CHRIST AND THE
HUMAN SOUL
LECTURE 1.
LET me begin
by extending to you my heartiest greeting. Friends in Norrköping
have expressed the wish that on this occasion I should speak upon a
theme concerning that Being Who, in the realm of Spiritual Science, is
above all else near to us-the Christ Being. I have endeavored to comply
with this wish by undertaking to speak about the coming to life, and
the meaning, of the Christ Being in the human soul. We shall thereby
have the opportunity of speaking of the most human and intimate
significance of Christianity from the standpoint of Spiritual
Science.
Let us
consider the human soul. Speaking from the standpoint of Spiritual
Science, we have a short word which, although it does not embrace all
that is included in the expression ‘human soul,’ indicates
that which for us earth-men fills and permeates the soul element to its
furthest limits-the word ‘I.’ In so far as we are
earth-men, our Ego being reaches as far as does our soul nature. By the
name of the ‘I,’ or Ego being, we are reminded of one of
the four most immediate principles of man. We speak, in the first
instance, of four members or principles of the human being-the physical
body, the etheric body, the astral body and the Ego. And we need only
recall one thing in order to have the starting point for what we shall
be considering in these lectures. It is only necessary to be reminded
of the fact that we do not regard the laws and the living essence of
the physical body of man as being capable of explanation by anything
presented by our earthly environment. We know that when we want to
understand the physical human body we must go back to the three
preceding embodiments of our earth-the Old Saturn, Old Sun, and Old
Moon periods. In a remote, primordial past, during Old Saturn, the germ
of the physical body was already laid. During the Old Sun the
foundation of the etheric body was laid; and during the Old Moon that
of the astral body. In reality our Earth evolution in all its phases
and in all its epochs is none other than that which gives to the Ego
the possibility of the fulfillment of its whole being. It may be said
that just as at the end of the Old Saturn period the physical body had
reached a significant stage of its evolution, at the end of the Old Sun
the etheric body had reached a significant stage of its evolution, the
astral body at the end of the Old Moon, so at the end of the Earth
period our Ego will have reached a significant point of its evolution.
We know that our Ego develops through three soul members or principles,
through the sentient soul, the intellectual or rational soul, and the
conscious or spirit-soul. All the worlds that come within the range of
these three soul members are also concerned with our Ego. In the course
of our Earth evolution these three soul members first prepared for
themselves the three external bodily members-the physical body, the
etheric body and the astral body-through long Earth periods. In
successive Post-Atlantean epochs of civilization the three soul
principles developed further, and in future Earth periods they will
again adapt themselves to the astral, etheric and physical bodies, so
that the Earth can be prepared to pass over to the Jupiter evolution.
If we take the expression comprehensively enough we might also speak of
man's Earth evolution as his soul evolution. It may be said that when
the Earth began, the soul element also began, in conformity with law,
to bestir itself in man. At first it began to work on the external
sheaths, then it developed its own being, and from then onwards begins
again to work on the external sheaths in order that preparation may be
made for the Jupiter evolution. We must keep before our mind's eye what
man is meant to become in his soul during the Earth evolution. He is to
become what may be designated by the expression
‘personality.’ This personality needs in the first place
what may be called ‘the free-will.’ But it needs also, on
the other side, the possibility of finding within itself the way to the
Divine in the world. On the one side free-will, the possibility of
choosing between the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, the
true and the false; and on the other side, the laying hold of the
Divine so that the Divine penetrates into the soul and we know
ourselves to be inwardly filled with it. Such are the two goals of
man's soul evolution on the Earth. This human soul evolution on the
Earth has received two religious gifts for the purposes of the
attainment of these two goals. The one religious gift is destined to
lay down in the human soul those forces which lead to freedom, to the
capacity for differentiation between the true and the false, the
beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad. And on the other side
another religious gift had to be given to man during his Earth
evolution, in order that there might be laid in his soul that seed
through which the soul can feel united to the Divine within itself.
(‘Atoned’ is the rendering suggested by a translator.)
The first
religious gift is that which we meet in the beginning of the Old
Testament as the mighty picture of the Temptation and the Fall.
The second
religious gift comes to us from all that ‘the Mystery of
Golgotha’ signifies.
The
Temptation and the Fall have to do with what planted freedom in man,
the gift of being able to distinguish between good and bad, beautiful
and ugly, true and false. The Mystery of Golgotha points to the
possibility of man's soul finding once again the path to the Divine, of
knowing that the Divine can flash up within it and penetrate it. These
religious gifts include everything that is most important in the Earth
evolution — everything proceeding from the Earth evolution that
the soul can experience in its uttermost depths, that is associated
most profoundly with the being and the development of the human soul.
How far is there a connection between existence and development of the
inner experience of the human soul?
I do not
want to put these matters before you in an abstract way. I want to
start from a perfectly concrete element, from a certain scene in the
Mystery of Golgotha as it stands before our eyes in historical
tradition and has impressed itself-and should indeed have impressed
itself still more — in the hearts and souls of men. Let us assume
that we have in Christ Jesus, that Being of Whom we have again and
again spoken in the course of our lectures on Spiritual Science. Let us
assume that in Christ Jesus we have before our spiritual eyes That
Which must be manifest to us men as bearing the greatest importance for
the whole universe. And then let us place in contrast to this feeling
the outcry, the fury, of the enraged multitudes of Jerusalem at the
time of the condemnation before the crucifixion. Let us place before
our minds the fact that the High Court of Jerusalem for its own sake
held it above all things necessary to question Christ Jesus as to His
relationship with the Divine, as to whether He claimed to be the Son of
God.
Let us
recall to our spiritual eyes the fact that the High Court held such a
claim to be the greatest blasphemy that Christ Jesus could have
uttered. An historical scene is there before us — a scene wherein
the people cry out and clamor for the death of Christ Jesus. And now
let us try to picture to ourselves what this shouting and rage of the
people signified historically. Let us ask: ‘What ought these
people to have recognized in the Christ Jesus?’ They ought to
have recognized that Being Who gives meaning and significance to earth
life. They ought to have recognized that Being Who had to accomplish
the deed without which earth humanity cannot find the way back to the
Divine. They ought to have understood that humanity has no significance
apart from this Being. Men would have to strike out from the evolution
of the earth the word ‘man’ if they wished to strike out
the Christ event. Now let us set before our minds that this multitude
condemned and were enraged against the Being Who actually makes man
upon this earth, and Who is destined to give to the earth its goal and
purpose. What lies in this? Surely this, that in those who in Jerusalem
at that time were the representatives of human knowledge concerning the
true being of man, the knowledge of man was obscured. They had no
knowledge of what man is, what his mission on the earth is to be. We
are told nothing less than that humanity had reached a point where it
had lost itself, where it had condemned That Which gives to the earth
evolution its purpose and significance. And out of the cries of the
enraged multitude could be heard, not the words of wisdom, but of
folly: ‘We do not wish to be men, rather do we wish to cast away
from us that which gives us any further meaning as men.’
When we
reflect on all this, the relation of man to sin and guilt, in the sense
of Pauline Christianity, assumes a different aspect. Man, in the course
of his evolution was able to fall into sin which he could not of
himself wash away; that is what St. Paul says. And in order for it to
be possible for man to be cleansed of sin and debt, Christ had to come
to the Earth. That is St. Paul's view. If this view requires any
evidence, it is there in the fury and the clamoring of those who cried
‘Crucify Him!’ For this cry implies that the people did not
know what they themselves were to be on the Earth; they did not know
that it was the aim of their earlier evolution to veil their being with
darkness. Here we come to what may be spoken of as the attitude of
preparation of the human soul for the Christ Being. This attitude of
preparation may be described as follows: Through what it is able to
experience within itself, the soul feels, even though it may not be
able to express it in words: ‘Since the very beginning of the
Earth I have developed in such a way that through what I possess in my
own being I cannot fulfill the aim of my evolution. Where is there
anything to which I can cling, which I can take into myself and with it
reach my goal in evolution?’ To feel as if the human being
extends far beyond anything that the soul can achieve through its own
strength won during its evolution on the Earth hitherto — such is
the Christian attitude or mood of preparation. And when the soul finds
that which it must recognize as essentially bound up with its being
— but for the attainment of which it could not find the power
within itself — when the soul finds that which bestows this power
— it finds Christ. The soul then develops. its connection with
the Christ, saying to itself: ‘At the very beginning of the Earth
a living nature was predestined for me: during the course of Earth
evolution darkness has descended over this living nature and when I now
look into this darkness I lack the power whereby I may bring it to
fulfillment, but I turn my spiritual gaze upon the Christ Who gives me
the power.’ The human soul feels the approach of Christ and
stands as if in a direct personal relationship to Him. The soul seeks
Christ and knows that it cannot find Him if He does not give Himself to
humanity through human evolution, if He does not approach from the
beyond.
There is a
fairly well-known Christian Church Father who was not afraid to speak
of the Greek philosophers, Herakleitos, Socrates and Plato, as
Christians who lived before the founding of Christianity. Why does he
do this? St. Augustine himself said: ‘All religions have
contained something of the Truth, and the element of Truth in all
religions is what is Christian in them, before there was Christianity
in name.’ St. Augustine dares to say that. Nowadays many a man
would be regarded as a heretic if he were to say a similar thing within
certain Christian bodies.
We most
readily arrive at an understanding of what this Church Father wished to
convey when he called the old Greek philosophers Christians, by
endeavoring to transport ourselves into the feeling of those souls who
in the first post Christian centuries tried to determine their personal
relationship to the Christ. These souls did not think of Christ as
having had no relation to the Earth evolution before the Mystery of
Golgotha. The Christ has always had something to do with the evolution
of the Earth. Through the Mystery of Golgotha, however, His task, His
mission in the Earth evolution, was changed from what it was before. It
is not Christian to seek Christ in the evolution of the Earth only
since the Mystery of Golgotha. True Christians know that Christ had
always been connected with the evolution of the Earth.
Let us now
turn to the Jewish people. Did the Jews know Christ? I am not speaking
of whether the Jewish people knew the name of Christ or whether those
who really understand Christianity are justified in saying:
‘Judaism had Christ: Judaism knew Christ.’ It is possible
to have some person or other near one, and to see his external form
without recognizing his essential being, or being able to place a right
value upon him, because one has not risen to real knowledge of him. In
the true Christian sense ancient Judaism had Christ, only it did not
recognize Him in His true Being. Is it Christian to speak in this way?
It is Christian in as true a sense as it is Pauline. Where was Christ
for ancient Judaism? It is said in the Old Testament that when Moses
led the Jews into the wilderness, a Pillar of Cloud went before them by
day and a Pillar of Fire by night. It is said that the Jews passed
through the sea, that the sea parted in order that they might pass
through; but that behind them the Egyptians were drowned, for the sea
closed in on them. It is also said that the Jews murmured, but that at
the command of God, Moses was able to go to a rock and to strike it
with his staff so that water poured forth for the Jews to drink. Moses
led the Jews, he himself being led by God. Who was the God of Moses? We
will in the first instance allow Paul to answer. We read in the First
Epistle to the Corinthians (x. 1-4): ‘Moreover, brethren, I would
not that ye should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the
cloud (he means the pillar of fire) and all passed through the sea; and
were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all
eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink:
for they drank of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock
was Christ.’ Thus according to Paul, Who was it who led the Jews
and who spoke with Moses? Who was it who had allowed water to flow out
of the rock and who turned away the sea from the path of the Jews? Only
those who wished to declare that Paul was no Christian would dare
pronounce it unchristian to see Christ in the guiding God of the Old
Testament, in the Lord of Moses.
In the Old
Testament there is a passage which must, I think, present great
difficulties for all who reflect more deeply. It is a passage to which
anyone who does not read the Old Testament thoughtlessly, but who wants
to understand its connections, will return again and again. ‘What
may this passage mean?’ he asks himself. The passage is as
follows: ‘Then Moses raised his hand, and struck the Rock with
the staff twice; thereupon much water came forth, and the congregation
drank, and their cattle. But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron: Because
ye have not believed in Me to sanctify Me before the children of
Israel, ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I will
give unto them.’ Take this passage in its context in the Old
Testament: When the people murmured, the Lord commanded Moses to strike
the rock with a staff: Moses struck with his staff on the rock, and
water flowed out; everything that the Lord commanded took place through
Moses and Aaron, and directly after this, we are told that the Lord
reproved Moses — if it is a reproof — for not having
believed in Him. What does it mean? Take all the commentaries on this
passage, and try to understand the passage by means of what has been
written in them. One understands it as one understands a great deal in
the Bible — that is to say, really not at all, for behind this
passage a mighty mystery is hidden. What is hidden in this passage is
this: He Who led Moses, Who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, He
Who led the people through the Wilderness and caused water to flow out
of the Rock, He was the Lord Christ! But the time was not yet come;
Moses himself did not recognize Him; Moses thought He was another. That
is what is meant by Moses not having believed in Him Who had commanded
him to strike the Rock with his staff.
How did the
Lord Christ appear to the Jewish People? We are told that by day it was
in a Pillar of Cloud, and by night it was in a Pillar of Fire —
and by His dividing the waters for their safety ... and many other
things which we can read in the Old Testament. In phenomena of cloud
and fire He appeared and was active, but never did it occur to the
ancient Jews: That Which appeared in the Pillar of Cloud and in the
Pillar of Fire, That Which worked wonders such as the parting of the
waters, appears in its purest original form in the human soul. Why did
this never occur to the ancient Jews? Because, owing to the course
taken by human evolution, the soul of man had lost the power to feel
its deepest being within itself. Thus the Jewish soul could look into
Nature, it could allow the glory of the phenomena of the elements to
work upon it; everywhere it could divine the existence of its God and
Lord; but directly, within itself as it was, it could not find Him.
There in
the Old Testament we have the Christ. There He worked, but men did not
recognize Him. How did the Christ work? Do we not see how He worked,
when we read through the Old Testament? The most significant thing
Moses had to impart to his people through the mouth of Jehovah was the
Ten Commandments. He had received them out of the power of the elements
from which Jehovah spoke to him. Moses did not descend into the depths
of his own soul; he did not ask in lonely meditation: ‘How does
God speak in my own heart?’ He went up into the mountain, and
through the power of the elements the Divine Will revealed itself to
him. Volition, or Will, is the fundamental character of the Old
Testament — this fundamental character is often called that of
Law. Will works through the evolution of man, and is expressed in the
Decalogue, in the Ten Commandments. The God proclaimed His Will to man
through the elements. Will holds sway in the Earth evolution. That is,
really, the purport of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament, in
accordance with its whole purport, calls for man's subjection to this
Will.
If we hold
before our souls what we have just been considering, we can express the
result in the words: The Will of the Lord was given to men; but men did
not know the Lord: they knew not the Divine in such a way as to connect
it with their own human soul.
Now let us
turn from the Jews to the heathen. The heathen, had they Christ? Is it
Christian to say of the heathen that they also had Christ? The heathen
had their Mysteries. Those initiated in the Mysteries were brought to
the point where their soul passed out of their bodies; the tie
connecting body and soul was loosened; and when the soul was outside
the body, the soul perceived the mysteries of being in the spiritual
world. Much was connected with these Mysteries; much varied knowledge
came to the candidates for initiation in the Mysteries. But when we
investigate what was the highest that the disciple of the Mysteries
could receive into himself, we find that it consisted in the fact that
outside his body he was placed before the Christ. As Moses was placed
before Christ, so, in the Mysteries was the disciple placed with his
soul, outside his body, before Christ. Christ was there for the heathen
also, but for them He was there only in the Mysteries. He revealed
Himself to them only when the soul was out of the body. Christ was
there for the heathen, even if among the heathen there was as little
recognition of this Being as Christ, as there was among the Jews of
that Being of Whom we have just spoken and before Whom the
Mystery-Disciples were placed. The Mysteries were instituted for the
heathen. Those who were fit and ready were admitted into the Mysteries.
Through these Mysteries Christ worked upon the heathen world. Why did
He work thus? Because the soul of man, in its development since the
beginning of the earth, had lost its inherent power to find its true
being through itself. This true being had to reveal itself to the soul
of man when unhampered by the ties of human nature, that is to say when
it was not bound up with the body. Hence Christ had to lead men through
their being divested of their human nature in the Mysteries. Christ was
there for the heathen too I He was their Leader in the Mysteries. For
never could man have said: ‘When I develop my own powers, then I
can find the meaning and purport of the earth.’ This meaning was
lost, obscured in darkness. The forces of the human soul had been
pressed down into regions too deep for the soul of itself, through its
own powers, to have been able to realize the meaning of the earth.
When we
allow that, which was given in the heathen Mysteries to the disciples
and candidates for initiation, to work upon us, it is Wisdom. To the
Jews was given WILL, through the Laws; to the disciples of the heathen
Mysteries was given WISDOM. But if we look at what characterizes this
heathen Wisdom, may we not express it in the words: If he did not go
out of his body when he was a pupil of the Mysteries, the Earth-man
could not recognize his God as such. As little through Wisdom as
through Will could the Divinity reveal Himself to man. We find words
that sound most wonderfully through Greek Antiquity, like a mighty
demand upon humanity. At the entrance to the abode of the Mysteries of
Apollo stood the words, ‘Man, know thyself!’ What are we
told by the fact that these words, ‘Man, know thyself,’
stood before the abode of the Mysteries, like a demand upon man? We are
told that when man remains what he has become since the beginning of
the Earth, nowhere outside can he fulfill the commandment ‘Know
thyself.’ He must become something more than man; he must loosen
in the Mysteries the ties which bind the soul to the body, if he is to
know himself. These words, standing like a mighty demand before the
abode of the Mysteries of Apollo, point to the fact that darkness had
fallen upon humanity — in other words that God could be reached
through Wisdom as little as He could directly reveal Himself as
Will.
In the same
sense as the individual human soul feels that it cannot bring forth
within itself the forces which impart to it the purport of the Earth,
so we see the human soul at such a stage of development among the Jews
that even Moses himself, their leader, did not recognize Who was
leading him. Among the heathen we see that the demand ‘Know
thyself’ could be fulfilled only in the Mysteries, because man,
as he had developed in the course of the evolution of the Earth, was
unable with his connection of body and soul to unfold the power whereby
he could know himself. The words, ‘Not through Will and not
through Wisdom is God to be known,’ sound to us from those ages.
Through what, then, was God to be known?
We have
often characterized the essential nature of the point of time when
Christ entered into the evolution of earth-humanity. Let us now
consider exactly what it meant when it is said that a certain darkness
of the soul of man had set in, that the Divine could be revealed
neither through Will nor through Wisdom. What is the real meaning of
this?
People
speak of so many relationships between the human and the Divine. They
often speak of the relationship between the human and the Divine and of
the meaning which the human has within the Divine, in such a way that
it is impossible to differentiate between the relation of the human to
the Divine, or of any other earthly thing to the Divine. To-day we find
again and again that philosophers want to rise to the Divine through
pure philosophy. But, through pure philosophy one cannot rise to the
Divine. Certainly by means of it man does come to feel that he is bound
up with the universe, and to know that the human being must, in some
way or other, be bound up with the universe at Death; but how and in
what manner he is thus connected with the universe man cannot know
through pure philosophy. Why not? If you take the whole meaning of what
we have considered to-day, you will be able to say to yourselves:
That which
is first revealed to the soul of the Earth-man between birth and death
is too weak to perceive anything that transcends the earthly that leads
to the Divine-Spiritual. In order to make this quite clear to ourselves
let us investigate the meaning of immortality.
In our day,
many people have no longer any knowledge of the real meaning of human
immortality. Many to-day speak of immortality when they can merely
admit that the being of the human soul passes through the gates of
death, and then finds some place or other in the Universal All. But
every creature does that; what is united into the crystal passes over
into the Universal All when the crystal is dissolved; the plant that
fades passes into the Universal All. For man the thing is different.
Immortality has only a meaning for man when he can carry his
consciousness through the gates of death. Picture to yourselves an
immortal human soul which was unconscious after death; such immortality
would have absolutely no meaning at all. The human soul must carry its
consciousness through the gates of death if it is to speak of its
immortality. Because of the way in which the soul is united to the
body, it cannot find anything in itself of which it can say, ‘I
carry that consciously through death,’ for the consciousness of
man is enclosed between birth and death; it reaches only as far as
death; at first the consciousness possessed by the human soul extends
only as far as death. Into this consciousness there shines the Divine
Will, for example in the Ten Commandments. Read in the Book of Job as
to whether this illumination could stimulate man's consciousness to
such strength that it might say to itself: ‘I pass as a conscious
being through the gates of death.’ What an intense interest there
is for us in these words spoken to Job: ‘Submit thyself to God
and die!’ We know that the man was uncertain as to whether he
would pass through the gates of death with consciousness. And let us
set beside this the Greek saying which gives expression to the dread
felt by the Greek in the face of death: ‘Better a beggar in the
upper world than a king in the realm of shades.’ Here we have the
testimony from heathenism also to the uncertainty felt by man
concerning his immortality. And how uncertain many people are even
to-day. All those people who say that man, when he goes through the
gates of death, passes into the Universal All and is united with some
Universal Being or other, take no heed of what the soul must ascribe to
itself if it is to speak of its immortality.
We need
only pronounce one word, and we shall recognize the position that man
must take up with regard to his immortality — this is the word
Love. All that we have said concerning the word Immortality we can now
connect with what Love designates. Love is nothing we appropriate to
ourselves through the Will; Love is nothing that we appropriate to
ourselves through Wisdom; Love dwells in the region of the feelings,
and we know that we could not be the ideal human soul, if that human
soul could not be filled with love. When we penetrate into the nature
of the soul, we realize that our human soul would no longer be a human
soul if it could not love. But now, let us suppose that we were to pass
through the gates of death in such a way that our human individuality
was lost, and that we were to be united with some Universal Divinity.
We should then be within this Divinity; we should belong to It. We
could no longer love the Godhead; we should be in Him. Love would have
no meaning if we were in the Godhead. If we could not carry our
individuality through death, we should in death have to lose love, for
in the moment that individuality ceased, love would cease. One being
can only love another that is separate from itself; if we carry our
Love of God through death, we must carry with us through death that
which kindles Love within us.
If the
meaning of the earth is to be brought to man, information concerning
his immortality must be given him in such a way that his nature may be
thought of as inseparable from Love. Neither Will nor Wisdom can give
to man what he needs; only Love can give man what he needs. What was it
then that became darkened in the course of man's evolutionary path over
the Earth? Let us take the Jews, or the Heathen: the consciousness
beyond death had become obscure, dark. Between birth and
death-consciousness; beyond death and beyond birth — darkness;
nothing remained of the consciousness within the earth-body —
‘Know thyself’ — at the entrance of the Greek
Mysteries, the most holy demand of the Greek sanctuary upon mankind.
Man could only answer: ‘If I remain bound to my body with my soul
as when an earth-man, I cannot recognize myself in that individuality
which can love beyond death. I cannot do it.’ The knowledge that
man can love as individuality beyond death — that was what had
become lost for man. Death is not the cessation of the physical body.
Only a materialist can say that. Suppose that in every hour that he
lived in his body, man's consciousness were such that he knew as
certainly what lies beyond death as he knows to-day that the sun will
rise on the morrow and take its journey across the heavens. Then death
would have no sting for him, death would not be that which we call
death; man would know in the body that death is only a phenomenon
leading from one form to another. Paul did not understand by
‘death’ the cessation of the physical body; by
‘death’ he understood the fact that consciousness only
extends as far as death, and that man, in so far as he was united with
the body in the existence of that period, could, within his body,
extend his consciousness only as far as death. Wherever Paul speaks of
death we might add: ‘Lack of consciousness beyond
death.’
What gave
to man the Mystery of Golgotha? Is it a number of natural phenomena, a
pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire that stands before humanity with the
Mystery of Golgotha? No! A man stands before men — Christ Jesus.
With the Mystery of Golgotha did anything out of mysterious nature take
place — did a sea divide so that the people of God could go
through? No! A man stood before men, Who made the lame to walk and the
blind to see. That proceeded from a man.
The Jew had
had to look into Nature when he wanted to see Him Whom he called his
Divine Lord. Now it was a man Who could be seen. Of a man it could be
said that He had God dwelling in Him. The heathen had to be initiated;
his soul had to be withdrawn from his body in order that he might stand
before the Humanity which is the Christ. On the earth he had been
unable to divine the Christ; he could only know that the Christ was
outside the earth. But He Who had been outside the earth came upon the
earth, took on a human body. In Christ Jesus there stood as man before
men That Being Who formerly had stood in the Mysteries before the soul
that was liberated from the body. And what came to pass through this?
In this the beginning was made, whereby the powers that man had lost
since the beginning of the Earth in the course of the earth-evolution
— the powers through which his immortality was assured to him
— were to come again to him through the Mystery of Golgotha. In
the overcoming of Death on Golgotha the forces originated which could
rekindle the powers which had been lost. And the path of man through
the earth-evolution will henceforth be that by taking the Christ more
and more into himself he will discover that within himself which can
love beyond death — that is to say, he can stand before his God
as an immortal individuality. Therefore only since the Mystery of
Golgotha, has the saying become true: ‘Love God above all, and
thy neighbor as thyself.’
Will was
given from the burning thorn bush; Will was given through the Ten
Commandments. Wisdom was given through the Mysteries. But Love was
given when God became man in Christ Jesus. And the guarantee that we
can love beyond death, that by means of the powers won back for our
souls a Society of Love exists between God and man, and love of all men
for one another — the guarantee for that proceeds from the
Mystery of Golgotha. In the Mystery of Golgotha the human soul has
found what man had lost from the primal beginnings of the earth, in
that his forces had become ever weaker and weaker.
Three
forces in three members of the soul: Will, Wisdom, Love I In this Love
the soul experiences its relation to Christ.
I wanted to
bring these things before you from a certain angle. What may have
seemed aphoristic in the explanations given to-day will find its
context later on. But I think we can inscribe deeply within our souls,
that progress in the knowledge of Christ is a real gain for the human
soul, and that when we consider the relationship of the human soul to
Christ, it again becomes clear to us how before the Mystery of Golgotha
there was a sheath, as it were, between the human soul and Christ; how
this sheath was broken by the Mystery of Golgotha, and how we can say
with truth: ‘Through the Mystery of Golgotha a Cosmic Being
flowed into the Earth-life, a Super-earthly Being united Himself with
the Earth.’
As to what
the human soul can experience in itself with its Christ, we shall speak
of together during the next few days. We shall speak in the following
lectures of all that the human soul, with Christ, can experience within
itself.
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