Just as any of the other gospels or basic handed-down biblical traditions and messages have an obvious interpretation for the public that has gradually taken root amongst people as rituals or religious ceremonies, and so in this way have become a tradition, and thereupon for the general public have a hidden aspect, so does the Christmas Gospel also have for the public its obvious word form or terminology, which has long since become the Christian world's greatest and dearest tradition, and an aspect hidden from the public. The Christmas Gospel is thus in its deepest analysis a mystery, an occult phenomenon, like the other great religious messages. And it is this occult phenomenon that is the fundamental, immutable truth in the gospel, quite regardless of whether for the public the obvious letterform or terminology is only a poem or whether it truly expresses a historical event. It becomes quite unimportant if these great biblical or religious traditions reflect actual events that have taken place and if the people concerned have actually lived or ever existed at all. And the more one becomes familiar with this, the more one becomes witness to how foolish and useless, indeed downright harmful, discussions and religious strife about this are in themselves, and that all who participate in such things are only fools who know not what they do. And the more these religious belligerent people are preachers, priests and other authorised ecclesiastical authorities, the less flattering do these beings become as interpreters of the real truth. They are interpreters of only the truth's outer trappings and adjustment for a particular past type of consciousness that cannot possibly be anything more or less obsolete for the psyche or mentality of any future. To argue about where, for example, Jesus was born or where he held his Sermon on the Mount, whether he was crucified or buried here or there, or whether he had in fact ever existed at all, is just as foolish and meaningless as it would be to argue about the existence or non-existence of the sun. The biblical traditions, and especially the two great traditions of the New Testament   the Christmas and Easter messages   are not primarily intended to be historical data. They are definitely not intended to be material for archaeologists or to be steadfast scientific bases for zealous, materialistic researchers of later times. In that case they must have had to have been established to a large extent quite differently. The originators of the biblical accounts have never really thought about creating bases for a materialistic science. And how should this also have come about? A materialistic science, totally separated from the religious principle, as it thus would seem today, has been quite unknown in the past. The past, which is to say the whole of terrestrial humanity's history up to the present day, was not an age of "doubt" but of "belief". In the past, the mental vital necessities of life were therefore not matters of weight, measure, distance, time, space and speed. It was not a matter of the chemical composition or content of matter, the physical structure of the universe or starry worlds, the purely physical analyses of the earth, sun or moon, because such matters could not yet be under consideration at all.