The Founding of the Christian Community

GA 344 — 17 September 1922, Dornach

Tenth Lecture

My dear friends! I would just like to make a few introductory remarks today. It is the case that there are some things that take place in the context of worship and then carry over into teaching that really need to be clearly distinguished. There are also some things that we simply need to know and that we need to address in the right way based on our knowledge. For example, it is necessary for you to bear in mind that the way we have performed the human sacrifice so far has been the foundation and framework for the ordination of priests, for the consecration of the shepherd of souls. And it is a prerequisite that is actually self-evident at this moment of founding your community, but which will not always remain such a self-evident one in the course of your work. This matter of course arises out of your will to found such a community, and this will is inspired by the fact that there is an anthroposophical movement that presents certain facts — not views, but facts — from the spiritual world to people. It was the realization of the world of facts presented to the world by the anthroposophical movement that prompted you to join a movement like yours. Well, in that lies something of what can be called a “credo”. When we speak of a spiritual movement, the credo must, of course, be understood in the broadest sense, and the credo is actually already contained in your decision, according to what I have just said. It was precisely in your work together in Breitbrunn that you considered whether or not you agreed with this credo, which I would call an inner understanding. And it was out of this agreement that the

In so far as the Act of Consecration of Man provides the framework for the consecration of the soul shepherd, it cannot, of course, contain the Credo. For it is only by being imbued with the Credo that the soul shepherd approaches the desire for consecration and brings with him the will to consecrate, the will that is, which is substantially permeated by this Credo. Therefore, the ordination is based on an Act of Consecration of Man, which is performed from the standpoint that it arises from the will of those who either already stand within the ministry of the soul or will stand within it in the next moment. The community, the lay community, which should definitely be present at the consecration of the shepherds of souls and must also be present later, is actually only a spectator and recipient of the message that one or more new shepherds of souls have been appointed from the spiritual world. Thus, at this consecration of soul-shepherds, it is something other than it usually is. Therefore, this must be understood in an exact way: that the celebrant at the consecration of soul-shepherds is indeed a soul-shepherd and stands within the currents of the spiritual world, in which he is meant to stand. He is the priest from the beginning to the end of the Act of Consecration of Man and so wears the full regalia of the priesthood throughout the entire Act of Consecration. The Act of Consecration of Man was and had to be performed in this form for the ordination of priests.

You can see from this that the moment the Act of Consecration of Man is performed for the laity, whether for the living or for the dead, it is something different. Here the priest stands as the representative of the spiritual spirit of the entire community, including the lay community, and as such he must feel. He approaches the altar first as a priest, so that the community may look up to the world of spiritual existence, and he performs the Act of Consecration of Man by first introducing the mass and leading up to the gospel reading, that is, to the point: “So may Your word live worthily on my lips and, carried by Your Spirit, penetrate to those to whom it is to be proclaimed.” From that point on, the priest has to empathize with the will and mind of the congregation. What does that mean? It means that something must be expressed and revealed in the outward form. Therefore, at this moment he takes off the chasuble and keeps the crossed stole over the alb and then speaks the opening words of the Gospel reading: “Thy blessing, O Christ, flow living through the word” and so on. He is now indeed the pastor of souls, but he is so immersed in the spirit of the community that he speaks out of this community spirit: “Thy blessing, O Christ, stream livingly through the word” and so on. Thus he reads the Gospel, he reads it to the end, and so it remains up to the words: “The word of the Gospel blot out what lives uncleanly in our words.”

This is the point at which the word of God is followed by the word of man in the form of the creed – you will not misunderstand this expression. So at this point the creed follows as a response to the word of God. Therefore, when the priest moves on to the Credo, he removes his stole, or he has it removed by an altar server, and now he says the Credo only in the Alba, or at a solemn service, a cope is then put on; but that is not necessary, the Credo, which is spoken as the response of human beings to God, can perfectly well be said in the Alba. After the Credo has been spoken, and has thus been spoken by the priest out of the community, the priestly act in the celebration of the offertory only begins again with the putting on of the stole and chasuble. In this way you see how the Credo must become thoroughly incorporated into the Act of Consecration of Man as an act for human beings. It must therefore be left out when the Mass is performed for those who are already priests or for those who will become priests in the next moment.

Now the point of the Credo is that the human being must first become fully clear about how he relates to the Credo itself. Therefore, the Credo is also the part of the Act of Consecration of Man where there is, as it were, an interim period, a pause. In the Mass, God speaks to man... [gap in the stenographer's notes]. But in the Credo, it is the human confession; man speaks to God. And the point is that there is already the external possibility of formulating the Credo in the most diverse ways and saying from the community in which sense one actually professes the divine word, in what strength of soul one will take it up, and so on. However, in a certain sense, this must also be understood historically. Historically, things present themselves somewhat differently than for the spiritual view. The original credo, which has been tried to be restored in our credo and from which our credo only differs in that today, of course, what has occurred in the development of humanity since the old credo was written must be included, namely the development of self-awareness. This old credo is absolutely spiritually inviolable. When it arose on earth, there were still people who were able to understand the actual meaning of this credo inwardly and for whom it would have been foolish to discuss this credo. It would be a bit like discussing whether or not an elephant has two teeth coming out of its mouth. It would have been a great folly to do so at the time when the creed was being formulated. Already in the time of Athanasius, the lack of understanding of those regions of human existence begins, which would have to be understood if one wants to keep the Credo free of certain things. Of course, from the point of view of the external historian, it looks different. He says that the old Credo originated at a childlike stage of humanity, and that today it should be shaped in such a way that it contains understanding. Such an opinion underlies all discussions about the Credo. From the standpoint of spiritual science, the matter appears as follows: at the time of the Arthanasius-Arius controversy something had already entered into evolution, whereby, with regard to the understanding of the Credo, something like spiritual darkness occurred, and therein lay the cause of the discussions about the Credo. One can therefore say that the discussions about the Credo mean that people no longer understood it in a truly spiritual sense. There is no point in discussing this when things are viewed from within. And even if the Credo is spoken in Latin, the possibility of developing a higher understanding ceases with the translation; and we have something in front of us in the Credo that should be judged with understanding, not after discussion. Everything that is discussed in relation to the Credo has already been misunderstood. And in any case, it cannot be a matter of leaving something out, because even such an omission would show that there is a lack of understanding.

So it is that the Catholic Church has retained only the sequence of words in the Creed, while excluding the inner spirit of the matter altogether. This is something that must be reintroduced through your movement. You must understand the Creed in this sense.

Then we will now complete the ordination for all and immediately follow it with something that is developing as a foundation for the confession that will continue to flow through the movement you want to found. For this creed is, of course, to be represented by this movement of yours. The anthroposophical movement represents it, of course, albeit immanently. But the point will be to hold a short conference to clarify how the creed is to be represented. The Act of Consecration of Man provides the basis for there to be a creed at all; and in the act of worship one does not move in the sphere where people confess or do not confess something, but where something is depicted. For in the face of acts of worship, discussions would not only mean what a discussion about the elephant's teeth would mean in the physical-sensual realm, but such a discussion would be the same as saying: I am of the opinion that the elephant has a false brain that must be changed. - So we come, by coming to the Credo, not only into the history of its original foundation, but already into its continuation. We must bring this to our consciousness.

The answers to individual questions follow.

A participant: What about singing the Mass?

Rudolf Steiner: Today it is wrong to sing the mass, today it must be spoken because the inner consciousness must come in; the meaning must be grasped through it. It is also an Ahrimanization that the Catholic Church continues to sing the mass in the old way. However, this is not done for all parts, but for certain parts, for example in the Paternoster. These are things that should not be allowed to continue, because they make the Mass seem suggestive. The “Ite missa est” in the Catholic Mass must be sung. Now it often happens in the Catholic Church that a bishop who cannot sing celebrates Mass. Then another, the next one, has to stand in front of him and sing for him. If this is a canon, for example, who is an older gentleman and also cannot sing, then someone else has to stand in for him, so that it may happen that three or four stand in a row, of whom only the first can sing.

A participant asks a question about reading the gospels. [ The stenographer did not record the wording of the question.]

Rudolf Steiner: One could read the gospel only up to the words “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” These words should be spoken at the ordination to the priesthood.