Thoughts
on Easter
HERE
is an important difference between thoughts on Christmas
and thoughts on Easter. Those who can compare these thoughts in
the sense often spoken of here, and then bring them into the
right relationship to each other, making this relationship
inwardly alive, will be aware of an inner experience which in a
certain sense contains the whole secret of humanity.
Christmas thoughts speak to us of birth; we know that through
birth the eternal part of man enters a world from which he
derives his visible, sensible nature. When we approach the
thought of Christmas from this standpoint, we feel it as
something that connects us with what is super-sensible. Along
with everything else it brings with it, such a thought seems to
direct us to one pole of our existence where as physical beings
of sense we come in touch with spiritual, super-sensible
existence. On this account, the birth of man, taken in its full
meaning, can never be understood by a science which draws its
conclusions merely from observation of physical sense
existence.
The
thoughts that form the basis of the Easter Festival lie at the
other pole of human experience, and in the course of Western
evolution they have developed more and more into thoughts
that have built up the materialistic conceptions of the West.
The thought of Easter can be grasped — at first perhaps
somewhat abstractly — when one realises that the eternal,
immortal, part of men — the part that is not born —
has come down like the spirit, from super-sensible worlds, and
has clothed itself with the human physical body. I have
frequently shown from the most varied standpoints that the
activity of the spirit within the physical body has from the
beginning of this physical existence, really been an
introduction of the physical body to death, and that with the
thought of birth the thought of death also enters.
On
other occasions I have explained to you how the organisation of
the human head is only to be understood when we know that,
fundamentally speaking, continual death is taking place there,
and that this is only counteracted by the life forces of
the rest of the human organism. The forces of death are always
present in the human head, making man's thought nature
possible, and the moment these gain the upper hand over his
mortal nature, death occurs. The thought of death is really but
the other side of the thought of birth, and therefore cannot
enter into the thought of Easter. At the time when Christianity
still found its earliest form within Eastern mentality, the
Pauline church directed the attention of men not so much to the
death of Christ Jesus, but to His resurrection, and declared in
the powerful words of Paul: “If the Christ be not risen,
then is your faith dead.”
The
resurrection, the triumph over death, was primarily the Easter
thought in early Christianity, that form of Christianity which
was still influenced by the wisdom of the East. On the other
side, however, we see pictures rise which represent Christ
Jesus as the Good Shepherd Who watches over the eternal
interests of man who sleeps through his mortal existence. Above
all, we see how early Christianity is directed to the words of
the Gospel: “He whom ye seek is not here; you must not
seek Him on the physical plane (so we might supplement the
words); if you do we can but tell you — He Whom ye seek
as physical Being is no longer here in this physical world of
the senses.”
The
great and comprehensive wisdom which in the early Christian
centuries was still capable of penetrating to the Mystery of
Golgotha and to all that went with it, died down soon
afterwards into the materialism of the West. This materialism
had not fully emerged in the early centuries; it was prepared
gradually. The early, as yet feeble, materialistic impulse of
the first centuries, which was hardly perceptible, only changed
much later into something that developed into a materialism
that more and more permeated the whole civilisation of the
West. The religious thought of the East had been joined to the
evolving state-controlled thought of the West. In the fourth
century Christianity became the state religion, which means
that something entered Christianity which no longer was
religion.
Julian, the Apostate, who though no Christian was a religious
man, could in no way accept what Christianity had become
through Constantine. In the blending of Christianity with
declining Romanism, we see how, at first weakly, but quite
noticeably, the influence of Western materialism made its first
appearance. It was under this influence that a representation
of Christ Jesus appeared which was not seen anywhere at first,
and, indeed, did not exist in original Christianity: the
representation of Christ Jesus as the crucified suffering Man
of Sorrows, as the Man Who perished under the burden of the
unspeakable sufferings that came upon Him.
Through this a break occurred in the whole outlook of the
Christian world; for this presentation of the crucified,
pain-filled Christ, which since then has continued through the
centuries, is a Christ Who can no longer be grasped in His
spiritual nature, but only in His corporal nature. The more
that signs of suffering were imprinted on the human body, the
more that Art, in all its perfection, gave expression to the
suffering Redeemer throughout the various epochs, so much the
more were seeds of materialism implanted in Christian
perception. The crucifix expresses the transition into
Christian materialism. This in no way denies that what Art has
embodied as the pain of the Redeemer in so stupendous a way
must not be recognised in its full depth and meaning; but all
the same it is true that with this presentation of the Redeemer
dying under the sufferings of the Cross a departure was made
from the really spiritual acceptance of Christianity.
With this acceptance of Christ as the Man of sorrow was mingled
the idea of “Christ, the Judge of the World,” in
whom we have really to see another expression of Jahve or
Jehova, especially of that Jehova transformed into a judge in
so magnificent a manner in the Sistine chapel in Rome. The
Spirit that was victor over death, that triumphed over the
grave from which the Redeemer rose victorious, is the same
Spirit which, in the representation of the crucifix we are
permitted to lose sight of; this is the same Spirit, which in
the year 869 at the Eighth Œcumenical Council in
Constantinople, was declared to be something that it was
unnecessary for man to believe. At that Council it was decreed
that man must be held to consist of body and soul, and that
spirit only occurs in certain attributes of the soul. Just as
we have seen the Spirit expelled from the crucifix, and only
that left which pain-racked souls can feel without the Spirit
triumphant, the Spirit that supports, and at the same time
cares for men, so in the conclusions of the Council of
Constantinople we have to see the Spirit struck off from the
nature of man.
Good Friday and the Easter Day festival of the Resurrection
were compressed into one. In the days when men were not so dry
and void of understanding as they became later, the Festival of
Good Friday, became, in a certain sense, a festival in
which the thoughts of Easter were transformed in an absolutely
egotistic manner. Individual souls steeped themselves in pain;
they rejoiced, as it were, to wallow in pain. During long
periods of time this was the thought of Good Friday which had
been intended originally to serve but as a background for the
thought of Easter. All comprehension of Easter in its
true acceptance became less and less possible. For those
persons who had exalted into belief the principle that they
consisted of body and soul alone, required to have their
feelings stirred by the representation of the dying Redeemer.
They required to be confronted with a picture of physical pain,
in order that it might serve as a background (at least in an
outward sense) for the perception which was theirs
originally, that the living Spirit must always be victor
over anything that might happen to the physical body. Men had
need of the picture of the martyrs' death in order to
experience, by way of contrast, the true thoughts of Easter.
You must try to experience more and more deeply, how true
spiritual perception and the true spiritual point of view
gradually weakened, and to look with amazement, and at the same
time with a consciousness of the tragedy of it all, on
the artistic attempts that were made to represent the suffering
Man on the Cross. It is not enough that we should turn our
attention, with a few casual thoughts and feelings, to the
things that are necessary for our day. We must thoroughly
investigate that which, in respect to what is spiritual,
has for long been on the downward path in Western civilisation.
It is very necessary for us at the present time that those
things which are greatest in one realm should also be felt as
something to which humanity must rise. We have need of the
thoughts of Easter throughout all Western civilisation. In
other words, we have need of something that will raise us again
to that which is spiritual. The holy mystery of birth —
the mystery of Christmas — which emerged magnificently at
one time in Western culture, has gradually been lost sight of
in the evolving civilisation of the West; it has sunk down into
those sentimentalities which are but the other pole of a
materialistic development, and which simply revel in all kinds
of songs about the little Jesus. It was a plunging into
pleasurable emotions regarding the little child. Instead of
feeling the stupendous mystery of the entrance of a
super-earthly Spirit in the Christmas mystery; trivial
songs about the Babe Jesus gained a predominant influence and
set the fashion all through Europe. It is characteristic of the
development of that Christianity which followed purely
intellectual lines, that up to the present day certain writers
in this domain have gone so far as to say: The gospels are not
mainly concerned with the Son but with the Father — yet
even this Christianity retains the resurrection, though
thoughts of the resurrection are always mixed up with thoughts
of death. It is, however, characteristic of the modern
evolution of Christianity that the thought of Good Friday, in
the form I have just described it, has come ever more to the
fore, and the thought of the Resurrection — the true
Easter thought — has gradually retired. Thoughts on
Easter must point especially to a time in which man must
experience the resurrection of his being through the Spirit. We
have need of Easter thoughts, and of a full understanding of
such thoughts. For this, however, it is necessary that we
realise that the Man of Sorrows is just as much the sign of the
entrance of materialism into Western civilisation as is, on the
other hand, the idea of the purely juridical World-Judge.
We
have, indeed, need of the Christ as a super-sensible
Being, as a Being Who is above and beyond the earth and yet has
entered into earthly evolution. We must reach up with our human
conceptions to such solar conceptions.
Just as we must realise that thoughts of the birth at Christmas
have become such that they have dragged trivial sentimental
feelings into one of the greatest of mysteries, so we have also
to recognise how necessary it is to stress the fact that
something entered earthly evolution at that time which is
incomprehensible to earthly means of cognition, but
is comprehensible to spiritual knowledge.
Spiritual knowledge finds its greatest support in the
Resurrection, and recognises that the eternal spiritual part,
even of man, is untouched by what is physical and of the body.
It recognises in the words of St. Paul, “If Christ be not
risen, then is your faith vain,” confirmation of the real
nature of the Christ, a confirmation which in time to come will
be reached by other and more conscious methods.
It
is in this way that we must recall thoughts of Easter at the
present time. In this way we must make of this season an inward
festival, one in which we solemnise the victory of the Spirit
over that which is of the body.
As
we cannot disregard history, we must keep before us the
pain-stricken Jesus on the Cross — the Man of Sorrow; but
above the Cross must appear the Victor, untouched equally by
birth and death, Who can alone direct our gaze to the
everlasting fields of spiritual life. Only in this way can we
approach the true nature of the Christ. Western humanity has
drawn the Christ down to its own level, has drawn Him down as a
little child, as One pre-eminent in suffering and death.
I
have frequently said that the words of Buddha, “Death is
evil,” came from his lips just as long before the
Mystery of Golgotha as the crucifix appeared after they
were uttered. Men looked on the crucified One and found death
was no evil but something that in truth did not exist. This
feeling, which arose out of the wisdom of the West, yet is
profounder than Buddhism, underlay the other which adhered
firmly to the view of the pain-oppressed Sufferer. We must rise
not only in thought — for these are most inadequate
— but with the whole scope of our feeling to what I might
call the fate which in the course of the centuries overtook
man's conception of the Mystery of Golgotha. We must keep in
mind that even among the ancient Hebrews, Jahve was not thought
of as a judge of the world in a juristic sense. The Book of
Job, the greatest dramatic presentation of religious
feeling among the ancient Hebrews, which presents to us
the suffering Job, excludes the idea of external justice. Job
is a suffering man, a man who regards what happens to him in
the external world as fate. The legal idea of retaliation only
entered gradually into the organisation of the world. Yet in a
certain way what is represented in Michael Angelo's masterpiece
in the Sistine Chapel is like a revival of the Jahve-Principle.
It is the Christ we have need of, however, the Christ Whom we
can seek in our own inner beings, and Who at once appears when
we do seek Him. We have need of the Christ Who enters into our
wills, Who gives warmth and fire to our wills that they
may become strong to accomplish those deeds on behalf of
humanity for which we long. We have need of that Christ, Whom
we do not regard as the suffering Man of Sorrows, but as He Who
has risen above the Cross, and thence looks down on that
unreality which ended with the Cross. We have need of the vivid
consciousness of the eternity of the Spirit.
We
do not have this vivid consciousness of the Spirit when we
loose ourselves in contemplation of the picture of the
crucifixion; and when we see how this has gradually been
changed more and more into something that calls up
feeling of sorrow and suffering, we will realise what power
this tendency of men's feeling has acquired. It has turned
men's eyes from what is truly spiritual, and directed them to
that which is earthly and physical. It is certainly
occasionally expressed in a grand way, but it has always seemed
to men like Goethe, for example, who have ever felt the need
for our civilisation to reach up once more to what is
spiritual, to be something in which they could not really
participate. Goethe has said often enough that the crucified
Saviour does not express to him what he feels in Christianity:
the uplifting of man to that which is spiritual.
Of
necessity it has come to pass that the characteristic
note of Good Friday as well as that of Easter has changed. Good
Friday has become that which brings along with it the
contemplation of the end of Jesus; and with this the feeling
that what is then contemplated is but the other side of birth,
and those who do not see death equally in birth do not see with
completeness.
Those who are not capable of feeling that in the atmosphere of
death with which Good Friday is associated only one side
of existence is presented to them; the opposite pole being that
which is presented by the entrance of a child at birth into the
world, are not prepared in the right way for the real
Easter note, which is that we should realise: Whatever may be
the human sheaths that here are born, the real man is not born
nor does he die. The real man must unite himself with that
which has entered the world as the Christ Who cannot die, and
he must regard something other than himself when he looks on
the suffering man on the Cross. We must feel what really has
happened since the end of the early centuries through Western
civilisation having gradually lost the conception of what is
spiritual. The Easter of the world will only come when a
sufficient number of people feel that the Spirit must rise
again within Western civilisation. Outwardly this will find
expression in that men will no longer wish to explore what is
going to happen to them, will not explore natural laws or the
laws of past history which are similar to natural laws, but
they will have a great longing for knowledge of their own
wills, of their own freedom; they will desire greatly to
realise the nature of their own will which can bear them beyond
the gates of death but which must be considered spiritually if
it is to be perceived in its true form.
How
is man to gain power to rise to the thought of Pentecost, the
outpouring of the Spirit, since the eighth Œcumenical
Council has dogmatically explained the thought of Pentecost to
be an empty phrase?
How
is man to win to the power of this thought if he does not do so
by way of Easter thoughts — by true Easter thoughts,
thoughts of the resurrection of the Spirit!
Man
must not allow himself to be led astray by the picture of the
dying, suffering Redeemer, but must learn how pain is bound up
with the whole composition of human existence. This was a
fundamental principle of that ancient wisdom which sprang from
the instinctive depths of human knowledge. We must strive
to re-acquire this instinctive knowledge with the help of
conscious knowledge. One of the fundamental principles of
this knowledge was that pain had its origin in matter. In any
case it would be foolishness to think that the Christ did not
suffer pain because He passed through death as a Divine Being,
it would be to think without reality were it said that the pain
of the Mystery was only apparent. It must be considered real in
the most actual sense, and not merely as symbolical. Something
further has to be gained from what faces us when, with the
whole of human evolution in view, we contemplate the mystery of
Golgotha.
In
ancient times a pupil of the mysteries who was about to be
initiated was shown a picture of a man who had reached the
highest point of freedom. Such a pupil when he had gone through
the necessary preparation and had fulfilled all the exercises
required of him in order that he might gain certain knowledge,
was confronted with dramatic pictures; he was ultimately
placed before the picture of a man who had passed through the
severest physical sufferings, who was clothed in a red-purple
robe and had a crown of thorns on his head — the picture
of the Chrestos. In looking upon this Chrestos the soul of the
aspirant to initiation was expected to gain the power
which would make of him a true man. The drops of blood which
were shown to the aspirant on all the more important places of
that ancient Chrestos were for the purpose of removing all
human weaknesses and calling up the triumphant Spirit from the
man's inner being.
The
contemplation of suffering was intended to indicate the
resurrection of the spiritual nature. It was sought to place
before men in the most profound sense what may be expressed in
the following simple words — Thou hast to thank many
things in life for thy happiness, but if thou hast
acquired knowledge — gained insight into spiritual
connections, thou hast to thank suffering for these. Thou must
be thankful that thou hast not succumbed to sorrow and
suffering, but hast had the power to rise above them.
This is the reason why in the mysteries of old, the picture of
the suffering Chrestos was replaced by the other picture
— that of the triumphant Christ, who looked down upon the
suffering Chrestos as on something that had been
surmounted.
In
a similar way it must be found possible once again to have the
triumphant Christ before and in our souls, and especially in
our wills. This is what we must keep before us at the present
time, and more especially we must keep it before us with regard
to what we wish to do to help in bringing about a sound future
for humanity.
We
will never be able to grasp the true thought of Easter unless
we realize that in speaking of the Christ we must look upwards
from what is merely earthly to what is cosmic. Modern
thought has made a corpse of the cosmos. To-day we look at the
stars and calculate their courses. This means we calculate
something about the corpse of the world — we do not see
that life dwells in the stars, and that in the courses of the
stars the intentions of the cosmic Spirit rule. Christ came
down among men in order to unite the souls of men with the
Cosmic Spirit. Only a true expounder of the Gospel of Christ
points out that what we see in the physical sun is the outward
expression of the Spirit of our universe — the
resurrecting Spirit of our universe.
Such connection as that between this World-Spirit and the sun
is something that must become living to us, and the way in
which the festival of Easter is determined —
through the relationship of sun and moon in spring — must
become living to us again. We must be able to associate with it
what the Easter festival has ordained for earthly evolution
from out the cosmos itself. We must realise that it was the
most watchfully protective Cosmic Spirits who, by means of the
world timepiece whose pointers for earthly existence are the
sun and moon, made us understand that the moment in which the
resurrection occurred has to be regarded as the greatest and
most important point of time in the evolution of both the
universe and man. Through the spirit we must learn to feel the
movements of these two pointers (sun and moon) just as for
physical occasions we must learn the movements of the hands of
a clock. We must learn to connect what is earthly and physical
with what is super-earthly and super-physical.
The
thought of Easter can only bear interpretation by what is
super-earthly, for in the Mystery of Golgotha (in so far
as it is a resurrection mystery) something took place which
distinguishes it from all other events.
Through it the earth has been endowed with cosmic powers, and
because of what she has become through this, human forces of
will have arisen within human alimentation. A new concentration
of will power has entered earthly activities because of the
Mystery of Golgotha, something took place on earth at that time
which might be described as Cosmic activities, for which
the earth was but a stage. Through these activities man
has once more been united with the cosmos.
This is something which must be understood, and comprehension
of it in all its fullness is first given by the thought of
Easter. Therefore, however beautifully, however splendidly Art
has represented the crucifixion, it alone must not rise before
our souls with the thought of Easter, but the thought must
rise: “He Whom thou seekest is not here.” Beyond
the cross He must appear, He Who is here now, He Who speaks to
us from the Spirit, in order to awaken the spirit in us.
This is what must enter human evolution as the thought of
Easter; it is this to which the human heart and the human mind
must rise.
It
is not enough in our time that we should be able to enter
thoroughly into and steep ourselves in what has been created up
to now. We must become newly creative. Even were it at
the cross, with all the beauty with which artists have endowed
it, we may not rest there: we must harken to the words of the
Spiritual Being Who, when we look for Him in death and
suffering, calls to us: “He Whom ye seek is no
longer here.”
Therefore we must seek that which is here. At Easter we must
learn to turn to the Spirit, and the picture of the
resurrection is alone able to present this to us. Only with it
before us can we pass in the right way from the sorrow-filled
atmosphere of Good Friday to the joyful atmosphere of Easter
Day. In it we will be able to find what we have to grasp with
our wills in order that we may become active in changing the
downward tending forces of humanity into upward tending forces.
We are in need of forces capable of doing this.
The
moment that we understand the resurrection thought of Easter
aright, this thought, warm and illuminating, will kindle in us
the forces that are necessary for the future evolution of
mankind.
Dornach, 27th March, 1921.
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