The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] In one of our last reflections, we said that each of the Gospels presents the great mystery of Golgotha from a particular perspective. We pointed out that the Gospel of Mark presents the mystery of Golgotha, the mystery of Christ Jesus, from the perspective of the great cosmic connections, while the Gospel of Matthew presents the development of this mystery from a folk tradition, namely from the ancient Hebrew folk tradition. We have seen how this ancient Hebrew folk tradition had to develop gradually from generation to generation since the time of Abraham in order to bring forth as its flower the human being who could contain within himself the individuality of Zarathustra or Zoroaster. We have seen how all the characteristics of the ancient Hebrew people, which had to become more and more intense as they increased from generation to generation, were based on the principle of physical inheritance. This has enabled us to characterize the difference between the mission of the ancient Hebrew people and the missions of other peoples. The mission of the ancient Hebrew people was to pass on certain characteristics that could only be passed on through physical inheritance from the oldest generations of the Abrahamic period down to Jesus. However, the Gospel of Matthew still holds many secrets, as do the other Gospels. And even if we open up individual insights and perspectives into the Gospels in the course of this winter, this can at most stimulate understanding. For a complete understanding of the Gospels, a never-ending spiritual work is necessary. Today, we will first shed light on the Gospel of Matthew from a very specific angle and then connect this to a certain practical application of the teachings that can be derived from these insights for souls who are currently part of the anthroposophical spiritual stream.

[ 2 ] If we look back today on some of what we have learned over the years, we can say that the development of humanity, as we have presented it from a spiritual scientific perspective, goes through various crises, reaches important points, then continues for a while in a more even manner, then reaches another important point, and so on. We have often emphasized that one such important point in the earthly development of humanity is the time when the Christ impulse was given at the beginning of our modern era. If we go back further from there, skipping over various points, we find an important point to which we have repeatedly referred. If we pass through the Atlantean epoch and go back to the Lemurian epoch, we find the point in time when the first seed of the human I was implanted into the human being.

[ 3 ] If something like this is to be understood, the words must be taken very precisely. For example, one must distinguish precisely between what happened in the ancient Lemurian era when it is said: At that time, the first seed of the I was sunk into human beings — and when it is said: In the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, the period began, the age in which humanity became fully conscious of this I. This is a significant difference: to have the ego first as a seed, as something working within the human being, or to be guided by one's knowledge to have this ego. These things must be strictly distinguished from one another, otherwise one cannot cope with the real laws of evolution.

[ 4 ] We know that the implantation of the I into human beings is rooted in the overall development of the Earth. The Earth passed through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon epochs and only then became the entity it is today. On Saturn, the foundation for the physical body was laid; on the Sun, for the etheric body; on the Moon, for the astral body; and on Earth, the foundation for the I was added. This foundation for the I was thus laid within the Earth's development during the Lemurian epoch. But something else happened during this Lemurian epoch, namely what we have always called the Luciferic influence. During that period, human beings were endowed with the seed of the I, which was destined to be developed further and further during the following Earth epochs, and at the same time the Luciferic influence was implanted in the astral body. This Luciferic influence changed the entire human being, including all the forces and elements in the etheric and physical bodies. As a result, during the Lemurian period, the whole human being became different from what it would have been without the Luciferic influence. Thus, during the Lemurian period, the human being became different in two ways: We see them becoming an I-being and, in addition, becoming a being that harbors the Luciferic principle within itself. If the Luciferic principle had not come, the I-influence would have entered all the same.

[ 5 ] What happened to the human being as a result of the Luciferic influence in the Lemurian epoch?

[ 6 ] When such a thing is described from this or that point of view, I beg you not to take such a description as if it were the whole truth; for only one point of view can ever be taken. Much has been said over the years about what has happened through the influence of Lucifer in the course of evolution. All of that is also part of it, but we cannot repeat it here. Today we will only highlight one point of view that characterizes a certain aspect. This point of view consists in the fact that through this Luciferic influence, human beings reached a stage of development earlier than was actually predestined for them, than was, so to speak, intended for them in the wise governance of the world. Through the Luciferic influence, human beings descended more deeply into the three elements of their being that had been carried over from their earlier incarnations on Earth—into their astral body, their etheric body, and their physical body—and became more entangled with them than they would have been if there had been no Luciferic influence. Human beings would have remained closer to the spiritual worlds with their ego, so to speak, and would have felt themselves to be part of the spiritual world for longer if the Luciferic influence had not caused this ego to descend more deeply into the astral body, etheric body, and physical body. Through the influence of Lucifer, human beings descended deeper into the earth during the Lemurian epoch, so to speak.

[ 7 ] We can specify the point in time when, if there had been no Luciferic influence, human beings would have descended to Earth or into physical matter as far as they actually did in the Lemurian epoch through the Luciferic influence: that would have been in the middle of the Atlantean epoch. In other words, if there had been no Luciferic influence, human beings would have had to wait until the middle of the Atlantean epoch to descend to Earth. Through the Luciferic influence, they descended earlier. This enabled him to become a free being, acting on his own impulses; for otherwise he would have remained completely dependent on the spiritual world until the middle of the Atlantean epoch, would never have been able to decide between good and evil, would never have been able to develop any free impulses, but would have acted out of soul instincts, that is, out of forces that the divine-spiritual beings had implanted in his soul. But the Luciferic beings gave him the opportunity to decide earlier than usual between good and evil, not to allow himself to be guided instinctively by the laws of the divine-spiritual world order, but to decide for himself, to make a kind of law for himself.

[ 8 ] This fact is expressed in a profound way in the description of the Fall, which, in a wonderful imagination, represents nothing other than what I have just told you. This is depicted in the Old Testament, where it is said: The living soul was implanted in man by the divine-spiritual beings. If this living soul had remained just that, man would have had to wait until later, when the divine-spiritual beings had brought this living soul, that is, the still undeveloped ego, to maturity, before he could make decisions. Now the Luciferic influences come into play, represented in the Bible by the serpent. This causes man to no longer follow instinctively the inflowings of Yahweh or the Elohim, but to decide for himself between good and evil. From a being that had hitherto been guided and directed by the divine-spiritual beings, man has thus become a being capable of deciding for himself. This is also clearly shown in the Bible, that through the serpent, that is, through the Luciferic beings, man's self-determination was brought about. And then, spoken from the side of the gods, the words resound from the Bible: Man has become like one of us! — that is, like the gods. Or if we want to express it more radically: Through the influence of Lucifer, man has appropriated something that until then had been the preserve of the gods. It was the gods who made decisions about good and evil, not those beings who were dependent on the gods.

[ 9 ] Now, through the influence of Lucifer, man has become a self-determined being, that is, a being who developed divine qualities too early. In this way, through the influence of Lucifer, something has entered into human nature that would otherwise have been preserved for human development until the middle of the Atlantean epoch. Now you can imagine that human beings would have been completely different if this descent into matter had not taken place until the middle of the Atlantean epoch, for then their souls would have been more mature when this descent occurred. They would have arrived in matter as better, more mature human beings. He would have brought different qualities into everything physical, etheric, and astral, and would have become quite different in his ability to decide between good and evil. By making himself a decision-maker between good and evil from the Lemurian period to the middle of the Atlantean period, man made himself worse than he would otherwise have become, and thus arrived in a less perfect state. Otherwise, they would have gone through the entire period up to the middle of the Atlantean epoch in a much more spiritual way, but instead they went through it in a more material way. However, this now meant that if humans had not been given what the gods had intended for them in the middle of the Atlantean epoch, they would have fallen completely.

[ 10 ] What would have been given to man in the middle of the Atlantean epoch if he had been guided and directed instinctively by spiritual-divine beings until then?

[ 11 ] He would have been given what was given to him through the Mystery of Golgotha once the Luciferic influence was present! The Christ impulse would have been given to him in the middle of the Atlantean epoch. But now, because the Luciferic influence was there, he had to wait for this Christ impulse for as long as the time lasted from the Luciferic influence until the middle of the Atlantean epoch. The Christ impulse came as much later as Lucifer approached human beings earlier, before the middle of the Atlantean epoch. Thus, because human beings acquired their likeness to God earlier than they should have, we see a delay in the Christ impulse. For human beings first had to go through everything that had to become their earthly karma for what had entered into them as evil through the Luciferic influence. This had to be suffered through by humanity, so to speak. Man had to wait until not only the Luciferic influence had made him a decision-maker between good and evil, but until, in the course of Earth's development, everything that had to come as a consequence of this Luciferic influence had also come to pass. This had to be waited for. Only then could the Christ impulse descend to Earth. Human beings were not meant to be deprived forever of what they had gained through the influence of Lucifer, according to the wise guidance of the world, but should have received it in the middle of the Atlantean epoch. It was meant to be theirs under all circumstances. However, in the form in which it came to them through the influence of Lucifer, it would not have come to them in any other case. Through Lucifer, human beings have not only gained free will in everything connected with spiritual matters, but also the ability to become enthusiastic for what is good and noble, wise and great. As human beings today, we cannot merely make cold, sober, and dry decisions between good and evil, but we can also become inflamed with enthusiasm for what is beautiful, noble, good, and wise. This stems from the fact that something has been carried into our astral body which, if it had only come to man in the middle of the Atlantean epoch, would have been carried only into the I, into the judging I. So everything we have in the way of feelings, idealism, and enthusiasm for the good, for high ideals, we owe to the fact that something entered our astral body before we received the godlikeness in our ego, the reception of Christ into our ego. That is the essential thing, that this likeness to God, this God-likeness, this possibility of finding the good within oneself, should come upon human beings. If the Luciferic influence had not come, this impulse would have come in the middle of the Atlantean epoch; but now it has come at the time when Christ Jesus was working.

[ 12 ] Thus, through the Christ impulse, the awareness has entered into human beings that they have something of divine substance and essence in their I. This is also the basis of all the deeper sayings of the New Testament, that human beings can take the divine into their I-being, and that this divine can work within them and make decisions between good and evil. We can therefore say that with the reception of the Christ impulse into the human inner being, the possibility came to human beings to say to themselves: I am the guiding principle for the insights of my existence, for the decisions about good and evil.

[ 13 ] If we now look back to pre-Christian times, we must say that since the impulse that makes human beings true decision-makers between good and evil did not yet exist at that time, the decision between good and evil, the judgment, the knowledge of what is good, beautiful, and true, was necessarily deficient in pre-Christian times and could not actually arise from the innermost being of human beings. Before the Christ impulse came, human beings did not have the possibility of deciding between good and evil from their innermost being. In pre-Christian times, decisions about what was truly good, truly true, and truly beautiful could only be made because individual beings, such as the bodhisattvas, reached up into the divine-spiritual worlds with part of their being over time. Thus, they did not actually draw the decision about good and evil from the innermost core of human nature, but from the divine worlds. Through their contact with divine-spiritual beings, they obtained it and then instilled it suggestively into the human soul. Without such guides, people in pre-Christian times could only have made inadequate decisions about good and evil. If these guides had relied on their own hearts, they would not have been able to do so; only by descending into the depths of the soul, which had not yet been granted to humans, by stepping out of their own ego-being into the realms of heaven, did they receive the impulses that humans needed in order to prepare the ground for the good on earth, even in a time of inadequate decision-making about good and evil.

[ 14 ] Thus, in pre-Christian times, human beings were beings who had appropriated godlikeness for qualities that were not yet sufficiently mature, for something that was not yet suitable for having godlikeness. As a result, since the Lemurian epoch, human beings have done everything they have done worse and more imperfectly than they would otherwise have done. Above all, through the Luciferic influence in pre-Christian times, he did worse and more imperfectly that which related to himself. His astral body, etheric body, and physical body, which would otherwise have remained more spiritual if the Luciferic influence had not been at work, he made worse and more material because all this came about. But this also brought all the evils into human life that have developed over time. They developed over a long period of time.

[ 15 ] From the Lemurian epoch to the Mystery of Golgotha, evils developed in the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. A high degree of egoism developed in the astral body, and in the etheric body developed the possibility of error when we want to judge anything, and the possibility of lying. If human beings had remained under the influence of divine spiritual beings and had acted instinctively according to their impulses, they would not be able to fall into error or be tempted to lie when they seek knowledge about their environment today. But the tendency to lie and the danger of error have entered into human development. And because the spiritual is always the cause of the physical, and because the Luciferic influence and its consequences have eaten deeper and deeper into the etheric body from incarnation to incarnation, the possibility of illness has entered the physical body. Illness is the evil in the physical body that has come about through this development.

[ 16 ] But something even more significant has come about. If human beings had not succumbed to these influences, if they had not allowed them to affect them, then the awareness would not have come that at the moment when the physical body falls away from us, something else happens other than a transformation in life: the awareness of death would not have come. For if human beings had descended less deeply into matter and had retained the threads that connect them to the divine-spiritual, they would have known that with the shedding of the physical shell, only another form of existence begins. They would not have regarded it as a loss, as the end of an existence that had become dear to them. Thus, all things in evolution would have taken on a different appearance.

[ 17 ] Because man has now descended more deeply into matter, he has made himself freer and more independent, but he has also made his evolution more deficient than it would otherwise have been.

[ 18 ] Everything that has become deficient in man will be healed again through the Christ impulse. But we must not expect this to be healed in a much shorter time than it took to bring about, or even in a very short time. The time from the Lemurian epoch to the Mystery of Golgotha is very long. And slowly and gradually, working from incarnation to incarnation, egoism, error, and falsehood, illness, and the feeling of death have come into being. Through the working of the Christ impulse in humanity, all these qualities will be transformed again in the ascending development of the human being. The human being will, so to speak, be led back to the spiritual world with the abilities he has acquired below. This will happen even more quickly than the descent took place. But we should not expect that in one or two incarnations, through what they can take in through the Christ impulse, human beings will be able to overcome selfishness, heal themselves in their etheric body so that there is no longer any danger of lies and error, or even that they can work their way back to health in their physical body. This must happen slowly and gradually. But it will happen. Just as man has been led down to all the characteristics described through the Luciferic influence, so will he be led up again through the Christ impulse: selfishness will be transformed into selflessness, deceitfulness will become truthfulness, the danger of error will become accuracy and truthfulness of judgment. Illness will become the foundation for even greater health. The illnesses we have overcome will be the seeds of a higher health. And when death is gradually understood in such a way that the death on Golgotha works in our own souls as the model of death, then death will have lost its sting. Human beings will know why they must shed their physical shell from time to time in order to ascend ever higher in the course of their incarnations. But what has come about in particular through the Christ impulse is that the impetus has been given to make amends for something that particularly affects human knowledge and observation, human knowledge of the world.

[ 19 ] We have said that human beings have become more entangled in matter, have made themselves more deficient in their three bodies than they would have been if no Luciferic influence had come. As a result, human beings have been seized by an impulse to descend ever deeper into material existence, to plunge ever more thoroughly into the mere material. This has happened to them especially with their knowledge. But this too came slowly and gradually. It was not immediately, when the Luciferic influence took effect, that human beings sank so deeply, so to speak, that they now had all the gates to the spiritual world closed behind them. Man remained connected to the spiritual world from which he had grown and in which he would have remained with his entire being if the Luciferic influence had not come. For a long time, man remained part of this spiritual world; for a long time, he still felt how the threads of the divine-spiritual world led into his finer spiritual instincts. For a long time, they acted in such a way that the impulse was not merely human, but as if the gods were working behind them. This was especially true in the earliest times. Only slowly were human beings thrust into the material world, and with that they also lost their awareness of the divine.

[ 20 ] Those spiritual currents and worldviews in humanity that had knowledge of these things have therefore always pointed to the fact that there was an ancient age when human beings, although already somewhat pushed down into material existence by the influence of Lucifer, were not yet so far down that the divine influence was not still strongly at work within them. In ancient times, this age was called the Golden Age of human development. This is not some figment of the imagination, but rather the expression “Golden Age” is simply a term used by those who, in earlier times, still had some inkling that there had once been something like a primeval age of humanity, as just described. This golden age, which is referred to in Eastern philosophy as “Krita Yuga,” lasted relatively longer than all the other ages that we will characterize.

[ 21 ] After this golden age came the so-called silver age. By then, human beings had already been pushed down more into the physical world. But everything happened slowly and gradually. Even now, the gates to the spiritual world were not yet completely closed. Man still had moments of clarity in which he perceived the gods driving him behind his instincts, as if in a dreamlike clairvoyance. In this silver age, man could no longer be called a companion of the gods, but he still sensed that the gods stood behind him. This age is also called “Treta Yuga” in Eastern philosophy.

[ 22 ] Then comes an age that extends into our post-Atlantean age; its last remnants extend into historical times, when there were still people with the old dreamlike, dim clairvoyance. But the awareness of the spiritual world from which human beings had grown out of was only present in this age as a kind of memory that remained from earlier incarnations. It was like when you think of your youth, your childhood, and your current age today. In our childhood, we experienced childhood experiences directly, just as people in the Treta Yuga directly experienced the impulses of the divine-spiritual world. In the age that followed, which is also called the Iron Age, only something like a memory of this remained. You could compare it to the way adults view their childhood. You would say: I experienced my childhood, it is not a dream! That is how it was in the third age, when people knew: We experienced the connection with the divine in earlier times, but now it is only a memory. I have shown in detail how the memory of the Atlantean era continued to have an effect in ancient Indian culture; because this memory was still effective, the holy rishis were able to proclaim their great divine teachings at that particular time. This Iron Age is referred to in Eastern philosophy as the “Dvapara Yuga.”

[ 23 ] After that comes an age in which the memory of the divine-spiritual world is lost, where human beings, with their knowledge and perception, are completely removed into the physical world. This age begins around the year 3101 BC, before the birth of Christ Jesus, and is also called, in an expression from Eastern philosophy, “Kali Yuga,” the dark age, because human beings have lost all connection with the spiritual world and have become completely fused with the physical world.

[ 24 ] I would like to emphasize that I am using these terms here to refer to shorter periods of time, but they can also be extended to cover longer periods. We are therefore referring to the concept of ages as they correspond to shorter periods of time, and we will allow Kali Yuga to begin, as Indian philosophy teaches, in the year 3101 BC. This is the period in which human beings are instructed to see only that which hides the divine-spiritual world like a veil or a shell, where they perceive only the outer physical-sensory world. At the beginning of Kali Yuga, there are still many people who can see into or remember the divine-spiritual world, but for normal humanity, the time is now beginning when they perceive only the physical-sensory world.

[ 25 ] This was the descent of humanity into the Kali Yuga. This was the time of the deepest descent. Into this had to fall the impulse to ascend again. Hence the impulse to ascend again, the Christ impulse, arises in the Kali Yuga, in the dark age.

[ 26 ] This Christ impulse had been prepared by the Yahweh or Jehovah religion. For through the Yahweh religion, human beings had been made aware of the shortcomings of their earlier decisions. During the period from the ancient Lemurian time to the proclamation on Mount Sinai, we have that age in which human beings become self-determined in matters of good and evil, but on the other hand also fall into error about good and evil and increasingly bring onto the earth what is called sin in the Bible. Sin eats its way into earthly life. Man has appropriated godlikeness, but he has claimed it for qualities that were not at all mature for godlikeness. What had to happen now?

[ 27 ] First, man had to be shown what the Godhead demands of him if he is to become a self-conscious I. And this was shown to him through the proclamation on Mount Sinai, through the proclamation of the Ten Commandments. There, through Moses, people heard: What you have developed so far about good and evil is inadequate. I will show you what the laws would be if you had not descended and claimed the right to decide between good and evil for your inadequate qualities! — Thus stands the law of Sinai, the Decalogue, in relation to what man had become, so that what is right in relation to what he has developed as deficient resounds down to him from the spiritual worlds. The Ten Commandments stand there as an iron law, as a torch that shows man everything he has not become. He is to submit to this law with all that he has become. Human beings could not initially give themselves these Ten Commandments because they had become deficient in their decision-making, in their own law-making. Therefore, the Ten Commandments had to be given to them by an inspired person, by Moses, that is, through divine inspiration from above. But they were given in such a way that they were all directed toward the I. They told man how an I must behave if it is to attain the goal of humanity.

[ 28 ] This was explained in detail in the lecture on the Ten Commandments of Moses on November 16, 1908. There it was shown how the ego should first behave toward the spiritual worlds in the first three commandments, how it should behave toward its fellow human beings in relation to its deeds and actions in the next commandments, and how it should behave in relation to its feelings and emotions in the last commandments. The education, the culture of the ego, is commanded in the Ten Commandments. This was the preparation for the ego to learn in its innermost being to give itself the impulse after it had descended into the Kali Yuga, into the dark age. First, a law from above had to be demonstrated to human beings. But what was to become the law of the self could only become so if the self took in the great example of Golgotha, if the self said to itself: If I take into my soul such thinking as the being who sacrificed himself on Golgotha thought, if I take into myself such feeling as the being who sacrificed himself on Golgotha felt, if I take into myself such a will as the being who sacrificed itself on Golgotha willed, then my being will find the decision within itself, will develop more and more into godlikeness, will no longer have to follow merely an external law, the Ten Commandments, but an inner impulse, its own law!

[ 29 ] Thus Moses first presented the law to the people, but Christ presented the example and the power that the soul should take up in order to develop. Therefore, everything had to be deepened to the innermost through Christ Jesus, everything that was there in spiritual impulses had to be carried into the deepest soul, into the I itself. This could only happen if the following was thought, if Christ Jesus spread the following as an impulse.

[ 30 ] Human beings have descended into the dark age, into the Kali Yuga. Before this dark age, human beings looked into the spiritual world with dull, dim clairvoyance. There they were not merely able to use the instruments of the physical body, but by observing the physical world through their eyes, ears, and so on, a spiritual world appeared to them everywhere: around flowers, plants, stones, and so on. These people were rich in terms of their observation of the spirit. The spirit was given to them in ancient times. Now, in the dark age, they have become beggars in terms of the spirit, for the spirit is no longer given to them. They have become poor in spirit. More and more, the Kali Yuga had come, where people had to say to themselves: In ancient times it was different; then the spirit was still given to people, then they could look up into a spiritual world, then they were rich in spirit, then the kingdoms of heaven were accessible to them. But now people have been pushed down into the physical world. The gates to the spiritual world have closed to the human senses, and the physical body offers no view of the kingdoms of heaven.

[ 31 ] But Christ could say: Seize the I where you should now seize it, then the realms of heaven will come close to you. They will open up in your I! Even if your eyes close the spiritual light behind the outer sensory light, even if your ears close the spiritual sound behind the physical sound, if you lift yourselves up to Christ Himself, you will find the realms of heaven within yourselves! Unhappy were those who had become poor through the dark age, who had become beggars for spirit. They could now become blessed, after the impulse had been given that Christ could penetrate into the human ego, the entity that could give them knowledge of the spiritual, of the realms of heaven. Thus, in relation to the impoverishment of the human spirit, the highest Christian proclamation is this: Blessed are those who are beggars for the spirit, who no longer receive the spirit as a gift through an old way of thinking; they can become blessed from now on if they accept the Christ impulse; then, through the development of their ego, the kingdoms of heaven can become their own!

[ 32 ] Let us turn to the etheric body, which is the formative element of the physical body. What has entered into it? — In the physical body, illness merely expresses itself. Suffering itself is first in the etheric body, and the suffering in the etheric body expresses itself in a later incarnation in the physical body as illness. But now something has come into the world, as Christ Jesus had to say, through which an impulse can arise within us to gradually remove suffering from the etheric body. Now, if they take the Christ impulse into themselves, those who have suffering anchored in their etheric body can become blessed; for there is something in them through which they can find that which leads beyond suffering, the inner consolation, the inner Paraclete, the inner comforter!

[ 33 ] And what had become of the astral body through the Luciferic influence? It had become more deficient than it had been before. It had received the ability, which we have described as a good quality, to become inflamed with enthusiasm for the good and great, for the noble goods of truth, beauty, and goodness. But in return it had to accept the other side of the coin: to become inflamed with sympathy or antipathy for the goods of the earth to the highest degree. Those who accept the Christ impulse will learn to calm the astral body, which stirs their physical body into emotion in response to the goods of the earth, and to place it under the control of the spirit, and thereby they will become happy or blessed. Blessed will be those who make their astral body equanimous in relation to earthly things; but thereby they will fall to them. For if they are inflamed with emotion, sympathy, or antipathy for earthly things, they forfeit precisely what these things can become for them. But when the astral body comes under the control of the spiritual, when one becomes equanimous toward earthly things, then the earthly realm is given to one as a reward!

[ 34 ] Let us ascend to what works in the astral body as the soul of feeling. Therein we still have an ego that reigns in a dull manner, that has not yet fully emerged, and that therefore still develops the worst egoism in passions. As long as the ego is still stuck in the soul of feeling, it develops the most selfish egoism. It is then devoid of the desire to give other people what is due to them. Egoism clouds the sense of justice because the ego wants to have everything for itself. But when the ego now follows the Christ impulse, it becomes one that thirsts for justice among all beings around us. Blessed are those who thirst and hunger for a sense of justice in their sentient soul, for they will be satisfied. They will be able to bring about conditions on earth and throughout the world that correspond to such conditions of justice in the right new spirit from the depths of the soul!

[ 35 ] Let us ascend further to the intellectual or mental soul. It is the link that brings about the acceptance of one human being by another even more, and does so not only as a feeling of justice, as the sentient soul does, but as compassion, as a real empathy with the suffering and joy of others. Those who take up the Christ impulse attain a feeling not only for what they themselves feel, but also for what the other I feels; they immerse themselves in the other I and are thereby blessed in their intellectual or emotional soul. Blessed is the one who develops compassion, for only by feeling his way into the soul of another does he also stimulate the other soul to feel its way into him. He will attain compassion in the other soul if he also radiates compassion. Blessed are the compassionate, for they will be felt with!

[ 36 ] Now that we have advanced some way in our consideration of these connections, you can see how we are able to understand the words of the Gospel of Matthew, which are usually summarized in the “Sermon on the Mount,” in a completely different way, from the depths of human nature and essence. Each sentence of the Sermon on the Mount refers to one of the nine members of the human being. This will be explained further next time. The Sermon on the Mount should appear clearly before our spiritual eyes as the deed of Christ Jesus through which he completely internalized what was contained in the old law of Moses, made it completely an inner impulse, through which the human ego becomes effective as it must become effective for all nine members of the human being. For when the ego takes up the Christ impulse, it acts upon all nine members of the human being. Thus we see how deeply true is what has already been hinted at here, that in the Kali Yuga Christ enabled the human ego to find something in the physical world that leads human beings up into the spiritual world, into the realms of heaven. Christ has made the human ego a participant in the spiritual world.

[ 37 ] On ancient Saturn, the physical body was taken directly from the spiritual world. It was still completely within the spiritual world because at that time the physical body was more spiritual and did not have consciousness, so that it could separate itself from the spiritual worlds. On the Sun, the etheric body was added, on the Moon the astral body, and only on Earth was it possible to separate from the womb of the divine-spiritual in the world through the development of the I. And the consequence was that this I had to be brought back, that God had to descend to the physical plane and show human beings on the physical plane how they could find their way back to the realms of heaven.

[ 38 ] What happened through the Christ impulse was therefore an extremely important event. But ask yourself now: Did all people who lived at the time when Christ Jesus was working on earth know that such an important event was taking place? Consider that the great historian Tacitus speaks of Christians as if they were an almost unknown sect! A hundred years later, he only mentions the Christians as a sect that had sprung up in a side street in Rome, led by a certain Jesus, who was up to his old tricks there. For a long time after the Christ event, many people in Rome still believed that Jesus was their contemporary, as if he had just appeared. In short, important things can happen in the development of humanity without their contemporaries noticing anything. The most important things could even pass by if people were not inclined to understand them! But then humanity would not experience these most important things and would wither and die in relation to them. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” was the proclamation of John the Baptist and of Christ Jesus himself. With this they pointed out to those who had ears to hear that something most important was happening. The fact that one knows nothing about something most important in the world is no proof that it does not exist.

[ 39 ] Those who today have to interpret the signs of the times, who know what is happening today, must point to an event — if not of the most striking significance, then at least an important event. It is true that something of infinite significance is developing in our time! And just as John pointed to Christ in his time, and pointed to the coming of the kingdom of heaven, to the I, so today we must point to another important event.

[ 40 ] Christ descended into the flesh only once upon the earth. In the flesh, he spent time on earth at the beginning of our calendar. In the flesh, human beings will not see Christ again as a physically embodied human being, according to the wise guidance of our world evolution, but neither will they need to see him again. For Christ will not return in the flesh. Nevertheless, we must speak of a new relationship between human beings and Christ. Why? Because the age we call the dark age, the Kali Yuga, has just come to an end in our time with the end of the 19th century, and because with the beginning of the 20th century a new age is beginning in which new abilities are being prepared for human beings, those abilities which were lost in the dark age. Slowly and gradually new abilities are being prepared. These new abilities will prepare themselves to such an extent that there will be individuals who will have them as a natural disposition. These abilities will manifest themselves particularly in a number of people between 1930 and 1940, and through these new abilities, new relationships with Christ will arise in a number of people.

[ 41 ] This points to one of the most important things in human development. And spiritual science is there to open people's understanding to these new abilities that will appear in the human world. Spiritual science does not exist in the world because individual people have a desire or sympathy for spreading the results of spiritual research, but because spiritual knowledge is necessary if people want to understand what is happening in the first half of our century. For only through what spiritual science can give to human beings will we be able to understand what will happen in the first half of our century. And when we become able to recognize in the spirit what will then happen, we will also be able to avoid confusing events with their erroneous representations. For as materialism spreads more and more, it also spreads into spiritual worldviews, where it has a particularly harmful effect. It could lead people to fail to understand what is to be grasped in the spirit, to seek it instead in the material world. And because a new relationship with Christ is to arise in the first half of our century, it will be emphasized again and again in the coming decades, until the event takes place, that false messiahs, false Christs, will appear who will appeal to those who can only become materialists in the fields of spiritual science and who can only imagine a new relationship with Christ in such a way that they will have him before them in the flesh. A number of false messiahs will take advantage of this and say: Christ is back in the flesh!

[ 42 ] But the relationships that will be gained purely through human abilities in the first half of our century must be prepared by anthroposophical wisdom. Thus the responsibility of anthroposophical striving grows enormously, in that spiritual science is preparing for an event that will come and that will either be understood, if spiritual science takes root in human souls, and then become fruitful for the further development of humanity, or that will pass humanity by without being understood if people refuse to accept the instrument through which this event can be understood: the instrument of spiritual science. But if people were to reject spiritual science to such an extent that nothing remained of it, then they would not know that this event is taking place, or they would interpret it incorrectly. The fruit of these events would be lost to the future of humanity, and humanity would be plunged into immense misery.

[ 43 ] This points to a new relationship between human beings and Christ as something that sprouts in the human soul in a relatively short time.