Rudolf
Steiner's Fifth Gospel
Volume Two
Two Lectures by Rudolf Steiner in Cologne, Germany
December 17 and 18, 1913
For members of the Anthroposophical Society
Translated from the German by Frank
Thomas Smith
Cologne,
December 17, 1913
This evening and
tomorrow I feel obliged to speak to you of what we have become accustomed to
call the Mystery of Golgotha, but I will attempt to speak of it in a somewhat
different way than until now. What has been said previously, although certainly
esoteric, has had a more esoteric-theoretical content. I have spoken about the
essence and significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for humanity. That it is to
a certain extent the central phenomenon for the whole evolution of humanity on
earth and to what extent it is the central phenomenon has been considered. This
has been taken wholly from sources of occult investigation. The thought-sources
have been broached which stream out from the Mystery of Golgotha and which
develop and are living in our earthly evolution. If human evolution on earth is
observed from a clairvoyant vantage point, the significance of the Mystery of
Golgotha can be grasped.
Now, however, I am
obliged to speak more concretely about the events which took place at the
beginning of our [Christian] era. I will speak of the events, the forces which
live on in the aura of the earth, and which may be observed esoterically.
Tomorrow I will speak of the reasons why now, in our times, these things must
be revealed within our anthroposophical circles. Today I will try to indicate
some of the things that occurred in Palestine at the beginning of our era. And
I hope that in your hearts, in your souls, when the event of Golgotha, which
[until now] has been characterized more in conceptual form, does not lose any
of its significance if we look directly and concretely at what happened at that
time.
In lecture cycles
about the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, I have already had the opportunity of
speaking about this subject. It is a fact that two Jesus children were born at
approximately the same time at the beginning of our era. I pointed out that
those two Jesus children were very different as far as character and
capabilities are concerned. The Jesus very well described by the Gospel of
Matthew descended from the Solomon line of the House of David. In him lived the
soul, or the �I� of the person we know as Zarathustra. [1]
When we consider such
an incarnation, we must be especially clear about one thing: that even when
such an advanced individual, as Zarathustra certainly was, is again incarnated
� namely in the time he was born as Jesus � in no way must he know in childhood
or youth that he is that individual. It is not necessary to be able to say: I
am this person or that person. That is not the case. It is, however, true that
in such cases the enhanced capacities gained by having passed through such an
incarnation become evident early and thus define the child's character. So it
was that the Solomon Jesus child � as I would like to call him � in whom the I of Zarathustra lived, was endowed with enhanced
capabilities which enabled him to easily absorb the culture and the knowledge
to which his earthly contemporaries had attained. In that child's environment �
especially in those times � existed the whole cultural civilization of humanity
in words, gestures and deeds � in short, in all that could be seen and heard. A normal child absorbed little of what he saw and
heard. This child, however, absorbed with great ease all the sparse indications
in which existed everything humanity had achieved by then. In short, he proved
himself to be greatly gifted at absorbing all the available scholarly
knowledge. Today we would call such a child �highly gifted�. Up until his
twelfth year he quickly learned everything to be learned in his environment.
The other Jesus was
completely different. His character is well reflected in the Gospel of Luke. He
descended from the Nathan line of the House of David. He had no gift for
scholarly learning, nor did he show interest in it up
until his twelfth year. On the other hand, he showed to a high degree what we
can call capacity of the heart, compassion for all human happiness and
suffering. He showed himself to be especially capable in that he concentrated
less on himself and was less able to attain exterior knowledge. But from
earliest childhood on he felt the suffering and the joy of others as his own
suffering and his own joy. He could transpose himself into the souls of others;
he possessed this ability in the highest degree. The Akasha
Record indicates that the differences between the two Jesus children could not
have been greater.
After both boys had
reached their twelfth year, an event occurred which I have often characterized:
that when the Nathan-Jesus traveled to Jerusalem with his parents, the I of
Zarathustra, which had been in the other, the Solomon-Jesus, left his body and
took possession of the Nathan Jesus's physical, etheric and astral bodies. The
result was, therefore, that everything that this royal-I was capable of was now
active in the soul of the other, the Nathan-Jesus child. And this boy, now
possessing all of Zarathustra's power, without knowing it, caused astonishment
in the scholars among whom he emerged teaching � as it is also described in the
Bible. I have also indicated how the other, the Solomon-Jesus, from whom the I had departed, soon thereafter declined and, after a
relatively short time, died.
It must be understood
that when the I of a person leaves him � as was the
case with the Solomon-Jesus child � he does not necessarily die immediately.
Just as a ball continues to roll on for a time under its own inertia, so does
such a person continue to live on through the strength which lives within him. Now someone who cannot observe human souls in a precise
way will notice little difference between a person who has lost his I and a person who still has one. Because in normal life the I in a person we are observing does not play such a
dominant role. What we experience in another person is to a very small extent a
direct manifestation of his I, but rather the
manifestation of his I through the astral body. That other Jesus-child retained
his astral body, however, and only someone who can carefully distinguish � and
it is not easy � whether old habits and thoughts still continue to act in a
person or whether new elements are present, can thereby determine if the I is
still present or not. But a decline begins, a kind of dying out, a withering
away. And such was the case with this Jesus boy.
Then, through a stroke
of karma, the biological mother of the Nathan-Jesus and also the father of the
Solomon-Jesus died soon after the passing over of the Zarathustra-I from one
boy to the other. And the father of the Nathan-Jesus and the mother of the
Solomon-Jesus became a married couple. The Nathan-Jesus had no physical
siblings, and the step-siblings whom he now acquired were the siblings of the
Solomon-Jesus. From the two families one was formed, which henceforth resided
in the town now called Nazareth � so that when we refer to the Nathan-Jesus, in
whom the Zarathustra-I lived, we use the expression: Jesus of Nazareth.
Today I would like to
relate something about the life of Jesus of Nazareth as a youth � from research
in the Akasha Record � in a way that enables you to
understand a certain important moment in the earth's evolution which the
Mystery of Golgotha had prepared.
For a seer the life of
Jesus can be clearly divided into three phases. The conversation with the
scholars in his twelfth year had already shown that he possessed an inner
capacity, provided by the passing over of the Zarathustra-I, to be enlightened,
to receive enlightenment and to connect it with the capacities which lived in
the soul of Zarathustra. It was shown that an enormous force of inner
experience was in his soul, so that as he developed from his twelfth to his
seventeenth and eighteenth years it can be seen how inner enlightenment became
richer and richer, and especially enlightenment related to the evolution of the
ancient Hebrews and the Hebrew people in general.
At the time Jesus
lived in the Hebrew people, the grandeur of what had existed as secrets of the
cosmos during the times of the ancient prophets was no longer present. Many of
the old revelations of the prophets lived on, but the original capacity to
receive spiritual secrets directly from the spiritual world had faded out long
before. They were studied from the preserved scriptures. There were still some,
such as the famous Rabbi Hillel, who, because of his individual development was still able to perceive
something of what the ancient prophets had proclaimed. But that force, which
existed during the ancient epoch of the Hebrew people, the time of the
prophetic revelations, was long since no longer present in those few
individuals. A decline in the spiritual development of the Hebrew people was
clearly apparent. Now, however, what had once been revealed during the time of
the prophets emerged from the depths of Jesus of Nazareth's soul as inner
enlightenment.
But I wish to draw
your attention less to the historical fact
that in one person what had been revealed during the prophets' time appeared
again by means of inner enlightenment. I would rather like to emphasize to you
what it felt for such a relatively young soul � the soul of the thirteen to
fourteen year old Jesus of Nazareth � to feel a revelation coming to him in
total isolation, a revelation which no one else in his surroundings felt. At
most the best of them perhaps had a dim glimmer of it.
Try to imagine
yourselves in such a position, in the soul of someone possessing such great
knowledge alone, and understand that the Mystery of Golgotha had to be prepared
by such feelings of loneliness and isolation taking possession of Jesus of
Nazareth's soul. When you stand alone on a psychic island as he did, who from his
childhood on had felt such solidarity with all men, but now did not feel that
he could share his knowledge with them because they had sunken to a level where
they could no longer receive the revelation. He suffered greatly having to know
something which the others could not comprehend, but also wishing so strongly
that it could also arise in their souls that a mission was being prepared.
All that gave him the
fundamental impulse to say: a voice resounds in me from the spiritual world. If
humans could hear it, it would provide an infinite blessing for them. In olden
times there were people who could hear it. Now, however, they have no ears with
which to hear. That pain of solitude pressed ever deeper on his soul.
Such was Jesus of
Nazareth's inner life from his twelfth to his eighteenth year. For this reason
he was not understood by his biological father and his stepmother, and even
less so by his step-siblings, who often mocked him and considered him half mad.
He worked hard in his father's carpentry. But while he was working the feelings
I have just described lived on in his soul.
Then, when he was
around eighteen, he left home to travel. He went through Palestine and the
surrounding pagan areas, working at his trade. He was led by his karma. As he
wandered through Palestine his extraordinary character was seen by all the
people he met. During the day he worked, evenings he sat together with the
people. And the people with whom he sat from his nineteenth until around his
twenty-fourth year had the feeling, although they were not always conscious of
it, that he was an extraordinary individual, such a one as they had never
encountered before; they could not even have imagined that such a one existed.
They did not know what to make of him.
If you wish to understand
this, to penetrate into the secrets of human evolution, it is necessary to take
into account that experiencing what the young Jesus of Nazareth did � as I have
just described � causes deep sorrow in the soul. But this sorrow is transformed
into love. And much deep love in life is transformed sorrow of this kind.
Deep sorrow, pain, has
the capacity to transform itself into love, which does not merely act like
ordinary love, but through the very existence of the loving being streams out
like far reaching auras. So those people who were together then with Jesus
believed that they were in the presence of much more than a mere man. And when
he had departed from a place and they sat together evenings, they had the sense
of his real presence. They felt as though he were still there. And it happened
more and more that the people with whom he had stayed,
when they sat together around the table, had visions in common. They saw him
enter as a spirit-figure. Each one had this vision at the same time, that Jesus was once again among them, that he spoke
with them, told them things just as he had once done in physical form. He was
visible among them long after he had left. What caused this effect was pain and
sorrow transformed into love. The people with whom he was felt themselves to be
united with him in a special way. They felt that they were never again
separated from him. They felt that he remained with them and that he always
returned.
But he did not only
travel around in Palestine, his karma also led him to pagan places. (It would
take too long to describe here the reasons for his karma doing this.) This was
after he had recognized the declining developments in Judaism. And he learned
how in the religious rituals of the pagans, just as in Judaism, what was originally
revelation had also died out. Thus in the second phase he had to experience the
decline of humanity from a previous spiritual plateau. But he perceived how
paganism declined differently than Judaism.
His perception of
Judaism's decline was a more inner experience, gained by enlightenment. He saw
how the revelations from the spiritual world which were once proclaimed by the
prophets had ceased because there were no longer ears to hear them. He learned
about how it was with paganism in a place where the ancient pagan religious
services had fallen into disrepair, and where the fall of paganism was
physically evident. The inhabitants of the place had fallen victim to leprosy
and other hideous diseases. Some had become malignant, others lame. The priests
abandoned them and had fled. When Jesus was first seen, the news spread like
wildfire that someone very special had arrived. For now even in his outer
appearance he had achieved the transformed suffering which was love. They saw
that a being had come like none who had ever walked on the earth. Soon the news
spread and many came running to him, for they thought a priest had been sent to
them who would again officiate at the
sacrifices. Their own priests had fled � so they came running. The Akasha record shows this, just as I am describing it.
He had no intention of
officiating at the pagan sacrifice. However, he now saw in vivid imaginations
the enigma of the decline of pagan spirituality. He could directly perceive
what had flowed into the secrets of the pagan mysteries: that the forces of
high divine beings had flown down to the sacrificial altars. But now instead of
the forces of the good spirits streaming down, all kinds of demons, emissaries
of Lucifer and Ahriman, streamed down to the holy
altars. He perceived the fall of pagan spiritual life not by inner
enlightenment, as with Judaism, but through external visions.
It is very different
to get to know things theoretically than to visualize how once divine-spiritual
forces flowed down to an altar and now demons did so, which caused abnormal
mental states, diseases and so forth. Such spiritual visualization is quite
different from knowing something theoretically. But Jesus of Nazareth was to
see this in direct spiritual visualization, see how the emissaries of Lucifer
and Ahriman worked. He was to see how they did harm
to the people.
Suddenly he fell down
as though dead. Frightened, the people fled. But as he lay there as though
carried off to a spiritual world, he received an impression of all the ancient revelations
that had once been told to the pagans. Therefore, just as he had perceived the
secrets which had been proclaimed to the old prophets and which were now not
even a shadow in Jewish culture, through spiritual inspiration he was able to
hear in which way they had been proclaimed to the pagans.
The
strongest impression made on him was what I attempted to investigate, and what
I spoke of for the first time on the occasion of the foundation stone laying of
our building in Dornach.
It could be called The Reverse Our Father, because it was the reverse of
the substantial content of the prayer the Christ Jesus' disciples attributed to
him. Jesus of Nazareth perceived something like a reverse Our Father, so that
he was able to feel in these words the secret of human evolution and
incorporations in earthly incarnations in a concentrated format.
Amen,
Es walten die �bel,
Zeugen sich l�sender Ichheit,
Von �ndern erschuldete Selbstheitschuld,
Erlebet im t�glichen Brote,
In dem nicht waltet der Himmel Wille,
Indem der Mensch sich
schied von Eurem Reich
Und verga� Euren Namen,
Ihr V�ter in den Himmeln.
Amen,
Evil rules,
Witness of the dissolving I,
Selfhood�s guilt to others attributed,
Experienced in daily bread,
In which heaven�s will be not done,
For man deserted your kingdom
And forgot your names,
You fathers in the heavens.
That is � in
stammering words � what expresses something like the laws governing how human
beings incarnate from the macro-cosmos into the micro-cosmos. Since I came to
know these words, I have found them to be an extraordinarily meaningful
meditation form. They exercise a force on the soul which is quite
extraordinary, and the more one studies them the more force they have. And then
when one tries to resolve and understand them one realizes that in them the
secret and destiny of humanity is condensed and how the reversal of the words
reveals how the microcosmic Our Father which Christ proclaimed to his followers
could originate.
But Jesus did not only
perceive this secret of the original pagan revelations. When he awoke from the
vision, he learned from the fleeing people and the demons the entire secrets of
paganism. That was the second immeasurable pain which sank into his soul. First
he learned decisively about the fall of Judaism
by recognizing what had been revealed to Judaism before its fall. Now he
learned the same about paganism. In this way he consciously experienced the
fact that in his surroundings the people had to live in the sense of the words:
�They have ears but do not hear what the secrets of the cosmos are.� Thus he
attained to the unlimited compassion he had always felt for humanity and can be
expressed as follows: now that he could see such things, humanity should
receive the content of his visions � but where were the beings who would
communicate it to humanity.
He had these
experiences until his twenty-fourth year, approximately. Then his karma led him
back home at the time his father died. He lived there with his step-siblings
and his foster or stepmother. Whereas his stepmother previously had shown
little understanding for him, now she showed more understanding for the great
pain he bore within him. Then other experiences followed from his twenty-fourth
to his thirtieth year, during which he found ever more understanding from his
stepmother, although things were still somewhat difficult. These were also the
years in which he came to know the Essenes better. Today I will only indicate
the main points of how Jesus learned of the Essene Order. This was an order of
men who separated themselves from the rest of humanity and developed a special
life of body and soul in order to again ascend to the ancient revelations of
the spirit which humanity had lost. With strict exercises and strict ways of
life, the striving souls were to reach a stage where they could reunite with
the spiritual region from out of which the ancient revelations had originated.
In this group Jesus of
Nazareth also met John the Baptist, although strictly speaking neither were
Essenes. The Akasha Record shows this clearly. But
from what I have explained it is clear that an exceptional person was present
who made an extraordinary impression on everyone. He so impressed the Essenes
that despite guarding their spiritual activities as holy secrets, which they
revealed to no outsider, they willingly spoke with Jesus about important
secrets of their order concerning what they had achieved for their souls. Thus
Jesus learned that in those times there were still ways for people to rise to
the heights where humanity once sojourned and from whence it had since
descended.
But what also made a
deep discomforting impression on him was that an Essene, if he wished to ascend
to those heights, had to separate himself from humanity and live a life outside
the society of others. That was not the way of universal human love, as Jesus
of Nazareth felt it. He could not tolerate that a spiritual wealth exist that
is unavailable to all, but only to a select few in detriment to humanity as a
whole.
What he felt can be
expressed as follows: They are a few individuals, and there will always be
fewer who find their way back to the ancient revelations, but it is just when
those few separate themselves that the rest must live in decadence, for they
must accomplish the material work for those who are no longer there.
Once as he was leaving
the Essene Order community he saw in spirit two figures fleeing from the gate.
He had the impression that the Essenes protected themselves from these two
figures, whom we call Lucifer and Ahriman
in anthroposophical terms, driving them away by means of their spiritual
exercises, their ascetic way of life and the strict rules of their order.
Nothing of Lucifer and Ahriman should touch their
souls. Therefore Jesus of
Nazareth saw Lucifer and Ahriman fleeing, but he also
knew that because of such a community having been established, where Lucifer
and Ahriman could not enter and the Essenes wanted
nothing to do with them, they turned even more to the other people. That was
evident to him. Again it is completely different when one knows this only
through theory and when one sees what individuals do for their own advancement
and as a consequence Lucifer and Ahriman are sent to
other people because they have been expelled from the presence of the former.
He realized that it was no path of salvation which the Essenes followed, but
was one which through separation and at the cost of the rest of humanity only
seeks their own advancement.
An immense compassion
engulfed him. He felt no joy at the ascension of the Essenes, for he knew that
other people must sink lower while a few ascended. It all became clearer to him
when he saw the same image at other Essene gates � there were more such
communities � the image of Lucifer and Ahriman
standing before the gates but unable to enter � and fleeing. Thus he realized
that the methods and rules of orders such as the Essenes' impelled Lucifer and Ahriman to the other people. And this was the cause of the
third extreme pain he experienced concerning the decadence of humanity.
I already mention that
his stepmother had more and more understanding for what lived in his soul. So
what now happened was meaningful as preparation of the Mystery of Golgotha: a
conversation took place � according to research in the Akasha
Record � between Jesus of Nazareth and his step or foster-mother. So advanced
had her understanding become that he could speak to her about the threefold
suffering he endured because of the decadence of humanity which he had
experienced in the areas of Judaism and paganism as well as the Essenes. And as
he described to her his lonely suffering, and what he had experienced, he saw
that it affected her soul.
It belongs to the most
wonderful impressions one can receive in the occult field to learn the content
of this conversation. For in the entire field of human evolution nothing
similar � I don't say greater, because naturally the Mystery of Golgotha is
greater � but something similar one cannot see. What he said to his mother were
not words in the usual sense, but they were like living beings which passed
over from him to his stepmother and his soul gave wings to the words with its
own force. Everything which he had so painfully endured went
in this conversation as though on wings into the soul of his stepmother � words
of his infinite love as well as his infinite suffering. So he was able to
describe to her what he had thrice experienced as in a great tableau. It was
then enhanced when Jesus of Nazareth gradually steered the conversation to his
conclusions about the threefold decadence of humanity.
It is very difficult
to put into words how he summarized his own experiences to his stepmother. But
as we are prepared by spiritual science, we can use spiritual scientific terms
and expressions to attempt to describe the sense of the conversation's ending.
Naturally what I now say was not expressed in the same words, but it will
provide an approximate idea of what Jesus wanted his stepmother to grasp:
When we look back at
the evolution of humanity on earth, it is similar to an individual human life,
only changed in later generations, and unconscious for them. The Post-Atlantis
life of humanity revealed itself to Jesus of Nazareth � that after the great
natural disaster in Atlantis, first an ancient Indian culture developed in
which the great holy Rishis communicated their vast wisdom to humanity. In
other words, it was basically a spiritual culture. Yes, he went on, just as an
individual human being is a child between birth and the seventh year, in which
different forces are at work than in later life, so spiritual forces were
active during that ancient Indian time. But because those forces were not only
present until the seventh year, but extended over the Indian's entire life,
humanity was in a different stage of evolution then. During the course of their
entire life they knew what today the child knows and experiences until its
seventh year. Today we think the way we do between the seventh and the
fourteenth and the fourteenth and twenty first years because we have lost the childhood
forces which are suppressed in the seventh year. During that ancient time,
because these forces extended over an entire lifetime, which today are only
present until the seventh year, people in the first post-atlantic
epoch were clairvoyant. They rose higher with the forces which today are only
present until the seventh year. Yes, that was the Golden Age of human
evolution. Then came another age, in which the forces extended over the entire
life, which otherwise are only active between the seventh and fourteenth years.
Then came the third epoch, in which the forces were active which otherwise are
active between the fourteenth and twenty-first years. Then we lived in an epoch
in which the forces which are active today between the twenty-first and the twenty-eighth
years, were active during the entire lifetime.
Now we are approaching
the middle of human life, Jesus of Nazareth said, which is in the thirties,
where the forces of youth cease to grow and begin to decline. We are now living
in an age that corresponds to the twenty-eighth to the thirty-fifth year of the
individual person, where his life begins to decline. Whereas in the case of
some individuals other forces are present, in humanity in general they are no
longer there. That is the great suffering, that humanity should become aged,
having its youth behind it, being in the epoch
corresponding to the twenty-eighth to thirty-fifth year. Where should new
forces come from? The forces of youth are exhausted.
That is what he told
his stepmother about the impending decadence of humanity, which caused him so
much pain, for it was clear that humanity's situation
was hopeless. The forces of youth were exhausted, humanity now faced old age.
The individuals, he knew, would continue to live on from the thirty-fifth year
until death as before, because they retained residues of the forces, but
humanity as a whole did not have that, so something else must come: what for
the individual is necessary from the twenty-eighth to the thirty-fifth year.
The earth would have to be illumined macro-cosmically with the forces with
which the individual must be illumined from the twenty-eight to the
thirty-fifth year.
That humanity as such
was becoming old, that is what is read in the Akasha
Record and felt during what Jesus of Nazareth related. As he spoke in this way
to his mother about the meaning of human evolution, at that moment he realized
that what he was saying was part of himself, and
something of himself flowed from his words, for his words had become what he
himself was.
That was also the
moment when in the soul of his stepmother flowed the
soul which had lived in his biological mother who � after the Zarathustra-I
crossed over to him from the other Jesus-child � had died and had lived in
spiritual regions since Jesus was twelve years old. From then on she could
spiritualize the stepmother's soul. Thus the latter now lived with the soul of
the Nathan Jesus-child's biological mother.
But Jesus of Nazareth
had united himself so intensely with the words with which he had expressed his pain about humanity, that
it was as if this self had disappeared from his
life's [physical, etheric an astral] sheaths, so that these sheaths became as
they were when he was a small boy � only impregnated with all he had suffered
since his twelfth year. The Zarathustra-I was gone and what lived in his three
sheaths was only what remained through the power of the experiences. An impulse
arose in these three sheaths which led him on the path to John the Baptist at
the River Jordan. As in a kind of dream, which however was not a dream, but an
enhanced consciousness, he went his way with only the three sheaths
spiritualized and driven by the effects of what he�d experienced since he was
twelve years old. The Zarathustra-I was gone. The three sheaths led him on, hardly noticing what was around him. He lived, with the I gone, wholly aware of humanity's destiny and its
needs.
On
his way to John the Baptist at the River Jordan, he met two Essenes with whom
he had often spoken. Without his I he didn't recognize
them. But they knew him and therefore spoke to him: Where goest thou, Jesus of
Nazareth? What he answered I have tried to put into words. He spoke in a way
that they did not know where the words came from. They came from him, yet not
from him. �There where souls such as yours do not wish to see, where the
suffering of humanity can find the rays of forgotten light.�
Those
were the words which seemed to come from him. They didn't understand him; they
realized that he didn't recognize them, so they asked: �Jesus of Nazareth,
don't you know us?� Now even stranger words were spoken. It was as if he had
said to them: You are like lost lambs, but I was the shepherd's son from whom
you fled. If you recognized me, you would flee anew. It was long ago that you
fled from me to the world.
The
Essenes didn't know what to make of him, for while speaking to them his eyes
took on a very special aspect. They seemed to be looking outward, then also
inward. They seemed like eyes showing an expression of reproach for the people
spoken to. They were eyes through which showed gentle love, but a love which
became a rebuke for the Essenes, one which came from their own hearts. We can
characterize what the Essenes felt when they heard him like this: �What kind of
people are you? Where is your world? Why do you wrap yourselves in deceptive
robes? Why does a fire burn within you which is not
kindled in my father's house?�
They
were silenced by these words. And he spoke further: �You carry the tempters
mark, who caught you when you fled. With his fire he
made your wool glisten. The hair of this wool stings my eyes. You lost lambs!
He has filled your souls with pride.�
When
he spoke these words, one of the Essenes answered: �Didn't we show the tempter
the door? He no longer has anything to do with us.� Jesus said: �When you
showed him the door he ran to other people. He attacks them from all sides. You
are not elevated when you debase others. You only think you are elevated
because you let the others decline. You remain as high as you are only because
you make the others smaller, so you think you are great.� Jesus of Nazareth
spoke in that way so the Essenes could take note. It impressed them so much
that they could no longer see. Their eyes dimmed and Jesus of Nazareth seemed to
disappear before their eyes. But then, when he seemed to have vanished, they
saw his face from a distance, but hugely increased in size like a fata morgana,
and very, very far away. And words came as though spoken by this fata morgana.
They sensed them to be: �Vain is your striving because your hearts are empty
which you have filled with the spirit which hides pride in the cloak of
humility.�
Then
the mirage also vanished and they stood there dismayed and depressed. When they
could again see, they saw that Jesus had gone farther away while they were
watching the face. And they could do nothing but be aware that he had gone on.
Despondent, they continued to the Essene hostel and they never told anyone what
they had experienced, but kept silent about it their whole lives. And they
became the most profound of the Essenes, but they were silent and only spoke
when everyday understanding was necessary. Their brother Essenes never knew why
they were so changed. Until their deaths they never revealed what they had seen
and heard. They therefore experienced the
Mystery of Golgotha in a special way. For the others though, what they had
experienced was imperceptible.
After
Jesus had walked on for a while he met a man who was in deep despair. But, as I
said, Jesus was so removed from earthly conditions that he didn't realize that
a man had approached him. And he had such a strong effect on that man who was
in such despair, that Jesus of Nazareth said something which may be described
as: �Where has your soul led you? I saw you many thousands of years ago; you
were different then!�
The
desperate man heard this as though spoken from the approaching figure of Jesus
of Nazareth. Because of these words, the man felt the impulse to say the
following. On one hand he felt the need to speak, on the other to find the
answer to his destiny: �In my life I have been highly successful. I always
studied, and due to this learning I rose higher and higher over other men. With
every honor I became prouder and I often said to myself: What a unique person
you are, rising so high over your fellow men. I
felt that my soul must worth more than the souls of others. My pride increased with every new honor. Then I had
a dream. What a horrible dream it was! While I was dreaming my soul was filled
with a feeling of shame. I was ashamed of dreaming such a thing. I was so proud
in my life, and now I dreamed something I would never have wanted to dream. I
dreamed that I asked myself the question: Who made me so great? And then a
being stood before me and said: I made you great, I raised you high, and
therefore you are mine. I felt scandalized at
the revelation that I had not risen so high through my own efforts, but that
another being had been responsible for my success. Still dreaming, I ran away.
When I woke up I really ran away, abandoning all my achievements. I didn't know
what I was seeking and so I have been long wandering about in the world,
ashamed of all the things which once brought me such pride.�
After
the despairing man had said this, the being who had
appeared in his dream stood again before him, between him and Jesus of
Nazareth. This dream figure blocked the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. And when
the dream figure left, dissolving in mist, Jesus had also already moved on.
When the despairing man looked around he saw Jesus a good distance away. And so
he had to continue on his way in despair.
Then
a leper approached Jesus, one whose disease and suffering was very advanced.
And because of what that soul was feeling, Jesus again
was obliged to speak. He said again: �Where has your soul led you? I knew you
many thousands of years ago, and you were different.�
These
words encouraged the leper to speak in the same way they had affected the
desperate man. The leper said: �I don't know how I got this disease, it just
came gradually. And other people no longer allowed me to be among them. I had
to wander in the wasteland, could only beg for what the people threw to me. One
night I came close to a dense forest. I saw a tree approaching me from a
clearing. It blinked at me with its own light. I felt impelled to get closer to
that tree. It urged me on. And when I was close to it, a skeleton came at me
like a light from the tree. It was death standing before me in that form. And
death said to me: 'I am you. I live off you. Fear not!�
And it continued: 'Why are you afraid? Didn't you love me during many lives on
earth? Only you didn't know that you loved me, because I appeared to you as a
beautiful archangel whom you thought you were loving.'
And then death was not standing there before me, but the archangel which I had
often seen and about whom I knew: That was the image I loved. Then it vanished.
The next morning I awoke next to the tree, more miserable than before. And I
knew that all the pleasurable indulgences I had loved, which lived in me as
egotism, are related to the being who appeared to
me as death and as an archangel and who claimed that I loved it and that it was
myself. And now I stand before you and I do not know who you are.� And now the
archangel appeared again, and then death, standing between the leper and Jesus,
blocked the leper's view of Jesus of Nazareth. When the leper saw only the
archangel, Jesus vanished, and then death and the archangel vanished. The leper
had to continue walking and saw that Jesus of Nazareth had already advanced
farther.
Those
were the events which occurred on the path Jesus took between the conversation
with his stepmother and the baptism by John in the Jordan.
Tomorrow
we will see how the these events � the meeting with the two Essenes, with the
despairing man and with the leper � continued to affect Jesus of Nazareth's
physical, etheric and astral bodies when he barely understood the world from
which he was so detached, and were enlivened by what he received with John at
the baptism in the Jordan.
If
these events, which I have described as having taken place between the
conversation with his stepmother and the baptism in the Jordan, seem unlikely
or strange, then I can only say: Although they may seem strange, they are truly
revealed by research in the Akasha Record. They
describe events which are as singular as they must be, for they are in
preparation for an event which can only happen once � what we call the Mystery
of Golgotha. Whoever does not wish to consider the idea that something so
special happened at that moment in the evolution of humanity will find human
evolution difficult to understand.
Cologne,
Germany, November 18, 1913
Before continuing with the
study of the life of Jesus Christ, I would like to mention some indications
about the way such things are found. With few words such a comprehensive
subject can of course only be characterized. But I want you to have an idea of
what we can call occult research, at the stage where one can penetrate to such
concrete facts as those which, for example, we considered here yesterday.
To begin with, we can say that
this research rests on a study of the Akasha
Chronicle. In general terms, I described how such reading in the Akasha Chronical is to be
understood in articles in the magazine �Lucifer-Gnosis� which appeared under
the title �From the Akasha Chronicle�. It should be
clear that different facts about cosmic events and cosmic being must be
researched in different ways, so now I would like to be more specific about
what has already been said.
Basically in the universe there
is nothing but consciousness. Except for consciousness, everything else belongs
in the domain of maya, or the great illusion. You can
find these facts in two places � in others as well � but especially in the
description of the evolution of the earth from ancient Saturn to Vulcan in An
Outline of Occult Science, where the evolution from ancient Saturn to ancient
Sun, from Sun to ancient Moon, from Moon to Earth, and so on, are described as
stages of consciousness. This means that if one wants to reach these important
facts, he must ascend to a stage of cosmic events where they consist of stages
of consciousness. Therefore, if we are describing realities we can only
describe various stages of consciousness. It is also included in another book
published this summer: The Threshold of the Spiritual World. Shown there
is how through a gradual ascension of the seer's vision it rises from the
objects and processes around us, which disappear into
nothingness, melt away so to speak, and finally reaches the region where there
are only beings in various stages of consciousness. So the true realities of
the world are beings in the various stages of consciousness. Due to the fact
that we live in the human stage of consciousness, and in this stage of
consciousness have no complete overview of the realities involved, the effect
is that what is unreal appears to us as real.
You have only to ask yourselves
the following question. Is a human strand of hair a reality, even in a narrow
sense? Does it have an independent existence? It would be nonsense to say that
a human strand of hair has an independent existence. It does make sense to
consider it as growing from the human body, otherwise
it is not possible for it to exist on its own. Everyone would agree that it is
nonsense to speak of a strand of hair as having an independent existence. A
plant is often seen as an individual being, but is no more an individual being
than is a strand of hair. For what the strand of hair is to the head, the plant
is to the earth organism, and it makes no sense to consider the plant in
isolation. We must think of the earth as analogous to man and all plants on the
earth as belonging to the earth, as does the hair on one's head. It is no more
possible for a plant to exist as an independent being outside the earth
organism than it is for hair to exist without a head to grow on. It is
important to know when to cease considering something as an autonomous being.
But everything which the human being can attain to which does not have its
roots in consciousness is not an independent being. Everything is rooted in
consciousness, only in different ways.
Let us take thought, that is,
what we as humans think. At first these thoughts are in our consciousness, but
not merely in our consciousness. At the same time they are in the consciousness
of the beings of the next higher hierarchy, the angeloi,
the angels. But whereas we may have one thought, all
our thoughts are the angels' thoughts. The angels think our consciousness. Thus
you can see that when we ascend to clairvoyance, we must develop a different
feeling towards perceiving the beings of the higher worlds than is the case in
ordinary reality. If we thinks as we do in the
physical-sensory earthly existence, we cannot achieve higher clairvoyance. One
must not merely think, one must also be thought, and be aware that one is being
thought. It is not easy � for human words have not yet been devised to describe
what the feeling about this perceiving is. But to use a comparison: we make all
kinds of movements and if we don't observe these movements in ourselves, but in
the eyes of another and see there the reflection of our own movements we say to
ourselves: by observing in this way we know that we are doing this or that with
our hands or with our facial expressions. One already has this feeling at the
next stage of clairvoyance. We know in general that we are thinking, but we see
ourselves [doing it] in the consciousness of the beings of the next higher
hierarchy. We let the angels think our thoughts. We must realize that we are
not conducting our thoughts, but that the beings of the next hierarchy are
conducting them. We must feel the interweaving, undulating consciousness of the
angels. We then receive information about the continuous impulse of evolution,
for example about the truth of the Christ-impulse, how it continues to be
active now. The angels can think this impulse; we humans can also think and
describe it, if we devote our thoughts to the angels so they think in us. We
can achieve this by continuous practice, as I described in my book Knowledge
of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment. From a certain moment on we
connect a feeling, a sensation with the words: �Your soul doesn't think any
more, it is a thought which the angels think�. And when this becomes a truth
for the individual human experience, we experience the thoughts about the
truths of the Christ-impulse, also other thoughts about the wise guidance of
earth evolution.
Those
things related to the epochs of the earth's evolution � the ancient Indian
epoch, the ancient Persian epoch and so forth � are thought by the archangels.
By means of further [meditative] practice we are able not only to be thought by
the angels, but to be experienced by the archangels. You must then come to the
point where you know that you are delivering your life to the life of the
archangels. In The Threshold of the Spiritual World I go into this in
more detail: how you have the feeling, when you continue the exercises � I also
spoke about this in Munich, using a grotesque example � as if you were to stick
your head in an anthill, and the ants are the thoughts in movement. Whereas in
ordinary life we think that we think our thoughts, through practice we realize
that the thoughts think in us, because the angels think in us. And continuing
with practice we arrive at the feeling that we are brought to various regions
of the world by the archangels and thus learn about those regions. To correctly
describe the [ancient] Indian or Egyptian cultures one must understand the
meaning of: �Your soul has been brought to this or that time by an archangel�.
It is as though our life body fluids knew that they support the life process
and are carried through the organism as the blood is. Thus the seer knows that
he is conducted through the life process of the world by the archangels. But
where individual experiences of the soul are concerned, they can only be
investigated if the soul gives meaning to the words: The soul delivers itself
as food to the Archai, the spirits of personality.
What I just
said sounds grotesque, but it is nevertheless true that one cannot investigate
such concrete facts as the life of Jesus of Nazareth before one gives meaning
to the words: One is eaten as spiritual food and thus serves the Spirits of
Personality. Obviously this sounds like madness to people who live in the outer
world. Of course it does! Nevertheless it is just as true as the piece of bread
that enters our stomachs becomes our food, and if it could think it would know
that its existence has meaning and purpose in that we make it our food. It is
just as true that we humans have the purpose of serving the Archai
as food. While we walk around here on earth we are at the same time beings who are continually consumed, eaten by the Archai. You will not deny that people in ordinary life
don't know this, and that they would call it madness if someone told them
something like this. Man is for the Archai what a
grain of wheat is for you as a physical human being. Don't only know this
theoretically, but live in respect to the Archai as a
grain of wheat would live were it to be ground to porridge by our teeth and
pass through our pallets and stomach with the awareness: I am human food.
Therefore also know: I am the Archai's food, I am
digested by the Archai; that is their life, which I
live in them. To vividly know this means to enter the consciousness of the
Spirits of Personality, the Archai. Just as what it
means to enter the consciousness of the Archangels when one knows: Your soul is
brought to this or that epoch by the Archangels; and what it means to enter the
consciousness of the Angels when one knows: My thoughts are thought by the
angels. If we wish to enter the higher worlds, the conditions of experience
must be different. It is necessary to be knowingly consumed by the Spirits of
Personality if concrete facts such as the life of Jesus of Nazareth in human
evolution are to be investigated.
Perhaps
what I have said will serve to show that this occult research is completely
different from research in the outer world. If you can think the analogies
through, they provide the correct hints: You can imagine yourselves as the
grains of wheat ground into porridge by your teeth in order to have a mental
image, which is an analogy for reading in the consciousness of the Archai. One must be mentally ground up and feel it. It
means that higher research is not possible without inner pain and suffering. If
it is so abstract that it doesn't hurt, as is research in the physical world,
then research in the higher worlds cannot be achieved if it is to be more than
complete fantasy.
Therefore my efforts yesterday in describing the life of Jesus to
separate it from abstract concepts and descriptions. Remember what I said in an attempt to point out what
is important. I said: this was the life of Jesus of Nazareth from his twelfth,
eighteenth and up to his thirtieth year. What I described is less important
than having a vivid feeling of what Jesus' soul went through, to feel the pain
of loneliness, the endless pain of having to stand alone with the untruths
about which there were many ears to hear. I wanted to point out Jesus of
Nazareth's feelings. His great threefold compassion for
humanity from his twelfth to his thirtieth year. Not by describing the
events to yourselves or to others, will you know something about the meaning of
Jesus' experience as preparation for the Mystery of Golgotha, but rather that
by conceiving of an idea � a mental picture � which shocks and moves your
souls, a picture of what that man Jesus of Nazareth had to suffer before the
Mystery of Golgotha in order that the Christ-impulse could stream into the
earth's evolution.
In this way
a vivid idea of the Christ-impulse is brought about in that the suffering is
reawakened, so that one must describe these facts which are related to such
things by trying to bring to mind feelings. You can see this in how I tried to
characterize in few words what Akasha research is.
The more you are able to feel in yourselves the billowing, undulating feelings
in a being such as Jesus of Nazareth was, the more you fathom such mysteries.
I have
often spoken about what happened then � that through the baptism in the Jordan,
after Jesus of Nazareth's three bodies [physical, etheric, astral] were
spiritualized by the Zarathustra-I in them, the Christ-being entered them, that
is, a being from the realm of the spiritual world descended whose destiny was
to live bound in a human body for three years. It is important to understand
what that fact means. Because this fact is fundamentally
different from all other facts in the earth's evolution. Here we are
entering into something which is not merely a human event in the earth's
evolution. This must by clear.
We can
consider this from a human standpoint. Then we say: �Once there was a man as we
have described him. He received the Christ-being, the Christ-impulse�. But we
can also consider it differently, although the considerations are rather skimpy
on representations, that's doesn't matter. By means of our spiritual-scientific
preparation, we will be able to make something of them.
Imagine
that were are sitting in a council considering the Mystery of Golgotha not as
men, but in a council of the higher hierarchies as the beings of the higher
hierarchies are considering the Mystery of Golgotha. In a spiritual sense this
change in viewpoint is possible. A comparison could be: We have a mountain
before us and halfway up is a town. We can see the town from below, but it can
also be observed from the summit. Naturally we mostly observe the Mystery of
Golgotha from a human point of view. But we could also climb up to the sphere
of the higher hierarchies. How then would we speak of the Mystery of Golgotha?
We would have to say: When the earth's evolution began, the beings of the
higher hierarchies had certain intentions for humanity. They wanted to guide
the earth's evolution in a certain way. But Lucifer inserted himself into this
intended guidance of humanity's earthly affairs. So if we are looking down at
earth evolution as a being of the higher hierarchies, we see that Lucifer
changed the direction of this evolution from our original intention.
And we say:
Not everything that happens down there happens through us. Lucifer is
continually intervening. Due to Lucifer's intervention, and later Ahriman's, a foreign element is present in human evolution.
It could be expressed in such a way that the beings of the higher hierarchies
say: �To a certain extent the sphere of the earth has been lost to us. There
are forces there which distance the earth with its humanity from us�.
Guidance by
the higher hierarchies is gradual; each participates according to its powers,
first of all the lowest. All the hierarchies participate in earth's evolution,
up to highest, but these latter leave certain tasks to their subordinates � to
the Angels, Archangels and Archai. So they are the
first to be active in the evolutionary process.
We transfer
ourselves � in all humility of course � to the council of the higher
hierarchies, not the council of men. Then we can say: �Our messengers, the
Angels, Archangels and Archai are there; they could
carry out our orders very well if foreign powers were not present in the sphere
of earth�. So the great council decides something like the following:
"Since we were not able to prevent Lucifer and Ahriman
from interfering in the earth's evolution, our subordinates, the Angles,
Archangels and Archai, have lost the ability, from a
certain point in time, to do for humanity what had to be done according to our
intentions." And this point in time was when the Mystery of Golgotha took
place.
As this
point in time approached, the gods of the higher hierarchies had to say: �We
are losing the possibility for our subordinates to intervene in human souls.
Because we could not deter Lucifer and Ahriman, we
have only been able to act through our subordinates until this point in time.
Thus forces arise in human souls, which can no longer be conducted by the
Angels, Archangels and Archai. The human beings are
turning away from us through the powers of Lucifer and Ahriman�.
That was
really � if I may express it so � the mood in heaven as the point in time
approached which was calculated to be the beginning of the new era. Because
their subordinates could no longer sufficiently care for humanity from a
certain point in time, it became the �angst� of the gods. You will not
misunderstand this, for you are prepared by spiritual science to understand
that expressions have a different sense and feeling value when used to
characterize the higher worlds.
This divine
anxiety grew, ever more tantalizing, ever more worryingly � if I may say so �
in the heavens. So the decision was made to send the Sun Spirit down, to
sacrifice him by deciding: �He shall choose a different lot from now on than
that of sitting in the council of the gods: he shall enter the arena where
human souls live. We sacrifice this Son Spirit to them. Until now he has lived
among us, in the spheres of the higher hierarchies; now he will enter the earth
aura through the portal of Jesus�.
That's how
it looked from above in the council of the gods as the Mystery of Golgotha
approached. It was an affair of the gods who guide the earth, not merely a
human affair. It can be understood as not merely asking: What must be done so
humanity is not lost on its precipitous path? Rather the question: What should
we gods do in order to create a counterbalance for what has happened because we
had to allow Lucifer and Ahriman into earth
evolution?
And one can
then create a feeling that the Mystery of Golgotha is other than a mere earthly
affair, that it is an affair of the gods, an event of the world of the gods.
Truly, it was more important for the gods that they had to give up Christ to
the earth than it was for humanity to receive Christ.
And what is
knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha more than recognizing it as earth's
central event? That when one observes the Mystery of Golgotha it is seen as an
affair of the gods, that the gods opened a window to heaven, that the gods
revealed their affairs to human eyes for a while and that men could observe
these godly affairs! One must learn to feel this observing the Mystery of
Golgotha by imagining that if one were to pass by the closed house of heaven,
one could look through that window and see what otherwise is invisible behind
the walls of the domicile of the gods.
The person
with reverent feelings about the occult nature of the Mystery of Golgotha is
like someone who walks silently around a house that is always closed, only
suspecting what is happening inside. At one point there is a window through
which he can witness a small part of what is happening inside. For humanity the
Mystery of Golgotha is such a window to the spiritual world. Therefore we must
feel what happened as the Christ-being descended into the body � or rather the
three bodies � of Jesus of Nazareth. We should absorb this idea ever deeper,
that we are witnesses to a godly affair through the Mystery of Golgotha.
When we
speak of such things words must be used in a different way than in ordinary
life. One must speak about such things as the gods' �angst� and �fear� before the
time of the Mystery of Golgotha. One must use words about the spiritual affairs
of humanity in a different way. It is very easy for those who are all too ready
to denigrate what is meant in the most sacred sense � whether from stupidity,
frivolousness, pride or other reasons. All they have to do is twist the meaning
of words into how they are used in exoteric life. In that way it is possible to
turn them into the opposite of what is meant, even though they come from the
need to announce the truths of the spiritual world which are so difficult to
wring from the soul. Their meanings are reversed, thereby making them sound
ridiculous or satanic.
This is all
too widespread in our times. And those who should be protecting the treasure of
the sacred-spiritual truths, which are so necessary for human souls just in
these times, are not wakeful enough.
How great
is the comfort with which we like to feed our spirit! How often must we see
lamentable things! If when speaking of the spirit one goes even a little beyond
materialism, people declare themselves satisfied because that way they don't
have to strain themselves, in particular they don't have to strain their
sensibilities. What we must feel is that because we are taking part in a
consideration of the most sacred developments in earthly evolution, we have a
responsibility toward the treasures of knowledge relating to the spiritual
world. There is great frivolity in our times about such things, and people tend
to take it all lightly. You will notice it popping up here and there, but will
only recognize its abominable nature if you're alert enough and your hearts are
kindled enough for the most sacred of the spiritual truths. Perhaps then you
can assess the value of the spiritual treasures and become their good guardians,
for we are all called to guard them together.
Perhaps the
easiest way to speak of something so important is: that the Mystery of Golgotha
is not merely a human affair, but also an affair of the gods, and that we can
observe this affair of the gods. But the way this is described will be
distorted in such a way that I hesitate to even mention it. The time will
perhaps come when it will be realized that we must reformulate the words of the
sensible world when we use them for the super-sensible world, and that it is
easy to insinuate other meanings to them.
Popular
Christianity says what I have just indicated with the words: �The Father
sacrificed his son for humanity�. These words describe what is felt by human
hearts in a popular sense, though the true meaning is: The Mystery of
Golgotha is an affair of the gods.
And if we
consider all of what I have said, we can have an idea of what happened during
the event which we call the baptism by John in the Jordan. The temptation,
which is also described in the Gospels, followed. From the viewpoint of the Akasha Chronicle we would say: After Jesus of Nazareth took
the Christ-being into himself he had to go into the wilderness. There he had
clairvoyant visions, which are described fairly accurately by the words of the
clairvoyant Gospel writers. It could also be said that now the Christ-being was
really bound to the three bodies of Jesus. That means that he descended from
the spiritual world and became limited to the capacities of the three bodies.
Therefore it would be false to think that Christ, because he belonged to a
higher world from which he had descended, could now immediately envision that
higher world. That is not the case. Whoever finds this incomprehensible should
think again about what it means to be clairvoyant. You are all clairvoyant!
All! There is not one here who is not clairvoyant. So why don't you all see
clairvoyantly? Because you haven't developed the organs in order to use the
forces which reside in all humans. It is not a question of having the
capacities, but rather of being able to use them.
The
Christ-being had all possible capacities, but in the three bodies of Jesus of
Nazareth he only had the capacities which corresponded to those three bodies.
That is why they had to be prepared in such a complicated manner, for the
capacities of these three bodies were indeed high capacities, greater than the
corresponding capacities of all the other people on the earth. But Christ was
bound to them just as your clairvoyant capacities are bound to the organs which
you have, only cannot yet use. It was possible through the capacities which the
Zarathustra-soul had left behind in Jesus of Nazareth's three bodies, the
remnants of which now served Christ to confront a being who could arouse all
the pride and arrogance that a human soul is capable of. This being confronted
the Christ Jesus.
At that
moment he sensed what that being was attempting in the language of visions �
what the Bible describes with the words: �All the kingdoms you see before you� �
kingdoms of the spiritual world � �can be yours if you recognize me as the lord
of this world.� If one is full of pride and arrogance and brings it into
the spiritual world, one can own this world's kingdom of Lucifer because
arrogance submerges everything else if everything except arrogance is left
behind. But man is not prepared for that; it would mean confronting a terrible
destiny.
The Christ
Jesus faced this possibility. Then two images appeared before his soul. The
first was of his experience on the way to the Jordan river,
which I described yesterday as having met the despairing man. And once again
the figure which had appeared to that despairing man in a dream stood before
Jesus of Nazareth's soul, who now said: �Recognize me as lord of the world�.
Then he recognized that figure as the one he had seen at the gates of the
Essenes: Lucifer! Therefore he knew that now Lucifer was speaking to him, and
he repulsed the attack. He defeated Lucifer.
Then two
beings came to attack him, and he had the impression which was more or less
what the Bible describes. They said to him: �Show all your fearlessness, your
strength, show what you can do as a man by throwing yourself from the heights
and not fear being injured�. In such a case consciousness of strength and
courage should awaken in the human soul, but it can also make him a sensualist.
Two figures stood before him. Because Jesus had had the impression that it was
Lucifer and Ahriman who had flown away from the
Essene gates, he now had the impression that within one them
was the same being whom the leper had encountered and who had presented himself
as death. Because of these experiences he recognized Lucifer and Ahriman. Thus he relived what he had experienced on the
road to the Jordan. He also repulsed this attack. He defeated both Lucifer and Ahriman.
Then Ahriman came again. A kind of temptation ensued. He said to
Christ Jesus something similar to what the Bible describes: �Make these stones
into bread to show your power.� But now Jesus could not give a complete answer
to what Ahriman demanded. He was able to repulse the
first and the second attacks: the attack by Lucifer alone, that of Ahriman alone and the attack of both together. But now he
could not repulse Ahriman's attack. The fact that he
could not totally repulse Ahriman's attack had
meaning for the effectiveness of the Christ-impulse on earth.
I must
characterize what this mean in a popular, almost frivolous way: Make these
stones into bread, so they become food for humanity. The higher hierarchies
were not able to completely eliminate Ahriman from
the field of the earth's evolution until the Vulcan epoch. It will never be
possible through purely spiritual efforts to defeat Ahriman's
inner temptations: the desires, cravings and lusts which arise from within, and
what arises as arrogance and sensuality. When Lucifer attacks men alone he can
be defeated by spirituality. Also when Lucifer and Ahriman
attack together from within, they can be defeated through spiritual means. But
when Ahriman is alone, he engulfs his effectiveness
in the material events of earth evolution. That cannot be completely fended
off.
Ahriman, Mephisto,
Mammon � they mean the same. They are immersed in
money and in everything connected with human egotism. The fact that it is necessary
for human life to be commingled with materialistic things means that humanity
must reckon with Ahriman. If Christ was to help
earthly humanity in the right way he had to allow Ahriman
to act. Ahriman, the material, must be active until
the end of the earth's evolution. His work had to remain undefeated by Christ,
not completely overcome. The Christ must accept the struggle with Ahriman until the end of earth evolution. Ahriman had to remain.
We as
humans can overcome the attacks of Lucifer and the attacks of Lucifer and Ahriman together. The struggle in the material outer world
must be fought out until the end of the earth's evolution. Therefore Christ had
to hold Ahriman in check, but allow him to stand
alongside him. For this reason Ahriman remained
active during the three years that Christ worked in the body of Jesus of
Nazareth, and he entered the soul of Judas and was decisive in the betrayal of
Jesus. What happened through Judas is related to the temptation in the desert
after the baptism in the Jordan.
Slowly and
gradually the Christ-being united with the three bodies of Jesus. It took three
years. At the beginning the bond was loose, and then it gradually pressed into
the three bodies. Only when death approached were the three bodies truly permeated
with the Christ-being. And all the suffering and pain experienced during the
three stages of his development was immeasurably increased as he gradually was
able to completely immerse himself in the three human bodies. It was a
continual pain, but a pain which was transformed into love � and love � and
love.
And then
the following happened. When we consider how the Christ Jesus lived during the
first, second and third years he spent with his closest disciples, we find it
to be different in each year. In the first year Christ was, as I said, only
loosely bound to the body of Jesus of Nazareth. So there where moments when the physical body was in one place or
another and the Christ-being was elsewhere. The other Gospels report
that the lord appeared to his disciples when his physical body was somewhere
else � meaning that Christ wandered about the land in spirit.
That was in
the beginning. Then the Christ-being bound himself more and more to the body of
Jesus of Nazareth. Later, when Christ was with the circle of his closest
disciples, they were so intimately united with him that he was never separated
from them. The more he lived into his body, the more he lived in the inner
being of his disciples. He traveled about the land with his disciples. He would
speak through one of them, then through another disciple of the inner group, so
that as they went about the land it was no longer only Christ Jesus who spoke,
but one of the disciples; but Christ spoke through them. He lived in the
disciples with such power that the facial expressions of a disciple through
whom Christ spoke changed so much that the people who heard him had the feeling
that he was the master. Another, though, who was really Christ, was so modest
that he looked ordinary. In this way he spoke through one then another
throughout the land. That was the secret of his effectiveness during the last
of the three years.
As he went
about with his disciples in this way and he seemed ever more dangerous to his
enemies, they wondered: �How can we hunt him down? We can't arrest the whole
bunch. For we can never know when we grab the one who is
speaking if he's the right or the wrong one. If we grab the wrong one,
the right one escapes.� That was their greatest fear. They knew that one spoke
and then a different one did. And the right one was unrecognizable, for he took
on the ordinary form of another.
There was
something wonderful about that group. Therefore a betrayal was needed. The way
this is usually described is mistaken. What is it supposed to mean that Judas
had to kiss the right one? According to the usual accounts it should not have
been difficult to trap Jesus of Nazareth. So the kiss would make no sense if
someone who knew which was the right one had to point
him out to those who could already have known anyway. But because of the
reasons I have related, the enemies did not know who the right one was.
Only when
the great suffering � the Mystery of Golgotha � was before him was the total
union of the Christ-being with the bodies of Jesus of Nazareth accomplished.
What happened then is beautifully described in the other Gospels. For the seer
who reads in the Akasha Chronicle about what
happened, it is a fact that while Christ was hanging on the cross something
like an eclipse of the sun took place in the area around Golgotha. I can't say
if it was an eclipse of the sun or a powerful darkening of the clouds, but a
darkening like what can be observed during an eclipse of the sun took place in
the area around the event of the Mystery of Golgotha.
When occult
vision observes life on earth during such a darkening, all living things are
shown to him differently than when there is no such darkening. In plants the
connection of the etheric body and the physical body is different; and also in
animals the astral body and the etheric appear completely different. During an
eclipse of the sun it is different on the earth from when the sun is simply
missing in the night. Of course this is not the case when in the ordinary sense
the sky is covered with clouds; only when an especially thick darkening occurs.
And such a darkening took place then. As I said, I cannot yet tell if it was an
eclipse of the sun, but what can be seen was like an eclipse of the sun. While
this transformation of the earth was taking place, also in the physical sense,
he whom we call the Christ-being went over into the earth's living aura.
Through the death of Christ Jesus the earth received the Christ impulse.
The
greatest event to occur on earth must be described in such simple, stammering
words, because it is impossible to even approximate this greatness with human
words.
When the
body of Jesus was taken down and placed in a tomb, a natural event occurred. A
whirlwind arose, then the earth split open and the body of Jesus was taken into
it as the shrouds were blown away from the body. It is awesome to see that the
arrangement of the shrouds described in the Gospel of John coincides with this
vision.
These two
events: the darkening of the earth, the earthquake and the powerful whirlwind
show at one point in the earth's evolution how natural events coincide with
spiritual events. Otherwise such things only occur with living beings as, for
example, when thinking and a decision of the will precede a hand's movement. In
ordinary life we are only concerned with such mechanical phenomena. Only at a
very special moment did a spiritual and two physical phenomena coincide � also
in other earthly phenomena, but most especially with this one.
I don't
think that the consideration of these concrete facts, which it is now possible
to describe to a small number of people as a kind of Fifth Gospel, can detract
from the grand ideas we have more theoretically worked through about the
Mystery of Golgotha. On the contrary, I believe that if we try to let these
concrete facts work on us more and more deeply we will feel what was previously
presented more theoretically, more abstractly, strengthened. We will realize
through these facts that in this our own time in earthly evolution important
events will take place.
By means of
these concrete facts you will perhaps be able to achieve the right feelings and
nuance of soul about the Mystery of Golgotha, and it is this nuance of feeling
that I wished to present to your souls with what I have related from the Fifth
Gospel. Perhaps some of you will be able to attend other lectures on the
Mystery of Golgotha, or we may be able to continue here in Cologne. For we must
say: Regardless of the fact that people nowadays show so little interest in
hearing about the facts we have spoken about today, there is a great necessity
for such facts to flow into human evolution, especially now. Therefore they
have been disclosed, although it is quite difficult to speak of these things.
Nevertheless, although I may be inclined not to speak of them, I do so from a
sense of inner responsibility, as long as there are people to hear them. They
will be needed in humanity's evolution. Those who are hearing them now will
surely need them for the spiritual work they are doing for further human
development.
You see,
gradually we are learning through our considerations what should arise in our
souls in order to be useful members of advancing human evolution. That is the
meaning of human development on earth � that human souls be more aware of their
tasks.
The Christ
has come. His impulse is working. For a long time he could act only in the
unconscious; then he had to act through what was understood until that time.
But it will be ever more necessary for man to learn to understand him, the
Christ, who through the bodies of Jesus of Nazareth has entered the earth's
aura and humanity's development.
[1]
Editor's/translator's note: In other places, Rudolf Steiner went into more detail
about the two Jesus Children. But as his audience here was familiar with the
subject, he only gave a kind of resum�. For the
interested readers I suggest they compare the birth stories in the Gospels of
Matthew and Luke. They will note immediately that the genealogies of the two
boys are completely different from King David to Joseph, the father of Jesus.
They will also see that in Luke there are shepherds and �no room at the inn�
and the famous stable where Jesus was born, and there are no kings or magi. In
Matthew the three kings/magi are indeed an important presence. But they do not
adore a carpenter's son born in a stable. No, they have come to Bethlehem to
salute the new or future King of the Jews. Although Matthew does not describe
the birthplace, it is unlikely to be a stable. The flight to Egypt does not
occur in Luke, only in Matthew, whose parents had more to fear, living as they
were with the future king. Furthermore it is most strange that Jesus the
carpenter's son was so well educated that he could teach the rabbis in the
temple. Ah, but that was the Jesus according to Luke. The Jesus described by
Matthew descended from a royal family and would be in infinitely better
condition to do so. Taking all these things, and more, into consideration, it
can be considered obvious that there were indeed two Jesus children.
The first
five lectures about The Fifth Gospel given in Oslo, Norway, are
available as an Amazon
Kindle eBook.