The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Ninth Lecture

[ 1 ] Moving forward from the beginning we made eight days ago with our consideration of the forms of illness and of human health, we will go into more and more detail on related matters in the course of this winter. All our considerations will then culminate in an understanding of human nature in general that is more precise than we have been able to attain with the means of anthroposophy available to us thus far. Today, our considerations must include a discussion of the nature and significance of the Ten Commandments of Moses, for we will need this later. We will soon have to talk about the deep meaning of such concepts as original sin, redemption, and the like, and we will see that these concepts regain their meaning in the light of our latest scientific achievements. To do this, however, we must first examine more closely the fundamental nature of this remarkable document, which towers above the early history of the Israelites and appears to us as one of the most important building blocks of the temple that was erected as a kind of vestibule to Christianity. It is precisely with such a document that it becomes increasingly clear how little the form in which people today know the Bible actually corresponds to this document itself. From the details discussed in the last two public lectures on “The Bible and Wisdom,” you will have gained the impression that it would be wrong for anyone to say: Oh, these are just isolated passages in the translations; such details are not important! It would be very superficial to treat these things in this way! Just remember that it was pointed out that the fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, when translated correctly, actually means: “This following will tell of the generations or that which comes forth from heaven and earth,” and that in Genesis the same word is used here for, so to speak, “the descendants of heaven and earth” as it is later used where it says: “This is the book of the generations—or the offspring—of Adam.” In both cases, the same word is used. And it is significant that where the origin of man from heaven and earth is described, the same word is used as later, where the offspring of Adam are mentioned. Such things are not merely pedantic improvements that would slightly adjust the translation, but rather they strike at the heart not only of our translation, but of the understanding of this original document of humanity. And one speaks, so to speak, from the very source of our anthroposophical worldview when one says that one of the most important tasks of this worldview, indeed of anthroposophy itself, is to render the Bible in a form that is true to humanity. We are particularly interested here in what has been said in general, now in relation to the Ten Commandments.

[ 2 ] Today, most people take the Ten Commandments as if they were legal provisions, just as laws are given by any modern state. One will admit that these laws contained in the Ten Commandments are more comprehensive, more general, and that they apply independently of this place and time. One will therefore consider them to be more general laws, but one is aware that they are only supposed to have the same effect or the same goal as the laws that are given today by a legislature. But in doing so, one fails to recognize the actual lifeblood that lives in these Ten Commandments. And how this has been misunderstood is evident in the fact that all translations available to humanity today have unconsciously incorporated a fundamentally superficial explanation of the matter that does not penetrate the spirit of these Ten Commandments. If we enter into this spirit, then you will see how the meaning of these Ten Commandments fits into the considerations we have just begun and in relation to which it seems as if we were making a completely irrelevant digression when we consider the Ten Commandments.

[ 3 ] First of all, as a kind of introduction, let us attempt to render the Ten Commandments in German in a reasonably appropriate manner, and only then shall we proceed to the matter at hand. This translation of the Ten Commandments, if one may call it that, will require some refinement. But the lifeblood, the actual meaning, should first be captured in this form of the Ten Commandments in German, as we will see immediately afterwards. If one translates them according to their meaning, without opening a dictionary and translating word for word – which of course can only produce the worst possible result, because what matters is the value of the words and the whole soul value that the thing had at the time – if one takes out the meaning, then these Ten Commandments would be as follows:

[ 4 ] First Commandment. I am the eternal Divine that you feel within you. I led you out of the land of Egypt, where you could not follow Me within you. From now on, you shall not place other gods above Me. You shall not recognize as higher gods what an image shows you of something that shines above in the sky, that works out of the earth or between heaven and earth. You shall not worship what is of all this under the Divine within you. For I am the Eternal within you, working into the body and therefore working on the coming generations. I am a continuing Divine. If you do not recognize Me in yourself, I will disappear as your Divine in your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and their bodies will become desolate. If you recognize Me in yourself, I will live on as you until the thousandth generation, and the bodies of your people will flourish.

[ 5 ] Second Commandment. You shall not speak of Me in error within yourself; for every error about the Self within you will corrupt your body.

[ 6 ] Third Commandment. You shall separate the workday from the holiday, so that your existence may become an image of My existence. For that which lives as I in you formed the world in six days and lived in itself on the seventh day. Therefore, your deeds and the deeds of your son and the deeds of your daughter and the deeds of your servants and the deeds of your cattle and the deeds of all that is with you shall be directed toward the external world for only six days; but on the seventh day, your gaze shall seek Me within you.

[ 7 ] Fourth Commandment. Continue to work in the spirit of your father and mother, so that you may retain as your possession the property they acquired through the power I formed in them.

[ 8 ] Fifth Commandment. Do not murder.

[ 9 ] Sixth Commandment. Do not commit adultery.

[ 10 ] Seventh Commandment. Do not steal.

[ 11 ] Eighth Commandment. Do not disparage your fellow man by saying untrue things about him.

[ 12 ] Ninth Commandment. Do not covet what your neighbor possesses as his property.

[ 13 ] Tenth Commandment. Do not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his servants, nor anything that belongs to him.

[ 14 ] Now we ask ourselves: What do these Ten Commandments show us above all else? We will see that they show us everywhere, not only in the first part, but also in the last part, where it seems hidden, that Moses is speaking to the Jewish people in the sense that the power that announced itself to Moses in the burning bush with the words as the designation of his name, “I am who I am,” should now be with the Jewish people. - “Ehjeh asher ehjeh!” It is pointed out that the other peoples in the development of our earth have not been able to recognize that “I am,” the actual source of the fourth part of human nature, as intensely and clearly as the Jewish people are to recognize it. That God who poured a drop of his being into human beings, so that the fourth member of the human being became the bearer of this drop, the I-bearer, that God becomes conscious to his people for the first time through Moses. We can therefore say that the Ten Commandments are based on the following understanding: that Yahweh God had indeed worked and acted in the upward development of humanity up to that point. But spiritual beings work earlier than they are clearly recognized. What worked among the ancient peoples of the pre-Mosaic era was indeed a working, active force, but it was first proclaimed to his people by Moses as a concept, an idea, an actually effective force within the human soul. And it was now a matter of making clear to this people what the whole comprehensive effect was of feeling oneself as an I to the extent that this was the case with the Jewish people. In this people, we must regard the Yahweh being as a kind of transitional being: Yahweh is, on the one hand, the entity that pours the drop into the individuality of the human being. But at the same time, he is the god of the people. The individual Jew still felt connected in a relationship with the I that also lived in Abraham's incarnation and flowed down through the entire Jewish people. The Jewish people felt connected to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was a transitional period. This was only to change with the proclamation of Christianity. But what was to come to earth through Christ was foretold in the Old Testament proclamations, above all in what Moses had to say to his people. Thus we see the full power of ego-knowledge slowly pouring into the Jewish people in the course of the history described in the Old Testament. The Jewish people were to be made fully aware of the effect it has on the whole of human life when a person no longer lives in a certain unconsciousness about the I, but has learned to feel the I within himself, to feel the name of God, “I am that I am,” in its effect on the innermost part of his soul.

[ 15 ] Today, these things are perceived abstractly. Today, when we speak of the I and of what is connected with it, it remains a mere word. At the time when this I was first proclaimed to the Jewish people in the form of the ancient God Yahweh, it was felt as the impact of a force entering into human beings and transforming the entire structure of their astral body, their etheric body, and their physical body. And it was necessary to tell this people: The conditions of your life and health were different when the I did not yet live in your soul as knowledge; before, the conditions of sickness and health for your whole life were different from what they are now. Therefore, it was important to tell the Jewish people what new conditions they were entering into by no longer looking up to heaven or down to earth when they spoke of gods, but rather looking into their own souls. Looking into one's own soul in accordance with the truth brings about a right life, right down to one's health. This awareness is at the very foundation of the Ten Commandments, while a false understanding of what has entered the soul as the “I” causes people to wither away in body and soul, destroying them. One need only proceed in a documentary manner to notice how little these Ten Commandments are meant to be mere external laws, how they are in fact meant to be what has just been explained: something that is of the utmost importance for the health and healing of the astral, etheric, and physical bodies. But where does one read books correctly and accurately today? One need only turn a few pages further and one would find that in a further interpretation of the Ten Commandments, the Jewish people were told what the effect of the Ten Commandments is on the whole human being. It says: “I will remove every disease from your midst, there shall be no miscarriage nor barrenness in your land, and I will fulfill the number of your days.”

[ 16 ] This means that if the ego lives in such a way that it permeates itself with the essence of the Ten Commandments, then, among other things, you will not die in the prime of life, but through the correctly grasped ego, something can flow into the three bodies, the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body, which will fulfill the number of your years and enable you to live healthily into old age. This is stated very clearly. But it is necessary to penetrate deeply into these things. Modern theologians, however, cannot do this so easily. For a popular little book, which is otherwise quite capable of causing offense because it can be bought for a few pennies, says the following about the Ten Commandments: “It is easy to see that the Ten Commandments contain the most important human laws, with the commandments against God in one half and the commandments against human beings in the other half.” So as not to stray too far from the mark, the author in question adds that the fourth commandment must be added to the first half, which refers to God. How the Lord then manages to make four into one half and six into the other is just a small sign of how things are done today. Everything else in this book also corresponds to the beautiful equation: four equals six.

[ 17 ] We are dealing here with the explanation given to the Jewish people about the correct integration of the ego into the three bodies of man. The main point here is that it is said—and this is immediately apparent in the first commandment—that when you become aware of this I as a spark of divinity, you are such that you must feel in the I a spark, an effusion of the highest, most powerful divinity that is involved in the creation of the earth.

[ 18 ] Let us remember what we have been able to say about the history of human development. We have been able to say that the physical body of the human being came into being during the ancient Saturn existence. Gods worked on it. Then, on the Sun, the etheric body was added. How both bodies were further developed is again the work of spiritual-divine beings. Then, on the moon, the astral body was incorporated, all as the work of divine-spiritual beings. What then made human beings human in the present sense was the incorporation of their I on earth. The highest divinity was involved in this. Therefore, as long as human beings were not able to become fully conscious of this fourth member of their being, they could not have any idea of the highest divinity that was involved in their becoming and that is present within them. Human beings must say to themselves: Divinities have worked on my physical body, but they are lower than the divinity that has now given me the I. The same is true of the etheric body and the astral body. Therefore, the Jewish people, who were the first to receive prophetic knowledge of this I, had to be told: Be aware that the peoples around you worship gods who, according to their present stage, can work through the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. But they cannot work in the I. This God who works in the I has always been there; He has announced Himself through His work and creation. But now He reveals His name to you.

[ 19 ] By recognizing other gods, man is not a free being. He is a being who worships the gods of his lower members. But when man consciously recognizes the God of whom a part is in his I, then he is a free being, a being who stands as a free being before his fellow human beings. Man today does not stand in the same relationship to his astral body, etheric body, and physical body as he stands to his I. He is inside this ego. It is immediately closest to him, facing him. He will only relate to his astral body in this way when he has transformed it into manas, and to his etheric body only when he has transformed it into budhi, when he has developed it from his ego into something divine. Even though the I came into being last, it is nevertheless that in which the human being lives. And when he grasps the I, he therefore grasps that in which the divine confronts him in its immediate form, in its very own form, while those forms of his astral body, etheric body, and physical body which he has today are formed by previous gods. Thus, in contrast to the Israelite people, the surrounding peoples worshipped those deities who worked on these lower members of the human being. And when an image was made of these lower deities, this image was made similar to some form that was on the earth or in the sky or between heaven and earth. For everything that man has within himself is spread out throughout the rest of nature. If man makes images from the mineral kingdom, they can only represent to him those deities who have worked on the physical body. If he makes images from the plant kingdom, they can only represent to him the deities who have worked on the etheric body, for man shares the etheric body with the plant world. And images from the animal kingdom can only symbolize to him those deities who have worked on the astral body. But what makes humans the crown of earthly creation is what they grasp in their ego. No external image can express this. And so it had to be made clear and emphasized to the Jewish people in all its sharpness: There is something within you that is the direct outflow of the highest of the gods at present. This cannot be symbolized by an image from the mineral, plant, or animal kingdom, no matter how sublime it may be. All gods who are served in this way are lower gods than the God who lives in your ego. If you want to worship this God within you, then the others must step back, and then you will have the healthy, true power of your ego within you.

[ 20 ] So what is told us in the first of the Ten Commandments is connected with the deepest mysteries of human development: “I am the eternal Divine that you feel within you. The power that I have placed in your I became the driving force, the power through which you fled from the land of Egypt, where you could not follow Me within you.”

[ 21 ] From there, Moses led his people out on the instructions of Yahweh. And to make this very clear to us, it is pointed out that the God Yahweh wanted to make his people a nation of priests. Among other peoples, those who stood opposite the people as the free ones were the priestly sages. These were the free ones who knew the great secret of the I, who also knew the unformed I-God. So that in these countries there were, facing each other, these few I-conscious priest-wise men and the large unfree masses who could, so to speak, only listen to what the priest-wise men allowed to flow out of the mysteries under the strictest authority. Not the individual member of the people had such a direct relationship, but the priest-sages mediated it for the individual. Therefore, all good, all salvation depended on these priest-sages: how they created the institutions, how they organized everything, on that depended salvation and health. I would have much to tell you if I wanted to describe the deeper meaning of the Egyptian temple sleep and its effect on the health of the people, if I wanted to describe what simply flowed out of such a cult as the Apis cult, for example, in the way of folk remedies for health. In such a people, the entire guidance and leadership of the people was concerned with ensuring that the fluids for health came from these places of worship under the guidance of the initiates. This was now to change. The Jews were to become a people of priests. Each individual was to feel a spark of this Yahweh God within himself and have a direct relationship with him. The priestly sage was no longer to be the sole mediator. Therefore, the people had to be instructed accordingly. It had to be pointed out that false images, i.e., inferior images of the highest God, also have an unhealthy effect. This brings us to a chapter that is not easy for modern man to comprehend. Today, enormous sins are being committed in this regard.

[ 22 ] Only those who can penetrate spiritual science know the mysterious way in which health and illness develop. When you walk through the streets of a city and the abominations on the advertising columns and in the shop windows are presented to your soul, it has a gruesome effect. Materialistic science has no idea how many germs of disease there are in these abominations. People merely search for pathogens in germs and do not know how health and sickness are brought into the body via detours through the soul. Only a humanity familiar with spiritual science will know the significance of the fact that human beings take in certain pictorial ideas.

[ 23 ] Above all, the first commandment says that human beings must now be able to form a conception that beyond everything that can be expressed spiritually through images, there can still be an impulse that is unimaginable, that at this point of the I borders on the supersensible. “Feel this I strongly within you, and feel it in such a way that in this I something divine permeates and flows through you that is higher than anything you can express through an image; then you will have in such a feeling a power of health that will make your physical body, your etheric body, and your astral body healthy!” A strong ego impulse was to be communicated to the Jewish people that would make them healthy. If this ego is recognized in the right way, then the astral, etheric, and physical bodies will be well formed, and this will create a strong life force and a strong power of health that will spread from each individual to the whole people. Since a people was counted by a thousand generations, the God Yahweh said that through the right imprinting of the I, man himself becomes a source of radiant health, so that the whole people, as it is expressed, will be a healthy people “unto the thousandth generation.” But if the ego is not understood in the right way, the body withers, becomes sick and diseased. If the father does not place the essence of the ego in his soul in the right way, his body becomes sick and diseased, the ego slowly withdraws; the son becomes even sicker, the grandson even sicker, and in the end we have only a shell from which the God Yahweh has departed. Whatever prevents the I-impulse from arising gradually causes the body to wither away down to the fourth member.

[ 24 ] Thus we see that it is the teaching of the right effect of the I that is set before the people of Moses in the first of the Ten Commandments:

[ 25 ] “I am the eternal Divine that you feel within you. I led you out of the land of Egypt, where you could not follow Me within yourself. From now on, you shall not place other gods above Me. You shall not recognize as higher gods what an image shows you of something that shines above in the sky, that works out of the earth or between heaven and earth. You shall not worship what is of all this under the divine within you. For I am the eternal within you, working into the body and therefore working upon the coming generations. I am an ever-active Divine — not: “I am a zealous God,” for that means nothing here. If you do not recognize Me as your Divine, I will disappear as your I in your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and their bodies will become desolate. If you recognize Me in you, I will live on as you until the thousandth generation, and the bodies of your people will flourish.

[ 26 ] Here we see that this does not mean something abstract, but something alive and effective that is supposed to have an effect on the health of the people. The external process of health is traced back to the spiritual that lies within it and is gradually revealed to humanity. This is pointed out in particular in the second commandment, where it is expressly stated: You shall not have any false ideas about my name, about what lives in you as I; for a correct idea makes you healthy and vigorous and is your salvation, but a false idea causes your body to wither away! Thus every member of the Mosaic people was specifically warned that every time the name of God is spoken, he should take this as a warning: I should recognize the name of that which has entered into me, as it lives within me, for that is the stimulus to healing.

[ 27 ] "You shall not speak of Me in error within yourself; for every error about the I within you will corrupt your body!”

[ 28 ] And then, in the third commandment, there is a clear and strict indication of how man, when he is an active, creative ego, is a real microcosm, just as the God Yahweh created in six days and rested on the seventh day, thereby establishing the archetype that man is to reproduce in his creation. The third commandment expressly points out: You, human being, by being a true self, should also be an image of your highest God and act in your deeds as your God does! It is therefore a call to become more and more like the God who revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush.

[ 29 ] “You shall separate the workday from the holiday, so that your existence may become the image of My existence. For what lives as I in you formed the world in six days and lived in itself on the seventh day. Therefore, your deeds and the deeds of your son and the deeds of your daughter and the deeds of your servants and the deeds of your cattle and the deeds of all that is with you shall be directed toward the external world for only six days; but on the seventh day, your gaze shall seek Me within you.”

[ 30 ] Now the Ten Commandments increasingly apply to the individual. But in the background there is always the idea that it is the continuing power that acts as Yahweh or Jehovah. In the fourth commandment, man is led away from his relationship with the supersensible to the external sensible. Something very important is pointed out in this fourth commandment, and it must be understood. When man enters into existence as a self-conscious ego, he enters into this existence in such a way that he needs external means to put this existence into action. He develops what we call individual property and possessions. If we went back to ancient Egyptian times, we would not yet find such individual possessions among the great masses of the people. We would find that those who had power over property were the priestly wise men. But now, when everyone is supposed to develop an individual self, they are compelled to intervene in the external world, to have something of their own around them in order to represent their self in the external world. The fourth commandment therefore points out that those who allow the individual self to work within them acquire possessions, but that these possessions remain bound to the power of the self, which lives on in the Jewish people and is to be passed on from father to son and grandson, and that the property that the father had would not be subject to the strong power of the self if the son did not continue his father's work under the power of the father. It is therefore said: Let the ego become so strong within you that it reaches down and that the son, with the means he inherits from his father, can also obtain the means to live outwardly in his external environment.

[ 31 ] Thus, the conservatism of the spirit of property is consciously given to the people of Moses at this time. The following laws are also based on the awareness that occult forces are behind everything that happens in the world. While today we view the right of inheritance in a purely external and abstract way, those who understood the fourth commandment correctly were aware that spiritual forces are passed on with property from generation to generation, that they live on from one family to another, that they increase the ego force, and that through this something flows into the ego force of the individual, which is fed to them by the ego power of the father. The fourth commandment cannot be translated more grotesquely than is usually done, for the meaning is as follows: Let the strong ego power be developed within you, which lives on beyond you, and let this pass on to your son, so that something may be added to his ego power, which can continue to work in him as the property of his ancestors.

[ 32 ] “Continue to work in the spirit of your father and mother, so that what they have acquired through the power I have formed in them may remain your property.”

[ 33 ] Furthermore, all the following laws are based on the fact that the ego-force of human beings is increased through the right application of the ego-impulse, but that it is destroyed through its wrong application. The fifth commandment says something that can only be understood in the right sense from the secret science. Everything connected with killing, with the destruction of foreign life, weakens the self-conscious ego force in human beings. This can increase the black magical forces in human beings, but in doing so, one only increases the astral forces in human beings by circumventing the ego force. What is divine in human beings is destroyed by every act of killing. Therefore, this law does not only refer to something abstract, but also to something through which occult power flows to the human being in his ego impulse when he elevates life, makes life flourish, and does not destroy life. This is presented as an ideal for the elevation of the individual ego force, and only in less strongly emphasized areas is the same demanded in the sixth and seventh commandments.

[ 34 ] Marriage establishes a center for ego power. Those who destroy marriage are therefore weakened in what should flow to the ego power. Likewise, those who want to take something from the ego power of others and acquire possessions by taking, stealing, and so on, weaken their own ego power. The guiding principle here is that the ego should not be weakened. And now, in the last three commandments, it is even pointed out how human beings weaken their ego force by directing their desires in the wrong direction. The life of desire is of great importance for the ego force. Love increases the power of the ego, while envy and hatred cause it to wither away. So when a person hates his fellow human beings, when he belittles them by saying something wrong about them, he weakens his ego power and diminishes the health and vitality of everything around him. The same is true of envy of another's possessions. Even the desire for the good of one's neighbor weakens one's ego strength. And so it is in the tenth commandment: when a person looks enviously at the way another seeks to advance himself, and does not strive for love for the other, thereby expanding his soul and allowing the strength of his ego to blossom. Only when we understand the special power of the God Yahweh and contemplate the nature of his revelation to Moses can we comprehend what is now to flow into the consciousness of the people as a special awareness, and it is assumed everywhere that what is given are not abstract laws, but healthy precepts that are beneficial to body, soul, and spirit in the broadest sense. Those who keep these commandments not in an abstract way, but in a living way, have an effect on the whole salvation and progress of life. At that time, it could not have been revealed in any other way than by giving instructions on how these commandments were to be obeyed. For the other peoples lived in a completely different way from the Jewish people; they did not need such commandments with such meaning.

[ 35 ] When our scholars today take the Ten Commandments, translate them lexicographically, and compare them with other laws, for example with the Law of Hammurabi, it just means that they have no idea of the impulse that is important. It is not a matter of “Thou shalt not steal!” or “Thou shalt keep these or those holidays holy!” but of the spirit that flows through these Ten Commandments and how this spirit is connected with the spirit of this people, out of which Christianity was created. If one wants to understand the Ten Commandments at all, one must be able to empathize with everything that could be felt and sensed in the process of each individual in this people becoming independent, becoming a priest. Today, it is not yet time to feel this as concretely as the members of that people were able to feel it. That is why today all sorts of things are translated into it that are found in encyclopedias but do not correspond to the spirit of the matter. One can always read that the people of Moses came from a Bedouin people and that therefore commandments could not be given as to an agricultural people. And therefore, the scholars conclude, the Ten Commandments must have been given later and were subsequently backdated. If the Ten Commandments were what these gentlemen understand them to be, then they would be right. But they do not understand them. Certainly, the Jews were previously a kind of Bedouin people. But these commandments were given to them precisely so that the people could move forward into a completely new era under the impulse of the ego force. This is the best proof that peoples are formed out of the spirit. There is hardly a greater prejudice than when people say: Yes, at the time of Moses, the Jewish people were still a wandering Bedouin people; what sense would it have made to give this people the Ten Commandments! It made sense to give such laws to the Jewish people so that the ego impulse could be imprinted on the people with all its power. They received them because these commandments were intended to give their outer life a completely new form, because a completely new life was to be created out of the spirit.

[ 36 ] This is indeed how the Ten Commandments continued to work, and it is in this sense that the understanding members of the early Christian community still speak of the Law of Moses. They therefore find that the ego impulse becomes different through the Mystery of Golgotha than it was in the time of Moses. They said to themselves: The ego impulse has been saturated by the work of the Ten Commandments; this made the people strong when they obeyed the Ten Commandments. Now there is something else. Now there is the form that underlies the Mystery of Golgotha. Now this ego can look at what has been so hidden throughout the ages; it can look at the greatest thing it can acquire, what makes it strong and powerful through following the one who suffered on Golgotha and who is the greatest example for the human being of the future. In this way, for those who truly understood Christianity, Christ took the place of those impulses that had prepared the way in the Old Testament.

[ 37 ] Thus we see how there is indeed a deeper understanding of the Ten Commandments.