The Gospel of Hellas - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

the lips of the gods
By all my people’s woe I cry to Thee,
Diana, Luna, Hecate!
Thou breast-expanding One, most deeply pensive One,
Thou peaceful seeming One, mighty intensive One,
Break from the glooms of Thy dark chasm clear,
And without magic let Thine ancient might appear! 93
Steiner drew attention to the fact that the neophyte of the Ephesian
mysteries had to grasp the meaning of the Logos. This world-creating Word
revealed itself concretely through its threefold intonation of the vowels: I-O-A.
These three vowels were the objects of long meditations. The triad of I (Iota)
in connection with A (Alpha) and O (Omega), the last letter of the alphabet,
brought the disciple into contact with the Logos, that principle of life and
spirit, which later on was expressed in the Apocalypse of John: “I Am Alpha
and Omega.” In the pre-Christian era it was revealed through the name of
the Ephesian Artemis as well as by the divine name of the Hebrews in I-eh-
O-v-A. 94
The Ephesian mystery was the place where a special understanding of the
Logos was possible. This was the atmosphere in which Heraclitus wrote his
philosophy of the Logos. He was a priest of the Artemision, therefore still
connected with the rites of initiation, but also one of the first thinkers. Having
reached old age he deposited the book of his wisdom on the altar of the temple
of Artemis and retreated to the woods where he died. Heraclitus knew that
everything originated in accordance with the Logos and that “the Logos dwells
within the soul of him who augments himself.” Yet in all the fragments of his
writings, the tragic mood of Heraclitus is reflected; he felt that the human
being had lost his understanding of the Logos: “Without an understanding of
the Logos, the eternal—the human being is born,” he exclaimed.
Aristotle quoted this sentence in his Rhetoric. The teaching of the Logos at
Ephesus became one of the most important influences in the life of Aristotle.
It was he who transformed the teaching of the Logos into the laws of logic. For
on the same night when the temple was razed through “the envy of the gods,”
Alexander the Great was born. And with his birth the logic of Aristotle was