The Michael Mystery
GA 26
XXVIII. Historic Upheavals at the Dawn of the Spiritual Soul
[ 1 ] The downfall of the Roman Empire, accompanied by the appearance on the scene of peoples moving on from the East (the so-called Migration of the Peoples,) is an historic phenomenon on which the eyes of Man must be turned again and again in enquiry. For the present time still contains much that is after-effect of those tremendous occurrences.
[ 2 ] But it is just here that an understanding of what happened is not possible through a mere external study of history. One must look into the souls of the human beings engaged in this ‘migration’ and in the downfall of the Roman Empire.
[ 3 ] Greece and Rome are at the flower of their civilization during the period when in mankind at large the Intellectual or Mind-Soul is developing. The Greeks and Romans are indeed the more especial bearers of this development. But the evolution of this stage of the soul amongst these peoples is not such as to have in it a living seed which could properly evolve out of itself the Spiritual Soul. Every treasure of the soul and spirit latent in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul is brought in living profusion to the light of day in the civilization of the Greeks and Romans. But to carry its life-stream by its own innate power over into the Spiritual Soul—that it cannot do. [ 4 ] The stage of the spiritual soul naturally emerges in due course. Only it is as though this Spiritual Soul were not able to arise spontaneously out of the personality of the Greek or Roman, but rather, as though it had to be implanted in him from without.
[ 5 ] The state of union with, and again of detachment from, the divine spiritual beings—so often spoken of in these letters—takes place in the course of the ages with varying intensity. In old days, it was a power that intervened with very forcible effect in the evolution of human affairs. As it enters into the Greek and Roman life of the first centuries of Christianity, the power is a weaker one. Nevertheless it is there. So long as he was developing to the full the Intellectual or Mind-Soul within him, the Greek or roman experienced—not consciously, but with important effects for the soul—a feeling of detachment from the divine-spiritual form of being, an emancipation of his own human being. This came to an end in the first centuries of Christianity. The first glimmering dawn of the Spiritual Soul, because the Spiritual soul itself was not yet able to be received into the human being.
[ 6 ] And so they felt this Christian content as something that came ready-given to them from without, from the spiritual outer world, not as something with which they grew together and became identified through their own inherent powers of knowledge.
[ 7 ] It was otherwise with the peoples now coming into history out of the North-East. They had passed through the stage of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul in a condition which, in their case, was felt as one of dependence on the spirit-world. They first began to feel something of human independence when the nascent powers of the Spiritual Soul dawned in their first Christian beginnings. Amongst these people, the Spiritual Soul made its appearance as something closely bound up with the very being of Man. They felt themselves in the full joyous expansion of inward power when the Spiritual Soul was awakening to life within them.
[ 8 ] Into the first, fresh life of the dawning Spiritual Soul amongst these peoples fell the inner content of Christianity. They felt it as something coming to life within their souls, not as something ready-given from without.
[ 9 ] Such was the tone of mind in which these people came to the Roman Empire and all that this involved. Such was the Arian mood as contrasted with the Athanasian. A profound contrast was here emerging in human history and evolution.
[ 10 ] In the Spiritual Soul of the Greek and Roman, external to the man himself, the divine spirit-being began its work, not completely uniting with the earthly life but only raying in upon it. In the just dawning Spiritual Soul of the Franks, the Germanic tribes, etc., there was at work—but as yet faintly—so much of divine spirit, as was able to unite itself with the human being.
[ 11 ] What happened next was that the form of Christian content which dwelt in the Spiritual Soul hovering over and outside of Man, spread abroad in life; whilst that which was united with men's souls remained something that abode in the inner mind as an incentive, an impulse biding the time of its full development, which can only come with the attainment of a certain stage in the Spiritual Soul's evolution
[ 12 ] The period from the first centuries of Christianity down to the Age of the Spiritual Soul is a time when the dominant spiritual life of mankind is one which hovers above Man. It is a spiritual content with which he cannot connect himself knowingly, through the exercise of his own powers of mind. Accordingly, he establishes an external connection; he ‘explains’ this spiritual content, and examines in thought the precise limits where the soul's powers fall short of uniting with it in clear knowledge. He draws a boundary line between the province over which his knowledge reaches, and that where it does not reach. The result is a deliberate abstention from the employment of those soul-powers which rise with knowledge into the world of spirit. And so at last there comes a time, at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when with the very powers that should be directed to spiritual realities men repudiate all spiritual reality, and turn away from the spirit with their life of knowledge altogether. They begin to live in those soul-powers only, which are directed to things perceptible by the outer senses.
[ 13 ] Dull grew men's powers of knowledge, blunted to spiritual things, in the eighteenth century more especially.
[ 14 ] The thinkers lose the spiritual content to their Ideas. In the Idealist philosophy of the first half of the nineteenth century, they represent the spirit-void ideas themselves as the creative reality and content of the World—thus Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. Or else they refer to a Supersensible which fades away because the spirit is not in it—thus Spencer, John Stewart Mill and others. Ideas are dead when they do not seek the living Spirit.
[ 15 ] The spiritual eye for the Spiritual is, in fact, lost.
[ 16 ] A continuation of the old way of spirit-knowledge is not possible. The soul's powers, as the Spiritual Soul develops in them, must strive through to their own newly generated union, living and direct, with the spirit-world. This very striving is the essence and intention of Anthroposophy.
[ 17 ] In the spiritual life of the present age it is precisely the leading people who are most at a loss to know the meaning of Anthroposophy, or what its object is. And in this way large circles, who follows these leaders, are also kept aloof. The leaders live amid a content of soul and mind which has gradually lost the habit of using man's spiritual powers. With these people, it is as though one were to try and induce a man who is paralyzed to make use of his paralyzed organ. For it was paralysis that set in during the time from the sixteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth—paralysis of the higher powers of knowledge. And men remained all-conscious of it; they regarded the one-sided application of their powers of knowledge to the sense-world as an important step in human progress.
Leading Thoughts
[ 18 ] The Greeks and Romans are the peoples specially predisposed for the evolution of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul. They develop this stage of the soul to full completion. But they have not the living seed within themselves, through which to pass on in direct line to the Spiritual Soul. Their soul-life is completely merged in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul.
[ 19 ] What comes instead—during the time from the rise of Christianity to the age of evolving the Spiritual Soul—is the reign above of a spirit-world which does not unite with the human soul-powers. These soul-powers ‘explain’ the spirit world, but do not experience it.
[ 20 ] The peoples moving down upon the Roman Empire from the North-East in the so-called ‘Migration of the Peoples,’ take hold of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul more in the life of Feeling. Meanwhile, embedded in this Feeling element, the Spiritual Soul is developing its powers in their souls. The inner life of these peoples is waiting for the time when a complete union of the human soul with the spiritual world will once more be possible.
Die geschichtlichen Erschütterungen beim Heraufkommen der Bewußtseinsseele
(Goetheanum, März 1925)
[ 1 ] Der Untergang des Römischen Reiches im Zusammenhang mit dem Auftreten von Völkern, die von Osten herankommen — der sogenannten Völkerwanderung, ist eine geschichtliche Erscheinung, auf die der Blick des forschenden Menschen immer wieder sich richten muß. Denn die Gegenwart enthält noch vieles von Nachwirkungen dieser erschütternden Geschehnisse.
[ 2 ] Aber das Verständnis gerade dieser Ereignisse ist einer äußerlichen geschichtlichen Betrachtung nicht möglich. Man muß auf die Seelen der Menschen blicken, die in «Völkerwanderung» und Untergang des römischen Kaiserreiches gestellt sind.
[ 3 ] Griechentum und Römertum blühen in der Zeit, als sich in der Menschheit die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele entfaltet. Ja, Griechen und Römer sind die eigentlichen Träger dieser Entfaltung. Aber die Entwickelung dieser Seelen-Etappe trägt bei diesen Völkern nicht einen Keim in sich, der in rechter Art die Bewußtseinsseele aus sich entwickeln könnte. Alles, was an Geist- und Seelen-Inhalt in der Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele steckt, tritt in reichem Leben in dem Dasein des Griechen- und Römertums zutage. Mit Eigenkraft hinüberströmen in die Bewußtseinsseele kann es nicht.
[ 4 ] Trotzdem tritt natürlich das Stadium der Bewußtseinsseele auf. Aber es ist, als ob die Bewußtseinsseele nicht etwas aus der Persönlichkeit des Griechen und Römers Hervorgehendes wäre, sondern etwas von außen seinem Wesen Eingepflanztes.
[ 5 ] Das Verbunden- und Losgelöstsein von den göttlichgeistigen Wesenheiten, von dem in diesen Betrachtungen so viel die Rede war, vollzieht sich im Laufe der Zeiten mit verschiedener Intensität. In alten Zeiten war es eine mit starkem Geschehen in die Menschheitsentwickelung eingreifende Macht. Im griechischen und römischen Erleben der ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte ist es eine schwächere Macht. Aber es ist vorhanden. Solange er voll in sich die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele entfaltete, fühlte der Grieche und Römer - unbewußt, aber für die Seele bedeutsam — ein Losgelöst-Werden von der göttlich-geistigen Wesenhaftigkeit, ein Selbständig-Werden des Menschhaften. Das hörte in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten auf. Das Hereindämmern der Bewußtseinsseele wurde als ein Verbundensein mit dem Göttlich-Geistigen empfunden. Man entwickelte sich wieder zurück von einer größeren zu einer geringeren Selbständigkeit der Seele. Man konnte den christlichen Inhalt nicht in die menschliche Bewußtseinsseele aufnehmen, weil man diese selbst nicht in die menschliche Wesenheit hereinnehmen konnte.
[ 6 ] So empfand man diesen christlichen Inhalt als etwas von außen — von der geistigen Außenwelt — Gegebenes, nicht aber als etwas, mit dem man durch seine Erkenntniskräfte zusammenwuchs.
[ 7 ] Anders war es bei den in die Geschichte eintretenden, von Nordosten kommenden Völkern. Sie hatten das Stadium der Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele in einem Zustande durchgemacht, der sich für sie als Abhängigkeit von der Geistwelt empfinden ließ. Sie fingen erst an, etwas von der menschlichen Selbständigkeit zu empfinden, als die ersten Kräfte der Bewußtseinsseele in den christlichen Anfängen heraufdämmerten. Bei ihnen trat die Bewußtseinsseele als etwas der Menschenwesenheit Verbundenes auf. Sie empfanden sich in froher innerer Kraftentfaltung, indem die Bewußtseinsseele in ihnen auflebte.
[ 8 ] In dieses sprießende Leben der heraufdämmernden Bewußtseinsseele fiel bei diesen Völkern der christliche Inhalt. Sie fühlten ihn als etwas in der Seele Auflebendes, nicht als etwas von außen Gegebenes.
[ 9 ] Das war die Stimmung, in der diese Völkerschaften an das Römische Reich und alles, was damit zusammenhing, herankamen. Das war die Stimmung des Arianismus gegenüber dem Athanasianismus. Ein tiefer innerer Gegensatz war in der weltgeschichtlichen Entwickelung da.
[ 10 ] In der dem Menschen äußerlichen Bewußtseinsseele des Römers und Griechen wirkte zunächst die nicht völlig mit dem Erdenleben sich vereinende, sondern nur hereinstrahlende göttlich-geistige Wesenheit. In der erst aufdämmernden Bewußtseinsseele der Franken-, Germanen und so weiter wirkte nur noch schwach, was von Göttlich-Geistigem mit der Menschheit sich verbinden konnte.
[ 11 ] Das Nächste war, daß der christliche Inhalt, der in der über dem Menschen schwebenden Bewußtseinsseele lebte, sich im Leben ausbreitete; der mit der Seele vereinigt etwas blieb, das als Antrieb, Impuls in dem Innern der Menschen verblieb und auf seine Entfaltung wartete, die erst eintreten kann, wenn ein gewisses Stadium in der Entfaltung der Bewußtseinsseele erreicht ist.
[ 12 ] Es ist die Zeit, von den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten angefangen bis in das Zeitalter der Bewußtseinsseelenentwickelung hinein, eine solche, in der als maßgebliches Geistesleben über der Menschheit ein geistiger Inhalt waltet, mit dem sich der Mensch erkennend nicht verbinden kann. Er verbindet sich deshalb äußerlich; er «erklärt» ihn, und er denkt darüber nach, inwiefern die Seelenkräfte nicht ausreichend sind, um die erkennende Verbindung herbeizuführen. Er unterscheidet zwischen dem Gebiete, in das die Erkenntnis reicht, und dem, wohin sie nicht reicht. Es macht sich der Verzicht geltend, Seelenkräfte zu betätigen, die sich erkennend in die Geistwelt erheben. Und so kommt die Zeit heran, Wende des siebzehnten und achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, in der man sich mit den auf das Geistige gerichteten Seelenkräften von dem Geistigen überhaupt erkennend abwendet. — Man beginnt, nur in den Seelenkräften zu leben, die auf das sinnlich Wahrnehmbare gerichtet sind.
[ 13 ] Stumpf werden die Erkenntniskräfte für das Geistige besonders im achtzehnten Jahrhundert.
[ 14 ] Die Denker verlieren aus ihren Ideen den geistigen Inhalt. Sie machen im Idealismus von der ersten Hälfte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts die geistleeren Ideen selbst als schaffenden Welt-Inhalt geltend. So Fichte, Schelling, Hegel; oder sie weisen auf ein Übersinnliches, das sich verflüchtigt, weil es entgeistigt ist. So Spencer, John Stuart Mill und andere. Die Ideen sind tot, wenn sie den lebendigen Geist nicht suchen.
[ 15 ] Der geistige Blick für das Geistige geht nun einmal verloren.
[ 16 ] Eine «Fortsetzung» des alten Geist-Erkennens ist nicht möglich. Es müssen die Seelenkräfte, indem die Bewußtseinsseele sich in ihnen entfaltet, ihre erneuerte elementare, unmittelbar lebendige Verbindung mit der Geist-Welt erstreben. Anthroposophie will dieses Erstreben sein.
[ 17 ] Im geistigen Leben des Zeitalters wissen gerade die führenden Persönlichkeiten zunächst nicht, was sie will. Und damit werden weite Kreise, die diesen Führern folgen, auch abgehalten. Die Führer leben in einem Seelen-Inhalt, der sich allmählich ganz entwöhnt hat, die geistigen Kräfte zu gebrauchen. Für sie ist es, als ob man einen Menschen, der ein gelähmtes Organ hat, veranlassen wollte, dieses zu gebrauchen. Denn gelähmt waren in der Zeit vom sechzehnten bis in die zweite Hälfte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts die höheren Erkenntniskräfte. Und die Menschheit blieb darüber ganz unbewußt; sie betrachtete das einseitige Gebrauchen der auf die Sinnenwelt gerichteten Erkenntnis als einen besonderen Fortschritt.
Goetheanum, März 1925.
Leitsätze Nr. 180 bis 182
(5. April 1925)
(Mit Bezug auf die vorangehenden Betrachtungen über die geschichtlichen Erschütterungen beim Heraufkommen der Bewußtseinsseele)
[ 18 ] 180. Die Griechen und Römer sind die für die Entfaltung der Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele besonders veranlagten Völker. Sie entwickeln dieses Seelenstadium zur Vollendung. Aber sie tragen nicht die Keime in sich, um in geradliniger Art fortzuschreiten zur Bewußtseinsseele. Ihr Seelenleben geht in die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele hinein unter.
[ 19 ] 181. Aber es waltet nun in der Zeit von der Entstehung des Christentums bis in das Zeitalter der Bewußtseinsseelen-Entwickelung eine Geistwelt, die sich nicht mit den menschlichen Seelenkräften vereinigt. Diese «erklären» die Geistwelt, aber sie erleben sie nicht.
[ 20 ] 182. In den Völkern, die mit der sogenannten «Völkerwanderung» von Nordosten gegen das Römerreich vorrücken, lebt ein gefühlsmäßiges Erfassen der Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele. Dagegen bildet sich in ihren Seelen die in dieses Gefühlsmäßige eingebettete Bewußtseinsseele aus. Das innere Leben dieser Völker wartet auf die Zeit, in der wieder ein Vereinigt-Sein der Seele mit der Geist-Welt voll möglich ist.
The historical upheavals in the emergence of the consciousness soul
(Goetheanum, March 1925)
[ 1 ] The fall of the Roman Empire in connection with the appearance of peoples approaching from the East - the so-called migration of peoples - is a historical phenomenon to which the gaze of the inquiring human being must be directed again and again. For the present still contains many after-effects of these shattering events.
[ 2 ] But the understanding of precisely these events is not possible from an external historical perspective. One must look at the souls of the people who were placed in the "migration of peoples" and the fall of the Roman Empire.
[ 3 ] Greece and Rome flourished at the time when the intellectual or emotional soul was developing in humanity. Yes, the Greeks and Romans are the actual bearers of this development. But the development of this stage of the soul in these peoples does not carry within itself a germ which could develop the soul of consciousness from itself in the right way. All that is contained in the spirit and soul content of the intellectual or emotional soul emerges in rich life in the existence of the Greeks and Romans. It cannot flow over into the consciousness soul by its own power.
[ 4 ] Nevertheless, the stage of the consciousness soul naturally occurs. But it is as if the consciousness soul were not something arising from the personality of the Greek and Roman, but something implanted from outside into his being.
[ 5 ] The connection and detachment from the divine-spiritual entities, of which so much has been said in these considerations, takes place with varying intensity in the course of time. In ancient times it was a power that intervened strongly in the development of mankind. In the Greek and Roman experience of the first Christian centuries it is a weaker power. But it is there. As long as the intellectual or emotional soul was fully developed within him, the Greek and Roman felt - unconsciously, but significantly for the soul - a becoming detached from the divine-spiritual beingness, an independent becoming of the human. This ceased in the first Christian centuries. The dawning of the consciousness soul was perceived as a connection with the divine-spiritual. One developed back again from a greater to a lesser independence of the soul. The Christian content could not be incorporated into the human consciousness soul because it could not be incorporated into the human entity itself.
[ 6 ] So this Christian content was perceived as something given from outside - from the spiritual external world - but not as something with which one grew together through one's powers of cognition.
[ 7 ] The situation was different with the peoples entering history from the north-east. They had passed through the stage of the intellectual or emotional soul in a state which they perceived as dependence on the spirit world. They only began to feel something of human independence when the first powers of the consciousness soul dawned in the Christian beginnings. With them the consciousness soul appeared as something connected with the human being. They felt themselves in a joyful inner unfolding of strength as the consciousness soul came to life in them.
[ 8 ] The Christian content fell into this sprouting life of the dawning consciousness soul among these peoples. They felt it as something coming to life in the soul, not as something given from outside.
[ 9 ] This was the mood in which these peoples approached the Roman Empire and everything connected with it. This was the mood of Arianism towards Athanasianism. There was a deep inner contradiction in the development of world history.
[ 10 ] In the conscious soul of the Roman and Greek, which was external to man, the divine-spiritual entity, which did not completely unite with earthly life but only radiated in, was at first at work. In the first dawning consciousness soul of the Franks, Germanic tribes and so on, only weakly that which of the divine-spiritual could unite with humanity was still at work.
[ 11 ] The next thing was that the Christian content, which lived in the consciousness-soul hovering above man, spread out in life; which, united with the soul, remained something that remained as a drive, an impulse in the inner being of man and waited for its unfolding, which can only occur when a certain stage in the unfolding of the consciousness-soul has been reached.
[ 12 ] It is the time, from the first Christian centuries up to the age of the development of the consciousness soul, a time in which a spiritual content prevails over mankind as an authoritative spiritual life, with which man cannot connect himself cognitively. He therefore connects himself externally; he "explains" it, and he reflects on the extent to which the soul forces are not sufficient to bring about the recognizing connection. He distinguishes between the area into which cognition reaches and that to which it does not reach. The renunciation of activating soul forces that rise cognitively into the spirit world becomes apparent. And so the time comes, at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the powers of the soul directed towards the spiritual turn away from the spiritual in general. - One begins to live only in the powers of the soul that are directed towards the sensually perceptible.
[ 13 ] The powers of cognition for the spiritual become blunt, especially in the eighteenth century.
[ 14 ] The thinkers lose the spiritual content of their ideas. In the idealism of the first half of the nineteenth century, they assert the spiritless ideas themselves as the creative content of the world. Thus Fichte, Schelling, Hegel; or they point to a supersensible that evaporates because it is de-spiritualized. Thus Spencer, John Stuart Mill and others. Ideas are dead if they do not seek the living spirit.
[ 15 ] The spiritual eye for the spiritual is simply lost.
[ 16 ] A "continuation" of the old spirit-recognition is not possible. The soul forces must strive for their renewed elemental, directly living connection with the spirit world as the consciousness soul unfolds within them. Anthroposophy wants to be this striving.
[ 17 ] In the spiritual life of the age, it is precisely the leading personalities who initially do not know what it wants. And thus wide circles that follow these leaders are also held back. The leaders live in a soul content that has gradually become completely unaccustomed to using spiritual powers. For them it is like trying to get a person with a paralyzed organ to use it. For in the period from the sixteenth to the second half of the nineteenth century, the higher powers of cognition were paralyzed. And humanity remained completely unaware of this; it regarded the one-sided use of knowledge directed towards the sensory world as a special progress.
Goetheanum, March 1925.
Guiding principles no. 180 to 182
(April 5, 1925)
(With reference to the preceding reflections on the historical upheavals in the emergence of the consciousness soul)
[ 18 ] 180. The Greeks and Romans are the peoples particularly predisposed to the unfolding of the intellectual or emotional soul. They develop this stage of the soul to perfection. But they do not carry within them the germs to progress in a straightforward manner to the consciousness soul. Their soul life is absorbed into the intellectual or emotional soul.
[ 19 ] 181 But now, in the time from the emergence of Christianity to the age of the development of the consciousness soul, a spirit world prevails which does not unite with the human soul forces. These "explain" the spirit world, but they do not experience it.
[ 20 ] 182 In the peoples who advance from the northeast against the Roman Empire with the so-called "migration of peoples", there lives an emotional grasp of the intellectual or emotional soul. In their souls, on the other hand, the consciousness soul embedded in this emotional soul develops. The inner life of these peoples awaits the time when the soul can once again be fully united with the spirit world.