Lecture II
GA 90a/1904-10-17/p006
·1904-10-17
·
English
LowLow alignmentMost translators re-paragraphed Steiner substantially. The locus identifies the same chapter or section, but paragraph-N to paragraph-N mapping is loose. For exact-quotation precision, compare with the German.
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: «Frühe Vortragsreihen und Einzelvorträge für Mitglieder in Berlin 1903–1904 nach ausführlichen und z.T. fragmentarischen Mitschriften.» (Early lecture series and single lectures for members in Berlin 1903-1904, from detailed and in part fragmentary listeners' transcripts.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 90a); the description calls them "Hörermitschriften", and the served text carries the note-taker's gap marker "[Lücke in der Mitschrift]". The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
The belief is all too widespread today that plain, simple words, comprehensible to everybody, must contain the truth, and there is a certain disinclination to raise the spirit to the heights of thought, to the heights of super-sensible vision. People are averse to this. We often hear it said, even by theologians, that whatever cannot be clothed in the simplest words which everyone can understand, can be of little service to truth. Anyone who holds this view will be incapable of understanding the meaning and spirit of a work like the Apocalypse or the mystical Gospel of St. John. There is nothing to be said against the justness of the saying that truth must be made known in simple words, for one who would proclaim truth must find ways to speak to the simplest hearts, they must find words in which to speak to those who stand at the heights of science, culture and education, as well as to those who go by the name of the “simple” folk. But the power, the inner force cannot find expression in homely, simple words. This power issues from the supreme heights of spiritual life.
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