Dante and Beatrice by Henry Holiday (1884)When you follow the teaching of the Templars, there at the
Dante and Beatrice by Henry Holiday (1884)When you follow the teaching of the Templars, there at the heart of it is a kind of reverence for something of a feminine nature. This femininity was known as the Divine Sophia, the Heavenly Wisdom. Manas is the fifth principle, the spiritual self of man that must be developed, for which a temple must be built. And, just as the pentagon at the entrance to Solomon’s Temple characterises the fivefold human being, this female principle similarly typifies the wisdom of the Middle Ages. This wisdom is exactly what Dante sought to personify in his Beatrice. Only from this viewpoint can Dante’s Divine Comedy be understood. Hence you find Dante, too, using the same symbols as those which find expression in the Templars, the Christian knights, the Knights of the Grail, and so on. Everything which is to happen [in the future] was indeed long since prepared for by the great initiates, who foretell future events, in the same way as in the Apocalypse, so that souls will be prepared for these events.—Rudolf Steiner, The Temple Legend -- source link
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