Appendix II
Note on two Jesus
Children
Rudolf Steiner explained
the great difficulty of reconciling the Incarnation accounts in St.
Matthew and St. Luke, by revealing that they each refer to a separate
Jesus-child, born, as the Gospels assert, from different Davidic lines.
How these children grew up together, and how their beings were finally
united as the being of Jesus of Nazareth, is related by Dr. Steiner
in the lecture-courses entitled
The Gospel of St. Luke,
The Gospel of St. Matthew,
From Jesus to Christ,
and others. It is a mystery which it is impossible to treat adequately
in a note. These present lectures, however, show us the detailed,
age-long provision by the spiritual powers, of the physical
organism which could be the vehicle of the incarnating
Christ. While they treat mostly of the purely physical preparation through
the Hebrew race, they also speak of the spiritual inheritance through
Zarathustra, and the soul-bestowal of Buddha. It is the harmonising
of these three " sheaths " of past inheritance in one being
that is explained by the revelation of the fact of these two children,
a mystery of which there are only a few uncomprehended traces in the
Gospels. It is a mystery of great importance, which can only be apprehended
by patient, unprejudiced study.
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