The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. Christ from the Perspective of Anthroposophy

[ 1 ] From two quarters, among many others, opposition is currently arising against what I call anthroposophical spiritual knowledge. I touched on one of these forms of opposition briefly yesterday. It is the scientific opposition, which holds the view that supersensible knowledge of the kind I described yesterday cannot be attained at all by the human powers of cognition. And so, from this perspective, anthroposophy is often portrayed as something impossible.

[ 2 ] Today we should focus more on another form of opposition. It is the opposition that stems from individuals who feel that anthroposophy deprives them and some of their fellow adherents of their relationship to Christ. For the most part, such individuals are, in their own way, exceptionally devout Christians, and it is precisely out of the piety of their souls that they arrive at this opposition. Above all, they believe that a person’s relationship to Christ should be attained through the simple, naive piety of the heart and soul. They believe that anything that seeks to speak of Christ in a cognitive manner only serves to confuse this simple, naive piety of the heart, and they would prefer that the striving for Christ—arising from their simple human hearts—not be disturbed—in anyone—by the fact that anything is also sought regarding Christ in a cognitive manner.

[ 3 ] The feelings that arise in these people certainly deserve careful consideration. Nevertheless, such people are, precisely with regard to anthroposophy, caught up in a profound error. And if they were to recognize the truth, they would find that it is precisely the sure path they seek to Christ that is paved for them by anthroposophy. They would find that everything in the simple piety of their hearts that draws them toward Christ is essentially strengthened by all that anthroposophy has to say about Christ.

[ 4 ] I would like to clarify what I have just stated from various perspectives. And the first of these perspectives will be an examination of what people at various stages of human development on Earth have experienced as their religious life and religious consciousness.

[ 5 ] Let us go back a little in this regard to the early stages of human development. You will see from the further course of my remarks today that this historical perspective is not superfluous, but can in fact shed light on many of the misunderstandings that exist in the present. These very ancient times in human development, however, cannot be accessed through external historical documents, but only through the means of that spiritual science of which I spoke to you yesterday; they can be recognized only inwardly through a kind of contemplation such as I described yesterday as the means for perceiving the supersensible nature of the human being and the supersensible experiences of human destiny. When we go back to such ancient times, we find that people in those days listened to those who were disciples of the so-called mysteries. The ancient Mysteries, of which hardly any external historical documents exist—for what does exist dates from so late a period that it offers no real insight into the Mysteries—these ancient Mysteries were spiritual sanctuaries of humanity, in which art, religion, and science were one. And the great teachers of these Mysteries, who were the gurus of their disciples, enjoyed a veritable superhuman veneration. And the rest of humanity then looked to the disciples of such Mystery teachers when it sought to satisfy the needs of its piety. People embraced what the disciples of the Mystery teachers had attained through a life of devotion and reverence as an insight into the world and its order. And to shed light on what piety can be in the present day—and specifically, what the veneration of Christ can be—I would like to sketch out, if only briefly, the relationship of such an ancient disciple to his guru, to his teacher in the mysteries.

[ 6 ] One thing strikes us right away: These teachers were regarded by those who believed they had come to know their true nature as people whose inner beings were filled with divine power itself. These mystery teachers were seen as human beings in whom—when they spoke out of the enthusiasm of their mystery sites and their sacrificial rites—it was not the human being who spoke to their students, but rather the divine powers of the world speaking through a human mouth.

[ 7 ] This was not a symbolic concept, but rather a very real experience for those ancient students of the mysteries. And you can imagine how deep a student’s sense of reverence for his teacher was, knowing that it was not a human being but a divine being speaking to him through the teacher—that what was speaking to him through the teacher was what he called his divine nature. What seems paradoxical to us today, but is particularly characteristic of the view that the students held of the ancient mystery teachers, is this: they believed that In even earlier times of human evolution, in those times when the Earth’s evolution first began, divine-spiritual beings themselves had descended to Earth—in the manner in which this is possible, spiritually speaking, of course. And these divine-spiritual beings, who did not take on a human body but who were nevertheless able to communicate through the means of spiritual knowledge with the first gurus, with the first mystery teachers—these divine-spiritual beings gave the first instructions regarding what was to be taught to human beings as a doctrine that could place them in the proper relationship with the spiritual world. And so it was believed that, from generation to generation, what had once been handed down to humanity by the gods themselves had been preserved and thus passed on to the disciples of every age.

[ 8 ] You will say: This leads to an explanation of the origin of human wisdom in supersensible worlds. — But we are touching on a field where, even today—if we consider, for example, the explanation people have regarding language—people are still quite unclear about the origin of this particular field. Certainly, there are people who believe that human language developed from animal sounds, in the sense of Darwin’s theory. But there are—and there have been, especially not so long ago—people who have also attributed a divine origin to language.

[ 9 ] Well, I don’t want to dwell any further on what really underlies this, because that would take us too far afield today. It may suffice to say that what gave rise to the genuinely pious feelings among the guru’s disciples was the belief that what they heard from their teachers had once been handed down to humanity by the gods themselves.

[ 10 ] And to what end should such discipleship lead? Well, such discipleship consisted, first of all, in the fact that—out of an infinitely strong feeling of reverence and devotion toward the guru—the disciple, through whatever connected him to the spiritual worlds, was to be completely devoted to his teacher. He was to regard this teacher, as it were, as the sole channel through which the Divine reached him. Whatever such a disciple possessed within himself, whatever he developed in his soul—of all this he would say to himself: “I owe it to the teacher.” —And the teacher gave him instructions above all else; first, regarding the direction of his thoughts. Thoughts were to be directed in such a way that the person learned to think not by looking at the sensory world, but by turning the mind toward the supersensible through the very power that the guru, the teacher, planted within the student’s own soul—as in a permitted suggestion—so that the student directed all his thoughts toward the supersensible. Whereas otherwise, in sensory observation, thoughts so to speak collide with external objects—we think of the table, that is to say: our thought collides with the table; we think of the tree: the thought is held back by the tree, it comes into contact with the tree—under the influence of the Guru, thoughts were to become transparent, so that the student saw nothing that is in the world, but rather, through the vision of thought, looked into those worlds which I described to you yesterday from the perspective of modern initiatory science—into the supersensible worlds. The disciple was also to experience these supersensible worlds. To this end, he was given instructions regarding language. When we speak in ordinary life, we communicate to another either thoughts we have ourselves or thoughts we have received. In short, that which flows into our speech lives on the physical earth. The guru gave his student mantric phrases that, in a style that was half recitative and half spoken, were intended to enable the student to hear not only the meaning of the words in his language, but also to experience the divine flow of the worlds itself in the flowing sentence. The sentence was to be spoken in such a way that its human content was meaningless, but that flowing through the sentence was that which lives as the divine in the world and in human beings. Thus, through the thoughts that became transparent to him, the disciple was to see the divine. Through the mantric chants, he should not hear—while reciting them—what lies in their meaning, but rather the divine power flowing through them should itself be directed toward the actions through what was contained in the sacrifice. Through what was contained in the sacrifice, he should direct his will toward the divine—his will and his entire human personality. The sacrificial rites were often linked to this. You can still see it today in the Buddha’s posture; you can see it in the fact that the human limbs are not placed in a: position suitable for external, earthly activities, but rather into positions that are unsuitable for earthly activities, so that the person is thus completely lifted out of the earthly realm simply by the posture—the position of his limbs—and thereby also directed toward the divine through the actions taking place within his spirit.

[ 11 ] What was the purpose of all this? Well, the student’s mind and soul were meant to lift up—to allow to flow upward—into those supersensible worlds that I described to you yesterday—all that which is committed by human beings on Earth as evil, as sinful, as a departure from the Divine, through this threefold turning of themselves toward the Divine. I described to you yesterday that even with the newer science of initiation, one can penetrate those worlds in which the human being lives as a spiritual-soul being before embarking on earthly life, from which he descends to unite with the body given to him by his father and mother, and to which he returns again once he has passed through the gate of death to prepare for another earthly life there, as I described yesterday. That not only the student’s contemplative gaze be directed upward into the supersensible worlds, but that a power arise within the student— a power of prayer-like thinking, a power of mantric recitation through which the Divine flowed, a power of devotion in sacrificial rites—that a great power might arise within the student, one that directs that which is sinful here on Earth upward into these supersensible worlds—that was the purpose of these divine teachers in the ancient Mysteries with their students. And the fact that these students, in turn, taught other people in the same way they themselves had been educated in these mysteries—that constituted the civilizing essence of those ancient times.

[ 12 ] What, then, was the prerequisite for doing something like this in the first place? Well, the prerequisite was this: that human beings here on Earth live in a world which, compared to the divine world, is one that does not fully encompass human beings in their essence. This is what the old disciple of the Guru thought, and this is what the Guru taught him: This world, in which you live between birth and death, does indeed encompass the other kingdoms of nature, which in a certain way merge into it through their very nature; but it does not encompass the deeper essence of the human being. And what a human being can accomplish between birth and death—let us set aside entirely the fact that in many respects it was portrayed as utterly sinful in ancient times—was in any case presented in such a way that a human being had to say to himself: “What I can experience here in the world between birth and death, what I can accomplish, what I can achieve in terms of deeds—this does not come close to my full human being, for my full human being belongs to the supersensible worlds.” — And in those ancient times, all who were disciples of the Guru, drawing upon an ancient, primitive form of clairvoyance—one they did not need to acquire, but which they possessed naturally as a dreamlike clairvoyance in those early days of humanity—had, at certain moments in their lives, a clear insight into the fact that they had indeed, before they had descended to Earth, lived in a supersensible world, and that after death they would once again enter a supersensible world. And so they said to themselves: If, as a human being, I accomplish only what is present and possible here on the physical Earth, and am connected only to that, then I am not a complete human being. I must direct my powers upward into the spiritual worlds. Yes, they are not here on Earth, but up above.—Such was the conception of those ancient mysteries: that through the sacrificial rites performed under the sign of clairvoyant thoughts, in the divinely resonant mantras of the sacrificial rite itself—that within this current, that which belongs to the earthly is conveyed into the super-earthly: that which human beings here on Earth cannot bring into order through their actions, that which can only be brought into order in the supersensible worlds, because these supersensible worlds belong to the whole human being.

[ 13 ] And this is what the ancient gurus said and taught their disciples in a very concrete way: When a person passes through the gate of death, he realizes that what he was able to accomplish on earth is not sufficient for his full human nature; that as he passes through the spiritual world after “death,” a balancing must take place; that whatever can be done poorly, imperfectly, or unwisely on earth must be balanced.

[ 14 ] And now, among all the insights one gains about the supersensible worlds in the manner described yesterday, there is also the realization that what remains imperfect on Earth can be carried into perfection in the supersensible world.

[ 15 ] But things were different in those ancient times of the Mysteries, and—as we shall see shortly—they must be different today. In those ancient times, the disciples of the gurus learned from their teachers: When a human being passes through the gate of death into the supersensible world, a high spiritual being comes to meet them after a certain time; this high spiritual being finds its outward expression in the sun and its appearance. — That is why the sages of those ancient mysteries called this being the high, divine solar being. And just as one looks at a person here on Earth in terms of their outward physiognomy and says to oneself that the soul expresses itself through that physiognomy, through facial expressions, so too did the ancient people look upon the movements of the Sun, upon the phenomena on the Sun. And they saw in them the physiognomic expression, the outward reflection—akin to facial expressions—in the movement of the sun; in the course of the sun’s movement, they saw the gesture of the High Solar Being, whom they cannot behold here on Earth, but whom they will encounter once they have passed through the gate of death, and who helps to perfect there what was only imperfectly achieved on Earth: Place your trust, with heartfelt devotion, in the exalted Solar Being, so that you may find it; so that after your death, your imperfections may be rectified by this Being—whom you will encounter in the spiritual worlds but cannot meet here on Earth—and so that this Being may help you to pass through the spiritual world in the proper manner! — Now, the ancient gurus, the ancient teachers, spoke of this Being—which thus brings all that is imperfect in human beings into balance—in the way I have indicated.

[ 16 ] And as the Mystery of Golgotha drew near, the ancient wisdom of the mysteries was, however, already in decline. Little remained of it; yet traditions still existed, and remnants remained. There were still initiates in the old sense who, with the same devotion, the same piety, and the same faith, clung to the divine Father who had once, as the Father-God, sent the divine messengers to Earth—from whom the first gurus had learned. And they knew that the great consolation of life in ancient times had been given to the students of the mysteries by being told: After death, you will find the high solar being who helps transform all that is imperfect on Earth into perfection, who removes from you the oppressive awareness that you are, in fact, outcasts from the divine spiritual world order. But this exalted Solar Being had to descend to Earth, had to assume humanity in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and—ever since the death of Jesus Christ on Golgotha—is no longer to be sought in the supersensible worlds, but must be sought among human beings.

[ 17 ] This is how the initiates spoke at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and even well into the 3rd century. Thus, these initiates were able to say to those who were willing to listen: What you long for as the true healing essence is what humanity possessed in ancient times. This descended to Earth through a divine act, appeared in a human being, and has since lived in a supersensible way within the development of humanity. — And while the ancient disciples had to enter the mysteries and look up to their sacrificial rites—to that which the cult stirred within them in the supersensible worlds—people of the modern era must learn to establish a direct relationship here on earth with the Christ-being who descended and became human like other human beings.

[ 18 ] This was the spirit that was spread by the contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha and also by many initiates of the first three Christian centuries—a spirit of which, however, historical writings say little, because everything that constituted the essence of that proclamation was, in fact, eradicated. But through the insight into the world order of which I spoke yesterday, one comes to realize that such a spirit—the Christian spirit of the first three centuries—was widespread among those who were willing to listen to the initiates still present at that time, until this Christ-spirit was lost and must now be renewed. I intend to speak of this in the second part of my presentations, once this has been translated.

[ 19 ] Thus, through the relationship that the student developed with his teacher—this reverent, devoted relationship—people had gradually learned to look up to the Divine. And in the teacher himself—the guru—people saw the mediator of the Divine, who, so to speak, allowed the Divine to flow down to Earth and, in turn, channeled the piety that human beings wished to send up into the spiritual world. Thus there was a wealth of feelings and sensations that, through inheritance from generation to generation, found their way into the human mind and into the human soul. And among those who became the first Christian teachers—whose depth of feeling and capacity for reverence few today even begin to grasp—this reverence was directed, among those who were willing to listen to them, —not toward gurus in the old sense, but toward the Christ who descended from the spiritual worlds and had taken on humanity, a physical body, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 20 ] This sum of feelings now began to take root, took root over the centuries, and was sent to the one of whom external Christian history proclaimed that, through the Mystery of Golgotha, he had passed through death for the sake of humanity, so that humanity might henceforth find him on earth.

[ 21 ] The modern science of initiation, which I spoke to you about here yesterday, is once again approaching this Mystery of Christ; it is once again attempting to draw near to the mystery of Golgotha. Why is this necessary?

[ 22 ] However, while a spirit of piety and religiosity pervaded the Christian Middle Ages—which was like a continuation of that current of veneration that the disciples of the ancient gurus had for these teachers—what had existed in humanity in the ancient times of human development, like an ancient, dreamlike clairvoyance, gradually faded and dimmed more and more. We can certainly ascertain what existed back then through anthroposophical spiritual science, even outside of historical documents: In those ancient times, people had the ability to enter a kind of dreamlike clairvoyance at certain times. Through this, they perceived the world from which they themselves had descended into their earthly existence. But this knowledge of the eternal within the human soul had gradually been lost to humanity. For under the influence of this knowledge, people would never have been able to attain the feeling of human freedom. And this sense of human freedom, which is an integral part of full humanity, was destined to take root in human beings. The era in which this sense of human freedom took root was the Middle Ages; yet it was also the era in which that ancient consciousness began to fade—a consciousness that could never have been free. For when human beings looked back at what they had been as soul beings among spiritual beings in their pre-earthly existence, they felt dependent; they did not feel free. One might say that a time came when the old clairvoyance began to fade, and in this twilight state with regard to the spiritual world, humanity developed its sense of freedom, which has reached a certain culmination in our modern civilization. As a result, however, humanity could no longer look into those supersensible worlds from which the Christ descended into Jesus of Nazareth. And so the worship of Christianity initially became a traditional one. People relied on what had been historically handed down, and they drew upon what had been inherited from the ancient veneration of gurus. In this way, all the human veneration that humanity had acquired in relation to the Divine could be directed toward the divine being who had passed through the Mystery of Golgotha; but as human beings, in this twilight state of consciousness, developed a knowledge of nature more and more extensive than had ever existed in ancient times, they drifted further and further away even from the mere inkling that a spiritual world could be attained through human knowledge.

[ 23 ] But that spiritual insight I spoke to you about yesterday is a true continuation of the understanding of nature. And everything I told you yesterday—that which approaches the human being in such a way that, through meditation, concentration—can ascend with their insight into the spiritual world—develops particularly strongly when, as a modern person, one does not remain fixated on what natural science has to say about the external world, but rather when one wrestles inwardly with what it tells us, when one accepts the ideas as thoroughly precise scientific ones, yet then seeks to unite them with one’s innermost humanity. Then something arises that is at first indefinable: a certain mood, a state of the soul. If one incorporates into this state meditation and concentration in the worlds of thought and will, the soul is guided upward, as I described yesterday, into the spiritual, into the supersensible worlds. And through this one acquires the ability to understand what the supersensible is. One learns to look beyond the Earth—as taught by the natural sciences—into a supersensible world that belongs to the Earth, a world that must be taken into account, especially when one wishes to understand human beings on Earth.

[ 24 ] And this is when questions of the utmost significance arise in the very depths of the anthroposophical warrior’s being. And when he seeks answers to these questions, the answers in turn lead him to an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha as well.

[ 25 ] On the one hand, one has learned to perceive the spiritual realm after lifting one’s consciousness away from the earth, after achieving the ability to perceive it outside the human body, and even—as I described yesterday—to act through ideal magic. In short, we have learned to enter a spiritual world in this bodiless state through knowledge and will.

[ 26 ] When, equipped with this inner understanding of the spiritual world, one looks once more to Christ—to that which appears to us as the Mystery of Golgotha among earthly events—one does not stop, as so many modern theologians do, at the human Jesus of Nazareth. For one does not merely understand, in a materialistic sense, what happened in connection with the Mystery of Golgotha; one understands it in such a way that one beholds the human Jesus of Nazareth as permeated by the divine Christ, because one has acquired the capacity for the spiritual. With the capacity to recognize the spiritual, one also comes to behold this spiritual-divine aspect in Christ once again. Thus, precisely this modern theosophy—because it attains the divine-spiritual through direct knowledge—is able, equipped by this knowledge of the spiritual, to look upon Jesus of Nazareth and to recognize in him the Christ, who can be known only as a spiritual being. Through the knowledge one acquires of the supermundane, one draws near to Christ in order to behold in Christ himself the supermundane, the divine in the God-man.

[ 27 ] Modern anthroposophy leads back to Christ precisely through a full grasp of the spiritual world. And it leads to him precisely when one has prepared oneself in this way through anthroposophy. To make this fully understandable, I would like to point out how modern human beings can approach the spiritual world—both erroneously and correctly. You see, one might say that today’s successors to those who were once under the influence of the mysteries—and who, within humanity’s dimming consciousness, were nevertheless able to glimpse certain states of pre-earthly existence, and who, within this diminished consciousness, sought to allow the spiritual to flow upward toward the Divine through the act of sacrifice— the successors of these ancient devout people are today individuals who seek to relate to the spiritual world in a thoroughly questionable manner. In those days, the outer life of the soul among the devout remained within the soul itself; they directed their soul’s attention toward the supermundane worlds. This devout disposition has been carried on as the Christian disposition among those devout people of whom I spoke at the beginning of my lecture today and who wish to remain at this stage of naive piety. It is naive today because human beings no longer look into the supersensible realm through their natural consciousness, and because this naive piety does not lead them upward into the supersensible worlds, as it did the ancient disciples of the gurus, but instead keeps them here on earth in their physical bodies. That is, after all, the defining characteristic of this naive piety: that it remains at the level of feelings and sensations—at the sensation the soul experiences when it immerses itself in its own humanity. When a person immerses themselves in their own humanity, they do indeed come to know that what lies down there in the physical body is not merely flesh and blood, but that there is indeed something spiritual there. This spiritual element, which the devout person seeks to direct toward the Divine, is what the one who today is—I would say—the misguided successor to the ancient disciples of the gurus seeks to put into action as a mediumistic personality.

[ 28 ] What, then, is a medium? A medium is someone through whom the spiritual allows itself to speak from the physical body, to write from the physical body, or to make itself known in some other way. The fact that mediums express themselves while their consciousness—from which writing and speaking normally originate—is dimmed, as was once the case with the disciples of the gurus in ancient times, proves that the human body is not merely the physical body, that a spiritual element speaks through it—but a mechanical spiritual element, a spiritual element of a subordinate nature. These mediumistic personalities not only wish to experience the spiritual directly within their bodies; they also wish to reveal it through themselves. And indeed, a spiritual presence dwelling within the body speaks when the medium speaks or writes. What is the distinctive characteristic of such mediumistic personalities and their revelations in relation to the Divine? The peculiarity is this—as you may know—: they become talkative, they become eager to write; they enjoy writing and speaking, but they intermingle countless elements—which must appear questionable to ordinary logic—into what the Spirit reveals through their bodies. These mediumistic personalities are precisely the proof that we must not fall back on the old way of connecting with the divine-spiritual, but that we must seek a different way.

[ 29 ] Anthroposophical spiritual science seeks this other approach. And perhaps I am permitted to speak about this other approach for a specific reason. This other way of approaching the spiritual world—if one takes the findings of the natural sciences seriously in a very tangible way, if one accepts them as the great achievements of modern civilization—this other way, when it seeks to approach the spiritual worlds, finds it at first extremely difficult to I would say, to move the speech organs, indeed even to harbor thoughts, or to take up writing in a mediumistic manner. When one is seized by meditation, by the concentration of that spirit within oneself of which I spoke yesterday—yes, then one would prefer, at first, to fall silent! While the mediumistic personality becomes talkative and allows the spiritual to resound from within through the speech apparatus, one—as a conscientious, scientifically educated person who is seized by the spirit for supersensory knowledge, as I described yesterday—would prefer, at first, to fall silent, not to speak of that delicate experience that reveals itself in the soul, Indeed, one would even like to forbid oneself such thoughts, because one has learned to think in terms of physical, earthly things. One does not want to let thoughts run free, to let them flow within one’s soul, because one feels a certain inner apprehension that the thoughts one has drawn from external, physical, sensory things unconsciously turn toward the spiritual realm into which one enters through that inner state I have spoken of—because one believes that by applying one’s thoughts to this spiritual realm, it not only slips away but is also profaned and distorted. One is least of all inclined to turn to writing, for one knows that in those ancient times, when the worship of God was expressed through sacrificial rites and the involvement of the human body, writing was not resorted to. Writing is something that only entered humanity with the intellect and reason directed toward the sensory-physical nature; when one is seized by the knowledge of the divine-spiritual, one initially finds writing to be something one would like to push far away from oneself. And so, when one is seized by this capacity for knowledge of the divine-spiritual, of the supersensible world, one initially becomes inwardly silent with regard to one’s thoughts; one becomes all the more silent with regard to one’s speech and with regard to whatever one might have wished to write down about the divine.

[ 30 ] I said that I am in a position to speak about these very experiences, for they are my own. They are experiences I came to know during the development I myself underwent, starting from the natural sciences, toward an understanding of the spiritual worlds, toward a vision of the spiritual worlds, and toward a vision of the Mystery of Golgotha through these spiritual worlds. But you will also understand that anyone who now approaches the Mystery of Golgotha with this modern, anthroposophical spiritual science faces difficulties. The Mystery of Golgotha must be grasped in all its majesty and grandeur, as it is revealed in the history of humanity. One must learn to look at the historical fact of how God, through the human being Jesus of Nazareth, passed through death on Golgotha. One must contemplate this greatest historical event in an image entirely free of sensory perception. But it is precisely this sensory-free grasping of it in thought—this representation through the word, perhaps even through writing—that one struggles to achieve with extraordinary difficulty, in the manner I have described.

[ 31 ] But what one acquires in this way is an inner sense of awe, an inner reverence for the great mystery that unfolded on Golgotha. Something pours forth over the soul of the one who, in the way I have described to you, has become silent in thought and word, who does not wish to stir when the divine-spiritual within him draws him toward the Mystery of Golgotha. The deepest, most reverent feeling pours out over the soul of such a person: one does not wish to approach him. And so the anthroposophical path becomes more than mere knowledge. It is knowledge first and foremost. It is knowledge in the act of looking up into the supersensible worlds, but it pours out into feeling; it becomes a timid reverence. It becomes something that grips the human soul much more deeply than anything that has ever gripped people—more deeply than what the disciple felt for his ancient guru. And this feeling first takes shape as a deepest need to grasp Christ Jesus on Golgotha. Through an inner metamorphosis of the soul, what was initially supersensible vision is completely transformed into feeling. And this feeling seeks the God-man on Golgotha. And it can find him because it has learned to behold the spiritual. It does not speak of the man Jesus of Nazareth, but it learns to recognize this man, Jesus of Nazareth; yet it also learns to recognize that within him, during his earthly life, Christ can truly be beheld as a spiritual-divine being. Thus, from anthroposophical spiritual science flows knowledge of the spiritual Christ; but from this same source also flows true reverence for the Divine, through that which can live in the knowledge of the supersensible.

[ 32 ] I will explain how this can then lead to the enrichment of Christianity in the brief third part, once the second part has been translated.

[ 33 ] It is precisely the person who, when the supersensible power of cognition takes hold of him, would initially like to remain silent in thought and word—who would not wish to use his physical body to express what lives within him—who, during the transition, — by resolving to speak outwardly about what lives within him — something that entitles him to speak of the spiritual nature of Christ Jesus. What one experiences during this transition, when one summons the resolve: “You will now think the spiritual in your thoughts, you will speak about the spiritual, you will write about the spiritual”—what one experiences there is this: that for all speaking and thinking of this spiritual, one feels lifted out of the physical body. Then one simply cannot think or speak, for thinking involves the physical body, and speaking involves the physical body; yet one feels, in a certain way, alienated from one’s physical body. While the medium feels completely at home within the physical body—even suppressing consciousness in order to live entirely within the physical body and allow the spiritual to speak—the person I now refer to as the supersensible knower lifts himself out of his physical body through a refined consciousness, an elevated consciousness. Through all that he has experienced as the spiritual world, the physical world becomes so alien to him that he finds it extraordinarily difficult to grasp: he cannot find his language, nor the naive activity of his thinking; he cannot find his arms; he cannot find his entire physical body. One must go through this experience—first rediscovering this physical world, first rediscovering the thoughts and language for what one experiences in the supersensible world. But this is something that puts one in a position as if one had to conquer life anew, a second time, as if one had to pass through a self-created birth. But this also teaches one to know the depths of the human being. For by grasping this human being a second time, in order to make it an instrument for thinking and expressing the spiritual, the supersensible, one comes to know it. And one now comes to know it in such a way that, in the same supersensible manner as the supersensible knowledge of which I have spoken yesterday and today, one now knows: if one penetrates one’s own organism through supersensible knowledge, one finds Christ there as well, in that He has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha. And one has now grasped not only the Christ who once descended to Earth and passed through death, but one has experienced the Christ who passed through death precisely in order to pour himself out henceforth into humanity—into all of humanity—so that human beings may find him if they descend deeply enough within themselves. This is what the person who, through supersensible knowledge, grasps his body once more—and now more firmly—experiences. And what he thus gains in knowledge of Christ, he can then indeed clothe in those words that contain within them a true message about Christ. For he knows this: Christ died on Golgotha; Christ poured himself out through death into the creative forces of human beings; he has lived within human beings ever since. They can find him if they go deep enough within themselves. The modern initiate, then, knows that Paul’s words contain a profound truth: “Not I, but Christ in me.” I find Christ in me when I descend deep enough into my own humanity.

[ 34 ] But then the initiate does not need to go around making everyone else an initiate in order to make them Christians; rather, equipped with this knowledge of Christ, he finds the possibility of discovering new paths even for primitive, simple piety. This simple, primitive piety can find Christ. The paths of piety today, however, must be somewhat different from the paths of the old piety revealed at the feet of the guru. This piety must be an inner one, for human beings are no longer to send the stream of their feelings for the Divine upward into a supersensible world; rather, they are to penetrate within themselves to find Christ, who has been living on Earth since the Mystery of Golgotha. And when the simple believer is lifted up by being told, on the basis of anthroposophical spiritual science: “It is no illusion that, if you penetrate deeply enough into yourself, you will find Christ; He is no illusion—He is in your depths, for He has descended into your own depths through the death on Golgotha”— then the anthroposophical spiritual scientist knows, when speaking to the simple, devout person, that he is speaking a truth—that he is not merely saying something to cultivate feelings, but that he can show him a goal that even the simple, devout person can find. And so the simple, devout person can follow these modern paths. Whereas in the past the focus was on the worship and reverence of the guru, through which transparent thoughts and the divine sound of the mantra developed, and the gesture of sacrifice took shape, the one who wishes to find his way to Christ in the modern sense must, above all, find the innerization of the soul. He should be able to learn to look within himself, so that even when he turns his gaze away from the outer world, he still has something in his inner feeling, in his inner experience. And there he should be able to find the very power that leads him through the gate of death, by becoming acquainted with it here on earth through devotion to Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 35 ] The ancient Guru had told his disciples and all of humanity: When you pass through the gate of death, you will find the exalted Solar Being who compensates for the imperfections of the earth. — The modern teacher says: When you establish a relationship here on Earth with the descended Christ—when, with all inner reverence, inner worship, and an internalized spiritual life, you find your relationship here on Earth to the Christ and to the Mystery of Golgotha— then a power will well up within you that does not die with you, that you carry through the gate of death, and that will accomplish with you what you cannot accomplish here on Earth as long as you bear the physical body. What the high solar being accomplished with humanity in ancient times, the Christ-force will accomplish with you if it remains within your own being, which has become free of the body in death. The Christ-force will work within the Earth in that which is still imperfect in humanity, and the possibility will be given for people to find one another on Earth in this recognition of the Christ in social life. — For that which thus permeates them with inner power—as the power that radiates from Christ, which can be illuminated by the teachings of anthroposophical spiritual science—this power can intervene in human actions and in the human will; it can become an impulse for acts of the will and thus flow into social life. The Christ forces can flow into social life.

[ 36 ] Yes, there is much talk today of social reforms, much talk of social progress. Who will be the great reformer of social life once people’s actions in social life are carried out in the name of Christ Jesus, so that the world may be transformed by Christ? Who will be the great—and also social—reformer who will be able to bring peace to the social strife of the earth? Christ alone will be able to do so, when people are able to live a social life among themselves that, at certain moments in life, becomes an act of consecration for them—where they look up to Christ in such a way that they do not say: “I—,” but rather say: “Even if only two or three, and even if many, are united in the name of Christ, Christ is in their midst.” — And social activity will become a sacrificial act of consecration; it will continue what the ancient ritual once was. Christ, by working alive today within human beings, must also become the great social reformer Himself.

[ 37 ] The second aspect lies in the Christianization of social life. And now I ask you: Can that which people long for—what the simple, devout person longs for—namely, that he may find the power of Christ within his soul, that as he acts among other people in social life, he may realize he is acting on behalf of Christ, so that his deeds are deeds performed on behalf of Christ—can this simple, devout person attain certainty regarding his deeds when the modern initiate comes to him and says: “That is so; what you can find through your simple, inner piety—what you can find when you reflect on yourself and on what lives within you as the Christ—has indeed flowed forth from the death on Golgotha. And this truly flows from the Christ.” And it is what you carry out in social life with the awareness of doing so as a Christ impulse; it is carried out in such a mission because Christ lives among people when they find him. — And they find him through themselves, through internalization in social life, just as they then find the true, self-sacrificing love that builds a bridge from one human heart to another, which brings a supersensible element into feeling, just as the light that illuminates from within brings a supersensible element into cognition.

[ 38 ] And so it is possible that simple, devout people will learn to no longer say: “Our path—which we seek to follow solely out of simple piety—is disrupted by the knowledge sought by anthroposophical spiritual science.” — No! If purely external natural science were to continue unchecked, this piety would gradually fade away and be overshadowed. But since anthroposophical spiritual science will bring an understanding of the supersensible and, through this, a true understanding of the Christ-being as a supersensible being, it can become for the truly devout person precisely what they must long for: certainty about what lives in his soul, certainty about what lives in his hand when he lovingly puts it into action to perform a Christ-like deed, an act in the spirit of the Christ impulse. That which the devout person longs for will be able to enter the world as a certainty of knowledge through what anthroposophical spiritual science aspires to be. Therefore, it may say: It does not stand in the way of the truly devout; it does not lead people away from Christ. Rather, just as it may say: “Not against modern science into the spiritual world, but together with it and with respect for it”; so it may say: “Humanity is not to enter the future without Christ, but with Christ—with the Christ who is truly known and felt, and whose essence is willed to be active in the world.”