The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] In order to continue our spiritual perspective, it will become increasingly necessary for our friends to take certain historical facts into account. One might say that, in recent decades, life has certainly been pleasant for our dear members, who have limited themselves to taking note of what was presented in various places and what else was said within those lectures—which, in a certain sense, nevertheless formed a kind of wall that was opaque to many, a wall beyond which one did not wish to look out at what is happening in the outer world. But if one wishes to look out in the right way at what is happening in the outside world, if one does not wish to found a sect, but rather—which is the sole purpose of our movement—to have a historical movement, then it is necessary to also know the historical preconditions from which what exists all around us in the world arises. And the way in which we are being treated—especially here, without our having acted in even the remotest sense aggressively—makes it absolutely essential, in the most profound sense, that we truly look beyond these walls and understand something of what is happening in the world. That is why I would like to link some of what I have to say in the near future to various historical observations, in order to point out certain historical facts, without knowledge of which we really cannot move forward at this point.

[ 2 ] I’d like to start by pointing out one thing today. As you know, around the beginning of the last third of the 19th century, something took hold in the various civilized nations of Europe and in America that was called a kind of “realistic view of life,” which was essentially based on the achievements of the 19th century and also on the achievements that had paved the way for the civilization of that century. People spoke differently everywhere—with a different undertone—at the beginning of the last third of the 19th century than they did in the later decades and especially in the first decades of the 20th century. The very forms of thought that dominate the broadest circles have become fundamentally different during this period. Today I wish to highlight just one thing. What was, at the time, at the beginning of the last third of the 19th century, a kind of common ground among the educated was the belief that human beings should form convictions about the most important matters of life from within themselves, and that, even though human beings form convictions about the most important matters of life from within themselves, based on what is presented to them through various scientific findings, social coexistence among people within the civilized world is still possible. It became, so to speak, a kind of dogma—but a dogma that was voluntarily accepted in the widest circles, a dogma that freedom of conscience was possible among people who had attained a certain level of education. Although people never had the courage in the decades that followed to openly oppose this dogma, they nevertheless, more or less unconsciously, took a stand against it. And in the present day, following the great global catastrophe, this dogma has become something that is being suppressed and destroyed in the broadest circles—albeit more or less hypocritically. One might say that in the 1860s, the prevailing belief in the broadest circles was that human beings must have a certain freedom of conscience and also a certain freedom of worship—everything connected with worship. This was seen to be emerging in certain circles, and I have already emphasized on several occasions how, on December 8, 1864, Rome launched a fierce attack against what had emerged there, and how Rome dealt with this entire movement at that time. I have pointed out that the papal encyclical of 1864, which appeared at the same time as the well-known Syllabus, explicitly states: The view that freedom of conscience and of worship is an inherent right of every human being is a “deliramentum,” a form of madness. When Europe experienced what was, in a sense, a temporary surge of this view of freedom of conscience, Rome officially declared that this freedom of conscience and freedom of worship was madness.

[ 3 ] I would simply like to establish this as a historical fact at the outset. My aim is to point out what took place during a time when, for a significant number of people at least, a question arose that they sought to address from the sources of the human conscience: How do we, as human beings, move forward in our religious lives? — This question, posed with the deepest seriousness—and indeed in such a way that it became clear consciences were involved—was a significant issue of the time. I would like to present just one document as evidence in this lecture that this question was something that deeply preoccupied educated people at the time.

[ 4 ] There are lectures by that Rümelin, whom I mentioned to you recently in connection with Julius Robert Mayer and the law of conservation of energy—lectures that appeared in 1875, that is, during the period I am now discussing. In them, he also examines the difficulties humanity is currently facing, particularly with regard to the further development of religious questions. He also points out how necessary it is to approach these difficulties with clear insight. Anyone who is familiar with the specific period I am referring to here knows that Rümelin’s following words were, after all, spoken from the conscience of hundreds upon hundreds of people. We certainly have no reason to champion the particular form of science that emerged at that time. As anthroposophists, we are equipped to further develop these scientific currents and to thoroughly see through their relative errors. We are also equipped to recognize that, if science remains at this stage, we cannot make any progress with it at all. But on many points, precisely regarding the religious question, judgments have emerged in the widest circles that we should recall today. And so what many thought at that time is summarized by Rümelin in 1875 in the following words: “There is one point that has indeed separated knowledge and faith at all times, but has never formed such an insurmountable gulf between the two as it does now—the concept of the miracle. Science has grown so strong, so self-assured and consistent across all branches and directions, schools, and factions, that it unconditionally and without hesitation shuts the door on miracles of every kind and form. It recognizes only the one miracle of all miracles—that a world exists at all, and precisely this one—but within the cosmos it categorically rejects any claim, however formulated, that a breach of its orders and laws is something conceivable or even something more excellent than their immutable validity. In exactly the same way, for all the natural, historical, and philosophical sciences, the miracle—precisely in what it claims to be and mean—is a conceptual absurdity, a direct assault on all reason and the most elementary foundations of all human sciences. Science and the miracle stand opposed to one another just as reason and unreason do.”

[ 5 ] When I began to touch on certain anthroposophical questions in public lectures at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, there was still a lingering echo of that sentiment. And that is why you will find—I don’t know if there are many gathered here today who followed those early lectures—references in quite a few of them to the problem of repeated earthly lives and the problem of the human destiny that runs through these repeated earthly lives. You will find that this problem is consistently addressed; at the end of every lecture, I always sought to point out how, fundamentally, for every life—if one believes that the ancient Aristotelian conception is correct: every time a human being is born, a new soul is created and implanted into the human embryo—a miracle is established for every single life, and that the concept of the miracle is overcome in the true sense only by accepting repeated earthly lives, whereby every single human life is linked to the preceding earthly lives without any miracle. I still remember very vividly how I concluded one of the Berlin lectures with this: “The most important thing we will overcome in the right way is the concept of the miracle.”

[ 6 ] Since then, however, things have changed throughout almost the entire civilized world. This is, first and foremost, a historical fact, but it implies something that must be of the utmost interest to us. Namely, to the extent that human beings lose the ability to perceive the spiritual in the world—to explain the world, which as nature also surrounds them, in spiritual terms—to that same extent they must place a special world alongside nature and the rest of the world, a world that then becomes the realm of miracles. The more natural science relies on mere causality, the more the human mind will, as a completely natural reaction, embrace the concept of the miraculous. The more natural science continues to proceed as it has been proceeding, the more numerous will become those who seek refuge in religions that resort to miracles. Hence the widespread turn to Catholicism among modern people, because, in a sense, they cannot endure the natural-scientific worldview.

[ 7 ] You need only compare the sentence by Rümelin that I just read aloud with what I have discussed here in my recent lectures, and you will immediately see what this is all about. In Rümelin’s remarks, we find that he acknowledges only the one miracle of all miracles—that a world exists at all, and specifically this one—but within the cosmos, he categorically rejects any claim, however it may be formulated, that a violation of its laws and orders is something conceivable or even something more excellent than their immutable validity. — So one conceives of the primordial miracle that the cosmos came into being at all, but then, within the cosmos, one establishes the law of the conservation of matter and the conservation of energy; then everything unfolds, as if by fatalism, according to a certain necessity.

[ 8 ] This is a worldview that is untenable, but one that can only be overcome through the insights I took the liberty of discussing with you in the lectures over the past few weeks, in which I showed you how the law of conservation of matter and energy is fundamentally flawed and is precisely what must first be overcome with all our energy in our time. We are dealing not only with the continuous preservation of the cosmos, but with its continuous passing away and re-emergence. And if one introduces into the cosmos the idea of this continuous coming into being and passing away, then one is compelled—because one is human—to postulate a separate world alongside the cosmos, a world that has nothing to do with the laws of nature as they are one-sidedly portrayed, a world that must resort to the miraculous. To the same extent that one learns to understand that everything in the world is part of a spiritual order—in which one is dealing not merely with an ironclad natural necessity but with a wise guidance of the world—only then is the unjustified concept of the miracle overcome.

[ 9 ] The more one considers the spiritual world as such, the more one considers what one gains through spiritual science, the more one realizes that everything presented by natural science today must be permeated by these spiritual insights. Therefore, it must increasingly become our task to point this out to all the individual sciences and all the individual branches of life, so that they may be permeated by what only spiritual science can convey. Medicine, jurisprudence, and sociology—all of these must be permeated by what can be recognized and perceived through spiritual science. This spiritual science does not need any kind of organization similar to the old churches, for it appeals to each individual human being. Each individual can, from within their own conscience and through sound reason, bring to mind what spiritual science delivers as its findings, and can, from this perspective, commit themselves to spiritual science. In this way, spiritual science presents something that is directed immediately and solely toward the search for truth within each individual human being. In reality, it merely draws the logical conclusion of what was sought in that now-vanished era, at the beginning of the last third of the 19th century, when people sought: true freedom of human perception, of human inquiry, and of human thought as well. This is precisely the task of spiritual science: to take into account the genuine, legitimate demands of conscience made by modern humanity. For spiritual science, there is nothing that constitutes fixed dogma; rather, there is only genuine, unbounded inquiry—one that does not shrink from the boundary with the spiritual world nor from the boundary with the natural world, but is an inquiry that makes use of the human powers of cognition to be drawn from the depths of the human soul, just as much as those powers that come to us through ordinary heredity and ordinary education.

[ 10 ] This fundamental tendency of the humanities is, of course, a thorn in the side of those who are compelled to teach according to a specific, dogmatically defined goal. And here we stand—insofar as our spiritual science must be concerned with this, and insofar as it pertains to the explanatory circumstances that make the current, utterly false struggle against us possible—here we stand before that fact, which is, however, merely a consequence of what began as early as 1864 with the encyclical of that time and with the Syllabus, we are faced with the fact that the entire Catholic clergy—namely, the teaching clergy—was compelled by that papal decree of September 1, 1910, which had such a significant impact on modern life, and by the encyclical *Pascendi dominici gregis*, to take the so-called anti-modernist oath. This oath requires that anyone who teaches from the pulpit or the lectern as a Catholic priest or theologian must acknowledge that no science of any kind can, in his view, contradict what has been dogmatically established by the Roman Church as doctrine. This means that today, every Catholic priest who teaches or preaches is someone who has sworn an oath that all truth that can ever take hold among humanity must be in agreement with what Rome asserts to be the truth. It was a powerful movement that swept through the Catholic clergy at the time this encyclical was published. For throughout the civilized world, the clergy, too, had in a certain sense been gripped by the mood I have described to you as characteristic of the beginning of the last third of the 19th century. There were, after all, clergymen who were working toward a certain freedom within Catholicism.

[ 11 ] Well, I will say quite openly that in the 1860s, among a large number of clergymen who were embracing Catholicism, there were seeds of a further development of the Catholic principle which, had it led to free scholarship, could have contributed greatly to the liberation of modern humanity. The most promising seeds lay precisely in what the Catholic clergy attempted at that time in a wide variety of fields. All of this must one day be discussed in greater detail here among us and substantiated with specific examples. I am merely drawing your attention to this as an introduction, and it was precisely against this internal Catholic striving that the encyclical and the Syllabus of 1864 were directed. That was when the struggle began that found its provisional conclusion in the Anti-Modernist Oath. And there was—I would say—even as late as 1910, in the subconscious of some people within the Catholic clergy, still a hint of internal rebellion. But there is no rebellion within the Catholic Church. The point is simply that the principle—that whatever is dictated by Rome as doctrine must be acknowledged—must be carried out without exception. And the point is then that those who were now required to continue teaching had to come to terms with what they did not have the courage to deny: the freedom of science. Academic freedom had, under the influence of what had emerged at the beginning of the last third of the 19th century, become a catchphrase—one that, of course, had often remained just a catchphrase even in liberal circles; but it was still a catchphrase, and even Catholic scholars did not have the courage to say that they were breaking with academic freedom, that they wanted nothing to do with academic freedom. They were therefore tasked with proving—and they had to swear an oath to this effect—that one may teach only what Rome recognizes as correct doctrine, and that freedom of scholarship could consist in this.

[ 12 ] For now, I would like to read you just a brief example of such reasoning in a few sentences, which the Catholic theologian Weber included in his book *Theology as a Free Science and the True Enemies of Scholarly Freedom*, published in Freiburg im Breisgau. There, he explicitly sought to prove that, while one may be bound by formulaic declarations to teach in full only what Rome instructs one to teach, one can nevertheless remain a free scholar. After at length arguing that mathematics, too, is a given and that one’s freedom of scholarship is not thereby abolished simply because one is bound to the truth of mathematics when teaching, he goes on to prove that one does not relinquish that freedom even when one is compelled to teach what is prescribed by Rome in accordance with the truth. One of the propositions is as follows: “The fact that the scholar is bound by oath to the content of the faith does not bind him to specific modes of explanation or attempts at justification, any more than the oath-bound duty to report to his regiment at a specified time deprives the soldier of the freedom to choose whether he wishes to reach his destination on foot or by carriage, by local train or by express train. Thus, despite the oath, the scholar remains free in his scholarly task.” This means that one is compelled to teach a specific body of doctrine. One is compelled to prove precisely this content. As for how one does so, in that regard one is free. One is as free as a soldier who has sworn to report to his regiment at a specific time, but who may then travel on foot or by carriage, on a local train or an express train. Now one should consider what this journey—whether on foot or by carriage, on a local train or an express train—must look like. Under all circumstances, it must ensure that one arrives at the regiment. I am not arguing; I am merely stating a historical fact.

[ 13 ] There is something very specific underlying this entire historical development: namely, that over the course of the last few centuries, what I have characterized as defining this moment—the beginning of the last third of the 19th century—has slowly been taking shape; that what once gripped wider circles of the educated world as a mood, and was so full of promise, has now fallen dormant, and people’s souls are asleep to it. The fact is that those people who once shared in that spirit are now among the oldest, the old, worn-out liberals; and that, in particular, the youth of recent decades have been held back in such a way that they have slept through humanity’s most important demands. That is why, especially today, the appeal must be directed at the youth: they must do things differently if the decline is not to advance any further than it has under those who grew up in recent decades. The generation of the 1860s was able to become liberal, but it was unable to raise its children to be liberal. This requires a completely different way of overcoming the concept of the miraculous than that provided by the natural sciences. It requires overcoming it through the spirit and not through the mechanical order of nature. But while, fundamentally speaking—I would say—this mood has come over modern humanity like a dream, those who wished to counteract this mood have awakened; and out of this awakened consciousness was born something like the encyclical and the Syllabus of 1864, with its eighty “errors” listed—errors that no Catholic is permitted to believe. These eighty “errors” encompass pretty much everything that constitutes the modern worldview. And once again, the necessary and fully conscious latest achievement is the encyclical of 1907, which then led to the Anti-Modernist Oath. People had not only been awake since the last third of the 19th century; they had been awake for much longer. They had worked thoroughly, energetically, and intensively, and I would describe the work that was accomplished as the concentration of everything Catholic toward Rome: the suppression within Catholicism of everything that had to deprive the freest Church—for by its very nature the Catholic Church can be the freest—of its freedom.

[ 14 ] You may be surprised that I say the Catholic Church could be the freest. Well, let’s step back a bit from our Enlightenment-era freedom from authority to the 13th century, which we discussed recently in public lectures. I’d like to present to you a document from that 13th century, when Catholicism was in full bloom in Europe. It concerns the appointment of one of the founders of high scholasticism, Albertus Magnus, from Rome to serve as Bishop of Regensburg. Today, within the Catholic Church, one can of course imagine nothing other than that for a Dominican—who until then had established his reputation solely through numerous significant scholarly writings and by leading a righteous life within his order—being appointed bishop of one of the foremost dioceses would constitute an extraordinary elevation of his dignity. For today, the Catholic Church is a cohesive organism. It has become so by being restructured in an absolutist sense. — The Master General therefore wrote a letter to Albertus Magnus when Albertus Magnus was to be appointed Bishop of Regensburg, and this letter reads roughly as follows: The Master General implores Albertus Magnus not to accept the bishopric, not to bring this stain upon his own reputation and that of his Order. He should not yield to the demands of the Roman court, where matters are not taken so seriously. All the good he has done thus far through his pious life and his writings would be called into question if he became a bishop and became entangled in the affairs he would have to manage as a bishop. He should not plunge his order into deep mourning.

[ 15 ] At that time, there were voices within the Church who spoke in this way. At that time, the Catholic Church was not a monolithic entity. At that time, it was possible within the Church to be overcome with deep sorrow when someone was chosen for an office that Rome did not take particularly seriously. In biographies of Thomas Aquinas, you will repeatedly find it mentioned that he declined the cardinalate. Today I will present some of the true reasons why this is so. For in the biographies, you always read only the statement that he declined the cardinalate. Nor is it easy to cite the reasons when, at the same time, Thomas Aquinas is being made the official philosopher of the Church.

[ 16 ] I would like to read to you a sentence from that letter written by the Master General of the Dominican Order to Albertus Magnus, translated word for word: “I would rather hear that my dear son is in the grave than on the episcopal see of Regensburg.” It is not enough merely to speak of the Dark Ages and of the times in which we live—times in which we have made such magnificent progress—but rather, if one wishes to judge the circumstances in which we live, one must be familiar with certain historical facts and understand how things have developed over time. As you know, Jesuitism often lies behind our detractors. Isn’t it true that the most outrageous lies first came from the Jesuits, such as the one claiming that I myself had once been a priest and had left the priesthood—whereupon the person who made this false accusation had nothing else to say a few years later but: “This hypothesis cannot be sustained any further.” — In the Austrian Parliament, Representative Walterskirchen once shouted in a minister’s face: “Anyone who has lied once cannot be believed, even if he tells the truth afterward.” — But Jesuitism is behind these things. One can point to many things that grow out of Jesuitism. But here, too, I would like to mention just one historical fact by way of introduction today.

[ 17 ] It is a Jesuit principle to show unconditional obedience to the Pope. Now, in the 18th century, there was a pope who irrevocably abolished the Jesuit Order for all time—expressly for all time. Had the Jesuits remained true to their principle of showing loyalty and obedience to the Pope, they would not, of course, have reappeared on the scene. They did not demonstrate this loyalty; instead, they fled to countries ruled by leaders who were less favorable toward Rome at the time and who believed that by preserving the Jesuits, they were doing something beneficial—not for humanity, but for themselves and their successors—in the future. For the Jesuit Order was saved by two rulers, namely Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine of Russia. In all Roman Catholic countries, it was recognized as having no legitimate right to exist. The Jesuits owe it to Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine of Russia that they were able to survive at all during the period when they were persecuted by Rome. I am not engaging in polemics; I am merely stating historical facts. But these historical facts are unknown to the vast majority of people, and it is necessary that these historical facts be taken into account, for it cannot be a matter of us being sectarian and erecting a wall around ourselves; rather, it can only be a matter of us looking into that which surrounds us and learning to understand it. That is truly our duty if we are sincere and serious about the movement in which we claim to be involved.

[ 18 ] That is the worst, the most harmful thing about our times: that people care so little about the facts, that they are unwilling to examine the sequence of events that gave rise to what now stands against us by name—the very thing that fuels what now stands against us. There has been an increasing silence regarding judgments such as those passed out of the mindset I have characterized as prevailing at the beginning of the last third of the 19th century. The present time can be characterized by the fact that one can say: It is astonishing how little people actually know about what is going on in the world. For, in essence, the encyclical “Pascendi dominici gregis” of September 8, 1907—which required clergy to take the anti-modernist oath—has been completely overlooked. Voices such as those that would certainly have come from a man like that Dominican General—who would rather see his beloved son in the grave than on the bishop’s throne of Regensburg—voices of that sort did not make themselves heard; instead, those who declared that one could still be a free scholar if one swore that whatever one taught could be proven by any means necessary—whether by express train or local train, by car, or on foot—were the ones who prevailed. One need not even imagine the leaps logic must make when such proofs must be provided. One can also prove it, substantiate it, and substantiate it sufficiently. But most people have no idea of the power that lies in what is now emerging—particularly in the struggle against us, who have attacked no one—nor of the mindset behind it. It is not enough to say that these things are too ridiculous to address. After all, within what is being claimed around us, there are two things that are stated in no uncertain terms. I just want to point out that the “Spektator” in question, when faced with the accusation that what he was talking about was taken from a book—namely, the Akasha Chronicle—and that it was a deliberate falsehood, since he must know that he could not possibly have the Akasha Chronicle in his library, wriggles out of it in the following way: “First, a preliminary remark. A typographical error crept into our second article: ‘Akaska Chronicle’ instead of ‘Akasha Chronicle,’ which Dr. Boos notes with a smirk. He seems to be ‘straining at gnats and swallowing camels.’ There is also a grammatical error in the same passage: “Apollinaris” should, of course, read “Apollonius of Tyana,” which Dr. Boos overlooked—perhaps intentionally.”

[ 19 ] Well, I certainly did not take issue with the typesetter leaving “Akaska Chronicle” as is, since that could be a misprint; and I am even willing to accept that a person at the intellectual level evidenced by these articles here would write “Apollinaris” instead of “Apollonius.” I don’t even hold it against him that, among the sources from which we draw, he also cites the one attributed to Apollinaris. But it must be regarded as a genuine falsehood when someone claims that the Akashic Records are the source from which anthroposophy is unjustifiably drawn, as if from an ancient book. But how does this gentleman wriggle out of this? He does not even say that he could be accused of this. He says: “It is a legendary secret text”—the Akashic Records—“which contains the imperishable traces (?) of all primordial wisdom and plays a role similar to that of the obscure book Dzyan, which Madame Blavatsky claims to have found in a cave in Tibet,” and so on.

[ 20 ] So he makes it clear to his flock that he can indeed speak of these Akashic Records as something that was once written down. Of course, his readers believe him. But I would like to point out two things. The first is this: “Steiner takes great credit for having rejuvenated and thereby enriched Buddhism by incorporating into it the doctrine of reincarnation (the reincarnation of the human being) and karma as Steiner’s own specialties.”

[ 21 ] Of course, none of this ever happened, and not a single sentence of what has been published is true—except, at most, the one thing that perhaps always causes a bit of a headache for those who write from this perspective; namely, he says: “The Gnostics also established an esoteric doctrine of faith and distinguished between Hylics (ordinary people, the masses) and Pneumatics (theosophists), in whom the fullness of the Spirit and thus a higher knowledge (initiation) reigns. They abstained from meat and wine.”

[ 22 ] This “abstained from meat and wine”—that is the only thing that can be taken literally as it stands here, and that is, after all, somewhat unpleasant for some people, isn’t it? But this same gentleman then went on to say: “But that is not true.” How am I to know what isn’t true? “Buddhism speaks of the transmigration of souls; Steiner speaks of reincarnation. Both are the same thing. According to this theory, Christ is nothing other than a reincarnated Buddha or a Buddha who has reappeared. Whether one says that so-and-so is reincarnated or that the earthly life of so-and-so is repeated—it all amounts to the same thing. This entire lengthy argument reveals Steiner’s sophistry and his so-called ‘scientific’ approach.”

[ 23 ] I urge you to recognize that this seemingly innocent form actually contains the worst possible falsehoods imaginable, and that it completely prevents those who read it from ever discovering the truth for themselves. So far, none of these lengthy articles has addressed the twenty-three lies that Dr. Boos mentioned in his response to the first attack.

[ 24 ] The other is the following sentence: “But this path is not wrong; it is right.” This “Spectator” first spouts complete nonsense about the will, and then says: “But this path is not wrong; it is right; for Christ’s demands are rooted in the will.” Christ himself says, after all: ‘For this reason I have come into the world, to do the will of my Father…’ Therefore, it is no longer permissible to say that it all comes down to spiritual initiative or anything of the sort. Then ‘Spektator’ goes on to say: “This small example shows how far Steiner is from the true Christ impulse; it proves that, for him, Christ is not a divine Commander (the Way, the Truth, and the Life), but merely the ‘Wise One of Nazareth’—or, in theosophical terms: a Yeshu ben Pandira, or a Gautama Buddha—in German, a reincarnated Buddha.”

[ 25 ] Compare all that has been put forward here in support of what modern theologians have said about the theory—which has been repeatedly and consistently dismissed here as nonsense—that one should view Jesus Christ merely as the “Wise Man of Nazareth” — consider everything that has been said from this passage against this materialistic “theory”—and right here, in the immediate vicinity, I am being slandered, and the very thing I have repeatedly opposed is being presented here as a creed. I ask you: Is there any way to take these lies even further? Is there any more deceitful path than this? It is not enough merely to look at the absurdities of it, for you will feel the real effects of this tactic more and more. Therefore, it is essential that these matters here are not simply overlooked, but that they are taken seriously, for what is at stake today is truly not a matter for a small community, but a major issue for all of humanity—and this major issue for all of humanity must be addressed. It is a matter of truth and a matter of lies. These matters must be taken seriously.

[ 26 ] Next Saturday, I will give a public lecture from this very spot—without polemics, purely from a historical perspective, simply presenting the historical facts of everything that preceded and followed the papal circular of September 1907, the encyclical “Pascendi dominici gregis.”