The Search for the New Isis, Divine Sophia
GA 202
24 December 1920, Dornach
II. The Quest for Isis-Sophia
In the festival of Christmas we have something given to us that directs the thoughts of all circles of Christian people straight to the very deepest problems of the evolution of man upon earth. Regard the events of history from whatever aspect you will, examine them and try to arrive at an understanding of evolution, search how you will for the meaning of man's evolution on earth,—in all history you will find no thought that has such power to lift the soul to the contemplation of the whole becoming of man as the thought of the Mystery of Golgotha, as the thought that is contained in the Christian festival.
If we look back to the beginning of man's evolution upon earth, and then follow it up through the thousands of years that preceded the Mystery of Golgotha, we shall find through that time that, no matter how great and grand the achievements of the peoples in the various nations, all these achievements constituted in reality a kind of preparation—they were a preparatory stage for that which took place for the sake of mankind at the Mystery of Golgotha. Again, if we study what has happened since the Mystery of Golgotha, there too we shall find we can only understand it when we remember that the Christ who went through the Mystery of Golgotha has taken active part in the evolution of man ever since.
Many things in human evolution may at first appear incomprehensible; but if we investigate them without narrow-mindedness or prejudice—for instance, prejudices of the kind which believe that unknown divinities come to man's help just where he considers that help is needed, without his having himself to move a finger,—if we leave aside such views, we shall find that even the most distressing events in the course of the world's history can show us how the evolution of the earth has acquired significance and meaning through the fact that Christ has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. It is good if we study the Mystery of Golgotha—the Christmas Mystery is contained in it—from points of view which can reveal, as it were, the meaning of the entire evolution of man. We know the intimate connection between what takes place in the ethical-moral sphere of man's evolution and what takes place in nature, and a certain understanding of this link between life in nature and the world's moral order enables us to approach also another relationship which we have been contemplating for many years—namely, the relationship of the Christ to that Being whose outer reflection appears in the sun. The followers and representatives of the Christian impulse were not always so hostile as they often are today toward the acknowledgment of this relationship between the Sun-Mystery and the Christ-Mystery. Dionysius, the Areopagite, who has often been mentioned here, calls the sun God's monument, and in Augustine we continually find allusions—even in Scholasticism we find such allusions—referring to the fact that the outwardly visible stars and their movements are images of the divine-spiritual existence of the world. And we must grasp the Christmas Mystery in a far wider connection than is usually done, if we would grasp just that which concerns us most of all in view of the important tasks of the present age. I should like to remind you of something of which I have spoken repeatedly in the course of many years. I have told you how we look back upon the first post-Atlantean age, filled with the deeds and experiences of the ancient Indian nation; how we look back upon the ancient Persian epoch of post-Atlantean humanity; then upon the Egyptian-Chaldean, and upon the Greco-Latin, and at last come to the fifth epoch of the post-Atlantean humanity, our own. Our epoch will be followed by the sixth and by the seventh. And I have drawn your attention to the fact that the Greco-Latin, the fourth epoch of post-Atlantean humanity, stands, as it were, in the centre, and that there are certain connections—you can read of this in my little book The Spiritual Guidance of Mankind—between the third and the fifth epochs, that is between the Egyptian—Chaldean epoch and our own—and that there is also a certain connection between the ancient Persian epoch and the sixth, and between the ancient Indian and the seventh epoch of post-Atlantean humanity. Certain things repeat themselves in a special way in each of these epochs of life.
Once I pointed out that the great Kepler, the successor of Copernicus, had a feeling that his solar and planetary system repeated—of course in a way suited to the fifth post-Atlantean age—what was contained in the world-picture of the Egyptian Mysteries. Kepler expressed this in a certain connection very radically when he said that he had borrowed the vessels of the ancient Egyptian teachers of wisdom and carried them over into our modern times. Today, however, we will consider something which had a central place in the cults performed by the Egyptian Mystery-priests—the Isis-Mysteries. In order to call up before our minds the spiritual connection between the Isis-Mystery and that which lives in Christianity, we need only cast our eyes upon Raphael's famous picture of the Sistine Madonna. The Virgin is holding the child Jesus, and behind her are the clouds, which are really children's faces. We can imagine that the child Jesus has come down to the Virgin from the clouds, through a condensation, as it were, of the thin cloud-substance. But this picture which has arisen out of an entirely Christian spirit is, after all, a kind of repetition of what was revered in the Egyptian Isis-Mysteries, which portrayed Isis holding the child Horus. The theme of this earlier picture is entirely in keeping with that of Raphael's picture. Of course we must not be tempted to interpret this in the superficial way in which it has been done by many people since the 18th century and throughout the 19th century right up to our own days—namely, to consider the story of Christ Jesus and all that belongs to it merely as a metamorphosis, a transformation, of ancient pagan Mysteries. From my book Christianity as Mystical Fact you already know how these things must be considered, but in the sense in which it is explained there we can point to a spiritual relationship between that which arises in Christianity and the old pagan Mysteries.
This Isis-Mystery has as its chief content the death of Osiris and the search of Isis for the dead Osiris. We know that Osiris, the representative of the Sun-Being, the representative of the spiritual sun, was killed by Typhon, who is none other than the Ahriman of the Egyptians. Ahriman kills Osiris, throws him into the Nile, and the Nile carries the body away. Isis, the spouse of Osiris, sets out on her quest and finds him in Asia. She brings him back to Egypt, where Ahriman, the enemy, cuts the body into twelve parts. Isis buries these twelve parts in various places, so that from now on they belong to the earth.
This can show us how profound was the connection between the heavenly and the earthly powers in the conception of Egyptian wisdom. Osiris is, on the one hand, the representative of the Sun-Powers. After having passed through death he is, in various places simultaneously, the force which matures everything that grows out of the earth. The ancient Egyptian sage is quick to imagine how the Powers which shine down to us from the Sun, enter the earth and become part of the earth, and how, as Sun-Powers buried in the earth, they hand over once more to man what matures out of the earth. The Egyptian myth is founded upon the story of Osiris—how he was killed, how his spouse Isis had to set out on her quest for him, how she brought him back to Egypt and he then became active in another form, from out of the earth. One of the Egyptian pyramids depicts the whole event in a most significant manner. The Egyptians not only wrote down in their own particular writing what they knew as the solution to the great cosmic secrets, they also expressed it in their architectural constructions. They built one of these pyramids with such mathematical precision, that its shadow disappeared in the spring equinox owing to the position of the sun—the shadow disappeared into the base of the pyramid and only reappeared in the autumn equinox. The Egyptians tried to express in this pyramid that the forces which used to shine down from the sun are now buried in the earth and stimulate the forces of the earth, so that the earth may produce the fruit which mankind needs.
This, then, is the idea we find present in the minds and hearts of the ancient Egyptians. On the other hand, they look up to the sun, they look up to the lofty Sun Being, and they honour Him. At the same time, however, they relate how this Sun Being has been lost in Osiris, and has been sought by Isis, and how the Being has been found again and is able hereafter to continue his activity in a new and changed way.
Many things which appeared in the Egyptian wisdom must be repeated in a different form during the fifth post-Atlantean age. We must learn more and more to contemplate, upon a spiritual-scientific basis, the Mysteries of the Egyptian priests in a form which is suited to our own age, in the light of Christianity. For the Egyptians, Osiris was a kind of representative of the Christ Who had not yet appeared. They looked upon Osiris as the Sun-Being, but they imagined that this Sun-Being had disappeared and must be found again. We cannot imagine that mankind could lose the Sun-Being, the Christ, Who has now passed through the Mystery of Golgotha; for He came down from spiritual heights, connected Himself with the man Jesus of Nazareth, and now remains connected with the earth. He is present, He exists, as the Christmas carol proclaims each year anew: “Unto us a Saviour is born.” It expresses thereby the eternal, not the transitory nature of this event—that Jesus was not only born once at Bethlehem, but is born continually; in other words, He remains with the life of the earth. The Christ, and what He means for us, cannot be lost.
My dear friends, it is not the Osiris, but the Isis legend that has to be fulfilled in our time. We cannot lose the Christ and what He gives in a higher form than Osiris; but we can lose, and we have lost, that which we see portrayed by the side of Osiris—Isis, the Mother of the Saviour, the Divine Wisdom, Sophia. If we wish to renew the Isis legend, we cannot take it in the form in which it has been transmitted to us—Osiris who is killed by Typhon-Ahriman and carried away by the waters of the Nile, who must be found again by Isis, in order that his body, cut into pieces by Typhon-Ahriman, may be sunk into the earth—no, my dear friends, we must somehow find the Isis legend again, the content of the Isis Mystery, but we must form it out of Imagination, suited to our own times. An understanding will come again for the eternal cosmic truths, when we learn to create in the world of Imagination, as the Egyptians did. We must find the true Isis legend.
Because the Egyptian lived before the Mystery of Golgotha, he was permeated by luciferic powers. If luciferic powers are within man and stir his inner life, moving and weaving through it, then the result will be that the ahrimanic powers will appear to him as an active force outside. Thus the Egyptian who was himself permeated by Lucifer rightly sees a world-picture in which Ahriman-Typhon is active. Now, we must realise that modern man is permeated by Ahriman. Ahriman moves and surges within him, just as Lucifer moved and surged within the Egyptian world. And then, when Ahriman works through Lucifer, man sees his picture of the world in a luciferic form. How does it appear to him? This luciferic picture of the world has been made, it has become increasingly popular and has been adopted in all circles of thought that consider themselves progressive and enlightened.
If we would understand the Christmas Mystery, we must bear in mind that Lucifer is the power who wants to hold back the world-picture in an earlier stage. Lucifer is the power which tries to bring into the modern world-conception that which existed in earlier stages of evolution; he tries to give permanence to that which existed in earlier periods. All that was moral in earlier periods also exists of course today. But Lucifer strives to sever the moral forces as such (the significance of the moral forces lies in this: that they are there in the present, working as seeds for the future), Lucifer strives to sever all moral forces from the world-picture; he only allows the laws of nature, the necessary and natural aspect, to appear in this world-picture. Thus the impoverished human being of modern times possesses a wisdom of the world in which the stars move according to a purely mechanical necessity, devoid of morality; so that the moral meaning of the world's order cannot be found in their movements.
This, my dear friends, is a purely luciferic world-picture. Just as the Egyptian looked out into the world and saw in it Ahriman-Typhon as the one who takes Osiris away from him, so we must look at our luciferic world-picture, at the mathematical-mechanical world-picture of modern astronomy and of other branches of natural science, and we must realise that the luciferic element rules in this world-picture, just as the typhonic-ahrimanic element ruled in the Egyptian world-picture. Just as the Egyptian saw his outer world-picture in an ahrimanic-typhonic light, so modern man, because he is ahrimanic, sees it with luciferic traits. Lucifer is there, Lucifer is active there. Just as the Egyptian imagined that Ahriman-Typhon was active in wind and weather and in the snowstorms of winter, so modern man, if he wishes to understand things, must imagine that Lucifer appears to him in the sunshine and in the light of the stars, in the movements of the planets and of the moon. The world-conception of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, is a luciferic conception. Just because it is in keeping with our ahrimanic forces of knowledge, its content—please note the distinction—its content is a luciferic one.
When the Mystery of Golgotha took place, the divine Sophia, the wisdom that sees through the world and enables man to comprehend the world, worked in a twofold way:—in the revelation to the poor shepherds in the fields, and in the revelation to the wise men from the East. This was the twofold working of the divine Sophia, the heavenly wisdom. This wisdom, which was still to be found in its later form among the Gnostics, and which the early Christian Fathers and Teachers of the Church learned from the Gnostics and used to enable them to understand the Mystery of Golgotha—this wisdom could not be continued into our times, it was overwhelmed and killed by Lucifer, just as Osiris was killed by Ahriman-Typhon. We have not lost Osiris—the Christ—we have lost that which for us takes the place of Isis. Lucifer has killed it But the Isis-Being killed by Lucifer was not sunk into the earth, as Typhon sunk Osiris into the Nile; Lucifer carried the Isis-Being, the divine wisdom whom he had killed, out into the world's spaces; he sunk her into the world's ocean. When we look out into this ocean and see the stars moving only according to mathematical lines, then we see the grave of the world's spiritual essence; for the divine Sophia, the successor of Isis, is dead.
We must give form to this legend, for it sets forth the truth of our times. We must speak of the dead and lost Isis, the divine Sophia, even as the ancient Egyptians spoke of the dead and lost Osiris. We must set out in search of the dead body of the new Isis, the dead body of the divine Sophia, with a force which, although we cannot yet rightly understand it, is nevertheless in us—with the force of the Christ, with the force of the new Osiris. We must approach luciferic science and seek there the coffin of Isis; in other words we must find in that which natural science gives us something which stimulates us inwardly towards Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. This brings to us the help of Christ within—Christ, Who remains hidden in darkness if we do not illuminate Him with divine wisdom. Armed with this force of the Christ, with the new Osiris, we must set out in search of Isis, the new Isis. Lucifer does not cut Isis in pieces, as Ahriman-Typhon did with Osiris; on the contrary, Isis is spread out, in her true shape, in the beauty of the whole Universe. Isis shines out of the cosmos in an aura of many shining colours. We must learn to understand Isis when we look out into the Cosmos; we must learn to see this Cosmos in an aura of shining colours. But just as the Ahriman-Typhon cut Osiris into pieces, so Lucifer blurs and washes out the colours in all their clear distinctness, blends and merges into one single whole the parts which are so beautifully distributed over the heavens, the limbs of the new Isis which go to make the great firmament of the heavens. Even as Typhon cut Osiris in pieces, so Lucifer blends the manifold colours that stream down to us from the whole aura of the cosmos into a uniform white light that streams through the universe. It is that light which Goethe combated in his Theory of Colours, repudiating the statement that it contains all the colours, which in truth are spread out over the marvellous and manifold and secret deeds of the whole cosmos. But we must pursue our search until we find Isis, and when we have found her, we must learn how to place out into the universe what we are then able to discover and to know. We must having a living picture in our minds of all that we have acquired through the newly-found Isis, so that the whole heavens become for us spiritual again. We must understand Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan from within. We must bear out into the heavenly spaces that which Lucifer has made of Isis, just as Isis buried in the earth parts of the body of Osiris, cut into pieces by Typhon-Ahriman. We must realise that through the force of the Christ we can find an inner astronomy, which reveals to us once more the origin and life of the cosmos, as grounded in the force of the spirit. And then, when we have this insight into the cosmos, awakened through the newly-found power of Isis, which is now become the power of the divine Sophia, then will the Christ, Who has united with the earth since the Mystery of Golgotha, become active within us, because then we shall know Him. It is not the Christ we lack, my dear friends, but the knowledge and wisdom of the Christ, the Sophia of the Christ, the Isis of the Christ.
This is what we should engrave in our souls, as a content of the Christmas Mystery. We must realise that in the 19th century even theology has come to look upon the Christ merely as the Man of Nazareth. This means theology is completely permeated by Lucifer. It no longer sees into the spiritual foundations of existence. External natural science is luciferic; theology is luciferic. Of course if we are speaking of the inner aspect of the human being we can just as well say that in his theology man is ahrimanic. Then in the same way we must say of the Egyptian that he is luciferic, just as we say of him that his perception of the external world is ahrimanic.
The Christmas Mystery must be grasped anew by modern man. Let him realise that first of all he must seek Isis, in order that Christ may appear to him. The cause of the misfortunes and troubles in modern civilisation is not that we have lost the Christ Who stands before us in a far greater glory than Osiris did in the eyes of the Egyptians. We have not lost Him and need not to set out in search of Him, armed with the force of Isis—what we have lost is the wisdom and knowledge of Christ Jesus. This is what we must find again, with the help of the force of Christ which is in us.
This is how we must look upon the content of the Christmas festival. For many modern people Christmas is nothing but an occasion for giving and receiving presents, something which they celebrate every year through habit. The Christmas festival has become an empty phrase like so many other things in modern life. And it is just because so many things have become a phrase, that modern life is so full of calamities and chaos. This is in truth the deeper cause for the chaos in our modern life.
My dear friends, if in this community, we could acquire the right feelings for everything which has become words, has become a phrase in modern life, and if these feelings could enable us to find the impulses needed for a renewal, then this community, which calls itself the anthroposophical community, would be worthy of its existence. This community should understand how terrible it is in our age that such things as the Christmas festival should be kept up as a mere phrase. We should be able to understand that in future this must not happen, and that many things must be given a new content, so that instead of acting out of old habits, we act out of new and fresh insight. If we cannot find the inner courage needed for this, then we share in the lie which keeps up the yearly Christmas festival merely as a phrase, celebrating it without any true feeling. Do we really rise to the highest concerns of humanity when we give and receive presents every year at Christmas out of habit? Do we lift ourselves up to the highest concerns of humanity when we listen to the words—which have also become a phrase—spoken by the representatives of this or that religious community? We should forbid ourselves to continue in this inner hollowness of our Christmas celebrations. We should make the inner decision to give true and worthy content to such a festival, which should raise mankind to the comprehension of the meaning of its existence. Ask yourselves, my dear friends, whether the feelings in your hearts and souls, when you stand before the Christmas tree and open the presents which are given out of habit, and the Christmas cards containing the usual phrases—ask yourselves whether there are living in you feelings that can raise mankind to an understanding of the sense and meaning of its evolution on earth! All the trouble and sorrow of our time is due to this—we cannot find the courage to lift ourselves above the phrases of our age. But it must happen, a new content must come—a content which can give us entirely new feelings that stir us mightily, even as those were stirred who were true Christians in the first Christian centuries, and who knew that the Mystery of Golgotha and the appearance of Christ upon the earth was the highest which man could experience. Our souls must again acquire something of this spirit
Oh, my dear friends, the soul will attain to altogether new feelings if it is willing to experience the new Isis legend within modern humanity. Lucifer kills Isis and transfers her body into the cosmic spaces, which have become a mathematical abstraction, or the grave of Isis; then comes the search for Isis, and her discovery through the impulse given by the inner force of spiritual knowledge, which places into the lifeless sky that which stars and planets reveal through an inner life, so that they appear as monuments of the spiritual powers that surge through space. We look in the right spirit towards the ‘manger’ when we first let the powers that surge through space kindle our feeling, and then look at that Being Who came into the world through the Child. We know that we bear this Being within us, but we must understand Him. Just as the Egyptians looked from Isis to Osiris, so we must learn to look again to the new Isis, the holy Sophia. The Christ will appear in spiritual form during the 20th century, not through an external happening, but inasmuch as human beings find that force which is represented by the holy Sophia. The present age has the tendency to lose this Isis-force, this force of the Mary. It was killed by all that arose with the modern consciousness of mankind. New forms of religion have in part exterminated just this view of the Mary.
This is the Mystery of modern humanity. The Mary-Isis has been killed, and she must be sought, just as Osiris was sought by Isis; but she must be sought in the wide space of heaven, with that force that Christ can awaken in us, if we give ourselves to Him in the right way.
Let us picture this rightly, let us immerse ourselves in this new Isis legend which must be experienced, and let us fill our souls with it. Only then shall we experience in a true sense this Holy Eve of Christmas, leading us into Christmas Day, the Day of Christ. My dear friends, this anthroposophical community can become a community of human beings united in love because of the search in which they set out together. Let us realise this most intimate and dear task, let us go in spirit to the manger and bring to the Child our sacrifice and our gift, in the knowledge that something altogether new must fill our souls, in order that we may undertake the tasks which can lead mankind out of barbarism into a new civilisation.
To this end it must really be so among us that one helps the other in love, so that a real community of souls arises in which envy and all such things disappear, and in which we do not look each at our own particular goal, but face together, united in love, the great goal which we have in common. The Mystery which the Christmas Child brought into the world contains this—to look at a goal in common, without discord among us. For the common goal implies union and harmony. The light of Christmas should shine as a light of peace, a light that brings peace outside, only because first of all it sheds an inner peace into the hearts of men. We should understand this and say together: Let us realise this and work together with love in the great task. Then, and only then, shall we understand Christmas. If we cannot realise this, we shall not understand Christmas. Let us remember that when we do sow discord, this discord hinders us in understanding the One who appeared among us on Christmas Eve. Can we not pour this Christmas Mystery into our souls, as something which unites our hearts in love and unity? We cannot do this, my dear friends, unless we understand what Spiritual Science really means. Nothing will grow out of this community if we merely bring into it ideas and impulses we have collected from all comers of the world, where phrase and routine hold sway. Let us remember that our community is facing a difficult year, that all forces must be gathered together, and let us celebrate Christmas in this spirit. Oh, my dear friends, I should like to find words which appeal deeply to the heart of each one of you on this evening. Then each one of you would feel that my words contain a greeting which is at the same time an appeal to kindle Spiritual Science within your hearts, so that it may become a force which can help humanity to raise itself up again from its terrible oppression.
These, my dear friends, are the aspects from which I have gathered the thoughts which I wished to give you. Be sure that they are meant for each one of you, as a warm Christmas greeting, as something which can lead you into the New Year in the very best way. In this spirit, accept my words as a warm and loving Christmas greeting.
Isis-Sophia
Wisdom of God:
Lucifer has slain her,
And on the wings of the world-wide Forces
Carried her hence into Cosmic space.Christ-Will
Working in man:
Shall wrest from Lucifer
And on the boats of Spirit-knowledge
Call to new life in souls of man
Isis-Sophia
Wisdom of God.
[ 1 ] In dem Weihnachtsfest ist der Christenheit etwas gegeben, das für die weitesten Kreise unmittelbar hinaufführt zu den höchsten Fragen der Menschheitsentwickelung auf Erden. Man mag das geschichtliche Werden betrachten an welchem Punkte man will, man mag historische Ereignisse heranziehen zum Verständnisse des Menschwerdens, zum Ergründen des Sinnes dieses Menschwerdens auf Erden: man wird eine so bedeutsame Erhebung zu diesem Mysterium des Menschwerdens in so populärer, weithin zu verstehender Form nicht finden können, als es der Gedanke ist an das Mysterium von Golgatha, als es der Gedanke ist, der im Weihnachtsfeste eingeschlossen ist.
[ 2 ] Wenn wir hinschauen zum Beginn der Menschwerdung auf Erden und die Jahrtausende bis zum Mysterium von Golgatha verfolgen, so finden wir überall, daß, wenn auch noch so Großes innerhalb der Völkergemeinschaften geleistet wird, dies Geleistete eine Art Vorbereitung, eine Art Vorstufe ist für dasjenige, was für die Menschheit geschehen ist durch das Mysterium von Golgatha. Und wiederum, wenn wir verfolgen dasjenige, was seither geschehen ist, so können wir an Verständnis nur gewinnen, wenn wir ins Auge fassen, wie der durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangene Christus wirksam geworden ist für dieses Werden der Menschheit. Es mag noch so vieles zunächst unverständlich scheinen in diesem Menschheitswerden — wenn man ohne Kleinheit forscht, ohne Aberglauben, der sich etwa in der Richtung bewegte, daß dem Menschen ohne sein Zutun von irgendwelchen unbekannten Göttern geholfen werden sollte da, wo er meint, daß diese Hilfe am Platze wäre, wenn man absieht von solchen Anschauungen, so wird man finden, daß auch in den schmerzlichen Ereignissen des weltgeschichtlichen Werdens zu erkennen ist, welche Bedeutung, welchen Sinn dieses Erdenwerden bekommen hat dadurch, daß der Christus durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist. Für uns geziemt es sich, daß wir gerade dieses Mysterium von Golgatha — und das Weihnachtsmysterium gehört ja dazu — von denjenigen Gesichtspunkten aus betrachten, die gewissermaßen in ihm den Sinn der ganzen Erdenmenschheit enthüllen können.
[ 3 ] Wir wissen, in welch innigem Zusammenhang wir zu sehen haben dasjenige, was moralisch-geistig sich in der Menschheitsentwickelung vollzieht, mit dem, was sich in der Natur vollzieht. Und wir können mit einem gewissen Verständnis für diese Brücke zwischen Naturdasein und moralischer Weltordnung auch herangehen an jene Beziehung, die uns seit vielen Jahren beschäftigt, an die Beziehung des Christus Jesus zu demjenigen Wesen, dessen äußerer Abglanz in der Sonne erscheint. Nicht immer waren Bekenner und Vertreter des christlichen Impulses so feindlich gesinnt dem Erkennen dieses Zusammenhanges zwischen dem Sonnenmysterium und dem ChristusMysterium, wie das die heutigen, in die Dekadenz gekommenen Vertreter des Christentums oftmals sind. Dionysius der Areopagite, von dem wir ja auch schon öfter gesprochen haben, nennt die Sonne das Denkmal des Gottes. Und bei Augustinus finden wir durchaus noch überall Hinweise, selbst in der Scholastik finden wir noch Hinweise darauf, wie in den äußeren Gestirnen und ihren Bewegungen Bildhaftes zu sehen ist für das geistig-göttliche Dasein in der Welt.
[ 4 ] Aber wir müssen aus einem größeren Zusammenhange heraus dasjenige vom Weihnachtsmysterium begreifen, was uns gerade wegen der großen Aufgaben der Gegenwart naheliegen muß. Ich möchte Sie da erinnern an etwas, das ich im Laufe der Jahre in verschiedener Weise immer wieder vorgebracht habe. Ich habe gesagt: Wir blicken zurück in die erste nachatlantische Zeitepoche, die ausgefüllt war durch die Taten und Erlebnisse des altindischen Volkes; wir blicken zurück in die urpersische Epoche der nachatlantischen Menschheit, in die ägyptisch-chaldäische, in die griechisch-lateinische, und kommen dann zu unserer Lebensepoche, zu der fünften der nachatlantischen Menschheit herauf. Auf die unsrige wird die sechste, dann die siebente folgen. Nun habe ich Sie darauf hingewiesen, daß die vierte, die griechisch-lateinische Lebensepoche der nachatlantischen Menschheit, gewissermaßen in der Mitte steht, und daß gewisse Zusammenhänge bestehen — Sie können das auch nachlesen in meinem Büchelchen «Die geistige Führung des Menschen und der Menschheit» — zwischen der dritten und fünften, also zwischen der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Epoche und der unsrigen; daß wiederum ein Zusammenhang bestehen wird zwischen der urpersischen und der sechsten, und der urindischen Zeit und der siebenten Lebensepoche der nachatlantischen Menschheit. Bestimmte Dinge wiederholen sich in einer gewissen Weise jeweilig in diesen Lebensepochen.
[ 5 ] Ich habe einmal darauf hingewiesen, wie der große Kepler, der Nachfolger des Kopernikus, eine Ahnung gehabt hat davon, daß er mit seinem Sonnen-Planetensystem in einer gewissen Weise wiederholte, allerdings passend für die fünfte nachatlantische Zeit, dasjenige, was gelebt hat als Weltenbild in den ägyptischen Priestermysterien. Kepler drückt sich ja in einer gewissen Beziehung darüber sehr radikal aus, indem er sagt, er habe die Gefäße der alten ägyptischen Weisheitslehrer entlehnt, um sie hereinzutragen in die neuere Zeit. Wir aber wollen heute an etwas denken, was gewissermaßen in der Mitte der Anschauung der Kultushandlungen der ägyptischen Priestermysterien gestanden hat, wir wollen gedenken der Isismysterien, und wir brauchen, um uns den geistigen Zusammenhang der Isismysterien mit dem, was auch im Christentum lebt, zu vergegenwärtigen, nur unseren Seelenblick hinzulenken zu dem berühmten Bilde der Sixtinischen Madonna von Raffael, wo die Madonna das Jesuskindlein auf dem Arme hält, hinter ihr die Wolken, die eigentlich lauter Kinder darstellen, so daß man die Vorstellung haben kann, aus den Wolken herunter habe die Madonna, gewissermaßen durch eine Verdichtung der dünneren Substanz, das Jesuskind empfangen. Aber dieses Bild, das ganz aus christlichem Geiste heraus geschaffen ist, es ist ja nichts anderes als eine Art Wiederholung desjenigen, was die ägyptischen Isismysterien verehrt haben, indem sie die Isis mit dem Horusknaben im Arm gebildet haben. Das Motiv dieses Bildes stimmt ganz mit dem Raffaelischen Bilde überein. Selbstverständlich darf uns das nicht zu dem verführen, wozu — seit dem 18. Jahrhundert und durch das ganze 19. Jahrhundert bis herein in unsere Tage — solche Dinge viele Oberflächlinge verführt haben: daß man etwa in der Geschichte des Christus Jesus und alledem, was dazu gehört, nur eine Art Metamorphose sehe, eine Umdichtung alter heidnischer Mysterien. Sie wissen aus meinem Buche «Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache», wie diese Dinge aufzufassen sind. Aber gerade in dem Sinne, wie das dort gemeint ist, darf wieder hingewiesen werden auf eine gewisse geistige Kongruenz desjenigen, was im Christentum auftritt, mit den alten heidnischen Mysterien.
[ 6 ] Dieses Isismysterium hat zum Hauptinhalt den Tod des Osiris, das Suchen des toten Osiris durch Isis. Wir wissen, daß Osiris, der Repräsentant des Sonnenwesens, der Repräsentant der geistigen Sonne, getötet wird durch Typhon, der ja nichts anderes ist als, ägyptisch ausgedrückt, der Ahriman. Wir wissen, daß Osiris von Ahriman getötet wird, in den Nil geworfen wird, daß er hinausgeschwemmt wird, daß Isis, die Gemahlin, sich auf die Suche begibt, daß sie ihn drüben in Asien findet, daß sie ihn zurückbringt nach Ägypten, daß dann Osiris zerstückelt wird von dem Feinde Ahriman, und daß Isis die vierzehn Stücke an verschiedenen Orten begräbt, so daß sie fortan der Erde angehören.
[ 7 ] Man kann aus dieser Anschauung entnehmen, wie sich in einer tief sinnvollen Weise die ägyptische Weisheit vorgestellt hat den Zusammenhang zwischen den Mächten des Himmels und den Mächten der Erde. Osiris ist auf der einen Seite der Repräsentant der Sonnengewalten. Er ist, indem er durch den Tod gegangen ist, an verschiedenen Orten zu gleicher Zeit jene Kraft, welche alles dasjenige, was aus der Erde heraus fruchtet, eben zu diesem Fruchten bringt. In geistvoller Weise denkt sich ja der alte ägyptische Weise, wie die Gewalten, welche hereinscheinen von der Sonne, sich mitteilen der Erde, wie sie dann der Erde angehören, und wie sie als Sonnengewalten, die in der Erde begraben sind, das aus der Erde heraus Fruchtende dem Menschen wiederum übergeben. Was der ägyptischen Anschauung zugrunde liegt, ist das, daß Osiris getötet worden ist, daß sich seine Gemahlin Isis auf die Suche nach Osiris begeben mußte, daß sie ihn erst wieder zurück nach Ägypten bringen mußte, daß er dann in anderer Form, nämlich aus der Erde heraus wirkte.
[ 8 ] Eine der ägyptischen Pyramiden stellt ja das besonders sinnvoll dar; denn die Ägypter haben dasjenige, was ihnen geworden war als Lösung der großen Geheimnisse des Weltenalls, nicht allein in ihrer eigentümlichen Schrift niedergeschrieben, sondern sie haben es in ihren Bauwerken zum Ausdruck gebracht. Eine dieser Pyramiden ist nach ihren Maßen genau so gebaut gewesen, daß der Schatten dieser Pyramide wegen des Sonnenstandes verschwunden ist mit der Frühlingssonnenwende, weil er in die Basis hineinfiel, und erst wiederum sichtbar geworden ist nach der Herbstessonnenwende. Dadurch wollten die Ägypter ausdrücken, wie dasjenige, was ihnen sonst von der Sonne herunterscheint, in der Erde begraben ist vom Frühling bis zum Herbste, die Kräfte der Erde entwickelnd, damit das für die Menschen Notwendige aus der Erde heraus fruchten könne. So müssen wir uns zu einer Vorstellung der alten Ägypter wenden, wodurch diese auf der einen Seite zur Sonne hinaufschauten, zu dem hohen Sonnenwesen, und es verehrten, wie sie aber zu gleicher Zeit auch andeuteten, wie dieses Sonnenwesen verlorengegangen war in Osiris und durch Isis gesucht und wiedergefunden wurde, damit es dann in veränderter Weise weiterwirken könne.
[ 9 ] Nun, wir in unserer fünften nachatlantischen Zeit haben manches zu wiederholen, was in anderer Form innerhalb der ägyptischen Weisheit aufgetreten ist, und es muß aus geisteswissenschaftlichen Untergründen heraus ein Verständnis sich darüber verbreiten unter der Menschheit, wie wir auf die Art, wie es unserer Zeit angemessen ist, die ägyptischen Priestermysterien im verchristeten Sinne wiederum anschauen können. Osiris stellte ja für die Ägypter gewissermaßen dasjenige dar, was ihnen eine Art Repräsentant war des noch nicht gekommenen Christus; aber sie stellten sich auf ihre Art das Sonnenwesen vor in Osiris. Sie stellten sich vor, daß dieses Sonnenwesen in einer gewissen Weise verlorengegangen sei, und daß es wieder gesucht werden muß. Wir können uns nicht vorstellen, daß unser Sonnenwesen, der durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangene Christus, für die Menschheit verlorengehen könnte, da er einmal heruntergestiegen ist aus geistigen Höhen, sich mit dem Menschen Jesus von Nazareth verbunden hat und fortan bei der Erde bleibt. Er ist da, und der entsprechende Weihnachtsgesang darf jedes Jahr verkünden: Uns wird der Heiland geboren -, indem er damit ausdrückt das nicht Vorübergehende dieses Ereignisses, sondern das Ewige desselben, indem er damit ausdrückt, daß nicht nur damals in Bethlehem der Jesus geboren worden ist, sondern daß er im Grunde genommen immerfort geboren wird, das heißt, bei dem Erdensein verbleibt. Also dasjenige, was uns der Christus ist, das kann nicht verlorengehen.
[ 10 ] Aber in anderer Art muß sich die Isislegende in unserer Zeit erfüllt zeigen. Nicht dasjenige, was in einem höheren Maße uns den Osiris gibt durch den Christus, kann uns verlorengehen; aber es kann uns verlorengehen und ist uns verlorengegangen dasjenige, was hingebildet für das christliche Verständnis neben dem Osiris steht: es ist uns verlorengegangen die Isis, die Mutter des Heilandes, die göttliche Weisheit Sophia. Und wenn es geben soll eine Erneuerung der Isislegende, so darf diese für uns nicht lauten, daß der Osiris getötet worden ist durch Typhon-Ahriman, daß er hinweggeschwemmt worden ist durch das Nilwasser, wiedergefunden werden soll durch Isis, um in seiner durch Typhon-Ahriman erfolgten Zerstückelung dann in die Erde versenkt zu werden. — Nein, wir müssen in einer gewissen Weise die Isislegende, den Inhalt des Isismysteriums wiederfinden, aber wir müssen ihn bilden aus der Imagination heraus gefaßt für unsere Zeit. Es muß wieder ein Verständnis der ewigen Weltenwahrheiten geben, indem wir also imaginativ dichten können, wie die Ägypter es gekonnt haben. Aber wir müssen die richtige Isislegende finden. Der ägyptische Mensch war — als der Mensch, der vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha lebte — noch durchsetzt von luziferischen Mächten. Wenn sich im Inneren des Menschen luziferische Mächte finden, wenn luziferische Mächte das Innere des Menschen bewegen, durchziehen, durchweben, dann hat das zur Folge, daß sich in seiner äußerlichen Anschauung das Ahrimanische in seiner Wirksamkeit ausdrückt. Daher sieht der Ägypter mit Recht, weil er selber luziferisch durchsetzt war, ein Weltenbild, in welchem Ahriman-Typhon tätig ist.
[ 11 ] Wir müssen uns klar sein, daß die gegenwärtige Menschheit ahrimanisch durchsetzt ist, innerlich so bewegt und durchwellt ist von Ahriman, wie die ägyptische Welt von Luzifer bewegt und durchwellt worden ist. Dann aber, wenn Ahriman im Innern wirkt, dann sieht der Mensch sein Weltenbild in luziferischer Gestalt. Wie sieht der Mensch dann dieses Weltbild? Dieses Weltbild in luziferischer Gestalt ist geschaffen, es ist da, es ist in der neueren Zeit immer populärer und populärer geworden, es hat alle Kreise ergriffen, die aufgeklärt sein wollen. Es muß ins Auge gefaßt werden, wenn das Weihnachtsmysterium begriffen werden soll: Luzifer ist diejenige Macht, welche das Weltenbild in einem früheren Stadium zurückhalten will. Luzifer ist diejenige Macht, welche hereintragen will in das gegenwärtige Weltenbild das, was in früheren Stadien vorhanden war, welche bleibend machen will das, was in früheren Stadien vorhanden. war. Alles das, was in früheren Stadien moralisch war, ist natürlich im Gegenwärtigen da. Luzifer hat nun alles Interesse daran, das Moralische als solches, das immer als ein Gegenwärtiges seine große Bedeutung hat, weil es ja keimhaft für spätere Weltenschöpfung wirkt, alles Moralische herauszulösen aus dem Weltenbild und bloß das naturgemäß Notwendige im äußeren Weltenbilde erscheinen zu lassen. So stellt sich dem arm gewordenen Menschen der neueren Zeit eine Weltenweisheit dar, die zugleich ein Weltenbild gibt, in dem die Sterne kreisen nach amoralischen, rein mechanischen Notwendigkeiten, in dem die Sterne kreisen in einer Weise, daß wir mit ihrem Kreisen nichts vom moralischen Sinn der Weltenordnung verbinden können. Das ist ein rein luziferisches Weltenbild.
[ 12 ] So wie der Ägypter hinausschaute in die Welt und Ahriman-Typhon sehen mußte als denjenigen, der ihm seinen Osiris nimmt, so müssen wir auf dieses luziferisch gewordene Weltbild, auf das mathematischmechanische Weltbild unserer gegenwärtigen Astronomie und unserer sonstigen Naturwissenschaft sehen und müssen uns klar sein, daß hier ebenso das Luziferische waltet, wie das Typhonisch-Ahrimanische gewaltet hat in dem ägyptischen Weltenbild. Genau so, wie der Ägypter sein äußeres Weltenbild im ahrimanisch-typhonischen Sinne gesehen hat, so sieht der neuere Mensch das, was er wegen seines Ahrimanischseins sieht, mit luziferischen Zügen. Luzifer ist da, er wirkt. Geradeso wie in Wind und Wetter, in den Stürmen des Winters der Ägypter sich vorstellte, daß Ahriman-Typhon wirkt, so muß sich der moderne Mensch vorstellen, wenn er die Sache durchschaut, daß ihm in Sonnenschein und Sternenglanz, in Planeten- und Mondenbewegung Luzifer erscheint. So wie wir das Kopernikanisch-Galileisch-Keplerische Weltenbild haben, so ist es ein luziferisches Gebilde. Gerade weil es unseren ahrimanischen Erkenntniskräften entspricht, ist sein Inhalt — ich bitte Sie, das genau zu unterscheiden — ein luziferischer.
[ 13 ] In der Zeit, in der das Mysterium von Golgatha sich vollzogen hat, da wirkte dasjenige, was den Menschen befähigt, in die Welt erkennend hineinzuschauen, in einer zweifachen Weise als die göttliche Sophia, als die die Welt durchschauende Weisheit. Durch die Offenbarung an die armen Hirten auf dem Felde, durch die Offenbarung an die Magier aus dem Morgenlande wirkte die göttliche Sophia, die himmlische Weisheit. Diese Weisheit, die in ihrer letzten Gestalt bei den Gnostikern vorhanden war, von denen sie genommen haben die ersten christlichen Kirchenväter und Kirchenlehrer, um damit das Mysterium von Golgatha zu begreifen, diese Weisheit hat sich nicht hereinverpflanzen können in die neuere Zeit; sie ist überwältigt, sie ist getötet worden durch Luzifer, wie einstmals Osiris durch Ahriman-Typhon. Uns ist nicht Osiris beziehungsweise Christus verlorengegangen, uns ist verlorengegangen dasjenige, was wir an der Stelle der Isis haben. Luzifer hat sie uns getötet. Und nicht wie Typhon den Osiris in den Nil gesenkt und dann zunächst in die Erde hinein versenkt hat dasjenige, was getötet worden ist, sondern in die Weltenräume hinausversetzt ist das von Luzifer getötete Isiswesen, die göttliche Weisheit; sie ist in den Weltenozean hinaus versenkt worden. Indem wir in diesen Ozean hinausblicken und nur nach mathematischen Linien die Sternenzusammenhänge sehen, ist in ihnen dasjenige begraben, was geistig diese Welt durchsetzt, getötet die göttliche Sophia, getötet diese Nachfolgerin der Isis.
[ 14 ] Wir müssen diese Legende bilden, denn sie stellt die Wahrheit unserer Zeit dar. Wir müssen sprechen in demselben Sinne von der getöteten und uns verlorengegangenen Isis beziehungsweise der göttlichen Sophia, wie der alte Ägypter gesprochen hat von dem verlorengegangenen und getöteten Osiris. Und wir müssen mit demjenigen, was wir nicht begreifen, was aber in uns ist, mit der Kraft des Christus, mit der neuen Osiriskraft ausziehen und den Leichnam der modernen Isis suchen, den Leichnam der göttlichen Sophia. Wir müssen herangehen an die luziferische Naturwissenschaft und müssen suchen den Sarg der Isis, das heißt, wir müssen finden aus dem, was uns die Naturwissenschaft gibt, dasjenige, was innerlich anregt zu Imagination, zu Inspiration, zu Intuition. Denn dadurch erwerben wir die Hilfe des Christus in uns, der uns dennoch dunkel, der uns finster bleibt, wenn wir ihn nicht durch die göttliche Weisheit uns erleuchten. Wir müssen, ausgerüstet mit dieser Christus-Kraft, mit dem neuen Osiris, auf die Suche nach der Isis, nach der neuen Isis gehen. Nicht zerstückeln wird Luzifer diese Isis, wie Typhon-Ahriman den Osiris zerstückelt hat. Nein, im Gegenteile: diese Isis ist in ihrer wahren Gestalt ausgebreitet in der Schönheit des ganzen Kosmos. Diese Isis ist dasjenige, was uns in vielen leuchtenden Farben aurisch aus dem Kosmos entgegenleuchtet. Sie müssen wir verstehen, indem wir hineinblicken in den Kosmos und den Kosmos aurisch sehen in seinen leuchtenden Farben.
[ 15 ] Aber wie einstmals Ahriman-Typhon gekommen ist, um den Osiris zu zerstückeln, so kommt Luzifer, der diese Farben in ihrer Differenzierung auslöscht, der die Teile, die schön ausgebreitet sind, die Glieder der neueren Isis, jene Glieder, die das ganze Himmelszelt bilden, ineinander verschwimmen macht, der sie vereinigt, der sie zusammenballt. So wie der Typhon den Osiris zerstückelt hat, so setzt Luzifer aus dem, was in vielfältigen aurischen Farben aus dem Weltenall zu uns hereinglänzt, das eine, einheitliche weiße Licht zusammen, das die Welt durchstrahlt, dieses luziferische einheitliche Licht, gegen das sich Goethe in seiner Farbenlehre gewendet hat, indem er dagegen opponiert, daß in ihm enthalten sein sollen die Farben — die aber ausgebreitet sind über die geheimnisvollen Taten des ganzen Weltenalls, in ihrer Vielfältigkeit geheimnisvollen Taten.
[ 16 ] Wir aber müssen hindurchdringen auf unserer Suche und die Isis wieder finden! Und wir müssen die Möglichkeit gewinnen, dasjenige, was wir ergründen, indem wir die Isis wiederum zurückgefunden haben, hinauszuversetzen in das Weltenall. Wir müssen das, was wir durch die wiedergefundene Isis gewinnen, vor uns lebendig hinstellen können, so daß es geistig für uns das Himmelsall, der Kosmos wird. Wir müssen aus dem Inneren erfassen Saturn, Sonne, Mond, Erde, Jupiter, Venus, Vulkan. Wir müssen in die Himmel hinaus versetzen das, was Luzifer aus der Isis gemacht hat, wie die Isis in die Erde versenkt hat dasjenige, was Typhon-Ahriman aus den Stücken des Osiris gemacht hat. Wir müssen begreifen, daß wir durch die Christus-Kraft eine innere Astronomie zu finden haben, welche uns wiederum das Weltenall hervorgehend und wirkend in der Kraft des Geistes zeigt. Dann, dann wird in diesem Durchschauen des Weltenalls die wiedergefundene Isiskraft, die aber jetzt die Kraft der göttlichen Sophia ist, durch diese wiedergefundene Isiskraft der Christus, der seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha mit dem Erdendasein vereinigt ist, in dem Menschen auch zur rechten Wirksamkeit, weil zur rechten Erkenntnis, kommen. Nicht der Christus fehlt uns, die Erkenntnis des Christus, die Isis von Christus, die Sophia von Christus fehlt uns.
[ 17 ] Das ist dasjenige, was wir uns als einen Inhalt des Weihnachtsmysteriums in die Seele schreiben sollen. Wir müssen dahin kommen, uns zu sagen: Im 19. Jahrhundert ist selbst die Theologie dahin gekommen, in dem Christus bloß den Menschen aus Nazareth zu sehen. Das heißt, es ist diese Theologie durchaus verluziferisiert. Sie sieht nicht mehr hinein in die geistigen Untergründe des Daseins. Äußere Naturerkenntnis luziferisiert, Theologie luziferisiert. Man könnte natürlich, wenn man von dem inneren Aspekt des Menschen spricht, ebensogut sagen ahrimanisiert, wie Sie aus meinen Auseinandersetzungen gesehen haben. Dann müßte man aber für die Ägypter sagen luziferisiert, beziehungsweise ahrimanisiert, wenn es das Äußere angeht. Der neuere Mensch muß auch das Weihnachtsmysterium in einer neuen Weise begreifen. Er muß verstehen, daß er zunächst zu suchen hat die Isis, damit der Christus ihm erscheinen könne. Dasjenige, was unser Unglück in der neueren Zeit für die zivilisierte Menschheit herbeigeführt hat, ist ja nicht, daß wir etwa den Christus — der in einer höheren Glorie vor uns steht als für den Ägypter der Osiris — verloren hätten, daß wir uns mit der Isiskraft nach ihm auf die Suche begeben müssen. Nein, was wir verloren haben, ist die Erkenntnis, ist die Anschauung des Christus Jesus. Sie müssen wir wiederum finden mit der Kraft des Jesus Christus, die in uns ist.
[ 18 ] So müssen wir auf das hinschauen, was Inhalt des Weihnachtsfestes ist. Es ist ja für viele Menschen der Gegenwart dieses Weihnachtsfest nichts anderes mehr als eine Art Geschenkfest, als etwas, was man gewohnheitsmäßig von Jahr zu Jahr feiert. Es ist auch dieses Weihnachtsfest zu dem geworden, wozu so vieles geworden ist in unserem Leben: es ist zur Phrase geworden. Und weil diese Dinge zur Phrase geworden sind, ist das moderne Leben in seine Kalamitäten, in sein Chaos hineingekommen. Das ist doch der tiefere Grund, warum das moderne Leben in dieses Chaos hineingekommen ist.
[ 19 ] Wenn wir aus dieser unserer Gemeinschaft heraus die richtigen Empfindungen entwickeln könnten für dasjenige, was in der Gegenwart zur Phrase geworden ist, und wenn wir aus diesem richtigen Empfinden heraus die Impulse finden könnten für die Erneuerungen, die notwendig sind, dann wäre diese Gemeinschaft, die sich die anthroposophische nennt, ihres Daseins wert. Es sollte Verständnis innerhalb dieser Gemeinschaft dafür sein, was es eigentlich Schlimmes bedeutet für die moderne Zeit, daß solche Dinge wie das Weihnachtsfest sich wie eine Phrase fortpflanzen. Es sollte Verständnis dafür sein, daß das in der Zukunft nicht sein darf und daß diese Dinge einen neuen Inhalt bekommen müssen, daß die alten Gewohnheiten verlassen werden müssen, daß neue Ansichten an die Stelle der alten Gewohnheiten treten müssen. Können wir dazu nicht den inneren Mut aufbringen, dann lügen wir mit in der Beibehaltung der alten Phrase vom jährlichen Weihnachtsfeste, das begangen wird, ohne daß die Seele Entsprechendes fühlt und empfindet. Denn werden wir noch als Menschheit hinaufgehoben zu den höchsten Angelegenheiten dieser unserer Menschheit, indem wir aus alter Gewohnheit an diesem Christus-Fest jährlich uns Geschenke machen? Und indem wir höchstens die auch zur Phrase gewordenen Worte der heutigen Bekenner der einzelnen Religionsgemeinschaften anhören oder mitmachen? Wir sollten es uns verbieten, bei dieser inneren Hohlheit der Weihnachtsfeier zu bleiben. Wir sollten den inneren Entschluß fassen können, solch einem Feste, das die Menschheit hinaufheben soll zum Begreifen ihres Sinnes, solch einem Feste einen Inhalt zu geben, der uns wirklich höchste, einzigartige Empfindungen durch die Seelen ziehen lassen kann.
[ 20 ] Fragen Sie sich, ob die Empfindungen, die heute in den Gemütern, in den Herzen leben bei dem Weihnachtsbaume, bei den Geschenken, die sich die Menschen gegenseitig geben aus alter Gewohnheit, bei den Weihnachtskarten, auf die gewohnheitsmäßig Phrasen geschrieben werden, fragen Sie sich, ob da die Empfindungen leben, welche die Menschheit hinaufheben zum Verständnis des Sinnes ihres Erdenwerdens! Daß wir nicht den Mut finden können, uns über das Phrasenhafte unserer Zeit zu einem neuen Inhalte zu erheben, das ist es, was das Unglück unserer Zeit ausmacht. Daß es aber geschehen müßte, daß ein neuer Inhalt kommt, daß ein Inhalt kommt, der uns wiederum mit Empfindungen durchsetzen kann, die einzigartig sind, die uns ganz und gar durchrütteln, so wie durchrüttelt worden sind diejenigen, die in den ersten Jahrhunderten echte Christen waren und das Mysterium von Golgatha, das Erscheinen des Christus auf Erden als das Höchste empfunden haben, was auf der Erde durch die Menschheit erlebt werden kann — daran müssen wir uns erinnern, und etwas von dieser Art müssen wir wiederum in unsere Seelen hineinschaffen.
[ 21 ] Oh, diese Seele wird zu einzigartigen Empfindungen kommen können, wenn sie die Verpflichtung fühlt, die neue Isis-Legende innerhalb der modernen Menschheit zu erleben; diese Isislegende von der Tötung der Isis durch Luzifer, von dem Hinausbegeben in den Weltenraum, der zum mathematischen Abstraktum, das heißt, zum Grab der Isis geworden ist, von dem Suchen nach dieser Isis, von dem Finden dieser Isis durch die Anregung der inneren Geistes-Erkenntniskräfte, die dann an die Stelle der totgewordenen Himmel dasjenige setzen, was aus innerem Leben heraus uns wiederum Sterne und Planeten als Denkmäler erscheinen läßt für die geistigen Gewalten, die den Raum durchwallen. Wir blicken nur dann im rechten Sinne heute hin zu der Krippe, wenn wir dasjenige, was da den Raum durchwallt, in einer einzigartigen Empfindung durchleben, und dann hinschauen auf jenes Wesen, das durch das Kind in die Welt gezogen ist. Wir wissen, wir tragen es in uns, aber wir müssen ihm Verständnis entgegenbringen. Deshalb müssen wir, so wie der Ägypter von seinem Osiris zur Isis hingeschaut hat, wiederum hinschauen lernen zu der neuen Isis, zu der heiligen Sophia. Nicht dadurch, daß von außen allein etwas eintritt, wird der Christus im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts wieder erscheinen in seiner Geistgestalt, sondern dadurch, daß die Menschen jene Kraft finden, die durch die heilige Sophia repräsentiert wird. Es lag die Tendenz im Laufe der neueren Zeit darin, gerade diese Isiskraft, gerade diese Marienkraft zu verlieren. Sie ist getötet worden durch all dasjenige, was im modernen Bewußtsein der Menschheit heraufgezogen ist. Und die neueren Bekenntnisse haben zum Teil gerade die Anschauung über die Maria ausgerottet.
[ 22 ] Das ist dasjenige, was gewissermaßen das Mysterium der modernen Menschheit ist, daß im Grunde genommen Maria-Isis getötet worden ist, daß sie gesucht werden muß, so wie Osiris gesucht worden ist drüben in Asien, gesucht werden muß in den weiten Himmelsräumen mit der Gewalt, die der Christus in uns auslösen kann, wenn wir uns ihm im rechten Sinne hingeben.
[ 23 ] Stellen wir uns das recht vor, vertiefen wir uns in diese notwendig zu erlebende neuere Isislegende, durchdringen wir unsere Seelen damit, und wir werden im rechten Sinne durchleben dasjenige, wovon die Menschheit in vielen ihrer Vertreter glaubt, daß es diese Heilige Nacht ausfüllt, um in den Christtag hineinzugehen! Es könnte doch so sein, daß diese anthroposophische Gemeinschaft eine Gemeinschaft von Menschen wäre, welche in Liebe verbunden sind, weil sie sich so fühlen, daß ihnen obliegt ein gemeinsames Suchen. Werden wir gewahr dieser unserer intimsten, innigsten Aufgabe! Versetzen wir uns im Geiste vor die Krippe, bringen wir dem Weihnachtskinde diese Opfer und Geschenke dar, die da liegen in der Erkenntnis, daß Einzigartiges durch unsere Seele ziehen soll, damit die moderne Menschheit zur Erfüllung ihrer Aufgaben komme, die aus der Barbarei in eine wirkliche neue Zivilisation hineinführen können!
[ 24 ] Allerdings ist dazu notwendig, daß in unseren Kreisen der eine dem anderen wirklich in Liebe hilft, daß wirklich eine Gemeinschaft der Seelen werde, daß alles dasjenige, was Eifersüchteleien und dergleichen sind, aus unseren Reihen verschwindet, daß wir nicht nur hinblicken der eine auf den anderen, sondern alle zusammen nach dem gemeinsamen großen Ziele. Das liegt mit in dem Geheimnis, welches das Weihnachtskind auf die Welt gebracht hat, daß nach einem gemeinsamen Ziele hingeschaut werden kann, ohne das die Menschen untereinander in Disharmonien kommen, denn das gemeinsame Ziel bedeutet die Vereinigung in Harmonie. Und das Weihnachtslicht soll eigentlich leuchten als ein Friedenslicht, als ein Licht, das den äußeren Frieden nur dadurch wird bringen können, daß es zunächst inneren Frieden über die Menschenherzen ausgießt. Wir sollten es verstehen, uns zu sagen: Kommen wir dazu, also in Liebe zusammen zu wirken an den großen Aufgaben, dann erst verstehen wir Weihnacht! Kommen wir nicht dazu, dann verstehen wir Weihnachten nicht.
[ 25 ] Könnten wir uns nicht einmal vornehmen, nachzudenken, wenn wir selber Disharmonien gestiftet haben, daß uns solche Disharmonien abtrennen von dem Verständnisse Desjenigen, der zur Weltenweihenacht unter den Menschen erschienen ist? Könnten wir nicht dieses Weihnachtsmysterium in unsere Seele hineinträufeln lassen als dasjenige, was unsere Gemüter zusammenbringt in Liebe und Eintracht? Verstehen wir nicht im rechten Sinne, was Geisteswissenschaft ist, dann können wir es nicht. Tragen wir aber dasjenige, was wir zusammengeklaubt haben aus allen Winkeln der Welt, wo heute nur Phrase und Routine herrschen, tragen wir das herein in diese Gemeinschaft, dann wird aus dieser Gemeinschaft nichts. Gedenken wir dessen, daß wohl ein schweres Jahr dieser Gemeinschaft bevorsteht, daß alle Kräfte zusammenzunehmen sind, und begehen wir in diesem Sinne das Weihnachtsfest. Oh, ich möchte Worte haben, die tief einem jeden ins Herz hinein sprechen an diesem heutigen Abend! Dann würde ein jeder von Ihnen empfinden, wie in diesen Worten, die ich heute spreche, jener Gruß liegen soll, der eine Aufforderung ist, Geisteswissenschaft im Herzen recht warm zu machen, damit sie so werde eine Kraft, welche der unter einem furchtbaren Druck lebenden Menschheit aufhelfen könne.
[ 26 ] Von solchen Gesichtspunkten ausgehend sind die Gedanken gefaßt, die ich zu Ihnen sprechen wollte. Seien Sie überzeugt, sie sind für jeden einzelnen als ein warmer Weihnachtsgruß gemeint, als etwas gemeint, das ihn im besten Sinne in das neue Jahr hinüberleiten soll. Empfangen Sie in dieser Art dasjenige, was ich Ihnen heute sagen wollte, als einen liebevoll gemeinten Weihnachtsgruß.
Isis-Sophia
Christus-Wollen
Des Gottes Weisheit
Sie hat Luzifer getötet
Und auf der Weltenkräfte Schwingen
In Raumesweiten fortgetragen.
In Menschen werkend,—
Es wird Luzifer entreißen
Und auf des Geisteswissens Boten
In Menschenseeten auferwecken
Isis-Sophia
Des Gottes Weisheit.
[ 1 ] In the festival of Christmas, Christianity has been given something that leads directly to the highest questions of human development on earth for the widest circles. One may consider the historical becoming at whatever point one will, one may draw on historical events to understand the becoming human, to fathom the meaning of this becoming human on earth: one will not be able to find such a significant elevation of this Mystery, of the Mystery of Man's evolution in such a popular and comprehensive form as it is the thought of the Mystery of Golgotha, as it is the thought that is enclosed in the Christmas festival.
[ 2 ] If we look at the beginning of the becoming human on earth and follow the millennia up to the Mystery of Golgotha, we find everywhere that, however great the achievements within the communities of peoples may be, these achievements are a kind of preparation, a kind of preliminary stage for what has been done for humanity through the Mystery of Golgotha. And again, if we follow what has happened since then, we can only gain in understanding if we consider how Christ, who has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, has become effective for this becoming of humanity. No matter how much of this human becoming may at first seem incomprehensible, if one searches without pettiness, without superstition, which might incline one to believe that some unknown gods will help man without his intervention where he thinks this help is needed, would be appropriate, if we disregard such views, we shall find that even in the painful events of world-historical development we can recognize the meaning and significance that has been given to this development of the earth by the fact that the Christ has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. It befits us to consider this Mystery of Golgotha, and the Christmas Mystery is a part of it, from those points of view which can, as it were, reveal in it the meaning of all earthly humanity.
[ 3 ] We know how intimately connected we must see what is taking place morally and spiritually in the evolution of humanity with what is taking place in nature. And with a certain understanding of this bridge between our existence in nature and the moral world order, we can also approach the relationship that has occupied us for many years, the relationship of Christ Jesus to the being whose outer reflection appears in the sun. Not always were the confessors and representatives of the Christian impulse so hostile to the recognition of this connection between the mystery of the sun and the mystery of Christ, as today's decadent representatives of Christianity often are. Dionysius the Areopagite, whom we have spoken of several times, calls the sun the monument of the god. And in St. Augustine we still find references everywhere, even in scholasticism we still find references to how the outer stars and their movements can be seen as images of the spiritual and divine existence in the world.
[ 4 ] But we must understand the Christmas mystery in the context of a larger context, which must be obvious to us precisely because of the great tasks of the present. I would like to remind you of something that I have repeatedly stated in various ways over the years. I have said: We look back to the first post-Atlantean epoch, which was filled with the deeds and experiences of the ancient Indian people; we look back to the pre-Persian epoch of post-Atlantean humanity, into the Egyptian-Chaldean, into the Greek-Latin, and then we arrive at our epoch of life, the fifth of post-Atlantean humanity. Our epoch will be followed by the sixth and then the seventh. I have now pointed out to you that the fourth, the Greco-Latin epoch of post-Atlantean humanity, is, as it were, in the middle, and that certain connections exist - you can also read about this in my booklet “The Spiritual Guidance of the Human Being and of Humanity Humanity” — between the third and fifth epochs, that is, between the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch and our own; that, in turn, there will be a connection between the Proto-Persian and the sixth, and the Proto-Indian period and the seventh epoch of post-Atlantean humanity. Certain things repeat themselves in a certain way in each of these epochs.
[ 5 ] I once pointed out how the great Kepler, the successor of Copernicus, had an inkling that with his solar planetary system he was repeating, in a certain way, what had been lived as a world picture in the Egyptian priestly mysteries, albeit appropriate for the fifth post-Atlantic period. Kepler, of course, expresses himself very radically in this respect, saying that he has borrowed the vessels of the ancient Egyptian teachers of wisdom in order to carry them over into more recent times. Today, however, we want to think of something that was, so to speak, at the center of the Egyptian priests' mysteries. We want to remember the Isis mysteries, and to visualize the spiritual connection between the Isis mysteries and that which also lives in Christianity, we need only direct our soul's gaze to the famous picture of the Sistine Madonna by Raphael, where the Madonna holds the Christ child in her arms, with clouds behind her that actually represent nothing but children, so that one can imagine that the Madonna received the Christ child from the clouds, as it were through a condensation of the thinner substance. But this image, created entirely in the Christian spirit, is nothing more than a kind of repetition of what the Egyptian Isis mysteries revered, in that they formed Isis with the Horus boy in her arms. The motif of this image is completely in line with the Raphael image. Of course, we must not be misled by it, as many superficial people have been misled by such things since the 18th century and throughout the 19th century and into our own days: that one sees only a kind of metamorphosis in the story of Christ Jesus and all that belongs to it, a rewriting of old pagan mysteries. You know from my book, “Christianity as a Mystical Fact”, how these things are to be understood. But it is precisely in the sense intended there that we may again point to a certain spiritual similarity between what occurs in Christianity and the ancient pagan mysteries.
[ 6 ] The main content of this Isis mystery is the death of Osiris, Isis' search for the dead Osiris. We know that Osiris, the representative of the nature of the sun, the representative of the spiritual sun, is killed by Typhon, who, in Egyptian terms, is nothing other than Ahriman. We know that Osiris is killed by Ahriman, thrown into the Nile, that he is swept out, that Isis, his wife, goes in search of him, that she finds him over in Asia, that she brings him back to Egypt, that Osiris is then dismembered by the enemy Ahriman, and that Isis buries the fourteen pieces in different places so that they belong to the earth from then on.
[ 7 ] From this view, one can see how Egyptian wisdom imagined the connection between the powers of heaven and the powers of earth in a deeply meaningful way. On the one hand, Osiris is the representative of the solar forces. Having passed through death, he is, in various places at the same time, that power which brings forth all that grows out of the earth. The ancient Egyptian sage reflects in a most spiritual way on how the forces that shine forth from the sun communicate with the earth, how they then belong to the earth, and how they, as solar forces buried in the earth, in turn give back to man that which bears fruit from the earth. The fundamental idea of Egyptian religion is that Osiris was killed, that his wife Isis had to go in search of him, that she had to bring him back to Egypt, that he then worked in a different form, namely out of the earth.
[ 8 ] One of the Egyptian pyramids presents this particularly meaningfully; for the Egyptians did not write down in their peculiar script what had become theirs as the solution to the great mysteries of the universe, but they expressed it in their buildings. One of these pyramids was built in such a way that the shadow of the pyramid, due to the position of the sun, disappeared at the spring equinox because it fell within the base, and only became visible again after the autumn equinox. In this way the Egyptians wanted to express how that which otherwise shines down to them from the sun is buried in the earth from spring to fall, developing the forces of the earth so that what is necessary for people can flourish out of the earth. Thus we must turn to a concept of the ancient Egyptians whereby they, on the one hand, looked up to the sun, to the high solar being, and worshiped it, but at the same time they also indicated how this solar being was lost in Osiris and sought and found again by Isis, so that it could then continue to work in a modified way.
[ 9 ] Now, in our fifth post-Atlantean era, we have much to repeat that has appeared in another form within Egyptian wisdom. From spiritual scientific foundations, an understanding of this must spread among humanity, so that we can look at the Egyptian priest mysteries in a Christianized sense, in a way appropriate to our time. For the Egyptians, Osiris represented, as it were, what was a kind of representative of the Christ who had not yet come; but they imagined the being of the Sun in their own way in Osiris. They imagined that this being of the Sun had been lost in a certain sense and that it must be sought again. We cannot imagine that our Sun Being, the Christ who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, could be lost to humanity, since He once descended from spiritual heights, united Himself with the man Jesus of Nazareth and henceforth remains with the earth. He is here, and the corresponding Christmas song may be proclaimed every year: The Savior is born to us – in that he expresses the eternal aspect of this event, rather than its temporary aspect. He expresses the fact that Jesus was not only born in Bethlehem at that time, but that, fundamentally, he is being born continually, that is, that he remains in his earthly existence. Thus, what the Christ is for us cannot be lost.
[ 10 ] But in another way the legend of Isis must show itself fulfilled in our time. It is not that which gives us Osiris to a higher degree through Christ that can be lost to us; but what can be lost to us, and has been lost to us, is what has been formed for Christian understanding to stand beside Osiris: what has been lost to us is Isis, the Mother of the Savior, the divine wisdom Sophia. And if there is to be a renewal of the Isis legend, then for us it must not be that Osiris was killed by Typhon-Ahriman, that he was swept away by the Nile waters, was to be found again by Isis, and then, in his dismemberment by Typhon-Ahriman, was to be sunk into the earth. No, we must in a sense rediscover the legend of Isis, the content of the Isis mystery, but we must form it out of imagination conceived for our time. There must be a renewed understanding of the eternal truths of the world, in that we must be able to compose imaginatively, as the Egyptians were able to do. But we must find the right legend of Isis. The Egyptian, as the man who lived before the Mystery of Golgotha, was still permeated by Luciferic powers. When Luciferic powers are found within man, when Luciferic powers move, permeate and interweave the inner being of man, then the consequence is that in his outer vision the Ahrimanic expresses itself in its activity. Therefore the Egyptian, rightly seeing because he himself was permeated by Lucifer, sees a world picture in which Ahriman-Typhon is active.
[ 11 ] We must realize that present-day humanity is permeated by Ahriman, inwardly so moved and interwoven by Ahriman, as the Egyptian world was moved and interwoven by Lucifer. But when Ahriman is at work within, then man sees his world picture in the form of Lucifer. How does man see this world picture? This world picture in the form of Lucifer is created, it is there, in modern times it has become more and more popular, it has taken hold of all circles that want to be enlightened. This must be borne in mind if the Christmas Mystery is to be understood: Lucifer is the power that wants to hold back the world picture in an earlier stage. Lucifer is the power that wants to introduce into the present world picture that which existed in earlier stages, that which wants to make permanent that which existed in earlier stages. Everything that was moral in earlier stages is, of course, present in the present. Lucifer is now keenly interested in extracting everything moral from the world view and allowing only what is necessary in nature to appear in the external world view. Thus, to the impoverished man of modern times, a world wisdom presents itself that at the same time provides a world view in which the stars revolve according to amoral, purely mechanical necessities, in which the stars revolve in such a way that we cannot connect anything of the moral sense of the cosmic order with their revolution. This is a purely Luciferic world view.
[ 12 ] Just as the Egyptian looked out into the world and had to see Ahriman-Typhon as the one who takes away his Osiris, so we have to look at this world view that has become luciferic, at the mathematical mechanical world picture of our present-day astronomy and our other natural science, and we must realize that the Luciferic reigns here just as much as the Typhonic-Ahrimanic reigned in the Egyptian world picture. Just as the ancient Egyptians saw their outer world in Ahrimanic-Typhonian terms, so the modern man, because of his Ahrimanic nature, sees the world in Luciferic terms. Lucifer is there, he is at work. Just as the Egyptian imagined that Ahriman-Typhon was at work in wind and weather, in the storms of winter, so the modern human being must imagine, when he sees through the matter, that Lucifer appears to him in sunshine and starlight, in planetary and lunar motion. Just as we have the Copernican-Galilean-Keplerian conception of the world, so it is a Luciferic formation. Precisely because it corresponds to our Ahrimanic powers of knowledge, its content is — I ask you to distinguish this precisely — a Luciferic.
[ 13 ] At the time when the Mystery of Golgotha was fulfilled, that which enables man to look into the world in knowledge worked in a twofold way as the divine Sophia, as the wisdom that sees through the world. Through the revelation to the poor shepherds in the field, through the revelation to the Magi from the Orient, the divine Sophia, the heavenly wisdom, was at work. This wisdom, which in its final form was present with the Gnostics, from whom the first Christian church fathers and doctors of the church took it in order to comprehend the Mystery of Golgotha, this wisdom could not be transplanted into more recent times; it has been overwhelmed, it has been killed by Lucifer, as once Osiris was killed by Ahriman-Typhon. It is not Osiris or Christ that we have lost, but that which we have in the place of Isis. Lucifer has killed her for us. And not as Typhon lowered Osiris into the Nile and then first sunk into the earth that which had been killed, but the Isis being, divine wisdom, killed by Lucifer, has been transferred out into the cosmic spaces; it has been sunk into the cosmic ocean. As we gaze out into this ocean and see only mathematical lines in the starry connections, that which permeates this world spiritually is buried in them, the divine Sophia is dead, the successor of Isis is dead.
[ 14 ] We must create this legend, for it represents the truth of our time. We must speak in the same sense of the slain and lost Isis, or divine Sophia, as the ancient Egyptians spoke of the lost and slain Osiris. And we must go forth with that which we do not comprehend, but which is in us, with the power of Christ, with the new Osiris power, and seek the body of the modern Isis, the body of the divine Sophia. We must approach nature science with a lucid mind and search for the coffin of Isis, that is, we must find, in what science gives us, that which inwardly stimulates imagination, inspiration, and intuition. For in this way we acquire the help of the Christ in us, who nevertheless remains dark to us, who remains obscure to us, if we do not enlighten him through divine wisdom. Equipped with this power of Christ, with the new Osiris, we must go in search of the Isis, the new Isis. Lucifer will not dismember this Isis, as Typhon-Ahriman dismembered Osiris. No, quite the opposite: this Isis is spread out in her true form in the beauty of the whole cosmos. This Isis is that which shines out to us from the cosmos in many glowing colors. We must understand her by looking into the cosmos and seeing the cosmos aurically in its glowing colors.
[ 15 ] But just as Ahriman-Typhon once came to dismember Osiris, so Lucifer comes, extinguishing these colors in their differentiation, blurring the parts that are beautifully spread out, the limbs of the newer Isis, those limbs that form the entire celestial canopy, uniting them, gathering them together. Just as Typhon dismembered Osiris, so Lucifer takes the manifold auroral colors that shine to us from the universe and reassembles them into the one unified white light that radiates through the world. This is the unified luciferic light, against which Goethe turned in his Theory of Colors by opposing the idea that it should contain the colors — but which are spread over the mysterious acts of the whole universe, in their diversity of mysterious acts.
[ 16 ] But we must penetrate through in our search and find Isis again! And we must gain the possibility of transferring into the universe that which we fathom by having found Isis again. We must be able to visualize vividly before us what we gain through the rediscovered Isis, so that spiritually it becomes for us the universe, the cosmos. We must grasp from the inner being Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan. We must replace in the heavens what Lucifer made out of Isis, just as Isis replaced in the earth what Typhon-Ahriman made out of the pieces of Osiris. We must grasp that through the power of Christ we have to find an inner astronomy that in turn shows us the universe emerging and working in the power of the spirit. Then, in this insight into the universe, the rediscovered power of Isis, which is now the power of the divine Sophia, will bring forth the Christ, who since the Mystery of Golgotha has been united with earthly existence, in whom people will also come to the right activity because of the right knowledge. It is not the Christ that we lack, but the knowledge of the Christ, the Isis of Christ, the Sophia of Christ.
[ 17 ] This is what we should write into our souls as part of the Christmas mystery. We must come to say to ourselves: In the nineteenth century, even theology has come to see Christ only as the man from Nazareth. That is to say, this theology is thoroughly Luciferized. It no longer sees into the spiritual foundations of existence. Outer knowledge of nature is Luciferized, theology is Luciferized. One could, of course, when speaking of the inner aspect of man, just as well say Ahrimanized, as you have seen from my discussions. But then one would have to say for the Egyptians: Luciferized, or Ahrimanized, when it concerns the outer. The modern human being must also understand the Christmas mystery in a new way. He must understand that he must first seek Isis so that Christ can appear to him. What our misfortune in modern times has brought about for civilized humanity is not that we have lost Christ — who stands before us in a higher glory than Osiris for the Egyptian —, that we must search for him with the power of Isis. No, what we have lost is the knowledge, the vision of Christ Jesus. We must find it again with the power of Jesus Christ that is in us.
[ 18 ] So we must look at what the content of Christmas is. For many people today, Christmas is nothing more than a kind of gift-giving festival, something that is celebrated habitually from year to year. This Christmas has also become what so many things have become in our lives: a mere phrase. And because these things have become mere phrases, modern life has been plunged into its calamities, into its chaos. That is the deeper reason why modern life has been plunged into this chaos.
[ 19 ] If we, in our community, could develop the right feelings for what has become a cliché in the present day, and if we could find the impulses for the necessary renewals from this right feeling, then this community, which calls itself anthroposophical, would be worthy of its existence. There should be understanding within this community for what it actually means for modern times that things like Christmas are perpetuated as mere phrases. There should be an understanding that this must not be allowed to continue in the future and that these things must be given new content, that old habits must be abandoned, that new views must take the place of old habits. If we cannot find the inner courage to do this, then we are complicit in the perpetuation of the old phrase of the annual Christmas celebration, which is observed without the soul feeling or sensing anything corresponding to it. For will we still be uplifted as humanity to the highest concerns of our human existence by giving each other gifts out of old habit on this Christmas festival? And by listening to or participating in the words of today's confessors of the various religious communities, which have also become empty phrases? We should forbid ourselves to remain with this inner hollowness of celebrating Christmas. We should be able to make the inner decision to give such a festival, which is supposed to lift humanity up to an understanding of its meaning, such a festival a content that can really let the highest, unique feelings run through our souls.
[ 20 ] Ask yourself whether the feelings that live in minds and hearts today, with the Christmas tree, with the gifts that people give each other out of habit, with the Christmas cards on which conventional phrases are written, ask yourself whether the feelings that lift humanity up to an understanding of the meaning of their earthly existence live there! That we cannot find the courage to rise above the conventionality of our time to a new content, that is what constitutes the misfortune of our time. But it should happen, a new content should come, a content should come that can imbue us with feelings that are unique, that shake us to the core, just as those who were true Christians who felt the mystery of Golgotha, the appearance of the Christ on earth as the highest that can be experienced on earth through humanity – we must remember this, and we must create something of this kind in our souls again.
[ 21 ] Oh, what unique feelings this soul will experience when it feels the obligation to experience the new Isis legend within modern humanity; this Isis legend of the killing of Isis by Lucifer, of venturing out into the cosmic space that has become a mathematical abstraction, that is, the tomb of Isis , of the search for this Isis, of the finding of this Isis through the stimulation of the inner powers of spiritual cognition, which then, in place of the dead heavens, replace that which, out of inner life, makes stars and planets appear to us as monuments to the spiritual powers that permeate space. We can only look at the manger in the right way today if we live through what is permeating space in a unique way, and then look at the being that has come into the world through the child. We know that we carry it within us, but we must show it understanding. Therefore, just as the Egyptian looked up from his Osiris to Isis, we must learn to look up to the new Isis, to Holy Sophia. The Christ will not reappear in the course of the twentieth century in his spiritual form through something coming from outside alone, but through people finding the power represented by Holy Sophia. In the course of modern times there has been a tendency to lose precisely this power of Isis, precisely this power of Mary. It has been killed by all that has arisen in the modern consciousness of mankind. And the newer confessions have in part eradicated precisely the view of Mary.
[ 22 ] That is what, so to speak, is the mystery of modern humanity: that basically Mary-Isis has been killed, that she must be sought, just as Osiris was sought over there in Asia, must be sought in the vast spaces of heaven with the power that the Christ can release in us when we give ourselves to him in the right sense.
[ 23 ] Let us imagine this aright, let us immerse ourselves in this newer Isis legend that must necessarily be experienced, let us imbue our souls with it, and we will truly live through that which humanity, in many of its representatives, believes to fill this Holy Night, in order to enter into Christmas Day! It could be that this anthroposophical community is a community of people united in love because they feel that it is their task to seek together. Let us become aware of this most intimate and heartfelt task of ours! Let us place ourselves in spirit before the manger, let us offer these sacrifices and gifts to the Christ Child, in the knowledge that something unique should pass through our soul, so that modern humanity may fulfill its tasks, which can lead out of barbarism and into a truly new civilization!
[ 24 ] However, for this to happen, it is necessary that in our circles each one truly helps the other in love, that it really becomes a community of souls, that all those things that are jealousies and the like disappear from our ranks, that we not only look at each other, but all together at the common great goal. This is part of the secret that the Christmas child brought into the world, so that we can look towards a common goal without people coming into disharmony with one another, because the common goal means union in harmony. And the light of Christmas should actually shine as a light of peace, as a light that can only bring outer peace by first pouring inner peace over the hearts of men. We should be able to say: if we come together in love to work on the great tasks, only then do we understand Christmas! If we do not come together, then we do not understand Christmas.
[ 25 ] Could we not resolve to reflect when we have caused disharmony ourselves, that such disharmony separates us from the understanding of the One who appeared among men at Christmas? Could we not allow this Christmas mystery to penetrate our soul as that which brings our minds together in love and harmony? If we do not understand the true meaning of spiritual science, then we cannot. But if we carry into this community what we have gathered from all corners of the world, where only phrase and routine prevail today, then nothing will come of this community. Let us remember that this community is facing a difficult year, that all our strength must be combined, and let us celebrate Christmas with this in mind. Oh, I would like to have words that speak deeply to each person's heart this evening! Then each one of you would feel how, in the words I am speaking today, lies the greeting that is meant to be an invitation to cultivate spiritual science warmly in your hearts, so that it may become a strength that can help humanity, which is living under a terrible pressure.
[ 26 ] It is from this point of view that I have formulated the thoughts I wanted to express to you. You may rest assured that they are meant for each one of you as a warm Christmas greeting, as something to lead you into the New Year in the best possible spirit. Please accept what I wanted to say to you today in this spirit, as a lovingly meant Christmas greeting.
Isis-Sophia
Christ-will
The God's wisdom
She killed Lucifer
And on the wings of the cosmic powers
In the vastness of space carried away.
In human beings working—
It will snatch Lucifer
And on the spirit-knowledge messengers
In human seeds resurrect
Isis-Sophia
God's wisdom.