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Inner Impulses of Evolution, The Mexican Mysteries, The Knights Templar
GA 171

17 September 1916, Dornach

2. The Influence of Luciferic and Ahrimanic Beings on Historical Development. The clear Perception of the Sensory World and Free Imaginations as the Task of Our Time. Genghis Khan and the Discovery of America

Yesterday, we tried to characterize the forces that permeated Greece and Rome in order to obtain an idea of the influences that have been carried over from the fourth into the fifth post-Atlantean age, and we gave some indication of where we have to look today for signs of continued activity of the forces of the fourth post-Atlantean age. I want to ask you now to turn your attention once again to our description of the civilizations of Greece and Rome.

In the way it developed, the civilization of Greece was a source of great disappointment to the luciferic powers. One can, of course, only say these things out of imaginative cognition, and this will also be true of what is to be presented to you today. The development of Greek civilization was a great disappointment to the luciferic powers because they expected something quite different from it. Think what this means. They had expected the civilization of Greece, the fourth epoch of post-Atlantean times, to bring into being for them all they had striven for during Atlantean times. On Atlantis they had developed certain activities, certain influences and forces and they had expected to see the fruits of their labors appear in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. What was it they were really looking for?

To speak of such a matter lets us look right into the luciferic soul. We come to know this luciferic life that continually strives, hoping that certain results may ensue, but that continually meets with fresh disappointment. A logician would naturally ask, “Why do not these luciferic powers stop trying? Why do they not see that they must be forever and repeatedly disappointed?” Such a conclusion would be human, not luciferic, wisdom. At any rate, the luciferic powers have yet to come to this conclusion. On the contrary, it is their practice to redouble their efforts whenever they experience disappointment.

What was it, then, that the luciferic powers expected from this fourth post-Atlantean age? They wanted to obtain mastery of all the soul forces of the Greek people, those soul forces that were, as we have seen, directed to carrying over the ancient imaginations of the Chaldean-Egyptian period, and to incorporate them into the creations of their own fantasy. The luciferic powers made it their endeavor to work so strongly on the human beings of the Greek civilization that their imaginations, refined and distilled to fantasy, should fill their whole being. The Greeks would then have lost themselves in a soul world, in an everyday thinking, feeling and willing that would have consisted entirely of those subtle imaginations that had become complete fantasy.

If the Greeks had developed nothing in their souls but these imaginations refined to fantasy, if these enticing imaginations had come to fill their souls completely, the luciferic powers would have been able to lift the Greeks and a great part of humanity out of human evolution to place them in their own luciferic world. This was the intention of the luciferic powers. From the Atlantean epoch on, it had been their hope to achieve in the fourth post-Atlantean age what they had failed to do in Atlantis. Humanity, at the stage it had then reached, would have been incorporated into the cosmos. They wanted nothing less than to create for themselves a separate world where earthly gravity did not exist, but where human beings would dwell with absolute super-sensible lightness, entirely given up to a life of fantasy. It was the hope of the luciferic beings to create a planetary body, which would contain those members of humanity who had reached this highest development of the fantasy life. They made every endeavor to lead the souls of the Greeks away from the earth. Had they succeeded, these souls would gradually have forsaken the earth. The bodies that still came to birth would have been degenerate. Egoless beings would have been born, the earth would have fallen into decadence and a special luciferic kingdom would have begun. This did not come to pass. Why?

This condition did not come about because, mingled with the “self-deifying madness” of Greek poetry, to quote Plato, was the genius and greatness of Greek philosophy and wisdom. The Greek philosophers—Heraclitus, Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle—saved Greek civilization from being completely spiritualized in a life of fantasy. They kept the Greeks on earth, providing the strongest forces that kept Greece within earthly evolution. In considering the course of history, we must always take into account the forces that lie behind physical reality and are the true causes of all that happens. It was, then, in this way that Greece was preserved for earthly evolution.

Now, the luciferic beings would have been unable to achieve anything at all without the help of the ahrimanic beings. In all their intentions and hope they reckoned on their support. Indeed, it must always be that two forces strive together in this kind of working. Just as the luciferic beings were disappointed in Greece, so were the ahrimanic beings disappointed in Rome and the way it developed. The luciferic beings wanted to lead Grecian souls away from the earth-planet and the ahrimanic beings wanted to contribute their efforts to the end that the Roman civilization would assume a particular form. The ahrimanic beings exerted their strongest efforts in Rome, just as the luciferic beings did in Greece. They calculated that a certain hardening would arise on earth brought about by an entirely blind obedience and subjection to Rome. What did the ahrimanic powers want to accomplish in Rome? They wanted to establish a Roman Empire that would extend over the whole of the then known world, embracing within it every human activity. It would be directed entirely from Rome with the strictest centralization and the utmost development of the rule of might. They sought to establish a widely flung state machinery that would include and make subject to it all religious and artistic life. Its goal would be to stamp out all individuality. Every people and human being would comprise merely some small part of this mighty state machine.

Thanks to the clarity of its philosophers, however, Greece was not lulled into the luciferic dream, nor could Rome be hardened as these ahrimanic powers desired, because in Rome, too, something was working against them. This was described in the last lecture as Roman ideals, but the legal, political and military ideals that were then developing could not have withstood Ahriman alone. Within the Roman civilization the ahrimanic powers gathered for a stupendous onslaught. That attempt was like a repetition of their attempt made in Atlantean times, and it developed infinitely strong powers and forces. It was only from another side that Ahriman's intention was hindered. It was, at first, prevented by something that, at first sight, might be regarded as a lower trait in the Roman character, but that was not the case. As a matter of fact, the Romans had need of what I may have seemed to describe in the last lecture with some antipathy. They needed their ruthlessness, stubborn egoism, that continuous stirring up of emotions, to be able to march against the ahrimanic powers. Roman history—I beg you expressly to note this—is not a revelation of the ahrimanic powers. Although they stand in the background, it is a fight against them. If it is all confused and self-seeking, seeming to tend more and more toward a politicalization of the whole world, it is because only in this way could Ahriman's mechanizing be resisted.

All this alone, however, would not have been of much avail. Rome had also received Christianity, which in Rome would have assumed a form that would have given Ahriman a splendid opportunity to achieve his aim since, through the spiritual decline of a Roman rule that had been transformed into a papacy, the mechanizing of culture could have been accomplished. So another external power had to be brought against Ahriman, who works with much more external means than Lucifer. Ahriman, as we have seen, diverted the forces of Christianity to his own service. Another power had to be brought against him. This was the onslaught of the Germanic tribes caused by the migration of peoples in Europe. Through this onslaught on Rome, the mechanizing of the world under a single, all-embracing Roman Empire was hindered. If you will study all that took place in the migration of these peoples, you will find that you can get a true insight into it when you see it from this point of view. Whenever the migration of peoples occurs in the Roman world, Roman history is not thereby brought to an end, but the ahrimanic powers, combated throughout their history by the Romans, are repelled.

Thus did Ahriman meet with his disappointment, as Lucifer had met with his. But they will take up their tasks again in the fifth post-Atlantean age with all the more determination. Here is the point at which we must gain an understanding of the forces that are operative in our age, insofar as such an understanding is possible today.

The fourth post-Atlantean age extends both backwards and forwards from its central point in 333 A.D. It ended about 1413 A.D. and it began about 747 B.C. These are of course, approximate dates. I have just told you that the disappointment of Lucifer and Ahriman in the forms the Greek and Roman civilizations had assumed, has led them to make still stronger efforts in our fifth post-Atlantean age. Their efforts are already at work in the human forces that have been active from the fifteenth century. It does not matter whether something occurs a few decades earlier or later. In outer physical reality, which takes on the form of the “great illusion,” things are sometimes misplaced.

The fact that the Roman civilization could be retained in the evolution of humanity as it was due to the events brought about by the migrations of the peoples. If Rome had developed in such a way that a great all-embracing mechanized empire had arisen, it would only have been habitable for egoless human beings who would have remained on earth after Lucifer had drawn out their souls on the path of Greek culture and art. You see how Ahriman and Lucifer work together. Lucifer wants to take men's souls away and found a planet with them of his own. Ahriman has to help him. While Lucifer sucks the juice out of the lemon, as it were, Ahriman presses it out, thereby hardening what remains. This is what he tried to do to the civilization of Rome. Here we have an important cosmic process going on—all due to the intention and resolve of luciferic and ahrimanic powers. As I have said, they were disappointed. They have continued their efforts, however, and our fifth post-Atlantean age has yet to learn how strong these attacks are. They are now only beginning but they will become stronger and stronger. This age must learn, too, that the necessity to understand these attacks will become ever greater. At the beginning of an age the backward beings cannot work strongly. As yet, we are only in the beginning, and even though it became manifest only later, the luciferic and ahrimanic powers began to exert their forces before the expiration of the fourth post-Atlantean age.

To understand how these powers work in the fifth post-Atlantean age, we must turn our attention for a moment to what is intended for man in the right and normal course of his evolution. It is rightfully intended that he shall take a further step forward. The step taken by humanity in the fourth post-Atlantean age is revealed in the culture of the Greeks and in the political development of the Romans, and it was through the battle with Lucifer and Ahriman that what was intended actually came about. These opposing forces are always such that they fit into the progressive plan of the world. They belong to it and are needed there as opposing forces. But what special qualities are the men of the fifth post-Atlantean age, our own, to develop?

We know that this is the age of the development of the consciousness soul and that, to accomplish this, a number of forces—soul and bodily forces—must be active. First, a clear perception of the sense world is necessary. This did not exist in earlier times because, as you know, a visionary, imaginative element continuously played into the human soul. The Greeks still possessed fantasy but, as we have seen, after fantasy and imagination had taken possession of humanity, as it did of the Greeks, it then became necessary for men to develop the faculty to see the world of external nature without the illumination of a vision standing behind it. We need not imagine that such a vision has to be a materialistic one. That point of view is itself an ahrimanically perverted perception of sense reality. As indicated before, observation of sense reality is one task incumbent upon the human soul in our fifth post-Atlantean age.

The other task is to unfold free imaginations side by side with the clear view of reality—in a way, a kind of repetition of the Egypto-Chaldean age. To date, humanity has not progressed too far in this task. Free imaginations as sought through spiritual science means imaginations not as they were in the third post-Atlantean age, but unfettered and undistilled into fantasy. It means imaginations in which man moves as freely as he does only in his intellect. That, then, is the other task of the fifth post-Atlantean age. The unfoldment of these two faculties will lead to a right development of the consciousness soul in our present epoch.

Goethe had a beautiful understanding of this clear perception, which, contrary to the materialistic point of view, he described as his “primal phenomenon” (Urphänomen). You will find that this has been dealt with at length in Goethe's writings, and I have spoken of it in my explanation of the primal phenomenon. His is a clear, pure perception of reality and of his primal phenomenon. Goethe not only gave the first impulse for perceptions free of any visions but also for free imaginations.1This distinction between pure perception free of memory pictures and visions on the one hand and an objective imagination which begins with brain-free thinking on the other is developed in Boundaries of Natural Science, Anthroposophic Press, 1983 What he has given us in his Faust, even though it has not yet gone far in the direction of spiritual science, and in comparison with spiritual science is still more or less instinctive, is nevertheless the first impulse to a free imaginative life. It is no mere world of fantasy, yet we have seen how deep this world of fantasy really is that develops in free imaginations in the wonderful drama, Faust.

So, over against this primal phenomenon, we have what Goethe calls typical intellectual perception. You will find it described in detail in my book, The Riddle of Man. This mode of thought must continue to develop. The men of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, however, must not merely behold reality. They must be able to live with reality. They must get busy, like Goethe, and, working in quite a different way from that of the materialistic physicists, really make such use of their laboratory apparatus that it produces the primal phenomenon for them. They will then have to devise some way of getting the primal phenomenon into practical life. As you know, it is at home in, and holds sway throughout, nature. The intentions of humanity that come from free imaginations will have to be included in this primal phenomenon of nature. On the one hand, men will have to direct their gaze quite selflessly to the outer world to work in it and to gain knowledge of it. On the other, by powerful application of their personalities, they will have to bring it all into inner movement in order to find the imaginations for outer activity and outer knowledge. Gradually, the consciousness soul and its culture will achieve this transformation.

There will certainly be one-sidedness in this cultural epoch. That goes without saying. Our cognition will direct its efforts only outwards, as in Bacon, or only inwards, as in Berkeley. We have already spoken of this. The imaginative life welling up from within will not unfold without all manner of disturbing influences. But even now we can point to moments in this development when someone feels this free imaginative life springing up in his soul. In these beginnings it is still in great measure unfree, but we may see how so significant a man as Jacob Boehme, quite soon after the fifth post-Atlantean age began, felt how it was trying to develop in his soul. He brought this to expression in his Aurora, and we can feel as we read it how imaginative life was working within him. It must become free; Boehme still feels it to be a little unfree. Nevertheless, he knew it was a divine creative thing that was working in him. So Boehme was, in a sense, at the opposite pole to Bacon, whose endeavor always directed his attention to the external world. Jacob Boehme, however, was entirely engrossed in the world within, and described this world beautifully in the Aurora:

“I declare before God,” he says because he is speaking of his inner soul, “that I do not know how it comes to pass in me.” He means by this how the imaginations arise in him. “Without feeling the impulse of the will, I also don't know what I have to write.”

This is how Boehme speaks of the uprising of imaginations in himself. He detects the beginning of forces that must grow continually stronger in the men of the fifth post-Atlantean age.

“I declare before God that I do not know how it comes to pass in me. Without feeling the impulse of the will, I also don't know what I have to write. The spirit dictates to me in a great and marvelous knowledge what I write, so that often I do not know whether I am in this world with my spirit, and I rejoice exceedingly that sure and continuous knowledge is thus vouchsafed to me.”

Boehme describes the instreaming of the imaginative world. We can see that he feels harmony and rest in his soul, and he describes how men's souls shall, in the normal and right progress of their evolution, let themselves be taken hold of by these inner forces, which are to grow stronger in them in the fifth post-Atlantean age. But one must take possession of them in the pure inner being of the spirit and thereby avoid devious paths. In the seventeenth century one had to speak of these forces much in the way that Boehme, who spoke as a man completely and utterly devoted to divine righteousness, did.

The entire aim in the work of the luciferic and ahrimanic powers in the fifth post-Atlantean age, concerning both the perception of the primal phenomenon and the development of free imaginations, is to hinder these forces from arising in man. The luciferic and ahrimanic powers are working in this fifth post-Atlantean age to disturb these forces in the human soul, to employ them to a wrong end, thus bringing men's souls out of the earth sphere to establish a new sphere of their own. Many things must work together to disturb the right, quiet and slow unfolding of these forces. Note well that I say the quiet and slow unfolding because the entire period of 2,160 years, starting in 1413 A.D., should be used for the gradual unfoldment of the forces I have named, that is, free imaginations and the gradual development of working with primal phenomena. At intervals—by fits and starts, as it were—the luciferic and ahrimanic powers throw the whole weight of their opposition against this right evolution. When we bear in mind that everything is prepared for by the world beyond the earth long before it happens, we shall then not be surprised to find preparations being made to bring the strongest possible forces of opposition against the normal evolution of humanity.

We have already seen how the luciferic and ahrimanic powers poured what they had developed in Atlantean times into Greece and Rome. Now, in an altered form, they have tried to repeat these efforts before the arrival of the fifth post-Atlantean age. You will not be surprised when I say that for this fifth post-Atlantean age, too, a powerful impetus had to be present bearing along with it the after workings, in a luciferic and ahrimanic sense, from Atlantis. We know that the Atlantean influences spread out from a region that was called Atlantis even by Plato. Let us make a diagram and imagine Atlantis here, then over here on the right would be Europe and Asia, and here on the left would be America. The old Atlantean forces, including the old luciferic and ahrimanic forces, spread out from Atlantis. Some part of these Atlantean forces, however, was held

back, and it came to work in our fifth post-Atlantean age as luciferic and ahrimanic forces. That is, some part of the good forces, which were good and right in Atlantean times, have been carried over to our time to become luciferic and ahrimanic forces. Only the center was transferred to another region.

Atlantis, as we know, is gone and the center transposed to Asia. You must imagine it on the reverse side of my drawing and the effects of the old Atlantean culture spreading out from it as a preparation for the fifth post-Atlantean age.

Its intent was to lucifericize and ahrimanicize it. It was actually the descendants of the old Atlantean teachers who were now working from a place in Asia. A priest there had been educated to behold—to have a belated vision, as it were, of what the Atlanteans called the “Great Spirit,” and to receive his commands. These the priest communicated to a young man of remarkable energy and strength who, by virtue of this authority, received the name “The Great Ruler of the Earth” from his community. This was Genghis Khan. The Great Spirit, through his follower and through that priest, gave to Genghis Khan the command to summon all the powers of Asia to spread the influence that would lead the fifth post-Atlantean age back into a luciferic form. These forces—and they were far more powerful than the forces established in Greek culture—were all employed to this end. Free imaginations were to be changed into old, visionary imaginations. Every effort was to be made to lull the soul of man to sleep in a dim and dreamy experience of imaginations instead of a free experience filled through and through with clear understanding.

With the help of the special forces that had been preserved from Atlantis, it was the intended purpose to carry an influence into the West that would make its culture visionary. Then it would have become possible to separate the souls of men from the earth and to form a new continent, a new planetary body with them. All the unrest and disturbance that came into the evolution of modern man through the Mongolian invasions, everything connected with them that has gone on working into the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—all this unrest, which was prepared long ago, is nothing more than the great attempt that is being made from Asia to bring about a visionary European culture. It would cut it off from the conditions of its further evolution and lead it altogether away from the earth, just as the East has experienced again and again this feeling of being filled with vision and of wanting to be estranged from the earth.

Something was needed to counterbalance this tendency. An opposite trend had to be created as a counterforce that moves in the direction of the normal evolution of mankind. The influence of Genghis Khan's priest was intended to bring about a kind of buoyancy and lightness in the human race that would draw man away from the earth. Over against this, a corresponding heaviness had to come to man from the weight of the earth; this was provided through the discovery of the western world. America, with all that it holds, was discovered and thereby earth heaviness, the desire to remain on earth, was given to man. The discovery of America and everything connected with it, and the way man carried his life into the many new places of the earth, all this, when seen in wider connections, shows itself as a counterbalancing force to the activity of Genghis Khan. America had to be discovered so that man might be brought to grow closer to the earth, to grow more and more materialistic. Man needed weight and heaviness to counterbalance the spiritualization that was the aim of the descendants of the “Great Spirit.”

Along with this normal process whereby the scene of action of man's life was extended to America, we find the other forces, the ahrimanic powers of the “Great Spirit,” intervening again. An influence came from America to Europe, and another came to permeate America from Asia. Thus, normal forces developed through the discovery of America and also powerful ahrimanic onslaughts. They worked less strongly at first, but will continue to work in our time and on into the future. We must learn to recognize these ahrimanic forces.

What Rome had achieved in the Church and in the ecclesiastical state was grasped by the ahrimanic influence. While it is comparatively easy to see how the luciferic influence worked on Genghis Khan—we have exact knowledge of the fact that a priest was initiated by the follower of the “Great Spirit”—it is much more difficult to say how the ahrimanic spirit worked. This is because the ahrimanic influence is dispersed and scattered. But you need only study how Spain, strictly Roman Catholic as it was, was fascinated by all the treasures of gold that were discovered in America. What a hold it had upon her! You can observe how strong the specter-like working of the old Romanism still was in such a ruler as Ferdinand of Castile or Charles V, the ruler of the kingdom over which the “sun never set.” Study the reaction of Europe to the gradual discovery and opening up of America and you will see what temptations came from that direction. Taken all in all, it is a history of temptation woven in with a history that runs a normal course.

Please do not go about saying that I have presented the discovery of America as an ahrimanic deed. In reality, I have said the very opposite. I have said that America had to be discovered and that the entire event was necessary to the progress of the world. Ahrimanic forces entered, however, and set themselves in violent opposition to what was happening quite rightly in the normal course of progress. Things are not so simple that we can say, “There is Lucifer, and there is Ahriman; they act and behave in such and such a way, and divide the world between them.” Things are by no means so simple as that.

We find, therefore, many forces working together when we set out to listen to them in their field of action behind the physical plane. These forces take possession of other forces. They try to seize the forces in man that have continued on from the fourth post-Atlantean epoch in order to distort them and make them serve their ends. Look at a man like Machiavelli. You will find in him the symbol for the politicizing of thought that begins in the Renaissance. He is a veritable revelation of the whole process. He was a great and powerful spirit but one who, under the onslaught of the forces of which I have told you, brings to a new life again the complete attitude of thought and mind that has its source in the heathen Rome of ancient times. You have a true picture of Machiavelli when you study the history of his time and see him, not as a single personality, but as the outstanding expression of many who think in the same way. In him you can observe these forces trying to charge forward with all speed, bringing to their assistance the atavistic—and thus luciferic—forces that have been left behind. Had things gone as Machiavelli intended, all of Europe would have become nothing but a political machine. Opposing the violent onslaught of such forces are the forces that work in the normal direction. Over against a figure like Machiavelli, who was purely political and turned all man's thought into political thinking, we can place another great figure, Thomas à Kempis, who was also Machiavelli's contemporary. He stands entirely within the slow and gradual evolution, working slowly and gradually. He was anything but a man of politics.

So we can follow the several streams in history. We shall find normal streams, and we shall also find currents that flow from earlier times and are made use of by the forces of which I have told you. Many forces work together in history and it is important to observe and study their connections. A man like Jacob Boehme felt free imaginations rising within him. We can say of such a man that he fortified himself against the attacks of Lucifer and Ahriman through the whole character of his life of soul and succeeded in going undisturbed along the straight path of evolution.

East of Europe, however, in all the culture of the East, we find an untold number of people who suffer greatly under the disturbing influence of Lucifer. His influence is, as we know, to draw man again and again away from the earth, to draw him right out of his physical body so that he shall perpetually fall into a state where he becomes no more than a vision of himself and is completely soul. That is the tendency that has been grafted onto Eastern Europe.

The feeling of being drawn in the other direction was given to the West. The world of imagination was pulled down into the heavy physical body so that what should rightly be free imagination working merely in the soul becomes instead something that rams the soul down into the organism, thereby causing the organism also to live on imaginations. You can hardly find a more telling description of what I mean than in the words of Alfred de Musset in which he attempts to give us a picture of the condition of his soul. De Musset is one who feels the presence of the imaginative life in himself, but he also feels the onslaught upon this life of imagination that seeks to thrust it right down into the bodily nature. This life of imagination, which does not belong in the bodily nature but should develop freely, hovering in and existing purely as a thing of the soul, is there taken hold of by earthly gravity and by what belongs to the body. In his book, Elle et Lui, which he was led to write from his relation with Georges Sand, you will find a fine description of his soul life. I would like to quote here a passage that will serve to show how he feels himself to be placed within an imaginative life that is the scene of conflict and dispute. He says:

Creation disturbs and bewilders me; it sets me trembling. Execution, always too slow for my desire, starts my heart beating wildly. Weeping, and restraining myself with difficulty from crying out, I give birth to an idea. In the moment of its birth it intoxicates me, but next morning it fills me with loathing. If I try to modify and change it, it only gets worse and escapes me altogether. It would be better for me to forget it and wait for another. But now this other comes upon me in such bewilderment and in such boundless dimensions that my poor being cannot grasp it. It oppress me, tortures me, until it can be realized. Then come the other sufferings, the birth throes, really physical pains that I am quite unable to define. Such is my life when I let myself be ruled by this giant artist who is in me.

Note the contrast with Boehme, who feels the God in him. With de Musset it is a giant artist.

It were better that I live as I have resolved, committing excesses of every kind in order to kill this gnawing worm, which others modestly call inspiration and I quite often openly call illness.

Almost every single sentence of this quote can be matched with a sentence in our quotation from Boehme. How singularly typical! Remember what I said just now, that normal evolution seeks to progress slowly. We shall have more to say about this tomorrow. Here, as described by de Musset, it is a Wild charge; it cannot be fast enough. The picture he gives us as he surveys himself is marvelous. “Creation disturbs and bewilders me; it sets me atremble,” he says, because this to will go faster and faster and comes storming in upon him from the ahrimanic side, disturbing what is still trying to progress slowly.

“Execution, always too slow for my desire, starts my heart beating wildly.” Here you have the whole psychology of the man who wants to live in free imaginations and is distressed and vexed by the onslaught of ahrimanic forces.

“Weeping and restraining myself with difficult from crying out...” Think of it! The imaginations work so physically in him that he feels like crying out when they find expression in him.

“I give birth to an idea. In the moment of its birth it intoxicates me, but next morning it fills me with loathing.” This because it comes from his organism and not from his soul!

“If I try to modify and change it, it only gets worse and escapes me altogether. Better I forget it and wait for another.” Here he wants perpetually to go faster, faster than normal evolution can go.

“But now this other comes upon me in such bewilderment and in such boundless dimensions that my poor being cannot grasp it. It oppresses me, tortures me, until it can be realized. Then come the other sufferings, the birth throes, actual physical pains that I am quite unable to define.” Then, when he beholds this giant artist that works within him, he says he would rather follow the life he has marked out for himself; that is, have nothing to do with this whole imaginative world, because he calls it an illness.

Now take by way of contrast, the saying of Jacob Boehme, “I declare before God, I myself do not know how it comes to pass in me.” Here you have an expression of joy and bliss. Confusion and bewilderment, on the other hand, can be heard in the words of de Musset, “Creation disturbs and bewilders me; it sets me trembling. Execution, always too slow for my desire, starts my heart beating wildly.”

With Boehme all is of the soul and, when he wants to write, he does not feel as though a giant artist, who makes him unhappy, were dictating to him, but a spirit. He feels that he is transported into the world where the spirit dictates to him. He is in this world and he is supremely happy to be there because a continuous stream of knowledge is given him that flows slowly and steadily on. Boehme is inclined to receive this slow stream of knowledge. He does not find it too slow because he is not overwhelmed by the swift attacking force I have described to you. On the contrary, he is protected from it.

If time permitted, we could present many more instances of ways in which individual human beings are situated in the world process. The examples I have selected are from those whose names have been preserved in history but, in a sense, all of mankind is subject to these same conditions in one way or another. I have only chosen these particular examples in order to express what is really widespread, and by taking special cases I have been able to give you a description of it in words. If you will try to make a survey of what we have been saying, you will then be able to understand much of what has come about in the course of evolution.

It would be quite possible in this connection to study many other phenomena of life. If, however, we confine ourselves today to the spiritual life, and moreover to that special region of the spiritual life comprising knowledge and cognition, we shall be able to find in it qualities that are characteristic of modern man, the recognition of which will make many things in life comprehensible. Since it is not possible to say much about the external life of today, owing to the existing prejudices and because men's souls are so deeply bound up with the conditions of the times in which they live, you will readily understand that it is only in a limited way that I can speak of the things that are carrying their influence right into the immediate present. It cannot be otherwise, as I have frequently made clear to you. I would like, however, to indicate certain phenomena of our time that are less calculated to arouse passions and emotions. Let me describe some phenomena that I will select from the life of cognition and feeling. I think you will find them underlying all I have been saying about the forces at work in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch. We will first consider these phenomena in a purely historical way in order afterward to see their relation to these forces.

Let us take first a phenomenon in which we all necessarily feel the deepest interest. The kind of understanding men have of the nature and being of Christ is of great significance, and so we will select examples of various kinds of understanding of His nature and being that lie near at hand. We have first of all a modern instance in Ernest Renan's The Life of Jesus, which appeared in the 19th century and went rapidly through many editions. I believe the twentieth appeared in 1900 after his death. Then we have The Life of Jesus, which is really no life of Jesus at all, by David Friedrich Strauss. Then we have—we cannot say, a life of Jesus, but coming from the east of Europe it is a view and conception of Christ that is of deep significance. It is not a life of Jesus but an understanding of Christ that culminates in what Soloviev wrote about Him and His part in the evolution of the earth. How significant are these three expressions of the spiritual life of the nineteenth century: The Life of Jesus by Renan, The Life of Jesus by Strauss, which is no life of Jesus at all and we shall presently hear why, and Soloviev's conception of the meaning of the Christ event in the evolution of the earth, for it is true, at any rate, to say that all of his work culminates in the Christ idea.

What is the fundamental premise of Renan's description of Jesus' life? If you want to appreciate rightly Renan's book, to understand it as a document of the times, then you must compare it with the earlier presentations of Jesus' life. Nor do you need to read only the literary accounts of His life; you can also look at the paintings of artists. You will find that the representation of the life of Jesus always takes the same path. In the early centuries of Roman Christianity, it was not only Christianity that was taken over from the East but also the manner in which Jesus was presented. The Greek art of pictorial representation was there in the West, as we know, but the ability to portray the Christ remained with the East. The Jesus countenance that is characteristic of Byzantine art was found repeatedly in the West until, in the thirteenth century, national impulses and ideas began to arise—those national ideas and impulses that later work themselves out in the way I have indicated in these last lectures.

Owing to the national impulse, a gradual change came about in the traditional stereotyped Jesus countenance that had been portrayed so long. Each of several nations appropriated the Jesus type and represented Him in its own way, and so we must recognize many different impulses at work in the different representations. Study, for example, the head of Jesus as painted by Guido Reni, Murillo, and LeBrun, and you will see how strikingly the national point of view steals in. These are only three instances that one could select. In each case there is a strong desire to represent Jesus in a national way. One has the impression that in Guido Reni's, paintings, to a far greater degree than was the case with his predecessors, we can detect the Italian type in the countenance of Jesus; similarly, in Murillo's representations, the Spanish; in LeBrun's, the French. All three painters show evidence as well of the working of church tradition; behind every one of their paintings stands the power of the Church.

Contrarily, you will find a resistance to this far reaching power of the Church, which we recognize in the art of Murillo, Lebrun, and Reni, in the works of Rubens, van Dyck, and Rembrandt—a resistance to it and a working in freedom out of their own pure humanity. Considering art in respect of its representations of the Jesus countenance, you have here direct artistic rebellion. You will now see that there is no standing still in this progression in the representation of Jesus because the forces that are at work in the world work also right into this domain. We can see how the breath of Romanism hovers over the paintings of the nationally minded LeBrun, Murillo, and Reni, and how in Rubens, van Dyck, and especially Rembrandt, the opposition to Romanism comes to such clear expression in their paintings of faces, not of Jesus alone but also of other Biblical characters. So we see how all the spiritual activities of man gradually take form among the various impulses that make themselves felt in human evolution.

Similarly, you would find that in the times when painting and representative art have given place to the word, for since the sixteenth century the word has had the same significance in such matters as pictorial representation had in earlier times, you will find that the figure of Jesus, of the Christ, is again continually changing. It is never fixed and constant but is always conceived according to how the various forces flow together in writers. Standing there before us as the latest products, let us say, we have the Jesus of Renan, the Jesus of Strauss, who is no Jesus, and the Christ of Soloviev. These are the latest products and how vastly different they are!

The Jesus of Renan is entirely a Jesus who, as a man, lives in the land of Palestine as a human historical figure. Palestine itself is marvelously depicted. With the aid of the best of modern scholarship it is described in such a way that one has before one the complete Palestinian landscape with its people. Wandering about this realistically rendered landscape and among its people is the figure of Jesus. The attempt is made to explain this Jesus figure on the basis of this landscape and its inhabitants; to explain how he grows up and becomes a man, and to explain how it was possible for such a man to arise in this land. The outstanding character of Renan's description will only be revealed when we compare it with earlier accounts and representations. These take the inner course of the events described in the Gospels and place them in a landscape that is really nowhere in particular. The facts as they are described in the Gospels are simply related over and over again and the landscape in which they occurred is totally disregarded. It is depicted in such a way that it might be anywhere.

Renan, however, goes to work to portray the Holy Land in a realistic, detailed way so that Jesus becomes a true Palestinian in this Holy Land. Christ Jesus, who should belong to all of mankind, becomes a Jesus who lives and walks in Palestine as an historical figure who is to be understood in relation to the Palestine of the years 1 to 33 A.D., that is, understood from the customs, views, opinions and landscape of the country—a right proper, realistic description. For once, Jesus was to be shown as an historical person and was to be described as any other in history. For Renan, it would have been meaningless to portray an abstract Socrates who might have lived anywhere, anytime, and it would have been equally meaningless for him to portray an abstract Jesus who might have lived anywhere on earth. In complete accord with the science of the nineteenth century, he sets out to depict Jesus as an historical figure living between the years 1 and 33 A.D., and made absolutely comprehensible by the conditions prevailing in Palestine at that time. Jesus lived from the year 1 to 33 A.D. He died in 33 A.D., just as any other man might have died in this or that year. If He continues to work in the world, it is in the same way any other dead person might have continued to work. Fitted completely into the modern point of view, Jesus was an historical personality accounted for by the milieu in which He lived. That is what Ernest Renan gives us in his Life of Jesus.

Now let us turn to the Life of Jesus that is in reality no life of Jesus by David Friedrich Strauss. I have said it is no life of Jesus. Strauss also works as a highly cultured and learned man. When he sets out to investigate anything, he does so with thoroughness akin to that of Renan in his domain. Strauss, however, does not turn his attention to the historical Jesus. He is, for him, only the figure to which he attaches something quite different. Thus, Strauss investigates all that was said of Jesus insofar as He was the Christ. He examines what is said about His miraculous entry into the world, His wonderful and miraculous development, His expression of great and special teachings, and how He undergoes suffering, death and resurrection. These are the accounts in the Gospels that Strauss selects for investigation.

Naturally, Renan, too, used the Gospels but he reduced them to what he, from his detailed and exact knowledge of Palestine, could conceive of the life of Jesus. This approach has no interest at all for Strauss. He tells himself that the Gospels relate this or that concerning Christ, who lived in Jesus. Then he sets out to investigate the extent to which what is related of the Christ has also been living as myth in other parts of the world, for instance, how the story that is told of a miraculous birth and the development of Jesus Christ is to be found in various other folk myths, as is also the Mystery of Golgotha, which is referred now the one god and then to another. Thus, Strauss sees in the figure of the historical Jesus only the opportunity for concentrating the myth forming activity of mankind into one personality. Jesus does not concern him at all. The only value He has for Strauss is that the myths, which are distributed all over the world, are concentrated in this single man Jesus. They are all hung on Him, as it were. These myths, however, all spring from a common impulse. All of them bear witness to the myth forming power that lives in mankind. Where does this myth forming power arise?

As Strauss sees it, in the course of mankind's earthly development, from the times of the first beginnings of the earth to its final end, mankind has and always will have a higher power in it than the merely external power that develops on the physical plane. A power runs right through mankind that will forever address itself to the super-earthly; this super-earthly finds expression in myths. We know that man bears something super-sensible within him that seeks to find expression in myth since it cannot be expressed in external physical science. Thus, Strauss does not see Jesus in the single individual, but rather the Christ in all men—the Christ who has lived in and through all men since their beginning, and who has brought it about that myths are told of Him. In the case of Jesus it is only that His personality gives occasion for the myth forming power to develop with extreme force and strength. In Him it is concentrated. Strauss, therefore, speaks of a Jesus that is in reality no Jesus, but he fastens upon Him the spiritual Christ force that lives in all humanity. For Strauss, mankind itself is the Christ, and He works always before and after Jesus. The true incarnation of the Christ is not the single Jesus, but the whole of humanity. Jesus is only the supreme representative for the representation of the Christ in mankind.

The main thing in all this is not Jesus as an historical figure, but an abstract mankind. Christ has become an idea, which incarnates in and through all mankind. That is the kind of highly distilled thought that a man of the nineteenth century is able to conceive! The element of life in the idea has become the Christ. He is conceived entirely as an idea and Jesus is passed by. This is a life of Jesus that is no more than a record of the fact that the idea, the divine, incarnates continually in all humanity. Christ is diluted down to an idea, is thought of merely as an idea.

So much for the second life of Jesus, The life of Jesus by David Friedrich Strauss. So we have Ernest Renan's Life of Jesus. which sets forth the historical figure of Jesus amidst the individuals around Him as well as by Himself. Then we have in Strauss's book the “idea of Christ,” which runs through all mankind. In this highly distilled form, however, it remains a mere abstraction.

When we come to Soloviev, behold, Jesus is no more, but only the Christ. Nevertheless, it is the Christ conceived as living. Not working in men as an idea, with the consequence that its power is transformed in him into a myth, but rather working as a living Being who has no body, is always and ever present among men, and is, in effect, positively responsible for the external organization of human life, the founder of the social order. Christ, who is forever present; a living Being who would never have needed a Jesus in order to come among men. Naturally, you will not find this so radically expressed in Soloviev, but that is of no account. It is the Christ as such Who stands always in the foreground—the Christ, moreover, as the living One who can only be comprehended in imagination, but by this means can be truly understood as a real and actual super-sensible Being working on earth.

There you have the three figures. The same Being meets us in the nineteenth century in a threefold description. The Life of Jesus by Ernest Renan, completely realistic; realistic history a fortiori; Jesus as an historical figure; a book that is written with all the learning of the nineteenth century. Then came David Friedrich Strauss with this idea of mankind, working on, running through all mankind, but remaining an idea, never awakening to life. Lastly, Soloviev's Christ; living power, living wisdom, altogether spiritual.

A realistic life of Jesus by Renan; an idealistic life of Jesus by Strauss that is also an idealistic presentation of the Christ impulse; a spiritual presentation of the Christ impulse by Soloviev.

Today, I want to place before you, side by side as three expressions of modern life, these three ways of cognizing the figure of Jesus Christ. Tomorrow we shall see how they take their place among the various impulses that we have recognized as working in mankind.

Zweiter Vortrag

Wir haben gestern versucht, gewissermaßen die Charakteristik zu geben der Kräfte, welche das Griechentum und das Römertum durchdrangen, um daraus eine Anschauung darüber zu gewinnen, was weiter wirksam geworden ist aus dem vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraum herüber in den fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum, und wir haben einiges angedeutet davon, wie dieses Herüberwirken, dieses Sich-Weiterergießen der Kräfte des vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraums in den fünften hinein sich zeigte. Ich möchte nun, daß Sie Ihre Aufmerksamkeit noch einmal zurücklenken auf die Art und Weise, wie wir das Griechentum, wie wir das Römertum charakterisieren konnten.

Das Griechentum, so wie es sich entwickelt hat, war eine große Enttäuschung für diejenigen Mächte, die man die luziferischen Mächte nennen kann. Es ist ja natürlich, daß man diese Dinge sozusagen nur aus der imaginativen Erkenntnis heraus geben kann, und so wollen wir es auch heute halten. Also eine große Enttäuschung war das Griechentum, wie es sich entwickelt hat, denn die luziferischen Mächte haben etwas ganz anderes erwartet vom Griechentum. Bedenken wir nur einmal, daß das Griechentum, als der vierte nachatlantische Zeitraum, in der nachatlantischen Zeit den luziferischen Mächten hätte gewissermaßen das bringen sollen, was sie für sich als luziferische Mächte angestrebt haben während der atlantischen Zeit. Die luziferischen Mächte haben gewisse Tätigkeiten, Kräfteeinwirkungen entfaltet während der atlantischen Zeit. Sie haben für sich die Früchte wiederholentlich erwartet in der vierten nachatlantischen Kulturepoche. Was haben sie denn eigentlich erwartet? Wenn man so etwas bespricht, kommt man zu einer Anschauung des Inneren der luziferischen Seele. Man lernt kennen dieses luziferische Leben, das besteht in fortwährenden Anstrengungen in gewissen Zeiträumen, in der Erwartung, daß diese Anstrengungen ihren Erfolg haben, und in immer neuen Enttäuschungen. Gewiß, ein sogenannter menschlicher Logiker könnte sich sagen: Warum geben die luziferischen Mächte ihr Streben nicht auf, da sie ja die Schlußfolgerung ziehen können, daß sie immer wieder enttäuscht werden müssen? — Ein solcher Schluß wäre eben auch menschliche Weisheit, nicht luziferische Weisheit. Es haben das eben die luziferischen Mächte bisher jedenfalls nicht getan, sondern sie vergrößern immer wieder ihre Anstrengungen, nachdem sie immer neue Enttäuschungen erlebt haben.

Was haben die luziferischen Mächte erwartet gerade von dem vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraum? Sie haben erwartet, daß sie sich in diesem Zeitraum bemächtigen können all der Seelenkräfte des griechischen Volkes, welche darauf hinausliefen, die alten Imaginationen der chaldäisch-ägyptischen Zeit in die Phantasieschöpfung hereinzunehmen. Die luziferischen Mächte haben angestrebt, so stark auf die Menschen der griechischen Kultur zu wirken, daß diese verfeinerten, ich möchte sagen, bis zur Phantasie destillierten Imaginationen mächtig erfüllt hätten das ganze Wesen des Griechen, so daß der Grieche gewissermaßen ganz aufgegangen wäre in einer Seelenwelt, in einem alltäglichen Denken, Fühlen, Wollen, das ganz bestanden hätte in feinen, eben bis zur Phantasieanschauung verfeinerten Imaginationen. Wenn der Grieche nichts anderes in seiner Seele entwickelt hätte als diese verfeinerten Phantasieimaginationen, wenn er sich ganz erfüllt hätte mit diesen verfeinerten Gefühlsimaginationen, dann hätten die luziferischen Mächte den Menschen, diesen griechischen Menschen, und damit nachziehend einen großen Teil der Menschheit überhaupt, herausheben können aus der irdischen Evolution und in ihre luziferische Welt einfügen. Das war die Absicht der luziferischen Mächte. Es war auch die Hoffnung der luziferischen Mächte seit der alten atlantischen Zeit, das zu erreichen in diesem vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraum, was während der Atlantis selber nicht gelungen war: die Einverleibung der Menschheit in den Kosmos auf der Stufe, die da die Menschheit erreicht hatte. Nichts Geringeres wollten die luziferischen Mächte, als für sich eine Welt schaffen, eine aparte, abgesonderte Welt, in welcher ohne die Erdenschwere, mit vollständiger übersinnlicher Leichtigkeit, die Menschenwesen wohnten, indem sie ganz aufgehen in dieser aparten luziferischen Welt in einem Phantasieleben.

Also einen planetarischen Körper zu schaffen mit solchen Wesen, die aus der Menschheit heraus zu der höchsten Entwickelung des Phantasielebens gekommen sind, das war die Hoffnung der luziferischen Wesenheiten. Und die luziferischen Wesenheiten machten alle Anstrengungen, die Griechen dazu zu bringen, sie als Seelen hinwegzuführen von der Erde. Dann würden die Seelen nach und nach die Erde verlassen haben; die Körper, die noch entstanden wären, würden verfallen sein. Ich-lose Individuen würden entstanden sein. Die Erde wäre der Dekadenz entgegengegangen und ein besonderes luziferisches Reich wäre entstanden. Das ist nicht geschehen. Und wodurch ist es nicht geschehen? Es ist nicht geschehen dadurch, daß sich in den sich vergöttlichenden Wahnsinn der griechischen Dichter — um dies platonische Wort zu gebrauchen - hineinmischte die geniale Größe der griechischen Philosophie, der griechischen Weisheit. Seine Philosophen: Heraklit, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Parmenides, Sokrates, Plato, Aristoteles, sie haben das Griechentum gerettet vor der vollständigen Vergeistigung im Phantasieleben. Sie haben das Griechentum auf der Erde erhalten. Sie sind diejenige Macht, welche die stärksten Kräfte geliefert hat zur Erhaltung des Griechentums innerhalb der Erdenevolution.

So muß man im Zusammenhange betrachten die hinter der physischen Wirklichkeit liegenden Kräfte, welche die wahren Ursachen sind für das, was geschieht. Auf diese Weise ist also das Griechentum der Erdenevolution erhalten geblieben. Mit Bezug auf diese Aufgabe hätten die luziferischen Wesenheiten ohnehin nichts erreichen können, wenn sie nicht unterstützt worden wären von den ahrimanischen Wesenheiten. Es haben die luziferischen Wesenheiten bei dieser Absicht und bei dieser Hoffnung auch gerechnet auf die Unterstützung der ahrimanischen Wesenheiten. Dieses muß ja immer sein, daß in diesen Wirkungen zwei Kräfte zusammenstreben.

Ebenso wie die luziferischen Wesenheiten enttäuscht worden sind durch das Griechentum, so sind die ahrimanischen Wesenheiten enttäuscht worden durch das Römertum, wie es sich entwickelt hat. Denn wie ihrerseits die luziferischen Wesenheiten im Griechentum erreichen wollten das, was angedeutet worden ist: ein Hinwegführen der Menschenseelen von dem irdischen Planeten, so wollten auch die ahrimanischen Wesenheiten ihre Arbeit zu diesem Hinwegführen tun. Dazu sollte die römische Kultur eine ganz bestimmte Gestalt annehmen. Im Römertum haben die ahrimanischen Mächte ihre stärksten Kräfte eingesetzt, so wie im Griechentum die luziferischen. Denn die ahrimanischen Kräfte haben darauf gerechnet, daß durch das Römertum auf der Erde eine gewisse Erstarrung entstehe in einem ganz blinden Gehorsam und in einer blinden Unterwerfung unter das Römertum. Was die ahrimanischen Mächte mit dem Römertum wollten, bestand darin, daß sich über die ganze damals bekannte Erde hin ein römisches Reich erstreckte, ein römisches Reich, welches alle menschliche Betätigung in sich fassen sollte, welches mit strengstem Zentralismus und ärgster Machtentfaltung von Rom aus hätte dirigiert werden sollen: gewissermaßen von Europa ausgehend eine große, eine weitverbreitete Staatsmaschine, die zu gleicher Zeit alles religiöse und alles künstlerische Leben aufgenommen und sie sich unterworfen hätte. Eine große Staatsmaschine, ein Staatsmechanismus, in dem beabsichtigt war von seiten der ahrimanischen Mächte, alle Individualität ersterben zu lassen, so daß ein jeglicher Mensch, ein jegliches Volk nur ein Glied in diesem großen Staatsmechanismus gewesen wäre.

So wenig das Griechentum in den luziferischen Traum einzulullen war wegen der Helligkeit seiner Philosophen, so wenig war aber das Römertum so zum Erstarren zu bringen, wie es die ahrimanischen Mächte gewollt haben. Und den ahrimanischen Mächten wirkte gerade entgegen im Römertum das, was wir gestern angeführt haben als die römischen Ideale; gerade das wirkte zunächst entgegen. Aber das allein hätte gegen Ahriman nicht anstürmen können, was an juristischen, an politischen, an soldatischen Idealen sich entwickelte; denn gerade innerhalb dieser römischen Welt entwickelten die ahrimanischen Kräfte etwas wie einen bedeutsamen großen Versuch als Wiederholung ihres Versuches in der atlantischen Zeit, unendlich starke Kräfte und Mächte. Nur dadurch, daß von einer anderen Seite her das durchbrochen wurde, was die ahrimanischen Mächte mit dem Römertum vorhatten, nur dadurch ist der Ansturm Ahrimans verhindert worden; zuerst verhindert worden durch etwas, was vielleicht gerade so aussieht, als ob man es niedrig taxieren sollte. Das ist aber nicht der Fall. Die Römer brauchten gerade das, was vielleicht, indem es gestern geschildert worden ist, so ausgesehen hat, als ob man es mit Antipathie hätte schildern wollen, die Römer brauchten gerade diese Rücksichtslosigkeit, diesen starren Egoismus, dieses Immerfort-und-fort-Aufrürteln der Emotionalität, um gegen den Ansturm der ahrimanischen Mächte vorgehen zu können. Und die römische Geschichte ist nicht etwa - ich bitte Sie, das ausdrücklich zu beachten — eine Offenbarung ahrimanischer Mächte! Die stehen dahinter: die römische Geschichte ist ein Kampf gegen die ahrimanischen Mächte. Und wenn sie so verworren ist, wenn sie so selbstsüchtig ist, wenn sie so auf Verpolitisierung der Welt gerichtet ist, so ist das deshalb, weil nur auf diese Weise der Mechanisierung Ahrimans Widerstand geboten werden konnte.

Aber all das hätte nicht viel gefruchtet, aus dem einfachen Grunde, weil das Römertum auch aufgenommen hat das Christentum, und dadurch würde das Christentum im Römertum eine Form angenommen haben, durch die Ahriman erst recht sein Ziel hätte erreichen können, indem er gerade durch die geistige Abdämmerung des ins Papsttum verwandelten Römertums die Mechanisierung der Kultur der neueren Zeit hätte bewirken können. So mußte dem Ahriman, der ja mit viel äußerlicheren Mitteln wirkt als Luzifer, entgegengestellt werden eine andere Macht, auch eine äußerliche Macht. Ahriman hat die Kräfte des Christentums in seinen Dienst verkehrt, wie wir eben gesehen haben. Es mußte ihm eine andere Macht entgegengestellt werden, und die bestand in den anstürmenden Völkern der Völkerwanderung. Dadurch, daß dem Römertum entgegengetreten worden ist in den anstürmenden Völkern der Völkerwanderung, ist verhindert worden, daß jene starre Mechanisierung unter einem alles umfassenden Römerreich eingetreten ist. Studieren Sie die Vorgänge während der Völkerwanderung, so werden Sie sehen, daß Sie eine richtige Einsicht erst gewinnen, wenn Sie diese auffassen als Vorstöße gegen die Mechanisierung in einem allumfassenden römischen Reich. Überall schiebt sich das, was aus der Völkerwanderung kommt, in das Römerreich hinein, nicht um die römische Geschichte aus der Welt zu schaffen, sondern um die hinter der römischen Geschichte wirkende, ja von der römischen Geschichte selbst bekämpfte ahrimanische Macht zurückzudrängen.

Auf diese Weise ist Ahriman, ist Luzifer enttäuscht worden. Um so bedeutungsvoller wollen sie ihre Aufgabe für den fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum wieder aufnehmen. Und hier ist der Punkt, wo man zu einem Verständnisse kommt der Kräfte, die in dem fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum wirksam sind, soweit ein solches Verständnis heute möglich ist.

Dieser vierte nachatlantische Zeitraum dehnt sich nach hinten und vorn aus. Ungefähr ist sein Ende das Jahr 1413, seine Mitte das Jahr 333 nach Christi Geburt, und etwa 747 vor Christi Geburt ist sein Anfang. Das haben wir ja öfter besprochen. Das sind Zahlen, die ja natürlich heute nur approximativ gelten. Ich sagte nun: Das, was Luzifer und Ahriman nicht erreichen konnten im vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraum, was ihre Enttäuschung war, eben die Gestalt, die das Griechentum und Römertum angenommen hatte, führte sie zum verstärkten Anstreben im fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum, also vom 15. Jahrhundert an. Und in den menschlichen Kräften, die da wirken seit dem 15. Jahrhundert, sind diese Anstrengungen schon darinnen. Natürlich kommt es nicht darauf an, ob etwas ein paar Jahrzehnte früher oder später auftritt; in der äußeren physischen Wirklichkeit, wo man es ja mit der großen Täuschung zu tun hat, verschieben sich die Dinge zuweilen etwas. Daß das Römertum, so wie es erhalten worden ist, für die Entwickelung der Menschheit erhalten werden konnte, wird also verdankt den Ereignissen der Völkerwanderung. Denn hätte sich das Römertum so entwickelt, daß ein großes, umfassendes, mechanisiertes Weltenreich entstanden wäre, so wäre dieses Weltenreich nur möglich zu bewohnen gewesen von jenen Ich-losen Menschen, die auf der Erde hätten zurückbleiben sollen, nachdem die luziferischen Geister die Seelen auf dem Wege des Griechentums hinausgebracht hätten.

Sie sehen also, wie Ahriman und Luzifer zusammenarbeiten. Die Menschenseelen will Luzifer heraus haben und einen eigenen Planeten mit ihnen begründen; Ahriman mußte nun ihn unterstützen dadurch, daß, während Luzifer gewissermaßen den Saft aus der Zitrone heraussaugt, Ahriman ihn herausdrückt, indem er das, was zurückbleibt, verhärtet. Und das versuchte er im Römischen Reiche zu tun. Sie sehen da einen mächtigen, umfassenden kosmischen Prozeß, der sich entwickelt hat, der aber beabsichtigt war von den ahrimanischen und luziferischen Mächten. Wie gesagt, diese waren enttäuscht. Sie haben ihre Anstrengungen weiter fortgesetzt, und der fünfte nachatlantische Zeitraum wird schon noch merken und verstehen lernen, wie stark diese Anstürme sind, die ja erst ihren Anfang genommen haben, und die, weil immer im Anfang eines Zeitraumes die Anstürme, die von den zurückbleibenden Wesen ausgehen, am geringsten sind und dann immer mächtiger werden, und wie daher auch die Notwendigkeit, diese Anstürme zu verstehen, immer größer und größer wird. Schon vor Ablauf des vierten nachatlantischen Kulturzeitraumes haben die luziferischen und ahrimanischen Mächte begonnen, ihre Kräfte einzusetzen, wenn auch die Manifestation, die Offenbarung dieses Einsetzens erst später herausgekommen ist.

Will man verstehen, wie in dem fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum diese Anstürme wirken, so muß man ein wenig das Augenmerk auf das richten, was in der gerecht fortlaufenden Menschheitsentwickelung mit dem Menschen selber beabsichtigt ist. Mit dem Menschen selber ist beabsichtigt, daß er wiederum ein Stück vorschreitet, als Menschengeschlecht vorschreitet in der Gesamtentwickelung. Wie die Menschheit als solche vorwärtsgekommen ist im vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraum, das zeigt ja die Kulturentwickelung der Griechen, das zeigt die politische Entwickelung der Römer. Es ist gerade durch den Kampf gegen Luzifer und Ahriman das zustande gekommen, was hat zustande kommen sollen; denn immer werden die Kräfte dieser Mächte so gewendet, daß sie gewissermaßen in den fortgehenden Weltenplan hineinpassen, daß man sieht, sie gehören dazu. Man braucht sie als widerständige Kräfte. Also, welche Fähigkeiten sollten die Menschen des fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraums, unseres Zeitraums, besonders entwickeln? Wir wissen ja, daß es sich um die Entwickelung der Bewußtseinsseele handelt, allein diese muß sich wiederum zusammensetzen aus einer Reihe von Kräften, Seelenkräften, körperlichen Kräften. Das erste, was entwickelt werden muß, wenn der Mensch richtig auf der Erde bleiben soll, das ist ein wirkliches reines Anschauen der Sinnenwelt. Ein solches reines Anschauen der Sinnenwelt war in den früheren Zeiträumen nicht da, weil immer in das menschliche Seelenleben das Visionäre, das Imaginative hereinspielte, bei den Griechen noch die Phantasie. Aber nachdem die Phantasie die Menschheit soweit ergriffen hatte, wie sie im griechischen Leben eben sie ergriffen hat, da wurde notwendig, daß die Menschen die Fähigkeit entwickelten, unbehelligt durch eine dahinterstehende Vision die äußere Naturwirklichkeit anzuschauen. Wir brauchen uns dabei nicht vorzustellen, daß das materialistische Weltbild damit gemeint ist; dieses materialistische Weltenbild ist schon ein ahrimanisch verzerrtes Anschauen der Sinneswirklichkeit. Aber, wie gesagt, die Sinneswirklichkeit ordentlich zu beobachten, das war die eine Aufgabe des fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraums.

Die andere Aufgabe der Menschenseele ist diese: neben der reinen Anschauung der Wirklichkeit zu entwickeln freie Imagination, in einer Beziehung eine Art Wiederholung der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit. Darinnen ist der fünfte nachatlantische Zeitraum noch nicht sehr weit. Freie Imaginationen müssen entwickelt werden, wie sie gesucht werden durch die Geisteswissenschaft, also nicht gebundene Imaginationen, wie sie der dritte nachatlantische Zeitraum hatte, nicht zur Phantasie destillierte Imaginationen, sondern freie Imaginationen, in denen man sich so frei bewegt, wie sich der Mensch sonst nur in seinem Verstande frei bewegt. Daraus, daß diese zwei Fähigkeiten entwickelt werden, wird sich ergeben das rechte Entwickeln der Bewußtseinsseele des fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraums.

Goethe hat sehr schön empfunden das reine Anschauen, das er im Gegensatz zum Materialismus bezeichnet hat mit seinem Urphänomen. Sie können in Goethes Schriften und in meinen Erklärungen dazu über dieses Urphänomen viel gesprochen finden. Es ist die reine Anschauung der Wirklichkeit, dieses Urphänomen. Aber Goethe hat nicht nur den ersten Anstoß gegeben zu einer visionsfreien sinnlichen Beobachtung im Urphänomen, sondern er hat auch den ersten Anstoß gegeben zur freien Imagination; denn gerade das, was wir in seinem «Faust» gefunden haben, wenn es auch noch nicht weit ist in geisteswissenschaftlicher Beziehung, wenn es auch noch in gewisser Weise instinktiv nur im Verhältnis zur Geisteswissenschaft ist, es ist doch der erste Anstoß des freien imaginativen Lebens, denn es ist nicht bloß eine Phantasiewelt. Wir haben gesehen, wie tief wirklich diese Phantasiewelt ist, die in freien Imaginationen in diesem wunderbaren Faust-Drama entwickelt wird. So allerdings haben wir dem Urphänomen gegenüber das, was Goethe das typische intellektuelle Anschauen nennt. Sie können in meinem Buche «Vom Menschenrätsel» darüber Genaueres lesen. Das muß sich immer weiter und weiter ausbilden. Auf der einen Seite muß der fünfte nachatlantische Zeitraum in der Wirklichkeit nicht nur anschauen, sondern mit der Wirklichkeit leben können, so daß er abseits von den materialistischen Physikern so wie Goethe etwa hantiert in seinem physikalischen Kabinette, um die Instrumente so zu gebrauchen, daß sie ihm die Urphänomene geben. So muß man sich eine Hantierung auch in bezug auf das praktische Leben denken, welche dieses praktische Leben mit dem Urphänomen durchdringt, welche also in der Natur so zu Hause ist, daß die Natur von dem Urphänomen aus beherrscht wird, und eingeschlossen in dieses Urphänomen der Natur müssen werden die Intentionen des Menschengeschlechtes, die aus der freien Imagination kommen. Auf der einen Seite gewissermaßen selbstlos den Blick auf die Außenwelt zur Erkenntnis und zur Arbeit zu richten, und auf der anderen Seite das Ganze selbst mit stärkster Einsetzung der Persönlichkeit in innerliche Regung und Bewegung zu bringen, um die Imaginationen zu finden für die äußere Tätigkeit und äußere Erkenntnis, das wird die Bewußtseinsseele und das Kulturleben der Bewußtseinsseele nach und nach in die Wirklichkeit verwandeln.

Einseitigkeiten werden sich selbstverständlich innerhalb dieses Kulturzeitraumes entwickeln. Die Erkenntnis wird nur nach der Außenwelt streben wie im Baconismus, oder sie wird nur nach dem Inneren streben wie im Berkeleyismus. Davon haben wir gesprochen. Dieses imaginative Leben, welches aus dem Inneren des Menschen hervorquellen will, wird sich unter allerlei Störungen entwickeln. Aber wir können doch schon hinweisen auf gewisse Punkte der Entwickelung, in denen dieser oder jener Mensch fühlt, wie aus der Seele gerade dieses imaginative Leben hervorkommt, dieses freie imaginative Leben. Anfangs ist es noch sehr wenig frei, sehr gebunden; aber beachten wir, wie ein in seiner Art so bedeutsamer Mensch wie Jakob Böhme, kurz nachdem der fünfte nachatlantische Zeitraum begonnen hat, schon fühlt, wie das imaginative Leben in seiner Seele sich herausentwickeln will. Er spricht es deutlich aus in seiner «Aurora», wie er fühlt, daß das imaginative Leben in ihm arbeitet. Frei muß es erst werden; er fühlt es noch etwas unfrei, aber er fühlt, daß da das Göttlich-Schöpferische in ihm wirkt. Und so ist er in gewissem Sinne der Gegenpol zu dem Baconismus, der da anstrebt, in einseitiger Weise nur auf die Außenwelt den Blick zu richten. Jakob Böhme ist ganz in der Innenwelt beschäftigt und beschreibt in der «Aurora» schön:

«Ich sage vor Gott» — weil er von seinem Innern spricht, sagt er so -, «daß ich selber nicht weiß, wie mir damit geschieht» - indem die Imaginationen in ihm aufgehen -; «ohne daß ich den treibenden Willen habe, weiß ich auch nichts, was ich schreiben soll.» So spricht er vom Aufgehen der Imaginationen; das ist der Anfang von Kräften, die immer mehr und mehr die Menschheit des fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraums überkommen müssen, die da Jakob Böhme spürt. «Ich sage vor Gott, daß ich selber nicht weiß, wie mir damit geschieht; ohne daß ich den treibenden Willen habe, weiß ich auch nichts, was ich schreiben soll. Denn so ich schreibe, diktiert es mir der Geist in großer wunderlicher Erkenntnis, daß ich oft nicht weiß, ob ich nach meinem Geist in dieser Welt bin und mich des hoch erfreue, da mir denn die stete und gewisse Erkenntnis wird mitgegeben.»

Das Hereinströmen der imaginativen Welt beschreibt er. Wir sehen, er fühlt sich harmonisch ruhig in seiner Seele und beschreibt, wie normalerweise im gerechten Fortgange der Entwickelung die Menschenseelen von diesen inneren Kräften sich sollen ergreifen lassen. Diese Kräfte sollen über die Menschenseele kommen im fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum; aber sie sollen ergriffen werden im reinen geistigen Inneren. Sie sollen nicht irgendwelche irrtümliche Wege nehmen. Ungefähr so über diese Kräfte im 17. Jahrhundert müßte man reden, wie Jakob Böhme redet, dann redete man als ein ganz nur der göttlichen allgemeinen Gerechtigkeit hingegebener Mann von diesen Kräften. Daß weder die eine Art von Kräften, das reine Anschauen der Urphänomene, noch die andere Art von Kräften, die Entwickelung der freien Imaginationen, die nicht in Visionen bestehen, sondern die eben freie Imaginationen sind, aufkommen, daß diese Kräfte in der Menschenseele möglichst gestört werden, möglichst dazu verwendet werden, um nun wiederum die Menschheit als Seele hinauszubringen aus dem Erdenplan und mit ihnen einen besonderen Plan zu begründen, das ist nun die Wirkensart der luziferischen und ahrimanischen Mächte in dem fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum.

Vieles muß ja zusammenwirken, damit die richtige Entfaltung, die ruhige und langsame Entfaltung gestört werde. Hören Sie wohl: ich sage nicht nur die ruhige, sondern die ruhige und langsame Entfaltung, denn es soll ja der ganze Zeitraum von 1413 an durch 2160 Jahre ungefähr dazu verwendet werden, um diese Kräfte, die ich angeführt habe, freie Imaginationen und Urphänomene beziehungsweise urphänomenale Arbeit, nach und nach zu entwickeln. Stoßweise, mit allen möglichen widerstrebenden Kräften, wirken nun die luziferischen und ahrimanischen Mächte dagegen. Wenn wir nur ins Auge fassen wollen, daß das, was geschieht, immer lange vorbereitet wird von der außerirdischen Welt, dann wird es uns nicht unverständlich sein, daß Vorbereitungen getroffen worden sind, um recht, recht starke Gegenwirkungen gegen die normale Evolution der Menschheit zu bewirken. Wir haben ja gesehen, daß schon ins Griechentum und Römertum die luziferischen und ahrimanischen Mächte das hineingegossen haben, was sie in der atlantischen Zeit entwickelt haben. In einer veränderten Form versuchten sie nun diese Anstrengungen zu wiederholen schon vor dem fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum für diesen fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum. Sie werden es also jetzt nicht unbegreiflich finden, wenn ich sage, daß notwendig war ein starker Anstoß mit Nachwirkungen, luziferisch-ahrimanischen Nachwirkungen der Atlantis auch für diesen fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum. Wir wissen ja, daß die atlantischen Wirkungen ausgestrahlt sind von dem, was ja Plato bereits kennt als die Atlantis. Wir wollen es einmal schematisch so machen, daß wir etwa die Atlantis uns hier denken (siehe Zeichnung); dann würde hier das europäische, asiatische Gebiet sein, und hier würde das amerikanische Gebiet sein. Davon strahlten also aus die alten arlantischen Kräfte, auch die alten atlantischen luziferischen und ahrimanischen Kräfte.

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Nun wurde von diesen etwas zurückbehalten, um als luziferische und ahrimanische Mächte zu wirken im fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum, und zwar auch von den guten Kräften etwas zurückbehalten, von den in der atlantischen Zeit berechtigten Kräften etwas zurückbehalten, was jetzt auch luziferisch und ahrimanisch ist. Nur wurde der Mittelpunkt nach einem anderen Punkte der Erde verlegt. Die Atlantis ist ja fort. Der Mittelpunkt wurde nach Asien hinüber verlegt, so daß Sie also sich vorstellen würden auf der abgekehrten Seite desjenigen, was ich da schematisch gezeichnet habe, in Asien drüben, von da ausstrahlend Nachwirkungen der alten atlantischen Kultur als Vorbereitung für den fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum, ihn zu luziferisieren und zu ahrimanisieren. Es waren im wesentlichen Nachkommen der alten atlantischen Lehrer, welche nun wirkten von einem Punkt in Asien drüben. Ein Priester war dazu erzogen worden, das, was man in der alten Atlantis gesehen hat, nachträglich zu schauen, zu schauen das, was der Atlantier nannte den Großen Geist, und von diesem Großen Geist Aufträge zu empfangen. Und diese Aufträge teilte der mit diesen Aufträgen initiierte Priester einem jungen, außerordentlich starken, tatkräftigen, tüchtigen Menschen mit, der durch diese Aufträge dann innerhalb seiner Gemeinschaft den Namen «Der große Beherrscher der Erde» erhielt, Dschingis-Khan. Und der Große Geist hatte durch seinen Nachfolger, auf dem Umwege durch diesen Priester, an Dschingis-Khan den Auftrag gegeben, alles, was aufzubringen war an Mächten in Asien, dazu zu verwenden, um auszubreiten das, was den fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum zurückführen konnte in eine luziferische Gestaltung. Diese starken Kräfte, die noch viel stärker waren als die im Griechentum einsetzenden, die wurden aufgewendet von dieser Seite her. Von dieser Seite her sollten alle freien Imaginationen verwandelt werden in alte Imaginationen, in visionäre Imaginationen. Es sollte in der stärksten Weise gearbeitet werden, die Seele des Menschen ganz einzulullen in dämmerndes Erleben der Imaginationen, nicht in freies, von der Vernunft durchtränktes Erleben der Imaginationen. Die Absicht bestand, mit den besonderen Kräften, die da aus der Atlantis herein erhalten waren, so nach dem Westen zu wirken, daß die Kultur des Westens eine visionäre Kultur geworden wäre. Dann hätte man die Seelen abtrennen und einen besonderen Kontinent, einen besonderen planetarischen Körper mit ihnen bilden können. Alle Unruhen, welche durch die Mongolenstürme und alles das, was damit zusammenhängt, in die Entwickelung der neueren Menschheit gekommen sind und was fortgewirkt hat im fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum, nachdem sie vorbereitet waren schon früher, alle diese Unruhen bedeuten den großen, von Asien ausgegangenen Versuch, die europäische Kultur zu «vervisionieren», um sie abzutrennen von den Bedingungen der fortlaufenden Evolution, um sie gewissermaßen hinwegzuführen von der Erde. Der Osten empfand sehr wohl immer wieder und wiederum dieses Durchvisionieren, dieses Entfremdenwollen von der Erde.

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Dem mußte ein Gegengewicht geschaffen werden. Und dieses Gegengewicht war zunächst eines, das in die normale Entwickelung der Menschheit gehört. Es mußte also gegenüber dem, was unter dem Einflusse des Priesters des Dschingis-Khan hat bewirkt werden sollen, die «Erleichterung» des Menschengeschlechts, um es hinwegzuführen von der Erde, es mußte ein Erdenschwere-Gegengewicht geschaffen werden. Und dieses wurde dadurch geschaffen, daß die westliche Welt, daß Amerika gefunden wurde mit all dem, was Amerika barg, und dadurch Erdenschwere, Lust, auf der Erde zu bleiben, für die Menschen geschaffen worden war. Die Entdeckung Amerikas und alles, was damit zusammenhängt, überhaupt das Sich-Hineinleben in die materiellen Schauplätze der Erde, das bedeutete, von großen Gesichtspunkten aus gesehen, das Gegengewicht gegen die Tätigkeit des Dschingis-Khan. Amerika sollte entdeckt werden, um die Menschen dahin zu bringen, mit derErde mehr zusammenzuwachsen, materieller und materieller zu werden, damit sie Schwere habe, ein Gegengewicht gegen die Spiritualisierung, die durch dieNachkommen des Großen Geistes angestrebt war.

Aber auf der anderen Seite setzten gleichzeitig mit diesem normalen Prozeß des Ausdehnens des Menschheitsschauplatzes über Amerika wiederum die anderen, die ahrimanischen Mächte des Großen Geistes ein. Ein Zug ging von dort herüber nach Europa, der andere aber von Asien nach der anderen Seite herüber und durchsetzte Amerika, so daß durch das Entdecken Amerikas sich nicht nur die normalen Kräfte entwickelten, sondern von dort her zugleich starke ahrimanische Anstürme kamen, die zunächst noch schwach einsetzten - sie werden schon weiter einsetzen, sie müssen nur erkannt werden -, in der Form, daß gerade die Evolution, welche das Römertum in der Kirche und im kirchlichen Staate erreicht hatte, von diesem ahrimanischen Einsatz erfaßt wurde. Während es verhältnismäßig leicht zu sagen ist, wie der luziferische Einfluß über dem Dschingis-Khan gewirkt hat, indem man eben ganz genau weiß, daß ein Priester initiiert worden ist von dem Nachkommen des Großen Geistes, ist es viel schwerer zu sagen, weil es in Einzelheiten zerfällt, wie der ahrimanische Geist von der anderen Seite wirkte. Aber Sie brauchen nur zu studieren, wie ergriffen wird das katholische, das streng katholische Spanien von all den Goldschätzen, die in Amerika gefunden werden, von all dem, was damit verbunden ist. Studieren Sie gerade jene merkwürdige Nachwirkung, die das alte Römertum als Gespenst in einem solchen Herrscher hat wie in Ferdinand dem Katholischen von Kastilien, oder in Karl V., insofern er Herrscher ist in einem Reich, in dem die Sonne nicht untergeht: Immer wiederum neue Versuche dieses Ausbreitens! Studieren Sie die Beziehungen Europas zu dem aufblühenden, nach und nach entdeckt werdenden Amerika, dann werden Sie sehen, wie von da die Versuchungen kommen. Es ist im ganzen eine Versuchungsgeschichte, zugleich hineinverwoben in eine Geschichte, die in normalen Bahnen verläuft.

Ich bitte Sie nur, durchaus nicht zu erzählen, daß ich heute etwa die Entdeckung Amerikas als eine ahrimanische Tat hingestellt habe, sondern ich habe das Gegenteil davon gesagt. Ich sagte, daß Amerika entdeckt werden mußte, gefunden werden mußte, daß das ganze notwendig war im fortschreitenden Weltengang, nur daß sich hineingemischt haben ahrimanische Kräfte, die Anstürme sind gegen das, was im fortschreitenden Weltengang geschehen sollte. Die Dinge sind nicht so einfach in der Wirklichkeit, daß man sagen kann: Da ist Luzifer, da ist Ahriman, und so verhalten sich Luzifer und Ahriman, und so verteilen sie die Welt. So verhalten sich die Dinge nicht.

So also sehen wir das Zusammenwirken vieler Kräfte, die wir versuchten zu belauschen auf ihrem Felde hinter dem physischen Plan. Alle diese Kräfte bemächtigten sich wieder anderer. Sie suchen sich dessen, was hereinragt an Menschenkräften aus dem vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraum, zu bemächtigen und es in ihrer Art zu verzerren, es in ihren Dienst zu stellen. Sie brauchen nur zu studieren eine solche Begleiterscheinung der Renaissance, wie es Machiavelli ist, dann werden Sie ein menschliches persönliches Symbolum finden für diese ganze Art, die da beginnt, die Politisierung des Gedankenlebens. Machiavelli ist geradezu ein Ausdruck, eine Offenbarung dieser Politisierung des Gedankenlebens, ein großer, gewaltiger Geist, aber ein Geist, der unter dem Ansturm der Mächte, von denen ich gesprochen habe, ganz die Gesinnungen erneuert, die aus dem heidnischen antiken Römertum kommen. Wenn wir wirklich die Geschichte studieren, wie Machiavelli nicht eine einzelne Persönlichkeit, ein einzelner Mensch ist, sondern nur der besonders signifikante Ausdruck für viele so Denkende, dann sehen wir die Dinge recht. Da sehen wir das, was schnell vorwärtsstürmen, was mit den hinterlassenen atavistischen Kräften, also luziferischen Kräften, schnell vorwärtsstürmen will. Wäre es nach Machiavellis Sinn gegangen, so wäre schon ganz Europa verpolitisiert. Solchen Kräften, die wie im Sturm wirken, wirken dann die normal wirkenden entgegen. Einer solchen rein politischen und alles menschliche Denken zum Politischen machenden Figur, wie es der Machiavelli ist, können wir eine Persönlichkeit, die fast Zeitgenosse war, gegenüberstellen: den Thomas a Kempis, der ganz in der langsamen, allmählichen Entwickelung drinnensteht und der ein ganz und gar nicht politischer Geist ist, der langsam und allmählich wirkt.

Und so können wir diese einzelnen Strömungen verfolgen. Wir werden normale finden; wir werden solche finden, die aus früheren Zeiten hereinströmen und benützt werden von den Kräften, die wir angeführt haben. In der Geschichte wirken viele Kräfte zusammen. Man muß durchaus seinen Blick auf diese Zusammenhänge richten. In einem solchen Menschen wie Jakob Böhme finden wir, wie er die freie Imagination aufsprießen fühlt. Man könnte sagen: Jakob Böhme ist eine solche Persönlichkeit, die durch die ganze Art ihres Seelenlebens sehr stark es dahin gebracht hat, nicht gestört zu werden durch die luziferischen und ahrimanischen Anstürme und den geraden Weg der Evolution zu gehen.

Dagegen können Sie im Osten Europas, in der östlichen Kultur zahlreiche Persönlichkeiten finden, die gar sehr leiden unter der luziferischen Störung, unter der Störung, die dahin geht, immer wieder und wiederum wegzuholen den Menschen von der Erde, von dem physischen Leib, immer wieder und wiederum zu verfallen in eine Lage, in eine Situation, die den ganzen Menschen wie in eine Vision von sich selber verwandelt, also ihn ganz zu verseelen. Das ist die Tendenz, die dem Osten Europas eingeimpft worden ist. Dem Westen Europas ist dafür viel mehr das Verspüren des Gezogenwerdens nach der anderen Seite eingeimpft worden, des Hingezogenwerdens der imaginativen Welt zu der Körperschwere, zu der physischen Schwere, um das, was freie Imagination werden soll, zu etwas zu machen, was nicht bloß in der Seele wirkt, sondern was im Organismus wirkt, was die Seele hineinstopft in den Organismus und dadurch den Organismus mitleben läßt an den Imaginationen. Man kann kaum prägnanter das, was ich da meine, ausdrücken, als es Alfred de Musset getan hat, um seinen eigenen Seelenzustand zu charakterisieren. Musset ist eine von denjenigen Persönlichkeiten, die imaginatives Leben in sich verspürten, aber die den Ansturm gegen dieses imaginative Leben fühlten, jenen Ansturm, der dahin ging, dieses imaginative Leben hineinzustopfen in die Körperlichkeit. Da drinnen wird dieses imaginative Leben, weil es dahin nicht gehört, weil es frei in der Seele schwebend sich entwickeln soll, von Erdenschwere und von all dem, was nur körperlich ist, ergriffen, während es seelisch verlaufen soll. «E}e et lui», das Buch, das George Sand aus ihren Beziehungen zu Musset geschrieben hat, das enthält gerade eine schöne Selbstbeschreibung des Seelenlebens Mussets, und einige Sätze möchte ich daraus mitteilen, aus denen Sie sehen werden, wie er selbst sich drinnenstehen fühlt in einem solchen angefochtenen imaginativen Leben. Es sagt Musset: «Die Schöpfung verwirrt mich und läßt mich erzittern. Die für meinen Wunsch stets zu langsame Ausführung erregt mir furchtbares Herzklopfen, und weinend, nur mit Mühe laute Schreie zurückhaltend, gebäre ich eine Idee - sie berauscht mich im Augenblicke, und am anderen Morgen ekelt sie mich an. Forme ich sie um, so wird es noch schlimmer, sie entschlüpft mir; besser ich vergesse sie und erwarte eine andere. Aber diese andere überkommt mich so verworren und so unermeßlich, daß mein armes Wesen sie nicht fassen kann. Sie drückt und quält mich, bis sie realisierbar geworden ist, und dann stellen sich die anderen Leiden, die Geburtswehen ein, wahrhaft physische Schmerzen, die ich nicht definieren kann. So vergeht mein Leben, wenn ich mich von diesem Riesenkünstler, der in mir ist» — nehmen Sie den Gegensatz zu Jakob Böhme, der den Gott in sich spürt; er einen Riesenkünstler, der in ihm ist — «beherrschen lasse. Es ist also besser, daß ich lebe, wie ich mir vorgenommen habe zu leben, daß ich Exzesse jeder Art begehe, um diesen nagenden Wurm zu töten, den andere bescheiden «Inspiration», den ich ganz offen «Krankheit nenne.»

Fast in jedem Satze ein Parallelsatz zu dem, was ich Ihnen als Jakob Böhmeschen Ausspruch mitgeteilt habe, aber auch ungemein charakteristisch. Erinnern Sie sich, wie ich vorhin gesagt habe: Langsam will wir werden darauf noch morgen zu sprechen kommen — die normal fortschreitende Entwickelung gehen; hier wilder Anstoß, darum ist ihm das nicht schnell genug. Und er beschreibt es selber. Es ist eine wunderbare Selbstschau, die er da gibt. Er sagt: «Die Schöpfung verwirrt mich und läßt mich erzittern», weil immer das Schneller-gehenWollen von ahrimanischer Seite hineinstürmt in das, was langsam gehen will. «Die für meinen Wunsch stets zu langsame Ausführung erregt mir furchtbares Herzklopfen»: da haben Sie die ganze Psychologie des Menschen, der in freien Imaginationen leben will und von aufstoßenden ahrimanischen Kräften gestört wird. «Und weinend, nur mit Mühe laute Schreie zurückhaltend» — denken Sie, so physisch wirken in ihm die Imaginationen, daß er schreien möchte, wenn sie sich in ihm äuBern — «gebäre ich eine Idee - sie berauscht mich im Augenblicke, und am anderen Morgen ekelt sie mich an.» Weil sie statt aus der Seele aus dem Organismus herkommt! «Forme ich sie um, so wird es noch schlimmer, sie entschlüpft mir; besser ich vergesse sie und erwarte eine andere.» Weil er immer schneller will, schneller als die normale Entwickelung gehen kann. «Aber diese andere überkommt mich so verworren und so unermeßlich, daß mein armes Wesen sie nicht fassen kann. Sie drückt und quält mich, bis sie realisierbar geworden ist, und dann stellen sich die anderen Leiden, die Geburtswehen, ein, wahrhaft physische Schmerzen, die ich nicht definieren kann.» Und deshalb, sagt er, möchte er lieber, indem er hinblickt auf diesen Riesenkünstler, der in ihm wirkt, das Leben so führen, wie er es sich vorgenommen hat, nämlich nichts zu tun zu haben mit all dieser imaginativen Welt; denn er nennt das eine «Krankheit».

Dagegen nehmen Sie den Jakob Böhmeschen Satz: «Ich sage vor Gott, daß ich selber nicht weiß, wie mir damit geschieht.» Das ist Seligkeit zum Ausdrucke gebracht. Verwirrt ist es zum Ausdrucke gebracht, wenn gesagt wird: «Die Schöpfung verwirrt mich und läßt mich erzittern. Die für meinen Wunsch stets zu langsame Ausführung erregt mir furchtbares Herzklopfen.» Bei Jakob Böhme alles seelisch! Und wenn er schreiben will, so kommt es ihm so vor, als ob nicht ein Riesenkünstler, der ihn unglücklich macht, sondern ein Geist ihm diktiert, indem er versetzt ist in diese Welt, wo ihm der Geist diktiert; er sei in dieser Welt und sei dessen hocherfreut, da ihm dann stete und gewisse Erkenntnis gegeben wird, stete, langsam verlaufende. Jakob Böhme ist geneigt, die langsam verlaufende Erkenntnis hinzunehmen; dem geht die Sache nicht zu langsam, weil er nicht das, was ich Ihnen als das Schnell-Dahinstoßende beschrieben habe, als ein Beherrschendes fühlt, sondern dagegen geschützt ist.

So könnten wir immer mehr und mehr Erscheinungen anführen, wenn wir Zeit dazu hätten, die uns zeigen würden, wie die Menschen hineingestellt sind in diesen Prozeß der Welt. Diese Menschen, die ich angeführt habe, sind ja allerdings herausgegriffen als solche, deren Namen die Geschichte erhalten hat. Aber in einer gewissen Weise untersteht die ganze Menschheit, der eine so, der andere so, dieser selben Sache. Man wählt nur solche Beispiele aus, um dasjenige, was in weitem Umkreis lebt, zur Sprache zu bringen, um es charakterisieren zu können an besonderen Beispielen. Und versuchen Sie das, was wir da hingestellt haben, zu überblicken, dann werden Sie gar mancherlei verstehen können, das sich entwickelt hat. Man könnte ja auch auf einige andere Erscheinungen des Lebens eingehen, allein, bleiben wir heute einmal stehen mehr bei dem geistigen Leben, dann noch bei dem besonderen geistigen Leben, bei dem Erkenntnisleben. Da können sich uns ja auf diesem besonderen Gebiete Eigenschaften zeigen, welche die neuere Menschheit charakterisieren, und welche uns manches verständlich machen können. Da es ja nicht möglich ist, viel über das äußere Leben zu sagen — wegen des Vorhandenseins der heutigen Vorurteile und alles dessen, was mit dem Gebundensein der Seele in den heutigen Zeitverhältnissen zusammenhängt -, so ist es ja natürlich auch nur in höchst eingeschränktem Maße mir hier an dieser Stelle möglich, zu sprechen über die Dinge, die da wirken bis in die unmittelbare Gegenwart unserer Tage herein. Das geht nicht, das habe ich schon öfter angedeutet. Aber ich möchte gewissermaßen auf solche Erscheinungen doch hinweisen, die weniger die Emotionen, die weniger die Leidenschaften erregen. Lassen Sie mich zunächst einige Erscheinungen schildern, Erscheinungen des Erkenntnis- und Gefühlslebens, die ich herausgreife, vorläufig jetzt einen Strich machend unter die Betrachtungen, die ich angestellt habe, indem ich Ihnen gezeigt habe, welche Kräfte da wirken in diesem fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum. Um nun diese einzelnen Erscheinungen hineinzustellen in jene Kräfte, wollen wir sie zunächst historisch einmal anschauen.

Nehmen wir eine Erscheinung heraus, die uns allerdings in tiefstem Sinne interessieren muß, eine sehr bedeutsame Erscheinung; nehmen wir die Erscheinung, die sich äußert in dem menschlichen Verstehen der Wesenheit des Christus, und nehmen wir naheliegende Erscheinungen des Verständnisses für die Wesenheit des Christus. Da haben wir eine neuere Erscheinung in dem «Leben Jesu» von Ernest Renan, das Anfang der sechziger Jahre im 19. Jahrhundert erschien, rasch viele Auflagen erlebte, ich glaube die zwanzigste Auflage schon im Jahre 1900, nach dem Tode von Ernest Renan. Da haben wir «Das Leben Jesu», das aber eigentlich in Wirklichkeit kein Leben Jesu ist, von David Friedrich Strauß. Und da haben wir — wir können nun nicht sagen: ein Leben Jesu, aber gewisse Anschauungen höchst bedeutsamer Art im Osten Europas; nicht ein Leben Jesu, aber eine Auseinandersetzung über den Christus, die da gipfelt in dem, was Solowjow geschrieben hat über den Christus und sein Eingreifen in die Erdenevolution. Welche bedeutsamen drei Äußerungen des menschlichen Geisteslebens des 19. Jahrhunderts — dieses «Leben Jesu» von Ernest Renan, dieses «Leben Jesu», das aber eigentlich kein Leben Jesu ist, wir werden gleich hören, warum, von David Friedrich Strauß, dieses Eingreifen des Christus in die Erdenentwickelung, wie das Solowjow ausgeführt hat. Wenigstens gipfeln seine Ausführungen in der Christus-Idee.

Welches ist der Nerv der Renanschen Ausführungen über das Leben Jesu? Wenn Sie das Renansche Buch «Das Leben Jesu» richtig würdigen wollen, das heißt verstehen wollen als ein Dokument der Zeit, dann müssen Sie es vergleichen mit früheren Darstellungen des Lebens Jesu. Sie brauchen nicht einmal bloß auf die literarischen Darstellungen des Lebens Jesu zu blicken, sondern Sie können auf alle Darstellungen auch auf die malerischen Darstellungen — des Lebens Jesu blicken. Denn derselbe Gang sozusagen drückt sich überall aus, den die Darstellung des Lebens Jesu nimmt. In den ersten christlichen Römerzeiten hat man nicht nur das Christentum vom Osten herübergenommen, sondern auch die Darstellung Jesu. Man hat ja griechische Darstellungen gegeben, griechische Verbildlichung, und es ist dem Osten geblieben die Fähigkeit, Christus darzustellen. Das byzantinische Jesus-Gesicht ist ja auch im Westen immer wieder und wiederum dargestellt worden aus dem Römertum heraus, bis dann etwa vom 13. Jahrhundert ab sich zum ersten Mal die später in einer solchen Weise, wie ich das in diesen Tagen auch schon angedeutet habe, sich auslebenden Nationalideen, Nationalimpulse aufgekommen sind, wo dann aus dem nationalen Impuls allmählich umgeändert worden ist das stereotyp-traditionell fortwirkende Jesus-Gesicht, wo die Nationen an sich gerissen haben den Jesus-Typus, in ihrer Art den Jesus-Typus dargestellt haben.

Da machen sich wiederum die verschiedensten Impulse geltend, den Jesus-Typus darzustellen. Verfolgen Sie, wie merkwürdig das nationale Anschauen sich hineinstiehlt, möchte ich sagen, in die Darstellungen des Jesus-Kopfes bei Guido Reni, bei Murillo, bei Lebrun. Das sind so drei Beispiele, die man herausgreifen könnte. Da haben wir überall die Sehnsucht, den Jesus-Typus national darzustellen. Er ist überall so, daß man sieht: es fließt in Guido Reni viel mehr, als das noch bei seinen Vorgängern der Fall war, der italienische Seelentypus in das Gesicht des Jesus, bei Murillo der spanische, bei Lebrun der französische. Aber bei diesen drei Darstellungen sehen wir überall das Prinzip der kirchlichen Tradition. Sie werden nicht Bilder bei ihnen finden, bei denen Sie nicht die mächtige Kirche dahinterstehen sehen. Dagegen finden Sie ein Auflehnen, man möchte sagen, ein malerisches Auflehnen gegen die umfassende Macht des Kirchentums, die man in der Malerei des Murillo, des Lebrun, des Guido Reni erblickt, ein Auflehnen, ein freies Herausarbeiten aus der Menschlichkeit selber bei Rubens, bei van Dyck, bei Rembrandt. Das ist geradezu malerisches Rebellentum, wenn Sie es betrachten mit Bezug auf die Darstellung des Jesus-Antlitzes. Jedenfalls aber sehen wir aus diesem Fortgang, wie das, was sich an Vorstellungen an Jesus angliedert, nicht im Stillstande ist, sondern wie die Kräfte, die in der Welt wirken, selbst auf dieses Gebiet hereinwirken. Wie der Romanismus wie ein Hauch liegt über den sich zum Nationalen emporhebenden Lebrun, Murillo, Guido Reni, wie das Anstürmen gegen den Romanismus so deutlich zum Ausdrucke kommt in den Gesichtern — nicht einmal bloß dem Jesus-Gesicht, sondern den anderen Gesichtern der heiligen Geschichte — bei Rubens, bei van Dyck, insbesondere dann bei Rembrandt. Und so sehen wir, wie sich unter den verschiedenen Impulsen, die sich in der menschlichen Evolution herauferheben, alle geistigen Berätigungen nach und nach ausgestalten.

Und ebenso würden Sie finden für die Zeiten, in denen die darstellende, die bildende Kunst mehr abgelöst wird vom Worte seit dem 16. Jahrhundert, wie da — denn dieselbe Bedeutung, wie sie für die früheren Zeiten die bildlichen Darstellungen hatten, haben für solche Sachen die Wortdarstellungen seit dem 16. Jahrhundert — wiederum in Fluß kommt die Gestalt des Jesus, die Gestalt des Christus, die nie fest und starr ist, sondern immer so gefaßt wird, wie die verschiedenen Kräfte zusammenfließen in den Darstellern. Und ich möchte sagen: Wie vorläufig letzte Produkte stehen da der Renansche Jesus, der David Friedrich Straußsche, der kein Jesus ist, der Solowjowsche Christus. Und wie gewaltig unterschieden voneinander!

Der Renansche Jesus: Ganz ein Jesus, der als Mensch in Palästina lebt wie eine historische Menschengestalt. Dabei ist dieses Palästina selbst mit dem Aufwande aller moderner Gelehrsamkeit wunderbar anschaulich geschildert, ich möchte sagen so geschildert, daß man die ganze palästinensische Landschaft mit ihrer Menschheit vor sich hat, und in der realistisch-naturalistisch geschilderten Landschaft mit ihrer Menschheit wandelnd die Jesus-Gestalt, und der Versuch, aus Landschaft und Menschentum in Palästina diese Jesus-Gestalt zu erklären, wie sie aufwächst, wie sie als Mensch wird, wie ein solcher Mensch werden konnte in Palästina. Das Hervorragende der Schilderung Renans wird man erst gewahr, wenn man frühere Darstellungen damit vergleicht. Frühere Darstellungen nehmen den inneren Gang des durch die Evangelien Geschilderten, und das versetzen sie in eine Landschaft, die überhaupt nirgendwo ist. Es wurden eben einfach die Tatsachen so, wie sie geschildert werden in den Evangelien, früher immer wieder erzählt; die Landschaft, die wird da ganz unberücksichtigt gelassen, es wird so geschildert, daß es überall sein kann. Da geht Renan einmal so zu Werke, daß er nun das Heilige Land realistisch in allen Einzelheiten schildert, so daß Jesus in diesem Heiligen Lande drinnen ein richtiger Palästinenser wird. Der Christus Jesus, der der ganzen Menschheit gehören soll, wird zu einem Jesus, der als historische Persönlichkeit in Palästina lebt und geht, ein Palästinenser ist, begriffen wird aus dem Palästina zwischen dem Jahre 1 und dem Jahre 33, begriffen wird aus den dortigen Sitten, aus den dortigen Anschauungen, begriffen wird aus der dortigen Landschaft. Eine realistische Schilderung. Es sollte einmal der Jesus geschildert werden als historische JesusPersönlichkeit, wie eine andere historische Persönlichkeit geschildert wird. Für Renans Geist hätte es keinen Sinn, einen abstrakten Sokrates zu schildern, der überall sein könnte, der schließlich zu jeder Zeit sein könnte; für Renan aber hat es ebensowenig Sinn, einen abstrakten Jesus zu schildern, der überall sein könnte. Er will, ganz gemäß der Wissenschaft des 19. Jahrhunderts, den Jesus als eine historische Figur zwischen dem Jahre 1 und 33 schildern, wie er in Palästina aus den palästinensischen Verhältnissen heraus begreifbar ist. Der Jesus hat gelebt zwischen dem Jahre 1 und 33, ist im Jahre 33 gestorben, wie ein anderer Mensch gestorben ist in dem oder jenem Jahre, und sein Fortwirken besteht wie das Fortwirken eines anderen historischen Menschen, der in einem gewissen Jahre gestorben ist. Ganz hereingestellt in die moderne Anschauung: Jesus als eine historische Persönlichkeit, begriffen aus seinem Milieu heraus, das gibt uns das «Leben Jesu» von Ernest Renan.

Betrachten wir jetzt das «Leben Jesu», das eigentlich kein Leben Jesu ist, von David Friedrich Strauß. Ich sage, es ist kein Leben Jesu; denn David Friedrich Strauß geht zwar auch als ein sehr gelehrter Mann zu Werke, untersucht das, was er untersuchen will, mit Gründlichkeit, mit einer ebensolchen Gründlichkeit, wie es auf seinem Gebiete Ernest Renan tat. Aber David Friedrich Strauß lenkt nicht seine Aufmerksamkeit auf den historischen Jesus; der ist ihm zunächst nur die Figur, an die er etwas ganz anderes anheftet. David Friedrich Strauß untersucht das, was nun von Jesus gesagt wird, insoferne der Jesus der Christus war, insoferne der Jesus wunderbar in die Welt eintritt, auf wunderbare Weise sich entwickelt, große Lehren einer bestimmten Art äußert, durch Leiden und Tod geht, der Auferstehung entgegengeht. Diese Erzählungen der Evangelien untersucht David Friedrich Strauß. Auch Ernest Renan hat natürlich die Evangelien genommen, aber sie gewissermaßen reduziert auf das, was er aus seiner genauen PalästinaKenntnis heraus als qualifiziert ansehen konnte für eine Weltanschauung mit Bezug auf das Leben Jesu. Das interessiert David Friedrich Strauß weiter nicht, sondern Strauß sagt sich: Dies oder jenes erzählen über Christus, der im Jesus gelebt hat, die Evangelien. — Nun untersucht er, inwiefern das, was da über den Christus erzählt wird, auch gelebt hat als Mythos da oder dort, wie das, was von einer wunderbaren Geburt erzählt wird, sich in diesem oder jenem Mythos dieses oder jenes Volkes findet, wie das, was von der Entwickelung erzählt wird, sich da oder dort findet, wie endlich das Mysterium von Golgatha selber sich bereits findet in den Mythen und wie es in den Sagen, da für diesen, dort für jenen Gott, angewendet wird. Und so sieht David Friedrich Strauß in der Figur des historischen Jesus nur die Gelegenheit, daß sich die Mythenbildung der Menschheit konzentriert auf eine Persönlichkeit. Der Jesus ist ihm gleichgültig; er ist ihm nur insofern von Wert, als die Mythen, die sonst zerstreut sind in der Welt, sich konzentrieren auf diesen einen Jesus, dem sie alle angehängt werden. Aber diese Mythen kommen ihm alle aus einem gemeinsamen Impuls heraus; sie sprechen zu David Friedrich Strauß alle von der mythenbildenden Kraft, die in der Menschheit lebt. Und woher kommt für David Friedrich Strauß die mythenbildende Kraft? Davon kommt sie, daß die Menschheit, so wie sie sich entwickelte auf der Erde von der ersten Entstehung der Erde bis zum Untergange der Erde, immer in sich eine höhere Kraft haben wird als die bloß äußere, auf dem physischen Plan sich entwickelnde Kraft. Durch das ganze Menschengeschlecht geht eine Kraft durch, und diese Kraft wird immer sich richten auf Überirdisches, und es wird ausgedrückt dieses Überirdische in den Mythen, die ausgebildet werden. Wir wissen, daß in ihm lebt ein Übersinnliches, das sich in den Mythen ausdrücken will, das nicht in der äußeren physischen Wissenschaft ausgedrückt werden kann, sondern das sich in den Mythen ausdrückt. So sieht David Friedrich Strauß nicht in dem einzelnen Jesus, sondern in allen Menschen den Christus, der seit dem Beginn der Menschheit durch alle Menschen, durch die ganze Menschheit lebt und bewirkt, daß von ihm Mythen gedichtet werden. Nur am stärksten entwickelt sich durch die Persönlichkeit des Jesus diese mythenbildende Kraft. Da konzentriert sie sich. Strauß spricht also nicht von einem Jesus, er spricht von einem Jesus, der eigentlich kein Jesus ist, sondern an den nur angehängt wird das, was als geistige ChristusKraft durch die ganze Menschheit geht. Die Menschheit selber ist der Christus für David Friedrich Strauß, und vor dem Jesus und nach dem Jesus ist der Christus immer wirksam. Und die wirkliche Inkarnation des Christus ist nicht der einzelne Jesus für David Friedrich Strauß, sondern die ganze Menschheit, der Jesus nur der hervorragendste Repräsentant für die Repräsentation des Christus durch die Menschheit.

Da ist also nicht der Jesus als historische Figur die Hauptsache, sondern ein abstraktes Menschentum. Der Christus ist zur Idee geworden und diese Idee inkarniert sich durch die ganze Menschheit hindurch. Es ist das Destillierteste, was zunächst der Mensch im 19. Jahrhundert hat begreifen können: das Lebendige in der Idee zum Christus geworden, der Christus ganz als Idee begriffen und über den Jesus gewissermaßen hinweggeschritten! Ein «Leben Jesu», das kein Leben Jesu ist, sondern das ein Dokument sein soll dafür, daß die Idee, das Göttliche, in der ganzen Menschheit sich inkarniert, fortlaufend sich inkarniert. Der Christus in ideeller Verdünnung gedacht, ideell gedacht, das ist dieses zweite «Leben Jesu», das «Leben Jesu» von David Friedrich Strauß. So haben wir das «Leben Jesu» von Ernest Renan beschrieben als die historische Figur des Jesus zwischen den einzelnen und allein für sich, bei David Friedrich Strauß die Idee des Christus durch die ganze Menschheit durchgehend, aber etwas in destilliertem Abstrakten verbleibend.

Und jetzt sehen wir bei Solowjow gar nichts mehr von Jesus, sondern ganz nur den Christus, aber den Christus lebendig geahnt, wie er jetzt nicht als eine Idee, die in den Menschen bewirkt, daß ihre Kraft in Mythen umgesetzt wird, wirkt, sondern wie er wirkt als lebendige Wesenheit, die nur keinen Leib hat, aber zu allen Zeiten wirkt, immer unter den Menschen ist und geradezu die äußere Organisation bewirken soll, stiften soll die soziale Ordnung — der Christus, der immer da ist, ein lebendiges Wesen ist, der, ich möchte sagen, einen Jesus gar nicht gebraucht hätte, um als Christus unter die Menschheit zu kommen. Obwohl natürlich alle diese Dinge in der Wirklichkeit noch nicht so radikal hervortreten bei Solowjow, so macht das nichts; es ist der Christus als solcher, der überall in den Vordergrund tritt, und zwar der Christus als der Lebendige, der nur durch die Imagination erfaßt werden kann, aber durch die Imagination so erfaßt wird, daß er wie ein reales Wesen, wie ein übersinnlich-reales Wesen auf der Erde wirkt.

Da haben Sie die drei Gestalten. Wir sehen, wie uns dasselbe im 19. Jahrhundert in dreifacher Weise entgegentritt: das «Leben Jesu» von Ernest Renan, ganz realistisch, das realistische Werk der Historie kat’exochen, Jesus als historische Persönlichkeit, mit allen Errungenschaften der Gelehrsamkeit des 19. Jahrhunderts geschrieben. David Friedrich Strauß: die Idee der Menschheit, wirksam, impulsiv, durch die ganze Menschheit sich inkarnierend, aber in der Idee bleibend, nicht zum Leben erwachend. Solowjows Christus: lebendige Kraft, lebendige Weisheit, spirituell. Realistisches Leben Jesu von Ernest Renan, idealistisches Leben Jesu von David Friedrich Strauß, das zu gleicher Zeit eine idealistische Darstellung des Christus-Impulses ist, spirituelle Darstellung des Christus-Impulses durch Solowjow.

Ich wollte heute zunächst so, wie sie sich uns nebeneinander darstellen, diese drei Äußerungen des modernen Lebens in der Erkenntnis der Jesus Christus-Gestalt hinstellen. Wir wollen sie dann morgen hineinstellen in den Zusammenhang, der sich uns ergibt aus den Impulsen, die wir kennengelernt haben.

Second Lecture

Yesterday we attempted to characterize, in a sense, the forces that permeated Greek and Roman culture in order to gain an understanding of what has continued to be effective from the fourth post-Atlantean period into the fifth post-Atlantean period, and we have indicated some of the ways in which this carrying over, this spilling over of the forces of the fourth post-Atlantean period into the fifth has manifested itself. I would now like you to turn your attention once more to the way in which we were able to characterize Greek culture and Roman culture.

Greek culture, as it developed, was a great disappointment to those forces that can be called the Luciferic forces. It is natural, of course, that these things can only be revealed through imaginative knowledge, and so we will keep it that way today. Greek culture, as it developed, was a great disappointment because the Luciferic forces had expected something completely different from it. Let us just consider that Greek culture, as the fourth post-Atlantean period, was supposed to bring the Luciferic forces in the post-Atlantean era what they had strived for as Luciferic forces during the Atlantean era. The Luciferic forces developed certain activities and forces during the Atlantean epoch. They expected to reap the fruits of this repeatedly in the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch. What did they actually expect? When we discuss something like this, we gain insight into the inner life of the Luciferic soul. One comes to know this Luciferic life, which consists of continuous efforts during certain periods of time, in the expectation that these efforts will be successful, and in ever new disappointments. Certainly, a so-called human logician might say: Why do the Luciferic powers not give up their striving, since they can conclude that they must always be disappointed? Such a conclusion would be human wisdom, not Luciferic wisdom. In any case, the Luciferic powers have not done this so far, but have repeatedly increased their efforts after experiencing ever new disappointments.

What did the Luciferic powers expect from the fourth post-Atlantean period in particular? They expected that during this period they would be able to seize all the soul forces of the Greek people, which were aimed at incorporating the old imaginations of the Chaldean-Egyptian period into fantasy creation. The Luciferic powers strove to influence the people of Greek culture so strongly that these refined, I would say, distilled imaginations would have powerfully filled the whole being of the Greeks, so that the Greeks would have been completely absorbed in a soul world, in everyday thinking, feeling, and willing that consisted entirely of refined imaginations, refined to the point of fantasy. If the Greeks had developed nothing else in their souls but these refined imaginative fantasies, if they had become completely filled with these refined emotional imaginings, then the Luciferic powers would have been able to lift these Greek people, and with them a large part of humanity, out of earthly evolution and insert them into their Luciferic world. That was the intention of the Luciferic powers. It had also been the hope of the Luciferic powers since ancient Atlantean times to achieve in this fourth post-Atlantean period what had not been achieved during Atlantis itself: the incorporation of humanity into the cosmos at the level that humanity had reached there. The Luciferic powers wanted nothing less than to create a world for themselves, a separate, isolated world in which human beings could live without the heaviness of the earth, with complete supernatural lightness, completely absorbed in this separate Luciferic world in a fantasy life.

So the hope of the Luciferic beings was to create a planetary body with beings who had evolved out of humanity to the highest stage of fantasy life. And the Luciferic beings made every effort to persuade the Greeks to lead them away from the earth as souls. Then the souls would have gradually left the earth; the bodies that would still have been created would have decayed. Individuals without egos would have come into being. The earth would have headed toward decadence and a special Luciferic kingdom would have arisen. That did not happen. And why did it not happen? It did not happen because the genius of Greek philosophy, of Greek wisdom, mingled with the deifying madness of the Greek poets, to use Plato's word. Its philosophers: Heraclitus, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, they saved Hellenism from complete spiritualization in the life of fantasy. They preserved Hellenism on earth. They are the power that provided the strongest forces for the preservation of Hellenism within the evolution of the earth.

Thus, one must consider in context the forces behind physical reality, which are the true causes of what happens. In this way, Greek culture has been preserved in earthly evolution. With regard to this task, the Luciferic beings would not have been able to achieve anything if they had not been supported by the Ahrimanic beings. In pursuing this intention and hope, the Luciferic beings also counted on the support of the Ahrimanic beings. It must always be the case that two forces strive together in these effects.

Just as the Luciferic beings were disappointed by Greek culture, so the Ahrimanic beings were disappointed by Roman culture as it developed. For just as the Luciferic beings wanted to achieve in Greek culture what has been indicated, namely to lead human souls away from the earthly planet, so too did the Ahrimanic beings want to do their work to lead them away. To this end, Roman culture was to take on a very specific form. The Ahrimanic powers employed their strongest forces in Romanism, just as the Luciferic powers did in Greek culture. For the Ahrimanic forces counted on Romanism bringing about a certain stagnation on earth in the form of blind obedience and blind submission to Romanism. What the Ahrimanic forces wanted to achieve with Romanism was that a Roman Empire should extend over the whole of the then known world, a Roman Empire which was to encompass all human activity, which was to be directed from Rome with the strictest centralism and the most extreme display of power: in a sense, starting from Europe, a large, widespread state machine that would have absorbed all religious and artistic life and subjugated it. A great state machine, a state mechanism in which the Ahrimanic powers intended to destroy all individuality, so that every human being, every people, would have been only a link in this great state mechanism.

Just as the Greeks could not be lulled into the Luciferic dream because of the brilliance of their philosophers, so the Romans could not be made to stagnate as the Ahrimanic forces wanted. And what we mentioned yesterday as the Roman ideals worked directly against the Ahrimanic forces in Roman culture; that was what initially counteracted them. But the legal, political, and military ideals that developed could not have rushed against Ahriman on their own, for it was precisely within this Roman world that the Ahrimanic forces developed something like a significant, grand attempt to repeat their attempt in the Atlantean epoch, namely, infinitely strong forces and powers. Only because what the Ahrimanic powers had planned for Roman civilization was broken from another side, only then was Ahriman's onslaught prevented; prevented at first by something that might seem to be something to be looked down on. But that's not the case. The Romans needed precisely what, as described yesterday, might have seemed as if it had been described with antipathy; the Romans needed precisely this ruthlessness, this rigid egoism, this constant stirring up of emotionality in order to be able to counter the onslaught of the Ahrimanic forces. And Roman history is not — please note this explicitly — a revelation of Ahrimanic forces! They are behind it: Roman history is a struggle against the Ahrimanic forces. And if it is so confused, if it is so selfish, if it is so focused on politicizing the world, it is because only in this way could resistance be offered to the mechanization of Ahriman.

But all this would not have borne much fruit, for the simple reason that Romanism also absorbed Christianity, and through this Christianity would have taken on a form in Romanism that would have enabled Ahriman to achieve his goal all the more, precisely by bringing about the mechanization of the culture of the modern age through the spiritual dimming of Romanism transformed into the papacy. Thus, Ahriman, who works with much more external means than Lucifer, had to be opposed by another power, also an external power. Ahriman has turned the forces of Christianity to his service, as we have just seen. He had to be opposed by another power, and that power consisted in the advancing peoples of the Migration Period. By opposing Romanism in the advancing peoples of the Migration Period, the rigid mechanization under an all-encompassing Roman Empire was prevented. If you study the events during the Migration Period, you will see that you can only gain a proper understanding if you interpret them as advances against mechanization in an all-encompassing Roman Empire. Everywhere, what comes from the migration of peoples pushes its way into the Roman Empire, not to wipe Roman history from the face of the earth, but to push back the Ahrimanic power working behind Roman history, indeed, the power that Roman history itself fought against.

In this way, Ahriman, Lucifer, has been disappointed. This makes them all the more determined to resume their task for the fifth post-Atlantean period. And this is the point where we come to an understanding of the forces at work in the fifth post-Atlantean period, insofar as such an understanding is possible today.

This fourth post-Atlantean period extends backward and forward. Its end is approximately the year 1413, its middle the year 333 after Christ, and its beginning around 747 before Christ. We have discussed this often. These are figures that are, of course, only approximate today. I said that what Lucifer and Ahriman were unable to achieve in the fourth post-Atlantean period, what disappointed them, namely the form that Greek and Roman culture had taken, led them to intensify their efforts in the fifth post-Atlantean period, that is, from the 15th century onwards. And these efforts are already present in the human forces that have been at work since the 15th century. Of course, it does not matter whether something occurs a few decades earlier or later; in the outer physical reality, where we are dealing with the great deception, things sometimes shift a little. The fact that Roman culture, as it has been preserved, could be preserved for the development of humanity is therefore thanks to the events of the migration of peoples. For if Roman culture had developed in such a way that a large, comprehensive, mechanized world empire had arisen, this world empire would only have been inhabitable by those ego-less human beings who should have remained on earth after the Luciferic spirits had led the souls out on the path of Greek culture.

So you see how Ahriman and Lucifer work together. Lucifer wants to get the human souls out and establish his own planet with them; Ahriman now had to support him by squeezing out what remains, hardening it, while Lucifer, so to speak, sucks the juice out of the lemon. And he tried to do this in the Roman Empire. You see here a powerful, comprehensive cosmic process that has developed, but which was intended by the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces. As I said, they were disappointed. They have continued their efforts, and the fifth post-Atlantean period will yet learn to recognize and understand how strong these assaults are, which have only just begun and which, because at the beginning of a period the assaults emanating from the remaining beings are always are always at their weakest and then become increasingly powerful, and how therefore the necessity of understanding these assaults becomes greater and greater. Even before the end of the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces began to use their powers, even though the manifestation, the revelation of this use, only came out later.

If we want to understand how these assaults are working in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, we must turn our attention a little to what is intended for human beings themselves in the just progression of human evolution. What is intended for human beings themselves is that they should advance a step further as the human race in its overall development. How humanity as such has progressed in the fourth post-Atlantean period is shown by the cultural development of the Greeks and the political development of the Romans. It is precisely through the struggle against Lucifer and Ahriman that what was supposed to come about has come about; for the forces of these powers are always turned in such a way that they fit, so to speak, into the ongoing world plan, so that one can see that they belong there. They are needed as opposing forces. So, what abilities should human beings in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, our own epoch, develop in particular? We know that it is a matter of developing the consciousness soul, but this in turn must be composed of a series of forces, soul forces and physical forces. The first thing that must be developed if human beings are to remain on Earth in the right way is a truly pure perception of the sensory world. Such a pure perception of the sensory world did not exist in earlier periods because the visionary and imaginative always played a part in human soul life, and in the case of the Greeks, fantasy also played a part. But after the imagination had taken hold of humanity to the extent that it did in Greek life, it became necessary for people to develop the ability to look at the external reality of nature unencumbered by an underlying vision. We need not imagine that this means a materialistic worldview; this materialistic worldview is already an Ahrimanic distortion of the sensory reality. But, as I said, to observe sensory reality properly was the one task of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

The other task of the human soul is this: alongside the pure perception of reality, to develop free imagination, in a way that repeats the Egyptian-Chaldean period. In this respect, the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is not yet very far advanced. Free imaginations must be developed, as sought by spiritual science, that is, imaginations that are not bound, as in the third post-Atlantean epoch, imaginations that are not distilled into fantasy, but free imaginations in which one moves as freely as one otherwise moves freely in one's intellect. From the development of these two abilities will come the right development of the consciousness soul of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

Goethe had a very beautiful sense of pure observation, which he contrasted with materialism in his concept of the primal phenomenon. You can find much discussion of this primal phenomenon in Goethe's writings and in my explanations of them. This primal phenomenon is the pure contemplation of reality. But Goethe not only gave the first impetus to vision-free sensory observation in the primal phenomenon, he also gave the first impetus to free imagination; for it is precisely what we find in his Faust , even if it is not yet very far advanced in relation to the spiritual sciences, even if it is still in a certain sense only instinctive in relation to the spiritual sciences, is nevertheless the first impetus for free imaginative life, for it is not merely a fantasy world. We have seen how deep this fantasy world really is, which is developed in free imagination in this wonderful Faust drama. In this way, however, we have what Goethe calls the typical intellectual view of the archetypal phenomenon. You can read more about this in my book The Mystery of Man. This must continue to develop further and further. On the one hand, the fifth post-Atlantean period must not only observe reality, but must be able to live with reality, so that it stands apart from materialistic physicists such as Goethe, who works in his physics cabinet to use instruments in such a way that they reveal the primal phenomena to him. One must also think of a way of dealing with practical life that permeates this practical life with the original phenomenon, that is so at home in nature that nature is dominated by the original phenomenon, and that the intentions of the human race, which come from free imagination, must be included in this original phenomenon of nature. On the one hand, to direct one's gaze toward the external world for knowledge and work, in a sense selflessly, and on the other hand, to bring the whole itself into inner movement and agitation with the strongest investment of personality in order to find the imaginations for external activity and external knowledge—this will gradually transform the consciousness soul and the cultural life of the consciousness soul into reality.

One-sidedness will naturally develop within this cultural period. Knowledge will strive only toward the external world, as in Baconism, or it will strive only toward the inner world, as in Berkeleyism. We have spoken about this. This imaginative life, which wants to spring forth from within the human being, will develop under all kinds of disturbances. But we can already point to certain points in development where this or that person feels how this imaginative life, this free imaginative life, emerges from the soul. At first it is still very unfree, very bound; but let us notice how a person as significant in his own way as Jacob Böhme, shortly after the fifth post-Atlantean period began, already feels how the imaginative life wants to develop in his soul. He expresses clearly in his Aurora how he feels that the imaginative life is working in him. It must first become free; he still feels it to be somewhat unfree, but he feels that the divine creative power is at work within him. And so, in a certain sense, he is the antithesis of Baconism, which strives to focus its gaze solely on the external world in a one-sided manner. Jakob Böhme is completely absorbed in the inner world and describes this beautifully in Aurora:

“I say before God” — because he is speaking from his inner being, he says this — ‘that I myself do not know what is happening to me’ — as the imaginations arise within him — ”without the driving will, I also know nothing that I should write.” Thus he speaks of the blossoming of imaginations; this is the beginning of forces that must increasingly overcome the humanity of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, which Jakob Böhme senses. “I say before God that I myself do not know what is happening to me; without having the driving will, I also know nothing that I should write. For when I write, the spirit dictates to me in great and wonderful knowledge, so that I often do not know whether I am in this world according to my spirit and rejoice greatly, since I am then given constant and certain knowledge."

He describes the influx of the imaginative world. We see that he feels harmoniously calm in his soul and describes how, in the normal course of development, human souls should allow themselves to be seized by these inner forces. These forces are to come upon the human soul in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, but they are to be grasped in the pure spiritual interior. They are not to take any erroneous paths. This is roughly how one would have to speak about these forces in the 17th century, as Jakob Böhme speaks, for then one spoke of these forces as a man wholly devoted to divine universal justice. That neither one kind of force, the pure contemplation of the original phenomena, nor the other kind of force, the development of free imaginations that do not consist of visions but are precisely free imaginations, should arise, that these forces should be disturbed as little as possible in the human soul, are used as much as possible to bring humanity as souls out of the earth plane and establish a special plan with them, that is now the mode of action of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces in the fifth post-Atlantean period.

Much must work together to disrupt the right unfolding, the calm and slow unfolding. Listen carefully: I am not only talking about calm development, but calm and slow development, because the entire period from 1413 to approximately 2160 is to be used to gradually develop the forces I have mentioned, free imagination and archetypal phenomena or archetypal work. The Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces are now working against this in fits and starts, with all kinds of opposing forces. If we just consider that what happens is always prepared long in advance by the extraterrestrial world, then it will not be incomprehensible to us that preparations have been made to bring about very, very strong counter-effects against the normal evolution of humanity. We have seen that the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces poured into Greek and Roman civilization what they had developed in the Atlantean epoch. In a modified form, they attempted to repeat these efforts even before the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, for this fifth post-Atlantean epoch. So you will not find it incomprehensible when I say that a strong impetus with aftereffects, Luciferic-Ahrimanic aftereffects of Atlantis, was also necessary for this fifth post-Atlantean epoch. We know that the Atlantean influences radiated out from what Plato already knew as Atlantis. Let us schematically imagine Atlantis here (see drawing); then the European and Asian regions would be here, and the American region would be here. From there, the ancient Arlantic forces radiated out, including the ancient Atlantean Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces.

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Now, something was retained from these to act as Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, and something was also retained from the good forces, from the forces that were justified in the Atlantean epoch, which is now also Luciferic and Ahrimanic. Only the center was moved to another point on the earth. Atlantis is gone. The center was moved to Asia, so that you can imagine yourself on the opposite side of what I have drawn schematically, over in Asia, from where the aftereffects of the old Atlantean culture radiate out as preparation for the fifth post-Atlantean period, to Luciferize and Ahrimanize it. They were essentially descendants of the ancient Atlantean teachers, who now worked from a point in Asia. A priest had been trained to look back at what had been seen in ancient Atlantis, to see what the Atlanteans called the Great Spirit, and to receive instructions from this Great Spirit. And the priest who had been initiated with these tasks communicated them to a young, extraordinarily strong, energetic, capable man who, through these tasks, then received the name “The Great Ruler of the Earth,” Genghis Khan, within his community. And the Great Spirit, through his successor, via this priest, had given Genghis Khan the task of using all the powers that could be mustered in Asia to spread that which could lead the fifth post-Atlantean period back to a Luciferic form. These powerful forces, which were even stronger than those that had begun in Greece, were used by this side. From this side, all free imaginations were to be transformed into old imaginations, into visionary imaginations. The aim was to work in the strongest possible way to lull the human soul completely into a twilight experience of the imaginations, not into a free experience of the imaginations imbued with reason. The intention was to use the special forces that had been received from Atlantis to work in such a way in the West that Western culture would become a visionary culture. Then it would have been possible to separate the souls and form a special continent, a special planetary body with them. All the unrest that came into the development of the newer humanity through the Mongol storms and everything connected with them, and which continued to have an effect in the fifth post-Atlantean period, after it had been prepared earlier, all this unrest signifies the great attempt that originated in Asia to “visionize” European culture in order to separate it from the conditions of ongoing evolution, to lead it away from the earth, so to speak. attempt originating in Asia to “visionize” European culture in order to separate it from the conditions of ongoing evolution, to lead it away from the earth, so to speak. The East felt this visioning, this desire to alienate itself from the earth, again and again.

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A counterweight had to be created. And this counterweight was initially one that belonged to the normal development of humanity. So, in contrast to what was supposed to have been achieved under the influence of the priest of Genghis Khan, the “relief” of the human race in order to lead it away from the earth, a counterweight to the earth's gravity had to be created. And this was created by the discovery of the Western world, of America, with all that America held, and thereby the heaviness of the earth, the desire to remain on earth, was created for human beings. The discovery of America and everything associated with it, indeed the very act of living in the material world, meant, from a broader perspective, a counterbalance to the activities of Genghis Khan. America had to be discovered in order to bring people closer to the earth, to become more material and materialistic, so that they would have a counterweight to the spiritualization sought by the descendants of the Great Spirit.

But on the other hand, at the same time as this normal process of expanding the human scene to America, the other forces, the Ahrimanic forces of the Great Spirit, also came into play. One movement went from there to Europe, but the other went from Asia to the other side and spread throughout America, so that the discovery of America not only led to the development of the normal forces, but strong Ahrimanic assaults also came from there, which initially were still weak—they will continue, they only need to be recognized—in the form that the very evolution that Romanism had achieved in the Church and in the ecclesiastical state was seized by this Ahrimanic intervention. While it is relatively easy to say how the Luciferic influence worked through Genghis Khan, knowing full well that a priest had been initiated by the descendant of the Great Spirit, it is much more difficult to say how the Ahrimanic spirit worked from the other side, because it breaks down into details. But you need only study how deeply Catholic, strictly Catholic Spain was affected by all the gold treasures found in America, by everything connected with them. Study precisely that strange aftereffect that ancient Romanism has as a ghost in a ruler such as Ferdinand the Catholic of Castile, or in Charles V, insofar as he is ruler of an empire in which the sun never sets: always new attempts at expansion! Study Europe's relations with the flourishing America that was gradually being discovered, and you will see where the temptations came from. It is, on the whole, a story of temptation, interwoven with a history that followed its normal course.

I ask you only not to say that I have presented the discovery of America today as an Ahrimanic act; I have said the opposite. I said that America had to be discovered, had to be found, that the whole thing was necessary in the progress of the world, only that Ahrimanic forces interfered, forces that are opposed to what should happen in the progress of the world. Things are not so simple in reality that one can say: There is Lucifer, there is Ahriman, and this is how Lucifer and Ahriman behave, and this is how they divide up the world. That is not how things behave.

So we see the interaction of many forces, which we have tried to eavesdrop on in their field behind the physical plane. All these forces took control of others. They seek to seize what protrudes from the human forces of the fourth post-Atlantean period and distort it in their own way, putting it at their service. You need only study such a concomitant of the Renaissance as Machiavelli, and you will find a human symbol for this whole way of thinking that is beginning, the politicization of the life of the mind. Machiavelli is precisely an expression, a revelation of this politicization of intellectual life, a great, powerful spirit, but a spirit that, under the onslaught of the forces I have spoken of, completely renews the attitudes that come from pagan ancient Rome. If we really study history, we see that Machiavelli is not a single personality, a single human being, but only the particularly significant expression of many who think in this way, and then we see things correctly. We see what is rushing forward rapidly, what wants to rush forward rapidly with the atavistic forces that have been left behind, that is, the Luciferic forces. If Machiavelli had had his way, the whole of Europe would already be politicized. Forces that act like a storm are counteracted by forces that appear normal. We can contrast such a purely political figure as Machiavelli, who turns all human thinking into politics, with a personality who was almost his contemporary: Thomas a Kempis, who is completely immersed in slow, gradual development and who is not at all political, but works slowly and gradually.

And so we can trace these individual currents. We will find normal ones; we will find ones that flow in from earlier times and are used by the forces we have mentioned. Many forces work together in history. It is essential to focus one's gaze on these connections. In a person such as Jakob Böhme, we find how he feels the free imagination sprouting. One could say that Jakob Böhme is a personality who, through the whole nature of his soul life, has very strongly managed not to be disturbed by the Luciferic and Ahrimanic assaults and to follow the straight path of evolution.

In contrast, in Eastern Europe, in Eastern culture, you can find numerous personalities who suffer greatly from the Luciferic disturbance, from the disturbance that tends to repeatedly draw people away from the earth, from the physical body, and repeatedly cause them to fall into a state, into a situation that transforms the whole human being as if into a vision of themselves, that is, to completely ensoul them. This is the tendency that has been instilled in Eastern Europe. In Western Europe, on the other hand, the feeling of being drawn to the other side has been instilled much more, the feeling of being drawn from the imaginative world to the heaviness of the body, to physical heaviness, in order to turn what should be free imagination into something that does not merely affect the soul, but affects the organism, what the soul stuffs into the organism and thereby allows the organism to live through the imaginings. It is difficult to express what I mean more succinctly than Alfred de Musset did when characterizing his own state of mind. Musset is one of those personalities who felt imaginative life within themselves but who felt the onslaught against this imaginative life, the onslaught that sought to stuff this imaginative life into physicality. There, because it does not belong there, because it should develop freely floating in the soul, this imaginative life is seized by the heaviness of the earth and by everything that is only physical, while it should be running its course in the soul. “E}e et lui,” the book that George Sand wrote about her relationship with Musset, contains a beautiful self-description of Musset's soul life, and I would like to share a few sentences from it, from which you will see how he himself feels trapped in such a contested imaginative life. Musset says: ”Creation confuses me and makes me tremble. The execution, which is always too slow for my desire, causes me terrible palpitations, and weeping, only with difficulty restraining loud cries, I give birth to an idea—it intoxicates me for a moment, and the next morning it disgusts me. If I reshape it, it becomes even worse, it slips away from me; better to forget it and wait for another. But this other idea overwhelms me so confusedly and so immeasurably that my poor being cannot grasp it. It presses and torments me until it becomes realizable, and then the other sufferings, the birth pangs, set in, truly physical pains that I cannot define. This is how my life passes when I allow myself to be dominated by this giant artist who is within me” — note the contrast to Jakob Böhme, who feels God within himself; he is a giant artist who is within him — ”be dominated. So it is better that I live as I have decided to live, that I commit excesses of every kind in order to kill this gnawing worm, which others modestly call “inspiration” and which I quite openly call “illness.”

Almost every sentence contains a parallel to what I have told you as Jakob Böhme's saying, but it is also extremely characteristic. Remember what I said earlier: Slowly we will come to talk about this tomorrow — the normal progression of development; here there is a wild impulse, which is why it is not fast enough for him. And he describes it himself. It is a wonderful insight into himself that he gives here. He says: “Creation confuses me and makes me tremble,” because the Ahrimanic side always rushes in with its desire to go faster into that which wants to go slowly. “The execution, which is always too slow for my desire, causes my heart to beat terribly": here you have the whole psychology of a person who wants to live in free imagination and is disturbed by the forces of Ahriman. “And weeping, only with difficulty holding back loud cries” — think how physically the imaginations affect him, that he wants to cry out when they express themselves in him — ”I give birth to an idea — it intoxicates me for a moment, and the next morning it disgusts me.” Because it comes from the organism instead of the soul! “If I reshape it, it gets even worse, it slips away from me; better to forget it and wait for another one.” Because he always wants to go faster, faster than normal development can go. “But this other one overwhelms me so confusedly and so immeasurably that my poor being cannot grasp it. It presses and torments me until it becomes realizable, and then the other sufferings, the birth pangs, set in, truly physical pains that I cannot define.” And that is why, he says, looking at this giant artist working within him, he would rather live his life as he has planned, namely, having nothing to do with all this imaginative world; for he calls it a “disease.”

Compare this with Jakob Böhme's statement: “I say before God that I myself do not know what will happen to me.” This is bliss expressed in words. It is confusion expressed in words when someone says: “Creation confuses me and makes me tremble. The execution of my desires, which is always too slow for me, causes my heart to beat terribly.” With Jakob Böhme, everything is spiritual! And when he wants to write, it seems to him as if it is not a great artist who makes him unhappy, but a spirit dictating to him, transporting him to this world where the spirit dictates to him; he is in this world and is delighted, because he is given constant and certain knowledge, constant and slow. Jakob Böhme is inclined to accept this slowly progressing knowledge; the process is not too slow for him because he does not feel what I have described to you as a dominating force, but is protected from it.

We could cite more and more examples, if we had the time, which would show us how human beings are involved in this process of the world. The people I have mentioned have, of course, been chosen as examples whose names have been preserved by history. But in a certain sense, the whole of humanity, some in one way, others in another, is subject to this same thing. One chooses only such examples in order to bring to light what lives in a wide circle, in order to be able to characterize it with special examples. And if you try to get an overview of what we have presented here, you will be able to understand many things that have developed. We could also discuss some other phenomena of life, but let us remain today with spiritual life, and then with the special spiritual life, the life of knowledge. In this special field, we can see qualities that characterize the newer humanity and that can make many things understandable to us. Since it is not possible to say much about outer life — because of the existence of today's prejudices and everything connected with the soul's bondage to present-day conditions — it is naturally only possible for me to speak here in a very limited way about the things that are at work right up to the immediate present. That is not possible, as I have already indicated several times. But I would like to point out, so to speak, those phenomena that arouse less emotion and less passion. Let me first describe a few phenomena, phenomena of the life of knowledge and feeling, which I will pick out, provisionally drawing a line under the observations I have made by showing you what forces are at work in this fifth post-Atlantean period. In order to place these individual phenomena within those forces, let us first look at them historically.

Let us take a phenomenon that must interest us in the deepest sense, a very significant phenomenon; let us take the phenomenon that expresses itself in the human understanding of the essence of Christ, and let us take obvious phenomena of the understanding of the essence of Christ. There we have a more recent phenomenon in Ernest Renan's “Life of Jesus,” which appeared in the early 1860s and quickly went through many editions, I believe the twentieth edition already in 1900, after Ernest Renan's death. Then we have “The Life of Jesus” by David Friedrich Strauss, which is not actually the life of Jesus. And then we have — we cannot say a life of Jesus, but certain views of a highly significant nature in Eastern Europe; not a life of Jesus, but a discussion about Christ, which culminates in what Soloviev wrote about Christ and his intervention in the evolution of the earth. What are the three significant expressions of the human spirit in the 19th century — this “Life of Jesus” by Ernest Renan, this “Life of Jesus,” which is not really the life of Jesus, as we will hear in a moment, by David Friedrich Strauss, and this intervention of Christ in the development of the earth, as described by Soloviev? At least his remarks culminate in the idea of Christ.

What is the essence of Renan's remarks about the life of Jesus? If you want to properly appreciate Renan's book “The Life of Jesus,” that is, if you want to understand it as a document of its time, then you must compare it with earlier accounts of the life of Jesus. You do not even need to look at the literary representations of the life of Jesus, but you can also look at all the pictorial representations of the life of Jesus. For the same process, so to speak, is expressed everywhere in the representation of the life of Jesus. In the early Christian Roman period, not only was Christianity adopted from the East, but also the representation of Jesus. There were Greek representations, Greek imagery, and the East retained the ability to depict Christ. The Byzantine face of Jesus was also repeatedly depicted in the West from Roman times until, from around the 13th century onwards, national ideas and national impulses emerged for the first time, as I have already indicated in recent days, national ideas and national impulses emerged, where the stereotypical, traditional image of Jesus was gradually changed, and where the nations appropriated the Jesus type and depicted him in their own way.

Here again, the most diverse impulses come into play in the portrayal of the Jesus type. Notice how strangely the national perspective creeps into the depictions of the head of Jesus in Guido Reni, Murillo, and Lebrun. These are three examples that could be singled out. Everywhere we see the desire to portray the Jesus type in a national way. It is so evident everywhere that you can see that in Guido Reni, much more than was the case with his predecessors, the Italian soul type flows into the face of Jesus, in Murillo the Spanish, in Lebrun the French. But in these three depictions we see the principle of ecclesiastical tradition everywhere. You will not find any pictures by them in which you do not see the powerful Church behind them. On the contrary, you find a rebellion, one might say, a painterly rebellion against the comprehensive power of the Church, which can be seen in the paintings of Murillo, Lebrun, and Guido Reni, a rebellion, a free elaboration from humanity itself in Rubens, van Dyck, and Rembrandt. This is downright painterly rebellion when you consider it in relation to the depiction of the face of Jesus. In any case, however, we see from this development how the ideas associated with Jesus are not static, but how the forces at work in the world themselves influence this area. How Romanism lies like a breath over Lebrun, Murillo, and Guido Reni, who are rising to national prominence, how the onslaught against Romanism is so clearly expressed in the faces—not even just the face of Jesus, but the other faces of sacred history—in Rubens, in van Dyck, and especially in Rembrandt. And so we see how, under the various impulses that arise in human evolution, all spiritual deliberations gradually take shape.

And you would find the same thing for the times since the 16th century, when the performing and visual arts became more detached from the word, because the same meaning that pictorial representations had in earlier times has been taken over by verbal representations since the 16th century — once again, the figure of Jesus comes into flux, the figure of Christ, which is never fixed and rigid, but is always conceived as the various forces flowing together in the performers. And I would like to say: How provisional are the final products of Renan's Jesus, David Friedrich Strauss's Jesus, who is not Jesus, and Soloviev's Christ. And how enormously different they are from one another!

Renan's Jesus: entirely a Jesus who lives as a human being in Palestine like a historical figure. At the same time, Palestine itself is described in a wonderfully vivid manner, with all the resources of modern scholarship, I would say described in such a way that one has the entire Palestinian landscape with its humanity before one's eyes, and in the realistically and naturalistically depicted landscape with its humanity, the figure of Jesus walks, and the attempt is made to explain this figure of Jesus from the landscape and humanity in Palestine, how he grows up, how he becomes a human being, how such a human being could become in Palestine. The excellence of Renan's description only becomes apparent when one compares it with earlier accounts. Earlier accounts take the inner journey described in the Gospels and transpose it into a landscape that is nowhere to be found. The facts as described in the Gospels were simply recounted over and over again; the landscape was completely ignored, and the story was told in such a way that it could have taken place anywhere. Renan, on the other hand, sets out to describe the Holy Land realistically in every detail, so that Jesus becomes a true Palestinian in this Holy Land. Christ Jesus, who is supposed to belong to all of humanity, becomes a Jesus who lives and walks as a historical figure in Palestine, a Palestinian, understood from the Palestine between the years 1 and 33, understood from the customs there, from the views there, understood from the landscape there. A realistic description. Jesus should be portrayed as a historical personality, just as any other historical personality is portrayed. For Renan's mind, it would make no sense to portray an abstract Socrates who could be anywhere, who could ultimately be at any time; but for Renan, it makes just as little sense to portray an abstract Jesus who could be anywhere. In accordance with 19th-century science, he wants to portray Jesus as a historical figure between the years 1 and 33, as he can be understood in Palestine from the Palestinian circumstances. Jesus lived between the years 1 and 33, died in the year 33, just as another human being died in this or that year, and his influence continues to exist just as the influence of another historical human being who died in a certain year continues to exist. Placed entirely within the modern view: Jesus as a historical personality, understood from his milieu, is what Ernest Renan's “Life of Jesus” gives us.

Let us now consider the “Life of Jesus,” which is not actually the life of Jesus, by David Friedrich Strauss. I say it is not the life of Jesus because David Friedrich Strauss, although he goes about his work as a very learned man, examines what he wants to examine with thoroughness, with the same thoroughness as Ernest Renan did in his field. But David Friedrich Strauss does not focus his attention on the historical Jesus; for him, Jesus is initially only a figure to whom he attaches something completely different. David Friedrich Strauss investigates what is said about Jesus insofar as Jesus was the Christ, insofar as Jesus entered the world in a miraculous way, developed in a miraculous way, expressed great teachings of a certain kind, went through suffering and death, and went toward resurrection. David Friedrich Strauss examines these accounts in the Gospels. Ernest Renan also took the Gospels, of course, but reduced them, as it were, to what he, based on his precise knowledge of Palestine, could consider qualified for a worldview relating to the life of Jesus. David Friedrich Strauss is not interested in this, but says to himself: The Gospels tell this or that about Christ who lived in Jesus. — Now he examines to what extent what is told about Christ also lived as a myth here or there, how what is told about a miraculous birth is found in this or that myth of this or that people, how what is told about his development is found here or there, how finally the mystery of Golgotha itself is already found in the myths and how it is applied in the legends, here for this god, there for that god. And so David Friedrich Strauss sees in the figure of the historical Jesus only the opportunity for the myth-making of humanity to concentrate on one personality. Jesus is indifferent to him; he is only of value to him insofar as the myths that are otherwise scattered throughout the world are concentrated on this one Jesus, to whom they are all attached. But these myths all come from a common impulse; to David Friedrich Strauss, they all speak of the myth-forming power that lives in humanity. And where does this myth-forming power come from, according to David Friedrich Strauss? It comes from the fact that humanity, as it has developed on Earth from the first formation of the Earth to its destruction, will always have within itself a higher power than the merely external power developing on the physical plane. A force runs through the entire human race, and this force will always be directed toward the supernatural, and this supernatural is expressed in the myths that are formed. We know that something supersensible lives within him that wants to express itself in myths, that cannot be expressed in external physical science, but expresses itself in myths. Thus, David Friedrich Strauss sees not in the individual Jesus, but in all human beings the Christ who has lived since the beginning of humanity through all human beings, through the whole of humanity, and causes myths to be composed about him. This myth-forming power develops most strongly through the personality of Jesus. There it is concentrated. Strauss does not speak of a Jesus, he speaks of a Jesus who is not actually Jesus, but to whom is attached that which passes through the whole of humanity as the spiritual power of Christ. For David Friedrich Strauss, humanity itself is Christ, and Christ is always effective before Jesus and after Jesus. And for David Friedrich Strauss, the real incarnation of Christ is not the individual Jesus, but the whole of humanity, of which Jesus is only the most outstanding representative for the representation of Christ through humanity.

So it is not Jesus as a historical figure that is the main thing, but an abstract humanity. Christ has become an idea, and this idea is incarnated throughout the whole of humanity. It is the most distilled thing that people in the 19th century were initially able to comprehend: the living in the idea has become Christ, Christ is understood entirely as an idea and has, in a sense, transcended Jesus! A “Life of Jesus” that is not the life of Jesus, but is intended to be a document proving that the idea, the divine, is incarnated in all of humanity, is continuously incarnated. Christ conceived in an idealized form, conceived as an idea, is this second “Life of Jesus,” the “Life of Jesus” by David Friedrich Strauss. Thus we have described Ernest Renan's “Life of Jesus” as the historical figure of Jesus between individuals and alone for himself, and in David Friedrich Strauss, the idea of Christ throughout all of humanity, but remaining somewhat in distilled abstraction.

And now, in Soloviev, we see nothing more of Jesus, but only Christ, but Christ sensed as alive, not as an idea that causes people to transform their power into myths, but as a living entity that has no body but is active at all times, is always among people, and is intended to bring about the external organization, to establish social order—the Christ who is always there, a living being who, I would say, did not need Jesus at all to come among humanity as Christ. Although, of course, all these things do not yet emerge so radically in Soloviev, it does not matter; it is Christ as such who comes to the fore everywhere, namely Christ as the living being who can only be grasped through the imagination, but who is grasped through the imagination in such a way that he acts on earth like a real being, like a supersensible-real being.

There you have the three figures. We see how the same thing confronts us in three ways in the 19th century: Ernest Renan's “Life of Jesus,” entirely realistic, the realistic work of history kat'exochen, Jesus as a historical personality, written with all the achievements of 19th-century scholarship. David Friedrich Strauss: the idea of humanity, effective, impulsive, incarnating itself through the whole of humanity, but remaining an idea, not coming to life. Soloviev's Christ: living power, living wisdom, spiritual. Ernest Renan's realistic life of Jesus, David Friedrich Strauss' idealistic life of Jesus, which is at the same time an idealistic representation of the Christ impulse, spiritual representation of the Christ impulse by Soloviev.

Today, I wanted to begin by presenting these three expressions of modern life as they appear to us side by side in our understanding of the figure of Jesus Christ. Tomorrow, we will place them in the context that emerges from the impulses we have become acquainted with.