Man and the Historical and Moral Life of Humanity according to the Results of Spiritual Science

Now I said to myself: There comes a point in time when humanity stands in the middle of its development, when the development of humanity stands at a particular point. Once, in this Greco-Roman age, humanity was on the verge of growing older and older and younger and younger. 33 years old; a new impulse had to come if humanity was not to lose its connection with the spiritual world. For this spiritual world opens up to man especially when he sees within himself in his spiritual and soul experience the physical and bodily decay, as it was in ancient times. This spiritual impulse came. It is to be deepened through the newer spiritual science. For that which the human being can no longer draw out of his bodily form, the spirit must give him through spiritual-scientific knowledge as spiritual, in order to keep him capable of development up to the highest age. But for this to happen, a special impulse had to come at a particularly important moment in history, when humanity, going down from above, had reached the 33rd year. And strangely, the greatest symbol in human development is the new impulse of Golgotha, the Christ impulse. The greatest impulse for the development of the earth comes from the 33-year-old Christ Jesus in the 33rd year of humanity. I did not set out, dear attendees, to look at the Christ impulse first and to place it artificially. I knew nothing of this being placed in this way. This law presented itself to me first, as I have explained it before, and then I had to see the Christ impulse in the light of this law.