The Gospel of St. Luke

The following lecture-course was given by Rudolf Steiner to an audience familiar with the general background and terminology of his anthroposophical teaching. It should be remembered that in his autobiography, The Course of My Life, he emphasises the distinction between his written works on the one hand and, on the other, reports of lectures which were given as oral communications and were not originally intended for print. For an intelligent appreciation of the lectures — and very specially so in the case of those contained in the present volume — it should be borne in mind that certain premises were taken for granted when the words were spoken. ‘These premises,’ Rudolf Steiner writes, ‘include, at the very least, the anthroposophical knowledge of Man and of the Cosmos in its spiritual essence; also what may be called “anthroposophical history”, told as an outcome of research into the spiritual world.’

On each of the Gospels Rudolf Steiner gave more than one special course, as well as innumerable lectures on the mysteries connected with the figure of Christ-Jesus in celestial and earthly history. All these courses and lectures lead into the deepest secrets of Christianity and as well as the earlier, fundamental work, Christianity as Mystical Fact, are indispensable for reference at every stage of the study of Spiritual Science.

A list of publications in English translation relevant to the themes of the following lectures, and a summarised plan of the Complete Centenary Edition of Rudolf Steiner's works in the original German will be found at the end of the present volume.