CHAPTER XVII - PATHS OF SOUL DEVELOPMENT AND SPIRITUAL PATHS OF DESTINY IN CONNECTION WITH THE BEATITUDES OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

Note by the translator: That this translation project begins with Ch. V from Valentin Tombergs Contemplations on the New Testament is occasioned by the fact that I only decided to start this study blog when I was editing my Dutch translation of this chapter for publication in book form. Back in 2014, a start was made in presenting this Bible trilogy in public by weekly readings of my working translation of the Contemplations of the Old Testament in the Chapel of the Castle in Oud-Zuylen near Utrecht under the title "The New Christianity - Towards the re-Christianization of the Low Lands" followed by weekly reading of the contemplations on the New Testament and the Apocalypse 2015 in the library of the Willehalm Institute in Amsterdam.  On Easter Monday April 7 last,  I celebrated this premiere by making a video in Oud-Zuylen (in Dutch) that it was exactly 12 years ago that it was, as far as I know, the first time that the New Christianity was under this term presented in the Low Lands, this New Christianity that was  inaugurated during the refoundation of the Anthroposophical Society in 1923/24 by Rudolf Steiner as the heavenly ordained form in which anthroposophy was to be spread on earth. (See my many articles on this subject). Simultaneously with the weekly readings the texts of the working translations were put online and later as well the study by Valentin Tomberg on Rudolf Steiner's Foundation Stone Meditation. It is from these Dutch translations that the English translation of Ch. V presented here was made with the assistance of AI with cross-checks to the German original and the English translation "Christ and Sophia" published in 2006. 

This translation project, as mentioned in the blog description, is part of the project "AGENDA 2033" to prepare the celebration in 2033 of the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Christ Jesus in the year 33 as the Spirit of the Earth and the "I-consciousness of Humanity and to further the calendar reform inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner. It arose after the English presentation in Amsterdam during Christmas time of my Dutch translation of "The Jesus Mysteries - Rudolf Steiner's Chronology of the Gospels and the Christ Prophecy of Zarathustra" from the third volume "Waking Up to Goethe" of Werner Greub's trilogy "How the Grail Sites Were Found - Wolfram von Eschenbach as a Historian", which can be seen on YouTube. Other works that are scheduled to be (re)translated and (re)published in the framework of AGENDA 2033 are, among others, those by  the philosopher of the New Christianity Herbert Witzenmann and the seer of the New Christianity Are Thoresen. (See the many references to these authors on this blog). As an organ of AGENDA 2033 "The Vriend of God", based on a passage from C. 2 of these Anthroposophical Contemplations on the New Testament about the task of Vriend of God to realize the Kingdom of God, Heaven on earth.

INTRODUCTION 

The nine Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount are not moral exhortations, nor poetic blessings, nor spiritual ideals. They are formulas of transformation — precise indications of how the human soul is reshaped when it allows the Christ‑impulse to enter its depths.

Chapter V of "Anthroposophical Contemplations on the New Testament" by Valentin Tomberg opens this hidden architecture. It shows how the Beatitudes unfold as a threefold path:

• the first three: the trials of the whole human being,

• the middle three: the metamorphoses of the soul,

• the final three: the transformations of destiny itself.

Here the Beatitudes become transparent as initiatory stages, each revealing a different relation between the human being and the spiritual world. They illuminate how the Christ‑impulse works inwardly — in the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the consciousness soul — and outwardly, in the objective events of karma and world‑destiny.

This chapter asks for a reading that is not merely intellectual but participatory. For the Beatitudes are not doctrines to be understood; they are living forces that shape the soul according to the measure of its openness.

To enter this text is to step into the movement from Man toward the Son, and through the Son toward the Father — the movement that stands at the heart of Christian esotericism.

* * *

1. Inner Transformations of the Soul Members of Man on the Path of Christian Spiritual Schooling

The two preceding contemplations (III and IV) were devoted to the first three Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount — as the formulae of the schooling of human consciousness in the physical body, the astral body, and the etheric body. The next three Beatitudes concern the purely soul transformations — as this contemplation will attempt to show — which human consciousness can undergo within itself on the path of realizing the Christ‑Impulse. The final three Beatitudes, however, refer to the objective transformations of the events of destiny that prevail outside the soul. They answer the question: how does the world (the supra‑human, the human, and the sub‑human) respond to the fact that the soul and physical being become imbued by Christ? While the middle three Beatitudes answer the question: how does the Christianization of the soul‑members (the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual Soul, and the Consciousness Soul) take place? the first three Beatitudes shed light on the question through which trials and tribulations the whole human being must  pass in order to reach the three stages of spiritual development in the sense of the Christ‑impulse.
    Thus, one may characterize the first three Beatitudes as formulae of Christian‑oriented occultism; for the initiatory knowledge of occultism consists essentially in the fact that it embraces both the subjective, inner and the objective, outer — and embraces both under a cosmic viewpoint. This becomes especially clear in the Beatitude: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth,” where an inner condition of the soul is brought into connection with a cosmic future event.
    The middle three Beatitudes may be characterized as psychosophical, for they concern the changes in the inner states of the human soul during the passage through the developmental stages indicated in the first three beatitudes.
    The last three Beatitudes may be characterized as karmic, for they concern the changes in karma that are brought about by ascending those stages of development. At the same time, these Beatitudes refer to the working of the threefold spiritual being of Man (Spirit‑Self, Life‑Spirit, and Spirit‑Man), which expresses itself directly in the transformations of destiny.
    Only when the nine Beatitudes have become the object of a deeper knowledge in their totality can insight be gained into the nature of Man in the future, who will have taken the Christ‑impulse into his whole being. Then one will also be able to confront sharply the anti‑Christian counter‑image of the ninefold human being — as he is intended to be brought forth from the nine spheres of the interior of the Earth — as the opposite of the first. For obscurity exists only as long as the object of contemplation remains in a mixed condition; once it becomes possible to separate one side and consider it on its own, a clear picture of the other side also arises.

After the inner composition and the resulting task of this contemplation have been outlined, we may now proceed with the continuation of the discussion of the Beatitudes. And we must indeed begin with the middle group, the psychosophical Beatitudes, since the first three Beatitudes were already the subject of the two preceding contemplations. Thus, the first task is to open a deeper understanding of the fourth Beatitude. To this end, several building‑stones necessary for this understanding must be gathered. One such building‑stone is found when one asks: What exactly is meant in the Beatitude by the 'hunger' and 'thirst' of the soul, and by its 'being satisfied'?
    To answer this question, let us begin with the experience that physical existence offers through hunger and thirst. Through this ordinary experience one learns that quenching thirst and satisfying hunger are polar opposites. For in quenching thirst, one extinguishes the excessive fire of the metabolic activity of the body, whereas in satisfying hunger one adds fuel to this fire. In the first case the fire is limited; in the other it is stoked. The condition in which the body feels neither hunger nor thirst is the state of equilibrium between these two polarities — a harmonization of the bodily condition.
    A similar polarity is also present in the soul experience of the human being. It consists in the fact that, on the one hand, impressions stream into the soul from the outer world, filling it with sensations and representations, and that, on the other hand, this stream from without encounters the stream of inner demands which the soul directs toward the world or toward the expectations it harbors regarding the world.
    If the world conveys unsatisfying impressions to the soul, then the inner fire of desire is felt more strongly through the lack of fulfillment, and one may speak of a “thirsting” of the soul. If, on the other hand, the world brings no new desire‑awakening impressions to the soul, so that the life of desire finds fewer and fewer desirable things in the world and therefore turns inward upon the soul‑life itself, then a “hungering” of the soul arises.
    But when it is a matter of deeper moral demands, expectations, and longings of the soul, then the soul experiences the balance between its inner appeal to the world and the inflow of impressions from without as justice. When the soul is primarily morally oriented, the relation between inner impulse and outer reality becomes the life‑question of justice. There the alternating “hungering” and “thirsting” of the soul becomes a “hungering and thirsting after justice.” For justice is the state of moral harmonization of the Sentient Soul, just as the satisfaction of hunger and thirst is the state of natural harmonization of the body. The sentient soul — that is, the soul‑being that lives in perceptions of outer impressions and perceptions of inner expressions of desire — is morally as dependent on justice as the body is dependent on food and drink.
    Now the Sentient Soul is that part of the total soul‑being of Man that expresses the condition of the entire soul‑life. The contents of knowledge of the Consciousness Soul and the judgments of the Intellectual Soul bring about a change in the condition of the soul‑life only when they have become living sensations. The Sentient Soul expresses the way in which the human soul‑life is placed in life; whether the human being stands harmoniously in life or not — of this the condition of his Sentient Soul bears witness. For this reason, justice is not only the moral life‑element of the Sentient Soul itself, but also the concrete life‑expression of the entire moral condition of the soul. The degree of justice that Man expresses in his relation to the world — not merely demands from the world — is not the criterion of what he will become morally, but of what he has become.

That justice is the summarizing expression of the entire moral condition of  Man — this was already known in antiquity and was also taught in the mystery schools. Thus, the initiate of such mysteries, Plato, described the doctrine of the fundamental moral qualities of the friend of wisdom, the philosopher, in such a way that the threefold human being has three “virtues” to develop, which, however, find their harmony and their summarizing outward expression in their common fruit: justice. The wisdom (Sophia) that the head‑human has to develop becomes courage in the breast‑human and becomes temperance, the self‑mastery of the impulses, in the lower limbs‑human — but in the expression of the whole human being toward the surrounding world, wisdom, courage, and temperance reveal themselves together as justice Harmony of the thinking, feeling, and willing human being was therefore the meaning of dikaiosýnē. It was the condition of the entire soul‑life of Man in which the equilibrium between the soul‑life dedicated to the spirit, the soul‑life dedicated to the body, and the soul‑life proper had been brought into being.
    This harmony is something toward which the most important representatives of the spiritual life have always striven. How it can be attained in the present, however, and what it signifies on the path of spiritual knowledge — concerning this, the most essential things have been said in Rudolf Steiner’s book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds (GA 10), in connection with the development of the six‑petaled lotus flower: “A free soul that stands in equilibrium between sensuality and spirituality” is precisely that for which Man hungers and thirsts when he has entered into a living relationship with the Christ‑impulse. And the power that the human I, through its union with the Christ‑impulse, is enabled to unfold — the power that brings about this harmonization of the soul‑condition — is what is meant in the Beatitude that says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied” ). The 'satisfaction' of the striving for the harmonious condition of the soul is precisely that harmony which arises as the consequence of the Christianizing of the Sentient Soul.

If the Sentient Soul denotes the condition of the human soul in the way it is placed within life, then the Intellectual Soul denotes that in the human being which adds something of its own to life. The Sentient Soul enables - be it  harmonious or disharmonious  - participation in life; the Intellectual Soul judges this life and the participation in it. What Man experiences in the world is owed to the Sentient Soul; what he says out of himself about the experience is produced by the Intellectual Soul. For the Intellectual Soul is the speaking soul. Concerning experiences and sensations, it has something to say from within itself; as such, it rises above mere experience to its estimation, to its judgment.
    Rendering judgment is therefore the essential active expression of the Intellectual Soul. If this activity of the Intellectual Soul is not mechanized but remains within the proper human‑moral realm, then every judgment contains, in essence, a moral pronouncement. The intellectual soul continually exercises a judging activity — whether the human being is aware of it or not. To apply the Intellectual Soul means to judge, whether concerning oneself, other human beings, nature, or the world. For one cannot judge without attributing or denying value.
    If this judgment arises from a healthy, that is, harmonized Sentient Soul, it will be just. If the Christ‑Impulse is alive in the Sentient Soul, this becomes the condition for the Intellectual Soul — provided the human being is of good will — to judge justly. But if the Intellectual Soul itself receives the Christ‑impulse, then something enters its judging activity through which the 'I' manifests itself more strongly, for the Intellectual Soul stands closer to the revelation of the 'I' than the Sentient Soul. Something then enters judgment that surpasses justice. For ordinary justice judges on the basis of past and present; it rests upon what the judged has become. Goodness, mercy, however, surpass justice in that they do right not only to past and present but also to present and future. They judge not only on the basis of what has become, but also in trust toward the positive future possibilities that goodness takes into account. In this sense goodness, mercy, is more just than ordinary justice, for it also does right to the future.
    When goodness enters the judging of the Intellectual Soul, rendering judgment becomes an activity according to the “New Law” of the Sermon on the Mount. It surpasses the Platonic dikaiosýnē and gradually grows into the new manner of rendering judgment that corresponds to the spirit of the New Testament.
    The consequence is that the karmic judgment that approaches a judging human being also becomes merciful. Whoever judges the human being not only as one who has become but also as one who is becoming, thereby creates the condition to be judged likewise. This does not occur directly, but through the detour of karma — but occur it will. The healing and harmonizing of human relationships in the social sphere is the consequence of receiving the Christ‑impulse into the Intellectual Soul, just as the harmonizing of the inner soul‑condition is the consequence of receiving Him into the Sentient Soul. These fundamental truths concerning the inner transformation of the Intellectual Soul through the Christ‑Impulse, and its consequences are expressed in the fifth Beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”    
    While the Intellectual Soul permeated by Christ thus becomes a 'Mercy Soul', the present consciousness finds it difficult to form any mental picture of a 'merciful intellect.' All experience seems to suggest that the intellect — usually associated with a 'sharp mind' — carries a heartless ruthlessness, even an inner cruelty of judgment. Even if one brackets out its hardness and coldness, one can scarcely imagine anything positive in a 'soft' or 'warm' intellect; and it becomes difficult to think of it as still sharp. Vagueness and subjectivity seem the inevitable consequences of a 'softened intellect.'Yet it is possible to judge with concepts of utmost clarity that are inwardly not only crystal‑clear but also sun-warm. To show the world that this is possible — as a social reality — that is the task entrusted to anthroposophical human beings in their way of judging one another and judging the world by Rudolf Steiner and by the spiritual world.

If it is thus not easy today to already form a mental picture of the intellectual soul permeated by the Christ‑impulse, it is even more difficult to form a picture of the Consciousness Soul as it reveals itself in the sense of the Christ‑Impulse. For the experience that present-day life offers of the Consciousness Soul is that of an unartistic, amoral, materialistic objectivity — the “no‑nonsense” attitude that dominates science and much else. Can this objectivity become creative, moral, spiritual? That is the question the present state of consciousness poses to humanity.
    The transformation that must occur in the Consciousness Soul through the Christ‑Impulse consists essentially in this: just as the Sentient Soul must become a 'Justice Soul', and the Intellectual Soul a 'Mercy Soul', so must the Consciousness Soul become a 'Conscience Soul.' Not merely conscience in the narrow sense of personal right and wrong, but a conscience of responsibility toward nature and humanity. The objectivity of the Consciousness Soul must remain; but it must become the bearer of a conscience projected outward.
    Modern science has gathered immense factual knowledge of the kingdoms of nature; what is now required is that this knowledge be taken up into conscience. Through knowledge, nature has been made serviceable Man; through conscience, Man will become her conscious servant — giving to nature the moral‑spiritual that she needs, as she gives to Man the physical‑material that he needs.
    This expansion of conscience into the kingdoms of nature arises from a deepening of knowledge of nature. For when facts of nature are exactly and extensively investigated , what is actually investigated are the consequences of the Fall. The probing consciousness cannot avoid encountering, within the totality of natural phenomena, the fact of the Fall — that the whole of nature is decadent humanity. This fact will be' discovered' as surely as gravity was once discovered. And this discovery will demand that Man turn his heart toward nature. Then the great catharsis will occur: the purification of the heart. For the heart is purified when it ceases to be cramped in itself and opens to the world.
    Once the fact of the 'Fall' of nature becomes content of consciousness, the image of the total being that lies fragmented and decadent within nature will on the other hand also arise. This primordial image of Man who bears the whole of nature within himself, the Adam Kadmon of tradition, who as the “image and likeness of God” is now the longing of all creatures — this archetype will rise before consciousness out of fallen nature. The "pure in heart," those who have turned their hearts toward the fallen kingdoms of nature, will behold their God, the ideal archetype. In His image God becomes visible to them, once they will have first purified their hearts by beholding the tragic distortion of that image. Thus, it is not a question of beholding the Father‑God of the world, wen in the sixth Beatitude it is said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” - but of beholding the divine archetype of the All‑Human, who in the elemental world will be beheld as the hope of the resurrection of nature in the age of the Consciousness Soul.
    He will however only be capable of being beheld by those human beings vision who will have extended conscience beyond merely individual and merely human concerns into the kingdoms of nature. This expansion will awaken the new natural clairvoyance,  the “etheric clairvoyance” of which Rudolf Steiner spoke. The light that will make the elemental world, the "Shamballa” of the oriental sagas — visible, is the light of the conscience of the katharoi tē kardia, the pure in heart.

2. THE SPIRITUAL PATHS OF DESTINY ACCORDING TO THE LAST THREE BEATITUDES OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

The sixth Beatitude already led us beyond the boundaries of purely inner soul‑experience and placed us prophetically in an objective‑spiritual event concerning the destiny of humanity. The final three Beatitudes lead us still further into the realm of events of destiny.
    Already in the sixth Beatitude, the matter at hand was not the Consciousness Soul alone, but the Consciousness soul oriented toward Spirit‑Self or Manas. For while it is the task of the Consciousness Soul to make nature into a matter of conscience, the subsequent task — the re‑harmonization of nature with the spiritual world — requires higher forces than those possessed by the Consciousness Soul. The Consciousness Soul can indeed recognize the fact of the Fall of nature, but to bridge the opposition between nature and spirit that arose through the Fall — for that, a higher element must enter. For the bridge must indeed be built from both sides: from the side of the spiritual world and from the side of the earthly.
    If Man is to become this bridge, then the part Man that belongs to the spiritual world must enter into a connection with the part that belongs to the earthly world. The part that extends upward from below is the Consciousness Soul; the part that descends from above is the Spirit‑Self or Manas. When the Consciousness Soul fills itself with the awareness of the guilt and need of earthly life, it simultaneously lifts this awareness upward like a vessel — it then represents the need of the Earth. It can then meet a descending stream from above that receives the darkness of guilt and need, which the Consciousness Soul carried upward, into its own clear light. Then it can happen that the ascending darkness and the descending brightness form a unity — and then the rainbow of reconciliation between the two worlds arises.
    The knowledge of this process of reconciliation, of the peace between the two worlds, bore for example Goethe in his soul. And this knowledge became for him the foundation of his theory of colors as well as of his fairy tale of The Beautiful Lily and the Green Snake. With this knowledge he approached the world of light‑phenomena and set himself the task of demonstrating that the great spiritual‑moral event of the reconciliation between the lower and the higher consciousness is, as it were, a reflection in the world of outer light‑phenomena. He was convinced that outer natural phenomena reveal the deepest secrets of inner life. Therefore, the world of colors was for him an ‘open secret’, and he opposed the Newtonian theory of light, because it threatened to banish from the world a great likeness of the path of reconciliation between the two worlds.
    Human beings who bore such a vertically oriented ‘rainbow of reconciliation’ within their nature were also called “Knowers of the Seven Words” or also simply “Peacemakers.” To become a Peacemaker, the human being had to undergo two births: an earthly one, ‘out of earthly nature,’ and a heavenly one, “out of God.” The upper part of the human being had to be born into human consciousness in a karmically ordained way – without any involvement of arbitrary human will – just as the lower part of the human being is karmically ordained to be born through natural birth. And the “Rainbow of Peace” can only come about when both parts are present, which it has to connect. Therefore, the Peacemakers are not only children of a father and a mother, but also “Children of God.”
    In this sense the seventh Beatitude may be understood: “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called Children of God.” (makárioi hoi eirēnopoioí, hóti autoì huioì Theoû klēthḗsontai)
   

If the ‘birth from above’ is a decisive change of destiny within the supra‑human world — a movement from above downward — then the eighth Beatitude concerns changes of destiny in the human world, that is, on the horizontal plane of human relations. It concerns the nature of destiny in humanity among those human beings who not only unite above and below as Peacemakers, but also hold left and right in balance. For when two currents in humanity oppose one another in all spheres of life, the humanity‑embracing Dikaiosynē — that is, the harmonization of the conditions of human destiny — is the continual balancing, the maintaining of an equilibrium between the two polarities.
    Just as the Christ‑impulse brings about the inner harmonization of the Sentient Soul — Dikaiosynē (Justice) as an inner condition — so the human being who lives out of the Life‑Spirit (Buddhi) brings about an objective harmonization of the conditions of destiny of humanity. He not only “hungers and thirsts” after Justice, but co-creates it within humanity.
    Acting in this way, he works as a representative not of the Luciferic‑human nor of the Ahrimanic‑human kingdom, but in the consciousness of a further kingdom — the Third Kingdom that is not of this world. Therefore, in the eyes of the representatives of both other kingdoms, he must appear strange; and by the representatives of that kingdom, whose victorious advance he has thwarted, also be hated. Thus, the destiny of the Life‑Spirit‑bearing human being among human beings will consist in his having to evoke much bewilderment and much hatred around himself. Yet he remains in steadfast, intuitive connection with the Third Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven. For the Life‑Spirit (Buddhi) is the permeation of the human being with the Christ‑impulse from the I downward into the Life‑Body.
Thus, the eighth Beatitude may be understood as the karma of those who represent the Life‑Spirit: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” (makárioi hoi dediōgménoi héneken dikaiosýnēs, hóti autoì estin hē basileía tōn ouranōn)

The final (ninth) Beatitude likewise speaks of persecutions of the bearers of the Christ‑impulse, but of persecutions, insults, and slander that arise not because of the balancing of justice, but because of the very being of Christ Himself. It is no longer merely human one‑sidedness and narrow‑mindedness that become militant, but something else. For no human being, as a human being, can consciously hate the being of Christ — this is possible only for entities belonging to the hierarchies of evil. Human beings can indeed become instruments of such entities when they take up the weapons of slander and persecution — but the hatred behind it, the hatred directed toward Christ, comes from another world. It comes from a world into whose depths no human being nor any being of the Hierarchies of Good has ever descended as deeply as the being of Christ Himself. It is the world of the layers of the interior of the Earth, which hates Christ as an individual being because He is the only being from above who has met the entities of the interior of the Earth face to face in their own realm — and whom they therefore recognized as their greatest enemy.
    The karma of those human beings who stand in so intimate a bond with the Christ‑Being that they, working as it were as bearers of Christ, also call forth the hatred that is destined for Christ Himself — their karma consists in this: that as human beings, in their human destiny, they are placed in the midst of the polarity between the world of Evil and the Christ‑Being. Then their karma has become one with the cosmic karma of the Christ‑Impulse. This is the revelation of the ‘Eternal cosmic‑karmic Name’ or of the ‘Star’ of the human being — that is to say, of the Spirit‑Man (Atma). For then the true eternal destiny of the human being reveals itself, as it stands inscribed as the primal thought of the Father in the ‘Fixed Star‑Heaven’ of determinations of existence. And that the human being becomes conscious of his eternal star, that his fixed star begins to shine within its constellation — this is the ‘great reward in the heavens’ of which the final Beatitude speaks. For the highest blessedness intended for human beings by God the Father shines forth in those heavenly regions that correspond to the spheres of the fixed stars.

Thus, the culmination of the nine Beatitudes streams into the mysterious vastness of the starry heavens and commands a breathless stillness of the soul on the threshold of the secrets of the Father.
    The ninth Beatitude: “Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you, and when they speak all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in the heavens” (makárioi este hotan oneidísōsin hymas kai diṓxōsin kai eípōsin pan ponērón rhēma kath’ hymōn pseudómenoi héneken emoû; chaírete kai agalliâsthe, hóti ho misthós hymōn polýs en toîs ouranoîs) —refers therefore to the karma that expresses itself in an elevation of the forces of the sub‑earthly layers. It is the karma of the relation to the sub‑human and sub‑natural world, which works from below upward (from the interior of the Earth into the sphere of the fixed stars), just as the eighth Beatitude referred to the karma of the human and natural world — in the horizontal direction from right to left (the Ahrimanic and Luciferic in the human being) — and the seventh Beatitude to the karma of the supra‑human and supra‑natural world — in the direction from above downward.

3. THE COSMIC MEANING OF THE BEATITUDES OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

The nine Beatitudes have thus far been considered in their meaning for the karma of humanity, now the question naturally arises: what do they mean for the karma of the world? For such a meaning they must have, since humanity is indeed an essential part of world‑events, and the Christ‑Impulse concerns not only the history of humanity but also its karma. - An answer to this question can be found when one considers the text of the Sermon on the Mount that immediately follows the ninth Beatitude (as given in the Gospel of Matthew). This text, which forms a kind of summarizing epilogue to the Beatitudes, culminates in two sentences:

    “Ye are the salt of the Earth.” (Matt. 5:13)
    “Ye are the light of the world.” (Matt. 5:14)

These two sentences express what human beings who have taken up the Christ‑Impulse are to mean for the Earth and for the world.
    What happens to these human beings themselves — that is what the sayings of the Beatitudes reveal; what effect upon the objective world‑process is through them made possible — that is what these sentences reveal. And they speak of the working of the humanized Christ‑Impulse in two directions: the direction of permeating of what is below, and in the direction of shining upwards. For the ‘salt’ is that which has permeated the Earth to give it its moral ‘flavor’; the ‘light,’ however, is that which shines forth from the Earth into the cosmos and transforms it — from the cosmic viewpoint — from a dark into a luminous heavenly body. In these two directions lies the objective destiny of humanity as such: on the one hand, to make the Earth visible to heaven; on the other, to permeate it inwardly with morality. The first part of this task can come to be understood when one considers that the Earth, when seen from the spiritual world, is a dark spot in space. It gleams only at those places where there are human beings who harbor thoughts and feelings of an unselfish nature, freed from the heaviness of the Earth and directed toward the spirit. Such spirit‑directed thoughts and feelings create the moral‑spiritual ‘illumination’, in which earthly matters can be seen from the spiritual world. This latter is a difficult process of knowledge for the beings of the spiritual world. It is just as difficult for them as for human beings on Earth is knowledge of the spiritual world. And if there were no selfless spirituality on Earth, a present‑day knowledge of both worlds would be rendered impossible by an abyss.    
    This abyss — which selfless spirituality on Earth continually bridges — is created by Lucifer. The ‘cloud‑layer’ of the Luciferic sphere that envelops the Earth creates the dark shadow that the Earth casts into the cosmos. And only those spiritual thoughts and feelings that are cultivated for unselfish reasons can break through this Luciferic cloud‑layer. Spiritual thoughts that are cultivated for selfish reasons can reach only the Luciferic layer and are held back there. If one considers the great number of people who practice religion, mysticism, and various forms of occultism, the Earth ought to shine brightly at almost every point. That this is not the case is due to the fact that such practices are not carried out in an unselfish way.
    In the saying of the Sermon on the Mount, which was addressed indeed to the intimate disciples of Christ Jesus — “You are the light of the world” — the reference is but to the radiance that is to shine outward from the Earth into the cosmos by overcoming the Luciferic layer. It concerns a spirituality practiced in a selfless way. Such selfless spirituality is possible however only when it is not pursued out of personal interest or for the special interests of a group, but for the sake of humanity. This is expressed in the words of Christ Jesus: “One does not place one’s light under a bushel, but on a stand, and it shines for all who are in the house.”
    Because spiritual life cultivated in the sense of the Christ‑impulse cannot serve special purposes, it is always a matter of community. It brings people together and unites them organically. But such a community must not set itself ‘goals’ and ‘purposes’ that dominate the general human striving. It must attain a level which, in relation to the level of ordinary habits, stands as a mountain stands to a valley.
    The spiritual community formed by the Christ‑Impulse must be a ‘city on a hill.’ And it is precisely this difference that must make it visible in the world. Its justification lies in the fact that it is there for everyone, yet rises above the level of ordinary practices of power, struggle, and rivalry. The mere fact that it distinguishes itself from the general by the absence of the premises of power, struggle, and rivalry makes it as clearly visible as a city situated on a hill.
    In the image of the city on a hill, which “cannot remain hidden” precisely because it lies on the hill, the solution to the question of the “exoteric and esoteric” nature of a spiritual community is given. What makes a community esoteric is the fact of its level — that level must not be betrayed, for it is the justification of such a community. And this level is at the same time what makes such a community exoterically fruitful. For if, for example, the unselfish cultivated spiritual community stands for the world as spiritual knowledge — that is, as pure spiritual science — without resorting to other methods of ‘proof,’ ‘scientific justification,’ and the like, then it will obtain its full justification as a guiding and inspiring presence. Indeed, it will prove itself all the more fruitful in other fields of life and research if it remains true to itself, uninfluenced by those fields. If, on the other hand, it is pursued for its own sake — that is, not out of love for the light, but in order to gain an advantage over others in scientific, social, aesthetic, or other domains — then its activity is no longer selfless, and such groups of human beings do not create light that makes the Earth visible to the spiritual world.

The kindling of the light that radiates outward into the cosmos is but only one side of the objective significance of the spiritual current within humanity. The other side consists in the inner transformation of the Earth itself, namely in the sense that its – from the moral point of view – neutral happening be permeated with morality. For the natural processes of the Earth are in themselves neither good nor bad; they stand between the world of Good and the world of Evil — the latter working upward from the interior of the Earth — equally open to the influences of both worlds. And nature will continue to serve two masters as long as Man serves two Lords. For it is the task of Man to lay the decisive weight upon the one side of the balance and to redeem nature from its vacillation.

    The cause of this illness is precisely nature’s neutral state of being placed within the struggle of the worlds.” Its condition is truly “a salt that has lost its savor and is trampled underfoot” — for it has become the mere object in the struggle between good and evil. And Man who, in his will up to a certain decisive cosmic hour, has not decided, will likewise lose the quality of being a co‑determining subject and will become a mere object of the struggle, which will then be waged by others. And the human being who, in his will up to a certain decisive cosmic hour, has not decided, will likewise lose the quality of being a co‑determining subject and will become a mere object of the struggle, which will then be waged by others. This part of humanity is the “salt that has lost its power,” and therefore will turn from an active force into an object of activity.

    The activity, however, that is meant in the verses of the Gospel of Matthew concerning ‘salt’ is the inflowing of the moral forces of human will into the earthly happening. For just as the outer world extends itself into the human organism (for example through nourishment), so the inner human activity extends itself outward into the world — and namely through deeds. And just as the extension of the outer world into Man can be constructive or destructive, depending on whether it is, for example, bread or poison, so too can that which flows from Man into the outer world be destructive or constructive.

   

Now, in the human organization the actual constructive element is the blood, which is the organ of the ‘I’. The earthly outer world cannot give Man blood directly — it can only provide substances from which the blood can build itself. Nevertheless, there is a substance in the outer world that can, to a certain degree, fulfill some of the functions of blood within the human organization. This substance is salt. A saline solution introduced directly into the bloodstream can, to a certain extent, remedy disturbances in the organism caused by a lack of blood. 

    Just as nature is unable to give Man blood, so Man, on the other hand, cannot in turn give nature the I‑consciousness, which is the human‑spiritual counterpart of blood. Yet nature is in need of the I‑consciousness in order to attain the capacity to choose between good and evil, and thereby to be healed of her illness. – Now, Man can nevertheless give nature something that, in its effect, approximates the I‑consciousness just as salt in its effect within the human organization, approximates the function of blood.  It is the inwardly from the human ‘I’ morally permeated Life‑Ether.

    Strictly speaking, what is at issue here is no longer the Life‑Ether in the sense of its natural functioning, but the emergence of a new, fifth kind of ether in Man — through the transformation of the Life‑Ether. Rudolf Steiner designated this new ether, arising from Man, as the “Moral Ether,” a concept that corresponds most closely to the essence of what is thereby named. This Moral Ether, which comes into being through the permeation of the human will and human deeds with the Christ‑Impulse, is the ‘salt of the Earth’ — that is, that which allows the moral element to stream into nature in a way effective for nature herself.

The ‘Moral Ether’ is destined to be the organ of the constructive activity of the Good in nature, just as salt can serve as an organ for the constructive I‑activity that normally works through the blood within the human organization. Through deeds that express the morally awakened will, human beings will permeate the events of nature with flashes of ‘Moral Ether’. And the beings of nature will orient themselves toward these streams of ‘Moral Ether’; these streams will represent the conscience of nature. Then nature will follow Man out of free affection — not as an enslaved servant, but as the soul of Kundry, who may now entrust herself to those who have become worthy of her trust. For then Kundry will be freed from the curse of double service — to Klingsor and to the Knights of the Grail — and will devote herself solely to the service of the Holy Grail.

The working of the Moral Ether, as the conscience of nature, is the secret of the white mechanical occultism of the future. Then the mechanisms will not dominate the forces of nature, but the forces of nature — following the ‘Moral Ether’ of Man — will set the mechanisms in motion. And it will be the will of Man that causes the moral ether to stream forth, the will in which the Christ‑impulse lives so strongly that it has led Man to the realization of the words of Christ Jesus: “No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  There will be Father‑forces at work when Man has permeated his will — the will that causes this ‘Moral Ether’ to stream forth — with the Christ‑impulse, just as the prophets of the Old Testament worked and were persecuted (Matt. 5:12).

Just as the saying “Ye are the light of the world” refers to the overcoming of Lucifer in the objective outer world, so the saying “You are the salt of the Earth” refers to the struggle against Ahriman in the objective outer world. For just as Lucifer is the being who prevents the light of the Earth from streaming into the spiritual world, so Ahriman is the one who causes darkness upon the Earth. The spiritual‑moral darkness is also brought into nature by Ahriman. Yet this darkening is such only from a spiritual point of view; from the earthly point of view, it is a special kind of light. This special kind of light appears, for example, in electricity. In general, the most important weapon of Ahriman in nature is earthly electricity, which includes even finer forms than those known to humanity today. In the struggle against Ahriman for the sake of nature, the most important weapon of the beings of the spiritual world is the heavenly electricity. The heavenly lightning bolts often destroy and dissolve that which, from the sub‑earthly layers, had been prepared as a threat to the surface of the Earth — to nature and to humanity. Some preparations of evil are destroyed by the strokes of heavenly electricity. Nature, however, experiences this only as a struggle between two powers, a struggle that proceeds with alternating success. Neither the earthly electrical effects of Ahriman nor the lightning bolts of the heavenly electricity of Michael are convincing to nature in themselves. Driven by fear upon fear, she sighs for redemption and meanwhile serves now one side, then the other. Only the ‘Moral Ether’, which will reveal itself through Man, will she experience not as a power, but as a guiding call and a help. 

A phenomenon of this kind already existed in the past: A certain degree of revelation of morally effective natural forces could occur through the disciples of Christ Jesus after the event of Pentecost. Some of the miracles mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles and in tradition can be explained simply by the fact that the apostles stood for a certain time in a different relationship to nature than was normally possible even then. One need only read the Acts of the Apostles (Gr. Praxeis Apostolōn) from the viewpoint of the relation between nature and the apostles, and one will find the statements here confirmed. Indeed, one will find that the author of the Acts placed special emphasis on making it clear to the reader that the apostles possessed a new kind of magic — one that always triumphed when it came into conflict with the old magic. The author of the Acts seems to have made it his special task to convince the reader that the moral can work decisively upon the processes of nature. It is not spells, amulets, talismans, and the like that are effective there, but the name of Christ Jesus and the inner permeation of the apostles with the Christ‑impulse (that is, with faith).

In the two sayings — about the light of the world and the salt of the Earth — the question is thus the objective significance for the world of that which in the nine Beatitudes was described as a human matter. This significance lies in the fact that through the reception of the Christ‑impulse, the Luciferic estrangement between heaven and Earth can be overcome, and the ahrimanically enslaved nature can gradually be brought closer being liberated.
    The latter is namely a task that will only be able to reach its fulfillment in a distant future. For the “salt,” the working of which will become increasingly evident from the sixth, Philadelphian cultural epoch onward, will become — during the future Jupiter‑embodiment of the Earth — a factor governing the processes of nature just as gravity is today. For from the middle of the Jupiter‑evolution onward, gravity will lose its significance in nature. Then the beings of nature will no longer be bound to the theater of the Jupiter‑events by gravity; the force that prevents them from drifting away will be of a moral kind. The beings of nature will follow the ‘Moral Ether’ when they remain faithful to the planet Jupiter. The moral force of trust will keep them from drifting away — no longer the coercion of gravity, which on Jupiter will cease to exist.

With the completion of the contemplation of the nine Beatitudes, a step has been taken toward the knowledge of the working of Christ Jesus through the Word. But the nine Beatitudes signify the path of Man to the Son. A further step would be the contemplation of the path that leads through the Son to the Father. This further step is taken by Christ Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount when He gives the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. The seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer express the relation in which Man can stand to the Father‑God when he has united himself with the Son in the sense of the nine Beatitudes. One understands the relation of the Beatitudes to the Lord’s Prayer in its deeper meaning when one uses the words of Christ Jesus —“No one comes to the Father except through Me” — as the key. For these words provide the inner thread that leads from the Beatitudes to the Lord’s Prayer.

Thus, the Lord’s Prayer is — in a deeper sense — a continuation of what is revealed through the Beatitudes. For this reason, the next contemplation will have the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer as its subject.

* * *

Chapter XXIV. THE PENTECOST EVENT

1. The Organ of the Pentecost Revelation

In the preceding contemplation an attempt was made to express the spiritual fact that, alongside the written Gospels‑reports, there exists an ‘unwritten Evangelium’: the life‑tableau of Christ Jesus, which has, as it were, remained standing in the etheric aura of the Earth. This indestructible and indelible Evangelium is — and will in the future increasingly become — the source of that body of knowledge concerning the Christ‑event, which took place nineteen centuries ago that can be attained on the path of imaginative vision, inspired cognition, and intuitive experience.

    But this ‘unwritten Evangelium’ has significance not only for the present and for the future – it has also had an immense significance in the past, indeed already almost immediately after the events of the Mystery of Golgotha. For in the forty days between the Mystery of Golgotha and the Ascension there took place, in essence, the disciples’ experiencing of the scenes of the life‑tableau of Christ Jesus. The ‘instruction of the Risen One’, the instruction that the disciples at that time received from the Risen One, consisted in the arising of images before their souls, each of which awakened an image referring to the time of His life and deeds before the Mystery of Golgotha, and as it were united itself with the awakened image from the past. Thus, before the souls of the disciples the images appeared always in pairs: an image as a revelation of the Risen One, and an image of His life and deeds before the Mystery of Golgotha. And it was always so that the first image was experienced, as it were, as the higher meaning and fulfilment of the second image. In this way the Risen One led the souls of the disciples through the scenes of his life‑tableau, yet in such a manner that each scene was simultaneously experienced as an imaginative expression of a higher spiritual truth. It was indeed instruction – and that which was taught was the content of the ‘unwritten Evangelium’.

    Then it came to pass that the instruction given through imagination ceased. The images disappeared from the disciples’ experience, and the form of the Risen One Himself vanished as well. This occurred on Ascension Day. From that day onward a time of grief began for the disciples, for they experienced themselves as empty and forsaken. The world of meaningful images had been swept away; into darkness and silence their souls were now submerged. The grief the disciples endured at this moment is scarcely comparable with any kind of greif that one may experience in ordinary life. For it was not caused by the presence of something grievous or painful, but by the absence of everything that gives the soul life and content. In this condition of soul, every ‘positive’ suffering is but a relief: sharp pain is indeed also an experience and therefore belongs to life, whereas the grief of emptiness is not an experience at all, but a state in which the soul recognizes itself as nothing.

    The experience by the disciples of the death of the soul was what preceded Pentecost. And this experience was the necessary preparation for that event. For what was at stake in that event was the experience of the resurrection of the soul – an experience that could follow only upon that of the death of the soul. Yet this grievous preparation for the Pentecost event was lightened by a certain circumstance, namely by the fact that the pain of this preparation was, for the circle of disciples, a common and therefore a shared one. The loneliness experienced by the disciples was a spiritual one – but in human terms it signified precisely a bond that united the circle of disciples in the deepest way. For shared grief is the most powerful means of binding human beings to one another – and the grief experienced by the disciples proved itself to be the bond required to unite the group of disciples into the organ of the Pentecost revelation.

    For a special kind of unification of the group of disciples was necessary for the coming‑into‑being of the Pentecost revelation. And this unification had to be such that it rested not only upon a common disposition, but above all upon a commonality reaching into the deepest foundations of sentient life. To this end, the sentient bodies of the disciples had to be united with one another in a manner corresponding to the way in which the twelve streams of the supersensible heart of the human organism are united. It was, as it were, a matter of forming the group of disciples into an organ corresponding to the inner structure of the supersensible heart‑organ. For the experience of the resurrection of the soul had to be lived in the heart – yet it had to be lived by a heart capable of representing humanity.

    And such a heart had to be formed – a heart of humanity, consisting of a group of human beings whose sentient bodies had been united through the enduring of a common grief in a manner resembling the way in which the petals of a flower are united with one another. Thus, the community of disciples at the moment of the Pentecost event presented a ‘twelve‑petalled flower’, the individual ‘petals’ of which were arranged around a center. This center was represented by a figure who, as the thirteenth, occupied the central place in the circle of disciples. In ecclesiastical tradition she was designated and presented as Mary, the mother of Jesus – in the gnostic‑esoteric tradition she was characterized as the ‘Virgin Sophia’. Mary‑Sophia was the ‘heart of the heart’, that is to say, she formed the center of the circle of the Twelve, which at the hour of Pentecost was, as it were, the ‘heart of humanity’.

    Of the central significance of Mary‑Sophia in the circle of the Twelve for the coming‑into‑being of the Pentecost revelation one has always been aware – both in the first centuries after Christ and in the late Middle Ages. This knowledge also found expression in art. Thus a miniature of the Syrian Codex (586 after the birth of Christ), preserved in the Bibliotheca Laurenziana in Florence, represents the Pentecost event as follows: Mary standing in the midst of the Twelve, the Holy Spirit hovering above her head in the form of a dove and pouring the stream of revelation directly upon her, while as a consequence tongues of fire flare up above the heads of the Twelve. Mary‑Sophia is shown in a light‑purple mantle (maphorion) over a blue robe (chiton). The whole group of figures is surrounded by motifs of blooming flowers and covered from above by an encompassing, inverted chalice.* This image of the circle of Twelve with Mary‑Sophia at its center leads us to a question without whose answer the Pentecost event cannot be understood, namely the question concerning the intrinsic nature of Mary‑Sophia and her participation in the coming‑into‑being of the Pentecost revelation.

________________________________

* Carucci, p. 140; Kondakoff Ikonograya Bogomateri, Vol. 1, p. 187

2. Sophia and the Pentecost Event

In the Contemplations on the Old Testament the being of Sophia was already spoken of in connection with Solomon and with the event of the baptism in the Jordan; here it will not be a matter of repeating what was said there, but an attempt must be made to carry the understanding of the Sophia‑being a step further and to deepen it. It is first of all important not only to bring the cosmic being of Sophia a step closer to comprehension, but also to awaken a perception for the spiritual‑historical tragedy of this being. For spiritual beings are not merely ‘principles’, but living entities who also possess a kind of ‘biography’; only, the biographies of spiritual beings encompass many thousands of years, whereas human biographies are limited to decades.

    The first encounter with the reality of the Sophia‑being takes place in the present within human thinking that strives to understand the divine Trinity as unity of three distinct principles in their revelation in the whole cosmos. For the knowledge of the unity of the Trinity as it reveals itself in the whole cosmos is an event in the thought‑life of Man that goes beyond the thought‑life alone and points to an encounter outside ordinary thinking — an encounter that on the one hand graces the thought‑life, yet on the other hand is not itself a creation of the thought‑life. This encounter on the field of thinking can be the first experience of the reality of Sophia. For Sophia reveals herself above all through the fact that she brings about the harmony of all spiritual Hierarchies, through which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit reveal themselves as active for human consciousness.

    What in the practice of abstract thinking is called ‘synthesis’ becomes an experience of knowledge through the touching of the ascending thought‑life by the being of Sophia. This being brings about the cognitive perception of the consonance of the divine‑spiritual world. She brings about this perception quite literally in the form of consonance, for she is an inspiring being who can meet the ascending human thinking.

    To encounter this being, consciousness must — even if only for a moment — ascend two steps higher than ordinary object‑consciousness. This ascent is necessary because the Sophia‑being is, for the worlds of object‑consciousness and of imaginative consciousness, essentially mute. She is mute in these worlds because she does not possess the power of imagination, the capacity to create imaginations. She does not possess this capacity because it was ‘stolen’ from her by Lucifer. This occurred around the time in the spiritual history of the Earth when the Fall took place. At that time Lucifer appropriated the imaginations of Sophia by making her serve him rather than placing himself in her service. He used the imaginations of Sophia for the purpose of creating a world that was to be built out of these imaginations.

    Yet this world was to be built out of these imaginations in such a way that it did not reveal the consonance of the divine world, but the glory of Lucifer himself. In this manner the imaginations of Sophia were rejected and transformed by Lucifer into their opposite — a world of falsehood came into being. This world of falsehood became the so‑called ‘Luciferic sphere’ surrounding the Earth, whose outwardly perceptible physical expression is the cloud‑region. The Luciferic sphere is the false paradise, the false spiritual world, from which those visions of self‑seeking beatitude arise that appear so often in the religious life of the peoples.

    The danger of this sphere lies not only in the fact that it indulges the egoism deeply rooted in human nature, but also in the fact that it is actually built out of the imaginations of Sophia — that is to say, out of images of extended cosmic truth — and that it can therefore work seductively upon the not‑yet‑fully‑awakened conscience. For falsehood in the cosmos is not mere wild fantasy, but misused truth. The truth of the imaginative revelation of Sophia was misused by Lucifer in the sense that it was first broken into fragments and then reassembled in another context. The radiant wisdom of God thus became the shining garment of Lucifer.

    In this way ‘Isis‑Sophia, the Wisdom of God’ was slain by Lucifer for the lower worlds — for thereby Sophia became a mute being with respect to the two lower realms of existence. The creative power of imagination was taken from her, and as a consequence she became a colorless, ineffective being, condemned to passivity with regard to earthly events. The image of the ‘Mater dolorosa’, the sorrow‑bearing Mother, is the one that most fittingly expresses the tragic condition of the Sophia‑being. For Sophia is a giving being, inwardly filled with the gifts of wisdom, but gifts which she can bestow only when a human consciousness enters her sphere; yet reaching down into the lower worlds is impossible for her because of the loss of the imaginative power that was taken from her by Lucifer.

    The gifts that Sophia bears within her are of an entirely different nature from the gifts of other hierarchical beings. For she bears within herself an internalized, inner wisdom that is not merely the shining‑through of the light of the Godhead, nor the mere overview of the vastness of the cosmic chronicle, the Akasha Chronicle. No, the wisdom to which this being owes her name is neither a direct revelation of the divine that stands above this order, nor a summary of the cosmic memory, the Akasha Chronicle, as it is present to the gaze of hierarchical beings, but a soul‑born remembrance rising from the inner depths of the soul.

    It is a wisdom that is pure creativity of the soul — yet at the same time a creativity of the soul such that the entire result of the previous cosmos arises inwardly from her own being as the primordial intention for the present cosmos, as the ‘plan’ for this cosmos. Therefore, Sophia is the spiritual archetype of the soul of humanity — not only in the sense of the tragic destiny of the soul increasingly being silenced in the world, but also in the sense of that internalized wisdom which is possible only in and through the soul.

Now, however, the tragic path of Sophia has been reflected in the history of the human soul to the extent that the formative power of the truth was likewise taken from the human soul: the power of imagination became subjective fantasy, bearing within itself the tendency toward the fantastic. Thus, the soul’s capacity to create imaginations out of itself lost its inherent truth. The soul became mute and was surrounded by a shell of self‑seeking interests that had taken possession of its former power of imagination.

    Thus there exists a kinship of destiny between the true soul‑being of Man on earth and the Sophia‑being in the spiritual world. In earlier times one was aware of this kinship: for this reason, an astral body (sentient body) that had been purified of the shell of self‑seeking interests to such an extent that the true soul‑being could thereby come to expression was designated as a “Virgin Sophia.” In this sense the mother of Jesus, Mary, was also called a “Virgin Sophia.”

    For she had — as a result of rather intricate experiences and interventions from the spiritual world — an astral body that was so purified that it could receive the revelations of the Sophia‑being and let them stream forth as soul‑born inspiration. This characteristic of Mary was precisely the reason why she occupied the central place within the circle of the Twelve at the coming‑into‑being of the Pentecost revelation. Without her, the revelation would have been merely spiritual: there would have been twelve prophets, connected with the spirit only in the sense of the ancient order of prophecy.

    Through the involvement of Mary, however, something entirely different could occur: the hearts of the disciples resonated, and the content of the Pentecost revelation was at the same time experienced by them as a personally human conviction. And through such a manner of experiencing, they did not become prophets, but indeed apostles. For there exists a tremendous inner difference between prophecy and apostleship: a prophet was an impersonal herald of the spiritual revelation — an apostle, however, bore that spiritual revelation within his soul. And this latter became possible only because the spiritual revelation of the Pentecost event could become soul through Mary, and as soul could be transmitted by Mary to the circle of the disciples.

What thus formed itself in the realm of the human on earth became an organ for the expression of what occurred from out of the spiritual world. For in the spiritual world, at the hour of the Pentecost event, something of great weight took place: the muteness of the Sophia‑being came to an end, and she could reveal herself again in a speaking manner. She could reveal herself in speech in such a way that not individual initiates lifted themselves into her sphere and she could inspire them there, but in such a way that she could actively descend and pour herself into the embodied waking‑consciousness of human beings on earth.

    It was not that Sophia was reached by this group of human beings — this had happened before — but that she, for the first time, could reach a group of earthly human beings. This fact meant that — for the duration of the Pentecost event — for the first time since the Fall the resistance of Lucifer was overcome. For the time of the Pentecost event, the obstacle that Lucifer had erected between Sophia and the realm of human waking‑consciousness was removed. The connection with the realm of earthly destiny, which had been interrupted by Lucifer, could be restored. And it could be restored because, on the one hand, a sum of imaginations had returned that had remained untouched by the influence of Lucifer, and on the other hand because Lucifer himself, through his sphere of falsehood, allowed the revelation of Sophia — through the exertion of his entire being — to pass through untarnished.

In order to approach these matters with a more pictorial understanding, the following diagram may offer some assistance:

The diagram above—though not complete, for the entire process is far more intricate—offers an image of the cooperation between the various forces at work in bringing about the Pentecost revelation. It concerns the relationship between the four worlds of consciousness. In the world of waking consciousness (below) stands the circle of the Twelve, with the open chalice at its center, the chalice which Mary depicts.

    Directly above this circle, in the world of imagination—at the threshold of waking consciousness—stands the life‑tableau of Christ, present as a lasting imaginative reality. This tableau was placed where the imaginations of Sophia had been deprived upward into the realm of Lucifer. It consists of imaginations which, because they were also physically real events, remained inaccessible to Luciferic influence. At the same time, they form the missing link between the world of waking consciousness and the inspirative world of Sophia.

    Yet between the inspirative world of Sophia and the imaginations of the life‑tableau of Christ there still lies the Luciferic sphere itself. During the time of the Pentecost revelation, however, this sphere became permeable to the Sophia revelation descending from above. This became possible because Lucifer experienced an inner reversal at the Mystery of Golgotha. The penitent Lucifer became a bridge of humility across the sphere of the lies he himself had created in the past. Thus the path of the Sophia revelation was led through the Luciferic sphere—indeed, through the very being of Lucifer. In the hour of the Pentecost event, Lucifer surrendered himself entirely to the impulse of Sophia: he became one with her and led her through his being downward to the life‑tableau of Christ, where it reached the souls of the human beings.

    In reality there occurred a union of the working of Sophia and that of Lucifer: this unified working of both beings is designated in the Gospel of John as the “Paraclete,” the “Comforter.” The Paraclete is not merely the Holy Spirit as the third hypostasis of the divine Trinity, but such a revelation of this third hypostasis that therein Sophia and Lucifer worked together, inasmuch as Lucifer placed himself humbly at the service of the impulse of Sophia. And this submission of Lucifer to the impulse of Sophia had not only the consequence that the Sophia revelation, in an undimmed form, reached the souls of the human beings; it also had the consequence that Lucifer, from out of himself, infused into the Sophianic revelation the inspiring fire of enthusiasm and joy. 

    The Paraclete, the Comforter, could appear as an active reality only because the same spirit that had brought about the isolation of souls now also brought the enthusiasm for the reunion of souls.

    This fact is mentioned in passing in the Acts, where it is said that some of the bystanders had the impression that the apostles “were filled with sweet wine.” The Dionysian enthusiasm that was indeed present gave an outsider the impression that this was the kind of ecstasy produced in the Bacchic cult through wine. It was, of course, a misunderstanding—but one that points to the essential fact that among the apostles there reigned an enthusiasm evoked through the participation of Lucifer.

    Above the Luciferic sphere—continuing the explanation of the diagram—stands, in the world of inspiration, the being of Sophia, depicted as an inverted chalice. She is inwardly, in the intuitive world, united with Christ (see the uppermost region of the diagram), and in this union she works in the spiritual world to bring about what must also be realized in the earthly human realm: the fulfillment of Christ’s words, “I in you and you in Me.” For the primary aim of the Mystery of Golgotha consisted in this: that Christ, who first had stood outwardly before the disciples as their Master, enter into the inner being of their souls. The path He had to take was one leading from an outward standing before them to an inward indwelling. This occurred in the Pentecost revelation: then Christ entered into the souls of the disciples, and in such a way that He was, as it were, born for the second time: through the heavenly Mother, Sophia, He was born into the souls of the disciples.    

    Thus the disciples were filled in their ‘I’ by Christ, who became, as it were, the Kyrios, the common ‘I’ of their circle. This ‘I’ was enveloped by the shared astral body of Sophia; in their etheric bodies they bore the shared experiences of the life‑tableau of Christ; and physically they formed a circle that became the organ for the Pentecost revelation, in that the circle bore Mary at its center, whose esoteric name was “Virgin Sophia.”

3. The Pentecost Event as Human Fulfillment 

of the New Testament

The meaning of the Old Testament was the preparation for and realization of the appearance of Christ in the human body; the meaning of the New Testament is the appearance of Christ in the human ‘I’. The ‘new law’ is precisely not meant to be a law, but to become the essential nature of the free human ‘I’. And this can only come about through the human ‘I’ taking into itself that Being which is the ‘new law’. This reception must be something that does not occur from without, but from out of the depths of that world in which the human ‘I’ is rooted. Just as the plant receives its juices from the soil in which it is rooted, so must the essential content of the Christ‑impulse enter into the human ‘I’ — as it were from the very ground in which that ‘I’ is rooted. How this was to take place with regard to the disciples is the content of the farewell discourses of Christ, as presented in chapters 13 to 17 of the Gospel of John. In these discourses it is essentially said: “I was with you as your Master — now I go to the Father in order to be in you in the same way as the Father is in Me.”

    It therefore concerns the task that the ‘I’ of Christ Jesus pass over into the innerness of the I‑essence of other human beings: the ‘I’ that lived in the one human form is to find the transition into the I‑innerness of other human forms, without thereby in the least impairing the freedom of those other I‑essences.

    Now, the transition into the being of the other ‘I’ is only possible through that sphere which is the primal ground and the Heimat of all human I‑essences. This sphere is that of the Father. Out of the Father all human I‑essences have come forth; in the Father they had their primal origin — and only from the sphere of the Father can workings be exercised upon the innerness of human I‑essences that are in harmony with the principle of freedom. For this reason, Christ had to walk the path that, through the Father, led into the innerness of the I‑essences of human beings. This path was outwardly that of death; inwardly, however, it was a complete union with the Father. The path of death led to the Resurrection; but the path of the Father led to Pentecost. For just as death and Father are two sides of one mystery, so the Resurrection and the Pentecost‑event were two sides of the result of the one mystery of Golgotha.

    Thus the Resurrection was the victory over Ahriman in the body; the Pentecost‑event was the victory over Lucifer in the soul. And just as the Resurrection was a ‘resurrection of the body’, so the Pentecost‑event was a ‘resurrection of the soul’.

    The Pentecost‑event was a resurrection of the soul, in the sense that a soul‑life was awakened which was wisdom having become soul. That soul‑life did not consist of mere feelings, but of an immense wealth of knowledge of the Christ‑mystery — and at the same time of such a form of knowledge of the Christ‑mystery that it came about from the deepest grounds of the heart. What heart is can be understood through the contemplation of the Pentecost‑event. What one ordinarily understands by ‘heart’ stands to the heart‑experience of the Pentecost‑event as the moon stands to the sun. The semi‑darkness of heart‑inclinations and presentiments was then replaced by the daylight clarity of love‑knowledge. For the unshakable inner certainty which the apostles had concerning the Christ‑mystery rested not on authority — not even on the authority of the outer or inner senses — but on the experience of the reality of love. And because the apostles experienced this reality in their soul, they knew at the same moment how and along which paths it had been working in the world and will be working. They also knew that what they now experienced in their soul was the same as what lived in Christ Jesus when He spoke the Sermon on the Mount and accomplished the healings. And they likewise knew that the meaning of the mystery of Golgotha was that this power dwell in human beings and overcome loneliness and death.

    Out of this experience the apostles spoke to the bystanders; and each one heard them speaking in his own language. This could occur because the language of the apostles was such that the fragmentation caused by Lucifer had been overcome in them. Because the Luciferic element had been overcome during the Pentecost‑event, a language could be spoken that was a kind of resurrected primordial language of humanity. For it was the resurrected soul that spoke: it spoke the language of the human soul, not the languages of the peoples that have arisen through fragmentation.

    To understand the essence of the “Pentecost‑language,” it is not sufficient to form only a general idea of the overcoming of the Luciferic fragmentation; one must also take into direct view the essential nature of that process through which the new speaking became possible within the human organization. To grasp this process more concretely, one must begin from the fact that the human being shares outer existence with the mineral world, organic life with the plant world, and movement with the animal world, but distinguishes himself from these three kingdoms through a fourth outwardly manifesting property, namely through language.

    This, however, means that in the human being, in addition to the physical, etheric, and astral bodies, yet another member of being reveals itself: the I. It is precisely this I that is the reason why the human being not only participates in physical existence, is alive, and can move, but can also speak. Although the human I is the true cause of the capacity for speech, it is nevertheless dependent, in the formation of articulate language, upon the threefold bodily organization. It must make use of the astral body in order to connect the verbal with the qualitative, the adjectival; and of the etheric body in order to relate it to the substantive, the object‑bearing; and finally, it must make use of the organs of the physical body in order to cause language to sound forth in the air.

    On this path, along which the speech‑impulse of the ‘I’ has to pass through the astral, etheric and physical body in order to reveal itself as spoken language, it happens that not only does this impulse work upon the bodies — influencing them — but that it is itself influenced by the bodies. On the way from the ‘I’ to the physical body, the speech‑impulse is in fact strongly metamorphosed. And it is metamorphosed in such a way that the verbal element in the astral body is weakened through the fact that it falls prey to the influence of the sphere of self‑seeking sympathies and antipathies, and that within this sphere of subconscious sympathies and antipathies a limiting effect is exercised upon the speech‑impulse. This limiting effect then has the consequence that the speech‑impulse, in the etheric body, is determined in the direction of the folk‑element, the national element — so that it finally, as the sounds of a particular language, is spoken forth through the organs of the physical body. In this way the originally purely human speech‑impulse becomes a relative and one‑sidedly influenced manifestation through the various languages: it occurs as a consequence of the Luciferic influence within the human organization. If, however, this influence is overcome — as was the case in the Pentecost‑event — then the speech‑impulse is freed, to that extent, from the limiting influence of the bodily organization, so that it is no longer compelled to flow out into the stream of a single language, but can move effectively and freely within the circle of human languages. This, however, means that the speech‑initiative of the human ‘I’ can place itself in connection with the sphere of activity of the complete circle of the spirits of speech (the Luciferic Archangels), because it has previously acquired the capacity to unite itself with the complete circle of workings of the folk‑spirits (the normal Archangels).

    It was precisely this connection with the complete circle of Archangels (the Folk‑spirits) that the twelve apostles had at the Pentecost‑event. And this was possible because the host of Archangels brings about the Christ‑mystery within the peoples. What the content of the Pentecost‑revelation was for human consciousness, that is whispered by the host of Archangels — ordered according to the individual parts or “words” — into the life of the peoples. For the Archangels, as folk‑spirits, have had since the Pentecost‑event the task of letting the working of Christ stream into the life of the individual peoples. The summary of their activity is the complete Pentecost‑revelation of the Christ‑mystery as it was experienced within Archangelic consciousness; while the summary of the Pentecostal knowledge of the twelve apostles was the complete Pentecost‑revelation of the Christ‑mystery as it was experienced within human consciousness. Therefore it was possible for the circle of the apostles to unite itself with the circle of the Archangels. For the Pentecost‑revelation was an event that took place not only within human consciousness, but also within the consciousness of the Folk‑spirits. There, too, a circle formed  itself which received the “apostolate” of Christ. And just as the circle of earthly human beings formed itself around a human being, Mary, so the circle of Archangels gathered around an Archangelic being who is designated as Sophia.

    The circle of human beings below and the circle of Fire‑spirits (Archangels) above — this is the archetype of the realization of the New Testament among human beings and peoples. It is the true archetype of the “Ecclesia,” the “Church,” which is to unite both humanity and the beings of the spiritual hierarchies in Christ. And this unity is not to be realized through organizations and statutes, but through the living fire of the Pentecost‑revelation. For the essence of the Pentecost‑revelation is not only the all-embracing, internalized knowledge of the Christ‑mystery, but also the coming-into-being of the archetype of every true community out of the experience of that knowledge.

    The reality of the Pentecost‑event stood in history behind the idea of the Church: it was the reality whose impression - gradually fading - later became the idea of a community of Christians embracing all peoples. The Pentecost‑event was also the true world‑historical experience of freedom, united with brotherhood in humility in the face of the magnitude of the all‑embracing Christ‑mystery. This world‑historical experience was later — this time not transformed into an idea, but into its opposite — distorted into the form of that immense misfortune of mankind which was the French Revolution. For that revolution was precisely the opposite of the Pentecost‑event: a community of human beings formed itself at that time in the consciousness of their right (“le droit humain”) around the figure of the Gloria. What Mary‑Sophia was at the Pentecost‑event, that became the imaginary figure of the Gloria — and what had once been the perfect silence of the souls of the disciples, who had passed through emptiness and solitude, now became a loud clamoring for rights.

    The fact that the Pentecost‑event became the subject of both abstraction and distortion is only an expression of the significance it possesses for the entire history of the post‑Christian era. For it reveals the true aim of the post‑Christian era, and now everything revolves around the understanding, the preparation, and the realization of that event — as well as upon its fading, its veiling, and its distortion. Since it is the task of the fifth post‑Atlantean epoch (for the sixth epoch, the so‑called “Philadelphian,” will be founded upon the knowledge of Pentecost), it is also the target of all attacks from the side of the powers that strive toward other goals. To understand the events of the final great part of world‑history, it is necessary to know this: the Spirit of Pentecost struggles forward through the course of the centuries and is engaged in conflict with the powers that seek to conceal and to deform it. For it is the fulfillment of the New Testament, in the same sense in which the appearance of Christ in the human body was the fulfillment of the Old Testament. And it is so because the task of the event of the New Testament — the Christ‑event — consists precisely in causing the “new law” to shine forth within human hearts. For Christianity is not a doctrine but an event. And that event will attain its full meaning when it has taken place not only upon the stage of world‑history, but also within the inner life of Man.

(To be continued.)