The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. The Michael Impulse and the Mystery of Golgotha II

[ 1 ] We have endeavored to shed some light on what, according to the laws of the universe, constitutes the character of our present age, and we should not overlook such a characterization of our age. For when we speak of the spiritual forces, of the spiritual impulses of an age, these are the very forces and impulses that are at work within each and every one of our souls. And we cannot come to terms with our souls unless we are able to face these forces, these impulses of our age, which are, after all, at the same time the spiritual forces and impulses of our own soul.

[ 2 ] It is certainly true that—regardless of how each of you individually justifies why you believe this or that in Spiritual Science—in the souls of those who approach Spiritual Science sincerely and honestly, there lives, perhaps unconsciously, a feeling, an impulse that arises from the genuine, true spiritual impulses of our time.

[ 3 ] The day before yesterday, I tried to explain to you that we are currently living in what might be called the Michael Age. An understanding of spiritual matters will become possible for more and more souls. While the past centuries unfolded in such a way that, above all, an understanding became possible of matters pertaining to external natural science—of physical, chemical, and physiological laws— for everything related to external space and time—and while in the Gabriel Age an understanding was awakened in souls for what was achieving triumph after triumph in the natural sciences, and the soul was inclined toward a scientific understanding of the world—we are now moving toward an age in which it will be just as possible to understand the spiritual.

[ 4 ] Never before in the history of humanity have two successive eras been as radically different as the one that has just passed and the one into which we are now entering. And the souls who are drawn to the spiritual will be more alien than ever to those who still cling to what the past centuries have brought. And it will not be long before those who believe they stand on the ground of materialistic monism will be completely out of step with those souls who will longingly seek an understanding of the supersensory worlds. For since the last third of the previous century, a spiritual tidal wave from the higher worlds has opened up into our world, and therefore it has become possible to gain an understanding of what spiritually guides the evolution of humanity and the worlds. Nearly two millennia ago, the event took place that is known to all of you as the Mystery of Golgotha, and this Mystery of Golgotha has often been discussed here and examined from various perspectives as the great focal point of human development. And it has surely become clear that an understanding of this event is possible without touching upon any denominational standpoint, but purely from the perspective of Spiritual Science, so that one can expect understanding from every denominational current of the present day. The reasons why some people do not wish to accept the Christ event as the great focal point of human evolution have also been discussed at length. But we should also consider such matters with our souls, as was also discussed yesterday in the public lecture. It could be that someone, out of prejudice, wanted to know nothing of what took place in a small country at the beginning of our era; it could well be that someone did not want to concern themselves with what we call the Mystery of Golgotha. Well, let us even assume that it would be natural for a soul to conceive of the course of history in such a way that what happened on Golgotha would be omitted. Let us assume this hypothetically. If this soul were to consider the development of humanity, it would still find something that particularly characterizes this age. This was discussed yesterday. In that epoch prior to the Mystery of Golgotha, there is a transition from the human soul’s external relationship to the environment to its subsequent relationship to its own inner life, quite apart from the Mystery of Golgotha. At the point in time when the Mystery of Golgotha is situated, this great transition of humanity took place from a life in the external environment to innerization. And everyone can sense this, even if they disregard the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 5 ] Humanity is currently at a turning point. One need not even speak of the Mystery of Golgotha; rather, one can consider other events, and they will show that previously humanity lived in a state of externalization, but that thereafter, those who are imbued with the impulse of the age, with its genius, will begin to live in a state of internalization. |

[ 6 ] But when something like this happens, it happens in such a way that it is prepared in advance. I do not wish to resort to the trite saying: Nature or history does not make leaps. The expression is only valid within certain limits, for even if it is prepared—is it not still a leap in development?—the blossom is already prepared within the green leaves. In the same way, what appears as a turning point in human development at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha was also prepared. And when we delve into what confronts us as teaching and insight in the final centuries of ancient Hebrew antiquity, we can find not only a spirit there—albeit a distinct spirit—of preparation for the Mystery of Golgotha, but we can also find such a spirit of preparation in other regions of the earth.

[ 7 ] The spirit of Hebraism, after all, exhibited influences of a completely different nature than those that had existed previously. A wholly different way of viewing the world began in the 6th century before the Mystery of Golgotha, marking a completely new epoch in contrast to what had previously existed in Hebrew spiritual life. This becomes very clear to the careful observer. And even if it manifests itself here in a different way—because the ancient Hebrew people were, of course, of a different nature—it is still the same spirit, merely taking on a different form; it is the spirit that prevailed in Greek philosophy, and indeed in Greek poetry, in the centuries leading up to the Mystery of Golgotha. We find this everywhere. One need only seriously consider thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle, indeed even Socrates, to see that this turning point is being prepared everywhere.

[ 8 ] Now, such events that take place here on Earth are guided and directed from the supersensible world. Before this intervention into physical earthly life—which we call the event of Golgotha—took place, the former leadership of evolution sent a messenger—at that time still a messenger of Yahweh—to prepare for this intervention. It was the same Spirit who prepared the cultural epoch leading up to the Mystery of Golgotha, the same Spirit who is the leader of our newly dawning cultural epoch, the Spirit we have called Michael. Just as Michael gives the character to our time, so he gave the character to the entire culture that prepared the Mystery of Golgotha. Only, the power that sent this Michael from higher worlds was, in that time, Yahweh or Jehovah.

[ 9 ] In those days, things were not as they are today, when people are so quick to object when one speaks of spiritual matters: “You talk a lot about the national spirit or the spirit of the times or other spiritual realities, but you say so little about God.” — People don’t realize why one doesn’t speak of God: because no human concept can truly encompass that in which we live, move, and have our being. Here, too, there are views that are, in part, very interesting. When I recently gave a public lecture in a city and, as has become customary, questions were taken for answers, one person asked a very clever question. He asked, namely: “Yes, but logically speaking, one recognizes an object by viewing it as an object, by being able to stand opposite it—if we cannot have an objective image of an object that we possess within ourselves, such as the eyeball, for the reason that we cannot look at it—what then of the assertion made by some mystics that one must detach oneself from God in order to be able to regard Him as an object?

[ 10 ] Certainly, some mystics have claimed that one must distance oneself from God in order to confront Him. The question was clever, but it can only be answered by saying: You may distance yourself from God as much as you like, but you remain within God; you cannot step outside of God. — Some logic is quite logical, but it is also very short-sighted.

[ 11 ] In times when people were still closer to the spiritual realm, there was still a sense of reverence for the Divine in which we live and move and have our being—a Divine that should not always be named—and therefore, to avoid uttering the name, ancient Hebrew tradition used the expression: “The face of Yahweh.” For human beings, the face is that which they turn outward, through which they reveal themselves. It is not the whole of the human being. One recognizes their inner nature in the features of their face, but one does not therefore fail to speak of the whole person when referring to their face.

[ 12 ] That is why Michael was called “the face of Yahweh” at that time; people much preferred to refer to the representative through whom, like a face turned toward humanity, Yahweh or Jehovah revealed himself to mankind. Even in intimate circles, people much preferred to speak of the representative rather than of Yahweh himself. Michael was regarded at that time as the spiritual ruler of the age, as Yahweh’s messenger, as the hierarch from whom radiated, in those days, what was to come as an impulse to prepare for the event at Golgotha.

[ 13 ] Well, in the meantime, other beings from the order of the Archangels have guided the spiritual evolution of humanity. And the being who was in charge when the Mystery of Golgotha was to be prepared is the same being who is now once again sending the currents of the supersensible life into the sensory world. There was a Michael Age back then, and the Michael Age that is just now beginning is the same. But there is a vast difference between the Michael Age of that time and ours, which is now beginning.

[ 14 ] It would take us too far afield today to describe the understanding that the era spanning from the Michael Age to our own has been able to bring to the Mystery of Golgotha. There have been deeply devout souls who, out of a more or less intense need for faith, have found their relationship to the Mystery of Golgotha and its bearer; there have been deeply religious natures from the time of the Mystery of Golgotha up to our own day. But the Mystery of Golgotha is one which, while standing as a real fact at the starting point of modern times, is not something the human soul can readily presume to fully fathom or fully understand. Ever new epochs will come that will deepen the human soul ever more, and that will understand ever better and better what happened in the Mystery of Golgotha. The event itself stands there as the turning point in human development; the understanding of this event will grow and mature ever more in the spiritual development of the Earth.

[ 15 ] We cannot impress this matter deeply enough upon our souls. Let us consider, in a certain metaphysical abstraction, what actually happened back then. We have characterized it from various points of view. Let us choose a more abstract perspective, one that, when allowed to take effect on the soul, is capable of evoking a deep feeling within us.

[ 16 ] When the ordinary view of the world, or indeed ordinary science, studies the things around us—I already drew attention to this matter yesterday in my public lecture, but let us consider it once more—when the things around us are studied, then through ordinary thinking and ordinary science, human beings learn to recognize the laws of existence in the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms. These laws all culminate in one ideal: to understand life. But life itself is not understood here on earth. Only occultism can provide an understanding of life. External science can never penetrate the mystery of life. And it would be the wildest fantasy to believe that one could ever penetrate the laws of life in the same way that one can penetrate physical or chemical laws. It remains an ideal, but it cannot be attained. It is impossible for the physical plane to provide knowledge of life. This knowledge of life must be reserved for supersensible knowledge.

[ 17 ] Just as impossible as the sensory perception of life is the supersensory perception of death. There are states of terrible isolation of consciousness in the spiritual world; there is a temporary sinking into a state akin to sleep, but there is no death in the higher worlds. Death is impossible in the higher worlds.

[ 18 ] All the beings we have come to know as the beings of the higher hierarchies are characterized by the fact that they do not know death, that they do not pass through death. Just as the Bible correctly states that the angels veiled their faces before the mystery of the birth, the Incarnation, so too must they and all other higher beings veil their faces before death. For death is an event that is possible only in the sensory world, but not in the supersensory world.

[ 19 ] Among all the beings of the higher worlds, there was only one who had to go through death—or, we might say, who chose to do so—and that is the Christ. To do this, he had to descend to Earth.

[ 20 ] In order for a being from the higher worlds to bring about what was necessary for the development of the Earth, Christ had to descend from a world where there is no death into the world where there is death.

[ 21 ] Such mental images, even if they are abstract at first, must be transformed into a feeling, into a sensation. A full understanding of what I have now described in abstract terms will become a subject of human evolution. With a certain reverence, humility, and tenderness all at once, we approach today the secret of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 22 ] What, then, actually happened? It has often been described. Christ descended from the supersensible worlds into the world in which he has lived ever since—as a secret force, though one that will reveal itself beginning in our century. He descended from the world where there is no death into the world of death. And he—this force—has united with the Earth. He has become, from a cosmic force, a force of the Earth. He has passed through death in order to come to life within earthly existence, to be within the earthly world. And humanity has striven, through this or that soul filled with this impulse, to understand him throughout the centuries. But the closer development came to the past Age of Gabriel, the more understanding declined. And today, it is precisely among those who ought to have understanding that this understanding is in a rather poor state, and materialism asserts itself not only in today’s materialistic science but also, in many ways, in theology. True understanding of the Christ impulse has diminished. Materialism has taken hold of souls; it has deeply entrenched itself within them. In many respects, materialism has become the fundamental impulse of the last, now-past epoch. Numerous souls have died, passing through the gate of death with a materialistic mindset. To pass through the gate of death with such a materialistic mindset as souls did in the past epoch—this could not have occurred at all in earlier ages.

[ 23 ] Then, during the time between death and rebirth, these souls lived in the spiritual world in such a way that they knew nothing of the world in which they had lived. Then a being came to meet them. They beheld this being in this world. They had to behold it, because this being had united itself with earthly existence, even though it reigns invisibly for the time being in the sensory earthly existence. And through the efforts of these souls who had passed through the gate of death, they succeeded in—we can say nothing else—driving Christ out of the spiritual world. And Christ had to experience a renewal of the Mystery of Golgotha, though not on the same scale as the previous one. Back then he passed through death; now it was a casting out from his being in the spiritual world. And through this, the eternal law of the spiritual world was fulfilled in him. What disappears in the higher, spiritual world arises anew in the lower world.

[ 24 ] If it is possible in the 20th century for souls to evolve toward an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, it is because of this event—that Christ was driven out of the spiritual worlds by a conspiracy of materialistic souls and placed into the physical world, into the human world—so that even in this physical world a new understanding of Christ can begin. Therefore, Christ is also united in an even more intimate way with all that constitutes the destinies of human beings on Earth. And just as one could once look up to Yahweh or Jehovah and know that he was the being who sent Michael ahead to prepare what was to lead from the Age of Yahweh into the Age of Christ—whereas it was formerly Yahweh who sent Michael—it is now the Christ who sends Michael to us.

[ 25 ] This is the new and great thing that we are to transform into a feeling within ourselves. Just as we used to speak of Yahweh-Michael, the leader of the age, we can now speak of Christ-Michael. Michael has undergone an elevation to a higher level, from the spirit of the people to the spirit of the age, by becoming the messenger of Christ rather than the messenger of Yahweh.

[ 26 ] And so, when we speak of a proper understanding of the Michael impulse in our time, we are speaking of a proper understanding of the Christ impulse.

[ 27 ] Abstract understanding relies on names, time and again on names, and believes it has grasped something when it proceeds by asking: What kind of being is Michael? — and seeks to know: he has emerged from this or that hierarchy, he is an archangelic being, archangelic beings possess these or those characteristics. Then one defines that and now believes one knows what such a being is. I, too, have often been asked for definitions. This always reminds me of the dispute that took place in a Greek school of philosophy regarding the value of a definition. They argued about how one could define a human being. They finally agreed on this: a human being is a creature that walks on two legs and has no feathers. — It cannot be denied that these characteristics fit humans just as well as some definitions fit the terms one casually applies. Yet the one who next brought a plucked rooster and asked if that were a human was right, for it walks on two legs and has no feathers. It is not enough to speak of Michael, for if one wishes to understand human evolution, one must understand Michael in his evolution—that he is the same being who set the tone for the preparation of the Mystery of Golgotha, and now, in our time, sets the tone for the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. Back then, however, he was a folk spirit, and now he is a spirit of the age. Back then he was the messenger of Yahweh; now he is the messenger of Christ. And we truly speak of Christ when we speak of Michael and his mission, knowing that what was once Michael—the bearer of the Yahweh mission—is now the bearer of the Christ mission.

[ 28 ] We have been able to follow Michael, a spirit who has, so to speak, ascended—who, in order to impart a new impulse to humanity, has ascended or is ascending from the order of the Archangels to the order of the Archai.

[ 29 ] The place is filled by another being who comes along. I have spoken here several times about the evolution that Buddha underwent. Those childish objections now being raised against us, in their audacity, also attack our conception of the Christ impulse in the world, as if our presentation of the Christ impulse had ever been one-sided. We direct our gaze to the whole of evolution, and we characterize that which is subject to evolution from the perspective of the various impulses, giving each its due. How often has it been emphasized that it is a truth for us that the Bodhisattva who was born as Gautama Buddha has indeed ascended to become the Buddha. We have traced his evolution up to the point where he received his mission on Mars. This has already been discussed here.

[ 30 ] As long as a person remains on Earth, no matter how high their station, one can always speak of that individuality within every person that guides them from incarnation to incarnation. The individual guidance of human beings is the responsibility of the angeloi, the angelic beings. When a human being evolves from a bodhisattva into a Buddha, his angel is, so to speak, set free. It is these angelic beings who, upon fulfilling their mission, ascend into the realms of the archangels.

[ 31 ] Thus, at a certain point, we truly grasp the ascent of an archangel to the being of the Archai and the ascent of an angelic being to the being of an archangel, when we truly understand how to look deeper and deeper into that which lies behind our sensory evolution as the supersensory evolution.

[ 32 ] Now, what I have spoken to you about—the spiritual background of the world in which we find ourselves, and into which we as anthroposophists wish to place ourselves—I did not speak of it so that souls might merely theorize about these things, but so that souls might transform what is expressed in words and concepts into feelings and sensations. Yes, to be an anthroposophist in our time means knowing the nature of the supersensible world that underlies the sensory world of human evolution; it means feeling at home in the spiritual world just as the physical human being feels physically at home in the atmosphere. To feel at home in the spiritual world in this way! But one does not feel at home in the spiritual world by merely emphasizing: Spirit, spirit, and spirit is within us! Rather, just as one must concretely assess the Earth’s atmosphere based on cloud formations, humidity, and other phenomena, so too must we concretely characterize the spiritual world into which we plunge every night as we fall asleep, feeling and sensing what lives and weaves within this spiritual world. That which is happening in the present through the mission entrusted to Michael by Christ—a mission that has been bestowed upon the same Spirit from the hierarchy of the Archangels, whom the impulse of Yahweh once utilized in preparation for the Mystery of Golgotha—this is what is unfolding behind our physical-sensory evolution. And to know oneself to be within, to feel oneself within such events in the spiritual world, just as we physically feel ourselves in the atmosphere we breathe in and out—that is to have the correct consciousness in the present moment toward the spiritual world in the concrete sense.

[ 33 ] Try to transform such results of occultism into an overall sense of your soul. What I am now trying to place within your souls—try to gain a feeling understanding of it, to consider what it means, especially today in this age, to live consciously within what is happening spiritually around us, within where our soul goes every evening when we fall asleep, and where we come from every morning when we wake up. Try to direct the soul upward into this concrete reality, which is often referred to quite abstractly as “divine providence.” It is characteristic of our time that what human beings in past ages could only vaguely sense as providence flowing through the world, they are now able to recognize and feel as individual beings in the present. Let this stand before your soul as an image: that the past age had to discover the laws of nature. Back then, the laws of nature were good when they were used correctly in the human soul to build up external worldviews. But there is nothing absolutely good or evil in this outer world of maya. The laws of nature would become bad and evil in our age if they were to continue to be used to construct a worldview at a time when spiritual life is flowing into the sensory world. It is not what past ages have done that is targeted by these words, but rather that which seeks to remain as it was in earlier ages, that which refuses to place itself in the service of the new revelation.

[ 34 ] Michael did not fight the dragon in the age that has passed, for the dragon referred to here was not yet a dragon at that time. It will become a dragon if those concepts and ideas—which are merely scientific laws—are to be built into the worldview of the coming age. And what is striving to rise up there is, correctly understood, depicted in the image as the dragon that must be vanquished by Michael, whose age begins in our time.

[ 35 ] This is an important image: Michael defeating the dragon. To receive spiritual, surging life into the sensory world: this is Michael’s service from now on. We serve him in the defeat of the dragon, which seeks to grow out of ideas that brought materialism during the past age and that seek to carry over into the future. To overcome this is to stand in Michael’s service. This is Michael’s victory over the dragon. It is once again the old image that had a different meaning in earlier times, but which is now to take on this meaning for our age. We can recognize and feel our task in the image of “Michael defeating the dragon” when we sense what we are to participate in as people of a new age.

[ 36 ] Well then, let us try to bring this image to life in our imagination; let us try to understand our time by recognizing that we are concretely immersed in the spiritual guidance that is the spiritual guidance of our age—the spiritual guidance that can be the spiritual guidance of every human soul, every such human soul that sincerely and honestly seeks development, an ascent to ever higher stages of spiritual life.