The Tree of Knowledge and the Christmas Tree. The Christmas spirit in Stifter's novella “Bergkristall”

GA 165 — 28 December 1915, Basel

You have just heard about the intimate connection between Christmas and the spiritual nature of things. It is true that this idea should penetrate our spiritual scientific work particularly deeply and warmly when we look at the tree decorated with lights in the dark middle of winter, on a winter night. Of all the symbols that have entered spiritual life from a certain elemental, not superficial, consciousness, the Christmas tree is actually one of the most recent. If we go back about two hundred years in the development of European spiritual life, we find the Christmas tree appearing here and there at most. It is not yet old as a Christmas symbol. With this thought, that the Christmas tree, which arouses the joy and impulse of gratitude in the child's heart, is one of the youngest Christian symbols, we easily combine the other thought that this Christmas tree has become infinitely dear to us in many of its branches, and that we do not want to do without it when we celebrate Christmas in our branches. Truly, this Christmas tree, even though it has only recently been transformed from the subconscious depths of the human heart into a Christian Christmas symbol, is connected with deep feelings and emotions about the nature and meaning of Christmas. In the Middle Ages, it became customary to perform Christmas plays around Christmas, New Year's, and Epiphany. Farmers, who prepared for this for a long time, went around the villages reenacting the birth of Christ. They reenacted the appearance of the three kings, the three magi, before the newborn Christ. But they also reenacted in the so-called Paradise plays what is described in the first book of Moses as the creation of our earthly world, the scene that so powerfully enlightens us, revealing the mysteries of our own soul, the scene at the beginning of the earth, into which the meaningful words resounded: You may eat of every tree in the garden, but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now all that remains as a reminder of the inner connection between the beginning of the creation of the earth and the Christmas festival is that our calendar shows “Adam and Eve” on December 24 and the birth of Christ Jesus on December 25.

And yet, as I said, not out of a thought but out of a feeling, one cannot help but wonder: Did the impulse to erect the ancient world tree, the tree from the middle of paradise, from which no one was supposed to eat, on the birthday of Christ Jesus perhaps arise from the dark depths of the human, Christian heart? The Paradise play was performed. What remained of the memory of Paradise was the tree of Paradise, and the tree of Paradise could be united with the feelings we have about the birth of Christ Jesus.

I do not want to develop theories here; today is not the day for that. Certainly, one can say other things about the reasons for the emergence of the Christmas tree, but out of the feelings that arise in us when we stand next to it, when we let those feelings shine in our souls that connect us to the most childlike feelings of human beings on this holiday, out of this feeling, one wants to speak when looking at the Christmas tree, because one sees in it something like a renewal of the tree of paradise. This Christmas tree does not actually appear to be a pagan symbol, nor does it appear to be a Norse pagan symbol. When our earth is covered with snow, when icicles hang from the eaves of houses and over the trees, and people take refuge from those areas of the earth where, for months on end, the greenery and colorful flowers have delighted the eye and the fruits necessary for human sustenance have been offered, when people have to take refuge from all that, what is outside, at least at first, according to his perception, what is there for him to occupy himself with, what he has to live with throughout the spring and summer, when he has to take refuge in those rooms through which the snow looks in, the icicles look in, and he has to warm them from the inside, then the heathen probably felt something of what what could become of the world if this world were left to itself. The heathen felt the great winter at the end of earthly existence when he was so abandoned by the spirits of nature, by everything he felt as gnomes, undines, and sylphs, when he had to flee into the warmth of the oven, flee from made him feel abandoned by his beloved nature, and when he could only glimpse through a small opening that which was impossible to inhabit. When he was able to experience this abandonment, he felt, in this wintertime, the end of earthly existence spreading out infinitely, flooding everything, drowning everything.

The Christian would have answered him, perhaps not out of theoretical understanding, but out of emotional understanding: You may be right, that is what would have happened to the earth if the tree had been allowed to unfold its power, from which humans unlawfully enjoyed the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil through Lucifer's seduction. And when one thinks in this way about the development of the earth with this earthly goal after the desolation and loneliness of winter, after the cold and frost, also in relation to the soul life that would await everything earthly, and when one can connect this to the consequences of Lucifer's seduction, to the effects of the enjoyment of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then one can feel on the other side what the Christian idea actually means.

Before the idea of Christ, the idea of Easter came to the consciousness of people in Christian development, that idea which is so meaningfully recounted in the symbols of Easter, whereby man was freed from all that is in Lucifer's seduction. The grandeur of the Easter idea can shake and fill the soul in springtime with the awakening of nature. But it is different with the Christmas idea, this other side of the Christian idea. In order to understand the Easter idea, one must already have acquired certain knowledge. I would say that even the smallest children understand the Christmas idea intuitively. And what is this Christmas feeling when you explore it in children who are called to the Christmas tree after it has been decorated, the lights lit, and the presents laid out around it? What is this Christmas feeling when the children are led to the Christmas tree, when they receive their gifts, when they are told that the Holy Christ brought them — what is the essence of this?

The children may not know it, but they feel it unconsciously in those depths of the human soul that cannot always be brought to consciousness. What is this essence, when one really explores what actually lives in children — one does not usually do this — but when one explores what lives in children when they are called to the Christmas tree and hear that these gifts have been brought to them by a supernatural being? These are not gifts that they can pick themselves outside by the stream in summer or spring; no, these have come to them from the supernatural world. What is it that lives in children then? I think one can say that when one looks deeply into the hearts of children with those eyes that can be called the eyes of a seer, which one acquires little by little, the most significant, the most intense feeling that lives unconsciously in children's hearts is an infinitely deep gratitude. And when you empathize with them, you sense something like the thought that triggers this feeling of gratitude: Why does this gratitude take such a hold in the hearts and souls of children? Why? — Because, in fact, this heart says again in the deepest subconscious: We human children must be grateful that we have not been abandoned, that a being has inclined itself toward us from the heights of the spirit, that it has wanted to take up residence within human earthly existence; that on that earth, which should have remained dark as a result of the temptation of paradise, which should have grown cold and frozen as the great winter season, entered into this existence preparing for paralysis, the being whom we see entering anew every year into the time that also symbolically indicates to us the end of the earth in the frost of winter, in the darkness, in the gloom of winter. We must be grateful to the world spirit who descended, united himself with the earthly development of human beings, so that we need not fear the coming of the great winter, but may hope that when, through the outer natural course of the earth, the great winter follows in its earthly cosmic frost, there will be that being who approaches us every year in the form of a child and rejuvenates the earth, so that it is not carried away frozen to its further existence in the cosmos. Hence the infinite warmth that emanates from this Christmas festival. And hence, I would say, this peculiarly probative character of the Christmas festival. The Christmas festival has something that proves Christ. One can feel about Christmas that what it wants to represent is true, because as soon as the thought of Christmas is grasped in the soul of a human child, it immediately takes hold of the whole meaning of this child's heart, this childlike soul of the human being, and truly grasps everything childlike in the human being, regardless of whether this childishness manifests itself in childhood or in the latest age. It is precisely people who can feel so deeply, on the one hand, the outer nature with all its spring and summer beauty, who can also feel this peculiar desolation of wintertime, who can feel the solemn mood of the Christmas season, who also feel this proof of the Christmas festival.

A poet who spent his entire life observing nature in minute detail also spoke beautifully about Christmas in one of his poems. The poet who wrote these words said: People say that a thunderstorm is magnificent, that a storm is magnificent, that an earthquake or a volcanic eruption can be magnificent—I think that a ladybug running across a leaf is magnificent, if only one can feel its true nature. This is roughly what the poet Adalbert Stifter said. And from his familiarity with the greatness in the small things of nature, with that which spiritually pervades all of nature, his beautiful Christmas story emerged, which in its basic tone actually weaves and lives the essence of Christmas. The poet leads us into a lonely alpine valley that has a neighboring valley. There are villages in both valleys. As is customary in the Alps—at least in earlier times—the inhabitants of one valley have little contact with those of the other. However, it turns out that a resident of one valley, a cobbler, has married a woman from the other valley. She is regarded as a stranger, even though she was born only a short distance away across the mountains. They have children. The grandparents live in the other alpine valley. The grandfather does not think highly of his son-in-law, so he does not visit the children very often, but the grandmother used to come over more often. However, when the children grew a little older, although they were still small, the grandmother was already old and could no longer visit as often. So the children went to visit her. Once they were sent over, it was on Christmas Eve, to the other Alpine village, in weather that was quite safe. They went there. Being very young children, they had only stood a few times with any awareness in the nightly silence of the Alpine hut in front of the Christmas tree and heard a few words about the mystery of Christ, only a little. Now, while they were still relatively small children, they were sent away. They were to visit their grandmother. One could hope that the weather would remain favorable. They went to their grandmother in the neighboring village. Their grandmother gave them their presents and admonished them to be very careful on their way home. But lo and behold, snow began to fall. They had to cross the mountains to the other valley. They lost their way and could not find it again. They were lost. The boy, who was a little older, took care of the little girl. They even crossed glaciers. They were only able to keep going because they had some coffee with them that their grandmother had given them, which they unwrapped. The boy had once heard that coffee could prevent you from freezing. Yes, they couldn't find their way home. The night grew darker and darker, and they were high up in the middle of ice and snow, so that when the Christmas bells rang out everywhere at midnight, they couldn't even hear them. So they spent Christmas night in this way, while down in the village, of course, not only their parents but the whole village was seized with fear and anxiety. They had gone out to look for the children. But the children were up there in the solitude. They had to wait, keeping warm with everything they knew in their little cleverness, and wait until morning gradually came. As described at the beginning, they had the snow and ice beneath them and the stars above them. Then, as they looked up at the mountains, a wonderful light appeared over the mountains towards morning. The children were found, brought home half frozen, and put to bed. They had missed Christmas Eve, but they received their Christmas presents the next day. First, however, they had to recover from their numbness and were therefore put to bed. The mother—I will not recount all the various scenes that this poet describes in a way that touches the hearts of people so deeply—sits down at the little girl's bedside and asks her to tell her what terrible things the children have experienced. Then the little girl, who, as I said, had only heard a few words about the true meaning of Christmas, said: “Mother, when we were up there and it was so, so cold, and we saw nothing but snow and stars, I looked up at the stars, and do you know, Mother, what I saw when I looked up at the sky? I saw the Holy Christ!”

I said that such poetry has something probative about it, because it testifies to how intimately, even if a person has heard little about the Christian idea, the Christian idea is woven into the human heart in a natural, elementary way. Therefore, it must be deeply rooted in the human heart. It can be understood at every age, even at the most childlike age. The poet Adalbert Stifter spoke the truth. One understands it in such a way that even as a very small child, one can read in the writing of the stars how the Holy Christ speaks. It is truly connected with gratitude towards the fact of the world that a God wanted to descend to earth so that human beings would not be alone in the development of the earth. The divine helper has snatched us from loneliness. The child feels this. And this feeling of gratitude toward the world powers, which can be so deep, is that infinitely warm feeling that glows through the hearts of people during Christmas; it is what makes life during Christmas so warm in the cold of winter in a spiritual way, it is what makes life during Christmas so light in the winter darkness when the sun is at its lowest point.

And we who seek knowledge must seek it in a different way than it has been presented by the tempter. For we do seek knowledge. Yes, we seek spiritual knowledge. The tree of knowledge must be of value to us; it is indeed of value to us, if we feel correctly: the tree of knowledge. But we do not allow it to be handed to us by Luciferic powers. We accept it from Christ, who descended to earth. For this is how it can be accepted by the human heart, the human mind, the human striving for knowledge; this tree of knowledge can be accepted when Christ offers it to us. What Lucifer did not want to give to human beings, Christ gives to human beings. And so the tree of paradise is renewed: it becomes the Christmas tree. What Lucifer gave to human beings as a temptation, Christ gives back to human beings as reconciliation. And so even the most mature thought of the quest for knowledge is linked to the childlike thought of the Christmas tree. Just as a child accepts what it has seen coming from nature and society, accepting it as a holy gift on Christmas Eve, so we think of accepting what is holy and valuable to us, the gift from the tree of knowledge, from Christ, who wanted to unite his impulses with the impulses of the earth.

We will understand how to awaken, precisely in accordance with our worldview, that warm gratitude toward the Christ being who wanted to come to earth to free human beings from the loneliness symbolized by the darkness and cold of winter, while on the other hand symbolizing the spiritual warmth that human beings can share with the spiritual powers in what radiates true warmth from that consciousness which we can allow to penetrate our hearts from our spirit when we understand in the right sense the symbol of the Christmas tree, the renewed tree of knowledge, the tree of knowledge that is given to us by Christ Jesus, when we allow this Christmas symbol, which warms the coldness of the world, to speak to our soul, to our heart.