FOURTH
LECTURE:
DECEMBER 31, 1913
Yesterday we spoke of how preparation was made for that
which had to come about for the evolution of humanity through the
Mystery of Golgotha. We spoke of the three permeations of a Being of
the higher Hierarchies by the Christ, and in the wonderful emergence
of the Greek Apollo we found an echo of what had taken place at the
end of the Atlantean time, as a far distant prefiguring of the
Mystery of Golgotha. Now we have to inquire how the effects of this
are manifest in the evolution of mankind. It will first be necessary
to say something about the basic characteristics of the world
pictures which appeared in post-Atlantean times as the echoes, or
after effects, of the threefold Christ-event, for this, as we have
seen, reached a certain conclusion at the end of the Atlantean Age.
Let us try to look more deeply into the fundamental
characteristics of these world pictures. They arose as after effects
in human souls of all that I described yesterday. These
post-Atlantean world-pictures are indeed the reflections of the
threefold Christ-event in the souls of post-Atlantean mankind. From
this point of view we need say only a few words about the first
post-Atlantean epoch. We know that in terms of spirituality it was
the highest post-Atlantean epoch up to now, but that what the souls
of the holy Rishis and their disciples received from it was less
penetrated by the Mysteries of which I spoke yesterday.
The first post-Atlantean world-picture to show a direct
effect of the threefold Christ-event was that which arose from the
Zarathustrian impulse. Now I must here remark in parenthesis that I
shall have to introduce words which — because of the way they
are used today — have a dry, abstract, even pedantic sound;
but, search as one may through the language; there are no other words
available. And so I shall want to appeal to your souls to understand
by these words something far more spiritual than anything they can
signify for the and scholarship of the present time.
From the point of view relevant here I should like to
associate the Zarathustrian world-picture with “Chronology”.
It looks beyond the two Beings, Ahura Mazdao and Ahriman, to the
workings of Time — Zervan Akarana. Not, however, the abstract
Time we think of today, but Time viewed as a living, super-personal
Being. From this Being proceed the rulers of Time; first of all the
Amshaspands, the spiritual Beings who are symbolised in cosmic space
by the signs of the Zodiac. Through the number six — or twelve
if we reckon in their antipodes — they rule over the Izeds, who
rank below them and are 28–31 in number. The Izeds are spirits
of a lower kind, servants of the high Time Beings; they regulate the
days of the month.
The Zarathustrian consciousness looked at the wonderful
harmony which works through forces and is symbolised numerically by
all the relations and combinations which result from the interweaving
of 28 to 31 with 12. It looked into all that streams into the world
and resounds through it, because in the great world-orchestra the
instruments sound harmoniously together in these numerical
relationships. For the Zarathustrian world-picture this appears as
the ordering and harmonising principle in the cosmic order. I want to
give only a hint of these relationships. And because in that which
creates, and nourishes itself in creating, in that which takes the
world-pictures into itself, absorbing them spiritually and carrying
them over to higher stages — because the Zarathustrian outlook
sees in “Time” something living and super-personal —
so, while spiritualising the term, we may call this world-picture
“Chronology”, whereby we are led to think at once of the
god Kronos, the Regent of Time.
Then we come to the third post-Atlantean epoch.
Yesterday I described it as the epoch in which knowledge was kindled
in human souls by the forces which shone out from the stars; when the
secrets of the world were no longer discerned only through the
relations between the Rulers of Time in the super-sensible, for these
were becoming manifest in the realm of sense existence. In the
courses of the stars, in the signature of their movements in cosmic
space, men could now perceive how harmony and melody in cosmic
happenings are brought about. This picture of the world I would like
to call Astrology. So Chronology is followed by Astrology. And
everything that was disclosed by the true, authentic Chronology of
Zarathustrianism, and by the true, authentic Astrology of the
Egyptian and Chaldean Mysteries — all this was activated by the
secret influence which had come into the world though the threefold
Christ-event before the Atlantean catastrophe.
And what followed in Greece or in the Graeco-Latin
epoch? What I am now going to say applies not only to the Greek and
Roman cultures, but also to all the other regions of Europe.
Yesterday I tried to illustrate it through a single example, but it
holds good, one might say, for all the West. Let us recall how the
Greeks reverenced Apollo, the reflection of the Nathan Jesus-child as
he had been at the end of the Atlantean time. It was out of the
Hyperborean land, from the North, that Apollo came to the Oracle at
Delphi. Through the Pythia, in summer, he spoke the most important
things that the Greeks wished to hear. In the autumn he returned to
his Hyperborean land. We connected this journey of Apollo with the
journeys of the sun; but it is the spiritual sun that speaks
through Apollo, and the spiritual sun goes away to the north, while
the physical sun goes to the south. The myths are seen to be
endlessly full of wisdom if they are considered in the light of true
occultism. But in revering Apollo the Greeks did not look on the sun
as his visible sign in the heavens; Apollo was not a sun god in this
sense. For a god symbolised by the external sun the Greeks had
Helios; it was he who regulated the course of the sun in the sky.
Even if we take only the physical sun into account, we find that its
influence on earth-life is not confined to the direct effects of its
rays. The sun works in the first place through air and water and
water-vapour, and so through the vapours which (as we have seen) rise
from the site of the Castalian spring and coil round the neighbouring
hillsides like a dragon — the dragon killed by the Greek St.
George. The sun works in all the elements, and after it has worked
into them, inoculated them, its activity plays out from them on to
human beings, through the servants whom we call elemental spirits. In
the elements the Sun-Spirit is actively alive, and this is the
activity the Greeks saw in their Apollo.
Thus for the Greeks Apollo was a sun god, but not the
Helios who drove the chariot of the sun across the heavens and to
some extent regulated the times of the day. In Apollo the Greeks saw
the sun's activity in the atmosphere, and this activity they
addressed as Apollo when they addressed it spiritually. And so it was
with many gods and spiritual beings whom we find in the West. I could
mention many, but we need point only to Wotan with his wild host,
rushing through the storm. What form then did the world-picture —
still echoing the threefold Christ-event — take in the fourth
post-Atlantean epoch? Again I must make use of a pedantic, dried out
word. Astrology was followed by Meteorology. Chronology, Astrology,
Meteorology! We have only to bring the “logy” into
relation with the Logos.
But while all this was breaking in over the Western
world, something else streamed into the whole post-Atlantean
civilisation. This too was an after-echo of the threefold
Christ-event, but it came from quite another side. And this fourth
element, running as though parallel to the Meteorology of the fourth
post-Atlantean epoch, is something I must again designate with a dry,
pedantic word: Geology — but I beg you once more to relate the
“logy” to the Logos. Geology, then — where do we
encounter it?
The development of the ancient Hebrew civilisation will
never reveal its particular secrets unless it is studied as Geology,
in our sense of the term. How do we first come upon the ranks of the
Elohim, or upon the Jahve-god? [On
the subject of the creative work performed by Jahve together with the
other six Elohim, see
Genesis. Secrets of the Bible Story of Creation.
Lecture-course given by Dr. Steiner in Munich,
August, 1910.] We meet him first when he wishes to
form into man something taken from the Earth itself. He wishes to
clothe with a new covering, an Earth-vesture, the part of man that
has come down from earlier times, from Saturn, Sun, Moon. Jahve is
precisely the god who forms man out of the Earth — that is, out
of the forces and elements of the Earth. Therefore the ancient Hebrew
wisdom, since it professed the Jahve-god, had to become Geology. And
this teaching about man, that he is formed out of the forces of the
Earth, is Geology. Is not the geological character of the ancient
Hebrew teaching shown to us at once in the name of the first man,
Adam — he who was formed out of earth! That is the significant
point that we must keep before us: among other peoples — the
peoples with a meteorological world-picture, let us say — the
creation of man is spoken of quite differently, with the emphasis on
his soul. In the Greek tradition, for example, we see Prometheus
engaged in the forming of man. Athene lends her aid and causes a
spark from spiritual heights to be united with man. Prometheus forms
the soul in the symbolic likeness of a butterfly. The Jahve-god forms
man out of earth; and he, the Jahve-god, having become in the
course of his evolution the Ruler of Earth, breathes out of his own
substance a living soul into man. So Jahve unites himself through his
breath with what he has formed out of earth. And he wishes to dwell
in his offspring, in his living breath, in Adam and his descendants;
those beings whom Jahve considered it his task to clothe in earth.
And now to carry this further, let us try to call up before our souls
everything we find handed down by the Bible from Hebrew antiquity
itself.
We know, and have emphasised, that the Earth develops
certain forces. Goethe and Giordano Bruno, among others, compare
these forces to those of in-breathing and out-breathing in human
beings. The Earth does have forces of in-breathing and out-breathing
which bring about ebb and flow, the swelling and sinking of the
waters; they are inner Earth-forces, but the same as those which
guide the Moon round the Earth. In water-effects we encounter a
manifestation of these Earth-forces. In this realm the Bible shows us
the Deluge as another important event after the creation of Adam, the
‘man of earth’. And now let us pass on to the time of
Moses!
If we look at the doings of Moses in the right light, we
find them constantly related to activities of the Earth. Moses goes
to the rocks with his rod and makes water gush out. Moses goes up the
mountain. Above and below, the mountain is connected with Earth
activity. For we must think of this mountain as a volcano, or at
least as volcanic. It is not the Sinai generally imagined; the Earth
is active in it. The column of fire in which Moses stands is akin to
what happens when we bum a piece of paper in the sulphur hills of
Italy and smoke comes out. So does fiery smoke, telluric activity,
come out of the mountain. And in telluric activity the Jews always
saw symbols. In front of them went the pillar of cloud or of
fire — telluric activity! We could go deeply into details and
everywhere we should find that the spirit of Earth prevails in all
that Moses gives out as a revelation of the Jahve-god. What Moses
proclaims is Geology!
The profound difference between the Greek and the Hebrew
conceptions of the world will never be understood unless it is
recognised that the Greek conception belongs to Meteorology, and the
Hebrew conception to Geology. The Greeks felt that they were living
in the midst of forces pouring in on the Earth from the surrounding
Cosmos; pouring into the air and pervading the atmosphere. The
Hebrews felt themselves in close relationship to forces rising from
the Earth below and bound up with the Earth. Yes, even the sufferings
of the Hebrew people come from the desert, where the Earth-forces
prevail. Geology dominates the destiny of the Hebrews. Geology,
expressed now in the fruitfulness of the Earth, is what draws them,
through the reports of their spies, to the Promised Land.
[See Numbers, XIII. 16.]
Paul knew well that this consciousness of a connection
with the Earth-spirit is a result of the pre-earthly Christ-event,
for he indicates that it was the Christ who led the Jews through the
desert and caused water to flow from the rock. And if we were to go
on from the Bible to some of the significant Hebrew legends, we
should find them permeated with Geology, in the sense meant here.
Thus we are told how Jahve, when he was forming man out of earth,
sent forth an angel to gather earths of different colours from all
parts of the Earth, so that everything belonging to the Earth should
be mingled in Adam's bodily vesture. Today we should say that
Jahve took great care to place man on the Earth so that in his true
being he would be the highest flower, the crown, of earthly creation.
For the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Zoroastrians, the
Greeks, the Romans and the European peoples of central and northern
Europe, the most important part of man was the part that came from
the spiritual world. For the Jews, the most important element in man
was connected with the Earth and its forces. Jahve felt himself as
the god whose spiritual rulership prevailed throughout the Earth.
Thus we can regard as the most important event in the
fourth post-Atlantean epoch the emergence of Geology side by side
with Meteorology. And a wonderful spiritual reflection of this comes
to expression in ancient Hebrew prophecy.
What were these prophets really striving for? Let us try
to look into the prophetic souls of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hezekiah,
Daniel, Joel, Jonah and Zechariah. If we do this quite impartially,
without any preconceptions, we find that they were endeavouring,
fundamentally, to bring a particular soul-force into the forefront of
the soul and to drive another soul-force down, as it were, into the
depths. I have already asked you to notice how, in the paintings by
Michelangelo which I described, the prophets are always depicted
sitting there as if wrapped in deep thought, inwardly at rest, so
that one sees how in the devotion of their souls they are connected
through sub-earthly depths with the Eternal. In contrast with them
Michelangelo places the Sibyls, who are open to the elemental powers
of the Earth. Thus the hair of one Sibyl is blown about by the wind;
even her blue mantle billows in the wind, and under the influence of
the wind she utters her prophecies. We see another Sibyl seized by
inner fire; in the typically assertive gesture of her hand we see the
fire, the earthly element. We could look again at these Sibyls one by
one and we should find that they live in the midst of the forces
which play into their souls from the elemental surroundings of the
Earth. These Sibylline forces, which so to speak draw into their
souls the spirit of the elements and bring it to expression —
these are the forces that the old Jewish Prophets wanted to repress.
If you read impartially the whole history of the Jewish Prophets, you
will find that the prophet sets himself — and that is the aim
of his training — to suppress in himself the Sibylline urge and
to prevent it from ever breaking out.
Apollo changed the Sibylline impulse of the Pythia by
sinking himself into it and speaking through her. The Prophets wanted
to suppress everything Pythian in their souls and to cultivate solely
that which works in the clear force of the Ego; the Ego which is
bound up with the Earth and belongs to it; the Ego which is the
spiritual counterpart of the geological element. How the Eternal
reveals itself in the Ego through calm repose, when the Sibylline
elements are silent, when all inner turmoil ceases, when only calm
prevails and gazes into the grounds of the Eternal — that is
what the Jewish Prophets wished to manifest, so that their
proclamations could spring from a temper of soul which corresponds in
the highest degree with Geology.
Thus the stirring message that sounds forth to us from
the Prophets is like an out flowing of the geological element, and
even when things turn out quite differently from what has been
prophesied, this very fact shows us how closely bound are the
Prophets to the element of Geology. A future kingdom which will
redeem the existing kingdom while remaining in all appearance an
earthly kingdom, a heaven on Earth — that is first of all what
the Prophets announce, so closely are they united with Geology.
This geological element in the Prophets flowed on even
into the early days of Christianity, since people expected not only
the return of the Messiah, but that he would come down from the
clouds and found his kingdom on Earth. The distinctive inner
character of Jewish culture will be understood only if it is taken in
this sense as Geology. This was what the Prophets longed for and
inculcated in their pupils — to suppress the Sibylline element,
together with everything that leads the soul into unconscious depths,
and to make manifest that which lives in the Ego.
The relations of all other peoples to their gods were
different from those of the Jews to their Jahve. The other relations
were predetermined: they reflected the outcome of the relations of
men to the spirits of the higher Hierarchies during the Saturn, Sun
and Moon periods. The Jewish people had the task of developing a
relationship which belonged specially to the Earth period. But when
the Ego wishes to establish a relationship with its god, how does
this find expression? Not as inspiration, so that morality springs
from the operation of divine forces within the soul, but as
commandment. The form of commandment found in the Decalogue is
encountered first among the Jews — whatever nonsense learned
men may talk about earlier commandments, Hammurabi, and so forth. I
cannot go now into the follies of modern scholarship. The
commandments that arise when the Ego stands directly over against God
and receives from God the rule, the precept, that the Ego must follow
out of its own inner will — this kind of commandment is met
with first among the Jewish people. And it is here, too, that we
first find God entering into a covenant with his people.
The other gods worked with forces which are always
connected with subconscious realms of the soul. Let us recall how
Apollo worked through the Pythia, and how a person on his way to the
Pythia had to prepare himself, so that the god might be able to speak
to him. Apollo spoke through the unconscious soul-life of the Pythia.
In contrast with this we have the Jahve-god uttering his
commandments, making a covenant with his people, speaking directly to
the Ego in the soul. And the Prophets immediately wax wrath if
something happens which did often happen to the Jewish people —
if the influence of heathen peoples gains sway over the Jews. No
subconscious forces were to be allowed to influence the Jews;
everything had to rest on the alliance with God and the principle of
the Law. That was the especial concern of the Prophets. And now let
us look back a little, with the aid of occult knowledge, over what we
have already tried to illustrate.
Yesterday we came to know about the threefold
Christ-event which took place in Lemurian and Atlantean times. We saw
how on three occasions the Being who appeared later as the Nathan
Jesus-child was permeated by the Christ, but in such a way that he
did not incarnate on Earth but remained in spiritual worlds. And when
we look back over what happened then, we must say that what was
accomplished in Atlantean times flowed over into the East.
For example, Elijah was one of the Prophets — but
in what sense is he a Prophet? [On
the subject of the Prophet Elijah, see the following lecture-courses
by Dr. Steiner:
The Gospel of St. Mark
(lectures III and VI)
and
The Gospel of St. Luke
(lecture VI).]
He is a servant of the God Jahve, but in his soul an echo of the
threefold Christ-event lives on. In his soul is the knowledge: “As
a prophet of Jahve I must above all things proclaim that in Jahve
there lives the Christ who will later on fulfil the Mystery of
Golgotha; the Christ who poured His enduring influence into the
cosmos through His third experience at the end of the Atlantean
time.” Elijah proclaimed the Christ-filled Jahve. For the
Christ was indeed living in Jahve, the Jahve-god, but as a reflection
of Himself. As the moon reflects the sunlight, so did Jahve reflect
the Being who then lived as Christ. Christ caused his Being to be
reflected from Jahve or the Jahve-god. But a messenger such as Elijah
worked in the after-effects of the threefold Christ-event; we might
say that Elijah went ahead of the Nathan Jesus-being, who was passing
spiritually from West to East in order to find his way into the
course of civilisation and then to be born as one of the
Jesus-children.
The overflow, as it were, of Meteorology, especially
when this came into touch with Geology, was felt by all peoples as a
heralding of things to come. And we meet with the remarkable fact
that in the region which afterwards became so important for
Christianity one of these prefiguring signs occurred. We see how in
the most varied places of Asia Minor, and also in Europe, festivals
were held which were like foreshadowings of the Mystery of Golgotha.
The cults of Attis and Adonis have been correctly noted as having
this character. But if we look at these festivals in their true
light, we see that the event they prefigure is on the meteorological
level. The god who was slain as Adonis, and who rose again, was not
thought of as embodied in the flesh. What his worshippers had for a
god was primarily an image, a picture; and in fact it was a picture
of the angelic Being who in spiritual heights was permeated by the
Christ at the close of the Atlantean time and was later born as the
Nathan Jesus-child. It was the destiny of the Nathan Jesus-child that
was celebrated in the worship of Adonis and Attis.
We can now say that it was part of the karma of world
history — you will perhaps look for something more behind these
words — that in the place where the Bible with a certain truth
locates the birth of the Jesus-child — in Bethlehem —
there was a centre of the Adonis cult. Bethlehem was one of the
places where Adonis had been worshipped. The Adonis who died and
rose, again was often celebrated there, and so was an aura prepared
by the calling up of a memory: Once in the spiritual heights there
was a Being who then belonged still to the Hierarchy of Angels and
was later to come to Earth as the Nathan Jesus-child; a Being who at
the end of the Atlantean time had been permeated by the Christ. What
had formerly been done for the harmonising of thinking, feeling and
willing — this was celebrated at the Adonis festivals. And in
Bethlehem, where Adonis festivals had been held, we have also the
birthplace of the Nathan Jesus-child. In conjunction, these words
sound strange. But when we have sought out the threefold
Christ-event, the super-earthly event which on three occasions
preceded the Mystery of Golgotha, do we not see the Christ pass over
from West to East, to the place where the Mystery of Golgotha was to
be fulfilled? Do we not see how He had sent His messenger in Elijah,
and do we not know how in his next incarnation the messenger
reappeared as John the Baptist? And are we not expressly told of this
in a wonderful harmony of words: “He sent his angel before him,
to herald his coming?”
[“Behold,
I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me.”
Malachi, III. 1. “For this is he of whom it is written, Behold,
I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way
before thee.” Matthew, XI. 10.] That can be
said as well of John as of Elijah. Or even better of Elijah, as will
be understood by those who remember my saying that Elijah remained in
spiritual heights and worked through a representative, so that he
himself never went about on Earth. If you reflect on that, the
expression, “He sent his angel before him”, is even more
appropriate to Elijah than to John. Such messengers were always
messengers of the Christ, who was passing from West to East.
And now the Geology of the Jews was to be permeated by
the spiritual Being whom we have learnt to see as having a particular
activity in relation to the Earth. Geology was to be Christened
(durchchristet). The spirit of the Earth was to be experienced
in a new way by men; they had to be enabled to free this spirit, in a
certain sense, from the Earth. But this was possible only if there
came a power which could free the spirit of the Earth from the forces
of the Earth. This happened when the Earth's aura was permeated
by the power of the Christ and in consequence a change came over the
Earth itself. The Christ entered into the forces which the Jahve-god
had released and gave them a different character.
From all this, if we look back over it, we can
understand why the laurel became a visible symbol of Apollo. For
those who bring something of Spiritual Science to the study of the
plant kingdom, the laurel has a strong connection with meteorological
conditions. It is shaped and built out of Meteorology. Another plant
is much more closely bound up with the Earth; is so to speak an
expression of Geology. If one really feels how the oil penetrates the
olive tree, so that in one's own soul the elemental forces are
stirred by the way in which the tree allows a new sprout to be
grafted on to it and to flourish there — then one can feel how
the olive tree is inwardly penetrated with the oil of Earth. One can
feel the earthly element pulsing through the oil.
And now you will remember something I touched on in the
second lecture — that Paul was called to build a bridge between
Hebrew antiquity and Christianity, between Geology and Christology.
As we said, Paul's activity extends through the realm of the
olive tree. And if we understand Apollo in the vapours rising from
the mountain chasms, and how through the vapours he inspires the
Pythia and speaks oracular words concerning human fate, then we can
also feel how the elemental forces stream from the olive tree into
its environment, and these are forces familiar to the soul of Paul.
We can feel it in his words. He immerses himself, as it were, in
Geology in order to feel the elemental forces in the aura of the
olive tree and to let its aura inspire him in that geographical realm
where his work lay.
Nowadays people read these things far too abstractly.
They imagine that things said by writers in the past were as
abstract, as dependent only on the brain, as are the things often
said by modern authors. People do not reflect how not only
understanding and reason, but all the forces of the soul, can be
connected in a primordial earthly sense with all that gives a certain
region its particular stamp. It was the olive tree that gave its
stamp to the Pauline region. And when Paul sought to raise the Jewish
Geology up to himself, then it was that — inspired by the olive
tree — he spoke the most important things concerning the
relationship of the Christ-filled man to men who are far from Christ.
Let us hear the strange words Paul uses when he wishes to bring the
Gentile Christians into relation with the Jews. They are not to be
taken abstractly, but as words that rise new-minted from the
elemental depths of his soul: Romans XI. 13–24. (From the New
English Bible):
“But I have something to say to you Gentiles. I am
a missionary to the Gentiles, and as such I give all honour to that
ministry when I try to stir emulation in the men of my own race, and
so to save some of them. For if their rejection has meant the
reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean? Nothing
less than life from the dead! If the first portion of dough is
consecrated, so is the whole lump. If the root is consecrated, so are
the branches. But if some of the branches have been lopped off, and
you, a wild olive, have been grafted in among them, and have come to
share the same root and sap as the olive, do not make yourself
superior to the branches. If you do so, remember that it is not you
who sustain the root: the root sustains you.
“You will say, ‘Branches were lopped off so
that I might be grafted in.’ Very well: they were lopped off
for lack of faith, and by faith you hold your place. Put away your
pride, and be on your guard; for if God did not spare the native
branches, no more will he spare you. Observe the kindness and the
severity of God — severity to those who fell away, divine
kindness to you, if only you remain within its scope; otherwise you
too will be cut off, whereas they, if they do not continue faithless,
will be grafted in; for it is in God's power to graft them in
again. For if you were cut from your native wild olive and against
all nature grafted into the cultivated olive, how much more readily
will they, the natural olive-branches, be grafted into their native
stock!”
Thus wrote he of whom tomorrow we will speak further,
showing how he took what he had to say from Jewish Geology and drew a
superb picture of the elemental forces which rise up from the Earth
and reign in the olive tree.
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