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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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The Festivals and Their Meaning III : Ascension and Pentecost: Foreword

Alan P. Shepherd
This is the third volume in the series of lectures by Rudolf Steiner published under the title, The Festivals and their Meaning. In the Councils of the undivided Church from the fourth to the ninth centuries, Christian thinkers wrestled with the theology of the Father and the Son, but the Church has never arrived at a theology of the Holy Spirit.
90a. The Festivals and Their Meaning I: Christmas: On the Three Magi 30 Dec 1904, Berlin
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Rudolf Steiner
In the middle of the Lemurian epoch, Osiris came to his grave; Manas drew into human beings. Men were educated under the guidance of the Initiates until the principle of Love (Budhi) could shine forth in Christ Jesus.
They are guided by a Star to a grotto, a cave in Bethlehem. This is something that can be understood only by one who has knowledge of the so-called lower, or astral mysteries. To be led by a Star means nothing else than to see the soul itself as a Star.
The Festival of the Three Kings is celebrated every year on the 6th of January, and its significance will steadily increase. Men will understand more and more what a Magi is, and what the great Magi, the Masters, are. And then understanding of Christianity will lead to understanding of spiritual science.
The Festivals and Their Meaning I: Christmas: The Christmas Festival: A Token of the Victory of the Sun 24 Dec 1905, Berlin
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Rudolf Steiner
Yet the alphabetical word ought to be the representative, the symbol of the Word Creative in Nature around us, in the great universe and within us too when self-knowledge awakens, and of which all mankind can be made conscious by those who truly understand the course of Nature. It was for this that the Festivals were instituted and with the knowledge we have gleaned from Spiritual Science we will try to understand what it was that the wise men of old set out to express in the Christmas Festival.
The great Festivals exist as tokens that these things must be understood in their connection with the whole universe; our powers of thinking must be used in such a way that we realise our oneness with the whole universe.
The birth festival of all that man can feel, perceive and will—such is Christmas when it is truly understood. The aim of Spiritual Science is to stimulate a true and deep understanding of the Christmas Festival.
96. The Festivals and Their Meaning I: Christmas: Signs and Symbols of the Christmas Festival 17 Dec 1906, Berlin
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Rudolf Steiner
Thus men spoke of the ‘Persian,’ of the ‘Israelite.’ We understand now why Nathaniel was called a ‘true Israelite’; it was because he had reached the fifth degree of Initiation. The sixth degree was that of the Sun Hero. We must understand the meaning of this appellation. Then we shall realise what awe and reverence surged through the soul of a pupil of the Mysteries who knew of the existence of a Sun Hero.
The sun and moon did not shine clearly in the heavens—they were surrounded by rainbows—by the sacred Iris. At that time man understood the language of nature. To-day he no longer understands what speaks to him in the rippling of waves, in the noise of winds, in the rustling of leaves, in the rolling of thunder—but in old Atlantis he understood it.
127. The Festivals and Their Meaning I: Christmas: The Birth of the Sun Spirit as the Spirit of the Earth. The Thirteen Holy Nights 26 Dec 1911, Hanover
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Rudolf Steiner
The hearts and minds of those who in the early centuries of our era understood the true import of Christianity turned to the Baptism in the Jordan of Jesus of Nazareth into whom Christ descended, Christ the Sun-Earth-Spirit.
More and more it will be realised that what was accomplished for the whole of earth-evolution during those three years in the physical body of a man is one of the very deepest and most difficult Mysteries to understand. From the fourth century onwards, with the approach of the materialistic age, the powers of the human soul—then still at the stage of preparation—were not strong enough to grasp the deep Mystery which from our time on will be understood in ever greater measure. And so it came about that to the same extent to which the outer power of Christianity increased, inner understanding of the Christ Mystery decreased and the festival of the 6th of January ceased to have any essential meaning.
156. The Festivals and Their Meaning I: Christmas: The Birth of Christ Within Us 27 Dec 1914, Basel
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Rudolf Steiner
But what is it that underlies these esoteric feelings and experiences? The hearts of men were yearning for a vista, a conception of the Christ Mystery greater than any that was possible at that time.
The consciousness that such knowledge will one day be within the reach of the human heart, and the longing for it, has been one of life's great riddles to the best souls. Men have been reaching out for an understanding of Christ that will enable them to grasp the import of the mighty Deed accomplished on Golgotha which can be revealed to the eye of soul when the veil is lifted.
And so spiritual science enables us to understand the Christ Impulse in the deeper aspect of human evolution—in the evolution of pre-Christian times too—for the differences disappear and the voice of the Initiates can still be heard.
The Festivals and Their Meaning I: Christmas: Christmas at a Time of Grievous Destiny 21 Dec 1916, Basel
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Rudolf Steiner
The process takes a strange and remarkable course. The understanding for Christ sank into the subconsciousness and there, in the subconsciousness, the understanding for Jesus began to glow.
And we have to go very far back into the past to discover from the source and content of the Northern Mysteries the deep secret of the penetration of the Jesus-feeling into the soul-life of the European peoples. The principles underlying the Northern Mysteries were quite different from those underlying the Mysteries of Asia Minor and of the South.
And then an ever greater understanding of the Christ will take foothold on earth, an understanding that will unite the Mystery-knowledge with a great and renewed Gnosis.
203. The Festivals and Their Meaning I: Christmas: The Proclamations to the Magi and the Shepherds 01 Jan 1921, Stuttgart
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Rudolf Steiner
2 It was to an understanding of the world imbued with feeling but expressed in mathematical forms that the pupil of the ancient Mysteries was led.
The outer has become inward—the inner, outward. In the process, understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha has been lost, and we must be fully conscious of this fact. Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha has vanished most completely of all, perhaps, in many of those who claim to be official ministers of Christianity to-day.
None really comprehend mathematics who do not undertake the study with reverence and devotion as a revelation from God." (From Thoughts on Physics).
209. The Festivals and Their Meaning I: Christmas: The Revelation of the Cosmic Christ 26 Dec 1921, Dornach
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Rudolf Steiner
Another factor, too, contributes to this lack of understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. We can look with love to the Babe in the manger, but we have no wisdom-filled understanding of the union of the Christ Being with the man Jesus of Nazareth.
Such knowledge brings understanding of the super-earthly Christ Being, the Sun Being Who was united with the man Jesus of Nazareth.
We, in our day, must achieve understanding of the Christ as a Cosmic Being—a Cosmic Being Who united Himself with the earth. The time at which this understanding is accessible, to the greater part of men on earth, is the time of the cosmic Holy Night whose approach we await.
2. The Science of Knowing: Psychological Knowing Activity
Translated by William Lindemann

Rudolf Steiner
We must separate him from his surroundings if we wish to understand him. If one wishes to attain the typus, then one must ascend from the single form to the archetypal form; if one wishes to attain the human spirit one must disregard the outer manifestations through which it expresses itself, disregard the specific actions it performs, and look at it in and for itself.
When Jacobi believes that at the same time as we gain perception of our inner life we attain the conviction that a unified being underlies it (intuitive self-apprehension), he is in error, because in fact we perceive this unified being itself.
If one disregards this connection with the personality in an action, then the action ceases to be an expression of the soul at all. It falls either under the concept of inorganic or of organic nature. If two balls are lying on the table and I propel one against the other, then, if one disregards my intention and my will, everything is reduced to physical or physiological processes.

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