{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 96/1906-12-17/p024","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"Seven degrees of initiation were known in the Persian Mithras mysteries. The first was the ‘raven’, someone able only to go as far as the portal of the temple of initiation. The ravens became mediators between the material life of the outside world and the spiritual life of the inner world; no longer belonging to the material world they were not yet part of the spiritual world. We find these ravens come up again and again, always playing the same role as messengers going to and fro between the two worlds and conveying knowledge between them. We also have them in our Norse and German myths and legends—Odin’s ravens and the ravens flying around the Kyffhäuser mountain. The second degree, that of the ‘occult person’, took the disciple from the portal into the inner initiation temple. There he matured until he reached the third degree, the ‘protagonist’ who would go out and make known to the world the occult truths he had experienced in the temple. The fourth degree, that of the ‘lion’, was gained when his consciousness was no longer limited to the individual but to a whole tribe. Hence the Christ was known as the ‘lion of Judah’. Someone whose consciousness extended even further, embracing a whole nation, would have reached the fifth degree. He would no longer have a name of his own but would bear the name of the nation. Thus people spoke of a ‘Persian’, or an ‘Israelite’. We can see why Nathanael[^5] was called a ‘true Israelite’; it was because he had reached the fifth degree of initiation. The sixth degree was the ‘sun hero’, and we need to understand what this means. We shall then come to see that pupils in the mysteries would feel a shudder of veneration if they knew something about a sun hero and were able to share in the festival to celebrate the birth of a sun hero at Christmas.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"XIII. Signs and Symbols of the Christmas Festival","site_heading":null,"date":"1906-12-17","location":null,"word_count":322,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/96/1906-12-17/p024","alignment_confidence":"high","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Anna Meuss","identified_edition":"CMP2001","book_title":"Original Impulses fo the Science of the Spirit","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA096/English/CMP2001/19061217p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/96/1906-12-17/p024"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/96/1906-12-17/p024","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"other_renderings":{"loci":[{"locus":"GA 96/1906-12-17_03","ga":"96","lecture":"1906-12-17_03","kind":"renderings","relation":"another translation or transcription of the same lecture"},{"locus":"GA 96/1906-12-17_02","ga":"96","lecture":"1906-12-17_02","kind":"renderings","relation":"another translation or transcription of the same lecture"}],"note":"The same lecture is also served at the loci listed, each with how it relates to this one. They are ONE witness, not independent attestations: quote the rendering you fetched, and do not cite another as corroborating it. Wording differs between translations, so a quotation found in one need not occur in the other."},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1906-12-17","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 96/1906-12-17/p021","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/96/1906-12-17/p021"}],"bead_confidence":"high","pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false,"length_check":{"de_words":305,"en_words":322,"ratio":1.06,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"paired_german":{"status":"paired","german":[{"locus":"GA 96/1906-12-17/p021","passage_number":21,"text":"In den persischen Mithrasmysterien unterschied man sieben Einweihungsgrade. Zuerst den Grad der «Raben», die nur bis zur Pforte des Einweihungstempels vordringen konnten. Sie werden die Vermittler zwischen der äußeren Welt des materiellen Lebens und der inneren Welt des geistigen Lebens; sie gehören nicht mehr der materiellen und noch nicht der geistigen Welt an. Diese Raben finden wir allenthalben wieder; sie spielen überall dieselbe Rolle als Boten, die hin und her gehen zwischen den zwei Welten und Kundschaften übermitteln. Auch in unseren deutschen Sagen und Mythen finden wir sie: die Raben des Wotan, die Raben, die um den Kyffhäuser fliegen. — Der zweite Grad, der Grad des «Okkulten», führte den Jünger von der Pforte hinweg in das Innere des Einweihungstempels. Dort reifte er entgegen dem dritten Grade, dem des «Streiters», der hinaustrat vor die Welt, um die okkulten Wahrheiten, die er im Inneren des Tempels erleben durfte, zu verkünden. Den vierten Grad, den Grad des «Löwen», errang sich der Mensch, dessen Bewußtsein sich nicht auf einen einzelnen Menschen, sondern auf einen ganzen Stamm erstreckte. So wurde der Christus «der Löwe aus dem Stamme Juda» genannt. — Im fünften Grade befindet sich der Mensch, dessen Bewußtsein sich noch mehr erweitert, der in seinem Bewußtsein ein ganzes Volk umfaßt. Dieser Mensch hatte keinen eigenen Namen mehr. Er wurde mit dem Namen des Volkes bezeichnet, dem er angehörte. Man redete so vom «Perser», vom «Israeliten». Wir verstehen so zum Beispiel, daß Nathanael ein «echter Israeliter» genannt wurde, weil er den fünften Grad der Einweihung erlangt hatte. —- Der sechste Grad war der Grad des «Sonnenhelden», und wir müssen uns klarmachen, was dieser Name bedeutet. Wir werden dann verstehen lernen, daß ein Schauer der Ehrfurcht durch die Seele eines Schülers der Mysterien gehen mußte, der etwas wußte von einem Sonnenhelden und der im Weihnachtsfeste das Gebuttsfest eines Sonnenhelden erleben konnte.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"word_count":305,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/96/1906-12-17/p021"}],"english":["GA 96/1906-12-17/p024"],"method":"length","confidence":"high","correspondence":"established","length_check":{"de_words":305,"en_words":322,"ratio":1.06,"partial":false},"pairing_state":"proposed","verified":false},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.13,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5263,"original_word_count":4657,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Anna Meuss","identified_edition":"CMP2001","book_title":"Original Impulses fo the Science of the Spirit","publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA096/English/CMP2001/19061217p01.html","evidence":"lecture_page_line"},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 96/1906-12-17/p021"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"high","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}