Course for Priests of the Christian Community
GA 345
The first part of this volume contains four lectures which Rudolf Steiner gave to the priests of the “Christian community,” founded ten months earlier, in Stuttgart. In the second part are the original manuscripts, handwritten by Rudolf Steiner. These are supplements to what had already been given during the second and third lecture courses. They are consecrations for the Festivals of the Year and other rites.
These four lectures, comprising the entire GA 345, are from the lecture series entitled, Lectures at a Meeting of the Priests in Stuttgart, published in German as, Vom Wesen des winkenden Wortes. They have never before been translated into English: a First Edition. Translated by Hanna von Maltitz
| Foreword to this Edition | ||
| Lecture I | July 11, 1923 | |
| The development of the work of The Christian Community from its inception. Symptoms of the undercurrents in spiritual streams at the present time. Regarding Ahrimanic forces absorbed by humanity through outer culture and making it harmless. Answers to questions by the audience. The right way of being immersed in the ritual. The ritual as the speech of the higher world. Daily self-participation with the Act of Consecration of Man. Permeating the self with priest consciousness. | ||
| Lecture II | July 12, 1923 | |
| Difficulties in the viewpoints of the relationships of the Movement for Religious Renewal and the Anthroposophical Movement. Inner truth is necessary as opposed to the unconscious untruthfulness of today. The necessity for an intention in the search of knowledge towards making the spiritual valid again within the nature of knowledge. The relationship of mankind to the ritual. Answers to questions from the participants. | ||
| Lecture III | July 13, 1923 | |
| Impulses towards sensing oneself in the spiritual world. The weaving of the genius of speech. Our relationship to speech. The word `human' / individual (“Mensch”). A threefold meditation about “the Being whom I want to describe by the word `human'”. Experiencing truth in words. The Priest as genius of speech. | ||
| Lecture IV | July 14, 1923 | |
| The New Testament as a supersensible revelation. Regarding the translation of the Gospels. An example of a new kind of translation: John's Gospel 17, 1-19. Facts of the spiritual evolution of humanity; after the Mystery of Golgotha the consciousness of God penetrated humanity in a different way than previously. | ||