|The Threefold Hecate|
Wonders of the World, Ordeals of the Soul, Revelations of the Spirit. Lecture 2 of 10.
Rudolf Steiner, Munich, August 19, 1911:
The more deeply one goes into Greek mythology, the greater is one's respect, one's admiration, for the profound cosmic wisdom which lies behind it. To give you some idea of this, let me just mention one thing. I said yesterday that Greek mythology draws attention to two different trends — to the intellectual civilization associated with the names of Menelaus, Agamemnon, and Odysseus, and so beautifully exemplified in the sacrifice of Iphigenia, and to the other culture associated with Persephone and her mother Demeter. Now a thoughtful person will naturally reflect that such movements do not take their course in complete independence. Despite their apparent separation there must have been a point of contact somewhere. How does Greek mythology express this profound truth? We know that modern scholarship has nothing but a few abstract ideas to offer in this connection. But Greek mythology traces the ancestry of Agamemnon back to a representative of human soul-forces whom we may call Tantalus. According to the Greek legend Tantalus wantonly offered his own son to the gods as food. We know too that the gods recognized the impious nature of this act, and only one — a goddess — partook of a shoulder-blade. That goddess was Demeter. In this remarkable touch of symbolism — Demeter's eating of the shoulder-blade of the son of Tantalus — we find an indication that there is a connection between the two streams. It confirms that Demeter forces enter into the entire modern civilization associated with the names of Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Odysseus. Thus every item of Greek mythology has its correspondence in what we are bringing to light again in the form of modern spiritual wisdom. It is worthwhile to call attention now and again to such deeply significant features. It brings home to us the fact that the way man looks at the wonders of Nature changes in course of time. Our natural science is proud of its interpretation of Nature. There seems little ground for this pride when we reflect that by representing the force hidden in the depths of Nature as the female ruler of the wonders of Nature, the Greek system of divinities showed a far deeper wisdom than the science of today has any inkling of, or will so much as guess at until spiritual science is allowed to penetrate into our civilization. It can give a considerable spur to our own knowledge, to the knowledge which we have acquired in the course of years, to consider it in relation to the depths of wisdom in Greek mythology.
Notes:2. Die Pforte der Einweihung and Die Priifung der Seele, the first two of four Mystery Plays by Rudolf Steiner. Translated as The Portal of Initiation and The Soul's Probation in the first volume of Four Mystery Plays. The references are to be found in Scene 2 of The Portal of Initiation and Scene 2 of The Soul's Probation. See 1983 edition of the Four Mystery Plays, translated by Adam Bittleston, published by Rudolf Steiner Press, London.3. The triple Hecate. A bronze statuette in the Capitoline Museum.4. Translated by Mary and George Adams (Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co.).5. See The true Nature of the Second Coming. Two lectures by Rudolf Steiner (1910) (Anthroposophical Publishing Co.).