One hundred and one years ago, Rudolf Steiner gave the members of the Anthroposophical Society the Foundation Stone. The fourth verse is the moment of transformation, but also the center of the text—there, we hear how the Christmas light shines forth for the first time.
After the threefold call in the first three verses, “Human soul! . . . Practice . . . ,” the first words of the fourth verse have a quite different sound: “In the Turning Point of Time, the World Spirit Light stepped into the earthly stream of being . . . .” While, in the three spheres of the depths, the surroundings, and the heights, in the world of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we moved through space, time, and eternity, now, upon the Earth, the moment of the incarnation of the “World Spirit Light” emerges. In this moment, time has “turned.” The World Spirit Light has become part of the history of the Earth and the interrelations of life with which earthly beings live. Since then, there’s been a clearly identifiable before and after, for humanity would have hardened and withered in body without the sacrifice of the Christ.
When, at the beginning of the Gospel of John, it says, “In the beginning was the Word,” a primordial beginning is being described, which can be perceived as perpetually flowing and continuing to work on further. At that “moment,” the Word still rested in the timelessness of God and was itself still “a god.” Now, at the Turning Point of Time, it enters the earthly stream of time as World Spirit Light and embodies itself in a human body. The depiction in John’s prologue that the light shone in the darkness, here becomes a reality through the incarnation of the cosmic Christ being, who can henceforth warm and enlighten human beings upon the Earth.
The fourth verse speaks directly to our hearts. In the first three verses of the Foundation Stone, the great World Breath presents a challenge and prompts us to learn to experience our own ‘I’ in harmonious connection with the Father Spirit, with Christ, and with the Holy Spirit and hierarchies, thereby attaining our true willing, feeling, and thinking. In the fourth verse, we’re addressed in an entirely different way that ultimately leads to a “we.” The fourth verse points to the Divine Light, taking us—as if in prayer—to the Christ Sun, and opens the actual Christmas motif of the “Turning Point of Time.”
Rudolf Steiner’s Christmas Contemplations
The birth of the “Light of the World” at Christmas was a motif that Rudolf Steiner lectured and wrote about repeatedly from 1903 onwards. The very last Christmas contemplation, “The Mystery of the Logos,” was read to friends by Marie Steiner in his place, as he was already ill at Christmas 1924. This was then followed by the next contemplation, also written during the Christmas season of 1924, entitled “Heavenly History—Mythological History—Earthly History. The Mystery of Golgotha.” Both were published [for members of the Society] in the Nachrichtenblatt [Newssheet].1 The latter contemplation follows seamlessly from the Christmas Lecture of December 21, 1903, entitled “Laws of the Universe and Human Destiny.”2 There, Rudolf Steiner described how the cosmic world was once still (moonlike) full of chaotic feelings, desires, and passions but then gradually developed into a harmony, into a cosmos that was lawfully shaped. An earthly world and a starry heaven served the human being as the work of the gods in order to develop freedom. The Sun, in its course across the heavens, was an image of spiritual lawfulness for human beings. In the ancient Mysteries, it was therefore an aim to develop into a “Sun Hero” through selflessness. At Christmas, in the darkest time of the winter solstice, the birth—for all human beings—of the spiritual Sun upon the Earth was celebrated as a picture of the greatest devotion and selflessness. At Christmas 1923, we see Rudolf Steiner rounding off an arc of twenty-one years. But, an intensification can also be seen taking place in the contemplations. We can understand them as an annual nodal point in the development of anthroposophy, and a special rhythm can be found in them.
The first seven contemplations held by Rudolf Steiner from 1903 onwards are primarily devoted to the imaginative symbols of Christmas.3 They conclude in 1910 with a lecture on Christmas as it was once celebrated in its original, rural setting and as it was handed down in the Christmas Mystery plays (Rudolf Steiner’s teacher, K. J. Schröer researched and published them). Christmas was experienced as a festival permeated with religious and pious moods, imprinted with symbols. In the early years of anthroposophy’s development, the members performed the Oberufer Nativity Play in the Berlin Branch and other places. This first performance was immediately followed at Christmas 1910 by lectures in Stuttgart on Occult History.4 Many themes brought in these lectures for the first time would return in the evening lectures at the Christmas Conference in 1923, entitled World History and the Mysteries in the Light of Anthroposophy.5
In the next seven years of Christmas lectures, we find themes involving research in the Gospels and contemplations on art leading up to 1917, when an essential inspirational theme was presented at Christmas. Proceeding from an image of the constellations in the sky, the Sun passing through the heavenly Virgin (cf. Apocalypse 12.1), he ends with the development of a new form of time, itself, through the Mysteries of Christmas and Golgotha. The 33 ⅓ years, from the birth on the Holy Night to the resurrection after Golgotha, have become a periodic rhythm of resurrection, transforming historical events ever since.6 In this Christmas contemplation of 1917, the symbols of gold, frankincense, and myrrh take on a meaning related to the course of time. Gold was once the gift of wisdom from the cosmos that then flowed down to the Earth. When frankincense is burned, the image that emerges with the rising of the smoke is a turning toward the present. Myrrh, as a healing balm, points to the future and a connection with the eternal via death.
Twenty-one years after Rudolf Steiner first publicly represented anthroposophy, the Foundation Stone of the Anthroposophical Society was spoken for the first time at the Christmas Conference in 1923/24. The members were asked to sink the “dodecahedral Stone of Love” (Dec. 25, 1923) into their hearts as a threefold Christmas gift (of World Love, World Life, and Spirit Light) and take it into their will, thereby carrying it into the world, warming and illuminating it for the development of human beings and the world. Both actions have a clearly intuitive character.
Light and Warmth of the Consciousness Soul
The two Christmas contemplations from 1924 mentioned above were written after Rudolf Steiner looked back through the development from the rational soul to the consciousness soul in his “Michael Letters” (CW 26) from the viewpoint of the history of consciousness. One characteristic of this development was that clairvoyant imaginations diminished. Only the intellect remained, now receiving its light by beholding external nature. In part, this protected human beings from the temptation of Lucifer but also exposed them to the power of Ahriman. Michael already worked in human souls, but “not yet in the re-enlivening forces of the consciousness soul.”7 The human being uses their intellect in the consciousness soul, but doesn’t usually notice Michael’s working. The cosmic intelligence has, indeed, entered the human being, but in a dead form that’s only capable of apprehending dead nature. Thus, the question arises: how can the consciousness soul strengthen itself in such a way that a consciousness of Michael’s working can arise?
Ever since the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ has also been working within the human being within the rational soul, which includes and is sometimes referred to by Rudolf Steiner as the soul of higher feelings [Gemütseele]. The consciousness soul has the task of entering into a conscious relationship with Christ. In the first Christmas contemplation [“The Mystery of the Logos”], Rudolf Steiner describes the consciousness soul as having not yet awakened, still being merely intellectual, as having a “cold” light. As long as the soul remains untransformed, human beings will die in the coldness of intellectual consciousness and will not come to the unfolding of the whole consciousness soul. In order to strengthen this, a firing of the spirit is required. This arises from the insight into the divine-spiritual origin of the soul, which means not only a consciousness of one’s own self but rather a consciousness of the soul itself, a consciousness of its spiritual origin. For here: “[The soul] finds the World Logos as the Being that can lead it back.”8 The soul will then permeate itself with understanding and, thereby, “with the mighty image” of the Mystery of Golgotha. “The beginning of this understanding is the loving apprehension of the Cosmic Holy Night,” through which warm love enters the cold consciousness soul. This holy, festive turning to the child Jesus brings warmth to the light of consciousness and leads us to embark on the path of receiving Christ within us. The fourth verse of the Foundation Stone speaks of this:
In the Turning Point of Time
the World Spirit Light stepped
into the earthly stream of being
Darkness of night
had since prevailed
Day bright light
shone in human souls
Light
that enwarms
the poor shepherds’ hearts
Light
that enlightens
the wise Kings’ heads.
Divine Light
Christ Sun
Enwarm
our hearts
Enlighten
our heads
So becomes good—
what we
from hearts ground,
what we
from heads lead
aimfully willing.
The Fourth Verse as the Central Verse
Now, we see how the Christmas contemplations of 1924 shed light upon the special position of the fourth verse within the Foundation Stone. In the published version, we are accustomed to reading or hearing it spoken at the end of the three verses. In the eurythmy performance presented by Rudolf Steiner at Easter 1924, it’s also shown at the end. But during the laying of the Foundation Stone at the Christmas Conference on December 25, 1923, it was spoken in the first reading after the three microcosmic parts of the first three verses. This is based upon the fact that with the fourth verse, we look back to the Turning Point of Time and, at the same time, we look forward to the future. It confirms that we can develop the human soul through our practice precisely because the Word Spirit Light has entered the earthly stream of beings. Since the Turn of Time, it is the strength of our practice through which Christ (unconsciously for us) works within our souls. Through it, we have the ability to develop true life (willing), true feeling, and true thinking.9 However, we gradually lose the strength Christ has given us when we don’t nourish it with love. The plea for light and warmth for head and heart at the end of the fourth verse is what gives us strength for the future.
The fourth verse sheds light on how the “surging World Becoming Deeds” mentioned in the first part of the second verse unite us with the “World ‘I.’” The more understanding we have for the world-bearing event of the Turning Point of Time, the more we understand that it was the central turning point in humanity’s evolution, the more we can connect with the mission of the Earth and, thereby, with the Christ Spirit.
The Verse of Time
If we take a closer look at the articulation of the fourth verse, its three-membered structure is striking. The first thirteen lines tell of the historical event of the incarnation of the Christ being. The time of “darkness of night” has come to an end. The work of the light is described three times. First, it enters the earthly stream of being as “Word Spirit Light”; then, the effect of this fact in the human soul is described, in which the “day bright light” now “shone.” The “poor shepherds’ hearts” are “enwarmed” and the “wise kings’ heads” are “enlightened.” The light causes illumination and warmth within human souls.
In the following six lines, the tense changes from the past to the present and directly addresses the listener or reader in the form of a plea. May the light as a twofold light, as “Divine Light” and as “Christ Sun,” enwarm and illuminate “our” hearts.
The third part, in a further six lines, formulates a hope for the future that may emerge from this enwarming and enlightening: That it becomes good, “what we from hearts ground, what we from heads lead aimfully willing.” The first three verses are mirrored in this three-step process of the three tenses. The retrospective view into the past of the “spirit remembering” of the central event of world history and the physical incarnation of the Christ being leads us into the creative realm of the Father world. The second section makes us aware of the gracious effectivity of the Son in the “spirit contemplating” of the present moment for an immediate enwarming and enlightening of our hearts and heads and, thereby, leads us into the third section. This speaks of our future deeds, which, steeled by their aims, spring from “heads” that practice the “spirit beholding” of the “eternal divine aims” of the “ground of eternity.” Thus, in the threefold form of time of this fourth verse, the human soul’s practice for its work on Earth is made possible by the light and warmth of the Christ being.
The World ‘I’ Connects with the Microcosmic Human Being
As we delve deeper, it becomes evident that the fourth verse is not merely a supplement to the depiction of the three-membered human being in the first three verses, but rather, it provides us with the inwardly connected whole, the three-membered microcosmic and three-membered macrocosmic parts. The macrocosmic world should merge into the practicing soul. The passage of the soul from remembering, contemplating, and beholding the good macrocosmic hierarchies in the first three verses is itself like an incarnation event within us of the Christ, the macrocosmic World ‘I.’ When we as human beings, here on Earth, prepare our future higher members of being, we will form new sheaths for the Christ being, since the old human sheaths that he took on at the Jordan through baptism died off with the “old Adam,” during the three years of his incarnation. All the wonder and amazement we have all developed since then in our experience of the world and of life becomes a gift for the astral body of the Christ. What lives as compassion and love in our souls becomes his etheric body, just as the forces of our conscience will form his physical body.10 We don’t have wonder for what is familiar, but we do have wonder for what we will behold in the spirit. When we contemplate the spiritual in other human beings and in ourselves, we become compassionate, understanding, and ready to practice forgiveness out of love. When we remember our spiritual origin and earthly task and bring this into our deeds, we have a conscience that goes beyond the subjective and becomes truly perceptive. So long as we practice, we strengthen our ‘I.’ But, if our practice becomes true spirit beholding, spirit contemplating, and spirit remembering, then we are walking a path that we inwardly share with Christ; a path that carries within it the hope that thus “becomes good—what we from hearts ground, what we from heads lead aimfully willing.” We, that is not just human beings, but human beings together with the Christ Sun.
Notes This text builds upon an article that examines the first three verses of the Foundation Stone in more detail: “Practicing in the Age of Asceticism,” Goetheanum Weekly Issue #44/2023 (Dec. 21, 2023).
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Footnotes
- Rudolf Steiner, “A Christmas Study: The Mystery of the Logos” and “Heavenly History—Mythological History—Earthly History. The Mystery of Golgotha,” in Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, CW 26 (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2007, repr.). First published in Was in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft vorgeht: Nachrichten für deren Mitglieder [What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society: News for its Members] 1, no. 51 (Dec. 29, 1924) and 2, no. 1 (Jan. 4, 1925).
- Rudolf Steiner, Concerning the Astral World and Devachan, CW 88 (Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks, 2018), includes a lecture in Berlin on Dec. 21, 1903.
- See, for example, Rudolf Steiner, Original Impulses for the Science of the Spirit, CW 96 (Lower Beechmont, Australia: Completion Press, 2001), which includes a lecture in Berlin on Dec. 17, 1906; Nature and Spirit Beings: Their Activity in Our Visible World, CW 98 (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2022), includes lecture in Cologne on Dec. 25, 1907.
- Rudolf Steiner, Occult History, CW 126 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982, repr.), lectures in Stuttgart from Dec. 27, 1910–Jan. 1, 1911.
- Rudolf Steiner, World History and the Mysteries in the Light of Anthroposophy, CW 233 (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2021), lectures in Dornach from Dec. 23, 1923–Jan. 1, 1924.
- Rudolf Steiner, Et Incarnatus Est: The Time-Cycle in Historic Events, from GA 180 (Chestnut Ridge, NY: Mercury Press, 2016, repr.), lecture in Basel on Dec. 23, 1917; see also Christoph Lindenberg, Vom geistigen Ursprung der Gegenwart [The spiritual origin of the present] (Stuttgart: Freies Geistesleben, 1984).
- See footnote 1, “Third Study: Michael’s Suffering over Human Evolution before the Time of his Earthly Activity.” First published Dec. 14, 1924.
- See footnote 1, “A Christmas Study: The Mystery of the Logos,” 138.
- See Christiane Haid and Jaap Sijmons, “Practicing in the Age of Asceticism,” Goetheanum Weekly Issue #44/2023, (Dec. 21, 2023).
- Rudolf Steiner, “The Mission of the Earth: Wonder, Compassion and Conscience. The Christ Impulse,” in Earthly and Cosmic Man, CW 133 (Blauvelt, NY: Garber Communications, 1986), includes lecture in Berlin on May 14, 1912.
