Foundation Course
Spiritual Discernment, Religious Feeling, Sacramental Action
GA 343
1 October 1921 p.m., Dornach
XI. Insights into the Mystery of Golgotha, Priest Ordination
Prayers were said from various sides before the start of the lecture, and a particular wish was expressed to hear more closely about the battle of Luther's soul.
[ 1 ] Rudolf Steiner: Yes, my dear friends, if I want to continue exploring which what we started, in various directions, it is important that I firstly touch on what existed in ancient Christianity, and then what unfolded out of the various forces working from ancient Christianity leading to the rise of the Evangelical-Protestant experience. We must be quite clear that during the time in which the Mystery of Golgotha took place, those people who would at least have a tendency to accept Christianity, were still of a totally different soul constitution, than what was later the case. The Mystery of Golgotha took place in the human evolution during a time in which it had basically nothing at all to do with, I could call it, pursuing the objective course of the world in a spiritual-scientific way. This is quite extraordinary. When you try to deepen yourself particularly into the objective course of the world, as it is presented in its totality, incorporating the physical, soul and spiritual, you have a strong impression regarding the development in the 8th century before Christ. Once again, you will get this strong impact—this can already be noticed in outer knowledge—regarding the time which I've often spoken about, in the 15th century.
[ 2 ] The time epoch stretching from the 8th century BC to 15th AD creates roundabout an epoch in which humanity's development, if you follow this development spiritual-scientifically, was unfolding and can be called the Mind- or Intellectual Soul; in other words, it was the epoch of the Mind- or Intellectual Soul development. In its purest form it comes out of the Greek people's evolution. I call it Mind Soul but ask you, please, not to connect an intellectual concept to this term. Should you want to study the Mind Soul today, as it had developed out of Greekdom, then you need to study such individuals who had in a certain sense some kind of clairvoyance, not schooled clairvoyance but an atavistic one; inherited clairvoyance which can still pop up in some people at present. You can see that the content of the world appears to such people as imaginative, made up of images. If you should ask them to describe their pictorial impressions—of course only if no physical deformation disorder is involved, but when the whole thing is pure—you discover an extraordinary amount of understanding in the images thus depicted. They describe some processes in the spiritual world in pictures. They receive the images, but they get the sense of them as well. They can't help it if they include understanding in the images they receive because they take place together. Up to the 15th Century the soul constitution of many people were still not as developed as the mind is today, but they were inspired by their minds, they could have revelations in the mind. Only after the 15th Century did intellectualism develop which means that the mind had to be actively laboured with inwardly in the soul. Logic had to be developed, it was something to be worked at; it was not, so to speak, just given to the soul. That is the essential difference in the soul constitution of more modern people in comparison with those in this earlier epoch.
When you go still further back, to the evolutionary period of mankind, before the 8th century BC, then you arrive at an epoch where such pictorially filled imaginations initially developed as involuntary imaginations. You get to an epoch which reached back to the 3rd century and find that just this reading in the cosmos which I've described for you this morning, unfolded and appeared in the human soul as pictorial imaginations, still existed in the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, in naive and simple mind natured people. By contrast we have an epoch since the 15th century in which human consciousness must veer to freedom, and this can only happen when people create their own thought forms, out of themselves.
[ 3 ] If we simply study world processes objectively, we initially have no reason to believe in the Mystery of Golgotha. We need to attain intuitive knowledge in the sense in which I've depicted in my book "Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its attainment," and then you get the idea that the Mystery of Golgotha can be seen as falling out of the entire remaining course of the world view. (Writes on the blackboard.) If I namely have 8 centuries BC before here, the 15th century, then we have a particular process which must be considered as flowing together, and now gives a particular impact in our years of one or zero.
[ 4 ] To a certain extent we can research from the oldest times the evolution of the earth and man, and we will reach a certain stage in the development, but we do not arrive at seeing the Mystery of Golgotha within this research. We definitely come through research of this evolution, if we do not look at the Mystery of Golgotha, to the feeling: we are moving to the end of the earth, as human beings we must find our grave in the earth.—This way we arrive at quite a decisive conclusion of the earth dying away. Then we can turn our gaze to the Mystery of Golgotha and so we will find that the earth was renewed, fructified by the Mystery of Golgotha, that a new seed from the expanse contained up to that moment evolutionary streams, and that this new seed, having arrived through the Mystery of Golgotha, forms the foundation for the renewal of the earth. This is primarily the meaning of the Gospel's words which I mentioned yesterday when I said: The spiritual beings who remained on the earth would have perished with the earth (if the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place): The demons screamed when they saw the Christ, because he stripped them of their rulership. This is certainly a real process. You can be quite certain it isn't merely about accepting some or other event given in the Bible, but it is about a clear observation of the processes.
[ 5 ] The Mystery of Golgotha does not even fall in the middle of these time slots (between 8 BC and 15 AD), because the middle of this time is in about the middle of the 4th century. Therefore, this event doesn't even fall into the middle, so one could say: The event of Golgotha is something which took place in contrast to the world of necessity, taking place through divine freedom entering into the earth. It is a deed of freedom coming out of the divine worlds, it certainly was given to humanity from outside, as a gift from the divine world order. As a result, it can't be understood by those who want to observe the continuous historic processes, they may not be able to discover something within it like the Mystery of Golgotha.
[ 6 ] To suggest that, I often express it this way: If, let's say, a Mars inhabitant came down to earth, he would find much he can't understand, but he would be able to start understanding something when he looks at something like the painting of the last supper of Leonardo da Vinci. To this extraordinary image and what is intended with the Christ, he would be able to see something which would indicate the central point of earthly events to him. That is obvious only through comparison, but it is a comparison which I've often had to make to indicate what is important here.
Particularly for those who had a strong feeling for the sense of the Mystery of Golgotha as fallen out of the ordinary earthly course, like all that the Roman Catholic Church has gradually become, still a kind of departure came about from the original meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha. It has crystallized into an historic anecdote. When Leonardo da Vinci was appointed to paint the Last Supper, he worked slowly, for a long time. Actually, he needed more than ten years. Then a new Prior arrived and wanted this painting chap to finish off the thing at last. The painting had been completed up to the figure of Judas when the new Prior asked when it would at least be complete. Leonardo said that up to that point he had not been able to complete the painting because he had no model for Judas. Now however, he had in the Prior a model for Judas, and he could complete the painting.
With this anecdote there is definitely a crystallization of the feeling which in the Roman Catholic Church had as a departure from the original sense of the Mystery of Golgotha, how one would far rather take a Prior and make a Judas out of him than anyone else.
[ 7 ] This attitude of mind can be studied up to the middle of the 4th century, and then again, how it prepares itself for intellectualism from the middle of the 4th century onwards. For example, you can already see, when you study the writing of Scotus Eriugena, how in the 10th century on the one hand, the tendency plays in towards intellectualism that would later fully emerge, and on the other hand in what one could call the gifts of understanding out of higher worlds. This appeared strongly in that time in which it prepared itself from the middle of the previous epoch up to the 15th century of our present epoch. It is conclusively quite different before the middle of 4 AD; it continues into the 5th century, the times are not so strictly separate. You always find strong experiences towards the Mystery of Golgotha present in the first centuries after the event, as the supersensible spiritual plays into the earthly. This permeation of outer spiritual into the earthly became ever more difficult for the ordinary state of mind. We are just seeing in the centre of this previously mentioned period, a personality wrestling with every possible thing, just to get along. It is with such a turn that the one side of the human state of mind really changed, and on the other side a new kind of understanding necessary for the Mystery of Golgotha. This personality, as you know, was Augustine.
Within his soul, Augustine just couldn't come to terms completely with how the spiritual worked into matter. Augustine for instance sought amongst the Manichaeans for a possibility of how to recognise the spiritual in the material. He didn't manage; he actually only managed by withdrawing completely into himself, in order to depend on the self-assurance of his human I, which made him one of the precursors of the famous Descartes declaration: "Cogito, ergo sum." (I think, therefore I am.) This principle is found with Augustine already. However, on the other hand he was confronted with a certain doubt about the teaching, and this doubt was eating him up. One can certainly understand out of the configuration of the time, why Augustine felt this way. How the old heathen point of view of the church fathers, namely Clemens von Alexandria, was still completely accepted, so that in the oldest Christian times they were totally overtaken by the pagan in Christian teaching, and this Augustine could no longer accept, because in his human soul constitution it was no longer appropriate. The teaching content was also shaped in such a way that, essentially in the time of the Council of Nicaea, it had been brought as abstract dogmas which could then be absorbed by intellectualism. So the human soul in Augustine's time, I can mention, was already driven towards intellectualism. From then on Augustine could do nothing other than accept the dogmatic Catholic Church content, in order to find a teaching content.
[ 8 ] Through this, a great crack came about in the Catholic Church. What appeared from the ceremonial of course could not correspond to a soul content. Humanity didn't come in the same way to the undermining of the ceremonial content, as it came to the drying up of the soul content. So it happened in the Catholic Church that the soul content dried out dogmatically, while the ceremonial content actually sustained itself. This ceremonial content of the Catholic Church didn't come out of Christianity, but it came out of far older ceremonial processes. Out of such times it stirred, from a time in which people still had a living reading of the cosmos in which, as a sacrificial offering, it could be accomplished from the reading in the cosmos. What was drawn from the ancient ceremonies of the mysteries, was then Christianized. The Mass offering is also certainly taken from the ancient mystery ceremonies and Christianized. However, what remained as symbolic in the act of sacrifice, is what actually continued within the Catholic Church.
[ 9 ] The Catholic Church was actually on this point always consequential, also when it became a worldly establishment under Constantine, as it went over into the political field. It was, one could say, really ironclad in its consequentiality. It has maintained its ceremonies in the most conservative way and in order not to go under, suffocated its soul content with dogmatism. No wonder that the ceremonial content became more and more strange as an experience, because people had no lively relationship to it anymore, and the dogmatic content was experienced as something obsolete—while it had been lively knowledge in olden times, knowledge experienced by a different soul constitution. The dogmatic content could not hold true compared with what came out of purely worldly knowledge. However, the Catholic Church had to remain absolutely consequential, and it has remained in its conserved state right up to the present. It has remained conservative by not participating in the state of mind/soul constitution residing in the present day. It has remained so, that it demands faith in preserved dogmas, which corresponds to a knowledge of an earlier soul constitution so that what is learnt about the Catholic Christ in the Church today is completely bound up with a dogmatic content which believes it presents a level of knowledge which mankind had actually reached at the end of the 14th century AD.
[ 10 ] What Anthroposophy wants to developed is regaining the supersensible substance of knowledge; the kind of supersensible knowledge which has died in dogma; Anthroposophy wants to enable the achievement of a new understanding for the Mystery of Golgotha, because the dogmas of the Catholic Church can no longer penetrate into an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. This is extraordinarily important, that the dogmas of the Catholic Church no longer can allow the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha to come through. The ritual of mass lets the souls penetrate to something different, to taking an interest in the symbols of the ritual. It is already so, that the Roman Catholic Church has remained in line with its ironclad consistency even into the 19th Century. Some things appear as quite strange if you examine the dogmas instituted by the Catholic Church before the 19th Century. I would like to give you an example so you can see what a kind of abyss exists, in order for you to reach an insight as to how such an abyss can once again be bridged over.
[ 11 ] Once I had a conversation with a very learned theologian regarding the Conceptio immaculate, the immaculate conception, which was only instituted in the 19th Century. You perhaps know that this doesn't deal with the immaculate reception of Jesus himself, but of the immaculate conception of Mary; that means St Anna conceived Mary in an immaculate conception. This is actually the dogma laid down in the 19th century. The other dogma—that of the immaculate conception of Jesus—had existed already for a long time. As a "singular grace" it can be seen by those who can even see the emergence of dogmas from the imaginative content, even if they can't approve of it at all because its content is deadened by it—but one can see it.
So, in my conversation with this theologian, I said to him that it was impossible to reconcile the idea of the immaculate conception with modern conscious. I said to him, one isn't compelled to lead the modern consciousness over into dogma in relation to the individual case; one is not compelled to apply logic in an individual case because the singular also, according to scholastic opinion, evades follow-up. The moment you assume a series of facts, in other words a backward looking of a series of facts, where you rise up from the immaculate conception of Mary to the immaculate conception of St Anna, it is necessary to continue and then you, out of necessity, must accept an entire generation line of immaculate conceptions.—Now the theologian turned to me and said that is not correct, because then we come back to David—this is how he expressed it—and then the story would be quite disastrous, and that could not be allowed.
You see, with today's consciousness this has a certain stroke of frivolity, but it certainly is something which can be made known, how within the Roman Catholic Church the entire relationship to the truth is something quite different.
[ 12 ] In this depiction of our conversation I wanted to firstly stress the kind of perception of truth we lived in during the middle of the 15th Century. The Catholic clergy was not experiencing the perception of truth like modern consciousness does, but a truth-conception corresponding to an earlier time epoch. They were not aware of the view of truth that reckons with the consequences of truth for the inner life of a human being. Quite a different attitude to the truth existed, and as it had changed from olden times, was not clearly understood. We need to look back at the evolution of humanity which means that the soul constitution essentially has changed. Basically, there is no incorrect expression other than that nature had made no leaps. Nature in fact makes continuous jumps. Take for example a green foliage leaf to the coloured flower petal—that is a jump. In the same way we have leaps in the course of time, apparently quite a sharp advancement from one soul state into another. However, people don't always grow in the same degree but allow old points of view to continue and as a result their souls atrophy, as we are able to notice if we look at the enormous leap which has come about in modern human soul constitutions and which has not been participated in by a large number of people.
[ 13 ] Now we must clearly see that such an inner kind of experience, as can be describe as an historical consciousness, which can be acquired, stands out particularly strongly in a person who, through a certain education in the Church, it can especially be applied, when we think of a case like Luther's. If you want to understand Luther's soul then you must be clear that be comes out of the after effects of Augustinism, and that it is precisely in his time, just a bit after the beginning of the intellectualist age, that he is confronted with one of the most serious soul conflicts imaginable. Why was this so? You must just imagine: Augustine had come to an agreement on the recognition of the Christian-Catholic dogma, but for him this was connected with his living within something which was still alive, and even more alive among the Manicheans with whom he had met. What was still full of life in his time was the observation of original sin, in general the consideration of higher processes taking place in relation to lower earthly processes. People still have trouble today to make such things comprehensible.
[ 14 ] If we position ourselves at the beginning of earth evolution, we can gradually enter into an imagination of the origins of what we today call a human being. There were higher beings who were in a certain way connected with earthly evolution. The Old Testament indicates one such higher being having become the snake, a being who we call Lucifer today. This higher being, so it is described in the Bible, actually initiated the original sin. In the beginning of earthly existence, this being was there and the original sin was actually due to the calculation of man's precursors of his ancestors, who then appeared as the serpent of paradise. What this pre-human being had begun by the seduction in paradise was transferred on to the human beings. During that time, what played into human thoughts, existed there as primal guilt, within which man got trapped and later dragged it along, because he originally had become entangled and then in fact he now transferred it from one generation to the next through the blood.
As a result of this primal sin the Christ appeared on the earth—I am speaking in the consciousness of this time period—in order to gradually heal people from their dying through what Lucifer had done to them. That we outwardly know so little about the constitution of consciousness, is a result of the really innumerable things proclaimed by the Roman Catholic Church, which is based on this ancient tradition. Above all, everything Gnostic was eradicated and also later the reproduction of anything that still had an older soul constitution was made exceedingly difficult. You know the writing of Scotus Eriugena had been lost and only later rediscovered, and for centuries people knew nothing about Scotus Eriugena because all copies of his writing which one could get hold of, had been burned. It is certainly so that it deals with looking again at an event which took place in the supersensible world and into what human beings had become entangled.
[ 15 ] Among the impulses of such observations, I could say something worked behind human events, active through superhuman events of other beings who actually were also involved with human evolution, in order for Augustine's teaching regarding predestination, to develop. Augustine saw the incarnation of people on earth as something much rather, if it could be expressed it would be by saying: The human being is actually the result of the battle of superhuman beings.—This meant individuals had no intrinsic worth; that only happened in the middle of the 15th century. Augustine believed it quite possible to think of human development as beyond their will, accomplished by the destinies of superhuman beings. His teaching could only be alive in him if a part of the human being, not the sinful part, but a part, be destined for demise and another part of the human being destined for bliss, the teaching which is not usually presented in all its meaning, when it is to be experienced. Today this can't be experienced in devotion, which was possible for Augustine. Into this soul constitution something also played that one can call original sin, which is balanced out by the Mystery of Golgotha. People in Luther's time still expressed it in this way, but they lived in another time of a soul constitution as in the time of Augustine. It was quite impossible to find one's way into these ideas with all of one's soul. In this way Luther experienced the illumination through his soul, as an Augustine monk.
[ 16 ] Now I must speak to you about my conviction which is based—even though it is called a conviction—on knowledge. For me it certainly is knowledge. I am not in the position to speak in the same way about chance or coincidences like other people because coincidences also belong to an order of things which is usually ignored. I can't attach it to an actual incident in Luther's life, I can't be indifferent to a lightning strike in a tree beside him, but I can see it, according to my knowledge, only as the effect of a truly supersensible intrusion. You can think about it in any way you like, but if I speak sincerely and honestly, I certainly regard part of Luther's soul constitution as this pointing in, if I may call it so, of God's finger, not out of belief but out of recognition. Luther's state of mind or soul constitution became something quite different under the influence of such a deed; it happened so that certain inner sources were opened. These sources, or better said, the effectiveness of these sources, had already been prepared through the wrestling with misunderstood lore. It could not rise up, it was like a turning point in the soul itself, but it could not consciously show itself. Then it rose up into consciousness and became a turning point for only that which was happening. If I want to express myself roughly, the body has been softened, so to speak, and what had been prepared in Luther for a long time, permeated through a soft body.
Now Luther gradually became aware of all the dangers in which modern man lives. It isn't easy to say in how far this went into Luther's clear consciousness, and it's also not that important. In any case this position of modern man played into Luther's soul on the one hand as a streaming from earlier times, and on the other hand, what man should be since the middle of the 15th century. The entire dangers of modern man flooded Luther's soul. What did this consist of? It consisted of—I'm speaking in a Christian way—man being afflicted with the deeds or the sequences of deeds of superhuman beings in which he had become entangled. Through what had been an entanglement of original sin in the lower human being as inherited traits, man entered into the next epoch in a different manner than he would have if there had been no original sin through the Fall. As a result, that which should appear in humanity as intellect came through in a far more abstract measure than how life used to be in former times, when it was afflicted with something subhuman through original sin. To a certain extent, what man was to experience intellectually became diluted, more abstract, which in earlier life had been more dense, more natural, than it should be for mankind. It was only now that man was basically condemned to fall away from God through his intellectualism. The whole danger of intellectualism which pushes too far to greater abstraction, lived itself out in Luther's soul, and Luther really experienced it with such vehemence as described in his vicious battle at Wartburg Castle.
[ 17 ] We have two opposite poles which can clearly be determined in the newer evolution of mankind. On the one hand is Luther, positioned in the great spiritual battle after the middle of the 15th century—of course a little later—and now as a result, while he wanted to loosen himself from intellectual dangers, first renounces the intellect and seeks justification outside the intellect which can lead him to the divine, as it were, beneath the intellect.
The other pole is Faust. He took on the intellect with all his senses, resulting in his deteriorating into the dangers of the intellect, as he entered into all the individual dangers of the intellect. It is not for nothing that these personalities are a kind of landmark for modern mankind: on the one side Luther and what he connected to, and on the other side Faust, and what he associates with. It was truly no small deed of Goethe when he wanted to reshape Faust in such a way that he would not perish. Lessing already thought about it. If freedom is to be achieved for humanity, the intellect needs to be engaged with, but humanity should not be pushed away from the divine. The Faust fragment of Lessing ends with the words (of the angels to the devil): "You shall not prevail!" which Goethe remodelled. He said to himself there should be a possibility not to be separated from the divine when mankind engages with the intellect—but he needs it for the development of freedom. In this terrible battle Luther stood. He saw how the intellect contained within itself the danger that man also strangulates his soul from the divine, how man succumbs to the death of the soul. That which is devoured by the intellect—in anthroposophy we call it "becoming Ahrimanic"—which totally enters into the intellect, becomes devoured, it is cut off from the divine. This is what Luther felt for modern man.
Historically it was so that on the one hand there was the Catholic Church where people were absolutely not within the intellect, it even wants to save people by preventing them from entering into the intellect, it wanted to preserve them from progress made in the 15th century onwards by conserving such dogmas like the one which claims infallibility, such as the dogma regarding the immaculate conception, as I've mentioned earlier. They couldn't manage consequently in the Roman Catholic sense without the infallibility dogma because they even deny its intellectual meaning, declaring it unfit for development and incapable of understanding the spiritual world. A reinforcement was needed for what people had to believe, indicating the sovereignty of the Papal Command for the Truth. There is nothing more untimely, but basically nothing greater than this determination of the dogma of infallibility, to completely contradict all consciousness of the time and all human desires for freedom. It is the last consequence of the secularization of Catholicism in an iron clad consequence of tremendous genius. One must say if you take, on the one hand, the ironclad consequence of the Roman clerics in their determination of the infallibility dogma, and on the other hand the kind of polemics of a Dollinger, the latter is of course philistine in the face of tremendous ingenuity—you could even call it devilish—something is carried out, because it was once the consequence to that which Rome has come to since the secularization of Christianity by Constantine.
[ 18 ] So it happened that in the bosom of the Roman Catholics, two souls could live next to one another. On the one hand was the submission to the rigid dogma, which no human being could touch save the infallible Pope—because the Council had lost its power since the determination of the infallibility dogma—and on the other hand the unhindered care of outer science as an external manipulation to which one is devoted and partake off, but don't attribute any meaning to the actual content of religious doctrine. Just consider from a modern consciousness, what the justification of the Roman Catholic doctrine looks like. I suggest you read for instance such writing as "The Principle of Catholicism and Science" by Hertling, the previous German Imperial Chancellor.
Firstly, you'll discover that it was a world historic mistake for this man to have become the Imperial Chancellor but on the other hand you will learn something about the unusual thoughts modern people had and how these two souls could justifiably live in the same bosom. It is also remarkable that this writing on the principle of Catholicism appears in French. It is therefore extraordinarily interesting that the writer of this work, whose name doesn't come to my mind at the moment, has a perpetually logical conscience and therefore he has to make a differentiation between the Roman Catholic teaching material and what constitutes the content of outer science. That is why he proposes two concepts next to each other, the idea of truth and the idea of science, which he always sees as two disparate ideas. He says something can very well be scientific, but truth is something else; what is true does not need to be scientific. In some or other way he comes to the conclusion that science doesn't have anything to do with what one acknowledges directly as containing truth. So on the one hand things worthy of contemplation are mentioned, but are already beaten, on the other hand the most grotesque somersaults are being beaten in order for these two souls to become reconciled with one another.
[ 19 ] So, on the one hand we have the continuation of symbolism, the symbolism that led to the enormous upswing of art in the Renaissance period in central Europe. Art Historians need only dig deep enough to discover that without the Catholic symbolism the entire artistic development of Giotto, Cimabue, from Leonardo to Rafael and Michelangelo would have been impossible, because the artistic development is certainly a propagation of Christian artistic subjects and belongs so strongly in Christianity that people can't, for example, understand why the Sistine Madonna looks like she does.
Look at the Sistine Madonna, she is magnificent. As far as one can see there are images of clouds which transform purely into angelic heads, and how the Madonna herself, with the Child, condenses out of the angles who reside in the clouds. It is as if the angelic forms have condensed out of the cloud images and have descended down to the earth, yet everything is wonderfully lifted into the spirit. Then the two curtains (he sketches on the blackboard) and below that a coquettish female figure and a terrible priestly figure, all things which absolutely do not belong to it. Why is this so? It is simply from the basis of Raphael having initially intended with this image, to give a soul experience with the picture of Mary on a certain feast day of Mary—now this is on the Feast of Corpus Christi—where people walk around in a procession with a picture of the virgin Mary that is carried under a canopy and comes to the altars where people kneel down. This is why there are these curtains (points to sketch on blackboard) with the kneeling female and male forms in a chapel, in front of the picture of Mary. Well, that is the kind of elementary school way of looking at what Raphael painted. What is actually meant here stands right in the Roman Catholic cult—absolutely right inside it.
[ 20 ] Basically, everything contained in this Roman Catholic ritual is what Luther saw in Rome. Isn't it tremendously symbolic, historically symbolic, historically symptomatic, that Luther saw only corruption in Rome, not being actually touched deeper by what flowed out into depictions in art, how he was not deepened inwardly by art, but that he only saw moral corruption? Here we see how the soul in fact was positioned through his particular development in the historical becoming of mankind, he was like a soul at war, thrown this way and that, searching for a way out. Despite all this, like the doom of Lutherism in particular, comes the big problem: How do we as human beings absorb intellectualism, so that we are not doomed but that we overcome the fear of becoming doomed, because it is necessary for human freedom to integrate us?
Modern intellectualism presses strongly into our human consciousness. The evangelical church reckoned with it for centuries, the Catholic Church kept itself completely distanced from it. The evangelical church gradually withdrew back on to faith because with intellectualism, as it developed in the world, it didn't agree, so it increasingly withdrew from knowledge by depending on belief; it now rests within a faith in which the doctrine content is to be sought. The Catholic Church had doctrine content, but it was allowed to dry up. From the intellectual point of view the way to individuals can't be found, who see themselves isolated from those superhuman forces which could still be felt as being connected to Augustinism.
Basically we in humanity stand right in this battle today, only, if I could put it that way, we have come to the cutting edge, so that we simply stand there and say: We need a pure concept of faith so that we have a religion opposite intellectualism, because we can't take up the old Catholic doctrine, for it has dried out.—With this dried out dogmatic content the evangelical church rejected the ritual in the most varied forms. This is what started with Luther, putting us today on the knife edge; we must become aware of the seriousness of this position. It is a struggle for the power of faith in the soul, who wants to save the faith at the cost of not having the existing doctrine content at all. However, without content we can't learn, and it appears impossible to simply rediscover a bridge to what Catholicism has secularised.
[ 21 ] Now my dear friends, I come to the question of how we should proceed. It is like this: you see, with all this there was also an evangelical consciousness introduced in the evolution of humanity, in the individual human development, because the earlier evangelical consciousness to a certain degree entangled man in the supernatural, superhuman processes and acts of superhuman beings. With Augustus it was expressed somewhat differently, that the progress of humanity was permeated with the superhuman element ... (gap in notes). People saw the superhuman battle raging as something like Christ fighting against the enemy who wants to lead him into the temptation of appearing super human; that the one who drew near to the Christ was one to whom original guilt was traced back to, and it is shown how Christ turns against the original sin. This understanding has now come to an end. Earlier, this understanding had been adhered to, for what was supersensible-divine permeated earthly matter, and there already has been an intention present for specialization to make a dividing border between the supernatural, and that part of man entangled in sensuality.
This dividing border is done through consecration. Consecration is actually the separation of the human being, or that part of the human being, from being entangled in the earthly. The ordination of the priesthood is only one part because there are also implements and so on; everything possible is consecrated. Once during a war, the Pope consecrated the bullets but that is only due to the secularization of Catholicism.
[ 22 ] Do you see that consecration is really the dividing boundary between two worlds, and there is certainly the awareness in Catholicism—even if it is not present in individual priests—that a consecrated priest is active in another world when he does something, that he is also speaking from another world when he speaks of the Gospels, even though all his ordinary actions are in the earthly world. This differentiation could not be understood since the 15th century. In historic Catholicism, throughout, was this strong differentiation where, in circles of ordained priests, it was consciously stressed. Only now and then some bishop, by mistake, will bring something non-Catholic into Catholicism, namely modern consciousness, and that leads to absurdities. There was for example a pastoral letter written which claimed that the priest in the fulfilment of the sacrament at the altar would be more powerful than Christ Jesus, because he forces Christ Jesus to be present in the sacrament; Christ Jesus has to be present when the priests demands it; the result is that the priest is now more powerful than Christ.—This is the content of a pastoral letter of not long ago. You can come across such things when out of modern consciousness something is understood which should be understood in quite a different mood, namely that which lies beyond the earthly sphere and separated from it by the consecration.
[ 23 ] The principle of consecration comes from far, far back. It already existed in the oldest oriental religions and it was particularly developed on (the Greek island of) Samothrace. Catholicism took it over from ancient times but for the newer consciousness it was totally lost.
Tomorrow I will try to add further elements to it, so that you can come to a full understanding of the principle of consecration, and also priest ordination, without which the apostolic succession won't be comprehensible
Elfter Vortrag
Es wird von verschiedenen Seiten gebeten, das am Vortage Begonnene weiterzuführen, insbesondere wird gewünscht, noch näheres zu hören über den Seelenkampf Luthers.
[ 1 ] Rudolf Steiner: Ja, meine lieben Freunde, wenn ich nun nach verschiedenen Richtungen hin weiter ausführen soll, was wir begonnen haben, so ist es notwendig, daß ich zunächst ein wenig dasjenige berühre, was im Urchristentum lag, und dann das, was später sich herausgebildet hat aus den verschiedenen Kräften, die im Urchristentum wirkten, und was dann führte zum Heraufkommen des evangelisch-protestantischen Fühlens. Wir müssen uns durchaus darüber klar sein, daß in der Zeit, in der das Mysterium von Golgatha stattgefunden hat, gerade bei den Menschen, die am meisten dazu neigen konnten, das Christentum in sich aufzunehmen, noch eine völlig andere Seelenverfassung vorhanden war, als sie später heraufgezogen ist. Das Mysterium von Golgatha fiel ja in eine Zeit der Menschheitsentwickelung hinein, die mit alle dem, was man sonst als den, ich möchte sagen, objektiven Weltengang geisteswissenschaftlich verfolgen kann, zunächst im Grunde nichts zu tun hat. Das ist ja gerade das Merkwürdige. Wenn man nämlich versucht, sich in den objektiven Weltengang zu vertiefen, wie er sich als Totalität darstellt, wo also das Physische, das Seelische und das Geistige drinnenliegt, dann bekommt man einen sehr starken Einschlag in diese Entwickelung im 8. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert. Und wiederum bekommt man einen starken Einschlag — das ergibt sich schon einer äußeren Erkenntnis — in dem Zeitpunkt, von dem ich jetzt öfter gesprochen habe, im 15. Jahrhundert.
[ 2 ] Der Zeitraum also vom 8. vorchristlichen bis zum 15. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert ergibt ungefähr eine von den Epochen, die man genötigt ist anzunehmen in der Entwickelung der Menschheit, wenn man ihren Entwickelungsgang geisteswissenschaftlich verfolgt, und zwar liegt in diesem Zeitraum die Heranbildung desjenigen im Menschen, was man nennen kann die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele; also es ist der Zeitraum der Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele. Am reinsten kam das ja heraus in der Entwickelung des griechischen Volkes. Ich sage «Verstandesseele», und ich bitte Sie, dabei an den Begriff der Verstandesseele nicht das Intellektualistische heranzubringen. Wenn man die Verstandesseele, wie sie sich im Griechentum entwickelte, heute studieren will, so muß man sie bei solchen Menschen studieren, die in einem gewissen Sinne noch eine Art alter Hellsichtigkeit in sich rege machen können, also nicht eine geschulte Hellsichtigkeit, sondern eine atavistische, eine vererbte Hellsichtigkeit, zu der sich ja manche Menschen der Gegenwart noch aufschwingen können. Man sieht bei solchen Menschen, daß sie durchaus einen Weltinhalt in die Seele herein bekommen, der imaginativ ist, der in Bildern gestaltet ist. Wenn man sie dann veranlaßt, das Bildliche aufzuschreiben, so ist — natürlich nur, wenn nicht durch irgendwelche körperliche Deformierungen Unordnung in die Sache hineinkommt, sondern wenn die ganze Sache reinlich verläuft — in dem, was sie dann in Bildern schildern, außerordentlich viel Verständiges darin. Sie schildern irgendwelche Vorgänge der geistigen Welt ja in Bildern. Sie bekommen die Bilder, aber sie bekommen das Verständige mit. Sie können gar nichts dafür, daß sie in die Schilderung der Bildverläufe Verständiges mit hineinnehmen, weil sie es mitbekommen. Noch bis ins 15. Jahrhundert hinein war die Seelenverfassung bei sehr vielen Menschen so, daß sie den Verstand nicht so ausgebildet hatten wie wir heute, sondern so, daß sie gewissermaßen inspiriert waren mit Verstand, daß sie den Verstand geoffenbart erhalten haben. Erst seit dem 15. Jahrhundert ist in der Entwickelung der Menschheit der Intellektualismus heraufgekommen, der darin besteht, daß gerade der Verstand aktiv erarbeitet werden muß innerlich in der Seele. Man muß Logik bilden, sie ist etwas, was erarbeitet werden muß, sie wird nicht der Seele sozusagen gegeben. Das ist der wesentliche Unterschied in der Seelenverfassung des neueren Menschen gegenüber den Menschen in dieser [früheren] Epoche. Und wenn man noch weiter zurückgeht, in diejenige Entwickelungsepoche der Menschheit, die vor dem 8. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert liegt, so kommt man in eine Epoche hinein, wo sich das bildhafte Vorstellen, dieses unwillkürliche bildhafte Vorstellen erst ausbildet. Man kommt da in eine Epoche, die bis ins 3. Jahrtausend zurückreicht und sieht, wie gerade dieses Lesen im Kosmos, das ich Ihnen heute vormittag geschildert habe, sich ausbildet und in der menschlichen Seele erscheint als bildhaftes Vorstellen, das dann auch durchaus noch vorhanden war in der Zeit des Mysteriums von Golgatha, gerade bei einfachen, einfältigen Naturen. Dagegen haben wir eben seit dem 15. Jahrhundert diejenige Epoche, die den Menschen zum Bewußtsein der Freiheit führen soll, und das kann nur dadurch eintreten, daß der Mensch aus sich selbst seine Gedankenformen hervorbringen muß.
[ 3 ] Wenn wir einfach die objektiven Weltenvorgänge studieren, so haben wir zunächst keine Veranlassung, an das Mysterium von Golgatha heranzukommen. Wir brauchen dazu intuitive Erkenntnis in dem Sinne, wie ich es schildere in meinem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», und dann kommt man darauf, das Mysterium von Golgatha als einen aus dem ganzen übrigen Weltengang herausfallenden Prozeß anzusehen. (Im folgenden wird an die Tafel geschrieben.) Wenn ich also das 8. [vorchristliche] Jahrhundert hier habe, das 15. Jahrhundert hier, so haben wir hier einen besonderen Prozeß, der für sich verlaufend angesehen werden muß und der nun einen besonderen Einschlag gibt in unseren [Weltengang] im Jahre Eins oder Null.
[ 4 ] Wir können seit den ältesten Zeiten gewissermaßen den Entwikkelungsgang der Erde und der Menschheit verfolgen, wir kommen auf gewisse Stufen der Entwickelung, wir kommen aber nicht dahin, das Mysterium von Golgatha darin zu schauen. Wohl aber kommen wir dahin bei der Verfolgung dieses Entwickelungsganges, wenn wir auf das Mysterium von Golgatha unseren Blick nicht wenden, daß wir das Gefühl bekommen: es geht zu Ende mit der Erde, die Menschen müssen in der Erde ihr Grab finden. — Also wir kommen zu einer ganz entschiedenen Auffassung von dem Ersterben der Erde. Können wir dann den Blick hinwenden auf das Mysterium von Golgatha, so finden wir, daß die Erde durch dieses Mysterium von Golgatha neu befruchtet worden ist, einen neuen Keim von Weiten außerhalb ihrer bisherigen Entwickelungsströmung erhalten hat, und daß in diesem neuen Keim, der durch das Mysterium von Golgatha hereingekommen ist, die Grundlage dafür liegt, daß die Erde eine Wiedererneuerung finden kann. Das ist also zunächst die [Bedeutung des Evangelien-]Wortes, das ich gestern so ausgedrückt habe, daß ich sagte: Die geistigen Wesen, die bei der Erde noch verblieben waren, würden der Erde den Untergang gebracht haben, [wenn nicht das Mysterium von Golgatha gekommen wäre]: Die Dämonen schrieen auf, als sie den Christus sahen, weil er ihnen ihre Herrschaft abnimmt. Das ist durchaus ein realer Vorgang. Sie können ganz sicher sein, daß es sich da nicht bloß um das Aufnehmen von irgendwelchen Ereignissen in der Bibel handelt, sondern es handelt sich um ein klares Anschauen der Vorgänge.
[ 5 ] Aber nicht einmal in die Mitte dieses Zeitraumes [zwischen dem 8. vorchristlichen und dem 15. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert] fällt das Mysterium von Golgatha hinein, denn die Mitte dieses Zeitraumes liegt so ungefähr in der Mitte des 4. Jahrhunderts. Also nicht einmal in die Mitte fällt dieses Ereignis hinein, so daß man sagen muß: Das Ereignis von Golgatha ist etwas, was durchaus im Gegensatz zu der sonst in der Welt wirkenden Notwendigkeit durch die Freiheit der göttlichen Welt hereinkommt. Es ist eine Tat der Freiheit der göttlichen Welten, es ist durchaus etwas der Menschheit von außen Gegebenes, von der göttlichen Weltordnung Gegebenes. Daher kann auch durchaus begriffen werden, daß diejenigen, die den kontinuierlichen Fortgang der Geschichte betrachten wollen, nicht darauf kommen können, darin irgend so etwas zu finden wie das Mysterium von Golgatha.
[ 6 ] Um das der Empfindung nahezulegen, habe ich es öfter so ausgedrückt: Wenn, sagen wir, ein Marsbewohner auf die Erde kommen würde, so würde er ja alles unverständlich finden, aber er würde anfangen, etwas Verständnis zu fassen, wenn er so etwas sehen würde wie das Abendmahl von Leonardo da Vinci. Er würde an diesem Besonderen, was darin liegt und was zu dem Christus hintendiert, etwas sehen können, was auch für ihn den Erdenereignissen einen Mittelpunkt gibt. Das ist selbstverständlich nur ein Vergleich, aber es ist ein Vergleich, den ich öfter gemacht habe um anzudeuten, um was es sich hier handelt. Nun haben gerade diejenigen, die ein Empfinden hatten für diesen aus dem gewöhnlichen Erdengang herausfallenden Sinn des Mysteriums von Golgatha, stark gefühlt, wie in alle dem, was die römisch-katholische Kirche allmählich geworden ist, doch eine Art Abfallen von dem ursprünglichen Sinn des Mysteriums von Golgatha vorhanden ist. Das hat sich ja in einer historischen Anekdote kristallisiert. Als Leonardo da Vinci angestellt wurde, um sein Abendmahl zu malen, hat er sehr langsam gearbeitet, er brauchte eigentlich mehr als zehn Jahre. Da kam ein neuer Prior, der wollte, dieser Malerkerl solle nun endlich seine Sache fertig kriegen. Das Bild war fertig bis auf die Figur des Judas, als der Prior fragen ließ, wann denn das endlich fertig würde. Leonardo sagte, bis jetzt habe er es nicht fertig machen können, weil er kein Modell für den Judas hatte. Nun aber habe er in dem Prior ein Modell für den Judas, und jetzt könne er das Bild fertig machen. — In dieser Anekdote liegt durchaus ein Kristallisieren des Gefühls dafür, wie in der römisch-katholischen Kirche eigentlich ein Abfallen von dem ursprünglichen Sinn des Mysteriums von Golgatha vorhanden ist, wie man viel eher aus einem Prior einen Judas machen kann als aus jemand anderem.
[ 7 ] Diese Seelenverfassung kann man nun aber schon studieren bis in die Mitte des 4. Jahrhunderts hinein, und dann wiederum, wie sie sich vorbereitet für den Intellektualismus von der Mitte des 4. Jahrhunderts an. Sie können zum Beispiel sehr schön sehen, wenn Sie die Schriften des Scotus Eriugena studieren, wie im 10. Jahrhundert auf der einen Seite schon hineinspielt das Hinneigen zu dem später voll heraufkommenden Intellektualismus, und wie aber auf der anderen Seite durchaus noch das darinnen ist, was man nennen könnte das Mitgeben des Verstandesmäßigen aus höheren Welten. Das tritt sehr stark in der Zeit auf, in der sich von der Mitte der vorigen Zeitepoche an bis zum 15. Jahrhundert unsere heutige Epoche vorbereitet. Das ist aber schließlich doch noch ganz anders vor der Mitte des 4. nachchristlichen Jahrhunderts; es dauert auch noch bis in das 5. Jahrhundert hinein, die Zeiten grenzen sich nicht so ganz strikte ab. Man findet immerhin, daß in den ersten nachchristlichen Jahrhunderten gegenüber dem Mysterium von Golgatha stark empfunden wird, wie ein außerirdisch Geistiges in das Irdische hereinspielt. Und dieses Hereinspielen eines außerirdisch Geistigen in das Irdische, das wird nun immer schwerer und schwerer von der gewöhnlichen Seelenverfassung verstanden, und wir sehen gerade um die Mitte dieses vorhergehenden Zeitraumes eine Persönlichkeit mit allen möglichen Dingen ringen, um zurecht zu kommen. Es ist eine solche Wende, wo auf der einen Seite des Menschen Seelenverfassung wirklich umgeändert wird, und wo auf der anderen Seite eine Art neuen Verständnisses notwendig wird für das Mysterium von Golgatha. Diese Persönlichkeit ist ja, wie Sie wissen, der Augustinus. In Augustinus’ Seele spielt sich vollständig das ab, daß er nicht zurechtkommt damit, wie das [Geistige im] Materiellen wirkt. Augustinus sucht zum Beispiel bei den Manichäern, um eine Möglichkeit zu finden, ein Geistiges in dem Materiellen anzuerkennen. Er kommt nicht zurecht; er kommt eigentlich erst dadurch zurecht, daß er sich völlig in sein Inneres zurückzieht, daß er völlig baut auf die Selbstgewißheit des menschlichen Ichs, was ihn ja zu einem Vorläufer des berühmten Ausspruches von Descartes macht «Cogito, ergo sum». Man findet dieses Prinzip schon bei Augustinus. Aber auf der anderen Seite kommt er zu einem gewissen Zweifel an dem Lehrinhalt, und dieser Zweifel an dem Lehrinhalt frißt an ihm. Man kann das durchaus verstehen aus der ganzen Konfiguration der Zeit heraus, daß Augustinus so fühlte. Wie die alten [heidnischen Anschauungen] von den Kirchenvätern, namentlich von Klemens von Alexandrien, noch voll aufgenommen werden, so daß in den ältesten Zeiten [des Christentums] durchaus Heidnisches in den christlichen Lehrinhalt übernommen wurde, das konnte von Augustinus nicht mehr hingenommen werden, weil es der menschlichen Seelenverfassung nicht mehr angemessen war. Der Lehrinhalt wurde auch so geformt, daß er, im wesentlichen in der Zeit des Konzils von Nicäa, in abstrakte Dogmen gebracht worden ist, die dann vom Intellektualismus aufgenommen werden konnten. Es war also die Menschenseele [zur Zeit des Augustinus], ich möchte sagen, schon bis zur Vorbereitung des Intellektualismus getrieben. Von daher konnte Augustinus nicht anders, als eben den Dogmengehalt der katholischen Kirche aufzunehmen, um überhaupt zu einem Lehrinhalt zu kommen.
[ 8 ] Nun, dadurch ist dann auch der große Riß entstanden innerhalb der katholischen Kirche. Denn aus dem, was sich als die Zeremonien erhalten hat, konnte natürlich dasjenige nicht herauskommen, was dem Seeleninhalt entsprach. Denn nicht in derselben Weise kam die Menschheit zu der Untergrabung des Zeremonieninhaltes, wie sie zur Vertrocknung des Seeleninhaltes kam. Und so kam es in der katholischen Kirche, daß der Seeleninhalt dogmatisch vertrocknete, während der Zeremonieninhalt eigentlich sich forterhalten hat. Dieser Zeremonieninhalt der katholischen Kirche ist ja durchaus nicht etwa aus dem Christentum hervorgegangen, sondern er ist aus viel älteren zeremoniellen Vorgängen genommen. Aus solchen Zeiten rührt er her, in denen man noch ein lebendiges Lesen im Kosmos hatte, in denen man aber als Opferhandlung eben dasjenige verrichtete, was man aus diesem Lesen im Kosmos entnehmen konnte. Dasjenige, was entnommen worden ist älteren Mysterienzeremonien, ist dann nur verchristianisiert worden. Auch das Meßopfer ist durchaus älteren Mysterienzeremonien entnommen und verchristianisiert worden. Aber was an Symbolen in der Kultushandlung blieb, das ist dasjenige, was eigentlich sich wirklich fortpflanzte innerhalb der katholischen Kirche.
[ 9 ] Die katholische Kirche war eigentlich in dem Punkt immer konsequent, auch als sie unter Konstantin eine weltliche Einrichtung geworden ist, als sie ins politische Feld übergegangen ist. Sie war, man möchte sagen, wirklich eisern konsequent, die katholische Kirche. Sie hat in der konservativsten Weise ihre Zeremonien fortbehalten und hat den Seeleninhalt, um ihn nicht untergehen zu lassen, in Dogmen ersticken gemacht. Kein Wunder, daß der Zeremoniengehalt immer mehr und mehr als etwas vollkommen Fremdes empfunden wurde, weil man keinen lebendigen Bezug mehr zu ihm hatte, und der Dogmengehalt als etwas Veraltetes empfunden wurde — während er lebendige Erkenntnis war in älteren Zeiten, die eben die Erkenntnis aus einer anderen Seelenverfassung heraus erlebte —, weil der Dogmengehalt absolut nicht stimmen konnte zu dem, was nun als rein weltliche Erkenntnis heraufkam. Nun mußte aber die katholische Kirche natürlich auch weiterhin in dieser Richtung absolut konsequent bleiben, und sie ist in ihrer Konservativität geblieben bis zum heutigen Tage. Sie ist konservativ geblieben, indem sie absolut nicht mitgemacht hat die Seelenverfassung der heutigen Zeit. Sie ist es so geblieben, daß sie Glauben fordert an konservierte Dogmen, die einer Erkenntnis früherer Seelenverfassungen entsprechen, so daß derjenige, der als katholischer Christ heute in der katholischen Kirche lehrt, durchaus gebunden ist, an einen Dogmeninhalt zu glauben, der eine Wissensstufe vorstellt, die eigentlich für die gesamte Menschheit ihr Ende erreicht hat im 14. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert.
[ 10 ] Und dasjenige, was in der Anthroposophie auftreten will, das ist eben das Wiedererringen eines übersinnlichen Wissensstoffes, der ebenso übersinnliches Wissen ist wie dasjenige, was in den Dogmen erstorben vorliegt; Anthroposophie will für das Ereignis des Mysteriums von Golgatha eine neue Auffassung vermitteln, ein neues Verständnis entwickeln, denn die Dogmen der katholischen Kirche passen für die [heutige] Seelenverfassung nicht [mehr]. Das ist das außerordentlich Wichtige, daß die Dogmen der katholischen Kirche nicht durchdringen lassen zum Verständnis des Mysteriums von Golgatha. Das Meßopfer läßt [die Seelen der Menschen] durchdringen zu etwas anderem, zu einer Gemütsanteilnahme an den Symbolen des Meßopfers. Es ist schon so, daß die römisch-katholische Kirche mit eisernster Konsequenz auch im 19. Jahrhundert ihre Linie eingehalten hat. Manches kommt einem außerordentlich fremd vor, wenn man herangeht an die von der katholischen Kirche im 19. Jahrhundert festgestellten Dogmen. Ich möchte Ihnen da wiederum eine Erfahrung vorsetzen, aus der Sie sehen werden, welcher Abgrund da doch vorhanden ist, und damit Sie eine Einsicht bekommen können, wie ein solcher Abgrund überbrückt werden kann.
[ 11 ] Ich kam einmal ins Gespräch mit einem sehr gelehrten Theologen über das Dogma der Conceptio immaculata, der unbefleckten Empfängnis, das ja erst im 19. Jahrhundert eingesetzt worden ist. Sie wissen ja vielleicht, es handelt sich da nicht um die unbefleckte Empfängnis des Jesus selber, sondern um die unbefleckte Empfängnis der Maria; also unbefleckt empfangen hat die heilige Anna bei der Konzeption der Maria. Das ist das eigentliche Dogma, das im 19. Jahrhundert festgelegt worden ist. Das andere Dogma, das von der unbefleckten Empfängnis des Jesus, war ja längst da. Und als eine «singuläre Gnade» ist es für denjenigen einzusehen, der überhaupt das Zustandekommen von Dogmen aus dem imaginativen Inhalt einsehen kann, auch wenn er es durchaus nicht billigen kann, weil dadurch der imaginative Inhalt getötet wird — aber man kann es einsehen. Ich kam also mit dem Theologen ins Gespräch und sagte ihm, es sei unmöglich, daß mit dem modernen Bewußtsein die Conceptio immaculata in Einklang gebracht wird. Ich sagte ihm, man ist nicht genötigt gegenüber dem individuellen Fall, das moderne Bewußtsein hinüberzuleiten auf die Dogmatik, man ist nicht genötigt, gegenüber einem singulären Fall Logik anzuwenden, denn das Singuläre entzieht sich ja auch nach scholastischer Anschauung durchaus der Fortfolgerung. In dem Augenblick aber, wo man eine Tatsachenreihe annimmt, namentlich eine nach rückwärts gerichtete Tatsachenreihe, wo man also aufsteigt von der Conceptio immaculata der Maria zu der Conceptio immaculata der Anna, ist man genötigt, so fortzugehen, und dann ist man genötigt, die Conceptio immaculata der ganzen Reihe der Generationen anzuerkennen. — Da wendete mir der Theologe ein, das ginge gar nicht, denn dann kämen wir hinauf bis zum Davidl — so drückte er sich aus —, und da würde die Geschichte recht fatal werden, da ließe sich das nicht machen. — Sie sehen, vor dem heutigen Bewußtsein hat das gewiß einen Anstrich von Frivolität, aber es ist durchaus etwas, was Sie lehren kann, wie das ganze Verhältnis zur Wahrheit innerhalb der römisch-katholischen Kirche ein anderes ist.
[ 12 ] Ich wollte gerade in [der Schilderung] dieses Gesprächs einmal scharf hinstellen, in welche Wahrheitsauffassung wir uns hineingelebt haben seit der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts. Der katholische Kleriker stand eben nicht innerhalb der Wahrheitsauffassung des [modernen Bewußtseins], sondern innerhalb einer Wahrheitsauffassung, die einem [früheren] Zeitraum entspricht. Er stand noch nicht drinnen in einer Wahrheitsauffassung, die damit rechnet, was für Folgen eine Wahrheit hat für das innere Menschenleben. Es war eine ganz andere Stellung zur Wahrheit, und wie sich die Zeiten geändert haben, das wird gewöhnlich gar nicht ins Auge gefaßt. Wir müssen schon hinschauen auf eine Entwickelung der Menschheit, die so ist, daß sich die Seelenverfassung ganz wesentlich geändert hat. Es gibt ja im Grunde genommen keinen unrichtigeren Ausdruck als den, daß die Natur keine Sprünge macht. Die Natur macht nämlich fortwährend Sprünge. Nehmen Sie das grüne Laubblatt, das farbige Blumenblatt - ein Sprung. Ebenso haben wir Sprünge in dem Fortgang der Zeiten in dem Vorrücken der einen Seelenverfassung zur anderen mit einer ziemlichen Schärfe. Nur daß die Menschen nicht immer gleich hineinwachsen, sondern daß sich alte Seelenverfassungen fortpflanzen und dadurch in einer gewissen Weise innerlich seelisch vertrocknen, wie wir das auch wiederum bemerken können, wenn [wir beobachten, wie] der gewaltige Sprung, der gegenwärug in der menschlichen Seelenverfassung zu machen ist, nicht von einer genügend großen Anzahl von Menschen mitgemacht wird.
[ 13 ] Nun muß man sich klar sein darüber, daß eine solche innere Erlebnisart, wie man sie schildern kann als die des historischen Bewußtseins, das man sich aneignet, ja ganz besonders stark hervortritt bei einem Menschen, der durch eine bestimmte Kirchenerziehung auch noch besonders da hineingestellt ist, und das ist zu denken bei Luther. Wenn man Luthers Seele verstehen will, so muß man sich klar darüber sein, daß er durchaus von einem Nacherleben des Augustinismus ausgegangen ist, und daß er dadurch gerade zu seiner Zeit, die ein Stückchen nach dem Beginn des intellektualistischen Zeitalters liegt, in einen denkbar schwersten Seelenkonflikt hineingestellt werden mußte. Denn warum? Sie müssen nur daran denken: Augustinus hatte sich durchgerungen zu der Anerkennung der christlich-katholischen Dogmatik, aber das war für ihn verbunden mit einem Sichhineinleben in etwas, was noch lebendig war, und am lebendigsten vielleicht gerade bei den Manichäern, mit denen er zusammengekommen ist. Was noch lebendig war in seiner Zeit, das ist die Anschauung von der Erbsünde, überhaupt die Anschauung davon, wie höhere Vorgänge sich gegenüber den niederen irdischen Vorgängen abspielen. Man hat heute sogar Mühe, solche Dinge noch begreiflich zu machen.
[ 14 ] Versetzen wir uns einmal in den Beginn der Erdenentwickelung, so können wir gewissermaßen uns von der Vorstellung durchdringen, wie es war noch vor der Entstehung desjenigen, was wir den heutigen Menschen nennen. Da waren höhere Wesen, die in einer gewissen Weise mit der Erdenevolution verbunden waren. Auf ein solches höheres Wesen wird im Alten Testament hingedeutet, indem auf die Schlange gewiesen wird, auf das Wesen, das wir heute Luzifer nennen würden. Dieses höhere Wesen, so wurde die Sache angesehen, hat eigentlich die Ursünde begangen. Dieses Wesen war da [im Beginne der Erdenentwickelung], und die Ursünde fällt eigentlich auf die Rechnung dieses Menschenvorgängers, der dann als die Schlange des Paradieses auftrat. Und auf den Menschen wurde das erst übertragen, was dieses vormenschliche Wesen als Sünde begangen hat, durch die Verführung im Paradies. So daß also in diesem Zeitraum in die Gedanken der Menschen etwas hereinspielt, was als eine Urschuld dasteht, in die der Mensch erst nachträglich verstrickt worden ist und die er nun mitschleppt; weil er ursprünglich hineinverstrickt worden ist, wird sie nun tatsächlich mit dem Blut übertragen von Generation zu Generation. Wegen dieser Ursünde erschien der Christus auf der Erde - ich rede immer vom Bewußtsein dieses Zeitraumes —, um den Menschen allmählich zu heilen von dem, was in ihn durch Luzifers Vergehen gekommen ist. Daß man äußerlich so wenig weiß von dieser Konstitution des Bewußtseins, das rührt ja davon her, daß die römisch-katholische Kirche wirklich Unzähliges ausgetilgt hat, was sich gerade auf diese Urtradition bezieht, Vor allen Dingen ist alles Gnostische ausgetilgt worden, und auch später war ja die Fortpflanzung desjenigen, was noch irgendwie in der älteren Seelenverfassung wurzelte, außerordentlich schwierig. Sie wissen ja, daß auch [die Schriften des] Scotus Eriugena verlorengegangen waren, erst später wiederum aufgefunden worden sind, und daß durch Jahrhunderte die Menschen nichts wußten von Scotus Eriugena, weil alle Exemplare seiner Schriften, deren man habhaft werden konnte, verbrannt worden sind. Es ist also durchaus so, daß man es zu tun hat mit dem Hinaufschauen zu einem Ereignis, das sich abgespielt hat in der übermenschlichen Welt und in das der Mensch gewissermaßen nur hineinverstrickt worden ist.
[ 15 ] Und nun, unter den Impulsen einer solchen Anschauung, ich möchte sagen, eines hinter dem Menschen-Geschehen wirksamen außermenschlichen Geschehens anderer Wesen, die mit der Menschenentwickelung aber auch etwas zu tun haben, konnte dann das entstehen, was des Augustinus Lehre von der Vorherbestimmung ist. Augustinus sah in dem Hingestelltsein des Menschen in die Welt noch vielfach etwas, was man nur so ausdrücken kann, daß man sagt: Der Mensch ist eigentlich dasjenige, in dem sich auswirkt der Kampf übermenschlicher Wesenheiten. Daher hat noch nicht das Einzelleben des Menschen den absoluten Wert, den es später bekam nach der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts. Für Augustinus war die Lehre von einer, ich möchte sagen, über den Menschenwillen hinweggehenden Entwickelung, die vollzogen wurde durch die Schicksale übermenschlicher Wesenheiten, etwas, was durchaus möglich war zu denken. Nur so konnte die Lehre in ihm lebendig sein, daß ein Teil der Menschen, zwar nicht zur Sünde, aber zum Untergang bestimmt sei und ein anderer Teil der Menschen zur Seligkeit, eine Lehre, die aber gewöhnlich nicht vorgestellt wird in ihrer ganzen Bedeutung, wenn sie erlebt werden soll. Man kann sie eben heute als Mensch nicht mehr erleben in der Ergebenheit, mit der sie ja noch ein Augustinus erleben konnte. In diese Seelenverfassung spielt also das hinein, was man die Erbsünde nennen kann, die ihren Ausgleich findet durch das Mysterium von Golgatha. Man drückte sich zu Luthers Zeiten noch so aus, aber man lebte in einer anderen Zeit der Seelenverfassung [als Augustinus]. Man konnte das nicht mehr verstehen, man konnte sich nicht hineinfinden. Es war ganz ausgeschlossen, sich mit voller Seele in diese Vorstellungen hineinzufinden. So etwa erlebte Luther als Augustinermönch dasjenige, was in seine Seele hereingeleuchtet hat.
[ 16 ] Nun muß ich Ihnen meine Überzeugung aussprechen, die aber trotzdem es Überzeugung genannt wird — eben auf Erkenntnis beruht. Für mich ist es durchaus eine Erkenntnis. Ich bin nicht in der Lage, in derselben Weise über den Zufall oder über Zufälle zu sprechen wie andere Menschen, weil das Zufällige auch einer Ordnung der Dinge angehört, die nur gewöhnlich nicht beachtet wird. Ich kann nicht an einem in Luthers [Leben] tatsächlich Vorgefallenen vorbeigehen, ich kann nicht in dem Blitzeinschlagen in einen Baum [neben ihm] etwas Gleichgültiges sehen, sondern ich kann darin nach meiner Erkenntnis nur das Hereinragen einer Wirkung eines wirklichen Übersinnlichen schen. Sie können denken, wie Sie wollen, aber wenn ich aufrichtig und ehrlich spreche, muß ich eben sagen, daß ich einen Teil der Lutherschen Seelenverfassung durchaus als dieses Hereinzeigen, wenn ich es so nennen darf, des Fingers Gottes ansehen muß, nicht aus einem Glauben heraus, sondern aus einem Erkennen heraus. Luthers Seelenverfassung wird in der Tat unter dem Einfluß einer solchen Sache anders; sie wird so, daß ihr von innen heraus gewisse Quellen eröffnet werden. Diese Quellen, besser gesagt die Wirksamkeit dieser Quellen war schon vorbereitet durch all das Ringen mit einem unverstandenen Überlieferungsinhalt. Aber es konnte nicht herauf, es war wie eine Wende innerhalb der Seele selber, aber es konnte nicht ins Bewußtsein herauf. Dann kam es ins Bewußtsein herauf, es wurde eine Wende einzig und allein durch dasjenige, was da geschah. Wenn ich mich grob ausdrücken will: Der Körper wurde gewissermaßen weich gemacht, so daß dasjenige, was sich bei Luther lange vorbereitet hatte, sich durchdrängte durch einen weicheren Körper. Und nun wurde Luther allmählich die ganze Gefahr gewahr, in der der moderne Mensch lebt. Es ist nicht ganz leicht zu sagen, inwieweit das bei Luther in klare Bewußtseinsformen übergegangen ist, aber es ist das auch nicht notwendig. Jedenfalls spielte sich in Luthers Seele ab wirklich dieses ganze Hineingestelltsein des modernen Menschen auf der einen Seite in das, was als Strömung von früher heraufgekommen war, und auf der anderen Seite in das, was der Mensch sein sollte seit der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts. Es drängte sich auf die Seele Luthers die ganze Gefahr des modernen Menschen. Worin besteht diese? Sie besteht eben darin - ich rede jetzt christlich —, daß der Mensch behaftet war mit den Taten oder mit den Tatenfolgen übermenschlicher Wesen, in die er hineinverstrickt war. Durch dasjenige, was als Erbsünde in die untere menschliche Wesenheit als vererbte Merkmale hineinverstrickt worden ist, trat er in einer anderen Weise in das folgende Zeitalter hinein, als es ohne die Erbsünde [der Fall gewesen] wäre. Dadurch wurde dasjenige, was nun heraufkommen sollte [in der Menschheit], das Intellektuelle, in demselben Maße abstrakter, wie früher das Leben des Menschen behaftet war mit etwas Untermenschlichem durch die Erbsünde. Es wurde gewissermaßen dasjenige, was der Mensch intellektuell erleben sollte, dünner, abstrakter, weil das frühere Leben dichter, natürlicher war, als es für den Menschen sein durfte. Jetzt erst war der Mensch im Grunde genommen dazu verurteilt, durch seinen Intellektualismus von Gott abzufallen. Die ganze Gefahr des Intellektualismus, der zu einer viel zu großen Abstraktheit drängt, lebte sich gerade in Luthers Seele aus, und die erlebte Luther wirklich in jener Vehemenz, wie sie geschildert wird als sein Teufelskampf auf der Wartburg.
[ 17 ] Wir haben da zwei Gegenpole, die deutlich hingestellt werden in der neueren Menschheitsentwickelung. Wir haben auf der einen Seite Luther, der hineingestellt ist in den großen Geisteskampf nach der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts, natürlich etwas später, und der nun deshalb, weil er sich losmachen will von der Gefahr des Intellektualismus, zunächst den Intellekt überhaupt aufgibt und die Rechtfertigung außerhalb des Intellektes sucht in demjenigen, was gewissermaßen unterhalb des Intellektes zum Göttlichen hinführen kann. Der andere Pol ist Faust. Er nimmt den Intellekt mit vollem Sinne auf, aber er verfällt dadurch der Gefahr des Intellekts, er kommt in alle einzelnen Gefahren des Intellekts hinein. Nicht umsonst stehen diese beiden Persönlichkeiten da wie eine Art Wahrzeichen für die moderne Menschheit: Auf der einen Seite Luther und das, was sich an ihn anschließt, auf der anderen Seite Faust und das, was sich an Faust anschließt. Es war wahrhaftig keine geringe Tat Goethes, als er den Faust in dem Sinne umgestalten wollte, daß er nicht zugrundegeht. Schon Lessing hatte daran gedacht. Es muß ja, wenn wir die Freiheit in der Menschheit erringen wollen, der Intellekt absorbiert werden, aber er darf nicht zurückgestoßen werden von dem Göttlichen. Das Faust-Fragment Lessings schließt mit den Worten [des Engels an die Teufel]: «Ihr sollt nicht siegen!», was dann Goethe aufgenommen und umgestaltet hat. Er sagte sich, es muß eine Möglichkeit geben, vom Göttlichen nicht abgeschlossen zu werden, wenn der Mensch den Intellekt, den er zur Entwickelung der Freiheit braucht, absorbiert. Aber in diesem furchtbaren Kampf stand Luther darinnen. Er sah, wie der Intellekt die Gefahr in sich schließt, daß man sich auch mit der Seele von dem Göttlichen abschnürt, daß man dem Seelentod verfällt. Denn derjenige, der nun ganz vom Intellekt zerfressen wird — wir nennen es in der Anthroposophie «ahrimanisch werden» -, der also ganz in den Intellekt hineinkommt, wird zerfressen, er schnürt sich ab von dem Göttlichen. Das ist dasjenige, was Luther fühlte für die moderne Menschheit. Historisch war die Sache natürlich so, daß auf der einen Seite die katholische Kirche stand, die den Menschen überhaupt nicht hineinließ in den Intellekt, die ihn eben retten wollte, indem sie ihn nicht hineinließ in den Intellekt, indem sie das, was sie hatte, auch über das 15. Jahrhundert hinaus gegenüber dem neueren Fortschritt bewahrte und, um das dann zu konservieren, solche Dogmen brauchte wie das Infallibilitätsdogma oder das Dogma von der Conceptio immaculata, das ich vorhin erwähnte. Sie konnte im konsequent römisch-katholischen Sinne nicht ohne das Infallibilitätsdogma auskommen, weil sie eben den Intellekt in seiner Bedeutung herabsetzte, ihn für unentwickelungsfähig erklärte und für unfähig, die geistige Welt zu begreifen. Da mußte zur Befestigung desjenigen, woran der Mensch glauben soll, der Befehl da sein, das heißt, die Souveränität des päpstlichen Befehls für die Wahrheit. Man kann nichts Unzeitgemäßeres finden, im Grunde genommen aber auch nichts Großartigeres, als diese völlig allem Zeitbewußtsein, allem Freiheitsdrange des Menschen widersprechende Festsetzung des Infallibilitätsdogmas. Es ist die letzte Konsequenz des Weltlichwerdens des Katholizismus in einer eisernen Konsequenz von ungeheuerster Genialität. Und man muß sagen, wenn man auf der einen Seite nimmt diese eiserne Konsequenz des römischen Klerus in der Festsetzung des Infallibilitätsdogmas und auf der anderen Seite etwa die Polemik eines Döllinger, so ist die letztere natürlich philiströs gegenüber der ungeheuren Genialität — Sie mögen es vielleicht teuflisch nennen —, mit der dort etwas durchgeführt wird, weil es einmal die Konsequenz desjenigen ist, wohin Rom seit der Verweltlichung des Christentums durch Konstantin gekommen ist.
[ 18 ] So ist es gekommen, daß in der Brust des römischen Katholiken ganz gut zwei Seelen nebeneinander wohnen können. Auf der einen Seite die Hingabe an das starre Dogma, an das kein Mensch rühren darf außer dem unfehlbaren Papst - denn die Konzile haben ja ihre Macht verloren seit der Festsetzung des Infallibilitätsdogmas —, und auf der anderen Seite die unbehinderte Pflege der äußeren Wissenschaften wie eine äußere Hantierung, der man sich hingibt und die man mitmacht, der man aber keine Bedeutung zuschreibt für dasjenige, was eigentlich Inhalt der religiösen Lehre ist. Sehen Sie sich an, wie heute die Rechtfertigung des römisch-katholischen Lehrgutes aus dem modernen Bewußtsein heraus aussieht. Ich rate Ihnen, zum Beispiel eine solche Schrift zu lesen wie «Das Prinzip des Katholizismus und die Wissenschaft» von Hertling, dem früheren deutschen Reichskanzler. Sie werden erstens daraufkommen, was es für ein Fehler der Weltgeschichte war, daß dieser Mann jemals deutscher Reichskanzler geworden ist, aber auf der anderen Seite werden Sie manches lernen können über die für den modernen Menschen ganz sonderbaren Gedanken, wodurch dieses Wohnen von zwei Seelen in einer Brust gerechtfertigt werden soll. Es ist auch noch eine Schrift über das Prinzip der Katholizität bemerkenswert, die aber in französischer Sprache erschienen ist. Sie ist deshalb außerordentlich interessant, weil bei dem Schreiber dieser Schrift, dessen Name mir augenblicklich nicht gegenwärtig ist, doch fortwährend das logische Gewissen sich ab und zu regt, und da muß er einen Unterschied machen zwischen dem, was im römisch-katholischen Lehrgut ist, und dem, was Inhalt der äußeren Naturwissenschaft ist. Deshalb stellt er zwei Begriffe nebeneinander hin, den Begriff der Wahrheit und den Begriff der Wissenschaftlichkeit, die er durchaus als zwei disparate Begriffe ansieht. Er sagt, etwas kann sehr gut wissenschaftlich sein, wahr ist aber etwas anderes; was wahr ist, braucht nicht wissenschaftlich zu sein. Und er bekommt auf irgendeine Art heraus, daß das Wissenschaftliche auch nicht etwas zu tun haben muß mit dem, was man unmittelbar als Inhalt der Wahrheit anerkenne. Also es werden da auf der einen Seite schon die erwägungswürdigsten [Dinge gesagt], auf der anderen Seite die groteskesten Purzelbäume geschlagen, um den Inhalt dieser beiden Seelen miteinander vereinbar zu machen.
[ 19 ] So haben wir auf der einen Seite die Fortpflanzung des Symbolismus, jenes Symbolismus, der dann in der Renaissancezeit zu dem gewaltigen Aufschwung der abendländischen Kunst geführt hat. Die Kunsthistoriker sollten nur wirklich tief genug schürfen, dann würden sie schon finden, wie ohne den katholischen Symbolismus die ganze Kunstentwickelung von Giotto, Cimabue, über Leonardo bis zu Raffael, Michelangelo unmöglich ist, denn diese Kunstentwickelung ist durchaus eine Fortsetzung des christlichen Kultusinhaltes, und sie gehört in das Christentum so stark hinein, daß die Leute zum Beispiel gar nicht begreifen, warum die Sixtinische Madonna so aussieht, wie sie aussieht. Wenn Sie die Sixtinische Madonna betrachten, sie ist großartig. Soweit man nach oben sieht, sind Wolkengebilde, die sich umwandeln in lauter Engelsköpfe, dann die Madonna selber mit dem Kinde, das wie verdichtet ist aus den Engeln, die in den Wolken sind. Es ist, wie wenn sich aus den Wolkengebilden eine der Engelgestalten verdichtet hätte und heruntergestiegen wäre auf den Erdboden, aber alles wunderbar ins Geistige gehoben. Dann zwei Vorhänge (es wird an der Tafel skizziert, links oben), und darunter eine kokette Frauengestalt und eine furchtbare Priestergestalt, alles Dinge, die gar nicht dazugehören. Warum ist denn das so? Es ist das aus dem einfachen Grunde, weil Raffael ursprünglich in diesem Bilde das Seelenerlebnis beim Um Tafel 7 gange [mit einem Marienbild] an einem bestimmten Marien-Feiertage wiederzugeben gedachte - jetzt ist dies an das Fronleichnamsfest verlegt —, wo man [in Prozession mit einem Marienbild] herumgeht, das unter einem Baldachin [getragen wird] und zu Altären kommt, [wo man niederkniet]. Daher ergeben sich hier (siehe Tafel) die Vorhänge, und unten knieen eben eine weibliche und eine männliche Gestalt an einer solchen Kapelle vor dem Marienbild. Also das ist gewissermaßen schülerhaft hinzugezeichnet zu dem, was [Raffael gemalt hat]. Was da eigentlich gemeint ist, steht ganz im römischkatholischen Kultus drinnen — absolut steht es darinnen.
[ 20 ] Im Grunde genommen steht alles das drinnen in diesem römischkatholischen Kultus, was Luther in Rom sah. Und ist es dann nicht ungeheuer symbolisch, historisch symbolisch, historisch symptomatisch, wie Luther in Rom nur die Korruption sah, nicht eigentlich tiefer berührt wurde durch das, was ausgeflossen ist in die Kunst, wie er also nicht innerlich vertieft wurde [durch die Kunst], sondern nur die sittliche Korruption sah? Ja, da sehen wir, wie diese Seele in der Tat da, wo sie hineingestellt ist durch ihre besondere Entwickelung in den historischen Werdegang der Menschheit, hin- und hergerissen wird, wie diese Seele innerlich kämpft und wie sie nach einem Ausweg sucht. Und trotz alledem wirkt wie ein Verhängnis gerade des Lutherianismus das große Problem: Wie absorbieren wir als Menschen den Intellektualismus, so daß wir ihm nicht verfallen, sondern indem wir die Furcht überwinden, ihm zu verfallen und ihn doch, weil er notwendig zur Erlangung der menschlichen Freiheit ist, uns eingliedern. Stark drückt auf das moderne Bewußtsein des Menschen dieser Intellektualismus. Die evangelische Kirche rechnet mit ihm seit Jahrhunderten, die katholische Kirche hat sich ihm vollständig ferngehalten. Die evangelische Kirche ist immer mehr und mehr dahin gekommen, sich zurückzuziehen auf den Glauben, weil es eben mit dem Intellektualismus, wie er sich in der Welt entwickelt hat, nicht geht, sie ist daher immer mehr und mehr dazu gekommen, das Wissen abzulehnen und im Glauben aufzugehen; sie steht nun da mit einem Glauben, zu dem sie den Lehrinhalt suchen muß. Den Lehrinhalt hatte die katholische Kirche, aber sie hat ihn vertrocknen lassen. Vom Intellektualismus aus kann man nicht den Weg finden vom einzelnen Menschen, der sich auf sich selbst gestellt sieht, zu jenen übermenschlichen Kräften, mit denen sich noch der Augustinismus verbunden fühlte. Im Grunde genommen stehen wir heute noch als Menschheit in diesem Kampfe drinnen, nur daß er, ich möchte sagen, bis auf des Messers Schneide gekommen ist, so daß einfach dagestanden wird und gesagt wird: Einen reinen Glaubensbegriff brauchen wir, damit wir gegenüber dem Intellektualismus Religion haben; den alten [Lehrinhalt] des Katholizismus können wir nicht aufnehmen, weil er vertrocknet ist. - Mit diesem dogmatisch vertrockneten Inhalt hat die evangelische Kirche auch den Kultus abgeworfen in den verschiedensten Formen. Es ist dasjenige, was mit Luther begann, heute auf des Messers Schneide gestellt; wir sollten uns des Ernstes der Lage eben durchaus bewußt werden. Es ist ein Ringen nach einer Glaubensmacht in der Seele, die den Glauben retten will auf Kosten des gar nicht vorhandenen Lehrinhaltes. Aber ohne Inhalt kann man nicht lehren, und es zeigt sich die Unmöglichkeit, so einfach die Brücke hinüberzufinden zu demjenigen, was im Katholizismus sich verweltlicht hat.
[ 21 ] Nun, meine lieben Freunde, da komme ich auf die Frage, die uns nun weiterführen soll. Es ist diese: Sehen Sie, damit war ja eigentlich auch das evangelische Bewußtsein in die Menschheitsentwickelung, in die individuelle Menschheitsentwickelung hereingestellt, währenddem das vorevangelische Bewußtsein in gewisser Beziehung den Menschen verstrickte in überirdische, übermenschliche Vorgänge und in Taten von übermenschlichen Wesen. Bei Augustinus ist es etwas anders ausgedrückt, aber [es war] durchaus noch [ein Verständnis] vorhanden, daß eigentlich der Fortgang des Menschlichen durchzogen wird von einem Übermenschlichen ... [Lücke in der Nachschrift]. Man sah, wie ein übermenschlicher Kampf stattfand, wie etwa, als der Christus gegen den Feind kämpft, der ihn versuchen will, Übermenschliches hereinscheint; [man sah,] daß derjenige, der dem Christus da nahte, derjenige war, auf den eigentlich die Urschuld zurückzuführen ist, und es wurde gezeigt, wie der Christus sich gegen die Urschuld wendet. Das hörte nun auf, verstanden zu werden. Aber früher war festgehalten worden dieses Verständnis für das, was als das Übersinnlich-Göttliche das Irdische durchzieht, und es war schon immer ein Bestreben vorhanden, eine Sonderung, eine Grenzscheidung vorzunehmen zwischen dem Übersinnlichen und dem Teil des Menschen, der in das Sinnliche verstrickt war. Diese Grenzscheidung wurde vorgenommen durch die Weihe. Die Weihe ist eigentlich das Abscheiden des Menschlichen oder eines Teiles des Menschlichen von dem Verstricktsein in das Irdische. Die Priesterweihe ist nur ein Teil, denn es werden ja auch Geräte und so weiter geweiht, es wird alles mögliche geweiht; der Papst hat sogar einmal im Kriege die Kugeln geweiht; das ist aber eben nur herrührend von der Verweltlichung des Katholizismus.
[ 22 ] Aber Sie sehen, dasjenige, was die Weihe ist, das richtet eine Grenzscheide auf zwischen zwei Welten, und es liegt schon durchaus im Katholizismus dieses Bewußtsein — wenn es auch nicht bei jedem einzelnen Priester vorhanden ist —, daß ein geweihter Priester in einer anderen Welt handelt, wenn er etwas tut, daß er auch spricht aus einer anderen Welt, wenn er das Evangelium spricht, während alle seine gewöhnlichen Handlungen aus der irdischen Welt sind. Diesen Unterschied konnte man nun nicht mehr verstehen seit der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts. Im historischen Katholizismus, den es durchaus gibt, liegt aber diese Unterscheidung stark vor, und sie werden schon in Kreisen der geweihten Priester durchaus bewußt betont. Nur bringt manchmal irgendein Bischof aus Versehen etwas Nicht-Katholisches in den Katholizismus hinein, nämlich das moderne Bewußtsein, und das führt dann zu Absurditäten. Da ist [zum Beispiel] ein Hirtenbrief verfaßt worden, in dem stand drinnen, daß der Priester im Vollziehen des Altarsakramentes mächtiger sei als der Christus Jesus, weil er den Christus Jesus zwingt, im Altarsakrament anwesend zu sein; der Christus Jesus müsse anwesend sein, wenn der Priester das will; daraus gehe aber hervor, daß der Priester nun mächtiger ist als der Christus. — Es ist das der Inhalt eines gar nicht weit zurückliegenden Hirtenbriefes. Man kann schon solche Dinge sehen, wenn aus dem modernen Bewußtsein heraus dasjenige ergriffen wird, was in einer ganz anderen Stimmung erfaßt werden muß, nämlich das jenseits der irdischen Sphäre Liegende und von ihr durch die Weihe Abgegrenzte.
[ 23 ] Dieses Prinzip der Weihe geht allerdings weit, weit zurück. Es wird schon in den ältesten orientalischen Religionen gefunden, und es ist ganz besonders ausgebildet worden auf Samothrake. Der Katholizismus hat es durchaus aus älteren Zeiten [übernommen], aber für das neuere Bewußtsein ist es vollständig verlorengegangen. Ich werde nun morgen versuchen, noch weitere Elemente heranzutragen, um Ihnen damit dieses Prinzip der Weihe, also auch der Priesterweihe, ohne welche auch die apostolische Sukzession nicht zu verstehen ist, zum vollständigen Verständnis zu bringen.
Eleventh Lecture
Various sides have requested that we continue what we began the day before, and in particular, they would like to hear more about Luther's spiritual struggle.
[ 1 ] Rudolf Steiner: Yes, my dear friends, if I am now to continue in different directions from what we have begun, it is necessary that I first touch a little on what lay in early Christianity, and then what later developed from the various forces that were at work in early Christianity and which then led to the emergence of the Protestant-Evangelical feeling. We must be quite clear about the fact that at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place, precisely those human beings who were most able to take up Christianity still had a completely different soul disposition than that which emerged later. The Mystery of Golgotha occurred at a time in the evolution of humanity that initially had basically nothing to do with all the rest of what one can spiritually follow as the objective course of the world. That is precisely what is so remarkable. If one tries to delve into the objective course of the world, as it presents itself as a totality, where the physical, the soul and the spiritual are involved, then one gets a very strong impact on this development in the 8th century BC. And again, there is a strong impact — this is already apparent from an external knowledge — at the point in time that I have often spoken of now, in the 15th century.
[ 2 ] The period from the 8th century BC to the 15th century AD roughly corresponds to one of the epochs that one is obliged to assume in the development of humanity, if one follows the course of its development in a spiritual-scientific way. During this period, the development of that in man takes place which can be called the soul of mind or of feeling. The purest expression of this came about in the development of the Greek people. I say “intellectual soul,” and I ask you not to attach an intellectualistic connotation to the concept of the intellectual soul. If one wants to study the soul of the intellect as it developed in Greece, one must study it in people who, in a certain sense, can still awaken in themselves a kind of ancient clairvoyance, not a trained clairvoyance but an atavistic, inherited clairvoyance, which many people in the present day can still achieve. It can be seen that such people do indeed receive a world view into their souls, one that is imaginative and shaped in images. If they are then induced to write down the pictorial images, then — of course only when there is no physical deformity causing disorder, but when everything is running smoothly — there is an extraordinary amount of understanding in what they then describe in pictures. They describe some processes of the spiritual world in pictures. They receive the pictures, but they also receive the understanding. They cannot help but take understanding into the description of the images, because they perceive it. Even into the 15th century, the state of mind of very many people was such that they did not have an intellect as developed as ours today, but rather that they were, so to speak, inspired with intellect, that they received the intellect through revelation. It is only since the 15th century that intellectualism has emerged in the development of humanity, which consists in the fact that the intellect, in particular, must be actively worked at inwardly in the soul. One must develop logic; it is something that must be worked at, it is not given to the soul, so to speak. That is the essential difference in the state of mind of the modern human being compared to people in this [earlier] epoch. And if we go back even further, to the period of human development that lies before the eighth century BC, we come to an epoch in which pictorial imagination, this involuntary pictorial imagination, is only just developing. We come to an epoch that goes back to the third millennium and see how this reading of the cosmos, which I have described to you this morning, develops and appears in the human soul as pictorial imagination, and was still present in the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, especially in simple, simple-minded natures. On the other hand, we have the epoch since the 15th century, which is supposed to lead man to the consciousness of freedom, and this can only come about if man has to create his thought forms out of himself.
[ 3 ] If we simply study the objective processes of the world, we have no immediate reason to approach the Mystery of Golgotha. For this we need intuitive knowledge in the sense I describe in my book 'How to Know Higher Worlds'. Then one comes to see the Mystery of Golgotha as a process that falls out of the whole remaining course of the world. (The following is written on the blackboard.) If I have the 8th [pre-Christian] century here, the 15th century here, then we have a special process here that must be viewed as running its course and that now gives a special impact on our [world course] in the year one or zero.
[ 4 ] From the earliest times, we have been able to follow the course of development of the earth and of humanity to a certain extent. We recognize certain stages of development, but we do not see the Mystery of Golgotha in them. But we do arrive at this point in our pursuit of this process of development when we do not turn our gaze to the Mystery of Golgotha, when we get the feeling that the end is coming for the Earth, that human beings must find their grave in the Earth. — So we arrive at a very definite conception of the dying away of the Earth. If we then turn our gaze to the Mystery of Golgotha, we find that the Earth has been newly fertilized by this Mystery of Golgotha, has received a new germ of expanses outside of its previous developmental current, and that in this new germ, which has come in through the Mystery of Golgotha, lies the basis for the Earth to be able to find a renewal. So that is the meaning of the words of the Gospel that I expressed yesterday when I said: the spiritual beings that still remained on Earth would have brought about the downfall of the Earth [if the Mystery of Golgotha had not come]. The demons cried out when they saw the Christ because He takes their power away from them. This is a very real process. You can be quite sure that it is not just a matter of recording some events in the Bible, but it is a clear view of the processes.
[ 5 ] But the Mystery of Golgotha does not even fall in the middle of this period [between the 8th century BC and the 15th century AD], because the middle of this period is roughly in the middle of the 4th century. So this event does not even fall in the middle, so that one must say: The event of Golgotha is something that comes into the world through the freedom of the divine world, in complete contrast to the necessity that otherwise governs the world. It is an act of the freedom of the divine worlds, it is something that is given to humanity from the outside, given by the divine world order. Therefore, it can also be fully understood that those who want to see the continuous progress of history cannot expect to find anything in it that resembles the Mystery of Golgotha.
[ 6 ] In order to suggest this to the senses, I have often put it this way: if, let us say, an inhabitant of Mars were to come to Earth, he would find everything incomprehensible, but he would begin to understand something if he were to see something like Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. He would be able to see something in this special thing, what lies in it and what tends towards Christ, that also gives the events on earth a center for him. This is, of course, only a comparison, but it is a comparison that I have made often to suggest what is at stake here. Now, precisely those who had a sense for this extraordinary meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha, have felt very strongly that in all that the Roman Catholic Church has gradually become, there is still a kind of falling away from the original meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha. This has crystallized in an historical anecdote. When Leonardo da Vinci was hired to paint his Last Supper, he worked very slowly, actually taking more than ten years. Then a new prior arrived who wanted this painting to be finished by that painter fellow. The painting was finished except for the figure of Judas, when the prior asked when it would finally be finished. Leonardo said that he had not been able to finish it until now because he had no model for Judas. But now he has a model for Judas in the prior, and now he can finish the painting. — This anecdote is a perfect crystallization of the feeling of how the Roman Catholic Church has actually strayed from the original meaning of the mystery of Golgotha, how it is much easier to make a Judas out of a prior than out of someone else.
[ 7 ] This state of mind can be studied well into the mid-4th century, and then again, how it prepares for the intellectualism of the mid-4th century. For example, you can see very nicely when you study the writings of Scotus Eriugena how, on the one hand, the tendency towards the intellectualism that would later fully emerge is already apparent in the 10th century, and how, on the other hand, there is still something in it that could be called the imparting of the intellectual from higher worlds. This appears very strongly in the period from the middle of the previous epoch to the 15th century of our present epoch. But in the end it is quite different before the middle of the 4th century AD; it also lasts until the 5th century, the times are not so strictly defined. One finds, after all, that in the first centuries after Christ, in contrast to the Mystery of Golgotha, there is a strong sense of how an extraterrestrial spiritual plays into the earthly. And this interaction of an extraterrestrial spiritual into the earthly is now understood more and more difficultly by the ordinary state of mind, and we see a personality wrestling with all kinds of things to get by, especially around the middle of this previous period. It is such a turning point where, on the one hand, a person's spiritual condition is truly changed, and where, on the other hand, a kind of new understanding of the mystery of Golgotha is necessary. This personality is, as you know, Augustine. In Augustine's soul, it is completely clear that he cannot cope with how the spiritual works in the material. Augustine seeks, for example, with the Manicheans, to find a way to recognize a spiritual in the material. He cannot cope; he only really comes to terms with it by completely withdrawing into his inner self, by completely relying on the self-assurance of the human ego, which makes him a forerunner of the famous saying of Descartes: “Cogito, ergo sum”. This principle can already be found in Augustine. But on the other hand, he comes to a certain doubt about the content of the teaching, and this doubt about the content of the teaching eats away at him. It is easy to understand why Augustine felt this way, given the overall situation at the time. Just as the ancient [pagan beliefs] were still fully embraced by the Church Fathers, especially by Clement of Alexandria, so that in the earliest times [of Christianity] pagan beliefs were adopted into Christian doctrine, this could no longer be accepted by Augustine because it was no longer appropriate for the human soul. The content of the teaching was also shaped in such a way that, essentially during the time of the Council of Nicaea, it was transformed into abstract dogmas that could then be taken up by intellectualism. So the human soul [at the time of Augustine] was, I would say, already driven to the preparation of intellectualism. Therefore, Augustine could not help but take up the dogmatic content of the Catholic Church in order to arrive at any doctrinal content at all.
[ 8 ] Now, this is how the great rift within the Catholic Church came about. For what was retained as ceremonies could not, of course, contain that which corresponded to the content of the soul. For mankind did not arrive at the undermining of the content of the ceremonies in the same way that it arrived at the drying up of the content of the soul. And so it came about in the Catholic Church that the content of the soul was dogmatically dried up, while the content of the ceremonies actually continued to be preserved. This content of the ceremonies of the Catholic Church did not at all arise out of Christianity, but was taken from much older ceremonial processes. It stems from times when people still had a vivid sense of the cosmos, but when they performed sacrificial acts based on what they could deduce from this sense of the cosmos. What was deduced from older mystery ceremonies was then merely Christianized. The mass sacrifice was also taken from older mystery ceremonies and Christianized. But what remained in the cultic action as symbols is what actually did survive within the Catholic Church.
[ 9 ] The Catholic Church was actually always consistent in this regard, even when it became a secular institution under Constantine, when it entered the political arena. One might say that it was truly unyielding, the Catholic Church. It retained its ceremonies in the most conservative way and, in order to prevent the loss of their spiritual content, smothered it in dogmas. No wonder that the content of the ceremonies was felt more and more as something completely foreign, because people no longer had a living connection to it, and the content of the dogmas was felt as something outdated – while in older times it was a living knowledge that was experienced from a different state of mind – because the content of the dogmas was absolutely incompatible with what was now emerging as purely secular knowledge. But now the Catholic Church had to, of course, continue to remain absolutely consistent in this direction, and it has remained consistent in its conservatism to this day. It has remained conservative in that it has absolutely not gone along with the state of mind of today. It has remained the case that it demands belief in preserved dogmas that correspond to knowledge from earlier states of mind, so that a Catholic Christian teaching in the Catholic Church today is bound to believe in the content of dogmas that represent a level of knowledge that actually reached its end for all of humanity in the 14th century AD.
[ 10 ] And that which wants to emerge in anthroposophy is precisely the regaining of supersensible knowledge, which is just as much supersensible knowledge as that is dead in dogma. Anthroposophy wants to convey a new perception of the event of the Mystery of Golgotha, to develop a new understanding, because the dogmas of the Catholic Church are no longer suitable for the [present-day] state of the soul. What is extraordinarily important is that the dogmas of the Catholic Church do not allow penetration to an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Sacrifice of the Mass allows [the souls of men] to penetrate to something else, to an emotional response to the symbols of the Sacrifice of the Mass. It is true that the Roman Catholic Church has maintained its line with the utmost consistency even in the 19th century. Some things seem extraordinarily strange when you approach the dogmas established by the Catholic Church in the 19th century. I would like to share with you an experience from which you will see what an abyss there is, and so that you can gain an insight into how such an abyss can be bridged.
[ 11 ] I once got into a conversation with a very learned theologian about the dogma of the Conceptio immaculata, the immaculate conception, which was only introduced in the 19th century. As you may know, it is not about the immaculate conception of Jesus himself, but about the immaculate conception of Mary; thus, St. Anna conceived Mary immaculately at the Conception of Mary. This is the actual dogma that was established in the 19th century. The other dogma, that of the immaculate conception of Jesus, had been around for a long time. And as a “singular grace” it can be understood by someone who can understand the establishment of dogmas from the imaginative content at all, even if he cannot approve of it, because the imaginative content is killed by it — but one can understand it. So I got into a conversation with the theologian and told him that it was impossible to reconcile the immaculate conception with modern consciousness. I told him that it is not necessary to transfer the modern consciousness to dogmatics in the case of the individual; it is not necessary to apply logic to a singular case, because the singular, according to scholastic opinion, eludes any kind of conclusion. But the moment one assumes a series of facts, especially a series of facts pointing backwards, that is, the moment one ascends from Mary's immaculate conception to Anna's immaculate conception, one is obliged to proceed in this way, and then one is obliged to recognize the immaculate conception of the entire series of generations. The theologian objected that this would not work at all, because then we would end up with David, as he put it, and history would become quite fatal, it could not be done. As you can see, to today's consciousness this certainly has an air of frivolity, but it is definitely something that can teach you how the whole relationship to truth within the Roman Catholic Church is different.
[ 12 ] I just wanted to emphasize in [the description of] this conversation the conception of truth in which we have lived since the middle of the 15th century. The Catholic cleric did not stand within the conception of truth of [modern consciousness], but within a conception of truth that corresponds to an [earlier] period. He did not yet stand within a conception of truth that takes into account the consequences of a truth for the inner life of man. It was a completely different position regarding truth, and how times have changed is usually not even considered. We must indeed look at the development of humanity, which is such that the state of the soul has changed quite significantly. There is basically no more inaccurate expression than that nature does not make leaps. Nature is constantly making leaps. Take the green leaf, the colored petal - a leap. Likewise, we have leaps in the progression of time in the advancement of one soul-condition to another with a certain sharpness. Only that people do not always grow into it immediately, but that old mental states reproduce themselves and thereby dry up inwardly in a certain way, as we can also notice when the enormous leap that is currently to be made in the human mental state is not made by a sufficiently large number of people.
[ 13 ] Now it must be clear that such an inner experience, as one can describe it as that of the historical consciousness, which one acquires, emerges particularly strongly in a person who, through a certain church education, is also particularly placed in it, and that is to be thought of in terms of Luther. If we want to understand Luther's soul, we must realize that he was thoroughly imbued with Augustinianism, and that he was therefore bound to experience the most severe soul conflict imaginable in his time, which came a little after the beginning of the intellectual age. Why? You only have to remember that Augustine had struggled to accept the Christian-Catholic dogma, but for him this was connected with immersing himself in something that was still alive, and most vividly perhaps in the Manicheans, with whom he came into contact. What was still alive in his time was the concept of original sin, and in general the concept of how higher processes take place in relation to lower earthly processes. Today, one even struggles to make such things comprehensible.
[ 14 ] If we place ourselves at the beginning of the evolution of the Earth, we can, as it were, imbibe the idea of what it was like before the emergence of what we call the present human being. There were higher beings who were connected in a certain way with the evolution of the Earth. In the Old Testament, the serpent, the being we would today call Lucifer, is pointed to as such a higher being. This higher being, so it was seen, actually committed the original sin. This being was there [at the beginning of the development of the earth], and the original sin is actually attributed to this human predecessor, who then appeared as the serpent of paradise. And what this pre-human being committed as a sin, through the seduction in paradise, was only transferred to man. So that in this period something plays into the thoughts of men, which stands as an original guilt, in which man was only later entangled and which he now drags along; because he was originally entangled in it, it is now actually transmitted with the blood from generation to generation. Because of this original sin, the Christ came to earth - I am always speaking from the consciousness of that period - to gradually heal man from what came into him through Lucifer's offense. The fact that so little is known about this state of consciousness is due to the fact that the Roman Catholic Church has in fact eradicated countless things that relate to this ancient tradition. Above all, everything Gnostic has been eradicated, and even later, the reproduction of that which was somehow rooted in the older state of mind was extremely difficult. You know, of course, that the writings of Scotus Eriugena were also lost, only to be rediscovered later, and that for centuries people knew nothing of Scotus Eriugena because all the copies of his writings that could be obtained were burned. It is therefore the case that we are dealing with looking up to an event that took place in the superhuman world and in which man has, as it were, only been enmeshed.
[ 15 ] And now, under the impulses of such a view, I might say, of an extra-human event behind human events, of other beings who also have something to do with human evolution, what is Augustine's doctrine of predestination could arise. Augustine saw in the fact that man is placed in the world something that can only be expressed by saying that man is actually the one in whom the struggle of superhuman beings is played out. Therefore, the individual life of man does not yet have the absolute value that it later acquired after the middle of the 15th century. For Augustine, the doctrine of an evolution that, I might say, went beyond the will of man and was accomplished through the destinies of superhuman entities, was something that was quite possible to think. Only in this way could the doctrine be alive in him, that one part of humanity is destined, not to sin, but to destruction, and another part of humanity to blessedness. This doctrine, however, is not usually presented in its full significance if it is to be experienced. Today, it is no longer possible to experience it as a human being with the same devotion with which, after all, an Augustine could experience it. So what we might call original sin plays into this state of mind, which finds its compensation in the Mystery of Golgotha. In Luther's time, people still expressed themselves in this way, but they lived in a different time of soul [than Augustine]. It was no longer possible to understand this, it was impossible to relate to it. It was completely out of the question to relate to these ideas with all of one's soul. This is roughly what Luther experienced as an Augustinian monk, which shone into his soul.
[ 16 ] Now I must express my conviction to you, but it is called a conviction precisely because it is based on knowledge. For me it is absolutely knowledge. I am not in a position to speak about chance or coincidences in the same way as other people, because the coincidental also belongs to an order of things that is just not usually observed. I cannot pass by an actual event in Luther's [life], I cannot look at the lightning striking a tree [next to him] indifferently, but in my knowledge I can only see the penetration of an effect of a real transcendental. You can think what you like, but if I speak sincerely and honestly, I must say that I must regard a part of Luther's mental state as this pointing in, if I may call it that, of the finger of God, not out of faith but out of knowledge. Luther's state of mind does indeed change under the influence of such a thing; it is opened up from within by certain sources. These sources, or rather the effect of these sources, had already been prepared by all the struggle with an misunderstood content of tradition. But it could not come to the surface, it was like a turning point within the soul itself, but it could not come to consciousness. Then it came to consciousness, it became a turning point solely through what happened there. If I may express myself crudely: the body was, as it were, softened, so that what had been long in preparation in Luther was able to assert itself through a softer body. And now Luther gradually became aware of the whole danger in which the modern human being lives. It is not easy to say to what extent this has passed into clear forms of consciousness in Luther, but it is not necessary either. In any case, what was really going on in Luther's soul was the fact that modern man is placed, on the one hand, in what had emerged as a current from earlier times and, on the other hand, in what man should be since the middle of the 15th century. The whole danger of modern man was thrust upon Luther's soul. What is this danger? It consists precisely in this – I am now speaking in Christian terms – that man was afflicted with the deeds or the consequences of superhuman deeds, in which he was entangled. Through what had been inherited as original sin and was thus embedded in the lower human being, he entered the following age in a different way than he would have done without original sin. As a result, what was now to arise [in humanity], the intellectual, became more abstract to the same extent that man's life was previously tainted with something subhuman by original sin. In a sense, what man was to experience intellectually became thinner, more abstract, because the earlier life was denser, more natural, than it was allowed to be for man. Now, for the first time, man was fundamentally doomed to fall away from God through his intellectualism. The whole danger of intellectualism, which pushes towards a much too great abstraction, was being realized in Luther's soul, and Luther really experienced it with the vehemence described as his fight against the devil at the Wartburg.
[ 17 ] We have two opposite poles here, which are clearly presented in the more recent development of humanity. On the one hand, we have Luther, who is placed in the context of the great spiritual struggle after the middle of the 15th century, somewhat later of course, and who, because he wants to free himself from the danger of intellectualism, first of all gives up intellect altogether and seeks justification outside of the intellect in that which, so to speak, can lead to the divine below the intellect. The other pole is Faust. He takes up the intellect in its fullest sense, but in so doing he falls prey to the danger of the intellect, he enters into all the individual dangers of the intellect. It is not without reason that these two personalities stand as a kind of emblem for modern humanity: on the one hand, Luther and that which follows him, and on the other, Faust and that which follows Faust. It was truly no small feat of Goethe's when he wanted to reshape Faust in the sense that he does not perish. Even Lessing had thought of it. If we want to achieve freedom in humanity, the intellect must be absorbed, but it must not be rejected by the divine. Lessing's Faust fragment concludes with the words [of the angel to the devils]: “You shall not triumph!” Goethe then took up and reworked this. He said to himself that there must be a way of not being cut off from the divine when man absorbs the intellect he needs to develop freedom. But in this terrible struggle, Luther was in the thick of it. He saw how the intellect brings with it the danger of cutting oneself off from the divine with one's soul as well, of falling prey to spiritual death. For the person who is now completely consumed by the intellect — in anthroposophy we call it 'becoming ahrimanic' — who is thus completely taken over by the intellect, is consumed, and cuts himself off from the divine. This is what Luther felt for modern humanity. Historically, of course, the situation was that on the one hand there was the Catholic Church, which did not let people into the intellect at all, which wanted to save them precisely by not letting them into the intellect, by the 15th century, and to preserve it, it needed dogmas such as the infallibility dogma or the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which I mentioned earlier. In the strict Roman Catholic sense it could not do without the dogma of infallibility because it belittled the intellect, declared it incapable of development and unable to grasp the spiritual world. Therefore, to reinforce what man is supposed to believe in, there had to be an order, that is, the sovereignty of the papal order for the truth. One cannot find anything more untimely, but basically also nothing more magnificent, than this dogma of infallibility, which completely contradicts all of man's sense of time and all of his desire for freedom. It is the final consequence of the secularization of Catholicism in an iron consistency of the most tremendous genius. And one must say that when one takes on the one hand this iron consistency of the Roman clergy in establishing the dogma of infallibility and on the other hand, for example, the polemic of a Döllinger, the latter is of course philistine to the tremendous genius – you might even call it devilish – with which something is carried out there, because it is the consequence of where Rome has come since the secularization of Christianity by Constantine.
[ 18 ] Thus it has come about that in the breast of the Roman Catholic two souls can live quite well side by side. On the one hand, devotion to the rigid dogma that no man may touch except the infallible Pope - for the councils have indeed lost their power since the establishment of the infallibility dogma - and on the other hand, the unimpeded cultivation of the external sciences as an external activity to which one devotes oneself and participates, but to which one does not ascribe any significance for what is actually the content of religious teaching. Look at how the justification of the Roman Catholic teaching looks from a modern point of view. I advise you to read, for example, a work such as 'The Principle of Catholicism and Science' by Hertling, the former German Chancellor. Firstly, you will realize what a mistake it was for world history that this man ever became German Chancellor, but on the other hand you will be able to learn a great deal about the very peculiar thoughts of modern man, which are supposed to justify this dwelling of two souls in one breast. There is also a remarkable work on the principle of catholicity, but it was published in French. It is extremely interesting because the writer of this work, whose name is not currently known to me, is constantly stirred by his logical conscience, and so he has to make a distinction between what is in the Roman Catholic teaching and what is in the content of external natural science. Therefore, he juxtaposes two concepts, the concept of truth and the concept of scientificity, which he regards as two entirely disparate concepts. He says that something can very well be scientific, but something else can be true; something that is true does not have to be scientific. And he somehow manages to work out that the scientific aspect does not necessarily have to have anything to do with what one immediately recognizes as the content of the truth. So on the one hand the most worthy things are said, on the other hand the most grotesque somersaults are performed to make the content of these two souls compatible.
[ 19 ] On the one hand, we have the reproduction of symbolism, the symbolism that led to the tremendous upswing of Western art during the Renaissance. Art historians should only dig deep enough, and they would find that without Catholic symbolism, the entire artistic development from Giotto, Cimabue, Leonardo to Raphael and Michelangelo is impossible, because this development of art is entirely a continuation of the content of the Christian cult, and it belongs so strongly to Christianity that people, for example, do not understand why the Sistine Madonna looks the way she does. When you look at the Sistine Madonna, it is magnificent. As far as you look up, there are cloud formations that transform into nothing but angel heads, then the Madonna herself with the child, which is as if condensed from the angels that are in the clouds. It is as if one of the angelic figures had condensed out of the cloud formations and descended to the ground, but everything is wonderfully elevated in the spiritual. Then two curtains (sketched on the tablet, top left), and below them a flirtatious female figure and a terrible priestly figure, all things that do not belong at all. Why is that so? It is for the simple reason that Raphael originally intended to depict in this picture the experience of the soul when walking around with an image of Mary on a particular Marian holiday – now this has been transferred to the Feast of Corpus Christi – where one walks around with an image of Mary, which is carried under a canopy, and comes to altars, where one kneels. Hence the curtains here (see plate), and at the bottom, a female and a male figure are kneeling in front of the image of Mary at such a chapel. So that is, in a sense, added by the student to what [Raphael painted]. What is actually meant is fully included in the Roman Catholic cult—it is absolutely in there.
[ 20 ] Basically, everything that Luther saw in Rome is contained in this Roman Catholic cult. And is it not tremendously symbolic, historically symbolic, historically symptomatic, how Luther saw only corruption in Rome, was not really touched more deeply by what had flowed into art, so he was not inwardly absorbed [by art], but only saw the moral corruption? Yes, there we see how this soul is indeed torn between where it is placed by its particular development in the historical development of humanity, how this soul struggles inwardly and how it seeks a way out. And despite all this, the great problem of how we as human beings absorb intellectualism so that we do not fall prey to it, but by overcoming the fear of falling prey to it and yet incorporating it because it is necessary to achieve human freedom, has the effect of a disaster, especially for Lutheranism. This intellectualism weighs heavily on the modern consciousness of man. The Protestant Church has been reckoning with it for centuries, while the Catholic Church has kept completely away from it. The Protestant Church has increasingly come to withdraw into faith because it cannot be reconciled with the intellectualism that has developed in the world. It has therefore increasingly come to reject knowledge and to emerge in faith; it now stands with a faith for which it must seek the doctrinal content. The Catholic Church had the doctrinal content, but it has allowed it to dry up. From the standpoint of intellectualism, one cannot find the way from the individual, who sees himself as being left to his own resources, to those superhuman powers with which Augustinianism still felt itself connected. Basically, we are still in this struggle today as humanity, except that it has, I would say, come to a knife-edge, so that it is simply stated and said: We need a pure concept of faith so that we have religion in the face of intellectualism; we cannot take up the old [doctrinal content] of Catholicism because it has dried up. With this dogmatically dried up content, the Protestant Church has also thrown off the cult in the most diverse forms. What began with Luther is now on a knife edge; we should become fully aware of the seriousness of the situation. It is a struggle for a power of faith in the soul that wants to save faith at the expense of the non-existent doctrinal content. But you cannot teach without content, and it shows the impossibility of simply bridging the gap to what has become secularized in Catholicism.
[ 21 ] Now, my dear friends, I come to the question that should lead us forward. It is this: You see, with that, the Protestant consciousness was actually also placed in the development of humanity, in the individual development of humanity, while the pre-Protestant consciousness, in a certain respect, entangled man in supermundane, superhuman processes and in deeds of superhuman beings. Augustine expresses it somewhat differently, but [it was] still quite [an understanding] that actually the progress of the human is permeated by a superhuman... [Gap in the transcript]. One saw how a superhuman struggle took place, such as when Christ fights against the enemy who wants to tempt him, and how something superhuman shines forth. It was shown how Christ turns against the original sin. This ceased to be understood. But earlier this understanding of what pervades the earthly as the supersensible-divine had been established, and there had always been an endeavour to make a distinction, a demarcation, between the supersensible and that part of man which was entangled in the sensual. This demarcation was made through consecration. Consecration is actually the separation of the human, or a part of the human, from its entanglement in the earthly. Priestly ordination is only a part, because instruments and so on are also consecrated, everything possible is consecrated; the Pope even consecrated bullets once during the war; but that is just a result of the secularization of Catholicism.
[ 22 ] But you see, the act of consecration erects a boundary between two worlds, and it is absolutely true within Catholicism that when a consecrated priest acts in a particular way, when he does something, he also speaks from another world when he speaks the Gospel, while all his ordinary actions are from this world. even if it is not present in every individual priest – that an ordained priest acts in a different world when he does something, that he also speaks from a different world when he speaks the gospel, while all his ordinary actions are from the earthly world. This difference could no longer be understood from the mid-15th century onwards. In historical Catholicism, which certainly exists, however, this distinction is strongly present, and it is consciously emphasized in the circles of ordained priests. It is only that sometimes some bishop inadvertently introduces something non-Catholic into Catholicism, namely the modern consciousness, and that leads to absurdities. For example, a pastoral letter was written in which it was stated that the priest is more powerful than Christ Jesus in administering the Holy Communion because the priest forces Christ Jesus to be present in the Holy Communion; Christ Jesus must be present if the priest wills it; but from this it follows that the priest is now more powerful than Christ. This is the content of a pastoral letter that was written not so long ago. Such things can be seen when what must be grasped in a completely different way is taken from the modern consciousness, namely, that which lies beyond the earthly sphere and is separated from it by consecration.
[ 23 ] This principle of consecration goes back a very, very long way. It is found in the oldest oriental religions, and it has been particularly developed on Samothrace. Catholicism adopted it from much older times, but for the newer consciousness it has been completely lost. Tomorrow I will try to bring in further elements to help you understand this principle of consecration, including the ordination of priests, without which the apostolic succession cannot be understood either.