Knowledge Pervaded with the Experience of Love
GA 221
18 February 1923, Dornach
Translated by Sabine H. Seiler
On many occasions we have emphasized that the present historical moment of human evolution is the one in which intellectual life predominates. The epoch which has been characterized as the fourth post-Atlantean age, as the Graeco-Roman age, was a preparation for the present epoch. And you also know, from certain soul characteristics of man which developed during these epochs, that we reckon the Graeco-Roman age from the Eighth Century B.C. to the Fifteenth Century A.D. Since that time we must take into account the epoch in which we are now living, in which the soul qualities of western humanity must unfold, and which we look upon as the present moment in history.
Before the Fifteenth Century man's whole relation to the world of the intellect was quite different from what it was later on. Since the Fourth Century A.D. the human soul had a certain inclination towards the intellectual life which existed in ancient Greece and was about to set; nevertheless we find in this second period of the fourth post-Atlantian epoch a soul mood which can only be fully grasped if we immerse ourselves with a feeling soul into the characteristic of the ancient Greeks, particularly during the time which history describes in a rather superficial way, when Greek life was beginning to evolve, and the time of Socrates and Plato until the end of the Greek era.
From all that shines through an external—one might say, superficial historical description—it is possible to recognize, even without a spiritual-scientific deepening, that when the ancient Greek gained what we now call an intellectual world conception, this gave him pleasure, or at least a sense of satisfaction, and when by his intellectual power he could form a picture of the universe, after having passed through the different stages of learning of that time, he believed that he had risen to a higher stage of human development. When he could grasp the world intellectually, he believed that he was a human being in a higher sense. During the fourth post-Atlantean age, there existed in full measure inner joy and satisfaction derived from the life of the intellect.
This may also be observed in the historical characters of a subsequent epoch. For example, the way in which John Scotus Erigena of the Ninth Century formed and described his ideas, shows us that he believed to have in them something which may arouse inner enthusiasm. Even though later on a somewhat cooler form of discussion set in, we find this soul attitude in the men who sought to gain an intellectual picture of the world through Scholasticism, and who were frequently alone in their striving, isolated from the rest of the world. It was the course of development during the past centuries which induced men to believe that by rising up to intellectual thoughts they must lose their inner soul warmth.
But by going back to a time which does not lie so very far back, by considering, for example, the intellectualistic world conception still existing in Schiller, or even to the extraordinary exact morphology developed by Goethe, we may observe that these men painted their picture of the world in a very marked ideal-intellectualistic way and believed to be human beings in the true sense of the word only if they could bring inner warmth into their ideas. Not so very long ago, the world of ideas was not yet described in such a pale, cold way as is so frequently the case today.
This fact is connected with an important law of human development. It is connected with the fact that man himself adopted an entirely different attitude towards the world of ideas grasped through his intellect; it was an entirely different attitude from that of past epochs. In earlier times, the world of ideas was linked up with the living essence of the universe, for the universe was looked upon as a living organism. I might say: True insight into older forms of thinking can show us that in the past everything dead, everything that was not alive, was really looked upon as something which falls off from the world's living essence, and this was thought of as being spread over the whole universe; it fell off from it, like ashes fall off from burning substance. Man's feeling attitude towards the universe was quite different from his present attitude. He looked upon the universe as a great, living organism, and its lifeless part, for example, the whole extent of the mineral kingdom, was to him ashes falling out of the universal processes, and these ashes were dead, because they were nothing but the refuse of the world's living essence.
During the past centuries, this feeling towards the universe underwent an essential transformation. Scientific knowledge, for example, is now fully valued—or this was the case—only insofar as it deals with lifeless substances and processes. In an ever-growing measure, the longing arose to look upon everything living only as a kind of chemical combination of lifeless substances. The idea of spontaneous generation from lifeless substances became prevalent.
On many occasions, I have already mentioned the following: During the Middle Ages, when people tried to produce the homunculus in the retort out of certain ingredients, they never connected this with the idea of spontaneous generation in the meaning of modern scientific investigation, but they looked upon the homunculus as a definite living essence conjured up from an indefinite living universe. For they did not yet think of the universe as something lifeless, as a mechanism. Consequently people believed in the possibility of conjuring up a definite living essence out of an indefinite living essence. Never did it occur to a medieval mind to connect lifeless with living things. These things are very difficult to grasp without the aid of spiritual science, because modern people are accustomed to form their ideas by assuming that their thoughts are absolutely correct and have become so perfect, because mankind has left behind the stages of childhood.
Although people boast of modern progress, the thoughts which they now form have never been so rigid in the past. Indeed, this rigidity, particularly in regard to man's cognitive power, is a subjective element. When man turns his thoughts and ideas to lifeless things, this is something quite passive. For he can form his thoughts with the greatest ease and comfort; the lifeless world does not change, and he forms his concepts of physics without being disturbed by the fact that in approaching Nature with his lifeless thoughts, Nature itself, with its living changing character, demands from him to be just as living and mobile in his thoughts.
Goethe still had the feeling that when single phenomena had to be drawn out of the whole extent of facts and grasped in the form of ideas, then inwardly living thoughts are needed, not sharply outlined ones, but thoughts conforming with the ever-changing, living form of existence, with the ever-changing, living beings.
Expressed more paradoxically, we may say that modern man likes thoughts which can be formed without much effort. This tendency to rigid thought, to thoughts with sharp outlines, can only be applied to lifeless things, to things which do not change, so that the thoughts themselves remain unchanged and rigid; but these rigid thoughts, which really ignore life in the external world, nevertheless gave man—as I have frequently described—the inner consciousness of freedom.
Two things have arisen through the fact that man lost life completely in the sphere of his thoughts: One is the consciousness of freedom, the other the possibility to apply these rigid thoughts, drawn out of lifeless things and applicable only to lifeless things, to the magnificent, triumphal technical achievements, based on the realization of the rigid system of ideas.
This is one aspect of mankind's modern development. We must grasp that man separated himself, as it were, from the living world, he became estranged from it. But at the same time we should also grasp the following: If man does not wish to remain within the lifeless essence of the world, but wishes to take into his soul the impulse of life, he must discover the world's living essence through his own power, whenever he faces the lifeless world.
When we go back into ancient times, we find that each cloud formation, the lightning coming out of the cloud, the rolling thunder, the growing plant, etc., gave man a living essence; through knowledge, he breathed in life, as it were, and thus he existed in an immediate way within the world's living essence. He only had to take in life from outside. In accordance with man's present stage of development, which only enables him to grasp lifeless thing in his thoughts, so that the external world no longer gives him a living essence, he is obliged, in the present epoch, to draw this living essence out of the innermost depths of his own life; he himself must become alive. History cannot be grasped theoretically, through the intellect. It would be too monotonous. With our whole soul we should penetrate into the way in which people experienced history during the different epochs. We shall then discover what a great change took place in all the pre-Grecian epochs, if I may use this expression, which Anthroposophy traces back as far as the Atlantean age, that is to say, as far as the Seventh and Eighth Centuries B.C.—we shall discover the great change which took place from the time of ancient Greece until now. Let me describe to you this change of human feeling in connection with the universe—let me describe it to you quite objectively. I wish to describe how this change of feeling in human souls facing the universe appears in the light of a spiritual conception.
When we go back into ancient times—only faint traces of this remote past are known to ordinary history, for in order to grasp these things we must penetrate into them in a spiritual-scientific way, through the methods which you have learned to know—when we go back into ancient times, to the men of the pre-Grecian age, for example to the Egyptian culture, the Babylonian-Chaldean culture, or even to the ancient Persian culture, we shall find that everywhere men had come down to the earth from a prenatal, pre-earthly life, and that they still bore within them, as an after-effect, all that the Gods had implanted into them during their pre-earthly existence.
In the past, the human being felt that he lived on the earth in a way which made him say to himself: I am standing here on the earth, but before I stood upon it, I lived in a soul-spiritual world, imaginatively speaking, in a world of light. But this light continues to shine mysteriously in my inner being. As a human being, I am, as it were, a covering sheath for this divine light that continues to live in me.
Man thus knew that a divine element had come down with him to the earth. In reality, he did not say—and this may be proved philologically—I am now standing upon the earth, but he said: I, who am a human being, enfold the God who came down to the earth. This is what really lived in his consciousness.
And the farther back we go into human evolution, the more frequently shall we find this consciousness: I, who am a human being, enfold the God who came down to the earth. For the divine element was manifold. One might say: In the past, man was conscious of the fact that the last gods of the godly hierarchy reaching down to the earth were human beings. Those who do not distort Oriental culture in the terrible way in which Deussen distorted it for Europe, those who do not perceive in a superficial, external way, but in a truly feeling manner, the state of consciousness of the ancient Indian who felt himself at one with his Brahman whom he enfolded, will also be able to feel what really constituted the true essence of soul life in ancient times.
Out of this developed the consciousness of the Father, man's attitude towards God the Father. He felt that he was, as it were, a son of the Gods. He did not feel this in connection with his body of flesh and blood, but in connection with that part of his being enfolded by his flesh and blood, though according to many people of ancient times, these were not worthy of being the involucre of a God. Not the human being of flesh and blood was looked upon as divine, but that part which came from a spiritual world and entered man's physical-earthly part, the being of flesh and blood.
Man's religious connection was thus felt above all in the relationship to God the Father. In the ancient Mysteries the highest dignity, the highest rank was that of the Father. In nearly all the Mysteries of the Orient the candidate of initiation had to pass through seven different stages. The first stage or degree was one of preparation, in which he gained a soul constitution giving him a first idea of what the Mysteries revealed to him. The subsequent degree, up to the fourth, enabled him to have a full understanding of his folk soul, so that he no longer felt that he was a single human being, but the member of a whole group of men. And by rising to the higher stages, the fifth and sixth degree, he felt in an ever-growing measure that he was the involucre of a divine essence. The highest degree was that of the Father. People who had attained this stage realized in their external life and existence this divine archetypal principle which could be experienced by man, and which could really be brought in connection with man. The whole external spiritual culture was entirely in accordance with this central point of religious life: to experience in human consciousness a relation with the creative principle of God the Father. Everything which could be grasped by man's inner being was experienced accordingly: Man felt that the light of knowledge which could be kindled within him came to him from God the Father. In his own intellect he felt the influence of God the Father. Cults and rituals were arranged accordingly, for they were only a reflexion of the path of knowledge which could be followed in the Mysteries.
Then came the Greek Age. The Greek is the most perfect representative of that stage of human development coming out of those older soul conditions which I have just described to you. The ancient Greek felt that man was more than man, not only the involucre of something divine. But this Greek feeling was of such a kind that a person who had passed through a Greek training—let us call it the Greek school of the intellect, or Greek art, or Greek religious life—felt, as it were, that the divine essence had completely identified itself with man. The ancient Greek no longer thought that he enfolded a God, but he felt that he was the expression of God, that he set forth a divine being. But this truth was no longer pronounced as openly as the other truth in older epochs. In ancient Greece this truth: As a human being, thou art a divine being, a son of the Gods, was only revealed to the disciple of the Mysteries at a definite stage of his development. It was deemed impossible to describe this secret of human evolution to people who were not adequately prepared for it. But a Greek who had been initiated into the Mysteries knew this truth. This explains the fundamental feeling of that epoch was not a clearly outlined idea, but a fundamental feeling of the soul.
We come across this fundamental soul feeling in Greek art, which sets forth the Gods as if they were idealized human beings. This way of setting forth the Gods as idealized men proceeds from this fundamental feeling. The Greek therefore took back, as it were into the chastity of feeling, his relationship to the Divine.
When the Greek world conception had completely set, an entirely new soul mood came to the fore in the Fifteenth Century. No longer did the human being feel that he enfolded a divine essence or set forth something divine, as he experienced himself in ancient Greece, but he felt that he was a being that had risen from less perfect stages to the human stage and that he could only look up to a divine essence transcending the physical world. Modern man called into life natural science based upon this fundamental feeling, which is, however, still unable to discover man's connection with his own self.
It is the task of Anthroposophy to rediscover man's connection with his own self and the divine essence. This may be thought of as follows: Let us transfer ourselves into the soul of a man living before the time of ancient Greece. He will say: I enfold a divine essence. By enwrapping it with my body of flesh and blood, I set it forth less worthily, in a way which is not in keeping with its true essence. I can only draw it down upon a lower level, as it were. If I wish to set forth the divine essence purely, I must purify myself. I have to pass through a kind of catharsis, cleanse myself, so that the god within me may assert himself.
This is in reality a return to the archetypal principle of the Father and it comes to expression in many forms of past religious life, through the fact that people thought that after death they returned to the ancestors, to their distant forefathers. Religious life undoubtedly reveals this trait, this tendency towards the archetypal, creative principle of the Father. Man does not yet feel quite at home upon the earth. And he does not yet strive from a kind of alien position, as it were, to a transcendental God; he rather strives to set forth man as purely as possible, in the belief that God might then express himself through man.
In ancient Greece life undergoes a change. Man no longer feels so closely connected with the divine principle of the Father, as in the past. As a human being, he feels himself intimately connected with the divine essence, but at the same time also with the earthly one. He lives, as it were, in equipoise between the divine and the earthly. This is the time in which the Mystery of Golgotha takes place. It is the epoch in which one could no longer say only: “In the beginning was the Logos. And the Logos was with God (by this one meant the Father-God), and the Logos was God.” One had to say instead: “And the Word was made Flesh.”—The Word, originally looked upon as being one with the Father-God, was now looked upon in such a way that it had found an abode in man, it dwelt fully in man, and man had to seek it within himself.
The Mystery of Golgotha met this mood which had arisen in mankind. God the Father could never be imagined in human shape; he had to be imagined in a purely spiritual form. Christ, the Son of God, was imagined to be divine-human. In reality, the longing felt by the ancient Greek, or what he set forth as an artistic realization, reaches its human fulfillment in the event which took place in the Mystery of Golgotha.
We should not bear in mind details, but the essential; namely, that a divine essence entered man, in his quality of human being living upon the earth.
The Mystery of Golgotha thus stands at the centre of the whole human evolution on earth. The fact that the Mystery of Golgotha entered history at a moment when the Greeks strove to set forth the divine in man from an external aspect, from the aspect of the earth, as it were, should not be considered as an historical coincidence. We might say, and this is more than a poetical image: The Greeks had to set forth the divine in man artistically, out of the ingredients of the earth, and the cosmos sent down to the earth the God who entered man, as a cosmic answer to the wonderful question sent out into the world's spaces, as it were, by the Greeks. In the historical development we may sense, as it were, that with their humanly portrayed gods the Greeks addressed the following question to the universe: Can Man become a God? And the universe replied: God can become Man. This reply was given through the event of the Mystery of Golgotha.
On many occasions I have explained that it is only possible to grasp the real, original essence of the Mystery of Golgotha by approaching it not only with the knowledge of lifeless things applied by modern men, but with a new living knowledge, a knowledge that is once more pervaded with the spirit.
We thus reach the point of saying to ourselves: Man has reached on the one hand his consciousness of freedom, and on the other hand, with the aid of lifeless thoughts, the technical and mechanic progress in external culture; he cannot, however, remain standing by this inner lifelessness. Out of his soul's own strength he must gain the impulse of life, of something that is spiritually living; that is to say, he must again be able to win ideas which are inwardly alive, which do not only seize the intellect, but the whole human being. Modern man should really attain what I have indicated in my book on Goethe's world conception; he should once more be able to speak not of lifeless ideas and abstractions, but rise up to the spirituality in which he is pervaded by ideas, and take into this sphere of ideas all the living warmth that may gleam in his soul, the brightest light which his enthusiasm may kindle in his soul. Man should again bring into his ideas the whole warmth and light of his soul. Inwardly he should again be able to carry his whole being into the spirituality of the world of ideas. This is what we have lost in the present time.
We may say: In modern literature there is perhaps nothing so deeply moving as the first chapter of Nietzsche's description of Greek philosophy, which he himself designates as “The Tragic Age of the Greeks.” Nietzsche describes the philosophers before Socrates: Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras—and for those who have a real feeling and an open heart for such things, it is deeply moving to read Nietzsche's description of how at a certain moment of Greek life, the Greek rose up to the abstraction of mere existence. From the manifold impressions of Nature filling the human soul with warmth, he passed over to the pale thought of existence.
Nietzsche says more or less the following: It gives one a chilly feeling, as if one entered icy regions, when an ancient Greek philosopher, for example Parmenides, speaks of the abstract idea of the encompassing existence. Nietzsche, who lived so completely in the modern culture, as described to you the day before yesterday, felt himself transferred to glacier regions.
Nietzsche failed, just because he could only go as far as the coldness, one might say, the glacier character, of man's world of ideas. A truly spiritual clairvoyance can bring soul warmth and soul light into the intellectual sphere, so that we can reach that purity of thought, described in my “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity,” without becoming inwardly dried out, but filled with enthusiasm. By abandoning the earthly warmth of the life of the senses, we can feel in the cold regions of intellectualism the warm sun forces of the cosmos; by abandoning the shining objects of the earth and by experiencing inner darkness through the intellectual world of thought, the living soul impulses, which we bring into this darkness, can receive the Cosmic Light, after having overcome, as it were, the earthly darkness.
Everywhere in Nietzsche we find this longing for the cosmic light, the cosmic warmth. He cannot reach them, and this is the true cause of his failure. Anthroposophy would like to indicate the path leading to a goal where we do not lose earthly warmth, earthly light, where we preserve our keen interest in every concrete detail of earthly life, and rise to that height of concept where the divine essence becomes manifest in pure thought; as modern men we then no longer feel this divine essence within us, as did the human beings of past epochs, but we ourselves must first find the way to it, we must go to it.
This is the mood which truly enables us to experience the Mystery of the Holy Ghost. And this constitutes the difference between the spiritual life of modern and ancient man. The man of older epochs absorbed his spirituality from every single creature in Nature. As already explained: The cloud spoke to him of the spirit, the flower spoke to him of the spirit. Through his own forces modern man must animate his concepts, which have grown cold and lifeless: then he will come to the Holy Spirit that will also enable him to see the Mystery of Golgotha in the right way.
When we thus pervade our ideas—let me say it quite dryly—in an anthroposophical way with soul warmth and soul light, then we draw something out of humanity and take it with us. For unless we take this along, we cannot go beyond the dry, banal, abstract character of the world of ideas. But if we rise up to a comprehension of the world, with the aid of that knowledge which is contained in anthroposophical books, our ideas will remain as exact as mathematical or other scientific ideas. We do not think in a less precise way than the chemist in his laboratory, or the biologist in his cell; but the thoughts which we thus develop require something which comes from the human being and accompanies them. When an anthroposophist speaks out of imagination and inspiration, and sound common sense really grasps this imagination or inspiration, these confront him in the same way in which mathematical or geometrical figures confront him in mathematics; but the human being must bring along something, for otherwise he does not grasp these ideas in the right way. What he must bring with him is love.
Unless knowledge is pervaded with love, it is not possible to grasp the truths given by Anthroposophy; for then they remain something which has the same value as other truths. The value is the same when, in accordance with the ideas of some materialistic natural scientists you state: Marsupials, human apes, ape-men and men … or whether you say: Man consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and Ego. Only the thought is different, but not the state of mind. The soul, the state of mind, only change when the spiritual comprehension of man within Nature becomes an inwardly living comprehension. But there can be no real understanding unless knowledge is accompanied by the same feeling, the same state of mind, which also lives in love. If knowledge is pervaded with the experience of love, this knowledge can approach the Mystery of Golgotha. We then have not only the naïve love for Christ, which is in itself fully justified—as already stated, this simple, naïve love is quite justified—but we also have a knowledge which encompasses the whole universe and which may deepen to the comprehension of the Mystery of Golgotha. In other words: Life in the Holy Spirit leads to life in Christ, or to the presence of Christ, the Son of God.
We then learn to grasp that through the Mystery of Golgotha the Logos actually passed over from the Father to the Son. And then the following important truth will be revealed to us: For the men of ancient times it was right to say: “In the beginning was the Logos. And the Logos was with God and the Logos was a God,” but during the Greek epoch they had to begin to say: “And the Logos was made flesh.” Modern man should add: “And I must seek to understand the Logos living in the flesh, by raising my concepts and ideas and my whole comprehension of the world to the spiritual sphere, so that I may find Christ through the Holy Ghost, and through Christ, God the Father.”
Undoubtedly this is not a theory, but something which can penetrate into the direct experience of modern man, and this is the attitude towards Christianity which grows quite naturally out of Anthroposophy.
You see, my dear friends, it is indeed indispensable that modern man should grasp the necessity of treading a spiritual path. He needs it in view of the present lifeless culture consisting in the mechanism of modern life—which should not be despised, for, from another aspect, it must be greatly valued. But an inner push is needed, as it were, so that modern man may set out along this spiritual path. And this inner push—recently I spoke of it as a real awakening—is a development which many people prefer to avoid. The opposition of modern people to Anthroposophy is really due to the fact that they have not experienced this push, this jerk, within their soul. It is uncomfortable to experience it. For it casts us, as it were, into the vortex of cosmic development. People would much rather remain quiet, with their rigid sharply outlined thoughts that only turn to lifeless thing which are not on the defensive, when the world is to be grasped, whereas everything that is alive defends itself, moves and tries to slip out of our thoughts, when we try to grasp it with lifeless concepts. Modern people do not like this. They feel it. They cloak it in all manner of other things and become quite furious when they hear that a certain direction, coming from many different spheres of life, calls for an entirely different way of grasping the world.
This mood alone explains the very peculiar things to be observed among opponents of Anthroposophy. It suffices to mention a few recent examples, for these can show us the strangeness of it all.
We were hit by the great misfortune of losing our Goetheanum. We know quite well that in spite of all efforts to built it up again, the first Goetheanum cannot rise up again; it can only remain a memory, and it is an immense grief for us to have to say: The Goetheanum wished to set forth a style of art in keeping with the new spirituality, and this style of art, which was meant to exercise a stimulating influence has, to begin with, vanished from the surface of the earth with the Goetheanum. When we only mention this fact, we can feel the immense grief connected with the loss of the Goetheanum.
Generally, in the face of misfortune, even opponents cease to use a pitiless, scornful language. But just the misfortune which deprived us of the Goethanum, induced our opponents to speak all the more scornfully and insultingly. They think that this is right: this is so peculiar. It fitly belongs—but in an unfit way—to the other thing mentioned above.
The Anthroposophical Movement began as a purely positive activity. No one was attacked—our only form of “agitation” was to state the facts investigated by anthroposophical methods of research and we waited patiently until the human souls that undoubtedly exist in the present time, should come to us led by the impulse which lived in them, in order to gain knowledge of the truths which had to be revealed out of the spiritual world. This was the tendency of our whole anthroposophical work; we did not intend to agitate, to set up programs, but we simply wished to state the facts obtained through investigation of the spiritual world, and to wait and see in which souls there lived the longing to know these realities.
Today there are many people who are opponents of Anthroposophy without knowing why; they simply follow those who lead them. But there are nevertheless some who know quite well why they are opponents of Anthroposophy; they know it, because they see that out of the anthroposophical foundation come truths which call for that inner jerk which has been characterized above. This they refuse. They refuse it for many reasons, because these kinds of truths were always to be preserved within more restricted circles, in order to emerge from the rest of mankind as small groups forming a kind of spiritual aristocracy. Consequently their hatred is directed particularly towards that person who draws out the truths from the spiritual world for all human beings, simply because this is in keeping with the present age. At the same time these opponents—I mean, the leading opponents—know that truth as such cannot be touched, for it finds its way through the smallest rifts in the rock, no matter what obstacles it may encounter. As a rule, they do not therefore attack these truths: for the truths would soon discover ways and means of ousting the foe. Observe the opponents, indeed in our anthroposophical circles it would be most advisable to study our opponents carefully: They renounce attacking the truths, and lay chief stress on personal attacks, personal insinuations, personal insults, personal calumnies. They think that truth cannot be touched, yet it is to be driven out of the world, and they believe that this can be done by personal defamation. The nature of such an opposition shows how well the leading opponents know how to proceed in order to gain the victory, at least for the time being.
But this is something which Anthroposophists above all should know; for there are still many Anthroposophists who think that something may be reached by direct discussion with the opponent. Nothing can do us more harm than success in setting forth our truths in the form of discussion; for people do not hate us because we say something that is not true, but because we say the truth. And the more we succeed in proving that we say the truth, the more they will hate us.
Of course this cannot prevent us from stating the truth. But it can prevent us from being so naive as to think that it is possible to progress by discussion. Only positive work enables us to progress; truth should be represented as strongly as possible, so as to attract as many predestined souls as possible, for these are far more numerous in the present time than is generally assumed. These souls will find the spiritual nourishment needed for the time when no destructive, but constructive work will have to be done, if human development is to follow an ascending, not a descending curve.
There is no way out of the present chaos if we follow the materialistic path. The only way out is to follow the spiritual path. But we can only set out along the spiritual path if the Spirit is our guide: to choose the Spirit as our guide, to understand how we should choose it, this is the insight which Anthroposophists should gain; this is what they should learn to know in the deepest sense.
IX. Moralische Antriebe Und Physische Wirksamkeit Im Menschenwesen. Das Erfassen Eines Geistesweges
Es wurde öfter betont, daß der gegenwärtige historische Zeitpunkt der Menschheitsentwickelung der ist, in dem das intellektuelle Leben tonangebend geworden ist. Für diesen gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt war vorbereitend die Zeit, die wir im Zusammenhange charakterisiert haben als den vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraum, als die griechisch-römische Zeit. Und Sie wissen ja: nach gewissen inneren Seeleneigentümlichkeiten der Menschen, die sich in diesen Zeitepochen entwickelt haben, rechnen wir den griechisch-römischen Zeitraum vom 8. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert bis zum 15. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert. Und seit jener Zeit nehmen wir denjenigen Zeitraum an, in dem wir mit der Seelenentwickelung der abendländischen Menschheit voll drinnenstehen, der uns also als der gegenwärtige historische Zeitmoment zu gelten hat.
Nun war das ganze Verhältnis des Menschen zu der intellektualistischen Welt vor dem 15. Jahrhundert ein ganz anderes als später. Und wenn auch schon seit dem 4. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert die Färbung in der Menschenseelenstimmung zum intellektuellen Leben, die in Griechenland vorhanden war, in der Abendröte sich befand, so kommt doch überall auch noch in diesem zweiten Zeitraum des vierten nachatlantischen Zeitalters etwas von jener griechisch-römischen Seelenstimmung zum Ausdrucke, die allerdings nur voll erfaßt werden kann, wenn man sich gemütvoll fühlend hineinversetzt in das besonders Charakteristische des griechischen Menschen, wie er namentlich in jener Zeit war, die von der Geschichte ziemlich äußerlich geschildert wird im Ausgange des griechischen Lebens, in der Zeit etwa von Sokrates und Plato bis zum Ausgang des Griechentums.
Man kann aus allem, was hindurchleuchtet durch die äußerliche, man möchte sagen, oberflächliche geschichtliche Darstellung, auch ohne geisteswissenschaftliche Vertiefung erkennen, daß der Grieche, wenn er das erreichte, was wir heute eine intellektuelle Anschauung von der Welt nennen, darin seine Freude, zum mindesten seine Befriedigung hatte, daß er glaubte, wenn er durch die verschiedenen damaligen Bildungsstufen hindurchgegangen war und imstande war, durch die Kraft des Intellektes sich ein Weltbild zu machen, mit dem Besitz dieses Weltbildes eine Erhöhung seines Menschtums erreicht zu haben. Er glaubte in einem besseren Sinne Mensch zu sein, wenn er die Welt intellektuell erfassen konnte, als wenn er nicht dazu imstande war. Die innere Freude und Befriedigung am intellektuellen Leben, die war in diesem vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraum vollständig vorhanden.
Und man kann das auch noch bei späteren Persönlichkeiten sehen. Man kann zum Beispiel bei dem Ihnen oft erwähnten Johannes Scotus Erigena aus dem 9. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert sehen an der Art und Weise, wie er seine Ideen faßt, wie er seine Ideen darstellt, daß er glaubt, in dieser Ideenerfassung etwas zu haben, worüber im Menschen eine innerliche Begeisterung aufleben kann. So war es ja, wenn auch dann eine etwas kältere Diskussion eingegriffen hat, durchaus noch der Fall bei denjenigen, die oftmals in Einsamkeit gegenüber der übrigen Welt in der Scholastik versuchten, auf intellektualistische Weise ein Weltbild zu erhalten. Und erst in den letzten Jahrhunderten ist es so geworden, daß eigentlich der Mensch glaubt, seine innere Seelenwärme zu verlieren, wenn er zum Intellektuellen aufsteigt. Wenn wir gar nicht weit zurückgehen, wenn wir zum Beispiel zurückgehen bis zu einer solchen intellektualistischen Weltauffassung, wie sie zum Beispiel bei Schiller vorliegt, ja selbst in der außerordentlich exakten Morphologie, wie sie Goethe ausgebildet hat, können wir noch sehen, wie solche Persönlichkeiten in auffälliger Weise zu einer ideell intellektualistischen Ausmalung des Weltbildes kamen, wie sie glaubten, erst da wahrhaft Mensch zu werden, wo sie innerliche Wärme in die Ideen hineintragen können. So blaß und kalt, wie die Ideenwelt heute oftmals empfunden wird, so wurde sie eben vor gar nicht langer Zeit noch nicht empfunden. Und das hängt allerdings zusammen mit einem bedeutsamen Entwickelungsgesetz der Menschheit. Es hängt damit zusammen, daß der Mensch zu der Ideenwelt, die intellektualistisch ausgebildet wird, selber ein ganz anderes Verhältnis bekommen hat, als er es früher hatte. Die Ideenwelt ging in einer früheren Zeit auf das Lebendige. Das Weltall wurde als ein Lebendiges angesehen. Man braucht nur eine wirkliche Einsicht in ältere Begriffsgebilde zu bekommen, so weiß man, daß das Tote eigentlich etwas war, was aus dem Lebendigen, das ausgebreitet gedacht wurde über die ganze Welt, herausfallend gedacht wurde, so wie wir etwa die Asche aus dem Verbrennenden herausfallend finden. Es war eine ganz andere Empfindung gegenüber dem Weltall beim Menschen vorhanden. Er sah das Weltenall als einen großen lebendigen Organismus an, und das Tote, also zum Beispiel die ganze Summe des mineralischen Reiches, sah er an wie die Asche, die herausgefallen ist aus dem Weltenprozesse, und die tot geworden ist, weil sie Abfall ist des Lebendigen.
Diese Empfindung gegenüber der Welt ist nun allerdings in den letzten Jahrhunderten wesentlich anders geworden. Wissenschaftliches Erkennen zum Beispiel wird voll geachtet, oder wurde wenigstens immer voll geachtet, insofern es sich über das, was tot ist, verbreiten kann. Und immer mehr und mehr kam die Sehnsucht herauf, das Lebendige selbst nur als eine etwa chemische Verbindung aus Totem anzusehen. Die Idee einer Urzeugung aus Totem, die kam herauf.
Ich habe es schon öfter erwähnt: Wenn man im Mittelalter trachtete, in der Retorte den Homunkulus darzustellen, so war dieser Gedanke der Darstellung eines Wesens aus Ingredienzien nicht als Urzeugung gedacht in dem Sinne, wie etwa die spätere Naturforschung von der Urzeugung gesprochen hat, sondern es war wie ein Herauszaubern eines bestimmten Lebendigen aus dem unbestimmten lebendigen All gedacht. Man dachte noch nicht das Weltenall als Mechanismus, als Totes. Deshalb glaubte man an die Möglichkeit, aus dem allgemeinen Lebendigen ein spezielles Lebendiges herausholen zu können. Aber an eine Zusammenfügung des Unlebendigen zum Lebendigen dachte eigentlich das mittelalterliche Gemüt noch nicht. Diese Dinge sind heute außerhalb der Geisteswissenschaft außerordentlich schwer zu durchschauen, weil der Mensch heute gewohnt ist, seine Begriffe so zu fassen, als ob sie eigentlich, nachdem die Menschheit Kindheitsstufen durchgemacht hat, nun so geworden wären, daß sie heute eben absolut richtig seien.
So sehr man über den heutigen Fortschritt spricht, es ist doch der Fall, daß der Mensch noch nie so starr war in seinen Begriffsbildungen, wie in diesem Zeitalter. Und es ist zuletzt im Grunde genommen ein subjektives Element, das den Menschen namentlich im Erkennen diese Starrheit gibt. Wenn der Mensch seine Begriffe, seine Ideen auf das Tote richtet, so ist das Tote ein rein Passives. Er, der Mensch, ist in der Lage, seine Begriffe hübsch bequem formen zu können, denn das Tote rührt sich nicht, und er kann seine physikalischen Begriffe ausbilden, ohne daß er, wenn er nun mit diesen Begriffen an die Natur geht, dadurch gestört wird, daß die Natur selbst in lebendiger Beweglichkeit ihn auffordert, in seinen Begriffen ebenso beweglich zu sein.
Goethe hat noch dieses Gefühl gehabt, daß man innerlich lebendige, nicht mit scharfen Konturen ausgestattete Begriffe haben müsse, die, wenn man sich an den Umkreis der Dinge begibt, um die einzelnen Dinge durch die Ideen zu erfassen, sich dem lebendigen beweglichen Sein und dem lebendigen beweglichen Wesen anpassen.
Der Mensch liebt heute, wenn man sich etwas paradox ausdrücken darf, in seinen Begriffen das Bequeme. Es ist so, daß dieses Hinneigen zum starren Begriff, zu dem Begriff, der in scharfen Konturen gefaßt werden kann, nur auf das Tote anwendbar ist, das sich nicht rührt und daher den Begriff starr sein läßt. Aber es ist doch so, daß dieses Leben in den starren Begriffen, die sich eigentlich um nichts äußerlich Lebendiges mehr kümmern, dennoch dem Menschen die Möglichkeit gegeben hat, innerlich das Bewußtsein der Freiheit zu erringen, wie ich das ja öfter ausgeführt habe.
Zweierlei ist es eben, was heraufgekommen ist dadurch, daß der Mensch in seinen Begriffen völlig tot geworden ist. Auf der einen Seite das Bewußtsein der Freiheit, auf der anderen Seite die Möglichkeit, nun die starren Begriffe, die vom Toten genommen werden und nur auf das Tote anwendbar sind, in der großartigen triumphalen Technik anzuwenden, die ja darauf angewiesen ist, eine Verwirklichung des starren Ideensystems zu sein.
Das ist die eine Seite der Entwickelung, welche die neuere Menschheit durchgemacht hat. Man muß ebenso verstehen, wie der Mensch aus dem Lebendigen gewissermaßen sich herausgeschnürt hat, wie ihm das Lebendige fremd geworden ist, wie man auch einsehen muß: Wenn der Mensch dem Toten gegenüberzustehen hat, so hat er, wenn er nicht in dem Toten verbleiben will, sondern in sein Gemüt den Impuls des Lebendigen aufnehmen will, aus seiner eigenen Kraft dieses Lebendige zu finden.
Wir können in alte Zeiten zurückgehen, da finden wir, daß dem Menschen jede Wolkenformung, der Blitz, der aus der Wolke zuckte, der Donner, der da rollte, die Pflanze, die wuchs und so weiter, daß die alle dem Menschen das Lebendige herbeitrugen, daß der Mensch gewissermaßen erkennend das Lebendige atmete und sich daher unwillkürlich im Lebendigen befand. Er brauchte das Lebendige nur von außen aufzunehmen. In der heutigen Zeit ist der Mensch, weil ihm das Äußere eben nach seiner Entwickelungsstufe, nach welcher seine Begriffenurdas Tote erfassen können, dieses Lebendige nicht mehr gibt, genötigt, dieses Lebendige aus dem innersten Wesen seines Lebens selber hervorzuholen, sich selber lebendig zu machen. Man kann eben nicht bloß theoretisch mit dem Verstande Geschichte erfassen. Da erscheint die Geschichte zu einförmig. Man muß sich mit der ganzen Seele hineinversetzen in die Art und Weise, wie die Menschen in verschiedenen Zeitepochen Geschichte erlebten. Und da wird man dann finden, welch gewaltiger Umschwung eingetreten ist von allen, wenn ich mich jetzt so ausdrücken darf, vorgriechischen Zeitaltern an, die wirja in unserer Anthroposophie zurückverfolgen bis zur atlantischen Zeit, also bis ins 7., 8. vorchristliche Jahrtausend, durch die griechische Zeit hin bis zu uns. Und ich möchte Ihnen heute diesen Umschwung in bezug auf das Fühlen des Menschen im Weltenall einfach einmal gegenständlich schildern. Ich möchte Ihnen schildern, wie sich dieser Umschwung im Fühlen der Menschenseele gegenüber dem Weltenall vor die geistige Anschauung hinstellt.
Wenn wir zurückgehen in ältere Zeiten — die äußere Geschichte zeigt nur noch Spuren davon, man muß da schon geisteswissenschaftlich durch die Methoden, die wir ja kennengelernt haben, in die Sache eindringen, um das einzusehen —, wenn wirzurückgehen zu dem Menschen der vorgriechischen Zeit, etwa zur ägyptischen Kultur, zur babylonisch-chaldäischen Kultur oder gar zur urpersischen Kultur, finden wir überall, daß beim Menschen die Empfindung vorliegt, er sei aus einem vorgeburtlichen, aus einem vorirdischen Leben auf die Erde heruntergestiegen. Und was Götter in ihn verpflanzt hatten im vorirdischen Leben, das trägt er noch als eine Nachwirkung in sich.
Der Mensch fühlte sich damals eigentlich so auf der Erde, daß er sich sagte: Hier auf der Erde stehe ich. Bevor ich auf der Erde stand, war ich in einer geistig-seelischen Welt, bildhaft gesprochen in einer Lichtwelt. In meinem Innern leuchtet geheimnisvoll noch jenes Licht fort. Ich bin gewissermaßen als Mensch die Umhüllung des göttlichen Lichtes, das noch in mir fortlebt. - Und so war sich der Mensch bewußt, daß ein Göttliches mit ihm selber auf die Erde heruntergestiegen war. Er sagte eigentlich nicht — das ist selbst philosophisch nachzuweisen —: Ich stehe hier auf der Erde, sondern er sagte eigentlich: Ich Mensch umhülle den Gott, der sich auf die Erde gestellt hat. - Das war eigentlich sein Bewußtsein. Und je weiter wir zurückgehen in der Menschheitsentwickelung, desto mehr finden wir dieses Bewußtsein: Ich Mensch auf der Erde umhülle den Gott, der herabgestiegen ist. - Denn das Göttliche war ein Vielfältiges. Und man möchte sagen: Die letzten Götter in der Götterhierarchie, die bis zur Erde herabreichten, waren für das alte Bewußtsein die Menschen selbst. Und derjenige, der nicht in äußerlicher Weise, in der schauerlich äußerlichen Weise etwa, wie Deußen die orientalische Kultur für Europa verballhornt hat, sondern wer in einer wirklich nachfühlenden Art gewahr wird, mit welchem Bewußtsein der alte Inder gesprochen hat, wenn er sein Brahman in sich fühlte, das er umhüllte, der wird auch nachempfinden können, wie das im menschlichen Seelenleben in alten Zeiten eigentlich war.
Daraus aber entwickelte sich dasjenige Bewußtsein, welches im Menschen gegenüber dem göttlichen Vater, dem Vatergotte, vorhanden war. Der Mensch selber fühlte sich als eine Art Göttersohn. Nicht das am Menschen fühlte er so, was in Fleisch und Blut dastand, aber dasjenige, was Fleisch und Blut umhüllte, was ja nach der Anschauung verschiedener Menschen der alten Zeit allerdings sich nicht würdig machte, den Gott zu umhüllen. Nicht diesen Menschen in Fleisch und Blut betrachtete er als ein Göttliches, aber dasjenige, was hereinragte aus einer geistigen Welt in diesen physisch-irdischen Menschen, in den Menschen aus Fleisch und Blut.
Und so war vor allen Dingen das Verhältnis zum Vatergotte etwas, was als das religiöse Verhältnis empfunden wurde. Und die höchste Würde in den alten Mysterien war diejenige des Vaters. In den meisten orientalischen Mysterien unterschied man ja sieben Grade, durch die der Einzuweihende aufzusteigen hatte. Der erste Grad war derjenige, durch den er sich bloß vorzubereiten hatte, wo er sich eine Seelenverfassung anzueignen hatte, durch die er überhaupt erst verstehen konnte, was ihm in den Mysterien gezeigt worden ist. Die folgenden Grade bis zum vierten Grade hatten ihn dann dazu gebracht, vollständig zu erfassen, was seine Volksseele war, so daß er sich nicht mehr als der einzelne Mensch fühlte, sondern als der Angehörige einer Menschengruppe. Und indem er dann zu den höheren Graden, zu dem fünften, sechsten Grad aufschritt, fühlte er sich immer mehr und mehr als der Umhüller des Göttlichen. Und der höchste Grad war der Vater. Das waren diejenigen Persönlichkeiten, die in ihrem äußeren Leben und in ihrem äußeren Dasein gewissermaßen eine Verwirklichung sein sollten dessen, was der Mensch als das göttliche Urprinzip fühlte, das er in einem wirklichen Sinne zu sich selbst in eine Beziehung setzte. Es war die äußere geistige Kultur ganz angepaßt diesem Mittelpunkte des religiösen Lebens: im Bewußtsein des Menschen ein Verhältnis zum väterlichen Schöpfungsprinzip zu fühlen. Und dementsprechend fühlte der Mensch alles dasjenige, was er auch im Innern begreifen konnte; das Licht der Erkenntnis, das ihm aufgehen konnte, fühlte er wie ihm übermacht von Gott dem Vater. Er fühlte gewissermaßen in seinem eigenen Verstande fortwirkend Gott den Vater. Daraufhin war aller Kultus eingerichtet, der ja nur ein Abbild war von dem, was in den Mysterien als Erkenntnisweg gegangen werden konnte.
Nun kam die griechische Zeit. Im Griechen haben wir den reinsten Repräsentanten dieser Menschheitsstufe, die sich herausentwickelte aus den Menschen mit jenen älteren Seelenverhältnissen, die ich eben geschildert habe. Der Grieche fühlte den Menschen mehr als Mensch, nicht mehr bloß als die Hülle des Göttlichen. Aber es ist dieses griechische Gefühl so, daß derjenige, der durch die griechische Schulung, sagen wir jetzt durch die griechische Vernunftschulung durchgegangen war, oder auch, der durch das griechische Künstlertum, oder durch das griechische religiöse Leben durchgegangen war, gewissermaßen fühlte, daß das Göttliche restlos in dem Menschen aufgegangen war. Der Grieche fühlte sich nicht mehr als die Umhüllung des Gottes, sondern fühlte sich als die Darstellung des Gottes. Nur wurde das nicht mehr in derselben unverhüllten Weise ausgesprochen, wie in den älteren Zeiten das andere. In Griechenland war es so, daß eigentlich erst dem Mystetienschüler auf einer bestimmten Stufe enthüllt wurde: Du bist als Mensch ein göttliches Wesen, ein Göttersohn. - Und man betrachtete es als unmöglich, dem unvorbereiteten Menschen dieses Geheimnis der Menschwerdung darzustellen. Aber der eingeweihte Grieche sah das so an; daher diese Grundempfindung. Es war eben nicht eine Idee, die in klaren Konturen auftrat, sondern eine seelische Grundempfindung.
Diese seelische Grundempfindung finden wir dann in der griechischen Kunst, welche die Götter so darstellt, daß sie eben idealisierte Menschen werden. Dieses Darstellen des Göttlichen durch idealisierte Menschen geht durchaus aus dieser Grundempfindung hervor. So daß der Grieche, man möchte sagen, in die Keuschheit des Gefühles und Gemütes sein Verhältnis zum Göttlichen zurückgenommen hat.
Nun tritt, nachdem die griechische Weltanschauung völlig in ihre Abendröte getaucht war, mit dem 15. Jahrhundert eine ganz andere Seelenstimmung auf. Der Mensch fühlt sich auf der Erde nicht mehr als eine Umhüllung des Göttlichen, auch nicht mehr als eine Darstellung des Göttlichen wie der Grieche, sondern er fühlt sich als ein Wesen, das mehr von unteren unvollkommenen Stufen zu der Menschwerdung aufgestiegen ist, und das nur aufschauen kann zu einem jenseitigen Göttlichen. Und der neuere Mensch gründet eine Naturwissenschaft, die zwar aus dieser Grundempfindung hervorgeht, deren Verhältnis aber zu sich selbst er noch nicht finden konnte. Und es ist gerade Aufgabe der Anthroposophie, dieses Verhältnis des Menschen zu sich selber und zum Göttlichen wiederum zu finden. Wir können uns dieses Finden in der folgenden Weise vergegenwärtigen. Wir können uns einmal versetzen in die Seele des vorgriechischen Menschen. Er wird sagen: Ich umhülle ein Göttliches. Ich kann dieses Göttliche, indem ich es mit menschlichem Fleisch und Blut umhülle, auf der Erde nur unwürdiger darstellen, als es in Wahrheit ist. Ich kann es gewissermaßen nur herabwürdigen. Ich muß mich, wenn ich das Göttliche in mir rein darstellen will, reinigen. Ich muß eine Art Katharsis durchmachen, mich reinigen, damit der Gott in mir möglichst gut zur Geltung kommt. — Aber im Grunde genommen ist es ein Zurückgehen zu dem väterlichen Urprinzip, was ja auch in manchem religiösen Leben des Altertums dadurch zum Vorschein kommt, daß die Menschen die Idee haben, sie gehen zurück nach dem Tode zu den Vorfahren, zu weit zurückliegenden Vorfahren. Es ist durchaus im religiösen Leben dieser Zug nach dem väterlichen Urschöpfungsprinzip. Der Mensch fühlt sich noch nicht ganz heimisch auf der Erde. Es ist aber auch noch nicht vorhanden das Streben, aus einer fremden Menschenposition heraus, möchte ich sagen, zu dem jenseitigen Göttlichen hin. Es ist das Streben vielmehr, den Menschen rein darzustellen, weil man meint, dann komme der Gott zum Vorschein.
Das wird im griechischen Leben anders. Im griechischen Leben fühlt sich der Mensch nicht mehr so eng mit dem göttlichen VaterPrinzip verbunden, wie das in früheren Zeiten der Fall war. Der Mensch fühlt sich als Mensch so recht mit dem Göttlichen verbunden, aber zu gleicher Zeit auch mit dem Irdischen. Er fühlt sich gewissermaßen in einer Gleichgewichtslage zwischen dem Göttlichen und dem Irdischen. Das ist der Zeitabschnitt, in den das Mysterium von Golgatha fällt. Das ist der Zeitabschnitt, wo nicht mehr bloß gesagt werden kann: «Im Urbeginne war der Logos, und der Logos war bei Gott» - man meinte den Vatergott - «und ein Gott war der Logos», sondern wo gesagt werden mußte: «Und das Wort ist Fleisch geworden.» Der Logos, der ursprünglich nur als die Vereinigung mit dem Vatergotte angesehen wurde, er wurde angesehen so, daß er gewissermaßen voll in dem Menschen sein Haus gefunden hat, daß der Mensch ihn in sich selber suchen muß. Dieser Menschenstimmung kam das Mysterium von Golgatha entgegen. Der Vatergott konnte eigentlich niemals in menschlicher Gestalt gedacht werden. Der Vatergott mußte rein geistig gedacht werden. Der Christus, der Gottessohn, wurde als göttlichmenschlich gedacht. Und im Grunde genommen haben wir das, was der Grieche wie eine Sehnsucht empfindet, oder wie eine künstlerische Verwirklichung auslebt, für das Vollmenschliche erfüllt in der Gesamtdarstellung des Mysteriums von Golgatha. Wir müssen uns dabei nicht an irgendwelche Nebensächlichkeiten halten, wir müssen uns an das Hauptsächliche halten, an das Einkehren des Göttlichen in den Menschen selber, so wie der Mensch auf Erden dasteht.
Damit stellt sich das Mysterium von Golgatha in den Mittelpunkt der ganzen Menschheitsentwickelung auf Erden. Und man darf es durchaus nicht als einen historischen Zufall betrachten, daß das Mysterium von Golgatha in die Geschichte trat da, wo das Griechentum sozusagen von außen her, von der Erde aus, das Göttliche im Menschen darstellen will. Man möchte sagen, womit man mehr als ein poetisches Bild meinen darf: Der Grieche mußte aus den Erdeningredienzien heraus den Gott als einen Menschen künstlerisch darstellen, und der Kosmos schickte den Gott herab auf die Erde in den Menschen hinein, um im kosmischen Sinne die Antwort zu geben auf die wunderbare Frage, die das Griechentum gewissermaßen in die Weltenweiten hinausgeschickt hat. Man möchte sagen, man fühlt es der geschichtlichen Entwickelung der Menschheit an, wie das Griechentum in seinen menschlich dargestellten Göttern an den Kosmos die Frage stellt: Kann der Gott Mensch werden? — Und der Kosmos antwortete: Der Gott kann Mensch werden - indem er das Mysterium von Golgatha geschehen ließ.
Aber ich habe es ja öfter begreiflich gemacht, wie dieses Verstehen des Mysteriums von Golgatha in seiner Urwesenheit eigentlich nur möglich ist, wenn man nun nicht mit der Erkenntnis des Toten, die in der neueren Zeit üblich geworden ist, an dieses Mysterium von Golgatha herantritt, sondern mit einer neuen, lebensvollen Erkenntnis, mit einer Erkenntnis, die wiederum vom Geiste durchdrungen sein kann.
Damit kommen wir dazu, uns jetzt sagen zu müssen: Zwar hat der Mensch auf der einen Seite sein Freiheitsbewußtsein, auf der anderen Seite seine mechanistischen Fortschritte in der äußeren Kultur durch die toten Begriffe erreicht, allein er kann bei dieser inneren Totheit nicht stehenbleiben. Er muß aus der eigenen Kraft der Seele heraus den Impuls eines Lebendigen, eines Lebendig-Geistigen gewinnen, das heißt, er muß in der Lage sein, wiederum zu Ideen zu kommen, die innerlich lebendig sind, zu Ideen, die aber nicht nur den Verstand ergreifen, sondern die den ganzen Menschen ergreifen. Es muß dem modernen Menschen wirklich möglich werden, was ich angedeutet habe in meinem Buche «Goethes Weltanschauung», wiederum dazu zu kommen, nicht von toten Ideen zu sprechen, nicht von Ideenabstraktionen zu sprechen, sondern sich aufzuschwingen zu jener Geistigkeit, in der er sich mit Ideen erfüllt, aber mitzunehmen in diese Ideenregion alle lebendige Wärme, die in seiner Seele erglimmen kann, alles hellste Licht, das seine Begeisterung in der Seele erwecken kann. Der Mensch muß wiederum hinauftragen können zu den Ideen alle seine Seelenwärme und all sein Seelenlicht. Er muß innerlich wiederum seinen ganzen Menschen mitnehmen können in die Geistigkeit der Ideenwelt. Das haben wir eigentlich in der Gegenwart verloren.
Und man darf sagen, vielleicht ergreift einen weniges in der neuen Literatur so tief wie das erste Kapitel von Nietsches Darstellung der Philosophie im «tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen», wie er es nennt. Nietzsche schildert die Philosophen der vorsokratischen Zeit, Thales, Heraklit, Anaxagoras, und es ist etwas furchtbar Ergreifendes für denjenigen, der für so etwas einen richtigen Sinn und ein offenes Herz hat, wenn Nietzsche da schildert, wie in einer gewissen Zeit der griechischen Entwickelung der Grieche sich emporgeschwungen hat zu der Abstraktion des bloßen Seins, von der Vielheit der den Menschen mit Wärme erfüllenden Natureindrücke zu dem blassen Gedanken des Seins. Etwa so sagt Nietzsche an der Stelle: Dann fühlt man, wie einen fröstelt, fühlt man, in welch eisige Regionen man gerät, wenn man aufsteigt mit einem alten griechischen Philosophen, etwa mit dem Parmenides, zu dieser abstrakten Idee des allumfassenden Seins. Wie in Gletscherregionen des Seelenlebens versetzt, so fühlt sich Nietzsche aus jener modernen Kultur heraus, in die er ganz hineinversetzt war, wie ich vorgestern hier dargestellt habe.
Aber daran ist Nietzsche ja auch gescheitert, daß er nur noch bis zu der Kälte, man möchte sagen, bis zu dem Gletscherhaften der menschlichen Ideenwelt gehen konnte, während das Hellsehen in wirklicher Geistigkeit Seelenwärme und Seelenlicht in das Intellektualistische hineinzutragen vermag, so daß man jene Reinheit im Begriff erreichen kann, von der ich gesprochen habe in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit», aber mit dieser Reinheit der Begriffe nicht ein innerlich ausgetrockneter Mensch, sondern ein innerlich begeisterter Mensch wird. Ein Mensch, welcher, indem er die Erdenwärme der Sinnlichkeit verläßt, durch die kalten Regionen des Intellektualismus hindurch die warme Sonnenwärme des Kosmos empfindet, ein Mensch, welcher, indem er die leuchtenden Erdengegenstände verläßt und es erlebt, wie es durch die intellektualistische Begriffswelt innerlich dunkel wird, durch seine lebendigen Seelenimpulse, die er hineinträgt in diese Dunkelheit, nun imstande wird, das kosmische Licht zu empfangen, nachdem er, man möchte sagen, überwunden hat die irdische Dunkelheit.
In Nietzsche sieht man überall die Sehnsucht nach diesem kosmischen Lichte, nach dieser kosmischen Wärme. Er kann sie nicht erreichen. Daran scheitert er. Anthroposophie möchte den Weg weisen dahin, wo man nicht verliert die Erdenwärme, nicht verliert das Erdenlicht, wo man den frischen Anteil und das frische Interesse behält an allem einzelnen Konkreten des Irdischen, wo man in Liebe zugetan bleibt allem Irdischen und dennoch heraufsteigen kann zu jener Höhe der Begriffe, wo sich in reinen Begriffen das Göttliche enthüllt, das man nun als moderner Mensch nicht mehr in sich fühlen kann wie der alte Mensch auf Erden, sondern zu dem man erst hinkommen muß.
Das ist die Stimmung, die in der richtigen Weise empfinden läßt das Geheimnis von dem Heiligen Geiste. Und das ist der Unterschied im Leben im Geistigen zwischen dem modernen Menschen und dem älteren Menschen. Der ältere Mensch sog seine Geistigkeit aus allen einzelnen Wesen der Natur. Die Wolke sprach ihm vom Geistigen, die Blume sprach ihm vom Geistigen. Der moderne Mensch muß durch seine eigene Kraft seine kalt und tot gewordenen Begriffe verlebendigen, dann gelangt er an jenen Heiligen Geist, durch den er auch das Mysterium von Golgatha in der richtigen Weise sehen kann. Denn man nimmt etwas mit aus dem Menschentum, wenn man in dieser Weise — ich darf jetzt trocken sagen — anthroposophisch seine Ideen mit Seelenwärme und Seelenlicht durchsetzt, man nimmt etwas mit aus dem Menschentum. Man kann nicht über das Trockene, Banale, Abstrakte der Ideenwelt hinausdringen, wenn man nicht dieses mitnimmt. Steigt man auf durch jene Erkenntnisse, von denen ich in den anthroposophischen Büchern gesprochen habe, zu einem Welterfassen, dann bleiben die Ideen gerade so exakt, wie sie in der Mathematik sind, oder wie sie in den anderen Wissenschaften sind. Man denkt nicht unexakter, als der Chemiker in seinem Laboratorium oder der Biologe in seinem Kabinette denkt, nur bedingen die Begriffe etwas, was vom Menschen mitgeht. Wenn der Anthroposoph in Imagination, wenn er in Inspiration spricht, und der gesunde Menschenverstand wirklich diese Imagination, diese Inspiration begreift, so stehen sie vor ihm tatsächlich wie die mathematischen oder geometrischen Gebilde vor dem Mathematiker. Aber der Mensch muß etwas mitbringen, sonst begreift er diese Ideen nicht richtig. Das, was er mitbringen muß, ist die Liebe.
Ohne die Erkenntnis mit Liebe zu durchdringen, kann man sich nicht die Erkenntnis, welche durch Anthroposophie gegeben wird, aneignen, sonst bleibt sie eben etwas, was ganz gleichwertig ist mit anderem. Es ist ganz gleichwertig, ob Sie mit irgendeinem materialistischen Naturforscher sagen: Beuteltiere, Menschenaffen, Affenmenschen, Menschen, oder ob Sie sagen: Der Mensch besteht aus physischem Leib, Ätherleib, astralischem Leib und Ich. - Es ist nur ein anderer Gedanke, aber der Status der Seele ist kein anderer. Der Status der Seele wird erst ein anderer, wenn innerlich lebendig dieses geistige Erfassen des Menschen in der Natur wird. Aber es geht nicht, wenn nicht dasselbe Gefühl, dieselbe Empfindung, derselbe Seelenstatus, die in der Liebe leben, mit der Erkenntnis mitgehen. Und durchdringt man also seine Erkenntnis mit dem Erlebnis der Liebe, dann dringt diese Erkenntnis heran an das Mysterium von Golgatha. Und dann haben wir nicht nur die an sich ganz berechtigte naive Hinneigung zu dem Christus — wie gesagt, ganz berechtigt ist ja diese naive Hinneigung -, sondern wir haben dann auch eine Erkenntnis, die sich ausbreitet über den ganzen Kosmos, und die sich vertiefen kann zu der Erfassung des Mysteriums von Golgatha. Mit anderen Worten: Das Leben in dem Heiligen Geiste führt zum Leben in dem Christus, oder vor den Christus, vor den Sohn Gottes hin.
Und dann lernen wir begreifen, wie in der Tat der Logos übergegangen ist durch das Mysterium von Golgatha von dem Vater auf den Sohn. Und dann wird uns das Wichtige enthüllt, daß es für die alten Menschen richtig war, zu sagen «Im Urbeginne war der Logos. Und der Logos war bei Gott, und ein Gott war der Logos», daß aber dann angefangen werden mußte in der griechischen Zeit, zu sagen: «Und der Logos ist Fleisch geworden.» Und der moderne Mensch muß hinzusetzen: Und ich muß finden ein Verständnis des im Fleische lebenden Logos dadurch, daß ich meine Begriffe und Ideen, daß ich meine ganze Welterfassung ins Geistige erhebe, so daß ich durch den Heiligen Geist den Christus, und durch den Christus erst den Vatergott finde.
Das ist ganz gewiß nichts Theoretisches, das ist etwas, was ins unmittelbare Erleben des modernen Menschen eingehen kann, und das ist die Stellung zum Christentum, die sich auf ganz naturgemäße Weise aus der Anthroposophie heraus ergibt.
Es ist schon so, daß dieses Erfassen eines Geistesweges dem modernen Menschen unerläßlich ist. Er braucht dieses Erfassen eines Geistesweges gerade gegenüber der toten Kultur, die in dem durchaus nicht herunterzusetzenden, sondern von der anderen Seite aufs höchste zu schätzenden Mechanismus unseres heutigen Lebens besteht. Aber es gehört, ich möchte sagen, ein innerer Ruck dazu, damit der moderne Mensch auf diesen Geistesweg komme. Und diesen inneren Ruck - ich habe es vor kurzem hier einmal ein wirkliches Aufwachen genannt — möchten viele nicht entwickeln. Und das macht eigentlich die moderne Gegnerschaft gegen die Anthroposophie aus, daß dieser Ruck nicht mitgemacht werden will in der Seele. Es hat etwas Unbequemes, diesen Ruck mitzumachen. Man wird gewissermaßen durch diesen Ruck in den Strudel des kosmischen Werdens hineingerissen. Man möchte ruhig bleiben mit seinen starren, scharf konturierten Begriffen, die nur auf das Tote gehen, das sich nicht wehrt im Erfassen der Welt, während das Lebendige, wenn man es mit den toten Begriffen erfassen will, sich wehrt, sich bewegt und aus den Begriffen herausschlüpft. Das ist dem modernen Menschen unbequem. Er fühlt das. Er kleidet es in allerlei andere Dinge, und er wird geradezu wild, wenn er hört, daß man von einer gewissen Seite aus ein ganz anderes Erfassen der Welt auf den verschiedensten Gebieten des Lebens will.
Nur aus dieser Stimmung heraus sind die ja ganz absonderlichen Dinge zu erklären, die gerade bei der Gegnerschaft der Anthroposophie auftreten. Man braucht nur einige Erscheinungen der allerletzten Zeit zu erwähnen, und man wird dieses Absonderliche durchaus fühlen können.
Wir haben hier das große Unglück des Verlustes unseres Goetheanum. Wir können ganz gut wissen, daß, was auch immer möglich ist an Wiederaufbau, dieses alte Goetheanum uns nicht mehr erstehen kann, daß dieses alte Goetheanum nur eine Erinnerung bleiben kann, und daß es ein wirklich ungeheurer Schmerz ist, sich sagen zu müssen: Es ist versucht worden mit diesem Goetheanum, jenen Kunststil zu finden, der der neuen Geistigkeit entspricht, und dieser Kunststil, von dem man gewollt hat, daß er anregend wirkt, ist eigentlich mit diesem Goetheanum zunächst vom Erdboden verschwunden. Man braucht die Tatsache nur auszusprechen, um das ungeheuer Schmerzvolle, das in dem Untergang des Goetheanum liegt, zu empfinden.
Nun ist es ja sonst üblich, daß dem Unglück gegenüber selbst die Gegner aufhören, eine pietätlose und höhnische Sprache zu führen. Just dem Unglück des Goetheanum-Brandes gegenüber finden es aber die Gegner richtig und angemessen, ihre Gegnerschaften noch höhnender und noch schimpfender zu entfalten. Das ist eben das Absonderliche. Und das ist etwas, was sich in würdiger, aber eigentlich unwürdiger Weise an das andere anreiht.
Die anthroposophische Bewegung wurde begonnen als eine rein positive Wirksamkeit. Niemand wurde attackiert, niemand wurde angegriffen, keine Agitation wurde sonst getrieben, als daß gesagt wurde, was eben auf anthroposophische Art erforscht werden kann. Gewartet wurde ruhig, bis diejenigen Seelen, die nun eben in der Gegenwart vorhanden sind, aus den Impulsen ihrer Seelen herbeikommen, um Verständnis zu haben für das, was aus der geistigen Welt heraus gesagt werden soll. Auf das hin war die ganze anthroposophische Arbeit veranlagt: nicht in wüster Weise zu agitieren, nicht Programme aufzustellen, sondern einfach zu sagen, was ist, nach den Erforschungen der geistigen Welt, und zu warten, in welchen Seelen die Sehnsucht nach Erkenntnis dieses Seienden vorhanden ist.
Nun gibt es heute zahlreiche Menschen, welche Gegner der AnthroPposophie sind, ohne daß sie überhaupt wissen warum, die nur mitlaufen mit anderen, von denen sie angeführt werden. Aber es gibt immerhin einige, die wissen sehr gut, warum sie Gegner der Anthroposophie sind. Sie wissen es, weil sie sehen, daß auf anthroposophischem Boden Wahrheiten herauskommen, die jenen eben charakterisierten Ruck fordern. Und das will man nicht. Das will man aus den verschiedensten Gründen nicht, weil man so geartete Wahrheiten einfach immer in engen Kreisen bewahren wollte, um durch den Besitz solcher Wahrheiten als eine Art kleiner geistiger, aristokratischer Gruppen hinauszuragen über die allgemeine Menschheit. Daher wird vorzugsweise derjenige gehaßt, der gegenüber dem, was einfach im Geiste der heutigen Zeit liegt, die Wahrheit aus der geistigen Welt für alle Menschen holt. Aber zu gleicher Zeit wissen diese Gegner - ich meine diese führenden Gegner-, daß ja gegen die Wahrheit als solche nichts gemacht werden kann, daß diese ihren Weg durch die engsten Felsenspalten hindurch findet, welche Hindernisse ihr auch entgegentreten mögen. Daher wird zumeist nicht der Weg eingeschlagen, gegen diese Wahrheiten zu kämpfen; da würden diese Wahrheiten schon die Mittel und Wege finden, den Gegner aus dem Felde zu schlagen. Sehen Sie sich die Gegnerschaften an - und es wäre gut, wenn in anthroposophischen Kreisen man recht viel die Gegnerschaften ansehen würde -, man sieht ab von der Bekämpfung der Wahrheiten und legt das Hauptgewicht auf die persönlichen Angriffe, persönlichen Verdächtigungen, persönlichen Beschimpfungen, persönlichen Verleumdungen. Der Wahrheit glaubt man nichts antun zu können, man will sie aber aus der Welt schaffen; deshalb glaubt man sie aus der Welt schaffen zu können durch den Weg der persönlichen Verunglimpfung. Das ist etwas, was in der Art des Kampfes gerade hinweist darauf, wie gut die führenden Gegner wissen, in welcher Weise sie vorzugehen haben, damit sie einen zeitweiligen Sieg erringen.
Das aber ist etwas, was gerade unter Anthroposophen gewußt werden sollte; denn noch immer glauben Anthroposophen, daß man durch eine gewöhnliche Diskussion mit dem Gegner etwas erreichen kann. Es kann uns ja nichts mehr schaden, als wenn es uns in Diskussionen gelingt, unsere Wahrheit darzustellen, denn wir werden nicht deshalb gehaßt, weil wir die Unwahrheit sagen, sondern weil wir die Wahrheit sagen. Und je mehr es uns gelingt zu zeigen, daß wir die Wahrheit sagen, desto mehr wird das der Fall sein.
Natürlich kann es einen davon nicht abhalten, für die Wahrheit einzutreten. Aber abhalten kann es einen davon, die Naivität zu bewahren [zu glauben], daß man durch Diskussionen vorwärtskommt. Man kommt nur durch positive Arbeit vorwärts. Man kommt nur dadurch vorwärts, daß man so stark als möglich die Wahrheit vertritt, damit so viel als möglich prädestinierte Seelen, die viel mehr, als man meint, in der Gegenwart vorhanden sind, herbeikommen, um an ihr die Geistesnahrung zu finden, die notwendig ist, wenn für die Zukunft der Menschen nicht Abbau, sondern Aufbau getrieben werden soll, wenn eine Aufwärtsentwickelung, nicht eine Abwärtsentwickelung stattfinden soll.
Aus dem Chaos der Gegenwart ist nicht herauszukommen auf materiellem Wege. Aus dem Chaos der Gegenwart ist nur herauszukommen auf dem geistigen Wege. Aber auf den geistigen Weg kann man sich nur begeben, wenn man den Geist als Führer wählt. Und in rechtem Sinne den Geist als Führer zu wählen, zu verstehen, wie man ihn wählt, das ist es, was Anthroposophen in tiefstem Sinne erkennen und durchschauen müssen.
IX. Moral Impulses and Physical Effectiveness in the Human Being. The Comprehension of a Path. (continued)
It has been emphasized several times that the present historical moment in the development of humanity is the one in which intellectual life has come to dominate. The period we have characterized as the fourth post-Atlantean period, the Greco-Roman period, was the time that prepared for the present moment. And you know that, according to certain inner soul characteristics of the people who developed during these epochs, we count the Greco-Roman period from the 8th century BC to the 15th century AD. And since that time, we assume that we are fully immersed in the period in which the soul development of Western humanity is taking place, which therefore has to be regarded as the present historical moment.
Now man's whole relation to the intellectual world was quite different before the 15th century than it was later. And although the coloring of the intellectual life in the human soul, which was present in Greece, was already in the twilight since the 4th century AD, something of that Greco-Roman soul mood is still expressed everywhere in this second period of the fourth post-Atlantic age, which, however, can only be fully grasped if one empathizes with the particular characteristics of the Greek people, as they were especially in that period, which is described rather superficially by history at the end of Greek life, in the time from Socrates and Plato until the end of Greekness.
We can see from everything that shines through the external, one might say superficial, historical account, even without any spiritual-scientific deepening, that when the Greeks achieved what we today call an intellectual view of the world, they found his joy, at least his satisfaction, that he believed that by going through the various stages of education at that time and being able to form a world view through the power of the intellect, he had achieved an elevation of his humanity through the possession of this world view. He believed himself to be a better human being when he was able to grasp the world intellectually than when he was not capable of doing so. The inner joy and satisfaction of intellectual life was fully present in this fourth post-Atlantic period.
And this can also be seen in later personalities. For example, in the way in which Johannes Scotus Erigena from the 9th century after Christ, whom you have often mentioned, formulates and presents his ideas, one can see that he believes that in this formulation of ideas he has something through which an inner enthusiasm can be kindled in man. And so it was, even after the advent of a somewhat colder form of discussion, still the case with those who, often in solitude from the rest of the world, in scholasticism, attempted to arrive at a world picture by intellectual means. And only in the last few centuries has it become the case that people actually believe they are losing their inner warmth of soul when they ascend to become intellectuals. If we do not go back very far, if we go back, for example, to such a rationalistic world view as is found in Schiller, or even to the extraordinarily exact morphology developed by Goethe, we can still see how such personalities strikingly arrived at an idealistically intellectualized view of the world, and how they believed they could only truly become human when they were able to infuse their ideas with inner warmth. The world of ideas is often felt to be pale and cold today, but not so long ago it was not felt that way. And this is certainly connected with a significant law of human development. It is connected with the fact that man himself has come to have a completely different relationship to the world of ideas, which is being developed in an intellectualistic way, than he had in the past. In earlier times, the world of ideas was alive. The universe was seen as living. One need only gain a real insight into older conceptual structures to know that the dead were actually something that was thought of as falling out of the living, which was thought of as spreading over the whole world, just as we find ashes falling out of what is burning. There was a completely different human perception of the universe. He regarded the universe as a great living organism, and the dead, for example, the whole of the mineral kingdom, he regarded as ashes that had fallen out of the cosmic process and had become dead because they were the waste of the living.
This view of the world has, however, changed considerably in recent centuries. Scientific knowledge, for example, is fully respected, or at least has always been fully respected, insofar as it can be spread about what is dead. And more and more, the longing arose to regard the living itself only as a chemical compound of the dead. The idea of a generation from the dead arose.
I have mentioned it before: when people in the Middle Ages tried to create a homunculus in a retort, this idea of creating a being from ingredients was not intended as abiogenesis in the sense that later natural science spoke of abiogenesis, but rather it was thought of as a kind of conjuring up of a specific living thing from the indefinite living universe. The universe was not yet thought of as a mechanism, as something dead. That is why people believed in the possibility of being able to extract a special living thing from the general living. But the medieval mind did not yet think of a combination of the non-living to create the living. Today, these things are extremely difficult to understand outside of spiritual science, because people today are accustomed to grasping their concepts as if they had actually become so, now that humanity has passed through stages of childhood, that they are absolutely correct today.
However much we talk about today's progress, it is still the case that man has never been so rigid in his conceptualizations as in this age. And in the last analysis it is a subjective element that gives man this rigidity, especially in cognition. When man directs his concepts, his ideas, to the dead, the dead is a purely passive thing. He, the human being, is able to shape his concepts quite comfortably, for the dead does not move, and he can develop his physical concepts without being disturbed when he goes to nature with these concepts, so that nature itself, in living mobility, demands that he be just as mobile in his concepts.
Goethe still had this feeling that one must have inwardly living concepts that are not endowed with sharp contours, which, when one goes to the periphery of things in order to grasp the individual things through ideas, adapt to living, mobile existence and living, mobile beings.
Today, if one may express it somewhat paradoxically, man loves comfort in his concepts. It is the case that this tendency towards the rigid concept, towards the concept that can be grasped in sharp contours, is only applicable to the dead, which does not move and therefore allows the concept to be rigid. But it is nevertheless the case that this life in rigid concepts, which are actually no longer concerned with anything outwardly alive, has nevertheless given man the possibility of inwardly attaining the consciousness of freedom, as I have often pointed out.
Two things have emerged from the fact that the human being has become completely dead in his concepts. On the one hand, the consciousness of freedom, and on the other hand, the possibility of applying the rigid concepts, which are taken from the dead and are only applicable to the dead, in the magnificent triumphant technique, which, after all, is based on being a realization of the rigid system of ideas.
That is one side of the development that modern humanity has undergone. One must also understand how man has, as it were, cut himself off from the living, how the living has become alien to him. One must also realize that when man stands face to face with the dead, if he does not want to remain in the dead but wants to take up the impulse of the living in his soul, he must find this living out of his own strength.
We can go back to ancient times and find that every cloud formation, the lightning that flashed from the cloud, the thunder that rolled, the plant that grew and so on, all brought the living to man, so that man, as it were, breathed the living in recognition and therefore found himself involuntarily in the living. He only needed to absorb the living from the outside. In today's world, however, because the outside world no longer gives him this living, since his level of development, according to which his concepts can only grasp the dead, man is compelled to bring this living out of the innermost being of his life himself, to make himself alive. You cannot grasp history merely theoretically with the intellect. History appears too monotonous. You have to put yourself in it with all your soul, in the way that people in different eras experienced history. And then you will find what a tremendous change has occurred for all, if I may put it this way, pre-Greek ages, which we trace in our anthroposophy back to the Atlantic period, that is, to the 7th, 8th millennium BC, through the Greek period to us. And today I would like to describe this change in relation to the way people feel about the universe in a straightforward way. I would like to describe to you how this change in the way the human soul feels about the universe presents itself to spiritual contemplation.
If we go back to older times — external history only shows traces of this, one has to penetrate into the matter in a spiritual-scientific way, using the methods we have already learned, in order to understand this —, if we go back to the pre- , for example to Egyptian culture, to Babylonian-Chaldean culture or even to ancient Persian culture, we find everywhere that people have the feeling that they have descended to earth from a prenatal, from a pre-earthly life. And what the gods had implanted in him in his pre-earthly life, he still carries within him as an after-effect.
At that time, people actually felt on earth in such a way that they said to themselves: Here on earth I stand. Before I stood on earth, I was in a spiritual-soul world, figuratively speaking in a world of light. In my inner being, that light still mysteriously shines on. As a human being, I am, so to speak, the envelope of the divine light that still lives in me. - And so man was aware that a divine being had descended with him to earth. He did not actually say — and this can even be proved philosophically —: I stand here on earth, but he actually said: I, a human being, envelop the God who has placed himself on earth. That was actually his consciousness. And the further back we go in the development of mankind, the more we find this consciousness: I, a human being on earth, envelop the God who has descended. For the divine was manifold. And one would like to say: The last gods in the hierarchy of gods that descended to earth were, for the ancient consciousness, the human beings themselves. And the one who, not in an external way, in the gruesomely external way, for example, as Deußen has distorted oriental culture for Europe, but who, in a truly empathetic way, becomes aware the consciousness with which the ancient Indian spoke when he felt his Brahman within him, which he enveloped, he will also be able to feel what it was really like in the human soul in ancient times.
Out of this developed the consciousness that was present in man in relation to the divine Father, the Father-God. Man himself felt as a kind of son of the gods. He felt this not for what was in the flesh and blood, but for what enveloped the flesh and blood. According to the view of various people of ancient times, this was not worthy of enveloping the God. It was not this man of flesh and blood that he regarded as divine, but that which projected from a spiritual world into this physical-earthly man, into the man of flesh and blood.
And so, above all, the relationship with the Father God was something that was felt to be the religious relationship. And the highest dignity in the old mysteries was that of the father. In most oriental mysteries, seven degrees were distinguished, through which the initiate had to ascend. The first degree was that through which he merely had to prepare himself, where he had to acquire a state of soul through which he could understand what was shown to him in the mysteries. The following degrees up to the fourth had then led him to fully grasp what his national soul was, so that he no longer felt as an individual human being, but as a member of a group of people. And as he then progressed to the higher degrees, to the fifth and sixth, he felt more and more as the one who envelops the divine. And the highest degree was the Father. These were the personalities who, in their outer life and in their outer existence, were to be, as it were, a realization of what the human being felt as the divine primal principle, which he related to himself in a real sense. The outer spiritual culture was completely adapted to this center of religious life: to feel in the consciousness of the human being a relationship to the fatherly principle of creation. And accordingly, man felt everything that he could comprehend inwardly; the light of knowledge that could arise for him, he felt as being superior to him from God the Father. He felt, so to speak, God the Father continuing to work in his own intellect. All cult was arranged accordingly, which was only a reflection of what could be experienced in the mysteries as a path of knowledge.
Now came the Greek period. In the Greek we have the purest representative of this stage of humanity, which developed out of the human beings with those older soul conditions that I have just described. The Greek felt the human being more as a human being, no longer merely as the shell of the divine. But it is the nature of this Greek feeling that the person who had gone through Greek schooling, let us say now through Greek rational training, or also, who had gone through Greek artistry, or through Greek religious life, felt, so to speak, that the divine had been completely absorbed in man. The Greek no longer felt that he was the vessel of the god, but that he was the manifestation of the god. Only this was no longer expressed in the same undisguised way as the other in older times. In Greece it was the case that only at a certain stage was it revealed to the student of the mysteries: “As a human being, you are a divine being, a son of the gods.” And it was considered impossible to reveal this secret of becoming human to the unprepared person. But the initiated Greek saw it that way; hence this basic feeling. It was not an idea that emerged in clear contours, but a basic feeling of the soul.
We find this basic emotional feeling in Greek art, which depicts the gods as idealized human beings. This representation of the divine through idealized human beings arises from this basic feeling. So that the Greek, one might say, has withdrawn his relationship to the divine into the chastity of feeling and emotion.
Now, after the Greek world view had been completely submerged in its twilight, a very different mood of the soul emerged in the 15th century. Man no longer feels himself on earth as a covering of the divine, nor as a representation of the divine like the Greeks, but he feels himself as a being that has risen from lower, imperfect stages to become human, and that can only look up to a divine beyond. And the newer human being founds a natural science that arises from this basic feeling, but whose relationship to itself it has not yet been able to find. And it is precisely the task of anthroposophy to rediscover this relationship of the human being to itself and to the divine. We can visualize this discovery in the following way. We can put ourselves in the shoes of pre-Greek man. He will say: I am enveloping a divine being. By enveloping this divine being with human flesh and blood, I can only represent it on earth in a less worthy way than it is in truth. I can only degrade it, so to speak. If I want to represent the divine within me purely, I must purify myself. I must undergo a kind of catharsis, purify myself, so that the God in me comes into its own as well as possible. But basically it is a return to the paternal archetype, which is also evident in some religious life of antiquity in that people have the idea that after death they go back to their ancestors, to ancestors who lived long ago. This tendency towards the paternal archetype is very much in evidence in the religious life of this period. Man does not yet feel completely at home on earth. But there is also not yet the striving, from a foreign human position, I would say, towards the divine beyond. Rather, it is the striving to present the human being purely, because one thinks that then the god will emerge.
This is different in Greek life. In Greek life, the human being no longer feels as closely connected to the divine Father principle as was the case in earlier times. The human being feels truly connected to the divine as a human being, but at the same time also to the earthly. He feels, as it were, in a state of equilibrium between the divine and the earthly. This is the period of time in which the Mystery of Golgotha falls. This is the period of time when it can no longer be said merely: “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God” - one meant the Father God - “and a God was the Logos”, but where it had to be said: “And the Word became flesh.” The Logos, which originally was regarded only as the union with Father-God, was regarded in such a way that it has, so to speak, fully found its home in man, that man must seek it within himself. The Mystery of Golgotha met this human mood. The Father-God could never actually be conceived in human form. The Father-God had to be conceived purely spiritually. The Christ, the Son of God, was conceived as divine-human. And basically, we have fulfilled for the fully human being what the Greek felt as a yearning or lived out as an artistic realization in the overall presentation of the Mystery of Golgotha. We do not have to stick to any trivialities; we have to stick to the main thing, to the entry of the divine into the human being himself, as the human being stands on earth.
Thus the Mystery of Golgotha is placed at the center of the whole development of humanity on earth. And it should certainly not be regarded as a historical accident that the Mystery of Golgotha entered history at the point where Greek culture, so to speak, from the outside, from the earth, wants to portray the divine in man. One is tempted to say, and here one may use more than a poetic image: the Greek had to artistically depict the God as a human being out of the ingredients of the earth, and the cosmos sent the God down to earth into the human being in order to give the cosmic answer to the wonderful question that Greek culture had, so to speak, sent out into the world. One would like to say, one feels it in the historical development of mankind, how Greek thought, in its humanly portrayed gods, asks the cosmos the question: Can the God become man? — And the cosmos answered: The God can become man - by allowing the Mystery of Golgotha to happen.
But I have often made it clear how this understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha is actually only possible in its original presence if one does not approach this Mystery of Golgotha with the knowledge of the dead, which has become common in modern times, but with a new, vitalized knowledge, with a knowledge that can in turn be imbued with the spirit.
This brings us to the fact that we now have to say: on the one hand, man has achieved his sense of freedom, on the other hand, he has achieved mechanistic progress in external culture through dead concepts, but he cannot remain stuck in this inner deadness. He must, out of the soul's own power, gain the impulse of a living, living spiritual life, that is, he must be able to come up with ideas that are inwardly alive, but ideas that not only take hold of the intellect but take hold of the whole human being. It must become truly possible for modern man to do what I have indicated in my book “Goethe's World View”: to no longer speak of dead ideas, to no longer speak of abstractions of ideas, but to to that spiritual world in which he is filled with ideas, but to take with him into this realm of ideas all the living warmth that can glow in his soul, all the brightest light that his enthusiasm can awaken in his soul. Man must in turn be able to carry up to the ideas all his soul warmth and all his soul light. He must inwardly be able to take his whole being with him into the spirituality of the world of ideas. We have actually lost that in the present.
And one may say that perhaps few things in modern literature move us as deeply as the first chapter of Nietzsche's description of philosophy in “the tragic age of the Greeks,” as he calls it. Nietzsche describes the philosophers of the pre-Socratic period, Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and it is something terribly moving for anyone who has a true sense and an open heart for such things when Nietzsche describes how, at a certain point in Greek development, the Greeks rose to the abstraction of mere being, from the multiplicity of natural impressions that fill people with warmth to the pale thought of being. Nietzsche says something like this at the passage: “Then one feels how one shivers, one feels into what icy regions one gets when one ascends with an ancient Greek philosopher, say with Parmenides, to this abstract idea of all-encompassing being.” Nietzsche felt as if he had been transported into the glacial regions of the soul, out of that modern culture into which he had fully been transported, as I described here the day before yesterday.
But that is also how Nietzsche failed: he was only able to go as far as the coldness, one might say the glacier-like quality of the human world of ideas, while clairvoyance in true spirituality is able to bring warmth and light into the intellectual so that one can attain the purity of concept of which I spoke in my Philosophy of Freedom, but with this purity of concept one does not become an inwardly dried-up person, but an inwardly inspired person. A human being who, by leaving the earthly warmth of sensuality, feels the warm solar warmth of the Cosmos through the cold regions of intellectualism; a human being who, by leaving the luminous objects of the earth and experiencing how it the darkness of the intellectual world of concepts, is able to receive the cosmic light through the living impulses of his soul, which he carries into this darkness, after he has, one might say, overcome the earthly darkness.
In Nietzsche, you see the yearning for this cosmic light, for this cosmic warmth everywhere. He cannot reach it. That is where he fails. Anthroposophy wants to show the way to where you do not lose the warmth of the earth, do not lose the light of the earth, where you retain the fresh portion and the fresh interest in all the individual concrete things of the earthly, where you remain devoted to everything earthly in love and yet can ascend to that height of concepts where the divine reveals itself in pure concepts, which one, as a modern human, can no longer feel within oneself like the ancient human on earth, but to which one must first arrive.
This is the mood that allows one to feel the mystery of the Holy Spirit in the right way. And that is the difference in the life of the spirit between the modern human being and the older human being. The older human being absorbed his spirituality from all the individual beings of nature. The cloud spoke to him of the spiritual, the flower spoke to him of the spiritual. The modern human being must, through his own strength, bring to life his concepts that have become cold and dead, and then he will attain to that Holy Spirit through whom he can also see the Mystery of Golgotha in the right way. For one takes something with one from humanity when one — if I may say so in a dry way — anthroposophically interweaves one's ideas with soul warmth and soul light in this way. One cannot penetrate beyond the dry, banal, abstract of the world of ideas if one does not take this with one. If one rises through those insights of which I have spoken in the anthroposophical books to a world-grasping, then the ideas remain just as exact as they are in mathematics or as they are in the other sciences. One does not think less precisely than the chemist in his laboratory or the biologist in his cabinet, only the concepts imply something that is carried along by the human being. When the anthroposophist speaks in imagination, when he speaks in inspiration, and when common sense truly grasps this imagination, this inspiration, then they stand before him as do mathematical or geometrical forms before the mathematician. But the person must bring something with them, otherwise they will not grasp these ideas correctly. That which they must bring with them is love.
Without permeating knowledge with love, one cannot appropriate the knowledge given by anthroposophy; otherwise it remains just something that is equivalent to other things. It makes no difference whether you say with some materialistic naturalist: marsupials, anthropoids, ape-men, men, or whether you say: the human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body and the I. It is only a different thought, but the status of the soul is no different. The status of the soul only becomes different when this spiritual understanding of the human being in nature becomes inwardly alive. But it will not work unless the same feeling, the same perception, the same soul status that lives in love, goes along with the realization. And if one therefore permeates one's realization with the experience of love, then this realization approaches the Mystery of Golgotha. And then we not only have the naive inclination to the Christ, which is in itself quite justified – as I said, this naive inclination is indeed quite justified – but we also have a realization that extends throughout the cosmos and can deepen into an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. In other words, life in the Holy Spirit leads to life in the Christ, or to the Christ, to the Son of God.
And then we learn to understand how, in fact, the Logos passed through the Mystery of Golgotha from the Father to the Son. And then the important thing is revealed to us: that it was right for the ancients to say, “In the beginning was the Logos. And the Logos was with God, and a god was the Logos,” but that then in Greek times it had to be said, “And the Logos became flesh.” And modern man must add: And I must find an understanding of the Logos living in the flesh by elevating my concepts and ideas, by elevating my whole conception of the world into the spiritual, so that I find the Christ through the Holy Spirit and only through the Christ do I find the Father-God.
This is certainly not something theoretical; it is something that can enter into the immediate experience of modern man, and it is the attitude towards Christianity that arises in a completely natural way from anthroposophy.
It is true that this grasp of a spiritual path is indispensable for the modern human being. He needs this grasp of a spiritual path precisely in the face of the dead culture that exists in the mechanism of our present-day life, which is by no means to be disparaged, but rather to be highly esteemed from the other side. But it takes, I would say, an inner jolt for the modern human being to come upon this spiritual path. And this inner jolt — I recently called it a real awakening here — is something that many do not want to experience. And that is actually what characterizes the modern opposition to anthroposophy: the unwillingness to go through this jolt in the soul. There is something uncomfortable about going through this jolt. In a sense, this jolt tears you into the maelstrom of cosmic becoming. You want to stay calm with your rigid, sharply contoured concepts, which only go to the dead that do not resist when grasping the world, while the living, if you want to grasp it with the dead concepts, resists, moves and slips out of the concepts. This is uncomfortable for modern man. He feels it. He dresses it up in all sorts of different ways, and he goes absolutely wild when he hears that a certain side wants a completely different way of understanding the world in the most diverse areas of life.
Only this mood can explain the strange things that occur precisely when it comes to opposing anthroposophy. One need only mention a few recent phenomena to fully appreciate this strangeness.
We have here the great misfortune of the loss of our Goetheanum. We know very well that, however possible it is to rebuild it, this old Goetheanum can no longer arise for us, that this old Goetheanum can only remain a memory, and that it is a truly tremendous pain to have to say to ourselves: We have tried to find the artistic style that corresponds to the new spirituality in this Goetheanum, and this artistic style, which we wanted to have a stimulating effect, has actually disappeared from the face of the earth, at least for the time being, with this Goetheanum. One need only express the fact to feel the tremendous pain that lies in the destruction of the Goetheanum.
Now it is usually the case that even opponents stop using disrespectful and mocking language when faced with misfortune. But in the face of the disaster of the Goetheanum fire, the opponents find it right and proper to express their antagonism in even more scornful and abusive terms. That is precisely the strange thing. And it is something that follows on from the other in a dignified, but actually unworthy, way.
The anthroposophical movement began as a purely positive endeavor. No one was attacked, no one was attacked, no agitation was done, as was said, what can be explored just in anthroposophical way. Waited quietly until those souls, who are now present, come from the impulses of their souls, to have understanding for what is to be said from the spiritual world. The whole of anthroposophical work was geared to this: not to agitate in a wild way, not to set up programs, but simply to say what is, according to the research of the spiritual world, and to wait in which souls the longing for knowledge of this being is present.
Now there are many people today who are opponents of anthroposophy without even knowing why, who just go along with others who lead them. But there are still some who know very well why they are opponents of anthroposophy. They know because they see that anthroposophical ideas lead to truths that demand the jolt just mentioned. And that is not what they want. They do not want that for the most diverse reasons, because they simply always wanted to keep such truths in narrow circles, in order to stand out as a kind of small spiritual, aristocratic group through the possession of such truths, above the general human race. That is why those who, in contrast to what is simply in the spirit of the present time, bring the truth from the spiritual world for all people, are hated. But at the same time these opponents – I mean these leading opponents – know that nothing can be done against the truth as such, that it will find its way through the narrowest crevices, whatever obstacles may stand in its way. Therefore, in most cases, the path of fighting against these truths is not taken; the truths would find the ways and means to beat the opponent. Take a look at the opponents – and it would be good if people in anthroposophical circles took a good look at the opponents – they avoid fighting the truths and instead focus on personal attacks, personal suspicions, personal insults, personal defamation. They do not think they are doing any harm to the truth, but they want to eliminate it; therefore they believe they can eliminate it by the way of personal vilification. This is something that, in the way of fighting, indicates how well the leading opponents know how to proceed in order to achieve a temporary victory.
But this is something that should be known among anthroposophists in particular, because anthroposophists still believe that they can achieve something by engaging in ordinary discussion with their opponents. Nothing can harm us more than when we succeed in presenting our truth in discussions, because we are hated not because we speak untruthfully, but because we speak the truth. And the more we succeed in showing that we are speaking the truth, the more we will be hated.
Of course, it can't stop you from standing up for the truth. But it can stop you from maintaining the naivety [to believe] that you can make progress through discussion. You can only make progress through positive work. You can only make progress by representing the truth as strongly as possible, so that as many predestined souls as possible, who are present in greater numbers than one might think, come to you to find the spiritual nourishment they need if the future of humanity is not to be a period of decline but one of progress, if there is to be upward development instead of downward development.
We cannot escape from the chaos of the present by material means. We can only escape from the chaos of the present by spiritual means. But one can only embark on the spiritual path by choosing the spirit as one's guide. And to choose the spirit as one's guide in the right sense, to understand how to choose it, that is what anthroposophists must recognize and understand in the deepest sense.