The Gospel of John and the Three Other Gospels. Lecture 1

 

Rudolf Steiner, Stockholm

January 3, 1910

Dear attendees!

You have requested that I speak about the Gospel of John in its context with the other three Gospels in this series. That is to say: you have come to the conclusion that the way of thinking of the theosophical worldview encompasses much that can contribute to our understanding of Christianity. These lectures will show that this is the case and that the Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, have a special mission to people in our time. They will show in particular how Christianity has gradually developed from distant periods of time, how it has a long future ahead of it, and how Theosophy, through the insights it is called to reveal, opens up another area for research on the Gospels.

Indeed, when we consider the attitude of the leaders of the modern spiritual movement towards the Gospels, we cannot characterize it as anything other than increasingly hostile. This could also be explained if no other sources than those known so far had appeared.

What then do the Gospels have to offer to the person who approaches them? They are supposed to give him an illumination, an explanation of the great event that has taken place in the development of mankind: the Christ-event. But if the modern man approaches the Gospels for this purpose, he will not find a satisfactory account of this event. Instead of one account, he finds four, and finds differences and contradictions in the gospels. For example, Matthew and Luke tell [the childhood story of Jesus in different ways].

And so people say: that doesn't match, that can't be right; and so our present-day criticism tries to show that [a gap in the transcript].

It is well known how, under the influence of the view just stated, the authority of the Gospels is gradually waning, and how people increasingly believe that they can extract some kind of common basis from the four Gospels, and how, in certain radical circles, they are even inclined to reject the whole thing. The gospel that speaks most deeply to our hearts has fared particularly badly. It is said that in the first three gospels, a historical core can be found. But the Gospel of John is so different from the others that it must be believed to have been written much later and is without significance. In other circles, the Synoptics are attributed a certain historical significance, but it is thought that the Gospel of John is a kind of hymn through which the first Christians wanted to express their faith in Christ.

On the surface, we could pose a historical question: Did the people of the first centuries of Christianity have the Gospels in their hands, did they really study them? The answer is: the Gospels were not read or studied as widely as they have been in the last few centuries, not even in the Middle Ages. It was only with the invention of printing that it became possible for everyone to read the words of the Gospel.

If we go back to earlier centuries, we find that only a few people had access to the Gospels, and that these few were the most learned and knowledgeable people: the leaders and teachers. But these, oddly enough, took no offense at the contradictions that arose between the individual Gospels. And if we want to describe the prevailing sentiment that these differences caused, it was a deep gratitude that there were not just one document, but four. It was only when the gospel became more popular that the contradictions were found; only then did people understand how to take offense at them.

Could it be that in the first centuries after Christ, these learned and highly developed connoisseurs of Christianity had so little insight, reason and understanding that they would be grateful for the contradictions? No, it cannot be so. There must be another explanation for this significant fact.

If we try to look into the souls of the first confessors of Christianity, we must find that they felt that the Christ mystery was something that man cannot readily understand, and so they told each other that it was good that four narrators described what they understood of the same. If, for example, we photograph this lectern from this side, someone can also photograph it from the opposite side; you have two photographs of it. In the same way, you can photograph the lectern from the other two sides. So you have four pictures of the lectern. Those who put together a complete picture from these four pictures can say that they know what the lectern looks like.

In this way, four personalities have described the great Christ event to us, and one must take these four pictures together. In this way, one can gradually elevate oneself to a complete understanding of the event.

Now the question arises: How can there be four different records? What does each gospel want to say about the great Christ event? Each gospel starts from the premise that this event cannot be grasped with external knowledge, and that it is necessary to look at it from the point of view of an initiate, of one who has been initiated. Each gospel is written from the point of view of the seer.

Now in pre-Christian times there were four types of initiation, four types of seership. And only by bearing in mind that there were four types of initiation can one understand that each Gospel was written on the basis of a particular initiation.

What then is an initiate? He is a man whose powers of knowledge are not limited to the outer world, and who has developed his spiritual organs to such an extent that he can see into the spiritual worlds.

Now, we can only develop in a person what is present in him in the form of abilities. We distinguish three basic powers in man: the power of thinking, the power of feeling, and the power of willing. In ordinary human life, these three powers are developed only to a certain degree. In an initiate, they were greatly expanded through the so-called mysteries. However, since it was found that in one and the same person all three powers could only be developed equally to a certain degree, those to be initiated were divided into three classes, depending on their abilities, in which only one of the three powers was particularly developed. Thus it was said in the Egyptian, Persian and Greek mysteries: We train certain people in such a way that the power of thinking becomes particularly strong / gap in the transcript] to the point of seership [gap in the transcript] in other people, the power of will [gap in the transcript].

Thus in ancient times there were three groups of initiates:

the initiates of thinking – the “sages”,
the initiates of feeling – the “therapists” or “healers”,
the initiates of will – the “magicians”.

These initiations were one-sided, but precisely because of that, an initiate could develop the highest powers in his field by renouncing the other powers. The wise man had a broad view of the world, he could explore the spiritual world and knew its laws; the therapist healed people; not through external means, but with the help of his spiritual and psychic powers; and the magician ruled the physical world and knew its laws.

To connect these three categories of initiates, a fourth category was formed. These were those in whom the personality was not so highly developed, but in whom all three powers worked together in harmony: the harmonious people. When something important had to be decided, one always listened to them.

There is a deep secret here. What was the opinion of those who had come less far in terms of the individual powers? In the ancient mystery schools it was known that everything can be found in nature. The wasps have long since invented paper, because their nest is real paper. So the wasp contains the wisdom that man later achieved. There is also wisdom in man, and that is how he becomes master over the forces of nature. But there is more of the divine in the less initiated than in the more initiated. The initiated “man” was the fourth class of initiates.

These four categories of initiates are found in the four Gospels. Each initiate can now explore the great fact from a certain point of view: the sage - John - from one side of the Christ event; the magician - Mark - from another side; and the healer - Luke - from yet another side. The harmonious man Matthew has an overview of the whole. Wisdom extends far beyond, high above everything that man can achieve. That is why John's symbol is the eagle, flying high above earthly events. And the healer, what powers does this person want to develop? Not external means, but [he worked] as a psychic healer [developing] the powers of self-sacrificing love. A person becomes a healer to the extent that he sheds selfishness and is able to sacrifice himself for others: the ability to sacrifice is the essence of the healer in the psychic realm. When a person is developed to the point of giving everything for another, he is a healer. Thus the Evangelist Luke. Hence the tradition that the Gospel of Luke was written by a physician. Hence the symbol of Luke: the sacrificial bull, that is, the personality of the self-sacrificing human being. Finally, the magician strives to develop the powers of will, according to the Evangelist Mark; his symbol is the lion. Therefore, the lion is added to the writer of the Gospel of Mark. Where these three powers work together in harmony, there we have the human being. The human being is added to the Gospel of Matthew as a symbol.

That is why the followers of Christianity were so grateful that there were four gospels.

What is the Christ event? It is the confluence of all previous philosophies and religious movements of humankind. In Palestine, all earlier movements of humankind came together; and depending on the type of initiation of one or the other evangelist, they found expression in the Gospels.

What were the main currents of spiritual life in the pre-Christian era? First of all, there was a current that had reached a powerful development and conclusion shortly before Christ: the ancient wisdom of the holy rishis in India. They taught a wisdom that existed before our physical world was present: the primal tradition of human tradition, the ancient memory of a wisdom from which the world flowed. According to this “ancient wisdom,” the rishis said to themselves: What lives in me is only a symbol of the ancient wisdom that has created these images out of itself; everything we see is only an image of ancient wisdom, of primeval spirituality, a looking back at the divine world; the outer world is only an illusion, maya; human beings are called upon to descend into the physical world.

From this cultural movement, one could learn to sacrifice the sensual and give everything to gain wisdom. In the person of Gautama Buddha, six centuries before Christ, this spiritual movement found its culmination and conclusion. What Buddha could give to humanity was to be incorporated into the Palestine event, in order to flow on from there. This is described in the Gospel of the Healer, the Gospel of Luke.

In the ancient – not historical – Persian culture, we find a completely opposite cultural current, represented by Zarathustra or Zoroaster. This is best understood in the following way: the Indian said, “Illusion is the outer world.” Zarathustra pointed out to people that this world is not worthless. “This world, he said, is the outer expression of a spirit. Look up at the sun, for example. The warmth that flows from the sun is its physical reality. The sun is the benefactress of the whole earth. But as the human being stands before us and behind him stands the spirit, the aura, so behind the body of the sun stands the solar aura, the great aura, the great spirit, Ahura-Mazdao, Ormuzd. Behind everything physical is the spirit of the sun. The physical is therefore not an illusion, not Maya, but an expression of the divine. The task of man is nothing more than to unravel the spiritual from this physical.>

“I will speak,” said Zarathustra, “of that which is supreme in the world, and no longer shall the evil forces have power to proclaim untruth. I will speak of him who is everywhere in the world, of Ahura-Mazdao will I speak. He who does not listen to my words will experience evil when the cycle of earth development] is fulfilled.

This school of thought, which one should work with joy on the physical plane, has been incorporated into Christianity and continues to flow there. It contains a whole cosmology and is described by Mark.

The third current that has flowed into Christianity is the one that was prepared by the ancient Hebrew people. What, then, is the ancient Hebrew people's share of the whole culture? What did these people have to give?

Just as individuals grow, so do nations through a gradual and continuous development. The four elements of the human being have come into being in a very complicated way. When the child leaves the mother's womb, only its physical birth takes place. But not all of its bodies are ready. Up to the age of seven, it is, so to speak, enclosed in its etheric womb. At the change of teeth, that is, in the seventh year, its etheric birth takes place. At fourteen, when the etheric body is fully formed, the astral birth takes place, and only after the astral body has reached full maturity at twenty-one does the fourth body, the ego, emerge. - In the same way, the evolution of individual peoples takes place.

Thus we distinguish three great periods among the Hebrews: the first from Abraham to David; the second from David to the Babylonian captivity; and the third from the latter period to the time of Jesus, when the ego emerged, as it does at the age of twenty-one in an individual human being. Jesus inherited his physical body from this people, which is described in detail in the Gospel of Matthew.

Those who have a complete knowledge and understanding of Christianity also know the pre-Christian spiritual currents that Christianity has absorbed and the results of which it contains. Buddha did not cease to be effective when he died in ancient India six hundred years before our era, and so Zarathustra was also willing to let his share of development flow into Christianity.

Each gospel corresponds to a side of the human being. Thus Matthew mainly describes the physical side of the Christ event, Mark the etheric, Luke the astral, and John the side that falls under the ego.

John's Gospel is a great study of the spiritual human being; arising from the deepest initiation, this gospel is like a sun above the other gospels, the great message of the spiritual human being to humanity. Luke's Gospel is a mighty portrayal of the life of man in the world of the senses - in the world of feeling - in sacrificial service; Mark's Gospel is a tremendous cosmology; and Matthew's Gospel is a philosophy of history.

Thus the four gospels flow together, and so Buddha and Zarathustra and ancient Hebraism and ancient Egypt come to reappear in Christianity. And so it is precisely from Theosophy that we will glean what external research has lost: the truth of the gospels. Theosophy is here to reconquer the Gospels and show us that Christianity is not at the end, but at the beginning of its journey. Theosophy will be an instrument to bring the hidden treasures of Christianity back into the light.

Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive