The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Thirteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Through three annual festivals, Christianity commemorates the Being who gives meaning to earthly life for Christians, from whom the greatest power of this earthly life radiates. Of these three festivals, Christmas places the greatest demands on our feelings; in a sense, it seeks to internalize our feelings the most. Easter places the greatest demands on what we call human understanding and human comprehension; Pentecost on what we call human will. And fundamentally, one can only grasp what lies at the heart of the Christmas mystery through internalization—through the deepening of that feeling which brings to mind our entire human being, our value, and our dignity as human beings.

[ 2 ] Only when one can perceive what it means to be human in the universe in the right way and with sufficient depth can one do justice to the spirit that is meant to be the true spirit of Christmas. Only when one fully comprehends the miracle contained in the mystery of Easter—the miracle of the Resurrection—does one do justice to this Easter mystery; and only when one sees in the Feast of Pentecost something that signifies the power to develop our impulses of will, something that lifts our will above mere earthly instincts, does one see in the proper light what the Feast of Pentecost is meant to be.

[ 3 ] Christ Jesus is related to the Father principles of the universe: this is what the Christmas festival brings to our attention. Christ Jesus is related to what has come to be called the Son principle: this is what the mystery of Easter brings to our attention. Christ relates to that which surges through and interweaves the world as Spirit in the way that the mystery of Pentecost brings to our awareness.

[ 4 ] As we observe the external natural world around us, we also see, through the forces of this nature, human beings entering into their physical existence. We know from all that spiritual science can teach us that we are not viewing this nature in the proper sense if we consider it solely in terms of its physical and sensory outward appearances. We know that divine forces permeate nature, and we become aware of our origin in nature—in the true sense of the word—only when we can look toward this divine that surges through and permeates nature. Then we look up to the fatherly principles of nature. Everything that surges through and weaves through nature as the divine is, for us, fatherly principles in the sense of the ancient religions and also in the sense of Christianity properly understood. Whether we become aware of how the little flower grows in the field, whether we become aware of how thunder rolls from the cloud and lightning flashes down, whether we see the sun crossing the sky and the stars shining, whether we hear the springs and the river rushing — when we become aware of what mysteriously reveals itself in these outward manifestations of nature as the origin of all becoming, then we also become aware of that which brings us ourselves into this world through the mystery of physical birth.

[ 5 ] But this mystery of physical birth remains, in regard to the essence of the human being, something inexplicable unless we can connect it with what we experience through a deep inner feeling as we commemorate the Christmas mystery—the childhood that entered humanity through the Jesus children. What does the existence of these child Jesus figures tell us? It tells us nothing less than that, to attain full humanity, it is not enough merely to be born—that is, merely to be present in the world through those forces which, as physical forces of birth, bring all beings, including human beings, into existence. This holy Christmas mystery, as we contemplate the childhood of Christ, tells us that true humanity cannot simply be born within us, but must be reborn in the innermost depths of the soul; that in the course of his life, a human being must experience something within his soul that makes him a fully human being. And this experience can only be attained if it is lived in harmony with that which was drawn into the Earth’s evolution during the Christmas festival of the world.

[ 6 ] As we look upon Jesus’ childhood, we must tell ourselves: It is only because this being came among humanity in the course of human evolution that human beings, in the fullest sense of the word, are truly capable of being human, that is, to connect what he receives through birth with what he can perceive about himself through all that he feels in terms of devoted love for the being who descended from spiritual heights to unite with human existence through the great sacrifice.

[ 7 ] For many people in the early centuries of Christianity, witnessing the entry of the Christ Being into Earth’s evolution was a profound experience. In a sense, this made them aware of the dual origin of the human being—its physical and spiritual origins. It is a birth that Jesus undergoes. When Christians look toward Jesus on Christmas, they see a child born of the earth, but they say to themselves: A being different from all other human beings is being born here—a being through whom other human beings can receive precisely what they cannot receive through mere physical birth. — And our sense of this deepens when we understand the Word in its true sense and with true love: We must be born twice—once through the forces of nature, and again reborn through the forces of Christ Jesus. This is our communion with Christ Jesus; this is what, through Christ Jesus, first imparts to us the full awareness of our human worth and human character. And as we draw lessons from the course of the centuries, we must ask ourselves: Has this sense of the birth of Christ Jesus always remained equally deep? When we look around the world, we cannot say that even in our own time we possess that same depth of feeling toward the Christmas mystery that was still present in Europe even five or six centuries ago.

[ 8 ] You see, the Christmas tree is a beautiful thing, something that speaks to our hearts in a very charming way. But the Christmas tree is not an ancient tradition; it is barely two centuries old. It has become established relatively quickly in European regions, but it has only emerged in recent times as a decoration for the Christmas season. What does it actually represent to us? It represents the beautiful, the charming, the sympathetic side of that which also presents itself to our souls in a different way—in a less sympathetic, less graceful way—in the recent development of humanity. No matter how deeply one may probe into the impulses from which the Christmas tree actually emerged in recent, very recent times, one will find only mysterious feelings from which the Christmas tree arose. But these mysterious feelings all point to the fact that we must see in the Christmas tree something like a symbol of the Tree of Paradise. But what does this tell us? It tells us that people have indeed become increasingly estranged from what presented itself to their sensibility—that sensibility which was directed toward the manger, toward the mystery of the birth of Christ Jesus, toward what took place at the beginning of our era; that modern humanity has, in a certain sense, lost this rebirth of the human soul, and that this modern humanity, looking back from the Christ-tree—which represents the cross—wishes to return to that origin which knows nothing yet of Christ: to the origin of earthly humanity itself, to the natural starting point of humanity’s becoming—away from Christ and back to Paradise, from the celebration of Christmas Day, December 25, to the celebration of the Feast of Adam and Eve, December 24.

[ 9 ] It has become beautiful, because the origin of humanity is also beautiful as the origin of paradise—that is what has been portrayed there—but it is a distraction from the actual mystery of the birth of Jesus Christ. It has preserved all the depth and intimacy of feeling in this gaze toward the Christmas tree, and this gaze toward the Christmas tree—which arises every year from the depths of the human heart among those of good will—brings comfort, this act of gazing at the Christmas tree brings comfort in spite of the other trend that, in a less appealing way in recent times, has diverted attention from the mystery of Christ and led people toward the original, natural forces of birth associated with the Incarnation.

[ 10 ] Christ Jesus came among a people who worshiped Yahweh, Jehovah—that God Yahweh who is connected to all of natural existence, who lives in lightning and thunder, who lives in the movement of the clouds and the stars, who lives in the rushing spring and the river, who lives in the growth of plants, animals, and humans. Yahweh is the God who, when one connects with him alone, can never give a person full humanity. For he gives human beings the awareness of their natural birth—albeit with its spiritual influence from forces that are not merely natural—but he does not give them the awareness of their rebirth, which they must attain through something that cannot be given to them by natural, sensory, or physical forces. And so we see how modern humanity has been diverted from the Christ Jesus—for whom there is no distinction of classes, no distinction of peoples, no distinction of races, for whom there is only a single humanity—how the thoughts and feelings of modern humanity have been diverted toward what had already been overcome through the mystery of the birth of the Christ Jesus: toward that which merely underlies the natural forces of humanity’s origin, forces connected with humanity’s differentiation into classes, peoples, and races. And if it was the one Yahweh whom the Jewish people worshiped when Christ Jesus arrived, then the modern peoples have returned to the many Yahwehs! For what the peoples worship today based on modern national principles—even if what they worship is no longer designated by the old names, and even though they worship it to the point of dividing themselves into nations and waging war against one another as nations—these are Yahwes. And we witness the peoples fighting one another in bloody wars, each of them, under certain circumstances, invoking the Christ. But in truth, it is not the Christ to whom the peoples then appeal; it is merely a Yahweh—not the one Yahweh, but a Yahweh. People have merely returned to him. People have forgotten what a step forward it was to have progressed from the Yahweh principle to the Christ principle. That is the difference.

[ 11 ] The Christmas tree leads us back to the origins of humanity in a beautiful way; the Yahweh principle, which grips the nations, leads us back in an ugly way. The fact is that, through an inner emotional delusion, they often address that which is merely Yahweh as the Christ, thus essentially misusing the name of Christ. The name of Christ is being misused in a terrible way today, and we will not find the true depth of feeling we need today to once again experience the Christmas mystery within ourselves in the right way unless we clearly recognize how we must once again seek the path to finding this feeling toward Christ Jesus. We need a new understanding of what has been handed down to us, including with regard to the birth of Christ Jesus.

[ 12 ] Christ, whom Jesus announced at the universal Christmas celebration, is revealed to two kinds of people—who, of course, represent the same single humanity: the uneducated, poor shepherds of the fields, who have absorbed nothing within themselves but simple human reason and the simple human heart; and he is revealed to the wise men from the East, that is, from the land of wisdom. He is revealed to them through a supreme ascent to their wisdom, through a reading of the stars. Thus, Christ Jesus is announced to the simple souls of the shepherds, and Christ Jesus is announced in the highest wisdom of the three magical Magi from the East. The deepest meaning lies in this juxtaposition of the announcement of Christ Jesus, on the one hand, to the simple shepherds, and on the other hand, to the wisest of the world.

[ 13 ] And how does Christ Jesus reveal Himself to the simple, poor shepherds in the field? With the eye of the soul, they behold the radiant angel. Their vision is awakened; their inner hearing is awakened. They hear the profound words that will, in the future, become the meaning of earthly life for them: God is revealed on high, and there will be peace on earth among people of good will. — From the depths of the soul arises that capacity through which, on the night of the Epiphany, the poor, simple shepherds—without any wisdom of their own—intuitively experience what is being revealed to the world. From the fulfillment of that wisdom which could be attained up to the Mystery of Golgotha, from the most subtle observation of the movement of the stars, the same revelation emerges for the sages of the East, for the magical sages! Some read it in the human heart—the poor, simple shepherds—and they penetrate to the very depths of the human heart. There they become clairvoyant; there the heart, through its power of vision, reveals to them the coming of the Savior of humanity. The others gaze up at the vast expanse of the heavens. They know the mysteries of the vastness of space and the unfolding of time; they have attained a wisdom through which they can sense and unravel these mysteries of the vastness of space and the unfolding of time. There the mystery of Christmas is revealed to them.

[ 14 ] We are reminded that what lives within the human being and what lives in the vastness of space both flow from the same source. And both were already in decline, in the way they had developed up to the Mystery of Golgotha. The clairvoyance that sprang from the animated human heart—which was still strong enough among the shepherds, referred to as those to whom the proclamation is addressed, to hear the voices— “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those of good will”—one might say that the last remnants of this clairvoyance, born of inner piety, were still present among the shepherds whom fate had gathered at the place where Christ was born. And from that ancient sacred wisdom, which first flourished in the post-Atlantean era among the ancient Indians, then notably among the Persians, and then again among the Chaldeans—a wisdom that had taken root there and of which, likewise, only the very last remnants were still present among those among whom we are to seek the three Magi from the East —from this ancient, sacred wisdom that spanned the world in space and time, from this wisdom, as its representatives rose to a supreme flowering, this Christmas mystery was revealed once more. But both have been lost to us in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

[ 15 ] For humanity as a whole, that which led the poor shepherds to clairvoyance and the sages of the East to insight into the mysteries of space and time is no longer a living, active force. We had to find the human being—the human being who is left to his own devices. As humanity, we had to pass through divine abandonment in order to find freedom in the abandonment and solitude of human existence. But we must find our way back to the connection with that which, on the one hand, became the highest wisdom among the Magi of the East, and on the other hand, was revealed to the shepherds in the fields through deep inner vision.

[ 16 ] All forces continue to evolve. What the sages of the East, through the development of their still clairvoyant minds, knew as their astrology—as their form of astronomy—what has become of it today? We cannot understand human evolution unless we look into such things. Today it has become dry mathematics and geometry. Today we look at the abstract constructs we are taught in geometry and mathematics at school: this is the last remnant of what was once mastered in living splendor in the light of the world by that ancient wisdom which led the three Magi from the East to the Christ. Outward observation has become inner thinking about space and time. Whereas the Magi of the East were able, through their unraveling of the mysteries of space, to foresee and calculate that the Savior would be born on this very night, our astronomers—the successors of those astrologers—now merely calculate future solar and lunar eclipses or similar phenomena. And while the poor shepherds in the fields, out of the depths of their hearts, were lifted up to behold that which was most certainly connected with them—to behold the mystery of Christmas and to hear the heavenly proclamation—modern man is left only with the observation of external, sensory nature. Contemplating the external, sensory nature represents the legacy of the shepherds’ simplicity just as much as our calculation of future solar and lunar eclipses represents the legacy of the Magi from the East.

[ 17 ] The shepherds in the field were armed with a deep sense of heartfelt emotion, which enabled them, through their clairvoyance, to behold the mystery of Christmas. Our contemporaries are armed with telescopes and microscopes. No telescope, no microscope leads to an understanding of that which unravels humanity’s deepest mystery, as the hearts of the shepherds in the fields did. No foresight derived from calculations of solar and lunar eclipses leads to an understanding of the course of the world necessary for humanity, as the wisdom—the astrological wisdom—of the Magi from the East was able to do. How does everything that is differentiated within humanity flow together into a unified human sensibility when we say to ourselves: What the shepherds in the fields experienced—without any wisdom, but through the piety of their hearts—is the very same thing that moved the highest wisdom of the Magi from the East! —In the Christian tradition, these two facts are wonderfully juxtaposed.

[ 18 ] In recent times, we have essentially lost the two paths through which humanity came to understand the birth of Christ. We have turned away from the manger toward the Christmas tree—the tree of paradise—and we have turned away from the Christ who belongs to all humanity toward the folk gods, who are simply many Yahwes, but are not Christ. For just as it is true that what is common to all human beings is revealed in the deepest essence of the human being, so too is it true that what is common to all human beings is revealed through all the expanses of space and through all the mysteries of time.

[ 19 ] There is something deep within the human being that speaks of nothing other than simply being human, something that transcends all human distinctions. But it is only in this depth that one finds Christ. And there is a wisdom that transcends everything else that can be found in the individual aspects of worldly existence—a wisdom that grasps the world in its unity, even in space and time. Yet this is at the same time the very stellar wisdom that leads to Christ. We need, once again in a new form, that through which, on the one hand, the shepherds in the fields and, on the other hand, the Magi from the East found their way to Christ Jesus. In other words, we need to deepen our external view of nature through that which the human heart can develop in terms of a spiritual perception of nature. We must once again learn—by turning to that for which, in modern times, we have only microscopes, telescopes, X-ray machines, and the like—to view these things through the powers that spring from the piety of the human heart. Then it will not only be the indifferently growing plants that speak to us, nor just the rushing stream, the gushing spring, the lightning from the clouds, or the thunder from the clouds; then, from all that the little flowers in the field say, from all that the lightning and thunder from the clouds say, from all that the shining stars and the shining sun say, from all of this—as it were, as the culmination of all contemplation of nature—the words will flow into our eyes, into our ears, and into our hearts, words that proclaim nothing other than: “God is revealed in the heights of heaven, and peace on earth to those of good will.”

[ 20 ] The time must come when the observation of nature breaks free from the dry, sober, inhuman atmosphere of laboratories and clinics, when the observation of nature is imbued with such life that what can no longer become part of us in the manner of the shepherds of Bethlehem will speak to us through the voices that emerge from plants, animals, stars, springs, and streams. For all of nature proclaims what the angel of the Annunciation says: God is revealed in the heights of heaven, and there may be peace among people on earth who are of good will.

[ 21 ] We need what the magicians attained through the external observation of the stars; we need it through the awakening of our inner selves. Just as we must listen out into nature and, in a sense, hear the angel singing once more from the outer natural world, so must we be able to draw an astronomy—a solution to the mystery of the world—from within the human being through imagination, inspiration, and intuition. A spiritual or esoteric science drawn from within the human being—that is what we must become. We must fathom what the human being’s own essence is. And the human being’s own essence must speak to us of the becoming of the world through the mysteries of Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. We must feel a universe coming into being within us. Conversely, since the Mystery of Golgotha, what can happen to a human being in relation to their perception of the deepest mysteries of the world has changed.

[ 22 ] There is an ancient way of representing the celestial sphere; it was already practiced by the Persian magi. They looked up at the sky, saw physically in the zodiac that constellation called Virgo, and spiritually they looked into this constellation to perceive what is physically observable only in the constellation of Gemini. This wisdom has been preserved—a wisdom that lived within human beings in such a way that they could perceive and discern the harmony between the constellation of Virgo and the constellation standing at a right angle to it in the quadrant, that of Gemini. Thus it was depicted that in place of the constellation of Virgo, the Virgin was portrayed with the sheaf of grain, but also with the child, who is none other than the representative of Gemini, the representative of the infant Jesus. This was, in particular, an astrological view during the Persian period.

[ 23 ] Then came the next era, the era of Egyptian-Chaldean development. Just as people had looked toward the constellation of Virgo during the Persian era, they now looked toward the constellation of Leo. But now, in the quadrant, Taurus was assigned to Leo, and the Mithraic religion—the worship of Taurus—arose as people looked into the constellation of Leo and saw the constellation of Taurus.

[ 24 ] And then came the Greco-Latin era, in which Cancer played the same role as Virgo among the Persians, and one could see the constellation of Aries, standing in the quadrant, extending into the constellation of Cancer. That was the reversal; that was when things took a different turn. Up until the Greco-Roman era, up until the Mystery of Golgotha, astronomy was something to be attained as an external science; human cognition was such that one looked out into space and discovered the mysteries of the starry worlds, the mysteries of space and time, and that one lived inwardly into the human inner being, and through the spiritualization of the heart, one arrived at the perception of inner mysteries. In the Greco-Roman era, this relationship was reversed. What had previously been experienced inwardly had to be experienced more and more through the observation of external nature.

[ 25 ] We must become as devout in our hearts as the shepherds were toward the revelations of nature. Just as they attained the eye of the spirit within their inner world, we must attain the eye of the spirit through nature. And on the other hand, we must also follow the path of Cancer. We must arrive at an “astronomy of the inner world,” so that the course of the world through the Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan eras can be awakened from the contemplative powers within the human being: an astronomy from within, just as there was once an astronomy from without; a piety in the observation of nature, just as there was once the piety of the shepherds in the fields. If we can deepen what today appears so unspiritual in our observation of nature, if we can, on the other hand, give creative form to what is today experienced so drearily in mere mathematical and geometric images, if we can, through inner experience, raise mathematics once again to the glory that ancient astronomy possessed, if we can deepen our observation of nature to that depth of heart and that piety which the shepherds in the fields experienced; if we can experience inwardly what the Magi experienced from the stars; if we can become as pious at the sight of outer nature as the shepherds in the fields were — then, through piety in our observation of external nature and through lovingly following world events from within, we will once again find the path to the Christmas mystery in a similar way to how the shepherds in the fields found their way to the manger through inner piety, and the Magi from the East through outer wisdom.

[ 26 ] We must rediscover the path to the mystery of Christmas. We must become as devout toward nature as the shepherds were in their hearts. We must become as wise in our inner vision as the Magi became through their observation of planets and stars in space and time. We must develop within ourselves what the Magi developed externally. We must develop in our interaction with the external world what the simple shepherds in the fields developed in their hearts—then we will find the path, the true path, to a deep sense of Christ, to a loving understanding of Christ. Then we will find the path to the Christmas Mystery. Then we will be able to place the manger beside the Tree of Origin from Paradise with right thoughts and right feelings; a manger that speaks to us not only of how human beings came into the world through natural forces, but also of how they can only become aware of their full humanity through rebirth.

[ 27 ] Anyone who speaks today of the mystery of Christmas must make a demand of humanity that looks toward the future. We live in those serious times when we must realize that we must first become human beings again in the true sense. We have not yet attained what the wisdom of the Magi fully internalized, what the piety of the shepherds allowed to flow fully into the outer world. The social question stands at the very gates of human existence, making a terrible demand. It has brought terrible things in recent years; it is becoming ever more and more threatening, and only slumbering souls can overlook this threat. Europe is on the verge of becoming a heap of cultural ruins. It will not rise from its chaotic state except by people finding the means to develop genuine, true humanity once again in their social interactions. They will not develop it in any other way than by deepening and internalizing their feelings through contemplating nature—becoming as devout as the shepherds in the fields were when, through their inner powers, the angel announced to them the revelation of the gods above and peace on earth below. It is with these powers alone that one can master social life, and only when what is perceived in the vastness of space and the sequence of time penetrates into the inner self, so that humanity perceives the true nature of the world spirit as uniformly as the Chinese, the American, and the European—who stands midway between them—all perceive the one and same sun. Just as it would be ridiculous if the Chinese claimed one sun for themselves, the Russians another, the Central Europeans yet another, the French another, and the English yet another! Just as the sun is one and the same, so too is the solar being that sustains humanity one and the same.

[ 28 ] Let us look out into the vastness of the universe: we find a call for the unification of humanity. Let us look into the deepest, innermost mysteries of the human being: we see the call for the unification of humanity. What appears out there—even the most spiritual—does not speak of the differentiation of humanity, nor of discord; what speaks from the deepest inner self does not speak of the differentiation of humanity, nor of discord. To the shepherds in the field, the voice they heard through the ear of their hearts proclaimed that the Divinity reveals itself through the vast phenomena of the universe, and that by receiving the Divinity into their own souls, peace can come among people of good will. This must be proclaimed to modern humanity from the entire realm of natural existence. The mysteries of the stars have told the Magi from the East that Christ Jesus was born here on Earth. This must be proclaimed to modern humanity through the pursuit of that which can unfold within them as a revelation.

[ 29 ] We need a new path. Once again, the voice calls out to us: Change your perspective; look at the course of the world in a new way! — And when we look at the course of the world in the right way, when we observe the path of humanity—to which we ourselves belong—then we find the path to that mystery which could reveal itself to shepherds just as it did to advanced sages, and which will reveal itself to our inner and outer perception of the world. If we deepen our inner and outer view of the world sufficiently—if we are able to do so, if we find the inner wisdom of the magi that guides us just as the outer wisdom of the magi guided the sages from the East, if we find the outer wisdom that leads us in piety just as piety led the shepherds in the fields— then we will once again look with true inner feelings upon that which lies within the Mystery: that for all, without distinction as to how one otherwise appears among human beings—set apart, as it were, from humanity and placed in solitude—that which was born became Christ.

[ 30 ] We must rediscover the mystery of Jesus at Christmas, and we must do so by nurturing within ourselves all that should be spoken of today. We must find the light of Christmas within ourselves, just as the shepherds found the angel’s light in the field, and we must, like the Magi from the East, find the star through the power of what true spiritual science is. Then the one path to what the Christmas mystery contains will open up to us. We are to recognize it: it reminds us of the rebirth of the human being.

[ 31 ] If we work to ensure that the mystery of Christmas is reborn among humankind, then we will also grasp the mystery of the rebirth of the human being in its true sense. This is what is spoken to us in a peculiar way: A Gospel not recognized by the Church recounts that it was a peculiar trait of the infant Jesus that, immediately after his birth, he addressed his mother with specific words. Surely we respond in the right way today to the child lying in the manger when we hear the words he wishes to speak to us today in the right way: Awaken the Christmas light within yourselves, and the Christmas light will appear to you in the true sense, together with your fellow human beings, in the outer world as well.