The Gospel of Hellas - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

the origin of drama
pestilence swept Athens, the Greeks, abandoning their tribal blood-ties, no
longer remained mere members of the city-state with its godhead but became
cosmopolitan individuals. At this time, however, when the foundations laid by
the past were shaken and the memory of the gods had totally vanished, man in
his loneliness became more than ever aware of three great problems: thanatos
(death), moira (destiny) and daimon (conscience and the immortality of the
soul). After the three Erinyes had disappeared, these three questions more and
more tormented the soul of man.
Moira (destiny) was felt as the problem of birth, thanatos as that of death,
daimon as that of resurrection. Fear and awe of death, compassion and love of
destiny, and the awakening of conscience in the man within man—these three
were the noblest fruits of the soul’s catharsis which the drama helped to ripen
for Hellas and which Hellas offered to the world.
Among no other people was the drama developed as early as it was in
Greece. At a later period the Hindus produced only dramatized epics; the
Chinese exhibited only various types on the stage; the Arabs, the Persians
and the Hebrews never produced a play. The creation of the drama is Hellas’
own deed. It developed those faculties of the soul which the gods lacked; it
concluded the reign of the gods and prepared for the coming of the One Who
was to be the Redeemer of all men.
The drama of Hellas was a precursor of Christ’s advent. 146 Therein lay its
true mission. Before mankind as a whole could understand the meaning of life,
death on Golgotha and resurrection, the Greek tragedy awakened in the hearts
of the Hellenes the persentiment of a Redeemer; when He came no other
nation on earth understood the message of the Resurrected One better and
more quickly than the Athenians to whom Paul preached on the Areopagus,
the very spot where Aeschylus brought the Furies, transforming them into the
Eumenides, and where, through Euripides, Orestes began to feel the birth of
conscience.
In this triad of awe, compassion and conscience, the curse of the Erinyes
became transformed into blessings. The full development of these three
faculties will ultimately bring to realization in the character of man what Christ
made possible for him. In the sublimation of his soul forces, man is gradually
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