{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 106/1908-09-10/p008","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Now the great beings, the leaders of evolution, departed as they shaped their sun, to reunite with the earth only at a much later time. One of the Spirits, one who went out with the sun, the highest of the guiding Sun Spirits, was the Christ. We feel a deep reverence when we realize that up to this time man was united with this Being who, as the noblest spirit, once departed from the earth with the sun. One felt that through the form of the fish one could characterize the time of the sun's departure from the earth, and also the forms given through the Christ himself. Earlier, man on earth was united with the sun, and as the latter departed he saw, preserved in the fish-shape, the form that he owed to the sun spirits. As he progressed further, the sun spirits were no longer with him. The Christ departed from the earth when man still had the fish-shape. The initiates of the first Christian period preserved this form. In the Roman catacombs the fish appeared as the symbol of Christ, to remind men of the great cosmic event in evolution when the Christ was still united with them in the earth. Man had progressed to the fish-form when the sun split off, and the first Christians felt a reference to the Man-Christ-form in the fish symbol as something of great profundity. Such a significant sign, which we view as a symbol of an epoch of cosmic evolution, is far removed from the external explanations that are often given. The true symbols refer to higher spiritual realities. They did not merely “mean” something to the early Christians. Such a symbol is a picture of this or that which one can really see in the spiritual world, and no symbol is rightly interpreted unless one can point to what can be seen in the spiritual world in connection with it. All speculation is at most preparatory, and the expression “it means” does not touch the point; for one first really understands the symbol when one shows how a spiritual fact is portrayed in it.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Eighth Lecture","site_heading":"Human Evolution Through Lunar Separation and Sexual Differentiation","site_heading_note":"A heading the site wrote for this unit from a summary of it; not in the edition, and not the words of Rudolf Steiner or of the translator. Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote it.","date":"1908-09-10","location":null,"word_count":355,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/106/1908-09-10/p008","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Norman MacBeth","identified_edition":"AP1971","book_title":"Egyptian Myths and Mysteries","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA106/English/AP1971/19080910p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/106/1908-09-10/p008"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/106/1908-09-10/p008","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1908-09-10","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 106/1908-09-10/p007","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/106/1908-09-10/p007"}],"bead_confidence":"high","length_check":{"de_words":363,"en_words":355,"ratio":0.98,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.03,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":4398,"original_word_count":4265,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Norman MacBeth","identified_edition":"AP1971","book_title":"Egyptian Myths and Mysteries","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA106/English/AP1971/19080910p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 106/1908-09-10/p007"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}