The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] On this day of the year, a certain festival was celebrated by a large part of the striving humanity. And those of us here in this city who call ourselves friends of the anthroposophical movement have attached a certain importance to this series of lectures beginning on this very day, St. John's Day. The day of the year designated for this celebration was already a festival in ancient Persia. On a day corresponding roughly to a day in June today, the festival of the so-called baptism of water and fire was celebrated. In ancient Rome, the festival of Vesta was celebrated on a similar day in June; this was in turn the festival of baptism by fire. And if we go back to the time of European culture before Christianity and to those times when Christianity was not yet widespread, we find again such a June festival, a festival that coincided with the time when the days were longest, the nights became shortest, when the days began to shorten again, when the sun began to lose some of the power it gives to all growth and prosperity on earth. Like a decline, a gradual disappearance of the god Baldur, who was associated with the sun, this June festival appeared to our European ancestors. And in Christian times, this June festival gradually became the feast of St. John, celebrating the precursor of Christ Jesus. Thus, it can also become for us, in a sense, the starting point for the reflections we wish to make over the next few days on this most significant event in human development, which we call the deed of Christ Jesus. This deed, its entire significance for human development, and how it is presented first in the most important Christian document, the Gospel of John, and then in comparison with the other Gospels, will be the subject of this series of lectures. St. John's Day reminds us that this greatest individuality who took part in human evolution was preceded by a forerunner. This brings us straight to an important point which we must also consider as a kind of forerunner at the starting point of our lectures. In the course of human evolution, deeply significant events occur again and again, shedding a stronger light than other events. From epoch to epoch, we see how such essential events are recorded in history. And again and again we are told that there are people who, in a certain relationship, can foresee and foretell such events. This makes it clear that these events are not arbitrary, but that those who see into the whole meaning and spirit of human history know how such events must come about and how they themselves must work, must work preparatory, so that they can occur.

[ 2 ] In the next few days, we will talk more about the forerunner of Christ Jesus. Today, we will just look at him from the point of view that he was one of those who, through special spiritual gifts, could see deeper into the context of human development and therefore knew that there are special points within this human development. That's why he was the right person to pave the way for Christ Jesus. But when we look at Christ Jesus himself, in order to come straight to the main subject of our consideration, so to speak, we must realize that it is truly not without reason that a large part of humanity divides the calendar into an epoch before the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth and an epoch after it. In this way, this part of humanity shows that it has a sense of the decisive significance of the Christ Mystery. But what is true, what is real, must be proclaimed again and again in new forms and in new ways to humanity. For the needs of humanity change from time to time. In a certain sense, our time needs a new proclamation of this greatest event in the earthly evolution of humanity, the Christ event, and anthroposophy aims to be this proclamation.

[ 3 ] This anthroposophical proclamation of the mystery of Christ is nothing new in terms of content, not even for us. But it is something new in terms of form. For what will be spoken here in the next few days has been spoken for centuries in smaller circles within our culture and our spiritual life. The only thing that distinguishes today's proclamation from all previous ones is that it is allowed to speak to a wider circle. The smaller circles in which the same proclamation has been heard for centuries within our European spiritual life recognized the same sign that you see here [in the lecture hall], the Rosicrucians, as their symbol. And so now, when this proclamation is presented to a wider audience in our time, the Rosy Cross may once again be regarded as the symbol of this proclamation. Let me first characterize symbolically the basis of this Rosicrucian proclamation about Christ Jesus.

[ 4 ] The Rosicrucians are a community that has cultivated a spiritual, a genuine spiritual Christianity within European spiritual life since the fourteenth century. This Rosicrucian society, which, apart from all external historical forms, sought to reveal the deepest truth of Christianity to its followers, always called its followers “Johannes Christians.” When we understand the expression “John Christians,” we will be able to grasp, if not with our intellect, then at least intuitively, the whole spirit and attitude of the following lectures.

[ 5 ] You know that the Gospel of John, this powerful document of the human race, begins with the words: “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1).

[ 6 ] The Word—or the Logos—was therefore with God in the beginning. And it goes on to say that the light shone in the darkness, and that the darkness did not comprehend the light; that this light was in the world, that it was among men, but that only a small number of these men were able to comprehend the light. Then the Word became flesh and appeared as a human being, in a human being whose forerunner was John the Baptist. And now we see how those who have understood something of the meaning of this appearance of Christ on earth strive to make clear to themselves what Christ actually is, and how the writer of the Gospel of John immediately points out that what what lived in Jesus of Nazareth as his deepest essence was nothing other than that from which all other beings around us arose — that it was the living Spirit, the living Word, the Logos itself.

[ 7 ] But the other evangelists, each in his own way, also endeavored to describe what actually appeared in Jesus of Nazareth. We see, for example, how the writer of the Gospel of Luke endeavors to show how something very special appeared when, through the baptism of Christ Jesus by John the Baptist, the Spirit united with the body of Jesus of Nazareth. And then the writer of the Gospel of Luke goes on to show us how this Jesus of Nazareth is the descendant of ancestors who reach far, far back. We are told that the family tree of Jesus of Nazareth goes back to David, to Abraham, to Adam, even to God Himself. Mind you, the Gospel of Luke points out everywhere that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of Joseph, Joseph was the son of Eli, who was the son of Matthat..., then: he was the son of David, and further on it says: he was the son of Adam, and Adam was God's! This means that the writer of the Gospel of Luke attaches particular importance to the fact that this Jesus of Nazareth, with whom the Spirit united at the baptism of John, has a direct line of descent back to the one whom he calls the father of Adam, God. Such things must be taken literally.

[ 8 ] In the Gospel of Matthew, an attempt is made to trace this Jesus of Nazareth back through his family tree to Abraham, to whom God revealed himself.

[ 9 ] Through this, and through many other things, through many words that we can find in the Gospels, the individuality that is the bearer of Christ and the whole appearance of Christ are presented as something that is not only one of the greatest, but the greatest of all appearances in human evolution. This expresses in no uncertain terms what can be said in simple words as follows: If Christ Jesus is regarded by those who sense his greatness as the most important manifestation in the evolution of humanity on earth, then this Christ Jesus must somehow be connected with the most essential and most sacred in human beings themselves. There must therefore be something within human beings themselves that can be directly related to the Christ event. Could we not then ask the question: If Christ Jesus really is, according to the Gospels, the most important event in human evolution, must there not be something in every human soul that relates to Christ Jesus?

[ 10 ] This is also what was most important and essential to the John Christians of the Rosicrucian societies: that something can be found in every human soul that is directly related to what happened in Palestine through Christ Jesus. And if Christ Jesus can be called the greatest event for humanity, then what corresponds to the Christ event must also be the greatest and most significant thing in the human soul. What can that be? The disciples of the Rosicrucians answered this question as follows: For every human soul there is something that can be described with the words “awakening” or “rebirth” or “initiation.” Let us see what is meant by these words.

[ 11 ] When we look at the various things around us that our eyes see and our hands touch, we see how these things come into being and pass away. We see how a flower comes into being and passes away, how the entire vegetation of the year rises and falls again. And even though there are things in the world, such as mountains and rocks, that seem to defy the centuries, the proverb “constant dripping wears away the stone” expresses the human soul's intuition that even the majestic rocks and mountains are subject to the laws of transience. And man knows that what is built up from the elements arises and passes away; what arises and passes away is not only what man calls his physical body, but what he calls his “transient ego.” But those who know how to enter a spiritual world also know that although man does not enter this spiritual world through his eyes, ears, and other senses, he can reach it through the path of awakening, rebirth, and initiation. And what is reborn?

[ 12 ] When a person looks within himself, he finally comes to say: What I encounter within myself is what I call “I.” This “I” is already distinguished from all things in the external world by its name. To every thing in the external world, one can add a name from outside: everyone can say “table” to the table and “clock” to the clock. But the name “I” can never sound to our ears if it is meant to refer to ourselves, for “I” must be spoken inwardly. For everyone else, we are a “you.” This alone shows us how this I-being differs from everything else in and around us. But now comes what spiritual researchers of all ages have emphasized again and again for humanity from their own experiences: that within this I, another, higher I is born, born like a child from its mother.

[ 13 ] When we encounter a human being in their life, we can say: we first see them as a child, clumsy in relation to their external environment, looking at things, then gradually learning to understand them, gradually becoming intelligent and growing in intellect and will; we see how the human being increases in strength and energy. But there are people who do not only grow in this way; there have always been people who attain a higher level of development than the ordinary, who come to find, so to speak, a second self that is able to say “you” to the first self, just as the self says “you” to the outside world and to its body, looking down, as it were, on this first self.

[ 14 ] This is the ideal before the human soul, and it becomes a reality for those who follow the instructions of spiritual researchers and say to themselves: The self that I have known up to now participates in the whole external world; it is transitory, like the external world. But within me there slumbers a second self, of which people are not aware, but of which they can become aware, which is just as connected with the imperishable as the first self is connected with the perishable and temporal. And with rebirth, this higher self can look into a spiritual world just as the lower self can look into the sensory world through the senses—the eyes, ears, and so on. What is called awakening, rebirth, initiation, is the greatest event in the human soul, even according to those who called themselves Rosicrucians. They knew that this event of the rebirth of the higher self, which can look down on the lower self as the human being looks at external forms, must be connected with the event of Christ Jesus. This means that just as rebirth can take place for the individual human being within his or her development, so rebirth has taken place for the whole of humanity with Christ Jesus. What is an inner, mystical-spiritual event for the individual human being, what he can experience as the birth of his higher self, has occurred in the outer world, in history, with the event in Palestine through Christ Jesus for the whole of humanity.

[ 15 ] How did this appear, for example, to someone like the person who wrote the Gospel of Luke? He could say to himself: The family tree of Jesus of Nazareth goes back to Adam and God Himself. What is humanity today, what dwells today in the physical human body, once descended from divine-spiritual heights, was born of the Spirit, was once with God. Adam was the one who was sent down from the spiritual heights into matter; in this sense, he is the Son of God. So there was once a divine-spiritual realm, said the writer of the Gospel of Luke; this condensed, as it were, into the transitory earthly realm: Adam came into being. Adam was an earthly image of the Son of God, and from Adam descended the human beings who are in the physical body. And in this Jesus of Nazareth, not only did that which lives in every human being and which else is in the human being live in a special way, but there was something living in him which can only be found in its essence if one becomes conscious that the essential in the human being comes from the divine. In Jesus of Nazareth, something of this divine descent is still evident. The writer of the Gospel of Luke therefore feels compelled to say: Look at the one who was baptized by John. He has special characteristics that point to the divine from which Adam originally descended. This can be renewed in him. Just as God descended into matter and disappeared as God in the human race, so he appears again. Humanity could be reborn in its innermost, divine nature in Jesus of Nazareth. The writer of the Gospel of Luke wanted to say: If we trace the family tree of Jesus of Nazareth back to its origin, we find the divine origin and the characteristics of the Son of God in him in a renewed form and more than could have been possible in humanity up to that point.

[ 16 ] And the writer of the Gospel of John emphasized even more sharply that something divine lives in human beings, and that this divine appeared in its most magnificent form as God and the Logos himself. The God who was, as it were, buried in matter is reborn as God in Jesus of Nazareth, that is what those who began their Gospels in this way wanted to say.

[ 17 ] And what did those who wanted to continue the wisdom of these Gospels say? What did the Christians of John say? They said: In each individual human being there is a great, powerful event that can be called the rebirth of the higher self. Just as the child is born from the mother, so the divine self is born from the human being. The initiation, the awakening, is possible, and once it has taken place — so said those who understood something of it — then something else becomes important than what was important before. Let us try to understand what becomes important by means of a comparison.

[ 18 ] Let us imagine that we have before us a person who has reached the age of seventy, but who is an awakened person who has gained his higher self. And let us imagine that it was in his fortieth year that he experienced rebirth, the awakening of his higher self. If someone had approached him at that time and wanted to describe his life, he could have said: I have here before me a human being who has just given birth to his higher self. This is the same person I knew five years ago in this situation, and ten years ago in that situation. And if he had wanted to describe to us the identity of this person, if he had wanted to show us that this person had a very special starting point at birth, then he would have traced back the forty years of his physical existence and described this physical existence, as it appears, from the point of view of spiritual science. But at the age of forty, a higher self was born in this person. From now on, the higher self outshines all the circumstances of life. Now this is a new person. Now it is no longer important to us what was there before; now it is important that we recognize above all how the higher self grows and develops from year to year. When this person has reached the age of seventy, we would then inquire what path the higher self has taken from the age of forty to the age of seventy. And it would be important for us that it is the genuine spiritual self that he presents to us in his seventieth year, if we acknowledge what was born in this person's soul thirty years ago. This is what the Gospel writers did, and this is what the John Christians of the Rosicrucian movement did in connection with the being we call Christ Jesus.

[ 19 ] The Gospel writers set themselves the task of first showing that Christ Jesus has his origin in the primordial spirit of the world, in God Himself. The God who has lived hidden in all humanity comes forth especially in Christ Jesus. This is the same God of whom the Gospel of John says that He was there in the beginning, from the very beginning. The Gospel writers were interested in showing that this very God was in Jesus of Nazareth. But those who had to continue the eternal wisdom into our time now had an interest in showing how the higher self of human beings, how the divine spirit of humanity, which was born in Jesus of Nazareth through the events in Palestine, remained the same and was preserved in all those who had the right understanding of it.

[ 20 ] Just as we have described in the man we have set up for comparison that he was born into his higher self at the age of forty, so the Gospel writers described God in man up to the event in Palestine: how God developed, how he was reborn, and so on. But those who had to show that they were the continuators of the Gospel writers had to point out that this is the time of the rebirth of the higher self, when one has to deal only with the spiritual part, which now outshines everything else. Those who called themselves John Christians and had the Rosicrucians as their symbol said: Precisely that which has been reborn for humanity as the mystery of this higher self of humanity has been preserved. This has been preserved by that inner circle which originated from Rosicrucianism. This continuity is symbolically indicated: the holy chalice from which Christ Jesus ate and drank with his disciples, which is called the “Holy Grail” and in which the blood that flowed from the wound was collected by Joseph of Arimathea, is said to have been brought to Europe by angels. A temple was built for it, and the Rosicrucians became the guardians of what was in the vessel, that is, of what constituted the essence of the reborn God. The mystery of the reborn God reigned in humanity: this is the mystery of the Grail.

[ 21 ] This is the mystery that is presented as a new gospel and of which it is said: We look up to such a wise man as the writer of the Gospel of John, who was able to say: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That which was with God in the beginning has been reborn in the one whom we saw suffer and die on Golgotha, and who rose again. The writer of the Gospel of John wanted to portray this continuity of the divine principle throughout all ages and the rebirth of this divine principle. But all who wanted to portray this knew that what was from the beginning has been preserved. In the beginning was the mystery of the higher human ego; it was preserved in the Grail; it remained connected with the Grail, and in the Grail lives the ego, which is connected with the eternal and immortal, just as the lower ego is connected with the transitory and mortal. And whoever knows the secret of the Holy Grail knows that from the wood of the cross springs forth the living, sprouting life, the immortal I, symbolized by the roses on the black wood of the cross. Thus, the secret of the Rosicrucians is something that can be seen as a continuation of the Gospel of John. And we can say the following words in relation to the Gospel of John and what it continues:

[ 22 ] “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through it, and without it nothing was made that has been made. In it was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it.”

[ 23 ] Only some of the people who had something that was not born of the flesh understood the light that shone in the darkness. But then the light became flesh and dwelt among men in the form of Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 24 ] Now, in keeping with the spirit of John's Gospel, one could say: And that which lived as Christ in Jesus of Nazareth was the higher divine I of all humanity, of God reborn in Adam as his image made earthly. This reborn human I continued as a sacred mystery, was preserved under the symbol of the Rosicrucians, and is proclaimed today as the mystery of the Holy Grail, as the Rosicrucians.

[ 25 ] That which can be born in every human soul as the higher self points us to the rebirth of the divine self in the development of the whole of humanity through the events in Palestine. Just as the higher self is born in every individual human being, so in Palestine the higher self of the whole of humanity, the divine self, is born, and it is preserved and further developed in what lies behind the symbol of the Rosicrucians. But when we consider human development, we have not only this one great event, the rebirth of the higher self, but besides this one great event, a multitude of smaller ones. Before human beings can give birth to their higher self, before this great, comprehensive, penetrating experience can occur for the soul—the birth of the immortal self in the mortal—comprehensive preliminary stages must be passed through. Human beings must prepare themselves in the most varied ways. And when they have had the great experience within themselves that makes them say: Now I feel something within me, now I know something within me that looks down on my ordinary self, just as my ordinary self looks down on the things of the senses, now I am a second being within the first; now I have ascended into those realms where I am united with the divine beings, when human beings have had this experience, then other, further stages follow which they must pass through, stages which are of a different nature from the preliminary stages, but which must nevertheless be passed through.

[ 26 ] Thus we have one great, decisive event, the birth of the higher self in each individual human being. But we also have such a birth in the whole of humanity: the rebirth of the divine self. And then there are preparatory stages for this, and stages that must follow this decisive event. We look back on the preparatory stages from the Christ event. There we see other great phenomena within human evolution, we see how this Christ event gradually approaches, as the writer of the Gospel of Luke said: First there was a God, a spirit being in the spiritual heights. He descended into the material world and became human, became humanity. In the way human beings developed, it was possible to see that God was at their foundation. But God could not be seen if one looked at human development with only the outer physical eyes. God was, so to speak, behind the earthly physical world, and those who knew where He was, who could look into His realms, saw Him there.

[ 27 ] Let us go back to the first culture after a great catastrophe, to the ancient Indian culture. There we see seven great holy teachers, who are called the holy Rishis. They point to a higher being, of whom they said: Our wisdom can sense this high being, but our wisdom cannot see this high being! The seven holy Rishis see much. But beyond their sphere is this higher being, whom they called “Vishva Karman.” And Vishva Karman is a being who filled the spiritual world, but was beyond what the clairvoyant human eye could see in those times. Then came the culture named after its great leader Zarathustra, and Zarathustra sat down among those he was to lead: When the clairvoyant eye looks at the things of the world, at minerals, plants, animals, and human beings, it sees all kinds of spiritual beings behind these things. But the spiritual being to whom man owes his actual existence, which must once live in the deepest self of man, cannot yet be seen when one looks at the things of the earth, neither with physical eyes nor with clairvoyant eyes. But when Zarathustra turned his clairvoyant gaze toward the sun, he said, one sees not only the sun, but just as one sees an aura surrounding human beings, so one sees the great sun aura, Ahura Mazdao. And it is the great sun aura that once brought human beings into being in a way that will be characterized later. Man is the image of the sun spirit, Ahura Mazdao. But Ahura Mazdao did not yet dwell on earth.

[ 28 ] And then comes the time when clairvoyant man begins to see Ahura Mazdao in what surrounds him on earth. The great moment has come when what was not yet possible in Zarathustra's time can now happen. When Zarathustra's clairvoyant eye opened and he could see what was revealed in the earthly lightning and thunder, it was not Ahura Mazdao, it was not the great sun spirit who is the archetype of humanity. But when he turned toward the sun, he saw Ahura Mazdao. When Zarathustra found a successor in Moses, Moses' clairvoyant eye opened, and he could then see in the burning bush and in the fire on Sinai the spirit who announced himself as “Ehjeh ascher ehjeh,” as “I am who was, who is, and who will be,” Jahve or Jehovah. What had happened there?

[ 29 ] Since that time, since the appearance of Zarathustra, before the appearance of Moses on earth, the spirit that had previously been only in the sun had descended to earth. It shone in the burning bush, shone in the fire on Mount Sinai. It was in the elements of the earth. And after a while, the spirit that the great Rishis sensed, but of which they had to say, “Our clairvoyance cannot yet see it” — the spirit that Zarathustra had to seek on the sun, that revealed itself to Moses in lightning and thunder — appeared in a human being, in Jesus of Nazareth. That was the development: descending from the universe first to the physical elements, then into a human body; only then was the divine I, from which man originated and to which the writer of the Gospel of Luke traces the genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth, reborn. There the great event of the rebirth of God in man had taken place.

[ 30 ] We look back on the preliminary stages. Humanity also went through preliminary stages. And those who had advanced with humanity as its earlier leaders also had to go through these preliminary stages until one of them had progressed so far that he could become the bearer of Christ. Thus we see how the development of humanity appears when viewed spiritually.

[ 31 ] And there is something else that is important. What the holy Rishis revered as Vishva Karman, what Zarathustra addressed as the Ahura Mazdao of the sun, what Moses revered as “ehjeh ascher ehjeh,” had to appear in a single human being, in Jesus of Nazareth, in limited earthly humanity. It had to come to this. But for such a high being to dwell in a human being such as Jesus of Nazareth, many things were necessary. Jesus of Nazareth himself had to be on a high level. Not every human being could become the bearer of such a being who comes into the world in the manner described.

[ 32 ] Now we who have approached spiritual science know that reincarnation exists. Therefore, we must say that Jesus of Nazareth—not the Christ—had many incarnations behind him and that he had passed through the most varied stages in his earlier incarnations before he could become Jesus of Nazareth. This means nothing other than that Jesus of Nazareth himself had to become a highly initiated being before he could become the bearer of Christ. When a highly initiated being is born, how does such a birth and the subsequent life differ from the birth and subsequent life of an ordinary human being? In general, one can assume that when a human being is born, he is shaped, at least approximately, according to what comes from a previous incarnation. But this is not the case with an initiate. The initiate could not be a leader of humanity if he had only that within him which corresponds entirely to the outer world. For human beings must build up their outer appearance according to the conditions of their external environment. When an initiate is born, a high soul must enter his body, a soul that has already experienced great things in the world in earlier times. That is why it is said of all such people that their birth took place in a different way than that of other human beings. Why and how?

[ 33 ] We have already touched on the question “Why?” because a comprehensive I, which has already gone through the most significant experiences, connects itself with the body. But in the beginning, the body cannot take in what wants to embody itself as spiritual nature in this body. Therefore, in the case of a being who is incarnated into a transitory human being as a highly initiated person, it is necessary that the reincarnating ego surrounds the physical form from the outset more than in other people. While in an ordinary human being the physical form is similar and adapted to the spiritual form or the human aura soon after birth, the human aura of an initiate who is reborn is luminous. It is the spiritual part that announces that there is more here than can be seen in the ordinary sense. What does this spiritual aspect announce? It announces that not only has a child been born in the physical world, but that something has happened in the spiritual world! This is what the stories that follow all reborn initiates want to say: Not only is a child born, but something is born in the spiritual realm that cannot be comprehended by what is born down here. But who recognizes this? Only those who themselves have a clairvoyant eye for the spiritual world can recognize it. That is why it is said that at the birth of the Buddha, an initiate recognized that something different was happening here than at the birth of a human being. That is why it is said of Jesus of Nazareth that he first had to be announced by the Baptist.

[ 34 ] Those who have insight into the spiritual worlds know that the initiate must come and be reborn, and they know that this is an event in the spiritual world. But this was also known by the three kings from the East who came to offer sacrifices at the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. And the same thing is also represented by the initiated priest in the temple, who says: Now I am ready to die, after my eyes have seen the one who will be the salvation of mankind!

[ 35 ] So we see that we have to distinguish very carefully here: we have a highly initiated person who is reborn as Jesus of Nazareth, of whose birth it must be said: A child is born. But with this child there appears something that cannot be encompassed by the physical body of the child. And then, with this Jesus of Nazareth, we have at the same time something that has a meaning in the spiritual world, something that will gradually develop this body upward to a point where this body will be ripe for this spirit. But when this body was ripe for this spirit, the event took place where the Baptist approached Jesus of Nazareth, and where a higher spirit descended and united itself with Jesus of Nazareth, where Christ entered into Jesus of Nazareth. But then the one who was the forerunner of Christ Jesus as the Baptist can say: I entered the world. I was the one who prepared the way for a higher being. With my outer mouth I proclaimed that the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, is near, that people should change their ways. I came among men and was able to speak of a special impulse coming into humanity. Just as the sun rises higher in the spring to proclaim that something new is sprouting, so I appeared to proclaim what is sprouting in humanity as the reborn human ego!

[ 36 ] But when the human nature in Jesus of Nazareth had risen to its highest point, so that the human body of Jesus of Nazareth was an expression of the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth, he also became ready to receive Christ into himself at the baptism of John. The body of Jesus of Nazareth was unfolded like the bright sun on St. John's Day in June. This had been foretold. Then the spirit was to be born out of darkness like the sun, which gains more and more strength until St. John's Day, growing and growing and then beginning to wane. This was what the Baptist had to proclaim. He had to proclaim how the sun rises in ever greater splendor until the point where he could say: The one whom the ancient prophets promised, who was called the Son of the spiritual realms from the spiritual realms, has appeared! — Up to this point, John the Baptist had worked. But then, when the days grow shorter again, when darkness gains the upper hand, the inner spiritual light will shine through the preparations, becoming brighter and brighter, as Christ shines forth in Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 37 ] This is how John saw Jesus of Nazareth approaching. And he felt the growth of Jesus of Nazareth as his own decline, and as the increase of the sun. From now on, he says, I will decrease, as the sun decreases from St. John's Day onwards. But he will increase, he, the spiritual sun, and shine out of the darkness! — Thus he announced himself. Thus began the rebirth of the human I, on which the rebirth of every individual higher human I in humanity depends.

[ 38 ] This characterizes the most important event in the development of the individual human being: the rebirth of that which can emerge as immortal from the ordinary ego. It is linked to the greatest event, the Christ event, to which the following hours are now to be devoted.