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The Mystery of the Trinity
Part 1: The Mystery of Truth
GA 214

29 July 1922, Dornach

Lecture III

Yesterday I tried to show you how a simple way can be found to envisage the human being's relationships to the cosmos in terms of body, soul, and spirit. Through the way in which I concluded yesterday's lecture by building up to certain imaginative pictures, I wanted to draw attention to certain things. I wanted to show how in such an imaginative picture as that of Christ as the Lamb of God, inspired Imaginations are truly and correctly expressed. I wanted to show that in the times when such pictures were formed, when indeed they were voiced with complete understanding and used for the life of the human soul, a real consciousness was present of how the human being works upward from his ordinary consciousness to conscious experiences in his soul, experiences that connect him to the spiritual world. I have drawn your attention to the fact that in the first four Christian centuries what we could call the Christian teaching still carried the impression that it was everywhere based on a real perception of the spiritual, that even the secrets of Christianity were presented as they could actually be seen by those who had developed their soul life to a vision of the spiritual. After the fourth century A.D., understanding of direct expressions of the spiritual faded away from ordinary consciousness more and more. And with contact between the Germanic peoples from the north and the Latin and Greek peoples of the south during those early days of growth for Western culture we see how these difficulties of understanding constantly increased. We must be fully aware that in the times immediately following the fourth century, people still looked with reverent devotion at those imaginations from earlier times in which Christian views were presented. Tradition was revered, and so too were the pictures that had come down to posterity through tradition. But the progressing human spirit continued to take on new forms. Therefore, the human being was led to say: Yes, tradition has handed down to us pictures such as the dove for the Holy Spirit and the Lamb of God for Christ himself. But how are we to understand them? How do we come to understand them? And out of this impossibility, or rather, out of the faith that was born with the conviction of the impossibility of the human spirit's ever achieving perception of the spiritual worlds through its own powers, there arose the Scholastic doctrine that the human spirit can achieve knowledge of the sense world by its own power, can also reach conclusions directly derived from concepts of the sense world, but that the human being must simply accept as uncomprehended revelation what can be revealed to him of the super-sensible world.

But this, I would like to say, twofold form of faith in the human soul life did not develop without difficulties. On the one hand there was knowledge limited to the earthly, while on the other hand there was knowledge of the super-sensible attainable only through faith or belief. Nevertheless, it was always felt, although more or less dimly, that the human being's relationship to super-sensible knowledge could not be the same as it was in olden times. Concerning this feeling, people said to themselves in the first period after the fourth century: In a certain sense the super-sensible world can still be reached by the human soul, but it is not given to all to develop their souls to such a height; most people have to be content with simply accepting many of the old revelations.

As I said, people revered these old revelations so much that they did not wish to measure them against a standard of human knowledge that no longer reached up to them. At least, people did not believe that human knowledge was capable of rising to the level of revelation. The strict Scholastic doctrine concerning the division of human knowledge was actually only accepted gradually; indeed it was not until the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries of the Middle Ages that this Scholastic tenet was fully admitted. Until that time there was still a certain wavering in peoples' minds: Could it be possible after all to raise this knowledge, which human beings could achieve at this late date, up to the level of what belongs to the super-sensible world?

The triumph of the Scholastic view meant that, in comparison with earlier times, a mighty revolution had taken place. You see, in earlier times, say, in the very first Christian centuries, if someone had struggled through to Christianity and then approached the mystery of divine providence, or the mystery of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, he would have said: This is difficult to understand, but there are people who can develop their souls so that they understand these things. He would have said: If I assume the omniscience of the Godhead, then this omniscient being must actually also know whether one human being is damned for all time or whether another will enter into blessedness. But this—such a person might have said—hardly seems to agree with the fact that people need not, inevitably, sin. And that if they sin they will then be damned; that if they do not sin they will not be damned; that no one will be damned if they do penance for a sin. One must say, therefore, that a person, through the way he or she conducts their life, can either make themselves into one of the damned through sin or into one of the blessed through sinlessness. But again, an omniscient God must already know whether an individual is destined for damnation or blessedness.

Such would have been the considerations of someone so confronted in the earliest Christian centuries. However, in these early Christian centuries that person would not have said: Therefore I must argue whether God foresees the damnation or the blessedness of a human being. He or she would rather have said: If I were initiated I would be able to understand that although an individual may or may not sin, God knows nevertheless who will be damned and who will be blessed. Thus would someone living in the first centuries of Christendom have spoken.

Similarly, if someone had told that person that through transubstantiation, through the celebration of the Eucharist, bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ, he would have said: I don't understand that but if I were initiated I would. For in olden times a person would have thought: What can be observed in the sense world are mere appearances; it is not reality: the reality lies behind, in the spiritual world. As long as one stands in the sense world, in this world of illusions, it is a contradiction to say that someone can either sin or not sin and that the omniscient God nevertheless knows in advance whether an individual will be damned or blessed. But as soon as someone enters the spiritual world it is no longer a contradiction. There one experiences how it can be that God, nevertheless, sees ahead. In the same way, a person would have said: In the physical world of sense it is contradictory to say that bread and wine—which in outward appearance remain the same—become the body and blood of Christ after the transubstantiation. But when we are initiated we will understand this, because then, in our soul lives we are within the spiritual world. Thus would people have spoken in olden times.

And then came the struggles in human souls. On the one hand the souls of human beings found themselves more and more separated, torn away from the spiritual world. The whole trend of culture was to grant authority to reason alone, and reason, of course, did not reach into the spiritual world. And out of these struggles developed all kinds of uncertainties concerning the super-sensible worlds. If we study the symptoms of history we can find the points at which such uncertainties enter the world quite starkly. I have often spoken of the Scottish monk Scotus Eriugena, who lived in France at the court of Charles the Bald during the ninth century.19John Scotus Eriugena (c. 810–877), Neoplatonizing Celtic Christian philosopher. Cf. Rudolf Steiner, Riddles of Philosophy, Occult History, Origins of Modern Science. At court he was regarded as a veritable miracle of wisdom. Charles the Bald, and all those who thought as he did, turned to Scotus Eriugena in all matters of religion and also of science whenever they wanted a verdict. Now the way in which Scotus Eriugena stood opposed to the other monks of his time shows how fiercely the battle was then raging between reason, which felt itself limited to the world of sense, along with a few conclusions derived from that world, and the traditions that had been handed down from the spiritual world in the form of dogmas. Thus in the ninth century we see two personalities confronting one another: Scotus Eriugena and the monk Gottschalk,20Gottschalk of Orbais, Benedictine monk, also at Fulda. Caused great controversy with teachings on the predestination of the elect. Condemned for heresy by the Synod of Mainz (848). who uncompromisingly asserted the doctrine that God has perfect foreknowledge of an individual's future damnation or blessedness. This teaching was gradually embodied in the formula: God has destined one portion of humanity for blessedness and another for damnation. The doctrine was formulated as Augustine himself had formulated it. Following his teaching of predestination, one part of humanity is destined for blessedness, another part for damnation.21Cf. St. Augustine, City of God, Books XII, XIII. And the monk Gottschalk taught that it is indeed so: God has destined one portion of the human race for blessedness and another for damnation, but no portion is predestined for sin. Thus, for external understanding, Gottschalk was teaching a contradiction.

In the ninth century the strife was extraordinarily fierce. At a synod in Mainz, for instance, Gottschalk's writing was declared heretical, and he was scourged because of this teaching. However, although Gottschalk had been scourged and imprisoned on account of this doctrine he was able to claim that he had no other desire than to reaffirm the teaching of Augustine in its genuine form. Many French bishops and monks, in particular, realized that Gottschalk was not teaching anything other than what Augustine had already taught. And so a monk such as Gottschalk stood before the people of his time teaching from the traditions of the old mystery knowledge. However, those who now wished to understand everything with the dawning intellect were simply unable to understand and therefore contested his teaching. But there were others who adhered more to reverence for the old and were decidedly on the side of a theologian like Gottschalk.

It is extremely difficult for people today to understand that things like this could be the subject of bitter strife. When such teachings did not please parties with authority their author was publicly scourged and imprisoned even though he might be, and in this case was, eventually vindicated. For it was precisely the orthodox believers who ranged themselves on the side of Gottschalk, and his teaching remained the orthodox Catholic doctrine. Charles the Bald, because of his relationship to Scotus Eriugena, naturally turned to him for a verdict. Scotus Eriugena did not decide for Gottschalk's teaching but as follows: The Godhead is to be found in the evolution of mankind; evil can actually only appear to have existence—otherwise evil, too, would have to be found in God. Since God can only be the Good, evil must be a nothing; but a nothing cannot be anything with which human beings can be united. So Scotus Eriugena spoke out against the teaching of Gottschalk.

But the teaching of Scotus Eriugena, which was more or less the same as that of pantheists today, was in turn condemned by the orthodox Church and his writings were only later rediscovered. Everything reminiscent of his teaching was burned and he came to be regarded as the real heretic. When he made known the views he had explained to Charles the Bald, the adherents of Gottschalk—who were now again respected—declared: Scotus Eriugena is actually only a babbler who adorns himself with every kind of ornament of external science and who actually knows nothing at all about the inner mysteries of the super-sensible.

Another theologian wrote about the body and blood of Christ in De Corpore et Sanguine Domini.22Ratramnus of Corbie (d. 868+), Theologian and controversialist. In this writing he said something that, for the initiates of old, had been an understandable teaching: that in actual fact bread and wine can be changed into the real body and the real blood of Christ. This writing, too, was laid before Charles the Bald. Scotus Eriugena did not write an actual refutation but in his works we have many a hint of the decision he reached, namely, that this, the orthodox Catholic teaching of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, must be modified because it is not understandable to the human mind. This was how Scotus Eriugena was able to express himself, even in his day.

In short, the conflict concerning the human soul's relationship to the super-sensible world raged fiercely in the ninth century, and it was exceedingly difficult for serious minds of that time to find their bearings. For Christian dogmas contained everywhere deposits, as it were, of ancient truths of initiation, but people were powerless to understand them. What had been uttered in external words was put to the test. These words could only have been intelligible to a soul that had developed itself up into the spiritual world. The external words were tested against that of which people at that time had become conscious as a result of the development of human reason. And the most intense battles ensued within the Christian life of Europe from the testing of that time.

And where were these inner experiences leading? They were tending in the direction of a duality entirely absent in former times. In earlier times the human being looked into the sense world and, as he looked, his faculties enabled him simultaneously to behold the spiritual pervading the phenomena of this sense world. He saw the spiritual along with the phenomena of the world of sense. The people of olden times certainly did not see bread and wine in the same way people in the ninth century A.D. saw them, that is, as being merely matter. In ancient times the material and spiritual were seen together. So, too, the people in olden times didn't have concepts and ideas as intellectual as those already possessed by people living in the ninth century. The thinness and abstraction of the concepts and ideas in the ninth century were not present earlier. What people experienced earlier as ideas and concepts was still such that concepts and ideas were like real objects with essential being. Concepts and ideas in olden times were not thin and abstract, but full of living reality, of objective being. I have told you how subjects such as grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astrology gradually became entirely abstract. In olden times the human being's relationship to these sciences was such that as he lived into them, he entered into a relationship with real, actual beings. But already by the ninth century, and still more in later times, these sciences of grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, and so forth had become wholly thin and abstract without living content of being—almost, one might say, like mere pieces of clothing in comparison with what had formerly been present. And this process of abstraction continued. Abstraction increasingly became a quality of concepts and ideas while concrete reality increasingly became nothing more than the external sense world. These two streams, which we see in the ninth century, and which influenced men to fight such devastating soul battles—these two streams have persisted into modern times. In some instances we still experience their conflict sharply, in other instances the conflict receives less emphasis.

These tendencies in the evolution of humanity stand with a living clarity in the contrast between Goethe and Schiller.23Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805), German poet, dramatist, historian, and philosopher. Schiller's friendship with Goethe is celebrated. Strongly influenced by Kant, his idealism and hatred of tyranny were a powerful influence in modern German literature. Wrote Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795). Yesterday, I spoke about the fact that Goethe, having studied the botany of Linnaeus, was compelled to evolve really living concepts and pictures of the plants—concepts capable of change and metamorphosis, which, for this reason, came near to being Imaginations. But I also drew your attention to the fact that Goethe stumbled when his mind tried to rise from plant life to the animal world of sentient experience. He could reach Imagination but not Inspiration. He saw the external phenomena. With the minerals he had no cause to advance to Imagination; with plant life he did, but got no further because abstract concepts and ideas were not his strong point. Goethe did not philosophize in the manner customary in his day. Therefore, he was unable to express in abstract concepts what is found at a spiritual level higher than that of the plants.

But Schiller philosophized. He even learned how to philosophize from Kant, although the Kantian way ultimately became too confused for him and he left it.24Imanuel Kant (1724–1804), German philosopher of the Enlightenment. Published Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Schiller philosophized without the degree of abstraction that prevents concepts from reaching actual being. And when we study Goethe and Schiller together this is precisely what we feel to be the fundamental opposition never really bridged between them, the opposition that was only smoothed over through the greatness of soul, the essential humanity that lived in both of them. However, this fundamental difference of approach showed itself in the last decade of the eighteenth century when Goethe and Schiller were both occupied with the question: How can the human being achieve an existence worthy of his dignity? Schiller set forth the question in his own way in the form of abstract thought, and he what he had to say about it appeared in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. He says there: The human being is, on the one hand, subject to the necessity implicit in logic and reason. He has no freedom when he follows the necessity of reason. His freedom goes under in the necessity of reason. But neither is he free when he surrenders himself wholly to the senses, to the necessity implicit in the senses; in this sphere, instincts and natural urges coerce him and again he is not free. In both directions, actually, toward the spirit and toward nature, the human being becomes a slave, unfree. Schiller concludes that the human being can only become free when he views nature as if it were a living being, as if nature had spirit and soul within it—in other words, if he raises nature to a higher level. But then he must also bring the necessity implicit in reason right down into nature. He must, as it were, regard nature as if it had reason; but then the rigidity of necessity and logic vanish from reason. When a human being expresses himself in pictures he is giving form, creating, instead of logically analyzing and synthesizing; and as he creates in this way he removes from nature the element of necessity caused by the mere senses. But this achievement of freedom, said Schiller, can only be expressed in artistic creation and aesthetic appreciation. One who simply confronts nature passively is under the sway of the necessity implicit in nature, of instincts, natural desires, and urges. If he sets his mind to work he must follow the necessity implicit in logic—if he does not wish to be untrue to the human. When we combine the two, nature and logic, then the necessity implicit in reason subsides, then reason yields something of its necessity to the sense world and the sense world of nature yields something of its instinctual compulsion. And the human being is represented in works of sculpture, for instance, as if spirit itself were already contained in the sensible world. We lead the spirit down into the sensuality of material nature while leading the sensuality of material nature up to the spirit, and the creation through images, the beautiful, arises. Only while creating or appreciating the beautiful does the human being live in freedom.

In writing these Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, Schiller strove with all the power of his soul to find out when it is possible for a human being to be free. And the only possibility of realizing human freedom he found in the life of beautiful appearances. We must flee crude reality if we desire to be free, that is to say, if we wish to achieve an existence worthy of a human being. This is what Schiller really meant, though he may not have stated it explicitly. Only in appearance, in semblance, can freedom really be attained.

Nietzsche, who was steeped in all these matters, nevertheless could not penetrate through to an actual perception of the spirit. In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music,25Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher and poet. Professor of classical philology, Basel (1869–79). Known for denouncing religion, and for espousing the perfectibility of human beings through forcible self-assertion. Published The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music (1872). he wanted to show that the Greeks created art in order to have something through which, as free human beings in dignity, they might be able to rise above the reality presented by the external senses, the reality in which the human being can never achieve his true dignity. They raised themselves above the reality of things in order to achieve the possibility of freedom in appearances, in artistic appearances. Thus did Nietzsche interpret Greek culture. And here Nietzsche merely expressed, in a radical form, what was already contained in Schiller's letters on the aesthetic education of man. Therefore, we can say that Schiller lived in an abstract spirituality, but that at the same time there lived within him the impulse to grant the human being his true dignity. Just look at the sublimity, the greatness, of his letters on aesthetic education. They are worthy of the very highest admiration. In terms of poetic feeling, in terms of the power of soul, they are really greater than all his other works. When we think of the sum total of his achievements, these letters are the greatest of them all. But Schiller had to struggle with them from an abstract point of view, for he too had arrived at the intellectualism characterizing the spiritual life of the west. And from this standpoint he could not reach true reality. He could only reach the shining appearance of the beautiful.

When Goethe read Schiller's letters on the aesthetic education of man it was not easy for him to find his way around in them. Goethe was actually not very adept at following the processes of abstract reasoning. But he, too, was concerned with the problem of how man can achieve true dignity, how spiritual beings must work together in order to give the human being dignity so that awakened to the spiritual world, he can live into it.

Schiller could not emerge from the picture, or image, to the reality. What Schiller had said in his letters, Goethe also wanted to say, but in his own way. He did so in the pictures and imagery in his Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.26Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, (Blauvelt, NY: Steinerbooks, 1979). In all the figures in this fairy tale we are to see powers of the soul working together to impart to man his true dignity, in freedom. But Goethe was unable to find the way from what he had been able to express in Imaginations up to the truly spiritual. Hence, he got no further than the fairy tale, a picture, a kind of higher symbolism. It was, it is true, full of an extraordinary amount of life; still, it was only a kind of symbolism. Schiller formed abstract concepts, but remaining with appearance he could not get into reality. Goethe, trying to understand the human being in his freedom, created many pictures, vividly concrete pictures, but they could not get him into reality either. He remained stuck with mere descriptions of the world of sense. You see, his description of the sense images in the Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. are wonderfully beautiful, yet it cannot be said that the final freeing of the crippled prince is intuitively obvious and real; it is only symbolically real. Neither of the two contrasting streams expressed in the personalities of Goethe and Schiller, could find a way into the real experience of the spiritual world. Both were striving from opposite sides to penetrate into the spiritual world, but could not get in.

What was really going on? What I am going to say may seem strange. Nevertheless, those who approach these matters without psychological bias will have to agree with the following.

Think of the two streams present in Scholasticism. For one, there is the knowledge from reason, creating its content out of the world of sense but not penetrating through to reality. This stream flows on through manifold forms, passing from one personality to another, also down to Schiller. Scholasticism held that one can only obtain ideas from the world of sense—and Schiller was drawn into this way of knowing. But Schiller was far too complete a human being to regard the sensuality of physical matter as compatible with true human dignity. Scholastic knowledge merely extracts ideas out of the world of sense. Schiller's solution was to let go of the world of sense so that only ideas remain. But with ideas alone he could not reach reality—he only reached beautiful appearances. He struggled with this problem: What should be done with this scholastic knowledge which man has produced out of himself, so that he can somehow be given his dignity? His answer was that one can no longer stay with reality, that one must take refuge in the beauty of appearances. Thus you see how the stream of scholastic knowledge from reason found its way to Schiller.

Goethe did not care much for this kind of knowledge. Actually he was much more excited by knowledge as revelation. You may find this strange; nevertheless, it is true. And even if he did not adhere to those Catholic dogmas, the necessity of which became clear to him as he was trying to complete Faust, and express them artistically, even if he did not adhere to the Catholic dogmas of his youth, still he held to things pertaining to the super-sensible world at the level he was able to reach. To speak to Goethe of a faith—this, in a way, made him furious. When, in Goethe's youth, Jacobi spoke to him about belief, about faith, he replied: I keep to vision, to seeing.27Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819), president of the Munich Academy. In opposition to the thinkers of the Enlightenment, he recognized only two types of people: Christian believers and those who trusted their reason. Reason, Jacobi taught, is not the way to arrive at ultimate truth. Goethe didn't want to hear anything about belief or faith. Those who claim him for any particular faith simply do not understand him at all. He was out to see, to behold. Furthermore, he was actually on the way from his Imaginations to Inspirations and Intuitions. In this way he could naturally never have become a theologian of the Middle Ages, but he could have become like an ancient seer of the divine, a seer of super-sensible worlds. He was certainly on the way, but was simply unable to ascend high enough. He only got far enough to see the super-sensible in the world of the plants. When he studied the plant world he was actually able to see the spiritual and the sensible next to one another as had the initiates in the ancient mysteries. But Goethe got no further than the plant world.

What, then, was the only thing he could do? He could only apply to the whole world of the super-sensible the pictorial method, the symbolism, the imaginative contemplation which he had learned to apply to the plants. And so, when he spoke of the soul life in his fairy tale he was only able to achieve an imaginative presentation of the world.

Whenever the Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. mentions anything concerning plant life, anything that can be approached with Imaginations such as those developed by Goethe for the world of plants, then the writing is particularly beautiful. Just allow everything expressed in the style of Imaginations of the plant world in this fairy tale to work on you and you will feel a wonderful beauty. Actually, the rest of the fairy tale's contents also have a tendency to become plantlike. The central female figure, upon whom so much depends, he names Lily. Goethe does not manage to imbue her with real, potent life; he manages only to give her a kind of plant existence. And if you look at all the figures appearing in the fairy tale, actually they all lead a kind of plant existence. Where it becomes necessary to raise them to a higher level, they become mere symbols, and their existence is mere appearance at that level.

The kings that appear in the fairy tale aren't properly real either. They, too, only manage to achieve a plantlike existence; they only claim to have another kind of life as well. Something would have to be in-spired into the golden king, the silver king, and the bronze king before they could really live in the spiritual world.

Thus Goethe lived out a life of knowledge as revelation, as super-sensible knowledge, which he has only mastered up to a certain level. Schiller lived out the other kind of knowledge, knowledge as reason, which was developed by Scholasticism. But he could not bear this knowledge because he wanted to follow it into reality and it could only lead him as far as the reality of the beauty in appearances.

One can say that the inner truth of the two personalities made them so upright that neither one said more than he was truly able to say. Thus Goethe depicts the life of the soul as if it were a kind of vegetation, and Schiller portrays the free individual as if a free human being could only live aesthetically. An aesthetic society—that, as the social challenge, is what Schiller brings forward at the end of the letters on the aesthetic education of man. If the human being is to become free, says Schiller, let him so live that society manifests itself as beauty. In Goethe's relationship to Schiller we see how these streams live on. What they would have needed was the ascent from Imagination to Inspiration in Goethe, and the enlivening of abstract concepts with the imaginative world in Schiller. Only then could they have completely come together.

If you look into the souls of both of them you would have to say that both possessed qualities which could lead them into a world of spirit. Goethe struggled constantly with what he called “religious inclinations” or “piety.” Schiller, when asked, “To which of the existing religions do you confess?” said “To none.” And when he was asked why, he replied—“For religious reasons!”28Schiller, Votiftafeln: Mein Glaube.

As the super-sensible world flows into the human soul from knowledge that is actually experienced, we see how, especially for enlightened spirits, religion itself also flows into the soul. Thus religion will once again have to be attained—through the transformation of the merely intellectual knowledge of today into spiritual knowledge.

Dritter Vortrag

[ 1 ] Gestern habe ich versucht, Ihnen zu zeigen, wie ein einfacher Weg gefunden werden kann, um sich die Beziehungen des Menschen nach Leib, Seele und Geist zum gesamten Kosmos vor die Seele zu führen. Durch die Art und Weise wie ich den gestrigen Vortrag dann in einigen imaginativen Bildern gipfeln ließ, wollte ich Sie auf einiges aufmerksam machen. Ich wollte zeigen, wie zum Beispiel in solchen Bildern, wie dasjenige von Christus als dem Lamm Gottes, richtig ausgesprochene, inspirierte Imaginationen liegen, wollte zeigen, daß in den Zeiten, in denen solche Bilder geprägt worden sind, ja, in denen sie noch mit vollem Verständnis ausgesprochen und für das menschliche Seelenleben verwendet worden sind, ein wirkliches Bewußtsein davon vorhanden war, wie der Mensch von den Seelenerlebnissen, die er im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein hat, sich hinaufarbeitet zu Seelenerlebnissen eines solchen Bewußtseins, das ihn in Verbindung bringt mit der geistigen Welt. Ich habe darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie in den vier ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten das, was wir die christliche Lehre nennen können, durchaus noch so geprägt war, daß ihr überall die Anschauung des Geistigen zugrunde lag, daß die Geheimnisse des Christentums selber so dargestellt wurden, wie sie geschaut werden konnten von denen, die ihr Seelenleben zum Schauen des Geistigen hinaufgebracht hatten. Nach dem 4. Jahrhundert ist es ja im allgemeinen Bewußtsein der Menschen immer mehr und mehr entschwunden, ein Verständnis für den unmittelbaren Ausdruck des Geistigen noch zu haben. Und wir sehen, wie bei der Berührung der nordisch-germanischen mit der lateinisch-griechischen Welt diese Schwierigkeiten eigentlich immer größer werden, die sich damals im Verlaufe der abendländischen Kultur ergaben. Wir müssen durchaus uns klarmachen, wie unmittelbar nach dem 4. Jahrhundert noch mit einer gewissen ehrwürdigen Verehrung hingesehen worden ist zu dem, was in inspirierten Imaginationen als Darstellung der christlichen Anschauung aus älteren Zeiten heraufgekommen war. Man verehrte die Tradition. Man verehrte das, was durch Tradition an solchen Bildern eben auf die Nachwelt gekommen war. Allein, der fortschreitende Menschengeist nahm immer mehr Formen an, durch die er sich sagte: Ja, da ist uns so etwas überliefert, wie zum Beispiel das Bild der Taube für den Heiligen Geist, wie das Bild vom Lamm Gottes für den Christus selbst. Aber wie sollen wir das verstehen? Wie kommen wir dazu, das zu verstehen? — Und eben gerade aus dieser Unmöglichkeit, oder vielmehr aus dem Glauben an die Unmöglichkeit, daß der menschliche Geist durch sich selbst sich in die Anschauung der geistigen Welten hinaufarbeiten kann, entstand ja die scholastische Lehre, daß der Menschengeist durch seine eigene Kraft bis zur Erkenntnis des Sinnlichen kommt und auch noch zu Schlüssen, die sich unmittelbar aus dem Begriff vom Sinnlichen ergeben, daß aber hingenommen werden müsse als ein unverstandenes Geoffenbartes dasjenige, was von der übersinnlichen Welt für den Menschen offenbar sein kann.

[ 2 ] Aber nicht ohne Schwierigkeiten entwickelte sich wiederum diese, ich möchte sagen, doppelte Art von Glauben an das menschliche Seelenleben: an die auf das Irdische beschränkte Erkenntnis auf der einen Seite, und an die nur im Glauben erreichbare Erkenntnis des Übersinnlichen auf der anderen Seite. Immerhin wurde, wenn auch mehr oder weniger dunkel, empfunden, daß man zu den übersinnlichen Erkenntnissen nicht mehr so stehen konnte, wie das in früheren, in alten Zeiten der Fall war. In der ersten Zeit, nach dem 4. Jahrhundert, sagten sich die Menschen in ihrer Empfindung: Diese übersinnliche Welt kann dennoch in einem gewissen Sinne mit dem menschlichen Seelenleben erreicht werden; aber es ist nicht jedem gegeben, das Seelenleben bis zu einer solchen Höhe zu bringen; man muß sich damit begnügen, eben manches von den alten Offenbarungen hinzunehmen.

[ 3 ] Wie gesagt, die Verehrung dieser alten Offenbarungen war zu groß, als daß man hätte sogleich den Maßstab einer menschlichen Erkenntnis anlegen wollen, die nicht mehr hinaufreichte zu ihnen, oder von der man wenigstens glaubte, daß sie auf keine Weise hinaufreiche zu den Offenbarungen. Und die strenge Scholastik von der Zweiteilung der menschlichen Erkenntnis, die nahm man doch eigentlich erst allmählich an. Erst das 10., 11., 12. und 13. Jahrhundert des Mittelalters war die Zeit, in der man das scholastische Prinzip völlig angenommen hatte. Bis dahin schwankte man immer noch in einer gewissen Weise: Sollte man nicht dennoch diese menschliche Erkenntnis, so wie sie einmal für diese spätere Zeit zu erringen war, hinaufbringen können bis zu dem, was der übersinnlichen Welt angehörte?

[ 4 ] Damit aber war gegenüber früheren Zeiten eigentlich ein mächtiger Umschwung vollzogen. Sehen Sie, in früheren Zeiten, sagen wir, in den allerersten christlichen Jahrhunderten, würde sich ein Mensch, an den herangetreten wäre das Geheimnis der göttlichen Voraussicht aller Dinge oder das Geheimnis der Verwandlung von Brot und Wein in den Leib und in das Blut Christi, gesagt haben, wenn er sich durchgerungen hatte zum Christentum: Das ist schwer zu verstehen, aber es gibt Menschen, die können ihre Seele so entwickeln, daß sie so etwas verstehen. Wenn ich die Allwissenheit des göttlichen Wesens annehme, so muß eigentlich dieses allwissende Wesen auch wissen, ob der eine Mensch ein für allemal verdammt oder ob der andere Mensch selig wird. Damit — würde solch ein Mensch gesagt haben — stimmt wenig überein, daß der Mensch doch nicht unbedingt sündigen muß, und durch die Sünde wird er ja eigentlich verdammt: Wenn er nicht sündigt, wird er also nicht verdammt; wenn er eine Sünde büßt, wird er auch nicht verdammt. So daß man also sagen muß: Der Mensch kann sich entweder durch seinen Lebenswandel zu einem Verdammten durch die Sünde machen oder zu einem Seligen durch die Sündlosigkeit. Aber wiederum: Der allwissende Gott muß von diesem Menschen jetzt schon wissen, ob er ein Verdammter oder ein Seliger wird!

[ 5 ] Also ein Mensch, an den das herangetreten wäre, der würde zu solchen Erwägungen gekommen sein. Er würde aber in diesen ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten nicht ohne weiteres gesagt haben: Also muß ich darüber streiten, ob Gott vorhersieht die Verdammnis oder die Seligkeit eines Menschen. — Sondern er hätte sich gesagt: Daß Gott, trotzdem der Mensch sündigen oder nicht sündigen kann, dennoch weiß, wer verdammt ist und wer selig wird, das würde ich einsehen können, wenn ich eben eingeweiht wäre. — So würde sich ein Mensch der ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte gesagt haben.

[ 6 ] Ebenso wenn man ihm gesagt hätte, durch die Transsubstantiation, durch Abendmahlfeier, Meßopfer wird Brot und Wein in Leib und Blut Christi verwandelt, so würde er erwidert haben: Das sehe ich nicht ein, aber wäre ich eingeweiht, so könnte ich das einsehen. — So hätte man in älteren Zeiten gesagt. Denn in älteren Zeiten würde man eben gedacht haben: Was sich in der sinnlichen Welt beobachten läßt, ist Scheingebilde, das ist nicht die Wirklichkeit, die Wirklichkeit liegt in der geistigen Welt dahinter. Solange man in der sinnlichen Welt steht, in dieser Scheinwelt, ist es ein Widerspruch, daß irgend jemand sündigen oder nicht sündigen kann, und daß dennoch der allwissende Gott von vorneherein weiß, ob irgendein Mensch verdammt oder selig wird. Aber sobald man in die geistige Welt eintritt, ist das kein Widerspruch mehr: Da erfährt man, wie es sein kann, daß Gott es dennoch voraussieht. — Ebenso würde man gesagt haben: In der physisch-sinnlichen Welt ist es ein Widerspruch, daß etwas, was ja eigentlich für den äußeren Augenschein dasselbe bleibt, Brot und Wein, nach der Verwandlung Leib und Blut Christi sein soll; aber wenn man eingeweiht ist, wird man, weil man dann mit seinem Seelenleben in der geistigen Welt steht, das einsehen können. — So würde man in älteren Zeiten gesagt haben.

[ 7 ] Nun kamen eben die Kämpfe in den Menschenseelen. Auf der einen Seite sahen diese Menschenseelen sich immer mehr und mehr herausgerissen aus der geistigen Welt. Die ganze Kultur ging dahin, als Geistesmenschen nur den Verstand gelten zu lassen, der nun allerdings nicht hineinkam in die geistige Welt. Und aus diesen Kämpfen heraus entwickelten sich alle Unsicherheiten gegenüber den übersinnlichen Welten. Wir können, wenn wir symptomatologisch Geschichte treiben, die Punkte herausgreifen, an denen wir sehen, daß solche Unsicherheiten besonders stark in die Welt treten.

[ 8 ] Ich habe ja öfter in solchen Vorträgen auf jenen schottischen Mönch, Scotus Erigena, aufmerksam gemacht, der im 9. Jahrhundert im Frankenlande am Hofe Karls des Kahlen gelebt hat und dort geradezu als ein Wunder der Weisheit angesehen worden ist. Karl der Kahle jedenfalls und alle, die seiner Meinung waren, wandten sich in allen religiösen und auch in allen wissenschaftlichen Fragen an Scotus Erigena, wenn sie irgend etwas entschieden haben wollten. Aber gerade an der Art, wie Scotus Erigena anderen Mönchen seiner Zeit gegenübersteht, sehen wir, wie dazumal der Kampf, ich möchte sagen, wütete zwischen der Vernunft, die sich nur auf die Sinneswelt und einige Schlüsse aus ihr beschränkt fühlte, und dem, was in Form von Dogmen von den übersinnlichen Welten überliefert war.

[ 9 ] Und so sehen wir zwei Persönlichkeiten gerade im 9. Jahrhundert einander gegenüberstehen: Scotus Erigena und den Mönch Gottschalk, der in entschiedener Weise die Lehre geltend machte, Gott wisse vollkommen voraus, ob irgendein Mensch verdammt werde oder selig werde. Man prägte das allmählich in die Formel: Gott habe einen Teil der Menschen zur Seligkeit, einen anderen Teil der Menschen zur Verdammnis bestimmt. Man prägte diese Lehre in der Art, wie es ja Augustinus selbst schon gemacht hatte, nach dessen Lehre von der göttlichen Vorherbestimmung ein Teil der Menschen zur Seligkeit, ein Teil zur Verdammnis bestimmt sei. Und Gottschalk, der Mönch, lehrte, es sei so: Gott habe einen Teil der Menschen zur Seligkeit und einen Teil zur Verdammnis bestimmt, keinen aber zur Sünde. Gottschalk lehrte also für das äußere Verständnis einen Widerspruch.

[ 10 ] Der Streit tobte dazumal gerade im 9. Jahrhundert außerordentlich heftig. Auf einer Mainzer Synode zum Beispiel wurde die Schrift des Gottschalk geradezu als ketzerisch erklärt, und Gottschalk wurde ausgepeitscht wegen dieser Lehre. Dennoch, trotzdem Gottschalk ausgepeitscht und eingesperrt worden war wegen dieser Lehre, konnte er sich darauf berufen, daß er ja nichts anderes wollte, als die Augustinische Lehre in ihrer echten Gestalt herstellen. Man wurde auch aufmerksam darauf, namentlich französische Bischöfe und Mönche, daß Gottschalk eigentlich nichts anderes lehrte als das, was schon Augustinus gelehrt hatte. So stand gewissermaßen solch ein Mönch wie Gottschalk vor seiner Zeit so da, daß er aus den Traditionen des alten Mysterienwissens etwas lehrte, was diejenigen, die nun alles mit dem Verstande, der heraufdämmerte, begreifen wollten, eben nicht begreifen konnten und deshalb bekämpften, während die anderen, die mehr an der Ehrwürdigkeit des Alten festhielten, durchaus einem Theologen wie dem Gottschalk recht gaben.

[ 11 ] Heute werden die Menschen außerordentlich schwer begreifen, daß über so etwas gestritten werden konnte. Es wurde aber nicht bloß gestritten. Man wurde dazumal wegen solcher Lehren, wenn sie der einen Partei nicht gefielen, öffentlich ausgepeitscht und eingesperrt, und zuletzt bekam man doch recht. Denn gerade die Rechtgläubigen stellten sich dann wiederum auf Gottschalks Seite, und die Lehre des Gottschalk blieb als die rechtmäßige katholische Lehre. — Karl der Kahle wandte sich selbstverständlich aus der ganzen Stellung, in der er zu Scotus Erigena war, an diesen, um eine Entscheidung für sich herbeizuführen. Scotus Erigena entschied nicht im Sinne von Gottschalk, sondern in dem Sinne, daß in der Entwickelung der Menschheit die Gottheit darinnensteckt, daß das Böse eigentlich nur scheinbar ein Etwas sein kann, sonst müßte ja das Böse in Gott stecken. Da Gott nur das Gute sein kann, so muß das Böse ein Nichts sein; das Nichts aber kann nicht etwas sein, mit dem die Menschen zuletzt vereinigt werden können. - So daß sich Scotus Erigena gegen den Gottschalk aussprach.

[ 12 ] Aber die Lehre des Scotus Erigena, die etwa dieselbe ist wie heute die der Pantheisten, ist von der rechtgläubigen Kirche dann wiederum verdammt worden, und die Schriften des Scotus Erigena wurden ja erst später wieder gefunden. Man hat alles verbrannt, was an ihn erinnerte; er galt als der eigentliche Ketzer. Und als er seine Anschauung bekanntmachte, die er Karl dem Kahlen vorgelegt hatte, da erklärte man auf der Seite der Gottschalkianer, die jetzt wiederum zur Anerkennung gekommen waren: Scotus Erigena ist eigentlich nur ein Schwätzer, der sich mit allerlei Federn der äußerlichen Wissenschaft schmückt, und der eigentlich von den inneren Geheimnissen des Übersinnlichen gar nichts weiß. — Ein anderer Theologe schrieb über den Leib und das Blut Christi: «De corpore et sanguine domini.» Er sprach in dieser Schrift auch dasjenige aus, was für den alten Eingeweihten eine durchschaubare Lehre war: daß tatsächlich Brot und Wein verwandelt werden kann in den wirklichen Leib und in das wirkliche Blut Christi.

[ 13 ] Wiederum wurde diese Schrift Karl dem Kahlen vorgelegt. Scotus Erigena schrieb nicht gerade eine Gegenschrift, aber in seinen Schriften haben wir vielfach Hinweise darauf, wie er sich entschieden hat, und da finden wir, daß diese Lehre, die ja die rechtgläubige katholische ist: daß Brot und Wein wirklich in den Leib und in das Blut Christi verwandelt wird, daß diese Lehre modifiziert werden müsse, weil man sie nicht einsehen könne. So sprach sich Scotus Erigena schon damals aus.

[ 14 ] Kurz, gerade in diesem 9. Jahrhundert wütete ganz besonders- der Kampf um das Verhältnis der Menschenseele zur übersinnlichen Welt, und es war außerordentlich schwierig für die ernsten Geister der damaligen Zeit, sich zurechtzufinden. Denn in den christlichen Dogmen waren überall Niederschläge alter Initiationswahrheiten vorhanden; aber die Ohnmacht des Verstehens war da. Man prüfte, was man äußerlich im Worte gegeben hatte — das Wort hätte man erst verstehen können nach der Entwickelung der Seelen in die geistige Welt hinein -, man prüfte, was man äußerlich im Worte gegeben hatte,nach dem, dessen man sich bewußt war in der Entfaltung der menschlichen Vernunft der damaligen Zeit. Und aus diesen Prüfungen entstanden damals wirklich innerhalb des christlichen Lebens Europas die schwersten Kämpfe.

[ 15 ] Wohin tendierten denn diese Seelenerlebnisse? Sie tendierten dahin, daß sich zweierlei im Menschen ausbildete, was ja früher gar nicht vorhanden war. Früher sah der Mensch in die Sinneswelt hinein, und indem er in die Sinneswelt hineinschaute, hatte er durch seine Fähigkeiten zugleich die Anschauung von dem Geistigen, das durch die Sinneserscheinungen hindurch schaute: Er sah mit den Sinneserscheinungen Geistiges. So wie es schon die Menschen des 9. Jahrhunderts machten, so sah der alte Mensch ganz gewiß nicht Brot und Wein, denn das wäre ja ein materielles Anschauen gewesen. Es hatte aber der Mensch das materielle Anschauen mit dem spirituellen Anschauen zusammen.

[ 16 ] Und ebensowenig hatte der Mensch in diesen alten Zeiten solche intellektualistischen Begriffe und Ideen, wie man sie schon im 9. Jahrhundert hatte. Die Dünnheit und Abstraktheit dieser Begriffe und Ideen war nicht vorhanden. Was der Mensch als Begriffe und Ideen erlebte, das war noch so, daß es gegenständlich, wesenhaft war. Ich habe Sie darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie allmählich so etwas ganz abstrakt geworden ist wie Grammatik, Rhetorik, Dialektik, Arithmetik, Geometrie, Musik, Astrologie. In älteren Zeiten sah man diese Wissenschaften, in die sich der Mensch hineinlebte, so an, daß der Mensch in Beziehung kam — so sagte ich dazumal — zu wirklichen realen Wesenheiten. Aber schon damals, und noch mehr in späteren Zeiten, waren diese Grammatik, Rhetorik, Dialektik und so weiter ganz schmächtig abstrakt geworden, ohne Wesenhaftigkeit und so weiter, standen fast nur noch als Kleiderstücke, könnte man eher sagen, dem gegenüber, was in der älteren Zeit vorhanden war. Und das entwickelte sich immer weiter und weiter. Die Abstraktheit wurde immer mehr eine Abstraktheit der Begriffe, und das Konkrete wurde immer mehr zum bloß Außerlich-Sinnlichen. Und diese beiden Strömungen, die wir im 9. Jahrhundert sehen und unter deren Einfluß dann die Menschen so furchtbare Seelenkämpfe auskämpften, diese Strömungen kamen herauf bis in die neueste Zeit. Nur treten sie uns an der einen Stelle mehr, an der anderen Stelle weniger entgegen.

[ 17 ] Ganz lebendig stehen sie eigentlich vor der Menschheitsentwickelung in dem Gegensatz zwischen Goethe und Schiller. Ich habe gestern davon gesprochen, daß Goethe dazu gedrängt worden war, als er die Linnesche Botanik kennenlernte, sich das Pflanzenwesen in lebendigen Begriffen vor die Seele zu führen. Lebendige Begriffe, Begriffe, die sich verwandeln können, die also an das Imaginative herankommen. Aber ich habe auch darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie Goethe nun strauchelt, als er von dem bloßen Pflanzlich-Lebendigen zu dem Tierisch-Empfindenden heraufschreiten will. Er kommt noch an die Imagination heran, nicht aber mehr an die Inspiration. Er sieht die äußeren Dinge. Bei den Mineralien hat er nicht die Veranlassung, zur Imagination vorzuschreiten, bei den Pflanzen tut er das. Er kommt nicht weiter damit; abstrakte Begriffe sind nicht seine Sache. Daher faßt er auch dasjenige, was nun ein höheres Geistiges ist als das Pflanzliche, nicht in abstrakte Begriffe. Er philosophiert daher im Grunde genommen nicht in der Art, wie man in seiner Zeit philosophierte.

[ 18 ] Schiller philosophiert. Er lernt sogar von Kant das Philosophieren, bis ihm die Kantsche Art dennoch zu bunt wird und er sie wieder läßt. Aber Schiller macht das nicht ohne die Abstraktheit der Begriffe, die wiederum nicht zum Wesenhaften kommen können. Und wenn wir Goethe und Schiller gegenüberstehen, dann fühlen wir gerade dieses als den Gegensatz, der eigentlich niemals zwischen den beiden überbrückt worden ist, der nur ausgeglichen worden ist durch das Großmenschliche, das in beiden lebte.

[ 19 ] Aber dieser Gegensatz zeigte sich, als nun in den neunziger Jahren des 18. Jahrhunderts vor beide, vor Goethe und Schiller, die Frage hintrat: Wie erlangt der Mensch eigentlich ein menschenwürdiges Dasein? — Schiller legte sich die Frage in seiner Art, in der Form des abstrakten Denkens vor, und er sprach das, was er auszusprechen hatte, in seinen «Briefen über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen» aus. Da sagte er sich: Der Mensch ist auf der einen Seite unterworfen der logischen, der Vernunftnotwendigkeit. Er hat keine Freiheit, wenn er der Vernunftnotwendigkeit folgt. In der Vernunftnotwendigkeit geht seine Freiheit unter. Aber er hat auch keine Freiheit, wenn er sich nur seinen Sinnen hingibt, der sinnlichen Notwendigkeit; da zwingen ihn die Instinkte, die Triebe, da ist er wiederum nicht frei. Nach beiden Seiten, nach dem Geiste und nach der Natur hin wird der Mensch eigentlich zum Sklaven, zum Unfreien. Und es kann der Mensch nur frei werden, meint Schiller, wenn er die Natur so anschaut, als wenn sie ein lebendiges Wesen wäre, als wenn in ihr Geist und Seele wäre, wenn er also die Natur heraufhebt. Aber dann muß er auch die Vernunftnotwendigkeit herunterbringen bis zur Natur. Der Mensch muß gewissermaßen die Natur so für sich betrachten, als ob sie Vernunft hätte. Dann verschwindet aus der Vernunft die starre Vernunftnotwendigkeit, die starre Logik. Andererseits, wenn der Mensch sich bildlich ausspricht, so gestaltet er, statt daß er logisch analysiert und synthetisiert; und indem der Mensch bildet, nimmt er der Natur ihre bloß sinnliche Notwendigkeit. Aber das alles kann man nur ausdrücken, sagte Schiller, im künstlerischen Schaffen und im ästhetischen Genießen. Steht man einfach der Natur gegenüber in irgendeiner Weise, so unterliegt man den Instinkten, den Trieben der Naturnotwendigkeit. Bewegt man sich in seinem Geiste, so muß man der logischen Notwendigkeit folgen, wenn man nicht dem Menschlichen untreu werden will. Wenn man die beiden verbindet, dann senkt sich die Vernunftnotwendigkeit und gibt etwas von ihrer Notwendigkeit ab in das Sinnliche hinein; das Sinnliche gibt von seiner Triebnatur etwas ab. Und wir stellen zum Beispiel den Menschen in den Bildhauerwerken so hin, als ob schon in dem Sinnlichen selber Geist enthalten wäre. Wir führen den Geist hinunter in die Sinnlichkeit, indem wir die Sinnlichkeit hinaufführen zum Geiste, und es entsteht das Bilden, das Schöne. Nur indem der Mensch das Schöne schafft oder das Schöne genießt, lebt er in der Freiheit.

[ 20 ] Bedenken Sie, indem Schiller diese ästhetischen Briefe verfaßt hat, hat er mit aller inneren Seelenkraft darnach gestrebt, etwas für den Menschen zu finden, zum Beispiel wann dieser Mensch frei sein könne. Und einzig und allein findet er die Möglichkeit, die menschliche Freiheit zu verwirklichen - in dem Leben im schönen Schein. Der Mensch muß die grobe Wirklichkeit fliehen — so sagt schon Schiller, wenn er es auch nicht deutlich ausspricht -, wenn er frei werden will, also ein menschenwürdiges Dasein erringen will. Nur im Scheine kann eigentlich die Freiheit erreicht werden.

[ 21 ] Nietzsche, der von all diesen Dingen noch durchsetzt war und eben doch auch nicht zu einer wirklichen Anschauung des Geistes durchdringen konnte, verfaßte ja sein erstes Buch «Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik», worin er zeigen wollte: Die Griechen hätten die Kunst erfunden, um etwas zu haben, wodurch sie sich als freie Menschen in Menschenwürde über die Wirklichkeit der äußeren Sinne erheben könnten, in der man niemals seine Menschenwürde erringen kann; sie hätten sich über die Wirklichkeit der Dinge hinweggesetzt, um im Schein, im künstlerischen Schein die Möglichkeit der Freiheit zu erringen. Nietzsche interpretierte das ins Griechentum hinein. In dieser Beziehung sprach Nietzsche bloß in radikaler Weise aus, was schon in Schillers «Briefen über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen» liegt. Man kann also sagen, Schiller lebte in einer abstrakten Geistigkeit, aber in ihm lebte zugleich der Impuls, dem Menschen seine Würde zu geben. Sehen Sie sich das Großartige, das Herrliche, das Bewundernswürdige dieser ästhetischen Briefe an. Sie sind im Grunde genommen in bezug auf die Dichtung und in bezug auf die menschliche Seelenkraft größer als alle anderen Schillerschen Werke. Sie sind eigentlich das Größte, was Schiller geleistet hat, wenn wir seine Gesamtleistungen ins Auge fassen. Aber Schiller kämpft damit von seinem abstrakten Standpunkt aus, bei dem er im Sinne des abendländischen Geisteslebens auch beim Intellektualismus angekommen war. Von diesem seinem Standpunkt aus zu der wahren Wirklichkeit kommen, das konnte er nicht. Er konnte nur den Schein der Schönheit erreichen.

[ 22 ] Als Goethe diese «Briefe über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen» bekam, da konnte er nicht leicht sich zurechtfinden. Im abstrakten Gang der menschlichen Vernunft war eigentlich Goethe nicht bewandert. Aber auch für ihn war das ein Problem, wie der Mensch seine Menschenwürde erringt, wie da die geistigen Wesenheiten zusammenarbeiten müssen, um dem Menschen seine Menschenwürde zu geben, so daß er erwacht gegenüber der geistigen Welt, sich hineinlebt in die geistige Welt. Schiller konnte aus dem Begriff nicht herauskommen zu der Wirklichkeit. Goethe wollte nun das, was Schiller in den ästhetischen Briefen ausgesprochen hatte, in seiner Art auch aussprechen.

[ 23 ] Er sprach es in seiner Art bildhaft aus in dem «Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie». In all den Gestalten haben wir ja Seelenkräfte zu sehen, die zusammenwirken, um dem Menschen seine freie Menschenwürde zu geben, seine Menschenwürde in Freiheit zu geben. Aber Goethe konnte den Weg von dem, was er bloß in Imaginationen ausdrücken konnte, hinauf zum wirklichen Geistigen nicht finden. Daher blieb es bei Goethe beim Märchen, beim Bilde, bei einer Art höherer Symbolik, allerdings einer außerordentlich lebendigen Symbolik, aber doch nur bei einer Art von Symbolik. Schiller prägte abstrakte Begriffe, konnte in keine Wirklichkeit herein, blieb beim Schein. Goethe prägte, indem er den Menschen in seiner Freiheit begreifen wollte, viele Bilder, die anschaulich waren, sinnlich anschaulich, aber mit denen er auch nicht hinein konnte in die Wirklichkeit. Er blieb an der Beschreibung des Sinnlichen haften. Sehen Sie, wie wunderschön diese Beschreibung des Sinnlichen im Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie ist; aber eigentlich anschaulich wird die Befreiung des gelähmten Prinzen nicht, nur symbolisch anschaulich. Die gegensätzlichen Strömungen, die heraufgekommen waren, und die ich Ihnen charakterisiert habe, von denen keine eigentlich in die geistige Welt hinein konnte, die sprechen sich hier in den zwei Persönlichkeiten aus. Sowohl Schiller wie Goethe strebten im Grunde genommen in die geistige Welt hinein von entgegengesetzten Seiten, aber sie konnten nicht hinein.

[ 24 ] Was lag da eigentlich vor? Es wird Ihnen sonderbar scheinen, was ich Ihnen sagen werde, und dennoch, wer mit psychologischer Unbefangenheit die Dinge anschaut, wird sie so ansehen müssen, wie ich es jetzt sagen werde.

[ 25 ] Man nehme die beiden Strömungen, die in der Scholastik vorhanden sind. Einmal die Vernunfterkenntnis, die aus der Sinnlichkeit ihre Eigenschaften schöpft, aber nicht bis zum Wirklichen vordringt. Durch die mannigfaltigsten Gestaltungen kommt diese Strömung weiter und weiter, von einer Persönlichkeit zu der anderen, auch auf Schiller herunter. Er wird gewissermaßen hineingezogen in eine solche Erkenntnisart, von der die Scholastik gesagt hat: Man kann damit nur die Ideen aus dem Sinnlichen gewinnen. — Doch Schiller ist außerstande, dazu ist er ein viel zu starker Vollmensch, in der Sinnlichkeit etwas anzuerkennen, was der Mensch sein darf, wenn er seine Menschenwürde haben soll. Die scholastische Erkenntnis bringt nur herauf die Ideen aus der Sinnenwelt. Schiller läßt die Sinnenwelt weg, und da bleiben nur die Ideen. In denen bringt er es zu keiner Wirklichkeit, sondern nur zu dem schönen Schein. Er also ringt damit: Was soll man eigentlich machen mit dieser scholastischen, aus dem Menschen gewonnenen Erkenntnis, um dem Menschen irgendwie seine Würde zu geben? Da kann man sich gar nicht mehr an die Wirklichkeit halten, da muß man zum schönen Schein seine Zuflucht nehmen. — Sie sehen, in welcher Weise bei Schiller sich der Ausläufer der scholastischen VernunfterkenntnisStrömung findet.

[ 26 ] Goethe hat sich um diese Vernunfterkenntnis nicht viel gekümmert. Er war eigentlich viel mehr angeregt durch die Offenbarungserkenntnis; wenn Sie das auch sonderbar finden, aber es ist doch so. Das Logisieren lag Goethe nicht. Und wenn er sich auch nicht gerade an die katholischen Dogmen hielt, deren Notwendigkeit ihm später, als er seinen «Faust» vollenden wollte, zur künstlerischen Ausgestaltung dennoch einleuchtete, wenn er auch in seiner Jugend sich nicht an die katholischen Dogmen hielt, so hielt er sich doch an dasjenige, was an die übersinnliche Welt so weit herangeht, als er es erreichen konnte. Goethe von einem Glauben zu sprechen — das machte ihn in einem gewissen Sinne wütend. Als ihm in seiner Jugend Jacobi vom Glauben sprach, da sagte er: Ich halte mich ans Schauen. — Vom Glauben wollte Goethe nichts wissen. Diejenigen, die Goethe etwa für einen Glauben in Anspruch nehmen, die verstehen Goethe ganz und gar nicht. Er wollte schauen. Und er war schon auf dem Wege, von seinen Imaginationen herauf auch zu den Inspirationen zu kommen und zu den Intuitionen. Damit hätte er natürlich nicht ein Theologe des Mittelalters werden können, aber er hätte ein alter Gott-Schauer oder ein Schauer der übersinnlichen Welten werden können. Auf dem Wege dahin war er schon, nur hat er nicht hinauf gekonnt. Er kam bloß bis zur Anschauung des Übersinnlichen in der Pflanzenwelt. So daß er, als er die Pflanzenwelt verfolgte, schon nebeneinander Spirituelles und Sinnliches verfolgte, wie es auch in den alten Einweihungsmysterien war; aber er blieb bei den Pflanzen stehen.

[ 27 ] Was konnte er denn da nur tun? Er konnte nichts anderes tun, als für die ganze übersinnliche Welt nun die bildhafte Art, die symbolische, die imaginative Art zu verwenden, die er an den Pflanzen kennengelernt hatte. Und so kam er im Grunde genommen nur eigentlich bis zu einer imaginativen Darstellung der Welt, wenn er in seinem Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie vom Seelischen sprach.

[ 28 ] Beachten Sie: Da, wo das Märchen von der grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie an das Pflanzenhafte erinnert, an dasjenige, woran man mit Imaginationen herankommt, wie sie Goethe an der Pflanzenwelt entwickelte, da ist das Märchen ganz besonders schön. Versuchen Sie nur alles das auf sich wirken zu lassen in diesem Märchen, was im Stil von Pflanzenimagination gehalten ist, da wird es ganz wunderschön. Und im Grunde genommen hat auch das, was sonst darin ist, immer die Tendenz, Pflanze zu werden. Die weibliche Gestalt, auf die es besonders ankommt, die nennt er Lilie. Er kriegt sie nicht mehr zu wirklichem, starkem Leben; er kriegt sie so, daß sie eine Art Pflanzendasein hat. Und wenn Sie alle die Gestalten anschauen, die in dem Märchen vorkommen, so führen sie eigentlich in Wahrheit ein Pflanzendasein; aber wo sie weiter hinaufgebracht werden müssen, da wird das Höhere nur symbolisch, und da droben, da führen sie eigentlich ein Scheindasein.

[ 29 ] So richtig real sind die Könige, die da auftreten, auch nicht. Auch die bringen es nur bis zum Pflanzendasein, sie sagen es nur, daß sie ein anderes haben. Denn da müßte etwas hineininspiriert sein in den goldenen König, in den silbernen König, in den ehernen König, wenn sie wirklich leben sollten in der geistigen Welt.

[ 30 ] Also Goethe lebt dar, man möchte sagen, ein Leben in Offenbarungserkenntnis, in übersinnlicher Erkenntnis, das er nur bis zu einer gewissen Stufe bewältigt. Schiller lebt dar die Vernunfterkenntnis, die andere Art, welche die Scholastik ausgebildet hat, die er aber nicht ertragen kann, weil er sie bis zu einer Wirklichkeit bringen will, es aber nur bis zur Wirklichkeit des Scheins in der Schönheit bringt.

[ 31 ] Man kann sagen: Die ungeheure innerliche Wahrheit in den beiden Persönlichkeiten, die läßt sie so aufrichtig sein, daß keiner mehr sagt, als er sagen kann. Daher stellt Goethe das Seelische dar, wie wenn es eine Vegetation wäre, und Schiller stellt den freien Menschen dar, wie wenn dieser freie Mensch überhaupt nur ästhetisch leben könnte. Die ästhetische Gesellschaft, die ästhetische Sozietät ist das, was Schiller zum Schluß in seinen ästhetischen Briefen als die «soziale Forderung», möchte man sagen, aufstellt: Werdet so, daß die soziale Gesellschaft sich als schön darstellt — sagt Schiller -, wenn der Mensch frei werden soll. — Man sieht in dem Verhältnis von Goethe zu Schiller, wie diese Strömungen herauf fortleben. Was sie gebraucht hätten, das wäre bei Goethe das Heraufheben aus der Imagination zur Inspiration gewesen, bei Schiller das Beleben der abstrakten Begriffe mit der imaginativen Welt. Dann erst hätten sie völlig zusammenkommen können.

[ 32 ] Und wenn Sie beiden in die Seele hineinschauen, so müssen Sie sagen: Beide waren dazu veranlagt, sich in eine Welt des Geistes hineinzubegeben. Wie rang Goethe mit dem, was er das Frommsein nannte! Wie sprach Schiller es aus: Zu welcher der bestehenden Religionen bekennst du dich? — Zu keiner -, sagt er. Warum? — Aus Religion!

[ 33 ] Wir sehen, wie gerade für erleuchtete Geister mit dem Ausbreiten des Übersinnlichen aus dem, was der Mensch erkennend erleben kann, auch das Religiöse fließt. Es wird also auch das Religiöse erst wiederum erlangt werden müssen durch das Umwandeln der heutigen bloß intellektualistischen Erkenntnis in spirituelle Erkenntnis.

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday, I attempted to demonstrate a simple method for visualizing the relationships between the human body, soul, and spirit and the entire cosmos. By culminating yesterday's lecture in a few imaginative images, I wanted to draw your attention to a number of things. I wanted to show how, for example, in images such as that of Christ as the Lamb of God, correctly expressed, inspired imaginations lie, and I wanted to show that in the times when such images were created, yes, when they were still expressed with full understanding and used for the human soul life, there was a real awareness of how human beings work their way up from the soul experiences they have in ordinary consciousness to the soul experiences of a consciousness that connects them with the spiritual world. I have pointed out how, in the first four Christian centuries, what we can call Christian teaching was still so marked by the view of the spiritual that the mysteries of Christianity itself were presented as they could be seen by those who had raised their soul life to the level of spiritual vision. After the fourth century, the general consciousness of human beings increasingly lost its understanding of the immediate expression of the spiritual. And we see how, when the Nordic-Germanic world came into contact with the Latin-Greek world, the difficulties that arose in the course of Western culture at that time actually became greater and greater. We must realize how, immediately after the 4th century, there was still a certain venerable reverence for what had emerged in inspired imaginations as a representation of the Christian view from earlier times. Tradition was revered. People revered what had been handed down to posterity through tradition in such images. However, the advancing human spirit took on more and more forms through which it said: Yes, something has been handed down to us, such as the image of the dove for the Holy Spirit, or the image of the Lamb of God for Christ himself. But how are we to understand this? How can we come to understand this? And it was precisely from this impossibility, or rather from the belief in the impossibility that the human spirit could work its way up to the perception of spiritual worlds through itself, arose the scholastic doctrine that the human spirit, through its own power, can attain knowledge of the sensible and even conclusions that follow directly from the concept of the sensible, but that what can be revealed to humans from the supersensible world must be accepted as something incomprehensible and revealed.

[ 2 ] But this, I would say, dual nature of belief in the human soul—belief in knowledge limited to the earthly realm on the one hand, and belief in knowledge of the supersensible realm attainable only through faith on the other—did not develop without difficulty. At least there was a feeling, albeit more or less vague, that one could no longer hold on to supernatural knowledge as one had done in earlier, ancient times. In the early period, after the 4th century, people said to themselves: This supernatural world can nevertheless be reached in a certain sense through the human soul life; but not everyone is given the ability to raise their soul life to such a height; one must be content to accept some of the old revelations.

[ 3 ] As already mentioned, the veneration of these ancient revelations was too great for people to immediately apply the standard of human knowledge, which no longer reached up to them, or at least which they believed could in no way reach up to the revelations. And the strict scholasticism of the duality of human knowledge was only gradually accepted. It was not until the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries of the Middle Ages that the scholastic principle was fully accepted. Until then, there was still a certain amount of hesitation: Shouldn't this human knowledge, as it was to be attained in later times, be raised up to what belonged to the supersensible world?

[ 4 ] This, however, represented a powerful change from earlier times. You see, in earlier times, say in the very first Christian centuries, a person who had been approached by the mystery of God's foreknowledge of all things or the mystery of the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ would have said, once he had made up his mind to become a Christian: That is difficult to understand, but there are people who can develop their souls to such an extent that they can understand such things. If I accept the omniscience of the divine being, then this omniscient being must also know whether one person is damned once and for all or whether another person will be saved. Such a person would have said that this does not agree with the fact that man is not necessarily compelled to sin, and that through sin he is actually condemned: if he does not sin, he is not condemned; if he repents of a sin, he is not condemned either. So one must say: Man can either make himself damned through sin by his way of life, or blessed through sinlessness. But again: The omniscient God must already know whether this man will be damned or blessed!

[ 5 ] So a person who had been approached in this way would have come to such considerations. But in those early centuries of Christianity, he would not have said without further ado: So I must argue about whether God foresees the damnation or salvation of a person. Instead, he would have said to himself: “That God, even though man can sin or not sin, nevertheless knows who is damned and who will be saved, I could understand if I were initiated.” That is what a person in the first centuries of Christianity would have said to himself.

[ 6 ] Likewise, if someone had told him that through transubstantiation, through the celebration of the Lord's Supper, the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ, he would have replied: I do not understand that, but if I were initiated, I could understand it. — That is what people would have said in earlier times. For in earlier times, people would have thought: What can be observed in the sensory world is an illusion; that is not reality. Reality lies in the spiritual world behind it. As long as one stands in the sensory world, in this world of appearances, it is a contradiction that anyone can sin or not sin, and that nevertheless the all-knowing God knows from the outset whether any human being will be damned or saved. But as soon as one enters the spiritual world, this is no longer a contradiction: there one learns how it can be that God nevertheless foresees it. — One would have said the same thing: In the physical-sensory world, it is a contradiction that something which actually remains the same to the outer eye, bread and wine, should be the body and blood of Christ after the transformation; but when one is initiated, one can understand this because one then stands with one's soul life in the spiritual world. — That is what one would have said in earlier times.

[ 7 ] Now the struggles arose in human souls. On the one hand, these human souls saw themselves being torn more and more out of the spiritual world. The whole culture was going downhill, as spiritual people only accepted the intellect, which, however, could not enter the spiritual world. And out of these struggles developed all the uncertainties about the supersensible worlds. If we study history symptomatologically, we can pick out the points where we see that such uncertainties are particularly strong in the world.

[ 8 ] I have often referred in such lectures to the Scottish monk Scotus Erigena, who lived in the 9th century in the Frankish lands at the court of Charles the Bald, where he was regarded as a miracle of wisdom. Charles the Bald, at any rate, and all those who shared his opinion, turned to Scotus Erigena in all religious and scientific questions whenever they wanted to decide anything. But it is precisely in the way Scotus Erigena treats other monks of his time that we see how, at that time, the struggle raged, I would say, between reason, which felt limited to the sensory world and a few conclusions drawn from it, and what had been handed down in the form of dogmas from the supersensible worlds.

[ 9 ] And so we see two personalities facing each other in the 9th century: Scotus Erigena and the monk Gottschalk, who decisively asserted the doctrine that God knows perfectly in advance whether any human being will be damned or saved. This was gradually formulated into the formula: God has predestined some people for salvation and others for damnation. This doctrine was formulated in the same way as Augustine himself had done, according to whose doctrine of divine predestination some people are predestined for salvation and others for damnation. And Gottschalk, the monk, taught that it was so: God had predestined some people for salvation and some for damnation, but none for sin. Gottschalk thus taught a contradiction for the external understanding.

[ 10 ] The dispute raged particularly fiercely in the 9th century. At a synod in Mainz, for example, Gottschalk's writing was declared heretical, and Gottschalk was flogged for this teaching. Nevertheless, even though Gottschalk had been flogged and imprisoned for this teaching, he was able to claim that he wanted nothing more than to restore the Augustinian teaching in its true form. People, especially French bishops and monks, also became aware that Gottschalk was actually teaching nothing other than what Augustine had already taught. Thus, a monk like Gottschalk was, in a sense, ahead of his time, teaching something from the traditions of ancient mystery knowledge that those who now wanted to understand everything with their dawning intellect could not comprehend and therefore fought against, while others, who were more attached to the venerability of the old, agreed with a theologian like Gottschalk.

[ 11 ] Today, people find it extremely difficult to understand that such a thing could have been disputed. But it was not merely disputed. At that time, if such teachings did not please one party, people were publicly flogged and imprisoned, and in the end they were proven right. For it was precisely the orthodox believers who then sided with Gottschalk, and Gottschalk's teaching remained the legitimate Catholic teaching. — Charles the Bald, of course, turned from his entire position toward Scotus Erigena in order to bring about a decision in his favor. Scotus Erigena did not decide in the sense of Gottschalk, but in the sense that in the development of humanity, the divinity lies within it, that evil can only appear to be something, otherwise evil would have to be in God. Since God can only be good, evil must be nothing; but nothingness cannot be something with which humans can ultimately be united. - Thus Scotus Erigena spoke out against Gottschalk.

[ 12 ] But the teachings of Scotus Erigena, which are roughly the same as those of the pantheists today, were then condemned by the orthodox Church, and the writings of Scotus Erigena were only rediscovered later. Everything that reminded people of him was burned; he was considered a true heretic. And when he made public the views he had presented to Charles the Bald, the Gottschalkians, who had now regained recognition, declared that Scotus Erigena was really just a chatterbox who adorned himself with all kinds of external scientific knowledge and who actually knew nothing about the inner mysteries of the supernatural. Another theologian wrote about the body and blood of Christ: “De corpore et sanguine domini.” In this writing, he also expressed what was a transparent doctrine to the old initiates: that bread and wine can indeed be transformed into the real body and blood of Christ.

[ 13 ] This writing was again presented to Charles the Bald. Scotus Erigena did not write a counter-treatise, but in his writings we find many indications of how he decided, and we find that this doctrine, which is indeed the orthodox Catholic doctrine, that bread and wine are truly transformed into the body and blood of Christ, must be modified because it cannot be understood. This is what Scotus Erigena already said at that time.

[ 14 ] In short, it was precisely in this 9th century that the struggle over the relationship between the human soul and the supersensible world raged particularly fiercely, and it was extremely difficult for the serious minds of the time to find their way. For everywhere in Christian dogma there were traces of ancient initiation truths, but there was a powerlessness to understand them. People examined what had been given outwardly in words—words that could only be understood after the souls had developed into the spiritual world—they examined what had been given outwardly in words according to what they were aware of in the unfolding of human reason at that time. And from these examinations arose the most serious struggles within Christian life in Europe at that time.

[ 15 ] Where did these soul experiences tend? They tended toward the development of two things in human beings that had not existed before. In the past, human beings looked into the sensory world, and by looking into the sensory world, they had, through their abilities, a simultaneous perception of the spiritual that shone through the sensory phenomena: they saw the spiritual through the sensory phenomena. Just as people did in the 9th century, ancient humans certainly did not see bread and wine, for that would have been a material perception. But humans had material perception together with spiritual perception.

[ 16 ] And just as little did people in those ancient times have such intellectual concepts and ideas as were already common in the 9th century. The thinness and abstractness of these concepts and ideas did not exist. What people experienced as concepts and ideas was still concrete and substantial. I have pointed out to you how gradually such things as grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astrology have become completely abstract. In earlier times, these sciences, into which man lived himself, were regarded in such a way that man came into relation — as I said at the time — with real, actual entities. But even then, and even more so in later times, these grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, and so on had become quite meagerly abstract, without any essence, and so on, standing almost only as garments, one might say, in contrast to what had existed in earlier times. And this developed further and further. The abstractness became more and more an abstractness of concepts, and the concrete became more and more merely external and sensual. And these two currents, which we see in the 9th century and under whose influence people then fought such terrible battles of the soul, these currents came up to the most recent times. Only they appear more in one place and less in another.p>

[ 17 ] They are actually very much alive in the contrast between Goethe and Schiller in the development of humanity. Yesterday I spoke of how Goethe was urged, when he became acquainted with Linnaeus' botany, to bring the plant world before his soul in living concepts. Living concepts, concepts that can be transformed, that can thus approach the imaginative. But I also pointed out how Goethe now stumbles when he wants to progress from the merely plant-like and living to the animal-like and sentient. He still approaches imagination, but no longer inspiration. He sees external things. With minerals, he has no reason to proceed to imagination, but with plants he does. He gets no further with this; abstract concepts are not his thing. Therefore, he does not grasp what is now a higher spiritual entity than the plant in abstract concepts. He therefore does not philosophize in the way that people philosophized in his time.

[ 18 ] Schiller philosophizes. He even learns to philosophize from Kant, until Kant's style becomes too colorful for him and he abandons it. But Schiller does not do this without the abstractness of concepts, which in turn cannot reach the essence. And when we compare Goethe and Schiller, we feel precisely this as the contrast that was never really bridged between the two, which was only balanced by the great humanity that lived in both of them.

[ 19 ] But this contrast became apparent when, in the 1790s, Goethe and Schiller were both confronted with the question: How does man actually attain a dignified existence? Schiller posed the question in his own way, in the form of abstract thinking, and he expressed what he had to say in his “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man.” He said: On the one hand, man is subject to logical, rational necessity. He has no freedom when he follows rational necessity. His freedom is lost in the necessity of reason. But he also has no freedom if he merely indulges his senses, the necessity of the senses; there he is compelled by instincts and drives, and there he is again not free. On both sides, toward the spirit and toward nature, man actually becomes a slave, unfree. And man can only become free, says Schiller, if he regards nature as if it were a living being, as if it had spirit and soul, if he thus elevates nature. But then he must also bring rational necessity down to nature. Man must, in a sense, regard nature as if it had reason. Then rigid rational necessity, rigid logic, disappears from reason. On the other hand, when humans express themselves figuratively, they create instead of analyzing and synthesizing logically; and in creating, humans take away nature's mere sensual necessity. But all this can only be expressed, said Schiller, in artistic creation and aesthetic enjoyment. If one simply stands opposite nature in any way, one is subject to instincts, to the drives of natural necessity. If one moves in one's mind, one must follow logical necessity if one does not want to be unfaithful to humanity. If one combines the two, then the necessity of reason is lowered and relinquishes some of its necessity to the sensual; the sensual relinquishes something of its instinctive nature. And we, for example, place human beings in sculptures as if spirit were already contained in the sensual itself. We lead the spirit down into sensuality by raising sensuality up to the spirit, and this gives rise to creation, to beauty. Only by creating beauty or enjoying beauty does man live in freedom.

[ 20 ] Consider that in writing these aesthetic letters, Schiller strove with all his inner soul to find something for human beings, for example, when human beings can be free. And he finds the only possibility of realizing human freedom in living in beautiful appearance. Man must flee from crude reality—as Schiller already says, even if he does not say so explicitly—if he wants to become free, that is, if he wants to achieve a dignified existence. Freedom can only be achieved in appearance.

[ 21 ] Nietzsche, who was still imbued with all these ideas and yet could not penetrate to a real understanding of the spirit, wrote his first book, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, in which he sought to show that The Greeks invented art in order to have something through which they could rise above the reality of the external senses as free human beings in human dignity, in which one can never achieve human dignity; they disregarded the reality of things in order to achieve the possibility of freedom in appearance, in artistic appearance. Nietzsche interpreted this in terms of Greek culture. In this respect, Nietzsche merely expressed in a radical way what was already present in Schiller's “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man.” One can therefore say that Schiller lived in an abstract spirituality, but at the same time there lived in him the impulse to give man his dignity. Look at the greatness, the splendor, the admirable qualities of these aesthetic letters. In terms of poetry and the power of the human soul, they are basically greater than all of Schiller's other works. They are actually the greatest thing Schiller ever did, if we consider his entire oeuvre. But Schiller struggles with this from his abstract standpoint, at which he had arrived, in the spirit of Western intellectual life, at intellectualism. He was unable to arrive at true reality from this standpoint. He could only achieve the appearance of beauty.

[ 22 ] When Goethe received these “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man,” he found it difficult to come to terms with them. Goethe was not well versed in the abstract course of human reason. But even for him, it was a problem how human beings achieve their human dignity, how spiritual entities must work together to give human beings their human dignity so that they awaken to the spiritual world and live their lives in it. Schiller could not move from the concept to reality. Goethe now wanted to express in his own way what Schiller had expressed in his aesthetic letters.

[ 23 ] He expressed it in his own pictorial way in the “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.” In all the characters we see soul forces working together to give man his free human dignity, to give him his human dignity in freedom. But Goethe could not find the way from what he could express merely in imagination to the real spiritual. Therefore, Goethe remained with fairy tales, with images, with a kind of higher symbolism, albeit an extraordinarily vivid symbolism, but still only a kind of symbolism. Schiller coined abstract concepts, but could not enter into reality and remained with appearances. Goethe, in his desire to understand human beings in their freedom, coined many images that were vivid, sensually vivid, but with which he also could not enter into reality. He remained stuck in the description of the sensual. See how beautiful this description of the sensual is in the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily; but the liberation of the paralyzed prince is not actually vivid, only symbolically vivid. The opposing currents that had arisen, which I have characterized for you, neither of which could actually enter the spiritual world, are expressed here in the two personalities. Both Schiller and Goethe basically strove to enter the spiritual world from opposite sides, but they could not enter.

[ 24 ] What was actually going on here? What I am about to tell you will seem strange, and yet anyone who looks at things with psychological impartiality will have to see them as I am about to describe them.

[ 25 ] Take the two currents that exist in scholasticism. First, there is rational knowledge, which draws its characteristics from sensuality but does not penetrate to reality. Through the most diverse forms, this current spreads further and further, from one personality to another, even down to Schiller. He is, in a sense, drawn into a type of knowledge of which scholasticism has said: one can only gain ideas from the sensual with it. But Schiller is incapable of this; he is far too strong a complete human being to recognize in sensuality something that human beings are allowed to be if they are to have human dignity. Scholastic knowledge only brings forth ideas from the sensory world. Schiller leaves the sensory world aside, and only ideas remain. In these, he does not achieve reality, but only beautiful appearances. He therefore struggles with the question: What should one actually do with this scholastic knowledge gained from man in order to somehow give man his dignity? One can no longer hold on to reality; one must take refuge in beautiful appearances. — You can see how the offshoot of the scholastic current of rational knowledge finds expression in Schiller.

[ 26 ] Goethe did not concern himself much with this rational knowledge. He was actually much more inspired by revelatory knowledge; you may find that strange, but it is nevertheless true. Logical reasoning did not suit Goethe. And even if he did not adhere strictly to Catholic dogma, the necessity of which he nevertheless recognized for artistic purposes later, when he wanted to complete his Faust, even if he did not adhere to Catholic dogma in his youth, he nevertheless adhered to that which approached the supernatural world as far as he could reach it. To speak of Goethe in terms of faith made him angry in a certain sense. When Jacobi spoke to him about faith in his youth, he said: “I stick to what I see.” Goethe wanted nothing to do with faith. Those who claim Goethe as a believer do not understand him at all. He wanted to see. And he was already on the way to rising from his imaginations to inspirations and intuitions. Of course, this would not have made him a medieval theologian, but he could have become an ancient God-fearer or a fearer of the supernatural worlds. He was already on his way there, but he was unable to ascend. He only got as far as perceiving the supersensible in the plant world. So that when he pursued the plant world, he was already pursuing the spiritual and the sensual side by side, as was also the case in the ancient initiation mysteries; but he stopped at the plants.

[ 27 ] What could he do? He could do nothing else but use the pictorial, symbolic, imaginative mode he had learned from plants to represent the entire supersensible world. And so, in essence, he only arrived at an imaginative representation of the world when he spoke of the soul in his fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily.

[ 28 ] Note: Where the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily reminds us of the plant world, of what can be approached through imagination, as Goethe developed it in relation to the plant world, there the fairy tale is particularly beautiful. Just try to let everything in this fairy tale that is in the style of plant imagination sink in, and it becomes absolutely beautiful. And basically, everything else in it also has a tendency to become a plant. The female figure, who is particularly important, he calls the lily. He cannot bring her to real, strong life; he gets her to have a kind of plant existence. And if you look at all the characters that appear in the fairy tale, they actually lead a plant existence; but where they have to be brought further up, the higher becomes only symbolic, and up there, they actually lead a sham existence.

[ 29 ] The kings who appear there are not really real either. They, too, only attain a plant-like existence; they only say that they have another. For there would have to be something inspired in the golden king, in the silver king, in the bronze king, if they were really to live in the spiritual world.

[ 30 ] So Goethe lives, one might say, a life of revelatory knowledge, of supersensible knowledge, which he only masters to a certain degree. Schiller lives out rational knowledge, the other kind that scholasticism developed, but which he cannot bear because he wants to bring it to reality, but only brings it to the reality of appearance in beauty.

[ 31 ] One could say: The tremendous inner truth in both personalities makes them so sincere that neither says more than he can say. Therefore, Goethe depicts the soul as if it were vegetation, and Schiller depicts the free man as if this free man could only live aesthetically. The aesthetic society, the aesthetic community, is what Schiller ultimately posits in his aesthetic letters as the “social demand,” one might say: Become such that social society presents itself as beautiful, says Schiller, if man is to become free. One can see in the relationship between Goethe and Schiller how these currents live on. What they would have needed would have been, in Goethe's case, the elevation of imagination to inspiration, and in Schiller's case, the enlivening of abstract concepts with the imaginative world. Only then could they have come together completely.

[ 32 ] And if you look into the souls of both of them, you must say: Both were predisposed to enter into a world of the spirit. How Goethe struggled with what he called piety! How Schiller put it: Which of the existing religions do you profess? — None, he says. Why? — Out of religion!

[ 33 ] We see how, especially for enlightened minds, with the expansion of the supersensible from what man can cognitively experience, the religious also flows. Thus, the religious must first be regained through the transformation of today's merely intellectual knowledge into spiritual knowledge.