The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] The mystery of Golgotha will be the subject of our consideration during this period. This consideration has been prepared by what I have presented in the last few lectures.

[ 2 ] Let us recall the most important points to consider in this regard. Last time, I mentioned that any real knowledge of the world that satisfies the human soul must include the insight that both the structure of the world and the structure of humanity, the structure of the human being, must be based on the three principles of body, soul, and spirit. This is what needs to be recognized most intensively in our anthroposophical field at present. Therefore, I would like to point out that already in my “Theosophy,” even in its first edition, the nerve center of the entire discussion is based on this threefold structure. You will all have read this Theosophy and will know that, in a sense, the skeleton of the entire book lies in this threefold structure, which is then expressed in particular in the words:

[3]“The spirit is imperishable; birth and death govern according to the laws of the physical world in physicality; the soul life, which is subject to fate, mediates the connection between the two during an earthly life.”

[ 4 ] This means that at that time it must have been considered necessary to point out this threefold division in as clear terms as possible. For it is only with the very special, I would say central, emphasis on this threefold division that one actually stands on the ground on which one must stand if, in our time, one is to grasp, or strive to grasp, the understanding of the world and, within this understanding of the world, the understanding of the central event of our earth's development: the central event of the mystery of Golgotha.

[ 5 ] Now, just last time, I explained to you all the obstacles that arise when, in our time, we strive to understand the world and human beings in such a way that the division into body, soul, and spirit is not merely mentioned in passing, but is presented as a central idea. I have explained to you what has been opposed to this in Western spiritual development, and I have explained to you how the concept of the spirit has been lost in this Western development. I have mentioned that the Eighth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople virtually eliminated the spirit, or rather the idea of the spirit, from Western thinking, and that this elimination of the idea of the spirit has not only influenced the development of religious ideas and feelings, but has also had a profound effect on all thinking in modern times, so that today there is still no official philosophy that can correctly distinguish between soul and spirit. And everywhere, even among people who believe they are building on an unprejudiced foundation, one encounters the prejudiced assertion, brought about by the Eighth Ecumenical Council, that human beings consist of body and soul. Anyone who is truly familiar with the spiritual life of the West, not only as it exists in the more superficial areas of philosophy, but as it has become ingrained in the thinking and feeling of all people, even those who do not think about philosophical ideas in any way, will see everywhere the influence of the elimination of the idea of the spirit. And when, in recent times, the tendency arose to take over some elements of Eastern wisdom in order to correct certain aspects of Western wisdom, what was taken over was presented in a light that made it difficult to imagine that the world and humanity are based on the structure of body, soul, spirit. For in the structure of the human being, which emerged purely from astral observation, into dense body, etheric body, astral body, sthula sharira, linga sharira — prâna, as it was then called —, kâma, kâma-manas, and all the things that have been brought over from the Orient to the Occident — in all these divisions, which string together seven principles in such an unprincipled way, there is no trace of what would be most important: to permeate our worldview with the division into body, soul, and spirit.

[ 6 ] One could even say that this division into body, soul, and spirit has been buried. Certainly, there is still much talk about the spirit today, but what is spoken are words. Only today, people can no longer distinguish words from things. That is why statements consisting of mere, I would say, kaleidoscopic word combinations, such as Eucken's philosophy, are taken seriously.

[ 7 ] Now, the essence of the mystery of Golgotha cannot be understood if one wants to dispense with the threefold division into body, soul, and spirit. However, as I explained last time, the renunciation of the spirit became dogmatic with the Eighth Ecumenical Council, but the matter had been in preparation for a long time. And the fact that it came about is basically connected with a necessary development in Western intellectual life. Perhaps the easiest way to understand this is to approach the mystery of Golgotha in this way, the understanding of the mystery of Golgotha, by imagining how Aristotle, at the height of Greek thought, formed his picture of the soul. For Aristotle was at the same time the leading philosopher of the entire Middle Ages, and modern thinking still draws on medieval concepts, however little people want to admit it. Moreover, we can see from this that what developed in human history manifested itself in Aristotle a few centuries before the mystery of Golgotha, and that the leading minds of the Middle Ages then attempted to understand the Mystery of Golgotha with the help of Aristotle's ideas. There is something so extraordinarily significant in these things that one really must take the trouble to look at them with an open mind.

[ 8 ] How does Aristotle think about the human soul? Without further ado, I will simply state how Aristotle thinks about the human soul, that is, what Greek thinking about the human soul has produced in Aristotle, in an enlightened spirit. Aristotle — and with that we have roughly what the most significant European thought about the soul a few centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha — Aristotle thinks: When a human being enters into world development, when an individual human being enters into world development through birth or, let us say, through conception, then he owes his physical existence first and foremost to his father and mother. But, Aristotle believes, only that which constitutes physical existence can come from the father and mother; the whole human being could never arise through the mere union of father and mother. So, according to Aristotle, the whole human being cannot arise through the union of father and mother, because this whole human being has a soul. And this soul has a part — let us understand that Aristotle initially distinguishes two parts in the soul — this whole soul has a part that is completely bound to the body, that expresses itself through the body, which receives its impressions of the outside world through the sensory activity of the body. This part of the soul arises as a necessary product of co-development through the material development of the human being, which comes from the father and mother. This is not the case with the spiritual part of the soul, or — as Aristotle puts it — with the thinking part of the soul, that part of the soul that participates in the general spiritual life of the world through thinking, that participates in the “nus,” in the thinking of the world. For Aristotle, this part of the soul is immaterial, not material, and it could never arise from what comes to man from father and mother, but can only arise for man through the cooperation of God — “the divine,” one would say, if one were to stick to Aristotelian expressions — that the divine participates in the creation of man.

[ 9 ] This is how the human being, the whole human being, comes into being. It is very important to coin the phrase in this way for Aristotle: the whole human being comes into being through the interaction of God with the father and mother. Through God, the human being receives its spiritual, or in Aristotle's sense, one could also say, its thinking part of the soul. This thinking part of the soul, which is created by God in the development of each individual physical human being, through the cooperation of God, is in development during the life between birth and death. When the human being passes through the gate of death, the physical body is handed over to the earth, and with this physical body, that part of the soul which is bound to the organs of the body; but what remains is the spiritual part of the soul. This spiritual part of the soul lives on spiritually in the sense of Aristotle, lives on spiritually in such a way that it is, as it were, transported to a different world than the one with which one is connected through the physical organs, and now lives on in an immortal existence. It lives an immortal existence in the sense of Aristotle, in that the person who has devoted himself to this or that good in life, in the body, is able to look back on this good that he has incorporated into the structure of the world, that is within the structure of the world, but cannot be changed in this structure of the world into which it has been placed. Yes, one can only understand Aristotle correctly if one accepts his ideas in such a way that he thought: for all eternity after death, the soul must look back on some good that it has done, on some evil that it has done.

[ 10 ] It was precisely in the nineteenth century that the greatest conceivable effort was made from various quarters to clearly understand Aristotle, who is sometimes difficult to understand due to his manner of expression, in this idea. And it can already be said that the recently deceased Franz Brentano, in his dispute with Eduard Zeller, tried throughout his life to gather all the building blocks that could lead to a clear idea of what Aristotle thought about the relationship between the spiritual part of the human soul and the whole human being. But what Aristotle thought has been passed down into the philosophy that was taught throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times, and is still taught in certain areas of church life. Franz Brentano, who really studied these ideas intensively insofar as they originate from Aristotle, came to the following conclusion.

[ 11 ] He realized that Aristotle was a mind that was truly elevated above materialism by his inner disposition as a thinker, and therefore could not fall into the belief that the spiritual part of the soul was something material; could not fall into the silly belief that the spiritual part of the soul developed from what a person receives from their father and mother. Therefore, Brentano believes, there were only two possibilities for Aristotle to think about the spiritual part of the soul. One possibility was this: to have the spiritual part of the soul come into being through the direct creation of God in cooperation with what comes from the father and mother, so that the spiritual part of the soul comes into being through the influence of God in the human embryo; but that this spiritual part of the soul does not perish in death, but rather, when humans pass through the gate of death, enters into eternal life. What would Aristotle have been left with, says Brentano, if he had not developed this idea? And Brentano considers it correct that Aristotle accepted this idea for himself. What would he have been left with, he says, if he had not developed this idea? Only a second possibility. There is no third possibility, says Brentano. And this second possibility is this: to assume that the soul of man pre-exists, not merely post-exists, but pre-exists; exists in the spiritual realm before birth, or rather before conception. But then, as soon as one admits — and Brentano recognizes this very clearly — as soon as one admits that the soul somehow pre-exists before conception, exists beforehand, then there is no other option, says Brentano, but to assume that this soul is not only embodied once in a lifetime, but appears again and again in repeated earthly lives. There is no other possibility at all. And since, Brentano believes that Aristotle, in his more mature period, rejected palingenesis, i.e., repeated earthly lives, leaving him with no other option than creatianism, the creation of the human soul, the complete new creation of the human soul with each embryonic generation of humans, which does not contradict post-existence, but does contradict pre-existence. Franz Brentano was originally a priest and was still, I would say, one of the last minds to believe in what developed as the good side of Aristotelian scholastic philosophy, which is why he considers it above all reasonable for Aristotle to reject the doctrine of repeated earthly lives and to accept only creatianism with post-existence.

[ 12 ] And this view, despite all its variations, nevertheless forms the basis of all Christian philosophy, insofar as this Christian philosophy opposes repeated earthly lives. It is strange, I would say eerily fascinating, to see how such an eminently capable thinker as Franz Brentano, who did indeed take off his priest's robe, struggles to become clearer and clearer about this creatianism of the soul, and how there is no possibility for him to bridge the gap to the doctrine of repeated earthly lives. Why is that? It is because, despite all Brentano's profound intellectual ability, despite his energetic and astute thinking, the concept of the spirit was closed to him; he was never able to arrive at the concept of the spirit and its separation from the concept of the soul. There is no way to arrive at the concept of the spirit without arriving at the concept of repeated earthly lives. One can only lose the teaching of repeated earthly lives if one loses the concept of the spirit altogether. And basically, even in Aristotle's time, the concept of the spirit had, I would say, begun to waver. One can see this in the decisive passages in Aristotle's writings, where he always becomes unclear when he speaks of pre-existence. He always becomes unclear.

[ 13 ] But all this is connected with something tremendously significant and profound; it is connected with the real development of humanity. It is connected with the fact that in the centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, humanity had entered a stage of development in which, I would say, something like a fog settled around the soul when the spirit was spoken of. At that time, it did not settle around the soul of man as strongly as it does today when the spirit is spoken of, but the whole process of corruption of thinking in relation to the spirit began at that very time. And that, my dear friends, is connected with the fact that humanity has indeed undergone a development in the course of time, that in a sense the soul has become something different in the course of time than it was in the primeval times of human development on earth. In those primeval times of human development on earth, there was a direct experience of the spirit through the presence of atavistic clairvoyance. There could be no doubt about the spirit. One could no more doubt the spirit than one could doubt the external sensory world. The question was always only whether people would more or less come to perceive the spirit. But in certain earlier periods of human development, no one could doubt that the path to the spirit of the human soul was possible. Nor could anyone doubt that during earthly life between birth and death, the spirit lives in the human soul, so that through this spiritual content, the human soul participates in divine life. No one could doubt this. And this conviction, based on the immediate consciousness of the spirit, was expressed everywhere in the mysteries and their cultivation. But it is remarkable that even one of the oldest Greek philosophers, the ancient Heraclitus, speaks of the mysteries in such a way that one can see he knows that in even older times the mysteries were something tremendously significant for human beings, but that they had already declined from their former height. So very early on, enlightened Greeks were already saying that the mysteries had already declined from their height.

[ 14 ] Many things were practiced in these mysteries. Today, however, in our context, we are primarily interested in the central idea of these mysteries. Let us dwell for a moment on this central idea of the mysteries, as they were practiced until the time of the mystery of Golgotha, as they were still practiced in the time of Emperor Julian the Apostate. For in recent times, some aspects of the cultivation of these mysteries have been repeatedly emphasized, I would say, in an anti-Christian sense. Attention has been drawn to how what is told as the Easter legend, as the mystery of Golgotha, that is, the actual central legend of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ, has been lived everywhere in the mysteries. And from this, conclusions have been drawn to the effect that the Easter mystery of Christianity is basically only a kind of transfer of ancient mystery customs, ancient pagan mystery customs, to the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And speaking in this way, some people seem to be able to say things that do not cast doubt on the truth of the idea they want to express: What Christians say about God Christ suffering, being put to death, rising again, that this resurrection is linked to people's hope and longing for salvation, what Christians have formed as such ideas, these people say, lived on in the mysteries, in the most diverse mystery cults. The pagan customs were collected and merged into the Easter legend and transferred to the personality of Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 15 ] In more recent times, people have gone even further, strangely enough even in officially Christian areas, in that — one need only recall certain currents in Bremen — they find the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth completely irrelevant and say: Through social life, the various mystery legends and mystery cults were collected, centralized, as it were, and the Christ legend developed from the old pagan legend in the early Christian community. In a discussion that took place here in Berlin years ago—through these painful last few years, what preceded them has in many ways become myth and seems terribly distant to us, but the discussion was only a few years ago —, during this discussion it was possible to see how official representatives of Christianity held the view that it could not actually be a question of a historical Jesus of Nazareth, but only of an “idea of Christ,” which had arisen as an idea in the early Christian community through all kinds of social impulses.

[ 16 ] It is fair to say that there is something infinitely seductive about contemplating the pagan mystery cults and comparing them with what has developed as the Christian mystery of Easter. Just take, for example, a faithful description of the Phrygian festivals that come to mind. And just as one could cite the Phrygian festivals, one could cite other festivals as well, for these festivals were very widespread in a similar way. Firmicus, for example, tells of the Phrygian festival in a letter to Constantine's sons: The image of Attis, a certain god—we need not go into further detail about which god—the image of the god was attached to a tree trunk, solemnly carried around in procession with this tree trunk in a midnight ritual, and then the sufferings of the god were also celebrated; a lamb was placed next to the tree. The next day, the resurrection of the god was proclaimed. And while the day before, when the god had been attached to the tree trunk, thus consigned to death, so to speak, the ritual broke out in the most terrible lamentations, the lamentation suddenly turned into exuberant joy the next day, when the resurrection of the god was celebrated. Elsewhere, Firmicus recounts, the image of the god Attis was buried. At night, when the mourning had reached its peak, lights were suddenly lit, the tomb was opened, and the god had risen. And the priest spoke the words: Take comfort, you pious ones, for since the god has been saved, you too will receive what you need, salvation.

[ 17 ] Who could deny that these ritual celebrations, which were celebrated everywhere centuries and centuries before the mystery of Golgotha, bear a great resemblance to what has become part of the Easter mystery within Christianity? Because it was so tempting to to think this way, people believed that these ideas of the suffering, dying, and risen God were spread everywhere, and they were centralized among Christians and transferred to Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 18 ] Now it is important to understand where all these festivals, these pagan, these pre-Christian festivals, actually come from. For they go back a long way, far back to those times when the mysteries were formed in such a way that they were developed from the deepest, most original insights into the nature of man and his connection with the world, as presented in atavistic clairvoyance. Certainly, at the time when the Phrygian celebrations were held, people knew about as much about the actual meaning of these things as we know today in certain Masonic temples about the ceremonies that are performed there. But nevertheless, these things go back to an originally magnificent knowledge of the world and human beings, a knowledge that is really extremely difficult to understand today. For just consider that human beings do not really live in their environment only with their outer physical body, are not dependent on their environment only in relation to their physical body, but that human beings also live in their outer environment with their soul and spirit. They absorb the ideas and mental images of this external environment, which become familiar to them, become habitual, and for various reasons they cannot detach themselves from them. So that one can have a lot of good will and still have difficulty understanding certain things that have been lost for the reasons already mentioned and for other reasons related to the spiritual development of humanity.

[ 19 ] What is science today — I don't need to say at every opportunity that I admire it, I certainly do admire it, but nevertheless — clings to the very outermost surface of things; it clings to that which leads in the slightest way to the essence. The fact that this science has nevertheless made great strides in certain areas is only because what is sometimes meant by “great strides” is simply this or that. Certainly, one can admire the fact that this science has led to wireless telegraphy and many other things that play a major role in our day, and one can raise the question: What would we have if we had not arrived at this? If one were to enter into a discussion of these questions, one would already come up against something that is forbidden to discuss at all today. What is currently considered science is, of course, wisdom, which then had its last offshoots, its already corrupted offshoots, in the aforementioned mystery cults, simply nonsense, simply folly. That may be so. Paul already mentioned that what people consider folly could often be wisdom before God.

[ 20 ] A true insight into the nature of humanity and the world results, among many other things — I want to emphasize today the points of view that are important for our understanding of the mystery of Golgotha — in a certain view of the human organism that today, of course, seems completely crazy to science. This human organism differs quite significantly from the organism of the animal. Now, we have already mentioned many differences, but today we want to mention the one that must interest us in relation to the mystery of Golgotha. The human organism differs very significantly from the animal organism, because the animal organism, when studied properly with the means of Spiritual Science, carries within itself the natural impulse of death. In other words, if you really get to know the animal organism through Spiritual Science, you can explain from the nature of the animal organism that the animal organism must go through death as it does, that the animal will one day decay and be returned to the elements of the earth. The death of the animal is not something incomprehensible, but is just as comprehensible from the study of the animal organism as it is comprehensible from the study of the same that the animal must eat and drink. The nature of the animal organism results in the necessity of animal death.

[ 21 ] This is not the case for the nature of the human organism. Here, of course, we enter a realm that must remain completely incomprehensible to modern science. If you study the human organism with all the means of Spiritual Science, there is nothing within the human organism itself that explains the necessity of death, that explains it unconditionally. There is nothing that explains the necessity of death. In the case of human beings, death must be accepted as something that is simply experienced, and it is impossible to explain why human beings actually die. For human beings are not originally born for death, nor are they born for death as external organisms. The fact that death can occur from within human beings cannot be explained by human nature itself. As this human being is a human being, it cannot be explained.

[ 22 ] I am well aware that today this is considered completely foolish by all those who want to be at the forefront of science. It is generally quite difficult to deal with all these things, because they are actually connected with areas of the deepest mysteries. And even today, when one wants to explain such things in context, one still encounters something that cannot be expressed in any other way than as Saint-Martin, whom I spoke about here recently, expresses it several times in his book “Des erreurs et de la vérité” (Errors and Truth). At an important point, where he discusses the consequences for human development of a certain process that took place in the spiritual realm before humans first incarnated physically, Saint-Martin, when he wants to talk about this supernatural spiritual process, uses words that everyone who is more familiar with such things understands:

[ 23 ] “However much I wish to get there, my obligations forbid me from giving the slightest explanation on this point; and besides, for my own good, I would rather blush at the transgressions of man than talk about them.”

[ 24 ] In this case, Saint-Martin would have to speak of a transgression committed by man before he entered his first earthly incarnation. He cannot do that. Now, for certain reasons—not because people have become better since Saint-Martin's time, but for many other reasons—it is possible today to say many things that Saint-Martin could not yet say. But if one wanted to discuss a truth such as that man is not actually born for death, in connection with everything that comes into consideration, then one would also have to touch on things that cannot yet be heard by today's ear in general. Human beings are not born for death, and yet they die! This expresses something that is, of course, foolishness to the very wise people of today's science, but which is one of the deepest mysteries for those who want to advance to a true understanding of the world. Human beings are not born for death, and yet they die.

[ 25 ] You see, this awareness that human beings are not born for death and yet die is, in essence, what runs like a mysterious impulse through those ancient mysteries, including the Attis mysteries to which I have referred. In these mysteries, a way of understanding this was sought, as it were: Man is not born for death, and yet he dies. — The mysteries were intended, as it were, to provide an answer to this mystery. Why were these mysteries performed? They were performed in order to hear something new each year. Something that people wanted to hear, something they wanted to feel, something they wanted to experience in their souls — they wanted to hear this anew each year. They wanted to hear that the time had not yet come when man would have to look seriously at his inexplicable death. What did such a believer actually expect from the priest of Attis? Such a believer had the instinctive certainty: There will come a time for the earth when it will become serious, very serious, to look at inexplicable death. But that time will come. And as the priest celebrated the suffering of the god and the resurrection of the god, this celebration became a consolation: The time has not yet come when one must be serious about understanding death.

[ 26 ] For in those ancient times, everyone knew that the event described in the Bible at the very beginning of the Old Testament, which we will call “symbolic” for my sake, pointed to a reality. These ancient people knew this instinctively. Only modern materialism has gone beyond this instinctive feeling that the description of the temptation by Lucifer points to a real event. Certainly, the intellectual sodomy that lies in the materialistic interpretation of Darwinism differs very significantly from what must be regarded as truth in such a context. For this intellectual sodomy thinks: In ancient times there were animals of a certain kind, and they gradually developed into the human beings of today. In this materialistic interpretation of Darwinism, of course, there is no place for the story of the temptation in Paradise. For it would require a completely degenerate mind to believe that a primeval ape or ape-woman could have been tempted by Lucifer.

[ 27 ] Well, there was an instinctive certainty that behind what is told at the beginning of the Old Testament there was a former fact. And how was this fact perceived? This fact was perceived in such a way that people said to themselves: As man was originally physically organized, he was not mortal; but through this fact, something was added to his original organization that corrupts his organization and causes him to have an impulse of mortality. Through a moral process, man became mortal, through what — we will come back to this later — lies in the mysterious words of original sin. Man did not become mortal in the same way that other natural beings became mortal; he did not become mortal through natural processes, not through material processes, but man became mortal through a moral process. From the soul's point of view, man has become mortal.

[ 28 ] The animal soul as a generic soul is immortal; as a generic soul. It is embodied in the individual animal, which is mortal through its organs. The generic soul emerges from the mortal animal just as it had been embodied in it. But the animal organization is from the outset designed as an individual organization for dying. The human organization is not to the same extent. The human organization is such that what underlies this organization as a generational soul, as a human group soul, would be expressed in the individual human being and make him immortal as an external human organization. Man could only become mortal from the soul through a moral act. In a certain way, the soul must be constituted so that man can be mortal. As soon as one takes such things today as one takes abstract concepts, one does not understand the whole thing. Only when one rises to a concrete, actual grasp of the matter does one understand these things.

[ 29 ] Now, in ancient times — even in the times shortly before the Mystery of Golgotha, when these ancient mysteries were celebrated — people had the most intense knowledge: it is the soul of the human being that causes the human being to die. This soul of the human being is in a continuous process of development throughout the ages. What does this development consist of? This development consists of the soul increasingly corrupting the organism, spoiling the organism, and participating more and more in the corruption through which it has a destructive effect on the organism. In ancient times, man looked up and said to himself: A moral event has taken place, through which the soul has become such that when it now dwells in the body through birth, it corrupts this body, but by corrupting the body, it does not live between birth and death as it would if it left it uncorrupted. This has become worse and worse over the centuries and millennia. The soul corrupts the body more and more! So they said. — But with this, the soul finds less and less opportunity to return to the spirit. It corrupts the further human development progresses, the body more and more; in this way it instills death into this body more and more intensely. And a time must come when souls, after having spent so long between birth and death, no longer find any possibility of finding their way back to the spiritual world.

[ 30 ] In ancient times, this moment was awaited with shudders and horror. People said to themselves: Generation after generation will pass, and the generation will come that has souls that corrupt their bodies so intensely and instill death so intensely that it will no longer be possible to find the way back to the divine. This generation will come! — So they said. And they wanted to convince themselves whether the time was more or less approaching. That is why they had the Attis and other customs. They tried, as it were, to see whether there was still so much of the divine in human souls that the time had not yet come when human souls had stripped themselves of all that was divine and could no longer find their way back to God. That is why it was of tremendous significance when the priest said: Take heart, you pious ones; since God is saved, the necessary salvation will also come to you! — By this he meant to say: See, God still has influence in the world; souls have not yet reached the point where they have completely cut themselves off from God; God still rises! — That is what the priest wanted to proclaim to them; it was comfort that the priest proclaimed. God is still in you! — that is what he said.

[ 31 ] When one touches on these things, one touches on such infinitely deep feelings and emotions that once existed in the development of humanity that today's human beings, who have completely externalized their interests, have no idea what people once struggled with. They may have known nothing else of what we now call culture, they may have been completely illiterate, but they had such feelings. And in the priest schools, where the last traditions originating from ancient clairvoyant wisdom were preserved, the following was said to the students being initiated: If development were to continue as it has been under the influence of that moral event at the beginning of Earth's development, then one would have to be prepared for the souls of human beings to find their way away from God, into the world they themselves create by corrupting the human organism toward death, toward ever more intense death. The souls would connect with the earth and, through the earth, with what is called the underworld. The souls would be lost. But since, of course, the wisdom of the spirit was still known in these schools, it was understood that human beings consist of body, soul, and spirit. What I am telling you now was said about the soul, not about the spirit. For the spirit is eternal in itself and has its own laws. What was known about the spirit compelled one to say, so to speak: Souls will disappear into the underworld, but the human spirit will appear in ever-repeating earthly lives. And a future of earthly development was to come in which human spirits would incarnate again, but would look back on all the lost soulfulness that was once in earthly becoming. Souls would be lost. No more souls would come. Spirits would reincarnate, automatically moving the human body without the way in which they moved the human body being felt or sensed in spiritual experience.

[ 32 ] What, then, was the feeling of those who were drawn to the Christian mystery of Easter? The feeling of those who were drawn to the Christian mystery of Easter was this: If nothing else happens on earth than what has happened since time immemorial, then soulless human beings will arise in future repeated earth lives. — They therefore waited for something else. They waited for that which could not be formed within the earth life itself, which was to come into this earth life from outside. In other words, they waited for the mystery of Golgotha. They waited for a being to enter into earthly existence that would rescue the soul, that would snatch the soul from death. The spirit did not need to be snatched from death, but the soul had to be snatched from death. This being, who now entered into earthly development from outside through the body of Jesus of Nazareth, was felt to be the Christ who had appeared to save souls. So that in Christ, human beings have something with which they can connect in their souls, so that through this connection with Christ, the soul loses its corrupting power over the body and gradually regains all that was lost. can be regained. Therefore, the Mystery of Golgotha stands at the center of Earth's development. From the beginning of Earth's development until the Mystery of Golgotha, more and more is lost as more and more corrupting power takes hold in the soul, turning human beings into automatons of the spirit. And from the Mystery of Golgotha to the end of earthly existence is the time when, little by little, what was lost up to the Mystery of Golgotha is gathered again. So that when the earth reaches the end of its development, human spirits will incarnate in their final bodies, bodies that are immortal again. Which are immortal again! This is how the mystery of Easter was understood.

[ 33 ] But for this it was necessary to overcome the power that makes moral corruption possible for the soul. This power was overcome in what Christianity perceives as the actual event of Golgotha. What did an important word sound like to the original Christians who were familiar with these things? They were expecting an event from outside that would make it possible for the power corrupting the soul to lose its power. To them, the words of Christ, “It is finished!” sounded like testimony that the time was now beginning when the corrupting power of the soul would be over.

[ 34 ] A remarkable event, an event that holds tremendous, unimagined secrets. For such tremendous questions arise in view of the mystery of Golgotha. As we continue our reflection, we will see that the mystery of Golgotha cannot be conceived without the risen Christ. Christ the risen one — that is the essential point! And one of the most profound statements is that of Paul: “If Christ had not been raised, our preaching would be in vain, and your faith would be in vain.” The risen Christ belongs to Christianity. And without the risen Christ, there can be no Christianity. Death also belongs to it, the death of Christ. But think about how the matter is presented. And how must it be presented? The innocent one is led to death, led to suffering, led to death. Those who lead him to death obviously bear a heavy guilt. For an innocent man is led to death. They bear a heavy guilt. Nevertheless, what is this guilt for humanity? The salvation of humanity! For if Christ had not died, the salvation of humanity would not have come about. When we face the event of Golgotha, this unique event, we must say to ourselves: The greatest salvation that has happened to humanity on earth is that Christ was killed. The greatest guilt that has been incurred is that Christ was killed. Here the highest salvation coincides with the deepest guilt.

[ 35 ] Certainly, superficial understanding can gloss over such a thing. For those who do not cling to the surface of things, this is a profound mystery. The most monstrous murder in the development of humanity has turned out to be for the salvation of humanity! Feel this mystery. If one wants to understand the mystery of Golgotha, one must at least try to understand this mystery as well. And even if it is expressed in a paradigmatic word, the impetus for the solution also sounds from the cross: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do!” " We shall see that the answer to the meaningful riddle question – why the most monstrous murder is the salvation of human development – lies in the right understanding of these words.

[ 36 ] When you consider all this, you will begin to understand that one must approach the mystery of Golgotha with the concepts of body, soul, and spirit. For Christ died for the souls of human beings. He brings the souls of human beings back into the spiritual world, from which they would have been cut off if he had not come. Morality would have disappeared from the world. The spirit would have been driven in the automatic body by a necessity devoid of morality. With that, one would have been unable to experience anything spiritually. Christ is to turn the souls back again. Is it any wonder that three centuries before the mystery of Golgotha, the most enlightened Greek, Aristotle, did not know how to speak correctly about the soul and its connection with the spirit, since the crisis of the soul was imminent? Is it any wonder, given what was in store for the souls, and given that Aristotle could not have known that the savior of souls was coming, that he spoke incorrectly about the soul? It is no wonder at all! However, another explanation is needed for the fact that for so long, in the spirit of Aristotle, people spoke incorrectly about the connection between soul and spirit. What Christ means for the human soul becomes apparent in the light that shows us the human being in his threefold nature as body, soul, and spirit, and in the intimate connection that exists between objective, real events and moral events; a connection that can never be recognized in its true form unless one recognizes the threefold nature of the human being: body, soul, and spirit.

[ 37 ] Today, too, I have only been able to give you a preparation for the discussion of the depths of the human soul that one must descend into if one wants to understand the mystery of Golgotha to any degree. I believe that it must be very close to us, very moving for us, especially in our time, to talk about these things and perhaps to use this Easter season to look more deeply into them, as far as is possible for people in the present time. In this way, perhaps some things can be said to our feelings that can be a seed that can only sprout in future times within human development. For we must think about many things in such a way that we only gradually become fully awake, that we live in a time in which we do not perceive some things in full wakefulness, some of these things and some of those things. This is evident in how difficult it is for people today to correctly grasp events that are immediately approaching us with complete wakefulness. Unfortunately, it is not possible to indicate, even in a few strokes, how one would perceive with full awareness the painful event of which humanity in Europe, or at least in Central Europe, has only now become aware among the events of our time. Such things are often experienced today as if in a dream. But it is not possible here to say more about such things. Today, I actually only wanted to raise questions in order to talk about the mystery of Golgotha next time.