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The Christmas Festival In The Changing Course Of Time
GA 125

22 December 1910, Berlin

When we wander at this time of year through the streets of large cities, we find them full of all sorts of things which our contemporaries want to have for their celebration of the approaching Christmas festival. Indeed, it is one of the greatest festivals of the year which humanity can celebrate: the festival which commemorates the most powerful impulse in the evolution of mankind. And yet, if we contemplate what will take place in the coming days in large cities such as ours, we may well ask: Does all of this correspond rightly to what is meant to flow through the souls and hearts of man?

If we don't give ourselves up to illusions but simply face the truth, then perhaps we cannot help but admit to ourselves: All these preparations and celebrations of the Christmas festival which we see in our time fit in very poorly on the one hand with all other happenings of modern civilization around us; and on the other hand they fit in equally poorly with what should live in the depth of the human heart as a commemorative thought of the greatest impulse which humanity received in the course of its evolution.

So it is perhaps no overstatement if we express the following view: There is a lack of harmony in what our eyes perceive, when we wish to permeate ourselves with the Christmas mood, and wish to receive this Christmas mood from what we can see in today's environment. There is a discord in seeing the streets bedecked with Christmas trees and other decorations in preparation for the festival, and then seeing modern traffic rushing through the midst of it all. And if modern man does not feel the full extent of this discord, the reason may well be that he has disaccustomed himself to be sensitive to all the depth and intimacy which can be connected with this approaching festival. Of all that the Christmas festival can do to deepen man's inner nature, basically no more is left today, especially for the city dweller, than a last faint echo. He is hardly in a position to feel even vaguely its former greatness. His habits prevent him from perceiving this greatness any longer, a greatness to which humanity had become accustomed in the course of centuries.

It would be totally wrong if we would look with pessimism at the fact that times have changed, and that in our modern cities it has become impossible to develop that mood of profound intimacy which prevailed in earlier times with regard to this festival. It would not be right to allow such a pessimistic mood to arise, for at the same time we can feel an intimation—in our circles this feeling should certainly be present—that humanity can once again come to experience the full depth and greatness of the impulse which belongs to this festival. Seeking souls have every reason to ask themselves: “What can this ‘Christ festival’ mean to us?”. And in their hearts they can admit: Precisely through Spiritual Science something will be given to humanity, which will bring again, in the fullest sense of the word, that depth and greatness which cannot be any more today. If we don't succumb to illusion and phantasy we must admit that these can no longer exist at present. What has become often a mere festival of gifts cannot be said to have the same meaning as what the Christmas festival meant to people for many centuries in the past. Through the celebration of this festival the souls used to blossom forth with hope-filled joy, with hope-borne certainty, and with the awareness of belonging to a spiritual Being, Who descended from Spiritual heights, and united Himself with the earth, so that every human soul of good will may share in His powers. Indeed, for many centuries the celebration of this festival awakened in the souls of men the consciousness that the individual human soul can feel firmly supported by the spiritual power just described, and that all men of good will can find themselves gathered together in the service of this spiritual power. Thereby they can also find together the right ways of life on earth, so that they can mean humanly as much as possible to one another, so that they can love each other as human beings on earth as much as possible.

Suppose we find it appropriate to let the following comparison work on our souls: What has the Christmas festival been for many centuries, and what should it become in the future? To this end, let us compare, on the one hand, the mood which social custom creates nowadays in certain parts of the world around us, with the mood that once permeated the Christmas festival. On the other hand, let us compare this mood of the present time with what can come about in the soul as a renewal of this festival, made as it were timeless, through Spiritual Science.

For a modern urban dweller it is hardly possible to appreciate truly the full depth of what is connected with our great seasonal festivals. It is hardly possible to experience that magic which like a gentle breeze permeated the mood of soul of those who believed that they bore the Christ in their hearts during the great festivities surrounding Christmas or Easter. Today it has become very difficult indeed, especially for the city dweller, to sense anything of this magic, which permeated humanity like a gentle spiritual breeze during those seasons. For those who have had the opportunity of experiencing even a little of this magic wind which permeated the soul mood in those times this will most certainly be a wonderful, glorious memory. As a young child I was able to behold the last remnants of such a magic wind as it permeated the souls, the mood, of country folk in certain remote German villages. When the Christmas season approached I could behold how something arose in the deepest, innermost soul life of young and old, which differed essentially from the feelings and sentiments that prevailed during the rest of the year. When Christmas approached this could still be sensed quite distinctly in certain farming villages as recently as a few decades ago. The souls had then a natural way of making themselves inwardly beautiful. And they really felt something like this: “Into deepest night-enveloped darkness has the physical sunlight descended during autumn. More outer physical darkness has come about. Long have the nights become, shortened are the days. We must stay home much of the time. During the other seasons we used to go outside, to the fields, where we would feel the golden rays of the morning sun coming to meet us, where we could feel the warmth of the sun, where we could work with our hands during the long days of summer. But now, we must sit inside much of the time, we must feel much, much darkness around us, and we must often see, as we look outside through windows, how the earth is being covered with its winter garment.”

It is not possible to depict in detail all the beautiful, the wonderful soul moods which awoke in the simplest farm homes on Sunday afternoons and evenings as the Christmas season approached. One would have to depict very intimate soul moods. One would have to tell how many, who had been involved in a good share of fights and mischief during the rest of the year, would feel a natural restraint in their souls, as a result of being filled with the thought: “The time of Christ draws near.” They would feel: Time itself is becoming too holy to allow mischief to occur during this season.—That is only a minor aspect of what was extensively present in past centuries, and what could still be seen in its last remnants in those remote villages in recent decades. When the celebration of Christmas retreated into the homes as a family festival you would see there no more than a little display representing the stable in Bethlehem. The children would enjoy everything connected with it, as they saw Joseph and Mary, with the shepherds in front, and the angels above, sometimes done in a very primitive way. In some villages you would find such a display of the “manger” in almost every home. What had thus retreated into the homes was more or less a last echo of something which we will touch upon later.—And when the main days of the Christmas festival, the 25th and 26th of December, had passed and Epiphany, the festival of the Three Kings, approached, you could still see a few decades ago small groups of actors wandering from village to village—the last actors to present plays of “the Holy Story.” The actual Christmas plays had already become quite rare, but a last echo of “The Play of the Three Kings” could often still be seen, as it might be even today (1910) in some remote villages. There were the “Three Holy Kings”, wearing strange costumes, different for each one, with paper crowns and a star on their heads. Thus would they move through the villages, seldom lacking humor, but with humor and reverence together. With their primitive voices they would awaken all those feelings which the soul should feel in connection with what the Bible tells of the great Christ Impulse of human evolution.

The essential thing is that a mood prevailed during the Christmas season, the days and weeks surrounding the Christmas festival, to which the heart was given over, a mood in which the whole village would participate, and which enabled people to take in with simple immediacy all the representations that were brought before their souls. Grotesque, comedy-like presentations of sacred scenes, such as have become customary in our time in imitation of the Passion Plays of Oberammergau, would have met with no understanding in those days. The memory and the thought of the great periods of humanity were then still alive. It would have been impossible to find anyone willing to experience the events of the Holy Night and of the Three Kings during any other days of the year. And it would have been just as impossible to accept the Passion story at any other time but Easter. People felt united with what spoke to them from the stars, the weeks, the seasons, what spoke out of snow and sunshine. And they listened to tales of what they wanted to feel and should feel, when the so-called “Star-Singers” went around, wearing paper crowns on their heads, and lately wearing simply a white jacket. One of them used to carry a star, attached to a scissor-like device, so that he could project the star some distance out. Thus they would wander through the villages, stopping at various homes, to present their simple tales. What mattered most was that just at this time people's hearts were rightly attuned, so that they were able to take in everything that was supposed to permeate their souls during this season. I myself have still heard quite a few times these “Star-Singers”, reciting their simple poems as they wandered through the villages, and this is for me still a beautiful memory. An example follows *:

In God's Name now our tale begins.
From Orient came the Holy Kings.
They ride with speed on distant ways,
Four hundred miles in thirteen days.
They ride by Herod's palace-walls
As Herod from his window calls:
Whither go ye, relax your speed!
To Bethlehem our journey does lead.
Ye Holy Three Kings be guests of mine,
I will draw plenty of beer and wine,
I will serve venison roast and fish;
To know of the newborn king is my wish.
In truth, we cannot tell just where;
We have to follow the star we bear:
Over the house the star will shine bright.
Over the mountains the holy men ride.
There found they Jesus Christ, our Lord,
Who is the Savior of all the world.1From “Deutsche Weihnachtspiele aus Ungarn”, described and communicated by Karl Julius Schröer, Vienna, 1862, “Oberschützener Sternsinger” (The Star-Singers of Oberschützen), p. 160.

The whole village would take part in such things. As certain lines were recited the star would be projected far out. This star of Christmas, of the Three Kings, was an expression of the consonance of the season, the festivity, and the human hearts. That was a great thing, which had spread through centuries like a magic breath of air over large parts of the earth and into the simplest hearts and minds. We must try to place something like this before our souls. As seekers after spiritual knowledge we are able to do so, because through our years of contemplative work on this great event we were able to develop again a feeling for the real power which was thereby given for all of mankind and for the whole evolution of the earth. And it is to this event that our thoughts should be directed during this festival season.

So we may expect to gain some understanding of how in times past the whole Christmas season was immersed in a festive mood, especially among the people of Germany and Western Europe, and how this festive mood was achieved by the simplest means. But perhaps only the spiritual seeker can understand today what was essential in those ancient Christmas plays. What I have presented to you just now as the “Star-Song” is, in fact, only a last remnant, a last ruin. If we would go back several centuries we would find vast regions where Christmas plays were performed when this time approached, in the presentation of which entire villages took part. As regards our knowledge of these Christmas plays we may well say that we were merely in a position of collecting something that was rapidly vanishing.

I myself had the good fortune of having an old friend who was such a collector. From him I heard many stories of what he encountered as a scholarly collector of Christmas plays, especially in German-Hungarian regions. In certain “language islands” in Hungary the German language had been kept alive both as a mother tongue and for colloquial speech, up to the time of the so-called magyarization in the fifties and sixties of the nineteenth century, when the Hungarian language was imposed. There one could still find many of the Christmas plays and Christmas customs which had vanished long ago into the stream of oblivion in the German motherland. Individual colonists, who migrated into Slavic regions during the previous centuries, had preserved their ancient heritage of Christmas plays, and they renewed them, whenever they could find the right people to play the parts, always recruiting the players from among the villagers themselves. I can still well remember—and perhaps you will take my word for it—with how much enthusiasm the old professor Schröer spoke of these Christmas plays, when he told of having been present when these people performed these plays during the festival season.

We can say without exaggerating, that an understanding of the inner nature of the artistic element in these plays can only be reached by actually visiting these village people and witnessing how they have given birth to the simple artistry of such Christmas plays out of a truly most holy mood. There are people today, who believe that they can learn the art of speech and recitation from this or that teacher. They will go to all sorts of places in order to learn certain breathing exercises which are considered to be the right ones for this purpose. And there exist nowadays dozens of “right” breathing methods for singing and for declamation. These people believe that it is essential for them to make a real automaton of their body or their larynx. Thus they cultivate art in a materialistic way. I would only hope that this strange view will never really take root in our circles; for these people have no idea how a simple, yet true art was born out of a most reverent mood, a prayerful Christmas mood.

Such art was actually performed by village lads who engaged in good-for-nothing pranks and behaved in a very loose way during the rest of the year. These very same lads would act in the Christmas plays with a most profound Christmas mood in their souls and hearts. For, these simple people, who lived beneath their thatched roofs, knew infinitely more about the relation of the human soul, even the whole human being, and art, than is known today in our modern theaters or other art institutions, no matter how much ado surrounds these things. They knew that true art has to spring from the whole human being; and if it be sacred-art then it must spring from man's holy mood of devotion. That, indeed, these people knew! And this can be seen, for example, in the “four principle rules”, found in those regions which Schröer could still visit.

As the months of October or November approached, in the regions of Upper Hungary, one person who knew the Christmas plays would gather those people who he felt were suitable to perform them. These plays were passed on by oral tradition. They were never committed to writing. That would have been considered a profanation. And during the Christmas season some people were considered suited, of whom one would perhaps not have thought so at other times: really roguish good-for-nothing lads, who had been involved in all sorts of mischief during the rest of the year. But during this time of the year their souls immersed themselves in the required mood. The participants had to abide by some very strict rules during the many weeks of rehearsals. Anyone who wanted to take part had to adhere strictly to the following rules.—Try to imagine life in these villages, and what it would mean not to be allowed to participate in these Christmas plays. “Anyone wishing to act in the plays must:

  1. stay away from the girls,
  2. sing no bawdy songs during the entire Holy Season,
  3. lead a decent life,
  4. obey my orders.

A fine will be levied for all violations, and also for each error in memorizing your lines.”2See “Weihnachtspiele aus altem Volkstum; Die Oberufer Spiele” (G.A. 43, Dornach 1965), Christmas Plays from Oberufer, translated by A.C. Harwood, Rudolf Steiner Press, London.

Do you recognize in this custom something like a last echo of the kind of consciousness that prevailed at the holy sites of the ancient mysteries? There too, one knew that wisdom cannot be achieved by mere schooling. Likewise, an awareness prevailed here that the whole human being, including his mind and morals, must be cleansed and purified, if he wished to partake in art in a worthy way. These plays had to be born out of the whole human being! And the attunement to the Christmas mood brought about something like this, brought about that devotion and piety would take hold even of the most roguish lads.

These Christmas plays, of which I have just told you, and which Schröer and others could still observe and collect, were the last remains of more ancient plays, indeed, merely the last ruins. But through these plays we can look back into earlier times, into the 16th, 15th, 14th century and even further, when the relations between villages and cities were quite different. Indeed, in the Christmas season the souls of village people would immerse themselves into an entirely different mood through what these plays would offer them, as they presented with the simplest, most primitive means the holy legend: the birth of Christ with all that belongs to it according to the Bible. And just as Christmas day, the 25th of December, was preceded in the church calendar by the “Day of Adam and Eve”, so what was considered the actual Christmas play was preceded by the so-called Paradise play, the play of Adam and Even in Paradise, where they fell victim to the devil, the snake. Thus in the most primitive regions where such plays were performed, people could gain an immediate insight into the connection between the descent of man from spiritual heights to the physical world—and that sudden reversal which was bestowed on man through the Christ Impulse, upward again towards the spiritual worlds.

Suppose when reading the Epistles of St. Paul you would sense the greatness of the Pauline conception of man, who descended as Adam from the spiritual world to the world of the senses, and then, of the “new Adam and Christ, in whom man ascends again from the world of the senses into the world of the spirit. This can be sensed and felt in Paul in a grandiose way. The simplest people, even down to the children, could sense this in an intimate, loving, fulfilling way in the depth of their hearts and souls when they beheld in this season in succession first the fall of man in the Paradise play of Adam and Eve, and then the revelation of Christ in the Christmas play. And they felt profoundly the mighty turning point that had occurred in the evolution of humanity through the Christ Event. A reversal of the path of evolution, that was the way the Christ Event was experienced! One path, that led so to say from heaven to earth, was the path from Adam to Christ; another path, that leads from earth to heaven, is the oath from Christ to the end of earth time. That is what many thousands of people felt in a most intimate way, when the two plays which I have just characterized were so primitively performed before their eyes. These people really could then experience the complete renewal of the human spirit in its very essence through the Christ-Impulse. Perhaps you can feel in all of this a kind of echo of something that was once felt in regard to this reversal of the entire progress of humanity through certain words which have come down to us from very ancient times, from the first Christian centuries. These words were often spoken, even in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, in those regions of Europe where Christianity had spread. There people felt something tremendous when words such as these were spoken:

Ave maris Stella
Dei mater alma
Atque semper virgo
Felix coeli porta

Sumens illud Ave
Gabrielis ore
Funda nos in pace
Mutans nomen Evae!

When these words were spoken people felt man's path from heaven to earth through the Fall—and the ascent of man through Christ from earth to heaven. They felt this even in the names of the two female characters, the name Eva (Eve) and the name they associated with the mother of Jesus, with which one greeted her so to say: Ave! Ave is the reverse of the name Eva. When you spell Ave backwards you have Eva. That was felt in its full significance. These word; express what people sensed in the most elementary phenomena of nature, and at the same time, what they saw in the human elements of the Holy Legend:

Ave (I greet you) star of the sea
Divine youthful mother3A more conventional translation of alma is ‘bountiful’, but Rudolf Steiner translates it as ‘young’.
And virgin eternal
Thou happy portal of heaven.

Receiving this “Ave” (greeting)
From the mouth of Gabriel
Be thou our foundation for peace
By reversing the name Eva!

In such simple words one felt the greatest mysteries, the greatest secrets of human evolution. And in the reversal of the name Eva to Ave people would feel in a subtle way that same truth which we can learn in a grandiose way from the Epistles of Paul when we read his words about Adam, the “old” Adam, and Christ, the “new” Adam. This was the mood in the days of the Christ-festival when these plays were performed one after the other in that primitive way: the “Paradise play” which shows us the Fall of man, and the “Christmas play” which awakens the hope for the future, in which each single human soul can share by taking up the force that lies in the Christ-Impulse. But it should be perfectly clear that to feel this requires a mood, an inner attunement, which simply cannot exist in this way anymore today. Times have changed. Back then it was not as impossible to look towards the spiritual worlds as it is today. For, that fundamentally materialistic trait, which permeates today the minds of the simplest as well as the most sophisticated people did not exist then. In those times the spiritual world was accepted as self-evident. And likewise a certain understanding was present of this spiritual world and how it differs from the world of the senses. Today people can hardly conceive how one could feel spiritually as late as the 15th or 16th century, and how an awareness of spirituality was present essentially everywhere.

We intend to present such a Christmas play in our art center. It is one from the region known as the Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz). If we succeed, understanding can again be awakened, also in the outer world, for the spiritual mood that lives in such plays. For us, certain lines in such a Christmas play should become signposts, as it were, by which we recognize the spiritual sensitivity of the people who were to understand the Christmas play at the festival season. For example, if in one or another Christmas play Mary, expecting the Jesus-child, says, “The time has come, I see a little child”, this means she clairvoyantly beheld the child in a vision in the days preceding the birth. Thus it is in many Christmas plays. And I wonder where you could find a similar tale today for such an occasion. The time when a conscious connection with the spiritual world was present is no more. You should appreciate this fact neither with optimistic nor with pessimistic feelings. Nowadays you would have to go very far afield, to the most remote and primitive rural areas, to find instances of a vision of the child that is to be born in a few days. But it does still happen!

What people brought to the Christmas season by these primitive memories and thoughts of the greatest event of human evolution, this could only be carried by a mood such as we described. Therefore, we must find it quite understandable that in the place of this former poetry, this simple primitive art, we have today the prose of electric railways and automobiles, speeding forth so grotesquely between rows of Christmas trees. An aesthetically sensitive eye must find it impossible to view these two kinds of things together: Christmas trees, Christmas sales, and cars and electric trains running through their midst! Today this impossible situation is naturally accepted as a matter of course. But for an aesthetically sensitive eye it remains nevertheless something impossible. Even so, we want to be friends of our civilization, not enemies. We want to understand that it must be so as a matter of course.

But we want to understand too how much this is connected with the materialistic trait which has pervaded not only those who live in the city, but those who live in the country as well. Oh, by listening carefully, we can actually detect how this materialistic mood has taken hold of human minds. When we go back to the 14th or 13th century we find that people knew full well that something spiritual is meant when such a thing as the tree of knowledge in paradise is mentioned. They understood rightly what was presented in the Paradise play. When they were shown the tree of knowledge or the tree of life they knew to what to relate it spiritually. For in those days superstition about such matters had not yet spread to the extent it did later, in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. In fact it can be historically documented that already in the 15th century, in the vicinity of the city of Bamberg, people went out into the apple orchards on Christmas night because they expected to see physically, materially, that a specially chosen apple tree would bloom that night. Thus people's minds became materialistic, in the period beginning in the 13th or 14th century and extending into the 16th and 17th century. This happened not only in the cities, but also in the souls of simple country folk.

Even so, much of the ancient poetry found its way into the homes, with the Christmas tree. But what wafted through the ancient villages as a most sacred mood, like a mystery, has become merely external poetry, the poetry of the Christmas tree, still beautiful, yet merely an echo of something much greater.

Why is this so? Because in the course of time humanity must evolve, because what is most intimate, what is greatest and most significant at one time, cannot remain so in the same way for all times. Only an enemy of evolution would want to drag what was great in one time over into other times. Each period of time has its own special mission. In each period we must learn how to enliven in ever new ways what should enter the souls and hearts of man. Our time can only appreciate that real Christmas mood, which I have sketched here in brief outline, if this mood is seen as a historic memory, a thing of the past. Yet, if we do accept the symbol of the Christmas tree also into our own festival gatherings, we do so precisely because we connect with Spiritual Science the thought of a new Christmas mood of mankind, of progressively evolving mankind. For Spiritual Science means to introduce the secrets of Christ into the hearts and souls of man in a way that is appropriate for our time. Even though modern conveyances rush past us when we step outdoors, or perhaps will even fly away with us through the air—and soon these things will awaken humanity quite differently to the most sobering and terrifying prose—nevertheless men of today must have a chance to find again the divine-spiritual world, precisely by an even stronger and more meaningful deepening of the soul. This is the same divine-spiritual world which in bygone centuries appeared before the eyes of those primitive minds when they saw at Christmas time the Holy Child in the manger. Today we need other means to awaken this mood in the soul. Certainly we may like to immerse ourselves in what past times possessed as ways to find the Christ Event, but we must also transcend what depends on time. Ancient people approached the secrets of Nature by merging with her through feeling. That was only possible in a primitive time. Today we need other means.

I would still like to give you some idea how people felt their way into nature when the Christmas festival approached. They did this quite primitively, yet they could speak in a very real and living way out of their sensing and feeling of the elements of Nature. If I may share with you a little “Star Song”, you will perhaps feel only through one single line, how the elements of Nature spoke out of the soul—the rest of the song is rather primitive. But if you listen more carefully you will be able to observe this Nature mood in several other lines.

Namely, when the one who gathered his actors for the Christmas play, or for the Three Kings play, would wander with them, and when they would then perform at some place, they would first extend a greeting to those who were assembled there. For, the sort of abstract attitude which prevails today between actors and audience did not exist in those earlier times. People belonged together, and the whole gathering was enveloped by an atmosphere of community. Therefore the actors would start by greeting in a primitive way those who were present, as well as those of the community who were not there. This really would bring out the Christmas mood.

The Star-Song

The star singer:

Beloved singers mine, let's gather as a clan
Like fritters in a frying pan,
Beloved singers mine, take up your place,
We want to pass our while with singing in this space.
Beloved singers mine, so strong and smart,
With greetings do we want to start.
Let us greet God-Father on His highest throne
And let us greet also His only Son.
Let us greet the Holy Spirit by name
And then greet all three together again.

Joseph and Mary enter the stage.

Let us greet Joseph and Mary mild,
And we also greet the little child.
Let us greet the ox and also the ass,
Which stand near the crib with straw and grass.
Let us greet them through sunlight and moonshine
That shine on the sea and the river Rhine.
Let us greet them through foliage and grassy blade,
Through the holy rain that has wet us all made.
Let us greet the emperor and his crown,
And him who made it, a master of great renown.
Let us greet the squire, Sir Palfi by name,
Also his officers we greet the same.
Let us greet our fathers of the church, so stern,
Because this play they allowed us to learn.
Let us greet the judge and the jury elect
With worthy honor and respect.
The whole honored community we greet
All who together here we meet.
Let us greet the honored council of this place
By God ordained to serve in this space.
Let us greet them through the roots, large and small,
Which are in the earth, many and all.
Beloved singers mine, turn now to another thing.
To greet the star we shall now sing.
Let us greet the slats, so carefully matched,
To which our star is then attached.
Let us greet the scissors that can stretch out far
By which can wander around the star.
We greet all the little slats of wood
As many as make our star look so good.
Beloved singers mine, harken well to my words
We sang to the star and to all of its parts.
Now we greet our master singer with glee
And also his hat which here you see.
Let us greet our teacher, who indeed,
With God's help taught us what we need.
Beloved singers mine, note well this thing,
To all of these we did now sing.

Now I ask you, please notice what this means: to call upon Nature in such a way that one greets everyone whom one wishes to greet with a certain mood in one's heart, a mood which arises from: “the roots, large and small, which are in the earth, many and all.” That is empathy for Nature's own mood.—Thus we must recognize that people in those days were connected with all that was holy, with all that was great and spiritual, right down to the roots of trees and grass. If you can enter into such a feeling, then, through a line such as the one I have just cited, you will feel something grandiose in the secrets of the evolution of mankind. The times are past when such feelings were naturally present, when they were a matter of course. Today we need to make use of other means. We need ways which will lead us to a well-spring in human nature that lies deeper, to a wellspring of human nature which, in a certain sense, is independent of external time. For the course of modern civilization makes it impossible for us to be bound by the seasons. Therefore, if you truly understand the mood which was felt in olden times as the Christ mood of the holy Christmas night, you will also be able to understand our intent, as we attempt to deepen artistically what we can gain from Spiritual Science. We strive to enliven that well-spring in the human mind which can take in the Christ Impulse. No longer can we awaken this great impulse directly within our souls during the Christmas season, even though we would be happy if we could. Yet we constantly search for it. If we can see a “Christ-festival of the progress of humanity” in what Spiritual Science is intended to be for mankind, and if we compare this with what simple people could feel when the Child in the crib was displayed during the Holy Christmas Night then we must say to ourselves: Such moods and feelings can awake in us too, if we consider what can be born in our own soul when our inner-most wellspring is so well attuned to what is sacred, so purified through spiritual knowledge, that this wellspring can take in the holy mystery of the Christ Impulse.

From this point of view we also try to discover true art which springs from the spirit. This art can only be a child of true devotion, a child of the most sacred feelings, when we feel in this context the eternal, imperishable “Christ festival of humanity”: How the Christ-Impulse can be born in the human soul, in the human heart and mind. When we learn to experience again through Spiritual Science that this Christ Impulse is a reality, something which can actually flow into our souls and hearts as a living strength, then the Christ Impulse will not remain something abstract or dogmatic. Rather this Christ Impulse, which comes forth from our spiritual movement, will become something able to give us solace and comfort in the darkest hours of our lives, able also to give us joy in the hope that when Christ will be born in our soul at the “Christmastide of our soul”, we may then look forward to the Eastertide, the resurrection of the spirit in our own inner life.

In this way we must progress, from a material attitude which has entered and taken hold of all minds and hearts, towards a spiritual attitude. For, that renewal, which is necessary to counterbalance today's prosaic ways of life, can only be born out of the spirit. Outside, the traffic of cars may move by, electric trains may speed on, perhaps even balloons may fly across the sky. Nevertheless, in halls such as these, it will be possible that something of a holy mood lives and grows. This can however only happen as a result of what has flowed to us from spirit knowledge throughout the entire year. When this fruit of the entire year brings Christ closer to us, as could happen in former times in a much more childlike mood, then we may rightly hope that in a certain sense these halls will be “cribs”. We may then look upon these halls in a similar way as the children and the grown-ups used to look on Christmas eve upon the cradle that was set up for them at home, or in still earlier times, in the church. They used to look at the little Child, at the shepherds before Him, and at “the ox and also the ass which stand near the crib with straw and grass”. They felt that from this symbol strength would stream into their hearts, for all hope, for all love of man, for all that is great in mankind, and for all goals of the earth. If on this day, which shall be consecrated and dedicated to remembering the Christ Impulse, we can feel that our earnest spiritual scientific striving throughout the entire year has kindled something in our hearts, then on this day our hearts will feel: “These our meeting halls are truly cradles! And these candles are symbols! And just as Christmas is a preparation for Easter, so these cradles, by virtue of the holy mood that fills them, and these candles, through the symbolism of their light, are meant to be a preparation for a great era for humanity, the era of the resurrection of the most Holy Spirit, of truly spiritual life!”

So let us try to feel that in this Christmas season our meeting halls are cradles, places in which, secluded from the outer world, something great is being prepared. Let us learn to feel that if we study diligently throughout the year, our insights, our wisdom, can be condensed on Christmas eve into very warm feelings, which glow like a fire, fueled by what we have gained throughout the whole year by immersing ourselves into great teachings. And let us feel that thereby we nurture our remembrance of the greatest impulse in human evolution. Let us also feel, therefore, that in these halls we may have faith that what now begins to burn within such a confined cradle as a holy fire, and as a light, filled with certainty of hope, will find its way to all mankind at some future time. Then this fire and this light will be strong enough to extend its power even to the hardest, most down to earth prose of life, to permeate it, to enkindle it, to warm it, to enlighten it! Thus can we feel here the Christmas mood as a mood of hope in anticipation of that World-Easter-mood which is to express the living spirit, needed for a renewal of humanity.

We best celebrate Christmas when we fill our souls in the coming days with this mood: In our Christmas we spiritually prepare the “Easter festival of all mankind”, the resurrection of spiritual life. Yes indeed, cradles shall our places of work become at Christmas time! The child of light is to be born, whom we have nurtured throughout the entire year by immersing ourselves into the wisdom-treasures of Spiritual Science. In our places of work Christ is to be born within the human soul, in order that spiritual life may be resurrected at the great Eastertide of humanity. In its very essence humanity must come to feel spirituality as a resurrection, by virtue of what streams forth as Christmas mood from our halls into all humanity, in the present time as well as in the future.

Das Weihnachtsfest Im Wandel Der Zeiten

Wenn wir in dieser Zeit in unseren großen Städten hinausgehen in die Straßen, so finden wir diese Straßen erfüllt mit dem, was unsere Zeitgenossen sich zur Feier des Festes, dem wir entgegengehen, verschaffen wollen, zur Feier eines der großen Feste, das im Laufe eines Jahres die Menschheit begehen kann: des Gedenkfestes an den gewaltigsten Impuls in der Entwickelung der Menschheit. Und dennoch, wenn wir uns heute durch das Herz ziehen lassen, was in den nächsten Tagen in einer solchen großen Stadt, wie zum Beispiel dieser, in der wir uns hier befinden, zum Begehen dieses Gedenkfestes geschehen soll, wenn wir uns fragen, ob.es dem entspricht, was durch die Seelen und die Herzen der Menschen ziehen soll, wenn wir uns dabei keinerlei Illusion hingeben, sondern der Wahrheit einfach ins Auge schauen, dann können wir vielleicht doch nicht anders, als uns gestehen: Wie wenig paßt alles, was wir an Vorbereitungen und vielleicht auch an Halten des Weihnachtsfestes sehen, auf der einen Seite zu alledem, was sonst um uns herum in der modernen Kultur vor sich geht, und wie wenig paßt es auf der anderen Seite zu alledem, was im Grunde genommen doch im tiefsten Herzen des Menschen leben sollte als Erinnerung und als Gedanke an das Größte, was der Menschheit an Impulsen im Laufe ihrer Entwickelung hat werden können.

Es wird vielleicht nicht zuviel gesagt sein, wenn man der Meinung Ausdruck gibt: Es wirkt doch nicht mehr alles so harmonisch auf unser Auge, das sich von Weihnachtsstimmung durchdringen will, das diese Weihnachtsstimmung empfangen will von dem, was es in unserer heutigen Umgebung sehen kann, es wirkt doch nicht alles harmonisch, wenn mitten durch die Alleen, in welchen die Weihnachtsbäume oder die sonstigen Vorbereitungen für das Weihnachtsfest aufgestellt sind, unsere Verkehrsmittel hindurchsausen. Und wenn der heutige Mensch die Disharmonie vielleicht nicht mehr voll empfindet, dann ist das aus dem Grunde, weil er sich schon zu sehr abgewöhnt hat, alle die Tiefe, die Innigkeit zu empfinden, die gerade mit dem bevorstehenden Feste verbunden sein kann. Was namentlich dem Städter von allem das menschliche Innere Vertiefende des Weihnachtsfestes geblieben ist, das ist doch im Grunde genommen nicht mehr, als ein letzter, die Größe kaum mehr ahnen lassender Nachklang, eine Gewohnheit, in der das Große nicht mehr wahrgenommen werden kann, an das sich im Laufe von Jahrhunderten die Menschheit gewöhnt hatte.

Es wäre ganz verfehlt, wollte man etwa mit pessimistischer Gesinnung darauf hinblicken, daß die Zeiten andere geworden sind, und daß es in unseren heutigen Großstädten unmöglich ist, jene tiefe Innigkeit bei diesem Fest zu entwickeln, welche einstmals da war. Es wäre nicht recht, solche pessimistische Stimmung aufkommen zu lassen, wenn man zu gleicher Zeit, wie es in diesem Kreise sein soll, eine Ahnung davon haben kann, wie die Menschheit an alle Tiefe und Größe jenes Impulses wieder herankommen kann, der gerade bei diesem Feste empfunden werden sollte. Suchende Seelen haben alle Veranlassung, sich in ihrer Seele zu fragen: Was darf uns dieses Christfest bedeuten? — Und sie dürfen sich in ihrem Herzen gestehen: Gerade durch die Geisteswissenschaft wird der ganzen Menschheit wieder etwas gegeben werden, was im vollsten Sinne des Wortes das bringen wird, was jetzt nicht mehr da sein kann und wovon man sich gestehen muß, daß es nicht mehr da sein kann, wenn man sich nicht in Illusionen und Phantastereien wiegen will und das, was vielfach zum bloßen Geschenkfest geworden ist, als gleichbedeutend ansehen wollte mit dem, was das Christfest, das Weihnachtsfest durch Jahrhunderte den Menschen war: ein Fest, aus dessen Begehen den Seelen herausblühte Hoffnungsfreudigkeit, Hoffnungssicherheit und das Bewußtsein, zu einer geistigen Wesenheit zu gehören, die aus geistigen Höhen heruntergestiegen ist, sich mit der Erde vereinigt hat, so daß eine jede willige Menschenseele Anteil an ihnen haben kann.

Durch Jahrhunderte hindurch wurde ein Fest begangen, welches in den Seelen das Bewußtsein erweckte, daß die einzelne menschliche Seele eine feste Kraft an der eben charakterisierten geistigen Macht habe, und daß alle die Menschen, die willig sind, sich zusammenfinden können in dem Dienste gegenüber dieser geistigen Macht, sich so in diesem Dienste zusammenfinden können, daß sie auch die rechten Wege finden auf der Erde, um sich als Menschen so viel als nur möglich sein zu können, um als Menschen auf der Erde sich so viel als nur möglich lieben zu können.

Wenn man, wie es angemessen erscheinen kann, einmal auf seine Seele den Vergleich wirken lassen will, zwischen dem, was das Weiihnachtsfest durch Jahrhunderte hindurch gewesen ist, und dem, was es wieder werden soll, dann kann es gut sein, auf der einen Seite einmal die Stimmung, welche heute durch die Kulturforderungen der Gegenwart in Kreisen herrscht, die uns umgeben, zu vergleichen mit dem, was das Weihnachtsfest einstmals war, und auf der anderen Seite mit dem, was in den Seelen wie eine gewissermaßen zeitlos gewordene Erneuerung dieses Fest gerade durch die Geisteswissenschaft wieder werden kann.

So recht in seiner Tiefe das zu würdigen, was mit unseren großen Jahresfestlichkeiten zusammenhängt, das ist dem Stadtmenschen der Gegenwart kaum noch völlig möglich. Kaum möglich ist es, jenen Zauber zu empfinden, der wie eine geistige Luft durch die Seelen, durch die Gemüter derer ging, die da glaubten, bei den großen festlichen Veranstaltungen um Weihnachten oder um Ostern, den Christus in ihren Herzen zu tragen. Diesen Zauber zu empfinden, der wie eine geistige Luft die Menschheit in diesen Zeiten durchwehte, ist heute insbesondere dem Städter schon recht, recht schwierig geworden. Denjenigen, die noch Gelegenheit gehabt haben, wenn auch nur ein weniges zu sehen von diesem Zauberwind, der durch die Seelen und die Gemüter in solchen Zeiten hat ziehen können, wird dies ganz gewiß eine wunderbare, eine herrliche Erinnerung sein. Mir selbst war als Kind nur noch möglich, die letzten Reste von dem zu schauen, was in den Dörfern deutscher Gegenden als solcher Zauberwind durch die Seelen, durch die Gemüter ziehen konnte, zu sehen, wie bei alt und jung, wenn die Weihnachtszeit herannahte, im tiefsten inneren Seelenleben wirklich etwas entstand, was sich unterschied von den Empfindungen und Gefühlen, die sonst das Jahr über vorhanden waren. Man konnte so etwas noch vor wenigen Jahrzehnten, wenn Weihnachten herannahte, in Bauerndörfern gar wohl empfinden, wie da die Seelen auf natürliche Art sich innerlich schmückten und wirklich so etwas empfanden wie: Hinuntergegangen ist während des Herbstes in tiefstes nächtliches Dunkel das physische Sonnenlicht, vermehrt hat sich die äußere physische Finsternis. Lang sind die Nächte, kurz sind die Tage geworden. Wir müssen viel in unseren Stuben sitzen. Während wir sonst in den entgegengesetzten Jahreszeiten hinausziehen auf die Felder und das Goldige der Sonnenstrahlen des Morgens uns entgegenschreiten fühlen, die wärmende Sonne fühlen und unsere Hände regen können in den langen Tagen des Sommers, müssen wir jetzt viel in der Stube sitzen, müssen viel, viel Finsternis um uns herum wissen, müssen gar oftmals hinausschauen durch die Fenster, wie die Erde bedeckt wird mit ihrem Winterkleid.

Es ist nicht möglich, alles, was Schönes, was Wunderbares an Seelenstimmungen in den einfachsten Bauernhütten während der Sonntagnachmittage und -abende erwachte, wenn die Weihnachtszeit heranrückte, ausführlich zu schildern, denn man müßte intime Seelenstimmungen schildern. Man müßte schildern, wie so mancher, der sein gut Teil gerauft und verschiedenen Unfug getrieben während des übrigen Teiles des Jahres, sich durch das Erfülltsein mit dem Gedanken: Die Christzeit naht — wie selbstverständlich in seiner Seele gebändigt fühlte. Er fühlte: Die Zeit selber wird zu heilig, als daß Unfug getrieben werden darf in dieser Zeit.

Das ist nur ein kleiner Hinblick auf das, was vor Jahrhunderten in dem ausgedehntesten Maße vorhanden war, was man vor Jahrzehnten als einen letzten Rest noch in den Dörfern sehen konnte. Da konnte man sehen, als die Weihnachts-Familienfeier sich bereits in die Häuser zurückgezogen hatte, wie in den Häusern höchstens eine Nachahmung der kleinen Krippe des Stalles zu Berhlehem aufgestellt worden war, und wie die Kinder sich über all das freuten, was damit verbunden war, wenn sie sahen den Joseph und die Maria, die Hirten davor, die Engel darüber, manchmal in recht primitiver Weise nachgeahmt. Und eine solche Nachahmung der Krippe fand sich fast in jedem Hause gewisser Dörfer.

Mehr oder weniger war das, was sich da in die Häuser zurückgezogen hatte, schon der letzte Nachklang von etwas anderem, das wir nachher noch berühren wollen. Dann aber konnte man noch vor einigen Jahrzehnten sehen, wenn die Hauptweihnachtstage, der 25., 26. Dezember vorüber waren und das Fest der Heiligen Drei Könige herannahte, wie dann durch die Dörfer Gruppen von Darstellern zogen, letzte Darsteller der Heiligen Geschichte. Die eigentlichen Weihnachtspiele waren schon recht selten geworden, aber einen letzten Nachklang des Heiligen-Drei-Könige-Spieles konnte man noch vielfach sehen, vielleicht auch heute noch in verlörenen Dörfern. Da waren, in verschiedener Art merkwürdig angezogen, mit papierenen Kronen und mit einem Stern auf dem Kopf, die Heiligen Drei Könige, die durch das Dorf zogen und mit einigen primitiven Stimmen, und selten humorlos, sondern heilig und humorvoll zugleich, alles wachriefen, was die Seelen fühlen sollten in Anlehnung an das, was in der Bibel steht über den großen Christus-Impuls der Menschheitsentwickelung.

Das ist das Wesentliche, daß gerade zu dieser Weihnachtszeit und in den Tagen und Wochen, die um sie herum waren, die Stimmung es war, in welche die Herzen ergossen waren und in welcher sie alles aufzunehmen vermochten, was ihnen in einfacher Weise, in unmittelbarer Darstellung vor die Seele gebracht wurde, an welcher das ganze Dorf teilnahm. Solche grotesk-komödienhaften Veranstaltungen von heiligen Szenen, wie sie in der modernen Zeit üblich geworden sind in Nachahmung der Oberammergauer Passionsspiele, wären damals unbegreiflich gewesen, damals, als noch die Erinnerung und der Gedanke an die großen Zeiten der Menschheit lebendig waren. Denn unmöglich hätte man zu einer anderen Zeit die Ereignisse der heiligen Weihnacht und der Drei Könige empfinden wollen als eben in diesen Tagen des Jahres, unmöglich die Passionsgeschichte zu einer anderen Zeit als zu Ostern. Man fühlte sich einig mit dem, was aus den Sternen, was aus den Wochen, was aus der Jahreszeit sprach, was aus Schnee und Sonnenschein sprach, und man ließ sich erzählen von dem, was man fühlen wollte und sollte, durch die zuletzt einfach mit einem weißen Kittel nur noch angetanen, mit einer papierenen Krone auf dem Kopf herumgehenden «Sternsinger», von denen einer einen Stern trug, der an einer Schere befestigt war, so daß er in der Lage war, diesen Stern weit wegzutreiben. Da schritten sie durch die Dörfer, blieben vor den Häusern stehen und brachten ihre einfachen Dinge dar. Und alles, worauf es ankam, war, daß man gerade in dieser Zeit und gerade mit so gestimmten Herzen dasjenige aufzunehmen vermochte, was eben in dieser Zeit in die Seelen der Menschen hineindringen sollte.

Es ist mir selber das, was ich noch manches Mal in den Dörfern hörte, immerhin eine schöne Erinnerung, wie solche einfachen Dichtungen von den «Sternsingern», die durch die Dörfer zogen, gesprochen worden sind, wie zum Beispiel die folgende:

Oberschützener Sternsinger

In Gottes namen do fangen wirs an
die heiligen könig aus morgenland,
Sie reiten do her in aller eil
in dreizehn tagen vierhundert meil.
Sie reiten bei Herodis haus
(Herodes schaut zum fenster heraus.)
Herodes sprach: wo wollet ir hin?
Nach Betlahem steht unser sin.
Ir heiling drei könig kerend ein bei mir,
ich wil euch gebn vil wein und bier.
Ich wil euch gebn wilbrat und fisch,
zeigts mir den neugeborn könig für gewis.
Fürwar könn wir’s nicht sagen,
wir müßn ’en stern wider weider [um] tragen.
Der stern [der stern] er leucht wol über das haus,
[die heiligen] si gehn wol über den berg hinaus.
Da fanden sie unsern herrn Jesu Christ
der aller welte heiland ist. — —
Warum ist dann der hinder so schwarz? - —
der ist ein könig aus Morenland. —

Solche Dinge waren so, daß das ganze Dorf daran teilnahm. Bei einer entsprechenden Zeile wurde dann zum Beispiel der Stern weit vorgetrieben. Es war dieser Weihnachts- oder Drei-Könige-Stern der Ausdruck für das Zusammenstimmen von Jahreszeit, Festeszeit und Menschenherzen. Das ist das Große gewesen, was sich durch Jahrhunderte hindurch über ein weites Gebiet unserer ganzen Erde wie ein Zauberhauch in die einfachsten Gemüter hinein ausgebreitet hat. Das müssen wir uns ein klein wenig vor die Seele rufen, und wir können es uns auch gerade als Sucher nach geistiger Erkenntnis vor die Seele rufen, weil wir durch die Jahre her, wo wir dieses große Ereignis haben betrachten können, wieder ein Gefühl dafür erhalten konnten, welch eine reale Macht für alle Menschen und für die ganze Erdenentwickelung in dem gegeben ist, woran zu dieser Festeszeit gedacht werden soll.

So dürfen wir glauben, einiges Verständnis dafür zu gewinnen, wie in solchen früheren Zeiten die ganze Weihnachtszeit, namentlich bei den Völkern der verschiedenen deutschen und osteuropäischen Gegenden, eigentlich getaucht war in festliches Begehen, und wie mit den einfachsten Mitteln ein solches festliches Begehen erreicht werden konnte. Aber vielleicht kann heute nur noch der geistig Suchende verstehen, was das Wesentliche der alten Weihnachtspiele war. Was ich Ihnen jetzt eben als den Sterngesang vor Augen geführt habe, ist nur eine letzte Ruine, ein letzter Rest. Wenn wir durch die Jahrhunderte zurückgehen, so würden wir finden, wie über weite Gegenden hin, wenn diese Zeit herannahte, Weihnachtspiele gespielt worden sind, wo die ganzen Dörfer teilgenommen haben an dem, was dargestellt worden ist. Da dürfen wir wohl sagen: In bezug auf diese Dinge, in bezug auf die Kenntnis der Weihnachtspiele sind wir eigentlich nur noch in der Lage gewesen, Sammler dessen zu sein, was eben untergeht. — Ich selber, der ich noch das Glück hatte, zu einem alten Freunde einen solchen Sammler zu haben, hörte aus dessen Munde noch so manches erzählen über das, was ihm als einem gelehrten Sammler der Weihnachtspiele entgegengetreten ist, namentlich in deutsch-ungarischen Gegenden.

In jenen deutschen Sprachinseln Ungarns, in denen vor der Zeit der Magyarisierung in den fünfziger, sechziger Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts die deutsche Muttersprache, die deutsche Umgangssprache sich erhalten hatte, entfaltete sich noch so manches an Weihnachtspielen und Weihnachtsgebräuchen, was in den Hauptgegenden, im deutschen Mutterlande, längst hinuntergesunken war in den Strom der Vergessenheit. Die einzelnen Kolonisten, die im Laufe der vorherigen Jahrhunderte in die slawischen Gegenden eingewandert waren, bewahrten ihre alten Weihnachtspiele und erneuerten sie, wenn sich die richtigen Menschen fanden, die immer aus den Dorfleuten genommen wurden, um diese Weihnachtspiele darzustellen. Ich erinnere mich wohl noch — und Sie werden mir vielleicht doch zugestehen, solches beurteilen zu können -, mit welchem Enthusiasmus der alte Schröer über solche Weihnachtspiele sprach, wenn er davon erzählte, wie er dabeigewesen ist, wenn die Leute ihre Weihnachtspiele zu dieser Festeszeit gefeiert haben. Man bekommt sozusagen — das ist nicht zuviel gesagt — erst einen Begriff von dem innersten Wesen des Künstlerischen, wenn man zu diesen Dorfleuten geht und sieht, wie sie die einfache Kunst des Weihnachtspieles herausgeboren haben aus der heiligsten Stimmung. Die Menschen, welche heute glauben, von diesem oder jenem Lehrer deklamieren lernen zu können, die heute daoder dorthin laufen, um diese oder jene Atemübungen zu machen, welche die rechten sind — es gibt ja heute viele Dutzende der rechten Methoden der Atmung für Gesang oder Deklamation —, diese Menschen glauben, es käme darauf an, den Menschenleib oder den Kehlkopf zum rechten Automaten zu machen, um in materialistischer Weise irgendeine Kunst zu pflegen. Ich möchte nur, daß diese kuriose Ansicht niemals in unseren Kreisen wirklich Wurzel fassen kann, denn diese Menschen haben keinen Begriff, wie aus heiligster Stimmung, aus Gebetes-Weihnachtsstimmung heraus eine einfache, aber eine wirkliche Kunst geboren worden ist, dargestellt worden ist mit tiefster Christenstimmung in der Seele und in der Brust von Dorfbuben, von denen oft während des Jahres recht lose und nichtsnutzige Streiche ausgeführt wurden. Denn diese einfachen Leute unter ihren Strohdächern haben unendlich viel mehr gewußt von dem Zusammenhange von Menschenseele, vom ganzen Menschen und von Kunst, als man heute in unseren modernen Theatern oder sonstigem Kunstwesen weiß, und wenn noch soviel Aufhebens davon gemacht wird: daß Kunst etwas ist, was aus demganzen Menschen, und, wenn sie heilige Kunst ist, aus der heiligen, frommen Stimmung des Menschen hervorgehen muß.

Das kann Ihnen zum Beispiel hervorgehen aus den vier Hauptbestimmungen, wie sie in Gegenden bestanden, die Schröer noch besuchen konnte.

Wenn Weihnachtspiele aufgeführt wurden in Gegenden Oberungarns, da sammelte, wenn der Oktober oder November herannahte, der, welcher die früher nie aufgeschrieben überlieferten Weihnachtspiele hatte — denn das Aufschreiben wurde als eine Profanierung angesehen -, diejenigen Menschen, die er für geeignet hielt. Und geeignet waren in dieser Weihnachtszeit wirklich Menschen, von denen man es vielleicht sonst nicht vorausgesetzt hatte: lose, nichtsnutzige Buben, die schon ihr gut Teil an allem möglichen Allotria während des Jahres getrieben hatten. Während dieser Zeit aber senkte sich in diese Seelen die nötige Stimmung. Es waren strenge Vorschriften für die Teilnehmer der Weihnachtspiele während der wochenlangen Probenzeit. Ein jeder, der mitwirken wollte, hatte die vier folgenden Regeln strenge zu beachten. Dazu muß man sich natürlich in das Dorfleben versetzen und bedenken, was es im Dorfleben bedeutet, bei einer solchen Sache nicht mittun dürfen.

«Ein jeder, der mitspielen will, darf 1. nicht zu ’n Diernen gehn, 2. keine Schelmliedel singen die ganze heilige Zeit über, 3. muß er ein ehrsames Leben führen, 4. muß er mir folgen. Für alles ist eine Geldstrafe, auch für jeden Gedächtnisfehler und dergleichen im Spiel.»

Klingt Ihnen nicht in dieser Gepflogenheit etwas nach von jenem Bewußtsein, das da war an heiligen Stätten in den alten Mysterien, wo man auch nicht gedacht hat, daß man zur Weisheit kommen kann durch eine gewöhnliche Schulung? So herrschte auch hier das Bewußtsein, daß der ganze Mensch mit seinem Gemüt und seiner Moral geläutert ünd gereinigt sein muß, wenn er in würdiger Weise an die Kunst herankommen will. Aus dem ganzen Menschen heraus sollten solche Dinge geboren sein. Und die Weihnachtsstimmung brachte so etwas zustande, daß Frommheit in den losesten Buben sein konnte.

Was ich Ihnen eben angeführt habe, was Schröer und andere noch an Weihnachtspielen sammeln konnten, die wie letzte Reste von alten Spielen gespielt worden sind, sind nur noch Ruinen. Wir schauen aber dabei zurück auf noch frühere Zeiten, auf Zeiten des 16., 15., 14. Jahrhunderts und so weiter, wo noch ganz andere Verhältnisse waren zwischen Dörfern und Städten, wo in der Tat die Seelen der Dorfbewohner zu dieser Christfestzeit in eine ganz andere Stimmung eintauchten durch das, was ihnen durch die Spiele gegeben werden konnte, wo mit den einfachsten, primitivsten Mitteln die heilige Legende dargestellt wurde, die Geburt des Christus, mit allem, was biblisch dazugehört. Und wie dem Weihnachtstag, dem 25. Dezember, im Kalender vorangeht der Adam- und Eva-Tag, so ging gewöhnlich dem Spiel, das als das eigentliche Weihnachtspiel galt, voran das sogenannte Paradeisspiel, das Spiel von Adam und Eva im Paradies, wie sie dem Teufel, der Schlange, zum Opfer gefallen sind. Man hatte in den einfachsten Gegenden unmittelbar Einblick gewinnen können in den Zusammenhang, der besteht zwischen dem Hinunterstieg des Menschen aus geistigen Höhen in die Sphäre des physischen Planes, und jenem Ruck, den der Mensch empfangen hat durch den Christus-Impuls, wieder hinauf in die geistigen Welten.

Wenn der Mensch die Paulusbriefe liest, das Grandiose der Paulinischen Auffassung verspürt von dem Menschen, der in Adam heruntergestiegen ist von der geistigen Welt in die sinnliche, und von dem «neuen Adam», dem Christus, in dem der Mensch wieder hinaufsteigt von der Sinneswelt in die geistige, wenn der Mensch an Paulus das in grandioser Art empfinden und fühlen kann - in inniger, liebevoller, gemütvoller Weise konnten es die einfachsten Menschen, bis hinunter zu den Kindern, in der Tiefe ihres Herzens, in der Tiefe ihrer Seele empfinden, wenn ihnen in der Zeit nacheinander vorgeführt wurde das Paradeisspiel von Adam und Eva, vom Sündenfall der Menschen und von der Offenbarung des Christus in dem Weihnachtspiel. Und tief, tief hatte man empfunden den gewaltigen Einschnitt, der gemacht worden war in der Menschheitsentwickelung durch das Christus-Ereignis. Eine Umkehrung des Entwickelungsweges, so wurde das Christus-Ereignis empfunden. Ein Weg vom Himmel sozusagen auf die Erde war der Weg von Adam bis zum Christus hin. Ein Weg von der Erde bis zum Himmel ist der Weg von Christus bis zum Ende der Erdenzeit. Das hat man in innigster Art empfunden, wenn diese zwei hier ein wenig charakterisierten Spiele in primitiver Art vor die Augen von Tausenden und aber Tausenden von Menschen getreten sind. Denn man hat wirklich die völlige Erneuerung dessen empfunden, was der menschliche Geist ist, durch den Christus-Impuls.

Man kann darin vielleicht auch noch etwas wie einen Nachklang dessen fühlen, was man empfand in bezug auf diese Umkehrung des ganzen Menschheitsfortschrittes in jenen Worten, die aus alten, alten Zeiten, aus den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten stammen, und die oft und oft gesprochen worden sind, auch noch im 8., 9., 10. Jahrhundert in Gegenden, in denen sich, namentlich innerhalb Europas, das Christentum ausgebreitet hat. Da fühlte man etwas Ungeheures bei Worten, wie die folgenden sind:

Ave maris stella
Dei mater alma
Atque semper virgo
Felix coeli porta.
Sumens illud Ave
Gabrielis ore
Funda nos in pace
Mutans nomen Evae!

Man fühlte, wenn diese Worte gesprochen wurden, den Weg des Menschen vom Himmel zur Erde durch den Sündenfall und den Aufstieg des Menschen durch den Christus von der Erde zum Himmel, und man fühlte ihn an den beiden Frauengestalten, an «Eva» und an dem Namen, den man der Jesus-Mutter beilegte, mit dem man sie sozusagen begrüßte, «Ave». Ave ist die Umkehrung des Namens Eva, wenn man Ave zurückliest, erhält man Eva. Das wurde in seiner ganzen vollen Bedeutung empfunden. Daher diese Worte, die zu gleicher Zeit zeigen, was man empfand innerhalb der elementarsten Naturerscheinungen, und zugleich das, was man Menschliches in der Legende sah:

Ave, Stern des Meeres,
Göttlich junge Mutter
Und ewige Jungfrau,
Du glückliche Pforte des Himmels.
Nehmend jenes Ave
Als eine Gabe Gabriels,
Wurdest du uns die Grundlage zum Frieden,
Indem du umwendetest
Den Namen Eva!

In solchen einfachen Worten wurden die größten Mysterien, die größten Geheimnisse der Menschheitsentwickelung empfunden. Und in der Umkehrung des Namens Eva zu Ave empfand ein jeder das in inniger Art, was man in grandioser Weise den Paulusbriefen dann entnehmen kann, wenn man die Stellen liest von Adam, dem «alten» Adam, und von Christus, dem «neuen» Adam. Diese Stimmung war dann da, wenn in den Tagen des Christfestes nacheinander gespielt wurden in primitiver Art das Paradeisspiel, das den Sündenfall darstellte, und das Weihnachtspiel, das darstellte die Hoffnung, die jeglicher Menschenseele für die Zukunft werden kann, wenn sie jene Kraft, die im Christus-Impuls liegt, aufnimmt. Aber es gehört, um das fühlen zu können, eine Gemütsstimmung dazu, von der wir uns nur klarmachen sollen, daß sie heute in dieser Art nicht mehr da sein kann. Die Zeiten sind andere geworden. Eine solche Unmöglichkeit, hinzuschauen zu den geistigen Welten, wie sie heute für die primitivste und für die intelligenteste Bevölkerung besteht, ein solches grundmaterialistisches Element im Menschengemüt gab es allerdings dazumal nicht. Die geistige Welt vorauszusetzen, war eine Selbstverständlichkeit. Und ein gewisses Verständnis für diese geistige Welt in ihrem Unterschiede von der Sinneswelt war ebenso eine Selbstverständlichkeit. Die Menschen machen sich heute wenig einen Begriff, wie man spirituell fühlen konnte bis ins 15., 16. Jahrhundert herein, und wie im Grunde genommen überall ein Bewußtsein von Spiritualität vorhanden war. Wenn die Wiederholung eines der Weihnachtspiele, eines oberpfälzischen Weihnachtspieles, die in unseren beiden Kunstzimmern veranstaltet werden soll, gelingt, dann kann vielleicht auch außerhalb unserer Kreise wieder ein Verständnis dafür erweckt werden, was an spiritueller Stimmung darinnen ist. Für uns sollte diese oder jene Zeile gerade eines solchen Weihnachtspieles zum Erkennungszeichen werden für den spirituellen Sinn, der bei denen vorhanden war, die zur Festeszeit dieses Weihnachtspiel verstehen sollten. Wenn zum Beispiel in diesem oder jenem Weihnachtspiel die Maria, erwartend das Jesuskind, sagt: Die Zeit ist gekommen, ich sehe ein Kindelein — das heißt, hellseherisch erblickte sie in den Tagen, die der Geburt vorangehen, visionär das herannahende Kind, wie es in vielen Weihnachtspielen ist —, dann frage ich einmal, wo Sie heute bei derselben Gelegenheit eine ähnliche Erzählung finden können? Die Zeiten des Zusammenhanges mit der spirituellen Welt, wie er damals noch bewußt vorhanden war, sind nicht mehr vorhanden. Darüber darf man sich weder einer optimistischen noch einer pessimistischen Gesinnung hingeben. Man muß heute schon sehr weit hinausgehen in die primitivsten ländlichen Gegenden, wenn man die Vision finden will, welche die des Kindes ist, das in ein paar "Tagen kommen soll. So etwas gibt es noch.

Nur in eine solche Stimmung konnte natürlich dasjenige eingetaucht werden, was in diesen primitiven Erinnerungen und Gedanken an das größte Ereignis der Menschheitsentwickelung der Weihnachtszeit entgegengebracht wurde. Daher müssen wir es ganz begreiflich finden, daß anstelle jener früheren Poesie, jener einfachen, primitiven Kunst, die heutige Prosa der elektrischen Eisenbahnen und des Automobils getreten ist, die in so grotesker Weise zwischen den Alleen von Weihnachtsbäumen dahinsausen. Unmöglich für ein ästhetisch empfindendes Auge, die zwei Dinge zusammenzusehen: Weihnachtsbäume, Weihnachtsmärkte — und Automobile und elektrische Eisenbahnen dazwischen durchfahrend! Das Unmögliche ist natürlich heute eine Selbstverständlichkeit, aber für das ästhetisch empfindende Auge bleibt es dennoch ein Unmögliches. Trotzdem wollen wir Freunde, nicht Feinde der Kultur sein und verstehen, daß es eine Selbstverständlichkeit sein muß.

Wir wollen aber auch verstehen, wie es zusammenhängt mit dem materialistischen Zug, der durch alle Gemüter, nicht bloß der Städter, sondern auch der ländlichen Bevölkerung gegangen ist. Oh, wir können sie belauschen, die materialistische Stimmung, wie sie sich heranmacht an die Gemüter der Menschen. Gehen Sie ins 14., 13. Jahrhundert, da finden Sie, daß die Menschen vollständig wissen, daß sie etwas Spirituelles meinen, wenn sie zum Beispiel vom Baum der Erkenntnis im Paradiese reden. Sie wissen in der rechten Weise, was ihnen dargestellt wird in dem Paradeisspiel, wissen es spirituell zu beziehen auf das Richtige, was als der Baum der Erkenntnis oder als der Baum des Lebens dargestellt wird. Denn der Aberglaube war in jenen Zeiten noch keineswegs so verbreitet, wie er dann später im 15., 16., 17. Jahrhundert sich ausgebreitet hat. Dagegen finden wir schon im 15. Jahrhundert, zum Beispiel in der Gegend von Bamberg — das ist historisch nachzuweisen —, wie die Leute in der Weihnacht hinausgehen in die Apfelgärten, weil sie physisch, materiell erwarten, daß ein besonders ausersehener Apfelbaum in der Weihnacht blühen werde. Materialistisch ist das ganze Gemütsleben der Menschen geworden in der Epoche, die vom 13., 14. Jahrhundert angefangen über das 16., 17. Jahrhundert hinaufgeht, und nicht bloß in den Städten, sondern auch in den Seelen derjenigen, die einfache Dorfbewohner waren.

Es hat sich noch vieles von dem, was die alte Poesie war, in die Häuser mit ihrem Weihnachtsbaum hineingeschlichen. Aber es ist schon das, was in heiligster Stimmung die Dörfer wie ein Mysterium durchwehte, zu einer bloßen äußeren Poesie geworden, zur Poesie des Weihnachtsbaumes, die zwar noch immer schön ist, aber doch nur ein Nachklang eines Großen ist. Warum ist das so? Weil die Menschheit im Laufe der Zeiten eine Entwickelung durchmachen muß, weil das, was das Innige, das Große und Bedeutsame in einer Zeit ist, in derselben Art nicht für alle Zeiten bleiben kann. Denn der wäre ein Feind der Entwickelung der Menschheit, welcher das, was für eine Zeit groß ist, hinüberschleppen wollte in andere Zeiten. Eine jede Zeit hat ihre besonderen Aufgaben, und in einer jeden Zeit muß man verstehen, das, was in die Seelen und Herzen der Menschen dringen soll, in einer neuen Weise zu beleben. Unsere Zeit kann sich ganz gewiß in jene wirklichen Weihnachtsstimmungen, die wir andeutend schildern konnten, nur versenken wie in eine historische Erinnerung, wie in ein Stück Vergangenheit. Wenn wir aber doch das Symbol des Weihnachtsbaumes auch in unsere festlichen Versammlungen hereinholen, so tun wir es gerade aus dem Grunde, weil wir mit der anthroposophischen Geisteswissenschaft selber verbinden den Gedanken an eine neue Weihnachtsstimmung der Menschheit, der fortgeschrittenen Menschheit. Denn die Geisteswissenschaft soll die Geheimnisse des Christus in einer solchen Weise in die Herzen und Seelen der Menschen senken, wie es unserer Zeit angemessen ist. Trotzdem unsere heutigen Verkehrsmittel an uns vorbeisausen, wenn wir vor unsere Türen hinaustreten, oder vielleicht sogar mit uns in die Lüfte davonfliegen werden — bald werden diese Dinge noch ganz anders die Menschheit zur nüchternsten, zur fürchterlichsten Prosa bringen -, trotzdem müssen die Menschen der heutigen Zeit Gelegenheit haben, gerade in einer um so stärkeren, in einer um so bedeutungsvolleren Vertiefung ihrer Seele das Göttlich-Geistige wiederzufinden, das in einer so einfachen Weise für die primitiven Gemüter abgelebter Jahrhunderte vor die Augen treten konnte, wenn sie das heilige Kindlein in der Krippe zur Weihnachtszeit sahen. Wir brauchen heute andere Mittel, um diese Stimmung in der Seele wachzurufen. Wir versenken uns gewiß gern in das, was die Vorzeiten gehabt haben, um die Wege zum Christus-Ereignis zu finden, aber wir müssen auch unabhängig sein von der Zeit. Wie sich die Menschen der Vorzeit in die Naturgeheimnisse ganz hineingefühlt haben, so war es nur in einer primitiven Zeit möglich. Wir brauchen heute andere Mittel.

Ich möchte Ihnen nur noch einen Begriff davon geben, wie sich die Menschen in die Natur hineingefühlt haben, wenn das Weihnachtsfest herangetreten ist, sich hineingefühlt haben in einer ganz primitiven Weise und dennoch vollsaftig in ihrem Gemüt aus dem Fühlen der Naturelemente gesprochen haben. Sie werden vielleicht, wenn ich Ihnen einen anderen kleinen Sterngesang mitteilen darf, es so recht nur an einer einzigen Stelle fühlen, wie aus der Seele die Elemente der Natur sprachen. Das übrige ist ziemlich primitiv. Hören Sie jedoch genauer zu, dann werden Sie jene Naturstimmung aus noch mehrerem herausfühlen.

Wenn nämlich der, welcher seine Spieler für das Weihnachtspiel oder Drei-Könige-Spiel zu sammeln hatte, mit ihnen ging, und wenn sie da oder dort auftraten, dann begrüßten sie zuerst diejenigen, welche sich versammelt hatten, denn jene abstrakte Stimmung, wie sie heute herrscht zwischen Darstellern und Zuschauern, gab es früher nicht. Die Menschen gehörten zusammen, und es war das Ganze eingetaucht in ein gemeinsames Milieu. Daher traten die Spieler so auf, daß sie die, welche da waren, und auch die, welche nicht da waren, in primitiver Weise begrüßten. Das gab wirklich Weihnachtsstimmung.

Der Sternsinger spricht:

Ir liabn meini singa samlet eng zsam
Gleiwia die kråpfen in der pfann.
Ir liabn meini singa trets zsam in a scheibn,
Ma wölln uns de wail mit singa vertreibn.
Ir liabn meini singa fangts tapfer ån.
Zu grüaß’n wölln ma’s heben ån.
Grüaß’n ma God Voda im hechsten thron
Und grüaß’n ma a sein einiga Son;
Grüaß’n ma a dazua den haligen Geist mit nama
Und grüaß’n ma’s älli drei zsamma.

Joseph und Maria gehen auf die Bühne.

Grüaß’n ma Joseph und Maria rein,
Und grüaß’n ma das kloane kindalein.
Grüaß’n ma a ochs und esulein,
Wölche stehn bei dem krippalein.
Grüaß’n ma sie durch sunn und mondenschein,
Der leucht’t übers meer und über den Rhein.
Grüaß’n ma sie durch laub und gras,
Der halige regen måcht uns und eng ålli nåß.
Grüaß’n ma den kaiser mit der kron,
Grüaß’n ma den master, der’s machen kän.
Grüaß’n ma a dö geistlinga herrn,
Wail’s uns erlaubt hobn, des g’spül z’lern.
Grüaß’n ma den herrn richter mit seiner beschwörd,
Denn sie san der eren wert.
Und grüaß’n ma die gänzi ersame gmoan,
Alli, wie sie hier vasammelt san.
Grüaß’n ma den gänzen ersamen råt,
Wia sie God dazua verurdnet håt.
Grüaß’n ma sie durch ålli würzalein,
So vül als in der erden sein.
Ir liabn meini singa, fangt’s ånders ån,
Den stern zu grüaß’n wölln ma’s heben ån.
Grüaß’n ma unser sternstanga,
Daran unser stern tuat hanga.
Grüaß’n ma unser sternschar,
Daran unser stern umanand fart,
Grüaß’n ma a ålli hölzalein,
So vül als in dem sterne sein. —
Ir liabn meini singa, häbt’s mi wol vernumma,
Daß ma den stern håm ångsunga.
Grüaß’n ma unsern mastersinger guat,
Und grüaß’n ma den mastersinger sein huat.
Grüaß’n ma a unsern lermaster in der tät,
Wail er uns mit der hilf Godes geleret håt.
Ir liabn meini singa, håbt’s mi wol vernumma,
Daß ma dös ålls håbn ångsunga.

Nun bitte ich Sie, acht darauf zu geben, was das heißt, so die Natur aufzurufen, daß man alle, die man begrüßen will, mit solcher Stimmung im Herzen begrüßt, daß man solche Stimmung fühlt aus «Ålli würzalein, so vül als in der erden sein»! Das ist Mitfühlen der Naturstimmung selber. So muß man anerkennen, wie damals der Mensch mit allem Heiligen, mit allem Großen und Spirituellen bis in die Wurzeln der Gräser und Bäume hinein verbunden war. Wer das nachempfinden kann, der fühlt bei einer solchen Zeile, wie der eben angedeuteten, etwas Grandioses in den Geheimnissen der Menschheitsentwickelung. Die Zeiten, wo das naturgemäß war, wo das selbstverständlich war, sind einmal vorüber, und wir brauchen heute andere Mittel. Wir brauchen gewissermaßen Mittel, die uns zu einem noch tieferen Quell der menschlichen Natur führen, zu jenem Quell der Menschennatur, der in einer gewissen Weise von der.äußeren Zeit unabhängig ist. Denn die Kultur selber, wie sie heute abläuft, macht es uns unmöglich, uns genau an die Jahreszeiten zu binden. Wer daher wirklich jene Stimmung versteht, die als die Christus-Stimmung zur heiligen Weihnacht in alten Zeiten zu empfinden war, wird auch Verständnis für das haben, was wir wollen, indem wir wieder künstlerisch vertiefen wollen, was wir aus der Geisteswissenschaft heraus gewinnen können, was wir wollen, indem wir darnach streben, jenen Quell in den Menschengemütern zu beleben, der in sich aufnehmen kann den ChristusImpuls.

Wir können zur Weihnachtszeit nicht mehr unmittelbar das Große wachrufen, so gern wir auch gerade zu dieser Zeit in unseren Seelen diesen Impuls wachrufen wollten, aber wir suchen es immerdar. Und wenn wir in dem, was die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft der Menschheit sein soll, selber ein Christfest dieses Menschheitsfortschrittes sehen, und wenn wir hinblicken zu dem, was der einfache Mensch fühlen konnte, wenn ihm zur heiligen Weihnacht das Kindlein in der Krippe dargeboten wurde, dann sagen wir uns: Solche Stimmungen, solche Gefühle sollen in uns wach werden, wenn wir hinblicken auf das, was geboren werden kann in unserer Seele dann, wenn uns die Geist-Erkenntnis unseren innersten Quell so heilig stimmt, so läutert, daß er in sich aufnehmen kann das heilige Mysterium des ChristusImpulses,

Von diesem Gesichtspunkt aus versuchen wir auch wieder die wahre, im Geistigen quellende Kunst zu finden, jene Kunst, welche nur ein Kind der Frommheit, ein Kind der heiligsten Empfindungen sein kann. Wenn wir in dieser Beziehung das ewige, das unvergängliche Christfest der Menschheit fühlen: wie geboren werden kann in dem Menschen, in der menschlichen Seele, in dem menschlichen Gemüt jener Christus-Impuls — wenn wir durch die Geisteswissenschaft wieder erfahren, wie dieser Christus-Impuls etwas Reales ist, etwas, was sich wirklich als eine lebendige Kraft hineinergießen kann in unsere Seelen, in unsere Herzen -, dann wird uns durch die Geisteswissenschaft der Christus-Impuls nicht ein Abstraktum, ein Dogmatisches bleiben, sondern dann wird uns dieser Christus-Impuls, der aus unserer spirituellen Bewegung hervorgeht, etwas werden, was uns Trost in den schlimmsten Augenblicken unseres Lebens geben kann, was uns froh machen kann in der Hoffnung, daß, wenn der Christus geboren wird in unserer Seele, zur Weihnachtszeit dieser Seele, wir erwarten dürfen die Osterzeit, die Auferstehung des Geistes in dem eigenen Inneren.

So müssen wir aus dem Materiellen, das in alle Geister, in alle Herzen eingezogen ist, wieder zum Spirituellen vorschreiten. Denn aus dem Geiste allein kann geboren werden jene Erneuerung, die notwendig ist gegenüber dem, was die heutige Prosa des Lebens ist. Wird es möglich sein, auch dann, wenn draußen die Automobile fahren, vielleicht die Luftballons durch die Luft fliegen, die elektrischen Bahnen dahinsausen, wird es dann möglich sein, daß in solchen Räumen, wie diese hier, sich etwas verbreitet von heiliger Stimmung, die allerdings nur durch das aufgenommen werden kann, was uns das ganze Jahr durch aus der Geist-Erkenntnis fließt, uns den Christus näherbringt, was in früherer Zeit in einer viel kindlicheren Stimmung aufleben durfte, dann besteht die Hoffnung, daß in einer gewissen Beziehung diese Versammlungsräume «Krippen» sein werden, auf die wir in einer ähnlichen Art blicken können, wie die Kinder und die Großen am Christabend, wenn die Krippe im Hause, oder früher in der Kirche, aufgerichtet war, hinblickten auf das Kindlein, auf die Hirten davor und auf «ochs und esulein, wölche stehn bei dem krippalein». Da haben sie gefühlt, daß von diesem Symbolum in ihr Herz strömte Kraft für alle Hoffnung, für alle Menschenliebe, für alle Menschengröße, für alle Erdenziele.

Wenn wir an diesem Tage, der geweiht und gewidmet sein soll der Erinnerung an den Christus-Impuls, fühlen können, daß das ganze Jahr hindurch durch unser ernstes geisteswissenschaftliches Streben in unseren Herzen etwas angefacht wird, dann werden unsere Herzen an diesem Tage fühlen: Das sind Krippen, diese unsere Versammlungsorte, und diese Lichter sind die Symbole! Diese Krippen enthalten durch die heilige Stimmung, die in ihnen ist, und diese Lichter durch das Symbolische ihres Glanzes, sie enthalten das, was wie die Weihnachtszeit, die Osterzeit eine große Zeit für die Menschheit vorbereiten soll: die Auferstehung des heiligsten Geistes, des wahrhaftigen spirituellen Lebens! Versuchen wir so zu empfinden, daß unsere Versammlungsräume zur Weihnachtszeit Krippen sind, Stätten, in denen sich, abgeschlossen von der äußeren Welt, ein Großes vorbereitet, lernen wir fühlen, wenn wir das ganze Jahr hindurch emsig lernen, daß unsere Einsichten, unsere Weistümer an diesem Weihnachtsabend sich zusammendrängen können in heiße Gefühle, die wie ein Feuer erglühen aus dem Brennmaterial, das wir das ganze Jahr hindurch durch die Vertiefung in große Lehren gewinnen. Und fühlen wir, daß wir dabei das Andenken an den größten Impuls der Menschheitsentwickelung pflegen, fühlen wir, wie deshalb an diesen Stätten der Glaube leben darf, daß einstmals dasjenige, was in so engem Krippenraum als ein heiliges Feuer und als ein hoffnungssicheres Licht erbrennt, hinausdringen wird in die Menschheit. Dann wird es stark genug, kräftig genug sein, um auch die härteste, die nüchternste Prosa des Lebens zu durchdringen, zu befeueren, zu erwärmen, zu erleuchten. Dann können wir Weihnachtsstimmung hier empfinden als Hoffnungsstimmung für jene Welt-Osterstimmung, welche der Ausdruck des lebendigen Geistes ist, der notwendig ist der neuen Menschheit.

Am besten feiern wir Weihnachten in unserer Seele, wenn wir die nächsten Tage mit dieser Stimmung ausfüllen, so ausfüllen, daß wir in unserem Weihnachten geistig vorbereiten Menschheits-Ostern, die Auferstehung des spirituellen Lebens. Ja, Krippen sollen unsere Arbeitsstätten zur Weihnachtszeit werden. Geboren soll werden das Lichtkind, das angefacht wird durch das ganze Jahr hindurch durch die Versenkung in die geisteswissenschaftlichen Weistümer. Geboren soll werden der Christ in der Menschenseele in unseren Arbeitsstätten, damit das spirituelle Leben auferstehen kann zur großen Österzeit der Menschheit, die in ihrem Wesen die Spiritualität als eine Auferstehung empfinden muß durch das Hinausströmen der Weihnachtsstimmung aus unseren Räumen in die allgemeine Menschheit der Gegenwart und der Zukunft.

Christmas Through the Ages

When we go out into the streets of our big cities at this time of year, we find them filled with what our contemporaries want to obtain to celebrate the festival we are approaching, to celebrate one of the great festivals that humanity can celebrate in the course of a year: the commemoration of the most powerful impulse in the development of humanity. And yet, when we allow ourselves to be moved by what is to happen in the coming days in such a large city as the one we find ourselves in here, when we ask ourselves whether it corresponds to what should be moving through the souls and hearts of people, if we do not give in to any illusions but simply look the truth in the face, then perhaps we cannot help but admit: How little everything we see in the preparations and perhaps also in the celebration of Christmas fits, on the one hand, with everything else that is going on around us in modern culture, and how little it fits, on the other hand, with everything that should really live in the deepest hearts of human beings as a memory and a thought of the greatest thing that humanity has been able to achieve in the course of its development.

It is perhaps not too much to say that Not everything appears so harmonious to our eyes, which want to be imbued with the Christmas spirit, which want to receive this Christmas spirit from what they can see in our present surroundings. Not everything appears harmonious when our means of transportation rush through the avenues lined with Christmas trees and other preparations for Christmas. And if people today perhaps no longer fully perceive this disharmony, it is because they have become too accustomed to not feeling all the depth and intimacy that can be associated with the approaching holiday. What has remained for city dwellers in particular of the inner human depth of Christmas is, in essence, nothing more than a faint echo, a habit in which the greatness can no longer be perceived, something to which humanity had become accustomed over the centuries.

It would be quite wrong to take a pessimistic view of the fact that times have changed and that it is impossible in our modern cities to develop the deep intimacy with this festival that once existed. It would not be right to allow such a pessimistic mood to arise when, at the same time, as it should be in this circle, we can have an inkling of how humanity can regain all the depth and greatness of that impulse which should be felt especially during this festival. Seeking souls have every reason to ask themselves: What can this Christmas mean to us? — And they can admit in their hearts: It is precisely through spiritual science that something will be given back to all of humanity that will, in the fullest sense of the word, bring what can no longer be there and what one must admit can no longer be there if one does not want to indulge in illusions and fantasies and regard what has in many cases become a mere gift-giving festival as equivalent to what what Christmas has been for people throughout the centuries: a festival whose celebration caused the souls of people to blossom with joyful hope, confident hope, and the awareness of belonging to a spiritual being that has descended from spiritual heights and united itself with the earth, so that every willing human soul can have a share in it.

For centuries, a festival was celebrated that awakened in souls the awareness that the individual human soul has a firm hold on the spiritual power just described, and that all people who are willing can come together in service to this spiritual power, can come together in this service so that they may also find the right paths on earth to be as much as possible as human beings, to love each other as much as possible as human beings on earth.

If, as may seem appropriate, one wants to let the comparison between what Christmas has been throughout the centuries and what what it should become again, then it may well be appropriate to compare, on the one hand, the mood that prevails today in the circles around us as a result of the cultural demands of the present, and on the other hand, what Christmas once was, and what can become again in the souls of human beings as a kind of timeless renewal of this festival, precisely through spiritual science.

It is hardly possible for city dwellers today to fully appreciate the depth of what is connected with our great annual festivals. It is hardly possible to feel the magic that passed like a spiritual air through the souls and minds of those who believed that they carried Christ in their hearts during the great festive events around Christmas or Easter. Today, it has become very, very difficult, especially for city dwellers, to feel this magic that swept through humanity like a spiritual breeze in those days. For those who have had the opportunity to see even a little of this magical wind that swept through souls and minds in those days, it will certainly be a wonderful, glorious memory. As a child, I was only able to see the last remnants of what could sweep through the souls and minds of people in German villages as such a magical wind, how, as Christmas approached, something truly different from the feelings and emotions that were otherwise present throughout the year arose in the deepest inner life of both old and young. Just a few decades ago, when Christmas was approaching, you could still feel this in farming villages, how souls naturally adorned themselves inwardly and truly felt something like: During the fall, the physical sunlight has descended into the deepest nighttime darkness, and the outer physical darkness has increased. The nights have become long, the days short. We have to sit in our rooms a lot. Whereas in the opposite seasons we go out into the fields and feel the golden rays of the morning sun walking toward us, feel the warming sun and can move our hands during the long days of summer, now we have to sit in our rooms a lot, have to know that there is much, much darkness around us, and often have to look out the windows to see how the earth is covered with its winter coat.

It is impossible to describe in detail all the beautiful and wonderful feelings that arose in the simplest peasant huts on Sunday afternoons and evenings as Christmas approached, because one would have to describe intimate feelings. One would have to describe how many who had done their fair share of mischief during the rest of the year felt naturally restrained in their souls by the thought that Christmas was approaching. They felt that the time itself was too sacred for mischief.

This is only a small glimpse of what existed centuries ago on a vast scale, what could still be seen decades ago as a last remnant in the villages. When the Christmas family celebrations had already withdrawn into the houses, one could see how, at most, an imitation of the little manger in the stable in Bethlehem had been set up in the houses, and how the children rejoiced at everything associated with it when they saw Joseph and Mary, the shepherds in front of them, the angels above them, sometimes imitated in a rather primitive way. And such imitations of the nativity scene could be found in almost every house in certain villages.

More or less, what had withdrawn into the houses was already the last echo of something else, which we will touch on later. But then, just a few decades ago, when the main Christmas days, December 25 and 26, were over and the Feast of the Epiphany was approaching, one could still see groups of performers, the last performers of the Holy Story, passing through the villages. The actual Christmas plays had already become quite rare, but one could still see many echoes of the Three Kings play, perhaps even today in remote villages. There were the Three Kings, dressed in various strange costumes, with paper crowns and a star on their heads, who paraded through the village and, with primitive voices, rarely humorless but rather holy and humorous at the same time, evoked everything that souls should feel in accordance with what is written in the Bible about the great Christ impulse in the development of humanity.

The essential thing is that, especially at this Christmas time and in the days and weeks surrounding it, the mood was one in which hearts were overflowing and able to absorb everything that was presented to them in a simple way, in an immediate representation in which the whole village participated. Such grotesque, comedic reenactments of sacred scenes, as have become common in modern times in imitation of the Oberammergau Passion Play, would have been incomprehensible back then, when the memory and thought of the great times of humanity were still alive. For it would have been impossible at any other time to feel the events of Holy Christmas and the Three Kings as they were felt during these days of the year, impossible to feel the Passion story at any other time than Easter. People felt at one with what the stars, the weeks, the season, the snow, and the sunshine were saying, and they let themselves be told what they wanted and should feel, by the “carol singers,” who were simply dressed in white robes and paper crowns, one of whom carried a star attached to a pair of scissors so that he could wave it far away. They walked through the villages, stopped in front of the houses, and offered their simple gifts. And all that mattered was that, at this particular time and with hearts in such a mood, people were able to take in what was meant to penetrate their souls at this time of year.

It is still a fond memory of mine, something I heard many times in the villages, how such simple poems were recited by the “carol singers” who went through the villages, such as the following:

Oberschützener Sternsinger (Carol singers from Oberschützen)

In God's name, let us begin
The holy kings from the East,
They ride here in haste
Four hundred miles in thirteen days.
They ride to Herod's house
(Herod looks out of the window.)
Herod said: Where are you going?
To Bethlehem is our destination.
Hail, three kings, come in to me,
I will give you wine and beer.
I will give you roast meat and fish,
show me the newborn king for sure.
We cannot tell you,
we must follow a star.
The star [the star] shines brightly over the house,
[the holy men] go well beyond the mountain.
There they found our Lord Jesus Christ
who is the savior of the world. — —
Why then is the hind so black? - —
He is a king from the land of the Moors. —

Such things were that the whole village took part. At a corresponding line, for example, the star was pushed far forward. It was this Christmas or Three Kings star that expressed the harmony between the season, the festive season, and people's hearts. This is the great thing that has spread like a magical breath into the simplest minds throughout centuries and across a wide area of our entire earth. We need to remind ourselves of this a little, and we can remind ourselves of it especially as seekers of spiritual knowledge, because through the years when we have been able to contemplate this great event, we have been able to regain a sense of the real power for all human beings and for the entire evolution of the earth that is contained in what we are supposed to remember at this festive time.

Thus we may believe that we can gain some understanding of how, in earlier times, the entire Christmas season, especially among the peoples of the various German and Eastern European regions, was actually immersed in festive celebrations, and how such festive celebrations could be achieved with the simplest of means. But perhaps only those who are spiritually seeking can understand today what was essential in the old Christmas plays. What I have just presented to you as the Star Song is only a last ruin, a last remnant. If we go back through the centuries, we would find that, as this time of year approached, Christmas plays were performed across wide areas, with the entire villages participating in what was being performed. We can safely say that, with regard to these things, with regard to knowledge of Christmas plays, we have actually only been able to collect what is now disappearing. I myself, who was fortunate enough to have such a collector among my old friends, heard him tell many stories about what he encountered as a learned collector of Christmas plays, especially in German-Hungarian regions.

In those German-speaking enclaves in Hungary where, before the Magyarization in the 1850s and 1860s, German had remained the mother tongue and colloquial language, many Christmas games and customs still flourished that had long since sunk into oblivion in the main areas of the German-speaking world. The individual colonists who had immigrated to the Slavic regions over the previous centuries preserved their old Christmas plays and revived them when the right people, who were always chosen from among the villagers, could be found to perform them. I still remember well—and you will perhaps agree with me that I am in a position to judge—the enthusiasm with which old Schröer spoke of such Christmas plays when he told of how he had been present when the people celebrated their Christmas plays during this festive season. It is not an exaggeration to say that one only gains an understanding of the innermost essence of art when one goes to these villagers and sees how they have brought forth the simple art of Christmas plays from the most sacred atmosphere. People who today believe that they can learn to recite from this or that teacher, who run here and there to do this or that breathing exercise, which are the right ones — there are dozens of the right methods of breathing for singing or declamation today — these people believe that it is important to turn the human body or the larynx into a proper automaton in order to cultivate some kind of art in a materialistic way. I only want this curious view never to take root in our circles, because these people have no idea how a simple but real art was born out of the most sacred mood, out of the prayerful Christmas spirit, and was performed with the deepest Christian feeling in the souls and hearts of village boys, who often played quite loose and useless pranks during the rest of the year. For these simple people under their thatched roofs knew infinitely more about the connection between the human soul, the whole human being, and art than is known today in our modern theaters or other art forms, no matter how much fuss is made about it: that art is something that must come from the whole human being and, if it is sacred art, from the sacred, pious mood of the human being.

This can be seen, for example, in the four main rules that existed in areas that Schröer was still able to visit.

When Christmas plays were performed in areas of Upper Hungary, as October or November approached, the person who had the Christmas plays that had never been written down before—because writing them down was considered profanity—would gather those people he considered suitable. And the people who were really suitable at this time of year were those whom one might not otherwise have expected: loose, good-for-nothing boys who had already had their fill of all kinds of mischief during the year. During this time, however, the necessary mood descended upon these souls. There were strict rules for the participants in the Christmas plays during the weeks of rehearsals. Anyone who wanted to take part had to strictly observe the following four rules. Of course, one has to put oneself in the shoes of village life and consider what it means in village life not to be allowed to take part in such an event.

“Anyone who wants to participate must 1. not go to a prostitute, 2. not sing bawdy songs during the entire holy season, 3. lead an honorable life, 4. follow me. There is a fine for everything, including any memory lapses and the like during the play.”

Doesn't this custom remind you of the consciousness that existed in sacred places in the ancient mysteries, where it was not thought that wisdom could be attained through ordinary schooling? Here, too, there was a prevailing awareness that the whole person, with his mind and morals, must be purified and cleansed if he wants to approach art in a dignified manner. Such things should be born out of the whole person. And the Christmas spirit brought about something such that even the most unruly boys could be pious.

What I have just mentioned to you, what Schröer and others were able to collect in Christmas plays, which were performed as the last remnants of old plays, are now only ruins. But we look back to even earlier times, to the 16th, 15th, 14th centuries and so on, when conditions between villages and towns were completely different, when the souls of the villagers were indeed immersed in a completely different mood at this Christmas time through what the plays could give them, when the sacred legend, the birth of Christ, with all that belongs to it in the Bible, was depicted with the simplest, primitive means, the holy legend was depicted, the birth of Christ, with everything that belongs to it in the Bible. And just as Christmas Day, December 25, is preceded in the calendar by Adam and Eve Day, so the play that was considered the actual Christmas play was usually preceded by the so-called Paradise Play, the play of Adam and Eve in Paradise, how they fell victim to the devil, the serpent. In the simplest areas, it was possible to gain immediate insight into the connection that exists between the descent of man from spiritual heights into the sphere of the physical plane and the jolt that man received through the Christ impulse to ascend again into the spiritual worlds.

When one reads the letters of Paul, one senses the grandeur of Paul's view of man who descended in Adam from the spiritual world into the sensory world, and of the “new Adam,” Christ, in whom man ascends again from the sensory world into the spiritual world. if people can sense and feel this in Paul in a magnificent way—in a heartfelt, loving, and warm-hearted way—then even the simplest people, down to the children, could feel it in the depths of their hearts, in the depths of their souls, when they were shown, one after the other, the Paradise play of Adam and Eve, the Fall of Man, and the revelation of Christ in the Christmas play. And people felt deeply, deeply the tremendous break that had been made in human evolution by the Christ event. The Christ event was felt as a reversal of the path of evolution. The path from Adam to Christ was, so to speak, a path from heaven to earth. The path from Christ to the end of the earth's time is a path from earth to heaven. This was felt most deeply when these two plays, characterized here in a primitive way, were performed before thousands and thousands of people. For people truly felt the complete renewal of what the human spirit is through the Christ impulse.

Perhaps one can also feel in this something like an echo of what one felt in relation to this reversal of the entire progress of humanity in those words that come from ancient times, from the first Christian centuries, and which were spoken often and often, even in the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries in regions where Christianity spread, especially within Europe. One felt something tremendous in words such as the following:

Ave maris stella
Dei mater alma
Atque semper virgo
Felix coeli porta.
Sumens illud Ave
Gabrielis ore
Funda nos in pace
Mutans nomen Evae!

When these words were spoken, one sensed the path of man from heaven to earth through the Fall and the ascent of man from earth to heaven through Christ, and one sensed it in the two female figures, in “Eve” and in the name given to the mother of Jesus, with which she was greeted, so to speak, “Ave.” Ave is the reversal of the name Eva; when you read Ave backwards, you get Eva. This was felt in its full meaning. Hence these words, which at the same time show what was felt within the most elementary natural phenomena and, at the same time, what was seen as human in the legend:

Ave, star of the sea,
Divine young mother
And eternal virgin,
You happy gate of heaven.
Taking that Ave
As a gift from Gabriel,
You became the foundation of peace for us,
By reversing
The name Eva!

In such simple words, the greatest mysteries, the greatest secrets of human development were perceived. And in the reversal of the name Eve to Ave, everyone felt in a heartfelt way what can then be gleaned in a grandiose manner from the letters of Paul when one reads the passages about Adam, the “old” Adam, and about Christ, the “new” Adam. This mood prevailed during the days of Christmas, when the Paradise play, depicting the Fall of Man, and the Christmas play, depicting the hope that can become the future of every human soul if it accepts the power that lies in the Christ impulse, were performed one after the other in a primitive manner. But in order to feel this, a certain mood is necessary, which we must realize is no longer possible today. Times have changed. Such an impossibility of looking into the spiritual worlds, as it exists today for the most primitive and the most intelligent populations, such a fundamentally materialistic element in the human mind did not exist at that time. To assume the existence of the spiritual world was a matter of course. And a certain understanding of this spiritual world in its difference from the sensory world was equally a matter of course. People today have little idea of how it was possible to feel spiritually until well into the 15th and 16th centuries, and how, in fact, an awareness of spirituality was present everywhere. If the revival of one of the Christmas plays, an Upper Palatinate Christmas play, which is to be staged in our two art rooms, is successful, then perhaps an understanding of the spiritual atmosphere it contains can be reawakened outside our circles. For us, this or that line from such a Christmas play should become a sign of the spiritual meaning that was present in those who were meant to understand this Christmas play during the festive season. For example, when in this or that Christmas play Mary, expecting the baby Jesus, says: “The time has come, I see a little child” — that is, in the days preceding the birth she clairvoyantly saw the approaching child, as is the case in many Christmas plays — then I ask you, where can you find a similar story today on the same occasion? The times of connection with the spiritual world, as it was still consciously present at that time, no longer exist. One should not indulge in either an optimistic or a pessimistic attitude about this. Today, one has to go very far into the most primitive rural areas if one wants to find the vision that is that of the child who is to come in a few “days.” Such a thing still exists.

Only in such a mood could one be immersed in what was expressed in these primitive memories and thoughts about the greatest event in human development during the Christmas season. We must therefore find it quite understandable that the poetry of earlier times, that simple, primitive art, has been replaced by the prose of electric railways and automobiles, which rush by in such a grotesque manner between the avenues of Christmas trees. It is impossible for an aesthetically sensitive eye to see the two things together: Christmas trees, Christmas markets—and automobiles and electric trains rushing between them! The impossible is, of course, a matter of course today, but for the aesthetically sensitive eye it remains impossible. Nevertheless, we want to be friends, not enemies of culture, and understand that it must be a matter of course.

But we also want to understand how this is connected with the materialistic trend that has swept through all minds, not only those of city dwellers, but also those of the rural population. Oh, we can hear it, the materialistic mood as it creeps into people's minds. Go back to the 14th or 13th century, and you will find that people knew perfectly well that they meant something spiritual when they spoke, for example, of the tree of knowledge in paradise. They understood correctly what was being presented to them in the Paradise Play, and they knew how to relate it spiritually to what was correctly represented as the tree of knowledge or the tree of life. For superstition was by no means as widespread in those days as it later became in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. In contrast, we find already in the 15th century, for example in the Bamberg area—this can be historically proven—how people go out into the apple orchards at Christmas because they physically, materially expect that a specially chosen apple tree will blossom at Christmas. The whole emotional life of people became materialistic in the era that began in the 13th and 14th centuries and continued through the 16th and 17th centuries, not only in the cities, but also in the souls of those who were simple villagers.

Much of what was once ancient poetry has crept into homes with their Christmas trees. But what once filled the villages with a sacred atmosphere, like a mystery, has become mere external poetry, the poetry of the Christmas tree, which is still beautiful, but only an echo of something greater. Why is this so? Because humanity must undergo a development in the course of time, because what is intimate, great, and significant in one age cannot remain the same for all ages. For it would be an enemy of human development to want to carry over into other ages what is great for one age. Every age has its own special tasks, and in every age we must understand how to bring to life in a new way that which is to penetrate the souls and hearts of human beings. Our age can certainly only immerse itself in those real Christmas moods that we have been able to describe in a suggestive way as in a historical memory, as in a piece of the past. But if we do bring the symbol of the Christmas tree into our festive gatherings, we do so precisely because we associate with anthroposophical spiritual science itself the idea of a new Christmas spirit for humanity, for advanced humanity. For spiritual science should bring the mysteries of Christ into the hearts and souls of people in a way that is appropriate to our time. Even though our modern means of transportation rush past us when we step outside our doors, or may even fly away with us into the air — and soon these things will bring humanity to the most sober, most terrible prose — even so, the people of today must have the opportunity, precisely in a stronger, in an even more meaningful deepening of their souls, to rediscover the divine-spiritual that could appear so simply to the primitive minds of centuries past when they saw the holy child in the manger at Christmas time. Today we need other means to awaken this mood in the soul. We certainly like to immerse ourselves in what the past had to offer in order to find the paths to the Christ event, but we must also be independent of time. The way people in ancient times felt their way into the secrets of nature was only possible in primitive times. Today we need other means.

I would just like to give you an idea of how people felt their way into nature when Christmas was approaching, how they felt their way into it in a very primitive way and yet spoke from the depths of their hearts about their feelings for the elements of nature. If I may share another little star song with you, you will perhaps feel in just one place how the elements of nature spoke from the soul. The rest is rather primitive. But listen more closely, and you will feel that natural mood emerging from several other places.

For when the person who had gathered his players for the Christmas play or the Three Kings play went with them, and when they appeared here and there, they first greeted those who had gathered, for the abstract mood that prevails today between performers and spectators did not exist in those days. People belonged together, and the whole thing was immersed in a shared milieu. That is why the performers acted in such a way that they greeted those who were there and also those who were not there in a primitive manner. That really created a Christmas atmosphere.

The caroler says.

Ir liabn meini singa samlet eng zsam
Gleiwia die kråpfen in der pfann.
Ir liabn meini singa trets zsam in a scheibn,
Ma wölln uns de wail mit singa vertreibn.
Ir liabn meini singa fangts tapfer ån.
Zu grüaß'n wölln ma's heben ån.
We greet God the Father in the highest throne
And we greet his only Son;
We also greet the Holy Spirit by name
And we greet all three of them together.

Joseph and Mary go on stage.

Greetings to Joseph and Mary,
And greetings to the little child.
Greetings to the ox and the donkey,
Who stand by the manger.
Greetings to them through the sunshine and moonlight,
Which shine over the sea and over the Rhine.
Greetings to you through the leaves and grass,
The holy rain makes us and all angels wet.
Greetings to the emperor with the crown,
Greetings to the master who made it.
Greetings to the clergy,
For allowing us to learn this song.
Greetings to the judge with his oath,
For they are worthy of honor.
And greetings to all the honorable people,
All of you who are gathered here.
Greetings to the entire honorable council,
As God has ordained.
Greetings to you all,
As many as there are on earth.
My dear singers, let's start again,
We want to greet the star.
Let us greet our starry pole,
On which our star hangs.
Let us greet our starry host,
On which our star flies around,
We greet all the little pieces of wood,
As many as there are in the star. —
My beloved singers, have you understood me well,
That we have sung the star home.
Greetings to our master singer,
And greetings to the master singer's hat.
Greetings to our teacher in the workshop,
For he taught us with God's help.
My dear singers, I hope you understand
That we have sung them all.

Now I ask you to pay attention to what it means to call upon nature in such a way that you greet everyone you want to greet with such a mood in your heart that you feel such a mood from “All that is sweet, as much as there is in the earth”! This is empathy with the mood of nature itself. We must recognize how people in those days were connected with everything holy, with everything great and spiritual, down to the roots of the grass and trees. Those who can empathize with this feel something grandiose in the mysteries of human development when they read a line like the one just mentioned. The times when this was natural, when it was taken for granted, are now past, and today we need other means. We need, so to speak, means that lead us to an even deeper source of human nature, to that source of human nature which is in a certain sense independent of external time. For culture itself, as it is today, makes it impossible for us to bind ourselves precisely to the seasons. Therefore, anyone who truly understands the mood that was felt in ancient times as the Christ mood at Christmas will also understand what we want to achieve by deepening artistically what we can gain from spiritual science, what we want by striving to revive that source in the human mind that can absorb the Christ impulse.

At Christmas time, we can no longer directly evoke the great, however much we would like to awaken this impulse in our souls at this time of year, but we are always searching for it. And when we see in what anthroposophical spiritual science is to be for humanity a Christmas celebration of this progress of humanity, and when we look at what the simple human being could feel when the Child in the manger was presented to him at Holy Christmas, then we say to ourselves: Such moods, such feelings should awaken in us when we look at what can be born in our souls when spiritual knowledge makes our innermost source so holy, so purified that it can take in the sacred mystery of the Christ impulse.

From this point of view, we also try again to find true art that springs from the spirit, art that can only be the child of piety, the child of the most sacred feelings. When we feel the eternal, imperishable Christmas of humanity in this way: how that Christ impulse can be born in human beings, in the human soul, in the human mind — when we learn again through spiritual science how this Christ impulse is something real, something that can truly pour into our souls and hearts as a living force — then, through spiritual science, the Christ impulse does not remain an abstraction, a dogma, but then this Christ impulse, which arises from our spiritual movement, will become something that can give us comfort in the worst moments of our lives, something that can make us happy in the hope that when Christ is born in our soul, at Christmas time, we can look forward to Easter, the resurrection of the spirit within ourselves.

Thus we must advance from the material, which has entered into all spirits, into all hearts, back to the spiritual. For only from the spirit can that renewal be born which is necessary in contrast to what is the prose of life today. Will it be possible, even when cars are driving outside, balloons are flying through the air, and electric trains are rushing by, will it be possible that in rooms like these, something of a holy atmosphere will spread, which can only be absorbed through what flows to us throughout the year from spiritual knowledge, bringing us closer to Christ? which in earlier times was allowed to revive in a much more childlike atmosphere, then there is hope that in a certain sense these meeting rooms will be “nativity scenes” that we can look at in a similar way to the children and adults on Christmas Eve when the nativity scene was set up in the house, or earlier in the church, and they looked at the little child, at the shepherds in front of him, and at ” oxen and donkeys standing around the manger.” There they felt that this symbol filled their hearts with strength for all hope, for all love of humanity, for all human greatness, for all earthly goals.

If, on this day, which should be consecrated and dedicated to the memory of the Christ impulse, we can feel that something has been kindled in our hearts throughout the year by our serious spiritual scientific striving, then our hearts will feel on this day: These are nativity scenes, these are our gathering places, and these lights are the symbols! Through the sacred atmosphere that surrounds them, these nativity scenes, and through the symbolism of their light, contain that which, like Christmas and Easter, is meant to prepare a great time for humanity: the resurrection of the most sacred spirit, of true spiritual life! Let us try to feel that our meeting places at Christmas time are nativity scenes, places where, closed off from the outside world, something great is being prepared. Let us learn to feel, as we study diligently throughout the year, that our insights and our wisdom can come together on this Christmas Eve in warm feelings that glow like a fire from the fuel which we gain throughout the year through our immersion in great teachings. And let us feel that in doing so we are cherishing the memory of the greatest impulse in human development, let us feel how faith can therefore live in these places, that what once burned in such a narrow manger as a holy fire and a light of hope will one day spread out into humanity. Then it will be strong enough, powerful enough to penetrate, to fire, to warm, to illuminate even the hardest, most sober prose of life. Then we can feel the Christmas spirit here as a spirit of hope for that world Easter spirit which is the expression of the living spirit that is necessary for the new humanity.

We celebrate Christmas best in our souls when we fill the next few days with this mood, fill them so that in our Christmas we spiritually prepare for the Easter of humanity, the resurrection of spiritual life. Yes, nativity scenes should become our workplaces during the Christmas season. The light child should be born, kindled throughout the year by immersion in the spiritual wisdom of the Christian mysteries. The Christ should be born in the human soul in our workplaces, so that spiritual life can rise again at the great Easter time of humanity, which in its essence must experience spirituality as a resurrection through the outpouring of the Christmas spirit from our rooms into the general humanity of the present and the future.