The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] 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.

[ 2 ] 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.

[ 3 ] 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.

[ 4 ] 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.

[ 5 ] 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.

[ 6 ] 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.

[ 7 ] 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.

[ 8 ] 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.

[ 9 ] 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.

[ 10 ] 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.

[ 11 ] 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.

[ 12 ] 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.

[ 13 ] 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.

[ 14 ] 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.

[ 15 ] 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.

[ 16 ] 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.

[ 17 ] 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.

[ 18 ] 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.”

[ 19 ] 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.

[ 20 ] 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.

[ 21 ] 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.

[ 22 ] 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?

[ 23 ] 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.”

[ 24 ] 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.

[ 25 ] 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!”

[ 26 ] 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.).

[ 27 ] 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.

[ 28 ] 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.

[ 29 ] 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.

[ 30 ] 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.

[ 31 ] 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.

[ 32 ] 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.

[ 33 ] 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.

[ 34 ] 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.

[ 35 ] 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.

[ 36 ] 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)

[ 37 ] 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)

[ 38 ] 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.

[ 39 ] 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.”

[ 40 ] 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)

[ 41 ] 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.

[ 42 ] 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.

[ 43 ] 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.

[ 44 ] 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.

[ 45 ] 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)

[ 46 ] 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)

[ 47 ] 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.

[ 48 ] 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.

[ 49 ] 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!

[ 50 ] 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.

[ 51 ] We can now take this as the starting point tomorrow for our consideration of the death of Christ.