And The Temple Becomes Man

GA 286 — 7 March 1914, Stuttgart

The Development of Architecture in Connection with the Turn of the Millennium

As the year 1000 approached, the people of Europe lived in great fear of the expected end of the world. They expected this to happen in a physical sense, with the earth dissolving into smoke and mist. It was the Ahrimanic spirits who taught people this idea that something terrible would happen on the physical plane, while in reality many things were happening in the spiritual world. At every millennium, the Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits have a special power. Humanity need not be particularly proud of the decimal system, which is predominant today. Every number system is brought into the world by certain spirits, and each has a tendency to reveal certain facts and connections between facts more clearly and to obscure others, to make them recede into the background.¹

The Ahrimanic impulses have a very strong effect in the decimal system. This highlights the fact that every millennium, i.e., in the years 1000, 2000, and so on, there is a particularly strong combined attack by Lucifer and Ahriman. In the other centuries, they are more in balance. But in the century ending in 9, i.e., also in our century ending in 19, as we approach the new millennium, they unite and work together to influence human beings. This fact still lives on in the popular belief that Lucifer and Ahriman are chained up for a thousand years and then released for a short time.

In the pre-Christian millennia 1000, 2000, and 3000 BC, there was a particularly strong influence of the good, progressive forces at the same time, which kept this combined Luciferic-Ahrimanic influence in check and allowed something particularly good to emerge from it. Thus we see how the pyramids were built in 3000 BC. The year 2000 was the age of Abraham and all that arose from it; at the same time, it was the height of Babylonian culture. The year 1000 BC was the age of David. Preparations were made for the construction of Solomon's Temple. In the year zero, Christ appeared. We have often discussed how, according to the Gospels, and especially according to the Fifth Gospel, Christ had to take up the fight with Lucifer and Ahriman. In post-Christian times, however, the good, progressive spirits could no longer intervene in this way, and humanity was left to the attacks of Lucifer and Ahriman. In any case, they succeeded in confusing people's thinking, allowing them to accept the error of the approaching physical end of the world. They always have an interest in things being imagined in terms of space and time.

During this period, evidence of God's existence emerged for the first time, brought forth by the Bishop of Canterbury, as well as the views of his opponent Roscellin. It was also at this time that the popes, trampling on the principle of Christian humility, rose to external power, that Emperor Henry had to humble himself before the pope at Canossa, and that the whole external church adopted customs that aroused the mocking laughter of the Ahrimanic spirits.

It is these Ahrimanic spirits that are now reasserting their influence as we approach the year 2000. But development proceeds in pendulum swings: in the year 1000, people expected the end of the world; in the year 2000, they expect exactly the opposite; in the year 3000, they will again expect the end of the world, but the world will then have become such that entire peoples will long for this end of the world. One can say without sentimentality that European humanity is heading for terrible times.

Let us take architecture and the influences on it. In 3000 BC, the pyramids were built; in 2000, hut construction began (the age of Abraham). In 1000 BC, Solomon's temple was prepared. In 1000 AD, the new that was to come could not prevail due to the counteracting forces of Lucifer and Ahriman. We see the Normans, who spread from Scandinavia across Western and Central Europe, trying to express something in their wooden buildings that could not come to full development. Certain lines are inherent in them, but not further developed because the Ahrimanic influence prevented it. Instead, Moorish culture arose and the architecture of Cordoba and Granada, the horseshoe arch and the pointed arch, which supplanted the truly Christian round arch of Romanesque architecture. In Moorish culture, one can immediately see the anti-Christian influence in the pointed arches, which should actually have been round. This is the sign of Ahriman. Thus, Ahriman acted as the Antichrist in architecture by replacing the round Romanesque arch with the horseshoe or pointed arch. He worked through the Moors and also through the Turks; he prevented the art of the Normans from developing, whose wooden buildings, which they erected throughout Europe, could not provide what they should have been. This is why we do not find buildings from the year 1000 as we do from earlier millennia.

But now architecture must be created anew for the new millennium. Now we must express the rounded lines that Ahriman suppressed in Norman buildings; we must omit certain lines that are found in them, and then we will have our Dornach building, the true continuation of the wooden buildings of the Normans.

Terrible times, however, lie ahead for humanity in Europe. We know that when the first third of this century is over, Christ will be seen in his etheric form and that this will give a tremendous impulse alongside all the declining tendencies of this century. In earlier times, such as around the year 1000, people had to believe what Lucifer and Ahriman told them because they did not yet have the true, conscious Christ impulse within them. But we no longer have to; we should voluntarily take up this new Christ impulse so that we can resist Lucifer and Ahriman. In the 20th century, Lucifer and Ahriman will take particular hold of the name of Christ. People will call themselves Christians who no longer have any trace of true Christianity within them; and they will rage against those who not only hold fast to what Christ once said according to the tradition of the Gospels, but for whom the words apply: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” who will judge according to the living, continuing Christ impulse. People will rage against them. Confusion and devastation will reign as the year 2000 approaches. And then not a single piece of wood will remain standing in our building in Dornach. Everything will be destroyed and devastated. We will look down on this from the spiritual world. But when the year 2086 comes, buildings dedicated to spiritual goals will be seen rising up all over Europe, and they will be replicas of our Dornach building with its two domes. This will be the golden age for such buildings, in which spiritual life will flourish.