21. Gnosis and the Apocalypse
GA 87/1902-03-29/p021
·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.
Later Christianity only externalized what was cultivated in the Gnostic schools. The person who sees and understands a Catholic mass will see nothing but an embodiment of what the Gnostics saw from their point of view as man's path to Christ, nothing but a popularization of the old mystery teachings. Whereas previously the individual had to be initiated, this initiation is now built up for the whole community, every day this symbolism is repeated for the community, and this repetition is intended to awaken those who are called to it.
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