The Gospel of John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels. Lecture 8 of 14.
Rudolf Steiner, Kassel, July 1, 1909:
As the fruit of
yesterday's enquiries we learned that the Christ-Impulse, once it had worked
through the person of Jesus of Nazareth, united with the evolution of the earth;
and now its power within the earthly development of mankind is such that in our
time it affects man in the same way as did formerly the procedure which is
becoming ever more dangerous for human life — that of withdrawing the etheric
from the physical body during the three and a half days of initiation. The
Christ-Impulse actually affects human consciousness as powerfully as does an
abnormal process of the above sort.
But you must
realize that such a radical change needed time to take root in human evolution,
that it could not appear from the start with such intensity; and it was
therefore necessary to create a sort of transition in the resurrection of
Lazarus. The deathlike state lasting three and a half days was still retained in
the case of Lazarus, but you should clearly understand that this state differed
from the one passed through by the old initiates. Lazarus' condition was not
brought about artificially by the initiator, as was the case in former times, by
withdrawing the etheric from the physical body through processes I am not at
liberty to describe here. We may say that it came about in a more natural way.
From the Gospel itself you can gather that Christ had associated with Lazarus
and his sisters Martha and Mary before, for we read, “The Lord loved him”. This
means that for a long time Christ Jesus had been exercizing a great and powerful
influence on Lazarus, who had thereby been adequately prepared and developed.
And the consequence was that in his case the initiation did not call for the
artificial inducing of a three-and-a-half-day trance, but that this came about of
itself under the mighty impression of the Christ-Impulse. So for the outer world
Lazarus was as though dead, so to speak, for three and a half days, even though
during this time he experienced what was of the utmost importance; and thus only
the last act, the resurrection, was undertaken by Christ.
And anyone who
is familiar with what there occurred recognizes an echo of the old initiation
process in the words employed by Christ Jesus: "Lazarus, come forth."
The resurrected
Lazarus, as we have seen, was John — or better, the writer of the John Gospel.
It was he who could introduce the Gospel of the Christ Being into the world
because he was, so to say, the first initiate in the Christian sense. For this
reason we may safely assume that this Gospel of St. John, so badly abused by
present-day research of a purely historical, critical, theological nature, and
represented as a mere lyrical hymn, as a subjective expression of this author,
will prove the means of insight into the profoundest mysteries of the
Christ-Impulse.
Nowadays this
Gospel of St. John constitutes a stumbling block for the materialists who carry
on Bible research when they compare it with the other three, the so-called
synoptic Gospels. The picture of Christ that arises before them out of the first
three is so flattering to the learned gentlemen of our time! The pronouncement
has gone forth, even from theological quarters, that what we are dealing with is
the “simple man of Nazareth”. Again and again it is emphasized that one can gain
a picture of Christ as perhaps one of the noblest of men who have walked the
earth; but the picture remains merely that of a human being. There is even a
tendency to simplify this picture as far as possible; and in this connection one
hears it mentioned that after all, there have been other great ones as well,
such as Plato and Socrates. The most that is admitted are differences in
degree.
The picture of
Christ yielded by the John Gospel is indeed a very different one. At the very
beginning it is stated that what lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth for
three years was the Logos, the primordial, eternal Word, for which we
have also the term “eternal creative wisdom”. Our epoch cannot understand that
in the thirtieth year of his life a man could be sufficiently developed to be
able to sacrifice his own ego and receive into himself another being, a being of
wholly superhuman nature: the Christ, Whom Zarathustra addressed as Ahura
Mazdao. That is why theological critics of this type imagine that the writer of
the John Gospel had set out merely to describe his attitude to his Christ in a
sort of lyrical hymn — nothing more. On the one hand, so they maintain, we have
the John Gospel, and on the other, the other three; but by taking the average
one can compound a picture of Christ as the “simple man”, while granting His
historical eminence. Modern Bible critics resent the idea of a divine being
dwelling in Jesus of Nazareth.
The akashic
record discloses the fact that in His thirtieth year the personality we know
as Jesus of Nazareth had, as a result of all He had experienced in former
incarnations, achieved a degree of maturity that enabled Him to sacrifice His
own ego; for that is what took place when, at the Baptism by John, this Jesus of
Nazareth could make the resolution to withdraw — as an ego, the fourth principle
of the human being — from His physical, etheric, and astral bodies. And what
remained was a noble sheath, a lofty physical, etheric, and astral body which
had been saturated with the purest, most highly developed ego. This was in the
nature of a pure vessel which at the Baptism could receive the Christ, the
primordial, eternal Logos, the “creative wisdom”. That is what the
akashic record reveals to us; and we can recognize it, if we only will,
in the narrative of the John Gospel.
But clearly it
behooves us to consider what our materialistic age believes. Some of you may be
surprised to hear me speak of theologians as materialistic thinkers, for after
all, they are occupied with spiritual matters. But it is not a question of what
a man believes or what he studies, but rather, of the method of his research,
regardless of its content. Anyone who rejects our present subject or repudiates
a spiritual world, who considers only what exists in the outer world in the way
of documents and the like, is a materialist. The means of research is the
important thing. But at the same time we must come to terms with the opinions of
our age.
In reading the
Gospels you will find certain contradictions. As to the essentials, to be sure —
that is, as to what the akashic record discloses as essential — it can be
said that the agreement among them is striking. They agree, first of all, in the
matter of the Baptism itself; and it is made clear in all four Gospels that
their authors saw in this Baptism the greatest imaginable import for Jesus of
Nazareth. The four Gospels further agree on the fact of the crucifixion and the
fact of the Resurrection. Now, these are precisely the facts that seem most
miraculous to the materialistic thinker of today — and no contradiction exists
here.
But in the other
cases, how are we to come to terms with the seeming contradictions? Taking first
the evangelists Mark and John, we find their narratives commencing with the
Baptism: they describe the last three years of Christ Jesus' activity — that is,
only what occurred after the Christ Spirit had taken possession of His threefold
sheath, His physical, etheric, and astral bodies. Then consider the Gospels
according to St. Matthew and St. Luke. In a certain respect these trace the
earlier history as well, the section which, within our meaning, the akashic
record discloses as the story of Jesus of Nazareth before sacrificing
Himself for the Christ. But at this point the contradiction seekers notice at
once that Matthew tells of a genealogy reaching to Abraham, whereas Luke traces
the line of descent back to Adam, and from Adam to Adam's Father: to God
Himself. A further contradiction could be found in the following: According to
Matthew, three Wise Men, or Magi, guided by a star, come to do homage at the
birth of Jesus; while Luke relates the vision of the shepherds, their adoration
of the Child, the presentation in the Temple — in contrast with which Matthew
narrates the persecution by Herod, the flight into Egypt, and the return. These
points and many others could be considered individual contradictions; but by
examining more closely the facts gleaned from the akashic record, without
reference to the Gospels, we can come to terms with them.
The akashic
record informs us that at about the time stated in the Bible — the
difference of a few years is immaterial — Jesus of Nazareth was born, and that
in the body of Jesus of Nazareth there dwelt an individuality that in former
incarnations had experienced lofty stages of initiation, had gained deep insight
into the spiritual world. And it tells us something more, with which for the
present I shall deal only in outline. The akashic record, which provides
the only true history, reveals the circumstance that he who appeared in this
Jesus of Nazareth had, in former incarnations, passed through manifold
initiations, in all sorts of localities; and it leads us back to the fact that
this later bearer of the name of Jesus of Nazareth had originally attained to a
lofty and significant stage of initiation in the Persian world and had exercized
an exalted, far-reaching activity. This individuality dwelling in the body of
Jesus of Nazareth had already been active in the spiritual life of ancient
Persia, had gazed up at the sun, and had addressed the great Sun Spirit as
“Ahura Mazdao”.
We must
thoroughly understand that the Christ entered the bodies of this individuality
which had passed through the sort of incarnations mentioned. What does that
mean? It simply means that the Christ made use of these three bodies — the
astral, etheric, and physical bodies of Jesus of Nazareth — for fulfilling His
mission. Everything we think, all that we express in words, that we feel or
sense, is connected with our astral body: the astral body is the vehicle of all
this. Jesus of Nazareth, as an ego, had lived for thirty years in this astral
body, had communicated to it all that He had experienced within Himself and
assimilated during former incarnations. In what way, then, did this astral body
form its thoughts? It had to conform and amalgamate with the individuality that
lived in it for thirty years.
When in ancient
Persia Zarathustra lifted his gaze to the sun and told of Ahura Mazdao, this
stamped itself into his astral body; and into this astral body there entered the
Christ. Was it not natural, then, that Christ, when choosing a metaphor or an
expression of feeling, should turn to what His astral body offered — of whatever
nature? When you wear a grey coat you appear to the outer world in a grey coat;
and Christ appeared to the outer world in the body of Jesus of Nazareth — in His
physical, etheric, and astral bodies — and consequently His thoughts and
feelings were colored by the images of the thoughts and feelings living in the
body of Jesus of Nazareth. No wonder, then, that many an old Persian expression
is reflected in His utterances, or that in John's Gospel we find an echo of
terms used in the ancient Persian initiation; for the impulse that dwelt in the
Christ passed over, of course, into His disciple, into the resurrected Lazarus.
So it can be said that the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth speaks to us through
John, in his Gospel.
No, it is not
surprising that expressions should appear which recall the ancient Persian
initiation and the form in which its ideas were presented. In Persia, “Ahura
Mazdao” was not the only name for the spirits united in the sun: in a certain
connection the term “vohumanu” was used, meaning the “creative Word”, or
the “creative spirit”. The Logos, in its meaning of “creative force”, was
first employed in the Persian initiation, and we meet it again in the very first
verse of the John Gospel. There is much besides in this Gospel which we may
understand through knowing that the Christ Himself spoke through an astral body
which for thirty years had served Jesus of Nazareth, and that this individuality
was the re-embodiment of an ancient Persian initiate. Similarly I could point to
a great deal more in the John Gospel that would show how this most intimate of
the Gospels, when using words associated with the mysteries of initiation,
employs phrases reminiscent of Persia, and how this old mode of expression has
persisted into later times.
If we now wish
to understand the position of the other evangelists in this matter we must
recall various points that have already been established in the previous
lectures. We learned, for example, that there existed certain lofty spiritual
beings who transferred their sphere of action to the sun when the latter
detached itself from the earth; and it was pointed out that their outer astral
form was in a sense the counterpart of certain animal forms here on earth. There
was first, the form of the Bull spirit, the spiritual counterpart of those
animal natures the essence of whose development lies in what could be called the
nutritional and digestive organization. The spiritual counterpart is naturally
of a lofty spiritual nature, however inferior the earthly image may appear. So
we have certain exalted spiritual beings who transferred their sphere to the sun
whence they influenced the earth sphere, appearing there as the Bull spirits.
Others appear as the Lion spirits, whose counterpart lives in animal natures
pre-eminently developed as to their heart and organs of circulation. Then we
have spiritual beings who are the counterparts of what we meet in the animal
kingdom as eagle natures, the Eagle spirits. And finally there are those that
harmoniously unite, as it were, the other natures as in a great synthesis, the
Man spirits. These were in a sense the most advanced.
Passing now to
the old initiation, we find that this offered the possibility of beholding, face
to face, the exalted spiritual beings that had outstripped man. But the manner
in which primitive men had to be initiated, in accord with the demands of those
ancient times, depended upon the origin of their descent — that is, whether from
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus. Even in Atlantis, therefore, there existed oracles
in manifold variety. Some had adjusted their spiritual vision primarily to the
beholding of what we have described as the Eagle spirits, while others saw the
Lion spirits, the Bull spirits, or the Man spirits: the initiation accorded with
the specific traits of the candidate. This differentiation was one of the
characteristics of the Atlantean age, and certain echos of it have persisted
into our own post-Atlantean time. Thus you could find Mystery temples in Asia
Minor, or in Egypt, where the initiation took a form that brought about the
vision of the lofty spiritual beings as Bull spirits, or as Eagle spirits. And
it was in the Mysteries that outer culture had its source.
The initiates
who saw the lion form in the exalted spiritual beings conjured up in the lion
body a sort of image of what they had beheld; but they saw as well that these
spirits take part in the evolution of man. That is why they assigned a human
head to the lion body, a concept that later became the sphinx. — Those who saw
the spiritual counterparts as Bull spirits bore testimony to the spiritual world
by introducing a Bull worship, which led on the one hand to the Apis Bull
worship in Egypt, and on the other, to the worship of the Persian Mithras Bull;
for everything we find in the way of outer cult usages among the different
peoples derived from the initiation rites. There were initiates everywhere whose
spiritual vision was focussed principally on the Bull spirits, others attuned
primarily to the Eagle spirits, and so on. To a certain extent we can even
indicate the differences in the various modes of initiation. Those initiated,
for example, in such a way that the spiritual beings appeared to them in the
form of Bull spirits were informed principally concerning the secrets connected
with man's glandular system, with what pertains to the etheric principle. And
there is still another branch of the nature of man into which they were
initiated: the human properties that are firmly attached to the earth — welded
to it, as it were. All this was grasped by those initiated in the Bull
Mysteries.
Let us try to
experience the soul mood of such initiates. From their great teachers they had
learned, in effect, that man had descended from divine heights, that the
primordial human beings were the descendants of divine-spiritual beings and that
therefore they traced the first man back to his Father-God. Thus man came down
to earth and passed from one earth form to another. These men were primarily
interested in what was bound to the earth, as well as in all that men had
experienced when they had thought of divine-spiritual beings as their ancestors.
— That was the attitude of the Bull initiates. The Eagle initiates constituted a
different case. These envisioned those spiritual beings who bear a most peculiar
relation to the human being; but in order to understand this a few words must be
said concerning the spiritual character of the bird nature.
Animals rank
below human beings by reason of their inferior functions, and they represent, as
you know, beings that solidified too early, having failed to retain the softness
and flexibility of their body substance until such time as they might have been
able to embody in human form. But in the bird nature we have beings that did not
assume the lowest functions: instead they overshot the mark in the opposite
direction. They failed to descend far enough, as it were; they remained in
unduly soft substances, while the others lived in substances that were too hard.
But as evolution continued, outer conditions compelled them to solidify; hence
they hardened in a manner incompatible with a nature that had descended to the
earth, being too soft. That is a rough description in untechnical terms, but it
gives the facts. The archetypes of these bird natures are those spiritual beings
who likewise overshot the mark, who remained in a substance too soft, and who
consequently were carried, as it were, beyond what they might have become at a
certain point of their development. They deviated from the normal development in
an upward direction, while the rest diverged downwards. The middle position is
in a certain sense occupied by the Lion spirits, as well as by the harmonious
ones, the Man spirits, who grasped the right moment to incorporate.
We have already
seen how the Christ event was received by those in whom there lived something of
the old initiation. According to the nature of their specific initiation they
had been able in the past to see into the spiritual world; and those who had
received the Bull initiation — throughout a great part of Egypt, for example —
were aware of the following: We can gaze up into the spiritual world, and
therefore the lofty spiritual beings appear to us as the counterparts of the
Bull nature in man. But now — so said those who had come in contact with the
Christ impulse — now there has appeared to us in His true form the Ruler of the
spiritual realm. That which we had always seen, that to which we had attained
through the stages of our initiation, showed us a prefatory form of the Christ.
In what was formerly revealed to us we must now see the Christ. Remembering all
that we beheld, all that the spiritual worlds gradually disclosed to us, we can
ask, Whither would it all have led us if at that time we had already attained to
the requisite heights? It would have led us to the Christ. — An initiate of that
type described the journey into the spiritual world in line with the Bull
initiation; but he added. The truth it harbors is the Christ. — And a Lion or an
Eagle initiate would have spoken similarly.
It was
definitely prescribed in each of these initiation Mysteries how the candidate
should be led up into the spiritual world, and the rites varied according to the
manner in which he was to enter it. There were Mysteries of many different
shades, especially in Asia Minor and in Egypt, where it was customary to guide
the initiates in such a way as to bring them eventually to the Bull nature, or
to a vision of the Lion spirits, as the case might have been. With this in mind
let us now consider those who, as a result of many different kinds of
initiations in the past, had become capable of sensing the Christ impulse, of
comprehending Christ in the right way. Let us observe an initiate who had passed
through the stages enabling him to behold the Man spirit. Such a one could say,
The true Ruler in the spiritual world has appeared to me, Christ, Who lived in
Jesus of Nazareth. And to what am I indebted for this? To my ancient initiation.
— He knew the procedure that led to the vision of the Man spirit; so he
describes what a man experiences in order to attain to initiation, or to
understand the Christ nature at all. He knew initiation in the form prescribed
in those Mysteries that led to the Man initiation. That is why the lofty
initiate who dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth appeared to him in the image
of the Mysteries he had gone through and knew, and he described Him as he
himself saw Him.
That is the case
in the narrative according to Matthew; and an old tradition hit upon the truth
in connecting the Matthew Gospel with that one of the four symbols forming the
capitals of the columns you see in this hall[1] and which
we connote the symbol of the Man spirit. An ancient tradition associates the
writer of the Gospel according to St. Matthew with the Man spirit, and that is
because this writer knew, so to speak, the Man Mystery initiation as his own
point of departure. You see, in the time when the Gospels were written it was
not customary to write biographies as they are written today. What seemed
essential to those people was the appearance of an exalted initiate Who had
received the Christ into himself. The manner of becoming an initiate, the
experiences he was destined to undergo, that was what they considered important;
and that is why they ignored the external everyday happenings that appear so
important to biographers of today. The modern biographer will go to any lengths
to collect enough material. Once when Friedrich Theodor Vischer
(”Schwaben-Vischer”) was indulging in a bit of sarcasm at the expense of modern
biographies he hit on an excellent illustration. A young scholar set about
writing his doctor's thesis, which was to be on Goethe. As a preparation he
first assembled all the material he could use; but as there was not enough to
satisfy him, he poked about in all the rooms and attics of the various towns
where Goethe had lived, swept out all the corners, and even emptied the dustbins
in an effort to find whatever might chance to be there, which would then enable
him to write a thesis on The Connection between Frau Christiane von Goethe's
Chilblains and the Mythologico-allegorico-symbolical Figures in the Second Part
of Faust. Well, that is laying it on rather thick, but it is after all quite
in the spirit of modern biographers. People planning to write on Goethe sniff
about in all sorts of rubbish hunting material. The meaning of the word
“discretion” is no longer known to them today.
But those who
portrayed Jesus of Nazareth in their Gospels went about their descriptions quite
differently. Everything in the way of external occurrences appeared to them
negligible as compared with the various stages which Jesus of Nazareth, as an
initiate, had to pass through. That is what they described; but each one did so
in his own way, as he himself saw the matter. Matthew described in the manner of
those initiated in the Man spirit. This initiation was closely akin to the
wisdom of Egypt.
And now we can
understand, too, how the writer of the Luke Gospel had arrived at his unusual
representation. He was one of those who in former incarnations had achieved
initiations leading to the Bull spirit, and he could describe what accorded with
such an initiation. He could say, A great initiate must have passed through such
and such stages — and he portrayed Him in the colors he knew. He was one of
those who formerly had lived principally within the Egyptian Mysteries, so it is
not surprising that he should stress the trait which represents, let us say,
primarily the Egyptian character of initiation. Let us consider the author of
the Luke Gospel in the light of what we have thus learned. He reasoned as
follows: A lofty initiate lived in the individuality that dwelt in the body of
Jesus of Nazareth. I have learned how one penetrates to the Bull initiation
through the Egyptian Mysteries. That I know. — This special form of initiation
was vividly before him. And now he continues: He Who has become so exalted an
initiate as Jesus of Nazareth must have passed through an Egyptian initiation,
as well as through all the others. So in Jesus of Nazareth we have an initiate
who had undergone the Egyptian initiation. — Naturally the other evangelists
knew that, too; but it did not appear to them as of any special importance,
because they had not known initiation from this aspect so intimately.
For this reason
a certain journey undertaken by Jesus of Nazareth did not strike them as in any
way noteworthy. I said in one of the first lectures that if a man had undergone
an initiation in the past, something special happens to him when he reappears.
Definite events occur resembling, in the outer world, repetitions of former
experiences. Let us assume a man had been initiated in ancient Ireland: he would
now have to be reminded, by some experience in his life, of this old Irish
initiation. This could come about, for instance, by some outer event impelling
him to travel to Ireland. Now, anyone familiar with the Irish initiation would
be struck by the fact that it was Ireland and not some other country that the
man visited; but no one else would see anything unusual in this journey. The
individuality that dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth was an initiate of the Egyptian
Mysteries, among others — hence the journey to Egypt. Who would be particularly
struck by this Flight into Egypt? One who knew it from his own life; and such a
one did describe this particular journey because he knew its significance. It is
narrated in the Matthew Gospel because the writer knew from his own initiation
what a journey to Egypt meant to a great many initiates of former times.
And when we know
that in the writer of the Luke Gospel we are dealing with a man who was
specifically conversant, through his knowledge of the Egyptian Mysteries, with
the initiation that led to the Bull cult, we shall find truth in the old
tradition that couples him with the Bull symbol. For good reasons — to explain
which would require more time than is available at the moment — the Luke Gospel
does not mention the journey to Egypt; but typical events are cited whose
significance can be rightly judged only by one in close contact with the
Egyptian initiation. The author of the Matthew Gospel indicates this connection
of Jesus of Nazareth with the Egyptian Mysteries in a more external way, by
means of the journey to Egypt; whereas the writer of the Luke Gospel sees all
the events he describes in the spirit provided by an Egyptian initiation.
Now let us turn
to the writer of the Mark Gospel. This Evangelist omits all the early history
and describes particularly the activity of the Christ in the body of Jesus of
Nazareth during three years. In this respect his Gospel tallies completely with
that of St. John. This writer passed through an initiation strongly resembling
those of Asia Minor, even those of Greece — we can call them
European-Asiatic-pagan initiations — and at that time these were the most
up-to-date. Reflected in the outer world, they all imply that one who is a lofty
personality, initiated in a certain manner, owes his origin not only to a
natural but to a supernatural event.
Consider that
Plato's followers, those who were anxious to form the right conception of him,
did not care particularly who his bodily father was. For them, Plato's
spirituality outshone all else. Hence they said, That which lived in the Plato
body as the Plato soul, that is the Plato who was born for us as a lofty
spiritual being that fructifies the lower nature of man. — That is why they
ascribed to the God Apollo the birth of the Plato who meant so much to them, the
awakened Plato. In their sight Plato was a son of Apollo. Especially in these
Mysteries was it customary to pay no particular attention to the earthly life of
the personality in question, but to focus on the moment at which he became what
is so often mentioned in the Gospels: a “divine son”, a “son of god”. Plato,
a son of god — thus was he described by his noblest devotees, by those who
understood him best. And we must realize what significance such a
characterization of the Gods bore for the human life of such sons of god on
earth. It was in this fourth epoch, as you know, that men adapted themselves to
the physical sense world and came to love the earth. The old gods were dear to
them because they could symbolize the fact that precisely the leading sons of
the earth were “sons of the gods”. Those of them who dwelt on earth were to be
thus designated.
One of these was
the author of the Gospel of St. Mark, hence he describes only what occurred
after the Baptism by John. The initiation this evangelist had undergone was the
one that led to a knowledge of the higher world in the sign of the Lion spirit;
and an old tradition links him with the symbol of the Lion.
Now we will turn
back to what we already touched on today, the Gospel according to St. John. We
said that he who wrote the John Gospel was initiated by Christ Jesus Himself,
hence he had something to give which contained the germ, so to say, of the
efficacy of the Christ-Impulse, not only for that time, but for the far distant
future. He proclaimed something that will remain valid for all time. This
evangelist was one of the Eagle initiates, those who had skipped the normal
evolutionary stage. The normal instruction of that time was set down by the
author of the Mark Gospel. All that reaches out beyond that period, showing the
nature of Christ's activity in the distant future, all that transcends
earthbound matters, we find in St. John. That is why tradition connects him with
the symbol of the Eagle.
This shows us
that a tradition associating the evangelists with what may be called the essence
of their own initiation is by no means based on mere fancy, but is born out of
the depths of Christian evolution. One must penetrate in this way deep into the
roots of things; then it becomes clear that the greatest, the most transcendent
events in the life of Christ are all described in the same way, but that each of
the evangelists portrays Christ Jesus as he understands Him according to the
type of his initiation. I indicated this in my book Christianity as a
Mystical Fact, but only in such a way as could be done for readers as yet
unprepared, for it was written in the beginning of our spiritual-scientific
development. Allowance was made for the lack of understanding, in our time, of
occult facts proper.
We now
understand that Christ is illuminated for us from four sides, each evangelist
throwing light upon Him from the aspect he knew most intimately; and in view of
the mighty impulse He gave, you will readily believe that he had many sides.
Now, I said that all the Gospels agreed on the following points: that the
Christ-Being Himself descended from divine-spiritual heights at the Baptism by
John, that this Christ-Being dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, that He
suffered death on the Cross, and that He vanquished this death. Later we shall
have occasion to examine this Mystery more closely. Today let us look at the
death on the Cross in the light of the question: What feature of it is
characteristic in the case of the Christ-Being? The answer is, we find it to be
an event that created no distinction between the life that went before and the
life that followed. The most characteristic feature of the death of Christ is
that He passed through death unchanged, that He remained the same, that it was
He Who exemplified the insignificance of death. For this reason all who could
know the true nature of the Christ death have ever clung to the living
Christ.
Considered from
this point of view, what was the nature of the event of Damascus, where he who
had been Saul became Paul? From what he had previously learned Paul knew that
the Spirit first sought by Zarathustra in the sun as Ahura Mazdao, the Spirit
later beheld by Moses in the burning bush and in the fire on Sinai, had
gradually been approaching the earth; and he also knew that this Spirit would
have to enter a human body. What Paul could not grasp, however, while he was
still Saul, was that the man destined to be the Christ bearer should have to
suffer the disgrace of death on the cross. He could only imagine that when
Christ came He would triumph, that once He had approached the earth He would
have to remain in all that pertained to it. Paul could not think of Him Who had
hung upon the Cross as the bearer of the Christ. — That is the substance of
Paul's attitude as Saul — before he became Paul. The death on the Cross, this
humiliating death and all that it implied, was primarily what prevented him from
recognizing the fact that Christ had really been present on the earth. What,
then, had to occur? Something had to take place in Paul which at a certain
moment would create in him the conviction: The individuality that hung upon the
Cross in the body of Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Christ. Christ has been
here on earth. — And what brought this about? Paul became clairvoyant through
the event of Damascus; and then he could become convinced.
To the eye of
the seer the aura of the earth appeared changed after the event of Golgotha:
previously the Christ was not to be found there, but thenceforth He was visible
in the earth's aura. That is the difference; and Saul reasoned: With clairvoyant
perception I can verify the fact that He Who hung upon the Cross and lived as
Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ Who is now in the earth aura. — In the aura of
the earth he saw the Being first beheld in the sun by Zarathustra, Ahura Mazdao;
and now he knew that He Who had been crucified had arisen. Now he could proclaim
that Christ had arisen and had appeared to him, as He had appeared to Cephas, to
the other brethren, and to the five hundred at one time. Thenceforth he was the
apostle of the living Christ for Whom death has not the same meaning as for
other men.
Whenever the
Death on the Cross is doubted — that is, this particular manner in which the
Christ died — anyone who is really informed on the subject will agree with
another[2] Swabian who, in his Urchristentum, has
assembled with the greatest historical accuracy everything that is indisputably
related to what we know about it. In that connection Gfrörer — for he it was —
rightly emphasized specifically the Death on the Cross; and in a certain sense
we can agree with him when he says, in his rather sarcastic mode of expression,
that when anyone contradicted him in this matter he would look him critically in
the eye and ask whether there might perhaps be something wrong in his upper
storey.
Among the most
indubitably established elements of Christianity are this Death on the Cross and
what we shall elucidate tomorrow: the Resurrection and the effect of the words:
“I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” And these were the
substance of Paul's message, hence he could say, “If Christ be not risen, then
is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” For him the Resurrection of
Christ was the starting point of Christianity. Not until our time have people
begun again to reflect, so to speak, upon such things — not in circles where
they are made the subject of theological disputes, but where the actual life of
Christianity is involved. So the great philosopher Solovyev really takes
entirely the Pauline standpoint in emphasizing that everything in Christianity
rests upon the idea of the Resurrection, and that a Christianity of the future
is impossible unless the concept of the Resurrection be believed and grasped.
And after his own fashion he repeats Paul's utterance, “If Christ be not risen,
then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” In that case the
Christ impulse would be an impossible thing: there could be no Christianity
without the risen Christ, the living Christ.
It is
characteristic, and therefore worthy of emphasis, that certain isolated deep
thinkers have come to recognize the truth of Paul's message solely by means of
their philosophy, without benefit of occultism. If we devote some attention to
such thinkers we realize that men are beginning to appear in our time who have a
concept of what the future convictions and Weltanschauung of mankind will
have to be, namely, that which spiritual science must provide. But without
spiritual science even so profound a thinker as Solovyev achieved no more than
empty conceptual forms. His philosophical paraphernalia resemble vessels for
containing concepts; and what must be poured into them is something they indeed
crave and for which they form the molds, but something they lack; and this can
come only out of the anthroposophical current. It will fill the molds with that
living water which is the revelation of facts concerning the spiritual world,
the occult. That is what this spiritual-scientific Weltanschauung will offer its
finest minds, those who already today show that they need it, and whose tragedy
lies in their not having been able to obtain it. We can say of such minds that
they positively yearn for anthroposophy. But they have not been able to find
it.
It is the task
of the anthroposophical movement to pour into these vessels, prepared by such
minds, all that can contribute to clear, distinct, true conceptions of the most
significant events, such as the Christ event and the Mystery of Golgotha. By
means of its revelations concerning the realms of the spiritual world,
anthroposophy or spiritual research alone can throw light on these events.
Verily, it is only through anthroposophy, through spiritual research, that the
Mystery of Golgotha can be comprehended in our time.
Translator's Notes:1. These two columns decorated the lecture hall in Kassel, together with a statue representing the Archangel Michael, by Professor Bernewitz.
Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0112/19090701p02.html
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