The Concepts of Original Sin and Grace
GA 127
3 May 1911, Munich
Translated by D. S. Osmond
A course of lectures in Helsingfors was to have begun today, but as karma has brought us together here instead, it may be useful to speak of certain subjects belonging to Spiritual Science, and then perhaps some particular wish may be expressed in the form of a question arising from our study on this unexpected occasion.
We will concern ourselves with certain thoughts which throw light on the subject of man's evolution in connection with the evolution of the earth, and as often before, we shall try to enlarge upon many things already known to us. Many things connected with the religious life and men's view of the world may have prompted the question: How are these things related to the deeper conceptions of life and the world which arise from Spiritual Science?
To begin with, I want to speak of two important concepts which confront the soul of modern man, even though he may believe he has long outgrown them. These two concepts are usually designated by the words ‘Sin’ and ‘Grace’. Everyone knows that the concepts ‘Sin’ and ‘Grace’ are of outstanding significance in the Christian view of life. There are theosophists who—from the standpoint of karma, as they allege—give no thought to concepts such as those of Sin and Grace or to the broader concept of Sin and Original Sin. This lack of reflection can lead to no good, because it prevents such people from recognizing the deeper aspects of Christianity, for example, and of other problems connected with views of life and the world. The background of the concepts of Sin, Original Sin, and Grace, is infinitely more profound than is generally imagined. The reason why this deep background is not perceived at the present time is that the real profundities of nearly all the traditional religions—this applies, to a greater or less extent, to nearly all of them in the form in which they now exist—have been more or less obliterated. The tenets of these religions seldom contain anything even remotely comparable with what lies behind these concepts of Sin, Original Sin and Grace. For what lies behind them is actually the whole evolution of the human race.
We are accustomed to divide this evolution into two main phases: a phase of descent, from the most ancient times until the appearance of Christ on the earth, and the phase of ascent which begins with the appearance of Christ on the earth and continues into the farthest future. Thus we regard the Coming of Christ as the event of supreme importance, not in the evolution of humanity alone but in the whole of our planetary evolution.
Why must the Christ Event be given this place at the very centre of our cosmic evolution? It is for the simple reason that man has come down from spiritual heights into the depths of material existence, whence he must again ascend to the heights of spirit. We have therefore to do with a descent and an ascent of man. In respect of man's life of soul, we say: In times of remote antiquity men were able to lead a spiritual life approximating far more closely to the Divine than is possible today. They were nearer to the divine-spiritual and divine-spiritual life shone with greater strength into the human soul. It must not, however, be forgotten that this descent into the material-physical world was necessary, because when men were nearer to the divine-spiritual, their whole consciousness was dimmer, more dream-like; it was less lucid, but at the same time inwoven with divine-spiritual thoughts, feelings and will-impulses. Man was nearer to the divine-spiritual but more like a dreaming child than a fully wide-awake, conscious human being. He has descended inasmuch as he has acquired the faculty of judgment necessary in physical life, namely, reason. Therewith he has descended from the heights of divine-spiritual existence but has become more clearly conscious of himself, has found a firm centre within his own being. In order to work his way upwards again he must fill this inner kernel of his life of soul with what has been brought by the Christ Impulse. And the more his soul is filled with the Christ Impulse, the higher he will ascend again into the divine-spiritual world, reaching it not as a being with dreamy, hazy consciousness, but as a being looking into the world with alert, lucid consciousness.
Closer investigation of the process of human evolution discloses that it is the ‘I’, the ego, of man which alone has made it possible for him to acquire the faculty of clear, intelligent perception of the physical world of sense, but that the ego was the last member of his being to develop; the astral body had developed earlier, the etheric body still earlier, and again earlier, the first rudiments of the physical body. We will remind ourselves especially today that the first stage of the development of the astral body preceded that of the ego. Many things we have heard in the course of time will have made it clear to us that before man could pass through the stage of ego-development, he must have passed through a stage where he consisted of three members only: physical body, etheric body, astral body. But already then he was involved in the process of the evolution of the ego; he lived within this evolutionary process, waiting, as it were, for the later bestowal of his ego. Rightly understood, this enables us to conceive that certain things must have happened to man and to the whole process of his development before he actually received his ego. These happenings belong to an epoch preceding that of the development of the ego. This is of great significance, for if man had passed through a phase of evolution before receiving his ego, what happened during that phase cannot be attributed to him in the same sense as what has happened since the bestowal of the ego is to be attributed to him.
There are beings who obviously have no ego in the human sense, namely, the animals. They consist of physical body, etheric body and astral body only. Everyone who thinks rationally recognizes something about the animals. Whatever fury may be exhibited by a lion, for example, we shall not say of a lion as we might say of a human being: he can be evil, he can sin, he can commit immoral deeds. We shall never speak of immorality in connection with the actions of an animal. This in itself is significant because even if we give no thought to it, we are thereby recognizing that the difference between man and animal consists in the fact that the animal has physical body, etheric body and astral body only, whereas man has the ego in addition. Man passed through a phase of evolution when the astral body was the highest member of his being. Did something happen to him during that stage which must be regarded in a different light from that in which the actions of animals are to be regarded? Yes indeed! For it must be clearly understood that although man was once a being consisting of physical body, etheric body and astral body, his nature was never the same as that of the animals as we know them today. Man was never an animal, but in other epochs he passed through a stage of evolution when he had these three bodies only—epochs when there were as yet no animals in their present form and when the conditions of existence on the earth were quite different.
What was it that actually happened to man at that time? As he had not received his ego, we cannot attribute to him what we now do in distinguishing him from the animals. What arose through him cannot be judged as it is to be judged today, when he has an ego. In the last stage of transition, when man was on the point of receiving his ego, there came the Luciferic influence. In that epoch of his evolution man was not the being he is today, but neither is he to be identified with the animals. Lucifer approached him. At that time man could not—acting as it were with full moral responsibility—choose whether he would or would not follow Lucifer; nevertheless he could be drawn into Lucifer's toils in a way other than that which applies to the animals today. This temptation by Lucifer occurred at the time when man was actually at the point of receiving his ego. This temptation was a deed to which man yielded before the period of ego-development but which has cast its shadows into the whole of this development. Who then, in the real sense, was the sinner? Not man as an ego-endowed being. Through Lucifer, man became a sinner with one part of his being—the part with which, properly speaking, he can no longer be a sinner today, for now he has his ego. At that time, therefore, he sinned with his astral body. That is the radical difference between the sin we now incur as men and the sin which at that time crept into our human nature. When man succumbed to the temptation of Lucifer, he succumbed with his astral body. This, therefore, is a deed which belongs to the period prior to that of ego-development and is entirely different in character from any deed of which man has been capable since his ego entered into him—even in its very earliest rudiments. It was therefore a deed of man which preceded the entry of the ego, but it cast its shadows into all subsequent ages of time. Man's nature was such that before receiving his ego, he was able to perform the ‘deed’ of lending himself to the Luciferic temptation but through all later time he has been under the influence resulting from this deed. In what sense under its influence? The consequence of the astral body having incurred guilt before man became an ego-endowed being has been that in each successive incarnation he sank more deeply into the physical world. The impetus for this descent was this action, this deed, which was enacted then in the astral body. Man found himself on a steep downward gradient, and with his ego he now lends himself to forces in his nature deriving from the stage of his evolution preceding that of the development of his ego.
How did these forces take effect in the evolution of humanity? They took effect in the following way. We know that until approximately the seventh year of life the physical body of the human being develops, from the seventh to the fourteenth years the etheric body, from the fourteenth to the twenty-first years the astral body, and so on. When the development of the etheric body has been completed, man reaches the stage when he is able to propagate his kind. (We will not now consider what form this takes in the animal kingdom.) When the etheric body has fully developed, the human being is able to reproduce his kind. Anyone who gives a little thought to this—he need not be clairvoyant but only reflect a little—will say: when the development of the etheric body is complete it is possible for a human being to bring forth another of his kind in the fullest sense. This means that as he grows on into the twenties he can develop no new procreative powers. It cannot be said that a man of 30 adds anything to this capacity to propagate his kind; he possesses it to the full as soon as the development of his etheric body is complete. What factor is added later? Nothing that he himself subsequently acquires is added, for he already possesses the power of propagation to the full when the etheric body is completely developed. What, then, is added? As far as the full power to propagate his kind is concerned, the one and only capacity subsequently added by the human being is that of being in a position to vitiate, to weaken it. What he can still acquire after the full development of his etheric body cannot enrich the actual power to propagate his kind, but can only impoverish it. The fact is that qualities acquired after the onset of puberty contribute nothing to the improvement of the human race but only make for its deterioration. This is due to the influence of the impulse which proceeds from the guilt incurred by the astral body. After the etheric body has fully developed, that is to say, at about the fourteenth year, the astral body develops further. Yes, but the influence of Lucifer is implanted in the astral body! What works back again from there into the functioning of the etheric body can only have the effect of weakening the forces of the etheric body which enable man to propagate his kind. In other words: what the astral body has become as the result of the temptation of Lucifer is a perpetual cause of degeneration and deterioration of the human race. And this has actually happened.
There has been continuous deterioration in man through the course of the incarnations. The farther we go back towards the Atlantean epoch, the more do we find in the physical endowments of man, higher forces than were working in later times. Where, then, was the impulse activated in the astral body through the temptation of Lucifer, implanted? It was implanted in heredity, causing increasing deterioration in that process. Sin that man incurs with his ego may work back upon the astral body and can only take effect in karma; but the sin incurred by man before he had an ego, contributes to a continual degeneration and deterioration of the human race as a whole. This sin became an inheritance. And just as it is true that no human being can inherit anything from his ancestors in the higher, spiritual sense—for nobody is clever because he has a clever father but because he learns things that make for cleverness (nobody has yet inherited the principles of mathematics or other such concepts from his ancestors)—just as we cannot inherit these capacities but acquire them through education, it is equally true that what works back into the etheric body from the astral body, contributes only to the undermining of the faculties of the human race. There we have the true meaning of the concept of ‘Original Sin’. The Original Sin which still persisted in the human astral body was handed down by gradual transmission and imparted itself to the hereditary qualities—which were themselves involved in the process of physical degeneration—as a factor in man's descent from spiritual heights into physical degeneration. So the legacy of Lucifer's influence has been a continuous impulse which in the very truest sense must be designated as Original Sin; for what entered into the human astral body through Lucifer is transmitted from generation to generation. There is no more appropriate term for the real cause of man's fall into the material-physical world than the expression: Original Sin, Inherited Sin. But our conception of the Original Sin must differ from that of other sins of ordinary life which are to be attributed entirely to ourselves: we must think of Original Sin as a destiny of man, as something that had inevitably to be imposed upon us by the World Order, because this World Order was obliged to lead us downwards—not in order to worsen us but in order to awaken in us the forces wherewith again to work our way upwards. We must therefore conceive of this Fall as something that has been woven into human destiny for the sake of the freeing of mankind. We could never have become free beings had we not been thrust downwards; we should have been tied to the strings of a World Order which we should have been obliged to follow blindly. What we have to do is to work our own way upwards again.
Now there is nothing that has not its opposite pole. Just as there can be no North Pole without a South Pole, so there can be no phenomenon such as this sin of the astral body without its opposite pole. Without being able to speak in the ordinary sense of moral wrong on our part, it is our destiny as men to be permeated by Luciferic forces. In a certain respect we can do nothing about it, indeed we must rather be thankful that it happened so. We were obliged, then, to incur a burden for which we cannot in the full sense be held responsible.
In human evolution there is something that is related to this as the North Pole is related to the South Pole. This sin which, in its consequences, is inherited, which represents sin in man of which he is not guilty in the real sense, must be counterbalanced by the possibility of re-ascent, also without merit of his own. Just as without guilt of his own, man was obliged to fall, so he must be able to re-ascend without merit of his own—that is to say, without full merit of his own. We fell without being ourselves guilty and we must therefore be able to ascend without merit of our own. That is the necessary polarity. Otherwise we should be obliged to remain below in the physical-material world. Just as we must place at the beginning of our evolution a guilt which man did not himself incur, so at the end of evolution we must place a gift that is bestowed upon him without merit on his part. These two things belong together. The best way of understanding why it is so is to think of the following.
What a man does in ordinary life proceeds from the impulses of his feelings, his emotions, his natural urges, his desires; he gets angry and does certain things out of anger; or he loves in the ordinary way and his actions are prompted by this emotion. There is one word only that can aptly express what man does in this way. You will all admit that in what a man does out of passions, out of anger, or out of ordinary love, there is an element that defies all abstract definition. Only a prosaic, academic brain would attempt to define what actually underlies some particular action of a human being. Yet there is a word which indicates the antecedents of the actions of a man in ordinary life—it is the word ‘Personality’. This word embraces all the indefinable factors. When we have really understood a man's personality, then we may be able to judge why it was that he developed this or that passion, this or that desire, or whatever it may be. Everything that is done out of these impulses bears a personal character. But we are so entangled in material life when we act out of our impulses, desires and passions! Our ego is submerged in the ocean of the physical-material world, is anything but free when it follows the dictates of anger, of passions, or also of love in the ordinary sense. The ego is unfree because it is ensnared in the toils of anger, of passion and the like.
If we observe our present age we shall find something that simply did not exist in ancient times. Only those who have no knowledge of history and who can scarcely see farther than their noses will declare that in the earlier periods of ancient Greece, for example, there were present such things as we today express with words that have been famous now for more than a century—words such as ‘liberty’, ‘equality among men’, and the like. These words signify moral and ethical ideas, as in the first declared object of the Theosophical Society: ‘To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Man without distinction of race, creed, caste or sex.’ For us, as men of the modern age, this is an ideal. It was not at all the same among the ancient Egyptians, among the ancient Persians, or indeed among any of the other peoples of antiquity. In the present age men adhere to such ideals but, in most cases, what they do in the name of liberty, brotherhood, and so forth, bears all the characteristics of abstraction, and admits of definition. For the majority of men, what they grasp of the real import of these ideals of freedom, brotherhood and so on, is capable of definition because they grasp so very little. Passions may become inflated but, for all that, numbers of human beings give us the impression that we have before us something that is withered and sapless. These ‘ideals’ cannot be called personal; they are abstract ideas, lacking the full-blooded vigour of personal life. Yet we attribute greatness to individuals in whom the idea of liberty, for example, seems to have become an out-streaming elemental force, as if it were issuing from wrath, passion, or ordinary love. In many respects today ideas which are to be regarded as the very highest moral ideals are allowed to lie fallow; yet these ideas could be the beginning of momentous development. Just as man has plunged with his ego into the physical-material world, has unfolded personality while acting under the influences of passions, impulses and desires, so he must rise, not merely with abstract concepts but with personality to the heights of ideas which are still abstract today. When this happens, spiritual ideals will be imbued with the same elemental force that can be perceived in actions springing from hatred or love in the ordinary sense.
Man will eventually ascend to higher spheres with his personality. But something else is required. When the human being dives with his ego into the ocean of physical-material life, he finds his personality, he finds his warm blood, he finds the surging impulses and desires in his astral body—in short, he dives down into his personality. But now he must ascend into the realm of moral ideals—which must no longer be a realm of abstraction. He must rise to the Spiritual, and then there must stream towards him a reality in every sense as ‘personal’ as the reality streaming to him when he dives with his ego into his warm blood and surging passions. He must now scale the heights without lapsing into abstraction. How, then, as he rises into the Spiritual, can he enter into something that is a ‘personal’ reality? How can he develop these ideals in such a way that they are invested with the character of personality? There is only one way whereby this can be achieved. In these heights of spiritual life man must be able to draw to himself a Personality as inwardly real as the personality below in the flesh is real. Who is this Personality Whom man must draw to himself if he is to ascend into the Spiritual? This Personality is none other than Christ! One who speaks in the sense contrary to St. Paul may say: ‘Not I, but my astral body’—but St. Paul says, ‘Not I, but Christ in me’—indicating that when Christ lives in us, abstract ideas are invested with a personal character. Herein lies the significance of the Christ Impulse. Without the Christ Impulse humanity would reach abstract ideals only, abstract ideas of morality and the like, such as are described as ideas working in history by many historians today but which can neither live nor die because they have no creative power. When reference is made to the part played by ideas in history, it should be realized that these are dead, abstract concepts, incapable of exercising sway over epochs of civilization. Living reality alone can exercise such sway. The task before man is to unfold a higher Personality. This is the Christ-Personality Whom he draws to himself, receives into himself.
Man cannot rise again to the Spiritual by merely talking about the Spirit but only by taking the Spirit into himself in the living, personal form presented to him in the Events of Palestine, in the Mystery of Golgotha. Thus does man rise upwards again under the influence of the Christ Impulse. In no other way can abstract ideals be invested with the force of personality than by allowing the Christ Impulse to permeate the whole of our spiritual life. If on the one side, through guilt incurred before the development of the ego, we have burdened ourselves with what is called Original Sin, if there we have something for which we cannot be held wholly responsible, neither are we ourselves responsible for the fact that it is possible to draw the Christ to ourselves. Our ego plays a part in what we do or endeavour to do in order to come near to Christ, and there we can truly speak of merit. But the fact that Christ is present, that we are living on a planet where He once dwelt and in times after this actually happened—this is not due to any merit of our own. Therefore what flows from the Living Christ in order to bring us upwards again into the spiritual world, comes from beyond the sphere of the ego and draws us upwards as irresistibly as we incurred guilt without ourselves being guilty. Through Christ's existence on earth we have the strength to rise again into the spiritual world without merit of our own, just as we incurred guilt without sin of our own. Neither fact has to do with the element of personality in which the ego lives, but both are connected with happenings that precede and follow the coming of the ego. Man has evolved from a state of existence when he had only physical body, etheric body and astral body, and he evolves further through transforming his astral body into Manas (Spirit-Self). Just as man has worsened his astral body through incurring Original Sin, so he heals it again through the Christ Impulse. An inflowing power repairs the astral body to the same extent to which it has deteriorated. That is the Atonement, that is what in the true sense is called ‘Grace’. Grace is the concept that is complementary to that of Original Sin. So the Christ Impulse has made it possible for man to become one with Christ, to say with St. Paul: ‘Not I, but Christ in me’, thus giving expression to everything that is designated by the concept of Grace.
Therefore to speak of the existence of Original Sin and of Grace does not denote misunderstanding of the idea of karma. For in speaking of the idea of karma we are speaking of the reincarnation of the ego in the different earth-lives. Karma is inconceivable without the presence of the ego: Original Sin and Grace, impulses which lie below the surface of karma, [are] in the astral body. We can say with truth that human karma was first brought about because man had burdened himself with Original Sin. Karma flows through the incarnations and before and after there are happenings which introduce and subsequently expurgate it. Before karma—Original Sin; and after—the victory of the Christ Impulse, the fullness of Grace.
So again from this point of view, Spiritual Science has a great and significant mission, particularly in our time. For true as it is that humanity has only lately come to recognize ideals in the form of abstractions, to unfold abstract ideas of liberty, brotherhood and the like, it is also true that we are facing a future when these ideas must no longer hovel before us as abstractions but approach us as living forces. True as it is that men have passed through the transitional stage of forming abstract ideals, it is equally true that they must advance to the stage where these ideals come to personal fulfillment within them; they must advance to the portal of the new Temple. That is the prospect before us. Men will be taught that what works down from spiritual heights is not mere abstraction but living reality. When the new faculty of vision that is to arise in the next phase of evolution begins to function, when men give up thinking, ‘How well I am getting on!’ but with etheric vision behold the living power of Christ Who will reveal Himself in an etheric body—as we know, this will happen to certain individuals before the middle of the century—when they begin to behold the Living Christ, they will know that what they have glimpsed for a time in the form of abstract ideas are in very truth living beings within our evolution. For the Living Christ Who first appeared in physical form—which at that time was the only form in which He could convey to men that even those who were not His contemporaries could believe in Him—the Living Christ will reveal Himself in a new form. The fact that He lives will need no proof, for then there will be actual witnesses—men who themselves experience, even without special development but with a kind of matured vision, that the moral powers of our World Order are living realities, not merely abstract ideals.
Our thoughts cannot carry us into the true spiritual worlds because they have no life. Not until we cease to regard these thoughts as our own creations but as testimonies of the Living Christ Who will appear to men, shall we rightly understand these thoughts. Then, as truly as man became a personality through descending with his ego into lower spheres, as truly will he be a personality when he ascends to the heights of spirit. This is beyond the comprehension of materialistic thinking. All that materialism can understand, and readily understand, is that there are abstract ideals, ideals of the Good, the Beautiful, and so forth. That there are living Powers who draw us upwards through their Grace—this can be realized only through spiritual development. That is what the renewed Christ Impulse means. When we no longer regard our ideals simply as ideals but through them find the way to Christ, then we help Christianity forward in the sense of Spiritual Science; then Christianity will enter a new stage and cease to be merely a preparation. Christianity will itself make evident that it contains the greatest of all impulses for all time to come. And then those who believe that to speak of developing Christianity is only to endanger it will see how greatly they are in error. These are the people of ‘little faith’, who are alarmed when it is said that in Christianity there are glories still greater than have yet been revealed. Those whose conception of Christianity bears the hallmark of greatness are men who know that the words that Christ is with us to the end of time are true—meaning that He is the constant Revealer of the New and at the same time its origin and source.
By realizing that Christianity will bring forth from its depths an increasing flow of new and more living creations, we enhance its greatness. Those who are always saying: ‘That is not in the Bible, that is not true Christianity and those who maintain that it is, are heretics’, must be reminded that Christ also said: ‘I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now’. He did not say this in order to indicate that He wished to withhold anything from men, but that from epoch to epoch He would bring them new revelations. And this He will do through those who are willing to understand Him. Those who deny that there can be new revelations do not understand the Bible, neither do they understand Christianity. For they have no ears for what is implied in the admonition given by Christ: ‘I have still much to say to you—but prepare yourselves in order that you may be able to bear it and understand it.’
The true Christians of the future will be those who are willing to hear what the Christians who were contemporaries of Christ were not yet able to bear. Those who allow Christ's Grace to flow into their hearts in ever increasing abundance—they will be the true Christians. The ‘hard of heart’ will resist this Grace, saying: Go back to the Bible, to the literal text of the Bible, for that alone is true. This is a disavowal of the words which in Christianity itself kindle light, words which we will take into our hearts: ‘I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.’ Good it will be for men when they can bear more and more in this sense: for thereby they prepare themselves for the ascent into the spiritual heights. And to these spiritual heights Christianity leads the way.
Erbsünde Und Gnade
Da uns heute das Karma hier zusammenführte, statt der Tatsache, daß eigentlich heute der Kursus in Helsingfors beginnen sollte, dürfen wir eine kleine Betrachtung über einige geisteswissenschaftliche Gegenstände anstellen, und dann kann sich vielleicht der eine oder andere Wunsch in Form einer Frage an diesen improvisierten Abend an unsere Betrachtung anknüpfen.
Was vielleicht am nächsten liegt heute zu betrachten, werden einige Streiflichter sein, die in unsere spirituelle Bewegung hereinfallen können, wenn wir von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus unsere menschliche Entwickelung einmal im Zusammenhange mit der Erdentwickelung betrachten. Manches von dem, was wir wissen, wollen wir — wie wir das schon manchmal gemacht haben - in einer besonderen Weise beleuchten. Es wird Ihnen vielleicht doch öfter manches von demjenigen, was auf Sie einen tieferen Eindruck in den religiösen Empfindungen der Menschen gemacht hat, in den sonstigen Weltanschauungsfragen, so vor Augen getreten sein, daß Sie sich fragen mußten: Wie verhalten sich Dinge, die Gegenstände sind des religiösen Empfindens der Menschheit, oder die Gegenstände sind sonstiger Weltanschauungsfragen, zu unseren tieferen Auffassungen der Weltanschauungsfragen im Lichte der Geisteswissenschaft?
Auf zwei wichtige Begriffe, die öfter vor die Seele des modernen Menschen treten können, möchte ich da von Anfang an deuten, trotzdem vielleicht diese modernen Menschen glauben, solche Dinge längst abgetan zu haben, auf die zwei Begriffe, die sich gewöhnlich umschreiben mit den Worten: Sünde und Gnade.
Es wissen ja alle, daß diese Worte «Sünde» und «Gnade» zum Beispiel für die christliche Weltanschauung etwas ungeheuer Bedeutungsvolles sind, daß sie da die größte Rolle spielen. Es sind allerdings gewisse Theosophen gewohnt worden, wie sie glauben vom Gesichtspunkte des Karma aus, gar nicht mehr viel über solche Begriffe wie Sünde und Gnade nachzudenken, namentlich auch nicht mehr über den erweiterten Begriff von Sünde und Erbsünde nachzudenken. Nun ist dieses Außerachtlassen eines solchen Nachdenkens dennoch insoferne von nicht guten Folgen begleitet, als man dadurch verhindert wird, die tieferen Seiten des Christentums zum Beispiel, überhaupt die tieferen Weltanschauungsfragen, zu erkennen. Diese Begriffe «Sünde», «Erbsünde», «Gnade» haben in der Tat noch einen weit tieferen Hintergrund, als man gewöhnlich meint. Und daß man diesen tieferen Hintergrund in unserer Gegenwart nicht mehr so sieht, rührt einfach davon her, daß fast alle traditionellen Religionen der Welt - fast alle, mehr oder weniger, so wie sie äußerlich existieren — eigentlich ihre wirklichen Tiefen ganz verwischt haben, daß kaum in dem, was da oder dort in einem Religionssystem verkündet wird, entfernt noch Ahnliches von demjenigen ist, was sich hinter den entsprechenden Begriffen verbirgt. Hinter den Begriffen Sünde, Erbsünde, Gnade verbirgt sich in der Tat die ganze Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechtes.
Wir sind gewohnt geworden, diese Entwickelung in zwei Teile zu gliedern, in einen absteigenden Teil, von den ältesten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung bis zu der Erscheinung des Christus auf Erden, und in einen aufsteigenden Teil, der mit der Erscheinung des Christus auf Erden beginnt und bis in die entferntesten Zukünfte hinein weitergeht. So gliedern wir also die gesamte Menschheitsentwickelung dadurch, daß wir dieses Christus-Ereignis als das größte nicht nur unserer Menschheitsentwickelung, sondern als das größte unserer gesamten planetarischen Entwickelung überhaupt ansehen. Warum müssen wir denn nun dieses Christus-Ereignis als ein so außerordentlich Bedeutsames in die Mitte unserer ganzen Weltentwickelung hineinstellen? - Aus dem einfachen Grunde müssen wir das, weil der Mensch, wie wir wissen, aus geistigen Höhen in materielle, in physische Tiefen heruntergestiegen ist, und weil er wiederum von den materiellen, von den physischen Tiefen zu geistigen Höhen hinaufsteigen muß. Also mit einem Herunterstieg und einem Hinaufstieg des Menschen haben wir es zu tun. Und wir bezeichnen näher diesen Herunterstieg des Menschen in bezug auf sein Seelenleben dadurch, daß wir sagen: Wenn wir in recht alte Zeiten zurückblicken, dann finden wir, daß in diesen alten Zeiten die Menschen im Grunde genommen ein dem Göttlichen viel ähnlicheres geistiges Leben haben führen können als, sagen wiir, jetzt, daß die Menschen gleichsam dem Göttlich-Geistigen nähergestanden haben, daß in die Seele des Menschen mehr göttlich-geistiges Leben hereingeleuchtet hat.
Nur dürfen wir allerdings nicht außer acht lassen, daß es notwendig geworden ist, daß die Menschheit in die materielle, in die physische Welt heruntergestiegen ist, weil in jenen alten Zeiten, wo die Menschen dem Göttlich-Geistigen nähergestanden haben, zu gleicher Zeit das ganze Bewußtsein unserer Seele ein dumpferes, ein traumhafteres war: also ein weniger helles, klares Bewußtsein, dafür aber ein mehr von göttlich-geistigen Vorstellungen, von göttlich-geistigen Empfindungen, von göttlich-geistigen Willensimpulsen durchzogenes. Der Mensch ist näher dem Göttlich-Geistigen, dafür aber weniger klarer Mensch, mehr träumendes Kind gewesen. Heruntergestiegen ist der Mensch, indem er sich die für das physische Leben notwendige Urteilskraft angeeignet hat, den Verstand. Er hat sich damit entfernt von den göttlich-geistigen Höhen, ist aber klarer in sich selber geworden, hat mehr den festen Stützpunkt in sich selber gefunden. Nun muß er, um sich wiederum mit diesem inneren Schwerpunkt seines Seelenlebens hinaufzuarbeiten, dieses mit dem ausfüllen, was geworden ist durch den Christus-Impuls. Und je mehr er es ausfüllt mit diesem Christus-Impuls, desto mehr wird er wiederum hinaufsteigen in die göttlich-geistige Welt und nicht ankommen als ein träumendes Wesen mit unklarem Bewußtsein, sondern als ein Wesen mit deutlichem, scharf in die Welt hineinschauendem Bewußtsein. Das haben wir oft von den verschiedensten Seiten aus so beleuchtet.
Nun, wenn wir etwas näher eingehen auf die menschliche Entwickelung, wissen wir wiederum, daß das, was dem Menschen allein die Möglichkeit gebracht hat, verstandesklares, helles Hineinsehen in die sinnlich-physische Welt sich zu erwerben, das Ich des Menschen ist, daß dieses aber als letztes in der menschlichen Entwickelung sich entwickelt hat, daß sich vorher der Astralleib, noch früher der Ätherleib, noch früher der physische Leib in den ersten Anlagen entwickelt hat. So daß wir uns erinnern wollen heute, daß der eigentlichen Ich-Entwickelung vorangegangen ist die erste Entwickelung des Astralleibes. Wenn wir mancherlei zusammenhalten von dem, was wir im Laufe der Zeit gehört haben, müssen wir allerdings sagen: Uns muß klar sein, daß der Mensch, bevor er seine Ich-Entwickelung durchmachen konnte, eine Entwickelung durchgemacht hat, in der er nur diese drei Glieder hatte: physischen Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib. Aber der Mensch war trotzdem schon in die Ich-Entwickelung hineinverlegt. Er lebte in dieser Entwickelung, wartete gleichsam auf die spätere Hinzufügung seines Ich. Wenn wir uns dieses richtig vor Augen halten, dann werden wir einen Begriff davon bekommen, daß Dinge mit dem Menschen und seiner ganzen Entwickelung vorgegangen sein müssen, bevor er eigentlich das Ich in sich aufgenommen hat, gleichsam Vor-Ich-Entwickelungstatsachen. Das ist sehr wichtig. Denn wenn der Mensch eine Entwickelung schon durchgemacht hat, bevor er sein Ich aufgenommen hat, dann können wir das, was damals in seiner Entwickelung lag, ihm nicht in derselben Weise anrechnen, wie wir ihm anrechnen müssen das, was er mit seinem Ich durchgemacht hat.
Wir kennen ja Wesenheiten, von denen wir uns klar sind, daß sie ein Ich im menschlichen Sinne nicht haben. Es sind die Tiere. Sie bestehen nur aus physischem Leib, aus Ätherleib und Astralleib. Daß sie so sind, die Tiere, zwingt uns, ihnen gegenüber etwas ganz Bestimmtes anzuerkennen, was wir alle tun, widerspruchslos alle tun, wenn wir überhaupt vernünftig denken. Es mag ein Löwe zum Beispiel uns noch so wütig anfahren, in dem Sinne, wie wir von einem Menschen sprechen: er kann böse sein —, werden wir vom Löwen nicht sprechen: er kann böse sein, er kann eine Sünde begehen, er kann Unmoralisches begehen — so sprechen wir von keinem Tier, daß wir ihm irgendeine Handlung als eine unmoralische anrechnen. Das ist sehr bedeutsam. Denn wenn wir auch nicht darüber nachdenken, erkennen wir das doch an, daß der Unterschied zwischen Mensch und Tier besteht, daß das Tier nur den physischen Leib, den Ätherleib und Astralleib hat, der Mensch aber dazu das Ich hat.
Nun hat der Mensch, bevor er das Ich aufgenommen hat, eine Entwickelung durchgemacht, wo er als höchstes Glied nur den Astralleib hatte. Ist da nun etwas vorgegangen mit dem Menschen, das wir doch in einem anderen Lichte sehen müssen, als wir die Handlungen der Tiere sehen? — Ja. Denn darüber müssen wir uns ganz klar sein: Wenn auch der Mensch einstmals aus physischem Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib bestanden hat, so wie die heutigen Tiere war er durchaus nicht. Er war nie ein Tier, der Mensch, sondern er hat in anderen Zeiten diese Stufe durchgemacht, wo er aus physischem Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib bestanden hat, in Zeiten, in denen es Tiere in der heutigen Form noch nicht gegeben hat, in Zeiten, in denen ganz andere Verhältnisse auf der Erde existiert haben. Was ist dazumal aber geschehen mit dem Menschen? Etwas, was wir so bezeichnen können, daß wir sagen: Nun, der Mensch hat zwar nicht das Ich gehabt, wir können ihm also seine Dinge nicht so zurechnen, wie wir das zum Unterschiede von den Tieren jetzt tun, aber es werden die Tatsachen, die von ihm ausgegangen sind, doch in anderer Weise zu beurteilen sein, als sie heute zu beurteilen sind, da er sein Ich hat. — Dahinein, in dieses letzte Übergangsstadium, wo der Mensch vor dem Tore steht, wo er sein Ich bekommen soll, fällt noch der luziferische Einfluß. Es konnte damals der Mensch noch nicht so beurteilt werden wie heute, aber doch anders als die Tierheit. Luzifer drängte sich also an den Menschen heran. Der Mensch konnte noch nicht sozusagen unter voller moralischer Verantwortlichkeit dem Luzifer folgen oder nicht; aber er konnte doch in anderer Weise, als wir das heute beim Tier bezeichnen, von Luzifer sozusagen in seine Netze gezogen werden. So daß wir sagen müssen: Die Verführung des Luzifer, diese Versuchung des Luzifer fällt gerade in die Zeit hinein, da der Mensch vor dem Tore stand, sein Ich zu erhalten. Es ist also eine Handlungsweise des Menschen, die vor seiner jetzigen Ich-Entwickelung liegt, die aber ihre Schatten in diese ganze Ich-Entwickelung hineingeworfen hat. Also wer ist denn eigentlich Sünder geworden? Der Mensch, insofern er ein Ich-Mensch ist, noch nicht. Durch Luzifer ist der Mensch mit einem Teile seines Wesens Sünder geworden, mit dem er heute im Grunde genommen nicht mehr Sünder werden kann. Denn heute hat er sein Ich. Der Mensch ist also mit dem Astralleib damals Sünder geworden. Das ist der radikale Unterschied zwischen irgendeiner Sünde, die wir heute als Mensch auf uns laden, und dem, was damals als Sünde in die menschliche Natur eingezogen ist. Als der Mensch damals der Versuchung des Luzifer unterlegen ist, ist er mit seinem Astralleib unterlegen. Es ist das also eine Tat der Vor-IchEntwickelung, eine ganz andersartige Tat als alle die Taten, die der Mensch hat tun können, nachdem sein Ich auch nur in den allerersten Andeutungen in seine Natur eingezogen war. So fällt also eine Tat des Menschen vor dem Einzuge des Ich in die menschliche Natur. Aber diese Tat wirft ihre Schatten in alle späteren Zeiten hinein. Vollbringen konnte der Mensch diese Tat, der Versuchung des Luzifer zu folgen, bevor er sein Ich aufnahm, aber sozusagen unter den Einfluß dieser Tat gebracht worden ist er für alle folgenden Zeiten. Wieso? Nun dadurch, daß dies geschehen ist, daß unser Astralleib schuldig geworden ist vor unserer Ich-Werdung, dadurch ist die Tatsache herbeigeführt worden, daß der Mensch nun in den folgenden Inkarnationen, sozusagen in jeder, tiefer in die physische Welt heruntersinken mußte. Das ist der Anstoß zum Heruntersinken, diese Tat, die noch im Astralleibe sich abgespielt hat. Dadurch war der Mensch auf eine schiefe Ebene nach abwärts gekommen, dadurch folgt er mit seinem Ich Kräften in seiner Natur, welche aus seiner Vor-Ich-Entwickelung herrühren.
Wie drückten sich denn nun diese Kräfte in der Menschheitsentwikkelung aus? - Sie drückten sich auf folgende Weise aus. Wir wissen aus früheren Betrachtungen, daß der Mensch bis zum siebenten Jahre ungefähr seinen physischen Leib entwickelt, vom siebenten bis vierzehnten Jahre seinen Atherleib, vom vierzehnten bis einundzwanzigsten Jahre seinen Astralleib und so weiter. Wir wissen, daß er mit der Entwickelung seines Ätherleibes in ein Stadium eintritt, wo er seinesgleichen aus sich hervorbringen kann. Wir wollen jetzt ganz von der gleichartigen Erscheinung im Tierreiche absehen. Wir wissen, daß der Mensch, wenn er seinen Ätherleib entwickelt hat, Menschen seinesgleichen hervorbringen kann. Das ist daran gebunden, daß der Mensch seinen Ätherleib voll entwickelt hat. Wer ein wenig nur nachdenkt — man braucht nicht Hellseher zu sein, man braucht nur ein wenig nachzudenken -, wird sich sagen: Also muß mit der vollen Entwickelung des Atherleibes auch die Möglichkeit gegeben sein für den Menschen, die ganze volle Menschheit hervorzubringen, wirklich seinesgleichen hervorzubringen. Das heißt, der Mensch kann nicht dann noch, wenn er sich weiterentwickelt in die Zwanzigerjahre hinein, neue Eigenschaften zur Hervorbringung seinesgleichen entwickeln. Man kann nicht sagen, daß der Mensch im dreißigsten Jahre dieser Eigenschaft, die ihn befähigt, seinesgleichen hervorzubringen, noch etwas hinzufügen würde. Der Mensch hat alle Eigenschaften, die ihn fähig machen, den Menschen hervorzubringen, mit der Entwickelung seines Atherleibes. Was kommt später noch dazu? Vom Menschen selber kommt durch das, was der Mensch später aufnimmt, nichts mehr dazu. Denn er muß schon die volle Fähigkeit haben, seinesgleichen hervorzubringen. Er kann nichts mehr hinzu erobern, wenn er den Ätherleib voll entwickelt hat. Was kommt noch dazu? Ja, die einzige Fähigkeit, die sich der Mensch später in bezug auf die Hervorbringung von seinesgleichen erwirbt, ist diese, daß er sich den vollen Umfang seiner Fähigkeit, Menschen seinesgleichen hervorzubringen, verdirbt. Was man nach der vollen Entwickelung des Ätherleibes noch sich erwerben kann, kann nicht die Kraft bereichern, seinesgleichen hervorzubringen, sondern sie nur schmälern. Und das ist auch der Fall. Eigenschaften, die man sich nach vollendeter Geschlechtsreife erwirbt, tragen nichts dazu bei, das Geschlecht des Menschen zu verbessern, sondern können nur dazu beitragen, es zu verschlechtern. Das rührt von dem Einfluß jenes Impulses her, den ich charakterisiert habe, der ausgeht von der Schuld des Astralleibes. Nachdem der Atherleib vollständig entwickelt ist, also ungefähr vom vierzehnten Jahre ab, entwickelt sich der Astralleib weiter. Ja, in dem steckt aber der Einfluß des Luzifer! Was da aber wieder zurückgeht in die Entwickelung des Ätherleibes hinein, das kann nur die Möglichkeit hervorrufen, diese Kräfte des Ätherleibes, die darin beruhen, daß er Wesen seinesgleichen hervorbringen kann, weniger fähig zu machen. Das heißt, das, was der Astralleib geworden ist durch jene Versuchung des Luzifer, ist ein fortwährender Grund für eine Degeneration des Menschengeschlechtes, für ein Herunterkommen des Menschen.
Ein fortwährendes Herunterkommen durch die Inkarnationen hindurch war in der Tat bei den Menschen .der Fall. Und je weiter wir hinaufgehen gegen die atlantische Zeit zu, desto mehr würden wir in den physischen Anlagen des Menschen höhere Kräfte finden als in den späteren Zeiten. Wo hinein wurde also dieser Impuls gesteckt, der durch die Versuchung des Luzifer im Astralleibe hervorgebracht worden ist? In die Vererbung! Die machte er fortwährend schlechter. Die Sünde, welche der Mensch sich erwirbt mit seinem Ich, mag zurückwirken auf den Astralleib, sie kann sich nur im Karma austragen. Die Sünde, welche der Mensch auf sich geladen hat, bevor er ein Ich hatte, trägt bei zu einer fortwährenden Degeneration, Verkümmerung des ganzen menschlichen Geschlechtes. Diese Sünde wurde vererbbare Eigenschaft. Und so wahr es ist, daß niemand von seinen Vorfahren etwas im höheren Sinne geistig ererben kann — denn keiner wird gescheit dadurch, daß er einen gescheiten Vater hat, sondern dadurch, daß er etwas Gescheites lernt; noch niemand hat die Mathematik von seinen Vorfahren ererbt, auch nicht andere Vorstellungen von seinen Vorfahren ererbt -, so wahr es ist, daß wir diese Eigenschaften nicht ererben können, sondern sie durch Erziehung bekommen, so wahr ist es, daß das, was von unserem Astralleib zurückgeht in den Atherleib, was wir uns so aneignen, daß es zurückwirkt auf den Ätherleib, nur beiträgt zur Untergrabung der Fähigkeiten des menschlichen Geschlechtes. Und das ist Erbsünde. Da haben wir also wirklich den wahren Sinn des Begriffes Erbsünde. Die ursprüngliche Sünde, welche noch im Astralleib haftete, pflanzte sich nach und nach fort, so daß sie sich den menschlichen vererbbaren Eigenschaften, die damals schon in der physischen Degeneration des Menschen wurzelten, mitteilte als ein Grund des Herunterstieges der Menschen von ihren geistigen Höhen zu einer physischen Degeneration. So haben wir in der Tat einen fortwährenden Impuls bekommen durch den Einfluß des Luzifer, den man im allerrichtigsten Sinne als Erbsünde bezeichnen muß. Denn es vererbt sich das, was da hineinkam durch Luzifer in den Astralleib, von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht. Es gibt keinen treffenderen Ausdruck für das, was der eigentliche Grund ist des Herunterrückens der Menschheit in die materielle physische Welt, als den Ausdruck: Erbsünde. Nur müssen wir dann diese Erbsünde nicht so auffassen wie andere Sünden des gewöhnlichen Lebens, die wir uns voll zurechnen, sondern als ein Schicksal des Menschen, als etwas, das notwendigerweise über uns von der Weltenordnung verhängt werden mußte, weil wir von dieser heruntergeführt werden mußten, nicht nur etwa, um uns schlechter zu machen, als wir waren, sondern um uns die Kräfte zu erwecken, uns selber wiederum hinaufzuarbeiten, um in uns selber die Kräfte zu finden, uns hinaufzuarbeiten. Darum müssen wir diesen Fall der Menschheit als etwas auffassen, was zur Befreiung der Menschheit in das menschliche Schicksal einverwoben worden ist. Nie hätten wir freie Wesen werden können, wenn wir nicht heruntergestoßen worden wären. Wir hätten am Gängelbande einer Weltordnung geführt werden müssen, der wir hätten blindlings folgen müssen. Wir müssen uns aber wiederum hinaufarbeiten.
Nun gibt es niemals etwas, was nicht auch seinen entgegengesetzten Pol hätte, Wie kein Nordpol ohne einen Südpol, so kann es nicht eine solche Erscheinung geben wie diese Sünde des Astralleibes ohne den anderen Pol. Das heißt, wir haben, ohne daß wir es uns im gewöhnlichen heutigen Sinne zurechnen können, ohne sprechen zu können von der moralischen Verfehlung, das Schicksal als Menschen, daß wir Menschen Luzifer-erfüllt sind. Wir können in gewisser Beziehung nichts dafür, müssen sogar dankbar sein, daß es so gekommen ist. Das ist auf der einen Seite richtig. Wir können nichts dafür. Wir mußten also etwas auf uns laden, für das wir nicht im vollen Sinne verantwortlich sein können.
Dem steht nun etwas entgegen in der menschlichen Entwickelung, was sozusagen sich verhält dazu wie der nördliche Pol zum südlichen Pol. Dieser Sünde, die vererbbar ist in ihrer Folge, die also ein Eintreten einer Schuld im Menschen ist, ohne daß der Mensch richtig schuldig ist, muß gegenüberstehen die Möglichkeit, wiederum hinaufzukommen, auch ohne daß es die Schuld des Menschen ist. Wie der Mensch fallen mußte ohne seine Schuld, so muß er auch wieder steigen können ohne seine Schuld, das heißt hier: ohne sein volles Verdienst. Wir sind gefallen ohne unsere Schuld. Wir müssen steigen können deshalb ohne unser Verdienst. Das ist der notwendige andere Pol. Sonst müßten wir unten bleiben in der physisch-materiellen Welt. Wie wir also an den Anfang unserer Entwickelung setzen müssen notwendigerweise eine Schuld, ohne daß der Mensch schuldig ist, so müssen wir an das Ende unserer Entwickelung ein Geschenk für den Menschen setzen, welches ohne sein Verdienst an ihn herankommt. Diese zwei Dinge gehören notwendigerweise zusammen. Wie das der Fall ist, darüber bekommen wir am besten auf folgende Art eine Vorstellung.
Erinnern Sie sich einmal, daß das, was der Mensch als Angehöriger des gewöhnlichen Lebens tut, aus den Impulsen seiner Empfindungen, seiner Affekte, seiner Triebe, seiner Begierden hervorgeht. Der Mensch wird meinetwegen zornig und tut das oder jenes aus dem Zorne heraus, er liebt und tut dieses oder jenes aus der gewöhnlichen Liebe heraus. Es gibt nur ein Wort, das Ihnen bezeichnen kann alles das, was der Mensch so tut. Nicht wahr, Sie werden alle zugeben, daß bei dem, was der Mensch so tut, wenn er leidenschaftlich ist, wenn er zornig ist, wenn er liebt in der gewöhnlichen Weise, etwas ist, was spottet der abstrakten Begriffe, was man nicht definieren kann. Man muß schon ein ganz vertrockneter Gelehrter sein, wenn man alles das, was irgendeiner menschlichen Handlung zugrunde liegt, definieren wollte. Aber ein Wort ist doch da, welches dasjenige bezeichnet, was beim Menschen vorliegt, wenn er irgend etwas im gewöhnlichen Leben tut, und das ist das Wort «Persönlichkeit», Mit diesem Wort umfassen wir sogleich alle die undefinierten Dinge. Wenn wir eines Menschen Persönlichkeit begriffen haben, dann wissen wir unter Umständen zu beurteilen, warum er diese oder jene Leidenschaft, diese oder jene Begierde und so weiter entwickelte. Das hat alles diesen persönlichen Charakter, was aus unseren Trieben, Begierden, Leidenschaften und so weiter hervorgeht. Da sind wir aber so leicht verstrickt in das physisch-materielle Leben, wenn wir aus unseren Trieben, Begierden, Leidenschaften heraus arbeiten. Da ist geradezu eingetaucht in das Meer der physisch-materiellen Welt unser Ich. Denn wie unfrei ist es, wenn es dem Zorn, der Begierde, der Leidenschaft, auch der Liebe im gewöhnlichen Sinne folgt. Unfrei ist das Ich, weil es in den Banden ist von Zorn, Leidenschaft und so weiter. Nun, wenn wir unser Zeitalter in Betracht ziehen, so werden wir uns gestehen, daß es jetzt schon etwas anderes gibt, was es im Grunde genommen in alten Zeiten nicht gegeben hat.
Nur diejenigen, welche die Geschichte nicht kennen und alles mit einem Zeitmaße beurteilen, das nicht viel weitergeht als die Nase, können behaupten, daß in den älteren Zeiten des Griechentums zum Beispiel solche Dinge vorhanden gewesen wären, die wir heute zusammenfassen mit den Worten, die seit mehr als einem Jahrhundert berühmt geworden sind: Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit der Menschen, mit Worten, die wir bezeichnen als sittliche Ideale, mit Worten, wie sie zum Beispiel auch im ersten Grundsatz der Theosophischen Gesellschaft enthalten sind, «den Kern eines allgemeinen Bruderbundes der Menschheit zu bilden ohne Unterschied des Glaubens, der Nation, des Standes, des Geschlechtes». Wir folgen als heutige Menschen diesem Ideale. Das war nicht so bei den alten Ägyptern, Persern, überhaupt nicht bei den alten Völkern, in dem Sinn, wie wir davon sprechen. Die Menschen haben eigentlich in diesem jetzigen Zeitalter solchen Idealen zu folgen, aber was der Mensch tut unter den Begriffen von Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit und so weiter, hat eben den Charakter des Abstrakten für die meisten Menschen. Für die meisten Menschen können in bezug auf das, was sie erfassen von Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit und so weiter diese Ideale nur als abstrakt definiert werden, weil sie persönlich noch wenig davon erfassen. Da haben wir, trotzdem die Leidenschaften geschwellt werden, doch bei vielen Menschen etwas vor uns, was so recht die Idee erweckt von etwas Ausgedörrtem. Persönlich können wir diese Dinge noch nicht nennen, es sind abstrakte Ideen. Es ist noch nicht etwas, was das Vollblütige des persönlichen Lebens hat. Und wir bezeichnen solche Individualitäten als sehr hochstehend, bei denen die Idee der Freiheit einen solchen Charakter annimmt, daß sie mit urelementarer Kraft hervorquillt, wie wenn sie aus dem Zorn, aus der Leidenschaft, aus der gewöhnlichen Liebe hervorkäme. Wie nüchtern lassen die Menschen vielfach heute noch die Ideen, die wir als die größten sittlichen Ideale betrachten! Dennoch ist es der Anfang eines großen Werdens. Geradeso wie der Mensch mit seinem Ich in das Meer des Physisch-Materiellen hinuntergetaucht ist, da er sozusagen Persönlichkeit entwickelte, indem er etwas tut unter den Einflüssen von Leidenschaften, Trieben, Begierden, geradeso muß er nicht bloß mit den abstrakten Begriffen, sondern mit der Persönlichkeit hinaufrücken in diese abstrakten Ideen, die eben noch abstrakt sind. Mit der urelementaren Kraft, mit der wir heute sehen, daß dieses oder jenes aus dem Hasse oder der Liebe im gewöhnlichen Sinne entspringt, mit der wird dasjenige entspringen, was unter den geistigsten Idealen steht. Der Mensch wird hinaufrücken in höhere Sphären mit seiner Persönlichkeit. Dazu ist aber etwas notwendig. Wenn der Mensch hinuntertaucht mit seinem Ich in das Meer des physisch-materiellen Lebens, findet er eben seine Persönlichkeit, da findet er sein heißes Blut, seine wogenden Triebe und Begierden im astralischen Leibe, da taucht er unter in seine Persönlichkeit. Aber nun soll er hinauf in das Gebiet der sittlichen Ideale, und das soll nicht abstrakt sein. Er muß nach dem Geistigen hinauf, und da muß ihm etwas ebenso Persönliches entgegenpulsen, wie ihm Persönliches entgegenpulst, wenn er mit seinem Ich in sein heißes Blut, in seine Triebe untertaucht. Hinauf muß er, ohne ins Abstrakte zu verfallen. Wie kommt er denn, wenn er hinaufgeht ins geistige, in etwas Persönliches hinein? Wie kann er denn diese Ideale so entwickeln, daß sie persönlichen Charakter haben? Dazu gibt es nur ein Mittel. Da muß der Mensch in den geistigen Höhen eine Persönlichkeit anziehen können, die innerlich persönlich ist, wie die Persönlichkeit unten im Fleische ist. Und was ist das für eine Persönlichkeit, die der Mensch anziehen muß, wenn er hinaufsteigen will in das Geistige? Das ist der Christus. Geradeso wie einer sagen könnte, der ein entgegengesetzter Paulus ist: Nicht ich, sondern mein astralischer Leib -, so sagt Paulus: Nicht ich, sondern der Christus in mir —, um anzuzeigen, daß dadurch, daß der Christus in uns lebt, die abstrakten Ideen einen ganz persönlichen Charakter annehmen. Sehen Sie, das ist die Bedeutsamkeit des Christus-Impulses. Ohne den Christus-Impuls käme die Menschheit zu abstrakten Idealen, zu allerlei Idealen von moralischen Mächten und dergleichen, zu dem, was heute viele Historiker unter den sogenannten geschichtlichen Ideen beschreiben, die nicht leben und nicht sterben können, weil sie eben keine schöpferische Macht haben. Wenn man von Ideen in der Geschichte spricht, so sollte man sich bewußt werden, daß das tote, abstrakte Begriffe sind, die nun wirklich nicht die Geschichtsepochen beherrschen können. Herrschen kann nur das Leben. Und das, wozu der Mensch sich entwickeln soll, ist die Entwickelung zu einer höheren Persönlichkeit. Dies ist die Christus-Persönlichkeit, welche der Mensch anzieht, welche der Mensch in sich aufnimmt.
So geht der Mensch wieder ins Geistige hinauf, indem er nicht bloß vom Geiste redet, sondern den Geist aufnimmt in der lebendig persönlichen Form, wie er ihm entgegenlebt in den Ereignissen von Palästina, in dem Mysterium von Golgatha. So steigt der Mensch unter dem Einfluß des Christus-Impulses wiederum hinauf. Durch nichts anderes kommt man darüber hinaus, die abstrakten Ideale mit einem persönlichen Charakter immer mehr und mehr auszugestalten, als dadurch, daß unser ganzes spirituelles Leben sich durchziehen wird mit dem Christus-Impuls. Aber wenn wir auf der einen Seite durch die Schuld vor der Entwickelung des Ich dasjenige auf uns geladen haben, was wir die Erbsünde nennen, wenn wir da sozusagen etwas haben, was uns nicht voll angerechnet werden kann, so kann uns im Grunde genommen auch das nicht angerechnet werden, daß der Christus hereingetreten ist, daß wir den Christus anziehen können. Was wir tun, was wir versuchen, um dem Christus nahezukommen, das gehört schon in unser Ich, das ist schon unser Verdienst. Daß der Christus da ist, daß wir auf einem Planeten leben, wo der Christus gewandelt ist, in einer Zeit leben, nachdem dies geschehen ist, das ist nicht unser Verdienst. Was also ausfließt von dem positiven, dem lebendigen Christus, um uns wiederum hinaufzubringen in die geistige Welt, das ist etwas, was wiederum außerichlich ist, was uns hinaufzieht, ohne daß wir dazu etwas können, ebensowenig wie wir dazu etwas können, daß wir sozusagen ohne unsere Schuld schuldig geworden sind. Es kommt uns durch das Dasein des Christus auf Erden die Kraft, wiederum hinaufzusteigen, ebenso ohne Verdienst, wie das andere ohne unsere Schuld gekommen ist. Denn beide haben es nicht zu tun mit dem Persönlichen, in dem das Ich lebt, sondern mit dem, was dem Ich vorangeht und was dem Ich nachfolgt. Wir haben öfters betont, daß der Mensch sich aus einem Zustand entwickelt hat, wo er nur physischen Leib, Atherleib und astralischen Leib hatte, und daß der Mensch sich dadurch weiterentwickelt, daß er seinen astralischen Leib umwandelt und durch diese Umwandlung diesen astralischen Leib zu Manas macht. So wie der Mensch seinen astralischen Leib schlechter gemacht hat durch die Erbsünde, so macht er ihn wiederum besser durch den Christus-Impuls. Da fließt etwas herein, was den astralischen Leib um ebensoviel besser macht, als er dazumal schlechter gemacht worden ist. Das ist das Aquivalent, das ist dasjenige, was man im wahren Sinne die Gnade nennt. Gnade ist das Äquivalent, der Ergänzungsbegriff zum Erbsündebegriff. So daß das Hereinströmen des Christus in den Menschen, die Möglichkeit, eins werden zu können mit dem Christus, die Möglichkeit, sagen zu können wie Paulus: Nicht ich, sondern der Christus in mir —, zugleich alles das ausdrückt, was wir als den Begriff der Gnade bezeichnen.
So dürfen wir sagen: Wir mißverstehen nicht die Karma-Idee, wenn wir davon sprechen, daß es eine Erbsünde und eine Gnade gibt. Denn sofern wir von der Karma-Idee sprechen, sprechen wir von der Reinkarnation des Ich in den verschiedenen Leben. Karma ist für den Menschen ohne die Anwesenheit des Ich gar nicht zu denken. Soferne wir von Erbsünde und Gnade sprechen, sprechen wir von Impulsen, die unter der Fläche des Karma liegen, die im astralischen Leibe liegen. Ja, wir dürfen sagen, wie das menschliche Karma ist, ist es erst dadurch herbeigeführt worden, daß der Mensch die Erbsünde auf sich geladen hat. Das Karma läuft durch Inkarnationen hindurch, und vorher und nachher stehen Dinge, welche das Karma einleiten und wieder ausgleichen, vorher die Erbsünde und nachher der volle Erfolg des Christus-Impulses, das Eintreten der vollen Gnade.
So können wir uns sagen: In der Tat, auch von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus betrachtet, hat Geisteswissenschaft gerade in der Gegenwart eine große, bedeutsame Mission. Denn so wahr es ist, daß die Menschheit erst vor kurzem dazugekommen ist, überhaupt Ideale anzuerkennen, in abstrakter Form anzuerkennen, so wahr die Menschen sozusagen abstrakte Ideen von Freiheit, von Brüderlichkeit entfalten konnten, so wahr ist es, daß die Zeit vor uns stehen muß, wo diese Ideen nicht als abstrakte Ideale bloß, sondern als lebendige Kräfte an uns heranrücken. So wahr es ist, daß die Menschen einen Durchgangspunkt durchgemacht haben da, wo sie abstrakte Ideale fassen konnten, so wahr ist es, daß sie dazu vorschreiten müssen, diese Ideale persönlich auszuleben, daß sie vorschreiten müssen zum Eintritt in den neuen Tempel. Wir stehen davor. Und die Menschen werden gelehrt werden, daß dasjenige, was aus spirituellen Höhen herunterwirkt, nicht bloß Abstracta sind, sondern Lebendiges ist. Wenn sie anfangen werden, das zu schauen, was oftmals genannt worden ist als dem Schauen der Menschen bevorstehend in der nächsten Epoche der Entwickelung, wenn die Menschen anfangen werden, nicht mehr zu denken: Wie bin ich gut! - sondern wenn ihnen vor Augen treten wird aus dem ätherischen Anschauen die lebendige Macht des Christus, den sie schauen werden im Ätherleibe — wie wir wissen, daß das geschieht von der Mitte unseres Jahrhunderts ab bei einzelnen Menschen -, wenn die Menschen beginnen werden, den Christus als Lebendigen zu schauen, dann werden sie wissen, daß das, was sie eine Zeitlang in Form von abstrakten Ideen erschaut haben, lebendige Wesenheiten sind, die da leben innerhalb unserer Entwickelung, lebendige Wesenheiten. Denn der lebendige Christus, der zuerst in physischer Gestalt aufgetreten ist und der sich nur innerhalb derselben dazumal den Menschen mitteilen konnte, daß sie an ihn glauben konnten, auch sofern sie nicht seine Zeitgenossen waren, er wird seine Erscheinung erneuern. Dann wird es keines Beweises bedürfen, daß er lebt, dann werden die Beweisenden da sein: diejenigen, welche selber erleben — auch ohne eine besondere Entwickelung, in einer Art von reifem Schauen -, daß die sittlichen Mächte der Weltordnung Lebendiges sind, nicht bloß abstrakte Ideale.
So sehen wir, daß unsere Gedanken uns nicht hinaufführen können in die wirklich geistigen Welten, weil sie ohne Leben sind. Erst wenn diese Gedanken uns nicht mehr erscheinen als unsere Gedanken, sondern als die Bezeugungen des lebendigen Christus, welcher den Menschen erscheinen wird, dann werden wir diese Gedanken in der richtigen Weise verstehen. Dann wird der Mensch ebenso wahr, wie er eine Persönlichkeit wurde, indem er mit dem Ich untergetaucht ist in niedere Sphären, ebenso eine Persönlichkeit sein, wenn er zu den geistigen Höhen hinaufsteigt. Das verkennt der Materialismus von heute. Dieser wird nur leicht verstehen, daß es abstrakte Ideale gibt des Guten, des Schönen und so weiter. Daß es lebendige Mächte gibt, die uns durch ihre Gnade hinaufziehen, das muß erst eingesehen werden. Das wird durch geisteswissenschaftliche Entwickelung eingesehen, das ist das, was der erneuerte Christus-Impuls ist. Wenn wir unsere Ideale nicht mehr bloß als Ideale sehen, sondern durch sie den Weg finden zum Christus, dann setzen wir im geisteswissenschaftlichen Sinn das Christentum fort. Dann tritt dieses in ein neues Stadium, dann hört es auf, eine bloße Vorbereitung zu sein. Dann wird das Christentum zeigen, daß es das Allergrößte für alle kommenden Zeiten enthält. Dann werden diejenigen, welche glauben, daß das Christentum immer gefährdet ist, wenn Entwickelung in es hineingebracht wird, sehen, wie unrecht sie haben.
Denn das sind die Kleingläubigen, die ängstlich werden, wenn gesagt wird: Seht, das Christentum enthält noch größere Herrlichkeiten, als bisher mitgeteilt worden sind! — Und diejenigen, die groß denken vom Christentum, sind die, welche wissen, daß die Worte wahr sind, daß der Christus bei uns ist alle Tage, das heißt, daß er uns immer Neues offenbart und daß es recht ist, wenn bis zum Christus-Quell zurückgegangen wird. Dadurch lebt das Christentum als etwas Größeres, daß man ihm zumutet, daß es immer neuere und lebendigere Schöpfungen aus seinem Schoße hervorbringt. Diejenigen, die immer sagen: Ja, das steht nicht in der Bibel, das ist nicht wahres Christentum, und Ketzer seien diejenigen, die von etwas anderem behaupten, es sei Christentum — diese sind zu verweisen darauf, daß der Christus auch gesagt hat: «Ich habe euch noch vieles zu sagen, aber ihr könnt es jetzt noch nicht tragen.» Das hat er nicht gesagt, um die Menschen darauf hinzuweisen, daß er ihnen etwas vorenthalten will, sondern daß er ihnen immer von Epoche zu Epoche neue Offenbarungen machen will. Und er wird sie machen durch diejenigen, die ihn verstehen wollen. Und diejenigen, welche das leugnen, verstehen auch nicht die Bibel, auch nicht das Christentum. Denn sie verstehen nicht hinzuhorchen auf das, was die christliche Mahnung in diesem Worte ist, das der Christus gemeint hat: Ich habe euch noch vieles zu sagen, bereitet euch aber vor, daß ihr es lernt ertragen, daß ihr Verständnis dafür erhaltet.
Das werden in der Zukunft die wahren Christen sein, welche hören werden wollen, was die Christen als Zeitgenossen des Christus noch nicht tragen konnten. Das werden die wahren Christen sein, welche den Willen haben, von der Christus-Gnade immer mehr und mehr in ihr Herz fließen zu lassen. Das werden die Verstockten sein, welche sich wehren werden gegen die Gnade, die da sagen werden: Nein, geht zurück in die Bibel, nur das, was der Buchstabe enthält und was bisher herausgekommen ist, ist wahr. Sie verleugnen die Worte, die im Christentum selber ein zündendes Licht herausentfachen, die Worte, die wir wohl beherzigen wollen: «Ich habe euch noch vieles zu sagen, aber ihr könnt es jetzt noch nicht tragen.» Wohl der Menschheit, wenn sie immer mehr und mehr in diesem Sinne tragen wird können. Denn dann wird sie immer reifer und reifer sich machen zum Aufstieg in die spirituellen Höhen. Und dazu soll das Christentum den Weg bahnen.
Original Sin and Grace
Since karma has brought us together here today, instead of the course actually beginning in Helsingfors, we may offer a few thoughts on some spiritual scientific topics, and then perhaps one or two wishes in the form of questions may be added to our reflections on this improvised evening.
Perhaps the most obvious thing to consider today will be a few highlights that may come to light in our spiritual movement when we look at human development in connection with the development of the Earth from a certain point of view. We would like to shed light on some of what we know in a special way, as we have done before. Perhaps some of what has made a deeper impression on you in people's religious feelings, in other questions of worldview, has come to your mind so often that you have had to ask yourself: How do things that are objects of humanity's religious feelings, or objects of other worldview questions, relate to our deeper understandings of worldview questions in the light of spiritual science?
I would like to begin by explaining two important concepts that often arise in the minds of modern people, even though they may believe they have long since dismissed such things. These two concepts are usually described by the words “sin” and “grace.”
Everyone knows that these words “sin” and “grace,” for example, have an immense significance in the Christian worldview, that they play the greatest role there. Certain theosophists, however, have become accustomed, based on their belief in karma, to no longer think much about concepts such as sin and grace, and especially not about the broader concepts of sin and original sin. Now, this neglect of such reflection is nevertheless accompanied by undesirable consequences, inasmuch as it prevents one from recognizing the deeper aspects of Christianity, for example, or indeed the deeper questions of worldview in general. These concepts of “sin,” “original sin,” and “grace” actually have a much deeper background than is commonly believed. And the fact that we no longer see this deeper background in our present day simply stems from the fact that almost all traditional religions of the world—almost all, more or less, as they exist outwardly — have actually completely obscured their real depths, so that hardly anything in what is proclaimed here or there in a religious system is remotely similar to what lies behind the corresponding concepts. Behind the concepts of sin, original sin, and grace lies the entire development of the human race.
We have become accustomed to dividing this development into two parts, a descending part, from the earliest times of human development to the appearance of Christ on earth, and an ascending part, which begins with the appearance of Christ on earth and continues into the most distant future. We thus divide the entire development of humanity by considering this Christ event as the greatest not only of our human development, but as the greatest of our entire planetary development. Why must we place this Christ event at the center of our entire world development as something so extraordinarily significant? We must do so for the simple reason that, as we know, human beings descended from spiritual heights into material, physical depths, and because they must ascend again from the material, physical depths to spiritual heights. So we are dealing with a descent and an ascent of man. And we describe this descent of man in relation to his soul life more precisely by saying: When we look back to very ancient times, we find that in those ancient times, human beings were able to lead a spiritual life that was much closer to the divine than, let us say, today, that human beings were, as it were, closer to the divine-spiritual, that more divine-spiritual life shone into the human soul.
However, we must not forget that it became necessary for humanity to descend into the material, physical world, because in those ancient times, when people were closer to the divine-spiritual, the entire consciousness of our soul was at the same time more dull, more dreamlike: that is, a less bright, clear consciousness, but one more permeated with divine-spiritual ideas, divine-spiritual feelings, and divine-spiritual impulses of the will. Human beings were closer to the divine-spiritual, but they were less clear-minded, more like dreaming children. Human beings descended by acquiring the power of judgment necessary for physical life, the intellect. In doing so, they distanced themselves from the divine-spiritual heights, but became clearer within themselves and found a firmer foothold within themselves. Now, in order to work their way up again with this inner center of their soul life, they must fill it with what has become through the Christ impulse. And the more he fills it with this Christ impulse, the more he will ascend again into the divine-spiritual world and arrive not as a dreaming being with unclear consciousness, but as a being with clear consciousness that looks sharply into the world. We have often illuminated this from various angles.
Now, if we go into human development in a little more detail, we know that what has given human beings the ability to gain clear, bright insight into the sensory-physical world is the human ego, but that this developed last in human evolution, that before it the astral body developed, and even earlier the etheric body and even earlier the physical body developed in their initial stages. So let us remember today that the actual development of the I was preceded by the initial development of the astral body. If we hold together various things we have heard over time, we must say: We must realize that before human beings could undergo their ego development, they underwent a development in which they had only these three members: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. But human beings were nevertheless already invested in ego development. He lived in this development, waiting, as it were, for the later addition of his ego. If we keep this clearly in mind, we will gain an understanding of the fact that things must have happened to human beings and their entire development before they actually took the ego into themselves, facts of pre-ego development, as it were. This is very important. For if human beings underwent a development before they took on their ego, then we cannot credit them with what was in their development at that time in the same way that we must credit them with what they underwent with their ego.
We know of beings that we are clear do not have an ego in the human sense. These are animals. They consist only of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body. The fact that animals are like this compels us to acknowledge something very specific about them, something we all do without contradiction if we think rationally at all. For example, no matter how furiously a lion may attack us, in the sense that we speak of a human being: he can be evil — we will not say of the lion: he can be evil, he can commit a sin, he can commit an immoral act — we do not speak of any animal as committing an immoral act. This is very significant. For even if we do not think about it, we recognize that there is a difference between humans and animals, that animals only have a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, but humans also have the I.
Now, before humans acquired the I, they underwent a development in which their highest member was only the astral body. Has something happened to human beings that we must view in a different light than we view the actions of animals? Yes. For we must be quite clear about this: even though human beings once consisted of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, they were not at all like the animals of today. Human beings were never animals, but they did go through a stage in other times when they consisted of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, in times when animals in their present form did not yet exist, in times when completely different conditions prevailed on Earth. But what happened to human beings at that time? Something that we can describe as follows: Although humans did not have an ego, and we cannot therefore attribute things to them in the same way as we do to animals, the facts that originated from them must nevertheless be judged in a different way than they are today, since humans now have an ego. — Into this last transitional stage, where man stands at the gate where he is to receive his ego, the Luciferic influence still falls. At that time, man could not yet be judged as he is today, but he could be judged differently from animal nature. Lucifer thus pressed himself upon man. Human beings could not yet follow Lucifer or not follow him with full moral responsibility, so to speak; but they could be drawn into Lucifer's nets, so to speak, in a different way than we describe today in animals. So we must say: Lucifer's seduction, this temptation of Lucifer, falls precisely into the time when human beings stood at the gate to receive their ego. It is therefore a human action that lies before the present development of the I, but which has cast its shadow into this entire development of the I. So who has actually become a sinner? Not yet the human being, insofar as he is an I-human being. Through Lucifer, man became a sinner with a part of his being, with which he can no longer become a sinner today. For today he has his ego. Man therefore became a sinner with his astral body at that time. This is the radical difference between any sin that we as human beings take upon ourselves today and what entered human nature as sin at that time. When man succumbed to Lucifer's temptation at that time, he succumbed with his astral body. It is therefore an act of pre-ego development, a completely different kind of act from all the acts that man has been able to perform since his ego entered his nature, even in its very first hints. Thus, an act of man before the entry of the ego into human nature falls into this category. But this act casts its shadow into all later times. Man was able to accomplish this act of following Lucifer's temptation before he took up his ego, but he has been brought under the influence of this act, so to speak, for all subsequent times. Why? Because this happened, because our astral body became guilty before our ego became, the fact was brought about that human beings now had to sink deeper into the physical world in the following incarnations, in every one, so to speak. This is the impetus for sinking, this act that took place while still in the astral body. As a result, human beings came down a slippery slope, and as a result, they follow the forces in their nature that originate from their pre-ego development.
How did these forces express themselves in human development? They expressed themselves in the following way. We know from earlier considerations that humans develop their physical body until about the age of seven, their etheric body from the age of seven to fourteen, their astral body from the age of fourteen to twenty-one, and so on. We know that with the development of their etheric body, they enter a stage where they can produce their own kind. Let us now disregard the similar phenomenon in the animal kingdom. We know that when human beings have developed their etheric body, they can produce human beings of their own kind. This is bound up with the fact that the human being has fully developed his etheric body. Anyone who thinks about this a little — one need not be clairvoyant, one need only think a little — will say to himself: So with the full development of the etheric body, the possibility must also exist for the human being to bring forth the whole of humanity, to truly bring forth his own kind. This means that human beings cannot develop new qualities for producing their own kind as they continue to develop into their twenties. One cannot say that human beings in their thirties would add anything to the quality that enables them to produce their own kind. Human beings have all the qualities that enable them to bring forth human beings with the development of their etheric body. What comes later? Nothing more comes from human beings themselves through what they take in later. For they must already have the full ability to bring forth their own kind. They can conquer nothing more once they have fully developed their etheric body. What else is there? Yes, the only ability that man acquires later in relation to the production of his own kind is that he corrupts the full extent of his ability to produce human beings like himself. What can be acquired after the full development of the etheric body cannot enrich the power to produce one's own kind, but only diminish it. And that is indeed the case. Qualities acquired after reaching full sexual maturity do not contribute to improving the human race, but can only contribute to its deterioration. This stems from the influence of the impulse I have characterized, which emanates from the guilt of the astral body. After the etheric body is fully developed, that is, from about the age of fourteen, the astral body continues to develop. Yes, but that contains the influence of Lucifer! However, what recedes back into the development of the etheric body can only bring about the possibility of making those forces of the etheric body, which lie in its ability to produce beings like itself, less capable. This means that what the astral body has become through Lucifer's temptation is a constant cause for the degeneration of the human race, for the decline of the human being.
A continuous decline through the incarnations was indeed the case with human beings. And the further we go back toward the Atlantean epoch, the more we would find higher forces in the physical constitution of human beings than in later times. So where was this impulse, which was brought forth in the astral body through Lucifer's temptation, placed? Into heredity! He made it worse and worse. The sin that man acquires with his ego may have an effect on the astral body, but it can only be worked out in karma. The sin that man took upon himself before he had an ego contributes to a continuous degeneration, an atrophy of the entire human race. This sin became a hereditary trait. And just as it is true that no one can inherit anything from their ancestors in a higher spiritual sense — for no one becomes intelligent by having an intelligent father, but by learning something intelligent; nor has anyone ever inherited mathematics from their ancestors, nor any other ideas — just as it is true that we cannot inherit these characteristics but acquire them through education, so it is true that what recedes from our astral body into the etheric body, what we acquire in such a way that it has an effect on the etheric body, only contributes to undermining the abilities of the human race. And that is original sin. So here we have the true meaning of the term original sin. The original sin, which still clung to the astral body, gradually propagated itself, so that it communicated itself to the human hereditary characteristics, which were already rooted in the physical degeneration of the human being at that time, as a cause of the descent of human beings from their spiritual heights to physical degeneration. Thus, we have indeed received a continuous impulse through the influence of Lucifer, which must be called original sin in the truest sense of the word. For what entered the astral body through Lucifer is inherited from generation to generation. There is no more apt expression for what is the real reason for humanity's descent into the material physical world than the expression “original sin.” However, we must not understand this original sin in the same way as other sins of ordinary life, which we fully attribute to ourselves, but as a fate of human beings, as something that had to be imposed on us by the world order because we had to be brought down from it, not just to make us worse than we were, but to awaken the forces in us to work our way up again, to find within ourselves the forces to work our way up. That is why we must understand this fall of humanity as something that has been woven into human destiny for the liberation of humanity. We could never have become free beings if we had not been cast down. We would have had to be led by the hand by a world order that we would have had to follow blindly. But we must work our way up again.
Now there is never anything that does not also have its opposite pole. Just as there is no North Pole without a South Pole, there cannot be such a phenomenon as the sin of the astral body without its other pole. This means that, without being able to attribute it to ourselves in the usual sense of the word, without being able to speak of moral transgression, we have the fate as human beings of being filled with Lucifer. In a certain sense, we cannot help it; we must even be grateful that it has come to this. On the one hand, this is true. We cannot help it. We therefore had to take upon ourselves something for which we cannot be fully responsible.
Now there is something in human development that stands in opposition to this, which is related to it as the North Pole is to the South Pole. This sin, which is inheritable in its consequences, which is therefore the introduction of guilt into human beings without human beings being truly guilty, must be counterbalanced by the possibility of rising again, even without it being the fault of human beings. Just as human beings had to fall through no fault of their own, so they must also be able to rise again through no fault of their own, that is, without any merit of their own. We fell through no fault of our own. We must therefore be able to rise without merit on our part. This is the necessary other pole. Otherwise we would have to remain below in the physical-material world. Just as we must necessarily place a guilt at the beginning of our development, without man being guilty, so must we place a gift for man at the end of our development, which comes to him without merit on his part. These two things necessarily belong together. The best way to understand how this is the case is as follows.
Remember that what human beings do as members of ordinary life arises from the impulses of their feelings, their emotions, their instincts, their desires. A person becomes angry for my sake and does this or that out of anger; he loves and does this or that out of ordinary love. There is only one word that can describe everything that a person does in this way. You will all admit that there is something in what people do when they are passionate, when they are angry, when they love in the ordinary way, that defies abstract concepts, that cannot be defined. One would have to be a completely dried-up scholar to want to define everything that underlies any human action. But there is a word that describes what is present in a person when they do something in ordinary life, and that word is “personality.” With this word, we immediately encompass all the undefined things. Once we have understood a person's personality, we may be able to judge why they developed this or that passion, this or that desire, and so on. Everything that arises from our instincts, desires, passions, and so on has this personal character. But we are so easily entangled in physical, material life when we act out of our instincts, desires, and passions. Our ego is completely immersed in the sea of the physical, material world. For how unfree is it when it follows anger, desire, passion, even love in the ordinary sense. The ego is unfree because it is bound by anger, passion, and so on. Now, when we consider our age, we must admit that there is already something different now that did not exist in ancient times.
Only those who do not know history and judge everything by a standard that does not extend much further than the end of their nose can claim that in the older times of Greek civilization, for example, there were things that we today summarize with words that have become famous for more than a century: Freedom, equality, brotherhood of man, in words that we describe as moral ideals, in words such as those contained in the first principle of the Theosophical Society, “to form the core of a universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of creed, nation, class, or sex.” We, as people of today, follow these ideals. This was not the case with the ancient Egyptians, Persians, or indeed with any ancient peoples in the sense in which we speak of it. People in this age should actually follow such ideals, but what people do under the concepts of liberty, equality, fraternity, and so on, is abstract for most people. For most people, in relation to what they understand of freedom, equality, brotherhood, and so on, these ideals can only be defined as abstract because they personally understand little of them. So, even though passions are running high, we still have before us something that really gives rise to the idea of something dry and lifeless. Personally, we cannot yet name these things; they are abstract ideas. They are not yet something that has the full blood of personal life. And we describe as very high those individuals in whom the idea of freedom takes on such a character that it springs forth with a primal force, as if it came from anger, from passion, from ordinary love. How soberly people today still treat the ideas that we consider to be the greatest moral ideals! Nevertheless, it is the beginning of a great development. Just as man, with his ego, plunged into the sea of the physical and material when he developed his personality, so to speak, by doing something under the influence of passions, drives, and desires, so he must rise up into these abstract ideas, which are still abstract, not merely with abstract concepts, but with his personality. With the primordial elemental force with which we see today that this or that arises from hatred or love in the ordinary sense, with that force will arise that which stands under the most spiritual ideals. Man will ascend into higher spheres with his personality. But something is necessary for this. When human beings plunge with their ego into the sea of physical-material life, they find their personality, they find their hot blood, their surging instincts and desires in the astral body, they submerge themselves in their personality. But now they must rise up into the realm of moral ideals, and this must not be abstract. He must ascend to the spiritual, and there something just as personal must pulsate toward him as something personal pulsates toward him when he plunges with his ego into his hot blood, into his instincts. He must ascend without falling into the abstract. How does he come, when he ascends into the spiritual, into something personal? How can he develop these ideals in such a way that they have a personal character? There is only one way to do this. Man must be able to attract a personality in the spiritual heights that is inwardly personal, just as the personality below in the flesh is personal. And what kind of personality must man attract if he wants to ascend into the spiritual? It is Christ. Just as someone who is the opposite of Paul might say, “Not I, but my astral body,” so Paul says, “Not I, but Christ in me,” to indicate that through Christ living in us, abstract ideas take on a completely personal character. You see, that is the significance of the Christ impulse. Without the Christ impulse, humanity would arrive at abstract ideals, at all kinds of ideals of moral powers and the like, at what many historians today describe as so-called historical ideas, which cannot live or die because they have no creative power. When we speak of ideas in history, we should be aware that these are dead, abstract concepts that cannot really dominate historical epochs. Only life can rule. And what human beings are meant to develop is a higher personality. This is the Christ personality, which man attracts, which man takes into himself.
Thus, man ascends again into the spiritual realm, not merely by speaking of the spirit, but by taking the spirit into himself in the living, personal form in which it lives toward him in the events of Palestine, in the mystery of Golgotha. Thus, under the influence of the Christ impulse, human beings ascend once again. There is no other way to go beyond the abstract ideals and give them more and more personal character than by allowing our entire spiritual life to be permeated by the Christ impulse. But if, on the one hand, through our guilt before the development of the I, we have brought upon ourselves what we call original sin, if we have, so to speak, something that cannot be fully imputed to us, then, in essence, we cannot be blamed for the fact that Christ has come, that we can draw Christ to ourselves. What we do, what we try to do to come closer to Christ, already belongs to our ego; that is already our merit. That Christ is there, that we live on a planet where Christ walked, that we live in a time after this has happened, is not our merit. So what flows out of the positive, living Christ to lift us up again into the spiritual world is something that is external to us, something that draws us upward without us being able to do anything about it, just as we cannot do anything about the fact that we have become guilty, so to speak, through no fault of our own. Through the existence of Christ on earth, we receive the power to ascend again, just as the other came without our merit, just as the other came without our fault. For both have nothing to do with the personal, in which the I lives, but with what precedes the I and what follows the I. We have often emphasized that human beings have developed from a state in which they had only a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, and that human beings develop further by transforming their astral body and, through this transformation, turning this astral body into manas. Just as human beings have made their astral body worse through original sin, they make it better again through the Christ impulse. Something flows in that makes the astral body as much better as it was made worse in the past. That is the equivalent, that is what is truly meant by grace. Grace is the equivalent, the complementary concept to the concept of original sin. So that the inflow of Christ into human beings, the possibility of becoming one with Christ, the possibility of being able to say, as Paul did, “Not I, but Christ in me,” expresses at the same time everything that we call the concept of grace.
So we can say: We do not misunderstand the idea of karma when we speak of original sin and grace. For when we speak of the idea of karma, we are speaking of the reincarnation of the I in different lives. Karma is inconceivable for human beings without the presence of the I. When we speak of original sin and grace, we are speaking of impulses that lie beneath the surface of karma, that lie in the astral body. Yes, we can say that human karma is only brought about by the fact that human beings have taken original sin upon themselves. Karma runs through incarnations, and before and after there are things that initiate and balance karma: before, original sin, and after, the full success of the Christ impulse, the coming of full grace.
So we can say: Indeed, even from this point of view, spiritual science has a great and significant mission, especially in the present. For just as it is true that humanity has only recently come to recognize ideals at all, to recognize them in abstract form, just as it is true that human beings have been able to develop abstract ideas of freedom and brotherhood, so it is true that the time must come when these ideas will approach us not merely as abstract ideals, but as living forces. As true as it is that human beings have passed through a transition phase in which they were able to grasp abstract ideals, it is equally true that they must now go on to live these ideals personally, that they must go on to enter the new temple. We are standing at the threshold. And people will be taught that what works down from spiritual heights is not merely abstractions, but is something living. When they begin to see what has often been called the vision of the next epoch of human development, when people begin to think no longer, “How good I am! but when the living power of Christ, whom they will see in the etheric body, will appear before their eyes from their etheric vision — as we know will happen to individual people from the middle of our century onwards — when people begin to see Christ as a living being, then they will know that what they have seen for a time in the form of abstract ideas are living beings living beings who live within our evolution. For the living Christ, who first appeared in physical form and who could only communicate with people within that form at that time so that they could believe in him, even if they were not his contemporaries, will renew his appearance. Then there will be no need for proof that he lives; then there will be those who can prove it: those who themselves experience—even without special development, in a kind of mature vision—that the moral forces of the world order are living beings, not merely abstract ideals.
Thus we see that our thoughts cannot lead us up into the truly spiritual worlds because they are lifeless. Only when these thoughts no longer appear to us as our thoughts, but as the testimonies of the living Christ who will appear to human beings, will we understand these thoughts in the right way. Then human beings will become as true as they became personalities when they immersed themselves with their egos in lower spheres, and they will be personalities when they ascend to spiritual heights. This is what today's materialism fails to recognize. It will only easily understand that there are abstract ideals of good, beauty, and so on. That there are living forces that draw us upward through their grace must first be understood. This is understood through spiritual scientific development; this is what the renewed Christ impulse is. When we no longer see our ideals as mere ideals, but find the way to Christ through them, then we continue Christianity in the spiritual scientific sense. Then it enters a new stage; then it ceases to be a mere preparation. Then Christianity will show that it contains the greatest thing for all times to come. Then those who believe that Christianity is always endangered when development is brought into it will see how wrong they are.
For these are the weak of faith who become fearful when it is said: Look, Christianity contains even greater glories than have been communicated so far! — And those who think highly of Christianity are those who know that the words are true, that Christ is with us every day, that is, that he always reveals new things to us and that it is right to go back to the source of Christ. Through this, Christianity lives as something greater, that it is expected to bring forth ever newer and more living creations from its bosom. Those who always say, “Yes, that is not in the Bible, that is not true Christianity, and heretics are those who claim that something else is Christianity” — these must be reminded that Christ also said, “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” He did not say this to indicate that he wanted to withhold something from people, but that he wanted to give them new revelations from age to age. And he will make them through those who want to understand him. And those who deny this do not understand the Bible, nor Christianity. For they do not understand how to listen to what the Christian admonition means in these words that Christ meant: I have many things to say to you, but prepare yourselves to learn to bear them, that you may gain understanding.
In the future, these will be the true Christians who will want to hear what the Christians as contemporaries of Christ could not yet bear. These will be the true Christians who have the will to let the grace of Christ flow more and more into their hearts. These will be the stubborn ones who will resist grace, who will say: No, go back to the Bible; only what is written in the letter and what has come out so far is true. They deny the words that kindle a burning light in Christianity itself, the words that we want to take to heart: “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” Blessed is humanity if it can bear more and more in this sense. For then it will become ever more mature for the ascent to the spiritual heights. And Christianity shall pave the way for this.