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Festival of Easter
GA 233a

19 April 1924, Dornach

Lecture I

Countless numbers of human beings have felt the Festival of Easter to be something that is related on one side to the profoundest feelings of the human soul and on the other to very profound cosmic mysteries. Our attention is attracted to the connection of this festival with the mysteries of the universe by the fact that it is what is called a moveable feast and has to be regulated year by year according to those constellations of which we propose to speak more exactly during the next few days. When it is noted how all through the centuries religious customs and ceremonies having an intimate connection with humanity have been associated with the festival of Easter, we realise the very special value that has gradually come to be placed on it in the course of man's historical development.

From early Christian centuries—not indeed from the immediate foundation of Christianity, but from its early centuries—this has been a festival of the greatest importance, one associated with the fundamental idea and the fundamental impulse of Christianity, as revealed to Christian consciousness in the fact of the resurrection of Christ.

The Festival of Easter is the festival of resurrection, but points to times even before Christianity. It points to festivals connected with the period of the Spring equinox, which have certainly had something to do with the fixing of Easter, a festival that was associated with the re-awakening of Nature and the reviving life of the earth.

With this we have reached the point where we will at once speak of “Easter as a page from the History of the Mysteries,” in so far as the subject is one that can be dealt with in words. As a Christian festival Easter is a festival of resurrection. The corresponding heathen festival, which took place approximately at the same time, was a kind of resurrection-festival of Nature, a re-awakening of the objects of Nature, which had slumbered, if I may so express it, during the winter. Here I must explain that the Christian festival of Easter is absolutely not a festival that, according to its inner meaning and nature, is comparable with the heathen festival held at the time of the Spring equinox; but if we think of it as a Christian festival, it coincides absolutely with very ancient heathen festivals that had their source in the Mysteries and occurred in the Autumn. The strangest thing regarding the fixing of Easter, which quite obviously, according to its whole content, is connected with certain procedures in the Mysteries, is that it directs our attention to a radical and profound misunderstanding that has come to pass in the general acceptance of one of the most important facts concerning our human evolution. This is nothing less than that the Festival of Easter has been confused, in the course of the early Christian centuries, with an entirely different festival, and has on this account been changed from an Autumn to a Spring festival. This fact indicates something prodigious in human evolution. But let us consider for a moment the content of the Easter festival. What is most essential in it? The most essential thing in it is: that the Being who stands in the centre of Christian consciousness, Christ Jesus, passed through death; of this Good Friday reminds us. Christ Jesus then rested in the grave during the period of three days; this represents the union of Christ with earthly existence. The time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is held by Christians as a solemn festival of mourning. Then Easter Sunday is the day on which the central figure for all Christendom rose from the grave, the day on which this fact is held in remembrance. The essential content of the Easter festival is: the death, burial, the repose in the tomb (Grabes-ruhe), and resurrection of Christ Jesus.

Let us now consider some of the features of the corresponding ancient heathen festival. Only by doing this can we arrive at an inner comprehension of the connection between the Festival of Easter and the living content of the Mysteries (Mysterien-wesen). In many places, among many people we find ancient heathen festivals which in outward form and ceremonial resemble absolutely the main features of those of the Christian Easter. From among numerous ancient feasts let us take that of Adonis. This was met with among certain peoples, and over long periods of the past, in Asia-Minor. A statue provided its central point. This statue represented Adonis the spiritual prototype of all youthful growing forces, all the beauty of man.

It is true that ancient peoples have in many respects confused the image with what it represented. In this way these old religions have frequently acquired a fetishlike character. Many people saw in the statue the actual god of beauty—the youthful forces of man, the evolving germinal powers revealing in splendid life all that was glorious in existence, all that man possessed or could possess of inner worth and inner greatness.

With mournful singing and ceremonies expressive of the profoundest human grief and woe the divine image was on this day (if the sea happened to be near) sunk beneath the waves, where it remained for three days; otherwise an artificial tank was constructed so that it could be lowered into it. During these three days profound quiet and sorrow lay upon the whole community of those who followed this religion. When the three days were over the image was raised again from the water. The earlier songs of sorrow were turned into songs of joy, into hymns about the risen god, the god who had come back to life.

This was an outward ceremony, one that deeply stirred the hearts of wide circles of people. It recalled, by means of an outward act, what happened to every one attaining to initiation in the Holy Mysteries. Every man attaining initiation in these ancient times was conducted into a special chamber. The walls were black; the whole room, in which was nothing but a coffin, was dark and gloomy. The aspirant for initiation was then laid in the coffin by those who had conducted him there with solemn dirges, and was treated as one about to die. He was made to realise that, now he was placed in the coffin, he had to pass through what a man experiences when going through the gates of death, and during the three days following. The arrangements were carried out in such a way that he who was in the act of being initiated reached full inner comprehension of what a man experiences in the first three days after death.

On the third day there rose in a particular place before the eyes of him who lay in the coffin a budding branch representing springing life. The former songs of woe turned into hymns of joy. The neophyte, who had experienced all this, now rose from the grave with a changed consciousness. A new language had been imparted to him and a new writing: the language and the writing of the spirit.

If what took place in the depths of the Mysteries to those about to experience initiation were to be compared with the religious ceremony performed outside, this would have to be done in a figurative way, though similar in form, to that which was experienced by carefully selected individuals in the Mysteries. And the ceremony—take that of the cult of Adonis, for instance—was explained to those participating in it in an appropriate way. It was a religious act that took place in the Autumn, and those who took part in it were instructed as follows: Behold it is Autumn; the earth now loses its green plants, all its leafy covering. Everything withers. Instead of the fresh, green, sprouting life which arose to deck the earth in Spring, all is now bleak and bare, or perhaps covered with snow. Nature is dying. But when all around you dies, you must experience that which in man resembles to some degree the death you see in surrounding Nature. Man also dies, Autumn comes to him also. When life draws to an end it is well that the human heart and soul of those who survive should be filled with deepest sorrow. And in order that the full seriousness of the passage through the gates of death should rise before your souls, that you not only experience death when it comes but that you are reminded of it again and again each year, for this reason you are shown every Autumn how that Divine Being who represents the beauty, youth, and greatness of man dies, how he goes the way of all natural things. But just at the moment when Nature is most desolate and dreary, when death is near, you have to remember something else. You have to remember that though man passes through the gates of death, though here in earthly existence he only experiences things of a nature similar to that which perishes in Autumn, that so long as he lives on earth he only experiences temporal things, when once he is withdrawn from earth his life will continue on into the wide spaces of universal ether. There he sees himself grow ever larger and larger—he becomes one with the whole world. During the three days his life expands to the confines of the universe. While here, earthly eyes are directed to the image of death, to that which is mortal and perishable; out there, after three days, the immortal soul awakens. About three days after death it rises again; it is born anew in the land of the spirit.

All this was brought about in the depths of the Mysteries through an impressive inner transformation of the body of the neophyte who had presented himself for initiation. The notable impression, the tremendous forward push that human life received in this ancient form of initiation, was the awakening of the inner soul-forces, the waking of sight. This brought to him the knowledge that henceforth he lives not merely in the world of the senses but in the world of the spirit.

The teaching that from this time onwards was given on suitable occasions to the pupils of the Mysteries I can describe somewhat as follows:—They were told: what takes place in the Mysteries is a picture of what takes place in the spiritual world, and what takes place in the cosmos is a model for that which takes place in the Mysteries. What everyone who was admitted to the Mysteries had to realise was: the mysteries veil in earthly acts performed by men, what is experienced by them in other states of existence, and in the wide astro-spiritual spaces of the cosmos.

Those who in olden times were not admitted to the Mysteries, who on account of the degree of ripeness they had acquired in life were not fitted to receive direct vision of the spiritual world, had communicated to them in the ceremonies carried on in the Mysteries—that is in pictures—what was suited to them. So the purpose of the Mystery-Festival, which we have come to know as the one corresponding to the festival of Adonis, was for the purpose of arousing in the consciousness of men, or at least for placing before their eyes in pictures, the certainty that at the time of autumnal decay, when death overtakes everything in Nature, it also overwhelms Adonis, the representative of all youth and beauty, all the grandeur of the human soul. The god Adonis dies also. He passes into the water, into the earthly representative of the cosmic ether. But just as after three days he rises out of the water, or is taken from it, so the human soul is raised out of the water of the world; or in other words, out of the cosmic ether, some three days after passing through the gates of death. The secret of death is what these Ancient Mysteries sought to reveal, aided by the appropriate Autumn festival. It was clearly demonstrated and made obvious through the fact that the first half—the one side of the religious ceremony—accorded with dying Nature, but the other half with its opposite, with what is most essential to man's own existence. It was intended that man should look upon dying Nature so as to realise that, though to outward seeming he dies, according to inner reality he rises again in the spiritual world. The meaning of these old heathen festivals that were associated with the Mysteries was to reveal the truth concerning death.

In the course of human evolution a most important thing now took place, which was, that what the pupil passed through on a certain plane in regard to the death and resurrection of the soul when preparing himself for initiation into the Mysteries was consummated by Christ Jesus down to the physical body (bis zum Leibe). For how did the Mystery of Golgotha appear to one who was an adept in the Mysteries? Such an adept gazed into the ancient Mysteries. He saw how anyone preparing for initiation was led according to the state of his soul through death to resurrection, which meant to the awakening of the higher consciousness of his soul. The soul dies so that it may rise again in a higher state of consciousness. What has to be firmly maintained here is that the body does not die, but that the soul dies so that it may be awakened to a higher consciousness.

What the soul of every man experienced who passed through initiation was experienced by Christ Jesus as far as to the body; that simply means, it was experienced on a different plane, for Christ was no earthly man, but a Sun-being within the body of Jesus of Nazareth, and could experience in every part of his human nature what the ancient Initiate of the Mysteries experienced in his soul. Those who still existed as “Knowers” of the ancient Mysteries, who were conversant with the ceremony of initiation, were such men as have even to this day a deep understanding of what happened on Golgotha. What could such men say of it? They could say: Through thousands of years men have been brought to the secrets of the spiritual world through the death and resurrection of their souls. The soul was separated from the body during the ceremony of initiation. Through death it was led to everlasting life. What was experienced there by a few exceptional men has been experienced in the body by a Being who came down from the Sun at the baptism in Jordan and entered into the body of Jesus of Nazareth. That which for long thousands of years had been an ever-recurring procedure of the Mysteries had now become an historic fact. The most essential fact for men to know was this: that because the Being who entered into the body of Jesus of Nazareth was a Sun-being, that which could only take place as regards the souls, and in the soul-experiences of those presenting themselves for initiation, could now take place as far as bodily existence. In spite of the death of the body, in spite of the dissolving of the body of Jesus of Nazareth in the mortal earth, a resurrection of Christ could take place, because the Christ rose higher than the souls of those seeking initiation. Such men could not take their bodies into the deep regions of sub-material existence (tiefe Regionen des Untersinnlichen) as Christ Jesus did; and for this reason they could not rise so high at resurrection as the Christ did; to make the infinite difference of this apparent, the ancient ceremony of initiation was enacted as an historic fact for all the world to see on the place of consecration—on Golgotha.

In the early Christian centuries only a few people were aware that a Sun-Being—a Cosmic Being—had lived in Jesus of Nazareth, and that the earth had thereby been fructified (befruchtet); that a Being had actually descended to earth from the sun—a Being such as until then it had been possible to see only in the sun from the earth, through methods employed in the centres of initiation. The most essential fact regarding Christianity as accepted by those who had a real knowledge of the ancient mysteries was expressed as follows: The Christ to whom we could rise through initiation, the Christ we could find when we rose to the Sun in the ancient Mysteries, has descended into a mortal body, the body of Jesus of Nazareth. He has come down to earth. At first it was more what might be described as a holy attitude of mind—a solemn feeling of reverence, experienced in mind and soul, that made some understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha possible at the time. What formed the living content of human consciousness at that time gradually became, through events we shall learn of later, a festival of remembrance recalling the historical event of Golgotha.

As this memory developed, people lost the consciousness, more and more, of Christ as a Sun-Being.

Adepts in the wisdom of the Mysteries could not be in any uncertainty as to the nature of Christ. They knew well that true Initiates, those who had been initiated and had therefore become free from their physical bodies and had experienced death in their souls, rose as far as the Sun-sphere, and that there they found the Christ, that from Him, the Christ in the Sun, their souls received the impulse to resurrection; they knew who the Christ was, because they had raised themselves up to Him. These ancient Initiates, who understood what took place during initiation, knew from what took place on Golgotha that the same Being who formerly had to be sought in the Sun had now come down to men on earth. How did they know this? Because the proceedings in the Mysteries, undergone by the neophyte that he might rise to Christ in the sun, could no longer be carried out in the same way as before, for the simple reason that human nature had in the course of time become different. The ancient ceremony of initiation had become impossible because of the way in which the being of man had evolved. The Christ could no longer be sought in the Sun according to the methods of ancient initiation. He therefore came down to earth, there to accomplish a deed through which men might now find Him. That which is contained in this Mystery (Geheimnis) belongs to the most sacred things that can be spoken of on earth.

For how actually did the Mystery of Golgotha appear to men living in the centuries immediately following it? In ancient places of initiation men looked up towards existence on the Sun (Sonnendasein) and became aware, through initiation, of the Christ in the Sun. They looked out into space in order to draw near to Christ.

If I represent diagrammatically how evolution progresses in the ensuing years, I must represent it in time; that means I must represent the earth—in one year, in another, in a third year, as progressing in time. Spatially, the earth is always there, but the passage of time must be represented thus. (A diagram was shown).

The Mystery of Golgotha then took place. Let us suppose that a man who lived in the 8th century, instead of looking out from the Mysteries to the Sun in order to find Christ, looked to the turning-point of time at the beginning of the Christian era, looked to the time after the Mystery of Golgotha, he was then able to see the Christ in an earthly happening—in the Mystery of Golgotha. What had previously been perceived spatially had now, because of the Mystery of Golgotha, to be seen in time. (Sollte nun zeitliche Anschauung werden.) This was the fact of greatest importance.

It is especially when our souls are affected by all the things which took place in the Mysteries, and which were an image of the death of man, and the resurrection that followed, and when added to these we consider the form of the religious procedure, more especially at the festival of Adonis (which was again an image of what took place in the Mysteries), that we realise how these three things, united and raised to their highest aspect, were concentrated within the historic deed on Golgotha.

There now was seen on the outward plane of history what formerly had been enacted in deep inwardness in the sacred precincts of the Mysteries; what formerly had only been for Initiates was now there for all mankind to see. No longer was an image required that had to be sunk symbolically in the sea and raised from it again. Instead, men were to have the memory of what had actually happened on Golgotha. Instead of the outward symbol connected with an event that was experienced in space, inward, intangible, formless thoughts were to arise—thoughts that lived only in the soul, thoughts of the historical deed done on Golgotha.

In the centuries that followed we now become aware of an extraordinary development in humanity. The penetration of mankind into what was spiritual declined more and more. The spiritual content of the Mystery of Golgotha could no longer find a place in the souls of men. Evolution tended towards the training of a materialistic intelligence. Men lost the inward emotional understanding of such things as, for instance, that where the transitory quality of external Nature is revealed—at the moment when the life of Nature is seen to be most desolate and as if dying—is exactly the moment when the vitality of the spirit becomes most apparent. Mankind also lost understanding of the external festivals of the year: understanding that the coming of Autumn, bringing as it does death to the outward things of Nature, is the time when it is most easy to realize that the death of all these things is connected with the resurrection of what is spiritual.

Along with this, Autumn lost the possibility of being the season of resurrection; it lost the possibility of directing the mind, by way of the fleeting things of Nature, to the everlasting quality of the spirit. Man has need of the support of substance. He needs the support of that which does not die in Nature but springs again, the germinating power of seeds which fall to the ground in Autumn but rise again. Man accepts substance as a symbol of what is spiritual, because he is no longer capable of being stirred by substance to perceive spirit in its reality. Autumn has no longer power to demonstrate the immortality of spiritual things, as compared to the mortality of natural things, through the inner force of the human soul. Man has need of the support of Nature, of external resurrection. He likes to see how plants spring from the earth, how the strength of the sun increases, and the coming of light and warmth; he needs the resurrection of Nature in order to cultivate thoughts of resurrection.

But with this the direct connection linking it with the festival of Adonis disappears, as also that which can link it with the Mystery of Golgotha. That inner experience that comes to every one at earthly death loses power when the soul knows: man passes through earthly death, and during the three days that follow undergoes certain experiences of a very solemn nature; but later the soul is filled with inner joy and happiness, because it knows that after these three days it rises from death to spiritual immortality.

The power contained in the festival of Adonis was lost. Humanity was so organised at one time that this power could be developed with the greatest intensity. When looking on the death of the god, men saw the death of all that was beautiful in humanity, the death of all its splendour and youthful powers. With great sadness the god was laid beneath the waves on a day of mourning—Good Friday (Char-Freitag, Day of Mourning). People felt the deep solemnity of this, because it was intended to evoke in them realization of the frailty of all natural things. But it was intended that this feeling regarding the mortality of natural things should then be changed into a feeling concerning the super-sensible resurrection of the human soul after three days. As the god, or rather the likeness of the god, was raised from the water, the well-instructed believer saw in this image the representative of the human soul a few days after death. Behold! they said to him, what happens in spirit to those who die. What happens is brought before your soul in the likeness of the risen god—the god of beauty and of youthful vigour.

This outlook, which was bound up so deeply with the destiny of humanity, was brought directly before the human spirit every Autumn. It would not have been thought possible at that time to associate this with external Nature. What could be experienced in spirit was represented symbolically in ceremonial acts. But the image of a former time had to be effaced, it had to emerge again as memory—as formless, inward, soul-felt memory of the Mystery of Golgotha, which represented the same thing; at first men had not the power to carry out this change, because the spirit had passed into the subconscious part of human souls (in die Untergründe der Seele des Menschen ging). So things remained until our day; men had need of the support of external nature. But external nature provides no image—no complete image of the destiny of man after death. Thoughts about death persisted. Thoughts about resurrection faded more and more. Even if people spoke of resurrection as part of their belief it was not a vital fact in the lives of the men of later times. But it must become so once more; it must become so, because the Anthroposophical outlook stirs men's minds to true thoughts concerning resurrection.

If on one side it is said, at the appropriate season, thoughts on Michael are precious to the soul of the Anthroposophist as bringing thoughts of annunciation, if thoughts concerning Christmas give depth to his soul, those on Easter must be specially thoughts of joy. For Anthroposophy must add to the thought of death the thought of resurrection. She must herself become like a festival of resurrection within the souls of men, bringing an Easter spirit into their whole outlook on life. This Anthroposophy will do, when people have realised how the old thoughts of the Mysteries can live on in rightly conceived thoughts of Easter; when they have acquired a right understanding of the body, soul, and spirit of man, and of the destiny of these in the physical, psychic, and spiritual heavenly worlds.

Erster Vortrag

Das Osterfest wird von zahlreichen Menschen als etwas empfunden, das zusammenhängt auf der einen Seite mit den tiefsten Gefühlen und Empfindungen der Menschenseele, zusammenhängt aber auf der anderen Seite auch mit Weltengeheimnissen und Weltenrätseln. Man muß ja aufmerksam werden auf die Tatsache des Zusammenhanges des Osterfestes mit Weltengeheimnissen und Weltenrätseln dadurch, daß das Osterfest ein sogenanntes bewegliches Fest ist, das alljährlich ausgerechnet werden muß nach jener Sternkonstellation, die wir in diesen Tagen noch genauer besprechen wollen. Man muß aber auch, wenn man verfolgt, wie durch die Jahrhunderte festliche Gebräuche an das Osterfest geknüpft worden sind, Kulthandlungen, die einer zahlreichen Menschenschaft außerordentlich nahegehen, man muß auch daraus sehen, welchen ungeheuren Wert die Menschheit allmählich im Verlaufe ihres geschichtlichen Werdens in dieses Osterfest hineingelegt hat.

Nun ist das Osterfest in den ersten Jahrhunderten des Christentums, nicht gleich bei der Begründung, aber in den ersten Jahrhunderten des Christentums, ein wichtiges christliches Fest geworden, ein christliches Fest, das zusammenhängt mit dem Grundgedanken, dem Grundimpuls des Christentums, mit dem Impuls, der sich ergibt für das Christsein durch die Tatsache der Auferstehung Christi.

Das Osterfest ist das Auferstehungsfest. Aber das Osterfest weist hin auf ältere als die christlichen Zeiten. Es weist hin auf Feste, die mit der Zeit der Frühlings-Tagundnachtgleiche, die ja wenigstens mit der Berechnung der Österzeit etwas zu tun hat, zusammenhängen, mit jenen Festen, welche anknüpfen an die neuerwachende Natur, an das sprießende, der Erde wieder entwachsende Leben.

Und damit stehen wir an dem Punkte, wo wir, wenn die Dinge gerade zur Sprache kommen sollen, die das Thema dieser Ostervorträge bilden: das Osterfest als ein Stück Mysteriengeschichte der Menschheit, wo wir diese Dinge sogleich berühren müssen.

Das Osterfest als christliches Fest ist ein Auferstehungsfest. Das entsprechende heidnische Fest, das ungefähr in dieselbe Jahreszeit fällt wie das Osterfest, ist eine Art Auferstehungsfest der Natur, ein Wiederherauskommen dessen, was naturhaft die Winterszeit hindurch, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf, geschlafen hat. Aber damit kommen wir an denjenigen Punkt, wo wir betonen müssen, daß das christliche Osterfest ganz und gar nicht ein Fest ist, das irgendwie seinem inneren Sinn und Wesen nach zusammenfällt mit den heidnischen Festen der Frühlings-Tagundnachtgleiche, sondern das Osterfest, als christliches Fest gedacht, fällt eigentlich zusammen, wenn wir schon zurückgehen wollen auf die alten Heidenzeiten, mit alten Festen, die aus den Mysterien herausgewachsen sind und die in die Herbsteszeit fallen. Das Allermerkwürdigste in bezug auf die Festsetzung des Osterfestes, das ja gerade durch seinen Inhalt ganz offensichtlich zusammenhängt mit gewissem altem Mysterienwesen, das Allermerkwürdigste ist: gerade dieses Osterfest erinnert uns daran, welch radikale, welch tiefe Mißverständnisse geschehen sind in der Weltauffassung allerbedeutendster Dinge im Verlaufe der Menschheitsentwickelung. Denn es ist ja nichts Getingeres geschehen, als daß das Osterfest verwechselt worden ist im Laufe der ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte mit einem ganz anderen Feste, daß es dadurch verlegt worden ist von einem Herbstesfeste zu einem Frühlingsfeste.

Diese Tatsache weist eigentlich auf Ungeheures hin in der Menschheitsentwickelung. Aber sehen wir uns einmal den Inhalt dieses Osterfestes an. Was ist sein Wesentliches? Sein Wesentliches ist: Die Wesenheit, die in der Mitte des christlichen Bewußtseins steht, der Christus Jesus, geht durch den Tod, woran der Karfreitag erinnert. Der Christus Jesus ruht in dem Grabe die Zeit, welche in dreien Tagen verläuft und welche darstellt die Verbindung des Christus mit dem Erdendasein. Diese Zeit wird als Festeszeit, als Trauerfesteszeit begangen innerhalb des Christentums zwischen dem Karfreitag und dem Ostersonntag. Der Ostersonntag ist dann der Tag, an dem dieses Mittelpunktwesen des Christentums aus dem Grabe ersteht. Der Erinnerungstag daran ist es.

Damit haben wir den wesentlichen Inhalt des Osterfestes dargelegt: Tod, Grabesruhe, Auferstehung des Christus Jesus. Und nun sehen wir uns zunächst einmal das entsprechende alte heidnische Fest in irgendeiner Gestalt an. Nur dadurch kommen wir zu einer inneren Durchdringung des Zusammenhanges zwischen Osterfest und Mysterienwesen. Wir finden an vielen Orten, bei vielen Völkern alte heidnische Feste, welche in ihrer äußeren Struktur, in der Struktur des Kultus, durchaus ähnlich sind der Struktur des Osterinhaltes des Christentums.

Nehmen wir aus den mannigfaltigen alten Festlichkeiten das Adonisfest heraus. Bei gewissen vorderasiatischen Völkern wurde es begangen durch lange Zeiten des vorchristlichen Altertums. Ein Bild bildete den Mittelpunkt. Auf diesem Bilde war dargestellt Adonis, der geistige Repräsentant alles dessen, was im Menschen sprießende Jugendkraft ist, der Repräsentant alles dessen, was im Menschen sich als die Schönheit darstellt.

Gewiß, die alten Völker haben in mancher Beziehung verwechselt das, was eine Abbildung enthielt, mit demjenigen, was die Abbildung darstellte. Und so haben ja diese alten Religionen vielfach den Charakter des Fetischismus. Viele Menschen sahen in dem Bilde den gegenwärtigen Gott der Schönheit, der Jugendkraft des Menschen, der sich entwickelnden Keimeskraft, die in glanzvollem Dasein nach außen sich offenbart, die alles das im glanzvollen Dasein nach außen offenbart, was der Mensch an innerem Wert, an innerer Würde, an innerer Größe in sich enthält oder auch enthalten kann.

Dieses Götterbild wurde unter Gesängen, unter Kulthandlungen, die darstellten tiefste menschliche Trauer, tiefstes menschliches Leid, wenn es an einem Orte geschah, wo Meer in der Nähe war, in die Meeresfluten gesenkt, wo es drei Tage drinnen zu bleiben hatte, wo ein See war, in den See versenkt; sonst wurde sogar in der Nähe der Mysterienstätte ein künstlicher Teich angelegt, um dieses Götterbild in diesen Teich zu versenken und es drei Tage lang drinnen zu lassen. Während dieser drei Tage ruhte über dem Ganzen der Gemeinde, die sich zu diesem Kultus bekannte, die diesen Kultus ihr eigen nannte, tiefster Ernst, tiefste Stille. Nach dreien Tagen wurde das Bild aus dem Wasser geholt. Die vorherigen Trauergesänge wurden in Jubelgesänge, in Hymnen auf den wiedererstandenen Gott, auf den wiederum zum Leben gekommenen Gott verwandelt.

Das war eine äußerliche Zeremonie, das war eine Zeremonie, die weitesten Kreisen von Menschen das Gemüt tief aufrüttelte. Und diese Zeremonie deutete wiederum eben in einer äußeren Handlung, in einem äußeren Kultusverlauf an, was in den Tiefen der heiligen Mysterien sich abspielte mit jedem Menschen, der zur Initiation, zur Einweihung, kommen sollte. Jeder Mensch, der zur Initiation, zur Einweihung, kommen sollte, wurde in diesen alten Zeiten innerhalb der Mysterien in ein besonderes Gemach geführt. Die Wände waren schwarz, der ganze Raum, in dem nichts anderes enthalten war als ein Sarg oder wenigstens ein sargartiges Gebilde, war düster und dunkel. Und an diesem Sarg wurden von jenen, die den zu Initiierenden hineingeleiteten, Trauergesänge angestimmt, Todesgesänge angestimmt. Der zu Initiierende wurde behandelt wie einer, der da stirbt, und ihm wurde begreiflich gemacht, daß er nun, indem er in den Sarg gelegt wird, dasjenige durchzumachen habe, was der Mensch durchmacht, wenn er durch die Todespforte geht und die nächsten drei Tage verlebt. Die Anordnung war auch so getroffen, daß dem zu Initiierenden zur völligen inneren Klarheit kam, was der Mensch in den ersten drei Tagen nach dem Tode durchmacht.

Am dritten Tage erhob sich an einer bestimmten Stelle, auf die hinschauen konnte der, der in dem Sarge lag, ein Zweig, darstellend das sprießende Leben. Die früheren Trauergesänge verwandelten sich in Hymnen, in Jubelgesänge. Der Betreffende erhob sich aus seinem Grabe mit verwandeltem Bewußtsein. Ihm wurde mitgeteilt eine neue Sprache, eine neue Schrift, die Sprache der Geister, die Schrift der Geister. Er durfte jetzt schauen, er konnte auch schauen die Welt vom Gesichtspunkte des Geistes.

Wenn man dieses mit den Einzuweihenden in den Tiefen der Mysterien Veranstaltete verglich mit dem, was als Kultushandlungen draußen vollzogen wurde, dann war der Inhalt des Kultus bildhaft, aber in seiner ganzen Struktur ähnlich dem, was da geschah mit den auserlesenen Menschen innerhalb der Mysterien. Und der Kultus nehmen wir als den Repräsentanten den speziellen Adoniskultus -, der Kultus wurde auch denjenigen, die daran teilnahmen, in entsprechender Zeit erklärt. Dieser Kultus fand ja statt zur Herbsteszeit, und diejenigen, die an diesem Kultus teilnahmen, wurden etwa in der folgenden Art belehrt: Seht, es ist Herbsteszeit. Die Erde ‚verliert ihren Pflanzen-, ihren Blattesschmuck. Alles welkt hinunter. An die Stelle des grünenden, sprießenden Lebens, das im Frühling begonnen hat die Erde zu bedecken, wird der die Erde einhüllende Schnee kommen oder wenigstens die die Erde verödende Dürre. Die Natur erstirbt. Aber indem um euch herum alles erstirbt, sollt ihr erleben, was im Menschen zur Hälfte ähnlich ist dem Sterben, das in aller Natur ringsherum ist. Auch der Mensch stirbt. Auch für ihn kommt ein Herbst. Wenn es mit dem Leben zu Ende geht, dann ist es recht, wenn das menschliche Gemüt derjenigen, die übrigbleiben, sich erfüllt mit tiefer Trauer. Und damit der ganze Ernst des Durchganges durch den Tod vor eure Seele trete, damit ihr nicht bloß den Tod erlebt, wenn er an euch herantritt, sondern damit ihr euch immer wieder und wiederum an ihn erinnern könnt, so wird eben allherbstlich gezeigt, wie gerade dasjenige göttliche Wesen, das da ist der Repräsentant der Schönheit, der Jugend, der Größe des Menschen, wie dieses göttliche Wesen stirbt, wie dieses göttliche Wesen den Gang macht, den alles Naturhafte macht. Aber gerade wenn die Natur in ihre Öde eingeht, wenn es in der Natur ins Sterben kommt, dann sollt ihr euch erinnern an etwas anderes. Dann sollt ihr euch erinnern, daß der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geht, daß, während er hier im irdischen Dasein nur Dinge erlebt hat, die gleich sind denen, die im Herbste ersterben, während er hier im Irdischen nur die Dinge erlebt hat, die vergänglich sind, daß er von der Erde abgezogen wird und in die Weiten des Weltenäthers sich hinauslebt. Er sieht sich immer größer und größer werden, er wird so, daß die ganze Welt sein eigen wird. Er lebt sich hinaus durch drei Tage in das ganze weite Weltenall. Und dann, während das irdische Auge hier hingelenkt ist auf das Bild des Todes, während das irdische Auge hingelenkt ist auf dasjenige, was stirbt, auf das Vergängliche, erwacht drüben im Geiste nach dreien Tagen die unsterbliche Menschenseele. Sie steht drüben auf. Sie steht auf, um drei Tage nach dem Tode geboren zu werden für das Geisterland.

In eindringlicher innerer Wandlung wurde dies vollzogen am eigenen Leibe des zu Initiierenden innerhalb der Tiefe der Mysterien. Und der bedeutsame Eindruck, der ungeheure Ruck, den das Menschenleben bekam durch diese alte Art der Initiation — wir werden sehen, daß das in der Neuzeit nicht so vor sich gehen kann, sondern in ganz anderer Weise -, der weckte innere Seelenkräfte, der weckte das Schauen, der brachte den Menschen dahin zu wissen: Er steht nunmehr nicht bloß in der Sinneswelt, er steht nunmehr in der geistigen Welt.

Und was wiederum zu einer entsprechenden Zeit als Belehrung an diejenigen herankam, die Schüler der Mysterien waren, das kann ich etwa in die folgenden Worte zusammenfassen. Diesen Schülern der Mysterien wurde gesagt: Was in den Mysterien vorgeht, ist Bild von dem, was in der geistigen Welt vorgeht, was im Kosmos vorgeht; Kultus ist Bild von dem, was in den Mysterien vorgeht. - Denn dessen war sich jeder, der zu den Mysterien zugelassen worden ist, klar: Die Mysterien umschlossen im Irdischen Vorgänge, die am Menschen sich abspielten und die durchaus Abbilder waren dessen, was in den Weiten des astralgeistigen Kosmos von dem Menschen in anderen Daseinsformen erlebt wird als in der irdischen. Denjenigen, die in diesen alten Zeiten nicht zugelassen worden sind zu den Mysterien, weil sie nach ihrer Lebensreife nicht ausersehen sein konnten, die Anschauung der geistigen Welt unmittelbar zu empfangen, denen wurde im Kultus, das heißt im Bilde dessen, was in den Mysterien vorging, das Entsprechende beigebracht.

So war das entsprechende Mysterienfest, das wir an dem Beispiel des Adonisfestes kennengelernt haben, dazu da, während des herbstlichen Welkens, während des herbstlichen Ödewerdens des Irdischen, während des herbstlichen radikalen Darstellens der Vergänglichkeit der irdischen Dinge, während des herbstlichen Darstellens des Sterbens und des Todes, in dem Menschen die Gewißheit oder wenigstens die Anschauung hervorzurufen: der Tod, der über die ganze Natur im Herbste kommt, der kommt auch über den Menschen, er kommt auch über den Repräsentanten der Schönheit, Jugend und Größe der Menschenseele, die im Gotte Adonis dargestellt wird. Auch der Gott Adonis stirbt. Er geht auf in den irdischen Repräsentanten des Weltenäthers, in das Wasser. Aber so, wie er sich erhebt aus dem Wasser, so wie er geholt werden kann aus dem Wasser, so wird des Menschen Seele geholt aus den Wassern der Welt, das heißt aus dem Äther des Kosmos, nach ungefähr dreien Tagen, nachdem der Mensch hier auf Erden durch die Todespforte gegangen ist.

Das Geheimnis des Todes selber sollte dargestellt werden in diesen alten Mysterien durch das entsprechende Herbstesfest. Und anschaulich sollte das Dargestellte dadurch werden, daß der Kultus auf der einen Seite in seiner ersten Hälfte zusammenfiel mit dem Sterben, mit dem Tode der Natur, auf der anderen Seite aber das Gegenteil darstellte, als das Wesentliche des Menschenwesens selber. Der Mensch soll hinschauen auf das Sterben der Natur - so war es gemeint —, um gewahr zu werden, wie er nach dem äußeren Scheine stirbt, nach dem inneren Wesen aber aufersteht zunächst für die geistige Welt. Die Wahrheit über den Tod zu enthüllen, das war der Sinn dieses alten heidnischen, an die Mysterien angelehnten Festes.

Nun geschah im Laufe der Menschheitsentwickelung dieses Bedeutsame, daß dasjenige, was auf einem gewissen Niveau der Einzuweihende in den Mysterien durchmachte, das Sterben und Wiederauferstehen der Seele, daß das bis zum Leibe hin sich vollzog mit dem Christus Jesus. Denn wie stellt sich für den Kenner der Mysterien das Mysterium von Golgatha dar? Der Kenner der Mysterien schaut in die alten Mysterien hinein. Er sieht, wie der Einzuweihende seiner Seele nach geführt wurde durch den Tod zur Auferstehung der Seele, das heißt zum Erwecken eines höheren Bewußtseins in der Seele. Die Seele starb, um aufzuerstehen in einem höheren Bewußtsein. Was hier festgehalten werden muß, das ist, daß der Leib nicht starb, daß die Seele aber starb, um zu einem höheren Bewußtsein erweckt zu werden.

Was die Seele eines jeden zu Initiierenden durchmachte, das machte der Christus Jesus bis zum Leibe durch, also einfach auf einem anderen Niveau. Weil der Christus kein irdischer Mensch, sondern ein Sonnenwesen im Leibe des Jesus von Nazareth war, konnte dasselbe, was der alte zu Initiierende in den Mysterien seiner Seele nach durchmachte, der ganzen Menschennatur nach durchmachen der Christus Jesus auf Golgatha.

Diejenigen, die noch da waren als Kenner der alten Mysterien, als Wissende dieser Initiationshandlung, sie waren wohl die Menschen, auch bis heute diejenigen Menschen, welche am tiefsten verstanden, was auf Golgatha geschehen war. Denn, was konnten sie sich sagen? Sie konnten sich sagen: Durch Jahrtausende hindurch sind Menschen in die Geheimnisse der geistigen Welt durch den Tod und die Auferstehung ihrer Seele geführt worden. Die Seele ist von dem Leibe getrennt gehalten worden während der Einweihungshandlung. Sie ist durch den Tod zum ewigen Leben geführt worden. Was da erlebt worden ist von einer Anzahl von auserlesenen Menschen, das hat ein Wesen erlebt bis in den Leib hinein, das bei der Johannestaufe im Jordan heruntergestiegen ist von der Sonne und Besitz ergriffen hat von dem Leibe des Jesus von Nazareth. Geschichtliche Tatsache ist geworden, was sich wiederholende Einweihungshandlung durch lange, lange Jahrtausende hindurch gewesen war.

Das war das Wesentliche, daß man wußte: Weil es ein Sonnenwesen war, das Besitz ergriffen hatte von dem Leibe des Jesus von Nazareth, deshalb konnte das, was sich bei den zu Initiierenden nur vollzog in bezug auf die Seele und ihre Erlebnisse - es konnte sich vollziehen bis in das Leibesdasein hinein. Es konnte vollzogen werden trotz des Todes des Leibes, trotz des Aufgehens des Leibes des Jesus von Nazareth in der sterblichen Erde, eine Auferstehung des Christus, weil dieser Christus höher hinaufsteigt, als die Seele des zu Initiierenden hinaufsteigen konnte. Den Leib konnte der zu Initiierende nicht in so tiefe Regionen des Untersinnlichen bringen, wie ihn der Christus Jesus gebracht hat. Deshalb konnte der zu Initiierende nicht so hoch hinaufsteigen mit der Auferstehung wie der Christus; aber bis zu diesem Unterschiede hinsichtlich der Weltengröße ist die alte Einweihungshandlung als historische Tatsache erschienen auf der Weihestätte von Golgatha.

Es haben auch nur wenige in den ersten Jahrhunderten des Christentums gewußt, daß ein Sonnenwesen, ein kosmisches Wesen, in dem Jesus von Nazareth gelebt hat und die Erde dadurch befruchtet worden ist, daß von der Sonne wirklich heruntergekommen ist ein Wesen, das vorher von der Erde aus durch die Methoden der Initiationsstätten nur in der Sonne hat gesehen werden können. Und es war das Wesentliche des Christentums, insoferne es angenommen haben auch die rechten Kenner der alten Mysterien, daß gesagt werden konnte: Der Christus, zu dem wir uns erhoben haben dadurch, daß wir eingeweiht worden sind, der Christus, den wir durch unseren Aufstieg zur Sonne in den alten Mysterien haben erreichen können, der ist heruntergestiegen in einen sterblichen Leib, in den Leib des Jesus von Nazareth. Er ist zur Erde heruntergekommen.

Es war zunächst, ich möchte sagen, eine festliche Stimmung, mehr als eine festliche Stimmung, eine hochheilige Stimmung, welche diejenigen Seelen und Gemüter erfüllte, die in der Zeit des Mysteriums von Golgatha etwas von diesem Mysterium von Golgatha verstanden. Was da ein lebendiger Inhalt des Bewußtseins war, das wurde allmählich durch Vorgänge, die wir noch kennenlernen wollen, ein Erinnerungsfest an den historischen Vorgang auf Golgatha.

Aber während sich diese Erinnerung herausbildete, verlor man immer mehr und mehr das Bewußtsein davon, wer der Christus als Sonnenwesen war. Die Kenner der alten Mysterien konnten sich ja nicht im Unklaren sein über die Wesenheit des Christus. Sie wußten ja, daß die wirklichen Eingeweihten, die wirklichen Initiierten dadurch, daß sie unabhängig gemacht wurden von ihrem physischen Leibe, in ihrer Seele durch den Tod gingen, sich erhoben bis in die Sonnensphäre und da den Christus aufsuchten und von ihm, von dem Christus in der Sonne, den Impuls zur Auferstehung der Seele empfingen; sie wußten, wer der Christus ist, weil sie sich zu ihm erhoben hatten. Diese alten Initiierten, die Kenner dieser Initiationshandlung, die wußten aus dem, was auf Golgatha vorging, daß dasselbe Wesen, das früher in der Sonne gesucht werden mußte, nun zu den Menschen auf die Erde niedergestiegen war. Warum? Weil jene Handlung, die in den alten Mysterien zum Erreichen des Christus in der Sonne mit dem zu Initiierenden vollzogen war, so nicht mehr vollzogen werden konnte, weil die Menschennatur einfach im Laufe der Zeit eine andere geworden ist. Die alte Einweihungszeremonie war nach der Entwickelungsart der Menschenwesenheit eine Unmöglichkeit geworden. Es hätte der Christus durch die alte Einweihungszeremonie in der Sonne nicht mehr gesucht werden können. Da stieg er denn herab, um auf der Erde eine Handlung zu vollziehen, nach welcher nun die Menschen hinschauen konnten.

Es gehört das, was sich in dieses Geheimnis schließt, zu dem Allerheiligsten, das man auf dem Erdenboden aussprechen kann.

Denn wie stellte sich eigentlich die Sache für die Menschen der auf das Mysterium von Golgatha folgenden Jahrhunderte dar?

Soll ich das schematisch zeichnen, so müßte ich es so zeichnen: Wenn das die Erde ist, so sah man aus einer alten Einweihungsstätte herauf (rechts: rot) zum Sonnendasein und wurde durch die Initiation den Christus in der Sonne gewahr. Man sah in den Raum hinaus, um an den Christus heranzutreten.

Will ich schematisch darstellen, wie die Entwickelung nun in der Folgezeit war, so muß ich die Zeit darstellen, das heißt die Erde - in einem Jahr, im dritten Jahr, fortlaufend in der Zeit; die Erde räumlich ist ja immer da, aber den Zeitenlauf stellen wir so dar. Es hat sich abgespielt das Mysterium von Golgatha. Ein Mensch, der, sagen wir, im 8. Jahrhundert lebt, statt daß er vom Mysterium aus in die Sonne schaut, um zum Christus zu kommen, schaut jetzt auf die Zeitenwende bis zum Beginn der christlichen Zeitrechnung, schaut in der Zeit hin nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha (siehe Zeichnung, gelber Pfeil); er kann in einer Erdenhandlung, in einem Erdengeschehen den Christus innerhalb des Mysteriums von Golgatha finden.

Was früher räumliche Anschauung war, sollte nun zeitliche Anschauung werden durch das Mysterium von Golgatha. Das war das Bedeutsame, was geschehen war.

Aber gerade, wenn wir auf die Seele wirken lassen, was in den Mysterien bei der Initiation sich abspielte und was ein Bild war vom Tod und von der Auferstehung des Menschen nach dem Tode, und wenn wir dazunehmen die Struktur der Kultushandlungen, zum Beispiel des Adonisfestes, die wiederum ein Bild waren dessen, was in den Mysterien vorging, so erscheint uns wie aufs Höchste hinaufgehoben das alles, dieses Dreifache vereinigt, konzentriert in der historischen Handlung auf Golgatha.

Äußerlich in der Geschichte erscheint, was tief innerlich in dem Heiligtum der Mysterien sich vollzogen hat. Für alle Menschen ist da, was vorher nur für die Eingeweihten da war. Man braucht kein Bild mehr, das in das Meer versenkt wird, das symbolisch aus dem Meere aufersteht. Man soll vielmehr haben den Gedanken, die Erinnerung an das, was auf Golgatha wirklich geschehen ist. An die Stelle des äußeren Sinnbildes, das sich eben auf einen Vorgang, der im Raum erlebt wurde, bezog, sollte treten das innerlich sinnlich bildlose Gedenken, das bloß in der Seele erlebte Gedenken an die historische Handlung auf Golgatha.

Nun werden wir eine merkwürdige Entwickelung der Menschheit in den folgenden Jahrhunderten gewahr. Das Eindringen der Menschen in die Geistigkeit nimmt immer mehr und mehr ab. Der geistige Inhalt des Mysteriums von Golgatha kann nicht Platz greifen in den Gemütern der Menschen. Die Entwickelung geht nach der Ausbildung des materiellen Sinnes. Man verliert das innere Herzensverständnis für das Folgende, man verliert das Verständnis dafür, daß da, wo die äußere Natur sich als Vergänglichkeit, sich als ersterbendes ödes Sein darstellt, gerade die Lebendigkeit des Geistes erschaut werden kann. Man verliert auch das Verständnis für die äußere Festlichkeit: daß dann, wenn der Herbst mit seinem Sterben kommt, am besten empfunden werden kann, wie dem Sterben des Irdisch-Naturhaften gegenübersteht das Auferstehen des Geistigen.

Damit verliert der Herbst die Möglichkeit, Zeit zu sein für das Auferstehungsfest. Der Herbst verliert die Möglichkeit, aus der Naturvergänglichkeit heraus gerade den Sinn hinzuweisen auf die Geist-Ewigkeit. Man braucht die Anlehnung an das Materielle. Man braucht die Anlehnung an das, was nicht stirbt in der Natur, was in der Natur aufsprießt, was in der Natur als die Samenkraft, die im Herbste in die Erde versenkt wird, aufersteht. Man nimmt das Materielle als ein Symbolum für das Geistige, weil man sich durch das Materielle nicht mehr anregen lassen kann, das Geistige in seiner Wirklichkeit zu empfinden. Der Herbst hat nicht mehr die Kraft, gegenüber dem Vergänglichen im Naturhaften die Unvergänglichkeit des Geistigen durch die innere Macht der Menschenseele zu offenbaren. Man braucht die Anlehnung an die äußere Natur, an die äußere Auferstehung. Man will sehen, wie die Pflanzen sprießen aus der Erde, wie die Sonne an Kraft gewinnt, wie das Licht und die Wärme wiederum an Kraft gewinnen. Man braucht die Auferstehung in der Natur, um den Auferstehungsgedanken zu feiern.

Damit aber verschwindet auch jenes unmittelbare Verhältnis, das verbunden war mit dem Adonisfeste, das verbunden sein kann mit dem Mysterium auf Golgatha. Jenes innere Erlebnis verliert an Kraft, das auftreten kann beim irdischen Tode eines jeden Menschen, wenn die Menschenseele weiß: der Mensch geht irdisch durch die Pforte des Todes, macht durch drei Tage hindurch etwas durch, was den Menschen allerdings ernst stimmen kann; dann aber muß die Seele innerlich fröhlich werden, innerlich festlich und freudig gestimmt werden, weil sie weiß, daß gerade aus dem Tode heraus sich in geistiger Unsterblichkeit die Menschenseele nach dreien Tagen erhebt.

Jene Kraft, welche im Adonisfeste lag, sie ist verlorengegangen. Zunächst war für die Menschheit veranlagt, daß diese Kraft mit einer größeren Intensität erstehen sollte. Man sah hin auf den Tod des Gottes, alles Schönen in der Menschheit, alles Großen, alles Jugendkraftvollen. Dieser Gott wird in das Meer versenkt am Trauertag, am Chartage. Chara ist Trauer. Man kam in ernste Stimmung, weil man zunächst die Stimmung entwickeln wollte an der Vergänglichkeit des Naturhaften.

Dann aber sollte gerade diese Stimmung gegenüber der Vergänglichkeit des Naturhaften hinüberwandeln die Menschenseele zu der Stimmung gegenüber dem übersinnlichen Auferstehen der Menschenseele nach dreien Tagen. Als der Gott wieder herausgehoben wurde beziehungsweise sein Bild, da sah nun der richtig unterrichtete Gläubige das Bild der Menschenseele einige Tage nach dem Tode: Was im Geiste geschieht mit den gestorbenen Menschen, siehe da, es stellt sich vor deine Seele hin in dem Bilde des auferstandenen Gottes der Schönheit und Jugendkraft.

Dasjenige, was mit dem Menschenschicksal so tief verbunden ist, wurde alljährlich im Herbste unmittelbar im Geiste des Menschen erweckt. Man hätte es in der damaligen Zeit nicht für möglich gehalten, an die äußere Natur anzuknüpfen. Was im Geiste erlebt werden konnte, das stellte man in der Kultushandlung, in der symbolischen Handlung dar. Als aber gerade das Bild der alten Zeit getilgt werden sollte, als Erinnerung - bildlose, innere, seelisch erlebte Erinnerung an das Mysterium von Golgatha, das dasselbe darstellt - eintreten sollte, da hatte die Menschheit zunächst nicht die Kraft, das zu vollziehen, weil der Geist in die Untergründe der Seele des Menschen ging. Da blieb denn bis in unsere Zeit die Sache so, daß man die Anlehnung an die äußere Natur brauchte. Aber die äußere Natur gibt kein Sinnbild, kein vollständiges Sinnbild vom Schicksale des Menschen im Tode. Der Todesgedanke, er konnte fortleben. Der Auferstehungsgedanke ist immer mehr und mehr geschwunden. Und wenn auch von der Auferstehung als einem Glaubensinhalte gesprochen wird, lebendig ist die Auferstehungstatsache der Menschheit der neueren Zeit nicht. Sie muß es wieder werden, sie muß es dadurch werden, daß anthroposophische Anschauung den Menschensinn wieder erweckt für den wahren Auferstehungsgedanken.

Wenn daher auf der einen Seite, wie das zur rechten Zeit gesagt worden ist, dem anthroposophischen Gemüte der Michaelsgedanke naheliegen muß als der ankündigende Gedanke, wenn sich dem anthroposophischen Gemüte der Weihnachtsgedanke vertiefen muß, der Ostergedanke muß ein besonders festlicher werden. Denn Anthroposophie muß hinzufügen zu dem Todesgedanken den Auferstehungsgedanken. Sie muß selber werden wie ein inneres Auferstehungsfest der Menschenseele. Sie muß eine österliche Stimmung in die Weltanschauung des Menschen bringen. Sie wird es bringen können, wenn verstanden wird, wie der alte Mysteriengedanke in dem wahrhaft erfaßten Ostergedanken weiterleben kann, wenn eine richtige Anschauung ersteht von Leib, Seele und Geist des Menschen und von dem Schicksal von Leib, Seele und Geist des Menschen in der physischen, seelischen und geistig-himmlischen Welt.

First Lecture

Easter is perceived by many people as something that is connected on the one hand with the deepest feelings and sensations of the human soul, but on the other hand it is also connected with world mysteries and world riddles. One has to become aware of the fact that Easter is connected with the mysteries and riddles of the world because Easter is a so-called movable feast, which has to be calculated every year according to the constellation of the stars, which we want to discuss in more detail in these days. But if you follow how festive customs have been linked to Easter through the centuries, ritual acts that are extremely close to a large number of people, you must also see from this what enormous value mankind has gradually placed in this Easter in the course of its historical development.

Now in the first centuries of Christianity, not immediately at its foundation, but in the first centuries of Christianity, Easter became an important Christian festival, a Christian festival that is connected with the basic idea, the basic impulse of Christianity, with the impulse that arises for being a Christian through the fact of the resurrection of Christ.

Easter is the feast of the resurrection. But Easter points to times older than the Christian era. It points to festivals that are connected with the time of the vernal equinox, which at least has something to do with the calculation of Easter time, with those festivals that tie in with the new awakening of nature, with the sprouting life that is growing out of the earth again.

And this brings us to the point where, if we are to discuss the things that form the theme of these Easter lectures: Easter as a piece of the mystery history of humanity, we must immediately touch on these things.

Easter as a Christian festival is a festival of resurrection. The corresponding pagan festival, which falls at about the same time of year as Easter, is a kind of resurrection festival of nature, a re-emergence of that which has been dormant, if I may put it that way, throughout the winter. But this brings us to the point where we must emphasize that the Christian Easter is not at all a festival that somehow coincides in its inner meaning and essence with the pagan festivals of the spring equinox, but Easter, conceived as a Christian festival, actually coincides, if we want to go back to the old pagan times, with old festivals that have grown out of the mysteries and that fall in the autumn season. The most remarkable thing with regard to the celebration of Easter, which is quite obviously connected by its content with certain ancient mysteries, is that it is precisely this Easter that reminds us of the radical and profound misunderstandings that have occurred in the world view of the most important things in the course of human development. For nothing less has happened than that in the course of the first Christian centuries Easter has been confused with a completely different festival, that it has been shifted from an autumn festival to a spring festival.

This fact actually points to something tremendous in the development of mankind. But let us take a look at the content of this Easter festival. What is its essence? Its essence is that the being at the center of Christian consciousness, the Christ Jesus, passes through death, as Good Friday reminds us. The Christ Jesus rests in the tomb for the time which runs in three days and which represents the connection of the Christ with earthly existence. This time is celebrated as a festive time, a time of mourning within Christianity between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday is then the day on which this central being of Christianity rises from the grave. It is the day of remembrance.

Thus we have set out the essential content of Easter: Death, rest in the tomb, resurrection of Christ Jesus. And now let us first take a look at the corresponding ancient pagan festival in some form. This is the only way to gain an inner understanding of the connection between Easter and the mysteries. In many places, among many peoples, we find ancient pagan festivals which, in their external structure, in the structure of the cult, are quite similar to the structure of the Easter content of Christianity.

Let us take the Adonis festival out of the many ancient festivities. It was celebrated by certain Near Eastern peoples throughout long periods of pre-Christian antiquity. An image formed the centerpiece. This image depicted Adonis, the spiritual representative of everything that is the sprouting power of youth in man, the representative of everything that is beauty in man.

Certainly, the ancient peoples in many respects confused what an image contained with what the image represented. And so these old religions often have the character of fetishism. Many people saw in the image the present god of beauty, of the youthful power of man, of the developing germinal power that reveals itself outwardly in a glorious existence, that reveals outwardly in a glorious existence everything that man contains or can contain within himself in terms of inner value, inner dignity, inner greatness.

This image of the gods was lowered into the ocean waters, where it had to remain inside for three days, where there was a lake; otherwise an artificial pond was even created near the place of mystery in order to sink this image of the gods into this pond and leave it inside for three days. During these three days, the whole community that professed this cult, that called this cult their own, rested in the deepest seriousness, the deepest silence. After three days, the image was taken out of the water. The previous songs of mourning were transformed into songs of jubilation, hymns to the resurrected God, to the God who had come back to life.

This was an outward ceremony, a ceremony that deeply stirred the minds of the widest circles of people. And this ceremony in turn indicated in an external act, in an external ritual process, what was taking place in the depths of the sacred mysteries with every human being who was to come to initiation, to initiation. In those ancient times, every person who was to come for initiation was led into a special chamber within the Mysteries. The walls were black, the whole room, which contained nothing other than a coffin or at least a coffin-like structure, was gloomy and dark. And at this coffin, those who led the person to be initiated into it sang funeral songs, death songs. The person to be initiated was treated like someone who was dying, and it was made clear to him that by being placed in the coffin he would now have to go through what a person goes through when he passes through the gate of death and spends the next three days. The arrangement was also made in such a way that the person to be initiated came to complete inner clarity about what the person goes through in the first three days after death.

On the third day, at a certain place where the person lying in the coffin could look, a branch rose up, representing the sprouting life. The earlier songs of mourning turned into hymns, songs of rejoicing. The person in question rose from his grave with a transformed consciousness. He was given a new language, a new script, the language of the spirits, the script of the spirits. He was now allowed to see, he could also see the world from the point of view of the spirit.

If one compares what was organized with the initiates in the depths of the Mysteries with what was carried out as cult acts outside, then the content of the cult was figurative, but in its whole structure similar to what happened there with the selected people within the Mysteries. And the cult - let us take the special Adonis cult as the representative - was also explained to those who took part in it at the appropriate time. This cult took place in the fall, and those who took part in it were taught something like this: "Look, it's fall. The earth 'loses its plant and leaf ornaments. Everything withers away. The green, sprouting life that began to cover the earth in spring will be replaced by snow that envelops the earth, or at least by drought that desolates the earth. Nature is dying. But as everything around you dies, you shall experience what in man is half similar to the dying that is in all nature around. Man also dies. An autumn comes for him too. When life comes to an end, it is right that the human mind of those who remain should be filled with deep sorrow. And so that the whole seriousness of the passage through death may come before your soul, so that you do not merely experience death when it approaches you, but so that you can remember it again and again and again, it is shown all autumn how that very divine being, which is the representative of the beauty, the youth, the greatness of man, how this divine being dies, how this divine being takes the course that all natural things take. But just when nature is entering its wasteland, when nature is dying, then you should remember something else. Then you should remember that man passes through the gate of death, that while here in earthly existence he has only experienced things that are like those that die in autumn, while here in earthly existence he has only experienced those things that are transient, that he is drawn away from earth and lives out into the vastness of the ether of the world. He sees himself becoming greater and greater, he becomes so that the whole world becomes his own. For three days he lives out into the whole wide universe. And then, while the earthly eye here is directed towards the image of death, while the earthly eye is directed towards that which dies, towards the transient, the immortal human soul awakens over there in the spirit after three days. It stands up over there. It rises to be born three days after death for the spirit land.

This was accomplished in a powerful inner transformation in the body of the initiate within the depths of the Mysteries. And the significant impression, the tremendous jolt that human life received through this ancient kind of initiation - we will see that this cannot happen in the same way in modern times, but in a completely different way - awakened inner soul forces, it awakened vision, it brought man to know: He now stands not merely in the sensory world, he now stands in the spiritual world.

And what again at a corresponding time came as an instruction to those who were students of the Mysteries, I can summarize in the following words. These students of the Mysteries were told that what happens in the Mysteries is an image of what happens in the spiritual world, what happens in the cosmos; cultus is an image of what happens in the Mysteries. - For everyone who was admitted to the Mysteries was aware of this: the Mysteries encompassed processes in the earthly world which took place in man and which were certainly images of what is experienced by man in the vastness of the astral-spiritual cosmos in other forms of existence than in the earthly. Those who were not admitted to the Mysteries in those ancient times, because they could not have been destined to receive the vision of the spiritual world directly according to their maturity, were taught the corresponding things in the cultus, that is, in the image of what took place in the Mysteries.

So the corresponding mystery festival, which we have become acquainted with in the example of the Adonis festival, was there, during the autumnal withering, during the autumnal desolation of the earthly, during the autumnal radical representation of the transitoriness of earthly things, during the autumnal representation of dying and death, to evoke in man the certainty or at least the view: death, which comes over all nature in autumn, also comes over man, it also comes over the representative of the beauty, youth and greatness of the human soul, which is represented in the god Adonis. The god Adonis also dies. He merges into the earthly representative of the ether of the world, into the water. But just as he rises from the water, just as he can be taken from the water, so the soul of man is taken from the waters of the world, that is, from the ether of the cosmos, after about three days, after man has passed through the gates of death here on earth.

The mystery of death itself was to be represented in these ancient mysteries through the corresponding autumn festival. And what was represented was to become vivid by the fact that the first half of the cultus coincided with death, with the death of nature, but on the other hand represented the opposite, as the essence of the human being itself. Man should look at the death of nature - that is what was meant - in order to become aware of how he dies according to the outer appearance, but is resurrected according to the inner being, initially for the spiritual world. Revealing the truth about death was the purpose of this ancient pagan festival based on the Mysteries.

Now, in the course of human development, this significant thing happened, that what the initiate underwent at a certain level in the Mysteries, the dying and resurrection of the soul, took place in the body with Christ Jesus. For how does the Mystery of Golgotha present itself to the connoisseur of the Mysteries? The connoisseur of the Mysteries looks into the ancient Mysteries. He sees how the one to be initiated was led through death to the resurrection of the soul, that is, to the awakening of a higher consciousness in the soul. The soul died in order to rise in a higher consciousness. What must be noted here is that the body did not die, but that the soul died in order to be awakened to a higher consciousness.

What the soul of every initiate went through, Christ Jesus went through as far as the body, simply on a different level. Because the Christ was not an earthly man, but a solar being in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the same thing that the old initiate went through in the Mysteries according to his soul, the Christ Jesus could go through on Golgotha according to the whole human nature.

Those who were still there as connoisseurs of the ancient mysteries, as knowers of this act of initiation, they were probably the people, even to this day, who understood most deeply what had happened on Golgotha. For what could they say to themselves? They could say to themselves: For thousands of years people have been led into the secrets of the spiritual world through the death and resurrection of their soul. The soul has been kept separate from the body during the act of initiation. It has been led through death to eternal life. What was experienced by a number of selected people was experienced by a being right into the body, which descended from the sun at John's baptism in the Jordan and took possession of the body of Jesus of Nazareth. What had been a repeated act of initiation throughout long, long millennia became a historical fact.

This was the essential thing, that one knew: Because it was a solar being that had taken possession of the body of Jesus of Nazareth, therefore that which took place with those to be initiated only in relation to the soul and its experiences - it could take place right into the bodily existence. It could be accomplished despite the death of the body, despite the rising of the body of Jesus of Nazareth in the mortal earth, a resurrection of the Christ, because this Christ ascends higher than the soul of the one to be initiated could ascend. The initiate could not bring the body into such deep regions of the subconscious as Christ Jesus brought it. Therefore the one to be initiated could not ascend as high with the resurrection as the Christ; but up to this difference in world magnitude, the ancient act of initiation appeared as a historical fact on the place of consecration at Golgotha.

In the first centuries of Christianity only a few knew that a solar being, a cosmic being, had lived in Jesus of Nazareth and that the earth had been fertilized by it, that a being had really descended from the sun which previously could only be seen from the earth in the sun through the methods of the places of initiation. And it was the essence of Christianity, insofar as it was also accepted by the true connoisseurs of the ancient mysteries, that it could be said: The Christ to whom we have risen through our initiation, the Christ whom we were able to reach through our ascent to the sun in the ancient mysteries, has descended into a mortal body, into the body of Jesus of Nazareth. He descended to earth.

At first, I would like to say, it was a festive mood, more than a festive mood, a highly holy mood, which filled those souls and minds who understood something of the Mystery of Golgotha at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. What was then a living content of the consciousness gradually became, through processes that we still want to get to know, a festival of memory of the historical event on Golgotha.

But as this memory developed, the consciousness of who the Christ was as a solar being was lost more and more. The connoisseurs of the ancient mysteries could not be unclear about the nature of the Christ. They knew that the real initiates, the real initiates, by being made independent of their physical body, went through death in their soul, rose up into the solar sphere and there sought out the Christ and received from him, from the Christ in the sun, the impulse for the resurrection of the soul; they knew who the Christ was because they had risen up to him. These ancient initiates, the connoisseurs of this act of initiation, knew from what took place on Golgotha that the same Being who formerly had to be sought in the sun had now descended to men on earth. Why? Because the act that was performed in the ancient mysteries to reach the Christ in the sun with the person to be initiated could no longer be performed in this way, because the nature of man has simply become different in the course of time. The old initiation ceremony had become an impossibility according to the developmental nature of the human being. The Christ could no longer have been sought in the sun through the old initiation ceremony. So he descended to perform an act on earth that people could now look to.

What is included in this mystery belongs to the most sacred thing that can be uttered on earth.

Because how did the matter actually present itself to the people of the centuries following the Mystery of Golgotha?

If I were to draw it schematically, I would have to draw it like this: If this is the earth, then one looked up from an old place of initiation (right: red) to the sun and became aware of the Christ in the sun through the initiation. One looked out into space in order to approach the Christ.

If I want to depict schematically how the development was in the following time, I have to depict the time, that is, the earth - in one year, in the third year, continuously in time; the earth is always there spatially, but we depict the course of time in this way. The Mystery of Golgotha has taken place. A person who, let us say, lives in the 8th century, instead of looking from the Mystery into the sun in order to come to the Christ, now looks at the turn of time until the beginning of the Christian calendar, looks in time towards the Mystery of Golgotha (see drawing, yellow arrow); he can find the Christ within the Mystery of Golgotha in an earthly action, in an earthly event.

What used to be a spatial view was now to become a temporal view through the Mystery of Golgotha. That was the significant thing that had happened.

But precisely when we allow what took place in the Mysteries at the initiation and what was a picture of the death and resurrection of man after death to affect the soul, and when we add the structure of the cult acts, for example the Adonis feast, which in turn were a picture of what took place in the Mysteries, then all this, this threefold united and concentrated in the historical action on Golgotha, appears to us as if raised to the highest level.

What took place deep within the sanctuary of the Mysteries appears outwardly in history. What was previously only there for the initiated is there for all people. We no longer need an image that is sunk into the sea, that symbolically rises from the sea. Rather, we should have the thought, the memory of what really happened on Golgotha. The external symbol, which referred to a process that was experienced in space, should be replaced by an inwardly sensual, imageless remembrance, a remembrance of the historical act on Golgotha that is merely experienced in the soul.

Now we become aware of a strange development of humanity in the following centuries. Man's penetration into spirituality decreases more and more. The spiritual content of the Mystery of Golgotha cannot take hold in the minds of men. Development follows the formation of the material sense. One loses the inner understanding of the heart for what follows, one loses the understanding that where outer nature presents itself as transience, as a dying barren existence, it is precisely the vitality of the spirit that can be seen. One also loses the understanding of the outer festivity: that when autumn comes with its dying, one can best feel how the dying of the earthly-natural is contrasted with the resurrection of the spiritual.

Thus autumn loses the possibility of being the time for the resurrection festival. Autumn loses the possibility of pointing out the meaning of spiritual eternity from the transience of nature. We need the connection to the material. We need the connection to that which does not die in nature, that which sprouts in nature, that which rises in nature as the seed power that is sunk into the earth in autumn. One takes the material as a symbol for the spiritual, because one can no longer be stimulated by the material to feel the spiritual in its reality. Autumn no longer has the power to reveal the immortality of the spiritual through the inner power of the human soul in contrast to the transience of nature. We need the connection to external nature, to external resurrection. We want to see how the plants sprout from the earth, how the sun gains strength, how the light and warmth in turn gain strength. We need the resurrection in nature in order to celebrate the idea of resurrection.

But with it also disappears that direct relationship that was connected with the Adonis feast, which can be connected with the mystery of Golgotha. That inner experience loses its power, which can occur at the earthly death of every human being, when the human soul knows: the human being goes through the gate of death earthly, goes through something through three days, which can certainly make the human being serious; but then the soul must become inwardly joyful, inwardly festive and joyful, because it knows that just out of death the human soul rises in spiritual immortality after three days.

The power that lay in the Adonis festival has been lost. At first it was intended for mankind that this power should arise with greater intensity. One looked forward to the death of the god, all that was beautiful in humanity, all that was great, all that was youthful. This god is sunk into the sea on the day of mourning, on Chara. Chara is mourning. People got into a serious mood because they initially wanted to develop the mood of the transience of nature.

But then this very mood towards the transience of the natural was to transform the human soul into the mood towards the supersensible resurrection of the human soul after three days. When the God was lifted out again, or rather his image, the correctly instructed believer saw the image of the human soul a few days after death: What happens in the spirit with the deceased human beings, behold, it presents itself before your soul in the image of the resurrected God of beauty and youthful power.

That which is so deeply connected with human destiny was awakened directly in the spirit of man every autumn. At that time, it would not have been considered possible to connect with external nature. What could be experienced in the spirit was represented in the ritual act, in the symbolic act. But when the image of the old time was to be erased, when the memory - the imageless, inner, soul-experienced memory of the Mystery of Golgotha, which represents the same thing - was to enter, mankind did not at first have the strength to accomplish this, because the spirit went into the depths of man's soul. The situation remained the same right up to our own time, in that people needed to be guided by external nature. But external nature gives no symbol, no complete symbol of man's fate in death. The idea of death could live on. The idea of resurrection has dwindled more and more. And even if the resurrection is spoken of as a content of faith, the fact of resurrection is not alive in modern mankind. It must become so again, it must become so through anthroposophical views reawakening the human mind to the true idea of resurrection.

If, therefore, on the one hand, as has been said at the right time, the thought of St. Michael must lie close to the anthroposophical mind as the heralding thought, if the thought of Christmas must deepen in the anthroposophical mind, the thought of Easter must become a particularly festive one. For anthroposophy must add to the thought of death the thought of resurrection. It must itself become like an inner resurrection festival of the human soul. It must bring a paschal mood into the world view of man. It will be able to do so when it is understood how the old mystery thought can live on in the truly grasped Easter thought, when a correct view arises of the body, soul and spirit of man and of the destiny of the body, soul and spirit of man in the physical, spiritual and celestial world.