Lecture III

One thing continued on, however—in a more living way through Greek culture and a slightly more dead way through Roman culture, into the Christian era and right into the Middle Ages—and that was the tradition of the ancient wisdom. This has persisted more than people are inclined to think today. The world that presented itself to the senses could not be immediately grasped with the mind, but people sought to grasp the traditional element in this way. The result was that an element which before had been luciferic, inwardly enlivening, gained an ahrimanic character that was also outwardly apparent, as a mask. In reality this is a luciferic element which continues by tradition. Romanism continued through the centuries; a strong Germanic element came into it, but the tradition survived and it was essentially luciferic. Its original character was lost because it streamed down into the realm of thought and became formulated in thoughts. We may say that in the Latin language, a luciferic element lives on in an ahrimanic way.