21. Gnosis and the Apocalypse
GA 87/1902-03-29/p012
·1902-03-29
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Auch wenn die Mitschrift noch nicht die später übliche Genauigkeit aufweist» (Even though the transcript does not yet have the accuracy usual later). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 87), which calls the cycle the earliest of which a listener's transcript exists. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
How does the Gnostic now imagine the formation of man? He has man built up from the seven basic parts. But they are formed through the marriage of Sophia in such a way that they take the downward path. We have to make our way back again. So we have to find our way back. This is how the Gnostics imagined it: Jaldabaoth had gotten into some kind of argument with Sophia, who is from the heavenly lights themselves. If Jaldabaoth had formed man alone, then man would undoubtedly have been lost. It was only because the dispute resulted in a continuous cooperation between Jaldabaoth and Sophia that man was able to find his way back to God.
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