{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 127/1911-12-21/p010","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"A wonderful thought unites with a wonderful emotion in our souls when we see how, in those centuries which followed the fourth which first transferred the Jesus-Birth Festival to the 25th of December, how there here flows into the souls of those men the feeling of confidence awakened through the child-nature, so that in painting, in the Christmas plays, everywhere, is shown how all the creatures of the Earth-kingdom bow before the Jesus-Child, before the Divine Child, before the divine origin of man. There comes before us the wonderful picture of the manger, how the beasts bow before this primal man; to these may be added those wonderful stories, as for instance that when Mary had taken the Child Jesus on the way to Egypt, a tree bowed itself, a very ancient tree, as the border was crossed by Mary with the child. Traditionally the legends of almost the whole of Europe relate that the trees in a remarkable way, in the Holy Night, bow to this great event. We could go to Alsace, to Bavaria, everywhere we find legends, how certain trees bear fruit in the Holy Night. All wonderful symbols which proclaim in fact how the birth of the Jesus-Child reveals itself as something which is connected with the whole life of the earth. When we recollect what we have so often said—that the ancient spiritual streams were given by the Gods to mankind, and how in ancient times men had clairvoyant insight into the divine spiritual world, how this clairvoyance gradually vanished from humanity in order that men might be able to come to the gaining of the ego—if we picture how here, in the whole human organisation something like a drying-up, a withering, of the old divine forces is taking place, and how through the Christ-Impulse which came through the Mystery of Golgotha there is a flooding of the withering divine forces with new water of life; then there appears to us in a wonderful picture what the Christmas legends relate to us, how the dried up and withered roses of Jericho shoot up of themselves in the Holy Night. That is a legend which we find everywhere noted down in the Middle Ages, that the roses of Jericho blossom in the Christ-night and unfold, because they first unfolded under the footsteps of Mary, who, when she carried the Child Jesus on the journey to Egypt, stepped over a place where a rose tree was growing. A wonderful symbol of what happened to human divine powers, that even things so dry and lifeless as that which one usually finds on the wayside, as the roses which apparently are dead, can spring up again and shoot forth through the Christ-Impulse which entered into the time evolution.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"8. Christmas: A Festival of Inspiration","site_heading":null,"date":"1911-12-21","location":null,"word_count":459,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/127/1911-12-21/p010","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Henry Collison","identified_edition":null,"book_title":"Festivals of the Seasons","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Festivals/19111221f01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"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/127/1911-12-21/p010"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/127/1911-12-21/p010","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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The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 127/1911-12-21/p015","passage_number":15,"text":"Oh, es ist ein wunderbarer Gedanke, der wie mit einer wunderbaren Empfindung in unserer Seele sich vermählt, wenn wir sehen, wie in jenen Jahrhunderten, die auf das vierte folgten, welches das Jesu-Geburtstagsfest zuerst auf den 25. Dezember verlegt hat, sich hineingießt in die Seele jener Menschen gerade das Bewußtsein von dem durch die kindliche Natur zu erweckenden Vertrauen, indem in der Malerei, in den Weihnachtsspielen, allüberall sich zeigt, wie vor dem Jesuskinde, vor dem göttlichen Kinde, vor dem göttlichen Ursprung des Menschen sich beugen die Wesen aller Erdenreiche. Es tritt uns entgegen das wunderbare Krippenbild, wie sich die Tiere neigen vor dem Ursprungsmenschen; es gliedern sich daran jene wunderbaren Erzählungen wie etwa diese, daß, als Maria das Jesuskind auf der Reise nach Ägypten getragen hat und die Grenze überschritten worden war, sich ein Baum gebeugt hat, ein uralter Baum vor Maria mit dem Jesusknaben. Daß sich in einer merkwürdigen Weise in der Weihnachtsnacht die Bäume dem großen Ereignis beugen, tritt uns sagenhaft entgegen in den Legenden fast ganz Europas. Wir könnten nach Elsaß, nach Bayern gehen, überall treten uns die Legenden entgegen, wie gewisse Bäume Früchte tragen in der Weihnacht, wie sie sich neigen in der Weihnacht: alles wunderbare Symbole, die ankündigen sollen, wie sich tatsächlich die Geburt des Jesuskindes offenbart als etwas, das mit dem ganzen Leben der Erde zusammenhängt.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":221,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/127/1911-12-21/p015"},{"locus":"GA 127/1911-12-21/p016","passage_number":16,"text":"Und wenn wir uns an das erinnern, was wir so oft gesagt haben: Wie die uralten spirituellen Strömungen von den Göttern der Menschheit gegeben waren, und wie die Menschen in den Urzeiten hellseherische Einblicke in die göttlich-geistige Welt hatten, wie dieses Hellsehen allmählich schwand, damit die Menschen zur Eroberung des Ich kommen konnten -, wenn man sich vorstellt, wie da in der ganzen menschlichen Organisation etwas vor sich geht wie ein Abdorren, wie ein Dürrwerden der alten Gotteskräfte, und wie ein Durchsetzen der dürren Gotteskräfte mit neuem Lebenswasser durch den Christus-Impuls, durch welchen sich dasjenige vollzieht, was durch das Mysterium von Golgatha geschah: dann erscheint uns dies in einem wunderbaren Bilde, wenn uns die Weihnachtslegenden erzählen, wie die verdorrten und vertrockneten Rosen von Jericho in der Weihenacht von selbst immer aufsprießen. Das war eine Legende, die wir überall im Mittelalter verzeichnet finden, daß die Rosen von Jericho in der Christnacht aufsprießen und sich entfalten, weil sie sich zuerst entfaltet hatten unter den Schritten der Maria, die, als sie auf der Reise nach Ägypten den Jesusknaben trug, über eine Stelle geschritten ist, wo ein Rosenstrauch gewachsen war. Ein wunderbares Symbol für das, was mit den menschlich-göttlichen Kräften geschah, daß selbst so dürre, so leblose Dinge wie Rosen, die man verdorrt am Wege finden kann, die scheinbar tot sind, wieder aufquellen, wieder aufsprießen durch den Christus-Impuls, der eintritt in die Zeitenentwickelung.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":229,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/127/1911-12-21/p016"}],"english":["GA 127/1911-12-21/p010"],"method":"length","confidence":"medium","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":450,"en_words":459,"ratio":1.02,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.04,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":3413,"original_word_count":3277,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Henry Collison","identified_edition":null,"book_title":"Festivals of the Seasons","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Festivals/19111221f01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 127/1911-12-21/p015","GA 127/1911-12-21/p016"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"medium","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. 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