The Festivals and their Meaning II:
Easter
GA 203
27 March 1921, Dornach
IV. Spirit Triumphant
There is a significant contrast between the Christmas thought and the Easter thought. Understanding of the contrast and also of the living relationship between them will lead to an experience which, in a certain way, embraces the whole riddle of human existence.
The Christmas thought points to birth. Through birth, the eternal being of man comes into the world whence his material, bodily constitution is derived. The Christmas thought, therefore, links us with the super-sensible. Together with all its other associations, it points to the one pole of our existence, where as physical-material beings we are connected with the spiritual and super-sensible. Obviously, therefore, the birth of a human being in its full significance can never be explained by a science based entirely upon observation of material existence.
The thought underlying the Easter festival lies at the other pole of human experience. In the course of the development of Western civilisation this Easter thought assumed a form which has influenced the growth of the materialistic conceptions prevailing in the West. The Easter thought can be grasped—in a more abstract way, to begin with—when it is realised that the immortal, eternal being of man, the spiritual and super-sensible essence of being that cannot in the real sense be born, descends from spiritual worlds and is clothed in the human physical body. From the very beginning of physical existence the working of the spirit within the physical body actually leads this physical body towards death. The thought of death is therefore implicit in that of birth.
On other occasions I have said that the head-organisation of man can be understood only in the light of the knowledge that in the head a continual process of dying is taking place, but is counteracted by the life-forces in the rest of the organism. The moment the forces of death that are all the time present in the head and enable man to think, get the upper hand of his transient, mortal nature—at that moment actual death occurs.
In truth, therefore, the thought of death is merely the other side of that of birth and cannot be an essential part of the Easter thought. Hence at the time when Pauline Christianity was beginning to emerge from conceptions still based upon Eastern wisdom, it was not to the Death but to the Resurrection of Christ Jesus that men's minds were directed by words of power such as those of Paul: “If Christ be not risen, then is your faith vain.”
The Resurrection, the triumphant victory over death, the overcoming of death—this was the essence of the Easter thought in the form of early Christianity that was still an echo of Eastern wisdom. On the other hand, there are pictures in which Christ Jesus is portrayed as the Good Shepherd, watching over the eternal interests of man as he sleeps through his mortal existence. In early Christianity, man is everywhere directed to the words of the Gospel: “He Whom ye seek is not here.” Expanding this, we might say: Seek Him in spiritual worlds, not in the physical-material world. For if you seek Him in the physical-material world, you can but be told: He Whom you seek is no longer here.
The all-embracing wisdom by means of which in the first centuries of Christendom men were still endeavouring to understand the Mystery of Golgotha and all that pertained to it, was gradually submerged by the materialism of the West. In those early centuries, materialism had not reached anything like its full power, but was only slowly being prepared. It was not until much later that these first, still feeble and hardly noticeable tendencies were transformed into the materialism which took stronger and stronger hold of Western civilisation. The original Eastern concept of religion came to be bound up with the concept of the State that was developing in the West. In the fourth century A.D., Christianity became a State religion—in other words, there crept into Christianity something that is not religion at all.
Julian the Apostate, who was no Christian, but for all that a deeply religious man, could not accept what Christianity had become under Constantine. And so we see how in the fusion of Christianity with the declining culture of Rome, the influence of Western materialism begins to take effect—very slightly to begin with, but nevertheless perceptibly. And under this influence there appeared a picture of Christ Jesus which at the beginning simply was not there, was not part of Christianity in its original form: the picture of Christ Jesus as the crucified One, the Man of Sorrows, brought to His death by the indescribable suffering that was His lot.
This made a breach in the whole outlook of the Christian world. For the picture which from then onwards persisted through the centuries—the picture of Christ agonising on the Cross—is of the Christ Who could no longer be comprehended in His spiritual nature but in His bodily nature only. And the greater the emphasis that was laid on the signs of suffering in the human body, the more perfect the skill with which art succeeded at different periods in portraying the sufferings, the more firmly were the seeds of materialism planted in Christian feeling. The crucifix is the expression of the transition to Christian materialism. This in no way gainsays the profundity and significance with which art portrayed the sufferings of the Redeemer. Nevertheless it is a fact that with the concentration on this picture of the Redeemer suffering and dying on the Cross, leave was taken of a truly spiritual conception of Christianity.
Then there crept into this conception of the Man of Sorrows, that of Christ as Judge of the world, who must be regarded as merely another expression of Jahve or Jehovah—the figure portrayed so magnificently in the Sistine Chapel at Rome as the Dispenser of Judgment. The attitude of mind which caused the triumphant Spirit, the Victor over death, to vanish from the picture of the grave from which the Redeemer rises—this same attitude of mind, in the year 869 at the Eighth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople, declared belief in the Spirit to be heretical, decreed that man is to be conceived as consisting only of body and soul, the soul merely having certain spiritual qualities. Just as we see the spiritual reality expelled by the crucifix, just as the portrayals of the physical give expression to the pain-racked soul without the Spirit triumphant by Whom mankind is guarded and sustained, so do we see the Spirit struck away from the being of man by the decree of an Ecumenical Council.
The Good Friday festival and the Easter festival of Resurrection were largely combined. Even in days when men were not yet so arid, so empty of understanding, Good Friday became a festival in which the Easter thought was transformed in an altogether egotistic direction. Wallowing in pain, steeping the soul voluptuously in pain, feeling ecstasy in pain—this, for centuries, was associated with the Good Friday thought which, in truth, should merely have formed the background for the Easter thought. But men became less and less capable of grasping the Easter thought in its true form. The same humanity into whose creed had been accepted the principle that man consists of body and soul only—this same humanity demanded, for the sake of emotional life, the picture of the dying Redeemer as the counter-image of its own physical suffering, in order that this might serve—outwardly at least—as a background for the direct consciousness that the living Spirit must always be victorious over everything that can befall the physical body. Men needed, first, the picture of the martyr's death, in order to experience, by way of contrast, the true Easter thought.
We must always feel profoundly how, in this way, vision and experience of the Spirit gradually faded from Western culture, and we shall certainly look with wonder, but at the same time with a feeling of the tragedy of it all, at the attempts made by art to portray the Man of Sorrows on the Cross. Casual thoughts and feelings about what is needed in our time are not enough, my dear friends. The decline that has taken place in Western culture in respect of the understanding of the spiritual, must be perceived with all clarity. What has to be recognised to-day is that even the greatest achievements in a certain domain are something that humanity must now surmount. The whole of our Western culture needs the Easter thought, needs, in other words, to be lifted to the Spirit. The holy Mystery of Birth, the Christmas Mystery once revealed in such glory, gradually deteriorated in the course of Western civilisation into those sentimentalities which revelled in hymns and songs about the Jesus Babe and were in truth merely the corresponding pole of the increasing materialism. Men wallowed in sentimentalities over the little Child. Banal hymns about the Jesus Babe gradually became the vogue, obscuring men's feeling of the stupendous Christmas Mystery of the coming of a super-earthly Spirit. It is characteristic of a Christianity developing more and more in the direction of intellectualism that certain of its representatives to-day even go as far as to say that the Gospels are concerned primarily with the Father, not with the Son. True, the Resurrection thought has remained, but it is associated always with the thought of Death. A characteristic symptom is that with the development of modern civilisation, the Good Friday thought has come increasingly to the fore, while the Resurrection thought, the true Easter thought, has fallen more and more into the background. In an age when it is incumbent upon man to experience the resurrection of his own being in the Spirit, particular emphasis must be laid upon the Easter thought. We must learn to understand the Easter thought in all its depths. But this entails the realisation that the picture of the Man of Sorrows on the one side and that of the Judge of the world on the other, are both symptomatic of the march of Western civilisation into materialism. Christ as a super-sensible, super-earthly Being Who entered nevertheless into the stream of earthly evolution—that is the Sun-thought to the attainment of which all the forces of human thinking must be applied.
Just as we must realise that the Christmas thought of birth has become something that has dragged the greatest of Mysteries into the realm of trivial sentimentality, so too we must realise how necessary it is to emphasise through the Easter thought that there entered into human evolution at that time something that is forever inexplicable by earthly theories, but is comprehensible to spiritual knowledge, to spiritual insight.
Spiritual understanding finds in the Resurrection thought the first great source of strength, knowing that the spiritual and eternal—even within man—remains unaffected by the physical and bodily. In the words of St. Paul, “If Christ be not risen, then is your faith vain,” it recognises a confirmation—which in the modern age must be reached in a different, more conscious way—of the real nature of the Being of Christ.
This is what the Easter thought must call up in us to-day. Easter must become an inner festival, a festival in which we celebrate in ourselves the victory of the Spirit over the body. As history cannot be disregarded, we shall not ignore the figure of the pain-stricken Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, on the Cross; but above the Cross we must behold the Victor Who remains unaffected by birth as well as by death, and Who alone can lead our vision up to the eternal pastures of life in the Spirit. Only so shall we draw near again to the true Being of Christ. Western humanity has drawn Christ down to its own level, drawn Him down as the helpless Child, and as one associated pre-eminently with suffering and death.
I have often pointed out that the words, “Death is evil,” fell from the Buddha's lips as long before the Mystery of Golgotha as, after the Mystery of Golgotha, there appeared the crucifix, the figure of the crucified One. And I have also shown how then, in the sixth century, men looked upon death and felt it to be no evil but something that had no real existence. But this feeling, which was an echo from an Eastern wisdom even more profound than Buddhisn, was gradually obscured by the other, which clung to the picture of the pain-racked Sufferer.
We must grasp with the whole range of our feelings—not with thoughts alone, for their range is too limited—what the fate of man's conception of the Mystery of Golgotha has been in the course of the centuries. A true understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha is what we must again acquire. And be it remembered that even in the days of Hebraic antiquity, Jahve was not conceived as the Judge of the world in any juristic sense. In the Book of Job, the greatest dramatic presentation of religious experience in Hebraic antiquity, Job is presented as the suffering man, but the idea of the execution of justice from without is essentially absent. Job is the suffering man, the man who regards what outer circumstances inflict upon him, as his destiny. Only gradually does the juristic concept of retribution, punishment, become part of the world-order. Michelangelo's picture over the altar of the Sistine Chapel represents in one aspect, a kind of revival of the Jahve principle. But we need the Christ for Whom we can seek in our inmost being, because when we truly seek Him, He at once appears. We need the Christ Who draws into our will, warming, kindling, strengthening it for deeds demanded of us for the sake of human evolution. We need, not the suffering Christ, but the Christ Who hovers above the Cross, looking down upon that which—no longer a living reality—comes to an end on the Cross. We need the strong consciousness of the eternity of the Spirit, and this consciousness will not be attained if we give ourselves up to the picture of the crucifix alone. And when we see how the crucifix has gradually come to be a picture of the Man of suffering and pain, we shall realise what power this direction of human feeling has acquired. Men's gaze has been diverted from the spiritual to the earthly and physical. This aspect, it is true, has often been magnificently portrayed, but to those, as for example Goethe, who feel the need for our civilisation again to reach the Spirit, it is something, which, in a way, rouses their antipathy. Goethe has made it abundantly clear that the figure of the crucified Redeemer does not express what he feels to be the essence of Christianity, namely, the lifting of man to the Spirit.
The Good Friday mood, as well as the Easter mood, needs to be transformed. The Good Friday mood must be one that realises when contemplating the dying Jesus: This is only the other side of birth. Not to recognise that dying is also implicit in the fact of being born, is to lose sight of the full reality. A man who is able to feel that the mood of death associated with Good Friday merely presents the other pole of the entrance of the child into the world at birth, is making the right preparation for the mood of Easter—which can, in truth consist only in the knowledge: “Into whatever human sheath I have been born, my real being is both unborn and deathless.”—In his own eternal being man must unite with the Christ Who came into the world and cannot die, Who when He beholds the Man of Sorrows on the Cross, is looking down, not upon the eternal Self, but upon Himself incarnate in another.
We must be aware of what has actually happened in consequence of the fact that since the end of the first Christian century, Western civilisation has gradually lost the conception of the Spirit. When a sufficiently large number of men realise that the Spirit must come to life again in modern civilisation, the World-Easter thought will become a reality. This will express itself outwardly in the fact that man will not be satisfied with investigating the laws of nature only, or the laws of history which are akin to those of nature, but will yearn for understanding of his own will, for knowledge of his own inner freedom, and of the real nature of the will which bears him through and beyond the gate of death, but which in its true nature must be seen spiritually.
How is man to acquire the power to grasp the Pentecost thought, the outpouring of the Spirit, since this thought has been dogmatically declared by the Eighth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople to be an empty phrase? How is man to acquire the power to grasp this Pentecost thought if he is incapable of apprehending the true Easter thought—the Resurrection of the Spirit? The picture of the dying, pain-racked Redeemer must not confound him; he must learn that pain is inseparable from material existence.
The knowledge of this was a fundamental principle of the ancient wisdom which still sprang from instinctive depths of man's cognitional life. We must acquire this knowledge again, but now through acts of conscious cognition. It was a fundamental principle of the ancient wisdom that pain and suffering originate from man's union with matter. It would be foolishness to believe that because Christ passed through death as a Divine-Spiritual Being, He did not suffer pain; to declare that the pain associated with the Mystery of Golgotha was a mere semblance of pain would be to voice an unreality. In the deepest sense, this pain must be conceived as reality—and not as its mere counter-image. We must gain something from what stands before us when, in surveying the whole sweep of the evolution of humanity, we contemplate the Mystery of Golgotha.
When the picture of the man who had attained freedom at the highest level was presented to the candidates for ancient Initiation after they had completed the preparatory stages, had undergone all the exercises by which they could acquire certain knowledge presented to them in dramatic imagery, they were led at last before the figure of the Chrestos—the man suffering within the physical body, in the purple robe and wearing the crown of thorns. The sight of this Chrestos was meant to kindle in the soul the power that makes man truly man. And the drops of blood which the aspirant for Initiation beheld at vital points on the Chrestos figure were intended to be a stimulus for overcoming human weaknesses and for raising the Spirit triumphant from the inmost being. The sight of pain was meant to betoken the resurrection of the spiritual nature. The purpose of the figure before the candidate was to convey to him the deepest import of what may be expressed in these simple words: For your happiness you may thank many things in life—but if you have gained knowledge and insight into the spiritual connections of existence, for that you have to thank your Buffering, your pain. You owe your knowledge to the fact that you did not allow yourself to be mastered by suffering and pain but were strong enough to rise above them. And so in the ancient Mysteries, the figure of the suffering Chrestos was in turn replaced by the figure of the Christ triumphant Who looks down upon the suffering Chrestos as upon that which has been overcome. And now again it must be possible for the soul to have the Christ triumphant before and within it, especially in the will. That must be the ideal before us in this present time, above all in regard to what we wish to do for the future well-being of mankind.
But the true Easter thought will never be within our reach if we cannot realise that whenever we speak of Christ we must look beyond the earthly into the cosmic. Modern thinking has made the cosmos into a corpse. To-day we gaze at the stars and calculate their movements—in other words we make calculations about the corpse of the universe, never perceiving that in the stars there is life, and that the will of the cosmic Spirit prevails in their courses. Christ descended to humanity in order to unite the souls of men with this cosmic Spirit. And he alone proclaims the Gospel of Christ truly, who affirms that what the sun reveals to the physical senses is the outer expression of the Spirit of our universe, of its resurrecting Spirit.
There must be a living realisation of the connection of this Spirit of the universe with the sun, and of how the time of the Easter festival has been determined by the relationship prevailing between the sun and the moon in spring. A link must be made with that cosmic reality in accordance with which the Easter festival was established in earth-evolution. We must come to realise that it was the ever-watchful Guardian-Spirits of the cosmos who, through the great cosmic timepiece in which the sun and the moon are the hands in respect of earthly existence, have pointed explicitly to the time in the evolution of the world and of humanity at which the Festival of the Resurrection is to be celebrated. With spiritual insight we must learn to perceive the course of the sun and moon as the two hands of the cosmic time piece, just as for the affairs of physical existence we learn to understand the movements of the hands on a clock. The physical and earthly must be linked to the super-physical and the super-earthly.
The Easter thought can be interpreted only in the light of super-earthly realities, for the Mystery of Golgotha, in its aspect as the Resurrection Mystery, must be distinguished from ordinary human happenings. Human affairs take their course on the earth in an altogether different way. The earth received the cosmic forces and, in the course of its evolution, the human powers of will penetrate the metabolic processes of man's being. But since the Mystery of Golgotha took place, a new influx of will streamed into earthly happenings. There took place on earth a cosmic event, for which the earth is merely the stage. Thereby man was again united with the cosmos.
That is what must be understood, for only so can the Easter thought be grasped in all its magnitude. Therefore it is not the picture of the crucifix alone that must stand before us, however grandly and sublimely portrayed by art. “He Whom ye seek is not here”—is the thought that must arise. Above the Cross there must appear to you the One Who is here now, Who by the spirit calls you to a spirit-awakening.
This is the true Easter thought that must find its way into the evolution of mankind; it is to this that the human heart and mind must be lifted. Our age demands of us that we shall not only deepen our understanding of what has been created, but that we shall become creators of the new. And even if it be the Cross itself, in all the beauty with which artists have endowed it, we may not rest content with that picture; we must hear the words of the Angels who, when we seek in death and suffering, exclaim to us: “He Whom ye seek is no longer here.”
We have to seek the One Who is here, by turning at Eastertime to the Spirit of Whom the only true picture is that of the Resurrection. Then we shall be able, in the right way, to pass from the Good Friday mood of suffering to the spiritual mood of Easter Day. In this Easter mood we shall also be able to find the strength with which our will must be imbued if the forces of decline are to be countered by those which lead humanity upwards. We need the forces that can bring about this ascent. And the moment we truly understand the Easter thought of Resurrection, this Easter thought—bringing warmth and illumination—will kindle within us the forces needed for the future evolution of mankind.
Sechzehnter Vortrag
[ 1 ] Es ist ein bedeutsamer Gegensatz vorhanden zwischen dem Weihnachtsgedanken und dem Ostergedanken, und wer die beiden Gedanken, von denen in unserem Zusammenhange oftmals gesprochen worden ist, einander gegenüberzustellen vermag, sie in entsprechender Weise zu verbinden imstande ist und daraus dann innerlich lebendigmachen kann ihr Zusammenwirken — das Zusammenwirken des Weihnachtsgedankens und des Ostergedankens -, der wird hingewiesen auf innerliches Erleben, das in gewissem Sinne die Menschheitsrätsel in umfassender Weise umschreibt.
[ 2 ] Der Weihnachtsgedanke weist uns ja hin auf die Geburt. Wir wissen, wie durch die Geburt das Ewige des Menschen hereinzieht in die Welt, aus der des Menschen sinnlich-sichtbare leibliche Wesenheit genommen ist. Und wenn wir uns mit dieser Anschauung dem Weihnachtsgedanken nähern, dann erscheint er uns als der Gedanke, der uns verbindet mit dem Übersinnlichen. Dann erscheint er neben allem übrigen, was er uns nahebringt, so, daß er gewissermaßen an den einen Pol unseres Daseins hinweist, wo wir als sinnlich-physische Wesen zusammenhängen mit dem Geistig-Übersinnlichen. Deshalb wird, voll umfaßt, die Geburt des Menschen niemals begreiflich erscheinen können aus einer Wissenschaft, welche ihre Voraussetzungen nur aus der Beobachtung des sinnlich-physischen Daseins nimmt.
[ 3 ] Am anderen Pol des menschlichen Erlebens liegt der Gedanke, der dem Osterfeste zugrunde liegt und der ja immer mehr und mehr im Lauf der abendländischen Entwickelung zu einem Gedanken geworden ist, der das materialistische Vorstellen des Abendlandes vorbereitet hat. Der Ostergedanke kann, zunächst in einer mehr abstrakten Weise, erfaßt werden, wenn man sich klar darüber ist, wie das Ewige, das Unsterbliche des Menschen, das also auch nicht geboren werden kann, wie das Geistig-Übersinnliche heruntersteigt aus geistigen Welten und sich umkleidet mit dem menschlichen physischen Leibe. Vom Beginne dieses physischen Daseins an — das habe ich von den verschiedensten Gesichtspunkten her vor Ihnen hier ausgeführt — ist dieses Wirken des Geistes im physischen Leibe eigentlich ein Hinführen des physischen Leibes zum Sterben, und mit dem Gedanken der Geburt ist zu gleicher Zeit der Gedanke des Sterbens gegeben.
[ 4 ] Ich habe darauf hingewiesen, wie ja die Hauptesorganisation des Menschen nur dadurch zu verstehen ist, daß man weiß: Im Grunde genommen ist im Haupte ein fortwährendes Sterben vorhanden, das nur bekämpft wird von den Lebekräften des übrigen menschlichen Organismus. Und in dem Augenblicke, wo die Sterbekräfte, die immer im Menschen im Haupte vorhanden sind und des Menschen Denkernatur bedingen, in dem Augenblicke, wo diese Sterbekräfte die Oberhand bekommen über das menschliche vergängliche Wesen, in diesem Augenblicke tritt der wirkliche Tod ein.
[ 5 ] So ist in Wahrheit der Todesgedanke nur, ich möchte sagen, die andere Seite des Geburtsgedankens, und es kann daher im Ostergedanken nicht der Todesgedanke zum Ausdrucke kommen. In der Zeit, als das Christentum noch aus einer morgenländischen Anschauung heraus seine erste Gestalt gefunden hat, sehen wir, wie das Paulinische Christentum vor allen Dingen die Menschen hinweist nicht auf den Tod des Christus Jesus, sondern auf die Auferstehung, wie dieses Christentum darauf hinweist mit so starken Worten, wie sie Paulus spricht: «Ist der Christus nicht auferstanden, so ist euer Glaube tot.»
[ 6 ] Die Auferstehung, der Triumph über den Tod, die Überwindung des Todes, das ist es, was vor allen Dingen als der Ostergedanke vorhanden gewesen ist in der ersten, noch durch die Weisheit des Morgenlandes bedingten Form des Christentums. Oder aber wir können auch sehen, wie auf der anderen Seite uns Bilder auftreten, wo der Christus Jesus dargestellt wird als der gute Hirte, der da wacht gewissermaßen über die ewigen Angelegenheiten des in seinem zeitlichen Dasein schlafenden Menschen. Wir sehen überall, daß im Grunde genommen die erste Christenheit hingewiesen wird auf die Worte des Evangeliums: «Der, den ihr suchet, der ist nicht mehr hier.» Ihr müßt ihn suchen — so können wir ergänzend hinzufügen, in geistigen Welten; ihr dürft ihn nicht suchen in der physisch-sinnlichen Welt. Suchet ihr ihn in der physischsinnlichen Welt, so kann euch nur gesagt werden: Der, den ihr als Physisch-Sinnlichen suchet, der ist nicht mehr hier in der physisch-sinnlichen Welt.
[ 7 ] Die große, umfassende Weisheit, welche sich in den ersten Jahrhunderten des Christentums noch angeschickt hat, das Mysterium von Golgatha mit allem, was dazu gehört, zu durchdringen, sie tauchte zunächst unter in den Materialismus des Abendlandes. Dieser Materialismus war in den ersten Jahrhunderten noch nicht zum vollen Durchbruch gekommen. Er bereitete sich langsam vor. Man möchte sagen, die ersten, noch ganz schwachen materialistischen Impulse der ersten Jahrhunderte, die kaum bemerkbar waren, wandelten sich erst viel später um in das, was immer mehr und mehr Materialismus wurde und immer mehr die Zivilisation des Abendlandes durchdrang. Verbunden hat sich ja der morgenländische Religionsgedanke mit dem im Abendlande heraufziehenden Staatsgedanken. Im 4. Jahrhundert wurde das Christentum Staatsreligion, das heißt, es drang in das Christentum etwas ein, was nicht mehr Religion sein kann.
[ 8 ] Julian Apostata, der kein Christ, aber ein religiöser Mensch war, konnte vor allen Dingen nicht ja sagen zu dem, was aus dem Christentum durch den Konstantinismus geworden war. Und so sehen wir, wie erst ganz schwach, aber eben doch schon etwas bemerkbar in der Vermischung des Christentums mit dem untergehenden Römertum, wie da der Materialismus des Abendlandes seine ersten Strahlen wirft. Unter diesem Einflusse entstand auch jenes Bild des Christus Jesus, das im Anfange gar nicht vorhanden war, das durchaus nicht im Ursprunge des Christentums liegt: das Bild des Christus Jesus als des Gekreuzigten, Leidenden, als des Schmerzensmannes, als desjenigen, der in Schmerzen vergeht unter dem Eindrucke des unsäglichen Leides, das ihm zugefügt worden ist.
[ 9 ] Damit war ein Bruch gekommen in die ganze Anschauung der christlichen Welt; denn dieses Bild, welches fortan durch die Jahrhunderte gegangen ist — der am Kreuz hängende, schmerzdurchtränkte Christus -, das ist der Christus, welcher nicht mehr in seiner geistigen Wesenheit aufgefaßt werden kann, sondern allein in seiner leiblich-körperhaften Wesenheit. Und je mehr die Schmerzensmerkmale dem menschlichen Leibe aufgeprägt wurden, je mehr es die Kunst in ihrer großen Vollkommenheit zu verschiedenen Epochen zustande gebracht hat, dem am Kreuze hängenden Erlöser die Schmerzensmerkmale aufzudrücken, um so mehr wurden die Keime materialistisch-christlichen Empfindens gelegt. Der Kruzifixus ist der Ausdruck für den Übergang zum christlichen Materialismus. Dem widerspricht nicht, daß in einer großen, gewaltigen Weise gerade das, was als Schmerz des Erlösers durch die Kunst verkörpert worden ist, in seiner vollen Tiefe und Bedeutung anerkannt werde. Trotzdem bleibt es wahr, daß mit diesem Bilde des Erlösers, der am Kreuze unter Schmerzen vergeht, von einer eigentlich geistigen Auffassung des Christentums der Abschied genommen worden ist.
[ 10 ] Es mischte sich ja dann hinein in diese Auffassung des Schmerzensmannes jene von Christus, dem Weltenrichter, den wir eigentlich nur als einen anderen Ausdruck für Jahve oder Jehova, nämlich für den Jahve oder Jehova, der ins Juristische umgewandelt ist, in der Sixtinischen Kapelle in Rom in so großartiger Weise sehen. Derselbe Geist, der von der Vorstellung des Grabes, aus dem der Erlöser sich erhebt, aus dem der Erlöser heraus triumphiert, der aus diesem Bilde hat verschwinden lassen den triumphierenden Geist, den Sieger über den Tod derselbe Geist hat 869 am achten allgemeinen ökumenischen Konzil in Konstantinopel den Geist als etwas erklärt, an das man nicht glauben dürfe, hat dekretiert, daß der Mensch nur vorzustellen ist als aus Leib und Seele bestehend und daß der Geist nur in einigen Eigenschaften bestehe, die die Seele trüge.
[ 11 ] Wie wir hinweggehaucht sehen aus dem Kruzifixus das Geistige, wie wir im Physischen, das allein zur äußeren Darstellung kommt, die schmerzdurchtränkte Seele fühlen, ohne den Geist als Triumphator, ohne den Geist als Träger und zu gleicher Zeit als den für die Menschheit Sorgenden, so sehen wir durch Konzilsbeschluß auch aus der menschlichen Wesenheit den Geist hinweggestrichen.
[ 12 ] Und zusammengeschoben wurde das Karfreitagsfest und das Auferstehungsfest, das Osterfest. Das Karfreitagsfest war in gewissem Sinne in den Zeiten, in denen die Menschen noch nicht so trocken und nüchtern und verstandesöde waren, zu einem Fest geworden, in dem der Ostergedanke umgewandelt war in einer durch und durch egoistischen Weise. Im Schmerze wühlen, die eigene Seele wie wollüstig in den Schmerz eintauchen, Schmerzensseligkeiten empfinden, das war durch Zeitalter hindurch der Karfreitagsgedanke, der gewissermaßen nur den Hintergrund abgeben sollte für einen Ostergedanken, zu dessen Erfassung man in seiner wahren Gestalt immer weniger fähig wurde. Denn dieselbe Menschheit, die zum Glauben hat erheben lassen das Prinzip, daß der Mensch nur aus Leib und Seele bestehe, dieselbe Menschheit forderte für ihr Gefühl den bloß sterbenden Erlöser, forderte das Gegenbild ihres eigenen physischen Schmerzes, damit sie einen Hintergrund habe, um - allerdings nur in einem äußerlichen Übergang -— zu empfinden, was ursprünglich elementar empfunden werden sollte als das Bewußtsein, daß der lebendige Geist immerdar siegen muß über alles, was im physischen Leib geschehen kann. Man brauchte erst das Marterbild des Todes, um als Kontrast zu empfinden den eigentlichen Ostergedanken.
[ 13 ] Man wird es immer tief empfinden müssen, wie auf diese Weise allmählich aus der abendländischen Kultur die eigentliche Geistanschauung und Geistempfindung gewichen ist, und man wird gewiß mit Bewunderung, aber auch zugleich mit dem Gefühle einer gewissen Tragik hinschauen auf all die künstlerischen Versuche, den Schmerzensmann an dem Kreuze darzustellen. Es genügt nicht, daß man sich mit einigen hingeworfenen Gedanken und mit einigen eingestreuten Empfindungen zu dem erhebe, was unserer Zeit notwendig ist. Man muß alles das voll durchschauen, was auf abschüssiger Bahn seit langem war in bezug auf das Geistige in der abendländischen Kultur.
[ 14 ] Wir haben es heute nötig, daß auch dasjenige, was auf einem Gebiete zu dem Größten gehört, zu gleicher Zeit empfunden werde als etwas, worüber sich die Menschheit heute erheben muß. Wir brauchen aber innerhalb unserer ganzen abendländischen Kultur den Ostergedanken. Wir brauchen mit anderen Worten wiederum die Erhebung zum Geiste. Was einstmals in grandioser Weise aufgetaucht ist als das heilige Mysterium der Geburt, das Weihnachtsmysterium, das tauchte allmählich innerhalb der sich entwickelnden abendländischen Kultur ein in jene Sentimentalitäten, die doch nur der Gegenpol für die materialistische Entwickelung waren, in jene Sentimentalitäten, welche schwelgten und schwelgten in allen möglichen Liedern über das Jesulein. Es war ein wollüstiges Schwelgen in der Empfindung des kleinen Kindes. Statt das große, gewaltige Mysterium des Hereindringens eines überirdischen Geistes im Weihnachtsmysterium zu empfinden, wurden die nüchternen Philisterlieder von dem «Jesulein» allmählich das Tonangebende und das Maßgebliche.
[ 15 ] Es ist charakteristisch für die rein in den Bahnen des Verstandes wandelnde Entwickelung des Christentums — die es bis heute in gewissen Vertretern schon dahin gebracht hat, zu sagen, der Sohn gehöre überhaupt nicht in das Evangelium, sondern der Vater gehöre in das Evangelium —, daß diese Entwickelung dennoch den Auferstehungsgedanken beibehält, indem der Auferstehungsgedanke noch immer mit dem Todesgedanken verquickt wird, auch für dieses Christentum. Aber charakteristisch ist, wie immer mehr in der Form, wie ich es eben dargestellt habe, der Karfreitagsgedanke mit der modernen Entwickelung in den Vordergrund getreten ist, und wie der Auferstehungsgedanke, der wahre Ostergedanke, allmählich immer mehr zurückgetreten ist.
[ 16 ] Eine Zeit, die darauf hinweisen muß, daß der Mensch die Auferstehung seines Wesens aus dem Geiste heraus wieder erleben müsse, die muß gerade den Ostergedanken in besonderer Art betonen. Wir brauchen den Ostergedanken, wir brauchen ein völliges Verständnis des Ostergedankens. Dazu ist es aber notwendig, daß wir uns klarwerden, daß der Schmerzensmann ebenso der Ausdruck für das Hineingehen der abendländischen Entwickelung in den Materialismus ist wie auf der anderen Seite der bloß juristisch richtende Weltenrichter. Wir brauchen ja den Christus als übersinnliche Wesenheit, als Wesenheit, welche außerirdischer Art ist und dennoch hereingezogen ist in die irdische Entwickelung. Wir müssen uns zu diesem Sonnengedanken allen menschlichen Vorstellens durchringen.
[ 17 ] So wie wir durchschauen müssen, daß der Weihnachtsgeburtsgedanke zu etwas geworden ist, was, ich möchte sagen, das größte Mysterium hereingezogen hat in das triviale Empfinden der Sentimentalität, ebenso müssen wir durchschauen, wie es notwendig ist, am Ostergedanken zu betonen, daß da in die menschliche Entwickelung etwas hineinzieht, was aus irdischen Voraussetzungen heraus nicht verständlich ist, was aber verständlich ist aus der Voraussetzung geistigen Wissens, aus geistiger Erkenntnis heraus.
[ 18 ] Geistige Erkenntnis muß an dem Auferstehungsgedanken den ersten großen Halt finden, muß auch im Menschen anerkennen das Unberührtsein des Geistig-Ewigen von dem, was leiblich-physisch ist, muß sehen in dem paulinischen Wort: «Und ist der Christus nicht auferstanden, so ist euer Glaube tot» eine Bekräftigung - die in der neueren Zeit nur auf andere, bewußtere Weise errungen werden muß -, eine Bekräftigung dessen, was im Grunde genommen die eigentliche Wesenheit des Christus ausmacht.
[ 19 ] In dieser Art müssen wir uns heute wiederum an den Ostergedanken erinnern. In dieser Art muß uns die Zeit, in der wir uns an den Ostergedanken erinnern können, wiederum ein innerliches Fest werden, ein Fest, an dem wir für uns selber den Sieg des Geistes über die Leiblichkeit feiern. Uns muß, weil wir ja nicht unhistorisch sein dürfen, vor Augen stehen der schmerzgeplagte Jesus am Kreuze, der Schmerzensmann; uns muß aber über dem Kreuze erscheinen der Triumphator, der unberührt bleibt sowohl von der Geburt wie vom Tode, und der allein unseren Blick hinaufwenden kann zu den ewigen Gefilden des geistigen Lebens. Erst dadurch werden wir uns der wahren Wesenheit des Christus wiederum nähern.
[ 20 ] Die abendländische Menschheit hat den Christus zu sich heruntergezogen: heruntergezogen als kleines Kind, heruntergezogen als denjenigen, der vorzugsweise empfunden wird im Vergehen, im Schmerz. Es ist von mir des öfteren hervorgehoben worden, wie ebensolange Zeit, als vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha aus des Buddha Munde die Worte tönen, der Tod sei das Übel, nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha auftritt der Kruzifixus, der Gekreuzigte, wie da hingeschaut wird auf den Tod, und er als kein Übel empfunden wird, sondern als etwas, was in Wahrheit kein Dasein hat.
[ 21 ] Aber diese Empfindung, die noch hereintaucht aus einer morgenländischen Weisheit, die tiefer ist als der Buddhismus, diese Empfindung unterliegt der anderen, die sich festhaftet an dem Anblicke des Schmerzgepreßten. Wir müssen nicht nur mit unseren Gedanken, denn die sind meist kurzmaschig, wir müssen mit der ganzen Weite unserer Gefühle hinauf zu dem, was das Schicksal ist der menschlichen Vorstellungen von dem Mysterium von Golgatha im Laufe der Jahrhunderte. Wir müssen uns klar darüber werden, daß wir zu einem reinen, echten Verständnis des Mysteriums von Golgatha zurückkehren müssen. Wir müssen bedenken, wie selbst noch im hebräischen Altertum Jahve nicht als Weltenrichter im juristischen Sinne gedacht wird. Die größte dramatische Darstellung des religiösen Empfindens des hebräischen Altertums, das Buch Hiob, das den duldenden Hiob darstellt, schließt im Grunde genommen die Empfindung des äußerlich Gerechtsamen aus. Hiob ist der duldende Mensch, der Mensch, der das, was ihm von der Außenwelt geschieht, als ein Schicksal ansieht. Erst allmählich zieht der juristische Begriff der Vergeltung auch in die Weltenordnung ein. Aber in einer gewissen Weise ist es doch wie ein Aufleben des Jahve-Prinzips, was wir in dem Bilde am Altar der Sixtinischen Kapelle von Michelangelo vor uns haben.
[ 22 ] Wir aber brauchen den Christus, den wir in unserem Inneren suchen können, weil er, wenn wir ihn suchen, alsbald erscheint. Wir brauchen den Christus, welcher in unseren Willen einzieht, der unseren Willen durchwärmt und durchfeuert, damit dieser Wille kraftvoll werde zu denjenigen Taten, die für die Menschheitsentwickelung von uns verlangt werden. Wir brauchen denjenigen Christus, den wir nicht als den leidenden anschauen, sondern der da schwebt oberhalb des Kreuzes und herüberschaut auf das, was wesenlos am Kreuze endet. Wir brauchen das starke Bewußtsein von der Ewigkeit des Geistes.
[ 23 ] Wir gewinnen das starke Bewußtsein von der Ewigkeit des Geistes nicht, wenn wir uns verlieren in dem Bilde des bloßen Kruzifixus. Und wenn wir sehen, wie das Bild des Kruzifixus nach und nach immer mehr umgestellt worden ist zum Leidenden und Schmerzfühlenden, so werden wir sehen, welche Kraft gerade diese Richtung menschlichen Empfindens gewonnen hat. Es ist die Abwendung des Blickes der Menschheit von dem eigentlich Geistigen und die Hinwendung zu dem bloß Irdisch-Physischen. Das ist ja zuweilen in einer grandiosen Weise ausgedrückt; aber denen, die zum Beispiel wie Goethe schon etwas empfunden haben von der Notwendigkeit, daß unsere Zivilisation wieder zum Geiste durchdringe, solchen Menschen ist es immer als etwas erschienen, mit dem sie eigentlich nicht mitgehen. Goethe hat es ja oft genug zum Ausdruck gebracht, daß der gekreuzigte Erlöser im Grunde genommen eigentlich nicht dasjenige zum Ausdrucke bringt, was er an dem Christentum empfindet: die Erhebung des Menschen zum Geistigen.
[ 24 ] Es ist die Notwendigkeit vorhanden, daß sowohl die Karfreitagsstimmung wie die Osterstimmung sich wandle, daß die Karfreitagsstimmung zu einer solchen sich gestalte, welche in sich trägt das Hinschauen auf den endenden Jesus und damit im Grunde genommen empfindet: dieses ist nur die andere Seite des Geborenwerdens. Wer nicht sieht im Geborenwerden zugleich das Sterbende, der sieht nicht vollständig. Wer imstande ist, das, was in der Todesstimmung des Karfreitags auftritt, so zu empfinden, daß ihm da nur die eine Seite des Menschlichen gegeben wird, die der andere Pol ist dessen, was in dem Hereintreten des Kindes bei der Geburt gegeben ist, der wird sich in der richtigen Weise vorbereiten für die eigentliche Osterstimmung, für jene Stimmung, die nur darin bestehen kann, daß der Mensch weiß: Und was auch meine menschliche Hülle ist, die geboren wird — der eigentliche Mensch ist ungeboren, wie er unsterblich ist.
[ 25 ] Der eigentliche Mensch muß sich verbinden mit demjenigen, was hereingekommen ist in die Welt als der Christus, der nicht sterben kann, der auf ein anderes als auf sich selbst hinabsieht, wenn er den Schmerzensmann des Kreuzes ansieht. Es muß empfunden werden, was eigentlich geschehen ist dadurch, daß die Geistesvorstellung seit dem Ende des ersten Jahrhunderts allmählich der abendländischen Zivilisation verlorengegangen ist. Und es wird der Welt-Ostergedanke sein, wenn eine genügend große Anzahl von Menschen empfinden, daß der Geist innerhalb der modernen Zivilisation wieder auferstehen muß.
[ 26 ] ÄAußerlich wird man das so auszudrücken haben, daß der Mensch nicht allein wird forschen wollen über dasjenige, was über ihn verhängt ist, nicht allein wird suchen nach Naturgesetzen oder nach Geschichtsgesetzen, die ähnlich den Naturgesetzen sind, sondern daß der Mensch Verlangen tragen wird nach der Erkenntnis seines eigenen Willens, nach der Erkenntnis seiner eigenen Freiheit, daß der Mensch darnach Verlangen tragen wird, die eigentliche Natur des Willens zu empfinden, der den Menschen über die Pforte des Todes hinausträgt, der aber geistig angeschaut werden muß, damit er in seiner wahren Gestalt gesehen werden kann.
[ 27 ] Wie soll der Mensch die Kraft gewinnen zu dem Pfingstgedanken, zu der Ausgießung des Geistes, nachdem am achten allgemeinen ökumenischen Konzil von Konstantinopel der Pfingstgedanke dogmatisch zur bloßen Phrase erklärt worden ist? Wie soll der Mensch die Kraft gewinnen zu diesem Pfingstgedanken, wenn er nicht durchzudringen vermag zu dem Ostergedanken, zu dem wahren Ostergedanken, zu dem Gedanken von der Auferstehung des Geistes! Es darf der Mensch nicht betäubt werden durch das Bild des sterbenden, des schmerzdurchdrungenen Erlösers. Es muß der Mensch lernen das Verbundensein des Schmerzes mit dem Zusammengefügtsein mit dem materiellen Dasein.
[ 28 ] Das war ein Grundprinzip der alten Weisheit, die noch aus instinktiven Untergründen des menschlichen Erkennens heraus gekommen ist. Wir müssen uns diese Erkenntnis durch bewußtes Erkennen wiederum erringen. Das war aber ein Grundprinzip, daß des Schmerzes Ursprung die Verbindung mit der Materie ist, daß das Leiden stammt von der Verbindung des Menschen mit der Materie. Ein Unding wäre es allerdings, zu glauben, daß der Christus, weil er als göttlich-geistiges Wesen durch den Tod hindurchgegangen ist, den Schmerz nicht erlitten habe. Den Schmerz beim Mysterium von Golgatha für einen bloßen Scheinschmerz zu erklären, wäre unreal gedacht. Er muß im allerbedeutendsten Sinne als wirklich gedacht werden, aber er darf nicht gedacht werden als sein Gegenbild. Es muß wieder etwas gewonnen werden von dem, was vor uns steht, wenn wir mit dem Überblick über die ganze Menschheitsentwickelung das Mysterium von Golgatha vor uns hinstellen.
[ 29 ] Wenn den alten zu initiierenden Schülern der freieste Mensch im Bilde vorgeführt werden sollte, wenn diese zu initiierenden Schüler die verschiedensten Vorstufen durchgemacht hatten, wenn sie durchgegangen waren durch alle die Übungen, durch die sie sich gewisse Erkenntnisse erringen konnten, und die ihnen im Bilde dramatisch vorgeführt worden sind, dann wurden sie zuletzt geführt vor das Bild des ganz und gar in seinem physischen Leibe leidenden Menschen im roten Purpurmantel mit der Dornenkrone auf dem Haupte, vor das Bild des Chrestos. Und im Anschauen dieses Chrestos sollte sich der Seele entringen diejenige Kraft, die den Menschen zum eigentlichen Menschen macht. Und die Blutstropfen, die an allen wichtigeren Stellen jenes alten Chrestos dem Schauenden, dem zu Initiierenden entgegentraten, die sollten da sein zur Beseitigung der Ohnmacht und der menschlichen Schwäche und zum Erheben des triumphierenden Geistes aus dem menschlichen Inneren.
[ 30 ] Die Schmerzesanschauung sollte bedeuten die Auferstehung des geistigen Wesens. Im tiefsten Sinne sollte im Bilde vor dem Menschen stehen, was man in einfachen Worten so ausdrücken kann: Deiner Lust magst du manches im Leben verdanken; hast du dir aber Erkenntnis, hast du dir Einsicht in die geistigen Zusammenhänge verschafft, so verdankst du das deinem Leide, deinem Schmerze. Du verdankst es dem Umstande, daß du in deinem Leide und deinem Schmerze nicht untergegangen bist, sondern die Kraft hattest, dich aus ihnen zu erheben. — Deshalb wurde in den alten Mysterien das Bild des leiddenden Chrestos abgelöst durch das andere Bild des triumphierenden Christus, der herunterschaut auf den leidenden Chrestos als auf dasjenige, was überwunden ist.
[ 31 ] Wiedergefunden werden muß so die Möglichkeit, den triumphierenden geistigen Christus vor der Seele und in der Seele und namentlich im Willen zu haben. Das ist dasjenige, was uns bevorstehen muß in der Gegenwart und insbesondere in dem, was wir tun wollen in dieser Gegenwart zu der Herbeiführung einer heilsamen menschlichen Zukunft. Aber nimmermehr werden wir diesen Ostergedanken, diesen wahren Ostergedanken fassen können, wenn wir nicht einzusehen vermögen, daß wir hinausblicken müssen von dem bloß Irdischen in das Kosmische, wenn wir überhaupt von dem Christus sprechen wollen.
[ 32 ] Das neuere Denken hat uns den Kosmos zum Leichnam gemacht. Wir erblicken heute die Sterne und den Gang der Sterne und berechnen das alles. Das heißt, wir rechnen etwas aus über den Leichnam der Welt - und wir sehen nicht, wie in den Sternen lebt das Leben und wie in dem Gang der Sterne walten die Absichten des kosmischen Geistes. Der Christus ist heruntergestiegen in die Menschheit, um die Menschenseelen zu verbinden mit diesem kosmischen Geiste. Und nur derjenige ist ein wahrer Verkünder des Evangeliums von Christus selber, der da hinweist darauf, daß dasjenige, was physisch-sinnlich in der Sonne erscheint, der äußere Ausdruck ist für den Geist unserer Welt, den auferstehenden Geist unserer Welt.
[ 33 ] Lebendig muß werden so etwas wie die Zusammengehörigkeit desjenigen, was der Abglanz des Weltengeistes ist im Monde, und desjenigen, was dieser Weltengeist selber ist in der Sonne. Lebendig muß wieder werden, wie das Osterfest bestimmt worden ist durch die Verhältnisse von Sonne und Mond im Frühling. Anknüpfen müssen wir können an dasjenige, was das Osterfest aus dem Kosmos selber für die Erdenentwickelung bestimmt hat. Wir müssen wissen, daß es die schützendsten und wachesten Geister des Kosmos waren, die aus dieser Weltenuhr, deren Zeiger Sonne und Mond für das irdische Dasein sind, verständlich gemacht haben die große, bedeutsame Stunde in der Welt- und Menschheitsentwickelung, in welche die Auferstehung zu setzen ist. Lernen müssen wir es vom Geistigen, zu empfinden den Gang dieser beiden Zeiger Sonne und Mond, wie wir für unsere physischen Angelegenheiten verstehenlernen den Gang der Zeiger der Uhr. Anknüpfen müssen wir das Physische, Irdische an das Überphysische, Überirdische.
[ 34 ] Der Ostergedanke verträgt nur die Interpretation aus dem Überirdischen heraus. Denn geschehen ist mit dem Mysterium von Golgotha, insofern es das Auferstehungsmysterium ist, etwas, was sich unterscheidet von den übrigen Angelegenheiten der Menschen. Die übrigen Angelegenheiten der Menschen verlaufen auf der Erde in einer ganz anderen Art als das, was mit dem Mysterium von Golgatha geschehen ist. Die Erde hat aufgenommen die kosmischen Kräfte, und aus dem, was sie selber geworden ist, sprießen sie hervor die menschlichen Willenskräfte in den menschlichen Stoffwechsel hinein. Als aber das Mysterium von Golgatha sich abgespielt hat, da drang ein neuer Zusammenfluß des Willens in das irdische Geschehen herein. Da geschah auf der Erde etwas, was kosmisches Geschehen ist, und wofür die Erde nur Schauplatz ist. Der Mensch wurde wiederum mit dem Kosmos verbunden.
[ 35 ] Das ist es, was verstanden werden muß, und das Verständnis davon gibt erst den Ostergedanken in seinem vollen Umfange. Daher muß vor unserer Seele erstehen nicht nur das Bild des Kruzifixus. Und hätte die Kunst das Schönste, das Größte, das Bedeutendste, das Erhabenste hervorgebracht in dem Bilde des Kruzifixus — erstehen muß der Gedanke: «Der, den ihr suchet, der ist nicht hier.» Erscheinen muß euch über dem Kreuze derjenige, der nun hier ist, und der aus dem Geiste heraus für den Geist, Geist erweckend, zu euch spricht.
[ 36 ] Das ist es, was als Ostergedanke in die Menschheitsentwickelung hineinkommen muß; das ist dasjenige, zu dem sich das menschliche Herz und der menschliche Sinn erheben müssen. Von uns wird in unserer Zeit nicht bloß verlangt, daß wir Altes bewundern. Von uns wird nicht bloß verlangt, daß wir uns hineinvertiefen und hineinversenken können in das, was geschaffen worden ist. Wir müssen Neu-Schaffende werden. Und sei es selbst das Kreuz mit all dem Schönen, was Künstler aus ihm gemacht haben, wir dürfen es nicht dabei belassen. Wir müssen hören die Worte der geistigen Wesen, die uns, wenn wir suchen im Tode und im Leiden, zurufen: Der, den ihr suchet, er ist nicht mehr hier! — Und so müssen wir suchen denjenigen, der da hier ist.
[ 37 ] Wir müssen verstehen, zu Ostern uns hinzuwenden zu dem Geiste, der uns allein in dem Bilde der Auferstehung gegeben werden kann. Dann werden wir in der richtigen Weise vorschreiten können von der Leidens-Karfreitagsstimmung zu der geistigen Stimmung des Ostertages. Dann werden wir aber auch fähig werden, in dieser Stimmung des Ostertages dasjenige zu finden, was unser Wille aufnehmen muß, damit wir Wirkende werden können gegenüber den Niedergangskräften in den Aufgangskräften der Menschheit. Und solche Kräfte, die da mitwirken können, die brauchen wir. Und in dem Augenblicke, wo wir in der richtigen Weise den Auferstehungs-Ostergedanken verstehen, wird dieser Ostergedanke, warm und uns durchleuchtend, die Kräfte in uns entzünden, die wir für die zukünftige Menschheitsentwickelung brauchen.
Sixteenth Lecture
[ 1 ] There is a significant contrast between the Christmas idea and the Easter idea, and anyone who is able to compare these two ideas, which have often been discussed in our context, connect them in an appropriate way, and then bring their interaction to life within themselves — the interaction between the Christmas idea and the Easter idea — will be pointed to an inner experience that, in a certain sense, comprehensively describes the riddles of humanity.
[ 2 ] The Christmas idea points us to birth. We know how, through birth, the eternal element of the human being enters the world from which the human being's sensory-visible physical being is taken. And when we approach the Christmas idea with this view, it appears to us as the idea that connects us with the supersensible. Then, in addition to everything else it brings us, it appears in such a way that it points, as it were, to the one pole of our existence, where we, as sensual-physical beings, are connected with the spiritual-supersensible. That is why, when fully understood, the birth of the human being can never be comprehended by a science that takes its premises solely from the observation of sensory-physical existence.
[ 3 ] At the other pole of human experience lies the idea underlying the Easter festival, which in the course of Western development has increasingly become an idea that has prepared the way for the materialistic conception of the West. The idea of Easter can be grasped, initially in a more abstract way, if one is clear about how the eternal, the immortal in man, which therefore cannot be born, descends from spiritual worlds and clothes itself in the human physical body. From the beginning of this physical existence — as I have explained to you here from various points of view — this working of the spirit in the physical body is actually a leading of the physical body toward death, and with the idea of birth there is at the same time the idea of death.
[ 4 ] I have pointed out that the main organization of the human being can only be understood if one knows that, in essence, there is a constant dying process in the head, which is only counteracted by the life forces of the rest of the human organism. And at the moment when the forces of death, which are always present in the human head and determine the thinking nature of the human being, at the moment when these forces of death gain the upper hand over the transitory human being, at that moment real death occurs.
[ 5 ] Thus, in truth, the thought of death is only, I would say, the other side of the thought of birth, and therefore the thought of death cannot find expression in the Easter thought. At the time when Christianity was still taking shape from an Eastern perspective, we see how Pauline Christianity points people above all not to the death of Christ Jesus, but to the resurrection, as this Christianity points out in such strong words as those spoken by Paul: “If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is dead.”
[ 6 ] The resurrection, the triumph over death, the overcoming of death, that is what was present above all as the Easter idea in the first form of Christianity, which was still conditioned by the wisdom of the East. Or we can also see how, on the other hand, images appear in which Christ Jesus is depicted as the good shepherd who watches over the eternal affairs of human beings sleeping in their temporal existence. We see everywhere that, basically, early Christianity refers to the words of the Gospel: “He whom you seek is not here.” You must seek him — we might add, in spiritual worlds; you must not seek him in the physical-sensory world. If you seek him in the physical-sensory world, you can only be told: He whom you seek as physical-sensory is no longer here in the physical-sensory world.
[ 7 ] The great, comprehensive wisdom that in the first centuries of Christianity was still preparing to penetrate the mystery of Golgotha with all that belongs to it, initially submerged in the materialism of the West. This materialism had not yet fully broken through in the first centuries. It prepared itself slowly. One might say that the first, still very weak materialistic impulses of the first centuries, which were hardly noticeable, only much later transformed into what became more and more materialism and increasingly permeated Western civilization. The Eastern religious idea was connected with the idea of the state that was emerging in the West. In the 4th century, Christianity became the state religion, which means that something entered Christianity that could no longer be religion.
[ 8 ] Julian the Apostate, who was not a Christian but a religious man, could not accept what Christianity had become under Constantine. And so we see how, at first very weakly, but nevertheless already somewhat noticeable in the mixture of Christianity with the declining Roman Empire, the materialism of the West casts its first rays. Under this influence, the image of Jesus Christ arose, which was not present at the beginning and which is certainly not found in the origins of Christianity: the image of Jesus Christ as the crucified, suffering man, as the man of sorrows, as the one who dies in pain under the impression of the unspeakable suffering that has been inflicted on him.
[ 9 ] This marked a break in the entire view of the Christian world, for this image, which has been passed down through the centuries—Christ hanging on the cross, drenched in pain—is a Christ who can no longer be understood in his spiritual essence, but only in his physical, corporeal essence. And the more the marks of suffering were imprinted on the human body, the more art in its great perfection at various epochs succeeded in imprinting the marks of suffering on the Savior hanging on the cross, the more the seeds of materialistic Christian sentiment were sown. The crucifix is the expression of the transition to Christian materialism. This does not contradict the fact that, in a great and powerful way, precisely that which has been embodied in art as the suffering of the Redeemer is recognized in its full depth and meaning. Nevertheless, it remains true that with this image of the Redeemer dying in pain on the cross, Christianity has departed from a truly spiritual understanding of itself.
[ 10 ] This conception of the Man of Sorrows was then mixed with that of Christ as the judge of the world, whom we actually see only as another expression of Yahweh or Jehovah, namely, the Yahweh or Jehovah who has been transformed into a legal entity, as we see so magnificently in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. The same spirit that arose from the idea of the tomb from which the Redeemer rises, from which the Redeemer triumphs, that spirit that made the triumphant spirit, the victor over death, disappear from this image, that same spirit declared at the Eighth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 869 that the spirit is something that cannot be believed in, decreed that man is to be conceived as consisting only of body and soul, and that the spirit exists only in certain properties which the soul carries.
[ 11 ] Just as we see the spiritual being breathed away from the crucifix, just as we feel the soul steeped in pain in the physical, which alone is visible to the senses, without the spirit as triumphant, without the spirit as bearer and at the same time as the one who cares for humanity, so we see, by decision of the Council, the spirit wiped away from human nature.
[ 12 ] And the Good Friday celebration and the Resurrection celebration, Easter, were pushed together. In a certain sense, at a time when people were not yet so dry and sober and intellectually barren, Good Friday had become a festival in which the idea of Easter was transformed in a thoroughly selfish way. To wallow in pain, to immerse one's soul in pain as if in pleasure, to feel bliss in suffering—this was the idea of Good Friday throughout the ages, which was supposed to serve only as a backdrop for the idea of Easter, which people were becoming less and less able to grasp in its true form. For the same humanity that had elevated to a belief the principle that man consists only of body and soul, the same humanity demanded for its feelings a merely dying savior, demanded the counter-image of its own physical pain, so that it might have a background against which to feel — albeit only in an external transition — what was originally meant to be felt as the consciousness that the living spirit must always triumph over everything that can happen in the physical body. It was first necessary to have the image of martyrdom in order to feel the contrast to the actual idea of Easter.
[ 13 ] One will always have to feel deeply how, in this way, the actual spiritual view and spiritual feeling have gradually disappeared from Western culture, and one will certainly look with admiration, but also with a feeling of a certain tragedy, at all the artistic attempts to depict the man of sorrows on the cross. It is not enough to rise to what is necessary for our time with a few hastily thrown together thoughts and a few scattered feelings. We must fully understand everything that has long been on a slippery slope with regard to the spiritual in Western culture.
[ 14 ] Today we need that which belongs to the greatest in a particular field to be felt at the same time as something above which humanity must rise. But we need the Easter idea within our entire Western culture. In other words, we need once again to be uplifted to the spirit. What once appeared in a grandiose manner as the holy mystery of birth, the mystery of Christmas, gradually sank within the developing Western culture into those sentiments that were only the antithesis of materialistic development, into those sentiments that reveled and reveled in all kinds of songs about the baby Jesus. It was a voluptuous reveling in the feelings of the little child. Instead of feeling the great, powerful mystery of the intrusion of a supernatural spirit in the Christmas mystery, the sober philistine songs about the “little Jesus” gradually became the dominant and authoritative tone.
[ 15 ] It is characteristic of the development of Christianity, which has been purely intellectual, that it has led certain representatives to say that the Son does not belong in the Gospel at all, but rather the Father belongs in the Gospel — that this development nevertheless retains the idea of resurrection, in that the idea of resurrection is still intertwined with the idea of death, even for this Christianity. But it is characteristic how, as I have just described, the idea of Good Friday has come to the fore in the modern development, and how the idea of resurrection, the true idea of Easter, has gradually receded.
[ 16 ] A time that must point to the fact that human beings must experience the resurrection of their being out of the spirit must emphasize the idea of Easter in a special way. We need the Easter idea; we need a complete understanding of the Easter idea. To do this, however, it is necessary for us to realize that the Man of Sorrows is just as much an expression of the Western development into materialism as, on the other hand, the world judge who merely judges according to the law. We need Christ as a supersensible being, as a being who is of an extraterrestrial nature and yet has been drawn into earthly development. We must bring ourselves to accept this idea of the sun in all human imagination.
[ 17 ] Just as we must see that the idea of the Christmas birth has become something which, I would say, has brought the greatest mystery into the trivial sentimentality of the age, so must we see how necessary it is to emphasize in the Easter idea that something is drawn into human development which cannot be understood from earthly premises, but which can be understood from the premise of spiritual knowledge, from spiritual insight.
[ 18 ] Spiritual knowledge must find its first great foothold in the idea of resurrection, must also recognize in human beings the untouched nature of the spiritual-eternal from what is physical-corporeal, must see in the Pauline words: “And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is dead,” an affirmation—which in modern times must be achieved in a different, more conscious way—an affirmation of what essentially constitutes the true nature of Christ.
[ 19 ] In this way we must remember the Easter thought again today. In this way the time in which we can remember the Easter thought must again become an inner celebration for us, a celebration in which we celebrate for ourselves the victory of the spirit over physicality. Because we must not be unhistorical, we must keep before our eyes the pain-racked Jesus on the cross, the Man of Sorrows; but above the cross we must see the Triumphant One, untouched by birth or death, who alone can lift our gaze to the eternal realms of spiritual life. Only in this way will we once again approach the true essence of Christ.
[ 20 ] Western humanity has pulled Christ down to itself: pulled him down as a small child, pulled him down as the one who is primarily felt in passing, in pain. I have often emphasized this, that just as long as the words of the Buddha resounded before the mystery of Golgotha, that death is evil, so after the mystery of Golgotha the crucifix appears, the crucified one, and death is looked upon and perceived not as evil, but as something that in truth has no existence.
[ 21 ] But this feeling, which still springs from an Eastern wisdom that is deeper than Buddhism, is subject to another feeling that clings to the sight of the pain-stricken. We must not only use our thoughts, for they are usually short-sighted, but we must use the whole breadth of our feelings to reach up to what is the destiny of human ideas about the mystery of Golgotha over the centuries. We must realize that we must return to a pure, genuine understanding of the mystery of Golgotha. We must remember that even in Hebrew antiquity, Yahweh was not conceived as a judge of the world in the legal sense. The greatest dramatic representation of the religious sentiment of Hebrew antiquity, the Book of Job, which depicts the long-suffering Job, basically excludes the feeling of external justice. Job is the long-suffering man, the man who regards what happens to him from the outside world as fate. Only gradually does the legal concept of retribution enter into the world order. But in a certain sense, it is like a revival of the principle of Yahweh, which we see in Michelangelo's painting on the altar of the Sistine Chapel.
[ 22 ] But we need the Christ whom we can seek within ourselves, because when we seek him, he appears immediately. We need the Christ who enters into our will, who warms and fires our will, so that this will may become powerful for the deeds that are required of us for the development of humanity. We need the Christ whom we do not see as the suffering one, but who hovers above the cross and looks down upon that which ends without substance on the cross. We need a strong awareness of the eternity of the spirit.
[ 23 ] We do not gain a strong awareness of the eternity of the spirit if we lose ourselves in the image of the mere crucifix. And when we see how the image of the crucifix has gradually been transformed into that of a suffering and pain-filled figure, we will see what power this particular direction of human feeling has gained. It is the turning away of humanity's gaze from the truly spiritual and the turning toward the merely earthly and physical. This is sometimes expressed in a grandiose manner; but to those who, like Goethe, for example, have already sensed something of the necessity for our civilization to penetrate once more to the spirit, such things have always appeared to be something they cannot really go along with. Goethe often said that the crucified Savior does not really express what he feels about Christianity: the elevation of man to the spiritual realm.
[ 24 ] There is a need for both the mood of Good Friday and the mood of Easter to change, for the mood of Good Friday to become one that looks at the dying Jesus and thus feels, in essence, that this is only the other side of being born. Those who do not see in birth the dying at the same time do not see completely. Those who are able to feel what arises in the mood of death on Good Friday in such a way that they see only one side of humanity, which is the opposite pole of what is given in the arrival of the child at birth, will prepare themselves in the right way for the true Easter mood, for that mood which can only consist in the knowledge that And whatever my human shell may be that is born — the real human being is unborn, just as he is immortal.
[ 25 ] The real human being must connect with that which has come into the world as Christ, who cannot die, who looks down on something other than himself when he looks at the Man of Sorrows on the cross. It must be felt what has actually happened as a result of the gradual loss of spiritual conception in Western civilization since the end of the first century. And it will be the world Easter idea when a sufficiently large number of people feel that the spirit must rise again within modern civilization.
[ 26 ] Outwardly, this will have to be expressed in such a way that human beings will not want to investigate only what has been imposed upon them, will not seek only natural laws or historical laws similar to natural laws, but that human beings will have a desire for knowledge of their own will, for knowledge of their own freedom, that human beings will have a desire to feel the true nature of the will that carries them beyond the gates of death, but which must be viewed spiritually in order to be seen in its true form.
[ 27 ] How can man gain the strength for the idea of Pentecost, for the outpouring of the Spirit, after the eighth general ecumenical council of Constantinople declared the idea of Pentecost to be mere dogmatic phraseology? How can human beings gain the strength for this idea of Pentecost if they are unable to penetrate the idea of Easter, the true idea of Easter, the idea of the resurrection of the spirit? Human beings must not be numbed by the image of the dying, pain-filled Savior. Man must learn to understand the connection between pain and his union with material existence.
[ 28 ] This was a fundamental principle of ancient wisdom, which arose from the instinctive foundations of human knowledge. We must regain this insight through conscious recognition. But it was a fundamental principle that the origin of pain is the connection with matter, that suffering stems from the connection of man with matter. It would be absurd, however, to believe that Christ, because he passed through death as a divine-spiritual being, did not suffer pain. It would be unrealistic to explain the pain of the Mystery of Golgotha as mere apparent pain. It must be thought of as real in the most significant sense, but it must not be thought of as its opposite. Something must be regained from what stands before us when we place the Mystery of Golgotha before us with an overview of the entire development of humanity.
[ 29 ] When the ancient disciples who were to be initiated were shown the freest human being in a picture, when these disciples had gone through the most varied preliminary stages, when they had gone through all the exercises through which they could gain certain insights, and which had been dramatically presented to them in images, then they were finally led before the image of the human being suffering completely in his physical body, clothed in a red purple robe with a crown of thorns on his head, before the image of Christ. And in beholding this Christ, the soul was to wrest from itself the power that makes human beings truly human. And the drops of blood that appeared in all the important places on that old Chrestos, facing the viewer, the initiate, were there to remove powerlessness and human weakness and to raise the triumphant spirit from within the human being.
[ 30 ] The perception of pain should mean the resurrection of the spiritual being. In the deepest sense, the image before the human being should express what can be expressed in simple words: You may owe many things in life to your desires; but if you have gained knowledge, if you have gained insight into spiritual connections, then you owe this to your suffering, to your pain. You owe it to the fact that you did not perish in your suffering and pain, but had the strength to rise above them. — That is why, in the ancient mysteries, the image of the suffering Christ was replaced by the image of the triumphant Christ looking down on the suffering Christ as something that has been overcome.
[ 31 ] We must rediscover the possibility of having the triumphant spiritual Christ before our souls and within our souls, and especially in our will. This is what lies ahead of us in the present, and especially in what we want to do in this present to bring about a healing human future. But we will never be able to grasp this Easter idea, this true Easter idea, if we cannot see that we must look beyond the merely earthly into the cosmic, if we want to speak of Christ at all.
[ 32 ] The new way of thinking has turned the cosmos into a corpse. Today we look at the stars and the course of the stars and calculate everything. That means we calculate something about the corpse of the world—and we do not see how life lives in the stars and how the intentions of the cosmic spirit rule in the course of the stars. Christ descended into humanity in order to connect human souls with this cosmic spirit. And only he is a true herald of the gospel of Christ himself who points out that what appears physically and sensually in the sun is the outer expression of the spirit of our world, the rising spirit of our world.
[ 33 ] Something like the unity of what is the reflection of the world spirit in the moon and what this world spirit itself is in the sun must become alive. The way Easter has been determined by the relationship between the sun and the moon in spring must become alive again. We must be able to connect with what Easter has determined for the development of the earth from the cosmos itself. We must know that it was the most protective and watchful spirits of the cosmos who, from this world clock, whose hands are the sun and moon for earthly existence, made understandable the great and significant hour in the evolution of the world and humanity in which the resurrection is to be placed. We must learn from the spiritual realm to perceive the movement of these two hands, the sun and the moon, just as we learn to understand the movement of the hands of a clock in relation to our physical affairs. We must connect the physical, earthly realm with the superphysical, superearthly realm.
[ 34 ] The idea of Easter can only be interpreted from the super-earthly. For with the Mystery of Golgotha, insofar as it is the Mystery of the Resurrection, something has happened that is different from all other human affairs. The other affairs of human beings take place on earth in a completely different way than what happened with the mystery of Golgotha. The earth has taken in the cosmic forces, and from what it has become, the human will forces sprout forth into the human metabolism. But when the mystery of Golgotha took place, a new confluence of will entered into earthly events. Something happened on earth that is a cosmic event, for which the earth is only the scene. Human beings were once again connected with the cosmos.
[ 35 ] This is what must be understood, and only this understanding gives the Easter idea its full meaning. Therefore, it is not only the image of the crucifix that must arise before our soul. And even if art had produced the most beautiful, the greatest, the most significant, the most sublime image of the crucifix, the thought must arise: “He whom you seek is not here.” Above the cross must appear the one who is now here, who speaks to you from the spirit, awakening the spirit for the spirit.
[ 36 ] This is what must enter into human evolution as the Easter thought; this is what the human heart and the human mind must rise to. In our time, we are not merely required to admire the old. We are not merely required to be able to immerse ourselves in what has been created. We must become creators ourselves. And even if it is the cross with all the beauty that artists have made of it, we must not leave it at that. We must hear the words of the spiritual beings who call out to us when we search in death and suffering: He whom you seek is no longer here! — And so we must seek the one who is here.
[ 37 ] At Easter, we must understand that we must turn to the spirit that can be given to us alone in the image of the Resurrection. Then we will be able to progress in the right way from the mood of suffering on Good Friday to the spiritual mood of Easter Day. Then we will also be able to find in this mood of Easter Day what our will must take up so that we can become active forces against the forces of decline in the forces of ascent in humanity. And we need such forces that can work in this way. And at the moment when we understand the Easter idea of resurrection in the right way, this Easter idea, warm and illuminating us, will ignite the forces within us that we need for the future development of humanity.