The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. Signs and Symbols of Christmas

[ 1 ] The Christmas festival, which we are now preparing to celebrate, regains a profound meaning and a new spiritual life through the spiritual-scientific worldview. In a spiritual sense, Christmas is a festival of the sun, and as such, we wish to explore it today. To begin, let us listen to the most beautiful address to the sun—the one that Goethe puts into the mouth of his Faust:

The pulse of life beats fresh and alive,
Gently welcoming the ethereal twilight;
You, Earth, remained steadfast this night as well
And breathe, refreshed, at my feet,
Already beginning to surround me with delight,
You stir and inspire a resolute determination,
To strive ceaselessly toward the highest existence. —

Already, in the twilight, the world lies revealed,
The forest resounds with a thousand voices of life;
Out of every valley, into every valley, streaks of mist are poured,
Yet the clarity of the heavens descends into the depths,
And twigs and branches, freshly revived, spring forth
From the fragrant abyss where they lay submerged and slept;
Color upon color, too, emerges from the depths,
Where flowers and leaves drip with dew,
A paradise spreads all around me.

Look up! — The giant mountain peaks
Already herald the most solemn hour;
They are allowed to enjoy the eternal light early on,
Which later turns down toward us.
Now, to the meadows sloping down to the alpine pastures
A new radiance and clarity are bestowed,
And step by step it has descended;
It steps forth!—and, alas, already dazzled,
I turn away, pierced by the pain in my eyes.

So it is, then, when a longing hope
Faithfully yields to the highest desire,
And finds the gates of fulfillment wide open;
But now, from those eternal depths,
An excess of flame bursts forth, and we stand struck dumb:
We sought to kindle life’s torch,
Yet a sea of fire engulfs us—what a fire!
Is it love? Is it hate? They entwine us, glowing,
Alternating monstrously between pain and joy,
So that we look back toward the earth once more,
To take refuge in the most youthful veil.

So let the sun remain at my back!
The waterfall, roaring through the rocky reef,
I gaze upon it with growing delight.
From cascade to cascade it now rolls in thousands,
Then pouring forth into thousands upon thousands of streams,
Foam upon foam whizzing high into the air.
Yet how magnificent, springing from this storm,
Is the ever-changing arch of the rainbow,
Now clearly defined, now dissolving into the air,
Spreading cool, fragrant showers all around!
It reflects human striving.
Contemplate it, and you will understand more clearly:
Our life lies in this colorful reflection.

[ 2 ] Goethe puts these powerful words into the mouth of his “Representative of Humanity” as he faces the sun rising in the morning. — Yet the festival we are to discuss today is not about this sun, which awakens anew every morning. Let us allow the essence of the sun to take effect upon us in a much deeper sense. And what this sun is meant to be shall form the guiding theme of our reflection today. We will now hear those words that reflect the deepest meaning of the Christmas mystery. These words resounded before the devoutly listening students of the Mysteries throughout the ages, before they were permitted to enter the Mysteries themselves:

Let the sun shine
At the hour of midnight.
Build with stones
In the lifeless ground.

So find in the twilight
And in the night of death
The new beginning of creation,
The young power of the morning.

Let the heights reveal
The eternal word of the gods,
Let the depths preserve
The peaceful refuge.

Living in the darkness
Create a sun.
Weaving in matter
Recognize the joy of the spirit.

[ 3 ] Many people today are familiar only with the Christmas tree and its lights, and many believe that the Christmas tree is a tradition handed down from ancient times. But that is not the case. Rather, the Christmas tree is one of the most recent European traditions. Even the oldest Christmas tree is barely a hundred years old. But as young as the tree is, the Christmas celebration is just as old.

[ 4 ] The Christmas celebration is a festival that was universally known in the most ancient mysteries of all religions and has always been celebrated. It is not merely an external festival of the sun, but a festival that leads humanity to a vision—or at least a glimpse—of the sources of existence. It is a festival that was observed annually by the highest-ranking initiates in the mysteries when the sun sent its least power to the earth and bestowed its least warmth. But it was also celebrated by those who could not yet participate in the full ceremony, who were permitted to experience only the outward, symbolic expression of the highest mysteries. And these mysteries have been preserved throughout the ages and have taken on different forms among all peoples, according to their various creeds. “Christmas celebration” refers to the festival of the Night of Consecration—that Night of Consecration which was observed in the great Mysteries. These were the ceremonies in which the initiator, within individuals who were sufficiently prepared, brought forth the higher human being within; or, to use a modern term: in which the living Christ was born within.

[ 5 ] Only those who are unaware that, in addition to chemical and physical forces, spiritual forces are also at work—and that just as chemical and physical forces have their specific times in the cosmos for their effects, so do spiritual forces—only these people can believe that it does not matter when the awakening of the higher self takes place. The great mysteries consisted in the fact that human beings experienced that event in which they were permitted to behold the active forces in a colorful radiance, in bright light; in which they were permitted to see the world around them filled with spiritual qualities and spiritual beings; in which they were permitted to gaze upon the spirit world around them; and in which they experienced the greatest thing a human being can experience. For everyone—everyone—this moment will come one day! Everyone will experience it one day, even if perhaps only after many incarnations; but the moment will come for everyone when Christ will rise within them, when new sight and new hearing will awaken within them.

[ 6 ] Those who were prepared for the Awakening as students of the mysteries were first taught what this Awakening means in the vast cosmos. Only then were the final steps toward the awakening taken. And these steps were taken when darkness is at its greatest, when the outer sun is at its lowest point: at Christmas time, because those who are aware of spiritual realities know that at this time, forces favorable to such an awakening flow through the cosmos. During the preparation, the student was told that whoever truly wishes to know must not only be aware of what has taken place on Earth over the millennia, but must also learn to survey the entire course of human history. And he must also know that the great festivals are arranged within the cycle of the year by the leading individualities, and that they must be dedicated to contemplating the eternal, great truths.

[ 7 ] Over millions of years, the gaze was directed on such occasions. “Look back to that time,” the student was told, “when our Earth was not yet as it is now, when there was still no sun, no moon—but both were still united with the Earth—when the Earth still formed a single body with the sun and the moon. Even then, human beings were already there, though they did not yet have physical bodies; they were spiritual beings, and no sunlight shone upon these spiritual-soul beings from outside. The sunlight was within the Earth itself. It was not like today’s sunlight, which falls from the outside upon beings and things, but rather it was a light that contained spiritual power within itself, a light that simultaneously shone within every human being. Then came the time when the Sun emerged from the Earth. It separated from it, and its light fell upon the Earth from the outside. The sun had withdrawn from the earth. It had now grown dark within human beings.

[ 8 ] That was the beginning of his development toward that future point in time when he is to rediscover the inner light shining within. Human beings had to learn to perceive the things of the earth with their outer senses. They are evolving toward a state where the higher human being—the spiritual human being—glows and shines once more within. From light through darkness to light—that is the course of human evolution.

[ 9 ] Once the students had been prepared in this way, they were guided toward their awakening at the very moment when, as a chosen group, they were to experience inwardly what the rest of humanity would not experience until the distant future: the moment when they beheld the spiritual light through their opened spiritual eyes. And this sacred moment was to occur when the outer light was at its faintest, on the day when the outer sun shines the least. Then, on that day, the initiates were gathered together, and the inner light was revealed to them. And those who could not yet participate in this ceremony were to experience at least an outer image that would tell them: The great moment will come for you as well. Today you see an image. Later, you will experience what you now see in the image.

[ 10 ] These were the Lesser Mysteries. They depicted in symbol what the initiate was later to experience. And today we want to witness what took place in the Lesser Mysteries around midnight. It was the same everywhere: in the Egyptian Mysteries, in the Eleusinian Mysteries, in the Mysteries of the Near East, in the Babylonian-Chaldean Mysteries, as well as in the Mysteries of the Persian Mithraic cult and the Indian Brahma Mysteries. Everywhere, the initiates of these mystery schools experienced the same thing around midnight on the night of initiation.

[ 11 ] They gathered early the night before. In quiet reflection, they had to come to terms with what this most important event meant. They sat together in the darkness, enveloped in deep silence. By the time midnight approached, they had already been sitting like that for hours in the dark room. Thoughts of eternity filled their hearts. Then, around midnight, mysterious sounds arose, flooding the room as they swelled and ebbed. The students who heard these “sounds” knew: This is the music of the spheres. A deep, solemn reverence filled their hearts. Then a faint light appeared. The light emanated from a faintly illuminated disk. Those who saw this knew that this disk represented the Earth. The illuminated disk then grew darker and darker until it was finally completely black. At the same time, the room around it grew brighter. Those who saw this knew that the black circle represented the Earth. The sun, which otherwise shines through the Earth, is veiled. The Earth can no longer see the sun. Then, radiating outward from the Earth’s disk, circle after circle formed in rainbow colors. Those who saw this knew: this is the iris. Then, at midnight, a violet-reddish glowing circle gradually rose in place of the black circle of the Earth; on it stood a word. This word differed depending on the peoples whose members were permitted to experience this mystery. In our modern language, the word would be “Christos.” Those who saw this knew: this is the Sun. It appeared to them at the hour of midnight, when the world around them lay in deepest darkness. It was made clear to the students that they had now experienced in images what is called in the Mysteries: beholding the Sun at midnight.

[ 12 ] The one who is truly initiated learns to truly see the sun at midnight, for within him the material has been extinguished. Only the sun of the spirit lives within him and outshines all the darkness of matter.

[ 13 ] The most blissful moment in human evolution is the moment when a person experiences living in eternal light, detached from darkness. And this moment was depicted symbolically in the mysteries, year after year, at midnight on the night of the consecration. This image depicted that, alongside the physical sun, there is a spiritual sun that, just like the physical sun, must be born out of darkness, out of the gloom. To make this even clearer to the disciples, after they had witnessed the rising of the sun—the Christ—they were led into a cave in which there appeared to be nothing but stone, dead, lifeless matter. There they saw ears of grain spring up from the stones, as a sign of life, as a symbolic indication that life arises from apparent death, that life is born within dead rock. They were then told: Just as the power of the sun, from this day forward, after it had seemingly died, springs forth anew, so too does the new always arise from life that is dying.

[ 14 ] It is the same event that is alluded to in the Gospel of John in the words: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John, the forerunner of the coming Christ, the spiritual light, whose high point in the annual cycle falls in the middle of summer—this John must decrease, and as he decreases, the power of the coming light grows at the same time, becoming stronger and stronger the more John decreases. Thus the new, the coming life prepares itself within the seed, which must rot and decay in order for the new plant to spring forth. — This is what the students should feel: that life rests in death, that out of what is decaying and rotting, new, magnificent blossoms and fruits arise, that the earth is full of the power of birth. They should learn to believe that at this moment something is taking place within the earth: the overcoming of death by life. The life that exists within death was shown to them in the light of victory. They sensed this and experienced it when they saw the light arise and shine forth in the darkness. Now, in the stone cave, they beheld the sprouting life that arises in splendor and abundance from what appears to be dead.

[ 15 ] In this way, the students were brought up to embrace this faith in life; in this way, what might be called faith in the highest human ideal was allowed to take root within them. Thus they learned to look upward toward this highest ideal of humanity—toward that moment when the Earth will have completed its evolution, when the light will shine forth throughout all humanity. The Earth itself will then crumble to dust, but a spiritual essence of the Earth will remain with all people who have been illuminated from within by the spiritual light. And the Earth and humanity will then awaken to a higher existence, to a new phase of existence.

[ 16 ] As Christianity emerged in the course of its development, it embodied this ideal in the highest sense. It was felt that Christos, as the immortal spirit of the Earth, as the bearer not only of material, sprouting life but also of spiritual rebirth, should appear as the great ideal of all humanity; that he was born around Christmas, during the time of greatest darkness, as a sign that a higher human being can be born in the human soul out of the darkness of matter. — Even before one spoke of Christ, one had already spoken in the ancient mysteries of a “sun hero”; the same ideal was associated with him as Christianity associates with Christ. The bearer of the ideal was called the “sun hero.” Just as the sun completes its course over the course of the year, just as its light waxes and wanes, just as its warmth seems to withdraw from the earth and then shines forth anew, just as it contains life within its “death” and radiates it anew—so too has the Sun Hero, through the power of his spiritual life, become master over death, night, and darkness.

[ 17 ] In the Persian Mithraic mysteries, there were seven degrees of initiation. First came the degree of the “ravens,” who could only reach as far as the gate of the temple of initiation. They serve as mediators between the outer world of material life and the inner world of spiritual life; they no longer belong to the material world, nor yet to the spiritual world. We find these ravens everywhere; they play the same role everywhere as messengers who go back and forth between the two worlds and convey news. We also find them in our German legends and myths: the ravens of Wotan, the ravens that fly around the Kyffhäuser. — The second degree, the degree of the “Occult,” led the initiate from the gate into the interior of the temple of initiation. There he matured toward the third degree, that of the “Warrior,” who stepped out into the world to proclaim the occult truths he had been permitted to experience within the temple. The fourth degree, the degree of the “Lion,” was attained by the person whose consciousness extended not to a single individual but to an entire tribe. Thus, the Christ was called “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” — In the fifth degree is the person whose consciousness expands even further, encompassing an entire people within his consciousness. This person no longer had a name of his own. He was designated by the name of the people to whom he belonged. Thus, people spoke of the “Persian” or the “Israelite.” We understand, for example, that Nathanael was called a “true Israelite” because he had attained the fifth degree of initiation. —- The sixth degree was the degree of the “Solar Hero,” and we must clarify what this name means. We will then come to understand that a shudder of awe must have passed through the soul of a student of the Mysteries who knew something of a Solar Hero and who was able to experience the birth of a Solar Hero during the Christmas festival.

[ 18 ] Everything in the cosmos follows its own rhythmic course. All celestial bodies, just like the sun, follow a grand rhythm. If the sun were to deviate from this rhythm for even a moment—to stray from its orbit for just an instant—it would result in a revolution of utterly unprecedented significance throughout the entire universe. Rhythm governs all of nature, from the inanimate world all the way up to human beings. It is present in the plant world: the violet and the lily bloom at the same time. Animals have their mating seasons at specific times of the year. It is only with human beings that things are different: the rhythm that prevails all the way up to the “animal” through the course of the seasons—in the forces of growth, reproduction, and so on—ceases with human beings!

[ 19 ] Human beings should be rooted in freedom, and the more highly civilized they are, the more this rhythm diminishes. Just as the light fades at Christmas time, so too does this rhythm eventually seem to have vanished entirely from human life, leaving chaos in its wake. But then human beings must give birth to this rhythm of their own accord, from within themselves. They should shape their lives of their own free will so that they unfold within rhythmic boundaries. As steady and certain as the course of the sun, the events of his life should unfold with regularity. And just as it is unthinkable that the course of the sun could change, so too should it be unthinkable that the rhythm of such a life could be interrupted.

[ 20 ] In the Sun Hero, one found the embodiment of such a rhythm of life. Through the power of the higher human being born within him, he gained the strength to master the rhythm of his own life’s course. This Sun Hero was also Jesus Christ for the first two centuries. That is why the feast of his birth was moved to the time when, since time immemorial, the feast of the Sun Hero’s birth had been celebrated. That is also why everything was linked to the life story of Christ Jesus, and why the midnight Mass—which the first Christians celebrated in caves in remembrance of the Sun Festival—came to be observed. In this Mass, at midnight, a sea of light shone forth from the darkness as a reminder of the rising of the Spiritual Sun in the Mysteries. That is why the narrative has Jesus born in a stable, as a reminder of the stone cave from which—in the ripening ears of grain, the symbols of life—life was born.

[ 21 ] Just as earthly life springs from lifeless rock, so too was the Highest—Christ Jesus—born from that which is lowest. The legend of the three wise men, the three kings from the East, became associated with the feast of his birth. They brought the child gold, the symbol of outward, wise power; myrrh, the symbol of life’s victory over death; and finally frankincense, the symbol of the world-ether in which the spirit lives.

[ 22 ] In this sense, we feel something resonating from the earliest times of humanity in the spirit of Christmas. And this has come down to us in the unique context of Christianity. In its symbols, we find representations of humanity’s oldest symbols. The tree of lights is also such a symbol. It is a symbol for us of the Tree of Paradise. Within Paradise, this Tree of Paradise represents the life-giving and the cognitive. Paradise itself represents the entire, all-encompassing material nature. The representation of spiritual nature is the tree in the midst of it, which encompasses knowledge, and the Tree of Life. Knowledge can only be attained at the cost of life.

[ 23 ] There is a story that explains the meaning of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life: Seth stood before the gate of Paradise and sought entry. The cherub who guarded the entrance let him in. This means that Seth became an initiate. Once Seth was in Paradise, he found that the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge were tightly intertwined. The Archangel Michael—who stands before God—allowed him to take three seeds from this intertwined tree.

[ 24 ] This tree stands as a prophetic indication of humanity’s future: when all of humanity has attained knowledge and been initiated, it will carry within itself not only the Tree of Knowledge but also the other tree, the Tree of Life. Death will then be no more. For now, however, only the initiate may take the three seeds from this tree—these three seeds, which symbolize the three higher members of the human being.

[ 25 ] When Adam died, Seth placed these three grains in his mouth, and a flaming bush sprang up from Adam’s grave; this bush had the unique property that new shoots and leaves would constantly grow from the wood that was cut from it. Within the circle of flames surrounding the bush, however, the following is written: “Ehjeh asher ehjeh,” which means: I am the one who was, who is, and who will be. This signifies that which passes through all incarnations: the power of the ever-renewing, evolving human being, who descends from the light into darkness and ascends from darkness into the light.

[ 26 ] The staff with which Moses performed his miracles was carved from the wood of this bush. The gate of Solomon’s Temple was made from it. This wood was carried out to the Pool of Bethesda, and the pool received from it the power of which we are told. And from the same wood was fashioned the cross of Christ Jesus—the wood of the cross that shows us life as it fades and passes away in death, yet possesses the power to bring forth new life. The great symbol of the world stands before us: life overcoming death. The wood of this cross grew from the three seeds of the Tree of Paradise.

[ 27 ] The Rose Cross also expresses that symbol—the dying of the lower self and, sprouting from it, the resurrection of the higher self—in the red roses, which Goethe expressed in the words:

And as long as you don't have that,
This: Die and be reborn!
You are but a gloomy guest
On this dark earth.

[ 28 ] What a wonderful connection between the Tree of Paradise and the wood of the Cross! Although the Cross is a symbol of Easter, it also deepens our sense of the Christmas spirit. In it, we sense what flows toward us from the Idea of Christ—that new, welling-up life—on this night of the birth of Christ Jesus. We see a hint of this idea in the living roses that adorn this tree here. They tell us: the tree of the night of consecration has not yet become the wood of the cross, but the power to become that wood is beginning to rise within it. The roses growing from the greenery are a symbol of the victory of the Eternal over the temporal.

[ 29 ] In the Pythagorean square, we find the symbol that represents the fourfold nature of the human being: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego.

[ 30 ] For the higher trinity of the human being, the triangle symbolizes the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being.

[ 31 ] The symbol above it is the symbol for Tarot. Those who were initiated into the Egyptian mysteries knew how to interpret the symbol. They also knew how to read the Book of Thoth, which consisted of seventy-eight cards depicting all world events from beginning to end, from Alpha to Omega, and which could be read by connecting and arranging them in the correct order. It depicted in images the cycle of life—dying into death and sprouting anew into life. Whoever could combine the right numbers and the right images was able to read it. And this wisdom of numbers, this wisdom of images, has been taught since time immemorial. It still played a major role in the Middle Ages—for example, with Raimundus Lullus—but today, not much of it remains.

[ 32 ] Above it is the Tao symbol, the symbol that reminds us of the name our ancient ancestors used for God. Before Europe, Asia, and Africa were inhabited, these ancient ancestors lived in Atlantis, which was submerged by floods. In Germanic legends, the memory of this Atlantis lives on in the tales of Niflheim, the Land of Mist. For Atlantis was not surrounded by pure air. Vast, powerful masses of fog swirled around the land, much like those seen today when traveling through clouds and fog in the high mountains. The sun and moon did not stand clearly in the sky; to the people of Atlantis, they were surrounded by rainbow halos—by the sacred Iris. In those days, people understood the language of nature far better. What speaks to people today in the lapping of the waves, the rustling of the wind, the whispering of the leaves, and the rumbling of thunder—but is no longer understood by them—was comprehensible to the ancient Atlanteans back then. They sensed a divine presence in everything that spoke to them. Amid all these speaking clouds, waters, leaves, and winds, a sound resounded to the Atlanteans: Tao—that is me. — In this sound lived the very essence that permeates all of nature. Atlantis heard it. This Tao was later expressed in the letter T. Above it is a circle, the symbol of the all-encompassing divine Father Nature.

[ 33 ] At last, everything that permeates the universe and everything that exists besides humankind is represented in the symbol of the pentagram, which greets us from the top of the tree. The deepest meaning of the pentagram must not be discussed here. It shows us the star of evolving humanity. It is the star, the symbol of humankind, which all sages follow, just as the priest-sages followed it in ancient times. It is the essence of the Earth, the great solar hero, who is born on the night of consecration, because the highest light radiates from the deepest darkness.

[ 34 ] Humanity lives toward a future in which the light is to be born within it, in which one meaningful word is to be replaced by another, in which it will no longer be said that darkness cannot comprehend the light, but in which the truth will resound throughout the cosmos and in which darkness will comprehend the light that shines toward us in the star of humanity, where the darknesses will give way and comprehend the light—that is, be seized by it. And this is what should resound from within us as we celebrate Christmas. Only then will we truly celebrate Christmas in its deep, ancient meaning, for then it will point out to us that the spiritual light will shine forth from within the human being and radiate out into the whole world. And we will be able to celebrate Christmas as a festival of humanity’s highest ideal. It will then have meaning for us once more; it will come alive again in our souls; and even the Christmas tree will then, as a symbol of the Tree of Paradise, have a truer meaning than is given to it today, even in the most meaningful way. But within our souls, the celebration of the Night of Consecration will give rise to a joyful confidence: Yes, I, too, will experience within myself what must be called the birth of the higher human being; within me, too, the birth of the Savior, the birth of Christ, will take place.