Search for the New Isis, the
Divine Sophia: The Quest for the Isis-Sophia IN THE FESTIVAL
of Christmas something is given to Christendom that directs the
thoughts of all circles of Christian people straight to the very
deepest questions presented by the evolution of humankind upon
earth. Regard the evolution of history from whatever point of
view you will, take into consideration historical events in order
to understand human evolution, to penetrate the meaning of human
evolution on earth — in all history you will find no thought
as widely understandable or having as much power to lift
the soul to this mystery of human evolution as the thought of
the Mystery of Golgotha, as the thought that is contained in
the festival of Christmas.
When we look back upon the
beginning of human evolution on earth, and follow it through
the thousands of years that preceded the Mystery of Golgotha,
we find that, although the achievements of the peoples in all
the various nations were so great, nevertheless, in reality all
these achievements constituted only a kind of preparation —
they were a preparatory step toward what took place for the sake
of humankind at the Mystery of Golgotha. Furthermore, we find
we can only understand what has happened since the Mystery of
Golgotha when we remember that the Christ who went through the
Mystery of Golgotha has played an active role in the evolution
of humanity ever since. Many things in human evolution may at
first appear incomprehensible. However, if we investigate them
without narrow-minded superstition, for example the kind of superstition
that believes that unknown gods should come to the aid of human
beings without their active involvement, and that such aid should
come just where human beings consider it necessary — if
we leave aside such views, we find that even the most
painful events in the course
of world history can show us the significance and meaning that
the evolution of the earth has acquired through the fact that
Christ went through the Mystery of Golgotha. It is appropriate
for us to study this Mystery of Golgotha — and the mystery
of Christmas belongs to it — from a point of view which
can reveal, as it were, the meaning of all of earthly humanity.
We know how intimate the connection is between what takes place
in the moral-spiritual
sphere of human evolution and what takes place in nature. And
with a certain understanding of this link between nature and
the world's moral order we can approach also another relationship
with which we have been concerned for many years — namely,
the relationship of Christ Jesus to that being whose outer reflection
appears in the sun. The followers and representatives of the
Christian impulse were not always so hostile toward the recognition
of this connection between the mystery of the sun and the mystery
of Christ as the decadent present-day representatives of Christianity
so often are. Dionysius the Areopagite,
whom we have often mentioned, calls the sun God's monument, and
in Augustine we continually find such allusions. Even in Scholasticism
we find such references to the fact that the outwardly visible
stars and their movements are images of the divine-spiritual
existence of the world.
However, we must understand
the mystery of Christmas in a far wider context, if we wish to
understand what should concern us most of all in view of the
important tasks of the present age. I would like to remind you
of something which I have repeatedly brought forward in various
ways in the course of many years. I have told you: We look back
into the first post-Atlantean age, which was filled with the
deeds and experiences of the ancient Indian people; we look back
into the ancient Persian epoch of post-Atlantean humanity, into
the Egypto-Chaldean, and into the Greco-Latin. We come then to
the fifth epoch of the post-Atlantean humanity, our own. Our
epoch will be followed by the sixth and by the seventh. And I have drawn your attention to the
fact that the Greco-Latin, the fourth epoch of post-AtIantean
humanity, stands, as it were, in the middle, and that there are
certain connections (you can read of this in my little book The
Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity) between the
third and the fifth epochs, that is, between the Egypto-Chaldean
epoch and our own. Furthermore there is also a certain connection
between the ancient Persian epoch and the sixth, and between the ancient Indian and
the seventh epoch of post-AtIantean humanity. Specific things
repeat themselves in a certain way in each of these epochs of
life.
I once pointed out that the
great Kepler, the successor of Copernicus, had a feeling that
his solar and planetary system was repeating, of course in a
way appropriate to the fifth post-Atlantean age, what had lived
as the world picture behind the Egyptian priest mysteries. Kepler
himself expressed this in a certain
sense very radically when he said that he had borrowed the vessels
of the ancient Egyptian teachers of wisdom in order to carry
them over into the new age.
Today, however, we will consider
something which stood, in a sense, at the center of the view
found in the cultic rituals performed by the priests in the Egyptian
mystery religion; we will consider the mysteries of Isis. In
order to call up before our minds the spiritual connection between
the mystery of Isis and that which also lives in Christianity,
we need only look with the eyes of the soul upon Raphael's famous
picture of the Sistine Madonna. The Virgin is holding the child
Jesus, and behind her are the clouds, representing a multitude
of children. We can imagine the Virgin receiving the child Jesus
descending through the clouds, through a condensation, as it
were, of the thin cloud substance. Created out of an entirely
Christian spirit, this picture is, after all, nothing more than
a kind of repetition of what the Egyptian mysteries of Isis revered
when they portrayed Isis holding the child Horus. The motif of
that earlier picture is
in complete harmony with that of Raphael's picture. Of course,
this fact must not tempt us to a superficial interpretation,
common among many people since the eighteenth century and throughout
the nineteenth century right up to our own days — namely,
to see the story of Christ Jesus and all that belongs to it as
a mere metamorphosis, a transformation, of ancient pagan mysteries.
From my book Christianity as Mystical Fact you already know how
these things are to be understood. However, in the sense explained
in that book we are permitted to point out a spiritual congruence
between what appears in Christianity and the old pagan mysteries.
The main content of the mystery
of Isis is the death of Osiris and Isis's search for the dead
Osiris. We know that Osiris, the representative of the being
of the sun, the representative
of the spiritual sun, is killed by Typhon, who, expressed in
Egyptian terms, is none other than Ahriman. Ahriman kills Osiris,
throws him into the Nile, and the Nile carries the body away.
Isis, the spouse of Osiris, sets out on her search and finds
him over in Asia. She brings him back to Egypt, where Ahriman,
the enemy, cuts the body into fourteen parts. Isis buries these
fourteen parts in various locations, so that they belong to the
earth for ever after.
We can see from this story
how Egyptian wisdom conceived of the connection between the powers
of heaven and the powers of earth in a deeply meaningful way.
On the one hand, Osiris is
the representative of the powers of the sun. After having passed
through death he is, in various places and simultaneously, the
force that ripens everything that grows out of the earth. The
ancient Egyptian sage imagines in a spirit-filled way how the
powers which shine down from the sun, enter the earth and then
become part of the earth, and how, as powers of the sun buried
in the earth, they then hand over to the human being what matures
out of the earth. The Egyptian myth is founded upon the story
of Osiris — how he was killed, how his spouse Isis had to
set out on her search for him, how she first brought him back
to Egypt and how he then became active in another form, namely,
from out of the earth.
One of the Egyptian pyramids
depicts the whole event in a particularly meaningful way. The
Egyptians not only recorded what they knew as the solution to
the great secrets of the universe in their own particular writing,
they also expressed it in their architectural constructions.
They built one of these pyramids with such mathematical precision
that the shadow of the sun disappeared into the base of the pyramid at the spring equinox
and only reappeared at the autumn equinox. The Egyptians wanted
to express in this pyramid that the forces which shine down from
the sun are buried from spring to fall in the earth where they
develop the forces of the earth, so that the earth may produce
the fruit which humankind needs.
This, then, is the idea we
find present in the minds and hearts of the ancient Egyptians,
On the one hand, they look up to the sun, they look up to the
lofty being of the sun and they
worship him. At the same time, however, they relate how this
being of the sun was lost in Osiris, and was sought by Isis,
and how he was found again
so that he is then able to continue working in a changed way.
Many things which appeared
in the Egyptian wisdom must be repeated in a different form during
our fifth post-Atlantean age. Humankind must increasingly come
to understand from a spiritual-scientific point of view the mysteries
of the Egyptian priests in a form appropriate to our own age,
in a Christian sense. For the Egyptians, Osiris was a kind of
representative of the Christ who had not yet arrived on earth.
In their own way they looked upon Osiris as the being of the
sun, but they imagined this sun being had been lost in a sense,
and must be found again. We cannot imagine that our being of
the sun, the Christ, who has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha
could be lost to humankind, for he came down from spiritual heights,
united himself with the man Jesus of Nazareth, and from then
onwards remains with the earth. He is present, he exists, as
the Christmas carol proclaims each year anew: “Unto us a
Saviour is born.” It thereby expresses the eternal, not
the transitory nature of this event. Jesus was not only born
once at Bethlehem, but is born continuously; in other words,
he remains with the life of the earth. What Christ is, and what
he means for us, cannot be lost.
But the Isis legend must show
itself as being fulfilled in another way in our time. We cannot
lose the Christ and what he, in a higher form than Osiris, gives
us; but we can lose, and we have lost, what is portrayed for
our Christian understanding
standing at the side of Osiris — Isis — the mother
of the saviour, the divine wisdom, Sophia. If the Isis legend
is to be renewed, then it must
not simply follow the old form — Osiris, killed by Typhon-Ahriman
and carried away by the waters of the Nile, must be found again
by Isis in order that his body, cut into pieces by Typhon-Ahriman,
may be sunk into the earth. No, in a sense, we must find the
Isis legend again, the content of the mystery of Isis, but we
must create it out of imagination, suited to our own times. An
understanding must arise again of the eternal cosmic truths,
and it will when we learn
to think and compose imaginatively, as the Egyptians did. But
we must find the right Isis legend.
The Egyptian was permeated
by luciferic powers, as were all human beings who lived before
the Mystery of Golgotha. If luciferic powers are within the human
being and stir the inner life, moving and weaving through it,
the result will then be that ahrimanic powers will appear as
an active force outside the human being. Thus the Egyptians,
who were themselves permeated by Lucifer, rightly see a picture
of the world in which Ahriman-Typhon is active.
Now, we must realize that
modern humanity is permeated by Ahriman. Ahriman moves and surges
within human beings, just as Lucifer moved and surged within
the Egyptian world. However, when Ahriman works through Lucifer,
then human beings see their picture of the world in a luciferic
form. How does the human being see this picture of the world?
This luciferic picture of the world has been created, it is here.
It has become increasingly popular for modern times and has taken
hold of all circles of people who want to consider themselves
progressive and enlightened.
If the mystery of Christmas
is to be understood, we must bear in mind that Lucifer is the
power wanting to retain the world-picture of an earlier stage.
Lucifer is the power trying to bring into the modern world-conception
that which existed in
earlier stages of human development. He wants to give permanence
to what existed in earlier periods. All that was moral in earlier
stages also exists of course today. (The significance of morality
always lies in the present, where, like seeds for the future,
it provides the basis for the creation of worlds yet to come.)
But Lucifer strives to separate morality as such, all moral forces,
from our world picture. He allows the laws of natural necessity
alone to appear in our picture of the external world. Thus the
impoverished human being of modern times is presented with a
wisdom of the world in which the stars move according to purely mechanical necessity,
in which the stars are devoid of morality, so that the moral
meaning of the world's order cannot be found in their movements.
This, my dear friends, is a purely luciferic world picture.
Just as the Egyptians looked
out into the world and saw Ahriman-Typhon as the one who takes
Osiris away from them, so too, we must look at our luciferic
world picture, at the mathematical-mechanical world picture of
modernday astronomy and other branches of natural science, and
realize that the luciferic element holds sway in this world picture,
just as the typhonic-ahrimanic element held sway in the Egyptian world picture. Just as the
ancient Egyptians saw their outer
world picture in an ahrimanic-typhonic light, so modern human
beings, because they are ahrimanic, see it with luciferic characteristics.
Lucifer is present, he is working there. Just as the Egyptians
imagined Ahriman-Typhon working in wind and weather, in the storms
of winter, so modern human beings, if they wish to truly understand the world, must imagine
that Lucifer appears to them in the sunshine and in the light
of the stars, in the movements of the planets and of the moon.
The world picture of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler is
a luciferic construction. Precisely
because it arose from and corresponds to our ahrimanic forces
of knowledge, its content — please distinguish here between
method and content — is a luciferic one.
When the Mystery of Golgotha
took place, the divine Sophia, the wisdom that enables us to
see into the world with understanding, worked in a twofold way.
Divine wisdom, heavenly wisdom, worked in the revelation to the
poor shepherds in the fields, and in the revelation to them because
of our new knowledge. We do not lack Christ; but the knowledge
of Christ, the Sophia of Christ, the Isis of Christ is lacking.
This is what we should engrave
in our souls as a content of the mystery of Christmas. We must
realize that since the nineteenth century even theology has come
to look upon Christ merely as the man from Nazareth. That means
that theology is completely permeated by Lucifer. It no longer
sees into the spiritual background of existence. External natural
science is luciferic; theology is luciferic. Of course if we
are speaking of the inner aspect of the human being as you can
see from my previous words we could just as well say that in
this theology the human being is ahrimanic. Then in the same
way we must say of the Egyptians that they were luciferic, just
as we say of them that their perception of the external world was ahrimanic. Modern human
beings must understand the mystery of Christmas in a new way.
They must realize that they must first of all seek Isis, in order
that Christ may appear to them. The cause of our misfortunes
and the problems of modern civilization is not that we have lost
Christ, who stands before us in a far greater glory than Osiris
did in the eyes of the Egyptians. It is not that we have lost
him and need to set out in search of him, armed with the force
of Isis. No, what we have lost is the knowledge of Christ Jesus,
insight into his being. This is what we must find again with
the power of the Jesus Christ who is in us.
This is how we must look upon
the content of the Christmas festival. For many modern people
Christmas is nothing more than a festival for giving and receiving
presents, something which they celebrate every year through habit.
Like so many other things in modern life the Christmas festival
has become an empty phrase, And it is just because so many things
have become nothing more than a phrase that modern life is so
full of calamities and chaos.
This is in truth the deeper
reason for the chaos in our modern life.
If in this our community,
we could acquire the right feelings for everything which has
become mere phrases in the present age, and if these feelings
could enable us to find the impulses needed for the renewals
that are so necessary, then this community, which calls itself
the anthroposophical community, would be worthy of its existence.
This community should understand the terrible significance for
our age that such things as the Christmas festival are carried
forward as a mere phrase. We should be able to understand that
in the future this must not be allowed, and that these things
must be given a new content. Old habits must be left behind and new insights must take
their place. If we cannot find the inner courage needed to do
this, then we share in the lie which keeps up the yearly Christmas
festival merely as a phrase, celebrating it without our souls
feeling and sensing the true significance of the event. Are we
really lifted up to the highest concerns of humanity when we
give and receive presents every year out of habit at this festival
of Christ? Do we lift ourselves up to the highest concerns of
humanity when we listen to the words — which have also become
a phrase — spoken by the representatives of the various
religious communities! We should forbid ourselves to continue
in this inner hollowness of our Christmas celebrations. We should
make the inner decision to give such a festival a content which
allows the highest, worthiest feelings to pass through our souls.
Such a festival celebration would raise humankind to the comprehension
of the meaning of its existence.
Ask yourselves whether the
feelings in your hearts and souls when you stand before the Christmas
tree and open the presents which are given out of habit, and
the Christmas cards containing the usual phrases — ask yourselves
whether feelings are living in you that can raise humankind to
an understanding of the meaning of its evolution on earth! All
the problems and misfortune of our time are due to this —
we cannot find the courage to lift ourselves above the empty
phrases of our age. But it must happen, a new content must [be]come
content which can give us entirely new feelings that stir us
powerfully, just as those people were stirred who were true Christians
in the first Christian centuries, and who felt the Mystery of
Golgotha and the appearance of Christ as the highest which humankind
could experience upon the earth. Our souls must again acquire
something of this spirit.
Oh, the soul will attain to
altogether new feelings if it feels committed to experience the
new Isis legend within modern humanity. Lucifer kills Isis and
then places her body into the infinity of space, which has become
the grave of Isis, a mathematical abstraction. Then comes the
search for Isis, and her discovery, made possible through the
inner force of spiritual knowledge. In place of the heavens that
have become dead, this knowledge places what stars and planets
reveal through an inner life, so that they then appear as monuments
to the spiritual powers that weave with power through space.
We are able to look at the manger today in the right way only
if we experience in a unique way what is weaving with spiritual
power through space, and then look at that being who came into
the world through the child. We know that we bear this being
within us, but we must also understand him. Just as the Egyptians
looked from Osiris to Isis, so we must learn to look again to
the new Isis, the holy Sophia.
Christ will appear again in
his spiritual form during the course of the twentieth century,
not through the arrival of external events alone, but because
human beings find the power represented by the holy Sophia. The
modern age has had the tendency to lose this power of Isis, this
power of Mary. It has been killed by all that arose with the
modern consciousness of humankind. And the confessions have in
part exterminated just this view of Mary.
This is the mystery of modern
humanity: Fundamentally speaking, Mary-Isis has been killed,
and she must be sought, just as Osiris was sought by Isis in
Asia. But she must be sought in the infinite spaces of the universe
with the power that Christ can awaken in us, if we devote ourselves
to him in the right way.
Let us picture this rightly,
let us immerse ourselves in this new Isis legend which must be
experienced, and let us fill our souls with it. Then we will
experience in a true sense what humankind in many of its representatives
believes, that this new legend fills the holy eve of Christmas,
in order to bring us into Christmas day, the day of Christ. This
anthroposophical community could become a community of human
beings united in love because they feel the need, common to them
all, to search. Let us become conscious of this most intimate
task! Let us go in spirit to the manger and bring to the Child
our sacrifice and our
gift, which lie in the knowledge that something altogether new
must fill our souls, in order that we may fulfill the tasks which
can lead humankind out of barbarism into a truly new civilization.
To achieve this, of course,
it is absolutely necessary that in our circles we are prepared
to help one another in love, so that a real community of souls
arises in which all forms of envy and the like disappear, and
in which we do not look merely each at the other, but together
face the great goal we have in common. The mystery brought into
the world by the Christmas child also contains this — that
we can look at a common goal without discord because the common
goal signifies union in harmony. The light of Christmas should
actually shine as a light of peace, as a light that brings external
peace, only because first of all it brings an inner peace into
the hearts of human beings. We should learn to say to ourselves:
If we can manage to work together in love on the great tasks,
then, and only then, do we understand Christmas. If we cannot
manage this, we do not understand Christmas.
Let us remember that when
we do sow discord, this discord hinders us in understanding the
one who appeared among human beings on the first Christmas on
earth. Can we not pour this mystery of Christmas into our souls,
as something which unites our hearts in love and harmony? If
we do not properly understand what spiritual science is, then
we will not be able to do this. Nothing will come of this community
if we merely bring into it ideas and impulses we have picked
up here and there from all corners of the world, where cliches
and routine hold sway. Let us remember that our community is
facing a difficult year, that all our forces must be gathered
together, and let us celebrate Christmas in this spirit. Oh,
I would like to find words that could speak deeply into the heart
of each one of you on this evening. Then each one of you would
feel that my words contain a greeting which is at the same time
an appeal to kindle spiritual science within your hearts, so
that it may become a power that can help humanity which is living
under such terrible oppression.
Beginning with such points
of view, I have gathered the thoughts which I wished to speak
to you. Be assured that they are intended as a warm Christmas
greeting for each one of you, as something which can lead you
into the new year in the very best way. In this spirit, accept
my words today as they were intended, as an affectionate Christmas
greeting.
Isis-Sophia Des Gottes
Weisheit Sie hat Luzifer getötet Und auf der Weltenkr*auml;fte
Schwingen In Raumesweitenfortgetragen. Christus-Wollen In Menschen
werkend, — Es wird Luzzfer entreissen Und auf des Geisteswissens
Booten In Menschenseeten auferwecken Isis-Sophia Des Gottes Weisheit.
Isis-Sophia, Wisdom of God,
she has slain Lucifer, And on the wings of the powers of the
world Carried her hence into the infinite space of the universe.
The willing of Christ Working in man Shall wrest from Lucifer
And on the boats of Spirit-knowledge Awaken in human souls Isis-Sophia
Wisdom of God.
[ This translation edited for clarity — e.Ed ]