The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday, in the broader context of the Christ problem, I attempted to draw attention to an important fact—a fact that is undoubtedly surprising: the fact that an entire, vast body of wisdom has essentially vanished, known today only in a few fragments, in a few remnants, some of which were presented here yesterday from one of those remnants, namely the beginning of the Book of Jeû. Now we must ask ourselves: Can a body of wisdom that once existed simply vanish like that? Can there be only external reasons for such a disappearance? I used an analogy: I said that it would be conceivable that everything we have now printed and preserved might be burned, leaving only the opposing writings, from which one could later reconstruct what we had said. Now, certainly, such a scenario could occur. But this hypothesis cannot really be posited quite so readily. For just imagine: if all the writings were to truly disappear, there would still be many of us left—at least one can assume so—who know what is written in these works and who, without needing the opposing writings, could continue to pass on the knowledge; and thus the body of wisdom could surely be perpetuated. For the matter to disappear completely, it would be necessary for the abilities to understand it, to retain it, and to pass it on from generation to generation to also gradually disappear in a certain way. But that must have happened back then. At that time, something must have occurred in such a way that people lost the ability to understand such things as the Gnosticism of Valentinus, the content of the Pistis Sophia text, the content of the Book of Jeû, and so on. And that is indeed what happened. We must certainly create a mental image of that, on the broad foundation of that ancient heritage—which in earlier times manifested itself as the most primitive form of clairvoyance— which then gradually faded and waned, a higher form of cognition also developed—a higher knowledge, spiritual knowledge—which, admittedly, was cultivated only by a few who had been trained in the Mysteries, but which was nonetheless present in wider circles. And we must further create a mental image of the situation in which, through the gradual atrophy of the abilities to comprehend such things, the whole matter has not only fallen into oblivion but has actually disappeared. People simply no longer had the ability to understand such things within Western culture. As a result, the very essence of wisdom could be lost. So that we can truly say: When we look at the period immediately preceding and following the Mystery of Golgotha, we are looking at a time when, to the greatest extent, old abilities were disappearing and everything was being worked out anew, from the fresh, from the new. One might even say: As human development approached the Mystery of Golgotha, there was a fading, a disappearance of a very distinctive way of viewing and thinking—one of a spiritual nature—through which one could have understood the coming of Christ into the world as a spiritual being.

[ 2 ] So precisely at the time when Christ becomes connected with the development of the Earth, the knowledge through which the nature and essence of this Christ could have been understood in the true, deeper sense disappears. This is an important fact. I have also already pointed out something very significant at various points in our reflections. I have said: The proclamation of Christ as such is not something that is entirely new with the event at Golgotha. No, in the Mysteries, Christ was already spoken of as the One to come. There were teachings in the Mysteries that the Christ would come. This Christ-essence was understood in the manner characteristic of the lost spiritual wisdom. But these Mysteries had gradually fallen into disuse, so that just as the Christ was coming, the time was approaching when human beings were least suited to speak of this Christ. This is evident not only from everything I have already alluded to, but also from what remains among people who now wish to form a mental image of the mystery of Christ as if from something fresh and new.

[ 3 ] Right from the very first centuries of Christian development, we find such great minds as, for example, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, two eminent thinkers. If one wishes to characterize them from a certain point of view—Clement of Alexandria, who followed in the footsteps of the Gnostics when Gnosticism was already in decline, as well as Origen—then one must say that they strove to understand: What is the true nature of this Mystery of Golgotha? On the one hand, we are dealing with the Christ—they still knew that. This Christ can only be understood as a spiritual being connected to the spiritual realm and to supersensible impulses. This Christ descends from cosmic spiritual realms. — They no longer fully understood how the ancient Gnostics had been able to comprehend the Christ, but they knew that he must be understood as a spiritual being through spiritual faculties. That much they knew about the Christ. On the other hand, Jesus was a historical figure to them. The appearance of Jesus was a historical fact to them. “So many years ago,” they told themselves, “in a certain part of the Near East, a figure named Jesus was born—the bearer of the Christ, a human being in whom God was present.” This became a mystery to them. “In historical development,” they told themselves, “we are dealing with a historical figure; in spiritual understanding, we are dealing with the Christ.” How was one to conceive of the unity of the two? And in such eminent, such great minds as Clement of Alexandria and Origen, we see a struggle, a wrestling with this: to be able to comprehend how the Christ is in Jesus, how He is present within him.

[ 4 ] If we first turn our attention to Clement of Alexandria, who headed the Catechetical School of Alexandria—where those who were to be trained and appointed as Christian teachers were educated—if we look at this significant figure, we find, among his teachings, the following. Clement of Alexandria said to himself: Christ belongs to those forces that were already at work at the time of the Earth’s creation; naturally, he belongs to the spiritual world. He entered into the Earth’s evolution through the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, Clement of Alexandria first directed his gaze toward Christ as a spiritual being, seeking to comprehend him in the spiritual realms. Now Clement of Alexandria also knew the following, which we have emphasized many times before. He knew that Christ had actually always been there for humanity, but not in the earthly realm; rather, only those who developed powers within themselves through the mysteries—powers by which they could step out of the body—could reach him. When they—human beings—emerged from the body through the powers of the Mysteries and entered the spiritual realms, they recognized Christ and perceived him as the One who was to come. Clement of Alexandria knew this. He knew that in the ancient Mysteries, Christ was spoken of as the One to come, who is not yet united with earthly evolution. He expressed this as follows: Certainly, people were inspired to await the Christ. And he went so far as to say: Specifically at two points in humanity’s spiritual development was cultivated what could prepare the way for the coming of the Christ. Clement of Alexandria said: On the one hand, it was cultivated through Moses and the prophets. What came into the world through Moses and the prophets, he said, was a preparation. People were first to experience what came through Moses and the prophets so that they might then, through their own inner feeling, develop a sense of: “We have the Christ.” That was precisely the mental image they were to create. So he knew nothing of the ancient Gnostic wisdom—or at least, he did not apply it. But regarding what had entered into human capacity through Moses and the prophets, he said that it was “preparation.” And then—and this is very significant—as a second element intended to prepare people alongside Moses and the prophets, Clement of Alexandria cited Greek philosophy: Plato and Aristotle—Greek philosophy. He said, as it were: Moses and the prophets and Greek philosophy were there to prepare people for the event, for the reality of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 5 ] And again, Origen said to himself: We are dealing with the Christ—the Christ who, as a spiritual being, can be understood in terms of spiritual forces—and we are dealing with the historical Jesus, that personality who once existed as a real being belonging to the sensory world. How do the two come together—God and man? How does the God-man come into being?—And Origen devised a theory. He reasoned: God cannot simply dwell within the physical human being; rather, there must first have been a special soul within Jesus so that this soul could mediate between God and man—that is, between God as a pure spiritual being and the physical human being. So he introduced the concept of the soul. — And so, in Christ Jesus, he distinguished between God—the pure pneuma, the pure spiritual being—then the psyche, the soul, and the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. He thus sought to form a mental image of how Christ could be present in Jesus of Nazareth. He no longer possessed the ancient Gnosis needed to create a mental image of Christ’s sojourn on Earth and Christ’s connection to Earth’s evolution. One had to work from scratch, from the new. People strove to achieve this. So just as the Christ, as a real being, had united with Earth’s evolution, people had the greatest difficulty even understanding this fact. The necessary abilities were present only to the very slightest degree.

[ 6 ] And Clement of Alexandria had at least a glimmer of understanding as to why that was so. He asked himself: By what means were these ancient initiates inspired? Clement of Alexandria concluded that these ancient initiates were inspired by the fact that Christ also worked upon them—but in a supernatural way—when they had transcended their own selves. This happened, as Clement of Alexandria states quite clearly, because he sent angels to them. So Clement of Alexandria put it quite plainly: When the Old Testament speaks of the appearance of an angel, it meant that Christ sent that angel. Indeed, Clement of Alexandria makes this explicitly clear: When Yahweh appears to Moses in the burning bush, it is actually Christ who appears there, manifesting through an earthly-soul-spiritual manifestation. Thus, Clement of Alexandria explicitly states: In ancient times, before the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ appeared to human beings through the angels. If they were able to make themselves receptive to the angels’ message, then they were actually standing before Christ himself as disembodied, initiated beings from the higher world.

[ 7 ] Clement of Alexandria went that far. And then he said—and this is also found in his writings—: In the course of the development of time, Christ has passed from the nature of an angel to the nature of a Son. He became the Son. Previously, he could manifest himself, reveal himself through the angels or as an angel, as a multitude of angels, as many angels. If he wished to appear to one person as an angel, or to others as a different angel, he appeared in many forms. Then he appeared in one form: the Son.

[ 8 ] Here a very important element comes into play. Please take note of this—it is extremely important! Clement of Alexandria still holds the view that Christ was already present in the spiritual realms before the Mystery of Golgotha. He had reached a stage where he could reveal himself through angels and messengers. But he went further; he came to be able to live out his life as the Son. This is extremely important.

[ 9 ] What, then, actually enters into human understanding? — If we go through all of this ancient Gnosticism, we find that it has a distinctive feature. If, for example, I wanted to outline a schema of this Gnosticism for you, I could say the following: This Gnosticism envisions a process of evolution that originated with the Father, the Primordial Father, from the so-called Silence or “iyn,” from the Primordial Spirit. These ancient Gnostics identified thirty such stages. They called them Aeons. So I could list thirty here. Now, in a sense, there is a second current; while the first current is spiritual, they described a second current that is psychical. Within this current, they recognized the two primary primordial aeons: Christ and Sophia. Then came a number of other aeons. And they identified a third current: the Demiurge with matter. These three came together and formed humanity.

[ 10 ] Such mental images can be derived from the way these Gnostics conceived of things. These mental images are not entirely unreal, not entirely imaginary, for human beings are complex beings. When I once gave a lecture on how many seven parts there are in the human being—you’ll find it in one of the Norwegian cycles; I believe it’s titled *Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy, and Philosophy*—our dear friends were quite taken aback by just how many, many distinctions actually need to be identified within the human being. These distinctions are reminiscent of what the Gnostics already knew from their own perspective. But when one approaches this Gnosis, one thing is always present: the concept of time plays little role in it. One can express the Gnostic through spatial schemas. The concept of time plays no special role; at least, one does not penetrate it with understanding. And in this respect, there is indeed a step forward from Gnosticism to Clement of Alexandria. Even though the entire comprehensive wealth of spiritual wisdom has been lost, there was nevertheless progress toward Clement of Alexandria in that he introduced the concept of time into the development of Christ and said: Christ revealed himself earlier—he was able to make himself known earlier through angels—and then as the Son, having advanced further himself. The concept of development came into play—that is what is significant. It cannot be emphasized often enough that Western cultural development was there to introduce the concept of time into the worldview in the right way and to understand the idea of development correctly. It is so important—indeed, of profound importance—to look at this development and see how Christ could originally reveal Himself only through the angels, and then, after passing through the Mystery of Golgotha, appears as the Son. Through the angels, he is the messenger of something that is outside the world and yet permeates the world, but which, if it is to be recognized, must be recognized from outside the world: a messenger. Later, when he appears as the Son, he permeates everything. Just as the Son of Blood is one with the Father within the physical world, so the Spirit-Son is to be conceived as one with the Father in the spiritual world. Being a Son is something other than merely being an angel. Thus, when this being reveals itself as the Son, it represents a step forward from the earlier revelation, in which he could reveal himself only as an angel, as a messenger.

[ 11 ] So within Christianity there was a kind of deeper understanding than had existed within the ancient Gnosticism. But one still needed—I would say—the aftereffects of Gnosticism even to say what Clement of Alexandria said. When Gnosticism gradually disappeared entirely, it was no longer possible to say even what Clement and Origen said. People increasingly came to identify with the impulses of later times—the purely materialistic impulses. And so it came to pass that Origen’s teaching was condemned. It was declared heretical. The element that led to its being declared heretical consists specifically in the desire to dispense with such an understanding of the matter—one derived from human beings themselves and their own powers. People sensed: this can no longer exist. But how does the matter appear to us now? How must it appear to us? We can see, after all, that an ancient spiritual wisdom had spread on the foundation of the old clairvoyance. It was there; it is gradually disappearing. Within this spiritual wisdom there was—albeit in relation to an extraterrestrial being—a wisdom concerning the Christ. Just as the Christ had descended to Earth, this had vanished. The real Christ was connected to the Earth. Knowledge of the Christ had vanished into the mists of time. Here you have another case on a grand scale, which I ask you to examine carefully. We can cast our gaze over the Earth as it was known at that time, over the Earth before the Mystery of Golgotha. The further back we go, the more knowledge of the Christ we find, even if it is the Christ who must be conceived of in supersensible regions. But it is a knowledge that can only be conveyed through angels. That is evolution. This knowledge, this mental image of the Christ, is distributed among many people. The Christ lived as the inspirer of many people: evolution.

[ 12 ] This knowledge is slowly receding, disappearing, fading away, and in that one being—Jesus of Nazareth—all that was once scattered is now concentrated. Imagine, within the course of evolution, a drop of the Christ’s inner essence in one of the mystery priests, a second, a third, a fourth, and so on; in each of the mystery initiates one would find: he has something of the Christ within him when he steps out of his body with his spirit. Christ is multiplied within them. All of that disappears. And in a single place—in the body of Jesus of Nazareth—everything that was once scattered converges: involution.

[ 13 ] Precisely that which was withheld from all others appeared in that one body. And so we see that what was scattered—what lived in evolution—must disappear from the earth as it concentrates on that one point, on the body of Jesus of Nazareth. That is this important fact. Within the most significant involution, evolution comes to a halt. Now, then, begins the time when Christ lives on Earth, but Christ-knowledge does not live on Earth; Christ-knowledge must first develop anew.

[ 14 ] Now we face the great difficulties; we have already hinted at them: On the one hand, there is Jesus; on the other, there is the Christ. And just think—we have completely lost the ancient wisdom regarding the inner connection within the human being. All this time, we have known nothing of what the human being is actually all about. Only now are we once again dividing the human being into physical body, etheric body, sensory soul, and so on. We are only just beginning this process anew. We now distinguish within the individual human being between the physical-earthly aspect, which continues through the line of inheritance, and the higher spiritual aspect, which descended once more from the spiritual worlds. Origen did not know this; Clement of Alexandria did not know this. They were unaware of the spiritual-soul and physical aspects of the individual human being walking on Earth. Hence, they faced the difficulty of understanding the individual members of the Christ-Jesus being. Knowledge of the human being had been lost, hence this difficulty in understanding the God-man. And so the knowledge of Jesus and the knowledge of the Christ drifted further and further apart. And it is infinitely important—in order to understand our time—to see how this, as it were, in turn affects our time, insofar as what our Spiritual Science contains must appear within it. It is immensely important to look specifically at this separation of Jesus and the Christ. This is an exceedingly serious, an exceedingly important matter. And we encounter it in so many ways.

[ 15 ] We have watched these Christmas plays come and go. In one of them, we still sensed something of Christ; in the second, the pure figure of Jesus—in the first, the simple, primitive one. One could say: gradually, the infant Jesus—that is, the starting point of Jesus—won over people’s hearts. It was not until the middle of the Middle Ages that people began to focus on the child. Before that, Christians participated in the Mass, heard about the mystery of Christ’s death, the Pauline doctrine, and so on. But the Bible was not popular; after all, it was only in the hands of the priests. The faithful had to participate in the Mass, which was, moreover, celebrated in Latin. But there was no active participation in the proceedings of the sacred rite. And what is contained in the Gospels only gradually won over people’s minds and souls. And so it was not until the middle of the Middle Ages that such plays—such depictions of the appearance of Jesus and so on—could truly be presented to the people. Today, people generally have a mental image of the Mystery of Golgotha taking place, and that from then on, people knew something of this Mystery of Golgotha. Yes, what they knew was simply that Christ had died on the cross. People felt the Easter event most keenly. But the Christmas event was completely unknown; it only crept very slowly and gradually into people’s minds and hearts. That was the outer aspect—how people came to know, through imagery, what had happened in Palestine. Only little by little, through dramatic reenactments, did people begin to form mental images of what had actually happened in Palestine. This was the aspect of the mystery of Jesus. It was at the same time—just consider that it was at the same time—that, on the other hand, in the realm of mysticism, Tauler, Meister Eckhart, and the others were seeking Christ anew, seeking Christ through mysticism. So on the one hand, we have the first emergence of the Christmas plays: Jesus is sought as outwardly as possible, namely in an immediately external portrayal—Jesus is sought—and the mystics seek the Christ; they seek to develop the soul to such an extent that they see the Christ arise within themselves; they seek to experience in the soul the completely transformed, utterly otherworldly, purely spiritual Christ. Mysticism on the one hand, the Christmas plays on the other—Jesus and Christ sought at the same time along two different, widely divergent paths! What was a theoretical difficulty for Origen—the inability to reconcile Christ with Jesus—now confronts us in the villages out there. Among the people, Jesus is portrayed in the form of a child. The profound mystics seek the Christ by striving to lead their own souls to an inner sensing, almost to an inner touching of the Christ. But where is the connection? Where is it, this connection? The two run parallel to one another. Consider how far removed what the simple person, the simple eye, sees in the Christmas plays is from the profound mysticism of a Meister Eckhart or a Johannes Tauler. Yet the origins of the Christmas plays lie within that very era. Mysticism continues to live on.

[ 16 ] And in our time today—just think what the whole mystery of Golgotha has become for so many theologians! Suppose: those who are the most advanced theologians—what, exactly, are they focusing on? They focus on the fact that once, at the beginning of our era, in Nazareth or Bethlehem or somewhere, a chosen human being was born—chosen specifically to gradually come to feel within himself humanity’s connection to the spiritual world—a noble human being—the noblest human being, a human being so noble that one might even say, he was almost—and even—no, wait, that’s where the story gets a little tricky! One doesn’t quite know how to make sense of it, or what else to say about the fact that, in the course of Christianity, he came to be regarded entirely as a god. And so one squints and twists, and all those Euckenisms and Harnackisms come into play, which are so—yes, one can’t quite grasp it, but one wants to be intelligent in some way and yet still have a way to understand Jesus as something, Christ as some kind of Christ. Well, and so one turns to the Gospels. Admittedly, as a modern person, one is embarrassed to acknowledge the miracles. So one strikes out what one can, and constructs from them something highly natural—something that could have happened for reasonable reasons. And then one comes to the event in Jerusalem, to the death on the cross. Up to the moment of death, that’s still manageable. But as for the Resurrection—that’s where it breaks down; that’s where one resorts to such things as Harnack, for example, resorts to, so that he says: Yes, this Resurrection, this tomb from which Christ Jesus is said to have risen—the mystery of Easter, yes, yes, the mystery of Easter: one must bring oneself to recognize that this Easter mystery originated in the garden at Golgotha; the Easter mystery arose there—the idea of the Resurrection came from there, and we must hold fast to that and, for the rest, not look into what actually happened there; the belief in the Resurrection originated there.

[ 17 ] Isn’t that something! Read Harnack’s *The Essence of Christianity*; there you’ll find this peculiar idea of the Resurrection! I once pointed this out at a meeting of the Giordano Bruno Society in a certain city and said: It is, after all, a strange idea that one would try to come to terms with the Resurrection by saying that one does not want to tamper with what actually happened there, but rather wants to point out that the belief in the Resurrection—the belief in the Easter mystery—emerged from that very tomb. — Then someone said to me: “That can’t be in Harnack! That’s almost Catholic—it’s Catholic superstition. It’s as if one were still supposed to believe that the Holy Robe of Trier means anything! That’s superstition; it can’t be in Harnack.” — Well, it is in fact in Harnack, and I could do nothing else—I didn’t have the book at hand—but write a note to the gentleman in question the next day, telling him it’s on such-and-such a page. These are matters that lead into difficult territory. One can’t find one’s way there if one is to make the transition from Jesus to Christ. Someone once told me: “We modern theologians can no longer make sense of Christology; all we really need now is a ‘Jesulogy.’” — He said it, not me: “It’s a shame the name ‘Jesuits’ is already taken, because really, the adherents of modern theology should be called ‘Jesuits.’” — Please, I didn’t say it—a proponent of modern theology did!

[ 18 ] Well, that’s one side of the story. The other side is that a number of modern theologians, on the other hand, adhere more closely to Christ. They examine the Gospels. They do not interpret certain sayings in the Gospels the way those I just mentioned do—that is, as what a reasonable person in the world can believe about a human being, even if he is a divine human being. But when one speaks of a “divine human being,” it is unclear just how far one should go in applying the divine: A noble human being, but more than Socrates—but, well, that doesn’t quite work. Well, those are the ones—the “Jesulogists”—because “theologians” is a term that’s hard to apply to them. Theology would mean “God’s wisdom.” But the “divine” is precisely what is to be set aside here. Then there are the others; they take the sayings a bit more seriously. When it comes to certain sayings, they find: It simply isn’t possible to regard the one who uttered them as merely an ordinary human being. After all, there are sayings in the Gospels that simply cannot be honestly attributed to a human being—a mere human being—without further ado. And besides, they take the story of the Resurrection seriously, and so on. They thus call themselves Christologists, in contrast to the “Jesuologists.”

[ 19 ] But now these people are turning to something else. Read the book *Ecce Deus* and other books, and you’ll find yourself thinking: If you read the Gospels honestly, you can’t say that they’re talking about a human being. They’re talking about a God—a real, true God. — These people, in turn, lose sight of Jesus. And they lose him very completely, for they now say: The Gospels speak everywhere of a God; but that God cannot have existed—he cannot have been real—so we must hold on to Christ. Christ is something people spoke of, but who did not live on earth. Christology without Jesulogy—that is the other direction. But the two approaches cannot come together. And that is already the reality today: those who speak of the Christ have lost Jesus, and those who speak of Jesus have lost the Christ. The Christ has become an unreal God, and Jesus has become an unreal human being. Unless something new is added, this trajectory is bound to continue.

[ 20 ] What must be added is Spiritual Science, which in turn can comprehend how Christ lived within Jesus. And this is, in essence, one of the most important points of Spiritual Science: that it can lead to an understanding of how Christ, through the detour of the two Jesus figures, could truly become the Being who placed Himself at the center of humanity’s earthly evolution—because Spiritual Science, in turn, has a vision of what a human being is, and of how the spiritual, the soul, and the physical come together within the human being. Only by building upon this can one then understand how Christ and Jesus come together. This is, of course, complicated and not easy to understand, but it can be understood. And so you see how, starting from the original, that which has been lost to humanity must be restored through Spiritual Science, including with regard to the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. When Christ appeared in the world, it was not possible to understand him. This understanding must first be acquired little by little. What he accomplished, he accomplished in reality. But the starting points are everywhere. And even in the simplest Christmas play, starting points can be found.

[ 21 ] What, then, is being presented? This becomes particularly clear in the context of the Paradise Dramas: it is presented how a human being enters the world—and it becomes evident, solely through what happens in passing, that this is Jesus. The human being enters the world as a child. I said: The Paradise Play—the beginning of Earth’s evolution—was connected to the Mystery of Golgotha. Why is that? We must take into account that at the beginning of Earth’s evolution, the human being was exposed to the Luciferic temptation. As a result, he became a different being than he would have become through regular evolution. So when we consider Adam, symbolically speaking, outside of Paradise, he is a different being than what he was destined to be before the Luciferic temptation. How does this become apparent? Imagine: if Lucifer had not approached humanity, if humanity were living without the Luciferic impulse, then it would live quite differently in the etheric body. When a human being passes through the gate of death and still has his etheric body—and then sheds it—this etheric body remains, but imprinted within it is everything the human being does and thinks as a result of the Luciferic temptation. Isn’t that so? The human being dies, that is, passes through the gate of death. The physical body is returned to the elements. After a few days, the etheric body detaches itself from the human being’s essence. The human being then continues on their way. But within this etheric body is contained that which it has become through the human being’s thinking, feeling, and acting—just as they must think, feel, and act following the Luciferic temptation. So now imagine the Earth. The human physical body enters the Earth; it is surrendered to the elements of the Earth. But the human etheric body remains connected to the Earth. There we have the etheric bodies of human beings; they are simply there in the Earth’s atmosphere. They are different from what they would have been had the Luciferic temptation not occurred. Naturally, everything I have said elsewhere about the etheric bodies applies to these as well. But what I am hinting at today also applies to them, so that we can say: A human being is embedded in the earth. What he leaves behind on earth—what his etheric body has become during his life—is drier and more woody than it would be if the Luciferic temptation had not occurred. More woody, drier—this difference truly exists. Imagine if the Luciferic temptation had never occurred; then, upon death, a human being would leave behind a much “younger” etheric body—as it were, a much greener etheric body. Because of the Luciferic temptation, they leave behind a much drier, more parched etheric body than they would have left behind without it. It is already expressed in the legend that the petrified Tree of Paradise grows out of Adam’s grave. But what lives there in the earth lived, before the Mystery of Golgotha, in the etheric body infected by Lucifer. That was precisely the element into which the redeeming body of Jesus of Nazareth entered, as a phantom, as I once hinted at in the Karlsruhe lectures. So now imagine Adam’s grave: Adam, as a physical body, surrendered to the elements of the earth; emerging from Adam’s grave, the lignified etheric body, which is the representative of that which is Luciferically infected in the human being and remains after death. This is at the same time the wood upon which the human being can be crucified. And this crucifixion arises from the phantom of Jesus of Nazareth remaining behind after the Mystery of Golgotha, which, precisely through its aid, connects with the earth. This is expressed in the legend, which states: “This wood passed from generation to generation and in turn formed the wood of the cross of Golgotha.” This image corresponds to a real fact, namely that through the crucifixion, the phantom of Jesus of Nazareth united with what lived etherically in the earth—all the Lucifer-infected etheric bodies that were naturally scattered and had become diluted and dissolved, yet were still present in their powers. It is a very significant, infinitely profound fact that sheds light on the mysteries of the Earth, which we must now consider here.

[ 22 ] But how does a human being become connected to this etheric body infected by Lucifer? By immersing themselves in the physical world, where they become a child. Of course, that is not yet the point at which he becomes a child. Therefore, one truly sees the Lucifer-free human being when one looks at the child with the right feeling as it enters the world. And if one is able to look at the child with the right feeling as it enters the world, one can already see the human being with his kinship to Christ. This is the feeling that should be attained by those to whom the role of Jesus was entrusted in the Christmas play: to sense what I have hinted at right on the first pages of the little treatise on the Progress of Human Beings and Humanity, where I spoke of the first three years, of this entry into the world. For if this quality that permeates the human being could penetrate him in the midst of his life—as I have hinted at there—then one would have a mental image of the way in which Christ lived within Jesus. This ability to look upon that which is not yet infected by Lucifer in the child—that is precisely what can take place in the Christmas play.

[ 23 ] And just think about what all this ultimately is. It is actually something tremendous when you look at the child in this way. In this short treatise, I have pointed out how we are more intelligent in our youth—albeit unconsciously so—because we must first build up our bodies little by little, something we can no longer do later on. One is wiser, one is much wiser than one is later on, in terms of the inner penetration of the human being, of the human essence; but one does not yet possess anything Luciferic. By working inwardly in this way as a child—up to the point that one later recalls—one works on the subtle refinement of one’s body. One works there according to infinitely wise laws, of which one can never gain even a hint later on in knowledge permeated by Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces. When one works within this being, one is still free from everything one later enters into by experiencing the world together with the body. One is free from all distinctions, even from the great distinction between the masculine and the feminine. As a child, one does not yet live within the male and female within it. One is not yet subject to class or racial distinctions within it, nor to national distinctions. One is a human being, simply a human being. One is truly present in that which even those once lived in—those who now stand opposed to one another in war through hatred, based on what they experience only externally. The fact that people stand opposed to one another in the world, hating one another as members of different nations, is developed only through those forces into which one lives oneself together with the physical body. Before the child has become one with the physical body, it still lives within that which lies beyond differences of nation and social class. It lives within that in which souls can truly live, wherever they may be born on Earth. Just think: people can stand opposed to one another in terrible, furious conflict, shooting each other to death—and yet those who shoot each other to death can, in the communal Christ, pass through the gate of death into that state in which they exist when they are not yet burdened by human differences. What stands in opposition through hatred is something a person acquires only in the physical body; it has nothing to do with what lies outside the physical body. The present has much, much to learn—especially the present—by returning to the veneration of Jesus at the time when he is depicted as a child, before he has entered into that which differentiates human beings and leads them into mutual strife and discord. It is only through what a person experiences when he becomes something other than the child spoken of at Christmas that war and strife arise. What is enacted at Christmas is the human being, truly connected to the cosmic powers, but in such a way that what does not give rise to strife—and which can be carried in their hearts in the same way by those who outwardly fight each other to the death—is revealed in a unique form on the physical plane.

[ 24 ] There is an immense depth in the fact that this aspect is presented to humanity precisely in connection with the Nathanic Jesus-child, so that human beings come into contact with that aspect through which they enter the world without the slightest trace of differentiation—since they have not yet entered into nations, or other distinctions—those distinctions into which they only enter through living together with the physical body. On the one hand, the Jesus-idea—which can only be fully realized in the child Jesus—comes into contact with the Christ-idea, which is realized when one can once again perceive, in the Jesus between the ages of thirty and thirty-three, that which is now also spiritual: the Christ-being. In two ways—through the Nathanic and the Solomonic Jesus—a body has been prepared that can now stand apart from all that differentiates human beings. And only in such a body can the Christ reveal himself.

[ 25 ] In our Spiritual Science sense, as I have explained in the little book on the progress of the individual and of humanity, we see the idea of Jesus and the idea of Christ growing together. This is the greatest and most significant need of our time. Until now, people have had only one Christmas and only one Easter, but these did not belong together. For Easter is a Christ festival, while Christmas is a Jesus festival. Easter and Christmas lead together only when one can understand how Christ and Jesus belong together. And Spiritual Science will build the bridge between Christmas and Easter. And from the simple nativity play, a bridge is built to the finest understanding that can be gained when we advance Spiritual Science to the point where, through it, we find Christ. We must, however, have the ability to adopt the mindset of the shepherds, not that of the innkeepers. The contrast between materialism and spiritualism is wonderfully illustrated in the “innkeepers” and the “shepherds.” And, fundamentally, that is the great question of our time: whether people want to be innkeepers or shepherds. A large part of the events of our time stems from the fact that people are innkeepers. The mindset of the innkeeper is widespread in the world. To be shepherds, we must once again strive to become shepherds. Of course, even among the shepherds there will still be quite a few doubters, and when one says, “I think I see a glimmer there”—that is, I perceive something spiritual—the other will still be far behind and will say, “That’s all just fantasy.” — Certainly, but if a person can now develop within themselves those aspects that are not based on what has been acquired on earth, but can instead find a connection with what humanity has, after all, brought forth in its inner being from the spiritual and heavenly realms, then they will be able to become a shepherd. People today stand far too firmly within that house where they possess what the host possesses—that which has been brought in from what is of the earth. This can also be measured only by earthly values. But those who still have a certain connection to what spiritually surges and pulses through the world—those who have preserved the nature of the shepherd within themselves—should find, and be able to find, the paths that lead to the realization that, fundamentally speaking, external knowledge reveals only the outward appearance. We will gradually begin to understand Christmas when we learn to distinguish between the innkeeper’s nature and the shepherd’s nature, and when we realize how much of the innkeeper’s nature there is in our time. But there is one small thing we will certainly have to get past. Of course, one must distinguish between the nature of an innkeeper and that of a shepherd; after all, we are surrounded by nothing but innkeepers—wherever one goes, one is surrounded by nothing but innkeepers and yet feels, in doing so, very much like a shepherd. Of course, one always feels like a shepherd! One must get past this—one must at least seek out a little of the innkeeper element that one carries within oneself, and not regard oneself too much as a shepherd. Sometimes one will have to ask oneself: Do I already see the light that is to come and herald what is to come through the new Spiritual Science? — One will have to nurture everything within us that can bring to life the feelings: to be able to celebrate Christmas in one’s heart within this new spiritual orientation, to seek the light out of the darkness—but to seek it within oneself, to truly want to seek it, to want to seek it correctly—and, while seeking, to also truly feel that it is not over all at once, and that one must return again and again, just as the shepherds did, who also promise that they will return; that they do not want it to be over all at once.

[ 26 ] Yes, there is still much to learn, especially from this simple Christmas play, and that is why I think it is good that we now cultivate among ourselves, at least to some extent, this simplest way of experiencing the Christmas mystery in these simple forms. For all manner of difficult struggles will confront the pursuit of Spiritual Science in the time to come, and only those who have truly learned to become shepherds in their spiritual grasp of the Christmas mystery—with all the humility of shepherds, but also with all the wise seeking of the shepherd faithfully connected to the world—will find the way. Let us inscribe this in our hearts and souls during this Christmas season, so that we may become more and more like seeking shepherds and learn, in due time, to seek the sacred in the innermost mood of the human soul—just as it was discovered emerging from a profane mood, as I have described to you, when the most solemn form of the Christmas play gradually arose more from a carnival-like atmosphere than from a sacred one.

[ 27 ] If, building directly on what the Christmas plays have shown us, we seek the spiritual, then we will find it in the true sense as shepherds, not as innkeepers who—as the Christmas play symbolically suggests—have already lost their connection with the Christ Child. And our time has a great need for this, a very great need indeed—our time, in which materialism has taken over such vast, vast areas of the outer world and of inner human feeling, and in which it is so difficult for a spiritual worldview to find the right words—even in the face of the misused words people employ—to say what those right words actually are.