The Christmas Conference
GA 260
Part II. The Proceedings of the Conference
31 December 1923 8:30 p.m., Dornach
XVII. The Envy of the Gods - The Envy of Human Beings
My dear friends!
We stand today under the sign of a grievous memory and we shall by all means place what is to be the content of today's lecture within the sign of this grievous memory. Those of you who were present then will remember how the lecture I was permitted to give just a year ago in our former building [Note 75] followed a path which led from the description of earthly, natural conditions upwards into the spiritual worlds and into the revelation of these spiritual worlds out of the starry script. You will remember how it was possible, then, to link the human heart, the soul of man, the human spirit, and all that belongs to it, with all that can be discovered on the path outwards into not only the wide realm of the stars but also into what depicts the world of the spirit through the wide realm of the stars, like a cosmic script. The last thing I was permitted to write down on the blackboard in that hall which was taken from us so soon afterwards, that last thing was intended to raise the human soul up into spiritual heights. On that very evening the link was made with that to which our Goetheanum building was to be dedicated in its whole being. So now, as though in a continuation of that lecture given here a year ago, let me begin by speaking about that to which the link was then made.
If in the times before the burning of Ephesus men spoke about the Mysteries, then those who in their heart and soul understood something of the nature of the Mysteries said, in essence: Human knowledge, human wisdom has an abode, a dwelling place in the Mysteries. And if in those olden times there was talk of the Mysteries among the spiritual leaders of the world, that is if there was talk in super-sensible realms about the Mysteries—allow me to use these expressions even though they describe only figuratively how thoughts are sent down from the super-sensible realms and how the super-sensible works in the sense-perceptible realm—if in super-sensible realms there was talk about the Mysteries, then what was said went, in essence, like this: In the Mysteries, human beings set up an abode where we gods can find those human beings who bring us offerings and who understand us in their act of offering. For indeed those who knew about such things in the ancient world were generally aware that in the Mystery centres gods and human beings encountered one another and that all that carries and maintains the world depends on what takes place in the Mysteries between gods and human beings.
But there are words which have even come down to us in external history. These words handed down through history can deeply move our human hearts, especially when they can be seen taking shape out of very special events, when the shape they take is formed as though in letters of bronze, visible in spirit only for a moment and written into the history of humankind. Such words are always seen when one looks in spirit towards the deed of Herostratos, [Note 76] the burning of the temple at Ephesus. In the flames the ancient words stand out: The envy of the gods.
Among the manifold words that have come down to us from olden times, which can be seen in the life of those times in the manner I have described, I do believe that this is one of the most terrible to be found in the physical world: The envy of the gods. In those olden times the word ‘god’ was used to describe anything that lived as a super-sensible being without ever needing to appear on earth in a physical body. And in those times people distinguished between many and varied races of gods.
But those divine spiritual beings who are so closely linked with mankind that the human being in his inmost nature has come into existence through them and has been sent by them on his journey through the ages, those beings we sense in the majesty and in the minutest appearances of outer nature, those divine spiritual beings cannot become envious. Yet in olden times the envy of the gods denoted something very real. Following the human race in its development up to about the time of Ephesus we find that indeed the more advanced human individuals had taken for themselves much of what the good gods had been glad to give them in the Mysteries. It is quite right to say that an intimate relationship exists between the good human hearts and the good gods, a relationship made ever more close in the Mysteries. Thus the realization came about in the souls of certain other luciferic and ahrimanic godly beings that human beings were being drawn ever closer to the good gods. And thus arose the envy of the gods towards man. Again and again we hear in history that a human being striving for the spirit; if he meets with a tragic destiny, is described as having been a victim of the envy of the gods.
The ancient Greeks knew of this envy of the gods and they traced much of what took place in external human evolution back to this envy of the gods. The burning of the temple at Ephesus made it obvious that a certain further spiritual development of mankind is only possible if human beings realize that there are gods, that is super-sensible beings, who are envious of the further progress of humankind. This has coloured the whole of history since the burning of the temple at Ephesus, or I could say since the birth of Alexander. [Note 77] And a proper conception of the Mystery of Golgotha, too, must take into account that we look into a world that is filled with the envy of certain races of gods. From soon after the Persian wars the atmosphere of soul in Greece had been filled with the consequences of this envy of the gods. And what was then accomplished at the time of Macedonia had to be carried out in full awareness of the envy of the gods reigning over the face of the earth in the spiritual atmosphere. Yet it was carried out courageously, boldly, in defiance of misunderstandings on the part of both gods and men.
And there came down into this atmosphere filled with the envy of the gods the deed of that God who was capable of the greatest love that can possibly exist in the world. We see the Mystery of Golgotha in its true light only if we can add to everything else also the image of the clouds in the ancient world, in Hellas, Macedonia, the Near East, North Africa, Southern Europe; the image of those clouds that are an expression of the envy of the gods. Wondrously warming, gently gleaming, there falls into this cloud-filled atmosphere the love that streams through the Mystery of Golgotha.
This interaction was, if I may describe it thus, a matter which at that time took place between gods and human beings. Now, in our time, in the age of human freedom, it is something that has to take place down below, here in physical human life. And the manner in which it takes place can indeed be described. In olden times, down on the earth, one thought of the Mysteries thus: Human knowledge, human wisdom finds an abode in the Mysteries. But among the gods it was said: When we descend into the Mysteries we find there the offerings of human beings, and in the human being who makes his offering we are comprehended.
The burning of the temple at Ephesus marked the beginning of the age in which the Mysteries in their old form gradually began to disappear. I have told you how they continued to endure here and there, sublimely, for example, in the Mysteries of Hibernia, where the Mystery of Golgotha was celebrated in the divine cultus simultaneously with the actual physical event over in Palestine. They knew of it solely through the spiritual communication that existed between Palestine and Hibernia. There was no physical communication. Nevertheless, in the physical world the Mysteries receded more and more. The external abodes, which were places of encounter between gods and human beings, increasingly lost their significance. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they had lost it almost entirely. Those who wanted to find the way, for example to the Holy Grail, had to know how to follow spiritual paths. In olden times, before the burning of the temple at Ephesus, the paths to be trodden were physical paths. In the Middle Ages the paths were spiritual.
In particular a spiritual path had to be followed by one who sought instruction in the truly Rosicrucian way from the thirteenth or fourteenth century onwards, but even more so from the fifteenth century. The temples of the Rosicrucians were profoundly hidden from any external physical experience. Many true Rosicrucians frequented the temples, but these temples could not be found by any external, physical human eye. But it was possible for pupils to find these aged Rosicrucians who lived here or there like hermits of wisdom, hermits of the holy human deed. They could be found by those who could comprehend the language of the gods speaking out of gently shining eyes. I am not talking figuratively. I do not want to speak in pictures. I am telling you of an actual reality which was extremely significant at the time to which I am pointing. The pupils found their Rosicrucian teacher if they had first gained the capacity to understand the language of the heavens speaking out of gently shining physical eyes. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Central Europe these remarkable personalities were to be found living in the most modest surroundings, in the most unassuming human accommodation. They were filled with the divine spirit; in their inner being they were linked to the spiritual temples which existed but to which access was truly as difficult to find as was that to the Holy Grail described in the well-known legend.
Looking at what took place between one of these Rosicrucian teachers and his pupil, we can overhear many a conversation that describes in the form appropriate for more recent times the divine wisdom as it exists on the earth. The instruction was profoundly concrete. A Rosicrucian teacher was discovered in his solitude by a pupil who had enthusiastically endeavoured to seek and find him. A pupil gazed into the gently shining eyes out of which flows the speech of gods and, modestly, he received something like the following instruction.
Look, my son, at your own being. You bear with you that body which your external, physical eyes can see. The very centre of the earth sends to this body the forces which make it visible. This is your physical body. But look around you at your own environment on the earth. You see stones; they are permitted to exist on the earth; their dwelling place is on the earth. Once they have taken on a shape, they can maintain it through the forces of the earth. Look at the crystal. It bears a form and through the earth it retains this form of its own nature. Your physical body is incapable of this. If your soul departs from it, then the earth destroys it, it dissolves it into dust. The earth has no power over your physical body. It has the power to shape and to maintain the transparent, wonderfully formed shapes of the crystal; but it has no power to maintain the shape of your physical body; it has to dissolve it into dust. Your physical body is not of this earth. Your physical body is of supreme spirituality. To Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones belong the form and shape of your physical body. Your physical body does not belong to the earth; it belongs to those spiritual forces which are the highest as yet accessible to you. The earth can destroy it but never build it up.
And within this your physical body lives your etheric body. The day will come when your physical body is taken in by the earth in order to be destroyed. Then your etheric body will dissolve into the widths of the cosmos. The widths of the cosmos can dissolve this etheric body but they cannot build it up. Only those divine, spiritual beings belonging to the hierarchy of the Dynamis, Exusiai and Kyriotetes can build it up. You unite with your physical body the physical substances of the earth. But that which is in you transforms the physical substances of the earth in such a way that within them there is no longer anything resembling whatever is physical in the environment of your physical body. Your etheric body moves everything in you that is liquid or watery. The juices that stream and circulate are under the influence of your etheric body. See your blood: Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes cause this blood as a liquid to circulate through your arteries. You are human only in your physical body. In your etheric body you are still animal, but an animal enspirited by the second hierarchy.
What I have been saying to you compressed into a few words was the subject of long instruction by that teacher in whose gently shining eyes the pupil heard the speech of heaven. Then the attention of the pupil was drawn to the third member of the human being, which we call the astral body. The pupil was shown how this astral body contains the impulse to breathe and to be involved with everything that is aeriform in the human organism, with everything that pulses as air through the human organism. The earthly realm may endeavour, for ages after the human being has stepped through the portal of death, to rumble about in the aeriform realm. For years the clairvoyant eye can discern the astral bodies of those who have died rumbling about in the atmospheric phenomena of the earth. Yet the earthly realm with all its environment is incapable of doing anything to the impulses of the astral body except dissolve them. The beings of the third hierarchy, Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi, alone can form it.
Thus, deeply moving the heart of his pupil, the teacher said: In your physical body, by taking in and transforming the mineral kingdom, by taking in the human realm and working on it, you belong to Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. In so far as you are an etheric body, you are animal-like in the etheric realm, but you belong to the spirits called the spirits of the second hierarchy, Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai; in so far as you weave in the fluid element you do not belong to the earth but to this hierarchy. And by weaving in the aeriform element you do not belong to the earth but to the hierarchy of Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai.
Having undergone sufficient instruction in this way, the pupil no longer felt related to the earth. Going out, he sensed, from his physical, etheric and astral bodies were the forces that joined him through the mineral world with the first hierarchy, through the watery earth with the second hierarchy and through the encircling air with the third hierarchy. It was clear to him that he lives on the earth solely through the element of warmth which he bears within him. Thus the Rosicrucian pupil felt the warmth he bears within him, the physical warmth, to be what is actually the earthly, human element in him. And he learnt increasingly to feel that this physical warmth is related to warmth of soul and warmth of spirit. Human beings living in later times have increasingly forgotten how their physical content, their etheric content and their astral content is related to the divine world through the solid element, the fluid element and the aeriform element. But the Rosicrucian pupil knew this full well. He knew that the warmth element is that which is truly earthly and human. At the moment when the pupil of the Rosicrucian master realized this mystery of the connection between the element of warmth and the human, earthly element, he knew how to link his human element with the spiritual world.
Before entering those often quite unassuming dwellings inhabited by such Rosicrucian teachers, the pupils were shown, usually without their seeking it and in a seemingly miraculous manner—the one in this way and the other in another way, often coincidentally, so outwardly it seemed—they were shown that they must seek to link their own spirit with the spirit of the cosmos. And when the pupil had received from his teacher the instruction about which I have just been speaking, then, yes then he could say to his teacher: I now depart from you having received the greatest consolation possible on earth; by showing me that warmth is truly the element of earthly man you have enabled me to link my physical aspect with the realm of soul and spirit; I take the soul element not into my solid bones, not into my liquid blood, not into my airy breath, but into my element of warmth.
In utmost peace those who had received such instruction departed, in those days, from their teachers. And out of the peace in their countenance which expressed the outcome of that great consolation, out of the peace in their countenance there developed gradually that gentle glance through which the speech of heaven can resound. Thus profound instruction in the realm of the soul was available right into the first third of the fifteenth century, hidden away from those events of which external history tells us. An instruction took place which encompassed the total human being, an instruction that permitted the human soul to link its own being with the sphere of the cosmos and of the spirit.
This spiritual mood has entirely drained away during the course of the last few centuries. It no longer belongs to our civilization. A superficial civilization, estranged from the gods, has spread itself over what were once the dwelling places that saw what I have just described to you. Here one stands today with the memory, which can only be called up in the light of the astral world, of many a scene resembling the one I have described. Hence our basic mood when we first look back to those ages that are often described as being so dark, and then look out into our present time. But when we look back in this way our heart is stirred—through the spiritual revelations that can once more be received by mankind since the final third of the nineteenth century—by a deep longing to speak in a spiritual way once more to human beings. And this spiritual way of speaking is not dependent on abstract words alone; it calls for all manner of signs in order to be all-embracing. And a language needed for those spiritual beings who are to speak to modern mankind, such a way of speaking existed indeed in the forms of our Goetheanum, burnt down a year ago. Truly these forms were to have spoken out into the world the ideas told to the audience from the platform. Thus in a certain way the Goetheanum was something that could, in an entirely new form, remind us of something ancient.
When the one approaching initiation entered into the temple at Ephesus, his glance was drawn to that statue about which I have spoken during these days, that statue which called to him in words of the heart: Unite with the world ether and you shall see the earthly realm from etheric heights. Thus did many a pupil at Ephesus view the earthly realm from etheric heights. And a certain race of gods grew envious. But centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha courageous human beings nevertheless found ways, despite the envy of the gods, to carry forward—weakly, perhaps, but not so weakly that it remained without effect—that which had worked since the days of ancient and holy human evolution right up to the time of the burning of the temple. And if our Goetheanum could have been finally completed, then once again, as we entered from the West, our glance would have fallen on that statue which would have challenged the human being to know himself as a cosmic being placed between the forces of Lucifer and the forces of Ahriman with the inward, divinely sustained equilibrium of his being. And when our glance fell on the forms of the pillars, the architraves, they spoke a language that was a continuation of what was expressed from the platform in the ideas which worked as though interpreting the spirit. The words continued to resound along the sculpted forms. And up above, in the dome, were scenes to be seen, scenes which brought human evolution closer to spiritual sight. In this Goetheanum there was indeed, for those who had a feeling for it, a memory of the temple at Ephesus.
But that memory grew terribly painful when the burning torch was applied to this very Goetheanum in a manner that was not at all dissimilar to ancient times, not at all dissimilar especially as regards the moment of evolution in which the Goetheanum was, of itself, to have become the bearer of a renewal of spiritual life.
My dear friends, our pain was profound. Our pain was inexpressible. But we formed the resolve to continue our work for the spiritual world unhindered by the most sorrowful and most tragic event that could possibly have come upon us. For in our heart of hearts we could say that in the flames rising up from Ephesus was written the envy of the gods, at a time when human beings still had to follow rather more without freedom the will of good or evil gods.
In our day human beings are organized more towards freedom. And a year ago, in the night of New Year's Eve, we saw before us the devouring flames. The red blaze shot skywards. Dark blueish, reddish-yellow lines of flame curled through the seething sea of fire, generated by the metal instruments contained in the Goetheanum, a gigantic sea of flame containing the most varied shades and colours. And gazing into this sea of flame with the coloured lines darting hither and thither one could not but read words which spoke to the pain in one's soul: the envy of human beings.
Thus what speaks from epoch to epoch in human evolution comes together, link by link, even in the greatest of misfortunes. An unbroken thread runs from the words that give expression to the greatest misfortune at a time when human beings still looked up to the gods without freedom, a time when they ought to have been making themselves free of this unfreedom. An unbroken thread of spiritual evolution runs from that misfortune which bore, inscribed in the flames, the words about the envy of the gods. This unbroken thread runs right through to our own misfortune in a time when human beings ought to be finding the strength for freedom, a misfortune in which the flames bore the incription: the envy of human beings. In Ephesus the statue of the goddess; here in the Goetheanum the statue of the human being, the statue of the representative of man, Christ Jesus, into whom, identifying ourselves with him, in all humility, we thought to merge in knowledge, just as in olden times, in their own way, no longer quite comprehensible to mankind today, the pupils of Ephesus merged into Diana of Ephesus.
We do not lessen our pain by viewing in the light of history what took place on New Year's Eve last year. When I was permitted to stand for the last time on that platform that had been set up in harmony with the whole of the building, the intention had been to guide the eyes of the listeners, to guide the eyes of their souls towards the ascent from earthly realms into starry realms that express the will and the wisdom, the light of the spiritual cosmos. Many of the spirits who taught their pupils in the Middle Ages in the manner described just now stood, I know, as godparents at that moment. And an hour after the last word had been spoken I was called to the burning Goetheanum. We spent the night of New Year's Eve last year watching the Goetheanum burning.
The mere utterance of these words, dear friends, conjures up an inexpressible response in all our hearts, in all our souls. When something like this has swept across a hallowed place in human evolution, there have always been a few who have vowed to work on in the spirit devoted to what had once been physical even though whatever it had been was no longer present. And gathered now as we are on the anniversary of that misfortune of the Goetheanum, let us be aware that our souls will be living in the proper mood for this our gathering if we all vow to carry on in spirit through this wave of progress in human evolution that which was present in physical form, as a physical image and a physical shape in the Goetheanum, visible to our physical eyes, before being snatched away from our physical perception by a Herostratos-deed. Our pain attaches itself to the old Goetheanum. We shall only become worthy of having been permitted to build that Goetheanum if today in remembering it we vow, before whatever is best and most divine in each one of our souls, to keep faith with the spiritual impulses that had been given an outer form in that Goetheanum. It was possible for this Goetheanum to be taken from us. The Spirit of this Goetheanum, if our will is truly upright and honest, cannot be taken from us. And least of all will it be taken from us if at this solemn and festive hour, separated by so short a time from the moment a year ago when the flames leapt up from our beloved Goetheanum, if at this moment we not only feel the pain anew but also vow out of this pain to keep faith with that Spirit for whom, over ten long years, we were permitted to build this abode.
Then, my dear friends, when this inner vow flows from our heart in all honesty and uprightness, when we can transform the pain and suffering into the impulse for doing deeds, then shall we transform the sorrowful event into a blessing. The pain cannot diminish because of this, but it behoves us to find out of this very pain the incentive to act, the incentive to do deeds in the spirit.
And so, my dear friends, let us look back to the terrible flames of fire which filled us with such inexpressible sorrow. But let us also, in making that vow before whatever forces are the best and most divine in each of us, feel the holy flame in our hearts, the flame which is to enlighten and warm that which was willed in the Goetheanum, by bearing this will onwards through the waves of progress in human evolution. So now, more profoundly, we repeat those words which I was permitted to speak over there, a year ago almost at this very moment. I said, in essence: We are living on the eve of a new year, let us live towards a new cosmic year. If only the Goetheanum still stood amongst us, we could renew this exhortation at this moment! It no longer stands amongst us. Yet I believe that just because it no longer stands amongst us we are permitted, on this eve of another new year, to renew this exhortation with a force increased many times over. Let us bear the Soul of the Goetheanum over into the new cosmic year, and let us endeavour to build in the new Goetheanum a worthy monument to the body of the old Goetheanum, a worthy memorial!
My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.
My dear friends, you greeted me this evening by standing in memory of the old Goetheanum. You are living in the memory of this old Goetheanum. Let us stand once more as a sign that we vow to work on in the Spirit of the Goetheanum with whatever best forces we can find in the image of our inner human being. Indeed, so be it. Amen.
Thus let us continue, my dear friends, as long as we are able, in accordance with the will that unites our human souls with the souls of the gods with whom we wish to keep faith in the spirit, in the spirit out of which we sought this faith with them at a certain moment in our lives, at that moment when we sought the spiritual wisdom of the Goetheanum. Let us understand how to keep this faith.
Der Neid Der Götter — Der Neid Der Menschen
Rückblick Auf Den Brand Des Goetheanums In Der Silvesternacht 1922/1923
Meine lieben Freunde!
Wir stehen heute in dem Zeichen einer schmerzlichen Erinnerung, und wir wollen dasjenige, was wir gerade heute zum Inhalte dieses Vortrages zu nehmen haben, durchaus in das Zeichen dieser schmerzlichen Erinnerung stellen. Der Vortrag, den ich in unserem alten Bau gerade vor einem Jahre halten durfte: diejenigen von Ihnen, die anwesend waren, werden sich daran erinnern, wie er den Weg genommen hat, von der Schilderung irdischer, natürlicher Verhältnisse ausgehend, hinauf in die geistigen Welten und die Offenbarungen dieser geistigen Welten aus der Schrift der Sterne; wie dann die Möglichkeit vorhanden war, das menschliche Herz, die Menschenseele, den menschlichen Geist in Zusammenhang zu bringen ihrem ganzen Wesen nach mit dem, was gefunden werden kann, wenn man den Weg hinaus nimmt aus dem Irdischen nicht nur in die Sternenweiten, sondern in dasjenige, was durch die Sternenweiten wie eine Weltenschrift das Geistige abbildet. Und das Letzte, was ich hinschreiben durfte auf die Tafel in jenem Raum, der uns dann bald darauf genommen ward, ging durchaus darauf hinaus, die menschliche Seele hinaufzuheben in geistige Höhen. Damit war eigentlich gerade an jenem Abend unmittelbar angeknüpft an dasjenige, dem ja unser Goetheanum-Bau durch seine ganze Wesenheit gewidmet sein sollte. Und von dem, woran damals angeknüpft worden ist, lassen Sie mich zunächst heute wie in einer Fortsetzung gerade des Vortrages, der vor einem Jahre hier gehalten worden ist, sprechen.
Wenn in der Zeit, die dem Brande von Ephesus vorangegangen ist, die Rede war von den Mysterien, dann sprachen alle diejenigen, welche in ihrem Gemüte etwas verstanden von dem Mysterienwesen, so, daß ihre Rede ungefähr klang: Menschliches Wissen, menschliche Weisheit hat eine Stätte, eine Heimstätte in den Mysterien. - Und wenn in jenen alten Zeiten unter den geistigen Lenkern der Welt die Rede von den Mysterien war, wenn also in übersinnlichen Welten von den Mysterien gesprochen wurde - ich darf mich dieser Ausdrücke bedienen, obwohl sie natürlich nur in figürlicher Weise die Art bezeichnen, wie von den übersinnlichen Welten herunter gedacht und wie gewirkt wird in die sinnlichen —, wenn also in den übersinnlichen Welten gesprochen wurde von den Mysterien, da klang ungefähr die Rede so: In den Mysterien errichten die Menschen Stätten, wo wir Götter die opfernden Menschen finden können, die uns verstehen im Opfer. - Denn in der Tat, das war allgemeines Bewußtsein der alten Welt, derer, die da wußsten in der alten Welt, daß sich in den Mysterienstätten Götter und Menschen begegneten, und daß alles dasjenige, was die Welt trägt und hält, abhängt von dem, was sich abspielt in den Mysterien zwischen den Göttern und zwischen den Menschen.
Aber es gibt ein Wort, das ja auch äußerlich historisch überliefert ist, das aus dieser historischen Überlieferung ja ergreifend sprechen kann zum Menschenherzen, das aber besonders ergreifend spricht, wenn man es sieht aus ganz besonderen Ereignissen heraus sich formen, wie mit ehernen, aber nur für den Augenblick im Geiste sichtbaren Lettern hineingeschrieben in die Geschichte der Menschheit. Und ich meine, ein solches Wort ist immer zu sehen, wenn der geistige Blick hinzielt auf die Herostratos-Tat, den Brand von Ephesus. Man kann in diesen Feuerflammen das alte Wort finden: der Neid der Götter.
Ich glaube allerdings, daß unter den mancherlei Worten, die aus alten Zeiten überliefert sind, die im Leben alter Zeiten auf die Weise zu sehen sind, wie ich sie eben geschildert habe, in dieser physischen Welt dieses eines der furchtbarsten ist: der Neid der Götter. In jenen alten Zeiten wurde alles mit dem Worte «Gott» bezeichnet, was in übersinnlicher Wesenheit so lebte, daß es niemals nötig hatte, in einem physischen Leib auf Erden zu erscheinen, und man unterschied in jenen alten Zeiten die mannigfaltigsten Göttergeschlechter. Und ganz gewiß, diejenigen göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, welche so verbunden sind mit der Menschheit, daß der Mensch seinem innersten Wesen nach durch sie entstanden und durch den Lauf der Zeiten geschickt ist, diese göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, die wir verspüren durch die Majestät und durch die kleinsten Erscheinungen der äußeren Natur, die wir verspüren durch dasjenige, was in unserem Innern lebt, diese göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten können nicht neidisch werden. Aber in der alten Zeit meinte man mit dem Neid der Götter dennoch etwas sehr Reales. Wenn wir die Zeit verfolgen, in der sich das Menschengeschlecht bis gegen Ephesus hin entwickelt hat, da finden wir, daß allerdings die fortgeschritteneren menschlichen Individuen vieles von dem, was ihnen die guten Götter gern in den Mysterien gegeben haben, an sich genommen haben. Denn wir treffen durchaus das Richtige, wenn wir sagen: Es besteht zwischen den guten Menschenherzen und den guten Göttern ein inniges Verhältnis, das immer fester und fester gebunden wurde in den Mysterien, so daß es gewissen anderen luziferisch-ahrimanischen Götterwesenheiten vor die Seele getreten ist, daß der Mensch immer näher und näher herangezogen wurde an die guten Gottheiten. Und es entstand der Neid der Götter auf den Menschen. - Und wir müssen es immer wieder und wiederum in der Geschichte hören, wie der nach dem Geist strebende Mensch, wenn er einem tragischen Geschick verfällt, in den alten Zeiten so bezeichnet wird, daß man sein tragisches Geschick zusammenbringt mit dem Neid der Götter.
Die Griechen wußten, daß dieser Neid der Götter besteht, und sie leiteten manches von dem, was äußerlich vorging in der Menschheitsentwickelung, von diesem Neid der Götter her. Mit dem Brande von Ephesus ist eigentlich offenbar geworden, daß eine gewisse geistige Weiterentwickelung der Menschheit nur möglich ist, wenn die Menschen sich bewußt wurden: Es gibt Götter, das heißt übersinnliche Wesenheiten, die auf den weiteren Fortschritt der Menschen neidisch sind. — Das gibt schließlich aller Geschichte, die da folgte auf den Brand von Ephesus - ich kann auch sagen, auf die Geburt des Alexander -, das besondere Kolorit. Und zu der rechten Auffassung des Mysteriums von Golgatha gehört auch dieses: Man schaue hin auf eine Welt, die erfüllt ist von dem Neide gewisser Göttergeschlechter. - Ja, die seelische Atmosphäre, sie war eigentlich in Griechenland schon seit einer Zeit, die bald nach dem Perserkriege liegt, erfüllt von den Auswirkungen dieses Neides der Götter. Und dasjenige, was in der makedonischen Zeit dann getan worden ist, mußte im vollen Bewußtsein davon getan werden, daß der Neid der Götter über die Erdoberfläche hin in geistiger Atmosphäre waltet. Aber es wurde getan mutvoll, kühn, den Mißverständnissen der Götter und Menschen trotzend.
Und es senkte sich hinein in diese Atmosphäre, die erfüllt war von dem Neide der Götter, die Tat desjenigen Gottes, der fähig war der größten Liebe, die in der Welt existieren kann. Man sieht das Mysterium von Golgatha nur im rechten Lichte, wenn man zu allem übrigen auch noch hinzufügen kann das Bild der Wolken in der alten Welt, in Hellas, Makedonien, Vorderasien, Nordafrika, Südeuropa; das Bild der Wolken, die da der Ausdruck sind des Neides der Götter. Und wunderbar wärmend, mild strahlend fällt hinein in diese wolkenerfüllte Atmosphäre die Liebe, die da strömt durch das Mysterium von Golgatha,
Das, was dazumal, wenn ich so sagen darf, eine Angelegenheit war, die sich zwischen Göttern und Menschen abspielte, sie muß sich ja in unserer Zeit, in der Zeitepoche der menschlichen Freiheit, mehr unten im physischen Menschenleben abspielen. Und man kann schon schildern, wie sie sich abspielt. In alten Zeiten, wenn man an die Mysterien dachte, sprach man davon auf Erden: Menschliche Erkenntnis, menschliche Weisheit hat in den Mysterien eine Heimstätte. - Wenn man unter den Göttern war, so sagte man: Wenn wir in die Mysterien hinuntersteigen, dann finden wir die Opfer der Menschen, und im opfernden Menschen werden wir verstanden.
Im Grunde genommen war der Brand von Ephesus der Beginn derjenigen Epoche, in der das Mysterienwesen allmählich in seiner alten Form verschwand. Ich habe erzählt, wie es fortbestanden hat da und dort, grandios zum Beispiel in den Mysterien von Hybernia, wo im Kultus das Mysterium von Golgatha gleichzeitig gefeiert worden ist, während es physisch drüben in Palästina vor sich ging. Man hatte Kenntnis davon nur aus der geistigen Vermittlung zwischen Palästina und Hybernia; nicht durch physische Vermittlung. Aber dennoch, das Mysterienwesen in der physischen Welt ging immer mehr und mehr zurück. Die äußeren Heimstätten, die Begegnungsstätten waren zwischen Göttern und Menschen, verloren immer mehr und mehr ihre Bedeutung. Sie hatten sie fast vollständig verloren im 13., 14. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert. Denn wer den Weg finden wollte, zum Beispiel zum Heiligen Gral, der mußte geistige Wege zu gehen verstehen. Physische Wege war man gegangen in der alten Zeit, vor dem Brande von Ephesus. Geistige Wege mußte man gehen im Mittelalter.
Insbesondere aber mußte man geistige Wege gehen, wenn es sich darum handelte, vom 13., 14. Jahrhundert, namentlich aber vom 15. Jahrhundert ab eine wirkliche Rosenkreuzer-Unterweisung zu erlangen. Denn die Tempel der Rosenkreuzer waren tief verborgen für das äußere physische Erleben. Viele wirkliche Rosenkreuzer waren Besucher der Tempel, aber kein äußeres physisches Menschenauge konnte die Tempel finden. Schüler aber konnte es geben, die kamen zu diesen alten Rosenkreuzern, die da und dort wie Eremiten des Wissens und der heiligen Menschentat zu finden waren, zu finden waren für denjenigen, der aus mildem Augenglanz Göttersprache vernehmen kann. Ich sage damit nichts Uneigentliches. Ich will kein Bild aussprechen, ich will durchaus eine Wirklichkeit aussprechen, die in der Zeit, auf die ich deute, wirklich eine recht bedeutsame Wirklichkeit war. Den Rosenkreuzer-Meister fand man, wenn man sich erst die Fähigkeit erworben hatte, im physischen milden Augenglanz die Himmelssprache vernehmen zu können. Dann fand man in anspruchslosester Umgebung, in anspruchslosesten menschlichen Verhältnissen, gerade im 14., 15. Jahrhundert in Mitteleuropa diese merkwürdigen Persönlichkeiten, die in ihrem Innern gotterfüllt waren, die in ihrem Innern zusammenhingen mit den geistigen Tempeln, die vorhanden waren, zu welchen aber der Zugang wirklich so schwierig war wie derjenige, der als Zugang zum Heiligen Gral in der bekannten Legende geschildert wird.
Dann, wenn man hinschaut auf dasjenige, was sich abspielte zwischen einem solchen Rosenkreuzer-Meister und seinem Schüler, dann kann man manches Gespräch belauschen, welches auch in der Form der neueren Zeit Götterweisheit auf Erden wandelnd darstellt. Die Unterweisungen waren durchaus tief konkret. Da wurde in seiner Einsamkeit ein Rosenkreuzer-Meister gefunden von einem Schüler, der es sich hat heiß werden lassen, ihn zu suchen und zu finden. Da schaute einer der Schüler in die mild blickenden Augen, aus denen Göttersprache spricht, und da bekam er anspruchslos etwa die folgende Unterweisung.
Schaue hin, mein Sohn, auf deine eigene Wesenheit. Du trägst an dir jenen Körper, den deine äußeren physischen Augen sehen. Der Mittelpunkt der Erde schickt diesem Körper die Kräfte, die ihn sichtbar machen. Das ist dein physischer Leib. Aber schaue dich um in der Umgebung deiner selbst auf der Erde. Du siehst die Steine, sie dürfen für sich auf der Erde sein, sie sind heimatlich auf der Erde. Sie können, wenn sie eine Gestalt angenommen haben, diese Gestalt behalten durch die Erdenkräfte. Siehe den Kristall: Er trägt seine Form in sich, er behält diese Form seiner eigenen Wesenheit durch die Erde. Das kann dein physischer Leib nicht. Verläßt ihn deine Seele, dann zerstört ihn die Erde, dann löst sie ihn in Staub auf. Die Erde hat keine Macht über deinen physischen Leib. Sie hat die Macht, die durchsichtigen, wunderbar gestalteten Kristallgebilde zu bilden und zu erhalten; sie hat keine Macht, die Gestalt deines physischen Leibes zu erhalten, sie muß ihn in Staub auflösen. Nicht von der Erde ist dein physischer Leib. Dein physischer Leib ist von hoher Geistigkeit. Seraphim, Cherubim, Throne, ihnen gehört dasjenige, was Form und Gestalt deines physischen Leibes ist. Nicht der Erde gehört dieser physische Leib; den höchsten dir zunächst zugänglichen geistigen Mächten gehört dieser physische Leib. Die Erde kann ihn zerstören, niemals kann sie ihn aufbauen.
Und innerhalb dieses deines physischen Leibes wohnt dein ätherischer Leib. Es wird der Tag kommen, da dein physischer Leib von der Erde zur Zerstörung angenommen wird. Dann wird dein ätherischer Leib in den Weiten des Kosmos sich auflösen. Die Weiten des Kosmos können diesen ätherischen Leib zwar auflösen, aber nicht aufbauen. Aufbauen können ihn nur jene göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten, die der Hierarchie der Dynamis, Exusiai, Kyriotetes angehören. Ihnen verdankst du deinen ätherischen Leib. Du vereinigst mit deinem physischen Leib die physischen Stoffe der Erde. Was aber in dr ist, wandelt die physischen Stoffe der Erde so um, daß es in ihnen ungleich wird allem, was physisch in der Umgebung des physischen Leibes ist. Dein ätherischer Leib bewegt alles dasjenige in dir, was in dir Flüssigkeit, was in dir Wasser ist. Die Säfte, die da kreisen, die da zirkulieren, sie stehen unter dem Einflusse deines ätherischen Leibes. Aber sieh dein Blut: Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, sie sind es, die dieses Blut als Flüssigkeit durch deine Adern kreisen lassen. Du bist nur als physischer Körper Mensch. In deinem Ätherleib bist du noch Tier, aber ein Tier, das durchgeistigt wird von der zweiten Hierarchie.
Dasjenige, was ich Ihnen hier, allerdings jetzt in wenigen Worten, zusammenfasse, es war der Gegenstand eines langen Unterrichtes jenes Meisters, in dessen mildem Augen-Blick der Schüler die Sprache des Himmels vernahm. Dann wurde der Schüler hingewiesen auf das dritte Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit, das wir den astralischen Leib nennen. Dem Schüler wurde klargemacht, daß dieser astralische Leib die Impulse enthält zum Atmen, zu alledem, was Luft im menschlichen Organismus ist, zu alledem, was als Luft pulsiert im menschlichen Organismus. Aber obwohl das Irdische sich bemüht, durch eine lange Zeit, nachdem der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, gewissermaßen zu rumoren im Luftartigen und für einen hellsichtigen Blick in den atmosphärischen Erscheinungen der Erde jahrelang wahrzunehmen ist das Poltern der astralischen Leiber der Verstorbenen, so kann auch die Erde mit ihrem Umkreis doch nichts anderes tun gegenüber den Impulsen des astralischen Leibes, als sie auflösen. Denn bilden können sie nur die Wesenheiten der dritten Hierarchie, Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi.
Und so sagte, damit den Schüler tief ins Herz treffend, der Meister: Du gehörst deinem physischen Leibe nach, insofern du das Mineralreich in dich aufnimmst und es veränderst, insofern du das Menschenreich in dich aufnimmst und es verarbeitest, du gehörst den Seraphim, Cherubim, Thronen an. Insofern du ein ätherischer Leib bist, bist du im Ätherischen tierähnlich, aber du gehörst da den Geistern an, die da bezeichnet werden als die der zweiten Hierarchie: Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai, und insofern du im flüssigen Elemente waltest, gehörst du nicht der Erde an, sondern dieser Hierarchie. Und indem du im luftförmigen Elemente waltest, gehörst du nicht der Erde an, sondern der Hierarchie der Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai.
Und nachdem in genügender Weise der Schüler diese Unterweisung erhalten hatte, fühlte er sich nicht mehr als einen Angehörigen der Erde. Er fühlte gewissermaßen von seinem physischen, ätherischen, astralischen Leib ausgehend die Kräfte, die ihn durch die Mineralwelt verbinden mit der ersten Hierarchie, durch die wässerige Erde verbinden mit der zweiten Hierarchie, durch den Luftkreis verbinden mit der dritten Hierarchie. Und klar war ihm: er lebt auf der Erde lediglich durch dasjenige, was er als Wärmeelement in sich trägt. Damit aber empfand der Rosenkreuzer-Schüler die Wärme, die er in sich trägt, die physische Wärme, die er in sich trägt, als das eigentliche Irdisch-Menschliche. Und immer mehr lernte er verwandt fühlen mit dieser physischen Wärme die Seelenwärme und die Geisteswärme. Und während der spätere Mensch immer mehr und mehr verkannt hat, wie mit dem Göttlichen zusammenhängen sein physischer Inhalt, sein ätherischer Inhalt, sein astralischer Inhalt durch Festes, Flüssiges, Luftförmiges, hat der Rosenkreuzer-Schüler dies recht gut gewußt und hat gewußt: Das wahrhaft Irdisch-Menschliche ist das Wärmeelement. In dem Augenblicke, wo dem Schüler des Rosenkreuzer-Meisters dieses Geheimnis vom Zusammenhange des Wärmeelementes mit dem Menschlich-Irdischen aufgegangen war, in diesem Momente wußte er sein Menschliches an das Geistige anzuknüpfen.
Und in jenen oftmals recht anspruchslosen Heimen, in denen solche Rosenkreuzer-Meister wohnten, da war es, daß vor dem Eintritt auf eine oftmals ungesuchte, ja wunderbar erscheinende Weise die Schüler vorbereitet wurden, indem sie aufmerksam gemacht wurden - der eine auf diese, der andere auf jene Art, es schien oftmals äußerlich ein Zufall zu sein —, indem sie aufmerksam darauf gemacht wurden: Du mußt suchen, wo sich dein Geistiges an das KosmischGeistige anschließen kann. - Und wenn der Schüler jene Unterweisung, von der ich Ihnen eben gesprochen habe, erhalten hatte, dann, ja dann konnte er seinem Meister sagen: Ich gehe jetzt von dir mit dem größten Troste, der mir auf Erden hat werden können. Denn dadurch, daß du mir gezeigt hast, daß der irdische Mensch sein Element wahrhaftig in der Wärme hat, dadurch hast du mir die Möglichkeit gegeben, mit meinem Physischen anzuknüpfen an das Seelische und Geistige. In die festen Knochen, in das flüsssige Blut, in die luftförmige Atmung bringe ich nicht hinein das Seelische. In das Wärmeelement bringe ich es hinein.
Und eine ungeheure Ruhe war es, mit der die also Unterwiesenen in jenen Zeiten von ihren Meistern hinweggingen. Und aus der Ruhe des Anlitzes, die ausdrückte das Ergebnis des großen Trostes, aus der Ruhe des Anlitzes entwickelte sich allmählich jener milde Blick, aus dem die Sprache des Himmels sprechen kann. Und so war eine tiefe seelische Unterweisung im Grunde vorhanden bis in das erste Drittel des 15. Jahrhunderts herein, verborgen gegenüber jenen Vorgängen, von denen die äußere Geschichte berichtet. Aber eine Unterweisung fand da statt, welche den ganzen Menschen ergriffen hat, eine Unterweisung, welche die menschliche Seele an die Sphäre des Kosmisch-Geistigen hat anknüpfen lassen ihr eigenes Wesen.
Diese ganze geistige Stimmung, sie ist im Laufe der letzten Jahrhunderte dahingegangen. Sie ist nicht mehr in unserer Zivilisation enthalten. Und eine äußerliche, gottfremde Zivilisation hat sich über die Stätten ausgebreitet, die einstmals solches gesehen haben, wie ich es Ihnen jetzt eben geschildert habe. Man steht heute da mit der Erinnerung, die ja nur im Geiste, im Astrallichte herauferschaffen werden kann, an so manche Szene, die ähnlich derjenigen ist, die ich Ihnen eben geschildert habe. Das gibt die Grundstimmung, die man heute hat, wenn man zurückblickt in jene Zeiten, die oftmals als so finster geschildert werden, und dann blickt in unsere Zeit. Aber bei diesem Blick geht im Herzen auf aus den geistigen Offenbarungen, die seit dem letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts dem Menschen werden können, die tiefe Sehnsucht, in geistiger Art wiederum zu den Menschen zu sprechen. Und die geistige Art läßt sich nicht bloß sprechen durch abstrakte Worte, die geistige Art fordert mancherlei Zeichen, um in der umfassenden Weise zu sprechen. Und eine solche Sprache, die gefunden werden sollte für jene geistigen Wesenheiten, die zu der modernen Menschheit sprechen sollen, eine solche Sprachform waren die Formen unseres vor einem Jahre verbrannten Goetheanums. Wahrhaftig, in diesen Formen sollte weiter sprechen dasjenige, was vom Podium aus in Ideen zu den Zuhörern gesprochen worden ist. Und damit war in einer gewissen Weise mit dem Goetheanum etwas vorhanden, was wirklich an Altes in ganz neuer Form wieder erinnern konnte.
Wenn der Einzuweihende den Tempel von Ephesus betrat, dann wurde sein Blick gelenkt auf jene Statue, von der ich in diesen Tagen gesprochen habe, auf jene Statue, die ihm eigentlich die Worte in Herzenssprache zurief: Vereinige dich mit dem Weltenäther, und du schaust das Irdische aus Ätherhöhen. - So hat mancher Schüler von Ephesus das Irdische aus Ätherhöhen geschaut. Und ein gewisses Göttergeschlecht wurde neidisch. Aber gegen den Neid der Götter haben Jahrhunderte vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha dennoch mutvolle Menschen die Möglichkeit gefunden, fortzupflanzen wenn auch in Abschwächung, so doch nur in der Abschwächung, in der es fortwirken konnte - dasjenige, was aus uralt-heiligen Menschheitsentwickelungsjahren bis zum Brande von Ephesus gewirkt hat. Und wäre unser Goetheanum ganz fertig geworden, dann wäre auch vom Eintritte im Westen der Blick gefallen auf jene Statue, in der der Mensch die Aufforderung gefunden hätte, sich selber als kosmisches Wesen zu wissen, hineingestellt zwischen die Mächte des Luziferischen und die Mächte des Ahrimanischen, in innerer, gottgetragener Wesensausgleichung. Und blickte man auf die Formen der Säulen, der Architrave, so sprach das eine Sprache, eine Sprache, welche die Fortsetzung der vom Podium aus in Ideen Geistiges wie interpretierenden Sprache war. Die Worte klangen weiter entlang den Formen, die plastisch ausgestaltet waren. Und oben in der Kuppel waren zu schen jene Szenen, welche die Menschheitsentwickelung dem geistigen Blicke nahebringen konnten. Es war schon in diesem Goetheanum für den, der empfinden konnte, eine Erinnerung an den Tempel von Ephesus zu sehen.
Aber die Erinnerung wurde furchtbar schmerzlich, als auf eine gar nicht unähnliche, der alten nicht unähnlichen Weise gerade in dem Punkte der Entwickelung, in dem das Goetheanum hätte übergehen sollen durch es selbst, der Träger der Erneuerung des spirituellen Lebens zu werden, in dem Zeitpunkte nun auch die Brandfackel in dieses Goetheanum geworfen wurde.
Meine lieben Freunde, unser Schmerz war tief. Unser Schmerz war unbeschreiblich. Aber wir faßten den Entschluß, ungehindert um das Traurigste, Tragischste, das uns hat passieren können, unsere Arbeit für die geistige Welt fortzusetzen. Denn man konnte sich in seinem Herzen sagen: Schaut man hin auf die Flammen, die aus Ephesus aufsteigen, so erscheint in die Flammen hineingeschrieben der Neid der Götter in einer Zeit, in der die Menschen noch unfrei mehr dem Willen guter und böser Götter folgen mußten.
In unserer Zeit sind die Menschen organisiert zur Freiheit hin. Und vor einem Jahre, in der Silvesternacht, schauten wir hin auf die verzehrenden Flammen. Die rote Lohe ging gegen den Himmel. Dunkelbläuliche, rötlich-gelbe Flammenlinien züngelten durch das allgemeine Feuermeer, von den metallischen Instrumenten herrührend, die das Goetheanum barg, ein Riesenfeuermeer mit den mannigfaltigsten farbigen Inhalten. Und man mußte, wenn man in dieses Flammenmeer sah mit den farbigen Linien darinnen, sprechend zum Schmerze der Seele, lesen: der Neid der Menschen.
So gliedert sich dasjenige, was von Epoche zu Epoche in der Menschheitsentwickelung spricht, zusammen, selbst im größten Unglücke. Es geht ein Faden von dem Worte, das da ausdrückt ein größtes Unglück aus der Zeit, wo die Menschen noch in Unfreiheit zu den Göttern aufsahen, aber sich freimachen sollten von der Unfreiheit, es geht ein Faden der geistigen Entwickelung von jenem Unglücke, da man eingeschrieben sah in die Flammen: der Neid der Götter —, herüber zu unserem Unglücke, wo der Mensch in sich selber die Kraft der Freiheit finden soll, und wo in die Flammen eingeschrieben war: der Neid der Menschen. - In Ephesus die Götterstatue; hier im Goetheanum die Menschenstatue, die Statue des Menschheits-Repräsentanten, des Christus Jesus, in dem wir gedachten, uns mit ihm identifizierend, in aller Demut so in der Erkenntnis aufzugehen, wie einstmals in ihrer Art, auf eine heute der Menschheit nicht mehr völlig verständliche Art, die Schüler von Ephesus in der Diana von Ephesus aufgingen.
Der Schmerz wird nicht geringer, wenn man im historischen Lichte schaut dasjenige, was uns der Silvesterabend im vorigen Jahre brachte. Es hat ja sollen, als ich zum letzten Mal auf dem Podium stehen durfte, das im Einklang mit dem ganzen Bau dort aufgerichtet war, es hat ja sollen der Blick der damaligen Zuhörer, der Seelenblick, hingelenkt werden auf den Aufstieg aus irdischen Gebieten in Sternengebiete, die ausdrücken den Willen und die Weisheit, das Licht des geistigen Kosmos. Ich weiß, Pate standen dazumal manche von den Geistern, die im Mittelalter also ihre Schüler lehrten, wie ich es ihnen beschrieben habe. Und eine Stunde, nachdem das letzte Wort gesprochen war, wurde ich geholt zum Brande des Goetheanums. Und am Brande des Goetheanums verbrachten wir die Silvesternacht des vorigen Jahres.
Man braucht ja diese Worte nur auszusprechen, meine lieben Freunde, und Unsägliches geht vor in allen unseren Herzen, in allen unseren Seelen. Aber wenn sowas über ein Heiliges in der Menschheitsentwickelung hinweggezogen ist, dann gab es immer einige, die gelobten, nach der Auflösung des Physischen weiterzuwirken in dem Geiste, dem das Physische gewidmet war. Und ich denke, da ‚wir versammelt sind in dem Augenblicke, da sich jährt unser Goetheanum-Unglück, so dürfen wir gedenken, daß unsere Seelen die rechte Stimmung für dieses unser Zusammensein haben, wenn wir uns alle geloben, das im Geiste weiter durch die Fortschrittswelle der Menschheit zu tragen, was durch physische Form, physisches Bild, physische Gestaltung mit dem Goetheanum hingestellt war auch vor das physische Auge und dem physischen Auge durch eine Herostratos-Tat entzogen worden ist. Am alten Goetheanum haftet unser Schmerz. Würdig werden wir nur durch dasjenige, das uns immerhin auferlegt ist dadurch, daß wir dieses Goetheanum bauen durften, wenn wir uns heute in der Erinnerung das Gelöbnis ablegen, jeder vor dem Göttlich-Besten, das er in der Seele trägt, treu zu bleiben den geistigen Impulsen, die ihre äußere Form in jenem Goetheanum gehabt haben. Dieses Goetheanum konnte uns genommen werden. Der Geist dieses Goetheanums kann uns, wenn wir wirklich ehrlich und aufrichtig wollen, nicht genommen werden. Und er wird uns am wenigsten genommen, wenn wir in dieser ernst-feierlichen Stunde, die uns nur noch kurze Zeit trennt von dem Zeitpunkte, da vor einem Jahre herausloderten die Flammen aus unserem geliebten Goetheanum, wenn wir in diesem Augenblicke nicht nur den Schmerz erneut empfinden, sondern aus diesem Schmerze heraus uns geloben, jenem Geist treu zu bleiben, dem wir diese Stätte durch zehn Jahre hindurch aufbauen durften. Dann, meine lieben Freunde, wenn dieses innere Gelöbnis uns ehrlich, aufrichtig heute aus dem Herzen quillt, wenn wir den Schmerz, das Leiden verwandeln können in den Impuls der Tat, dann werden wir auch das traurige Ereignis verwandeln in Segen. Der Schmerz kann dadurch nicht geringer werden, aber es obliegt uns, gerade aus dem Schmerze heraus den Antrieb zur Tat, zur Tat im Geiste zu finden.
Und so, meine lieben Freunde, schauen wir zurück auf die furchtbaren Feuerflammen, die uns mit so unsäglicher Trauer erfüllten. Fühlen wir aber heute, den besten göttlichen Kräften in uns selbst uns angelobend, die heilige Flamme in unseren Herzen, die geistig leuchten und erwärmen soll dasjenige, was mit dem Goetheanum gewollt war, indem wir diesen Willen forttragen durch die Fortschrittswellen der Menschheit. So wiederholen wir in diesem Augenblicke vertieft die Worte, die ich vor einem Jahre drüben, ungefähr in diesem selben Zeitpunkte, sprechen durfte. Damals sprach ich ungefähr: Wir leben in einem Silvester, wir müssen entgegenleben einem neuen Weltenjahr. - Oh, stünde das Goetheanum noch unter uns, diese Aufforderung könnte in diesem Moment erneut werden! Es steht nicht mehr unter uns. Sie darf gerade, weil es nicht mehr unter uns steht, wie ich glaube, mit vielfach vermehrter Kraft am heutigen Silvesterabend ausgesprochen werden. Tragen wir die Seele des Goetheanums in das neue Weltenjahr hinüber, und versuchen wir, zu errichten in dem neuen Goetheanum dem Leibe des alten ein würdiges Dokument, ein würdiges Denkmal!
Das, meine lieben Freunde, knüpfe unsere Herzen an das alte Goetheanum, das wir den Elementen übergeben mußten. Das knüpfe aber unsere Herzen an den Geist, an die Seele dieses Goetheanums. Und mit diesem Angelöbnis an unser bestes Wesen in uns selber wollen wir hinüberleben nicht bloß in das neue Jahr, wollen hinüberleben tatkräftig, geisttragend, seelenführend in das neue Weltenjahr.
Meine lieben Freunde, Sie haben mich empfangen, indem Sie sich in der Erinnerung an das alte Goetheanum erhoben haben. Sie leben in der Erinnerung an dieses alte Goetheanum. Erheben wir uns jetzt zum Zeichen, daß wir uns angeloben, in dem Geiste des Goetheanums weiterzuwirken mit den besten Kräften, die wir im Bilde unseres Menschenwesens finden können. Ja, so sei es. Amen.
Und so wollen wir es halten, meine lieben Freunde, so lange wir es können, nach dem Willen, der unsere Menschenseelen verbindet mit den Götterseelen, denen wir treu bleiben wollen in dem Geiste, aus dem heraus wir diese Treue zu ihnen suchten in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte unseres Lebens, da wir die Geisteswissenschaft des Goetheanums suchten. Und verstehen wir, diese Treue zu halten.
The Envy of the Gods — The Envy of Humans
Looking Back on the Fire at the Goetheanum on New Year's Eve 1922/1923
My dear friends!
Today we stand under the sign of a painful memory, and we want to place what we have to take up in this lecture today entirely under the sign of this painful memory. The lecture I was privileged to give in our old building just one year ago: those of you who were present will remember how it took us on a journey, starting with a description of earthly, natural conditions, up into the spiritual worlds and the revelations of these spiritual worlds from the scriptures of the stars; how it was then possible to connect the human heart, the human soul, the human spirit in their entire being with what can be found when one takes the path out of the earthly realm, not only into the vastness of the stars, but into that which, through the vastness of the stars, reflects the spiritual like a script of the worlds. And the last thing I was allowed to write on the blackboard in that room, which was then taken from us soon afterwards, was all about lifting the human soul up to spiritual heights. That evening was actually directly linked to what our Goetheanum building was to be dedicated to in its entire being. And let me begin today by talking about what was connected with then, as a continuation of the lecture given here a year ago.
When, in the time preceding the burning of Ephesus, there was talk of the mysteries, all those who understood something of the nature of the mysteries in their hearts spoke in such a way that their words sounded something like this: Human knowledge, human wisdom has a place, a home in the mysteries. - And when, in those ancient times, the spiritual leaders of the world spoke of the mysteries, when, in other words, the mysteries were spoken of in supersensible worlds — I may use these expressions, although they naturally only figuratively describe the way in which the supersensible worlds think and work in the sensible worlds — when the mysteries were spoken of in the supersensible worlds, the talk sounded something like this: In the mysteries, people establish places where we gods can find sacrificing people who understand us in sacrifice. - For in fact, this was the general consciousness of the ancient world, of those in the ancient world who knew that gods and humans met in the mystery sites, and that everything that sustains and holds the world depends on what takes place in the mysteries between the gods and between humans.
But there is a word that has been handed down historically, a word that can speak movingly to the human heart from this historical tradition, but which speaks particularly movingly when one sees it forming out of very special events, as if written in letters of bronze, but only visible for a moment in the spirit, into the history of humanity. And I believe that such a word can always be seen when the spiritual gaze is directed toward the deed of Herostratos, the burning of Ephesus. In these flames of fire, one can find the ancient word: the envy of the gods.
I believe, however, that among the many words handed down from ancient times, which can be seen in the life of ancient times in the way I have just described, this is one of the most terrible in this physical world: the envy of the gods. In those ancient times, everything that lived in a supersensible being in such a way that it never needed to appear in a physical body on earth was referred to by the word “god,” and in those ancient times, a wide variety of godly families were distinguished. And certainly, those divine spiritual beings, who are so connected with humanity that man, in his innermost being, was created through them and sent through the course of time, these divine-spiritual beings, whom we sense through the majesty and through the smallest manifestations of outer nature, whom we sense through that which lives within us, these divine-spiritual beings cannot become envious. But in ancient times, the envy of the gods was nevertheless understood to be something very real. If we follow the period in which the human race developed up to Ephesus, we find that the more advanced human individuals did indeed take upon themselves much of what the good gods gladly gave them in the mysteries. For we are quite right in saying that there is an intimate relationship between good human hearts and good gods, which became ever stronger and stronger in the mysteries, so that certain other Luciferic-Ahrimanic god-beings felt threatened by the fact that human beings were drawn ever closer and closer to the good deities. And the envy of the gods toward human beings arose. And we hear again and again in history how, in ancient times, human beings who strove for the spirit and fell victim to a tragic fate were described in such a way that their tragic fate was linked to the envy of the gods.
The Greeks knew that this envy of the gods existed, and they attributed much of what happened externally in human development to this envy of the gods. With the burning of Ephesus, it actually became apparent that a certain spiritual development of humanity is only possible if people become aware that there are gods, that is, supersensible beings who are envious of the further progress of human beings. This ultimately gives all the history that followed the burning of Ephesus — I might also say the birth of Alexander — its special flavor. And the correct understanding of the mystery of Golgotha also includes this: one must look at a world that is filled with the envy of certain families of gods. - Yes, the spiritual atmosphere in Greece had actually been filled with the effects of this envy of the gods since a time soon after the Persian Wars. And what was then done in the Macedonian period had to be done in full awareness that the envy of the gods reigned over the surface of the earth in the spiritual atmosphere. But it was done courageously, boldly, defying the misunderstandings of gods and humans.
And into this atmosphere, filled with the envy of the gods, descended the deed of the god who was capable of the greatest love that can exist in the world. One can only see the mystery of Golgotha in the right light if one can add to everything else the image of the clouds in the ancient world, in Hellas, Macedonia, the Near East, North Africa, Southern Europe; the image of the clouds that are the expression of the envy of the gods. And wonderfully warming, mildly radiant, the love that flows through the mystery of Golgotha falls into this cloud-filled atmosphere.
What was once, if I may say so, a matter between gods and humans must now, in our time, in the era of human freedom, take place more down in physical human life. And one can already describe how it takes place. In ancient times, when people thought of the mysteries, they spoke of them on earth: Human knowledge, human wisdom has a home in the mysteries. When they were among the gods, they said: When we descend into the mysteries, we find the sacrifices of human beings, and in the sacrificing human being we are understood.
Basically, the burning of Ephesus marked the beginning of the era in which the mystery cults gradually disappeared in their old form. I have told how they continued to exist here and there, magnificently for example in the mysteries of Hybernia, where the mystery of Golgotha was celebrated in the cult at the same time as it was physically taking place over in Palestine. People only knew about it through spiritual communication between Palestine and Hybernia, not through physical communication. Nevertheless, the mystery cults in the physical world declined more and more. The external homes, the meeting places between gods and humans, lost more and more of their significance. They had almost completely lost them in the 13th and 14th centuries AD. For those who wanted to find the way, for example to the Holy Grail, had to know how to walk spiritual paths. Physical paths had been walked in ancient times, before the burning of Ephesus. Spiritual paths had to be walked in the Middle Ages.
In particular, however, one had to follow spiritual paths if one wanted to obtain true Rosicrucian instruction from the 13th and 14th centuries, and especially from the 15th century onwards. For the temples of the Rosicrucians were deeply hidden from external physical experience. Many true Rosicrucians were visitors to the temples, but no physical human eye could find them. However, there could be students who came to these ancient Rosicrucians, who could be found here and there as hermits of knowledge and holy human deeds, found by those who could hear the language of the gods from the gentle glow of their eyes. I am not saying anything untrue. I do not want to express an image, I want to express a reality that was truly a very significant reality in the time to which I am referring. The Rosicrucian Master was found once one had acquired the ability to hear the language of heaven in the gentle physical gleam of the eyes. Then, in the most unassuming surroundings, in the most unassuming human circumstances, especially in the 14th and 15th century in Central Europe, these remarkable personalities who were filled with God within, who were connected within themselves to the spiritual temples that existed, but to which access was as difficult as that described in the well-known legend as access to the Holy Grail.
Then, when one looks at what took place between such a Rosicrucian master and his disciple, one can overhear many a conversation that also represents divine wisdom walking on earth in the form of more recent times. The teachings were thoroughly concrete. In his solitude, a Rosicrucian master was found by a disciple who had set his heart on seeking and finding him. One of the disciples looked into the gentle eyes from which the language of the gods speaks, and without asking for anything in return, he received the following instruction.
Look, my son, at your own being. You carry with you the body that your outer physical eyes see. The center of the earth sends this body the forces that make it visible. That is your physical body. But look around you at your surroundings on earth. You see the stones; they are allowed to be on earth, they are at home on earth. Once they have taken on a form, they can retain this form through the forces of the earth. Look at the crystal: it carries its form within itself, it retains this form of its own being through the earth. Your physical body cannot do this. When your soul leaves it, the earth destroys it, dissolving it into dust. The earth has no power over your physical body. It has the power to form and maintain the transparent, wonderfully shaped crystal structures; it has no power to maintain the shape of your physical body, it must dissolve it into dust. Your physical body is not of the earth. Your physical body is of a higher spirituality. Seraphim, cherubim, thrones, they own that which is the form and shape of your physical body. This physical body does not belong to the earth; this physical body belongs to the highest spiritual powers accessible to you. The earth can destroy it, but it can never build it up.
And within this physical body of yours dwells your etheric body. The day will come when your physical body will be taken by the earth for destruction. Then your etheric body will dissolve into the vastness of the cosmos. The vastness of the cosmos can dissolve this etheric body, but it cannot build it up. Only those divine-spiritual beings who belong to the hierarchy of the Dynamis, Exusiai, and Kyriotetes can build it up. You owe your etheric body to them. You unite the physical substances of the earth with your physical body. But what is in it transforms the physical substances of the earth in such a way that it becomes unlike anything physical in the environment of the physical body. Your etheric body moves everything in you that is fluid, everything in you that is water. The juices that circulate there are under the influence of your etheric body. But look at your blood: Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, they are the ones who cause this blood to circulate as a fluid through your veins. You are only human as a physical body. In your etheric body you are still an animal, but an animal that is spiritualized by the second hierarchy.
What I am summarizing here for you, albeit in a few words, was the subject of a long lesson by that master, in whose gentle gaze the student heard the language of heaven. Then the student was pointed to the third member of the human being, which we call the astral body. It was made clear to the student that this astral body contains the impulses for breathing, for everything that is air in the human organism, for everything that pulsates as air in the human organism. But although the earthly strives, through a long time, after a person has passed through the gate of death, to rumble, as it were, in the airy realm, and for years to come, a clairvoyant gaze into the atmospheric phenomena of the earth can perceive the rumbling of the astral bodies of the deceased, yet the earth and its surroundings can do nothing else with regard to the impulses of the astral body but dissolve them. For only the beings of the third hierarchy, Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi, can form them.
And so, striking deep into the heart of his disciple, the Master said: You belong to your physical body insofar as you take in the mineral kingdom and transform it, insofar as you take in the human kingdom and process it; you belong to the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones. Insofar as you are an etheric body, you are animal-like in the etheric, but there you belong to the spirits that are designated as those of the second hierarchy: Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai, and insofar as you reign in the liquid element, you do not belong to the earth, but to this hierarchy. And inasmuch as you reign in the airy element, you do not belong to the earth, but to the hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai.
And after the student had received this instruction in sufficient measure, he no longer felt himself to be a member of the earth. He felt, as it were, emanating from his physical, etheric, and astral bodies, the forces that connect him through the mineral world with the first hierarchy, through the watery earth with the second hierarchy, and through the air circle with the third hierarchy. And it was clear to him: he lives on earth solely through what he carries within himself as a warm element. With this, however, the Rosicrucian student felt the warmth he carried within himself, the physical warmth he carried within himself, as the actual earthly-human. And more and more he learned to feel related to this physical warmth, the warmth of the soul and the warmth of the spirit. And while later humans have increasingly misunderstood how their physical content, their etheric content, their astral content are connected with the divine through solid, liquid, and gaseous forms, the Rosicrucian student knew this very well and knew that the truly earthly-human is the element of warmth. The moment the Rosicrucian master's student understood this secret of the connection between the element of warmth and the human-earthly, he knew how to connect his humanity to the spiritual.
And in those often quite modest homes where such Rosicrucian masters lived, it was there that, before entering, the disciples were prepared in a way that was often unsought, even miraculous, by being made aware — one in this way, another in that way, often seemingly by chance — by being made aware that: You must seek where your spiritual self can connect with the cosmic spiritual. And when the student had received the instruction I have just told you about, then, yes, then he could say to his master: I now leave you with the greatest comfort I could have had on earth. For by showing me that the earthly human being truly has his element in warmth, you have given me the opportunity to connect my physical being with the soul and spirit. I cannot bring the soul into the solid bones, the liquid blood, or the air-like breath. I bring it into the element of warmth.
And it was with tremendous calm that those who had been instructed in this way in those times departed from their masters. And from the calmness of their faces, which expressed the result of great comfort, from the calmness of their faces, that gentle gaze gradually developed from which the language of heaven can speak. And so a deep spiritual teaching was basically present until the first third of the 15th century, hidden from the events reported by external history. But a teaching took place there that touched the whole human being, a teaching that allowed the human soul to connect its own essence to the sphere of the cosmic-spiritual.
This whole spiritual mood has disappeared over the course of the last few centuries. It is no longer part of our civilization. And an external, godless civilization has spread over the places that once saw what I have just described to you. Today, we stand there with memories that can only be brought up in the spirit, in the astral light, of many scenes similar to the one I have just described to you. This is the basic mood we have today when we look back on those times, which are often described as so dark, and then look at our own time. But when we look at it, a deep longing arises in our hearts from the spiritual revelations that have been available to human beings since the last third of the 19th century, a longing to speak to people again in a spiritual way. And the spiritual way cannot be expressed merely through abstract words; the spiritual way requires various signs in order to speak in a comprehensive manner. And such a language, which should be found for those spiritual beings who are to speak to modern humanity, such a form of language was the forms of our Goetheanum, which burned down a year ago. Truly, in these forms, what had been spoken from the podium in ideas to the listeners should continue to speak. And so, in a certain way, the Goetheanum was something that could truly remind us of the old in a completely new form.
When the initiate entered the temple of Ephesus, his gaze was directed to the statue I have spoken of these days, the statue that actually called out to him in the language of the heart: Unite yourself with the world ether, and you will see the earthly from the heights of the ether. Thus, many a disciple of Ephesus saw the earthly from the heights of the ether. And a certain race of gods became envious. But against the envy of the gods, centuries before the mystery of Golgotha, courageous people nevertheless found a way to propagate, albeit in a weakened form, but only in a weakened form in which it could continue to have an effect — that which had been at work from the ancient, sacred years of human development until the burning of Ephesus. And if our Goetheanum had been completed, then the gaze of those entering from the west would have fallen on that statue, in which human beings would have found the invitation to know themselves as cosmic beings, placed between the powers of Lucifer and the powers of Ahriman, in inner, God-bearing balance of being. And if one looked at the forms of the columns, the architraves, they spoke a language, a language that was the continuation of the language of ideas and interpretation from the podium. The words continued to resonate along the forms, which were sculpturally designed. And up in the dome were scenes that could bring human development closer to the spiritual gaze. For those who could feel it, this Goetheanum was already a reminder of the temple of Ephesus.
But the memory became terribly painful when, in a manner not unlike the old one, at the very point in its development when the Goetheanum should have become the bearer of the renewal of spiritual life, the torch of fire was thrown into this Goetheanum.
My dear friends, our pain was deep. Our pain was indescribable. But we made the decision to continue our work for the spiritual world, unhindered by the saddest, most tragic thing that could have happened to us. For we could say in our hearts: when we look at the flames rising from Ephesus, we see written in the flames the envy of the gods at a time when people were still unfree and had to follow the will of good and evil gods.
In our time, people are organized toward freedom. And a year ago, on New Year's Eve, we looked at the consuming flames. The red glow rose toward the sky. Dark blue, reddish-yellow lines of flame flickered through the general sea of fire, originating from the metal instruments housed in the Goetheanum, a giant sea of fire with the most diverse colored contents. And when you looked at this sea of flames with the colorful lines within it, speaking to the pain of the soul, you had to read: the envy of human beings.
This is how what speaks from epoch to epoch in human development is structured, even in the greatest misfortune. There is a thread running from the words that express the greatest misfortune of the time when people still looked up to the gods in bondage, but were to free themselves from bondage; there is a thread of spiritual development from that misfortune, when one saw inscribed in the flames: the envy of the gods — to our misfortune, where human beings must find the power of freedom within themselves, and where was inscribed in the flames: the envy of human beings. In Ephesus, the statue of the gods; here in the Goetheanum, the statue of man, the statue of the representative of humanity, Christ Jesus, in whom we thought, identifying with him, to merge in all humility in knowledge, as once, in their own way, in a way that is no longer completely understandable to humanity today, the disciples of Ephesus merged with Diana of Ephesus.
The pain does not diminish when we look at what New Year's Eve last year brought us in the light of history. It was meant to be, when I was allowed to stand on the podium for the last time, which was erected in harmony with the whole building there, it was meant to be that the gaze of the listeners at that time, the gaze of the soul, should be directed towards the ascent from earthly realms to starry realms, which express the will and wisdom, the light of the spiritual cosmos. I know that some of the spirits who taught their disciples in the Middle Ages, as I have described to you, were godparents at that time. And an hour after the last word was spoken, I was taken to the fire at the Goetheanum. And at the fire at the Goetheanum we spent New Year's Eve last year.
One need only utter these words, my dear friends, and the unspeakable happens in all our hearts, in all our souls. But when something like this has passed over a sacred part of human development, there have always been some who vowed to continue working in the spirit to which the physical was dedicated after the dissolution of the physical. And I think that since we are gathered together at this moment, on the anniversary of our Goetheanum disaster, we may remember that our souls have the right mood for this gathering of ours, if we all vow to carry on in spirit through the wave of human progress what was set before the physical eye through physical form, physical image, physical design with the Goetheanum, and what was taken away from the physical eye through a Herostratos act. Our pain clings to the old Goetheanum. We can only become worthy through what has been imposed on us by the fact that we were allowed to build this Goetheanum, if we make a vow today in remembrance to remain faithful to the divine best that we carry in our souls, to the spiritual impulses that had their outer form in that Goetheanum. This Goetheanum could be taken from us. But if we truly and sincerely desire it, the spirit of this Goetheanum cannot be taken from us. And it will be taken from us least of all if, in this solemn hour solemn hour that separates us only a short time from the moment when, a year ago, flames blazed from our beloved Goetheanum, if in this moment we not only feel the pain anew, but out of this pain vow to remain faithful to the spirit to which we were allowed to build this place over ten years. Then, my dear friends, if this inner vow springs from our hearts today, honestly and sincerely, if we can transform the pain and suffering into the impulse to act, then we will also transform this sad event into a blessing. The pain cannot be lessened by this, but it is up to us to find the impetus to act, to act in spirit, precisely out of this pain.
And so, my dear friends, we look back on the terrible flames that filled us with such unspeakable grief. But today, let us feel the best divine forces within ourselves, the sacred flame in our hearts, which should spiritually illuminate and warm what was intended with the Goetheanum, as we carry this will forward through the waves of human progress. So at this moment, let us repeat with deep feeling the words I was allowed to speak a year ago, at about this same time. At that time, I said something like: We are living on New Year's Eve, we must live towards a new world year. Oh, if only the Goetheanum were still among us, this call could be renewed at this moment! It is no longer among us. Precisely because it is no longer among us, I believe it can be expressed with many times greater force on this New Year's Eve. Let us carry the soul of the Goetheanum into the new world year, and let us try to erect in the new Goetheanum a worthy document, a worthy monument to the body of the old one!
This, my dear friends, binds our hearts to the old Goetheanum, which we had to surrender to the elements. But it binds our hearts to the spirit, to the soul of this Goetheanum. And with this pledge to our best nature within ourselves, let us live on, not merely into the new year, but let us live on energetically, spiritually, soulfully into the new world year.
My dear friends, you have welcomed me by rising up in memory of the old Goetheanum. You live in the memory of this old Goetheanum. Let us now rise up as a sign that we vow to continue working in the spirit of the Goetheanum with the best forces we can find in the image of our human nature. Yes, so be it. Amen.
And so let us keep it, my dear friends, as long as we can, according to the will that connects our human souls with the souls of the gods, to whom we want to remain faithful in the spirit from which we sought this faithfulness to them at a certain point in our lives, when we sought the spiritual science of the Goetheanum. And let us understand how to keep this faithfulness.