Appendix I
The great truth that in
Abraham there began a new relationship of mankind to the material and
spiritual worlds is a main theme of these three lectures, and it is worth
while considering it in the light of the evolution of human consciousness
which Rudolf Steiner revealed as the clue to the understanding of human
history. In the ancient Indian civilisation man, in his consciousness,
was still a dweller in the spiritual world, and the material world was
“Maya”, Illusion, a world in which he did not feel at home
and from which he longed to escape.
In the ancient Persian
civilisation it was revealed to man that the material world was itself
a manifestation of spirit, and the scene of a great spiritual conflict
of Light against Darkness, in which man had a part to play, Man's powers
of perception were still predominantly super-sensible.
In the Chaldean-Egyptian
civilisation man became more and more absorbed in his experience of the
physical world through his senses, and his powers of spiritual perception
diminished. Two dangers threatened him. First, that he should regard
the objects of the outer world merely as affording him the means for
a variety of experiences, in which his unbridled passions and lust for
power would have free play; secondly, that, being no longer able to
perceive spiritual beings behind natural phenomena, he should make gods
out of the phenomena themselves. This would lead to idolatry. These
two trends were manifest in the Babylonian world into which Abraham
was born. They were bound to lead man further and further from his
spiritual destiny.
While he still retained
clairvoyant powers, man's etheric body, which was the instrument of
spiritual perception, was not wholly contained within the confines of
the physical body. With Abraham the withdrawal of the etheric body into
the physical body was more advanced, and the etheric forces, which had
formerly exercised perception independently of the body, withdrew within
the skull — the “cave” in which it was said Abraham
was born — and functioned as Thought, playing upon the
experiences of the physical world which were conveyed through the portals
of the sense-organs. This Thought-activity upon sense-experience began to
reveal the multiple relationships of “measure, weight and
number” by which the diversity of sense-phenomena were brought
into unity, and to discover behind this the being and working of
Jehovah.
This attitude to the
phenomena of Nature — never as being in themselves a manifestation
of the Divine, but always as a revelation of Divine wisdom and power
— is peculiar to the Hebrew race. It finds expression frequently in
the Psalms. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament
showeth his handiwork.” “The voice of the Lord is mighty
in operation; the voice of the Lord is a glorious voice.” “O
Lord, how manifold are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made them all.
The earth is full of thy riches; so is the great and wide sea also.”
So too, when the Lord confounds both Job and his friends, it is by his
wisdom and power manifest in the created world.
This special relationship
of number and weight is summed up in Isaiah in one verse
(XL, 12):
“Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted
out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a
measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a
balance?”
The same thought is
expressed by Jesus in his teaching in the New Testament. “Not a
sparrow falls to the ground without your heavenly Father.”
“The very hairs of your head are numbered.”
Thus, man's growing
awareness of the physical world, which, in the case of other nations,
finally hid the divine and spiritual from him, led the Hebrews to
perceive God behind, yet separate from, material objects, and so also
behind all human life, and in a special way related to themselves. The
psycho-physical organism of thought, which made this possible, originated
in Abraham, and was passed down through their generations by a
strictly-guarded heredity.
This special quality in
Abraham is treated at greater length by Rudolf Steiner in the third
lecture of the Course on
The Gospel of St. Matthew,
and also by Dr. Emil Bock in his
Primeval History, chapter 3.
It is also referred to by Philo of Alexandria in his allegorical study
of Abraham.
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