{"id":70053,"date":"2026-01-28T23:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T22:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=70053"},"modified":"2026-01-30T13:52:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:52:02","slug":"his-enthusiasm-was-only-a-flash-in-the-pan-pastor-max-christlieb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/his-enthusiasm-was-only-a-flash-in-the-pan-pastor-max-christlieb\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHis Enthusiasm Was Only a Flash in the Pan\u201d: Pastor Max Christlieb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marginalia on Rudolf Steiner\u2019s Life and Work No. 37.<\/strong>

After months of isolation in Weimar, in 1891, Rudolf Steiner found someone who understood him: Pastor Max Christlieb. But when they met again in 1906, their once-intimate soul connection had grown distant.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

During his first months in Weimar, Rudolf Steiner felt lonely because he had no one with whom he could discuss his deeper concerns. He missed the conversations he\u2019d enjoyed in Vienna with Rosa Mayreder, Pauline Specht, and Friedrich Eckstein. He also soon realized that the type of publication planned for the Weimar Goethe edition did not correspond at all with his own concerns and interests. In May 1891, however, a week of celebrations was held in Weimar to mark the 100th anniversary of Goethe\u2019s taking up the directorship of the theater. It attracted a large number of visitors and brought \u201csome life to the city,\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and Rudolf Steiner experienced his most beautiful days in Weimar to date.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> He met old acquaintances from Vienna and made new friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most significant encounter for him was with Max Christlieb (1862\u20131914), who was almost the same age: \u201cI was delighted when, at the Goethe Festival, I finally found someone\u2014after eight months\u2014who understood my entire tragic situation here in Weimar. A W\u00fcrttemberg pastor\u2014who further had attended T\u00fcbingen Stift<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and thus acquired the high intellectual abilities that Germans in better times still valued\u2014introduced himself to me at the Goethe dinner and more and more revealed himself to be someone who followed and understood my ideas.\u201d<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Max Christlieb and his wife K\u00e4the,
n\u00e9e Donndorf, ca. 1891 \u00a9 Rudolf Steiner Archive Dornach<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Christlieb\u2014married to K\u00e4the Donndorf, the daughter of the sculptor Adolf von Donndorf\u2014was a pastor in Wenkheim, Baden, at the time, but was aiming for a doctorate at the University of Leipzig in order to then go to Japan \u201cfor a kind of missionary service.\u201d<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christlieb had come across Rudolf Steiner\u2019s writings, had \u201cread everything thoroughly\u201d\u2014and was enthusiastic about them. As Rudolf Steiner later wrote in The Course of My Life<\/em>, the young theologian understood \u201chow to live in the spirit, how to live in pure ideas, and\u2014since the whole of nature must light up as knowledge in the world of pure ideas\u2014how in all matter, we have only appearance (illusion) before us, how through ideas all physical Being discloses itself as spirit. It was deeply satisfying for me to find in a personality such a near-perfect understanding of spiritual beingness. It was an understanding of Spirit-Being in the ideal.\u201d<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, the men became close friends at their first meeting and began a correspondence, of which, however, only Christlieb\u2019s letters remain.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> In Rudolf Steiner, he experienced \u201ca personality who expresses thoughts in such perfectly simple, transparent speech\u2014the depth of which I hope to be able to grasp completely; thoughts that correspond to everything in me that struggles for clarity, that are still the key to Goethe\u2019s views, which I hold in reverence as the highest; thoughts which I must confess I am eternally incapable of grasping so deeply and expressing so clearly on my own\u2014you cannot form any conception of how much the thought of such a personality must have lived in my soul. For as I imagine you, you have never needed to make use of outside thoughts for your own development; rather, your spirit works strictly synthetically and follows its own course toward or away from ideas, and you work through outside thoughts only as a marginal trim of your cloth in relation to your own [thoughts], which admittedly no one ought to go without. [. . .] Your spirit is like a wellspring that bursts forth from inexhaustible depths, while mine is like a clear lake in which the world is mirrored. Therefore, allow me to channel the stream of your thoughts into and through my lake, thereby deepening it and giving it your unique movement and direction.\u201d<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his letter of November 11, 1891, Christlieb confesses that there are \u201cnot too many things in the world\u201d that \u201ccould make me as happy as you have by calling me your \u2018friend.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World and Back<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Christlieb completed his dissertation in the summer of 1892<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and then set off for Japan. He planned to promote Rudolf Steiner\u2019s ideas about Goethe there: \u201cThe Steinerian philosophy (or should I say the Steinerian school?) has thus conquered at least one chair, even if it is still a little far away, though distances have ceased to exist. Seriously, give me a place to stand, and I will lift the materialism of the Japanese from its hinges when I have your thoughts as the lever\u2014I will then add my two cents and thus be of the greatest use. [. . .] I do represent your thoughts with a feeling of complete independence; it is as if they were my own, because I recognize them as the only ones that correspond to my nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wrote this from London on August 12, 1892\u2014his last known letter to Rudolf Steiner. But his mother informed Steiner that the couple had arrived safely in Tokyo in October 1892. Christlieb worked there as a missionary for the General Evangelical Protestant Missionary Society [Allgemeinen Evangelisch-Protestantischen Missionsvereins<\/em>], as a teacher of philosophy and theology at the Society\u2019s school, and as a pastor for the German community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seven years later, the family returned to Germany, and Christlieb took up a parish post in Freistett near Kehl. But, in 1905, he left the ministry and, after passing the librarian\u2019s exam, became a research assistant at the university library in Marburg. For a time, he was also editor of the journal Christliche Welt<\/em> [Christian world] and ultimately went to work as an assistant librarian at the K\u00f6nigliche Bibliothek [Royal library] in Berlin. According to indications from family members, his departure from the church was not voluntary. His sister-in-law, Fifi Donndorf (1880\u20131953)\u2014a member of the Christian Community\u2014wrote to Emil Bock: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs for my brother-in-law, I cannot refrain from giving you an indication of his enigmatic character, so to speak, lifting a veil that concealed the undercurrents of his life. Favored by destiny, with extraordinarily talented abilities, the finest sensitivity to spiritual values, and an exceptional memory\u2014all of this together promised great things. However, he was confronted with a demonic power that repeatedly dragged him down and ultimately destroyed him.\u00a0[.\u00a0.\u00a0.] The whole of human tragedy could overwhelm you when you saw his spiritual forces succumb to evil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christlieb thus led a kind of \u201cdouble life\u201d<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> with many affairs, which was difficult for his wife to bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1905, Ludwig Kleeberg (1885\u20131972), a philology student interested in theosophy, met Christlieb in Marburg and was questioned by him about theosophy, which the now former theologian had criticized. Christlieb told the student \u201chow he had known Rudolf Steiner personally and had often visited him in Weimar,\u201d but Steiner had \u201cgreatly disappointed him with his statement on Haeckel.<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Still, this didn\u2019t prevent him from admiring Rudolf Steiner and calling him ingenious on more than one occasion. He asked me to convey his regards to Rudolf Steiner. [. . .] We met often and talked about Rudolf Steiner. But the sacrificium intellectus<\/em> that Steiner had made when he swung over to mysticism always seemed incomprehensible to him.\u201d<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reunion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When Rudolf Steiner came to Marburg on January 20, 1906, to give a lecture on \u201cThe Concept of the Spirit in German Philosophy,\u201d there was a reunion of old friends after 14 years. Christlieb and Kleeberg picked Steiner up together at the train station. A conversation about theosophy ensued in Christlieb\u2019s study. The theologian criticized above all that \u201cthe English theosophists placed Jesus 105 years earlier [. . .]. In reality, according to Rudolf Steiner, Jesus Christ lived in the time we have assigned to him.\u201d<\/span>13<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The three of them then visited St. Elizabeth\u2019s Church and the castle: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChristlieb was tireless in his questions, and Rudolf Steiner answered just as tirelessly. Christlieb asked about the written sources. Rudolf Steiner showed him that much could be achieved through the expansion of knowledge\u2014that some things had been written down, though symbolically\u2014and that even more had been preserved in tradition. Thus, what Kant suddenly put forward in 1755 about the planetary system was based on a Rosicrucian tradition, as was Descartes\u2019 teaching on the pineal gland.\u201d<\/span>14<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rudolf Steiner later recounted this conversation in a lecture: \u201cWe talked about how the true concept of Christ has been increasingly lost in modern theology [. . .]. Then this well-traveled Protestant theologian, who\u2019d seen something of the world, said to me: \u2018Yes, our younger theologians no longer really have Christ; they could no longer call themselves Christians or followers of Christ. If the name were not already taken, they would actually have to call themselves Jesuits, because they only have Jesus!\u2019 That\u2019s not my opinion, but one that came from the mind of a well-traveled Protestant theologian.\u201d<\/span>15<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Max Christlieb then came to the lecture. Rudolf Steiner told Marie von Sivers about the meeting in a letter dated January 25, 1906: \u201cHe showed me a review of Esoteric Christianity<\/em> by A. Besant, which he\u2019d written for a Protestant church journal. His review concludes with the charming words, \u2018It seems to me that the old woman is talking in her fever.\u2019 That is the judgment of a liberal Protestant scholar who, moreover, translates Trine<\/span>16<\/sup><\/a><\/span> into German. He seems to have gained slightly better conceptions of theosophy through the Marburg lecture.\u201d<\/span>17<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI often spoke with Max Christlieb about Steiner,\u201d reports Ludwig Kleeberg, \u201cwho was unable to detach himself from him as a scientific and human problem.\u201d He lent Christlieb the book Theosophie <\/em>[Theosophy, CW 9], about which Christlieb expressed his \u201csatisfaction.\u201d \u201cBut he refused to accept that the colors of the aura were real colors; he believed that only those colors produced on the corporeal retina could be called colors [. . .]. Christlieb also felt that \u201cThe Path of Knowledge,\u201d [CW 9, part IV] was not clearly enough defined. [. . .] [But Christlieb\u2019s] criticism of Rudolf Steiner\u2019s lecture \u201cErziehungsfragen\u201d [Educational questions] in Lucifer<\/em> was downright devastating. He constantly described the theosophical explanations of the Bible as contrived and artificial [. . .].\u201d<\/span>18<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1906, Rudolf Steiner told Ludwig Kleeberg that \u201cChristlieb has no idea how close he is to theosophy\u201d<\/span>19<\/sup><\/a><\/span>; a year later, though, he said, \u201cDr. Christlieb will not come to theosophy.\u201d<\/span>20<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1914, Christlieb died of a stroke in the Berlin underground. Two years later, Rudolf Steiner mentioned him in a lecture: \u201cI knew a very dear person\u2014he died recently here in Berlin\u2014who, when I first published the writings I\u2019d devoted to an interpretation of Goethe, was enthusiastic about them at the time. Then he grew older, and now\u2014you can see from this that his enthusiasm was only a flash in the pan\u2014he has recently translated a whole lot of these kinds of gushy soul works [. . .] by Ralph Waldo Trine [and] others from American English into German.\u201d<\/span>21<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This had already struck Rudolf Steiner as strange at the meeting in Marburg, as is evident from his letter to Marie von Sivers. Through his translations, Christlieb had championed Trine\u2019s \u201cmystical babble,\u201d which, \u201ccompared to what exists in the Central European spiritual substance,\u201d was only \u201can egoistic soul-striving for inner well-being, not for a real spiritual upswing.\u201d<\/span>22<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Translation <\/strong>Joshua Kelberman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marginalia on Rudolf Steiner\u2019s Life and Work No. 37. After months of isolation in Weimar, in 1891, Rudolf Steiner found someone who understood him: Pastor Max Christlieb. But when they met again in 1906, their once-intimate soul connection had grown distant. During his first months in Weimar, Rudolf Steiner felt lonely because he had no one with whom he could discuss his deeper concerns. He missed the conversations he\u2019d enjoyed in Vienna with Rosa Mayreder, Pauline Specht, and Friedrich Eckstein. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9190,"featured_media":69838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11473],"tags":[11748,11750,8814],"class_list":["post-70053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-rudolf-steiner","tag-ausgabe-1-2-2026-en","tag-english-issue-5-2026","tag-musings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}