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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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The Gospel of St. John
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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The Gospel of St. John
Schmidt Number: S-1259
On-line since: 15th January, 2001
First Lecture
Berlin, 19th February, 1906
Today
and next time I am going to speak about the Gospel of St.
John. I would mention that what I have to say will only
really be comprehensible to those who are already somewhat
familiar with spiritual science. It would, however, take us
too far out of our way if we went into everything unfamiliar
to non-theosophists. You are probably aware that latterly New
Testament textual criticism has discredited the John Gospel
as an historical source. It is said in theological circles
— at least in advanced circles — that the first
three gospels, the synoptic gospels, are the only documents
relevant to the life of the founder of Christianity. They are
called synoptic because they can be taken together to form a
general picture of the life of Christ Jesus. On the other
hand modern theologians try to interpret the John Gospel as a
sort of poetic work, a confession of faith, the writings of a
person portraying his feelings, his intimate religious life
as it was born in him through the impact of Christianity.
Thus the John Gospel could be considered as a devotional
work, a deeply felt confession of faith, not as anything that
could be taken as Christian historical facts.
But for
everyone who immerses himself in the writings of the New
Testament, one fact is indisputable: an immediate life flows
from the John Gospel, and there is a conviction, a source of
truth of a different nature to that proceeding from other
religious writings. There is a certainty, which needs no
outer confirmation. There is a feeling that comes over one
when one meets the John Gospel if one is sensitive to inner
soul life and spiritual devotion. Only with the help of
spiritual science can one understand why this is so. Many a
time have I told you how spiritual science helps towards a
more intimate connection with religious documents.
You all
know that when one first meets the scriptures one adopts the
attitude of a simple person and takes the facts as they are
described, without criticism; one takes the bread of
religious life from these sources and is satisfied with
it.
Many
people of our day who had this naive outlook and then became
“clever”, became “enlightened”,
noticed the contradictions in the gospels. Then they rejected
the gospels and lost faith. They said: We cannot reconcile
remaining faithful to these writings and seeking wisdom in
them with our conscience and our sense of truth. This is the
stage of the “clever” ones, the second stage.
Then
there is the third way that people approach religious
documents. They begin to explain them symbolically. They
begin to see symbols and allegories in them. This is the way
of free-thinkers, especially in recent times.
Bruno
Wille, the editor of the paper “Der Freidenker”
(The Free Thinker), has now chosen this way. He has taken to
explaining symbolically the Christ myth and the Bible in
general. The really necessary way of development that man
needs, an inner turning point, cannot follow from this. Those
who are less ingenious will explain the scriptures less
ingeniously. Others who are more ingenious will be better.
Much will be read into it that springs from human ingenuity.
The third way is thus a half believing, but arbitrary,
attitude.
Then
there is quite a different standpoint. One learns that there
are realities pertaining to higher worlds, that besides our
world of the senses, there are soul-spiritual things, and
that religious revelations are not concerned with the sense
world but present facts of a higher world. Those who have
gotten to know the realities of the astral world which lies
behind our sense world, and of the devachanic (or mental
world) which lies even deeper, will come to a new and higher
understanding of religious sources. It is impossible to
understand the John Gospel without rising to such higher
worlds. The John Gospel is not a poetic work, nor a writing
arising from mere religious fervour, but sets forth
revelations from higher worlds that the writer of the gospel
has received. It is something like this — I will
briefly describe it. The supporting evidence I will not deal
with today; perhaps I can go into it next time. The writer of
the John Gospel learned, through experience in higher worlds,
what took place at “the beginning of our era“
that related to the life of the founder of Christianity, and
his acts.
Let me
give you an example of the difference between just knowing,
and truly comprehending. We have recently mentioned here that
someone can be next to us, we can see what he looks like, but
we need not necessarily really know him for what he is. I
have told the story of the singer who, at an evening party
sat between Mendelsohn and someone else she did not know. She
got on very well with Mendelsohn, but towards the other
guest, though he was very courteous, she felt an aversion.
Afterwards she asked, “Who was that bore on my
left?” The answer was, “It was the famous
philosopher Hegel”. If the lady had been told
previously that the great philosopher Hegel would be present
at a party, that alone would probably have been enough for
her to have accepted the invitation. But because he sat
beside her unknown, he was a bore. This is the difference
between seeing and understanding, between just knowing and
comprehending.
He who
was the founder of Christianity could not readily be
recognised if one only possessed the ordinary intellect
employed in the sense world. It needed that which the
Christian mystics so often expressed in profound and
beautiful language. This was what Angelus Silesius meant when
he said:
If
Christ were born in Bethlehem a thousand times
And not in thee thyself; then art thou lost
eternally.
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There is
an inner experience of Christ — there is the
possibility to realize inwardly what took place outwardly as
events in Palestine between the years 1 and 33 A.D. He who
came into this world from higher worlds must be understood
from a higher world. And he who portrayed Him most deeply had
to raise himself to the two higher worlds we have mentioned,
the astral and the devachanic, or mental worlds. This
elevation of John, if we so name him, was the elevation into
these two higher worlds. His Gospel reveals this to us.
The
first twelve chapters contain John's experiences in the
astral world. From chapter thirteen onwards it is his
experiences in the devachanic, or mental world. He who wrote
it down says of Christ (the words are not to be taken
literally): Here on this earth He lived, here has He worked
with divine powers, with occult powers. He has healed the
sick, he has gone through everything from death to
resurrection. It is impossible to understand these things
with the ordinary intellect. Here on earth there is no
science or learning by which one could really understand what
occurred. But there is the possibility of rising to the
higher worlds. There one can find the wisdom to understand
Him who walked here on earth among us. Thus did the writer of
the John Gospel rise to the two higher worlds and become
initiated. It was an initiation, and the writer describes his
initiation into the astral world and the devachanic, or
mental world.
In olden
times, in regions where man's body was still suited to these
things, such an initiation took place as follows. The person
had to go through a sort of sleep-state. What now takes
several years in a modern European initiation — because
the modern European can no longer go through the process I
will describe — what today is achieved through long
exercises of meditation and concentration, was achieved in a
short time by some individuals, after the appropriate
exercises of meditation and concentration. I particularly
emphasise that anyone who really wishes to receive initiation
must, in some form or other, face the two important
experiences about to be described — though in a
somewhat different way. He must go through a sort of sleep
condition. To understand the nature of sleep, let us remind
ourselves what takes place when one sleeps. One's higher
bodies are then separated from one's lower bodies. Man
consists of a physical body, which one can see with one's
eyes. The second member is the etheric body which surrounds
the physical body and which is much finer than the physical
body. Currents and organs of wonderful variety and splendour
are active in it. The etheric body contains the same organs
as the physical body. It has a brain, heart, eyes etc. They
represent the forces which formed the corresponding organs.
It is as if one cooled water in a vessel until it becomes
ice. In this way you should picture the arising of the
physical organs through the densifying of the etheric organs.
The etheric body extends only a little beyond the physical
body.
The
third member is the astral body. It is the bearer of desires,
wishes, passions, etc. It permeates the physical body in the
form of a cloud. There are colours — violent passions
appear as lightning flashes. The peculiarities of temperament
glide through the body in glowing points of varying
intensity.
The
whole inner man is expressed in a luminous form. This is the
real ego of man, the bearer of the higher centre of his
being. In normal sleep the physical and etheric bodies are
lying in bed. They are closely united. The astral body and
all the rest is separated. As long as one does not do
anything particular one is unconscious when the astral body
is outside the physical body. One is as unconscious as one
would be in the physical world without eyes or ears. One
could live as long as one liked in the physical world; if one
had no eyes there would be no colours, if one had no ears
there would be no sound. So it is when the astral body is
outside the physical body. It is spread out in the soul
world, but one does not see this world or become aware of it
because one has no astral sense organs. They must gradually
be formed. If a person does not practice exercises he remains
unconscious in higher worlds. But if he does practice then he
can attain consciousness in these higher worlds. When his
astral body acquires organs he begins to see the astral world
around him. Those of you who have often attended these
lectures will know that there are seven such organs. They are
called wheels, chakrams or lotus flowers. The two-petalled
lotus flower lies between the eyes — between the
eye-brows, the sixteen-petalled lies in the region of the
larynx, the twelve-petalled lies in the heart region. If
these organs are gradually developed one becomes clairvoyant
in the astral world.
This
astral vision is something quite different from physical
sight. You can get some idea of astral vision if you think of
the flow of dream life. In dreams we have symbolic pictures
— true symbols. One sees symbols. One loses
consciousness of what takes place here in the physical world,
but one can experience in symbolic pictures such events as
the life of Christ Jesus as John describes it from his own
experience in the astral world. Descriptions of this nature
form the content of the first twelve chapters of the John
Gospel. Don't misunderstand me. I know many will say: If all
this is astral experience, then it is nothing real and what
is told us of the founder of Christianity is not authentic.
But this is not the case. It would be as if one denied that a
man of flesh and blood could be a genius, because one cannot
see genius. Although one learns the truth of Christ Jesus
only on the astral plane, it is still a fact that he lived
his life on the physical plane. We are dealing with symbols
on the astral plane and outer reality on the physical plane.
Nothing is taken away from the facts when we understand them
more deeply in the sense of the John Gospel.
Initiation in the astral world is preceded by, and depends on
what is called meditation. This means that the soul sinks
into itself — I have often described it here. To reach
a meditative experience one must make oneself blind and deaf
to all sense impressions. Nothing must be able to disturb
one. Cannons can go off without one being aware of it in
one's inner life. One does not achieve this at once, but
through constant practice one can attain this capacity. One
must empty oneself also of all past experiences. Memory must
be wiped out. The soul must be concerned only with itself and
then out of its inner being there arise the eternal truths
which are able — not only to awaken our understanding
— but to release capacities which lie slumbering under
a spell in our souls. These great eternal verities will rise
up in man according to the maturity he has attained through
his karma — the one, as Subba Row says, in seven
incarnations, another in seventy years, another in seven
years, others in seven months, seven days or seven hours.
John
sets forth the means whereby his soul was led to perception
on the astral plane. The formula he used for meditation
stands at the beginning of his gospel. “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the
Word was a God. The same was in the beginning with God. All
things were made by Him, and without this Word was not
anything 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.”
In these
five sentences lie the eternal verities which loosed the
spell in John's soul and brought forth the great visions.
This is the form of the meditation. Those for whom the John
Gospel is written should not read it like any other book. The
first five sentences must be taken as a formula of
meditation. Then one follows John on his way, and attempts to
experience oneself what he experienced. This is the way to do
it; so it is meant.
John
says: Do what I have done. Let the great formula, “In
the beginning was the Word” work in your souls and you
will verify what is said in my first twelve chapters.
This
alone can really help towards understanding the John Gospel.
Thus is it intended and thus should it be used. I have often
spoken of what the “Word” signifies. “In
the beginning” is not a good translation. It should
really read: Out of the primal forces emerged the Word. That
is what it means: The Word came forth, came forth out of the
primal forces. Thus “in the beginning” means:
coming forth out of the primal forces.
When man
is in this sleep condition he is no longer in the sense
world. He moves into a soul world and in this soul world
experiences what the sense world really is. The truth of the
sense world is revealed. He starts out from these words
derived from the sense world leading back to the primal
forces, and rises up to the words of truth. Every truth has
seven meanings. For the mystic, immersed in contemplation it
has however this meaning: The knowledge, the Word which
emerges, is not something that merely applies to yesterday
and today, but this Word is eternal. This Word leads to God
because it was ever with God, because it is the very essence
that God has planted into all things.
There is
however, still another way of understanding this, and one
acquires it if one returns day after day to the momentous
words: “In the beginning was the Word”. When one
begins to understand, not with the intellect, but with the
heart, so that the heart becomes one with these words, then
the power begins to work, and there begins the state of mind
of which John speaks. He says it with great clarity:
“All things were made by Him and without the Word was
not anything made that was made”.
What do
we find in this Word? We find life. What do we perceive
through this life — through this light? We must take
these religious texts quite literally if we want to attain
higher knowledge. Where does this light shine? In the
darkness of night. It comes to those who sleep. It comes to
everyone who sleeps. But the darkness comprehended it not
— until the ability develops to perceive it on the
astral plane. Thus is the fifth verse to be understood
literally. The astral light shines into the darkness of night
but man does not normally see it, he must first learn to
see.
As all
this became reality for the writer of the John Gospel, the
light dawned and he saw who He was, He whose disciple and
apostle he was. Here on earth he had seen Him. Now he had
found Him again on the astral plane, and he knew that He who
had walked the earth in the flesh only differed in one
respect from what lived in his own deepest inner self. In
every single man there lives a divine man. In the distant
future this divine man will arise resurrected in every man.
As man stands before us today he is, in his outward
appearance, to a greater or lesser extent, an expression of
the inner divine man, and this inner divine man works
constantly on the outer man.
Last
Thursday [Public Lecture, Berlin, 15 Feb, 1906.
“Reincarnation and Karma”] I already pointed out
how one can illustrate this by a simple comparison. Look at a
child. One could be tempted to say that these innocent
features came from the father or mother, an uncle or an
ancestor. However, everything within the child expresses
itself in the features, in the gestures of the hands and in
all its movements. What slumbers in the child strives to come
to expression. Finally the individual emerges and the
physiognomy becomes an expression of the individual soul,
while previously it showed more of a family type. In
primitive man the individual soul is usually still slumbering
and has but a meagre existence. In the course of many
incarnations and efforts the individual emerges, the soul
aquires more power over the physical body, and the
physiognomy takes on the imprint, or the expression of the
inner man. An immature person expresses little of the power
of the soul. Gradually man matures, and full maturity is
reached when the inner word has become flesh completely
— when the outer has become an exact imprint of the
inner, so that the spirit shines through the flesh. This
however, John only understood once his higher self had
appeared clearly before his astral eyes. It stood in front of
his astral eyes and he knew: This is I. Today have I
experienced it on the astral plane. However it will gradually
descend as it did in Him, who I followed. This is the deep
relationship between Christ Jesus and the divine man that
exists in every man. This is the deep inner experience of
John.
The
inner soul lives unconscious in man and he only becomes aware
of it through the processes we have described.
What
does it mean to say: something becomes conscious. Can we
become conscious of something which lives within us? As long
as it only lives within us we are not aware of it. Man is not
aware of what he carries within him, what is subjective. I
will use a crude comparison to make clear what I mean. You
all have a physical brain but you cannot see it. It would
have to be taken out, and then you could see it. For the same
reason, though there is a certain difference, you cannot see
your higher self. It is the “I” within you. But
it must come out if you are to see it, and this can only
happen on the astral plane. When it is outside and confronts
you, then spiritually, it is as if you had a physical brain
on a platter and made it the object of your sense
perception.
The
writer of the John Gospel describes this process. His own
higher ego appears before Him — his own higher ego,
which in its fullness represents the Christ. When you know
this you will be able to understand certain hints and truths
in the John Gospel. You will be able to understand certain
things quite well with the help of what I said up to now. In
occult language one describes what this ego inhabits —
the physical body, which it has built for itself to dwell in
— as the temple. Thus one says: The soul dwells in the
temple.
It is
not altogether a painless procedure when for the first time
the soul must leave the temple of the body so that it becomes
visible outside of it. This leaving of the body is not
without pain. All that forms this higher connection with the
physical body are bands that are not so easy to loosen.
Imagine that you are bound with fetters and you break loose.
You would experience pain through this tearing apart. It is
like a process of tearing apart when the astral body leaves
the physical body when it leaves it, perceptibly. Leaving the
body in sleep is different, one is not aware of it. If one
leaves it consciously then one experiences pain.
When man
begins to develop astral consciousness, things on the astral
plane appear to him as in a mirror. The number 165 should not
be read as 165 but as 561 — as reflected writing.
Everything appears reversed on the astral plane. Even time is
reversed. When you follow someone on the astral plane you
start, to begin with, from where he is. Then you go back to
his birth. You can follow him on the physical plane forwards;
on the astral plane backwards. Leaving the physical body is
like this: It is as though we were leaving the temple of the
physical body and were laid hold of from all sides. This is
the occurrence which John wants to describe. He left his body
in order to experience the Christ, his own higher divine
self, confronting him. People around him have their astral
bodies bound strongly to their physical bodies as if with
fetters. Had John remained like them he would have continued
to be fettered to his physical body. Now let us read how this
occurrence is described pictorially and symbolically in the
John Gospel, chapter 8, verses 58 and 59: “Jesus said
unto them, verily, verily I say unto you: Before Abraham was,
I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid
himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst
of them”, through the hindrances. With this ends the
eighth chapter. This is the passing out of the astral body
from the physical body. The final act, leading to the leaving
of the physical body and to higher vision, usually lasts
three days. When these three days are up, one attains a
consciousness on the astral plane comparable to that
previously experienced on the physical plane. Then one is
united with the higher world.
In
occult language this union with the higher world is called
the marriage of the soul with the powers of the higher world.
When one has left the physical body, this appears to one as a
mother would appear to a new-born child, were the child able
to be conscious at birth. Thus the physical body confronts
one, and the astral body can very well say to the physical
body: This is my mother. When one has celebrated this
marriage one can say this. One can look back on the former
union. This can happen after three days. This is the occult
procedure on the astral plane. In chapter 2, verse 1, it is
stated: “And the third day there was a marriage in Cana
of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there”. This is
the pictorial expression for what I have just said. It
happened on the third day.
When a
person enters the astral world, he finds himself in a region
from which he can rise a step further into a still higher
world — the mental, or devachanic world. This entry
into the devachanic world can only be gained at the expense
of the complete extinction, the death of the lower nature. He
must go through the three days of death and then be awakened.
Once he has attained vision of the astral plane and the
pictures of the astral plane have confronted him, he is
mature and ready to receive knowledge on the mental or
devachanic plane. It is possible then to describe the
awakening on the devachanic plane. To find oneself on the
higher plane with conscious clarity of thought, this is the
awakening of Lazarus.
John
describes the awakening of Lazarus. Previously he has shown
that through this chain of events one can enter the higher
worlds. In chapter 10, verse 9, it is said: “I am the
door: by me if any man enter in he shall be saved and shall
go in and out and find pasture”. This is the awakening
of what was wrapped in sleep and is now awakened on the
devachanic plane. John goes through it. John is Lazarus, and
John means nothing more nor less than what is described in
his first twelve chapters. He describes as an astral
experience that he was awakened on the astral plane. Then
followed the initiation for the devachanic plane. Three days
he lay in the grave, and then he received the awakening. The
raising of Lazarus is the awakening of John who wrote the
gospel.
Read
everything up to the chapter on the raising of Lazarus and
you will find no mention of John anywhere. Consider Lazarus
and John. It is said of John
(John, ch. 13, v. 23):
“Now there
was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus
loved.” Regarding Lazarus, you find the same words
— that He loved him. It is the same person. He is not
mentioned previous to the awakening. He appears for the first
time after he is “raised from the dead”. These
are the enigmas hidden in the John Gospel. The disciple whom
the Lord loved is he whom the Lord himself has initiated. The
writer of the John Gospel was he whom the Lord loved. How was
he able to say this? Because he had been initiated, first on
the astral plane and then on the devachanic plane. If one is
able in this way to find the deeper meaning of the John
Gospel, then will one be able to understand it in its true
profundity, and then it becomes one of the greatest texts
ever written. It is the description of the initiation into
the depths of the inner life of the soul. It has been written
so that everyone who reads it can follow the same path. And
this one can do. Sentence for sentence, word for word, one
can find within oneself, by rising to the higher plane, what
is described in the John Gospel. It is not a biography of
Christ Jesus but a biography of the developing human soul.
And what is described is eternal and can take place in the
heart of every human being. This text is an example and a
model. Hence it has this living and awakening power which not
only makes people into Christians but enables them to awaken
to a higher reality. The John Gospel is not a profession of
faith, but a text which really gives strength, and a
self-supporting, independent higher life. This springs forth
from the John Gospel, and he who does not merely want to
understand it, but to live it, has truly comprehended
it.
With
these few words I could only touch on the contents. Next time
we will go into certain details. Then you will see how every
single sentence confirms what we have said today in general
terms. Step by step you will then see that the John Gospel is
not addressed merely to the human intellect, but to man's
entire soul forces, and that real soul experience springs
from it.
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