CHRIST AND THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
A lecture given in Berlin, 25th January, 1912.
Authorised translation from a shorthand report, unrevised by the lecturer.
Published by kind permission of Frau Marie Steiner.
By Rudolf Steiner
No one who studies the spiritual
culture of the present time will be able to deny that the theme of
this lecture is a problem that has engaged the attention of a great
number of people, and especially of those who have approached it from
the ‘Scientific’ standpoint. On the other hand, it seems
that a philosophy of the world wherein the problem connected with the
name of Christ has no real place, is gaining ground more and more. I
have pointed out in other lectures that every age, including our own,
interprets such fundamental problems as that of the origin of man and
the like, in the light of those habits of thought, feeling and
perception which hold sway at that particular time. We have also seen
that even in the problem of man’s origin, contemporary
theoretical ideas and conceptions which arise out of these habits of
thought, really contradict the genuine results of scientific
investigation; whereas the answers given by Spiritual Science to the
question of man’s origin — answers which lead back not to
external physical, but to spiritual forms, — agree with
the genuine concepts of Natural Science and are in perfect harmony
with them. Perhaps in no problem — and this may well be due to
the fact that it is one of the weightiest — is this disharmony
between the general habits of thought of the present age and the
facts which Science has had of necessity to establish, so apparent as
in the Christ Problem. Since the advent of Christianity into
world-history, man’s capacity to evolve a conception of the
Christ Being has of course assumed the forms which were suited to the
several epochs, or, in effect, to such persons who concerned
themselves with these questions.
Thus in the first centuries after the advent of
Christianity, we find, in what is known as the ‘Gnosis,’
a development of grand and mighty conceptions of the Being named
Christ. The Gnostic ideas were only able to prevail for a relatively
short time against the so-called ‘popular’ conceptions of
the Christ which later formed the content of the doctrines of the
Church. It is very instructive to study, even cursorily, the
development of the wonderful Gnostic ideas concerning the Christ
during the first Christian centuries. This is not because the
concepts which Spiritual Science has to bring forward, coincide in
many ways with those of the Gnosis. Such a criticism can only be made
by people whose immaturity in the realm of Spiritual Science makes
them wholly incapable of real judgment in matters of the spiritual
life. Modern Spiritual Science, the ideas of which we will try briefly
to sketch this evening, is in many respects an advance upon all that
was contained in the ancient Gnosis of the first Christian centuries.
For this very reason it is perhaps all the more interesting to study
it. The Gnosis has of course many aspects, many nuances in its
spiritual stream. I will indicate one such aspect, at once the most
significant and in the most complete accord with what Spiritual
Science has to say at the present time.
The early Christian Gnosis possessed a far deeper and
more profound conception of the Christ than all the other doctrines
brought forward in Christendom during those times. The Christ of the
Gnosis is a Being Who is of the Eternal — the Eternal that is
not only immanent in the whole evolution of humanity, but also in
that of the Universe, of the Cosmos itself. Our consideration of the
origin of man led us back to a form still hovering in spiritual
heights, not as yet incarnate in an outer garment of matter. We saw
how during the course of evolution, man, proceeding from a purely
spiritual form, gradually descended to become the material being we
know to-day. The materialistic doctrine of evolution, in tracing
man’s being back through the ages, leads to external, animal
forms, whereas Spiritual Science leads us back to forms which more
and more reveal the nature of soul and spirit, and finally point to a
wholly spiritual origin. In those regions where spiritual man dwelt
before taking on a material existence, where he felt himself among
other purely spiritual beings and spiritual processes — in that
region the ancient Gnosis looked for the Christ Being. To understand
this aright it must be said: The Gnosis conceived that while man was
developing onwards to the point where his soul and spirit came
to be enclosed in a bodily vesture in order to enter material
existence, the Christ Being remained above in purely spiritual worlds
— as man’s Divine Companion, but Who did not descend with
him into the material world.
According to the Gnosis, therefore, humanity passed
through a certain evolution within the material world and has to
continue his progress therein; whereas the Christ Being remained in
the region of pure Spirit while man was passing through his evolution
in the world of Matter. Hence even in historical ages the Christ
Being must not be sought in the region to which man belongs as a
physical being, but in the region of pure Spirit. The epoch we
designate as the starting-point of Christianity was recognised by the
Gnostics to be a highly important moment in the evolution of earthly
humanity, for it was then that the Christ — having held back
His own development while man had long since descended into the
material world — passed from the spiritual into the physical
world, in order to work on in that world as an ‘Impulse.’
Thus — for the Gnostics — when man was still living
through primordial evolutionary epochs, he was a spiritual being
united with that world in which the Christ was active. Then, at the
beginning of our era, the Christ descended into the sphere which had
long since been the scene of man’s material evolution.
Here the question arises: What was the Gnostic
conception of this descent of a purely spiritual Being into human
evolution? It was that a specially developed human individual,
described by historical research as ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’
had reached such maturity that at a certain point of time his soul
was ready to receive directly from the spiritual world That Which as
yet man had been unable to receive. The Gnosis, then, speaks of this
point of time when the soul of a chosen human being was able to feel
ripe enough to receive a Being not hitherto united with human
evolution, namely, the Christ. The Gnosis saw this advent of the
Christ Being into human evolution portrayed, in the Bible, in the
event — whether or not we call it to-day a ‘symbolical’
occurrence — of the Baptism by John in Jordan. Through this
Baptism something of great significance happened to Jesus of
Nazareth.
We can understand this Gnostic conception by the
following trend of thought. If we truly observe the lives of many men
— not by means of modern habits of thought, but with faculties
that can probe into the depths of the soul — we cannot deny
that there are indeed moments when epoch-making events occur —
moments when such men feel themselves at a turning-point of their
lives, so that they can say: ‘In comparison to my former life
and experiences it would seem as if an altogether new being were
here.’ Such an event may perhaps occur as the result of some
tragedy or deep trial in life. Nobody can deny that in the lives of
innumerable human beings there is such a thing as a turning-point, a
kind of renewal, an awakening of very definite forces in the life of
soul. If we think of such an occurrence (according to the Gnostic
conception), as taking place at the Baptism of Jesus of Nazareth by
John in Jordan, we have a picture of the breaking-in of something
wholly new — not however in the sense of that which, in other
circumstances, breaks in upon the human soul as the result of
trials in life, but of something that in the whole of human evolution
had never yet been united with a human body. What then arose in the
soul of Jesus of Nazareth as something wholly New, living as Inner
Being within him a life which gave a new orientation to all
subsequent culture — the Gnosis called the ‘Christ.’
The Gnosis realised, however, that with this Christ — Who must
not merely be looked for as an outer individual man, but as an Inner
Essence within an outer man — a new Impulse had broken in upon
humanity, an Impulse towards something that had not been there
before, for the very reason that what Jesus of Nazareth bore within
him for the three years after the Baptism of John had not previously
been united with human evolution.
We have now approximately described the ancient Gnostic
conception of the Christ in such a way as to render it intelligible,
because, as we have seen, its elementary principles are to be found
when a decisive change takes place in an individual human soul. What
it will be particularly difficult for modern man to understand is
that this event is bound up with something of historic significance
for the whole evolution of humanity — of fundamental historic
significance — for it is indeed the ‘centre of gravity’
as it were, of human evolution. This Gnostic conception may be said
at all events to present a mighty and powerful picture —
whatever we may think of the Reality — on the one hand of the
Christ-Being and on the other hand, of the being of man; for it
places man within an evolution where an Impulse from out of the
spiritual world has taken immediate hold of the course of historical
development. It is not to be wondered at that this Gnostic conception
could never become ‘popular.’ Anyone who has even a
little understanding of the conditions of human evolution from the
first Christian centuries onwards, of the qualities of the soul of
man and the different relationships of social life, will readily
admit that such a conception can only exist in minds of a sublimity
that can never be general. To realise this we have only to consider
the spiritual life of the present day. When one speaks of a
conception of this kind most people say: ‘This is an
abstraction, nothing but a piece of daring imagination. We, as human
beings, need something real and immediate that can take hold of
actual life.’ This Gnostic conception is still held to be
an ‘abstraction,’ for to-day man is very far from
realising that there is a far greater satisfaction in experiencing
the true ‘concreteness’ of spiritual ideas than can ever
arise from perceiving the ‘concrete actualities’ of our
age. If this were not the case man would cease to aspire, in the
realm of Art, after the tangible and the visible, and would no longer
lay aside as abstractions those things which must be attained
spiritually by means of the inner faculties of soul.
Naturally it is not possible to describe in a few words
how the conception of the Christ Being has developed in popular
opinion. The immediate conception of Jesus of Nazareth is, however,
that he was born in a miraculous way, held loving intercourse with
men even in his childhood, and then came forward as the Saviour of
the whole of mankind. Yet it must be said that side by side with the
feelings that have arisen among men towards this loving Saviour,
there has lived, through all the centuries, an echo of the ‘Christ’
idea; that is to say, the conception of a Being Who became incarnate
in the man Jesus of Nazareth. Side by side with the outer story of
the life of Jesus of Nazareth men have nevertheless looked up to a
great and mighty Mystery — in effect to the Mystery of a
‘Super-humanity’ within the personality of Jesus of
Nazareth as he lived on the Earth. And this ‘Super-humanity’
was spoken, of as the ‘Christ.’ As the modern age
approached men felt themselves more and more incapable of
understanding the daring conception of this Christ — this
Gnostic Christ, if you will; so that by the Middle Ages we find
Science venturing no further than the making of statements in
regard to the first principles of the outer world — such as
material phenomena, and what lies behind things perceptible to the
senses as a kind of ‘Natural Law.’ Science did not feel
called upon to enter into those factors which have laid hold of human
evolution as impulses of the highest spirituality. Thus the problems
of the origin of man, and of human evolution in conjunction with the
Christ Impulse, became, for the mediaeval mind, problems of Faith;
and henceforward Faith takes its place by the side of Science and
Knowledge. The latter, so it has been thought, should confine
their attention to the lower phenomena of the World Order.
It would be interesting to describe how, from the 16th
century onwards, this kind of ‘double entry’ process grew
more and more general. Men thought it right that the sphere of
Science should embrace only the ‘lower’ order of things,
and that all questions of spiritual origins and spiritual evolution
should be relegated to the domain of Faith. We cannot, however, enter
into this to-day. Rather is it our task to indicate how by the time
of the 19th century the whole course of evolution had led to the
complete disappearance of any true conception of the Christ —
so far at least as the majority of men were concerned. A further
development, as it were, of ancient Gnostic ideas, has however
preserved, in narrower circles, a deeper insight into the Christ
Impulse. But in the 19th century, wide circles (among which we must
include the sphere of scientific-theological thought) came to
renounce the real Christ Idea, and endeavoured to confine attention
to the personality of Jesus of Nazareth. He was indeed regarded as a
unique and specially chosen personality, one who had possessed the
deepest understanding, both of the evolutionary laws of humanity and
the divine inner nature of man — who had moreover represented
them fundamentally in his own being — yet none the less a
‘man,’ albeit by far the greatest. Thus in the 19th
century, research into the life of Jesus was substituted for an
ancient Christology. It was research that grew more and more
incredulous of all that was said to have lived as Divine Substance in
the personality of Jesus of Nazareth, and was only willing to believe
in the existence of Jesus of Nazareth as a specially chosen human
individuality. This kind of thought reached its climax in books like
“Das Wesen des Christentums” by Adolf Harnack, and other
similar works. We need only indicate briefly the most recent results
achieved by this really serious research into the life of Jesus.
Since we are speaking of such recent occurrences, it is only
necessary to point out that the methods employed (in the 19th
century) for the purpose of proving historically the events which are
supposed to have occurred at the beginning of the Christian era, have
led to no real result. It would lead us much too far to enter into
any details in this connection. But he who studies deeply the
achievements of the modern age will realise that it has been attempted
to establish the personality of Jesus of Nazareth at the starting
point of Christian spiritual life by the ordinary methods of
external, materialistic research. He will further realise that the
attempt to prove the existence of this personality in the way in
which one proves other things, has culminated in the confession that
the actual existence of the personality of Jesus of Nazareth cannot
be justified by external, materialistic research. Not that the
contrary statement (i.e., that he did not exist) can be
justified either. But there is no justification or proof of the life
of Jesus of Nazareth in the sense in which one can prove the
existence of an Aristotle, a Socrates, or an Alexander the Great. Not
only so, but research into these things has recently taken quite
another direction. Read a book like that of William Benjamin Smith,
[Published by Diederichs, Leipzig.]
and you will see that our age, after much painstaking research into
biblical and other documents relating to Christianity, has discovered
that these documents cannot, after all, have had reference to
those things to which for so long in the 19th century they were
believed to refer. People tried to re-construct the life of Jesus of
Nazareth by philological research into biblical and other documents,
but these documents ultimately revealed something very different.
While the attempts were being made, with scientific conscientiousness
and by carefully chosen methods, to construct a ‘life of
Jesus,’ it became apparent that when one stands on truly
Christian soil, these biblical documents simply do not speak of the
‘man’ Jesus of Nazareth. Thus external research was
forced to the conclusion that the documents do not speak of a man
(Jesus of Nazareth) but of a ‘God.’ We are faced with an
extraordinary anomaly in our age for we are told by
materialistic research: ‘You are wrong if you believe that
Christian documents point to the man Jesus of Nazareth. Rather must
you convince yourselves that the Gospels or other documents are
referring to a God and that the stories only have meaning and
significance when one speaks of a God at the starting-point of
Christianity.’
Surely this is most extraordinary? Our age has
discovered that Jesus of Nazareth must be spoken of as a God! Yet
this is the same age and the same kind of research that can see no
reality at all in a ‘God,’ that is to say in a purely
spiritual Being. What, therefore, has the Christ become to modern
research? He has become a poetical image, a figure that has only
entered history as a mere ‘idea,’ as an impulse created
by the social imagination of man. According to the most modern
historical research the Christ has become an imaginary God. To put it
bluntly, we may say: Historical research has here arrived at
something of which it can make no use; for what is modern research to
make of a God in whom it cannot really believe? The only proof it has
is that the biblical documents are speaking of a God — whom,
however, the modern mind can only relegate to the realm of poetry.
In contrast to these facts, let us consider what
Spiritual Science has to say. Here I would refer to my book
“Christianity as Mystical Fact”.
The essence of this book
has been very little understood, and I have therefore tried, in the
Foreword to the Second Edition, to call attention to the point at
issue. Human history, world history, is not exhausted by all that
ordinary external historical research can describe, or documents
reveal, because spiritual impulses, spiritual factors — in
effect Spiritual Beings — everywhere penetrate into human
evolution. In contrast to this, if we consider the whole mode of
historical world-conception that has been inaugurated by Leopold von
Ranke and others, we must say: The highest that is attained by
historical science is that it speaks of ‘historical ideas,’
as if outer, abstract ideas were taking root among peoples and
nations in the course of human evolution. This is the greatest
superficiality imaginable. Ideas are not the source of development of
force or of the unfolding of power. Neither are they what the writer
of history understands them to be. The whole human evolutionary
process would be meaningless if the ideas which surge into the souls
of men were not the expression of impulses from beings who
invisibly and supersensibly rule the course of history. Thus behind
everything described by outer history there is something
attainable only by means of spiritual-scientific, super-sensible
research. In this book
“Christianity as Mystical Fact”
I was able to show the place of the Christian Impulse in the historical
evolution of humanity, inasmuch as it proves to be a continuation of
all that was previously accomplished for spiritual evolution in the
ancient Mysteries. There is little understanding to-day of what the
Mysteries really were in their true nature. All that was accomplished
by the Mysteries for the spiritual development of the peoples of
pre-Christian times can only be understood by one who, through modern
Spiritual Science, is able to look into that evolutionary process
whereby the soul can be transformed into an instrument for perceiving
the spiritual world behind the physical world of matter. We know that
man to-day — confining himself purely to his inner being, and
wholly withdrawing into the intimacies of his own soul-experiences —
can rise above himself into a higher condition of his soul-life,
where his soul-being lives in a spiritual world, just as the being
incarnate in the body lives in a physical world.
The
spiritual-scientific study of history reveals the fact that this
capacity to rise to the spiritual world through a purely inward
development of the soul only entered into human evolution at a
certain point of time, and that the capacity did not exist in the
remote past. The soul standing wholly upon its own foundations, can
to-day, as we have said, rise in full freedom to spiritual vision
through its own activity. This was not possible in pre-Christian
times, for the soul had then to undergo certain processes which were
enacted in the Sanctuaries of the Mysteries. The following is a brief
outline
[A more exact description is to be found in
‘Christianity as Mystical Fact’.
]
of what the leaders of these Mystery Temples — spiritual
sanctuaries of learning as we should say to-day — performed for
the soul. The soul was freed from the body by external means, and
rendered capable of existing for a certain length of time in a
condition resembling that of sleep — and yet again wholly
different from sleep. The researches of Spiritual Science into the
sleeping state, tell us that the outer bodily being of man remains in
the bed while the true spiritual and soul kernel of his being lives
in a world outside them. The forces, the true essence of this
spiritual and soul kernel of man’s being, however, function
during sleep with such diminished intensity that unconsciousness
supervenes and darkness spreads around the being of spirit and soul.
The processes to which the soul of man was subjected in the
ancient Mysteries were such that through the influence of other, more
highly advanced personalities (who themselves had passed through
this ‘Mystery Initiation’), a kind of sleeping state was
induced. It was a state, however, in which the inner forces of the
soul were enhanced and strengthened. The body was left behind in a
sleeping — indeed in a death-like condition — but the
soul was able for a certain period to gaze into the spiritual world
consciously; that is to say, the soul slept, and within this
life of sleep could know the reality of existence as a citizen of the
spiritual world. Then when such a soul was presently led back again
to the ordinary conditions of life, a remembrance arose of what had
been experienced outside the body. This soul, having participated
in spiritual life, could then come forth as a prophet before the
peoples and bear witness to the existence of a spiritual world and to
the immortality of Man. The directions to which such a soul was bound
to submit for a long time in order that the final act carried out by
the leaders of the Sanctuaries could be accomplished, were given in
the Mysteries. When, therefore, the question is asked, ‘What is
the source of the ancient Wisdom-teachings of the divine origin and
the eternity of the human soul which have been handed down
traditionally by peoples all over the Earth?’ — Spiritual
Science answers that they emanate from the ‘Initiates.’
These ancient Wisdom-teachings come to light in strange ways; myths,
legends, many pictures and narratives tell of the experiences passed
through by the would-be Initiate in a kind of living dream in these
Mystery Sanctuaries. Indeed, we only understand the mythologies when
we recognise their figures to be pictorial expressions of what the
Initiates of the Mysteries beheld during their Initiation. If we
wish, then, to understand ancient religious teachings, we must go
back to the Mysteries and seek in them for those things which have
naturally remained hidden from the ‘profane’ world. They
could only be attained by men who had prepared themselves for
Initiation by dint of strenuous trials and had, furthermore, learnt
to keep the rule of silence — a rule laid down by circumstances
into which I cannot enter to-day.
Thus the spiritual evolution of man disappears behind
the veil of the Mysteries when we follow it back into pre-Christian
Ages. In those ancient times the human soul was not yet ripe enough
to rise into the spiritual world of itself, supported only by its own
inner powers, without the additional act of the Temple Priests. The
purpose of the book
“Christianity as Mystical Fact”
was to show that something of great importance came to pass while the
events of modern history were taking their course. It was intended to
show what is the whole meaning and purpose of human evolution,
namely, that at the time of the beginning of Christendom, as a result
of all the experiences won through repeated earthly lives and the
teachings received from Initiates in regard to the spiritual world,
man had become mature enough for an epoch when, without external
influence and without the methods adopted in the ancient Mysteries,
human beings could rise in their own innermost being of soul, into
the spiritual worlds. This, as we shall see by reference to the
Event of Palestine, marked the mighty progress which had gradually
taken place through the course of centuries, and which was brought to
its fulfilment at the time of the beginning of Christendom. The soul
of man had become ripe for ‘Self-Initiation,’ under the
guidance of those who knew the experiences which it was necessary to
undergo, but without the active co-operation of the leaders of the
Temples or Mysteries. All that had been enacted within the Mystery
Temples hundreds and hundreds of times, and of which legends, myths
and mythologies have preserved information, stepped forth upon the
great stage of world history through the founding of Christianity.
In studying the Gospels, we may ask ourselves: What
experiences had an ancient Persian or Egyptian candidate for
Initiation to undergo when his soul was to rise to direct vision of
the spiritual world? Instructions were given with regard to a certain
process which it was necessary for him to undergo — a ‘Baptism’
and again a ‘Temptation,’ up to the point where the soul
was led out to a vision of the spiritual world — and these
were, so to speak, the ritual of Initiation. When we compare such
rituals with the essential features in the various Gospels we find,
in these Gospels, the reconstructed descriptions of the old
Initiation ceremonies — but with reference to the great
historical individuality of Jesus of Nazareth. Then, through what
history itself records, we see that whereas in earlier times the
candidates for Initiation were led into the spiritual world in the
seclusion of the Mystery Temples, Jesus of Nazareth reached the point
where he was not only able to tell of a spiritual world in
remembrance, but where he could unite himself with a Being Who
hitherto had not been united with any human
individual, — with the Christ-Being. Thus there is a
far-reaching correspondence between the descriptions of ancient
Initiation processes and the narratives of the development of Jesus
of Nazareth up to the point where the Christ took possession of his
soul and continued in possession for three years. In the descriptions
of all that Jesus of Nazareth passed through — and the most
exact are to be found in the Gospel of St. John — we have that
Initiation which arises as a result of the mighty, divine-spiritual
events underlying history. Innumerable candidates had received
Initiation before this epoch, but had only reached a point where they
were able to bear witness to the fact that there is indeed a
spiritual world and the human soul belongs to it. When this
world-historical Initiation broke in upon Jesus of Nazareth, however,
he could unite his inner nature with the loftiest of all Beings, of
Whom the previous Initiates were able to retain a remembrance.
All ancient Initiations pointed forward to this event, were conducted
in accordance with what was to come.
Thus the Mystery of Golgotha emerges from the dark
shroud of the Mysteries and enters upon the great stage of world
history. So long as man does not believe that at a certain point of
time on the Earth the Christ permeated the being of Jesus of
Nazareth; so long as he does not believe that mighty forces stream
out from this event as an impulse for all later human development —
so long will he fail to understand the significance of the Christ
Impulse for the evolution of mankind. Only when as a result of all
other teachings of Spiritual Science we can acknowledge the reality
of a spiritual event such as this, can we understand what entered
into human evolution through the Christ Impulse. Then, moreover,
we shall not set any less value on the Gospels because we find in
them four different rituals of Initiation into which the events
connected with the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth are woven,
but we shall realise that what happened through this event in
Palestine is of deep and primordial significance for all the later
evolution of mankind. Until that time, the innermost kernel of being,
although indeed present in man, had not entered directly into human
consciousness. This was what actually happened in the event described
as the Mystery of Golgotha. Then began the age when men could know:
In this Ego there is revealed, in man himself, what he possesses in
common with the whole Cosmos.
Let us now consider how one who stands on the ground of
Spiritual Science must view the mighty stimulus that entered into
world history through the Christ Impulse. Man’s being consists
of physical body, life (or etheric) body, and of the soul-sheaths; in
his innermost nature he bears the true Ego which passes from
incarnation to incarnation, from earthly life to earthly life. But he
became conscious of the Ego-principle last of all. In pre-Christian
times he had no inkling of the fact that the deepest, innermost
kernel of his being is born from the all-embracing spiritual world
and is bound up with it in the same way as his physical body is bound
up with the physical world, and his soul-being with the world of
soul. The quest for the God and the primordial Divine Being, not in
the ‘soul-sheaths’ but in the true Ego — this was
what Christianity, the Christ Impulse, brought into human evolution.
Hitherto man could say: ‘My soul is rooted in Divinity.
Divinity is the creative formative impulse.’ Now however he
learnt to say: ‘If I would know where the deepest Divinity,
permeating all worlds, can be revealed to me, I must look into my own
Ego; for through my own Ego God speaks to me. In
my ordinary consciousness He speaks to me when I rightly understand
how, through the Mystery of Golgotha, divine forces entered into
mankind — when I know that an Initiation was fulfilled there as
a mighty historical event, whereas previously the Initiate was led to
the experience of the spiritual world in the depths of the Mystery
Temples. But above all the God speaks to me when I have made of my
soul an instrument of perception in the spiritual world.’
The entrance of Divine consciousness that speaks through
the Ego — that is the essence of the Christ Impulse. And the
fact that it was possible for the Christ Impulse to enter humanity
was brought about by the ancient Initiation principle becoming
historical fact. The Mystery of Golgotha is the root and
stock. All that will arise in human souls as evolution proceeds to
its farthest future may be summed up by saying that a clear knowledge
of the Divine-Spiritual — of which man is a part and through
which he grows to be independent of all Earthly things — flows
to him through the Ego.
He who can understand certain profound words in the
Gospels from this point of view will enter into the mighty process of
the ‘Education of the human race’ which is being
accomplished through the spiritual world. He will see how there was
prepared through the ancient Hebrew culture that which later should
speak to man through the Ego kernel, just as it had spoken to
Judaism, but there it was accomplished through the Folk-Spirit.
Conditions were different among other peoples, who had only the
consciousness that the Divine-Spiritual speaks to the soul-sheaths
when man has passed through Initiation. It was revealed to Judaism,
however, that the evolution of mankind is a continuous process of
education, and that in the Ego which embraced the whole nation lie
the Powers to which man belongs in his deepest being. This, then, was
the feeling of the Jew: ‘When I, as an individual member of the
whole ancient Hebrew people, look up through the line of evolution to
Abraham and recognise the Godhead passing on through the
generations, I am able to say: the Divine Principle which has
fashioned the individual physical nature of man is living in me as It
has lived in all my forefathers.’ Thus the individual member of
the ancient Hebrew race knew himself to be bound up with the Father
of his stock, felt himself one with his Father Abraham. Clearly now
rings forth the word of Christianity: All such feeling of the Divine,
even when the Godhead speaks of Himself, as “Ejeh asher ejeh”
— ”I AM the I AM” — is not as yet that which
is revealed to men in its complete form. Only when man senses
something that exists in the Spirit beyond and above all the
generations has he grasped the Godhead Who works into the being of
man. Therefore the right rendering of the words is: “Before
Abraham was, I was the I AM.” In his Ego man experiences
an eternity more fundamental than the Divinity passing down through
the generations from Abraham. Look upon that which is not wholly
contained or exhausted in the physical being of man, but which lives
as the Divine-Spiritual through the generations, through the blood of
the generations onwards from Abraham; but beholding this Divine
Spiritual, recognise It in the individual human being — not in
that which links brother and sister together but in that which lives
in the individual, and is discovered by the individual when in the
innermost core of his soul he knows himself as the “I AM.”
This is the sense in which we must interpret such a saying of Christ
Jesus as: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and
mother and wife, and children, and brethren and
sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
(Luke XIV. 26).
We must not take such an utterance as any kind of
protest against the claims of kinship and love of children, but to
mean that the Christ brings into the world the principle of the
Divine-Spiritual, which every individual — because he is man —
can find in his innermost being. Therefore the effect of true
Christianity upon man will be that its innermost mystery is
recognised as one which leads out beyond all differentiations among
human beings to the ‘universal-human,’ to that which each
one can discover within himself. The old Gods were Folk-Gods,
Race-Gods, bound up with the various racial characteristics.
This was also the case in Indian culture, in Buddhism. The God of
Christendom is One Who brings man — above all other
distinctions — to what he is as man. Thus all who would
understand the true essence of Christianity must realise the
spiritual powers and impulses guiding world history to be realities;
they must break away from what has hitherto been recognised as
‘history,’ knowing it to be but the outer garment of
‘historical becoming.’ Beings — super-sensible
indeed, yet as real as the single animal or human being in the sense
world — hold sway in the depths of this ‘becoming.’
And the most sublime among the super-sensible Beings guiding the
historical growth of humanity is the Christ, Who for three years —
as the Gnosis also knew — worked in the body of Jesus of
Nazareth.
Thus Spiritual Science rises to a conception that can
begin to make something of the statements of external Science. For
whereas the latter is forced to acknowledge that we are here
concerned, not with a ‘man’ but with a Divine Nature
dwelling in a man (an admission, however, which it can carry no
further) — Spiritual Science leads us again to Beings who are
realities. In this sphere, therefore, Spiritual Science knows
what to make of the results of modern research. The wonderful thing
in the spiritual evolution of the 20th century will be the
recognition that the 19th century was on false paths when the life of
Christ Jesus was reduced to the mere life of Jesus of Nazareth, and
that a Science which says, ‘everything proves that in Christ
Jesus we have to do with a God,’ is beginning to lead into the
true paths. The only addition made by Spiritual Science is that
people are enabled to make something of these words. This conception,
of course, contradicts the materialistic-monistic philosophy of
modern times. But the lectures on
‘The Origin of Man’,
and
‘The Origin of the Animal World’
[Delivered
in Berlin a few weeks before the present lecture.]
were able to show that Spiritual Science is in full agreement with
the objective results of the investigations made by external Science.
And now we can say that Spiritual Science finds itself also in
agreement with the conclusions reached conscientiously by external
research, only we must add that at the point where this
external research stands before a query, it is not led on to the
conclusions arrived at by Spiritual Science.
During the 20th century something new must be added to
the wonted habits of thought. The attitude adopted by man to-day is
that human life and knowledge, as these exist in the physical world,
have to regard the outer world as the immediate reality, and that
‘error’ may arise when incongruous pictures of the world
are devised or something is done which does not accord with the outer
course of the world, and is therefore designated as ‘evil.’
Philosophy to-day insists upon seeking for causes in what is
immediately perceptible, and, as a result, the problems of world
conception have reached a point where this mode
of thought must be entirely changed. This is obvious to all who are
able to look more deeply into the spiritual life of humanity.
External knowledge has been led in the spheres both of Natural
Science and of History to actual disbelief in everything spiritual,
to a mere summarizing of outer material reality, and to refute the
Spiritual that reveals itself behind sense phenomena. In a certain
sense our age finds itself in a position that must be entirely
reversed. External materialism and materialistic monism must perforce
ultimately lead the soul to a point where, as the result of innate
inner resistance, it becomes at home with a conception which hitherto
has played a very small part in philosophy. To all quests for the
origin of things there must be added a conception which up to now has
been ignored. My works
“The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity”
and
“Truth and Science”
[These two
books are bound in one volume and published by the Anthroposophical
Publishing Co. Price 12s. 6d. — Ed. anthroposophy.]
show that this preliminary assumption must be made: The position in
which man finds himself in regard to the world is not the true one;
he must first pass through a development of his inner life if he is
to know the truth in regard to world phenomena and have a true and
also a moral relationship to them. The concept of ‘redemption’
must be added to that of mere ‘causal cognition.’ The
great task of the 20th century is to bring the concepts of
‘redemption,’ of ‘liberation,’ of
‘re-incarnation’ into their own and add them to all the
other concepts of Science. The way in which man faces the world as a
knower does not correspond to truth. He only acquires true
conceptions and ideas when, freed from his present bearings, he has
developed to a higher level, when he has released himself from the
obstacles which hinder him from seeing the world in its true form.
This is the ‘redemption of knowledge.’ ‘Moral
redemption’ is brought about when man realises that his
relation to the world is not the true one, and that he must first
take a path leading above and beyond the obstacles towering between
him and the world to which he really belongs. The idea of the
‘rebirth of the soul’ at a higher level will arise from
all the marvellous results of scientific and historical research. Man
will realise, after he has thus formed a photographic image of the
world and has conjured up a picture of the mighty scientific and
historical course of humanity, that here is something which not only
gives him an image of the world, but which is a powerful means of
education. He will no longer merely believe that Natural Science
portrays a world to him, but its laws will become a means of
education. And when Natural Science is not only used for the purpose
of portraying the world, but for the purposes of man’s
education, so that the human soul is finally released from the
standpoint of immediate actuality and works upwards to a rebirth at a
higher level — in effect when man knows himself freed from the
hindrances around him — he has developed the preliminary
conditions for a true knowledge of the Christ Impulse in the world.
For then he will realise that he can look back to the age of which
Spiritual Science teaches, when man, having existed first in a purely
spiritual world, descended into a world of material existence
through which he had to pass in order that progress might take place.
And further, he will realise that at a certain point, a change must
be brought about in order that he may, in turn, free himself from
what has entered into him during the course of his material
existence. The Christ Impulse has redeemed mankind from sinking into
the purely material. Objectively, Christ represents in world
evolution that experience which teaches us: The relationship to the
world which arises when the soul is re-born and redeemed from its
primordial nature is changed, in the vision of the mighty
world-process proceeding in humanity, into the realisation of
Christ’s coming into the world. When the 20th century is able
to understand in true earnestness this mighty experience in the inner
being of man, it will also grasp the significance of the Christ Event
and no longer find the process of the soul’s rebirth at a
higher level a stumbling block. And then Spiritual Science will show
that the same thing holds good both in historical development
and external natural happenings. In philosophy, man has here given
himself up to the error contained in Schopenhauer’s phrase:
“The world is my Idea.” In other words this means:
‘Around me is a world of colours, sounds and the like, and this
world is dependent on my eyes, and other organs of sense.’ But
it is not correct, if one desires to understand the world in its
totality, to say: ‘The world of colours is there as the result
of the constitution of the eye.’ For the eye would not exist if
it had not first been charmed into being by the light. If on the one
hand it is true that perception of the light is determined by the
constitution of the eye, on the other it is no less true that the eye
only exists because of the light, the Sun. Both truths must
unite in one all-embracing truth. Thus Goethe’s words are
correct: “The eye has to thank the light for its existence.
From subordinate animal organs the light calls forth for itself an
organ akin to its own nature. The eye builds itself up in the light,
for the light, in order that the inner light may meet the outer
light.” Just as the eye is formed by the light and the
perception of light occurs through the eye, so the inner Christ
experience, the inner rebirth of the soul, comes to pass through the
Christ Event in humanity, through the Mystery of Golgotha. Spiritual
Science shows that before the Christ Impulse entered into humanity,
this inner experience could only be undergone as the result of outer
stimulus in the Mysteries, and not, as now, in the intimate depths of
man’s being through a kind of Self-Initiation. As it is in
regard to the relationship of the world of colour and light to
the eye, so it is in regard to the inner, mystical experience of the
Christ. Man experiences the Christ through his inner being; but the
fact that it is possible for him to rise above himself in his soul is
due to the entrance of the spiritual Sun into world history in the
Mystery of Golgotha. Without the objective Mystery of Golgotha, and
without the objective Christ there could be no subjective inner
mystical experience such as will arise in man in the 20th
century and will then be accepted in all scientific earnestness.
Thus we may say: The 20th century will produce the
preliminary conditions for a real understanding of the Christ
impulse, in that it will reveal how truly the Christ Impulse becomes
the spiritual Sun, awakening in the souls of men the inner experience
referred to by Goethe in the words:
“The man who overcomes himself is freed from the
power that binds all beings.”
And inasmuch as we unite to this self-conquest the
Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ Event, we can say that only when man
overcomes himself shall he so come into his own that the form he has
possessed from his earthly beginning is seen to be something from
which he has to be redeemed, and that all moral action, all
knowledge, are only the result of redemption. Through the idea
of inner redemption man will learn to know the meaning
of redemption in historical evolution and thus in the 20th century he
will come to understand the Christ Event in the light of an extension
of the Goethean utterance:
“The man who overcomes himself is freed from the
power that binds all beings; in this self-conquest he first finds his
own true being, as all humanity can indeed find itself in Christ.”
St.
Thomas Aquinas was once asked: “Did the little hands of the
Infant Jesus create the stars?” He said: This is not strictly
correct. The little hands are human hands and therefore cannot
create. Since however one and the same Person, Christ, subsists in
the Divine nature and in the human nature, the above sentence may
stand, if correctly understood, thus: “The Child, who has these
little hands, created the stars.” — From
the St. Thomas Aquinas Calendar. St. Dominic's Press,
Ditchling.
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