Lives of Schionatulander and Saint Thomas Aquinas
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Lives of Schionatulander and Saint Thomas Aquinas

“For now we see in a glass dimly, but then face to face.” – Paul, Corinthians 1, 13:12

Thomas Aquinas Article by Martha Keltz

Part One: Schionatulander and the Grail

Opening Quotations, From Rudolf Steiner

“All the legends connected with King Arthur and the Round Table represent the repetition of the experiences of earlier ages in the Sentient Soul [third cultural age]; all the legends and narratives which are directly connected with the Holy Grail, apart from Parzival, represent what the Intellectual Soul had to go through; and all that finds expression in the figure of Parzival, this ideal of the later Initiation insofar as this later Initiation is dependent on the Consciousness Soul, represents the forces which must especially be made our own through the Consciousness Soul [the present fifth cultural age]. So the interaction of the three soul-principles in modern man is presented in a threefold legendary form. And just as we can discern deep secrets of the human soul in old legends, so can we now also sense in them deep secrets of the mysteries of the modern age.” – The Mysteries of the East and of Christianity.

“…You must not think that words which are used in occult works, be it in the form of prose or poetry, arise in the same way as do words in other works. Such spiritual or occult works – which really spring from truth, truth about the world and its mysteries – come into existence when the soul allows world-thoughts to speak through it, lets world-feelings inflame it. Then, what has been created are those thoughts and feelings from Beings of cosmic or universal will.” – On the Meaning of Life.

“The Knights of King Arthur’s Round Table represented the young nature forces, which then underwent a change in the Knighthood of the Grail to gain conscious spiritual power. Through that we have the connection of the old occult knowledge to the new Christian knowledge.” – First Esoteric School.

Schionatulander in Legend and History

As with Cratylus, the life of Schionatulander may also be seen as a life connecting the past with the future, a life known from legend and literature. A recent translator of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, Cyril Edwards, has offered an analysis of the name Schionatulander, noting that it is probably anagrammatic in origin. Schion is compared to the Old French juene, which means young, and atulander is a loose anagram of tavulander, which means table round. Thus the name can be said to mean “Young Knight of the Round Table.” The name of the childhood love of Schionatulander, Sigune, is an anagrammatic formation of the Old French cosine; she is the cousin of Parzival.

Taking into consideration the fact that the legends connected with King Arthur represent the recapitulation of the third cultural age, a link can be seen between the life of Schionatulander and that of Eabani. And similar to the transition from Cratylus to Aristotle, a great world teacher, Thomas Aquinas, steps into the public arena or onto the world stage following the largely unknown life of Schionatulander. Overall, as well as the development from the old occult and pagan knowledge to the new Christian knowledge, and from the physical to the spiritual warrior, a third evolutionary development can be recognized as occurring within the blood. The personalities of the Grail sagas are almost all related by blood and are landholders, whereas Thomas is born into an aristocratic family – from which he has received an unwieldy body – and comes into great conflict with them in childhood and youth. Shocking for his day, he rejects his noble lineage and family role to become a mendicant friar. It would seem that the individuality incarnated in Thomas is already released to a great extent from the forces of heredity. – see Note 5, From Cratylus to Aristotle. Might such a spiritual advancement have been made possible through the life and sacrifice of Schionatulander?

As Gilgamesh grieved over the lifeless body of his counselor Eabani, Sigune grieves over the body of Schionatulander, which lies in her arms. In this picture yet another transition and transformation is evident, in the expression of love, for Schionatulander has sacrificed his life for Parzival. All that Aristotle so laboriously worked through in abstract thought about the different kinds of friendship and love, from selfish forms of love to the highest possible selfless love, is actualized in the life of Schionatulander.

In the depiction of Sigune with the dead warrior, the image of Mary the Mother grieving over the body of her son Christ-Jesus also arises in consciousness, and Schionatulander’s sacrifice may be compensating in some measure for Parzival’s abandonment of his mother, Herzeloyde.

The death of Schionatulander also achieves resolution in development and a sundering from the past, in the sense of casting off what would hold one back from the past. “The inspiration which came from the spiritual forces of the Sun and Moon were represented by King Arthur and his wife Guinevere. Thus in King Arthur’s Round Table we have the humanized Cosmos. What we may call the pedagogical high school for the Sentient Soul of the West proceeded from King Arthur’s Round Table. Hence we are told – and the legend here refers, in pictures of external facts, to inner mysteries which were taking place in the dawn of that epoch in the human soul – how the Knights of King Arthur’s Round Table journeyed far and wide and slew monsters and giants. These external pictures point to the endeavors of human souls who were to make progress in refining and purifying those forces of the astral body, which expressed themselves for the seer in pictures of monsters, giants and the like. Everything that the Sentient Soul was to experience through the later Mysteries is bound up with the pictorial concepts of King Arthur’s Round Table.” – Reference 1. Here one recalls the physical battle of Eabani against the giant Humbaba, and the North Wind’s dispersal of Tiamat to places undisclosed (The Epic of Gilgamesh).

Chretien de Troyes, who wrote his Perceval around 1190, describes Schionatulander’s death as a beheading. From the translation of Perceval by Burton Raffel: “And so she grieved, mourning a knight who lay in her arms dead, his head cut off.” The beheading symbolizes the sundering from the past. However, Wolfram, who completed Chretien’s unfinished work from 1198 to 1208, tells us that Schionatulander’s death occurred in a joust with Duke Orilus, out of whose shield and whose helmet sprang many live, combative dragons. This is referring to the use of black magic, although Orilus is later defeated in a joust with Parzival. Orilus also personifies the abuse of women through jealousy, control and physical cruelty. It is the black magic or evil issuing from Chastel Merveille, Castle of Marvels, that Rudolf Steiner is referring to in the following passages (Reference 1): “Everything that was undertaken by a power hostile to the Grail, and whereby also Amfortas was wounded, is finally to be traced back to the alliance which Klingsor had contracted with the stronghold of Iblis… In the middle of the Middle Ages, Calot bobot in Sicily was the seat of the goddess called Iblis, the daughter of Eblis [Lucifer]… and with her the evil magician Klingsor united his own evil arts, through which in the Middle Ages he worked against the Grail.”

In history, Klingsor was the Duke of Terra de Labur, a district of what is now Southern Calabria.

In contrast with Chretien’s poetic simplicity, Wolfram richly and profusely imposes the culture and values of his day on the earlier time period – from the turn of the eighth to the ninth century – when the events described in the Grail sagas actually took place in history. There were no romantic or chivalric jousts in the ninth century; pre-European civilization underwent a dark and bloody development that was controlled by Charles the Great (742-814), or Charlemagne as he is known in legend.

Schionatulander, whose actual name has apparently not survived in history, was a young nobleman who first served as a page or scribe and would then have become a vassal of King Charles. As designated in Wolfram’s time, his lands were located northeast of Grenoble, in the area of Provence, near Burgundy. On the other side of the Alps was Lombardy (Italy), ruled by Pepin, one of Charles’s sons.

Wolfram tells us that Schionatulander went with Gahmuret and a small group to Spain in a clandestine expedition against the Arabs, and that Gahmuret, Parzival’s father, was killed at that time, before Parzival was born to Herzeloyde. According to history Charles began his wars against the Arabs with the campaign of 778, and after failing to take Sargossa in northern Spain he discontinued the campaign due to the far greater threat of new Saxon rebellions in the north. Historians generally believe that the Arabs did not pose a serious threat to the Frankish kingdom in the eighth and ninth centuries.

If Parzival was 12 years old in 800, his birth date, the year of his father’s death and the clandestine expedition would have occurred around 788, when Schionatulander was 14 or 15 years old, possibly younger.

Schionatulander probably met Haroun al-Raschid (Caliph of Baghdad, 786-809) when al-Raschid visited Charles in Aachen (present-day Aix-la-Chapelle) in 801. The Caliph was hopeful that Charles as the new Roman Emperor would diminish the Byzantine Empire in the East. It was in 801 that al-Raschid brought Charles the gift of the elephant, which Charles named Abul-Abbas or Abu-el-Abbas.

As for the time of Schionatulander’s death, according to Chretien five years had elapsed between Perceval’s first visit to the Grail castle (Munsalvaesche or Mount Salvation) and his meeting with the Hermit. The events of the Grail saga occurred from 800 to 815, a time of relative peace in the warring life of Charles. So Schionatulander probably died around 805 or 806. Orilus, whom Chretien called the “Haughty Knight,” became known as the Burgundian when he took over Schionatulander’s lands. Not long after Schionatulander’s death, Charles lost two of his sons. Pepin, king of Italy died in 810, and Charles II (who would have inherited the entire kingdom after Charles’s death) died in 811. The entire Frankish kingdom was consequently left to the third son, Louis the Pious.

In Charlemagne, Father of a Continent, author Alessandro Barbero writes: “Since 806 there had been a sudden increase in the number of eclipses of the sun and moon, and on one occasion a dark spot had obscured the brightness of the sun for an entire week.” Barbero, by way of dismissing astronomical significance, notes that Charles survived these and many other omens by several years.

Louis the Pious

The illustration of Louis the Pious is taken from a ninth-century illuminated manuscript reproduced in the 2009 publication, The Inheritance of Rome, A History of Europe from 400 to 1000, by Chris Wickham, although the bodily proportions have here been corrected. There is nothing romantic about this personality in his Roman military costume. From the above book, Louis was “famous for not smiling.” The times afforded very little cause for joy.

How much can the sagas be depended upon for the actual facts of history? Far more than scholars and historians are willing to admit if the sagas are interpreted correctly. Wolfram had a friend, teacher and valuable source in “Kyot.” In Book IX of Parzival, he says that Kyot, known as la schantiure (Old French for ‘the singer’), was a respected scholar. Kyot had found a “heathen script” lying neglected in Toledo, written by “Flegetanis,” who had been renowned for his skills. Wolfram states that Kyot and Flegetanis had provided for him the secure foundation for his Parzival. He reveals that Flegetanis was a visionary, “born of Solomon’s line, begotten of age-old Israelite stock… He was a heathen on his father’s side, and knew well how to impart to each of us each star’s departure and its return arrival. Flegetanis saw, with his own eyes – modestly though he spoke of this – occult mysteries in the constellations. He said there was a thing called the Grail, whose name he read immediately in the constellation – what it is called: A host abandoned it upon the earth, flying up, high above the stars.”

Flegetanis was a soul still touched with the spirit of the Ephesian age. He surely knew of Schionatulander’s connection with the third cultural age, and of his spiritual significance. Kyot, the Provencal, must also have understood Schionatulander as a fellow countryman.

Less than 200 years after the death of Mohammed (570?-632), the Spain of Flegetanis’s day had a highly advanced civilization, especially in Cordoba. “The early centuries of Arab rule in Spain were splendid. Scholarship was promoted, including the science of agriculture. By the ninth century the Andalusian capital of Cordoba was dotted with gardens [al-Andalus is Arabic for Spain]. Architecture displayed aesthetic genius, the Mosque of Cordoba was built in 786. Arabic numerals had replaced the Roman ones. The writings of the ancient Greeks, eclipsed for hundreds of years, were reborn; the scientific and philosophical treatises of Aristotle, the geometry of Euclid, Plato’s writings…” – from The End of Days.

Saint Odile

Many anthroposophists refer to the importance of Odile (c. 662-720), whose name Rudolf Steiner also gave to Ita Wegman in connection with Schionatulander and Sigune. – see Note 1, From Cratylus to Aristotle. Odile had been born into a noble family of the Alsace region. According to a tenth-century Vita, she was blind at birth. Her father rejected her, but her mother took steps to save her. At Odile’s baptism at the age of 12 (near the time of the emergence of the astral body) her sight was miraculously restored. Her father was deeply moved by this and founded a convent in her honor, Hohenburg Abbey, in the Vosges Mountains. Charlemagne granted immunity to Hohenburg, and this was confirmed by Louis the Pious in 837. In historic tradition, Odile is represented with a book that has an illustration of two eyes on the cover.

Schionatulander, like the other knights of his time, traveled constantly and extensively. “Spiritual wisdom can be carried anywhere today, because we have reached a transition stage leading towards the sixth [cultural] age and these things are no longer tied to particular localities, but in the Middle Ages it had to be sought in certain definite places.” – Reference 1. Schionatulander would have visited Hohenburg Abbey, perhaps with Sigune, as well as the areas of Basle and Arlesheim. These areas were not far from his own lands. The life of Odile and her physical environment may have spoken to him of the future restoration of spiritual sight or clairvoyance through the gradual advent of the Grail as increasing presence of Christ working within the earth and within humanity. As the loss of ancient, atavistic clairvoyance leads to the necessary descent into dark matter, into the material world, the renewal of fully conscious spiritual perception was not possible for the people during the Middle Ages; it could only begin to arise at the completion of Kali Yuga (3103 BC-1899 AD).

The Coming Age of Pisces

Hohenburg Abbey was built on the site of an ancient Celtic settlement, as could be said of many fortresses and towns in the Frankish kingdom and surrounding countries, including Britain and Ireland. The Franks originated from Germanic tribes who migrated from East to West, predominantly in the fourth and fifth centuries. A ruling dynasty was established by the Merovingians, descendants of the warrior-king Meroveus or Merovech. This dynasty was overturned by the Carolingian dynasty, founded by Charlemagne’s paternal grandfather, Charles Martel, in 737.

The western Roman Empire fell in 476, sacked by the Lombards, another Germanic tribe who dominated much of Italy. However, the eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, remained powerful in the eighth and ninth centuries. It had been founded by Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor, in 330.

The pre-existing peoples of the country once called “Gaul” (France), whether Celts or Romans, were looked down upon by the Franks and were called “Welsche” (A. Barbero). In the sagas, when Parzival is determined to be a knight, his mother Herzeloyde dresses him in the peasant clothes of the Welsh. As instructed by his mother, he tells everyone that he is from Wales.

It becomes increasingly clear from both historic and literary sources that in the eighth and ninth centuries a spiritual preparation of unprecedented depth and complexity was underway toward the evolutionary direction for the coming fifth cultural age, the age of the consciousness soul, the age of Pisces, signified by the zodiacal Fishes. This age began in the year 1413 and will continue until approximately 3573 AD. The development of the consciousness soul must stand on the firm foundation of reason, on the intellectual soul and on correct thinking, for this development involves increasing awareness and the deepening and expansion of consciousness, which means a more mature and hence more difficult confrontation with some age-old challenges of humanity and of individuals: uncontrolled passions and desires, evil, illness and death. As the Ram signifies the head, the sign of Pisces refers to the feet and to the generative organs.

Alessandro Barbero and other historians pass harsh judgments on Charlemagne as a Christian, for his constant aggressive warfare, his forced conversions, the massacre of the pagan Saxons at Verden in 782, and his numerous wives and concubines. Barbero posits the massacre at Verden as a causative factor in twentieth-century Nazism. – see Note 1. But Charlemagne cannot be judged by the standards of modern consciousness; the consciousness of his time period was distinctly different from that of today.

Both Augustine and Thomas Aquinas wrote of the necessity of the “just war” (bellum justum), which was applicable up until the time of Joan of Arc (1412-31), but not beyond that time, not beyond the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean age. In ancient times the power of mass-suggestion “was exercised in such a way that the workers [and soldiers] assembled through their own free will. It would not be right to make use of such a force today, but at that time men were not so individualized, and when temples were to be built to serve mankind’s needs, priests were justified in using these methods to achieve their ends. The Crusades and the Army of Joan of Arc are other examples of such mass-suggestion. Sometimes fanatics who are rather unbalanced tend very much in this direction.” – Reference 3.

Even owing to the differences in consciousness, however, many events in physical life, and consequently in spiritual life went seriously awry during the reign of King Charles. The sagas inform us of this.

The Grail Sagas and Their History: Spiritual Scientific Interpretations

A new post-Golgotha Mystery School of Christ on Earth, within the Earth and within receptive human hearts, is described in the Grail sagas, when the great Leader-Initiate, whom Wolfram calls Titurel, together with Charlemagne laid the foundations for the future Christian Europe. The path of Christ was East to West and He was to be the spiritual leader of western civilization. “Charlemagne was the reincarnation of a high East Indian adept and an instrument of the spiritual individuality that is symbolized by the name Titurel.” – Esoteric Lessons. In Parzival, Titurel does not appear to be fully incarnate, nor does the realm of the Grail itself. Parzival has a glimpse of Titurel in a chamber, and Wolfram describes him as “even greyer than the mists,” obviously a very old soul, and later described, in the fragment Titurel, as a warrior. Thoughts linger on immortality, on Atlantis and the time before Atlantis, on the first cultural age – the age of India – and on the time period of Heraclitus and Cratylus. Notably, Wolfram reveals that Titurel suffers from a disease of the foot and is crippled. Ancient accounts have described Mani (founder of Manicheanism) as having a deformed foot.

King Arthur

In order to begin to understand the individuality known as “King Arthur,” it is necessary to again delve into the mysteries of divine descent or the divine origins of humanity. Heraclitus knew the “King Arthur” who was associated with the star Arcturus, the “Watcher” or “Guardian” of the Bears, Ursa Major and Minor. Arktos is a word of Greek origin for bear, and Arktouros means bear keeper. From an internet site, The Celtic Bear: “The Celts had two goddesses that took the form of the Bear: Andarta (‘powerful bear’) and Artio. In other cultures there is the bear god Artaois, Ardeche, or Artho. The names are from ‘Art,’ which means bear, stone or god. The constellation of the Great Bear was known as Arthur’s Wain, Arthur’s Plow. Midwinter is the time of Alban Arthuan/The Light of Arthur and the Winter Solstice…” The bear hibernates and gives birth in winter; symbolically it is associated with reproductive processes that are unconscious or instinctual. It becomes the mission of “Arthur,” who serves Michael, to protect reproductive forces and the higher soul qualities and creative capacities of humanity from the adversary, from the dragon. Saint George is depicted as destroying the dragon with his lance, and in the background of such pictures can often be seen a girl kneeling in prayer. It was the division of the sexes during the Lemurian Epoch that brought forth knowledge (conscious perception, the sentient soul) of which death is an essential ingredient.

“And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold a great red dragon…” – Revelation 12: 1-3.

The innocent girl also signifies the qualities of truth, beauty and goodness within the human soul, as the white lily. – see Note 2.

As both the Arthurian and the Grail legends have their origins in Celtic myth, Arthur may at one time have been the great king of these people, or the “Folk-Soul,” and led them on their vast migrations throughout all of Europe. Eventually the culture of these people, that had originated first in Asia Minor and then in the Hibernian mysteries of the third age, died out, and the Celts were absorbed into the Roman civilization. – see Note 3.

The Arthurian legends point to the fact of Arthur’s divine powers in the work of the transformation of the elemental kingdoms and the nature forces through the reception of the new healing Spirit of the Earth, the Christ. In this work Arthur was assisted by the “white magic” of Merlin. From pre-Christian times to the ninth century, Arthur would have become fully human, would have become a worldly warrior-king in the sense of following the Christ from the divine to the human experience. Yet his individuality would also have been manifest in others, as the great Oriental Master, Mani, was manifest in Parzival and in the events of the time.

Even historians who do not factor in spiritual science indicate the manifestation of Arthur in Charlemagne: “According to legend, Charles surrounded himself with the twelve bravest and brightest men in his kingdom, who became known as his paladins or chosen knights. Although the term paladin and their exact number appear to be embellishments, we know from Einhard’s biography that Charles did take a number of his closest advisors with him [to wars]… Roland or Hroudland was probably a paladin…” – The Importance of Charlemagne.

It does not contradict the power of divine manifestation when Wolfram tells us that Arthur was incarnate in the ninth century, and during the time period of the events of the Grail (800-815) he evidently traveled from his home in Britain to dwell temporarily in the Frankish kingdom – perhaps in Brittany – until the crises had passed. He may have been present at the death of Charlemagne.

Despite all the flurry, writes Brian M. Fagan, “nothing has been found which is explicitly identified with an historical Arthur.” The Once and Future King will be “dug up and debated over by each generation.” – The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Ancient World.

However, through spiritual science, solutions to many great mysteries can be discovered. “The necessity for spiritual science is an objective fact of human evolution.” – Aspects of Human Evolution.

Amfortas

In his meeting with the Fisher King, Amfortas, Parzival arrives at the gate of the age of Pisces. The Grail castle to which Amfortas directs him exists primarily in the spiritual world, although a certain physical castle, full of significant individualities, most strongly represents it.

“If you were to draw something like a circle, so that the towns of Detmold and Paderborn were to lie within it, you would then arrive at that neighborhood from whence poured forth the mission of the most exalted Spirits who extended their mission to northern and western Europe. There, in the distant past, was that great center of inspiration, which later on transferred its chief activity to the center of the Holy Grail.” – The Mission of Folk-Souls. – see Note 4. “Whereas it has been said that the Castle of the Grail is situated in the West of Europe…” – Reference 1. These areas are very near Aachen, court of Charlemagne.

Chretien tells us that Perceval, on his first approach to the castle, is required to do a bit of consciousness-soul work on himself:

“The boy rode quickly down,
Swearing, now, that the man
Who’d sent him had guided him well.
He was full of praise for the fisherman,
No longer calling him cheater
And trickster, disloyal, a liar,
Since he’d found his lodgings.”

The Apostles of Christ were “fishers of men,” and this may indicate the spiritual level of the Fisher King, the King of the Grail, in the ninth century. His wounds (“a spear struck him right between the legs”) had not been caused by sexuality itself, which originates from the highest divinity (Ancient Myths), but by uncontrolled passions. “We know that Amfortas had indeed been marked out as the Guardian of the Grail, but he succumbed to the lower forces in human nature. And how he had succumbed is connected with the guardianship of the Grail: he had killed his adversary out of lust and jealousy.”

The time when Parzival first meets Amfortas – “the saga itself tells us – was a Saturn time. Saturn and Sun stood together in Cancer, approaching culmination. So we see how in the most intimate effects a connection between the Earth and the stars is established.” Cancer is the sign of the first cultural age, the Indian age, ruled predominantly by the forces of the Moon, and which also developed the physical thorax wherein is the heart (Sun). Saturn is the planet and spiritual force that serves in the development of the physical body, giving it strength and power; it is also the planet of cosmic memory. The metal that represents Saturn in the Earth is lead, occultly connected to the top of the skull; gold represents the Sun and the heart. “So it was that Parzival, in whom the Christ impulse was still working unconsciously in the depths of his soul, comes with the power of Saturn and the [Amfortas] wound burns as it had never burnt before.” – Christ and the Spiritual World: The Search for the Holy Grail.

Evidently Charlemagne, like many others in this violent time period, likewise lost self-control on a number of occasions. Consequently Titurel himself is sickened. After many journeys and trials, Parzival, who finally is able to give expression to the pure forces of his soul out of life’s severe lessons and out of genuine compassion for Amfortas, is appointed as the new Guardian of the Grail. Amfortas is fully healed, as is Titurel.

“Titurel attracted pupils who were all called Parzival… All pupils of western esotericism are called Parzivals.” – Reference 9. And such pupils are seekers after knowledge and truth; they never cease searching and questioning, never cease morally improving or working on themselves, and hence all share in the guardianship of the Grail. Their names are written on the Chalice, written in the heavens, and written on the Moon, between the light and the darkness. The Divine Mother will continue to be the Host for long ages into the future.

The Grail

Chretien describes the Grail simply as a cup, chalice or dish, after the Old French word graal. Made of the purest gold and studded with jewels of every kind, it is carried by a girl. Another girl follows her, bearing a silver platter. Sun, Moon and cosmos are alluded to, borne by the feminine elements.

Wolfram elaborates, reveling in the necessary obscurantism that characterized the later Rosicrucianism. After the squire with the bloody lance exits (the lance signifies the transformation of the old to the new, Christed blood) a sacred procession begins. A duchess and her playmate are included in the procession and this may be a reference to Schionatulander and Sigune in childhood. Lastly in the procession, Repanse de Schoye, the queen, enters carrying the Grail. The Grail is described as “the perfection of Paradise, both root and branch.” This is an unmistakable reference to the reunited Tree of Knowledge and Tree of Life. Preceding the entrance of the queen are “four who carry a precious stone,” a garnet hyacinth “through which by day the sun shone brightly.” This stone, doubly refracting, may be said to signify the restoration in full consciousness of spiritual perception, for the garnet signifies pictorial ideation or Imagination (from Precious Stones and Minerals). The hyacinth or jacinth was sacred to the ancients. From Exodus 28:19, jacinth was the first stone on the third row of the High Priest’s breastplate. The High Priest wore 12 gemstones on his breastplate and these represented the 12 constellations. Wolfram is learned in the occult knowledge of gemstones, probably taught to him and others by Kyot, out of the Chaldean mysteries of the third age.

The stone that precedes the Grail may also signify the Philosopher’s Stone, which is the work in the transformation of the blood. – Reference 3.

All of the figures and objects have multiple meanings, above all the Grail itself. Sixty definitions of the Grail could be written down from different sources and all would be equally correct. But the deep rich symbolism of the sagas permitted of soul and intellectual development for sincere aspirants at various levels of preparedness or maturity, while protecting the spiritual content from obtrusive, destructive forces, forces of darkness. Darkness and cold, often to degrees equivalent to light and warmth, are ever-present factors. Evil denigrates good.

The passages quoted below serve to emphasize the importance of the development of conscious spiritual perception in our time. They reveal the powers and the great dangers of the opposing forces, the adversary, by elucidating the evil arts of Klingsor in the ninth century. Yet this individuality, the effects and the dangers, continue on. “Once in ancient times men’s souls possessed a certain faculty of clairvoyance, and in the latter part of the Egyptian-Chaldaic civilization this clairvoyance still existed to such a degree that a man, when gazing into the starry heavens, saw not merely the physical stars but also the spiritual beings united with them… But our souls have lost remembrance of it! For modern consciousness it is no longer present in the souls of men… Thus there is something in man that is withdrawn from the sovereignty of the soul…. Something that is dead in contrast with the life of the organism that surrounds it…

“When the Initiate of the Middle Ages wanted to present in picture form what he had to learn in order to permeate with the new wisdom the part of his soul that had remained living, he spoke of the Castle of the Holy Grail and of the new wisdom – which is in fact the Grail – that flows out from it. And when he wanted to indicate that which is hostile to this new wisdom, he pointed to another domain… the domain which was the most vicious and hostile to the Grail was Castle Merveil, the gathering-place of all the forces which attack man in this [dead] part of his body and soul…”

A part of the total human nature – clairvoyance – had to be relinquished through the evolutionary development of the intellectual soul and so lay open to the influence of evil forces, to the machinations of the Duke of Terra de Labur, causing “a duality in human nature, a deep disharmony between the external and the inner organization. There are persons in our time who with one part of their being rise up into the heights, while with the other part they are connected with the human-all-too-human.”

Apart from its association with the Blood of Christ, the most comprehensive definition of the Grail may be: “The Holy Grail was and is nothing else than that which can so nurture the living portion of the soul that it can become master of the dead part.” – Reference 1.

Schionatulander and Sigune

In Wolfram’s saga, Parzival meets Sigune with the dead warrior three times. In the first meeting Sigune laments the fact that she had asked knightly deeds of Schionatulander in exchange for her love. Thus at the beginning of both sagas, from Herzeloyde’s collapse and Sigune’s grief, the dark realities of knighthood are painted as contrasted with Parzival’s youthful enthusiasm. “A bercelet’s leash brought this grief upon him,” adds Sigune mysteriously, and Wolfram will tell the story of the bercelet (a small hound) in his later poem of Titurel. Parzival says he will avenge the death and gladly settle the score, but Sigune points him in the wrong direction, away from Orilus, which probably saves his life.

In the second meeting, Parzival sees Sigune sitting up in a lime (linden) tree with the embalmed knight leaning between her arms. It is at this second meeting that Sigune recognizes her cousin Parzival and learns that he has visited the Grail castle but has failed to ask questions or to have compassion for Amfortas. She then refuses to converse further with Parzival, calling him a “dishonored, accursed man.” Despite the frailties imposed by her grief, a commanding personality is apparent in Sigune.

The third meeting occurs after Parzival has “traversed many lands on horseback, and in ships upon the waves,” over a period of five years according to Chretien. Parzival happens upon a hermit’s cell in a forest and here finds the still-grieving Doschesse Sigune, bent over the tomb of the warrior. Parzival converses with her through a window and notices that she wears a ring with a garnet: “its gleam shone out of the darkness just like a little fiery spark.” In response to Parzival’s question about the ring, Sigune says it is a bethrothal ring. “He is my husband before God… this ring of true wedlock must be my escort into God’s presence. It is a seal upon my loyalty, my eyes’ flood from my heart. There are two of us inside here, Schionatulander is the one, I the other.” Here Wolfram touches upon a mystery in regard to the deep spiritual experiences of Intuition. Until a very distant time in the future, the deepest experiences of Intuition, which includes the union of the living and the dead, are only possible with sensory mediation. “Contemporary man attains such Intuition [without sensory response] only at a later stage of his development; this Intuition [will then make] it possible for him to enter into contact with the spirit without sensory mediation. He must [presently] make a detour through the world of sensory substance. This detour is called the descent of the human soul into matter, or the fall of man.” – Cosmic Memory.

Chretien’s Perceval meets the grieving girl but once, although they recognize one another in this meeting, and the girl realizes that her cousin has failed to ask questions at the Grail castle.

Wolfram’s Titurel

The poetic work Titurel is in two parts and was intended to be a complete account of the lives of Schionatulander and Sigune, however, it was not completed. The first fragment describes the childhoods of Schionatulander and Sigune, beginning with a brief description of Titurel, who is clearly an individual of eminent spiritual importance in their lives. Titurel says: “When I received the Grail by the message which the exalted angel sent me by his high authority, there I found written all my order. That gift had never before been given, before me, to human hand.” The second fragment gives the account of Schionatulander’s pursuit of the runaway bercelet.

Regarding the work of Albrecht von Scharffenberg, written in the latter half of the thirteenth century and titled Der juengere Titurel – The Younger Titurel – (“Younger” meaning written later in time), see Note 5.

Wolfram writes that the two children love one another devotedly and in innocence, yet later this love becomes a source of great distress to both, of “heart’s distress,” “inward torment,” and “languishing sorrow,” capable of destroying all happiness. Schionatulander says that such love inflicts, “never missing – all that walks, creeps, flies or floats.” Significantly, the translator notes that Schionatulander has described “the four kinds of beasts; the whole of creation.” Sigune says that Schionatulander must earn her love through force of arms, and he agrees, telling her that he in turn will need her help. The two are eventually able to find solace through the counsel of their elders, who give approval to their union.

Laments Sigune: “…it is as if I lay in a sparkling fire, Schionatulander so beglows me! His love gives me heat, as Agremuntin does the serpent salamander.” The translator notes that Mount Agremuntin is probably a reference to Acremonte in Sicily, near Mount Etna. In Book XV of Parzival, Wolfram tells us that Parzival met a wealthy stranger, a heathen who wore many precious stones on his surcoat; the surcoat gave off a dazzling sheen. “In the mountain of Agremuntin the salamander worms had woven it together in the hot fire.”

In Fragment II, Schionatulander and Sigune are encamped in a forest. Suddenly there is a resounding clamor; a bercelet is barking “in red-hued pursuit of a wounded beast.” Schionatulander, known since childhood to be a swift runner, goes after the bercelet, who is discovered to be dragging a leash. Its collar “was of Arabian braid, very tightly woven by the loom; on it could be seen precious and bright gems, which glittered through the forest like the sun.” “The bercelet’s leash was truly a source of joy-losing time for Schionatulander,” who carries the hound to Sigune. When the leash, twelve fathoms long, “was unfolded from between its rings, script could be perceived on it… The letters were of emerald, mingled with rubies. There were diamonds, chrysolites, and garnets.” The hound’s name is Gardeviaz, which means “Guard the way,” or “Keep on the trail.” The translator writes that this is either from the old Provencal garda vias or from the Latin garde vias, and is probably a hunting term.

Combining the nearly infinite content of the literature of spiritual science with an in-depth study of the past lives of Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman, one can only marvel at the occult content of the above passage with the bercelet, of which Wolfram himself, allowing world-thoughts and world-feelings to flow through his soul, may not have been fully aware.

The gems on the collar of Gardeviaz signify cosmic forces within the earth, and cosmic knowledge. The Arabian braid is tight, constricted. The unfolding leash suggests the sign of Cancer. The letters on the leash are cosmic signs, and the combinations of the letters are the cosmic script which can be read if the “alphabet” is understood. This is an allusion to the memory of Ephesus that arose within the soul of Aristotle through the mysteries of the Samothracian Kabiri, and which led him to create the Categories.

Why does the leash bring the loss of joy to Schionatulander? The imparting of cosmic knowledge, the regaining of spiritual perception, will not be possible for a long time; for the people the spirit can only be seen “through a glass dimly.” Not so for Schionatulander, who may also glean in the events his early death. The dog, with its message “Guard the way,” is as though divided into two parts, the past and the future. The Dog Star Sirius in Canis Major may be the cosmic home of the Essenes, from the past; and the dog may signify the emergence of the Master who will be canonized in 1234 as Saint Dominic. Dominic (1170-1221) was a contemporary of Wolfram; he was born in Calaruega, Kingdom of Castile, Spain. His name has been interpreted to mean Domini canis, the Lord’s hound. This was the Master who was to have such a powerful influence on Thomas Aquinas. It is not difficult to visualize a spiritual union of Kyot, Dominic, Wolfram, and – from the spiritual world – Schionatulander and Sigune, who have again assumed the identities of Aristotle and Alexander. Alexander will be reborn as Reginald of Piperno (c. 1230-1290), companion or socius of Thomas Aquinas. “Guard the way” is a message for the present time.

Sirius is also the star of Isis. Isis is the ancient Egyptian depiction of Sophia, or Divine Wisdom or the Mother.

Sigune would rather possess the writing on the leash than all her wealth and lands, and urges Schionatulander to bring forth this cosmic teaching, of which she knows he is capable. She makes this a condition for her love, but later realizes in her grief that the time is not right.

Thus, writes Wolfram, “they had recompensed one another with words, and with good will. The beginning of many troubles – how was it ended?”

After Parzival has become Lord of the Grail, he returns with companions to the cell of Sigune. There they find her dead at her genuflection; there she saw grief’s extremity. The tombstone of Schionatulander is raised, and his body is found to be perfectly preserved. The body of Sigune is laid next to his and the tomb is closed.

Part Two: Friar Thomas

“The pursuit of wisdom especially joins man to God in friendship.” – Summa contra Gentiles.

And Friar Thomas aspires with unending devotion and love to be the friend of man. Schionatulander had laid down his life for Parzival, and who but the greatest friend directs the seeker to the living Truth, even at the loss of his own life? During the course of Thomas’s teaching the question arose: “Was the Incarnation of God necessary?” His answer: “Augustine says: In order that man might journey more trustfully toward the truth, the Truth itself, the Son of God, having assumed human nature, established and founded faith.” – Summa Theologica.

Regarding faith, another question arose: “Whether those things that are of faith can be an object of science?”

“I answer that, all science is derived from principles self-evident and therefore seen; and therefore all objects of science must be, in a fashion, seen… It may happen, however, that a thing which is an object of vision or science for one, is believed by another, for we hope to see some day what we now believe about the Trinity, according to 1 Corinthians 13:12: ‘We see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face.’ This vision the angels possess already, so that what we believe, they see. In like manner it may happen that what is an object of vision or scientific knowledge for one man, even in the state of a wayfarer, is for another man an object of faith, because he does not know it by demonstration.”

“Should new articles/creeds of faith be drawn up to the Sovereign Pontiff?”

“Now this pertains to the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff, to whom the more important and more difficult questions that arise in the Church are referred, as stated in the Decretals (Gregory). Hence Our Lord said to Peter whom He made Sovereign Pontiff (Luke 22:32): ‘I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not, and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.’ The reason for this is that there should be one faith of the whole Church, according to 1 Corinthians 1:10: ‘That all of you speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you.’ ”

By the early thirteenth century, the Church had already been convulsed and corrupted, and the Popeship questioned and disrespected. There had been the investiture controversy, the serious problems of concubinage, simony, the crusades, and disputes between ecclesiastical and secular authorities. However, between the years 1050 and 1250 there had also been something of a renaissance, with “renewed interest in the sophistication of Latin poetry and prose, an interest that harked back to a still earlier revival in the Carolingian period of the eighth and ninth centuries.” – Europe in the High Middle Ages.

Dominic de Guzman, Francis of Assisi, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas and many other great individualities incarnated during these dark times and firmly set down the models for behavior for men and women of the Church: scholasticism (schola is the Latin word for school), monastic community, formal disputation, self-denial and conscious poverty. Even near death, Dominic refused a bed and lay down upon sacking. – see Note 7.

Were the religious bound to manual labor? – Thomas was asked. If one could live without eating, he replied, one would not be bound to work with ones hands. And, he added, one should avoid the discreditable pursuits whereby some seek a livelihood.

Aristotle also discouraged morally ambiguous vocations, while he would have been appalled at the notion of the upper classes or philosophers working at manual labor. Despite some deep differences in consciousness in the pre-Christian and post-Christian cultural periods, Thomas and others succeeded in the mission of carrying over the natural philosophy, logic and ethical treatises of Aristotle into the Christian teachings of the thirteenth century. At the same time, battle lines were repeatedly drawn against certain erroneous and harmful beliefs, such as those of the Aristotelian philosopher Averroes (Arabic Ibn Rushd), who taught that the scriptures should be interpreted allegorically. “Some Muslims worked hard to remake Aristotle’s philosophy into a body of beliefs compatible with orthodox Islam.” – Reference 21. They also rejected and ridiculed the teachings of the Trinity and the Resurrection.

“And if in what the philosophers have said we come upon something that is contrary to faith, this does not belong to philosophy but is rather an abuse of philosophy arising from a defect in reason.” – Reference 19.

In Summa contra Gentiles, Thomas minces no words in fierce opposition to Mohammedanism, with its “promise of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us.”

In his travels in southern France and through the Pyrenees, Dominic encountered the Albigensians or Cathari (purists), adherents of Manichean or dualistic ways of thinking. Although he recognized the value of some of the ideas of the educated preachers, he advocated measures for the elimination of the heresy and the conversion to Christianity through peaceful methods. Pope Innocent III, however, initiated a crusade resulting in the indiscriminate massacre of thousands of unarmed Albigensians.

Surprisingly, regarding the subject of deeper moral and character development, Thomas reveals influences from the East: Was it lawful for the religious to live on alms? – Yes, “…if the religious be in need they can lawfully live on alms.” As for begging, “proneness to pride is most efficaciously healed by those things which savor most of abasement.” – Reference 20.

The new Temple of God on Earth, however, the universal Church of Christ, was not to be poor and humble, but beautiful, majestic and lofty beyond compare, so as to uplift to awareness of the Presence of God the souls of all who would enter its portals. The Gothic architectural style for cathedrals arose in the twelfth century, although the blueprint for the new House of God seems to have originated with Charlemagne, who gave the gift of the tunic (Sancta Camisia) of the Blessed Mother to an early church, a church that eventually became the Cathedral of Chartres, France.

The illustration of Thomas is based on a portrait by Carlo Crivelli that was painted around the year 1476. It was originally part of the Demidoff Altarpiece of the San Domenico Church in Ascoli Piceno, Italy. In deep humility, Thomas’s gaze is directed upwards, to heaven and to God. The symbol of the radiating sun in the heart can be interpreted as a reference to the Christ Initiate of the Sun Sphere. Biographer G.K. Chesterton favored the portrait of Thomas by Domenico Ghirlandaio (c. 1485), and noted a strangeness in the depiction of the sun at the heart “…blazoned upon his breast, a rather curious emblem, as if it were some third symbolic and cyclopean eye. At least it is no normal Christian sign; but something more like the disc of the sun such as held the face of a heathen god, but the face itself is dark and occult, and only the rays breaking from it are a ring of fire. I do not know whether any traditional meaning has been attached to this; but its imaginative meaning is strangely apt…” – Saint Thomas, “The Dumb Ox.” In the Crivelli portrait Thomas’s hands, his strong will, grasp the two most visible means of Christian spiritual guidance for earthly life: the House of God and the Book of the Scriptures.

Raphael has given us a portrait of Thomas (similar to the Ghirlandaio portrait) in La Disputa or The Disputation over the Sacrament, painted in 1508-1509 for the Vatican. Thomas, with the halo of a saint, stands amidst other doctors of the Church, including Augustine, Gregory and Bonaventure. Thomas is portrayed as large and heavy and his thinning hair is light golden-brown in color. He wears a black robe over a white inner garment, the habit of the Dominicans.

This magnificent painting, of which the largest figure at the center is the Resurrected Christ, with the Father above and the Holy Spirit and Host below, truly reveals the triumph of the promulgation and reception of the world teaching of the Trinity.

From an early biography of Thomas by Peter Calo (c. 1300) comes this physical description: “He was of lofty stature and of heavy build; but straight and well-proportioned. His complexion was like the color of new wheat; his head was large and well-shaped, and he was slightly bald. All portraits represent him as noble, meditative, gentle yet strong.” – Dominic Prummer.

Born early in the year 1225 in the castle at Roccasecca, near Naples, Italy, Thomas was “the seventh and last son of Count Landulf of Aquino and Theodora of Theate… His father belonged to the Lombard nobility; his paternal grandmother, Francesca di Suabia, was a sister of Frederick Barbarossa; his mother was descended from Norman nobility. The complementary gifts of the North and the South, transmitted through a double lineage of nobility, met in this infant…” – Jacques Maritain.

As noted, Thomas rejected the advantages of his aristocratic family to become a beggar. This destiny and decision brings to mind not only the influences of the East, but also the life of Gautama Buddha.

“Something in this heavy, quiet, cultivated rather academic gentleman would not be satisfied till he was, by fixed authoritative proclamation and official pronouncement, established and appointed to be a beggar… Something in the courage and consistency of Dominic and Francis had challenged his deep sense of justice, and while remaining a very reasonable person, and even a diplomatic one, he never let anything shake the iron immobility of this one decision of his youth, nor was he to be turned from his tall and towering ambition to take the lowest place.” – Reference 22.

In a publication titled Sizilien, Insel des Kain (Sicily, Island of Cain), author Hans Gsanger traced Thomas’s genealogy further back than Maritain’s account, discovering that one of Thomas’s more distant ancestors had been the Count of Capua, or the Duke of Terra de Labur, Landulf II (829-879). – see Note 8. Although the dates of Landulf II’s life do not coincide with the time period of Charlemagne, generations of dark events had occurred in the Lombard duchy of Benevento, a province of Italy not far from Naples. This province had been called Malowent or Malventum by the Romans, meaning “the site of bad events.” From this vicinity certain activities were extended to Sicily. Erchempert (c. 889), a Benedictine monk at Monte Cassino, wrote a history of the Lombards of Benevento that included the Carolingian conquest of the kingdom in 774, and descriptions of the civil war and splitting of the principality into three autonomous rulerships of Benevento, Salerno and Capua. – Joan R. Ferry.

Far from the encyclopedia descriptions of Landulf II as a “dabbler in black magic” and a “sorcerer,” Rudolf Steiner stated that this historic personality brought about a universal condition of humanity that is esoterically referred to as the “Amfortas wound,” a double or lower nature that each individual carries through life as contrasted with the Parzival nature. As described in Part One of this article, Landulf II (“Klingsor”) achieved this by attacking and using that part of the soul that had become dead due to the loss of ancient clairvoyance. – Reference 1. Wolfram included these later occurrences in time in his Parzival saga, but Mani, Titurel and Charlemagne would have been aware of the anti-Grail forces emanating from the “site of bad events.”

Regarding Thomas’s imprisonment by his family at Roccasecca in an attempt to turn him away from the Dominican Order of Preachers, there are many tales of his rescue, but “…Actually, it seems likely that his liberation had been decided upon by his family, whose political fortune was in danger, and against whom the Master General John the Teuton had filed a complaint before Innocent IV.” – Reference 24. – see Note 8.

From Naples, Thomas was sent to Paris, where he met his teacher, Albert the Great. When Albert was directed to Cologne, Germany in 1248, Thomas went with him. In Cologne, Albert established a new studium generale, a college for members of the Dominican Order, and it is likely that Thomas was here ordained a priest. In 1252 Thomas returned to Paris to teach at the University, and in 1256 he became a magister in sacra pagina, a master of scripture equivalent to a professor of theology. – Nicholas M. Healy.

Thomas Aquinas and Spiritual Science

It now becomes necessary to make a transition from the largely known facts of Thomas’s life to the lesser-known facts by bringing to light some esoteric streams that were running parallel with the exoteric teachings and outer events of his time. Although both Augustine and Thomas worked primarily under the aegis of the guiding spirit of exoteric Christianity, Thomas, as is known from his life as Schionatulander, was also intimately connected with the Archangel who had become the inspirer of esoteric Christianity. – see Note 4.

“…When there was some question of his having seen Saint Paul in a vision, he was in agony of alarm lest it should be discussed; and the story remains somewhat uncertain in consequence… His followers and admirers were as eager to collect these strictly miraculous stories as he was eager to conceal them; and one or two seem to be preserved with a fairly solid setting of evidence.” – Reference 22.

The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church became the earthly organization and means for the continued development of the intellectual soul. Thomas actually uses the term “intellectual soul” in his “Treatise on the Incarnation of the Knowledge Imprinted or Infused in the Soul of Christ”: “In the state before His Passion, Christ was at the same time a wayfarer and a comprehensor, as will be more clearly shown. Especially had He the condition of a wayfarer on the part of the body, which was passable, but the condition of a comprehensor He had chiefly on the part of the intellectual soul.” – Reference 20.

The following quotations are from lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in Dornach in 1920, titled Roman Catholicism:

“It can be well authenticated in all detail that the Roman Catholic Church represents the last remnant of what was the right civilization for the fourth post-Atlantean age, what was justified right up to the middle of the fifteenth century, but what has now become a shadow… Spiritual Science, however, as we understand it, has to further the needs of the fifth post-Atlantean civilization.”

“Aristotle vehemently defended the theory that every time a human being is born on the earth, a quite new soul unites with his physical body… Unless one can speak of a prenatal existence, one has no justification for believing otherwise than that after his death man remains forever in a spiritual world… So that according to Aristotle’s view, when the man dies, he has to look back eternally on the one earth life for which he has to pay… This doctrine of Aristotle was taken over in its entirety by the Catholic Church, and when in the Middle Ages the Church sought for a philosophy which could carry its theology, it took over, as regards the life of the soul, this Aristotelian doctrine, and one can still today recognize its echo in the idea of eternal punishment in hell. Now, after having for thousands of years had this doctrine of the origin of the soul with the body impressed upon them, how is it conceivable that people can free themselves from it again and arrive at the truth [karma and reincarnation]? They can only do so by receiving a new spiritual science.”

It took thousands of years through the evolution of consciousness for the soul to have, as part of its own being, a natural awareness of the divine potential of the single life.

“Now, my dear friends, I have plunged into a theme into which I would certainly not have entered had it not been for recent events here, of which we shall see further developments. You know that on Saturday I am to give a public lecture on “The Truth About Anthroposophy and Its Defense Against Untruth.” But in any case I must contrive next Sunday to continue the comments which I cannot complete today. So next Sunday at half-past seven we will meet here once more, although we have to start on a journey next Monday. In these troubled times one cannot do otherwise, and so on Saturday, despite the burning of our posters, the public lecture also will take place here.”

The Mystery of the Transubstantiation

The deepest esoteric mysteries are contained within the teachings, and enactment upon the altar, of the Sacrament of the Transubstantiation, during which occurs the change of the substance of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. How can such a mystery and a miracle be taught exoterically? How can the intellect understand such a process? “This does raise many difficulties for human reason. How can Christ be on so many altars and in innumerable tabernacles at the same time?” – L’Osservatore Romano. Thomas struggled at length and painfully with these teachings, and drew back upon Faith: “Do not doubt that this is true, but receive the Savior’s Word with faith, for He is the Truth, He does not lie.” – Reference 20. G.K. Chesterton informs us that Thomas was very worried about his interpretations of the change in the elements of the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Communion, and at one point in his frustration threw down his thesis at the foot of the crucifix on the altar and left it lying there. He returned there and buried himself in prayer on the altar steps. Other friars watched as Christ came down from the Cross before their mortal eyes and stood upon Thomas’s scroll, saying, “Thomas, thou hast written well concerning the Sacrament of my Body.”

How has the teaching of the Transubstantiation changed and progressed over a period of six centuries, from the lifetime of Thomas Aquinas to that of Rudolf Steiner?

From Jesus to Christ

“What, from the event of Damascus onwards, was the Being of Christ for Paul? The Being of Christ was for him the ‘Second Adam’; and he immediately differentiates between the first Adam and the second Adam, the Christ… All men have inherited from Adam the corruptible body, the physical body of man that decays in death. With this body men are ‘clothed.’ The second Adam, Christ, is regarded by Paul as possessing, in contrast to the first, the incorruptible, the immortal body… Every Christian can say ‘Because I am descended from Adam, I have a corruptible body as Adam had; but in that I set myself in the right relationship to Christ, I receive from Him the second Adam, an incorruptible body.’ For Paul, this view shines out directly from the experience of Damascus…”

“But the more clairvoyance is developed in our time, the clearer it will be that the physical forces and substance laid aside [at death] are not the whole physical body, for its complete configuration could never derive from them alone. To these substances and forms there belongs something else, best called the ‘Phantom’ of the man. This Phantom is the Form-shape which as a spiritual texture works up the physical substances and forces so that they fill out the Form which we encounter as the man on the physical plane… The Phantom belongs to the physical body as its enduring part, a more important part than the external substances…”

Through the Mystery of Golgotha “It came to pass that one man, who was the bearer of Christ [Jesus], had gone through such a death that after three days the specifically mortal part of the physical body had to disappear, and out of the grave there rose the body which is the force-bearer of the physical, material parts… the pure Phantom of the physical body with all the attributes of the physical body – this it was that rose out of the grave. So was given the possibility of that spiritual genealogy of which we have spoken… And it is possible for man to receive into his organism those forces which then rose from the grave, just as through his physical organism at the beginning of the earth evolution, as a consequence of the Luciferic forces, he received the organism of Adam. It is this that Paul wishes to say.

“Somewhat as the human cells of the physical body are connected with the original cell… we must think of the Phantom as multiplying itself, as does the cell which gives rise to the physical body…”

Through establishing a relationship to Christ, a man “will become more and more clearly aware of his Ego-consciousness, and of that part of his nature which journeys on from one incarnation to another.”

In the pre-Christian ages, Osiris and Moses had judged men directly after their deaths; today Christ is the Lord of Karma.

The Holy Communion

“With Christ there rose out of the grave a kind of seed-kernel for the reconstruction of our human Phantom. And it is possible for this seed-kernel to incorporate itself in those individuals who find a connection with the Christ-Impulse. That is the objective side of the relationship of the individual to the Christ-Impulse…

“What relationship to the Christ can be found by an individual who takes no esoteric path, but remains entirely in the field of the exoteric?” The nineteenth century is far different from the thirteenth century; it brings the age of materialism, machinery, invention, and a godless atomistic, mathematical, mechanistic view of humanity, earth and the universe. Yet the Holy Communion still remains, even in the twenty-first century, a way to Christ. “Certainly, just as it is true in regard to the spiritual life that a quite new age is dawning, so it is true that the way to Christ which for centuries was the right one for many people, will remain for centuries more the right one for many. Things pass over gradually into one another, and what was formerly right will gradually pass over into something else when people are ready for it.”

“How could it be shown that it is untrue to say that everywhere in space where matter appears, only matter is present. How could this come about? In no other way than by something being given to man which is at one and the same time spirit and matter, something which he knows in spirit and yet sees to be matter. Therefore the transformation, the eternally valid transformation of spirit into matter, of matter into spirit, had to continue as a vital fact. And this came to pass because the Holy Communion has been celebrated, has been maintained through the centuries as a Christian ritual…” – Reference 30.

Contra Faustum and the Manicheans

Thomas wrote: “We should not… immediately reject as false, following the opinion of the Manicheans and many unbelievers, everything that is said about God even though it cannot be investigated by reason… There exists a twofold truth concerning the divine being, one to which the inquiry of the reason can reach, the other which surpasses the whole ability of human reason.” – Reference 19. The age of faith was not the time to apply the faculty of reason to questions for which reason alone could not possibly find the answers. Hence Thomas draws upon Augustine’s Contra Faustum in response to the tendencies towards Manicheanism in his day. In the latter half of the fourth century, Augustine had become involved in public debates with Faustus, whom he described as an African by race, a citizen of Mileum. Faustus was “eloquent and clever, but had adopted the shocking tenets of the Manichean heresy.” Faustus could not reasonably believe that God could be born of woman, for example, and pointed out the discrepancies in the genealogies of Luke and Matthew.

While these and other very serious Faustian questions were not to be addressed by the Church Fathers in the thirteenth century, they most certainly could be asked by the early twentieth century and are in fact answered in the literature of spiritual science, particularly Rudolf Steiner’s series of lectures on the four gospels. He repeatedly makes it clear, however, that access to deeper truths is dependent upon the correct development of clairvoyance or direct spiritual perception. Here we arrive at a crossroads of difficult decision for many present-day anthroposophists, who may choose to remain purely within the intellectual realm of spiritual science – which best meets the needs of the public – and avoid the work of direct perception, which is the path of the development of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. However, in the twenty-first century, the latter path becomes increasingly necessary for the resolution of serious conflicts and as a balance between extremes in contemporary expression of clairvoyant capacities, not to mention the necessity for the overriding of corrupted authority and the establishment of true community and caring.

Yet, even though the evolution of consciousness is moving at a much faster rate today (see Atlantean Cataclysms), Mani and Manicheanism are still far in advance of the twenty-first century.

As Aristotle, in consciousness, was already in the fifth cultural age, the story of Schionatulander and Sigune, which is in part about the freeing of the soul from the dominance of the physical body, is pointing to the sixth cultural age, called Philadelphia in Revelation 3:7. This begins preparation for the future time in which Mani will truly come into his mission, in the Sixth Great Epoch. “What does Mani mean in uttering that he is the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the Son of the Widow? This means that he will prepare for that age in which the men of the sixth root race [Sixth Great Epoch] will be led by themselves, by the light of their own souls. Mani will create an overlapping stream which goes further than the stream of the Rosicrucians. Christianity will appear in its perfected form in the sixth root race.” It is Mani who will oversee the complete independence of the soul, which will then be designated the “Divine Fructifier.” From Mani will come the “call to the Divine Spiritual Light of the soul, a rebellion of the soul against everything which has not come out of the soul itself. Mani: ‘You must strip off everything that external authority has transmitted to you. Then you must become ripe to behold your own soul.’ ” – The Manicheans.

When Chretien de Troyes refers to Perceval as “the Son of the Widow,” he also reveals that Perceval is a follower of Mani, or has been a follower of Mani in a previous life, and that the experiences and trials of his present life reflect not only his past in connection with the Orient, but also point to a distant future, to a distant age when the Grail will be able to be fully realized through the work in the transformation of the three lower bodies, physical, etheric and astral, by the fourth body, the Ego, or “I am.”

What is the Name of God? – the students asked Thomas. Thomas replied that the Name of God was “I Am the I Am.” Quoting Exodus 3:13,14, Thomas explained that the Lord, by his answer to Moses “showed that his own proper name is He Who Is. Now, names have been devised to signify the natures or essences of things. It remains then, that the divine being is God’s essence or nature.” – Reference 19. Echoes of Cratylus.

The Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz

The darkest period of the Middle Ages, around the year 1250 (see Atlantean Cataclysms), also brought about the renewal of esoteric Christianity through the founding of the Rosicrucian stream, which may be defined in part as the occult path to Christ. In the lecture series cited below, Rudolf Steiner revealed that a unique Initiation took place after the short period of darkness had run its course. Twelve outstanding individuals – called the “Council of Twelve” – united together to help the progress of humanity. Seven of them could look back into the seven streams of the ancient Atlantean cultural ages and the further course of these ages. Four others could look back to the occult wisdom mankind had acquired in the four post-Atlantean ages: the Indian, Persian, Egypto-Chaldean-Babylonian and Greco-Roman. “A twelfth had the fewest memories as it were, however he was the most intellectual among them, and it was his task to foster external science in particular.” – Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz. “In a place in Europe that cannot be named yet,” the twelve united in a lodge in order to initiate the thirteenth, a young man of about twenty years of age. In the course of this initiation they imparted to the young man all of the wisdom that could be known up to their own time. The young man “experienced a great transformation of soul. Within it there now existed something that was like a completely new birth of the twelve streams of wisdom, so that the twelve wise men could also learn something entirely new from the youth.”

The youth did not live long thereafter but reincarnated about one-hundred years later, around the middle of the fourteenth century. He then lived for over a hundred years and was the individuality known as Christian Rosenkreutz.

“A remarkable reference to this can be found in Goethe’s poem The Mysteries (Die Geheimnisse).”

The question arises for the student of spiritual science: Could Thomas Aquinas and certain of his collaborators have participated in this initiation event as members of the Council of Twelve? As noted in the biographical section on Thomas, when Albert was directed to Cologne in 1248 to establish a new studium generale for the Dominican Order, Thomas accompanied him. Thomas was probably ordained a priest while in Cologne, and returned to Paris to teach at the University in 1252. Since Rudolf Steiner has described himself as a brother of Christian Rosenkreutz, as someone who stands shoulder to shoulder with him, the answer to the above question would be “yes,” more likely than not. Rudolf Steiner revealed to Ita Wegman that he had had four lives in the fourth cultural age, and that she had shared these lives with him. The four lives: Cratylus, Aristotle, Schionatulander and Thomas Aquinas. Therefore it is highly likely that Thomas would have been the representative of the fourth cultural age on the Council of Twelve. Humanity then had not yet entered the fifth cultural age, but who might have been the twelfth participant? – “a man who attained the intellectual wisdom of his time in the highest degree. He possessed intellectually all the knowledge of his time, while the others, to whom direct spiritual wisdom was also denied at that time, acquired their knowledge by returning in memory to their earlier incarnations.” This may have been Albert. – see Note 9.

The Death of Thomas

The following account is always included in the biographies of Thomas, although there is little agreement as to its interpretation: In late 1273, while at Mass, Thomas “seems to have had some kind of experience, whether spiritual, psychological or physical, or some combination thereof, which made it impossible for him to continue working.” – Reference 27.

“He had returned victorious from his last combat with Siger of Brabant; returned and retired. This particular quarrel was the one point, as we may say, in which his outer and his inner life had crossed and coincided; he realized how he had longed from childhood to call up all allies in the battle for Christ; how he had only long afterwards called up Aristotle as an ally; and now in the last nightmare, he had for the first time truly realized that some might really wish for Christ to go down before Aristotle. He never recovered from the shock. He won his battle, because he was the best brain of his time, but he could not forget such an inversion of the whole idea and purpose of his life.” His friend Reginald asked him to return to his regular habits, but he replied that he could write no more. “There seems to have been a silence, after which Reginald again ventured to approach the subject; and Thomas answered him with even greater vigor: ‘I can write no more; I have seen things which make all my writings seem like straw.’ ” – Reference 22.

Early in 1274, while traveling in response to Pope Gregory’s summons to attend a council, Thomas became ill. He recovered somewhat at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, and set out again on his journey. However, he was unable to continue on and was taken to the Cistercian monastery at Fossa Nuova, where he died.

Before his death he asked the Cistercian brothers to read to him, from beginning to end, the great love song of the Old Testament, the Song of Solomon. Echoes of Schionatulander.

Thomas was revered immediately upon his death because one of the Cistercian monks was apparently cured of an eye disease by pressing his eyes against those of the corpse (Reference 27). Echoes of the Protrepticus (see From Cratylus to Aristotle) and of Saint Odile.

Dante’s Paradiso

There can be no doubt that in the Paradiso, in the Ascent to the Sun, to the Fourth Sphere, Dante Alighieri, with Beatrice, actually encounters the Spirit or Individuality of Thomas Aquinas, and that the great teacher communicates clearly with him and instructs him. Just as in the posthumous words of Thomas, so may glimmerings of the future teachings be perceived, and this gives Thomas and friends great joy, because humanity too will have advanced. In the Paradiso Cantos, Dante describes three circles or spiraling spheres, one above the other as he ascends. In the first two spheres there are 12 souls in each, or 24, but Dante does not give a number for the third circle. Thomas is the spokesman for the first sphere, which is the sphere of the Father, probably a contracting sphere. Bonaventure is the spokesman for the second sphere, which may be expanding or radiating; this is the sphere of the Son. The third sphere is that of the Holy Spirit, at the center of which Dante perceives Christ on the Cross.

“I was a lamb among the holy flock,” says Thomas of himself, “Dominic leads to where all plenty is, unless the lamb itself stray to bare rock. This spirit on my right, once of Cologne, was my teacher and brother. Albert was his name, and Thomas, of Aquinas, was my own.” Also in this Garland of Souls is Boethius, Gratian, Peter Lombard, and “the fifth light” which “shines forth from so magnificent a love that men hunger for any news of it on earth; Within it is that mind to which were shown such depths of wisdom that, if truth be true, no mortal ever rose to equal this one.” The translator, John Ciardi, identifies this spirit as that of Solomon. Later, perceiving that Dante has many questions about the fifth light, Thomas refers to the third circle, which is a circle of archetypes that sends forth rays that, with varying degrees of perfection, imprint, like an “Ideal Seal,” the spirits below.

“The wax of these things, and the power that press and shape it, vary:
Thus the Ideal Seal shines through them sometimes more and sometimes less.

So trees of the same species may bring forth fruit that is better or worse;
So men are born different in native talent and native worth.

Were the wax most ready and free of every dross, and were the heavens in their
Supreme conjunction, the light of the seal would shine through without loss:

But nature scants that light in all it makes, working in much the manner of a painter
Who knows the true art, but whose brush hand shakes.

But if the Fervent Love move the Pure Ray of the First Power to wield the seal directly,
The thing so stamped is perfect in every way.

So once a quickening of the dust of earth issued the form of the animal perfection;
So once the Virgin Womb quickened toward birth.

Therefore I say that I am one with you in the opinion that mankind was never,
Nor will be, what it once was in those two.”

Notes

1. According to author Alessandro Barbero and other historians, in a single day Charles had 4,500 men, women and children decapitated, at Verden on the Aller, after the Saxon leader, Duke Widukind, failed to appear for a meeting there. The Franks – Count Theuderic’s forces – had suffered a humiliating and tragic defeat by the Saxons. “To this day,” writes historian Timothy Levi Biel (Lucent Books), “the hill on which the [defeat] took place is known as Dachtelfeld, or Slap-in-the-face Hill.” However, the sources regarding the events at Verden have been seriously questioned by many, and the histories and encyclopedias studied for this article can provide no definitive source for the figure of 4,500. The science of archaeology has not uncovered evidence of remains at Verden. There is evidence that Christians of the time massacred, through beheadings, those who would not relinquish pagan practices.

2. The concept and pictorial image of the white lily is suggestive of the spiritual presence of the individuality of John Baptist, who is closely associated with John Evangelist (Christian Rosenkreutz). In the statement from the Esoteric Lessons that Floris and Blanchefleur are called Charlemagne’s spiritual parents, Rudolf Steiner connects John Evangelist and John Baptist with the spiritual events of the ninth century. Although the saga of Floris and Blanchefleur was not published until around 1160, it apparently predates its publication by several hundred years. Hella Wiesberger (Reference 3) writes of Rudolf Steiner’s interpretation of this saga: “Floris signifies the flower with the red petals, or the rose; Blanchefleur is the flower with the white petals, or the lily… Rose has self-awareness completely within it; lily has it outside itself. But the merging of the soul which is within and the soul which works from without and enlivens the world as the World-Spirit was present. The story of Floris and Blanchefleur expresses the discovery of the World-Soul, the World-Ego, by the human soul, the human ego…” Charlemagne would have struggled in his role as instrument of World-Soul or World-Ego. Regarding the above statement that Floris and Blanchefleur are called Charlemagne’s spiritual parents, Wolfram also mysteriously suggests something other than physical lineage for the Grail personalities, stating that the Arthur and the Grail streams originated “from the union of Mazadan with Terdelaschoye, a fairy in the fairyland of Famorgan.” – from Cyril Edwards’ genealogy chart. Mazadan may be an anagram for Ahura Mazda, and terda an anagram for the Latin terra; la schoye is “the joy.” This might then be interpreted as the union of Ahura Mazda (as divine creative power) with the Joy of Earth.

3. “The objects Perceval encounters during his visit to the Grail castle recall the talismans of the Tuatha De Danaan, the people of the goddess Danu, divine figures central to Irish myth. The talismans are the spear of the god Lug that made its holder unconquerable, the sword of the god Nodeus that pursued the enemy relentlessly once it was drawn, and the cauldron of the Dagda (the good god) from which no company went unsatisfied.” – Perceval, Afterword by Joseph J. Duggan. “A new knowledge of Celtic myths and legends, recorded mainly by medieval Irish monks, added to the classical stereotype an otherworldly aura, eventually to be characterized as the Celtic twilight. Two hundred years on, this highly attractive view of the Celts as heroic, poetic and spiritual – the antithesis of modern industrial society – is still accepted uncritically by people as diverse as Celts nationalists and New Age travelers… But this says more about modern society. The Celt’s reverence for natural places, such as groves, springs and rivers, was shared with the Greeks, Romans and Germans.” – Reference 12.

4. “As a result of all the development which the Archangel of the Greeks had formerly gone through, he could pass comparatively quickly through that which enabled him to take an especially prominent position as Spirit of the Age. Hence, however, something of the greatest significance occurred in the fourth age of post-Atlantean civilization… the Greek Spirit of the Age renounced for this our present period his ascent into the region of the Spirits of Form… He became the representative quiding Spirit of exoteric Christianity… Another such renunciation occurred on another occasion… The people belonging to the Celtic Spirit were also spread far up towards the northeast of Europe. They were guided by an important Archangel who, soon after the Christian impulse had been given to humanity, had renounced becoming an Archai, a Spirit of Personality, and decided to remain at the stage of an Archangel… Hence also the Celtic peoples as one combined people dwindled away, because their Archangel had practiced a special resignation… He became the inspiring Spirit of esoteric Christianity…” – Reference 14.

5. From Gotthard Killian on the concept of Minne in the poetic work Der juengere Titurel (The Younger Titurel) by Albrecht von Scharffenberg: The concept of Minne is vast within the context of the time and transformation of consciousness in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The eighth and ninth centuries did not have a word for Minne, but the word was used in Wolfram’s time, originating from troubadours who influenced German poets called Minnesingers and Mastersingers. The concept of Minne was an ideal: to be aware of the lower love of necessity as contrasted with the development of a higher love, to have a sense for the higher being within mankind. This served to tame the strong masculine warring forces with the inner power of feminine tenderness. Minne as an ideal was independent of the religious teachings of virtue in the Middle Ages; it was perceived as an inner mental picture in the striving for a disciplined inner life. The love of necessity, physical love, does not preclude freedom of choice when reason has the power to distinguish the various ways of love, developing such virtues as fidelity and charity. Schionatulander and Sigune, grown out of their innocent childhood love, pledge the ideal of Minne to one another. Regarding Der juengere Titurel: Written before 1272, this poem in seven-lined stanzas and in prolix style has apparently never been fully translated into English (as of 2010). The complete work online contains approximately 600 pages. The poem may have originally been intended as a continuation of Wolfram’s Titurel and has often been regarded as such, but Scharffenberg’s style and story differ from Wolfram’s. German scholars and commentators do not perceive the same origins – or perhaps literary value – in the two works. Scharffenberg wrote another work titled Der Tempel des heiligen Gral (The Temple of the Holy Grail), and the content offers a lengthy description of Titurel’s Grail castle as a magical temple in a hidden forest, full of natural wonders, built with sacred minerals and gleaming gems. Like Wolfram, Scharffenberg is learned in the occult knowledge of gems and minerals.

6. Thanks are extended to Dan Mateescu for the reference from Esoteric Lessons: “Charlemagne was the reincarnation of a high East Indian adept and an instrument of the spiritual individuality that is symbolized by the name Titurel. Floris and Blanchefleur are called Charlemagne’s spiritual parents.” And thanks to Thomas Sharples for suggesting so many references on the subject of the Grail, to Gotthard Killian for his assistance with Albrecht von Scharffenberg’s work, and to Josiane Simonin for referring to the work of Hans Gsanger.

7. From a Wikipedia site: “In the earliest narrative source, by Jordan of Saxony (Libellus de principiis), Dominic’s parents are not named. The story is told that before his birth his mother dreamed that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a torch in its mouth, and seemed to set the world on fire.” This, together with other biographical accounts of Dominic’s life, including his powerful influence on Thomas, points to the probability of Heraclitus as manifest in Dominic. Dominic is associated with the white lily, symbol of the soul which works from without and enlivens the world as the World-Spirit (Note 2). “He was named after Saint Dominic of Silos, who is said to be the patron saint of hopeful mothers.” The name Heraclitus or Herakleitos means “Glory of Hera,” and Hera was the goddess of marriage and childbirth. Dominic is also the patron saint of astronomers.

8. A deep mystery becomes apparent through the probability of Landulf II as one of Thomas’s ancestors. Perhaps connected with this mystery is the frequently repeated story of how Thomas, while imprisoned by his family, drove the woman - who had been sent by his brothers - out of his chamber by threatening her with a firebrand, and then prayed to God that he might be granted integrity of mind and body. As conveyed by Reginald of Piperno in the language and understanding of his day, Thomas’s prayer was answered. This story, as well as accounts of Thomas’s ability to levitate, allude strongly to the Hindu and Buddhist influences of the Eastern path, to the Eastern mastery of the life forces. A number of spiritual causes originating from the Individuality may be considered by way of beginning to approach such mysteries: the sacrifice of Schionatulander for the mission of love; Thomas’s probable Manichean deed of entering into evil in order to transform it through love; his taking on of a slowness and heaviness of body as contrasted with Schionatulander’s extraordinary swiftness (he might otherwise have been too far in advance of his time); his drawing toward himself the “Second Adam,” the new spiritual ancestor (Reference 30); the mission of the healing of the Amfortas wound; the return of clairvoyance to be experienced in full consciousness; and the mission of the reunion of Cain and Abel (Reference 3). This mastery of the life forces, of ancient Eastern origin, is hardly possible at all for the contemporary human being as a result of centuries of Western civilization; the full impact of the deterioration of the Form body of the first ancestor of mankind, Adam, is being experienced, including by those in the East.

9. Richard Distasi writes: “On this matter, I can only conjecture… The author of the article offers the suggestion of Albertus von Bollstaedt (Albert the Great) as the representative of the fifth age [the twelfth member of the Council]. He was a man of science as well as philosophy and theology. He was the teacher of Thomas Aquinas while within the Dominican Order. He was a student of the Philosophy of Aristotle, which Thomas Aquinas adopted as well, according to one biography of Albertus Magnus. Thereby I would agree as well as to Thomas being the possible representative of the fourth cultural age. Aristotle appeared only a few centuries into the fourth age, while Aquinas appeared a couple of centuries before the end of the fourth age, such that the fourth age is thoroughly embodied in his soul.”

References

  1. The Mysteries of the East and of Christianity, Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, 1913.
  2. On the Meaning of Life, Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, 1912.
  3. The First Esoteric School, 1904-1914, The Etheric Dimensions Press, 2005.
  4. Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival and Titurel, A New Translation by Cyril Edwards, Oxford University Press, 2006.
  5. Perceval, The Story of the Grail, Chretien de Troyes, translated by Burton Raffel, Yale University Press, 1999.
  6. Charlemagne, Father of a Continent, by Alessandro Barbero, University of California Press, 2004.
  7. The Inheritance of Rome, A History of Europe from 400 to 1000, by Chris Wickham, Penguin Group, New York, 2009.
  8. The End of Days, by Erna Paris, Prometheus Books, New York, 1995.
  9. Esoteric Lessons, Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, 1909.
  10. The Celtic Bear, by Margaret Odrowaz-Sypniewska, The British Isles, Their Genealogy, History and Heraldry, Online, angelfire.com, 2010.
  11. The Importance of Charlemagne, by Timothy Levi Biel, Lucent Books, San Diego, California, 1997.
  12. The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Ancient World, by Brian M. Fagan, Thames and Hudson, London, 2001.
  13. Aspects of Human Evolution, Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, 1917.
  14. The Mission of Folk-Souls, Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, 1910.
  15. Ancient Myths: Their Meaning and Connection with Evolution, Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, 1910.
  16. Christ and the Spiritual World: The Search for the Holy Grail, Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, 1913.
  17. Precious Stones and Minerals, Lecture by Rudolf Steiner, 1906.
  18. Cosmic Memory, Prehistory of Earth and Man, Book by Rudolf Steiner, 1904.
  19. Summa contra Gentiles, Book One, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, London, 1975.
  20. Summa Theologica, Volumes I, II, William Benton Publisher, University of Chicago, Great Books Series, 1952.
  21. Europe in the High Middle Ages, by William Chester Jordan, Penguin History of Europe, Viking, Penguin Group, 2001.
  22. Saint Thomas, “The Dumb Ox,” by G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), Doubleday Image Book, 1933, 1956.
  23. St. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor Doctor of the Church, Fontes Vitae S. Thomas Aquinatis, by Dominic Prummer, from Peter Calo, Online at ETWN’s Saints and Other Holy People. 2010.
  24. St. Thomas Aquinas, by Jacques Maritain, Online at Maritain.nd.edu, 2010.
  25. Sizilien, Insel des Kain (Sicily, Island of Cain), by Hans Gsanger, Safari-Verlag Publication, 1958.
  26. Erchempert’s History of the Lombards of Benevento, by Joan Rowe Ferry, Ph.D Thesis, Online at scholarship.rice.edu, 2010.
  27. Thomas Aquinas, Theologian of the Christian Life, by Nicholas M. Healy, Ashgate Publishing Limited, England, 2003.
  28. Roman Catholicism, Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, 1920.
  29. St. Thomas and Transubstantiation, article in L’Osservatore Romano, Online at ETWN’s Saints and Other Holy People, 2010.
  30. From Jesus to Christ, Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, 1911.
  31. The Manicheans, Lecture by Rudolf Steiner, 1904.
  32. Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz, Lectures by Rudolf Steiner, 1911.
  33. The Divine Comedy: Paradiso, by Dante Alighieri, translated by John Ciardi, New American Library, 1954, 2003.

Article and Illustrations Copyright © 2010 by Martha Keltz



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