The Gospel of John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels. Lecture 1 of 14.
Rudolf Steiner, Kassel, St. John's Day, June 24, 1909:
My dear friends,
A special festival has long been celebrated on this particular day
of the year by a great number of those seeking higher wisdom; and many friends
of our anthroposophical movement here in this city have wished this series of
lectures to commence on this day, St. John's Day.
The day of the
year bearing this name was a festival as far back as the time of ancient Persia.
There, on a day corresponding to a June day as we know it, the so-called
Festival of the Baptism by Water and Fire was celebrated. In ancient Rome the
Festival of Vesta was held on a similar day in June, and that again was a
festival of the baptism by fire. Going back to the time of pre-Christian culture
in Europe and including the period before Christianity had become widely
disseminated, we find a similar June festival coinciding with the time when the
days are longest and the nights shortest, when the days start to become shorter
again, when the Sun once more begins to lose some of the power that provides for
all earthly growth and thriving. This June festival seemed to our European
forefathers like a retrogression, a gradual evanescence, of the God Baldur, who
was thought of as associated with the Sun. Then in Christian times this June
festival gradually became the Festival of St. John, in memory of the forerunner
of Christ Jesus. In this way it can form the starting point, as it were, for our
discussions during the coming days of that most significant event in human
evolution which we call the deed of Christ Jesus. This deed, its whole
significance for the development of mankind, the way it is revealed primarily in
the most important Christian document, the Gospel of St. John — and then a
comparison of this with the other Gospels — a study of all this will form the
subject of this lecture cycle.
St. John's Day
reminds us that the most exalted Individuality that ever took part in the
evolution of mankind was preceded by a forerunner. This touches at once an
important point which — again like a forerunner — we must place at the beginning
of our lectures as a subject of discussion. In the course of human evolution
there appear again and again events of such profound import as to throw a
stronger light than others. From epoch to epoch we see history recording such
vital events; and ever and anon we are told that there are men who, in certain
respects, know of such events in advance and can foretell them. This implies
that such events are not arbitrary, but rather, that one who discerns the whole
sense and spirit of human history knows how such events must unfold, and how he
himself must work and prepare in order that they may come to pass.
We shall have
occasion in the next few days to refer repeatedly to the forerunner of Christ
Jesus. Today we will consider him only as one of those who, by means of special
spiritual gifts, are able to see deep into the relations within the evolution of
mankind, and who thus know that there are pre-eminent moments in this evolution.
For this reason he was able to clear the path for Christ Jesus. But if we turn
to Christ Jesus Himself, thus coming to the main subject of our discussions, as
it were, we must understand that not without reason does a large part of mankind
divide the record of time into two epochs separated by the appearance of Christ
Jesus on Earth. This discloses a feeling for the incisive importance of the
Christ Mystery. But all truth, all reality, must ever be proclaimed to humanity
in new forms, in new ways, for the needs of men change from one epoch to
another. In certain respects our epoch calls for a new revelation even of this
greatest event in the earthly evolution of man, the Christ Event; and it is
anthroposophy's aim to be this revelation.
As far as its
content is concerned, the anthroposophical presentation of the Christ Mystery is
nothing new, not even for us today; but its form is new. All that is to be
disclosed here in the next few days has been known for centuries within certain
restricted circles of our cultural and spiritual life. Only one feature
distinguishes today's presentation from all those that have gone before: it can
be addressed to a larger circle. Those smaller circles in which for centuries
the same message was proclaimed within our European spiritual life, these had
recognized the same symbol that confronts you here in this lecture hall today:
the Rose Cross. For this reason it is fitting that today, when this message goes
forth to a larger public, the Rose Cross should again be its symbol.
First let me
characterize once more in a symbolical way the basis of these Rosicrucian
revelations concerning Christ Jesus. The Rosicrucians are a brotherhood that has
fostered a genuinely spiritual Christianity within the spiritual life of Europe
ever since the 14th century. This Rosicrucian Society which, ignoring all outer
historical forms, has endeavored to bring to light the deepest truths of
Christianity, always called its members “Christians of St. John.” If we come to
understand this term the whole spirit and trend of the following lectures will
be — if not mentally comprehended, at least imaginatively grasped.
As you know, the
Gospel of St. John — that mighty document of the human race — begins with the
words:
In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and a God was the
Word.
The same was
in the beginning with God.
The Word, then —
or the Logos — was in the beginning with God. And we are further told that the
light shone in the darkness, and that the darkness at first comprehended it not;
that this light was in the world among men, but that these men counted but few
among their number who were able to comprehend the Light. Then the Word made
flesh appeared as a Man, a Man Whose forerunner was the Baptist John. And then
we see how those who had some understanding of this appearance of Christ on
Earth endeavored to make clear what Christ really was. We see the author of the
John Gospel pointing directly to the fact that what dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth
as profoundest essence was nothing different from that in which originate all
other beings that surround us: the living Spirit, the living Word, the Logos
itself.
And the other
Evangelists as well, each in his own way, have been at pains to characterize
what it really was that appeared in Jesus of Nazareth. We see, for example, the
writer of the Luke Gospel endeavoring to show that something quite special
manifested itself when, at the Baptism of Christ Jesus, the Spirit united with
the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Then the same writer tells us that this Jesus of
Nazareth was the descendant of ancestors reaching far, far back; that His
genealogy went back to David, to Abraham, to Adam — even to God Himself. Note
well that the Luke Gospel points emphatically to this line of descent:
Jesus of
Nazareth was the son of Joseph, Joseph was the son of Heli; then: ... he
was the son of David ...; and finally: he was the son of Adam, and Adam
was the son of God.
This means that
the author of the Luke Gospel considers it of special importance that a direct
line runs from Jesus of Nazareth, with Whom the Spirit united at the Baptism by
John, to Him Whom he calls the Father of Adam, to God. Such things must be taken
entirely literally.
In the Matthew
Gospel, on the other hand, the attempt is made to trace the descent of this
Jesus of Nazareth back to Abraham, to whom God revealed Himself.
In this way and
in many others — through many statements we can find in the Gospels — the
Individuality that is the vehicle of the Christ, as well as the whole
manifestation of Christ, is set before us not only as one of the greatest, but
as the very greatest of all events in the evolution of humanity. Clearly this
means, does it not? what can be expressed quite simply as follows: If Christ
Jesus is regarded by those who divined something of His greatness as the most
significant phenomenon in the evolution of man upon Earth, then this Christ
Jesus must in some way be connected with what is most vital and sacred in man
himself. In other words, there must be something in man himself that can be
brought into relation with the Christ event. Can we not ask, If Christ Jesus, as
the Gospels maintain, is really the most important phenomenon in human
evolution, does it not follow that always, in every human soul, there is
something that is related to Christ Jesus?
And that is
precisely what the Johannine Christians of the Rosicrucian Society deemed of
greatest import and significance: that there is in every human soul something
directly related to the events in Palestine as brought about through Christ
Jesus. If the coming of Christ Jesus can be called the greatest event for
mankind, then what corresponds in the human soul to the Christ event must be the
greatest and most significant as well. And what can that be? The disciples of
the Rosicrucians answered: There exists for every human soul something that is
called awakening, or rebirth, or initiation.
Let us sec what
is meant by these terms. Looking at the various things around us — things we see
with our eyes, touch with our hands — we observe them coming into being and
perishing. We see the flower, the whole annual plant life, come up and then
wither; and though there are such things in the world as rocks and mountains
that seem to defy the centuries, we need only consider the proverb "A steady
drip hollows out the rock" to realize that the human soul senses the laws of
transience as governing even the majestic boulders and mountains. And we know
that there comes into being and perishes even what is built of the elements: not
only what we call our corporeality, but what we know as our perishable ego is
engendered and then passes. But those who know how a spiritual world can be
reached know also that this is not attained by means of eyes or ears or other
senses, but by the path of awakening, of rebirth, of initiation.
And what is it
that is reborn? When a man observes his inner self he finally comes to realize
that what he sees there is that to which he says “I”. Its very name
differentiates it from anything in the outer world. To everything in the outer
world a name can be applied externally. Everyone can call a table a table or a
clock a clock; but never in the world could the name “I” fall on our ear if it
were intended to denote ourself, for “I” must be spoken within us: to everyone
else we are “you.” This in itself shows us that our ego-being is distinct from
all else that is in or around us.
But in addition,
we now come to something that spiritual scientists of all times have emphasized
from their own experience for the benefit of mankind: that within this ego
another, a higher one, is born, as the child is born of the mother. A man as he
appears in life is first encountered as a child, awkward in his surroundings but
gradually learning to understand things: he gains in sense; his intellect and
his will grow; and his strength and energy increase. But there have always been
people who grow in other ways as well, who attain to a stage of development
beyond the average, who find, so to say, a second I that can say “you” to the
first one in the same way that the I itself says “you” to the outer world and to
its own body — that looks upon this first I from above, as it were.
As an ideal,
then, for the soul of man, and as a reality for those who follow the
instructions of spiritual science, we have the thought: the ego I have hitherto
known takes part in the whole outer world, and together with this it is
perishable; but there slumbers within me a second ego of which men are unaware
but can become aware. It is linked with the imperishable, just as the first ego
is bound up with the perishable, the temporal; and by means of rebirth this
higher ego can behold a spiritual world, just as the lower ego perceives the
physical world through eyes and ears.
This awakening,
rebirth, initiation, as it is called, is the greatest event for the human soul —
a view shared by those who called themselves confessors of the Rose Cross. These
knew that this event of the rebirth of the higher ego, which can look from above
on the lower ego as man looks on outer forms, must have some connection with the
event of Christ Jesus. This means that just as a rebirth can occur for the
individual in his development, so a rebirth for all humanity came about through
Christ Jesus. That which is an inner event for the individual — a
mystical-spiritual event, as it is called, something he can experience as the
birth of his higher ego — corresponds to what occurred in the outer world, in
history, for all mankind in the event of Palestine through Christ Jesus.
How did this
appear to a man like, for instance, the author of the Luke Gospel? He reasoned
as follows: The genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth goes back to Adam and to God
himself. What today is mankind, what now inhabits a physical human body, once
descended from divine heights: it was born of the spirit, it was once with God.
Adam was he who had been sent down out of spiritual heights into matter, and in
this sense he is the son of God. So there was at one time a divine-spiritual
realm — thus the argument would continue — that condensed, as it were, into an
ephemeral, tellurian realm: Adam came into being. Adam was an earthly image of
the Son of God, and from him are descended the human beings that dwell in a
physical body. And in a special way there lived in Jesus of Nazareth not only
what exists in every man and all that pertains to it, but something the essence
of which can be found only when one is aware that the true being of man derives
from the divine. In Jesus of Nazareth something of this divine descent is still
apparent. For this reason the writer of the Luke Gospel feels constrained to
say, Behold Him Who was baptized by John! He bears special marks of the Divine
out of which Adam was originally born. This can come to life again in Him. Just
as the God descended into matter and disappeared as such from the human race, so
He reappears. In Jesus of Nazareth mankind could be reborn in its innermost
divine principle. What the author of the Luke Gospel meant was this: If we trace
the genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth to its source, we find the divine origin and
the characteristics of the Son of God appearing in Him in a new way, and in a
higher degree than would hitherto have been possible for mankind.
And the writer
of the John Gospel emphasizes even more strongly the existence of something
divine in man, as well as the fact that this appeared in its most grandiose form
as the God and the Logos themselves. The God Who had been buried, as it
were, in matter is reborn as God in Jesus of Nazareth. That is what was meant by
those who introduced their Gospels in this way.
And those who
endeavored to perpetuate the wisdom of these Gospels — what did they say? How
did the Johannine Christians put it? They said: In the individual human being a
great and mighty event can take place that can be called the rebirth of the
higher ego. As the child is born of the mother, so the divine ego is born of
man. Initiation, awakening, is possible; and when once this has come to pass —
so said those who were competent to speak — a new standard of values will
arise.
Let us try to
understand by a comparison what it is that henceforth becomes important. Suppose
we have before us a man seventy years old — an "awakened" man who has attained
to his higher ego — and suppose he had been in his fortieth year when he
experienced rebirth, the awakening of his higher ego. Had someone approached him
at that time with the intention of describing his life he could have reflected:
I have before me a man who has just given birth to his higher ego. It is the
same man I knew five years ago in certain circumstances, and ten years ago in
others. — And if he had wanted to portray the identity of this man — if he had
wanted to show that this man had a quite special start, even at birth — he would
trace back the forty years with his physical existence in mind and describe the
latter as far as pertinent, in the spirit of one who sees matters from the
spiritual-scientific viewpoint. But in his fortieth year a higher ego was born
in this man, and henceforth this higher ego irradiates all the circumstances of
his life. He is a new man. That which existed previously is of no further
importance. What is now important is to understand, above all things, how the
higher ego grows from year to year and develops further. Now, when this man had
arrived at the age of seventy, we would enquire into the path taken by the
higher ego from the fortieth to the seventieth year; and if we believe in what
was born in the soul of this man thirty years before, it would be of importance
that it is the true spiritual ego he presents to us in his seventieth year. That
is the way the Evangelists went about it; and it was thus, and in connection
with the Gospels, that the Johannine Christians of Rosicrucianism dealt with the
Being we know as Christ Jesus.
The Gospel
writers had set themselves the task of showing, first of all, that Christ Jesus
had His origin in the primordial World Spirit, in the God Himself. The God that
had dwelt unseen in all mankind is specifically manifested in Christ Jesus; and
that is the same God of Whom the John Gospel tells us that He was in the
beginning. What the Evangelists set out to do was to show that it was precisely
this God that dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth. But those whose task it was to
perpetuate the eternal wisdom right into our own time had to emphasize the fact
that man's higher ego, the divine spirit of mankind — born in Jesus of Nazareth
through the event in Palestine — had remained the same and had been preserved by
all who approached it with true understanding. Just as in our comparison we
described how the man bore his higher ego in his fortieth year, so the
Evangelists pictured the God that dwells in man up to the event of Palestine —
how the God developed, how he was reborn, and so forth. But those upon whom it
was incumbent to demonstrate that they were the successors of the Evangelists,
these had to point out that the time was ripe for the rebirth of the higher ego,
when we have to do only with the spiritual part, irradiating all else.
Those who called
themselves the Johannine Christians and whose symbol was the Rose Cross held
that precisely what was reborn for mankind as the secret of its higher ego has
been preserved — preserved by the close community which grew out of
Rosicrucianism. This continuity is symbolically indicated by that sacred vessel
from which Christ Jesus ate and drank with His disciples, and in which Joseph of
Arimathia caught the blood that flowed from the wound — the Holy Grail which, as
the story is told, was brought to Europe by angels. A temple was built to
contain this vessel, and the Rosicrucians became the guardians of what it
contained, namely, the essence of the reborn God.
The mystery of
the reborn God had its being in humanity. It is the Mystery of the Grail, a
mystery propounded like a new Gospel, proclaiming: We look up to a sage such as
the writer of the John Gospel who was able to say:
In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and a God was the
Word.
That which was
with God in the beginning was born again in Him Whom we have seen suffer and die
on Golgotha, and Who is arisen. — This continuity throughout all time of the
divine principle and its rebirth, that is what the author of the John Gospel
aimed to set forth. Something known to all those who endeavored to proclaim this
truth was that what was in the beginning has been preserved. In the beginning
was the mystery of the higher ego; it was preserved in the Grail; with the Grail
it has remained linked. And in the Grail lives the ego united with the eternal
and immortal, just as the lower ego is bound to the ephemeral and mortal. He who
knows the secret of the Holy Grail knows that from the wood of the Cross there
springs ever new life, the immortal ego, symbolized by the roses on the black
wood of the cross.
The secret of
the Rose Cross can thus appear like a continuation of the John Gospel; and in
reference to the latter and to its continuation it can truly be said:
In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and a God was the Word. The
same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by It; [1] and without It was not any thing made that was made. In
It was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the
darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Only a few men —
those who possessed something of what is not born of the flesh — comprehended
the light that shone in the darkness. But then the light became flesh and dwelt
among men in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. Here we can say, wholly within the
meaning of the John Gospel: That which dwelt as the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth
was the higher divine ego of all humanity, of the reborn God Who, in Adam, as
His image, became earthly. This reborn human ego was perpetuated as a holy
secret, was preserved under the symbol of the Rose Cross, and is now proclaimed
as the secret of the Holy Grail, as the Rose Cross.
The principle
which can be born in every human soul as the higher ego points to the rebirth of
the divine ego in the evolution of mankind in its entirety through the Event
of Palestine. Just as the higher ego is born in the individual, so the higher
ego of all mankind, the divine ego, was born in Palestine; and it is preserved
and developed in what lives concealed in the sign of the Rose Cross.
But if we study
the evolution of man we find not only this one great event, the rebirth of the
higher ego, but a number of lesser ones as well. Before the higher ego can be
born, before this mighty, comprehensive, pervasive experience can come to the
soul — the birth of the immortal ego in the mortal ego — extensive preparatory
stages must have been passed through. A man must prepare himself in many
different ways. And after the great experience has come to him that enables him
to say to himself: Now I feel within myself something that looks down from above
on my ordinary ego, just as my ordinary ego looks upon the things of the senses;
now I am a second being within my first; now I have attained to the realms in
which I am united with the divine beings — when the human being has had this
experience, then he faces further stages that must be passed through, stages
differing in their nature from the preparatory ones, but which nonetheless
must be traversed.
Thus there is
for each individual the one great incisive event, the birth of the higher ego;
and there is a similar birth as well for the whole of mankind: the rebirth of
the divine ego. Also, there are stages leading to this incisive event and others
that must follow it. To find the former, we Iook back in time beyond the Christ
event. There we encounter other great manifestations in human evolution. We
become aware of the gradual approach of the Gospel of Christ, as indicated by
the writer of the Luke Gospel when he says: In the beginning there was a God, a
spirit-being in spiritual heights. He descended into the material world and
became man, became humanity. — True, one could discern in man, as he developed,
his origin in the God, but the God Himself could not be perceived by observing
human evolution with outer physical eyes alone. He was behind the
earthly-physical world, as it were; and there He was seen by those who
understood where He was, by those who could behold His kingdom.
Let us turn back
for a moment to the first civilization that followed upon a great catastrophe,
to the ancient Indian civilization. There we find seven great and holy teachers
known as the Holy Rishis. They pointed upwards to a higher being of whom they
said: Our wisdom can divine the existence of this being, but it suffices not to
perceive it. — The vision of the Holy Rishis was great, but the exalted being
they called Vishva Karman was beyond their sphere. Vishva Karman, though
permeating the spiritual world, was a being beyond what the clairvoyant human
eye of that time could reach. — Then followed the civilization called after its
great leader, Zarathustra, and Zarathustra spoke as follows to those whom it was
his mission to guide: When the clairvoyant eye contemplates the things of this
world — minerals, plants, animals, men — it perceives behind these things all
sorts of spiritual beings. The being, however, to whom man is indebted for his
very existence, who in the future is destined to dwell in man's deepest self,
remains hidden as yet even from the clairvoyant eye when it contemplates the
things of this Earth. But by raising the clairvoyant eye to the Sun, said
Zarathustra, more than the Sun is seen: as an aura is perceived surrounding man,
so, in contemplating the Sun, the great Sun Aura is discerned — Ahura Mazdao. —
And it was the great Sun Aura that once brought forth man, in a manner to be
characterized later. Man is the image of the Sun Spirit, of Ahura Mazdao; but as
yet Ahura Mazdao did not dwell on Earth. — Then came the time in which
clairvoyant men began to see Ahura Mazdao in what surrounded them on Earth. The
great moment had arrived when something could take place that had not been
possible in Zarathustra's time. When Zarathustra discerned clairvoyantly what
was manifested in earthly lightning and thunder, it was not Ahura Mazdao, the
great Sun Spirit who is the prototype of mankind, that he saw; but when he
turned to the Sun he saw Ahura Mazdao. When Zarathustra had found a successor in
Moses, Moses' clairvoyant vision could see in the burning bush and in the fire
on Sinai the spirit who proclaimed himself as ehjeh asher ehjeh, as the
“I am,” as He Who was, as He Who is, as He Who shall be: Jahve, or
Jehova.
What had taken
place? During that remote period between the appearance of Zarathustra and that
of Moses upon Earth, the Spirit Who previously had dwelt only on the Sun had
moved downward to Earth. He flamed up in the burning bush and shone in the fire
on Sinai: He was in the elements of the Earth. And then another period passed;
and the Spirit Whose presence the great Holy Rishis felt, but of Whom they had
to say: Our clairvoyance does not suffice to see Him — the Spirit Whom
Zarathustra had to seek in the Sun, Who revealed Himself to Moses in thunder and
lightning — this Spirit appeared in a human being: in Jesus of Nazareth. That
was the evolution: first a descent from the cosmos into the physical elements,
then into a human body. Only then was reborn the divine ego from which man
descended, and to which the writer of the Luke Gospel traces the genealogy of
Jesus of Nazareth. This was the great event of the rebirth of the God in
man.
That is a
retrospect of the preparatory stages, and it shows us that mankind, too, passed
through these. And those who had advanced with mankind as its early leaders were
also destined to progress until one of them had achieved the capacity to become
the bearer of the Christ. Such is the evolution of mankind as seen through
spiritual eyes.
And there is
another point. What the Holy Rishis revered as Vishva Karman, what Zarathustra
addressed as the Ahura Mazdao of the Sun, and what Moses reverenced as ehjeh
asher ehjeh — this had to appear in a single human being, in Jesus of
Nazareth, in physically circumscribed humanness. This consummation was
fore-ordained. But to enable so exalted a being to dwell in such a man as Jesus
of Nazareth, many circumstances had to contribute. For one thing, Jesus of
Nazareth Himself had to have arrived at an exalted level. Not every man could be
the vehicle of such a being that came into the world as described. Now, we who
have made contact with spiritual science know that there is reincarnation, so we
must realize that Jesus of Nazareth — not the Christ — had experienced many
incarnations and that He had passed through the most manifold stages in His
previous incarnations before He could become Jesus of Nazareth.
What this means
is that Jesus of Nazareth had Himself to become a high initiate before He could
become the Christ bearer. Now, when a lofty initiate is born, how do such a
birth and the subsequent life differ from the birth and life of an ordinary man?
In a general way it can be assumed that when a man is born he bears the
characteristics, at least approximately, of what derives from a previous
incarnation. But that is not the case with an initiate. The initiate could not
be a leader of mankind if he bore within him only what wholly corresponds with
his outer self, for that he must build up according to the conditions of his
external environment. When an initiate is born there must enter his body a lofty
soul that in past times has had mighty experiences in the world. That is why
legend so often tells of the strange births of initiates.
As to why and
how this is so, we have already touched upon the answer to the first of these
questions. It is because a comprehensive ego that had already passed through
significant experiences in the past now unites with a body, but this body is at
first unable to receive what seeks to incarnate in it as spiritual nature. For
this reason it is necessary, in the case of a lofty being incarnating as a high
initiate in a perishable human being, that the reincarnating ego should from the
start envelop the physical form more intensely than in the case of other men.
While in the ordinary human being the physical form resembles and adapts itself
soon after birth to the spiritual form, or human aura, the human aura of a
reborn initiate is luminous at birth. It is the spiritual part that here
indicates the presence of more than can be seen in the ordinary sense. What does
this indicate? That not only has a child been born in the physical world, but
that something has occurred in the spiritual world. The stories that attach to
the birth of all reincarnating initiates express the idea: Not only is a child
born; something is born in the spirit as well, something that cannot be
encompassed by what is born down below.
But who can
discern this? Only one who himself has a clairvoyant eye for the spiritual
world. Hence we are told that in the birth of Buddha an initiate recognized an
event differing from an ordinary birth; and hence also it is related of Jesus of
Nazareth that His coming was to be foretold by the Baptist. All who have insight
into the spiritual world know that the initiate must come and be reborn; and
they know that this is an event in the spiritual world. The Three Kings from the
East who came to offer sacrifice at the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, these knew
it, too. And the same truth is indicated when the initiated priest of the Temple
says:
Now I can die
gladly, since mine eyes have beheld the One Who will be the salvation of
mankind.
Clearly, then,
we must here differentiate accurately. We have an exalted initiate reborn as
Jesus of Nazareth, of Whose birth it must be said that a child was born; but
with this Child there appeared something that will not be encompassed by His
physical body. This discloses at the same time something in this Jesus of
Nazareth that has significance in the spiritual world, something that will
gradually develop this body upward to the point at which it will be fit to
receive this spirit. And when this was fulfilled, we have the event in which the
Baptist approaches Jesus of Nazareth, and a loftier spirit descends and unites
with this Jesus of Nazareth: the Christ enters Jesus of Nazareth. And then the
Baptist, the Forerunner of Christ Jesus, could well say: I came into the world.
It was I who prepared the way for a loftier one. With the words of my mouth I
proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God, the Realm of the Heavens, and I
exhorted men to change their hearts. I came among men, and it was vouchsafed me
to bring them tidings of a special impulse that is to come to mankind. As in the
springtime the Sun mounts higher to announce the budding of something new, so
did I appear to bring tidings of what is burgeoning in mankind as the reborn ego
of humanity.
Then, when the
human principle had reached its height in Jesus of Nazareth, His human body
having become an expression of His spirit, He was ripe to receive within Himself
the Christ at the Baptism by John. The body of Jesus of Nazareth had unfolded
like the bright Sun on St. John's Day in June. That had been foretold. Then the
spirit was to be born out of the darkness, just as the Sun steadily gains in
strength and power up to St. John's Day, and then begins to decline. That was
what the Baptist had to proclaim. He had to continue to bear witness until —
pointing to the Sun's ever-increasing splendor — he could say: He of Whom the
old Prophets told, He Who in the spiritual realms has been called the Son of the
Spiritual Realms, He has appeared. — Up to this point John the Baptist was
active. But then — when the days become shorter and darkness begins to gain the
upper hand — then the inner spiritual light is to shine as a result of right
preparation, is to become ever brighter as the Christ shines in Jesus of
Nazareth.
That is the way
John the Baptist saw the approach of Jesus of Nazareth; and he felt the growth
of Jesus of Nazareth as his own diminution and as the increase in the power of
the Sun. From now on I shall wane, he said, even as the Sun wanes after St.
John's Day. But He will wax — He the spiritual Sun — and shine out of the
darkness. — Thus was the Christ heralded; and thus began the rebirth of the ego
of mankind, upon which depends the rebirth of every individual higher human
ego.
This
characterizes the most important event in the development of the individual
human being: the rebirth of what can proceed from the ordinary ego as the
immortal principle. It is linked with the greatest event, the Christ event, to
which the next lectures will be devoted.
Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0112/19090624p02.html |
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