Festivals of the Seasons
2 April 1915, Dornach
11. The Baldor Myth and the Good Friday Mystery I
The Churches call the faithful together the whole year through by the sound of bells. The sound of bells indicates the times, important dates, and also those hours in which the faithful are called to church. This sound of bells, so full of meaning—this call of the hours—ceases in certain churches in these days beginning with the festival of the entombment, of the sacrificial death of Christ; and the bells begin again only with the festival of the Resurrection of that Power of whom we have spoken as the Power which bestows meaning on the Earth.
The significance of the intervening time is celebrated in the following way. The discords of wooden instruments to some extent take the place of the bells during these days in which souls are asked to remember that the Power Who bestowed meaning on earthly development has united Himself through this sacrificial death with the depths of existence. The renewed sound of the bells at the festival of the Resurrection should signify how their music is sanctified and made significant through this meaning of the Earth and how they should ring forth for the rest of the Christian year to the consciousness of the faithful.
We have, my dear friends, from various aspects sought to draw near to the meaning and being of that Power, Who through the Mystery of Golgotha has flowed into the impulses of the Earth’s evolution. You will have seen from the various lectures, that every path of the soul to this power is but one of many, which aroused the sentiments and the feelings, so that they may become worthily receptive and bring understanding for what is revealed when the name of Christ is pronounced, when the Mystery of Golgotha is mentioned. We shall endeavour to-day to choose one of these ways. But, my dear friends, this can only be one way, for it is only by studying many ways leading to the Mystery of Golgotha that we can come to an understanding of it, to an understanding appropriate in some measure to the epoch in which we are incarnated. To-day let us choose the way which shall bring before our souls how peoples who as yet knew nothing of the Mystery of Golgotha, how these European peoples were obliged to receive this Mystery of Golgotha in accordance with what they had gone through in their hearts and souls as a preparation for it.
I have already intimated in some of my former lectures how at a definite time a deep feeling for nature was associated with European evolution, a nature-feeling radically different from that which spread over the southern countries of Europe and proceeded from Christianity itself, and which was in a certain sense connected with a sort of fleeing from Nature. In these southern countries into which Christianity had spread in the Greek and Roman Culture—the conception of sin, of guilt, became bound up with what flows into men, into the human soul from nature. ‘Away from nature into the regions of spiritual life, into the regions out of which the Christ has descended in order to bring salvation to mankind, in order to bring meaning to earthly evolution; in order to make men free from what is merely natural and to direct them to what can be hallowed among men, to what can save from the sins of nature’—these are words which can to a certain extent express this first Christian nature-feeling.
The European peoples North of the Alps were inwardly inspired by quite a different feeling for nature, when they received Christianity. It was impossible for them simply to flee from nature, merely to connect nature with the conception of sin and guilt. For them, nature had grown to be far too full of meaning through long centuries for them merely to be able to flee from it. It had become for them something with which they had grown together, so that when they received Christianity they could, it is true, turn to a different world from that of nature, but they could not merely say without further ado: ‘Let us flee from nature.’ This fleeing from nature, this gazing into and striving after the regions of the spirit caused them lamentation and suffering of soul, caused them sadness, while always in the background of the glories of the heavenly kingdom they mourned over that which must be lost within the regions of nature. And when we ask the reason why such a feeling was in the depth of their soul we find it in the way in which these souls were bound to nature, in a past lying proportionately not far behind them—a past which lay a far shorter time behind them than was the case in the Eastern and Southern peoples—we find that behind them lay a quite peculiar union with nature. It was as if in their hearts, in their souls, there still lived something of all the holy feeling of comfort in their union with nature, their union too with the divine in Nature. And the sadness, the pain and the lamentation came from this, that they felt it was through an iron Cosmic necessity that that was lost which had once bound them with the holy, the divine in nature. Their feeling was not merely that nature should be charged with sin and guilt, their feeling was rather that in losing nature they had lost something of infinite value. It was not the feeling that they should turn away from nature, it was much more the sorrowful feeling that something which is holy in nature, had itself turned away from the human heart and soul. They felt that what they had formerly honoured in connexion with nature, they must now experience in a different way through raising themselves to the Mystery of Golgotha.
It was an infinitely more real, more tragic feeling which Christianity felt in these regions than in the regions south of the Alps and in the East.
We shall make clear, my dear friends, what was the meaning of that ancient nature-feeling in the best way, when we glance at what is felt, like a premonition of the Christ’s divine death of sacrifice within the European peoples. We understand this best when we look back at the significance of the death of Balder, and of his exile in the under world, in the world of Hel, in Niflheim. I have often intimated that it is difficult to-day to re-awaken in our souls all that is connected with the Balder-Myth of this particular ancient Sun god, who was revered and worshipped by the peoples of Europe. And it is indeed difficult to make this clear in an age when it is generally believed that the human soul, in which alone human development takes place, has always seen just as it sees to-day, has always had such experiences as it has to-day. We must rise, my dear friends, to the thought that the experiences possible for the soul in olden times were quite different from those which are possible in a later age, and that this is connected with the entire life of natural existence. Just picture to yourselves that man’s soul of old saw through his eyes into nature quite differently from when he looks at nature with his eyes to-day and man’s soul heard through his ears something different in olden times from what he hears to-day when he listens to nature. Let us make the transition clear by choosing a simile, which, taken at random, can still make the difference clear. To-day you look at nature with your eyes, you see the green of the plants, the blue-green of the forests, the blue of heaven, the many-coloured brightness of the carpet of flowers. Imagine that a revolution were to come into human evolution through an iron necessity in such a way that the possibility of seeing colours should cease, that the whole of nature would appear only grey upon grey, that you would look up to heaven and see another different shade of grey, as if you looked at grey meadows and were to see only different shades of grey, black and white instead of the coloured carpet of flowers. Imagine such a revolution in seeing nature, and you would have a comparison for what in fact appeared in time, when the possibility of beholding in the meadows all the manifold elementary beings which are bound up with the growing and weaving and being of nature, of the flowers and the blossoms, disappeared. At such a time through a mighty revolution in the perception of nature men could no longer look up to the stars and see in them the spiritually living planetary Spirits weaving round the stars in the ether. I have often declared that to say nature makes no jumps is one of the most untrue assertions. It is untrue, for just as there was a jump from the green leaf to the flower, so the loss of the old clairvoyance was a mighty jump in human evolution. From the old clairvoyance where elementary spirits were seen weaving and living where we to-day see only the coloured carpet of flowers, men passed over to the later sight. That was a mighty jump. And those people who constituted the population of Europe, when the Mystery of Golgotha took place in the East, had still a living feeling that an old clairvoyance of this kind had once existed, that their ancestors had lived under conditions in which they could see the beings weaving in the meadows and the forests and in the infinite expanse of the starry heavens. Now all this had vanished and died away.
They had a feeling that when in earlier days men lifted their eyes to the Moon at night, it did not simply appear in the form of the clear sickle; but this clear sickle was surrounded by living planetary spirituality which had much to reveal to the human soul. And they felt that this had vanished in the times in which they now must live.
And when the human soul asked what had happened that nature was thus deprived of the gods, that darkness extended where spiritual light had been, the leader of the people replied: ‘There was once in the world of gods, Balder, who united in himself the force of the sunlight. But Balder, on account of the hatred of the dark elements, had to transfer his dwelling place which he had extended to the horizon of men’s Earth, to Hel in the underworld. The force of vision of the old times vanished. The clear sunlight was submerged, the shining radiance of the old gods was lost, and only the dead semblance of the sunlight was reflected through the light of the Moon’s sickle. The world has become material. Nature over which men lament, over which they mourn, which they charge with the conceptions of sin and guilt, this nature appears like the mourning survivor which was once united with the divine and which sent into all souls the ray of the divine.’ And thus arose the feeling which the people had when they heard the death-song of the old Sun god Balder. He is no longer there outside perceptible to our vision; the god Balder has gone into the underworld, and for us he has left behind the nature which mourns. But where has he gone? Where is the kingdom of Hel, that realm of darkness into which Balder has withdrawn? Where is it? Our materialistic age will only be able to prepare itself for such ideas by acquiring conceptions of this nature.
Let us ask ourselves, my dear friends, what it meant in primeval times when people said, turning towards nature: ‘Balder is there’? What did it mean? It meant something really actual, something which, however, those will not understand who believe that human civilisation has been in all ages what it is to-day. When man in primeval times saw the meadows, he knew that those living elementary spirits of which I have spoken appeared to him there, he could not always see them, he could only see them at certain times. How was it then when man at certain times could see these elementary spirits? That was no mere seeing, that was not a dead reception of what was seen, but it was united with a living feeling, with a living perception. People went through the forests, they gazed at the spirits, at the elementary beings, but they did not merely see them. I might say they absorbed the essence of these spirits into their souls, they felt their breath as a spiritually psychic draught of refreshment. They felt themselves drawing into their etheric bodies the breath that came from the elementary spirits which they saw in the forest and in the meadows. ‘They make us young,’ thus could they feel, when they went out in the morning and when the lingering dawn made the elementary spirits of the forest visible. They made men young, they bestowed force upon them. And this force then lived on in them. Men took part in this rejuvenation which the spirits brought about. They took part in it. But what happened to all these rejuvenating forces? They vanished from the outer world, man could only have a sad, half-conscious connection with them. Where did they go? They worked further, but they worked to a certain extent unseen, unheard; they worked, but they worked upon human nature in such a way that man with his consciousness had no longer a part in their working. And as the time drew on when man became aware of this, he had to say to himself: ‘Within my nature, forces are at work of which formerly I not only knew that they worked in darkness upon me, but I could clearly perceive and observe the flowing of these forces from the outer world into myself.’ The god Balder has withdrawn into the kingdom of Hel, into man’s own darkness, into the subterranean depths of man’s soul. Where is Balder? The priest who had to explain the Mystery to man when he asked: ‘Where is Balder?’ had to say: ‘Balder is not in the visible world. Because you as man needed those shaping forces, those rejuvenating forces, which formerly you were able to take up half-consciously, these work now without your knowledge in your inner being, so that you perceive nothing of them through your faculty of knowledge. Because you needed these forces in your invisible being, Balder has vanished from the kingdom of the visible, has withdrawn himself to the world of your own subconscious inner nature.’ Then the feeling came over man, which we can designate with the following words: ‘Thus I as man stand in the kingdom of Hel with a part of my nature. I cannot see how the forces which shape my life out of the kingdom of Hel intervene in my psychic bodily nature; the god Balder is in the underworld, he is with Hel, he works upon me in the invisible. Vanished is the vision of Balder's kingdom of the Sun.’ That is the mood of lamentation, of sadness which must call forth suffering of soul, for that is no fortuitous egoistic human lamentation, it is the lamentation which man feels in connexion with the cosmos; it is a cosmic lamentation, a cosmic sadness, a cosmic suffering.
And now came the news that that which had thus withdrawn into the kingdom of Hel had been newly revived through another power which we can find again when we gaze deeply into our own inner being, into which the old power of Balder had vanished. Balder is in the kingdom of Hel, but the Christ has gone down into the kingdom of Hel, into the kingdom of mankind’s own subconscious human nature; there He calls Balder to life. And when man has steeped himself deeply enough in that which he has become in the course of earthly evolution, then he finds again the rejuvenating shaping forces. ‘You find again what you have lost, for the old Balder has descended into your own kingdom of darkness. The Christ has found him there, he has brought to life again that which once was yours through Balder’s power.’ Thus could the priest proclaim to the men who felt the deep secrets of the message of the Mystery of Golgotha in these regions.
And the Easter message appeared like a memory, like a sacred memory of primeval holy times, but a memory which gave new life. The people were able to say: ‘That power of the old Balder was too small to extend over the whole of human evolution. A higher power had to appear in order to give again to men what they had to lose in Balder.’ So rang out in the announcement of the Christ, the remembrance of the old Balder and of his death; so there rang out the resurrection of the ancient glory in the human soul, which had disappeared through Balder’s death; that power, which has now been newly awakened.
We must, my dear friends, approach more nearly to that which the Mystery of Golgotha is, as the meaning of earthly evolution, so that we ask ourselves: ‘With what perceptions, with what feelings did. historical humanity meet the historical Christ?’ For the point is not that we should gain an abstract idea of the nature of Christ or of the Mystery of Golgotha, but the point is that we should be able to answer the question for ourselves: ‘What can that Impulse bring to life in the deepest depth of the human sold, that Impulse which has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha?’
Let us look at it, this Mystery of Golgotha and see how it is still celebrated by the different religious creeds of the old world. On Good Friday is celebrated Christ’s entombment. The bells are silent; silence is spread over the Earth. The man who lived in the centuries I have described said to himself: ‘Mute, without sound has the world become, Christ has descended into those parts of the human soul-existence and of cosmic-existence, into which Balder had to descend because his power did not suffice for the complete elevation of the human soul. There He is below, in the mysterious depths in which I myself stand, when I gaze upon the subconscious shaping forces in my own inner nature.’ The human heart can thrill mysteriously when it reflects: ‘The impulse of Golgotha has departed from this silent world. It rests below where you yourself are. Wait, wait and this impulse of Golgotha will unite with you in the spiritual worlds to which your soul may belong, if it will only descend with Balder into its own depths. It will call Balder to life in these days. And in your inner being, O man, you shall find again what has vanished and faded away with the vanishing of Balder out of the world around into your own depths. Take up, O man, the living conception of the Christ who has gone through the Mystery of Golgotha, Who will be able to rise again not to your external eyes, but indeed to your soul’s vision, if it becomes conscious of its inner being, which came down from the Moon, from out of the Sun—as that elementary force, that shaping force which makes the soul alive. Wait, wait till He rises again, the re-awakener of Balder. A world was once yours, in which your senses had only to be directed to nature around you and the life-giving ensouling force flowed out of the elementary part of this outer nature to meet you, without any effort of your own. A kingdom of the Spirit was woven through all natural existence, and you yourself lived, if you waited for the right moment, not only in nature bereft of Spirit; you lived in what is behind nature, of which it is only the expression; you lived in the life of nature. Now when you find no longer the spiritual in nature, you must seek it through plunging into and calling to life your own inner being with the force which has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. O Nature, you were once full of expression, so full of expression that man’s real true home could be seen in your forms. Balder has taken this home with him, it is no longer there, it is in realms which your outer sight does not behold. But this ancient kingdom exists, of whose forms, surrounding nature was once the expression—this kingdom still exists. But you do not find it, when you go the way of nature only; you find it when you unite yourself with the Impulse which has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. Nature is not just sinful and guilty; she is forsaken by that home which man must seek, inwardly permeated by the power of the Christ.’
And in these Christian times we could fancy, my dear friends, that some memory of the death of Balder still comes through to us, connecting itself with tho message of the Mystery of Golgotha—it seems to us as though the sound of lamentation, of sadness towards nature, as we have described it above, has only very gradually become lost and died down. Certainly in the Christian conception, the mood which looks solely up to the self-sacrificing Christ, up to the heavenly home, is also present. And in European peoples gradually the mood becomes distinct, which looks upon nature as the child on a lower level, but not as the forsaken child. But if we listen to the impression the words give (not merely in their abstract sense), at the time when in the eighth and ninth centuries the announcement of the Mystery of Golgotha had been already spread over certain regions of Europe—when we listen to the way in which it is said that we cannot find our true home in the earthly world, then we can still feel something of the old tragic mood towards nature, bereft of Balder. As we have said, we must listen not only to the words and to the abstract sense of the words, but to the way there rings through the words what is felt concerning nature and what is felt concerning a different home of the human soul than nature can now be. Something of this kind still rang out, even after Christianity had been spread abroad. That this could be perceived even after people had tried to spread Christianity in the form in which it had been received in the East, we can see from the many publications of the eighth and ninth centuries, if we only attend to the feeling in them. We have some so-called European Gospels, belonging to these times, and one of these is the ‘Gospel-Harmony,’ the so-called ‘Diatessaron’ of Otfried, a monk living in Alsace, who had learned the Mysteries of Christianity through Hrabanus Maurus, and who had then tried to transcribe into the language of his home what the Gospel meant for him, what the message of the death and resurrection of the Christ had become for him. Otfried was born in Weissenburg in Alsace. He had translated what the Gospel had become to him in his feeling, into a language which was at that time spoken in Alsace. Let us listen to one or two extracts, my dear friends, of what just in connection with our study to-day may interest us from the Christian message of this Alsatian monk in the ninth century; and let us try to hear not only the abstract sense of the words, but to hear through the words what can be felt as sorrow concerning man’s forsaken home of nature.
(Dr. Steiner here read the poem in its original language.) He then continued: Let us try to give the poem in our modern language as nearly as we can:
We sorrow and suffer want for much that was dear to us,
And bitter times are now our heritage;
In our sorrow we grieve in this land here below,
Held in bondage manifold by our sins.
Care and sorrow are here our portion;
Of all knowledge of our home bereft,
Our plaints go up, we orphans all forsaken!
Alas I thou strange land, how hard thou art,
A hard Mother ever do I find thee;
Bereft and full of care we wander.
Within me ever have I felt that nothing dear I find in thee,
I find in thee none other good, but cause for constant lamentation,
Heart full of care and pain both great and manifold.
Thus from the soul of this monk sounds forth what was felt with regard to nature.
It is to-day difficult, my dear friends, very, very difficult to recall to mind the way in which the great festivals were raised above the whole horizon of daily life in an age in which people still felt in a more living way, the memory of Balder’s death; and to realise what they welcomed—after they had experienced the sad time when they were forsaken—what they received once again from Him Who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. They had first known the whole bitterness of death, when the old elementary life forces no longer blossomed forth for human sight from the regions of Earth, when the Earth in its forms seemed to fashion death only, death with which Balder had united himself. And now, when they instituted the festivals of Good Friday and Holy Saturday, up to the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, and when they represented this death which they had first learnt to know in its bitterness, they felt that it concealed the triumphant force of Life which had passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, and which always should permeate those souls attuned to the sad and glorious festivals of these days, in which, according to the saying of Angelus Silesius, there should be a ‘celebration’ of the passage of the Christ through death, and of His resurrection. Infinitely more living was the power of Christ’s death and sacrifice when they were still brought into connection with the dead Balder. In the kingdom of the zEsir, looking down upon the earth from Breidablik, his stronghold, was Balder, like unto the silvery sun-moonlight, Balder in his power of giving life to the elemental nature of the Earth; into the dark depths had he gone on Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Holy Saturday night. The gaze was directed to Balder’s new kingdom of death, but with the knowledge: ‘There beneath in the kingdom of death, rests the germ which unites itself with the evolutionary impulses of the Earth, and which will bring forth a new life, when it rises again. It is that death which is experienced in the germinal force of the plants, dead in the depths of the Earth; that force which brings forth the new plants again.
Like mighty words of God had the news come to men, who had learned to comprehend death in the fate of their Balder. Three days long they could feel that that had become active which had killed Balder, and which Balder himself had not been able to conquer. On this account the feeling must be of a special kind which brings life to our souls in the silence of the world for these three days through which we are now passing. Of a special kind must this feeling be; it must express itself somewhat in this way: that for the sake of man’s further development, death must intervene in earthly evolution in a more and more intense way; that nature once radiant as Paradise must become dark and silent as death around man, but that the eternal power of life triumphant ripens in nature’s graveyard. Thus we see it during these three days. He rests beneath, the Christ, in the dark abyss of nature permeated with death. There within we follow Him, because we know that we extend with a part of our own nature into this abyss of universal being and because we know: ‘When we unite ourselves with that, which in us would otherwise be death alone, by means of the Power which has experienced the Mystery of Golgotha, only then shall we bear upwards that part of us which extends beneath into the abyss of the universal death of nature.’ So we step down into the depths and know that we must differentiate our feelings; that we are not acting rightly if we do not distinguish between the different feelings for certain days. Rather should we learn to recognise: Now is the time when the soul must unite itself with that which it can learn concerning death, concerning the death which made it necessary, which from an iron necessity brought it about, that the Christ descended to death.
We shall to-morrow direct our attention to the Mystery of Golgotha from another side; for, as we have said, many ways lead up to the summit where the deep meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha becomes gradually more and more comprehensible. It can only become comprehensible when we not merely place before us one-sidedly the triumphant Christ, but when we also place before our soul the Christ Who unites Himself with death. And what death signifies for the whole of human life, my dear friends, may become perhaps a little clearer, when we deepen ourselves in the feelings which we can experience in the Balder Myth, when we realise what Balder is, what the life-giving Sun-force is, working in the elemental world, after it has experienced death. If we still keep alive in the soul this feeling of the loss of Balder, in that we say: ‘What should we have to feel in a world yet to come when we recollect that the Gods were there once, they let us see the surrounding world in the coloured brilliancy of the senses, but now all is grey on grey.’ That would have been so, if the Christ had not come into the world. That it will not be so, the triumphant power of Christ will bring about. That which to-day men do not believe, they will some day believe: that which to-day can only work as Christ power in the human heart itself, will become actively felt, permeating the whole cosmos, namely, the earthly part of the cosmos, in so far as this cosmos gives rejuvenating, life-giving force to men. Of this we shall speak further to-morrow, my dear friends.
To-day, however, let us call before us how right it is, in regard to the feeling of the human soul in connection with the cosmic Christ, to ponder over what the Gospel says concerning the cosmic power of the Christ; when this Gospel reveals how the Christ is an universal cosmic Power, and how He commanded the winds and the waves. The people of the eighth and ninth centuries had a special feeling just for this aspect of the Christ working through the winds and the waves. They said: ‘It was Balder indeed who brought it about that we once saw the weaving and living elemental world around us in its wonderful working. Balder is dead. But Christ has the power, when we take Him up into our soul-forces, again to awaken that which was lost through Balder’s death. As Balder appeared through the winds and the waves, so the Christ also appeared in the winds and the waves. It is no abstract soul force, it is a force that works through the winds and the waves.’
If we listen attentively to the Gospel text of the ‘Heliand,’ a second Gospel poem of the ninth century, we can still hear this feeling implied if not expressed. ‘Out in nature Balder lived.’ Certainly the poet of the Heliand had long ago abolished this Balder, he had no interest in spreading with the abstract intelligence this idea among his people; he wished rather to stamp it out. But in the way in which he lays stress upon the words, in the way in which he becomes earnest when he wants to bring before us how the power of Christ works through nature, through the winds and the waves, just there it seems as if, even if he did not consciously perceive it himself, we must be conscious of the following: ‘A force has worked through the winds and waves, the power that is greater than Balder, the power that has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha.’ And we also find something of this in the words in which he describes the scene where Christ stills the winds and the waves, according to the Gospel story. That makes a special impression on him. There he chooses—especially when he turns in his mystic way to the feeling the soul can have for nature’s activity, in that through Christ, nature has become divine—he chooses quite special words in which the greatness of Christ can be impressed upon the soul, through which the peculiar cosmic power of Christ can speak to the soul.‘
‘When the people saw how Christ had commanded the winds and the waves’ ... (the Heliand expresses with special warmth how the people felt towards this Christ Power, this Christ Being, this Christ personality which passed through the Mystery of Golgotha.) ‘When the people saw how Christ had commanded the winds and the waves, the people began amongst themselves to wonder and some spake with these words: “What a mighty man this is, that the winds and the waves obey His words; They both pay heed to His message!” This Child of God had delivered the people out of their distress, and had saved them. The ship sailed on—the wooden ship—the disciples and the people came to land and said: God be praised! And they glorified His, namely, God’s, magical power.’
So says this poet of the Heliand, in one of the first Gospel poems which tells of the greatness of the Christ, Who to-day lies symbolically in the depths of the realms of death.
Zehnter Vortrag
Die Kirchen rufen ihre Gläubigen das Jahr hindurch zusammen durch Glockenklang. Der Glockenklang bezeichnet die Zeiten, wichtige Zeitangaben, und er bezeichnet auch diejenigen Zeiten, in denen die Gläubigen zur Kirche gerufen werden. Dieser bedeutungsvolle Glockenklang, dieser Glockenzeitenklang hört auf in gewissen Kirchengemeinschaften in diesen Tagen, die da beginnen mit der Feier der Grablegung, des Opfertodes Christi, und er beginnt erst wiederum mit dem Feste der Auferstehung derjenigen Macht, von der wir als Macht, welche der Erde Sinn verleiht, innerhalb unserer geisteswissenschaftlichen Betrachtungen oft gesprochen haben. Die Zwischenzeit wird in ihrer Bedeutung gefeiert dadurch, daß gewissermaßen die Mißtöne der hölzernen Instrumente, welche in diesen Tagen gebraucht werden statt der Glocken, diesen bedeutungsvollen Glockenzeitenklang ersetzen sollen in der Zeit, in der die Seelen sich erinnern sollen, daß die Macht, welche der Erdenentwikkelung Sinn verleiht, durch ihren Opfertod sich vereint hat mit den Tiefen des Daseins. Das Neuerklingen der Glocken am Feste der Auferstehung soll andeuten, wie die Glockenmusik geweiht und bedeutungsvoll gemacht werden soll durch diesen Sinn der Erde, und wie sie dann von diesem Sinn der Erde das ganze übrige, für das gläubige Bewußtsein durchchristete Jahr hindurch ertönen sollen, die Glocken mit ihrem bedeutungsvollen Zeitenklang.
Wir haben von den verschiedensten Seiten her uns zu nähern versucht dem Sinn und dem Wesen derjenigen Macht, die eingeflossen ist durch das Mysterium von Golgatha in die Impulse der Erdenentwickelung. Allein, Sie werden gesehen haben aus den verschiedenen Betrachtungen, daß jeder Weg der Seele zu dieser Macht hin doch eben nur einer der Wege sein kann, die immer einseitig gewissermaßen die Empfindungen, die Gefühle der Seele wachrufen, damit sie in würdiger Weise verständnisvoll empfangen können dasjenige, was sich offenbaren soll, wenn man den Christus-Namen ausspricht, dasjenige, was sich offenbaren soll, wenn man von dem Mysterium von Golgatha spricht. Wir werden heute versuchen, wiederum einen solchen Weg zu wählen. Es wird wiederum nur einer der Wege sein, denn nur durch die Zusammennahme vieler Wege, die zu dem Mysterium von Golgatha führen, kann man zu einem Verständnis desselben kommen, zu einem einigermaßen für die entsprechende Zeit, in der man inkarniert ist, gehörigen Verständnis kommen. Da sei heute der Weg gewählt, der uns vor die Seele führen soll, wie gewissermaßen Völker, die noch nichts wußten von. dem Mysterium von Golgatha, wie die Völker Europas dieses Mysterium von Golgatha empfangen mußten nach dem, was sie in ihrem Herzen, in ihrer Seele gleichsam wie eine Vorbereitung auf das Mysterium von Golgatha hin durchgemacht hatten.
Ich habe es schon angedeutet in einigen der vorigen Vorträge, wie verknüpft war mit der europäischen Entwickelung in einer bestimmten Zeit, ich möchte sagen, ein tragisches Naturgefühl, das radikal verschieden ist von demjenigen Naturgefühl, das in den ersten christlichen Zeiten sich über die südlichen Länder Europas gerade aus dem Christentum heraus ausbreitete. Dieses letztere Naturgefühl war in gewisser Weise verbunden mit einer Art von Fliehen der Natur, mit einer Art Hinweggehen von der Natur. In diesen südlichen Ländern, in denen sich in griechische, in römische Kultur hinein das Christentum ausgebreitet hat, wurde der Begriff der Sünde, der Begriff.der Schuld innig und intim verknüpft mit demjenigen, was man fühlt als einfließend in den Menschen, in die Menschenseele von der Natur. Hinweg von der Natur in die Gefilde des geistigen Lebens, in die Gefilde, aus denen heruntergestiegen ist der Christus, um der Menschheit die Erlösung, um der Erdenentwickelung Sinn zu bringen; sich freimachen von dem, was im Menschen nur natürlich ist, und sich hinwenden zu dem, was im Menschen heiligend, das heißt, von der Sünde der Natur heilend sein kann - das sind Worte, die etwa einigermaßen dieses erste christliche Naturgefühl ausdrücken können.
Von einem ganz anderen Naturgefühl war die keltisch-germanische Volkheit Europas innerlich beseligt, als sie das Christentum empfing. Ihr war es unmöglich, die Natur bloß zu fliehen, die Natur bloß zu verbinden mit dem Sünde- und Schuldbegriff. Ihnen, den europäischen Völkern, war die Natur durch lange, lange Jahrhunderte viel, viel zu bedeutungsvoll geworden, als daß sie sie bloß hätten fliehen können. Sie war ihnen etwas geworden, mit dem sie so zusammengewachsen waren, daß sie sich allerdings, als sie das Christentum empfingen, zu einer anderen Welt wenden konnten, als die Welt der Natur ist, aber sie konnten nicht so ohne weiteres nur sagen: Hinweg von der Natur! — Dieses «Hinweg von der Natur», dieses Hinschauen und Hinstreben in die Gefilde des Geistes verursachte ihnen Klagen und Schmerzen der Seele, verursachte ihnen Trübnis, indem immer im Hintergrund der Herrlichkeiten des Himmelreiches die Trauer war über dasjenige, was innerhalb der Naturgefilde verloren werden mußte. Und wenn man nach dem Grunde fragt, warum ein solches Gefühl auf dem Grunde der Seele war, dann findet man, daß die Art und Weise, wie diese Seelen mit der Natur verbunden waren in verhältnismäßig noch nicht weit hinter ihnen liegender Vergangenheit — einer Vergangenheit, die weit kürzere Zeit hinter ihnen lag, als das bei den orientalischen oder südlichen Völkern der Fall war -, noch in einem Nachklang vorhanden war. Es war, wie wenn in den Herzen, in den Seelen noch gelebt hätte etwas von all dem heiligen Wohlgefühl des Zusammenseins mit der Natur, des Zusammenseins auch mit dem Göttlichen in der Natur. Und die Trauer, der Schmerz, die Klage, sie kamen davon, daß man fühlte: durch eine Notwendigkeit, durch eine eherne Weltennotwendigkeit war einem abhanden gekommen, was einen einstmals mit dem Heiligen, mit dem Göttlichen der Natur verbunden hatte. Es war nicht bloß ein Gefühl, daß die Natur mit Sünde und Schuld behaftet sei, es war vielmehr das Gefühl, daß man mit der Natur etwas einst unendlich Wertvolles verloren habe. Es war nicht das Gefühl, daß man sich wegwenden solle von der Natur, sondern es war vielmehr das trauernde Gefühl, daß sich etwas, was in der Natur heilig ist, selbst von dem Menschenherzen, der Menschenseele weggewendet habe, und daß man nun das, was man früher mit der Natur im Zusammenhang verehrte, auf andere Art durch Erhebung zum Mysterium von Golgatha erleben mußte.
Es war ein unendlich viel realeres, zugleich ein unendlich viel tragischeres Gefühl, welches das Christentum in diesen Gegenden empfing, als das in den Gegenden südwärts der Alpen und im Oriente der Fall sein konnte. Man macht sich durch nichts besser klar, welches der Sinn dieser alten Naturempfindungen war, als wenn man einen Blick wirft auf das, was ja gelten kann wie eine Art Vorempfindung des göttlichen Opfertodes Christi innerhalb der europäischen Völker, wenn man einen Blick wirft auf das, was der Tod Baldurs und Baldurs Versetzung in die Unterwelt, in die Welt der Hel, nach Niflheim bedeutet.
Ich habe es öfter angedeutet, daß es heute schwierig ist, wiederum wachzurufen in den Seelen all dasjenige, was zusammenhing mit dem Baldur-Mythos, mit dem Mythos dieser eigenartigen alten Sonnengottheit, die von Nordeuropas Volkheit verehrt und angebetet wurde. Und es ist ja schwierig, in einer Zeit dieses klarzumachen, wo man glaubt, daß die menschliche Seele in der Zeit, in der es überhaupt eine Menschheitsentwickelung gibt, immer geradeso ausgesehen habe, immer genau solches erlebt habe, wie sie heute aussieht und wie sie heute erlebt. Man muß sich schon aufschwingen zu dem Gedanken, daß in alten Zeiten der Seele noch weit, weit andere Erlebnisse möglich waren als diejenigen, die dann in späterer Zeit dieser Seele möglich waren, und daß dies zusammenhängt mit einem Gesamterleben des natürlichen Daseins. Stellen Sie sich einmal wirklich vor, die Seele des Menschen hätte durch das alte Auge des Menschen anders hinausgesehen in die Natur, als sie heute sieht, wenn sie durch das heutige Auge in die Natur sieht, und hätte durch das alte Ohr anderes in der Natur gehört als sie heute hört, wenn sie in die Natur hinaushört. Und machen Sie sich den Übergang so klar, indem Sie ein Gleichnis wählen, ein Gleichnis, das, wenn es auch etwas radikal gewählt ist, uns dennoch den Unterschied klarmachen kann. Sie sehen heute hinaus in die Natur durch Ihre Augen, sehen das Grün der Pflanzen, das Grün-Blau der Wälder, das Blau des Himmels, die bunte Mannigfaltigkeit der Blumendecke. Denken Sie sich, es träte eine Revolution im menschlichen Erdendasein durch eine eherne Notwendigkeit so ein, daß aufhören würde für die Menschen die Möglichkeit, Farben zu sehen, und daß die ganze Natur nur erscheinen würde grau in grau, daß Sie hinaufblicken würden zum Himmel und eine etwas andere Schattierung von Grau erblicken würden, als wenn Sie auf graue Wiesen sähen, daß Sie nur verschiedene Nuancen von Grau, Schwarz und Weiß sehen würden, wenn Sie auf die farbige Blumendecke blicken. Denken Sie, eine solche Revolution würde eintreten im Naturschauen der Menschen und Sie haben einen Vergleich mit dem gegeben, was in der Tat eintrat in der Zeit, als hinunterschwand die Möglichkeit für die Menschen: zu schauen auf der ausgebreiteten Wiese all die mannigfaltigen elementarischen Wesenheiten, die mit dem Wachsen und Weben und Wesen der Blumen und Blüten verbunden sind. Aufgehört hatte in der damaligen Zeit durch eine gewaltige Revolution im Naturschauen die Möglichkeit, hinaufzuschauen zu den Sternen und in den Sternen zu sehen die geistiglebendigen Planetengeister, im Äther umwebend die Sterne.
Ich habe es oftmals betont: Zu den unwahrsten Aussprüchen gehört der, wenn man sagt, die Natur mache keine Sprünge. - Unwahr ist dieser Ausspruch, denn so wie ein Sprung ist vom grünen Blatt der Pflanze zum Blütenblatt, so war es ein gewaltiger Sprung in der Menschheitsentwickelung, als von dem alten Hellsehen, wo man die Elementargeister weben und leben sah dort, wo man heute nur die bunte Blütendecke der Pflanzen ausgebreitet sieht, die Menschen eben übergingen zu dem späteren Anschauen. Ein gewaltiger Sprung war das! Und diejenigen Menschen, die Europas Volkheit ausmachten, die hatten in den Zeiten, die durchaus zusammenfallen mit der Zeit, in welcher sich im Orient schon abspielte das Mysterium von Golgatha, noch eine lebendige Empfindung, daß eine solche alte Schau einmal da war, daß die Vorfahren gelebt haben unter der Bedingung, daß sie sehen konnten die webenden Wesen auf Wiesen und in Wäldern und im unendlich ausgespannten Sternenhimmel, und daß das alles verschwunden, verwest und verglommen sei. Ein Gefühl hatten sie, daß, wenn früher die Menschen das Auge hinaufrichteten zum nächtlichen Monde, dieser Mond nicht bloß in Form der hellen Sichel erschien, daß diese helle Sichel umgeben war von planetarischer lebendiger Geistigkeit, die der Menschenseele vieles sagte, und daß das hingeschwunden ist in den Zeiten, in denen man jetzt leben mußte.
Wenn sich die Menschenseele fragte, was denn geschehen sei, daß die Natur also entgöttlicht ist, daß Finsternis sich ausbreitet da, wo früher geistiges Licht war, dann sagte derjenige, der das Volk leitete als Lenker: Es hat einmal in der Götterwelt gegeben einen Baldur, der in sich vereinigte die Kraft des Sonnenlichtes. Aber Baldur hat wegen des Hasses der finsteren Elemente seinen Schauplatz, den er ausgebreitet hatte auf dem Menschen-Erdenhorizont, verlegen müssen zur Hel in die Unterwelt. Verschwunden ist die Schauekraft der alten Zeiten. Versunken ist der helle Sonnenschein, versunken ist der helle Schein der alten Götter, und der tote Schein des Sonnenlichtes glänzt nur zurück durch das Licht der Mondsichel. — Materiell ist die Welt geworden. Wie die trauernde Hinterlassene, die einmal mit dem Göttlichen vereint war und des Göttlichen Widerstrahl in alle Seelen hineinschickte, so erscheint die Natur, über die man klagt, über die man trauert, die man belegen wollte mit den Begriffen bloß von Sünde und Schuld. - Und so wurde die Empfindung erregt, die man haben konnte gegenüber dem Todesgang des alten Sonnengottes Baldur. Er ist nicht mehr da draußen um unsere Schauekräfte herum, der Gott Baldur, er ist in die Unterwelt gezogen, er hat uns die trauernde Natur zurückgelassen. Aber wohin ist er gezogen? Wo ist denn eigentlich in realer Wirklichkeit das Reich der Hel, jenes Reich der Finsternis, in das Baldur eingezogen ist? Wo ist es denn? Auch zu solchen Empfindungen wird sich, ich möchte sagen, unsere materialistische Zeit erst dadurch vorbereiten können, daß sie sich die entsprechenden Begriffe aneignet.
Fragen wir uns einmal, was bedeutete es denn in uralten Zeiten, wenn man sagen konnte, sich hinauswendend gegen die Natur: Baldur ist da. Was bedeutete denn das? Das bedeutete etwas wahrhaftig Reales, etwas, was diejenigen aber nicht verstehen werden, die da glauben, daß die Menschenbildung eben zu allen Zeiten gewesen ist wie heute. Wenn der Mensch in uralten Zeiten hinausging und auf der Wiese wahrnahm - er konnte es nicht immer, er konnte es nur zu gewissen Zeiten, aber daer es konnte zu gewissen Zeiten, da wußte er, daß sich ihm da jene belebenden Elementargeister zeigten, von denen ich gesprochen habe - wie war es denn, wenn der Mensch in gewissen Zeiten diese Elementargeister schauen konnte? Das war kein bloßes Hinschauen, das war nicht ein totes Empfangen eines Gesichtes, sondern das war verbunden mit einem lebendigen Gefühl, mit einer lebendigen Empfindung. Man ging durch die Wälder, man schaute die Geister, die Elementarwesen. Aber man schaute sie nicht bloß, ich möchte sagen, man trank ihr Wesen mit der Seele in sich, man fühlte ihren Hauch als einen geistig-seelischen Erfrischungstrank, man fühlte in sich durch den Ätherleib hineinziehen den Atem, der ausging von den elementarischen Geistern, die man schaute im Wald und auf der Wiese. Sie machen einen jung - so konnte man empfinden, wenn man des Morgens hinausging und noch das Rückbleibende der Morgendämmerung sie sichtbar machte, die Elementargeister des Waldes und der Wiese -, sie machen einen jung, sie verleihen einem Kraft! Und diese Kraft lebt dann in einem fort. Man war dabei, wenn man verjüngt in der elementarischen Natur war. Man war dabei. Was aber war mit all diesen verjüngenden Kräften geschehen? Aus der äußeren Welt waren sie verschwunden, man konnte nur mehr einen traurigen, halbbewußten Zusammenhang mit ihnen haben. Wo waren sie hingekommen? Sie wirkten weiter, aber sie wirkten weiter gewissermaßen im Unsichtbaren, im Unhörbaren; sie wirkten, aber sie wirkten auf die menschliche Natur so, daß der Mensch mit seinem Bewußtsein nicht mehr dabei war.
Und die Zeit kam, wo der Mensch, wenn er wissend wurde, sich sagen mußte: Da in meiner Natur, da wirken diese Kräfte, von denen ich früher nicht nur wissen konnte, daß sie im Dunkeln auf mich wirken, gegenüber denen ich vielmehr eine Schauekraft hatte, deren Einfließen aus der Außenwelt ich bemerken, ich wahrnehmen konnte. - In das Reich der Hel, in des Menschen eigene Finsternis, in des Menschen seelische Untergründe war der Gott Baldur eingezogen. Wo ist Baldur? Der Priester, der zu erklären hatte den Menschen das Geheimnis, wenn der Mensch frug: Wo ist Baldur? - er hatte zu sagen: Baldur ist nicht im Sichtbaren. Weil du als Mensch brauchtest jene Bildekräfte, jene verjüngenden Bildekräfte, die du früher halbwissend aufnehmen durftest, wirken sie jetzt ohne dein Wissen in deinem Inneren, damit du ihnen nichts nimmst durch dein Wissen. Weil du diese Kräfte in deinem Unsichtbaren brauchtest, ist Baldur aus dem Bereich des Sichtbaren verschwunden, hat sich zurückgezogen dahin, wo die Welt deines eigenen unterbewußten Inneren ist.
Dann kam über den Menschen die Stimmung, die man bezeichnen könnte mit den folgenden Worten: So also steh ich als Mensch im Reich der Hel mit einem Teil meines Wesens. Nicht sehen kann ich, wie die Bildekräfte meines Lebens aus dem Reich der Hel eingreifen in mein Seelisch-Leibliches; der Gott Baldur ist in der Unterwelt, er ist bei der Hel, er wirkt im Unsichtbaren auf mich. Versunken und verflossen ist Baldurs Sonnenseherreich. - Das ist die Stimmung der Klage, der Trauer, die Schmerzen der Seele hervorrufen darf, denn das ist keine hinfällige egoistische Menschenklage, das ist Klage, die der Mensch im Zusammenhang mit dem Kosmos empfindet. Das ist kosmische Klage, das ist kosmische Trauer, das ist kosmischer Schmerz.
Und nun kam die Kunde, daß dasjenige, was sich also zurückgezogen hat in das Reich der Hel, neubelebt ist durch eine andere Macht, durch die Macht, die man wiederfinden kann, wenn man tiefe Einblicke tut in das eigene Innere, wo hinein die alte Baldur-Macht ja verschwunden ist. Baldur ist im Reich der Hel, aber der Christus ist hinuntergestiegen in das Reich der Hel, in das Reich der eigenen unterbewußten Menschenwesenheit; da belebt er den Baldur. Und wenn der Mensch sich genügend vertieft in das, was er im Laufe der Erdenentwickelung geworden ist, da findet er wiederum die verjüngende Bildekraft. Was du verloren hast, du findest es wieder, denn hinuntergestiegen in dein eigenes Reich der Finsternis ist der alte Baldur. Gefunden hat ihn da der Christus, wiederbelebt hat er dasjenige, was dir durch Baldur und seine Macht einmal. geworden ist. - So konnte der Priester dem verkünden, der die tiefen Geheimnisse der Botschaft vom Mysterium von Golgatha in diesen Volksgebieten empfand.
Wie eine heilige Erinnerung an uralt heilige Zeiten erschien die Osterbotschaft, aber doch eine Erinnerung, die zugleich neues Leben gibt. Mußte man sich doch sagen: Jene Macht des alten Baldur war zu gering, um auszureichen für eine ganze menschliche Entwickelung. Eine höhere Macht mußte eintreten, um dasjenige den Menschen wieder zu geben, was sie verlieren mußten, was nur Baldur hatte. - So klang herein die Kunde von dem Christus in die Erinnerung von dem alten Baldur und seinem Tode, so klang herein die Auferstehung alter Herrlichkeit in der Menschenseele, in die sie durch Baldurs Tod hinuntergegangen ist, die Macht, die jetzt neu auferweckt worden ist.
Man muß schon sich nähern demjenigen, was als Sinn der Erdenentwickelung das Mysterium von Golgatha ist, dadurch, daß man sich fragt: Mit welchen Empfindungen, mit welchen Gefühlen kam die historische Menschheit dem historischen Christus entgegen? — Denn nicht darauf kommt es an, daß man einen abstrakten Begriff von dem Wesen des Christus oder des Mysteriums von Golgatha sich erwirbt, sondern darauf kommt es an, daß man für sich selbst die Frage zu beantworten vermag: Was alles kann jener Impuls beleben in den tiefsten Tiefen der menschlichen Seele, jener Impuls, der durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist?
Schauen wir es an, dieses Mysterium von Golgatha, wie es noch gefeiert wird von den einzelnen Religionsbekenntnissen der alten Welt. Am Karfreitag wird die Grablegung Christi gefeiert. Die Glocken verstummen, Stummheit breitet sich über die Erde aus. Derjenige, der in den Jahrhunderten gelebt hat, von denen ich spreche, der sagte sich: Stumm, klanglos ist die Welt geworden. Hinuntergestiegen ist der Christus in diejenigen Teile menschlichen Seelendaseins und kosmischen Daseins, in die Baldur hat hinuntersteigen müssen, weil seine Macht nicht ausgereicht hat zur vollständigen Erhebung der menschlichen Seele. Da ist er unten, unten in den geheimnisvollen Tiefen, in denen ich selbst stehe, wenn ich auf die unterbewußten Bildekräfte in meinem Inneren sehe. - Geheimnisvoll kann es das menschliche Herz durchschauern, wenn dieses menschliche Herz bedenkt: Hinweg aus dieser stummen Welt ist der Impuls von Golgatha gegangen. Unten ruht er, wo du auch bist. Warte, warte, und vereinigen wird er sich, dieser Impuls von Golgatha, in den geistigen Welten, denen deine Seele angehören darf, wenn sie den Weg in ihre eigenen Untergründe nur gehen will, mit Baldur. Baldur wird er beleben in diesen Tagen. Und in deinem Inneren, o Mensch, wirst du wiederfinden, was mit Baldurs Hinschwinden aus der Umwelt in deine eigenen Tiefen hinuntergeschwunden und verdämmert ist. Nehme auf, o Mensch, den lebenden Begriff des Christus, der durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist, der nicht äußerlich deinem Auge, wohl aber deiner Seele wird wiedererstehen können, wenn sie sich ihres Inneren recht bewußt wird, vom Monde herab, aus der Sonne heraus - als jene elementare Kraft, jene die Seele belebende Bildekraft. Warte, warte, bis er aufersteht, der Wiedererwecker Baldurs. Eine Welt hast du einstmals gehabt; in dieser Welt brauchtest du nur deine Sinne hinauszurichten auf die umgebende Natur, und es floß dir ohne dein Zutun die belebende, beseelende Kraft aus dem Elementarischen dieser äußeren Natur entgegen. Ein Reich des Geistes durchwob alles natürliche Dasein, und du selbst lebtest, wenn du nur die richtigen Augenblicke dazu abwartetest, nicht nur in der geistlosen Natur; du lebtest in dem, was hinter der Natur ist, wovon sie nur der Ausdruck ist, du lebtest in dem Naturdasein. Jetzt findest du nicht mehr das Geistige in der Natur, du mußt es suchen durch vertiefende Belebung deines eigenen Inneren mit der Kraft, die durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist. Natur, du warst einmal ausdrucksvoll, oh, so ausdrucksvoll, daß durch deine Formen erschien des Menschen wahre, wahrhaftige Heimat. Sie hat Baldur mit sich genommen, sie ist nicht mehr da, ist in Regionen, die dein äußeres Schauen nicht überblickt. Aber es gibt dieses alte Reich, dessen Formenausdruck einmal die umgebende Natur war, es gibt dieses Reich noch. Du findest es nur nicht, wenn du den Weg der Natur allein gehst; du findest es, wenn du dich verbindest mit dem Impuls, der durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist. Nicht bloß sündhaft-schuldig ist die Natur, verlassen ist sie, verlassen ist sie von der Heimat, die man suchen muß, suchen muß, innerlich durchdrungen mit der Kraft des Christus.
Man könnte meinen, daß man noch etwas durchhörte in den christlichen Zeiten von dem, was die Menschen also aufgenommen haben von dem alten Baldur-Tod in ihre Erinnerung, um es zu verbinden mit der Kunde von dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Es kommt einem vor, wie wenn erst nach und nach versunken und verklungen wäre der Ton der Klage, der Ton der Trauer gegenüber der Natur, wie er eben charakterisiert worden ist. Gewiß, es dringt ein in die christliche Auffassung auch jene Stimmung, welche einzig und allein hinblickt zu dem sich opfernden Christus, einzig und allein aufblickt zu der himmlischen Heimat. Und es wird auch in dieser Volkheit Europas nach und nach die Stimmung vernehmlich, welche die Natur gleichsam wie das mindere Kind, nicht wie das verlassene Kind, anschaut. Aber wenn man hinhorcht nicht bloß auf den Sinn der Worte, sondern auf die Art, wie die Worte geprägt werden da, als schon im 8. Jahrhundert, im 9. Jahrhundert sich ausgebreitet hat über gewisse Gegenden Europas die Kunde von dem Mysterium von Golgatha, wenn man hinhorcht auf die Art, wie gesprochen wird davon, daß man in der irdischen Welt nicht die wahre Heimat der Menschenseele finden kann, dann kann man noch etwas von der alten tragischen Stimmung gegenüber der baldurlosen Natur empfinden. Wie gesagt, man muß nur hinhören nicht bloß auf die Worte und auf den abstrakten Sinn der Worte, sondern auf die Art, wie durch die Worte durchklingt das, was über die Natur empfunden wird, und was empfunden wird über eine andere Heimat der menschlichen Seele, als die Natur jetzt sein kann.
Daß so etwas erklang auch noch, nachdem das Christentum sich ausgebreitet hat, nachdem die Menschen da waren, die das Christentum auszubreiten suchten in der Form, in der man es eben empfangen hatte aus dem Orient, das kann man wie gesagt aus den verschiedensten Kundgebungen des 8., des 9. Jahrhunderts ersehen, wenn man nur durch sie, durch diese Kundgebungen, hindurchhört, was empfunden wurde. Wir haben aus diesen Zeiten gewissermaßen europäisch gemachte Evangelien, und eines dieser europäisch gemachten Evangelien ist die sogenannte «Evangelienharmonie» des Otfried, eines Mönches, der im Elsaß gelebt hat, der noch durch Hrabanus Maurus die Geheimnisse des Christentums gelernt hat, der dann versucht hat, in die Sprache seiner Heimat hineinzutragen dasjenige, was ihm das Evangelium, was ihm die Botschaft von dem Tode und der Auferstehung des Christus geworden war. Geboren ist Otfried in Weißenburg im Elsaß. In eine Sprache, die dazumal im Elsaß gesprochen worden ist, hat er übersetzt das, was ihm geworden war, in seine Empfindungen hinein, von dem Evangelium. Hören wir nur ein paar Proben desjenigen, was uns gerade in unserem heutigen Zusammenhang interessieren kann aus dieses elsässischen Mönches Christus-Botschaft aus dem 9. Jahrhundert, und versuchen wir, nicht den abstrakten Sinn der Worte nur zu hören, sondern versuchen wir durchzuhören durch die Worte dasjenige, was gerade als Trauer gegenüber der verlassenen Naturheimat des Menschen empfunden werden könnte. Deshalb will ich das in der damaligen Sprache zuerst mitteilen, und es dann, so gut es geht, in die neuere Sprache bringen.
Otfried 111,19-30:
Tharben wir nu lewes, liebes filu manages
joh thulten hiar nu noti bittero ziti.
Nu birun wir mornente mit seru hiar in lante
in managfalten wunton bi unseren sunton;
Arabeiti manego sint uns hiar jo garawo,
ni wollen heim wison wir wenegon weison.
Wolaga elilenti, harto bistu herti,
thu bist harto filu swar, thaz sagen ih thir in alawar.
Mit arabeitin werbent, thie heiminges tharbent;
Ih haben iz funtan in mir, ni fand ih liebes wiht in thir.
Ni fand in thir ih ander guat suntar rozagaz muat,
seragaz herza joh managfalta smerza.
Versuchen wir, so annähernd das wiederzugeben in der neueren Sprache:
Leiden und darben wir an sehr Vielem, das uns lieb war,
Und dulden hier nun bittere Zeiten,
Nun sind wir trauernd mit unserem Schmerz hier im Land
— er meint im Erdenland
In mannigfaltigem Bund durch unsere Sünden.
Arbeit — Arbeit heißt in früherer Sprache mehr «Sorge, Mühe» -, der
Besorgungen viele sind uns jetzt bereitet,
Nichts können wir von der Heimat wissen, wir, die für Klagen werbend, verlassene Waisen.
Wehe, du fremdes Land - so spricht er die Erde an! - O, wie bist du hart!
Du bist wahrlich recht schwer, das sage ich dir allerwärts.
Mit Besorgnissen werbend - also wandelnd - sind die, die der Heimat nun entbehren.
Ich habe es empfunden an mir, nie fand ich Liebes etwas in dir,
Nie fand in dir ich andres Gut, als zum Klagen reifen Sinn,
Sorgenvolles Herz und mannigfaltig und viel Schmerz.
So klingt aus dieses Mönches Seele dasjenige, was empfunden wurde jetzt gegenüber der Natur. Und so empfand man gegenüber der Macht, die durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist.
Es ist heute selbst das schon schwierig, recht schwierig, das wieder auferstehen zu lassen, wie die großen Festeszeiten herausgehoben waren aus dem ganzen Horizont des Alltagslebens in den Zeiten, in denen man noch lebendiger empfunden hat, an was man sich zu erinnern habe als an Baldurs Tod, und was man, nachdem man durch die traurige Zeit der Verlassenschaft hindurchgegangen war, nunmehr empfangen hatte durch den, der durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist. Man hatte gewissermaßen die ganze Bitternis des Todes erst erkannt, als aus der Erde Gefilden nicht mehr sprießten für das menschliche Anschauen die alten elementarischen Lebekräfte, als die Erde in ihren Formen selbst erschien wie formend nur den Tod, den Tod, mit dem Baldur sich vereint hatte. Und jetzt empfand man, indem man hinstellte Karfreitag, Karsamstag bis zum Auferstehungs-OÖstersonntag, indem man hinstellte diesen Tod, den man erst in seiner Bitternis zu empfinden gelernt hatte, jetzt empfand man, daß er birgt die siegende Kraft des Lebens, die durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist, und die immer wieder und wieder gehen soll durch des Menschen an diesen Tagen trauerfestlich gestimmte Seele, in der nach des Angelus Silesius Ausspruch selbst gefeiert werden soll der Todesgang des Christus und die Auferstehung dieses Christus.
Unendlich lebendiger war des Christus Todeskraft und Todesopfer in den Zeiten, in denen dieses Todesopfer, diese Todeskraft noch in Verbindung gebracht war mit dem hingestorbenen Baldur. In der Asen Reich, hinunterschauend auf die Erde von Breidablick - so hieß die Burg des Baldur -, hinunterschauend auf die Erde wie das silberne SonnenMondenlicht; so war er einst, Baldur, in seiner Kraft der Erde elementare Wesenschaft belebend. In finstere Tiefen war er gegangen, Karfreitag, Karsamstag, Karsamstagnacht. Hin richtete sich der Blick zu Baldurs neuem Todesreich, aber wissend: da unten im Todesreich, da ruht der Keim, der sich verbindet mit der Erde Entwickelungsimpulsen, und der ein neues Leben bringen wird, wenn er aufersteht. Das ist der Tod, der empfunden wird in der Pflanzenkeimeskraft, vermodert in den Tiefen der Erde, der die neue Pflanze wieder hervorbringt.
Wie mächtige Gottesworte war die Kunde gekommen zu Menschen, die den Tod hatten begreifen gelernt an dem Schicksal ihres Baldur. Drei Tage lang konnten sie empfinden, wie zur Wirkung gekommen ist dasjenige, was Baldur getötet hat, was Baldur selbst nicht besiegen kann. Deshalb muß einzigartig die Empfindung sein, die unsere Seele belebt in der Weltenstummheit der drei Tage, von der wir umgeben sind. Einzigartig muß diese Empfindung sein, so etwa muß sie sich ausdrücken, daß um der Menschen Weiterentwickelung willen der Tod immer intensiver und intensiver auch in die Erdenentwickelung eingreifen mußte, daß finster und todesstumm um den Menschen herum werden mußte die einstmals paradieseshelle Natur, daß aber reift im Todesacker des Seins die ewig siegende Lebenskraft. So schauen wir sie an - diese drei Tage: Da ruht er unten, der Christus, im todesdurchtränkten Abgrundreiche des Seins. Da hinein verfolgen wir ihn, weil wir wissen, daß wir mit einem Teil unseres eigenen Wesens hineinreichen in diesen Abgrund des Weltendaseins, und weil wir wissen: hinauftragen werden wir den Teil von uns, der da hinunterreicht in den Abgrund des Todesweltenseins, nur, wenn wir uns verbinden mit dem, was sonst in uns allein der Tod sein würde, durch die Kraft, die durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist.
So steigen wir hinunter in die Tiefen und wissen, daß wir differenzieren müssen die Empfindungen, daß wir nicht gut tun, wenn wir uns. nicht unsere differenzierten Empfindungen für gewisse Tage bewußt machen. Wir sollen vielmehr wissen lernen: Jetzt sind die Tage, wo sich die Seele verbinden muß mit dem, was sie lernen kann über den Tod, über den Tod, der es notwendig machte, der es in eherner Norwendigkeit mit sich brachte, daß der Christus zu ihm hinunterstieg. Wir werden morgen hinwenden den Blick zu dem Mysterium von Golgatha von einer anderen Seite. Aber, wie gesagt, viele Wege führen hinauf auf den Gipfel, wo uns allmählich verständlich und immer verständlicher wird der tiefe Sinn des Mysteriums von Golgatha. Er kann uns nur verständlich werden, wenn wir nicht bloß vor uns hinstellen den siegenden Christus, den einseitig siegenden Christus, sondern wenn wir auch hinstellen vor unsere Seele den sich mit dem Tod verbindenden Christus. Und was der Tod bedeutet für das ganze Menschenleben, es könnte uns vielleicht um ein Stückchen klarer werden, wenn wir uns vertieften in die Empfindungen, die man haben kann an dem Baldur-Mythos, an dem, was Baldur, was die durch die elementare Welt wirkende belebende Sonnenkraft ist, nachdem sie durch den Tod hindurchgegangen ist. Wenn man diese Empfindung in der Seele noch belebt, diese Empfindung von dem Untergang Baldurs, dadurch, daß man sich sagt: Wie müßten wir empfinden in einer zukünftigen Welt, in der wir uns erinnern: Götter waren da, sie haben einmal uns sehen lassen die umliegende Welt im farbigen Sinnenschein; grau in grau ist jetzt alles! Daß das nicht so sein wird - und es würde so, wenn der Christus nicht in die Welt gekommen wäre -, das wird die siegende Kraft des Christus bewirken. Was heute die Menschen noch nicht glauben, sie werden es einmal glauben: daß dasjenige, was heute nur wirken kann als ChristusKraft in den menschlichen Herzen selbst, wirksam empfunden werden wird den ganzen Kosmos durchdringend, namentlich den irdischen Teil des Kosmos durchdringend, so weit dieser Kosmos den Menschen verjüngende, belebende Kraft gibt.
Heute wollen wir noch vor unsere Seelen rufen, wie berechtigt es ist gegenüber einer solchen Empfindung, die das menschliche Seelengefühl in Zusammenhang bringt mit dem kosmischen Christus, zu erwägen dasjenige, was das Evangelium verkündet auch von der kosmischen Macht des Christus, wenn es anschaulich machen will, wie der Christus eine universelle, kosmische Macht ist, wie er Wind und Wogen geboten hat. Gerade in diesem Anschauen des durch Wind und Wogen hindurch wirkenden Christus haben noch die Völker des 8. und 9. Jahrhunderts vieles empfunden. Sie sagten: Baldur war es ja, der machte, daß wir einstmals die wunderbar wirkende, wesende elementarische Welt sahen um uns herum. Baldur ist tot. Der Christus aber hat die Macht, durch unsere Seelenkraft wieder zu erwecken - indem wir ihn aufnehmen in unsere Seelenkraft -, der Christus hat die Macht, wiederum aufzuwekken das, was durch Baldurs Tod verloren ist. Wie Baldur erschien durch Wind und Wogen, so erscheint auch der Christus in Wind und Wogen. Es ist keine abstrakte Seelenkraft, es ist eine durch Wind und Wogen wirkende Kraft.
Und so möchte man auch noch etwas durchhören, wenn man genau hinhorcht auf den Evangelientext des «Heliand», einer zweiten Evangeliendichtung neben der des Otfried aus dem 9. Jahrhundert, wie da besonders empfunden, wenn auch nicht ausgesprochen wurde: Ja, da draußen in der Natur lebte Baldur. - Gewiß, der Dichter des «Heliand» hat ihn längst abgetan, diesen Baldur. Er hatte auch nicht das Interesse, mit dem abstrakten Verstand diese Idee wieder unter sein Volk zu bringen. Sie sollte ja gerade ausgerottet werden. Aber in der Art, wie er prägt die Worte, wie er gerade herzlich wird da, wo er anschaulich machen kann, wie durch die Natur, durch Wind und Wogen hindurchwirkt des Christus Kraft, da ist es einem, wie wenn man — wenn er selbst es auch nicht in sein Bewußtsein brachte - es in sein Bewußtsein bringen müsse: Ja, durch Wind und Wogen hat gewirkt die Kraft, die größer ist als Baldurs Kraft, die Kraft, die durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist. — Und so etwas empfindet man bei den Worten, mit denen er verkündet die Szene, wo der Christus die Winde und die Wogen des Meeres, nach dem Evangelium, stillet. Das macht auf ihn einen besonderen Eindruck. Da wählt er, besonders als er die Seele in seiner mystischen Art hinwenden will auf das, was sie da empfinden kann gewissermaßen in der Naturtätigkeit, in der Durchgöttlichung der Natur durch Christus, da wählt er besondere Worte, wo des Christus Größe sich besonders in die Seele prägen kann, Worte, durch die des Christus ganz besondere Weltenmacht zur Seele sprechen kann.
«Da das Volk gesehen hat, wie der Christus den Winden geboten hat, den Meereswogen geboten hat... .» - hier drückt der «Heliand» besonders herzlich aus, was das Volk empfand gegenüber dieser ChristusKraft, dieser Christus-Wesenheit, dieser Christus-Persönlichkeit, die durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist - «.... da begann das Volk unter sich, die Menge begann sich zu wundern, und es sprachen einige mit ihren Worten: Was das für ein mächtiger Mann wäre, daß ihm so der Wind wie die Wogen auf seine Worte gehorchen. Beide hören auf seine Botschaft. Da hatte sie des Gottes Kind - nämlich da hatte die Menschen -, des Gottes Kind behütet, herausbehütet aus der Not. Das Schiffchen weiter schwamm, das hornerne Schiff; die Jünger kamen, die Leute kamen zu Lande, sagten: Gott sei gelobt! und verkündeten seine — nämlich Gottes — Überkraft.»
So sagt dieser Dichter des «Heliand» in einer der ersten Verkündigungen, die von der Größe des Christus sprach, der heute in den Tiefen des Todesdaseins symbolisch liegt. Und damals klang das so:
Aus 8, 30-38 des «Heliand»:
Thuo began that folc undar im,
werod, wundraian, endi suma mid iro wordun sprakun,
huilic that so mahtigro manno wari,
that im so thie wind endi thie wag wordu hordin,
bethiu is gibodskepies. Thuo habda sia that barn godes
ginerid fan theru nodi: Thie naco furthor scred,
hoh hurnidscip; helithos quamun,
thia ludi, te lande, sagdun lof gode - sie sprachen: Gott sei das Lob!
maridun — das heißt: «märchenartig» sein, man könnte heute sagen:
verkündeten — maridun is megincraft — verkündeten seine Über kraft.
Also: die Leute, die da kamen zu Lande, verkündeten seine Überkraft!
Thia ludi, te lande, sagdun lof gode, maridun is megincraft!
Tenth Lecture
Throughout the year, churches call their faithful together with the sound of bells. The sound of bells marks important times, and it also marks the times when the faithful are called to church. This meaningful ringing of bells, this ringing of the hours, ceases in certain church communities during these days, which begin with the celebration of the burial, the sacrificial death of Christ, and it only begins again with the celebration of the resurrection of that power which we have often spoken of in our spiritual scientific considerations as the power that gives meaning to the earth. The intervening period is celebrated in its significance by the fact that, in a sense, the discordant sounds of the wooden instruments used in these days instead of bells are intended to replace this meaningful ringing of the bells at the times when souls are to remember that the power which gives meaning to the development of the earth has united itself with the depths of existence through its sacrificial death. The renewed ringing of the bells on the feast of the Resurrection is meant to indicate how the music of the bells is to be consecrated and made meaningful through this meaning of the earth, and how they are then to ring throughout the rest of the year, which is permeated by this meaning of the earth for the conscious believer, the bells with their meaningful sound of time.
We have tried from various sides to approach the meaning and essence of that power which has flowed through the mystery of Golgotha into the impulses of the earth's evolution. However, you will have seen from the various considerations that every path of the soul toward this power can only be one of the paths that always awaken, in a sense, the feelings of the soul in a one-sided way, so that they can receive in a dignified and understanding way that which is to be revealed when one pronounces the name of Christ, that which what is to be revealed when one speaks of the Mystery of Golgotha. Today we will try to choose such a path again. It will again be only one of the paths, for only by bringing together many paths that lead to the Mystery of Golgotha can one come to an understanding of it, to an understanding that is appropriate for the time in which one is incarnated. Let us choose today the path that will lead us before the soul, as it were, like peoples who knew nothing of the mystery of Golgotha, like the peoples of Europe who had to receive this mystery of Golgotha after what they had gone through in their hearts, in their souls, as a kind of preparation for the mystery of Golgotha.
I have already hinted in some of the previous lectures how connected with the development of Europe at a certain time was, I would say, a tragic feeling for nature, which is radically different from the feeling for nature that spread throughout the southern countries of Europe in the early Christian times, precisely out of Christianity. This latter feeling for nature was in a certain sense connected with a kind of flight from nature, with a kind of turning away from nature. In these southern countries, where Christianity spread into Greek and Roman culture, the concept of sin, the concept of guilt, became intimately and deeply connected with what one feels as flowing into human beings, into the human soul from nature. Away from nature into the realms of spiritual life, into the realms from which Christ descended in order to bring salvation to humanity and meaning to the development of the earth; to free oneself from what is only natural in human beings and turn toward what is sacred in human beings, that is, what can heal them from the sin of nature—these are words that can express, to some extent, this first Christian feeling toward nature.
The Celtic-Germanic peoples of Europe were imbued with a completely different feeling for nature when they received Christianity. It was impossible for them to simply flee from nature, to simply associate nature with the concepts of sin and guilt. For them, the European peoples, nature had become far too significant over many, many centuries for them to simply flee from it. It had become something with which they had grown so closely together that, when they accepted Christianity, they were able to turn to a world other than the world of nature, but they could not simply say: Away with nature! This “away from nature,” this looking and striving toward the realms of the spirit, caused them lamentation and pain of soul, caused them gloom, because in the background of the glories of the kingdom of heaven there was always the sorrow over what had to be lost within the realm of nature. And if one asks why such a feeling was at the bottom of their souls, one finds that the way in which these souls were connected with nature in a past that was not yet far behind them — a past that lay far less time behind them than was the case with the Oriental or Southern peoples — was still present in an echo. It was as if something of the sacred feeling of well-being that came from being together with nature, and also from being together with the divine in nature, still lived on in their hearts and souls. And the grief, the pain, the lamentation came from the feeling that through necessity, through an iron necessity of the world, something had been lost that had once connected them to the sacred, to the divine in nature. It was not merely a feeling that nature was tainted with sin and guilt; it was rather the feeling that, with nature, one had lost something infinitely precious. It was not the feeling that one should turn away from nature, but rather the mournful feeling that something sacred in nature had turned away from the human heart, from the human soul, and that what one had previously revered in connection with nature must now be experienced in a different way, through its elevation to the mystery of Golgotha.
It was an infinitely more real and at the same time infinitely more tragic feeling that Christianity received in these regions than could have been the case in the regions south of the Alps and in the Orient. Nothing makes the meaning of these ancient feelings for nature clearer than a glance at what can be regarded as a kind of pre-feeling of Christ's divine sacrificial death among the European peoples, a glance at what the death of Baldur and his transfer to the underworld, to the world of Hel, to Niflheim, signifies.
I have often hinted that it is difficult today to reawaken in people's souls everything that was connected with the myth of Baldur, with the myth of this peculiar ancient sun deity who was revered and worshipped by the peoples of Northern Europe. And it is difficult to make this clear at a time when people believe that the human soul has always looked exactly as it does today and has always experienced exactly what it experiences today, throughout the entire history of human development. One must bring oneself to the idea that in ancient times, the soul was capable of experiences far, far different from those possible in later times, and that this is connected with the overall experience of natural existence. Imagine for a moment that the human soul saw nature differently through the old human eye than it does today when it looks at nature through the present eye, and that it heard something different in nature through the old ear than it hears today when it listens to nature. And make the transition clear to yourself by choosing a parable, a parable which, even if it is somewhat radical, can nevertheless make the difference clear to us. Today you look out into nature through your eyes and see the green of the plants, the green-blue of the forests, the blue of the sky, the colorful diversity of the carpet of flowers. Imagine that a revolution in human existence on earth were to occur through some iron necessity, so that people would no longer be able to see colors, and that the whole of nature would appear only gray in gray, that you would look up at the sky and see a slightly different shade of gray than when you looked at gray meadows, that you would see only different shades of gray, black, and white when you looked at the colorful blanket of flowers. Imagine that such a revolution would occur in the way humans perceive nature, and you will have a comparison with what actually happened at the time when humans lost the ability to look down on the expansive meadow and see all the manifold elemental beings connected with the growth, weaving, and essence of the flowers and blossoms. At that time, a tremendous revolution in the perception of nature had put an end to the possibility of looking up at the stars and seeing in them the spirit-living planetary spirits weaving around the stars in the ether.
I have often emphasized that one of the most untrue statements is that nature does not make leaps. This statement is untrue, for just as it is a leap from the green leaf of the plant to the petal, so it was a tremendous leap in human evolution when, from the old clairvoyance, where one saw the elemental spirits weaving and living where today one sees only the colorful blanket of flowers spread out by the plants, people passed over to the later way of seeing. That was a tremendous leap! And those people who made up the population of Europe, in the times that coincided with the time when the mystery of Golgotha was already taking place in the Orient, still had a living sense that such an ancient vision had once existed, that their ancestors had lived under conditions they could see the weaving beings in meadows and forests and in the infinitely stretched starry sky, and that all this had disappeared, decayed, and faded away. They had a feeling that when people in earlier times looked up at the moon at night, this moon did not appear merely in the form of a bright crescent, but that this bright crescent was surrounded by planetary, living spirituality that spoke much to the human soul, and that this had vanished in the times in which they now had to live.
When the human soul asked itself what had happened, that nature had become so deified, that darkness was spreading where spiritual light had once been, then the one who led the people as their guide said: Once upon a time, there was a Baldur in the world of the gods who united within himself the power of sunlight. But because of the hatred of the dark elements, Baldur had to move the place he had spread out on the human horizon to Hel in the underworld. The power of vision of ancient times has disappeared. The bright sunshine has sunk, the bright glow of the old gods has sunk, and the dead glow of sunlight shines back only through the light of the crescent moon. — The world has become material. Like the mourning widow who was once united with the divine and sent the divine reflection into all souls, so appears nature, over which one laments, over which one mourns, which one wanted to burden with the concepts of sin and guilt alone. And thus was aroused the feeling one could have toward the death of the old sun god Baldur. He is no longer out there for our senses to perceive, the god Baldur; he has moved to the underworld, leaving us behind with nature in mourning. But where has he gone? Where, in reality, is the realm of Hel, that realm of darkness into which Baldur has entered? Where is it? I would say that our materialistic age can only prepare itself for such feelings by acquiring the appropriate concepts.
Let us ask ourselves what it meant in ancient times when someone turned away from nature and said, “Baldur is here.” What did that mean? It meant something truly real, something that those who believe that human development has always been the same as it is today will not understand. When people in ancient times went outside and perceived things in the meadow—they could not always do so, only at certain times, but since they could do so at certain times, they knew that the animating elemental spirits I have spoken of were revealing themselves to them—what was it like when people could see these elemental spirits at certain times? It was not merely looking, it was not a dead reception of a face, but it was connected with a living feeling, with a living sensation. One walked through the woods, one saw the spirits, the elemental beings. But one did not merely look at them; I would say one drank their essence into one's soul, one felt their breath as a spiritual and soul-refreshing drink, one felt the breath emanating from the elemental spirits one saw in the forest and in the meadow being drawn into one's etheric body. They make you young—that is how you felt when you went out in the morning and the remnants of dawn still made them visible, the elemental spirits of the forest and the meadow—they make you young, they give you strength! And this strength then lives on in you. You were there when you were rejuvenated in elemental nature. You were there. But what had happened to all these rejuvenating forces? They had disappeared from the outer world, and you could only have a sad, semi-conscious connection with them. Where had they gone? They continued to work, but they continued to work, so to speak, in the invisible, in the inaudible; they worked, but they worked on human nature in such a way that human beings were no longer there with their consciousness.
And the time came when man, when he became knowledgeable, had to say to himself: There in my nature, there are these forces at work, of which I could not previously know that they were working on me in the dark, but rather I had a power of vision with which I could perceive their influence flowing in from the outside world. The god Baldur had moved into the realm of Hel, into the darkness of man's own soul, into the depths of man's soul. Where is Baldur? The priest who had to explain the mystery to people when they asked, “Where is Baldur?” had to say, “Baldur is not in the visible world.” Because you as a human being needed those formative forces, those rejuvenating formative forces, which you were previously allowed to absorb with half-knowledge, they now work within you without your knowledge, so that you do not take anything away from them through your knowledge. Because you needed these forces in your invisible realm, Baldur has disappeared from the visible realm and has withdrawn to the realm of your own subconscious inner world.
Then a mood came over people that could be described with the following words: So here I stand as a human being in the realm of Hel with part of my being. I cannot see how the image forces of my life intervene in my soul and body from the realm of Hel; the god Baldur is in the underworld, he is with Hel, he works on me in the invisible realm. Baldur's realm of sun-seers is lost and gone. This is the mood of lamentation, of grief, which can cause pain in the soul, for this is not a vain, selfish human lamentation; it is a lamentation that man feels in connection with the cosmos. It is cosmic lamentation, cosmic grief, cosmic pain.
And now came the news that that which had thus withdrawn into the realm of Hel had been revived by another power, by the power that can be found again when one looks deeply into one's own inner being, where the old power of Baldur had disappeared. Baldur is in the realm of Hel, but Christ has descended into the realm of Hel, into the realm of his own subconscious humanity; there he revives Baldur. And when human beings delve deeply enough into what they have become in the course of Earth's evolution, they find the rejuvenating power of imagery again. What you have lost, you will find again, for the old Baldur has descended into your own realm of darkness. Christ found him there and revived what once became yours through Baldur and his power. Thus the priest was able to proclaim this to those who felt the deep mysteries of the message of the Mystery of Golgotha in these regions.
The Easter message appeared like a sacred remembrance of ancient holy times, but it was a remembrance that also gave new life. One had to say to oneself: The power of the old Baldur was too small to suffice for the entire human development. A higher power had to come in to give back to people what they had to lose, what only Baldur had. So the news of Christ came into the memory of the old Baldur and his death, and the resurrection of ancient glory came into the human soul, which had gone down through Baldur's death, the power that has now been newly awakened.
One must approach what is the meaning of the Earth's development, the mystery of Golgotha, by asking oneself: With what feelings, with what emotions did historical humanity encounter the historical Christ? For it is not important to acquire an abstract concept of the nature of Christ or of the mystery of Golgotha, but rather to be able to answer for oneself the question: What can that impulse, which passed through the mystery of Golgotha, enliven in the deepest depths of the human soul?
Let us look at this mystery of Golgotha as it is still celebrated by the various religious denominations of the old world. On Good Friday, the burial of Christ is celebrated. The bells fall silent, and silence spreads over the earth. Those who lived in the centuries of which I speak said to themselves: The world has become silent and soundless. Christ has descended into those parts of human soul existence and cosmic existence into which Baldur had to descend because his power was not sufficient for the complete elevation of the human soul. There he is, down in the mysterious depths where I myself stand when I look at the subconscious image forces within me. It can send a mysterious chill through the human heart when this human heart considers: The impulse from Golgotha has gone forth from this silent world. It rests below, wherever you are. Wait, wait, and it will unite, this impulse from Golgotha, in the spiritual worlds to which your soul may belong if it only wants to go the way into its own depths, with Baldur. Baldur will revive it in these days. And within yourself, O human being, you will rediscover what has sunk down into your own depths and faded away with Baldur's passing from the environment. Take up, O human being, the living concept of Christ, who has passed through the mystery of Golgotha, who cannot be seen by your outer eye, but who will be able to rise again for your soul when it becomes truly conscious of its inner being, descending from the moon, emerging from the sun—as that elemental force, that image-forming power that animates the soul. Wait, wait until he rises, the reviver of Baldur. You once had a world; in this world you only needed to direct your senses toward the surrounding nature, and the animating, soul-giving power flowed toward you from the elemental nature of this outer world without any effort on your part. A realm of spirit permeated all natural existence, and you yourself lived, if you only waited for the right moments, not only in spiritless nature; you lived in what lies behind nature, of which it is only the expression; you lived in natural existence. Now you no longer find the spiritual in nature; you must seek it by deepening the vitality of your own inner being with the power that has passed through the mystery of Golgotha. Nature, you were once expressive, oh so expressive, that through your forms the true, genuine home of man appeared. It took Baldur with it, it is no longer there, it is in regions that your outer gaze cannot see. But there is this ancient realm whose forms were once expressed by the surrounding nature, this realm still exists. You will not find it if you follow the path of nature alone; you will find it if you connect yourself with the impulse that passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. Nature is not merely sinful and guilty, it is forsaken, forsaken by the home that must be sought, sought inwardly, permeated with the power of Christ.
One might think that in Christian times something could still be heard of what people had taken from the old Baldur death into their memory in order to connect it with the knowledge of the mystery of Golgotha. It seems as if the tone of lamentation, the tone of mourning for nature, as it has just been characterized, had gradually sunk and faded away. Certainly, the Christian view also includes that mood which looks solely to the sacrificing Christ, looks solely to the heavenly home. And in this European people, too, the mood gradually becomes audible which regards nature as a kind of lesser child, not as an abandoned child. But if one listens not merely to the meaning of the words, but to the way in which the words are coined, when, as early as the 8th and 9th centuries, the knowledge of the mystery of Golgotha spread over certain regions of Europe, when one listens to the way in which it is spoken that the true home of the human soul cannot be found in the earthly world, then one can still sense something of the old tragic mood toward nature, which was soon to be lost. As I said, one must listen not only to the words and the abstract meaning of the words, but to the way in which what is felt about nature and what is felt about a home for the human soul other than nature as it now is, resounds through the words.
That something like this still resounded even after Christianity had spread, after there were people who sought to spread Christianity in the form in which it had been received from the Orient, can be seen, as I have said, from the most diverse manifestations of the 8th and 9th centuries, if one only listens through them, through these manifestations, to what was felt. We have, so to speak, Europeanized Gospels from these times, and one of these Europeanized Gospels is the so-called “Gospel Harmony” of Otfried, a monk who lived in Alsace, who learned the secrets of Christianity from Hrabanus Maurus, and who then tried to translate into the language of his homeland what what the Gospel, what the message of the death and resurrection of Christ had become for him. Otfried was born in Weißenburg in Alsace. He translated what the Gospel had become for him, in his feelings, into a language that was spoken in Alsace at the time. Let us listen to a few examples of what may be of interest to us in our present context from this 9th-century Alsatian monk's message of Christ, and let us try not to hear only the abstract meaning of the words, but to listen through the words to what could be felt as grief for the abandoned natural homeland of humankind. That is why I want to convey this first in the language of that time and then, as best I can, translate it into modern language.
Otfried 111,19-30:
Tharben wir nu lewes, liebes filu manages
joh thulten hiar nu noti bittero ziti.
Nu birun wir mornente mit seru hiar in lante
in managfalten wunton bi unseren sunton;
Arabeiti manego sint uns hiar jo garawo,
ni wollen heim wison wir wenegon weison.
Wolaga elilenti, harto bistu herti,
thu bist harto filu swar, thaz sagen ih thir in alawar.
With hard work, they seek their homes;
I have found in me, I found no love in you.
I found in you no other good sonar rozagaz muat,
seragaz herza joh managfalta smerza.
Let us try to reproduce this as closely as possible in modern language:
We suffer and endure many things that were dear to us,
And now we endure bitter times here,
Now we mourn with our pain here in the land
— he means on earth
In manifold bonds through our sins.
Work — in earlier language, work means more “worry, toil” —
Many tasks are now prepared for us,
We know nothing of our homeland, we, who, seeking lamentation, are abandoned orphans.
Woe to you, foreign land—so he addresses the earth!—O, how hard you are!
You are truly very hard, I tell you everywhere.
With worries begging - thus wandering - are those who now lack a homeland.
I have felt it in myself, I never found anything loving in you,
I never found anything good in you but a mind ripe for lamentation,
a sorrowful heart and manifold and much pain.
Thus sounds from the soul of this monk what he now felt toward nature. And thus did one feel toward the power that passed through the mystery of Golgotha.
Today it is difficult, very difficult, to revive the way in which the great festivals were lifted out of the whole horizon of everyday life in times when people still felt more vividly what they had to remember than Baldur's death, and what they had received after passing through the sad time of bereavement one had now received through the one who had passed through the mystery of Golgotha. One had, in a sense, only recognized the full bitterness of death when the old elemental life forces no longer sprouted from the earth for human sight, when the earth itself appeared in its forms as forming only death, the death with which Baldur had united himself. And now, as Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday were approaching, as this death, whose bitterness had only just been felt, was approaching, it was now felt that it contained the victorious power of life that had passed through the mystery of Golgotha, and which is to pass again and again through the soul of man on these days, in a solemn mood of mourning, in which, according to Angelus Silesius' saying, the death of Christ and the resurrection of this Christ are to be celebrated.
The power of Christ's death and his sacrifice were infinitely more alive in the times when this sacrifice, this power of death, was still associated with the deceased Baldur. In the realm of the Aesir, looking down on the earth from Breidablick—that was the name of Baldur's castle—looking down on the earth like the silver light of the sun and moon; such was Baldur once, in his power animating the elemental beings of the earth. He had gone into dark depths, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Holy Saturday night. There, the gaze turned to Baldur's new realm of death, but knowing that down there in the realm of death lies the seed that connects with the earth's impulses of development and will bring new life when it rises again. This is the death that is felt in the germinating power of plants, rotting in the depths of the earth, which brings forth the new plant again.
Like powerful words from God, the news had come to people who had learned to understand death through the fate of their Baldur. For three days they could feel how what had killed Baldur, what Baldur himself could not defeat, had come into effect. That is why the feeling that animates our soul in the silence of the world during the three days that surround us must be unique. This feeling must be unique, it must express itself in such a way that, for the sake of human evolution, death had to intervene more and more intensely in the evolution of the earth, that the nature that was once paradisiacal had to become dark and deathly silent around human beings, but that the eternally victorious life force is maturing in the death field of existence. This is how we view these three days: there he lies below, Christ, in the death-saturated abyss of existence. We follow him there because we know that part of our own being reaches into this abyss of world existence, and because we know that we will carry up that part of ourselves which reaches down into the abyss of death only if we connect ourselves with that which would otherwise be death alone within us, through the power that has passed through the mystery of Golgotha.
Thus we descend into the depths and know that we must differentiate our feelings, that we do not do well if we do not make ourselves aware of our differentiated feelings on certain days. We should rather learn to know that now are the days when the soul must connect with what it can learn about death, about the death that made it necessary, that brought with it the iron necessity that Christ should descend into it. Tomorrow we will turn our gaze to the mystery of Golgotha from another side. But, as I said, many paths lead up to the summit, where the deep meaning of the mystery of Golgotha gradually becomes clearer and clearer to us. It can only become understandable to us if we do not merely place before us the victorious Christ, the one-sidedly victorious Christ, but if we also place before our soul the Christ who connects himself with death. And what death means for the whole of human life might become a little clearer to us if we delved deeper into the feelings one can have about the myth of Baldur, about what Baldur is, about the life-giving power of the sun working through the elemental world after it has passed through death. If we still keep this feeling alive in our souls, this feeling of Baldur's downfall, by saying to ourselves: How would we feel in a future world in which we remember: Gods were there, they once let us see the surrounding world in colorful rays of light; now everything is gray in gray! That this will not be so—and it would be so if Christ had not come into the world—will be brought about by the victorious power of Christ. What people do not yet believe today, they will one day believe: that what today can only work as the power of Christ in human hearts will be felt as permeating the entire cosmos, especially the earthly part of the cosmos, insofar as this cosmos gives human beings rejuvenating, life-giving power.
Today we want to call before our souls how justified it is, in view of such a feeling that connects the human soul with the cosmic Christ, to consider what the Gospel also proclaims about the cosmic power of Christ when it wants to illustrate how Christ is a universal, cosmic power, how he commanded the wind and the waves. It was precisely in this view of Christ working through the wind and waves that the peoples of the 8th and 9th centuries still felt much. They said: It was Baldur who once made us see the wonderfully working, elemental world around us. Baldur is dead. But Christ has the power to awaken him again through our soul power—by taking him into our soul power—Christ has the power to reawaken what was lost through Baldur's death. Just as Baldur appeared through wind and waves, so Christ appears in wind and waves. It is not an abstract soul power, it is a power working through wind and waves.
And so, if you listen closely to the Gospel text of the “Heliand,” a second Gospel poem alongside that of Otfried from the 9th century, you can hear something else, something that was felt there, even if it was not spoken: Yes, Baldur lived out there in nature. Certainly, the poet of the “Heliand” had long since dismissed this Baldur. He had no interest in bringing this idea back to his people with his abstract mind. It was supposed to be eradicated. But in the way he shapes the words, the way he becomes heartfelt when he can illustrate how Christ's power works through nature, through wind and waves, it is as if one must bring it into one's consciousness, even if he himself did not bring it into his consciousness: Yes, through wind and waves has worked the power that is greater than Baldur's power, the power that has passed through the mystery of Golgotha. — And one feels something like this in the words with which he describes the scene where Christ calms the winds and waves of the sea, according to the Gospel. This makes a special impression on him. Here he chooses, especially when he wants to turn his soul in his mystical way to what it can feel, as it were, in the activity of nature, in the deification of nature through Christ, he chooses special words in which Christ's greatness can be particularly impressed upon the soul, words through which Christ's very special world power can speak to the soul.
“Since the people saw how Christ commanded the winds, commanded the waves of the sea...” Here the “Heliand” expresses particularly warmly what the people felt toward this power of Christ, this Christ-being, this Christ-personality that had passed through the mystery of Golgotha: “... then the people began to marvel among themselves, and some said with their words: What a powerful man this must be, that the wind obeys him like the waves at his word. Both listened to his message. Then the Son of God had protected them, rescued them from their distress. The little boat continued to sail, the horn-shaped boat; the disciples came, the people came ashore, saying, 'Praise God!' and proclaimed his — that is, God's — superpower."So says this poet of the “Heliand” in one of the first proclamations that spoke of the greatness of Christ, who today lies symbolically in the depths of death. And at that time it sounded like this:
From 8:30-38 of the “Heliand”:
Thuo began that folc undar im,
werod, wundraian, endi suma mid iro wordun sprakun,
huilic that so mahtigro manno wari,
that im so thie wind endi thie wag wordu hordin,
bethiu is gibodskepies. Thuo habda sia that barn godes
ginerid fan theru nodi: Thie naco furthor scred,
hoh hurnidscip; helithos quamun,
thia ludi, te lande, sagdun lof gode - they said: God be praised!
maridun — that means “fairytale-like”; today we might say:
proclaimed — maridun is megincraft — proclaimed his superpower.
So: the people who came to the land proclaimed his superpower!
Thia ludi, te lande, sagdun lof gode, maridun is megincraft!