Pentecost

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Descent of the Holy Spirit, Fresco in the Battistero of Padova by Giusto de' Menabuoi (14th century)

Pentecost (Greek: πεντεκοστή (ἡμέρα) pentekostē (hēmera) "the fiftieth (day)") is celebrated on the fiftieth day after Easter (corresponding to the 10th day after Ascension Day), counting Easter Sunday as the first day according to ancient custom. Especially in the United Kingdom it is also called "White Sunday" or Whitsun. Its precursor is the Jewish Feast of Weeks, Shavuot, which is celebrated seven weeks after Passover (also called Pesach).

Connected with the events of Pentecost, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples and the so-called miracle of tongues, which enabled the disciples to speak in such a way that their words reached the hearts of all people:

„1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested[1] on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.“

„What this Pentecost means for the people of the West is presented to us in a powerful image that speaks deeply to the mind. Everyone present here is familiar with this image. The Founder of Christianity remains for a while after the Mystery of Golgotha, among those who are able to see him in the body he assumed after the Mystery of Golgotha. And then the further sequence of events is brought before us in a meaningful series of images. It dissolves, visible in a powerful vision for his closest confessors, the physicality that the founder of Christianity assumed after the Mystery of Golgotha, in the so-called Ascension. And then follows, after ten days, that which is now marked out for us by an image that carries a forceful language for all hearts that want to understand it. Gathered together are the confessors of the Christ, gathered together are those who first understood him. Deeply they feel the mighty impulse which has entered through him into the development of humanity, and expectantly their souls await the promise which has become theirs, the events which are to take place in these souls themselves. They are gathered together with deep fervour, these first confessors and understanders of the Christ Impulse, on the day of Pentecost, which is time-honoured in their regions. And their souls are raised to a higher vision, they are called, as it were, by what is presented to us as a "mighty roar", in order to direct their contemplation towards what is to become, what is in store for them, when they will live on this earth of ours in ever new re-embodiments with the impulse of fire which they have received into their hearts.

And before our souls is painted the image of "fiery tongues" that descend upon the head of every confessor, and a mighty vision tells the participants what the future of this impulse will be. For the first understanders of the Christ, thus assembled and seeing the spiritual world in the spirit, feel as if they were not speaking to those who are in their immediate proximity of space, in their immediate proximity of time: they feel their hearts far, far out to the most diverse peoples of the earth's circle, and they feel as if something lives in their hearts which is translatable into all languages, into the understanding of the hearts of all men. How surrounded the first confessors feel in this mighty vision that dawns upon them of the future of Christianity, how surrounded by the future understanders from all the peoples of the earth. And they feel it as if they would one day have the power to clothe the Christian proclamations in such words as would be intelligible not only to those who are just within their immediate space and time, but to all men on earth who will meet them in the future.“ (Lit.:GA 118, p. 168f)

„The disciples still had a remnant of the old clairvoyance, and could therefore have the Christ as their teacher even after the resurrection, when he lived among them in the spirit body. But this power gradually faded away. And the complete disappearance of this power is symbolically represented in the feast of the Ascension. The disciples fell into a deep mourning, because they had to think that the Christ was no longer there. They had experienced the event of Golgotha. But when the Christ had left their consciousness - they saw the Christ figure disappear in the clouds, that is, leave their consciousness - it must have seemed to them as if the Christ were no longer on earth. Then they fell into a deep mourning. And all real knowledge is born out of sorrow, out of pain, out of suffering. True, deep knowledge is not born out of pleasure. True, deep knowledge is born out of suffering. And out of the suffering that resulted for the disciples of Christ from the Ascension feast, out of this deep suffering of the soul, the mystery of Pentecost grew. For the outer instinctive clairvoyance of the disciples, the sight of Christ faded away. Inwardly, the power of the Christ dawned on them. The Christ had sent them the spirit that made it possible for their souls to sense his Christhood within them. This was the content of the first Pentecost in the development of humanity. The Feast of Pentecost followed the Feast of the Ascension. The Christ, who had disappeared for the outer clairvoyant sight, as he had remained as a legacy to the disciples from the old times of human evolution, appeared on the feast of Pentecost in the inner experience of the disciples. The fiery tongues are nothing other than the revival of the inner Christ in the souls of his disciples. The feast of Pentecost had to follow the feast of the Ascension with inner necessity.“ (Lit.:GA 226, p. 96f)

„First there was a human group soul. Then humanity was released from the group soul in the past. But in the future of evolution people must set themselves a sure goal towards which they are striving. When men unite in a higher wisdom, then a group soul descends again from higher worlds - when free communities arise from the bound natural communities. What is wanted by the leaders of the spiritual-scientific movement is that we should find in it a society in which the hearts flow towards wisdom as the plants flow towards the sunlight. Where communal truth unites the different I's, we give the higher group soul the opportunity to descend. By turning our hearts together towards a higher wisdom, we embed the group soul. In a sense, we form the bed, the environment, in which the group soul can embody itself. People will enrich life on earth by developing something that will enable spiritual beings to come down from higher worlds. That is the aim of the spiritual-scientific movement.

This was once placed before humanity in a magnificent, mighty form to show that without this spiritual ideal man would pass into another relationship: it is a landmark which can show men with overwhelming power how humanity can find the way to offer the common spirit a place of embodiment in spiritual union. This landmark is presented to us in the Pentecostal community, when a common feeling of fervent love and devotion glowed through a number of people who had gathered for common action. There is a number of people whose souls still tremble from the shattering event, so that the same thing lived in all of them. In the flowing together of this one, equal feeling, they provided that in which a higher, a common soul could embody itself. This is expressed in those words which say that the Holy Spirit, the group soul, descended and divided itself like fiery tongues. This is the great symbol for the humanity of the future.

If man had not found this connection, he would pass over into an elementary being. Now humanity should seek a place for the descending beings from higher worlds. In the Easter event, man was given the strength to receive such powerful ideas into himself and to strive towards a spirit. The feast of Pentecost is the fruit of the unfolding of this power.

Through the flowing together of souls to a common wisdom, a living relationship to the powers and beings of higher worlds and to something that has as little significance for humanity as the feast of Pentecost is to take place. Through spiritual science it will again become something to man. When people know what the descent of the Holy Spirit will mean for them in the future, then the feast of Pentecost will come alive again. It will then not only be a reminder of that event in Jerusalem, but it will be the beginning of that everlasting Pentecostal festival of spiritual striving together. It will become a symbol of the great Pentecostal community of the future, when humanity will come together in a common truth in order to give higher beings the possibility of embodiment. It will depend on the people themselves how valuable this will make the earth for the future and how effective such ideals can be for humanity. If humanity strives towards wisdom in this right way, then higher spirits will connect with human beings.“ (Lit.:GA 98, p. 99ff)

„After the bearer of the human universal spirit has worked on earth, after the Christ has allowed the last shells to dissolve into the universal, after the unified shell nature of the Christ has risen as a unity in the spiritual earthly existence, only then is the possibility given that from the hearts of the understanders of the Christ impulse emerges the possibility of speaking of this Christ impulse, of working in the sense of this Christ impulse. The Christ Impulse, in so far as it manifested itself in outer shells, perished in the unified spiritual world through the Ascension; it reappeared ten days later out of the hearts of the individualities, the first understanders. And through the fact that the same Spirit who worked in the power of the Christ Impulse reappeared in manifold forms, the first confessors of Christianity became the bearers and proclaimers of the Christ Message, thus placing at the beginning of Christian development the mighty landmark which can tell us: Just as the first confessors - each one - received the Christ-impulse, were allowed to receive it as the fiery tongues inspiring their own souls, so all of you human beings, if you endeavour to understand the Christ-impulse, can individualise the forces, receive the Christ-impulse into your hearts, receive forces which will make you work in the sense of this impulse more and more perfectly and perfectly.“ (Lit.:GA 118, p. 173f)

The Feast of Pentecost as a Symbol of the Liberation of the Human Spirit

„The greatest goal of development is symbolically expressed in the feast of Pentecost, namely, that man shall again advance from the intellectual life to a spiritual life. Just as Prometheus was freed from his suffering by Heracles, so man will be freed by the power of the spirit. By descending into matter, man has attained self-awareness. By ascending again, he will become a self-conscious Deva. By those who worshipped the Asuras and recognised the Devas as something Satanic, who do not want to penetrate deep within, this descent has been portrayed as something devilish.

This is also implied in Greek mythology. The representative of the unfree states of consciousness is Epimetheus - the pensive one - who does not want to come to redemption from full freedom, thus the opponent of Prometheus. Zeus gives him the Pandora's box, the contents of which - suffering and plagues - fall upon humanity when it is opened. Only as a final gift does the hope remain in it that in a future state he will also advance to this higher, clear consciousness. There remains for him the hope of liberation. Prometheus advises against accepting the dubious gift of the god Zeus. Epimetheus does not obey his brother, but accepts the gift. Epimetheus' gift is less important than that of his brother Prometheus.

Thus we see that people live in two currents. The first are those who cling to the feeling of freedom and - although it is dangerous to develop the spiritual - yet seek it in freedom. The others are those who find satisfaction in dull living and blind faith, and see something dangerous in the Luciferic striving of humanity. Those who have founded the outward forms of the Church have distorted the deepest Luciferic striving. The ancient teachings about it are contained in secret manuscripts, which hardly anyone has seen in hidden rooms. To a few who are able to see them in the astral light, and otherwise to a few initiates, they are accessible. It is, however, a dangerous path, but it is the only one that leads to the sublime goal of freedom. The spirit of man should be a liberated one and not a dull one. That is also what Christianity wants. Salvation and healing are connected with holiness. A spirit that is holy, that heals, that frees from suffering and plagues. Man is healthy and free when he is torn from the bondage of the physiological, when he is freed from the physiological. For the liberated spirit alone is the healthy one whose body is no longer gnawed by an eagle.

Thus the feast of Pentecost is to be understood as a symbol of the liberation of the human spirit, as the great symbol of the human struggle for freedom, for a consciousness in freedom.“ (Lit.:GA 93, p. 30ff)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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