Zeus

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Zeus relief, 2nd century Roman copy after a 5th century BC Greek original, Palazzo Altemps, Rome.

Zeus (Greek: Ζεύς; Latin: Jupiter; derived from the Indo-European root *diu "bright, "day. root *diu, "bright," "day"), a son of the Titan Cronus and his wife Rhea, is the supreme Olympian god of Greek mythology. According to Rudolf Steiner he is in a certain sense the macrocosmic counter-image of the human astral body.

„Zeus is a word, a name, which is fluctuating when it is used in older times. One uses it for spiritual individualities on the most different stages of the development. But those who knew something about initiation in the older Greece saw in Zeus the recognizable leader of the Sun spirits. Zeus is that which lives in the effects which are exerted by the Sun on the Earth.“ (Lit.:GA 113, p. 81)

„And when we come to the Greek time, that is, already to the eighth, seventh, fifth centuries and so on before the Mystery of Golgotha, there one no longer saw into the mysteries of the Sun, there one saw only that which showed itself around the Earth as an effect of the Sun. There one saw, so to speak, only the effect of the sun in the ether, which fills the space around the Earth. And that which spreads as ether around the earth, which also penetrates man, that the Greek initiates - not the people, but the Greek initiates - called Zeus.“ (Lit.:GA 211, p. 181)

„The ancient Greek felt that there were forces working within him, for example, that caused the thought to flash, and that these were the same forces that were organizing the rainbow out there. - He felt that. Now he asked himself: If there are the soul forces inside, which let the thought flash, what is there outside, what is spread in the space spiritual: above and below, right and left, in front and behind? What is there spread out in the whole space? As the soul forces are inside, as they flash the thought inside, as they flash the rainbow outside, the morning and the evening redness, the shine and glow of the clouds, - what is it out there in the space? - Oh, there it was for the old Greek a spiritual being, which brought out of the whole universal ether all these appearances, the morning and evening redness, the rainbow, the shine and glow of the clouds, the lightning and thunder. And from this feeling, which, as I said, did not become intellectual knowledge, but was elementary feeling, there arose the view: This is Zeus. - And one gets no idea and still less a feeling of what the Greek soul felt as Zeus, if one does not approach this feeling and this feeling on the way of our spiritual-scientific way of looking at things. Zeus was an immediately solidly formed being, but one could not imagine it, if one did not have a feeling that the forces, which flash the thought in us, also work in the outer flash as in the rainbow and so on. But we say today on anthroposophical ground, when we look into the human being and want to teach us about the forces which cause in us something like the thought, like the imagination, like all that which shines and flashes within our consciousness: All that comprises what we call the human astral body. - And there we have the microcosmic-substantial, the astral body, and now we can raise the question, which we have just raised in a figurative form, in a more spiritual-scientific form and can say: Microcosmic is the astral body in us. What corresponds to the astral body in the spaces outside, what fills all spaces, right and left, front and back, above and below? - Just as the astral body is spread out in our microcosm, so are the space reaches, so is the universal ether permeated by the macrocosmic counter image of our astral body. And we can also say: What the ancient Greek imagined under Zeus is the macrocosmic counter-image of our astral body. Within us is the astral body, it brings about the illumination of the phenomena of consciousness. Outside of us the astrality is spread out, which gives birth to the rainbow, the morning and evening lightning, thunder and lightning, clouds, snow and so on. Today's man does not even have a word designation for that which the ancient Greek thought of under Zeus and which is the macrocosmic counter-image of our astral body.“ (Lit.:GA 129, p. 59ff)

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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