FOURTH LECTURE
Stuttgart, 14 July 1923
Yes, my dear friends, I would like to supplement what I said
yesterday. I wanted to offer it then already, but time was too
short. This occasion gives us the opportunity to refer to our
relationship we need to gradually re-establish with the Bible.
The Bible, namely the New Testament, is a document which we
must learn to grasp as a supersensible revelation, not in a
dogmatic sense but through arriving at knowledge which indicates
that religious documents originating up to about the time
4 AD
were not only of human origin but were poured into
the consciousness of humanity; knowledge which could not have
come out of humanity. I would like to mention that you only
need to bring humanity up to this point while a kind of
instinctive atavistic consciousness still existed, presenting
the most manifold images depicting the highest spiritual things
and processes, yet these images were not conceptualised in
human consciousness.
So
it has come about that right at the time when intellectualism
has become authoritative, religious documents are misunderstood
in many areas. They are approached with intellectual thinking
and basically it is quite natural that even with much goodwill,
misunderstandings come to the fore. Thus it has happened that
when today's presented texts are transcribed into a common
language, they do not represent the original documents because
a national language has an intellectual basis which is alien to
the original elements in which the religious documents were
embodied.
When religious documents, particularly the New Testament, are
referred back to in its original language, it also becomes
apparent that this original language can no longer be
experienced in an adequate way in the constitution of souls of
today. Actually, a kind of untruthful element enters into the
understanding of ancient religious knowledge, also the New
Testament. It is hopeless to think that translations done up to
now can somehow be improved continually, because it must
firstly involve finding the preconditions which will enable a
kind of reawakening of ancient spirituality with the purpose of
really understanding religious documents. This we can do, this
everyone can basically do, if the trouble is taken to apply
researchable spiritual scientific facts to, let's say, the New
Testament.
I
would like to give a small example and that from one of the
most important places in the New Testament. I would like to
stress from the start that representations in the New Testament
are connected to a historic fact; the depiction in the New
Testament can only be understood when it is very clear that the
fact of the Mystery of Golgotha is placed within the rest of
humanity's evolution, but as a fact which falls outside the
rest of humanity's laws. The Mystery of Golgotha is a totally
singular event and for its understanding should not be
considered out of historical foundations but it should be
grasped out of itself. Only when you take — I would like to
call it super-historical fact — this cosmic fact in
relationship with scientific spiritual knowledge about the
development of humanity, only then can you actually start
understanding the deep sense of the words and the sentence
formation of the New Testament. If you don't do this, a far too
strong trivial tone enters into the New Testament. We can
remind ourselves of various impulses towards a possible
understanding of the Bible where absolutely no preparatory
understanding is regarded necessary and that it should simply
be taken in a naive, primitive manner. You need to remind
yourself of this fact in order to judge how strong the
reluctance is to perceive the New Testament in its total
profundity.
Just consider, my dear friends, that the Mystery of Golgotha,
taken in its right sense, was fulfilled for the earth as a
specific act of grace out of higher spiritual worlds at a
specific time when a certain part of humanity was passing over
from a previous state of consciousness to the next one. At the
time of the Mystery of Golgotha the evolution of humanity's
becoming in earthly life reached up to an inner ego reality.
The “I” gradually unfolded at the same time as the
Mystery of Golgotha. We may not look for the connection between
these two facts, whether causal or just as a connection. We may
only consider it a connection when it is compared with one
seeing something happening and something is done towards it out
of free will. The Mystery of Golgotha appears as a cosmic fact
of free will which has come about within the development of
humanity in such a way, that the ego consciousness is awakened.
Now, you know the remainder of the important facts which are
linked to the appearance of the ego consciousness. Something
extraordinary may be added to this. It is necessary to know
that with the embodiment of the ego consciousness in evolution
there was a condition where people looked up at every
opportunity of their conscious lives to gods, or — where
monotheism existed — to that God who has remained as an image
of the Father God. As long as we stand in the imagination of
the Father God, the imagination is fulfilled so that we can
say: ‘When a human being is aware of his ego nature then he
feels that within his ego is the inner working of the Father
God in his soul.’ The Father God distils in a certain way a
drop of his own Being which remains connected to the entire
spiritual sea of the Father God, to the beings of individuals
and every person can say to himself: ‘The Father God is alive
in me, the abundance of the Father God lives in me.’ However,
the entire humanity is permeated with the being of the Father
God. Experiencing all of this at present is to say to yourself:
‘I am!’ That is: ‘The Father God is in me.’
— To live in this way in present times is becoming increasingly
impossible. You must come to your own “I” via your own
consciousness which makes it a product of yourself. This production
of the individual “I” is in connection with the entire
cosmic-spiritual world only possible when individuals identify
themselves with Christ, thus with the Son of God.
What can be said about the relationship between people blessed
by Christ and people who have not been enriched by Christ? Upon
looking back at the consciousness of unblessed mankind,
therefore the individual being of their souls, can you say: ‘I
am the only one who has been blessed with an “I”?’
— No, the soul could only say: ‘Within me the Father God
lives and because He lives in me it enables me to say “I”
to myself.’ — People had not been completely individualised,
the individual was a child of God, but as if the child was
still connected to God by an umbilical cord. What the soul
could have when it was aware of this divine capacity, it could
have no more, later on. The Christ-blessed humanity acquired it
in such a way that each single soul could take up their
“I” out of this divine substance.
In
this way the Christ-blessed people were able to take their own
“I” out of the substance of their individual soul
being.
Thus the Christ brought the same as what the Father God had
given humanity on earth, but He brought it in a new way in
order for every individual to find a connection to the ego
being born within. Thus the Christ could say to humanity: ‘I
bring to you what you are used to recognise out of the Logos
but I bring it in a new way. I bring it to you through what the
Father God has given to me, what He had given directly to you
before, but for another state of consciousness. As his
messenger I bring this treasure from the Father God to you, to
each independent consciousness of yours, to every single
individual. I don't want to just make you into some kind of
member of the whole cosmos, I will by virtue of the full
authority given to me by the Father God make each single one of
you, if you want to come, into an “I” filled person
with a divine consciousness.’
That the manner in which the divine consciousness should come
to people now in a different way to what it had been in earlier
times, is because of the Mystery of Golgotha. Similarly, it
also applies to the Words of the Gospels taking on quite a
different sense as a result of the Mystery of Golgotha. It is
for instance possible to refer back to the stages of evolution
of humanity from the contents of the Our Father prayer. It
doesn't refer to the contents in this case but that the Our
Father comes across in a different and in a newer way to the
“I” filled conscious soul even though given in the
same words, in the same sentences. Penetrating this event with
spiritual powers makes it possible again for us to research it
ourselves. This fact brings us back to the original meaning of
the Gospels. This original meaning must be revealed again
today. Humanity should not be allowed to be fobbed off with
misunderstandings of Gospels not taken from a lofty view. One
should overcome the point of understanding the matter in such a
way as to ask oneself: Can you, when you are quite honest in
your soul, today still, discover meaning in the words of John
17, verse 1 to 9?
My
dear friends, much can be said and repeated about this if you
want to disregard the facts that a clear understanding can't
really be found. In an artificial way (of the commentator) no
meaning can be linked to these words. Only through belief can
meaning be connected to them because nothing actual is touched
when you have one these sentences (of some or other terrible
translation) in front of you. By contrast when you make an
attempt to empathise with the (original) texts in a
word-for-word translation into your mother tongue (original
text says “German” — translator note), then a
deeper meaning comes into it. You should not allow, if you are
honest with yourself, to say these words would be simplified
and be comprehensible to every ordinary human mind, through
artificial comments. Actually you realise the deeper meaning in
the original and this fact must be your starting point.
Humanity today would prefer not to have to search for such deep
meaning in the Gospels. One can't escape the fact that there is
deeper meaning which we need to discover. We can't deny it. It
would be a subjective fantasy to say: ‘Don't interpret anything
in the Gospels, simply remain with the contents.’ That as such
is the interpretation. When we go back to the meaning which is
there on quite a mundane level then we could translate it in
the following way:
After Jesus saved him, he lifted his eyes to heaven and
said: Father, the hour has come, let your son be revealed so
that he may reveal you, as You have given him power over all
who have flesh, so that he may give everlasting life to them.
This now is everlasting life, that You are recognised as the
only true God and Jesus Christ as your emissary. I have revealed
Your being on earth, to fulfil the work You have given to me.
And now reveal me, Father, with the light of revelation which
came through You to me before the world began. I have brought
You into manifestation to humanity which You assigned to me
out of the world. They were Yours and You gave them to me and
they have remained fulfilled with Your Word. Thus they can see
that everything which You have given me comes from You. For the
power of thought which You have given me, I have brought to them.
You have linked yourself to them and seen how I come from You
and that You have given them to me. I pray for each single
individual, not for humanity in general, but for those you have
given me, for they are yours, created by you.
As
I have said to you before, this entire version is nothing
other, my dear friends, than the facts of humanity's evolution
depicted within the Gospels. The precise truth in the Gospels
can be found when you enter into the spiritual facts within
them. With this, the kind of awareness develops, I might say,
for the right light to be thrown on the words. Is it not true,
it is certainly not my intention to utter some idle criticism
when I say it is not possible to say the words:
“Father, the hour has come for You to reveal your son,
so that Your son can reveal you.” If you are honest,
you will admit: this
doesn't really say anything, even by trying to make it
comprehensible through the human heart. In contrast the truth
becomes obvious by taking the Greek Text which says:
“Father, the hour has come, reveal your son
...” which asks the Father to reveal the Son. The
is no statement, the
is to reveal, to announce, to-bring-to-recognition, and thus it
is meant: “... so that your son is revealed out of
You.” The mediation of the Father-contents through
the power of the Son are expressed directly in these words in a
naive idea. Earlier, humanity had the substance of the Father
God within them, as described. Now the Father God has brought
the Son to becoming the mediator for humanity. This is really
written here and is no lie: “... as You have given him
power over all who have flesh ...” The expression
“flesh”
(Fleisch)
is difficult to translate here
because it can be misunderstood in ordinary speech. In fact, it
should say: “... as You have given him power over all
human physical bodies so that he can give everlasting life
for those given to him.” —
When one contemplates these facts, that the human body
originally had the consciousness of being filled with God and
thus earned everlasting life, you realise that while this power
no longer fills the consciousness, the bodies can no longer
reflect back the gift of everlasting life. This is why the
Christ had to be sent to humanity. ‘This now is everlasting
life, that You are recognised as the only true God and Jesus
Christ your emissary. I have revealed Your Being
on earth, to fulfil the work You have given to me. And now
reveal me, Father, with the light of revelation
which came through You to me before the world began. I have
brought You into manifestation for humanity which you assigned
me out of the world. They were Yours and You gave them to me
and they have remained fulfilled with Your Word.’
Christ Jesus has made it possible to stop the Word from dying
and for the contents of the Father substance to remain in
humanity. If the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place,
humanity would have forgotten about this content. The Father
God would have been forgotten if the Son had not perpetuated
the Fatherly content. Thus they have seen that everything
which You have given me comes from You. For the power of
thought which You have given me, I have brought to them. You
have linked yourself to them and seen how I come from You and
that You have given them to me. I pray for each single individual,
not for humanity in general, but for those you have given me,
for they are yours, created by you.
I
add here ‘for humanity in general’ instead of
‘for the World’. This is no longer understood.
This spiritual connectivity experience has just been referred to
which at the time was an acceptable image: For them as individuals,
not only for humanity in general.
In
truth, the New Testament does not become less beautiful,
magnificent and sublime through our understanding of its
contents. This concerns your correct positioning in the
present, in the spiritual life of the present, in a religious
movement of the present to once again return to the reality
contained in the Gospels. How often the request surfaces for
the necessity to return again to original Christendom! It fails
because nothing can be achieved by an attempt to grasp the
Logos in its ancient meaning and then one repeatedly comforts
oneself conveniently that the Gospels should be taken up as
simple content. However, simple content would not fail if one
would actually enter into what is written there. We may not
forget, my dear friends, that words do essentially change in
their feeling-value in the course of time. It is not possible
simply to translate a word out of the ancient language
lexicographically. Already today when one translates something
lexicographically, the results are entirely different. This
applies even more when translating historical events. It does
not come down to directly taking the sentimental value attached
to words of the present and applying this to ancient wording,
but the task is to go back to the feeling within the contents
of the ancient working. We can find examples of these
facts everywhere in the New Testament where the Gospels were
expressed in a time when revelation was given through grace
from the spiritual cosmos to mankind which had not yet moved
from the partially developed ego consciousness into the fully
developed ego consciousness. All other facts need to be judged
according to this basic fact. We may not remain fixed in an
opinion and say that the earlier, the simple people emerging
from the lowest levels could not understand the meaning in it.
If the meaning of the Gospels is so simple to understand, we
must reveal the other side of this wonderful fact: How were
these simple people capable of relating such a profound meaning
in the Gospels? — It is far more spiritual to say these simple
people born from the folk could not have understood the
meaning. Such a conclusion depends on another opinion.
I
don't know if any of you — perhaps those of us who are older —
have had this kind of experience of going with a loving heart
among the country folk. You go there as an educated person
feeling tremendously clever and you speak to the folk of what
you've learnt. They don't understand you. Yet if you go along
with them, you discover an unbelievable deep wisdom among these
simple people which outshines anything you can offer out of
yourself. The wisdom of naive people is actually deeper than
that of educated people. The theory of simplicity among
primitive people is an intellectual theory of educated people.
For example, the meaning in some of Jakob Bohme's sentences
could have been learnt from a herb gatherer forty years ago
rather than in a university. This can't be denied. However
faithfully an old text can be translated is something from
which Professor Beckh can create a song for you, concerning
Sanskrit in oriental texts. One will not be going too far by
saying Indian philosophy becomes unrecognizable in translation,
which for example was done by Professor Deußen (after the
visit of Swami Viviknanda to Germany in 1896-translator note).
If one wants to examine the original human contents of
Deußen's translation, simply the straight forward word
combination, you experience it as empty words in which no sense
can be found at all. These things are of the utmost importance
and are related to the deepest questions of our time. As a
result, I do not want to hesitate to decide our future meeting
in relation with this consideration, because I believe that it
is necessary precisely at this time.
I
hope you can experience it as the truth — what I mentioned
yesterday — that for the Religious Movement the Act of
Consecration becomes the deepest and most everlasting fact
which is not merely rich in imagery but that it must become
alive and remain capable of becoming ever new and more rich. I
hope that we can continue with our working together in this
lively unfolding way with which we have started with so much
hope.
Werner Klein expressed in closing the wish of the good
will remaining so powerfully in the work that in a year's time
another meeting will be held where they could ask Dr Steiner's
advice.
Rudolf Steiner: We wish for this as well and will hold
this in our hearts.
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