The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. Christmas through the Ages

[ 1 ] When we go out into the streets of our great cities at this time of year, we find them filled with what our contemporaries have acquired to celebrate the festival we are approaching—one of the great festivals that humanity can celebrate in the course of a year: the commemoration of the most powerful impulse in the development of humanity. And yet, if we allow ourselves to be moved today by what is to take place in the coming days in a large city such as this one, where we find ourselves, to mark this commemorative festival, if we ask ourselves whether it corresponds to what should move through the souls and hearts of people, if we do not indulge in any illusions but simply look the truth in the eye, then perhaps we cannot help but admit: How little does everything we see in the preparations for and perhaps also in the observance of Christmas fit, on the one hand, with all that is otherwise taking place around us in modern culture, and how little, on the other hand, does it fit with all that which, after all, ought to live in the deepest heart of the human being as a memory and a thought of the greatest impulse that humanity could have received in the course of its development.

[ 2 ] It is perhaps no exaggeration to say: After all, not everything appears so harmonious to our eyes, which long to be imbued with the Christmas spirit, which wish to receive this Christmas spirit from what they can see in our surroundings today; not everything appears harmonious when our vehicles race right through the avenues where the Christmas trees or other preparations for the holiday have been set up. And if people today perhaps no longer fully perceive this disharmony, it is because they have already become too unaccustomed to feeling all the depth and intimacy that can be associated with the approaching festival. What remains for city dwellers, in particular, of all that deepens the human spirit about Christmas is, when it comes down to it, nothing more than a final echo that barely hints at its former grandeur—a habit in which the greatness can no longer be perceived, to which humanity had grown accustomed over the course of centuries.

[ 3 ] It would be entirely misguided to view the fact that times have changed—and that it is impossible in today’s large cities to cultivate the deep intimacy associated with this festival that once existed—with a pessimistic outlook. It would not be right to allow such a pessimistic mood to arise when, at the same time—as should be the case in this circle—one can have a sense of how humanity can once again approach the full depth and grandeur of that impulse which should be felt precisely during this festival. Seeking souls have every reason to ask themselves: What can this Christmas festival mean to us? — And they may admit to themselves in their hearts: It is precisely through spiritual science that something will once again be given to all of humanity that, in the fullest sense of the word, will bring what can no longer be present—and which one must admit can no longer be present—if one does not wish to be lulled by illusions and fantasies and regard what has in many cases become a mere festival of gifts as equivalent to what the Christmas festival the Christmas festival has been to people for centuries: a festival from the celebration of which blossomed in souls a joy of hope, a certainty of hope, and the awareness of belonging to a spiritual being who has descended from spiritual heights, united with the Earth, so that every willing human soul may share in them.

[ 4 ] For centuries, a festival was celebrated that awakened in people’s souls the awareness that the individual human soul possesses a firm hold on the spiritual power just described, and that all people who are willing can come together in service to this spiritual power, can unite in this service in such a way that they also find the right paths on Earth to be as fully human as possible, to love one another as fully as possible as human beings on Earth.

[ 5 ] If, as might seem appropriate, one wishes to let the comparison sink into one’s soul—between what Christmas has been throughout the centuries, and what it is meant to become again, then it may well be worthwhile, on the one hand, to compare the mood that prevails today in the circles around us due to the cultural demands of the present with what Christmas once was, and on the other hand, with what can once again become a sort of timeless renewal of this festival in our souls through spiritual science.

[ 6 ] It is hardly possible anymore for the modern city dweller to fully appreciate, in all its depth, what is associated with our major annual festivals. It is hardly possible to feel that magic which, like a spiritual breeze, passed through the souls and minds of those who believed they were carrying Christ in their hearts during the great festive celebrations around Christmas or Easter. To feel this magic, which swept through humanity like a spiritual breeze in those times, has become quite, quite difficult today, especially for city dwellers. For those who have still had the opportunity to catch even a glimpse of this magical breeze that could sweep through souls and minds in such times, this will certainly be a wonderful, a glorious memory. As a child, I myself was only able to catch the last remnants of what, in the villages of German regions, could pass through souls and minds as such a magical breeze—to see how, in both old and young, as the Christmas season approached, something truly arose in the deepest inner life of the soul that differed from the sensations and feelings that were otherwise present throughout the year. Just a few decades ago, as Christmas approached, one could still feel this very thing quite clearly in farming villages, as souls naturally adorned themselves inwardly and truly felt something like this: During the autumn, the physical sunlight has descended into the deepest nocturnal darkness; the outer physical darkness has increased. The nights have grown long, the days short. We must spend much time sitting in our living rooms. Whereas in the opposite seasons we would go out into the fields and feel the golden rays of the morning sun meeting us, feel the warming sun and move our hands during the long days of summer, we must now sit much in the living room, must so much darkness around us, and often look out the windows to see the earth covered in its winter cloak.

[ 7 ] It is impossible to describe in detail all the beauty and wonder that stirred in the hearts of people in the humblest farmhouses on Sunday afternoons and evenings as Christmas approached, for one would have to describe the innermost feelings of the soul. One would have to describe how many a person, who had spent a good part of the year brawling and getting into all sorts of mischief, felt naturally subdued in his soul by the thought: “Christmas is approaching.” He felt: “The season itself becomes too holy for mischief to be allowed during this time.”

[ 8 ] This is just a small glimpse of what was once widespread centuries ago, and what could still be seen as a last remnant in the villages decades ago. There, once the family Christmas celebration had already moved indoors, one could see how at most an imitation of the little stable in Bethlehem had been set up in the homes, and how the children rejoiced in everything associated with it when they saw Joseph and Mary, the shepherds in front, the angels above—sometimes imitated in a rather primitive manner. And such an imitation of the manger could be found in almost every home in certain villages.

[ 9 ] More or less, what had retreated into the houses was already the last echo of something else, which we will touch on later. But then, just a few decades ago, once the main Christmas days—December 25th and 26th—were over and the Feast of the Epiphany was approaching, one could still see groups of performers parading through the villages, the last performers of the Holy Story. The actual Christmas plays had already become quite rare, but one could still often see a final echo of the Feast of the Epiphany play, perhaps even today in remote villages. There were the Three Kings, dressed in variously curious ways, with paper crowns and a star on their heads, who paraded through the village and, with a few primitive voices—rarely without humor, but rather both sacred and humorous at the same time—proclaimed everything that souls were meant to feel, drawing on what the Bible says about the great Christ impulse in human evolution.

[ 10 ] The essential point is that, especially during this Christmas season and in the days and weeks surrounding it, the atmosphere was such that hearts were filled with it and able to absorb everything that was presented to their souls in a simple, direct manner—an atmosphere in which the entire village participated. Such grotesque, comedic reenactments of sacred scenes, as have become common in modern times in imitation of the Oberammergau Passion Plays, would have been incomprehensible back then, when the memory and the thought of humanity’s great times were still alive. For it would have been impossible to experience the events of Holy Christmas and the Three Kings at any other time than precisely these days of the year, impossible to experience the Passion story at any other time than at Easter. One felt at one with what spoke from the stars, what spoke from the weeks, what spoke from the season, what spoke from snow and sunshine, and one let oneself be told of what one wanted and ought to feel by the “carolers”—who by then were dressed simply in white smocks and walked about with paper crowns on their heads—one of whom carried a star attached to a pair of scissors, so that he was able to send this star flying far away. There they walked through the villages, stopped in front of the houses, and offered their simple gifts. And all that mattered was that, precisely at this time and with hearts so attuned, one was able to receive that which was meant to penetrate the souls of people at this very time.

[ 11 ] For me, what I heard time and again in the villages remains a fond memory—the way such simple verses were recited by the “carolers” as they made their way through the villages, such as the following:

The Oberschützen Carolers

In God’s name, let us begin
The holy kings from the East,
They ride here in great haste
Four hundred miles in thirteen days.
They ride up to Herod’s house
(Herod looks out the window.)
Herod said: Where are you going?
Our destination is Bethlehem.
You three holy kings, come in to me,
I will give you plenty of wine and beer.
I will give you roast venison and fish,
show me the newborn king for certain.
Truly, we cannot say,
we must follow the star once more.
The star [the star] shines brightly over the house,
[the saints] they go well beyond the mountain.
There they found our Lord Jesus Christ
who is the Savior of the whole world. — —
Why then is the one behind so black? - —
he is a king from Moorland. —

[ 12 ] Such events were such that the entire village took part. When a particular line was sung, for example, the star was carried far ahead. It was this Christmas or Epiphany star that expressed the harmony of the season, the festive time, and human hearts. That was the great thing that, over the centuries, spread across a vast area of our entire earth like a magical breath into the simplest of minds. We must bring this to mind just a little, and we can do so especially as seekers of spiritual knowledge, because over the years, as we have been able to contemplate this great event, we have been able to regain a sense of the real power it holds for all humanity and for the entire development of the Earth—the very thing we are meant to reflect upon during this festive season.

[ 13 ] Thus, we may believe we are gaining some understanding of how, in those earlier times, the entire Christmas season—particularly among the peoples of various German and Eastern European regions—was actually steeped in festive celebration, and how such a festive celebration could be achieved with the simplest of means. But perhaps today only the spiritual seeker can understand what the essence of the old Christmas plays was. What I have just presented to you as the Star Song is merely a final ruin, a last remnant. If we were to go back through the centuries, we would find that, as this time approached, Christmas plays were performed across vast regions, where entire villages took part in what was being portrayed. We may well say: With regard to these things, with regard to knowledge of the Christmas plays, we have actually been able to do nothing more than collect what is now passing away. — I myself, who had the good fortune to have such a collector among my old friends, heard him recount many a story about what he, as a learned collector of Christmas plays, had encountered, particularly in German-Hungarian regions.

[ 14 ] In those German-speaking enclaves of Hungary where the German mother tongue and colloquial German had been preserved prior to the period of Magyarization in the 1850s and 1860s, many Christmas plays and customs continued to flourish—customs that had long since sunk into oblivion in the main regions of the German motherland. The individual settlers who had immigrated to the Slavic regions over the course of previous centuries preserved their old Christmas plays and revived them whenever the right people were found—always drawn from the villagers—to perform these plays. I still remember well—and you will perhaps concede that I am qualified to judge such matters—the enthusiasm with which old Schröer spoke of such Christmas plays when he recounted how he had been present when the people celebrated their Christmas plays during this festive season. One gains, so to speak—and this is no exaggeration—only a sense of the innermost essence of the artistic when one goes to these villagers and sees how they have given birth to the simple art of the Christmas play out of the holiest of moods. The people who today believe they can learn to recite from this or that teacher, who today run here and there to do this or that breathing exercise—which are the right ones—for there are indeed many dozens of the right methods of breathing for singing or recitation—these people believe that it all comes down to turning the human body or the larynx into the right kind of automaton in order to cultivate some art in a materialistic way. I only wish that this curious view might never truly take root in our circles, for these people have no idea how, out of the holiest of moods, out of a Christmas spirit of prayer, a simple yet genuine art was born, was portrayed with the deepest Christian feeling in the soul and in the hearts of village boys, who often carried out rather frivolous and mischievous pranks during the year. For these simple people under their thatched roofs knew infinitely more about the connection between the human soul, the whole person, and art than is known today in our modern theaters or other artistic endeavors, even though so much fuss is made about the fact that art is something that must spring from the whole person, and, if it is sacred art, from the sacred, devout mood of the human being.

[ 15 ] This is evident, for example, from the four main regulations that were in effect in the areas Schröer was still able to visit.

[ 16 ] When Christmas plays were performed in parts of Upper Hungary, as October or November approached, the person who possessed the traditionally passed-down Christmas plays—which had never been written down, since writing them down was considered a desecration—would gather together those people he deemed suitable. And during this Christmas season, people whom one might not otherwise have expected were indeed suitable: loose, good-for-nothing lads who had already gotten up to all sorts of mischief throughout the year. During this time, however, the necessary spirit descended upon these souls. There were strict rules for the participants in the Christmas plays during the weeks-long rehearsal period. Anyone who wanted to take part had to strictly observe the following four rules. To understand this, one must, of course, put oneself in the context of village life and consider what it means in village life not to be allowed to participate in such an event.

[ 17 ] “Anyone who wants to play must 1. not go to a servant, 2. not sing any bawdy songs during the entire holy season, 3. lead an honorable life, 4. follow me. There is a fine for everything, including for every slip of the tongue and the like during the play.”

[ 18 ] Doesn't this custom strike you as somewhat reminiscent of that consciousness that existed in the sacred places of the ancient mysteries, where it was not believed that one could attain wisdom through ordinary education? Here, too, the conviction prevailed that the whole person—with their mind and moral character—must be purified and cleansed if they are to approach art in a worthy manner. Such things were to be born from the whole person. And the Christmas spirit brought about a state of affairs in which piety could be found even in the most wayward of boys.

[ 19 ] What I have just mentioned to you—the Christmas plays that Schröer and others were able to collect, which were performed as the last remnants of old plays—are now nothing more than ruins. But in doing so, we look back to even earlier times, to the 16th, 15th, 14th centuries and so on, when conditions between villages and towns were quite different, when indeed the souls of the villagers were immersed in a completely different mood during this Christmas season through what the plays could offer them, when the holy legend—the birth of Christ, with all that belongs to it biblically—was portrayed with the simplest, most primitive means. And just as Christmas Day, December 25, is preceded in the calendar by the Feast of Adam and Eve, so the play that was regarded as the actual Christmas play was usually preceded by the so-called Paradise Play, the play of Adam and Eve in Paradise, depicting how they fell victim to the devil, the serpent. Even in the simplest regions, one could gain direct insight into the connection that exists between humanity’s descent from spiritual heights into the sphere of the physical plane, and that jolt that humanity received through the Christ impulse, back up into the spiritual worlds.

[ 20 ] When a person reads the Epistles of Paul, senses the grandeur of the Pauline conception of the human being who, in Adam, descended from the spiritual world into the sensory world, and of the “new Adam,” Christ, in whom the human being ascends again from the sensory world into the spiritual, when a person can perceive and feel this in Paul in a magnificent way —in an intimate, loving, and heartfelt way, even the simplest people, right down to the children, could feel it in the depths of their hearts, in the depths of their souls, when, one after another, they were presented with the Paradise play of Adam and Eve, the Fall of humanity, and the revelation of Christ in the Christmas play. And deeply, deeply had people sensed the tremendous turning point that had been made in human development by the Christ event. A reversal of the path of development—that is how the Christ event was perceived. A path from heaven, so to speak, down to earth was the path from Adam to Christ. A path from Earth to heaven is the path from Christ to the end of the Earth’s time. This was felt in the most profound way when these two plays, briefly described here, were presented in a primitive form before the eyes of thousands upon thousands of people. For people truly sensed the complete renewal of what the human spirit is through the Christ impulse.

[ 21 ] One might perhaps also sense in this something of an echo of what one felt regarding this reversal of all human progress in those words that date back to ancient, ancient times, to the early Christian centuries, and that were spoken time and again, even in the 8th, 9th, 10th centuries in regions where Christianity had spread, particularly within Europe. There, one sensed something immense in words such as the following:

Ave maris stella
Dei mater alma
Atque semper virgo
Felix coeli porta.
Sumens illud Ave
Gabrielis ore
Funda nos in pace
Mutans nomen Evae!

[ 22 ] When these words were spoken, one sensed humanity’s journey from heaven to earth through the Fall, and humanity’s ascent through Christ from earth to heaven; and one sensed it in the two female figures, in “Eve” and in the name given to the Mother of Jesus, with which she was, so to speak, greeted: “Ave.” Ave is the reversal of the name Eve; if one reads Ave backward, one gets Eve. This was felt in its full significance. Hence these words, which reveal both what was felt within the most elementary natural phenomena and, at the same time, what was seen as human in the legend:

Hail, Star of the Sea,
Divine young Mother
And eternal Virgin,
You blessed gate of heaven.
Receiving that Hail Mary
As a gift from Gabriel,
You became for us the foundation of peace,
By turning around
The name of Eve!

[ 23 ] In such simple words, the greatest mysteries, the greatest secrets of human development, were perceived. And in the reversal of the name Eve to Ave, everyone felt in a deeply personal way what can be gleaned in a magnificent way from the Epistles of Paul when one reads the passages about Adam, the “old” Adam, and about Christ, the “new” Adam. This mood was present when, during the days of the Christmas festival, the “Paradise Play,” which depicted the Fall, and the “Christmas Play,” which depicted the hope that can become the future of every human soul if it takes in the power lying in the Christ impulse, were performed one after the other in a primitive manner. But to be able to feel this requires a state of mind of which we must simply realize that it can no longer exist in this form today. Times have changed. Such an inability to look toward the spiritual worlds, as exists today among both the most primitive and the most intelligent populations—such a fundamentally materialistic element in the human mind—certainly did not exist back then. To take the spiritual world for granted was a matter of course. And a certain understanding of this spiritual world in its distinction from the sensory world was likewise a matter of course. People today have little concept of how one could feel spiritually well into the 15th and 16th centuries, and how, fundamentally speaking, an awareness of spirituality was present everywhere. If the revival of one of the Christmas plays—an Upper Palatinate Christmas play—to be staged in our two art rooms is successful, then perhaps an appreciation for the spiritual atmosphere within it can be rekindled even beyond our own circles. For us, this or that line from just such a Christmas play should become a hallmark of the spiritual sense that was present in those who were meant to understand this Christmas play during the festive season. If, for example, in this or that Christmas play, Mary, awaiting the Christ Child, says: “The time has come, I see a little child”—that is, in the days leading up to the birth, she clairvoyantly beheld the approaching child in a vision, as is the case in many Christmas plays—then I ask: where can you find a similar narrative today on the same occasion? The times of connection with the spiritual world, as it was still consciously present back then, no longer exist. One must not indulge in either an optimistic or a pessimistic attitude regarding this. Today, one must go very far out into the most primitive rural areas if one wants to find the vision of the child who is to come in a few days. Such a thing still exists.

[ 24 ] Naturally, it was only in such a mood that one could immerse oneself in the feelings and thoughts expressed in these primitive recollections of the greatest event in human history—the Christmas season. Therefore, we must find it quite understandable that in place of that earlier poetry, that simple, primitive art, the prose of today’s electric railways and automobiles has taken its place, whizzing by in such a grotesque manner between the rows of Christmas trees. It is impossible for an aesthetically sensitive eye to see the two things together: Christmas trees, Christmas markets—and automobiles and electric trains driving through them! The impossible is, of course, a matter of course today, but for the aesthetically sensitive eye it remains nonetheless an impossibility. Nevertheless, let us be friends, not enemies, of culture and understand that it must be a matter of course.

[ 25 ] But we also want to understand how this relates to the materialistic trend that has swept through everyone’s minds—not just those of city dwellers, but also of the rural population. Oh, we can hear it, this materialistic mood, as it creeps into people’s minds. Go back to the 14th or 13th century, and you will find that people fully understood that they were referring to something spiritual when, for example, they spoke of the Tree of Knowledge in Paradise. They understood in the right way what was being depicted to them in the Paradise play; they knew how to relate it spiritually to the true meaning of what was portrayed as the Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Life. For superstition was by no means as widespread in those times as it later became in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. In contrast, as early as the 15th century, for example in the Bamberg region—and this is historically verifiable—we find people going out into the apple orchards at Christmas because they physically, materially expect a specially chosen apple tree to bloom at Christmas. The entire emotional life of people became materialistic in the era spanning from the 13th and 14th centuries through the 16th and 17th centuries, and not merely in the cities, but also in the souls of those who were simple villagers.

[ 26 ] Much of what once constituted the poetry of old has crept into homes with their Christmas trees. But what once swept through the villages like a mystery in the holiest of moods has become mere external poetry—the poetry of the Christmas tree, which, though still beautiful, is but an echo of something greater. Why is this so? Because humanity must undergo a process of development over the course of time, because what is intimate, great, and significant in one era cannot remain the same for all time. For anyone who would try to drag what is great in one era into other eras would be an enemy of humanity’s development. Every age has its own particular tasks, and in every age one must understand how to breathe new life into what is meant to penetrate the souls and hearts of people. Our age can certainly immerse itself in those true Christmas moods, which we have been able to sketch out, only as in a historical memory, as in a piece of the past. But when we do bring the symbol of the Christmas tree into our festive gatherings, we do so precisely because we associate with anthroposophical spiritual science itself the idea of a new Christmas spirit for humanity, for advanced humanity. For spiritual science is meant to instill the mysteries of Christ into the hearts and souls of people in a way that is appropriate to our time. Even though our modern means of transportation rush past us when we step outside our doors, or perhaps even carry us off into the skies—soon these things will lead humanity to the most sober, the most dreadful prose— nevertheless, people of today must have the opportunity to rediscover the divine-spiritual, precisely through an all the more profound, an all the more meaningful deepening of their souls—that which could appear so simply before the eyes of the primitive minds of bygone centuries when they saw the holy Child in the manger at Christmas time. Today we need other means to evoke this mood in the soul. We certainly like to immerse ourselves in what the ancients had in order to find the paths to the Christ event, but we must also be independent of time. Just as the people of antiquity felt themselves completely immersed in the mysteries of nature, so was this possible only in a primitive age. Today we need other means.

[ 27 ] I would just like to give you a sense of how people used to connect with nature as Christmas approached—connecting in a very primitive way, yet speaking from the depths of their hearts with such richness, inspired by the elements of nature. Perhaps, if I may share another little star song with you, you will truly feel in just one passage how the elements of nature spoke from the soul. The rest is rather primitive. But if you listen more closely, you will sense that mood of nature in even more of it.

[ 28 ] For when the person in charge of gathering his actors for the Christmas play or the Epiphany play went with them, and when they performed here or there, they would first greet those who had gathered, because that detached atmosphere that prevails today between performers and spectators did not exist in the past. People belonged together, and the whole event was immersed in a shared atmosphere. Therefore, the performers took the stage in such a way that they greeted those who were present, as well as those who were not, in a simple, heartfelt manner. That truly created a Christmas spirit.

The carol singer says:

We, my dear singers, have gathered together
Just like the crabs in the pan.
We, my dear singers, have come together in a circle,
We want to chase away our sorrows with our singing.
We, my singers, begin bravely.
To greet, we’ll raise our voices.
We greet God the Father on His highest throne
And we also greet His only Son;
We also greet the Holy Spirit by name
And let us greet all three together.

Joseph and Mary come onto the stage.

Let us greet Joseph and Mary warmly,
And let us greet the little child.
Let us also greet the ox and the donkey,
Who stand by the little manger.
Let us greet them through sun and moonlight,
Which shines over the sea and over the Rhine.
Let us greet them through leaves and grass,
The holy rain makes us and them all wet.
Let’s greet the emperor with his crown,
Let’s greet the master who can’t make it.
Let’s also greet the clergymen,
Since they’ve allowed us to learn this play.
Let us greet the honorable judge with his entourage,
For they are worthy of honor.
And let us greet the entire distinguished assembly,
All who are gathered here.
Let us greet the entire distinguished council,
As God has ordained it.
Let us greet them with every spice,
As many as there are on earth.
My dear singers, let us begin anew,
We wish to raise our voices to greet the star.
Let us greet our star-pole,
Upon which our star hangs.
Let us greet our star-cluster,
Through which our star travels,
Let us also greet all the little trees,
As many as there are in the star. —
My dear singers, you have surely heard me,
That we have sung of the star.
Let us greet our master singer well,
And let us greet the master singer’s hat.
Let us also greet our teacher in his work,
For he has taught us with God’s help.
You love to hear me sing, you have surely heard me,
That we have sung all this.

[ 29 ] Now I ask you to consider what it means to call upon nature in such a way that one greets everyone one wishes to greet with such a mood in one’s heart—that one feels this mood emanating from “all the little herbs, as many as there are on earth”! This is empathizing with the mood of nature itself. Thus one must recognize how, in those days, human beings were connected to all that is holy, to all that is great and spiritual, right down to the roots of the grasses and trees. Whoever can empathize with this will sense, in a line such as the one just mentioned, something magnificent in the mysteries of human development. The times when this was natural, when it was taken for granted, are now past, and we need other means today. We need, so to speak, means that lead us to an even deeper source of human nature, to that source of human nature which is, in a certain sense, independent of external time. For culture itself, as it unfolds today, makes it impossible for us to bind ourselves precisely to the seasons. Whoever therefore truly understands that mood which, in ancient times, was felt as the Christ mood at Holy Christmas will also have an understanding of what we seek: to artistically deepen what we can gain from spiritual science, and to strive to revive that source in human hearts which can take in the Christ impulse.

[ 30 ] At Christmas time, we can no longer directly evoke the Great One, however much we might wish to awaken this impulse in our souls at this very time; yet we are always seeking it. And when we see in what anthroposophical spiritual science is meant to be for humanity a Christian festival of this human progress, and when we look to what the simple person could feel when the little child in the manger was presented to them at Holy Christmas, then we say to ourselves: Such moods, such feelings should awaken within us when we look toward what can be born in our soul when spiritual knowledge so sanctifies and purifies our innermost source that it can take within itself the holy mystery of the Christ impulse,

[ 31 ] From this perspective, we also seek once more to rediscover the true art that springs from the spiritual realm—that art which can be nothing other than a child of piety, a child of the most sacred feelings. When we feel, in this connection, the eternal, imperishable Christian festival of humanity—how that Christ impulse can be born within the human being, within the human soul, within the human mind—when we experience through spiritual science once again how this Christ impulse is something real, something that can truly pour itself into our souls and hearts as a living force— then, through spiritual science, the Christ impulse will not remain an abstraction, a dogma for us, but rather this Christ impulse, arising from our spiritual movement, will become something that can give us comfort in the worst moments of our lives, something that can make us joyful in the hope that, when Christ is born in our soul, at the Christmas time of this soul, we may look forward to Easter, the resurrection of the spirit within ourselves.

[ 32 ] Thus, we must move from the material world—which has permeated every mind and every heart—back toward the spiritual. For it is from the spirit alone that the renewal necessary to counter what life has become today can be born. Will it be possible, even when cars are driving outside, perhaps balloons are flying through the air, and electric trains are whizzing by, will it then be possible that in rooms such as these, a certain sacred atmosphere may prevail—one that can, however, only be absorbed through what flows to us throughout the year from spiritual knowledge, bringing us closer to Christ, and which in earlier times was allowed to come alive in a much more childlike spirit—then there is hope that, in a certain sense, these meeting rooms will be “manger scenes” that we can look upon in a similar way to how children and adults on Christmas Eve, when the manger scene was set up in the home, or formerly in the church, gazed upon the little Child, upon the shepherds before Him, and upon “the ox and the little donkey, which stand by the little manger.” There they felt that from this symbol, strength flowed into their hearts for all hope, for all love of humanity, for all human greatness, for all earthly goals.

[ 33 ] If, on this day—which is meant to be consecrated and dedicated to the memory of the Christ impulse—we can feel that our earnest spiritual-scientific striving throughout the year has kindled something within our hearts, then on this day our hearts will feel: These are manger scenes, these places where we gather, and these lights are the symbols! These manger scenes, through the sacred atmosphere within them, and these lights, through the symbolism of their radiance, contain that which, like the Christmas season and the Easter season, is meant to prepare a great time for humanity: the resurrection of the most sacred Spirit, of true spiritual life! Let us try to feel that our gathering places at Christmas time are mangers, places where, shut off from the outer world, something great is being prepared; let us learn to feel, as we diligently study throughout the year, that our insights and our wisdom may gather on this Christmas Eve into fervent feelings that blaze like a fire from the fuel we have gathered throughout the year through our immersion in great teachings. And when we feel that in doing so we are cherishing the memory of the greatest impulse in human development, we feel how, for this reason, faith may live in these places—the belief that one day what burns in such a narrow manger space as a sacred fire and a light of certain hope will reach out into humanity. Then it will be strong enough, powerful enough to penetrate, to kindle, to warm, and to illuminate even the harshest, the most sober prose of life. Then we can experience the Christmas spirit here as a spirit of hope for that world-Easter spirit, which is the expression of the living spirit that is necessary for the new humanity.

[ 34 ] The best way to celebrate Christmas in our souls is to fill the coming days with this spirit—to fill them in such a way that, through our Christmas observance, we spiritually prepare for the “Easter of Humanity,” the resurrection of spiritual life. Yes, our workplaces should become nativity scenes during the Christmas season. The Child of Light is to be born, kindled throughout the year by immersion in the wisdom of spiritual science. The Christian is to be born in the human soul within our workplaces, so that spiritual life may rise again for the great Easter season of humanity, which must perceive spirituality in its very essence as a resurrection through the outflow of the Christmas spirit from our spaces into the general humanity of the present and the future.