The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Twelfth Lecture

[ 1 ] In various contexts relating to recent intellectual history, I have often mentioned the name Herman Grimm. Now I would like to link today's reflections to one of the various, one might say instinctive, remarks that Herman Grimm made about what is needed in recent intellectual history, without being able to translate his instinctive, intuitive insight into knowledge. I would like to refer to one of the many remarks he instinctively made in this direction. It concerns a kind of opposition in which Herman Grimm stood in relation to the whole modern view of history, in that he had a correct feeling that this view of history unconsciously, and of course also instinctively, aims above all to exclude the Christ event from the course of historical human observation, to view history as it can be viewed without taking into account that the Christ event is something that stands out as the foremost determining factor in the course of human development. On the contrary, Herman Grimm wanted to have a view of history which places Christ as an essential factor in the historical course of humanity, so that such a view of history, or through such a view of history, would have become apparent or would become apparent what significant impulse has intervened in the course of human development through the mystery of Golgotha. As I said, in Herman Grimm's case, due to his instinctive immersion in what might be called Goethe's worldview, but at the same time — due to his lack of insight into the spiritual worlds — it remained instinctive, more of a hunch that he was unable to think through.

[ 2 ] It seems paradoxical to say that the historical view makes it its primary task to erase the Christ Jesus event from historical consideration. And yet it is a truth. A truth that is so instinctively rooted in the modern worldview that some people do a great deal in matters of worldview to prevent this Christ event from entering into the historical course of human facts in its true, deeper meaning. And under this instinctive impulse, which lives so strongly in souls, it turns out that much, much darkness is spread in the general consciousness of humanity about the centuries that preceded and followed the mystery of Golgotha. Not only is there no attempt — which is understandable for various reasons that we have already mentioned in the course of our considerations in Spiritual Science — not only is there no attempt to view the Mystery of Golgotha itself in its entirety in its historical context, but people also seek to immerse themselves in what happened before and after to immerse oneself, as it were, in such mental images that, when considering these centuries, one does not notice what actually happened within them at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. One could say that everything is done to view the history of these centuries in such a way that one does not notice how clearly the events of these centuries reveal the enormous impact of the mystery of Golgotha. When one considers how dependent our age, which is of course independent of all authority, is on the belief in authority, how very dependent, then one can also gauge how thoroughly it has succeeded in allowing as little awareness as possible to arise of what actually took place in those centuries with regard to human development. And then, once a spirit such as Goethe's is present, of whom we were able to cite a special example of his observation of nature last time, which leads directly to a worldview that sees moralism and naturalism as one — once such a personality has emerged, people instinctively seek to weaken or reject in this person precisely what, if handled in the right way, would lead them in an admirable, grandiose way to a view of the world based on Spiritual Science.

[ 3 ] This can lead to the most remarkable experiences. You see, I mentioned to you that Goethe was not satisfied with ordinary botany; he wanted to have a spiritualized botany, but in doing so he came to find the spirit as it reveals itself in the plant kingdom, to find that spirit which the plant kingdom itself cannot attain in its present form because it cannot fully develop its potential, as I explained last time. So Goethe tried to look deeper into the potential of the plant kingdom — he also tried this with the mineral kingdom — to look deeper than mere sensory observation allows, which only reveals what the plant kingdom has actually achieved. Therefore, it was particularly inconvenient for Goethe that Haller's view emerged in his time, which Haller so beautifully summarized in the words:

“No creative spirit penetrates the innermost depths of nature.
Blessed are those to whom it shows only its outer shell!”
The outer shell!“

[ 4 ] You know — I have often quoted it — Goethe says in response to this statement, ”No creative spirit penetrates the innermost nature; blessed are those to whom it shows only the outer shell":

"I've heard that repeated for sixty years,
And curse it, but secretly;
Tell me a thousand thousand times:
She gives everything abundantly and gladly;
Nature has neither core
Nor shell,
She is everything at once;
Just examine yourself most of all,
Whether you are core or shell?"

[ 5 ] So Goethe, one might say, rebels with all his might against the view that no creative spirit penetrates the innermost depths of nature. Why does he do this? Well, you see, because Goethe had the great spiritual background in his instincts of knowledge everywhere, that spiritual background which the nineteenth century more or less tried to bury under rubble and debris. How familiar did Schopenhauer's words become to nineteenth-century observers of the world: “The world is my mental image,” “No color, no light without the eye.” Goethe consistently counters this with his own view: Certainly, no light can be perceived without the eye; certainly, if the eyes were not there, the world would be dark and silent! I have often drawn attention to this nineteenth-century view, even in public lectures. But Goethe counters this: without light there would be no eye, for light has formed the eye for light. From indeterminate organs, said Goethe, light has conjured up the eye! If one wants to delve deeper into the matter, something very peculiar emerges.

[ 6 ] Isn't it true that, according to the hints I made last time, the plant kingdom was actually called upon to produce its own kind through metamorphosis, without fertilization? Fertilization should have had a completely different meaning than it now has for the plant kingdom. Goethe sensed this. That is why he liked Schelvers' explanation of the fertilization process so much, and he had the courage to moralize when observing plants. He had this courage. The plant kingdom lives in a different sphere than the one in which it would develop metamorphosis purely. This came about through that great event whereby humanity descended from a higher sphere to a lower one through the Luciferic temptation. But what would be effective in plants if they fully expressed metamorphosis, if the next plant simply grew out of the previous one and sensual fertilization did not occur, the forces that would live there have become spiritual, live spiritually in our environment, and they cause human beings to have their sensory organs as they now have them. When Lucifer said, “Your eyes will be opened,” he meant, “You will be transferred as human beings to another sphere.” This other sphere necessarily meant that plant beings could not fully develop their potential, but human eyes were opened. The light had such an effect that it could truly open the eyes in Goethe's sense. But, of course, this opening of the eyes was in another sense a closing. For when human beings were able to focus their eyes, to focus their senses at all on the external sensory world, the spirit that lived in the sensory world did not penetrate them. These eyes became closed to the revelation of the spirit. And so that strange view came about, which ran wild especially in the nineteenth century, when people said: Man sees only the outer sensory world and cannot see behind this sensory world. “No creative spirit penetrates into the inner nature of things; blessed are those to whom it shows only its outer shell.” People think that human beings cannot see beyond this. With an elevated, purified consciousness, they can, and Goethe knew this. This strange, I would say sinister, doctrine arose, which said: Man sees only what is in his sensory environment. This doctrine, which is merely pernicious in the field of natural science, but useful in its perniciousness, is such in the field of art that if its analogue were ever to take hold of an artist, if the artist did not work against this view, I mean create, he would be killed in his artistic imagination by this view. For this view is like no other than when one says: Goethe's “Faust” is only preserved in books; there we see the letters; but “Faust” is beyond the letters; no one penetrates into the interior of these letters; blessed are those to whom only the shell, the letters, are shown! — Well, one can admit that certain philologists live in this bliss, that Faust shows them only the outer letters. But one can already say: these letters must be there, but for the understanding of Faust they are that through which one sees right through, to which one does not cling; that which must be there, but which one does not talk about further. One does not even notice how one contradicts the most everyday fact with what has, so to speak, become second nature in our materialistic age.

[ 7 ] But one would only come to a different view if one could empathize a little with the words we recall:

I've heard that repeated for sixty years,
And I curse it, but secretly...
Nature has neither core
Nor shell,
It is everything at once;
Just examine yourself most of all,
Whether you are core or shell?

[ 8 ] For, you see, there is a strange mystery at work in human development, namely that if one emancipates oneself from this Goethean view and professes the Hallerian view, then one can look at the history before the Mystery of Golgotha in such a way that one notices nothing of the actual meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha, and one can view history after the Mystery of Golgotha in such a way that one again fails to notice the actual significance of the Mystery of Golgotha. This sounds paradoxical at first; but it is true. It is true that if one applies the anti-Goethean worldview to the course of history, then under the influence of this anti-Goethean worldview, the pre-Christian era becomes such that one can at most assume some historical event at the beginning of our Christian era, but the whole powerful impulse of the mystery of Golgotha must then be transferred to the inner realm, where no created spirit can penetrate. One then fails to notice that, as history unfolds up to the mystery of Golgotha, something comes in that represents a truly momentous turning point, indeed the greatest turning point in the earthly development of humanity; and one also fails to notice, when applying this to post-Christian history, that this turning point is contained within it, contained within its after-effects. Hence there is an instinctive need to extract Goethe's worldview from contemporary thinking a little unnoticed, so as not to let it become too big in contemporary thinking.

[ 9 ] One can sometimes catch people in this instinctive endeavor. What I am saying is not meant to be a moral accusation against anyone, for I am of course aware of the objection that can be made: Yes, such a person, who wants to compliment Goethe's worldview out of the current view of the world, meant well! Well, we all know Shakespeare's famous words of Antony: “Honorable men are they all!” this is admitted from the outset, of course; but what matters is not that one can say of a person that he did not have this or that intention, but how what emanates from him affects, how it becomes established in the development of humanity. And you see, sometimes one can I would say, people in this well-intentioned endeavor to compliment the Christ event out of history by not including Goethe's worldview in their perspective, which, if we take it up today, simply has to be developed into Spiritual Science. And then a little book comes along that has had a great influence in the present day, in which reflections are made on history insofar as it also relates to Christ Jesus. And instinctively, the possibility of properly assessing the mystery of Golgotha as the greatest turning point in the history of humanity is to be thrown out of the consideration of history. Man can only do this by placing the whole view of history in perspective, by realizing that one cannot penetrate into the innermost core of history, that one can only remain on the surface; that history must also be viewed in such a way that one must say about the most important event: Well, one simply cannot penetrate into the innermost core of history. What does man do? I will read his words to you; they are very interesting.

[ 10 ] "And so it is necessary, above all, to draw attention to the fragmentary nature of all our historical knowledge, even the most complete. The richness of what has happened, the historical reality of the past, is infinitely greater in content and scope than our knowledge of it will ever be, even if we were to research it for thousands of years. For from the vast mass of events, only partial components are accessible to the historian, only what has been handed down to him in some way, through sources and documents. Everything else that has not been handed down and could not be handed down at all because it belongs to the inner world of the mind, the unexplored realm of the soul, the inner motivation of personal life, the historian cannot “know,” but at best guess. This “guessing” will, under all circumstances, even with the most precise and conscientious approach, be fraught with shortcomings and subjective moments. When Goethe says, “No creative spirit penetrates the innermost depths of nature,” these words must be supplemented with, “Nor does any penetrate the innermost depths of history.”

[ 11 ] As I said, I do not want to make moral judgments, but merely state the objective facts: this is how Goethe is falsified after such a short time! This is how Goethe is falsified! He is falsified into the opposite of what he was by communicating this to humanity today, which of course does not notice it! They really don't notice! For what has been described here is called: “Christianity in the Worldview Struggle of the Present,” and it is written to show how Christianity stands in the worldview struggle of the present. But the whole spirit that prevails in this writing is the same as that which prevails in this Goethe insight. Here you have a point where you can intercept the sense of truth of those who have a large audience today. For I told you recently about the same man who recently gave lectures in which one can demonstrate how thinking breaks off everywhere, how it is nowhere coherent, how it is completely corrupt, how it nowhere even attempts to penetrate things. And I promised you — because I had to leave the book in question in Dornach, since one cannot carry everything from one place to another at present — to obtain it again here in order to read you some samples that would testify just as much to the discontinuity and corruption of his thinking as this one testifies to the corruption of his view of Goethe. I was unable to obtain the book; it is so sought after that it is currently out of print and no longer available.

[ 12 ] You see, that is how things are when it comes to approaching what is true in itself today. That is why it is not unnecessary or unjustified to point out in serious words what is necessary, and therefore also to draw attention to the fact that behind words such as “Change your mind!” lies something tremendously profound, which can also be understood historically, if one wants to understand it historically. The Anabaptist words “Change your mind!” are not only connected with what can be gleaned from the development of humanity through Spiritual Science, but they are also connected with what can be observed historically, if one does not process Goethe's worldview according to the desires of the modern philistine, but if one tries to bring this Goethean worldview to life. For then it is a great impulse to really re-enter Christianity, and it leads directly to our Spiritual Science.

[ 13 ] You see, today it will be easiest for us to understand what human development is actually about if we remember some of the things we have often discussed in detail. We have discussed how there were mysteries in pre-Christian times. I have tried to point out what was sought in these mysteries in my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact, by quoting Plato's words that speak of these mysteries. Certainly, today one can look at such statements by Plato with a distinguished smile, which is, however, basically only a materialistic, philistine smile, when Plato says: Those who are initiated into the mysteries participate in life in the eternal. The others are as if in a swamp.“ When I wrote ”Christianity as a Mystical Fact," I deliberately referred to these words of Plato, because they bear serious witness to what Plato had to say about the mysteries.

[ 14 ] Basically, the great secret that was imparted to mystery students in pre-Christian times through a special human breeding program consisted in seeing what mineral and plant nature would have become if it had been able to develop in a straight line with its predispositions. For this would have brought about a recognition of humanity such that one could have said: if the mineral and plant kingdoms had been able to develop their potential to the full, then human beings would show their true face in the sphere in which they would then be. And this was a complete transformation that the mystery student underwent when he was, so to speak, introduced into the inner nature of things, when he was allowed to see human beings as they were originally intended to be. For then this mystery student also understood how that which now exists in the warm-blooded animal kingdom, in the bark-endowed, wood-endowed plant kingdom, in the physical human kingdom, does not reveal its origin, but stands unexplained because it does not carry its origin directly within itself. So while plants and minerals do not come to an end, humans and animals do not return to their origin.

[ 15 ] Yes, it was necessary — as evidenced by what the mysteries actually were — it was necessary in pre-Christian times to initiate certain people. In the earliest times, this was an atavistic knowledge of all people, but in later times, when atavistic knowledge had declined, it became necessary to initiate individuals. It was therefore necessary to initiate individuals into the mysteries of outer nature, of the mineral and plant kingdoms, in order to see the human being, to see what he actually is. Likewise, in our time it is necessary to point to his origin again, to get to know the human being from the other side, so that he reveals his origin again — which has been attempted in “The Secret Science” in the stammering way that is possible in the present time — so that the human being is again connected to the whole of being. Just as the other side was revealed in pre-Christian times, so the latter is revealed for the time in which we now live, that is, after the Mystery of Golgotha. But only when one knows that the Mystery of Golgotha is such a profound turning point that historical development is truly divided into two parts, only then can one gradually ascend to a true contemplation of the Mystery of Golgotha. But this can become apparent to us if we simply do not view the times surrounding the Mystery of Golgotha through the lens imposed on people by anti-Goetheanism, which obscures them, but rather view them as Herman Grimm, in a sense, wanted us to. But he did not have the strength to do so.

[ 16 ] The mystery leaders, the mystery guides of ancient times, knew very well why they demanded discipline from those they initiated. And until a certain time, they strictly insisted that no one be initiated into the mysteries who had not undergone this discipline. And in particular, in the older times in Greece, great importance was attached to that no one was initiated into the mysteries who had not undergone strict discipline. What he learned there was how to apply the secrets to life in the right way. This was considered very, very important, especially in Greek regions. And it was strictly enforced that the mysteries were not revealed to the unworthy, just as Christ Jesus did not want to reveal the secrets of the Kingdom of God to the scribes and Pharisees, but only to those whom he could make his disciples.

[ 17 ] Without those who were the mystery leaders being in the least to blame, it was no longer possible to keep the mystery secret in the appropriate manner in the times when the event of Golgotha was approaching. It was no longer possible. And why was it no longer possible? I say: it was no longer possible through no fault of the mystery leaders. The mystery leaders, the mystery masters, were not to blame. What drew the mysteries out of their sphere of secrecy in an incorrect way was the Roman Empire, that was Roman imperialism. And it was impossible for the leaders of the mysteries to resist the commands of the Roman Caesars in particular. The time was approaching when the mystery leaders could no longer resist the commands of the Roman Caesars. And this, that spiritual life was violated by Roman Caesarism, is reflected in all the events of that time. A person like John the Baptist also saw this coming in all its details. For those who want to see will see in the details what is coming. Only those who do not want to see do not see it. This lies in the words, which are always very ambiguous, but always true in all their meanings; it lies in the words of people such as John the Baptist. In the words: “Change your minds, the kingdom of heaven is near” also lies what could be translated as: Look, that which brought salvation to humanity as ancient mystery knowledge is no longer, it is being taken over by the Roman Empire, which has also spread its wings over the Judaism that surrounds you. Therefore, change your minds! No longer seek salvation in what emanates from the Roman Empire, but seek it in what is not on this earth. Receive baptism, which loosens your etheric body, so that you may see what is to come and what is to usher in new mysteries, for the old mysteries have been seized.

[ 18 ] What was approaching, what was first the case with Augustus, who did not yet abuse it, was that the Roman Caesars simply had to be initiated into the mysteries by their Caesar's command. This became customary. This was what John the Baptist opposed above all else, seeking to remove from human development those who wanted to receive baptism, so that they would not see the salvation of human development solely in what emanated from the Roman Empire.

[ 19 ] You see, one of the Roman Caesars who was most thoroughly initiated into the secrets of the mysteries was Caligula, and later Nero. And it is one of the secrets of historical development that Caligula and Nero were initiates, that they forced themselves to have knowledge of the secrets of the mysteries. And think for a moment about the state of mind of those who knew: that which is approaching — and who at the same time could have a sense, a feeling of what that meant. Think about the state of mind of these people. They could, of course, say: That which must come, and which will come, is the kingdom of heaven, and from now on, if people seek the sacred mysteries, they must seek them there, not in the kingdom of men! History often speaks through its symbols. Diogenes, because he was in Greece, still walked around the Athenian market with a lantern, searching for the “human being” who had been lost, whose vision had been lost. Why lost? Not because this man was unknown, or because times were approaching in which people no longer sought what could be communicated in the mysteries about the secrets of human development. People like Caligula and Nero knew this in their hearts. But precisely because of this, it was shrouded in darkness. And Diogenes, like John the Baptist — Diogenes in his own way — sensed the time approaching when, precisely because the mystery of the mysteries was known to have been betrayed by man, man would be plunged into darkness and one would have to search for him with a lantern.

[ 20 ] Caligula had received his instruction to live correctly according to the ancient mysteries in the spiritual contexts within them. Caligula therefore understood how to organize his consciousness from falling asleep to waking up in such a way that he could commune with everything in the spiritual world that the ancient mysteries knew as the Luna gods, the gods of the moon. And Caligula understood the art of the ancient mysteries, of communicating with the spirits of the moon in his nocturnal consciousness. This was one of the ancient mysteries: to learn about what lies behind ordinary consciousness, behind daytime consciousness, and to learn how ordinary daytime consciousness changes when one penetrates the secrets of this other consciousness. For by knowing where his individuality is when it is in the spiritual world from falling asleep to waking up, man also becomes aware of how this individuality not only relates to other natural beings here as an embodied natural being, but how it, this individuality, relates to the spiritual world, to everything that lives in the spiritual hierarchies. Therefore, when a person knows the secrets of the moon deities, their relationship to the sun deities, to the deities that the day's vision, dulled by Lucifer, does not see in the environment, and which this awakened consciousness then sees. If, like Caligula, a person knows from their own experience that human individuality is in the spiritual world from falling asleep to waking up, then they also become aware that in daytime consciousness it does not merely reign in the shell of outer nature, but that in daytime consciousness it reigns among the spirits of solar life; that it reigns not only under the physical rays of the sun, but under the spirits of solar life.

[ 21 ] But Caligula — who, of course, had no discipline — knew how to communicate with the lunar spirits in his sleep; and this resulted in his addressing Jupiter, whom the ancient Greeks thought of as Zeus in yet another sphere, as “Brother Jupiter” during the day. It was a common expression of Caligula to speak of “Brother Jupiter.” For, of course, he felt himself to be a citizen of the spiritual world in which Jupiter is, and he addressed him as Brother Jupiter. He, Caligula, knew himself to be in the world of spiritual beings. Therefore, he behaved in such a way that it was clearly manifested through his behavior that he belonged to the spiritual world. At certain times he appeared in the costume of Bacchus with the thyrsus staff, with the oak wreath on his head, and allowed himself to be worshipped as Bacchus. At certain times he appeared as Hercules with the club and the lion skin and allowed himself to be worshipped as Hercules. Then he appeared again as Apollo and allowed himself to be worshipped, wearing the radiant crown on his head and holding the Apollo bow in his hand, and was worshipped by a choir that surrounded him and sang the appropriate choral songs in his honor. He appeared with a winged head and the herald's staff as the god Mercury. He also appeared as Jupiter. A tragedian, who was regarded as an expert and had been asked to decide who was greater, Caligula or Jupiter, whom he had placed in a statue next to him, was flogged because he did not agree to portray Caligula as the greater.

[ 22 ] But what about Caligula's judgment? In the Luciferic temptation, the words: Your senses shall be opened, and you shall become like gods — were followed by: You shall distinguish between good and evil. — But this distinction between good and evil was instilled by a spirit of humanity that could only live until a certain time in its development. That time had passed. It passed at the time when John the Baptist first appeared with the words: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand”; he just did not add the technical term: “and the kingdom of Lucifer has come to an end.” Of course, he spoke only of the kingdom of heaven. One can see in particular from Caligula's judgment how that kingdom had come to an end. For once, under Caligula's rule, a judicial error had occurred — namely, an innocent man had been sentenced to death and executed instead of a guilty man, because the innocent man had been confused with the guilty man — Caligula said: It doesn't matter, because the innocent man was just as guilty as the guilty man! And when Petronius was sentenced to death, Caligula said: Those who sentenced him could just as well be sentenced themselves, for they are just as guilty as the one they sentenced to death. You see, the distinction had already ceased, the distinction between good and evil. It no longer extended to the time I am talking about. We can grasp it if we really let the historical events sink in. We can grasp it.

[ 23 ] Nero was such an initiate. And Nero was basically — only not as philistine as some of our modern contemporaries are, but grandiose, translated into the heroic – a psychoanalyst. Nero was even the first psychoanalyst, for he was the first to assert that everything in human beings depends on the libido, that whatever occurs in human beings depends on what acts as the sexual in them – a doctrine that the philistines among psychoanalysts in our age have renewed. But Professor Sigmund Freud is not Nero. He does not lack the soul, but the greatness.

[ 24 ] But what John the Baptist knew, Nero also knew. For Nero also knew — and here Nero differs from Caligula — Nero also knew from his initiation into the mysteries that there is something strange about what man is, that the truths of the ancient mysteries have, in a sense, faded away in their true impulses, that they have lost their power, and that they can therefore only be maintained by external force. It was not only John the Baptist who said: “The old world order has come to an end” — he added: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand, change your ways!” — Nero also knew that the kingdoms of the old world had come to an end, Nero also knew that there was a tremendous turning point in the development of the earth. But Nero had his devilish consciousness, he had all the devilry that an unworthy initiate can have within him. And that is why he, just like John the Baptist, just like Christ Jesus, expected the end of the world. If one understands what John the Baptist and Christ Jesus say about the end of the world in the right way, then one does not need to interpret it in a philistine manner, saying that it will come at such and such a time, but then one can understand, as the Bible says, that the end of the world is here. But you already suspect — I will continue to talk about this point next time — that the Parousia is a reality when it is understood in the right way. Nero knew that a whole new order was coming, but it did not please him. It did not suit him. And therefore his statement that he wanted nothing more than to participate in the end of the world is characteristic. His words are characteristic: When the world goes up in flames, I will take special pleasure in it! That was his particular madness: the longing to see the world go up in flames. And from this arose what can be doubted historically, but which is true: that he had Rome set on fire because, in his madness, he had a mental image of the fire spreading so far from Rome that the whole world would burn.

[ 25 ] I have given you some symptoms that are supposed to characterize how, in a certain way, the world came to an end at that time and had to start anew. But in external reality, things happen in such a way that one thing always flows into another, that the old often remains in existence even after the new has already shown its first impulse. And although the kingdoms of heaven have been there since the mystery of Golgotha, the Roman Empire remained alongside them in a state of decline and decadence, and what led to this is repeatedly emphasized by those in the know, with the most diverse good and evil intentions: what lives among us in the present, what permeates Christian approaches, is the spirit of the old Roman Empire, that is the spirit of Roman imperialism! — One would arrive at a peculiar chapter if one were to continue speaking in this sense. One would begin by showing how the legal concepts that emerged later can all be traced back to Roman law, how Roman law, which is anti-Christian in the Christ sense, has woven itself into everything. And one would have to touch on many other areas if one wanted to discuss the survival of Roman imperialism to the present day; and even more so if one wanted to discuss everything connected with the decline of the Roman Empire.

[ 26 ] There is something instinctive in the way Roman history is taught in schools and in the way historians, who write the fable convenue that is currently called history, teach humanity about the Roman Empire, so that the spirit that reigns within it is eliminated by the most learned. But this achieves one thing for sure, my dear friends. It ensures that the full significance of the historical moment when the cross was erected on Golgotha does not enter the general consciousness of humanity. An attempt was made, albeit instinctively, to conceal the full meaning of the events that took place. For there is little of the courage that is needed to penetrate from the outer shell to the inner core of history. And we see that there are people who find a large audience, who even falsify Goethe in order to make people believe that Goethe's view was also suitable for looking at history as if it were only an outer shell. But what has this effect works in the broad impulses of human soul life, and it is not just a matter of not arriving at a correct view of this or that point, but rather that the whole of life is influenced by it, so to speak, and develops such a tendency. Such an impulse prevails, the whole of life is influenced by this impulse, runs, so to speak, in the direction of this impulse. That is why people like Goethe remain preachers in the desert, and are even slandered by having the opposite attitude to knowledge attributed to them.

[ 27 ] But one can also see where such impulses lead. Karma brings many things to us, even when we seek to round off our insights so that we can express them to our fellow human beings. And so yesterday I came across a saying by one of our contemporaries. I only came across this statement yesterday, but it is very much connected with what I had to live as an inner impulse throughout these discussions of the mystery of Golgotha. This contemporary has undergone various transformations. Most recently, he has found his way to Christianity in the form of Catholicism in order to be able to propagate it. And so we have the remarkable fact that a free spirit appears before his contemporaries as a witness for Christ, and moreover in the Catholic sense. Now he expressed his opinion about Christ in the coloration in which he now represents him. And this testimony is characteristic, it is truly a document of the present. I would like to read to you this testimony of a modern witness to Christ:

[ 28 ] "It is a futile effort to seek the afterlife. It may not even exist, and no matter how we approach it, we cannot learn anything about it. Let us leave all occultism to the enlightened and the charlatans; whatever form mysticism may take, it contradicts reason. But let us nevertheless devote ourselves to the Church ... because, with the authority of centuries and great practical experience, it formulates the rules of that ethic" (namely the Church!), “which must be taught to the peoples and children. And finally, because, far from delivering us to mysticism, it defends us directly against it, silences the voices of the mysterious groves” (as he calls what might come out of the spiritual world), interprets the Gospels, and sacrifices the magnanimous anarchism of the Savior to the needs of society."

[29] Here you have the confession of a man who converted to Christianity from modern materialism; who converted to Christianity by presenting it as his ideal, in the sense of being able to convert to Christianity in that what Christ handed down to the world as his grandiose impulses has been adapted, sacrificed to the needs of modern society. But even what is expressed in such a witness to Christ has a large audience, much larger than one might think. For there is an extraordinarily great need to present Christ in a way that pleases modern man, that suits modern man. And instincts work to prevent the human soul from coming to the truth that Jesus' death was a completely natural event, caused by the fact that Christianity and the Roman Empire could not coexist, that the coexistence of Christianity and the Roman Empire could only result in the death of Christ. But it follows from this that, if one wants to come to the light at all and not walk in darkness, one must seek out in modern life how certain things in this modern life relate to genuinely understood Christianity, and that we must gradually bring forth that divine wrath that Christ himself had when he often had to respond to what those whom he called the scribes and Pharisees brought forth.

[ 30 ] Today I wanted to give you a picture of what already existed in the centuries into which Christianity burst, and I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that our view of history must be deepened, especially at the point where the mystery of Golgotha stands. For this can happen even if one remains with history alone. But one must acquire a feeling for how to evaluate the individual things, what is to be regarded as significant and relevant to the time, and what is insignificant. One must acquire a feeling for what then lives on from the various currents, where things live on.