The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] In the Christmas celebration, Christianity is given something that, for the broadest circles, leads directly to the highest questions of humanity’s development on Earth. No matter at what point in history one chooses to look, no matter which historical events one draws upon to understand the Incarnation or to fathom the meaning of this Incarnation on Earth: one will not be able to find such a significant elevation to this mystery of the Incarnation in such a popular, widely understandable form as is the thought of the Mystery of Golgotha, as is the thought contained within the Christmas celebration.

[ 2 ] When we look back to the beginning of the Incarnation on Earth and trace the millennia leading up to the Mystery of Golgotha, we find everywhere that, no matter how great the achievements within the communities of peoples may be, these achievements are a kind of preparation, a kind of preliminary stage for what has happened for humanity through the Mystery of Golgotha. And again, when we trace what has happened since then, we can only gain understanding if we consider how Christ, who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, has become active in this development of humanity. No matter how much of this human evolution may seem incomprehensible at first—if one investigates without narrow-mindedness, without superstition that might suggest, for example, that human beings should be helped by some unknown gods without their own effort wherever they feel such help is needed, and if one sets aside such views, one will find that even in the painful events of world-historical development, one can recognize the significance and meaning that this earthly evolution has acquired through Christ’s passage through the Mystery of Golgotha. It is fitting for us to view precisely this Mystery of Golgotha—and the Christmas Mystery is, of course, part of it—from those perspectives that can, in a sense, reveal within it the meaning of all humanity on Earth.

[ 3 ] We know that there is a profound connection between what unfolds morally and spiritually in human development and what unfolds in nature. And with a certain understanding of this bridge between natural existence and the moral world order, we can also approach that relationship which has occupied us for many years—the relationship of Jesus Christ to that being whose outer reflection appears in the sun. Adherents and representatives of the Christian impulse were not always as hostile to recognizing this connection between the mystery of the sun and the mystery of Christ as today’s representatives of Christianity—who have fallen into decadence—often are. Dionysius the Areopagite, of whom we have spoken often before, calls the sun the monument of God. And in Augustine we still find references to this everywhere; even in Scholasticism we still find indications of how the outer celestial bodies and their movements can be seen as symbolic representations of the spiritual-divine existence in the world.

[ 4 ] But we must understand, within a broader context, that aspect of the Christmas Mystery which must be particularly close to our hearts precisely because of the great challenges of the present. I would like to remind you of something I have repeatedly brought up in various ways over the years. I have said: We look back to the first post-Atlantean epoch, which was filled with the deeds and experiences of the ancient Indian people; we look back to the primordial Persian epoch of post-Atlantean humanity, to the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch, to the Greco-Latin epoch, and then arrive at our own epoch, the fifth of post-Atlantean humanity. Ours will be followed by the sixth, and then the seventh. Now I have pointed out to you that the fourth, the Greco-Latin epoch of post-Atlantean humanity, stands, so to speak, in the middle, and that certain connections exist—you can also read about this in my little book The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and of Humanity — between the third and fifth epochs, that is, between the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch and our own; and that, in turn, there will be a connection between the Proto-Persian and the sixth epochs, and between the Proto-Indian epoch and the seventh epoch of post-Atlantean humanity. Certain things repeat themselves in a particular way within these respective epochs.

[ 5 ] I once pointed out how the great Kepler, the successor to Copernicus, had a sense that with his heliocentric planetary system he was, in a certain way—albeit suited to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—repetitioning what had lived as a world picture in the Egyptian priestly mysteries. Kepler, in a certain sense, expresses this very radically when he says that he borrowed the vessels of the ancient Egyptian teachers of wisdom in order to bring them into the modern era. But today we want to reflect on something that, so to speak, stood at the center of the view of the ritual acts of the Egyptian priestly mysteries; we wish to commemorate the Isis Mysteries; and to bring to mind the spiritual connection between the Isis Mysteries and what also lives within Christianity, we need only turn our inner gaze to Raphael’s famous painting, the Sistine Madonna, where the Madonna holds the infant Jesus in her arms, with clouds behind her that actually represent nothing but children, so that one can imagine the Madonna having received the infant Jesus from the clouds, as it were, through a condensation of the thinner substance. But this painting, created entirely out of the Christian spirit, is nothing other than a kind of repetition of what the Egyptian Isis mysteries venerated, in depicting Isis with the boy Horus in her arms. The motif of this image corresponds entirely with Raphael’s painting. Of course, this must not lead us into the trap into which—since the 18th century and throughout the 19th century right up to the present day—such things have led many superficial minds: namely, to view the story of Jesus Christ and all that pertains to it merely as a kind of metamorphosis, a reinterpretation of ancient pagan mysteries. You know from my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact how these things are to be understood. But precisely in the sense intended there, it is worth pointing out once again a certain spiritual congruence between what occurs in Christianity and the ancient pagan mysteries.

[ 6 ] The central theme of this Isis mystery is the death of Osiris and Isis’s search for the dead Osiris. We know that Osiris, the representative of the solar being, the representative of the spiritual sun, is killed by Typhon, who, in Egyptian terms, is none other than Ahriman. We know that Osiris is killed by Ahriman, thrown into the Nile, that he is washed away, that Isis, his wife, sets out in search of him, that she finds him over in Asia, that she brings him back to Egypt, that Osiris is then dismembered by the enemy Ahriman, and that Isis buries the fourteen pieces in various places, so that from then on they belong to the earth.

[ 7 ] From this perspective, one can see how Egyptian wisdom conceived of the connection between the powers of heaven and the powers of earth in a profoundly meaningful way. On the one hand, Osiris is the representative of the solar forces. Having passed through death, he is, in various places at the same time, the very force that brings to fruition everything that bears fruit from the earth. In a profound way, the ancient Egyptian sage conceives of how the forces that shine down from the sun impart themselves to the earth, how they then belong to the earth, and how, as solar forces buried within the earth, they in turn bestow upon humanity that which bears fruit from the earth. Underlying the Egyptian view is the belief that Osiris was killed, that his wife Isis had to set out in search of Osiris, that she first had to bring him back to Egypt, and that he then worked in a different form, namely from within the earth.

[ 8 ] One of the Egyptian pyramids illustrates this particularly well; for the Egyptians not only recorded in their unique script what they had discovered as the solution to the great mysteries of the universe, but they also expressed it in their architectural structures. One of these pyramids was constructed with dimensions such that, due to the position of the sun, its shadow disappeared at the spring solstice—because it fell within the base—and only became visible again after the fall solstice. Through this, the Egyptians sought to express how that which otherwise shines down upon them from the sun is buried in the earth from spring to fall, developing the earth’s forces so that what is necessary for human life might bear fruit from the earth. Thus we must turn to a concept of the ancient Egyptians, whereby they, on the one hand, looked up to the sun—to the exalted solar being—and worshipped it, while at the same time they also indicated how this solar being had been lost in Osiris and was sought and found again through Isis, so that it might then continue to work in a transformed way.

[ 9 ] Well, we in our fifth post-Atlantean epoch have much to repeat that appeared in a different form within Egyptian wisdom, and an understanding must spread among humanity, based on spiritual-scientific foundations, of how we can once again view the Egyptian priestly mysteries in a Christianized sense, in a way appropriate to our time. For the Egyptians, Osiris represented, in a sense, a kind of representative of the Christ who had not yet come; but they imagined the solar being in Osiris in their own way. They imagined that this solar being had, in a certain sense, been lost, and that it must be sought again. We cannot imagine that our solar being—Christ, who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha—could be lost to humanity, since he once descended from spiritual heights, united himself with the human being Jesus of Nazareth, and remains with the earth from that time onward. He is here, and the corresponding Christmas carol may proclaim each year: The Savior is born to us—expressing not the transience of this event, but its eternity; expressing that Jesus was not merely born back then in Bethlehem, but that, in essence, he is continually being born—that is, he remains with earthly existence. Thus, what Christ is to us cannot be lost.

[ 10 ] But the legend of Isis must be fulfilled in a different way in our time. What Christ gives us in a higher sense through Osiris cannot be lost to us; but what stands alongside Osiris, shaped for Christian understanding, can be lost to us and has been lost to us: we have lost Isis, the Mother of the Savior, the divine wisdom Sophia. And if there is to be a renewal of the Isis legend, it must not mean for us that Osiris was killed by Typhon-Ahriman, that he was swept away by the waters of the Nile, to be found again by Isis, only to be buried in the earth in the state of dismemberment brought about by Typhon-Ahriman. — No, we must, in a certain sense, rediscover the legend of Isis, the essence of the Isis mystery, but we must shape it out of imagination, adapted to our time. There must once again be an understanding of the eternal truths of the world, so that we can create imaginative poetry, just as the Egyptians were able to do. But we must find the true Isis legend. The Egyptian—as a human being who lived before the Mystery of Golgotha—was still permeated by Luciferic forces. When Luciferic forces are found within the human being, when Luciferic forces move, permeate, and interweave the inner being, this results in the Ahrimanic expressing its activity in the person’s external perception. Therefore, the Egyptian—because he himself was permeated by Luciferic forces—rightly perceives a worldview in which Ahriman-Typhon is at work.

[ 11 ] We must be clear that present-day humanity is permeated by Ahriman; it is inwardly moved and permeated by Ahriman just as the Egyptian world was moved and permeated by Lucifer. But when Ahriman is at work within, then human beings see their worldview in a Luciferic form. How, then, do human beings perceive this worldview? This worldview in its Luciferic form has been created; it exists; it has become increasingly popular in recent times; it has taken hold in all circles that seek enlightenment. It must be borne in mind if the Christmas Mystery is to be understood: Lucifer is the power that seeks to hold back the worldview at an earlier stage. Lucifer is the power that seeks to carry into the present worldview what existed in earlier stages, and to make permanent what existed in earlier stages. Everything that was moral in earlier stages naturally exists in the present. Lucifer now has every interest in extracting the moral as such—which always has great significance as a present reality, since it acts as a seed for later world-creation—from the worldview, and in allowing only what is naturally necessary to appear in the outer worldview. Thus, the impoverished human being of modern times is confronted with a cosmic wisdom that simultaneously presents a worldview in which the stars revolve according to amoral, purely mechanical necessities—a worldview in which the stars revolve in such a way that we cannot associate their movement with any moral meaning of the cosmic order. This is a purely Luciferic worldview.

[ 12 ] Just as the Egyptian looked out into the world and had to see Ahriman-Typhon as the one who takes his Osiris away, so must we look upon this worldview that has become Luciferic—the mathematically-mechanical worldview of our contemporary astronomy and other natural sciences—and realize that the Luciferic principle reigns here just as the Typhonic-Ahrimanic principle reigned in the Egyptian worldview. Just as the ancient Egyptians viewed their external worldview in the Ahrimanic-Typhonian sense, so do modern people perceive what they see—by virtue of their own Ahrimanic nature—as bearing Luciferic traits. Lucifer is there; he is at work. Just as the Egyptians imagined Ahriman-Typhon at work in the wind and weather, in the winter storms, so must modern man, when he sees through the matter, imagine that Lucifer appears to him in the sunshine and the glow of the stars, in the movements of the planets and the moon. Just as we have the Copernican-Galilean-Keplerian worldview, so too is it a Luciferic construct. Precisely because it corresponds to our Ahrimanic powers of cognition, its content—I ask you to distinguish this carefully—is Luciferic.

[ 13 ] At the time when the Mystery of Golgotha was taking place, that which enables human beings to look into the world with insight was at work in a twofold way as the divine Sophia, as the wisdom that penetrates the world. Through the revelation to the poor shepherds in the fields, through the revelation to the Magi from the East, the divine Sophia, the heavenly wisdom, was at work. This wisdom, which existed in its final form among the Gnostics—from whom the early Christian Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church drew upon to comprehend the Mystery of Golgotha—has not been able to take root in modern times; it has been overwhelmed, it has been slain by Lucifer, just as Osiris was once slain by Ahriman-Typhon. It is not Osiris or Christ that we have lost; what we have lost is that which we have in place of Isis. Lucifer has killed her. And unlike Typhon, who cast Osiris into the Nile and then initially sank what had been killed into the earth, the Isis-being killed by Lucifer—divine wisdom—has been cast out into the vastness of the cosmos; it has been cast out into the ocean of the worlds. As we gaze out into this ocean and see the connections between the stars only through mathematical lines, buried within them is that which spiritually permeates this world—the divine Sophia has been slain, this successor to Isis has been slain.

[ 14 ] We must create this legend, for it represents the truth of our time. We must speak in the same sense of Isis—who was killed and lost to us—or of the divine Sophia, just as the ancient Egyptians spoke of Osiris, who was lost and killed. And we must set out with that which we do not comprehend but which is within us—with the power of Christ, with the new Osiris power—and seek the body of the modern Isis, the body of the divine Sophia. We must approach Luciferian natural science and seek the coffin of Isis; that is to say, we must find, within what natural science gives us, that which inwardly stimulates imagination, inspiration, and intuition. For through this we acquire the help of Christ within us, who nevertheless remains obscure and dark to us unless we enlighten ourselves through divine wisdom. Equipped with this Christ-force, with the new Osiris, we must set out in search of Isis, of the new Isis. Lucifer will not dismember this Isis, as Typhon-Ahriman dismembered Osiris. No, on the contrary: this Isis, in her true form, is spread out in the beauty of the entire cosmos. This Isis is that which shines toward us aurically from the cosmos in many radiant colors. We must understand her by looking into the cosmos and seeing the cosmos aurically in its radiant colors.

[ 15 ] But just as Ahriman-Typhon once came to dismember Osiris, so does Lucifer come—he who obliterates these colors in their differentiation, who causes the parts that are beautifully spread out—the limbs of the newer Isis, those limbs that form the entire celestial vault—to blur into one another, who unites them, who clumps them together. Just as Typhon dismembered Osiris, so does Lucifer assemble, from what shines upon us in manifold auric colors from the universe, that single, uniform white light that radiates through the world—this Luciferic, uniform light against which Goethe turned in his Theory of Colors, opposing the notion that it should contain the colors — which, however, are spread out across the mysterious deeds of the entire cosmos, in their manifold mysterious deeds.

[ 16 ] But we must press on in our search and find Isis once more! And we must gain the ability to project into the universe that which we discover by having found Isis again. We must be able to bring to life before us what we gain through the rediscovered Isis, so that it becomes for us, spiritually, the heavenly realm, the cosmos. We must grasp from within Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. We must project into the heavens what Lucifer made of Isis, just as Isis sank into the earth what Typhon-Ahriman made of the fragments of Osiris. We must understand that through the Christ-force we must find an inner astronomy that in turn reveals to us the universe emerging and acting in the power of the spirit. Then, through this insight into the universe, the rediscovered power of Isis—which is now the power of the divine Sophia—will enable Christ, who has been united with earthly existence since the Mystery of Golgotha, to achieve true effectiveness in human beings through this rediscovered power of Isis, because it leads to true knowledge. It is not Christ who is lacking to us; what is lacking to us is the knowledge of Christ—the Isis of Christ, the Sophia of Christ.

[ 17 ] This is what we should take to heart as the essence of the mystery of Christmas. We must come to say to ourselves: In the 19th century, even theology had come to view Christ merely as the man from Nazareth. That is to say, this theology is thoroughly Luciferized. It no longer looks into the spiritual depths of existence. External knowledge of nature Luciferizes; theology Luciferizes. Of course, when speaking of the inner aspect of the human being, one could just as well say “Ahrimanized,” as you have seen from my discussions. But then one would have to say “Luciferized” or “Ahrimanized” with regard to the Egyptians, as far as the outer aspect is concerned. Modern humanity must also grasp the Christmas Mystery in a new way. They must understand that they must first seek Isis so that Christ may appear to them. What has brought about our misfortune in modern times for civilized humanity is not, after all, that we have lost Christ—who stands before us in a higher glory than Osiris did for the Egyptians—or that we must set out in search of him with the power of Isis. No, what we have lost is the knowledge, the vision of Christ Jesus. We must find this again through the power of Jesus Christ that is within us.

[ 18 ] So we must look at what Christmas is really about. For many people today, Christmas is nothing more than a kind of gift-giving festival—something celebrated out of habit, year after year. Christmas, too, has become what so many things in our lives have become: it has become a cliché. And because these things have become clichés, modern life has descended into its calamities, into its chaos. That is, after all, the deeper reason why modern life has descended into this chaos.

[ 19 ] If, from within our community, we could develop the right feelings toward what has become a mere cliché in the present day, and if, from these right feelings, we could find the impetus for the necessary renewal, then this community, which calls itself anthroposophical, would be worthy of its existence. There should be an understanding within this community of what a serious problem it is for the modern age that things like the Christmas celebration have become mere empty phrases. There should be an understanding that this must not continue in the future, that these things must be given new meaning, that old habits must be abandoned, and that new perspectives must take the place of the old habits. If we cannot muster the inner courage to do this, then we are complicit in the lie of perpetuating the old cliché of the annual Christmas celebration, which is observed without the soul feeling or experiencing anything corresponding to it. For are we, as humanity, still being lifted up to the highest concerns of our humanity by exchanging gifts annually on this Christ festival out of old habit? And by, at most, listening to or participating in the words—which have also become mere phrases—of today’s adherents of the various religious communities? We should refuse to remain content with this inner hollowness of the Christmas celebration. We should be able to make the inner resolution to give such a festival—which is meant to elevate humanity to an understanding of its purpose—a substance that can truly allow the highest, most unique feelings to flow through our souls.

[ 20 ] Ask yourself whether the feelings that live today in people’s minds and hearts—in the Christmas tree, in the gifts people give one another out of old habit, in the Christmas cards on which clichéd phrases are habitually written—ask yourself whether these feelings are the ones that lift humanity up to an understanding of the meaning of its existence on Earth! The fact that we cannot find the courage to rise above the clichés of our time to a new substance—that is what constitutes the misfortune of our time. But we must remember that a new substance must come—a substance that can once again fill us with feelings that are unique, that shake us to our very core, just as those who were true Christians in the first centuries were shaken by the mystery of Golgotha, the appearance of Christ on earth as the highest thing that can be experienced by humanity on earth—we must remember this, and we must once again create something of this kind within our souls.

[ 21 ] Oh, this soul will be able to experience unique sensations when it feels the calling to live out the new Isis legend within modern humanity; this Isis legend of Isis’s killing by Lucifer, of her being cast out into outer space—which has become a mathematical abstraction, that is, the tomb of Isis; of the search for this Isis; of the finding of this Isis through the stimulation of the inner spiritual powers of insight, which then replace the heavens that have died with that which, springing from inner life, causes stars and planets to appear to us once more as monuments to the spiritual forces that surge through space. We look toward the manger in the true sense today only when we experience, in a unique way of feeling, that which surges through space, and then gaze upon that Being who has entered the world through the Child. We know we carry it within us, but we must meet it with understanding. Therefore, just as the Egyptians looked from Osiris to Isis, we must in turn learn to look toward the new Isis, toward the Holy Sophia. It is not through something entering from the outside alone that Christ will reappear in his spiritual form in the course of the 20th century, but through people finding that power represented by the Holy Sophia. The tendency in recent times has been to lose precisely this Isis force, precisely this Marian force. It has been killed by everything that has arisen in the modern consciousness of humanity. And the newer creeds have, in part, eradicated the very concept of Mary.

[ 22 ] This is, in a sense, the mystery of modern humanity: that, fundamentally, Mary-Isis has been killed, that she must be sought—just as Osiris was sought over in Asia—in the vast expanses of the heavens with the power that Christ can unleash within us when we surrender ourselves to him in the true sense.

[ 23 ] Let us truly imagine this, let us immerse ourselves in this newer legend of Isis—which we must experience—let us allow it to permeate our souls, and we will truly experience, in the truest sense, that which many of humanity’s representatives believe fills this Holy Night as we enter Christmas Day! It could well be that this anthroposophical community is a community of people united in love because they feel that a shared quest is their responsibility. Let us become aware of this, our most intimate and heartfelt task! Let us place ourselves in spirit before the manger; let us offer the Christ Child these sacrifices and gifts that lie there, in the knowledge that something unique is to pass through our souls, so that modern humanity may fulfill its tasks—tasks that can lead us out of barbarism and into a truly new civilization!

[ 24 ] However, for this to happen, it is necessary that within our circles we truly help one another in love, that we truly become a community of souls, that all jealousy and the like disappear from our ranks, and that we look not only at one another but all together toward our shared great goal. This is part of the mystery that the Christ Child brought into the world—that we can look toward a common goal without people falling into disharmony with one another, for the common goal signifies union in harmony. And the light of Christmas is meant to shine as a light of peace, a light that can bring outward peace only by first pouring inner peace into human hearts. We should understand that we must say to ourselves: If we are able to work together in love on these great tasks, only then do we truly understand Christmas! If we are not able to do so, then we do not understand Christmas.

[ 25 ] Could we not, at least once, resolve to reflect—when we ourselves have caused disharmony—that such disharmony separates us from the understanding of the One who appeared among humanity on the Night of the World’s Consecration? Could we not allow this Christmas mystery to seep into our souls as that which unites our hearts in love and harmony? If we do not understand in the true sense what spiritual science is, then we cannot do so. But if we bring into this community what we have gathered from all corners of the world—where today only empty phrases and routine prevail—then nothing will come of this community. Let us remember that a difficult year lies ahead for this community, that all our strength must be mustered, and let us celebrate Christmas in this spirit. Oh, how I wish I had words that would speak deeply into each of your hearts this evening! Then each of you would feel how these words I speak today are meant to convey a greeting that is an invitation to warm spiritual science in your hearts, so that it may become a force capable of helping humanity, which is living under terrible pressure.

[ 26 ] The thoughts I wanted to share with you are based on these perspectives. Please be assured that they are meant as a warm Christmas greeting for each and every one of you—something intended to carry you into the new year in the best possible way. Please accept what I wanted to say to you today in this spirit, as a Christmas greeting offered with love.

Isis-Sophia
The Wisdom of God
She killed Lucifer
And on the wings of the world’s forces
Was carried away into the vastness of space.

The Will of Christ
Working within humanity,—
It will snatch away Lucifer
And, through the messengers of spiritual knowledge
Awaken within the seas of humanity
Isis-Sophia
The wisdom of God.