The Essence of Christianity

GA 68a — 26 July 1904, Berlin

9. The Relationship of the Germanic Peoples to Christianity

The courses have covered a long road of historical development. I have tried to present the course of human development from an historical phenomenon that we follow to the point that is called the Middle Ages; series of nations with state institutions have passed by, and we will pick up where things are in completely different circumstances.

The transition from the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages is one of the most significant transitions in the world. Therefore, we want to review the highlights of this development again. We have discussed the magnificent Indian culture, which can be proven to have been historically advanced through writing and documents that amaze Europeans. Once we have realized that it is a people of contemplation, of deep inner life, other interesting points are revealed to us in other peoples. In Egypt, we see a civilization of a different character, and we stand in awe of its culture, which has achieved incredible things in mathematics and technology – engineering of great sophistication and based on different principles. We see the buildings of Lake Moeris, which held back Egypt's water to irrigate the land at certain points to make it fertile. Today, everything must be calculated in detail; in those days it was based on intuition, direct insight. We need only think of the beaver dam, which builds at an angle that the engineer had to recognize as the best. This instinct was developed to the point where it became what we call intuition. So human development does not mean that we have developed from the primitive, but if some of us have achieved something new, much of what was previously higher has been lost.

Let us move on to Babylonia and Assyria. Much of what these people also knew has been lost, despite our geometry. We can no longer hold on to the concept of a straight line of development. Then we came to the Persian people with their remarkable culture; if we remember how a young Persian was educated, we will assess the different picture that the world could have. Speaking the truth. Symptomatically, the innermost part of his being emerged from this people. That a person was inwardly stable was for the Persian when he was unified with his flowing words. What later became law: Yes, yes – no, no (Matthew 5:37), was education here.

A belt begins in Persia, and spreading across Europe, it encompasses the peoples from whom the Roman-Greek culture was replaced. — While art and powerful ideas were developing in Greece and what we call the Roman citizen existed on the Italian peninsula, various peoples lived in the north of Europe. For Rome, this means that the Nordic specter, the Cimbrian terror, in Italy something is emerging in the development of humanity that has never been seen before: to call the difference between [Romans and Greeks] — to simply call the bourgeoisie, which brings personal prowess to its highest peak. This is a new development that we did not have before. We never had any reason to look into the family in Greece – we were only interested in the polis – and so what we call law today, which is essentially based on the family context, is poorly developed. We have seen how this penetrated into the most isolated conditions of the people in ancient Rome; often a boy could not read or write, but he knew the twelve table laws. A Roman sense of dogmatism emerged from this, the direct living force that connected the Romans with their legal principles was lost and became abstract. This Roman legal form had spread throughout the world, but had lost its life. —Officials, the heads of individual districts, dioceses, were the shadow, the shell of the former life and Caesar the abstract, intellectual summary of what used to live in Roman hearts. We saw how Christian life poured into this shell, into this skin, how the vast Roman Empire ultimately had none of the things that had originally made up its greatness. All the cults, Greek, Phoenician, Egyptian, could be experienced there, and this whole chaos of peoples was held together by externally grafted Roman laws. Only one thing united, was equally widespread... /gap] a proletariat suffering terribly under the pressure, and the fact that at the bottom was what was united only by the bond of common pressure, of suffering, made that this Christianity spread with tremendous rapidity. Because it does not care about differences, but about the unity of suffering... /gap] and that is why this living life that came from the East poured into this skin.

And so the Roman emperors used this to save... /gap] but could not save because this people were at the gates.

Let us look at these peoples, who had the strength – the living life of the Christians at that time.

In ancient times, there lived... /gap] peoples whose culture can hardly be imagined today. Only a few remnants have survived by pouring their blood into later components, partly into those like [in] the Balkans. — These ancient peoples — their culture emerges from various finds, trumpet-like instruments that produce a strange harmony. The art of metalworking and an understanding of the sound of the instruments. Something of this was in the peoples on whom the external culture of the Roman Empire was built; there was something of this in the old Etruscan culture – and then in northern regions, in Danube regions. Celtic people – from this center, the entire cultural situation of Europe was dominated; they had a high spiritual maturity, an Illyrian and musical disposition, energy and an entrepreneurial spirit – actually a moving element in European culture. – A cultural ferment that clings to the limbs but does not become historical. He had to be there when he wasn't there, it didn't stay, spread across Spain, France. In the north of Italy there were always those in whom Celtic blood flowed. What made the Romans great was their sense of personality, their legal system based on agriculture – not present in others, and poets like Man... come from the north, like Horace from the south, where Greeks [were] –- everything that is great, if not from the law, is from outside...

The culture of the land the Romans conquered in Spain and Gaul was influenced by Celticism... /gap] A culture that disappeared again because he had to be there in person, this people of the Celts, who had a powerful influence, was attached to blood... /gap] It did not die out, but it does not work through tradition, but still today through its blood. For it can be proven that wherever important cultural influences occurred, they came from those who had Celtic blood in their veins, Shakespeare, demonstrably Robespierre... /gap>

This was a source of conflict for the country, which was always stirring and liberating and had an important mission at this point in time.

A people moved into this country that must have gone through difficult fates – we do not meet them... /gap] with such an intellectual culture, but with one that shows that this people had developed character traits that distinguish them significantly from others. Europe has undergone many glaciations. Once there were hot, tropical times there, then the great ice ages. Undoubtedly the ancestors of the Germanic peoples went through the last great glaciation, and under this influence something developed that is different in skull structure... /gap]

A primitive people more than the other European peoples. The Celt was active and energetic, where he personally applied, agitator in the finest style and therefore somewhat outgrown by nature, - the Romans loved what nourishes them, was intertwined with their agriculture. - The ancient Teuton loved nature, where he found it, was a wanderer who, as such, could enjoy nature. He loved nature, not a certain ancestral territory, had grown together with nature and therefore had a way of life that corresponded to it. Life in village communities in communism, which can be broken open again in the same way. The ancient Germans were engaged in cattle breeding and hunting. These people pushed into the areas formerly inhabited by the Celts, settled in areas as far as Russia, and broke up into a myriad of tribes. Freedom was innate in a sense, but depended on defending it with weapons. Somewhere in the north, there was an island where a festival was celebrated every year and a goddess appeared who was shown off in front of everyone. The connection with nature is evident. And we see how nature services are established everywhere. There is much talk of sacred oaks. But this was a misinterpretation of a word. However, the Celts gave their religion to the Germanic tribes, who were in league with nature. Druids were called oaks. The priest was revered. This shows what a driving element the Celtic people were. — When the Romans extended their rule in Spain, they had to deal with a mixed population that was attached to the Celts... / gap. The Germans had settled in the middle of Europe. At first the Romans met them in the areas of present-day Carinthia, Marius the Cimmerian. Then in France, then they broke into Italy, Cimbri terror. They were joined by Teutons and constant clashes since then. We see how they are beaten back by the Cheruscan Armin.

The Roman form of government had been imbued with Christianity, but the Roman Empire was unable to spread Christianity throughout the world as a people. Something else had to be introduced into that which had absorbed the shell of Roman culture: the strength of a people with an organizing effect.

The task of truly living in Europe, what the Romans had absorbed, was given to the northern peoples, and at first it was the Celts again. So we see the old cultures now replaced by their own rule. The Roman form of government remains only in the church's rule, in the pontificate. Into this body of state the moral-ethical life of Christianity is poured, the power of the northern peoples – Rome gave the form. Celtic agitation brought life forward. The messengers came from England and Ireland. Thus new peoples enter into the old. The inheritance of what has emerged from the most diverse currents is still contained, and if we understand how we have become, we understand how we have to look into the future. Only when we understand what we live in can we continue to build. Thus we will understand how we come to the views, to the material goods under which we live today, which make up our joys and sufferings. Goethe said, the power... /gap>

Law and rights are inherited in eternal illness.

When we consider what, as it were, is the shadow... [gap]

What you have inherited from your fathers, Acquire it to possess it.

Transform yourself, and history will be our teacher.

We must infuse our reflections on the present with what we have learned from the past. Thus we become masters of our history and learn from history how we should work to ennoble our race. Man is the only being that must forge his own destiny, and therefore he must understand it.

When we have acquired our ideals, we will...

[Gap]

Only those who learn to conquer it every day deserve freedom and life.