The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Twelfth Lecture

[ 1 ] We advanced yesterday to the discussion of that change which takes place with the astral body of man through meditation, concentration and other exercises given by the various methods of initiation. We have seen that in this way the astral body is worked out so that it receives into itself the organs it needs in order to look into the higher worlds, and we have said that up to this point - although the exercises depend entirely on the corresponding cultural periods - the principle of initiation is actually the same everywhere. The great difference in principle only begins when the next thing, which must now be added, is to take place. For in order that man can really see into the higher worlds, it is necessary that the organs which have been worked out in the astral part be expressed in the etheric body, that it be pressed into the etheric body.

[ 2 ] The working out of the astral body by way of meditation and concentration is called “catharsis”, purification. This catharsis or purification has the aim of throwing out of the astral body everything that prevents it from being organized harmoniously and regularly, so that it can attain higher organs; for it is predisposed to these higher organs, one only needs, so to speak, to expose the forces that are in it.

[ 3 ] We said that the most diverse methods could be used to bring about this catharsis. A person can get very far in terms of this catharsis if, for example, he has gone through and experienced everything in my “Philosophy of Freedom” so inwardly that he has the feeling: The book was a stimulus for me, but now I can actually reproduce the thoughts myself exactly as they stand. If someone relates to this book - for that is how it is written - in the same way that a virtuoso relates to the composer of a piece by playing it on the piano, so that he produces the whole thing in himself - in the appropriate way, of course - then catharsis can be brought about to a high degree by the strictly structured sequence of thoughts in this book. For with such things as this book is, it is important that the thoughts are all set in such a way that they become effective. With many other contemporary books it is the case that, basically, if you only organize the systematics a little differently, you can say one thing earlier and another thing later. This is not possible with the “Philosophy of Freedom”. It is just as impossible to place page 150 about ;5o pages earlier in the content as it is to change the hind legs of a dog with the front legs. For this book is a structured organism, and working through the thoughts of this book brings about something like an inner training. There are various methods of bringing about catharsis. He who has not brought it about when he has gone through this book need not think that what I say is not right, but rather that he has not worked through it properly or energetically and thoroughly enough.

[ 4 ] Now, however, something else comes into consideration, which is that when this catharsis has occurred, when the astral sense organs are formed in the astral body, the whole must be expressed in the etheric body. This is how it was done in the pre-Christian initiations: After the disciple had gone through the appropriate preliminary exercises, which he was often made to undergo for years, it was said: “Now the time has come when the astral body is so far advanced that it has its astral organs of cognition; now these can experience their imprint in the etheric body. - The pupil in question was then subjected to a procedure which today - at least for our cultural epoch - is not only not necessary, but also not seriously practicable. He was brought into a lethargic state for three and a half days. There he was treated in such a way that not only did that occur for him during these three and a half days which occurs every night during sleep: that the astral body emerges from the physical body and the etheric body, but the etheric body was also lifted out to a certain degree, and care was also taken to ensure that the physical body remained intact and that the person concerned did not die in the meantime. Now the etheric body was freed from the forces of the physical body acting upon it. The etheric body was now, so to speak, elastic and plastic, and when the sensory organs formed in the astral body were lowered into it, the etheric body received an imprint of the entire astral body. When the person concerned was then brought back into the normal state by the hierophant, when the astral body and ego were reunited with the physical body and etheric body - this was a procedure understood by the hierophant-initiator - then not only the catharsis was there for him, but also what is called “enlightenment”, “photismos”. The person concerned was now able to perceive all those things in the world around him that were not only physically sensual, but he could use the spiritual organs of perception, that is, he saw the spiritual and was able to perceive it. The initiation essentially consisted of these two processes, purification or purification and enlightenment.

[ 5 ] Now, in the course of human development, such a phase occurred for man that it gradually became impossible to bring the etheric body out of the physical body without a far-reaching disturbance of all functions, because the whole post-Atlantean development amounted to the etheric body becoming more and more fixed in the physical body. It was therefore necessary to carry out other methods which would ensure that without the separation of physical body and etheric body the astral body, when it is sufficiently developed within the catharsis, when it enters the physical and etheric body again of its own accord, would then, despite the obstacle of the physical body, come to an imprint of its organs in the etheric body. What had to occur, therefore, is that stronger forces had to work in meditation and concentration, so that strong impulses would be in the astral body which could overcome the resistance of the physical body.

[ 6 ] First came the actually specifically Christian initiation, which makes it necessary for the human being to submit to the procedures that were described yesterday as the seven stages. When a person undergoes these feelings and sensations, his astral body is worked so intensively that - perhaps only after years, but sooner or later - it plastically forms his organs of perception and then presses them into the etheric body in order to make the person into an enlightened one. This type of initiation, which is specifically Christian, could only be described in detail if I could give a lecture on all the details every day for not just several days, but perhaps two weeks. But that is not the point. - Yesterday it was a matter of giving you certain details of the Christian initiation. We only want to familiarize ourselves with the principle. - By undergoing something like this, a person is indeed able to attain initiation without the three and a half days of lethargic sleep, especially if the Christian disciple meditates continuously on the sentences of St. John's Gospel. If he allows the first sentences of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word” up to the passage “full of devotion and truth” to work on him every day, they are a tremendously significant meditation. They have this power in them. For this Gospel of John in its entirety is not merely there to be read and understood with the intellect, but must be fully experienced and felt inwardly. Then it is itself a power that comes to the aid of the initiation and works for it, and then “foot-washing”, “scourging” and other inner processes are experienced as astral visions, quite in accordance with the way they are described in the Gospel of John itself from the 13th chapter onwards.

[ 7 ] The Rosicrucian initiation, however, although it stands on Christian ground, works more with other symbolic ideas that bring about catharsis, namely with imaginary images. This is again a modification that had to be applied because humanity had progressed a little further in its development and because the initiation method has to adapt to what humanity has gradually developed. | Now we must understand that man basically becomes quite different from what he was before when he attains this initiation. Whereas previously he only dealt with the things of the physical world, he then acquires the ability to deal with the processes and beings of the spiritual world in the same way. This presupposes that man attains knowledge in a much more real sense than in the abstract, sober, prosaic sense in which we usually speak of knowledge. For the person who attains spiritual knowledge, the process of knowledge is something quite different. It is something that is entirely a realization of the beautiful saying: “Know thyself!” But the most dangerous thing in the field of knowledge is to misunderstand this saying, and this happens all too often today. Some people interpret this saying in such a way that they should no longer look around in the world, but look into their own inner being and search for everything spiritual within themselves. This is a very misunderstood understanding of the saying, for that is not what it means at all. Man must realize that real higher knowledge is also a development from a point of view which man has reached to a point of view which he had not reached before. If one practises self-knowledge in such a way that one only broods within oneself, one only sees what one has already known. In this way, however, man attains nothing new, but only a knowledge of his own lower self in the modern sense. This inner self is only one part that is necessary for knowledge. The other part, which belongs to knowledge, must be added. Without the two parts it is not possible. It is through the inner self that man can come to develop the organs within himself through which one recognizes. But just as the eye, as an external sense organ, would not recognize the sun by looking into itself, but must look outwards at the sun, so the inner organ of cognition must also look outwards, that is, towards the spiritual outside, in order to really recognize. The term “knowledge” had a much deeper, more real meaning in the times when spiritual things were understood in a more real way than today. Read in the Bible what it says: “Adam recognized his wife” (Genesis 4:1 and 25), or this or that of the patriarchs “recognized his wife”. You need not go far to understand that it means fertilization; and if you look at the saying “Know thyself” in the Greek, it does not mean: Gaffe into your inner being, but: Fertilize your self with what flows to you from the spiritual world! Know thyself! means: Fertilize yourself with the contents of the spiritual world!

[ 8 ] Two things are necessary for this: that man prepares himself through catharsis and enlightenment, but then opens his inner being freely to the spiritual world. In this context of knowledge we may compare the inner man with the feminine, the outer man with the masculine. The inner self must be made receptive to receiving the higher self. If it is receptive, then the higher self flows into the human being from the spiritual world. For where is man's higher self? Is it inside the personal human being? No! On Saturn, the sun and the moon, the higher self was poured out over the whole cosmos. At that time the I of the cosmos was poured out upon man, and man must let this I work upon him. He must allow this I to have an effect on his previously prepared inner being. This means that man's inner being, in other words his astral body, must be purified and refined, subjected to catharsis. Then he can expect the outer spiritual to flow into him for his enlightenment. This happens when the human being is so far prepared that he has subjected his astral body to catharsis and thereby developed his inner organs of cognition. Then the astral body, when it is now immersed in the etheric body and physical body, is under all circumstances ready for the enlightenment, the photismos, to take place. What really happens is that the astral body imprints its organs in the etheric body, which then causes the human being to perceive a spiritual world around him, so that his inner being, the astral body, receives what the etheric body is able to offer him, what the etheric body draws from the whole cosmos, from the cosmic ego.

[ 9 ] Christian esotericism called this cleansed, purified astral body, which at the moment when it is subjected to enlightenment contains nothing of the impure impressions of the physical world, but only the organs of knowledge of the spiritual world, the “pure, chaste, wise virgin Sophia”. Through everything that a person absorbs in the catharsis, he purifies and purifies his astral body into the “Virgin Sophia”. And the “Virgin Sophia” is met by the cosmic ego, the world ego, which brings about enlightenment, which thus ensures that man has light around him, spiritual light. This second, which is added to the “Virgin Sophia”, is what Christian esotericism calls - and still calls today - the “Holy Spirit”. So that one speaks quite correctly in the Christian esoteric sense when one says: The Christian esoteric achieves the purification and cleansing of his astral body through his initiation processes; he turns his astral body into the “Virgin Sophia” and is overlighted - if you like, you can call it overshadowed - by the “Holy Spirit”, by the cosmic world ego. And the one who is thus enlightened, who in other words has absorbed the “Holy Spirit” in the sense of Christian esotericism, then speaks in a different sense from then on. How does he speak? He speaks in such a way that it is not his opinion when he talks about Saturn, the sun, the moon, about the various members of the human being, about the processes of world development. His views are not taken into consideration at all. When such a man talks about Saturn, Saturn talks out of him. When he speaks about the sun, the spiritual essence of the sun speaks from him. He is the instrument; his ego has perished, that is, it has become impersonal for such moments, and it is the cosmic world ego that uses him as an instrument to speak through him. Therefore, one must not speak of views or opinions in the case of the real esoteric teachings that emerge from Christian esotericism. That is not correct in the highest sense of the word. They do not exist. The person who speaks of the world in the sense of Christian esotericism with the right attitude says to himself: “It doesn't matter that I tell people that there were two horses out there, one of which I don't like so much, I think it's a rotten horse. What matters is that I describe the horses to the others and give them the facts! That's what it's all about, that what is observed is told from the spiritual world to the exclusion of any personal opinion. In every spiritual-scientific teaching system, the sequence of facts must simply be narrated; it must have nothing to do with the views of the person who is narrating.

[ 10 ] So we have first become acquainted with two terms in their spiritual meaning. We have come to know the nature of the “Virgin Sophia”, which is the purified astral body, and we have come to know the nature of the “Holy Spirit”, the cosmic world ego, which is received by the “Virgin Sophia” and can then speak out of the astral body in question.

[ 11 ] Something else, an even higher level is to be attained, that is: to be able to help someone, to be able to give them the impulses to attain both. The people of our evolutionary epoch can receive the “Virgin Sophia”, the purified astral body, and the “Holy Spirit”, enlightenment, in the manner described. Only Christ Jesus could give the earth what is necessary for this. He implanted in the spiritual part of the earth the powers that make it possible for what has been described in the Christian initiation to happen at all. How did this come about?

[ 12 ] We must contribute two things to its understanding. Firstly, we must familiarize ourselves with something purely historical: with the way in which names were given, which was quite different at the time when the Gospels were written than it is today.

[ 13 ] Those who interpret the Gospels today do not understand the principle of naming at the time of the Gospels and therefore do not speak as they ought to speak. It is extremely difficult to describe what the principle of naming was like at that time. But we can make it understandable if we can only sketch it out. Imagine that when we encounter a person we would not stop at the name that does not belong to him at all, which he receives in the abstract ways that are now customary for naming, but we would listen and pay attention to his most outstanding qualities, the most prominent feature in his character, and we would be able to clairvoyantly explore the deeper basis of his being, and would then give him his name according to the most important qualities that we believe we must attribute to him.

[ 14 ] If we were to follow such a naming system, we would be doing something similar to what those who gave names in the sense of the writer of the Gospel of John did at a lower, elementary level. If I wanted to make myself properly understood, how the writer of the Gospel of John went about naming her, I would now have to say: This writer of the Gospel of John looked at the external historical mother of Jesus for her most prominent characteristics and then said: Where can I find a name for her that expresses her essence most perfectly? And because, through the earlier incarnations she had gone through, she had reached the spiritual height at which she stood, because in her outer personality she appeared, as it were, as an imprint, as a revelation of what in Christian esotericism is called the “Virgin Sophia”, he called the mother of Jesus the “Virgin Sophia”. That is what she was always called in the esoteric places where Christianity was taught esoterically: the “Virgin Sophia”. Exoterically, he leaves her unnamed at all, in contrast to the other evangelists who chose the profane name Mary for her. He was not allowed to use the profane name. John had to express in the name the deep world-historical development. He does this by indicating that she cannot be called Mary, rather he places her sister Mary, Cleophas' wife, next to her and simply calls her “Jesus' mother”. In this way he indicates that he does not want to mention her name, that it cannot be made public. In esoteric circles she was always called the “Virgin Sophia”. She was the one who, as an external historical person, represented the “Virgin Sophia”.

[ 15 ] If we now want to penetrate further into the essence of Christianity and its founder, we must place yet another mystery before our souls. We must be clear about the fact that we must distinguish between what in Christian esotericism is called “Jesus of Nazareth” and what is called the “Christ Jesus”, the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth. What does that mean? It means the following.

[ 16 ] In the historical personality of Jesus of Nazareth we are first of all dealing with a highly developed human being who has passed through many incarnations and re-embodied after a high period of development, who was thus drawn to a mother so pure that the writer of the Gospel of John was allowed to call her the “Virgin Sophia”. We are therefore dealing with a highly developed human being, Jesus of Nazareth, who had already progressed far in his development in the previous incarnation and entered this incarnation on a high spiritual level.

[ 17 ] The other evangelists apart from the writer of the Gospel of John are not as highly enlightened as the writer of the Gospel of John. Rather, the sensual, real world is open to them, in which they see their Master and Messiah walking as Jesus of Nazareth. In contrast, the more secret spiritual contexts are hidden from them, at least in those heights into which the writer of the Gospel of John looks. They must therefore attach particular importance to the fact that in Jesus of Nazareth that which has always lived in Judaism, that which has always been propagated in Judaism as the God of the Jews, the Father, who passes through all generations, is lived out. That is why they express this. They say: “If we trace the lineage of Jesus of Nazareth back through the generations, we can prove that the blood that has flowed through the generations really runs in him. - They therefore give the genealogies according to how they themselves stand at the various stages of development. Matthew's main point is that he shows: In Jesus of Nazareth we have before us a man in whom the father Abraham lives; the blood of the father Abraham has trickled down to him. Therefore he gives the genealogy up to Abraham (Matth. i, i-17). He takes a more material standpoint than Luke. The latter is concerned not only to show that God lived in Jesus, who already lived in Abraham, but he is concerned to show that the lineage, the bloodline, can be traced even further up to Adam, and Adam was a son of the Godhead himself, that is, he belonged to the time when men first passed from spirituality into corporeality (Luke 3:23-38). This is what matters to both Matthew and Luke: to show that this temporal Jesus of Nazareth is fully contained in that which leads back to the divine fatherhood itself.

[ 18 ] The writer of the Gospel of John, who looked into the spiritual, was not concerned with this; for he was not interested in the word: “I and the Father Abraham are one”, but he wanted to show: Every moment there is something eternal in man that was in man before the Father Abraham. In the beginning it was the Logos, which is called “I am”. Earlier, when all external things and beings were, he was; he was in the primordial beginning.

[ 19 ] So for those who wanted to describe Jesus of Nazareth more and could only describe him, it was a matter of showing how the blood ran down through the generations from the beginning. It was important for them to show that in Joseph, the father of Jesus of Nazareth, lived the blood that flowed down through the generations.

[ 20 ] Here, of course, if we could speak quite esoterically, it would be necessary to talk about the concept of the so-called “immaculate conception”, the “conceptio immaculata”, which, however, can only be discussed in the most general circles. But it is one of the most profound mysteries there is; and the misunderstandings connected with this concept stem from the fact that people do not know what is meant by the conceptio immaculata. People believe that it means that there is no paternity. That is not the case, but there is something much deeper and more mysterious behind it. And what lies behind it is precisely what the other evangelists want to show: that Joseph is the father. If they were to deny this, what they are trying to show would be completely pointless. They want to show that the old God lives in Jesus of Nazareth. Luke in particular wants to show it clearly. Therefore he leads the whole genealogy up to Adam and then to God. How else would he come to this conclusion if he actually only wanted to say: I am showing you that this genealogy exists, but actually the whole of Joseph has nothing to do with it. It would be strange if people made an effort to present Joseph as such an important personality and then in turn dismissed him from the whole process.

[ 21 ] Now, however, in the event of Palestine we are not only dealing with this highly developed personality of Jesus of Nazareth, who had gone through many incarnations and had developed so highly that he needed such an outstanding mother, but we are also dealing with a second mystery.

[ 22 ] When the Jesus of Nazareth was thirty years old, he had also come so far through what he had experienced in his incarnation at that time that he was able to complete a process that can be completed in exceptional cases. We know that the human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body and an ego. This four-membered human being is the human being who lives among us. When the human being is at a certain level of development, it is possible for him at a certain point in time to take his ego out of the three bodies and leave them intact as completely healthy bodies. This ego then goes into the spiritual world and the three bodies remain behind. We sometimes encounter this process in the development of the world. With some human being there occurs a particularly high, enraptured moment, which under certain circumstances can also extend over a longer period of time. Then the ego departs, goes into the spiritual world; and because the three bodies are so highly developed through the ego that was in them, they are useful tools for a still higher entity that takes possession of them. In the thirtieth year of Jesus of Nazareth, the being that we have called the Christ now takes possession of his physical body, etheric body and astral body. This Christ-being could not incarnate in an ordinary child's body, but only in a body that was first prepared for it by a highly developed ego. For this Christ-being had never before been incarnated in a physical body. From the thirtieth year onwards, therefore, we are dealing with the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 23 ] What had happened in truth? In truth, this physicality of Jesus of Nazareth, which he had left behind, was so mature, so perfect, that the Sun Logos, the essence of the six Elohim, as we have described it as the spiritual essence of the Sun, was able to penetrate into it. It could incarnate for three years in this corporeality, could become flesh. The Sun Logos, who can shine into the human being through enlightenment, he himself, the Holy Spirit, enters, the world ego, the cosmic ego enters, and from then on the Sun Logos speaks from the body of Jesus during these three years. The Christ speaks from the body of Jesus throughout the three years. This process is alluded to in the Gospel of John and also in the other Gospels as the descent of the dove, the Holy Spirit, upon Jesus of Nazareth. In esoteric Christianity it is said that at this moment the ego of Jesus of Nazareth leaves his body and that from then on the Christ-Spirit is in him, speaking from him to teach and work. This is the first event that takes place, in the sense of the Gospel of John. Now we have the Christ in the astral body, etheric body and physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. The Christ works in the sense we have described up to the Mystery of Golgotha. What happens on Golgotha?

[ 24 ] The following happens on Golgotha. We are looking at the moment, which is the really important one, when the blood flows from the wounds of the Crucified One. Now I want to compare what happens there with something else so that you can understand me better.

[ 25 ] Imagine that you have a container of water here. Dissolved in this water would be a salt, so that the water would be quite transparent. By heating the water, you have made a salt solution. Now cool the water. The salt is deposited and you can see how the salt condenses from below and is deposited at the bottom. This is the process for those who only see with physical eyes. But for those who see with spiritual eyes, something else happens. While the salt condenses at the bottom, the spirit of the salt flows upwards through the water and fills it. The salt can only become denser if the spirit of salt leaves the salt and spreads out in the water. Anyone who knows things knows that where there is condensation, there is always spiritualization. So what condenses downwards has its counterpart in the spiritual, upwards. Just as when this salt seeps downwards and condenses there, the spirit of the salt flows out and spreads upwards, in the same way there was not only a physical process when the blood ran out of the wounds of the Redeemer, but when the blood ran out, it was really accompanied by a spiritual process. And this spiritual process consists in the fact that the Holy Spirit, who was taken up at the baptism, united with the earth, that the Christ himself flowed into the being of the earth. From now on the earth was transformed. For this is the basis of what was said to you in the earlier lectures: one could have seen, if one had looked at the earth from a distant star, that the whole appearance of the earth changed with the event of Golgotha. The Sun Logos was to communicate with the earth, to enter into an alliance with the earth, to become the spirit of the earth. The way in which he did this is that he entered the body of Jesus of Nazareth in his thirtieth year, worked in it for three years and was then preserved for the earth.

[ 26 ] And now the point is that there must be an effect of this event in the real Christian, that there must be something whereby the real Christian gradually acquires the disposition for an astral body purified in the Christian sense. There had to be something for the Christian whereby he could gradually make his astral body similar to a “Virgin Sophia” in order to receive the “Holy Spirit” into himself, which otherwise could also be spread out on earth, but could not be received by one whose astral body is not similar to the “Virgin Sophia”. There had to be something that contained the power to make the human astral body into a “Virgin Sophia”.

[ 27 ] Where does this power lie? This power lies in the fact that Christ Jesus entrusted the disciple whom he loved, i.e. the writer of the Gospel of John, with the mission of writing down the events in Palestine truthfully and faithfully out of his enlightenment so that people could let them have an effect on them. If people allow what is written in the Gospel of John to have sufficient effect on them, then their astral body is on the way to becoming a “virgin Sophia” and it then becomes receptive to the “Holy Spirit”. It gradually becomes receptive through the strength of the impulses emanating from the Gospel of John to feel and later recognize true spiritual things. This is what Christ Jesus gave to the writer of the Gospel of John, this mission, this assignment. You only need to read the Gospel to find it: Jesus' mother stood at the cross - the “Virgin Sophia” in the esoteric sense of Christianity - and from the cross Christ spoke to the disciple he loved:

"Henceforth this is your mother! And from that hour the disciple took her to himself.” (19, 27)

[ 28 ] That is: The power that was in my astral body and enabled it to become a carrier for the Holy Spirit, this power I transfer to you; you are to write down what this astral body was able to attain through its development! - “And the disciple took them to himself”, that is, he wrote the Gospel of John. And the Gospel of John is the Gospel in which the writer concealed the powers for the unfolding of the “Virgin Sophia”. On the cross, he is given the mission to accept her as his mother, to be the true, genuine interpreter of the Messiah. So this actually means: live yourselves completely into the meaning of the Gospel of John, recognize it spiritually; it has the power to lead you to Christian catharsis, it has the power to give you the “Virgin Sophia”; then the Holy Spirit united with the earth will also give you enlightenment - photismos in the Christian sense! - And what the most intimate disciples had experienced in Palestine at that time was so strong that from then on they at least had the ability to see in the spirit. The most intimate disciples had absorbed this disposition. For this seeing in the spiritual in the Christian sense consists in the fact that man so transforms his astral body through the power of the event of Palestine that outwardly, physically-sensually there need not be what man is to see.

[ 29 ] Man then still has something with which he sees into the spiritual. There were such intimate disciples. The one who anointed the Christ Jesus in the spot of Bethany had received the strong power of spiritual vision from the event in Palestine, and she is, for example, one of those who first hear that what lived in Jesus is present after death, is resurrected. She had this possibility. Where did she get this possibility? Because her inner sense organs were opened to her. - Is that what we are told? Yes. We are told that Mary of Magdala is led to the tomb, that the corpse is gone and that she sees two spiritual figures at the tomb. You always see these two spiritual figures when a corpse is there for a long time. On the one side one sees the astral body, and on the other side one sees that which gradually detaches itself as the etheric body and passes over into the world ether. Quite apart from the physical body there are two spiritual forms that belong to the spiritual world.

"Then the disciples went home again.

But Mary stood before the tomb and wept outside. As she wept, she looked into the tomb.

And she saw two angels sitting in white robes.” (20, 10-12)

[ 30 ] She saw this because she had become clairvoyant through the power and violence of the event in Palestine. And she saw even more: she saw the Risen One. Was it necessary for her to be clairvoyant? Do you trust yourself not to recognize a person you saw in physical form a few days ago when you have him in front of you a few days later?

"And when she had said this, she turned back and saw Jesus standing there, not knowing that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for? She thinks it is the gardener.” (20:14-15)

[ 31 ] And so that we are told this as accurately as possible, we are told this not just once, but also at the next appearance of the Risen One, when Jesus appeared on the Sea of Galilee.

"Now when it was morning, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.” (21, 4)

[ 32 ] The esoteric disciples find him there. Those who had absorbed the full power of the event in Palestine were able to find their way into it and see that it was the risen Jesus who could be seen in the spirit.

[ 33 ] While the disciples and Mary of Magdala saw him, there were some among them who were somewhat less gifted in developing clairvoyant powers. Thomas, for example, was one of them. You are told of Thomas that he was not present the first time the disciples saw the Lord; and he himself says that he must first lay his hands in his wounds, that he must first have a physical contact with the Risen Lord. What happens? An attempt was now to be made to help him so that he would become spiritual. How does that happen? It happens in the sense of the words:

"And again for eight days his disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, when the doors were shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you."

Then said he unto Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing.” (20, 26-27)

And you will see something if you do not merely rely on the outward appearance, but penetrate yourself with the inward power! ^{1"Jesus said to him, ”Because you have seen me, Thomas, you believe. Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe” (20:29). (20, 29).}

[ 34 ] This inner strength, which is supposed to emanate from the event in Palestine, is called “faith”. This is not a trivial power, but an inner clairvoyant power. - Imbue yourself with the inner power, then you no longer need to regard as real only what you see outwardly; for blessed are those who can know of that which they do not see outwardly!

[ 35 ] This shows that we are dealing with the full reality and truth of the resurrection and that this resurrection can only be fully recognized by those who first equip themselves with the inner power to see into the spiritual.

[ 36 ] This will be made clear to you in the last chapter of the Gospel of John, where more and more attention is drawn to the fact that the most intimate disciples of Christ Jesus came to the “Virgin Sophia” because the event had taken place before them. But when they were to stand for the first time, to really see a spiritual event, they were still blinded and first had to find their way. They did not know that this was the same one who had been with them before. - Here is something which we must grasp in the most subtle terms, for the coarse materialistic mind would say: “Then the resurrection has been shaken! - The miracle of the resurrection is to be taken quite literally and even as he said:

"I will be with you always, to the end of the age, the age of the world!” (Matth. 28, 20)

[ 37 ] He is there and he will come again, not in a fleshly form, but in such a form that people who have developed by then through the power of the Gospel of John will be able to see him, really perceive him and no longer disbelieve when they have the spiritual power to see him. This is the mission of the anthroposophical movement: to prepare that part of humanity that wants to be prepared for the return of Christ on earth. This is the world-historical significance of anthroposophical spiritual science: to prepare humanity and to keep its eyes open when the Christ appears again in the sixth cultural period, effectively among men, so that for a large part of humanity that can take place which is indicated to us in the wedding at Cana.

[ 38 ] So the anthroposophical world view looks like an execution of the will of Christianity. In order to be led to true Christianity, man will in future have to absorb those spiritual teachings which the anthroposophical world view is able to give. At present, many people may still say: Oh, anthroposophy is something that actually contradicts true Christianity! But these are the little popes who want to decide on what they know nothing about, who want to make it a dogma that what they know nothing about is not there either.

[ 39 ] This intolerance will become ever greater in the future, and Christianity will experience the greatest danger precisely from that side where the people are who currently believe they can call themselves good Christians. Christianity will be severely attacked in spiritual science by the nominal Christians. For all concepts will have to change if a real spiritual understanding of Christianity is to come about. Above all, the legacy of the writer of the Gospel of St. John, the great school of the “Virgin Sophia”, the Gospel of St. John itself, will have to become more and more ingrained in souls and be understood. But only spiritual science can introduce us more deeply into the Gospel of John. These lectures should only give a sample of how spiritual science can introduce us to the Gospel of John, for it is impossible to explain the entire Gospel of John. The Gospel of John itself says:

"There are also many other things which Jesus did: but if they should be written one by one, I suppose that the world would not understand the books that should be written.” (21, 25)

[ 40 ] No more than the Gospel of John itself could be detailed in all particulars with regard to the events of Palestine, nor can the longest cycle of lectures contain all the spiritual content of the Gospel of John. We will therefore content ourselves with the hints that could be given this time. But let us be content in the sense that through such allusions the real testament of Christianity is carried out in the course of human development. And let us allow all this to affect us in the sense that we have the strength to stand firm on the ground of what we recognize in the Gospel of John, when others come who say: You give us too complicated concepts, many concepts which one must first acquire in order to understand the Gospel, for the Gospel is there for the simple and naive, and one must not come to them with many concepts and ideas! - This is what many people are currently saying. They perhaps refer to another saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs will be the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

[ 41 ] Such a saying can only be invoked as long as it is not properly understood. For it really means:

“Blessed are the beggars in spirit, for they shall obtain in themselves the kingdoms of heaven.”

[ 42 ] That is, those who are like the beggars in spirit, who want to receive more and more in spirit, will find in themselves the kingdoms of heaven!

[ 43 ] There is at present only too much the opinion that everything religious is identical with everything primitive and simple. It is said: We concede to science that it has many and complicated concepts; but we do not concede this to faith and religion. Faith and religion - say many “Christians” - must be simple and naive! That is what they demand; and some may refer to an opinion which is perhaps little mentioned, but which now haunts many minds and which Voltaire, one of the great teachers of materialism, expressed: Whoever wants to be a prophet must find faith, for what he puts forward must be believed, and only the simple, which is repeated again and again in its simplicity, that alone finds faith.

[ 44 ] So it is in many cases at present with many prophets, true and false. They endeavor to say something and repeat it again and again, and people learn to believe it because it is always repeated. The representative of spiritual science should not and does not want to be such a prophet. He doesn't want to be a prophet at all. And no matter how much one may say to him: Yes, you are not only repeating, but again and again things are illuminated from other sides, again and again things are discussed in a different way, - if he says so, he does not accuse himself of any error. A prophet wants people to believe in him; spiritual science, however, does not want to lead to belief, but to knowledge. Therefore we take Voltaite's saying in a different sense: “The simple is believed and is a matter for the prophet,” he says. “But the manifold is recognized“, says spiritual science.

[ 45 ] Let us try to make ourselves more and more familiar with the fact that spiritual science is something that is manifold, not a profession of faith, but a path to knowledge, that it therefore endures the manifold. That is why we are not afraid to bring many things to the table in order to understand one of the most important documents of Christianity, the Gospel of John. That is why we have tried to bring the most varied materials to enable us to understand more and more the profound truths of the Gospel of John; to understand how the physical mother of Jesus is an external revelation, an image of the “Virgin Sophia”; what the “Virgin Sophia” is spiritually for the mystery disciple whom Christ loved; as then for the other evangelists, who look to bodily descent, the bodily Father plays a part, which has its meaning where it depends on the outward expression of the concept of God in the blood; which further means for John the “Holy Spirit”, through whom the Christ was begotten in Jesus during the three years, the Spirit, which is symbolically indicated to us by the dove descending at John's baptism.

[ 46 ] So if we understand to call the “Holy Spirit” the Father of Christ Jesus, who begat in the bodies of Jesus the Christ, we shall easily find, if we can grasp a matter from all sides, that those disciples who were less initiated could not give us so deep a picture of the events in Palestine as the disciple whom the Lord loved. And if people at present speak of the Synoptics as being solely authoritative for them, this only proves that people do not have the will to rise to the understanding of the true form of John's Gospel. For everyone is like the spirit he understands!

[ 47 ] If we try to turn what we can learn about the Gospel of John through anthroposophical spiritual science into feeling, into sensation, we will experience that the Gospel of John is not only a text, but a power that can work in our souls.

[ 48 ] If these brief lectures have evoked in you the feeling that the Gospel of John not only contains what is expressed here, but that it also contains, by way of words, the power that brings the soul itself further, then you have correctly understood what is actually meant by these lectures. For what is meant by these lectures is not only something for the mind, for the intellectual faculty of perception; but that which takes its detour through the intellectual faculty of perception is to be condensed into feelings and sensations, and the feelings and sensations are to be a result of the details which have been recited. If this is understood correctly in a certain sense, then one will also understand what it means that the anthroposophical movement has the mission to elevate Christianity to wisdom, to understand Christianity correctly in a roundabout way through spiritual wisdom. It will be understood that Christianity is only at the beginning of its work and will only fulfill its true mission when it is understood in its true, i.e. spiritual, form. The more these lectures are understood in this sense, the more they are understood in the sense in which they were meant.