From Luther to Steiner
I. The Spirit Of The Reformation
Let us consider the fact that we are this year about to celebrate the anniversary of the Reformation, and that we cannot honour our Luther in a better manner than by giving open expression (even if we should, in so doing, encounter personal danger), to those things which we hold to be right and requisite to the welfare of the nation and the Age. —Goethe To Rochlitz, 1817.
1. The Germanization of Christianity
Would we estimate the effect of the spirit of the Reformation on civilization as a whole we may liken it to those blows with which Luther—in the year 1517—nailed his famous ninety-five theses to the church door at Wittenberg—hammering them to it with a force which reverberated throughout the length and breadth of the land, and rousing Germany to all those revolutionary changes which, collectively taken, constitute the more modern period of European history. But for the heroic activity of this great German, history must have run another, yet, assuredly, no better, course; for all those religious and civilizing forces of regeneration, which both before and after Luther had been concentrating in Germany for the purpose of rescuing Christianity from its Romanized conditions and inspiring it with a more Germanic force, centring in the German race, would not have proved strong enough for so stupendous a task as that of breaking the power of the Romish Church within the confines of the German Empire, and erecting in its place a Church of their own.
For seven centuries--from the time of Charles the Great to that of Luther—had the German spirit struggled within the souls of our princes, poets, and mystics, struggled that it might bring about the Germanization of Christianity, the Greco-Roman form of which as introduced by Boniface (680) it had felt to be so unsatisfying. Thus it came to pass that at the beginning of the ninth century, during the reign of Louis the Pious, the first attempt to break the Roman yoke and free the soul of Christendom took shape in the form of an epic poem emanating from an entirely unknown source and called “Heliand” (in modern German “Heiland,” i.e. Saviour).
Legend speaks of its having been the work of a pious Saxon peasant, acting under direct inspiration. There is, however, always a certain inner meaning attaching to a mystical writing, of which the author has elected to remain anonymous, and which we may recognize by this anonymity as the work of an initiate.
In simple language does the poem, drawing on the narrative of the Four Gospels, tell the story of the Life of Christ, acclaiming Him as “a brave hero,” and as the “supreme Prince” of Heaven and Earth, who, surrounded by His faithful friends and followed by a countless multitude, passes through the land, distributing the rich gift of Eternal Life. The Lutheran theologian and professor of historical literature, Dr, Vilmar, writes as follows concerning this poem in his “History of German Literature”:
“Here is a poem which has transformed Christianity into a living thing pulsating with German life and blood, and which—as regards the inner history of the Christian religion—more especially the history of the introduction of Christianity into Germany, may be said to be of the very highest importance. The more so, since the form in which it has been cast is alive with the warmth, trustfulness, truth, and simplicity of the Saxons, who, according to tradition, because they had been converted at the point of the sword, were suspected of being hostile to Christianity.”
Of the efforts against Rome made by the Emperor Henry III (1039–1056) and his successors we find a fascinating account in Ernst von Wildenbruch’s great dramatic poem, picturing, as it does, the struggle in which these emperors engaged against Rome, We know that Henry III deposed several Popes in succession, putting others in their place: that, indeed, he proved himself in this way to be one of those who prepared the way for the Reformation which was to follow five hundred years later. We know, too, all about the wars of Henry IV against Pope Gregory III, and against Rudolf of Swabia, elected in opposition to him; the dramatic event of his first pilgrimage to Canossa, undertaken in order to free himself from the curse of the papal ban, and his subsequent campaign against Rome in order to depose Gregory from his holy office and have himself crowned emperor by Clement III, whom he had raised to papal dignity in opposition to his predecessor.
As to Frederick Barbarossa (1152–1190), he has ever been our ideal of a German Emperor. We know that he, too, opposed the supremacy of the Romish Pope with a determined sense of independence, refusing to permit the Pope any control over German Christian lands and populations, except in the matter of religion. He would not agree to his own crown being regarded as the gracious gift of Rome and to his empire being held on tenure—and consequently he, too, waged many a fight against the Holy See. Death met him on his way to the Crusades—he was drowned—but legend, fastening upon his popular personality, denied his death, asserting that he slept beneath the Kyffhaüser, ready to return one day and restore the glories of his ancient empire. And here again it may be observed the cropping up of such legends, none knows whence, is due to the inspiring influence of great initiates.
Among our great poets of the Middle Ages, Walter von der Vogelweide (1170–1230) may be cited as Pre-eminent in the struggle to assert German character. Never did he tire in his campaign for the defence of Germanism against Guelphish deceit and treachery— the “trickery of the Romish priests.” So great was his spirit of independence that he only sided with the Hohenstaufens when they opposed the Pope; and he even expressed his deep sorrow at the manner in which the German tribes were torn asunder owing to the action in war of those who owed their power to the papacy, kindred German blood being thus driven to fight against a German emperor. So also did this singer hold up to contumacy tie materialism and immorality of the Roman hierarchy, who “filled their Guelphish coffers” with German gold and silver, in order that their “priests might eat capons and quaff wine,” while Germans “prayed and fasted for them.” The farce of Absolution came equally under the sting of his lash, von der Vogelweide solemnly asserting that God alone had the power to forgive sins, and that a Pope who dared to assume this right, without first having convinced himself of the sinner’s penitence, deserved to be stoned as soon as ever he consigned one man to hell. In conclusion, it need hardly be said that his own feelings towards the Founder of the Christian Faith were fraught with the deepest love, reverence, and sincerity.
Such bold words as those uttered by this singer of the eleventh century did not remain without their effect. Indeed, the outlook of the German poets of that period was entirely determined by his eloquent influence. Nor did any singer of later times enter the lists for the Pope; rather one after the other they raised their voices against Rome.
It is agreement with this protest of the German spirit of self-determination, as against the self-laudation and infallibility of the Pope, that we find expressed so unmistakably, during the thirteenth century, by the German minnesinger Tannhaüser, in the legend inseparably associated with his name. According to the original text the humbled and penitent singer is spurned by Pope Urban, who curses him as the “irredeemable son of hell.” He is bidden return to the Venusberg, there to await the Day of Judgment, since as little as it were possible for the staff in the hand of his Holiness to quicken and bloom again, so little, too, was there hope of the penitent’s sins being forgiven. Thus, broken, does Tannhaüser leave Rome to seek the Venusberg once more. But in three days the staff has blossomed. Then the Pope sent his messengers hot-foot in search of Tannhaüser, but could not find him: the “irredeemable son of hell” had, in his despair, re-entered the Venusberg. When, however, the story came to the ear of the common people they rose against the Pope, and cursing him, dragged him from the holy chair.
A similarly profound meaning pervades the German epic of “Parsival,” in which Wolfram von Eschenbach (1200) attempted the germanization of Christianity. The evident sense of conviction permeating this deep mystery causes it to glow with a radiant and poetic fervour. In this poem it is the German who is the “pure fool”: a knightly hero, who, like Siegfried, guileless and eager for action, sets forth to seek his match in single combat ... in order to slay “the faithless one,” the “Host of Hell” (Satan), whom his mother, Herzloide, so fears, to the end that he may find God, Who, “purer than the day, had once borne a human countenance.” In the course of his wanderings, Parsival comes to the Castle of the Grail, where the grandeur of the scenes enacted before his astonished gaze fill him with wonderment. Yet he is quite incapable of interpreting their meaning. How pitiful is the sight of the stricken king upon his litter, of the bloodstained lance amid this galaxy of knighthood I Yet Parsival, mystified, moves on, returning, nevertheless, on a Good Friday and desecrating the sanctity of that holy day, moreover, by appearing armed cap-à-pie. Gurmemanz initiates the wanderer into the true significance of the scenes enacted at the assembly of the Grail Knights, and, pity instilling knowledge, causes him to become the saviour of the king, and the new guardian of the Sacred Vessel— the Holy Grail.
“For,” says Dr. Vilmar, “worldly knighthood, alone, cannot suffice to win the guardianship of the cup, and the most manly strivings, so long as they remain worldly, cannot qualify a man to hold the Divine office. Yet, again, the Divine office can ne’er be attained to by thoughts only, which do not spring to action—be these thoughts the loftiest or most profound. The Divine office must be capable of measuring itself in action confidently and victoriously against the world, and yet he who would assume its guardianship must be free from worldly stain.””
In this story, then, the infallibility of the Vicar of Christ upon Earth and the need for human blamelessness in the guardian of the Holy Grail are made interdependent. Here is a picture prefigured in Parsival of the true initiate, who will ever be the purest and loftiest type of humanity. Nor need we regard Parsival as an ascetic: he was no celibate, but a married man, with two sons, the eldest of whom, Lohengrin, also attained initiation, becoming also, in due course, and, as the beloved husband of Elsa von Brabant, the keeper of the Holy Grail. And here—as in the case of Barbarossa and his ravens—the “Swan” typifies a particular degree of initiation. We may say, therefore, that we have in these legends to do with the roots of true Germanic Christianity.
It was, however, the old German Folk-Theologians, those “Friends of God,” as they were termed, who rendered the most effective aid in preparing the soil for the coming Reformation. These Mystics were pious and learned monks, who earnestly strove to give to the German Folk-Soul that individualized form of religious belief, that inner religious fervour, in thinking, feeling, and willing, of which it stood in need.
These men were filled with the desire for closer communion with Christ, for deeper spiritual contentment in all that pertained to their religious life than could be gained in the perpetual fight waged by Rome against the heathen in her struggle for world-supremacy, and her adherence to the external forms and obsolete Scholasticisms, which served to inspire the sermons of the day.
The authority of the Roman Church, as defined by St. Augustine (367–430), was far from satisfying the requirements of the souls of the German Mystics, for it lacked that which stood for their fundamental conception of the Christian Faith. Nor did they lay much store by the activities of the Scholastics, who sought to emphasize the “reasonableness” of doctrinal teaching by an appeal to Aristotelean logic—in which, for instance, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) was so distinguished.
While, therefore, Rome was entirely imbued with the historical aspect of the Christ—the “Crucified One”—and beheld in the Church the Mediator between Him and Humanity, the German Mystics yearned for the Presence of Him Who had risen from the Dead—for the living Christ—and sought this union by means of the “inner path” in the depths of their own souls, seeking thus to breathe new life into the revelations of tradition.
Such were the first and tentative growths of a German form of Christian religion, which, independent of all clerical authority or external tradition, sought the living roots and sources of Christianity, drawing thence its strength in rich abundance.
To these Mystics the Christian religion was a personal matter—one to be kept undefiled from all surrounding dross. “I should not believe in the truth of the Gospels, did not the Authority of the Catholic Church compel me to do so”! were the words of St. Augustine, and they are typical of the attitude assumed by the Romish Church with regard to Christianity—an attitude against which the German belief in Christ had since the beginning of the Middle Ages most emphatically rebelled. Christianity was to these Mystics inevitably bound up with personal experience, and could not be based upon the authority of the Church.
2. Luther’s Great Achievement in Politics
Ir is easy enough to understand that German men, who had set themselves such tasks as we have above indicated, were bound to come into many a bitter conflict with the Church, ever jealous of her own authority in such matters: torture, persecution, and death at the stake were oftenest their lot. Meister Eckhart (1260–1327), a Dominican monk, whom we may call the Father of German Mysticism, was repeatedly accused of heresy and prosecuted before the Inquisition. Yet, before he could be sentenced, the struggles and excitement he had undergone so preyed upon his health that death mercifully claimed him before his enemies had a chance of doing so. But within two years (1329) Pope John XXII pronounced the dead man’s excommunication on the score of heresy, banning his writings as “heretical.”
In spite of these things, however, the German spirit continued its struggle. Eckhart’s teaching and example lived on and worked through his pupils, among whom we need only mention the most renowned, namely, the Dominican, Johannes Tauler (1130–1361). He, too, courted danger by his freedom of speech and his undaunted demeanour, and, indeed, the papal ban launched against him appears to be more excusable in his case; for Tauler had gone a step further, and had, so to speak, initiated the pious layman into those methods by which he might “find Christ"—whether Jew, Gentile, or heathen—and thus attain salvation without the mediation of either priest or Church. It was therefore but human if action which threatened to render the priesthood and its offices superfluous was viewed with some trepidation in Rome!
Great was the respect in which the old writers of lays and the Mystics were held by the people, but, eager as were humble folk to give ear to these religious songs and sermons, which were of the kind of stuff that spoke to their hearts, yet this by itself was not enough to bring about the renewal—or, rather, the transformation—so necessary in religious life,
The papal ban, and all the horrors of the Inquisition, wherewith Rome—a past-master in these arts—knew so well how to intimidate the masses, lay like a nightmare upon their spirit, and were, in the long run, bound to prove the stronger. The need was for a more powerful, a more dramatic man of action, who should assert the independence of German religious feeling now roused against the Roman Catholic Church, and for this rôle Martin Luther (1483–1546) seemed, as he himself said, born, Indeed, it was in no spirit of bravado, but rather with a full sense of the weight of his mission, that he spoke these words: “I have been born to take the field against this gang and against these devils; for this reason my books are so stormy and warlike.”
All the religious and political efforts of those princes, poets, and mystics who had striven so valiantly in earlier days we now find concentrated in the personality of Luther. As a politician his war-cry was, “Away from Rome!” (“Los von Rom!”), and as such he declared himself for the independence and sovereignty of emperor and empire. Asa writer and a theologian his position was identical with that of the poets and the Mystics. This, then, was the birth-hour of the German Reformation, the offspring of the German Folk-Soul, for which preparation had been made during the course of those seven foregoing centuries, At bottom the actual services of Luther in bringing about this historical event were those of an ordinary doctor assisting at a birth. He had only to be careful lest any untoward accident should befall this vigorous Child of the Spirit, which was now so intent on forcing its way into life, and to see that all disturbing and opposing factors in the Church were removed. In doing this Luther exhibited his genius. Indeed, his many-sidedness and his aptitude for grasping a primary necessity made it possible for him to meet the demands of both the external political and the inner religious side of the question with equal justice.
The question may be put as to why such fusion of politics and religion should have been necessary. The reply is that, had not the papacy in so sinister a manner made this fusion a point of contention, it is hardly likely that a political protest would have been made by a German theologian. For several centuries the political system of Rome had rendered abortive any religious advance such as Germany desired. The German Mystics and Folk-Theologians, who had so bravely made the attempt, had on every occasion been put down with a high hand. There remained, therefore, but one way of breaking Rome’s political system, and that was by setting up another in opposition, and it was this that Luther made it his first business to do. We must therefore, in the first place, regard him in his capacity of political hero, for his initial act was to free the German people from the slavery of Rome. He brought about the emancipation of the German crown, hitherto dependent on the “Papal Crook,” and separated politics from religion. And what Luther thus laboured to bring about within the narrow confines of his native country was soon to be extended over the entire civilized world. In every civilized land, even in Catholic States, men enjoy to-day the blessings which have resulted from the emancipation which was effected by the German hero.
Now, it is impossible for the Catholic Church, considering her conservative and reactionary nature, to do otherwise than regard this violation of her political power as a direct anti-Christian act of violence i committed against her most Sacred Rights, however I much she may attempt to disguise the fact. As the weaker party, her retreat was, of course, inevitable, Theoretically, however, she still maintains her former standpoint, declining to recognize the policy of Protestant governments, seeking, indeed, practically to oust these as far as Germany is concerned by using the ‘Centre’ and the Jesuits as her means for political agitation. Pius IX gave expression to this mediaeval standpoint with regard to “direct and indirect temporal power” over citizens of the State in his “Syllabus” dated December 8, 1864, and his Secretary of State, Cardinal Antonelli, expounded the same, by desire of his Holiness (March, 1870), as follows: “The subjection of civic power to that of the Church is due to the pre-eminence of the priesthood over the State, since the Calling of the former transcends that of the latter. The authority of the State is, therefore, dependent on the priesthood, even as human things depend on things divine, and worldly things on things spiritual.” While Leo XIII, in his “Encyclica” (January 10, 1890), speaks of the political wisdom of the Pope, and declares that it is the “moral duty” of citizens to “give heed to the political wisdom of the Clerical Powers,” the Jesuit father, the Rev. Cathrein, likewise gives expression to the importance of this duty, saying: “The direct power which the Church exercises in the affairs of the world consists in no more (!) than a right to ameliorate the decrees and actions entered into by worldly powers, in as far as the moral and religious interests of the welfare of the souls committed to her care may demand her so doing.” And, finally, we find Pius X, that “exclusively religious Pope,” acclaimed as the “Commandant of Christ” (“Stadhalter Christi”), vigorously expounding his politics to the cardinals upon his assumption of the dignity of his Holy Office, telling them that it is the sacred duty of the Roman hierarchy to guide not only those who serve, but also those who reign ... and not alone in social but also in political matters... And that no rebuff experienced in “some quarters” should deter the princes of the Church from emphatically declaring it to be their “duty” to make politics also part of their business, for “every reasonable person must recognize that the Pope of Rome cannot possibly divorce his Sacred Office from the domains of politics.” It is, therefore, evident that the spirit of Gregory VIII still survives in our latter-day Popes, who remain theoretically true to their reactionary traditions, and do not hesitate also to put them into practice where the “Centre”’ party is concerned.
In the draft for a poem he had intended to compose on “Germany’s Greatness,” Schiller, alluding to the Reformation, wrote as follows:
Schwere Ketten drückten alle
Völker auf dem Erdenballe,
Als der Deutsche sie zerbrach,
ehde bot dem Vatikane,
Der die ganze Welt bestach;Chains weighed heavy upon all
Peoples of this earthy ball,
Germans rose and set them free,
Set at naught the Vatican’s
World-corrupting tyranny;
for, as he goes on to say:
Freihelt der Vernunft erfechten,
Heisst für all Völker fechten.To fight to make the Reason free
Is battling for humanity.
And in the same spirit Goethe too exclaimed: “We hardly know how much we have to thank Luther and the Reformation in general for. We have been freed from the fetters of spiritual incompetency, and—as a consequence of our increasing civilization—we are able to return to the source and apprehend Christianity in all its purity”; for “there is much that is foolish in the decrees of the Church. Yet she desires to reign and must therefore need have a crowd of dullards who bow down, and who, indeed, like to be governed. The Church dignitaries, enjoying their rich stipends, fear nothing so much as the enlightenment of the masses. They denied them access to the Bible as long as they were able to do so, What is a poor parishioner likely to think when he reads the Gospels and notes the-poverty of Christ—humbly going His way on foot amidst His disciples—while the princely Bishop dashes by in his coach-and-six!” 1Eckermann: “Gespräche mit Goethe,” Vol. III, March 11, 1832.
3. Luther’s Achievement in Religion
Side by side with the political action which he has found inevitable, Luther worked actively and seriously in the cause of religion, and if in the course of his work he gave no actual proofs of striking originality, he, nevertheless, knew well how to find the right sources from which he could draw strength and satisfy his own and his countrymen’s religious needs.
Such sources were, in the first place, the Gospels, and these he translated into his own tongue and studied with tireless energy. In these he seems to breathe a free and invigorating air, free from the miasma of Roman Catholicism, which had so long hung like a pall about the souls of his fellow-countrymen.
Even though no real Mystic himself, Luther may be said to have certainly grounded his religious beliefs on Mysticism, as he endeavoured to individualize and deepen the Christian life and thus achieve the Inner Communion. The writings of Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler, for which he evinced the greatest partiality, and which he was constantly studying, were the religious inspiration of Luther’s work as a reformer, while by bringing out the first printed edition of a remarkable and mysterious document, the “Theologia deutsch,” as it is called (of which we have once more to register the author as “unknown”), Luther showed, in no uncertain manner, where the fundamental basis of his evangelical and protestant Christianity might be found, namely, in Mysticism!
This work of a nameless German Mystic, Luther’s favourite book, evinces in the plainest manner the desire of the German Spirit to do away with Scholastic dogma and all its doctrinal intricacies. The oft-repeated conviction, to the guidance of which these old Mystics had so steadfastly held, had been that “The Kingdom of Heaven” was “Within,” and the same belief gave strength also to Luther in his revolt against the decrees of Pope and priesthood.
In a very beautiful manner has Max-Müller, in his story, “Deutsche Liebe,” testified to the abiding worth of the unknown author of the “Theologia Germanica,” where he puts into the mouth of the heroine of his tale the following words:
“I have derived much consolation and strength from his book”; and further, “I have much to thank him for, since here, for the first time, have I come to know the true secret of the Christian Doctrine in all its simplicity. I felt that I was free to believe or not believe this old Teacher, for his teaching laid no external obligation upon me, yet, nevertheless, took so powerful a hold on me that it seemed to me that I now for the first time understood the meaning of Revelation. But what bars the way of so many to the Truth of Christianity is putting the doctrine of Revelation before the Revelation that must take place first within us. It is this that has so often disquieted me. Not that I have ever actually doubted the Truth and Divinity of our Religion, but what I felt was that I had no right to a belief given me by others: I felt as if a belief could not rightly belong to me if I had done no more than learn it as a child, and that without understanding its import. For, after all, none can believe for us, just as little as they can die in our place.”
This nameless Mystic describes four distinct standpoints with regard to the reasonableness and conduct of life as God desires to see it lived by man here on earth:
“For some do it not for God,” he says, “nor for this, nor for that, but from obligation; and such as these do it as little as they may, and find it drear and heavy. Others do it for a wage; these are men who know nothing better nor aught else than so to do, and think thus to receive and deserve the Kingdom of Heaven and Everlasting Life, without more ado; and those who labour much they account holy, but he who neglects aught or lets it be they account lost. And these are very serious and show much industry, yet lack they contentment. The third ones are bad false spirits; these proclaim that they be perfect and need not these things, but do deride them. But the fourth are men illumined with the True Light: they labour at these things without a wage, for they seek not neither do they desire reward, doing all things for love alone. And these are not troubled as to the-amount done, or the speed thereof, but seek that it may be accomplished in peace and quietude; and should such as these, peradventure, miss or neglect to do aught, verily they do not account themselves lost, for they know well that order and reasonableness are better than unreasonableness. Therefore also do they know and maintain that their salvation dependeth not upon such things, and are they not filled with such dire distress as others. These people are judged and punished by those forenamed persons, the wage-earners, who say, ‘ These men neglect all things,’ and murmur, saying, ‘Tis unjust,’ and so forth, but the others (the “bad and false’ ones) do but mock at them, saying, “Their ways are folly!” But the men of Light keep to the Middle Way, and to do so is best, for a Lover of God is sweeter in God’s sight than a hundred thousand wage-earners—and so is it also with what they bring forth. Take note also that God’s Laws and Counsels and all His Teachings are as touching the Inner Man, showing featly how God and man may be united. And when this comes to pass, then will the Outer Man also be taught and deftly ordered by the Inner Man, so therefore doth the Outer Man stand in no need of external commands. But ’tis the laws and commands of men that concern the Outer Man, and this is requisite where naught better is known, seeing that but for this he could not know what he should do or leave undone, and then, indeed, were men like to the dogs, or any other beasts.”
In connexion with this dissertation of the old and unknown German Mystic, it may seem apposite to refer to a work which owes its origin to an entirely modern form of thought in the domain of natural science, namely, Rudolf Steiner’s “Philosophy of Freedom.” Here the author, in like manner, lays stress on this fourth standpoint as being the one which alone is worthy of a human being:
“But free spirits rise above the compulsory order of things and “find themselves’ amid the welter of custom, enforced law, religious exercises, and so forth”; for “within each one of us dwells a more profound being, through which the free man gives expression to his true self ... yet we cannot reach a completed conception of man’s nature, unless we come into contact with the free spirit, which is the purest expression of his nature... The standpoint of free morality does not, accordingly, assert that the free spirit is the only form in which man can exist, but it recognizes in free spirituality man’s final stage of evolution. Not that we would deny that normal action is not also justified as an evolutionary stage, but merely that we would assert that it cannot be regarded as reaching an absolute moral standpoint.”
The blind submission to Law and Dogma, which to the Latin race seemed a matter of course, was to the German people sheer barbarism. They were unmoved by the pictures and images thrust on them by the Roman Church, but thirsted for the life-giving waters of Christendom in order that they might worship God in Spirit and in Truth.
It is impossible to fail to recognize the universality, the inter-, or let us rather say the super-nationality of Christianity, but for this very reason, and because of its plasticity, which enables it to stretch across time and space, it permits each people on earth, both present and future, to enshrine its teachings in their own language. And it is because Christianity is so universal, so international, that it is able to meet the special religious needs of each individual, to give to every people the widest scope for development, and so find expression of itself according to the natural endowment of every nation.
This is a fact the importance of which we must not overlook. Rather should we recognize that Roman Catholic Christianity can concern Latin peoples only, that, indeed, it is alone suitable to the spirit of these nations, and that other peoples and nations are bound to regard as a flagrant assault directed against their own particular religious requirements Rome’s claim to inflict on them a Christianity so thoroughly national, because Latin, both in colouring and language. It is not only foolish but presumptuous for Rome to assert that she herself possesses the only true, unalterable, and universal Christianity, the only Standard of Faith to which all peoples of the world should adhere, and that she must therefore seek to suppress all other religious impulses as being anti-Christian, while doing her utmost to propagate the Romish Doctrine.
Luther pointed out, in no equivocal terms, where the anti-Christian impulses were to be sought and found. “My God!” he wrote, “the darkness and shamefulness of these Romish men! And not only have they held sway for centuries, but they still govern; their decrees are crammed with coarse, filthy, and shameless lies, and these—to make things worse—receive the credence accorded to Articles of Faith.
“I am so filled with fear as almost to doubt whether the Pope himself be not the Antichrist, whom the people have so long expected; for this agrees with all his ways of life, his actions, bis words, and his decrees.”
It was thus that Luther went over from the defensive to an offensive against Rome and, recognizing the necessity for-so doing, said: “The secrets of Antichrist must be brought to light.”
For Luther no longer entertained any doubts but that these secrets would have fa be exposed in Rome. “If this is what they think and teach in Rome,” he observes, “doing so with the knowledge of the Pope and his cardinals—though I would hope this may not be the case—then, indeed, would I frankly and openly declare that Antichrist himself has set up his seat in God’s Temple and is reigning in yonder purple-bedizened Babylon, namely, in Rome—aye, that the Roman Curia is the Synagogue of Satan.”
This Church, grounded by Christ on Peter, “the Rock,” and which was not to be overcome “by the Gates of Hell,” had, indeed, succumbed to them all too soon. But if we regard this curious “Rock” more closely we shall see that it could not have happened otherwise, for in the Gospels according to St. Matthew and Mark (see xvi, 23, and viii, 33, respectively) we find Christ saying to Peter, who was unable to apprehend His Mission: “Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto Me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” And so, too, the “Church,” as also the “Rock” whereon she stands, has been quick to deny that which is godly, and assents to what is human—all too human. For this reason could Luther, with some show of right on his side, hurl the following hard words at the Pope: “Thou art not God’s, but the Devil’s Deputy.”
That the German people were capable and strong enough to receive this universal Christianity, translating it into their own speech, has been proved by their Mystics and by the Reformation which followed so soon after their day. It was then that the basis of a distinctive German Christianity was laid, for which the primitive Roman Church could evince no understanding—neither then, nor, indeed, at any subsequent time, This resulted in the nature of things from the totally different niveaux which distinguish the outlook of the two peoples, to say nothing of their differences of age,
In his “Conversations” with Eckermann, Goethe made the following observations: “Only those things are good for a nation which evolve from its own innermost being, and which are the result of its own needs without aping of others. For what may prove goodly food for one people at one period of its age, may well act as a poison to another. Should, however, some great Reform be really needed by a people—then God is with them, and it will succeed. This was true of Christ and His first Followers; for the coming of the new Doctrine of Love was a need for the people, So, too, was it true in the case of Luther; for a clean sweep of the distortions with which priestcraft had overlaid that doctrine was no less requisite. Neither of these great forces was the friend of that which is stationary; indeed, both were alive to the fact that the old yeast must be got rid of, and that things could no longer proceed upon a basis of falsehood, injustice, and inadequacy.”
4. Comparative National Psychology
In order to estimate Germany’s position among the other great civilized States we have to make the following observation: At a time when German spiritual culture was, so to speak, still in its embryonic stage, Italy, France, and England had successively attained to their respective summits of development — a development which in point of fact has now long been settling to its decline, while Germany is but in the act of rising to her highest possibilities.
Young Germany, as was but natural, could not be untouched by the educational influences of these maturer civilizations surrounding her; on the contrary, she was receptive, and eager to assimilate whatever she could use to her advantage.
Rome bestowed on her her earliest teaching in the Christian Religion. Germany’s capacities in this direction, however, submitted the Roman doctrine to a subtle transformation, which tended to centring everything in Christ. More than this we did not need: Rome could teach us no more; the rest was naught, as was subsequently shown by our continuous bickerings with Rome.
From France we derived our incentive to ethical and aesthetic culture, and to the logical side of our reasoning, which was developed by the Aufklärung—yet, again, only up to a certain point, for, beyond that, we have to forge our own way.
And, finally, to England do we owe the valuable incentives given by Natural Science and Economics to our life of the Will, which is so intimately connected with the evolution and progress of Self-Consciousness. Yet, here too, no more than those first incentives should we make our own.
These three great civilizing influences, then, have given us of their best, and for these gifts do we owe them our most profound thanks.
In confirmation of what has just been stated we need but refer to Goethe, that most German of all Germans—and one to whom all chauvinism and “mob-patriotism,” such as our Pan-Germans of the day delight in, was abhorrent. Indeed, Goethe was by no means blind to the more favourable qualities often displayed by foreigners, and in a certain sense Italians, Frenchmen, and Englishmen impressed him to the disadvantage of Germans: nor was he at fault in this,
“What years of boundless culture,” he observes, “have not passed over the French, and that at a time when we Germans were still no more than untutored louts” (1808). He found it impossible to hate the French, although he “was glad that we were rid of them.” “For how could I, to whom civilization and barbarism are the only matters of importance, hate a nation which belongs to the most civilized on earth and to whom I owe so great a part of my own culture!” (1830). Goethe perceived the character and limitations of the French in his day, commenting thus:
“The French nation is a nation of extremes: they know no bounds. Dowered with stupendous moral and physical force, the French people might lift the world—could they but find where to place their lever. Yet, they do not seem aware that in order to lift great loads it is necessary to know first how to balance them. They are the only people on earth in whose history we and ... the Night of St. Bartholomew and the Feast of Reason, the despotism of a Louis XIV, and the orgies of the Sans-Culottes ... and, almost in the same year, the Occupation of Moscow and the Capitulation of Paris! For which reason we may fear that her literature will, after the despotism of a Boileau, throw aside all bonds and discard every law. Let us hope for a new Racine, even should he have the faults of the old one! for, the Masterpieces of the French stage remain Masterpieces for all-time. “Their performances in Frankfurt, when I was still quite young, always interested me intensely. It was then that I first conceived the idea of writing drama” (1830).
And all that Italy meant to Goethe, and at the same time to our German culture, we may learn from the two periods of travel he spent in that country, the “blessed results” of which so happily influenced “his entire life” (November 10, 1786).
This man of mature years confesses to the fact that, when in Rome, he had to “go back to school” and “entirely relearnt”; indeed, that he was bound “to discard his earlier self” in order to learn how to “return to Germany in a reborn state” (March 22, 1787). While concerning his second visit to Rome he writes thus: “I am diligently taking in from all sides what comes to me, and my growth is from within to without” (June 16, 1787). And again: “Thank God that I am beginning to be able to lea and receive from others!’ (July 20, 1787). This thought, indeed, returns again and again in ever-varying forms. There was but one element that aroused Goethe’s ill-will, and that was the Papacy and Catholicism. Upon this heading he has expressed himself freely in his Letters of October 27 and November 3, 1786. Romish Christianity he stigmatizes as “baroco heathenism,” whose representatives would, were its Founder to return to earth —-in order to consider the fruits of His Teaching—crucify Christ for the second time. In the same manner did Goethe feel repelled by the “Divine Comedy.” “To my mind,” he says, “the picture of Hell is horrible; that of Purgatory equivocable, and that of Paradise dull” (July 20, 1787). As to the Italian nation he had no more to say than that they were a primitive people, who, amid the splendour and dignity of Religion and the Arts were not a hairbreadth different from what they might have been “were they still living in forests or in caves” (November 24, 1786).
It would seem hardly necessary to lay stress upon the veneration with which Goethe, throughout his entire lifetime, regarded Shakespeare, nor need we cite the many instances in which he has testified to all he himself owed to that poet. Newton, however, impressed him less. His great German eyes, like Jupiter’s, conceived light and colour in an essentially different, but also in a truer, manner than did the English mathematician, and therefore did Goethe present us Germans with a totally new spiritual factor in the realm of Natural Science—a factor which, indeed, to this day has not been grasped in its full. and far-reaching magnitude. Much as Goethe admired the English for their initiative and their practical adaptability to life, the absence of both of which qualities he so much deplored in his countrymen, yet could he clearly visualize the drawbacks of both these virtues: “While we Germans worry ourselves with philosophical problems, the English, with their intensely practical minds, laugh us to scorn—and capture the world! All are acquainted with the declaration they made against slavery, but— while they sought to impress us with their humane maxims for the extermination of the iniquitous Slave-Trade— it now transpires that their true motive was a practical one, without which, as is well known, an Englishman never acts, as we ought to have known all along” (1829).
And, as in the case with Roman Catholicism, so did Goethe feel a sense of revulsion against French and English materialism. Time has for the past century been moving in our favour, and we are now beginning to be the most cultured nation, while Italy, France, and England—in the order named—are already smitten, in a greater or lesser degree with the signs of inevitable decadence and relapse into barbarism. One mark of this is their shameless behaviour at the end of the war. But this is no reason for us to become insolently proud and flatter ourselves on our own distinction; to do so is but to misunderstand our task totally, for we are only beginning to become something which, as yet, we are not.
Goethe, writing in 1827, gave us “a couple of centuries” in which to overcome our barbarism. Hardly one of these has as yet passed away, so that we have every reason to remain modest and continue to “civilize” ourselves, to the end that we may, in the fullness of time, be in a position to take over that Spiritual Leadership to which we feel called, and for which we shall then be ready.
“We Germans are of yesterday,” says Goethe; “we have, it is true, done what we can in the way of culture during this past hundred years, but it may take us a couple of centuries more before the higher qualities due to culture shall so have permeated the soul-life of our fellow-countrymen that they will be accounted common property... So that it can then be said of them too that the time is long past since they were no more than barbarians.” And if we here repeat the rigorous criticism Goethe has levelled at us, it is because we feel the truth of his accusation. It is because the great task awaiting our people lies so near to our heart that we are so anxious to sever the tares from the wheat. For it is because we Germans are the youngest among the nations that our future may also be the greatest—and therefore is our time yet to come. Goethe’s vision, indeed, expressed as much when he said: “Do not imagine that I am indifferent to the great ideas of Freedom, People, Fatherland. No, indeed! these ideas are within us; they are part of our being and none should dare to cast them aside. Germany, too, has a warm corner in my heart; many a time have I felt bitter pain when thinking of the German people, who are so worthy of respect, individually, yet so pitiful when viewed as a whole. To compare them to other peoples arouses a feeling of anguish which I try by by every means to rid myself of, finding in Science and Art an impulse to lift me above such depression. For Art and Science belong to the entire world, and before them the limitations of Nationality fade and vanish, Yet the consolation they bestow is no more than that of tolerance, and does not take the place of that proud consciousness of belonging to a great, feared, and respected people. This is why I am consoled by the thought merely of Germany’s future, and I hold to it firmly. Yes, the German people has the promise of a future; it has a future awaiting it. The fate of the Germans, to quote Napoleon, has not yet been fulfilled. Had they had no other task awaiting them than that of ‘breaking’ Rome, they would have gone under long ago. But since they continue in being, displaying so much strength and thoroughness, they must, according to my way of thinking, have a great future before them...a goal which will be far greater than the destruction of the Roman Empire, or that of giving form to the Middle Ages, since they are now standing at a higher grade of civilization. But, the time, the opportunity for this no human eye may foresee; nor is it for human power to hasten it, or bring it about. In the meantime it is for us, individual Germans, each—according to his talents, his leanings, and his position—to further the education of the people, strengthening it in every direction; from beneath and also mainly from above, so that the spirit may not wither, but remain fresh and bright: so that it may not lose heart but may remain capable of every great deed, when the day of its greatness shall dawn!” (1813).
And it is thus that every German of spirit should think in the present day—should think, feel, and desire; for it is on the worthiness or unworthiness of each one of us that the future of Germany—and with it the civilization of the world—depends. But worthless is any attitude that is not filled with the living spirit of the Reformation—that is not firmly rooted in the classical idealisms of our Lessing, Herder, Goethe, and Schiller. If Germany’s destiny is to advance and her glorious day dawn, then we must all work strenuously in the spirit of those old Mystics, Reformers, and Classical Thinkers, seeking ever more and more to further the education of the people, broadening its influence in every class of the people. So long as this genuine German spirit does not dominate and permeate all grades of the social structure, so long, too, will our world-mission remain unfulfilled ... and we, though estimable as individuals, will be held but of little account as a whole. Nor is it here a matter of belief in our future only: the people must be attuned and become receptive to creative efforts of thought before we can hope to see fruition in our own day. Such preparative work may, however, be found in the anthroposophical teachings which are now so assiduously being brought before the public mind by Rudolf Steiner, whose labours along this line of thought give the truest expression to all that is most worthy and most essential to the requirements of the German soul. Here, then, may we also find that succour of which all now stand in direct need would we avert that threatening calamity—“the downfall of the Western World.”
5. The Psychology of the German National Soul
Continuing the comparisons begun in the foregoing chapter, we find that each of the three National Souls enumerated draws, primarily, on but one of the faculties possessed by each individual soul. Thus, the Italian people are more particularly emotional, living in a “life of feeling,” while the French tend to foster the Rational mind and the English that of the Will, each, be it observed, showing therein a certain one-sidedness. And this suffices to explain the blind religious belief, begotten of emotion, which dominates the Italian: his fanaticism, dogmatism, and reliance upon religious form. The domination of reason has given the French their Rationalism, Scepticism, and Logic-chopping, while the Englishman, who worships success, has thus evolved. his Egotism, Imperialism, and Utilitarianism. It needs but a cursory glance at the history of these three peoples to find ample proofs of these facts, And we now come to the question: On what faculty of the German people does the German National Soul depend? To this the answer is; The German National Soul speaks for the entire Ego (the I-AM-I) of the German, thus appealing to the three above-named faculties of the soul. It works with equal force upon the life of Feeling, of Reason, and of Will, or, as we may say, Self-Consciousness. Thus may the German, as he evolves, take full possession of his Ego and of his undivided personal and individual strength, and accept: the full responsibility for his own Conception of the Universe. The outstanding feature of the German spirit is therefore a striving towards an independent and absolutely scientific Conception of the World. It declined to have aught to do with what is called “revelation,” for such things approach man from without; but the German desires to come into contact with-the source of things—with the “Thing-in-Itself” (“Das Ding-an-sich”); he seeks for inner personal experience as part of his gradually evolving conception of the world. The labours of the Mystics, both before and after Luther, as well as Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parsival” and Goethe’s “Faust” are the proof of this.
It is the peculiarity of the German nation that it should strive after this immediate personal experience. This is the reason for the German’s dislike of asceticism; for by surrendering to asceticism he would feel that he was avoiding the effort to grasp the facts of nature with his whole being. For asceticism is always the outcome of a Conception of the Universe which approaches Nature from outside, and is disassociated from man’s inner seif. Conventual life can therefore have little importance for any race excepting the Latins. But the German pays the price for being compelled to avoid asceticism in the tragedy of his destiny, so long as his soul is not strong enough to pierce beyond.the veil which obscures Nature. (A symbol of what has here been said will be found in the sufferings of Amfortas and the inability of Parsival to understand the meaning of what is passing before his eyes in the Banqueting Hall of the Castle of the Holy Grail.)
In all these directions the tendency to idealism inherent in the German nature, which no other nation displays to the same degree, and which is manifest in the German language, is working towards the unification and harmony of the partial accomplishments of other races. For the German soul realizes in a certain sense a higher synthesis of those qualities already alluded to as characterizing the Italians, the French, and the English. Schelling said: “It has often been noticed that the other European nations evince a more distinctive character than do we Germans; yet may ours, owing to its universal receptiveness, possibly. be regarded as the root, or rather as the higher synthesis, of them all, because of its power to unite their differences. May it then not be the destiny of Germany to traverse alone all those different stages of which other nations each exemplify but a single type, upon her road to the realization in the fullness of time of the highest and purest unity of which human nature is capable?”
At a time when the character of each of these three nations was still unformed, when their views about the universe were founded on myths, and Christianity had only an external influence upon them, at that time the German people already enjoyed the full possession of a mature and independent Ego. The ancient myths and the subsequent Christian teaching therefore influenced the German Consciousness in a totally different manner. It is this that accounts for the struggle of the German spirit for a unified view of the universe which might satisfy at the same time both feeling, thought, and will. It is thus quite impossible for us (as for the English, for instance) to hold to Darwinism with our intellect, clinging with our hearts to revelation! Such dualism is quite foreign to the German mind and soul. Indeed, the efforts made by Haeckel to overcome this English dualism and to found a unified Conception of the Universe on the basis of Darwinism is eloquent of the German spirit, which continually tries to reconcile Idealism with the facts of Natural Science. The error into which Haeckel and the German Monistic Society have fallen lies in founding their views of the universe on the facts of the Natural Sciences only; and this error is itself an example of a defect of German thoroughness, of the strength of its Light which, like the rising sun before it reaches the zenith, throws too much shade.
Let us give one more glance to the relationship in which the German National Soul stands to those of the other three nations mentioned. Italy’s influence, depending upon the hierarchical system of her Church, and represented by her priests, has been mainly religious, and yet it was essentially of such a nature that we were bound to react against it as we did at the time of the Reformation. By the Reformation German “inwardness”—having assimilated all it could make its own—rose in revolt, as history records, against the trite, outward obligations, dry formalities, and rigid dogmas which were dear to Rome, and which Germany had outgrown.
Next France became the focus of civilization: a power distinguished by military prowess and intellectual worth. And so great was her influence upon Germany that Leibnitz, our foremost philosopher of the day, not only wrote, but thought, in French, while that most German of German princes, Frederick the Great, was entirely immersed in French culture.
Against the French influence, again, Germany reacted, and her reaction triumphed on the side of literature in our classical poets and philosophy, and on the side of politics in the overthrow of Napoleon. The importance of France for European civilization was thereby ended, as had been that of Italy before her.
After the Italian priest and the French warrior came the English merchant. Again did Germany show her great adaptability, and England, upon her own ground, learnt to fear a rival, as France had learnt to fear the German soldier and Italy the German Protestant. And now Germany is called upon again to react and give a third “push” forward to the world’s civilization. This reaction on the side of thought will be the development of Spiritual Philosophy, and in the world of affairs will be realized by bringing about the “Threefold State,” or threefold division of the Social Organism.
As Rittelmayer writes: ‘So does the German, with three stupendous efforts, and as the result of his tragic historical sufferings, attain to religious Inwardness, and to the Spirit of Thought, through the power of a “seeing’ Consciousness, by using which he can—even in this ‘lower’ world—do practical work in the service of civilization, work that can—and will—bring about social harmony. It is this that the German Spirit, in its individual struggle, amid errors such as were of necessity bound to beset and obstruct it upon its devious and winding path, and while bearing the sufferings due to those errors, approaches its high destiny. The words of Wilhelm Jordan, uttered with respect to the Thousand-year Anniversary of Germany’s Birth (1843), when he alluded to the Treaty of Verdun (843), ring far truer in their application to the present day, without giving the least cause for pessimism; for Spiritual Science is giving us the power to reach for the third time in the direction needed.”
O Deutschland, weil du stets mit Gott gerungen,
Hast Du der Knechtschaft Schande nicht bezwungen;
Weil stetz dein Geist den Flug zum Himmel nahm,
War deine Hand fuer Erdenarbeit lahm,
Ob jetzt fuer Deinen Kampf dich Lorbeern schmücken,
Du wirst des Sieges Fruechte nicht mehr pflücken;
Du steigst hinunter in die Todesnacht,
Du traümerisches Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,
Von Dornenkranz und Skaverein umwunden,
Sink auf die Brust und stirb, du hast vollbrachtGermany! For that thou strov'st with God,
"Twas not thy lot to break thy thraldom’s shame.
Thy soul was bent upon the heavenward road
Thy feet to run the race of Earth were lame,
So, tho’ thy struggle now be laurel crowned,
The fruits of Victory ne’er shalt thou possess.
Into the night of Death thy steps are bound—
Thy head agape with wounds and bloodiness,
And wreathed about with thorns. O piteous, patient one,
Droop low thy head and die. Thy task is fully done.
But Germany, persecuted and crucified by her pharisaical enemies, enduring her veritable Golgotha—this Germany will rise again... not by the aid of thundering cannon nor the rattling of sabres, as is the fond dream of Germany’s real “betrayers”— the Pan-Germans—but through the radiancy of the Power of the Spirit, whose wealth of Ideas shall break the dull world’s obduracy and enlighten all peoples on earth capable of responding to its civilizing influence.
Those who are now so desirous of dealing Germany her death-blow, stricken and wounded as she is, still bleeding from her many wounds—be they Russians Italians, French, English, or Americans—each and all, when their brutal lies and policy of force shall have finally and fearfully spent itself, will come in their absolute helplessness to thank heaven that a people will be living in Central Europe from the purity of whose spiritual source they may yet be enabled to drink the golden Elixir of Life, as from a Fountain of Youth.
Repeatedly have our great German thinkers and Poets drawn attention to this fact, more particularly Friedrich Hebbel, who said: “It may come to pass that the German will once more vanish from the world’s stage; for he has all the qualities needful for conquering Heaven, but none with which to assert himself upon Earth, and all nations hate him, even as the Bad hate the Good; yet should they ever actually succeed in dispossessing him, a state of things will arise that will cause them to try and dig him out of his grave with their nails.”
6. The Exoteric and the Esoteric Spirit
After this digression into the study of comparative National Psychology, let us return to Luther, and trace the stupendous results of his action down to the present day.
In spite of the fact that the deep necessity of the Reformation had been felt in German lands, it was not at all easy to gather all the members of the Christian Faith into the fold of one Confession. And what here more particularly served to complicate Luther’s work was the division of interests between the German princes, who had not yet grasped the spirit either of their times or of their people. As an instance of this we need but remind the reader of the way in which that thoroughly un-German emperor, Charles V, ranged himself on the side of the Pope in his opposition to the Reformation. The proverbial partisan obstinacy characterizing Germans asserted itself in its most glaring form and with the direst consequences, and led to the Thirty-Years’ War, with all its internecine horrors, which dragged our country to the brink of the abyss. And it may be well here to remind ourselves that Monseigneur Alexander, the Papal Nuncio of the day, feeling the coming of the Reformation, observed: “Should you Germans, who of all pay least tribute to the Pope, cast off the yoke of Rome, then shall we see to it that ye murder one another, to the end that ye may be destroyed in your own blood.” Conditions such as these, which may weil fill every German with a sense of shame, made it impossible to set up any unified: Christian German National Church, and the Protestants, who up to the Diet of Augsburg had been regarded as rebels, were after 1530 only tolerated as an evil which could not be exterminated. There was no question whatever of equality. This state of things extended as an open wound across the length and breadth of religious and political Germany, and the country was split into two camps.
The German princes who favoured the Reformation stood firm, declining to be brow-beaten by a Romish emperor, and continued to fight for their place in the sun. Nor were they unsuccessful, for the terms of the Treaty for Religious Peace, which was signed at Augsburg (1555), secured still further concessions. Yet the bone of contention had by no means been buried,. Occasions for fresh quarrels were constantly cropping up, and in 1618 these finally brought about the Thirty-Years’ War. The shadows cast over Germany by this civil strife still rest upon our present times, and the minds of men of the present day are still darkened by them. Prior to the war, conditions had only so far changed to our advantage that a Protestant line of rulers was in command of the German ship of State and only a few princes were left in the Bund who subscribed to ultramontane principles.
A contemporary of Luther 2Recounted by Lessing in his “Rettung des Colchaeus.” gives an account of the enthusiastic response made to the teachings and actions of the Reformer throughout German lands:
“The temper of the Germans had for some time past been roused by the heathenish customs of the Romans” (Roman Catholics) “and they had already made secret attempts to rid themselves of this yoke. Thus it came to pass that as soon as ever Luther’s writings were publicly known they met with the most astonishing approval on all sides. Germans then made fun of and abused those who still declared themselves for Rome and demanded that a General Christian Council be convened where Luther’s Teachings might be examined and where a new Ordering of the Church might be undertaken—and would to God that this had been done!”
But how was it that this Reformed German Catholicism, such as Luther sought to introduce, could not be brought about? It was because Roman Catholicism is in principle irreformable, “because,” as this contemporary of Luther continues, “if we must tell the truth, the Pope prefers his own private advantages, and these might possibly be endangered should the Salvation of Christianity be accorded prior claims.” The obstinacy with which the Pope defended the malpractices within the Church against which Luther had protested, his stubbornness in pursuing the path he had once embarked on, inevitably led to the split within the Church assuming the dimensions it did—setting up two violently opposed Confessions—although such had never been Luther’s original intention. We may therefore see that the sinister consequences of these two Confessions of Belief, which up to this day are fraught with so much trouble for us Germans, are not due to Luther’s Reformed Catholics, but rather to the reactionary and decadent Romanists beyond our frontiers. AI these evils might have been avoided on the one hand if Rome had disassociated herself from the antiChristian activities of her clerical hierarchy, and had she desisted from her claim to world supremacy; or, on the other hand, if Germany had met these religious malpractices and pretensions to power with a united front, throwing off the yoke of Rome then and there, and all along the line. Had the first alternative been realized, then would the Church’s better self have prevailed, and the world’s religious peace have been assured; while in the latter event Germany would certainly have been spared the misery inflicted by her opposing religious Confessions, which up to the present day both injure and delay her evolution.
However much the innate spirit o£ German thought and evangelical Christianity was, after the death of Luther, beset by the blasts of counter-reformations on the one side, and on the other obscured by the narrow dogmatism of Sectarianism, its true creative spirit lived on nevertheless, and worked mightily in many a great soul. And the essential thing about the Reformation is that it spread out into two branches, the one exoteric, and the other esoteric.
The exoteric direction is marked by all that is associated with those early theological differences which arose among the Lutherans, the followers of Zwingli, and the Calvinists, and which, in due time, have also crystallized into Confessions of Faith, into Dogma in the Protestant Church, and which, by way of Kant, Feuerbach, and Strauss, have led to Jatho, Traub, Harnack, Frenssen, and Drews, finally reaching the Nature-Religion of Haeckel, and culminating in the German Monisten-Bund of Oswald.
The esoteric path, on the other hand, leads by way of the Mystics and the Classical Writers; by way of Valentin Weigel, Jacob Boehme, and Angelus Silesius, Lessing, Herder, Goethe and Schiller, Fichte, Schleiermacher, and -Novalis, to find its bourne, by a natural development, in the German Spiritual Science propounded by Rudolf Steiner; and concerning this form of science and its exponent we now propose to enter into greater detail, devoting the remainder of this book to the subject.
Among those who were Luther’s contemporaries we may call to mind such men of note as Hans Sachs, Lucas Cranach and Albrecht Dürer, Philip Melanchton, Ulrich von Hutton and Franz von Sickingen, all of whom took an active part in the great epoch-making work of the Reformation. A conscious pride, both national and personal, found an outlet through these men. In giving his German version of the Bible to his countrymen, Luther had, at the same time, bestowed an immense gift on the culture of his time, for the pure and vigorous language that has made his translation of such abiding worth was, in itself, a contribution to the literature of his country, enriching the spiritual culture of successive generations, so that German writers began to find an increased joy in the use of their own language as the medium of expression for their thoughts and words. Even our great classical writers have, time and again, turned to the inexhaustible riches of this great source, so that it may be said that the language of this one man has, in the course of time, become the language of the entire nation.
Thus did the healthful spirit of the Reformation awaken a new and little dreamed of life on every side. “Oh, century!” exclaimed Ulrich von Hutten, the Humanist poet, “Oh, century! the Spirits 'waken—Studies thrive!—aye—'tis a joy to live!”
For art and science, hitherto bound to the services of the Church of Rome, stood forth emancipated, and henceforth went their own way, each seeking its natural goal. Renaissance and Humanism were the names of these strivings, which, in their struggles for expression, evinced in its truest form the Germanic Spirit bent on freeing man from the rigidity of Roman Dogma; bent on placing him in a position whence he could assert his own individuality, by reason of his newly acquired power.
The invention of the printing press by Guttenberg (1400-1467) was another powerful accessory to the furtherance of Luther's cause. “The traditional powers,” observed Steiner, 3“Magazin für Literatur,” 1900, No. 25: “Die Druckkunst.” “those which had grown forth from a mediaeval condition of culture, were not able to create this new art; it had to be the modern man; the individual, dependent upon himself,” who had been prepared for the task by the work of such earlier Mystics as Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler. For this Mysticism held that the truth “need not be attributed to supernatural revelation, but that it should rather stream forth naturally from the souls of men; while, as soon as the belief was accepted that revelation must be sought within man’s own self, then, too, was the desire bound to awaken which urges man onward and invites him to take a personal and active part in the work of evolution. The means had, therefore, been secured by which truths discovered might be made known in a new way. Humanity was now to work out for itself matters with regard to which it had formerly sought the aid of specially ordained persons. And, as a result, the definite influence exercised by such persons began to diminish, for people were no longer content merely to listen: they now wished to participate in the matter of thinking. A form of communion was therefore requisite which should be divorced from personality, and the minds of those who are given to regard everything that stands for the spiritual output of the past four hundred years as essentially anti-Christian may rejoice in the fact that these authors 4Dr. Steiner was referring to a book by Dr. H. Meisner and F. L. Luther, entitled “Die Erfindung der Buchdrucker-Kunst.” have by no means over-estimated the influence the art of the printing press had on the Church! In fact, the Church merely gave way in face of this modern form of education, and was soon wise enough to acknowledge that they had to do with a new civilizing factor the spread of which they would be powerless to arrest. Not but what it would have been more in keeping with the spirit usually animating the clerical body had they carried out the policy blatantly proclaimed at the Council of Toulouse, where, not the reading, but even “the possessing of a Bible was forbidden to the layman.”
7. Luther’s Religious Limitations
In spite of Luther’s subscribing in a general way to the creed of the Humanists he, nevertheless, lagged behind them in their aims, for, in one respect, at all events, the spirit of the Reformation outstripped the Reformer. To Luther’s mind Science was in every way of less account than Revealed Teaching and the Articles of Faith contained in the Bible, which he was anxious to protect from any association with “philosophizing” Reason. Indeed, he would fain have consigned his treasure to spheres whither Reason could not reach. Science, he opined, had but to concern itself with earthly and human matters, whereas divine and heavenly things could only be assimilated by that spirit of belief which transcends all reason. Reason was for Luther a “stinking goat,” a “deaf fool,” whenever she took upon herself to seek contact with the supersensible. It was also on this ground that he declined to have anything to do with the Scholastics, who—more especially in the person of Thomas Aquinas—were ever appealing to Reason. Aristotle, to whom, by the way, he owed his logic, he curtly dismisses as a “hypocrite,” a “sycophant,” a “stinking goat”!
It may therefore be seen that Luther drew a rigid line between Knowledge and Faith, between Philosophy and Religion, and this inflexible attitude of mind may be said to have had its good as well as its bad side. Its advantage lay in that it drew him towards the Mystics (who also turned aside from the Scholastics), causing him to seek a more intense degree of religious fervour in the hope of achieving Communion with the Divine than did the Scholastics, working in the Scientific Light kindled for them by Aristotle. But the drawback is to be found in the dualism arising from the hard-and-fast division of Belief and Science in the intellectual life of modern times, upon which Kant laid his finger with so much acumen, and upon which he expended so vast an amount of dialectics that it has in the present day come to be accepted as the most natural and reasonable thing in the world.
Yet are these errors on Luther’s part emphatically faults due to that great virtue of his which made him so desirous of doing all he could to increase his religious warmth and deepen his fervour. But that Kant should—at a distance of two hundred and fifty years —have fastened on those errors and mistakes, using them for the basis of his whole system, is a matter for which there can be no extenuating excuses; rather is it a sign of philosophical impotence,
Such one-sidedness on the part of Luther, with its reactionary effect on the development of German science, has been deplored by both Goethe and Lessing, the latter, indeed, exclaiming:
“You released us from the yoke of tradition, but who is going to release us from the even more intolerable yoke of the letter!”
It was this yoke that the esoteric current of the Reformation sought to remove and the determined efforts made by the Mystics and Classic Writers to attain that object have in our own time been achieved by the Anthroposophical Spiritual Science put forward by Rudolf Steiner.
Other contemporaries of Luther, active in forwarding the esoteric current of the Reformation were Agrippa von Nettesheim and Paracelsus, neither of whom would recognize this dualism of Faith and Knowledge. Both Nettesheim and Paracelsus sought the true “Inwardness of Nature” in the practice of mystical meditation, and it was the cognition of this inwardness that they made the basis of all higher spiritual knowledge. These men, in direct opposition to the Scholastics, who made the revealed teaching (as received by them) and philosophical abstractions their points of departure, rested their assurance upon the life and workings of Nature and on the results accruing from the mystical withdrawal into the mysterious depths of man’s own being. Here, therefore, we are confronted with a complete reversal of the scholastic endeavour, and with a striving from the depths upward— from tense contemplation to the realms of the supersensual. The “Faust” Legend, which first became known about that time, is intimately associated with these efforts. The “Faust” book appeared in 1587, and a contemporary of Melanchton, alluding to this remarkable man (Faust), says that he had for a time “laid the Holy Scriptures beneath a bench behind the door,” -turning from Theology to Medicine. This Faust represents the very type of the human soul which, as the outcome of the Reformation, found itself enmeshed in the struggles inseparable to the dawn of aNew Era. This Faust did indeed typify the German—seeking and yearning for universal cognition, for a more elevated sense of existence, and for the attainment of his independence as a thinking individual, Indeed, it is symptomatic that it should have been Goethe of all men who seized on this old legendary theme from which to fashion a garment for his masterwork. But, while the folk-tale of the Middle Ages consigned its hero—bent on storming heaven—to the devil, Goethe’s “Faust” does ultimately attain salvation: a termination which points to a significant advance. So that, whereas Kant took the negative spirit of the Reformation as the basis of his principal work, Goethe grounded his masterpiece in the positive spirit of the same historical event. The “Criticism of Pure Reason” is the very reverse of the positive and practical cognition which is displayed in “Faust,” and we are, indeed, forced to recognize that Kant and Goethe are in the most real sense at absolutely opposite poles.
We now come to Copernicus (1473-1543) and Kepler (1571-1630), both approaching Nature by means of their instruments from without, in order to investigate her secrets. Nor was the science they stood for to be checked by the “letter” of the Bible, which they had the courage frankly to contradict. Luther had been less courageous; he had narrowed his reason down until it came within the confines of Holy Writ, and had been ready to accept this thraldom of the “letter.” It is therefore a matter of no surprise if we find that modern astronomy was almost as accursed in Luther’s sight as it was in that of the Church of Rome. 5The Copernican Teaching ranked as “heretical” until the year 1827. Galileo, as we know, suffered torture owing to his adherence to this form of celestial science, while Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake, But, as Luther had uncompromisingly decided that the Bible was to be the basis of all true Faith, and Faith, again, the foundation of all Religion, he could not consistently do otherwise than abjure astronomy, and there is a hint of panic in the hard words wrung from his God-fearing soul when denouncing Copernicus: “The fool,” he cries, “would turn all astronomy upside-down, as though Holy Writ told us of how Joshua commanded the earth to stand still and not the sun!” That there might here be no more than some apparent contradiction in relation to Revelation and Experience, and that the Bible might regard the matter from another and entirely different perspective, it is needless to say, never occurred to Luther; for it is only in our own day that occult science has been enabled to throw the right light upon such matters.
In the same way as Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler had, before Luther’s day, emerged from the School of Catholic Theology, so too did now Valentin Weigel (1533-1588), Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), and Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) issue forth from the teachings of Protestant Theology and pursue the esoteric path. These men, as also Agrippa and Paracelsus before them, devoted themselves mainly to the study of human nature; they were absorbed in fathoming its secret depths in the same way as Copernicus and Kepler had devoted themselves to the study of the external phenomena of Nature.
The fervour or religious feeling was here united to the light of rational thought as well as to the force of a strong will, Thus did they become acquainted equally with the life and activities of the Spirit enshrined in Nature as with those sacred mysteries of Revelation to which the pursuit of the Inner Way had taught them admission. And that they also were bound, as a matter of course, to turn away from “Church Beliefs”’ and all the external trappings appertaining thereto, in order to sense that deep and close contact which marked the renewal of religious consciousness, was but natural: nor need we be surprised at the persecution that beset the Esoteric Movement in the Church. Jacob Boehme, in particular, was the victim of much suffering. “The zeal of busy priests,”’ says Steiner, 6“Mysticism in Spiritual Life at the Commencement of the New Era, and its Relation to Modern Cosmogonies” (1901). “made this man’s life a burden to him. He who desired to read none but that script which was illumined by his own inner light was persecuted and worried by those to whom the external script—the trite, dogmatic Confession— was all they could attain to.’
It would take us beyond the scope of this book to enter more particularly into the history of the modern Philosophy and Natural Science which now followed, leading by way of Spinoza (1632-1677) and Leibnitz (2646-1716) on to the period of our great Classical Writers. Suffice it to indicate where lie the foundations of our spiritual culture, and how profound are the depths of that Idealism wherein the German Folk-Soul is rooted. And, in connexion with this Idealism, which is destined to flourish so abundantly, we need but enumerate such names as Lessing and Herder, Goethe and Schiller, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel— a group which formed the flower of our eminent Thinkers of the time, and which, in the present day, has yielded fruit in the form of the German Spiritual Science which is now being expounded by its founder, Rudolf Steiner... the Esoteric Movement of the Reformation culminating, by way of our Protestant Classical Poets and Thinkers, in the Anthroposophical form of Spiritual Science.
8. Petrifaction And Decay
Now, when we gaze down from the point of vantage offered by esoteric knowledge, and survey the two popular and exoteric forms of historical Christianity— Roman Catholicism and Protestantism—-the first thing to disclose itself is that the former presents a state of absolute petrifaction, while its rival is undergoing a process of total decay and dissolution: that, in short, each is approaching a sure and certain end. Catholic Theology, in its dogmatic unalterableness, its “what has been shall ever continue to be,” has placed itself in the same category of dying things as has Protestant Theology, by reason of that hypercritical attitude by which it undermines even its own fundamental sources, the primeval mysteries of Christianity. Already do both bear the seeds of death within them, and their complete external collapse is but a question of time. As a matter of fact, the Catholic Church is already in the present day an untenantable ruin, for the religious requirements of modern men can no longer reap satisfaction from her doctrines, and she makes no attempt to meet this pressing need. In his Syllabus Errorum of December 8, 1864, Pius IX launched what was tantamount to a “declaration of war” against the entire modem civilized world when he pronounced the following “unalterable standpoint” taken up by the Catholic Church, as opposed to every kind of Reformed Catholicism: “Those are guilty of a damnable error who hold that the reconciliation of the Pope with modern civilization is either possible or desirable,”” and no successor to Pio Nono has departed from this standpoint by as much as a hairbreadth. Pius X, in his Circular Letter concerning the teachings of the Modemists (September 8, 1907), declared that “The conservative element in the Church is very strong: this is inherent to her tradition. Its representative is religious Authority,” whose business it is to “protect what has been delivered over to it,” for “she” (the Church) “stands apart from the changeful influences of life, and is hardly—or even not at all-touched by the contradistinction to this, there stirs and works the stimulating force which stands for progress, and which adapts itself to the requirements of life in the conscious lay mind, more especially in the mind of those who, so to speak, stand within the whirl of life. Here, Venerable Brothers, you may perceive that pernicious point of view which the laity are desirous of foisting upon the Church as a principle of progress.” After which the Pope cited an address spoken at the Council of the Vatican of which the final sentence runs: “Protestantism was the first step; then follows Modernism; the end is Atheism.”
And here we may mention that the new decree of: the Roman Congregation of the “Sacred Office” has recently (1919) enumerated Theosophists—including Anthroposophists—as belonging to the most dangerous Modernists, forbidding the Faithful to “join Theosophical societies; attend their meetings; read their books, papers, journals, or other writings.”
When we turn to the Protestant Church, we find it similarly doomed—within a shorter or longer space of time—to ultimate disintegration; for the all-sustaining spirit of the Mysteries, for the meaning of which she has lost all understanding, has departed from her, nor does she take any measures to recapture or renew it. In Protestantism Luther’s pact with modern civilization is being carried to its logical conclusion, and his Evangelical Christianity is being so dangerously undermined by the mole-like antics of modern investigators, on the hunt for “historic sources,” that it is becoming almost impossible any longer to talk of a Protestant ‘Christianity” at all! The “ponderous paws” wherewith such learned men of letters scratch about, ‘“seeking treasure, and glad should they find rain-worms”—to quote “Faust”— all these things speak only too plainly of the decline of historic Christianity, and also of the Protestant Church, The newest research along these lines not only strips the Christ of His Divinity and Miracle-working powers, preferring to present Him in the guise of the “Humble Nazarene,” the “pure and noble man, Jesus,” but goes so far even as to question whether Jesus ever actually lived, relegating the Gospels to the domain of Myths—that is, placing them among the sacred poems and “other literary inventions.” We have only to read the controversy started by the German Monisten-Bund upon the theme “Did Jesus Live?” or, the lectures delivered by Professor Arthur Drews in the winter of 1910, under the heading of “The Christ Myth.” Drews considers he is entitled to give a negative answer to the question, “Is Jesus an Historical Personality?” on the grounds of philological documents, and declared “that no serious Historian approaching them” (the Gospels)” without the preconceived determination of finding history in them can accept their narratives as other than myths, pious poems, and legendary inventions... To us the entire question of the historical Jesus resolves itself into one of historical science to which, indeed, Theology itself has reduced it. Can Theology prove the existence of Jesus? Then, good; why should we object?— for the Jesus of Liberal Theology might interest us as an historical personage, but as nothing more, If Theology cannot do this, or if she can at all events do no better than she has hitherto done, she cannot expect us to stake the salvation of our souls upon such insufficient grounds.” (N.B.—These declarations were, of course, received with “sustained applause”!)
But there are in very truth few who now ground their hopes on the “upright man” Jesus, or on the “humble man of Nazareth,” though some would seek to save Christianity by resuscitating it in a form intended to suit the lover of the “abstract” (true type of the times we live in!), who takes his refuge in the idea of a “god-endowed humanity,” and tries by such means to extract himself from his maze, as though abstract ideas had ever influenced actual life!
“I am convinced,” says Drews, in closing his discussion, “that the Historical Jesus of Liberal Theology is not capable of giving new force to the weakened condition of religious consciousness nor to resuscitate it. Certain directions which have been taken by Christianity may—for a while—continue to survive, but we can do nothing to give new life to religion along these lines. Those who cannot believe in the Historical Jesus must, as things are in the present day, be considered lost to religion.”
9. The Final Consequences
Historical Christianity, in its dual and time-honoured forms of Catholicism and Protestantism, is struggling desperately in two diametrically opposite directions, and the end will be that each will, in the fullness of time, resolve itself into Anti-Christianity. The Catholic religion places its centre of gravity in the Beyond, Protestantism entrenches itself on this side, hoping thus to make man fit for his earthly duties. Thus we find the former laying the entire stress on heaven, where, seated on the Right Hand of God, Christ shall on the Judgment Day act as man’s Judge; while those who confess to the Protestant Faith point to Jesus, Who, on earth, moved about among His ethically less-evolved brothers. Catholicism, posing as the guardian of the Mysteries—eager to save them from the polluting contact of civilization—is doing the best she can to lose those very treasures, whereas the tendency of Protestantism is to make Christian ethics the central and cardinal point, seeking to bring them into unison with the demands of modern life. To do this, indeed, Protestantism has preferred to jettison the whole wealth of super-sentient mysteries, rather than fail in even one of these points which she has laid down for herself as being part and parcel of her ethical earth-mission.
It is, of course, impossible for historical research, upon which Liberal Protestantism base sits Christianity, to master the true mystery contents of Religion, which are entirely super-historical. Not that in saying this we would desire to suggest that historical research should be discontinued. Far from it! Such work contains much that is good, since as a civilizing factor its influence on the ethical side has valuable contributions to make. And this cleaner code of Ethics, even if bought at the price of some worn-out and discarded articles of Belief is well worth the price paid, for, as Goethe observed in a letter to Karl August, written in 1787, “religious anachronisms” that have been reduced to “mere soulless impressions” have no driving power.
Indeed, for our part, we would forfeit the entire fund of Mysteries, as possessed and put forward by the Romish Church, rather than give up the ethical values gained by Protestantism—even should we not „yet have attained to those new forms so imperatively necessary both for our scientific education and for our religious advancement,
The roots of these tendencies are essentially to be found in Luther. He was ready, in principle, to meet actual and natural life half-way, doing this, moreover, with so complete a naïvete that there was no hint of a bad conscience—far less of sin—about it. As we know, he removed the ban which Gregory VII (1074) had placed upon the marriage of the priesthood, and married Katherine de Bora in order to carry his own convictions into practice. He respected the terrestrial and natural order of things, which bear with them their own inherent right to exist, and which can, therefore, neither be given to nor taken away from them by any Church, since this right is based upon the Law of Nature created by God.
But these early tendencies, as evinced by Luther, have evolved far beyond what was known in his day, and have put forth their good and their bad fruit, as the example of Professor Drews, given a few pages back, will have served to indicate. Yet, for the good fruits bestowed on us we owe the Reformation a double meed of thanks, for it is they that have ripened to so great an extent within the domain of Ethics. We owe it to Luther that we may “time and again,” as says Goethe, “find the courage to stand with our feet firmly planted upon God’s earth, feeling ourselves to be possessed of a God-endowed human nature.” The “vale of tears” has become a “brilliantly illumined hall,” and “original sin” has given way to “original virtue.”
And just as in the intellectual sphere, so too in the moral sphere, a complete revolution has been effected with a rooting fast in things earthly and an upward growth towards things spiritual, all of which finds its clearest and most pregnant expression in Steiner’s work, “The Philosophy of Freedom.”
Christian ethics, as known and practised by Liberal Protestantism, have entirely emancipated themselves from the Christian Mysteries; for misunderstood mysteries and ceremonies, which necessarily lead to shunning the world or to a life enmeshed in sin, “making terms” with the demon of hypocrisy, can be no foundation for Liberal Christianity to build upon. Rather does it require the solid foundation of an elementary and rational code of ethics, which may become the basis of a thoroughly honest and natural mode of life, replete with the illuminating Spirit of Truth.
Ludwig Feuerbach, in the closing words of his lecture on “Das Wesen der Religion,” sums up these tendencies in the following words: “My task is to change you from being the friends of God to being the friends of man; from Believers to Thinkers; from Worshippers to Workers; from Candidates, awaiting a future life, to Students of this one; from Christians, whom, by their own confession, acknowledge themselves to be ‘half beast,’ ‘half angel,’ to men: to complete human beings.”
Indeed, what Max Stirner has said of Feuerbach applied to the whole of Liberal Protestantism, “It seizes,” he observes, “upon the whole contents of Christianity with a force begotten of desperation: not in order to throw it aside; no, in order to embrace it—to hold it tight, this thing from which it has so long been kept asunder, putting out its last effort of strength, as it were, to drag it from the heavens and hold it from henceforth and for ever in its own keeping. Is not this, then, the final effort of desperation?—a drowning man’s clutching at a straw ?—and does it not imply, at one and the same time, the Christian Longing for the Beyond? Heroes do not seek to pass to the Beyond, but would rather compel it hither; and does not the whole world cry out—doing so more or less consciously—that everything depends on ‘this side,’ and that ‘heaven’ should be brought to earth and experienced even here?”
Here, then, Liberal Theology is right in its object but wrong in its method. We shall do well to call to mind the warning words uttered in “Faust”: “Mind what you think, but mind still more how you think it.” And when we consider the methods pursued by occult science it at once becomes clear on which side the true “hero” would range himself.
But the descent from Feuerbach, by way of David Strauss, who was even more radical in his methods—and incomparably more banal—to many a well-known name which we have already mentioned in these pages, had of necessity to be made, historical Christianity being finally reduced ad absurdum by Haeckel, Ostwald, and Bölsche. All this had to be; and it is just as well that this old form of Christianity has been practically scrapped, leaving room for the construction of a new, modern, and mystical Christianity; for to the extent to which this shall come into being shall the other also pass away. The liberal Protestantism which ends in monism, and the monism which is so anxious “to accept the ideas conveyed by the Reformation in their most fruitful form, and bring them to a triumphant issue in a more modern guise,” 1“Eine neue Reformation” (Von Christentum zum Monism), Von Hannah Dorsch und Professor Dr. Arnold Dodel: “Verlag des Deutschen Monisten Bundes.” have both made a tabula rasa of historical Christianity; not, indeed, because they have godless, or unreligious tendencies, but because they realize the inadequacy of an historical God and of historical religion to meet the requirements of the modern consciousness, and are therefore engaged in a struggle after a new conception, a new representation, of the Divine and of Religion.
Some indication of the path which is being travelled in this quest may be gathered from a lecture delivered by Dr. Paul Trestorpf, a Munich Nerve Specialist, first before an assembly of the German Monisten-Bund and later to the “Gnosis” Society. The title of the lecture was “Monism and Christianity,” and the “Muenchner Neueste Nachrichten” referred to it as follows:
“Christo-monism—In a lecture delivered before the German Monisten-Bund on Monism and Christianity, Dr. Paul Trestorpf urged that the two should be reconciled under the one form of ‘Christo-monism,’ a suggestion in aid of which, as the speaker showed, Paul Deussen, Eduard Schuré, and Frenssen of Hilligenlei have already rendered much preparatory service, The speaker further pointed out how greatly philosophy, natural science, and religion show the need of being united in one form of expression, such as Monism has already assumed. Monism, with its positivism, he observed, might be said to stand nearest to Neo-Confucianism, while Christianity and Buddhism sought life in Negation. The philosophical efforts of all the centuries might be summed up as a continuous seeking after unification. In this sense, too, were Socrates and Plato both disciples of Monism; while the Church Fathers showed their recognition of a monistic plan of the universe, and the Scholastics also did the same. Spinoza’s ideas also, said Dr. Trestorpf, are permeated through and through with Monism. Indeed, we might say that all human efforts are, fundamentally speaking, directed towards overcoming dualism and according the supremacy to one undivided Cosmic Principle.”
We would repeat that we are by no means loth to recognize the fruitful impulse accruing to culture from the tendency here described; on the contrary, we are anxious to accord it the fullest recognition. Indeed, we are most ready to concur in all the objections that have been raised against historical Christianity as known in the two forms of religion practised in this country, and against which Nietzsche cried out with the words, “All that is of to-day—falls—dissolves; who would hinder it? Yet I—I will deal it a final blow!”
We may therefore say that we too stand, in so far as the immediate moment is concerned, upon that independent and neutral ground where Liberal Protestantism and Monism meet, or, to put it in another way, where the thoughts which once gave rise to the Reformation are now logically making towards Monism; but—and here is the essential and important difference—we cannot possibly remain stationary upon such ground as this and defer to some far-distant future the services we ought to render to the present in which we now live, It is for us to leave this ground and press forward—upward ... in order that the losses due to perfectly legitimate negations which have been recorded and admitted may now be atoned for and richly compensated by the power and will to recognize how, for equally legitimate reasons, such losses may, by modern and scientific means, be once more made good. And it is this question which we would consider in the following pages of this book. In this introductory portion we have sought to prove, we trust, without prejudice, that the Soul of German Culture stands and falls with the Spirit of the Reformation and that of our country’s Classic Age. May it therefore gain increasingly in power, so that it may be equal and ready, as in Luther’s and in Goethe’s days, to deliver its blow for the third time against reaction and decadence both within and without the confines of our lands.