Faith, Love, and Hope
GA 130
These lectures were given by Rudolf Steiner during a period of intense productive activity, involving many journeys. In March and April, 1911, he had given fundamental lectures in Prague and in Italy. In June he gave in Copenhagen the short but pregnant course on “The Spiritual Guidance of Humanity.” In August the first performance was given in Munich of his second Mystery Play, “The Soul's Probation.” In October the course “From Jesus to Christ” was given in Karlsruhe; here he gave the fundamental spiritual concepts for the understanding of the Resurrection of Christ. With the exception of the course on St. Mark's Gospel, which followed in September 1912, the great courses on the Gospels had already been given during the preceding years, from 1908 onwards. Dr. Steiner had lectured also in many places about the renewed experience of the Christ in the twentieth century; in the Karlsruhe course he described in detail the work of Christ as lord of human destiny—a theme taken up again in these Nurnberg lectures.
For some years the most significant figure among the group of students of Rudolf Steiner resident at Nurnberg had been Michael Bauer, the friend and biographer of the poet, Christian Morgenstern. Not long before these lectures were given, Michael Bauer had come to know Dr. Friedrich Rittelmeyer, who had become widely known in Germany as a preacher and pastor, working from Nurnberg. Through Bauer, Rittelmeyer came to Rudolf Steiner himself.
These lectures may well have been among the first by Rudolf Steiner that Rittelmeyer could have heard. Certainly we may find in them an indication of the great mysteries of destiny that worked in these encounters, and which led towards the foundation, eleven years later, of the Christian Community. For example, Rudolf Steiner describes in these lectures the meaning of the altar in early Christianity.
The theme of Faith, Love and Hope appears in a wonderful way in the second Mystery Play. At about this time Rudolf Steiner gave lectures under this title in other places also, for example in Vienna. —A. B.
Steiner tells us of the three revelations of importance to humankind. The first two will be as familiar to most as the third will be a surprise. The first revelation is the Sinai Revelation in which Moses received the Ten Commandments. The second revelation he calls the Palestine Revelation which gave us the Gospels of the New Testament. The third revelation occurred in the middle 20th Century—it consisted of what is referred to in the New Testament as the Second Coming of Christ in Glory. The glorified body is a phrase which refers to the etheric body or a body in the etheric plane. Christ has been intervening in human destiny from the etheric plane on Earth for almost seventy years as I write these words. Steiner gives us an example of this intervention proceeds.
There will be people, for instance, who, while carrying out some deed, suddenly become aware ... of an urge to refrain from what they are doing, because of a remarkable vision. They will perceive in a dreamlike way what appears to be an action of their own; yet they will not be able to remember having done it.
What these people are experiencing is the bleed through of information from their karmic destiny, a deed from some past lifetime, is entering their minds and preventing them from carrying out a similar deed again.
Another important aspect of these lectures is what the words “faith, love, and hope” mean to humankind for the next 5,000 years. These words, following St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians are usually placed in this order: faith, hope, and love. Steiner makes an excellent case for the proper order of these words, considering the destiny of humankind, to be: faith, love, and hope. —Bobby Matherne
| I. | Faith, Love and Hope, the Third Revelation | December 02, 1911 |
| II. | Towards the Sixth Epoch | December 03, 1911 |