The Gospel of St. John
in Relation to the Other Three Gospels
GA 112
3 July 1909, Kassel
10. What Occurred at the Baptism?
Among the events that occurred in Palestine at the beginning of our era there is one in particular to which repeated reference has been made: the Baptism of Jesus of Nazareth by John, and the fact was emphasized that regarding its essentials all four Gospels are in agreement. What we shall do today is to consider this Baptism from one particular aspect.
From the manner of its presentation in the Gospels we gather that the Baptism points to an event of the utmost import—an event also explicable by means of the akashic record—which had to be characterized somewhat as follows: In about the thirtieth year of Jesus of Nazareth's life there entered into His three sheaths that divine Being Whom we call the Christ. We must distinguish, then—and this is revealed through a study of the Akashic record—between two stages in the life of Christianity's founder. In the first place we have the life of the great Initiate Whom we call Jesus of Nazareth. In this Jesus of Nazareth there dwelt an ego-being which we showed to have passed through many previous incarnations, to have lived repeatedly on earth, to have ascended ever higher in these succeeding lives, and to have risen by degrees to the capacity for the great sacrifice. This sacrifice meant that toward Jesus of Nazareth's thirtieth year His ego was able to renounce His physical, etheric, and astral bodies, which hitherto He had purified, cleansed and ennobled, thus providing a threefold human sheath of incomparable purity and perfection. When the ego of Jesus of Nazareth abandoned these sheaths at the Baptism, these received the Being Who had never previously dwelt on earth, Whom we cannot think of as having passed through previous incarnations. The Christ Being could formerly be found only in the world existing outside our earth. Not until this moment of the Baptism by John did this Individuality unite with a human body, in order to accomplish, in the three years following, what we must endeavor to set forth in ever greater detail.
What I have just told you was gathered by means of clairvoyant observation. The Evangelists clothe this event in their descriptions of the Baptism; and what they meant was while a variety of experiences came to those whom John baptized, in the case of Jesus of Nazareth there occurred the event of the Christ descending into His three sheaths. I told you in the first of these lectures that this Christ is the same Being of Whom the Old Testament says:
And the Spirit of God moved (or brooded) upon the face of the waters.
This same spirit—that is, the divine Spirit of our solar system—entered the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth.
I shall now set forth what actually occurred at the Baptism by John; but inasmuch as this was the supreme event in Earth evolution, I must beg you to realize from the outset that it is necessarily difficult to comprehend. The minor events of Earth evolution are naturally easier to understand than the great ones: who could doubt, therefore, that the mightiest one of all must present the greatest difficulties? I shall presently make various statements that may shock those who are insufficiently prepared; but even they should remind themselves that the purpose of the human soul's sojourn on earth is to keep constantly perfecting itself—in the matter of gaining insight as well as in others—and that what at first comes as a shock must in time appear—wholly comprehensible. Were this not the case one would needs despair of the possibility for development in the human soul. As it is, however, we can remind ourselves daily that regardless of how much or how little we have learned, it is our task constantly to perfect our soul, that it may ever better comprehend this matter.
We have before us, then, a threefold human sheath, a physical, etheric, and astral body, and of these the Christ takes possession, so to say. That is indicated by the words resounding out of the universe:
This is my Son, imbued with my love, in Whom I manifest myself.
That is the right translation of this utterance. One can readily imagine that mighty changes must have taken place in the three-fold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth when the God entered it; but you will understand, too, that in the old initiations great changes were involved, affecting the whole human being. You will recall that I described the last act of the old initiation for you. After the neophyte, initiated in the divine mysteries, had undergone long preparation by means of study and exercises, he was reduced to a deathlike state for three and a half days, during which his etheric body was separated from his physical body; and this enabled the fruits garnered by the astral body to express themselves in the etheric body. This means that the candidate rose from the rank of a “purified one,” as the term is, to an “illuminated one” who envisions the spiritual world.
Even in those old times—or rather, especially then, when such initiations were still possible—one who had reached this stage had a certain power over his entire corporeality; and after returning into his physical body he controlled it superbly in respect of certain finer elements. Here you might ask, In facing such an initiate, one who achieved so great a mastery over his various sheaths—even the physical body—could one notice this—did he show it?—Well, it was observed by anyone who had acquired the faculty of that sort of vision. Others as a rule saw him as an ordinary, simple man and noticed nothing remarkable about him. Why? Simply because the physical body, as seen by physical eyes, is merely the outer expression of what underlies it, and the changes mentioned refer to the spiritual element that underlies the physical body.
Now, all the old initiates achieved a certain degree of mastery over their physical body as a result of the procedure to which they were subjected; but there was one capacity that no old initiation could ever bring under the dominion of the human spirit. Here we touch the fringe, as it were, of a profound secret, or mystery. In the structure of man there is one element to which the power of a pre-Christian initiation could not penetrate: the subtle physicochemical processes in the skeleton. Strange as it may sound to you, that is the case. Previous to the Baptism of Christ Jesus there never had been a human individuality in earth evolution, either among initiates or elsewhere, with power over the chemico-physical processes in the skeleton. Through the entry of the Christ into the body of Jesus of Nazareth the egohood of Christ acquired dominion even over the skeleton. And the result was that, as a unique event, there lived upon earth a body capable of employing its forces in such way as to incorporate the form of the skeleton—that is, its spiritual form—in Earth evolution. Nothing of all that man passes through in his earth development would endure were he not able to incorporate in Earth evolution, as a law, the noble form of his skeleton, were he unable gradually to master this law of the skeleton.
There is a connection here with an old popular superstition—indeed, old traditions are frequently associated with the occult. In certain circles it is customary to employ the skeleton as a symbol when death is to be represented. This stands for the idea that at the beginning of Earth evolution all the laws governing the systems of the human organization other than the skeleton were so far advanced that at the end of the Earth's evolution they would be present again, though in a higher form; but that evolution would carry over nothing into the future unless the form of the skeleton were taken over. The form of the skeleton conquers death in the physical sense, hence He Who was to vanquish death on the earth must have mastery over the skeleton—in the same manner as I indicated this mastery over certain spiritual attributes in connection with lesser faculties. Man has control of his circulatory system only to a slight degree: in feeling shame he drives his blood outward from within which means that the soul acts upon the circulatory system; in turning pale when frightened he drives his blood back inward into the center; in sorrow, tears come to his eyes. All these phenomena represent a certain dominion of the soul over what is bodily; but far greater mastery over the bodily functions is enjoyed by one who has been initiated beyond a certain stage: among other powers, he has the ability to control arbitrarily the movements of the various parts of his brain in a definite way.
The human being, then, that was the sheath of Jesus of Nazareth came under the dominion of the Christ; and the will of the Christ, His sovereign will, had the power to penetrate the skeleton, so that it could be influenced, so to speak, for the first time. The significance of this fact can be set forth as follows: Man acquired his present form, given by his skeleton, on the Earth—not during a previous embodiment of our planet; but he would lose it again had it not been for the coming of that spiritual power we call the Christ. He would carry over into the future nothing in the way of harvest and fruits of his sojourn on Earth had not Christ established His dominion over the skeleton. It was therefore a stupendous force that penetrated to the very marrow of the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth at the moment of the Baptism by John. We must visualize this moment vividly, for it is one of the events we are considering.
In the case of an ordinary birth the attributes deriving from a previous incarnation unite with what is given through heredity. The human individuality that had existed in former lives merges with what is provided for him as his corporeal-etheric sheath; in ether words, something from the spiritual world unites with the principle that is physical, of the senses. Those of you who have frequently attended my lectures are aware that as regards outer appearances everything presents itself as in a mirror, reversed, as soon as we enter the spiritual world. So when a person becomes clairvoyant by rational methods, when his eyes have been opened to the spiritual world, he must first gradually learn to find his way about, for everything appears reversed. When he sees a number, say 345, he must not read it as he would in the physical world, but backwards: 543. In like manner you must learn to observe, in a certain sense, everything else as well in reverse—not only numbers. Now, the event of the Christ uniting with the outer sheath of Jesus of Nazareth appears, to one whose spiritual eyes are open, in reversed order. While in a physical embodiment something spiritual descends from higher worlds and unites with the physical, that which was sacrificed—in this case in order that the Christ Spirit might enter—appeared above the head of Jesus of Nazareth in the form of a white dove. Something spiritual appears as it detaches itself from the physical. That is factually a clairvoyant observation; and it would be far from right to consider it a mere allegory or symbol. It is a real, clairvoyant, spiritual fact, actually present on the astral plane for clairvoyant capacity. Just as a physical birth implies the attraction of spirit, so this birth was a sacrifice, a renunciation; and thereby the opportunity was provided for the Spirit, Who at the beginning of our Earth evolution moved upon the face of the waters, to unite with the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth and to permeate it with power and fervor, as described.
You will now understand that when this took place an area was involved far greater than the spot on which the Baptism occurred. It would be very shortsighted to imagine that an event associated with any being whatever were circumscribed by the boundaries visible to the eye. That is one of the powerful delusions to which men succumb when they put their entire faith in the outer senses alone. Where is a man's boundary, as the outer senses see it? A superficial verdict would say, in his skin. That is where he stops in all directions. Someone might even add, If I were to cut off the nose that is part of you, you would no longer be a complete human being; which goes to show that everything of that sort is part of your being.—But how short-sighted that is! When we limit ourselves to physical perception we do not look for any integral part of a man even ten to twelve inches or so outside his skin; but consider that with every breath you draw you inhale air from the general air of your environment. Well, if they cut off your nose you are no longer a complete human being; but the same is true if your air is cut off. It is quite arbitrary to imagine that a man is bounded by his skin. Everything surrounding him is part of him as well, even in the physical sense; so that when something happens to a man at a given spot, it is not only the space occupied by his body that participates in the occurrence. If you were to try the experiment of poisoning the air in a circle having the radius of a mile, surrounding the spot where man stood—poisoning it virulently enough for the fumes to reach him—you would discover that the entire space within the mile radius takes part in his life processes.
The whole earth takes part in every life process; and if that is the case even in a physical life process, you will not find it difficult to understand that in an event such as the Baptism the whole spiritual world participated, and that much, very much, occurred in order that this might take place. If within the radius of a mile you poison the air surrounding a man to the extent of influencing his life processes, and if then another man approaches him, the latter will suffer an effect as well. This may differ, according to his proximity to the poisoned area: if he is at a greater distance, for example, the effect will be less; but some effect will nevertheless result. It will therefore no longer seem strange to you if today we raise the question concerning the possibility of there having been other influences resulting from the Baptism. And here we touch another profound mystery of which we are constrained to speak with awe and reverence, for the preparation needed to understand such things will come to mankind only by slow degrees.
At the same moment in which the Spirit of Christ descended into the body of Jesus of Nazareth and the transformation occurred as described, an influence was exerted upon the Mother of Jesus of Nazareth as well. It consisted in her regaining her virginity at this moment of the Baptism; that is, her inner organism reverted to the state existing before puberty. At the birth of the Christ, the Mother of Jesus of Nazareth became a virgin.
Those are the two momentous facts, the great and mighty influences indicated, though cryptically, by the writer of the John Gospel. If we are able to read this Gospel aright, all this can be found stated there in one way or another; but in order to recognize its meaning we must link up with various matters upon which we touched yesterday from other aspects.
We have said that in olden times people lived under the influence of endogamy, meaning that marriage was entered into within the same tribe by blood relatives. Only as time passed did it become customary to marry outside the tribe into other blood. The farther back we go in time, the more we find people living under the influence of this blood relationship; and the flowing of the tribal blood through men's veins brought about the strong, magical forces of which we spoke. One who lived at that time and could look far back in his line of ancestry, finding there only tribally related blood, had magical force working in his own blood, making possible the influence of soul upon soul as described yesterday. And people knew that very well, even the simplest of them. But it would be utterly wrong to conclude from this that nowadays consanguineous marriages would produce similar conditions, that magical forces would come to light. You would be falling into the same error as would the lily of the valley if it were suddenly to announce: Henceforth I shall no longer bloom in May: I shall bloom in October! It cannot bloom in October because the necessary conditions are lacking; and the same is true of the magical forces: they cannot develop in an era in which the requisite conditions no longer exist. In our time they must evolve in a different manner; what was described applies only to the older epochs.
The crude materialistic scientist can naturally not understand the idea that the laws governing evolution have changed: he believes that what he witnesses today in his physics laboratory must always have proceeded in the same way. But that is nonsense, because laws do change; and those who have derived their faith from modern natural science would have marveled at the events in Palestine, narrated in the John Gospel, as something strange indeed. But those who lived at the time of Christ Jesus, when living traditions told of an age in which such things were wholly within the range of possibility, were not particularly amazed at them. That is why I could say yesterday that no one was greatly astonished at what occurred at the Marriage of Cana in the nature of a sign.
And why should they have been astonished? Outwardly it was nothing but a repetition of something they knew to have been observed time and again. Turn to the Second Book of Kings, IV, 42-44:
And there came a man from Baalshalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and full ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, Give unto the people, that they may eat. And his servitor said, Should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that may eat: for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof. So he set it before them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the word of the Lord.
There you have in the Old Testament the same situation we find in the feeding of the Five Thousand, narrated in a manner suited to that time. Why should such a sign excite wonder among people whose documents told them that it had happened before? It is essential that we understand this.
Now, what took place in a man who had been initiated in the old sense? He gained access to the spiritual world: his eyes were opened to the spiritually active forces—that is, he could penetrate the connection between the blood and the spiritually active forces. Others had a faint glimmering of this, but the initiate's vision reached back to the first ancestor from whom the blood had flowed down through the generations; and he could apprehend that an entire folk ego expressed itself in this blood, just as the individual ego is expressed in the individual's blood. That is the way an initiate saw back to the source of the blood stream that coursed through the generations, and he felt identified in his soul with the whole Folk Spirit whose physiognomy came to expression in the common blood of the people. Such a one was to a certain degree initiated, and up to a point he was master of definite magical powers in the old sense.
There is another thing we must keep in view. The male and female principles co-operate in the propagation of mankind in a manner that can be briefly characterized as follows. Were the female principle to dominate completely, man would develop in such a way as to keep constantly producing homogeneous characters: the child would always resemble his parents, grandparents, and so on. Forces that bring about resemblance are inherent in the female principle, while all that reduces it, that creates differences, lies with the male principle. When, within a folk community, you find a number of faces that resemble each other, you have what derives from the female element; but certain differences are to be seen in these faces enabling you to distinguish the separate individuals, and this results from the male influence. If the influence of the female element alone prevailed you would not be able to tell the different individuals apart; and if only the influence of the male element were in evidence you could never recognize a group of people as belonging to the same stock. So the manner in which the male and female principles co-operate can be stated as follows: the influence of the male principle individualizes, specializes, separates, while that of the female principle tends to generalize
From this we can see that whatever pertains to a people as a whole derives from the female element: the force in woman carries over from generation to generation the factor which otherwise expresses itself in the continuous blood stream. A further characterization of the origin of the magical forces residing in the blood bonds could be given thus: they are linked with the female principle that courses through the entire people and lives in all its members.
Well, if a man had risen through initiation to the point of being able to wield the forces, so to speak, with which the common blood was inoculated through the female folk element, what was his essential characteristic? The old Persian initiation adopted certain names to distinguish the various degrees rising to spiritual heights, and one of these names must be of special interest to us. The first degree in the Persian initiation was termed the Raven; the second, the Initiate; the third, the Warrior; the fourth, the Lion; the fifth degree always bore the name of the people in question: a Persian, for example, who had risen to the fifth degree of initiation was termed a Persian.
First the initiate became a Raven, which meant that he could carry on a study of the outer world; and being a servant of those who dwell in the spiritual world he brought to that world tidings of the physical world. Hence the symbol of the Raven as emissary between the physical and the spiritual world—from the Ravens of Elijah to those of Barbarossa.—On reaching the second degree the initiate came within the spiritual world; and one initiated in the third degree, having advanced past the second, is entrusted with the mission of interceding for occult truths: he becomes a Warrior. An initiate of the second degree was not permitted to contend for the truths of the spiritual world.—In the fourth degree the spiritual truths became established, to a certain extent, in the initiate. And the fifth degree is the one of which I said that here the initiate learned to control all that flowed in the blood through the generations, learned to deal with it by means of the forces descending with the blood through the female element of propagation. What name, then, would be applied to a man who had experienced his initiation within the Israelitic People? Israelite, just as in an analogous case in Persia he would have been called a Persian.
Now observe the following. Among the first to be brought to Christ Jesus, according to the Gospel of St. John, was Nathanael. The others, who were already followers of Christ Jesus, say to Nathanael:
We have found the Master, Him Who dwells in Jesus of Nazareth.
To which Nathanael replies:
Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?
But when Nathaniel is brought to Christ, Christ says to him:
Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.
An “Israelite” indeed, in whom truth dwells! Christ says this because He knows to what degree Nathanael is initiated. Whereupon Nathanael realizes that he is dealing with someone who knows quite as much as he does—in fact, with One Who towers above him, Who knows more than he does. And then, in order to stress the reference to initiation, Christ adds:
I saw thee before thou comest to me: before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.
The term “fig tree” is here used in exactly the same sense as in connection with Buddha: the fig tree is the “Bodhi Tree.” It is the symbol of initiation. What Christ says to him is, I recognize thee as one initiated in the fifth degree. The author of the John Gospel indicates that Christ surveys from above, as it were, an initiate of the fifth degree. Step by step this writer leads us on, in this case by showing us that in the body of Jesus of Nazareth there dwells one who stands above the fifth degree of initiation.
And more. We have just learned that a fifth-degree initiate commands the occult-magical forces residing in the blood flowing down through the generations: he has become one, as it were, with the Folk Soul; and earlier we learned that this Folk Soul expresses itself in the forces inherent in woman. Therefore one who is initiated in the fifth degree will be dealing—in accord with the old conditions—with the female forces. This, of course, must be viewed spiritually. But Christ's relation to these forces is an entirely new one: He is dealing with the woman who regained her virginity through the Baptism, who recaptures the new, sprouting forces of the virgin state. That was the wholly new factor which the writer of the John Gospel intended to indicate by saying that a certain current flowed from the Son to the Mother. Everyone with occult knowledge at that time knew quite well that a son, provided he was initiated in the fifth grade, was able to employ magically the folk forces expressed in the folk element of his mother, but Christ demonstrated in a loftier spiritual manner the forces of the woman who had become virgin again.
Thus we see what led up to the Marriage in Cana. We see that what occurred there had to be brought about by an initiate excelling an initiate of the fifth degree, and we are also shown that this fact bore a connection with the folk forces inherent in the female personality. In a marvelous fashion the author of the John Gospel prepares us for what came to pass there. As has been said, we shall approach the miracle question itself later; but in the meantime you can readily imagine that freshly drawn water is different from water that has stood for a time, just as a flower freshly picked is different from one that has been wilting for three days. Differentiations of that sort naturally do not occur to materialistic observation. Water until recently united with the forces of the earth is very different from stale water. In conjunction with the forces residing in the freshly drawn water, one who is initiated as described can work through the forces which are linked with a spiritual relationship such as that between Christ and the Mother who has become virgin. Christ carries farther what the earth is capable of achieving. The earth can transform the water in the grapevine into wine. The Christ, Who has approached the earth and become the Spirit of the Earth, is the spiritual principle that is otherwise active in the entire earth body; so if He is the Christ He must be able to accomplish as much as the earth. And the earth, within the vine, transforms water into wine.
The first sign, therefore, performed by Christ Jesus as set forth in the John Gospel is one that links up, so to speak, with what could be accomplished in olden times by an initiate who controlled the forces extending through the blood ties of the generations, as we have just learned out of the Books of Kings.
But now we find a continuing increase in the strength of those forces which Christ develops in the body of Jesus of Nazareth—not those that the Christ had within Himself. Therefore, do not ask, Can it be, then, that the Christ has to develop? Certainly not. But what did have to be developed through the Christ was the body of Jesus of Nazareth, however purified and ennobled: it had to be guided upward step by step by the Christ; for into this body were to be poured the forces intended to manifest themselves shortly.
The next sign is the healing of the nobleman's son, and the following one, the healing of him who had lain sick for thirty-eight years by the Pool of Bethesda. What intensification have we here of the forces through which Christ worked on this earth? It consists in the fact that now Christ could influence not only those who surrounded Him, those actually present in the flesh. At the Marriage of Cana He caused the water to become wine as the people drank it: He worked upon the etheric bodies of those present; for by the infusion of His force into the etheric bodies of the people surrounding Him the water became wine in their mouths—that is, the water tasted like wine. Now, however, the effect was intended not alone for the body, but for the very depths of the soul; for only in that way could Christ influence the nobleman's son through the mediation of his father, and only thus could He penetrate the sinful soul of him who had lain sick for thirty-eight years. To send His forces into the etheric body alone would not have sufficed: the astral body had to be acted upon, for it is the astral body that sins. By exerting an influence upon the etheric body, water can be turned into wine; but in order to affect another personality it is necessary to penetrate to something deeper. And this demanded that Christ continue to work upon the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth.—Note well that Christ does not thereby change, thereby become another: He merely works upon the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth; and this He does henceforth in such a way that the etheric body can become more independent of the physical body than it was previously.
So the time came when the etheric body in the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth became freer, less closely bound to the physical body. This resulted in greater mastery over the latter: more powerful works could be accomplished, so to speak, in this physical body than hitherto—that is, powerful forces could be employed in it. The potentiality for this was given with the Baptism in the Jordan, and now it was to be further developed with special intensity. All this, however, was to come about through spirit. The power of the astral body was to become so great in the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth that the etheric body could acquire the control over the physical body that was indicated. Now, by what means alone can the astral body attain such power? By acquiring the right feelings, by devotion to the right feelings towards all that takes place around us; above all, by achieving the right attitude towards human egotism. Did Christ accomplish this with the body of Jesus of Nazareth? Did His work result in the right attitude toward all the egotism He encountered, in exposing the fundamentally egotistical character of the souls present? Yes: the author of the John Gospel tells us how Christ appears as the purger of the Temple when he meets with those who do homage to egotism and defile the Temple by making it into a trading center. Thus He was able to say that His astral body had achieved sufficient strength to rebuild His physical body in three days, should it perish. This, too, is indicated by the writer of the John Gospel:
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body.
This indicates that the sheath which had been offered Him in sacrifice now has the power to control and master the physical body completely. Now this body, become independent, can move about at will, no longer subject to the laws of the physical world: regardless of the usual laws of the world of space, it can bring about and direct events in the spiritual world. Again we ask, does this occur? Yes: it is indicated in the chapter following the one in which the purging of the Temple is related.
There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him ...
Why does it say here, “by night”? The explanation that the Jew was simply afraid to go to Jesus by the light of day, so he crept through the window in the night, is as trivial a one as could well be imagined. Anybody can make up explanations of that sort. By night means nothing else than that this meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus occurred in the astral world: in the spiritual world, not in the world that surrounds us in our ordinary day consciousness. This means that Christ could converse with Nicodemus outside the physical body—by night, when the physical body is not present, when the astral body is outside the physical and etheric bodies.
Thus the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth was prepared by the Christ, Who dwelt in it, for the acts that were to follow: for what was to be infused into the souls of men. This implied a degree of sovereignty in the soul dwelling in Jesus of Nazareth that would enable it to act upon other bodies. But acting upon another soul is an entirely different matter from the type of influence we discussed yesterday. It comes to light in the next intensification, in the Feeding of the Five Thousand and in the Walking on the Water. To be seen in the flesh without being physically present called for something more; and so powerful had the force become, even at that stage, in the body of Jesus of Nazareth that the Christ was seen not only by His disciples but by others as well. Only, here again we must read the John Gospel carefully; for someone might take the standpoint of readily believing this sign in the case of the disciples, but not in the others.
The day following, when the people which stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was none other boat there, save that one whereinto his disciples were entered, and that Jesus went not with his disciples into the boat, but that his disciples were gone away alone; (Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they did eat the bread, after that the Lord had given thanks:) When the people therefore saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping, and came to Capernaum, seeking for Jesus.
Let me emphasize that it says here, the people who sought Jesus. The narrative continues:
And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither?
That implies the same occurrence as in the case of the disciples. It does not say that every ordinary eye saw Him, but that He was seen by those who sought Him and who found Him, by virtue of an increase in their soul force. To say that someone saw another person does not imply that the person seen stood there in the flesh as a spatial figure visible to the physical eye. What in outer life is generally called "taking the Gospel literally" is really anything but that.
If you note that in all of this we have once more to do with what is essentially an intensification, you will understand that again something had to precede it, something to show that Christ had been working on the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth in a manner to render its force ever mightier. His work was that of a healer: He was able to transmit His force to the other's soul. This He could only do by working henceforth in the manner He Himself describes in His conversation with the Samaritan woman by the well:
I am the living water.
At the Marriage in Cana He had revealed Himself as an initiate of the fifth grade, having dominion over the elements: now He makes it clear that He works in the elements and dwells in them. Later He manifests Himself as one with the forces active on the whole earth and throughout the world. This occurs in the chapter dealing with
Jesus, who hath power over life and death:
over life and death by virtue of His power over the forces active in the physical body. That is why this chapter precedes the sign the performance of which called for a still greater force.
Then we see the force still increasing. Yesterday we pointed out that in the sign described as the healing of the man born blind Christ intervenes not only in matters pertaining to life between birth and death, but in that which passes from life to life as the individuality of the human soul. The man was born blind because the divine individuality in him manifested itself in its works; and his sight is to be restored by means of the force Christ infuses into him, a force that will wipe out that which happened—not through the man's personality between birth and death, nor as a result of heredity, but which was incurred by his individuality.
I have repeatedly explained that Goethe's beautiful aphorism, “The eye is formed by means of light, for light,”1Das Auge ist am Lichte für das Licht gebildet which proceeded from a deep understanding of the Rosicrucian initiation, has a profoundly occult basis. I pointed out that Schopenhauer was quite right in saying that there can be no light without the eye; but how does the eye originate? Goethe says truly that had it not been for light, no organ sensitive to light, no eye, would ever have come into existence. The eye was created by the light. A single illustration proves this: when animals equipped with eyes migrate into dark caverns they soon lose their sight through lack of light. Light is what formed the eye. If Christ is to imbue a human individuality with a force able to create in him the capacity for making the eye into an organ responsive to light, such as it had not been previously, there must reside in the Christ the spiritual force that lives in light. Let us see where this is indicated in the John Gospel. The healing of the blind man is preceded by the chapter in which we read:
Then spake Jesus unto them, saying, I am the light of the world.
The healing of the blind man is narrated only after having been anticipated by the revelation,
“I am the light of the world.”
Now turn to the last chapter before the Raising of Lazarus and try to visualize some of the disclosures made there. You need only consider the passage reading:
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down ... If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
Everything said here about the “good shepherd” is intended to indicate Christ's feeling that He is one with the Father, that henceforth He will no longer think of Himself as "I" other than as He is imbued with the Father force. As earlier He said, “I am the light of the world,” so now:
I renounce my ego force by receiving the Father in me, so that the Father may work in me, that the primordial principle may permeate me and then flow forth into another being. I lay down my life that I may take it again.
That is what precedes the Raising of Lazarus.
And now, keeping all these considerations in mind, try to grasp the John Gospel in respect to its composition. Notice that up to the Raising of Lazarus, not only is a marvellous intensification indicated in the development of the forces residing in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, but before each increase we are told exactly what it is that acts upon his body. Oh, you will find everything in the John Gospel so closely knit that, if only you understand it, you will realize that not a sentence could be omitted. And the explanation of such marvellous composition is that it was written as we have said, by one who was initiated by Christ Jesus Himself.
Our point of departure today was the question, What occurred at the Baptism in the Jordan? and we found that the potential capacity for vanquishing death came into the world with the descent of the Christ into the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth. We saw the change that came over the Mother of Jesus of Nazareth with the coming of the Christ: through the influence exercised upon her at the Baptism she became virgin again. The assertion, then, that was to be vouchsafed mankind through the John Gospel is indeed true: When at the Baptism the Christ was born in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the Mother of Jesus of Nazareth became a virgin.
That is the point of departure of the Gospel according to St. John; and if you grasp it in conjunction with the mighty cosmic influence exercised in the event that occurred on the bank of the Jordan, then you will also understand that an accurate description of such an event—the first description of it—could only have been achieved by one whom Christ Himself had initiated, by the risen Lazarus “whom the Lord loved,” thenceforth always mentioned as the disciple whom the Lord loved. It was the risen Lazarus who bequeathed us the Gospel; and he alone was able so firmly to weld its every passage because he had received the mightiest impulse from the greatest initiator, from Christ. He alone could point to something that later Paul, through his initiation, comprehended in a certain sense: that at that moment the germ of victory over death had entered Earth evolution.
Hence the momentous words spoken of Him Who hung on the Cross:
Not a bone of him shall be broken.
Why? Because the form over which Christ must retain His dominion was not to be desecrated. Had they broken His bones, a base human force would have interfered with the power Christ must exercise even over the bones of Jesus of Nazareth. None must touch that form, for it was written that this should remain wholly subject to Christ's dominion.
This will serve as a starting point for a consideration of the death of Christ, which we will undertake tomorrow.
Zehnter Vortrag
Es ist unter den Tatsachen, die sich in Palästina im Anfange unserer Zeitrechnung zugetragen haben, besonders ein Ereignis, auf das zu wiederholten Malen hingewiesen wurde und welches die JohannesTaufe des Jesus von Nazareth genannt wird. Es ist auch betont worden, daß in bezug auf diese Johannes-Taufe in allem Wesentlichen alle vier Evangelien übereinstimmen. Heute wird es sich zunächst darum handeln, daß wir uns diese Johannes-Taufe noch einmal vor die Seele führen von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte her.
Aus der Art und Weise, wie in den Evangelien die Johannes-Taufe auftritt, konnten wir ja schon ersehen, daß auf dieses, auch aus der Akasha-Chronik zu erklärende Ereignis wichtigster Art hingewiesen wird, auf jenes Ereignis, das damit charakterisiert werden mußte, daß wir sagten: Ungefähr um das dreißigste Jahr des Lebens des Jesus von Nazareth zog ein in die drei Hüllen dieses Jesus von Nazareth diejenige göttliche Wesenheit, die man als den Christus bezeichnet.
Wir haben also - und das ist ein Ergebnis der Akasha-Beobachtung in bezug auf das Leben des Stifters des Christentums zwei Teile zu unterscheiden. Wir haben zunächst zu sehen das Leben des großen Eingeweihten, den wir als den Jesus von Nazareth bezeichnen. In diesem Jesus von Nazareth lebt eine Ichheit, von der wir gezeigt haben, daß sie durch viele Inkarnationen vorher durchgegangen ist, wiederholt auf der Erde gelebt hat, in diesen Leben immer höher gestiegen ist und sich allmählich hinaufentwickelt hat zu der Fähigkeit des groBen Opfers. Dieses Opfer bestand darin, daß gegen das dreißigste Jahr das Ich des Jesus von Nazareth den physischen Leib, den Ätherleib und den astralischen Leib, die es bis dahin geläutert, gereinigt und veredelt hatte, verlassen konnte, so daß eine dreifache menschliche Hülle da war, eine reine, beste menschliche Hülle, die da bestand aus physischem Leib, Ätherleib und astralischem Leib. Während der JohannesTaufe nahmen diese Hüllen, als auf der einen Seite die Ichheit des Jesus von Nazareth sie verließ, diejenige Wesenheit auf, die vorher nicht auf der Erde gewesen war, bei der wir nicht davon sprechen können, daß sie durch vorhergehende Inkarnationen durchgegangen ist. Die Christus-Wesenheit ist jene Wesenheit, von der wir sagen können, daß sie vorher nur gefunden werden konnte in der Welt, die außerhalb unserer Erde liegt. Erst in diesem Moment der JohannesTaufe vereinigte sich für die drei Jahre diese Individualität mit einem menschlichen Leibe und wandelte auf der Erde, um in diesen drei Jahren das zu vollbringen, was wir immer mehr und mehr zu charakterisieren haben.
Was ich jetzt gesagt habe, ist Ergebnis der hellseherischen Beobachtung. Die Evangelisten kleiden diese Tatsache ein in das, was sie als die Johannes-Taufe schildern. Sie wollen damit sagen: Während bei den verschiedenen Menschen, welche die Johannes-Taufe empfingen, dieses oder jenes geschah, trat bei dem Jesus von Nazareth das Ereignis ein, daß sich in die drei Hüllen des Jesus von Nazareth der Christus hineinsenkte. Und ich habe Ihnen schon im ersten Vortrage gesagt, daß dieser Christus dieselbe Wesenheit ist, von der im Alten Testament gesagt wird: «Und der Geist Gottes schwebte, oder ‚brütete‘, über den Wassern.» (1. Mose 1, 2). Dieser selbe Geist, also der göttliche Geist unseres Sonnensystems, begab sich in die dreifache Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth.
Was damals nun geschah, das soll jetzt erörtert werden. Und ich bitte Sie, von vornherein sich klar zu sein darüber, daß es schwierig sein muß zu begreifen, was eigentlich bei der Johannes-Taufe geschah, weil es ja das größte Ereignis der Erdenentwickelung war. Und wer sollte nicht glauben, daß die kleinen Ereignisse der Erdenentwickelung leichter zu begreifen sind als die großen? Wer sollte nicht glauben, daß das Begreifen des größten Ereignisses der Erdenentwickelung auch am meisten Schwierigkeiten bietet! Daher werde ich jetzt zu Ihnen manche Worte sprechen, die den noch Unvorbereiteten in mancher Beziehung schockieren können. Aber auch ein solcher Unvorbeteiteter sollte sich sagen, daß die Menschenseele dazu da ist auf der Erde, immer vollkommener und vollkommener zu werden, auch in bezug auf die Erkenntnis, und daß dasjenige, was anfangs schockierend erscheint, im Laufe der Zeit als etwas durchaus Begreifliches erscheinen muß; denn sonst müßte man verzweifeln an der Entwickelungsmöglichkeit der Menschenseele. So aber können wir uns jeden Tag sagen: Was ich auch schon erkannt habe, meine Seele ist immer vollkommener zu machen, und sie wird immer besser und besser die Sache begreifen.
Eine dreifache Menschenhülle haben wir also vor uns, einen physischen Leib, Ätherleib und astralischen Leib, und in diese hinein fährt sozusagen der Christus. Das deuten die Worte an, die aus dem Weltenall erklingen: «Dieser ist mein von meiner Liebe erfüllter Sohn, in dem ich mich selber offenbare!» (Matth. 3, 17). Denn so müssen die Worte im Deutschen wiedergegeben werden. Daß in der dreifachen Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth gewaltige Veränderungen vorgehen mußten, da der Gott in ihn einzog, das können Sie sich denken. Nun werden Sie es aber auch schon begreiflich finden, daß bei den alten Einweihungen große Veränderungen vorgegangen sind mit Bezug auf den ganzen Menschen.
Ich habe Ihnen ja geschildert, wie der letzte Akt der alten Einweihung war: Nachdem der Schüler, der in die göttlichen Geheimnisse initiiert war, lange vorbereitet worden war durch Lernen und durch Übungen, wurde er dreieinhalb Tage lang in einen todähnlichen Zustand gebracht, so daß sein Ätherleib in diesen dreieinhalb Tagen getrennt war vom physischen Leibe, und da konnten dann in dieser Zeit sich selber in dem Ätherleib die Früchte der Übungen ausdrücken, die in dem astralischen Leib aufgenommen worden waren. Das heißt: Es stieg auf derjenige, der eingeweiht wurde, von einem «Gereinigten», wie man sagt, zu einem «Erleuchteten», der hineinschaut in die geistige Welt. Ein solcher hatte aber auch schon in den alten Zeiten - gerade damals, wo solche Einweihungen noch möglich waren - eine gewisse Gewalt über seine ganze Leiblichkeit. Wenn er nun wiederum zurücktrat in den physischen Leib, dann beherrschte er in bezug auf gewisse feinere Elemente diesen physischen Leib in einer großartigen Weise. Aber vielleicht könnten Sie hier die Frage aufwerfen: Wenn man sich nun einem solchen Eingeweihten genähert hat, der eine ganz besondere Herrschaft über die verschiedenen Hüllen erlangt hatte, auch über seinen physischen Leib sogar, hat man das bemerkt, sah man das an ihm? - Ja, derjenige sah es, der sich eben die Fähigkeit zu solchem Sehen angeeignet hatte. Dem anderen erschien er in der Regel wie ein gewöhnlicher, schlichter Mensch, und er bemerkte nichts Besonderes an ihm. Warum das? Nun, einfach aus dem Grunde, weil der physische Leib, wie er mit physischen Augen angesehen wird, nur der äußere Ausdruck ist für das, was dahinter steht; und die Veränderungen beziehen sich auf das Geistige, das hinter dem physischen Leibe steht.
Nun hatten es alle alten Eingeweihten durch die besonderen Prozeduren, die mit ihnen vollzogen wurden, bis zu einem gewissen Grade gebracht in der Beherrschung des physischen Leibes. Nur eines gab es, was durch keine alte Einweihung unter die Herrschaft des Geistes des Menschen hat gebracht werden können. Hier berühren wir gewissermaßen den Rand eines großen Geheimnisses oder Mysteriums. Eines gab es in der menschlichen Natur, bis zu dem die Gewalt eines vorchristlichen Eingeweihten nicht drang. Und das waren die feinen physikalisch-chemischen Vorgänge im Knochensystem, so sonderbar es Ihnen klingt. So ist es aber.
Es gab bis zu der Johannes-Taufe des Christus Jesus niemals innerhalb der Erdenentwickelung - unter Eingeweihten nicht und unter Uneingeweihten nicht - eine menschliche Individualität, welche bis in die chemisch-physikalischen Vorgänge des Knochensystems hinein mächtig gewesen wäre. Durch das Hineinfahren des Christus in den Leib des Jesus von Nazareth wurde die jetzige Ichheit des Christus Herrscher bis in das Knochensystem hinein. Und die Folge davon war, daß einmal auf der Erde ein Leib gelebt hat, welcher imstande war, seine Kräfte so zu beherrschen, daß er die Form des Knochensystems, die ‚geistige Form des Knochensystems der Erdenentwickelung einverleiben konnte. Nichts würde von dem, was der Mensch innerhalb der Erdenentwickelung durchmacht, zurückbleiben, wenn der Mensch nicht die edle Form seines Knochensystems als Gesetz der Erdenentwickelung einverleiben könnte, wenn er nicht nach und nach Herr würde über dieses Gesetz des Knochensystems.
Es hängt damit etwas zusammen - wie so oft alte Traditionen zusammenhängen mit dem Okkulten -, was Sie aus einem alten Aberglauben des Volkes ersehen können: Gewisse Kreise bilden den Tod ab, indem sie ein Knochensystem abbilden. Das ist die Form dafür, daß, als die Erde im Beginne der Entwickelung war, alle die Gesetze, die sich auf des Menschen übrige Organisationssysteme beziehen, so weit waren, daß sie am Ende der Erdenentwickelung -in einer höheren Form umgestaltet - auch wieder da wären. Aber nichts würde von der Erdenentwickelung in die Zukunft hinübergenommen werden, wenn nicht die Form des Knochensystems hinübergenommen würde. Die Form des Knochensystems besiegt den Tod im physischen Sinne. Daher mußte derjenige, der den Tod auf Erden besiegen sollte, Herrschaft haben über das Knochensystem, und zwar in derselben Weise, wie ich Ihnen diese Herrschaft über gewisse körperliche Eigenschaften auch in bezug auf geringere Fähigkeiten angedeutet habe. Der Mensch hat Herrschaft über sein Blutsystem nur in sehr geringem Maße. Beim Schamgefühl zum Beispiel treibt er sein Blut von innen nach außen; das heißt, die Seele wirkt auf das Blutsystem. Beim Erschrecken, wenn der Mensch erblaßt, treibt er das Blut in sein Zentrum, nach innen zurück. Wenn der Mensch Trauer empfindet, pressen sich die Tränen heraus. Das alles sind gewisse Herrschaften der Seele über das Körperliche. Noch viel mehr Herrschaft über das Körperliche erhält derjenige, der in einem gewissen Grade eingeweiht ist: er erhält die Möglichkeit, in bestimmter Weise die Bewegungen der Teile seines Gehirns willkürlich zu beherrschen und so weiter.
Diejenige menschliche Wesenheit also, welche die Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth war, sie kam unter die Herrschaft des Christus. Und die Willkür des Christus, sein freier Wille, drang mit seiner Herrschaft hinein bis in das Knochensystem, so daß er sozusagen zum ersten Male hineinwirken konnte in dieses Knochensystem. Die Bedeutung dieser Tatsache aber läßt sich so schildern: Der Mensch hat sich die Form, die er heute durch 'sein Knochensystem hat, auf der Erde erobert, nicht auf einer früheren Verkörperung unseres Planeten. Aber er würde sie verlieren, wenn nicht jene geistige Macht gekommen wäre, die wir den Christus nennen. Der Mensch würde nichts als Ente und Frucht von der Erde mit hinüber in die Zukunft nehmen, wenn nicht jene Herrschaft des Christus über das Knochensystem eingetreten wäre. — Also es war etwas von einer ungeheuren Gewalt, was in dem Augenblicke der Johannes-Taufe bis in das innerste Mark hinein durchdrang die dreifache Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth. Diesen Moment müssen wir uns vor die Seele malen. Denn das ist das eine, was geschah.
Wenn eine gewöhnliche Geburt geschieht, dann vereinigt sich dasjenige, was aus den früheren Verkörperungen des Menschen kommt, mit dem, was der Mensch durch die Vererbung erlangt. Es vereinigt sich die menschliche Individualität, die in früheren Leben da war, mit dem, was er als seine fleischlich-ätherische Hülle erhält. Es, vereinigt sich also etwas, was aus der geistigen Welt kommt, mit dem SinnlichPhysischen. Diejenigen, welche öfters Vorträge von mir gehört haben, wissen, daß in bezug auf die äußere Erscheinung in der geistigen Welt, sobald wir sie nur betreten, alles im Spiegelbild, alles umgekehrt vorhanden ist. Wenn also jemand durch rationelle Methoden hellseherisch gemacht wird, wenn ihm der Blick für die geistige Welt aufgeht, so muß er erst langsam lernen, sich auszukennen in der geistigen Welt, denn da erscheint alles umgekehrt. Wenn ihm eine Zahl entgegentritt, zum Beispiel die Zahl 345, so darf er sie nicht so lesen wie in der physischen Welt, also nicht 345, sondern 543, umgekehrt muß er sie lesen. So müssen Sie lernen, in gewisser Weise alles in der Umkehrung zu betrachten, nicht nur Zahlen, sondern alles andere auch.
Indem sich der Christus vereinigte mit der äußeren Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth, zeigt sich dieses Ereignis in seiner äußeren Erscheinung dem, der die geistigen Augen geöffnet hat, auch in einer gegenteiligen Erscheinung. Während bei einer physischen Verkörperung ein Geistiges herunterkommt aus höheren Welten und sich mit dem Physischen vereinigt, erscheint dasjenige, was. in diesem Falle hingeopfert wurde, um den Christus-Geist aufzunehmen, über dem Haupte des Jesus von Nazareth in Form der weißen Taube. Ein Geistiges erscheint, wie es sich loslöst von dem Physischen! Das ist durchaus eine hellsehe. tische Beobachtung. Und sehr wenig richtig ist es, wenn gesagt wird: Das ist bloß allegorisch oder symbolisch gemeint. Es ist eine reale hellseherische geistige Tatsache, die für das hellseherische Vermögen auf dem astralischen Plan wirklich vorhanden ist. So, wie eine physische Geburt ein Heranziehen eines Geistigen ist, so war diese Geburt ein Opfer, ein Hingeben. Damit war die Möglichkeit gegeben, daß der Geist, der «über dem Wasser schwebte» im Beginne unserer Erdentwickelung, sich vereinigte mit der dreifachen Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth und sie so durchkraftete und durchglühte, wie wir das beschrieben haben.
Nun werden Sie begreifen, daß in dem Moment, als das geschah, nicht allein der kleine Raumesteil beteiligt war, in dem sich die Johannes-Taufe abspielte. Das wäre nur eine Kurzsichtigkeit der Menschen, wenn sie glauben würden, daß etwas, was in betreff irgendeiner Wesenheit geschieht, eingeschlossen wäre in die Grenzen, die das Auge sieht. Das ist die starke Illusion, der sich die Menschen hingeben können, wenn sie nur ihren äußeren Sinnen vertrauen. Wo ist denn für die äußeren Sinne die Grenze des Menschen? Wenn man oberflächlich spräche, würde man diese Grenze sehen in seiner Haut. Da hört der Mensch auf nach allen Seiten. Es könnte sogar jemand sagen: Wenn ich dir die Nase abschneide, die zu dir gehört, so bist du kein ganzer Mensch mehr; daran erkenne ich, daß das alles zu deiner Wesenheit gehört. — Aber es ist das doch eine sehr kurzsichtige Betrachtung. Ein paar Dezimeter vor der Haut des Menschen sucht man schon nicht mehr das, was zum Menschen gehört, wenn man sich auf die physische Betrachtung beschränkt. Aber bedenken Sie, daß Sie mit einem jeden Atemzug Luft einatmen aus dem ganzen Luftkreis Ihrer Umgebung. Wenn man Ihnen die Nase abschneidet, sind Sie kein ganzer Mensch mehr; wenn man Ihnen aber die Luft abschneidet, auch nicht! Es ist nur eine willkürliche Ansicht, wenn Sie sich den Menschen in seiner Haut begrenzt vorstellen. Das gehört alles zum Menschen, was ringsherum ist. Auch schon im physischen Sinne gehört es zum Menschen. So daß, wenn mit dem Menschen irgend etwas geschieht an einem bestimmten Orte, es nicht so ist, daß nur der Platz, den der menschliche Körper einnimmt, daran beteiligt wäre. Würden Sie einmal versuchen, in einer Meile im Umkreise eines Menschen in genügend starker Art die Luft zu verpesten, so daß sich die Dämpfe bis zu dem Menschen hin erstrecken, dann würden Sie sehr bald merken, daß der ganze Raum im Umkreise einer Meile beteiligt ist an den Lebensvorgängen dieses Menschen. Und die ganze Erde ist beteiligt bei jedem Lebensvorgang. Wenn das schon beim physischen Lebensvorgang der Fall ist, so wird es Ihnen nicht unbegreiflich erscheinen, daß bei einem Ereignis wie der Johannes-Taufe die geistige Welt beteiligt war im weitesten Umkreise, und daß vieles, vieles geschah, damit dieses geschehen konnte.
Wenn Sie aber einen Menschen haben, dem Sie in einer Meile im Umkreis die Luft verderben, so daß seine Lebensvorgänge davon beeinflußt werden, und Sie stellen einen anderen Menschen in seine Nähe, dann wird dieser andere eben auch eine Wirkung erleiden. Vielleicht wird diese Wirkung eine etwas andere sein, je nachdem der andere etwas näher oder weiter dem Bannkreis dieser Meile steht. Wenn er zum Beispiel weit weg ist, wird auch die Wirkung schwächer sein, aber es wird doch eine Wirkung ausgeübt werden. Daher werden Sie es nicht mehr sonderbar finden, wenn heute die Frage aufgeworfen wird, ob es denn nicht noch andere Wirkungen gibt, die mit der Johannes-Taufe verbunden waren. Und hier berühren wir den Rand eines anderen tiefen Geheimnisses, das man nur mit Scheu und Ehrfurcht heute aussprechen kann. Denn nur nach und nach erst wird die Menschheit dazu vorbereitet werden, solche Dinge zu verstehen.
In demselben Augenblick, als sich der Geist des Christus in den Leib des Jesus von Nazareth hineinsenkte und eine Verwandlung vorging, wie wir sie beschrieben haben, da wurde auch auf die Mutter des Jesus von Nazareth eine Wirkung ausgeübt. Und diese Wirkung besteht darinnen, daß sie in diesem Augenblick der Johannes-Taufe wiederum zurückerhielt ihre Jungfräulichkeit, das heißt, sie wurde in ihrer inneren Organisation so, wie die weibliche Organisation vor der jungfräulichen Reife ist. Die Mutter des Jesus von Nazareth wurde bei der Geburt des Christus Jungfrau.
Das sind die beiden bedeutsamsten Tatsachen, jene großen, gewaltigen Wirkungen, die der Schreiber des Johannes-Evangeliums uns, wenn auch verhüllt, andeutet. Aber wenn wir das Johannes-Evangelium richtig lesen können, so steht in einer gewissen Weise das alles da. Um das zu erkennen, müssen wir an mancherlei wieder anknüpfen, was wir gestern schon von verschiedenen Seiten her berührt haben.
Wir sagten, daß in alten Zeiten die Menschen unter dem Einfluß der «nahen Ehe» lebten. Das bedeutet, daß die Ehe innerhalb der Blutsverwandtschaft, innerhalb desselben Stammes vollzogen wurde. Erst mit dem Vorschreiten der Zeiten heiratete man aus dem Stamm heraus in anderes Stammesblut hinein. Je weiter wir zurückgehen in ältere Zeiten, desto mehr finden wir, daß die Menschen unter dem Einfluß dieser Blutsverwandtschaft stehen. Dadurch, daß Stammesblut floß durch die Adern der Menschen, waren in alten Zeiten jene erhöhten magischen Kräfte möglich. Ein Mensch, der in alten Zeiten lebte, und der lange hinaufschauen konnte in seine Vorfahrenreihe und immer nur hineinschauen konnte in stammverwandtes Blut, der hatte in seinem Blut magische Kräfte wirkend, so daß Wirkungen von Seele zu Seele möglich waren, wie sie gestern beschrieben worden sind. Das wußten aber die Leute früher, die einfachsten Leute wußten das. Nun wäre es aber durchaus falsch, daraus zu schließen, daß, wenn heute blutsverwandte Ehen eingegangen würden, ähnliche Zustände eintreten und magische Kräfte zur Erscheinung kommen würden. Da würden Sie wieder in den Fehler verfallen, in den das Maiglöckchen verfallen würde, wenn es auf einmal sagte: Ich will nicht mehr im Mai blühen, ich blühe von jetzt ab im Oktober! Es kann nicht im Oktober blühen, denn dann sind nicht die nötigen Bedingungen für das Maiglöckchen da. Ebenso ist es mit den magischen Kräften. Es können sich nicht magische Kräfte entwickeln in einer Zeit, wo die Bedingungen dazu nicht mehr vorhanden sind. Jetzt in unserer Zeit müssen sich die magischen Kräfte in einer anderen Weise entwickeln. Das, was geschildert wurde, gilt nur für die alten Zeiten. Natürlich, der grobnaturalistische Gelehrte kann das gar nicht verstehen, daß sich die Gesetze in der Entwickelung verändert haben sollten; er glaubt, was er heute in seinem physikalischen Kabinett erlebt, das müsse sich immer so ereignet haben. Das ist aber Unsinn, denn die Gesetze ändern sich. Und solche Leute, die sich aus der neueren Naturwissenschaft ihren Glauben herholen, würden das, was in Palästina geschehen ist, wovon im Johannes-Evangelium gesprochen wird, als etwas Besonderes angestaunt haben. Aber diejenigen, welche in der Zeit des Christus Jesus lebten, als noch die lebendigen Traditionen von Zeiten vorhanden waren, wo solche Dinge durchaus zu den Möglichkeiten gehörten, sie waren gar nicht besonders darüber erstaunt. Daher konnte ich schon gestern andeuten, daß die Menschen eigentlich gar nicht besonders erstaunt waren über das, was bei der Hochzeit zu Kana als Zeichen geschah. Und warum sollten sie darüber gestaunt haben? Äußerlich war es ja eine Wiederholung von dem, wovon sie wußten, daß es immer und immer beobachtet worden war. Lesen Sie im 2.Buch der Könige, im 4.Kapitel, Vers 42-44:
«Es kam aber ein Mann von Baal-Salisa und brachte dem Manne Gottes Erstlingsbrot, nämlich zwanzig Gerstenbrote und neu Getreide in seinem Kleid. Da befahl er: Gib es dem Volke, daß sie essen!
Sein Diener erwiderte: Wie kann ich davon hundert Männern geben? Er aber sprach: Gib es dem Volke, daß sie essen! Denn so spricht der Herr: Man wird essen, und es wird noch übrigbleiben! Und er legte es ihnen vor, daß sie aßen; und blieb noch über nach dem Wort des Herrn.»
Hier haben Sie im Alten Testament für die alten Zeiten die Situation erzählt von der Speisung von fünftausend Menschen. Wie sollten diejenigen über ein solches Zeichen verwundert sein, in deren Urkunden stand, daß das nicht zum ersten Male geschah! Es ist wesentlich, daß wir dieses verstehen.
Was geschah denn aber bei dem, der im alten Sinne eingeweiht worden war? Er bekam eben den Eintritt in die geistige Welt, ihm wurde das Auge geöffnet für die geistig wirksamen Kräfte, das heißt, er sah hinein in den Zusammenhang von Blut und geistig wirksamen Kräften. Die anderen hatten eine dunkle Ahnung davon. Wer aber eingeweiht war, der sah hinauf bis zu dem ersten der Ahnen, von dem das Blut herunterrollte. Ein solcher konnte sich sagen: So rinnt das Blut herunter durch die Generationen, und in diesem Blut drückt sich ein ganzes Volks-Ich aus, wie sich ausdrückt in dem einzelmenschlichen Blute das Einzel-Ich. - So sah ein solcher Eingeweihter hinauf bis zu dem Anfang des Blutstromes, der durch die Generationen zog, und er fühlte sich mit seiner Seele identisch mit dem ganzen Volksgeist, der seine Physiognomie in dem ganzen Volksblut hatte. Ein solcher, der sich eins fühlte mit dem ganzen Volksblut, der war in gewissem Grade eingeweiht, und er war in gewissem Grade Herr über bestimmte magische Kräfte im alten Sinne.
Nun müssen wir uns noch eines vor Augen halten. Das Männliche und das Weibliche, sie wirken in der Fortpflanzung der Menschheit in einer Weise zusammen, die wir kurz in folgender Artcharakterisieren können.
Würde das Weibliche die alleinige Oberhand haben, so würden sich die Menschen so entwickeln, daß in ihnen die gleichartigen Charaktere immer wieder und wieder zum Vorschein kämen. Es wäre immer das Kind den Eltern, den Großeltern usw. ähnlich. Alles an Kräften, was die Ähnlichkeit bewirkt, das haftet am Weiblichen. Alles, was die Ähnlichkeit verändert, was Unterschiede schafft, das haftet am Männlichen. Haben Sie innerhalb einer Volksgemeinschaft eine Anzahl von Gesichtern, die sich gleichsehen, so haftet das am Weiblichen. Aber in diesen Gesichtern sind doch gewisse Unterschiede vorhanden, so daß Sie die einzelnen Menschen unterscheiden können. Das ist der Einfluß des Männlichen. Wenn nur das Weibliche Einfluß hätte, so würden Sie die einzelnen Menschen nicht voneinander unterscheiden können. Und wenn wiederum nur das Männliche wirken würde, so würden Sie eine Gruppe von Menschen niemals als zu einem Stamm gehörig erkennen können. So wirken Männliches und Weibliches zusammen, daß wir sagen können: Das Männliche wirkt individualisierend, spezialisierend, trennend; das Weibliche dagegen wirkt generalisierend. In welchen Kräften liegt also vorzugsweise das, was dem ganzen Volke angehört? Das, was dem ganzen Volke angehört, haftet vor allen Dingen an dem Weiblichen. Wir können auch sagen: Durch die Kraft der Frau wird von Generation zu Generation getragen dasjenige, was sich in anderer Weise dadurch ausdrückt, daß es durch das Blut rollt von Generation zu Generation. Derjenige, welcher noch näher charakterisieren wollte, woran eigentlich die magischen Kräfte haften, die in den Blutsbanden sind, müßte sagen: Sie haften an dem das ganze Volk durchziehenden, in allen Volksgliedern lebenden Weiblichen. Wenn also einer sich emporgeschwungen hatte durch die Einweihung zu einem Menschen, der sozusagen die Kräfte handhaben konnte, die durch das weibliche Volkselement dem durch die Generationen rinnenden Blute eingeimpft waren, was war das Wesentliche an einem solchen Menschen?
In der alten Einweihung unterschied man — wenn wir Ausdrücke der persischen Einweihung gebrauchen wollen — gewisse Stufen im Hinaufsteigen zu den geistigen Höhen. Man bezeichnet diese Stufen mit gewissen Namen. Einer dieser Namen wird uns besonders interessieren. Den ersten Grad der persischen Einweihung bezeichnete man mit dem Ausdrucke des «Raben», den zweiten mit dem Ausdrucke des «Okkulten », den dritten Grad nannte man den des «Streiters», den vierten den des «Löwen». Den fünften Grad bezeichnete man bei jedem Volke mit dem Namen des betreffenden Volkes, so daß man von einem Perser sagte, wenn er die fünfte Einweihungsstufe hinaufstieg, er sei ein «Perser».
Zunächst wurde der Eingeweihte ein Rabe. Das heißt, er konnte in der Außenwelt seine Beobachtungen anstellen; da war er ein Diener derjenigen, die in der geistigen Welt waren, und trug die Nachrichten der physischen Welt in die geistige Welt hinein. Daher das Symbol des Raben als Vermittler der physischen Welt mit der geistigen Welt, von den Raben des Elias angefangen bis zu den Raben des Barbarossa. Wer den zweiten Grad erreicht hat, der steht schon in der geistigen Welt drinnen. Der im dritten Grade Eingeweihte ist hinausgeschritten über den zweiten, daher bekommt er die Mission, einzutreten für die Wahrheiten des Okkultismus: Er wird ein Streiter. Einem im zweiten Grade Eingeweihten erlaubte man nicht zu streiten für die Wahrheiten der geistigen Welt. Der vierte Grad der Einweihung ist ein solcher, wo bereits eine gewisse Befestigung des Menschen in den Wahrheiten der geistigen Welt eingetreten ist. Und der fünfte Grad ist der, von dem ich gesagt habe, daß der Mensch alles, was durch das Blut der Generationen rann, handhaben lernte in den Kräften, die mit dem weiblichen Element der Fortpflanzung in dem Blut herunterrollen. Wie mußte man also einen Eingeweihten, der innerhalb des israelitischen Volkes seine Einweihung erlebt hatte, nennen? Man nannte ihn einen «Israeliter», wie man ihn in Persien einen «Perser» nannte. Und nun beachten Sie einmal das Folgende.
Einer der ersten, die dem Christus Jesus zugeführt wurden im Sinne des Johannes-Evangeliums, war Nathanael. Die anderen, welche schon Bekenner des Christus Jesus sind, sagen nun dem Nathanael: «Wir haben den Meister gefunden, den, der in Jesus von Nazareth wohnt!», worauf ihnen Nathanael antwortet: «Was kann von Nazareth Gutes kommen?» Als man aber dem Christus den Nathanael entgegenführt, da sagt der Christus zu ihm: «Siehe, ein rechter Israeliter, in welchem kein Falsch ist!»
Ein rechter Israeliter, in dem die Wahrheit wohnt! Er sagt es, weil er weiß, in welchem Grade Nathanael eingeweiht ist. Und da erkennt Nathanael, daß er es zu tun hat mit einem, der ebensoviel weiß wie er, ja der ihn überschaut, der mehr weiß als er. Und der Christus sagt ihm, um noch anzudeuten, daß es sich wirklich um die Einweihung handelt: «Ich sah dich nicht erst, als du an mich herankamest, sondern ehe denn dich Philippus rief, da du unter dem Feigenbaume warest, sahe ich dich!» (1, 4ff.)
Und das Wort «Feigenbaum» ist hier ganz in demselben Sinne gebraucht wie bei Buddha: der Feigenbaum ist der Bodhi-Baum. Das ist das Zeichen für die Einweihung. Der Christus sagt ihm: Ich erkenne dich als einen im fünften Grade Eingeweihten! Daraus sehen Sie, wie der Schreiber des Johannes-Evangeliums andeutet, daß der Christus überschaut einen solchen, der bis zum fünften Grade eingeweiht ist. Ganz stufenweise führt uns der Schreiber des JohannesEvangeliums, indem er zeigt, daß in dem Jesus von Nazareth-Leibe einer wohnt, der einen im fünften Grade Eingeweihten überschaut.
Und weiter. Eben haben wir gesehen, daß der im fünften Grade Eingeweihte die okkult-magischen Kräfte beherrscht, die durch das Blut der Generationen hinrollen. Er ist gleichsam eins geworden mit der Volksseele. Und oben haben wir gesehen, daß diese Volksseele sich ausdrückt in den Kräften der Frau. So wird also einer, der im fünften Grade eingeweiht ist, es zu tun haben - in einer alten Weise - mit den Kräften der Frau. Das alles müssen Sie sich geistig vorstellen.
Aber in einer ganz neuen Weise hat der Christus mit der Frau zu tun. Er hat zu tun mit derjenigen Frau, die durch die Johannes-Taufe wieder jungfräulich geworden ist, die wieder die frischen sprossenden Kräfte des Jungfräulichen in sich hat. Das war das Neue, was der Schreiber des Johannes-Evangeliums andeuten wollte, indem er sagt, daß eine gewisse Strömung von dem Sohn zur Mutter geht. Daß der Sohn, wenn er im fünften Grade nur eingeweiht war, die Möglichkeit hatte, die Volkskräfte, die sich im Volkselement der Mutter zum Ausdruck bringen, magisch zu verwenden, das war all denen geläufig, die in jener Zeit okkultes Wissen hatten. Der Christus zeigte aber in geistig höherstehender Weise die Kräfte der Frau, die wieder jungfräulich geworden ist.
So sehen wir, wie vorbereitet wird die Hochzeit zu Kana. Wir sehen: Was da geschah, mußte eben ein Eingeweihter tun, der den im fünften Grade Eingeweihten überschaute. Es wird uns gezeigt, daß das ebenso etwas zu tun hat mit den an der weiblichen Persönlichkeit hängenden Volkskräften. Wunderbar bereitet der Schreiber des Johannes-Evangeliums vor auf das, was da gezeigt wird. — Wie schon gesagt, auf den Wunderbegriff werden wir in anderer Weise noch eingehen. - Nun können Sie sich aber leicht denken, daß eben frisch geschöpftes Wasser etwas anderes ist als Wasser, das bereits eine Weile gestanden hat, wie die Pflanze, die eben frisch gepflückt ist, eine andere ist als eine, welche schon drei Tage gewelkt hat. Solche Unterscheidungen macht natürlich eine materialistische Anschauung nicht. Das Wasser, das eben noch verbunden war mit den Kräften der Erde, ist etwas anderes. als jenes, das später erst verwendet wird. Anknüpfend an die im eben geschöpften Wasser noch befindlichen Kräfte, kann derjenige, der so eingeweiht ist, durch die Kräfte wirken, die jetzt gebunden sind an das geistige Verhältnis wie das des Christus zu der Mutter, die eben jungfräulich geworden war. Er setzt das, was die Erde kann, fort. Die Erde kann in der Rebe Wasser in Wein verwandeln. Der Christus, der sich der Erde genähert hat, der der Geist der Erde geworden ist, er ist das Geistige, das sonst im ganzen Erdenkörper wirkt. Er muß, wenn er der Christus ist, dasselbe können, was die Erde kann, was die Erde macht in der Rebe: sie verwandelt das Wasserin Wein.
So ist das erste Zeichen, das der Christus Jesus tut im Sinne des Johannes-Evangeliums, ein Zeichen, das sozusagen anknüpft an dasjenige, wie Sie eben aus dem Buch der Könige gesehen haben, was in alten Zeiten hat geschehen können von einem Eingeweihten, der die durch die Blutsbande der Generationen sich erstreckenden Kräfte beherrscht hat.
Aber nun geht die Verstärkung derjenigen Kräfte weiter, welche der Christus ausbildet in dem Leibe des Jesus von Nazareth - nicht derjenigen, die der Christus in sich hat! Fragen Sie darum nicht: Braucht sich denn der Christus erst zu entwickeln? Gewiß braucht er es nicht. Aber das, was entwickelt werden mußte durch den Christus, das war, wenn auch schon geläutert und veredelt, der Leib des Jesus von Nazareth. Den mußte er von Stufe zu Stufe führen. In diesen Leib sollten ja hineingegossen werden die Kräfte, die in der nächsten Zeit zur Geltung kommen sollten.
Das nächste der Zeichen ist die Heilung des Sohnes des königlichen . Hauptmanns, und das darauffolgende ist die Heilung des achtunddreißig Jahre lang Kranken am Teich Bethesda. Was war da für eine Steigerung in den Kräften, durch die der Christus hier auf dieser Erde “ wirkte, vorhanden? Die Steigerung bestand darin, daß der Christus jetzt nicht nur auf umstehende Menschen, welche er in einer gewissen leiblichen Gegenwart um sich hatte, wirken konnte. Bei den Leuten auf der Hochzeit zu Kana hat er so gewirkt, daß, indem sie das Wasser ‚ tranken, es Wein war. Da hat er also gewirkt auf den Ätherleib der umstehenden Menschen. Denn dadurch, daß er seine Kraft hat hinausströmen lassen in den Ätherleib der umstehenden Menschen, da wurde durch diese Wirkung im Munde derjenigen, die da tranken, das Wasser zu Wein, das heißt, das Wasser wurde als Wein genossen. Nun aber sollte die Wirkung nicht nur auf den Leib gehen, sondern bis in das Tiefste der Seele hinein. Denn nur dadurch konnte er durch die Vermittelung des Vaters auf den Sohn des königlichen Beamten wirken. Und nur dadurch konnte er in die sündige Seele des achtunddreißig Jahre lang Kranken hineinwirken. Hätte er bloß die Kräfte in den Ätherleib hineinströmen lassen, so wäre das.nicht genügend gewesen. Auf den astralischen Leib mußte eingewirkt werden, denn die Sünde begeht der astralische Leib. Man kann durch das Wirken auf den Ätherleib Wasser in Wein verwandeln, aber man muß in das Tieferliegende eingreifen, wenn man weiter wirken will auf die andere Persönlichkeit. Dazu war notwendig, daß der Christus die dreifache Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth weiter behandelte.
Merken Sie wohl: der Christus wird dadurch kein anderer - aber er behandelt die dreifache Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth. Und er behandelt sie in der nächsten Zeit so, daß der Ätherleib freier werden kann von dem physischen Leib, als er früher schon war.
Also es kam eine Zeit, wo in der dreifachen Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth der Ätherleib freier, loser gemacht wurde gegenüber dem physischen Leib. Dadurch aber erhielt er eine größere Herrschaft über den physischen Leib. Er konnte sozusagen in diesem physischen Leib noch stärkere Werke verrichten als vorher, das heißt, er konnte wirklich bis in den physischen Leib hinein starke Kräfte gebrauchen. Die Anlage dazu war gegeben mit der Johannes-Taufe. Jetzt sollte diese Anlage noch ganz besonders ausgebildet werden. Das alles sollte aber vom Geistigen aus geschehen. Es sollte der astralische Leib so stark wirken in der dreifachen Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth, daß der Ätherleib über den physischen Leib eine solche Macht erhielt.
Wodurch nun kann der astralische Leib so stark wirken? Dadurch, daß er sich richtige Gefühle aneignet, sich richtigen Gefühlen hingibt in bezug auf das, was in unserer Umwelt geschieht, daß er vor allen Dingen sich in ein richtiges Verhältnis bringt zu dem menschlichen Egoismus. Tat das der Christus mit dem Leibe des Jesus von Nazateth? Wirkte er so, daß er in ein richtiges Verhältnis kam zu allem Egoismus in der Umgebung, daß der egoistische Grundzug der Seelen vor Augen trat? Ja, das tat der Christus. Der Schreiber des JohannesEvangeliums erzählt uns, wie er gegenüber denen, die dem Egoismus huldigen und den Tempel schänden, indem sie alles mögliche darin verkaufen, als der Tempelreiniger auftritt. Dadurch gewinnt er die Möglichkeit zu sagen, jetzt habe er den astralischen Leib so mächtig gemacht, daß er imstande wäre, wenn der physische Leib verfiele, ihn in drei Tagen wiederum aufzubauen. Auch das deutet uns der Schreiber des Johannes-Evangeliums an:
«Jesus antwortete und sprach zu ihnen: Brechet diesen Tempel, und am dritten Tage will ich ihn aufrichten.
Da sprachen die Juden: Dieser Tempel ist in sechsundvierzig Jahren erbauet; und Du willst ihn in dreien Tagen aufrichten ?
Er aber redete von dem Tempel seines Leibes.» (2, 19-21)
Das deutet an, daß jetzt diese Hülle, welche ihm hingeopfert worden ist, die Macht hat, diesen physischen Leib so zu dirigieren, daß sie Herr ist in diesem physischen Leibe. Dann aber kann auch dieser Leib, der nun so freigeworden ist, sich unabhängig von den Gesetzen der physischen Welt überallhin bewegen, dann kann dieser Leib, ungeachtet der sonstigen Gesetze der Raumeswelt, Ereignisse in der geistigen Welt herbeiführen und dirigieren. Tut er das? Ja. Das wird uns angedeutet in dem Kapitel, das da folgt auf das Kapitel über die Tempelreinigung.
«Es war aber ein Mensch unter den Pharisäern, mit Namen Nikodemus, ein Oberster unter den Juden; der kam zu Jesu bei der Nacht und sprach zu ihm...» (3, 1 u. 2)
Warum steht hier «bei der Nacht»? Es ist natürlich die denkbar trivialste Erklärung, wenn gesagt wird, daß sich der Jude nur gefürchtet hat, bei hellichtem Tage zu Jesus zu kommen, und sich bei Nacht durch das Fenster eingeschlichen hat. Solche Erklärung kann natürlich jeder geben. «Bei der Nacht» heißt hier nichts anderes, als daß dieses Zusammentreffen zwischen dem Christus und dem Nikodemus geschah in der astralen Welt, in der geistigen Welt, und nicht in der Umgebung, in der man bei dem gewöhnlichen Tagesbewußtsein ist. Das heißt: Der Christus konnte jetzt verhandeln mit dem Nikodemus außerhalb des physischen Leibes, «bei der Nacht», wenn der physische Leib nicht dabei ist, wenn der astralische Leib außerhalb des physischen Leibes und des Ätherleibes ist.
So war die dreifache Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth vorbereitet durch den Christus, der in ihr wohnte, zu den nächsten Taten, zu dem Hineinwirken in die Seelen. Da mußte die Seele in der dreifachen Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth so frei sein, daß sie hinüberwirken konnte in andere Leiber. Aber es ist noch etwas anderes, noch etwas völlig anderes, in eine andere Seele hinüberzuwirken, als so zu wirken, wie wir es gestern gesehen haben. Das ist die nächste Steigerung, die Speisung der fünftausend Mann und das Wandeln über das Meer. Es gehörte noch etwas anderes dazu, daß der Christus, ohne daß er physisch dabei war, leibhaftig gesehen worden ist, und zwar nicht nur von den Jüngern, sondern - so stark war dazumal schon die Kraft in dem Leibe des Jesus von Nazareth - auch von denen, die nicht seine Jünger waren. Nur müssen wir auch wiederum da das Johannes-Evangelium richtig lesen, denn es könnte jemand sagen: Von den Jüngern will ich das gern glauben, aber nicht von anderen.
«Des andern Tages sah das Volk, das diesseits des Meeres stand, daß kein ander Schiff daselbst war denn das einige, darein seine Jünger getreten waren, und daß Jesus nicht mit seinen Jüngern in das Schiff getreten war, sondern allein seine Jünger waren weggefahren. Es kamen aber andere Schiffe von Tiberias nahe zu der Stätte, da sie das Brot gegessen hatten durch des Herrn Erhebung des Gedankens zum Gotte.
Da nun das Volk sah, daß Jesus nicht da war, noch seine Jünger, traten sie auch in die Schiffe und kamen gen Kapernaum und suchten Jesum.»
Ich bitte ausdrücklich zu bemerken, das Volk sucht Jesum, und daß dann gesagt wird:
«Und da sie ihn fanden jenseits des Meers, sprachen sie zu ihm: Rabbi, wann bist du hergekommen?» (6, 22-26)
Das bedeutet ganz dasselbe, was es bei den Jüngern bedeutet. Da steht nicht, daß ihn jedes gewöhnliche Auge sah, sondern es heißt, daß ihn diejenigen sahen, die ihn suchten, und die ihn fanden durch die Erhöhung ihrer Seelenkraft. Wenn gesagt wird, «jemand sah einen anderen», so ist das eben etwas anderes, als wenn gesagt wird, «der andere stand da als räumliche, fleischliche, für physische Augen sichtbare Gestalt». Das, was man gewöhnlich im äußeren Leben nennt «das Evangelium wörtlich nehmen», das ist am allerwenigsten das Evangelium wörtlich genommen. Und wenn Sie beachten, daß hier im wesentlichen überall wiederum eine Steigerung vorliegt, so werden Sie es begreiflich finden, daß noch etwas anderes dem vorangehen mußte.
Wiederum mußte etwas vorangehen, das uns schildert, wie der Christus in der dreifachen Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth dahin gewirkt hat, daß die Kraft dieser dreifachen Hülle immer mächtiger und mächtiger wurde. Heilend hat er gewirkt, das heißt, er konnte seine Kraft in die andere Seele hinübergießen. Das konnte er nur dadurch, wenn er nun noch in der Weise wirkte, wie er es selbst schildert im Gespräch mit der Samariterin am Brunnen: «Ich bin das lebendige Wasser!» Vorher, bei der Hochzeit zu Kana, hat er sich geschildert als einen im fünften Grade Eingeweihten, als einen, der Herrschaft über die Elemente hat. Jetzt schildert er sich als einen, der selber in diesen Elementen darinnen ist, der in diesen Elementen lebt. Und weiter zeigt er, daß er mit den Kräften, die auf der ganzen Erde wirken, eine Einheit ist, eins ist mit den Kräften, die in der ganzen Welt wirken. Das geschieht in dem Kapitel über «Jesus, der Gewalt hat über Leben und Tod» (9. Kap.), über Leben und Tod, indem er die Kräfte, die im physischen Leibe wirken, beherrschen kann. Dieses Kapitel geht daher voran demjenigen Zeichen, bei welchem die Kraft noch mehr verstärkt sein muß.
Und dann sehen wir, wie die Kraft sich weiter verstärkt. Wir haben gestern darauf hingewiesen, wie nun weiter in dem Zeichen, das da charakterisiert wird als die Heilung des Blindgeborenen, der Christus nicht nur hineingreift in das, was zwischen Geburt und Tod steht, sondern in das, was als die Individualität der Menschenseele von Leben zu Leben geht. Dadurch, daß die göttliche Individualität in ihren Werken offenbar wurde, ist er blind geboren; sehend soll er werden, indem der Christus eine solche Kraft in ihn hineingießt, daß dasjenige ungeschehen gemacht wird, was nicht durch die Persönlichkeit zwischen Geburt und Tod und auch nicht durch die Vererbung geschehen ist, sondern was er als Individualität bewirkt hat.
Ich habe es schon öfter ausgeführt, daß das schöne Goethe-Wort, das aus einer tiefen Erkenntnis der Rosenkreuzer-Einweihung her vorgegangen ist, einen tief okkulten Grund hat: Das Auge ist am Lichte für das Licht gebildet. Ich habe darauf hingewiesen, daß es zwar richtig ist, wenn Schopenhauer sagt: Ohne das Auge kein Licht. Aber woher kommt das Auge? Goethe sagt ganz richtig: Wenn kein Licht da wäre, dann würde niemals ein lichtempfindendes Organ, ein Auge, entstanden sein. -— Das Auge ist vom Licht geschaffen. Das sehen Sie aus dem einen Beispiel: Wenn Tiere, die mit Augen begabt sind, in finstere Höhlen einwandern, so verlieren sie bald durch den Mangel des Lichtes das Sehvermögen. Das Licht hat das Auge gebildet.
Soll der Christus eine Kraft in die Individualität des Menschen gieBen, wodurch diese die Fähigkeit erhalten kann, das Auge zu einem lichtempfindlichen Organ zu machen, was es vorher nicht war, dann muß in dem Christus die geistige Kraft sein, die in dem Lichte ist. Das muß uns im Johannes-Evangelium angedeutet sein. Der Heilung des Blindgeborenen geht aber voran im Johannes-Evangelium das Kapitel, wo es heißt:
«Da redete Jesus abermal zu ihnen und sprach: Ich bin das Licht der Welt.» (8, 12)
Nicht früher wird von der Heilung des Blindgeborenen gesprochen, als bis das vorausgeschickt ist: «Ich bin das Licht der Welt.» Nun betrachten Sie das letzte Kapitel vor der Auferweckung des Lazarus, und versuchen Sie einmal, einige Worte dieses Kapitels sich vor Augen zu führen. Sie brauchen nichts anderes als die Stelle sich vor Augen zu führen, wo es heißt:
«Darum liebet mich mein Vater, daß ich mein Leben lasse, auf daß ich es wieder nehme. Niemand nimmt es von mir, sondern ich lasse es von mir selber. Ich habe Macht, es zu lassen, ...
Tue ich nicht die Werke meines Vaters, so glaubet mir nicht;...» (10, 17f. u. 37)
Alles, was da über den «guten Hirten » gesagt wird, soll darauf hindeuten, daß der Christus fühlt: «Ich und der Vater sind eins!»-daß er nicht mehr zu sich anders Ich sagen will, als daß er die Vaterkraft in sich aufnimmt. Hat er vorher gesagt: «Ich bin das Licht der Welt», so sagt er nun: Ich gebe meine Ich-Kraft hin, indem ich den Vater aufnehme in mich, damit der Vater in mir wirkt, daß das Urprinzip in mir fließe und hinausfließen kann in einen anderen Menschen. Ich lasse mein Leben, damit ich es neu empfange. - Das geht der Auferweckung des Lazarus voran.
Und nun, nachdem all diese Betrachtungen angestellt sind, versuchen Sie es einmal, das Johannes-Evangelium in bezug auf seine Komposition zu erfassen. Beachten Sie, wie bis zu der Auferweckung des Lazarus nicht nur eine wunderbare Steigerung angedeutet ist in der Entwickelung der Kräfte in dem Jesus von Nazareth-Leib, sondern wie uns vor jeder Steigerung ausdrücklich auseinandergesetzt wird, was da wirkt in bezug auf den Leib des Jesus von Nazareth. Oh, es ist alles in dem Johannes-Evangelium so fest gefügt, daß man keinen Satz herausnehmen könnte, wenn man es nur versteht. Und es ist deshalb so wunderbar komponiert, weil es von einem geschrieben ist, der, wie wir gesagt haben, von dem Christus Jesus selber eingeweiht war.
Wir sind heute von der Frage ausgegangen: Was geschah bei der Johannes-Taufe? Und wir sahen, wie die Anlage zur Überwindung des Todes mit dem Herabsenken des Christus in die dreifache Hülle des Jesus von Nazareth in die Welt gekommen ist. Wir haben gesehen, wie die Mutter des Jesus von Nazareth beim Herabkommen des Christus etwas anderes geworden ist, wie die Wirkung, welche bei der Johannes-Taufe auf sie ausgeübt worden ist, eine solche war, daß sie wieder jungfräulich wurde. So daß in der Tat das Wort wahr ist, das ausgehen mußte von dem Bekenntnis des Johannes-Evangeliums: Als bei der Johannes-Taufe der Christus geboren wurde in dem Leib des Jesus von Nazareth, da wurde die Mutter des Jesus von Nazareth Jungfrau!
Da haben Sie den Ausgangspunkt des Johannes-Evangeliums. Und wenn Sie ihn mit dem Hinweis auf jene gewaltige kosmische Wirkung begreifen, die sich damals am Jordan abspielte, dann werden Sie auch begreifen, daß einen solchen Vorgang zum ersten Male schildern, sachgemäß schildern, nur derjenige konnte, der von dem Christus selbst eingeweiht worden war, der wiedererstandene Lazarus, den «der Herr lieb hatte», von dem uns fortan immer gesagt wird: «der Jünger, den der Herr lieb hatte». Der auferweckte Lazarus hat das Evangelium auf uns kommen lassen, und er allein war imstande, jede Stelle in dem Evangelium so fest zu fügen, weil er den größten Impuls aufgenommen hatte von dem größten Initiator, von dem Christus. Er nur konnte hinweisen auf das, was dann in einer gewissen Weise der Paulus durch seine eigene Initiation begriffen hat: daß damals aufgenommen worden ist in die Erdentwickelung der Keim zur Überwindung des Todes. Daher das bedeutsame Wort über den, der am Kreuze hing: «Ihr sollt ihm kein Bein zerbrechen!» Warum nicht? Weil sie nicht eingreifen durften in die Form, über welche der Christus die Gewalt behalten mußte. Hätten sie ihm das Bein gebrochen, so hätte eine niedere menschliche Kraft eingegriffen in die Kraft, welche der Christus bis in die Knochen des Jesus von Nazareth hinein ausüben mußte. Keiner sollte eingreifen in diese Form! Denn sie sollte ganz unterstehen der Herrschaft des Christus.
Davon können wir nun morgen den Ausgangspunkt nehmen zu der Betrachtung des Christus-Todes.
Tenth Lecture
Among the events that took place in Palestine at the beginning of our era, there is one in particular that has been repeatedly referred to and which is called the baptism of Jesus of Nazareth by John. It has also been emphasized that all four Gospels agree in all essential points concerning this baptism by John. Today we will first of all try to bring this baptism by John before our minds once again from a certain point of view.
From the way in which the baptism by John appears in the Gospels, we have already been able to see that reference is being made to an event of the most important kind, which can also be explained from the Akashic Chronicle, to that event which had to be characterized by what we said: Around the thirtieth year of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the divine being known as the Christ entered into the three sheathes of this Jesus of Nazareth.
We therefore have to distinguish between two parts, and this is a result of the Akashic observation of the life of the founder of Christianity. First, we must consider the life of the great initiate whom we call Jesus of Nazareth. In this Jesus of Nazareth lives an I-ness which, as we have shown, has passed through many previous incarnations, has lived repeatedly on earth, has risen higher and higher in these lives, and has gradually developed to the capacity for the great sacrifice. This sacrifice consisted in the fact that around the age of thirty, the I of Jesus of Nazareth was able to leave the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body, which it had purified, cleansed, and ennobled until then, so that there was a threefold human shell, a pure, best human shell, consisting of the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. During the baptism by John, when the I-ness of Jesus of Nazareth left these shells, they took on a substance that had not previously been on Earth, which we cannot say had gone through previous incarnations. The Christ being is that entity of which we can say that it could previously only be found in the world outside our Earth. It was only at this moment of the baptism of John that this individuality united with a human body for three years and walked on Earth in order to accomplish during those three years what we have to characterize more and more.
What I have just said is the result of clairvoyant observation. The evangelists clothe this fact in what they describe as the baptism of John. They mean to say that while this or that happened to the various people who received the baptism of John, the event occurred in Jesus of Nazareth that the Christ sank into the three sheathes of Jesus of Nazareth. And I already told you in the first lecture that this Christ is the same being of whom it is said in the Old Testament: “And the Spirit of God hovered, or ‘brooded,’ over the waters” (Genesis 1:2). This same Spirit, that is, the divine Spirit of our solar system, entered into the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth.
What happened then will now be discussed. And I ask you to be clear from the outset that it must be difficult to understand what actually happened at the baptism of John, because it was the greatest event in the evolution of the earth. And who would not believe that the small events in the evolution of the earth are easier to understand than the great ones? Who would not believe that understanding the greatest event in the evolution of the earth also presents the greatest difficulties! Therefore, I will now say a few words to you that may shock those who are not yet prepared in some respects. But even those who are unprepared should tell themselves that the human soul is here on earth to become more and more perfect, also in terms of knowledge, and that what seems shocking at first must, in the course of time, appear as something entirely comprehensible; for otherwise one would have to despair of the possibility of the human soul's development. But in this way we can say to ourselves every day: Whatever I have already recognized, my soul can always be made more perfect, and it will understand things better and better.
So we have before us a threefold human shell, a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body, and into these, so to speak, Christ enters. This is indicated by the words that resound from the universe: “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I reveal myself!” (Matthew 3:17). For this is how the words must be rendered in German. You can imagine that tremendous changes had to take place in the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth when God entered into him. But now you will also find it understandable that great changes took place in relation to the whole human being during the ancient initiations.
I have already described to you what the last act of the ancient initiation was: After the disciple who had been initiated into the divine mysteries had been prepared for a long time through learning and exercises, he was brought into a death-like state for three and a half days, so that his etheric body was separated from his physical body during these three and a half days, and during this time the fruits of the exercises that had been absorbed in the astral body could express themselves in the etheric body. This means that the initiate rose from a “purified” state, as it were, to an “enlightened” state, in which he could look into the spiritual world. In ancient times, when such initiations were still possible, such a person already had a certain power over his entire physical body. When he then returned to the physical body, he ruled over certain finer elements of that physical body in a magnificent way. But perhaps you might ask here: If one approached such an initiate who had attained a very special dominion over the various sheathes, even over his physical body, did one notice this, could one see it in him? Yes, those who had acquired the ability to see in this way could see it. To others, he usually appeared as an ordinary, simple person, and they noticed nothing special about him. Why is that? Simply because the physical body, as seen with physical eyes, is only the outer expression of what lies behind it; and the changes relate to the spiritual that lies behind the physical body.
Now, through the special procedures performed on them, all the ancient initiates had, to a certain degree, achieved mastery over the physical body. There was only one thing that no ancient initiation could bring under the control of the human spirit. Here we touch, as it were, on the edge of a great secret or mystery. There was one thing in human nature that the power of a pre-Christian initiate could not penetrate. And that was the subtle physical-chemical processes in the skeletal system, strange as it may sound to you. But that is how it is.
Until the baptism of Christ Jesus by John, there had never been a human individuality within the evolution of the earth—neither among the initiated nor among the uninitiated—that was powerful enough to penetrate the chemical-physical processes of the skeletal system. Through the entry of Christ into the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the present I-ness of Christ became the ruler even within the skeletal system. And the result of this was that a body once lived on earth which was able to control its forces in such a way that it could incorporate the form of the skeletal system, the 'spiritual form of the skeletal system of earth's evolution'. Nothing would remain of what man goes through during Earth's development if man could not incorporate the noble form of his skeletal system as a law of Earth's development, if he did not gradually become master of this law of the skeletal system.
There is a connection here—as is so often the case with old traditions and the occult—which you can see in an old superstition of the people: certain circles depict death by depicting a system of bones. This is the form that, when the earth was in its early stages of development, all the laws relating to the other systems of human organization had reached such a stage that, at the end of the earth's development, they would be there again, transformed into a higher form. But nothing from the earth's development would be carried over into the future unless the form of the skeletal system were carried over. The form of the skeletal system defeats death in the physical sense. Therefore, the one who was to defeat death on earth had to have dominion over the skeletal system, in the same way that I have indicated to you that this dominion over certain physical characteristics also applies to lesser abilities. Human beings have only very little control over their blood system. When they feel shame, for example, they drive their blood from the inside to the outside; that is, the soul acts on the blood system. When they are frightened and turn pale, they drive the blood back to their center, inward. When a person feels sadness, tears are pressed out. All these are certain dominions of the soul over the physical. Those who are initiated to a certain degree gain even more dominion over the physical: they gain the ability to control the movements of parts of their brain in a certain way, and so on.
The human being who was the shell of Jesus of Nazareth came under the dominion of Christ. And the arbitrariness of Christ, his free will, penetrated with his dominion into the bone system, so that he was able, for the first time, to work into this bone system. The significance of this fact can be described as follows: Human beings have conquered the form they have today through their skeletal system on Earth, not in a previous incarnation of our planet. But they would lose it if the spiritual power we call Christ had not come. Human beings would take nothing but the duck and the fruit of the Earth with them into the future if Christ's dominion over the skeletal system had not come into being. — So it was something of tremendous power that penetrated to the innermost core of the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth at the moment of John's baptism. We must paint this moment before our souls. For that is the one thing that happened.
When an ordinary birth takes place, that which comes from the previous incarnations of the human being unites with that which the human being acquires through heredity. The human individuality that existed in previous lives unites with that which he receives as his fleshly-etheric shell. Something that comes from the spiritual world thus unites with the physical-sensory world. Those who have often heard me speak know that, as soon as we enter the spiritual world, everything appears in mirror image, everything is reversed. So when someone is made clairvoyant through rational methods, when their eyes are opened to the spiritual world, they must first slowly learn to find their way around the spiritual world, because everything appears reversed there. If he encounters a number, for example the number 345, he must not read it as in the physical world, i.e., not 345, but 543; he must read it in reverse. In this way, you must learn to view everything in a certain way, not only numbers, but everything else as well.
When Christ united with the outer shell of Jesus of Nazareth, this event appeared in its outer form to those who had opened their spiritual eyes, but in a reversed form. While in a physical incarnation, something spiritual descends from higher worlds and unites with the physical, that which was sacrificed in this case in order to receive the Christ spirit appears above the head of Jesus of Nazareth in the form of a white dove. Something spiritual appears as it detaches itself from the physical! This is definitely a clairvoyant observation. And it is very wrong to say that this is merely allegorical or symbolic. It is a real clairvoyant spiritual fact that is truly present for the clairvoyant faculty on the astral plane. Just as a physical birth is the drawing forth of something spiritual, so this birth was a sacrifice, a giving. This made it possible for the spirit that “hovered over the waters” at the beginning of our Earth's development to unite with the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth and thus permeate and inflame it, as we have described.
Now you will understand that at the moment when this happened, it was not only the small space in which the baptism of John took place that was involved. It would be short-sighted of human beings to believe that something that happens in relation to a being is confined within the limits that the eye can see. This is the powerful illusion to which human beings can succumb when they trust only their outer senses. Where, then, are the limits of the human being for the outer senses? If one were to speak superficially, one would see these limits in the skin. There, the human being ends on all sides. Someone might even say: If I cut off your nose, which belongs to you, you are no longer a whole human being; I can see that it is part of your essence. — But this is a very short-sighted view. A few inches in front of the human skin, one no longer looks for what belongs to the human being if one limits oneself to physical observation. But consider that with every breath you take, you breathe in air from the entire air circle of your surroundings. If someone cuts off your nose, you are no longer a whole human being; but if someone cuts off your air, you are not a whole human being either! It is only an arbitrary view to imagine human beings as limited to their skin. Everything that surrounds them belongs to them. Even in the physical sense, it belongs to the human being. So that when something happens to a human being in a certain place, it is not only the space occupied by the human body that is involved. If you were to try to pollute the air within a mile of a person in such a way that the fumes reached that person, you would very soon notice that the entire space within a mile was involved in the life processes of that person. And the whole earth is involved in every life process. If this is already the case with physical life processes, it will not seem incomprehensible to you that in an event such as the baptism of John, the spiritual world was involved in the widest possible circle, and that much, much happened to make this possible.
But if you have a person whose air you pollute within a mile's radius, so that his life processes are affected, and you place another person in his vicinity, then this other person will also suffer an effect. Perhaps this effect will be slightly different, depending on whether the other person is closer or further away from the sphere of influence of this mile. If, for example, he is far away, the effect will also be weaker, but an effect will still be exerted. Therefore, you will no longer find it strange when the question is raised today whether there were not other effects connected with the baptism of John. And here we touch upon the edge of another deep mystery, which can only be spoken of today with awe and reverence. For only gradually will humanity be prepared to understand such things.
At the very moment when the spirit of Christ descended into the body of Jesus of Nazareth and a transformation took place as we have described, an effect was also exerted on the mother of Jesus of Nazareth. And this effect consists in the fact that at that moment of John's baptism she regained her virginity, that is, she became in her inner organization as the female organization is before virgin maturity. The mother of Jesus of Nazareth became a virgin at the birth of Christ.
These are the two most significant facts, those great, powerful effects which the writer of the Gospel of John hints at, albeit in a veiled manner. But if we can read the Gospel of John correctly, then in a certain sense all this is there. In order to recognize this, we must pick up again on various points which we touched upon yesterday from different angles.
We said that in ancient times people lived under the influence of “close marriage.” This means that marriage took place within the bloodline, within the same tribe. Only with the progress of time did people marry outside their tribe into other tribal bloodlines. The further back we go in ancient times, the more we find that people were under the influence of this blood relationship. Because tribal blood flowed through the veins of the people, those heightened magical powers were possible in ancient times. A person who lived in ancient times and could look far back into his line of ancestors and see only blood related to his tribe had magical powers working in his blood, so that effects from soul to soul were possible, as described yesterday. But people knew this in the past; even the simplest people knew it. Now, however, it would be quite wrong to conclude from this that if blood-related marriages were entered into today, similar conditions would arise and magical powers would appear. You would then fall into the same error as the lily of the valley if it suddenly said: I don't want to bloom in May anymore, from now on I will bloom in October! It cannot bloom in October, because then the necessary conditions for the lily of the valley are not there. It is the same with magical powers. Magical powers cannot develop at a time when the conditions for them no longer exist. Now, in our time, magical powers must develop in a different way. What has been described applies only to ancient times. Of course, the crude naturalist scholar cannot understand that the laws should have changed in the course of evolution; he believes that what he experiences today in his physics laboratory must always have happened that way. But that is nonsense, because laws change. And such people, who derive their beliefs from modern natural science, would have marveled at what happened in Palestine, as recounted in the Gospel of John, as something special. But those who lived at the time of Christ Jesus, when the living traditions of earlier times still existed, when such things were entirely possible, were not particularly astonished by them. That is why I was able to suggest yesterday that people were not really particularly amazed at what happened as a sign at the wedding in Cana. And why should they have been amazed? Outwardly, it was a repetition of what they knew had been observed time and time again. Read in 2 Kings, chapter 4, verses 42-44:
“But a man came from Baal-Salisa and brought the man of God some fresh bread, twenty loaves of barley bread and nine loaves of wheat bread in his cloak. He said, 'Give it to the people to eat.
His servant replied, “How can I give this to a hundred men?” But he said, “Give it to the people to eat. For thus says the Lord: ‘They shall eat and have some left over.’” So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.”
Here in the Old Testament, you have the story of the feeding of five thousand people in ancient times. How could those whose documents stated that this was not the first time this had happened be amazed at such a sign? It is essential that we understand this.
But what happened to those who had been initiated in the old sense? They were granted entry into the spiritual world, their eyes were opened to the spiritually active forces, that is, they saw the connection between blood and spiritually active forces. The others had a vague inkling of this. But those who were initiated looked up to the first of their ancestors from whom the blood flowed down. Such a person could say to himself: Thus the blood flows down through the generations, and in this blood the whole national ego is expressed, just as the individual ego is expressed in the blood of the individual human being. Such an initiate looked up to the beginning of the stream of blood that flowed through the generations, and he felt his soul to be identical with the whole spirit of the people, which had its physiognomy in the whole blood of the people. Someone who felt one with the entire blood of the people was, to a certain degree, initiated, and to a certain degree he was master of certain magical powers in the old sense.
Now we must keep one more thing in mind. The male and the female work together in the reproduction of the human race in a way that we can briefly characterize as follows.
If the feminine had the sole upper hand, human beings would develop in such a way that the same characteristics would appear again and again. Children would always resemble their parents, grandparents, etc. All the forces that cause similarity are attached to the feminine. Everything that changes similarity, that creates differences, is attached to the masculine. If you have a number of faces that look alike within a community, this is inherent in the female. But there are certain differences in these faces, so that you can distinguish between individual people. This is the influence of the male. If only the feminine had influence, you would not be able to distinguish individual people from one another. And if only the masculine were at work, you would never be able to recognize a group of people as belonging to one tribe. Thus, the masculine and feminine work together in such a way that we can say: the masculine has an individualizing, specializing, separating effect; the feminine, on the other hand, has a generalizing effect. So in which forces do the qualities that belong to the whole people lie? What belongs to the whole people is attached above all to the feminine. We can also say that through the power of women, that which is expressed in a different way by being passed down through the blood from generation to generation is carried forward. Anyone who wanted to characterize more precisely what it is that the magical powers inherent in blood ties actually adhere to would have to say that they adhere to the feminine element that pervades the entire people and lives in all members of the people. So when someone had risen through initiation to become a human being who could, so to speak, wield the forces that had been instilled in the blood flowing through the generations by the female element of the people, what was the essence of such a person?
In the old initiation, if we want to use expressions from the Persian initiation, a distinction was made between certain stages in the ascent to the spiritual heights. These stages are designated by certain names. One of these names will be of particular interest to us. The first degree of Persian initiation was designated by the expression “raven,” the second by the expression “occult,” the third degree was called that of the “warrior,” and the fourth that of the “lion.” The fifth degree was designated by each people with the name of the people concerned, so that when a Persian ascended to the fifth degree of initiation, he was called a “Persian.”
First, the initiate became a raven. This means that he could make his observations in the outer world; there he was a servant of those who were in the spiritual world and carried the news of the physical world into the spiritual world. Hence the symbol of the raven as the mediator between the physical world and the spiritual world, from the ravens of Elijah to the ravens of Barbarossa. Those who have reached the second degree are already inside the spiritual world. The initiate of the third degree has gone beyond the second, and therefore receives the mission to stand up for the truths of occultism: he becomes a warrior. A second-degree initiate was not allowed to fight for the truths of the spiritual world. The fourth degree of initiation is one in which a certain consolidation of the human being in the truths of the spiritual world has already taken place. And the fifth degree is the one of which I have said that the human being learned to handle everything that flowed through the blood of generations in the forces that roll down with the female element of procreation in the blood. So what should one call an initiate who had undergone his initiation within the Israelite people? He was called an “Israelite,” just as in Persia he was called a “Persian.” And now consider the following.
One of the first to be led to Christ Jesus in the sense of the Gospel of John was Nathanael. The others, who are already professed followers of Christ Jesus, say to Nathanael: “We have found the Master, the one who dwells in Jesus of Nazareth!” To which Nathanael replies: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But when Nathanael is brought before Christ, Christ says to him: “Behold, a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit!”
A true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit! He says this because he knows to what degree Nathanael is initiated. And Nathanael recognizes that he is dealing with someone who knows as much as he does, indeed, who sees through him, who knows more than he does. And Christ says to him, to indicate even more clearly that this is really an initiation: “I saw you before you came to me; before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you” (1:4ff.).
And the word “fig tree” is used here in exactly the same sense as with Buddha: the fig tree is the Bodhi tree. That is the sign of initiation. Christ says to him: I recognize you as one who is initiated in the fifth degree! From this you can see how the writer of the Gospel of John indicates that Christ sees someone who is initiated up to the fifth degree. The writer of the Gospel of John leads us step by step, showing that in the body of Jesus of Nazareth dwells someone who sees someone initiated up to the fifth degree.
And further. We have just seen that the initiate of the fifth degree controls the occult magical forces that roll down through the blood of generations. He has become, as it were, one with the soul of the people. And above we have seen that this soul of the people expresses itself in the powers of the woman. So one who is initiated into the fifth degree will have to deal—in an ancient way—with the powers of the woman. You must imagine all this spiritually.
But Christ has to do with woman in a completely new way. He has to do with the woman who has become virginal again through the baptism of John, who has within her the fresh, sprouting forces of virginity. This was the new thing that the writer of the Gospel of John wanted to hint at when he said that a certain current flows from the Son to the Mother. That the Son, when he was only initiated in the fifth degree, had the possibility of magically using the forces of the people that express themselves in the mother's element, was familiar to all those who had occult knowledge at that time. But Christ showed in a spiritually higher way the powers of the woman who had become a virgin again.
Thus we see how the wedding at Cana was prepared. We see that what happened there had to be done by an initiate who oversaw those initiated in the fifth degree. We are shown that this also has something to do with the folk forces attached to the female personality. The writer of the Gospel of John prepares wonderfully for what is shown there. As already mentioned, we will discuss the concept of miracles in a different way later on. Now you can easily imagine that freshly drawn water is something different from water that has been standing for a while, just as a plant that has just been picked is different from one that has been wilting for three days. Of course, a materialistic view does not make such distinctions. The water that was just connected to the forces of the earth is something different from the water that is used later. Connecting with the forces still present in the freshly drawn water, those who are initiated in this way can work through the forces that are now bound to the spiritual relationship, such as that of Christ to the mother who had just become a virgin. He continues what the earth can do. The earth can transform water into wine in the vine. Christ, who has approached the earth, who has become the spirit of the earth, is the spiritual force that otherwise works throughout the entire body of the earth. If he is Christ, he must be able to do the same thing that the earth can do, what the earth does in the vine: it transforms water into wine.
Thus, the first sign that Christ Jesus performs in the sense of the Gospel of John is a sign that, so to speak, ties in with what you have just seen in the Book of Kings, what could have happened in ancient times by an initiate who mastered the forces extending through the blood ties of generations.
But now the strengthening of those forces which Christ develops in the body of Jesus of Nazareth continues—not those which Christ has within himself! Therefore, do not ask: Does Christ first need to develop? Certainly not. But what had to be developed through Christ was the body of Jesus of Nazareth, even though it was already purified and ennobled. He had to lead it from stage to stage. The forces that were to come into effect in the next period were to be poured into this body.
The next of the signs is the healing of the son of the royal centurion, and the one following that is the healing of the man who had been sick for thirty-eight years at the pool of Bethesda. What was the increase in the forces through which Christ “worked” here on earth? The increase consisted in the fact that Christ could now work not only on the people standing around him, whom he had in a certain physical presence around him. At the wedding in Cana, he worked in such a way that when the people drank the water, it was wine. He thus worked on the etheric body of the people standing around him. For by allowing his power to flow out into the etheric body of the people standing around him, the water in the mouths of those who drank it became wine, that is, the water was enjoyed as wine. But the effect was not to be limited to the body; it was to penetrate to the depths of the soul. For only in this way could he work through the mediation of the Father upon the son of the royal official. And only in this way could he work upon the sinful soul of the man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. If he had merely allowed his powers to flow into the etheric body, that would not have been enough. The astral body had to be affected, because it is the astral body that commits sin. One can transform water into wine by working on the etheric body, but one must intervene at a deeper level if one wants to continue working on the other personality. For this it was necessary that Christ continued to treat the threefold sheath of Jesus of Nazareth.
Please note: Christ does not become someone else as a result—but He treats the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth. And He treats it in such a way that the etheric body can become freer from the physical body than it was before.
So a time came when, in the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth, the etheric body was made freer, looser in relation to the physical body. But this gave him greater control over the physical body. He was able, so to speak, to perform even greater works in this physical body than before, that is, he was able to use powerful forces right into the physical body. The predisposition for this was given with the baptism of John. Now this predisposition had to be developed in a very special way. But all this had to come from the spiritual realm. The astral body had to work so strongly in the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth that the etheric body gained such power over the physical body.
How can the astral body work so strongly? By acquiring right feelings, by surrendering to right feelings in relation to what is happening in our environment, and above all by placing himself in the right relationship to human egoism. Did Christ do this with the body of Jesus of Nazareth? Did he work in such a way that he came into the right relationship to all egoism in his surroundings, so that the egoistic trait of souls became apparent? Yes, Christ did that. The writer of the Gospel of John tells us how he appeared as the temple cleanser to those who worshipped egoism and defiled the temple by selling all kinds of things in it. This enabled him to say that he had now made his astral body so powerful that, if his physical body decayed, he would be able to rebuild it in three days. The writer of the Gospel of John also hints at this:
“Jesus answered and said to them, 'Break this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
Then the Jews said, 'This temple has been built in forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?
But he was speaking of the temple of his body.” (2:19-21)
This indicates that now this shell, which was sacrificed for him, has the power to direct this physical body in such a way that it is master in this physical body. But then this body, which has now been freed, can move everywhere independently of the laws of the physical world, and then this body, regardless of the other laws of the spatial world, can bring about and direct events in the spiritual world. Does it do that? Yes. This is indicated to us in the chapter that follows the chapter on the cleansing of the temple.
“Now there was a man among the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, who came to Jesus by night and said to him...” (3:1-2)
Why does it say “at night”? It is, of course, the most trivial explanation to say that the Jew was simply afraid to come to Jesus in broad daylight and sneaked in through the window at night. Anyone can give such an explanation, of course. “At night” here means nothing other than that this meeting between Christ and Nicodemus took place in the astral world, in the spiritual world, and not in the environment in which one is in ordinary daytime consciousness. This means that Christ could now negotiate with Nicodemus outside the physical body, “at night,” when the physical body is not present, when the astral body is outside the physical body and the etheric body.
Thus, the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth was prepared by Christ, who dwelt within it, for the next deeds, for working into souls. The soul in the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth had to be so free that it could work over into other bodies. But there is something else, something completely different, in working over into another soul than in working as we saw yesterday. This is the next step, the feeding of the five thousand and the walking on the sea. There was something else involved in the fact that Christ, without being physically present, was seen in the flesh, not only by the disciples, but also—so strong was the power in the body of Jesus of Nazareth at that time—by those who were not his disciples. But we must read the Gospel of John correctly, because someone might say: I am willing to believe that of the disciples, but not of others.
“The next day, the crowd that had stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there except the one in which his disciples had gotten into, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. But other boats came from Tiberias near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks to God.
When the people saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they got into the boats and came to Capernaum, looking for Jesus.”
I ask you to note expressly that the people seek Jesus, and that it is then said:
“And when they found him across the sea, they said to him, 'Rabbi, when did you come here?'” (6:22-26)
This means exactly the same as it does with the disciples. It does not say that every ordinary eye saw him, but that those who were seeking him saw him and found him through the elevation of their soul power. When it is said, “Someone saw another,” this is something different from saying, “The other stood there as a spatial, physical form visible to the physical eyes.” What is commonly called “taking the Gospel literally” in outer life is the least literal interpretation of the Gospel. And if you notice that there is essentially an intensification throughout, you will understand that something else must have preceded it.
Once again, something had to precede it that describes how Christ, in the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth, worked in such a way that the power of this threefold shell became more and more powerful. He worked in a healing way, that is, he was able to pour his power into the other soul. He could only do this if he worked in the way he himself describes in his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well: “I am the living water!” Previously, at the wedding in Cana, he described himself as a fifth-degree initiate, as one who has dominion over the elements. Now he describes himself as one who is himself within these elements, who lives in these elements. And further, he shows that he is one with the forces that work throughout the earth, one with the forces that work throughout the world. This happens in the chapter on “Jesus who has power over life and death” (chapter 9), on life and death, in that he can control the forces that work in the physical body. This chapter therefore precedes the sign in which the power must be even more intensified.
And then we see how the power is further strengthened. Yesterday we pointed out how, in the sign characterized as the healing of the man born blind, Christ intervenes not only in what lies between birth and death, but also in what passes from life to life as the individuality of the human soul. Because the divine individuality was revealed in its works, he was born blind; he is to become sighted through Christ pouring such a power into him that what did not happen through the personality between birth and death, nor through heredity, but what he brought about as an individual, is undone.
I have often pointed out that the beautiful words of Goethe, which arose from a deep insight into Rosicrucian initiation, have a profound occult basis: the eye is formed in the light for the light. I have pointed out that Schopenhauer is right when he says: without the eye there is no light. But where does the eye come from? Goethe says quite correctly: If there were no light, then a light-sensitive organ, an eye, would never have come into being. The eye is created by light. You can see this from one example: When animals that are endowed with eyes migrate into dark caves, they soon lose their sight due to the lack of light. Light has formed the eye.
If Christ is to give a power to the individuality of human beings whereby they can acquire the ability to make the eye into a light-sensitive organ, which it was not before, then the spiritual power that is in the light must be in Christ. This must be indicated to us in the Gospel of John. However, the healing of the man born blind is preceded in the Gospel of John by the chapter where it says:
“Then Jesus spoke to them again and said, 'I am the light of the world.'” (8:12)
The healing of the man born blind is not mentioned until this has been said first: ‘I am the light of the world.’ Now consider the last chapter before the raising of Lazarus, and try to bring a few words from this chapter to mind. You need only keep in mind the passage where it says:
“For this reason my Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, ...
If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me;...” (10:17f. and 37)
Everything that is said there about the ‘good shepherd’ is meant to indicate that Christ feels: ‘I and the Father are one!’—that he no longer wants to say ‘I’ to himself other than in the sense that he takes the Father's power into himself. Whereas he had previously said, “I am the light of the world,” he now says, “I give up my ego power by taking the Father into myself, so that the Father may work in me, that the original principle may flow in me and flow out into another human being. I lay down my life so that I may receive it anew.” This precedes the raising of Lazarus.
And now, after all these considerations, try to understand the Gospel of John in terms of its composition. Notice how, up to the raising of Lazarus, not only is a wonderful increase hinted at in the development of the powers in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, but how, before each increase, we are explicitly told what is at work in relation to the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Oh, everything in the Gospel of John is so firmly established that one could not take out a single sentence if one understood it. And it is so wonderfully composed because it was written by someone who, as we have said, was initiated by Christ Jesus himself.
Today we started with the question: What happened at the baptism of John? And we saw how the plan for overcoming death came into the world with the descent of Christ into the threefold shell of Jesus of Nazareth. We saw how the mother of Jesus of Nazareth became something else when Christ descended, how the effect exerted on her at the baptism of John was such that she became a virgin again. So that in fact the words that had to come from the confession of the Gospel of John are true: When Christ was born in the body of Jesus of Nazareth at the baptism of John, the mother of Jesus of Nazareth became a virgin!
There you have the starting point of the Gospel of John. And if you understand this with reference to the tremendous cosmic effect that took place at that time on the Jordan, then you will also understand that only someone who had been initiated by Christ himself, the resurrected Lazarus, whom “the Lord loved,” of whom we are always told from then on: “the disciple whom the Lord loved.” The resurrected Lazarus brought the Gospel to us, and he alone was able to fit every passage in the Gospel so firmly into place, because he had received the greatest impulse from the greatest initiator, from Christ. He alone could point to what Paul then understood in a certain way through his own initiation: that at that time the seed for overcoming death was taken up into the earth's evolution. Hence the significant words spoken about the one hanging on the cross: “You shall not break his legs!” Why not? Because they were not allowed to interfere with the form through which Christ had to retain his power. If they had broken his legs, a lower human power would have interfered with the power that Christ had to exercise down to the bones of Jesus of Nazareth. No one was to interfere with this form! For it was to be completely subject to the dominion of Christ.
We can now take this as the starting point tomorrow for our consideration of the death of Christ.