The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eleventh Lecture

[ 1 ] If one continues to study the mystery of Golgotha from a perspective of Spiritual Science, according to the principles with which you are familiar, one comes to recognize that future times will have to penetrate ever deeper and deeper into this mystery of Golgotha; just as in a natural course of events, they will have to penetrate deeper and deeper. And in many respects, one will realize that what has been grasped so far of the mystery of Golgotha, indeed, even what can be grasped today, is only a kind of preparation for what must be grasped about this mystery of Golgotha, and above all, what will have to be lived by humanity on earth through the mystery of Golgotha. It is undoubtedly true that what we are still compelled to deal with today within the Spiritual Science movement in a complicated, as some might say “difficult to understand” way, by bringing up all kinds of things, will one day be conveyed to humanity in a simple, one might say " simple," in a small number of words. It can certainly be assumed that this will be possible. But it is the nature of spiritual life that the great, simple truths that can be summed up in a few words must first be attained, first be worked out; that one cannot always express the deepest truths in the simplest formulas. And therefore we must regard it as our karma of the times that we still have to gather together many things today in order to bring the whole weight and significance of the mystery of Golgotha to our souls.

[ 2 ] Now, in this discussion, which is again aphoristic in nature, I would like to start from the premise that it is necessary to take the view, the mental image of “trust,” of “faith” as something powerful, as we discussed recently, very seriously.

[ 3 ] We must realize that the external materialistic worldview, if we may call it that, is in the process of eliminating the moral consideration of things from our view of the world. I have discussed on several occasions how not only scholarly thinking, but also popular, simplistic thinking of our time, is striving to eliminate morality from its view of the development of the world. Today, people have a mental image of how one only needs to consider the physical and chemical laws that governed the formation of the universe from a nebula at the beginning of the Earth's existence, and one strives to understand how these physical laws determine it. chemical laws at the beginning of the earth's existence could have formed earthly existence out of a nebula, and one strives to understand how these physical laws will one day bring about a kind of end to the earth. We gain our moral images, so to speak, alongside these physical images. And I have already indicated they are not strong enough to have reality in themselves: in a sense, we are condemned to the present. And this development within such mental images will continue further and further. Today, it seems downright fantastical and superstitious to a person who wants to stand firmly on the ground of scientific observation to imagine that at the end of our earthly existence there is an act or an event that must be judged morally, as is the case in the biblical story of the Fall. And people's present-day mental images are not sufficient to base a moral development on this mental image at the end of earthly existence, so that, in a sense, what happens physically -chemically in our earthly existence would be elevated by something moral to another planetary existence, to a Jupiter existence. Scientific mental images about the physical and mental images about the moral exist side by side; they cannot, so to speak, support each other. Science strives to completely eliminate morality from its perspective, and morality is beginning, I would say, to come to terms with the fact that it has no inherent physical supporting forces. Even the dogmatism of certain religious confessions seeks to develop mental images that compromise with natural science, by pointing out that morality should be kept quite separate from what happens physically, chemically, geologically, and so on.

[ 4 ] Today, I will take as my starting point something that appears to have no connection with our line of thought, but which will lead us right into it. First of all, I would like to point out that not all people who have devoted themselves to contemplating the world were predisposed to exclude all moral judgments, so to speak, when they turned their attention to external nature and natural phenomena. This is something extremely interesting. Today's botanist would not even think of applying moral concepts when studying the laws according to which plants grow. Indeed, they would consider it childish to apply moral standards to plant vegetation, to ask plants about their morality, so to speak. Just imagine how someone would be regarded who even hinted at asserting such a thing. But not all people were always like that. And I would like to give you a characteristic example of a person who was not like that, a person who is not considered by many to be a Christian, but who was a better Christian in his view of the world than many others. You can look up Catholic reflections on Goethe in particular, and you will find that Goethe — well, because he was a certain greatness, he is sometimes treated leniently for not taking Christianity seriously. This is emphasized quite strongly, especially in Catholic reflections on Goethe. However, Goethe had something deeply Christian in his whole disposition, something much more deeply Christian than in many such Christians who, according to a well-known saying, have “Lord, Lord” on their lips at every opportunity. Goethe did not always have this “Lord, Lord” on his lips, but his view of the world has a touch of deep Christianity. And here I would like to draw attention to something that is not often pointed out in Goethe.

[ 5 ] As is well known, Goethe attempted to gain mental images of the growth of plants in his theory of metamorphosis. As you know, I have often pointed out that he once discussed this theory of metamorphosis with Schiller after the two had heard a lecture by Professor Batsch of Jena. Schiller did not like the way Batsch spoke about plants and said that there was no need to break everything down into pieces like that, that a completely different approach was possible. Goethe then sketched out his idea of plant metamorphosis in a few strokes to show what could be thought of as the spiritual bond between individual plant phenomena. And Schiller said: That is not experience, that is an idea. Not an external reality based on experience, but an idea. Goethe did not quite understand this objection, but said: I can very much like the idea that I have ideas without knowing it, and even see them with my eyes." So he did not understand how an idea could be something that is taken in from reality, like a sound or a color. He claimed that he saw his ideas with his eyes. This already reveals that Goethe tried to see the spiritual, for example within plant growth.

[ 6 ] Now, you see, Goethe was always clear that he could only teach his contemporaries what he actually had to say to a certain extent; that for certain things, the time was not yet ripe. And then it turned out that others, who were now specialized natural scientists, were also inspired. For example, Schelver, the botanist, and Henschel were inspired by Goethe's theory of metamorphosis. And Schelver and Henschel wrote strange things about plant growth, very strange things, but Goethe regarded them with great pleasure. For today's botanists, this whole story that was negotiated between Goethe, Schelver, and Henschel is pure madness. But on such occasions, one must always remember the words of Paul, that the folly of men can be the greatest wisdom before God. And Goethe then wrote down some aphoristic things about what he had gained as an impression from Schelver's way of presentation.

[ 7 ] Now I must say a few words about what Schelver actually wanted. Schelver was repulsed by the whole way in which people, botanists, view plants. And he said something like this: You see, people have a mental image of plants; they thrive in such a way that on one side they develop the ovary in the flower, and on the other side the stamens. And according to people's view, the ovary is fertilized by the stamens, and this creates a new plant. — Schelver did not agree with this at all, but said: This is not actually an idea that is held in the plant kingdom, but the reality is that every plant, purely by virtue of being a plant, can also produce its own kind. And he considered fertilization to be a more incidental phenomenon, a phenomenon that Schelver actually considered, one might even say, to be something false, like an error of nature. Schelver would have seen the correctness of nature in the fact that every plant produces another plant from itself without further fertilization, not that the anther dust must be thrown onto the ovary by the wind, thereby propagating the entire plant world.

[ 8 ] Goethe, who always paid attention to such phenomena, where the plant transforms itself, the leaf into the flower, wanted to regard it as something self-evident that the whole plant can produce a new plant in metamorphosis. So he liked Schelver's idea. And in all seriousness, Goethe wrote an aphorism which is extremely interesting, which he meant quite seriously, but which is, of course, utter madness to today's botanists. Goethe wrote, for example, in the essay he wrote about Schelver:

[ 9 ] "This new theory of pollination would now be most welcome and appropriate in lectures to young people and women, for the teacher himself has hitherto been in great embarrassment. When such innocent souls, in order to advance through their own studies, took up botanical textbooks, they could not hide the fact that their moral sensibilities were offended; the eternal weddings, which one cannot escape, whereby monogamy, on which custom, law, and religion are based, dissolves completely into a vague lustfulness, remain completely unbearable to the pure human mind."

[ 10 ] So imagine: Goethe looks at the plant world and finds it unbearable that eternal weddings should be celebrated there, that eternal fertilization should take place there, or he finds it—as he gracefully puts it—more appropriate if one no longer had to talk about it, but could say that the plant produced its own kind by its own power. And he then elaborates on this. He says:

[ 11 ] "Linguists have often been accused, not entirely unjustly, of being all too willing to devote more effort than is reasonable to the tricky, frivolous passages of ancient authors in order to compensate somewhat for the unpleasant dryness of their efforts. And so naturalists sometimes allowed themselves to be embarrassed that, noticing some nakedness in the good mother, they found her, like the old Baubo, highly ambiguous amusement. Yes, we remember seeing arabesques where the sexual relationships within the calyxes of flowers were presented in a highly vivid, antique mental image."

[ 12 ] Goethe therefore considers it a highly desirable idea that this sexual view of the plant world could be removed. That was already a crazy idea in his time, of course; today, in the age of psychoanalysis, where the aim is to explain everything in terms of sexuality if possible, it is even more crazy for someone to say what a beautiful view of nature it would be if we did not have this immoral interference of the sexual principle. Goethe says explicitly: “Just as there are now ultras on all sides, both liberal and royalist, so Schelver was an ultra in the doctrine of metamorphosis; he broke through the last dam that kept it captive within the circle previously drawn”; but he does not say that such an ultra is somehow unpleasant to him; on the contrary, he welcomes its appearance with great joy.

[ 13 ] Now one must look a little deeper into Goethe's soul, I would say into Goethe's Christian soul, to recognize what actually lies at the root of this. Just think: anyone who observes nature as it is, with the mindset of today's natural science, cannot of course do anything with such mental images, because certain prerequisites are necessary for such mental images. The prerequisite is that, as plants are now, they contradict their nature, their original nature, that for those who are really immersed in the plant world, there is a need to say: Yes, when I look at the initial disposition of plant growth, the way the pollen flies around and fertilizes does not correspond to the original disposition of the plants. It should be different! — There is nothing else to do but to acknowledge that the entire plant kingdom, as it spreads out around us, has descended from an originally different form to the form it now has, and that a view of nature such as Goethe's still had an inkling, in the way plants are today, of what the plant kingdom was like, let us say, before the Fall, to use this symbolic expression. And indeed, one cannot understand Goethe's theory of metamorphosis unless one understands its innocence, its childlikeness, unless one understands that Goethe already wanted to say with his theory of metamorphosis: Look, what is happening in the plant kingdom was not originally predestined for it; it only came about after the Earth's development descended from a certain sphere to its present one.

[ 14 ] Starting from this point, you will also be able to form the mental image — which I cannot explain in more detail now, but all these things could and will be explained by us at some point — that the same is true of the mineral kingdom, that it is also not as it was originally. And anyone who really considers these things scientifically will also come to realize that what I have just said is true even in the animal kingdom, insofar as we are dealing with so-called cold-blooded animals, also known as poikilotherms, as opposed to warm-blooded animals. So the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the kingdom of cold-blooded animals, which do not have internal body heat that constantly exceeds the external heat, these kingdoms are not as they were originally intended to be. They have descended from one sphere to another and have become what they are today, which necessitates that the principle of sexuality reigns in them. It can be said that these kingdoms do not fully develop the predispositions they have within themselves, but need help to do so. The plant has within itself the original predisposition, as it is in itself, not only to metamorphose from leaf to flower, but also to produce a completely new plant. But it lacks the powers to do so; this requires external stimulation, because the region in which the plant kingdom was located has been abandoned. It would also be different with the mineral kingdom and with the kingdom of cold-blooded animals. These beings are condemned, as it were, to remain halfway.

[ 15 ] And let us look at the other end of nature: the kingdom of warm-blooded animals, the kingdom of those plants that become woody, the trees — for those I have spoken of, which undergo regular metamorphosis, are plants that produce green leaves and stems, not the woody plants — and let us look at the warm-blooded animals and the physical human race. In the penultimate lecture, I already pointed out that the physical human being, as he is, does not correspond to his predisposition, that he actually has the predisposition for the immortality of his body. But this insight goes much further. Not only does the physical human being, who is thus created for immortality, not have his predisposition within himself, but also the other beings, the woody plants and the warm-blooded animals, already carry death within themselves. They are not as they were originally; it is not as if they were already created immortal: they have descended. But as a result, something else has come into being for them. I said: the beings of the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the cold-blooded animal kingdom do not come to an end with their predispositions; they need an external influence. The beings of the warm-blooded animal kingdom, the woody plants, that is, the bark- and wood-forming plants, and the human kingdom are such that in the form in which they now live, they do not reveal their origin, they do not reveal their beginning. So the former beings do not reach the end of their development; they need another influence. The beings I have mentioned as the second group, the woody plants, the warm-blooded animals, and human beings, deny their beginnings in their present form; they do not reveal their beginnings. The others do not come to an end, and these beings appear today in such a way that one cannot immediately recognize their beginnings from what they are.

[ 16 ] If you take this, you have roughly what is a prediction of a certain direction that the observation of nature must take in the future. It will have to distinguish between how beings are predisposed and how they are now.

[ 17 ] Now the question arises: Where did all this come from? We have, after all, the whole of nature around us, which, even from a scientific point of view, is not as it should be. Where did this actually come from? What is the underlying cause? Who is to blame for all this? And yet the answer is: Man is to blame for all this! And the fault of human beings lies precisely in succumbing to the Luciferic temptation, as I have always described it, in what is called original sin, original guilt, at the starting point of the biblical account. For Spiritual Science, this is a real, genuine fact, but a fact that did not only happen to human beings, but which initially happened in human beings, but human beings were still so powerful, so strong at that time that they drew the rest of nature into it. Human beings drew the development of plants along with them, so that they cannot complete their development and need an external stimulus. Human beings have brought it about that, in addition to cold-blooded animals, there are also warm-blooded animals, that is, animals that can suffer the same pain as they do. So human beings have drawn warm-blooded animals into the sphere into which they themselves have drawn themselves by succumbing to the Luciferic temptation.

[ 18 ] Today, we have a mental image of humans having always had the same relationship with the world as they do today, that they can do nothing, so to speak, with regard to the rest of nature, that animals arise beside them, plants arise beside them, seemingly without their influence. But this was not always the case. Before the natural order that we know today came into being, humans were powerful beings who, in that act known as the Luciferic temptation, but also drew in the whole of the rest of nature on earth, culminating in the complete breakdown of the moral order from the natural order.

[ 19 ] When one expresses this today, as I am now expressing it, one is naturally saying something that is not in the least comprehensible to those who think in scientific terms. And yet it will have to become comprehensible! It will have to become comprehensible! Today's natural science is only an episode. Despite all its merits, despite all its great achievements, it is an episode. It will be replaced by another, which will recognize once again that there is a higher view of the world, within which the natural and the moral are two sides of the same being. But one cannot arrive at such a view with pantheistic vagueness; one must look concretely at “how external existence really shows that it has been predisposed differently.”

[ 20 ] to such a view; one must look concretely at "how external existence really shows that it has been predisposed differently than it appears today in the ordinary order of nature. One must have the courage to apply moral standards to external natural existence as well. The worldview that today calls itself monistic and sees its glory in excluding morality everywhere does so out of cowardice, out of cowardice of knowledge, because it does not want to penetrate deeply enough to where, as was the case with Goethe—within the limits I have described—the necessity of applying moral standards just as the necessity arises for an external view to apply purely external scientific standards.

[ 21 ] But what I am saying now, the possibility of thinking the world through morality again, this possibility would have been lost to human beings if the mystery of Golgotha had not occurred at the beginning of our era. For we have now seen that, in essence, everything that is merely natural order is in a certain sense corrupted, has descended from another region into the present one, that it lies at a high level of worldview from which it must rise again. So it is with our worldview, that it lies at a high level of worldview from which it must rise again. Our thinking itself really belongs to this natural order. And when today's Du Bois-Reymonds and others speak of our thinking not being able to enter into reality, when they state the ignorabimus, that one cannot know, this is true in a certain sense, but why is it true? Yes, because our thinking has also left its original region and must first find its way back again. Everything is under the influence of the descent of thinking itself. So that one can say: Certainly, you who claim that thinking cannot penetrate reality are right to a certain extent; but it is this thinking itself that has been corrupted by other entities, and it must first rise again. The impulse itself for the elevation of this thinking lies in the Mystery of Golgotha, that is, in what has entered into humanity as an impulse through the Mystery of Golgotha. Even our thinking is, in a sense, subject to original sin and must be redeemed from it in order to penetrate reality again. And our natural science, as it stands today with its amoral necessity, is only the product of that thinking which is corrupted, which has descended. If one does not have the courage to admit this, one stands not within, but outside of reality.

[ 22 ] What lies in the mystery of Golgotha, in order to bring back up what has descended from a higher region into a lower one, becomes particularly clear when one considers individual concrete things, when one asks oneself the question: What would happen to the development of the earth, which has been brought down into the natural order by human beings — I am not saying this out of some kind of fantasy, but I am saying it as a result of Spiritual Science, just as much as the facts of natural science are: What would happen to the development of the earth after it had been brought down by human beings, if the Mystery of Golgotha had not given a new impulse? Just as surely as a plant cannot continue to develop if the ovary is torn off, so surely would the earth not have been able to find its development if the Mystery of Golgotha had not been there!

[ 23 ] Today we are only in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. In the fourth, in its first third, the Mystery of Golgotha occurred. The one current, the downward current, is definitely there, and anyone who is not blind can definitely judge that it is there. Oh, there has been a very, very strong decline in thinking that penetrates into the depths of the essence of things! There is a very noticeable decline in thinking, in feeling about the essence of things that goes into depth. The Copernican worldview and similar things are certainly magnificent phenomena in terms of superficial knowledge of things, but they do not penetrate into the depths; they came about precisely because for a time people did not penetrate into the depths. This failure to penetrate into the depths would go on and on. And even today, one can point to specific things — even though one may be regarded as a fantasist for doing so — that would inevitably come about if the current direction were to continue unabated, a direction that is, in a sense, already predetermined, but which must be abandoned as the impulse of the mystery of Golgotha becomes ever more powerful.

[ 24 ] I ask you to join me for a few moments in looking through a window into the possibilities of development, and, as I let you look through this window, to forget what I have said to the outside world, so that you will not be laughed at too much for describing a fact. For, of course, even today, a mocking laughter rises from hell when one says such things. If the attitude that prevails today, for example, on the basis of pure university science, continues in this way, if it spreads, especially if it becomes more and more intense — we are living in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, and only at the beginning; a sixth and a seventh will come — certain things would take on very strange forms if the mystery of Golgotha were not understood in depth. Today, if someone were to speak of a new scientific view of the Fall as has been done here, outside a prepared circle, outside a circle that has acquired mental images over the years that prove to it that things can be proven scientifically, he would, at the beginning of this fifth post-Atlantean epoch, simply be considered a fool, of course; they would be laughed at and mocked. If people noticed that they held such views, they would certainly not be trusted in the materialistic world, in the world outside Christianity. But in the sixth post-Atlantean epoch, things would be quite different, and they will also be different for part of humanity; there will be hard struggles to carry out the Christ impulse.

[ 25 ] Today, people think that those who try to speak the truth based on Spiritual Science knowledge should be met with the rod of scorn, the rod of ridicule, or, as it is often called, the rod of criticism. In the sixth period, people will begin to heal these people — to heal them! That means that by then, medicines will have been invented that will be forcibly administered to those who talk about there being a norm of good and evil, that good and evil are something other than human statutes. A time will come when people will say: How can you talk about good and evil? Good and evil are determined by the state. What is good according to the law is good; what is evil according to the law is evil. If you talk about there being a moral good and evil, you are sick! — And they will be given medicine, and people will be cured. That is the trend. This is no exaggeration, it is just the window through which I would like you to look. That is the course of time. And what would follow in the seventh post-Atlantean period — I do not want to let you look through this window for the time being. But it is true. A time will come, for what is in human nature cannot be turned back, it will gradually come to expression in such a way that, according to the concepts of the scientific worldview, people will be regarded as sick, and attempts will be made to bring about the necessary healing. This is not a fantasy. It is precisely the most sober observation of reality that gives rise to what is being spoken of. And anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear can see the beginnings of this everywhere.

[ 26 ] It is a matter of realizing in all depth and gradually bringing into life the fact that what is the human etheric body is not — and this is what it is really all about, for everything else proceeds from this — not initially as it was originally intended for human beings. For this human etheric body, which originally contained all kinds of ether in complete vitality, now contains warmth among the various etheric substances it originally contained. That is why human beings, along with the animals they brought with them in their “fall,” have warm blood. Human beings have the ability to process the warmth ether in a special way. But this is not the case with the light ether. Humans absorb the light ether, but they radiate it in such a way that only a certain low level of clairvoyance is required to see the etheric colors in the human aura. These colors are present. But in addition, humans were also predisposed to their own tone, in the whole harmony of the spheres with their own tone and with an original life, so that the etheric body would always have had the possibility of keeping the physical body immortal if this etheric body had retained its original vitality. Other things would not have happened. For if this etheric body had remained in its original form, human beings would have remained in the upper region from which they descended to the lower one. They would not then have succumbed to Lucifer's temptation. Conditions would have been quite different in this upper region. But they once were. And spirits such as Saint-Martin still had a certain awareness that such conditions once existed. That is why they speak of these conditions as if they were a former reality.

[ 27 ] Let us allow just one of these conditions to enter our consciousness. Man could not have spoken as he does today, for he would never have shaped his words in such a way that language would have differentiated into different languages. For the fact that language has differentiated into different languages stems solely from the fact that language became something permanent. But language was not predisposed at that time to be something permanent, but was predisposed to something completely different. You only have to create a vivid mental image of what humans were predisposed to. If a spark of Goethe's worldview — and I don't mean just the theory, but also in terms of the soul — in humanity, then you will understand what is meant by such a statement, also from Goethe's worldview. Just imagine if humans had the original predispositions that were intended for them. They would have looked at what could impress them from the outside. But it would not only be colors and sounds that would reach them, not only the impressions from the outside, but spirit would flow out of things everywhere: with the red color, the spirit of red; with the green color, the spirit of green, and so on. The spirit would come to him everywhere, of which Goethe had only an inkling when he said: Yes, if this plant is to be only an idea, then I see my ideas, then they are outside like colors. — That is an intuitive idea. I ask you to create a mental image of this in concrete, fully substantial reality: that the spirit really comes to life. But if the external impressions had come to him so vividly, then — it always encounters what comes in through our head, through our senses, what lives in our breathing — the breathing process would encounter every external impression. A red: the impression comes in from outside; from within, it is met by the breath, which would then be sound. With every single impression, the sound would spring from the human being. There would be no language that remains, but rather every thing, every impression would be answered immediately with a sounding gesture from within. One would stand with the word entirely within the external entity. What has developed as language is only the earthly projection, the fallen, the decayed, of this living, fluid language. And the expression that is so little understood today, the expression of the “lost word,” reminds us of this original language that is spoken with the whole world. But this original spirit, where man not only had eyes to see, but also eyes to perceive the spirit, and where he responded to the perception of the eye with a sounding gesture within his breathing process — the word “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” reminds us of this living togetherness with the spirit. The beginning of the Gospel of John speaks of this life in the divine.

[ 28 ] Yes, that is one thing. But the other is this: In the breathing process, insofar as it continues upward toward the head as we inhale and exhale, something is happening not only in the exchange with the outside world, but also in the pulsation of our entire organism. The breathing process in the head encounters the impressions we receive from outside. But in the lower organism, too, the breathing process encounters the metabolic process. If human beings still had the original vitality of their etheric body, then something quite different would be connected with the process of breathing than is connected with it today. For the metabolic process is not entirely independent of the breathing process; only the dependence lies behind the scenes of existence, in the occult. But it would lie on a completely different plane if human beings had retained their originally animated etheric body, if it had not been dampened, so to speak, in their lives, which is what causes death, not only through the outer physical body, but from within. which is precisely what causes death. If human beings had retained their original disposition, they would have a metabolism that would produce something substantial through human beings. And this substantiality would be one pole. Human beings would not merely produce secretions, but something substantial through their metabolism. That would be one pole. The other pole would be the air exhaled by humans, which would, however, have formative forces within it. The substantial substance that humans develop would be seized by the formative forces of their exhaled breath. This would produce in their environment what the animal world was originally intended to become. For the animal world is a secretion from humans, or should be a secretion, so that humans could, in a sense, extend the dominion of their existence beyond themselves. Animals are definitely to be thought of in this way. This is clear from all the observations I have given you.

[ 29 ] Incidentally, natural science is already coming to realize that animals were originally much more closely related to humans, as I have already mentioned; so it is not as crude materialistic Darwinism has in its mental image, that humans ascended, but rather that animals descended. Today, the original spirit can no longer be seen in the whole context of humans and the animal world. Just as the plant world does not come to an end with evolution, so the animal world does not reveal its origin. Animals exist alongside humans. Natural scientists ponder how they might have developed. The reasons why they exist alongside humans lie in the region from which humans descended. Therefore, they cannot be found where Darwin and his materialistic interpreters seek them. They lie in the great prehistoric events.

[ 30 ] Und nehmen Sie dazu die Tatsache, die ich Ihnen neulich sagte, daß für denjenigen, der die Dinge geisteswissenschaftlich durchschaut, das klar wird, daß im sechsten, siebenten Jahrtausend die Menschheit in ihrem gegenwärtigen Sinne anfängt, unfruchtbar zu werden. Die Frauen, sagte ich, werden unfruchtbar. Es wird auf die gegenwärtige Art die Menschheit sich nicht fortpflanzen können. Das muß eine Metamorphose durchmachen, das muß wieder den Anschluß finden an eine höhere Welt. Damit dies geschehen kann, daß die Welt nicht nur in die Dekadenz kommt, wo «geheilt» würde alles Gesinntsein zum Guten und Bösen, damit das Gute und Böse, alles Sich-Bekennen zum Guten und Bösen, nicht bloß als Staats-, als Menschensatzung angesehen würde, damit das nicht zustande komme in der Zeit, wo die gegenwärtige Naturordnung innerhalb des Menschengeschlechts mit Notwendigkeit aufhört, ein Menschengeschlecht zu erhalten — denn mit derselben Notwendigkeit, mit der bei der Frau in einem gewissen Alter eine Fruchtbarkeit aufhört, so hört in der Erdenentwickelung mit einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte die Möglichkeit auf, daß die Menschen sich fortpflanzen in der bisherigen Weise —, damit das nicht eintrete, dazu kam der Christus-Impuls.

[ 31 ] You have placed the Christ impulse into the whole of Earth's development. And I would like to know anyone who can believe that the Christ impulse loses anything of its majesty, of its sublimity, when it is placed in this way into the whole world order, when, in other words, this Christ impulse is truly given back its cosmic rank, when one truly thinks: at the beginning of Earth's development and at the end of Earth's development there is a different order than the natural order of today, and that is the moral order, which contains nothing physical. But in order for that which is worthy of the beginning of Earth's development to lie at the end of Earth's development, the Christ impulse had to come. This is how the Christ impulse places itself within our Earth's development. But this is also how it must be understood. And those who do not take the words of the Gospels outwardly, but who truly bring forth the genuine faith demanded by Christ, can already find in the Gospels all the predispositions all the predispositions, to gradually bring about more and more of an understanding of the Christ impulse, which in turn is then also worthy of external consideration, which can reconnect the Christ impulse to the entire cosmic world order. Certain things in the Bible can only be understood when approached with the underlying research of Spiritual Science.

[ 32 ] You see, it is written: Not one jot or tittle shall be changed in the law. Some interpreters explain this as meaning that Christ left everything as it was in Judaism and only wanted to add something on his part. That would be the actual meaning of this passage, that he did not really want to rebel against Judaism, but only wanted to add something to it. That is not what this passage means, and no passage in the Gospel should be taken out of context, but rather it should be found in the most intense context in the Gospel. Anyone who studies this context — I cannot go into all the details at this moment that compel us to acknowledge what I am about to say — anyone who studies this context will find the following. What Christ means at this moment, when he speaks of the jot and the tittle, is this: in former times, when the law was created, humanity was still endowed with the ancient heritage of that earthly wisdom and had not yet sunk as low as it is now, when the kingdom of God is at hand and conversion must take place, a change of heart. Back then, in ancient times, there were still prophetic men, prophetic personalities who could find the law out of the spirit. But you who now live here in the kingdom of the world are no longer able to add or change anything to the law. Not one iota, not one hook, may be changed if the law is to remain genuine. For the time is no longer right to make changes to the law in this way; it must remain as it is. On the contrary, one must try to recognize the old meaning with the newly acquired knowledge. You are the scribes, but you are not able to recognize anything from the Scriptures. For you must come to the spirit in which they were originally written. You are outside in the realm of the world; no new laws arise there. Those who are within the spiritual realm are the ones who receive the impulse, the impulse of living power, which I said recently had to be given in such a way that it was not written down by Christ. But you take something that is not to be written into the law, that must live directly; you take something completely different. You must begin by judging the world in a completely different way than it initially appears as the outer sensory world.

[ 33 ] This was the first great impulse to judge the world differently than it appears as the outer sensory world. This can only take root slowly and gradually. Sometimes, I would say, a person has such an impulse, to speak in the Christian sense; then people laugh at him. Schelling and Hegel sometimes allowed themselves to be led astray, even though they were not regarded as true Christians, especially by Catholics — they allowed themselves to be led astray into saying something genuinely Christian. But that is precisely what can be most severely criticized. They were objected to: Yes, but that is not how nature is, as you say! — And then Schelling and Hegel allowed themselves to be led astray into saying: So much the worse for nature! — That may not be scientific in today's sense, but it is Christian, just as it is Christian when Christ Jesus himself says: No matter how much the scribes talk about laws, that is not the law. It is not just a jot and a tittle, much of the law has been changed; for they speak from the outer world, not from the kingdom of God. Those who speak from the kingdom of God speak of a world order of which the natural order is only a subordinate part. — To this one must reply: So much the worse for nature! For Goethe would also have said, if someone had objected to him: You say that sexuality is not the basis of the plant world, but look at the plant; natural science shows you that everywhere the wind must drive the anther dust onto the ovary,“ he would have said, if he had expressed his innermost conviction: ”So much the worse for the plant world that it has come to this within the natural order!"

[ 34 ] But on the other hand, such minds will always emphasize: It must originate from human understanding, it must become ingrained in human feeling so that people can think, feel, and experience it, it must be able to become reality again — it must be able to become reality in this way until the sixth or seventh millennium — so that what people say, the word, can once again have the same power over the outside world as the seed has today. The word must regain its power; the word, which is abstract today, must gain creative power, the word that was in the beginning. And anyone who does not dare to supplement the words of the Gospel of John today on the basis of Spiritual Science, by saying not only: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” but adds: “The Word will be again one day!” does not speak in the sense that Christ Jesus meant. For Christ Jesus already set his words in such a way that they very much contradict the outside world. But of course: he gave the impulse. I would say that the downward slope has continued in the meantime, and an ever greater and greater force must be applied in the Christ impulse to bring the earth into an upward movement. In a certain sense, we have come a little way upward since the Mystery of Golgotha, but for the most part this has happened without thinking consciousness. But human beings must also learn to participate consciously in the world process again. They must learn not only to believe that when they think, something is happening in their brains, but to recognize that when they think, something is happening in the cosmos! — And they must learn to think in such a way that thinking is entrusted to the cosmos, so that human beings themselves are connected to the cosmos to the same extent.

[ 35 ] What will have to happen in outer life so that the Christ impulse can truly live in outer social life as well, those people who already know something about it today will not say anything about it today, because there are certain reasons that hold them back. One can only speak of it under certain conditions. I would like to say one can only characterize. But take the point in time to which I wanted to let you look through a window, where those people who recognize something other than state constitutions will be treated medically. Take this point in time! Up to this point, however, a counteraction will also have taken place. This will indeed occur in part of humanity, but another part of humanity will carry the Christ impulse into the future, and a counteraction will take place. There will be a struggle between the declining and the rising kingdoms. And the Christ impulse will remain alive. When the etheric Christ comes in our century, the Christ impulse will come alive in such a way that it will be able to generate impulses in the human soul that will gradually make it impossible to rule in a way that is based on ambition or vanity, or even prejudice or error. There is a possibility of finding such principles of government that exclude vanity, the craving for glory, prejudice, and even recklessness and error. But this is only possible through a correct, concrete understanding of the Christ impulse. Parliaments will not decide on these impulses; that will come into the world in other ways. But the current is moving in that direction. That is where what one might call the longing to live Christ into the social development of humanity, alongside the grasping of Christ in world development, is heading. But this requires a rethinking in many respects. And it will require strengthening those who are truly able to take something like what I have described to you for Christ seriously. When he said what he actually had to say, the others became so angry that they wanted to throw him down the mountain. One really should not create a too easy mental image of world development. One should be clear that those who have the right things to say about certain matters may encounter the same kind of sentiment that was directed at Christ Jesus when he was to be thrown down the mountain.

[ 36 ] At a time when people think: Don't go too far with this or that! Don't rock the boat! Don't get a reputation for rebelling against this or that! — at such a time, this is what is brewing, and perhaps rightly so at such a time. It is preparing itself in the depths of consciousness; but there is little to be seen of it on the surface. On the surface, the unchristian principle of expediency prevails, the unchristian principle that cannot rise anywhere to the Christian accusation: For you, scribes and Pharisees, the kingdom of God is certainly not! But first we must understand what stands today in the place that Christ interpreted when he spoke of the scribes and Pharisees at that time. There are many excuses for what Christ Jesus said. And a modern preacher, though not one who belongs to a positive church community, has said many beautiful things about Christ Jesus, but he could not refrain from saying: He was not really a practical man, because he advised, for example, to live like the birds in the air: they do not sow, they do not reap, they do not gather into barns, and that would not get you very far in today's world. — This preacher simply did not make much of an effort to really understand the impulse that lies in the Gospels. It is sometimes difficult to hear the word, to read the word: If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. If someone wants something from you, give it to him. If someone takes your property, do not demand it back.

[ 37 ] Well, when you read everything that has been said in defense of this unpopular passage, you have to say that modern humanity has come a long way in forgiving Christ Jesus for sometimes speaking such strange words. Many things have been forgiven in order to preserve the Gospel, to preserve it in one's own way. But in all these things, it is much more a matter of understanding things. Now, that is difficult, because all these things are contained in their full context. But one can at least sense the context if one continues reading after it says: If someone takes your property, do not demand it back — and then comes the sentence in the Gospel of Luke, which is even clearer in the Gospel of Matthew: Treat others as you would like to be treated. — This, of course, applies to what has gone before. Christ demands the power of faith, trust in things.

[ 38 ] Yes, if Christ Jesus were to develop only those concepts that live so immediately on the surface in the outer world, then of course he could never have said: If someone takes your coat, give him your skirt as well. — But he is not talking about what should prevail out there, for that is for the scribes, what should prevail out there, that is for the high priests; he is talking about the kingdom of heaven, and he wants to make it particularly clear at this point that different laws prevail there than in the outer world. And if you compare the passage as it stands here with the way it is written in the Gospel of Matthew — these things must also be subject to a correct translation — you will see that Christ Jesus wants to say something that inspires a spirit of faith in people, which above all makes unnecessary everything in terms of legal provisions and human statutes established concerning the theft of coats and cloaks. For, as Christ Jesus wants to say, merely teaching, “Thou shalt not steal,” accomplishes nothing. You know, he says: Not one jot of the law shall be taken away; but in its original form it no longer has any impact today. One must really develop the strength within oneself, under circumstances where there is still order, to give someone one's coat as well as one's skirt. For under the influence of the attitude: As you do not wish to be treated by others, do not treat them either! — under the influence of the attitude, if above all else this attitude becomes a general one, no one will be able to take your coat. But no one will take your coat only if the person who is to take the coat really has the strength of attitude: as soon as he takes my coat, I will also give him my skirt.

[ 39 ] That must be social order. If that is social order, then there will be no stealing. That is what Christ means, because that is the kingdom of God as opposed to the kingdom of the world. In a world where the principle prevails: I give my skirt to the one who takes my coat! — in this world there will be no stealing. But one must develop the power of faith, that is, morality must be based on this inner power of faith, which means it must be a miracle. Every moral act must be a miracle; it must not merely be a natural fact, it must be a miracle. Man must be capable of miracles. Because the original world order has been brought down from its height into a lower region, the mere natural order must again be opposed by a supernatural moral order that does more than merely follow the natural order. It is not enough for you to simply keep the old commandments, which were given under different circumstances, nor is it enough to transform them, but when you live in the other order, which is not the natural order: that if someone takes my coat, I am so minded that I also give him my skirt, that I do not drag him to court. In the Gospel of Matthew, it is expressed that Christ Jesus wants to eliminate the courts. But it would make no sense at all to immediately follow up the coat and skirt with “Treat others as you would like to be treated” if the matter were not applied to another realm, the realm in which miracles happen. For Christ Jesus performed the signs, the miracles, out of his great, supernatural power of faith. No one who regards human beings merely as natural beings, who cannot bring himself to regard them as anything other than natural beings, can do what Christ did. Now Christ demands as a view that, at least in the moral realm, more lives in the mental image than in outward reality. In external reality, it means: if someone takes your coat, take it back! But this principle does not establish a social order in the sense of the Christ impulse. One must have more in one's mental image than what merely corresponds to the external world. Otherwise, a strange connection would arise between these individual sentences. For just think, if you carry this out: "If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. If someone wants something from you, give it to him. If someone takes your property, do not demand it back. “ — And: ”Treat others as you would like to be treated by them!“: ”If you strike someone on one cheek, assume that he will offer you the other so that you can satisfy your desire on the second cheek as well; if you take someone's coat, don't stop there, but take his skirt too; if you want something from someone, make sure he gives it to you,“ and so on — that would be the reversal of the sentence, under the influence of the clause ”Treat others as you would like to be treated!"

[ 40 ] You see, in earthly terms, the whole thing makes no sense. This sequence of sentences is simply meaningless. It only makes sense if one makes the assumption: Anyone who would participate in the salvation of the world, which is to be initiated by the Christ impulse, whereby the world is to be carried up again into the higher regions, must proceed from principles that are not merely in harmony with the outer world; then what can give physical power to moral ideas and moral concepts will happen.

[ 41 ] In order to grasp the Gospel in the sense of the mystery of Golgotha, above all else, an inner courage of the soul is required, which people today must acquire. This includes taking things seriously, above all those in which Christ Jesus, in contrast to the kingdom that had gradually developed under the descending current, the kingdom of the world, is opposed by the kingdom of heaven. Yes, my dear friends, those who experience Easter in times such as these may already feel a longing for the mystery of Golgotha to be understood with courage once again, for people to connect with the impulse of Golgotha with courage. For the Gospel speaks in each of its parts: Courage! — contains in each of its parts the call to follow nothing other than that impulse which Christ Jesus truly impresses upon the development of the earth.

[ 42 ] Through this description today, I wanted to bring you a little closer to the mystery of Golgotha, in order to emphasize more deeply this aspect, which shows how the mystery of Golgotha must be placed back into the whole cosmic order, and can only be understood if one also takes the Gospel as if a higher form of language were speaking through it, not the language of human beings. In its theological development, where theology reigns as scholarly theology, the nineteenth century has attempted to bring the Gospel down to the level of human speech. The next task is to read the Gospel again from the standpoint of the Word of God. In this respect, Spiritual Science will serve the understanding of the Gospel.