The Rudolf Steiner Archive

72. The Birth of Light: A Christmas Reflection

[ 1 ] Anyone walking down the street today past all the Christmas trees on display might easily be led to believe that the Christmas tree itself is a very old tradition. But it is precisely in the Christmas tree that you can see the change in people’s customs and traditions, for the Christmas tree—which is now found in almost every home—is not even a hundred years old. A century ago, you would not have been able to walk down streets lined with Christmas trees like this. Nor would you have found, even if you searched in vain, a song or a poem from a hundred or a hundred and twenty years ago that celebrated the Christmas tree. Yet this must surely strike you as a striking phenomenon, for the Christmas tree is certainly something that poets sang about back when it was already a part of life. It is a completely new phenomenon; it is something that only became so widespread in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Christmas tree as a symbol of Christmas first appeared around the year 1800, but Christmas itself is ancient—it predates Christianity. It has been celebrated in the same way throughout all the eras for which we have historical records.

[ 2 ] In Christianity itself, Christmas as such has been regarded symbolically as marking the birth of the Christian Savior only since the fourth century A.D. By no means was December 25 celebrated as the birthday of the founder of Christianity in the early centuries of the Christian era; it was not until the fourth century that it came to be understood as such. However, a festival was indeed celebrated during this time in the Roman Empire; a festival was also celebrated during the same period among the ancient Celtic and Germanic peoples, and with a similar concept even in ancient Egypt and in many other regions. What was celebrated then was something else entirely; it was not until the fourth century A.D. that it was associated with the birthday of the founder of Christianity.

[ 3 ] One might conclude from this that the Christian Church did something that would have been historically contrary to all tradition, and sought, so to speak, to correct something. But that is not the case. Anyone who truly understands the meaning of Christmas recognizes the ancient wisdom hidden within such a celebration. Festivals such as Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost are nothing other than dates—dates inscribed in time by our forebears, our ancestors—through which they showed us, their descendants, how they understood the relationship between the world and humanity and the great mysteries of existence. Whoever knows how to decipher the script recorded for us in the great festivals, whoever knows how to decipher the hieroglyphs that time itself presents to us, gazes into the deep, meaningful mysteries of all human becoming. I said—and we shall soon see in what sense this applies—that Christmas has been celebrated since the time we have had history. The periods for which we have historical records date back to the third subrace of the fifth root race. The period of our own subrace, in which physical science and physical culture developed, extends up to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This was preceded by another race, which dates back to the ninth and eighth centuries B.C., to the times when Homer recited his poems to the Greeks. This period tells us of the feelings and deeds of the fourth subrace that preceded us.

[ 4 ] Then we return to even more ancient times, which, however, take us back to the mists of antiquity—to the era of ancient Babylon and Assyria, to the ancient times of the Jewish people, to the times when the Egyptian priests preserved their wisdom and imparted it to the people only in an exoteric manner. Then the historical record ceases. What has been handed down to us from Persian history was recorded much later. What has been communicated to us as the sublime religion of ancient India—what is recorded in the Vedas and in Vedanta philosophy—are late records compared to the times when the great thoughts of the ancient Indian rishis, which they received directly from the divine spirits themselves, flowed through them to humanity. Thus, looking back from the time in which we ourselves live—and which will endure for a long time yet—we gaze upon the Roman-Greek epoch, which gave way to Christianity, and then upon the epoch in which the Egyptian priests were active. But then the paths diverge. Only those who can trace history through other avenues can know anything of ancient Persia. We are led even further back into times that only the occultist is able to glimpse.

[ 5 ] Now, anyone who wishes to understand the Christian festival must look back through the turn of the ages to the point where, for the first time, a new wisdom was once again taught to the reborn humanity. This brings us back to the time when, as a result of the immense floods that submerged a great continent, the ancient Atlantean culture had vanished and a new human culture—to which the epochs I have already listed belong—was established. A completely new way of thinking and feeling emerged with this new humanity. Nothing has been directly preserved from the actual culture of the Atlanteans, let alone from the even older culture of the Lemurian peoples, who once lived in ancient times and perished in a great fire. However, what humanity has once experienced must be briefly relived when a new turning point in development is reached. Thus, the first subraces of the fifth root race were in fact destined to briefly repeat three important epochs in human development.

[ 6 ] In ancient India, the wise Rishis looked back to those times when humanity was still at a completely different stage, to those times when there were not yet male and female sexes, when human beings were still a unity. They looked back upon that great unity within the human race, upon that primordial human, Adam—who is also called Adam Kadmon in various esoteric teachings—who was both man and woman at the same time. They expressed that primordial unity of humanity in a spiritual sense by alluding to the supreme being of the world with the indefinite sacred name Brahman. Brahman is, in its origin, that from which—as from oneness, from the divine principle of unity—all diversity has emerged. On Earth itself, this unity existed for humankind in a certain sense only during the times when there was not yet male and female, during the times when the diversity we now experience did not yet exist. What confronts us here is like a reflection from the spirit of the great Indian Rishis: the divine primordial unity of humankind, the pre-human Adam Kadmon, in whom there was still peace, spirit, clarity, and harmony; who speaks through the words of the Vedas, as they flowed from the lips of the Indian rishis. That was the first epoch of our human race after the Great Flood. At that time, people on our earth did not yet speak of a Trinity, of a threefold divine person. People spoke only of a primordial unity, of Brahman, in which everything is contained, from which everything originates.

[ 7 ] Then came a time when the Persian priests of Zoroaster, the sages of the Parsis, looked back on that epoch in which the hermaphroditic human being was born from fire—the human being who represents a duality, a twofold nature. And with that birth of the human being from fire, something entered our earthly world that had not been there before; it was then that evil first entered the world. Evil, in the human sense, did not exist before the emergence of the sexes. These emerged from the middle of the Lemurian epoch onward. And good and evil have also existed only since that time. Good and evil permeated the late Lemurian era and the early Atlantean era.

[ 8 ] It is interesting to explore, through the spiritual records known as the <“Akasha Chronicles,”> how these two aspects of humanity manifest themselves. In the next issue of the journal “Lucifer—Gnosis,” you will find an explanation of how this duality manifests within the human being—how, when humanity first appeared in two sexes, the human soul and the human physical will were initially distributed between the sexes. Even those who, as occultists today, decipher the marvelous records preserved for us in the Akashic Records may—because this is so different from the ideas people have about those times—be astonished at how fundamentally different the masculine and feminine were in those earliest times on our Earth compared to the present state of affairs. At first, the woman developed the soul under the guidance of the wise leaders of humanity; the man developed the element of will. Thus a duality of will and soul arose. They stood in opposition to one another in the Atlantean epoch within the two genders of humanity. Because the soul entered the physical body—and thereby entered humanity—evil entered humanity. And because humanity had to repeat that epoch, which is characterized by the distinction between good and evil, the fire religion—the Zoroastrian religion—and the doctrine of Ormuzd and Ahriman emerged. This precedes our history as the Persian cultural period.

[ 9 ] “Good and evil” were present in the religion of Zarathustra. At that time, people did not yet speak of a Trinity. That came only later, around the time our historical records begin. The Akashic Records contain no mention of a Trinity in prehistoric times. It was only when human beings learned to distinguish between good and evil that they were compelled to look up to a Third Being. There, in the form of the Mediator—the form that appears most clearly to us in the so-called Mithraic Mysteries, which spread from Persia throughout the entire world—there, in the Trinity, appears the Mediator, the Reconciler, the Redeemer of humanity from evil, the Guide leading from evil to good.

[ 10 ] In those ancient times, people always had to see in the earthly realm a reflection of the divine, a reflection of what took place in the great celestial vault. If you look at the zodiac, you will see that the signs of Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, and Aries—or the Lamb—follow one another in this zodiac. According to certain laws, the Sun—or rather, the vernal equinox—advances, so that in ancient times the Sun rose in the spring in the sign of Cancer, later in the sign of Gemini, even later in the sign of Taurus, and still later in the sign of Aries or the Lamb. Around the eighth century B.C., the Sun had reached the constellation of Aries (the Ram) in the celestial dome. Now, in our cultural era, it is entering the constellation of Pisces.

[ 11 ] Depending on what happens in the spiritual realm, events on Earth take shape accordingly. You are, of course, familiar with the sign of Cancer, but its true meaning is not always understood. One must understand this sign of Cancer; then one will also understand how it points to the dawn of a completely new era. They are two intertwined spirals or two interlocking vortices. When something important happens in the world, when one phase of development gives way to another, when something entirely new enters the world, then two such vortex movements intertwine. In one of these vortices you have the end of Atlantean culture, and in the other you have the beginning of Aryan culture. In the heavens above, our ancestors beheld the outward sign of the dawn of the new Aryan culture. Then, in later times, the sun entered the sign of Gemini. Gemini is a sign of good and evil; Gemini is the zodiacal sign that dominated Persian thought. Then the sun enters the sign of Taurus. This brings us to the third sub-race; it features the worship of the bull—the Egyptian Apis—the cult of the bull in Babylonia, and finally, in what was then later Persia, the bull sacrifice, the cult of Mithras. Humanity brought the bull sacrifice down from the heavens because it was inscribed there.

[ 12 ] The fourth sub-race, during which Christianity emerged, begins with the sun’s entry into Aries. An important legend—the Greek hero Jason’s quest for the Fleece of Aries—marks this significant turning point in history. And the sacrifice of the mystical Lamb on the cross marks yet another important turning point. This is the historical expression of the mystery indicated by the fact that the sun, the ruler of the world, has reached the point in the celestial vault designated as the Lamb or Aries.

[ 13 ] Now, however, we must understand this entire development in the proper way. Following the duality of good and evil, the Trinity emerges in human consciousness. This is evident in various religions. We need only become acquainted with it through what is known in various countries around the Mediterranean as the Mithraic Mysteries. Let us look at such a mystery temple. There, a symbolic ritual takes place for those who participate only in the Lesser Mysteries. For those permitted to participate in the Greater Mysteries, the same event unfolds as a reality in the astral realm. I can speak only of the Lesser Mysteries of the Mithraic cult. The symbolic bull becomes visible. Riding upon it is the Mediator, the God. He then clamps the bull’s nostrils shut and thrusts the sword into its side. A snake appears, a scorpion; above Mithras’s head one sees a bird, and high above the entire group, on one side, the Genius is seen with a torch lowered, and on the other side with a torch raised—symbolizing the sun on its course across the celestial vault.

[ 14 ] Human life, as it unfolds in the consciousness of that time, is thus presented to us. Human beings had come to seek salvation first within themselves—the third divine principle that leads them beyond evil and can reconcile evil with good. Evil consists of the passions—that which drags humanity down to the earth, even into what is symbolized by the Bull. But that which can lead humanity upward toward the higher Self—that which appears as the immortal—is the Mediator who has slain the lower nature by symbolically thrusting the sword into the Bull’s loins. Thus, as the Mediator between good and evil—that is, in the third sub-race—a trinity within the Divine emerges, and with this, humanity has grasped what is called Atman-Budhi-Manas in Theosophy. At the moment the Mediator appears, the mystical mystery is fulfilled: the trinity within human consciousness awakens.

[ 15 ] Thus, through human understanding of unity, duality, and trinity, humanity was led to Atman, Budhi, and Manas. Atman, or the spiritual human, is the unity that a person is capable of perceiving within themselves once they have developed to that point. Budhi, or the spirit of life, will find expression in human beings through the overcoming of evil by good; through the purification of duality—on the one hand, the lower instincts or desire—and, on the other hand, the reconciliation of the higher, so-called “fire instincts” or love, as all evil is consumed in the fire of love. Manas, or the spiritual self, is the spiritual principle that already governs human development. Just as the Messiah, the Redeemer, creates harmony in the world—a harmony that must lead from disharmony to harmony—so too does duality dissolve through the trinity, in which evil is overcome by good.

[ 16 ] Thus, the human race had reached the point where it perceived its entire destiny in the Trinity. But it perceives this destiny in the Trinity as an eternal world order imposed upon humankind. Humanity looks up to the threefold aspect of the Godhead, perceives a divine Trinity in the world, and sees itself as dependent on this divine Trinity. First, however, they had to truly experience that this divine Trinity had descended directly to them, in the person of a fellow human being. That was the great event that marks the beginning of our calendar. With this, the Trinity becomes something entirely new for human consciousness.

[ 17 ] However, we can only understand the deeper meaning of Christmas if we grasp the Mediator in the right way. Out of unity, duality arose; out of duality, chaos; and out of chaos, harmony is to arise once more. This harmony can only come about through the Mediator creating it. This harmony can find expression only in an eternal law, and this eternal law found its symbolic expression—at the time when the cult of Mithras arose—in the fact that within human beings themselves a reflection was seen of this universal law that creates the eternal harmonies of the world.

[ 18 ] In the very same mysteries I have already mentioned here—the mysteries of the Persian religion—you will find a sevenfold initiation for those who were admitted to the sacred mysteries. The first degree comprised those who learned something of the very first mysteries: This was the degree of the “Ravens,” as the symbolic name is called. The second degree was that of the “Occultists.” The third degree was that of the “Fighters” or for the sacred truth. The fourth degree consisted of the so-called “Lions,” and the fifth degree consisted of the “Persians.” Only he was regarded as a full-fledged Persian in whom the consciousness of the highest spiritual aspect within the human being—which we call Manas—had awakened. The one in whom this had awakened could be described as an initiate of the fifth degree, and he was designated a Persian. He was a member of a people in the truest sense of the word. He represented the destiny of his people. And if he was initiated to a higher degree, he no longer represented the personal destiny of his people, but that of all humanity. He then represented not the karma of a single people, but that of all humanity, insofar as it had developed from the middle of the Lemurian race and onward into the fifth root race. Such an initiate was then called a “Sun-Walker” or a “Sun Hero.” All those you find referred to as “Sun Heroes” in the books are nothing other than such sixth-degree initiates. Then came the “Father,” who was connected to the future development of humanity.

[ 19 ] What does the name “Sonnenläufer” mean? If you could look back to the primordial times of our solar system, you would see that this solar system emerged from the struggle of thermal chaos, and that harmony itself was forged from disharmony in our world—that peace and laws developed out of strife and disharmony. But how did they come into being? They came into being in this way: The Sun has such a regular course that we cannot even imagine the Sun deviating from its path for even a moment; our world is so firmly grounded in harmony that the Sun’s path through the world is firmly determined in its direction, and nothing can divert it from this direction. In this path of the sun across the celestial vault, the ancient Persian initiate of the sixth degree saw his own inner destiny. The sun of his own inner being—the sun of his spirit—had to shine so firmly within him that it was just as impossible for him to deviate from the path of goodness and wisdom as it was for the sun to deviate from its path. The person who had reached the sixth degree of initiation had to be so imbued with this law that he could not possibly stray from his path; then he was a solar hero, a solar runner.

[ 20 ] All earlier degrees of initiation had no other purpose than to give human beings this inner security, this inner solar radiance. Thus, those who knew something of these mysteries saw a deep harmony between human destiny and the course of the sun across the celestial vault. The sun—he said—causes the days to grow shorter and shorter, causes nature to wither as autumn approaches, and causes everything to withdraw inward. And when we approach the time that is celebrated today as Christmas, a new turning point occurs: light emerges, the days grow longer in nature, and nature can awaken once more. The birth of the light—that was the moment that has been celebrated since the times when it was said that light is the symbol of revelation in the world and in human beings. Thus, in the East, all the peoples of our root race regarded light as the garment of the wise order of the world. In the light, they saw the garment of worldly wisdom. When we turn our gaze out into the cosmos, light appears, harmonious and firmly imprinted, in the stars beyond. In reality, the spirits of wisdom reveal themselves through the light, which the ancient religions regarded as the garment of the world’s wisdom.

[ 21 ] Thus, to the ancient religions, the Trinity appeared in such a way that they first celebrated unity—primordial wisdom—then duality—light and darkness—and finally, as a Trinity, the enlightened human being, the teacher and mediator, Mithras.

[ 22 ] But salvation for humanity in the sense of this consciousness could not come about until the awareness of this entire cosmic harmony arose from within human hearts themselves. That which lives out there in the world as light—as the birth of light—must dawn within the human heart itself at the very moment we are now approaching. The outer mystical event that has taken place is the foundation of Christianity. In Christ, that which has existed from the very beginning—but which remained hidden from humanity throughout the period of time we have just discussed—has appeared on our Earth. During this time, humanity has gradually repeated those three stages. But now a new stage, a new high point, can be reached: the light can be reborn. Just as, after the light has grown weaker and weaker as we approach autumn, the light is reborn when we reach the winter solstice, so too was the Savior, Christ, born to humanity in the fourth sub-race. He is the new Sun Hero, who was not only initiated in the depths of the mystery temples but appeared before the whole world, so that even those who do not see and yet believe might be saved! Thus it followed naturally that, once it was recognized that the Divine can descend all the way to the level of the individual personality, the feast of the birth of the Sun Hero of the fourth post-Atlantean race could immediately be established in place of the feast of the birth of the Light.

[ 23 ] This occurred in the fourth century of our fourth subrace. What had never existed before now existed: namely, the possibility that human beings could give birth to the light within themselves. They could do so because the principle of light had incarnated in a human being for the first time. Because this had happened, the winter solstice festival was necessarily linked to the Christian festival. The entire significance of the preceding subraces is established and affirmed by the transfer of the feast of Christ’s birth to the winter solstice. At first, wisdom and light had appeared to human beings from without; but now the light was to be brought forth from within the human heart itself. Christ was to be born within the human being. That is why the event in Palestine also had to take place—a mystical event and a historical fact.

[ 24 ] We are therefore dealing with a historical event, and that is precisely the great mystery that is so poorly understood: that what took place in Palestine happened exactly as it is described in the Gospel of John, and that it is, at the same time, a mystical reality. Anyone who does not understand the event in this way does not yet understand it. But if you do understand it this way, then you will also understand why, from this moment on, God must be conceived as a personality, and why the Trinity—which had previously been conceived differently—must be conceived in the form of three divine persons. Christ had now become a person, and with that, the proof was provided that the divine can be realized in human beings. Thus, a firstfruits had appeared on Earth in whom the divine once dwelt. And from then on, this could become a lasting, indestructible ideal for humanity.

[ 25 ] All the great teachers of wisdom of the past—the Egyptian Hermes, the ancient Indian rishis, the Chinese Confucius, the Persian Zarathustra—they spoke the word of the Divine; they were the great teachers. With Jesus, who was the Christ, the Divine itself walked the earth for the first time in a living form. Before that, we had only the Way and the Truth on earth. Now we have the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This is the great difference between the earlier religions and Christianity: that the latter is the fulfillment of the preceding religions; that in Christ we are not dealing with a teacher of wisdom—for teachers of wisdom exist in all other religions as well—but with a human personality who must at the same time be revered as a divine personality. That is why the disciples’ message is so important: We have laid our hands on his wounds; we have heard his message. — Hence, too, the emphasis on what is visible, on the immediate sensory impression; that one should not merely listen to the word, but also look to the personality. And hence, too, the conviction that he was the Sun Hero of the Worlds in a wholly unique way.

[ 26 ] Once we grasp this, we also understand that the ancient festival of the winter solstice used to have a different meaning than today’s Christian celebration. In Egypt, we find Horus, Isis, and Osiris—the archetype of what also lives on in Christianity. In ancient India, we have the birth of Krishna from the holy virgin. Everywhere we find echoes of this myth. But what is essential to Christianity is what I have just stated: it is the fact that not only the Trinity but also the Quaternity has become sacred, that the sacred has descended to the level of the individual. Previously, the sacred was divine and reigned from an unattainable height above humanity. The ancient sages, the holy Rishis, revered it as the indefinable, ineffable Brahman; the ancient disciples of Zarathustra saw it in the dual expression of good and evil; in Egypt, as I said, there is the Trinity of Isis, Osiris, and Horus—but that the Divine dwelt among human beings, that it became a personality, that was the mystery of the fourth sub-race. This is the most important event of our epoch of humanity: that Christmas, which has always symbolized the birth of an initiate, now symbolizes the birth of the greatest solar hero, Christ himself. Thus, we must necessarily see these two things resonating together in the course of world history.

[ 27 ] When we look at the fourth subrace and compare it to the stage we ourselves are at, we see that the Divine has receded even further. And it has taken on a peculiar form in our present time—a form that must be understood if one is to fully decipher the meaning of Christmas. Go back to the fourth sub-race, to the twelfth or thirteenth century: everywhere you will find a full understanding of the true personality of Christ among those who know it; and this personality of Christ is described so comprehensively that, for example, in the poem Heliand, German conditions are projected onto Christ. Christ is so firmly rooted within humanity that one can relate the circumstances of other countries to his redemptive act. He stands so firmly within the general fabric of humanity as a personality. But then a different mood arises. A certain shaking of faith in this archetype of humanity sets in. Something that, on the one hand, represents progress occurs: a much larger segment of humanity enters into the further evolution of Christianity. But as a result, people cease to grasp that the center of their thinking, feeling, and willing could lie in the individual personality of Christ. Fewer and fewer are those who dare to say that it is not about the teaching, but about the personality of Christ. Eventually, this dissolves entirely into the veneration of the abstract ideal, which is now conceived only spiritually and toward which humanity strives. In the time of the first sub-race it was Brahman; in the time of the second it was light and darkness; in the time of the third it was the Trinity. Then, during the time of the fourth sub-race, this Trinity had descended and become a Person. Ultimately, the Personal has descended even further, down to mere intellect, which has dissolved the human personal aspect and is now venerated only as an abstract ideal.

[ 28 ] In our fifth subrace, however, the time is already being prepared—a time that is yet to come—which must bring us faith in the new initiates, in the “Fathers.” Those initiated into the seventh degree are called the Fathers, and in the spiritual-scientific worldview we speak of the knowledge of the Masters, because it is not merely one individual, but because there will be Masters to whom humanity will look with gratitude and reverence as the great guides of humanity. Thus, the fifth sub-race connects us with our future. And so this fourth subrace appears to us as being placed right in the midst of the great process we are undergoing—the process of Advent, that is, the three preceding races, of which the three-week Advent is a reflection—because humanity will soon once again experience the way in which, in earlier times, the dawning of light took place during the Christmas season. Then life in the light follows. That is why, for Christians as well, Christmas is not something fleeting, not a festival commemorating what has passed; for the Christmas antiphon does not say: “Christ has been born,” or “Christ was born,” but rather: “Today Christ is born.”—It always speaks of “today.” That is important and significant. “Today” is spoken of in the sense that Christ himself spoke: “I am with you until the end of the age.”—This is something that stands before us anew each year and reveals to us the connection between humanity and heaven. It shows us that what has taken place in heaven must also be fulfilled within the human being. And just as the sun could not deviate a single centimeter from its orbit without causing chaos, so too must human beings stay the course. They must attain that inner harmony, that inner rhythm, exemplified by Christ—who was incarnated in Jesus and who will work through the Fathers—whose guidance human beings must follow in times to come.

[ 29 ] This is the connection between humanity and the heavens: The sun is not only meant to move unwaveringly across the sky and gain new strength at the winter solstice; it is also meant to bring about within humanity a birth of light from the deepest inner self—a resurrection, a solar heroism of the fifth root race. Hence the Christmas verse: “Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax,” “Peace on earth to people of good will.” Inner peace will also bring the evolution of humanity into a rhythmic course, just as the sun has brought its own course into a regular rhythm. In the sun we have a reflection of the eternal cycle of the cosmos. It has overcome the chaos within itself and brought about peace. In this sense, Christmas is a festival of peace, from which the spirit of peace and harmony should also radiate. It is celebrated in the proper way when the power of peace and harmony radiates from this festival. When the Christmas bells ring out, it is not merely the sounds of the church that resound; we hear the sounds of all of striving humanity, which has been working on and continues to work on present-day culture and its further development ever since the Earth, with its spirituality, rose once more from the great frost.

[ 30 ] What the preceding races longed for as their future was bestowed upon the fourth post-Atlantean subrace at birth. And what the three subsequent subraces must strive for resounds in the sounds of Christmas. The harmonies of the heavens truly speak to us when we understand what the Christmas festival expresses. Every festival of the year is so firmly rooted in ancient wisdom.

[ 31 ] These festivals were not established by chance; they did not arise from arbitrariness, but were drawn from the deepest wisdom of the world, and whoever can truly understand them and celebrate them with full comprehension will find in them the symbols of ancient wisdom for what has happened since the beginning and what will happen in the future. In this way, the festivals take on new meaning; they cease to have the conventional significance that, for many, is all they have left. To read the great cosmic truths in this way means to celebrate the great cosmic festivals in their true sense. With your heart, your mind, and your spirit, you read the primordial truths of Heaven when you celebrate the great world festivals. Then they are once again celebrated authentically from the Spirit, and then they are meaningful to humanity once more.

[ 32 ] Spiritual science is not merely abstract thought, nor is it a web of dogmas. It has a great task and a global mission: to revive what humanity has forgotten, to rekindle the fire within what has been handed down to us by our ancestors. Then human selfishness will also come to an end. People will learn to live in the spirit of unity with the world. This is the wisdom that, among many other things, flows from spiritual science, and it is practical in the best sense of the word; it gives us inner stability and steadfast hope. And that is why the spirit of peace and spiritual confidence that radiates from the Christmas season will be able to permeate the innermost being of those who strive for spiritual knowledge.

[ 33 ] The exalted spiritual leaders of humanity themselves once prescribed this festival for us in ancient times. Let us, as true Christmas wisdom, hold this before our inner eye today as we conclude this hour: Advanced fellow human beings are the leaders of the spiritual movement—advanced fellow human beings who were already present at the beginning of the fifth root race, back when the great world festivals were established, and who, even today, as the great teachers of humanity, reveal such truths to us once again. They do not impart these teachings of wisdom to us out of speculation or based on their own opinions, but because they were present when these things were revealed. They have prepared the way for the peace that is one day to flow over humanity, and in the festivals they have composed the sacred scripture from which we are to read the message of peace, the message of inner spiritual bliss, which we are to regain through spiritual science. If we live in the spirit of the Masters of Harmony, then we live ever more in accordance with the great ideal that they themselves exemplify for us. Spiritual Science leads us to think of those sublime guides of humanity when the Christmas spirit takes hold of us, speaking to us of peace and of the sacrifices of the great Masters. This peace flows into humanity’s future. We see them completely enveloped in the radiance of this spiritual light and the harmony of feelings. In this glory, in which they appear to us, we recognize them as the fathers who lead us toward the future. We strive toward them, and from our own soul a life is born that is steeped in peace, in harmony and concord—in that harmony which is a reflection of the sun’s path around the world.

[ 34 ] The birth of peace at Christmas time is a reflection of the sun’s path across the celestial vault. This is what the wise magi, the great masters, teach us; this is what those say who not only have blind faith in these masters, but who know and speak from their full understanding: The Masters exist, and the spiritual world movement under the guidance of the Masters is the great, sublime peace movement that leads humanity toward that cosmic harmony in which human souls will live with the same harmonious regularity and unwavering steadfastness with which the sun traverses the worlds and shows us the way to the radiant beauty of the spiritual sun.