The Fifth Gospel [from the Akasha] : Jesus' pain; Jesus' adoptive mother imbued with the soul of his birth mother

 

Rudolf Steiner, Hamburg, November 16, 1913

It now falls to me to speak of things that have arisen in the course of our anthroposophical life, of spiritual scientific research gleaned from the Akasha Chronicle and related to the life of Jesus. In Kristiania, I have already compiled some material about the life of Christ Jesus. I have also communicated various things in other cities, and I would like to say a few words to you as well, from certain points of view. In general, I emphasize that it will not be easy to talk about it, because direct results are still quite badly noted in the present, even if it is generally admitted that there is a spirit that one speaks of abstractly. But when one gives concrete messages from the field of the spiritual development of the world, one finds not only well-meaning critics, but also those who have gone wild, as was the case with the message about the two Jesus children, which is very plausible for the objective thinker. Therefore, I ask that today's messages be treated with reverence, because if they are presented outside of our context, they may be misunderstood and experience fierce opposition.

But there are also aspects according to which one feels obliged to communicate these things. One aspect is that in our time there is a real need for a renewal of the understanding of Christ Jesus, a renewed looking into what actually happened in Palestine, what took place as the Mystery on Golgotha. But there is yet another aspect. This is that occult insight is interwoven with the whole attitude that flows from spiritual science, and this brings us the realization of how infinitely healthy and invigorating it is for human souls when they can often think of what they can consider to be one of the greatest events. It can be a help to these souls to remember the Mystery of Golgotha, to remember the concrete things, to remember what can still be investigated in detail today. And today one can still investigate things with occult insight. So I would like to emphasize the spiritual value of remembering such events and would like to go into some of the things that emerge from the Akasha Chronicle as a kind of gospel, as the Fifth Gospel. The four others were not written simultaneously either; they were written under the inspiration of the Akashic Records. We live today in an age in which the words of Christ Jesus are being fulfilled: “I am with you always.” In special times, he is especially close to us, proclaiming new things that have been fulfilled since the time of the Mystery of Golgotha.

Today I want to speak of what is called the Pentecost event. For me, it was the starting point of the Fifth Gospel. I first turned my gaze to the souls of the apostles and disciples, who were not only gathered according to tradition, but were truly gathered at the time of Pentecost. There one saw that there was something in their souls that they felt like a strange coming to themselves. For they knew something had happened to them. They said to each other: We have experienced something in a remarkable way. — For they looked back on experiences that they had gone through as in a higher dream, in a different state of consciousness. In a higher sense it was as it is in a lower sense for the individual human being when he has experienced something while dreaming and remembers it and says to himself: I have gone through this dream and now afterwards it becomes clear to me before waking consciousness. - So it was also at the Feast of Pentecost that they said to themselves: It was as if the ordinary consciousness had been put to sleep. The events emerged as if in memory, which they knew they had experienced, but they had not experienced them with their ordinary daily consciousness. They knew that now. So they now remembered: We once walked with him who was so dear, so precious and valuable to us. Then, at a certain point in time, it was as if he had been taken from us. It seemed to them as if the memory of walking with Jesus on the physical plane had been interrupted, and as if they had experienced what followed as if in a dream.

Going back in time, they experienced what is described in the Protestant doctrine as the Ascension, and going back further, they experienced being with Christ Jesus in a certain way. They now knew: We were together, but we were like dreamers back then; only now can we fully know how we were with him. — They experienced the time they had spent with him like dreamers after the resurrection. They now experienced this in their memories. Then they went back and experienced for themselves what the resurrection and death on the cross was. I can say that there is a tremendous, profound impression when one first sees, as at the Feast of Pentecost, the souls of the apostles looking back at the event of Golgotha. And I must confess that at first I had the impression of not looking directly at the Mystery of Golgotha, but of looking into the souls of the Apostles as they had seen it, looking from the Feast of Pentecost: after all, they had not actually experienced it with their physical eyes, had not consciousness, but only afterwards did they realize that the Mystery of Golgotha was there, for their physical consciousness ceased to be aware of it some time before Christ Jesus had to undergo all that is described as flagellation, crowning with thorns, and crucifixion. If the expression is not misunderstood because it is relatively trivial, I would still like to use it: the disciples had dozed off and dreamt through what had happened.

It was touching to see how, for example, Peter accomplishes what is described as a denial. He denies Christ, but not out of a moral defect; rather, he is as if in a dream. In fact, in his ordinary consciousness, the connection with Christ does not exist. He is asked: “Do you belong to Christ Jesus?” At that moment he does not know, for his etheric body had undergone such a transformation that he is not aware of the connection at that moment. He endures the whole time and walks with the Risen One. What the Risen One accomplishes in his soul penetrates deeply into his soul, but it only becomes conscious in retrospect at the Feast of Pentecost. Now the meaningful words that Christ Jesus speaks sound differently in the soul, the words that he speaks to Peter and James as he takes them with him up the mountain: “Watch and pray!” And indeed they fell into a kind of different state of consciousness, into a kind of dream trance.

When they were together and in consultation, Christ Jesus was also among them in the etheric body, without them knowing it, and He spoke with them and they with Him, but for them it all happened as if in a dream. It only became a conscious event in retrospect at the Feast of Pentecost. First they went with Him, then consciousness disappeared and afterwards they woke up again. They thought: First he went to his death on the cross and died on the cross, then what the resurrection is took place, and he came again in his spiritual body, dealt with us and let the secrets of the world trickle into our souls. Now all this is presented to us, which we have experienced in the other state of consciousness.

Above all, two impressions are deeply significant. There are the hours before death. Of course, it is tempting to make all kinds of scientific objections; but if you imagine that, by directing your gaze to the Akasha Chronicle, the events are objective reality, then you may relate them. First of all, there is one thing that presents itself. Before the death, one sees an eclipse lasting several hours spreading over the earth, which gives the clairvoyant the impression of a solar eclipse; but it could also have been an eclipse of the clouds. Then one can perceive how, at the moment of dying on the cross, the Christ Impulse, passing through this eclipse, unites with the earth aura. The connection of the cosmic Christ impulse with the earth aura can be seen in this eclipse before his death. Then one has that great, powerful impression, as this entity, which lived in the body of Jesus, now pours itself out over the spiritual-soul aura of the earth, so that the souls of men are now, henceforth, as if drawn into it. To see in spirit the cross on Golgotha, and to see the Christ pour out over earthly life through the darkened earth, is an enormously overwhelming impression; for one sees in the picture that which had to take place for the development of mankind on earth.

And now the Entombment: here one can follow, as I already mentioned in the Karlsruhe cycle, how a natural event presents itself as the outer expression of a spiritual event. When Christ lay in the tomb, a mighty earthquake with a whirlwind came over the earth. It was particularly significant that it turned out, also from the Akasha Chronicle, what we today call the Fifth Gospel: that after the whirlwind the cloths lay in the tomb, as it is faithfully described in the Gospel of John. What I have now described, the apostles experienced as the Mystery of Golgotha when looking back at their own encounters with Christ after the resurrection. At Pentecost, they first experienced for their consciousness what they had gone through as if in a dream.

Christ Jesus was truly alone when He accomplished the Mystery of Golgotha, for His disciples had not only fled, but their consciousness had also fled. They were in a kind of dream state and experienced the events in such a way that it was only at Pentecost that they had a full retrospective in their consciousness. In a peculiar way they experienced this meeting with Christ after the resurrection, so that they saw the following in pictures: Here and there we were with him, he spoke; only now do we realize this. But now they experienced something strange. They saw the pictures of their experiences with Christ as they corresponded to their being together after the resurrection. But to them it was as if another one always showed up in alternation: an image always appeared that reminded them of a physical togetherness that they had experienced as if in a dream trance. But two events always presented themselves to them: a being together after the resurrection and a being together before they had fallen into a trance, when they were still in the physical body with Christ, recognizable to the physical consciousness. The events appeared to them as two superimposed images. One showed a memory of a physical event, the other a reawakening of what they had gone through with Christ in a different state of consciousness. This superimposition of two images made it clear to them what had actually taken place in time. What had taken place for the development on earth was clearly evident to them at the Feast of Pentecost. If one wants to describe what they went through, one is confronted with two grandiose and profound events. What had taken place was evoked by the Pentecost event. But that which had been in the cosmos earlier is now on earth, that is what presented itself to them. All this only becomes clear to us when we see it in the Akasha Chronicle.

Let us start with the experiences that a person has. Before descending to a new earthly incarnation, a person first experiences spiritual facts. He then goes through the state of the germ and birth, passes through the material body into physical life on earth, and finally returns to the spiritual world. This is the development of his soul. These stages are different for every being. We will try to apply them to the Christ-being.

Christ passes through his states in a different way. From his baptism to the mystery of Golgotha there is a kind of germinal state. His dying on the cross is his birth, his life with the apostles after his resurrection is a wandering on earth. The transition into the earth aura is what the transition into the spiritual world is for the human soul. Exactly the opposite occurs for Christ. He seeks the opposite for his destiny. The human soul goes from the earth into the spiritual world, the Christ goes from the spiritual world into the earthly sphere, unites with the earth in order to pass over into the earth aura through the great sacrifice. This is the transition of the Christ to Devachan. And now in the earth aura, the Christ lives his self-chosen Devachan. Man ascends from earth to heaven; the Christ, conversely, descends from heaven to earth to live with men. This is his Devachan.

The fact that the God has thus entered into His earthly existence appeared to the minds of the Apostles and disciples at Pentecost, in the image of the Ascension, actually of the descent to earth, as one of the last events. Thus it was clear to their feelings what had happened, what fate had befallen the evolution of the earth. At Pentecost, the Apostles felt transformed and filled with a new awareness: that was the descent of the Spirit, the inner illumination of a spirit-filled realization.

Of course, when recounting these events, one can appear to people to be a dreamer or a fantasist, but on the other hand it is understandable that the great events that have taken place in earthly life cannot be expressed in ordinary terms. Then the disciples saw, looking back, only now understanding, the three-year life of Christ Jesus from the baptism of John to the mystery of Golgotha. I would like to make a few remarks about this life.

I would like to start with a description of the events as they present themselves to the observer of the Akashic Records. Before the baptism of John in the Jordan, the spiritual gaze falls on an event of a very special kind in the life of Jesus, into which the Christ had not yet poured himself. At that time, Jesus, in his thirtieth year, had a conversation with his stepmother or foster mother. From the age of twelve, he was not with his biological mother, but an ever deeper bond had developed between Jesus and his stepmother. I have already related the experiences of Jesus from the age of twelve to eighteen, to twenty-four, to thirty. These were profound events. Here I would like to tie in with an event that took place before the baptism of John. It is a conversation with the foster mother. It was a conversation in which Jesus of Nazareth let his soul pass before his mother, everything he had experienced since the age of twelve. There he was able to tell her, so that his words were imbued with deep, powerful feelings, what he had actually experienced in his soul, more or less alone. He told her vividly and forcefully. He spoke of how, during these years, from his twelfth to his eighteenth, the high teachings of God, once revealed to the Hebrew prophets, had come as an illumination to his soul. For that is what had come to Jesus as an inspiration during the period from his twelfth to his eighteenth year. It had begun when he had been in the temple among the scribes. It was an inspiration, as it was once revealed to the prophets in the great, ancient times. It happened that he had to suffer pain under the impression of these inner realizations. It had become deeply ingrained in his soul: the old truths were given to the Hebrew people at a time when their bodies were such that they could understand them. But now their bodies were no longer suited to receive it, as they were in the time of the old prophets.

A word must be pronounced that characterizes the tremendously painful experience in the life of Jesus; in the abstract, one must say it, although it is an enormously incisive word. There was a language in the Hebrew period that came down from the spiritual-divine realm. Now the old language rose up again, shining forth from the soul, but there was no one to understand it. One would preach to deaf ears when speaking of the greatest teachings. This was Jesus' greatest sorrow; he described it to his stepmother.

Then he described a second event that he had experienced on his travels during his eighteenth to twenty-fourth year in the regions of Palestine where pagans lived. He traveled around and worked as a carpenter. In the evening he sat with the people. It was a gathering that people did not experience with anyone else. Through the great pain, something had developed in him that finally transformed into the magic of love that flowed through every word. This magic of words worked in conversation with people. What had such a great effect was that something like a mysterious power was poured out between his words. It was so significant that long after he had left, the people sat together again in the evening and it seemed to them as if he were still there, more than just physically. They sat together and had the impression, had the shared vision, as if he were reappearing. So he remained alive among the people in numerous places; he was spiritually present.

Once, he arrived at a place where there was an old pagan cult altar. The sacrificial altar had fallen into disrepair. The priests had left because a terrible disease had taken hold of the people there. When Jesus came there, people gathered. Jesus announced himself through the impression he created as something special. The gentile people had rushed there and gathered around the altar, expecting a priest to offer a sacrifice. Jesus told his stepmother this. He saw clearly what had become of the gentile sacrificial service. He saw, as he looked over the people, what had gradually become of the gentile gods: evil, demonic entities, that is what he saw at that time. Then he fell down and now, in a different state of consciousness, he experienced what happened during the pagan sacrifices. The old gods were no longer there, as they had been in earlier times, but demonic entities appeared, feeding on the people and making them ill.

He had experienced this in a different state of consciousness after he had fallen. Now he told all this, and also how the people had fled, but also how he saw the demons withdraw. Theoretically, one can determine that the old paganism had declined and no longer contained the great wisdom of the past. But Jesus experienced this in direct vision. Now he could tell his mother: If the voice of heaven were to come down to the Hebrews again, as it once came to the prophets, there would be no one to understand it; but the pagan gods no longer come either. Demons have taken their place. Today, even the pagan revelations find no one who could receive them. — That was the second great pain.

In moving words, he described to his mother the third great sorrow he had experienced, when he was allowed to join the Essene community. These people wanted to work their way up to seeing by perfecting the individual human soul, and thus to learn from the divine worlds what would otherwise be impossible for Jews and Gentiles to perceive. But only a few people could experience this, and that could be achieved through the way of life that had become established among the Essenes. Yet Jesus had united with the occult community of the Essenes for a time. When he left them, he saw Lucifer and Ahriman fleeing from the Essene gate into the rest of the world. He had also had a visionary conversation with Buddha within the Essene enclosure. And now he knew: there is a way to ascend to where one unites with the Divine-Spiritual, but only a few can reach it. If everyone wanted to achieve it, everyone would have to renounce. Only a few can achieve it at the expense of the many, by freeing themselves from Lucifer and Ahriman; but then Lucifer and Ahriman go to the other humanity. It was not possible, either according to the Jewish or the Gentile or Essene tradition, to open up the essential connection with the divine spiritual world to humanity in general.

During this conversation, Jesus' whole soul was united with all the pain. All the strength of his ego lay in these words. Something passed from him to his adoptive mother, so strongly was he connected with what he was saying. His being passed over to his mother with his words, so that he was as if outside of his ego, had stepped out of his ego. The mother became something completely different as a result. While something had gone out of him, the mother had received a new self that had sunk into her, she had become a new personality.

If one now investigates and tries to find out what this process consisted of, a strange thing emerges: the physical mother of this Jesus, who had been in the spiritual world since he was twelve, had now descended with her soul and completely spiritualized and filled the soul of the adoptive mother so that she became another. But he felt as if his ego had left him: the Zarathustra ego had passed over into the spiritual world. Driven by the urge to do something, Jesus now went to the Jordan, impelled by inner necessity, to John the Baptist, the Essene. And John performed the baptism in the Jordan. The Zarathustra-I had gone out and the Christ-Being descended: He had been imbued with the Christ-Essence. The adoptive mother had been imbued with the soul of that mother who had dwelt in the spiritual world. But He now walked on earth in the bodies of Jesus, He, the Christ. This connection was not immediately and completely established; both happened gradually.

I will tell the individual events from which it can be seen how the Christ was initially only loosely connected to the body of Jesus and gradually became more and more firmly connected to it. Once you have become acquainted with the suffering and pain of Jesus from the age of twelve to thirty, you are only now becoming acquainted with the tremendous increase in this pain of Jesus, now that in the following three years God connected more and more with man. This continuous, ever more intense connection of the God with the human being was an equally intense increase of pain. That unspeakable thing had to happen to make it possible for humanity to ascend to the spiritual powers of origin, that is shown by the suffering of the God during the three years that he stayed on earth.

It is not to be expected that there will be much understanding for these events in the present time. There is a book that should be read because of its paradox: 'Death', by Maurice Maeterlinck. This book says that the spirit cannot suffer, only the body can suffer. In fact, the physical body can suffer no more than a stone. Physical pain is mental pain. Only that which is spiritual, which has an astral body, can suffer. That is why a God can suffer much more than a human being. The Christ experienced sufferings unto death, the most intense of which occurred when the Christ united with the presence of Jesus. He conquered death by merging with the earth aura.

Earlier I described in a more abstract way how the Christ event stands at the center of the evolution of the earth. This most important event loses nothing when it is considered in its concrete reality. Everything comes to life when all the facts are described, but it must be seen correctly. Once the Fifth Gospel is available – humanity will need it, perhaps only after a long time – people will look at this most important event in a different way. The Fifth Gospel will be a source of comfort and health, a book of strength. At the end of the fourth gospel there are words that indicate that more will come: the world would not be able to grasp the books that would have to be written. - This is a true word. One can take courage in another way when new facts about Palestine come to light, because the four gospels actually came about in the same way as the fifth, except that this fifth will appear two thousand years later.

Once the Fifth Gospel is here, it will be no different from the others in the way it came about. But there will be people who will not recognize it because the human soul is selfish. Suppose Shakespeare's work “Hamlet” was unknown and “Hamlet” appeared today: today people would scold him. And so the Fifth Gospel will have to struggle through. People need something that those who want to understand will really understand. It will only be necessary to acknowledge that, as in the past, revelations can only come from the spirit. But the means and ways to do so are different. In this respect, our time has special tasks.

In what period did what I have described take place? It could only take place in the same period as the one in which it occurred: the fourth post-Atlantean period. If it had occurred in the third or second period, for example, there would have been numerous people who were familiar with the ancient wisdom of the Indians, for whom the wisdom would have been self-evident. Christ would have been less understood in the Persian and still less in the Egyptian period. But understanding was completely lost in the fourth period. Therefore, the teaching could only penetrate minds as a matter of faith. It was the worst time for understanding, which people were furthest from. But the effects of Christ do not depend on what people can understand. For Christ was not a teacher of the world, but He Who, as a spiritual Entity, had accomplished something, Who had descended into the aura of the Earth in order to live among men. This can be symbolized in the soul when the women came to the tomb and the spiritual Being said to them: “He whom you seek is not here!”

This was repeated when a large group of Europeans went on a crusade to the Holy Sepulchre. There people went to the physical sites of Golgotha. They were also told: “He whom you seek is no longer here!" for he had gone to Europe. While the pilgrims were drawn to Asia by their hearts, Europe began to awaken intellectually, but the understanding of Christ was on the wane. It was only in the 12th century that the demand for proofs of God's existence arose. What does this tell us about more recent times? Do you ever need to prove who the thief is when you catch him in your garden? You only need proof if you do not know him. People sought proof of God when they had lost their understanding; because what you know, you do not need to prove.

Christ was there, permeating the souls. Everything that has happened historically has happened under the influence of the Christ, because the souls lived in the Christ impulse. Now humanity must enter into a conscious grasp of the events of the time. Therefore, humanity must get to know the Christ even better. Linked to this is the realization of the man Jesus of Nazareth. This will become more and more necessary. It is not easy to speak about this, but in a certain respect it is something that presents itself as a higher duty in the present time: to speak to a few souls about the man Jesus of Nazareth, to speak about what we can call the Fifth Gospel.

Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive