The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. Knowledge of Christ through Anthroposophy

[ 1 ] Yesterday I took the liberty of speaking about the path that leads from the physical-sensory world into the supersensory world—the path that contemporary anthroposophy must characterize as the one that leads to a certain form of precise clairvoyance. I spoke of precise clairvoyance because, in fact, our time must demand such precise clairvoyance. All ages have had clairvoyance, the foundation of the science of initiation, but they accepted this clairvoyance as something emerging from the human being in an elemental way, or at least produced from the human being in an elemental way; and those individuals who arrived at such spiritual science were, after all, for the most part also dependent on the authority of those who had preceded them in the possession of such initiatory science. In the current epoch of human development, we should no longer rely on such a principle of authority, for that would contradict what human beings today must demand in accordance with the state of their souls. We have had an exact science for three, four, or five centuries. Of course, this exact science is not yet initiatory science. But this exact science exerts a certain control over the method of research and the method of thinking. It exerts this control from within the full consciousness of the human personality, and anyone who, as a spiritual researcher, wishes to attain exact clairvoyance in the anthroposophical sense must continually exercise such control today.

[ 2 ] When we allow the insights into the cosmos and into the human being that can be attained through such clairvoyance to take effect within us, it does not merely have the effect of a theoretical worldview, nor is it merely a sum of ideas one knows about the spiritual and supersensible worlds; rather, this modern science of initiation also acts as a force—a spiritually living force—that can permeate and enrich the whole human being in all their faculties. We have already been able to demonstrate this in a certain way by giving artistic form to that which otherwise appears only in the form of ideas about the spiritual world. The Goetheanum in Dornach, this School of Spiritual Science, was founded through the self-sacrificing generosity of a number of friends of the anthroposophical cause; it is under construction and has reached the stage where work can already be carried out there today—indeed, for quite some time now—even though it is not yet complete. If another spiritual movement had had reason to erect such a building, it would have been natural for that movement to have commissioned a well-known architect who would have designed a building in the ancient, Renaissance, or Gothic style—or in any other stylistic form—just as one would design a building today. That could not be done with the Goetheanum in Switzerland. It would have contradicted the anthroposophical worldview, which does not merely seek to immerse itself in ideas but aims to be a living presence in the realm of human activity. It hardly needs to be said that it is imperfect. I am my own harshest critic in this regard. Yet as imperfect as the Goetheanum is today as a building, as a work of art, and as a whole, it was nevertheless necessary to erect this Goetheanum—because anthroposophy seeks to carry it forward as a model for modern humanity—in a new architectural style, a new artistic style. Thus, in Dornach at the Goetheanum, one encounters architectural forms drawn from the very same life from which the ideas about the supersensible are drawn, as proclaimed through the spoken word. Thus, everything one can find in Dornach in the way of sculpture and painting is carried by a new style, from which anthroposophy is to be born in modern life. Anyone who visits this School of Spiritual Science will find that, on the one hand, the anthroposophical worldview is proclaimed in words from its podium; on the other hand, the architectural forms and the works of painting express in an artistic way the very same things that are expressed through the spoken word. What can take effect from the stage is meant to be merely another form of revelation than that which can be achieved through the spoken word. Anthroposophy should not only express itself in words, but should spring from a deep human root, of which theoretical anthroposophy is but one branch, and of which the artistic and the educational are other branches. Thus, anthroposophical life is a factor in the most diverse areas of human existence.

[ 3 ] Today in Stuttgart, you will find the so-called Waldorf School, where anthroposophy—as it is usually taught—is not intended to be taught to children by adults, for it is not a school based on a particular worldview. Religious instruction there is provided by Catholic priests for Catholic students and by Protestant pastors for Protestant students, in accordance with their respective religious views. Those who do not request a specific religious education—and there are so many of them in Germany—are provided by us with a religious interpretation of anthroposophy that has been specially prepared for them. But what the Waldorf school aims to achieve comes to fruition when anthroposophy is brought to life—into the truly practical art of education, into pedagogy and didactics, and into all aspects of education and instruction in general. What the teacher does—how he or she educates, how he or she teaches—is what is alive in his or her entire personality. It is kindled by anthroposophy. I highlight this second area to show how anthroposophy seeks to have a life-giving effect on the most diverse areas of human existence.

[ 4 ] It can, however, have a particularly vital effect—and indeed has already had such an effect in many respects—on the religious needs of humanity. In today’s reflection, I would like to speak to you specifically about how it affects these religious needs, insofar as civilized humanity adheres to a certain understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. I will have to build upon what I characterized yesterday as the anthroposophical path upward into the supersensible world.

[ 5 ] I have shown that through certain exercises of the soul, one can first acquire imaginative knowledge. This imaginative insight lives within the human soul in such a way that a person is able, through the mere power of thought—which otherwise provides only shadowy, abstract thoughts—to receive images that live just as vividly in the soul and are just as intense as the images that come to a person through sensory perception. Just as we otherwise think in colors when we surrender to the impressions of our eyes, and just as we otherwise think in tones when we surrender to the impressions of our ears, so do we experience our thoughts in imaginative cognition. When we can experience our thoughts inwardly—when they appear not merely as abstract outlines but as images rich in content—then we are in a state of imaginative cognition. I indicated yesterday that one can perceive the time organism, the human body of formative forces, through imaginative perception. But we must be aware that when we rise to this imaginative insight, we possess something imaginative within us. This is what distinguishes the anthroposophical researcher from the hallucinator or the medium: that he attains precise clairvoyance, that he is able to recognize and see through the fact that these are initially only images that exist within the human being himself. Even when we have the body of formative forces through which we recognize how a plastic formative force has been at work on our earthly organism since our birth, we are still only perceiving something subjective. I have, however, indicated how one can, so to speak, suggest oneself to forget or erase the images one possesses—as one can do, for example, in a state of empty consciousness. But then one no longer has those subjective images that one had at first. This empty consciousness, however, contains the power to receive such images from the outside.

[ 6 ] It is important that we, as anthroposophical researchers, be aware that we must eradicate the first form of imaginations; that we then have an empty consciousness, which is, however, so alert in itself that it possesses the energetic power to receive only such images—purely spiritual images—from the external world. We thus initially have the image of our own soul-spiritual life, before we descended from the spiritual worlds to inhabit our physical body. We can then also perceive objective images of what is spiritual and soul-related in our surroundings. Such an objective image is then incorporated when one possesses inspired insight. For the anthroposophical researcher, revelations from the spiritual world flow into his empty consciousness—now in the form of objective images, just as he had previously generated them subjectively within himself by strengthening his thinking through precise exercises.

[ 7 ] What do we learn about ourselves when, in this way, we fill empty consciousness with objective imaginations through inspired insight? We learn what was known to us before we descended from the spiritual world into the physical world. But we also learn something else. We discover what we have brought with us from the spiritual world into our physical existence: for our consciousness, this is initially nothing more than the power of thought. It is a significant discovery we are making here. Philosophers reflect a great deal on how this thinking came about; the anthroposophist knows that this thinking could never have arisen from the physical body, but that it is the power he brought with him from the spiritual world before descending to Earth. There, this thinking was something entirely different from what it is in ordinary earthly consciousness. Here, our thoughts are abstract—precisely suited to thinking about the dead. Here, anyone who is serious about the science of initiation in modern times must present to humanity something that may not be welcome today. I would like to illustrate what I have presented by means of a comparison.

[ 8 ] On the side of our limited human existence on earth that is opposite to birth lies death. Through death, we leave behind the corpse. The earthly corpse is what remains of our physical body after death, but through burial—whether by fire or by earth—the corpse will pass into its element, the earth. After passing through death, it ceases to follow the laws that have been imprinted upon it by human soul life since birth. The corpse now follows earthly laws. It no longer carries within itself anything soulful or spiritual, in the human sense, anything human; it follows the same laws of nature that the minerals outside follow as they exist within the realm of nature. This is the physical fate of the human physical body when death occurs. Such a death—and this must be recognized—also occurs when the soul descends from the spiritual-soul existence to incarnate itself into a physical body through birth. The soul enters this physical body of the human being just as the human physical body enters the elements of the earth after death. But what we first perceive from the spiritual world into our consciousness are our thoughts; it is our power of thought. And our power of thought is the corpse of the soul-spiritual. While this soul-spiritual had its own life in the soul-spiritual world before the human being’s earthly existence, the human being takes up only the corpse of the power of thought that he previously possessed. We carry within our physical body—just as the earth carries the physical corpse after our physical death—our thoughts, the soul’s corpse from our soul life. Because this is so, today’s understanding is so unsatisfactory, for while human beings carry the corpse of their soul within themselves, they grasp, in a certain sense, only lifeless nature; and it is an illusion to believe that through experiments today they will achieve anything other than lifeless nature. Certainly, we will go further than merely representing the lifeless; we will represent organic bodily characteristics. But one will not understand them with undeveloped thinking—with the thinking of personal consciousness—even if one had produced them oneself in the laboratory. With this thinking, which is the corpse of the soul and is spiritually dead, only the dead can be comprehended.

[ 9 ] This is a truth that must be accepted with complete impartiality, for one must be clear that there was once a period in human development when people internalized this dead thinking, this abstract thinking. But it is only through this abstract thinking—which has no inner vitality and exerts no compulsion on the inner human being—that a person can attain freedom. That is why freedom has been developing ever since death came into being. We will see later on what we now achieve through thinking—imagination, inspiration, and intuition—as I hinted at yesterday. This is the true revitalization of dead thinking. When, through exercises, we reach the point where imagination stands before us, then thinking comes alive within us again in such a way that we can say to ourselves: Before, our power of thought gave us no conception of what we were before we descended from the spiritual into the earthly; now that our thinking is alive again, we look back through imagined and inspired thinking into our pre-birth existence in the spiritual world; now we recognize that, before we were somehow received into the physical body on Earth at conception, we lived in a spiritual existence. In that, existence is alive. Just as we conceive of it in the singular consciousness of the physical body, so it is dead. Through imagination, it comes alive again. We bring to life that which is the unborn soul. And so what is attained through imagination and inspiration—this spiritual world in which we now live, this higher, true capacity for thinking, this perception of spiritual forms, spiritual beings, and spiritual events—is nothing other than a revitalization of that which is dead to ordinary consciousness. But now, within this enlivening of ordinary thinking toward imagination and inspiration for modern humanity, something occurs that would not yet have occurred for the ancient Greeks—and especially not for the ancient Egyptians or ancient Persians—nor for all those people in the science of initiation who received this science before the Mystery of Golgotha. The process of revitalization in the science of initiation was quite different before Christ descended from the spiritual heights to Earth than it is afterward for humanity today. History is viewed today in terms of external deeds. But how the states of the human soul have changed in the course of history is not taken into account today. This, however, can only be known through the science of initiation, through clairvoyance in the exact sense. Once a person has attained imagination and inspiration, they must say to themselves: Something has entered into me that unsettles me. — I mention this as an unusual fact, for the startling reality is that today, when a person rises to the level of imagination and inspiration, they experience genuine unease. This is because today, when a person becomes clairvoyant, they must say to themselves: “Through my development, I have become too selfish; my ‘I’ has become too intense; my ‘I’ has become too strong.”

[ 10 ] No one who has been properly instructed in these matters will say anything else—unless they are spreading illusions—because they know that this unease arises in the human mind, causing a person to say to themselves: “My ‘I’ is too strong.” — For those who preceded the Mystery of Golgotha, the experience was the exact opposite. They had to tell themselves: “Through the science of initiation, my ‘I’ has become weaker. I have become, in a certain sense, less conscious; I am less present within myself; I have less of myself as a human being, but as an ‘I’ I grow stronger when I lack the science of initiation.” — This is a natural, healthy egoism that must exist in ordinary life, and which, in a certain sense, was extinguished through initiation in the person who lived before the Mystery of Golgotha. Through it, he felt as if he were poured out into the world; the height and strength of his consciousness were subdued.

[ 11 ] Through initiation, modern human beings become more self-aware: the “I” becomes more conscious and stronger. The first person to sense that, when one is initiated, the “I” needs something to prevent it from becoming dangerously too strong was Paul. Paul had known this ever since the event described in the New Testament as his experience on the road to Damascus. I need not recount this, as it is well known. But what Paul knew through his insight, through the Mystery of Golgotha, was that he had gained insight into the spiritual world. In order to bear this insight without danger, he had to weaken his “I.” And Paul presented to the world a universal formula that expresses what the new initiate must say. It reads: “Not I, but Christ in me.”

[ 12 ] This is how one acts in accordance with this power of Christ: when one recognizes that one is absorbing Christ into the “I” that has become too strong, one imbues oneself with the Christ-power that came into the Earth through the Mystery of Golgotha. Then the “I” is once again integrated into the human being in the proper way. This saying of Paul is of universal significance: “Not I, but Christ in me”—it provides direction and guidance for those who experience the Christ force through modern initiation.

[ 13 ] What I described regarding today’s abstract thinking—that, in relation to its true nature in prenatal existence, it is a corpse dwelling within our physical body—is, as I have already indicated, true only of the human being of the present age. However, by “people of the present day,” one must understand those who have gradually prepared themselves for today’s state of soul since the Mystery of Golgotha. Thinking only began to take on the character it has today—in fact, only a few centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha, around the third or fourth century. Before that, among all ancient peoples, thinking had still brought with it life—an inner vitality—down into earthly existence. It had brought with it a vitality that it had previously possessed in its spiritual-soul existence. Anyone who truly studies the development of humanity with full inner awareness, particularly with regard to the inner state of the soul, can easily come to see that this is the case. Consider all the ancient worldviews—those that arose from initiatory science, as well as those that did not: In every worldview that has ever existed, it was still the case that when a person looked out at the mineral world, at the rivers, springs, clouds, lightning, and thunder, at the plants and animals, that person regarded them as something spiritual. It is merely a trivial notion to think today that the spiritualization of nature—what is commonly called animism—arose from mere poetic imagination. This animism never existed; rather, there existed within human souls a way of thinking that, in gazing upon plants, simultaneously perceived a spiritual force at work. Just as people today, in their ordinary consciousness, look at the green color of leaves or the red color of flowers, so did people in ancient times perceive a spiritual-soul force at work; they saw it in clouds, in rivers, in mountains and valleys. They saw everything that today is viewed only in a non-spiritual way as inwardly imbued with spirit. Why did they see it as inwardly imbued with spirit? Because they possessed within themselves a living force that had taken root in them. This way of thinking extended spiritually toward things just as we today extend our hands when we touch things. In this way, one grasps—I would say—the spiritual-soul aspect of things, proceeding from living organs of thought to spiritual organs of touch. But the living quality of thought, which was very intense in the ancient times of human history—and to which the science of initiation alone points—became less and less pronounced. This vitality of thought was increasingly dampened, and since the fourth century A.D., it has gradually become apparent that our thinking is inwardly dead; that when we look out, through lifeless thinking we can see only death in living beings—in plant life, in animal life, and indeed in outward human existence. And so the people of ancient times, by observing themselves, experienced that something lived within them—namely, living thought—which was merely the continuation of that which constituted their very being in the spiritual world before their birth, so that they could consciously say to themselves: “I live in the same living element in which I lived before I had life on earth.” They felt within themselves that which was born with them and had merely entered the physical body. This has been different for human beings since the third or fourth century A.D. When such a person looks within, they feel dead thinking. This gradual inner withering away of thinking is the most important, the most significant historical event of all.

[ 14 ] Now we can imagine that nothing had happened in earthly existence except that this way of thinking gradually began to appear in the human soul as something that was fading away. Let us imagine for a brief moment that earthly evolution had continued as it began, that it had proceeded through the third and fourth centuries A.D. just as it would have if the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place on Earth. What would then have happened to the human soul if no cross had been raised on Golgotha? Then what would have happened is that people would have felt dead within their earthly bodies, and upon contemplating the death of the physical body, they would have had to say to themselves: With my birth on Earth, my soul begins to die; it shares in the death of the physical body. — If there had been no Mystery of Golgotha, then what would have happened to humanity on Earth is that, with the death of the physical bodies, the soul would have died as well—at first in a less intense sense, but then it would have spread across the entire Earth. We can increasingly recognize how tragic it would be if we had to say to ourselves: We humans are so connected to the earth that we die along with our bodies. The vitality we possessed up until the third or fourth century—we can no longer have it. Now we can only allow our soul to share in the fate of our physical body; it will die. At most, people might say to themselves: “Life on Earth will continue for a while longer, because death has not yet claimed everyone; but death will eventually come to all.” — Yet this is not the case. The Mystery of Golgotha has been fulfilled, and things will not proceed as they did in the past.

[ 15 ] However, those who have undergone the science of initiation view the Mystery of Golgotha in a different way than the ordinary mind can through the Gospel—which is not to say anything against this way of viewing it through the Gospels. This is the path one must first take when taking root in Christianity. But what is conveyed to the simplest mind through the Gospel is further developed when people come into contact with the science of initiation. For those who do not cling to mere faith, as people ascend from inspiration to intuition, a spiritual world arises in which the Mystery of Golgotha holds, especially for the initiate, the great comfort in earthly existence. The initiate has previously sensed—if he has progressed correctly through imagination and inspiration—that his “I” has become too strong, not insofar as it constitutes the basis for human freedom, but in that this overly strong “I” can force its way into the development that must save humanity from what would result from dead thinking. From the perspective of the science of initiation, one sees all the more clearly the tragedy of dying thought. But in the background rises the truth of the Mystery of Golgotha. I would like to say that while on the one hand there stands in the human soul the pole that tells us: ‘Your “I” has become too strong,’—there you stand firm as a spiritual being—on the other side appears, at the precise historical moment as a historical event but viewed supersensually, the passage of the divine being Christ, first through the body of Jesus of Nazareth, then through death on Golgotha.

[ 16 ] When one goes through the initiation in the proper way, one experiences, on the one hand, a strengthening of the “I” at one pole, and on the other hand, the truth of the Mystery of Golgotha. Behind the Gospels—beyond what one can grasp through ordinary reading—there arises an intuitive vision and insight, from which the Gospels themselves ultimately emerged. The initiate does not rely on what the Gospels tell him. Through the very same power by which he receives the described awareness of his own existence after death—through inspiration and intuition—he receives imagination and the truth of the external world objectively presented to him, so that he could write the Gospel himself if it had not already been written. He even gains the correct awareness regarding the Gospel writers. He says to himself: In the first three to four Christian centuries, there was still so much that was alive from ancient times that individual people—even without having been initiated into the science of initiation themselves—were able to look upon the Mystery of Golgotha and interpret it correctly. Had the ancient initiates not interpreted the Mystery of Golgotha during the first four Christian centuries within the Gnosticism of that time—which is not identical to, but only similar to, today’s anthroposophy—there would be no Gospels, for the Gospels were written out of such old-style initiatory science. One learns to recognize the Mystery of Golgotha and, at the same time, the origin of the Gospels by mentally visualizing the events that the first Gospel writers recorded in the Gospels. In this way, one learns to recognize the Mystery of Golgotha; one learns to understand how Paul could truly say: If Christ had not risen, our faith would be in vain, and our souls would remain dead. — Yes, one now comes to understand what would have happened if the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place, if a God had not descended to pass through a human body, to suffer death in that human body, and then to unite with the forces of the Earth. For since then He has united Himself with the forces of the earth, and the Christ forces have lived with the earth ever since the Mystery of Golgotha—namely, with the earthly development of humanity, in which they were not present before. What Paul meant by the risen Christ was that Christ had to experience death and did experience it, but that he triumphed over death, that he emerged victorious from death through the Resurrection as a spiritual-living being, and has continued to live ever since with humanity for the sake of this humanity, which without Christ would have only dead thinking. He can therefore remember that a God—Christ—descended to Earth and lives on Earth. Whereas in ancient times thinking itself still imparted its living character to earthly life, since the third and fourth centuries—it was easier before—the earthly soul has been able to have its thinking awakened through the direct vision of the Mystery of Golgotha. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, this soul has been so enlivened in its thinking that human beings no longer have to die with their bodies, as they would have had to if the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place. By lifting his gaze from his ego—which has become too strong—and beholding the images of the Mystery of Golgotha, the initiate can, as it were, read the development of the human soul from the spiritual world. Through his insight into this specific chapter of the science of initiation, he knows that Christ, through his Resurrection, has brought human souls back to life. Thus, modern initiatory science in the anthroposophical sense leads to an inner, living understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. It is therefore not a path away from Christ, but a path toward Christ. Through it, Christ is found in a spiritual way.

[ 17 ] Now, in closing, allow me to present, in a brief, cursory sketch, a development of humanity as it emerges from modern initiatory science under the influence of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 18 ] When we look back to the very earliest times of human historical development, we find that ordinary consciousness takes shape exactly as I have just described it. Thinking is alive; human beings perceive a spiritual aspect in all beings of nature around them, alongside the physical. Admittedly, their consciousness is dreamlike when they perceive this spiritual aspect. But in this dreamlike consciousness—I would say, in this instinctive clairvoyance—there is still very much an original connection to the spiritual world through living thinking. Yet from the mass of people in those primeval times—just as learned scientists do today—there emerged those who possessed a certain kind of initiatory science in the ancient sense; and one can call all knowledge of earlier times “initiatory science,” because even the ordinary person possessed a kind of clairvoyance. They had not acquired what I have described, but they had developed a certain capacity for imagination, inspiration, and intuition. In intuition of any kind, however, human beings experienced not only the images of the spiritual world but also the very nature of the spiritual beings themselves. In a sense, they flowed with their I-being into the spiritual realm. This was experienced through the science of initiation in the early stages of human development, so that people experienced precisely those beings who descended from the spiritual worlds to be with humanity. They were not physical beings, nor were they beings that could have been perceived by the physical senses, such as those who might have used words that could be heard with physical ears. They were beings with whom one could only come into contact through spiritual vision. But in such powerful spiritual vision, the initiates of primeval times were in contact with beings who descended to them in spiritual bodies—not in physical bodies—and who, in a certain way, instructed them about what they could not attain on their own through physical thinking: a spiritual-soul existence. And this is the most essential aspect of this ancient knowledge. If we wish to express this in a clear sentence, we must say: The first great teachers of humanity were spiritual beings who communicated in a spiritual manner with the first initiates, teaching them the mysteries of human birth and the mysteries of the living soul that descended from the supersensible-spiritual worlds before birth.

[ 19 ] What people knew directly in those ancient times through revelations from the spiritual world itself were the mysteries of birth. Through the full, ancient clairvoyant knowledge, human beings came to understand—what they had already sensed through their instinctive clairvoyance—that they are unborn. Through the ancient science of initiation, they learned to look back upon their destinies in their spiritual soul before they descended into the physical world. It was the mysteries of human birth that were taught in ancient times. Even though the mysteries were outwardly addressed in certain cults and ritual acts—prefiguring, as it were, what was to happen prophetically through the Mystery of Golgotha—it was not yet as it later became for humanity after the Mystery of Golgotha. Before the Mystery of Golgotha, human beings did not yet view death in the same way as they would later. They knew they were unborn, endowed with a living soul, just as they had been before descending into physical life. They expected this living soul to pass through death. Death had not yet presented itself to their souls with its full tragedy. They did not yet say to themselves: With death, my soul could die. — They knew that their soul was alive. But as the time drew near when thinking became increasingly lifeless, when abstract thinking descended from the spiritual world like a corpse, and as human beings then came to realize—a realization that grew ever more significant within them—that the outer human being dies: through the cults that were practiced and that pointed to the Mystery of Golgotha, people found comfort in this. They told themselves: The gods—and therefore also the divine human souls—cannot die; they must rise again. — That was a comfort brought about solely by the cult; it was not yet knowledge. Knowledge only arose, beyond death, through the Mystery of Golgotha. Then we looked to these ancient spiritual teachers who had descended from the spiritual worlds. As paradoxical as this may sound to people today, it must be said from the perspective of initiatory science: These spiritual teachers, who lived as spiritual beings in the supersensible world, descended only when human beings opened their souls to them. These spiritual teachers of humanity were beings who lived in the divine world and descended to human beings only as teachers, but did not participate in human destinies, and who themselves did not know the mystery of death.

[ 20 ] It is in itself an important mystery that, in essence, people in very ancient times received teachings from higher worlds that dealt with the mystery of birth, but not with the mystery of death. From souls who themselves had only passed through birth, people learned the mystery of life. And as the first Christian initiates were able to look upon the mystery of Golgotha, they perceived something that could not be perceived through any ancient mystery wisdom: They perceived that in those worlds from which that wisdom had been revealed to them, there was no knowledge of death, because none of those beings had yet undergone human destinies—that is, had themselves passed through death. These spiritual-divine teachers of humanity knew of birth, but not of death. Through a fate beyond the divine, human thinking had developed in such a way that people had to live with the fear that, with the death of the body, they would simultaneously experience the death of their soul. And it was decided in the realm of the gods to send a god down to Earth so that he might pass through death as a god and, in divine wisdom, take in the experience of death. This is what is revealed through the intuitive contemplation of the Mystery of Golgotha—through which something happened not only for human beings, but also for the gods. The gods saw, as it were—whereas previously they could only speak to the people of Earth of the mystery of birth—how the Earth was gradually outgrowing the very forces they themselves had placed within it, and how death would take hold of the soul. And so they sent Christ to Earth, so that a god might come to know human death and, with his divine power, overcome it. This is the divine event: For the sake of their own destinies, the gods introduced the Mystery of Golgotha as a divine event into the evolution of the cosmos; the gods also allowed this Mystery of Golgotha to take place for the sake of the gods themselves. Whereas in the past all events took place in spiritual-divine worlds, now a God descended, and a superhuman event was carried out on Earth in an earthly form itself. What took place on Golgotha was thus a spiritual event transposed onto Earth. This is the crucial insight gained about Christianity through modern anthroposophical spiritual science.

[ 21 ] When a person then turns his gaze toward the Mystery of Golgotha, so that he can see how the Divine participates in the development of the Earth—what it has accomplished for the Earth and for the Earth’s destiny—then he will be looking at something that concerns the gods. As long as one’s actions are confined to earthly life, one learns to develop what pertains to the Earth and to humanity. As long as this is the case, one possesses only limited powers that are insufficient to overcome the stronger “I.” But when one must go beyond to an understanding and comprehension of the Mystery of Golgotha, one arrives at what is superterrestrial and can no longer be grasped by earthly reason; for this, one needs a mind that transcends the earthly. Thus, only through the inspiration of the science of initiation can we look upon the event of Golgotha—which took place within earthly existence—as something that has been placed upon the Earth as both a cosmic and an earthly reality. Through this, we bring into ourselves the powerful force of insight that can truly lead us to say: Through ordinary earthly-human powers, I take from the Earth everything that the Earth gives me, as a human being, for my I. When I turn my gaze toward the Mystery of Golgotha, I take in something that lifts me beyond this earth, something that kindles within me a life that could not otherwise be kindled: through my devotion to this Mystery of Golgotha, I take in the supersensible. I recognize that humanity must have a new kind of supersensible inner feeling and knowledge, in contrast to the old way, when people still felt living thought; that human beings can still attain such knowledge through the Mystery of Golgotha, through which they experience their dead thinking—which they consciously introduce into supersensible existence—so that they can say: “It is not I, but Christ within me who now truly brings me to life according to the Mystery of Golgotha.”

[ 22 ] Modern initiation science—modern anthroposophy—aims precisely to provide the living inspiration that enables human beings to say such things. Because we ourselves receive this inspiration through modern initiatory science, we will see that what emerges from it is not an anti-religious or irreligious life, but a deepened religious life for humanity, as we consciously turn away from what has been handed down from ancient times. But through the spiritual-scientific understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, human beings will be led beyond all the doubts that are so strongly present in religious life today, through the study of external science, which has indeed made us free human beings—a science that, on the one hand, has achieved great external triumphs, but on the other hand sows understandable doubts in the human heart regarding one’s religious sense and the knowledge of one’s supersensible nature. Anthroposophy sets itself the task of sweeping away from the human soul and being the strongest doubts that can be planted there solely by external science, because anthroposophical science, precisely out of the spirit of science, must overcome what external science cannot overcome. This anthroposophical science will in turn be able to plant a truly religious life within the human soul. For it will not contribute to the destruction of the religious sense; rather, it can add to human development in such a way that human beings regain a religious sense for everything, and that they gain a new understanding of Christianity through their inclination toward the Mystery of Golgotha—a mystery that can truly be understood and accepted by all people only through this science.

[ 23 ] Since the individual not only revives the old religious sense but also acquires a new religious sense through knowledge gained in this way, it can therefore be said that anthroposophy by no means strives to be sectarian. It does not seek this, any more than any other science does. Anthroposophy does not seek to form sects; it seeks to be a servant of the religions that already exist, and in this sense, it seeks to be a revitalizer of Christianity. In doing so, it does not merely seek to preserve the old religious sense, nor is it merely called upon to carry forward the old, evolving religious life; it seeks to contribute not merely to the revitalization but to the resurrection of religious life, because this religious life has suffered all too much at the hands of modern existence and modern civilization. That is why anthroposophy wishes to be a messenger of love—not merely a reviver of the old religious spirit, but an awakener to the resurrection of humanity’s inner religious spirit.