The Gospel of John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels. Lecture 6 of 14.
Rudolf Steiner, Kassel, June 29, 1909:
Yesterday we
drew attention to the existence of great leaders of mankind as far back as the
epoch we call the Atlantean period of human evolution. We know from what was
brought forth yesterday that this epoch ran its course on a continent we call
Old Atlantis, lying between Europe, Africa, and America; we also mentioned
that human life at that time was very different from what it is today,
particularly with regard to the nature of human consciousness. Our scrutiny
disclosed the fact that the consciousness with which man is endowed today
developed only gradually, and that he started from a sort of dim clairvoyance.
We know further that the human physical bodies of the Atlantean period consisted
of a substance far softer, more flexible, more plastic, than at present; and
clairvoyant consciousness reveals the fact that at that time men were not yet
able, for example, to perceive solid objects such as our eyes see today in sharp
outline. The Atlantean could distinguish the objects of the outer world — the
mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms — but only indistinctly, blurred. Just as
nowadays in a foggy autumn evening the street lights show a fringe of color, so
people of that time saw objects surrounded by a colored border — an aura,
as the term is. The auras were the indication of the spiritual beings belonging
to the objects. At certain times in the course of the day the perception of
these spiritual beings was very indistinct, but at others very clear, especially
in the intermediate states between waking and sleeping.
If we wish
vividly to imagine the consciousness of an ancient Atlantean, we must think of
it as follows: He did not see a rose, for example, so sharply outlined as we do
today. It was blurred, hazy, and surrounded by colored borders. Even by day it
was indistinct, but it became more so and disappeared entirely in the interval
between waking and sleeping. On the other hand, however, he discerned quite
clearly what we must term the rose spirit, the rose soul. And the same was true
of all other objects in his environment. In the progress of evolution outer
objects became ever clearer, while perception of the spiritual beings associated
with them grew dimmer. But in compensation man kept developing his self -consciousness: he learned to be aware of himself.
Yesterday we
mentioned the period in which a distinct sense of the ego emerged, adding that
the etheric body came to coincide with the physical body as the last third of
the Atlantean age approached. You can imagine that previously the nature of
leadership as well was quite different, for at that time there existed nothing
like a mutual understanding among men resting on an appeal to reason. In those
days of dim clairvoyance mutual understanding was based upon a subconscious
influence passing from one to the other. Especially was there still present to a
high degree something we know today only in its last misinterpreted and
misunderstood survival, namely, a kind of suggestion, a subconscious reciprocal
influence, invoking but little the collaboration of the other's soul. Looking
back to early Atlantean times we see that a powerful effect was exercized on the
other's soul the moment any image, any sensation, arose in the soul, and the
will was directed upon the other. All influences were powerful, as was also the
will to receive them. Only scraps of all this have survived.
Picture to
yourself a man of that time passing another while executing certain gestures. If
the observer were even slightly the weaker of the two he would have felt
impelled to imitate and mimic all the gestures. The only surviving remnant of
this sort of thing is our inclination to yawn when we see another person
yawning. Formerly a far closer tie prevailed between human beings, based on the
fact that they lived in an atmosphere totally different from that of today. Only
during a heavy rain do we nowadays live in water-soaked air, whereas at the time
of which we speak the air was constantly saturated with dense moisture; and in
the early Atlantean epoch man was composed of a substance no more dense than
that of certain jellyfish now living in the sea and scarcely distinguishable
from the surrounding water. That was the way man was constituted at that time,
and he solidified only gradually. Nevertheless we know that even then he was
exposed to influences not only of the regular guiding higher spiritual beings
who either dwelt on the sun or were distributed among the various planets of our
solar system, but also of the Luciferic spirits that influenced his astral body;
and we have learned, too, in what manner these influences took effect. But we
found further that those who were to be the leaders of the Atlantean people had
to combat these Luciferic influences in their own astral body. By reason of the
spiritual and clairvoyant nature of their consciousness all men of that time
could perceive whatever spiritual influences were exerted on them. — Nowadays
one who knows nothing of spiritual science laughs when you tell him his astral
body shows the effects of Luciferic spirits; but then, he does not know that the
influence of these spirits is far stronger than it would be if he took note of
them.
“The Devil your good-folk ne'er scent,
E'en though he have them by the collar.”
That is a very profound utterance in
Goethe's Faust; and many a materialistic influence of today would not exist if
people knew that we are by no means rid of all the Luciferic influences as
yet.
In Atlantis the
leaders and their disciples kept a careful watch for everything that excited
passions, instincts, and desires, for everything emanating from that quarter
which aroused in man a deeper interest in his physical-sensible surroundings
than was beneficial for his progressive development in the cosmic scheme. The
first duty of one who aspired to become a leader was to practice this
self-knowledge, to guard carefully against anything that might arise in him
through Lucifer's influence. He had to study these Luciferic spiritual beings in
his own astral body most accurately, for by so doing he could keep them at a
distance. This also enabled him to perceive the other divine-spiritual beings,
the higher, guiding ones, and particularly those that had transferred their own
sphere of action from the earth to the sun, or to other planets; and the regions
beheld by men corresponded to that from which they had descended. There were
human souls, for instance, that had come down from Mars; and when these, in
keeping with their development, combatted the Luciferic influences in their own
astral body, they attained to a higher degree of clairvoyance, to a pure and
good seership, and they beheld the higher spiritual beings of the region from
which they themselves had descended, from the Mars region. Souls that had come
down from Saturn learned to see the Saturn beings, those from Jupiter or Venus,
the Jupiter or Venus beings: each beheld his own region.
But the most
advanced among men, those who had survived the moon crisis, were able gradually
to prepare themselves to envision not only the spiritual beings of Mars,
Jupiter, or Venus, but those of the sun itself, the exalted sun beings. Having
come down from the various planets the initiates were again able to behold the
spirituality of these planets. From this it is clear why in ancient Atlantis
there were institutions, schools, where those who had descended, for example,
from Mars were accepted, when sufficiently mature, for the purpose of studying
the mysteries of Mars; and that there were other sanctuaries where those who had
come from other planets could learn their mysteries. Applying the later term
“oracle” to these institutions, we have in Atlantis a Mars Oracle, where the
mysteries of Mars were studied, a Saturn Oracle, a Jupiter Oracle, a Venus
Oracle, and so on. The highest was the Sun Oracle; and the loftiest of all the
initiates was the ranking initiate of the Sun Oracle.
Because
suggestion and the influences of will played so important a part, the whole
method of instruction was very different. Let us try to imagine the nature of
the intercourse between teacher and pupil. Assuming the presence of spiritual
teachers who had achieved initiation as by an act of grace, we ask, How did the
later neophytes arrive at initiation in the Atlantean age? Here we must imagine
first of all the mighty impression exercized by those already initiated —
through their whole conduct, their mere presence — upon those predestined to
become their pupils. The very sight of an Atlantean initiate was enough to start
a sympathetic vibration in the soul of the neophyte, thus disclosing his fitness
for the discipleship. The influences that passed between men at that time were
entirely remote from objective day-consciousness, and the type of instruction we
know today was then unnecessary. All intercourse with the teacher, everything
the teacher did, worked hand in hand with men's imitative faculty. A great deal
passed unconsciously from teacher to pupil; hence the most important factor, for
those sufficiently matured through their previous life conditions, was that in
the beginning they should merely be admitted to the sanctuaries and remain in
contact with their teachers. Then, by observing what the teachers did and by
impressions made on their feelings and sensations, they were trained — prepared,
indeed, over a very long period of time. Eventually the harmonious accord
between the soul of the teacher and the soul of the pupil reached the point
where everything the teacher possessed in the way of deeper spiritual secrets
passed over of itself to the disciple. — Such were the conditions in those
ancient times.
Now, what was
the situation after the union of the etheric and physical bodies had become
established? Although the two bodies had come to cover completely during the
Atlantean epoch, the union was as yet not very firm, so that by an effort of
will the teacher could, in a certain sense, withdraw the pupil's etheric body
from the physical. It was no longer possible, even when the right moment had
come, for the teacher's wisdom to pass over into the pupil as of its own accord;
but the teacher could easily withdraw the pupil's etheric body and then the
pupil could see whatever the teacher saw. So the slight or loose connection
between the etheric and physical bodies made it possible to release the former,
and the wisdom, the clairvoyant vision, of the master passed over into the
disciple.
Then there
occurred the great cataclysm that swept away the Atlantean continent. Mighty
elemental disturbances in air and water, terrific upheavals in the earth,
gradually altered the entire face of the globe. Europe, Asia, and Africa, which
had been dry land only to a very slight extent, arose out of the water, as did
likewise America. Atlantis disappeared. Men migrated eastward and westward, and
a great variety of settlements came into being. But after the mighty catastrophe
mankind had advanced another step. Again a change had taken place in the
connection between the etheric and physical bodies: in the post-Atlantean time
the union of the two became much firmer. The teacher could now no longer detach
the pupil's etheric body by an impulse of will and thereby transmit his power of
vision as he had formerly done. Hence initiation, leading to vision of the
spiritual world, had to take another form, which can be described somewhat as
follows:
The instruction
which had been based largely upon direct psychic influence from teacher to pupil
had gradually to be superseded by a form slowly approaching what we know as
instruction today; and the farther the post-Atlantean age advanced, the greater
grew the resemblance to our modern method of instruction. Corresponding to the
Atlantean oracles, institutions were now established by the great leaders of
mankind exhibiting similarities to the old Atlantean oracles: Mysteries,
initiation temples, came into being in the post-Atlantean epoch; and just as
formerly those fitted for it were received into the oracles, so now they were
admitted to the Mysteries. There the neophytes were carefully trained by means
of exacting instruction, because they could no longer be influenced as they were
formerly. In all civilizations over a long period of time we find such
Mysteries. Whether you seek in the culture we knew as the first post-Atlantean,
which ran its course in ancient India, or in that of Zarathustra, or among the
Egyptians or Chaldeans, you will invariably find neophytes being admitted to the
Mysteries which were something partway between church and school; and there
they underwent a severe training calculated to promote thinking and feeling as
these apply to events of the invisible, spiritual world — not merely as related
to things of the sense world.
And what was
taught there can now be accurately defined: to a great extent it was the same as
what we have come to know today as anthroposophy. That was the subject of study
in the Mysteries; and it differed only in that it was adapted to the customs of
that time and was imparted according to strict rules. Today people who in a
certain sense are ripe can be told of the mysteries of the higher worlds in a
more or less free way and comparatively rapidly. Of old, however, the
instruction was strictly regulated. In the first grade, for instance, only a
certain sum of knowledge was imparted and all else kept completely secret. Not
until the pupil had digested this was he apprised of anything pertaining to a
higher grade. Through this sort of preparation, concepts, ideas, sensations, and
feelings referring to the spiritual world were implanted in his astral body, a
procedure tending at the same time to combat the influences of Lucifer; for all
that is imparted in the way of spiritual-scientific concepts refers to the
higher worlds, not to the world in which Lucifer aims to stimulate man's
interest, not to the sense world alone.
Eventually, when
the neophyte had been prepared in this way, the time approached for him to be
guided to independent vision, when he himself should see in the spiritual world.
This implied the ability to reflect in his etheric body everything he had
accumulated in his astral body; for vision of the spiritual world is achieved
only when the fruits of study stored in the astral body are experienced so
intensely, through certain feelings and sensations connected with the knowledge
acquired, that not only the astral body but the denser etheric body as well is
thereby influenced. If the pupil was to rise from learning to seeing, all that
had been taught him must have borne fruit.
That is why,
throughout the Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek epochs the training period
closed with the following act. First the pupil was again prepared for a long
time — now not through learning, but by means of what we call meditation and
other exercises designed to develop inner concentration, inner tranquility,
inner equanimity. He was trained to make his astral body in every respect a
citizen of the spiritual worlds; and when the right time had come the conclusion
of this development consisted in his being placed in a deathlike state lasting
three and a half days. While in Atlantean times the etheric and physical bodies
were so loosely joined that the former could be withdrawn more easily than in
later periods, it had now become necessary in the Mysteries to throw the
neophyte into a deathlike sleep. While this lasted he was either placed in a
coffinlike box or bound to a sort of cross — something of that sort. The
initiator, known as the hierophant, possessed the power to work upon the astral body,
and particularly upon the etheric body — for during this procedure the etheric body
left the physical body. That is something different from sleep: in sleep the
physical and etheric bodies remain in bed while the astral body and ego
withdraw; but in this final act of initiation only the physical body remained in
place. The etheric body was simply withdrawn from the greater part, at least, of
the physical body — from the whole upper portion; and this left the candidate in
a deathlike state. Everything that had been learned through meditation and other
exercises was now impressed into the etheric body while in this condition.
During these three and a half days the neophyte really moved about in the
spiritual worlds wherein the higher beings dwell. Finally the hierophant called
him back, meaning that he had the power to awaken him; and the candidate brought
with him a knowledge of the spiritual world. Now he could see into this
spiritual world and could proclaim its truths to his fellow men who were not yet
ready to envision it themselves.
Thus the ancient
teachers of pre-Christian time had been initiated into the profound secrets of
the Mysteries. There they had been guided by the hierophant during the
three-and-a-half-day period; they were living witnesses to the existence of a
spiritual life and to the fact that behind the physical there is a spiritual
world to which man belongs with his higher principles and into which he must
find his way. But evolution proceeded. What I have just described to you as an
initiation existed most intensively in the first epoch after the Atlantean
catastrophe; but the union of the etheric and physical bodies grew ever firmer,
hence the procedure became more and more dangerous, because man's whole
consciousness accustomed itself increasingly to the physical sense world. You
see, that was the import of human evolution: men were to become used to living
in this physical world with all their inclinations and propensities. This
learning to love the physical world was a great step forward for mankind.
In the early
part of the post-Atlantean civilization there still remained a living
recollection of the existence of a spiritual world. People said: We, the late
descendants, can still see into the spiritual world of our ancestors. — They
still retained the dim, dull, clairvoyant consciousness and they knew where lay
the world which was their true home. They said, All that surrounds us in our
day-consciousness is like a veil spread over truth: it hides the spiritual world
from us; it is maya, illusion. — They did not accustom themselves at once to
what they now could see, nor could they readily understand that it was intended
that they lose their awareness of the old spiritual world. That was the
characteristic feature of the first post-Atlantean civilization; hence that was
the time in which men could most easily be guided to the spirit: they still felt
a lively interest in the spiritual world. Naturally matters could not remain
thus, because the Earth's mission consists in man's becoming fond of the
forces of the earth and conquering the physical plane. Were you able to envision
ancient India, you would discover the spiritual life to be on a tremendously
lofty level.
A comprehension
of what the original teachers revealed to mankind is possible in this day and
age only after a study of spiritual science. For others, the teaching of the
great holy Rishis is nonsense, foolishness, for they can make no sense out of
what is told them there about the mysteries of the spiritual world. From their
standpoint they are naturally quite right: everyone is always right from his own
standpoint.
In ancient India
spiritual vision was enormously extensive, but the use of even the simplest
implements was non-existent. People provided for themselves in the most
primitive ways. There was nothing like a natural science of any kind — or what
is so called today — because everything that could be observed on the physical
plane was looked upon as maya, the great illusion; and only by uplift to
the great Sun Being or similar beings was the real, the true, to be found. But
again, matters could not stop there: among the post-Atlanteans there had to be
those as well with the will to conquer the kingdom of earth; and the first
attempt to this end was made in the time of Zarathustra. In the transition from
the old Indians to the ancient Persians we see a mighty step forward. In
Zarathustra's view the outer world ceased to be mere maya or illusion: he
showed men that what surrounds them is of value, though he emphasized the
presence of spirit underlying all. While the ancient Indian saw a flower as
maya and sought the spirit behind it, Zarathustra said, The flower is
something we must value, for it is an integral part of the universal spirit
existing in all things; matter grows out of spirit.
We have already
mentioned that Zarathustra drew attention to the physical sun as the field of
action of spiritual beings. But initiation was difficult; and for those who
wanted not merely to be told of the spiritual world by the initiates but to see
for themselves into the great sun aura, more drastic measures were called for in
connection with their initiation. Furthermore, all human life gradually changed;
and in the next cultural epoch, the Egypto-Chaldean, the physical world was
conquered to a still greater extent. Man was no longer bent upon a purely
spiritual science which studies the realm that underlies the physical: he
observed the course of the stars; and in their position and movement, in what is
outwardly visible, he sought the language of divine-spiritual beings. In this
script coordinating visible objects he recognized the will of the Gods. That is
the way cosmic interrelationships were studied in the Egypto-Chaldean time. And
in Egypt we see arising a geometry applied to external things. Such is the story
of man's conquest of the outer world.
In Greece even
greater progress was made in this direction. There we see come about the union
of soul experiences and external matter. In a Pallas Athene or a Zeus we sense
that into the material substance has streamed what first lived in a human soul.
It is as though everything which man had made his very own had flowed out into
the sense world. But as man became ever more powerful in the sense world and his
soul grew more and more attached to it, his alienation from the spiritual world
increased correspondingly in the life between death and a new birth. When the
soul left an ancient Indian body and entered the spiritual world, there to pass
through the requisite development before the next birth, it retained a feeling
for the living spirit. Through his whole life the man of that time yearned for a
spiritual environment; and all his sensations were kindled by the revelations he
had heard concerning life in the spiritual world, even though he was not an
initiate himself. So when he passed the portal of death the spiritual world lay
open before him, as it were, in light and radiance.
But as the
physical world became more and more congenial and men adapted themselves to it
ever more readily, the periods between death and birth were proportionately
obscured. In the Egyptian epoch this had gone so far, as can be established by
clairvoyant consciousness, that in passing from the body into the spiritual
world the soul was enveloped in darkness and gloom, in a sense of loneliness, of
segregation from other souls; and when a soul feels loneliness and can hold no
converse with other souls it experiences a frosty chill. And while the Greeks
lived in an age in which, by means of such glorious external beauty, men had
made the earth into something quite special, this period was darkest, gloomiest,
most chilling, for the souls living between death and rebirth. A noble Greek,
questioned as to his sojourn in the nether world, replied, “Better a beggar in
the upper world than a king in the realm of shades”. That is not a legend but an
utterance actually in accord with the attitude of that time.
It can therefore
be said that with the advance of civilization men became more and more alienated
from the spiritual world. The initiates who could see into the higher regions of
the spiritual world became increasingly rare because of the growing dangers
connected with the initiation procedure: it became more and more difficult to
preserve life for three and a half days in a cataleptic state, with the etheric
body withdrawn.
Then there
intervened a regeneration of the whole life of humanity through the impulse
already mentioned in the foregoing lectures, the Christ-Impulse. We have
described how Christ, the exalted Sun Spirit, gradually approached the earth; we
have learned how in Zarathustra's time He still had to be sought in the sun as
Ahura Mazdao, and how Moses beheld Him closer by — in the burning bush
and in the fire on Mount Sinai. Gradually He entered the sphere of the earth in
which a great change was thereby destined to be wrought. The first concern of
this Spirit was that men should come to recognize Him when He appeared on this
earth.
The salient
feature of all the old initiations was the necessity for withdrawing the etheric
out of the physical body. Even in the post-Atlantean initiations the candidate
had to be reduced to a deathlike state of sleep, that is, a state in which he
was devoid of physical consciousness. This implied coming under the control of
another ego: it was invariably thus. The candidate's ego was wholly controlled
by his initiator, his hierophant. He quitted his physical body completely: he
did not dwell in it, nor did his own ego exercize any influence upon it. But the
great aim of the Christ-Impulse is that man shall undergo a wholly
self-contained ego development and not descend to a state of consciousness
beneath that of the ego in order to attain to the higher worlds: and in order to
achieve this, someone had first to offer himself in sacrifice so that the Christ
Spirit itself might be received into a human body. We have already pointed out
that a certain initiate who had prepared himself through a great many
incarnations had become able, beginning with a definite period in his life, to
yield up his own ego and receive the Christ within himself. This is indicated by
the Baptism in the Jordan, as told in the Gospel of St. John.
Here we must
ask, What was the real import of this Baptism? We know that John the Baptist,
the forerunner who told of the coming of Christ Jesus, carried it out among
those whom he had prepared to receive the Christ in the right way. We will
understand what the St. John Gospel tells us of the Baptism only if we bear in
mind that John's purpose in baptizing was the true preparation for the coming of
Christ. A modern baptism, which is but an.imitation of the original symbol,
provides no understanding of the question. It was not a mere sprinkling with
water, but a complete immersion: the candidate lived under water for a certain
length of time, varying according to circumstances. What this signified we shall
now learn by delving into the mystery of the being of man.
Recall to mind
that the human being consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and
ego. In the waking state during the daytime these four principles are firmly
knit together, but in sleep the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, while
the astral body and the ego are outside. In death, on the other hand, the
physical body remains as a corpse: the etheric body withdraws, and for a short
time the ego, the astral body, and the etheric body remain united. And to those
of you who have heard even a few of my lectures it must be clear that in this
moment a quite definite experience appears first: the deceased sees his past
life spread out before him like a magnificent tableau; spatially side by side,
all the situations of his life surround him. That is because one of the
functions of the etheric body is that of memory bearer, and even during life
nothing but the physical body prevents all this from appearing before him. After
death, with the physical body laid aside, everything the man had experienced
during his lifetime can enter his consciousness.
Now, I have
mentioned as well that a retrospect of that sort also results from being in
peril of death, or from any severe fright or shock. You know, of course, from
reports that when a man is in danger of drowning or of falling from a mountain
height, he experiences his whole past life as in a great tableau — provided he
does not lose consciousness. Well, what a man thus experiences as the result of
some danger, such as drowning, was experienced by nearly all who were baptized
by John. The baptism consisted in keeping people under water until they had
experienced their past life. But what they experienced in this way was, of
course, experienced as a spiritual picture; and here it became apparent that in
this abnormal state the spiritual experiences linked up, in a way, with the
spiritual world in general, so that after being lifted out of the water again,
after the baptism by John, a man knew: There is a spiritual world! In truth,
what I bear within myself is something that can live without the body. — After
baptism a man was convinced of the existence of a world to which he belonged in
respect of his spirit.
What, then, had
John the Baptist brought about by baptizing in this way? People had become more
and more attached to the physical world as a means of mutual contact, and
believed the physical element to be the true reality. But those who came to the
Baptist experienced their own lives as spiritual: after being baptized they knew
that they were something over and above what their physical body made them.
Human interest had gradually developed in the direction of the physical world;
but John evoked in those he baptized the awareness of the existence of a
spiritual world to which their higher selves belonged. You need only clothe this
utterance in other words and you have: “Transform your interest that is now
directed toward the physical world.” And that is what they did — those who
received the baptism in the right way. They knew, then, that spirit dwelt in
them, that their ego belonged to the spiritual world.
It was in the
physical body that this conviction was gained. No special procedure was
involved, as formerly in the initiations: what occurred was experienced in the
physical body. And in addition, the experience of the baptism, as carried out by
John, acquired a special meaning as a consequence of the manner in which the
whole doctrine of the time was received and merged with the soul — the doctrine
established by Moses' revelation. After baptism, a man not only was aware of his
oneness with the spiritual world, but he recognized the particular spiritual
world which was approaching the earth. He knew that what now pervaded the earth
was identical with what had revealed itself to Moses as ehjeh asher ehjeh
in the burning bush and in the fire on Sinai; and he knew that the word Jahve or
Jehovah, or ehjeh asher ehjeh, or I am the I AM, was the true
expression of that spiritual world. So through the baptism by John men knew not
only that they were one with the spiritual world, but that in this spiritual
world there dwelt the I AM out of which the spirit in them was born. That
was the preparation John imparted through his baptisms; that was the feeling,
the sensation, he aroused in those whom he baptized. Their number, of course,
was necessarily small, since few of them were ripe enough to experience all this
when submerged; but some discerned the approach of the Spirit later to be called
the Christ.
Try now to
compare all this with what was set forth yesterday. What the ancient spiritual
beings had brought about was love based on blood ties, on physical communion,
whereas the aim of the Luciferic spirits was to render each individual dependent
solely upon his own personality, his own individuality. Lucifer and the lofty
spiritual beings had been working simultaneously. Gradually the old blood ties
had loosened, as can be established even historically. Think of the
conglomeration of peoples in the great Roman Empire! That was a result of the
loosening of the blood ties and of the universal desire, in varying degrees, to
find the center of gravity in personality. But another result was that people
had lost contact with the spiritual world: they had identified themselves with
the physical world and developed a love for the physical plane. As the
ego-consciousness had increased through Lucifer's agency, man had
proportionately coalesced with the physical world and rendered barren his life
between death and a new birth.
Now, the Baptist
had indeed prepared something that was of great significance for mankind: he had
prepared the way for man to remain within his personality and at the same time
find there, after the submersion, exactly what once he had experienced as “gods”
at the time when he himself still lived in water, when the atmosphere was
saturated with moisture and fog. That experience in the divine worlds was now
repeated. In spite of being an ego, man, as a human being, could now be reunited
with his fellows, could be led back to love, a love that was now
spiritualized.
That is the
mainspring of the Christ event characterized from another aspect. Christ
represents the descent to our earth of the spiritual power of love, though even
today its mission is only beginning to take effect. If we trace this idea by
means of the John and the Luke Gospels we find spiritual love to be the very
core of the Christ impulse through which the egos that had been sundered are
increasingly brought together again — but now in respect of their innermost
souls. From the beginning, men have been able to surmise but dimly what Christ
had come to mean for the world; and today very little of it has been realized
because the sundering force, the after-effect of the Luciferic powers, is still
present and the Christ principle has been active only for a short time. And
though nowadays people seek to cooperate in certain external activities, they
have not so much as an inkling of what is meant by harmony and accord between
souls where the most intimate and important matters are concerned — or at best
they vaguely sense it with their thoughts, their intellect, which counts for
little.
Truly,
Christianity is only at the beginning of its activity: it will penetrate ever
deeper into the souls of men, will increasingly ennoble their ego. This has been
felt particularly strongly by people of the younger nations: they feel the need
of identifying themselves with the Christ force, to steep themselves in it, if
they are to get on. One of our contemporaries in eastern Europe, the executor of
the great Russian philosopher Solovyev, once said: “Christianity must unite us
as a nation, otherwise we shall lose our ego, and with it, all possibility of
being a people.” A mighty utterance, emanating as from an intensive intellect
for Christianity. But that again proves the need for Christianity to penetrate
into the depths of the human soul.
Let us examine a
certain very radical case. It will show us that precisely in respect of the
innermost life of the soul even the most highminded and noble men are still far
from possessing what will one day lay hold on them, when Christianity shall have
filled man's innermost thoughts, his innermost ideas and feelings. Think of
Tolstoi and of his work during the last decades which seeks to reveal in its own
way the true meaning of Christianity. A thinker of his caliber should arouse
enormous respect, especially in the West where whole libraries are cluttered up
with lengthy philosophical manglings of the same thing that a Tolstoi can say in
great and powerful words in a book like On Life. There are pages in
Tolstoi's writings in which a certain extensive understanding of theosophical
truths is expounded with elemental grandeur, truths, to be sure, which a
philosopher of western Europe cannot hit upon so accurately — or at best he must
write volumes about them, because what they reveal is mighty. It can be said
that in Tolstoi's works there is an undertone we can call the Christ impulse.
Engross yourselves in his books, and you will see that what pervades him is the
Christ impulse.
Now turn to
Tolstoi's great contemporary, interesting if for no other reason than that from
a comprehensive philosophical Weltanschauung he attained to the very
gates of a life of such genuine vision as enabled him to survey an epoch in full
perspective — apocalyptically, so to speak. While his visions themselves are
distorted, due to an inadequate background, Solovyev nevertheless rises to
clairvoyant perception of the future: he places before us a forecast of the 20th
century. And if we read his writings with sympathetic understanding we find
there much that is great and highminded, especially in connection with
Christianity. Yet he speaks of Tolstoi as of an enemy of Christianity, as of the
Antichrist! This goes to show that two men today can be profoundly convinced
they are giving their epoch the best there is, can act out of the very depths of
their souls, and yet fail to understand each other: for each of them the other
is “anti”. Nowadays people do not reflect that if outer harmony, a life
permeated by love, is to become a possibility, the Christ impulse must first
have penetrated to the profoundest depths: love of mankind must be something
very different from what it is today, even in the noblest spirits.
The impulse that
was foretold and then entered the world is only at the beginning of its work,
and it must be ever better understood. What is it that is lacking, particularly
in our time, among all those who cry for Christianity and declare it a
necessity, yet cannot bring it within reach? Anthroposophy, spiritual science,
that is what they lack: the present-day way of understanding Christ. For Christ
is so great that each successive epoch will have to find new means of
comprehending Him. In former centuries other ways and forms were employed in the
search for wisdom. Today we need anthroposophy; and what anthroposophy offers
today for an understanding of Christ will hold good through long ages to come,
because anthroposophy will prove to be something capable of stimulating every
human capacity for knowledge. Humanity will in time grow into a comprehension of
the Christ.
But even the
anthroposophical conception is a transient one — we are aware of this; and the
time will come when so great a subject, now framed in ephemeral terms, will call
for still vaster conceptions.
Posts
