The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Tree of Knowledge and the Christmas Tree. The Christmas Spirit in Stifter’s Novella “Bergkristall”

[ 1 ] You have just heard about the deep connection between the Christmas festival and the spiritual realm. It is true that this thought may permeate our work in Spiritual Science with particular depth and warmth as we gaze upon the tree adorned with lights in the midst of the dark winter, on a winter night. Of all the symbols that have entered spiritual life from a certain elemental consciousness—rather than from a superficial one—the Christmas tree is actually one of the most recent. If we go back about two hundred years in the history of the development of European spiritual life, we find the Christmas tree appearing, at most, only very sporadically here and there. It is not yet an ancient Christmas symbol. This thought—that the Christmas tree, which stirs joy and a sense of gratitude in the child’s heart, is one of the most recent Christian symbols—is easily combined with the other thought that this Christmas tree has become infinitely dear to us in many of our branches, and that we would not want to do without it when we celebrate Christmas in our branches. Truly, this Christmas tree—even though it emerged from the subconscious depths of the human heart and only later took on the form of a Christian Christmas symbol—is deeply connected to profound sentiments and feelings about the nature and significance of the holy night. In the Middle Ages, it became customary to stage Christmas plays around Christmas, New Year’s, and Epiphany. Peasants, who prepared for this for a long time, went from village to village reenacting the birth of Christ. They depicted the appearance of the Three Kings, the three Magi, before the newborn Christ. But in the so-called “Paradeisspiele” (Paradise Plays), they also reenacted what is described in the first book of Moses as the creation of our earthly world—that scene which must so often come before our eyes, illuminating us so powerfully and revealing the mysteries of our own souls: the scene at the beginning of the earth, into which these meaningful words resounded: “You may eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” — Now, all that remains as a reminder of the inner connection between the beginning of the creation of the earth and the Christmas festival is that our calendar lists “Adam and Eve” on December 24 and the Nativity of Jesus Christ on the 25th.

[ 2 ] And yet—as I said, not out of a thought but out of a feeling—one cannot help but wonder: Did the impulse not perhaps arise from the dark depths of the human, Christian heart to erect, on the birthday of Christ Jesus, that ancient World Tree, the tree from the center of Paradise, from which one was not actually supposed to have eaten? The “Paradise Play” was performed. What may have remained from the memory of Paradise could be the Tree of Paradise, and the Tree of Paradise may have become united with the feelings we can have regarding the birth of Jesus Christ.

[ 3 ] I do not intend to develop theories here; that is not the purpose of today’s celebration. Certainly, one could say other things about the origins of the Christmas tree, but from the feeling that might arise in us as we stand beside it—as we allow precisely those sentiments to shine forth in our souls that, on this feast day, connect us to the most childlike feelings of humanity—it is from this feeling that one wishes to speak while gazing at the Christmas tree, because in it one sees something like a renewal of the tree of Paradise. This Christmas tree does not, in fact, appear to be a pagan symbol—nor even a Nordic-pagan one. When our earth is covered with snow, when icicles hang down from the eaves of houses and over the trees, and people take refuge indoors from those regions of the earth where, for months on end, the greenery and the colorful world of flowers delight the eye, the fruits necessary for human sustenance have been offered, when man must take refuge from all that is outside—at least at first, according to his perception—that is there for him, with which he must occupy himself, with which he must live through the spring and summer seasons, when he must take refuge in those rooms through which the snow peeks in, where icicles peer in, and must warm them from within—then Heide surely sensed something of what might become of the world if this world were left to its own devices. Heide sensed the great winter at the end of earthly existence when he was thus forsaken by the spirits of nature, by all that he perceived as gnomes, Undines, and Sylphs—when he had to flee into the warmth of the stove, had to flee from what had caused him to be separated from his beloved nature, and through only a small opening he glimpsed that which one could not inhabit. When he could experience this desolation, he felt, spread out into infinity during this winter season, flooding everything, drowning out everything, the end of earthly existence—the great winter of the world.

[ 4 ] The Christian would have replied—perhaps not out of a theoretical understanding, but out of an emotional one: You may be right; that is what would have become of the Earth if the tree had been allowed to unfold its power—the tree from which human beings, through Luciferic temptation, had unlawfully eaten the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. And when one thinks in this way about the Earth’s development—with this earthly goal following the desolation and loneliness of winter, following the cold and frost, and also in relation to the soul, which would lie ahead of all earthly existence— and if one can connect this to the consequences of the Luciferic temptation, to the effects of partaking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, then one can truly grasp, on the other hand, what the Christian idea actually means.

[ 5 ] Even before the idea of Christ, the idea of Easter entered the consciousness of those undergoing Christian development—that idea so powerfully conveyed through the symbols of Easter, through which humanity has been liberated from all that is part of the Luciferic temptation. The grandeur of experiencing the idea of Easter can shake and sweep through the soul in the springtime as nature awakens. But it is different with the idea of Christmas, this other side of the idea of Christ. To understand the idea of Easter, one must already possess a certain amount of prior insight. Even the youngest children can intuitively grasp the idea of Christmas. And what, then, is this emotional idea of Christmas when one explores it in the children who are called after the Christmas tree has been decorated, the lights lit, and the gifts placed all around—what, then, is this Christmas sentiment when the children are led to the Christmas tree, when they receive their gifts, when they are told that the Holy Christ brought them these gifts—what, then, is the essence of it?

[ 6 ] Children may not know it, but they sense it unconsciously in those depths that lie so far within the human soul that they cannot always be brought to the surface of consciousness. What, then, is this essential quality, if one were to truly investigate what actually lives within children—which one usually does not do—but if one were to investigate what lives within children when they are called to the Christmas tree and hear that these gifts were brought to them by a supernatural being? These are not the kinds of gifts they can gather for themselves outside by the stream in summer or spring; no, these have come to them from the supernatural realm. What is it, then, that lives within the children? I mean, one can say that precisely when one delves deeply into the hearts of children with those eyes that might be called the eyes of the seer—eyes one gradually acquires—the most significant, the most intense feeling that lives unconsciously in children’s hearts is a gratitude that runs infinitely deep. And when one tunes in to this, one senses something like the thought that triggers this feeling of gratitude: Why does this gratitude take such a firm hold in the hearts and souls of children? Why is that? — Because, in truth, this heart tells itself once again in the deepest subconscious: We human children must be grateful that we have not been abandoned, that a being has turned toward us from the heights of the spirit, wishing to take up residence within human existence on Earth; that on that Earth, which should have remained dark as a result of the temptation in Paradise, which should have grown cold and frozen like the great winter season, this being entered into this existence that was preparing to freeze solid—the being whom we see entering anew every year into the season that already symbolically foreshadows for us this end of the earth in the frost of winter, in the darkness, in the gloom of winter. We must be grateful to the World Spirit, who has descended and united with the earthly development of humankind, so that we need not fear the coming of the great winter, but may hope that when, through the Earth’s outer natural course, the great winter were to follow in its earthly-cosmic frost, there will be that Being who approaches us every year in the form of a child and rejuvenates the Earth, so that it is not carried away, frozen solid, to its further existence in the cosmos. Hence the infinite warmth that emanates precisely from this Christmas festival. And hence, I would say, this peculiarly affirming character of the Christmas festival. The Christmas festival has something that affirms Christ.

[ 7 ] One can feel, with regard to the Christmas celebration, that what it seeks to represent is true, in that, as soon as the very thought of this Christmas celebration takes hold in the soul of a human child, it immediately seizes that child’s heart—that childlike soul within the human being—in all its significance and truly encompasses everything childlike in the human being, regardless of whether this childlike quality manifests itself in childhood or even in the latest stages of life. It is precisely those people who can truly feel, on the one hand, the outer natural world with all its spring and summer beauty, who can also sense this peculiar desolation of winter, who can feel the festive atmosphere of the Christmas season—they are the ones who also feel this profound significance of the Christmas celebration.

[ 8 ] A poet who, throughout his life, always immersed himself in the observation of nature down to the smallest detail, also spoke beautifully about Christmas in one of his poems—the poet who wrote these words: People say that a thunderstorm is magnificent, that a storm is magnificent, that an earthquake or a volcanic eruption can be magnificent—but I find that what is truly magnificent is the little ladybug crawling across a leaf, if only one can sense its true essence. — That is roughly how the poet Adalbert Stifter put it. And from his familiarity with the greatness found in nature’s smallest details—with that which spiritually permeates all of nature—his beautiful Christmas story emerged, a story that, in its underlying tone, truly weaves and embodies the essence of Christmas.

[ 9 ] The poet leads us into a secluded Alpine valley that has a neighboring valley. There are villages in both valleys. As is often the case in the Alps—at least as it used to be—the residents of one valley have little contact with those of the other. But then it turns out that a resident—a cobbler, to be precise—from one valley has married a woman from the other valley. She is regarded as a stranger, even though she was born just a short distance away across the mountains. They have children. The grandparents live over in the other Alpine valley. The grandfather doesn’t think much of his son-in-law, so he doesn’t pay much attention to the children, but the grandmother used to come over more often. But by the time the children had grown a little—though they were still small—the grandmother was already old and could no longer come over as often. So the children went to visit her instead. Once they were sent over—it was on what is called Christmas Eve—to the other Alpine valley village, in weather that was perfectly safe. They went there. Since they were still very young children, they had probably stood only a few times, with some awareness, in the nighttime silence of the Alpine hut in front of the Christmas tree and heard a few words about the mystery of Christ—only a little. And so, while they were still relatively young children, they were sent on their way. They were to visit their grandmother. One could hope that the weather would remain favorable. They set off to visit their grandmother in the neighboring village. Their grandmother gave them their gifts and urged them to be very careful on their way home. But lo and behold, it began to snow. They had to cross the mountains into the other valley. They lost their way and could not find it again. They got lost. The boy, who was a little older, took the little girl under his wing. They even crossed glaciers. They were able to keep going only because their grandmother had given them some coffee, which they unwrapped. The boy had once heard that coffee could prevent you from freezing to death. Yes, they couldn’t find their way home. The night grew darker and darker, and they were high up in the middle of ice and snow, so that when the Christmas bells rang out everywhere at midnight, they couldn’t even hear them. And so they spent Christmas Eve, while down in the village, of course, not only their parents but the entire village had been seized by fear and anxiety. People had set out to search for the children. But the children were up there in the solitude. They had to wait, keeping warm by whatever means their young wisdom had taught them, and wait until morning gradually broke. There, as it is first described, they had snow and ice beneath them and stars above them. Then, as they looked toward the mountains, a wondrous light began to spread over the mountains toward morning. Well, the children were eventually found, brought home half-frozen, and put to bed. They had missed Christmas Eve, but they received their Christmas presents the very next day. First, however, they had to recover from their numbness, which is why they were put to bed. The mother—I won’t recount all the various scenes that this poet has so profoundly and movingly depicted—sits down by the little girl’s bedside and listens as the children recount the terrible ordeal they had endured. Then the little girl—who, as I said, must have heard only a few words here and there about the full meaning of the Christmas celebration—says: “Mother, when we were up there and it was so, so cold, and we saw nothing but snow and stars, I looked up at the stars, and do you know, Mother, what I saw when I looked up at the sky? I saw the Holy Christ!”

[ 10 ] I said that such poetry has a revelatory quality because it bears witness to how intimately the Christian idea is interwoven—even when a person has heard little about it—with the human heart in a natural, elemental way. Therefore, it must be deeply rooted in the human heart. At every stage of life, even in the earliest childhood, one understands it. The poet Adalbert Stifter spoke the truth. One understands it in such a way that, even as a very small child, one is able to read in the writing of the stars how the Holy Christ speaks. It is truly connected to gratitude for the fact of the world that a God chose to descend to Earth so that human beings would not be alone in the course of Earth’s evolution. The divine Helper has snatched us from loneliness. The child senses this. And this feeling of gratitude toward the powers of the universe—which can run so deep—is that infinitely warm feeling that sets people’s hearts ablaze on Christmas Eve; it is what, in a spiritual sense, makes life on Christmas Eve so warm amid the cold of winter, and what makes life on Christmas Eve so bright in the darkness of winter, when the sun is at its lowest point.

[ 11 ] And we, who seek knowledge, must surely seek it in a different way than it emerged from the Tempter. And we do seek knowledge. Yes, we seek spiritual knowledge. The Tree of Knowledge must be of value to us; indeed, it is for us, if we perceive it correctly: the Tree of Knowledge. But we do not accept it from Luciferic powers. We receive it from Christ, who descended to Earth. For this is how the Tree of Knowledge may be received by the human heart, the human mind, and the human quest for knowledge—it may be received in this way when Christ offers it to us. What Lucifer should not have offered to humanity, Christ offers to humanity. And so the tree of Paradise is renewed: it becomes the Christmas tree. What Lucifer offered to humanity as temptation, Christ offers to humanity once more as reconciliation. And so even the most mature thought in the quest for knowledge is linked to the childlike thought of the Christmas tree. Just as a child receives what it has otherwise seen coming from nature and society—gifts of nature, gifts of society—as a holy gift on Christmas Eve, so do we think of how we receive that which is holy and precious to us—the gift from the Tree of Knowledge—from Christ, who sought to unite His impulses with those of the earth.

[ 12 ] We will come to understand how to actively cultivate—in keeping with our worldview—that warm gratitude toward the Christ Being, who chose to come to Earth to free humanity from the loneliness symbolized by the darkness and cold of winter, while, on the other hand, the spiritual warmth is symbolized—a warmth in which human beings can share with the spiritual powers through which radiates true warmth from that consciousness we can allow to penetrate our hearts from our spirit, when we understand in the right sense the symbolism of the Christmas tree—the renewed tree of knowledge, the tree of knowledge bestowed by Christ Jesus—and when we allow this Christmas symbol, which warms the coldness of the world, to speak to our soul and to our heart.