LECTURE XII
STUDYING the evolution of mankind in
accordance with spiritual science, and watching its progress
step by step, we are bound to acknowledge that the most
important fact of this evolution is that man, because he
incarnates again and again in different epochs, advances to
ever higher degrees of perfection, and thus gradually reaches
the goal where he has developed, in his inner being, certain
active powers corresponding to the different stages of
planetary development. We see, on one hand, the man who
progresses upwards, who keeps his divine goal before him, but
who would never be able to evolve to the heights he should
attain if beings whose whole path of evolution is different
did not come to his assistance. From time to time beings from
other spheres enter our earthly evolution and unite with it,
so as to raise men to their own exalted realms. Even as
regards earlier planetary conditions we may express this in a
wide sense by saying: Already during the Saturn stage of
evolution, exalted beings — the Thrones — offered
up their will-substance so that from it the earliest
beginnings of man's physical body might be formed. This
is but a general example; but beings whose evolution is far
in advance of that of men, have ever bent down to them and
united with their evolution, by dwelling for a time within a
human soul. Such beings have ‘assumed a human
form’ as is often said, or to put it more trivially,
have entered a human soul as an inspiring power, so that a
human being who has been ensouled in this way by a god might
accomplish more in human evolution than he could otherwise
have done.
Our age,
permeated as it is with materialistic conceptions, levelling
everything, does not accept such facts willingly; indeed I
might say that it retains only the crudest notion of
accepting the descent of beings from higher regions, beings
who enter into man and speak to him. Modern people regard
such beliefs as the wildest superstition. Rudiments of such
beliefs have, however, remained to our day, though people are
for the most part unaware that they hold them; they have
retained, for instance, a belief in the occasional appearance
of persons of ‘genius.’ Men of genius rise high
above the great mass of mankind even in the opinion of
ordinary individuals, who say of such persons: Other
qualities have come to fruition in their souls than are to be
found in average humanity. Such ‘geniuses’ are at
least still credited. But there are also circles where there
is no longer such belief; the materialistic thought of to-day
discredits them, it has (no belief in facts concerning the
life of the spirit: Belief in genius does, however, continue
in wide circles, and if this is not to be an empty belief we
must acknowledge that in a genius through whom human
evolution has been advanced, a power, other than the ordinary
power of men, works through a human agency. Looking to the
teaching that knows the true facts concerning men of genius,
one realizes that when such men appear who seem as if
suddenly possessed by something extraordinarily good, or
great, or powerful, that a spiritual power has descended and
taken possession of the place from which this being of power
must now work, namely, the inner nature of the man
himself.
To people who
think in accordance with Anthroposophy it should be clear
from the beginning that there are two possibilities; the
upward evolution of men to spiritual heights, and the descent
from above of divine, spiritual beings into human bodies or
human souls.
In one part of my
Rosicrucian Mystery Play
it is pointed out that whenever something important is to take
place in human evolution a divine being must unite with a human
soul and permeate it. This is a necessity of human evolution.
To understand
this in connection with our spiritual evolution on earth, we
must recall how in the time of its early beginnings the Earth
was united with the Sun, from which it is now separated.
Anthroposophists know, of course, that this does not refer
merely to a separation of the substance of the Earth from the
substance of the Sun, but with the going forth of divine
beings who were associated with the Sun or with the other
planets.) After this separation of the Sun, certain spiritual
beings remained connected with the Earth, while others
remained with the Sun, because they had evolved beyond
earthly connections, and could not complete their further
cosmic evolution on the Earth. Thus we have the fact that one
kind of spiritual being remained connected with the Earth,
while other spiritual beings sent their active forces down to
Earth from the Sun. After the departure of the Sun from the
Earth we have, as it were, two spheres of activity, that of
the Earth with its beings and that of the Sun with its
beings. The Spiritual Beings who served mankind from a higher
sphere are those who chose the Sun as their dwelling-place,
and from this realm come the beings who have united
themselves from time to time with earthly humanity so that
they might aid the further evolution — both of Earth
and man.
In the myths
of various peoples we constantly find reference to such
‘Sun-heroes’ who have descended from spiritual
realms to participate in human evolution; and a man who is
filled by such a Sun-being is something far more than from
outward seeming he would appear to be. The outward appearance
of such a man is deceptive — it is Maya; but behind the
Maya is the real being who can only be guessed at by those
who can penetrate to the profoundest depths of such a nature.
In the Mysteries people knew, and still know, of this twofold
fact concerning the path of human evolution. People
distinguish now, as they distinguished in the past, divine
beings who descend to Earth from spiritual spheres, and men
who strive upwards from the Earth towards initiation into
spiritual mysteries. ‘With what kind of Being then are
we concerned in the Christ?
In the last
lecture we learnt that in the designation, ‘Christ, the
Son of the living God,’ we are concerned with a
descending Being. If we wish to describe Him by a word drawn
from Oriental philosophy He would be called ‘an
Avatar,’ a God who had descended. But we have only to
do with such a descending Being from a certain moment; and we
must accept what is described by all four Evangelists, by
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as such an appearance. At the
moment of the Baptism of John, a Being descended to our Earth
from the realms of Sun-existence and united with a human
being. Now we have to realize clearly that according to the
meaning of the four Evangelists this Sun-Being was greater
than any other Avatar, than any other Sun-Being who up to
that time had ever come to Earth. They, therefore, take
trouble to explain that a specially prepared being had to
advance from the side of humanity to meet this great
descending Being.
All four
Gospels, therefore, tell of the Sun-Being — the
‘Son of the living God’ — who came towards
men to aid their further progress; but only the Gospels of
Matthew and Luke speak of the man who evolved towards this
Sun-Being so that he might receive Him into himself. They
narrate how the human being for thirty years prepares for the
moment when he can receive the Sun-Being into himself.
Because the Being we call the Christ is so universal, so
all-comprising, it did not suffice that the bodily sheaths
that were to receive Him should be prepared in any simple
way. A quite specially prepared physical and etheric sheath
had to evolve, meet for the reception of this descending
Being. Whence these came we have seen in the course of our
study of the Matthew Gospel. But out of this same being whose
physical and etheric sheath had been prepared in accordance
with the teaching of Matthew, out of the forty-two
generations of the Hebrew people, there could not spring an
astral garment or a bearer of the ego suited to that
Sun-Being. For this, special arrangements were necessary, and
these were carried out by means of another human being. This
being we read of in the Gospel of Luke, where the writer of
that Gospel describes the early years of the so-called Nathan
Jesus. There we read of how the two became one.
This mystery
occurred when the ego-entity, forsaking the body of the
twelve-year-old Jesus of whom the writer of the Gospel of
Matthew tells, namely, the Zarathustra individuality, passed
into the Nathan Jesus of the Gospel of Luke. In this body he
continued to dwell, carrying on in it the further development
of those qualities acquired through his having assumed the
physical and etheric sheaths of the Jesus of the Gospel of
Matthew. In this body his higher principles ripened, until in
his thirtieth year they were ready for the reception of the
mighty Being who descended into them from higher worlds.
When seeking
to describe the whole course of these events as related in
the Gospel of Matthew we should have to say The writer first
directs his attention to answering the question: What kind of
physical and etheric body could serve such a Being as the
Christ for His life on earth? And because of what the writer
had experienced he could answer: In order that a suitable
physical and etheric body could be prepared it was necessary
that they should pass through forty-two generations of the
Hebrew people so that the attributes laid down in Abraham
might be fully developed. He could then continue to answer
the question further by telling us: Such a physical and
etheric body could only provide a fitting instrument if the
greatest individuality humanity had so far produced for the
comprehension of the Christ—that is the Zarathustra
individuality — made use of them up to his twelfth
year, at which time he had to leave this body and enter
another. This was the body of the Jesus of whom the writer of
the Gospel of Luke tells. From this point, the writer of the
Gospel of Matthew, turning from that to which he had given
his attention at first, deals exclusively with the Jesus of
whom we read in the Gospel of Luke, and follows the life of
Zarathustra until his thirtieth year. The moment had then
come, when the astral body and ego-bearer had been so far
evolved by Zarathustra that he could sacrifice them to the
mighty Being — the great Sun-spirit — who
descended from spiritual spheres and took possession of them.
This was the moment of the baptism by John in Jordan.
If we recall
once more the time when the earth was separated from the sun,
and the beings whose supreme Leader is the Christ withdrew
from the earth, we must say There were beings who let their
influences spread gradually over the earth, just as the
Christ, in the course of time, has allowed His influence to
be felt on earth. But we must not forget something else,
which is, that the nature of ancient Saturn as regards
substantiality was relatively much simpler than that of the
planetary bodies that arose later. It consisted of fire or
warmth, there was neither air nor water there, neither was
there light-ether. This light-ether came with the
Sun-evolution. Then, when later this passed over into the
Moon-evolution, the watery element appeared as a further
densification, on one hand, and sound or tone-ether as a
further refinement on the other. Solid substance was added to
these during the evolution of the Earth; this condition arose
as a further densification; life-ether being added at the
same time as a further refinement. We have therefore on the
earth — warmth, air or gaseous substance, water or
fluid substance, and solids or earthly substance. Opposed to
these as finer conditions we have light-ether, tone-ether,
and life-ether, this last being the finest etheric condition
known to us.
Now with the
departure of the Sun from the Earth, not only the material
part of the Sun left but the spiritual part left also. It was
only later, and by degrees, that this returned to the earth,
and it did not return entirely. I spoke of this at Munich
when lecturing on the
Six Days of Creation,
so I will only touch on it here.
Of the higher
etheric substances man is only aware of warmth and
light-ether. What he perceives as ‘sound’ is but
a reflection, a materialization, of the real tone that is in
tone-ether. When tone-ether is spoken of we refer to the
bearer of what is known as ‘The harmony of the
spheres,’ and is only to be heard clairaudiently. The
Sun certainly sends its light to the earth, in so far as this
is physical, but a higher condition also lives in the Sun.
People who know of these things do not speak in empty phrases
when with Goethe they say:—
‘The sun-orb sings, in
emulation,
Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round:
His path predestined through Creation,
He ends with step of thunder-sound.’
FAUST — Prologue in
Heaven.
This refers
to sphere-harmony, to that which lives in the sound-ether,
and can only be heard by man when he has attained initiation,
or when a Sun-being descends in order to hold intercourse
with one who has been chosen to become an instrument for the
further evolution of others. For such a one the Sun begins to
resound, and the sphere-harmonies to be heard.
Above the
tone-ether lies the life-ether. Just as the
‘word’ lies within mere tone, as something
possessing an inward soul-like content, so associated with
the meaning of the life-ether is that which in later Persian
times was called ‘Honover.’ The writer of the
Gospel of John calls this the ‘Logos,’ which as
meaning-filled tone belongs to the Being of the Sun.
Among those
blessed ones whose nature did not remain entirely deaf to
this ‘resounding Sun,’ we have to reckon
Zarathustra, who lived in the early part of our
post-Atlantean civilization. It is no myth, but a fact that
can be proved documentarily, that Zarathustra received
instruction through the ‘Sun-word.’ He had become
capable of hearing this. For what was the overwhelmingly
majestic teaching given by the original Zarathustra to his
pupils?
We might
describe it thus: Zarathustra was an instrument through whom
the sound, the meaning of the Sun-Word itself spoke. A
Persian legend tells how the ‘Sun-Word’ spoke by
the mouth of Zarathustra, how the secret or hidden word
behind the Sun spoke through him. This legend, in referring
to the astral body of the Sun, speaks of ‘Ahura
Mazdao,’ but also of the ‘Sun-word,’
translated later into Greek as the ‘Logos.’
When thinking
of this ancient Zarathustra, we realize that even so exalted
a person could not in those early times have been initiated
so as consciously to receive what he could afterwards pass on
to others, but that he must have been ensouled by a Higher
Being.
Zarathustra
could teach of Ahura Mazdao, because the Aura of the Sun
enfolded him, because the Spiritual-Being, Ahura Mazdao,
resounded in him, because the World-Light — the great
Aura — spoke through him. He was, as it were, the
external bodily garment of the Sun-god, who thus sent His
influence in advance down to man, though not as yet on earth
Himself. At that time the Sun-word was more inward.
It might be
said — speaking altogether in the sense of Zarathustra
— that he taught his disciples: ‘You must
understand that behind the physical sunlight there is a
Spiritual Light, just as behind physical man there is
something astral — his aura — so behind the sun
there is the “Great Aura”. You must regard the
physical sun as the light-body of a Being who will one day
come to earth it is the external bodily form of something
known to clairvoyant perception, and has an inner soul-nature
within it. Just as the soul expresses itself in sound, so the
Sun-word — the Logos — makes itself known by
means of the Sun-Aura!’
Zarathustra
gave to mankind the promise that one day the Light-being
would come down from the spheres of the Great Aura, and that
the soul of this Being would be the Sun-word. This is
something we find for the first time in Zarathustra; it is
the source from which his teaching springs. In it we have to
see a prophetic wisdom, which tells of the coming of the
Sun-aura and the Sun-word.
This teaching
continued to live from epoch to epoch in the mysteries. It
was the great consolation and hope of those who within human
evolution longed for higher things. And the less exalted
Sun-spirits, those associated with the earth, were able ever
and again to give more precise teaching concerning the Spirit
of the Sun-light, or Sun-aura, for they were really
messengers of the Sun-word.
This was one
side of the Mystery-tradition that passed down through the
ages. The other side was, that men should learn to know, and
by practice should be able to evolve upwards to meet, that
which was to descend to earth. In pre-Christian times it was
not yet possible for men to believe that without something
further a feeble individual could evolve to meet the
Sun-being, the Leader of the Hosts of the Sun, the Christ. It
was not possible for anyone to attain this by any form of
initiation. Hence the Gospel of Matthew describes how all the
life-giving forces of the Hebrew people were called upon to
produce such a man. On the other hand the Gospel of Luke
explains how through seventy-seven successive stages the best
that human nature could attain to was, as one might say,
filtered, in order that a fitting body might evolve to meet
the greatest Being Who was to come down to the earth.
In the
Mysteries, as was natural, the men who had to be instructed,
who had to be worked on, were ordinary feeble men, and were
quite unable to grasp what it was that now faced humanity or
that might be attained by single individuals. Therefore,
those who were to be initiated were graded into different
classes, and they approached the secrets of the Mysteries in
different ways. Some, for instance, were taught more how men
should live in the external world, what they ought to do
there in order to fit themselves to become a temple for the
descending Sun-being.
There were
other pupils of the Mysteries who were instructed more in
what was to evolve in the stillness of the soul if it wished
to gain an understanding, a feeling for and perception of the
Sun-spirit. Is it not natural that there should have been
certain pupils whose task it was, so to direct their outer
lives, so to be trained from childhood that their bodies
became temples for the descending Spirit? This was the case
in olden times; it is also the case to a certain extent
to-day, but the ordinary materialistic consciousness passes
it by.
Suppose the
time drew nigh when some great Being was to descend from
spiritual realms to give humanity a forward impulse in
evolution.
Those who
serve the Mysteries have to await such a moment; they have to
interpret the signs of the times. In quiet and retirement,
and without making any disturbance, they awaited the moment
when a God is to come down to Earth to give an upward impulse
to humanity. It was their duty also to watch humanity
carefully, to see if among men there were any who could be
trained and guided to fit them to receive such a Being into
themselves. When the descending Being is of exceptional
greatness such a man would have to be trained and prepared
from earliest childhood that he might be a temple fit to
receive Him. This also happens, and is also unnoticed. If the
life of these men is described, it is found that they follow
certain fundamental rules; even in outer concerns there is a
certain resemblance in their lives. When we glance back over
the course of human evolution we have to allow that here and
there we find individuals whose lives take a similar
course—even as regards external biographical facts.
This cannot be denied, and has even been remarked on by those
carrying out more recent research. Popular but not very
profound works have been produced lately showing similarities
in the lives of such persons. In the writings of Prof. Jensen
(Marburg) you find, for instance, comparisons between the
lives of the ancient Babylonian Gilgamesch, Moses, Jesus, and
Paul. The tables are beautifully drawn up; he takes certain
incidents from the lives of these individuals and compares
them, with the result that quite wonderful resemblances are
revealed, puzzling to the materialistic mind. The conclusions
drawn are natural; it is stated that in these biographies one
myth is copied from the others, that the writers of the Life
of Jesus copied the biography of Gilgamesch, that the story
of the life of Moses is but an old Epic, served up in a new
form, and the final conclusion arrived at is: none of them
has existed as a physical personality, not Moses, nor Jesus,
nor Paul. People have no idea how far these so-called
‘researches’ lead them in respect of
materialistic explanations.
Similarity of
this kind in the biographies of great individuals rests on
nothing more than the fact that in childhood they were
already trained to become the bearers of a Divine Being; this
causes no astonishment when we understand the deeper lying
paths of human and universal evolution. Not only comparisons
with Mythology, but all those searchings after similarities
in regard to mythical sources is, in fact, fantasy. It leads
nowhere. What does it benefit us to prove resemblances in the
life of Siegfried to some Greek hero? They do certainly
contain similarities. But the appearance of a house is not
what matters, but who lives in it! It matters not that such
and such things occurred in the life of Siegfried, but who
the individuality was that dwelt in him.
Such things
can, however, only be established with the help of occult
research. What we have to bear in mind is that the lives of
men who were to become fitting temples for higher Beings
coming to the aid of humanity were guided in a special way,
and that their lives show therefore a similar course as
regards certain fundamental features.
In the
temples of the Mysteries there have always been precepts
regarding what had to come about with such men. Similar
precepts were preserved by the association of the Essenes
concerning Christ Jesus; telling what the nature of those
human beings had to be who as the Solomon and the Nathan
Jesus evolved upwards towards the great Sun-being, the
Christ.
But those
seeking initiation were not initiated into everything. There
were different classes and degrees of initiates. Thus to some
it was shown with special clearness what a man had to undergo
who was evolving towards the God, so that he might be worthy
to receive the God into himself. To others it was given to
know how a God acted when He revealed Himself in a man; or to
put it trivially, when he revealed Himself as a
‘genius.’ It is not generally remarked to-day
that genius is apt to reveal itself in similar ways when
appearing in different people. Nowadays people do not write
biographies from out the spirit. If the genius of Goethe were
to be described from the aspect of the spirit, a wonderful
similarity would be found for instance between his genius and
that of Dante, Homer, and Aeschylus. People do not now write
biographies, but stick placards and tickets on a person and
repeat all kinds of trivialities concerning the
person's external life, which interests most people
much more. So we are presented with a vast accumulation of
ticketed rubbish concerning the life of Goethe, but not a
real account of what Goethe actually was. Mankind to-day
declares itself to be in some respects, and actually with
pride, incapable of describing the evolution of genius in a
human personality. There is a desire to-day to bring to light
the earliest efforts of our great poets, stressing the fact
that in the freshness and originality of their early works
something elemental lived which is lost to the man in later
life. But the real fact underlying this is that in their
arrogance men only wish to understand the young poet, and not
to take part in all he goes through in later life. Men pride
themselves on the fact that they understand
‘youth,’ they trouble little about the
‘old,’ and have no idea that it is not the old
who have become ‘old,’ but that they themselves
have remained mere children.
This evil is
widely spread. Seeing it is so deeply rooted, we need not
wonder at the little understanding there is of the fact that
a divine being can enter into a human personality, and that
the life-course of such divine beings in any person and in
any age must be fundamentally the same.
As there was
necessarily much to be learnt as regards these profound
relationships, this domain of knowledge was divided into
classes. In a certain division of the Mysteries, teaching was
given concerning the preparation of a man so that he might
rise towards a divine being, whereas in others teaching was
given concerning the descent of the inner Light-being, the
Logos, the Sun-word, contained in the Aura of the Sun-being.
In Christ we see this gradual descent in its most complex
form. We need not wonder if more than four men had been
needed for the understanding of these mighty facts; four,
however, took it as their task. Two of these, the writers of
the Gospels of Matthew and of Luke, undertook to relate the
nature of the personality who grew towards the descending
Sun-being — Matthew telling of this in respect of the
physical and etheric bodies, Luke in respect of the
astral-body and the bearer of the ego.
Mark on the
other hand does not concern himself with that which advanced
towards the Sun-being; but tells us of the Sun-Aura, the
great body of light, the Spiritual Light whose power and
activity streamed through space and was active within the
form of Christ Jesus. He therefore begins his Gospel with the
Baptism of John, when the Light of the World came
down to earth. In the Gospel of John we are told of the soul
of this Sun-spirit — of the Logos or Sun-word —
its most inward essence. This is why the Gospel of John is
the most inward of all the Gospels. The facts are
distributed, and the complicated nature of Christ Jesus
described from four different sides. All the four Evangelists
tell of the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth, but each of them
feels constrained to keep to the point from which he makes
his start, the point concerning which he first attained
clairvoyance so that he might be able to describe this very
complicated Being.
It is well
that we should review this once more, so that it may really
penetrate the soul. Matthew's attention is directed to
the birth of the Jesus of the Solomon line he describes the
development of the forces of the physical and etheric bodies,
and tells how these sheaths were later discarded by
Zarathustra, and how he passed on to the Jesus of the Nathan
line all he had acquired while in the physical and etheric
body of the Solomon Jesus. Matthew has then to trace further
what he does not describe at the beginning, the fate of all
that which as qualities and consequences had passed over from
the Solomon Jesus to the Nathan Jesus. His attention is not
so much directed to what was elemental in the nature of the
astral body and ego-bearer of the Nathan Jesus, but to that
which had been passed on to him from his own, the Solomon
Jesus. And as he describes the Sun-being Who came from above,
he is mainly concerned with telling of the qualities that
could only be possessed by Jesus because he had an etheric
and astral body that had been built up by the Solomon Jesus.
These qualities could naturally be remarked in the Christ,
for they were there, but that part of Christ Jesus which had
attracted his attention from the first, he continues to
describe most exactly, for this was for him the most
important.
The writer of
the Gospel of Mark tells from the first of the great
descending Sun-spirit; he describes no earthly Being; that
which walked the earth in human form provided for him only
the means by which the nature of the Spirit that worked
within it might be revealed. He draws our attention to the
facts that appeal most to him, namely, the way in which the
forces of the Sun-spirit worked. Hence many of the things
related in the Gospels of Matthew and of Mark are the same,
but they are told from different points of view. The first
describes more the character of the sheaths, showing
especially how qualities which were apparent in later years
had already been present in early youth, and describing these
so that we see how they worked. The writer of the Gospel of
Mark, on the other hand, only makes use of the physical Jesus
in order to reveal to us the earthly activities of the
Sun-spirit. This he does to the smallest detail. If you wish
really to understand the Gospels in these details you must
bear in mind that the Evangelists fixed their attention on
that which had attracted them from the beginning
Hence the
writer of the Gospel of Luke keeps his eyes fixed on
what is important to him, namely, the astral body and the
bearer of the ego. What Christ Jesus experienced as a
physical person does not interest him so much, but rather the
feelings and perceptions of the astral body and the
ego-bearer. All tenderness and compassion come from the
astral body, and Christ Jesus could only be the Being of
compassion He was, because He possessed the astral body of
the Nathan Jesus. So this writer draws attention from the
first to the compassion of Christ Jesus, and all the things
He could accomplish, because He bore within Him this special
astral body.
The writer of
the Gospel of John turns his attention to the most
exalted Power working on earth — the inner force of the
Sun-Spirit, brought down through the instrumentality of
Jesus. Neither does the physical life interest him
particularly, but he looks to the Highest, to the pure
Sun-Logos; the physical Jesus is for him only the means by
which he can trace the relationship of the Sun-Logos to man.
That which attracts his attention in the beginning, holds it
to the end.
When we look
on sleeping humanity we see our external sheaths, our
physical and etheric bodies. In these two members live all
the forces that have come to us from divine beings who,
through mi1licns and millions of years have worked at
erecting this temple of the physical body. In this temple we
have lived since Lemurian times, and have defiled it ever
more and more. It was constructed for us originally during
the Saturn, Sun, and Moon ages of evolution. In it divine
beings have lived and worked constructively. Looking at our
physical body we can say: This is a temple provided for us by
the gods; gods who have constructed this temple for us out of
solid substance. And in the ether body we have that which
contains the finer substances of our being; we are only
unable to see these because through the influences of Lucifer
and Ahriman we have become incapable of doing so. In this
ether body lives also that which appertains to the Sun in it
resound the actively formative Sphere-harmonies which the
gods perceive behind all purely physical nature. So of the
ether body we can say: Exalted Beings live in it, Gods that
are closely related to the Sun-Spirits.
In this way
we must regard our physical and etheric bodies as the most
perfect members of our being. When we have forsaken them in
sleep, when they slip from us, they are at once filled with
the life and activity of divine beings.
The writer of
the Gospel of Matthew keeps the physical body of
Christ Jesus before him as his main object through all the
Gospel, as it was his main object from the first. The
materially physical body, however, no longer existed, this
had been given up in its twelfth year; but the divine part
— its forces — passed over into the other
physical body, that of the Nathan Jesus. The reason why the
physical body of Jesus of Nazareth was so perfect was that he
had filled it with the forces he derived from the body of the
Solomon Jesus.
Let us now
try to picture in what way the writer of this Gospel regarded
the Jesus dying on the cross. He had always kept his
attention fixed on that which it was his special mission to
describe, that of which he tells in the beginning; but now
the spiritual part forsakes the physical body, and what is
godlike departs with it. So the attention of the writer of
the Gospel is directed to the separation of the inner being
of Christ Jesus from this Divinity in His physical nature.
And the ancient cry which was always heard in the Mysteries
when the spiritual nature of a man forsook his physical body
to gaze into spiritual worlds — ‘My God, my God,
how hast thou glorified me!’ — is altered by
Matthew; so that with his attention fixed on the physical
body he says, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me!’ ‘Thou has gone from me! This is what he
exclaims. It is on this ‘forsaking’ that the
writer of the Gospel of Matthew fixes his attention at this
moment.
The author of
the Gospel of Mark, on the other hand, describes the
approach of the external forces of the Sun-Aura, and tells
how the Sun-Aura, the body of the Sun-Being unites with the
etheric body. This etheric body is in the same situation as
ours when we sleep. As our external powers go forth from us
when we sleep so they went forth from Jesus at His physical
death. Hence we find the same cry in the Gospel of Mark.
The writer of
the Gospel of Luke also directs his attention at the
death of Christ Jesus to that which claimed it in the
beginning: to the astral body and ego-bearer. Therefore he
does not make use of the same words. His attention is
directed mainly to other facts, to facts connected with the
astral body, which at this moment attained its climax of
compassion and love. Hence he renders the cry as
‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do!’
This is an
expression of tenderness that could only come from such an
astral body as the writer of the Gospel of Luke directs our
attention to from the first; and the highest development of
humility and devotion resulting from this is what claims his
attention at the last. Therefore he gives the last words of
Christ Jesus as ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend My
Spirit!’
John
tells us of what, though certainly derived from the earth,
was to be realized by man in the ordering of the earth, the
meaning of earthly organization as it is contained in the
Sun-Word. His attention is, therefore, directed mainly to
what, as organization, was accomplished from the Cross on
Golgotha. He describes to us how at this moment the Christ
establishes a higher Brotherhood than that of
blood-relationship. The former brotherhood arose through the
blood. Mary was the mother of the child according to the
blood. But that which was to unite soul with soul in love was
inaugurated by Christ Jesus.
He gave to
the disciple whom He loved not his mother according to the
blood, but He gave to him his true mother in Spirit. Thus,
renewing old bonds which had been lost to humanity, the words
heard from the Cross come down to us in a new sense:
‘Behold thy Son!’ and ‘Behold thy
Mother!’
That which as
organizing quality lay here at the foundation of a new kind
of fellowship is contained in the Life-ether, which
organizes life, and which streamed into the earth in
the Deed of Christ. Thus, behind all that the Evangelists
tell us, we have a single act — the Deed of Christ; but
each tells of it from the point of view which he took up from
the beginning. The reason is that each of the Evangelists was
absorbed in what his clairvoyant vision revealed to him and
which he was fitted to receive; the rest passed him by. We
now realize that this all-comprehensive event, which is
described to us from four sides, is not full of
contradictions. Once we are able to gather these different
points of view into one we learn to understand it just
because it is so described. It then also seems quite natural
that the confession of Peter, with which we dealt in the last
lecture, is only found in the Gospel of Matthew, and not in
the others.
Mark
describes the Christ as the Sun-Force, as a universal cosmic
force at work in the world, which is now to work in a new
way. It is the majestic power of the Sun-Aura in its
elemental activity of which he tells. Luke, in
speaking of the inner nature of Christ Jesus, describes
preferably the astral body, the single human individual, man
as he lives in himself; for it is in the astral-body
that man lives in himself, here in his deepest individuality,
here he develops within his inner self. Man does not form
fellowships primarily by means of his astral body; the
community-building capacity by which he enters into
relationship with other men appears in the etheric body. Luke
has, therefore, no inclination to tell us of the founding of
any fellowship. Neither has the writer of the Gospel of John,
who describes to us the ego-being. But Matthew, who
describes Christ Jesus as man, has special inducement to
speak of those human relationships established by the God Who
once and only once dwelt within a human form. He is
constrained to lay special stress on the relationships, the
fellowships that God, as man, was able to establish among
men, a relationship which could be regarded as a
‘Community,’ as an association in which many
dwell together. The human aspect of Christ Jesus is
what he describes, because this was the aspect to which he
turned his attention in the beginning, and he shows how
Christ worked as man through the physical and etheric body he
had assumed.
When we have
gained an inner understanding of this, we find it natural
that the expression which has stirred up so much controversy,
‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I establish my
community’ could only be found in the Gospel of
Matthew. When we look at all the discussions of modern
theologians of most varied schools concerning these words, we
really only find particular and unique reasons for accepting
them or rejecting them; nowhere, however, do we find an
understanding for their deeper meaning. Those who reject them
do so because the external community of the Catholic Church
upholds them; for the external organization of this church is
founded on them. That they are misused in this sense is no
proof that they were originally introduced to support the
Catholic Church. Those who reject them do not really know
what to bring forward against them, for they do not see the
misinterpretations. These gentlemen are in a strange
position. Some state that the Gospel of Mark is the original
Gospel, that to it was then added those of Matthew and Luke,
which, they say, are to some extent copied and enlarged from
it, and that it had occurred to the writers of the Gospel of
Matthew, and of Luke, to insert these words. They specially
state this with regard to the Gospel of Matthew, because they
say he wished to support the idea of the community by
inserting the words: ‘Thou art Peter, on this rock I
will found my community.’
In any case
parts of the text are of little help in the rendering of
certain passages, because it is impossible to say regarding
some ancient texts that this or that is the word actually
used; but as regards these words in the Gospel of Matthew it
is a fact that they belong to what is most certain in it, for
here we have no possible philological reason for doubt. Many
sayings may be open to doubt in such complicated
communications, but from the standpoint of philology no
objections can be brought against these two statements
‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’
and the other, ‘Thou art Peter, on this rock will I
build my community, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it.’ No text exists to which objections can be
made in respect of these sayings. Perhaps it was hoped that
from texts more recently discovered some contradiction of
these words might be found, but the passages to which I refer
are not found in these texts, portions of which are very much
perished.
This at least
is the outcome of philological research. Naturally you must
rely on what is reported by those who have seen these
documents. Of this passage we can state that no other
rendering of it is possible, and from the whole nature of the
Gospel of Matthew we can well see that this must be so.
Christ Jesus is here described as a man. Once we have this
key we can understand the Gospel of Matthew and we can also
understand the parables told by Christ Jesus to His disciples
and to those who were outside his immediate circle.
In the last
lecture we showed how man evolves upwards from below until he
unfolds the spiritual-soul like a blossom, until he has
developed so far that the Christ-impulse comes to meet
him.
The five
principles of human nature which developed in man during the
five epochs of civilization — the ether body, astral
body, sentient-soul, rational-soul, and spiritual-soul evolve
upwards from below. These can be so used, trained, and
developed that they acquire what makes it possible for them
— when the time is ripe — to be permeated by the
Christ-impulse. In future ages all humanity will be able to
develop so that they can participate in the Christ, but they
must first develop fittingly these five principles of their
being from below. If this is not done, if through succeeding
incarnations they do not concern themselves with the
development of these principles, then the Christ can come to
them; but they cannot unite themselves with Him. They have no
oil in their lamps These five. principles may be left without
oil. Those who have poured no oil into their lamps are
represented very beautifully in the parable of ‘the
five foolish Virgins.’ Those who had not attended to
their lamps in time could not unite themselves with Christ;
but the other five who had put oil in their lamps could in
the right hour do so.
All the
parables founded on numbers are profoundly illuminating as
regards the impulse brought by Christ to men.
Further, He
makes it clear to those who regard His teaching outwardly,
that many external thing must not be considered merely in a
material sense, or in the most obvious way, but rather as
symbols for something else. He wishes to point out to them
the nature of their own thoughts. He asks for a coin, and
showing them the likeness of Caesar imprinted on it, points
out that something more is expressed by the coin than is
merely contained in the metal, namely, its connection with a
certain ruler, with a certain Empire. ‘What in this
belongs to Caesar, render to him; it is his, and is contained
in his likeness on the coin, not in the metal itself.’
‘But learn,’ He also wished to teach them,
‘to regard men, and what is in them, in a like manner,
for they are the temples of the living God. Look on men as
you would look on a coin, learn, that in them you see the
image of God; you will then know that they belong to
God.’
All these
parables have a much deeper meaning than the trivial one
generally accepted. We learn this when we know that Christ
did not make use of parables as is customary in the
literature of the day. In making use of them He directs them
to the whole nature of man, obliging people when they think
them out to apply them to their whole nature, not to its
separate parts. In this way He shows how, if they are to be
shown that something is irrational, they must learn to pass
with their thoughts from one realm to another.
For example,
people have thought out all kinds of Sun-myths in connection
with Buddha, Christ, and others. It became at last too much
for one person. He said therefore: ‘With these methods
of applying Myths and Constellations to any great event, it
is possible to do anything. If someone comes and points out
that in the life of Christ we have a Sun-myth, in order to
show that Christ Jesus never lived, one can also assert by
such methods that Napoleon never lived, and can easily prove
it. We might say: In the name of Napoleon we have a rendering
of “Apollo”, the initial “N” does not
represent a negative in Greek but an intensification; hence
Napoleon is N'Apollo — a kind of
“Super-Apollo”. The resemblance can be carried
still further by the individual who sets out to prove the
non-existence of Jesus. A resemblance is found by the German
Prof. Drews between the names Jesus, Joses, Jason, etc., etc.
Marvellous connections can also be discovered between the
name of Napoleon's mother, Letitia, and Leto, the
mother of Apollo; further, that Apollo — the Sun
— had twelve constellations around him; Napoleon had
twelve Marshals, who are nothing more than symbolic
expressions for the Zodiacal signs surrounding the sun. It is
not unimportant that the hero of the Napoleon myth had six
brothers and sisters, he making the seventh, just as the
planets are seven in number. Behold, therefore, Napoleon did
not live!
This is a
very clever satire on the symbolic explanations so frequently
employed. Men never really learn, otherwise they would have
known that according to these methods — which they even
employ to-day — it would have been proved long since
that Napoleon, for example, never lived. But humanity never
learns, for according to the same methods it is proved again
to-day that Jesus never lived.
Such things
show how necessary it is that we should not approach what the
Gospels have to tell concerning the greatest Event in all the
world, without preparation. We must realize also that it is
exactly here that Anthroposophy ma so easily go wrong. For
even our movement is by no means free from playing with all
kinds of Symbolism drawn from the world of the stars.
I wished,
therefore, especially in this cycle of lectures, where I have
spoken of the greatest Event in human evolution as having
been revealed in the language of the stars, to point out the
true way in which this language is employed when what is
referred to is really understood.
With this
preparation, let us approach the scene in which the Gospels
culminate. I have already referred to the baptism and the
history of the life and death of Christ Jesus as two stages
of initiation. To this I have only to add that after He had
led His disciples to.the point where they could perceive the
going forth of the innermost being of a man into the
Macrocosm, where they could see beyond death, He accomplished
a resurrection before them, but not in the trivial sense in
which it is often understood. This took place absolutely as
told in the Gospel of Matthew. Let us take the words just as
they stand — and as clearly stated also in the Gospel
of John — and understand that what Paul says is true
when he tells us: Through what he had experienced on the
way to Damascus, he had seen the Christ, as the Risen
One!
Paul lays
special stress on the fact that what was revealed to him was
the same as was revealed to the other brethren, to the
twelve, and to the five hundred also, at one time. The Christ
was seen by him, as others saw him after the
resurrection. This is amply indicated in the Gospels,
where we read that Mary of Magdala, who had seen the Christ a
few days before, seeing Him after the resurrection takes Him
to be the gardener, for she finds no resemblance to Him she
had known before. If He had really looked as He had a few
days before, it would have been impossible for in this case
it would have been an abnormal fact.
No one would
believe you if you said that you could not recognize someone
you had seen a few days before, if he reappeared in the same
form a few days later. We have, therefore, to realize clearly
that a change had in fact taken place. Reading the Gospels
closely we arrive at the necessary conclusion, that through
all that had taken place in Palestine, through the Mystery of
Golgotha, the eyes of the disciples had been opened, and that
they were able to recognize the Christ as He was, as the
Spirit penetrating, and working, through the whole world.
They recognized Him for what He was, after He had given over
His physical body to the earth, and saw that He remained just
as powerfully active for the earth as He had been before.
All this is
made amply clear to us in the Gospel of Matthew, in words
perhaps the most remarkable to be found in any document. We
are clearly shown that the writer of this Gospel desires to
inform us: Christ appeared once upon a time in a human
physical body, but this event is not merely an event, it is
an Impulse — an Original Cause. It
has results, it has an effect.
The
Sun-Word or Sun-aura, of which Zarathustra once
spoke as being outside the earth, has through the life of
Christ Jesus become united with the earth, and has remained
so. Before this, what was later united with the earth was not
so united with it.
It is fitting
that we Anthroposophists should understand this fact. We then
also understand that it was the risen Christ Who revealed
Himself to the eyes of the disciples, now become clairvoyant,
and showed them how as Spirit He was now interwoven with the
earth and could say to them: ‘Go forth and make
disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them
to observe all things whichsoever I commanded you! and lo! I
am with you always, even unto the end of the
Earth-age!’
It is the
mission of Spiritual Science to help us to understand what
was then beginning; that the Aura of the earth has been
united with the Sun-Aura, and that it can be seen by those
whose spiritual eyes are opened, that this Sun-Aura, in the
Earth-Aura, which was visible to Paul, can also be heard when
our inward ears are opened to hear the Sun-word as it was
heard by Lazarus, he who had been initiated by Christ Jesus
Himself.
The purpose
of Spiritual Science is to interpret these facts to us. It
has also to interpret for us what has taken place with regard
to the spiritual evolution of the world. In doing this
Spiritual Science actually establishes that which Christ
Jesus desired to establish, and does so in the sense of the
Gospel of Matthew.
There is one
very beautiful saying in the Gospel of Matthew that is
generally wrongly translated. The saying: ‘I am not
come down to remove peace from earth, but to remove the
sword.’ This most beautiful message of peace has
unfortunately in the course of time been changed into its
very opposite. In order gradually to deliver the earth from
that which brings strife and disharmony among men, the
Christ-Being had impressed Himself — His own nature
— on the spiritual life of the Earth. Spiritual Science
will establish peace when, in this sense, she has become so
truly Christ-like that she unites all religions. She can then
unite not only what is in our immediate neighbourhood, but
when the act of the greatest of all Peacemakers is
understood, she can establish peace over the whole earth.
It is
certainly not in accordance with the greatest Peacemaker that
fanatical people should go from one part of the earth to
another and impose a narrow Christian teaching on a people
whose conditions make such a teaching unsuitable in the form
it has taken among another people.
Great
mistakes were made when teaching concerning Christ was
carried over to the East in our time, and imposed on people
here and there.
It has often
been pointed out to you as Anthroposophists that the Christ
does not belong only to Christians; that in reality the same
being was referred to by Zarathustra when he spoke of Ahura
Mazdao, and by the seven Indian Rishis when they spoke of
Vicva Karman. We live in the West, and we know that it is
Christ who is spoken of, when in the East other words are
used. We strive to understand the Christ so that this
understanding is in accordance with human evolution —
with the further progress of humanity. And we clearly realize
that neither discernment nor revelation can give us
information concerning Christ which turns men from Him, that
only those things vouchsafe information to us concerning Him,
which consciously bear within them the living content of
Christ Himself. And we know when we speak in the right way of
Vicva Karman and Ahura Mazdao to those who deny Christ
— when we do not force names on them — that they
can attain of themselves to an understanding of the Christ.
We do not wish to force the Christ on them in name, we
realize clearly when we are not only Anthroposophists but
Occultists that names mean little, that it is the Being that
matters. Were we convinced but for a moment that we could
express the being who is in the Christ by any other name we
would do so What we are concerned with is the truth, not with
our prejudices because of living in one corner of the earth
and belonging to one people. It must not be said of us that
we understand the Christ through means not fitted to an
understanding of Him, because outside His influence, this
would be impossible for anyone. Christ can be found also by
other nations, but He must be sought by means derived from
Himself. People should not reproach Anthroposophists for
wishing to study Christianity in forms not derived from
Christianity itself. Christ can not be comprehended by
Oriental names. He is not understood through them at all;
such people look close past Him, thinking perhaps that they
have seen Him.
What does it
mean when people put forward the objection that we view
Christ from a theosophical or oriental standpoint? Have we to
deny that the Christ came to us from the East? We have no
such wish, but people seek in this way to force us to take
the West to the East, and to form a conception of Christ in
accordance with the East. This must not and cannot be, not
from any aversion, but because Eastern ideas, which have a
very ancient origin, cannot reach out to grasp the idea of
Christ, and because the Christ can only be absolutely and
entirely understood through that line of evolution into which
first Abraham and then Moses entered. But the being of
Zarathustra passed on into Moses, and we have to seek him
there, to where his influence has extended.
Further, we
must not seek Zarathustra in the ancient Zarathustrian
literature, but where he reincorporated in Jesus of Nazareth!
We must consider evolution!
In the same
way we must not look for the Buddha as he was six hundred
years before our era, but where the writer of the Gospel of
Luke tells us he is to be found, where his light streamed
from on high, after he had evolved from Bodhisattva to
Buddha, and shone down into the astral body of the Jesus of
the Gospel of Luke. Here the Buddha is to be found, and here
we learn to know him in his further progress.
It can be
seen from this how religions absolutely agree, and work
together to bring about the advance of humanity. It is not a
matter of preaching the tenets of Anthroposophy, but that we
place them in a setting of living feeling — that we do
not merely talk of tolerance and remain intolerant because we
have a prejudice in favour of one religious system or
another. We are only tolerant when we measure each with its
own standards and understand each for itself.
It is
certainly not our fault nor the fault of our special
prejudices that many religious systems have apparently
co-operated to bring Christianity about. In spiritual realms,
where the great spiritual beings have worked, things have
progressed in a different way from on Earth, where those who
confess these various religions are active. Some of these
earthly confessors, for example, summoned a conference in
Tibet to establish an orthodox teaching in the name of Buddha
at the very time when the actual Buddha had come down to
inspire the astral body of the Jesus spoken of in the Gospel
of Luke. So it always is. The confessors of a faith hold fast
to that which has continued working on earth; meanwhile
divine beings have carried the work on further so that
mankind may advance. Humanity makes most progress when men
try to understand their Gods, when they try to advance with
them. Such a thought ought to give us a living feeling, a
living understanding, of what we glimpse in the different
Gospels.
You have seen
that in studying the three Gospels so far dealt with we have
to recognize something different in each of them. When to
these we shall have added the study of the Gospel of Mark we
shall find that it reveals a very intimate knowledge of
Cosmology. Ahura Mazdao, who is active in all space, can be
described in a right connection in this Gospel, just as the
secret concerning the blood, concerning the connection of the
individual with the race from which he has sprung is
described in the Gospel of Matthew.
Accept what I
have ventured to describe in these lectures as one
side of the great Christ Event, and realize that far from
everything has been said concerning it. The time is perhaps
not yet come when all that might be said concerning this
Great Mystery can be said, even in small circles such as
ours. The best result that can come from the presentations of
these facts is that we accept them not only with our
understanding and intellect, but that we associate them with
the innermost phases of our soul life—with the deepest
feelings of our hearts — and there let them live
on.
The words of
the Gospels are words that, when we receive them into our
hearts and really understand them, become powers; powers that
fill us and develop a marvellous life-force within us.
To-day, when I have to say the final words in connection with
this course of lectures on the Gospel of Matthew, I should
like to say something I have frequently said before, and
which I should like especially to associate with this humanly
beautiful document of our Christian records — the
Gospel of Matthew.
What strikes
us most when reading the Gospel of Matthew which from the
very first brings before us the manhood of Christ Jesus?
Though
recognizing the great difference between any other earthly
man and that man who could receive the Christ, yet in all
humility we would say that what strikes us most forcibly is
the value of man, what he is worthy of. Then,
although our nature is far far removed from that of the
nature of Jesus of Nazareth, we may yet venture to say: We
bear our human nature within us, and this human nature shows
itself to be such that it can receive into it the Son of
God, the Son of the living God; so that from this
acceptance the promise can spring that the Son of God will
from this time forward remain connected with the earth, and
that when the earth will have reached its goal all men
will be permeated with the substance and nature of Christ, in
so far as they have desired to receive this into
themselves. We have need of humility if we are to
cherish such an ideal. If not so cherished it develops pride
and conceit in us; we then think only of what we may become
as men, and do not sufficiently keep in mind how little we
have so far to show. This ideal must be experienced with
humility. When understood in this way it rises before us with
such majesty and power, and is so overwhelming in its
splendour that we are forced to be humble. Our humility need
not overwhelm us, however, for we have the Reality of this
ideal before us, and when we understand the Reality, however
small our power may be, yet it will bear us ever higher and
higher towards our Divine Goal.
The
Rosicrucian Mystery Play strikes the entire scale in tones as
we need them in ascending progress—firstly in the
second scene where Johannes Thomasius stands shattered under
the overwhelming impression from the words, ‘O man,
know thou thyself;’ secondly, where in the ninth scene,
under the impression of the words, ‘O man, feel and
experience thou thyself;’ he feels exultingly raised to
the wide spaces of Heaven. Keeping this before us, and with
help from it, we can understand the majesty and grandeur
which meets us in the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew,
revealing as it does our own littleness and demanding our
humility, but at the same time pointing to the inner truth
and inner reality which lift us out of all that seems like an
abyss of our own littleness, compared with what we should
be and can become.
If frequently
we are conscious of feeling crushed when comparing what we
are with the human divine greatness that can be in man, yet
if we have but the goodwill we can experience something of
the divine Impulse coming from the ‘Son of the living
God,’ we can call to mind Christ Jesus, who Himself
exhorts us, here where as men we experience the ego of which
He is the most exalted Representative, crying to us in
clear-cut tones for all the ages to come, ‘O man,
experience thyself.’
When we
understand the humanity of the Gospel of Matthew in
this way — and hence it is the Gospel which lies most
near to us — there streams to us from it the courage to
live, the power and hope to stand fast, whatever our
life-work may be. If we do so, we shall have best understood
what it was intended that these words should convey to us.
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