The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] Today I intend to continue the reflections that began here last Sunday, and I would like to start by returning once more to the few words I said last Sunday about the anti-modernist oath. I characterized the essence of this anti-modernist oath as follows: since that time, everyone who serves in the Roman Catholic Magisterium—whether as a theologian, or as a preacher, must take this oath—an oath that essentially states that no one within the Catholic Magisterium may deviate from what is dogmatically recognized as the truth by the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, which essentially means what is recognized by the Roman Curia.

[ 2 ] The point is that, in light of this fact, the question must be raised: What, exactly, is new about this anti-modernist oath? What is new is not the Catholic preacher’s or theologian’s profession of faith in the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church—I ask you to consider this first of all—but rather that those concerned must swear an oath to the very doctrine of the Catholic Church. I ask you to bear this in mind first and to consider it in conjunction with the fact that there has been a tremendous increase in events of world-historical significance within the Roman Catholic Church over the course of a little more than half a century. It began with the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and then found a further, extraordinarily subtle and insightful development in the encyclical and the Syllabus of the 1860s, in which Pius IX declared all modern thought to be heretical in eighty articles. Another significant escalation—again, extraordinarily ingenious and historically consistent—was the proclamation of the dogma of infallibility. The next step, which was internally and extraordinarily consistent, was the encyclical “Aeterni patris,” the encyclical that declared the teachings of Thomas Aquinas to be the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic clergy. And the provisional crowning achievement of the entire edifice is the Anti-Modernist Oath, which is essentially nothing other than a transposition of what had always been intellectually present into the emotional sphere of the human being, into the sphere of the human will and mind. Whatever had to be acknowledged has, since 1910, also had to be sworn to.

[ 3 ] Anyone who understands this magnificent dramatic development will certainly not regard it as something trivial, for in a certain sense, from a certain perspective, it represents the only state of wakefulness within our slumbering culture. For, you see, I would truly like to be able to count how many people jumped up as if stung by a viper when they read a certain sentence in the latest issue of the *Basler Vorwärts*—a sentence that illuminates the entire present situation as if by a flash of lightning. But I would like to know how many people jumped up at this sentence, as if stung by a viper. The sentence reads: “Religion, which represents a fantastical reflection in people’s minds of their relationships with one another and with nature, is doomed to natural extinction by the growth and triumph of the scientific, clear, naturalistic conception of reality, which will develop in parallel with the systematic construction of the new society.” This sentence appears in an editorial—in a treatise that has not yet been fully published—on the measures taken by Lenin and Trotsky against the Russian Catholic Church and Russian religious communities in general. At the same time, this article serves as a programmatic statement for what this side regards as its future goal.

[ 4 ] I would like to point out the fact that one can be absolutely certain that those who, as non-Leninists, read such a sentence, will only, to a very small extent, skim over the sentence in such a way that they react today as if stung by a viper—I would describe this as not insignificant, because it clearly illustrates just how deeply humanity today remains oblivious to the most important facts that are decisive for the life of humanity on Earth. Of course, it is not a matter of a single sentence like this, but rather that today the very side that utters it once again here is shouting the content of this sentence from the rooftops. What lies in this sentence is that a view will emerge among the broadest sections of the population in Europe, which will be expressed as follows: Religion, which represents a fantastical reflection in people’s minds of their relationships with one another and with nature, is doomed to natural decline—that such a view will emerge—this is what so-called enlightened humanity of modern times has completely slept through, and continues to sleep through even today. But the Roman Catholic Church is watching. The Roman Catholic Church is, in essence, the only one that is truly keeping watch and systematically working against what is looming on the horizon. It is working against it in its own way. This way of thinking is, of course, initially easy for us to understand, for I have had to explain many things to you regarding the attacks being launched from that side against what must be defended here in this place. Meanwhile, this has coalesced into various clouds of trouble. The latest development is that the poster society had to inform us that this morning, the man who wanted to put up the poster for my lecture regarding Saturday’s lecture in Reinach had it torn down, and all the posters were burned. As you can see, things are proceeding quite systematically here as well.

[ 5 ] What you may have read—as a collection of nothing but falsehoods (I pointed out the most blatant ones to you last time)—from a person who often hides behind the bushes and describes himself as a “spectator” is already making the rounds throughout the entire Catholic press, and the burning of posters truly no longer resembles modern-day conditions.

[ 6 ] I posed this question at the outset: Why must we today be compelled to swear to what the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church were previously obligated to do? No one will deny that the very fact of being required to swear signifies a strengthening of one’s outward commitment to a cause. Nor will anyone deny that, when one feels compelled to make people take an oath, one assumes that without the oath they would no longer press forward with such vigor. But there is, in fact, a third point, which you would do best to consider for yourself first. For truly, there are factors at play here that, for the time being, should not yet be named for what they really are. But the question might, in a sense, be raised as a sub-question: Must not confidence in a cause already be somewhat shaken if an oath is demanded for that cause? Can there, after all, be any possibility of accepting an oath from someone as proof of the truth? Can such a possibility exist? Is it not necessary to assume that what is true establishes itself in the human soul through its own power? It may not even be so important to ask whether that oath is moral, or whether it is good, or whether it is useful; rather, it is perhaps historically more important to ask whether this oath has become necessary and why. In contrast to it, however, something else is certainly necessary. It is necessary that a certain number of people realize that, without spiritual science, Europe will inevitably face the consequence of the mindset expressed in the words: “Religion, which represents a fantastical reflection in people’s minds of their relationships with one another and with nature, is doomed to natural extinction by the growth and triumph of the scientific, clear, naturalistic conception of reality, which will develop in parallel with the systematic construction of the new society.” What is presented here as the very thing that dooms the old religion to extinction? Well, it is that which has been taught for three to four centuries as the new, Enlightenment-era science—the so-called objective science—in the educational institutions of civilized humanity. What has been taught, what has been administered by the bourgeois leaders, has been adopted as a conviction by the proletariat of civilized humanity. What the teachers at universities, high schools, and even down to the elementary schools have instilled in people’s souls can be traced back to Lenin and Trotsky. And what emerges there is nothing other than what is taught in the institutions of civilized humanity.

[ 7 ] Today there is an antithesis that we should face with an open mind. This antithesis is as follows: What must be done first if we want to prevent the legacy of Lenin and Trotsky from spreading throughout all of civilized humanity? What must be done is to stop teaching children—to stop teaching the youth—what was taught to the youth in our high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools right up until the 20th century. This antithesis holds true. This antithesis demands courage. Because people do not want to have this courage, they remain asleep. That is why one must say: Anyone who reads such a statement—even if it appears in just a few lines of an editorial—should recoil as if bitten by a viper, for it is as if the entire cultural situation of the present were illuminated by a flash of lightning.

[ 8 ] What does the science of the spirit, with all its most concrete details, have to offer in response to this situation? Well, if I am to characterize what spiritual science seeks, I must say the following: The Roman Catholic Church, as a grandiose institution, represents what was the withered remnant of the civilization of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. It can be rigorously demonstrated in every detail that the Roman Catholic Church represents the last offshoot of what has already become merely a shadow of what was the legitimate civilization of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch—a civilization that remained legitimate right up to the middle of the 15th century. Of course, later fruits of human development announce themselves earlier, and earlier shoots extend into a later time; but essentially, the Roman Catholic Church represents what was to be represented for Europe and its colonies up until the middle of the 15th century.

[ 9 ] The humanities, as we understand them, are meant to grasp what is now necessary as the fifth post-Atlantean culture. The Roman Catholic Church, in its body of dogmas—a cohesive edifice that has indeed died but is still a corpse—represents something that is internally connected by a well-structured logic, a logic grounded in reality. And contained within this edifice is the spirit of a bygone era; but the spirit is within it. How the spirit is within it has, I believe, been demonstrated by the lectures I have given here on Thomism. There was spirit in those teachings, in the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church—a spirit that had been perceived by those great figures, whose last followers appeared in Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and so on, and with whom Augustine still struggles and wrestles, I might say, in an interesting way.

[ 10 ] What has largely manifested itself in modern civilization since the mid-15th century—whether as philosophy, science, public opinion, or worldview—is, apart from the Roman Catholic Church, spiritless. For the spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch begins only with principles such as those that emerged in the works of Lessing and Goethe. For it seeks to imbue with spirit that which the natural-scientific movement—beginning with Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler—was able to deliver in a spiritless form, and from which Darwin, Huxley, and others have completely drained the spirit; it seeks to be filled with spirit. And spiritual science seeks to reveal the spirit that must be the spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean period.

[ 11 ] An institution imbued with a certain spirit as its soul can, if it survives, only fight for the past. To demand that the Catholic Church fight for the future would be folly. For the same institution cannot embody the spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch that it embodied in the fourth. What has become the structure of the Catholic Church—what has spread throughout the civilized world as the structure of the Catholic Church—and to a far greater extent than people realize, this structure of the Catholic Church has existed throughout the entire course of civilization; the monarchies were, at their very core—even if they were Protestant—Latin Catholic institutions in their structure—all that which has spread throughout the world, which, I might say, finds its other form of manifestation in Roman law and in the entire Latin tradition of abstraction, belongs to the fourth post-Atlantean period. This requires that people be organized according to abstract principles, and that certain hierarchical arrangements underlie this organization. That which, as the spirit—as we cultivate it through spiritual science—is to come in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch does not require such a rigidly structured organization based on abstract principles; rather, it requires a way for people to relate to one another as characterized by ethical individualism in my *Philosophy of Freedom*. What appears here as the ethical aspect stands in the same contrast to the social structure—the social order demanded by the Roman Catholic Church—as spiritual science ultimately stands in contrast to what Roman Catholic theology is.

[ 12 ] The humanities were truly not meant to act as any kind of fighting force. They were, after all, meant only to speak what revealed itself to them as the truth. And anyone who wishes to examine everything we have done will have to admit: Never—absolutely never—has anything aggressive been done, at least on my part. — We have always had to take a defensive stance against attacks coming from outside, and that is the essential point at stake today. But the fact that what spiritual science is meant to reveal—that this must indeed be said—is simply, of course, a demand of the times. Yet one must bear in mind that modern civilization is asleep, while Rome is awake. And that Rome is awake is demonstrated by the magnificent drama inherent in the facts: the establishment of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the publication of the 1864 encyclical containing the Syllabus—with its condemnation of the eighty modern truths—the declaration of infallibility, the declaration of Thomas Aquinas as the official philosopher of the Catholic clergy and for the Catholic magisterium, and the anti-modernist oath.

[ 13 ] Consider this: in the face of the rising tide of Darwinism and naturalism in the 1950s, something was established—something that can only be understood in light of the spiritual demands of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch—but which serves as a gauntlet thrown down to this entire rising tide of materialism. The rest of the world lets materialism run its course and, at most, chatters against it in Eucken’s words. Rome establishes a dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which states precisely: Of course, no one who embraces Darwinism can accept the Immaculate Conception. So, we erect a clear dividing wall. — No more than a decade passes: what is emerging—albeit initially as a soulless form of the new worldview—is condemned by the Syllabus. The very establishment of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception broke with all traditions of earlier Catholic ecclesiastical development. What, then, did the establishment of a dogma by a council in earlier times within the Roman Catholic Church entail? A primary prerequisite for the establishment of a dogma was this—I am merely recounting, not criticizing—that the Fathers in question, gathered at the council where the dogma was to be established, were enlightened by the Holy Spirit, so that the Holy Spirit was, in fact, the originator of the dogma. However, the issue was for human beings to recognize that the Holy Spirit was truly the inspirer of the dogma to be established. How does one recognize this—or how was it recognized? It was recognized by the fact that what was to be established as a dogma by a council was already the consensus of the entire Catholic Church. This was not the case with the Immaculate Conception, and in principle, this constituted a breach of that fundamental tenet of the Catholic Church which required that only those teachings for which the faithful had already shown a predisposition be elevated to the status of dogma. Admittedly, with the more recent establishment of dogmas, people were already living within the context of what was unfolding in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, and it was no longer as easy as it had been in the Middle Ages to prepare the faithful so that a common understanding among them would take root as a dogma that could then be formally established.

[ 14 ] But now the groundwork has been laid, and the preparations that were made so that the latest revelations—the revelations that are, for the time being, the latest, that which could be revealed for now—have actually been taking place over the course of the last three to four centuries. The Roman Catholic Church has been keeping watch there as well. And if you recall when the Society of Jesus was founded, you will easily be able to conclude that the founding of the Society of Jesus is essentially connected to the desire to create something that would more easily overcome the difficulties of guiding the faithful in modern times and that could, in general, adequately anticipate these difficulties.

[ 15 ] This should be considered with some care to understand how things actually unfolded. I am recounting, not criticizing; but I would like to point out that 1574 was the year in which the citizens of Lucerne themselves requested the establishment of the Jesuits. I would like to point out that in Fribourg, it was Canisins—a direct disciple of Ignatius of Loyola—who personally established the Jesuit college in Fribourg in 1580, which then founded its colony in Solothurn. I would also like to mention that after the suppression of the Jesuit Order by Clement XIV, the Jesuits naturally had to leave Switzerland as well, for they reestablished themselves only in the territories of Frederick II of Prussia and Empress Catherine of Russia. The Jesuit Order owes its survival to them. I mentioned this recently. But during this peculiar interregnum that existed between the suppression of the Jesuit Order by Pope Clement XIV in 1773 and its restoration by Pius VII in 1814, something very peculiar took place within the Jesuit Order, for during this time, for example, the institution in Sion naturally remained in operation—it had been run by Jesuits until then—and for the most part the same teachers remained as well; only these teachers had been Jesuits until 1773, and from 1773 onward they were no longer Jesuits; instead, it was said that the so-called “Fathers of the Faith” were teaching at the schools in question. Therefore, it was not particularly surprising that Jesuit colonies were reestablished in Brig in 1814, in Fribourg in 1818, in Schwyz in 1836, and in Lucerne in 1844, after Pius VII repealed Clement XIV’s decree in 1814.

[ 16 ] It is not my place to criticize these matters, but I would like to recount them. But I would like to share one more thing. From my discussions, you can see that from July 21, 1773—when Pope Clement XIV issued the bull “Dominus ac redemptor noster,” officially suppressing the Society of Jesus—until Pius VII issued the bull “Sollicitudo omnium” in 1814. Now, there is something very curious. There are memoirs by a man named Cordara, who was a Jesuit and who experienced everything that could be experienced within the Jesuit Order. His “memoirs” show that he was not a narrow-minded man like Hoensbroech, for what Hoensbroech writes has no significance, any more than when he speaks about it. For, of course, the Jesuits are intelligent, and Hoensbroech is extraordinarily foolish. So it is not a matter of simply accepting these things passively today, but rather of being able—above all today—to distinguish the significant from the insignificant. I would just like to highlight this point from Cordara’s *Memoirs*: he says it is indeed very strange that the Jesuit Order could have been suppressed by Pope Clement, for Pope Clement had actually been very fond of the Jesuits, and he was, in fact, an extraordinarily tolerant man—and certainly not a foolish one. So this Cordara speaks in the highest terms of Pope Clement. The Jesuit Cordara offers nothing short of hymns of praise to Clement XIV, despite the suppression of the Jesuit Order. Therefore, the Jesuit naturally asks how it was possible that the Jesuit Order had to be suppressed by this benevolent Pope. One must ask, says Cordara, what intentions divine wisdom had in allowing the suppression of the Jesuit Order. Now, Cordara is, of course, a Jesuit, but he is also a person who has learned from the Jesuit Order to think logically and systematically, and that is why he asks not merely in the abstract, but very concretely. He says: We must certainly examine what might have been within the Jesuit Order itself that we were responsible for. — He says: I find that, with regard to morality, we have indeed gone about things in a peculiar way. “With regard to everything concerning, for example, sexual immorality or the like, we are very strict—one cannot say otherwise,” says Cordara, “but we are so lax toward everything concerning slander, defamation, and insults.” —Cordara is saying, in fact, that God must have permitted Pope Clement XIV to suppress the Jesuit Order because a certain tendency to engage in slander, defamation, and insults had gradually crept into the Jesuit Order. — I do not wish to criticize this matter either, but merely to recount it. I would just like to add that the Jesuit Cordara says: “One of our main faults is also our arrogance, through which we regard all other orders as insignificant, as worthless, and regard all secular priests as worthless.”

[ 17 ] If one compiles, then, what is presented in these “Memoirs” not as accusations against the Jesuit Order but as a mea culpa—a sort of examination of conscience by a Jesuit—one finds: First, the pursuit of political power; second, pride and arrogance; third, contempt for other religious orders and secular clergy; fourth, the accumulation of wealth. But once one gradually comes to understand what it means to uphold truths that have withered away due to the exercise of power, there is nothing better one can do than to have such an order undertake the task of upholding these truths. The Roman Catholic Church, in the person of Pius VII, knew very well what it was doing when it repaid the debt of gratitude owed by world history—a debt that was actually owed only to the King of Prussia, Frederick II—who was dead—and Empress Catherine of Russia—who was also dead—by using the repayment of that debt of gratitude to reestablish the Jesuit Order. And among those who were the first to teach here in Switzerland as foreign—so-called foreign—Jesuits were many of those who had been nurtured by Catherine and had returned to Switzerland from Russia. Please look up all these details in the relevant documents.

[ 18 ] The point here is that one can see that what was foreseen as necessary had been carefully prepared in advance; and that one went further, identifying everything that was emerging at the right time, as long as it remained spiritless—after four centuries of striving to drive out the spirit, while humanity otherwise remained asleep. The point was to carry out what was then accomplished in 1864 with the encyclical and the Syllabus of that time.

[ 19 ] If the establishment of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was already a break with all the customs of the early Roman Catholic Church, then it goes without saying that the establishment of the dogma of infallibility was an even greater one. For now, indeed, all the acumen of the logic so carefully cultivated by the Catholic Church was needed to justify the claim that the Pope is infallible—especially after Clement XIV suppressed the Jesuit Order in 1773 and his successor, Pius VII, reinstated it in 1814. A considerable number of such instances could be demonstrated. But the point was that the logic that had been so carefully cultivated was now being used to define conceptual boundaries. The aim was to establish a conceptual framework for what might now justify infallibility. Only that which the Pope does not say as a private opinion, but rather what he says “ex cathedra,” is considered infallible. Now, the question was not, was it not, whether Clement XIV or Pius VII were infallible, but whether Clement XIV or Pius VII spoke ex cathedra or privately. Clement XIV must have spoken privately when he suppressed the Jesuit Order, and Pius VII must have spoken ex cathedra when he reinstated it, isn’t that right! But the problem is that the Pope never states whether he is speaking ex cathedra or privately. He has never said so. It must be said that it is difficult to distinguish in detail whether a particular matter is subject to the dogma of infallibility or not. But in any case, the dogma of infallibility exists. This provided a clear line of defense against everything that might emerge as the elementary culture of the fifth post-Atlantic era. Now, however, it was necessary to draw the consequences as well. Pope Leo XIII—who was very perceptive and, in terms of his intellect, magnificent—did just that by insisting that Thomism be adopted in the form it had taken in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. What was needed was a philosophy that was magnificent—but magnificent for the previous epoch. For it is, of course, objectively true that everything that has emerged as philosophy since then is lesser than what existed as philosophy in High Scholasticism; but what is lesser is precisely a beginning, and what existed in High Scholasticism was a culmination.

[ 20 ] Now one must bear in mind that humanity does indeed want to move forward, and that is why—whether through natural science or historical research—quite remarkable things began to emerge among the Catholic clergy. It had already become necessary to take strong measures to preserve what remained of Augustinianism within the Catholic clergy. Hence the Anti-Modernist Oath.

[ 21 ] There is, of course, nothing to be said against any of this, as long as it is driven by the free initiative of a particular community. But when, in 1867, after the Jesuits had been readmitted to Munich, a Jesuit preacher stated in his first sermon that the rules of the order forbade Jesuits from interfering in politics—that is, that no Jesuit should ever interfere in politics—it seems to me that the vast majority of modern humanity is not really inclined to believe that, and things will surely be different!

[ 22 ] What this is really all about is this: in reality, all those who are truly serious about knowledge, progress, and the well-being of humanity should commit themselves to the threefold social order. For the course of the so-called German Kulturkampf proves just how little political measures against the Roman Catholic Church can achieve. But the main issue is that progress is so slow in gaining recognition for what, as a necessary consequence of spiritual scientific endeavors, must inevitably emerge into the world as the impulse for the threefold social order. That is what we need: for there to truly be an alert understanding of the phenomena of the present.

[ 23 ] With that, I have just broached a topic that I truly would not have broached if all that is happening around us—and will continue to happen—were not taking place. As you know, I will be speaking publicly here on Saturday on the topic: “The Truth About Anthroposophy and Its Defense Against Falsehood”; but I cannot help but say a few more things to you on Sunday as a continuation of what I am no longer able to say today, so that we will have to meet here again on Sunday at half past seven, even though we have to travel on Monday. But in these turbulent times, there is no other way. So the public lecture will take place here on Saturday—despite the burning of the posters!