Das Geheimnis, das hinter dem Mysterium von Golgatha steht, gehört zu den tiefsten Geheimnissen der Weltentwickelung. Um es zu verstehen, werden wir durch die okkulte Weisheit Jahrtausende zurück hineinleuchten müssen in die Vergangenheit der Erdenevolution. Gegen dieses tiefere Eindringen in das Mysterium von Golgatha bedeutet es keinen Einwand, dass das, was der Christus Jesus gewirkt hat, für jedes schlichte Gemüt verständlich sein soll. Das ist der Fall. Aber ein volles Verständnis für diese größte Erscheinung auf der Erde muss aus den Tiefen der Mysterienweisheit heraus geschöpft werden. In dieser Stunde wird es sich für uns also darum handeln, aus der ganzen Tiefe der Mysterienweisheit das Verständnis dafür zu gewinnen, wie so etwas wie das Mysterium von Golgatha möglich sein konnte. Wir müssen dabei daran festhalten, dass sich mit dem Erscheinen des Christus Jesus auf der Erde etwas zugetragen hat, was wirklich einen tiefen Einschnitt in die Geschichte der Menschheit bedeutet. Wir werden das am besten verstehen, wenn wir uns die Frage beantworten: Wer war eigentlich der Christus Jesus? Diese Frage zerfällt für den Okkultisten in zwei Teile. Wir müssen unterscheiden zwischen der Persönlichkeit, die damals in Palästina gelebt hat und dreißig Jahre alt geworden ist, und dem, was dann aus ihr geworden ist. Jesus wurde Christus im dreißigsten Jahre seines Lebens. Bei dem gewöhnlichen Menschen sind nur geringe Teile vom Astralleib Ätherleib und physischen Leib umgewandelt in Manas, Buddhi und Atma oder Geistselbst, Lebensgeist und Geistesmensch. Jesus von Nazareth war ein Chela im dritten Grade. Dadurch waren seine Leiber in einem Zustande hoher Läuterung. Es war eine vollständige Reinigung, Heiligung und Läuterung bei ihm vorhanden im Astralleib, Ätherleib und physischen Leib. Wenn ein Chela diese Läuterung seiner drei Leiber absolviert hat, dann wird er fähig, in einem gewissen Zeitpunkt seines Lebens sein Ich hinzuopfern. Im dreißigsten Jahre verließ das Ich des Jesus die drei Körper und ging in die astrale Welt über, so dass auf der Erde die geheiligten drei Leiber zurückblieben, gleichsam ausgehöhlt vom Ich, so dass Platz darin war für die höhere Individualität. Es hat also das Ich des Jesus von Nazareth im dreißigsten Jahre seines Lebens das große Opfer gebracht, seine gereinigten Leiber der Individualität des Christus zur Verfügung zu stellen. Christus füllte diese drei Leiber aus. Nach dieser Zeit sprechen wir von dem Christus Jesus, der drei Jahre auf der Erde umhergewandelt ist und die großen Taten in dem Leibe des Jesus vollbracht hat. http://anthroposophie.byu.edu/vortraege/97_05.pdf
Das Mysterium von Golgatha, das sich mit dem Kreuzestod, der Grablegung, der Höllenfahrt und der Auferstehung des Christus vollzog, ist das zentrale Ereignis der ganzen Erd- und Menschheitsentwicklung. Mit ihm fand die eigentliche Geburt des menschlichen Ichs statt.
“Ohne das Mysterium von Golgatha hätte das Sibyllentum, das mit den elementarischen Kräften der Erde zusammenhängt, die im Unterbewußten der Seele wirken und in leidenschaftlicher Art sich herausdrängen, über die bewußten Ich-Kräfte gesiegt, hätte die Ich-Kräfte zurückgedrängt. Das Ich wäre der Menschheitsentwickelung verloren gegangen. Als Kraft sehen wir den Christus-Impuls in dem Menschheitsgang wirken, auch ohne daß das menschliche Bewußtsein ihn aufgenommen hat.” (Lit.: GA 152, S. 97)
Die geistigen Forschungen Rudolf Steiners bestätigen, dass der Kreuzestod des Christus nach dem julianischen Kalender tatsächlich am Freitag, dem 3. April 33 um die neunte Stunde, also um 3 Uhr nachmittags, erfolgte:
“An einem Freitag, am 3. April des Jahres 33, drei Uhr am Nachmittag fand das Mysterium von Golgatha statt. Und da fand auch statt die Geburt des Ich in dem Sinne, wie wir es oftmals charakterisiert haben. Und es ist ganz gleichgültig, auf welchem Erdenpunkte der Mensch lebt, oder welchem Religionsbekenntnis er angehört, das, was durch das Mysterium von Golgatha in die Welt kam, gilt für alle Menschen. So wie es für alle Welt gilt, daß Cäsar an einem bestimmten Tage gestorben ist, und nicht für die Chinesen ein anderer und für die Inder wieder ein anderer Tag dafür gilt, ebenso ist es eine einfache Tatsache des okkulten Lebens, daß das Mysterium von Golgatha sich an diesem Tage zugetragen hat und daß man es da zu tun hat mit der Geburt des Ich. Das ist eine Tatsache ganz internationaler Art.” (Lit.: GA 143, S. 163)
Die eigentliche Bedeutung des Mysteriums von Golgatha liegt nicht in den äußeren Ereignissen, sondern in ihren geistigen Hintergründen. Es muss als übersinnliche mystische Tatsache erfasst werden; darauf hat Rudolf Steiner schon in seiner grundlegenden Schrift «Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache und die Mysterien des Altertums» hingewiesen.
“Nur wenn wir die Ideen, die Begriffe haben, die ins Übersinnliche hineinführen, können wir auch das Mysterium von Golgatha verstehen, das eben ein Ereignis ist, das mit der übersinnlichen, nicht mit der sinnlichen Welt zu tun hat. Was sich in der sinnlichen Welt zugetragen hat vom Mysterium von Golgatha, ist nur der äußere Abglanz.” (Lit.: GA 198, S. 243)
Durch den Tod auf Golgatha hat sich der Christus mit der Erde verbunden und verlieh ihr dadurch ihren Sinn.
“Ebenso wie das Leben dem menschlichen Wissen unzugänglich ist, so ist dies der Fall mit dem Tod dem wahren Wissen gegenüber, welches in den übersinnlichen Welten erlangt wird. In dem ganzen Gebiet der übersinnlichen Welten gibt es keinen Tod. Man kann nur auf Erden sterben, in der physischen Welt oder in den Welten, welche in der Entwickelung unserer Erde gleichen, und alle die Wesenheiten, die hierarchisch höher stehen als der Mensch, haben keine Kenntnis vom Tode, sie kennen nur verschiedene Bewußtseinszustände. Ihr Bewußtsein kann zeitweise so herabgesetzt sein, daß es unserem irdischen Schlafzustand ähnlich ist, aber es kann aus diesem Schlaf wieder aufwachen. Es gibt keinen Tod in der geistigen Welt, es gibt dort nur Bewußtseinsänderungen, und die größte Furcht, die der Mensch hat, die Todesfurcht, kann von einem, der nach dem Tode zu den übersinnlichen Welten aufgestiegen ist, nicht empfunden werden. Es gibt daher keinen Tod für die Wesen, die zu den höheren Hierarchien gehören, mit nur einer einzigen Ausnahme, der des Christus. Aber damit eine übersinnliche Wesenheit wie der Christus durch den Tod gehen konnte, mußte er erst auf die Erde herabsteigen. Und das ist es, was von so unermeßlicher Wichtigkeit in dem Mysterium von Golgatha ist, daß eine Wesenheit, die in ihrem eigenen Reiche in der Sphäre ihres Willens niemals den Tod hätte erfahren können, hat hinuntersteigen müssen auf die Erde, um eine Erfahrung durchzumachen, die dem Menschen eigen ist, nämlich um den Tod zu erfahren. Es vereinigte sich ein Wesen, einzig in seiner Art, welches bis dahin nur kosmisch war, durch das Mysterium von Golgatha, durch den Tod des Christus, mit der Erdenevolution. Seitdem lebt es auf eine solche Weise auf Erden, ist so an die Erde gebunden, daß es in den Seelen der Menschen auf Erden lebt und mit ihnen das Leben auf Erden erfährt. Daher war die ganze Zeit vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha nur eine Zeit der Vorbereitung in der Evolution der Erde. Das Mysterium von Golgatha gab der Erde ihren Sinn. Als das Mysterium von Golgatha stattfand, wurde der irdische Körper des Jesus von Nazareth den Elementen der Erde übergeben, und von der Zeit an war der Christus verbunden mit der geistigen Sphäre der Erde und lebt darin.” (Lit.: GA 152, S. 39f)
Nur dadurch konnten die Folgen des Sündenfalls für den Menschen und für die ganze Erde überwunden werden:
“Es ist also das, was durch das Mysterium von Golgatha geschehen ist, eine Götterangelegenheit, durch die ein Ausgleich geschaffen worden ist für eine Luziferangelegenheit. Es ist die einzige Götterangelegenheit, die sich vor den Augen der Menschen abgespielt hat.” (Lit.: GA 143, S. 191)
Das Mysterium von Golgatha, als mystische Tatsache, ist für alle Menschen geschehen, unabhängig davon, ob sie von dem Christus wissen oder sich bewusst zu ihm bekennen.
“Eine Zeit wird kommen, wo derjenige, der Anhänger der chinesischen, der buddhistischen, der brahmanischen Religion ist, es ebensowenig gegen seine Religion finden wird, das Mysterium von Golgatha anzunehmen, wie er es gegen seine Religion findet, anzunehmen das Kopernikanische Weltensystem. Und es wird angesehen werden als eine Art von religiösem Egoismus, wenn man sich in den außerchristlichen Religionen wehren wird, diese Tatsache anzunehmen. Die Tatsache, die eben jetzt vom Mysterium von Golgatha geltend gemacht worden ist, hat mit irgendeinem konfessionellen Christus nichts zu tun, sondern ist eine objektive okkulte Tatsache. Wie niemand verbieten kann, die Kopernikanische Weltanschauung zu lehren, weil sie nicht in den alten indischen Religionsbüchern steht, so kann auch niemand verwehren, die Tatsache von dem Mysterium von Golgatha zu lehren aus dem Grunde, weil es nicht in den Religionsbüchern der alten Inder enthalten ist.” (Lit.: GA 140, S. 22f)
Dadurch, dass das Mysterium von Golgatha geschehen ist und seine Wirkungen hinterlassen hat, ist die Zukunft der Menschheit aber noch nicht gesichert. Immer mehr wird künftig davon abhängen, dass sich die Menschen, völlig unabhängig von jeglichem Glaubensbekenntnis, in ein ganz individuelles bewusstes Verhältnis zu dem Christus setzen. Was der Christus aus Gnade zu geben vermag, wird in seiner vollen Kraft nur wirksam, wenn sich die Menschen dazu bereiten, seine Gabe zu empfangen.
“So wie in der Gegend des menschlichen Herzens ein fortwährendes Verwandeln des Blutes in Äthersubstanz stattfindet, so findet ein ähnlicher Vorgang im Makrokosmos statt. Wir verstehen dieses, wenn wir unser Auge hinwenden auf das Mysterium von Golgatha und auf jenen Augenblick, in dem das Blut des Christus Jesus geflossen ist aus den Wunden. Dieses Blut darf nicht nur als chemische Substanz betrachtet werden, sondern es ist durch alles das, was geschildert worden ist als die Natur des Jesus von Nazareth, etwas ganz Besonderes. Und indem es ausfloß und hineinströmte in die Erde, ist unserer Erde eine Substanz gegeben worden, die, indem sie sich mit der Erde verband, ein Ereignis war, das ein bedeutendstes ist für alle Folgezeiten der Erde, und das auch nur einmal auftreten konnte. Was geschah mit diesem Blut in den folgenden Zeiten? Nichts anderes, als was sonst im Herzen des Menschen geschieht. Dieses Blut machte im Verlaufe der Erdenevolution einen Ätherisierungsprozeß durch. Und wie unser Blut als Äther vom Herzen nach oben strömt, so lebt im Erdenäther seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha das ätherisierte Blut des Christus Jesus. Der Ätherleib der Erde ist durchsetzt von dem, was aus dem Blute geworden ist, das auf Golgatha geflossen ist; und das ist wichtig. Wäre das nicht geschehen, was durch den Christus Jesus geschehen ist, dann wäre nur das mit den Menschen auf der Erde der Fall, was vorher geschildert worden ist. So aber ist seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha eine fortwährende Möglichkeit vorhanden, daß in diesen Strömungen von unten nach oben die Wirkung des ätherischen Blutes des Christus mitströmt.
Dadurch, daß in dem Erden-Ätherleib das ätherische Blut des Jesus von Nazareth ist, strömt mit dem von unten nach oben, vom Herzen nach dem Gehirn strömenden ätherisierten Menschenblute dasjenige, was das ätherisierte Blut dieses Jesus von Nazareth ist, so daß nicht nur das zusammentrifft im Menschen, was früher geschildert worden ist, sondern es trifft zusammen die eigentliche menschliche Blutströmung und die Blutströmung des Christus Jesus. Aber eine Verbindung dieser beiden Strömungen kommt nur zustande, wenn der Mensch das richtige Verständnis entgegenbringt dem, was im Christus-Impuls enthalten ist. Sonst kann keine Verbindung zustande kommen, sonst stoßen sich die beiden Strömungen gegenseitig ab, prallen ebenso wieder auseinander, wie sie zusammengeprallt sind. Verständnis können wir nur erwerben, wenn wir in jedem Zeitalter der Erdenentwickelung dieses Verständnis so uns aneignen, wie es angepaßt ist in diesem Zeitalter. In der Zeit, als der Christus Jesus auf Erden lebte, da konnten der bevorstehenden Tatsache das richtige Verständnis entgegenbringen jene, die zu seinem Vorläufer Johannes kamen und sich taufen ließen durch die Formel, die im Evangelium ausgedrückt ist. Sie empfingen die Taufe, um die Sünde, das heißt das zu Ende gekommene Karma ihrer vorigen Leben zu ändern, und um zu erkennen, daß der wichtigste Impuls der Erdenentwickelung nunmehr in einen physischen Leib herabsteigen wird. Die Menschheitsentwickelung aber schreitet weiter, und für unsere heutige Zeit ist es wichtig, daß der Mensch einsehen lernt, daß er die geisteswissenschaftliche Erkenntnis aufnehmen muß und allmählich das, was vom Herzen zum Gehirn strömt, so befeuert, daß es der Anthroposophie Verständnis entgegenbringt. Die Folge wird sein, daß er das entgegennehmen kann, was vom zwanzigsten Jahrhundert an beginnt einzugreifen: das ist gegenüber dem physischen Christus von Palästina der ätherische Christus.
Denn an jenem Zeitpunkt sind wir angelangt, wo der ätherische Christus in das Erdenleben eingreift und zunächst einer kleinen Anzahl von Menschen sichtbar wird wie in einem natürlichen Hellsehen. Dann in den nächsten dreitausend Jahren wird er immer mehr Menschen sichtbar werden. Das muß kommen, das ist ein Naturereignis.” (Lit.: GA 130, S. 92f)
Mit dem Mysterium von Golgatha wurde eine ganz neue Entwicklung eingeleitet, durch die erstmals die Früchte dessen, was in der physischen Welt erobert wurde, in die geistige Welt hinaufgetragen werden können:
“Das ist das Bedeutsame dabei, daß man jetzt von dem physischen Plan Schätze mit in die geistige Welt hinübernehmen kann. Immer heller und heller wurde es seitdem auf dem geistigen Plan. Alles, was in der physischen Welt vorhanden war, war hervorgesprossen aus der geistigen Welt. Ging man von der physischen Welt in die geistige Welt hinüber, so konnte man sagen: Hier liegen die Ursachen von allem; und drüben in der physischen Welt ist nur das, was hervorgesprossen ist aus der geistigen Welt. Da sind nur die Wirkungen, da ist nur der Widerschein aus der geistigen Welt. – Geht man seit dem Ereignis von Golgatha von der physischen Welt in die geistige, dann sagt man sich: Auch in der physischen Welt liegen Ursachen, und herüber wirkt das, was erlebt wird durch das Ereignis von Golgatha auf dem physischen Plan, herüber in die geistige Welt.
So wird es immer mehr sein: alles Alte, was die Wirkung der alten Götter ist, wird absterben, und was aufblühen wird, was sich hineinleben wird in die Zukunft, das sind die Wirkungen des Gottes der Zukunft. Das wird hinüberleben in die geistige Welt. Es ist so, wie wenn man einen neuen Pflanzenkeim anschaut und sich sagt: Freilich ist er hervorgegangen aus einer alten Pflanze. Die alten Blätter und Blüten sind abgefallen und verschwunden, und es ist jetzt der neue Pflanzenkeim da, der sich zur neuen Pflanze und zur neuen Blüte entfalten wird. So leben auch wir in einer Welt, wo Blätter und Blüten abfallen und Götterkeime da sind. – Und immer mehr und mehr entfaltet sich die neue Frucht, die Christus-Frucht, und abfallen wird alles andere. Was hier in der physischen Welt erobert und erarbeitet wird, das wird von Wert sein für die Zukunft, insoweit es hineingetragen wird in die geistige Welt, und vor unserem geistigen Auge geht in der Zukunft eine Welt auf, die ihre Wurzeln in dem Physischen hat, wie einstmals unsere Welt ihre Wurzeln in der geistigen Welt hatte. Wie die Menschen die Söhne der Götter sind, so wird aus dem, was die Menschen in der physischen Welt durch die Erhebung zum Ereignisse von Golgatha erleben, der Leib gebildet der neuen Zukunftsgötter, deren Führer der Christus ist. So leben sich die alten Welten in die neuen Welten hinüber dadurch, daß das Alte ganz und gar abstirbt und das Neue aus dem Alten sproßt und sprießt. Das aber konnte für die Menschen nur dadurch eintreten, daß die Menschheit so weit reif war, daß sie jener geistigen Wesenheit, die der Gott der Zukunft werden sollte, eine Blüte entfaltete.” (Lit.: GA 108, S. 138f) https://anthrowiki.at/Mysterium_von_Golgatha
THE MYSTERY OF GOLGOTHA
A lecture delivered in Manchester College Chapel, Oxford, on August 27th. 1922. Authorized translation from the German of Notes unrevised by the lecturer. Published by kind permission of Frau Marie Steiner.
By RUDOLF STEINER
MANKIND is reaching out to apprehend the Mystery of Golgotha once more with all the forces of the human soul; to understand it not only from the limited standpoint of present-day civilisation, but so as to unite with it all the forces of man’s being. But this will only be possible if we are ready to approach the Mystery of Golgotha once more in the light of spiritual knowledge. Intellectualistic knowledge can never do justice to the full World-impulse of Christianity. For such knowledge only takes hold of the thinking life of man. So long as we have a Science whose only appeal is to our life of Thought, we must derive the sources of our Will (and these for Christianity are the most important) from our instinctive life, and cannot realise their true origin in spiritual Worlds.
Thus it will be indispensable to turn attention in our time once more to this the greatest question of mankind, inasmuch as the essence and meaning of the whole evolution of the Earth lies in the Mystery of Golgotha. I would fain express it in a parable, however strangely seeming. Imagine some Being descending from another planet to the Earth. Unable to become an earthly man, the Being would in all likelihood find the things on Earth quite unintelligible. Yet it is my deepest conviction, arising from a knowledge of the evolution of the Earth, that such a Being — even if he came from distant planets, Mars or Jupiter — would be deeply moved by Leonardo da Vinci’s picture of the Last Supper. For in this picture he would discover that a far deeper meaning lies hidden in the Earth, — in earthly evolution. Beginning from this deeper meaning which belongs to the Mystery of Golgotha, the Being from a distant world could then begin to understand all other things on Earth.
We men of to-day little know how far we have gone in intellectual abstraction. We can no longer feel our way into the souls of those who lived a little while before the Mystery of Golgotha. They were very different from the souls of men to-day. We are apt to imagine the past history of mankind far too similar to the events and movements of our day. In reality the souls of men have undergone a tremendous evolution. In the times before the Mystery of Golgotha all human beings — even those who were primitive, more or less uncultured in their souls, — perceived in themselves something of the essence of the soul, which might be thus described: They had a memory of the time the human soul lives through, before he descends into an earthly body. As we in ordinary life remember our experiences since the age of three or four or five, so had the human soul in ancient time a memory of pre-existence in the world of soul and spirit. In a deeper psychological sense, man was as if transparent to himself. He knew with certainty: I am a soul, and I was a soul before I descended to the Earth. Notably in still more ancient times, he even knew of certain details of the life of soul and spirit which had preceded his descent to Earth. He experienced himself in cosmic pictures. Looking up to the stars, he saw them not in the mere abstract constellations which we see to-day. He saw them in dreamlike Imaginations. In a dreamlike way he saw the whole Universe filled with spiritual pictures or Imaginations, and as he saw it thus he could exclaim: “This is the last reflected glory of the spiritual World from which I am come down. Descending as a soul from yonder spiritual World, I entered the dwelling of a human body.” Never did the man of ancient time unite himself so closely with his human body as to lose this awareness of the real life of soul.
What was the real experience of the man of ancient time in this respect? It was such that he might have said: “I, before I descended to the Earth, was in a world where the Sun is no mere heavenly body spreading light around, but a dwelling-place of higher Hierarchies, of spiritual Beings. I lived in a world where the Sun not only pours forth light, but sends out radiant Wisdom into a space not physical but spiritual. I lived in that world where the stars are essences of Being — Beings who make felt their active will. From yonder world I descended.”
Now in this feeling two experiences were joined together for the man of ancient time: the experience of Nature, and the experience of Sin.
The old experience of Sin: the modern man has it no longer. Sin, for the man of modern time, lives in a world of abstract being. It is a mere transgression, a moral concept which he cannot really connect with the necessities or laws of Nature. For the ancients the duality was non-existent, of natural law upon the one hand, and moral on the other. All moral necessities were at the same time natural, likewise all natural [necessities] were moral. In those ancient times a man might say, “I had to descend out of the divinely spiritual World. Yet by my very entry into a human body — compared to the World from which I am descended — I am sick and ill.” Sickness and Sin: for the man of olden time these two ideas were interwoven. Here upon Earth man felt that he must find within himself the power to overcome his sickness. Increasingly the consciousness grew on the souls of olden time: We need an Education which is Healing. True Education is Medicine, is Therapy. Thus there appear upon the scene shortly before the Mystery of Golgotha such figures as the Therapeutæ, as the healers. Indeed in ancient Greece all spiritual life was somehow related to the healing of humanity. They felt that man had been more healthy in the beginning of Earth-evolution, and that he had evolved by degrees farther and farther from the Divine-spiritual Beings. “The sickness of humanity” was a widespread conception, forgotten as it is by modern History, in that ancient world in which the Mystery of Golgotha was placed.
It was by turning their gaze into the past that the men of those ancient times felt the reality of spiritual things. “I must look back beyond my birth, far into the past, if I would see the Spiritual. There is the Spirit; out of that Spirit I am born; that Spirit must I find again. But I have departed far from Him.”
Thus did man feel the Spirit from whom he had departed, as the Spirit of the Father God. The highest Initiate in the Mysteries was he who evolved in his heart and soul the forces whereby he could make manifest the Father in his own external human being. When the pupils crossed the threshold of the Mysteries and came into those sacred places which were institutions of Art and Science and of the sacred religious Rites at the same time, and when at length they stood before the highest Initiate, they saw in him the representative of the Father God. The “Fathers” were higher Initiates than the “Sun-Heroes.”
Thus, before the Mystery of Golgotha the Father Principle held sway. Yet it was felt how man had departed ever more and more from the Father, to whom as we look up we say. Ex Deo nascimur. Mankind stood in need of healing, and the seers and initiates lived in expectation of the Healer, the Hælend [German Heiland, Anglo-Saxon Hælend, meaning Christ the Saviour] the healing Saviour. To us the conception of Christ as the Healer is no longer living. But we must find our way to it again, for only when we can feel His presence once more as the Cosmic Physician, shall we also realise His true place in the Universe.
Such was the deep-seated feeling in human souls before the Mystery of Golgotha, of their connection with the spiritual world of the Father. A strange saying coming down to us from ancient Greece — “Better to be a beggar upon Earth than a king in the realm of shades” — bears witness, how deeply humanity had learned to feel the estrangement of their being from the world of Spirit. Yet at the same time their souls were filled with a deep longing for that World.
But we must realise that if a man had gone on evolving with the old consciousness of the Father God alone and unimpaired, he could never have attained the full self-consciousness of the “ I ” and inner spiritual Freedom. Before he could attain true spiritual Freedom, something had to take place in man, which, in relation to his primæval state, appeared as sickness. All humanity was suffering as it were the sickness of Lazarus. But the sickness was not unto Death; it was unto liberation and redemption, unto a new knowledge of the Eternal within man.
Men had increasingly forgotten their past life of soul and spirit before birth. Their attention was directed more and more to the physical world around them. The physical environment was now the real thing. The souls of olden time, looking out through the body into their physical environment, had seen in all the stars the pictures of the world of spiritual Being which they had left behind when they descended to this life through birth. In the light of the Sun they saw the radiant Wisdom which they had indwelt, which had been their very breath of life. In the Sun itself they beheld the choirs of Divine Hierarchies by whom they had been sent down to Earth. These things mankind had now forgotten, and as the Mystery of Golgotha approached — in the 9th, 8th, 7th, 6th centuries B.C. — they felt that it was so. If external History says nothing of these things, that is its failing. He who can follow History with spiritual insight will find it as I have said. He will see at the beginning of human evolution a wonderful consciousness of the Father God; he will see this consciousness gradually weakened and paralysed, till man at length should only see around him a world of Nature, void of spiritual Beings.
Much of these things remained unspoken in the unconscious depths of the soul. Strongest of all, in the unconscious depths, was a question unexpressed in words, but felt the more deeply by the human heart. Around us is the world of Nature, but where is the Spirit whose children we are? In the best of human souls, in the 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st centuries B.C., this question lived, unconscious and unformulated. It was a time of questioning, when mankind felt their estrangement from the Father God, — when human souls knew in their very depths: “It must be so indeed: Ex Deo nascimur. But do we know it still? Can we still know it?”
If we look still more deeply into the souls of those who lived in the age when the Mystery of Golgotha was drawing near, the following is what we find: — First there were the more primitive and simple souls who felt, deeply in their subconscious life, their present separation from the Father. They were the descendants of primæval humanity, which was by no means animal-like as modern Science conceives; for within the outer form, however like the animal, primæval man had borne a soul, in the ancient dream-clairvoyance of which he knew full well: “We have come down from the Divine-spiritual world, and have assumed a human body. Into this earthly world the Father God has led us. Out of Him we are born.” But not only so; the souls of primæval humanity knew that they had left behind them, in the spiritual worlds, That which was afterwards called and which we now call the Christ. For this reason the earliest Christian authors said that the most ancient souls of humanity had been true Christians, for they too had looked up to the Christ and worshipped Him. In the spiritual worlds in which they dwelt before their descent to Earth, Christ had been the centre of their vision — the Central Being to whom they had looked with the vision of the soul. It was this communion with Christ in the pre-earthly life which they afterwards remembered when on Earth.
Then there were the regions of which Plato speaks so strangely, where pupils were initiated into the Mysteries — where the vision of super-sensible Worlds was awakened and the forces in the human being were liberated to gaze into the spiritual Worlds. Nor was it only in dim memory that the pupils of the initiates learned to know the Christ, with whom indeed all human beings lived before their descent to Earth. For by this time Christ was already a half-forgotten notion in the souls of men on Earth. But in the Mysteries the pupils learned to know Him once again in His full stature. Yet at the same time they knew Him as a Being who, if we may put it in these words, had lost His mission in the Worlds beyond the Earth. It was so in the Mysteries of the second and first centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, that as they looked up to the Being in super-sensible worlds who was afterwards called the Christ, they said: We still behold Him in the spiritual worlds, but His activity in those worlds grows ever less and less. For He was the Being who implanted in the souls of men what afterwards sprang forth within them as a memory of the time before their birth. The Christ-Being in the spiritual worlds had been the great Teacher of human souls, for what they would still bear in memory after their descent to Earth. Now that the souls of men on Earth were less and less able to kindle these memories to life, He who was afterwards called Christ appeared to the initiates as One who had lost His activity, His mission.
Thus as the initiates lived on, ever and increasingly there arose in them the consciousness: “This Being whom primæval humanity remembered in their earthly life — whom we can now behold, though with ever lessening activity, in spiritual worlds — He will seek a new sphere of His existence. He will come down to the Earth to re-awaken the super-sensible spirituality in man.” And they began to speak of the Being who was afterwards called Christ, as of Him who would in future time come down to Earth and take on a human body — as indeed He did, when the time was fulfilled, in Jesus of Nazareth. In the centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha it was one of the main contents of their speech, to speak of Christ as the Coming One. And in the beautiful picture of the Wise Men of the East — the three Kings or Magi — we see the typical figures of initiates who had learned in their several places of Initiation that Christ would come to Earth when the time should be fulfilled, and the signs in the Heavens would proclaim His coming. Then must they seek Him out at His hidden place. Indeed, there resounds throughout the Gospels what is made manifest as a deeper secret, a deeper Mystery in human evolution, when we approach it once more with spiritual vision.
Meanwhile the simple and primitive among mankind felt as it were forlorn when they looked up to Worlds beyond the realms of sense. Deep in the subconscious they said to themselves, we have forgotten Christ. They saw the world of Nature around them, and there arose in their hearts the question of which I spoke above: “How shall we find the spiritual World again?” But in the Mysteries the initiates knew that the Being who afterwards was called Christ, would come down and would take on a human form. And they knew that what human souls had formerly experienced in their pre-earthly life, they would now experience on Earth by looking up to the Mystery on Golgotha.
Thus, not in an intellectual or theoretic way, but by the greatest fact that ever took place on Earth, answer was given to the question: How shall we come once more to the Supersensible — to the Spiritual that transcends the world of sense? The men of that time, who had a certain feeling for what was taking place, learned from those who knew, that a real God dwelt in the human being Jesus. He had come down to Earth. He was the God whom mankind had forgotten because the forces of the human body were evolving towards Freedom. He, whom man on Earth had forgotten, appeared again in a new form, so that man could see Him and behold Him, and future History could tell of Him as of an earthly Being. The God who had only been known in yonder spiritual World, had descended and walked in Palestine, and sanctified the Earth inasmuch as He Himself had dwelt in a human body.
For those who were the educated men according to the culture of that age, the question was. How did Christ enter into Jesus, what path did He take? In the earliest times of Christianity the question about Christ was indeed a purely spiritual one. Their problem was not the earthly biography of Jesus. It was the descent of Christ. They looked up into the higher Worlds and saw the descent of Christ to Earth. They asked themselves, How did the super-sensible Being become an earth Being?
And the simple men who surrounded Jesus Christ as His disciples were able to converse with Him as a spiritual Being even after His Death. Nay, what He was able to tell them after His Death is the most important of all. Only a few fragments have been preserved, but spiritual Science can re-discover what Christ said to those who were nearest to Him after His Death, when He appeared to them in His purely spiritual being.
Then it was that He spoke to them as the great Healer — the Therapeut, the Comforter — to whom the great Mystery was known, how human beings had once upon a time remembered Him, because they had been with Him in super-sensible spiritual worlds before their earthly life. Now He could say to His disciples upon Earth: In former times I gave you the faculty to remember your spiritual life, your pre-earthly existence in higher worlds. But now, if you receive Me into your hearts and souls, I give you power to go forward through the Gate of Death, conscious of immortality. And you will no longer merely recognise the Father — Ex Deo Nascimur — you will feel the Son as Him with whom you can die and yet remain alive: In Christo morimur.
Such was the purport — though not of course expressed in the words I am now speaking — such was the meaning of what He taught to those who were near Him after His bodily Death. In primæval ages men had not known Death. Since ever they came to consciousness on Earth, they had an inner knowledge of the soul within them; they were aware of that which cannot die. They saw men die, but to them this Death was a mere semblance among the outer facts around them. They felt it not as Death. Only in later years, as the Mystery of Golgotha drew near, did men begin to feel the real fact of Death. For by degrees the soul within them had grown so closely united with the body that doubt could arise in their minds: How shall the soul live on when the body falls into decay? In olden times there could have been no such question, for men were aware of the living, independent soul.
But now there came the Christ Himself, and said: I will live with you on the Earth, that ye may have power to kindle your souls to life again, that ye may bear them, once more a living soul, through Death.
This was what St. Paul had not understood at first. But he understood it when the spiritual worlds were opened out before him and he received here upon Earth the living impressions of Christ Jesus. For this reason the Pauline Christianity is less and less valued in our time, for it requires us to recognise the Christ as One who comes from real worlds beyond the Earth, uniting with earthly man His cosmic power.
Thus in the course of human evolution, in the consciousness of man, the “Out of God — out of the Father God — we are born,” was supplemented by the word of life, of comfort and of strength, “In Christ we die” — that is to say, in Him we live.
In order to bring before our souls what came upon humanity through the Mystery of Golgotha, I shall best describe the present evolution of mankind, and that which we must hope for the future, from the standpoint of the initiate of modern time. I have already sought to place before you the standpoint of the initiate of olden time, and of the initiate of the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. I will now try to describe that of the initiate of our own time. The initiate is one who does not approach life with external natural Science alone, but in whom those deeper forces of knowledge have been awakened which can be kindled from depths of the human soul by proper methods. Such methods are indicated in the spiritual literature, [See especially “Knowledge of Higher Worlds and Its Attainment” (“The Way of Initiation”) by Rudolf Steiner.] and I have referred to them in my other course of lectures in this College.
When the modern initiate enters into the Sciences of our time (which are the glory and triumph of the age, and in the study of which so many people, possessed even of a certain higher consciousness, feel the greatest satisfaction) he finds himself in a tragic situation. For when he unites his soul with that form of Science which is valued above all by the world to-day, the initiate feels it as a slow process of Death. A sphere of existence higher than all earthly things has risen up before his soul. And yet, the more he imbues himself with that which all the world to-day calls Science, the more he feels his soul to die within him. For the modern initiate, the Sciences are indeed the grave of the soul. While he acquires knowledge about the world in the manner of modern Science, he feels himself bound up, even in life, with Death. Again and again he feels this Death deeply and intensely. Then he may well seek the reason why, whenever he acquires knowledge in the modern sense, he dies. Why is it, he asks himself, that he has a feeling comparable even to the presence of a corpse — the odour of decay — just when he rises to the highest points of modern scientific knowledge, the greatness of which he is truly able to appreciate, though to him it is the premonition of Death.
From his knowledge of spiritual worlds he finds the answer, which I will try to convey to you this evening, my dear friends, in a picture.
Before we come down to Earth, we human beings live in a life of soul and spirit. Now of that life in full reality of soul and spirit, in yonder pre-earthly realms, here upon Earth we retain only our Thoughts — our concepts and ideas. These are in our soul: yet how are they there? Look at the human being as he stands before you in the life between birth and death. He is fully alive, filled with the living flesh and blood. We say, he is alive. Then he passes through the gate of death. Of the physical man, the corpse remains behind, and this is given over to the Earth — to the elements. We see the dead physical man; we have the dead corpse before us, all that is left of the man who was filled with living blood. Physically he is dead.
Now we look back, with the vision of Initiation, into our own souls. There we behold our thoughts — the thoughts we have in the present life between birth and death — the thoughts of modern Science, modern wisdom. And we recognise; These thoughts are the dead corpse of what we were before we descended to the Earth. As the dead body is to the human being in the fulness of his life, so are our thoughts (the thoughts which we respect above all things in this age, which bring us knowledge of external Nature) — so are our thoughts to what we were in soul and spirit before we came down to Earth.
This is what the modern initiate discovers, and it is a very real experience. He experiences in Thought, not his real life, but the dead corpse of the soul. I am stating a simple fact. It is not uttered out of any sentimental feeling: on the contrary, it comes before the soul in modern time with all intensity, just when the soul’s knowledge is active and courageous. It is not what the sentimental mystic says to himself out of some dark and mystic depths of his being.
He who passes to-day through the Portals of Initiation discovers in his soul the real nature of the thoughts of man. For the very reason that they are unalive, they can make way for living spiritual Freedom. These thoughts are in truth the only ground on which man’s spiritual Freedom grows. Because they are dead — because they are not alive — they have no power to compel. Man can become a free Being in our time because he has to do, not with living thoughts, but with dead ones. He can take hold of the dead thoughts and use them towards Freedom. And yet, it is with all the tragedy of Worlds that we experience these thoughts as the dead corpse of the soul — of the soul that was, before it came down to Earth. For in the pre-earthly life all this, which is a corpse in man to-day, was alive and filled with movement. In spiritual Worlds it lived and moved among other human souls — those who had passed through the gate of death and were now dwelling in those Worlds, and those who had not yet descended to the Earth. It lived and moved among the Beings of the Divine Hierarchies above humanity, and in the sphere of the elemental beings that underlie all Nature. There, everything in the soul was alive, while here, the soul possesses Thought as its heritage from spiritual worlds, and Thought is dead.
Yet if as initiates of modern time we fill ourselves with Christ, who made manifest His life in the Mystery of Golgotha; if we take hold in its deepest, inmost sense, of the word of St. Paul: Not I, but Christ in me, — then will Christ lead us even through this Death. We penetrate into Nature with our thoughts, yet as we do so Christ goes with us in the Spirit. He sinks our thoughts into the grave of Nature. For Nature does indeed become a grave, inasmuch as our thoughts are dead. Yet if, with these dead thoughts, accompanied by Christ Himself, we approach the minerals, the animals, the world of stars, the clouds, mountains and streams, then we experience in modern Initiation the resurrection of dead Thought as living Thought out of all Nature. With the dead Thought, we dive down into the crystal quartz, letting Christ be our companion, according to the word: Not I, but Christ in me. Then the dead Thought arises again as living Thought out of the crystal quartz, out of all Nature. As from the tomb of the mineral world, Thought is lifted up again as living Thought. Out of the mineral world the Spirit is resurrected. And as Christ leads us through the plant-world of Nature, here too, where otherwise only our dead thoughts would dwell, the living thoughts arise.
Truly we should feel that we are sick and ill as we go out into Nature, or gaze into the Universe of stars with the restricted calculating vision of the astronomer, thus sinking our dead thoughts into the world. We should feel that we are sick, and indeed it would be a sickness unto Death. But if we let Christ be our companion, if accompanied by Him we carry our dead thoughts into the world of the Sun, the Moon, the clouds, mountains and rivers, the minerals, plants and animals and the whole physical world of man, then in our vision of Nature it all becomes alive, and there arises from all creation, as from a tomb, the living, healing Spirit who awakens us from Death: the Holy Spirit. Accompanied by Christ, in all that we have hitherto experienced as Death we feel ourselves called to Life again. We feel the living and healing Spirit speaking to us out of all the creatures of this world.
These things must be regained in spiritual knowledge, in the new Science of Initiation. Then only shall we take hold of the Mystery of Golgotha as the true meaning of all Earth-existence. Then shall we know that in this age, when through the dead thoughts human freedom must be evolved, we need the Christ to lead us into a true Knowledge of Nature. For He not only placed His own destiny upon the Earth in the Mystery of Golgotha, but gave to the Earth the mighty liberation of Pentecost, in that He promised to mankind on Earth the living Spirit, which can arise through His help from all things on the Earth. Our Science remains dead — nay, our Science itself is Sin — until we are so awakened by the Christ that from all Nature, from all existence in the Cosmos, the living Spirit speaks to us again.
It is no formula devised by human cleverness: the Trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It is a reality deeply bound up with the whole evolution of the Cosmos, and it becomes for us a living, not a dead, dogmatic knowledge, when we bring to life within ourselves the Christ who as the Risen One is the Giver of the Holy Spirit.
Then do we understand how it is like an illness if man cannot see the Divine out of which he is born. Man must be secretly diseased to be an atheist, for, if he is healthy, his whole physical being will find as it were its summation in the spontaneous inner feeling which exclaims: Out of God I am born. And it is tragic destiny if in this earthly life he does not find the Christ who can lead him through the Death that stands at the end of life’s way, and through the Death in Knowledge. But if we thus feel the In Christo morimur, then too we feel what is seeking to come near us through His guidance; we feel how the living Spirit arises again out of all things, even within this earthly life. We feel ourselves alive again even within this life on Earth, and we look through the gate of Death through which the Christ will lead us into yonder Life that lies beyond. We know now why Christ sent us the Holy Spirit, for if we let Christ be our guide we can unite ourselves to the Holy Spirit already in this life on Earth.
If we let Christ become our leader, we may surely say: We die in Christ, when we pass through the gate of Death. Our experience here on Earth, with our Science of the world of Nature, is indeed prophetic of the future. By the living Spirit, what would otherwise be a dead Science is resurrected. Thus we may also say, when the Death in Knowledge is replaced by that real Death which takes away our body: — Having understood the “Out of the Father we are born,” “In Christ we die,” we may say as we look forward through the gate of Death: “In the Holy Spirit we shall be reawakened.” Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus. https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0214/19220827p01.html