The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] You will have seen from yesterday’s lecture how to understand what was said right at the beginning of these lectures: that the Greeks conceived of and viewed all of nature as permeated by spirit, so that they did not have a concept of nature as we understand it today. You will have seen this from the way in which an attempt was made to depict the relationship of the three great divine beings within Greek spiritual life: Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto. For we have seen that we must imagine the forces of the astral body, which are present in the human being in a microcosmic sense, projected out into the cosmos. When we conceive of the ruler, the central power of these forces, as superpersonal and superhuman, we arrive at what the Greek sensibility associated with the word Zeus. And we have seen that something similar applies to the projection of the forces of our etheric body into outer space in relation to Poseidon, and of those forces that are in our physical body in relation to Pluto.

[ 2 ] By now, the question has surely occurred to you: What, then, of the fourth component of our being? For the entire human being, as we understand it today, consists of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I, or the I-bearer. Well, you will realize from the outset that, precisely because this ego occupies a very special position in relation to the other members of the human being, the forces of the universe corresponding to this ego must also, when correctly perceived, occupy a very special position. With regard to the forces of the physical body, one might say that they are projected out into outer space, and are then directed by the central power of Pluto; and in a similar way, Poseidon governs the forces of the etheric body, and Zeus those of the astral body. But when we look at our ego itself, we find that this ego stands in intimate contact with everything that is happening around us in our lives. We are, after all, placed into the world with our ego. Our entire destiny, our happiness and our misfortune, depend on the world events that surround us and approach our ego. And one can sense, if one thinks about the matter even a little, that the forces of our ego must be quite unlike the Plutonic forces that are spread out in outer space. Just as the fate of this ego is intimately related to its surroundings, so too must we conceive of the forces of this ego as related to the divine-spiritual forces that correspond to this ego out in space, just as the other divine-spiritual forces correspond to the soul forces within us. Just consider how closely related we are, in terms of our ego experiences, to what surrounds us. How different our ego feels when we open our eyes and let it immerse itself in the star-studded sky or in the evening and morning glow, in the setting or rising sun. How little can we detach our ‘I’ from all of this. How intimately are we connected to the macrocosm outside. We are poured out with our ‘I’ into our surroundings. What flows in from outside—the golden sunbeam, the majestic world of stars—is at once an object out there in the macrocosm, and at once an idea in the human soul, in the microcosm. We can hardly distinguish between the two in real life. They flow into one another. Given the immediate way in which the Greeks perceived the world and its wonders, we may assume that they conceived of the deity—who represented to them the “I-forces” reigning out there in space—as much more akin to, and much more intimately connected with, humanity than the other gods, whom they actually conceived as distant from human nature. Hence we find a divine figure as the representative of the ego forces in the world outside who, one might say, possesses a certain intimacy with human nature itself and, in his destinies and throughout his life, appears quite human in a certain sense—and that is Dionysus. Just as we must regard Pluto as the representative of the forces of the physical body projected out into the world, Poseidon as the representative of the forces of the etheric body, and Zeus as the representative of the forces of the astral body, so must we regard Dionysus as the macrocosmic representative of the soul forces that live out their lives in our ego. The whole way in which the Greeks felt toward their Dionysus, that figure who so strangely confronts our ego at the very end of the “Mystery of Eleusis,” will only become clear to us if we first learn a little about how spiritual powers and spiritual beings influence our earthly existence, the wonders that constitute our own human existence.

[ 3 ] You will find much of what I now have to say as a supplement to my lectures in the book that has just been completed and which essentially reproduces the lectures I recently gave in Copenhagen. It deals with the spiritual guidance of the individual and of humanity. From this book, I will now quote a few passages specifically relevant to our purposes in these lectures. The first point we must address is that humanity, as it develops on Earth, as it determines its destiny, and as it gradually shapes its cultural epochs, is guided by those beings whom we must describe as superhuman, whom the human sensory gaze cannot initially perceive, but who are primarily situated in a supersensory world and are accessible only to the clairvoyant gaze. When we turn, so to speak, to the next category, to the next class of beings who guide humanity, we come to those beings who, in Eastern mysticism, are designated as the Dhyanic beings closest to humanity, and in Christian terminology as angels, Angeloi. We have often spoken of these superhuman beings, who belong to the first category of superhuman beings. We also know, of course, what the nature of these beings is. We know that these beings were once human under entirely different conditions of existence: during the ancient Lunar Age, during which our present Earth experienced its previous incarnation. At that time, these angelic beings, who today intervene in the guidance of humanity, had passed through their human stage; thus, when the Earth was at the beginning of its present development, they had reached a point where they stood one step higher than humanity does today, and at the end of Earth’s development, that part of humanity which reaches the goal of the present Earth development will have reached the stage that the angelic beings had reached at the conclusion of the Lunar development. Therefore, these beings are initially suited to provide the next level of guidance hovering above humanity. They intervene in our human development.

[ 4 ] However, the fact is that in all of human development, one thing never completely resembles another, nor does one epoch exactly mirror another; and when I say that the angelic beings, the Angeloi, were humanity’s next guides, this by no means applies universally. So one should not immediately conclude: then, therefore, angels guided humanity during the first post-Atlantean cultural epoch, the ancient Persian period, the Egyptian-Chaldean period, and so on. One would then, in turn, think of everything in an abstract, uniform way. That is not how things are in the real world. There, they differ in the most manifold ways. In the most direct sense of the word, there are actually only two post-Atlantean cultural periods in which the angelic beings provide the direct and, in a certain sense, independent guidance of humanity, and these are the third post-Atlantean cultural epoch, the Egyptian-Chaldean one, and our own, the fifth cultural epoch. In the Egyptian-Chaldean period, it was the angels who were the actual leaders of that cultural epoch. How did they carry out this guidance? One may recall a saying found in the writings of the great Greek historian Herodotus:

[ 5 ] When the ancient Egyptians were once asked who their great ancient leaders were, they replied: The gods! In the language of ancient humanity, the term “gods” refers to these angelic beings, and in all seriousness, the ancient Egyptians—who were well-versed in such matters—meant to say that it was not ordinary human beings who led humanity in those days, but rather beings of a superhuman nature who had already completed their human stage on the ancient Moon. But these leaders of humanity in the ancient Egyptian-Chaldean culture could not appear directly in a human physical body. The physical body that we humans bear is a product of the Earth; it is entirely dependent on the conditions of existence on Earth, and only those beings who undergo their human development during the Earth period—that is, humans—have a soul constitution, a soul disposition, that can express itself within this shell of the human physical body. Since the angels, or Angeloi, had already lived through their human stage on the ancient Moon, it is impossible for them to surround themselves with a shell such as the human physical body. They could not, therefore, descend and incarnate in a physical, fleshly human body. Thus, these ancient leaders of the Egyptian-Chaldean era did not walk the earth as human beings. Instead, there were clairvoyant people who were receptive to inspiration from the spiritual worlds; in moments when they were particularly open to this inspiration, they could see those guiding beings before them and allow their substance to permeate their own. These ancient clairvoyants, as it were, surrendered their own bodies, saying to the leading beings: “Here is my physical body; enter into it, spiritualize it, inspire it!”—Then, in this ancient Egyptian-Chaldean era, an ordinary human being walked upon the earth, yet he was a clairvoyant. What he said and did, what he taught, spoke, and worked in him and through him, as if he himself were the instrument—a higher being spoke who had completed their human development on the ancient Moon. Thus, in the ancient Egyptian-Chaldean era, the leadership—which was primarily dedicated to advancing humanity in a straight line—unhindered in promoting development toward the Earth’s goal. Thus, angels or angeloi who had completed their human stage on the ancient Moon inspired the highest clairvoyant personalities of the Egyptian-Chaldean era and, by making use of this instrument, became kings and priests, the leading figures of the Egyptian-Chaldean cultural epoch.

[ 6 ] Alongside these leading individualities, however, there were others. One would have searched in vain for the leading individualities in their own right, even within a human body. Those others, however, were in a different situation. These were the ones who, so to speak, stood on the lowest stage of Luciferic development—angelic beings who had not completed their development on the ancient Moon, who had not attained the full goal of humanity on the ancient Moon, and who, when the Earth began, were themselves not yet as far along as human beings will be at the end of Earth’s development, when they have attained their full goal. These beings likewise allowed their forces, their impulses, to flow into the Egyptian-Chaldean era; but because they had not yet fully completed their human stage, they were now able to walk about on Earth in a physical human body. They incarnated, took on a physical human body, and walked among other human beings as true human beings. The ancient legendary accounts speak of such individualities—who were present not only among the ancient Chaldeans and Egyptians, but among all peoples of that time—as human beings who walked the earth, yet who, in their inner soul nature, were actually angelic beings of the ancient Moon who had remained behind. The ancient Greeks, too, when speaking of their heroes, spoke of such individualities, such as Cecrops and Cadmus. All the great cultural leaders, who not only inspired but actually walked among other human beings as humans in physical bodies—yet were not truly human, but rather, in their human form, were Maya, who in truth were backward-staying lunar beings—these individualities were the heroes; they were the superhuman figures who stood, so to speak, on the lowest level of the Luciferic beings. What, then, is the actual task of these beings? Oh, it is wisely arranged in the overall development of the world that it is not only those beings who directly guide evolution in a straight line who have their proper tasks. One might say that if human beings were subject only to that spiritual guidance directed by these normally developed beings, they would, as it were, rush forward too quickly and with too little gravity in their development. Development needs obstacles so that the proper pace can be maintained. Development requires a certain gravity, a weight. The forces that rush forward can only become truly strong by strengthening themselves against resistance. The task of imparting weight and gravity to evolution falls to those entities who were left behind by the wise guidance of the worlds during the planetary lunar development.

[ 7 ] I said that it would be incorrect to apply what I have just described about the Egyptian-Chaldean cultural period to all cultural epochs. This was not the case in the early Persian cultural development. In a sense, those angelic beings were not as independent in guiding humanity; they were subject in a much more direct way to the archangelic beings or Archangeloi, so that one can say, in a certain sense, that the ancient Persian, the Zarathustrian culture, stands just as much under the spiritual guidance of the archangelic beings or Archangeloi as the Egyptian-Chaldean culture stands under the direct spiritual guidance of the angels or Angeloi. Just as the Egyptian clairvoyant kings and priests were inspired by angelic beings, so too were Zarathustra and his disciples inspired by archangelic beings, the Amshaspands. And if we go back even further to the first post-Atlantean culture—that culture of which only a faint echo still remains in the Vedas—we come to the so-called holy Rishis, the great teachers of India. They, in turn, were inspired by an even higher hierarchy, by the spirits of personality, the primal forces, the Archai, who, though they made use of the Archangeloi or archangels and the Angeloi or angels as instruments, intervened much more directly in those days than they did later. The ancient holy Rishis of India were inspired by the Archai or primal beginnings.

[ 8 ] We can thus observe, as it were, a progression of humanity from the first post-Atlantean cultural epoch through the subsequent cultural epochs, as hierarchies situated at ever lower levels become involved in the spiritual guidance of humanity; first, in the ancient Indian period, the highest, the Archai or Spirits of Personality; then, in the ancient Persian period, the next lower hierarchy, the Archangeloi or Archangels; and then, in Egyptian culture, the hierarchy standing immediately above humanity, the Angeloi or Angels. Quite peculiar conditions prevailed during the Greek period. The beings who were the leaders of humanity at that time were those who still needed the assistance of all the superhuman beings the most for themselves, so that these leaders and guides of the Greco-Latin era granted humanity the greatest independence and freedom. For through their leadership, they sought to achieve for themselves roughly as much as humanity could achieve through them. Hence that wondrous phenomenon that during the Greco-Latin period humanity appears as if left to its own devices, as if self-contained. There has been no cultural epoch since the ancient Atlantean catastrophe in which human beings were so much left to their own devices, so intent on bringing forth from within themselves that which was unique to them, as in the Greco-Latin period. Hence we also see how everything in this era is directed toward expressing human individuality in its purest form. One could say this happened because the reins from above, from the guiding hierarchies, were loosest, because people in this Greco-Latin era were left most to their own devices.

[ 9 ] In our cultural epoch, which follows the Greco-Latin period, there is once again something highly peculiar. Here, once again, the same beings intervene who were the leaders of humanity in the Egyptian-Chaldean era, and when we raise ourselves clairvoyantly to the direct guidance of humanity, then the same beings appear to us as our spiritual guides who were also the leaders of the Egyptian-Chaldean era—both those beings who at that time merely inspired humanity, that is, the angels or angeloi who had attained their full lunar goal, as well as the heroes, the leaders of humanity who walked the earth in the flesh—that is, those who had not attained their full lunar goal, namely the Luciferic beings. All these beings are reappearing. We must only note that these beings have also undergone their own evolution. Just as humanity stands today at a different stage than in ancient Egyptian times, so too do those angelic beings and Luciferic angelic beings stand today at different stages of development than they did while guiding the Egyptian-Chaldean culture. Guiding humanity, the work they accomplished by guiding humanity, raised them to a higher stage of development. When we turn our clairvoyant gaze to the Akashic Records and see what these guiding beings of humanity looked like during the Egyptian-Chaldean period, we find that they had reached a certain height of development at that time. Now they are once again emerging from the twilight of existence, intervening anew in human development, but having themselves become more perfect beings. There is, however, a difference once again.

[ 10 ] Let us now set aside for a moment those beings who were then Luciferic-angelic beings, and turn our attention to the actual angelic beings who guided the advancing civilization during the Egyptian-Chaldean period. Among them are those who, at that time, had reached their normal stage of development in the sense just indicated, but even then, some of these angelic beings remained behind, so that there are those who, although they had reached their normal stage of development on the Moon as angels or angeloi—that is, who entered the development of our present Earth as angels—did not achieve what they could have achieved on Earth during the Egyptian-Chaldean cultural period. They remained behind, and as a result, even among these beings—who were still normal during the Egyptian period—two classes of angelic beings arose, and there is truly a great, immense difference between these two classes of angelic beings, a difference whose understanding is of immense importance for the highest mystery of our human development. I have already alluded to this difference in another context, namely in the text that records the lectures I recently gave in Copenhagen. If we wish to describe this difference, we must point to a name that is most intimately connected with the entire development of the Earth; we must point to the name of Christ.

[ 11 ] Now, as far as the external development of the Earth is concerned, we know that Christ was incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth for three years of Earth’s development. We know that this was a unique incarnation, for there was no similar incarnation before it, nor will there be one after it. What Christ did there—by making himself the inhabitant of a physical human body for three years—was necessary for the people on Earth, who, as sensory-earthly beings, were to have Christ among them as a sensory-earthly being as well. But the Christ, in his unique essence, is not confined to having been in the body of Jesus of Nazareth for three years; rather, he is the guide and leader of all beings in the higher hierarchies as well. He is a comprehensive cosmic, universal being, and just as he entered human evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha, so too were there events for the beings of the higher hierarchies; that is to say, over time, the Christ became something for all these beings of the higher hierarchies.

[ 12 ] How did this happen? As I told you, during the Egyptian-Chaldean era, the angelic beings described underwent a process of evolution, so that today they appear as more highly developed beings than they were then and intervene in the guidance of humanity. How did they manage to reach a higher stage of development? Well, because while they were guiding the souls of humanity during the Egyptian-Chaldean period, they simultaneously made themselves disciples of Christ in the spiritual, in the supersensible world. Christ was the teacher of the angelic beings during the Egyptian-Chaldean period. At that time, his impulse flowed into them, and now they appear at a higher stage of development because they have since become imbued with the Christ impulse. If we were to look at those guides and leaders, those spiritual guides of the Egyptian-Chaldean cultural epoch, at the point where the Greco-Latin era begins, we would have to say: The most highly developed of the spiritual leaders, those who had prepared themselves most thoroughly to intervene in the highest possible way in our fifth cultural epoch, had, at the beginning of the Greco-Latin era, taken the Christ impulse—which they had not previously possessed—into themselves; they had been Christified and now act as Christified beings descending from the higher worlds. Likewise, however, the Archangels, or Archangeloi, who were not yet Christ-imbued at the time they inspired Zarathustra and his disciples, have since taken the Christ impulse into themselves and will be the spiritual leaders of humanity in the sixth cultural epoch, which will follow ours. But then, in the sixth cultural epoch, they will appear as Christ-permeated beings in comparison to how they were in the ancient Persian era. And those Archai, the spirits of personality who were the inspirers of the holy Rishis in the ancient Indian cultural epoch, have also since absorbed the Christ impulse and will be the spiritual guides of the seventh post-Atlantean cultural period. Then everything that was once proclaimed to humanity through the mouths of the holy Rishis in ancient India will appear on Earth on a vast scale; yet in the seventh post-Atlantean cultural epoch, among the most advanced human beings, it will be thoroughly illuminated, purified, and transformed by the Christ impulse. The holy Rishis will rise again in the radiance of the Christ-Sun in the seventh cultural epoch of post-Atlantean humanity. Thus we see that for the beings of these four hierarchies—for human beings, but also for the angels, archangels, and archai—the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ Event, represents the highest reality of which we can speak in our cosmic development as human beings.

[ 13 ] Why, then, have the beings we have described as having been left behind actually been left behind? They have remained behind because they rejected the Christ impulse, so that one class—one category of leading beings—is now emerging that has received the Christ; the other class, however, the angelic beings who have remained behind, in turn influence our cultural period in such a way that the Christ impulse is not to be seen in their activity, that they are not permeated by the Christ. And while the angels or angeloi of the Egyptian-Chaldean era, filled with the Christ impulse, now instill in human development such forces that lead humanity upward toward spiritual life, toward spirituality, the other beings who have rejected the Christ impulse seek to provide humanity with inspiration in the form of everything we might call materialistic culture and science. That is why, in our time, there is such a jumble of influences: on the one hand, that which is permeated by the purest Christ impulse and is meant to lead humanity upward toward spirituality—to which we dedicate ourselves when we pursue the goal of spiritual science in the true sense—and, on the other hand, the other inspirers who reject the permeation by Christ and strive to introduce the material element into human culture. These two currents, thus characterized, are in conflict in our time. Our time can only be understood if one knows that these two currents of spiritual guidance prevail within it. As soon as one cannot distinguish between them and fanatically adheres to one or the other, one is unable to clearly see how our culture is actually unfolding. Under the guidance of the non-Christed Angeloi, we have today acquired a science that is entirely abstract, entirely unspiritual. And we have the urge to ascend into spirituality, because, especially in our cultural epoch, the other angels described above are intervening more and more strongly in the guidance of humanity. All the great spiritual leaders of humanity who drive things forward have, at some point in the post-Atlantean era—whether they be angels, archangels, or archai—exposed themselves to the Christ impulse, just as human beings at the lowest level have exposed themselves to this Christ impulse through the Mystery of Golgotha. Here we see the significance of the intervention of the Christ impulse in human development. Now, of course, we must be clear that those beings who were precisely the highest, the ones most strongly driving humanity toward spirituality, could not incarnate in a human physical body even in the ancient Egyptian-Chaldean era. Therefore, they can naturally do so even less in our time. Today we must also seek out the important, the outstanding spiritual leaders of humanity through the clairvoyant gaze, through spiritual scientific knowledge in the supersensible world, and it would be wrong if we were to expect to find the highest leaders of humanity—those who are actually driving progress and setting the standard—embodied in a physical human body.

[ 14 ] In a certain sense, Christ himself is an exception to this general rule—that the truly leading individualities do not incarnate in a physical human body during Earth’s evolution—in that he was incarnated in a physical human body for three years. Where does this come from? We must ask ourselves this question. It stems from the fact that the Christ Being, in all its powers and impulses, is a far higher individuality than all the individualities of the hierarchies otherwise described—as we have already seen from other discussions—and stands even above the Archangels and Archai, whose full greatness and fullness we can only glimpse. Through these stronger powers and impulses, it was possible for this individuality to achieve a goal—which we will come to know more closely—namely, to assume a human, physical body for three years as a sacrifice. But connected to this assumption of the human, physical body by the Christ, which led to the Mystery of Golgotha, is something else, and it is important to understand this other aspect.

[ 15 ] When one engages with this other aspect, one truly comes to understand not only the nature of Christ himself, but also the nature of another figure whom we know plays a very significant role in human development—a figure we have often approached in our lectures, but whom, of course, we can only fully characterize little by little—namely, the individuality of Lucifer. Let us now consider these two individualities, Christ on the one hand and Lucifer on the other, and let us first take from Christ just one characteristic: that he once descended to Earth to the point of incarnation in a physical human body and remained in such a physical human body for three years. What, then, was the consequence of this event, which found its conclusion on the physical plane with the Mystery of Golgotha? The consequence was that the etheric and astral spheres of the Earth were now thoroughly permeated by the Christ-being. Whereas previously the Earth did not possess within its etheric and astral spheres the Being we call Christ, it has since been permeated, as it were, saturated by the Christ Being. We also find this hinted at in the words spoken by Theodora in our Rosicrucian drama, *The Gate of Initiation*. And whoever becomes clairvoyant in the appropriate sense, as Paul became clairvoyant, looks into the etheric spheres of the Earth and sees the Christ-Being—something that was previously impossible even for the highest clairvoyant, and which has only become possible through the Mystery of Golgotha. You are also aware that it is precisely the 20th century—our time, that is—in which a number of people will repeat this event of Damascus and recognize the etheric Christ, so that through their further development, people will increasingly rise to a recognition of the etheric Christ.

[ 16 ] This, however, testifies to you that it is an essential aspect of the Christ development that one could search the earth far and wide with regard to its physical materiality after the Mystery of Golgotha, wherever one might wish, wherever there is anything physical on earth, and one would not be able to find the Christ substance as such embodied there. And yet the entire Earth is permeated by the Christ substance, because this Christ substance descends as far as the Earth’s etheric sphere and can be found there in the future, but could never descend to the point of physical condensation into a physical body. Just as the shell of a snail, so is that which is physically present on Earth today a shell-like form, which will one day, when the Earth has reached the goal of its development, fall away from the totality of human souls, just as the physical body falls away from the individual human soul at death. There will be an earthly death when the Earth has reached the goal of its development. Just as today the individual human soul, when a person passes through the gate of death, sheds the physical body and enters a spiritual realm, so too will the totality of human souls, at the death of the Earth, pass into a spiritual sphere and, like dross or a shell, shed everything that today constitutes the physical aspect of the Earth. Where, then, will the Christ-substance be when the Earth has suffered its earthly death? Well, it will permeate the totality of human souls as they rise out of the earthly body, out of the Earth’s dross. The Christ-Being continues upward with the totality of human souls into the spiritual spheres, in order later to reach the next incarnation of the Earth-being, that which we call Jupiter in spiritual science. This is the essence of the Christ-Being: that it continues to guide humanity in its development in a wholly spiritualized manner, and that it does not enter into anything physical, but remains close to this physical realm only until the end of the Earth’s existence, with the etheric permeating the physical, only to cast it off as a corpse when the Earth has reached the end of its development. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ retains nothing—absolutely nothing—that could lead him back to the longing to assume any physical body walking upon the earth; it is the most complete renunciation of all physical materiality.

[ 17 ] This is the great mystery associated with the Mystery of Golgotha: to achieve, through the sacrifice, over the course of three years in a physical body, that this Christ-being would leave nothing behind in what will fall away as the Earth’s shell at the time of the Earth’s death. Because Christ, since the Mystery of Golgotha, permeates the physical substances of the Earth but does not unite with them, nothing will remain in the Christ Being that could yearn for the cast-off Earth shell at the time of Earthly death. This earthly shell will be cast off at the time of the Earth’s death. It will continue to shine as a star, and from those planets that lie beyond the Earth and are then populated by beings who look out into the heavens, the Earth will be seen as a star floating in the heavens. Will all beings now have absolutely no connection whatsoever with this star, which will have fallen away as the Earth’s dross at the time of the Earth’s death, just as with the Christ and all that belongs to him? No.

[ 18 ] I have just spoken to you about those beings who, for example, rejected the Christ impulse during the Egyptian-Chaldean period. Among them are some who will also reject it later on. These will be the beings who, under certain circumstances, may now also incarnate in a physical, material body on Earth in the time to come and walk the Earth as physical human beings. But at the same time, they will be the ones who, in a certain sense, will long for that star which is cast out after earthly death and will shine out there in outer space—at first as a magnificent, wondrous star. Everything that belongs to the Christ in the human soul will, after earthly death, admire this star in humanity’s future, but will not long for it, will not say to itself: Our home is on this star. — Just as little will these human souls or the souls of the beings of the higher hierarchies long for that star as, for example, the souls on Earth today long for Mars. They turn their gaze toward it, receive its beneficial effects, but do not long for it. What would happen, then, if the Christ Being had not intervened in Earth’s development? Oh, then there would be a very significant difference in the fate of all humanity. Let us hypothetically assume for a moment that the Christ Being had not intervened in human development; then the Earth would also suffer death, and then human beings and the higher hierarchies would continue to evolve into the spiritual worlds, yet they would carry with them forever the longing for that distant star, which, as the Earth’s dross, shines into the world with wondrous radiance. With a tragic longing, human beings—had they not had the Christ—would one day look down from Jupiter upon the star that arose from the dross of the Earth, and they would not only admire the star, but would say with yearning: That is our home. It is sad, pitiful, that we must be here and cannot be on that star, which is actually our true home. - Such would be the difference from the actual course of development had the Christ impulse not been connected with the Earth. To free humanity from the Earth, making it independent for a future development—that was the mission of Christ on Earth for humanity. We see the sheer grandeur of the Christ event; we see that humanity is maturing to evolve toward future forms of our planet through having had the Christ on Earth. Do we now have an example of such a longing on the part of beings who are active on another planet and who yearn for some celestial body other than their true home? — Yes, we have many such examples, but one is to be contrasted here first with the Christ.

[ 19 ] There were powerful beings during the ancient lunar evolution—high-ranking spirits—who, in a certain sense, had not yet reached the culmination of their development during that phase. Among these higher spirits was a group that stood, as it were, under a leader and which, when the lunar evolution came to an end, had not reached its evolutionary goal; therefore, it had not reached it when the Earth began its evolution either. This group now intervened in the Earth’s development, participating in the guidance of humanity, yet inwardly harboring a tragic longing for a star in the cosmos cast out from the entire ancient lunar evolution—in the sense described in *The Secret Science*. We have powerful, high, significant beings under their leader within our spiritual Earth evolution who truly carry within themselves this longing for a star out there in the universe, which they regard as their true home, but on which they cannot be, because they had to leave the Moon and go to Earth without having completed their evolution. These are the hosts who stand under Lucifer, and Lucifer himself works in Earth’s evolution with the constant longing within him for his true home, for the planet Venus out there in the cosmos. This is the most striking feature of the Luciferic being, when we view it cosmically. And clairvoyant consciousness actually comes to know what is characterized in the star Venus by looking into Lucifer’s soul and thereby perceiving within the Earth the tragic Luciferic longing, like a wondrous cosmic homesickness for the star Phosphorus, Lucifer, or Venus. For everything that Lucifer cast off like a shell, everything that fell away from the Luciferic beings at the time of the ancient death of the Moon—just as the physical body falls away from the human soul at death—shines down from heaven as Venus.

[ 20 ] We have now placed something cosmic before our eyes, both in relation to our Earth and to Venus, the planet neighboring our Earth. And in doing so, we have placed before us something that, while not perceived in the Greek soul in the explicit manner in which it has now been described, nevertheless lived in the feelings and sensibilities of the Greek soul. And as this Greek soul turned its gaze upward to the stars, especially to Venus, it sensed the intimate connection between such a star and certain beings who permeate and spiritualize the earthly spheres. And as the ancient Greek soul sensed what Lucifer was to the Earth—saying to itself, as it were: “The Luciferic principle blows through our earthly existence”—it turned upward toward the star of Venus and said: “That is the moving point in our heavenly space toward which Lucifer’s longings continually turn.”

[ 21 ] Here you can see the feelings the Greek soul had toward one of the wonders of the world. But at the same time, you see in a vivid way how far removed the Greek soul would have been from looking up into outer space and describing Venus as a mere physical sphere, as our modern astronomy does. What, then, was Venus to the Greek soul? That region of the heavens which it came to know by clairvoyantly contemplating the spiritual content of the Lucifer soul, for in it it sensed the great longing that rises like a living bridge from Earth to Venus. This longing, which the Greek soul perceived as Lucifer’s longing, was also felt by that same Greek soul as belonging to the substance of Venus. The Greek did not see the mere physical planet, but rather that which had split off from the Luciferic being, just as the physical body splits off from the human being when it passes through the gate of death, and just as the earthly body will split off when the Earth has reached the end of its development. The only difference is that the physical body of a human being is destined to decay, whereas the body of a Lucifer is destined, when it falls out of the soul-being, to shine as a star in the heavens. With this, we have at the same time characterized what stars are in the spiritual sense. We have characterized this using the example of Venus. What, then, are stars as a living vision of the wonders of the worlds, the wonders of nature? They are the bodies of gods. That which has gone out from the bodies of gods into the space of the worlds has become a star, and thus the Greeks looked up into the starry world at planets and fixed stars. Once upon a time, they said to themselves, there were spiritual beings in space whom we worship as our gods; they underwent a process of development; when they reached that point which for human beings during their earthly existence signifies physical death, the event occurred for these gods whereby their physical matter left them and became a star.

[ 22 ] Stars are the bodies of gods, whose souls continue to exert an influence in the world in a different form, independent of these bodies, just as Lucifer became independent of his body, Venus, and lives on in the evolution of our Earth. This can be called a spiritualized view of nature, a spiritualized view of the world. This, however, has nothing to do with that vague pantheism that says: Out there, everything is permeated by a single God. — It is not enough to say this; rather, when one looks up at this distant world, one must know that the stars cannot simply be defined in such an abstract way as if they were bodies through which the gods appear, but rather they are bodies left behind by the gods after these gods themselves have advanced to other stages of development. But this is the difference between all the planetary gods and the Christ God: that the Christ God, in the sense of what I have explained, does not leave behind such a physical star upon his earthly death, does not leave behind any remnant that would have remained unspiritualized, but passes entirely into the spiritual realm and, as a spirit, passes over with the human souls into the existence of Jupiter. We have thus pointed out one of the essential differences between the planetary spirits and the Christ. It is of the utmost importance to note this difference, for it shows us that the entire meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha would be undermined the moment it were possible that, after this Mystery has taken place, that which gives one the right to speak of Christ might once again incarnate in a physical body. For if that which belongs to Christ—for which one has the right to use the name of Christ—were to incarnate once more in a physical body after the Mystery of Golgotha, then this physical substance would provide the first seed from which other elements would develop into a star that would remain in the future. The Mystery of Golgotha, in its deepest meaning, could not be attained at all. If Christ were to completely deny himself, were to wish to undo the Mystery of Golgotha, then he need only incarnate in some physical body; he would then create a point of attraction of a material nature to which other things would attach themselves. There would then have to be other incarnations of the same being. This would create a star toward which humanity would have to yearn in all future times. This yearning must not be achieved through the Christ-being. Therefore, one has no right to associate in any way with the name of Christ that which, after the event of Golgotha, still incarnates in a physical body. To do so would reveal a colossal misunderstanding of the Mystery of Golgotha and demonstrate that one does not know what has been accomplished by it. The moment one truly understands the Mystery of Golgotha, one associates the name of Christ with nothing that incarnates in a physical human body after the Mystery of Golgotha. To speak of the name of Christ in connection with any being who incarnates in a physical human body after the event of Golgotha is either to misuse the name of Christ or to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 23 ] It is of the utmost importance that these things be understood. For only in this way is it possible to place the entire essence of Christ in the proper context of human development. The forces generated in a certain part of the human soul by the fact that nothing remains of a longing for the earth must, like all forces, grow stronger through resistance. Therefore, through the wise guidance of the world, such beings must also be left behind—beings who, like the leading angelic beings of the Egyptian-Chaldean era, the archangels of the ancient Persian era, or the leading Archai of the ancient Indian era, do not allow themselves to be permeated by the Christ impulse and therefore continue on without it. These will—and the name of Christ will not be applied to them—represent, in the future of human development, that element through which, however, a certain longing and also a certain connection remains to what will be out in the cosmos as planetary remnants, as stars, and will be seen from Jupiter, just as our Venus, our Mars, and our Jupiter are seen from Earth. It is thus essentially a different human current and a different current of the higher hierarchies that will direct the gaze back to those influences exerted upon the humanity of Jupiter by the future planetary neighbors of the future Jupiter. These two things must be kept entirely separate; then one will also learn to comprehend the lesser from this greater. Everywhere these two currents interact. Everywhere we see the advancing Christ-being, which will lead humanity upward to a higher vision of the Christ. On the other hand, we see the restraining forces—which we must not associate with the name of Christ—that also incarnate in human physical bodies; these beings can indeed attain a knowledge of Christ, but they cannot attain such Christ-impulses as the Angeloi, who reached their full development in the Egyptian-Chaldean era. We then see such beings who may also descend in the future to physical embodiment, but we must distinguish between the one and the other.

[ 24 ] Everything that is thought of in materialistic terms in our time comes from the spirits that hinder and hold back progress, and even that would come from these spirits if one were to expect the salvation of humanity solely from such individuals who may incarnate in the flesh in the future. For this is a materialistic principle that diverts humanity from developing upward toward the perception of the spiritual, because it leads people down to the mere perception of individualities incarnated in a physical body, on whom one relies because one can perceive them with the physical senses.

[ 25 ] Of all that I have just said regarding Christ, ancient Greece in the pre-Christian era had no full understanding—precisely because the Mystery of Golgotha had not yet taken place—but it did have a full understanding of Lucifer and his connection to Venus, as well as of other celestial deities and their connection to their respective stars. All these perceptions and feelings, which arose from such primordial wisdom for the Greeks, are a prerequisite for that idea, that feeling, and those soul impulses that came alive in the knowing ancient Greek soul when the name Dionysus was spoken. Therefore, we had to assume today what has just been said in order to be able to address tomorrow those wonders of the world, those wonders of nature, which the ancient Greek meant when he spoke of Dionysus. This also creates a bridge to what is already more familiar to the human being, to his inner self, to the trials of the soul. Thus, our program for tomorrow is outlined as a discussion of the Dionysian idea.