The Gospel of Matthew. Lecture 12 of 12.
Rudolf Steiner, September 12, 1910:
Studying the evolution of mankind in
accordance with spiritual science, and watching its progress step by step, we
are bound to acknowledge that the most important fact of this evolution is that
man, because he incarnates again and again in different epochs, advances to ever
higher degrees of perfection, and thus gradually reaches the goal where he has
developed, in his inner being, certain active powers corresponding to the
different stages of planetary development. We see, on one hand, the man who
progresses upward, who keeps his divine goal before him, but who would never be
able to evolve to the heights he should attain if beings whose whole path of
evolution is different did not come to his assistance. From time to time beings
from other spheres enter our earthly evolution and unite with it, so as to raise
men to their own exalted realms. Even as regards earlier planetary conditions we
may express this in a wide sense by saying: Already during the Saturn stage of
evolution, exalted beings — the Thrones — offered up their will-substance so
that from it the earliest beginnings of man's physical body might be formed.
This is but a general example; but beings whose evolution is far in advance of
that of men have ever bent down to them and united with their evolution, by
dwelling for a time within a human soul. Such beings have ‘assumed a human form’
as is often said, or to put it more trivially, have entered a human soul as an
inspiring power, so that a human being who has been ensouled in this way by a
god might accomplish more in human evolution than he could otherwise have
done.
Our age,
permeated as it is with materialistic conceptions, leveling everything, does
not accept such facts willingly; indeed I might say that it retains only the
crudest notion of accepting the descent of beings from higher regions, beings
who enter into man and speak to him. Modern people regard such beliefs as the
wildest superstition. Rudiments of such beliefs have, however, remained to our
day, though people are for the most part unaware that they hold them; they have
retained, for instance, a belief in the occasional appearance of persons of
‘genius.’ Men of genius rise high above the great mass of mankind even in the
opinion of ordinary individuals, who say of such persons: Other qualities have
come to fruition in their souls than are to be found in average humanity. Such
‘geniuses’ are at least still credited. But there are also circles where there
is no longer such belief; the materialistic thought of today discredits them,
it has no belief in facts concerning the life of the spirit: Belief in genius
does, however, continue in wide circles, and if this is not to be an empty
belief we must acknowledge that in a genius through whom human evolution has
been advanced, a power other than the ordinary power of men works through a
human agency. Looking to the teaching that knows the true facts concerning men
of genius, one realizes that when such men appear who seem as if suddenly
possessed by something extraordinarily good, or great, or powerful, that a
spiritual power has descended and taken possession of the place from which this
being of power must now work, namely, the inner nature of the man himself.
To people who
think in accordance with Anthroposophy it should be clear from the beginning
that there are two possibilities: the upward evolution of men to spiritual
heights; and the descent from above of divine, spiritual beings into human
bodies or human souls.
In one part of
my Rosicrucian Mystery Play it is pointed out that
whenever something important is to take place in human evolution a divine being
must unite with a human soul and permeate it. This is a necessity of human
evolution.
To understand
this in connection with our spiritual evolution on Earth, we must recall how in
the time of its early beginnings the Earth was united with the Sun, from which
it is now separated. Anthroposophists know, of course, that this does not refer
merely to a separation of the substance of the Earth from the substance of the
Sun, but with the going forth of divine beings who were associated with the Sun
or with the other planets. After this separation of the Sun, certain spiritual
beings remained connected with the Earth, while others remained with the Sun,
because they had evolved beyond earthly connections and could not complete
their further cosmic evolution on the Earth. Thus we have the fact that one kind
of spiritual being remained connected with the Earth, while other spiritual
beings sent their active forces down to Earth from the Sun. After the departure
of the Sun from the Earth we have, as it were, two spheres of activity: that of
the Earth with its beings, and that of the Sun with its beings. The spiritual
beings who served mankind from a higher sphere are those who chose the Sun as
their dwelling-place, and from this realm come the beings who have united
themselves from time to time with earthly humanity so that they might aid the
further evolution — both of Earth and of man.
In the myths of
various peoples we constantly find reference to such ‘Sun-heroes’ who have
descended from spiritual realms to participate in human evolution; and a man who
is filled by such a Sun-being is something far more than from outward seeming he
would appear to be. The outward appearance of such a man is deceptive — it is
maya; but behind the maya is the real being who can only be guessed at by those
who can penetrate to the profoundest depths of such a nature. In the Mysteries
people knew, and still know, of this twofold fact concerning the path of human
evolution. People distinguish now, as they distinguished in the past, divine
beings who descend to Earth from spiritual spheres, and men who strive upward
from the Earth toward initiation into spiritual mysteries.
With what kind of
being then are we concerned in the Christ?
In the last
lecture we learnt that in the designation ‘Christ, the Son of the living God’
we are concerned with a descending being. If we wish to describe Him by a word
drawn from Oriental philosophy He would be called ‘an avatar,’ a God who had
descended. But we have only to do with such a descending being from a certain
moment; and we must accept what is described by all four evangelists, by
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as such an appearance. At the moment of the
Baptism of John, a being descended to our Earth from the realms of Sun-existence
and united with a human being. Now, we have to realize clearly that according to
the meaning of the four evangelists this Sun-being was greater than any other
avatar, than any other Sun-being who up to that time had ever come to Earth.
They, therefore, take trouble to explain that a specially prepared being had to
advance from the side of humanity to meet this great descending being.
All four
Gospels, therefore, tell of the Sun-being — the ‘Son of the living God’ — who
came toward men to aid their further progress; but only the Gospels of Matthew
and Luke speak of the man who evolved toward this Sun-being so that he might
receive Him into himself. They narrate how the human being for thirty years
prepares for the moment when he can receive the Sun-being into himself. Because
the being we call the Christ is so universal, so all-comprising, it did not
suffice that the bodily sheaths that were to receive Him should be prepared in
any simple way. A quite specially prepared physical and etheric sheath had to
evolve, meet for the reception of this descending being. Whence these came we
have seen in the course of our study of the Matthew Gospel. But out of this same
being whose physical and etheric sheath had been prepared in accordance with the
teaching of Matthew, out of the forty-two generations of the Hebrew people,
there could not spring an astral garment or a bearer of the ego suited to that
Sun-being. For this, special arrangements were necessary, and these were carried
out by means of another human being. This being we read of in the Gospel of
Luke, where the writer of that Gospel describes the early years of the so-called
Nathan Jesus. There we read of how the two became one.
This mystery
occurred when the ego-entity, forsaking the body of the twelve-year-old Jesus of
whom the writer of the Gospel of Matthew tells, namely, the Zarathustra
individuality, passed into the Nathan Jesus of the Gospel of Luke. In this body
he continued to dwell, carrying on in it the further development of those
qualities acquired through his having assumed the physical and etheric sheaths
of the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew. In this body his higher principles
ripened, until in his thirtieth year they were ready for the reception of the
mighty being who descended into them from higher worlds.
When seeking to
describe the whole course of these events as related in the Gospel of Matthew we
should have to say that the writer first directs his attention to answering the
question: What kind of physical and etheric body could serve such a being as the
Christ for His life on Earth? And because of what the writer had experienced he
could answer: In order that a suitable physical and etheric body could be
prepared it was necessary that they should pass through forty-two generations of
the Hebrew people so that the attributes laid down in Abraham might be fully
developed. He could then continue to answer the question further by telling us:
Such a physical and etheric body could only provide a fitting instrument if the
greatest individuality humanity had so far produced for the comprehension of the
Christ—that is the Zarathustra individuality — made use of them up to his
twelfth year, at which time he had to leave this body and enter another. This
was the body of the Jesus of whom the writer of the Gospel of Luke tells. From
this point, the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, turning from that to which he
had given his attention at first, deals exclusively with the Jesus of whom we
read in the Gospel of Luke, and follows the life of Zarathustra until his
thirtieth year. The moment had then come when the astral body and ego-bearer
had been so far evolved by Zarathustra that he could sacrifice them to the
mighty being — the great Sun-spirit — who descended from spiritual spheres and
took possession of them. This was the moment of the baptism by John in
the Jordan.
If we recall
once more the time when the Earth was separated from the Sun, and the beings
whose supreme leader is the Christ withdrew from the Earth, we must say: There
were beings who let their influences spread gradually over the Earth, just as
the Christ, in the course of time, has allowed His influence to be felt on
Earth. But we must not forget something else, which is that the nature of
ancient Saturn as regards substantiality was relatively much simpler than that
of the planetary bodies that arose later. It consisted of fire or warmth; there
was neither air nor water there, neither was there light-ether. This light-ether
came with the Sun-evolution. Then, when later this passed over into the
Moon-evolution, the watery element appeared as a further densification, on one
hand, and sound or tone-ether as a further refinement on the other. Solid
substance was added to these during the evolution of the Earth; this condition
arose as a further densification; life-ether being added at the same time as a
further refinement. We have therefore on the Earth: warmth, air or gaseous
substance, water or fluid substance, and solids or earthly substance. Opposed to
these as finer conditions we have light-ether, tone-ether, and life-ether, this
last being the finest etheric condition known to us.
Now with the
departure of the Sun from the Earth, not only the material part of the Sun left
but the spiritual part left also. It was only later, and by degrees, that this
returned to the Earth, and it did not return entirely. I spoke of this at Munich
when lecturing on the Six Days of Creation, so I will only touch on it
here.
Of the higher
etheric substances, man is only aware of warmth and light-ether. What he
perceives as ‘sound’ is but a reflection, a materialization, of the real tone
that is in tone-ether. When tone-ether is spoken of we refer to the bearer of
what is known as ‘the harmony of the spheres,’ and is only to be heard
clairaudiently. The Sun certainly sends its light to the Earth, in so far as
this is physical, but a higher condition also lives in the Sun. People who know
of these things do not speak in empty phrases when with Goethe they say:—
‘The sun-orb sings, in emulation,
Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round:
His path predestined through Creation,
He ends with step of thunder-sound.’FAUST — Prologue in Heaven.
This refers to
sphere-harmony, to that which lives in the sound-ether, and can only be heard by
man when he has attained initiation, or when a Sun-being descends in order to
hold intercourse with one who has been chosen to become an instrument for the
further evolution of others. For such a one the Sun begins to resound, and the
sphere-harmonies to be heard.
Above the
tone-ether lies the life-ether. Just as the ‘word’ lies within mere tone, as
something possessing an inward soul-like content, so associated with the meaning
of the life-ether is that which in later Persian times was called ‘Honover.’ The
writer of the Gospel of John calls this the ‘Logos,’ which as meaning-filled
tone belongs to the being of the Sun.
Among those
blessed ones whose nature did not remain entirely deaf to this ‘resounding Sun’
we have to reckon Zarathustra, who lived in the early part of our post-Atlantean
civilization. It is no myth, but a fact that can be proved documentarily, that
Zarathustra received instruction through the ‘Sun-word.’ He had become capable
of hearing this. For what was the overwhelmingly majestic teaching given by the
original Zarathustra to his pupils?
We might
describe it thus: Zarathustra was an instrument through whom the sound, the
meaning, of the Sun-Word itself spoke. A Persian legend tells how the ‘Sun-Word’
spoke by the mouth of Zarathustra, how the secret or hidden word behind the Sun
spoke through him. This legend, in referring to the astral body of the Sun,
speaks of ‘Ahura Mazdao,’ but also of the ‘Sun-word,’ translated later into
Greek as the ‘Logos.’
When thinking of
this ancient Zarathustra, we realize that even so exalted a person could not in
those early times have been initiated so as consciously to receive what he could
afterwards pass on to others, but that he must have been ensouled by a higher
being.
Zarathustra
could teach of Ahura Mazdao, because the Aura of the Sun enfolded him, because
the Spiritual-Being, Ahura Mazdao, resounded in him, because the World-Light —
the great Aura — spoke through him. He was, as it were, the external bodily
garment of the Sun-god, who thus sent His influence in advance down to man,
though not as yet on Earth Himself. At that time the Sun-word was more
inward.
It might be said
— speaking altogether in the sense of Zarathustra — that he taught his
disciples: ‘You must understand that behind the physical sunlight there is a
spiritual light; just as behind physical man there is something astral — his
aura — so behind the Sun there is the “Great Aura”. You must regard the physical
Sun as the light-body of a being who will one day come to Earth; it is the
external bodily form of something known to clairvoyant perception, and has an
inner soul-nature within it. Just as the soul expresses itself in sound, so the
Sun-word — the Logos — makes itself known by means of the Sun-Aura!’
Zarathustra gave
to mankind the promise that one day the Light-being would come down from the
spheres of the Great Aura, and that the soul of this being would be the
Sun-word. This is something we find for the first time in Zarathustra; it is the
source from which his teaching springs. In it we have to see a prophetic wisdom,
which tells of the coming of the Sun-aura and the Sun-word.
This teaching
continued to live from epoch to epoch in the Mysteries. It was the great
consolation and hope of those who within human evolution longed for higher
things. And the less exalted Sun-spirits, those associated with the Earth, were
able ever and again to give more precise teaching concerning the Spirit of the
Sun-light, or Sun-aura, for they were really messengers of the Sun-word.
This was one
side of the Mystery tradition that passed down through the ages. The other side
was that men should learn to know, and by practice should be able to evolve
upward to meet, that which was to descend to Earth. In pre-Christian times it
was not yet possible for men to believe that without something further a feeble
individual could evolve to meet the Sun-being, the Leader of the Hosts of the
Sun, the Christ. It was not possible for anyone to attain this by any form of
initiation. Hence the Gospel of Matthew describes how all the life-giving forces
of the Hebrew people were called upon to produce such a man. On the other hand
the Gospel of Luke explains how through seventy-seven successive stages the best
that human nature could attain to was, as one might say, filtered, in order that
a fitting body might evolve to meet the greatest being Who was to come down to
the Earth.
In the
Mysteries, as was natural, the men who had to be instructed, who had to be
worked on, were ordinary feeble men, and were quite unable to grasp what it was
that now faced humanity or that might be attained by single individuals.
Therefore those who were to be initiated were graded into different classes,
and they approached the secrets of the Mysteries in different ways. Some, for
instance, were taught more how men should live in the external world, what they
ought to do there in order to fit themselves to become a temple for the
descending Sun-being.
There were other
pupils of the Mysteries who were instructed more in what was to evolve in the
stillness of the soul if it wished to gain an understanding, a feeling for and
perception of the Sun-spirit. Is it not natural that there should have been
certain pupils whose task it was so to direct their outer lives, so to be
trained from childhood, that their bodies became temples for the descending
Spirit? This was the case in olden times; it is also the case to a certain
extent today, but the ordinary materialistic consciousness passes it by.
Suppose the time
drew nigh when some great being was to descend from spiritual realms to give
humanity a forward impulse in evolution.
Those who serve
the Mysteries have to await such a moment; they have to interpret the signs of
the times. In quiet and retirement, and without making any disturbance, they
awaited the moment when a God was to come down to Earth to give an upward impulse
to humanity. It was their duty also to watch humanity carefully, to see if among
men there were any who could be trained and guided to fit them to receive such a
being into themselves. When the descending being is of exceptional greatness
such a man would have to be trained and prepared from earliest childhood that he
might be a temple fit to receive Him. This also happens, and is also unnoticed.
If the life of these men is described, it is found that they follow certain
fundamental rules; even in outer concerns there is a certain resemblance in
their lives. When we glance back over the course of human evolution we have to
allow that here and there we find individuals whose lives take a similar
course—even as regards external biographical facts. This cannot be denied, and
has even been remarked on by those carrying out more recent research. Popular
but not very profound works have been produced lately showing similarities in
the lives of such persons. In the writings of Prof. Jensen (Marburg) you find,
for instance, comparisons between the lives of the ancient Babylonian
Gilgamesch, Moses, Jesus, and Paul. The tables are beautifully drawn up; he
takes certain incidents from the lives of these individuals and compares them,
with the result that quite wonderful resemblances are revealed, puzzling to the
materialistic mind. The conclusions drawn are natural: it is stated that in
these biographies one myth is copied from the others, that the writers of the
life of Jesus copied the biography of Gilgamesch, that the story of the life of
Moses is but an old epic, served up in a new form, and the final conclusion
arrived at is: none of them has existed as a physical personality, not Moses,
nor Jesus, nor Paul. People have no idea how far these so-called ‘researches’
lead them in respect of materialistic explanations.
Similarity of
this kind in the biographies of great individuals rests on nothing more than the
fact that in childhood they were already trained to become the bearers of a
divine being; this causes no astonishment when we understand the deeper-lying
paths of human and universal evolution. Not only comparisons with mythology, but
all those searchings after similarities in regard to mythical sources is, in
fact, fantasy. It leads nowhere. What does it benefit us to prove resemblances
in the life of Siegfried to some Greek hero? They do certainly contain
similarities. But the appearance of a house is not what matters, but who lives
in it! It matters not that such and such things occurred in the life of
Siegfried, but who the individuality was that dwelt in him.
Such things can,
however, only be established with the help of occult research. What we have to
bear in mind is that the lives of men who were to become fitting temples for
higher beings coming to the aid of humanity were guided in a special way, and
that their lives show therefore a similar course as regards certain fundamental
features.
In the temples
of the Mysteries there have always been precepts regarding what had to come
about with such men. Similar precepts were preserved by the association of the
Essenes concerning Christ Jesus, telling what the nature of those human beings
had to be who as the Solomon Jesus and the Nathan Jesus evolved upward toward the
great Sun-being, the Christ.
But those
seeking initiation were not initiated into everything. There were different
classes and degrees of initiates. Thus to some it was shown with special
clearness what a man had to undergo who was evolving toward the God, so that he
might be worthy to receive the God into himself. To others it was given to know
how a God acted when He revealed Himself in a man; or to put it trivially, when
he revealed Himself as a ‘genius.’ It is not generally remarked today that
genius is apt to reveal itself in similar ways when appearing in different
people. Nowadays people do not write biographies from out the spirit. If the
genius of Goethe were to be described from the aspect of the spirit, a wonderful
similarity would be found for instance between his genius and that of Dante,
Homer, and Aeschylus. People do not now write biographies, but stick placards
and tickets on a person and repeat all kinds of trivialities concerning the
person's external life, which interests most people much more. So we are
presented with a vast accumulation of ticketed rubbish concerning the life of
Goethe, but not a real account of what Goethe actually was. Mankind today
declares itself to be in some respects, and actually with pride, incapable of
describing the evolution of genius in a human personality. There is a desire
today to bring to light the earliest efforts of our great poets, stressing the
fact that in the freshness and originality of their early works something
elemental lived which is lost to the man in later life. But the real fact
underlying this is that in their arrogance men only wish to understand the young
poet, and not to take part in all he goes through in later life. Men pride
themselves on the fact that they understand ‘youth’; they trouble little about
the ‘old,’ and have no idea that it is not the old who have become ‘old,’ but
that they themselves have remained mere children.
This evil is
widely spread. Seeing it is so deeply rooted, we need not wonder at the little
understanding there is of the fact that a divine being can enter into a human
personality, and that the life-course of such divine beings in any person and in
any age must be fundamentally the same.
As there was
necessarily much to be learnt as regards these profound relationships, this
domain of knowledge was divided into classes. In a certain division of the
Mysteries, teaching was given concerning the preparation of a man so that he
might rise towards a divine being, whereas in others teaching was given
concerning the descent of the inner Light-being, the Logos, the Sun-word,
contained in the Aura of the Sun-being. In Christ we see this gradual descent in
its most complex form. We need not wonder if more than four men had been needed
for the understanding of these mighty facts; four, however, took it as their
task. Two of these, the writers of the Gospels of Matthew and of Luke, undertook
to relate the nature of the personality who grew toward the descending
Sun-being — Matthew telling of this in respect of the physical and etheric
bodies, Luke in respect of the astral-body and the bearer of the ego.
Mark on the
other hand does not concern himself with that which advanced toward the
Sun-being, but tells us of the Sun-Aura, the great body of light, the Spiritual
Light whose power and activity streamed through space and was active within the
form of Christ Jesus. He therefore begins his Gospel with the Baptism of John,
when the Light of the World came down to Earth. In the Gospel of John we
are told of the soul of this Sun-spirit — of the Logos or Sun-word — its most
inward essence. This is why the Gospel of John is the most inward of all the
Gospels. The facts are distributed, and the complicated nature of Christ Jesus
described from four different sides. All the four evangelists tell of the Christ
in Jesus of Nazareth, but each of them feels constrained to keep to the point
from which he makes his start, the point concerning which he first attained
clairvoyance so that he might be able to describe this very complicated
being.
It is well that
we should review this once more, so that it may really penetrate the soul.
Matthew's attention is directed to the birth of the Jesus of the Solomon line; he
describes the development of the forces of the physical and etheric bodies, and
tells how these sheaths were later discarded by Zarathustra, and how he passed
on to the Jesus of the Nathan line all he had acquired while in the physical and
etheric body of the Solomon Jesus. Matthew has then to trace further what he
does not describe at the beginning, the fate of all that which as qualities and
consequences had passed over from the Solomon Jesus to the Nathan Jesus. His
attention is not so much directed to what was elemental in the nature of the
astral body and ego-bearer of the Nathan Jesus, but to that which had been
passed on to him from his own, the Solomon Jesus. And as he describes the
Sun-being Who came from above, he is mainly concerned with telling of the
qualities that could only be possessed by Jesus because he had an etheric and
astral body that had been built up by the Solomon Jesus. These qualities could
naturally be remarked in the Christ, for they were there, but that part of
Christ Jesus which had attracted his attention from the first, he continues to
describe most exactly, for this was for him the most important.
The writer of
the Gospel of Mark tells from the first of the great descending
Sun-spirit; he describes no earthly being; that which walked the Earth in human
form provided for him only the means by which the nature of the Spirit that
worked within it might be revealed. He draws our attention to the facts that
appeal most to him, namely, the way in which the forces of the Sun-spirit
worked. Hence many of the things related in the Gospels of Matthew and of Mark
are the same, but they are told from different points of view. The first
describes more the character of the sheaths, showing especially how qualities
which were apparent in later years had already been present in early youth, and
describing these so that we see how they worked. The writer of the Gospel of
Mark, on the other hand, only makes use of the physical Jesus in order to reveal
to us the earthly activities of the Sun-spirit. This he does to the smallest
detail. If you wish really to understand the Gospels in these details you must
bear in mind that the evangelists fixed their attention on that which had
attracted them from the beginning
Hence the writer
of the Gospel of Luke keeps his eyes fixed on what is important to him,
namely, the astral body and the bearer of the ego. What Christ Jesus experienced
as a physical person does not interest him so much, but rather the feelings and
perceptions of the astral body and the ego-bearer. All tenderness and compassion
come from the astral body, and Christ Jesus could only be the being of
compassion He was, because He possessed the astral body of the Nathan Jesus. So
this writer draws attention from the first to the compassion of Christ Jesus,
and all the things He could accomplish because He bore within Him this special
astral body.
The writer of
the Gospel of John turns his attention to the most exalted Power working
on Earth — the inner force of the Sun-Spirit, brought down through the
instrumentality of Jesus. Neither does the physical life interest him
particularly, but he looks to the Highest, to the pure Sun-Logos; the physical
Jesus is for him only the means by which he can trace the relationship of the
Sun-Logos to man. That which attracts his attention in the beginning, holds it
to the end.
When we look on
sleeping humanity we see our external sheaths, our physical and etheric bodies.
In these two members live all the forces that have come to us from divine beings
who, through mi1lions and millions of years, have worked at erecting this temple
of the physical body. In this temple we have lived since Lemurian times, and
have defiled it ever more and more. It was constructed for us originally during
the Saturn, Sun, and Moon ages of evolution. In it divine beings have lived and
worked constructively. Looking at our physical body we can say: This is a temple
provided for us by the gods — gods who have constructed this temple for us out of
solid substance. And in the ether body we have that which contains the finer
substances of our being; we are only unable to see these because through the
influences of Lucifer and Ahriman we have become incapable of doing so. In this
ether body lives also that which appertains to the Sun; in it resound the
actively formative Sphere-harmonies which the gods perceive behind all purely
physical nature. So of the ether body we can say: Exalted beings live in it,
Gods that are closely related to the Sun-Spirits.
In this way we
must regard our physical and etheric bodies as the most perfect members of our
being. When we have forsaken them in sleep, when they slip from us, they are at
once filled with the life and activity of divine beings.
The writer of
the Gospel of Matthew keeps the physical body of Christ Jesus before him
as his main object through all the Gospel, as it was his main object from the
first. The materially physical body, however, no longer existed — this had been
given up in its twelfth year — but the divine part — its forces — passed over
into the other physical body, that of the Nathan Jesus. The reason why the
physical body of Jesus of Nazareth was so perfect was that he had filled it with
the forces he derived from the body of the Solomon Jesus.
Let us now try
to picture in what way the writer of this Gospel regarded the Jesus dying on the
cross. He had always kept his attention fixed on that which it was his special
mission to describe, that of which he tells in the beginning; but now the
spiritual part forsakes the physical body, and what is godlike departs with it.
So the attention of the writer of the Gospel is directed to the separation of
the inner being of Christ Jesus from this Divinity in His physical nature. And
the ancient cry which was always heard in the Mysteries when the spiritual
nature of a man forsook his physical body to gaze into spiritual worlds — ‘My
God, my God, how hast thou glorified me!’ — is altered by Matthew; so that with
his attention fixed on the physical body he says, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me!’ ‘Thou has gone from me! This is what he exclaims. It is on this
‘forsaking’ that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew fixes his attention at this
moment.
The author of
the Gospel of Mark, on the other hand, describes the approach of the
external forces of the Sun-Aura, and tells how the Sun-Aura, the body of the
Sun-Being, unites with the etheric body. This etheric body is in the same
situation as ours when we sleep. As our external powers go forth from us when we
sleep, so they went forth from Jesus at His physical death. Hence we find the
same cry in the Gospel of Mark.
The writer of
the Gospel of Luke also directs his attention at the death of Christ
Jesus to that which claimed it in the beginning: to the astral body and
ego-bearer. Therefore he does not make use of the same words. His attention is
directed mainly to other facts, to facts connected with the astral body, which
at this moment attained its climax of compassion and love. Hence he renders the
cry as ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!’
This is an
expression of tenderness that could only come from such an astral body as the
writer of the Gospel of Luke directs our attention to from the first; and the
highest development of humility and devotion resulting from this is what claims
his attention at the last. Therefore he gives the last words of Christ Jesus as
‘Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit!’
John
tells us of what, though certainly derived from the Earth, was to be realized by
man in the ordering of the Earth, the meaning of earthly organization as it is
contained in the Sun-Word. His attention is, therefore, directed mainly to what,
as organization, was accomplished from the Cross on Golgotha. He describes to us
how at this moment the Christ establishes a higher brotherhood than that of
blood-relationship. The former brotherhood arose through the blood. Mary was the
mother of the child according to the blood. But that which was to unite soul
with soul in love was inaugurated by Christ Jesus.
He gave to the
disciple whom He loved not his mother according to the blood, but He gave to him
his true mother in Spirit. Thus, renewing old bonds which had been lost to
humanity, the words heard from the Cross come down to us in a new sense: ‘Behold
thy Son!’ and ‘Behold thy Mother!’
That which as
organizing quality lay here at the foundation of a new kind of fellowship is
contained in the Life-ether, which organizes life, and which
streamed into the Earth in the Deed of Christ. Thus, behind all that the
evangelists tell us, we have a single act — the Deed of Christ; but each tells
of it from the point of view which he took up from the beginning. The reason is
that each of the evangelists was absorbed in what his clairvoyant vision
revealed to him and which he was fitted to receive; the rest passed him by. We
now realize that this all-comprehensive event, which is described to us from
four sides, is not full of contradictions. Once we are able to gather
these different points of view into one we learn to understand it just because
it is so described. It then also seems quite natural that the confession of
Peter, with which we dealt in the last lecture, is only found in the Gospel of
Matthew, and not in the others.
Mark
describes the Christ as the Sun-Force, as a universal cosmic force at work in
the world, which is now to work in a new way. It is the majestic power of the
Sun-Aura in its elemental activity of which he tells. Luke, in speaking
of the inner nature of Christ Jesus, describes preferably the astral body, the
single human individual, man as he lives in himself; for it is in the
astral-body that man lives in himself, here in his deepest individuality: here
he develops within his inner self. Man does not form fellowships primarily by
means of his astral body; the community-building capacity by which he enters
into relationship with other men appears in the etheric body. Luke has,
therefore, no inclination to tell us of the founding of any fellowship. Neither
has the writer of the Gospel of John, who describes to us the ego-being. But
Matthew, who describes Christ Jesus as man, has special inducement to speak of
those human relationships established by the God Who once and only once dwelt
within a human form. He is constrained to lay special stress on the
relationships, the fellowships that God, as man, was able to establish among
men, a relationship which could be regarded as a ‘Community,’ as an association
in which many dwell together. The human aspect of Christ Jesus is what he
describes, because this was the aspect to which he turned his attention in the
beginning, and he shows how Christ worked as man through the physical and
etheric body he had assumed.
When we have
gained an inner understanding of this, we find it natural that the expression
which has stirred up so much controversy‘— Thou art Peter, and on this rock will
I establish my community’ — could only be found in the Gospel of Matthew. When we
look at all the discussions of modern theologians of most varied schools
concerning these words, we really only find particular and unique reasons for
accepting them or rejecting them; nowhere, however, do we find an understanding
for their deeper meaning. Those who reject them do so because the external
community of the Catholic Church upholds them; for the external organization of
this church is founded on them. That they are misused in this sense is no proof
that they were originally introduced to support the Catholic Church. Those who
reject them do not really know what to bring forward against them, for they do
not see the misinterpretations. These gentlemen are in a strange position. Some
state that the Gospel of Mark is the original Gospel, that to it was then added
those of Matthew and Luke, which, they say, are to some extent copied and
enlarged from it, and that it had occurred to the writers of the Gospel of
Matthew, and of Luke, to insert these words. They specially state this with
regard to the Gospel of Matthew, because they say he wished to support the idea
of the community by inserting the words: ‘Thou art Peter, on this rock I will
found my community.’
In any case
parts of the text are of little help in the rendering of certain passages,
because it is impossible to say regarding some ancient texts that this or that
is the word actually used; but as regards these words in the Gospel of Matthew
it is a fact that they belong to what is most certain in it, for here we have no
possible philological reason for doubt. Many sayings may be open to doubt in
such complicated communications, but from the standpoint of philology no
objections can be brought against these two statements ‘Thou art the Christ, the
Son of the living God,’ and the other, ‘Thou art Peter, on this rock will I
build my community, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’ No text
exists to which objections can be made in respect of these sayings. Perhaps it
was hoped that from texts more recently discovered some contradiction of these
words might be found, but the passages to which I refer are not found in these
texts, portions of which are very much perished.
This at least is
the outcome of philological research. Naturally you must rely on what is
reported by those who have seen these documents. Of this passage we can state
that no other rendering of it is possible, and from the whole nature of the
Gospel of Matthew we can well see that this must be so. Christ Jesus is here
described as a man. Once we have this key we can understand the Gospel of
Matthew and we can also understand the parables told by Christ Jesus to His
disciples and to those who were outside his immediate circle.
In the last
lecture we showed how man evolves upward from below until he unfolds the
spiritual-soul like a blossom, until he has developed so far that the
Christ-impulse comes to meet him.
The five
principles of human nature which developed in man during the five epochs of
civilization — the ether body, astral body, sentient-soul, rational-soul, and
spiritual-soul — evolve upward from below. These can be so used, trained, and
developed that they acquire what makes it possible for them — when the time is
ripe — to be permeated by the Christ-impulse. In future ages all humanity will
be able to develop so that they can participate in the Christ, but they must
first develop fittingly these five principles of their being from below. If this
is not done, if through succeeding incarnations they do not concern themselves
with the development of these principles, then the Christ can come to them, but
they cannot unite themselves with Him. They have no oil in their lamps These
five principles may be left without oil. Those who have poured no oil into
their lamps are represented very beautifully in the parable of ‘the five foolish
virgins.’ Those who had not attended to their lamps in time could not unite
themselves with Christ — but the other five who had put oil in their lamps could
in the right hour do so.
All the parables
founded on numbers are profoundly illuminating as regards the impulse brought by
Christ to men.
Further, He
makes it clear to those who regard His teaching outwardly, that many external
thing must not be considered merely in a material sense, or in the most obvious
way, but rather as symbols for something else. He wishes to point out to them
the nature of their own thoughts. He asks for a coin, and showing them the
likeness of Caesar imprinted on it, points out that something more is expressed
by the coin than is merely contained in the metal, namely, its connection with a
certain ruler, with a certain empire. ‘What in this belongs to Caesar, render to
him; it is his, and is contained in his likeness on the coin, not in the metal
itself.’ ‘But learn,’ He also wished to teach them, ‘to regard men, and what is
in them, in a like manner, for they are the temples of the living God. Look on
men as you would look on a coin: learn that in them you see the image of God;
you will then know that they belong to God.’
All these
parables have a much deeper meaning than the trivial one generally accepted. We
learn this when we know that Christ did not make use of parables as is customary
in the literature of the day. In making use of them He directs them to the whole
nature of man, obliging people when they think them out to apply them to their
whole nature, not to its separate parts. In this way He shows how, if they are
to be shown that something is irrational, they must learn to pass with their
thoughts from one realm to another.
For example,
people have thought out all kinds of Sun myths in connection with Buddha,
Christ, and others. It became at last too much for one person. He said
therefore: ‘With these methods of applying myths and constellations to any great
event, it is possible to do anything. If someone comes and points out that in
the life of Christ we have a Sun myth, in order to show that Christ Jesus never
lived, one can also assert by such methods that Napoleon never lived, and can
easily prove it. We might say: In the name of Napoleon we have a rendering of
“Apollo”, the initial “N” does not represent a negative in Greek but an
intensification; hence Napoleon is N'Apollo — a kind of “Super-Apollo”. The
resemblance can be carried still further by the individual who sets out to prove
the non-existence of Jesus. A resemblance is found by the German Prof. Drews
between the names Jesus, Joses, Jason, etc., etc. Marvelous connections can
also be discovered between the name of Napoleon's mother, Letitia, and Leto, the
mother of Apollo; further, that Apollo — the Sun — had twelve constellations
around him; Napoleon had twelve Marshals, who are nothing more than symbolic
expressions for the Zodiacal signs surrounding the Sun. It is not unimportant
that the hero of the Napoleon myth had six brothers and sisters, he making the
seventh, just as the planets are seven in number. Behold, therefore, Napoleon
did not live!
This is a very
clever satire on the symbolic explanations so frequently employed. Men never
really learn, otherwise they would have known that according to these methods —
which they even employ today — it would have been proved long since that
Napoleon, for example, never lived. But humanity never learns, for according to
the same methods it is proved again today that Jesus never lived.
Such things show
how necessary it is that we should not approach what the Gospels have to tell
concerning the greatest event in all the world, without preparation. We must
realize also that it is exactly here that Anthroposophy may so easily go wrong.
For even our movement is by no means free from playing with all kinds of
symbolism drawn from the world of the stars.
I wished,
therefore, especially in this cycle of lectures, where I have spoken of the
greatest event in human evolution as having been revealed in the language of the
stars, to point out the true way in which this language is employed when what is
referred to is really understood.
With this
preparation, let us approach the scene in which the Gospels culminate. I have
already referred to the baptism and the history of the life and death of Christ
Jesus as two stages of initiation. To this I have only to add that after He had
led His disciples to.the point where they could perceive the going forth of the
innermost being of a man into the macrocosm, where they could see beyond death,
He accomplished a resurrection before them, but not in the trivial sense in
which it is often understood. This took place absolutely as told in the Gospel
of Matthew. Let us take the words just as they stand — and as clearly stated
also in the Gospel of John — and understand that what Paul says is true when he
tells us: Through what he had experienced on the way to Damascus, he had
seen the Christ, as the Risen One!
Paul lays
special stress on the fact that what was revealed to him was the same as was
revealed to the other brethren, to the twelve, and to the five hundred also, at
one time. The Christ was seen by him, as others saw him after the
resurrection. This is amply indicated in the Gospels, where we read that
Mary of Magdala, who had seen the Christ a few days before, seeing Him after the
resurrection takes Him to be the gardener, for she finds no resemblance to Him
she had known before. If He had really looked as He had a few days before, it
would have been impossible for in this case it would have been an abnormal
fact.
No one would
believe you if you said that you could not recognize someone you had seen a few
days before, if he reappeared in the same form a few days later. We have,
therefore, to realize clearly that a change had in fact taken place. Reading the
Gospels closely we arrive at the necessary conclusion that through all that had
taken place in Palestine, through the Mystery of Golgotha, the eyes of the
disciples had been opened, and that they were able to recognize the Christ as He
was, as the Spirit penetrating, and working, through the whole world. They
recognized Him for what He was, after He had given over His physical body to the
Earth, and saw that He remained just as powerfully active for the Earth as He
had been before.
All this is made
amply clear to us in the Gospel of Matthew, in words perhaps the most remarkable
to be found in any document. We are clearly shown that the writer of this Gospel
desires to inform us: Christ appeared once upon a time in a human physical body,
but this event is not merely an event, it is an Impulse — an Original
Cause. It has results, it has an effect.
The
Sun-Word or Sun-aura, of which Zarathustra once spoke as being outside
the Earth, has through the life of Christ Jesus become united with the Earth,
and has remained so. Before this, what was later united with the Earth was not
so united with it.
It is fitting
that we Anthroposophists should understand this fact. We then also understand
that it was the risen Christ Who revealed Himself to the eyes of the disciples,
now become clairvoyant, and showed them how as Spirit He was now interwoven with
the Earth and could say to them: ‘Go forth and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to observe all things whichsoever I commanded you! and lo! I
am with you alway even unto the end of the Earth-age!’
It is the
mission of spiritual science to help us to understand what was then beginning:
that the aura of the Earth has been united with the Sun-Aura, and that it can be
seen by those whose spiritual eyes are opened that this Sun-Aura, in the
Earth-Aura, which was visible to Paul, can also be heard when our inward ears
are opened to hear the Sun-word as it was heard by Lazarus, he who had been
initiated by Christ Jesus Himself.
The purpose of
spiritual science is to interpret these facts to us. It has also to interpret
for us what has taken place with regard to the spiritual evolution of the world.
In doing this, spiritual science actually establishes that which Christ Jesus
desired to establish, and does so in the sense of the Gospel of Matthew.
There is one
very beautiful saying in the Gospel of Matthew that is generally wrongly
translated. The saying ‘I am not come down to remove peace from Earth, but to
remove the sword.’ This most beautiful message of peace has unfortunately in the
course of time been changed into its very opposite. In order gradually to
deliver the Earth from that which brings strife and disharmony among men, the
Christ-Being had impressed Himself — His own nature — on the spiritual life of
the Earth. Spiritual science will establish peace when, in this sense, she has
become so truly Christ-like that she unites all religions. She can then unite
not only what is in our immediate neighborhood, but when the act of the
greatest of all peacemakers is understood, she can establish peace over the
whole Earth.
It is certainly
not in accordance with the greatest peacemaker that fanatical people should go
from one part of the Earth to another and impose a narrow Christian teaching on
a people whose conditions make such a teaching unsuitable in the form it has
taken among another people.
Great mistakes
were made when teaching concerning Christ was carried over to the East in our
time, and imposed on people here and there.
It has often
been pointed out to you as Anthroposophists that the Christ does not belong only
to Christians, that in reality the same being was referred to by Zarathustra
when he spoke of Ahura Mazdao, and by the seven Indian Rishis when they spoke of
Vishva Karman. We live in the West, and we know that it is Christ who is spoken
of when in the East other words are used. We strive to understand the Christ so
that this understanding is in accordance with human evolution — with the further
progress of humanity. And we clearly realize that neither discernment nor
revelation can give us information concerning Christ which turns men from Him,
that only those things vouchsafe information to us concerning Him which
consciously bear within them the living content of Christ Himself. And we know
when we speak in the right way of Vishva Karman and Ahura Mazdao to those who
deny Christ — when we do not force names on them — that they can attain of
themselves to an understanding of the Christ. We do not wish to force the Christ
on them in name; we realize clearly when we are not only Anthroposophists but
Occultists that names mean little, that it is the being that matters. Were we
convinced but for a moment that we could express the being who is in the Christ
by any other name we would do so. What we are concerned with is the truth, not
with our prejudices because of living in one corner of the Earth and belonging
to one people. It must not be said of us that we understand the Christ through
means not fitted to an understanding of Him, because outside His influence, this
would be impossible for anyone. Christ can be found also by other nations, but
He must be sought by means derived from Himself. People should not reproach
Anthroposophists for wishing to study Christianity in forms not derived from
Christianity itself. Christ can not be comprehended by Oriental names. He is not
understood through them at all; such people look close past Him, thinking
perhaps that they have seen Him.
What does it
mean when people put forward the objection that we view Christ from a
theosophical or Oriental standpoint? Have we to deny that the Christ came to us
from the East? We have no such wish, but people seek in this way to force us to
take the West to the East, and to form a conception of Christ in accordance with
the East. This must not and cannot be, not from any aversion, but because Eastern ideas, which have a very ancient origin, cannot reach out to grasp the
idea of Christ, and because the Christ can only be absolutely and entirely
understood through that line of evolution into which first Abraham and then
Moses entered. But the being of Zarathustra passed on into Moses, and we have to
seek him there, to where his influence has extended.
Further, we must
not seek Zarathustra in the ancient Zarathustrian literature, but where he
reincorporated in Jesus of Nazareth! We must consider evolution!
In the same way
we must not look for the Buddha as he was six hundred years before our era, but
where the writer of the Gospel of Luke tells us he is to be found, where his
light streamed from on high, after he had evolved from Bodhisattva to Buddha,
and shone down into the astral body of the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke. Here the
Buddha is to be found, and here we learn to know him in his further
progress.
It can be seen
from this how religions absolutely agree, and work together to bring about the
advance of humanity. It is not a matter of preaching the tenets of
Anthroposophy, but that we place them in a setting of living feeling — that we
do not merely talk of tolerance and remain intolerant because we have a
prejudice in favor of one religious system or another. We are only tolerant
when we measure each with its own standards and understand each for itself.
It is certainly
not our fault nor the fault of our special prejudices that many religious
systems have apparently cooperated to bring Christianity about. In spiritual
realms, where the great spiritual beings have worked, things have progressed in
a different way from on Earth, where those who confess these various religions
are active. Some of these earthly confessors, for example, summoned a conference
in Tibet to establish an orthodox teaching in the name of Buddha at the very
time when the actual Buddha had come down to inspire the astral body of the
Jesus spoken of in the Gospel of Luke. So it always is. The confessors of a
faith hold fast to that which has continued working on Earth; meanwhile divine
beings have carried the work on further so that mankind may advance. Humanity
makes most progress when men try to understand their Gods, when they try to
advance with them. Such a thought ought to give us a living feeling, a living
understanding, of what we glimpse in the different Gospels.
You have seen
that in studying the three Gospels so far dealt with we have to recognize
something different in each of them. When to these we shall have added the study
of the Gospel of Mark we shall find that it reveals a very intimate knowledge of
cosmology. Ahura Mazdao, who is active in all space, can be described in a right
connection in this Gospel, just as the secret concerning the blood, concerning
the connection of the individual with the race from which he has sprung, is
described in the Gospel of Matthew.
Accept what I
have ventured to describe in these lectures as one side of the great
Christ event, and realize that far from everything has been said concerning it.
The time is perhaps not yet come when all that might be said concerning this
Great Mystery can be said, even in small circles such as ours. The best result
that can come from the presentations of these facts is that we accept them not
only with our understanding and intellect, but that we associate them with the
innermost phases of our soul life—with the deepest feelings of our hearts — and
there let them live on.
The words of the
Gospels are words that, when we receive them into our hearts and really
understand them, become powers — powers that fill us and develop a marvelous
life-force within us. Today, when I have to say the final words in connection
with this course of lectures on the Gospel of Matthew, I should like to say
something I have frequently said before, and which I should like especially to
associate with this humanly beautiful document of our Christian records — the
Gospel of Matthew.
What strikes us
most when reading the Gospel of Matthew, which from the very first brings before
us the manhood of Christ Jesus?
Though
recognizing the great difference between any other earthly man and that man who
could receive the Christ, yet in all humility we would say that what strikes us
most forcibly is the value of man, what he is worthy of. Then, although
our nature is far far removed from that of the nature of Jesus of Nazareth, we
may yet venture to say: We bear our human nature within us, and this human
nature shows itself to be such that it can receive into it the Son of
God, the Son of the living God, so that from this acceptance the promise can
spring that the Son of God will from this time forward remain connected with the
Earth, and that when the Earth will have reached its goal all men will be
permeated with the substance and nature of Christ, in so far as they have
desired to receive this into themselves. We have need of humility if we are
to cherish such an ideal. If not so cherished it develops pride and conceit in
us; we then think only of what we may become as men, and do not sufficiently
keep in mind how little we have so far to show. This ideal must be experienced
with humility. When understood in this way it rises before us with such majesty
and power and is so overwhelming in its splendor that we are forced to be
humble. Our humility need not overwhelm us, however, for we have the Reality of
this ideal before us, and when we understand the Reality, however small our
power may be, yet it will bear us ever higher and higher toward our Divine
Goal.
The Rosicrucian
Mystery Play strikes the entire scale in tones as we need them in ascending
progress—firstly in the second scene where Johannes Thomasius stands shattered
under the overwhelming impression from the words ‘O man, know thou thyself;’
secondly, where in the ninth scene, under the impression of the words ‘O man,
feel and experience thou thyself;’ he feels exultingly raised to the wide spaces
of Heaven. Keeping this before us, and with help from it, we can understand the
majesty and grandeur which meets us in the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew,
revealing as it does our own littleness and demanding our humility, but at the
same time pointing to the inner truth and inner reality which lift us out of all
that seems like an abyss of our own littleness, compared with what we should
be and can become.
If frequently we
are conscious of feeling crushed when comparing what we are with the human
divine greatness that can be in man, yet if we have but the goodwill we can
experience something of the divine Impulse coming from the ‘Son of the living
God,’ we can call to mind Christ Jesus, who Himself exhorts us, here where as
men we experience the ego of which He is the most exalted Representative, crying
to us in clear-cut tones for all the ages to come: ‘O man, experience
thyself.’
When we
understand the humanity of the Gospel of Matthew in this way — and hence
it is the Gospel which lies most near to us — there streams to us from it the
courage to live, the power and hope to stand fast, whatever our life-work may
be. If we do so, we shall have best understood what it was intended that these
words should convey to us.
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