The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture Seven

[ 1 ] Christianity plays a unique, decisive, and essential role in human history. It is, so to speak, the central moment, the turning point between involution and evolution. And that is why such a brilliant light shines forth from it.

[ 2 ] Nowhere else does this light shine as vividly as in the Gospel of John. In fact, it appears here alone in all its power. Contemporary theology undoubtedly does not view this gospel in this way. From a historical point of view, it considers it unequal, apocryphal, so to speak, compared to the three synoptic gospels. The mere fact that its origin has been attributed to the second century has led theologians of the critical school to regard it as a work of mystical poetry and Alexandrian philosophy.

[ 3 ] Esoteric science speaks quite differently about the Gospel of John. Throughout the Middle Ages, there were a number of brotherhoods that saw it as their ideal and the main source of Christian truth. These brotherhoods called themselves the Brothers of St. John, the Albigensians, the Cathars, the Templars, and the Rosicrucians. They all practiced practical occultism and referred to this Gospel as their Bible, their breviary. One can even assume that the legend of the Grail, of Parzival, and of Lohengrin originated from these brotherhoods and that it was the popular expression of their secret teachings.

[ 4 ] All the brothers of these various, related orders considered themselves the precursors of an individual Christianity, whose secret they possessed and whose full development was reserved for future times. They found this secret solely in the Gospel of John. In it they found an eternal truth that applies to all times, a truth that fundamentally reshapes the soul, which absorbs it into its deepest innermost being. The Gospel of John was not read as a literary work, but was seen as a means of initiation. In order to give an account of this, we will leave the question of its historical value aside for the time being.

[ 5 ] The first fourteen verses of this Gospel were the subject of daily meditation and spiritual exercise for the Rosicrucians. They were attributed with a magical effect, and indeed they have this effect for the occultist. Such was their effect. By repeating them tirelessly at the same hour every day, one came to have a vision in dream consciousness of all the events recounted in the Gospel and to experience them inwardly.

[ 6 ] In this way, for the Rosicrucians, the life of Christ means the resurrection of Christ at the bottom of every soul through spiritual vision. Incidentally, they believed equally in the inner-real and historical existence of Christ. For to recognize the inner Christ means at the same time to recognize the Christ who was outwardly present.

[ 7 ] A modern materialistic mind might object: Does the fact that the Rosicrucians had such dreams also prove the real existence of Christ? The occultist replies: If there were no eye to see the sun, the sun would not exist; but if there were no sun in the sky, there would be no eye to see it either. For it is the sun that has formed the eye over time and shaped it to perceive light. Thus, the Rosicrucian could say to himself: The Gospel of John has awakened your inner sense, but without a living Christ, you could not let it live within you.

[ 8 ] The work of Christ Jesus can only be understood in its full depth when one recognizes the difference between the ancient mysteries and the Christian mystery.

[ 9 ] The ancient mysteries took place in the temple schools. The initiates were awakened ones. They learned to work on their etheric body; they were then “twice-born” because they could see the truth in two ways: directly through dreams and astral vision, and indirectly through feeling and logic. The initiation that one underwent meant three things: life, death, and resurrection. The student spent three days in the tomb, in a sarcophagus in the temple. His spirit was freed from his body. But on the third day, at the call of the hierophant from the world of the cosmos, where he had learned about the life of the universe, his spirit returned to his body. He was transformed and reborn. The greatest Greek writers spoke of these mysteries with enthusiasm and sacred reverence. Plato even said that only an initiate deserved the title “human being.” But this initiation finds its crowning glory in Christ. In Christ, the initiation of the emotional life is concentrated, just as ice is condensed water. What was seen in the ancient mysteries is historically realized through Christ on the physical plane. The death of the initiates had been only a partial death in the etheric world. The death of Christ was a complete death on the physical plane.

[ 10 ] The raising of Lazarus can be seen as a threshold motif, a kind of transition from ancient to Christian initiation. In the Gospel of John, John himself appears only after the account of Lazarus' death. The disciple whom Jesus loved is also the highest initiate. He is the one who has passed through death and resurrection and has been raised by the voice of Christ himself. John is Lazarus, who rose from the grave after his initiation. John experienced the death of Christ. Such is the mystical path revealed by the depths of Christianity.

[ 11 ] The wedding at Cana, the account of which can also be read in this Gospel, encompasses one of the profound mysteries of the spiritual history of humanity. It refers to the words of Hermes: Everything is above as it is below. At the wedding at Cana, water is turned into wine. This fact has a symbolic universal meaning: in religious worship, the water sacrifice is to be temporarily replaced by the wine sacrifice.

[ 12 ] There was a time in human history when wine was still unknown. At the time of the Vedas, it was hardly known. Well, as long as people did not drink alcoholic beverages, the idea of previous stages of existence and the multitude of earthly lives was widespread everywhere, and no one doubted it. Since humanity began to drink wine, the idea of reincarnation quickly faded and eventually disappeared from general consciousness. It was preserved only by the initiates who abstained from wine. For alcohol has a special effect on the human organism, especially on the etheric body, where memory is located. Alcohol veils the memory, obscuring it in its inner depths. Wine causes forgetfulness, they say. This is not a superficial, momentary forgetfulness, but a deep and lasting forgetfulness, a darkening of the power of memory in the etheric body. Therefore, when people began to drink wine, they gradually lost their original sense of reincarnation.

[ 13 ] However, belief in reincarnation and the law of karma had a powerful influence not only on the personality, but also on social consciousness. It made people accept the inequality of human living conditions. When the unfortunate Egyptian laborer worked on the pyramids, when the Hindu of the lowest caste built the gigantic temples in the heart of the mountains, he told himself that another existence would compensate him for the hard work he had bravely endured if he was good; he told himself that his master had already gone through similar trials, or that he would have to go through even harder trials later if he doubted justice and was ill-disposed.

[ 14 ] But when Christianity approached, humanity was to go through an epoch in which it would focus entirely on its earthly task. It was to work on improving this life, on developing the intellect, on the rational scientific understanding of nature. The awareness of reincarnation was to be lost for two thousand years. And the means used for this purpose was wine.

[ 15 ] This is the profound reason for the worship of Bacchus, the god of wine and drunkenness, a popular form of Dionysus of the ancient mysteries, who had a completely different meaning in himself. This is also the symbolic meaning of the wedding at Cana. Water plays its role in the old sacrificial service, wine in the new. The words of Christ, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe,” refer to the new era of humanity, where man, wholly devoted to his earthly tasks, is to have neither the memory of previous incarnations nor direct vision into the spiritual world.

[ 16 ] Christ leaves us a legacy in the scene on Mount Tabor, in the Transfiguration before Peter, James, and John. The disciples saw Him between Elijah and Moses. Elijah represents the way to truth, Moses represents truth itself, and Christ represents the life that unites both. That is why He can say of Himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

[ 17 ] Thus everything culminates and unites in Christ, everything receives its light and strength from Him, everything is transformed in Christ. He goes back to the source of the human soul's past and foresees its future until its union with God. For Christianity is not only a force of the past, but also a force for the future. With the Rosicrucians, the new spiritual science teaches about the inner Christ in every human being and the future Christ in all of humanity.