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Christianity in the Evolution of Modern
Mankind
Leading Individualities and
Avatar-Beings
Lecture by Rudolf
Steiner Berlin,
February 15, 1909
OU
will have been able to see from the one
lecture given here on more complicated questions of
reincarnation that, with further progress in the
spiritual-scientific world-view, what we could give in the
beginning as elementary truths becomes modified — we
gradually rise to higher and higher truths. Still it was right
to present the general cosmic truths at first in as simple and
elementary a form as possible. It is, however, necessary also
to advance slowly step by step from the abc
to the higher truths, for only through
these higher truths will that gradually be attained which,
among other things, spiritual science is intended to give:
namely, the possibility of understanding and penetrating the
world which surrounds us in the physical, sense-perceptible
sphere. Now it is true that we have a long way to go before we
shall be able to coordinate the spiritual lines and forces
existing behind the sense world. But because of much that
has been said in recent lectures.
[Compare: Geisteswissenschaftliche Menschenkunde]
various phenomena of our existence will already have become clearer,
more understandable. Today we shall proceed a little farther in this
regard, and here also we shall speak again about more complicated
questions of reincarnation, of re-embodiment.
To that end we must today clearly realize
first of all that differences exist among the beings who occupy
a leading place in the earth's human evolution. We have to
distinguish in the course of our earth evolution those leading
individualities who from the beginning, so to speak, have
developed with the humanity of our earth just as it is —
only that they have made more rapid progress. We might put it
this way: If we go back into the past to the very remote
Lemurian time, we find among the human beings then incarnated
the most varied stages of development. All the souls embodied
at that time have again and again experienced
reincarnations, re-embodiments, during the succeeding
Atlantean and our post-Atlantean periods. These souls have
developed with varying rapidity. Some have made
relatively slow progress through the various
incarnations, and still have long distances to travel in
the future; but there are also souls who have developed
rapidly, who, one might say, have utilized their incarnations
to better advantage, and are therefore at a stage of
soul-spiritual development which will be attained by the normal
man only in a very, very distant future. But, continuing to
speak of this soul sphere, we may say nevertheless that however
advanced these individual souls may be, however far they may
tower above the normal man, still they have followed the same
path in our earth evolution as the rest of humanity; they
have merely advanced more rapidly. Besides these leading
individualities, who in this sense are like the rest of
humanity, only at a higher stage, there are also in the course
of human evolution other individualities, other beings,
who have by no means gone through various incarnations
just as other men have. We can perhaps illustrate what lies at
the bottom of this by saying: There were beings in that very
time of the Lemurian evolution to which we have alluded who no
longer needed to descend so deeply into physical embodiment as
other men, as all the beings who have just been described
— there were beings who could have accomplished
their development in higher, more spiritual regions, who, in
other words, did not need for their own further progress to
descend into bodies of flesh. It is nevertheless possible for
these beings, in order to intervene in the course of human
evolution, to descend vicariously, so to speak, into just such
human bodies as ours. At any time therefore a being may
appear of whom, if we make the clairvoyant test, we cannot say,
as we can of other human beings, that we trace the soul back in
time and find it in a previous fleshly incarnation, trace it
farther back and find it again in another incarnation, and so
on — but we must say instead: If we trace the soul of
such a being back through the course of time, perhaps we do not
find it at all in any former fleshly incarnation; but if we do,
it is only because the being in question is able to descend
repeatedly, at intervals, and incarnate vicariously in a
human body. A spiritual being who descends thus into a human
body in order to intervene in evolution as a human being,
without gaining anything from this embodiment for
himself, so to speak, without experiencing anything here
in the world of special significance for himself —
such a being is called in oriental wisdom an
Avatar. And this is the distinction
between a leading being who has sprung from human evolution
itself and one called an Avatar: namely, that an Avatar-being
reaps no benefits for himself from his physical
embodiments, or from the one physical embodiment to which
he subjects himself, for he enters into a physical body for the
blessing and advancement of mankind. Therefore, as we
have said, such an Avatar-being can either enter into a human
body just once, or several times in succession; and he is then
something entirely different from other human beings.
The greatest Avatar-Being Who has lived on earth, as you can
gather from the spirit of all the lectures given here, is the
Christ — that Being Whom we designate as the Christ, Who
took possession of the bodies of Jesus of Nazareth in the 30th
year of his life. This Being, Who first came in contact with
our earth at the beginning of our era, Who was incarnated
for three years in a body of flesh, and Who since that time has
been connected with the astral sphere, that is, with the
spiritual sphere of our super-sensible world — this Being
is of unique significance as an Avatar-Being. We should seek
the Christ-Being quite in vain in an earlier human embodiment,
whereas other, lower Avatar-beings could be embodied more than
once. They incarnate repeatedly, but they obtain for themselves
no benefit from the earthly embodiments. They only give; they
take nothing from the earth. But if you wish to understand
these things perfectly, you must distinguish between such a
lofty Avatar-Being as the Christ and lower Avatar-beings. The
latter can have the most varied missions on our earth, but we
can speak first of one such mission; and in order not
to flounder about in speculation, we shall at once give a
concrete instance to illustrate this kind of mission.
You all know from the story of which Noah
is the center that in the ancient Hebrew narrative a great part
of the post-Noah humanity derives from the three
ancestors, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Today we
shall not go into what Noah and these three tribal ancestors
are intended to represent in another respect; we shall
simply realize clearly that the Hebrew literature which speaks
of Shem, one of the sons of Noah, traces back the whole tribe
of the Semites to Shem as its ancestor. A genuinely occult view
of such a matter is always based upon the deeper truths. Those
who are able to carry on occult research into such things know
the following facts concerning Shem, the ancestor of the Semites.
In case of such a personality, who is
destined to be the ancestor of an entire tribe, care must be
taken from the very time of his birth to make it possible for
him to be just this ancestor. Now in what way will care be
taken that a personality — like Shem, for example —
can be the ancestor of a whole people, or of a tribal
community? In the case of Shem it was brought about through his
receiving a quite specially prepared etheric body. We know that
when the human being is born into this world he fashions about
his individuality his etheric or life body, with the other
members of his being. For such a tribal ancestor a special
etheric body must be prepared which is the model etheric body
for all the descendants in the following generations; so that
we have in such a tribal progenitor a typical etheric body, a
model etheric body; and then through blood relationship
this passes through the generations so that in a certain sense
the etheric bodies of all the descendants who belong to the
same tribe are copies of the etheric body of the ancestor. Thus
in all the etheric bodies of the Semitic people there was inwoven
something like a copy of Shem's etheric body. Now by what means
is such a thing brought about in the course of human evolution?
If we observe this man Shem a little more
closely, we find that his etheric body received its archetypal
form because into this very etheric body an Avatar had woven
himself. Although he was not so exalted as certain other
Avatar-beings, still it was a lofty Avatar-being who
descended into his etheric body. This being was not
united with Shem's astral body nor with his ego, but was woven,
as it were, into his etheric body alone. In this very example
we are able to study what the exact significance is when an
Avatar-being participates in the constitution, the composition,
of a human being. What does it mean, then, that a man like
Shem, who has the mission to be the ancestor of a whole people,
should have an Avatar-being woven into his body? It means that
whenever an Avatar-being is woven into a fleshly human body,
some one member, or even several members, of the super-sensible
constitution of this human being are capable of being
multiplied, of being split into many parts.
It was really because an Avatar-being was
interwoven with Shem's etheric body that it became possible for
numberless copies of the original to be formed; and these many
copies could be woven into all the descendants of the
tribal ancestor in the successive generations. Thus, the
descent to earth of an Avatar-being has the significance,
among other things, that it contributes to the multiplication
of one or several members of the person in question who is
animated by the Avatar. There existed in Shem, as you can see
from this, an especially precious etheric body, an archetypal
etheric body, prepared by an exalted Avatar, and then woven
into Shem, so that it could then descend in many copies to all
those who were ordained to be related by blood to this ancestor.
Now we have already said in the lecture
mentioned at the beginning that there is also a spiritual
economy consisting in the fact that anything of especial value
is preserved and carried over into the future.
[Compare also:
The Gospel of St. Matthew
and
The Gospel of St. Luke
about Zarathustra, Moses, and Hermes.]
We have heard that not
only is the ego re-embodied, but that also the astral body and
the etheric body can be re-embodied. Aside from the fact that
numberless copies of Shem's etheric body were formed, his
own etheric body was also preserved in the spiritual world; for
it could later be very useful in the mission of the Hebrew
people. In this etheric body all the peculiarities of the
Hebrew people had originally come to expression; and if at any
time something of very especial importance was to occur for the
ancient Hebrew people, if a special task, a special
mission, was to be assigned to some one, it could best be
accomplished by one who bore the etheric body of the ancestor.
At a later time a man who played an important role in the
history of the Hebrew people actually did bear the etheric body
of the tribal ancestor. In fact, we have here one of those
wonderful complications in human evolution which can
explain a great deal to us. We have to do with a very exalted
individuality who was compelled to condescend, as it
were, in order to speak to the Hebrew people in an
appropriate manner, and to give them the strength for a
special mission — in somewhat the way a spiritually
advanced person would have to speak to a lowly tribe. He would
of course be compelled to learn the language of this tribe; but
no one should maintain on this account that the language is
something which would serve to advance him personally, for the
one concerned need only take the trouble to learn the
language. In the same way a lofty individuality had to make the
effort to use Shem's etheric body, in order to be able to give
a very definite impulse to the ancient Hebrew people. This
personality is the one you find in the Biblical history named
Melchizedek. He took upon himself, as it were, the etheric body
of Shem, in order later to give to Abraham the impulse which
you find so beautifully described in the Bible. And so,
aside from the fact that what was contained in the
individuality of Shem was multiplied, because an Avatar-being
was embodied in it, and then became woven into all the other
etheric bodies belonging to the Hebrew people, Shem's own
etheric body was preserved in the spiritual world, so that it
could be borne at a later time by Melchizedek, who was to give
to the Hebrew people an important impulse through Abraham.
Thus delicately interwoven are the facts existing behind the
physical world which alone make explicable to us what occurs
in that world. We come to understand history only when we are
able to point to such facts: to facts of a spiritual nature
which lie behind the physical ones. History can never be
explained out of itself, if we consider physical facts alone.
What we have just been discussing becomes
especially significant: namely, that through the descent of an
Avatar-being the essential soul-spiritual members of the
personality who is the bearer of this Avatar-being are
multiplied and transmitted to other human beings, and appear in
copies of the original. This fact assumes very special
significance through the appearance of the Christ
on earth. Because the Avatar-Being
of Christ dwelt in the body
of Jesus of Nazareth, it became possible for the etheric body
of Jesus of Nazareth to be multiplied innumerable times, as
well as the astral body, and even the ego, — that is, the
ego as an impulse, as it was kindled in the astral body when
the Christ entered into the threefold sheath of Jesus of
Nazareth. But first we will take into account the fact that
through the Avatar-Being the etheric body and the astral body
of Jesus of Nazareth could be multiplied.
Now just through the appearance of the
Christ Principle in the earth evolution, there occurred in
humanity one of the most significant phenomena. What I
have told you about Shem is fundamentally typical and
characteristic for the pre-Christian time. When in this way an
etheric body or an astral body is multiplied, the copies of it
are transmitted as a rule to those people who are related by
blood to the one who had the original; hence, the copies
of Shem's etheric body were transmitted to the members of the
Hebrew tribe. That was changed by the appearance of the Christ
Avatar-Being. The etheric body and the astral body of Jesus of
Nazareth were multiplied, and these copies were preserved as
such until, in the course of human development, they could be
used. They were not, however, limited to any one nationality
nor to any particular people; but when in the course of time a
human being appeared who — irrespective of
nationality — was ripe, was fitted to have interwoven
with his own astral body an astral copy of the astral body of
Jesus of Nazareth, or an etheric copy of his etheric body,
these could be woven into his being. Thus we see how it became
possible in the course of time — let us say — for
all sorts of people to have woven into them copies of the
astral body or of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth.
The intimate history of Christian
development is connected with this fact. What is ordinarily
described as the history of Christian development is a
sum of entirely external occurrences; and therefore far too
little consideration is given to a fact of very great
importance: namely, to the distinction of actual periods in
Christian development. Anyone who can look more deeply into the
evolutionary progress of Christianity will easily perceive that
in the early centuries of the Christian era the manner in which
Christianity was spread was entirely different from that of
later centuries. In the first Christian centuries the spread of
Christianity was connected, as it were, with everything that
could be procured from the physical plane. We need only to take
a look at the early teachers of Christianity to see how at that
time physical recollections, physical relationships, and
physical relics are emphasized. Just consider what great
importance was given by Irenæus,
who in the first century contributed much
to the spread of Christian teaching in various lands, to the
fact that recollections extended back to those who had
themselves listened to the pupils of the Apostles. Great value
was set upon being able to prove by means of such physical
recollections that Christ Himself had taught in Palestine. It
was especially emphasized, for example, that Papias himself had
sat at the feet of the Apostles' pupils; even the places were
pointed out and described where those personalities had sat who
were still eyewitnesses of the fact that Christ had lived
in Palestine. The physical continuance of remembrance is what
was especially emphasized in the early Christian centuries.
What great prominence was given to
everything of a physical nature that still existed can be seen
in the words of the ancient Augustine, who says: “Why do
I believe in the truths of Christianity? Because the
authority of the Catholic Church compels me to.”
The physical authority for the existence of something in the
physical world is to him the important and essential
thing: that a corporate body has been maintained which, linking
personality with personality, reaches up to one who was a
companion of the Christ — such as Peter. For him that is
the determining factor. Thus we can see that in the
spread of Christianity during the early centuries it was the
documents, the impressions of the physical plane, to which the
greatest importance was attached.
Now the situation changes after the time of
Augustine up to, let us say, the 10th, 11th, or 12th century.
During that period of time it was no longer possible to appeal
to the living remembrance, nor to draw upon the documents of
the physical plane, for they lay too far in the past. At that
time also something entirely different came into existence in
the whole mood and disposition of the humanity which was then
embracing Christianity ; and especially was this the case
among European peoples. During that time there was
actually something like a direct knowledge
that a Christ exists, that a Christ died on
the cross, and that He continues to live. From the 4th or 5th
century up to the 10th or 12th there were a large number of
people who would have considered it the greatest folly had they
been told that the events of Palestine could even be doubted,
for they knew better. They had always been able to experience
inwardly a kind of Pauline revelation in miniature — what
Paul, who up to that time was a Saul, experienced on the road
to Damascus, and through which he became a Paul. How did it
happen that in those centuries a number of people were able to
receive revelations which were in a certain sense clairvoyant
concerning the events in Palestine ? It was possible because in
those centuries the multiplied copies of the etheric body
of Jesus of Nazareth, which had been preserved, had been woven
into a great number of people; because it was granted to
them to wear these as a garment, so to speak. There was inwoven
with their etheric bodies, not Jesus' own etheric body, but
only a copy of the inborn original one of Jesus of Nazareth. In
these centuries there were those who could possess such an
etheric body, and who could thereby have a direct knowledge of
Jesus of Nazareth, and also of the Christ. This was the reason
also that the Christ picture became dissociated from
external, historical, physical existence. And the most extreme
dissociation is shown to us in that wonderful poem of the 9th
century, known as the Heliand poem, which
originated in the time of Ludwig the Pious, who
reigned from 814–840, and which was written down by an
outwardly simple man of Saxony. His astral body and his ego
could by no means equal what his etheric body contained, for
into his etheric body was woven a copy of the etheric body of
Jesus of Nazareth. The simple Saxon pastor who wrote this poem
had the certainty through direct clairvoyant vision that the
Christ exists on the astral plane, and that He is the same as
He who was crucified on Golgotha! And because this was a direct
certainty for him, he no longer needed to cling to the
historical documents. He no longer needed the physical
mediation to assure him that the Christ existed. He described
Him, therefore, as detached from the whole Palestinian setting.
He described Him as something like a leader of a
Middle-European or Germanic tribe; and those who
surrounded Him as His followers, the Apostles, he
described as vassals of a Germanic prince. All the external
scenery was changed; only the actually essential, the eternal,
in the Christ Figure remained, — only what
constitutes the structure of the events. Having such a
direct knowledge, built upon such an important foundation as
the copy of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth, it was not
necessary to hold himself rigidly to the immediate
historical events when he was speaking of the Christ. He
invested what was for him direct knowledge with a
different external setting. And just as in the case of
this writer of the Heliand poem we have been able to describe
one of the strange personalities who had a copy of the etheric
body of Jesus of Nazareth interwoven with his etheric body, so
we could find other personalities in this period who had
similar copies. Thus we see how the most important occurrences
of all, which are able to explain history to us in an intimate
way, take place behind the physical events.
If we now follow Christian development
farther, we come, let us say, into the period between the 11th
or 12th century and the 15th. Here there was an entirely
different mystery, which now carried the whole evolution
forward. First it was, so to speak, the memory
of what had taken place on the
physical plane; then it was
the etheric element which was
directly inwoven with the etheric bodies of the bearers
of Christianity in Middle-Europe. In the later centuries, from
the 12th to the 15th, it was especially the
astral body of Jesus of Nazareth
which in numerous copies was woven into the astral bodies of
the most important bearers of Christianity. Such people
then had an ego which as ego was capable of forming very
false notions of all sorts of things; but in their astral
bodies there existed immediate sources of strength, of
devotion, a direct certainty of sacred truths. There existed in
such people deep fervor, absolutely direct conviction, and
also in some circumstances the ability to prove this
conviction. What must sometimes seem so strange to us in
these very personalities is that in their ego their
development by no means equalled what their astral body
contained, because the latter had a copy of the astral body of
Jesus of Nazareth woven into it. What their ego did often
seemed grotesque; but the world of their moods and feelings, of
their fervor, was grand and exalted. Such a personality, for
example, was Francis of Assisi. And when we, as people
of the present time, study Francis of Assisi
and are not able to understand his
conscious ego, but are nevertheless compelled to have the
deepest possible reverence for the entire world of his
feelings and for all that he did, — that fact becomes
explicable from such a point of view. He was one of those
who had a copy of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth inwoven.
Because of this he was able to accomplish just what he did
accomplish, and many of his adherents from the Order of
Franciscans, with its servants and minorites, had similarly
such copies interwoven with their astral bodies.
All the strange and otherwise mysterious
phenomena of that time will become luminous and clear to you,
if you bring properly before the eyes of your soul this
mediation in world evolution between past and future. The
important question was whether what was woven into these people
of the Middle Ages from the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth
was more what we call the sentient soul, or more the
intellectual soul, or more what we call the consciousness soul.
For the astral body of man must of course be considered in a
certain sense as something containing all this; that is, it
must be thought of as enclosing the ego, and containing
sentient soul, intellectual soul, and consciousness soul. All
that was in Francis of Assisi was wholly sentient soul of Jesus
of Nazareth, so to speak. Wholly sentient soul of Jesus of
Nazareth was contained in that remarkable personality
whom you will follow biographically with the soul when you know
the secret of her life: Elizabeth of Thüringen, born
in 1207. Here we have a personality who had a copy of the astral
body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into the sentient soul. The riddle
of the human being is solved for us by means of just such knowledge.
Above all, one phenomenon will be
understandable when you know that during this time the most
diverse personalities had sentient soul, intellectual
soul, or consciousness soul woven into them as copies of the
astral body of Jesus of Nazareth. You will be able to
understand that science, otherwise so little understood, which
we ordinarily designate as scholasticism.
What kind of a task did the scholastics set
for themselves? The task of finding, on the basis of judgment
and intellect, verifications, proofs, for that with which there
was no historical connecting link, and concerning which there
was no direct clairvoyant certainty, such as existed in
previous centuries because of the interwoven etheric body of
Jesus of Nazareth. These people had to set themselves the task
in this way: They said to themselves: It has been communicated
to us through tradition that in history that Being
appeared Who is known as Christ Jesus; that other spiritual
beings of whom the religious documents bear witness have
intervened in human evolution. — From their intellectual
soul, from the intellect element of the copy of the astral body
of Jesus of Nazareth, they set themselves the task of proving
with subtle and clearly developed concepts all that existed in
their literature as mystery truths. Thus arose that strange
science which tried to achieve what was perhaps the ultimate in
sagacity, in intellect, that has ever been reached by humanity.
One may think of the content of scholasticism as one
wishes, but through several centuries, simply by means of this
very delicate discrimination and exact outlining of concepts,
the capacity for human reflection was developed and impressed
upon the culture of the period. It was between the 13th and 15th
centuries that humanity had implanted into it through scholasticism
the capacity to think with acute and searching logic.
Among those who, in turn, were more imbued
with the consciousness soul — that is, the copy of what
had constituted the consciousness soul of Jesus of Nazareth
— there appeared the special conviction — because
the ego functions in the consciousness soul — that the
Christ can be found in the ego. And because they themselves had
within them the element of the consciousness soul from the
astral body of Jesus of Nazareth, the inner Christ rose
resplendent in their souls. These are the individuals whom you
know as Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler,
and all the bearers of mediæval mysticism.
Thus you see how the very diversified
phases of the astral body were multiplied because the exalted
Avatar-Being of Christ had entered into the body of Jesus of
Nazareth; and they worked on in the following age and brought
about the real development of Christianity. In other respects
also this was an important transition. We see how in the course
of its development humanity is dependent in other ways also
upon having incorporated within it these fragments of the
Jesus of Nazareth being. In the early centuries there were
people who were entirely dependent upon the physical plane;
then in the following centuries came those who were accessible
to the interweaving with their etheric bodies of the element of
the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth. Later people tended
more, so to speak, toward the astral body; hence the copy of
the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth could now likewise be
incorporated in them. The astral body is the bearer of the
power of judgment, which awakened particularly between
the 12th and the 14th centuries. You could observe this from
another phenomenon also.
Up to that time it was especially well
understood what depths of mystery the Holy
Communion contained. At most there was
only slight discussion about it, but it was accepted in a
manner that enabled one to feel all that lay in the words :
This is My body and this is My blood, — because the
Christ indicated that He would be united with the earth, would
be the planetary Spirit of the Earth. And because the most
precious thing coming out of the physical earth is grain,
bread became for man the body of Christ; and the sap which
flows through the plants became for him something from
the blood of Christ. Through this knowledge the value of the
Lord's Supper was not diminished, but was on the contrary
heightened. Something of these limitless depths was felt in
these centuries, up to the time when the power of judgment
awakened in the astral body. It was only from then on that
disputes began about the Lord's Supper. Just consider how among
the Hussites, among the Lutherans and the dissenting
Zwinglians and Calvinists, there was discussion as to what the
Lord's Supper is intended to be. Such discussion would not have
been possible earlier, because there was still a direct
knowledge of the Lord's Supper. But we see verified here a
great historical law which should be of special importance for
spiritual scientists: namely, that as long as people
knew what the Lord's Supper was they did not discuss it. In
general you can consider it a sign that people really have no
knowledge of a certain matter .when they begin to discuss it.
Where there is knowledge, knowledge is imparted, and no
particular desire for discussion exists. Where there is desire
for discussion, there is as a rule no knowledge of the truth.
Discussion begins only when there is a lack of knowledge,
and it is always and everywhere the sign of a decline as
regards the seriousness of a subject when discussion
begins. Disintegration of a particular trend is always
proclaimed by discussions. It is very important that in the
spiritual-scientific field we come to understand more and more
that the wish for discussion may really be taken as a sign of
ignorance; on the other hand, that which is the opposite of
discussion, the will to learn, the will gradually to
comprehend what is in question, should be cultivated.
Here we see a great historical fact
verified by the development of Christianity itself. But
we can learn something else besides, if we see how in these
centuries of Christendom just described the power of judgment
— which resides in the astral body — this acute
intellectual wisdom, is developed. Indeed, if we fix our
attention upon realities, not dogmas, we can learn how much
Christianity has accomplished in the course of its progress.
What has become of scholasticism, if we consider it, not as to
its content, but as a means of cultivating and disciplining the
faculties? Do you know what became of it? It became modern
natural science. Modern natural science is entirely unthinkable
without the Christian natural science of the Middle Ages. It is
not only that Copernicus was a canon, and Giordano Bruno a
Dominican, but that all the thought-forms employed in the
natural sciences since the 15th and 16th centuries are nothing
but what was developed and nurtured by the scholastic science
of the Middle Ages. Those people do not live in reality, but in
abstractions, who look up passages in the books of the
scholastics, compare them with the statements of more recent
natural science, and then say: Haeckel and others maintain
something entirely different. Realities are what matter!
A Haeckel, a Darwin, a DuBois-Reymond, a
Huxley, and others, would all have been impossible if the
Christian scholastic science of the Middle ages had not
preceded them. For the very fact that these modern
scientists were able to think as they did they owe to the
Christianized science of the scholastics of the Middle Ages.
That is the reality. By this means humanity has learned to
think in the true sense of the word. — The matter goes
further still. Read David Friedrich Strauss. Try to
observe the mode of his thinking; try to analyze his thought
pictures: How he insists upon representing the whole life of
Jesus of Nazareth as a myth.
[Compare: Rudolf Steiner,
Cosmic and Human History,
Vol. Ill;
Inner Evolutionary Impulses of Humanity
(Lecture II) (not yet available in English translation).]
Do you know whence he
has the keenness of his thinking? He gets it from the Christian
scholasticism of the Middle Ages. Everything by means of which
Christianity is so radically combated today has been learned
from the Christian scholastic science of the Middle Ages.
Actually there could not be today an opponent of Christianity
concerning whom it could not easily be pointed out that he
would not be able to think as he thinks at all, had he not
learned the thought-forms from the scholastic science of the
Middle Ages. This, indeed, would mean to observe world history
in its reality.
What then has happened since the 16th
century? Since the 16th century the ego
itself has come more and more into
prominence, and with it human egotism also, and with egotism,
materialism. What the ego had acquired as content has been
unlearned and forgotten. It was therefore necessary for man to
limit himself to that which the ego can observe — to that
which the physical sense-instrument is able to give to the
ordinary intelligence — and that alone could it
take into the inner sanctuary. The civilization since the
16th century is a civilization of egotism. What must now enter
into this ego? Christian evolution has passed through a
development in the external physical body, a development
in the etheric body, and also in the astral body, and has
penetrated as far as the ego. Now it must take into this ego
the mysteries and secrets of Christianity itself.
Following a time when the ego learned to think through
Christianity, and applied the thoughts to the outer
world, it must now be possible for the ego to be made
into a Christ-receptive organ. This ego must now rediscover the
wisdom which is the primordial wisdom of the Great Avatar, of
Christ Himself. And by what means must this come to pass? By a
profounder understanding of Christianity through spiritual
science. Carefully prepared through the three stages of
physical, etheric, and astral development, the matter of
concern should now be that the organ within man be opened, so
that he may henceforth see into his spiritual environment
with that eye which the Christ can open for him. As the
greatest Avatar-Being, the Christ descended to earth. Let us
get a perspective view of this; let us try to look at the world
as we shall be able to see it when we shall have received the
Christ into ourselves. We then find the whole process of our
world-becoming illuminated and pervaded by the Christ-Being.
That is to say, we describe how upon Saturn man's
physical body gradually came into existence, how on the
Sun the etheric body made its appearance, on the Moon the
astral body, and then on the Earth the ego is added; and we
find how everything tends toward the goal of becoming ever more
independent and individual, in order to incorporate in the
Earth evolution that wisdom which passes over from the Sun to
the Earth. In other words : for the liberated ego of modern
times the Christ and Christianity must become the perspective
center of the cosmic view.
Thus you see how Christianity gradually
prepared itself for what it is to become. In the early
centuries the Christian received Christianity with his physical
capacity for knowledge; then later with his etheric capacity;
and throughout the Middle Ages with his astral capacity for
knowledge. Then for a time Christianity in its true form was
repressed, until the ego had been trained by the three bodies
in the course of Christian development. But since this
ego has learned to think and to direct its vision to the
objective world, it is now capable also of seeing in all
phenomena in this objective world spiritual facts which are
intimately connected with the Central Being, with the Christ
Being: it is capable of beholding the Christ everywhere in the
most various forms as the foundation.
With this fact we stand at the starting
point of spiritual-scientific comprehension and knowledge
of Christianity. We begin to understand what task, what
mission, has been assigned to this Movement for Spiritual
Knowledge, and we realize at the same time the reality of this
mission. Just as the individual human being has physical body,
etheric body, astral body, and ego, and gradually rises to ever
more lofty heights, so is it also in the historical development
of Christianity. We might say that Christianity has also
a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an ego
— an ego which can even deny its origin, as in our time,
since the ego can in any case become egotistic — but
still an ego which can at the same time receive the true Christ
Being into itself, and can gradually rise to ever higher stages
of existence. What the human being is in particular, the great
world is in its totality, as well as in its course of
historical development. If we observe the matter in this
light, there opens before us from the spiritual-scientific
viewpoint a perspective far into the future. And we know how
this can lay hold upon our heart and fill it with
meaning. We comprehend more and more what we have to do,
and we know also that we are not groping in the dark; for we
have not devised any ideas which we intend arbitrarily to
project into the future, but we intend to harbor and to follow
only those ideas which have been gradually prepared
through the centuries. Just as it is true that the ego must
first appear and be developed little by little up to
Spirit Self, Life Spirit, and Spirit Man, after the physical
body, the etheric body, and astral body were already in
existence, so is it true that the modern man with his ego-form,
with his present-day thinking, could only be developed out of
the astral, the etheric, and the physical form of Christianity.
Christianity has become Ego. As it is true that this
was the development in the
past, just so true is it that the ego-form of humanity can
appear only after the astral and etheric form of Christianity
has been developed. Christianity will develop on into the
future; it will offer humanity far greater things, and the
Christian development and the Christian standard of life will
arise in new form: the transformed astral body will
appear as the Christian Spirit Self; the transformed etheric
body as the Christian Life Spirit.
And in a radiant perspective of the future of Christianity,
Spirit Man gleams forth before our souls like a star toward
which we strive, illuminated and glowing through and through with
the spirit of Christianity.
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