The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. The Birth of the Sun Spirit as the Earth Spirit

[ 1 ] When we light the candles on the Christmas tree at this time of year, it is as if a symbol of the eternal were to arise before the human soul’s inner eye, and as if this symbol could have always been the same in the most ancient past. For when nature outside gradually withers away in the fall, when the workings of the sun in the outer light go to sleep, so to speak, and the human soul must turn its outer senses away from the revelations of the sensory world, then this human soul has the opportunity—and not merely the opportunity, but feels the call—to turn inward to its deepest core in order to feel and perceive: Now is the time when the outer sunlight shines least, when the outer solar warmth warms least, the time when the soul can withdraw into the outer darkness, but in return can find the inner spiritual light through the paths of its inner being. For as a symbol of this inner spiritual light, kindled in the night of outer darkness, the lights on the Christmas tree appear to us. And because what we feel as the shining in of the soul’s spiritual light into the natural darkness seems eternal to us, it seems to us that the glowing Christmas tree on Christmas night has shone upon us throughout all the ages we could retrace from incarnation to incarnation, back into the distant past.

[ 2 ] The Christmas tree itself, however, is relatively young. It has been only one or two centuries since the Christmas tree became a symbol of people’s Christmas thoughts and feelings. This Christmas tree is a young symbol, yet every year it proclaims anew to humanity a great, eternal truth. That is why its existence seems as though it had been present even in the times of the distant past. Time and again, it resounds to us—as if evoked by the Christmas tree itself—what is revealed of the divine across the vastness of the world and the heights of heaven. Human beings can feel this as the most confident forces of peace within their souls, springing forth from their good will. And so it resounded, according to the Christmas legend, when the shepherds visited the birthplace of the Child whose feast is celebrated today on Christmas Day. Then, from the heights of the clouds, a voice rang out to the visiting shepherds: “From the vastness of the worlds and the heights of heaven, the divine primal forces reveal themselves and enter as the most confident peace of the human soul, when that human soul is of good will.”

[ 3 ] For centuries upon centuries, it was impossible to believe that Christmas had introduced into the world a symbol that had ever had a beginning. One sensed the eternity of this symbol. That is why Christian worship has, so to speak, clothed the eternal duration of what takes place as a symbol on Christmas night in words: Christ has risen anew for us! — Just as if the soul were to feel anew each year that which one thought could have happened only once. The eternal nature of this symbol stands so powerfully before our soul when we feel the symbol itself in its true sense. And yet, even in the year 353 of our era, following the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth, the Feast of the Nativity was not celebrated even in Rome, in Rome itself. For it was in 354 that this Feast of the Nativity, as we now celebrate it, was celebrated for the first time in Rome itself—in 354. Before that, the Feast of the Nativity was not celebrated on December 24 or 25. Previously, the highest celebration observed by those who understood the profound wisdom of the Mystery of Golgotha was January 6: the Epiphany of Christ. It was celebrated as a kind of Feast of the Nativity of Christ during the first three Christian centuries, and celebrated as the feast that was meant to remind human souls of the descent of the Spirit—referred to as the Spirit of Christ—into the body of Jesus of Nazareth through the baptism by John at the Jordan. What could be conceived as an event through the baptism of John at the Jordan was commemorated as a feast of the Nativity of Christ on January 6 until the year 353. For what is most difficult for humanity to understand among all mysteries—the indwelling of the Christ-being in the body of Jesus of Nazareth—remained alive, at least as an intuitive thought, throughout the first centuries of Christianity.

[ 4 ] How did those who were close to the mysteries of Christianity in the early centuries of the Christian era perceive things? They perceived it this way: The Christ Spirit surges through and interweaves the world that reveals itself to us through the senses and through the human spirit. In the distant past, this Christ Spirit revealed itself to Moses, to whom it resounded as the mystery of the human I, just as it echoes to us here from the symbolic sounds at the Christmas tree when we let the sounds IAO—Alpha and Omega, with the I placed first—resound in our soul. This is roughly how it sounded in Moses’ soul when the Christ Spirit appeared to him in the burning bush. And then this same Christ Spirit led Moses to the place where he was to recognize Him in His truest essence, which is expressed in the Old Testament by the words: “The Lord led Moses up Mount Nebo, opposite Jericho, and showed him all that was yet to come to pass before this Spirit Himself could incarnate in a human body.” — When this Spirit stood before Moses on Mount Nebo, opposite Jericho, He said to him: “But you, to whom I have revealed Myself prematurely, you must not enter, with what you carry in your soul, into that phase of your people’s evolution which is meant to prepare what must happen when the times are fulfilled.”

[ 5 ] And after evolution had prepared humanity, century after century, the same Spirit who had held Moses back revealed Himself. He revealed Himself, becoming flesh and taking on human form, in Jesus of Nazareth. Thus all of humanity was led out from the stage of initiation, symbolized by the word Jericho, to the stage symbolized by the crossing of the Jordan. There, through those who understood the true meaning of Christianity in the first Christian centuries, was set forth Jesus of Nazareth, being baptized in the Jordan, into whom the Sun-Earth Spirit of Christ pours forth. This was celebrated as a mystery, as the birth of Christ, in the first Christian centuries. For that for which we are once again preparing ourselves today through anthroposophy, for which we are preparing ourselves from the wisdom of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, shone forth, as if beheld through the last heirlooms of ancient clairvoyance, to the Gnostics at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha was unfolding—those remarkable theosophers at the turn of the old and new eras who perceived the Christ Mystery in a different way than we do, yet, by speaking of it, gave it the same content. What they were permitted to say seeped through, and although the general public did not understand what had actually taken place in the event symbolically indicated by John’s baptism in the Jordan, they sensed, they felt, that at that time the Sun Spirit had been born as an Earth Spirit, that something Cosmic had shone forth in an earthly human being. And so, in the first Christian centuries, January 6 was celebrated as the birth of the Christ in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, as the appearance of the Christ on earth. But more and more, humanity lost the insight—even the intuitive insight—into this profound mystery. The time came when people could no longer understand, could no longer grasp, that what was called Christ actually dwelt in a physical human body for only three years. More and more, it will dawn on people that what took place over the course of three years in a physical human body—throughout the entire development of the Earth—belongs to the most difficult-to-understand, to the deepest wisdom. For the materialistic age that was to come, the human soul, which had been preparing itself, became too weak to understand, from the 4th century onward, the great Mystery that will only be understood more and more again from our own times onward. Thus it came to pass that, to the same extent that Christianity gained in outward power, the inner, deeper understanding of the Christ Mystery itself was lost, and it was no longer possible to give substance to the celebration of January 6. The birth of Christ was moved back thirteen days and presented as if it had taken place simultaneously with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. But it is precisely this fact that confronts us with something that must always fill us with deep bliss and deep satisfaction. In truth, December 24th and 25th were established as Christ’s birthday through the loss of a great truth, as we have just seen. Nevertheless: although the error has essentially functioned as the loss of a great truth, this has in turn occurred with such wisdom-filled depth that we—even though the people who established all this knew nothing of it—must nevertheless admire the subconscious wisdom that prevailed in the establishment of this Christmas Day.

[ 6 ] Divine wisdom was at work in this decree as well. And just as one can read divine wisdom out in nature, if only one knows how to correctly decipher what is revealed everywhere there, so too can one discern divine wisdom at work in the unconscious human soul when one considers a fact. One opens the calendar and finds “Adam and Eve” listed for December 24, followed by the Feast of the Nativity. This means that the loss of an ancient truth has shifted the birth of Christ for the Earth back by thirteen days, identifying it with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, yet miraculously linking the birth of Jesus of Nazareth with the idea of humanity’s very origin in Earth’s evolution with Adam and Eve. And if one explores all the dark feelings, all the wondrous sensations that prevail in the human soul in relation to this celebration of Jesus’ birthday, without the human’s conscious mind being aware of them—if one explores all these feelings in the depths of the human soul: indeed, they speak a wondrous language.

[ 7 ] When people no longer understood what had actually flowed in from the vast realms of humanity—for that is what should have been celebrated on January 6— people fell into the habit, as if driven by forces working hidden in the depths of the soul, of presenting to humanity the human soul-spirit as it appears when it has not yet fully passed through the human physical body, as it stands at the very starting point of a human being, right where the human soul-spirit first takes possession of this human physical body. The child at birth, when the soul has not yet taken in that which is brought about solely by contact with the physical body, the child at the starting point of physical existence on earth stands there—but not merely the child as it is present for every human being, but the child as it was before human beings in the Earth’s evolution had come to their very first physical embodiment—what Kabbalah has called “Adam Kadmon,” the human being who descended from divine-spiritual heights with all that he had acquired through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon periods. The human being in his spiritual essence at the starting point of earthly existence, born through the infant Jesus—this presented a wondrous, divine wisdom to humanity in the feast of Jesus’ birth. Where people could not understand what was descending to Earth from the vastness of the worlds, from the heavenly spheres, the memory of humanity’s origin was imprinted upon human souls—the memory of what humanity was before the Luciferic forces approached it during the process of becoming earthly. And when people could no longer grasp that one could say, in the highest sense, of what descended to humanity at the baptism of John in the Jordan: From the vastness of the worlds and the heights of heaven, that which is divine reveals itself and enters into human souls to work as a confident peace among people of good will—when people no longer understood how to present this symbol as a festival before humanity, they instead set forth a different kind of confidence: the confidence that, before the Luciferic forces began to work at the dawn of earthly existence, human beings once had a nature on Earth as well, a being in whom they can trust.

[ 8 ] We know from the accounts so far that the boy Jesus, as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke—not the one depicted in the Gospel of Matthew— is the one before whom we find the shepherds in adoration, who in their souls hear this message of the revelation of the Divine from the vastness of the worlds and the heights of heaven for the peace of the human soul that is of good will. And so, for the centuries that could not understand the Higher, that festival celebration came into being, which is meant to remind people anew each year: Even if you cannot look out into the heights of heaven to perceive the great Sun Spirit, you carry within your childlike soul—as long as it remains untouched by external physical embodiment—the powers that can give you the confidence that you can triumph over all that is base, which clings to you through Lucifer’s temptation. — Therefore, this feast of Jesus’ birth was brought closer to the memory of Adam and Eve, indicating that one should imagine that, in the place the shepherds were permitted to visit, a human soul was being born—just as the human soul once was, before humanity had passed through its first earthly incarnation.

[ 9 ] For the God whose birth was no longer understood, the birth of humankind was placed within this festive season. For what ultimately springs from two sources—even when a person’s strength threatens to wane, even when their pain and suffering seem to be getting the better of them—comes from two sources: that which can always satisfy, soothe, and sustain them. One source is that which we can trace when we look out into the vastness of the world, which is interwoven, permeated, illuminated, and warmed by what is called the divine spirit. And if a person can surrender to the thought: You will, if you never let your strength slacken, be able to permeate yourself with the power of this divine-spiritual force that weaves through the world—if a human being can grasp this thought in their heart, then they grasp the Easter thought, the thought through which we, as it were, draw confidence in the world from the vastness of the cosmos. And the other source is the one that can emerge from a dark premonition: Before humanity was afflicted by the Luciferic forces at the outset of earthly existence, as a soul-spiritual being it was still immersed in the very same Spirit that it now anticipates from the far reaches of the cosmos and the vastness of space in the Easter idea. — When humanity turns to the source that it can perceive in the origin of its own being before the influence of the Luciferic forces, it can say to itself: Whatever may come upon you, whatever may torment you, whatever may draw you down from the luminous spheres of the spiritual, there was once a divine origin within you; it must have remained within you, even if it is hidden so deeply in the depths of your soul. If you recognize this innermost power of your soul, then the confidence opens up to you that you may and can ascend to the heights. And if you take all that which you can conjure before your soul as innocent, childlike, and still free from life’s temptations, and remove from it all that which, through the many incarnations since the beginning of earthly existence, has already afflicted even those human souls who have passed through such incarnations, then you will attain an image of that human soul which was at the starting point of earthly existence, before earthly incarnations began.

[ 10 ] But in this case, only a single soul remained—the soul of which the Gospel of Luke speaks as the soul of the child Jesus, the soul that was held back in the spiritual life at the very time when other human souls began to undergo their incarnations through the course of Earth’s evolution. Such a soul was held back at the starting point of earthly life, preserved in the holiest mysteries through the Atlantean ages, through the post-Atlantean ages, right up to the time of the events in Palestine. There it was sent into that body which was to receive it and which was to give birth to one of the Jesus-children: the very Jesus-child described to us in the Gospel of Luke.

[ 11 ] Thus, the celebration of Christ’s birthday became the celebration of Jesus’ birthday. If we understand this celebration correctly, then we must say: Yes, what we think is symbolically born on every Christmas night is the original nature of the human soul, the spirit of human childhood as it was at the very beginning of our existence on Earth. If we consider it as it was at the very beginning of human existence, it constantly calls out to us that it once descended as a revelation from the heights of heaven. And when we feel it within the human breast, a sense of confident peace pours into the human soul—a peace that can carry us toward our lofty goals, provided our will is a good one. Mighty, then, is the voice that can speak to us on Christmas night, if we are receptive.

[ 12 ] And why was the Feast of the Nativity of Christ moved back thirteen days and turned into the Feast of the Nativity of Jesus? To understand this, however, one must delve into the deep mysteries of the human soul. From the external world, people believe—because they see it with their own eyes—that what the sun’s rays conjure up from the depths of the earth in spring, what these sun’s rays unfold from the depths of the earth throughout spring and summer into the most beautiful splendor, that this retreats more and more into the depths of the earth —this is the time when the outer solar sphere of the Earth is at its darkest—that in the depths of the Earth, within the seeds, what is to emerge again from these depths next year is being prepared. Indeed, because of the plant seed—since he sees it—man believes that it undergoes an annual cycle, that it must descend into the depths of the earth in order to unfold again in the warmth and light of the sun’s rays in spring. That such a cycle may also exist for the human soul itself—indeed, that it exists continuously—man initially takes no notice of this. They only realize it when they are initiated into the great mysteries of existence. Just as the power of every plant seed is connected to the physical forces of the earth, so is the innermost being of our own soul connected to the spiritual forces of the earth. And just as the plant seed descends into the depths of the earth during the time we call the Christmas season, so the human soul descends into deep, deep spiritual regions during these times, drawing strength from these deep regions just as the plant seed does to bloom in spring. Ordinary human consciousness perceives nothing of what is taking place with the soul in the spiritual depths of the earth. But for those whose spiritual eyes are opened, the time of the thirteen days and thirteen nights is a profound time of spiritual experience.

[ 13 ] Yes, just as the seed is planted in the natural depths of the earth, so too does a spiritual experience take place in the spiritual depths of the earth—the two proceed in parallel. And as he descends, the seer—who is capable of this through training, or the seer to whom this is made possible by some inherited clairvoyant powers—can feel himself penetrating into such spiritual depths. During this period of thirteen days and thirteen nights, the seer’s spirit can see all that must come upon the human being because this person has undergone those earthly incarnations which, as they are, have come about through the forces of Lucifer from the beginning of the Earth’s existence up to our time. What must come upon the human being in the spiritual world as kamaloka suffering because Lucifer approached him since the human being was incarnated on Earth—this can be seen most clearly in the great, powerful imaginations that may confront the soul during those thirteen days and nights between Christmas and the Feast of January 6, the Epiphany of Christ. Just as the plant seed has its most crucial time in the depths, so the human soul has its deepest experiences during these times. The human soul beholds all that humanity must experience in the spiritual worlds because, under the influence of Lucifer, it has distanced itself from the creative powers of the world. The human soul beholds all this most clearly during this time. Therefore, through this beholding, it is also best prepared for the manifestation of that imagination which we may call the Christ Imagination, where we become aware of how Christ becomes the conqueror of Lucifer and thus judges the deeds of human beings that arise from incarnations standing under the influence of Lucifer. Thus the human soul, the soul of the seer, lives from the Feast of the Nativity of Jesus to the Feast of the Epiphany, so that the Mystery of Christ unfolds to it and it can recognize most deeply during this time what is meant by the baptism of John in the Jordan.

[ 14 ] It is remarkable how, wherever the possibility of spiritual vision in the true sense took hold during the Christian centuries, this remarkable connection also emerged from the vision of the seer’s soul during the thirteen nights of the actual winter solstice. From many a seer, who was either trained in the mysteries of the new age or still possessed inherited seeric powers, one learned to see how, during the darkest time of the winter solstice, the soul can perceive all that a human being must undergo through their separation from the Christ Spirit, and how this human being can find balance, the catharsis, through the fact that the mystery of John’s baptism in the Jordan and then the mystery of Golgotha have been fulfilled, and how the visions of the seers during the thirteen nights are crowned on January 6 by the imagination of Christ. Thus it is correct to designate January 6 as the birthday of Christ, and correct to designate these thirteen nights as the time representing the seership of the human soul, when one perceives all that the human being must undergo through life in the incarnations from Adam and Eve up to the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 15 ] During my last visit to Kristiania last year, I found it fascinating to see this idea—which you encounter, albeit in slightly different words, in many lectures on the Mystery of Christ—beautifully embodied in a myth and legend: the so-called “dream legend,” which, curiously enough, has emerged in Norway over the last ten to fifteen years and taken root among the people, though it actually dates back to earlier times. In a truly wonderful and beautiful way, that legend tells us how Olaf Ästeson is, as it were, initiated through natural forces, falling asleep on Christmas Eve, sleeping through the thirteen days until January 6, and undergoing all the trials that humanity must endure through the incarnations from the beginning of the Earth to the Mystery of Golgotha. And how Olaf Ästeson then beholds, as he approaches the time of January 6th, the intervention of the Christ Spirit in humanity, which had been preceded by the Michael Spirit. I hope that on another occasion in the coming days we will be able to present this poem by Olaf Ästeson to you, so that you may see how the consciousness of such seership still lives on today—indeed, is virtually revived—during these thirteen days. Let me quote just the one characteristic stanza from the beginning:

So listen to my song!
I will sing to you
Of a nimble young man:

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept for so long!
Of him I will sing to you.
He went to rest on Christmas Eve,
A deep sleep soon overcame him,
And he could not awaken,
Until on the thirteenth day
The people went to church.

It was Olaf Åsteson,
Who once slept so long!
Of him I will sing to you.

[ 16 ] And this continues until, in his dream of the thirteen nights, he is led through everything that human beings must experience—in the manner described today—as a result of Lucifer’s temptation. It is vividly described how Olaf Åsteson passes through all the realms where human beings experience what we have so often described in our accounts of Kamaloka, and how the Christ Spirit, guided by Michael, streams into this visioned Kamaloka.

[ ] Thus, for human beings, the possibility will open up more and more—through what we call the Christ coming in the Spirit—to truly recognize how spiritual forces govern and weave, how what we call festivals has not been arbitrarily established, but has been established by the world-wisdom that is so often unconscious to human beings, yet governs through history. This world-wisdom has placed the feast of Jesus’ birth at the beginning of the thirteen days. If, on the other hand, the Easter festival can always remind us that we will find within ourselves the powers, through the contemplation of the vastness of the worlds and the vastness of space, to be victorious over all that is base, then the Christmas idea tells us that we can find within ourselves—if we understand the symbol of this human origin, this origin of the God-man—the symbol that meets us as the Christ Child on Christmas Day. This origin of humanity calls out to us ceaselessly: Human being, you can find within yourself the powerful forces that give you what can be called, in the true sense of the word, peace of mind. — For peace of mind exists only when it is a confident peace, that is, when it embodies the strength that enables a person to know always: Within you lives something that can and must lead you upward—to divine heights, to divine powers—if only you bring it to birth within yourself in the right way. — The lights here are symbols to us of that light which shines and glows within our own soul when we grasp what the infant Jesus symbolically announces to us on Christmas night from his state of innocence: the innermost essence of the human soul itself, which is there—innocent, powerful, and peaceful—for our life’s journey toward the highest earthly goals. And when we let these lights of our soul speak to us: Yes, human soul, if you ever grow weak and believe you cannot find these earthly goals, then think of humanity’s divine origin and become aware within yourself of the powers that are at once the powers of the highest love. And as your powers reach their highest development, become aware within yourself of the forces that will always give you confidence and security in all your actions, in all your life now and in the most distant times to come.