sacred Host, and here (sketch on blackboard) rays are depicted. It is
a representation of the Sun and the Moon. The very form of the
Monstrance tells us that Christianity originates from a religious
conception which, unlike that held by the Jews, recognises not only
the influence of the Moon but also that of the Sun. Just as the
influence working in the process of the birth of a human being is
that of the Moon, so the influence working in Christ Jesus is that of
the Sun.
Having heard this,
you may imagine that it is possible for every human being to be born a second
time and to receive the influence from the Sun during the course of
his life. But the truth is rather different. What happened in the
case of Christ Jesus was that the influence streamed directly to the
“I,” the Ego. Upon which member of man's being does the
Moon influence work during embryonic life? As you know, man is
composed of physical body, ether-body, astral body, and the
“I.” The Moon influence works upon the astral body: the
astral body, of which a man is not normally conscious,
is influenced by the Moon. But in Christ, the Sun influence poured
into the “I” — the free and independent
“I”!
If the Sun
influence had ever worked upon man in exactly the same way as the Moon
influence, what would have been the result? Think of the following: —
As individuals we have no very decisive influence upon our own birth;
our birth dispatches us as it were into the world. If the Sun
influence were of exactly the same character as the Moon influence,
we should simply receive the Sun influence at, say, the age of 30,
and we should have no more say in this than we have in our birth. At
the age of 3o we should suddenly become different persons, we should
actually forget what we had been doing before that time. Just imagine
what it would be like if you were to be going about until your 29th
year and then, at 30, were to be born again! After this second
“birth” you might come across someone not yet 30, who
greeted you as an acquaintance. You would say: I know nothing about
you ... I have only been here since to-day and I do not know you.
That is what would happen if every human being at the age, say, of
30, were actually to receive the Sun influence. All this may seem
very questionable but it is true nevertheless. It has simply been
forgotten because history has been so greatly falsified. An exactly
similar process was at work in very ancient times, although not in
quite as drastic a form as I have described to you now ... In the
very distant past, about seven or eight thousand years ago in India,
men were like new beings when they reached the age of 30, and they
knew nothing about their earlier life. Then the people around took
charge of them and sent them to some “official” (I am
using a modern term) who told them their names and who they were.
This transformation was less and less marked as time went on,
but in those olden times it did indeed take place. Even the ancient
Egyptians who had reached, say, the age of 5o, did not remember
back to their childhood but only to their thirtieth year; they were
told by the people around them about their earlier life, just as we
are told to-day what we used to do when we were babies of one or two
years old. History says nothing about this change that has come about
in the life of man, but it is a fact.
The last human
being destined to receive the direct influence of the Sun was Jesus of
Nazareth; for others this was no longer possible. There is a hint
about this Sun influence in the Gospels but it is always
misinterpreted. The Gospels tell us that when Jesus of Nazareth went
to the Jordan to be baptised by John, a Dove descended upon Him from
heaven. The Dove is the symbol of the Sun influence, of the Sun Being
who entered into Jesus. But He was the last, the very last. The
bodily constitution of other men in His day was such that they were
not able to receive the Sun influence. Jesus was the last.
In the ancient
East, men could say with truth: The Sun influence comes to everyone in the
course of his life, and when this happens he becomes a new being.
This could no longer be said in the epoch when Christ Jesus lived,
and the priests knew of it merely through tradition, not through
their own vision.
In the ancient
past, before the days of the Jews, veneration was paid to the Sun, because
the Sun was known to be the source of this all-powerful influence during
life. When no such influence was received, men ceased to venerate the Sun.
By whom, then, was the Sun replaced? By Christ Jesus Himself!
Before the founding of Christianity there had been a Sun
Religion in which the Sun itself was the object of veneration. Christ
Jesus was the last to receive this Sun influence, and thereafter men
could do no other than point to Christ, saying: There, within Him, is
the Sun Spirit!
Herein lies the
great and fundamental change. It denoted a sheer revolution in thought to
be able to say: Christ Jesus brought down upon the Earth that which was
formerly in the Sun. In the first Christian centuries, Christ was
always called the Sun and in the Gospels we still find the words:
“the Sun, the Christ.” Later on, the meaning was entirely
forgotten. At every High Mass the truth is visibly portrayed in the
Monstrance; but if anyone says in so many words that what is
represented there is a fact, he is denounced as a heretic. For the
Christian Church has always considered it dangerous to proclaim
truths which have to do with the Stars, and therefore also with the
Sun.
Why is this so?
Here again we must go back to the ancient Mysteries and compare them with
Christianity. You know that the Mysteries were not open to everyone.
I told you about the different stages. The Initiates were known as
Ravens, Occultists, Defenders, Sphinxes, Spirits of the People, Sun
Men, Fathers.
[See
Christianity and the Mysteries of Antiquity.]
These men knew that influences come from the stars and the initiated
priests were careful to ensure that the knowledge was in the
possession only of those who had actually been received into the
Mysteries. For knowledge is a power! True, it is often suppressed ...
but when the authority of the priesthood is strong, knowledge
is certainly a power.
The Star Wisdom
had, however, been lost. And now came Christ Jesus who brought it to life
again — but in a new form — teaching that the Sun God
must now have his place upon the Earth. If Christ's teaching had
gained the victory, knowledge of the Sun influence and indeed of the
ancient Star Religion in its entirety would again have been present
in the world. Moreover in the early Christian centuries this was in
many ways the case. There was a certain revival of the ancient
Mystery teachings. But Christ Jesus had brought about the great and
fundamental change in that He placed as a reality before all the
world what had previously been guarded as a close secret in the
Mysteries. Thereafter it would have been within the reach of all
human beings, but no effort succeeded in spreading the knowledge.
A certain Roman
Emperor, Julian, called the “Apostate” tried to introduce the
ancient Star Religion once again but he was murdered while on a
journey to Persia
What happened in
Rome was this. The Star Wisdom that had in truth been brought again to the
world by Christ Jesus was denounced as superstition — and not
only as superstition but as a creed of the devil. The very means,
therefore, of leading men to a real knowledge of the Spiritual was
denounced and practically exterminated. People were expected to
believe only in the external, historical event of the presence of
Christ Jesus in Palestine — in the form in which the Church
proclaimed it.
Consequently the
Church became the supreme authority for all believers in the matter of how
and what they should think. It was not by way of Rome that real
Christianity came to Europe; what Rome brought to Europe was a
changed Christianity — a Christianity which accepted only
the outer event in Palestine and ignored the whole cosmic setting of
that event.
Why did it happen
so? As I told you, Rome originated from a band of brigands who had once
gathered together,
[See
Christianity and the Mysteries of Antiquity;
also Hegel's
Lectures on the Philosophy of History.]
and echoes of their mode of life
persisted for a very long time. Rome has always striven for power in
worldly affairs and in the religious life at the same time. And in
the course of the Middle Ages, the Pope took the place ... well, not
of the ancient High Priest, the “Pontifex Maximus,” for
it was only the name that continued ... the Pope assumed the position
that had once been held by the Roman Emperors.
At one period
— it was at the beginning of the eleventh century — an attempt
was made by a certain German Emperor to achieve something in the same
direction as Julian who had been called the Apostate. It is a very
interesting story. Henry II was a good and faithful advocate of
Christianity and was looked upon as a kind of saint. He reigned as
Emperor from 1002–24. In history, too, he is known as Henry
“the Saint” and he still figures among the saints named
in the breviary of Catholic priests. Henry II was one who wished to
point to the ancient wisdom, to preserve for Christianity the
conception that in Christ Jesus there had lived the Sun Spirit. He
wanted to establish an Ecclesia catholica non Romana, that is
to say, a Catholic Church that is not Roman. This attempt was made at
the beginning of the eleventh century. Lutherism came considerably
later. If Henry II's attempt to establish a “Catholic Church
that is not Roman” had succeeded at that time, the whole cosmic
setting of Christianity would have come to the knowledge of Europe
and through the religious life men would have been led to a truly
spiritual science. But Rome conquered — that is to say,
semi-religious, semi-imperial Rome. No Ecclesia catholica non
Romana came into being and the Ecclesia catholica Romana
lived on. The aim of Emperor Henry II had been to separate the
Catholic Church entirely from the sphere of worldly dominion.
It would have
been a momentous deed, for if it had succeeded, the subsequent, very
widespread persecution of heretics and heresies would never have
taken place. Such persecutions are simply the outcome of authority
exercised over men's thoughts. But in reality, nobody can have
permanent authority over thoughts. Authority over thoughts can only
be exercised when a human being is subject to the sway of worldly
power, when he is obliged to attend particular schools where certain
doctrines are inculcated into him, when he is put into a certain
class which influences his point of view, and the like. Thoughts, in
reality, cannot be made to submit to authority. No Church could ever
have worked harmfully without the help of the worldly dominion to
which man is subject as a physical being. For the Church can only
teach; the response must come from human beings themselves.
That is the principle which Henry II tried to establish. But as I
said, the victory was won by Rome — by the ancient, imperial
power working in the person of the Pope. The power of worldly
dominion was very great in the days of Henry II. And if the attempt
to establish a “Catholic Church that is not Roman” had
succeeded at that time, the teachings of the Church would have
remained apart from the sphere of worldly dominion.
Fundamentally,
the Crusades were pursuing the same aim. It is commonly said that the Crusades
were undertaken in the service of Rome, that because the wicked Turks
had conquered Jerusalem the pilgrims there could no longer
perform their devotions in safety. Then Rome intervened and sent
Peter of Amiens out into Europe to preach. Numbers of men were urged
to come together in a Crusade to the East, to Jerusalem, and a great
band of Crusaders gathered as the result of this preaching under the
leadership of Peter of Amiens and Walter the “Penniless.”
(Perhaps you can guess why he was called the “Penniless.”
He was like all of us here, for we could not raise enough money
between us to pay the cost of a crusade to Asia!) But this whole band
of Crusaders perished on the way and nothing was achieved.
Then came others,
under the leadership of Godfrey of Bouillon. These men were not in the service
of Rome but their aim had certain points in common with that of Henry
II. They wanted to do away with the element of worldly dominion.
(Dr. Steiner makes a sketch on the blackboard.) Here is Italy,
here Greece, here the Black Sea, here Asia, here Palestine, here
Jerusalem. The aim of the first real Crusade was that Jerusalem, not
Rome, should stand as the centre and citadel of the Christian
religion. This was again an attempt to make the Ecclesia, the Church,
independent of worldly dominion.
None of these
attempts succeeded. Roman princes and nobles again found their way into
the later Crusades. The story can be read in any history book.
And so this basic
principle of Christianity, enshrining the great thought that in Christ Jesus
the Sun Force itself was brought down to the Earth and that
realisation of this makes every human being free ... “Ye shall
know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free ...” —
this whole conception has remained in oblivion through the centuries
and true Christianity must be discovered again to-day through
Spiritual Science. It is not surprising that the representatives of
Christianity in the form it has now assumed, oppose the Christianity
which genuinely adheres to Christ Jesus and teaches the same
realities as He Himself taught. This is what Anthroposophy does.
Again it is not surprising that those who only know Christianity in
its present form often have an aversion to it. This aversion,
however, it not to be laid at the door of Christianity itself.
Christianity has brought about tremendous progress in the social
life. Slavery was gradually abolished, for one thing. And without
Christianity there would have been no science as we know it to-day.
Most of the really epoch-making discoveries were made by monks (the
air-pump produced by the worthy Burgomaster Guericke von Magdeburg is
one of the exceptions). Copernicus was a dignitary of the Catholic
Church; and the schools and academies of learning were all dependent
upon the monks.
But something
else must also be remembered. — The monasteries were not, at first,
welcome in the Church, because the monks had preserved a good deal of
the ancient knowledge. Among the monks (only they were not allowed to
speak) there did indeed exist knowledge of the ancient Star Wisdom.
Ample evidence of this can be found by anyone who looks for it. It
was through monasticism, not through any external regime that
knowledge of the kind of which I gave you an example in the last
lecture, had been preserved and it was not until the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries that it was completely swept away. The Middle
Ages were by no means as “dark” an epoch as people
generally believe. It is only what comes within the range of ordinary
observation that is “dark.” In secret there was a great
deal of wisdom, only it is not understood to-day.
We can truly say:
The greatest thought enshrined in Christianity is that the Sun Force in
all reality came down upon the Earth.
Not until then
did history, as we know it to-day, really come to birth. For whereas in olden
times men in the East possessed a glorious Star Wisdom, they attached
no value to “history.” Those who were knowers and sages
in the East always declared: It is there, in the Heavens, that the
act of Creation takes place. They did not concern themselves to any
great extent with the life and doings of human beings on the Earth.
— True, something in the nature of history appears when the
Jews come upon the scene, but it is history that begins with Star
Wisdom — for the story of the “seven days of
Creation” is pure Star Wisdom. Later on, events become chaotic,
a medley. True history — and true history divides the whole
process of evolution on the Earth into the pre-Christian and the
post-Christian — really begins when Christianity is born.
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