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The Recovery of the Living Source of Speech
GA 224

13 April 1923, Dornach

Translator Unknown

If you will remind yourselves of some of the things I have said in recent lectures, you will, I think, be able to call up a picture of the relationship of man's faculty of speech to those Beings in the spiritual world whom we are accustomed to assign to the Hierarchy of the Archangels. You will remember I explained to you the difference it makes to man whether the words he speaks are formed in such a way as to refer only to material things, in which case speech assumes a materialistic character, or whether in his speaking he unfolds a certain idealism, so that every time he utters a word, the feeling is present in him that he belongs to a spiritual world and that the words that ring in his speaking, coming as they do from the soul, must have some relation to Spirits. According as the one or the other is true, so does man come, between falling asleep and awakening, into a wrong or right relation with the Archangels. If he allows idealism to disappear altogether from his speaking, then he gradually loses the connection, which is so essential to him, with the Archangels. I am reminding you of this, because I want to speak to-day more particularly of one aspect of this relationship of human speech with the hierarchy of the Archangels. Speech, like everything else in evolution that has to do with man, as we have had full opportunity of realising in our study of his being, has had its history. What I want to bring forward does not refer to any one language in particular. The periods of time we have to take into view when we are studying some deep-seated change in speech are so long that even primitive languages show the same character as civilised ones in respect of such matters as we shall be considering. To-day therefore we shall not concern ourselves with the differences that exist between the several languages, but rather with those metamorphoses which human language in general has undergone in the course of the evolution of mankind on Earth.

If we consider the relationship man has to-day to language, we find that the words he speaks are nearly all of them signs for things that are round about him. As you will know, we have in the course of our studies alluded to a more intimate relationship between word and object. In our day however there is hardly any feeling left for this; words are very little more than mere outward signs for the objects indicated. Who is there who still feels, when the word Blitz (lightning) is uttered, something of the same experience he has when lightning actually flashes through space? To-day we are inclined to look on the word merely as a combination of sounds that is a sign for the phenomenon of the flash of lightning. It was not always so. If we go no farther back than to the earlier part of the Greek civilisation, we find that man's relation to language was not then one of thought, where the word is for him a sign and a symbol. The man of olden time entered with heart and soul into the sounds of his words and into the whole way the sounds were formed and arranged. And in the case of the languages of Northern Europe we do not even need to go back so far before we come to a time when the word Pflug (plough) gave man the same inner experience as did the activity of ploughing. This has been lost, and the word has become no more than a sign. But it is scarcely more than 1500 years or so since words were still felt in this way in the Northern parts of Europe. The feeling a man had when he was ploughing was similar to the feeling he had when he heard the word which in those days designated the plough. When anyone was listening to or speaking a word, it was not so much his thinking that partook in the experience as his feeling.

If now we go back into more remote ages, we find something different again; the will takes an intense and active part in the forming of words. But in order to study the times when man's relationship to external Nature was pre-eminently one of will, we must take our thoughts right back to Atlantis. For we have to reckon with long epochs of time when we are considering the evolution of language.

Within language lives the Genius of language. Language is not dependent for its evolution on the decision of man. In language lives the Genius of language. And the Genius of Language belongs to the hierarchy of the Archangels. When man speaks—when, that is, an atmosphere is prepared around the Earth within which can live man's utterances articulated into speech, then that atmosphere of speech and language is the element of the Archangels. Hence are the Archangels the Spirits of the different peoples—the Folk Spirits as we call them. You will know of this from the lectures I gave on the Mission of the Folk-Souls.

The evolution of language on Earth has thus a deep and intimate connection with the evolution of the Archangels. We can go so far as to say that in the evolution of speech and language we are beholding the evolution of the Archangels themselves. For even when we are studying something that has to do with the Earth, it is by no means impossible in the course of that very study to come to a knowledge of the evolution of higher spiritual Beings. We need only learn how to relate particular facts and phenomena to particular higher spiritual Beings, and we can arrive at a clear perception of how the continuous evolution of the Archangels is expressed and revealed in the changes that are to be observed in man's faculty of speech.

Now in those far-off times when an element of will came to expression in man's speech—that is, in the later part of the Atlantean evolution—it was not the same Beings of the Hierarchy who lived in his language as in more recent times. The whole relationship moreover was different. In those remote times man was not yet so interested in the feelings aroused in him at the sight, for example, of the blossoming of flowers or by changes in weather. These feelings interested him, it is true, in another connection, but not in respect of the faculty whereby the word welled up from the depths of his soul. Whether danger threatened him from this or that fact in Nature, summoning him to defend himself, or whether something else had a kindly and favourable influence and he would fain bring it into the orbit of his life, or again whether another object of perception were good or bad for his health,—in effect, how his will was aroused to activity, what he was induced to do under the influence of some fact or other,—this was the aspect of experience that interested him, and he formed his words accordingly. So that in those older times we find words that express how man reacts, what he finds himself impelled to do under the influence of the world around him. The most ancient language of all consisted almost entirely of expressions of will. How do we account for this? It was due to the fact that the Archangels came to language by way of Intuition. Read the descriptions I have given in my books of the nature of Intuition, and you will have a picture of the activity exercised by the Archangels in the later part of the Atlantean evolution, when they bestowed upon man the language of will.

Later, these Archangels moved forward in their own evolution. In my little book, “The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind,” I spoke about the evolution of the Leaders and Guides of humanity who live in the spiritual world. To-day we will extend this into a realm to which on that occasion we gave little attention,—the realm of speech and language. The advance made by the Archangels in their relation to language may be described in the following way. In the older faculty of Intuition they were standing within the world of still higher Hierarchies, giving themselves up in devotion to these worlds, so that together with speech they received something of the very being of higher Hierarchies than themselves. So long as it all depended upon Intuition, the Archangels surrendered themselves to the next higher Hierarchy,—Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai. They were within the worlds of this higher Hierarchy, and it was the experience of standing intuitively within this higher Hierarchy that enabled them to put the speech-forming power into human life on Earth.

In the next epoch the Archangels make, as it were, a step forward and then their speech-forming power flows no longer out of Intuition but out of Inspiration. They are not now completely surrendered to the next higher Hierarchy. (What they did still receive through their devotion to this Hierarchy underwent a change; it ceased to be something they could then communicate to man as speech or language). Now they hearken to the Inspirations of the First Hierarchy,—Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim,—and from out of this Inspiration they pour down to Earth the speech-forming power.

If we go back to the earliest times of Post-Atlantean evolution, or even only as far as ancient Egypt and Chaldea, we find in every land that the source from which the Archangels drew, in order to communicate speech to man, is Inspiration. Language itself is metamorphosed. Words become an expression before all else of sympathy and antipathy, of every shade of human feeling. Instead of a language of will, as in former times, we have now a language of feeling. We have come to a stage where this feeling, which is called forth in man by an external process or being is the very same as is experienced when the sounds issuing forth from the depths of his being are uttered by the speech organs and articulated into the word.

We have reached a significant phase in the evolution of mankind. The Hierarchy of the Archangels is at first the receiver of Intuitions; and the language of will, brought down as it were out of these Intuitions, is created by these Beings. The Archangels move on further and become the receivers of Inspiration. And what they receive through the inspiration of Beings of the First Hierarchy, gives rise to the language of feeling.

It was out of an extraordinarily deep perception that the well-known scholar and writer on the history of Art, Hermann Grimm, drew a clear line of division between the Greeks and the Romans. When we learn history at school or at the university, we are, he said, exhorted to take pains to understand what we learn; but as we go back over the evolution of mankind, we can only understand history as far back as Roman times. Cicero and Caesar we can still understand, for up to a point they are similar to the man of the present day,—although it must be said that the understanding generally brought to a study of Caesar is far from being free and natural. If we were not so thoroughly drilled and trained to it, we would never take much interest in Caesar! We would leave it to the pupils in military schools. Generally speaking, however, it is possible to trace a continuous stream back from our own day to Rome. A certain element of pedantry, which has gradually been creeping into man's life and has to-day reached a kind of culmination, first began to show itself in Rome. But, thinks Hermann Grimm, if we are honest with ourselves, we cannot claim to understand Pericles or Alcibiades. We understand them in the same way as we understand characters in fairy tales. As a matter of fact, it is only through a deeper study of Anthroposophy that one can come again to an understanding of the soul life of such figures; as you know, we have sought here again and again to enter into the whole way in which a Greek thinks and forms his ideas. Hermann Grimm is aware of the distance that lies between the inner life of a Greek and the inner life of a man of the present day. To the Roman we can still feel ourselves near; then comes a great gulf. The way the Greeks are described in the schools to-day is really deplorable! They are made out to be just like ourselves. They were not so at all, their whole life of soul was of a different character altogether. We need to look round for quite other methods to describe the Greeks. You could not have more striking evidence of this than when the learned Wilamowitz undertakes to translate the Greek tragedians. The whole affair is simply a disgrace. I need hardly say, there is nothing of the Greek tragedies left in his translations, not a trace! And yet people are immensely pleased, quite enchanted with them. Their dramatis personae simply do not exist in the tragedies themselves.

Hermann Grimm showed a true and sure instinct, when he said that we come into an entirely different world when we come to Greece—to say nothing of the Orient. It is really no more than a ridiculous mockery for modern man to imagine he can understand anything of the true Orient out of Deussen's translations. The first thing necessary is to be able to comprehend the change that has come about since then in the very being of man's soul.

And now when we come to consider our particular sphere, the sphere of speech or language, then we find that the language of feeling still prevailed in Greece among the philosophers up to the time of Plato. The first philosophical pedant is Aristotle, the great and universal spirit.1Pedant’ seems to be, in this connection, the nearest rendering for ‘Philinter.’ (Note by Translator). It will surprise you that I give him these two appellations, one after the other, but we do not understand Aristotle unless we see in him the first philosophical pedant and at the same time the universal spirit. He is great in a certain aspect but he is in another aspect the first pedant philosopher, for he made out of words categories of thought. It would never have occurred to the Greek of an older time to take words and force them, as it were, to yield categories of thought; he still felt the words as something that is inspired into man, still felt the presence of higher Spirits in speech and language.

Well on into the Greek epoch and—for the man in the street, as we say—as late as the Mystery of Golgotha, we can still detect in the speech-forming power of man the element of Inspiration, as it lives in the soul of the Archangel. True, the ordinary person lags behind the philosopher in certain respects; but in spiritual matters he is often less behind, and in the matter of the speech-forming faculty, he retains the Inspirations longer. Dates can of course be no more than approximate. In one region of the earth Inspiration lasts a longer, in another a shorter, time. In one region, men still feel how the word pulsates in them as the blood pulsates in the body; they feel it in the power of the breath. In the power of the breath as it enfills and surges through the body, they feel the presence of the Archangel, who is himself subject to Inspiration.

Then we come into a time when it is no longer so that the Archangel is yielding to Inspiration when he communicates to man the power of speech, but to Imagination. And language becomes the language of thought. Man begins to speak more out of thoughts; language approaches the abstract. And behind this lies a fact of great significance.

The Archangels, who belong to the Third Hierarchy, received Intuitions from the Second Hierarchy, and Inspirations from Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones—the First Hierarchy. Whence do they receive Imagination? There is no Hierarchy beyond the First! The Imaginations cannot at any rate come to them from any one of the Hierarchies named in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. For he tells of no Hierarchy beyond the first. Certain Archangel Beings were therefore obliged to turn to the past for Imaginations, to find in the past the pictures of the speech-forming power,—for that is what the Imaginations are. What came from an earlier time had to be carried on into the future. There was no longer any immediate and present flow of the speech-forming power. And inasmuch as speech now took its source from an earlier stage, into it crept an Ahrimanic element. This is a fact of incalculable significance. And what the Archangels felt above them came to expression in the world of man in a deadening of speech and language. Language became polished and at the same time paralysed, it no longer retained the livingness it had in earlier days.

Try to understand the significance of this change. Something enters into the life of man that in reality requires a higher hierarchy than the First. If we have a right understanding for this event in human development in all its tremendous significance, we shall come to see that a time had arrived when the Gods had to grow out beyond what is contained in the First Hierarchy. There is one thing that up to that time had not yet been achieved by the Gods, and was already present here on Earth in picture. What the Gods had not yet achieved is the passage through Death. You have often heard me speak of this. The Gods who stand above man in the various Hierarchies knew only of changes from one form of life into another. The actual event of death in life had not, up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, been an experience of the Gods. Death came as a result of Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences; it came, that is, through the agency of Divine Beings who had either remained behind in evolution or pressed forward too quickly. Death had no place in the life-experience of the higher Hierarchies. It enters into their experience in the moment when the Christ passes through the Mystery of Golgotha—passes, that is, through Death, uniting Himself so deeply with the destiny of Earth Man as to have this also in common with him,—that He passes through Death. The event of Golgotha is accordingly more than an event of the life of Earth, it is an event of the life of the Gods. The actual event that took place in that moment on Earth, and the knowledge of the Event that finds its way into the hearts and minds of men—all this is an image of the infinitely more lofty and sublime and far-reaching Event that took place in the worlds of the Gods themselves. Christ's passing through death on Golgotha is an event whereby the First Hierarchy reached up into a still higher realm. Therefore have I always had to speak to you of the Trinity as standing above the First Hierarchy. In reality It only came there in the course of evolution. Everywhere there is evolution.

And so, if we are speaking of the Hierarchies as described in Dionysius the Areopagite, we have to say that the Archangels lose the possibility of forming Imaginations from above. Consequently Man loses the possibility of continuing to build and fashion his language in a living manner. In the world of the Gods an event takes place of which the Mystery of Golgotha is an earthly reflection. Therefore the Event of Golgotha contains among its many implications also this,—that as men gradually receive into themselves more and more of the Christ Impulse, they receive again through the Christ Impulse the living spring and fountain of language.

We have to-day the various languages that run their course like diverging streams. And if we look at these various languages in a free and unbiassed way, we cannot fail to observe how they carry in them—and more especially, the farther we go Westward—an element of death, how they tend to become mere empty husks. In Asia things have not yet gone so far, but as we go West we find increasingly how the languages show signs of dying.

There is only one way whereby the speech-creating power can be quickened into life,—and that is through men coming to realise the Christ Impulse as a living Impulse. Then the Christ Impulse can become a power in man that can create speech. And among all the facts to be noted if we want to form a true picture of the significance of the Christ Impulse in the whole evolution of mankind, this must also have place, that at the time when man went forward into freedom, he came right out of the Divine and spiritual stream in which he had been steeped hitherto. Had speech remained as it was in the time of ancient Greece, man would not have been able to evolve to freedom. That speech serves the purpose merely of a sign,—this absurdity (for so I must call it) had to come about when the Archangels lost the possibility of forming Imaginations from the present and had to resort to the past. During the time since the Christ first made Himself known to men, during all this time while He has let the Mystery of His Being and His activity be there on record in the Gospels, the knowledge of Christ has not come in its fullness, the knowledge men have had of Him has not been sufficiently spiritual, it has often been merely traditional. But when the word of the Gospel is quickened to life by an understanding of the Christ, an understanding that derives from the Christ Himself as He still works on in the world, continuing to have influence always upon man, then—and only then—will proceed from the Christ Impulse, from the living Christ Impulse, the speech-forming power.

Let us now set down on the blackboard what I have been indicating. Here up above, the Gods grow more and more exalted. Down below an evolution goes on among men. On the one hand they receive more and more of the Christ Impulse, on the other hand they move further and further forward in the direction of freedom.

And when man rises to a higher stage, the higher Hierarchies also reach a higher stage. The Archangels gradually receive more and more of the Christ Impulse, on the other hand they move further and further forward in the direction of freedom. And when man rises to a higher stage, the higher Hierarchies also reach a higher stage. The Archangels gradually receive more and more of the Christ, Who has found His home in the hearts of men on Earth; He enters with His Impulse right into the Imaginations of the Archangels, and these become alive, become quick with immediate present life.

We shall in the future have an altogether different kind of language-forming power. A quite new kind will begin to work. I have spoken of this from other points of view in earlier lectures.

We can describe the evolution that goes on above in the Heavens at the same time as mankind evolves on the Earth below. And we can also describe its copy or reflection on Earth,—the progress from the language of will to the language of feeling and thence to the language of thought or symbol. And we can know that amidst it all Archangels are ascending—or shall we rather say descending—from Intuition to Inspiration and to Imagination. We behold first the evolution of the Archangels and all that takes place in connection therewith among the higher Hierarchies, and when we turn from that to man in his evolution, it is on the evolution of language and of the word that we have to fix our attention. We will consider one particular stream in the whole history of mankind, into which a divine stream was interwoven. It goes back to the origin of all things, the far beginning of all things. “In the Beginning was the Word” where was the word in those distant ages, when mankind had a language of the will? The Word was with God, it had to be sought there by means of Intuition. “The Word was with God ”.

The Archangels had to transpose themselves by means of Intuition into the Being of the Second Hierarchy. The Being that flowed over into Them was the Word. “And a God was the Word”.

In the Beginning was the Word
And the Word was with God
And a God was the Word.

We see how intimate is the connection of that stream in evolution which finds its culmination in the Mystery of Golgotha with the Logos, the Word. And it is all bound up with the great cosmic event of man's “becoming” and the passage of Christ through death. When those great sentences were uttered: “In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and a God was the Word ”—in those days the Word was felt as moving and weaving in the soul of man. With the Advent of the Mystery of Golgotha came a time when Christ was present in a human body—men beheld Him through the Word. The Word had entered into physical man. “ And the Word became flesh ”.

Deep truths, deep facts of evolution, lie hidden in the ancient writings, but earnest and persistent work is needed to find them again. We must first be able to observe in the spiritual world. Above all, we must approach these ancient writings with reverence, knowing that we shall only be able to deepen our understanding of their content by learning to investigate these sublime matters for ourselves. And as we are able to enter into their deeper meaning we enter also into spiritual life itself.

Well indeed would it be for us in this age, had we a Michael civilisation, a culture and a civilisation fired by what I recently called the Michael thought! This Michael thought should be alive, above all, in the autumn time. The festival of autumn should be filled with it. The leaves have withered and are falling from the branches of the trees, the plants are fading away, life is being mineralised. All the fresh young sprouting life that we saw in the earlier part of the year is receiving death into itself, death and decay, and is fast undergoing mineralisation. Now must the Michael power well up from man's inner being; now must man recognise how, just where the physical and material grows weak and faint and tends to die away,—just there the spiritual enters in! The Autumn Festival of Michaelmas at the end of September should become a festival filled with life and impulse. It has to express how man, while he stands right within the decaying processes of Nature, grows correspondingly active in his soul. When the Michael Festival shall have this character, then all human activity will be fructified from it. And how sore is the need to-day for such fructification! Let me give you an instance.

A short while ago, we heard a great deal about a resolve some people had made to study language. Nothing came of it, nothing at all. All manner of facts about language were collected, but the whole effort was completely lacking in spirituality. It was really so. There you had a group of young people, straight from school. At school of course, they had not yet woken up, but now—they are going to “study language”! They begin to plan it all and think how it will be when they have gone on studying for some time; a dazzling picture floats before their eyes of the fruit of all their labours. Actually all the preliminary steps are there; they could quite well have gone on to a recognition of the great miracle that unfolds before us when we look away from the present-day language of thought, through the language of feeling, to the language of will, and behold there the wonderful working and weaving of the Divine Archangels, behold too how their working and weaving stirs even yet in the language corpses of to-day. Were the life of the First Beginnings to flow again in language, what a sublime greatness were there revealed!

You must understand that the Michael thought is not a thing to be taken easily. You cannot simply say: Let us inaugurate a Michael Festival; it will be wonderful, and we shall then be in the very forefront of progress. The Michael thought has relation to the strongest and deepest impulses of the human will. It must reckon with these innermost impulses, and a Michael Festival cannot be other than a festival which gives a tremendous urge to human life, much as in those olden times, when man had the power to create festivals, the institution of the Christmas Festival or of the Easter Festival gave a new urge and impetus to the whole life of man on Earth.

Wiedergewinnung Des Lebendigen Sprachquells Durch Den Christus-Impuls

Der Michael-Gedanke Als Anruf Des Menschlichen Willens

Wenn Sie sich an verschiedenes erinnern, das ich hier im Laufe der letzten Betrachtungen vorgebracht habe, so werden Sie vor Ihre Seele hinstellen können die Beziehung der menschlichen Sprache, des Sprechenkönnens des Menschen zu denjenigen Wesen, die wir gewöhnt worden sind, in der geistigen Welt zur Hierarchie der Archangeloi, der Erzengel zu rechnen. Erinnern Sie sich, wie ich in einer der vorangehenden Betrachtungen ausgeführt habe, welche Bedeutung es für den Menschen hat, wenn er die Worte seiner Sprache so gestaltet, daß diese Worte nur zu rein materiellen Dingen Beziehung haben, daß also die Sprache gewissermaßen einen materialistischen Charakter annimmt, oder wenn er die Sprache so gestaltet, daß er im Sprechen einen gewissen Idealismus entwickelt, daß schon die Sprache ihn bei jedem Aussprechen eines Wortes empfinden läßt: er gehört einer geistigen Welt an, und was als Worte seiner Seele in seiner Sprache erklingt, das muß, weil es eben aus der Menschenseele kommt, irgendwelche Beziehung haben zu Geistern. Je nachdem das eine oder das andere der Fall ist, sagte ich Ihnen, kommt der Mensch zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen in die rechte oder unrechte Beziehung zu den Erzengelwesen, zu den Wesen, die wir als Archangeloi bezeichnen. Der Mensch verliert immer: mehr und mehr seinen notwendigen Zusammenhang mit diesen Archangeloi, wenn er den Idealismus aus seiner Sprache verschwinden läßt. Ich erinnere an diese Tatsache deshalb, weil ich eines wenigstens herausheben möchte, was die Beziehung des menschlichen Sprechens überhaupt zu der Hierarchie der Archangeloi vor Ihre Seele stellen kann.

Nun hat das menschliche Sprechen, die menschliche Sprache im Laufe der Menschheitsentwickelung eine Geschichte durchgemacht, wie im Grunde genommen alle Entwickelung, insofern sie den Menschen betrifft. Wir haben das für die verschiedensten Entwickelungstatsachen des Menschenwesens kennengelernt. Was ich nun heute auseinandersetzen möchte, das bezieht sich nicht auf die eine oder die andere Sprache. Die Zeitperioden, auf die wir in bezug auf die eine oder andere tiefste Entwickelung der Sprache verweisen müssen, sind so lang, daß selbst primitive Sprachen heute schon denselben Charakter tragen in bezug auf das, was wir heute auseinandersetzen wollen, wie zivilisierte Sprachen. So daß also heute nicht hingewiesen wird auf die Differenzen, die unter den einzelnen Sprachen bestehen, sondern auf jene Umwandlungen, auf jene Metamorphosen, welche das menschliche Sprechen überhaupt im Laufe der Menschheitsentwickelung auf Erden durchgemacht hat.

Wenn wir heute das Verhältnis des Menschen zu seiner Sprache ins Auge fassen, so finden wir ja, daß wir eigentlich in den Worten der Sprache kaum mehr anderes haben als Zeichen für das, was außer uns ist und worauf mit den Worten der Sprache hingewiesen werden soll.

Sie wissen, wir haben im Laufe unserer anthroposophischen Betrachtungen auch auf ein intimeres Verhältnis des Wortes zur Sache hingewiesen. Aber solch ein intimes Verhältnis wird ja heute kaum mehr von den Menschen gefühlt. Die Worte sind mehr oder weniger nur äußere Zeichen für das, was mit ihnen gemeint ist. Wer fühlt denn zum Beispiel heute, wie in dem Worte «Blitz» tatsächlich etwas liegt, was, wenn das Wort ausgesprochen wird, seinem Laute nach von dem menschlichen Gemüte so erlebt werden kann, wie das Zucken des Blitzes durch den Raum erlebt wird. Man fühlt ja die Sache heute mehr oder weniger so, daß eben dieses Lautgefüge «Blitz» das Zeichen für die zuckende Lichterscheinung des Blitzes bedeutet. Das war aber nicht immer so, sondern wenn wir zurückgehen - wir brauchen dabei wohl nur in die älteren Zeiten des Griechentums zurückzugehen -, dann finden wir, daß das Verhältnis des Menschen zur Sprache nicht ein solches Zeichenhaftes, Gedankenhaftes war, sondern daß der Mensch selbst in der Tat an der Lautgestaltung seiner Worte mit seinem Gemüte beteiligt war. Für die nördlichen Sprachen brauchen wir nicht einmal so weit zurückzugehen.

Heute ist das Gefühl dafür abgelähmt, daß das Wort «Pflug» so erlebt werden kann wie die Tätigkeit, die mit diesem Ackerinstrumente ausgeführt wird. Es ist das Wort ein Zeichen geworden. Aber vor verhältnismäßig kurzer Zeit -— wir brauchen vielleicht nur an kaum eineinhalb Jahrtausende zu denken -, da wurden die Worte noch in den nördlicheren Gegenden Europas so gefühlt, daß tatsächlich das Gefühl beim Pflügen ein ähnliches war, wie innerlich das Gefühl war bei dem Worte, das dazumal den Pflug bezeichnete. Es war also damals an der Empfindung vom Worte weniger der Gedanke beteiligt, sondern es war das Gefühl des Menschen daran beteiligt.

Und wenn wir in ganz alte Zeiten der Menschheit zurückgehen, dann finden wir, daß nicht nur das Gefühl daran beteiligt ist, sondern daß der Wille intensiv bei der Wortbildung beteiligt ist. Aber wenn wir jene Zeit betrachten wollen, in der die Menschen vor allen Dingen ihr Willensverhältnis zu der äußeren Natur betrachteten, indem sie in der Sprache lebten, da müssen wir schon zurückgehen bis in die späteren atlantischen Zeiten. Es sind eben durchaus lange Zeitepochen, in denen sich die Sprache in der Weise, wie ich es eben jetzt angedeutet habe, entwickelt. Und in der Sprache lebt ja der Sprachgenius. Die Sprache unterliegt ja nicht der menschlichen Willkür in ihrer Entwickelung, sondern in der Sprache lebt der Sprachgenius. Und der Sprachgenius gehört im wesentlichen der Hierarchie der Archangeloi an. Indem der Mensch spricht, also sozusagen um die Erde herum eine Atmosphäre bereitet, in der die zur Sprache artikulierten Lautbildungen des Menschen leben, ist diese Sprachatmosphäre das Element der Archangeloi. Deshalb sind die Archangeloi die Volksgeister, wie Sie aus einem Vortragszyklus von mir wissen können.

Es ist also eigentlich dasjenige, was in der menschlichen Sprachentwickelung auf Erden erscheint, innig zusammenhängend mit der Entwickelung der Archangeloi. Man möchte sagen: Was sich in der Sprachentwickelung ausdrückt, ist ein Bild der Archangeloientwickelung. Wir sind, wenn wir auch nur das, was irdisch ist, betrachten, durchaus nicht davon ausgeschlossen, die Entwickelung der höheren geistigen Wesenheiten kennenzulernen. Wir müssen nur in der richtigen Weise wissen, wie wir bestimmte Erscheinungen und Tatsachen auf gewisse höhere geistige Wesenheiten beziehen müssen. Wir müssen nur klar hineinschauen, wie in der Umwandlung der Sprachfähigkeit der Menschen auf Erden die fortlaufende Entwickelung der Archangeloi sich ausdrückt, sich offenbart.

Wenn wir nun in diese ganz alten Zeiten zurückgehen, in denen die Menschen ihr Willensverhältnis in der Sprache zum Ausdruck brachten, also in die letzten. Zeiten der atlantischen Entwickelung, da war die Sprache oder das, was in der Sprache als Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Archangeloi lebte, etwas anderes, als was später in dieser Beziehung vorhanden war. Machen wir uns einmal klar, wie die Sprachbildung in diesen uralten Zeiten der menschlichen Erdenentwickelung war. Da interessierte den Menschen noch nicht viel, wie sich das fühlen läßt zum Beispiel, wenn die Blumen blühen, wenn dieses oder jenes Wetter ist. Das interessierte ihn in anderer Beziehung, nicht aber in bezug auf jene Fähigkeit, die aus den Tiefen seiner Seele hervorsprießen läßt das Wort. Für die Wortbildung interessierte ihn, ob ihm zum Beispiel Gefahr drohte von dieser oder jener äußeren Tatsache, ob er etwas abzuwehren hatte, oder ob etwas auf ihn günstig wirkte, so daß er es in seine Lebensverhältnisse hereinbeziehen wollte, ob etwas für seine Gesundheit förderlich oder schädlich war. Kurz, ob sein Wille nach dieser oder jener Richtung angeregt wurde, das interessierte ihn. Was er unter dem Einfluß der äußeren Tatsachen veranlaßt wurde zu tun, das interessierte ihn, und danach waren die Worte gebildet. In jener alten Zeit waren die Worte durchaus Ausdrücke für die menschlichen Reaktionsvorgänge, für das, was sich der Mensch veranlaßt sah zu tun unter dem Einflusse der Welt. Willensausdrücke waren fast die einzigen Ausdrücke, die die urältesten Sprachen während der menschlichen Erdenentwickelung hatten. Und woher kam das? Das kam davon her, daß die Archangeloi zu der Sprache auf dem Wege der Intuition kamen.

Wenn Sie die Beschreibungen nehmen, die ich in meinen verschiedenen Büchern über das Wesen der Intuition gegeben habe, dann haben Sie mit dieser Intuition auch diejenige Tätigkeit geschildert, welche die Archangeloi ausübten, sagen wir, in den letzten Zeiten der atlantischen Entwickelung, um den Menschen die damalige Willenssprache zu übermitteln. Dann aber rückten diese Archangeloi in ihrer eigenen Entwickelung vorwärts. Ich habe ja auf die Entwickelung der in der geistigen Welt lebenden Führer des Menschen und der Menschheit in der kleinen Schrift «Die geistige Führung des Menschen und der Menschheit» hingewiesen. Heute möchte ich auf ein Gebiet kommen, das dort weniger berücksichtigt ist, auf das Gebiet der Sprache.

Das Fortschreiten der Archangeloi in bezug auf die Sprache liegt darin, daß sie in der älteren Fähigkeit der Intuition vor allen Dingen in den Welten höherer Hierarchien darinstanden, sich hingaben an die Welten höherer Hierarchien, so daß sie eigentlich mit der Sprache etwas bekamen, was das Wesen höherer Hierarchien war, als die Erzengelhierarchie ist. Die Erzengel gaben sich, solange die sprachbildende Kraft bei ihnen auf der Intuition beruhte, der nächsthöheren Hierarchie hin, den Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai. Da standen sie darinnen. Und aus dem, was sie erlebten durch ihr intuitives Darinstehen in dieser Hierarchie, konnten sie dem Erdenleben die sprachbildende Kraft einflößen.

In der nächsten Epoche schritten die Archangeloi so vorwärts, daß ihre sprachbildende Kraft nicht mehr aus der Intuition floß, sondern aus der Inspiration. Sie gaben sich nicht mehr völlig der nächsthöheren Hierarchie hin, sondern was sie durch die Hingabe an diese höhere Hierarchie bekamen, war ihnen etwas anderes geworden als das, was sie als Sprache den Menschen vermittelten. Sie lauschten jetzt auf die Inspirationen der ersten Hierarchie, der Throne, Cherubim, Seraphim, und aus dieser Inspiration heraus flößten sie dem Erdenleben die sprachbildende Kraft ein.

Wenn wir in die ersten Zeiten der nachatlantischen Entwickelung, selbst noch bis ins Ägyptertum und Chaldäertum zurückgehen, so finden wir überall, wie der Quell, aus dem heraus die Erzengel schöpfen, um dem Menschen die Sprache zu vermitteln, die Inspiration ist. Da wird die Sprache so — sie macht eine Metamorphose durch -, daß vor allen Dingen die Worte Ausdruck werden für menschliche Sympathie und Antipathie, für menschliche Gefühle und Empfindungen überhaupt. An die Stelle der alten Willenssprache tritt eine Gefühlssprache. Und es ist vorzugsweise jener Zustand vorhanden, wo gefühlt wird an dem äußeren Vorgang oder dem äußeren Wesen dasjenige, was auch gefühlt wird, wenn aus den Tiefen der Menschenwesenheit durch die Sprachorgane die zum Worte artikulierten Laute kamen.

So können wir sagen: Es ist ein bedeutungsvoller Vorgang in der Menschheitsentwickelung da. Die Hierarchie der Archangeloi ist zuerst Intuitionen unterworfen, und aus den Intuitionen herunter wird die Willenssprache durch diese Wesenheiten geschaffen. Die Archangeloi rücken vorwärts, sie sind dann unterworfen der Inspiration. Und aus dem, was sie durch die Inspiration der Wesen der ersten Hierarchie empfangen, entstehen die Gefühlssprachen.

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Es war ja eigentlich ein außerordentlich tiefes Gefühl, aus dem heraus Alerman Grimm, der Kunsthistoriker, diese Scheidewand zwischen Griechen und Römern gezogen hat. Herman Grimm hat nämlich behauptet: Wenn man heute in der Schule oder auf der Universität Geschichte lernt, ist man darauf angewiesen, daß man das, was man da lernt, auch versteht. Aber man versteht, wenn man heute Geschichte lernt, rückwärtsgehend in der Menschheitsentwickelung, die Geschichte nur bis zum Römertum. Cicero, Cäsar, die kann man noch verstehen, weil sie bis zu einem gewissen Grade dem heutigen Menschen schon ziemlich ähnlich sind, obwohl auch schon viel Unnatürliches in dem Verständnis liegt, das wir, sagen wir, Cäsar entgegenbringen. Würden wir nicht dazu dressiert, so würden sich für Cäsar wahrscheinlich nur die Zöglinge der Militäranstalten interessieren. Wir werden in dieser Beziehung furchtbar dressiert. Aber im ganzen und großen geht heute eben ein fortlaufender Strom zurück zum Römertum. Ein gewisses philiströses Element, das heute in der Kulmination ist, das aber allmählich in die Menschheit eingeschlichen ist, das finden wir eben schon, wenn wir bis zum Römertum zurückgehen. Aber derjenige, der ehrlich ist im Verständnis der Vergangenheit, so meint Herman Grimm, der kann sich nicht zuschreiben, daß er zum Beispiel den Perikles oder den Alkibiades versteht. Die versteht man so, wie man die Persönlichkeiten von Märchen versteht. Das Seelenleben dieser Persönlichkeiten kann erst wiederum verstanden werden gerade durch anthroposophische Vertiefung. Wir haben immer versucht, hineinzukommen in die Art und Weise, wie ein Grieche vorstellt. Das fühlt auch Herman Grimm. Er fühlt die Entfernung, die zwischen dem Seelenleben eines Griechen und eines modernen Menschen ist, der den Römern noch sehr nahesteht; dann kommt ein Abgrund.

Wie die Griechen in den heutigen Schulen geschildert werden, das ist etwas Furchtbares, denn da werden sie eben modernisiert. So sind sie nicht gewesen, ihr ganzes Seelenleben war anders. Man muß zu ganz andern Mitteln greifen, wenn man die Griechen charakterisieren will. Es hat sich am besten gezeigt an einem besonderen Fall, wie der urgelehrte Wilamowitz daran ging, die griechischen Tragiker zu übersetzen. Die ganze Affäre ist eigentlich schrecklich, denn es ist natürlich in den Wilamowitzschen Übersetzungen nichts von den griechischen Tragikern darin, rein gar nichts. Und doch gefällt es den modernen Menschen ungeheuer, sie sind ganz entzückt von den Wilamowitzscher: Übersetzungen. Aber die Personen, die da bei Wilamowitz auftreten, sind nicht die, die bei den griechischen Tragikern auftreten.

Also wenn wir nach Griechenland zurückkommen — das hat Herman Grimm mit einem sicheren Instinkt gefühlt -, da kommen wir in eine ganz andere Welt, gar nicht zu reden von den orientalischen Elementen in dieser Beziehung. Es ist ja der reine Hohn, wenn die moderne Menschheit überhaupt glaubt, aus den Deussenschen Übersetzungen etwas zu begreifen von dem, was im alten Orient sich abgespielt hat. Da muß man eindringen können in diese ganze Umwandlung und Umgestaltung des seelischen Wesens.

Und wenn man auf ein besonderes Element hinschaut, auf die Sprache, dann ist das eben so, daß bis ins Griechentum herein die Gefühlssprache geherrscht hat zum Beispiel unter den Philosophen bis zu Plato. Der erste philosophische Philister ist der große universelle Geist Aristoteles. Sie werden sich verwundern, daß ich die zwei Attribute hintereinander sage, aber man versteht Aristoteles nicht, wenn man ihn nicht als den ersten philosophischen Philister und als den universellen Geist zugleich auffaßt. Er ist groß in einer gewissen Beziehung, aber er ist in einer andern Beziehung eben der erste philosophische Philister, der aus den Worten die Gedankenkategorien herausklaubt. Das wäre den älteren Griechen gar nicht eingefallen, aus den Worten Gedankenkategorien herauszuklauben, denn sie hatten noch ein Gefühl dafür, daß die Worte etwas sind, was hereininspiriert wird in die Menschen. Sie fühlten die höheren Geister, indem die Sprache entstand.

Bis in die Griechenzeit herein und für die äußere Menschheit die in bezug auf gewisse Dinge gewiß sehr zurück ist, aber in bezug auf geistige Dinge oftmals weniger zurück ist als die Philosophen -, für diese übrige Menschheit, die also in bezug auf die sprachbildende Kraft länger die Inspirationen behielt als die Philosophen, können wir wirklich sagen: Wir vernehmen noch überall in der sprachbildenden Kraft das inspirierende Element, das aber allerdings in der Seele der Erzengel lebt, bis zum Mysterium von Golgatha hin. Natürlich ist das approximativ. In der einen Gegend der Erde dauert es länger, in der andern kürzer. In der einen Gegend der Erde fühlen die Menschen noch, wie das Wort in ihnen so pulst, wie das Blut im Körper pulst; das fühlen sie in der Atemkraft. Und sie fühlen in der hinwehenden, das heißt in der den Körper durchwehenden Atemkraft den der Inspiration unterliegenden Archangelos.

Dann kommen wir an die Zeitepochen heran, wo die Erzengel, indem sie dem Menschen die Sprache vermitteln, nicht mehr der Inspiration unterliegen, sondern der Imagination (siehe Schema). Und die Sprache wird zur Gedankensprache. Die Menschen sprechen immer mehr und mehr aus den Gedanken heraus, die Sprache kommt gewissermaßen an das abstrakte Element des Menschen heran.

Dem liegt etwas sehr Bedeutsames zugrunde. Die Intuitionen haben die Archangeloi empfangen von der zweiten Hierarchie; sie selber gehören zur dritten Hierarchie. Die Inspirationen haben sie empfangen von Seraphim, Cherubim und Thronen, von der ersten Hierarchie. Die Imagination - ja, da gibt es zunächst keine Hierarchie über die erste hinaus! Diese Imaginationen konnten sie zunächst nicht von den Hierarchien empfangen, die zum Beispiel noch bei Dionysius dem Areopagiten verzeichnet sind. Da gab es über die erste Hierarchie hinaus keine. Daher haben gewisse Erzengelwesen dazu greifen müssen, nun die Imaginationen, das heißt, die Bilder der sprachbildenden Kraft - denn das sind die Imaginationen — aus der Vergangenheit herzuholen, also Früheres fortzusetzen. Es hörte die unmittelbare quellende Kraft, Sprache zu bilden, auf. In die Sprache kam ein ahrimanisches Element herein, weil sie herübergenommen wurde aus einer früheren Stufe. Das ist etwas ungeheuer Bedeutungsvolles. Und dieses, was da die Archangeloi über sich im Oberen fühlten, das drückte sich in der Menschheit dadurch aus, daß die Sprache immer mehr und mehr sich abschliff, ablähmte, nicht mehr als etwas so Lebendiges vorhanden war wie in früheren Zeiten.

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Bedenken Sie, was für ein ungeheuer Bedeutsames sich in dieser Tatsache ausspricht. In das Menschenleben kommt etwas herein, was eigentlich eine höhere Hierarchie brauchte, als die erste Hierarchie ist. Man muß dieses nur in seiner ungeheuer umfassenden Bedeutung fühlen, und man wird darauf hingewiesen, wie eine Zeit herangekommen war, in der Götter über dasjenige hinauswachsen mußten, was in der ersten Hierarchie enthalten war.

Nun gibt es eines, was die Götter bis zu jener Zeit nicht erreicht hatten, was auf Erden hier schon im Abbilde vorhanden war. Was die Götter noch nicht erreicht hatten, das ist das Durchgehen durch den Tod. Es ist das ein Faktum, auf das ich schon öfter hingewiesen habe. Die Götter, die in den verschiedenen Hierarchien über dem Menschen stehen, haben nur Verwandlungen, Metamorphosen von einer Lebensform in die andere kennengelernt. Das eigentliche Ereignis des Todes im Leben war vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha keine Göttererfahrung. Der Tod ist ins Leben hereingekommen durch die luziferischen und ahrimanischen Einflüsse, durch zurückgebliebene oder das Vorwärtsstürmen zu schnell treibende Götterwesen. Aber der Tod ist eigentlich nicht etwas, was als eine Lebenserfahrung der höheren Hierarchien vorhanden war. Das tritt ein als eine Erfahrung für diese höheren Hierarchien in dem Augenblick, als der Christus durch das Mysterium von Golgatha, das heißt, durch den Tod geht; als der Christus mit dem Schicksal der Erdenmenschheit sich so weit vereinigte, daß er mit dieser Erdenmenschheit das gemeinsam haben wollte, daß er den Tod durchgemacht hat. Es ist also dieses Ereignis von Golgatha nicht bloß ein Ereignis des Erdenlebens, es ist dieses Ereignis von Golgatha ein Ereignis des Götterlebens. Was sich auf der Erde abgespielt hat, und was im menschlichen Gemüt als eine Erkenntnis von dem Ereignis von Golgatha auftritt, das ist das Abbild von etwas ungeheuer viel Umfassenderem, Großartigerem, Gewaltigerem, Erhabenerem, das sich abgespielt hat in den Götterwelten selber. Und des Christus Durchgang durch den Tod auf Golgatha ist ein Ereignis, durch das die erste Hierarchie in ein höheres Gebiet hinaufreichte. Daher mußte ich Ihnen immer sagen: Die Trinität liegt eigentlich über den Hierarchien. Aber dazu ist sie erst im Laufe der Entwickelung gekommen. Entwickelung findet überall statt.

Also mit Bezug auf diejenigen Hierarchien selbst, welche bei Dionysius dem Areopagiten verzeichnet sind, verlieren die Erzengel die Möglichkeit, die Imaginationen von oben zu bilden. Der Mensch verliert die Möglichkeit, seine Sprache lebendig fortzugestalten. In der Götterwelt geht etwas vor, dessen irdisches Abbild das Ereignis von Golgatha ist. Und deshalb hängt mit dem Ereignis von Golgatha unter vielem andern auch das zusammen, daß, wenn die Menschen nach und nach immer mehr und mehr den Christus-Impuls aufnehmen, sie durch den Christus-Impuls wiederum den lebendigen Sprachquell erhalten.

Wir haben heute, man möchte sagen, die auslaufenden bloß natürlichen Sprachen. Und wenn man unbefangen genug ist, kann man in den auslaufenden natürlichen Sprachen, insbesondere je weiter man vom Osten nach dem Westen geht, vernehmen, wie diese Sprachen ein absterbendes Element in sich tragen, wie sie immer mehr und mehr zur Hülle werden. In Asien ist es noch weniger der Fall, gegen den Westen hin aber ist es immer mehr und mehr so, daß die Sprachen ein absterbendes Element in sich tragen.

Eine Belebung des Sprachschöpferischen im Menschenwesen kann nur dadurch eintreten, daß die Menschen immer mehr den ChristusImpuls als ein Lebendiges wieder ergreifen, damit der Christus-Impuls gerade das Sprachschöpferische werde. Und unter all den Dingen, die man anführen muß, wenn man die Bedeutung des Christus-Impulses für die Menschheitsentwickelung darlegen will, ist auch dieses, daß die Menschheit in der Zeit, in der sie zur Freiheit aufrückte, herauskam aus dem göttlich-geistigen Durchströmt- und Durchwebtsein der Sprachen. Wäre die Sprache so geblieben, wie sie im alten Griechenland war, der Mensch hätte sich nicht zur Freiheit entwickeln können. Es brauchte einmal, ich möchte sagen, dieses Absurde, daß die Sprache nur zum Zeichen da ist, daß die Archangeloi die Möglichkeit verloren haben, die Imaginationen aus der Gegenwart zu bilden, daß sie aus der Vergangenheit sie bilden mußten. In dieser Zeit, an deren Beginn sich der Christus angekündigt hat, in der er niederschreiben ließ das Geheimnis seines Wesens und seiner Tätigkeit in den Evangelien, in dieser Zeit ist aber die Christus-Erkenntnis nicht vollständig unter die Menschen gekommen, weil sie nicht geistig genug, weil sie oftmals nur traditionell war. Erst wenn das Wort des Evangeliums belebt wird von einem Christus-Verständnis aus, das in der Gegenwart selber von dem fortwirkenden, immer auf den Menschen Einfluß habenden Christus kommt, erst dann wird auch die sprachbildende Kraft von diesem Christus-Impuls, von dem lebendigen Christus-Impuls ausgehen.

Aber schreiben wir jetzt auf, was ich Ihnen hier angedeutet habe (siehe Schema). Machen wir uns ganz klar, daß da oben etwas vorgeht, wodurch Götter erhöht werden, daß da unten etwas vorgeht, wodurch die Menschen den Christus-Impuls immer mehr haben, aber auch immer mehr zur Freiheit vorrücken. Stellen wir uns nur vor, daß, indem der Mensch eine Erhöhung durchmacht, diese Erhöhung des Menschen auch eine Erhöhung der höheren Hierarchien ausmacht. Seien wir uns klar darüber, daß die Imaginationen der Archangeloi gegenwärtig lebendige Imaginationen werden, wenn die Archangeloi immer mehr hineinbekommen von dem Christus, der seinen Wohnplatz in den Herzen der Menschen auf der Erde gefunden haben wird, der als ein Impuls in die Imaginationen der Erzengel einzieht.

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Es wird dann eine ganz andere Art der sprachbildenden Kraft kommen. Eine besondere Art der sprachbildenden Kraft wird eben kommen. Von gewissen. andern Gesichtspunkten habe ich das in früheren Zyklen schon angedeutet, aber jetzt schreiben wir einmal einfach dasjenige, was ich Ihnen da auseinandergesetzt habe.

Der Mensch kann schildern, wie es oben bei den Himmeln vorgegangen ist in der Entwickelung, die da oben verlief, während unten auf Erden die Menschheitsentwickelung verlief. Aber der Mensch kann auch das Abbild beschreiben. Er kann das Vorrücken von der Willenssprache durch die Gefühlssprache zu den Gedanken- oder Zeichensprachen beschreiben. Und er kann wissen, daß dazwischen liegt das Aufsteigen - oder das Absteigen - der Archangeloi von Intuition zu Inspiration zu Imagination. Aber indem der Mensch auf sich selber schaut, was muß er ins Auge fassen, wenn er von der Entwickelung der Archangeloi und von dem, was in den höheren Hierarchien damit zusammenhängt, dahin deuten will? Er faßt die Entwickelung der Sprache oder des Wortes ins Auge, er fixiert, er erinnert sich. Ich will die Entwickelung einer bestimmten Strömung in der Menschheit ins Auge fassen, in die eine Götterströmung hineinverwoben ist. Ich gehe bis zum Ursprung zurück, bis zu den Urbeginnen. «Im Urbeginne war das Wort.» Wo war denn das Wort, als wir eine Willenssprache hatten als Menschheit? Ja, das Wort war bei Gott und mußte durch Intuition bei Gott gesucht werden. «Und das Wort war bei Gott.» Aber die Archangeloi mußten sich durch Intuition in das Wesen der zweiten Hierarchie hineinversetzen. Das Wesen, das sie da in sich selber überfließen ließen, das war das Wort: «Und ein Gott war das Wort.»

Im Urbeginne war das Wort,
Und das Wort war bei Gott,
Und ein Gott war das Wort.

Wir sehen, wie innig dasjenige, was fortfloß in der Entwickelung, die ihre Kulmination im Mysterium von Golgatha hatte, zusammenhing mit dem Logos oder dem Wort. Aber das Ganze hängt ja zusammen mit dem universellen Ereignis der Menschwerdung und des Durchgehens durch den Tod von seiten des Christus. In der Zeit, in der man so sagte: «Im Urbeginne war das Wort, und das Wort war bei Gott, und ein Gott war das Wort», fühlte man das Wort vor allen Dingen im Seelischen weben. Nun kam durch das Mysterium von Golgatha eine Zeit, wo der Christus in einem Menschenleibe da war den Christus sah man durch das Wort -, wo das Wort eingezogen war in den physischen Menschen: «Und das Wort ist Fleisch geworden.»

Tiefe Entwickelungswahrheiten, die man durch eine heiße Arbeit, welche in einer Beobachtung der geistigen Welt besteht, wiederfindet, liegen in demjenigen, was im älteren Schrifttum steht. Aber man muß sich nur klar sein darüber, dieses ältere Schrifttum muß mit jener Ehrerbietung erfaßt werden, durch die man sich sagt: Ich kann immer tiefer und tiefer hineindringen, wenn ich in den Dingen selber erst forsche. - Da kommt man hinein in die tiefere Bedeutung des älteren Schrifttums. Und steigt man hinein in die tiefere Bedeutung des alten Schrifttums, dann steigt man auch in das geistige Leben selber hinein.

Und wieviel gäbe es in dieser Beziehung in unserer heutigen Gegenwart für eine Michael-Kultur, für eine Kultur, welche sich anfeuern ließe von dem, was ich in den verflossenen Betrachtungen den MichaelGedanken genannt habe! Der Michael-Gedanke soll ja vorzugsweise lebendig werden durch ein Herbstfest. Die Blätter fallen, welk geworden, von den Bäumen, die Pflanzen werden welk, verdorren, das Leben mineralisiert sich. Dasjenige, was der Mensch im vorhergehenden Jahreslaufe gesehen hat als Sprießendes, Sprossendes, als Lebendiges, nimmt den Tod, das Untergehende in sich auf, das sich Mineralisierende. Da muß im Menschen die Michael-Kraft, die Willenskraft ersprießen, welche sich klar ist darüber, daß das Geistige dort Platz nimmt, wo das Physisch-Materielle abgelähmt wird und nach und nach erstirbt. Ein Fest der Impulsivität müßte als ein Abbild des in das welkende Naturgeschehen hineingestellten, seine Seele aber zu um so größerer Aktivität bringenden Menschen das herbstliche MichaelFest Ende September werden. Und wird es das, dann wird alle menschliche Tätigkeit befruchtet.

Was kann man doch heute alles erfahren! Man braucht nur auf ganz kurze Zeiten zurückzugreifen. Da gibt es Erfahrungen in Hülle und Fülle, die einem die Menschen entgegenbringen. Auf allen Gebieten, zum Beispiel auf dem Gebiete der Sprache, sagen einem die Menschen: Ja, ich soll die Sprachen studieren, aber da kommt gar nichts dabei heraus, da steht alles so nebeneinander, da ist gar nichts Geistiges darin.

Also es ist wirklich so, gerade wenn Menschen in ihrer Jugend, sagen wir, vom Gymnasium kommen; nun ja, da sind sie noch nicht so weit erwacht, aber jetzt sollen sie nachdenken, jetzt sollen sie an die Universität gehen und sollen Sprachen studieren. Und nun überlegen sie sich, wie dann das fortgehen wird, was sie schon im Studium der Sprachen aufgenommen haben: da wird ihnen schwummelig vor den Augen vor dem, was ihnen da blüht. Ja, alle Ansätze sind dazu vorhanden, jene Wunder kennenzulernen, die man kennenlernt, wenn man hinaufschaut von der heutigen Gedankensprache durch die Gefühlssprache zu der Willenssprache, wenn man da das Göttliche, das Erzengelartige waltend und webend schaut, wenn man es schaut, wie es heute, ich möchte sagen, in den Leichnamen der Sprachen sich zeigt. Wenn da wiederum das Leben der Ürbeginne hineinflösse, das gäbe etwas Großartiges!

Der Michael-Gedanke ist nicht so etwas, daß sich ein paar Leute vornehmen können: Wir machen halt so ein Herbstfest; das ist sehr schön, dann sind wir die ganz Fortschrittlichen. - Der Michael-Gedanke ist etwas, was mit den innersten und stärksten Impulsen des menschlichen Willens rechnen muß, und das Fest kann nur ein solches sein, was ebenso dem menschlichen Leben einen mächtigen Ruck gibt, wie in älteren Zeiten, wo man noch die festesbildenden Kräfte hatte, wo die Einsetzung des Weihnachtsfestes oder des Osterfestes den Menschen einen Lebensruck gab.

Recovery of the Living Source of Language Through the Christ Impulse

The Michael Thought as a Call to the Human Will

If you recall various things I have mentioned here in the course of my recent reflections, you will be able to place before your soul the relationship between human language, the human faculty of speech, and those beings whom we have been accustomed to regard in the spiritual world as belonging to the hierarchy of the archangels. Remember how I explained in one of the previous reflections what significance it has for human beings when they form the words of their language in such a way that these words relate only to purely material things, so that language takes on a materialistic character, so to speak, or when they form language in such a way that they develop a certain idealism in their speech, so that language itself makes them feel, every time they utter a word: he belongs to a spiritual world, and what resounds in his language as the words of his soul must, because it comes from the human soul, have some connection with spirits. Depending on which of these two cases applies, I told you, between falling asleep and waking up, man enters into the right or wrong relationship with the archangelic beings, with the beings we call Archangeloi. Human beings lose more and more of their necessary connection with these Archangeloi when they allow idealism to disappear from their language. I remind you of this fact because I would like to emphasize at least one thing that can reveal to your soul the relationship between human speech and the hierarchy of the Archangeloi.

Now, human speech, human language, has undergone a history in the course of human evolution, as has all evolution insofar as it concerns human beings. We have learned this from the most diverse facts of human development. What I would like to discuss today does not refer to one language or another. The periods of time to which we must refer in relation to one or another deepest development of language are so long that even primitive languages today already have the same character in relation to what we want to discuss today as civilized languages. So today we do not point to the differences that exist between individual languages, but to those transformations, those metamorphoses that human speech has undergone in the course of human development on earth.

When we consider the relationship between human beings and their language today, we find that the words of language are actually little more than signs for what is outside of us and to which the words of language are meant to refer.

You know that in the course of our anthroposophical considerations we have also pointed to a more intimate relationship between the word and the thing. But such an intimate relationship is hardly felt by people today. Words are more or less only external signs for what is meant by them. Who today feels, for example, that there is actually something in the word “lightning” which, when the word is spoken, can be experienced by the human mind in the same way as the flash of lightning is experienced in space? Today, we feel more or less that this sound structure “lightning” is the sign for the flashing light phenomenon of lightning. But this was not always the case. If we go back in time—we need only go back to the early days of Greek civilization—we find that the relationship between humans and language was not symbolic or conceptual, but that humans themselves were actually involved in the sound formation of their words with their minds. For the northern languages, we do not even need to go back that far.

Today, we have lost the feeling that the word “plow” can be experienced in the same way as the activity performed with this agricultural tool. The word has become a sign. But relatively recently—perhaps only a millennium and a half ago—words were still felt in the northern regions of Europe in such a way that the feeling of plowing was similar to the inner feeling associated with the word that designated the plow at that time. At that time, therefore, it was not so much the thought that was involved in the perception of the word, but rather the feeling of the person involved.

And if we go back to the very early days of humanity, we find that it is not only feeling that is involved, but that the will is also intensely involved in word formation. But if we want to look at the time when people primarily considered their relationship of will to the external nature by living in language, we have to go back to the later Atlantean times. These are very long periods of time in which language developed in the way I have just indicated. And it is in language that the genius of language lives. Language is not subject to human arbitrariness in its development, but the genius of language lives in language. And the genius of language essentially belongs to the hierarchy of the Archangels. When human beings speak, they create an atmosphere around the earth, so to speak, in which the sounds articulated by human speech live. This atmosphere of speech is the element of the archangels. That is why the archangels are the spirits of the people, as you may know from a series of lectures I have given.

So it is actually what appears in the development of human language on earth that is intimately connected with the development of the archangels. One might say that what is expressed in the development of language is a picture of the development of the archangels. Even if we consider only what is earthly, we are by no means excluded from knowing the development of higher spiritual beings. We only need to know in the right way how to relate certain phenomena and facts to certain higher spiritual beings. We only need to look clearly into how the ongoing development of the archangels is expressed and revealed in the transformation of human speech on earth.

If we now go back to those very ancient times when human beings expressed their will in language, that is, to the last stages of the Atlantean evolution, language, or that which lived in language as beings from the hierarchy of the archangels, was something different from what later existed in this connection. Let us consider how language was formed in those ancient times of human evolution on earth. People were not yet very interested in how it felt, for example, when flowers bloomed or when the weather was this or that. They were interested in other things, but not in relation to that ability which springs from the depths of their souls and gives rise to words. They were interested in word formation if, for example, they were threatened by this or that external fact, if they had something to ward off, or if something had a favorable effect on them so that they wanted to incorporate it into their life circumstances, if something was beneficial or harmful to their health. In short, he was interested in whether his will was stimulated in this or that direction. He was interested in what he was prompted to do under the influence of external facts, and the words were formed accordingly. In those ancient times, words were entirely expressions of human reactions, of what human beings felt compelled to do under the influence of the world. Expressions of the will were almost the only expressions that the most ancient languages had during the earthly evolution of humanity. And where did this come from? It came from the fact that the Archangeloi came to language through intuition.

If you take the descriptions I have given in my various books about the nature of intuition, then you have also described with this intuition the activity which the archangels carried out, let us say, in the last stages of the Atlantean evolution, in order to convey to human beings the language of the will that existed at that time. But then these Archangeloi advanced in their own development. I have already referred to the development of the guides of human beings and humanity living in the spiritual world in the small book “The Spiritual Guidance of Human Beings and Humanity.” Today I would like to come to a field that is less considered there, the field of language.

The progress of the Archangeloi in relation to language lies in the fact that, in their older capacity of intuition, they stood above all in the worlds of higher hierarchies, devoting themselves to the worlds of higher hierarchies, so that they actually gained something through language that was the essence of higher hierarchies than the archangel hierarchy is. As long as their language-forming power was based on intuition, the archangels devoted themselves to the next higher hierarchy, the Kyriotetes, Dynamis, and Exusiai. There they stood. And from what they experienced through their intuitive standing in this hierarchy, they were able to infuse the earth life with the language-forming power.

In the next epoch, the Archangeloi advanced so far that their language-forming power no longer flowed from intuition but from inspiration. They no longer gave themselves completely to the next higher hierarchy, but what they received through their devotion to this higher hierarchy had become something different from what they conveyed to human beings as language. They now listened to the inspirations of the first hierarchy, the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim, and out of this inspiration they instilled the power of language into earthly life.

If we go back to the earliest times of post-Atlantean development, even to Egypt and Chaldea, we find everywhere that the source from which the archangels draw in order to impart language to human beings is inspiration. There language undergoes a metamorphosis, so that words become, above all, expressions of human sympathy and antipathy, of human feelings and sensations in general. The old language of the will is replaced by a language of feeling. And the prevailing state is one in which what is felt in the external process or in the external being is the same as what is felt when the sounds articulated into words emerge from the depths of human existence through the organs of speech.

So we can say: There is a significant process taking place in human evolution. The hierarchy of the Archangels is first subject to intuition, and from this intuition the language of the will is created by these beings. The Archangels move forward, and they are then subject to inspiration. And from what they receive through the inspiration of the beings of the first hierarchy, the languages of feeling arise.

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It was actually an extraordinarily profound feeling that led the art historian Alerman Grimm to draw this dividing line between the Greeks and the Romans. Herman Grimm claimed that when one studies history in school or at university today, one is dependent on understanding what one learns. But when you study history today, looking back on the development of humanity, you only understand history up to Roman times. Cicero and Caesar can still be understood because, to a certain extent, they are quite similar to people today, although there is already a lot that is unnatural in the way we understand, say, Caesar. If we weren't trained to do so, probably only the pupils of military academies would be interested in Caesar. We are terribly trained in this respect. But on the whole, there is a continuous stream back to Roman times. A certain philistine element, which is at its peak today but which has gradually crept into humanity, can already be found when we go back to Roman times. But those who are honest in their understanding of the past, according to Herman Grimm, cannot claim to understand Pericles or Alcibiades, for example. They are understood in the same way as the personalities in fairy tales. The inner life of these personalities can only be understood through anthroposophical study. We have always tried to get inside the way a Greek thinks. Herman Grimm feels this too. He feels the distance between the inner life of a Greek and that of a modern person who is still very close to the Romans; then there is an abyss.

The way the Greeks are portrayed in today's schools is terrible, because they are being modernized. They were not like that; their entire soul life was different. One must resort to completely different means if one wants to characterize the Greeks. This was best demonstrated in a special case, when the highly educated Wilamowitz set about translating the Greek tragedians. The whole affair is actually terrible, because there is of course nothing of the Greek tragedians in Wilamowitz's translations, absolutely nothing. And yet modern people like them immensely; they are completely enchanted by Wilamowitz's translations. But the characters who appear in Wilamowitz's translations are not the same as those who appear in the Greek tragedies.

So when we return to Greece—as Herman Grimm sensed with sure instinct—we enter a completely different world, not to mention the Oriental elements in this context. It is pure mockery for modern humanity to believe that Deussen's translations can give us any understanding of what took place in the ancient Orient. One must be able to penetrate this entire transformation and reshaping of the spiritual being.

And if one looks at a particular element, at language, then it is precisely the case that until the Greek era, the language of feelings prevailed, for example among philosophers up to Plato. The first philosophical philistine is the great universal mind Aristotle. You will be surprised that I say these two attributes one after the other, but one cannot understand Aristotle unless one sees him as both the first philosophical philistine and the universal mind. He is great in one respect, but in another respect he is precisely the first philosophical philistine who picks out categories of thought from words. It would never have occurred to the older Greeks to pick out categories of thought from words, because they still had a feeling that words are something that is inspired into people. They felt the higher spirits as language came into being.

Until the time of the Greeks, and for outer humanity, which is certainly very backward in certain respects, but in spiritual matters often less backward than the philosophers — for this rest of humanity, which thus retained the inspirations longer than the philosophers in relation to the language-forming power, we can truly say: We still perceive everywhere in the language-forming power the inspiring element, which, however, lives in the soul of the archangels until the mystery of Golgotha. Of course, this is approximate. In one part of the earth it takes longer, in another shorter. In one part of the earth, people still feel how the word pulsates within them, like blood pulsates in the body; they feel this in their breath. And they feel in the breath force that flows away, that is, in the breath force that flows through the body, the Archangelos that is subject to inspiration.

Then we come to the epochs when the archangels, in imparting language to human beings, are no longer subject to inspiration but to imagination (see diagram). And language becomes the language of thought. People speak more and more from their thoughts; language approaches, so to speak, the abstract element of the human being.

There is something very significant underlying this. The Archangels received their intuitions from the second hierarchy; they themselves belong to the third hierarchy. They received inspiration from the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones, from the first hierarchy. Imagination—yes, there is no hierarchy above the first! At first, they could not receive these imaginations from the hierarchies that are still recorded, for example, by Dionysius the Areopagite. There was no hierarchy beyond the first. Therefore, certain archangelic beings had to resort to bringing the imaginations, that is, the images of the language-forming power — for that is what imaginations are — out of the past, thus continuing what had been before. The immediate, springing power to form language ceased. An Ahrimanic element entered into language because it was taken over from an earlier stage. This is something of tremendous significance. And what the archangels felt above themselves was expressed in humanity in that language became more and more worn down, weakened, and no longer existed as something as alive as it had in earlier times.

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Consider what an enormously significant fact this is. Something enters human life that actually requires a higher hierarchy than the first hierarchy. One need only feel this in its enormously comprehensive meaning, and one is made aware of how a time had come in which gods had to grow beyond what was contained in the first hierarchy.

Now there is one thing that the gods had not achieved by that time, which was already present here on earth in image form. What the gods had not yet achieved was passing through death. This is a fact to which I have often referred. The gods who stand above human beings in the various hierarchies have only experienced transformations, metamorphoses from one form of life to another. The actual event of death in life was not a divine experience before the Mystery of Golgotha. Death entered into life through the Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences, through divine beings who had remained behind or who were rushing forward too quickly. But death is not actually something that existed as a life experience of the higher hierarchies. This occurs as an experience for these higher hierarchies at the moment when Christ passes through the Mystery of Golgotha, that is, through death; when Christ united Himself so closely with the destiny of the human race on earth that He wanted to share with it the experience of death. So this event at Golgotha is not merely an event of earthly life; this event at Golgotha is an event of the life of the gods. What took place on earth, and what appears in the human mind as a recognition of the event of Golgotha, is the reflection of something immensely more comprehensive, more magnificent, more powerful, and more sublime that took place in the worlds of the gods themselves. And Christ's passage through death on Golgotha is an event through which the first hierarchy ascended into a higher realm. That is why I have always had to tell you: the Trinity actually lies above the hierarchies. But it only came to this in the course of evolution. Evolution takes place everywhere.

So, with reference to those hierarchies themselves which are recorded by Dionysius the Areopagite, the archangels lose the ability to form imaginations from above. Human beings lose the ability to continue shaping their language in a living way. Something is happening in the world of the gods whose earthly reflection is the event of Golgotha. And that is why, among many other things, the event of Golgotha is connected with the fact that as human beings gradually take in more and more of the Christ impulse, they receive the living source of language through the Christ impulse.

Today, one might say, we have languages that are merely natural and coming to an end. And if one is sufficiently unbiased, one can hear in these natural languages, especially the further one goes from East to West, how they carry within them a dying element, how they are increasingly becoming mere shells. In Asia, this is less the case, but towards the West it is increasingly so that languages carry within themselves a dying element.

A revitalization of the creative element in language within the human being can only come about if people increasingly grasp the Christ impulse as something living, so that the Christ impulse becomes precisely the creative element in language. And among all the things that must be mentioned when explaining the significance of the Christ impulse for human development is this: that in the period when humanity advanced toward freedom, it emerged from the divine-spiritual permeation and interweaving of languages. If language had remained as it was in ancient Greece, human beings would not have been able to develop toward freedom. It was necessary, I would say, for this absurdity to occur, that language exists only as a sign, that the archangels lost the ability to form images from the present and had to form them from the past. In this time, at the beginning of which Christ announced himself, in which he had the mystery of his being and his activity written down in the Gospels, in this time, however, the knowledge of Christ did not come completely among human beings, because they were not spiritual enough, because it was often only traditional. Only when the word of the Gospels is enlivened by an understanding of Christ that comes from the present itself, from the Christ who continues to work and influence human beings, only then will the language-forming power of this Christ impulse, of the living Christ impulse, begin to flow.

But let us now write down what I have indicated to you here (see diagram). Let us be quite clear that something is happening up there whereby gods are exalted, and that something is happening down here whereby human beings increasingly have the Christ impulse, but also increasingly advance toward freedom. Let us just imagine that as human beings undergo an exaltation, this exaltation of human beings also constitutes an exaltation of the higher hierarchies. Let us be clear that the imaginations of the archangels become living imaginations when the archangels receive more and more of Christ, who will have found his dwelling place in the hearts of human beings on earth, who enters as an impulse into the imaginations of the archangels.

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A completely different kind of language-forming power will then come into being. A special kind of language-forming power will come into being. I have already hinted at this from certain other points of view in earlier cycles, but now let us simply write down what I have explained to you here.

Human beings can describe how things proceeded in the heavens above during the evolution that took place there, while human evolution was taking place down here on earth. But human beings can also describe the image. They can describe the progression from the language of the will through the language of feeling to the languages of thought or symbols. And they can know that in between lies the ascent—or descent—of the archangels from intuition to inspiration to imagination. But when human beings look at themselves, what must they consider if they want to interpret the development of the archangels and what is connected with it in the higher hierarchies? He contemplates the development of language or the word, he fixes it in his mind, he remembers. I want to contemplate the development of a certain stream in humanity in which a divine stream is woven. I go back to the origin, to the very beginning. “In the beginning was the Word.” Where was the word when we as humanity had a language of will? Yes, the word was with God and had to be sought through intuition with God. “And the word was with God.” But the archangels had to put themselves into the being of the second hierarchy through intuition. The being that they allowed to overflow within themselves was the word: “And a God was the word.”

In the beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God,
And the Word was God.

We see how intimately that which flowed forth in the development that culminated in the Mystery of Golgotha was connected with the Logos or the Word. But the whole thing is connected with the universal event of the incarnation and the passing through death on the part of Christ. At the time when people said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” they felt the Word weaving above all in the soul. Now, through the mystery of Golgotha, a time came when Christ was present in a human body—Christ was seen through the Word—when the Word had entered into physical human beings: “And the Word became flesh.”

Profound truths of evolution, which are rediscovered through intense work consisting of observation of the spiritual world, lie in what is written in the older scriptures. But one must be clear that these older writings must be approached with the reverence that says: I can penetrate deeper and deeper if I first investigate things myself. Then one enters into the deeper meaning of the older writings. And when one enters into the deeper meaning of the old writings, one also enters into spiritual life itself.

And how much would there be in this connection in our present day for a Michael culture, for a culture that could be inspired by what I have called the Michael idea in my previous reflections! The Michael thought should preferably be brought to life through an autumn festival. The leaves fall, withered, from the trees, the plants wither and die, life mineralizes. What human beings have seen in the previous course of the year as sprouting, budding, as living, takes in death, the passing, the mineralizing. This is when the Michael force, the willpower, must sprout in humans, which is clear about the fact that the spiritual takes its place where the physical-material is exhausted and gradually dies. The Michaelmas festival at the end of September should be a celebration of impulsiveness, reflecting the human being who stands in the midst of the withering natural world, but whose soul is stirred to greater activity. And if it becomes that, then all human activity will be enriched.

What can one learn today! One need only look back a short time. There are experiences in abundance that people offer us. In all fields, for example in the field of language, people say to you: Yes, I should study languages, but nothing comes of it, everything is just side by side, there is nothing spiritual in it.

It is really like that, especially when people are young, let's say they have just left high school; well, they are not yet fully awakened, but now they are supposed to think, now they are supposed to go to university and study languages. And now they wonder how what they have already absorbed in their language studies will continue: they feel dizzy at the thought of what lies ahead. Yes, all the beginnings are there for getting to know those wonders that one gets to know when one looks up from today's language of thought through the language of feeling to the language of will, when one sees the divine, the archangelic, reigning and weaving, when one sees it as it shows itself today, I would say, in the corpses of languages. If the life of the primordial beginning were to flow into it again, it would be something magnificent!

The Michael idea is not something that a few people can decide to do: We'll just have an autumn festival; that's very nice, then we'll be the most progressive. The Michael idea is something that must reckon with the innermost and strongest impulses of the human will, and the festival can only be one that gives human life a powerful jolt, as in earlier times when people still had the forces that formed festivals, when the institution of Christmas or Easter gave people a jolt of life.