The Burning of the Ephesian Temple and the Goetheanum

Among the many and diverse words that have come down to us from olden time, and that were in use in the life of olden times in the manner I have described,—among all the words in this physical world, this word is, I verily believe, one of the most awful: The Jealousy of the Gods. In those times the term God was applied to all beings of a super-sensible nature,—to every form of being that had no need to appear on Earth in a physical body. Many and varied kinds of Gods were differentiated. The Divine-Spiritual Beings who are most closely united with mankind, from Whom man in his innermost nature originated and by Whom he was launched into the stream of time, the same Beings Whom we recognise in the majesty of Nature and in her smallest manifestations, and Whom we discover too in that which lives in our own inmost selves,—these Divine-Spiritual Beings can never be jealous. Nevertheless in that ancient time the ‘Jealousy of the Gods’ was something very real to man. If we study the period of human development that led up to the time of Ephesus, we find that the more advanced members of the human race received into their being much of what the good Gods held out to them in the Mysteries. For it is true to say that an intimate relationship exists between good human hearts and the good Gods, and this intimate relationship was knit closer and closer in the Mysteries. And thus it came to pass that certain other divine Beings, Luciferic-Ahrimanic divine Beings were made aware, that man was being drawn nearer and nearer to the good Gods. And there arose a jealousy on the part of the Gods, a jealousy concerning man. Over and over again in human history we have to hear how a man who strives after the Spirit falls victim to a tragic destiny. In olden times such an event was spoken of as brought about by the Jealousy of the Gods.