{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 110/1909-04-13/p004","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"We have also often said that each planetary condition has a special task. What is the task of our earth? It is to make human existence possible for man as man. All the activities of the earth are such that through them man may become an I-being, an Ego being. This was not the case in the former conditions it has passed through. Man has only become human, in the present sense of the word, on earth. The former planetary conditions, which the earth has passed through had a similar task. Other beings became human on those other planets, and now stand at a higher stage than man. Perhaps you will remember in my book *Christianity as Mystical Fact* that an Egyptian Sage gave to Solon the Greek a remarkable hint regarding the truth of the Mysteries; he told him, that it was a truth of very great importance, that the gods were once men. This was one of those truths which the pupil of the Mysteries had to accept in ancient times, that the gods who to-day are above in the spiritual height, were not always gods, but that they had risen to those heights, and also that they were once men and had once passed through the human stage. A dangerous truth, because as a natural consequence the pupil of the Mysteries drew the inference that he too would become a god some day. It was also possible for man to say to himself: ‘A man can only become a god when he is ripe for it and if he imagines for one moment that he is a god before he is ready for it, he will not be a god, but a fool.’ And. so two roads are open to man; to live in patience, as Dionysius says, till the time of his deification, or else to imagine himself already a god before the time. The one road leads in truth to deification, the other one leads to folly, to madness. Misunderstandings often arise about the sayings of the ancients, for at the present day one differentiates no longer between the various degrees of divine beings. The Egyptian Sage who spoke of the gods did not mean only one degree of the gods, but he meant the whole sequence of spiritual divine beings. Dionysius the Areopagite and the Western sages have always differentiated between those different degrees of divine spiritual beings. It is the same thing whether to speak of angels or of Dhyan-Chohans, for those who realise the unity of cosmic wisdom knew that these were merely different names for one and the same thing, but in this realm we must also know how to differentiate. The beings, who are the first to be invisible and who stand immediately above man, are called Angels in Christian esotericism, Angeloi, messengers of the divine spirit-world. Those who stand yet one degree higher, therefore two stages higher than man, are called Archangels, Archangeloi, also spirits of fire. Those who stand still higher than the Archangels, when they pass through their normal development, are called the Spirits of Personality, Archai, or Primeval Beginnings. Thus we have three degrees of beings who stand above man. These three degrees of spiritual beings have all passed through the human stage; once they were all men. The beings who are Angels to-day, if one considers it from the point of view of universal time, were human not so very long ago, for they were men upon the old Moon; and just as you, because of earthly conditions, inhabit the earth as men, so did the Angels inhabit the Moon during their human stage. The Archangels passed through their human stage on the Sun, and the Archai, or spirits of personality did the same on ancient Saturn. These beings have risen by degrees from their human stage, they are higher beings to-day, in higher grades of hierarchies than man. If we reckon the sequence of degrees in the kingdoms of the world in a spiritual sense we arrive at the following: On the Earth we have the visible mineral kingdom, the vegetable and animal kingdom, the human kingdom, and then we pass into the invisible, into the kingdom of Angels, the Archangels or Spirits of Fire, the Archai or Spirits of Personality. Whilst these beings in accordance with their own inner nature were progressing and developing, rising from man to divinity, or to messengers of the divine (the correct description of those beings), whilst they were thus rising in their evolution, the conditions of the planet, on which and for the sake of which they lived, gradually changed. If we look back at ancient Saturn on which the Archai or Spirits of Personality passed through their human stage, we find it very different from our earth.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Lecture III","site_heading":"Saturn's Fire Breath and the Birth of Self-Consciousness","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":"1909-04-13","location":null,"word_count":801,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/110/1909-04-13/p004","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"APC1928","book_title":"The Spiritual Hierarchies (1928)","publisher":"Anthroposophical Publishing Co.","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA110/English/APC1928/19090413a01.html","evidence":null,"reason":"no_translator_named","note":"Neither the lecture's own page nor rsarchive's lecture list names a translator for it. No translator is established for this lecture: nothing at the level of the lecture names one. Do not attribute this English to a translator, and do not borrow a credit from another lecture of the volume. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"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/110/1909-04-13/p004"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/110/1909-04-13/p004","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. 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Sie erinnern sich vielleicht aus meinem Buche «Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache», daß ein ägyptischer Weiser dem Griechen Solon einmal eine merkwürdige Andeutung gemacht hat über eine Mysterienwahrheit; daß er ihm gesagt hat, es sei eine wichtige Wahrheit, daß die Götter einstmals Menschen waren. Das gehörte geradezu zu jenen Wahrheiten, die der Mysterienschüler schon im Altertum empfangen mußte, daß die Götter, die heute oben stehen in den geistigen Höhen, nicht immer Götter waren, sondern daß sie hinaufgestiegen sind und daß sie auch einmal Menschen gewesen sind, auch einmal die Menschheitsstufen durchgemacht haben. Natürlich folgt daraus unmittelbar eine gefährliche Wahrheit, die die Mysterienschüler auch daraus ziehen mußten als Konsequenz: daß nämlich die Menschen einmal Götter werden. Und gerade um dieser Konsequenz willen betrachtete man diese Wahrheit als etwas Gefährliches; denn notwendig ist, daß man sich zu gleicher Zeit sagt: Der Mensch kann erst Gott werden, wenn er dazu reif ist; und wenn er sich jemals in einem Augenblick einbildet, den Gott in sich zu finden, bevor er reif dazu ist, so wird er eben nicht ein Gott, sondern ein Tor. - Und dem Menschen stehen daher diese zwei Wege offen: in Geduld seiner, wie es Dionysius nennt, Deifikation entgegenzuleben, seiner Gottwerdung, oder aber sich vorher einzubilden, er sei schon Gott. Der eine Weg führt wirklich zur Vergottung, der andere zur Torheit, zur Narrheit.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":332,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/110/1909-04-13/p005"},{"locus":"GA 110/1909-04-13/p006","passage_number":6,"text":"In den Ausdrücken des Altertums wird sehr häufig deshalb etwas Mißverständliches gesehen, weil in unserer Gegenwart nicht mehr unterschieden wird zwischen den verschiedenen Stufen göttlich-geistiger Wesenheiten. Der ägyptische Weise, der also von Göttern gesprochen hat, der hat damit nicht etwa nur eine Stufe von Göttern oder von Gott gemeint, sondern ganze Stufenfolgen göttlich-geistiger Wesenheiten. Dionysius der Areopagite und auch die östlichen Weisen, sie haben immer diese Stufen göttlich-geistiger Wesenheiten unterschieden. Ob wir nun sprechen von Engeln oder von Dhyan-Chohans, das ist gleich, denn diejenigen, die wirklich die Einheit der Weltenweisheit erkennen, wissen, daß das nur verschiedene Namen sind für eine Sache. Aber auch in diesem Reich muß man wiederum unterscheiden. Diejenigen Wesenheiten, die zunächst unsichtbar sind und welche unmittelbar über dem Menschen stehen, das heißt eine Stufe höher stehen als der Mensch, die nennt man in der christlichen Esoterik Engel, Angeloi, Boten, das heißt Boten der göttlich-geistigen Welt. Diejenigen Wesenheiten, die wiederum eine Stufe höher stehen, also zwei Stufen höher als der Mensch, nennt man Erzengel, Archangeloi, auch Feuergeister. Diejenigen Wesenheiten, die wiederum, wenn sie ihre normale Entwickelung durchmachen, eine Stufe höher stehen als die Erzengel, das sind die Wesenheiten, die man nennt Geister der Persönlichkeit oder Urbeginne, Urkräfte, Archai. So haben wir also zunächst drei Stufen über dem Menschen stehender Wesenheiten. Diese drei Arten von Wesenheiten haben alle ihre Menschheit durchgemacht, sie waren einmal Menschen. Wesen, die heute Engel sind, haben sogar, wenn man nach Weltenzeiten die Sache ansieht, ihr Menschentum gar nicht so weit hinter sich, sie waren auf dem Monde Menschen; und so wie Sie durch die Erdenverhältnisse auf der Erde als Menschen herumwandeln können, so konnten die Engel in ihrer Menschheitsstufe eben den Mond bewohnen. Die Erzengel machten ihre Menschheitsstufe auf der Sonne durch, und die Urbeginne, die Geister der Persönlichkeit, auf dem alten Saturn. So also sind diese Wesenheiten vom Menschentum stufenweise aufgeschritten, sind heute höhere Wesenheiten in höheren Stufen der Hierarchie als der Mensch, und wir können einfach sagen, wenn wir nun die Stufenlage der Weltreiche im geistigen Sinne aufzählen: Wir haben auf der Erde sichtbar das mineralische Reich, das Pflanzenreich, das Tierreich, das menschliche Reich, und nun geht es ins Unsichtbare hinauf, ins Reich der Engel, der Feuergeister oder Erzengel, der Urkräfte oder Geister der Persönlichkeit oder Archai. Während so diese Wesenheiten nun in bezug auf ihr inneres Werden und Wesen vorwärtsschritten, sozusagen von Menschen zu Göttern wurden oder zu Götterboten — was sogar eine richtige Bezeichnung ist für diese Wesenheiten —, während so diese Wesenheiten in ein geistiges Dasein aufstiegen, veränderten sich die Zustände des Planeten, auf dem und für den sie lebten. Wenn wir zurückblicken auf den alten Saturn, auf dem die Archai Menschen waren, so finden wir ihn noch ganz anders aussehend als unsere Erde.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":455,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/110/1909-04-13/p006"}],"english":["GA 110/1909-04-13/p004"],"method":"length","confidence":"medium","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":787,"en_words":801,"ratio":1.02,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"verified","verified":true,"evidence":["length","anchors","reader"],"reader_german":["GA 110/1909-04-13/p005","GA 110/1909-04-13/p006"]},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.03,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5039,"original_word_count":4907,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"APC1928","book_title":"The Spiritual Hierarchies (1928)","publisher":"Anthroposophical Publishing Co.","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA110/English/APC1928/19090413a01.html","evidence":null,"reason":"no_translator_named","note":"Neither the lecture's own page nor rsarchive's lecture list names a translator for it. 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