Festivals of the Seasons
GAs 157a and 165
19 December 1915, Dornach
16. The Golden Legend and a German Christmas Play
Let us call to mind the decree ringing forth from the depths of the Mystery of the Earth’s evolution.
‘Revelation of the Divine in the heights of existence
and peace to men on earth
who are permeated by good will.’
And as Christmas Eve approaches, we must (this year in particular) ask ourselves: ‘What are the feelings that unite us with this saying and its deep cosmic meaning?’ That deep cosmic meaning in which countless men feel the word ‘peace’ resounding, at a time when peace keeps away from a very large part of our earth. How should we think of these Christmas words at such a time?
There is one thought, which, in connection with this verdict, sounding through the world, must concern us far more deeply at this present epoch than at any other time—one thought. Nations are facing each other in enmity. Much blood has saturated our earth. We see and feel countless dead around us at this time. The atmosphere of sensation and feeling around us is interwoven with infinite sorrow. Hate and aversion are heard murmuring through the spiritual realm and might easily testify how very far removed men still are in our day from that love which He wishes to announce Whose birth is celebrated on Christmas Eve. One thought, however, arises: we think how opponents can face each other, enemy face enemy, how men can mutually bring death to one another and how they can all pass through the same Gate of Death with the thought of Christ Jesus, the Divine Light-Bringer. We recall how, in the whole earth, over which war, suffering and discord are spread abroad, these men can still be one at heart, however greatly they may otherwise be disunited, who in the depths of their hearts are united in their connection with Him Who entered the world on the day we commemorate at Christmas. We see how through all enmity, aversion and hatred, one and the same feeling may everywhere penetrate the human soul at this time: out of the blood and hatred may spring the thought of an inner union with One, with Him Who has united the hearts through something higher than anything which can ever separate mankind on earth. Thus the thought of Christ Jesus is a thought of immeasurable depth of feeling, a thought of infinite greatness uniting mankind, however disunited it may be as regards all that is going on in the world. If we grasp the thought in this way, we shall want to comprehend it still more deeply at the present time. We shall feel how much there is that can become strong and powerful within human evolution if connected with this thought—this thought which must develop in order that many things may be acquired by human hearts and souls in a different way from the present tragic method of learning them.
That He may strengthen us, That He may invigorate us,
That He may teach us all over the earth really to experience in the truest sense of the words the utterance of the Christmas Eve saying, which transcends all that separates men from one another. This it is which he who really feels himself united with Christ Jesus solemnly vows anew at Christmas time.
There is a tradition in the history of Christianity which repeatedly appears in later times and for centuries became a custom in certain Christian regions. In olden times representations of the Christian Mysteries were organised chiefly by the Christian Churches for believers in many different regions. And in the remotest times these representations began by reading, occasionally even by enacting, the story of Creation as it occurs at the beginning of the Bible. There was first shown just at Christmas time, how the Cosmic Word sounded forth from the depths of the Cosmos and how out of the Cosmic Word Creation gradually arose: how Lucifer appeared to man, and how men thereby began their earth-existence in a manner different from what was originally destined for them before the approach of Lucifer. The entire story of the temptation of Adam and Eve was brought forward, and it was then shown how man was, as it were, embodied in the Old Testament history. Then as time went on there was added that which was presented in more or less detail in the performances which evolved during the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries in the countries of Central Europe (of which we have just seen one small example). Very little now remains of the grand thought which united the beginning of the Old Testament at this Christmas Eve festival with the secret history of the Mystery of Golgotha. Only this one thing remains, that in our calendar, before the actual Christmas Day comes the day of Adam and Eve. This has its origin in the same thought. But in olden times, for those who through deeper thinking, through deeper feeling, or through a deeper knowledge, were to grasp the Mystery of Christmas and the Mystery of Golgotha, with the help of their teachers, there was exhibited also again and again a great comprehensive thought: the thought of the Origin of the Cross. The God Who is introduced to man in the Old Testament gives to man, as represented by Adam and Eve, this commandment: ‘Ye may eat of all the fruits of the garden, but not of the tree—not of the fruits which grow on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.’ Because they did eat of this they were driven from the original scene of action of their being.
But the tree—as was shown in many different ways—came by some means into the line of generations, into the original family from which proceeded the bodily covering of Christ Jesus. And it so came about that (as was shown at certain times) when Adam, the man of sin, was buried, there grew out of his grave the tree which had been removed from Paradise. Thus the following thoughts are aroused: Adam rests in his grave: the man who was led astray by Lucifer and passed through sin, rests in his grave. He has united himself with the Earth-body. But from his grave sprouts the tree which can now grow out of the earth, with which Adam’s body is united. The wood of this tree descends to the generations to which Abraham and David belong. And from the wood of this tree, which stood in Paradise and which grew forth from Adam’s grave, was made the Cross upon which Christ Jesus hung.
That is the thought which again and again was made clear by their teachers to those who had to understand the Mystery of Golgotha and its secrets from a deeper point of view. A deep meaning lies in the fact that in olden times profound thoughts were expressed in such pictures. And even at the present day this is still the case, as we shall presently see.
We have made ourselves acquainted with the thought of the Mystery of Golgotha which reveals to us that the Being Who passed through the body of Jesus has poured out over the Earth and into the Earth’s aura what He was able to bring to the Earth. That which the Christ brought to the Earth is since united with the whole body of the Earth. The Earth has become quite different since the Mystery of Golgotha. In the Earth-aura there lives what the Christ brought out of the heavenly heights to the Earth. If we unite this spiritually with that old picture of the tree, it shows us the whole connection from another point of view. The Luciferic principle drew into man as ho began his earthly career. Man as he now is belongs to the Earth, through his union with the Luciferic principle. He forms part of the Earth. And when we lay his body in the earth, this body is not merely that which anatomy sees, but is at the same time the outer mould of what man is in his inner being within his earthly nature. Spiritual Science makes it quite clear to us that what goes through the gates of death into the spiritual worlds is not the only part of man’s being, but that man through his whole activity, through his deeds, is united with the Earth. He is really united with the Earth as are those events which the geologists, mineralogists and zoologists, connect with the Earth. We might say that that which binds man to the Earth is at first concealed from the human individuality on going through the gates of death. But we surrender our external form in some manner to the Earth. It enters the Earth-body. It carries in itself the imprint of what the Earth has become through Lucifer’s entering the Earth evolution. That which man accomplishes on the Earth bears the Luciferic principle in it. Man brings this Luciferic principle into the Earth-aura. There springs forth and blossoms from man’s deeds and activities not only that which was originally intended for man but that which has mingled with the Luciferic principle. This is in the Earth-aura. And when we now see on the grave of the man Adam led away by Lucifer, that tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which through the Luciferic temptation has become different from what it originally was, we then see everything that man has become through forsaking his original state, when he submitted to the Luciferic temptation and brought something into the Earth’s evolution not previously determined. We see the tree grow out of what the physical body is for the Earth, that which has been stamped in its Earth form, and causes man to appear in a lower sphere on the Earth than the one originally destined for him, which would have been his if he had not succumbed to Lucifer. There grows out of the whole Earth existence of man something which has entered human evolution through the Luciferic temptation. While we seek knowledge, we seek it in another way than that originally destined for us. That however allows us to recognise that what grows out of our earthly deeds is different from what it would have been according to the original Divine decree. We form an earth existence other than the one laid down by the original Divine Will. We mingle something else with it; something else, concerning which we must form quite definite conceptions if we want to understand it.
We must form such ideas as these, if we wish to understand correctly. We must say to ourselves as follows: I am placed in the Earth evolution. What I give to the Earth evolution through my deeds bears fruit. It bears the fruit of knowledge which comes to me through my participation in the knowledge of good and evil on the Earth. This knowledge lives on in the evolution of the Earth and is present therein. When, however, I behold this knowledge it becomes in me something different from what it would have been originally, it becomes something which I must alter if the Earth’s goal and task are to be reached. I see something grow out of my Earth deeds which must become different. The tree grows up, the tree which becomes the Cross of earth existence. It becomes something to which man must acquire a new relation, for the old relation does no more than allow the tree to grow.
The tree of the Cross, that Cross that grows out of the Luciferically tainted Earth evolution, springs up out of Adam’s grave, out of the man-nature which Adam acquired after the fall. The tree of knowledge must become the stem of the Cross because man must unite himself anew with the correctly recognised tree of knowledge as it now is in order to reach the Earth’s goal and task.
Let us now ask—and here we touch a significant Mystery of Spiritual Science: How does the case stand with those principles which we have learnt to recognise as the principles of human nature? Now we all know that the highest member of human nature is the Ego. We learn to utter ‘I’ at a definite time of our childhood. We enter into relation with the Ego from the time to which in later years memory carries us back. This we know through various lectures and books upon Spiritual Science. Up to that time the Ego worked formatively upon us, up to the moment when we have a conscious relation to our Ego. The Ego is present in our childhood, it works within us, but at first only builds up our physical body. It first creates the supersensible forces in the spiritual world. After passing through conception and birth, it still works for a time—lasting for some years—on our body, until that becomes an instrument capable of consciously grasping the Ego. A deep mystery is connected with this entry of the Ego into the human bodily nature. We ask a man we meet how old he is, and he gives as his age the years which have passed since his birth. As has been said, we here touch a certain mystery of Spiritual Science that will become ever clearer and clearer in the course of the near future, but to which I shall now merely refer. What a man gives as his age at a definite time of his life, refers only to his physical body. All he tells us is that his physical body has been so many years evolving since his birth. The Ego takes no part in this evolution of the physical body but remains stationary. It is a Mystery difficult to grasp, that the Ego, from the time to which our memory carries us back, really remains stationary: it does not change with the body, but stands still. We have it always before us, because it reflects back to us our experiences. The Ego does not share our Earth journey. Only when we pass through the gates of death we have to travel back again to our birth along the path we call Kamaloka in order to meet our Ego again and take it on our further journey. Thus the Ego remains behind. The body goes forward through the years. This is difficult to understand because we cannot grasp the fact that something remains stationary in time, while time itself progresses. But this is actually the case. The Ego remains stationary, because it does not unite with what comes to man from the Earth-existence, but remains connected with those forces which we call our own in the spiritual world. There the Ego remains; it remains practically in the form in which it was bestowed on us by the Spirits of Form. The Ego is retained in the spiritual world. It must remain there, otherwise we could never, as man, fulfil our original task on Earth and attain the goal of our Earth-evolution. That which man here on Earth has undergone through his Adam-nature, of which he left an imprint in the grave when he died in Adam, that belongs to the physical body, etheric and astral body and comes from these. The Ego waits; it waits with all that belongs to it the whole time man remains on Earth, ever looking forward to the further evolution of man, beholding how man recapitulates when he has passed through the gates of death, and retraces his path. This implies that as regards our Ego we remain in a certain respect behind in the spiritual world. Man will have to become conscious of this, and humanity can only become conscious of it because at a certain time the Christ descended from those worlds to which mankind belongs, out of the spiritual worlds Christ descended, and in the body of Jesus prepared, in the twofold manner we already know, that which had to serve Him as a body on Earth.
When we understand ourselves aright, we continually look back through our whole Earth life to our childhood. There, in our childhood, precisely the spiritual part of us has remained behind. And humanity should be educated to look back on that to which the spirit from the heights can say: ‘Suffer the little children to come to Me !’ Not the man who is bound to the Earth, but the little child. Humanity should be educated to this, for the Feast of Christmas has been given to it, that Feast which has been added to the Mystery of Golgotha, which need otherwise only have been bestowed on humanity as regards the three last years of the Christ life, when the Christ was in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. It shows how Christ prepared for Himself this human body in childhood. This is what should underlie our feelings at Christmas: the knowledge of how man, through what remains behind in heavenly heights during his years of growth, has really always been united with what is now coming. In the figure of the Child man should be reminded of the Human-Divine, which he left behind in descending to Earth, but which has now again come to him. Man should be reminded by the Child of that which has again brought his child-nature to him. This was no easy task, but in the very way in which this Festival of the Cosmic Child, this Christmas Festival, was developed in Central Europe, we see the wonderful, active, sustaining force within it.
What we have seen today is only one of many Nativity Plays. There have remained from olden times a number of so-called Paradise Plays which were produced at Christmas and in which the story of Creation is enacted. In connection with the representation of today, which is merely a pastoral play, there has also remained behind the Play of the Three Kings offering their gifts. A great deal of this was recorded in numerous plays which for the most part have now disappeared.
About the middle of the eighteenth century the time begins in which they disappear in country districts. But it is wonderful to trace their existence. In West Hungary, about 1850, Karl Julius Schröer, made a collection of Christmas Plays such as-these in the neighbourhood of Pressburg. Other people made similar collections in other places. But what Schröer then discovered of the customs connected with the performance of these plays may sink deeply into our hearts. These plays were there in manuscript in certain families of the villages and were regarded as something especially sacred. With the approach of October preparations were always begun to perform this play at Christmas before the people of the place. The well-behaved youths and maidens were sought out and during this time of preparation they ceased to drink wine or alcohol. They might no longer romp and wrestle on Sundays. They had really to lead what is called a holy life. And thus a feeling prevailed that a certain moral tone of the soul was necessary in those who devoted themselves at Christmas to the performance of such plays, for they could not be performed in the quite worldly atmosphere. They were performed with all the simplicity of the villagers, but profound seriousness prevailed in the entire performance. In all the plays collected by Schröer and earlier by Weinhold and others in many different regions, there is everywhere this deep earnestness with which the Christmas Mystery was approached. But this was not always so. We need only go back two centuries further to find something else which strikes us in the highest degree as peculiar. The very manner in which these Christmas plays became part of the life of the central European villages in which they arose and gradually evolved, shows us how powerfully the Christmas thought worked there. It was not immediately taken up in the manner just described; the people did not always approach it with holy awe, with deep earnestness, with a living feeling of the significance of the occurrence.
In many regions it was begun by erecting a manger before the side altar of some church. This was in the fourteenth or fifteenth century; but it goes back to still earlier times. A manger was erected, a stall with an ox and an ass, the Child and two figures representing Joseph and Mary. Thus at first it was attempted with simple art; later an attempt was made to bring more life into it, but on the spiritual side. That is, priests took part; one priest represented Joseph and another Mary. In earlier times they spoke their parts in the Latin tongue, for in the old churches great stress was laid on this—it was considered very important that the spectators should understand as little as possible of the matter and should only behold the external acting. But this could no longer continue to please, for there were among the spectators those who wanted to understand something of what was being enacted before them. Gradually it became customary to recite certain parts in the dialect used in the district. Finally the wish arose in people to participate, to take part in the experiences themselves. But the thing was still quite strange to them. We must remember that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was not as yet the knowledge of the Holy Mysteries, of the Mystery of Christmas, for instance, which we today regard as a matter of course. We must remember that although the people year in and year out attended Mass, and at Christmas the Midnight Mass, they did not possess the Bible, which was only there for the priests to read; they were only acquainted with a few extracts from the Holy Scripture. And it was at first really to acquaint them with what had once occurred that these things were dramatised in this fashion for them by the priests. The people first learnt to know of them in this way.
Something must now be said which I must ask you not to misunderstand, but it may be brought forward because it expresses purely historical truth. It was not that the participation in the Christmas plays proceeded from some mysterious influence or anything of that nature; what attracted the people was rather the desire to take part in what was presented before them and to draw nearer to it. At last they were permitted to share in it. Things had to be made more comprehensible to the laity. And this clearer understanding progressed step by step. At first the people understood absolutely nothing about the child lying in the manger. They had never seen such a thing as a child in a manger. Earlier when they were not allowed to understand anything, they accepted it: but now they wanted to share in it, it had to be made comprehensible to them. And so a cradle was brought and as the people passed, each one took part by rocking the child for a moment. Thus similar details were developed in which they took part. Indeed there were even districts in which all was quite serious at first, but when the child was brought, they made a tremendous uproar, everyone screaming and showing by dancing and shouting the pleasure they felt in the birth of the child. It was then received in a mood that felt a passion for movement and a desire to experience the story. But in this story lay something so great and mighty that, out of this quite profane feeling there gradually evolved that holy awe of which I have already spoken. The subject itself impressed its holiness on a performance which could not at first have been called in the least holy. Precisely in the Middle Ages the holy story of Christmas had first to conquer mankind. And it conquered the people to such an extent that in the performance of their plays, they desired to prepare their lives with this moral intensity.
What was it that thus overcame the feelings, the soul of man? It was the sight of the Child, of that which remains holy in man whilst his other three bodies unite with the Earth evolution. Even though in some districts at different times the story of Bethlehem took on grotesque forms, yet it lay in human nature to evolve this holy regard for the child-nature, which is connected with what entered into the development of Christianity from the very beginning. And that is the consciousness of the necessity of a reunion of what remains stationary in man when he commences his Earth evolution, with what has connected itself with Earth-man, so that man gives over to the Earth the wood from which the cross must be made with which man has to form the new union. In the more remote times of Christian development in Central Europe, nothing but the conception of Easter was popularised, and only in the manner described was the conception of Christmas gradually developed. For what appears in ‘Heliand,’ for instance, was composed by various individuals, but never became popular.
The observance of Christmas grew into a popular custom as described, and it shows in a manner really startling how man acquired the thought of the union with the child-nature, that pure and noble childlike character that appeared in a new form in the Jesus-Child. When we so grasp the power of this thought that it lives in the soul as the only conception in our existence capable of uniting all men, then we have the true Christian conception. This Christ-Thought becomes mighty in us, it becomes something which must grow strong within us if the further Earth evolution is to proceed aright. Let us remember here how far removed man is in his present Earth-existence from what is really contained in the depths of the Christ-Thought.
A book by Ernst Haeckel has recently appeared called Thoughts about Life, Death, Immortality and Religion, in Connection with the World-War. Now a book by Ernst Haeckel certainly springs from a deep love of truth, certainly the deepest truth is sought for in it. The following may give some idea of what the book is intended to convey. It sets out to indicate what now transpires on the Earth, how the nations are at war with each other, living in hate, how countless deaths take place every day. All these thoughts which obtrude so painfully on mankind are mentioned by Haeckel, but naturally with the underlying thought of considering the world from his own point of view. We have said that Haeckel may, even by Spiritual Science, be considered a profound investigator. His point of view may indeed lead to other results, but leads to what can be observed in the newer phases of Haeckel’s evolution. Now Haeckel forms thoughts on the world-war. He too remarks how much blood is flowing, how greatly we are encompassed by death. And he asks: ‘Can the thoughts of religion endure by the side of this? Can one anyhow believe (he asks) that some wise Providence—a kindly God—rules the world, when one sees so many dying every day through mere chance (so he says)? They do not perish from any cause attributable to a wise cosmic ordering, but through the accident of meeting a possible shell. Have these thoughts of the wisdom of Providence any meaning in the face of this? Must not just such events as these prove that man is nothing more than what external materialistic history of evolution declares and that all earth existence is fundamentally directed not by a wise Providence but by chance? In the face of this, can there be any other thought than that of resignation (continues Haeckel), of saying: ‘We give up our bodies and pass out into the thought of the cosmic all?’ But if one questions further, (though Haeckel does not put the question), if this! all’ is nothing but the play of endless atoms, has the life of man any meaning in earth-existence? As said above, Haeckel does not pursue the question, but in his Christmas book he gives the answer: ‘These very events which touch us so painfully show us that we have no right to believe that a good Providence or wise cosmic ruling or anything of the kind moves and Eves in the whole world. So we must be resigned—we must put up with things as they are!’
And this is a Christmas book! A book nobly and honourably planned. But this book is based on the remarkable prejudice that it is useless to seek for a meaning to the earth. That it is denied to humanity to seek in a spiritual way for a meaning!
If we only observe the external course of events we do not see this meaning. Then it is as Haeckel says. And at that it has to remain, that is, that this life has no meaning! That is his opinion. A purpose may not be sought. But perhaps someone else may say: The events now taking place show us, for the very reason that, if we look at them externally and point only to the fact that numberless bullets are ending the lives of men today, they appear without purpose—those very events show us that we must seek more deeply to find the purpose. We must not simply seek a purpose in that which happens on the Earth alone, when these human souls forsake the body, but we must investigate the life that now begins for them when they pass through the gate of death. In short, another man may say: ‘Just because no meaning can be found in the external, it must be sought elsewhere, in the supersensible.’ Is that anything else than to take the same thought into another—quite different—domain? Haeckel’s science may lead those who think as he does today to deny all meaning to Earth-existence. It may seem to prove, from what happens so painfully today, that the Earth-life as such has no meaning. But if we grasp it in our way—as we have often done before—then this very same science becomes a starting point for showing what deep and mighty purpose can be discovered by us in the world phenomena. For this, however, there must be the spiritual active in the world; we must be able to unite ourselves with the spiritual. For man in the sphere of erudition does not yet understand how to let that power work on him which has so wonderfully conquered the hearts and souls that on beholding the Christmas Mystery, out of a profane comprehension, there has arisen a holy understanding. Because the learned cannot yet grasp this and cannot yet unite the Christ-Impulse with what they see in the external world, it is impossible for them to find a real true meaning in the Earth. And so we must say: The Science of which man is so proud today—and rightly so—with all its immense progress is not in itself in a position to lead man to any satisfactory philosophy. It can just as easily lead to a lack of sense and meaning as to a meaning for the Earth, just as in any other domain. Let us consider science in the later centuries, especially in the nineteenth and up to the present day—evolving so proudly all its wonderful laws, and let us look at what surrounds us today. It has all been produced by science. We no longer burn, as Goethe did, a night-light. We bum something else and illumine our rooms in a very different fashion. All that possesses our souls today, as the result of our science has arisen through the immense progress of which man is so proud, so justly proud. But how does this science work? It works beneficially when man evolves what is good. But today, just through its very perfection, it produces invincible instruments of murder. Its progress serves the cause of destruction as well as that of construction. Just as on the one side that science of which Haeckel is a follower may lead either to sense and meaning or to nonsense and lack of meaning, so, in spite of its greatness, it may serve both destruction and construction. And if it depended on science alone what was produced, then, from the same sources from which it constructs, science would bring forth ever more and more fearful instruments of destruction. Science itself has no direct impulse to bring humanity forward! If this could be realised, science would then, and then only, be valued in the right way. We should then know that in the evolution of man there must be something more than man can reach by means of science.
What is this science of ours? In reality none other than the tree growing out of Adam’s grave; and the time is drawing near when man will recognise this. The time will come when man will know that this tree must become the wood which is the Cross of humanity and which can only become a blessing when on it is crucified and properly united with it, that which lies on the further side of death, yet lives already here in man. That it is to which we look up in the Holy Christmas Eve, if we feel this Mystery of the sacred Festival aright—and that is what can be represented in childlike fashion, and yet is the cloak of the greatest Mysteries. Is it not really wonderful that in this simple way it could be brought home to people that something had appeared which, though it cannot extend beyond childhood, yet governs a man during his whole Earth-life? It is related to that to which man, as a supersensible being, belongs. Is it not wonderful that this, which is in the highest degree invisible and supersensible, could approach so near to those simple human souls through simple pictures such as these?
Indeed those who are learned will also have to follow the same path as those simple souls. There was even a time when the Child was not represented in the cradle nor in the manger, but when the sleeping child was placed upon the Cross I The Child sleeping on the Cross! A wonderful, profound picture, which expresses the whole thought I wished to lay before your souls today.
Cannot this thought in reality be very simply stated? Indeed it can! Let us just seek the origin of those impulses which today oppose each other so terribly in the world. Whence do they originate? Whence originates all that today is in such bitter conflict, all that makes life so difficult for humanity? It all originates in what we become in the world after the time of our earliest recollection. Let us go back beyond that time, let us go right back to the point when we are called the little children who may enter the kingdom of heaven. We do not find it then, there was then nothing in the human soul of what today is strife and hatred. In this simple way the thought can be expressed and today we must visualise spiritually that there is in the human soul an original condition rising above all human strife and disharmony.
We have often spoken of the old Mysteries, which were intended to awaken in the nature of man that which allowed him to perceive the supersensible; and we have said that the Mystery of Golgotha represents on the stage of history clearly for all mankind, the story of the supersensible Mystery. Now that which unites us with the true Christ-Thought is within us, it is really in us—to enable us to have moments in our life (this is to be taken literally not symbolically) moments when, in spite of everything we may be in the external world, we can yet make that which we have received as children alive within us, moments in which we behold man in his development between birth and death, and can feel the child-nature in ourselves.
In my public lecture on Johann Gottlieb Fichte, I might have added a few words more—perhaps they might not have been thoroughly understood then, they would, however, have explained many things which dwelt in this particularly devout person. I might have said why he became such a very special person; it was because, in spite of his age, he retained more than most people of the child-nature. There is more of the child-nature in such men than in others. Men like these, men who retain more of their child-nature, keep their youth and do not grow old as do others. This is really the secret of many great men, that they can in a sense remain children—speaking relatively, of course, for they have had to lead the life of men.
The Christmas Mystery appeals to the child-nature within us. It points us to the vision of the Divine Child that is destined to take up the Christ—and to which we look up as to something over which the Christ, Who went through Golgotha for the salvation of the Earth, already hovers.
Let us be conscious of this when we give over the imprint of our higher man, our physical body, to the Earth. This is not a mere physical event, for something spiritual takes place. But this spiritual event only takes place aright because the Christ-Being, by going through the Mystery of Golgotha, has flowed into the aura of the Earth. We do not behold the entire Earth in its completeness unless we visualise also the Christ, Who, since the Mystery of Golgotha, is united with it. We may pass Him by, as we pass by anything supersensible if we are merely equipped in a materialistic sense; but we cannot pass Him by if the Earth is really to have for us a true and actual purpose. Everything rests upon our being able to awaken in ourselves that which opens our gaze to the spiritual world.
Let us make this Christmas Festival what it should be to us, a Festival which not merely serves the past—but also the future; that future which is gradually to bring forth the birth of the spiritual life for the whole of humanity. We must unite ourselves with the prophetic feeling, with the prophetic premonition, that such a birth of the spiritual life in man must be accomplished, that a mighty Christmas must work to influence the future of humanity, a bringing to birth of that which in the thoughts of man gives a meaning to the Earth, that meaning which became the objective of the Earth when the Christ-Being united Himself with the Earth-aura, through the Mystery of Golgotha. Let us meditate at Christmas on the thought how from the depths of darkness light must enter human evolution. The old light of the spiritual life which was gradually dying out before Golgotha had to pass away and has now to arise anew, it must since Golgotha be born again through the consciousness in the human soul that this soul of man is connected with what the Christ had become to the Earth through the Mystery of Golgotha.
When more and more men arise who can thus grasp Christmas in the sense of Spiritual Science, it will become a force in the hearts and souls of men which has a meaning for all times, whether in such times as men give themselves over to feelings of happiness, or when they must feel sorrow and pain such as we feel today, when we think of the great misery of our time.
Concerning the vision of the spiritual which gives meaning to the Earth, it has been expressed in beautiful words which I will put before you today: (Here follows a rough translation):
That which gives mine eyes the power
To cause deformity to disappear,
To turn dark nights to radiant suns of brightness,
To turn disorder into order, and decay to life;
Life, which through the ages,
Weaves invisibly in space,
Leading me on to th' eternal sources
Of the Beautiful, the True, the Good.
The source of all Delight,
In which immersed, my strivings are but vain.
Life it is, which since in Urania’s eyes I gazed,
The deep, the clear, the blue—pure flames of light
I have silently perceived and looked upon.
Since then I see those eyes in deeps profound,
The only permanent things in my existence,
They live on in me, part of my life,
And see through my beholding.
And in another small poem:
Nothing is but God, and God is naught but Life.
Thou knowest this, as I myself know too,
And yet our knowing would ne’er have power to be,
Unless t’were knowledge of the Life of God.
How fain would I devote myself to this!
But where shall it be found; if into some knowledge it doth flow,
Forthwith it is transformed into a semblance.
Commingled with Him, surrounded by His sheath,
When thou dost wake the true sheath to behold,
It is thy Self!
Let all that perishable is, decay.
Henceforth let God alone dwell in thy strivings,
Learn to discern what beyond all striving yet Eves on;
Then will the Sheath itself become perceptible,
And unveiled be the Life Divine.
It is true men do not always know how to understand those who lead them to a vision of the spiritual which gives a meaning to the Earth. The materialists are not alone in this. Others, who believe themselves to be no materialists because they continually repeat, ‘God, God,’ or ‘Lord, Lord,’ too often do not know what to make of these guides to the spiritual. For what could one make of a man who says:
‘Learn to discern what beyond all striving yet Eves on;
Then will the sheath itself become perceptible,
And unveiled be the Life Divine
who sees Divine Life in everything? He might be reproached with holding the world away from him, with denying its existence. Such a man might be accused of denying the existence of the world. His contemporaries accused him of denying God, of being an atheist, and drove him away from the High School on that account. For the words I have just quoted were written by Johann GottEeb Fichte. He is a case in point. When there Eves on in a human soul aU through his earthly life that which dwells as an impulse from the Mystery of Golgotha and the notes of which may be heard in the Christmas Mystery, a way is then opened in which we can find that consciousness in which our own ego flows in union with the Earth-Ego. For the Earth-Ego is the Christ. In this way something is developed in man which must become greater and greater if the Earth is to achieve that evolution for which it was destined from the beginning of aU things.
And so from the spirit of our Spiritual Science we have today tried to transform the Christmas thought into an impulse; and while looking up to it from that which is now going on around us, we shall try not to behold a want of purpose in the Earth-evolution, but rather in the midst of sorrow and pain, even in strife and hatred, to see something which finally helps man a step forward.
More important than the search for the causes of what happens today is this: that we should turn our gaze to the possible effects, to those effects which we must conceive as bringing healing to mankind.
That nation or people will do the right thing which is able to fashion something healing for mankind in the future, from what springs up out of the blood-saturated Earth. But this healing can only come about when man finds his way to the spiritual worlds: when he does not forget that not only a transitory but an eternal Christmas exists, an everlasting bringing to birth of the Divine Spiritual in the physical Earth-man.
Especially today let us retain the holiness of this thought in our souls, and keep it there, even beyond the Christmas season, during the time which can be for us in its external course, a symbol of the evolution of fight. Darkness, the most intense Earth-darkness prevails at this time of the year. But we know that when the Earth lives in the deepest outer darkness, the Earth-soul experiences its light, its greatest time of growth begins.
The spiritual time of awakening coincides with Christmas and with this spiritual awakening should be united the thought of the spiritual awakening of the earth-evolution through Christ Jesus. For this reason the Christmas Festival was placed just at this particular time.
In this cosmic and at the same time earthly and moral sense let us fill our souls with the thoughts of Christmas and then, strengthened and invigorated with this moral thought, let us, as far as we can, turn our gaze on everything around us, desiring what is right for the progress of events and especially as regards the present occurrences. And as we begin at once to make active within us the strength we have been able to acquire from this Christmas Festival, let us conclude once more by turning to the Guardian Spirit of those who have to take a difficult part in the great events of the times.
Spirits of their souls, active Guardians,
May your vibrations carry
The imploring love of our souls
To the earth-men committed to your charge,
That, united with your power,
Our prayers may helpfully irradiate
The souls they lovingly seek.
And for those who have already passed through the gates of death while fulfilling the severe tasks given to man as a result of the great demands of our present time, let us repeat those words again in a slightly altered form:
Spirits of their souls, active Guardians,
May your vibrations carry
The imploring love of our souls
To the sphere-men committed to your charge,
That united with your power,
Our prayers may helpfully irradiate
The souls they lovingly seek.
And may the Spirit Who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, that Spirit Who, for the progress and salvation of the Earth, has made Himself known in the Mystery of Christmas, which men will gradually learn to understand better and better, may He be with you in the severe tasks that lie before you.
Wir gedenken des aus den Tiefen der Geheimnisse der Erdenentwickelung heraus tönenden Spruches:
Offenbarung des Göttlichen in den Höhen des Seins,
und Friede den Menschen auf Erden,
die von einem guten Willen durchdrungen sind.
Und wir müssen insbesondere beim Herannahen der Weihenacht in diesem Jahr gedenken: Welche Empfindungen verbinden uns mit diesem Spruch und seinem tiefen Weltensinn? Jenem tiefen Weltensinn, den unzählige Menschen so empfinden, daß das Wort Friede durch ihn erklingt und tönt, das Wort Friede in einer Zeit, in welcher dieser Friede im weitesten Umkreis unser Erdensein meidet. Wie gedenken wir in dieser Zeit der Weihnachtsworte?
Doch ein Gedanke ist es, der uns vielleicht im Zusammenhang mit diesem durch die Welt tönenden Wahrspruche in dieser Gegenwart noch tiefer berühren muß sogar als in andern Zeiten. Ein Gedanke! Feindlich stehen sich die Völker gegenüber. Blut, viel Blut trankt unsere Erde. Unzählige Tode haben wir um uns herum sehen müssen, fühlen müssen in dieser Zeit. Unendliches Leid webt um uns herum die Empfindungs- und Gefuhlsatmosphäre. Haß und Abneigung durchschwirren den geistigen Raum und könnten leicht zeigen, wie ferne, ferne die Menschen in unserer Zeit noch sind von jener Liebe, von welcher verkünden wollte derjenige, dessen Geburt die Weihenacht feiert. Ein Gedanke aber tritt besonders hervor: Wir denken uns, wie Feind gegen Feind, Gegner gegen Gegner stehen kann, wie Menschen sich gegenseitig den Tod bringen können, und wie sie durch dieselbe Pforte des Todes gehen können mit dem Gedanken an den göttlichen Lichtführer, den Christus Jesus. Wir gedenken, wie über die Erde hin, über welche sich ausbreiten Krieg und Schmerzen und Uneinigkeit, einig sein können diejenigen, die sonst so uneinig sind, indem sie in ihrem tiefsten Herzen ihren Zusammenhang tragen mit dem, der in die Welt gegangen ist an jenem Tage, den wir in der Weihenacht festlich begehen. Wir denken, wie sich durch alle Feindschaft, durch alle Abneigung, durch allen Haß hindurch in die menschlichen Seelen allüberall eine Empfindung in diesen Zeiten drängen kann, drängen kann mitten aus Blut und Haß heraus: der Gedanke des innigen Verbundenseins mit dem einen, mit dem, der damit die Herzen geeint hat durch etwas, das höher ist als alles das, was die Menschen jemals auf der Erde wird trennen können. Und so ist dies doch ein Gedanke von unendlicher Größe, ein Gedanke von unendlicher Tiefe der Empfindung, der Gedanke an den Christus Jesus, der die Menschen eint, wie uneinig sie auch sein mögen in allem, was die Welt angeht.
Wenn wir den Gedanken in dieser Art fassen, dann werden wir ihn um so tiefer fassen wollen gerade in unserer Gegenwart. Denn dann werden wir ahnen, wieviel mit diesem Gedanken zusammenhängt von dem, was groß und stark und gewaltig werden muß innerhalb der menschlichen Entwickelung, damit vieles in anderer Weise errungen werden kann von menschlichen Herzen, von menschlichen Seelen, was jetzt noch auf so blutige Weise errungen werden muß.
Daß Er uns stark mache, daß Er uns kräftige, daß Er uns lehre, über die Erde hin, wirklich zu empfinden im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes über alles Trennende hin den Weihenachts-Weihespruch: das ist das, was sich derjenige, der sich wirklich mit dem Christus Jesus verbunden fühlt, in der Weihenacht immer aufs neue geloben muß.
Es gibt innerhalb der Geschichte des Christentums eine Überlieferung, die wiederholt auftritt in den späteren Zeiten und in Gebrauch war in gewissen christlichen Gegenden durch Jahrhunderte hindurch. In alten Zeiten schon wurden in verschiedensten Gegenden, zumeist von den christlichen Kirchen aus, Darstellungen des Weihenachtsgeheimnisses den Gläubigen geboten. Gerade in diesen ältesten Zeiten wurde die Darstellung des Weihenachtsgeheimnisses begonnen mit einem Vorlesen, ja zuzeiten sogar mit einem Darstellen der Schöpfungsgeschichte, der Geschichte der Schöpfung, wie sie im Beginn der Bibel dargestellt wird. Es wurde zuerst dargestellt, gerade um die Weihnachtszeit, wie aus den Tiefen des Weltenalls heraus das Weltenwort ertönt ist, wie aus dem Weltenwort heraus nach und nach die Schöpfung entstand, wie Luzifer an den Menschen herangetreten ist, wie die Menschen dadurch auf eine andere Weise das Erdendasein begonnen haben, als das Dasein gewesen wäre, das ihnen ursprünglich vor dem Herantreten Luzifers bestimmt war. Es wurde die ganze Versuchungsgeschichte von Adam und Eva vorgeführt und dann gezeigt, wie gleichsam der alten vortestamentlichen Geschichte der Mensch einverleibt worden ist. Dann wurde erst im weiteren Verlauf hinzugesetzt, was mehr oder weniger ausführlich in Spielen dargestellt worden ist, die sich dann im 15., 16., 17., 18. Jahrhundert in mitteleuropäischen Gegenden zu solchen Spielen entwickelt haben, wie wir ein kleines davon jetzt eben gesehen haben.
Von dem, was aus einem unendlich großen Gedanken heraus am Weihnachts-Weihefest den Anfang des Alten Testamentes zusammengeschlossen hat mit der geheimnisvollen Geschichte des Mysteriums von Golgatha, was aus diesem Gedanken heraus die beiden heiligen Geschichten zusammengeschlossen hat, von dem ist nur wenig noch geblieben, nur sozusagen das eine in der Gegenwart, daß in unserem Kalender vor dem Eintritt des Weihnachtstages der Tag von Adam und Eva steht. Das hat in demselben Gedanken seinen Ursprung. Aber in älteren Zeiten wurde auch für die, welche aus tieferen Gedanken, aus tieferen Empfindungen oder einer tieferen Erkenntnis heraus durch diejenigen, die ihre Lehrer waren, das Weihnachtsgeheimnis und das Geheimnis von Golgatha erfassen sollten, es wurde fur die immer wiederum dargestellt ein großer, ein umfassender symbolischer Gedanke: der Gedanke von dem Ursprung des Kreuzes. Der Gott, der den Menschen im Alten Testament vorgeführt wird, gibt den Menschen, die durch Adam und Eva repräsentiert sind, das Gebot: Essen dürfen sie von allen Früchten des Gartens, nur nicht von den Früchten, die am Baume der Erkenntnis des Guten und Bösen wachsen. Weil sie davon gegessen haben, wurden sie aus dem ursprünglichen Schauplatz ihres Seins vertrieben.
Der Baum aber — das wurde nun in der verschiedensten Weise dargestellt - kam auf irgendeine Art in die Geschlechterreihe, welche dann die ursprünglichen Geschlechter waren, aus denen auch die körperliche Hülle des Christus Jesus hervorgegangen ist. Und er kam so hin, daß - so wurde es in gewissen Zeiten dargestellt -, als Adam, der sündige Mensch, begraben worden ist, dieser Baum wiederum aus seinem Grabe herauswuchs, der aus dem Paradiese entfernt worden war. So sehen wir den Gedanken angeregt: Adam ruht im Grabe, er, der Mensch, der durch die Sünde gegangen ist, er, der Mensch, der durch Luzifer verführt worden ist, ruht im Grabe, er hat sich mit dem Erdenleibe vereinigt. Aber aus seinem Grabe ersprießt der Baum - der Baum, der jetzt herauswachsen kann aus der Erde, mit der Adams Leib vereinigt worden ist. Das Holz dieses Baumes geht weiter über auf die Geschlechter, zu denen auch Abraham gehört, zu denen David gehört. Und aus dem Holz dieses Baumes, der also im Paradiese gestanden hat, der wieder herausgewachsen ist aus Adams Grab, aus dem Holze dieses Baumes wurde das Kreuz gemacht, an dem der Christus Jesus gehangen hat.
Das ist der Gedanke, der immer wieder denen, die aus tieferen Grundlagen heraus die Geheimnisse des Mysteriums von Golgatha verstehen sollten, von ihren Lehrern klargemacht wurde. Es hat einen tiefen Sinn, daß in älteren Zeiten - und der Sinn wird es uns gleich zeigen, daß es auch für die Gegenwart noch gut ist - in solchen Bildern tiefe Gedanken zum Ausdruck kamen.
Wir haben uns bekanntgemacht mit jenem Gedanken des Mysteriums von Golgatha, der uns sagt: Das Wesen, das durch den Leib des Jesus gegangen ist, das hat, was es der Erde bringen kann, über die Erde ausgegossen, in die Erdenaura ergossen. Was der Christus in die Erde gebracht hat, ist seither mit der ganzen Leiblichkeit der Erde verbunden. Die Erde ist etwas anderes geworden seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha. In der Erdenaura lebt das, was der Christus aus himmlischen Höhen auf die Erde heruntergebracht hat. Wenn wir im Zusammenhang damit jenes alte Bild von dem Baume ins geistige Auge fassen, so zeigt uns dieses Bild den ganzen Zusammenhang von einem höheren Gesichtspunkt aus: In den Menschen ist das luziferische Prinzip eingezogen, als der Mensch seinen Erdenanfang genommen hat. Der Mensch, so wie er nun ist, in seiner Vereinigung mit dem luziferischen Prinzip, gehört zu der Erde hinzu, er bildet einen Teil der Erde. Und wenn wir seinen Leib in die Erde hineinlegen, so ist dieser Leib nicht bloß das, als was ihn die Anatomie sieht, sondern dieser Leib ist zu gleicher Zeit die äußere Abformung dessen, was innerhalb des Irdischen der Mensch auch in seiner Innenheit ist. Uns kann es aus der geistigen Wissenschaft heraus klar sein, daß nicht nur das zu des Menschen Wesenheit gehört, was durch die Pforte des Todes in die geistigen Welten eingeht, sondern daß der Mensch durch sein ganzes Wirken, durch seine ganzen Taten mit der Erde verbunden ist; wirklich gerade so verbunden ist, wie jene Geschehnisse mit der Erde verbunden sind, die der Geologe, der Mineraloge, der Zoologe und so weiter als zusammenhängend mit der Erde findet. Wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geht, so ist ja nur für die menschliche Individualität zunächst abgeschlossen, was ihn an die Erde bindet. Aber unsere äußere Form, wir übergeben sie in irgendeiner Art der Erde, sie geht in den Erdenleib ein. Sie trägt in sich die Ausprägung dessen, was die Erde dadurch geworden ist, daß Luzifer in die Erdenentwickelung eingetreten ist. Was der Mensch auf der Erde leistet, tragt das luziferische Prinzip in sich, der Mensch bringt dieses luziferische Prinzip in die Erdenaura hinein. Aus des Menschen Taten, aus des Menschen Wirksamkeiten entspringt, erbluht nicht nur das, was ursprünglich mit dem Menschen beabsichtigt war, aus des Menschen Taten entspringt das, dem Luziferisches beigemischt ist. Das ist in der Erdenaura. Und wenn wir nun auf dem Grabe des von Luzifer verführten Menschen Adam den Baum sehen, der durch die luziferische Verführung etwas anderes geworden ist, als er ursprünglich war, den Baum der Erkenntnis des Guten und des Bösen, so sehen wir alles das, was der Mensch dadurch bewirkt hat, daß er den ursprünglichen Stand verlassen hat, daß er durch die luziferische Verführung ein anderer geworden ist und dadurch etwas ihm vorher Nichtbestimmtes in die Erdenevolution hereingebracht hat.
Wir sehen den Baum herauswachsen aus dem, was der physische Leib für die Erde ist, was in seiner Erdenform abgeprägt worden ist, was den Menschen auf der Erde in einer niedrigeren Sphäre erscheinen läßt, als er geworden wäre, wenn er nicht durch die luziferische Verführung hindurchgegangen wäre. Es wächst aus des Menschen ganzem Erdendasein etwas heraus, was durch die luziferische Verführung, Versuchung in die Menschheitsentwickelung hineingekommen ist. Indem wir die Erkenntnis suchen, suchen wir sie auf eine andere Art, als es uns ursprünglich vorbestimmt war. Das aber läßt erscheinen, daß das, was aus unseren Erdentaten herauswächst, anders ist, als es nach der Götter ursprünglichem Ratschluß sein könnte. Wir formen ein Erdendasein, das nicht so ist, wie es nach der Götter ursprünglichem Ratschluß für uns bestimmt war. Wir mischen dem ein anderes bei, von dem wir uns ganz bestimmte Vorstellungen machen müssen, wenn wir es richtig verstehen wollen. Wir müssen uns sagen: Ich bin hereingesetzt in die Erdenentwickelung. Was ich der Erdenentwickelung durch meine Taten gebe, das trägt Früchte. Das trägt Früchte der Erkenntnis, die mir dadurch geworden ist, daß mir die Erkenntnis des Guten und des Bösen auf der Erde zuteil geworden ist. Diese Erkenntnis lebt in der Entwickelung der Erde, diese Erkenntnis ist da. Aber indem ich diese Erkenntnis anschaue, wird sie mir zu etwas, was anders ist, als es hätte ursprünglich sein sollen. Sie wird mir zu etwas, was ich anders machen muß, wenn der Erde Ziel und der Erde Aufgabe erreicht werden soll. Ich sehe aus meinen Erdentaten etwas hervorwachsen, was anders werden muß. Es wächst der Baum hervor, der das Kreuz des Erdendaseins wird, der Baum, der da dasjenige wird, zu dem der Mensch ein neues Verhältnis gewinnen muß — denn das alte Verhältnis läßt eben diesen Baum erwachsen. Der Baum des Kreuzes, jenes Kreuzes, das erwächst aus der luziferisch tingierten Erdenentwickelung, er wächst heraus aus Adams Grab, aus derjenigen Menschlichkeit, die Adam nach der Versuchung geworden ist. Der Baum der Erkenntnis muß zum Kreuzesstamm werden, weil mit dem richtig erkannten Baum der Erkenntnis, so wie er jetzt ist, der Mensch sich aufs neue verbinden muß, um der Erde Ziel und der Erde Aufgabe zu erreichen.
Fragen wir uns — und hier berühren wir ein bedeutsames Geheimnis der geistigen Wissenschaft -: Wie steht es denn eigentlich mit diesen Gliedern, die wir als die Glieder der menschlichen Natur kennengelernt haben? Nun, wir kennen als das zunächst höchste Glied der menschlichen Natur unser Ich. Wir lernen unser Ich aussprechen zu einer gewissen Zeit unseres Kindesalters. Wir gewinnen ein Verhältnis zu diesem Ich von der Zeit an bis zu der wir uns in späteren Jahren zurückerinnern. Wir wissen es aus den verschiedensten geisteswissenschaftlichen Betrachtungen: bis zu dem Zeitpunkt hat das Ich selber formend und gestaltend an uns gewirkt, bis zu dem Moment, da wir ein bewußtes Verhältnis zu unserem Ich haben. Beim Kind ist dieses Ich auch da, aber es wirkt in uns, es bildet in uns erst den Leib aus. Zunächst schafft es mit den übersinnlichen Kräften der geistigen Welt. Wenn wir durch die Empfängnis und die Geburt gegangen sind, schafft es sogar noch einige Zeit, die Jahre dauert, an unserem Leibe, bis wir unseren Leib als Werkzeug so haben, daß wir uns bewußt als ein Ich erfassen können. Es ist ein tiefes Geheimnis mit diesem Hineintreten des Ich in die menschliche Leibesnatur verbunden. Wir fragen den Menschen, wenn er uns entgegentritt: Wie alt bist du? — Er gibt uns als sein Alter an die Jahre, die verflossen sind seit seiner Geburt. Wie gesagt, wir beruhren hier ein gewisses Geheimnis der Geisteswissenschaft, das uns im Laufe der nächsten Zeit immer klarer werden wird, das ich aber heute nur erwähnen will, gleichsam mitteilen will. Was uns der Mensch also als sein Alter angibt zu einer bestimmten Zeit seines Lebens, das bezieht sich auf seinen physischen Leib. Er sagt uns nichts anderes als: sein physischer Leib ist so und so lange in der Entwickelung gewesen seit seiner Geburt. Das Ich macht diese Entwickelung dieses physischen Leibes nicht mit. Das Ich bleibt stehen.
Und das ist das schwer zu fassende Geheimnis, daß das Ich eigentlich in dem Zeitpunkte, bis zu dem wir uns zurückerinnern, stehenbleibt. Es wird nicht mit dem Leibe geändert, es bleibt stehen. Gerade dadurch haben wir es immer vor uns, daf3 es uns, indem wir hinschauen, unsere Erlebnisse entgegenspiegelt. Das Ich macht unsere Erdenwanderung nicht mit. Erst wenn wir durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, müssen wir den Weg, den wir Kamaloka nennen, wiederum zurück machen bis zu unserer Geburt, um unser Ich wieder anzutreffen, und es dann auf unserer weiteren Wanderung mitzunehmen. Der Körper schiebt sich in den Jahren vor — das Ich bleibt zurück, das Ich bleibt stehen. Schwierig zu begreifen ist es aus dem Grunde, weil man sich nicht vorstellen kann, daß in der Zeit etwas stehenbleibt, während die Zeit weiterrückt. Aber es ist doch so. Das Ich bleibt stehen, und zwar bleibt es aus dem Grunde stehen, weil dieses Ich eigentlich sich nicht verbindet mit dem, was vom Erdendasein an den Menschen herankommt, sondern weil es verbunden bleibt mit denjenigen Kräften, die wir in der geistigen Welt die unsrigen nennen. Das Ich bleibt da, das Ich bleibt im Grunde in der Form, wie es uns verliehen ist, wie wir wissen, von den Geistern der Form. Dieses Ich wird in der geistigen Welt gehalten. Es muß in der geistigen Welt gehalten werden, sonst könnten wir niemals als Menschen während unserer Erdenentwickelung der Erde ursprüngliche Aufgabe und ursprüngliches Ziel wieder erreichen. Was der Mensch hier auf der Erde durch seine Adamsnatur durchgemacht hat, wovon er eine Abprägung in das Grab trägt, wenn er als Adam stirbt, das ist haftend am physischen Leibe, Ätherleib und Astralleib, kommt von diesen. Das Ich wartet, wartet mit alledem, was in ihm ist, die ganze Zeit, die der Mensch auf der Erde durchmacht, sieht nur hin auf die weitere Entwickelung des Menschen - wie der Mensch es sich wieder holt, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, indem er den Weg zurück macht. Das heißt, wir bleiben - in einem gewissen Sinne ist das gemeint — mit unserem Ich gewissermaßen in der geistigen Welt zurück. Dessen soll sich die Menschheit bewußt werden. Und sie konnte sich dessen nur dadurch bewußt werden, daß in einer gewissen Zeit aus jenen Welten, denen der Mensch angehört, aus den geistigen Welten, der Christus herunterkam und sich in dem Leibe des Jesus vorbereitete, in der Weise, wie wir es wissen — doppelt —, das, was als Leib ihm auf der Erde dienen sollte.
Wenn wir uns recht verstehen, so schauen wir durch unser ganzes Erdenleben hindurch immer auf unsere Kindheit hin. Da, in unserer Kindheit, ist zurückgeblieben das, was gerade unser Geistiges ist. Wir schauen immer darauf hin, wenn wir die Sache richtig verstehen. Und dazu sollte die Menschheit erzogen werden, hinzusehen auf das, zu dem der Geist aus den Höhen sagen kann: «Lasset die Kindlein zu mir kommen», nicht den Menschen, der mit der Erde verbunden ist, sondern die Kindlein. Dazu sollte die Menschheit erzogen werden, indem ihr das Fest der Weihenacht gegeben worden ist, indem es hinzugefügt worden ist zu dem Mysterium von Golgatha, das sonst nur der Menschheit verliehen zu werden brauchte in bezug auf die drei letzten Jahre des Christus-Lebens, da der Christus in dem Leibe des Jesus von Nazareth war. Dieses Fest zeigt, wie der Christus sich den menschlichen Leib in der Kindheit vorbereitet hat. Das ist das, was der Weihnachtsempfindung zugrunde liegen soll: zu wissen, wie der Mensch eigentlich immer verbunden geblieben ist durch das, was in seinem Wachstum zurückbleibt, was in himmlischen Höhen bleibt, mit dem, was nun hereinkommt. In der Kindesgestalt soll der Mensch an das MenschlichGöttliche, von dem er sich entfernt hat, indem er auf die Erde hinabstieg, das aber wiederum zu ihm gekommen ist, an dieses Kindhafte in ihm sollte der Mensch erinnert werden. An denjenigen sollte er erinnert werden, der ihm das Kindhafte wiedergebracht hat. Es war nicht gerade leicht, aber gerade an der Art und Weise, wie sich dieses Weltenkindesfest, das Weihnachtsfest, in die mitteleuropäischen Gegenden hereinentwickelt hat, gerade daran sieht man die wunderbar wirkende, tragende Kraft.
Was wir heute gesehen haben, war nur ein kleines der vielen Weihnachtspiele. Es ist aus den alten Zeiten, von der Art des Weihnachtspieles, die ich ein wenig angedeutet habe, noch zurückgeblieben eine Anzahl der sogenannten Paradeisspiele, die man auch zu Weihnachten aufführte, wo wirklich die Schöpfungsgeschichte aufgeführt worden ist. Es ist zurückgeblieben dann die Verbindung mit dem Hirtenspiel, mit dem Spiel der drei Könige, die ihre Geschenke darbringen. Vieles, vieles von dem lebte in zahlreichen Spielen. Sie sind jetzt zum größten Teil verschwunden.
In der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts etwa beginnt die Zeit, wo sie in Bauerngegenden verschwinden. Aber wunderbar ist es zu sehen, wie sie gelebt haben. Jener Karl Julius Schröer, von dem ich Ihnen schon öfters erzählt habe, hatte in westungarischen Gegenden in den fünfziger Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts solche Weihnachtspiele gesammelt, in der Preßburger Gegend herum, und weiter von Preßburg nach Ungarn herunter. Andere haben in andern Gegenden solche Weihnachtspiele gesammelt, aber das, was dazumal Karl Julius Schröer auffinden konnte von den mit der Aufführung dieser Weihnachtspiele verbundenen Gebräuchen, kann uns ganz besonders tief zu Herzen gehen. Diese Weihnachtspiele, sie waren da, handschriftlich, in gewissen Familien des Dorfes und wurden als etwas ganz besonders Heiliges gehalten. Aufgeführt wurden sie in der Weise, daß man so eigentlich, wenn der Oktober herankam, schon daran dachte, man müsse diese Spiele zur Weihnachtszeit vor den Bauern des Ortes aufführen. Dann wurden die bravsten Burschen und Mädchen ausgesucht, und die hörten auf in dieser Zeit, in der sie begannen sich vorzubereiten, Wein zu trinken, Alkoholisches zu trinken. Sie durften, was ja sonst in solchen Orten getan werden darf, nicht mehr raufen am Sonntag, sie durften nicht mehr andere Ausschreitungen begehen. Sie mußten wirklich, wie man sagte, «ein heiliges Leben führen». Und so hatte man das Bewußtsein, daß eine gewisse moralische Stimmung der Seele dazugehörte bei denen, die sich in der Weihnachtszeit der Aufführung solcher Spiele widmen sollten. Nicht aus dem ganz gewöhnlichen Weltlichen heraus sollten solche Spiele aufgeführt werden.
Dann wurden sie aufgeführt mit aller Naivität, mit der Bauern so etwas aufführen können, aber es herrschte in der ganzen Aufführung tiefster Ernst, unendlicher Ernst. Den Spielen, die dazumal Karl Julius Schröer, früher Weinhold und andere dann in den verschiedensten Gegenden gesammelt haben, ist überall dieser tiefe Ernst eigen, mit dem man sich dem Weihnachtsgeheimnis nahte. Aber das war nicht immer so. Und wir brauchen gar nicht weiter zurückzugehen als ein paar Jahrhunderte, da finden wir das anders, und da tritt uns etwas höchst Eigentümliches entgegen. Gerade die Art und Weise, wie sich diese Weihnachtspiele namentlich in mitteleuropäischen Gegenden eingebürgert haben, wie sie entstanden und allmählich geworden sind, das zeigt uns, wie überwältigend gewirkt hat der Weihnachtsgedanke. Er wurde nicht etwa gleich so aufgenommen, wie ich es jetzt geschildert habe: daß? man mit heiliger Scheu, mit großem Ernst, mit einem Bewußtsein von der Bedeutung des Ereignisses, das in der Empfindung lebte, sich dem genaht hätte. O nein! In vielen Gegenden hat das zum Beispiel so begonnen, daß man eine Krippe aufgestellt hat vor irgendeinem Seitenaltar dieser oder jener Kirche - das war noch im 14., 15. Jahrhundert, aber es geht auch schon in frühere Zeiten zurück; man stellte eine Krippe auf, das heißt also einen Stall, darin Ochs und Eselein und das Kindlein und zwei Puppen, die Joseph und Maria darstellten. So wurde zuerst mit naiver Plastik das getrieben. Dann wollte man mehr Leben hineinbringen, aber zunächst von der Geistlichkeit aus. Es zogen sich Priester an, der eine als Joseph, der andere als Maria, und die stellten das dar - statt der Puppen spielten sie das. In der ersten Zeit stellten sie die Sache sogar in der lateinischen Sprache dar, denn man hielt in der alten Kirche sehr viel darauf, da man, wie es scheint, einen sehr tiefen Sinn darin sah, daß diejenigen, die zuschauten oder zuhörten, möglichst gar nichts von der Sache verstanden, sondern nur die äußere Mimik sahen. Aber das ließen diese sich nicht mehr gefallen: sie wollten auch etwas verstehen von demjenigen, was ihnen da vorgeführt wurde. Und da ging man denn allmählich dazu über, einige Teile daraus in die entsprechende Sprache zu gießen, die gerade in den Gegenden gesprochen worden war. Doch endlich erwachte das Gefühl bei den Leuten, mitzumachen, das selbst zu erleben. Aber fremd war es ihnen, recht fremd war ihnen die Sache doch noch. Man muß nur bedenken, daß etwa noch im 12.,13. Jahrhundert jene Vertrautheit mit den heiligen Geheimnissen, zum Beispiel der Weihenacht, nicht da war, die wir heute als etwas Selbstverständliches glauben. Man muß bedenken, daß die Leute jahraus, jahrein die Messe hörten, zu Weihnacht auch die Messe, die um zwölf Uhr Mitternacht noch gehalten worden ist, aber daß sie nicht die Bibel vernahmen - die war nur für die Priester zum Lesen da -, daß sie nur einzelne Brocken von der heiligen Geschichte kannten. Und es war wirklich zugleich, um sie bekanntzumachen mit dem, was einst vorgegangen war, daß man es ihnen in dieser Weise zunächst dramatisch durch die Priester vorführte. Sie lernten es erst auf diese Weise kennen.
Nun muß man etwas sagen, wovon man recht sehr bitten muß, es nicht mißzuverstehen. Aber es kann dargestellt werden, weil es der reinen geschichtlichen Wahrheit entspricht. Nicht daß etwa gleich aus irgendeiner Mysterienstimmung oder dergleichen der Anteil an diesen Weihnachtspielen hervorgegangen wäre, so war es nicht, sondern die Begierde, teilzunehmen an dem, was ihnen dargestellt worden ist, näher dabeizusein, mitzutun, zu handeln: das brachte das Volk heran an die Sache. Und man mußte ihnen endlich zugestehen, etwas mitzutun. Man mußte es dem Volke verständlicher machen. Mit diesem Verständlichermachen ging es Schritt für Schritt. Zum Beispiel davon verstanden die Leute zuerst gar nichts, daß da in einem Krippchen das Kindelein liege. Das hatten sie nie gesehen, ein Kindelein in einem Krippelein. Ja, früher, wo sie nichts verstehen durften, da haben sie das hingenommen. Aber jetzt, wo sie dabei sein wollten, sollte ihnen das ganz verständlich sein. Da wurde ihnen nur eine Wiege hingestellt. Und es begann die Teilnahme der Leute dann, indem sie an der Wiege vorbeigingen, jeder trat da auf und wiegte ein Weilchen das Kindelein; und ähnliche Teilnahme entwickelte sich. Es gab sogar Gegenden, in denen die Sache so vor sich ging, daß? man zunächst ganz ernst begann und als das Kind da war, begannen alle einen ungeheuren Krakeel, und alle schrieen und deuteten mit Tanzen und Schreien ihre Freude an, die sie jetzt darüber empfanden, daß das Kindlein geboren ist. Es wurde durchaus in einer Stimmung aufgenommen, die hervorging aus der Sucht, sich zu bewegen, aus der Sucht, eine Geschichte zu erleben. Aber in der Geschichte steckte so Großes, so Gewaltiges, daß aus dieser ganz profanen Stimmung - es war anfangs eine profane Stimmung - sich nach und nach jene heilige Stimmung entwickelte, von der ich eben gesprochen habe. Die Sache selbst goß ihre Heiligkeit aus über eine Aufnahme, die durchaus anfangs nicht eine heilige genannt werden konnte. Gerade im Mittelalter mußte die heilige Weihnachtsgeschichte die Menschen erst erobern. Und sie eroberte sie bis zu dem Grade, daß sie, während sie ihre Spiele aufführten, in einer so intensiven Weise sich moralisch vorbereiten wollten.
Was eroberte denn da die menschlichen Empfindungen, die menschliche Seele? Der Hinblick auf das Kind, der Hinblick auf dasjenige, was im Menschen heilig bleibt, während seine übrigen drei Leiber sich mit dem Erdenwerden verbinden. Mochte selbst in gewissen Gegenden und in gewissen Zeiten die Geschichte von Bethlehem groteske Formen annehmen, es lag in der menschlichen Natur, diesen heiligen Hinblick auf die Kindesnatur zu entwickeln, der mit dem zusammenhängt, was gleich in die christliche Entwikkelung von Anfang an eintrat: das Bewußtsein, wie das, was im Menschen stehenbleibt, wenn er seine Erdenentwickelung antritt, eine neue Verbindung eingehen muß mit dem, was sich mit dem Erdenmenschen verbunden hat. So daß er der Erde übergibt das Holz, aus dem das Kreuz werden muß, mit dem er eine neue Verbindung eingehen muß.
In den älteren Zeiten der mitteleuropäischen christlichen Entwickelung war eigentlich nur der Ostergedanke volkstümlich. Und erst in der Weise, wie ich es geschildert habe, ist der Weihnachtsgedanke allmählich hinzugekommen. Denn das, was im «Heliand» oder ähnlichen Werken steht, das ist zwar von einzelnen gedichtet worden, aber durchaus nicht etwa volkstümlich geworden.
Das Volkstümliche der Weihenacht, das ist auf die Weise entstanden, die ich eben geschildert habe, und die in wirklich großartiger Weise zeigt, wie der Gedanke der Verbindung mit dem Kindlichen, dem reinen, echten Kindlichen, das in einer neuen Gestalt erschienen ist in dem Jesuskind, sich die Menschen erobert hat. Wenn wir diese Gewalt des Gedankens damit zusammenbringen, daß dieser Gedanke in den Seelen als der einzige zunächst in unserem Erdendasein leben kann, der alle Menschen eint, so ist sie der rechte Christ-Gedanke. Und so wird der Christ-Gedanke in uns groß, so wird der Christ-Gedanke zu dem, was allmählich in uns erstarken muß, wenn die Erdenweiterentwickelung in der richtigen Weise geschehen soll. Bedenken wir doch, wie weit der Mensch im gegenwärtigen Erdendasein noch entfernt ist von dem, was die Tiefen des Christus-Gedankens eigentlich in sich bergen.
In diesen Tagen - vielleicht werden Sie es gelesen haben - wird ein Buch herausgegeben von Ernst Haeckel: «Ewigkeit, Weltkriegsgedanken über Leben und Tod, Religion und Entwicklungslehre.» Ein Buch von Ernst Haeckel ist ganz gewiß ein Buch, das aus ernster Wahrheitsliebe hervorgegangen ist, ganz gewiß ein Buch, in . dem ernsteste Wahrheit gesucht wird. Was das Buch bringen soll, von dem verlautet etwa das Folgende: Es soll darauf hinweisen, was jetzt auf der Erde vorgeht, wie die Völker miteinander im Kriege, wie sie miteinander im Hasse leben, wie unzählige Tode sich uns jeden Tag ergeben. Alle diese Gedanken, die sich dem Menschen so schmerzlich aufdrängen, erwähnt auch Ernst Haeckel, selbstverständlich immer mit dem Hintergrund, die Welt so zu betrachten, wie er sie sehen kann von seinem Standpunkte aus - wir haben oftmals davon gesprochen, denn man kann Haeckel, auch wenn man Geisteswissenschafter ist, als einen der größten Forscher anerkennen -, von jenem Standpunkte aus, der, wie wir wissen, auch zu anderem führen kann, der aber zu demjenigen führt, was man in den neueren Phasen der Haeckelschen Entwickelung beobachten kann. Nun macht sich Haeckel Weltkriegsgedanken. Auch er sagt sich, wieviel Blut jetzt fließt, wieviel Tode uns jetzt umgeben. Und er fragt sich: Können da die Gedanken der Religion bestehen daneben? Kann man irgendwie glauben - so fragt Haeckel -, daß irgendeine weise Vorsehung, ein gütiger Gott, die Welt regiert, wenn man sieht, daß täglich durch bloßen Zufall, wie er sagt, so viele Menschen ihr Leben enden, hinsterben durch gar keine solche Ursache, die nachweisbar in irgendeinem Zusammenhang stehen könnte mit irgendeiner weisen Weltenregierung, sondern durch den Zufall, wie er sagt, daß einen diese oder jene Kugel trifft, daß einer sich diesen oder jenen Unfall zuzieht? Haben demgegenüber alle diese Weisheitsgedanken, diese Vorsehungsgedanken einen Sinn? Müssen nicht gerade solche Ereignisse wie diese beweisen, daß der Mensch dabei stehenbleiben muß, daß er eben nichts anderes ist als das, was uns die äußerliche, materialistisch gedachte Entwickelungsgeschichte zeigt, und daß im Grunde nicht eine weise Vorsehung, sondern der Zufall alles Erdensein regiert? Kann man demgegenüber einen andern religiösen Gedanken haben, meint Haeckel, als zu resignieren, sich zu sagen: Man gibt eben seinen Leib hin und geht auf in dem ganzen All? -— Aber wenn dieses All, frägt man weiter — Haeckel stellt diese Frage nicht mehr -, nichts anderes ist als das Spiel der Atome, läuft wirklich dieses Leben des Menschen in einen Sinn des Erdendaseins aus? Wie gesagt, Haeckel stellt diese Frage nicht mehr, aber er gibt in seinem Weihnachtsbuch eben die Antwort: Gerade solche Ereignisse, wie sie uns jetzt so schmerzlich berühren, gerade solche Ereignisse zeigen, daß man kein Recht hat zu glauben, eine gütige Vorsehung oder weise Weltenregierung oder irgend etwas dergleichen durchwebe und durchlebe die Welt. Also Resignation, Sich-Hineinfinden darein, daß es einmal so ist!
Auch ein Weihnachtsbuch! Ein Weihnachtsbuch, das sehr aufrichtig und ehrlich gemeint ist. Aber dieses Buch wird auf einem bedeutsamen Vorurteil beruhen. Es wird auf dem Vorurteil beruhen, daf) man nicht auf geistige Art nach einem Sinn der Erde suchen darf, daß es der Menschheit untersagt ist, auf geistige Art nach einem Sinn zu suchen! Wenn man nur den äußeren Verlauf der Ereignisse ansieht, so sieht man diesen Sinn nicht. Dann ist es so, wie Haeckel meint. Und bei dem, daß dieses Leben keinen Sinn hat, müsse es bleiben — so meint Haeckel. Es dürfe der Sinn nicht gesucht werden!
Wird nicht vielmehr der andere kommen und wird sagen: Wenn wir unsere gegenwärtigen Ereignisse nur immer so äußerlich ansehen, wenn wir nur immer darauf hinweisen, daß unzählige Kugeln in der jetzigen Zeit die Menschen treffen, wir nur so hinsehen auf sie und sich kein Sinn ergibt, so zeigen sie uns gerade, daß wir diesen Sinn tiefer suchen müssen. Sie zeigen uns, daß wir nicht einfach in dem, was jetzt unmittelbar auf der Erde sich abspielt, den Sinn suchen dürfen und glauben, daß diese Menschenseelen vergehen mit dem Leiblichen, sondern daß wir suchen müssen, was sie nun beginnen, wenn sie durch die Pforte des Todes gehen. Kurz, es kann ein anderer kommen, der da sagt: Gerade weil sich im Äußeren kein Sinn findet, muß der Sinn außer dem Äußeren gesucht werden, muß der Sinn im Übersinnlichen gesucht werden.
Ist es damit viel anders als mit derselben Sache auf einem ganz andern Gebiet? Haeckels Wissenschaft kann demjenigen, der so denkt, wie Haeckel heute denkt, zu einer Ablehnung jedes Sinnes des Erdendaseins werden. Sie kann dazu werden, daß? man aus dem, was heute so schmerzlich geschieht, beweisen will, daß das Erdenleben als solches keinen Sinn hat. Aber wenn man sie in unserer Art erfaßt - wir haben das öfter getan -, dann wird gerade dieselbe Wissenschaft der Ausgangspunkt, um zu zeigen, welch tiefer, großer Sinn in den Weitenerscheinungen von uns enträtselt werden kann. Aber dazu muß Geistiges in der Welt wirksam sein. Wir müssen uns mit Geistigem verbinden können. Weil die Menschen noch nicht verstehen, auf den Gebieten der Gelehrsamkeit jene Macht auf sich wirken zu lassen, die so wunderbar die Herzen, die Seelen erobert hat, daf} aus einer geradezu profanen Auffassung eine heilige Auffassung entstand beim Hinschauen auf das Weihnachtsgeheimnis, weil die Gelehrten das noch nicht erfassen können, weil sie noch nicht den Christus-Impuls mit dem verbinden können, was sie in der äußeren Welt sehen, ist es ihnen unmöglich, für die Erde einen Sinn, einen wirklichen Sinn zu finden.
Und so muß man sagen: Die Wissenschaft mit allen ihren großen Fortschritten, auf welche die Menschen heute mit Recht so stolz sind, ist durch sich selber nicht in der Lage, zu einer den Menschen befriedigenden Anschauung zu führen. Sie kann, indem sie ihre Wege geht, in derselben Weise zur Sinnlosigkeit wie zum Erdensinn führen, ganz so wie auf einem andern Gebiet. Nehmen wir diese in den letzten Jahrhunderten, insbesondere im 19. Jahrhundert und bis heute so stolz entwickelte äußere Wissenschaft mit all ihren wunderbaren Gesetzen, nehmen wir all dasjenige, was uns heute umgibt: Es ist von dieser Wissenschaft hervorgebracht. Wir brennen nicht mehr in derselben Weise wie Goethe noch sein Nachtlicht, wir brennen Licht und erleuchten unsere Räume in ganz anderer Weise. Und nehmen wir das alles, was heute aus unserer Wissenschaft in unseren Seelen lebt: durch die großen Fortschritte der Wissenschaft, auf welche die Menschheit mit Recht stolz ist, ist es entstanden. Aber diese selbe Wissenschaft, wie waltet sie? Sie waltet segensreich, wenn der Mensch Segensreiches entwickelt. Aber heute erzeugt sie, gerade weil sie eine so vollkommene Wissenschaft ist, die unbezwinglichen Mordinstrumente. Ihr Fortschritt dient der Zerstörung ebenso wie dem Aufbau. Geradeso wie auf der einen Seite die Wissenschaft, zu der sich Haeckel bekennt, zu Sinn und Unsinn führen kann, so kann die Wissenschaft, die so Großes erreicht, dienen dem Aufbau, dienen der Zerstörung. Und wenn es nur auf diese Wissenschaft ankäme, sie würde aus denselben Quellen heraus, aus denen sie aufbaut, immer Furchtbareres und Furchtbareres an Zerstörungswerken hervorbringen. Sie hat in sich nicht unmittelbar einen Impuls, der die Menschheit vorwärtsbringt. OÖ wenn man das nur einmal einsehen könnte, man würde diese Wissenschaft in der richtigen Weise erst dann abschätzen können. Man würde erst dann wissen, dafß3 in der Menschheitsentwickelung noch etwas anderes sein muß als das, was der Mensch durch diese Wissenschaft erreichen konnte!
Diese Wissenschaft — was ist sie? Sie ist in Wirklichkeit nichts anderes als der Baum, der aus dem Grabe Adams wächst, und die Zeit wird immer näherrücken, wo die Menschen erkennen werden, daß diese Wissenschaft der Baum ist, der aus dem Grabe Adams wächst. Und die Zeit wird heranrücken, wo die Menschen erkennen werden, daf3 dieser Baum zum Holze werden muß, der der Menschheit Kreuz ist, und der erst dann zum Segen führen kann, wenn das daran gekreuzigt wird, was sich in der richtigen Weise verbindet mit dem, was jenseits des Todes liegt, aber schon im Menschen hier lebt: das, zu dem wir hinschauen in der heiligen Weihenacht, wenn wir diese heilige Weihenacht in ihrem Geheimnis in der richtigen Weise empfinden, das, was auf kindliche Weise dargestellt werden kann, was aber die höchsten Geheimnisse birgt. Ist es denn nicht eigentlich wunderbar, daß in einfachster Art dem Volke gesagt werden kann: Hinein kam das, was durch das Menschenleben auf der Erde waltet, das, was eigentlich nicht über die Kindheit hinausgehen darf! Verwandt ist es mit dem, zu dem der Mensch als einem Übersinnlichen gehört. Ist es nicht wunderbar, daß dieses im eminentesten Sinne Übersinnlich-Unsichtbare in so einfachem Bilde den Menschenseelen so nahe kommen konnte — den einfachen Menschenseelen?
Diejenigen, die gelehrt sind, werden auch noch erst den Weg machen müssen, den diese einfachen Menschenseelen gemacht haben. Es gab auch eine Zeit, wo man nicht das Kind in der Wiege, nicht das Kind in der Krippe darstellte, sondern wo man das Kind schlafend am Kreuz dargestellt hat. Das Kind schlafend am Kreuz! Ein wunderbar tiefes Bild, den ganzen Gedanken zum Ausdruck bringend, den ich heute vor Ihren Seelen habe erstehen lassen wollen.
Und ist dieser Gedanke nicht im Grunde genommen recht einfach zu sagen? Das ist er! Suchen wir einmal nach dem Ursprung derjenigen Impulse, die heute so furchtbar in der Welt sich gegenüberstehen! Wo urständen diese Impulse? Wo urständet alles das, was heute der Menschheit das Leben so schwer macht, wo urständet das? In alledem, was wir in der Welt erst von dem Zeitpunkte an werden, bis zu dem wir uns zurückerinnern können. Gehen wir hinter diesen Zeitpunkt zurück, gehen wir hin bis zu dem Zeitpunkte, da wir gerufen werden als die Kindlein, die in das Reich der Himmel eintreten können. Da urständet es, da liegt in den Menschenseelen nichts von dem, was heute in Streit und Hader ist. So einfach kann der Gedanke ausgesprochen werden. Aber geistig müssen wir heute darauf blicken, daß es in der menschlichen Seele solch ein Urständiges gibt, das dennoch über alles Menschenstreiten, über alle Menschendisharmonie hinausgeht.
Wir haben oft gesprochen von den alten Mysterien, die in der menschlichen Natur das erwecken wollten, was den Menschen in das Übersinnliche hinaufschauen läßt, und wir haben davon gesprochen, daß das Mysterium von Golgatha, für alle Menschen vernehmlich, das übersinnliche Geheimnis auf den Schauplatz der Geschichte gestellt hat. Im Grunde genommen ist das, was uns mit dem wirklichen Christus-Gedanken verbindet, in uns dadurch da, wirklich dadurch da, daß wir doch Augenblicke in unserem Leben haben können, im wahren Sinne jetzt, nicht im bildlichen Sinne, wo wir trotz alledem, was wir in der äußeren Welt sind, lebendig machen können - indem wir zurückgehen und uns zurückfühlen in den Kindesstandpunkt, indem wir hinschauen auf den Menschen, wie er sich entwickelt zwischen Geburt und Tod, indem wir das in uns empfinden können -, das, was wir da als Kind erhalten haben.
Ich habe letzten Donnerstag öffentlich vorgetragen über Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Ich hätte noch ein Wort sagen können - es hätte dazumal nicht voll verständlich werden können -, welches Aufklärung über vieles gibt, was gerade in dieser, in eigentümlicher Weise frommen Gestalt lebte. Ich hätte sagen dürfen, warum er eigentlich so ganz besonders geworden ist, wie er geworden ist, und ich hätte sagen müssen: Weil er, trotzdem er alt geworden ist, sich, mehr als andere Menschen, von der Kindlichkeit erhalten hat. Es ist mehr in solchen Menschen von der Kindlichkeit als in andern Menschen. Sie werden weniger alt, solche Menschen! Wirklich, von jenem in der Kindheit Vorhandenen bleibt mehr in solchen Menschen als bei andern Menschen. Und das ist überhaupt das Geheimnis vieler großer Menschen, daß sie bis ins späteste Alter in gewisser Weise Kinder bleiben können; noch wenn sie sterben, als Kinder sterben, natürlich nur teilgemäß ausgedrückt, da man ja mit dem Leben zusammen sein muß.
Zu dem in uns, was so als Kindlichkeit lebt, spricht das Weihnachtsmysterium, spricht der Hinblick auf das göttliche Kind, das ausersehen worden ist, den Christus aufzunehmen; zu dem wir hinblicken als zu dem, über dem schon der Christus schwebt, der in Wirklichkeit zu der Erde Heil durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist.
Machen wir uns das nur bewußt: Wenn wir die Abprägung unseres höheren Menschen, wenn wir unseren physischen Leib der Erde übergeben, so ist das nicht ein bloß physischer Vorgang. Da geht auch etwas geistig vor. Aber dieses Geistige geht nur dadurch in der richtigen Weise vor, daß hineingeflossen ist in die Erdenaura die Christus-Wesenheit, die durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist. Wir sehen dasjenige, was diese ganze Erde ist, nicht in ihrer Vollständigkeit, wenn wir nicht seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha verbunden mit der Erde den Christus sehen, jenen Christus, an dem wir vorbeigehen können wie an allem Übersinnlichen, wenn wir uns nur im materialistischen Sinne ausgerüstet fühlen; an dem wir aber nicht vorbeigehen können, wenn die Erde für uns einen wirklichen, einen wahren Sinn haben soll. Daher liegt alles daran, daß wir imstande sind, das in uns zu erwecken, was uns den Ausblick in die geistige Welt eröffnet.
Machen wir für uns die Weihnachtsfeier zu dem, was sie insbesondere für uns sein soll: zu einer Feier, die nicht bloß der Vergangenheit dient, zu einer Feier, die auch der Zukunft dienen soll, jener Zukunft, die da die Geburt des geistigen Lebens für die ganze Menschheit nach und nach bringen soll. Wir aber wollen uns verbinden mit der prophetischen Empfindung, mit dem prophetischen Vorgefühl, daß solches Geborenwerden des geistigen Lebens gebracht werden muß der Menschheit, daß hinwirken muß über die Menschheitszukunft eine ‚große Weihenacht, ein Geborenwerden desjenigen, was in den Gedanken der Menschen der Erde Sinn gibt. Jenen Sinn, den objektiv die Erde dadurch erhalten hat, daß sich die Christus-Wesenheit mit der Erdenaura durch das Mysterium von Golgatha verbunden hat. Denken wir in der Weihenacht daran, wie aus der Tiefe der Finsternis heraus das Licht in die Menschenentwickelung einziehen muß, das Licht des geistigen Lebens. Vergehen mußte jenes alte Licht des geistigen Lebens, das vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha, nach und nach verglimmend, da war, und das wiedererstehen muß, wiedergeboren werden muß nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha durch das Bewußtsein in der Menschenseele: daß diese Menschenseele zusammenhängt mit dem, was der Christus der Erde durch das Mysterium von Golgatha geworden ist.
Wenn es immer mehr und mehr Menschen geben wird, die in einem solchen geisteswissenschaftlichen Sinne die Weihnacht aufzufassen wissen, dann wird diese Weihnacht eine Kraft in den Menschenherzen und Menschenseelen entwickeln, die ihren Sinn hat in allen Zeiten: in den Zeiten, in denen sich die Menschen den Glücksgefühlen, aber auch in den Zeiten, in denen sich die Menschen jenem Schmerzgefühl hingeben müssen, das uns heute durchdringen muß, wenn wir an das große Elend der Zeit denken.
Wie das Aufschauen zum Geistigen der Erde Sinn gibt, einer hat es mit schönen Worten ausgesprochen, die ich Ihnen heute noch vorbringen will:
Was meinem Auge diese Kraft gegeben,
Daß alle Mißgestalt ihm ist zerronnen,
Daß ihm die Nächte werden heitre Sonnen,
Unordnung Ordnung und Verwesung Leben?Was durch der Zeit, des Raums verworrnes Weben,
Mich sicher leitet hin zum ewgen Bronnen
Des Schönen, Wahren, Guten und der Wonnen,
Und drin vernichtend eintaucht all mein Streben?Das ist’s: seit in Urania’s Aug’, die tiefe,
Sich selber klare, blaue, stille, reine
Lichtflamm’, ich selber still hineingesehen;Seitdem ruht dieses Aug’ mir in der Tiefe
Und ist in meinem Sein, — das ewig Eine,
Lebt mir im Leben, sieht in meinem Sehen.
Und in einer zweiten kleinen Dichtung:
Nichts ist, denn Gott, und Gott ist nichts, denn Leben,
Du weißest, ich mit dir weiß im Verein;
Doch wie vermöchte Wissen dazusein,
Wenn es nicht Wissen wär’ von Gottes Leben!«Wie gern’, ach! wollt’ ich diesem hin mich geben,
Allein wo find ich’s? Fließt es irgend ein
Ins Wissen, so verwandelt’s sich in Schein,
Mit ihm vermischt, von seiner Hüll’ umgeben.»Gar klar die Hülle sich vor dir erhebet,
Dein Ich ist sie, es sterbe, was vernichtbar,
Und fortan lebt nur Gott in deinem Streben.Durchschaue, was dies Streben überlebet,
So wird die Hülle dir als Hülle sichtbar,
Und unverschleiert siehst du göttlich Leben.
Allerdings, die Menschen wissen nicht immer, was sie gerade mit denjenigen machen sollen, die also sie hinweisen zum Schauen des Geistigen, das der Erde Sinn gib. Nicht nur die Materialisten wissen das nicht. Die andern, die glauben, keine Materialisten zu sein, weil sie immer «Gott, Gott, Gott» oder «Herr, Herr, Herr» sagen, auch die wissen oftmals gerade aus diesen Führern zum Geistigen nicht das Rechte zu machen! Denn, was hätte man können machen mit einem Menschen, der da sagt: Nichts ist, denn Gott! Alles ist Gott! Überall, überall ist Gott! — Der suchte Gott in allem, der da sagte:
Durchschaue, was dies Streben überlebet, So wird die Hülle dir als Hülle sichtbar, Und unverschleiert siehst du göttlich Leben!
Ihn, der überall göttlich Leben sehen will, ihn Konnte man anklagen, daß er die Welt nicht zuläßt, daß er die Welt ableugnet - einen Weltleugner konnte man ihn nennen! Seine Zeitgenossen haben ihn einen Gottesleugner genannt und ihn deshalb von der Hochschule fortgejagt. Denn die Worte, die ich Ihnen vorgelesen habe, sind von Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Gerade er ist ein Beispiel dafür, wie -— wenn es fortlebt in der menschlichen Seele durch das Erdensein hindurch, was in dem Mysterium von Golgatha, was aber im Zusammenhang mit diesem Mysterium von Golgatha im Weihnachtsgeheimnis als Impuls an Tönen der Seele angeschlagen werden kann - ein Weg damit eröffnet ist, auf dem wir jenes Bewußtsein finden können, in dem zusammenfließt unser eigenes Ich mit dem Erden-Ich, denn dieses Erden-Ich ist der Christus, durch das wir entwickeln etwas vom Menschen, das immer größer und größer werden muß, wenn die Erde jener Entwickelung entgegengehen soll, für die sie bestimmt war von Anbeginn.
So wollen wir insbesondere aus dem Geiste unserer Geist-Erkenntnis heraus in diesem auch heute wiederum dargelegten Sinne den Weihnachtsgedanken in uns zum Impuls werden lassen, wollen versuchen, dadurch, daß wir zu diesem Weihnachtsgedanken hinaufschauen, aus dem, was um uns herum vorgeht, nicht Unsinnigkeit der Erdenentwickelung zu schauen, sondern auch in Leid und Schmerz, auch in Streit und Haß etwas zu schauen, was zuletzt der Menschheit vorwärtshilft, die Menschheit wirklich auch um ein Stück vorwärtsbringt.
Wichtiger als nach den Ursachen zu suchen, die ohnedies aus dem Parteistreit heraus so leicht verdeckt werden können, wichtiger als nach den Ursachen zu suchen für das, was heute geschieht, ist es, nach den möglichen Wirkungen hinzurichten den Blick, nach jenen Wirkungen hin, die wir uns vorstellen müssen als heilsam, als heilbringend für die Menschheit.
Diejenige Nation, dasjenige Volk wird das Rechte treffen, welches in der Lage sein wird, aus dem, was aus dem blutgetränkten Boden heraus aufzusprießen vermag, der Zukunft ein der Menschheit Heilsames zu gestalten. Aber ein der Menschheit Heilsames wird nur entstehen, wenn die Menschen den Weg zu den geistigen Welten hin finden; wenn die Menschen nicht vergessen, daß es nicht nur eine zeitliche, daß es geben muß eine immer dauernde Weihenacht, ein immer dauerndes Geborenwerden des GöttlichGeistigen in dem physischen Erdenmenschen.
Diese Heiligkeit des Gedankens wollen wir insbesondere. heute in unsere Seele einschließen, wollen sie behalten über die Zeit, die sich um Weihnacht herum gruppiert, und die uns auch in ihrem Äußeren Verlauf ein Symbolum sein kann für die Lichtentwickelung. Finsternis, Erdenfinsternis im höchsten Maße, wie sie hier auf der Erde sein kann, wird jetzt sein in diesen Tagen, in dieser Jahreszeit. Aber wenn die Erde in dieser tiefsten äußeren Finsternis lebt — wir wissen, die Erdseele erlebt ihr Licht, sie beginnt zu wachen im höchsten Maße.
An die Weihnachtszeit schließt sich die geistige Wachezeit an, und mit dieser geistigen Wachezeit sollte sich das Andenken an das geistige Erwachen durch den Christus Jesus für die Erdenentwickelung verbinden. Daher die Einsetzung des Weihenachts-Weihefestes gerade in dieser Zeit.
Wir wollen in diesem kosmischen und zugleich irdisch-moralischen Sinne den Weihnachtsgedanken mit unserer Seele verbinden und dann gestärkt, gekräftigt gerade mit diesem Weihegedanken, so wie wir es können, auf alles das hinschauen, das Rechte wünschend für den Fortgang der Ereignisse, aber auch für den Fortgang dessen das Richtige wünschend, was sich in den Taten der Gegenwart entwickelt.
Und indem wir das, was wir gerade aus diesem Weihnachtsfest an Stärkung in uns aufnehmen können, gleich beginnen in unseren Seelen rege zu machen, sehen wir nochmals hin zu den schützenden Geistern derjenigen, die auf schwerer Stätte draußen einzutreten haben für die großen Zeitereignisse:
Geister Eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Erdenmenschen,
Daß mit Eurer Macht geeint
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht!
Und für diejenigen, die in dieser Zeit der schweren Menschenaufgaben schon durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind infolge der großen Anforderungen unserer Gegenwart, seien die Worte noch einmal in der folgenden Form gesagt:
Geister Eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Sphärenmenschen,
Daß mit Eurer Macht geeint
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht!
Und der Geist, der durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist, der Geist, der sich zu der Erde Heil und Fortschritt angekündigt hat in dem, was die Menschen immer mehr und mehr auch im Weihnachtsmysterium verstehen werden, Er sei mit Euch und Euren schweren Pflichten!
We remember the saying that resounds from the depths of the mysteries of Earth's development:
Revelation of the Divine in the heights of being,
and peace to people on earth,
who are filled with good will.
And we must remember, especially as Christmas approaches this year: What feelings connect us to this saying and its profound meaning for the world? That profound meaning for the world that countless people feel so deeply that the word peace resounds and echoes through it, the word peace in a time when this peace shuns our earthly existence in the widest sense. How do we remember the words of Christmas at this time of year?
But there is one thought that, in connection with this true saying resounding throughout the world, must touch us even more deeply in the present than in other times. One thought! The peoples are hostile to one another. Blood, much blood, drenches our earth. We have had to witness countless deaths around us, have had to feel them during this time. Infinite suffering weaves the atmosphere of our senses and feelings around us. Hatred and aversion fill the spiritual space and could easily show how far, how far people in our time still are from the love that the one whose birth is celebrated at Christmas wanted to proclaim. But one thought stands out in particular: we think of how enemies can stand against enemies, opponents against opponents, how people can bring death to one another, and how they can pass through the same gate of death with thoughts of the divine light-bearer, Christ Jesus. We remember how, across the earth, which is covered with war, pain, and discord, those who are otherwise so divided can be united by carrying in their deepest hearts their connection with the one who came into the world on that day which we celebrate at Christmas. We think how, through all enmity, through all aversion, through all hatred, a feeling can surge in human souls everywhere in these times, surge out of blood and hatred: the thought of intimate connection with the one who has united hearts through something higher than anything that human beings will ever be able to separate on earth. And so this is indeed a thought of infinite greatness, a thought of infinite depth of feeling, the thought of Christ Jesus, who unites people, however divided they may be in everything that concerns the world.
If we grasp the thought in this way, then we will want to grasp it all the more deeply, especially in our present time. For then we will sense how much is connected with this thought of what must become great and strong and powerful within human development, so that much can be achieved in a different way by human hearts, by human souls, which now still has to be achieved in such a bloody way.
That He may make us strong, that He may strengthen us, that He may teach us, throughout the earth, to truly feel, in the truest sense of the word, the Christmas message of consecration, transcending all that divides us: this is what those who feel truly connected to Christ Jesus must vow anew every Christmas.
There is a tradition within the history of Christianity that recurs repeatedly in later times and was in use in certain Christian regions for centuries. In ancient times, in various regions, mostly originating from Christian churches, representations of the mystery of Christmas were offered to the faithful. It was precisely in these earliest times that the representation of the mystery of Christmas began with a reading, and at times even with a reenactment of the story of creation as it is presented at the beginning of the Bible. First, especially around Christmas time, it was depicted how the Word of God sounded out of the depths of the universe, how creation gradually came into being out of the Word of God, how Lucifer approached human beings, and how human beings thereby began their earthly existence in a different way than the existence that had originally been intended for them before Lucifer's approach. The entire story of the temptation of Adam and Eve was presented, and then it was shown how, as it were, the old pre-Testamentary history was incorporated into the history of humanity. Then, in the further course of the play, what had been presented more or less in detail in the plays was added, which then developed in the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries in Central European regions into plays such as the one we have just seen.
From that what, out of an infinitely great thought, brought together the beginning of the Old Testament with the mysterious history of the mystery of Golgotha at the Christmas festival, what brought together the two sacred histories out of this thought, only a little remains, only, so to speak, that in the present, in our calendar, the day of Adam and Eve stands before the beginning of Christmas Day. This has its origin in the same thought. But in earlier times, for those who, out of deeper thoughts, deeper feelings, or deeper knowledge, were to grasp the mystery of Christmas and the mystery of Golgotha through those who were their teachers, a great, comprehensive symbolic thought was repeatedly presented: the thought of the origin of the cross. The God who is presented to human beings in the Old Testament gives the commandment to the people represented by Adam and Eve: They may eat of all the fruits of the garden, except those that grow on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because they ate of these, they were driven out of the original place of their existence.
But the tree—which has now been depicted in various ways—came in some way into the line of descent that was then the original generations from which the physical shell of Christ Jesus also emerged. And it came about that, as was depicted in certain times, when Adam, the sinful man, was buried, this tree grew again out of his grave, having been removed from paradise. Thus we see the idea suggested: Adam rests in the grave, he who has passed through sin, he who has been seduced by Lucifer, rests in the grave, he has united himself with the earthly body. But from his grave springs the tree — the tree that can now grow out of the earth with which Adam's body has been united. The wood of this tree passes on to the generations to which Abraham belongs, to which David belongs. And from the wood of this tree, which stood in Paradise and grew again from Adam's grave, the cross was made on which Christ Jesus was crucified.
This is the idea that has always been made clear by their teachers to those who, from deeper foundations, should understand the mysteries of Golgotha. It has a deep meaning that in earlier times—and the meaning will show us in a moment that it is still valid for the present—deep thoughts were expressed in such images.
We have become acquainted with that thought of the mystery of Golgotha which tells us: The being who passed through the body of Jesus poured out upon the earth, poured into the earth's aura, that which he could bring to the earth. What Christ brought into the earth has since been connected with the whole physical nature of the earth. The earth has become something different since the mystery of Golgotha. What Christ brought down to earth from heavenly heights lives in the earth's aura. When we contemplate the old image of the tree in connection with this, it shows us the whole context from a higher point of view: the Luciferic principle entered into human beings when they began their earthly existence. Human beings, as they now are, in their union with the Luciferic principle, belong to the earth; they form part of the earth. And when we place their bodies in the earth, these bodies are not merely what anatomy sees them to be, but at the same time they are the outer imprint of what human beings also are within themselves, in their inner being. Spiritual science makes it clear to us that it is not only that which passes through the gate of death into the spiritual worlds that belongs to the human being's essence, but that the human being is connected to the earth through all his activities, through all his deeds; connected in exactly the same way as those events are connected to the earth which the geologist, the mineralogist, the zoologist, and so on, find to be connected with the earth. When a human being passes through the gate of death, it is only what binds him to the earth that is initially closed off to the human individuality. But our outer form, we hand it over to the earth in some way, it enters into the earth's body. It carries within itself the imprint of what the earth has become through Lucifer's entry into the earth's evolution. What man accomplishes on earth carries within itself the Luciferic principle; man brings this Luciferic principle into the earth's aura. From human deeds, from human activities, springs forth and blossoms not only what was originally intended for human beings, but also that which is mixed with the Luciferic. This is in the earth's aura. And when we now see on the grave of Adam, who was seduced by Lucifer, the tree that has become something else through Lucifer's seduction, than it originally was, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we see everything that man has brought about by leaving his original state, by becoming something else through Lucifer's seduction and thereby introducing something previously undetermined into earthly evolution.
We see the tree growing out of what the physical body is for the earth, what has been imprinted in its earthly form, what makes human beings appear on earth in a lower sphere than they would have been if they had not gone through Lucifer's seduction. Something grows out of the whole earthly existence of human beings that has entered into human evolution through the Luciferic temptation. In seeking knowledge, we seek it in a different way than was originally intended for us. But this makes it appear that what grows out of our earthly deeds is different from what it could be according to the original counsel of the gods. We shape an earthly existence that is not as it was originally intended for us according to the gods' original plan. We mix in something else, about which we must form very definite ideas if we want to understand it correctly. We must say to ourselves: I have been placed in the development of the earth. What I give to the development of the earth through my deeds bears fruit. This bears the fruit of the knowledge I have gained through being granted the knowledge of good and evil on earth. This knowledge lives in the development of the earth; this knowledge is there. But when I look at this knowledge, it becomes something different from what it was originally supposed to be. It becomes something I must do differently if the goal and task of the earth are to be achieved. I see something growing out of my earthly deeds that must become something different. The tree grows that becomes the cross of earthly existence, the tree that becomes that to which human beings must gain a new relationship — for it is precisely the old relationship that allows this tree to grow. The tree of the cross, that cross which grows out of the Luciferically tinged development of the earth, grows out of Adam's grave, out of the humanity that Adam became after the temptation. The tree of knowledge must become the trunk of the cross, because with the correctly recognized tree of knowledge, as it is now, human beings must connect themselves anew in order to achieve the goal and task of the earth.
Let us ask ourselves—and here we touch upon a significant secret of spiritual science—what is actually the case with these members that we have come to know as the members of human nature? Well, we know our I as the highest member of human nature. We learn to express our I at a certain time in our childhood. We develop a relationship with this I from the time we can remember back to our later years. We know from various spiritual scientific observations that up to that point, the I itself has been shaping and forming us, until the moment when we have a conscious relationship with our I. This I is also present in the child, but it works within us, first forming the body. At first, it creates with the supersensible forces of the spiritual world. After we have gone through conception and birth, it continues to work on our body for some time, lasting years, until we have our body as a tool in such a way that we can consciously perceive ourselves as an I. There is a deep mystery connected with this entry of the I into human physical nature. We ask a person when they come up to us: How old are you? They tell us their age in terms of the years that have passed since their birth. As I said, we are touching here on a certain mystery of spiritual science, which will become clearer to us in the course of the next few lessons, but which I only want to mention today, so to speak, to share with you. What a person tells us as his age at a certain point in his life refers to his physical body. He tells us nothing other than that his physical body has been developing in this way for this length of time since his birth. The ego does not participate in the development of this physical body. The ego remains unchanged.
And that is the elusive mystery that the I actually remains standing still at the point in time to which we can remember back. It does not change with the body; it remains standing still. It is precisely because of this that we always have it before us, so that when we look at it, it reflects our experiences back to us. The I does not participate in our earthly journey. Only when we have passed through the gate of death must we retrace the path we call Kamaloka back to our birth in order to meet our I again and take it with us on our further journey. The body pushes itself forward in the years — the I remains behind, the I remains standing. This is difficult to understand because we cannot imagine that something can remain standing still while time moves forward. But that is how it is. The ego remains standing still, and it remains standing still because this ego is not actually connected to what comes to human beings from earthly existence, but because it remains connected to those forces that we call our own in the spiritual world. The I remains there, the I remains basically in the form in which it is given to us, as we know, by the spirits of form. This I is held in the spiritual world. It must be held in the spiritual world, otherwise we could never, as human beings during our earthly development, achieve the original task and original goal of the earth. What human beings have gone through here on earth through their Adamic nature, which they carry with them into the grave when they die as Adam, is attached to the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body; it comes from these. The I waits, waits with everything that is in it, the whole time that man goes through on earth, looking only at the further development of man—how man regains it when he has passed through the gate of death by making his way back. This means that we remain—in a certain sense, that is what is meant—with our I, as it were, in the spiritual world. Humanity must become aware of this. And it could only become aware of this because, at a certain time, Christ descended from those worlds to which human beings belong, from the spiritual worlds, and prepared himself in the body of Jesus, in the way we know — in a dual form — that which was to serve him as a body on earth.
If we understand each other correctly, we always look back on our childhood throughout our entire earthly life. There, in our childhood, what is left behind is precisely what is spiritual in us. We always look back there when we understand things correctly. And humanity should be educated to look at that to which the spirit from the heights can say: “Let the little children come to me,” not the people who are connected to the earth, but the little children. Humanity should be educated to do this by being given the festival of Christmas, by adding it to the mystery of Golgotha, which otherwise only needed to be given to humanity in relation to the last three years of Christ's life, when Christ was in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. This festival shows how Christ prepared the human body in childhood. This is what should underlie the Christmas feeling: to know how human beings have actually always remained connected through what remains behind in their growth, what remains in heavenly heights, with what now comes in. In the form of a child, human beings should be reminded of the divine in humanity from which they distanced themselves when they descended to earth, but which has now returned to them. They should be reminded of this childlike nature within themselves. They should be reminded of the one who brought back their childlike nature. It was not exactly easy, but it is precisely in the way in which this celebration of the child of the world, Christmas, developed in the regions of Central Europe that one can see its wonderfully effective, sustaining power.
What we have seen today was only a small sample of the many Christmas plays. From the old days, from the kind of Christmas play I have mentioned briefly, there are still a number of so-called Paradise plays that were also performed at Christmas, in which the story of creation was actually performed. What remained was the connection with the shepherds' play, with the play of the three kings who bring their gifts. Much, much of this lived on in numerous plays. Most of them have now disappeared.
In the middle of the 18th century, for example, they began to disappear in rural areas. But it is wonderful to see how they lived. Karl Julius Schröer, whom I have often told you about, collected such Christmas plays in western Hungary in the 1850s, in the Pressburg area and further down from Pressburg to Hungary. Others collected similar Christmas plays in other regions, but what Karl Julius Schröer was able to find out about the customs associated with the performance of these Christmas plays is particularly moving. These Christmas plays existed in manuscript form in certain families in the village and were regarded as something very sacred. They were performed in such a way that when October approached, people already began thinking about performing these plays for the local farmers at Christmas time. Then the best boys and girls were chosen, and during the time they began to prepare, they stopped drinking wine and alcoholic beverages. They were no longer allowed to fight on Sundays, as was otherwise customary in such places, nor were they allowed to commit other acts of disorderly conduct. They really had to “lead a holy life,” as they said. And so there was an awareness that a certain moral mood of the soul was required of those who were to devote themselves to performing such plays during the Christmas season. Such plays were not to be performed out of the ordinary world.
Then they were performed with all the naivety that farmers can muster, but the whole performance was imbued with the deepest seriousness, infinite seriousness. The plays that Karl Julius Schröer, formerly Weinhold, and others collected in various regions at that time are all characterized by this deep seriousness with which people approached the mystery of Christmas. But that was not always the case. And we don't need to go back more than a few centuries to find something different, something highly peculiar. The very way in which these Christmas plays became established, especially in Central European regions, how they originated and gradually developed, shows us how overwhelming the Christmas spirit was. It was not immediately accepted as I have just described: that people approached it with holy awe, with great solemnity, with an awareness of the significance of the event that lived in their hearts. Oh no! In many areas, for example, it began with a nativity scene being set up in front of a side altar in this or that church—that was still in the 14th and 15th centuries, but it goes back even further; a nativity scene was set up, that is, a stable with an ox and a donkey and the baby and two dolls representing Joseph and Mary. That's how it started, with naive plastic figures. Then people wanted to bring more life into it, but initially from the clergy. Priests dressed up, one as Joseph, the other as Mary, and they acted it out—instead of the dolls, they played the roles. In the early days, they even performed it in Latin, because the old church attached great importance to this, as it seems that they saw a very deep meaning in the fact that those who watched or listened understood as little as possible of what was going on, but only saw the external facial expressions. But the people would no longer put up with this: they also wanted to understand something of what was being presented to them. And so they gradually began to translate some parts of it into the language that was spoken in the area. But finally, the people felt the urge to participate, to experience it for themselves. But it was still foreign to them, very foreign indeed. One must remember that even in the 12th and 13th centuries, people did not have the familiarity with the sacred mysteries, for example of Christmas, that we take for granted today. One must remember that people heard Mass year in, year out, including at Christmas, which was still celebrated at midnight, but that they did not hear the Bible—that was only for the priests to read—and that they knew only a few bits and pieces of the sacred history. And it was really at the same time, in order to make them familiar with what had once happened, that it was first presented to them in this dramatic way by the priests. They only learned about it in this way.
Now we must say something that we must ask you not to misunderstand. But it can be explained because it corresponds to the pure historical truth. It was not that these Christmas plays arose out of some kind of mystery cult or anything like that. Rather, it was the desire to participate in what was being presented to them, to be closer to it, to join in, to act: that brought the people to the event. And finally, they had to be allowed to participate in some way. It had to be made more understandable to the people. This process of making it more understandable proceeded step by step. For example, at first the people did not understand at all that the little child was lying in a manger. They had never seen a little child in a manger. Yes, in the past, when they were not allowed to understand anything, they accepted it. But now that they wanted to be part of it, it had to be completely understandable to them. So they just put a cradle there. And then the people began to participate by walking past the cradle, each one stepping up and rocking the baby for a while; and similar participation developed. There were even areas where things happened like this: they began quite seriously, and when the child was there, everyone began to make an enormous racket, and everyone shouted and danced and expressed their joy at the birth of the child. It was received in a mood that arose from the desire to move, from the desire to experience a story. But there was something so great, so powerful in the story that out of this entirely profane mood—it was a profane mood at first—the sacred mood I have just spoken of gradually developed. The event itself poured its holiness over a reception that at first could not be called holy. Especially in the Middle Ages, the holy Christmas story first had to conquer people. And it conquered them to such an extent that while they were performing their plays, they wanted to prepare themselves morally in such an intense way.
What was it that conquered human feelings, the human soul? The view of the child, the view of that which remains sacred in man while his other three bodies are connected with becoming earthly. Even if in certain regions and at certain times the story of Bethlehem took on grotesque forms, it was in human nature to develop this sacred view of childhood, which is connected with what entered into Christian development from the very beginning: the awareness of how that which remains in human beings when they begin their earthly development must enter into a new connection with that which has become connected with earthly human beings. So that they surrender to the earth the wood from which the cross must be made, with which they must enter into a new connection.
In the earlier times of Christian development in Central Europe, only the idea of Easter was actually popular. And it was only in the way I have described that the idea of Christmas gradually came into being. For what is written in the “Heliand” or similar works was indeed composed by individuals, but it did not become popular at all.
The popular character of Christmas arose in the way I have just described, which shows in a truly magnificent way how the idea of connection with the childlike, the pure, genuine childlike, which appeared in a new form in the baby Jesus, conquered people. When we combine this power of thought with the fact that this thought can live in our souls as the only thing that unites all human beings in our earthly existence, then it is the true Christian thought. And so the Christ thought grows great within us, and the Christ thought becomes what must gradually grow stronger within us if the further development of the earth is to take place in the right way. Let us consider how far human beings in their present earthly existence are still removed from what the depths of the Christ thought actually contain.
These days—perhaps you have read about it—a book by Ernst Haeckel is being published: “Eternity, World War Thoughts on Life and Death, Religion and Evolution.” A book by Ernst Haeckel is certainly a book that has emerged from a serious love of truth, certainly a book in which the most serious truth is sought. The following is said about what the book is intended to achieve: It is intended to point out what is happening on earth at present, how peoples are at war with one another, how they live together in hatred, how countless deaths occur every day. Ernst Haeckel also mentions all these thoughts that are so painful for human beings to contemplate, always, of course, against the background of of viewing the world as he can see it from his standpoint—we have often spoken of this, for even if one is a scholar of the humanities, one must recognize Haeckel as one of the greatest researchers—from that standpoint which, as we know, can also lead to other things, but which leads to what can be observed in the later phases of Haeckel's development. Now Haeckel is thinking about world war. He too says to himself how much blood is now flowing, how many deaths now surround us. And he asks himself: Can religious ideas exist alongside this? Can one somehow believe, Haeckel asks, that some wise providence, a benevolent God, rules the world when one sees that every day, through mere chance, as he says, so many people end their lives, die for no reason that could be proven to have any connection with any wise world government, but by chance, as he says, that this or that bullet hits them, that one person suffers this or that accident? Do all these wise thoughts, these thoughts of providence, have any meaning? Do not events such as these prove that man must stand still, that he is nothing more than what the external, materialistically conceived history of evolution shows us, and that, in essence, it is not a wise providence but chance that rules all earthly existence? Can one have any other religious thought than to resign oneself and say: One simply gives up one's body and is absorbed into the whole universe? — But if this universe, one asks further — Haeckel no longer asks this question — is nothing more than the play of atoms, does human life really come to an end in the meaning of earthly existence? As I said, Haeckel no longer asks this question, but he gives the answer in his Christmas book: It is precisely events such as those that now affect us so painfully that show that we have no right to believe that a benevolent providence or wise world government or anything of the kind pervades and animates the world. So resignation, accepting that this is how it is!
Also a Christmas book! A Christmas book that is very sincere and honest. But this book is based on a significant prejudice. It will be based on the prejudice that one must not search for the meaning of the earth in a spiritual way, that it is forbidden for humanity to search for meaning in a spiritual way! If one looks only at the external course of events, one does not see this meaning. Then it is as Haeckel says. And since this life has no meaning, it must remain so — that is what Haeckel believes. The meaning must not be sought!
Will not the other come and say: If we only ever look at our present events in such an external way, if we only ever point out that countless bullets are striking people at the present time, if we only look at them in this way and no meaning emerges, then they show us precisely that we must seek this meaning more deeply. They show us that we must not simply seek meaning in what is happening now on Earth and believe that these human souls perish with the physical body, but that we must seek what they begin when they pass through the gate of death. In short, someone else may come along and say: Precisely because no meaning can be found in the external world, meaning must be sought outside the external world, meaning must be sought in the supersensible world.
Is this very different from the same thing in a completely different field? Haeckel's science can lead those who think as Haeckel thinks today to reject any meaning in earthly existence. It can lead to the desire to prove, from the painful events of today, that earthly life as such has no meaning. But if we understand it in our way—as we have often done—then this same science becomes the starting point for showing what deep, great meaning can be unraveled in the vast phenomena around us. But for this, the spiritual must be at work in the world. We must be able to connect with the spiritual. Because people do not yet understand how to allow the power that has so wonderfully conquered hearts and souls to work upon them in the fields of scholarship, a sacred view arose from an almost profane view when looking at the mystery of Christmas, because scholars cannot yet grasp this, because they cannot yet connect the Christ impulse with what they see in the outer world, it is impossible for them to find a meaning, a real meaning, for the earth.
And so we must say: Science, with all its great advances, of which people today are rightly so proud, is not in itself capable of leading to a view of the world that satisfies human beings. By following its own path, it can lead to meaninglessness in the same way as it can lead to the meaning of the earth, just as in any other field. Let us take the external science that has developed so proudly in recent centuries, especially in the 19th century and up to the present day, with all its wonderful laws; let us take everything that surrounds us today: it has been brought forth by this science. We no longer burn in the same way as Goethe still burned his night light; we burn light and illuminate our rooms in a completely different way. And let us take everything that lives in our souls today as a result of our science: it has come into being through the great advances in science of which humanity is rightly proud. But how does this same science work? It works beneficially when human beings develop beneficial things. But today, precisely because it is such a perfect science, it produces irresistible instruments of murder. Its progress serves destruction just as much as it serves construction. Just as the science to which Haeckel professes can lead to meaning and nonsense, so the science that has achieved so much can serve construction and can serve destruction. And if it were only a matter of this science, it would always produce more and more terrible works of destruction from the same sources from which it builds. It does not have within itself an immediate impulse that drives humanity forward. Oh, if only one could understand this, one would then be able to assess this science in the right way. Only then would we know that there must be something else in human development than what man has been able to achieve through this science!
What is this science? In reality, it is nothing other than the tree that grows from Adam's grave, and the time will come when people will recognize that this science is the tree that grows from Adam's grave. And the time will come when people will realize that this tree must become the wood that is the cross of humanity, and that only then can it lead to blessing, when that which is crucified on it is connected in the right way with what lies beyond death but already lives here in human beings: that which we look to in holy Christmas, when we feel this holy Christmas in its mystery in the right way, that which can be represented in a childlike way, but which holds the highest mysteries. Is it not wonderful that it can be said to the people in the simplest way: That which rules through human life on earth came in, that which should not actually go beyond childhood! It is related to that to which human beings belong as something supersensible. Is it not wonderful that this supersensible, invisible thing in the most eminent sense could come so close to human souls in such a simple image — to simple human souls?
Those who are learned will also have to follow the path that these simple human souls have taken. There was also a time when people did not depict the child in the cradle or in the manger, but depicted the child sleeping on the cross. The child sleeping on the cross! A wonderfully profound image, expressing the whole thought that I wanted to bring to life before your souls today.
And isn't this thought, when you come right down to it, quite simple to express? It is! Let us search for the origin of those impulses that are so terribly opposed to each other in the world today! Where did these impulses originate? Where did everything that makes life so difficult for humanity today originate? In everything that we have become in the world from the moment we can remember back to. Let us go back beyond that moment, let us go back to the moment when we were called as little children who could enter the kingdom of heaven. That is where it originated; there is nothing in human souls that is today the cause of strife and discord. The thought can be expressed quite simply. But spiritually, we must recognize today that there is something primordial in the human soul that nevertheless transcends all human strife and all human disharmony.
We have often spoken of the ancient mysteries that sought to awaken in human nature that which enables human beings to look up into the supersensible, and we have spoken of how the mystery of Golgotha, audible to all human beings, placed the supersensible mystery on the stage of history. Basically, what connects us to the real idea of Christ is really there within us because we can have moments in our lives, in the true sense now, not in a figurative sense, when we can bring to life, despite everything we are in the outer world, by going back and feeling our way back to the child's point of view, by looking at the human being how he develops between birth and death, by feeling this within ourselves — that which we received as children.
Last Thursday, I gave a public lecture on Johann Gottlieb Fichte. I could have said one more thing — it would not have been fully understandable at the time — which would have shed light on many things that lived in this peculiar, pious form. I could have said why he actually became so special, and I should have said: because, despite growing old, he retained his childlike nature more than other people. There is more childlikeness in such people than in others. Such people grow less old! Indeed, more of what existed in childhood remains in such people than in other people. And that is the secret of many great people, that they can remain children in a certain way until a very late age; even when they die, they die as children, only partially expressed, of course, since one must be together with life.
The mystery of Christmas speaks to that in us which lives as childishness, speaks to the divine child who was chosen to receive Christ, to whom we look as to the one above whom Christ already hovers, who in reality came to earth to bring salvation through the mystery of Golgotha.
Let us be aware of this: when we surrender the imprint of our higher human being, when we surrender our physical body to the earth, this is not merely a physical process. Something spiritual is also happening. But this spiritual process can only proceed in the right way if the Christ being, which passed through the mystery of Golgotha, has flowed into the earth's aura. We do not see what the whole earth is in its entirety unless we see Christ connected with the earth since the mystery of Golgotha, that Christ whom we can pass by as we pass by everything supersensible if we feel equipped only in the materialistic sense, but whom we cannot pass by if the earth is to have a real, true meaning for us. Therefore, it is essential that we are able to awaken within ourselves that which opens our view to the spiritual world.
Let us make Christmas what it should be for us in particular: a celebration that does not merely serve the past, but also serves the future, the future that will gradually bring about the birth of spiritual life for all humanity. But let us connect ourselves with the prophetic feeling, with the prophetic foreboding that such a birth of spiritual life must be brought to humanity, that a “great Christmas,” a birth of that which gives meaning to the thoughts of the people of the earth, must work upon the future of humanity. That meaning which the earth has objectively received through the connection of the Christ Being with the earth's aura through the Mystery of Golgotha. Let us remember at Christmas how the light of spiritual life must enter human evolution out of the depths of darkness. That old light of spiritual life, which existed before the mystery of Golgotha, gradually fading away, had to pass away, and it must be resurrected, reborn after the mystery of Golgotha through the consciousness in the human soul: that this human soul is connected with what Christ became for the earth through the mystery of Golgotha.
If there are more and more people who understand Christmas in this spiritual sense, then Christmas will develop a power in human hearts and souls that has meaning in all ages: in times when people are filled with feelings of happiness, but also in times when people must surrender to the feelings of pain that must permeate us today when we think of the great misery of the times.
Someone has expressed in beautiful words how looking up to the spiritual nature of the earth gives meaning to life, and I would like to share these words with you today:
What has given my eyes this power,
That all deformity has vanished from them,
That nights become bright suns,
Disorder becomes order and decay becomes life?What, through the confused weaving of time and space,
Guides me safely to the eternal fountain
Of beauty, truth, goodness, and delight,
And in which all my striving is destroyed?That is it: since in Urania's eye, the deep,
Clear, blue, silent, pure
Flame of light, I myself have gazed silently;Since then, this eye rests in the depths
And is in my being, — the eternal One,
Lives in my life, sees in my sight.
And in a second short poem:
Nothing is, except God, and God is nothing, except life,
You know, I know with you in union;
But how could knowledge be there,
If it were not knowledge of God's life!"How gladly, oh, would I give myself to this,
But where can I find it? If it flows into knowledge,
It is transformed into illusion,
Mixed with it, surrounded by its veil."The veil rises clearly before you,
It is your ego; let everything that is perishable die,
And from now on, only God lives in your striving.See through what survives this striving,
Then the shell will become visible to you as a shell,
And you will see divine life unveiled.
However, people do not always know what to do with those who point them to the spiritual, which gives meaning to the earth. It is not only materialists who do not know this. Others who believe they are not materialists because they always say “God, God, God” or “Lord, Lord, Lord” often do not know how to make the right use of these guides to the spiritual world! For what could one do with a person who says: Nothing is, except God! Everything is God! God is everywhere, everywhere! — He sought God in everything, he who said:
See through what this striving survives, then the shell will become visible to you as a shell, and you will see divine life unveiled!He who wants to see divine life everywhere could be accused of not allowing the world to exist, of denying the world—he could be called a world denier! His contemporaries called him a God denier and therefore expelled him from the university. For the words I have read to you are those of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. He is a prime example of how—when what happened in the Mystery of Golgotha lives on in the human soul throughout its earthly existence, and when, in connection with this Mystery of Golgotha, it can be struck as an impulse to the soul in the Christmas Mystery—a path is opened up on which we can find that consciousness in which our own I flows together with the earthly I, for this earthly I is the Christ, through whom we develop something of the human being that must become greater and greater if the earth is to move toward the development for which it was destined from the beginning.
So, especially out of the spirit of our spiritual knowledge, let us allow the Christmas thought to become an impulse within us in the sense that has been presented again today, and let us try, by by looking up to this Christmas thought, not to see the absurdity of earthly development in what is happening around us, but also to see in suffering and pain, even in strife and hatred, something that ultimately helps humanity forward, that really brings humanity a step forward.
More important than searching for the causes, which can so easily be obscured by party disputes, more important than searching for the causes of what is happening today, is to direct our gaze toward the possible effects, toward those effects that we must imagine as healing, as beneficial for humanity.
The nation, the people who will do what is right will be those who are able to shape a future that is beneficial to humanity from what springs forth from the blood-soaked soil. But something beneficial for humanity will only come into being if people find their way to the spiritual worlds; if people do not forget that there is not only a temporal Christmas, but that there must be an everlasting Christmas, an everlasting birth of the divine spirit in physical human beings.
We want to embrace this sacredness of thought in our souls today in particular, and keep it with us throughout the Christmas season, which can also be a symbol of the development of light in its outward course. Darkness, earthly darkness in its highest degree, as it can be here on earth, will now be present in these days, in this season. But when the earth lives in this deepest outer darkness, we know that the earth soul experiences its light and begins to awaken in the highest degree.
The Christmas season is followed by the spiritual vigil, and this spiritual vigil should be connected with the memory of the spiritual awakening brought about by Christ Jesus for the development of the earth. Hence the institution of the Christmas festival of dedication at this particular time.
In this cosmic and at the same time earthly-moral sense, let us connect the Christmas thought with our soul and then, strengthened and fortified by this very thought of consecration, look with all our power upon everything, desiring what is right for the progress of events, but also desiring the progress of what is right in the deeds of the present.
And by immediately beginning to activate in our souls the strength we can draw from this Christmas, we look once again to the protective spirits of those who have to enter difficult places outside for the great events of the times:
Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
Your protection to the people of Earth whom you trust,
That, united with your power,
Our plea may shine helpfully
Upon the souls who seek it lovingly!
And for those who have already passed through the gates of death in this time of difficult human tasks as a result of the great demands of our present, let the words be said once again in the following form:
Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
Your protection to the people of the spheres you trust,
That, united with your power,
Our plea may shine helpfully
To the souls that seek it lovingly!
And the spirit that has passed through the mystery of Golgotha, the spirit that has promised salvation and progress to the earth in what people will understand more and more, even in the mystery of Christmas, may it be with you and your difficult duties!