15. Goethe's Search for the Depths of Becoming and the Mysteries of the World in His “Faust” The Luciferic and the Ahrimanic Temptation

if the Bible expresses it at the point where it means heavenly seduction, that heavenly love has become earthly, then Goethe points to the process of humanity, where earthly love becomes heavenly again, and Mephistopheles stands below as a son of the gods too, but now unites with the daughters of men, who in turn have become spiritual, through the roses they have strewn. It is the reverse process of the one the Bible suggests to us: And the sons of the gods united with the daughters of men. And again, Mephistopheles, who had strayed with the daughters of men, united with the daughters of men, who had been taken up by the gods. So it is the reverse process. Both the process in Paradise of the Luciferic temptation and the later process, which was indicated by the words: “The sons of the gods united with the daughters of men in the flesh” —, are applied in the opposite direction. The son of the gods, Ahriman-Mephistopheles, unites with the daughters of men, who in turn have been taken up into the nature of the gods, but now in heavenly love, not in earthly love, in spirit, in soul, not in the flesh. The reverse process. Once again, a wonderful mystery through which the events of “Faust” are directly linked to the highest traditions of humanity.