From Christianity to Christ: Christianity as the Essence of Humanity in Rudolf Steiner's Science of the Spirit

What we traditionally think of as Christianity is only its cultural form, adopted and developed over the last two thousand years.

This represents chiefly human thoughts and dogmas, human institutions, churches, and beliefs: in other words all that human beings have developed as their response to the Christ event. Rudolf Steiner said of Christianity that it “started as a religion but greater than all religions.” Taking this as his basis, the author reaches beyond earthly traditions and cultural expressions of Christianity to its true spiritual essence.

His survey takes us from the history of actual “all-too-human” Christianity to the history of actual “Christian” Christianity and its future development through a new scientific approach to the spirit. Archiati’s warmth of expression and clarity of thought bring to life ideas and concepts that for so long have been the reserve of dry theology.

Pietro Archiati (1944–2022) studied Theology and Philosophy in Rome and Munich. He worked in Laos as a teacher during the Vietnam War, and later as a missionary in New York. In 1977, while a hermit on Lake Como (Italy) he discovered anthroposophy, which became his lifelong passion. He later worked as a lecturer in a priest seminary in South Africa. After leaving the Church in 1987, he became a freelance speaker and writer. From 2004 until his death, together with Monika Grimm, he led the publishing company Rudolf Steiner Ausgaben (Rudolf Steiner Editions). His many prefaces and epilogues to the Steiner volumes he published are an attempt to build a bridge between anthroposophy and contemporary life.