I
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 see 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 does perceive 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 none the less 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 look 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.
#160;
Translators Notes:
1. St. John I, 3 and 4.
— Luther's
translation differs here from the King James Version: "it"
(the Word) remains the subject throughout the passage, not "he"
(God), as in the English. That this is the correct translation
is specifically stated by Dr. Steiner in the first lecture of his
other cycle on the St. John Gospel (Basel, November 16, 1907), and
it is therefore incorporated in this translation.
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