On Christmas Night, man, as
he stands here upon the Earth with his physical, his etheric
and his astral bodies, feels himself to be related to the threefold
Cosmos, which appears to him in its Etheric nature, shining so
majestically, and with the magic wonder of the night in the blue
of the heavens: while face to face with him is the Astral of
the Universe, in the stars that glitter in towards the Earth.
As he realises how the holiness of this cosmic environment is
related to that which is on the Earth itself, he feels that he
himself with his own Ego has been transplanted from the Cosmos
into this world of Space. And now he may gaze upon the Christmas
Mystery - the new-born Child, the Representative of Humanity
on Earth, who, inasmuch as he is entering into childhood, is
born into this world of Space. In the fullness and majesty of
this Christmas thought, as he gazes on the Child that is born
on Christmas Night, he exclaims: "Ex Deo Nascimur - I am
born out of the Divine, the Divine that weaves and surges through
the world of Space."
When man has felt this, when
he has permeated himself through and through with it, then he
may also recall what Anthroposophy has revealed through us about
the meaning of the Earth. The Child on whom we are gazing is
the outer sheath of That which is now born into Space. But whence
is He born, that He might be brought to birth in the world of
Space? According to what we have explained to-day, it can only
be from Time. From out of Time the Child is born.
If we then follow out the
life of this Child and His permeation with the Spirit of the
Christ-Being, we come to realise that this Being, this Christ-Being,
comes from the Sun. Then we shall look up to the Sun, and say
to ourselves: "As I look up to the Sun, I must behold in
the sunshine that Time, which in the world of Space is hidden.
Within the Sun is Time, and from out of the Time that weaves
and works within the Sun, Christ came forth, came out into Space,
on to the Earth."
What have we then in Christ
on Earth? In Christ on Earth we have That, which coming from
beyond Space, unites with the Earth.
I want you to realise how
our conception of the Universe changes, in comparison with the
ordinary present-day conception, when we really enter into all
that has come before our souls this evening. There in the Universe
we have the Sun, with all that there appears to us to be immediately
connected with it - all that is contained in the blue of the
heavens, in the world of the stars. At another point in the Universe
we have the Earth with humanity. When we look up from the Earth
to the Sun, we are at the same time looking into the *flow of
time*.
Now from this there follows
something of great significance. Man only looks up to the Sun
in the right way (even if it be but in his mind) when, as he
gazes upwards, he forgets Space and considers Time alone. For
in truth, the Sun does not only radiate light, it radiates Space
itself, and when we are looking into the Sun we are looking out
of Space into the world of Time. The Sun is the unique star that
it is because when we gaze into the Sun we are looking out
of Space. And from that world, outside of Space, Christ came
to men. At the time when Christianity was founded by Christ on
Earth, man had been all too long restricted to to the mere Ex
Deo Nascimur, he had become altogether bound up in it, he
had become a Space-being pure and simple. The reason why it is
so hard for us to understand the traditions of primeval epochs,
when we go back to them with the consciousness of present-day
civilisation, is that they always had in mind Time, and not the
world of Space. They regarded the world of Space only as an appendage
of the world of Time.
Christ came to bring the element
of Time again to men, and when the human heart, the human soul,
the human spirit, unite themselves with Christ, then man receives
once more the stream of Time that flows from Eternity to Eternity.
What else can we human beings do when we die, i.e. when we go
out of the world of Space, than hold fast to Him who gives Time
back to us again? At the Mystery of Golgotha man had become to
so great an extent being of Space that Time was lost to him.
Christ brought Time back again to men.