The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Christ in His Relationship with Humanity

[ 1 ] Yesterday, an attempt was made to explore how humanity makes the transition from the spiritual world—where it dwells as a spiritual-soul being in its pre-earthly existence—to this physical Earth. This understanding of the eternal core of the human being—based on the recognition of pre-earthly existence—is absolutely necessary if one wishes to bring to mind the very essential intervention of Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha in the development of humanity on Earth. For in order to arrive at an understanding of the true nature of the Mystery of Golgotha, one must be able to trace how, through this event, a being from the spiritual worlds—Christ—descended from extra-earthly regions into earthly existence itself as a being who had previously been only in those regions where we ourselves spend our pre-earthly existence, and how this being then descended and assumed an earthly form and an earthly mission in the person of Jesus.

[ 2 ] If one wishes to arrive at such an understanding of Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha in connection with the events surrounding the birth of the human being—which I outlined briefly yesterday—one must first and foremost take into account that the human soul’s constitution, the inner human experience, has undergone a very significant transformation and very significant changes in the course of human development on Earth. Today, the matter is often viewed as if the state of the soul and the forms of consciousness in which modern human beings find themselves—both in the waking state and in sleep—had always existed within humanity, at least in essence, ever since human history began. At most, the scientific-cosmological worldview refers to primitive, semi-animal-like forms of early humanity—we will speak of these later—in which, of course, the human inner life must also be conceived differently in terms of thinking, feeling, and willing than that of a modern human being. But today, very little attention is paid to the transformations that human consciousness—the entire inner state of the human soul—has undergone since the dawn of Earth’s evolution. And yet there is something immeasurably important and essential at work here.

[ 3 ] If we go back to very ancient times in human evolution—we need not go as far back as the primeval ages of Earth’s evolution, but only to about the 2nd or 3rd millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha—we find that people at that time had a completely different consciousness, a completely different inner state of soul than they did later. That stark difference that exists in modern humans between waking and sleeping was certainly present then as well, but it was not the only aspect of the daily shift in human consciousness. Today, people know only the waking state and the sleeping state, with dreams in between. But regarding these dreams, it must be said that while they do contain a content of consciousness, this content is often deceptive, and that in any case, this content of consciousness in dreams does not point to any reality that a person can readily verify directly through their waking consciousness; indirectly, certainly. But apart from these three states of consciousness—one of which, the dream state, is a highly questionable one—at least for the purposes of cognition—there existed among people of an earlier age an intermediate state that was not the dream state of today, that was not as fully awake as today’s wakefulness, but that was also not full sleep or semi-conscious dreaming as it exists today; rather, it was, one might say, a pictorial waking-dreaming. In this waking-dreaming, images unfolded just as thoughts unfold in our waking consciousness. Thus, at certain times, images unfolded in the consciousness of an earlier humanity. These images were, in their forms, certainly similar to the dream images of today, but what they contained pointed to a distinctly supersensory reality, just as our perceptions point to a physical reality. Just as we know that when we perceive a physical being with colors and forms, it is physically real, so too did earlier humans experience images that moved just as freely in consciousness and were just as light as our dream images, but which, through their content, themselves attested to a spiritual reality. Just as we today, when the eye perceives something, know with absolute certainty that there is something physical and sensory out there in the world—so early humans knew, when such images of a certain kind unfolded in their consciousness, that they were perceiving something spiritually real.

[ 4 ] Among the things that people of an earlier epoch experienced as spiritual reality was also an echo of their pre-earthly existence. People of that epoch simply had inner experiences in their souls every day that served as full proof to them that: Before you began your earthly existence, you were in a spiritual-soul existence, in a purely spiritual world. — And every day, the people of that earlier epoch knew this. Thus, for these people, the belief in an eternal core of the human being and in a world beyond the earth—to which humanity belongs just as much as to the earthly one—was something entirely clear. And those who, in those earlier times, as initiates of the Mysteries, were also initiated into the deeper aspects of this entire matter, were then able to speak to those who professed this belief—drawing upon their initiatory knowledge—in such a way that these believers these believers could come to the conviction that they were looking into an echo of their pre-earthly existence and, at the same time, into a spiritual world to which human beings belong with their eternal core of being. This is a grace of the spiritual being, to which the physical sun corresponds as its physical image. Thus, the adherent of the ancient mystery wisdom could say to himself: I look up at the sun, but this outer, physical sun is only an image of a spiritual solar being. This spiritual solar being permeates the spiritual world from which I myself have descended into earthly existence, and the power of this solar being has endowed my soul for earthly life with that which ensures that, among the experiences of my soul during my time on Earth, I also possess that through which—when looking back on my pre-earthly existence—I am certain of the eternal core of my being within my soul.

[ 5 ] For those who, in earlier times—supported by the power of their initiates—perceived the grace of the Solar Being and thus, through their visual consciousness, knew of their pre-earthly existence and thereby of their eternal core being, human death on Earth was not yet a particular mystery. For they knew that this human death affects only the physical human organism. — But they knew something within themselves that had only descended into this physical human organism. For him, death became merely an event that did not affect that which he already knew through his outer form of consciousness. Such, then, was the state of the human soul in a very ancient epoch, in those epochs that preceded the Mystery of Golgotha. Essentially, the mystery of birth lay revealed before an inward-turned gaze that was working its way upward toward the grace of the Solar Being, and in connection with the insight into this mystery of birth, the enigma of death did not yet exist in the same way as it did for later human beings.

[ 6 ] I will discuss how this changed over time in the second part of this lecture.

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[ 7 ] This consciousness, which lived in images—in connection with its effect on the rest of the soul’s constitution—presented itself to the human soul of that earlier humanity in such a way that the active, intense sense of self that today’s humanity possesses simply did not yet exist in those earlier times. Human beings had insight into the eternal core of their being, but not a distinct inner sense of their “I” essence. Nor would they have attained this had the gift of that earlier image-consciousness remained. But this gift of that earlier image-consciousness came to an end. Precisely at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha was drawing near within the course of human evolution, this pictorial consciousness began to fade more and more. And increasingly, the state set in that ordinary consciousness still experiences today in the distinction between sleeping and waking as stark opposites, and in the ambiguous dream world lying between them. Human beings had thus lost that aspect of self-knowledge which, through direct perception, pointed to pre-earthly existence and thereby to the eternal core of the human being. But this was precisely what was necessary in order to progress more and more toward full ego-consciousness. Although full ego-consciousness had not yet emerged among all of humanity during that middle period of human development—at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha—it was slowly preparing itself. With this, however, the mystery of death was also presented to humanity in its full extent and with great intensity, for humanity now knew nothing, through direct experience, of the world from which it had descended into earthly existence.

[ 8 ] At the time when human evolution was passing through this stage, Christ appeared, descending from the same world from which the human soul always descends through birth, and united himself with the human being Jesus through the events in Palestine. And those who, at that time, had still preserved the old traditions—and especially the old methods from the places of initiation— methods that were, admittedly, only a remnant of the ancient initiation, but which, even in their weakened state, still led to knowledge of what the spiritual world is like and what connection human beings have with this spiritual world—these initiates were able to speak to humanity in such a way that they said to those who were willing to receive it: The Solar Being, who once blessed humanity with a glimpse of an echo of a pre-earthly existence and whose physical reflection is the physical sun—this Solar Being has descended. For this Solar Being dwelt, or has dwelt, within the human being Jesus. It has taken on a human body so that from this time onward it might not merely be in connection with the spiritual world that a human being passes through between death and a new birth, but might participate in the evolution of humanity on Earth itself.

[ 9 ] Drawing on the remnants of the ancient initiation, the initiates—who were contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha—spoke of the mystery of Christ to those who were willing to receive it, those who had trust in these initiates. And those who had this trust were able to learn how Christ entered an earthly body—not through any kind of doctrinal teaching, but through his deed—to solve for humanity the riddle that has only now come upon humanity with full intensity: the riddle of death. It was precisely to this that these initiates directed people’s attention: that Christ had come to solve the mystery of death on Earth in a manner appropriate to human beings. For in the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place on Earth, people spoke—above all through their knowledge of the remnants of ancient initiation methods—of the spiritual being of Christ as He appears in the spiritual world itself. They described the path that Christ—who had never before descended into earthly existence—had taken from the spiritual world down to Earth. In all these reflections by the initiated contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha, the central teaching was how Christ had made his way down to the human being Jesus and had himself become human in Jesus. They did not merely look to the historical Jesus and ask: What is this historical Jesus in the midst of human evolution? — Ordinary consciousness certainly had this Jesus before it. Some of the contemporaries had him before them; later generations had him before their physical-sensory consciousness through historical tradition. But what remained of the older initiatory science among those who knew something of the spiritual worlds allowed them to say: That Being who was once regarded as the high solar Being, as the bestower of grace that I have described, has made His way to the human being Jesus on Earth. This took place through the events of Golgotha. For human beings, the possibility has ceased in their consciousness to look into pre-earthly existence and thereby actually solve the mystery of death—precisely because they no longer perceived this being: that high solar being who endowed humanity with the power to overcome death on earth through this perception of the echo from pre-earthly existence. This being descended even into earthly existence, took on human form, and passed through the Mystery of Golgotha in order to convey to human beings here on Earth—from the outside in, through the meaning of this event—what it had previously been able to bestow upon them for the inner life of the soul as an echo of pre-earthly existence in their visual consciousness. — This is roughly how the initiated contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha spoke.

[ 10 ] In the past, human beings were endowed with a power within their consciousness that allowed them to directly experience their eternal core being by looking back on a pre-earthly existence. Humanity had to evolve further. It developed a clear earthly “I”-consciousness, which can only be kindled and formed through the sensory world. As a result, that ancient consciousness through which humanity once recognized its eternal core must be curbed. But that Being who once enabled him to recognize this eternal core of his being from the spiritual world accomplished, after His descent to Earth, the Mystery of Golgotha, so that, by contemplating and understanding this Mystery of Golgotha, human beings might experience from the outside what they had previously experienced from within. Through Christ on Earth, human beings are to continue experiencing what they had previously experienced through Christ from the spiritual world.

[ 11 ] I will discuss the significance of this for the further evolution of humanity in the third part of today’s reflection.

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[ 12 ] The remnants of ancient initiation methods, through which it was possible for the contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha—if they had been initiated—or even for their successors, to speak appropriately of the descent of Christ and of the path he took leading up to his descent into the human being Jesus, these remnants persisted, gradually fading in their power within humanity until the 4th century A.D. In the 4th century A.D., the ancient initiation methods ceased to properly evoke within the human organism the forces that yielded flawless insights into the spiritual world. Humanity thus entered a period of its development in which it was essentially dependent on those insights and perceptions that can be gained only from the sensory world and from thinking based on the impressions and observations of the sensory world. This period of human development, which lasted for several centuries, brought about what I have just referred to as the development, the unfolding, of ego-consciousness.

[ 13 ] One cannot properly study history unless one is able to examine the period from the 4th century CE through roughly the 15th century, particularly within civilized humanity, to see how self-consciousness gradually took shape. Certainly, precursors to the development of this sense of self existed even earlier, but essentially there is a great difference between even the most educated, the most learned person of the 4th or 5th century and that of the 15th or 16th century. Anyone who can look into—I would not even say into the soul of Augustine, in whom self-consciousness can be studied quite vividly as it matures, namely through a spiritual insight—but anyone who can look into the soul, for example, of Scotus Erigena from the 9th century, will see how that self-consciousness, which later becomes characteristic of even the simplest person, is only just beginning to take shape—taking shape precisely as that ancient mode of perception ceases, through which one could, for example, develop what alchemy was: an interweaving of what the eyes see with what the soul experienced in things. Purely sensory perception as the foundation of human knowledge did not emerge until around the 15th century. But it did develop. And in this turning of human attention toward purely sensory perception—which then reached its peak in the age of Copernicus, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno—in this turning toward the sensory world, sensory consciousness and self-consciousness developed at the same time.

[ 14 ] This sense of self, however, caused the ability to look into the spiritual worlds to sink, as it were, into dark depths. What had been the ancient mystery vision and initiatory knowledge began to fade away in the 4th century A.D. and found scarcely any continuation in the further course of human civilization. For its deeply hidden continuation remained almost entirely unknown to the outer, even the learned, Western world. In the general life of education and civilization, the science of initiation was not actually active. Consequently, it could not—as it had in the early Christian centuries (even if these were only remnants, they were still remnants of the ancient science of initiation)—shed light on the path of Christ from the spiritual worlds to humanity on Earth. And so, all that stood before humanity—including the scholarly community—was the historical Jesus, the Jesus of whom history told, but which history did not add—neither through human perception nor through initiatory teaching—to this historical Jesus the image of the Christ who was connected to him.

[ 15 ] Therefore, throughout these centuries, the Church could do nothing other than repeatedly direct its believers back to the historical Jesus and bring the image of the historical Jesus to life. But regarding everything that those who knew something real about the spiritual world could still speak of in the early Christian centuries—regarding all of that, nothing real could now be known directly. Only what had been preserved in tradition from the times when there were still human souls who, through the science of initiation, truly knew something about the spiritual world—only what had been preserved in tradition from ancient Christian knowledge—could be presented by the Church as dogmas concerning Christ, and no reference was made to those who still had a vision of the spiritual content of these dogmas; rather, these dogmas were made the object of mere faith.

[ 16 ] During the period in which knowledge of the sensory world was increasingly developing and deepening, a set of beliefs—a set of dogmas—was placed alongside this knowledge of the sensory world; these beliefs were linked solely through an external association with the figure of Jesus, who, through external history, stood before the ordinary consciousness of humanity and had assumed this form. This approach continued through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries and ultimately led even to a theology that still claimed to be Christian but sought only to point to the man Jesus, because he stood before ordinary consciousness solely through historical tradition. But in the meantime, the consciousness that had developed the experience of the “I”—which had explored the laws of the sensory world—had less and less inclination to adhere to the established tenets of faith. It was precisely among the leading figures—in whom this new consciousness had developed most fully—that people emancipated themselves from the inclinations toward the tenets of faith, from Christ. And so it came to pass that, particularly in the 19th century, a form of theology emerged—one that also sought to be Christian—which had completely lost sight of Christ as distinct from Jesus in its understanding, which spoke only of Jesus of Nazareth, and which sought to recognize Jesus as one of humanity, perhaps even as the most outstanding figure to have placed himself within the course of human development.

[ 17 ] In the early Christian centuries, drawing on the remnants of ancient initiatory wisdom, when speaking of the Mystery of Golgotha, people had sought to describe the path that began with the contemplation of the Christ Being and led to the incarnation of this Christ Being in Jesus of Nazareth; in those early Christian centuries, the approach to understanding the Mystery of Golgotha began with Christ in order to arrive at Jesus; now, however, the starting point was Jesus, whom one first regarded as a human being, and from whom one then sought to arrive at Christ. But this naturally led to a situation where, in the end, one either admitted—or did not admit—one’s own powerlessness to ascend from the historical Jesus—as he is known to ordinary consciousness, the “simple” Jesus of Palestine—to the Christ. Thus, the theology of a portion of humanity has lost sight of the Christ above the Jesus. This can only be changed through modern initiation—that initiation whose main features I have outlined in recent days, and which can lead to imagination, inspiration, and intuition in a new form. Through this new wisdom of initiation, it becomes possible once again to go beyond the mere historical image of Jesus to a direct contemplation of pre-earthly human existence and the world in which this pre-earthly human existence unfolds—and thereby also to contemplate the Christ in his extra-earthly spiritual being, thus once again understanding Jesus—and with him the Mystery of Golgotha—from the perspective of the Christ. In this way, the path to which modern theology has led—and which has lost sight of the Christ through its focus on Jesus—can be redirected. One can once again recognize the Christ through spiritual insight and, through the knowledge of the Christ, behold Jesus, in whom the Christ became human, and look upon the Mystery of Golgotha with the knowledge of the Christ gained in the spirit. Through anthroposophical insight, the Christ—who has already been lost to one branch of modern theology—must be regained. I shall discuss what this means for the inner development of the human being in the fourth part of today’s reflection.

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[ 18 ] It has already been said that, with the dawning of ego-consciousness, the mystery of death presented itself to the human soul. This mystery of death had to present itself to this state of the human soul for the reason that, as the “I” became present with full clarity in inner soul experience, the physical human organism thereby became the actual foundation for this ordinary human consciousness. This “I”-imbued consciousness has the physical human organism as its foundation, and human beings instinctively learned to sense that only that which has this physical human organism as its foundation enters into their soul experience. After all, they now had no direct perception of their eternal core of being through immediate pictorial consciousness. Precisely through what gave him the highest purpose for his earthly existence—his “I”-consciousness—he was directed toward his physical body; he was shown how his physical body, by virtue of its constitution, allowed the full “I”-imbued consciousness to shine forth within him.

[ 19 ] In this state of consciousness, one cannot say: We have something within our soul that we carry through the gate of death. — It was precisely what the grace of the high solar being bestowed upon an earlier humanity—the ability to look back on pre-earthly existence—that radiated into ordinary consciousness that which could point beyond death. Now, consciousness had become particularly clear precisely because, in its entirety, it had become an experience of the physical human organism. But with that, it was only possible for a person to say: “You have powers within you that illuminate your consciousness, that enlighten your consciousness, but which come from the physical body.” This physical body decays with death. In that which you know through your ordinary consciousness, you sense nothing of anything that can carry you over into another world. There may be such a thing—but through your ordinary consciousness, you sense nothing and know nothing of such an existence.

[ 20 ] This mystery of death, however, had emerged with particular intensity during the early Christian centuries, when people were even more sensitive to such matters. Only the initiates had pointed out the mystery of Golgotha to humanity, and in the centuries that followed, Christian development, through its leaders and the dogmas of the faith, had provided humanity with a hint of the mystery of Golgotha. What was this mystery of Golgotha to mean for humanity?

[ 21 ] Anyone who can develop an inner, human relationship with Christ—anyone who can look upon the Mystery of Golgotha with recognition and affirmation—must take into their consciousness something that the sensory world cannot provide. It is precisely the person who looks most deeply into the nature of the sensory world who, from that very nature, can only arrive at a rejection of the Mystery of Golgotha; for no sensory understanding can grasp the Mystery of Golgotha. If, however, one can take it into one’s heart, one is nevertheless able, as a human being, to grasp an understanding rooted in the soul for this event—which took place once in the course of Earth’s history and can be understood only from the spirit—and in doing so, one breaks free within one’s ordinary consciousness from mere sensory understanding, which is precisely what constitutes the “I”-consciousness in its particular clarity and intensity.

[ 22 ] No one who wishes to remain solely within the sensory world can come to an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. If, on the other hand, one renounces any understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha that can be derived from the sensory world, and yet attains a relationship of faith, a relationship of recognition, a relationship of reverent, devout contemplation toward the Mystery of Golgotha—and thereby gains an understanding of what Christ has become for humanity through his descent from a spiritual existence into earthly life—then one breaks free in one’s earthly consciousness from mere sensory understanding through precisely that which is attained as the highest through sensory understanding. Through this, one allows a power to take root and unfold within this ordinary consciousness—a power that cannot arise through the natural development of human consciousness. One must delve deeper inwardly; one must intensify one’s consciousness if one wishes to muster enough inner strength for sensory understanding so that the Mystery of Golgotha, in its spiritual significance, can become a truth for the human soul. And with this recognition of the truth of the Mystery of Golgotha—which transcends sensory understanding— with this acknowledgment that Christ was truly on Earth in the person of Jesus, that with the Mystery of Golgotha a heavenly, an extraterrestrial event took place in the midst of earthly existence—an event that has gained lasting significance—with the acknowledgment of this truth, one now replaces the power that was once present in natural consciousness but is no longer there.

[ 23 ] There was a time when natural consciousness possessed the power to look back upon pre-earthly existence and, through this act of looking, to gain the power of consciousness necessary to carry the soul through the gate of death. That which was no longer present in this way was now to enter the soul through the Mystery of Golgotha and through that strengthening that could take place within the soul when one professes faith in the truth of the Mystery of Golgotha through inner soul experience. Then, as the Pauline saying “Not I, but Christ in me” came alive within one’s own being, Christ could carry one—with the power radiating from His Mystery of Golgotha—beyond that into which physical death could cast a human being solely through their consciousness. Through this, one could regain a power about which one knew: with this power, one could pass beyond the gate of death.

[ 24 ] Tomorrow we will discuss how the mysteries of death—as the opposite pole to the mysteries of birth, which I spoke about yesterday—can be further described in connection with the Christ Being. Today, however, I would like to conclude this reflection by pointing out what an ancient initiate said in the early Christian centuries—when the entire mystery of death presented itself to the human soul—to those who were already confronted with the whole mystery of death. He said: “Look at the stage of the human body where the human being has already attained the use of ego-consciousness; at this stage, the physical human body veils the entire human being.” Where a person reaches the stage of developing their “I”-consciousness, they are such that, through the physical body and solely within the physical body, they could never come to grasp that aspect of their being which belongs to the spirit. “Look,” said such an initiate to his followers in the early Christian centuries, “look at the physical human organism; where you reach the stage at which the physical body is meant to provide the highest expression of ‘I’-consciousness, there it proves to be imperfect.” This physical human organism is therefore sick, for it would be healthy only if it could give the human being an awareness of its spiritual significance. This physical organism has developed in such a way that sickness in relation to the spiritual life has been present within it from the very beginning. That is why Christ descended into the Mystery of Golgotha—not merely as a teacher, but as the healer of souls, who heals human beings from the soul onward for what is sick in their physical organism.

[ 25 ] Thus, these initiates of the early Christian centuries—who are no longer recognized by modern theology, and whose memory has even been buried—portrayed Christ as the physician of the soul, as the healer, as the Savior of humanity. In doing so, they placed him within the context of the entire evolution of the Earth by showing how humanity’s evolution on Earth follows a downward trajectory—until the physical organism becomes completely diseased in relation to the highest tasks of human consciousness, and until the divine Savior intervenes as a healer of souls with regard to the human soul’s condition in relation to a spiritual-divine world. Thus, through the initiates of the first Christian centuries, the concept of Christ took on a profound meaning: Christ as the physician of the world’s souls, as the healer of humanity, as the Savior.

[ 26 ] In light of all this, one can say: If one can take what the initiates of an ancient time—before the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place on Earth—were able to tell wider circles of humanity, to whom these teachings were accessible, about a spiritual, divine existence that permeates and underlies all sensory existence; if one can make this fully alive again in modern consciousness through imaginative insight, then what is otherwise abstract philosophical thought is not only enlivened in the sense I have described here in recent days, but abstract philosophical thought is also permeated by the Christ. And in that insight, in which modern imagination leads humanity back to a knowledge of the spiritual world, philosophy becomes imbued with the spirit of Christ, and what once existed in ancient humanity can enter into humanity once more: the awareness of the divine-spiritual Father of all physical existence. It was essentially this awareness of the divine Father that the ancient pre-Christian initiates, together with the rest of humanity, strove toward. The highest degree of initiation was that in which the initiate, as the “Father,” represented the divine-spiritual Father of the world in the mysteries.

[ 27 ] If one actively cultivates this perspective within oneself, what is known as Christian philosophy emerges. And if, through modern inspiration, one comes to understand what the initiates of the early Christian centuries had already intuitively expressed through the remnants of an ancient inspiration, one comes to recognize how a spiritual-divine being—Christ—transfers himself from the spiritual worlds into the earthly evolution of humanity and forms the center of this earthly evolution. One brings a meaningful spirit into the earthly evolution of humanity and into its laws by learning, through the Mystery of Golgotha, to link this earthly evolution of humanity to the cosmos, in that one is able to look up to the cosmic Christ-being. One comes to recognize how heaven has continued to care for the evolution of the Earth, how the cosmos has continued to provide for the affairs of humanity; and this expands the character of cosmology that I have already described here—from that of a spiritual cosmology to that of a Christian cosmology.

[ 28 ] And when a person, in the sense of Paul’s words, “Not I, but Christ in me,” develops a living relationship with Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ then leads that person—by helping them overcome the enigma of death—into a renewed life in the Spirit, and one comes to know the new Spirit, who is now called upon once again to make it clear to humanity that beyond the physical world there is a spiritual world that governs it, orders it, and pulses through it. One comes to know, as emanating from Christ, the mission of the healing Spirit—sanctified by Christ himself—and one comes to know the mystery of the Holy Spirit as the foundation of a new religious understanding.

[ 29 ] The Trinity, which has long been spoken of as a dogma, is once again coming to life before humanity. And looking back at the pre-Christian mysteries, one can say: In them lived the Father God, who continues to hold world-historical significance for us as well. Through the Mystery of Golgotha, the God the Son in Christ drew near to humanity, and what the God the Son brought into humanity was the connection with the healing, Holy Spirit. The Trinity once again becomes a vividly living reality, not a dogma. Through the enlivening of the Father-consciousness, a Christ-imbued philosophy arises. Through the revitalization of the consciousness of the Son, a Christ-imbued cosmology arises, and, drawing upon what Christ understood by the healing Spirit and graciously poured out upon humanity, a new, epistemological foundation for a Christian religion emerges.

[ 30 ] Building on this Christian philosophy, this Christian cosmology, and this Christian understanding of religion, we will continue our discussion tomorrow on the mystery of death in connection with the essence of Christ and the course of human development.