The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] At this time, I must repeatedly draw attention to a line of thought that must run through our entire Spiritual Science at present. I have called this line of thought one in which we must see everywhere that behind the concepts, mental images, and ideas that human beings form and in which they live, there is not only what is often called logic in life, but that what can be called reality lives in human concepts and mental images. We must search for concepts saturated with reality. And it can never be unnecessary, especially in the considerations that are now to lead to a very specific goal, which I will describe in a moment, to draw attention to how understandable it can be that a concept, any mental image that exists in life, may be true in a certain sense, but cannot reach down into reality. Certainly, what is actually meant by these concepts saturated with reality will only gradually become clear; but I would say that one can also gradually arrive at the mental image of what is saturated with reality through simple comparisons. Therefore, by way of introduction, I would like to draw attention once again to what I actually mean by means of a comparison.

[ 2 ] What I am about to say now seems, but only seems, to have no connection with the following considerations; it is merely an introductory discussion. Until 1839, all Roman cardinals since the sixteenth century had to take an important oath. During his papacy, Pope Sixtus V—who reigned from 1585 to 1590 — deposited 5 million scudi in Castel Sant'Angelo as a treasure to be used in case of emergency. And because it was considered so important to have such a treasure available for emergencies, the cardinals were always made to swear that they would guard this treasure carefully. In 1839, during the reign of Pope Gregory XVI, the future Cardinal Acton objected to this oath; he no longer wanted the cardinals to swear that they would preserve this treasure. — If one hears nothing else about this story, one could come up with all sorts of beautiful hypotheses as to why this strange Acton did not want the cardinals to swear, as was still required at the time, to preserve the treasure that could be so important for the papal government. And everything that is said about it could contain a lot of logic. But everything that could possibly be said about it would pale in comparison to what Acton knew from certain facts that the cardinals did not know. He knew that this treasure had not existed since 1797, that it was already gone. So the cardinals had been made to swear that they would preserve a treasure that was no longer there, and Acton simply did not want to allow them to take an oath about something that did not exist. You see, all the fine discussions and hypotheses that someone who did not know that the entire treasure was not there, that it had already been used up under Pius VI, might put forward—all these hypotheses would come to nothing.

[ 3 ] If one meditates a little on such an example—it sometimes seems unnecessary to meditate on such things that are so obvious, but one must meditate on them and compare such obvious things with some other things in the world— precisely from what emerges from such a fact, one could arrive at what is actually the case with reality-saturated and non-reality-saturated concepts. Now I must draw your attention to this non-reality-saturated nature of present mental images for the simple reason that, as you will see later, perhaps next time, this is precisely related to the “topic” which, from our point of view, must once again be discussed in the present time. I will endeavor to let the considerations we have already made flow into a discussion of a special relationship that relates to the Christ mystery. What I contributed last time will be of support to you in considering the very aspect of the Christ mystery that we now want to examine. Today, I would like to bring to your attention some things that may not seem to have any connection with our actual topic, because they can serve as an important foundation for us.

[ 4 ] As you know, I began cautiously to point to a certain way of looking at the Christ mystery in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact, which was published some time ago. This “Christianity as Mystical Fact” — which, incidentally, was one of the last books confiscated by the old regime in Russia a few weeks ago in its new edition — is, I would say, a first attempt to understand Christianity itself from a spiritual point of view; from a standpoint that has more or less disappeared over the centuries in the course of Christian development in the West itself. Now I would like to emphasize one thing in particular, which is so fundamental that all the arguments in the book “Christianity as a Mystical Fact” stand or fall with it. A certain view of the Gospels is represented in it. This view will not be discussed further here. You can read about it in the book. But if this view is justified, it must also be assumed that the Gospels did not originate as late as is often assumed today, even in Christian theology, but that the Gospels must be dated to an indeterminate early period. You know that according to this view, the elements of evangelical teaching are to be found in the ancient mystery books, and that it is only a matter of recognizing the mystery of Golgotha as a fulfillment of what is contained in the ancient mystery books. Now, with such a spiritual view of Christianity in the present time, one will encounter opposition to some theological-historical explanations. Such an explanation will perhaps be regarded as historically unfounded, even by the most modern theologians; for it should be clear, so to speak, that the Gospels did not yet play a special role in the first century, or at least in the first two-thirds of the first century. And there are even theological representatives of Christianity who doubt that any proof can be provided that in the first century of the Christian era, people who mattered thought about or, as one might call it, believed in the person of Christ Jesus.

[ 5 ] Well, it will become increasingly clear that when the seemingly careful research of the present day is extended in all directions and becomes not only careful but comprehensive, many of the concerns of careful research will disappear. Of course, today one can draw all kinds of conclusions about the questions that arise from certain contradictions between Christian documents and Jewish documents, for example. But these conclusions are contradicted by the fact that non-Christian documents, that is, documents not officially recognized as Christian, are very little known and, in particular, are given little consideration by Christian theologians. A large part of this lack of consideration is actually due to the fact that Christianity, and in particular the mystery of Golgotha itself, has not been understood spiritually enough; that it has not been possible to form a proper concept of the Pauline mental image, which distinguishes between the psychic man and the pneumatic man. Take, for example, our most elementary division of man into body, soul, and spirit. Basically, Paul, who was familiar with ancient mystery truths in their atavistic character, meant nothing else by his distinction between the psychic and the pneumatic human being than what we must mean in a renewed form when we speak of the soul and the spirit as two members of human nature. But it is precisely this distinction between the psychic and the pneumatic human being, this distinction between soul and spirit, that has more or less been lost in Western thinking. However, one cannot contemplate the mystery of Golgotha in its true essence without having concepts of the pneumatic human being as distinct from the psychic human being.

[ 6 ] Now I would like to begin by mentioning a few things that I have already mentioned in previous years, things that can show you that some purely external historical facts are viewed incorrectly, particularly when it comes to recent research into the life of Jesus. I mean, people say that the Gospels were written late. Yes, you see, there are some purely historical facts that can be used to counter this. For example, it can be countered that Rabbi Gamaliel II had a trial in the year 70 of our era. This trial concerned the following. Rabbi Gamaliel II was the son of Rabbi Simeon, who was the son of Gamaliel, the Gamaliel whose disciple was Paul; and that Gamaliel II had a sister, and he became involved in an inheritance dispute with this sister. They were brought before the judge, and the judge was a Roman who was sympathetic to Christianity, or perhaps a Jew who was sympathetic to Christianity; it is difficult to determine. Gamaliel claimed that he was the sole heir because, according to Mosaic law, daughters cannot inherit. The judge objected: since you Jews lost your land, the Torah of Moses no longer applies, but the Gospel applies, and according to the Gospel, the sister must also inherit. At first, there was nothing that could be done by straightforward means. But what happened? Gamaliel II, who was not only greedy for inheritance but also cunning—today we would say—he requested that the trial be postponed. And that is what happened. The trial was initially postponed, and in the meantime Gamaliel II bribed the judge. At the second hearing, he stood before the bribed judge, who now decided differently and said: Yes, he had been wrong in the first trial. Although the Gospel should be applied to such trials, the Gospel states that the Torah of Moses should not be abolished by the Gospel. And to reinforce this, the verse from Matthew 5:17 is quoted, which states that the law should not be abolished in the version that it has today, of course with the deviations that result from the Greek language and the language in which the Gospel was available at the time when this judgment was passed in the year 70. But this ruling simply refers to the Gospel of Matthew, and the Talmud, which reports these things, speaks of this Gospel of Matthew as something completely self-evident.

[7] Many other examples could be cited to show that, even if one expands the otherwise very careful research, one is not on entirely secure ground, even from a purely external historical point of view, unless one pushes back the origin of the Gospels much further. External historical research will also justify what forms the basis of my book “Christianity as a Mystical Fact” from completely different, namely purely spiritual sources.

[ 8 ] Now, everything that relates to the mystery of Golgotha actually holds still holds profound mysteries for the present day, which will be solved as Spiritual Science insight continues to advance. Many things can point out to people today that the questions are not as simple as the mental images suggest today. For example, little attention is paid today to the relationship of Judaism at that time to the views about Christ Jesus in the first Christian century. There are theologians who study certain Jewish writings in order to demonstrate various points. However, it can easily be proven that these Jewish writings, on which so much is based, did not even exist in the first century of the Christian era. But one thing also seems to be historically verifiable: that in the first century, particularly in the second third of the first century, there was a good, relatively good relationship between Judaism and Christianity, if one wants to use that word for that time; that in general, when certain enlightened Jews of that time entered into discussions with followers of Christ Jesus about certain questions, it was not too difficult to to reach a consensus of views. One need only recall cases such as that of the famous Rabbi Eliezer, who in the middle of the first century met a certain Jacob—as he calls him—who professed to be a disciple of Jesus and who healed in the name of Christ Jesus. The famous Rabbi Elieser discussed this with Jacob, and in the course of the conversation he said: “Actually, what this Jacob says is not at all contrary to the inner spirit of Judaism, and in particular not that he heals the sick in the name of Jesus.”

[ 9 ] One can now see that this more or less existing slight compatibility of the older times, especially towards the end of the first century, is disappearing; that, in other words, even enlightened Jews are becoming terrible opponents, haters of everything Christian. And so it came to pass that when the Jewish writings that are considered important today were composed in the second century of our era, a completely different mood entered into the composition of these Jewish writings than was actually present in Judaism with regard to Christianity in the first century. One can actually follow things from decade to decade and see that a certain hatred of Christianity is developing, especially in Judaism. This goes hand in hand with a reversal within Judaism itself. One can actually say that even though today's representatives of Judaism naturally know the Old Testament in their own way, they do not know what else was alive in Judaism at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, and so they too often misunderstand what is actually the main point of a truly historical view. It must be clearly understood that even in the first Christian century, the Old Testament was read in a completely different way than it can be read today, even by the most learned Jewish rabbis. Especially since the nineteenth century, the ability to read ancient writings has been more or less lost. For certain things that even in the eighteenth century were still present as a secret tradition among ancient atavistic clairvoyants truths, the people of the nineteenth century could no longer create any mental images at all. And today's people can no longer create any mental images other than that those who speak of such things, even if they belong to earlier times, are confused minds!

[ 10 ] Last time, I drew your attention to an important book, Saint-Martin's Des erreurs et de la vérité. This book is certainly a late product of its kind, insofar as it speaks from traditions of ancient insights that have already become quite shadowy, but nevertheless still speaks from these traditions. I have already quoted several passages from this book, which modern man cannot really comprehend. But if we consider the following view, which is found in Saint-Martin, we will see even more clearly how Saint-Martin deals with things that, if we are not to regard them as fiction — and today we regard almost everything as fiction — are the purest madness to modern man. Saint-Martin suggests that the human race, as it is now, has sunk from an ancient, primeval state into its present condition. With a certain degree of abstraction, some people today who do not swear by the materialistic worldview can still accept that the present human race can be traced back to older times, in which it was, in a sense, higher in part of its being. After all, despite the materialistic coloring of Darwinism, which assumes that man has merely evolved from animality, there are still other people who believe that man has descended from a certain height of origin, in which, as I have explained, there were divine primordial traditions. But when it goes beyond this abstract notion and comes to such concrete assertions as those found in Saint-Martin, and found in Saint-Martin only because they tie in with ancient traditions from the old clairvoyant era, then, yes, then modern man can no longer create a mental image of such things.

[ 11 ] What is modern man, who has a thorough knowledge of chemistry, geology, biology, physiology, and so on, and who has also absorbed that strange construct we now call philosophy, supposed to have in his mind when Saint-Martin says: The human race today is only what it has become after the Fall; it was originally quite different. Man originally had a kind of impenetrable armor. He has lost this armor. It originally belonged to his organic being. With this armor, he was able to survive the great struggle that was actually imposed on him in primeval times. And in primeval times, man had a bronze lance. This bronze lance could wound as fire wounds. And with this bronze lance, man was able to withstand the battle against beings quite different from human beings, which was imposed on him in those days. And man had seven trees at his disposal in the place where he originally was. Each of these trees had 16 roots and 490 branches. Man has left this place. He has sunk down.

[ 12 ] I do not believe that modern man would consider it entirely sensible to do what Saint-Martin undoubtedly did: to demand that his view be regarded as a reality in the same way that geologists demand that the beautiful constructions they make for primeval times be regarded as reality. One would have to come up with all kinds of abstract allegories or symbols, then one would be forgiven a little for the story. But that is not what Saint-Martin means; Saint-Martin means realities that were originally there. It was, of course, necessary for Saint-Martin to choose imaginations for certain things that existed at that time, when the earth was still more spiritual in its origin than it was later. . But imaginations are representations of realities; they must not be interpreted symbolically, but must be taken at face value in their imaginative content. — I wanted to mention this, not to go into this matter now, but only to show you how fundamentally different the language was in the eighteenth century, in which a book such as " Des erreurs et de la vérité" is written, from the language that is considered today to be the only real one. This way of reading, which can still be found in Saint-Martin, has really died out.

[ 13 ] But since, for example, the Old Testament can only be read in depth if one still or once again masters certain things related to mental images, you can understand that, especially with the nineteenth century, the possibility of reading the Old Testament has been lost. But the further back one goes, the more one finds that, especially in Judaism, at the time when the mystery of Golgotha took place, there was, alongside the outer Old Testament, what can be called a mystery view, a real mystery view. And much of this mystery view consisted precisely in the fact that it gave one the opportunity to read the Testament in the right way. Now there is no possibility of reading the Testament in the right way if one does not take its assertions against the background of spiritual facts.

[ 14 ] At the time of the mystery of Golgotha, it was Roman culture that was most averse to the particular coloring of Jewish secret teaching. And it can be said that there have perhaps been no greater contrasts in the evolution of the earth than the contrast between Roman culture and the mystery view of the world preserved by the initiates in Palestine. But of course, one must not take this mystery view of the world that existed in Palestine as it existed in Palestine at that time, because then one would not find Christianity in it, but only something like a prophetic foreshadowing of Christianity. On the other hand, however, what pulsated in Christianity can only be understood if one can view it against the historical background of the mystery teachings that existed in Palestine. This mystery teaching, however, was full of secrets about the pneumatic human being, full of that which points human knowledge to the path into the spiritual world. Much of what lived in this secret teaching also lived, more or less, in branches of the Greek mysteries. But little of it lived in the Roman mysteries. Roman culture had no use for the fundamental nerve of the Palestinian mysteries. It had no use for this fundamental nerve because Roman culture developed a kind of human coexistence, a special kind of human coexistence, that can only exist if one does not concern oneself with the pneumatic human being. This is the real secret of Roman history, that in this Roman history a coexistence of people was to be established in which the pneumatic human being was more or less eliminated. Something was to be established in which it made no sense to speak of human beings in their threefold nature: body, soul, and spirit. The further back one goes, the more one sees that the ancient conception of the mystery of Golgotha was based precisely on founded on this distinction of the whole human being into body, soul, and spirit, just as Paul still speaks quite clearly of the psychic and pneumatic human being, of the soul and spirit human being. But this had to be highly offensive to all the sensibilities of a Roman. And this also explains the reason for much of what happened in the following period.

[ 15 ] As you know, the view that is no longer useful today, but which at that time sought to preserve the division of the human being and the world in general into body, soul, and spirit, is Gnosticism. In the course of further development, it was more or less completely eliminated, correctly eliminated, suppressed, so that Gnosticism disappeared entirely. I do not mean to say that it should have been preserved, but I only want to state the historical fact that Gnosticism still contains the prospect of a spiritual understanding of the mystery of Golgotha and is being suppressed. A very peculiar development now ensues: Christianity flows more and more into the Roman essence. But to the same extent that it flows into the Roman essence, it is not understood by this Roman essence in relation to its relationship to the pneumatic human being. And it caused more and more offense that certain Gnostic representatives of Christianity still spoke of body, soul, and spirit. In the circles where Christianity had become official in the Roman way, attempts were made to conceal and suppress the spirit, the concept of the spirit, more and more. There was a feeling that people should not be made aware of the spirit, because this could revive all the old ideas — so it was believed — about the division of the human being into body, soul, and spirit.

[ 16 ] And so development continued. And if one looks closely at the first centuries of Christian development, one finds that much of what is usually explained differently can be seen in the right light when one knows that Roman Christianity was increasingly concerned with making the concept of the spirit disappear completely. Countless questions of conscience and questions of knowledge, only come into the right light when one responds to this need of European Christianity to abolish the spirit. And this development ultimately led to the Eighth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 869 establishing a formula, a dogma, which may not yet have been so clear in its wording, but which then led to it being interpreted as unchristian to speak of body, soul, and spirit; that it was solely Christian to say that man consists of body and soul. The Eighth Ecumenical Council initially presented the matter only in such a way that the formula read: Man has a thinking and a spiritual soul. In order not to have to speak of the spirit as a special entity, the formula was coined: Man has an imagining and a spiritual soul. But everything boiled down to pushing the spirit out of the worldview.

[ 17 ] There is much associated with this that people do not know. Our philosophers today still approach their considerations in such a way that they examine the physical on the one hand and the spiritual on the other. If you were to ask these people, for example Wundt or similar minds, what this is based on, they would naturally believe that it is based on realities, on real observation, which boils down to the conclusion that it makes no sense to speak of body, soul, and spirit, but only of the body, which is directed outward, and of the soul, which is directed inward. What else would someone like Wundt say other than: That is, of course, the obvious conclusion! — He has no idea that all this is the result of what the Eighth Ecumenical Council established. Contemporary philosophers still do not speak of the spirit, because they follow the dogma of the Eighth Ecumenical Council. Why, even if not in clear words, modern philosophers renounce the spirit, they know as little as the Roman cardinals knew what they were actually swearing to when they swore to preserve the treasure that had long since ceased to exist. The enduring things in history, the real forces, are often given so little consideration. And so today one can be considered ignorant if one does not agree with “unconditional” science — as it is called — that human beings consist only of body and soul, simply because those who represent unconditional science do not know that the prerequisite for this is the determinations of the Eighth Ecumenical Council in 869. And so it is with very, very many things. One might say: this Eighth Council is at the same time an important window through which one can look into a good part of Western development.

[ 18 ] You know, of course, that there is a deep rift in Western development with regard to the division between those forms of religion that continue today in the Russian Orthodox Church and those forms of religion that continue in the Roman Catholic Church or that have developed out of it. From a purely dogmatic point of view — of course there are other, much deeper impulses behind these things — but from a purely dogmatic point of view, one of the differences, as you know, is the famous “filioque.” After the later council—the Russian Church only recognizes the first seven councils—the Roman Catholic Church recognizes the formula that the Holy Spirit proceeds, as they say, “from both the Father and the Son”; not only from the Father, but also from the Son. This was declared heretical by Constantinople. The Russian Church — as I said, there are much deeper impulses behind this, but that is just to be noted today — recognizes that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. — The great confusion regarding this dogma could, of course, only have arisen because people became confused about the concept of the Spirit in the first place, because they gradually lost the concept of the Spirit altogether. However, this is connected with the fact that, towards the end of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural period, human beings were to be excluded from the perception of the Spirit for a time. In contrast to this truth, what happened then is, one might say, the mirror image playing out on the surface. But one must see through what lies in this mirror image if one wants to arrive at a valid perception saturated with reality.

[ 19 ] Now, the development that had an important moment in the dogmatic assertion that there is no spirit, that human beings consist only of body and soul, is not complete. The Christian theologians of the Middle Ages, who still lived in the midst of the continuing traditions—for it was actually only orthodox church doctrine that man consists of body and soul, while the alchemists and other people who were still familiar with the old traditions knew, of course, that man consists of body, soul, and spirit— found it extremely difficult to find a way to be orthodox on the one hand and yet recognize on the other that there was something behind the heretical teachings that were widespread about the division of man into body, soul, and spirit. We see everywhere how Christian theologians of the Middle Ages twisted and turned and could not cope with avoiding, as they said, the so-called trichotomy, the division of the human being into three parts. Anyone who does not study medieval Christian theology in terms of these difficulties that theology had in avoiding trichotomy cannot understand it at all.

[ 20 ] However, this development, which is indicated here, is far from complete, for it corresponds to an extraordinarily important impulse in the development of Western culture. And because so many things will happen in the twentieth century that one must know about if one wants to understand the present time, this must also be pointed out again. You see, originally — that is, if we call what arose in this relatively later period “original” — human beings were divided into body, soul, and spirit. Development had progressed so far that in the ninth century the spirit could be abolished. But now the matter is going further. One does not notice it properly today because one does not even consider such weighty matters as the complete transformation of thinking, for example, from Saint-Martin to the present day. The matter is progressing, and it is not enough that the spirit has been abolished; humanity is tending toward abolishing the soul as well. So far, only preliminary steps have been taken in this direction, harbingers, but the time is already ripe today for the abolition of the soul as well. It's just that people are not aware of such important trends that are taking place in our time. We already have significant moments of development that are preparing the way for the abolition of the soul. Councils will not be held as they were in the ninth century; things are done differently today. I must emphasize again and again: I am not criticizing these things, I am merely presenting the facts to your soul.

[ 21 ] A very far-reaching beginning toward the abolition of the soul is present in the most diverse areas. In the nineteenth century, for example, what is known as historical materialism emerged, which has become the fundamental historical view of today's social democracy. If one considers Engels and Marx to be the most important — well, how should one put it, perhaps one should not use an old word, but perhaps among ourselves — if one considers them to be the most important " prophets" of historical materialism, they are the direct, immediate descendants — historically speaking — of the fathers of the Eighth Ecumenical Council. There you have the continuous development. What the fathers did back then in abolishing the spirit, Marx and Engels continued in their already very far-reaching attempt to abolish the soul. According to this view, all spiritual impulses are no longer valid, but what drives history forward are only material impulses, the struggle for material goods. And the spiritual is only, as it has been expressed, the superstructure to the actual foundation of purely material progress. But it is particularly important to recognize the genuine catholicity, the catholicity of Marx and Engels. Above all, it is important to see in these endeavors of the nineteenth century the genuine, true continuation of what has happened with regard to the abolition of the spirit.

[ 22 ] Another impulse toward the abolition of the soul lies in the development of the modern scientific worldview. The scientific worldview — I do not mean science itself, but the scientific worldview, which above all wants to accept only the physical as real, and regards everything spiritual as merely an appearance, or as a superstructure of the physical — is the direct continuation of the development that we have just summarized in its important moments at the Eighth Ecumenical Council. However, a large part of humanity will perhaps not believe in this until, coming from certain centers of earthly development, the abolition of the soul will attain the force of law; will attain more or less the force of law. For it will not be long before laws are enacted in many countries which will amount to declaring anyone who seriously speaks of a soul to be insane, and declaring only those to be completely sane who recognize the “truth” that thinking, feeling, and willing arise from certain processes of the body in a completely necessary way. Various things have already begun in this direction, but as long as what has begun is only a theoretical view, it will not have a great, profound effect and significance. It will attain this profound effect and significance when it enters into the social order, into the social life of human beings. And the first half of this century will hardly come to an end without something happening in these areas that is terrible for those who understand: namely, an abhorrence of the soul, just as the spirit was abhorred in the ninth century.

[ 23 ] One can only say again and again: what is at stake is insight into such things, insight into the impulses within which human beings live in the course of historical development: insight into these things. For it is all too true of humanity today that, under the influence of a purely materialistic worldview, it has surrendered to a kind of sleep. The materialistic worldview in a certain way shuts people off from real thinking, from a truly healthy view of reality, lulling them into complacency with regard to the important things that really live in historical development. And so even today, even among those who would like to pursue a certain longing for spiritual knowledge, there is still no strong will to awaken to certain impulses that lie within our development, to truly awaken; to truly try to see things in their context, as they are.

[ 24 ] So there was a kind of secret teaching in Palestine that prepared the way for the Mystery of Golgotha, which was like a fulfillment of that teaching. I have expressed this by saying that the Mystery of Golgotha brought the greatest mystery of the earth's history to the historical stage. If that is the case, then one may ask: Why did Roman culture develop such a strong antipathy toward what emerged as Christianity in connection with the Mystery of Golgotha? And why did these impulses result in the spirit being virtually abolished?

[ 25 ] Things always have much deeper connections than one actually notices when looking at them only superficially. For not many people today would admit that Marx and Engels are Church Fathers; but that is not a particularly profound truth. A deeper truth can be found if we consider the following: in the court where Christ Jesus was condemned, it was mainly Sadducees who were active, those who were called Sadducees. What were they at the time when the mystery of Golgotha took place? What were they, really, who were rightly called Sadducees at that time? They were the people who wanted to sweep away, get rid of, and eliminate everything that came from the mystery. These Sadducees were precisely those who had a certain horror, a dread, a shudder at all mystery cults. But they were the ones who controlled the court. And they were also the ones who controlled the administration in Palestine at that time. But they were completely under the influence of the Roman state, entirely under the influence of the Roman state. They were basically the servants of the Roman state, which was already evident in the fact that they bought their positions with huge sums of money and then extorted these huge sums from the Jewish population of Palestine. It was they whose gaze was directed above all toward this — because, one might say, their Ahrimanic materialism had sharpened their gaze — it was they whose gaze was directed above all toward seeing that a great danger to Romanism would arise if what happened with Christ in harmony with the mystery beings were to gain acceptance in any way. They had an instinctive sense that something was emanating from Christianity that would gradually destroy Roman civilization. And this is connected with the fact that, basically, during the first century and even into later centuries, these terrible wars of extermination were waged by Roman civilization against Palestinian Judaism. And these wars of extermination, which were of a terrible nature, were waged mainly with the aim of eradicating, along with the Jews who were to be slaughtered, all those who knew anything about the tradition and reality of the mysteries. Everything connected with the mystery cults that existed in Palestine was to be eradicated root and branch.

[ 26 ] And this eradication is closely connected with the fact that the view of the pneumatic human being, the path to the pneumatic human being, was initially, I would say, blocked and walled up. It would have become dangerous for those who later wanted to abolish the spirit from Rome, from Romanized Christianity; it would have become dangerous for them if there had still been many who knew something about the paths to the spirit from the old schools of Palestine, who could still have testified that man consists of body, soul, and spirit. For something had to be established in relation to the external human order, based on what emanated from Roman culture, in which the spirit had no place. A current of development had to be initiated that excluded spiritual impulses. This would not have been possible if too many people had known about the mystery interpretation of the mystery of Golgotha. For instinctively it was felt that what was to develop out of the Roman state must have nothing of the spirit in it. The Church and the Roman state entered into a marriage, and out of this marriage they also incorporated jurisprudence. In all this, the spirit was not allowed to have a say. That was important.

[ 27 ] But it is equally important to realize that we are now living in an age in which the spirit must once again be called upon, must be invoked, so that it can have a say in human affairs. Now you can imagine how difficult that will be, since things are so deeply ingrained. I believe that there is a long way to go before wider circles will recognize that materialistic historical research is a proper continuation of the Eighth Ecumenical Council. I also believe that it will be a long road until people understand what is actually contained in the few letters that distinguish Eastern Christianity in Europe from Western Christianity in Europe. Today, people are content to talk about all these things only superficially, to make judgments only superficially. Much will have to come from feeling, and feeling can be well guided if one takes one thing into account. The feeling I mean, with which I conclude today, is this:

[ 28 ] Anyone who studies the real history of Europe since the emergence of Christianity and is not satisfied with that fable convenue, which is taught in such a terrible way as history today and is the secret cause of much evil, who has a sense for the real study of history, who has the courage to reject in a sufficiently strong manner that appalling fable convenue which is called history today, will come to a feeling, precisely with regard to the development of Christianity, which can be a leitmotif in the search for the present. For they will find that nothing has encountered so many obstacles, nothing has experienced so much obscurity and distortion as the development of Christianity. Nothing has become as difficult as the propagation of Christianity. And from this arises the further feeling that, if one wants to speak of miracles, there is no greater miracle than this, that Christianity has survived, that Christianity exists. But it is not merely there; we are living today in a time when Christianity will have to assert itself, not only against the abolition of the spirit, but also against the abolition of the soul, and it will assert itself! For it is precisely at the time of greatest resistance that Christianity will develop its greatest strength! And in the resistance that must be developed against the abolition of the soul, the strength will also be found to recognize the spirit again. When from the spirit — forgive me for the improper use of the word — when from the spirit that dominates the present, those laws will arise whereby those people who regard the soul as something real will be declared insane — of course, the laws will not say that those who recognize the soul are insane, but they will be such that under the brutal scientific worldview, such a thing will take place — when this modern, transformed, metamorphosed council decision is in place, then the time will also be ripe to restore the spirit to its rightful place.

[ 29 ] Then, of course, it will have to be recognized that shadowy concepts are not enough if one does not see the deeper origins, the emotional underpinnings of these shadowy concepts. For sometimes shadowy concepts conceal what modern man does not want to admit to himself at all, but to which he is subject. Because he does not want to admit it to himself, because they do not acknowledge it outwardly, it appears in their concepts as punishment. But Saint-Martin says in more important places: One cannot talk about these things. — Certainly, it will not be possible to talk about some things for a long time to come, but some things should already be set up as iron tablets in order to point out to humanity today what actually is. And such a tablet will one day, in the not too distant future, reveal the secret inclinations from which the materialistic interpretation of Darwinism arose, the sensual, perverse inclinations from which materialistic Darwinism arose.

[ 30 ] But I do not want to weigh on your minds with something that could spoil your evening, so I will not finish that sentence, but will only direct your feelings toward such things. Next time, we will at least attempt to sketch a building for which I wanted to lay the building blocks before your souls as a basis for a special consideration of the mystery of Golgotha.