THE Festival of the Holy Night has for centuries been a great festival
of remembrance in the whole of Christendom. And when we think of it as
such we must be mindful of all that has been associated with this
festival in the feelings and hearts of men. It must be remembered that
the festival of the 25th of December did not become an institution in
Christianity until the fourth century A.D. It was in the fourth
century, for the first time actually in the year 354, in Rome, that
the Festival of the Birth of Jesus was placed as it were before the
Christian world as a great and memorable contribution to the times. It
was out of the very deepest instincts of Christian evolution that such
a contribution to the times was made in the fourth century of our era.
The peoples from the North were swarming down towards the South of
Europe. Many pagan customs were still widespread in the southern
regions of Europe, in Roman districts and in Greece; pagan customs
were also rife in North Africa, in Asia Minor in short, wherever
Christian thought and Christian feeling were gradually beginning to
spread. But by its very nature Christianity was not intended to be a
sectarian teaching, destined for this or that circle of human beings.
However many factors, both internal and external, have mitigated
against its original purpose, Christianity was, as a matter of course,
intended to nourish the souls and hearts of all men upon the earth.
In the religious consciousness of antiquity, Divine Powers were
associated with the stars, and the mightiest Power of all with the
sun. This consciousness was still alive in the pagan peoples both of
the North and South of Europe, and within this pagan mind there lived
the thought that the time when the earth has her darkest days, at the
winter solstice, is also the time when the victorious power of the
sun, working in all earthly fertility, begins again to unfold.
The feeling that at this season the earth is resting in her own being,
shut off from the Divine Powers of the cosmos and living in loneliness
within the universe, was superseded at the time of the winter solstice
by the feeling of hope that once again the rays of light and love from
the realm of the sun come to awaken the earth to fruitfulness. And a
realisation of the nature of man's own soul-being was intimately
associated with this other feeling.
In the life of the ancient pagan religions, man felt himself inwardly
part of the earth, a limb or member of the earth. It was as though the
very life of the earth were continued into his own body. And so in the
days of summer when the earth receives the strongest forces of warmth
and light from the heavenly sphere of the sun, man felt that his own
being too was given over to that world whence the radiant,
warmth-giving rays of the sun shine down upon the earth. During the
time of midsummer he felt as if his whole being were given up to the
wide cosmic spaces. At the time of the winter solstice man felt
himself in intimate connection with the earth and with all the forces
preserved in the earth from the warmth and radiance of the summer.
Together with the earth he felt himself living in loneliness within
the cosmos. And the return of the forces of the Divine-Spiritual
cosmos to the earth at this time of the winter solstice was a deep and
real experience in him.
And so into the thought of the Christmas Festival man laid all that
his life of feeling, his life of soul and spirit brought home to him
so intimately in connection with the universality of the cosmic
Powers. This intimate experience at the festival of the winter
solstice was closely connected with the Christian impulse and it was
therefore quite natural that those who came into contact with
Christianity should share in its most precious experience, namely, an
experience connected with this festival of the winter solstice.
In line with the change that had taken place between the age described
in the Old Testament and the age described in the New Testament, the
most cherished experience of Christianity lay in the remembrance of
the birth of Jesus. The peoples of the Old Testament expressed the
great mystery of human life and death by saying: When the soul passes
through the gate of death it enters upon the path which will unite it
again with the Fathers. And what does this imply? It implies that in
those times there was a longing to return to the Fathers, and this
indeed was a cherished and intimate experience an experience bound
up with the conceptions expressed in the Old Testament.
In the course of the first four centuries of Christendom this longing
for communion with the Fathers was replaced by something else. The
souls of men were directed towards the birth of the Being Who is the
centre around which Christendom coheres. The feeling that lived in the
peoples of the Old Testament changed into a feeling connected with the
events at Nazareth or Bethlehem, with the birth of the child Jesus.
And so, when it established the Christmas Festival in the fourth
century, Christianity brought its contribution towards the union of
men all over the earth. A cherished and intimate experience was bound
up with the Christmas Festival. And if we think of the way in which
this Christmas Festival was celebrated through the centuries, we find
evidence everywhere that at the time of the approach of Christmas, the
souls of men within Christianity were filled with loving devotion for
the Jesus Child. And this loving devotion is the revelation of
something of outstanding significance through the centuries which
followed.
We must really have an inner understanding of what it signified when
the Christmas Festival was instituted on the 25th of December, that is
to say, more or less at the time of the winter solstice. For actually
as late as the year A.D. 353, in Rome itself, this festival was not
celebrated on the 25th of December, neither was it a commemoration of
the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The festival was celebrated on the 6th
of January as a commemoration of the Baptism in the Jordan. It was a
festival of remembrance associated with the Christ Being. And this
festival of remembrance included the thought that through the Baptism
in Jordan, the Christ, Who was a Being belonging to a world beyond the
earth, had come down from the heavens and united himself with human
nature in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
It was the celebration of a birth that was not an ordinary birth. The
festival was a celebration of the descent of the Christ Being, whereby
new and quickening forces poured into earthly existence. The day was
dedicated to the revelation of the Christ, to remembrance of the
Mystery that a heavenly force had united with the earth, and that
through this intervention of the heavens the evolution of humanity had
received a new impulse. This Mystery of the descent of a heavenly
Being into earthly existence was still understood in the age of the
Event of Golgotha itself, and for some time afterwards. For at that
time fragments were still present of an ancient wisdom that had been
capable of understanding a truth only to be known in super-sensible
experience. The old instinctive knowledge, the ancient wisdom which
was poured into human beings born on earth as a gift of the Gods
this wisdom was gradually lost. It faded away little by little as the
centuries went by. But at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, enough
wisdom was still left to give man some insight into the mighty Event
that had come to pass.
And so in the early centuries of Christendom the Mystery of Golgotha
was understood by the light of wisdom. But by the time of the fourth
century after Christ, this wisdom had almost completely disappeared.
Men's minds were occupied with what was being brought to them on all
sides by the pagan peoples, and understanding of the deep mystery
connected with the union of the Christ with the man Jesus was no
longer possible. The possibility of understanding the real nature of
the Mystery of Golgotha was lost to the human soul. And so it
remained, on through the subsequent centuries. The ancient wisdom was
lost to humanity and necessarily so, because out of this wisdom man
could never have attained his freedom, his condition of
self-dependence. It was necessary for man to enter for a while into
the darkness in order, out of this darkness, to develop, in freedom,
the primal forces of his being. But a true Christian instinct
substituted another quality in place of the wisdom which the world of
Christendom had brought to the Mystery of Golgotha a wisdom which
illumined the discussions that were held on the nature of this
Mystery. Something else was substituted for the quality of wisdom.
Modern Christianity has very little knowledge or understanding of the
profundity of the discussions that were carried on among the wise
Church Fathers in the first centuries of Christendom as to the manner
in which the two natures the Divine and the Human had been
united in the personality of Jesus of Nazareth. In the early Christian
centuries this was a Mystery which addressed itself to a living wisdom
a wisdom which then faded away into empty abstraction. Very little
has remained in Western Christianity of the holy zeal with which men
tried to understand how the Divine and the Human had been united in
the Mystery of Golgotha.
But the Christian impulse is mighty and powerful. And it was the power
of love which came to replace the wisdom with which the Mystery of
Golgotha was greeted at the time when its radiance shone over the
earth. In marvellous abundance, love has been poured out through the
centuries from the minds and hearts of men to the Jesus Child in the
manger. And it is really wonderful to find how strongly this power of
love is reflected in the Christmas Plays which have come down to us
from earlier centuries of Christendom. If we let these things work
upon us, we shall realise how deeply the Christmas Festival is a
festival of remembrance. We shall realise too that, just as the
peoples of the Old Testament strove in wisdom to be gathered to the
Fathers, so the peoples of the New Testament have striven in devotion
and love to gather together at Christmas around the sinless Child in
the manger.
But who will deny that the love poured out to the wellspring of
Christendom by so many hearts has little by little become more or less
a habit? Who will deny that in our age the Christmas Festival has lost
the living power it once possessed? The men of the Old Testament
longed to return to their origin, to be gathered to their Fathers, to
return to their ancestors. The Christian turns his mind and heart to
human nature in its primal purity when he celebrates the Festival of
the birth of Jesus. And it was out of this same Christian instinct
an instinct which caused man to associate the Christmas Festival with
his earthly origin that the day before Christmas, the 24th of
December, was dedicated to Adam and Eve. The day of Adam and Eve
preceded the day of the birth of Jesus. And so it was out of a deep
instinct that the Tree of Paradise came to be associated as a symbol
with the Christmas Festival.
We turn our eyes first to the manger in Bethelehem, to the Child lying
there among the animals who stand round the blessed Mother. It is a
heavenly symbol of the primal origin of humanity. Our feelings and
minds are carried back to the earthly origin of the human being, to
the Tree of Paradise, and with this Tree of Paradise there is
associated the crib, just as in the Holy Legend the origin of man on
earth is associated with the Mystery of Golgotha. The Holy Legend
tells that the wood of the Tree of Paradise was handed down in a
miraculous way from generation to generation until the age of the
Mystery of Golgotha, and that the Cross erected on Golgotha, the place
of the skull the Cross on which Christ Jesus hung was made of
the very wood of the Tree of Paradise. In other words, the heavenly
origin of man is associated with his earthly origin.
In another sense too, the fundamental conception of Christendom tended
to obliterate understanding of these things. Nobody in our days can
fail to realise that men have very little insight into the truth that
the Godhead may be venerated as the Father Principle but that the
Godhead can also be conceived as the Son. Humanity in general, as well
as our so-called enlightened theology, has more or less lost sight of
the difference in nature between the Father God and the Son God. And
because this insight had been lost, we find the most modern school of
orthodox theology proclaiming the view that in reality the Gospels
treat of God the Father, not of God the Son, that Jesus of Nazareth is
simply to be regarded as a great Teacher, the messenger of the Father
God.
When people of to-day speak of Christ, they still associate with His
flame certain memories of the Holy Story, but they have no clearly
defined feeling of the difference in the nature of the Son God on the
one hand and of the Father God on the other. But at the time when the
Mystery of Golgotha was fulfilled in the realm of earthly existence,
this feeling was still quite living. Over in Asia, in a place of no
great importance to Rome at the time, the Christ had appeared in Jesus
of Nazareth. According to the early Christians, Christ was that Divine
Nature Who had ensouled a human being in a way that had never before
occurred on the earth, nor would occur thereafter. And so this one
Event of Golgotha, this one ensouling of a human being by a Divine
Nature, by the Christ, imparts meaning and purpose to the whole of
earthly evolution. All previous evolution is to be thought of as
preparatory to this Event of Golgotha, and all subsequent evolution as
the fulfilment, the consequence of the Mystery of Golgotha.
The scene of this Event lay over yonder in Asia, and on the throne of
Rome sat Augustus Caesar. People of to-day no longer realise that
Caesar Augustus on the throne of Rome was regarded as a Divine
Incarnation. The Roman Caesars were actually regarded as Gods in human
form.
And so we have two different conceptions of a God. The one God upon
the throne of Rome and the other on Golgotha the place of a skull.
There could be no greater contrast!
Think of the figure of Caesar Augustus, who, according to his subjects
and according to Roman decree, was a God incarnate in a man. He was
thought to be a Divine Being who had descended to the earth; the
Divine forces had united with the birth-forces, with the blood; the
Divine power, having come down into earthly existence, was pulsing in
and through the blood. Such was the universal conception, although it
took different forms, of the dwelling of the Godhead on earth. The
people thought of the Godhead as bound up with the forces of the
blood. They said: Ex Deo nascimur. Out of God we are born. And even
on lower levels of existence they felt themselves related to what
lived, as the crown of humanity, in a personality like Caesar
Augustus.
All that was thus honoured and revered was a Divine Father Principle.
For it was a Principle living in the blood that is part of a human
being when he is born into the world. But in the Mystery of Golgotha
the Divine Christ Being had united Himself with the man Jesus of
Nazareth united Himself not, in this case, with the blood, but with
the highest forces of the human soul. A God had here united with a
human being, in such a way that mankind was saved from falling victim
to the earthly forces of matter. The Father God lives in the blood.
The Son lives in the soul and spirit of man. The Father God leads man
into material life: Ex Deo nascimur. Out of God we are born. But
God the Son leads man again out of material existence. The Father God
leads man out of the super-sensible into the material. God the Son
leads man out of the material into the super-sensible. In Christo
morimur. In Christ we die.
Two distinctly different feelings were there. The feeling and
perception of God the Son was added to the feeling associated with God
the Father. Certain impulses underlying the process of evolution
caused the loss of the faculty to differentiate between the Father God
and God the Son. And to this day these impulses have remained in
mankind in general and in Christianity too. Men who were possessed of
the ancient, primordial wisdom knew from their own inner experiences
that they had come down from Divine-Spiritual worlds into physical and
material life. Pre-existence was a certain and universally accepted
fact. Men looked back through birth and through conception, up into
the Divine-Spiritual worlds, whence the soul descends at birth into
physical existence.
In our language we have only the word Immortality. We have no
expression for the other side of Eternity, because our language does
not include the word Unborn-ness. But if the conception of Eternity
is to be complete, the word Unborn-ness must be there as well as the
word Immortality. Indeed all that the word Unborn-ness can mean to
us is of greater significance than what is implied by the word
Immortality.
It is true that the human being passes through the gate of death into
a life in the spiritual world, but it is no less true that an
exceedingly egotistical conception of this life in the spiritual
world is presented to man to-day. Human beings live here on the earth.
They long for Immortality, for they do not want to sink into
nothingness at death. And so, in speaking of Immortality, all that is
necessary is to appeal to the instincts of egotism.
If you listen carefully to sermons you will realise how many of them
count upon the egotistical impulses in human beings when they want to
convey an idea of Immortality to the soul. But when it comes to the
conception of Unborn-ness it is not possible to rely upon such
impulses. Human beings are not so egotistical in their desire for
existence in the spiritual world before birth and conception as they
are in their desire for a life after death in the spiritual-world. If
a life hereafter is assured them, then they are satisfied. Why, they
say, should we trouble about whence we have come? Out of their egotism
men want to know about a Hereafter. But when once again they unfold a
wisdom untinged with egotism, Unborn-ness will be as important to them
as Immortality is important to-day.
In olden times men knew that they had lived in Divine-Spiritual
worlds, had descended through birth into material existence. They felt
that the forces around them in a purely spiritual environment were
united with the blood, were living on in the blood. And from this
insight there arose the conception: Out of God we are born. The God
Who lives in the blood, the God whom the man of flesh represents here
on earth he is the Father God.
The other pole of life namely, death demands a different impulse
of the life of soul. There must be something in the human being that
is not exhausted with death. The conception corresponding to this is
of that God Who leads over the earthly and physical to the
super-sensible and superphysical. It is the God connected with the
Mystery of Golgotha. The Divine Father Principle has always been
associated, and rightly so, with the transition from the super-sensible
to the material, and through the Divine Son the transition is brought
about from the sensible and material to the super-sensible. And that is
why the Resurrection thought is essentially bound up with the Mystery
of Golgotha. The words of St. Paul that Christ is what He is for
humanity because He is the Risen One these words are an integral
part of Christianity.
In the course of the centuries, understanding of the Risen One, of the
Conqueror of Death, has gradually been lost and modern theology
concerns itself wholly with the man Jesus of Nazareth. But Jesus of
Nazareth, the man, cannot be placed at the same level as the Father
Principle. Jesus of Nazareth might be regarded as the messenger of the
Father but he could not, according to the arguments of early
Christianity, be placed beside the Father God. Co-equal and
co-existent are the Divine Father and the Divine Son: the Father Who
brings about the transition from the super-sensible to the material
Out of God we are born and the Son Who brings about the transition
from the material to the super-sensible In Christ we die. And
transcending both birth and death there is a third Principle
proceeding from and co-equal both with the Divine Father and the
Divine Son namely, the Spirit the Holy Spirit. Within the being of
man, therefore, we are to see the transition from the super-sensible to
the material and from the material to the super-sensible. And the
Principle which knows neither birth nor death is the Spirit into which
and through which we are awakened: Through the Holy Spirit we shall
be re-awakened.
For many centuries Christmas was a festival of remembrance. How much
of the substance of this festival has been lost is proved by the fact
that all that is left of the Being Christ Jesus is the man Jesus of
Nazareth. But for us to-day Christmas must become a call and a summons
to something new. A new reality must be born. Christianity needs an
impulse of renewal, for inasmuch as Christianity no longer understands
the Christ Being in Jesus of Nazareth, it has lost its meaning and
purpose. The meaning and essence of Christianity must be found again.
Humanity must learn again to realise that the Mystery of Golgotha can
be comprehended only in the light of super-sensible knowledge.
Another factor, too, contributes to this lack of understanding of the
Mystery of Golgotha. We can look with love to the Babe in the manger,
but we have no wisdom-filled understanding of the union of the Christ
Being with the man Jesus of Nazareth. Nor can we look up into the
heavenly heights with the same intensity of feeling which was there in
men who lived at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. In those days
men looked up to the starry worlds and saw in the courses and
constellations of the stars something like a countenance of the Divine
soul and spirit of the cosmos. And in the Christ Being they could see
the spiritual Principle of the universe visibly manifested in the
glories of the starry worlds. But for modern man the starry worlds and
all the worlds of cosmic space have become little more than a product
of calculation a cosmic mechanism.
The world has become empty of the Gods. Out of this world which is
void of the Gods, the world that is investigated to-day by astronomy
and physics, the Christ Being could never have descended. In the light
of the primeval wisdom possessed by humanity, this world was
altogether different. It was the body of the Divine World-Soul and of
the Divine World-Spirit. And out of this spiritual cosmos the Christ
came down to earth and united Himself with a human being in Jesus of
Nazareth. This truth is expressed in history itself in a profound way.
All over the earth before the Mystery of Golgotha there were
Mysteries, holy sanctuaries that were schools of learning and at the
same time schools for the cultivation of the religious life. In these
Mysteries, indications were given of what must come to pass in the
future. It was revealed in the Mysteries that man bears within his
being a power that is the conqueror of death, and this victory over
death was an actual experience of the Initiates in the Mysteries. In
deep and profound experience the candidate for Initiation knew with
sure conviction: Thou has awakened within thyself the power that
conquers death. The Initiate experienced in a picture the process that
would operate fully in times still to come, in accordance with the
great plan of world-history. In the Mysteries of all peoples, this
sacred truth was proclaimed: Man can be victorious over death. But it
was also indicated that what could be presented in the Mysteries in
pictures only would one day become an actual and single event in
world-history. The Mystery of Golgotha was proclaimed in advance by
the Pagan Mysteries of antiquity; it was the fulfilment of what had
everywhere been heralded in the sanctuaries and holy places of the
Mysteries.
When the candidate had been prepared in the Mysteries, when he had
performed the difficult training which brought him to the point of
Initiation, when he had made his soul so free of the body that the
soul could be united with and perceive the spiritual worlds, when he
was convinced by his own knowledge that life is always victorious over
death in human nature then he confronted the very deepest
experience that was associated with these ancient Mysteries. And this
deepest experience was that the obstacle presented by the earth, the
obstacle of matter, must be removed if that which is at the same time
both spiritual and material, is to become visible namely, the sun.
It was to a mysterious phenomenon although it was a phenomenon
well-known to every Initiate that the candidate was led. He beheld
the sun at the midnight hour, saw the sun through the earth, at the
other side of the earth.
Instinctive feeling of the most holy and most sacred things have,
after all, remained through the course of history. Many of these
feelings and perceptions have weakened, but to those who are willing
to look with unprejudiced eyes, the old meaning is still discernible.
And so we can read some thing from the fact that at midnight leading
from the 24th to the 25th of December, the midnight Mass is supposed
to be said in every Christian Church. We can read something from this
fact when we know that the Mass is nothing more nor less than a
synthesis of the rites and rituals of the Mysteries which led to
initiation, to the beholding of the sun at midnight. This institution
of the midnight Mass at Christmas is an echo of the Initiation which
enabled the candidate, at the midnight hour, to see the sun at the
other side of the earth and therewith to behold the universe as a
spiritual universe. And at the same time the Cosmic Word resounded
through the cosmos the Cosmic Word which from the courses and
constellations of the stars sounded forth the mysteries of World
Being.
Blood sets human beings at variance with one another. Blood fetters to
the earthly and material that element in man which descends from
heavenly heights. In our century, especially, men have gravely sinned
against the essence of Christianity, inasmuch as they have turned
again to the principle of blood. But they must find the way to the
Being Who was Christ Jesus, Who does not address Himself to the blood
but Who poured out his blood and gave it to the earth. Christ Jesus is
the Being Who speaks to the soul and to the spirit, Who unites and
does not separate so that Peace may arise among men on earth out of
their understanding of the Cosmic Word.
By a new understanding of the Christmas Festival, super-sensible
knowledge can transform the material universe into spirit before the
eye of the soul, transform it in such a way that the sun at midnight
becomes visible and is known in its spiritual nature. Such knowledge
brings understanding of the super-earthly Christ Being, the Sun Being
Who was united with the man Jesus of Nazareth. It can bring
understanding, too, of the unifying peace that should hover over the
peoples of the earth. The Divine Beings are revealed in the heights,
and through this revelation peace rings forth from the hearts of men
who are of good will.
Such is the word of Christmas. Peace on earth flows into unison with
the Divine Light that is streaming upon the earth. We need something
more than the mere remembrance of the day of the birth of Jesus. We
need to understand and realise that a new Christmas Festival must
arise, that a new Festival of Birth must lead on from the present into
the immediate future. A new Christ Impulse must be born and a new
knowledge of the nature of Christ. We need a new understanding of the
truth that the Divine-Spiritual heavens and the physical world of
earth are linked to one another and that the Mystery of Golgotha is
the most significant token of this union. We must understand once
again why it is that at the midnight hour of Christmas a warning
resounds to us, bidding us be mindful of the Divine-Spiritual origin
of man and of the fact that the revelation of the heavens is
inseparable from peace on earth.
The Holy Night must become a reality. It is not enough to give each
other presents at Christmas in accordance with ancient custom and
habit. The warm feelings which for centuries inspired Christian men at
the Christmas Festival have been lost. We need a new Christmas, a new
Holy Night, reminding us not only of the Birth of Jesus of Nazareth,
but bringing a new birth, the birth of a new Christ Impulse. Out of
full consciousness we must learn to understand that in the Mystery of
Golgotha a super-sensible Power was made manifest, was revealed in the
material earth. We must understand with full consciousness what
resounded instinctively in the Mysteries of old. We must receive this
impulse consciously. Again we must learn to understand that when the
Holy Night of Christmas becomes a reality to man he can experience the
wonderful midnight union between the revelation of the heavens and the
peace of earth.
This is the meaning of the words which will now be given and which are
dedicated to Christmas. They synthesize what I wanted to bring to your
souls and hearts to-night. They try to express, out of consciousness
of the anthroposophical understanding of Christ, how we can come again
to the wisdom that once lived in men instinctively and remained to
this extent, that at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha there were
still some who knew how to celebrate the revelation of the Christ
Being. We, in our day, must achieve understanding of the Christ as a
Cosmic Being a Cosmic Being Who united Himself with the earth. The
time at which this understanding is accessible, to the greater part of
men on earth, is the time of the cosmic Holy Night whose approach we
await. If we understand these things, then we can make alive within us
the feelings which I have tried to express in the following verse:
Behold the Sun
At the midnight hour;
Build with stones in the lifeless ground,
Thus in decay and in the night of Death
Find the Creation's new beginning,
Young morning's strength;
Glory in the heights the eternal Word of Gods;
Shelter in the depths the Powers of Peace.
In darkness dwelling, create a Sun.
In matter weaving, know the joy of Spirit!
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