Rudolf Steiner, Munich, December 10, 1913
Before I continue to share some more of the Fifth Gospel with you, please allow me to make a few remarks about the announcement of this Fifth Gospel. The significance of what is to be brought to our time through occultism and spiritual science is by no means fully understood in the broader context of the present day, because there is still far too little inclination in wider circles to deal with those cultural elements of our time, namely the spiritual cultural elements and those that signify an ascent and are, so to speak, the beginning of a renewal of our spiritual life, and which yet can take no other form than that which leads to an acquaintance, however much it may still be frowned upon today, with the facts of concrete occult research.
Above all, I would ask you to bear in mind, in connection with the above, that such communications from concrete occult research must still be treated with a certain reverence today. Our time is not at all inclined to accept such things readily, and only by living with them, by feeling with them from the life impulses that we absorb in our anthroposophical togetherness, do our souls become suited to see these things in the right light. But if they are transferred to the unprepared, then what had to be handed over through the pressure of the public about the two Jesus boys shows how wild even the most well-meaning became. I will completely disregard the numerous foolish attacks that are directed against such things. How wildly and passionately such things have been received! Today it is inconceivable that knowledge can be gained from the spiritual world that is not abstract but is of such a concrete character as the research results communicated the day before yesterday. This is connected with the fact that our contemporary worldview literature has been seized by a superficiality of thinking and imagining.
Not to be unnecessarily critical, I mention one or the other of our branches in particular, but to draw our friends' attention to how miserable the situation is with pure logic of thought in our time. In our time, there is no discernment. More than one might think, especially since people are always complaining about the emancipation from all authority, people accept everything willingly and with pleasure on authority, especially in circles that often consider themselves the most educated today. One experiences such things again and again, which must be mentioned, even if only by taking up time that would otherwise be better used. I experienced something like this in Berlin at a lecture I gave in a worldview about Giordano Bruno, and where I had to mention - it was a long time ago - how little our time is suited to really getting into the thought structure of great personalities like Giordano Bruno. At the time, I drew attention to the aberration of thought, which is connected with an aberration of feeling, in a then famous book, in Harnack's “Essence of Christianity”.
In my public lecture yesterday, I pointed out that when I mention something in order to refute it, I do not mean to imply that the capacity or scientific nature of this personality is to be judged disparagingly. I just want to show how something significant can have a devastating effect through its suggestive power. So it was that in those days one of the most famous theologians of the present time recognized this writing, 'The Essence of Christianity', as something very significant. I will not go into details. For example, this writing defends the view of the resurrection of Christ Jesus, which goes something like this: Whatever may have happened in Palestine at the time, we can no longer know today, so there is no need to reconstruct the concept of resurrection; but the belief in the resurrection originated from this fact in Palestine. This belief is held, regardless of what may have happened that could have led to this belief.
The chairman of this Weltanschauungsbund told me after the lecture that he had read Harnack's “Essence of Christianity” carefully, but that he had not found this passage in the book. That would be a Catholic view. The Catholics say: It does not matter whether it is the Holy Robe in Trier or not, but it is the faith that it is the Robe that counts. He objected to it, but explained that it was not in the book. The next day I wrote him the page where it is of course stated. The learned gentleman simply skims over it. Everything that works as an authority by suggestion is so devastating today that people do not notice it, but those who truly call themselves anthroposophists must notice such things, because it is the most devastating thing in today's spiritual culture.
The name Eucken is known as the restorer of idealism. He has been awarded a famous prize. He should not be envied for that. He wrote a book entitled: “Can We Still Be Christians?” On one page, it says: “We, as educated people of the present, can no longer accept such things, that people speak of demons as they did in the time when Christ walked the earth. No educated person of the present can believe in demons.”
When an “educated” person of the present reads this, he feels very flattered. The man who paid him this compliment is his colleague. Does this educated person realize that a few pages further on in the same book, there is another sentence, “The contact between the divine and the human generates demonic powers”? That is so nicely accepted. If you quote this as nonsense, you hear the answer: He does not mean that in the sense of the demonic. When one hears this answer, one must be particularly saddened, because from this answer it becomes completely clear that today people use words in an unscrupulous way, without thinking about giving them the meaning that they should have. That is the terrible thing.
Therefore it is only to be expected that such a distressing phenomenon has come to light as the book, which, despite being three thick volumes, is already experiencing a second edition, the book “Kritik der Sprache” by Fritz Mauthner, who, by writing a large philosophical dictionary, has become the man for many. Such phenomena must be discussed today, even if it is not pleasant. The “Critique of Language” is supposed to be the last significant critique of all philosophical worldviews. The book is quite significant in the sense of its external cleverness in the present. It is not disputed that it is an important book, full of witty aperçus. The whole of humanity's past worldviews are being lectured to. In his denunciation of a school of thought, with which I cannot sympathize either, the critic uses the following image in all seriousness: He who speaks of this school of thought is like a clown who climbs a free-standing ladder and then, having reached the top, wants to pull it up to himself. He will tumble down. — But I beg you: How do you do that if you have set up a ladder vertically and climbed up it and then pull it up to you and then tumble down? How do you carry out such a thought without being thoughtless? Most people do not notice this hollow thought because today there is little practice in logic. Otherwise one would notice that today in every second book on every twentieth page such unthoughts are found. This must also be mentioned because it is characteristic of how people think today, how thinking is suggestively influenced. I have given this example not without significance, because for those who can think, the whole book is written with the same logic, but one does not notice it. Many will not even notice the impossibility of this thought, but rather, as intellectual life is now, such a literary phenomenon will be trumpeted as something tremendously significant and many will believe that this is the case, study it — and from the sum of those who can think in such a way, the opponents of spiritual science are recruited.
I find it brutal that I am compelled to say this, but it must be said, because you should not be unaware of what is happening today. Even if not many will read the book, but what comes from it finds its way into many books and lectures and figures as logic. That is why it is so infinitely difficult, in view of the immature thinking of our time, not only to come up with spiritual-scientific thoughts, but also with the positive results of Akasha research, of which I spoke last time. This compelled me to utter the words that have just been used, that our friends should really feel the need to thoroughly and deeply penetrate each other's views – especially when it comes to dealing with things where ordinary thinking can no longer suffice – with the realization of the necessity of a strictly trained thinking. Otherwise it will, of course, take a long time before we can get through the thinking fog of our time, which behaves so critically, with positive occult research. Of course, this can only be taken up by someone who has first prepared his soul through the results of spiritual science, which can be more deeply imprinted in thought. Only to such people can one speak of things that cannot be reached by mere thought, but which must be related as they result from Akasha research. Not incoherent, although they are only narrations, what I gave as the Fifth Gospel, they are related with what spiritual research has to give in strict thought structure, even if it does not appear so immediately.
The rejection of these concrete research results stems from nothing other than the fact that modern thinking is too dull to really penetrate the results of spiritual research. One should recognize that it is natural that a person who can form such thoughts as have been mentioned is not at all able to really penetrate spiritual science. This is the guideline we should follow in the face of the many philosophical and ideological works that are currently being published. When dealing with such matters, we must be imbued with the idea that such things must reach at least a few souls in the present time, so that they may gradually find their way into the spiritual life of the present age.
I have often referred to the Mystery of Golgotha, to those moments of it which must be comprehensible to the most rigorous thinking if it is to engage in the contemplation of the historical evolution of humanity. We do not really have a contemplation of the historical evolution of humanity. Today we have no history, no insightful penetration into what has happened. Once we have that, then it will be recognized how, in the time before the Mystery of Golgotha, human development was indeed a descending one, and how through Golgotha an impulse occurred that gave humanity that rejuvenation that influenced the aging cultural forces. Contemplation of the specific events that took place in Palestine does not in fact detract from this general idea, but on the contrary elevates it by recognizing the specific events that took place.
The day before yesterday I got to the point where Jesus of Nazareth, after the conversation he had with his foster mother and where the ego of Zarathustra had detached itself from the three bodies, which were then in a strange combination without a human earth ego, met the two Essenes. I have endeavored to describe this scene; I have described it up to the point where Jesus, after speaking to them, stood before them as if dissolving, and they beheld him like a mirage, from which the words resounded: “Your striving is in vain because your hearts are empty, because you have filled yourselves with the spirit that deceptively hides pride in the guise of humility.” When they had heard this, these two Essenes, their eyes were clouded for a while. They saw him again only after he had gone some distance. I could ascertain from the Akashic Records that the two Essenes were deeply affected by what they had experienced, and became silent from that day on and told the other Essenes nothing.
As Jesus walked a little further, he encountered a person who appeared to be in the deepest sorrow, oppression, and distress. With bowed head and a physically oppressed body, the man approached Jesus. Then he heard the being which I characterized the day before yesterday as Jesus at that time, speak words to him that sounded as if they came from the deepest source of that being. This oppressed man heard Jesus say: Why has your soul led you on this path? I knew you once, thousands and thousands of years ago: you were different then. — This man felt impelled to say certain things to this being, for as earthmen we cannot describe a being such as this, which consisted only of the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body, with the after-effect of the Zarathustra ego in these three bodies. We can only call it an entity. The despairing man felt impelled to say to this entity: 'In my life I have attained high positions and whenever I rose to a new position I felt very much at home in my element and often the feeling came over me: “What an extraordinary person you are, that your fellow human beings hold you in such high regard, that you have been able to achieve so much on earth. What a rare person you are!" I was happy about everything. But then it happened quickly that I lost that happiness. One night it happened: just when I had fallen asleep, a dream came over me that I brought into the dream the feeling that I was ashamed of myself for dreaming something like that. I dreamt that a being stood before me and asked me: Who has made you so great, brought you to such high honors? I was ashamed that such a question could be addressed to me in a dream, because it was so clear to me that I was a rare person and that I had naturally come to these honors through my great virtues. And when the being had spoken to me in this way, I was seized in my dream by an ever-increasing sense of shame before myself, in my dream' – so said this despairing man. 'Then I fled, but no sooner had I escaped than the apparition stood before me again in a changed form and said: I have exalted you, brought you to honor. Then I recognized him as the tempter of whom the Scriptures tell that he was already the tempter in paradise. Then I woke up and since that moment I have had no peace. I left my dignity, my home, everything, and since then I have been wandering around the world without doing anything. And now, as a beggar, I come before you, a wandering man.' And at that moment, when the man had spoken – so it says in the Akasha Chronicle – the apparition was before him again, introducing itself as Jesus of Nazareth, who at that moment again disappeared before his eyes. Then the apparition dissolved, and the man was left to his fate.
Jesus continued on his way. He then met a leper and, when the man approached him, had to say the words: “Why has your soul led you this way? I saw you differently thousands and thousands of years ago, many thousands of years ago. Yes, you were different then." The leper said: “Men everywhere have rejected me because of my leprosy. Therefore I had to wander around in the world and no one took me in. I was glad when they threw out scraps at my door or at my window, which gave me meager nourishment. But I could not sit still anywhere; I had to wander from place to place. Once, in the night, I came to a forest. There, as if from afar, a tree, shaped like a flame, glowed towards me. The light attracted me. As I drew nearer and nearer, a figure in the shape of a skeleton emerged from the glowing tree and spoke to me the terrible words: 'I am you! I am consuming you.' Then I was overcome by the most terrible fear; and since it permeated me so that I felt on me, as the leprosy scabs clashed and crackled together, the being felt what was happening to me and said: 'Why are you so afraid of me? You have lived many a life before, when you loved the pleasures of life, when many things created desires in your life, which brought you the joys of everyday life, when you revelled in the pleasures of everyday life; then you loved me, you loved me, you loved me deeply. You did not always know it, but you loved me, and because you loved me so, your soul was attracted to my nature. I became you and now may feed on you.' - And my fear became even greater. Then the skeleton transformed into a beautiful archangel; I looked at him. 'Yes,' he said, 'you loved me once.' - Then I sank into a deep sleep and in the morning I found myself lying at the tree, awakening, and wandered further in the world, and now I find you. Since this apparition came to me, the leprosy has become ever worse." As he spoke, the skeleton of the dead man stood there again and covered Jesus, who disappeared and had to continue on his way through the urge that ruled in him. The man also had to go on.
After these three encounters – with the two Essenes, with the despairing man, and with the leper – which Jesus of Nazareth had in the form of which I told you last time, he continued on his way and came to John at the Jordan. What is known from the other gospels took place: the Christ-being descended from cosmic heights, took possession of the three bodies of Jesus, in which the Christ-being was to remain for three years.
The next thing I have to tell is the story of the temptation. Here the Akasha Chronicle presents the matter in more detail than the other gospels. I must just mention in advance that I shall relate it as it presented itself to me, but that it may very easily be — because it is difficult to investigate such matters and one must be careful — that later on a correction might be necessary to modify the three stages of the temptation that I shall relate. Because the sequence can sometimes be easily mixed up when observing the Akashic Records, and I am not completely sure of the order. I will only tell the story to the extent that I know it exactly.
After Jesus Christ – for now the Christ was in Jesus – had withdrawn into solitude, the first being to approach him was Lucifer, as Jesus immediately sensed, for two important perceptions first played out in his soul. He remembered how Lucifer and Ahriman had fled from the Essene Gate to join the other human beings when he had stepped through the Essene Gate after a conversation with the Essenes. He had to think of that. The second sensation that passed through his soul reminded him of the desperate man he had met on the way to the Jordan, whom this figure hid and forced him, Jesus, to go on. He now knew how to recognize such things in occult perception: it was Lucifer whom I saw fleeing with Ahriman before the Essene gate; Lucifer stood between me and the despairing man; it is he who now stands before me again.
This story can give us an idea of how occult perceptions are made when they relate to the past. They are truly not something that can be received with the same cold objectivity as other things that are told. These things express deep secrets of the world, enter into all the powers of our soul life and touch not only our imagination and ordinary understanding. That is why it is so difficult to put the words at such a distance from the corresponding occult perceptions, from these researches, that one does not need to remain silent, but can still express the shattering result of the research in words of ordinary language. Only when it is necessary to communicate such things are they communicated.
So Lucifer stood before Christ Jesus. What took place can be expressed with the words of the other gospels – they are descriptions of spiritual processes: “If you acknowledge me, I will give you the kingdoms of this world."
Thus spoke Lucifer to Christ Jesus, in whom, to be sure, the divine essence of the Christ was now present, who could understand Lucifer, but in order to understand, had to make use of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth, as it had developed through the Zarathustra ego, which had permeated the astral body of Jesus, so that he could use it as a tool. Therefore, he did not hear the words as a god, so to speak, but only as a human being inspired by God: “Do you recognize me, then my angels will guard your every step."
We must now resort to what I once said in a lecture series which has now also been published in print: that even in the old solar age, Lucifer was a being who, at that time, was equal to the Christ Being, so that the Christ-being, who had now descended into a human body, had to feel the high cosmic rank that Lucifer had and had to feel him as an equal despite everything that had happened to him until he became the tempter. So that it can already be understood how Lucifer could address the demand to him: Recognize me. — When Lucifer speaks something like this, really says it in such a way that it pours into the human soul through occult channels, then all the forces of pride and arrogance that live in the human soul swell up powerfully. Therefore there is no other means – when the strongest temptation to succumb to feelings of arrogance and hidden pride arises – than to resist it with the most concentrated soul power.
“If you acknowledge me, I will give you all the realms that you now see around me.” These are vast realms of great splendor, these are whole worlds that Lucifer can spread out in such moments. These realms have only this one peculiarity: one can only feel desire for them out of the justified or unjustified arrogance of the soul. And one escapes only in the same way as Christ Jesus escaped in the past: by realizing this. For in that moment one feels nothing but the arrogance and pride that is in the human soul; all other feelings are paralyzed. But Christ Jesus escaped this temptation and pushed Lucifer away.
Then came the second attack. Now there were two of them. Once again, Christ Jesus had the feelings that allowed him to recognize who they were. The sensations arose again, as they had arisen in him at the two fugitives before the gates of the Essenes, and on the way to the Jordan at the appearance in conversation with the desperate and the skeleton image that had turned into the archangel. He knew that he now had the two tempters before him. The challenge, which the other gospels also correctly reproduce, was to him: “Throw yourself down, nothing will happen to you!”
In such temptations, courage that overcomes all fears speaks in a grandiose way in man, which can also make man willful. Christ Jesus was also able to beat back these two tempters.
Then came a third attack. It proceeded from Ahriman alone. He now stood alone before Christ Jesus. And there came the temptation, which can be expressed in turn with the words of the other Gospels: “Make these stones become bread with my power.”
What was to be said in answer to this question of Ahriman – this is what distinguishes the further course of events in the Fifth Gospel from the way it is related in the other Gospels – could not be answered by Christ Jesus. This question remained partly unanswered, remaining as the last unsolved remnant of the temptation. From this arose an impulse that remained effective for the further experience of the Christ in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. The fact that he could not fully answer the last question of Ahriman during the temptation in solitude established the connection between Christ Jesus and the earthly events that are connected with Ahriman.
If you remember how Ahriman is the lord of death, how he spreads materiality before the soul through the kind of deception he creates, so that the soul accepts the material in the deception, if you remember what was said this summer about the deeds of Ahriman in the evolution of the earth, you will find it understandable that the deeds of Ahriman are embedded in the evolution of the earth. And so it happened that a connection was created by the unanswered rest of this question between the earthly walk of Christ Jesus and the whole evolution of the earth. As it were, connected with the evolution of the earth, in so far as Ahriman is interwoven with it, was Christ Jesus through this unanswered question.
Sometimes one has to describe things in trivial terms; but they are not meant to be trivial. Ahriman makes everything appear in the material world and is preserved in it. But the fact that he handles things in this way means that an event such as Christ Jesus turning stones into bread was not possible. Ahrimanic activity prevented it. It is the same phenomenon that makes it necessary for certain stages of earthly development, in so far as they are connected with Ahriman, to be overcome only in the course of time and with the complete penetration of earthly evolution by the Christ.
What is said in the Cosmic Lord's Prayer: “Self-debts incurred by others, experienced in daily bread,” is expressed in the Ahrimanic powers, of which it is said in this Lord's Prayer: “In which heaven's will does not prevail,” but Ahriman's will, so this must be treated within the earthly lawfulness and cannot be treated merely spiritually. These things are connected with this daily bread. In the outer social world this expresses itself in the fact that we actually need material things in the form of money, of mammon, the crudest image of the Ahrimanic fetter, which then prevents stones in the social life from becoming bread, and makes it necessary for man on earth to remain connected with the Ahrimanic, with the material.
You must develop this thought further yourselves: how the injunction 'Turn stones into bread' is connected with the function of money in the social order. But the fact that the Ahrimanic power remained connected with the earthly change of Christ Jesus in this way enabled Ahriman to later flow into the soul of Judas, and to lead indirectly through Judas to the events related in the other Gospels, which then, indirectly through Judas, made Christ Jesus recognizable to his persecutors. Ahriman in Judas actually brought about Christ's death, and the fact that he was able to do so stems from the question at the temptation that was not fully answered.
But now, in order to understand the whole of Christ Jesus' earthly life, one thing must be taken into account. The Christ-being had entered the three bodies, but not in the same way that the Christ-ego is connected to these three bodies as a human ego is connected to them. At the beginning of the three years of earthly life, the Christ-entity was only loosely connected with the three bodies of Jesus, and then it was drawn more and more into the three bodies. The development in the three years consisted in this, that slowly and gradually this Christ-entity, which at first only permeated the Jesus-entity like an aura, was more and more pressed into the three bodies. This Christ-entity was only pressed into the three bodies as tightly as a human ego shortly before His death on the cross. But this pressing in was a continuous sensation of pain throughout the three years. The process of this complete humanization, which lasted three years and led to the Mystery of Golgotha, was this being pressed into the three bodies. It was the pain of God that had to be felt on earth so that what was necessary could happen to introduce the Christ impulse into earthly evolution. What I said about Jesus' pain and suffering in his youth must be added to this.
When one speaks of divine pain, it could easily be that one is poorly understood today. Maeterlinck, for example, who says many a beautiful thing in his book “On Death,” which is sure to become famous, and who, after all, strove to explain things of the spiritual life with the means he had, could say that a disembodied soul cannot have pain, that only the mortal body can feel pain. That is the height of nonsense, for a body feels no pain, any more than a stone does. Pain is felt by the astral body with the I inside the physical body; besides, there are also mental pains and therefore pain does not stop after death. They can only no longer be caused by disturbances in the physical body, but for the soul they need not stop as a result.
What took place when the three bodies of Jesus were forced through with the Christ-Being, that was for the Christ-Being the highest pain. It will gradually become necessary for humanity to understand that in order to continue the evolution of the Earth from Golgotha, this Christ-Essence had to enter the aura of the Earth through pain, and humanity will have to feel its destiny connected with this Christ-pain. The connection of humanity with the Christ-pain will have to become more and more concrete. Only then will one understand how this pain continued to work in the earth aura in rejuvenating forces for the development of the earth since the Mystery of Golgotha.
To understand this Mystery of Golgotha better and better will be the task of progressive spiritual development. Some things that play a major role in present-day culture will indeed have to be overcome. We are currently facing a crisis in our understanding of Christianity, a real crisis. Of course, I am not talking about what can be said about Christianity by this or that popular theology. I would just like to draw attention to elementary events of incomprehension in the present. At one of those meetings in 1910, where the historical Christ was discussed, a much-talked-about theologian spoke to emphasize that the words of Christ Jesus' teaching were only summarized teachings that had existed before: “I will be grateful to you if I can be shown just one sentence among the sayings of Jesus Christ that was not already there in some form or other.” If a liberal theological investigator can prove today what that person claimed, he is a great man for our contemporaries, because how convincing it must be if one can really prove that all of Christ's sayings were said earlier by others, that they were therefore nothing new. To the one who sees things through, such a saying appears in a different light. Imagine that Goethe had made a poem, not yet written it down, only spoken it, and a child who was listening had shouted: These are all words that I have already heard. The theologian who hears nothing but what he already knows and does not realize what is important, because that stands above the sayings that were there before, as a Goethean poem stands above the individual words that the child has already heard. If one does not know what to consider the main thing, and believes that one is doing real theology today by adhering to words in this way, adhering to what is true, that the sayings have already “been there,” it is implied that we are in a deep crisis with regard to the understanding of Christianity, from which one can already understand that a real understanding of Christ can only come into the world when today's theology, which has the public office of watching over the understanding of Christ, first dies. That is what matters: that one learns to sense the full magnitude of the facts that took place around Golgotha.
The Akasha Chronicle shows us yet more significant things: Since the Christ-Being was not immediately closely connected with the bodies of Jesus, but only loosely and externally, the following could occur in the early days: At times the Christ-entity was externally connected with the three bodies of Jesus of Nazareth, was in such connection among the disciples and nearest followers, spoke with them. But that was not always necessary. The outer covers could be in any place and the Christ-entity could go away from them; it could then appear as a spiritual entity far away here or there. Many appearances of Christ are such that only the Christ-being appears to the disciples, the followers, and also to others. Later, he often walked around the country with the disciples, teaching, speaking, healing. While he was walking with ten or fifteen or even more followers, and the Christ-being pressed more and more into his bodies, another phenomenon emerged. It was repeatedly shown that one or other of the disciples suddenly felt inspired. Then his face changed so that you could see from the outside how he took on a completely different physiognomy. And when something like that happened and he spoke the most glorious words of Christ, the actual outward appearance of Christ Jesus changed so that he looked like the simplest person in the group.
This was repeated over and over again. This is how it appears in the Akashic Records. As a result, the persecutors never knew who in the wandering group was the one they were actually looking for, so they faced the danger of seizing someone who was not the right one. Then the right one would have escaped. That is why the betrayal of Judas was necessary. As it is usually told, it is not very ingeniously told. For if you think about the situation, you ask yourself: Why was Judas' kiss necessary? It was only necessary for the reason I just hinted at.
Much that is mysterious is connected with the Christ's earthly human walk, but what makes the most harrowing impression shows when one turns one's gaze to his death. Here it must be said, and I say it without fear, because it is a fact for occult knowledge, that at the most important points in historical-spiritual events, the moral and physical world orders, which otherwise flow separately, touch each other again. When this was most strongly the case in the evolution of the earth, the Mystery of Golgotha occurred.
When Christ was nailed to the cross, a widespread eclipse occurred. It is not yet possible to determine from the Akasha Chronicle where it had come from, whether it was of earthly or cosmic origin. But it was there, and what such an eclipse means can be observed occultly during a solar eclipse. I do not want to say that it was a solar eclipse at that time; it could also have been a significant cloud eclipse. But it is different when the sun is eclipsed in the sky during the day than when it is simply night. But the effect of such a general eclipse can already be seen in the case of a solar eclipse caused by the moon, for example. During such an event, great occult changes take place in all living beings, humans, animals, and plants; the entire structure, for example, between the physical body and the etheric body of plants changes, the whole world looks quite different and with it the earth aura. The last time it happened, it made a particularly moving impression on me when I was able to observe it during a solar eclipse during a short lecture cycle in Stockholm. It is a fact that great changes are taking place in that part of the Earth's aura where the eclipse is at its greatest. And it was through such a part of the Earth's aura that the Christ Impulse flowed into the evolution of the Earth at the time of the death of Christ Jesus on the cross. That is the wonderful, sacred event of the eclipse around the cross on Golgotha.
The other thing is what I already hinted at in Karlsruhe and what is also in the printed cycle of Karlsruhe, which is also shown in the Fifth Gospel, how the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth was, as it were, absorbed by the physical earth, for when the body was laid in the tomb, an earthquake-like shaking of the earth did indeed take place, combined with a storm, so that a fissure in the earth opened up and received the body. The storm whirled in such a way that the peculiar winding and position of the cloths actually resulted, as described in the Gospel of John. The cleft caused by the earthquake closed up, and so the body could not be found, of course. Only the answer from occult regions could be given to those seeking: “He whom you seek is no longer here.” A similar event occurred later, when many in Europe set out as crusaders to seek the memory of Christ at Golgotha. They too received the answer, albeit not audibly, “He whom you seek is no longer here.”
For the Christ Impulse spiritually permeates the souls of men, and as a fact it also works in those who do not understand it. One should not speak only of the great teacher. What happened works as a fact and gave the great impulses for the further development of humanity. The task of true occult research in this field will be to learn to understand better and better how to seek the Christ differently, so that one would not have to be given the answer: “He whom you seek is no longer here.” But if one wants to seek Him in an ever more spiritual way, one will be able to find the true answer that corresponds to reality.
This is what I wanted to tell you today, and I believe that these communications are of great importance for the description of the mystery of Golgotha in contrast to the abstractions of theologians. The way these facts appear in the Akasha Chronicle shows that something very important happened at that time.
The occultist is convinced of the following: Once the minds of humanity have risen somewhat above all that now dominates souls with so much pride of knowledge and illogicality, as I had to characterize it at the beginning, once the minds of right thinking have become interwoven, then - despite what some might believe: What has thinking to do with receiving such communications and trying to recognize them? — then the mind will prepare itself to truly understand even those things that seemingly have nothing to do with thinking, because it is precisely through true thinking that the soul is imbued with the genuine sense of truth, which does not perceive what is given in these two lectures as ridiculous, but strives to accept it as carefully conducted research from the Akasha Chronicle.
Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment