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the Holy Night because the greatest Light shines forth from
the deepest Darkness. Man is living on towards a state where
the Light is to be born in him, where words full of significance
will be replaced by others equally significant, where it will no
longer be said: The Darkness comprehendeth not the Light,
but when the truth will ring out from cosmic space: The
Darkness gives way before the Light that shines in the Star of
Humanity and now the Darkness comprehendeth the Light!
This should resound and the spiritual Light ray forth from the
Christmas Festival. We will celebrate this Christmas Festival
as the Festival of the supreme Ideal of mankind, for then it
will bring to birth in our souls the joyful confidence: I too shall
experience the birth of the higher Man within me! In me too
the birth of the Saviour, the birth of the Christos will take
place!
Positions of the symbols on the Christmas Tree
III
The Birth of the Sun-Spirit as the Spirit of the Earth
THE THIRTEEN HOLY NIGHTS
Hanover, 26th December, 1911
WHEN the candles are lit on the Christmas Tree, the human
soul feels as though the symbol of an eternal reality were
standing there, and that this must always have been the
symbol of the Christmas Festival, even in a far distant past.
For in the autumn, when outer Nature fades, when the sun's
creations fall as it were into slumber and man's organs of
outer perception must turn away from the phenomena of the
physical world, the soul has the opportunity nay not only
the opportunity but the urge to withdraw into its innermost
depths, in order to feel and to experience: Now, when the light
of the outer sun is faintest and its warmth feeblest, now is the
time when the soul withdraws into the darkness but can find
within itself the inner, spiritual Light. The lights on the
Christmas Tree stand there before us as a symbol of the inner,
spiritual Light that is kindled in the outer darkness. And
because what we feel to be the spirit-light of the soul shining
into the darkness of Nature seems to be an eternal reality, we
imagine that the lighted fir-tree shining out to us on
Christmas Night must have been shining ever since our
earthly incarnations began.
And yet it is not so. It is only one or at most two centuries ago
that the Christmas Tree became a symbol of the thoughts and
feelings which arise in man at the Christmas season. The
Christmas Tree is a recent symbol but each year anew it
reveals to man a great, eternal truth. That is why we imagine
that it must always have existed, even in the remote past. It is
as if from the Christmas Tree itself there resounded the
proclamation of the Divine in the cosmic expanse, in the
heavenly heights. The human being can feel this to be the
unfailing source of those forces of peace in his soul which
spring from good-will. And thus, according to the Christmas
Legend, did the proclamation also resound when the
shepherds visited the birthplace of the Child whose festival we
celebrate on Christmas Day. To the shepherds there rang forth
from the clouds: From the cosmic expanse, from the heavenly
heights, the Divine Powers are revealing themselves, bringing
peace to the human soul that is filled with good-will.
For centuries and centuries men could not bring themselves to
believe that the symbol presented to the world in the
Christmas Festival ever had a beginning. They felt in it the
hallmark of eternity. Christian ritual has for this reason
clothed the intimation of eternity in what takes place
symbolically on Christmas Night, in the words: To us Christ is
born anew! It is as though every year the soul is called upon
to feel anew a reality of which it is thought that it could
happen once and once only. The eternity of this symbolic
happening is brought home to us with infinite power if we
have the true conception of the symbol itself. Yet as late as 353
A.D., 353 years after Christ Jesus had appeared on earth, the
birth of Jesus was not celebrated, even in Rome. The Festival
of Jesus' birth was celebrated for the first time in Rome in the
year A.D. 354. Before then this Festival was not celebrated
between the 24th and 25th December; the day of supreme
commemoration for those who understood something of the
deep wisdom relating to the Mystery of Golgotha, was the 6th
of January. The Epiphany was celebrated as a kind of Birth-
Festival of the Christ during the first three centuries of our
era. It was the Festival which was meant to revive in human
souls the remembrance of the descent of the Christ Spirit into
the body of Jesus of Nazareth at the Baptism by John in the
Jordan. Until the year A.D. 353 the happening which men
conceived to have taken place at the Baptism was
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