The Mystical Lamb : The Sacrifice of God

    

"Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"  —John 1:29

The Influence of Spiritual Beings upon Man

[aka: Good and Evil Spirits]

Lecture 2

Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, January 27, 1908

In the lecture today we shall make a rather far-reaching sweep into cosmic space. This will reveal to us, in broad outline, the inner course of world evolution, and at the same time its intimate connection with human evolution on the Earth. Everything in the universe is interconnected. To be able to follow these complicated connections naturally takes a long, long time, and it is only very gradually that man can find his way, so to speak, into the intricate workings of the cosmos.

In previous lectures you have heard how certain beings who have their abode on other cosmic bodies exercise an influence upon our own life, how they are related to what we call lymph, to the digestive fluids, also to our sense-perceptions. This will have given you a picture of the wide-spread operations of the spirit throughout cosmic space. We shall study a different aspect of these things today, reminding ourselves, to begin with, that our Earth, like man himself, has passed through different embodiments and will pass through others in times to come.

We look back to three previous embodiments of our Earth: to the immediately preceding embodiment, which we call the Old Moon (not to be confused with our present moon); then to that of the “Sun”; and still further back to that of “Saturn.” And looking forward we see prophetically that our Earth will be transformed into a “Jupiter,” a “Venus,” and a “Vulcan.”

These are the successive embodiments of our planet Earth. If you give a little thought to these stages of our Earth's evolution, you will realize that what in occult science we call a “Sun” is — like our present sun — a heavenly body around which a number of planets revolve. When, apart from this, we also speak of a planetary Sun-existence, saying that our Earth itself in an earlier state of evolution, was “Sun,” we imply, in a certain respect, that the sun which is today the center of our planetary system was not always a sun. It has advanced, so to speak, to the rank and dignity of a sun in the cosmos. It was once united with the substances and forces contained in our Earth and then, taking away, as it were, what was the best and most capable of the highest development, it separated from the Earth, leaving us, together with certain forces which were destined for a slower evolution, behind. The Sun took with it certain higher beings and together with these higher beings established itself at the center of our system. Therefore two stages earlier, what is contained in the sun today had a planetary existence only and it has risen from this to the form of existence belonging to the fixed stars. This will show you what mighty changes in evolution take place in the universe. At the outset, a sun is not a sun. A fixed star has not, from the very beginning, been a fixed star, but has had to pass through the lower school of planetary existence.

Now, you may quite naturally ask me: What, then, happens when a fixed star evolves to a further stage? As truly as the Sun-existence — a fixed star existence — has risen from a planetary existence, so truly does its evolution proceed to further stages of life in the cosmos. We shall of course understand this evolution still better if we study the further evolution of our Earth.

It is true that for a certain period of its cosmic evolution our earth has been separated from the sun. The sun and its beings advance along a more rapid evolutionary path. Our earth and the beings belonging to it take a different course. But these beings, and the earth as a whole, will one day have progressed to the stage where union is again possible with the sun — after a separate existence has enabled them to complete and perfect their present phase of development. For our earth will again unite with the sun. During the stage of Earth-existence itself, the earth will reunite with the sun, just as during the same phase of evolution it separated from the sun. But during the Jupiter-stage there must again be a separation. The earth-beings must again be separated from the sun during the Jupiter-condition. Again there will be a reunion, and during the Venus-condition our earth will be united permanently with the sun, will have been taken up for all time into the sun. During the Vulcan-condition our earth will itself have become a sun within the sun and have contributed something to the sun-evolution, will have added something which, in spite of their higher rank, those beings who have always remained in the sun could never themselves have achieved. Earth-existence was necessary in order that men might evolve as they have evolved, with a consciousness that alternates between waking and sleeping. This is connected with the separation from the sun. Beings who live always in the sun do not have day and night. The sense-consciousness which we call the clear consciousness of day, and which in times to come will evolve into higher conditions, carries with it into the sun-evolution the fruits of experiences connected with the things of outer physical space. In this way the earth-beings give something to the sun, enrich the sun. And out of what is thus acquired on the earth, augmented by what is acquired on the sun, the Vulcan-existence comes into being. This Vulcan-existence is actually a higher condition than that of our present sun-existence. The earth evolves, the sun evolves, until they can unite to constitute the Vulcan-existence.

You may ask me: When a planet has evolved in this way to a sun-existence, what does this sun become in the course of further cosmic evolution? When our earth reaches the Venus-condition it will itself have become sun, and all the beings on Venus are sun-beings — actually at a higher stage than the beings of the present sun. What, then, is the further stage of such planetary evolution?

The following will seem grotesque, even preposterous, to those whose concepts are rooted in modern astronomy. Nevertheless it is a truth of cosmic evolution that when a planet like our earth has risen to sun-existence, when it has gradually achieved union with the sun and even sun-existence is transcended, there arises, as a still higher stage of evolution, something that in a certain sense you can perceive in the heavens: there arises what we today call a “Zodiac” — it is the stage higher than that of a fixed star. Thus when beings are no longer restricted to the form of existence belonging to a fixed star but have expanded their evolution so powerfully that it extends beyond fixed stars and the fixed stars lie like bodies embedded in it — then a higher stage is reached, the stage of Zodiac-existence. The forces which work from a Zodiac upon a planetary system themselves evolved, in former ages, in a planetary system and have advanced to the stage of a Zodiac.

And now cast your mind back to the old Saturn evolution, the first embodiment of our Earth. This Saturn once glimmered, as it were, in cosmic space, as the first herald of the dawn of our planetary existence. You know, too, that on this old Saturn the first germinal inception of our physical body was brought into being. Even at its greatest density this Saturn was not nearly as physically dense as our earth. It was a condition of utmost rarefication. That which today permeates all beings as warmth — known in occultism as “fire” — was the matter of Saturn. We may picture to ourselves that around this Saturn, this first, dawn-condition of our planetary system, there were the constellations of the Zodiac — but not yet as they are today. The single stars composing the Zodiacal constellations around that ancient Saturn were scarcely to be distinguished from each other. They glittered only very faintly, like beams of light streaming out from Saturn. The best way to picture this is to think of ancient Saturn encircled by beams of light, just as our earth is encircled by a Zodiac. And in the course of Earth-evolution itself these light-masses developed into the present star clusters comprised in the Zodiac. So that the Zodiac — to use an abstract expression — has differentiated out of that original ocean of flame. And from what did this ocean of flame itself arise?

It arose from the planetary system which preceded our own. Saturn itself was preceded by planetary evolutions in an age which, speaking in the sense of occult astronomy, can by no means be described as “time” as we understand time, for its character was rather different. But for the human mind today the concept is so fabulous that we have no word with which to express it. Speaking in analogy, however, we can say that the forces which preceded our planetary system in an earlier cycle of planetary existence went forth in the light-streams, and out of a small portion of matter gradually gathering together at the center, this first, dawn-condition of the Earth arose; this was ancient Saturn, and the forces contained in the Zodiac radiated down upon it from the cosmic All.

Something rather remarkable comes to light when we compare planetary existence with zodiacal existence. The occultist makes use of two words to indicate the difference between them. He says: Everything that is contained in the Zodiac is under the sign of “Duration”; everything that is contained within planetary existence is under the sign of “Time.” You can get an idea of what this means if you remember that not even the farthest reaches of the mind can conceive of changes having taken place in the Zodiac. Each single planet may have undergone considerable change through long and greatly differing periods of evolution; the forces working in the Zodiac remain, relatively speaking, fixed and permanent. These concepts can, in any case, be only relative. The only difference in these changes of which we can conceive is in respect of the speed. Changes in the Zodiac take place slowly; changes in the planetary world and even in the existence of a fixed star take place rapidly — in comparison, that is to say, with what happens in the Zodiac. — The difference is always relative, only relative. As far as human thinking is concerned, we can say that planetary existence belongs to the sphere of the Finite, whereas Zodiacal existence belongs to the sphere of Infinitude. This, as already said, must be taken in the relative sense, but for the present it is sufficiently accurate.

And now I would ask you to pay special attention to the following: What has been achieved in a planetary existence and has become sun ascends to “heavenly” existence, becomes zodiacal existence. And having reached zodiacal existence, what does it do? It offers itself in sacrifice! Please take account of this particular word. The first dawn-condition of the Earth, ancient Saturn, arose in a mysterious way as the result of sacrifice on the part of the Zodiac. The forces which caused the first, rarefied Saturn-masses to gather together were those which streamed down from the Zodiac, producing on Saturn the first germinal inception of physical man. This continued without cessation. You must not picture it as happening only once. Fundamentally speaking, what is happening continuously is that within what we call a planetary system the forces which evolved to a higher stage after having themselves passed through a planetary system, are sacrificed. We can say in effect: what is at first contained in a planetary system evolves to a “sun” existence, then to zodiacal existence, and then has the power to be itself creative, to offer itself in sacrifice within a planetary existence. The forces from the Zodiac “rain” down continuously into the planetary existence, and continuously ascend again; for that which at one time became our Zodiac must gradually ascend again. The distribution of forces in our earth existence may be conceived as follows: — on the one side forces are descending from the Zodiac and, on the other, forces are ascending to the Zodiac. Such is the mysterious interplay between the Zodiac and our earth. Forces descend and forces ascend. This is the mysterious “heavenly ladder” upon which forces are descending and ascending. These forces are indicated in various ways in the different scriptures; you find them indicated, too, in Goethe's Faust:

“What heavenly forces up and down are ranging,
The golden vessels interchanging.”

As far as our human understanding goes, these forces began to descend during the Saturn-existence of our Earth, and when the Earth-existence proper had reached its middle point the stage had arrived when they gradually began again to ascend. We have now passed beyond the middle point of our evolution, which fell in the middle of the Atlantean epoch; and what human beings have lived through since then is a phase of existence beyond the middle point. In a certain sense, therefore, we may say that at the present time, more forces are ascending to the Zodiac than are descending from it.

When, therefore, you think of the whole Zodiac, you must picture that some of its forces are descending and some are ascending. We think of the forces which are now involved in the ascending line of evolution, collectively, as Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra — because they actually belong to these constellations. These seven constellations comprise the ascending forces. The descending forces are comprise, approximately speaking, the five constellations of Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. Thus forces rain down from the Zodiac and ascend again: seven constellations of ascending, five of descending forces. The ascending forces also correspond, in man, to the higher members of his being, to his higher, nobler attributes. The forces which are in the descending phase of evolution have first to pass through man and within him to attain to the stage at which they too can become ascending forces.

In this way you will realize that there is interaction between everything in cosmic space, that everything in cosmic space is interconnected, interrelated. But it must never be forgotten that these operations and activities are going on all the time, that they are ever-present. At any given moment in our evolution we can therefore speak of forces which are going forth from man and forces which are coming in; forces are descending and forces are ascending. For all and each of these forces there comes, at some point, the moment when from being descending forces they are transformed into ascending forces. All forces which eventually become ascending forces are at first descending forces. They descend, so to say, as far as man. In man they acquire the power to ascend.

At the middle point of its evolution, when our Earth had passed through the three planetary stages of Saturn, Sun, Moon, had reached the fourth planetary condition, having in front of it the stages of Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan (as Earth, therefore, it is midway in the span of its existence) — it had passed through three “life-conditions” (also called “rounds”). It has passed through three of these life-conditions and is now in the fourth; it has passed through three “form-conditions” — the arupic, the rupic, and the astral, leading down to physical existence. Therefore in respect of the “form-conditions,” our Earth is in the middle phase of its evolution. As physical Earth, in the fourth form-condition of the fourth life-condition of the fourth planetary existence it has had upon it three great races: the first, the Polarian race; the second, the Hyperborean race; the third, the Lemurian race. The Atlantean race is the fourth. In the Atlantean race, humanity was in the middle of those phases of evolution of which we are speaking. Since the middle of the Atlantean epoch humanity has passed beyond this middle point. And since the middle of the Atlantean epoch there have begun, for men in general, those conditions in which the ascending forces preponderate. If we were speaking of the proportion of forces descending from and ascending to the Zodiac before the middle of the Atlantean epoch, we should have to say: they were in equal proportion. We should have to speak differently of the conditions then prevailing, enumerating as the ascending forces: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo — counting Libra with the other descending forces.

But something else is connected with all this. You must realize that in speaking of these cosmic processes we are not speaking of physical or etheric bodies but of beings indwelling the several heavenly bodies. When we speak of man in terms of Spiritual Science we say that the whole man — and we think of man only in this sense — is a sevenfold being, consisting of physical body, etheric body, astral body, ego, spirit-self, life-spirit, spirit-man. His development is not yet complete but will be when his sevenfold being has fully developed. But in the great cosmic All there are beings other than man, beings of a different nature. There are, for example, beings in the cosmos of whom we cannot say that, like man, they have the physical body as one of their members. There are beings of whom we must speak differently. The members of which man is composed can be enumerated as follows:

7. Spirit-Man
6. Life-Spirit
5. Spirit-Self
4. Ego
3. Astral Body
2. Etheric Body
1. Physical Body

Now, there are beings whose lowest member is the etheric body; they too are sevenfold, having an eighth member, higher than spirit-man. We begin to enumerate thus: etheric body, astral body, and so forth, finishing with a member above our spirit-man (Atman). There are other beings whose lowest member is the astral body; above spirit-man they have an eighth and yet a ninth member. Again, there are beings whose lowest member is the ‘I,’ the ego, and who therefore have not a physical nor an etheric nor an astral body in our sense but whose ego streams outward without the three sheaths. They are therefore beings who send forth ‘egos’ in all directions. These beings have an eighth, a ninth, and a tenth member; they are described in the Apocalypse as beings who are “full of eyes”. Then there are beings in whom spirit-self (Manas) is the lowest member. They have yet an eleventh member. And finally there are beings whose lowest member is the life-spirit and who have yet a twelfth member. You must therefore think of beings who, just as man's lowest member is a physical body, have life-spirit (Buddhi) as their lowest member and, above, a highest member best designated by the number 12. These are most sublime beings, far transcending everything that man is able to conceive. How is it possible to form any kind of idea of these most wonderful, most sublime beings?

When we try to characterize man, in one aspect, it is obvious that with respect to the universe, he is a being who receives. The things and beings of the world are outspread around you; you perceive them, you form concepts of them. Just imagine that the world around you were empty, or dark. You could have no perceptions, nor would there be anything of which you could form concepts. You have to rely upon receiving from outside the content of your inner world. It is characteristic of man that he is a being who receives; he receives the content of his soul-life, his inner life, from outside; things must exist in the world if his soul is to have content. The nature of man's etheric body is such that it could experience nothing in itself were it not beholden to the whole surrounding universe for all experiences, for everything that enters into it. These beings of whom I have just told you, who have life-spirit as their lowest member, are in an entirely different position. In respect of their life, these beings are not dependent upon receiving anything from outside; they are “givers,” they are themselves creative. You know from what I have often told you, that the ‘I,’ the ego, works in the etheric body and that ‘Buddhi’ is nothing else than a transformed etheric body, In respect of substance, therefore, the life-spirit too is an ether body. The twelfth member of these sublime beings is also an ‘ether body,’ but one which pours forth life, which works in the world in such a way that it does not receive life but gives it forth, offers life in perpetual sacrifice.

And now let us ask: Can we conceive of a being who is in any way connected with us and who radiates life into our universe? Is it possible to conceive of life that is perpetually streaming into the world, imbuing the world with life?

Let us think for a moment of what was said at the beginning of the lecture, namely that there are ascending and descending forces — forces that are ascending to the Zodiac and forces that are descending from the Zodiac. How has man reached a position which makes it possible for something to stream from within him? What has happened to man that enables something to stream forth from him? He has reached this position because his ego, after long, long preparation, has steadily unfolded and developed. This I, this ego, has been in course of preparation for long, long ages. For truth to tell, the object of all existence in the Saturn-condition, the Sun-condition, and the Moon-condition, when the sheaths into which the I was to be received were produced — was to prepare for the I. In those earlier conditions, other beings created the dwelling-place for the I. Now, on the earth, the dwelling-place was at the stage where the I could take root in man, and from then onward the I began to work upon the outer, bodily sheaths from within. The fact that the ego is able to work from within has also brought about a surplus, a surplus of ascending forces; there was no longer a state of parity. Before the ego was able to work within man, the ascending forces gradually evolved until the middle point had been reached; and when the ego actually entered into man the ascending and the descending forces had reached the stage where they were in balance. At the entry of the ego, the ascending and the descending forces were in balance, and it rests with man to turn the scales in the right direction. That is why the occultists have called the constellation which was entered at the time when the ego itself began to operate, the ‘Balance’ (Libra). Up to the end of Virgo, preparation was being made for the deeds of the ego in our planetary evolution, but the ego had not itself begun to work. When Libra had been reached, the ego itself began to participate, and this was a most important moment in its evolution.

Just think what it means that the ego had reached this stage of evolution:

From then on it was possible for the ego to participate in the work of the forces belonging to the Zodiac, to reach into the Zodiac. The more the ego strives for the highest point of its evolution, the more it works into the Zodiac. There is nothing that happens in the innermost core of the ego that has not its consequences right up to the very Zodiac. And inasmuch as man with his ego lays the foundations for his development to Atman, or spirit-man, he develops, stage by stage, the forces which enable him to work upward into the sphere of Libra, the Balance, in the Zodiac. He will attain full power over Libra in the Zodiac when his ego has developed to Atman, or spirit-man. He will then be a being from whom something streams out, who has passed out of the sphere of Time into the sphere of Duration, of Eternity.

Such is the path of man. But there are other beings whose lowest sphere of operation is man's highest. Let us try to conceive of these beings whose lowest sphere of operation is man's highest (Libra in the Zodiac). When we relate man to the Zodiac, he reaches to Libra. The being whose innermost nature belongs wholly to the Zodiac, whose forces belong wholly to the Zodiac, who only manifests in planetary life through his lowest member, which corresponds to Libra (as man's lowest member corresponds to Pisces) — this is the being who spreads life throughout the whole of our universe:

Just as man receives life into himself, so does this being radiate life through the whole of our universe. This is the being who has the power to make the great sacrifice and who is inscribed in the Zodiac as the being who for the sake of our world offers himself in sacrifice. Just as man strives upward into the Zodiac, so does this being send us his sacrificial gift from Aries — which is related to Him as Libra is related to man. And just as man turns his ego upward to Libra, so does this being radiate his very self over our sphere in sacrifice. This being is called the “Mystical Lamb,” for Lamb and Aries are the same; therefore the description ‘Sacrificial Lamb’ or ‘Ram’ is given to Christ. Christ belongs to the cosmos as a whole. His I, his Ego, reaches to Aries and thus He becomes Himself the “Great Sacrifice,” is related with the whole of mankind, and in a certain sense the beings and forces present on the Earth are His creations. The configuration of forces is such that He could become the Creator of these beings in the constellation of Aries, or the Lamb. The designation “Sacrificial Lamb” or “Mystical Lamb” is drawn from the heavens themselves.

This is one of the aspects revealed to us when from our circumscribed existence we look up into the heavens and perceive the interworking of heavenly forces and beings in cosmic space. Gradually we begin to realize that the forces streaming from heavenly body to heavenly body are akin to those forces which stream from one human soul to another as love and hate. We perceive soul-forces streaming from star to star and learn to recognize the heavenly script which records for us what is wrought and effected by those forces in cosmic space.

Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive January 27, 1908

In the beginning the Word was an ocean of flame

  

"Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."--John 17:24



Rudolf Steiner, from a lecture delivered in Berlin January 27, 1908. The Influence of Spiritual Beings Upon Man, pp. 22-24:

It is a truth of cosmic evolution that when a planet like our Earth has risen to Sun-existence, when it has gradually achieved union with the Sun and even Sun-existence is transcended, there arises, as a still higher stage of evolution, something that in a certain sense you can perceive in the heavens: there arises what we today call a "Zodiac"--it is the stage higher than that of a fixed star. Thus when beings are no longer restricted to the form of existence belonging to a fixed star but have expanded their evoltion so powerfully that it extends beyond fixed stars and the fixed stars lie like bodies embedded in it--then a higher stage is reached, the stage of Zodiac-existence. The forces which work from a Zodiac upon a planetrary system themselves evolved, in former ages, in a planetary system and have advanced to the stage of a Zodiac.

And now cast your mind back to the old Saturn evolution, the first embodiment of our Earth. This Saturn once glimmered, as it were, in cosmic space, as the first herald of the dawn of our planetary existence. You know, too, that on this old Saturn the first germinal inception of our physical body was brought into being. Even at its greatest density this Saturn was not nearly as physically dense as our Earth. It was a condition of utmost rarefication. That which today permeates all beings as warmth--known in occultism as "fire"---was the matter of Saturn. We may picture to ourselves that around this Saturn, this first, dawn-condition of our planetary system, there were the constellations of the Zodiac--but not yet as they are today. The single stars composing the Zodiacal constellations around that ancient Saturn were scarcely to be distinguished from each other. They glittered only very faintly, like beams of light streaming out from Saturn. The best way to picture this is to think of ancient Saturn encircled by beams of light, just as our Earth is encircled by a Zodiac. And in the course of Earth evolution itself these light-masses developed into the present star clusters comprised in the Zodiac. So that the Zodiac--to use an abstract expression--has differentiated out of that original ocean of flame. And from what did this ocean of flame itself arise?

It arose from the planetary system which preceded our own. Saturn itself was preceded by planetary evolutions in an age which, speaking in the sense of occult astronomy, can by no means be described as "time" as we understand time, for its character was rather different. But for the human mind today the concept is so fabulous that we have no word with which to express it. Speaking in analogy, however, we can say that the forces which preceded our planetary system in an earlier cycle of planetary existence went forth in the light-streams, and out of a small portion of matter gradually gathering together at the center, this first, dawning condition of the Earth arose: this was ancient Saturn and the forces contained in the Zodiac radiated down upon it from the cosmic All.





Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive January 27, 1908

Christianity is greater than all religion

      

The Influence of Spiritual Beings Upon Man

[aka Good and Evil Spirits]

Lecture 6

Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, March 24, 1908

If anyone present at the last lecture given here has been carefully thinking it over, and remembering how certain stages previously passed through are recapitulated at a later stage, how, for instance, on our Earth a Saturn stage, a Sun, a Moon stage gradually emerges and only then our earthly condition fully develops, he could feel urged to make the following remarks.

He could say: In various earlier lectures it has been stated that on Saturn the first physical rudiments of man went through something like a sort of senses-system, as though the first Saturn rudiments had consisted of primitive elementary sense-organs; then on the Sun a glandular system developed: on the Moon a nervous system; and on our Earth all this was recapitulated. But how does that tally with what was said in the last lecture, that is, that the first to appear on Earth was the first rudiments of the blood-system, a kind of warmth-man? Then it was said that there was a condensation to an airy-state and light arose, on the one hand a sort of air-system was added which later became our present breathing system, while the warmth-system was trans-formed to the later blood-system, and under the influence of the light a kind of inwardly perceiving nerve-system was formed. It was further described how that was all still in a rarefied etheric condition, was then filled out with a kind of albumen which, under the influence of cosmic sound and tone, arranged itself into the different substances.

If I admit — the objector might say — that the glandular system only began with the depositing of this organic substance, then the first thing on the Earth would be a kind of warmth-system which formed the rudiments of the blood-system, and a kind of nerve-system present in fine etheric lines of force; then the glandular system would arise which in a certain respect was already organically substantial, and last of all the mineral element would be deposited as was described in the last lecture. If the successive conditions of Saturn, Sun, Moon have appeared and these conditions are then recapitulated on the Earth, it is strange that the senses-system is not the first to re-appear, then a glandular system, a nerve-system, and finally a blood-system. Yet last time just the reverse was described: first blood, then nerves, glands, and finally the solid deposits which, as it was emphasized, first open the senses toward the outer world. The objector might say: This recapitulation-principle works out very badly since the order which has been given is just the reverse of what one might expect if a really literal repetition took place.

It must be admitted that if someone wished to describe the succeeding conditions as a simple repetition of the foregoing, he would probably give a description that was the very opposite of what had really existed. For the intellect would conclude that in an automatic way first the Earth would recapitulate what had taken place on Saturn, then what had happened on the Sun, then on the Moon, and that only then the blood-system arose. I have often emphasized that as a rule in occultism one always goes wrong and can make terrible mistakes unless one describes out of the occult facts and does not trust oneself to mere intellect or any purely logical conclusions. For if one follows the evolution of Saturn, Sun, Moon in the Akashic Record it is a fact that one must say a kind of senses-system was planned on Saturn, a glandular system on the Sun, a nervous system on the Moon, and with the Earth the blood was added. If one follows up the occult facts further, then one finds that actually on the Earth first a kind of blood-system appears, then a glandular system, a nervous system, and only then arises what appears as the senses-system in the form suited to Earth-conditions. Thus if one speaks of recapitulations, according to the actual facts one must speak of a reversed recapitulation. What has been shown in earlier lectures and what was shown in the last springs from no speculation, but from the actual facts, and these display just such a reversal, which makes the recapitulation all the more complicated.

We must not, however, content ourselves with the idea that we have to do with a mere reversal. Just as the blood-system in its first rudiments appeared on the Earth as a kind of warmth-man, as I described last time, yet at the same time it was really a kind of sense-system. It was in fact a system of warmth and perception. The human being was, so to say, wholly a blood or warmth-man. He was not permeated by the substance of blood, but etheric warmth-lines of force penetrated him, and these etheric warmth-force lines out of which the blood-system later arose were in the first rudiments distinctly a kind of sense-system. It was the first rudiments of a sense-system, and the nerve-and-light system was at first a kind of glandular system, and the later glandular system which was organized was really only able to arise because the other systems, the blood- and nerve-systems, now incorporated, advanced, in their development. This advance occurred in the following way: Whereas the nervous system developed as a kind of glandular system, something of the blood remained behind as the later rudiments of the blood. But as well during the second stage the blood-system itself changed to a kind of nerve-system; and when that was achieved and, in the third stage, the glandular system was incorporated, the two earlier systems again changed, so that in fact the blood-system advanced a degree and the nerve-system also a degree. Changes and transformations are continually taking place. Evolution is very complicated and one may not rest content with the idea of the reversed recapitulation. For the “reversal” is again only partial: the blood-system is a sense-system which is transformed later, and it is the same with the nerve-system, and so on.

So you see that what has gone before and enabled the human being to reach his present height is certainly not an easy-going matter for the intellect. The point is with patience and perseverance to familiarize oneself with this complicated course of evolution. However, this is merely a kind of introduction which I wanted to give for those who have been studiously dwelling again upon what was said in the last lecture.

A quite different task shall concern us today — that of considering man and his evolution on Earth from an entirely different standpoint, so that this human being shall come before us with increasing clarity. If, with this in mind, we look back once more to the previous embodiment of our Earth, the ancient Moon, then we remember that the human being had physical body, etheric body, astral body, but not yet a personal ego as he now possesses on Earth. If we now examine the consciousness of such a Moon-man we find it was radically different from that of a human being of today. The consciousness of man today is really expressed in what one could call “personality.” With this word much is said in the characterization of the Earth-man, for there was no “personality” on the old Moon. We have seen how this personality has been formed gradually on the Earth and how in ancient times man still felt himself much more as a member of a whole number of others who belonged to one another. Even if we go back not at all far in the regions where we ourselves are living, yes, even if we go back to the first Christian centuries, we shall still find there the last echoes of an ancient consciousness. The ancient member of the Cherusci, the Sugambri, Heruli, Bructeri, did not feel himself to the same extent a personality as does the man of today; he felt himself one of his tribe. And when he said “I,” that signified something entirely different from what it means today. If a modern man says “I,” he means the entity of his personality, that which, so to speak, is enclosed within his skin. At that time men felt with regard to their tribe as a limb feels on our organism. He felt himself in the first place as a member of the Sugambri, Heruli, Bructeri, Cherusci, and only in the second place a personal “I.” You will have a better understanding of many ancient conditions if you bear in mind this radical alteration in personality, if you realize, for instance, that certain forms of family revenge, tribal revenge, are to be explained completely by the common consciousness of the tribe, a kind of group-soul-consciousness. And if we go still farther back to the classical Old Testament time, the time of the Jewish people, we know that the individual Jew felt absolutely that he was a member of the whole Jewish people. We know that when he said “I” he did not feel himself as representative of his ego, but felt the blood of the whole folk as it had streamed down in the generations since Father Abraham: “I and Father Abraham are one.” Each member of the race felt that this was what gave him his value and position. He felt the group-soul in the blood right back to Father Abraham. And if we go still farther back, into the earliest ages of the Earth, we find the group-soul element still more clearly expressed. The individual had a memory of what his forefathers had done, back to the earliest ancestor. The memory of the descendants went back for hundreds of years. In our day, in normal circumstances a man no longer remembers what his father has done, unless he has seen it. He no longer remembers what his ancestors have experienced. In ancient times man had a memory not only of what he had himself experienced, but also of the experiences of the ancestors with whom he was of common blood, not because he knew of it but because memory was continued beyond birth. And we know that the great age attributed to the Patriarchs, to Adam and the succeeding ancestors of the Jewish people, meant originally nothing but the length of memory, how far one remembered in the ancestral tree. Why did Adam live so long? Why did the other Patriarchs live so long? Because one was not designating the single personality, but remembered past generations as one remembers one's youth today. That was denoted by a common expression; personality did not come into question at all. A man remembered not only what he had gone through in childhood, but what his father, his grandfather had experienced in childhood, and so on through the centuries, and one compressed the contents of this memory into a unity and called it — let us say — “Adam” or “Noah,” and so on. In primitive ages the separated personality had nothing of the value that it has now; memory reached beyond father, mother, grandfather, and so on, and as far as it reached, one used a common name. That seems clumsy and fantastic to the present-day materialistic conception of the world, yet it must be affirmed from the depths of the facts by a fundamental psychology which knows how to reckon with the facts.

On our Earth therefore man had a kind of group-consciousness connected with his group-soul. If we were to go back to the old Moon where the human being had not a restricted ego of this sort embedded in the group-consciousness, but where he had no ego at all, where he still consisted of physical body, etheric body, astral body, we should find that this old Moon-consciousness was not a smaller one but embraced immensely great groups — that in fact all-embracing group-souls were the basis of the human race on the Moon. These group-souls who, so to speak, set individual Moon-men on to the Moon merely as their limbs, were wise souls. We have, as you know, also described the animal group-souls on the Earth and have also found wisdom as their outstanding characteristic. These Moon group-souls have implanted in our planet's previous embodiment the wisdom which we know today and which we so much wonder at and admire. And when today we are amazed how every bone, how heart and brain, how every plant leaf, is permeated and imbued with wisdom, then we know that the wisdom of the group-souls trickled down from the atmosphere of the old Moon — as clouds today let the rain trickle down — and membered itself into all the beings. These received it as a propensity and brought it out again when they appeared on the Earth after the Pralaya. Thus there were present on the Moon all-embracing group-souls filled with wisdom.

Now, if we were to seek on the old Moon for a quality which we find today on Earth in ever-increasing measure as evolution goes forward, we should not find it existing in the Moon beings. This quality is love, the impulse which leads beings together of their own free will. Love is the mission of our earthly planet. Hence in occultism we call the Moon the “Cosmos of Wisdom” and the Earth the “Cosmos of Love.” As we today, standing on the Earth, wonder at the wisdom embedded in it, so one day the beings of Jupiter will stand before beings from which love will stream forth to them in fragrance. Love, as it were, will issue in taste and fragrance from all the surrounding beings. Just as wisdom shines toward us on the Earth, so on Jupiter there will come fragrantly toward the Jupiter beings that which is evolving here on Earth as love — from the purely sex-love to Spinoza's “Divine Love.” It will send out perfume as plants send out their various aromas. Thus will the grades of love stream out as the perfume ascending out of the cosmos which, as successor to our Earth, we have named Jupiter. Thus in the course of evolution conditions alter, and whenever an advance occurs in evolution the beings advance too; they who are united with the stages of planetary evolution are ever advancing to higher stages. The human beings living on the Earth today are the instruments of the evolution of love. For the animal kingdom has developed forms of love which have stayed behind as laggard forms; and in so far as love appears among the animals, a simple reflection would show that it is all pre-stages of human love, of the love that is continually being spiritualized. As man is the instrument for the evolution of love on Earth, so when he has evolved to Jupiter he will be capable of receiving a still higher quality. So too those beings who “trickled” down wisdom from the periphery of the Moon became capable of a higher evolution when the Moon became Earth; they ascended higher. The beings who at that time were able to let wisdom trickle into the Moon-beings were in fact those who were so advanced at the time when the sun withdrew from the earth that they went out with the sun and made it their scene of action. The beings who on the Moon were spirits of wisdom — the wisdom that trickled down — were not the Spirits of Wisdom which have been so named in connection with Saturn — these spirits, or at any rate a great number of them, chose the sun as their theatre. Only the being whom one designates Yahve or Jehovah, who had reached full maturity on the Moon, became the Lord of Form on the Earth, the Regent of the Moon forces. But we have already spoken of other beings who did not complete their development on the Moon, who remained, so to speak, midway between human and divine existence. We have characterized them in manifold ways. We have indicated that the sun at a certain stage of its evolution put Venus and Mercury out of itself in order to give these beings a theatre which was suited to them. We have also spoken of beings who have taken part in man's progressive development and who, as Venus and Mercury beings, have been the great teachers of humanity in the Mysteries.

Today we will enlarge this picture from another standpoint.

We have already pointed out that if the forces and beings which left the earth when the sun withdrew had remained united with the earth as they were originally, then man would have been obliged to develop at a tempo too rapid for him to endure. He would never have reached his evolution if the Spirits of Wisdom had been bound up with the earth as they were on the Moon. They had to remove to a distance and work from outside if man was to have the right speed in his development. Otherwise, no sooner was he born than he would have become old; he would go through his development at too rapid a tempo. I can make that clear to you in another way.

The spirits who had evolved up to the sun existence are not at all interested in man's gradual, slow development of his spiritual nature during his bodily existence, during childhood, youth, maturity, old age. They have an interest only in the perfected development of spirituality. If they had remained in connection with the earth, human bodies in a certain way would have been stunted, burnt up. Without maturing the fruits won from an earthly existence the spirit would have gone toward a rapid evolution and the human being would have lost all that he can learn on the earth. Above all, the imprinting of Love into the evolution of the cosmos would have remained concealed. In order that love might develop on earth the body had first to be developed at a primitive stage. Love had to be inaugurated in the lowest form as sex-love, in order to rise through the various stages and finally, when the perfected Earth has reached its last epochs, to be imprinted into man as pure, spiritual love. All lower love is schooling for higher love. Earthly man is to develop love in himself, so that at the end of his evolution he may be able to give it back to the Earth, for all that is developed in the microcosm is in the end poured into the macrocosm. The wisdom which streamed into the Moon-men shines toward the earth-man as the wisdom which permeates his structure. The love which by degrees is implanted in man during the Earth period will waft fragrantly toward the Jupiter beings out of the whole realm of Jupiter. This is the path that the various cosmic forces must take.

Thus the starting point of our Earth's mission — the impressing of Love — was in a certain way confronting the two following tendencies. The Spirits of Wisdom, the creators of wisdom, who on the Moon had streamed wisdom into the kingdoms of the Earth, were on the Earth, as such, uninterested in the physical bodily nature of man. As Spirits of Wisdom they were uninterested in it, and being interested only in wisdom they gave up the special Earth mission to the “Spirits of Love.” These are another rank and as Spirits of Love they too had been able to go through their own evolution for a time on the sun. In this way we have a twofold tendency in the evolution of the Earth: an instreaming of love which, as it were, appears for the first time, and an instreaming of wisdom which works from outside, since the spirits pre-eminently interested in wisdom have withdrawn to the sun. It is very important to grasp correctly this cooperation of the Spirits of Wisdom and the Spirits of Love, for it expresses an infinitely important contrast. If I now try to put into human language what this contrast expresses, it is that the Spirits of Wisdom wholly relinquished to the Spirits of Love man between birth and death and the way in which he develops, and took for themselves the control of the “individuality” which goes through the various “personalities” in the course of reincarnations. If you picture man in his totality you have here the analysis which shows under what two powers he stands in cosmic rulership. What man is between birth and death, what he develops in himself while living in the body, what really makes him, so to speak, an entity who stands on his two feet on the earth, that is placed under the authority of the Spirits of Love. What weaves through the personalities as the enduring individuality, is born with the man, dies, is born again, again dies, and so on, that stands in a certain respect under the authority of the Spirits of Wisdom. But you must not treat this mechanically and say: So you state that the human individuality stands under the influence of the Spirits of Wisdom and the human personality under the influence of the Spirits of Love. — If one were to stereotype things it would only lead to nonsense. For concepts are only valid if we understand them in their relativity and know that every concept has two sides. Only if you were of the opinion that this one life between birth and death were meaningless for all the following lives then you might stereotype it like that. But you must keep in mind what I have always emphasized, namely, that the fruits of each separate earthly life, that is, the fruits of all that has been gained under the influence of the Spirits of Love, stream into the whole of evolution and thus into what is guided by the Spirits of Wisdom. On the other hand you must be clear that everything in the human body, right up to the astral body (we have already described how experiences made on the earth must be transformed) proceeds under the power of the Spirits of Wisdom, so thus again the Spirits of Wisdom work on man's being since he has a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body. And because whatever man as personality develops under the element of love is enduring for his individuality, the Spirits of Love work again into what is developed in the single human life via the Spirits of Wisdom. Thus they work together. Then the rulership of these Spirits is again divided inasmuch as all that is personality stands directly under the control of love, and all that happens between birth and death stands indirectly under the element of wisdom.

Thus we see how man's personality and his individuality are within two different tendencies and currents. That is important for the following reason. If the Spirits of Wisdom who are meant now, had, so to speak, arrogated authority to themselves, then that exuberant, vigorous development would have come about which one could also describe by saying that in a single incarnation man would have gone through, pressed together, all possible perfectings from all incarnations. That which the Spirits of Wisdom were to give, however, became distributed among all man's successive earthly incarnations. That is expressed in occultism quite definitely by saying: Had the Spirits of Wisdom remained in evolution man would rapidly have developed to spirituality, burning himself up bodily throughout evolution. But the Spirits of Wisdom refrained from bringing man to such a violent development. They went away from the earth in order to circle around it — in order to regulate and modify the time-periods which would otherwise have rushed past so vehemently. One therefore says in occultism that these Spirits of Wisdom became the “Spirits of the Rotation of Times.” The successive incarnations of man were regulated in the successive revolutions of time which were again regulated through the course of the stars. The Spirits of Wisdom became Spirits of the Rotation of Times. They would have been able to lift man away from the earth by their wisdom-filled power, but then he would have had to forgo the maturing of fruits which can only take place in the course of time. The fruits of love, of earthly experience, would not have been gained. Those secrets which beings must possess and hide in their hearts in order to mature the fruits of love, of Earth's experience, were veiled from these Spirits of the Rotation of Time. Hence it has been recorded: “They veiled their faces before the Mystical Lamb.” For the “Mystical Lamb” is the Sun-Spirit Who holds the secret of lifting not only the spirits away from the earth but of redeeming the bodies, spiritualizing them, after many incarnations have been passed through. The possessor of the Love-Mystery is the Sun-Spirit Whom we call the Christ, and since He has an interest not only in the individuality, but directly in each single personality of the earth, we call Him the “Great Sacrifice of the Earth” or the “Mystical Lamb.”

Thus certain Spirits became the Spirits of the Rotation of Times and regulated the successive incarnations. The Christ became the center, the focus, in so far as the single personalities were to be sanctified and purified. All that man can bring as fruit out of the single personality into the individuality he achieves through having a connection with the Christ Being. Looking toward, feeling oneself united with, the Christ purifies and ennobles the personality. If Earth's evolution had taken its course without the appearing of the Christ then the human body — if we speak in a comprehensive sense — would have remained evil; it would have had to unite with the earth and fall a prey to materiality for ever.

If, however, the Spirits of Wisdom had not renounced the immediate spiritualizing of man at the beginning of Earth's evolution one of the following two courses could have been taken: Either the Spirits of Wisdom, at the very beginning of earthly evolution — in the Lemurian age — would have torn man away out of the body, led him to a rapid spiritual evolution and quickly consumed his body, in which case the Earth could never fulfill its mission; — or, on the other hand, they could have said: We do not wish for that, we want the human body to develop fully, but we ourselves have no interest in it. We will relinquish it therefore to the Late-born, to Jehovah; he is the Lord of Form — and man would have been dried up, mummified. The body of man would have remained united to the earth, it would never have been spiritualized.

Neither of these ways was chosen, but in order to form a balance between the Spirits of Wisdom and the Last-born of the old Moon, the Lord of Form, who was the point of departure for the creation of the present moon, a central situation was created. This midway solution prepared for the appearance of Christ Who is exalted above wisdom, before Whom the Spirits of Wisdom veil their countenance in humility, and Who will redeem men if they permeate themselves more and more with His Spirit. And when the earth itself reaches the point where man will have spiritualized himself fully, then a dried-up ball will not fall out of evolution, but through what he has been able to draw out of evolution man will lead his increasingly ennobled human form to complete spiritualization. And we see how human beings are spiritualized. If we were to see the original human bodies of the Lemurian Age — which I should never describe in a public lecture — we should find that they represented the extreme limit of ugliness, and men became more and more ennobled as love increasingly purified them. But man will evolve even beyond the present human countenance. Today we are in the 5th race. In the 6th race the external physiognomy of man's countenance will show his inner goodness, the inner state of his soul. Man will have then quite a different physiognomy; by the outer form one will recognize how good, how noble he is, one will see by his countenance what qualities lie within his soul. Increasingly will the physiognomy receive the imprint of the nobility and goodness contained in the soul, until at the end of the earth-condition man's bodily nature will be entirely permeated by spirit and will stand out in complete relief from those who have remained attached to materiality and will bear the image of evil on their countenance. That is what will come. It is called the “last crisis” and must be described as “Spiritualization” or, as it is popularly called, the “Resurrection of the Flesh.” One must only understand these things in the true sense as given by occultism; then they cannot be attacked. Enlightened circles will not be able in any case to understand that matter could someday become quite different from matter. What could be called in the best sense of the word the “madness of materiality” will never be able to imagine that matter could one day be spiritualized, that is, that someday something will come about which one calls spiritualization, the Resurrection of the Body, of the Flesh.

But this is how things are, and this is the course of earthly evolution, and thus comes about the meaning of earthly evolution and the place of the Christ within earthly evolution. If we were merely to look at all we have been considering today, then we should have a peculiar picture of the evolution of our Earth. Such a picture would show that the scales were in fact held between the Spirits of Form and the Spirits who have become the Spirits of the Rotation of Time, the actual Spirits of Light. Through the fact that the Christ from the time of the Mystery of Golgotha has to guide earthly evolution, they would be in the position of equilibrium and a continuous ascent would result. But the matter is again not so simple. We know that Spirits have remained behind — Spirits who had not attained the full maturity of the development of wisdom, and who therefore had no interest in relinquishing their authority on the instreaming of love. These Spirits wanted to work on and let wisdom continue to stream in. They did so, and hence their work on earth has not been entirely unfruitful. They have brought men to liberation. If the Christ-Principle has brought love, so have these Spirits, whom we call Luciferic Spirits, brought men freedom, the freedom of the personality. Even the staying behind of certain Spirits has its very good side, and everything, whether advance or staying back, is of divine nature. So there were Spirits of the Rotation of Time who guided progressive incarnations — that which passes as individuality through all the different incarnations; and there were Spirits of Love under the guidance of the Christ-Principle who so prepare this individuality that the personality can little by little go over into a Kingdom of Love. If we would characterize the great ideal that hovers before us as a Kingdom of Love we can do so in the following way.

In the widest circles today the radical error is still circulated that the well-being of a single personality is possible without the well-being of all others on the earth. Although men may not admit that directly, yet in practice our modern life is based on the fact that the individual lives at the cost of others and it is a widespread belief that the welfare of the one is independent of the welfare of the others. Future evolution will bring about the full community of the spirit, that is, on Jupiter the belief will begin to prevail that there is no health and happiness of the one without the health and happiness of all the rest, and indeed to an equal degree. Christianity prepares this conception and it is there in order to prepare it. A community arose at first through the love that was bound to the blood, and in this way sheer egotism was overcome. The mission of Christianity is now to kindle in man the love that is no longer bound to the blood — that is, that men learn to find pure love, where the well-being of the one cannot possibly be conceived without the well-being of the other. Anything else is no real Christianity. In this way we can characterize the evolution of man to a higher stage. But the advance of evolution to such a stage occurs in cycles, not in continuity. You can make these cycles clear to yourself through simple reflection.

You see how a civilization arises in the first epoch of the Post-Atlantean Age, reaches its culmination, and must again decline, how it attains its highest point in the flight from materiality but how it must recede because it has sought its culture on the ground of the non-acknowledgment of matter. You then see how a new cycle enters with the old Persian civilization, how it conquers the earth through the acknowledgment of matter, at all events as a power striving against man, which man subdues through his labor; again this culture reaches its culmination and sinks into decadence. But a new civilization ascends, the Egyptian-Chaldean-Assyrian-Babylonian, which no longer merely acknowledges matter, but penetrates it with human intelligence — where the orbits of the stars are investigated, where buildings are erected in accordance with star-wisdom, laid out in accordance with the laws of geometry. Matter is no longer an opposing power but is recast and remolded to the spiritual. And after the Egyptian-Chaldean-Assyrian-Babylonian culture has fallen into decay, we go on further to the Greco-Latin culture, where in Greek art man has so transformed matter that he has formed his own image in it. It had never been the case before that, as in Greek sculpture, Greek architecture and drama, the human being imprinted his own image into matter. And with Roman civilization we see added the legal idea of the personality. It is only a quite perverted scholarship that says the legal concept had already existed earlier — a rational man can see that at a glance. The Law-book of Hammurabi is entirely different from what was created in Rome as jurisprudence. That is a genuine Roman product, for jurisprudence emerged where the personality created its image in law too; in law man is placed entirely on his own personality. One should study and compare the testament of the Roman Law with what one finds in the Law-book of Hammurabi, where man's personality was definitely given its place in a theocracy. The “Roman citizen” was a new element in the evolutionary cycle of mankind. And there will be a new cycle when men have fully grasped what comes forward today as Theosophy. We see how each cycle in civilization reaches its peak and again declines and how each new cycle has the task of carrying civilization further.

The firm position of balance gives man the certainty that he can be redeemed from the Earth, and the struggling upwards and the striving away is the struggle for actual freedom, which the Luciferic Spirits have imprinted into mankind. Thus the Christ-Principle and the Luciferic Spirits work together in world evolution and determine the conditions of civilization. It is of no consequence that in early Christian centuries the Luciferic principle was excluded and men were referred to the Christ-Principle alone. Humanity will surely come again to their attainment of freedom by complete devotion to the Christ-Principle; for the Christ-Principle is so all-embracing that he alone can grasp it who seeks to encompass it on the level of the loftiest wisdom. Let us glance back into pre-Christian times. We find religions existing there as preparation for Christianity. We see religions, it is true, among the Indians and the Persians, but religions suited to the particular people out of which they have been born. They are national, tribal, racial religions, appearing with the coloring out of which they have arisen, limited inwardly, because in a certain way they still proceed from the group-souls and are bound up with them. With the Christian religion an element entered humanity's evolution which is the true element of earthly evolution. Christianity from the beginning at once broke through the principles of all earlier religions. It sharply set itself against the sentence “I and Father Abraham are one.” It opposed in the first place the idea that one can feel oneself a unity with something that is only a human group. On the other hand the soul that dwells in every personality must be able to feel one with the eternal Ground of the World Whom we call the “Father” and Who dwells in every soul, and this is expressed in the sentence: “I and the Father are one.” And in contrast to the Old Testament which begins with the words “In the beginning was the Light,” Christianity sets the New Testament words: “In the primal beginning was the Word.” With this was given one of the greatest advances in humanity's evolution. For in referring to the light that arose, one speaks, in so far as one can speak of light, of something externally visible. The old records contain a Genesis that establishes the physical as a manifestation of the light. The “Word,” however, is what issues from the inner nature of the being, and before any manifestation of light had appeared there existed in man “what was, what is, and what is to come,” namely, man's inmost being. In the Primal Beginning was not the Light, but the Word. The Gospel of St. John is not a document that may be placed side by side with the others; it expands the others from the temporal to the eternal.

So Christianity stands there not as a religion which might be a national religion but, if it is rightly understood, as a religion of mankind. In that the Christian feels himself one with the “Father,” soul confronts soul, no matter to what people or nation it belongs. All divisions must fall away under the influences of Christianity, and the Jupiter condition must be prepared under the influence of this principle. Christianity therefore has begun as a religion, for humanity was founded on religion. Yet religion must be replaced by wisdom, by knowledge. In so far as religion rests upon faith and is not inflamed with the fire of full knowledge it is something that must be replaced in the course of humanity's progress. And whereas formerly man had to believe before he could come to knowledge, in the future full knowledge will shine with light and man will know and thence ascend to the recognition of the highest spiritual worlds. From religion mankind evolves to wisdom, glowed through by love. First wisdom, then love, then wisdom glowed through by love.

Now we can ask: If religion is to merge into knowledge, if man is no longer given religion according to the old form, namely, that according to his faith he is directed to the wisdom that guides evolution — will then Christianity too no longer exist? There will be no religion that is founded on mere faith. Christianity will remain; in its origins it was religion — but Christianity is greater than all religion! That is Rosicrucian wisdom. The religious principle of Christianity as it originated was more all-embracing than the religious principle of any other religion. But Christianity is still greater than the religious principle itself. When the outer coverings of faith fall away it will be in wisdom-form. It can entirely strip off the sheaths of faith and become wisdom-religion, and spiritual science will help to prepare men for this. Men will be able to live without the old forms of religion and faith, but they will not be able to live without Christianity, for Christianity is greater than all religion. Christianity exists for the purpose of breaking through all forms of religion, and that which fills men as Christianity will still exist when human souls have grown beyond all mere religious life.

Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive

March 24, 1908

These three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

   

"Faith does not work and neither does hope; these one must indeed have, but only love works. Love stands in the center."

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Only love works.

Rudolf Steiner: If we go back in human evolution we pass through the post-Atlantean epoch to the Atlantean catastrophe, then into the Atlantean epoch, and then further back to the Lemurian epoch. When we then arrive at the starting point of earthly humanity we come to a time when man, not only as regards his spiritual qualities, was much closer to the Deity, when he first developed not only out of the spiritual life, but also out of morality. So that at the beginning of earthly evolution we do not find unmorality but morality. Morality is a divine gift which was given to man in the beginning; it was part of the original content in human nature, just as spiritual power was in human nature before man's deepest descent. Fundamentally, a great part of what is unmoral came into humanity in the manner we have described, namely, by the betrayal of the higher Mysteries in the ancient Atlantean epoch. Thus morality is something about which we cannot say that it has only developed gradually in humanity: it is something which lies at the bottom of the human soul, something which has only been submerged by the later civilizations. When we look at the matter in the right light we cannot even say that unmorality came into the world through folly; it came into the world through the secrets of wisdom being disclosed to persons who were not sufficiently mature to receive them. It was through this that people were tempted; they succumbed, and then degenerated. Therefore in order that they might rise it was above all necessary that something should occur which would sweep away from the human soul all that is contrary to moral impulses. Let us put this in a somewhat different form. Let us suppose we have before us a criminal, a man whom we call especially unmoral: on no account must we think that this unmoral man is devoid of moral impulses. They are in him and we shall find them if we delve down to the bottom of his soul. There is no human soul — with the exception of black magicians, with whom we are not now concerned — in which there is not the foundation of what is morally good. If a person is wicked it is because that which has originated in the course of time as spiritual error overlies moral goodness. Human nature is not bad; originally it was really good. The concrete observation of human nature shows us that in its deepest being it is good, and that it was through spiritual errors that man deviated from the moral path. Therefore moral errors must in course of time once more be made good in man. Not only must the mistakes be made good but their results as well, for where evil has such mighty after-effects that demons of disease have been produced, super-moral forces such as were in Francis of Assisi must be also active. The foundation for the improvement of a human being always consists in taking away his spiritual error. And what is necessary to this end? Gather together what I have told you into a fundamental feeling; let the facts speak to you, let them speak to your feelings and perceptions, and try to gather them together into one fundamental feeling, and then you will say: What is the attitude which a man needs to hold regarding his fellow man? It is that he needs the belief in the original goodness of humanity as a whole, and of each single human being in particular. That is the first thing we must say if we wish to speak at all in words concerning morality: that something immeasurably good lies at the bottom of human nature. That is what Francis of Assisi realized; and when he was approached by some of those stricken with the horrible disease we have described, as a good Christian of that day he said somewhat as follows: “A disease such as this is in a certain way the consequence of sin; but as sin is in the first instance spiritual error and disease the result, it must therefore be removed by a mighty opposing power.” Hence Francis of Assisi saw by the sinner how, in a certain way, the punishment of sin manifests itself externally; but he also saw the good in human nature, he saw what lies at the bottom of each human being as divine spiritual forces. That which distinguished Francis of Assisi most was his sublime faith in the goodness lying in each human being, even in one who was being punished. This made it possible for the contrary power to appear in his soul, and this is the power of love which gives and helps morally, and indeed even heals. And no one, if he really develops the belief in the original goodness of human nature into an active impulse, can arrive at anything else than to love human nature as such. It is primarily these two fundamental impulses which are able to found a truly moral life. First, the belief in the divine at the bottom of every human soul, and secondly, the boundless love of man which springs from this belief. For it was only this measureless love which could bring Francis of Assisi to the sick, the crippled, and those stricken with leprosy. A third thing which may be added, and is necessarily built upon these two foundations, is that a person who has a firm belief in the goodness of the human soul, and who loves human nature, cannot do otherwise than admit that what we see proceeding from the cooperation of the originally good foundation of the human soul with practical love, justifies a perspective for the future which may be expressed in the fact that every single soul, even though it may have descended far from the height of spiritual life, can be led back again to this spiritual life. This third impulse implies the hope for each human soul that it can find the way back again to the Divine-Spiritual. We may say that Francis of Assisi heard these three things expressed very very often; they were continually in his mind during his initiation in the Mysteries of Colchis, on the Black Sea. And we may also say that in the life he had to lead as Francis of Assisi he preached very little about faith or love, but was himself their embodiment. Foremost, of course, was that which really works. For faith does not work and neither does hope; these one must indeed have, but only love works. Love stands in the center, and love is what carried the actual moral development of humanity toward the divine during this incarnation of Francis of Assisi. How did this love — which we know was the result of his initiation in the Colchis Mysteries — develop in St. Francis? We have seen that in him appeared the knightly virtues of the ancient European spirit. He was a valiant boy. Valor, bravery, was transformed in his individuality, which was permeated by the Christ impulse, into active practical love. We see the old valor, the old bravery, resurrected once more in the love manifested in Francis of Assisi. The ancient valor transposed into the spiritual, bravery transposed into the spiritual, is love. It is interesting to see how very much of what has just been said corresponds also to the external historical course of human evolution. Let us go back a few centuries into the pre-Christian era. Among the people who have given the principal name to the fourth post-Atlantean age, the Greeks, we find the philosopher Plato. Among other things, Plato wrote about morals, about the virtues of man. By the way in which he wrote, we can recognize that he was reticent concerning the highest things, the actual secrets, but what he felt able to say he put into the mouth of Socrates. Now, in a period of European culture in which the Christ impulse had not yet worked, Plato described the highest virtues he recognized, namely, the virtues which the Greeks looked upon as those which a moral man ought to have above all things. He described first of all three virtues, and a fourth with which we shall later become acquainted. The first was “Wisdom.” Wisdom, as such, Plato looked upon as virtue. This is justified, for in the most varied directions we have found that wisdom lies at the foundation of moral life. In India the wisdom of the Brahmins lay at the foundation of human life. In Europe this was indeed withdrawn into the background, but it existed in the Norse Mysteries, where the European Brahmins had to make good again that which had been spoiled through the betrayal in the old Atlantean epoch. Wisdom stands behind all morality, as we shall see in our next lecture. Plato also described, in the manner corresponding to the Mysteries, as the second virtue: “Valor” — that which we meet with in the population of Europe. As the third virtue he described Temperance or “Moderation” — that is, the opposite of the passionate cultivation of the lower human impulses. These are the three chief Platonic virtues: Wisdom, Valor or Bravery, and Moderation or Temperance, the curbing of the sensual impulses active in man. Finally, the harmonious balancing of these three virtues Plato describes as a fourth virtue, which he calls “Justice.” Here is described, by one of the most eminent European minds of pre-Christian times, what were looked upon at that time as the most important qualities in human nature. Valor, bravery, is in the European population permeated by the Christ impulse and by what we call “ I ” or the ego. Bravery, which in Plato appears as virtue, is here spiritualized and thereby becomes love. The most important thing is that we should see how moral impulses come into the human race, how that which formerly existed in the form we have described becomes something entirely different. Now, without disparagement to Christian morality we cannot describe as the only virtues wisdom, temperance, valor, and justice, for we might receive the reply: “If you had all these and yet you had not love you would never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” Let us bear in mind the time when, as we have seen, there was poured out into humanity an impulse, a current, of such a nature that wisdom and bravery were spiritualized and reappeared as love. But we shall go still further into the question as to how wisdom, moderation or temperance, and justice have been developed, and thereby will appear what is the particular moral mission of the Anthroposophical Movement in the present day. Related posts:  44 years at the Himalayan Institute Love is spiritualized courage Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive May 29, 1912