The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. The Truth Language of the Gospels: The Christian Mystery

[ 1 ] When we speak of the Christian mystical development of the human being, we must take into account that the path taken in Christianity to achieve higher spiritual development has always been a strictly prescribed one. Only those who withdrew from external culture could follow the Christian-Gnostic path of development. Its complete strictness is not feasible for a person who is involved in external work. However, everyone can achieve a great deal if they only approach this path. Nevertheless, the Christian path requires a very significant level of development. However, it differs from all other paths in that within this path, human beings cannot come to the knowledge of reincarnation and karma through their own perception.

[ 2 ] In esoteric Christianity, there was a conviction that reincarnation existed. But this conviction does not belong to actual exoteric Christianity. There was a specific reason why Christianity in the past did not have this teaching.

[ 3 ] One need only go back a few thousand years to find that the teaching of reincarnation and karma was widespread throughout the world. Only among peoples of Semitic descent did the teaching of reincarnation and karma recede somewhat. Otherwise, this teaching was found everywhere at that time. People who were oppressed by their fate said to themselves at that time: This is one life among many; what I prepare in this life will be rewarded in another. — At that time, there was a constant looking up to the higher worlds. This was everywhere, including among the Chaldean priest-wise men. For them, the stars were the expression of a soul and a spirit; they were the bodies of spirits. For them, the entire universe was animated by spiritual beings. They spoke of the laws according to which the stars move as the will of the spirits whose bodies are the sun and the planets. People at that time lived by continually directing their souls toward the spirit. What people accomplished outwardly in their work on earth at that time was primitive, while the spiritual penetration of the universe had a profound effect on them. High spiritual views can be found there alongside a primitive material culture.

[ 4 ] Now an age was to come in which external, material culture was increasingly cultivated, which, so to speak, conquered the globe for material culture. People's gaze was to rest on physical life. The thinking of the Chaldean priest-sages, the disciples of Hermes, the disciples of the ancient rishis, was directed toward spiritual life. For all of them, repeated earthly lives were a fact. People had to disregard this for a time. All people were to go through one incarnation without knowing anything about repeated earthly lives. This was already being prepared eight hundred years before the beginning of Christianity. Gradually, this is flooding back into our time. Today, those who are familiar with occult currents know that Christianity must now also take up the teachings of reincarnation and karma again.

[ 5 ] This emerges from the mystery on Mount Tabor. It is an event that took place “on the mountain.” “On the mountain” is a key phrase that means that the Master leads his disciples into the innermost part to give them the most intimate teachings there. It says: “The disciples were enraptured.” This means that they were led into higher worlds. There Elijah, Moses, and Jesus appeared to them. This means that space and time were overcome. Those who were no longer there, Moses and Elijah, appeared to them in the devachanic state. The name Elijah means the way of God, the goal. The word El, meaning God, is contained in Elohim, Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and also in Bel. The name Moses represents truth. Moses is the occult name for truth. Jesus means life. Christ himself, standing in the middle, is life. There, as it were, it was written in mental letters of brass: “The way, the truth, and the life.” The disciples say, “Let us build huts here.” This means that they were chelas of the second degree. Furthermore, the Lord says: “Elijah has reappeared, but they did not recognize him. Tell no one until I return.” He is speaking here of reincarnation; John the Baptist is Elijah. The return refers to the return of Christ Jesus. Understanding of this event should be prepared through the anthroposophical worldview.

[ 6 ] Once all human beings have gone through the experience of knowing nothing about reincarnation and karma in one incarnation, reincarnation will be taught again. In the most intimate circles of Christianity, however, reincarnation has always been regarded as truth. This can be seen wherever there were initiates who taught through their deeds. One example of this is the Trappist order. Through complete abstinence from speech in one incarnation, they train themselves to become skilled speakers for subsequent incarnations. Thus, by doing the opposite in one incarnation, a very special gift is developed for the next incarnation. Fiery speakers were to be created through abstinence from speech.

[ 7 ] What should be taught outwardly in one age was that human beings should hold fast to the feeling that life on earth is exhausted with this one life. Human beings should say to themselves: An entire eternity depends on what happens in this one life. A radical elaboration of this view is the doctrine of eternal punishment in hell. The globe would not have been conquered if the teachers of Christianity had not left behind the idea that this one life should be regarded as so important. The great teachers never presented absolute truths, but rather what was appropriate for human beings. The great teachers never teach the ultimate truths, but rather what is beneficial for a particular age. The doctrine of reincarnation would not have been appropriate at that time. Nor is what spiritual science teaches the ultimate truth, but the anthroposophical worldview must be taught now because that is what is right today. People who now hear the teachings of spiritual science will hear the truth in a completely different way in a later incarnation. Within three thousand years, we will learn something that lies in a higher realm because we have already gone through anthroposophy once. This is the spiritual side. But everything spiritual must also have a counterpart in the physical. Several centuries before Christ, the individuality that appeared in Christ had already had a preparatory effect.

[ 8 ] In order for people to think that one incarnation was the only one, it was necessary for something to cut off the brain from the knowledge of the higher principles in human beings, of Atma, Buddhi, Manas, and from the knowledge of reincarnation. To this end, wine was given to people. Previously, only water had been used in all temple cults. Then the use of wine was introduced, and even a divine being, Bacchus, Dionysus, was the representative of wine. The most deeply initiated disciple, John, reveals in his Gospel what wine means for inner development. At the wedding in Cana in Galilee, water is turned into wine. Through wine, people were prepared in such a way that they no longer understood reincarnation. At that time, the sacrificial water was turned into wine, and we are now in the process of turning wine back into water. Anyone who wants to ascend to the higher realms of existence must abstain from every drop of alcohol.

[ 9 ] In the Gospel of John, every line is a profound experience for each individual and for all of humanity. Jesus said: I have come here to bring about the beginning of this epoch of evolution. — Paul, an initiate, calls Christ the reverse Adam. In Adam we have the first human being to appear in this form. With this, the spiritual human being is transferred to incarnation on earth. Now he can take a twofold path. He can take what the gods give him, or acquire something new for himself. This is the story of Cain and Abel. Abel takes the animals that are there. Cain works for what he sacrifices. Through what Cain works for, bread is created. Bread has always been the representative of what man himself works for. By working for bread, man has become sinful. Cain killed his brother. At the same time as his own work, man has become sinful; he has fallen into matter.

[ 10 ] The reverse of Adam is Christ Jesus, who ascends again. He must purchase this with his blood. This had to be done once by a personality. The bread and wine find their representative in the person of Christ, in his body and blood. The Lord himself must take upon himself the sin of Cain: This is my body, this is my blood. — Redemption must come about through the sanctification of what is on earth. The wine represents this at the Lord's Supper, and the blood is thus related to the wine.

[ 11 ] The Gospels are not only teachings, but also writings about life. The stories in the Gospels refer not only to external historical events, but also to inner experiences of human beings. Christian yoga is living completely within the Gospel, as if it were one's own soul life.

[ 12 ] Four things are absolutely necessary for Christian yoga to be possible at all. The first is simplicity. This is a Christian virtue. One must realize that in life one has many experiences that cause one to lose one's impartiality. Almost everyone is biased. The only impartial answers to questions are those given by children. But they are also foolish in this, because children do not yet know anything. However, one must learn to be wise and impartial, childlike and impartial with experience. In Christianity, this is called simplicity.

[ 13 ] The second virtue that must be acquired is that, as a Christian mystic, one must shed what many people have, namely the inner sense of well-being that comes from religious practices. One must no longer engage in these practices for one's own satisfaction, but because the path of practice requires it. All feelings of well-being associated with religious practices must be silenced.

[ 14 ] The third virtue is even more difficult. It consists in absolutely refraining from attributing anything to one's own ability. Instead, one must learn to attribute everything to divine power, to the merit of God working through us. Without this, one cannot become a Christian mystic.

[ 15 ] The fourth virtue is to achieve patient resignation to whatever may befall us. We must cast aside all worries and fears and be prepared for everything, both the best and the worst.

[ 16 ] If one has not developed such virtues to a certain degree, one cannot hope to become a Christian mystic. This preparation enables one to go through the seven stages of the Christian mystical path.

[ 17 ] The first stage is the washing of feet. Everyone must perform this. This is the fulfillment of the saying: Whoever wants to be the Lord must be the servant of all. We must be clear that we do not owe what we are to our own selves. We must take into account everything that other people and the environment have made of us, and seriously consider it. Then we will understand how we are connected to our entire environment. When we have gained strength through the four virtues: simplicity, stripping away the comfort of religious practices, renouncing the attribution of our own abilities, patient devotion to everything that befalls us – then we will also gain the strength to carry out what is called the washing of feet, namely to view everything that has been given to us from outside, everything that has elevated us, with gratitude, and to bow down before it. We must transform our entire feeling into pure gratitude toward those who have given us everything. Thus, we must kneel before those through whom we have become what we are. Christ Jesus knelt before his disciples because without them he could not have become what he became. Christ Jesus presupposes the disciples as the plant presupposes the mineral, as the animal presupposes the plant. He who is the Lord becomes the servant of all. When we learn to humble ourselves to the point of deepest gratitude, then some of the social trappings fall away, and we can then move on to the next stage.

[ 18 ] When we renounce external power, we must have inner power. When we have become the last, we go to the Father. This is called “the way to the Father.” We are then intimately connected with this primal power. This can only be found through our own experience. We must learn to endure every pain. This is the second stage, the scourging, the second stage in the Christian mystical sense. Then the self is supported by itself.

[ 19 ] Even higher is enduring contempt, the third stage. One must learn to endure not being respected by people at all. One must find all one's strength in the higher life. That is bearing the crown of thorns. We must learn to stand upright when the world despises us and showers us with scorn.

[ 20 ] When a person has reached this point, they face their own physicality as if it were foreign. They have humbled themselves, learned to endure pain, learned to endure contempt. Now the body is something in which they no longer live, but around which the soul hovers. This is the crucifixion, the fourth stage. This is replaced by the stage that occurs when one's own body has become completely objective, as if we were tied to a foreign piece of wood. Then our specialness has ceased. This is the mystical death on the cross, the fifth stage.

[ 21 ] The sixth stage is reached when the human being has become equal to everything that is on earth and embraces everything with his feelings, perceiving the whole earth as his body. This is the burial. With this, the human being has become what spiritual science calls oneness with the planet. He then feels that he is not a separate being. The human being can only exist on this earth. A few hundred miles away from it, he would have to die, wither away, like a hand that has been cut off from the body. The earth is then the body of man. We must be buried in it. From this state, man attains earth consciousness. Then follows the seventh stage, the resurrection: man has become a resurrected being. This state can only be understood by those whose thinking is no longer bound to the physical instrument of the brain.

[ 22 ] Human beings can go through the seven stages if they allow the Gospel of John, from chapter thirteen onwards, to live within them again and again: first, the washing of feet, the path of the will to serve, of bowing down in all humility; second, the scourging; third, the crowning with thorns; fourth, the crucifixion; fifth, the mystical death on the cross; sixth, the burial; seventh, the resurrection. These are the seven stages of the Christian inner mystery, which has been outwardly represented in the plan of world history.

[ 23 ] Throughout their lives, Christian monks repeatedly relived these experiences from chapter thirteen of the Gospel of John. From this they drew their strength.