21. Gnosis and the Apocalypse
GA 87/1902-03-29/p034
·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.
I would like to briefly summarize once again the basic character of what the Apocalypse wants to say: the Christian church has absorbed the ancient mysteries. What the ancient mysteries tell us is the doctrine of the sevenfold path of man. What Christianity tells us is presented in a generally understandable way. In place of the former temples, the Church places the return of the microcosmic to the macrocosmic. We can only understand the Apocalypse if we understand it from the gnosis: that we see in Jesus Christ the Paschal Lamb who has overcome the world, that through his religion he has made himself the bearer of all humanity and then the mystery temples are replaced by the Church. And this is the main proposition to be expressed by the Apocalypse.
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