The Disappearance of Gnosis and the Appearance of Jesus Christ

"Behold, I make all things new."  — Revelation 21:5

Rudolf Steiner, December 27, 1915:

"Actually the whole development of the West was designed such that something that came from ancient times was rooted out, thoroughly rooted out. Outwardly this fact alone shows how new the start was for Western culture that was given with the Mystery of Golgotha, how basically something new started everywhere. Truly, just like what might be described as a lost city buried in the earth, the ancient writings were thoroughly buried under what was now newly developed on the basis of the ancient Church Fathers — by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, Scotus Eriugena, and so on. A new start! And just like a new city rises on apparently new ground, so something new arose — a new city, but on ground in which was buried the ancient city without anyone knowing what it looked like. That is how European culture developed. But from that it can also be seen that, in our time, if there is to be a renewed spiritual deepening, it is necessary for this deepening to be achieved out of the strength of human beings themselves; human beings themselves must find once again what was not passed down to them outwardly, at least within the course of the European development of ideas. And — I cannot speak about this today because it would take us too far off the subject — there is no point in referring to the Eastern records as a substitute for the external records which have disappeared in Western thought, for the simple reason that the Eastern records indeed provide something much, much more primitive than that which developed in the world spreading across Asia Minor, North Africa, southern Europe, and even partly across central Europe. What spiritual knowledge had developed into was thoroughly rooted out in the first centuries of Christian development."




Source: https://steiner.presswarehouse.com/Books/SearchResults.aspx?str=cw+165