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Karmic Relationships IV
GA 238

10 September 1924, Dornach

Lecture III

We understand only the very smallest part of human history and of our own life if we consider it in its external aspect, I mean in that aspect which we see from the limited view-point of our earthly life between birth and death. It is impossible to comprehend the inner motives of history and life unless we turn our gaze to that spiritual background which underlies the outer, physical happenings. Men do indeed describe as history the events that take place in the physical world, and they often say that this world-history represents causes and effects. Thus they will approach the events of the second decade of the 20th century, describing them as the effects of events in the first decade and so forth. Yet how is so great an illusion possible? It is as though we saw a running stream of water throwing waves up on to the surface and tried to explain each successive wave as the result of the preceding one, whereas the forces bringing forth the waves are really penetrating upwards from below. So it is indeed. That which takes place at any point of historic evolution or of human life in general is moulded out of the spiritual world, and as to these events we can speak of causes and effects only to a very slight extent.

I will show you by a whole series of examples how we must include the spiritual events along with the external happenings in order to gain a true picture of what underlies the latter.

Our present age in its spiritual aspects is connected, as you know, with what is called in spiritual life, the dominion of Michael, and this dominion of Michael is connected in turn with what the Anthroposophical Movement in the deepest sense intends, with what this movement ought to be and do. Thus the events of which I shall speak are not unconnected, as we shall see next time, with the destiny, the karma of the Anthroposophical Society, and hence too with the karma of the great majority of the individual human beings who find themselves within this society.1See Rudolf Steiner, The Karmic Relationships of the Anthroposophical Movement, Volume III in this series.

Some of the things on which I shall touch this evening are already known to you from earlier lectures. But to-day I wish to consider from a certain point of view the known and the, as yet, unknown together. Since the Mystery of Golgotha we see a continuous stream of Christian evolution passing through the civilised world. I have often described the directions taken by this Christian evolution in the successive centuries. But it is also not be denied that many other influences entered into this stream of Christian evolution. For had this not been so, the civilisation of our present time could not be permeated by that intense materialism by which it is in fact permeated.

True, it cannot be denied that the Christian creeds and confessions themselves have contributed not a little to this materialism. Yet they have done so not out of truly Christian impulses but out of other impulses which entered the stream of Christian evolution from altogether different quarters.

Let us take a certain period—the 8th and the beginning of the 9th century A.D. We see the personality of Charlemagne, for instance, carrying Christianity in all directions among the non-Christian peoples who were still living in Europe at that time, though he does so by methods of which we with our present humanitarian ideas cannot always approve.

Now among the non-Christian people of that time those especially are interesting who were influenced by the streams that came over from Asia through northern Africa to Europe, proceeding from Arabism and Mohammedanism. In this connection we must understand Mohammedanism in the wider sense of the term.

Something over 500 years after the Mystery of Golgotha we see the rise of all the old elements of Arabian world-conception in Arabism, Mohammedanism and much that was connected with these. We see above all a rich and varied scholarship, but a scholarship that was given an unchristian shape. We see all this spread out of Asia by powerful and warlike campaigns through northern Africa to the west and south of Europe. Then gradually this stream dies away and is lost so far as the more outer world is concerned. But it by no means dies away in the inward development of the spiritual life. When the more external spread of Arabism into Europe is already dying out, we see this same Arabism continuing to spread in a more inward way. This is one of the places where we have to look from external history towards the spiritual background. You will remember what I said in our last lecture on karma, that in considering the successive earthly lives of individual human beings, we cannot draw conclusions from the external attitude and features of a man as to the nature of his former life on earth. It is the more deeply inward impulses that matter. Thus it is with the important personalities of history—it is the more inward impulses that matter.

We see the results of former civilisation-epochs carried into later ones by the personalities of history, i.e., by the human beings themselves, but we also see them changing in the process. And by studying the external aspect we may not immediately recognise these impulses in the new form in which a human being carries and expresses them in a new incarnation. Let us now consider a deeply inward stream of this kind.

When Charlemagne was spreading Christianity—if we may say so, in a somewhat primitive manner—in the then primitive civilisation of Europe, there lived in the East a personality who stood really on a far greater height of culture, I mean Haroun al Raschid.

At his court in Asia Minor, Haroun al Raschid gathered the most eminent spiritual and intellectual figures of his time. Illustrious was the court of Haroun al Raschid, and held in high esteem even by Charlemagne himself. Architecture, poetry, astrology, geography, history, anthropology—all of these were brilliantly represented by the most illustrious of men. Some of these men still carried in them much of the knowledge of ancient Initiation-Science.

Haroun al Raschid himself was an organiser in the grandest style. He was able to make a kind of universal academy of his court where the several departments of what the East at that time possessed in art and science were joined into a great organic whole. And side by side with him there stood above all one other personality, who truly bore within him the elements of ancient Initiation.

It is indeed not the case that an Initiate of a former incarnation must necessarily appear as an Initiate in a later. You may indeed raise the question, my dear friends, for it is suggested by many things that have been stated in these lectures: Were there not Initiates in ancient time? Where then have they gone? Have they not been reincarnated? Where are they to-day? Where were they in recent centuries? They were here indeed but we must bear in mind that one who was an Initiate in a former incarnation must above all make use in a later incarnation of that external bodily nature which the new age can provide. And the recent evolution of mankind provides no bodies so plastic, so soft and mobile that that which lived in such an individuality in a former incarnation can come to light in them directly. Thus the Initiates receive quite different tasks in which what they had in their former Initiation does indeed work unconsciously, in the power of the impulses they give, but does not appear in the outer form of the working of an Initiate.

Thus at the Court of Haroun al Raschid there lived a certain counsellor, a second organiser by his side, who possessed an extraordinarily deep insight, though it was not in that incarnation the direct insight of an Initiate. He rendered the very greatest service to Haroun al Raschid.

These two men, Haroun al Raschid and his counsellor, went through the gate of death, and having arrived yonder in the spiritual realm, they still witnessed as it were the final phases of the spread of Arabism, on the one hand through Africa to Spain and thence far into Europe, and on the other hand into Central Europe. They were great powers, these two individualities, and Haroun al Raschid did many things during that life contributing to the spread of Arabism here in the physical world.

Indeed Arabism had taken on a peculiar form at the court of Haroun al Raschid. It was a form proceeding in its turn from many and varied formations which art and science had received for a long time past in Asia. The last great wave of evolution towards Asia had gone forth from the preceding age of Michael. It was the Grecian spiritual life, the Grecian spirituality and artistic sense, synthesised in the community of Alexander the Great and Aristotle. The flower of the Grecian spiritual life had been carried across to Asia and Africa by Alexander the Great with extraordinary impetus and energy, yet at the same time in a way that was exemplary for the spreading of a spiritual impulse. All this was permeated with the spirit which found its scientific expression in Aristotelianism in Asia Minor and Africa. Thus we may say in general that the mind of Arabism and Orientalism was shaped and permeated by those impulses which ancient Greece brought forth in Aristotle and which were spread into the world so brilliantly by Alexander. We look back even several centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha. We look back to the campaigns of Alexander the Great where the treasures of wisdom to which I just referred were spread far and wide. And from that time throughout the centuries down to Haroun al Raschid who lived in the 8th century A.D., we find in Asia a mind and a receptiveness for Grecian spiritual life in its Aristotelian form. Nevertheless this spiritual life had taken on a peculiar shape there. Powerful as it was, magnificent and penetrating, deeply united with Arabism and permeating it, this Aristotelianism, this Alexandrianism that flourished at the court of Haroun al Raschid and was cultivated by him and his counsellor and those around them, nay more, that was even permeated there by ancient oriental wisdom of Initiation, it was not that genuine spiritual life which had been cultivated as between Aristotle and Alexander themselves, for example. It had taken on forms which were little inclined to enter into Christianity. Thus yonder in Asia we see a certain Aristotelianism and Alexandrianism, brilliantly cultivated under the aegis of Haroun al Raschid and his counsellor. It represented one pole of Aristotle, that pole which is averse to Christianity, which took on a spiritual form (above all a kind of Pantheism), but which by its very essence never would nor could unite with Christianity.

With this tendency of an ancient spiritual life that would not enter into Christianity, Haroun al Raschid and his counsellor went through the gate of death. And having gone through the gate of death, all their effort, all their longing, all their power was directed from the spiritual world to continue as it were to play a part in historic evolution in the spreading of the spiritual life of Arabism from Asia into Europe, thus continuing what had formerly been achieved by warlike and other methods. From the spiritual world after their death they sent down spiritual rays, as it were, intended to penetrate Europe in its spiritual life with Arabism.

Thus we see Haroun al Raschid taking the following spiritual line of development after his death, watching with interest all that took place for the spread of Arabism from Asia Minor through the South of Europe and through Spain—watching it and continuing it further. And correspondingly (for the human being living in the spiritual world partakes in a sense in what is here below in the physical)—the other man took a different path in the spiritual world which in its projection would appear as a more northerly line, from the Black Sea towards Middle Europe. Thus, we may turn and look upward to these two individualities, following them as it were in their spirit-wanderings which may indeed be thus projected down on to the physical plane.

Now you know how Aristotelianism, Alexandrianism, had spread and entered even historically into Christianity. In the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and even into the 13th century, one of the most popular subjects of narrative everywhere in Europe was that connected with Alexander the Great. Thus we have the wonderful poem, the “Song of Alexander” by the priest Lamprecht, extolling the works of Alexander but connecting them everywhere with the spiritual world. He describes the education of Alexander, his life, his campaigns into Asia, and everywhere he brings out what was living spiritually in this earthly life of Alexander. For as we know, all earthly life is connected with spiritual things, only the ordinary consciousness does not see it. All these spiritual elements were contained in the medieval treatment of the subject. So too, Aristotelianism spread in Christian Europe even into scholasticism. We find Aristotelian concepts everywhere, only it is the other pole of Aristotelianism. Yonder in Asia it was in an Arabist form; here in Europe, in a Christian. The “Song of Alexander” is permeated through and through by a Christian spirit, and Aristotelianism too was cultivated in Europe in an essentially Christian form.

Nay more, we find this extraordinary process: the Christian doctors of the Church, their souls equipped with Aristotle, battling against those who had carried the other Aristotle across from Asia into Spain, spreading an unchristian doctrine. On all hands we see the conflict of Aristotelianism in the Christian fathers of the Church, we see it in the pictures that were painted in a later time, the Church fathers holding in their hand what they had gained from Aristotle, and treading under foot Averröes and the others who stood for their kind of Aristotelianism that had come through Alexandrianism into Europe. This was taking place externally. But at the same time, if we may describe it out of spiritual research, Haroun al Raschid and his counsellor lived on, having passed through the gate of death as I just indicated, and needless to say, Alexander and Aristotle themselves lived on. Once only they paid as it were a fleeting visit to the earth in the first Christian centuries in a district not without interest for the Anthroposophical Movement. Then they returned again into the spiritual world and they were together in the spiritual world at a certain time after Haroun al Raschid and his counsellor had left the physical plane once more. They themselves, the real individualities of Aristotle and Alexander, took different paths from Haroun al Raschid and his counsellor. For they went forward with the Christian evolution. They went westward with the evolution of Christianity.

And now the most important and essential events took place in the 9th century. And this is the extraordinary thing.

The event which from the spiritual world was of the greatest importance for the spiritual development in Europe, coincided in the super-sensible worlds with an external event in which it is by no means easy to recognise it. Nevertheless it coincided. In the very year A.D. 869 something of immense significance took place in the spiritual worlds, while down below the 8th Œcumenical Council was taking place in Constantinople where it was declared dogmatically that one must not say, if one would be a true Christian, that man consists of body, soul and spirit. Trichotomy, as it was called, was declared heretical. I have often referred to this fact before and expressed it in these words, that in the Council of A.D. 869 the spirit was abolished. Thenceforth one was bound to say: man consists of body and soul, and the soul has certain spiritual qualities. Now what took place in this way down below in Constantinople was the earthly projection of a spiritual event—an event which men do not recognise but which was of immense significance for European spiritual history, an event extending over many years, which can, however, be dated to this very year.

In the 9th century the time had already come when European humanity, even in its spiritual life, had altogether forgotten what had been quite familiar to the true Christians in the first Christian centuries, I mean that Christ was a Being who had formerly been in the Sun, whose life had been connected with the Sun, and who had then incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, as we have often described at this place. This knowledge was familiar to the earliest Christians, the knowledge of Christ as the Sun Being, as a Being connected with the cosmic world through His dwelling in the Sun before the Mystery of Golgotha: the Christ not only as the Sun Being but as the Being united with all the planetary existence that is connected with the Sun.

But this cosmic origin of the Christ Impulse was no longer known in the 9th century. The full greatness of the Christ Impulse had as it were been put aside. Nearer and nearer men approached what was called the purely human, that is to say, what takes place on the physical plane alone. They no longer explained in the Gospels that which points out into the Cosmos, but they took the content of the Gospels and told it like an earthly epic narrative. Really to understand what this change signified we must bear in mind that in the true evolution of mankind there was indeed a Christianity before Christ, before the Mystery of Golgotha. We must take in real earnestness such words as those of St. Augustine who declared: Christianity was always there, only those who were Christians before the Mystery of Golgotha were called by other names.

This saying is indeed only the outer expression of something of immense and deep significance. Everywhere in the true Mysteries, nay even in those places which though not in themselves the Mysteries, were permeated by knowledge and impulses from the Mysteries, there was indeed a Christianity before the Mystery of Golgotha. Only they spoke of the Christ Being as of a Being who is in the Sun, and whom one can behold and with whom one can work when through the wisdom of Initiation one has reached the point at which the real Sun life in its spiritual content is actually present to one.

Thus in the ancient Mysteries they spoke of the Christ who was to come. They spoke not of an earthly Christ who had lived or who was present on the earth, but they spoke of the Coming Christ who would be here in the future and whom they still sought for in the Sun.

Now even in later times such knowledge and tradition continued and entered into certain places which Christianity had not yet reached even in the centuries after the life of Christ.

During our recent stay in England during the Summer Course2True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigations (Anthroposophical Publishing Co.). at Torquay in the West of England, not far from the place3Tintagel, North Cornwall. See Cosmic Christianity and the Impulse of Michael, {also known as, Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies - Volume VIII – e.Ed} notably Lectures III and VI (Anthroposophical Publishing Co.). where Arthur was with his followers once upon a time (we were able to visit this actual place), a result of spiritual research was given to me, pointing to a belated working of this kind in a pre-Christian Christianity. For at this place it had indeed been preserved into a far later time. The content of the King Arthur Legend referred to later times by a scholarship which is not at all scholarly in respect of the real facts, reaches back in reality into a very early epoch, and it is indeed a deep impression which one may receive when one stands at that place, looking down into the sea, even as once upon a time the Knights of the Round Table looked out upon the sea from there. Even to-day, if one is receptive to these things, one receives a very real impression which tells one what it was that the Knights of the Round Table of King Arthur did in their gigantic castle. The last relics of the castle, the crumbling stones, the latest witnesses to its existence, stand there to this day. Gigantic is the impression of this place of ruins, entirely broken down as it is, and from there one looks out into the ocean. It is a mountainous promontory with the sea on either side. The weather changes almost hour by hour. We look out into the sea and watch the glittering sunshine reflected in the water. Then the next moment there is wind and tempest. Looking with occult vision at what takes place there to this day, we receive a magnificent impression. There live and weave the elemental spirits evolving out of the activities of the light and air, and of the foaming waves of the sea that turn and beat upon the shore. The life and movement and interplay of these elemental spirits gives even to-day a vivid and direct impression of how the sun works in its own nature in the earth, and meets with that which grows forth from the earth below by way of powers and spirits of the Elements. There we receive even to-day the impression: such was the immediate original source of inspiration of the twelve who belonged to King Arthur. We see them standing there, these Knights of the Round Table, watching the play of the powers of light and air, water and earth, the elemental spirits. We see too how these elemental spirits were messengers to them, bringing to them the messages from sun and moon and stars which entered into the impulses of their work, especially in the more ancient time. And much of this was preserved through the centuries of the post-Christian time, even into the 9th century of which I was just speaking.

It was the task of the Order of King Arthur, founded in that region by the instructions of Merlin, to cultivate and civilise Europe at a time when all Europe in its spiritual life stood under the influence of the strangest elemental beings. More than will be believed to-day, the ancient life of Europe needs to be comprehended in this sense. We must see in it on all hands the working of elementary spiritual beings, right into the life of man.

The Arthurian life, as I said, goes back into pre-Christian times, and before the Gospel came there, even in its oldest forms, there lived in it the knowledge, at any rate the practical instinctive knowledge of Christ as the Sun Spirit, before the Mystery of Golgotha. And in all that the Knights of the Round Table of King Arthur did, this same Cosmic Christ was living, the Christ who though not under the name of Christ, was also living in the impetus with which Alexander the Great had carried the Grecian culture and spiritual life into Asia. There were, so to speak, later ‘campaigns of Alexander’ undertaken by the Knights of the Round Table of King Arthur into Europe, even as the real campaigns of Alexander had gone from Macedonia to Asia.

I mention this as an example, which could be investigated in the most recent times, to show how the worship of the sun, that is to say, the ancient worship of the Christ, was cultivated in such a place, though needless to say it was the Christ as He was for men before the Mystery of Golgotha. There all things were cosmic, even to the transition of the cosmos into the earthly Elements, the elemental spirits who lived in light and air and water and in the earth, for even in these there lived the cosmic forces. It was not possible at that time in the knowledge of these Elements to deny the cosmic principle that they contained. Thus even in the 9th century, in the paganism of Europe, there still lived much of the pre-Christian Christianity. That is the remarkable fact. Moreover even in that time the belated followers of European paganism understood the Cosmic Christ far more worthily and truly than those who received the Christ in the Christianity that was spread officially under that name. Strangely we can see the life around King Arthur radiate into the present time, continued even into our time, placed into the immediate present by the sudden power of destiny. Thus I beheld in seership a member of the Round Table of King Arthur, who lived the life of the Round Table in a very deep and intense way, though he stood a little aside from the others who were given more to the adventures of their knighthood. This was a knight who lived a rather contemplative life, though it was not like the Knighthood of the Grail, for this did not exist in Arthur's circle. What the knights did in the fulfilment of their tasks, which in accordance with that age were for the most part warlike campaigns, was called by the name ‘Adventure’ (Aventure). But there was one who stood out from among the others as I saw him, revealing a life truly wonderful in its inspiration. For we must imagine the knights going out on to the spur of land, seeing the wonderful play of clouds above, the waves beneath, the surging interplay of the one and the other, which gives a mighty and majestic impression to this very day. In all this they saw the Spiritual and were inspired with it, and this gave them their strength. But there was one among them who penetrated most deeply into this surging and foaming of the waves, with the spiritual beings wildly rising in the foam with their figures grotesque to earthly sight. He had a wonderful perception of the way in which the marvellously pure sun-influence played into the rest of nature, living and weaving in the spiritual life and movement of the surface of the ocean. He saw what lived in the light nature of the sun, borne up as it were by the watery atmosphere as we can see to this day, the sunlight approaching the trees and the spaces between the trees quite differently than in other regions, glittering back from between the trees, and playing often as in rainbow colours. Such a knight there was among them, one who had a peculiarly penetrating vision of these things. I was much concerned to follow his life into later time to see the individuality again. For just in this case something would needs enter into a later incarnation of a Christian life that was almost primitive and pagan, that was Christian only to the extent that I have just described. And this in fact was what appeared, for that Knight of the Round Table of King Arthur was born again as Arnold Böcklin. This riddle which had followed me for an immensely long time, can only be solved in connection with the Round Table of King Arthur.

Thus you see that we have a Christianity tangible with spiritual touch to this very day, a Christianity before the Mystery of Golgotha which shed its light even into the time that I have just outlined.

Now while the 8th Œcumenical Council was being held in Constantinople, the human beings who had gone through the gate of death, and who knew well what had been the Christianity before the Mystery of Golgotha, met together, if I may put it so, in a simultaneous heavenly council in which Aristotle, Alexander, Haroun al Raschid and his counsellor, and many of the circle of the Round Table of King Arthur, were foregathered.

There they were at pains to overcome the Arabism living in the individualities of Haroun al Raschid and the other—to overcome it by the Christian impulses that lived in the will of Alexander and Aristotle. But this did not succeed. The individualities were ill-adapted to it.

There was, however, another result of that heavenly council. Thenceforth the ancient Cosmic Christianity lived still more deeply in the human beings who came from the Round Table of King Arthur than in their former, more rough-and-ready attitudes as Knights of King Arthur. And in that council that was held above the earth, face to face with what was likely then to happen in the future, which they could foresee through the Michael power that was working with them, Alexander and Aristotle made their resolutions so to speak, resolving how the spiritual life in Europe was to receive the new impulses of a Christianised Aristotelianism. But Haroun al Raschid and his counsellor adhered to their old ways. Now it is of the greatest significance to trace the further development in European spiritual history of what had taken place in that heavenly council, if I may call it so. For looking at their further wanderings in the spiritual life, we find that the great organiser Haroun al Raschid who had lived so mightily on earth in the time of Charlemagne, returns again. He appears at a later time in the very midst of Christendom, but he has taken his Arabism with him through the life between death and a new birth. Nor need it be outwardly similar to the Arabic element in its outward configuration as it appears again in the physical world. It clothes itself in the new forms, the while in these new forms it still remains in essence the old, the Mohammedanism and Arabism. It appears again, active and effective in the European spiritual life, inasmuch as Haroun al Raschid is reincarnated in Francis Bacon of Verulam.

And it appears once more in a different way, even very strangely permeated with Christianity, inasmuch as Haroun al Raschid's counsellor is born again in Central Europe, and carries his influence far and wide in Europe as Amos Comenius. Much in the spiritual life of Europe took place in connection with what the resurrected spirits of the Court of Haroun al Raschid in these two human figures founded in Europe.

All this had first been prepared before it took place in actuality; for that which afterwards came forth in Francis Bacon and Comenius had been working spiritually from the spiritual world for a long time, and it had taken on the most intense forms as a result of the heavenly council of 869. And against it there now worked the other pole, the pole which had accepted Alexandrianism and Aristotelianism for the stream of Christianity. It was expressed in the most manifold influences which worked themselves out in lonely centres of cultivation of Christian spiritual life.

We recognise one such centre especially in the School of Chartres4See The Karmic Relationships of the Anthroposophical Movement. to which I have now often referred in the hearing of some though not of all who are present to-day. The School of Chartres which flourished especially in the 12th century, contained a mighty spiritual impulse. Sylvester of Chartres, Alanus ab Insulis and other spirits who taught like these two, or who were otherwise connected with the school, had very much in them of the ancient wisdom of Initiation. And though they themselves could not be called Initiates in the full and true sense of the word, nevertheless there was much within them of the old wisdom of Initiation. The books which they produced look like long catalogues of words, but at that time it was not possible to express in any other way what one wished to give in fullness of life in books. It had to be in the fullness of rhetoric as a kind of catalogue of words. He however who knows how to read will perceive very much in these books of what was taught in a most wonderful way to many pupils spiritually permeated by the great teachers of Chartres.

Truly a wonderful spiritual star shone over the spiritual life of Europe in that School of Chartres, where to this day there stand the wonderful architectural forms of the Cathedral, revealing most beautifully the work of many centuries. In other places too, this spiritual life was living. It was a spiritual life working in spiritual ways and giving an altogether different and more spiritual insight into nature than that which afterwards came to take its place. It is interesting to see the manifold ways in which that spiritual life rayed out. In France, in one place after another we can see how even in the teaching that was given, the spirit of Chartres lived on in the High Schools carried over into Southern France, and even into Italy. But it lived not only in the teachings, it lived on in an immediately spiritual way. Interesting it is how Brunetto Latini, having been an Ambassador in Spain during a certain time, returned to Florence, the city of his fathers, heard of its misfortune even from a distance, and thus suffered a powerful convulsion of his soul, to which was added a slight attack of sunstroke. In this bodily condition the human being is easily accessible to spiritual influences that work in a spiritual way. It is indeed well known how Brunetto Latini on his way to Florence experienced what was actually a kind of elementary initiation. Brunetto Latini became Dante's teacher, and the spirituality of the Commedia proceeds from the teachings which Brunetto Latini gave to his pupil Dante.

In all this there lives what was agreed supersensibly, if I may put it so, in the spiritual Council of 869. For the inspiration of the teachings of Chartres, the inspiration of Brunetto Latini, and even the inspiration of Dante, enabling cosmic things to live in Dante's poem—all these things are connected with the impulse that proceeded from that super-sensible Congress in the 9th century A.D.

We must see all these things together, the spiritual life of Europe from the old time of Alexander, in the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, in the time of the School of Chartres; and we shall see how we can trace it still farther into the later time. We must see in their mutual interplay that which takes place in the super-sensible and its shadowed image down here in the physical world. Then only do we really begin to understand what must be called the stream of Michael to-day, and what this stream of Michael to-day intends.

Then we can penetrate and see what is the will of the Anthroposophical Movement according to the stream of Michael. We shall say more of this in the next lectures.

Dritter Vortrag

[ 1 ] Der Verlauf der Menschheitsgeschichte und unseres eigenen Lebens wird nur zum geringsten Teile begriffen, wenn wir ihn nach seiner Außenseite betrachten, nach jener Außenseite, die wir überblicken, wenn wir zuhilfe nehmen, was sich abspielt im Ausblicke von unserem Erdenleben zwischen Geburt und Tod. Und unmöglich ist es, die inneren Motive von Geschichte und Leben zu überschauen, wenn der Blick nicht auf dasjenige hingewendet wird, was als der geistige Hintergrund dem äußeren physischen Geschehen zugrunde liegt. Man stellt ja die Weltgeschichte dar und in dieser Weltgeschichte auch die Ereignisse, welche sich in der physischen Welt abspielen, und sagt wohl, diese Weltgeschichte stellt Ursachen und Wirkungen hin. Man geht an die Ereignisse im zweiten Jahrzehnt des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts heran, stellt sie als Wirkungen der Ereignisse des ersten Jahrzehntes dar und so weiter. Aber wie viel Illusion ist da möglich! Es ist so, wie wenn wir etwa ein fortlaufendes Wasser sehen würden, das Wellen aufwirft, und wir jede Welle nur als die Folge der vorhergehenden ansehen würden; während von unten herauf die Kräfte dringen, welche die Wellen aufwerfen. So ist es: Dasjenige, was an irgendeiner Stelle des geschichtlichen Werdens oder des menschlichen Lebens überhaupt geschieht, das wird aus der geistigen Welt heraus gestaltet, und nur zum geringsten Teile können wir in bezug auf dieses Geschehen von Ursachen und Wirkungen sprechen.

[ 2 ] Ich möchte Ihnen nun an einigen fortlaufenden Beispielen zeigen, wie man, um ein wirkliches Bild von dem zu bekommen, was dem Geschehen zugrunde liegt, die geistigen Ereignisse in dieses Geschehen hereinbeziehen muß. Die gegenwärtige Zeit hängt ja in geistiger Beziehung mit dem zusammen, was man im geistigen Leben die Michael-Herrschaft nennen kann. Diese Michael-Herrschaft aber ist wiederum mit demjenigen verbunden, was im tiefsten Sinne auch die anthroposophische Bewegung will, namentlich mit dem, was sie soll. So daß mit den Ereignissen, von denen ich sprechen werde, auch das Schicksal, das Karma, wie sich uns das nächste Mal herausstellen wird, der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft und damit das Karma der weitaus meisten Einzelpersönlichkeiten zusammenhängt, welche in dieser Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft sich finden. Einzelnes von dem, was ich heute abend berühren werde, ist vielen von Ihnen aus vorigen Vorträgen schon bekannt. Allein ich möchte heute Bekanntes mit weniger Bekanntem von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus betrachten.

[ 3 ] Wir sehen, meine lieben Freunde, wie seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha eine fortlaufende christliche Entwickelung durch die gebildete Welt geht. Und es ist ja öfter auch von mir in früheren Zeiten dargestellt worden, welchen Sinn diese christliche Entwickelung in den aufeinanderfolgenden Jahrhunderten angenommen hat. Aber es ist ja nicht zu leugnen, daß in diese christliche Entwickelung manches andere hereingespielt hat. Denn wäre das nicht der Fall, so könnte nicht unsere heutige Zeitbildung von jenem starken Materialismus durchsetzt sein, von dem sie durchsetzt ist.

[ 4 ] Es ist zwar nicht zu leugnen, daß zu diesem Materialismus gerade die christlichen Bekenntnisse starke Beiträge geliefert haben, aber nicht eigentlich aus den christlichen Impulsen heraus, sondern aus anderen Impulsen heraus, die eben von anderer Seite in die christliche Entwickelung hereingeflossen sind.

[ 5 ] Wir sehen, wie im Abendlande — nehmen wir eine gewisse Zeit heraus, das achte, den Beginn des neunten Jahrhunderts —, wir sehen, wie da in einer Weise, mit der wir vielleicht nicht immer einverstanden sein können von unseren heutigen humanitären Begriffen aus, durch solch eine Persönlichkeit wie Karl den Großen das Christentum überall hingetragen wird unter die damals in Europa lebenden, noch nicht christlichen Menschen. Unter diesen nichtchristlichen Menschen sind aber diejenigen ganz besonders bemerkenswert, welche von jenen Zügen beeinflußt worden sind, die von Asien durch Nordafrika nach Europa herüberkamen und die vom Arabismus, vom Mohammedanertum ausgehen. Wir müssen dabei das Mohammedanertum im weiteren Sinne des Wortes fassen.

[ 6 ] Ein halbes Jahrtausend und mehr nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha sehen wir entstehen aus dem Arabismus heraus alle alten Weltanschauungselemente des Arabismus im Mohammedanertum, vieles, was damit zusammenhängt, vieles namentlich von einer reichen, aber in einer unchristlichen Art gestalteten Gelehrsamkeit, sehen diese Gelehrsamkeit mit durchstoßenden Kriegszügen von Asien herüber durch Nordafrika nach dem Westen und Süden Europas sich verbreiten. Wir sehen allmählich diesen Strom versiegen für die mehr äußerliche Welt, aber er versiegt nicht im Innern der Entwickelung des geistigen Lebens. Als die mehr äußerliche Art, den Arabismus nach Europa auszubreiten, schon versiegte, sehen wir — und hier kommt einer der Fälle, wo wir nun von der äußeren Geschichte nach dem spirituellen Hintergrunde zu sehen haben —, wie auf eine innerliche Art der Arabismus sich ausbreitet. Und ich habe Ihnen ja gesagt bei der letzten Karmabetrachtung, die ich hier angestellt habe, daß, wenn wir die aufeinanderfolgenden Erdenleben von einzelnen Menschen betrachten, wir nicht aus dem Äußerlichen, aus der äußerlichen Attitüde irgendwelche Schlüsse ziehen können darauf, wie ein früheres Erdenleben gestaltet war, denn es kommt auf viel innerlichere Impulse an. So kommt es auch bei den historischen Persönlichkeiten auf viel innerlichere Impulse an. Und wir sehen die Ergebnisse früherer Kulturepochen in spätere von Persönlichkeiten getragen, von den Menschen selber hinübergetragen, aber wir sehen sie bei diesem Hinübertragen auch verändert, so daß wir sie in der neuen Form, in der sie eine Persönlichkeit austrägt in einer neuen Inkarnation, nicht ohne weiteres durch die Betrachtung des Äußeren wiedererkennen können. Und so wollen wir denn eine solche innere Strömung ins Auge fassen.

[ 7 ] In derselben Zeit, in der Karl der Große — man möchte sagen, auf eine etwas primitive Art mit der damaligen europäischen primitiven Bildung verknüpft — das Christentum ausbreitete, lebte drüben im Orient eine Persönlichkeit, die eigentlich gegenüber Karl dem Großen auf einer viel bedeutenderen Höhe stand, Harzn al Raschid. Harun al Raschid versammelte an seinem Hofe in Vorderasien die bedeutendsten geistigen Größen seiner Zeit. Und es war ein glänzender, ja auch von Karl dem Großen vielfach verehrter Hof, dieser Hof des Harun al Raschid. Wir sehen die Architektur, Dichtkunst, Astronomie, Geographie, Historie, Menschenkunde, alles in glänzendster Weise durch die glänzendsten Persönlichkeiten vertreten, zum Teil durch Persönlichkeiten, welche noch viel in sich trugen von Erkenntnissen alter Initiationswissenschaft.

[ 8 ] Insbesondere sehen wir beigesellt dem Harun al Raschid, der selber ein organisatorischer Geist im großen Stile war, der aus seinem Hofe geradezu, ich möchte sagen, eine Universal-Akademie zu gestalten vermochte, wo in einem großen organischen Ganzen die einzelnen Glieder dessen, was man dazumal im Orient an Kunst und Wissenschaft hatte, zusammenwirkten, wir sehen dem Harun al Raschid beigesellt eine andere Persönlichkeit, eine Persönlichkeit, die geradezu die Elemente alter Einweihung in sich trug.

[ 9 ] Es ist ja nicht so, daß ein Mensch, der in früherer Inkarnation ein Eingeweihter war, wiederum als Eingeweihter in einer späteren Inkarnation erscheinen muß. Sie können ja, meine lieben Freunde, die Frage aufwerfen, die im Anschlusse an manches in diesen Vorträgen Behauptete aufzuwerfen ist: Ja, es soll doch alte Eingeweihte gegeben haben, wo sind denn die hingekommen? Haben die sich nicht wieder verkörpert? Wo sind sie heute? Wo waren sie in den letzten Jahrhunderten? — Nun, sie waren schon da, aber man muß eben in Erwägung ziehen, daß derjenige, der in einer früheren Inkarnation ein Initiierter war, in einer neuen Inkarnation vor allen Dingen für sich die äußere Körperlichkeit benutzen muß, die eben das Zeitalter geben kann. Die neuere menschliche Entwickelung gibt nicht Körper, die so innerlich schmiegsam, biegsam und weich sind, daß unmittelbar dasjenige in sie eintreten kann, was in einer früheren Inkarnation in der Individualität lebte. Und so bekommen dann die Initiaten andere Aufgaben, in denen schon unbewußt in der Stoßkraft der Impulse dasjenige wirkt, was früher während ihrer Initiation da war, was aber nicht in der Form des Initiationswirkens auftritt.

[ 10 ] So lebte am Hofe Harun al Raschids als ein zweiter Organisator, der auch ein Besitzer außerordentlich tiefer Einsicht war — nur nicht gerade in der damaligen Inkarnation der Initiaten-Einsicht — ein Ratgeber, der die größtdenkbaren Dienste dem Harun al Raschid leistete.

[ 11 ] Diese beiden Persönlichkeiten, Harun al Raschid und sein Ratgeber, sie gingen durch die Pforte des Todes. Und sie sahen gewissermaßen, nachdem sie drüben im geistigen Reiche angekommen waren, noch die letzten Phasen der Ausbreitung des Arabismus auf der einen Seite über Afrika nach Spanien hinüber, weit nach Europa herein, auf der andern Seite aber auch nach Mitteleuropa herein. Sie waren stärkste Kräfte, die beiden, und Harun al Raschid hatte manches getan während seines Lebens, um in der physischen Welt zur Ausbreitung des Arabismus beizutragen.

[ 12 ] Dieser Arabismus hat ja eine besondere Gestalt am Hofe Harun al Raschids bekommen: die Gestalt, die nun eben hervorgegangen war aus mancherlei anderen Gestaltungen, welche Erkennen und Kunst drüben in Asien seit langer Zeit hatten. Die letzte große Entwickelungswelle nach Asien hinüber war ja von dem vorigen Michael-Zeitalter als dasjenige ausgegangen, was griechisches Geistesleben, griechische Spiritualität, griechischer künstlerischer Sinn bedeutete und was zusammengefaßt wurde durch die Gemeinschaft von Aristoteles und Alexander dem Großen und als die Blüte des griechischen Geisteslebens, in einer ungemein energischen, aber auch für Geistverbreitung vorbildlichen Art durch die Eroberungszüge Alexanders des Großen nach Asien, nach Afrika hinübergetragen wurde, durchsetzt mit der Gesinnung, die sich wissenschaftlich ausprägte im Aristotelismus in Vorderasien und Afrika. Und damit wurde überhaupt der Arabismus und der Orientalismus gesinnungsgemäß ausgestaltet mit jenen Impulsen, welche das Griechentum des Aristoteles angenommen hatte und die dann durch Alexanders Eroberungen und Gründungen eine so glänzende Verbreitung gefunden haben.

[ 13 ] Wenn wir da ein paar Jahrhunderte vor das Mysterium von Golgatha zurücksehen, bis zu den Alexanderzügen, bis zu der Verbreitung jener Weisheitsgüter, die ich eben angedeutet habe, durch Alexander den Großen, so sehen wir die ganzen Jahrhunderte hindurch bis zu Harun al Raschid, der dann im achten nachchristlichen Jahrhundert lebte, drüben in Asien die Gesinnung, die Aufnahmefähigkeit für griechisches Geistesleben in der aristotelischen Gestalt. Aber es hatte eigentümliche Formen angenommen. Obzwar das alles geistvoll, großartig eindringlich, von dem Arabismus durchdrungen am Hofe Harun al Raschids lebte, obzwar es gepflegt wurde von Harun al Raschid, von seinem Ratgeber, von den anderen, die da waren, sogar durchsetzt wurde von alter orientalischer Initiatenweisheit, so war das, was an Aristotelismus am Hofe Harun al Raschids lebte, doch nicht das Echte, was etwa zwischen Aristoteles und Alexander gepflegt worden ist. Es hatte Formen angenommen, die sich wenig um das Christentum kümmern wollten.

[ 14 ] Und so haben wir da drüben, glänzend gepflegt namentlich unter der Ägide Harun al Raschids und seines Ratgebers, einen Aristotelismus, ein Alexandertum, der einen dem Christentum abträglichen Pol darstellt, der eine Geistgestalt, namentlich eine Art von Pantheismus, angenommen hat, die sich mit dem Christentum niemals vereinigen wollte, durch ihre innere Essenz sich nicht mit dem Christentum vereinigen konnte.

[ 15 ] Mit einer solchen Gesinnung eines antiken Geisteslebens, das nicht in das Christentum hineinwollte, gingen Harun al Raschid und sein Ratgeber durch die Pforte des Todes. All ihr Mühen, all ihre Sehnsucht, all ihre Kraft war, nachdem sie durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen waren, darauf gerichtet, von der Geistwelt aus in der geschichtlichen Entwickelung gewissermaßen fortsetzend in dasjenige einzugreifen, was an Verbreitung des Geisteslebens des Arabismus — früher im Laufe der Kriegszeiten und dergleichen — von Asien nach Europa herein stattgefunden hatte. Sie sandten nach ihrem Tode aus der geistigen Welt herunter die Geiststrahlen, die gewissermaßen Europa in seinem Geistesleben mit Arabismus durchdringen wollten.

[ 16 ] Und so sehen wir, wie der eine, Harun al Raschid, folgende Entwickelung nach seinem Tode durchmacht: Von Vorderasien durch den Süden Europas herüber, durch Spanien verfolgt er von der geistigen Welt aus das, was zur Verbreitung des Arabismus geschieht, und setzt es fort. Der andere, der in der geistigen Welt lebt, beobachtet entsprechend und lebt in einer gewissen Weise mit demjenigen mit, was unten in der physischen Welt ist; er nimmt gewissermaßen in der Geistwelt einen Zug, der sich in seiner Projektion etwa ausnehmen würde wie: nördlich vom Schwarzen Meer nach Mitteleuropa herein.

[ 17 ] So senden wir einmal unsern Blick hinauf zu diesen Individualitäten, gewissermaßen in Geistwanderungen, die sich in dieser eben angegebenen Weise auf den physischen Plan herunterprojizieren lassen. Sie wissen ja auch schon historisch, wie der Aristotelismus, wie die Alexandersage sich in das Christentum hinein verbreitet hatten. Im neunten, zehnten, elften, zwölften, dreizehnten Jahrhundert noch gehörte zu den allerpopulärsten Stoffen, von denen man überall erzählte in Europa, der Stoff, der sich an Alexander den Großen anknüpfte. Und wir haben da die wunderbare Dichtung des Pfaffen Lamprecht, das Alexanderlied, das überall aber die Taten Alexanders an die geistige Welt anknüpft. Die Erziehung und das Leben Alexanders werden geschildert, die Züge nach Asien hinüber. Aber überall wird dasjenige, was in diesem Erdenleben Alexanders geistig lebt, hervorgehoben. Und mit allem Erdenleben hängt ja Geistiges zusammen, das sieht nur das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein nicht. In dieser Bearbeitung des Stoffes im Mittelalter war das alles darinnen. Und so breitet sich der Aristotelismus aus bis herein in die Scholastik: überall ariistotelische Begriffe. Aber es ist nur der andere Pol: Drüben, hinüber nach Asien, in arabistischer Form, hier in christlicher Form; das Alexanderlied ganz von christlicher Gesinnung durchdrungen, der Aristotelismus in Europa durchaus in christlicher Gestalt.

[ 18 ] Ja, es spielt sich da sogar das Merkwürdige ab, daß die christlichen Kirchenlehrer, ausgerüstet in ihrer Seele mit dem Aristoteles, gegen diejenigen kämpfen, die von Asien herüber den anderen Aristoteles getragen hatten nach Spanien hinein und dort eine unchristliche Lehre verbreiteten. Und wir sehen überall auf den Bildern, die eben in späterer Zeit gemalt worden sind, ich möchte sagen, den Aristotelismus kämpfen mit den christlichen Kirchenvätern, die Kirchenväter mit dem in der Hand, was sie aus Aristoteles haben, tot-tretend mit den Füßen Averrhoes und die anderen, die nun auch jenen Aristotelismus, der durch das Alexandertum herüber nach Europa gekommen war, in ihrer Art vertreten.

[ 19 ] Das spielt sich äußerlich ab. Aber man darf aus der geistigen Forschung heraus sagen: Harun al Raschid und sein Ratgeber lebten in der angedeuteten Weise weiter fort, nachdem sie durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen waren. So lebten selbstverständlich auch fort Alexander und Aristoteles. Sie selber aber, die wirklichen Individualitäten, die nur einmal, ich möchte sagen, vorübergehend ins Erdenleben hereinsahen in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten — sogar in einer für die anthroposophischen Gesichtspunkte interessanten Gegend —, aber dann wiederum zurückgingen in die geistige Welt und die in der geistigen Welt zugleich waren in der Zeit, als Harun al Raschid und sein Ratgeber schon einige Zeit den physischen Plan verlassen hatten, Aristoteles und Alexander verfolgten andere Wege. Ihre wirklichen Individualitäten gingen mit der christlichen Entwickelung, gingen westwärts mit der christlichen Entwickelung.

[ 20 ] Nun spielte sich auch das Wichtigste, das Wesentlichste ab im neunten Jahrhundert. Aber dasjenige, was jetzt von der geistigen Welt aus maßgebend ist für das, was in Europa geistig geschieht, das fällt in übersinnlichen Welten mit einem Ereignis zusammen, in dem man es nicht leicht wiedererkennt, — aber es fällt zusammen mit diesem Ereignis. Und ein ungeheuer Bedeutsames geschieht gerade 869 in übersinnlichen Welten. Oben geschieht etwas außerordentlich Bedeutsames; unten spielt sich ab jenes achte ökumenische Konzil in Konstantinopel, in dem dogmatisch erklärt wird, man dürfe nicht sagen, wenn man Christ sein wolle, der Mensch bestünde aus Leib und Seele und Geist. Die Trichotomie, wie man es nannte, wurde für ketzerisch erklärt.

[ 21 ] Ich habe das früher oftmals so ausgedrückt, daß ich sagte: Auf diesem Konzil 869 wurde der Geist abgeschafft; man mußte in der Zukunft sagen, der Mensch bestehe aus Leib und Seele, und die Seele habe einige geistige Eigenschaften. Das, was da unten in dieser Weise in Konstantinopel geschah, das war eine irdische Projektion, in der man allerdings dasjenige nicht wiedererkennt, von dem es die Projektion ist. Es war die Projektion eines geistigen, aber für die europäische Geistesgeschichte ungeheuer wichtigen Ereignisses, das sich allerdings über viele Jahre erstreckte, das aber sozusagen doch nach diesem Zeitpunkte auch angesetzt werden kann.

[ 22 ] Es war schon jene Zeit herangekommen in diesem neunten Jahrhundert, wo für die europäische Menschheit und ihr Geistesleben vollständig vergessen war, was in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten den echten Christen durchaus noch geläufig war: daß der Christus als ein Wesen, das früher in der Sonne war, sein Leben mit der Sonne zusammenhängend hatte, daß dieser Christus in dem Leibe des Jesus von Nazareth sich verkörpert hatte, wie es ja oftmals hier dargestellt wurde. Christus, das Sonnenwesen Christus zusammenhängend mit der kosmischen Welt durch seine Wohnung in der Sonne vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha, und nicht nur das Sonnenwesen, sondern das Wesen, das mit allem, was planetarisch mit der Sonne zusammenhängt, eben auch verbunden war: das war etwas den ersten Christen Geläufiges. Aber dieser kosmische Ursprung des Christus-Impulses, er war im neunten Jahrhundert schon nicht mehr da. Man hatte sozusagen die Größe des Christus-Impulses abgestreift. Immer mehr und mehr rückte man heran an das, was man das rein Menschliche nannte, das heißt das nur auf dem physischen Plan sich Abspielende. Man nahm die Evangelien, erklärte nicht das, was in den Kosmos hinauswies, sondern erzählte wie ein Erden-Epos dasjenige, was Inhalt der Evangelien ist.

[ 23 ] Wenn man recht verstehen will, was damit eigentlich geschieht, dann muß man sich klar sein darüber, daß es ja in der wirklichen Entwickelung der Menschheit ein Christentum vor Christus, vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha gab. Und ernst sollte man nehmen solche Worte wie die des Heiligen Augustinus, der ja sagte, das Christentum war immer da, nur nannte man diejenigen, die sich vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha zum Christentum bekannten, nicht Christen, sondern man nannte sie eben anders. Das ist aber nur der äußere Ranken-Ausdruck für etwas, was außerordentlich tief bedeutsam ist. In den Mysterien, in den wahren Mysterien, und sogar an denjenigen Stätten, wo nicht selber Mysterien waren, aber das Mysterium-Wissen und die Mysterien-Impulse hineinspielten, da gab es überall ein Christentum vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Nur sprach man von dem Christus-Wesen als dem Wesen, das auf der Sonne ist, das man dann schauen kann, mit dem man wirken kann, wenn man durch die Initiations- Weisheit so weit kommt, daß einem die Tatsache des Sonnenlebens in ihrem geistigen Inhalte, in ihrem tatsächlichen Inhalte gegenwärtig sein kann.

[ 24 ] So sprach man von dem Christus, der da kommen wird, in den alten Mysterien. Man sprach nicht von einem irdischen Christus, der auf der Erde gelebt hat und da ist; man sprach aber von dem kommenden Christus, der einmal da sein wird, den man dazumal noch auf der Sonne suchte. Solches aber verbreitete sich auch in die späteren Zeiten noch hinein für manche Stätten, die das Christentum auch in nachchristlichen Jahrhunderten noch nicht erreicht hatte.

[ 25 ] Und da hat sich gerade vor kurzem durch den englischen Aufenthalt, als der Sommerkurs stattfand in Torquay, im Westen Englands, in der Nähe derjenigen Stätte, wo einstmals Artus mit den Seinen war — wir konnten ja diese Stätte besuchen —, da hat sich gerade etwas ergeben, was hinwies auf ein solches verspätetes Wirken in einem Christentum vor dem Christentum. Dort hat sich einfach das erhalten in spätere Zeiten hinein, was in der Artus-Sage vielfach von einer Gelehrsamkeit, die aber nicht sehr gelehrt ist in bezug auf das Tatsächliche, auf spätere Zeiten bezogen wird. Das geht aber in sehr frühe Zeiten zurück. Und es ist ja wirklich ein tiefer Eindruck, den man bekommen kann, wenn man da auf der Stätte steht, von der man hinunterschaut in das Meer, wie einstmals die Ritter der Artusschen Tafelrunde hinuntergeschaut haben in das Meer. Und man bekommt, wenn man dafür empfänglich ist, heute noch durchaus jenen Eindruck, der einem sagt, was eigentlich diese Ritter der Tafelrunde, die Artus-Ritter, da oben machten in diesem Riesenschloss, von dem die letzten Steine, die abbröckelnden Steine, die spätesten Zeugen, stehen.

[ 26 ] Von dieser Ruinenstätte, die, trotzdem sie ganz zerbröckelt ist, noch einen gigantischen Eindruck macht, schaut man hinaus in das Meer. Es ist eine Bergkuppe, auf beiden Seiten davon das Meer. Indem man da in das Meer hinausschaut, in einer Gegend, wo fast immer stundenweise die Witterung wechselt, kann man, wenn man da steht, den glänzenden Sonnenschein, der sich im Meere spiegelt, anschauen; gleich darauf weht stürmisches Wetter. Man bekommt, wenn man das, was sich heute noch da abspielt, mit dem okkulten Auge überschaut, einen großartigen Eindruck. Es weben und leben elementarische Geister, die da sich herausentwickeln aus den Lichtwirkungen, den Luftwirkungen, den Wirkungen der sich kräuselnden und an dem Ufer sich stoßenden Meereswellen. Der Eindruck jener Elementargeister, die in dem allem leben, die Wechselwirkung der Elementargeister in dem Leben, in dem Weben dieser Elementargeister zeigt sich heute noch ganz anschaulich: wie die Sonne in ihrer Wesenheit Irdisches wirkt, indem sie zusammenkommt mit dem, was von unten an Elementargewalten, an spirituellen Elementargeistern aus der Erde herauswächst. Da bekommt man heute den Eindruck: Das war die unmittelbare, ursprüngliche Inspirationsquelle der Zwölf, die zu dem Artus gehörten.

[ 27 ] Man sieht sie stehen dort, diese Ritter von Artus’ Tafelrunde, beobachtend dieses Spiel der Licht-, Luft-, Wasser-, Erdgewalten, der elementaren Geister. Aber man sieht auch, wie diese Elementargeister ihnen Boten waren für Sonnen- und Monden- und SternenBotschaften, was dann übergegangen ist in ihre Impulse, namentlich in älteren Zeiten. Vieles hatte sich erhalten durch die Jahrhunderte der nachchristlichen Zeit bis zu jenem Jahrhundert, dem neunten Jahrhundert, von dem ich eben spreche.

[ 28 ] Es war ja die Aufgabe dieses Artus-Ordens, der auf den Unterricht Merlins hin dort begründet worden ist, Europa zu kultivieren, als Europa noch überall in seinem Geistesleben unter dem Einflusse der merkwürdigsten Elementarwesenheiten stand. Und mehr als man heute glaubt, muß das alte Leben Europas begriffen werden so, daß man überall sieht das Hineinspielen von elementargeistigen Wesenheiten in das unmittelbare menschliche Leben.

[ 29 ] Da aber lebte auch, bevor dorthin die Kunde von dem Christentum gekommen war, und sogar in den ältesten Formen — denn, wie gesagt, das Artusleben führt bis in vorchristliche Zeit zurück —, da lebte auch die Erkenntnis, wenigstens praktisch instinktiv, aber praktisch instinktiv ganz deutlich, die Erkenntnis von dem Christus, dem Sonnengeiste, vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Und in dem, was die Ritter von Artus’ Tafelrunde taten, lebte dieser selbe kosmische Christus, der — nur nicht unter dem Namen des Christus — auch enthalten war in dem Impetus, mit dem Alexander der Große nach Asien hinüber die griechische Kultur mit ihrem spirituellen Leben trug. Es gab sozusagen spätere Alexanderzüge, die von den Rittern von Artus’ Tafelrunde so nach Europa ausgeführt wurden wie der Alexanderzug von Mazedonien nach Asien hinüber.

[ 30 ] Ich führe das an, weil man da an einem Beispiele, das gerade in der letzten Zeit untersucht werden konnte, sieht, wie der Sonnendienst, das heißt der alte Christusdienst, eigentlich da gepflegt worden ist; aber selbstverständlich mit diesem Christus, wie er für die Menschen vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha war: Da war alles kosmisch, sogar in dem irdisch-elementaren Übergang des Kosmos. In den Elementargeistern, die in Licht und Luft und Wasser und Erde lebten, lebte ja das Kosmische; da konnte man darinnen das Kosmische beim Erkennen nicht verleugnen. So daß im europäischen Heidentum in diesem neunten Jahrhundert viel vorchristliches Christentum lebte. Das ist das Eigentümliche —, und daß diese Nachzügler des europäischen Heidentums den kosmischen Christus in dieser Zeit überhaupt verstanden, viel würdiger verstanden als diejenigen, die in dem sich ofliziell verbreitenden Christentum den Christus hinnahmen.,

[ 31 ] Wir sehen ja, wenn wir dieses Leben um den König Artus, von König Artus, hereinleuchten sehen in die Gegenwart, wie merkwürdig sich das fortsetzt, wenn es sich durch Karmagewalt, durch Schicksalsgewalt plötzlich in die Gegenwart hereinstellt. So konnte ich schauend kommen auf ein Mitglied von Artus’ Tafelrunde, das wirklich das Leben von Artus’ Tafelrunde in einer sehr eindringlichen Weise führte, etwas abseits von den übrigen, die mehr dem Rittertum hingegeben waren. Es war das ein Ritter mit einem etwas beschaulichen Leben. Nicht ähnlich dem Gralsrittertum, — das gab es bei Artus nicht. Man nannte das, was aus ihren Aufgaben heraus, die zum großen Teile eben gemäß der damaligen Zeit Kriegszüge waren, diese Ritter trieben, man nannte das: Abenteuer, Aventiuren. Aber der eine, der mir herausfiel aus den anderen Gestalten, der zeigte ganz aus diesem Leben heraus vieles, das ja in seiner Inspiration wunderbar ist. Diese Ritter gingen hinaus auf das vorspringende Land, überschauten jenes wunderbare Wolkenspiel oben, die sich kräuselnden Wellen unten, dieses Ineinanderwerfen, das heute noch einen majestätischen, großartigen Eindruck macht, sahen darinnen das Geistige, inspirierten sich damit. Dadurch hatten sie ihre Kraft. Aber es gab einen darunter, der hatte einen besonders eindringlichen Blick für dieses Kräuseln und Wellen, dafür, wie die geistigen Wesenheiten in diesen kräuselnden Wellen herauftollen, mit ihren für irdischen Anblick grotesken Gestalten, er hatte einen wunderbaren Blick für die Art und Weise, wie diese herrlich reine Sonnenwirkung mit der übrigen Natur zusammenspielte, lebte und webte in dem geistigen Wirken und Weben dieser bewegten Meeresoberfläche, er lebte in dem, was man auch sieht in dieser durch die wässrige Atmosphäre, ich möchte sagen, getragenen Lichtnatur der Sonne, die in einer anderen Weise an Bäume und Baumzwischenräume herankommt als in anderen Gegenden. Sie erglänzt wieder, zuweilen wie in Regenbogenfarben spielend, von den Baumzwischenräumen hervor.

[ 32 ] Solch ein Ritter war da unter diesen, der einen eindringlichen Blick hatte für diese Dinge. Es lag mir viel daran, dessen Leben weiter zu verfolgen, die Individualität weiter zu schauen, denn gerade da mußte sich etwas von einem, ich möchte sagen, fast primitiven heidnischen, nur so weit christlichen Leben, wie ich es dargestellt habe, in einer späteren Inkarnation ergeben. Es hat sich ergeben: Gerade dieser Ritter der Tafelrunde des Artus ist wiedergeboren als Arnold Böcklin. Und dieses Rätsel, das mich ungeheuer lange verfolgt hat, kann nur gelöst werden in Anknüpfung an Artus’ Tafelrunde. Sehen Sie, da haben wir ein Christentum vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha, das heute noch mit geistigen Händen zu greifen ist, das noch hineinleuchtet in die Zeit, bis zu der Zeit, die ich hier skizziert habe.

[ 33 ] Die Persönlichkeiten, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen waren, die gut kannten, was Christentum vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha war, trafen zusammen, während das achte allgemeine Konzil in Konstantinopel spielte, ich möchte sagen, bei einem himmlischen Konzil, das gleichzeitig war; bei dem sich Aristoteles, Alexander, Harun al Raschid, sein Ratgeber und manche aus dem Kreise, gerade von Artus’ Tafelrunde, begegneten.

[ 34 ] Da war von den im christlichen Sinne wirken wollenden Aristoteles und Alexander viel Mühe aufgewandt, den Arabismus, der in den Individualitäten von Harun al Raschid und den anderen lebte, zu besiegen. Es ging nicht. Die Individualitäten waren nicht dazu geeignet. Aber das andere ergab sich: daß noch tiefer durchdrungen, als es eben in den rauheren Attitüden der Artusritter war, das alte kosmische Christentum in den von Artus’ Tafelrunde herkommenden Menschen lebte. Und da war es, bei diesem überirdischen Konzil, daß gegenüber dem, was nun wohl in der Zukunft geschehen werde und was man voraussah, unter der Mitwirkung der Michaelmacht sozusagen von Alexander und Aristoteles die Entschlüsse gefaßt wurden, wie in Europa das geistige Leben neue Impulse im Sinne eines verchristlichten Alexandrismus, eines verchristlichten Aristotelismus erhalten solle.

[ 35 ] Aber Harun al Raschid und sein Ratgeber blieben bei dem alten. Und das, was durch dieses, wenn ich so sagen darf, himmlische Konzil sich abspielte, dieses nun weiter zu verfolgen in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte, das ist von der allergrößten Bedeutung. Denn wenn wir auf die weitere Wanderung im Geistesleben blicken, finden wir Harun al Raschid, diesen wunderbaren Organisator, diesen großartigen Geist aus der Zeit Karls des Großen, auf Erden wiederkommen. Und er erscheint wiederum später mitten im Christentum, aber indem er durchgetragen hat durch das Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt seinen Arabismus. Doch es braucht nicht in der äußeren Konfiguration, die dann in der physischen Welt auftritt, dasjenige, was eine solche Persönlichkeit darlebt, dem arabischen Elemente ähnlich zu sein. Es kleidet sich in die neuen Formen, bleibt aber in den neuen Formen dennoch dem Wesen nach das Alte: Mohammedanismus, Arabismus.

[ 36 ] Das tritt auf, wirksam im europäischen Geistesleben, als Harun al Raschid wiedererscheint, wiederverkörpert in Bacon, Baco von Verulam. Und das tritt in einer anderen Weise auf, sogar in einer merkwürdigen Weise mit dem Christentum durchsetzt, indem sein Ratgeber auftritt in Mitteleuropa, weithin in Europa dann wirkt als Amos Comenius. Vieles im europäischen Geistesleben ist im Zusarmmenhange mit dem geschehen, was die wiedererstandenen Geister des Hofes von Harun al Raschid in diesen neuen menschlichen Gestalten in Europa begründet haben.

[ 37 ] Wir sehen, wie dagegen wirkt, was sich erst vorbereitet, dann wirklich geschieht, aber später geschieht. Denn dasjenige, was in Baco von Verulam, was in Amos Comenius später herausgekommen ist, es hat geistig vorher lange gewirkt von der geistigen Welt herunter, denn es hatte ganz besonders intensive Formen angenommen durch dieses übersinnliche Konzil 869.

[ 38 ] Dagegen wirkt nun auch der andere Pol, der Pol, den nun Alexandertum und Aristotelismus für das Christentum angenommen haben. Das prägte sich zunächst aus in den mannigfaltigsten Influenzierungen, die stattfanden an einsamen Stätten der Pflege christlichen Geisteslebens. Namentlich sehen wir eine solche Stätte in der hier schon öfter für einzelne, aber nicht für alle, die da sind, genannten Schule von Chartres. Die Schule von Chartres, die namentlich im zwölften Jahrhundert blühte, hatte einen großartigen spirituellen Einschlag. Sylvester von Chartres, Alanus ab Insulis, andere Geister, die in irgendeiner Weise mit der Schule von Chartres in Zusammenhang standen oder wie Alanus ab Insulis oder Sylvester in ihr lehrten, sie hatten viel in sich von alter Initiatenweisheit, wenn sie auch nicht selber im wahren Sinne des Wortes voll Initiierte genannt werden können. Die Bücher, die von ihnen herrühren, sehen wie Kataloge von Worten aus. Aber es war dazumal nicht möglich, dasjenige, was man dem vollen Leben geben wollte, in Büchern anders anzubringen als in voller Rhetorik, als eine Art Wortkatalog. Aber wer zu lesen versteht, der liest gerade in diesen Büchern dasjenige, was in einer glänzenden, wunderbar spirituell durchdrungenen Weise von den großen Lehrern von Chartres zahlreichen Schülern gelehrt worden ist.

[ 39 ] Da glänzte wirklich ein spiritueller Stern über dem europäischen Geistesleben in dieser Schule von Chartres, dem Ort, an dem ja heute noch die architektonisch wunderbar gestalteten Kathedralen sind, die das Werk von Jahrhunderten in feiner Ausgestaltung zeigen.

[ 40 ] Auch an manchen anderen Orten lebte dasjenige, was da spirituelles Leben war: eine Einsicht in die Natur, aber eine andere Einsicht, eine spirituellere Einsicht, als die später gekommene ist, ein geistiges Leben, das auch auf geistigem Wege gewirkt hat. Es ist ja interessant, was dieses geistige Leben, dieses spirituelle Leben in der mannigfaltigsten Weise ausgestrahlt hat. Wir können an einzelnen Orten Frankreichs verfolgen, wie an den hohen Schulen, von Chartres ausgehend, durch Frankreich hindurch, nach Südfrankreich herein, bis nach Italien herüber, auch im Lehren der Geist von Chartres lebte. Aber er lebte auch auf spirituelle Art selber.

[ 41 ] Es ist ja interessant, daß Brunetto Latini, der eine Zeitlang Gesandter in Spanien war, als er wieder zurückging und von dem Unglücke seiner Vaterstadt Florenz aus der Ferne schon hörte, dadurch eine starke seelische Erschütterung erlitten hat, die zusammenfiel mit einem leisen Sonnenstich, den er bekommen hatte. In solcher körperlicher Verfassung ist der Mensch leicht spirituellen Einflüssen, die sich auf spirituelle Art verbreiten, zugänglich. Es ist ja bekannt, wie Brunetto Latini auf seinem Wege nach Florenz geradezu eine Art von elementarischer Einweihung erlebte. Er wurde der Lehrer Dantes. Die Spiritualität der «Commedia» ist herrührend von den Lehren, die Brunetto Latini Dante, seinem Schüler, gegeben hat.

[ 42 ] In all dem lebt eben dasjenige, was, ich möchte sagen, übersinnlich ausgemacht worden ist auf dem übersinnlichen Konzil 869. Denn die Inspiration zu den Lehren von Chartres, die Inspiration für Brunetto Latini, auch die Inspiration für Dante, so daß in Dantes Gedichtwerk Kosmisches leben konnte, all das hängt zusammen mit dem Impuls, der von dieser übersinnlichen Versammlung ausgegangen war im neunten nachchristlichen Jahrhundert.

[ 43 ] Wenn man in diese Dinge hineinschaut, zusammen erblickt das ganze europäische Geistesleben aus der alten Alexanderzeit, in der Zeit des Mysteriums von Golgatha, bis herein in diese Zeiten, bis zur Schule von Chartres, und wenn man es weiter verfolgt in die folgende Zeit hinein — wir werden das noch sehen —, wenn man da ineinanderschaut, was übersinnlich sich abspielt, mit dem, was hier unten sein Schattenbild in der physischen Welt ist, dann beginnt man dasjenige, was man heute Michaelströmung nennen soll, erst wirklich zu begreifen, zu begreifen, was die Michaelströmung will.

[ 44 ] Man kann dann hineinsehen in das, was im Sinne der Michaelströmung die anthroposophische Bewegung will. — Davon wollen wir dann das nächste Mal weiter sprechen.

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] The course of human history and our own life is only understood in the smallest part when we look at it from the outside, from that outside which we survey when we take into account what takes place in the view of our earthly life between birth and death. And it is impossible to survey the inner motives of history and life if our gaze is not turned to that which underlies the outer physical events as the spiritual background. World history is depicted and in this world history also the events that take place in the physical world, and it is said that this world history depicts causes and effects. We approach the events of the second decade of the twentieth century and present them as the effects of the events of the first decade, and so on. But how much illusion is possible! It is as if we were to see, say, a continuous stream of water raising waves, and we were to regard each wave merely as the consequence of the preceding one; while the forces which raise the waves penetrate from below. Thus it is: That which happens at any point in historical becoming or in human life in general is shaped out of the spiritual world, and only in the smallest part can we speak of causes and effects in relation to this happening.

[ 2 ] I would now like to show you with a few consecutive examples how, in order to get a real picture of what underlies the events, one must include the spiritual events in these events. The present time is spiritually connected with what can be called the Michael reign in spiritual life. This Michael reign, however, is in turn connected with what the anthroposophical movement also wants in the deepest sense, namely with what it is supposed to do. So that the fate, the karma, as we shall see next time, of the Anthroposophical Society and thus the karma of the vast majority of individual personalities who are to be found in this Anthroposophical Society, is also connected with the events of which I shall speak. Some of what I am going to touch on this evening is already familiar to many of you from previous lectures. But today I would like to look at the familiar from a certain point of view with the less familiar.

[ 3 ] We see, my dear friends, how since the Mystery of Golgotha a continuous Christian development has gone through the educated world. And it has often been shown by me in earlier times what meaning this Christian development has assumed in successive centuries. But it cannot be denied that many other things have played a part in this Christian development. For if this were not the case, our present-day formation could not be permeated by the strong materialism with which it is permeated.

[ 4 ] It cannot be denied that the Christian confessions have made strong contributions to this materialism, but not actually out of Christian impulses, but out of other impulses that have flowed into Christian development from other sides.

[ 5 ] We see how in the West - let us take a certain time, the eighth, the beginning of the ninth century - we see how Christianity is carried everywhere among the non-Christian people living in Europe at that time through such a personality as Charlemagne, in a way that we perhaps cannot always agree with from our present-day humanitarian point of view. Among these non-Christian people, however, those who were influenced by those traits that came over to Europe from Asia through North Africa and which emanated from Arabism, from Mohammedanism, are particularly noteworthy. We must understand Mohammedanism in the broader sense of the word.

[ 6 ] Half a millennium and more after the Mystery of Golgotha, we see all the old worldview elements of Arabism emerging from Arabism in Mohammedanism, much that is connected with it, much in particular of a rich but un-Christian style of scholarship, and we see this scholarship spreading from Asia through North Africa to the west and south of Europe with penetrating war campaigns. We see this stream gradually drying up for the more external world, but it does not dry up in the inner development of spiritual life. When the more external way of spreading Arabism to Europe had already dried up, we see - and here comes one of the cases where we now have to look from the external history to the spiritual background - how Arabism is spreading in an internal way. And I have told you in the last contemplation of karma that I made here, that when we look at the successive earth lives of individual human beings, we cannot draw any conclusions from the outward appearance, from the outward attitude, as to how an earlier earth life was shaped, for it depends on much more inward impulses. In the same way, historical personalities also depend on much more inner impulses. And we see the results of earlier cultural epochs carried over into later ones by personalities, carried over by the people themselves, but we also see them changed in this carrying over, so that we cannot easily recognize them again in the new form in which a personality carries them out in a new incarnation by looking at the exterior. And so let us consider such an inner current.

[ 7 ] In the same period in which Charlemagne was spreading Christianity - one might say, in a somewhat primitive way linked to the European primitive education of the time - there lived over in the Orient a personality who was actually on a much more important level than Charlemagne, Harzn al Rashid. Harun al Rashid gathered the most important intellectual greats of his time at his court in the Near East. And this court of Harun al Rashid was a splendid one, even revered by Charlemagne. We see architecture, poetry, astronomy, geography, history, anthropology, all represented in the most brilliant way by the most brilliant personalities, in part by personalities who still carried within them much of the knowledge of ancient initiatory science.

[ 8 ] In particular, we see Harun al Rashid, who was himself an organizational spirit on a grand scale, who was able to turn his court into, I would say, a universal academy, where the individual elements of the art and science that existed in the Orient at that time worked together in a large organic whole, we see another personality associated with Harun al Rashid, a personality who bore the elements of ancient initiation.

[ 9 ] It is not the case that a person who was an initiate in a previous incarnation must appear as an initiate in a later incarnation. You can, my dear friends, raise the question that follows on from some of the assertions made in these lectures: Yes, there are supposed to have been old initiates, but where did they go? Have they not reincarnated? Where are they today? Where were they in the last centuries? - Well, they were already there, but one must take into consideration that the one who was an initiate in an earlier incarnation must, in a new incarnation, above all use for himself the outer physicality that the age can give. The newer human development does not give bodies that are so inwardly pliable, flexible and soft that what lived in the individuality in a previous incarnation can enter them directly. And so the initiates are then given other tasks in which that which was there earlier during their initiation is already unconsciously at work in the impulse force, but which does not appear in the form of the initiatory effect.

[ 10 ] So there lived at the court of Harun al Rashid as a second organizer, who was also a possessor of extraordinarily deep insight - only not exactly in the then incarnation of initiatic insight - an advisor who rendered the greatest conceivable services to Harun al Rashid.

[ 11 ] These two personalities, Harun al Rashid and his counselor, they passed through the Gate of Death. And they saw, so to speak, after they had arrived over there in the spiritual realm, the last phases of the spread of Arabism on the one hand across Africa to Spain, far into Europe, but on the other hand also into Central Europe. They were the strongest forces, the two of them, and Harun al Rashid had done much during his life to contribute to the spread of Arabism in the physical world.

[ 12 ] This Arabism took on a special form at the court of Harun al Rashid: the form that had just emerged from various other forms that knowledge and art had had over there in Asia for a long time. The last great wave of development over to Asia had started from the previous Michael age as that which meant Greek spiritual life, Greek spirituality, Greek artistic sense and which was summarized by the community of Aristotle and Alexander the Great and as the flowering of Greek spiritual life, was carried over to Asia and Africa by Alexander the Great's conquests in an extraordinarily energetic way, but also in an exemplary way for the dissemination of the spirit, interspersed with the attitude that developed scientifically in Aristotelianism in the Near East and Africa. And thus Arabism and Orientalism in general were shaped in accordance with those impulses which Aristotle's Greekism had adopted and which then spread so brilliantly through Alexander's conquests and foundations.

[ 13 ] If we look back a few centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, to the Alexander campaigns, to the dissemination of those wisdom goods that I have just alluded to by Alexander the Great, we see the attitude, the receptivity for Greek intellectual life in the Aristotelian form throughout the centuries up to Harun al Rashid, who then lived in the eighth century AD, over in Asia. But it had taken on peculiar forms. Although all of this lived at the court of Harun al Rashid in a spiritual, magnificently penetrating way, imbued with Arabism, although it was cultivated by Harun al Rashid, by his advisor, by the others who were there, even interspersed with old oriental initiatic wisdom, the Aristotelianism that lived at the court of Harun al Rashid was not the genuine thing that was cultivated between Aristotle and Alexander, for example. It had taken on forms that had little concern for Christianity.

[ 14 ] And so we have over there, brilliantly cultivated especially under the aegis of Harun al Rashid and his advisor, an Aristotelianism, an Alexanderism, which represents a pole inimical to Christianity, which has taken on a spiritual form, namely a kind of pantheism, which never wanted to unite with Christianity, which could not unite with Christianity through its inner essence.

[ 15 ] With such an attitude of an ancient spiritual life that did not want to enter into Christianity, Harun al Rashid and his advisor passed through the gate of death. All their efforts, all their longing, all their strength, after they had passed through the gate of death, was directed towards intervening from the spiritual world in the historical development, continuing, so to speak, that which had taken place in the spread of the spiritual life of Arabism - earlier in the course of the times of war and the like - from Asia to Europe. After their death they sent down from the spiritual world the spiritual rays that wanted to penetrate Europe in its spiritual life with Arabism, so to speak.

[ 16 ] And so we see how the one, Harun al Raschid, undergoes the following development after his death: From the Near East through the south of Europe, through Spain, he follows from the spiritual world what happens for the spread of Arabism and continues it. The other, who lives in the spiritual world, observes accordingly and lives in a certain way with that which is below in the physical world; he takes, as it were, a course in the spiritual world which in his projection would look something like: northwards from the Black Sea into Central Europe.

[ 17 ] So let us send our gaze up to these individualities, so to speak in spirit migrations, which can be projected down onto the physical plan in the manner just indicated. You already know historically how Aristotelianism and the Alexander legend spread into Christianity. In the ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, one of the most popular stories told everywhere in Europe was the story of Alexander the Great. And we have the wonderful poetry of the priest Lamprecht, the Alexander Song, which links Alexander's deeds to the spiritual world everywhere. Alexander's upbringing and life are described, his moves across to Asia. But everywhere that which lives spiritually in this earthly life of Alexander is emphasized. And spiritual things are connected with all earthly life, only the ordinary consciousness does not see this. In this treatment of the material in the Middle Ages it was all there. And so Aristotelianism spread right into scholasticism: Aristotelian concepts everywhere. But it is only the other pole: over there, across to Asia, in Arabic form, here in Christian form; the Alexanderlied is completely imbued with Christian sentiment, Aristotelianism in Europe is definitely in Christian form.

[ 18 ] Yes, the strange thing even happens that the Christian teachers of the Church, equipped in their souls with Aristotle, fight against those who had carried the other Aristotle over from Asia into Spain and spread an unchristian doctrine there. And we see everywhere in the pictures that have just been painted in later times, I would like to say, Aristotelianism fighting with the Christian Church Fathers, the Church Fathers with what they have from Aristotle in their hands, kicking Averrhoes dead with their feet and the others, who now also represent that Aristotelianism, which had come over to Europe through Alexanderism, in their own way.

[ 19 ] This takes place externally. But one can say from intellectual research: Harun al Rashid and his advisor lived on in the manner indicated after they had passed through the gate of death. Of course, Alexander and Aristotle also lived on in the same way. But they themselves, the real individualities, who only once, I might say temporarily, looked into earthly life in the first Christian centuries - even in an interesting region for anthroposophical points of view - but then again went back into the spiritual world and who were in the spiritual world at the same time at the time when Harun al Raschid and his counselor had already left the physical plan for some time, Aristotle and Alexander pursued other paths. Their real individualities went with the Christian development, went westward with the Christian development.

[ 20 ] Now the most important, the most essential things took place in the ninth century. But that which is now decisive from the spiritual world for what is happening spiritually in Europe coincides in the supersensible worlds with an event in which it is not easily recognized, - but it coincides with this event. And a tremendously significant thing is happening in the supersensible worlds. Above, something extraordinarily significant is happening; below, the eighth ecumenical council in Constantinople is taking place, in which it is dogmatically declared that if you want to be a Christian, you must not say that man consists of body and soul and spirit. The trichotomy, as it was called, was declared heretical.

[ 21 ] I often used to express this by saying: At this Council of 869, the spirit was abolished; in the future, one had to say that man consisted of body and soul, and that the soul had some spiritual qualities. What happened down there in this way in Constantinople was an earthly projection, in which, however, one does not recognize that of which it is the projection. It was the projection of a spiritual event that was enormously important for European intellectual history, although it took place over a period of many years, but which can also be placed after this point in time, so to speak.

[ 22 ] The time had already come in this ninth century when European humanity and its spiritual life had completely forgotten what was still quite familiar to true Christians in the first Christian centuries: that the Christ, as a being who was formerly in the sun, had his life connected with the sun, that this Christ had embodied himself in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, as it was often depicted here. Christ, the solar being Christ, connected with the cosmic world through his dwelling in the sun before the Mystery of Golgotha, and not only the solar being, but the being that was also connected with everything that was planetarily connected with the sun: that was something familiar to the first Christians. But this cosmic origin of the Christ impulse was no longer there in the ninth century. The greatness of the Christ impulse had been stripped away, so to speak. More and more people moved closer and closer to what was called the purely human, that is, what only took place on the physical plane. One took the Gospels and did not explain that which pointed out into the cosmos, but told like an earthly epic that which is the content of the Gospels.

[ 23 ] If you really want to understand what is actually happening, then you have to be clear about the fact that in the real development of humanity there was a Christianity before Christ, before the Mystery of Golgotha. And one should take seriously such words as those of St. Augustine, who said that Christianity was always there, only those who professed Christianity before the Mystery of Golgotha were not called Christians, but were called something else. But that is only the outward tendril expression for something that is extraordinarily deeply significant. In the Mysteries, in the true Mysteries, and even in those places where there were no Mysteries themselves, but where Mystery-knowledge and Mystery-impulses played a part, there was Christianity everywhere before the Mystery of Golgotha. Only one spoke of the Christ-being as the being that is on the sun, which one can then see, with which one can work, when one comes so far through the initiatory wisdom that the fact of the sun's life can be present to one in its spiritual content, in its actual content.

[ 24 ] This is how the Christ who is to come was spoken of in the ancient Mysteries. They did not speak of an earthly Christ who had lived on earth and was there; but they spoke of the coming Christ who would one day be there, whom they were still looking for on the sun at that time. But this was also spread in later times to some places that Christianity had not yet reached even in post-Christian centuries.

[ 25 ] And just recently, when the English summer course took place in Torquay, in the west of England, near the place where Arthur once was with his own - we were able to visit this site - something came to light that pointed to such a belated activity in a Christianity before Christianity. There, what is often referred to later times in the Arthurian legend by a scholarship that is not very learned with regard to the facts has simply been preserved into later times. But this goes back to very early times. And it really is a profound impression that you can get when you stand on the site from which you look down into the sea, just as the knights of Arthur's Round Table once looked down into the sea. And if you are receptive, you still get the impression today that tells you what these Knights of the Round Table, the Knights of Arthur, were actually doing up there in this giant castle, of which the last stones, the crumbling stones, the latest witnesses, stand.

[ 26 ] From this ruined site, which, despite being completely crumbled, still makes a gigantic impression, you can look out to sea. It is a hilltop with the sea on either side. Looking out into the sea, in an area where the weather almost always changes by the hour, you can see the brilliant sunshine reflected in the sea as you stand there, followed immediately by stormy weather. If you look with the occult eye at what is still happening there today, you get a great impression. Elemental spirits weave and live there, developing out of the effects of light, the effects of the air, the effects of the rippling sea waves that crash against the shore. The impression of those elemental spirits that live in everything, the interaction of the elemental spirits in life, in the weaving of these elemental spirits is still quite vivid today: how the sun works earthly things in its essence by coming together with that which grows out of the earth from below in elemental forces, in spiritual elemental spirits. Today we get the impression that this was the direct, original source of inspiration for the twelve who belonged to Arthur.

[ 27 ] You see them standing there, these knights of Arthur's Round Table, observing this play of the forces of light, air, water, earth, the elemental spirits. But you can also see how these elemental spirits were their messengers for messages from the sun, moon and stars, which then passed over into their impulses, especially in older times. Much had been preserved through the centuries of the post-Christian period up to the century, the ninth century, of which I am just speaking.

[ 28 ] It was the task of this Arthurian order, which was founded there on the instruction of Merlin, to cultivate Europe when Europe was still under the influence of the strangest elemental beings everywhere in its spiritual life. And more than one believes today, the ancient life of Europe must be understood in such a way that one sees everywhere the interplay of elemental spiritual entities in immediate human life.

[ 29 ] But there also lived, before the news of Christianity had come there, and even in the oldest forms - for, as I said, Arthurian life goes back to pre-Christian times - there also lived the knowledge, at least practically instinctively, but practically instinctively quite clearly, the knowledge of the Christ, the Sun-Spirit, before the Mystery of Golgotha. And in what the knights of Arthur's Round Table did, this same cosmic Christ lived, which - only not under the name of Christ - was also contained in the impetus with which Alexander the Great carried the Greek culture with its spiritual life over to Asia. There were, so to speak, later Alexander campaigns that were carried out by the knights of Arthur's Round Table to Europe in the same way as the Alexander campaign from Macedonia to Asia.

[ 30 ] I cite this because one can see from an example, which could be examined just recently, how the sun service, that is, the old Christ service, was actually cultivated there; but of course with this Christ as he was for men before the Mystery of Golgotha: there everything was cosmic, even in the earthly-elemental transition of the cosmos. The cosmic lived in the elemental spirits that lived in light and air and water and earth; one could not deny the cosmic in recognizing them. So that in European paganism in this ninth century much pre-Christian Christianity lived. That is the peculiar thing - and that these latecomers to European paganism understood the cosmic Christ at all at this time, understood it much more worthily than those who accepted the Christ in the Christianity that was spreading officially.

[ 31 ] We see, after all, when we see this life around King Arthur, from King Arthur, shining into the present, how strangely it continues when it suddenly enters the present through the force of karma, through the force of fate. So I was able to look at a member of Arthur's Round Table who really led the life of Arthur's Round Table in a very vivid way, somewhat apart from the others who were more devoted to chivalry. It was a knight with a somewhat contemplative life. Not similar to the knighthood of the Grail - that didn't exist with Arthur. What these knights did as a result of their tasks, which in those days were largely military campaigns, was called adventure, aventures. But the one who stood out to me from the other figures showed many things entirely out of this life, which is wonderful in its inspiration. These knights went out onto the protruding land, looked over the wonderful play of clouds above, the rippling waves below, this intertwining that still makes a majestic, magnificent impression today, saw the spiritual in it, inspired themselves with it. This gave them their strength. But there was one among them who had a particularly penetrating eye for these ripples and waves, for the way the spiritual beings rolled up in these rippling waves, with their grotesque shapes to earthly eyes, he had a wonderful eye for the way in which this wonderfully pure effect of the sun interacted with the rest of nature, lived and wove in the spiritual working and weaving of this moving sea surface, he lived in what one also sees in this light nature of the sun, I would like to say, carried by the watery atmosphere, which approaches trees and spaces between trees in a different way than in other regions. It shines again, sometimes as if playing in rainbow colors, from the spaces between the trees.

[ 32 ] There was a knight among them who had a penetrating eye for these things. It was very important to me to follow his life further, to look further into his individuality, because something of an, I would say, almost primitive pagan, only so far Christian life, as I have described it, was bound to emerge in a later incarnation. It has come to pass: This very knight of the Round Table of Arthur is reborn as Arnold Böcklin. And this riddle, which has haunted me for a tremendously long time, can only be solved with reference to Arthur's Round Table. You see, we have a Christianity before the Mystery of Golgotha that can still be grasped with spiritual hands today, that still shines into time, right up to the time I have outlined here.

[ 33 ] The personalities who had passed through the gate of death, who knew well what Christianity was before the Mystery of Golgotha, met while the eighth general council was playing out in Constantinople, I would say at a heavenly council that was simultaneous; at which Aristotle, Alexander, Harun al Rashid, his counselor and some of the circle, especially of Arthur's Round Table, met.

[ 34 ] A lot of effort was expended by Aristotle and Alexander, who wanted to work in the Christian sense, to defeat the Arabism that lived in the individualities of Harun al Rashid and the others. It did not work. The individualities were not suitable. But the other thing happened: that even more deeply imbued than it was in the rougher attitudes of the Arthurian knights, the old cosmic Christianity lived in the people who came from Arthur's Round Table. And it was at this supernatural council that, in the face of what would probably happen in the future and what was foreseen, Alexander and Aristotle, with the cooperation of the Michaelic power, so to speak, decided how the spiritual life in Europe should receive new impulses in the sense of a Christianized Alexandrianism, a Christianized Aristotelianism.

[ 35 ] But Harun al Rashid and his advisor stuck to the old. And what took place through this, if I may say so, heavenly council, to pursue it further in European intellectual history, that is of the greatest importance. For if we look at the further wanderings in the intellectual life, we find Harun al Raschid, this wonderful organizer, this great spirit from the time of Charlemagne, returning to earth. And he appears again later in the midst of Christianity, but by carrying his Arabism through life between death and a new birth. But the outer configuration that then appears in the physical world need not be similar to the Arabian element. It dresses itself in the new forms, but in the new forms it still remains essentially the old: Mohammedanism, Arabism.

[ 36 ] This appears, effectively in European intellectual life, when Harun al Raschid reappears, re-embodied in Bacon, Baco of Verulam. And it appears in a different way, even in a strange way interspersed with Christianity, in that its counselor appears in Central Europe, then works widely in Europe as Amos Comenius. Much in European intellectual life has happened in connection with what the resurrected spirits of the court of Harun al Raschid have established in these new human figures in Europe.

[ 37 ] We see the effect of what is first prepared, then actually happens, but happens later. For that which emerged later in Baco of Verulam, that which emerged later in Amos Comenius, had worked spiritually from the spiritual world long before, for it had taken on particularly intense forms through this supersensible council of 869.

[ 38 ] The other pole, the pole that Alexanderism and Aristotelianism have now assumed for Christianity, is now also at work. This first manifested itself in the most diverse influences that took place in lonely places of the cultivation of Christian spiritual life. In particular, we see such a place in the School of Chartres, which has often been mentioned here for some, but not all, of its members. The School of Chartres, which flourished in the twelfth century in particular, had a great spiritual impact. Sylvester of Chartres, Alanus ab Insulis, other spirits who were in some way connected with the school of Chartres or who, like Alanus ab Insulis or Sylvester, taught in it, had much in them of ancient initiatic wisdom, even if they themselves cannot be called full initiates in the true sense of the word. The books that come from them look like catalogs of words. But at that time it was not possible to put into books what one wanted to give to the full life other than in full rhetoric, as a kind of word catalog. But those who know how to read can read in these very books what was taught in a brilliant, wonderfully spiritually penetrating way by the great teachers of Chartres to numerous pupils.

[ 39 ] There really was a spiritual star shining above European intellectual life in this school of Chartres, the place where the architecturally wonderfully designed cathedrals still stand today, showing the work of centuries in fine detail.

[ 40 ] In some other places, too, there lived that which was spiritual life: an insight into nature, but a different insight, a more spiritual insight than that which came later, a spiritual life that also worked in a spiritual way. It is interesting to see what this spiritual life has radiated in the most diverse ways. We can follow in individual places in France how the spirit of Chartres lived in the high schools, starting from Chartres, through France, into southern France, all the way to Italy, also in the teachings. But he also lived in a spiritual way himself.

[ 41 ] It is interesting that Brunetto Latini, who was an envoy in Spain for a time, when he returned and heard from afar about the misfortune of his father's city of Florence, suffered a strong emotional shock that coincided with a slight sunstroke he had received. In such a physical state, a person is easily accessible to spiritual influences that spread in a spiritual way. It is well known how Brunetto Latini experienced a kind of elemental initiation on his way to Florence. He became Dante's teacher. The spirituality of the “Commedia” stems from the teachings that Brunetto Latini gave to Dante, his pupil.

[ 42 ] In all this lives precisely that which, I would like to say, was supersensibly determined at the supersensible council of 869. For the inspiration for the teachings of Chartres, the inspiration for Brunetto Latini, also the inspiration for Dante, so that the cosmic could live in Dante's poetry, all this is connected with the impulse that had emanated from this supersensible assembly in the ninth century after Christ.

[ 43 ] If one looks into these things, one sees together the whole European spiritual life from the old Alexander age, in the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, up to these times, up to the School of Chartres, and if one follows it further into the following time - we shall see this later -, if you look into what is happening supersensibly with what is its shadow image down here in the physical world, then you really begin to grasp what is today called the Michael current, to understand what the Michael current wants.

[ 44 ] You can then see into what the anthroposophical movement wants in the sense of the Michael current. - We will talk more about this next time.