Ave Eva! ~ The 10 Aristotelian Categories as the successive stages of embryonic development during the 10 lunar months of human gestation [from Sophia to Anthropos-Sophia]

             

"The Reunion of the Soul and the Body" by William Blake

Know Yourself

Esoteric Easter. Lecture 4 of 4

Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, Switzerland, April 22, 1924

We have seen that out of the Mysteries grew something that made man aware of being related to the world in a way that can be expressed in the annual festivals; and in particular we have learned that Easter is an outgrowth of the principle of initiation. From all that has been set forth it will have become evident what a significant role the Mysteries played in the entire evolution of humanity. Really everything of a spiritual nature that has permeated the world and developed through mankind originated in the old Mysteries. In modern terms we could say that the Mysteries were all-powerful in guiding the spiritual life.

Now, it was intended from the beginning that mankind should develop freedom; and to this end it was necessary for the old Mystery system to recede and for humanity to be less closely linked, for a time, with the powerful guidance that proceeded from the Mysteries, to be cast more upon its own resources, as it were. We certainly cannot assert today that the time has arrived in which men have achieved their true inner freedom and are ready to pass over into the next phase of evolution that is to follow upon that of freedom. This is not the case. Still, many have already passed through a number of incarnations in which the power of the Mysteries was less strongly felt than formerly; and though the seeds of these incarnations have not yet sprouted, they are nevertheless potentially present in the souls of men. And with the coming of a more spiritual age they will develop what they have not developed in their present dimness of vision. Above all things, however, it will be necessary that the wisdom, the vision, the experience of the spiritual such as can be attained by modern initiation be met with esteem, with reverence; and this must be offered out of man's freedom. Without esteem and reverence, true enlightenment and a spiritual life of humanity is really not possible.

Surely we make the right use of festivals if with their help we try to implant in our souls this esteem, this reverence, for things spiritual as they have evolved during the course of human history; if we try to learn how to observe in the most intimate way possible the spiritual significance of outer events, to understand how these carry spiritual meaning from one age over into another. For the time being men keep returning to Earth in repeating incarnations, thus carrying over their experiences of earlier epochs into later ones. Human beings are the most important factor in the further development of all that takes place within the history of mankind. But men of all periods live in a definite environment, and clearly, one of the most significant environments was that of the Mysteries. A most important factor in the progress of humanity is the carrying over of what has been experienced in the Mysteries and re-experienced, be it again through the medium of Mysteries, whence it acts upon mankind, or by other means of enlightenment. Today it must be the latter, for the true Mystery system has withdrawn from the present outer world and is to reappear only in the future.

If the impulse that went forth from here, from the Goetheanum, at the time of the Christmas Meeting really takes root in the Anthroposophical Society, it is certain that by leading to ever deeper insight the Anthroposophical Society will be the foundation for the Mysteries of the future. These new Mysteries must be consciously nurtured by the Anthroposophical Society. We recall an event that can be utilized in our development as once a similar one was used: the burning of the temple of Ephesus. Both were the result of a grave wrong; yet on different planes things have different meanings, and it is possible for a frightful iniquity, as it appears on one plane, to be employed on another for the advancement of human freedom — in the sense that precisely such horrible events can bring about a real advance in human progress.

But as I have already said, such matters must be grasped through their inner meaning if they are to be approached understandingly. One must enter into the particular manner in which the spiritual element of the world pervaded the Mysteries. Yesterday I pointed out how the establishment of the annual Easter festival grew out of a spiritual conception of the constellation of Sun and Moon, and that from the Moon viewpoint the other planets were observed. And I said further that according to what is learned by observing the other planets, the human being, in descending from the pre-earthly to the earthly existence, is guided in forming his light-ether body.

If we would observe and rightly understand how this light-ether body, these ether forces, are transmitted to us by the Moon forces, Moon observations — by what I might call the spiritual Moon observatory — this can be done as we have just endeavored to do it: by turning to the cosmos, where it is all inscribed and exists as a fact. But it is important to ponder in our souls the human element as well, the part it plays in the different epochs as a factor of these truths.

As a matter of fact, never did the souls of men take part so intimately, so fervently, in this last phase of the descent to Earth — the enveloping in an etheric body — as in the Mysteries of Ephesus. There the whole service of the Goddess of Ephesus, exoterically called Artemis, was directed toward co-experiencing the spiritual weaving life within the cosmic ether. When members of the Ephesian Mystery approached the image of the goddess, the feeling this gave them may be said to have become intensified to hearing; and what they heard, as though the goddess were speaking, was something as follows: "I rejoice in all that bears fruit in the wide expanse of cosmic ether." — A deep impression was created by this expression of intense joy on the part of the goddess of the temple, her joy in all that grows, sprouts, and burgeons in the world-ether; and an ardent feeling of close relationship with blossoming and flowering was in particular something that permeated the spiritual atmosphere of the Ephesian sanctuary as with a magic breath.

Nowhere else was the growth of the plant life, the drive of the Earth forces into the plants, co-experienced so intensely as in the Mystery of Ephesus, for the entire training here tended to that end. And this led to the next step: it was here that instruction was given, if I may so call it, specially intended to induce in the minds of members a feeling for the Moon secret, of which I spoke yesterday. It was everyone's own experience to feel himself as a light-being, because the act of receiving his light-form from the Moon was made so alive for the neophytes and initiates.

A part of the ritual ran something as follows — and one who could take part in it was actually transported into that act of forming himself out of the sunlight that circles around the Moon: as though proceeding from the Sun, there came to him the sound J O A.*

* Translator's Note: — For readers not familiar with German it must be explained that j is pronounced like our y in “yet” — in other words, like an excessively short German i. For this reason it is not too strange that one often encounters J for I (but only in capitals), and the above is a case in point. Indeed, there is no choice here but to use it, as the same letter must serve as a pure vowel in J O A and later as a modified vowel in Jehova. — The letters J O A must be pronounced Ee Oh Ah, and Jehova that appears later, Yay-hoh-vah.

He knew that this J O A activated his ego, his astral body. J O (ego, astral body) and A (the approach of the light-ether body), joining in J O A. Then, with the J O A vibrating in him, he felt himself to be composed of ego, astral body, and etheric body.

And then it seemed as though he heard sounding up to him from the Earth — for he had been transported into the cosmos — something that saturated the J O A: eh v.  Jeh Ov A  What rose up to him in the eh v were the Earth forces.

Now he realized that in this Jeh Ov A he felt the complete human being. The premonition of the physical body, which he acquired only on Earth, he felt intimated in the consonants complementing the vowels that in the J O A indicate the ego, the astral body, and the etheric body. — This becoming one with the Jeh Ov A was what enabled the disciple of Ephesus to sense in their full significance the last steps of the descent from the spiritual world.

But in feeling the import of this J O A the neophyte at the same time felt himself to be the sound J O A in the light. Then he was a human being: resonant ego, resonant astral body, in a shimmering light-ether body. He was sound in light. That is the nature of cosmic man; and in this state the initiate was able to grasp what he saw in the cosmos, just as on Earth he could perceive through his eyes what occurs in the physical environment of the Earth. When the neophyte of Ephesus bore this J O A within him he really felt transported into the Moon sphere, and he took part in all that could be observed from the point of view of the Moon.

In this condition the human being was man in general, in the sense that the differentiation between man and woman did not enter until the descent to Earth occurred. Man felt himself transported into this pre-earthly existence, the region immediately preceding his approach to the terrestrial. The Ephesian disciples were able to achieve this ascent to the Moon sphere in a particularly intimate way; and henceforth they carried in their heart, in their soul, what they had experienced there. It sounded for them something as follows:

World-engendered being, thou art shaped in light,

By the Sun empowered in the Moon's full might;

Mars' creating chiming, power to thee is bringing,

And Mercury, moving limbs in oscillation swinging;

Jupiter's radiant wisdom is on thee gleaming,

And Venus' love-bearing beauty is on thee beaming;

So that Saturn's world-aged spirit-inwardness

Doth to space's being and to ages now aborning consecrate thee.*

* Translation by Henry B. Monges.

another translation:

Offspring of all the Worlds! Thou Form of Light,
Firm framéd by the Sun, with Luna's might,

Endow'd with sounding Mars' life-stirring song,
And swift-wing'd Mercury's motion in thy limbs,

Illum'd with royal Jupiter's all-wisdom
And grace-bestowing Venus' loveliness —

That ghostly Saturn's ancient memoried devoutness
Unto the world of Space and Time thee hallow!

the original German:

Weltentsprossenes Wesen, du in Lichtgestalt,

Von der Sonne erkraftet in der Mondgewalt,

Dich beschenket des Mars erschaffendes Klingen

Und Merkurs gliedbewegendes Schwingen,

Dich erleuchtet Jupiters erstrahlende Weisheit

Und der Venus liebetragende Schönheit,

Dass Saturns weltenalte Geist-Innigkeit

Dich dem Raumessein und Zeitenwerden weihe!

That expresses what permeated every Ephesian, and he counted it the most important of all that pulsed through his being. When a participant in the Ephesian Mysteries heard these words ringing in his ears, as it were, there was something about them that made him feel himself completely as a human being; for through them he became aware of the relation between the forces of his etheric body and the planetary system. This came to forceful expression. The cosmos speaks to the etheric body:

World-engendered being, thou art shaped in light,

By the Sun empowered in the Moon's full might.

Now the human being feels himself to be in the power of the moonlight.

Mars' creating chiming, power to thee is bringing.

The chiming, endowed with creative force, sounds across from Mars.

And what gave strength to man's limbs, endowing him with the power of movement:

And Mercury, moving limbs in oscillation swinging.

From Jupiter there rays across:

Jupiter's radiant wisdom is on thee gleaming.

And from Venus:

And Venus' love-bearing beauty ...

In order that then Saturn may gather up all that rounds off the human being within and without, prepare him to descend to Earth and there to clothe himself in a physical garb; and then further enable this physically garbed being, who bears the god within him, to live on the Earth:

So that Saturn's world-aged spirit-inwardness

Doth to space's being

And to ages now aborning

Consecrate thee.

From what I have described you can readily see that the spiritual life in Ephesus was colorful and aglow with inner light. Epitomized in the thought of Easter, it comprised really everything that had ever been known about man's true dignity in the cosmos, in the whole universe. And many of the wanderers I mentioned yesterday — those who went from one Mystery to another in order to benefit by the totality of the Mysteries — many of these have repeatedly assured us that nowhere else as in Ephesus — at least, not so joyously — did they perceive so intimately and brightly the harmony of the spheres through that Moon point of view, where the radiant astral light of the world shone on them, where they sensed it in the spiritual sunlight flooding the Moon: in other Mysteries the saturation of man's soul and spirit with astral light was not felt with such an intense, inner artistic grasp.

All this was associated with the temple that went up in flames by the hand of a criminal or a lunatic. But as I mentioned during the Christmas Conference, initiates of the Ephesian Mysteries were re-embodied in Aristotle and Alexander; and these personalities came close to what was still capable of being sensed, in their time, of the Mysteries of Samothrace.

Now, what appears to be an outwardly fortuitous event can be of great spiritual significance in world evolution. Among ourselves it has frequently been mentioned for years that the Temple of Ephesus was burned at the hour in which Alexander the Great was born. But as this temple burned, something significant occurred.

What untold experiences had come to the dwellers in that temple through the centuries! What a wealth of spiritual light and wisdom had suffused its halls! And while the flames lept up from the Temple of Ephesus, all that wisdom was imparted to the cosmic ether, so that we may say: the perpetually recurring Easter festival of Ephesus that had been locked in the temple halls was henceforth inscribed in the dome of the universe, in so far as this is etheric, though in less legible letters.

That is often the way things work out: much human wisdom that in olden times had been enclosed within temple walls was released, was inscribed in the world-ether, and there at once becomes visible to one who ascends to real imagination. And this imagination is the interpreter, as it were, of the secret of the stars: what once was secret within the temples has been inscribed in the world-ether, and there it can be read by means of imagination.

We can put it another way, but it means the same. I go out into the starlit night, contemplate the firmament and throw myself open to it. Then, if I have the right capacity, the forms of the constellations and the movements of the planets are transmuted as into vast cosmic script. And if I read this script, something emerges like that which I explained yesterday in referring to the Moon secret. When the stars no longer remain merely something to be mathematically and mechanically computed, but become the alphabet of cosmic script, these things can indeed be read there.

But I should like to develop the matter further. When Alexander and Aristotle approached the Kabirian secrets in Samothrace at a time when the old Mysteries were already on the decline, [Samothrace still existed as a memorial and also as a sanctuary for work, but in the main the Mystery schools had declined in the time of Alexander] something occurred to them at that moment through the influence of the Kabirian Mysteries like a memory of the old Ephesian time, which both had passed through in a certain century. And once more there resounded the J O A, and again they heard intoned:

World-engendered being, thou art shaped in light,

By the Sun empowered in the Moon's full might;

Mars' creating chiming, power to thee is bringing,

And Mercury, moving limbs in oscillation swinging;

Jupiter's radiant wisdom is on thee gleaming,

And Venus' love-bearing beauty is on thee beaming;

So that Saturn's world-aged spirit-inwardness

Doth to space's being and to ages now aborning consecrate thee.

But in this memory, this historical recollection of something ancient, there resided a certain power, the power to create something new. And from that moment there streamed forth this power to create something new — but it was something strange and little observed by mankind. For you must really first understand the nature of this creative power that went forth from the collaboration of Alexander and Aristotle.

Take any notable poem or other work of art — it can be a most beautiful one, such as the Bhagavad Gita or Goethe's Faust or his Iphigenia — anything you value very highly — and reflect on its rich and mighty content — let us say, on the content of Goethe's Faust. Now, by what means, my dear friends, is this rich content transmitted to you? Let us assume that it is transmitted in the ordinary way, as it is to most people. At some time during your life you read Faust. What did you encounter on the physical plane — on the paper? Nothing but combinations of a b c and so forth. The means by which the mighty content of Faust is disclosed to us consists only of combinations of the letters of the alphabet. If you know the alphabet, the paper contains nothing that does not correspond with one of the twenty-odd letters. Something is conjured up out of these twenty-odd letters — if you know how to read — that evokes for you the whole glorious substance of Faust. You may find it excessively tiresome to recite the alphabet, and you may consider it as abstract as anything could well be; yet rightly combined, this superlative abstraction gives us the whole of Faust.

Now, when there was heard again the cosmic resounding from the Moon that disclosed to Aristotle and Alexander what the blaze of Ephesus signified, how that fire had carried the secret of Ephesus out into the world-ether, there came to Aristotle the inspiration to found the cosmic script. This, however, is not achieved by means of the alphabet, but rather through thoughts, as book writing is made up of letters. And so the letters of the cosmic script came into being. — When I write them down for you they are just as abstract as the alphabet:

Being		Time
Quantity (amount)		Position
Quality (attribute)		Having
Relationship		Doing
Space		Suffering

There you have a number of concepts. They originated when Aristotle laid them before Alexander. Learn to accomplish with these concepts what you do with the alphabet, and you will have learned to read in the cosmos by means of Being, Quantity, Quality, Relationship, Space, Time, Position, Having, Doing, Suffering.

In our age of abstractions something peculiar happened to logic, as it is taught in the schools. Imagine a custom existing in some school to teach — not reading, but, for instance, to provide books from which the pupils had to keep learning the letters in all conceivable combinations, but never arriving at using them for envisioning the wealth of the contents: that would be the same as what the world has done to Aristotle's Logic. In the books on logic are listed his categories — that's what people call them. People memorize them, but have no idea what to do with them. It is exactly like memorizing the alphabet without knowing how to apply it.

Reading the cosmic records bases on something just as simple as extracting the content of Faust by means of the alphabet — it must merely be learned. And fundamentally, all that anthroposophy has ever brought forth or ever will has been experienced by means of these concepts, just as what is read in Faust is experienced through the letters. For all the secrets of the physical and the spiritual world are comprised in these simple concepts that are the cosmic alphabet.

Something intervened in Earth evolution at the time of Alexander that stands in contrast with the direct perception so characteristic of Ephesus. It did not develop till later, especially during the Middle Ages; and it is deeply hidden, profoundly esoteric. Profoundly esoteric is the meaning that dwells in those ten simple concepts; and actually we are learning more and more to live in them. But we must keep striving to experience them as livingly in our soul as we do the alphabet when a wealth of spiritual substance is in question.

Thus you see how something that for thousands of years had been a mighty instinctive revelation of wisdom flowed into ten concepts, whose inner power and light, however, remain to be re-disclosed. And when man will have learned again to read in the cosmos, when he will experience the resurrection of what has lain buried as though in a grave during this interlude in human evolution between the two spiritual ages, then it will come about at some future time that the world wisdom, the light of the world, will be found again. It is our task, my dear friends, to bring to light again what is hidden. We must make of Easter an experience for all humanity. And just as it could be said on other occasions that anthroposophy is a Christmas experience, so it is in its whole manifestation an Easter experience, a resurrection experience coupled with an experience of the grave. And it is especially important during this Easter gathering that we should feel, if I may so express it, the solemnity of anthroposophic striving by realizing that today we can turn to a spiritual Being Who may be close to us, directly beyond the threshold, and appeal to Him thus: Oh, how blessed was mankind at one time with divine-spiritual revelation that still shone so very bright in Ephesus! But now all that is buried. How can I uncover what is so deeply buried? — for one would like to believe that what once existed might in some historical way be found again in the grave where it lies.

Then the Being will reply to us, as did once before a like being in a similar case: What you seek is no longer here. It is in your heart, if only you will unlock your heart in the right way.

Anthroposophy is indeed latent in the hearts of men, but it is for these human hearts to open in the right way. That is what we must deeply feel. Then we will be led back — not instinctively, as of old, but in full awareness — to the wisdom that lived and shone in the Mysteries.

All this I would like to implant in your hearts, my dear friends, at this Easter time; for to permeate yourself with something that can enkindle a feeling of solemnity in every heart dedicated to anthroposophy, that is something which carries up into the spiritual world and which must be correlated with the Christmas impulse given at Dornach. For this impulse must not remain a thought-out, intellectualistic one, but must spring from the heart; it must not be formal or matter-of-fact, nor must it be sentimental: it must issue from the cause itself and bear the mark of solemnity. When the conflagration at Ephesus blazed up, first in the outer ether and then in the heart of Aristotle, it revealed anew to Aristotle the secrets that could then be epitomized in the simplest terms; and we may say in all modesty that, just as he was able to use the fire of Ephesus to this end, so it is our task — and we shall fulfill it — to use what the flames of the Goetheanum carried into the ether: the aims and purpose of anthroposophy.

What do we gather from all this, my dear friends? That at the memorial service in the Christmas-New Year time, the time in which the disaster struck us a year before, it was vouchsafed us to send forth a new impulse from the Goetheanum. How could this be? Because we are right in feeling that what had previously been a cause pertaining to this Earth, worked for and established as such, was carried by the flames out into cosmic space. Because this misfortune has come to us we are, recognizing its consequences, justified in saying: Now we understand that we may no longer represent a mere Earth cause, but must know it as one of wide etheric space in which the spirit lives: the cause represented by the Goetheanum is a cause of the cosmic ether in which lives the spirit-filled wisdom of the world. It has been carried out into the ether; and it is granted us to permeate ourselves with the Goetheanum impulses flowing in from the cosmos.

Take this in any sense — as an image, if you like: even as an image it signifies a profound truth, a truth that can be simply expressed: the Christmas impulse calls for the permeation of anthroposophical activity with an esoteric element. This is present because what had been earthly now reacts on the impulses of the anthroposophical movement through the astral light in the physical fire that rayed forth into cosmic space; but we must be able to receive these impulses.

Then, if we are able to receive them, we feel a certain important link in the chain of all that lives in anthroposophy: it is the anthroposophical Easter spirit, which can never in the world believe that the spirit perishes, but rather that it arises ever and again after dying through the world; and anthroposophy must hold fast to the spirit resurrected again and again out of eternal depths.

That is what we will take into our hearts as the Easter thought, the Easter feeling; and from this gathering we shall carry away feelings, my dear friends, that will fill us with courage and strength for work when we return to our allotted spheres.

Related posts:

First Class Lesson #9, also given April 22, 1924

Judaism: Christ's Placenta

https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2021/04/morality-and-shaping-of-karma.html

https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2021/04/original-sin-and-yoga-of-archangel.html

Source: April 22, 1924

Judaism: Christ's Placenta

  

 

Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, May 8, 1924:

Dr. Steiner: Have you any questions today?

Questioner: What was the cause of the darkening of the sun for three hours at the time of Christ's death?

Dr. Steiner: That, of course, is a most significant question and one which, as you may imagine, has occupied me very deeply. I can well believe that the questioner too considers it important, because it indicates that such things are really no longer credible to the modern mind. That is why the nineteenth century solved it simply by asserting: It is not true, it is only imagery and no great importance need be attached to it.—That, however, is wrong. Careful study of the knowledge yielded by Spiritual Science leads to the discovery that at the time of Christ's death there was an eclipse of the sun, or at all events the sun was obscured to such an extent that when the death took place, darkness fell over the district. Such things should not be brushed aside and simply denied; quite obviously they call for explanation.

Let me here remind you of something I have often mentioned in your presence. In ancient records you will everywhere find evidence that importance was attached to the time of the day, the time of the year, and so forth. No notice is taken of this to-day. In the New Testament a great deal is said about the miracles of healing performed by Christ, about the way in which He healed the sick. Emphasis is laid upon the fact that He adopted a definite practice in His acts of healing. In those days it was much easier to effect cures than it is to-day and this is a fact that is entirely ignored. Owing to the way in which humanity has developed—particularly in Europe—healing must start to-day from the body. But it was not always so. At the time when Christ lived on the earth, and above all in earlier epochs, it was still possible for healing to start from the soul. In a modern man the soul no longer has a very strong influence because as a result of upbringing and education his thoughts are entirely abstract. Thoughts of the kind that are universal to-day were absolutely unknown in those olden times. The human being was deeply and inwardly moved by what he thought. There was no such thing as “abstract, logical thinking.” Man's life of soul was quite different. To-day you may tell a human being something of supreme importance ... but it has no effect whatever upon his body because his soul is detached from the body. It is believed that the men of old were instinctively clairvoyant because they were not so closely bound up with their bodies, but this is simply not true; they were more deeply rooted in the body, they felt everything in the body itself and for this reason influences from the soul could work directly upon the body. When a particular name was uttered, a picture arose simultaneously before the soul. To-day ... well, a word may be uttered but no picture arises. In olden times a picture, definite and complete, arose before men and this picture would give them goose-flesh, cause a burst of laughter, or some other physical symptom; an immediate effect was produced in the body. Now this was made much use of in healing. But to be effective, the forces in the environment of a man must be used in the right way. That is why, when the Gospels are referring to Christ's acts of healing, we find the words: When the sun had set He gathered the sick and the suffering around Him. … “When the sun had set”—not, therefore, when the sun was shining in its full strength. If that had been the case, the words (which were addressed to the soul) would have been without effect. It was only when men came to Him in the evening twilight that the words could serve their purpose.

Such things are ignored to-day but they are connected, nevertheless, with the life of man. Whether the sun is shining at the full, whether it is twilight, whether the season is spring, or autumn—all these factors have a mighty influence, And so it is, too, with other manifestations of nature. We see the life of Christ Jesus unfolding from the birth to the baptism in the Jordan and then through the three years until His death: everything drew to a climax. And the contributory factors were not the decree of the High Council alone, not the, revolution among the people alone, but also what was happening in the heavens and in the whole of nature!

The Moon forces have an influence upon the human being during embryonic life which culminates in birth. Later on, the forces of the Sun and of other heavenly bodies have an influence upon him.¹ He is influenced by all the happenings of external nature.

The attitude of people to-day to happenings in nature is really remarkable and is due to the fact that they never get away from their abstract thinking. It is known, for example, that after about eleven to twelve years, sunspots reappear in considerable numbers. But although it is known that a period of sunspots invariably coincides with unrest in some form on the earth, people cannot accustom themselves to take real account of the influence which plays down upon the earth from the super-earthly world and comes to expression in the sunspots. Nevertheless the influence is a reality! When it rains, human beings consciously abandon certain activities. When it is raining cats and dogs you cannot go on with gardening or work of that kind. There, you see, nature has an influence upon the conscious life of man. But upon his unconscious life, the whole surrounding universe of stars has a very great influence. Obviously, therefore, the effect of the sunlight upon man is by no means the same when the Sun is partly obscured.

It cannot be said that in this way man's freedom is affected. But wherever deeper, spiritual laws come into consideration one must build on these in freedom, just as securely as a man, when he is on the first floor of a house, assumes that the floor will not develop a hole and precipitate him down to the ground floor. The laws of nature must be taken into account, also the great laws which rule outside in the universe.

The deep sorrow caused in the hearts of certain men by what came to pass in Palestine at that time was accompanied by anguish in the world of nature. The anguish in human hearts and the anguish in nature were simultaneous. Just as the blood flows in the body and man's health is dependent on this blood, so do the living forces contained in the sunlight flow into the blood.

Think of this.—A man dies on some particular day. Examination of his blood some two months or so before death would reveal to careful scrutiny that it is already on the way to becoming lifeless. Just as before the death of a human being the blood is gradually becoming lifeless, so—even at the time of Christ's birth—what lives in the light was already on the way to that condition of darkness which set in when the death actually took place. There was a close and intimate connection between happenings in nature and the life of Christ. And it may be said that just as Christ consciously chose twilight as the time for healing the sick, so His unconscious depths of soul chose the darkening of the Sun as the time of death. That is how one must picture these things in order to interpret them truly; their meaning can only be suggested in a delicate and intimate way for they do not lend themselves to crude explanation.

Question: Have the Jews, as a people, fulfilled their mission in the evolution of humanity?

Dr. Steiner: Discussion on this subject is unfortunately all too apt to lead to propagandism. But what must be said quite objectively on the subject has nothing whatever to do with propaganda in any shape or form.

The way in which the development of the Jewish people proceeded in olden times was a most important preparation for the subsequent rise of Christianity. Before Christianity came into the world, the Jews had a deeply spiritual religion but, as I have told you, it was a religion which took account only of the spiritual law of nature.—If a Jew were asked: Upon what does the coming of spring depend?—he said: Upon the will of Jehovah!—Why is so-and-so an unrighteous man?—Because Jehovah wills it so!—Why does famine break out in a country?—Because Jehovah wills it!—Everything was referred to this one God. And that was why the ancient Jews did not live at peace with the peoples around them, whom they did not understand and who did not understand them. The neighbouring peoples did not worship this one and only God in the same way but recognised spiritual beings in all the phenomena of nature—a multiplicity of spiritual beings.

These many spiritual beings are actually present in nature and anyone who denies their existence denies reality. To deny that there are spiritual beings in nature is just as if I were to say now that there is not a single person in this room!—If I brought in a blind man and you were not laughing loudly enough for him to hear, he might believe me. Deception in these things occurs very readily.—Friedrich Nietzsche's sight was very poor and when he was a professor in Basle only a few dilatory students came to listen to his lectures although they were extremely interesting. Nietzsche was always deeply sunk in thought as he went to the desk and proceeded to deliver his lectures. He lectured on one occasion when not a single person was present but because his sight was so bad he only noticed this when he was going out of the lecture-hall! In the same way a blind man could be made to think that a room is empty.—People disbelieve in spiritual forces and influences because they have been blinded by their education and all that happens in modern life.

It is important for man to realise that he has a great deal to do with these myriad nature-spirits; but there is a power within him that is mightier than anything wrought by these nature-spirits. This is the basis of the conception of the ONE God, the Moon-God. The Jews came first to the recognition of this one God and repudiated all other spiritual beings in the phenomena of nature. They acknowledged the one God, Jahve or Jehovah. Jahve means, simply: I AM.

Now this has been a very important factor in world-history. Think of it: veneration of the one and only Godhead is accompanied by the disavowal of all other spiritual beings ... Suppose two peoples are at war in spite of the fact that each of them recognises the one God; only one of the two peoples can be victorious. The victors say: Our God has given us the victory.—If the other side had gained the victory, the same would have been said. But if the same God has allowed the one people to be victorious and the other to be defeated, then this God has Himself been defeated. If Turks and Christians have the one God and both pray to this one God to bring them victory, they are asking the same God to defeat Himself. The real point is that one cannot, with truth, speak of a single Divine-Spiritual Being. In daily life, too, it is the same: somebody wants it to rain and prays for rain ... somebody else wants the sun to shine and prays for this on the selfsame day. Well ... it just doesn't make sense! If people noticed this there would be greater clarity about such matters—but they do not notice it. In the great things of life human beings often lapse into a thoughtlessness which they would not entertain in small things. Nobody, presumably, will put salt and sugar into his coffee at the same time; he will put in the one or the other, not both. Generally speaking, men are very lax about clarity of thought—and this lies at the root of the many disorders and confusions in life ...

The Jews introduced what is known as Monotheism, the belief that there is but the one God.

I once said to you very briefly that Christianity thinks of three Divinities: God the Father, living in all the phenomena of nature; God the Son, working in man's free spiritual activity; and God the Holy Spirit, who awakens in man the consciousness of having within him a spirituality that is independent of the body. Three distinct spheres are pictured. If there were not three spheres it would have to be assumed that by the same resolve this one God allows the human being to die and then wakens him to life again. If there are Three Divine Persons, death belongs to the sphere of one Godhead, passage through death and beyond to another, and the awakening in spirit to yet another. Christianity could not do otherwise than picture the spiritual Godhead in three Persons. (In three Persons: this is not understood to-day but the original meaning was that of threefoldness, the Divine manifesting in three forms.)

Now because Judaism conceived only of this one God, it could make no image of the Godhead but could only grasp the Divine with the innermost forces of the soul, with the intellect. It is easy to understand that this led to an intensification of human egoism; for man becomes remote from what is around him if he sees the Spiritual only in and through his own person. This has produced a certain folk-egoism in the Jewish world—there is no denying that it is so; but for this very reason the Jews are by nature adapted to assimilate what is not pictorial; they have less talent for the pictorial. If a Jew becomes a sculptor, he will not achieve anything very great, because this is not where his talent lies; he does not possess the gift of pictorial representation, nor does he readily develop it. But if a Jew becomes a musician he will generally be a very fine one, because music is not a pictorial art; it does not take visual form. And so you will find great musicians among the Jews but—at the time when the arts were at their prime—hardly ever great sculptors or painters. The style in which the Jews paint is quite different from that of Christian or oriental artists. The actual colour in a picture painted by a Jew has no very great significance; what it is that is being expressed, what the painter wishes to say by means of the picture—that is the essential. Judaism is concerned above all with the non-pictorial, with bringing into the world that which transpires within the human “I.”

But to maintain this adherence to the one God is not as easy as it seems, for if such adherence is not strongly forced upon them, men readily become pagans. It is among the Jews that this tendency has been least of all in evidence. Christianity, on the other hand, tends easily in the direction of paganism. If you observe closely you will find many indications of this. Think, for example, of how ceremonies are revered in Christianity. I have told you that the Monstrance actually depicts the Sun and the Moon. The meaning of this is no longer known but men unenlightened in this respect actually pray to the Monstrance, they pray to something external. Men are easily inclined to pray to something external. And so in the course of the centuries Christianity has developed many pagan characteristics, whereas in Judaism the opposite has been the case.

This is most obvious of all in one particular field. Fundamentally speaking, Christians of the West—those who came from Greece, Rome, and Central Germany—were almost incapable of continuing the principle of ancient medicine because they were no longer able to perceive the spiritual forces contained in the remedial herbs. But Jews who came from the East, from Persia and so forth, saw the Spiritual—that is to say their One Jehovah—everywhere. The Jews played a tremendously important part in the development of medicine in the Middle Ages; the Arabians were occupied more with developing the other sciences. And whatever medical knowledge came through the Arabians had been elaborated with the help of the Jews. That is why medicine has become what it is today. Medicine has, it is true, retained a certain abstract spirituality but it has assumed, so to speak, a “monotheistic” character. And if you observe medicine today you will find that with few, very few exceptions, all kinds of properties are ascribed to every sort of medicament! The exact effect which a particular medicament will produce is no longer known with certainty any more than Judaism knew how the myriad nature-spirits work. The abstract, Jehovah-influence has made its way into medicine and remains there to this day.

Now it would be natural if the number of Jewish doctors in the different countries of Europe were proportional to the population. I am not for one moment saying—I beg you not to misunderstand me—that this should be adjusted by law. It would never occur to me to say such a thing. But in the natural course one would expect to find Jewish doctors in proportion to the number of Jews. This is certainly not the case. In most countries a relatively far greater number of Jews become doctors. This is a survival from the Middle Ages. The Jews still feel very drawn to medicine because it is in keeping with their abstract thinking. This abstract, Jehovistic medicine fits in with their whole mode of thinking. Anthroposophy alone, in that it takes account of the diverse nature-spirits, can recognize the forces of nature in the different herbs and mineral substances and so again establish this knowledge on sure foundations.²

The Jews worshipped the one God Jehovah and men were thereby saved from wholly losing their way in polytheism. A natural consequence has been that the Jews have always kept themselves distinct from other men and so too—as always happens in such a case—have in many respects evoked dislike and antipathy. The right attitude to take today is that in the times to come it will not be necessary to segregate any particular culture in order to prevent its dissipation—as the Jews have been doing for centuries—but that this practice must be superseded by spiritual knowledge. The relation between the single Godhead and the multiplicity of spiritual beings will then be intelligible to men and no one people need be under the sway of subconscious impulses. That is why from the very outset I was apprehensive when the Jews, not knowing which way to turn, founded the Zionist movement. The attempt to set up a Jewish State denotes a decidedly reactionary drift, a retrogression that leads nowhere and runs counter to progress. A very distinguished Zionist with whom I was on friendly terms once told me about his ideal in life, which was to go to Palestine and found a Jewish kingdom there. He was, and still is, taking a very active part in the attempt to bring this about and he holds an important position in Palestine. I said to him: Such a cause is not in keeping with the times; what the times demand is something with which every human being can be allied without distinction of race, nation, class, and so forth—that is the only kind of cause one can whole-heartedly support today. Nobody can expect me to join the Zionist movement, for there again one portion of humanity is being separated off from the rest. For this quite simple, natural reason, such a movement today cannot prosper in the real sense of the word—it is essentially retrogressive ... The advocates of such movements often use a remarkable argument. They say: But the course of history has shown that men do not really want the “human-universal”; they desire everything to develop on the basis of race.

The conversation of which I have just told you took place before the Great War of 1914–18. And a factor leading up to that war was men's refusal to accept the great principle of the human-universal. The fact that men set their faces against this principle and wanted to separate from one another, to develop racial forces and interests, ultimately led to the outbreak of that war. Thus the greatest disaster of this twentieth century was due to an urge that is also present in the Jews.—And so one can say: Since everything that the Jews have achieved could now be achieved consciously by all human beings, the Jews would serve their own interests best if they let themselves be absorbed into the rest of mankind, be merged in the rest of mankind, so that Judaism, as a race or people, would come to an end. That would be in the nature of an ideal—but many Jewish habits and customs, and above all the hatred meted out to them, still militate against it. These are the kind of impulses that must be overcome and they will not be overcome if everything remains the same as it has been in the past. If the Jews feel hurt when they are told, for example: you have little talent for sculpture ... they can say to themselves: It is not necessary for every race of people to be sculptors; with their own particular faculties they can achieve something in a different domain! The Jews are not naturally gifted for sculpture. One of the Ten Commandments decrees: “Thou shalt make no graven image of thy God ...” it is because the Jewish people are averse to making any picture or image of the Supersensible. Now this is bound to lead back to the personal element.

It is quite easy to understand this.—If I make an image or a picture, even if it is only in the form of a description as often happens in Spiritual Science, another person may impress it on his memory, learn from it, see truth in it, think what he likes about it. But if I make no image, my own personal activity must be in operation; the thought does not separate itself from me. For this reason it has a personal character. So it is in Judaism. Men must learn to perceive the Spiritual in their fellow-men. The Jewish world is still dominated by the racial impulse. The Jews marry among themselves, among their own people; their attention is still focused upon the racial, not upon the spiritual.

Therefore to the question: “Have the Jewish people fulfilled their mission in the evolution of human knowledge?” the answer is: They have fulfilled their mission, for in earlier times the existence of a people who brought a certain form of monotheism into being was a necessity. Today, however, what is required is spiritual knowledge. The mission of the Jewish people has been fulfilled. Hence this particular mission is no longer a necessity in evolution; the only right course is for the Jews to intermix with the other peoples.

Question: Why was it that the Jewish people were destined to live in exile?

Dr. Steiner: It is important to bear in mind the whole character of this “exile.” The Jewish people among whom Christ died were living at that time among people of quite a different kind, namely, the Romans. And now, suppose that the Roman conquest of Palestine had been complete; suppose they had killed everybody they wanted to get rid of and turned out the rest. Suppose that already at that time the Jews had intended or felt the urge to intermix with the other peoples ... what would have happened? Well ... the Romans would have captured Palestine and a number of Jews would have been put to death; others—as one says today in every country—would have been expelled and would have been able to continue their existence somewhere or other outside Palestine.

But the Jews had neither the intention nor the urge to intermix with the other peoples; on the contrary, wherever they were, even when there were only a few of them, they always lived among themselves. They scattered far and wide; and only because they lived exclusively among themselves, intermarried among themselves, has it been noticed that, as Jews, they constitute a foreign element. The idea of an exile would otherwise not have arisen. It was this natural urge in the Jews that gave rise to the idea of their exile. It is all part of the intrinsic character of Judaism. And posterity is now astonished that the Jews were dispersed, were obliged to live as strangers. This has happened nearly everywhere. Other peoples intermixed and so were unnoticeable. By its very nature, Judaism has held tenaciously together. In this particular connection one is obliged to say that because human beings have held together, attention has been called to things that would not, otherwise, have been noticed.

It is grievous and heartbreaking to read how in the Middle Ages the Jews lived in the ghettoes, in quarters of the towns where alone they were permitted to dwell. They were not allowed to go into the other parts of the towns; the gates of the ghettoes were locked, and so forth. But these things are talked about because it was noticed that the Jews in the ghettoes clung tenaciously together, lived entirely among themselves. Other men, too, have had equally terrible things to endure, although in a different way. The Jews stayed in their ghettoes, clung together there and people knew that they were not allowed to come out of their quarters. But just think of it.—Other men who were forced to work every day from early morning until late evening could not come into the towns either, although there were no gates to keep them out. Their sufferings, too, have been great. It must be admitted, therefore, that such things are often based solely upon their outer appearance ... they are based, as are many things in world history, upon outer appearance.

The time has come when these things must be penetrated by the light of reality. And here we are led to the conception that when a destiny is fulfilled it is—to use an Eastern expression—karma, it is inner destiny. The characteristics of the Jews themselves has helped to give the story of exile the form it has assumed; the Jews are a tenacious people, they have held their own in foreign lands; and that is why in later times this has been so noticeable and is talked about to this day.

On the other side, the natural result of all this is that the Jews are differentiated from other peoples and they are accused of all sorts of things of which the causes are not known. Does it not happen that if, in some district where people are superstitious, a man is murdered by an unknown hand and an unpopular Jew happens to live there, the whisper goes round that at Easter-time the Jews need human blood for their rites—therefore it is they who have killed the man ... The reason why such things are said is because the Jews are differentiated from the others; but the Jews themselves have done a great deal to cause this state of affairs.

In considering these matters today it is essential to lay stress upon the human-universal, in contrast to the racial principle.

Question: What was the significance in world-history of the seventy souls of the original family of Israelites?

Dr. Steiner: Peoples of diverse character have lived on the Earth since ancient times. From the present age onwards, this diversity ceases to have real meaning, for as I have said, the human-universal must become the essential principle. Nevertheless if we study the earlier phases of the evolution of mankind we find the population of the Earth divided into all kinds of different peoples. The Spiritual is a living reality in the phenomena of nature; the Spiritual is also a living reality in the peoples of the Earth. In every people there is a guiding Folk-Spirit. As I have said in my book, Theosophy, “Folk-Spirit” is not merely an abstract term. When one speaks today of the French people and the rest, what does this suggest to the materialistic thinking of today? It suggests an accumulation of some 42 millions of human beings in the West of Europe—a pure abstraction; the traits and qualities of the people in question are a very secondary consideration. But it really is not so! Just as the seed lives in the plant, so something seed-like exists, which lives in the spirit of a people and then unfolds. A Spirit, a real Being, lives and works in the whole people.

I have told you that the mission of the Jews in human history was to spread the belief in the One Godhead, and it will be clear to you that it was necessary for them, as a people, to be prepared for this. Therefore it came about that when the Jewish people originally came into existence, the several Folk-Spirits, each of whom worked individually in a particular people, all concerned themselves with the Jewish people. Thinking of the different peoples, we say: Indians—Indian Folk-Spirit; Egyptians—Egyptian Folk-Spirit; then Greek Folk-Spirit, Roman Folk-Spirit, and so on. Each Folk-Spirit had to do with a particular people. (Drawing on blackboard.) But if we take the Jewish people, then, in that corner of the Earth called Syria where the Jews had their home, the influences and will of all the Folk-Spirits operated in this one people.

Let me try to make this clear by a simple analogy.—Imagine that each of you is in your own family circle, attending to its affairs. Each of you has a particular sphere of activity. So it was in the case of these Folk-Spirits.—But now, suppose you want to support, let us say, the cause and interests of the workers as a body: if that is so you will not remain in your own circle but you will hold a meeting and discuss among yourselves what proposal shall be put forward by you all, acting as a whole. And so we may say: In the peoples other than the Jews, each of these Folk-Spirits worked as it were in his own sphere; but what the Folk-Spirits achieved through the Jewish people was the outcome of a spiritual assembly. This influence worked with varying strength upon the members of the Jewish people. The Bible gives an indication of this when it speaks of seventy Folk-Souls entering into the people of Israel. All the Folk-Souls were in operation. This strong and potent influence has in a certain respect made the Jews into a cosmopolitan people and accounts for the tenacity that has remained characteristic of them. No matter where they might be, they were always able to gather together and preserve Judaism, simply because they had everything within them.

It is very remarkable how Judaism has everything within it. In Orders or Societies of Freemasons, Oddfellows, and the like, in which there is no new spiritual knowledge but an antiquated kind of knowledge they themselves no longer understand, you will find in the very words of the rites, elements deriving from all kinds of different peoples: Egyptian rites and words, Assyrian and Babylonian words and signs—but especially elements from the Jewish Kabbala and so forth.

In this respect Judaism is truly cosmopolitan; it adapts itself to everything but also preserves its original impulse which is still alive within it. The same is true of the Hebrew language in which there is great richness of content, both spiritual and physical. Every Hebrew word is always full of meaning. It was a peculiarity with the Jews to write only the consonants; later on, the vowels were indicated by means of signs. The vowels themselves were not written; everybody might pronounce them in his own way, so that one man said: J-e-h-o-v-a ... another said: J-e-h-e-v-a ... a third said: J-e-h-a-v-e ... a fourth, J-o-h-a-v-e.—The vowel sounds were pronounced as they were felt. And that is why such a designation as the name “Jehova” which had been instituted by the priests in this particular form, was called the “unutterable Name” ... because it was not permissible to make arbitrary use of the vowels.

The very tenacity which characterized Judaism was an indication of the way in which the several Folk-Souls worked upon this one people. When you see the Jews in different countries you will need very keen perception to be able to recognise those Jews who have really mingled with the other peoples. You know, of course, that the most important statesman of the nineteenth century was a Jew. Jews who have really merged into the other peoples are no longer distinguishable from them. In a sentence spoken by a Jew, an experienced person will at once recognise the typical Jewish style—if, that is to say, there is no imitation, which is a very common practice today. But the Jews seldom imitate. It is noticeable that a Jew invariably takes his start from something that is inwardly fixed or registered in a concept. This is very characteristic and it is connected with that assembly of the Folk-Souls and their cooperation. To this day, when a Jew makes a statement, he believes that it must be unconditionally valid. He proceeds on the basis of individual decision. It is really very interesting! Suppose a number of people—three, four, five—are together; one is a Jew, the other four are not. The men are representatives of a community of one kind or another. (I am not telling you about an imaginary situation but one which I have actually experienced) ... In this community, people have diverse views. Now these five men, of whom only the fifth is a Jew, begin to speak. The first says: It is very difficult to bring all these people into any harmony; the only thing to do is to bring persuasion to bear upon the minority and then upon the majority so that a compromise is reached. (That, after all, is how compromises are made—by people talking among themselves.) The second man says: Yes, but I have lived among the people who compose the minority and I know how difficult it is to persuade them! The third, a representative of the minority, says: We don't want to have anything to do with it; it just won't work! The fourth man says: After all, one has to take one side or the other. When these four have spoken the Jew begins: All this is futile! Concept of compromise: compromise consists in balance being reached among different opinions and in certain people giving way.—You see, he comes out with an abstraction: “Concept of compromise”; he does not start from any particular point, but leaving out the article, begins: Concept of compromise ... thereby demonstrating his inborn tenacity. When somebody says: What, exactly, is this concept of compromise? ... he already has a mental picture of some kind. But the Jew does not begin in this way; he says: Concept of compromise!—This is an example of the Jehovistic conception: Jehovah says ... No thought is given to how it works out in a particular instance, but what has been registered and fixed in a concept is simply laid down as a principle. That is why the Jew always thinks he can develop everything out of the concept. As long as the Jews keep tenaciously among themselves, things will naturally remain as they are; once the Jews have merged into other peoples they will lose the habit of saying: “Concept of compromise!” ... and they will have to be in line with the others. All this is connected with the way in which the Folk-Souls have worked upon them.

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Source: May 8, 1924