“The Jealousy of the Gods” / “The Jealousy of Human Beings”

Artwork: “Die Feuerpredigt” by  Marion Donehower  (Visual Arts Section)

Lecture Eight
World History in the Light of Anthroposophy
With a Brief Literary Critical Commentary

A Presentation to the Faust Branch

Of Work Arising from the Section for the Literary Arts and Humanities

December 31, 2023

“A year ago, on New Year’s Eve [December 31, 1922], we beheld the destroying flames. The red glow rose to Heaven. Tongues of flame, dark blue and reddish yellow, curled their way up through the general sea of fire. They came from the metal instruments concealed in the Goetheanum; the gigantic sea of fire glowed with all manner of changing colours. And as one gazed into this sea of flame with its swift lines and tongues of colour, one had perforce to read these words, words that spoke pain for the soul: The Jealousy of Human Beings.”

 

— Rudolf Steiner, December 31, 1923,

from World History in the Light of Anthroposophy, lecture eight