LECTURE II
[Note 1]
IN the opening lines of the Gospel of
Matthew emphasis is laid on the descent of the physical
nature of the Jesus of this Gospel from Abraham. The fact of
most importance to the spiritual scientist is that by
inheritance throughout thrice fourteen generations this
individual bore within him an extract of the whole race of
Abraham. He is the same individual who is spoken of as
Zoroaster or Zarathustra.
In the last
lecture we described the external conditions in which
Zarathustra worked. Something must now be said of the
opinions and ideas that obtained in his immediate circle.
In that
district where in very far-off ages Zarathustra worked,
conceptions and ideas flourished that, in their broad
outlines, were of profound importance. It needs but a few
extracts from what since earliest times has been regarded as
the teaching of the first Zarathustra to show how deeply
these affected the thought of the whole post-Atlantean
period. Even external history relates how the teaching of
Zarathustra proceeded from two principles, which we describe
as the principle of Ormuzd, the beneficent Being of Light,
and Ahriman, the dark Being of Evil. At the same time
historical descriptions of this religious system trace the
origin of these two principles back to a single common
principle Zeruane Akarene. It is customary to translate
Zeruane Akarene as ‘Uncreated Time.’ It may,
therefore, be said that the teaching of Zarathustra leads
back to an original principle, in which we have to recognize
quiescent Time, Time flowing on in its universal course. The
very meaning of the word shows us that it is unnecessary to
question further as to the origin of this Time, this
revolution of Time.
True, the
external abstract thinking of man will hardly ever refrain
from inquiring again and again after the cause of this cause,
forever driving his conceptions back, forever seeking the
primal cause. But the spiritual scientist realizes through
deep meditation that questionings about the beginnings of
things must cease somewhere. To continue them beyond a
certain point is merely to play with thinking, as is shown
clearly in
Occult Science.
It is stated there that
when wheel tracks are seen on a road it may well be asked
whence they came. The answer will probably be that they were
caused by the wheels of a carriage. A query as to the reason
for the wheels on the carriage may produce the information
that they were needed to enable it to travel along the road.
A further inquiry as to the cause of this may bring the reply
that someone wished to travel along the road. Ultimately we
arrive at the resolve of the man which led him to travel
along the road. Here it is advisable to stop, for further
inquiries would inevitably lead to losing one's way in
a maze of questions.
It is the
same as regards great universal questions — a halt must
be made somewhere; made at what lies at the fountain of the
teaching of Zarathustra; at Time, calm, onflowing Time. Then,
according to Zarathustra, there proceeded from Time, Ormuzd,
the principle of Light, and Ahriman, the evil principle of
Darkness. The profound meaning underlying this Iranian or old
Persian idea is that the wickedness in the world, all that in
its physical form is described as darkness, was not
originally wicked, dark and evil. In the same way the wolf
was originally good, but when left to itself it degenerated
so that Ahrimanic forces could be active in it. To the
Iranians or Persians evil came to pass through something that
at one time — a time suited to it — was good,
retaining its form on into a later age with which it was out
of harmony. To them, all that was black and evil arose
through a form which was good in one age, continuing on into
a later age, instead of adapting itself to change. Through
the clashing of such forms of being with the more advanced
ones of a later time, the struggle between good and evil
arose. Evil is therefore not absolute evil, but misplaced
good, something that was good in an earlier time. There,
where earlier conditions did not as yet come into collision
with later conditions, enduring Time rolled on, Time that was
undifferentiated, not yet separated into individual
moments.
Such is the
very important point of view expressed in Zarathustrianism;
and this should be recognized as the fundamental principle of
the teaching of Zarathustra among the earliest post-Atlantean
peoples, and must be associated with the facts given in the
first lecture. The people influenced by him had, above all,
insight into the necessity for the birth of this duality from
out the uniform stream of Time, and for the coming of
opposition, which opposition would only be overcome in the
course of time. We see the necessity that the new should
arise and the old remain behind; that in the balance between
the old and the new, the goal of the universe, and especially
the goal of the Earth, will gradually be attained. It is this
point of view that lies at the root of all that higher
development which has sprung from Zarathustrianism.
The
impression made by the influence of Zarathustra on subsequent
ages was strong and deep. It was possible through the fact,
that having reached the highest summit of initiation
attainable at that time, he had also trained two pupils.
These pupils I have spoken of before. To one he taught
everything connected with the mystery of Space as it is
spread around us, and therewith the mystery of all things
contemporaneous. To the other he imparted the mystery of the
flight of Time, the mystery of development and of evolution.
I have also already indicated that at a definite point of
time of such a discipleship as existed between these two
great disciples and Zarathustra, something quite especial
enters: the teacher can sacrifice part of his own being to
his disciples. And Zarathustra, as he was in his
Zarathustra-age, gave up to his pupils something of his own
being, he sacrificed his own etheric and astral bodies. His
individuality, his own inmost being, he retained for future
incarnations; but his remarkable astral
‘garment,’ in which he had lived as Zarathustra
in the earliest post-Atlantean periods, which had attained
such a degree of perfection, and was so permeated by his
whole being that instead of dispersing like that of an
ordinary man, it remained intact — he gave this to
another. The depth and power of the individuality of this
great Initiate made this possible, and this is why the astral
body of Zarathustra persisted. Similarly his etheric body
remained also intact.
According to
occult investigation, one of these pupils, the one who had
received knowledge concerning the mystery of Space, of all
that fills space contemporaneously, reincarnated as that
personality known to history as Thoth, or Hermes of the
Egyptians. Hermes had not only to establish in himself what
he had received from Zarathustra in an earlier incarnation,
but he had to establish it more firmly; this he was able to
do in the Holy Mysteries, because he had received into
himself the astral sheath of the great Initiate. Permeated by
the teaching of Zarathustra, and filled by his astral nature,
the individuality of this pupil was born again as Hermes, the
inaugurator of the civilization of Egypt. We have, therefore,
a direct member or principle of the being of Zarathustra in
the Egyptian Hermes. With this principle, and with what he
had brought with him of the teaching of Zarathustra, Hermes
was able to give the impulse for all that was best and of
greatest moment in Egyptian civilization. Naturally, a
suitable race was necessary in order that the work of the
messenger of Zarathustra might be effective. A race promising
a fruitful soil for the development of this work could only
be found among those Atlantean wanderers who had taken the
more southern way and had settled in East Africa and had
retained much of their old clairvoyance. The essential
soul-nature of this race was quick to receive the wisdom of
Hermes, and in this way Egyptian civilization arose. It was a
very special type of civilization. You must try to realize
how all that is included in the mysteries of contemporaneous
things, of that which exists side by side in space, was
contained in the wisdom of Hermes — all this had been
entrusted to him as a precious gift from Zarathustra, so that
in his own being Hermes possessed the most important
teachings that Zarathustra had to impart.
It has often
been stated that the most characteristic teaching of
Zarathustra referred to the external sunlight and the
external physical light-body of the Sun as the outer sheath
of an exalted Spiritual Being. What was confided to
Hermes was the mystery of that which as Being, underlies all
Nature, all space and everything contemporaneous, yet which
advances ever in time from epoch to epoch, and reveals itself
in certain epochs Hermes knew what comes from the Sun, and
what through the Sun continues to develop. This knowledge he
implanted in the souls of the Egyptians, who retained a
memory of the Atlantean Sun-Mysteries, and were, therefore,
specially adapted to receive his teachings. All this, within
the advancing line of evolution, was in the soul of Hermes,
as well as in all those souls ripe to absorb his wisdom.
The mission
of the second of Zarathustra's pupils was very
different. Upon him had been bestowed the secrets of the
passing of Time. He had to experience within himself the
conflict between the old and the new, how in evolution
something was active as opposition, as polarity. As already
stated this pupil had also received part of the being of
Zarathustra; on reincarnating he could therefore receive the
sacrifice of Zarathustra.
Thus, while
the individuality of Zarathustra remained intact, his sheaths
were separated from him, they endured and were not dispersed
for they were held together by such a mighty individual. This
second pupil — to whom was imparted the wisdom
concerning Time in contradistinction to that concerning Space
— received at a specific moment of his reincarnated
existence the etheric body of Zarathustra, which had been
sacrificed in the same way s his astral body. This reborn
pupil was none other than Moses. Moses received in quite
early childhood the fully preserved etheric body of
Zarathustra.
Our religious
documents which are really founded on occultism contain all
this, though in a veiled form. In them we find suggestions of
the secrets revealed through occult investigation. As Moses
was the reincarnated pupil of Zarathustra and had received
his etheric body, something quite unusual had to take place
in him. This is recorded in the Scriptures. Before he could
receive the ordinary impressions from his surroundings like
another human being, before he could descend with his
individuality so as to receive impressions from the external
world, there had to percolate into his being that which he
was to receive as a marvellous inheritance from Zarathustra.
This fact is expressed in the symbolic legend which relates
that Moses was placed in a casket and lowered to the river.
This should be accepted as indicating a remarkable
initiation.
Initiation
consists in a man being withdrawn from the world for a
certain time, during which he slowly absorbs what has been
given to him. While thus withdrawn, Moses was able to be
united at the right moment with the etheric body of
Zarathustra that had been preserved for this purpose. The
wonderful wisdom concerning Time, the gift of Zarathustra in
an earlier period, was then able to blossom within him; he
gave this wisdom to his people in a series of pictures fitted
to their understanding. Hence from Moses we have those mighty
pictures of Genesis, those imaginations dealing with the
wisdom of Time, of the ages as they succeed one another,
received from Zarathustra. This was a re-born knowledge
— a re-born wisdom — received by him, and was
firmly established in his inner nature since he had received
the etheric sheath of Zarathustra himself.
An initiate
is not only needed as inaugurator of a new civilization for
the advancement of the human race, but he must have a
suitable medium in which to work, a race fitted to receive
the germ of this new civilization. To understand the
folk-soul, the folk-germ in which what had been received by
Moses from Zarathustra was to be planted, it would be well to
consider more exactly the peculiar wisdom of Moses.
In a former
incarnation, Moses as Zarathustra's pupil had received
the wisdom concerning Time, and that secret which we referred
to as the ‘opposition between the earlier and the
later’ that arises in every age. If the wisdom of Moses
was to enter human evolution it had to be established as a
polarity to that other wisdom, already in existence, the
wisdom of Hermes. And this took place.
Hermes had
received direct Sun-wisdom from Zarathustra: that is
to say, through his astral body he had gained knowledge of
the Being dwelling mysteriously within the outer physical
sheath of Light — the body of the sun. With Moses it
was otherwise. Moses, whose wisdom was connected with the
denser etheric body, received the Sun-wisdom less directly.
His was not that wisdom which looks up to the Sun asking:
“Does not everything come forth from the Being of the
Sun?”; but he was the recipient of a contrasting
knowledge, the wisdom that understood earthly things, things
that had become dense and fixed, and appeared old, though not
degenerate — Earth-wisdom in contrast to direct
Sun-wisdom. Earth-wisdom was indirect Sun-wisdom. It derived
its life from the Sun, yet was of the Earth. Moses declared
the mystery of the Earth's origin, of the formation of
the solid Earth after the withdrawal of the Sun, and told how
man evolved on it. This is revealed to our inward, not our
outward, vision; and now we see how and why the teaching of
Hermes presents such a vivid contrast to that of Moses.
There are
certain people to-day who consider all such problems on the
principle that in the night all cows are grey. They can only
see resemblances, and are enchanted when, for instance, some
likeness between the Hermetic and Mosaic teachings is
discovered; here they find a trinity, there a trinity, there
a quaternary, and here a quaternary. This leads nowhere. It
is like someone training a botanist by pointing out the
likeness between a rose and a carnation, but omitting the
differences. Through Spiritual Science we learn in what way
both beings and forms of knowledge differ. The wisdom of
Moses was quite different from that of Hermes, even though
both proceeded from Zarathustra. As unity divides and
manifests itself in various ways, so Zarathustra imparted to
his two pupils revelations of a very different kind.
When we are
steeped in the influences streaming from the wisdom of
Hermes, we become aware of all that fills the world with
Light, of the origin of the world, and how this was affected
by the Light; but we do not learn from him how, in all
development, the earlier influences the later; how this
brings about strife between past and present, and the
opposition of Light to Darkness. Earthly wisdom, the wisdom
concerning the development of the Earth and of man after the
separation from the Sun, is nowhere to be found in the
teaching of Hermes. But it was the special mission of Moses
to make the development of the Earth, after its separation
from the Sun, comprehensible to man. Hermes brought us
Sun-wisdom; Moses Earth-wisdom. Moses, with his Zarathustrian
inheritance, taught of the dawn of earthly existence and of
the earthly evolution of man. He starts from the things of
earth, but these earthly things, though separated from the
sun, still contained, if weakened, something of the nature of
the sun. Therefore the Earth-wisdom of Moses had to encounter
the Sun-wisdom of Hermes in concrete existence. These two
streams of wisdom had to meet. This is shown most wonderfully
in the initiation of Moses in Egypt, where he came in contact
with the Hermes-wisdom. In the birth of Moses in Egypt, in
the sojourning of his people there, in the conflict between
them and the Egyptians, who were the people of Hermes, is
seen the reflection in external life of the clashing of the
Earth-wisdom with the Sun-wisdom. Both had originated with
Zarathustra, and though they followed entirely different
courses of evolution they had to work together and to
coincide.
There is a
certain kind of knowledge, one closely connected with the
profound secrets of human and earthly existence, which in
accordance with the methods of the Mysteries, is always
expressed in a special way. This was referred to in Munich in
the lectures on the
Biblical Secrets of Creation.
There it was shown how unusually difficult it is to speak in
ordinary language of such mighty truths, truths comprising
not only the deepest mysteries of man but of the universe. We
are often hampered by words, for they have their precise
meaning determined by long usage; and when endeavouring to
express the mighty facts revealed inwardly to the soul, we
often find ourselves in conflict with the feeble instrument
of speech which is really in a certain respect so
extraordinarily inadequate.
The greatest
triviality of the newer culture in general that has been
uttered in the course of the nineteenth century, is that
every truth can be expressed simply, and that the mode of
expression is the criterion of whether someone possesses this
truth or not. Such a statement only shows that those who use
it are not in possession of absolute truth, but only of those
truths which, in the course of centuries, have been
communicated in words, the form of which they only alter a
little. For such people words suffice: they are quite unaware
of the great struggle which must sometimes be carried on with
words. This struggle becomes apparent whenever the soul
strives to express what is grand and exalted. I spoke in
Munich of how in the
Rosicrucian Mystery Drama, The Portal of Initiation,
at the end of the scene in the
room provided for meditation, there was for me a very great
difficulty with language. What the Hierophant had to say to
the pupil could only be expressed in a most restricted way
through the feeble instrument of speech.
Within the
Holy Mysteries, however, the most profound secrets had to be
expressed. There the inadequacy of speech to call up the
images of reality was felt most strongly. Hence the age-long
effort in the Mysteries to find other means to express the
inner experiences of the soul. These feeble means of
expression — words — have for centuries been
reserved for external intercourse, but the pictures and
images seen when men turned their gaze towards the heavenly
spaces have proved far more suitable. The constellations, the
rising of a star at a certain time, the occultation of a
certain star by another at a definite time — such
pictures were used to express experiences within the human
soul.
Let us
suppose that someone desired to say that a great event was to
take place at a certain time, because at that particular
moment a human soul would be sufficiently ripe to receive a
great experience and to pass this on to his people; or that
some nation, or a large part of mankind, having reached a
certain high stage of ripeness, a certain individuality could
appear among them, coming perhaps from a quite other
direction. In such a case the climax of development of the
individual would coincide with the highest point of
development of the folk-soul. No words are sufficiently
exalted to convey the full meaning of such an event.
Therefore it was expressed in this wise: The coincidence of
the climax of power of an individual, with the climax of
power of a folk-soul, is as when the sun is in the
constellation of Leo and thence sends us its light. The
constellation of the Lion is here chosen to represent, in a
pictorial way, something that had to be expressed as taking
place with utmost power in human evolution. What could be
seen thus outwardly in cosmic space was used as a means of
expressing something taking place in humanity. Certain
expressions found in human history have arisen in this way;
they are taken from the movements of the heavenly bodies, and
are the method used to denote spiritual facts.
When it is
stated, for example, that the sun is in the sign of Leo, or
that through some event in the heavens, such as an eclipse of
the sun by a certain constellation, a fact in human evolution
is symbolically expressed, it may very well happen that
people reverse this and suppose, in a trivial way, that all
the events relating to mankind's history were myths
clothed in the motions of the stars; whereas the truth is
that incidents in the life of humanity were expressed by
means of images taken from the constellations.
This
connection with the cosmos ought to fill us with certain
feelings of reverence towards all we are told concerning the
great events of human evolution, when we find these expressed
in images taken from cosmic existence. But there is,
nevertheless, an intimate connection between the existence of
the whole cosmos and the life of man this is, that events
taking place on earth are a reflection of cosmic events. Thus
the meeting of the Sun-wisdom of Hermes with the Earth-wisdom
of Moses in Egypt is, in a certain way, a reflection of
cosmic activities. Picture to yourselves that certain forces
streaming from the sun to the earth meet others streaming
from the earth into cosmic space. It is not a matter of
indifference where these two forces meet; but according as
the meeting be near or far, the result of the outgoing and
incoming forces is different.
Now the
contact of the wisdom of Hermes with that of Moses was
pictured in the Mysteries of ancient Egypt as representing
something that, according also to Spiritual Science, had
previously taken place in the cosmos. We know that early in
evolution the sun separated from the earth, leaving the moon
for a period within the earth. Later a part of this globe
separate from the earth, and remained as the present moon.
Thus the earth sent a portion of itself; as moon, into
universal space, towards the sun. We may think of the
remarkable occurrence of the meeting of the Earth-wisdom of
Moses with the Sun-wisdom of Hermes as comparable with this
streaming forth of the Earth-forces towards the sun. One
might say: The wisdom of Moses, in its further course, after
separating from the Sun-wisdom of Zarathustra, developed as
the wisdom of the earth and of men in such a way that it drew
again towards the sun, absorbing and filling itself with
direct solar wisdom. The earth was destined to receive direct
Sun-wisdom only to a certain extent, then to develop further
alone and independently. The wisdom of Moses, therefore, only
remained in Egypt until it had absorbed sufficient for its
needs. Then came the Exodus of the children of Israel from
Egypt, in order that the Sun-wisdom taken up by the
Earth-wisdom might be assimilated and brought to greater
self-dependence.
The wisdom of
Moses was two-fold. One part was developed under the
sheltering wing of the Hermes-wisdom which it continually
absorbed from every side, then, after the exodus from Egypt,
it separated from this development, continued further within
itself, and later passed through three stages. Towards what
should this wisdom evolve? What is its task? Its ultimate
task was to find its way back from the earth to the sun. It
had become earthly wisdom. Moses was born with all he
inherited from Zarathustra, as a wise man of earth. He was to
find the way back, and he sought it in three stages, the
first being that in which he absorbed the wisdom of Hermes.
These stages are again best expressed in the images drawn
from cosmic events. When what takes place upon the earth
streams back in space from the earth towards the sun, it
first encounters what is of the nature of Mercury (in
ordinary astronomy the Mercury of astronomy is the Venus of
Occult Science), then that of Venus, and ultimately that
which is of the nature of the sun. The soul of Moses had to
develop his Zarathustrian inheritance in inner experiences in
such a way that he might return and find once more what
appertained to the Sun. In order to do this he had to attain
a certain degree of development. The wisdom Moses had
implanted in western culture had to develop according to the
way he gave it to his people. The wisdom he had gained from
Hermes and which came to him like the direct rays of the sun,
he had to develop anew, and reflect it back again in a
changed form, after he had absorbed some part of it.
Now we are
told that Hermes, who was later called ‘Mercury,’
brought to his people science and art, that is, external
knowledge and art, in a form suitable to them. But it was in
a different and almost opposite way that the wisdom of Moses
attained to the Hermes-Mercury standpoint. Moses had himself
to develop the wisdom of Hermes further. This is shown in the
progress of the Hebrew people up to the age and reign of
David. David, who is presented to us as the royal singer of
Psalms and holy prophet, who as a man of God worked both as
warrior and harpist, is the Hermes, or Mercury, of the Hebrew
people. That stream of the Hebrew folk had now so far evolved
that it had developed an independent form of Hermetic or
Mercury wisdom. At the time of David the wisdom received from
Hermes had reached the Mercury sphere, or Mercury stage, on
its return journey. It then continued to the region of Venus.
This came to pass for the Hebrews when the Moses-wisdom, or
rather that version of it which had endured as his wisdom for
hundreds of years, had to unite with an entirely different
element, with a stream issuing from another direction.
Just as that
which streams back in space from the earth towards the sun
encounters Venus, so the wisdom of Moses encountered an
Asiatic wisdom that came from another direction during the
Babylonian Captivity. The Moses-wisdom came in touch with the
weakened form of another wisdom in the Mysteries of Babylon
and Chaldea. Like a wanderer who, having acquired knowledge
of the earth, leaves it for the Mercury sphere, and thence
passes on to Venus desirous of experiencing the sunlight as
it is felt there, so the Moses-wisdom, having received the
direct Sun-wisdom from the holy teachings of Zarathustra,
passed over in a weakened form to the mystery schools of
Chaldea and Babylon. The wisdom of Moses experienced this
weakening during the Babylonian captivity, where it united
with all that had penetrated into the lands of the Tigris and
Euphrates. Here something else happened.
In the
sanctuaries which the wise men among the Hebrews were obliged
to frequent during their captivity, the wisdom of Moses was
directly impregnated with the qualities of the Sun-wisdom.
For at this time Zarathustra was himself incarnated and
taught in the mystery schools of the Tigris and Euphrates,
and was known to the learned among the Hebrews. He who had
relinquished part of his wisdom so that he might receive it
back again, was himself teaching at this time. He had
frequently reincarnated, and in this incarnation in which he
was known as Zarathos or Nazarathos, he taught the captive
Jews in Babylon.
Thus in the
course of its further progress, the wisdom of Moses came in
touch with what Zarathustra had himself become after he had
withdrawn from the more distant Mystery Sanctuaries and had
entered those of Asia Minor. Here he became the teacher of
the initiate Chaldean disciples, as well as teacher of the
Hebrews. They now received a fructification of their Mosaic
wisdom by a stream they were now fitter to encounter, because
what had once been given to their ancestor Moses by
Zarathustra came to them now directly from himself, in his
incarnation as Zarathos or Nazarathos. This was the destiny
through which Mosaic wisdom passed. Originally it sprang from
Zarathustra, but was then transplanted into an alien land. It
was as if a Sun-being with bandaged eyes had been brought
down to earth, and now, on its backward journey, had to seek
all it had lost. Such a wanderer was Moses, the pupil of
Zarathustra. His destiny had placed him within Egyptian
civilization, so that all the wisdom given him at one time by
Zarathustra might be quickened and illuminated in his inner
being. He was cut off, as it were, from the sun on the fields
of earth, where unaware of the source of his illumination he
moved unconsciously towards what once was sun. In Egypt he
was attracted towards the wisdom of Hermes, which brought to
him direct Zarathustra-wisdom, not an indirect reflection
like his own. After absorbing sufficiently of this, the
wisdom of Moses continued its development in a more direct
way. Having founded an Hermetic wisdom at the time of David,
and a science and art of its own, it turned again towards the
sun from which it had originally come forth, though in a way
that had at first to appear veiled.
In the
ancient Babylonian schools of learning where, among others,
Zarathustra taught Pythagoras, his teaching was restricted by
the type of physical body of the period. If Zarathustra was
to give full expression to his Sun-nature through a form
suited to those times, as he was able to do in that earlier
incarnation when he had passed it on to Moses and Hermes, he
would require a bodily instrument fitted to the new age.
Restricted by a body such as could be produced in ancient
Babylonia, he was only able to convey such wisdom as he
passed on to Pythagoras, to the learned Hebrews and wise men
of Chaldea and Babylon, who in the sixth century before
Christ, were ready and able to hear it. In respect of this
teaching it was exactly as if the sunlight were first taken
up by Venus and prevented from shining directly on the earth;
as if his teaching could not shine with its original
splendour but only in a weakened form. Before the Sun-wisdom
of Zarathustra could shine forth once more in its pristine
power, a body suited to him must first be provided, and in a
very special way. This will now be described.
In the first
lecture, we told of the three folk-souls of Asia, the Indian
in the South, the Iranian, and the Turanian to the North, and
we described the connection of these with the Atlantean
migrations into Asia. Where the northern stream which came
from Atlantis met the southern stream which passed through
Africa, an extraordinary mixture of races occurred. From this
admixture a race developed from which later the Hebrew people
sprang.
Something
unusual occurred in the development of these ancestors of the
Hebrews. The lower astral-etheric clairvoyance which had
become so decadent among certain races because it was the
last phase of external perception, had in those people who
developed into the Hebrew race, turned inwards and manifested
as an organizing force. That which we have described as being
externally decadent, as having remained behind in certain
races as a last phase of declining clairvoyance, and as being
permeated somewhat by the Ahrimanic element, had progressed
among the Hebrews in the right direction by becoming an
actively organizing force within the human body. Through
this, bodies became more perfect. What among the Turanians
was decadent worked constructively and progressively in the
Hebrews. Within the physical nature of the Hebrews, as
propagated from generation to generation in the close bond of
blood relationship, all those forces were active which had
accomplished their mission in developing external sight.
These were no longer required to provide external sight, so
could enter on another sphere of action, thus passing into
their right element. That which had given to the Atlantean
the power to gaze spiritually into space and into spiritual
realms, that had run wild in the Turanians, appearing as a
last relic of clairvoyance — all this force worked
inwardly in the little Hebrew nation. What in the Atlantean
had been spiritual and divine, worked inwardly in the Hebrew
race to form certain organs. It worked constructively in the
body and could therefore flash forth in the blood of this
people as and inward divine consciousness. With the
Hebrew people it was if all the Atlantean had seen when
directing his clairvoyant vision into space was turned
inwards, as if it constructed inwardly an organ of
consciousness which was the Jahve-consciousness — the
consciousness of God within him. This people felt the God Who
filled all space to be united with their blood, felt they
were filled, impregnated with Him, and that He lived in the
pulsation of their blood.
As in the
last lecture we contrasted the Iranians and the Turanians we
have now considered the Turanians and the Hebrews, and have
seen that what in its further progress and in its essence had
become decadent in the Turanians, pulsated later in the blood
of the Hebrew people. All that the Atlantean had
seen, lived on in the Hebrew as an inward
feeling, and could be comprised in a single word: Jahve
or Jehovah. The consciousness of God lived
throughout the generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
concentrated as into a single point, invisible but inwardly
felt. The God Who had revealed Himself to the Atlantean
clairvoyance behind all living things was now the God
dwelling in the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and led
the generations of their race from destiny to destiny. The
outward had thus become inward it was experienced, no longer
seen; it was no longer described by different names, but by
one single name ‘I am the I am!’ It had taken on
an entirely different form. Whereas for the Atlantean this
was found where he was not — in the external world
— it was now found by man in the centre of his own
being; in his ego; he was conscious of it in the blood that
coursed through the generations. The mighty God of the
Universe had now become the God of the Hebrews; the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and flowed through the generations
as the blood of the race.
It was in
this way that the race was founded whose special inner
mission for humanity we shall consider in the next lecture.
We have thus far only been able to indicate the very earliest
stage of the composition of the blood of this people, in
which was concentrated everything that in the age of ancient
Atlantis, humanity had allowed to be impressed upon it from
without. We shall see later what mysteries were fulfilled in
that which had here its beginning, and shall learn to
recognize the peculiar nature of that people from which
Zarathustra could take his body to become the being we call
Jesus of Nazareth.
Notes:
Note 1
In a footnote to this lecture the reader is recommended to
study these early lectures in conjunction with the author's
lectures on St. Luke, in order to understand the events in
the life of Christ Jesus.
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