Logos


   


   

   




In Rudolf Steiner's teachings, as in various sources from which he drew, Christ is the Logos, the living Word of God. In a sense, Christ is the personification of the Bible, also referred to as the Word of God (although Steiner found fault with the orthodox books of the Bible, supplementing them with Apocrypha and other extraneous teachings).


The Logos, then, is the second person of the Godhead, when that supreme spirit is deemed a trinity. However, Steiner also indicated that the other two members of the Godhead may also be deemed Logoi or forms of Logos.


Here are some of Steiner's teachings about the Logos (also sometimes called the Cosmic Word) and the Logoi.

  

  

  

  

                                                                                      

  

  

  

    

"When [St. John] in his wholly characteristic manner spoke of Jesus, he could not do otherwise than begin with what he calls the 'Word' or the 'Logos' and say: 'the Word was in the beginning and all things came into being through It.' If we consider the Word in its full significance, we should say that the author of this Gospel felt impelled to speak of the Logos as the origin of the world, the highest to which the human being can lift his spirit, and to say that through the Logos, the First Cause, all things have come into being. Then the writer continues: 'The Logos became flesh and dwelt among us.' This simply means: 'You have seen Him who dwelt among us, but you will only be able to understand Him if you recognize the same Principle dwelling within Him through which everything that is about you in the plant, animal and human kingdoms has come into being.' If we do not interpret with too much artificiality, then we must say that according to this document a Principle of the highest order at one time incarnated in human flesh" — Rudolf Steiner, THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN, lecture 1, GA 103.

    

    

                                              

     

    

"The Divine had to enter [humanity] inwardly as Being, even in the earthly life, into the organization of the [human soul] ... This took place through the Divine-Spiritual Logos, Christ, uniting His cosmic destiny with the Earth....” — Rudolf Steiner, ANTHROPOSOPHICAL LEADING THOUGHTS (Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., 1973), chapter 14, “A Christmas Study: The Mystery of the Logos”, GA 26.

    

    

                                              

     

    

"What underlies this great process of evolution? Where was the home of human beings when, at the beginning, they existed merely in germ? Whence has man proceeded? Who created him? It is here that we must try to envisage a life and power of manifestation infinitely more sublime than all human, nay, than all planetary life. This power is the Logos." — Rudolf Steiner, ESOTERIC COSMOLOGY, lecture 13, GA 94.

    

    

                                              

     

    

"[W]e have three definitions of Beings who bring about, who underlie [cosmic evolution]. They are called the three Logoi. The Third Logos produces by means of combining. When out of one substance something else having new life comes into being, this is brought forth by the Second Logos. Everywhere, however, where we have to do with a coming forth out of nothing, we have the First Logos. This is why the First Logos is also often called the One who is immanent in things, the Second Logos the One who in the quiescent substance in things creates life out of the living, the Third Logos the One who combines everything existing, who puts the world together out of things." — Rudolf Steiner, FOUNDATIONS OF ESOTERICISM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982), lecture 27, GA 93a.

    

    

                                              


    

"Most people don't know much more about the word Logos than that it consists of five letters. What they say about these high beings, the three Logoi is often just dilettantish talk. A comprehensive, preparatory understanding is necessary to look into the world of the three Logoi ... [Very high gods] who went through worlds before the earth was [Old] Saturn sounded down the creative word when the earth was at the beginning of its evolution. 'In the beginning was the word' should be taken quite literally. At the end of evolution man will be a being who creates through the word. He arose from a creative Logos and he'll later be a creative logos himself.


"The creative word is the third Logos of the Trinity. He's the world sound that resounds through the world. A higher, more sublime power is the creative light. Man will also be a shining light later. Warmth that's raised to a higher level becomes light. In the future man won't just be sound — he'll become a radiant, shining being that is light. The creative light is creative for our world as the second Logos. The world aroma goes through the cosmos as the highest revelation; it's a higher principle of creation than world sound and world light. World sound is the third Logos, world light is the second Logos and the universe's aroma is the first, most creative and highest Logos." — Rudolf Steiner, FROM THE CONTENT OF THE ESOTERIC CLASSES (transcript, Rudolf Steiner Archive), GA 266.

    

    

                                              

     

    

"This institution of the midnight Mass at Christmas is an echo of the Initiation which enabled the candidate, at the midnight hour, to see the sun at the other side of the earth and therewith to behold the universe as a spiritual universe. And at the same time the Cosmic Word resounded through the cosmos — the Cosmic Word which from the courses and constellations of the stars sounded forth the mysteries of World Being ... Christ Jesus is the Being Who speaks to the soul and to the spirit, Who unites and does not separate — so that Peace may arise among men on earth out of their understanding of the Cosmic Word." — Rudolf Steiner, THE FESTIVALS AND THEIR MEANING, Vol. 1 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1955), lecture 7, "The Revelation of the Cosmic Christ", GA 202.

    

    

                                              


    

"Everything that has to be...poured out from the spiritual world into the physical world, so that what is poured out acquires the inward character of soul, is poured in from the Harmony of the Spheres resounding through space. The Harmony of the Spheres gradually assumes such a form that through the inner significance it expresses it can be understood as the Cosmic Word — the Word which ensouls the beings that are vitalised by the forces of Warmth and Light which pour into those bodies that arise from the divine forces and beings...." — Rudolf Steiner, MYSTERIES OF THE EAST AND OF CHRISTIANITY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972), lecture 3, GA 144.

    

    

                                              

     

    

"For...primeval men the trees did not exist as prosaically as they do for us: In every tree, in every bush, in every cloud, in every fountain there was something which announced itself as a soul-spiritual, cosmic content of the world. Wherever they looked, they saw the physical permeated by the spiritual. The fountain did not only murmur in inarticulate sounds, but the murmuring fountain conveyed a soul-spiritual content. The forest did not only rustle in an inarticulate way; the rustling forest spoke to them the language of the everlasting Cosmic Word, of a soul-spiritual Being. Modern people can only have a very pale idea of the immensely living way in which man experienced the world in this remote, primeval time." — Rudolf Steiner, "East and West in the Light of the Christmas Idea", ANTHROPOSOPHIC NEWS SHEET 51-52, GA 209.

    

    

                                              

     

    

"[W]hat once lived outside in the stars took up its abode in the body which hung upon the cross. What was formerly sought outside in the cosmic spaces became visible in a human being. What formerly streamed down to the earth in the shining light, came down to man! The whole way of looking upon life was inspired by a world-wide cosmology which led to a conception of the central human being filled by that which came down to man! The whole way of looking upon life was inspired by a world-wide cosmology which led to a conception of the central human being filled by that which once shone down from the stars and was permeated by the living Cosmic Word." — Ibid.






— Compilation by Roger Rawlings








                                                                                      


  

  

  


Rudolf Steiner, AN ESOTERIC COSMOLOGY

(St. George Publications, 1978).








Heading, lecture 12:












Conclusion, lecture 12:



  

  

  

  

  

                                                                                      

 

 

 

    

    

    

[R.R.]