The Gospel of Hellas - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

0 the gospel of hellas
The “disciple took her to his own or unto himself ” means, indeed, that his
soul was to be brought to the purifying and perfect state symbolized by the
Virgin Sophia in order to receive the full truth of the Logos, the World-Word.
Thus the writer of the Fourth Gospel fulfilled, in fact, the prophecy, contained
in the Book of Wisdom, also called Wisdom of Solomon, which influenced the
Logos and Sophia doctrine of Philo: “For God loveth none but him that
dwelleth with Sophia.”
The Logos, as taught by John in the Prologue to his gospel, is the creator
of the visible world who was before all existence and lives within all evolution
from the very beginning. He is the light of the world, the sun, and the life of
the world, its movement and rhythm. His light reveals itself in contrast and
strife, for it “shineth into darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Those, however, who can receive it, can become conscious of the Logos. They
are called by John “children of God” or “sons of the Logos.”
Thus the threefold vision of Heraclitus—the Logos as light and worldcreating
fire, as word and world-pulsating rhythm, as love in purest wisdom—
resounded anew in the Prologue of John with the soul-shattering message: The
Logos became flesh. The fiery words of Heraclitus found in the words of John
not only were revived but revealed their profoundest revelation. They signify,
in the character of the Prologue, a meditation, a baptism with the fire of the
Spirit. The spiritual fire of the Logos-mysteries which Herostratus tried to
extinguish can be set afire again through the Logos-teaching of the Prologue
of the Saint John Gospel.
In the Gospel of John we see the message of the Hellenic spirit at its
culmination. It was for that reason that Steiner in his lectures on the New Art
of Education, which he gave in England, 1923, called this gospel “the deepest
and most beautiful document of Greek culture.” 219 He described the idea of the
Logos in Hellas as a revelation of the whole nature of man. “The Greek felt the
Logos quivering and moving through the whole Cosmos ... Greek gymnastic
was a revelation of the Word, and in musical education there was a shadowy
image of all that was felt in the Word. The Word worked in Greek wrestling ...
in the Greek dances. The Spirit worked into the nature of man ... for it is the
Spirit to which the gospel of John refers when it speaks of the Logos.”