W
e stand to-day
under the sign of a painful memory, and I want to place
what we have to take for the theme of our lecture to-day into
the sign of that painful memory. The lecture I was able to give
exactly a year ago in our old Goetheanum, — those of you
who were present will remember how it took its start from
descriptions of Nature, of relationships that can be observed
in Nature on Earth, and led from these up to the spiritual
worlds and the revelations of the spiritual worlds in the
writing of the stars. And you will remember how we were able
then to bring the human heart, the human soul and spirit in
their whole nature and being into close connection with what is
found when one follows the path that leads away from the
earthly into the distant stellar spaces, wherein the spiritual
writes its Cosmic Script. And the words that I then wrote upon
the blackboard, writing for the last time in the room that was
so soon to be taken from us, bore within them this impulse and
this purpose: to lift the human soul into spiritual
heights.
So
on that evening we were brought into direct and close touch
with that to which our Goetheanum in its whole intention and
character was devoted. And to-day you will allow me to speak to
you again of these things, as it were in continuation of the
lecture that was given here a year ago.
In
the days preceding the burning of Ephesus, when men spoke of
the Mysteries, provided they were men who had some
understanding and feeling for them, they spoke of them somewhat
in the following manner: Human knowledge, human wisdom has a
home and a dwelling place in the Mysteries. And when in those
olden times the Spiritual Guides of the Universe spoke of the
Mysteries, when the Mysteries were spoken of in the
super-sensible worlds — I may be permitted this
expression, although of course it is only a figure of speech to
describe how thought and influence streamed down from the
super-sensible into the sensible worlds — when, therefore,
the Mysteries were spoken of in the super-sensible worlds, then
it was somewhat in the following way: ‘In the Mysteries men
erect places where we Gods can find the men who do sacrifice
and who understand us in the sacrifice.’
For
in point of fact men of the old world, men of the old world who
knew, were conscious that in the places of the Mysteries Gods
meet with men; they knew how all that carries and sustains the
world depends on what takes place between Gods and men in the
sacred Mysteries.
But
there is a word, — a word that has come down to us
in history and that can speak powerfully to the human heart
even in external historical tradition, but that speaks with
peculiar force and earnestness when we see it shape itself out
of strange and unparalleled events, when we see it written with
eternal letters into the history of mankind, though the writing
be only visible for a moment in the spirit. I declare to you
that, wherever the eye of the spirit is turned to the deed of
Herostratus, to the burning of Ephesus, then, in those flames
of fire may be read the ancient word: The Jealousy of the
Gods.
Among the many and diverse words that have come down to us from
olden time, and that were in use in the life of olden times in
the manner I have described, — among all the words in
this physical world, this word is, I verily believe, one of the
most awful: The Jealousy of the Gods. In those times the term
God was applied to all beings of a super-sensible nature,
— to every form of being that had no need to appear on
Earth in a physical body. Many and varied kinds of Gods were
differentiated. The Divine-Spiritual Beings who are most
closely united with mankind, from Whom man in his innermost
nature originated and by Whom he was launched into the stream
of time, the same Beings Whom we recognise in the majesty of
Nature and in her smallest manifestations, and Whom we discover
too in that which lives in our own inmost selves, — these
Divine-Spiritual Beings can never be jealous. Nevertheless in
that ancient time the ‘Jealousy of the Gods’ was something very
real to man. If we study the period of human development that
led up to the time of Ephesus, we find that the more advanced
members of the human race received into their being much of
what the good Gods held out to them in the Mysteries. For it is
true to say that an intimate relationship exists between good
human hearts and the good Gods, and this intimate relationship
was knit closer and closer in the Mysteries. And thus it came
to pass that certain other divine Beings, Luciferic-Ahrimanic
divine Beings were made aware, that man was being drawn nearer
and nearer to the good Gods. And there arose a jealousy on the
part of the Gods, a jealousy concerning man. Over and over
again in human history we have to hear how a man who strives
after the Spirit falls victim to a tragic destiny. In olden
times such an event was spoken of as brought about by the
Jealousy of the Gods.
The
Greeks knew very well that this Jealousy of the Gods exists;
they traced back to it much of what took place in the history
of man. With the burning of Ephesus it was made manifest that
further spiritual evolution was only possible if men became
conscious that there are Gods — that is,
super-sensible Beings — who are jealous of the
further advance of man.
It
is this that gives the peculiar colouring to all history that
follows the burning of Ephesus, — or I may also say, the
birth of Alexander. And it is essential for a right
understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. We have to see
a world filled with the jealousy of certain kinds of Gods. Ever
since a time that follows soon after the Persian War, the
soul-atmosphere of the world was filled with the effects of
this Jealousy of the Gods. And that which had to be done in the
Macedonian time had to be done in the full consciousness that
the Jealousy of the Gods pervades the spiritual atmosphere over
the surface of the Earth. But it was done with courage and
daring, and in spite of the misunderstandings of Gods and
men.
Into this atmosphere, filled with the Jealousy of the Gods,
sank then the Deed of Him Who was capable of the greatest Love
that can exist in the world. We only see the Mystery of
Golgotha in a true light, when we add to all else we have
learned concerning it this picture: the dark bank of cloud that
hung in olden time over Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Northern
Africa and Southern Europe, the dark cloud that is the
expression of the Jealousy of the Gods. And then into this
cloud-filled atmosphere we behold streaming down the warm and
gentle rays of the Love that pours through the Mystery of
Golgotha.
But
when we come to our own time, then that which in earlier ages
was — if I may put it so — an affair between Gods
and men, must in this epoch of human freedom be played out
below in the physical life of men. We can already describe how
it is being so played out. In olden times, when men thought of
the Mysteries, it was in this sense that they spoke of them:
— In the Mysteries, they said, human knowledge, human
wisdom has a home. And when the Mysteries were spoken of among
the Gods, it was said: When we descend into the Mysteries, we
find the sacrifice done by human beings, and in the sacrificing
human being we are understood. The burning of Ephesus marks the
beginning of the epoch that saw the gradual and complete
disappearance of the Mysteries in their ancient form.
I
have told you how the Mysteries were continued here and there
— in a sublime manner, for example, in the Mysteries of
Hibernia, where the Mystery of Golgotha was celebrated in the
ritual at the very time when it was taking place physically
over in Palestine. Men had knowledge of it not through physical
but through spiritual means of communication. Notwithstanding
these survivals, the real being of the Mysteries retreated more
and more in the physical world. The external centres which were
the meeting places for Gods and men lost more and more of their
significance. By the time of the 13th and 14th centuries it had
almost entirely gone. For whoever would find the way, for
example, to the Holy Graal, must know how to tread spiritual
paths. In the olden times, before the burning of Ephesus,
man trod physical paths. In the Middle Ages it is
spiritual paths that he must tread.
Spiritual paths above all were necessary from the 13th, 14th
and especially the 15th century onwards, if one wanted to
receive true Rosicrucian instruction. For the temples of the
Rosicrucians were hidden from outer physical experience. Many a
true Rosicrucian frequented these temples, it is true, but no
outer physical eye of man could find them. None the less there
were disciples who came to these old Rosicrucians; for in
scattered places the true Rosicrucians could indeed be found.
They were like hermits of wisdom and of consecrated human
action. And any man who was able to perceive the language of
the Gods in the gentle radiance of their eyes, would find them
so. I am not speaking in mere pictures. I am relating a
reality, and a reality which was of cardinal importance for
that time. To find the Rosicrucian master the pupil must first
attain the faculty to perceive the language of Heaven in the
gentle light of the physical eye. Then it was possible to find
here and there in Mid-Europe, in the 14th and 15th centuries,
these remarkable men, living in the most simple and
unpretentious manner — men who were God-inspired,
connected in their inner life with the spiritual temples which
did indeed exist, albeit the access to them was no less
difficult than the access to the Holy Graal, as described in
the well-known legend.
Observing in the spirit what took place between such a
Rosicrucian master and his pupil, we can hear many a
conversation, wherein is shown once again — though in a
form that belongs to a more modern age — how the Wisdom
of the Gods lives and moves upon Earth. For the instructions of
these masters were essentially objective and concrete. There in
his loneliness some Rosicrucian master was found by the pupil
who had spared no pains to seek him out. Gazing into the gentle
eyes of the master out of which spoke the language of the Gods,
this pupil would receive in all humility an instruction
somewhat as follows: —
Look, my son, at your own being! You carry about with you a
body which your physical eyes can see. The centre of the Earth
supplies this body with the forces which make it visible. This
is your physical body.
But
look around you at your environment on Earth. Behold the
stones! They can exist on Earth by themselves, they are at home
here. And if they have once assumed a certain form, they can
preserve this form by virtue of the Earthly forces. Look at the
crystal; it bears its form within it. The Earth enables it to
keep the form which belongs to its own being. Your physical
body cannot do that. When your soul leaves it, it is destroyed,
dissolved in dust. The Earth has no power over your physical
body. It has the power to form and also to maintain the
transparent crystal mountains with their wonderful
configuration; but the Earth has no power to maintain the form
of your physical body, it must dissolve it in to dust. Your
physical body is not of the Earth, it is of high spirituality.
To Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones belongs the form and figure
of your physical body. Not to the Earth, but to the highest
spiritual powers which are accessible to men, does this
physical body of yours belong. The Earth can destroy it, but
never build it up.
And
now, within this physical body dwells an etheric body. The day
will come when your physical body will be received by the Earth
for its destruction. Then will your etheric body dissolve in
the wide expanse of the Cosmos. The far spaces of the Cosmos
can indeed dissolve, but they again cannot build your etheric
body. Only the divine spiritual Beings can build it up —
the Beings of the hierarchy of Dynamis, Exusiai and Kyriotetes.
To them you owe your etheric body.
With your physical body you unite the physical substances of
the Earth. But that which is within you transforms these
substances into something utterly different from all that is
physically present in the environment of the physical body.
Your etheric body brings into movement all that is fluid within
you, all that is water within you. The saps and fluids in their
circulation stand under the influence of your physical body.
Behold your blood! It is the Exusiai, Dynamis and Kyriotetes
who cause the blood to circulate as a fluid through your veins.
It is only as a physical body that you are man; in the etheric
body you are still animal, albeit an animal that is inspirited
by the second Hierarchy.
What I have here gathered up into a very few words was the
substance of a prolonged instruction given by that master in
the gentle light of whose eyes the pupil discerned the language
of Heaven. And then his attention was turned to the third
member of the human being, which we call the astral body. And
it was made clear to him that this astral body contains the
impulse for the breathing — for all that is airy in the
human organism, for all that pulsates as air within this body
of ours. Now it is true that for a long time after man has
passed through the gate of Death, the earthly nature strives as
it were to make disturbances in the airy element, so much so
that the clairvoyant vision can observe in the atmospheric
phenomena of the Earth for many years, the noising of the
astral bodies of the dead. Nevertheless the Earth with
its encircling sphere can do no other in relation to the
impulses of the astral body too than dissolve them. For these
again can only be created by Beings of the third Hierarchy
— the Archai, Archangeloi and Angeloi.
And
then the master said, — and his words struck deep into
the heart of his pupil: In your physical body, inasmuch as you
receive within you the mineral kingdom and transform it, you
belong to the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. In so far as you
are an etheric body, you are like an animal. Here however you
belong to the Spirits whom we designated as those of the second
Hierarchy — the Kyriotetes, Exusiai, Dynamis. Inasmuch as
you live and move in the fluid element, you belong not to the
Earth but to this Hierarchy. And as you live and move in
the airy element, you belong not to the Earth but to the
Hierarchy of Archai, Archangeloi and Angeloi.
When the pupil had received this instruction in sufficient
measure, he no longer felt that he belonged to the Earth. He
felt forces proceeding from his physical, etheric and astral
bodies which united him with the Hierarchies. For he felt how,
through the mineral world, he is united with the first
Hierarchy; through the water of the earth, with the second
Hierarchy; and through the atmosphere, with the third
Hierarchy. And it was plain to him that he is an inhabitant of
Earth purely and solely on account of the element of warmth
that he bears within him. In this way the Rosicrucian pupil
came to the perception that the warmth, the physical warmth he
has within him, is what makes him ‘man on earth.’ And he
learned increasingly to feel how closely related warmth of soul
and warmth of spirit are to physical warmth.
The
man of later times gradually lost all knowledge of how his
physical, etheric and astral content are connected —
through the solid, the fluid and the aeriform — with the
Divine. The Rosicrucian pupil however knew this well; he knew
that what made him earthly was not these elements at all, but
the element of warmth.
The
moment the pupil of the Rosicrucian teacher perceived
this secret of the connection of the element of warmth with his
life on earth as earthly man, in that moment he knew how to
link the human in him on to the spiritual.
Now
the pupils who came to these often-time humble haunts where
such Rosicrucian masters lived were prepared before-hand in a
way that was frequently quite unsought by them and that
appeared no less than marvellous in their eyes. An intimation
would come to them, to one in one way, to another in another;
often to all outward appearance it came by a mere chance. The
intimation would be given to them: You must seek out a place
where you may be able to bring your own spiritual nature into
contact with the Spiritual of the Cosmos. And after the pupil
had received the instruction of which I told you, then, yes
then, he was able to say to the master: I go from you with the
greatest comfort that could ever be to me on Earth. For in that
you have shown to me how earthly man has his own proper element
in warmth, you have opened to me the possibility to connect my
physical nature with soul and spirit. The hard bones, the
flowing blood, the airy breath, — into none of these do I
bring my soul nature, but only into the element of warmth.
It
was with an infinite peace and rest that the pupils departed
from their masters in those days. In their countenance was
expressed the great comfort they had received, and from this
look of peace developed gradually that mild and gentle gaze
whence the language of Heaven can speak. And so we find in
those earlier times and on into the first third of the
fifteenth century a profound instruction of the soul being
given in these humble and secluded haunts. It is indeed unknown
as compared with the events of which external history relates.
It went on none the less, and was an instruction that took deep
hold of the entire human being, an instruction that made it
possible for the human soul to link its own nature on to the
sphere of the Cosmic-Spiritual.
This whole spiritual atmosphere has disappeared in the course
of the later centuries. It is no longer present in our
civilisation. An external, God-estranged civilisation has
spread abroad over the countries that once upon a time saw such
a civilisation as I have just described to you. We stand here
to-day bearing within us the memory of many a scene like that I
have described, although the memory can only be created in the
Spirit in the astral light. And when we look back into the
older times, that are so often pictured to us as times of
darkness, and then turn our gaze upon our own times, a deep
longing arises in our hearts. From out of the spiritual
revelations that have been accessible to man since the last
third of the nineteenth century, is born a longing to speak to
men once more in a spiritual way. But to do so it is not enough
to speak with abstract words; to speak spiritually demands the
use of manifold signs and symbols; our speech has to be wide
and comprehensive. Such a language, my dear friends, such
a form of speech as needed to be found for the Spiritual Beings
Who have to speak to modern humanity, was given to us in the
forms of the Goetheanum that was destroyed by fire a year ago.
In very truth, the forms were built and moulded to that end,
that what was spoken from the platform in ideas should speak on
further in them.
And
so in a certain sense we may say that in the Goetheanum
we had something that could awaken in an altogether new form a
memory of the old.
When the pupil for initiation entered the Temple of Ephesus,
his attention was directed to the statue of which I have spoken
to you in these lectures, and the statue called to him in the
language of the heart with these words: Unite yourself with the
Cosmic Ether, and you will behold the earthly from out of the
Ether heights.
Many a pupil at Ephesus did so behold the earthly from out of
the Ether heights. And a certain race of the Gods was jealous.
Centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha took place, brave men
were already finding a way to meet this Jealousy of the Gods.
They found a way to foster what had come down to them from
ancient holier years of mankind's history and had worked
powerfully in human evolution up to the time of the burning of
Ephesus. True, it was dim now and feeble, but even in this
enfeebled form it could still continue to work.
Had
our Goetheanum been brought to completion, then as you entered
from the West, your glance would have fallen on a Statue that
bade man know himself in his cosmic nature, know himself as a
being set between the powers of Lucifer and Ahriman,
God-maintained in the midst in inner balance of being. And when
you looked upon the forms of the columns and of the architrave,
these forms spoke a language that was a continuation of the
language which was spoken in words from the platform, where it
was sought to express the spiritual in ideas. The sound of the
words flowed on into the plastically moulded forms. And above
in the dome were displayed the scenes which could bring before
the eye of the soul the past evolution of mankind. Whoever
looked upon this Goetheanum with feeling and understanding
could find in it a memory of the Temple of Ephesus.
The
memory, however, grew to be terribly painful. For in a manner
not at all unlike that which befell Ephesus in earlier time,
exactly at the moment in its evolution when the Goetheanum was
ready to become the bearer of the renewal of spiritual life, in
that very moment was flung into it the burning brand.
My
dear friends, our pain was deep and indescribable. But we made
the resolve to go forward, unhindered by this tragedy that had
befallen us, to continue our work for the spiritual world. For
we were able to say to ourselves in the depths of our own
hearts: When we look upon the flames that rose from Ephesus, we
behold written into the flames these words: The Jealousy of the
Gods. That was a time when men were still unfree and must needs
follow the Will of the good and the evil Gods. In our day men
are marked out for freedom. A year ago, on New Year's Eve, we
beheld the destroying flames. The red glow rose to Heaven.
Tongues of flame, dark blue and reddish yellow, curled their
way up through the general sea of fire. They came from the
metal instruments concealed in the Goetheanum; the gigantic sea
of fire glowed with all manner of changing colours. And as one
gazed into this sea of flame with its swift lines and tongues
of colour, one had perforce to read these words, words that
spoke pain for the soul: The Jealousy of Man.
Thus are the words that speak from epoch to epoch in human
evolution bound together in deepest calamity and unhappiness.
In the time when man still looked up to the Gods in unfreedom,
but had it as his task to make himself free, there was a word
that was significant of the deepest unhappiness and grief to
him. He beheld inscribed into the flames: The Jealousy of the
Gods. And by a thread of spiritual evolution our own calamity
is linked with this word. We live in a time when man has to
find in himself the power of freedom, and now we behold
inscribed in the flames another word: The Jealousy of Man. In
Ephesus the statue of the Gods; here in the Goetheanum the
statue of Man, the statue of the Representative of mankind,
Christ Jesus. In Him, identifying ourselves in all humility
with Him, we thought to attain to knowledge, even as once in
their way, a way that is no longer fully understood by mankind
to-day, the pupils of Ephesus attained to knowledge in Diana of
Ephesus.
The
pain does not grow less when one beholds in the light of
history what that New Year's Eve brought to us a year ago. When
for the last time it was given to me to stand on the platform
that was itself built in harmony with the whole Goetheanum, it
was my intention and purpose to direct the gaze, the spiritual
gaze of those present away from earthly realms to the ascent
into the starry worlds where the Will and Wisdom, where the
Light of the Spiritual Cosmos are brought to expression. I know
well, sponsors were there present at that time, — spirits
of those who in the Middle Ages taught their pupils in the
manner I have described to you.
One
hour after the last word had been spoken, I was summoned to the
fire at the Goetheanum. At the fire of the Goetheanum we passed
the whole of that New Year night.
One
has but to speak these words, and thoughts unutterable
surge up in all our hearts and souls. But whenever it has
happened in the evolution of mankind that something sacred to
that evolution has been torn away, then there have always been
a few who have pledged themselves, after the dissolution
of the physical, to continue the work in the Spirit, to which
the physical was dedicated. And gathered here as we are in the
moment that marks the anniversary of the tragic loss of our
Goetheanum, we do well to remember that we shall bring our
souls into the right attitude for this gathering when we pledge
ourselves one and all to bear onward in the Spirit on the
advancing wave of human progress that which was expressed in
physical form and in physical image in the Goetheanum, and
which has been torn away from physical sight by a deed like the
deed of Herostratus. Our pain and grief cling to the old
Goetheanum. But we shall only show ourselves worthy of having
been permitted to build this Goetheanum, if we fulfil the task
that yet remains to us, if we take to-day a solemn pledge, each
one of us before the highest, the Divine, that he bears within
his soul, a pledge to hold faithfully in remembrance the
spiritual impulses that have had their outward expression in
the Goetheanum that is gone. The Goetheanum could be taken from
us: the spirit of the Goetheanum, if so be that in all
sincerity we will to keep it, can never be taken from us. It
will least of all be taken from us, if in this solemn hour,
that is divided by but a short space of time from the actual
moment a year ago, when the flames burst forth from our beloved
Goetheanum, — if in this solemn hour we not only feel a
renewal of our pain, but out of the very pain pledge ourselves
to remain loyal to the Spirit to which we erected our
Goetheanum, building it up through ten years of work. If this
resolve wells up to-day in all sincerity from the depths of our
hearts, if we are able to change the pain and grief into the
impulse to action, then we shall also change the sorrowful
event into blessing. The pain cannot thereby be made less, but
it rests with us to find in the pain the urge to action, to
action in the Spirit.
Even so let us look back upon the terrible flames of fire that
filled us with such unutterable sadness, but let us at the same
time feel how to-day, as we dedicate ourselves with solemn vow
to the highest divine forces that are within us, a spiritual
flame lights up in our hearts. Yea, and the flame in our hearts
shall shed new light and warmth on all that was purposed and
willed in the Goetheanum, on all that we are now resolved to
carry forward on the advancing wave of human evolution.
Let
us then, my dear friends, recall at this time and write deeper
in our hearts the words that I was able to speak to you over
there in the Goetheanum almost in the very same moment of time
a year ago. On that night I spoke somewhat in the following
words: We are at the eve of a New Year, we must go forward to
meet an oncoming Cosmic New Year. If the Goetheanum were still
standing, this demand and this call could in this moment be
renewed. It is no longer standing. The same call can, however,
be uttered again on this New Year's Eve, can be uttered, as I
believe, with redoubled power just because the Goetheanum is no
longer there. Let us carry over the soul of the
Goetheanum into the Cosmic New Year, let us try to erect
in the new Goetheanum a worthy memorial to the old!
May
our hearts be thus knit to the old Goetheanum, which we had
perforce to give over to the elements. And may our hearts be
closely knit to the spirit and the soul of this Goetheanum. And
with this solemn pledge to the highest and the best that is in
us, we will carry our life over not only into the New Year, but
into the Cosmic New Year, we will go forward into it, strong
for action, upheld and guided in soul and spirit.
My
dear friends, you received me by rising in memory of the old
Goetheanum. Let us now rise in token that we pledge ourselves
to continue working in the spirit of the Goetheanum with the
best and highest forces that we have within us. So be it.
Amen.
And
we will hold to this our solemn pledge, we will be true to it
as long as we are able, we will hold to it with our will,
— for our will it is that unites these human souls of
ours with the souls of the Gods. We will remain faithful to the
spirit in which at a certain moment of our life we first sought
the Spiritual Science of the Goetheanum.
And
let us understand and know how to keep the promise we have made.
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