Sardes
 
| ||
Sardes (Asia Minor) |
Sardis or Sardes (Greek: Σάρδεις Sardeis, also Σάρδις Sardis; Hebrew: ספרד Sfarad; today Turkish Sart) was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, later the seat of a judicial district in the Roman province of Asia, and in late antiquity and Byzantine times the capital of the province of Lydia. It lies in the Hermos Valley at the foot of the Tmolos Mountains, on whose towering summit the citadel was located, about 20 km south of Hermos. The remains of the city lie about ten kilometres west of present-day Salihli in the Turkish province of Manisa.
To the community of Sardis, which represents our present age of consciousness soul, the fifth of the seven epistles is addressed in the Apocalypse of John:
„1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. 4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’“
Rudolf Steiner gives the following explanation:
„What are they here, the seven spirits and the seven stars? In the tone of the apocalyptic, the human being as he appears to us here is an outer expression of the seven human principles we have enumerated. The principle of the physical body, of which the outer physical body is the expression; the principle of the life body, of which the etheric body is the expression; the principle of the astral body, which, transformed, gives Manas; Buddhi, or the transformed etheric body; Atma, or the transformed physical body; and in the midst of these, the principle of the I: these are the seven spiritual ingredients into which the divine essence of man is divided as into members of a fan. According to the technical expression of occultism, these seven principles are called the seven spirits of God in man. And the seven stars, these are the stars by which we understand what man is today and what he is to become in the future. If we enumerate them, the successive stars of the earthly embodiment: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan, then these are the seven stars which make the development of man comprehensible to us. Saturn has given man the disposition to his physical body, the Sun to his etheric body, the Moon to his astral body, and the Earth has given him the I. The next three, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan, form the spiritual members of man. If we understand the call of the spirit that has these seven stars and the seven spirits of God, the seven-membered nature in its hand, then we are practising anthroposophy in the sense of the apocalyptic. To practise anthroposophy means nothing else than to know that here we are pointed to the fifth epoch of human development in the post-Atlantean time, to know that in our time, when we have descended deepest into matter, we are to stride up again into spiritual life in the wake of the great Individuality who gives us the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars to guide us, so that we may find our way along the path.“ (Lit.:GA 104, p. 84f)
Literature
- Rudolf Steiner: Die Apokalypse des Johannes, GA 104 (1985), ISBN 3-7274-1040-X English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
 |
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. |
