The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] The lectures given so far have essentially led us to two questions. The first question concerns the objective event associated with the name of Jesus Christ; it concerns the nature of that impulse which, as the Christ impulse, intervened in human evolution. The other question concerns how the individual human being can establish a relationship with the Christ impulse, how, so to speak, this Christ impulse becomes effective for the individual human being. Of course, the answers to these two questions are interconnected. For we have seen that the Christ event is an objective fact of human earthly evolution and that something real, something genuine, emanates precisely from what we encountered in the Resurrection. In a sense, a kind of seed for the restoration of the state of our human phantom rose from the grave with Christ, and that which rose from the grave with Christ as a seed has the potential to be incorporated into those human beings who find a relationship to the Christ impulse.

[ 2 ] This is the objective aspect of the individual’s relationship to the Christ impulse. Today we wish to incorporate the subjective aspect into the reflections we have been engaging in over the past few days; that is to say, we wish to attempt to find an answer to the question that might be phrased as follows: How does the individual human being find the possibility of gradually taking in within themselves that which has emanated from the Christ through the Resurrection?

[ 3 ] If we want to answer this question, we must first distinguish between two things. When Christianity entered the world as a religion, it was not merely a religion for people with occult aspirations—that is, for those who sought to approach Christ through some spiritual path—but rather Christianity was a religion intended to be suitable for all people, one that could be embraced by everyone. Therefore, one must not believe that a special occult or esoteric development was necessary to find the path to Christ. Therefore, we must first consider the one path to Christ, the exoteric path, which every soul, every heart has been able to find over the course of time. And then we must distinguish this path from the other: the path that has opened up, up to the present day, to a soul that wishes to walk the path esoterically; that is, one who does not merely seek Christ on the outer path, but who seeks him through the development of occult powers. Thus, we must distinguish between the path of the physical plane and the path of the supersensible worlds.

[ 4 ] Hardly any previous century has been as unclear about the outer, exoteric path to Christ as the nineteenth century. And the course of the nineteenth century was such that the first half of that century was even clearer than the second. It can be said that people have increasingly distanced themselves from an understanding of the path to Christ. In this regard, people who share in today’s way of thinking no longer have the right ideas about how souls, for example, still found their way to the Christ impulse in the eighteenth century, and how even into the first half of the nineteenth century there still shone a certain possibility of finding the Christ impulse as something real. In the nineteenth century, this path to Christ was lost to people more than ever before. And this is understandable when we consider that we are indeed standing at the starting point of a new path to Christ. We have often spoken of the new path opening up to souls, so to speak, of a renewal of the Christ event. It is always the case in the development of humanity that a kind of low point must occur in relation to a matter before a new light returns. Thus, the turning away from the spiritual worlds, as it occurred in the nineteenth century, is only natural in light of the fact that in the twentieth century, precisely in the unique way that has often been mentioned, a completely new epoch for the spiritual life of humanity must begin.

[ 5 ] Sometimes it seems, even to those who have already become somewhat familiar with spiritual science, as though the spiritual movement as we know it were something entirely new. If we disregard the fact that the enrichment spiritual striving in the West has undergone in recent times consists in the incorporation of the ideas of reincarnation and karma, if we disregard the incorporation of the doctrine of repeated earthly lives and its significance for the entire development of humanity, we must say that, for the rest, the paths into the spiritual world that are very similar to our theosophical ones are by no means something entirely new in the development of Western humanity. It is only that the person who seeks to ascend into the spiritual worlds along the present-day path of theosophy finds the manner in which, for example, ‘theosophy was practiced in the eighteenth century’ somewhat alien. It was precisely in these regions (Baden) and especially in Württemberg that a great deal of theosophy was practiced in the eighteenth century. Yet everywhere there was a lack of a clear perspective on the doctrine of repeated earthly lives, and as a result, the entire field of theosophical work was clouded in a certain way. Even for those who were able to gain deep insights into occult connections, and especially into the connection between the world and the Christ impulse, these insights were clouded by the absence of a proper teaching on repeated earthly lives. Yet from the entire sphere of the Christian worldview and Christian life, something like a theosophical striving always arose. And this theosophical striving permeated everything, even the outer exoteric paths of people who could not go beyond an outer participation in, say, Christian congregational life or the like. But how theosophy permeated Christian striving, we can see when we mention names such as Bengel, Oetinger, people who were active in Württemberg, who in their entire manner—if we take into account that they lacked the idea of repeated earthly lives—came to everything that one can also arrive at in regard to higher views on the development of humanity, insofar as the Christ impulse is inherent in them. When we consider this, we must say: the fundamental spirit of theosophical life has always existed. That is why there is much truth in what Rothe—who, after all, taught at the University of Heidelberg, in the immediate vicinity of Karlsruhe—wrote in the preface to a book published in 1847, specifically regarding certain theosophical aspects of the eighteenth century. He says: “/p”

[ 6 ] “What theosophy actually aims for is often difficult to discern among the older theosophists... but it is no less clear that, on its current path, theosophy cannot achieve scientific legitimacy and, consequently, cannot have a broader impact. It would be very hasty to conclude from this that it is, in fact, a scientifically unfounded and merely ephemeral phenomenon. History, however, speaks loudly enough against this. It tells us how this enigmatic phenomenon has never been able to penetrate fully, and yet has repeatedly broken through anew, indeed, is held together by the chain of an unbroken tradition in its most diverse forms.”

[ 7 ] Now one must bear in mind that the person who wrote this, in the 1840s, could only become acquainted with theosophy as it had been transmitted by certain theosophists of the eighteenth century. One must admit: what was passed down could not be fitted into the forms of our scientific thinking; therefore, it was also difficult to believe that theosophy of that time could gain wider acceptance. Setting that aside, a voice from the 1840s that tells us: must surely seem significant to us.

[ 8 ] «... And what matters most is that, once it has become a true science—and has thus produced clearly defined results—these will gradually become part of the general consensus or gain popularity, and will thus be passed down as universally accepted truths that cannot be found through the very paths by which they were discovered and could only be discovered.”

[ 9 ] However, this is followed by a pessimistic turn of phrase that we can no longer share today with regard to Theosophy. For anyone who familiarizes themselves with the current approach to spiritual science will come to the conviction that Theosophy, in the way it seeks to work, can become popular in the broadest circles. Therefore, such a turn of phrase can only serve to encourage us, especially when it continues:

[ 10 ] “But this lies in the bosom of the future, which we do not wish to anticipate; for now, let us gratefully enjoy dear Oetinger’s beautiful account, which can certainly count on a wide audience.”

[ 11 ] Thus we see how, so to speak, theosophy is a pious hope of those people who, as it were, carried over from the eighteenth century some remnant of the old theosophy. Then, however, the stream of theosophical life was overwhelmed by the materialistic striving of the nineteenth century, and through what we may now take in as the dawn of a new era, we are only now drawing near to true spiritual life again—but now in a form that can be so scientific that it can, in essence, be understood by every heart and every soul. Indeed, the nineteenth century has entirely lost its understanding of something that, for example, the ‘theosophists of the eighteenth century’ still possessed in full—what they called at the time the ‘central sense’. We know, for example, of von Oetinger, who worked here in the immediate vicinity, in Murrhardt, that for a time he was a student of a very simple man in Thuringia, of whom his students knew that he possessed what was called the central sense. What was this central sense for that time? It was nothing other than what now arises in every person when they follow, in earnest and with iron determination, what you will also find in my treatise “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” Essentially, it was nothing other than what this simple man in Thuringia—his name was Völker—possessed, and what he subsequently achieved in a form of theosophy that was very interesting for his time, which had an effect on Oetinger. Just as it is difficult for people today to grasp the realization that a deepening of theosophical understanding is actually still so close at hand, and that this theosophical deepening has a rich body of literature—which, admittedly, is buried in libraries and at antiquarian bookshops—so too is it difficult for them to accept another thing: the Christ event as an objective fact at all in the first place. How much was discussed in this regard in the nineteenth century! It is impossible to even sketch out in a short time how many different views on Christ Jesus can be found in the nineteenth century. And if one takes the trouble to examine a larger number of views—whether more lay or more theological—regarding Christ Jesus, then one truly encounters certain difficulties when attempting to bring what the nineteenth century produced on this very question into alignment with the times when better traditions still prevailed. Indeed, even in the nineteenth century it became possible to regard as great Christian theologians people who were entirely removed from the assumption of an objective Christ who entered world history and worked within it. And this brings us to the question: What relationship to the Christ can be found by one who does not follow an esoteric path, but remains entirely within the realm of the exoteric?

[ 12 ] As long as one stands on the ground—the very ground on which nineteenth-century theologians stood—that human development is something that can take place purely within the human being, something that has, so to speak, nothing to do with the external world of the macrocosm, one cannot arrive at an objective appreciation of Christ Jesus at all. This leads to all sorts of grotesque ideas, but never to a relationship with the Christ event. If a person believes that they can attain the highest human ideal—as appropriate for the development of the Earth—through a purely inner spiritual path, through a kind of self-redemption, then a relationship with the objective Christ is not possible. One could also say: As soon as the idea of salvation becomes for a person something that can be resolved through psychological means, there is no relationship to Christ. But whoever penetrates more deeply into the mysteries of the world will very soon find that if a person believes they can attain their highest ideal of earthly existence solely through themselves, through inner development alone, they completely sever their connection with the macrocosm; that they then view the macrocosm as a kind of nature before them—and then again the inner development of the soul alongside the macrocosm as something proceeding in parallel with it; but they cannot find a connection between the two. That is precisely the terribly grotesque aspect of nineteenth-century development: that what requires a connection—the microcosm and the macrocosm—has been divided and torn apart. Had this not happened, all the misunderstandings associated with the terms “theoretical materialism” on the one hand and “abstract idealism” on the other could not have arisen. Do you think that the tearing apart of the microcosm and the macrocosm led to people who pay little attention to the inner life of the soul coming to regard the inner life of the soul, just like the outer physicality, as part of the macrocosm, only to then allow everything to dissolve into material processes? The others, who became aware that there is indeed an inner life, gradually fell into abstractions regarding everything that ultimately has meaning only for the human soul.

[ 13 ] If one wants to gain clarity on this difficult matter, one must perhaps recall something very significant that people learned in the Mysteries. Ask yourself how many people today believe, in their innermost consciousness: If I think something—for example, have a bad thought about my neighbor—it ultimately has no significance for the outside world; the thought is only within me. It has a completely different significance if I slap him; that is an event on the physical plane; the other is merely a feeling or a mere thought. - Or let us go further. How many people are there who, when they commit a sin, a lie, or an error, say: This is something that takes place within the human soul—and in contrast, when, for example, a stone falls from the roof: That is something that takes place outside. — Based on a rough understanding, one can easily explain to people: when a stone falls from the roof, or perhaps happens to fall into the water, it creates ripples in the water that spread out and so on, so that all of this has effects that continue in secret; but what takes place in a person’s soul is separate from everything else. Hence people have been able to believe that it is at all a matter of the soul, let us say, to sin, to err, and to make amends for it. To such a consciousness, something that has confronted at least a larger number of us in the last two years must seem grotesque. I would like to recall the scene in the Rosicrucian drama *The Gate of Initiation* where Capesius and Strader appear in the astral world, and where it is shown that what they think, speak, and feel is not meaningless for the objective world, for the macrocosm, but rather unleashes storms in the elements. It is indeed quite a thing for people today to think that destructive forces also affect the macrocosm simply because someone has an incorrect thought. But this was made quite clear to people in the Mysteries: that when someone, for example, lies or commits errors, this is a real process that is not merely a matter for us alone. A German proverb even arose: “Thoughts are duty-free,” because one simply does not see the customs barrier when thoughts dawn. Yet they then belong to the objective world; they are not merely events of the soul. There the mystery student saw: When you tell a lie, this means in the supersensible world an eclipse of a certain light, and when you commit a loveless act, something is thereby burned in the spiritual world by the fire of lovelessness; and with errors you extinguish light from the macrocosm. — This was the effect shown to the student through the objective event: how something is extinguished on the astral plane through error and darkness arises, or how a loveless act acts like a destructive and burning fire.

[ 14 ] In exoteric life, human beings are unaware of what is happening around them. They are truly like ostriches and must bury their heads in the sand because they do not see the effects, even though these effects are indeed present. The effects of sensations are there, and they became visible to the supersensible eyes when, for example, a person was initiated into the mysteries. But this is something that could only happen in the nineteenth century, when people said to themselves: Everything a person has sinned, every weakness they possess, is merely their personal affair; salvation must come about through an event within the soul. Hence, Christ can also be nothing more than an inner event of the soul. — What is necessary so that a person not only finds their way to Christ but does not sever their connection with the macrocosm at all is the realization: If you commit error and sin, these are objective, not subjective, events, and something happens as a result out in the world. And the moment a person becomes aware that something objective happens as a result of their sin and error, when they know that something is at work—something he has done and sent out from himself, which is no longer connected to him but is connected to the entire objective course of world development—then, when he now surveys the entire course of world development, he will no longer be able to say that making amends for what he has done is merely an inner matter of the soul. There would be a possibility that even has a positive significance: that one regards what leads and has led human beings into error and weakness through successive earthly lives as an inner matter not of the individual life, but of karma. But there is no possibility that an event which is not historical and does not belong to humanity—as is the case with the Luciferic influence in the ancient Lemurian era—could be eradicated from the world through a human event! Through the Luciferic event, on the one hand, a great blessing has come to humanity in that it became a free being; but on the other hand, it has had to accept that it can stray from the path of the good and the right, and also from the path of the true. What has occurred in the course of incarnations is a matter of karma. But everything that has thus taken root from the macrocosm into the microcosm—what the Luciferic forces have given to humanity—is something that humanity cannot cope with on its own. To balance this out again—an objective act is required. In short, human beings must realize that because what they commit as error and sin is not merely subjective, a mere subjective act within the soul is not sufficient to bring about redemption.

[ 15 ] Thus, whoever is convinced of the objectivity of the error will also immediately recognize the objectivity of the act of redemption. One cannot present the Luciferic influence as an objective act without at the same time presenting the balancing act—the event of Golgotha. And as a theosophist, one basically has only a choice between two things. One can base everything on karma; then, of course, one is entirely correct regarding everything brought about by human beings themselves; but one then finds it necessary to extend the repeated lives forward and backward in any manner one pleases, and reaches no end, neither forward nor backward. It goes round and round like the same wheel. That concrete idea of evolution, on the other hand—and this is the other one—as we had to conceive it: that there was a Saturn, a Sun, and a Moon existence, which are quite different from Earth existence; that it is only in Earth existence that the kind of repeated Earth lives we know takes place; that the Luciferic event then occurred as a unique event—all of this is what gives what we call the theosophical view its true substance. But none of this is conceivable without the objectivity of the event of Golgotha.

[ 16 ] If we look at pre-Christian times, people were—as has already been mentioned from another perspective—different in a certain respect. When people descended from the spiritual worlds into earthly incarnations, they brought with them a certain measure of the divine substantial element. This only gradually diminished as humanity progressed through earthly incarnations, and had dried up by the time the events in Palestine were approaching. That is why, in pre-Christian times, when people reflected, so to speak, on their own weakness, they always felt: “The best that a human being possesses does indeed come from the divine sphere from which humanity descended.” They still felt the last vestiges of the divine element. But that had dried up when John the Baptist uttered the words: Change your view of the world, for times have changed; now you will no longer be able to ascend to the spiritual as before, because the outlook into the old spirituality is no longer possible. Change your mindset and receive that divine being who is to give humanity anew what they had to lose through their descent! — That is why—one may deny it if one wishes to think abstractly, but one cannot deny it if one looks at external history with a truly concrete eye—the entire feeling and sensibility of human beings changed at the turn of the old and the new era, the demarcation of which is represented by the events in Palestine. People began to feel abandoned after the events in Palestine had taken place. They began to feel abandoned when they approached the most profound questions concerning the innermost, most concrete aspects of the soul, when they asked themselves, for example: What will become of me in the whole context of the universe if I pass through the gate of death with a number of unresolved deeds? Then a thought arose in these people, one that could indeed be born initially from the soul’s longing, but which could only be satisfied when the human soul came to the realization: Yes, there has lived a being who has entered into human evolution, to whom you can cling, and who works in the outer world—where you cannot go—to balance your deeds; that helps you to make amends for what has been corrupted by the Luciferic influences! — The feeling of being able to rely on and find refuge in an objective power entered into humanity; the sense that sin is a real power, an objective fact. And the other aspect of this: that salvation is an objective fact, something that the individual cannot bring about, because he did not summon the Luciferic influence, but only He who works in the worlds where Lucifer consciously acts.

[ 17 ] All of this—what I have described in words drawn from spiritual science—was not present as conscious concepts or knowledge, but it lay within feelings and sensations; and the need to turn to Christ was alive within those feelings and sensations. Then, of course, these people had the opportunity to find ways within the Christian communities to deepen all such feelings and sensations. What, after all, did human beings find in the time when they had lost their original connection with the gods, when they looked out at matter? As human beings descended into matter, the vision of the spiritual, of the physically divine in the great world, was lost more and more. The remnants of the old clairvoyance that still remained gradually faded away, and nature was, in a certain sense, de-divinized. A purely material world lay spread out before humanity. And in the face of this material world, humanity could not possibly maintain the belief that a Christ principle should be objectively at work within it. What emerged, for example, in the nineteenth century: that the world underlying our Earth emerged from the Kant-Laplacean cosmic nebula, that life then arose on the individual planets, and what ultimately led to conceiving the entire world as an interaction of atoms—to conceive of Christ within that, to conceive of Christ within the worldview of the materialistic natural philosopher—that would indeed be madness. Against this worldview, the Christ-being cannot be upheld. Against this worldview, nothing spiritual can be upheld at all. But we must understand that someone says what I have read to you: that he would have to cut through his entire worldview if he were to believe in the Resurrection. This entire worldview, which has gradually emerged, merely shows that, for the external observation of nature—in terms of thinking about external nature—the possibility has vanished of thinking one’s way into the living essence of natural facts.

[ 18 ] When I speak in this way now, it is not meant as a disparaging criticism. It was necessary for nature to be de-divinized and de-spiritualized at some point so that humanity could grasp the sum of abstract thoughts needed to comprehend external nature, as became possible in the Copernican, Keplerian, and Galilean worldviews. Humanity had to take hold of the fabric of thought, as it led to our machine age. But on the other hand, it was necessary for this era to have a substitute for what could not exist in exoteric life—a substitute for the fact that it had become impossible to find the path to the spiritual directly from the earth. For if one could have found the path to the spiritual, one would have had to find the path to Christ, as one will find it in the coming centuries. A substitute had to be there.

[ 19 ] The question now is: What was necessary for humanity’s exoteric path to Christ during the centuries in which a worldview gradually took shape—one that was atomistic, that increasingly had to de-divinize nature, and that, by the nineteenth century, had grown into a de-divinized view of nature?

[ 20 ] Two things were necessary. There were two exoteric paths by which the spiritual vision of Christ could be attained. One way was to demonstrate to human beings the possibility that it is not true that all matter is completely foreign to the human inner being, to the spiritual within one’s own inner being. On the one hand, it was indeed necessary to demonstrate the possibility that it is not correct that wherever matter appears in space, only matter is present. How could this be achieved? This could not be achieved in any other way than by conveying to human beings something that is both spirit and matter at the same time, something of which they had to know that it is spirit, and of which they saw that it is matter. This, then, had to remain alive: the transformation, the eternally valid transformation of spirit into matter, of matter into spirit. And this has happened because the Lord’s Supper, as a Christian institution, has been preserved through the centuries and has been cherished. And the further back we go in the centuries since the institution of the Lord’s Supper, the more we sense how the older, even less materialistic times understood the Lord’s Supper even better. For when it comes to higher things, it is generally the case that the fact that one begins to discuss them serves as proof that one no longer understands them. There are simply things where the situation is such that, as long as they are understood, little is discussed about them, and that people begin to argue when they no longer understand them; just as discussions in general are proof that the majority of those discussing the matter do not understand it. So it was with the Lord’s Supper. As long as it was known that the Lord’s Supper signifies the living proof that matter is not merely matter, but that there are ceremonial acts through which spirit can be imparted to matter; as long as people knew that this permeation of matter with spirit is a “christication,” as expressed in the Lord’s Supper, it was accepted without dispute. But then came the time when materialism was already on the rise, when people no longer understood what lies at the heart of the Lord’s Supper, when they argued whether bread and wine were mere symbols of the divine, or whether divine power truly flowed into them; in short, when all the disputes arose that emerged at the very beginning of the new era, but which, for those who see more deeply, mean nothing other than that the original understanding of the matter had been lost. For people who wished to come to Christ, the Lord’s Supper was a complete substitute for the esoteric path if they could not walk it, so that they could find a true union with Christ in the Lord’s Supper. But all things have their time. Of course, just as it is true that a completely new age is dawning in regard to spiritual life, so it is also true that the path to Christ, which was the right one for many centuries, will remain so for many centuries to come. Things gradually merge into one another, but what was once right will gradually transform into something else as people become ready for it. And this is where Theosophy is meant to work: to grasp something concrete, something real, within the spirit itself. Through the fact that, for example, through meditations, concentrations, and all that we learn as the insights of higher worlds, people become ready to live within themselves not merely in worlds of thought, not merely in abstract worlds of feeling and sensation, but to permeate themselves inwardly with the element of the spirit—through this they will experience communion in the spirit; thus thoughts—as meditative thoughts—will be able to live within the human being, which will be exactly the same, only from within, as the sign of the Last Supper—the consecrated bread—has been from without. And just as the undeveloped Christian could seek his way to Christ through the Lord’s Supper, so the developed Christian, who comes to know the form of Christ through the advanced science of the spirit, can rise in the spirit to that which is also to become an exoteric path for humanity in the future. This will flow as the power that is to bring humanity an expansion of the Christ impulse. But then all ceremonies will also change, and what formerly took place through the attributes of bread and wine will in the future take place through a spiritual Lord’s Supper. The idea of the Lord’s Supper, of Communion, will remain, however. It is only necessary to create the possibility that certain thoughts flowing to us through the communications within the Movement for Spiritual Science—that certain inner thoughts and feelings may permeate and spiritualize the inner being just as solemnly as, in the best sense of inner Christian development, the Lord’s Supper has spiritualized and Christianized the human soul. When this becomes possible—and it will become possible—then we will have advanced another stage in our development. And through this, real proof will once again be provided that Christianity is greater than its outer form. For anyone who believes that Christianity would be swept away if the outer form of Christianity from a particular era were swept away holds a low opinion of Christianity. Only he has the true view of Christianity who is imbued with the conviction that all churches that have nurtured the Christ idea, all external concepts, all external forms, are temporal and therefore transitory; but that the Christ idea will continue to live in ever-new forms within the hearts and souls of people in the future, however little these new forms may already be visible today. It is spiritual science, in fact, that first teaches us how the Lord’s Supper had its significance in earlier times through the exoteric path.

[ 21 ] And the other exoteric path was that of the Gospels. And here one must once again realize what the Gospels still meant to people in earlier times. The time is not so far behind us when people did not read the Gospels as they did in the nineteenth century; rather, they read them in such a way that they regarded them as a living source from which something substantial flows into the soul. Nor did people read them as I explained in the first lecture of this series when discussing a false path, but rather they read them in such a way that they saw coming to meet them from without what the soul longed for; that they found depicted the real Savior, of whom they knew must certainly be present in the universe.

[ 22 ] For people who knew how to read the Gospels in this way, an infinite number of questions had in fact already been resolved—questions that only became issues for the intelligent, for the truly wise people of the nineteenth century. One need only point out one thing: how many times has it been repeated—in one form or another—by those very clever people, from whom all scientific rigor and erudition practically oozed from their pores, when discussing the questions concerning Christ Jesus, that the idea of Christ Jesus and the events in Palestine is truly incompatible with the modern worldview! It is stated in a seemingly quite plausible manner: when humanity did not yet know that the Earth is a very small celestial body, it could believe that a new, special event had taken place on Earth with the cross of Golgotha. But after Copernicus taught that the Earth is a planet like any other, could one still assume that Christ had journeyed to us from another planet? Why should one assume that the Earth holds such an exceptional position as had been believed?! And then the image was used: since the worldview has expanded so much, it seemed as if one of the most important artistic performances or presentations were taking place not on a grand stage in a capital city, but on the small stage of some provincial theater. That is how the events in Palestine appeared to people—because the Earth is such a tiny little celestial body—like the performance of a great world-historical drama on the stage of a small provincial theater. And one could never imagine that, precisely because the Earth is so small compared to the vast world! It sounds so clever when something like that is said; but there isn’t much cleverness in it. For Christianity has never claimed what is here seemingly refuted. Christianity has not even transferred the dawn of the Christ impulse to the glorious sites of earthly existence, but has always seen a certain great solemnity in having the bearer of the Christ born in a stable among poor shepherds. It was not merely the small earth, but the very place that lies completely hidden on earth, that was chosen in the Christian “tradition” to place the Christ there. The questions posed by very intelligent people have already been answered in Christianity from the very beginning; it is simply that the answers Christianity itself has given have not been understood, because one could no longer allow the living power of the great majestic images to work upon the soul.

[ 23 ] Nevertheless, in the images of the Gospels alone, without the Last Supper and what is associated with it—for that stands at the center of all Christian and other cults—the exoteric path of humanity to Christ could not have been found; for the Gospels could not have become popular to that degree if the path to Christ had had to become popular solely through them. And when the Gospels did become popular, it turned out that this did not really contribute much to inner blessing. For with the popularization of the Gospels came, at the same time, a great misunderstanding: the trivialization of the text and then everything that the nineteenth century made of the Gospels—which, to put it purely objectively, is bad enough that it happened. I think anthroposophists could understand what is meant when one says, “bad enough”; that this is not meant as a criticism, nor does it fail to recognize the diligence that nineteenth-century research brought to scientific work, including all natural scientific endeavors. But that is precisely the tragedy: that this science—and anyone familiar with it will admit this—precisely because of its profound seriousness and its immensely devoted diligence, which one can only admire, has led to the complete fragmentation and destruction of what it sought to teach. And the future development of humanity will perceive this as a particularly tragic cultural event of our age: that one sought to conquer the Bible scientifically through an infinitely admirable science, and that this has led to the loss of the Bible.

[ 24 ] Thus we see that, in regard to the exoteric, we are living in a transitional age in both of these directions, and that—provided we have grasped the spirit of theosophy—we must lead the old paths into new ones. And having thus considered the past exoteric paths leading to the Christ impulse, we shall see tomorrow how the relationship to the Christ takes shape in the esoteric realm—and we shall bring our reflections to a conclusion, which shall consist in our being able to grasp the Christ event not only for the development of all humanity, but for each individual human being. With this reflection, we shall bring to a close the path we were to take in this cycle. We will be able to consider the esoteric path more briefly, because we have already laid the building blocks for it in the past years. And so we shall bring about the crowning of our edifice by contemplating the relationship of the Christ impulse to each individual human soul.