The Cosmic New Year
GA 195
25 December 1919, Stuttgart
II. The Michael Path to Christ: A Christmas Lecture
When I have had occasion in recent years to speak on any of the great yearly festivals, Christmas, Easter or Whitsuntide, I have felt bound to say that we have no right, especially under the conditions that obtain today, to commemorate these occasions in the old accustomed manner; we have no right to forget the widespread suffering, the widespread sorrow of the times, and to recall only the greatest Event which took place in earthly evolution. It is our duty, standing as we do on the ground of our Spiritual conception of the World, so fully to realize all that which indicates decline in human civilization today, that this realization permeates our thoughts even round the Christmas tree. It is clearly our duty so to receive the birth of Christ Jesus into our hearts, into our souls, that we do not close our eyes to the fearful deterioration that has overtaken the so-called culture of mankind.
At this very time it is for us to bring forward the question: “Has not the thought of Christmas also suffered the fate of being seized by the forces of general deterioration?” When Christmas is spoken of today are we still conscious of that of which man ought to be conscious when he raises his thoughts and feelings to the contemplation of the festival of Christ? Are men in general conscious of the true meaning of what entered human evolution at the Mystery of Golgotha?
We light up our Christmas trees, we repeat the customary words and phrases associated with the Christmas festival, but all too often we avoid opening our eyes fully, we avoid awakening our consciousness fully to the need of saying to ourselves: “Here, too, there is decline. Where art Thou, O Christ-Power, Thou who canst actively bring about a new ascent?” For it must have been very clear to you in the lectures which for many years have been given in our circles, that only by the power of Christ will it be possible to permeate declining civilization with that impulse which can give it a new uplift.
In these days we must often think of men, in the middle of the nineteenth century, or towards the last third of it, who, from a certain materialistic mentality, spoke quite differently from the way many men speak today. They spoke more honestly than most men do today. I should like to recall to you one personality, a truly materialistic mind—David Friedrich Strauss. You know that his book, The Old Faith and the New, is a kind of Bible of materialism.
Among the questions Strauss asks in this book is the following: “Can we still be Christians?” He answers this question, and the unusual thing about his answer is that it comes from a mind fundamentally materialistic, but at the same time honest.
David Friedrich Strauss constructed a world-edifice of thoughts, of ideas, formed entirely according to materialistic, physical laws. He placed man within it in a world-order in which human nature contained none but physical laws. From these convictions, Strauss answered the question “can we still be Christians?” with an emphatic “No”. For men who held the views on natural science which Strauss held in accordance with the consciousness of his times, could not be Christians.
Thus a fatal, but entirely honest opinion is expressed in this “No” of David Friedrich Strauss, and the feeling often occurs to us today: Would that the official advocates of this or that religious faith were as honest as was David Friedrich Strauss. Could they but see that though they use the name of Christ they are really active opponents of Christianity.
My dear friends, we dare not surrender ourselves in these days to a love of ease, nor close our eyes to the essentially important happenings of the present time. It may not seem to you to be associated with Christmas, though it does indeed seem so to me, when I refer to an experience which came to me through a kind of spiritual investigation of an actual fact of the present day.
You all know those persons who to a great extent are responsible, especially in Central Europe, for the dreadful conditions into which we have drifted, so far as any human being can be called responsible for these things. What did these men do when misfortune broke over Europe? They wrote books! We had books written by all kinds of people.
Now, the following experiment can be made with the help of Spiritual Science. The question can be asked, but strictly in accordance with Spiritual Science: “What forms of thought speak to us from the greater part of these self-vindicating books?” I have tried from every side to answer this question conscientiously. I have asked myself: “Of what kind are the thought-forms of these men on whom so much of the fate of Central Europe depends?” If we do not proceed in the abstract, but enter into things in the concrete, we compare one thing with another. In this way a comparison came to me when I asked myself the question: “About what period in the normal course of evolution in Europe were such thought-forms cultivated as those which we find in the leading personalities during the world war?” After conscientious scrutiny of the facts it was made plain to me that men thought in this manner about the time of the Roman, Julius Caesar. There is no difference between the soul- and thought-life of Julius Caesar at the time, let us say, of his Gallic wars, and the way in which such modern personalities form their thoughts. This means that these men have remained in a life of thought entirely unaffected by Christianity, for Caesar lived before the Mystery of Golgotha had broken into evolution. Even if the name of Christ Jesus is sometimes on their lips, the soul-life of these men has developed in such a way that it has nothing to do with concrete Christianity.
As the result of our many-sided studies we know that if anything develops in its own period, it is fundamentally good for humanity, but that it is otherwise when this thing remains stationary and comes to the front later. When this happens, when for instance that which was suited to the time of the Caesars continues to play a part in the twentieth century, that which was suitable to Caesar's day is transformed into something Luciferic. For that which ought to have worked properly in another period becomes, if it remains stationary, Luciferic. It is indeed essentially Luciferic.
We may now ask: “How is it that people whose fate has placed them in a leading position, have in their lives remained behind in this way?” If this question is to be answered we must turn our attention to those who claim to fill their spiritual life with the Christ-impulse, but who really work in an anti-Christian direction. Let us turn our attention to many official representatives of religious creeds, men who pretend to speak according to the Gospels, but who are opposed to everything that really tells of the living Christ in our day. The most anti-Christian persons are frequently found today among the clergy, among the preachers of the so-called Christian creeds.
If among other writings people would investigate a book—regarded by many as setting the fashion—a book entitled Das Wesen des Christentums (The Nature of Christianity), by Adolf Harnack, they would find an answer to this question. If the name of Christ were struck out of this book and replaced by the name of a God generally little known, a God who permeates and controls human life just as he permeates and controls Nature; if the name of Christ were struck out and replaced by the name of Jahve of the Old Testament, this book would be nearer the truth than it is, and would then have some meaning.
The fact is that Adolf Harnack knows nothing of the real Being of Christ, that he has not the vaguest idea of the real Being of Christ, that he worships a universal, indefinite God and then labels this universal, indefinite God with the name of Christ. And who is Adolf Harnack? Adolf Harnack has become the fashionable theologian of the circles which have provided the ground for the spiritual tendencies of those persons of whom I have been speaking. It is because no true revelation regarding the Christ comes any longer from the representatives of the creeds, that we no longer find in the events of the present day, among the men bound up with these events, any understanding for the true revelation of the Christ.
It hardly means anything to thousands, to millions of people at the present day, when they speak of the festival of Christmas; for they know nothing of the Being of Christ in the sense that is so necessary for our time. We must look into these things if in a deeper sense we will to understand the original causes of the downfall in contemporary events, and in the life of mankind within these events.
I have frequently spoken to you here of that important event which came to pass in the last third of the nineteenth century, the event through which a special relationship was established between the Archangelic Power, that Being whom we call the Archangel Michael, and the destiny of mankind. I have reminded you that since November, 1879, Michael has become the Regent, as it were, of all those who seek to bring to men the beneficial forces necessary to their healthy progress.
My dear friends, in our day we know that when such a matter is indicated, the indication refers to two different things: first, to the objective fact, and second, to the way this objective fact is connected with what men are willing to receive into their consciousness, into their Will. The objective fact is simply this, that in November, 1879, beyond the sphere of the Sense World, in the Supersensible World, that event took place which may be described as follows: Michael has gained for himself the power, when men come to meet him with all the living content of their souls, so to permeate them with his power, that they are able to transform their old materialistic intellectual power—which by that time had become strong in humanity—into spiritual intellectual power, into spiritual power of understanding. That is objective fact; it has taken place. We may say concerning it that since November, 1879, Michael has entered into another relationship with man than that in which he formerly stood. But it is required of men that they shall become the servants of Michael.
What I mean by this will become quite clear to you through the following explanation. You are aware that before the Mystery of Golgotha was accomplished upon earth, the Jews of the Old Testament looked up to their Jahve (or Jehovah). Those who, among the Jewish priests, looked up in full consciousness to Jahve, were well aware that they could not reach him directly with human perception. The very name, Jahve, was held to be unspeakable, and if it had to be uttered, a sign only was made, a sign which resembles certain combinations of signs which we attempt in the art of Eurhythmy. The Jewish priesthood, however, was well aware that men could approach Jahve through Michael. They called Michael the countenance of Jahve. Just as we learn to know a man when we look into his face, just as we draw conclusions about the gentleness of his soul from the gentleness of his countenance, and about his character from the way he looks at us, so the priesthood of the Old Testament, through the atavistic clairvoyance which flowed into their souls in dreams, desired to gain from the countenance of Jahve, from Michael's connection with Jahve, that which it was not yet possible for mankind to gain.
The position of this priesthood towards Michael and Jahve was the right one. Their position towards Michael was right because they knew that if a man of that time turned to Michael, he could find through Michael the Jahve-power, which it was proper for the humanity of that time to seek.
Other Soul-Regents of humanity have appeared since then in the place of Michael; but in November, 1879, Michael once more took the lead, and can become active in the soul-life of those who seek the paths to him. These paths today are the paths of Spiritual Scientific Knowledge. We may speak of “the paths of Michael”, just as well as of the “paths of Spiritual Scientific Knowledge”.
But just at the time when Michael entered in this way into relationship with the souls of men, in order again to become their inspirer for three centuries, at this very time the demonic opposing force, having previously prepared itself, set up the very strongest opposition to him, so that a cry went through the world during our so-called war-years, in reality years of terror, a cry which has become the great World-misunderstanding which now fills the hearts and souls of men.
Let us consider what would have become of the Jewish people of the Old Testament, if instead of approaching Jahve through Michael they had sought to approach Him directly. They would have become an intolerant people, a national self-seeking people concerned with the aggrandizement of their own nation, a nation thinking only of itself. For Jahve is the God who is connected with all natural things, and in the external historical development of mankind, He manifests His Being through the connection of generations, as it expresses itself in the essential qualities of the people. It was only because the ancient Jewish people desired at that time to approach Jahve through Michael, that they saved themselves from becoming nationally so egoistic that Christ Jesus would not have been able to come forth from among them. Because they had permeated themselves with the Michael power, as this power was in their time, the Jewish people were not so strongly impregnated with forces given over to national egoism, as would have been the case had they turned directly to Jahve.
Today Michael is again the Regent of the World, but it is in a new way that mankind must become related to him. For now Michael is not the countenance of Jahve, but the countenance of Christ Jesus. Today we must approach the Christ-impulse through Michael. In many respects humanity has not yet struggled through to this. Humanity has retained atavistically the old qualities of perception by which Michael could be approached when he was still the intermediary to Jahve; and so today humanity has a false relationship to Michael. This false relationship to Michael is apparent in a very characteristic phenomenon.
During the years of the war we heard continually the universal lie: “Freedom for individual nations, even for the smallest nations.” This is an essentially false idea, because today, in the Michael period, the all-important matter is not groups of men, but human individuals, separate men. This lie is nothing else than the endeavour to permeate each individual nation not with the new force of Michael, but with the force of the old, the pre-Christian time, with the Michael-force of the Old Testament. However paradoxical it may sound, there is a tendency among so-called civilized nations at the present day to transform what was justifiable among the Jewish people of the Old Testament, into something Luciferic, and to make of this the most powerful impulse in every single nation.
People wish today to build up the republics of Poland, of France, of America, etc., upon methods of thought suited to Old Testament times. They strive to follow Michael as it was right to follow him before the Mystery of Golgotha, when men found through him the Folk-God Jahve. Today it is Christ Jesus whom we must strive to find through Michael, Christ Jesus the Divine Leader of the whole human race. This means that we must seek for feelings and ideas which have nothing to do with human distinctions of any kind on the Earth. Such feelings and ideas cannot be found on the surface. They must be sought where the spirit and soul-part of man pulsate i.e., along the path of Spiritual Science. The matter lies thus, that we must resolve to seek the real Christ upon the path of Spiritual Science i.e., upon the Michael-path. Only through this striving after spiritual truth is the real Christ to be sought and found; otherwise it would be better to extinguish the lights of Christmas, to destroy all Christmas trees, and to acknowledge at least with truth, that we want nothing that will recall what Christ Jesus has brought into human evolution.
Pre-Christian ways of thinking speak to us from the memoirs of our contemporaries i.e., ways of thinking which in our time are anti-Christian. When men, who are held to be representative, make pronouncements such as Wilson has done in the Fourteen Points, from such pronouncements there resounds nothing but pure Old Testament mentality, a mentality which in our time has become Luciferic.
Whence comes this, my dear friends? What really lies before us? When we travel back through the periods of human evolution prior to the Mystery of Golgotha, we find, early in the course of Oriental civilization, within that civilization out of which the Chinese civilization of today has developed, a human personality who was the external incorporation of Lucifer. Lucifer really did walk the earth at that time, in a human body. He it was who brought that human light which we find at the foundation of the ancient pre-Christian wisdom, with the exception of Judaism. In the art, the philosophy, and the statesmanship of Greece, much was still active which had proceeded from this Luciferic incarnation thousands of years before the Mystery of Golgotha.
We must endeavour clearly to understand, that that which today we call human understanding is always, so long as we have not spiritualized it, a gift of that Lucifer. We must not hold merely, in a matter-of-fact, bourgeois way, the one-sided idea that anything Luciferic is dreadful, and we must get rid of it. The more we seek to get rid of Lucifer, the more we are dominated by him, for it was necessary during thousands of years of human evolution to enter into the inheritance of the incarnated Lucifer. Then came the Mystery of Golgotha. And a time will come in the future when, just as Lucifer was incorporated in the East in an earthly personality, to prepare for Christianity among the heathen, so in the West there will take place an earthly incarnation of Ahriman himself. This time is approaching. Ahriman will appear, objectively, on the earth. Just as truly as Lucifer has walked the Earth, and as Christ has walked the Earth, objectively, in human form, so will Ahriman walk the Earth, bringing with him an extraordinary increase of power to the earthly human understanding. We men have not the task of hindering in any way this incarnation of Ahriman, but it is our task so to prepare humanity beforehand, that Ahriman may be estimated in the right way. For Ahriman will have tasks, he will have to do this and that, and men must value rightly and make a right use of that which, through Ahriman, comes into the world. Men will only be able to do this if they are able to adjust themselves now in the right way to that which Ahriman is already sending to the Earth from the Worlds beyond in order that he may control the Economic life upon Earth without being noticed. This must not be. Ahriman must not control the Economic life on the Earth without his being noticed. We must thoroughly learn to know his particular qualities. We must be able to oppose him with full consciousness.
During the time I am lecturing here at Stuttgart I shall point out much that we must carefully note in human evolution up to the time of the Ahriman incarnation, so that when this comes to pass we may know how rightly to assess it. Today I shall only call your attention to one thing more. In this respect many of the modern interpretations of the Gospels are just as bad as the worst materialistic conceptions. When the representatives of so-called religious societies accept the Gospels today simply as they are written, and when every new revelation is rejected, such devotion to the Gospels, such a way of furthering Christianity, is really the best way to prepare for Ahriman's appearance on earth. A great many of the exponents of the so-called creeds of today are working intensively for Ahriman; they leave unnoticed the truth: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the Earth-age,” when they declare heretical all that proceeds from the immediate vision of the Christ today. They leave this truth unnoticed because it is more comfortable to take the Gospels in a literal way only, that is, to hold to what they deem to be the literal interpretation of the Gospels.
Mankind must be protected by wisdom from regarding the Gospels in this way, for the four Gospels, as regards external physical understanding, do contradict one another. He who does not press forward today to a spiritual interpretation of the Gospels, spreads abroad an untruthful interpretation of these Gospels, for he deceives men as regards the external contradictions which are to be found in the four Gospels. He who deceives man regarding the things that concern him most vitally, best furthers the progress of Ahriman.
It is most important for man at the present time to place Christ in the centre between Ahriman and Lucifer. The Christ power must permeate us. But as men we must always seek the balance between the mystic enthusiasm which tends to lift us above ourselves, and the materialistic understanding which by its bourgeois heaviness drags us down to earth. At every moment we must seek the balance between the Luciferic impulses which lift us up, and the Ahrimanic which drag us down. In the effort to gain this balance we find the Christ. When we strive to gain this balance, then alone can we find the Christ.
By a strange coincidence, a remarkable thing happened in human evolution at the time when materialism entered into it. I shall mention (concerning it) only two documents: Milton's “Paradise Lost” and Klopstock's “Messiah”. In these poems the Spiritual Powers are described as if a Paradise had been lost, and man had been driven out of it. The work of both poets is based upon the idea of Duality in the Universe, upon the opposition of good and evil, of the Divine and the Diabolical. It is the great error of modern times that World-Evolution should be represented as a Duality, whereas it should be represented as a Trinity. One set of forces are the upward-striving Luciferic forces which approach man in mysticism, in sentimentalism, in fantasy—in what in fantasy is degenerate, fantastic; these forces dwell in man's blood. The second are the Ahrimanic forces which dwell in all that is dry, heavy, (speaking physiologically) in the bony system. The Christ stands in the middle between these two. His is the third group of forces. Lucifer's is the first, Ahriman's the second, and in the centre, between the two, is the Christ-force.
What then has happened in more recent days? Something has taken place to which men should look up with true spiritual-intellectual fervour, for unless they understand what it is that has happened they cannot enter in the right way into the Christmas festival. We read today Milton and Klopstock, we read their descriptions of the Supersensible World. What do we find? Everywhere we find Luciferic qualities ascribed to Beings who are called Divine. Writers such as Milton and Klopstock describe the fight between Luciferic qualities which appear to them Divine, and Ahrimanic qualities. And a great part of that which modern humanity describes as Godlike, is simply Luciferic. They do not recognize it for what it is; just as little as they recognize that which is Ahrimanic for what it is.
The same thing appears in Goethe's Faust, where we find Mephistopheles contrasted with “the Lord”. Goethe, too, was unable to distinguish between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. Consequently his Mephistopheles is a kind of mixture of the two. I have already pointed this out in my little book Goethe's Standard of the Soul (Geistesart).
True followers of Goethe do not merely quote literally from his works, as do so many academic persons and the like. If we faithfully travel the path that Goethe has taken, so that we are able to recognize the things wherein he must have changed, especially if we follow his Conception of the World beyond the year 1832, we are able to speak of a Goethe of the year 1919, now soon to be 1920.
The way must be found calmly to admit that in the materialistic centuries, much that is Luciferic is hidden behind what is called Divine. There is much by which men seek to spread religion at the present day that reaches humanity only as words born on the wings of Lucifer.
Only when men are once more able to recognize this Dualism—the Luciferic that would lead them above themselves, and the Ahrimanic that would lead them down below themselves—and turn from these to what is truly Christ-like, only then will they again celebrate in the right way the Christmas event, that event by which we should recall how that which gives its own particular meaning, its true meaning to the Earth, entered into human evolution.
Today we cannot help thinking sometimes of Leonardo da Vinci, of Leonardo, who once as you know, painted in Milan his great picture, the “Last Supper”—Christ with His Disciples around Him. Leonardo was a long time painting this picture—twenty years. He wanted to put a great deal into it, and could never finish it, because he was always making a fresh attempt to paint the figure of Judas in the right way. Now under the State organization of Milan, the abbot of the monastery for which the picture was being painted was his immediate employer. When later a new abbot came, a sharp resolute man, not so patient as his predecessor, he went to Leonardo and told him sternly that the picture must be finished forthwith. Leonardo replied that he could now finish the picture, for since the new abbot had come he had a model for Judas. In a short time he had painted the face of Judas as we see it in the picture.
Just as at the beginning of the new age the face of Judas appeared to Leonardo on the ground of a positive faith, so we in our day have frequent occasion to write on our hearts and souls the fact that He whose birth we commemorate at this holy season, is betrayed most of all by many of those who declare that it is in accordance with their creed that they prepare this festival. We know that the Christmas Festival itself is one of those that has been adopted in the course of Christian evolution, that it was not till the third or fourth century that people began in these December days, to commemorate the birth of Christ. The event of Golgotha had already taken place some centuries before, when those whose thoughts were centred upon that Event, adopted something so incisively new, at that time, as the institution of the Festival of Christmas. Much, much later it was still possible for new things to be implanted in Christianity. Many of those who called themselves true Christians, fought at the time against these innovations. Today there are very many such people at work, who will not advance in the way their own creed advanced when it accepted in the third and fourth centuries the institution of Christmas; people who hold rigidly to that of which they say, “it stands written”, people who turn away from every living revelation.
Terrible as is the state of sleep of people at the present day—of people who with their non-moral thoughts soil, too often, things which are seeking to enter the Spiritual life—the most terrible of all is the case of those who betray the true spirit of Christian evolution from out of the very faith itself.
It is in this earnest mood that I wished to present the lights of the Christmas tree to you today; next time I hope to speak of them in another connection.
Zweiter Vortrag
Wo ich in den letzten Jahren zu sprechen hatte an einer der Jahresfeiern, Weihnachtsfeier oder Osterfeier oder Pfingstfeier, da mußte ich darauf aufmerksam machen, daß insbesondere bei solchen Gelegenheiten wir gegenwärtig kein Recht dazu haben, in der altgewohnten Weise solche Feiern zu begehen, gewissermaßen den ganzen Schmerz, das ganze Leid der Zeit zu vergessen und in solchen Tagen uns nur zu erinnern an das Größte, das hereingespielt hat in die Erdenentwickelung. Insbesondere auf dem Boden jener geistigen Weltanschauung, auf dem wir stehen, haben wir die Verpflichtung, hereinströmen zu lassen bis an den Weihnachtsbaum heran alles dasjenige, was in der gegenwärtigen Kulturwelt die Menschheit ergreift an Niedergangserscheinungen. Wir haben heute geradezu die Verpflichtung, auch die Geburt des Christus Jesus so in unsere Herzen, in unsere Seelen aufzunehmen, daß wir nicht außer acht lassen den furchtbaren Niedergang, von dem die sogenannte Kulturmenschheit ergriffen worden ist.
Denn gerade an diesem Tage ist es an uns, die Frage aufzuwerfen: Hat denn nicht eigentlich auch der Gedanke der Weihnacht schon das Schicksal gehabt, ergriffen zu werden von den allgemeinen Niedergangskräften? Verspüren wir noch, wenn heute von Weihnacht die Rede ist, dasjenige, was der Mensch verspüren soll, wenn er seine Gedanken und Empfindungen hinauferhebt zu dieser Christfeier? Verspürt die Menschheit im allgemeinen den rechten Sinn des Hereinspielens des ganzen Mysteriums von Golgatha in die Menschheits- entwickelung? Wir zünden heute unsere Weihnachtsbäume an, wir sprechen in altgewohnten Sätzen und Worten über das, was mit dem Weihnachtsfest zusammenhängt, allein wir vermeiden es nur allzuoft, die Augen voll aufzumachen, das Bewußtsein voll erwachen zu machen gegenüber der Notwendigkeit, sich zu sagen: Es ist ein Niedergang vorhanden; wo bist du, Christus-Kraft, daß du uns wirklich hilfst, damit wir einen neuen Aufgang bewirken können? Denn soviel dürfte Ihnen aus den Betrachtungen, die durch die Jahrzehnte schon angestellt worden sind über geistige Weltanschauung in unseren Kreisen, klar geworden sein, daß nur mit Hilfe der Christus-Kraft es möglich sein wird, die verfallene Kultur wiederum mit demjenigen Impuls zu durchdringen, der sie zu einem neuen Aufstieg bringen kann.
Man muß in diesen Tagen oftmals denken an Menschen, die etwa in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts oder gegen das letzte Drittel desselben aus einer gewissen materialistischen Gesinnung heraus anders gesprochen haben, als viele Menschen allerdings in der Gegenwart sprechen, die aber doch ehrlicher gesprochen haben als die Mehrzahl der Menschen in der Gegenwart spricht. Ich möchte Sie heute erinnern an eine recht materialistisch gesinnte Persönlichkeit, an den Schwaben David Friedrich Strauß. Sie wissen ja, «Der alte und der neue Glaube» von David Friedrich Strauß ist gewissermaßen eine Art Bibel des Materialismus. Unter den Fragen, die David Friedrich Strauß in diesem Buche stellt, ist auch diese: Können wir noch Christen sein? - David Friedrich Strauß gibt eine Antwort. Diese Antwort hat die Eigentümlichkeit, daß sie ganz aus urmaterialistischer Gesinnung heraus geboren ist, aber sie hat zu gleicher Zeit die Eigentümlichkeit, daß sie ehrlich ist. David Friedrich Strauß bildet sich den Gedanken, die Idee eines Weltgebäudes, das nur aus materialistischen physikalischen Gesetzen aufgebaut ist, und er stellt den Menschen hinein in eine Weltenordnung so, daß des Menschen Wesen auch nichts anderes enthält als physikalische Gesetze. Und von dieser seiner Überzeugung aus beantwortet er die Frage: Können wir noch Christen sein? - mit einem ehrlichen «Nein». Denn diejenigen Menschen, welche diese Art naturwissenschaftlicher Weltanschauung, wie sie David Friedrich Strauß aus dem Zeitbewußtsein heraus vertritt, mitvertreten, können keine Christen sein. So spricht uns aus dem Nein des David Friedrich Strauß eine fatale, aber durchaus ehrliche Gesinnung, und man hat heute manchmal die Empfindung: Könnten doch die sogenannten offiziellen Vertreter des einen oder des anderen Religionsbekenntnisses so ehrlich sein wie David Friedrich Strauß! Könnten Sie einsehen, wie sie den Christus-Namen zwar gebrauchen, aber im Grunde genommen gegen das Christentum wirken!
Man darf nicht heute sich der Bequemlichkeit hingeben, die Augen zuzudrücken gegenüber den wesentlichsten, wichtigsten Erscheinungen in der Gegenwart. Mag es manchem nicht weihnachtlich dünken, mich dünkt es recht weihnachtlich, wenn ich eine gewisse Erfahrung erwähne, die mir geworden ist durch eine Art geistiger Untersuchung über ein Unmittelbares, Tatsächliches in der Gegenwart.
Sie wissen, diejenigen Menschen, die zum großen Teil, besonders in Mitteleuropa, schuldig sind - soweit Menschen an diesen Dingen schuldig genannt werden dürfen - an den furchtbaren Zuständen, in die wir hineingesegelt sind, diese Menschen, was tun sie, nachdem das Unglück über Europa hereingebrochen ist? Sie schreiben Bücher! Und so haben wir denn von den verschiedensten Menschen Bücher. Wir haben ein Tirpitz-Buch, wir haben ein Zudendorff-Buch und ich könnte noch manche anderen nennen; ich beschränke mich auf diese beiden. Sehen Sie, man kann das folgende Experiment mit Hilfe der Geisteswissenschaft machen; man kann sich - aber durchaus im Sinne geisteswissenschaftlicher Gesinnung - die Frage vorlegen; Welche Formung der Gedanken spricht sich aus in den Büchern von Tirpitz, Ludendorff und ihresgleichen? Ich habe versucht, von allen Seiten diese Frage gewissenhaft zu prüfen, habe mich gefragt: Welcher Art sind die Gedankenformen dieser Männer, von denen so viel von dem Schicksal Mitteleuropas abhängt? Wenn man nicht abstrakt vorgeht, sondern in solchen Dingen in das Konkrete hineindringt, dann muß man vergleichen, und so hat sich mir ein Vergleich ergeben, indem ich mich gefragt habe: Wann etwa hat man solche Gedankenformen nach dem normalen Entwickelungsgange in Europa ausgebildet, wie sie jetzt etwa Tirpitz und Ludendorff ausbilden? Und da ergibt sich nach gewissenhafter Prüfung der Tatsachen, daß etwa zur Zeit des römischen Cäsar man so gedacht hat. Es ist im Grunde genommen kein Unterschied zwischen der Art des Julius Cäsar, seelisch zu denken und zu leben - sagen wir, in seinem Gallischen Krieg - und zwischen der Art und Weise, wie Tirpitz und Ludendorff ihre Gedanken formen. Das heißt aber, daß diese Menschen in einem Gedankenleben drinnenstehen, das völlig unberührt ist von dem Christentum, denn Julius Cäsar hat vor dem Hereinbrechen des Mysteriums von Golgatha gelebt. Und alles das, was diese Menschen auch zuweilen aussprechen, wenn sie den Namen des Christus Jesus auf die Lippen bringen, ist nichts anderes als eitel Lüge, denn ihr Seelenleben hat sich so entwickelt, daß sie mit dem konkreten Christentum nichts zu tun haben.
Wir wissen ja aus mannigfaltigen Betrachtungen: Wenn irgend etwas zu seiner Zeit sich entwickelt, dann ist es im Grunde genommen gut für die Menschheit. Etwas anderes ist es, wenn es stehen bleibt und später herauskommt; wenn dies der Fall ist, das heißt, wenn das Cäsarmäßige noch im 20. Jahrhundert eine Rolle spielt, dann ist das Cäsarmäßige ins Luziferische umgesetzt. Denn das, was eigentlich in anderer Zeit gewirkt haben sollte, wird, wenn es stehen bleibt, zum Luziferischen; das ist ja das Wesentliche des Luziferischen.
Und nun wiederum fragen wir: Wie kann es denn kommen, daß diejenigen Persönlichkeiten, die ein Schicksal heraufgetragen hat, um führende Stellungen einzunehmen, wie kann es denn sein, daß diese Persönlichkeiten in einer solchen Weise mit ihrem Leben zurückgeblieben sind? Da müssen wir, wenn wir uns diese Frage beantworten wollen, unseren Blick hinwenden auf diejenigen, die das Geistesleben mit dem Christus-Impuls angeblich durchdringen, die aber eigentlich im antichristlichen Sinne wirken. Da müssen wir den Blick auf viele offizielle Vertreter der religiösen Bekenntnisse richten, die angeblich aus den Evangelien heraus sprechen, die aber alles das bekämpfen, was wirklich von dem lebendigen Christus in unserer Zeit künden will. Die antichristlichsten Menschen sind heute oftmals unter den Pfarrern, unter den Predigern der sogenannten christlichen Bekenntnisse zu finden. Wer unter all den Schriften so etwas prüft, wie das von vielen als tonangebend gehaltene Buch Adolf Harnacks «Das Wesen des Christentums», der bekommt Antwort auf eine solche Frage. Adolf Harnack hat «Das Wesen des Christentums» geschrieben. Wenn man in diesem Buche den Christus-Namen ausstreicht und ersetzt durch den Namen eines allgemeinen unbekannten Gottes, der die Natur ebenso durchwaltet und durchwebt wie das Menschenleben, wenn man den Christus-Namen ausstreicht und den alttestamentlichen Jahve-Namen an seine Stelle setzt, so wird das Buch wahrer als es ist, denn dann erst hat es einen Sinn. Die Tatsache liegt vor, daß Adolf Harnack nichts weiß von der wirklichen Wesenheit des Christus, daß er gar keine Ahnung hat von der wirklichen Wesenheit des Christus, daß er einen allgemeinen unbestimmten Gott verehrt und dann dem allgemeinen unbestimmten Gotte den Christus-Namen anheftet. Und wer ist dieser Adolf Harnack? Dieser Adolf Harnack ist der tonangebende Theologe gewesen für all die Kreise, welche den Boden abgegeben haben für die geistige Richtung, aus der auch aufgequollen sind Tirpitz und Ludendorff und so weiter! Weil von den Vertretern der Bekenntnisse keine wirkliche Christus-Offenbarung mehr gekommen ist, liegt in den Ereignissen der Gegenwart durch die Menschen, die mit diesen Ereignissen verknüpft sind, keine solche Empfindung für die wirkliche Christus-Offenbarung. Gar keinen Sinn hat es für Tausende und Millionen Menschen der Gegenwart, wenn sie von dem Weihnachtsfeste sprechen; denn sie kennen nicht in dem Sinne, wie das für unsere Zeit notwendig ist, die Wesenheit des Christus-Jesus. Auf solche Dinge müssen wir blicken, wenn wir in einem tieferen Sinne uns klar werden wollen, welches die Ursachen für den Niedergang unserer Zeitereignisse, des Menschenlebens in diesen Zeitereignissen sind.
Ich habe Ihnen von dieser Stätte aus oftmals gesprochen von jenem wichtigen Ereignis, das sich zugetragen hat im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts, von jenem Ereignis, durch das ein besonderes Verhältnis gebildet worden ist zwischen jener Erzengelmacht, die wir als die Erzengelmacht Michael bezeichnen, und den Geschicken der Menschheit. Ich habe Sie darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß seit dem November 1879 Michael gewissermaßen der Regent sein muß für alle diejenigen, welche der Menschheit zu ihrem gedeihlichen Fortschritt die rechten Kräfte zuführen wollen.
In unserer Zeit weist man, indem man so etwas andeutet, auf zweierlei hin: erstens auf eine objektive Tatsache, zweitens aber auch auf das, wie sich diese objektive Tatsache zu all dem verhält, was die Menschen in ihren Willen, in ihr Bewußtsein aufnehmen wollen. Die objektive Tatsache ist einfach die, daß sich im November 1879 jenseits der Sphäre der sinnlichen Welt, im Übersinnlichen, dasjenige abgespielt hat, was man so ausdrücken kann: Michael hat sich die Kraft erobert, wenn die Menschen ihm entgegenkommen mit all dem, was in ihren Seelen lebt, diese so zu durchdringen mit seiner Kraft, daß sie die alte materialistische Verstandeskraft, die bis dahin in der Menschheit groß geworden ist, umwandeln können in spirituelle Verstandeskraft, in geistige Verstandeskraft. Das ist die objektive Tatsache; sie hat sich vollzogen. Wir können davon sprechen: Michael ist in ein anderes Verhältnis zur Menschheit getreten, als dasjenige war, in dem er früher gestanden hat, seit dem November 1879. Aber es ist erforderlich, daß man dem Michael dient. Was ich damit meine, es wird am klarsten werden, wenn ich Ihnen das Folgende auseinandersetze.
Sie wissen, bevor das Mysterium von Golgatha sich auf der Erde vollzogen hat, schauten die alttestamentlichen Juden hinauf zu ihrem Jahve oder Jehova. Diejenigen, die aus der jüdischen Priesterschaft mit vollem Bewußtsein zu Jahve schauten, waren sich bewußt, daß sie nicht unmittelbar mit ihrem Menschenerkennen herandringen konnten zu Jahve. Sogar der Name galt als unaussprechlich, und wenn der Name ausgesprochen werden sollte, wurde nur ein Zeichen gemacht, das ähnlich ist gewissen Zeichenzusammenhängen, die wir durch unsere Eurythmie aufsuchen. Aber diese Priesterschaft war sich auch klar darüber, daß sich der Mensch dem Jahve durch Michael nähern könne. Diese Priesterschaft nannte Michael das Antlitz des Jahve oder des Jehova. So wie wir einen Menschen kennenlernen, wenn wir in sein Antlitz blicken, wie wir aus der Milde seines Antlitzes einen Schluß auf die Milde der Seele, aus der Art, wie er uns anschaut, auf seinen Charakter ziehen, so wollte die alttestamentliche Priesterschaft aus dem, was sich in die Seele hereinschlich an atavistischen Hellschauungen in Träumen, von dem Antlitz des Jahve, von dem Michael schließen auf Jahve, den zu erreichen der Menschheit doch nicht möglich war. Diese Priesterschaft stand richtig zu Michael und Jahve oder Jehova; sie stand richtig zu Michael, weil sie sich bewußt war, daß, wenn sich der Mensch der damaligen Zeit zu Michael wendete, er durch Michael diejenige Kraft, die Jahve-Kraft oder Jehova-Kraft finden würde, welche zu suchen dem Menschen der damaligen Zeit ziemte.
Andere seelische Menschheitsregenten traten seither an die Stelle des Michael; aber seit dem November 1879 ist Michael wiederum aufgetreten, und er kann rege gemacht werden im menschlichen Seelenleben, wenn man die Wege zu ihm sucht. Und diese Wege sind heute die Wege geisteswissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis. Man könnte ebensogut sagen die «Michaelswege», wie man sagen kann «die Wege geisteswissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis». Aber gerade seit jener Zeit, da Michael auf diese Weise in ein Verhältnis zu den menschlichen Seelen eingetreten ist, um wiederum ihr unmittelbarer Inspirator durch drei Jahrhunderte zu werden, hat am allerstärksten auch die dämonische Gegenkraft eingesetzt, nachdem sie sich vorher vorbereitet hatte. So ging ein Ruf durch die Welt, der während unserer sogenannten Kriegs-, aber in Wirklichkeit Schreckensjahre zu einem großen Welt-Unverstand geworden ist, der jetzt die Herzen und Seelen der Menschen durchzieht.
Was wäre denn aus dem alttestamentlichen Judenvolk geworden, wenn es, statt sich dem Jahve durch Michael zu nähern, hätte unmittelbar an Jahve herandringen wollen? Es wäre aus ihm geworden ein intolerantes, volksegoistisches Volk, ein Volk, das nur an sich hätte denken können. Denn Jahve ist der Gott, der mit allem Natürlichen zusammenhängt und im äußeren geschichtlichen Menschenwerden prägt er sein Wesen aus in dem Generationenzusammenhang der Menschen, wie er sich im Volkswesen ausspricht. Nur dadurch, daß dazumal das althebräische Volk durch Michael dem Jahve sich nähern wollte, hat es sich davor bewahrt, so volksegoistisch zu werden, daß dann nicht einmal der Christus Jesus aus der Mitte dieses Volkes hätte hervorgehen können. Denn dadurch, daß es sich mit der Michael-Kraft, wie diese Kraft damals war, durchdrang, dadurch imprägnierte sich das jüdische Volk nicht mit Kräften, die einen so starken Volksegoismus abgegeben hätten, als wenn man sich unmittelbar an Jahve oder Jehova gewendet hätte.
Heute nun ist Michael wieder der Weltregent, aber die Menschheit ist genötigt, sich zu ihm in einer neuen Weise zu verhalten. Denn jetzt soll Michael nicht das Antlitz Jahves sein, sondern das Antlitz des Christus Jesus. Jetzt sollen wir uns durch Michael dem Christus-Impuls nähern. Aber die Menschheit hat vielfach sich dazu noch nicht hindurchgerungen; die Menschheit hat atavistisch bewahrt die alten Empfindungsqualitäten, durch die man sich dem Michael so genähert hat wie damals, als er noch der Vermittler zu Jahve war. Und so hat heute die Menschheit noch ein falsches Verhältnis zu Michael, und in einer charakteristischen Erscheinung kommt dieses falsche Verhältnis zu Michael zum Vorschein.
Wir haben während der kriegerischen Jahre immer wiederum die Weltlüge vernommen: Freiheit den einzelnen, selbst den kleinsten Nationen. Diese Gesinnung, die eine lügenhafte ist, weil heute in dieser Michaelzeit nicht Menschen-Gruppen, sondern MerischenIndividualitäten es sind, worauf es ankommt, diese Lüge ist nichts anderes als die Bestrebung, jedes einzelne Volk nicht mit der neuen Michael-Kraft zu durchdringen, sondern mit der alten der vorchristlichen Zeit, mit der Michael-Kraft des Alten Testamentes zu durchdringen. So paradox es klingt, es besteht heute unter den Völkern der sogenannten zivilisierten Menschheit die Tendenz, dasjenige, was im alttestamentlichen Judenvolk berechtigt war, luziferisch umzubilden und zum innersten Wirkungsimpuls jedes einzelnen Volkes zu machen. Mit alttestamentlicher Gesinnung möchte man heute aufbauen Polenreiche, Amerikareiche, Franzosenreiche und so weiter. Dem Michael zu folgen bestrebt man sich so, wie es richtig war ihm zu folgen vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha, wo man finden sollte durch ihn den Jahve, einen Volksgott. Heute sollen wir durch ihn den Christus Jesus finden, den göttlichen Führer der ganzen Menschheit. Dann aber müssen wir Empfindungen und Vorstellungen suchen, die nichts zu tun haben mit irgendwelchen menschlichen Unterschieden auf der Erde; aber die können wir nicht an der Oberfläche suchen, die müssen wir suchen da, wo das MenschlichGeistige und Seelenhafte pulsiert, das heißt, wir müssen sie auf geisteswissenschaftlichem Wege suchen. Und so liegen die Dinge, daß man sich entschließen muß, auf geisteswissenschaftlichem Wege, das heißt auf michaelischem Wege den wirklichen Christus zu suchen, der nur gesucht und gefunden werden kann auf dem Boden geistigen Wahrheitsstrebens. Sonst sollte man lieber alle Weihnachtslichter auslöschen, alle Weihnachtsbäume ertöten und sich wenigstens wahrhaftig gestehen, daß man nicht irgendeine Erinnerung an dasjenige will, was der Christus Jesus in die Menschheitsentwickelung hineingebracht hat.
Und so tönt uns durch die Memoiren der Gegenwartsmenschen vorchristliche, das heißt in unserer Zeit antichristliche Gesinnung, und wenn Menschen, die man für repräsentative hält, wie der Wilson in der Gegenwart sich kundgeben, so tönt durch solche vierzehn Punkte, wie er sie gegeben hat, rein alttestamentliche Gesinnung, die zur luziferischen Gesinnung in unserer Zeit wird. Woher kommt dieses? Was liegt da eigentlich vor?
Wenn wir in der Zeitentwickelung der Menschheit zurückgehen vor das Mysterium von Golgatha, dann kommen wir dazu, in alten Zeiten der orientalischen Kulturentwickelung eine menschliche Persönlichkeit auf Erden zu finden innerhalb derjenigen Kultur, aus der die heutige chinesische Kultur geworden ist, eine menschliche Persönlichkeit, die die äußere menschliche Verkörperung Luzifers war, der dazumal wirklich als menschliche Verkörperung über den Erdboden gegangen ist, und der der Träger des menschlichen Lichtes war, das wir auf dem Boden der alten vorchristlichen Weisheit finden, mit Ausnahme des Judentums. Noch im Griechentum strömt durch das, was an Kunst, an Weltanschauung, an Staatsmannschaft im Griechentum wirkte, dasjenige durch, was ausgegangen ist von der Luzifer-Inkarnation Jahrtausende vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha.
Wir müssen uns nur klar sein darüber, daß alles das, was wir heute menschlichen Verstand nennen, noch immer, solange wir ihn nicht spiritualisiert haben, ein Geschenk jenes Luzifer ist. Wir müssen nur nicht philiströs, bourgeoismäßig die Sektierergesinnung entwickeln: Luziferisches, das ist etwas Furchtbares, das muß man abstreifen. Will man es abstreifen, so fällt man ihm erst recht anheim; denn es ist eben einmal durch Jahrtausende der Menschheitsentwickelung notwendig geworden, das Erbe des verkörperten Luzifer anzutreten. Dann kam das Mysterium von Golgatha. Dann aber wird eine Zeit kommen, wo ebenso wie im Orient in einer irdischen Persönlichkeit sich Luzifer einstmals verkörpert hat, um gerade das Christentum vorzubereiten bei den Heiden, wo ebenso im Westen die irdische Verkörperung des wirklichen Ahriman auftreten wird. Dieser Zeit gehen wir entgegen. Objektiv wird Ahriman auf der Erde wandeln. So wahr als Luzifer gewandelt hat und Christus gewandelt hat objektiv in einem Menschen, wird Ahriman mit ungeheurer Macht zu irdischer Verstandeskraft auf der Erde wandeln. Wir Menschen haben nicht die Aufgabe, die Inkarnation des Ahriman etwa zu verhindern, aber wir haben die Aufgabe, die Menschheit so vorzubereiten, daß Ahriman in der richtigen Weise eingeschätzt wird. Denn Ahriman wird Aufgaben haben, er wird das eine und das andere tun müssen, aber die Menschen werden in der richtigen Weise dasjenige einschätzen und verwenden müssen, was durch Ahriman in die Welt kommt. Das werden sie nur können, wenn sie in der richtigen Weise sich einstellen können heute schon zu demjenigen, was jetzt schon Ahriman so von jenseitigen Welten aus auf die Erde sendet, daß er einmal wirtschaften kann auf der Erde, ohne daß er bemerkt wird. Das darf nicht sein. Ahriman darf nicht auf der Erde so wirtschaften, daß er nicht bemerkt wird; man muß ihn in seiner Eigentümlichkeit voll erkennen, man muß ihm mit vollem Bewußtsein sich entgegenstellen können.
Nun werde ich Ihnen in den Tagen, in denen ich hier in Stuttgart vortragen werde, mancherlei von dem zeigen, was wohl zu beachten ist in der Entwickelung der Menschheit bis zur Ahriman-Inkarnation hin, damit diese, wenn sie kommt, richtig eingeschätzt wird. Heute will ich Sie nur auf eines aufmerksam machen: Ebenso schlimm wie die schlimmste materialistische Weltanschauung ist in dieser Beziehung manche Evangelien-Interpretation in der Gegenwart. Wenn heute einfach von den Vertretern. der sogenannten Religionsgesellschaften die Evangelien genommen werden wie sie sind, und wenn jede neue Offenbarung abgewiesen wird, so bedeutet eine solche Hingabe an die Evangelien, eine solche Art, das Christentum zu pflegen, die beste Art, sich im ahrimanischen Sinne auf die irdische Erscheinung des Ahriman vorzubereiten. Am intensivsten arbeiten Ahriman vor eine große Anzahl von Vertretern der heutigen sogenannten Bekenntnisse, indem sie unbeachtet lassen die Wahrheit: «Ich bin bei euch alle Tage bis an das Ende der Erdenzeiten», indem sie alles dasjenige als ketzerisch erklären, was aus der unmittelbaren Anschauung des gegenwärtigen Christus hervorgeht, und indem sie in bequemer Weise wortwörtlich, nur aber in ihrer Art wortwörtlich, an die Evangelien sich halten. Die Menschheit sollte durch eine Weisheit davor beschützt werden, in dieser Art sich an die Evangelien zu halten, indem die vier Evangelien rein äußerlich für die physische Verstandeskraft einander widersprechen. Und wer heute nicht vordringt zur geistigen Interpretation der Evangelien, der verbreitet eine lügenhafte Interpretation der Evangelien, denn er täuscht die Menschen hinweg über die äußeren Widersprüche, die in den vier Evangelien bestehen. Und die Menschen über ihre wichtigsten Angelegenheiten zu täuschen, das ist gerade dasjenige, was die Wege des Ahriman am allerbesten befördert.
Die Menschen der Gegenwart haben es sehr notwendig, Christus mitten hineinzustellen zwischen Ahriman und Luzifer. ChristusKraft muß uns durchdringen. Aber wir müssen immer als Menschen das Gleichgewicht suchen zwischen demjenigen, was gewissermaßen schwärmerisch-mystisch über uns hinaus will, und dem, was uns materialistisch-verstandesmäßig, philiströs-schwer zur Erde herunterziehen will. In jedem Augenblick müssen wir das Gleichgewicht suchen zwischen demjenigen, wodurch wir luziferisch hinauferhoben werden und demjenigen, wodurch wir ahrimanisch hinunterstreben wollen, aber in dem Suchen dieses Gleichgewichtes liegt der Christus. Und wenn wir uns bestreben, dieses Gleichgewicht zu suchen, dann allein können wir den Christus finden.
Durch eine sonderbare Fügung ist etwas sehr Merkwürdiges geschehen in der neueren Menschheitsentwickelung in jener Zeit, in der der Materialismus eingedrungen ist. Ich will nur hinweisen auf zwei Dokumente, auf Miltons «Verlorenes Paradies» und Klopstocks «Messias». Da werden die geistigen Welten so geschildert, als ob ein Paradies verlorengegangen und der Mensch daraus hinausgestoßen worden wäre. Sowohl Miltons «Verlorenes Paradies» wie Klopstocks «Messias» arbeiten mit einer Zweiheit in der Welt, mit dem Gegensatz des Guten und des Bösen, des Göttlichen und des Teuflischen. Sehen Sie, das ist aber der große Irrtum der neueren Zeit, daß man sich die Weltkultur vorstellt nach einer Zweiheit, während sie vorgestellt werden muß im Sinne einer Dreiheit. Das eine sind die hinaufstrebenden luziferischen Kräfte, die im Mystischen, Schwärmerischen, Phantasievollen, in der Ausartung aber auch im Phantastischen, an den Menschen herantreten, die im menschlichen Blut leben; das andere sind die ahrimanischen Kräfte, die in allem Trockenen, Schweren leben, im Knochensystem, physiologisch gesprochen; das Christliche steht in der Mitte zwischen beiden drinnen, das ist das dritte. Luziferisch ist das erste, ahrimanisch das zweite und in der Mitte zwischen beiden ist das Christliche.
Was ist geschehen in der neueren Zeit? Etwas ist geschehen, auf das die Menschheit hinschauen sollte mit wahrhaftig spirituell-intellektueller Inbrunst, denn ehe sie dieses nicht versteht, wird sie nicht in richtiger Weise die Weihnachtswege finden. Wir lesen heute Milton, Klopstock, ihre Schilderungen von der übersinnlichen Welt; wie lesen wir sie? So lesen wir sie, daß überall luziferische Eigenschaften übertragen sind auf dasjenige, was man göttlich nennen will. Schildern wollen solche Menschen wie Klopstock und Milton den Kampf zwischen einem Luziferischen, das ihnen als das Göttliche erscheint, und dem Ahrimanischen. Und ein großer Teil desjenigen, was die neuere Menschheit als ihr Göttliches schildert, ist nur ein Luziferisches. Man erkennt es aber nicht in der richtigen Weise, ebensowenig wie das Ahrimanische. Das spielt noch herein in Goethes «Faust», wenn wir dem «Herrn» gegenübergestellt finden Mephistopheles; aber auch Goethe hat noch nicht trennen können das Ahrimanische vom Luziferischen. So ist sein Mephistopheles ein Durcheinandermischen geworden des Luzifer und des Ahriman. Ich habe schon darauf hingewiesen in meinem Büchlein «Goethes Geistesart». Man ist heute im rechten Sinne ein Goetheanist, wenn man nicht, wie etwa manche Akademiker und sonstige Leute der Gegenwart es tun, einfach das nachspricht, was aus Goethe wortwörtlich kommt, sondern wenn man sich den Weg bahnt so zu Goethe hin, daß man auch dasjenige einsehen kann, was bei ihm anders werden mußte, gerade wenn man seiner Weltanschauung folgt über das Jahr 1832 hinaus; wenn wir heute nicht von einem Goethe des Jahres 1832 sprechen, sondern von einem Goethe des Jahres 1919, nun schon bald 1920. Aber gefunden werden muß der Weg, sich ruhig einzugestehen, daß in demjenigen, was die materialistischen Jahrhunderte ihr Göttliches genannt haben, viel Luziferisches steckt, daß man vieles nehmen kann, wodurch heute die Menschen Religion verbreiten wollen, was nur als Worte auf den Flügeln des Luziferischen in die Menschheit hineinzieht. Erst dann, wenn die Menschen den Dualismus wieder erkennen werden von dem Luziferischen, das sie hinaufführen will, und dem Ahriimanischen, das sie unter sie hinunterführen will, zu dem wirklichen Christlichen, dann werden die Menschen im wahren Sinne wiederum stehen vor dem Weihnachts-Ereignis, vor jenem Ereignis, durch das erinnert werden soll, wie hereingezogen ist in die Menschheitsentwickelung dasjenige, was der Erde eigentlich Sinn gibt, einen wirklichen Sinn gibt.
Heute muß man manchmal an Leonardo da Vinci denken. Leonardo da Vinci hat einstens ja in Mailand sein großes Bild gemalt, das Sie kennen, das heilige Abendmahl, den Christus mit seinen Aposteln rings herum. Er hat lange an diesem Bild gemalt, zwei Jahrzehnte. Er wollte vieles in dieses Bild hineinmalen. Er konnte nicht fertig werden, weil er immer wiederum den Ansatz machte, die Judas-Figur in der richtigen Weise zu malen. Nun war im Sinne der Stadtorganisation von Mailand der Abt jenes Klosters, für das das Bild gemalt wurde, sein unmittelbarer Vorgesetzter, und als ein neuer Abt kam, der nun nicht so mild war wie der alte, sondern schneidig, da ging er den Leonardo hart an und verlangte von ihm, daß das Bild nun endlich fertig werden solle. Nun sagte Leonardo, jetzt könne er es auch fertig machen, denn seit der neue Abt da sei, habe er ein Vorbild für den Judas. Dann hat er in kurzer Zeit jenes Judasgesicht hingemalt, das wir im Bilde sehen. Wie dem Leonardo am Ausgangspunkt der neueren Zeit das Judasgesicht gerade auf dem Boden des positiven Bekenntnisses erschienen ist, so haben wir schon heute vielfach Veranlassung, uns recht sehr in das Herz hinein und in die Seele zu schreiben, wie derjenige, an dessen Geburt wir uns erinnern an diesem heiligen Weihnachtsfeste, verraten wird am allermeisten von vielen derer, die angeben, ihm aus ihrem Bekenntnisse heraus die Feste zu bereiten. Wir wissen, auch dieses Weihnachtsfest, es gehört zu demjenigen, was die christliche Entwickelung aufgenommen hat. Erst im 3. und 4. Jahrhundert hat man begonnen, in diesen Dezembertagen die Geburt Christi zu feiern. Das Ereignis von Golgatha war schon Jahrhunderte dahin, da nahm die Anschauung, die sich hinwendete zu dem Ereignis von Golgatha, Neues auf, sogar so einschneidend Neues wie die Institution des Weihnachtsfestes dazumal. Und viel, viel später war es noch möglich, dem Christentum Neues einzupflanzen. Gekämpft werden mußte auch dazumal gegen viele derer, die sich damals echte Christen nannten. Aber heute sind zahlreiche solche an der Arbeit, die nicht verfahren wollen, wie ihr eigenes Bekenntnis verfahren ist, als es im 3., 4. Jahrhundert aufgenommen hat die Institution des Weihnachtsfestes, die starr nur bei demjenigen bleiben, von dem sie sagen, daß es geschrieben steht, die ablehnen jede lebendige Offenbarung. Schrecklich ist es in unserer Zeit mit den Schläfrigen, mit denjenigen, die oftmals mit ihrer unmoralischen Gesinnung dasjenige besudeln, was sich in das geistige Leben hereinfinden will, aber am schrecklichsten ist es mit denjenigen, die aus den Bekenntnissen heraus selbst den eigentlichen Geist der christlichen Entwickelung verraten.
Das ist die ernste Stimmung, in die uns heute versetzen wollen die Lichter des Weihnachtsbaumes. Ich wollte auf diese Dinge heute hindeuten. Aus einem anderen Zusammenhang heraus will ich Ihnen das nächste Mal sprechen.
Second Lecture
Wherever I have had to speak at one of the annual celebrations, Christmas celebrations or Easter celebrations or Whitsun celebrations in recent years, I had to point out that, especially on such occasions, we currently have no right to old familiar way, to forget, as it were, the whole pain and suffering of the time and, on such days, only to remember the greatest thing that has played a role in the evolution of the earth. In particular, on the basis of that spiritual worldview on which we stand, we have the obligation to let everything that is taking hold of humanity in the present cultural world in the form of signs of decline flow up to the Christmas tree. Today we have the obligation to also take the birth of Christ Jesus into our hearts and souls in such a way that we do not ignore the terrible decline that has gripped so-called civilized mankind.
For it is up to us, on this very day, to raise the question: Has not the very idea of Christmas already suffered the fate of being seized by the general forces of decline? Do we still feel, when Christmas is mentioned today, what the human being should feel when he elevates his thoughts and feelings to this celebration of Christ? Does humanity in general sense the true meaning of the mystery of Golgotha in the evolution of humanity? Today we light our Christmas trees, we speak in our usual phrases and words about what is connected with Christmas, but all too often we avoid opening our eyes fully, awakening our to awaken our consciousness fully to the necessity of saying to ourselves: There is a decline; where are you, Christ-power, to really help us so that we can bring about a new dawn? For it should be clear to you from the reflections that have been made over the decades in our circles on the spiritual worldview that it will only be possible with the help of the power of Christ to permeate the decayed culture with the impulse that can bring it to a new ascent.
In these days, one often thinks of people who, in the middle of the 19th century or towards the last third of it, spoke differently out of a certain materialistic attitude, differently than many people speak today, but who spoke more honestly than the majority of people speak today. Today I would like to remind you of a very materialistic person, the Swabian David Friedrich Strauß. As you know, 'The Old and the New Faith' by David Friedrich Strauss is, so to speak, a kind of bible of materialism. Among the questions that David Friedrich Strauss asks in this book is also this: Can we still be Christians? David Friedrich Strauss gives an answer. This answer has the peculiarity of being born entirely out of a thoroughly materialistic attitude, but at the same time it has the peculiarity of being honest. David Friedrich Strauß forms the thought, the idea of a world building that is constructed only out of materialistic physical laws, and he places man in a world order in such a way that man's essence also contains nothing but physical laws. And based on this conviction, he answers the question, “Can we still be Christians?” with an honest “No.” For those people who share this kind of scientific worldview, as David Friedrich Strauß represents it out of his own sense of the times, cannot be Christians. Thus, from the no of David Friedrich Strauß, a fatal but thoroughly honest attitude speaks to us, and today one sometimes has the feeling: if only the so-called official representatives of one or the other religious denomination could be as honest as David Friedrich Strauß! If only they could see how they use the name of Christ, but basically work against Christianity!
We must not give in to the temptation to close our eyes to the most essential and important phenomena of the present day. Some may not feel it is Christmas, but I feel it is very Christmas when I mention a certain experience that came to me through a kind of spiritual investigation into something immediate and factual in the present.
You know, those people who, to a large extent, especially in Central Europe, are guilty - insofar as people can be called guilty of these things - of the terrible conditions into which we have sailed, these people, what do they do after the disaster befalls Europe? They write books! And so we have books from the most diverse people. We have a Tirpitz book, we have a Zudendorff book and I could name many others; I will limit myself to these two. You see, one can do the following experiment with the help of spiritual science; one can ask oneself - but absolutely in the sense of a spiritual scientific attitude - the question; what kind of thought forms are expressed in the books of Tirpitz, Ludendorff and their ilk? I have endeavored to examine this question conscientiously from all sides, asking myself: What are the thought-forms of these men on whom so much of the destiny of Central Europe depends? If one does not proceed in the abstract, but penetrates into the concrete in such matters, then one must compare, and so a comparison presented itself to me when I asked myself: When, approximately, did such thought forms develop in Europe, as Tirpitz and Ludendorff are now developing, according to the normal course of development? And after a conscientious examination of the facts, it turns out that people thought like that at about the time of the Roman Caesar. There is basically no difference between the way Julius Caesar thought and lived mentally, let us say in his Gallic War, and the way Tirpitz and Ludendorff form their thoughts. But this means that these people live in a world of thought that is completely untouched by Christianity, because Julius Caesar lived before the mystery of Golgotha broke in. And whatever these people may occasionally utter when they bring the name of Christ Jesus to their lips is nothing but a lie, for their soul life has developed in such a way that they have nothing to do with concrete Christianity.
We know from a variety of considerations that if anything develops in its time, then it is basically good for humanity. It is a different matter when it remains and comes out later; when this is the case, that is, when the Caesar element still plays a role in the 20th century, then the Caesar element is transformed into the Luciferic. For that which should actually have worked in another time becomes, when it remains standing, the Luciferic; that is, after all, the essence of the Luciferic.
And now, again, we ask: How can it be that those personalities who have been destined to take up leading positions, how can it be that these personalities have lagged behind in such a way with their lives? If we want to answer this question, we must turn our gaze to those who are supposed to be permeating spiritual life with the Christ impulse, but who actually work in an anti-Christian sense. We must turn our gaze to many official representatives of religious denominations who claim to speak from the Gospels but who fight against everything that really wants to bear witness to the living Christ in our time. Today, the most anti-Christian people are often to be found among the pastors, among the preachers of the so-called Christian denominations. Anyone who examines a book such as Adolf Harnack's “The Essence of Christianity,” which is considered by many to set the tone, will find the answer to such a question. Adolf Harnack wrote “The Essence of Christianity.” If one crosses out the name of Christ in this book and replaces it with the name of a general, unknown God, who just as much rules and permeates nature as human life, if one crosses out the name of Christ and puts the Old Testament name of Yahweh in its place, then the book becomes more true than it is, because only then does it have a meaning. The fact is that Adolf Harnack knows nothing of the real essence of Christ, that he has no idea at all of the real essence of Christ, that he worships a general, indefinite God and then attaches the name of Christ to this general, indefinite God. And who is this Adolf Harnack? This Adolf Harnack was the leading theologian for all those circles that gave way to the spiritual direction from which Tirpitz and Ludendorff and so on emerged! Because no real Christ-revelation has come from the representatives of the creeds, there is no such sense for the real Christ-revelation in the events of the present through the people who are connected with these events. For thousands and millions of people today, speaking of Christmas has no meaning at all; for they do not know the essence of Christ Jesus in the sense that is necessary for our time. We must look at such things if we want to understand in a deeper sense the causes of the decline of our times and of human life in these times.
From this place, I have often spoken to you about the important event that took place in the last third of the 19th century, the event through which a special relationship was formed between the archangelic power that we call the archangelic power of Michael and the destiny of humanity. I have drawn your attention to the fact that since November 1879 Michael must, as it were, be the regent for all those who want to bring the right forces to humanity for its beneficial progress.
In our time, when something like this is hinted at, two things are pointed out: first, an objective fact, but second, how this objective fact relates to everything that people want to include in their will, in their consciousness. The objective fact is simply this: that in November 1879, beyond the sphere of the sensual world, in the supersensible, that took place which one can express as follows: Michael has conquered the power when people come to meet him with all that lives in their souls, to penetrate their souls with his power so that they can transform the old materialistic power of the intellect, which has grown in humanity until then, into spiritual power of the intellect, into spiritual power of the intellect. That is the objective fact; it has taken place. We can say that Michael has entered into a different relationship with humanity than the one he had before, since November 1879. But it is required that one serve Michael. What I mean by that will become clear when I explain the following to you.
You know that before the Mystery of Golgotha was fulfilled on earth, the Jews of the Old Testament looked up to their Yahweh or Jehovah. Those of the Jewish priesthood who looked up to Yahweh with full consciousness were aware that they could not approach Yahweh directly with their human knowledge. Even the name was considered unspeakable, and when the name was to be spoken, only a sign was made that is similar to certain sign contexts that we seek through our eurythmy. But this priesthood was also aware that man could approach Yahweh through Michael. This priesthood called Michael the countenance of Yahweh or of Jehovah. Just as we get to know a person when we look at his face, and draw conclusions about the mildness of his soul from the mildness of his countenance, and about his character from the way he looks at us, so the Old Testament priesthood wanted to draw conclusions about the soul from the atavistic clairvoyance in dreams, from the face of Yahweh, from Michael, about Yahweh, whom it was not possible for mankind to reach. This priesthood was right about Michael and Jahve or Jehovah; it was right about Michael because it was aware that if man of that time turned to Michael, he would find through Michael that power, the Jahve power or Jehovah power, which it befitted man of that time to seek.
Since then, other spiritual rulers of humanity have taken the place of Michael; but since November 1879, Michael has appeared again, and he can be activated in the life of the human soul if one seeks the paths to him. And these paths are today the paths of spiritual-scientific knowledge. One could just as well say the 'Ways of Michael', as one can say 'the ways of spiritual-scientific knowledge'. But precisely since that time when Michael entered into this relationship with human souls in order to become their direct inspirer for three centuries, the demonic counterforce has also been most powerfully set in motion, after having prepared itself beforehand. Thus a call went out to the world, which during our so-called years of war, but in reality years of terror, has become a great world misunderstanding that now permeates the hearts and souls of people.
What would have become of the Old Testament Jewish people if, instead of approaching Yahweh through Michael, they had wanted to approach Yahweh directly? They would have become an intolerant, egotistical people, a people who could only think of themselves. For Yahweh is the God who is connected with all nature and who, in the outer historical process of becoming man, expresses His nature in the generational connection of human beings, as well as in the nature of the people. It is only because the ancient Hebrew people wanted to approach Yahweh through Michael that they avoided becoming so egotistical as a nation that not even Christ Jesus could have emerged from the midst of this people. For by permeating themselves with the power of Michael, as this power was at that time, the Jewish people did not impregnate themselves with forces that would have given such strong national egoism as if they had turned directly to Yahweh or Jehovah.
Today, Michael is again the world ruler, but humanity is called upon to relate to him in a new way. For now Michael is not to be the face of Yahweh, but the face of Christ Jesus. Now we are to approach the Christ impulse through Michael. But humanity has in many ways not yet fully come to terms with this; humanity has atavistically retained the old qualities of feeling through which one approached Michael in the same way as when he was still the mediator to Jahve. And so today humanity still has a false relationship to Michael, and this false relationship to Michael comes to light in a characteristic manifestation.
During the war years, we repeatedly heard the world lie: freedom for individuals, even for the smallest nations. This attitude, which is a false one because today in this Michael season it is not groups of people but meridian individualities that are important, this lie is nothing other than the endeavour to penetrate each individual nation not with the new Michael power but with the old one of pre-Christian times, with the Michael power of the Old Testament. As paradoxical as it may sound, there is a tendency today among the peoples of so-called civilized humanity to Luciferically reshape that which was justified in the Old Testament Jewish people and make it the innermost impulse of every single nation. With an Old Testament mentality, people today want to build empires of the Poles, the Americans, the French and so on. They try to follow Michael as they should have followed Yahweh, the God of the people, before the Mystery of Golgotha, where they should have found him through him. Today we are to find Jesus Christ through him, the divine leader of all humanity. But then we have to seek feelings and mental images that have nothing to do with any human differences on earth; but we cannot look for them on the surface, we have to look for them where the human spirit and soul pulsates, that is, we have to seek them in a spiritual-scientific way. And so things are that one must decide to seek the real Christ by spiritual-scientific means, that is, by Michaelic means, which can only be sought and found on the ground of spiritual striving for truth. Otherwise, it would be better to extinguish all Christmas lights, kill all Christmas trees, and at least truly admit to oneself that one does not want any memory of what Christ Jesus brought into the development of humanity.
And so, through the memoirs of people of the present time, we hear a pre-Christian, that is, in our time, an anti-Christian sentiment. And when people who are considered representative, like Wilson, express themselves in the present time, then through such fourteen points as he has given, a purely Old Testament sentiment sounds, which is becoming the Luciferic sentiment of our time. Where does this come from? What is actually going on here?
If we go back in the evolution of humanity before the Mystery of Golgotha, then we come to find a human personality on earth in the ancient times of the oriental cultural development, within the culture from which today's Chinese culture has emerged. This human personality human personality who was the outer human embodiment of Lucifer, who really walked the earth as a human embodiment at that time, and who was the bearer of the human light that we find on the soil of the old pre-Christian wisdom, with the exception of Judaism. Even in Greek culture, what emerged from the incarnation of Lucifer millennia before the mystery of Golgotha still flows through what worked in Greek culture in terms of art, worldview and statecraft.
We must only be clear about the fact that everything we call human intellect today, as long as we have not spiritualized it, is still a gift from Lucifer. We must only not develop a sectarian spirit in a philistine, bourgeois way: Luciferianism is something terrible, we must cast it off. If we want to cast it off, we will fall prey to it all the more; for it has become necessary, through the millennia of human evolution, to accept the heritage of the embodied Lucifer. Then came the Mystery of Golgotha. But the time will come when, just as Lucifer once embodied himself in an earthly personality in the East in order to prepare Christianity among the Gentiles, so too will the earthly embodiment of the real Ahriman appear in the West. We are approaching that time. Objectively, Ahriman will walk on earth. As truly as Lucifer walked and Christ walked objectively in a human being, so will Ahriman walk on earth with tremendous power as an earthly power of mind. It is not our task as human beings to prevent the incarnation of Ahriman, but we do have the task of preparing humanity in such a way that Ahriman is correctly assessed. For Ahriman will have tasks, he will have to do this and that, but people will have to assess and use in the right way what comes into the world through Ahriman. They will only be able to do this if they can already today adjust in the right way to what Ahriman is already sending from the other world to the earth, so that one day he can operate on earth without being noticed. This must not be allowed to happen. Ahriman must not be allowed to work on earth unnoticed; he must be fully recognized in his peculiarity, and it must be possible to oppose him with full consciousness.
During the days in which I will be lecturing here in Stuttgart, I will show you some of the things that should be considered in the development of humanity up to the Ahriman incarnation, so that this incarnation, when it comes, will be correctly assessed. Today I will draw your attention to just one thing: In this respect, some of the interpretations of the Gospels are just as bad as the worst materialistic worldview in the present day. When today the representatives of the so-called religious communities simply take the Gospels as they are and reject every new revelation, such devotion to the Gospels, such a way of cultivating Christianity, means the best way to prepare oneself in the Ahrimanic sense for the earthly manifestation of Ahriman. Ahriman works most intensively in the presence of a large number of representatives of today's so-called confessions, ignoring the truth: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” declaring as heretical, which arises from the direct contemplation of the present Christ, and by adhering to the Gospels in a convenient way, literally, but only in their own way. Humanity should be protected from adhering to the Gospels in this way by the fact that the four Gospels contradict each other purely externally for the physical mind. And anyone today who does not penetrate to the spiritual interpretation of the Gospels spreads a false interpretation of the Gospels, for he deceives people about the external contradictions that exist in the four Gospels. And to deceive people about their most important matters is precisely what furthers the ways of Ahriman most of all.
People today have a great need to place Christ right in the middle, between Ahriman and Lucifer. The power of Christ must permeate us. But as human beings, we must always seek a balance between that which, in a certain sense, wants to reach out to us in a rapturous, mystical way and that which, in a materialistic, intellectual way, wants to pull us down to earth in a philistine, heavy way. We must seek this balance at every moment, between that which lifts us up in a Luciferic way and that which draws us down in an Ahrimanic way. And when we strive to seek this balance, then and only then can we find the Christ.
A remarkable coincidence has occurred in the more recent development of humanity at a time when materialism has taken hold. I would like to point out two documents, Milton's “Paradise Lost” and Klopstock's “Messiah”. In these works, the spiritual worlds are described as if a paradise had been lost and man had been driven out of it. Both Milton's 'Paradise Lost' and Klopstock's 'Messiah' work with a duality in the world, with the opposition of good and evil, of the divine and the devilish. You see, that is the great error of recent times: to imagine world culture in terms of a duality, whereas it must be imagined in terms of a trinity. The one is the upward striving luciferic forces, which approach man in the mystical, the enthusiastic, the imaginative, in degeneration but also in the fantastic, and which live in human blood; the other is the Ahrimanic forces, which live in everything dry and heavy, in the bone system, physiologically speaking; the Christian stands in the middle between the two, that is the third. Luciferic is the first, Ahrimanic the second and in the middle between the two is the Christian.
What has happened in more recent times? Something has happened that humanity should look at with truly spiritual and intellectual fervor, because until it understands this, it will not find the Christmas paths in the right way. We read Milton and Klopstock today, their descriptions of the supersensible world; how do we read them? We read them in such a way that everywhere Luciferic qualities are transferred to that which one wants to call divine. Such people as Klopstock and Milton want to describe the struggle between a Luciferic, which appears to them as the divine, and the Ahrimanic. And a great part of what newer humanity describes as its divine is only a Luciferic. But it is not recognized in the right way, any more than the Ahrimanic is. This still plays a role in Goethe's “Faust”, when we find Mephistopheles juxtaposed with the “Lord”; but even Goethe has not yet been able to separate the Ahrimanic from the Luciferic. Thus his Mephistopheles has become a mixture of Lucifer and Ahriman. I have already pointed this out in my booklet 'Goethes Geistesart'. Today, one is a true Goetheanist if one does not simply repeat what comes from Goethe word for word, as some academics and other people of the present day do, but if one paves the way to Goethe in such a way that one can also see that had to be different with him, especially if one follows his worldview beyond the year 1832; if we are not speaking today of a Goethe of 1832, but of a Goethe of 1919, now soon 1920. But the way to calmly admit that there is a lot of Luciferic in what the materialistic centuries have called their divine, that there is a lot that can be taken from what people want to spread as religion today, which only as words on the wings of the Luciferic draws into humanity. Only when people recognize the dualism again, of the Luciferic, which wants to lead them up, and the Ahriimanic, which wants to lead them down, to the real Christian, then people will in the true sense stand once more before the Christmas event, before that event by which we are to be reminded of how that which actually gives meaning to the earth, real meaning, has been drawn into the evolution of mankind.
Today one is sometimes reminded of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci once painted his great picture in Milan, the one you know, the Last Supper, with Christ surrounded by his apostles. He worked on this painting for a long time, two decades. He wanted to paint many things into this picture. He could not finish it because he kept returning to the figure of Judas to paint it in the right way. Now, in terms of the urban organization of Milan, the abbot of the monastery for which the painting was commissioned was his immediate superior. When a new abbot came along who was not as mild as the old one, but rather forceful, he took a hard line with Leonardo and demanded that the painting be finished at last. Now Leonardo said that he could finish it now, because since the new abbot had arrived, he had a model for the Judas. Then, in a short time, he painted the face of Judas that we see in the picture. Just as the face of Judas appeared to Leonardo at the beginning of the modern era precisely on the basis of positive confession, so today we already have many reasons to write ourselves very deeply into our hearts and souls, as the one whose birth we remember on this holy Christmas, is betrayed most of all by many of those who claim to prepare the festivities for him out of their confession. We know that this Christmas, too, belongs to the period of Christian development. It was only in the third and fourth centuries that people began to celebrate the birth of Christ during these December days. The event of Golgotha had already taken place centuries ago, when the view that turned to the event of Golgotha took on something new, even as radically new as the institution of Christmas at that time. And much, much later it was still possible to implant something new into Christianity. Even then, there was a need to fight against many of those who called themselves true Christians. But today there are numerous such people at work who do not want to proceed as their own confession proceeded when it adopted the institution of Christmas in the 3rd and 4th centuries, who rigidly adhere only to that of which they say it is written, and who reject every living revelation. It is terrible in our time with the sleepy, with those who often sully with their immoral attitudes that which wants to find its way into the spiritual life, but it is most terrible with those who, out of their own confessions, betray the very spirit of Christian development.
This is the serious mood in which the lights of the Christmas tree want to put us today. I wanted to hint at these things today. I will speak to you about them in a different context next time.