# The Essence of Christianity

## GA 68a — 14 December 1906, Leipzig

### 23. The Children of Lucifer

A few weeks ago, I spoke about the principle of Lucifer and his significance in the world. Today, we will discuss the principle in connection with the drama of the same name by Edouard Schuré. I do not want to talk about the work of art itself.

In this work of art, we have something that few works of art have; for it arose out of the theosophical view. Schur took his material from events and occurrences of the fourth century AD and thus artistically shaped the two great currents of human development.

Today I want to talk about the two currents, about what one might call the Luciferic principle and which deals with the deification of man, in contrast to the other principle, the humanization of God, or of the gods. In fact, such two currents meet in man.

In the mysteries, these greatest secrets of world events were spiritually depicted; the passage of God through all the kingdoms of nature, until finally up to man – and the ascent of man through the physical and astral nature up to deification. Edouard Schur€ shows how these two currents crossed.

For us, the most important thing is the so-called Fall of Man, the expulsion from paradise. Today we want to talk freely about this event in the development of man. You know that man has a series of embodiments behind and in front of him. Everything that is and lives on earth is subject to the same law of embodiment; so are the great beings we call planets. The earth was also in a different planetary state in the past; it too has planetary ancestors. The purpose of such transformations is for these beings to ascend to higher levels: humans, animals, plants, and minerals existed earlier, but in a lower form. It would be an incomplete view to assume that the ascending series ends with humans. Huxley says, “When you look at the truths this way, there is nothing to prevent perfection from passing through humans and ascending to God.”

Occultism says about the development of man on the earlier planets: Man was not yet man there; there were other beings. And when the earth merges into another planet, then the present man will stand spiritually as high as those beings, and other beings will stand below him. The predecessors of humanity had a very different form and different activity. Like them, even if not exactly the same in spirit, man will develop.

These beings now also appear in the biblical creation story as Elohim or spirits of light. These beings rose from humans to gods as the former planet progressed. In the next stage, humans become Elohim. The Bible contains theosophical truths. If we want to understand the task that fell to these Elohim, we must first realize that there are initially three types of activity. The first is to perceive, the second to live, and the third to create. Every being must pass through these three stages. The Elohim first attained the stage of life and then proceeded to creation. Man was initially in the stage of beholding, then he came to life, and in a later stage he will create. “In the beginning God created man and blew into him the living breath. Then man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7) One of the seven Elohim is Yahweh or Jehovah. His task was to create at the beginning of the earth. We say: Man originated in the third root race, but the present man is quite unlike the Lemurian primeval man.

The mainland of Lemuria was interspersed with mighty masses of fire and perished at that time due to volcanic upheavals. The air circle was not only a mass of water, but filled with substances that had not yet settled.

The land that emerged later, Atlantis, was submerged by floods. With it perished the fourth root race.

The civilization of the fifth root race is spread over Europe, Asia and Africa.

What happened at the beginning of the physical sex? What came over from the earlier planet?

First, the highest humans. And then, between the present-day animal and man, there was a human animal, such as no longer exists today. In the ancient Lemurian times, however, these animals did not walk around, for they were semi-ethereal beings with a touch of matter. Like a breath, they swept over the earth's surface. Opposite them was a sequence of physical beings, very different from minerals, plants and animals; but the latter developed from them. The physical part of the three realms was formed from the earlier planet, and the individuals who were able to evolve were able to lay the foundation and the basis for further development into human beings. This is expressed in the Mosaic creation story with the words: “And God formed man out of the dust of the ground.” (Genesis 2:7)

How did this transformation take place? It was the work of the creative Elohim. These spirits of light transformed the earlier creation; their work was directed towards man, they did not need to create the soul. For that came down from the earlier world as a breath. Thus, in the highest beings of the Lemurian period, there lived a physical being that stood higher than its predecessors on the earlier planet. These beings were tripartite. They had a physical body, an etheric body and an astral body. In the new human being, the “I” now also worked and helped to build the physical body. Thus, the new human being had four parts, and the fact that he became “I” was the work of the spirits of light.

This fourfold nature is considered the most important mystery. The threefold nature is being transformed into the fourfold. If you can visualize these structures, you will understand the dual nature of man: the outer shell and the divine. The seven Elohim work here, and Jehovah has the task of transforming the dual-sex nature into a single-sex one. Thus, male and female sex only came into being on Earth. With the creation of Jehovah, with the creation of the single-sex human beings, humanity on earth begins to receive its true task. The earlier planet was the planet of wisdom, the earth is the planet of love, and the attraction of the sexes is the lowest degree of love. What is love today was wisdom in the past. Every part of the human body, when we examine it, the brain, the sense organs, whatever it is, gives us the impression of wise arrangement. This is because man has gone through the world of wisdom. The planet at that time was pulsating with wisdom, the present one is pulsating with love. Every planet has its task. With this love, man was given not only the relationship between the sexes, but all, all the newly acquired earthly goods that man has.

To indicate what the result of this newly emerging love was in ancient times, let us follow man from the point where the dual sex begins. In those days there were small communities of people descended from one couple. Blood relatives married each other. And consanguinity is the only reason that love remains in the same blood, beyond man and woman. Only later did long-distance marriage occur instead of close marriage. This relationship of love as blood relationship can be traced back to the time of ancient Judaism. National love is implanted in sex love. The Jews form one big family, as it were. Jehovah implanted what was inherited; the Jehovah principle is inheritance, and inherited love is connected with that.

We know that in ancient times, blood relatives had a very different memory. Such a person remembered the experiences of previous generations. Personal memory arose from family memory. Adam, Cain, Seth denote a continuous memory. Everything connected with this memory is called the Jehovah Principle. All truth, wisdom, knowledge is connected with it. What man today regards as a phrase was then truth.

I would like to quote a conversation between Rosegger and Anzengruber here. In Rosegger's work, the peasant figures are all carefully studied, and you can feel it in them; in Anzengruber's work, they come to life before us. Rosegger noticed this and said to Anzengruber: “It would be better for you to look at farmers.” Anzengruber replied: “I have never looked at a farmer; but my ancestors were farmers, and that is in the blood!” Such is the last remnant of something that used to be common. It was not just poetic creation, but a way of looking at things. One did not just see the ancestors, one saw the process of the earth itself. What is present as ancient wisdom is not written down in any other way; it is in the blood. Only Rosicrucian theosophy approaches it differently. This is how man has become, how wisdom and love have been implanted in his blood; it “arises” from the love of the two sexes, to use Jakob Böhme's expression. There is an intermediate stage between human beings and those Elohim. In everyday language, I compared it to a student being held back in a school class. Thus, some of the Elohim remained on the planet that preceded the Earth. These are the luciferic spirits, with Lucifer as their leader or most outstanding one. So, above man are Elohim and the retarded. The latter must now make up for what they have missed. What kind of beings are they? A complete being has developed its seven basic parts. A human being has not yet fully developed them. Man, with his four-part entity, is on the way to developing the seven basic parts. The luciferic entities had not developed an Atma; most of them only came to the development of Budhi, the spirit of life. This makes them superior to man, but inferior to the Elohims. The beings that achieved Budhi were in the Venus state. Venus was the sixth basic part or Budhi. They did not fully develop on the planet of wisdom and did not achieve creative love. They could create in the outer wisdom: art, science, but not in what man creates within. The Jehovah principle creates within: love, community, states; everything that works on the outside, such as art and science, has been handed down from the previous planet and works like a second principle. That is why this appears as a kind of enemy. While the Jehovah principle seeks to uplift us to love, this one to wisdom. It makes the ego a wise being. On the previous planet, wisdom had not yet been implanted as an ego, because the ego had not yet been developed. There was no selfish wisdom.

Wisdom and love are two great currents that have been at work as forces within the process of becoming a human being. Then the striving for freedom intruded. The Luciferic principle does not have the struggle for existence as its goal; war is not the purpose; the purpose is freedom, independence, science, knowledge. A change in the interaction of these two principles occurred with the appearance of Christ Jesus. Then a completely new impulse was given to the development of the earth. An ancient saying goes: “Whoever does not leave wife and brother and sister cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26; Matthew 19:29) Love, linked to blood relationship, must extend to larger communities. Through Jesus Christ, all barriers must cease, and the beginning must be made to love everyone. The Christ principle must be extended to all of humanity, and love must be purified to the highest degree. What began in weakness in the lower sexual instinct could be transformed into love for humanity. And only with that did the Earth become the planet of love. What was grounded in the Jehovah principle was raised to the highest level by the son principle, and from that point on the possibility was gained of contrasting strong love with wisdom.

Since the Christ Principle has been active on Earth, Christ and Lucifer have been standing opposite each other as two poles. The Christ Principle has internalized love and made it the essence of the soul. In the first centuries of Christianity, Hellenism, Greek culture, brought the outer world to its highest level. Whether in sculpture, drama, or the political state, everything the Greeks created was a one-sided external representation of the Jehovah principle.

How did this Greek way of life develop? What happened? Plato was called an Attic Greek-speaking Moses. Plato gave a solid form to the formless ideas of the initiated Moses. If we are broad-minded enough to understand them, wisdom and love breathe towards us in Hellenic culture and present themselves in the god Dionysus. The divine that appears to us has split into individual works of art. Spirit has become form in the Dionysian Greek culture. If the Hellene has become entirely the body of culture, then love in Christ has become entirely the soul of culture. The spirit in the body and in the soul that is inward, occultism represents: female = the soul, male = the body, which is permeated by the spirit. The body filled with spirit is opposed to the soul.

Schuré contrasts Phosphoros, the representative of the Hellenic spirit, the wisdom that creates the outer form, with Kleonis, the Christian soul, which is entirely based on the theosophical spirit.

In all great poetry, the aim is to depict human development, and it is an achievement that we are once again seeing the creation of works of art that have arisen from a theosophical spirit.

In ancient times, there were children of God who proclaimed revelations inherited from above. There were also children of Lucifer who presented themselves as fire spirits and were the teachers of wisdom.

And Jehovah implanted love in them until they matured into the Christ-principle, into a wisdom that can generate love at the same time, and a love that can generate wisdom at the same time. Then the children of God and the children of Lucifer will meet, then the two currents will merge into one. This happens in Christ: He is God become man and man become God.

When the Christian virgin Kleonis united with the pagan spirit Phosphoros, love and wisdom united. The struggle between love and wisdom was present. But when the children of Lucifer and the children of God unite, the medieval idea that the children of Lucifer are opponents of God will fade away. But with that, the great mission of man on earth will be fulfilled.