The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Ancient Revelation and Modern Questioning

[ 1 ] Today we will focus on the more occult side of yesterday's reflection. The four post-Atlantean cultures had, so to speak, to reflect in the souls of human beings the great cosmic processes as they unfolded in the sequence of time, whereas in our cultural period since the 13th and 14th centuries we no longer have such a reflection, for what takes place outwardly in human evolution is due to deeper causes.

[ 2 ] We know how the etheric bodies of the great Atlantean initiates were preserved for the seven holy Rishis, and we also know how the etheric body and the astral body of Zarathustra were interwoven with those of Moses and Hermes. Throughout time, it has been possible for such etheric bodies, which had been worked through and prepared by the initiates, to be used further in the spiritual economy of the world. Other things also took place. For particularly important personalities, such etheric bodies are formed in the higher worlds. If someone was particularly important for the mission of humanity, such an etheric body or astral body was woven in the higher worlds and imprinted on these special personalities.

[ 3 ] This is what happened with Shem, who indeed has something to do with the entire Semitic tribe. A special etheric body was imprinted for such a progenitor. Sem was thus a kind of double personality. As fabulous as it may seem to the modern mind, such a personality as Sem appeared to the clairvoyant as an ordinary human being with his aura, but as if a higher being, towering down from higher worlds, filled his etheric body, and the aura of this human being thus formed the mediator between this personality and the higher worlds. However, such a divine being, dwelling in a human being, has a very special power: it can then multiply such an etheric body; and these multiplied etheric bodies then form a fabric that is woven into the descendants again and again. In this way, the descendants of Sem were imbued with the images of his etheric body. But the etheric body of Shem himself, not just the multiplied images, was also preserved in the mysteries. And a personality who was to receive a special mission had to use this etheric body in order to be able to communicate fully with the Semitic people, just as a highly educated European would have to learn the language of the Hottentots in order to communicate with them. The personality who had a special mission therefore had to carry within himself the now real etheric body of Sem in order to make himself understood to the Semitic people. Such a personality was, for example, Melchizedek, who could only show himself to Abraham in the etheric body of Sem.

[ 4 ] And now we must ask ourselves the question: If we are only now, in the fifth post-Atlantean cultural period, able to develop an understanding of Christianity, what was it like during the rest of the Greco-Latin period, which lasted until the 13th and 14th centuries?

[ 5 ] A mysterious occult process is taking place here. Christ only lived for three years in the shell of Jesus of Nazareth, who was such a highly individual being that he was able to leave the physical world at the age of thirty in order to enter the spiritual world, at the moment when the dove appeared above his head. The three highly developed bodies are now filled by the Christ individuality through the fact that this Christ individuality lives in the physical human body. These bodies of Jesus of Nazareth, invisible to the physical eye, are now multiplied in a similar way to the etheric body of Sem at that time, so that from the moment of death on the cross, images of the etheric body and the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth now exist. This has nothing to do with his ego; this entered the spiritual world and has since been incarnated again and again.

[ 6 ] In the first centuries after the Christ event, we see how Christian writers still worked on the basis of oral tradition handed down by the disciples of the apostles. They attached importance to physical tradition. However, later centuries could not build on this alone. From the 6th and 7th centuries onwards, a picture of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth was woven into the lives of particularly outstanding Christian preachers. One such person was Augustine. He had to go through tremendous struggles in his youth. But then the impulse of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth became effective in him in a significant way, and only then did he begin to pursue Christian mysticism out of himself. We can only understand his writings in this light.

[ 7 ] Many personalities have walked the earth carrying such a copy within themselves. Columbanus, Gallus, Patrick—they all carried such an image of the etheric body within themselves, and it was precisely this that enabled them to spread Christianity. In this way, a bridge could be built from the Christ event to the following era.

[ 8 ] And now, in the 11th and 12th centuries, we see such people who have retained a fine image of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into their own astral bodies. One such personality was Francis of Assisi. If we follow his life, we will find it incomprehensible in many ways; but we can understand his impulses of humility and Christian devotion when we tell ourselves that such a mystery lived within him. Through such interweaving [of images] of the astral body [of Jesus of Nazareth], around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, such people became proclaimers of Christianity. They thus received Christianity through grace.

[ 9 ] The I of Jesus of Nazareth left the three sheaths at the baptism of John, but an image of this I remained in the three sheaths like a seal impression. The Christ being takes possession of these three bodies, but also of something else that remains like an impression of the Jesus I. Something like a copy of the Jesus ego is now woven into those people from the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries who begin to speak of an “inner Christ.” Meister Eckhart and Tauler then speak from their own experience as if from an imprint of the Jesus of Nazareth ego.

[ 10 ] There are still many people who carry within themselves something like copies of the various bodies of Jesus of Nazareth, but these are no longer the leading personalities. We are now seeing more and more how, in our fifth period, there are people who have to rely on themselves, on their own ego. Such inspired people are becoming increasingly rare. Therefore, precautions had to be taken to ensure that a spiritual current would arise in our fifth period that would ensure that spiritual insights could continue to reach humanity. Those individualities who could look into the future had to make provisions for people who are dependent on their mere human ego. We are told in a legend that the vessel in which Christ Jesus took the Last Supper with his disciples was preserved. This is the legend of the Holy Grail, and we see in the story of Parzival a typical expression of the development of a disciple in our fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Parzival failed to do one thing: he had been told not to ask too many questions. This is the important transition from the old era to the new: in ancient India, passive devotion was essential for disciples; later, this was also the case with Augustine and Francis of Assisi. All these humble people were inspired by what lived within them, what was woven into their being. Now, however, the I must carry the question within itself. Any soul that simply passively accepts what is given to it today cannot transcend itself. It can then only observe what is happening in the physical world around it. Today, the soul must ask questions, must rise above itself, must grow out of itself. Today, the soul must ask questions, just as Parzival once had to ask questions about the secrets of the Grail Castle.

[ 11 ] Thus, spiritual research today begins only where there is questioning. The souls that are stimulated by spiritual science to question, to ask and to seek, are the souls of Parzival. Thus has been initiated the stream of mysteries, the much-maligned Rosicrucian training, which does not rely on any traditional wisdom, even though it gratefully accepts the traditions. But what constitutes the Rosicrucian spiritual direction today has been researched directly in the higher worlds with the spiritual eye and with the means that the student himself is instructed to use. Not because this or that is written in old books, because this or that person believed this or that, but because the wisdom that has been researched today is proclaimed by the Rosicrucian spiritual movement. And this was gradually prepared in the Rosicrucian schools that were founded in the 13th and 14th centuries by the individuality known as Christian Rosenkreutz.

[ 12 ] Thus, this wisdom can now be proclaimed as spiritual science. Today, there are no longer people who are instilled with what inspires them inwardly without their own effort. Today, people who feel that spiritual science speaks to their hearts should approach it. There should be no agitation for spiritual science; everyone should come to spiritual science through their own free impulse, by being seized in a living way by spiritual knowledge.

[ 13 ] In this way, through this theosophical-Rosicrucian spiritual current, we draw back to ourselves what is available from the copies of the I of Jesus of Nazareth. In this way, those who prepare themselves will draw into their souls the image of the I of Jesus of Nazareth. Because his inner being is like a seal imprinted with the I of Jesus, such a person will take the Christ principle into their soul. Thus, Rosicrucianism prepared something positive: anthroposophy is to become life, and the soul that truly takes it in is gradually transformed. To take anthroposophy into oneself means to transform the soul so that it can come to an understanding of Christ.

[ 14 ] The anthroposophist becomes a living recipient of what is given to Moses and Paul in the Yahweh-Christ revelation. Thus, the fifth letter of the Apocalypse says that the people of the fifth cultural epoch are those who truly take into themselves what will then be self-evident for the cultural period of the community of Philadelphia. The wisdom of the fifth cultural epoch will blossom as a flower of love in the sixth.

[ 15 ] Humanity today is called upon to take something new and divine into itself and thereby resume its ascent into the spiritual world. The spiritual-scientific doctrine of evolution is communicated; it is not to be believed, but humanity is to come to understand it through its own power of judgment. It is proclaimed to those who carry the seed of the Parzival nature within themselves. And it is not proclaimed locally, in a particular place, but from the whole of humanity, those who hear the call of spiritual wisdom will be brought together.